[Other OPEN] Metahuman: A Superhero RP

Shaylee Martin

​

Shaylee was having a quite terrible day. Well, most of it hadn't been too bad. Opening at The Split Bean hadn't been too bad, she had always loved their coffee and being a barista was honestly quite fun. And college after that at the local university hadn't been too bad either. A couple mind numbing lectures hadn't made her day any interesting, but at least her marine biology class had featured a dissection. Cutting open fish might not be everyone's cup of tea, but a hands on experience was always more help than reading about things in a book for her. No, the worst part of the day was that after said dissection, she had the opportunity to coming home to some sort of pink goo spilling from her faucet instead of anything drinkable.

She sighed, completely exasperated, smelling slightly of fish guts, and she tried the third source of water in the apartment, her shower, to find more pink goop dripping down. "Monte de merda…", she muttered under her breath. She had already called the landlord who had said he would get a plumber in here, but the last time she'd had a problem it had taken the man almost a week to get someone to check out the problem. Apparently she hadn't been the only one receiving the problem either. The landlord had told her that several of neighbors had also made complaints, the whole building could have this disgusting stuff dripping from their faucets. Staring at the disgusting glass of pink goo on her countertop, she came to a decision. "All right, hopefully someone is pulling some stupid prank. But at the very least I can figure out what this stuff is." Grabbing the glass off the countertop and her hoodie from the back of one of her two chairs, she pushed her way back out of the door and back to the university.


Two hours later found her in the chemistry lab back at university, silvery hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and lab googles covering most of her face. "So…mysterious pink goo from my sink, what is it?"

"Well", one of her best friends Jack said, "it's certainly not natural, but neither is it toxic." Jack was a monstrously tall guy, standing at almost six foot four inches. Asian American as well, the guy looked like he had a permanent tan, something Shaylee was forever jealous of. He also happened to be one of the smartest guys on campus, and also happened to be a chemical engineer. "I mean, I wouldn't recommend you try drinking this." He continued.

"And why might that be big guy?" Jack's boyfriend Megan interjected. Megan also happened to be one of Shaylee's best friends. The girl was almost a complete contrast to Jack. Barely five foot six, the two made an odd but somewhat charming pair. "Did Shaylee destroy her pipes with that awful cooking of hers again?!"

"Hey!" Shaylee argued, "My cooking isn't that bad!"

"Besides," Jack continued, "if Shaylee had dumped something toxic down her drains again, it wouldn't have ended up as this. The pink goo came from the tap not the drainage…" He trailed off as he saw Megan's look, beginning to realize he had missed the joke. "Uh…anyway, as bad as Shaylee's cooking is, sorry Shaylee by the way it is fairly bad, I doubt she could have made something radioactive."

Shaylee raised a single eyebrow. "I thought you said that I could drink this?"

Jack held up a single finger. "I recommended you didn't drink this, but you feasibly could. It's a very low level radioactive product, and you technically could drink this without killing yourself. You'd probably end up with cancer in a decade or so, not to mention it would probably taste terrible, but it wouldn't kill you immediately."

Megan piped up, "But what is it? So its radioactive, so what? I mean, obviously that's a problem, but that still doesn't tell us what it is, right?"

"Best I can guess, it's some sort of radioactive waste. From where, I have no idea." He scratched his head for a moment thinking. "I've interned at a couple companies in the city that deal with chemicals, but none of them deal in radioactive material, not to mention pink radioactive material. I can't say what this is, but someone is definitely breaking more than a few laws here.

Shaylee sat for a moment thinking. "So….if a company were to be dumping radioactive material, how would it be getting into the water supply? It's not like someone can just dump it into the pipes, right?"

Jack shrugged. "Probably not, no. My best guess is someone started dumping the stuff into a nearby river that the city takes its water from. Maybe someone just didn't catch it. The water treatment plant should clean it out from there, though there shouldn't really be any toxic substances dumped into a tributary or reservoir. Apart from that…I don't know Shaylee. If the stuff got into the water supply after that, it would mean someone would have to be doing this deliberately."

"Huh…" she said absentmindedly. If the pink goo couldn't be injected into the water supply from the pipes, or at least that was unlikely, then the problem was probably earlier than that, either the Eastern Reservoir or the water treatment facility. And given she was unlikely to be given access to the facility….

"Hey, no worries Shay!" Megan piped up. "The problem is out there, people know about it now. The figure out where its coming from, someone cleans it up, then someone gets sued!"

"True," she mumbled, "But that doesn't help the fact that I have no water in my apartment, {and I still smell like fish from the dissection earlier…"

"Oh that's easy," Megan replied cheerily, "You can take a shower at my place, I don't mind! Honestly, stay as long as you like! I'm…not really around much. You know, life gets busy. Use it for as long as you want!"

"Huh," Shaylee replied glancing between Jack and Megan. Well, if it meant she had a place to stay till she got the water fixed, it was an easy solution. "Alright, I might take you up on that." But it also looked like she might not be sleeping much tonight. She had some work to do.


Shaylee slipped for the twentieth time that hour from the world of shadow and light back into her own reality, this time standing on top of an outcropping above the Eastern Reservoir. The manmade lake provided water for almost half the city, including her apartment. But an hour of searching around the lake in the moonlight had yielding nothing. Not a single trace of the pink goo was to be seen. Jack had even loaned her a Geiger Counter to measure the radiation in the area, but she hadn't gotten so much as a blip from the thing. Tiredly she scanned the reservoir again, seeing how much shoreline she still had to cover. Another half hour should do it, but she had exemplary night vision, probably a byproduct of her supernatural abilities, and she could see nothing but more bare shore and dark still water. Maybe it was a waste of time at this point, but she ground her teeth and set to it. Another half hour and she could get back home and go to sleep. Setting her mind to the task, she once again vanished into the darkness, melting into the dark ground on the shoreline leaving no trace of her being there.​

Liz Vern
Good Morning Arkhana

​

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

That sound was really starting to get on her nerves. Liz swatted her arms over towards her alarm clock to silence the damnable thing. She always assumed that she probably was the only person in Arkhana City who still used an old analog alarm clock, but it reminded her of home. Of course, when she was at home she rarely needed the thing to go off, her wonderful adopted mother would constantly be belting out something or other in her native tongue while she cooked breakfast.

She lazily opened one eye as she felt a slight tingling sensation and all the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand on end. In a flash of movement, she ripped the kitchen knife from its place beneath her pillow and pressed herself flat against her headboard as her eyes scanned the small studio apartment room around her. She let out an irritated growl as her eyes caught the stare of the ginger alley cat staring at her from outside on the window ledge.

"What did I tell you about coming over here before 10:00am?" Liz hissed as she tucked the knife back beneath her pillow and angrily tossed the quilt off her. "And turn away you little creep." She hissed as she darted over to her closet and began pulling on whatever was closest to the open door. She ended up with a pair of faded black jeans that were only slightly torn on the knees as well as a grey sleeveless shirt with the red word logo of the band "Lionsheart" written on it.

Suitably covered and prepared for company, she walked over to the window and tossed it open. The alley cat meowed in response and gladly trotted into the young woman's room. It sniffed curiously at a partially open pizza box lying on the desk before being swatted away by the annoyed girl. Defeated, the cat began to twitch and convulse as it began to expand and elongate into the lanky form of a pale skinned ginger teenager who sat upon the edge of her desk kicking his legs lazily. Sparing the both of them some embarrassment, his shifting power retained the sneakers, blue jeans, and red hoodie that he had presumably been wearing before becoming the alley cat.

"So, you'll never guess what I overheard at the precinct today." The boy says as the girl glares in his direction, a dorky smile upon his face. "My dad's been assigned to be one of the officers watching over the little celebrity show off the mayor is throwing tonight."

"Do I even want to know how long you were watching me sleep?" Liz groans, annoyed, but used to the boy's oddities. "Whatever Garth, what's so special about your dad getting to babysit some politician?"

"Liz please, come on. It's been all over the news! It's not just some politician or actor! It's the one and only Thunderstep! You know, the legendary speedster?" Garth couldn't help but to release some of his childlike joy as he spoke.

Liz of course was well aware of the fact that Thunderstep would be the one giving a speech at city hall, but she didn't want Garth to know that she had actually been looking for a way to get to go. Especially not that he now had a way for them to get relatively close to the event.

"Okay, so it's some superhero. What do you want to do, nerd out and give them a medal or something?" Liz mocked as she walked over to the tiny kitchenette and began to pull out some premade breakfast from the fridge.

Garth rolls his eyes as he jumped down from the desk and began to rummage through the cupboards and pulled out two cups and began making a pot of coffee. It was evident that despite the initial reaction, this morning's events were a pretty common occurrence between the two of them. "Well I was thinking, since we're going to have a speedster nearby… maybe we can get close enough that you can trigger your… y'know. Then we could take that speed for a little… test run."

Liz tossed the tupperware container into the microwave and turned to face the boy as she crossed her arms. "Okay, so assuming we get close enough to duplicate speedster speed. That gives us what, ten minutes of running before I end up boring old Liz Vern again. This seems like a lot of work for not much."

"First of all, we don't know how long it will last. We've only ever been able to really test your powers on my shapeshifting. It's not like we've got Force Labs levels equipment at the university. It was hard enough getting my dad's CSI friend to teach me how to understand half this stuff without tipping him or my parents off that I was a meta." Garth explained.

"Alright, fair enough. If I end up not being able to control my speed and wind up in China though, you're the one paying for my plane ticket back here." Liz snorts as she pulls the bowl out of the microwave.

"Alright! Sweet! This is going to be sick!" Garth cheered.
​