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[center][h1][color=tan]Julia Kray[/color][/h1]
[i]Location: The Melting Pot, Eastern Nighthaven, Paragon City[/i]
[@Tally Dor][/center]
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Julia Kray had been formally released from prison only a few hours earlier. She had never owned her own home. Allof her jobs had included room and board. She had no possessions or assets, officially. What she did have was several hideouts where she used to stash her possessions, gadgets, costumes and wages. She rummaged in a dumpset next to a convenience store and had been lucky to find a block of expired cheese. This was all she needed st the moment. She sat down on a park bench, opened the bag, and then made some sounds with her mouth that wouldn't have sounded like much topassing people. To a rat, however, it was a request. She openly asked any rats listening to check out each of her hideouts and report on whether they'd been discovered and cleaned out. They would get a little cheese for taking on this job and double that for completing it. She was very soon swarmed with rats around her feet.

She stayed sitting on that bench as she watched the world go by. Things had really changed in fifteen years. She'd naturally heard about the death of The Defenders. Theoretically, there was nothing stopping her from falling back into a life of crime. But no. She didn't want to go back to prison again, and she no longer had to risk her life working for supervillains. The rehabilitation and therapy sessions she'd received in prison had convinced her to try going on the straight and narrow with the rest of her life. Do something befitting her age. She'd eraned the right to live as oblivious civilians do. Own a house and a car, and get a job that didn't run the constant risk of injury or death.

The rats returned. All of her hideouts had been cleaned out. Except one. Fat Tony's place. Her gear was still lying around. And if that was the case, the stash of cash hidden there was likely also untouched. She gave that rat double the cheese, then dropped the rest of the bag for the rats to scramble over.

She walked to Fat Tony's, slipped into the adjacent alleyway and scurried vertically up the wall until she reached the penultimate floor. A homeless man wandered out of the front door and would have seen her if he looked up. Julia froze out of habit until he hobbled away. She slipped inside and made her way to a certain part of the hallway, then leapt straight up and into an open ceiling panel.

This was her hideaway. Sure enough, there was an old, damp futon. Next to it, what was once the iteration of her costume she had worn while working as Fat Tony's spy, informant and henchwoman. She began to get wierdly nostalgic as she picked up a set of goggled that had been cutting edge tech at the time. They were over seventeen years old now and probably belonged in a museum. She put them on and pressed the buttons on the side. Nice. They still worked.

What she was really here for was the envelope of cash hidden behind the wallpaper, which she retreived and shashed in her pocket. This would be more than enough to live off of for the time being while she contemplated her next step. As she was about to leave, she smelled the sharp, unmistakle stench of fresh blood. She knew she should leave it alone, but her insticncts and curiosity as an information gatherer couldn't let her ignore this. She adjusted her goggles to the infrared setting and began creeping through the building. There were readings from the old interrogation room. Upon finally reaching the roof overlooking it, she saw someone, or something, kill Fat Tony. She was honestly impressed he'd managed to stay alive up until this year. But who was his killer?