[h1][center][color=ec008c]Nobody[/color][/center][/h1]

Sarah had been leaned over her laptop on the dining room table, excitedly clicking keys and observing the contents of the screen for the last ten minutes. Apparently, a high profile robbery was happening at the financial center in town. She was watching a livestream hosted by some bystanders near the incident. They had caught footage of professional looking men in black leather jackets forming a firing line. Police cars arrived three or four at a time. They pulled their vehicles in front of the entrance and used them as barricades, setting up their own offensive line.

[i]‘Thundercloud is behind this, huh?’[/i] she thought, chewing on her nail and thinking over so many years of her old superhero obsession. [i]‘So some of the old guard [b]are[/b] still alive.’[/i]

In the livestream video, there was suddenly loud noise and screaming as gunshots fired off left and right. The conflict had just turned hot. The bystander, fearing for his life, turned his camera away from the scene and ran for it. Sarah closed her laptop and smiled. She was feeling excitement more than anything. A kind of nervous mania was animating her. She had been waiting for a chance to make herself known - how could she turn down the chance to be a real hero? [i]‘Things might not be this interesting for a while.’[/i] 

Sarah grabbed a paper airplane from her dresser and walked towards the balcony. It was of a more elaborate design than usual, and there were several others like it strewn around the room with bent noses. All seemed to be folded from high quality, solid paper. The shut-in girl slid open her glass door and looked over the nighttime city skyline for a moment, before setting her paper airplane down and rushing back inside, closing the door behind her.

Sarah threw herself onto the bed, her heart racing. She had already prepared a body. She would take the plane to pick it up and then make her way to the crime scene. She was sure she could make it in time. She took a deep breath and then focused on the paper airplane which sat on the other side of the glass. A few seconds later, her gaze slackened and her body went limp.

Nobody was flying high above the city. Icy wind flapped at the paper which made up her new form as she soared over busy streets. Sarah could animate any object she possessed, and she could make it float through the air if it wasn’t too heavy. The plane shape of the paper was just a caprice. But Sarah delighted in that kind of thing, and she had convinced herself that the aerodynamics of the paper airplane would help her fly faster. Maybe she had been right, as she quickly arrived at her destination - a department store. There, Nobody crushed into the ground unceremoniously, bending the nose of her last pristine model.

In front of her there was a pane of glass for window shopping, and behind that was the prepared body: it was a mannequin, dressed in this season’s hottest fashion. Sarah focused until she could feel its fused plastic fingers as her own. It was a strange sight - the mannequin suddenly stood up from its stand and began to move in a somewhat lifelike way. It wasn’t much trouble for Sarah to make its arms and legs move in the appropriate manner - they had been made jointed for posing purposes. Nobody put on some shoes, and grabbed a pair of sunglasses to hide the worst of her ghost-white plastic face. A nearby shopper caught a glimpse of her and screamed in shock. The mannequin strutted out the door with confidence, causing the store’s alarms to sound off like crazy. Some of her clothes still had tags on them. [i]’I wouldn’t wait around for the cops to show up tonight,’[/i] she thought to herself, knowing that the force would be busy at the moment. 

The mannequin walked into an alley the next block over and retrieved, from among some trash and cardboard, the go-bag which she had prepared for just this occasion. She had been very busy since discovering her power. The bag didn’t contain anything spectacular, just spare odds and ends she might use in case her current body failed. Nobody unzipped the bag and left it open. It might end up useless otherwise. The strange figure started moving again with a brisk walk. She had somewhere to be. 

It wasn’t long afterwards that she arrived at Lafayette financial building. The standoff had continued. It seemed that a few were now injured on either side. Somehow there were still some bystanders at the scene, recklessly watching the event play out. Nobody approached the shootout at a jog. One of the officers saw her coming and said [b]“Miss, stay back. This is a dangerous situation,”[/b] but her plastic legs only sped up. He held up his hands to grab her, but amazingly, she leapt into the air and and cleared the police line in one jump. Levitating a body like this was no real problem with her ability. Sarah loved her power sometimes.

She landed towards the top of the stairs, near the armed thugs. They were momentarily stunned by her appearance and were slow to react. Sarah threw herself through their line and started running past. One of the thugs grabbed her for a second, but she sent him to the ground with a forceful shove. She bolted towards the door to the building. The thugs started after her, but they couldn’t afford to leave the front, because the police had also started making a push and they had to be held off. She was going to make it.

Gunshots rang out as she made it inside. Two bullets burst through her chest, shredding her top and sending sprays of plastic behind them. It seemed the grounded thug had managed to line up a shot on her. But the mannequin didn’t stop. She turned the corner to the lobby, hearing more gunfire go wide.

Sarah’s entry had succeeded, but she knew that her body wouldn’t take much more abuse. Even now it made a scratching and clicking sound every time she turned her head. Figuring that she would have company soon, she crouched behind one of the office desks and hid. 

It seemed that there was already some action going on inside the lobby. Thundercloud was there, and a number of others in plain clothes and assorted odd outfits. There were flaming cards and then suddenly a thick, obscuring smoke. Who were these guys, that were already two steps ahead of the police? Special agents? Or something else? Sarah waited to see what would happen next.


[img]https://i.imgur.com/frudkdz.jpg[/img]