jla_watchtower | Jersey Girls

Trevor looks at it, perplexed. He's driven past it more times than he can count when he lived in the area.

"Yeah," he agrees, his attention still distracted. "I'm just trying to figure out how someone from around here would even *know* a member of the Justice Society, much less want her dead."

"So do we knock on the door, or what? The people I get in fights with aren't usually house calls."

"Lets take a look around the place." Sand looked around the house. There was no obvious garage, and the driveway was devoid of cars. It was possible that the bartender may have called them to tip them off.

They walk up to the house. Everything about it looks completely normal.

And quiet. Eerily quiet.

Sand thinks for a moment. He doesn't remember Trevor ever being given a signal device. "Given the bartender's testimony and Corrine's own memories, we have to assume that they're hostiles to some degree. Therefore, the direct approach probably won't get us much. I'm going to go scout. Once I come up from the ground, I'm going to use the signal device to ring your cell. Keep it on, and be ready."

Then he stops, and visibly winces. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting your abilities. Can you track to see if there's any humanoid heatsources in the house?"

"No need to apologize," Trevor tells him, his eyes darting around as he approaches the house. The lawn of this house is a lot more open than the places he's used to operating, but nonetheless he looks around for tripwires and traps. "It might be easier if I can get closer contact, though."

Trevor steps up to the house, laying his palms against the vinyl siding. "No guarantees, but here goes."

With that Trevor closes his eyes, reaching around with his mind to look for any heat that wouldn't be produced by the house or its appliances.

On the levels of the visible floors, nothing out of the ordinary - the furnace and water heater is in the back.

However, about 100 feet below that, are four heat signatures. Three are human baseline temperatures. The fourth is centrally located and is larger, and more free-flowing, in structure, as if the heat source wasn't currently being contained.

"There are three people, and one... I have no idea *what* the hell that thing is," Trevor says, his eyes still closed. "All I know is that it's hot as hell, located in the middle of the human heat signatures, and located about a hundred feet straight down."

Trevor steps back, dusting his hands off on his jeans before he starts unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his costume.

"Whatever it is, it looks fluid and unfriendly," Trevor says to Sand as he pulls the hood over his face and pulls his hair free. "So what's the JSA's SOP for breaking and entering?"

Sand nods. "Well, you said there were only three human signatures, and they were downstairs." He walks over to where the main lock is. Standard bolt lock. He tries the door - locked at the bolt.

He then shifts into silica form and slides under the door, then unlocks the door from the inside. "Your cell phone have walkie-talkie capability? Or did you somehow get a JSA com during the Neron incident?"

Trevor grins and reaches into the pocket of his jeans, coming up a second later with a JSA communicator.

"My guess is someone forgot to ask for it back. I keep it on me when I'm on patrol, or when weird stuff is going down."

"Well, we were all a bit busy at the time." Sand smiles...and it's the last of Sand's face that Trevor sees, as Sand's telltale mask forms across his face. "I'm going straight down. If I see badness, I flip switch. Your signal goes off - come running. Meanwhile, see if you can find a way down to the sub-basement while I nose around. I'll give you a transmission if I see the trap door."

Sand then shifts into silicoid form and sifts downward. He's a lot different when his best friend isn't trying to kill everyone. Sand thinks to himself.

He shifts through the basement floor, then immediately moves laterally, trying to find an actual passageway. It comes about 10 feet across from where he went through the floor - a ladder that goes about 15 feet down, followed by a winding, sloping walkway.

He flips on the com. "Basement. Underneath the persian throw rug. Moving forward. Finding the basement you're on your own with."

Trevor enters the kitchen, his eyes still darting around. He may not have seen anyone up here, but the last thing he needs is someone who happened to be wearing a heavy sweater sneaking up behind him. The throw rug is easy to find, as well as the door beneath it. It's locked, but Trevor notes that it's also wood. He grasps the hinges, and a second later lifts the door away from the pieces of charred wood around them.

"Found the trap door," he tells Sand as he clips the communicator to his shirt. A ball of fire appears in his hand, glowing white, and he cups it away from his face to illuminate the darkness.

"Oh, this is going to be *fun*" he mutters as he descends the ladder. when he gets to the bottom he starts walking, gaging the downward grade. He's roughly guessing that he's dropping a foot for every fifteen or twenty feet he travels forward, which would make the passage...

"How the hell do you make a half-mile long tunnel under your house without the neighbors noticing?" Trevor asks no one in particular as he walks, his hand still in front of him to illuminate his way.

"Hope you're still with me, Hawkins, because I'm liking this place less and less with each step. And I wasn't that big a fan of it to begin with."

Sand had put his comm on mute once he got closer to the heat source. What will take Trevor a couple minutes to traverse took him seconds.

He peers around the corner, and sees three women. Two of which were the one in Corrine's dream. They were tending an immense fire in the center of the stone room - which looked about as big as the average medieval dungeon space and just as sinister looking. The third was consuling a large book in what appeared to be the library area.

Suddenly, all three women look up, then at each other. Their eyes take on a slighly green glow.

"Priscilla"

"Hippolyta"

"Chantelle"

They speak together.

Oh hell.

Sand shifts under the ground, then moves beneath the floor, trying to get a sense of where to come in.

...moving.

The three gesture in concert, and Sand is literally, forcibly, drawn back through the floor and in front of the threesome.

You are the...

...of time. You must be...

...eliminated.

With that gesture, a shadowy form billows from the fire, and a demonic figure goes right after Sand.

Sand was caught completely off-balance by this. OK, we're dealing with mages. Fairly competent ones, so far.

The shadow slices at Sand's chest, claws ripping through the clothes on his chest. It stings, but not as much as it would a human. Sand counters with a shuffle side kick, but it goes right through the creature.

"Trevor, now would be a good time to show up."

"I'll take that as a 'get your ass in here'" Trevor says, sprinting the last leg of the corridor. As he runs his hands start to sprout tendrils of fire. The tendrils begin to interweave and connect, linking his hands in a column of flame as he enters the chamber.

"WHOA!" Trevor yells as he stops dead in his tracks. The fire flows from both hands into his left hand, where he lets it accumulate for a second before thrusting his hand forward. A jet of flame shoots across the opening straight for the creature, illuminating the chamber as it goes.

The fire flows through the demon, although there is a slight recoil as it approaches. Finding a new, more fleshy target, the demon charges towards Trevor.

"Less heat, more light!" Sand said, hoping that the standard weakness of shadow creatures held form here.

Meanwhile, he gestures, and the entire house starts to shake. "Dispel him, or I'll bring this entire house down."

this house and your friend

to stop us? Somehow

Their eyes glow again, and mystic bolts emerge from each of their eyes, hitting Sand square in the chest.

Trevor doesn't need to be told twice, and holds his ground as he clasps his still-burning hands over his head. As he closes his eyes, trying to ignore the fear, the fire intensifies. It grows in intensity and heat; first orange, then yellow, before finally passing over some invisible threshold and bursting out with blue-white intensity from Trevor's hands.

The creature, although not dispelled, screeches as he pulls up from the dive. But not before his claws find Trevor's abdomen.

As the glow of the attack dies, He sidles up for another approach.

Sand's body begins the shift to its massive silicoid form, but not soon enough as the blast sends him flying back towards the center of the room.

In this form, his strength and invulnerability is increased but he doesn't have as much fine control over the earth. Then he gets an idea.

He gets up and shoves his shoulder into the firepit/cauldron device in the center of the room. It shakes visibly.

Trevor takes the swipe hard, falling to his back as the blunt trauma plate that Caleb insisted he incorporate shreds under the things claws.

Stupid stupid STUPID Trevor berates himself as he rolls, opening his eyes to make sure his guts are still on the side of the skin they belong on. They are, but Trevor can see that he'll have at least three rows of stitches running up his stomach by the end of the day. Assuming of course that he lives to see the end of the day.

Ignoring the streams of blood running down his shirt and jeans, Trevor looks up in time to see the shadow-creature coming in for another pass.

"Shit!" This time Trevor tries something new, throwing up a wall of fire, hoping to wrap it around the thing.

"If you have to bring this place down on top of us, do it, before this thing hits something that isn't armored, Sand!"

Step away

RIGHT NOW

Another gesture, and Sand is FORCIBLY moved through the air into the wall near where Trevor was facing the shadow demon.

With the fire being not as bright, the demon fears the fire less. It sails through...

Jersey Girls

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