(Shortly after the events of 'Blind Jumps Over Good Intentions')

Alchemist surveys the devestated gas station with a critical eye. It's funny, really, that he managed to get here first. April usually beats him everywhere, but she was in her appartment accross town, and he was barely a block from Headquarters. Still, if she had heard of it first, she'd be here already, but he'd beaten the first police calls here.

It was silly. He wasn't a field agent, but the loud boom of a gas station blowing up tends to attract all kinds of attention.

Besides, the rest of the team would be around shortly.

From his quick survey of the scene, there was a double crater near where the gas tanks were buried. Structurally, it looked like a cannonball had hit the edge of a tank, collapsed it partially, and caused the hydrogen to vent. A freak coincidence, or a very well placed shot, he wasn't sure, but either way, any of a dozen things could have set the gas off at that point.

Fortunately, this gas station was one of the new auto-service stations with no attendants, and nobody was pumping. A couple of minor injuries from the people driving by, but nobody was on the lot itself when the tank blew.

Good, nobody hurt. From a vantage point three stories and one block up from the crater Rooker had a good view of the area. He hadn't ment to destroy the station, he just didn't know it was there. It had been safe to land there a year ago. Rooker had circled back to the station site after his encounter with the local T2M members, he didn't catch names. They had known his however.
Not too many people around, and no T2Mers.

Deciding not to wait for the other Knights (there were at least a dozen cops, some he knew by name and some he didn't, already on the scene), Alchemist approaches the craters. Bending down near the smaller side crater (only a few feet deep, but almost certainly what caused the gas leak), he spots a pair of boot prints.

Ok, so someone landed here. On there feet. And then left. Must have been a Nova, and to land with this kind of impact, they must have either fallen very far, or else jumped....Now that's a thought.

Turning to one of the police officers (Detective Chris Piles, that's his name), Alchemist calls out, "Detective Piles? Do you know how long this gas station's been here?"

The detective looks over at the nova, who is both very familiar from the TV show, but mostly unfamiliar from the fact that he doesn't usually come out into the field. But, he's still the only Nova on the scene, and thus far Chris hasn't even spotted a cause for this mess, so if the Nova had any ideas...

"Yeah, it used to be a small park, not more than, oh, a year ago. Why?"

Alchemist nods and looks distracted for a few moments, as his senses unfurl and check the lay of the land below ground. None of the City's major sewer lines, electrical, or anything else that's usually directly below you is underneath this gas station, just the tank, the pumps for the gas station, and an electrical line for the pumps. All of it new.

"Ah, thank you Detective. I'm pretty sure this was an accident, and it was definitely a Nova. He probably jumped in, literally, from outside the city and landed here not knowing it had turned into a gas station. Have some engineers and inspectors check out the concrete and supports above and around the tank that went off. I'm betting that it wasn't entirely the fault of whoever landed here. If I come up with anything else, I'll let you know."

The detective nodded, but Alchemist wasn't paying attention to him anymore. He was walking around the gas station, looking down streets and at rooflines. If this was an accident, either whoever did it was long gone, or they stuck around to make sure no one got hurt. The former was a lot more likely, these days, but you never knew when...Aha!

On a rooftop, almost a block away and several stories up, Alchemist spotted a dark blob with a head, silhouetted on the light pollution from the city. Taking off in that direction at a brisk jog, he reaches the building, turns into the alley next to it, and then just passes through the wall. Allowing the material of the building to push him upwards like some kind of liquid elevator, Alchemist reaches the roof in only a few moments.

As he emerges halfway from the rooftop, Alchemist calls out, "Hello?"

As Alchemist appears coming up one side of the roof, Jager appears on the other side. He clings to the shadows as he closes upon the observer.

Over the quiet frequency Jager tongue-clicks out a rapid-fire message,
*Bandwidth, please inform Alchemist that I am at his location and have him and his target under observation.*

DigiGeist wanders around the fringes of the disaster site, noticing the rest of the WCK scurrying about. Something is up, and DigiGeist isn't knowing what is going on... yet.

He straightens the Jumpsuit making the WCK's "Team Uniform", and speaks up over coms, using his Cyberkinesis.

"I'm here too, near the Explosion Site. What is the situation?"

It's times like this he wished he had low-light vision... or some night-vision goggles on him.

I knew I forgot something before leaving the ranch...

"Hello?"
If there was any hair on Rookers neck, it would have stood up. He cursed himself for being curious and turned, ready to face... not a team tomorrow member, at least not in uniform.

"I didn't mean to do it, and who are you?" He raised himself to full height, but didn't raise density, roof might not take it. From here he could hit the lake if need be, hope there are no ships right out there.

Bandwidth sits back at his observation post relaying the message he received from Jager over to Alchemist where it was received by a small piece that is hidden to all except those with the keenest eyes.

"Alchemist, Jager just informed me he has you and the other Nova under observation, if worse turns to worse I can rapid evac you, there is a terminal on the floor below you so you'll just need to drop through the floor."

He moves the floating monitor to the side and swings his chair around to where he's looking through the monitor representing Digigeist. The image then splits into one screen for each Knight and he relays the same message to them all.

"Current intel is limited but Alchemist is on the roof with a Nova that is believed to be the cause of the situation. Jager has them under observation. Those of you with your terminals, I've just transmitted the locational data to you. I've also taken the liberty to cause a bit of ruckes with some traffic lights across town to keep you all a bit segregated from civilization."

"Keep me informed of all status changes please."

He touches the screen that represents Alchemist and speaks to hime solely again.

"Alchemist, see if you can sneak me an image, I'm having a hard time getting focused from the news cameras and I'd like to compare him to our databases."

"Your not Utopia. You one of these Knights I've heard of?"

Rooker sets himself, not knowing what to expect, or how many might be here that he can't see yet.

DigiGeist looks over, and adjusts the camera on his comlink. "Actually, I can get an image from here if needed. If we can get several angles, that can help. I had Alchemist do a couple mods with my camera."

"Thanks Digigeist, I'm cross-referencing him with our databases, I'll see if I can get a bit more info on him and relay it, but I do need a bit of a clearer shot then the ground if at all possible."

Bandwidth turns his chair again and pushes one of his holo-screens out of the way while he tries to find the one logged into the database. Using the image he captured from Digi's comlink the database begins searching.

"Upload anything you can to me and it will get us a better match. I would prefer for us to know who we're meeting before anybody actually has to meet him."

"Hello. Yes, I'm a member of the Knights. Call me Alchemist. I'd pretty much figured out that it was an accident. If you were of the voilence and destruction persuasion, you'd have continued on to do more than blow up an empty gas station. If you were targetting that particular gas station, you would have been more subtle than to leave bootprints and there were still-live surveilance cameras by the bank...But I'm a bit off the topic aren't I. Would you care to come down off the roof? It would be good if you gave a statement to the police."

Alchemist, still half sticking out of the roof, gestures towards the fire escape on the side of the building.

Rooker relaxes a touch. "The police aren't going to give me a second to explain what happened, but why not. My heads in the noose, might as well jump off the horse.

Rooker walks to the edge, makes sure the sidewalk is clear and steps off. The concrete cracks and buckles where he lands. "This will probably be the stupidest thing I do today, but it is early yet."

DigiGeist is only feet away from where Rooker did his Half-Gainer into the concrete. He thinks over his comlink "Any bets that he's not dead?"

He looks over to Rooker. Then thinks again. "I've done worse. And survived... Barely..."

Jager closes up with Rooker as he starts walking toward the police. Walking up to Rooker's side, he speaks,
"Hi there. I'm Jager. Let me do the intro if you think the police are going to be a problem. Care to give me and my team mates a quick run down of what happened first?"

Rooker takes three steps and Novas appear out of the woodwork. He turns to the one walking by his side now. "Fine, maybe you'll have better luck than I ever do." If these guys want to get involved and smooth things over, more power to them.
"It's been a year or so since I last came to Chicago. This was a low use park back then, safe to land in. I hit the station and it exploded. I was digging out when Team Camera Hog showed up and went all LAPD on me. I decided to leave so I started jumping, the two with movement came after me and we had a "discussion" which ended with no serious injuries. Then I came here and you know the rest. I'll say it again, I didn't mean to wreck to property." Rooker looks at the person walking next to him, trying to read reaction, hoping that this won't get too complicated.

"Well ... T2MAmericas doesn't really like the idea of a large group of novas forming a group on 'their turf', so to speak. I can understand their rapid involment."
"On the otherhand, you seem to be a low-yield kinetic device. No jumping onto anything you can't see before launch, okay?"
"We can probably rig up some kind of goggles with a GPS 3-D imaging display so you can get a constant update of the surrounding terrain. That should handle some of your movement difficulties."

Jager looks over to DigiGeist.
"Why don't you take our new friend back to HQ. If the authorities really want to have a chat with him, they can do so with a bit of legal council on hand. Alchemist and I will go deal with the police and fire department and assist in the clean-up."
Jager looks around to see if the plan is well recieved.

Alchemist slides out of the side of the building and jogs to catch up with Jager.

"Not to mention the media. Explosions attract cameras, and explosions just a block from our headquarters will attract OUR cameras even faster. If you'll deal with the media and the police, I'll deal with the fire department and cleanup."

Turning to Rooker, Alchemist offers, "And Jager's right about those Goggles. A heads up display with OpNet updated sat-maps and a simple targetting system should give you an idea of where you're jumping before you jump. Talk to Bandwidth when you get back to our Headquarters. That's more his field than mine."

"OK, why not." While a bit fast and hard sell, at least to him, they seemed sincere. Rooker had never had much luck with other Novas. He hoped this would be different. "Lets go, any excuse to not have cameras in my face here."

"I read you, I'll be awaiting his and Digi's arrival, and the goggles should be no problem. I'll just provide something similar to what I gave Amped. This turned out to be a pretty easy night."

DigiGeist straightens out his jumpsuit. "Fine by me, Mr. J." He jestures towards Rooker, then in the direction of the WCK HQ. "Right this way... Whoever you are..."

He then looks up at Rooker. "You fly? Or you wish to walk?"

Back at Windy City Knights Headquarters a lone camera man focuses on Bandwidth. Suddenly his camera starts to go staticy as does his sound equipment.

"Hey DG, shoot me your ETA so I can know when to open the back doors. I figure it's better to avoid the outside press in this particular moment."

As soon as he's done asking his question, the recording equipment mysteriously starts to work again, and the camera man just let's out a sigh.

To DigiGeist: "Let's walk, after last night another jump might not be a great idea. Unless you fly and I can follow your track, With short jumps I can see the landing jones, no problem. It also avoids the press and cops."

"The fly while you jump idea is a smart one." DigiGeist says, before hovering up a bit. "Just follow me. I'll stop where there is a clear place to land for your jumps."

He flies to his first secluded landing point, and waits for rooker.

"I think this will be an ETA of roughly 10 minutes. I'll give you a heads-up when it's time to open the doors. I'll use the parking ramp doors, Alchemist. You know... those doors. The ones that Sakurako was going to use for her part of the HQ before she wimped out on us."

Within minutes, Jager is spinning his magic web of half-truths and innuendo.
"Yes, we are aiding the police in this investigation."
"No, nothing definite is known yet."
"Well ... off the record, we believe T2MAmericas was up to something in our fair city."
"No, they haven't bothered to inform us poor peons what their grand purpose here was or exactly what their involvement in the property destruction was."
"They seem to have fled the scene before we arrived, but I'm sure the mayor and the govenor will be making some calls to Project Utopia real soon."
"I mean, if they had been up to something above board, wouldn't they have stuck around and helped us deal with this mess? That's my gut call, anyway."
"Sure, a little help dealing with the damage and search for victims would have been appreciated, but, as I said, they didn't stick around."
"Another nova? Yes, I believe another nova was spotted in the vicinity. If he, or she is in Chicago, we will find them."
"Oh, I totally agree. If T2M chased a criminal into our city, it would have been nice and proper if they had informed the authorities ... and yes, the police and emergancy services have a hot line to the Knights. That would have been better than hearing about some encounter after the fact. Now all we can do is pick up the pieces."
"I gotta go now, folks. Take care."

With the question and answer over, Jager leaps away into the night. He circles around and returns to WCK's HQ to catch up with Rooker's story.

Alchemist works his own brand of magic, more quietly and in some ways more subtly than Jager. While he directs the attentions of the Fire department and the engineering team that has showed up to assess damages, he quietly sets right any minor flaws or bits of incidental damage the explosion did to the environment.

Nothing he does changes what happened, per-se, but once he is finished with his work it will become obvious to the damage assessors that the explosion was caused by an accidental impact on a weak and poorly designed section of the underground gas tank, and (quite coincidentally) no damage whatsoever aside from a few scorch marks and broken windows was done to anything off the gas station property.

The ripple effects of this is that the entire incident will be handled by a single insurance claim, and it will pass out of both legal and public awareness as quickly as possible for such things. It's no good for nova relations in the area if, five years from now a building has to be condemned because of a nova-made explosion, or for a dozen cars to become undriveable because a small fragment of shrapnel is lodged in their engines.

His work finished, Alchemist makes his way back to the headquartes somewhat more slowly than Jager.