Malefactor

[Harry Dresden]

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden was angry. Tolkein had written it best; "meddle not in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." Harry didn't like people messing with his friends, and he'd never been much for the "subtle" half of that sentence. He slowed to a walk as he approached the gate, winded but not allowing himself to feel it. He looked pretty scary, even if he wasn't aware of it; a man with a huge staff in a long, black duster, striding purposefully towards the guarded gate to Coruscant without paying the guards any apparent attention. They looked like stormtroopers from Star Wars. This 'verse sounded like a great big Star Wars ripoff, but then, Minas Tirith had been the real Minas Tirith. Maybe they actually were stormtroopers. He chuckled slightly, breaking his stormy facade, as he stepped through the gate.

When the sense of gut-wrenching disorientation wore off, the first thing he could think of was, Butters would love this. He looked around him at the surroundings. Flying cars, skyscrapers, white metal and clear glass reflecting blue skies. He'd literally just stepped into Coruscant. It was something straight out of the movies. He let his feet carry him forward for a bit, trying to wrench his attention away from the distractions all around him. Think, Harry. Coruscant isn't all rainbows and gumdrops. It's just about as seedy as Chicago, if the movies were anything to go by. Still, Harry liked his chances against anything that wasn't a Sith lord jumping him out of the shadows.

Of course, Samus was fairly formidable, and she'd been hurt by something that had just jumped out of the shadows. It would do Harry a lot of good to be alert. Samus had said she was attacked on the lower tiers. It seemed better to start at the bottom and work the way up. He pulled out the speaking stone he'd fashioned, getting in touch with Samus. "I'm in Coruscant. I'm going to try and track down the person who jumped you. Know what he looks like?" It was time and past time that Harry got to flex his PI muscles instead of throwing magic at things. It was a lot less tiring. He looked at the hypermodern elevator and shuddered, walking over to the much less high-tech stairs and starting down.

He had a long way to go. Down, down to Goblintown.

[Harry Dresden]

Well, maybe it wasn't as supernaturally active as Undertown, Harry mused as he finally descended enough stairs to reach the bottom. It was still... well, seedy wasn't really the word for it. Seeds imply eventual regrowth. This place had looked at the apocalypse and told it that it wasn't hardcore enough to show its face around these parts. There weren't many people around, and all of the people that were present were more than a little disturbed-looking. Samus hadn't had much in the way of a description; armored like her, red visor, silver armor. That would stand out down here, but Tier 7 was pretty crowded. Spotting any one thing in the smog and cramped quarters would be tricky.

The wizard walked forward, away from the stairwell and into the sickening air of Tier 7. He held his staff in his right hand, like a walking stick. He was obviously out of place here, not just because of his Chicago-an coat and jeans, but also because he actually had good-quality clothing, something that was a rarity here. He realized that he made an excellent target like that, but there wasn't much to be done about that. Besides, Harry, he thought to himself, if you get attacked, that solves the problem of finding the guy.

As it turned out, there were more forces out there than the one Harry wanted to find and catch. He picked up a tail within the first two minutes of walking, and within the next three minutes that tail had been joined by two more. They weren't exactly subtle, but they knew what they were doing when it came to penning someone. The second the street narrowed, they showed themselves in earnest, blocking the wizard's path on both sides.

"You ain't from here," one of the men said. He was pointing an honest-to-goodness Han Solo-type laser pistol at Harry's chest. "You look like another bounty hunter. Here looking for the orgosynth?" Harry tilted his head to the side, curious. "Orgosynth? I'm just looking for someone. Silver-grey armor, red visor, one claw and one arm that looks like a really big gun." The thug laughed sardonically. "Everyone here's looking for the orgosynth. No point lying. I'll give you credit, it's a pretty good lie, but we're going to find the orgosynth first. You'll be too busy being dead."

A threat. And not a very good one, either, but maybe it was just because Harry was used to dealing with fear on the level of naagloshi and Fallen angels and Faerie Queens, and not lowly armed gunmen. The Winter in him snarled at the insult that these goons offered, thinking they could handle him. He swept his staff forward, the temperature dropping slightly as he hurled Winter through the implement, causing a bank of fog to form around laser-thug. "Infriga!" The fog hung for a short time before flash-freezing into a block of ice, holding the gunman like Han Solo in Carbonite.

He kept the staff extended, preparing another spell hot on the heels of the first. "Forzare!" A burst of force shot out from the end of the staff, shoving the ice block, hard. It slid down the street a good distance, completely upright but spinning wildly. Pedestrians scrambled out of its way, and it shattered against the front of a business, leaving one disoriented street thug shivering out of fear and cold, completely unsure where he'd been sent.

Harry turned to the other thug, Winter making his features hard. "So, what exactly is an 'orgosynth'? If everyone's looking for it, good chance my quarry is, too. Seems like an excellent trap."

[Harry Dresden]

Harry shook his head as he walked away, reciting multiplication tables in his head. Winter had gotten a lot more of a hold on him than usual. Just because he hadn't been in contact with any Winterfae was no reason to let his guard down. He needed to keep a better handle on his emotions. Still, it had been useful when he'd scared that mercenary into telling him about that Orgosynth thing. The wizard turned down the streets he'd been pointed towards, slowly getting farther and farther from the stairs up. He made sure to remember where he was going, but he kept his pace steady and swift, not giving people time to get around him like those two thugs had.

Sure enough, the thick air got thicker with the smell of trash and decay, and he found himself standing outside a rather impressive dump. Most of the detritus there seemed to be the broken remains of various Star Wars props, only with more detail than he'd ever seen in the movies. The fact that he was standing in Coruscant made him wonder if this was actual decommissioned Empire weaponry. All things told, it wouldn't even surprise him that much. He walked up to the fence around the place and pulled out his blasting rod, incinerating a hole in the wire with a muttered "Fuego" and chilling it with a wave of his staff and a statement of "Infriga".

As he stepped through, he was met with a feral snarl. He cast his eyes around for the source, but he was knocked over by a crazed-looking man, clothed in nothing but rags, that burst forth from within a pile of rubble. The man tackled him like a ghoul would, and Harry reacted the same, getting his spell-laced duster between the man's hands and Harry's own face by crossing his arms. The last time he'd been tackled like this, he'd had help.

This time, he had Winter.

The Mantle snarled and Harry twisted, coming out of his guard to slug the feral man in the face. Talonlike nails raked Harry's face, but bones cracked in the feral man's, and Harry freed himself when his assailant recoiled in pain. The Winter Knight took the offensive, delivering a bone-snapping kick to the man's left knee, popping it out of socket and way out of place, where it could be seen against the skin. Harry stood, ignoring the man's anguished screams of pain. A small red organism detached itself from the feral man's back, and the screaming intensified. The little blob of red wriggled back into the rubbish heap, and Harry snarled at it. He'd found something like the Orgosynth, but a lot smaller than the mercenary had described it. Like a child version of the organism.

Great.

The damned things could breed.

[Harry Dresden]

1. 2. 3. 5. 7. 11. 13. Harry started listing off prime numbers in his head, getting a handle back on his instincts. Winter Knight or not, wading deeper into the dump that the orgosynth had made its layer in was a good way to get killed. Despite Omni's reassurances to the contrary, he wasn't too confident in his ability to bounce back from that one. Anyway, it might not kill him. If the state of that man and the word from the merc was evidence, the orgosynths didn't seem to kill so much as steal. Harry didn't like the idea of turning a parasite-crazed Winter Knight wizard loose on Coruscant. He ducked back through the hole in the fence and circled around, making notes about the layout.

A high octagonal fence surrounded the rather large dumping ground for all manner of broken and neglected weaponry and military paraphernalia. Where the massive stacks of shattered hardware lowered, Harry could see what looked like rough structures made of scrap metal. Housing, possibly? There wasn't an easy method of access; the hole he'd put in the fence was the best thing. Close inspection revealed scorch marks on the ground and solder on the chain links. Most of these were paired with bloodstains on the concrete and, in one case, a corpse that was the source of at least some of the horrid smell.

The wizard walked to the nearest building; a burned-out husk of an office building that had a locked door but no whole windows to speak of. He walked up the stairs to the second floor and used his new vantage point to watch the dump. It was pretty dead; most of the activity probably went on in what he could now see were a series of interconnected scrap-metal buildings. Just when he was about to write off the orgosynth colony as territorial but not outwardly hostile, someone left the complex. They ran pretty damned fast, jumping the fence like it was nothing and taking off down towards the elevator.

"What the...?" Harry didn't have much time to question it. Those things were dangerous, and one had just hared off into Tier 7, where nobody really cared what happened to other people. Harry rushed down the stairs and out the building, running hard and barely keeping the runner in sight, much less catching it.

And, of course, as they wound through the streets towards the elevator, the doors dinged and started to open. "Hell's bells!"

[Vivio Takamachi]

Vivio was walking around the first Tier of Coruscant showing a Holographic picture of Nanoha asking citizens if they had seen said Mage. It seems no one really saw her. Perhaps those two storm troopers had been pulling her leg. She decided to ask on another Tier after finding out about them. She would start at the bottom and work her way up. She waited for the elevator and began muttering to Sacred Heart.

“You don't think those two guys in white were lying to us, do you?”

She asked him. Kris simply shook his head and pointed. Vivio smiled. She nodded as the Elevator doors began to open.

“You're right Kris! Those two didn't seem that bad. Though Caboose was a bit weird.”

Vivio said with a giggle. She stepped into the elevator and pressed seven. She waited as the Elevator began making it's way to Tier Seven. She smiled as the Elevator stopped and began to open. The first thing she saw was a strange creature coming towards her with what she believed was Hostile intent. She knew at the speed the creature was going she wouldn't have enough time to fully transform into her adult mode.

“Sacred Heart Contact mode set up!”

She yelled as Kris fused with her. She dodged a swipe from the creature and struck.

“Accel Smash!”

She yelled as she gave a speedy counterattack to the creatures Midsection.

[Harry Dresden]

Harry drew his blasting rod, transferring his staff to his left hand as he did so, while he rushed towards the opening elevator. Of course, to complete the wonderful storm of issues, the elevator contained a small girl. The orgosynth-possessed man lunged at the girl before Harry could compose a strike, but it seemed like the elevator's occupant wasn't a slouch in a fight.

"Accel Smash!"

The girl ducked the first attack and didn't give the creature a chance to go in for a second one. There was a popping sound, the sound a jaw makes when it gets dislocated, and the orgosynth host stumbled back, out of the elevator. Harry hadn't stopped running, and he circled the filthy-looking man, placing himself between the host and the girl and levelling his staff at the man. The temperature in the elevator dropped a couple degrees as he snarled "Infriga! Forzare!" The first word had formed a soccer-ball sized chunk of ice on the end of Harry's staff, and the second had propelled it forward at high speed. It impacted with a dull thunk and sent the already-reeling man sprawling.

Harry dropped the blasting rod into his pocket and gestured with his right hand and staff in unison, tapping into Soulfire as he did so. "Forzare." A massive spectral hand appeared, pinning the man to the ground and keeping him there. Harry stepped out of the elevator, keeping his right hand level to maintain the spell. "You alright, kid? Might want to get out of there. I'm throwing a lot of magic around and technology doesn't like that." True to his word, the lights flickered a bit and the elevator emitted a cheery ding, then another, and yet another. It kept making that annoying noise, lending an air of absurdity to the entire situation. At least it didn't start doing anything with the doors or the pulleys. "Name's Harry. What's a little girl doing on Tier 7? I've heard this is supposed to be the wrong side of the tracks, and I haven't seen anything to contradict that yet."

[Vivio Takamachi]

Vivio watched as a man with a staff took down the creature that had tried to attack her. Then watched in amazement as A giant spectral hand came out of the ground and pinned the creature to the ground.

"You alright, kid? Might want to get out of there. I'm throwing a lot of magic around and technology doesn't like that."

Vivio blinked at what the man said and looked as the Elevator began going Haywire. She quickly stepped out just as the Doors to the Elevator slammed shut. She stared at the doors. That could have been her leg.

“Thank you for the warning sir!” She said. She looked at him as he continued talking. Kris had un fused from her seeing the immediate danger was over.

"Name's Harry. What's a little girl doing on Tier 7? I've heard this is supposed to be the wrong side of the tracks, and I haven't seen anything to contradict that yet."

Vivio looked around at all the waste and wreckage and polluted plants. She looked down. There was no way her Nanoha-mama was here.

She looked up at the now named Harry. He was a magic user, maybe he had seen her. “My name's Vivio, I'm a prime that recently arrived to the Omniverse. I'm looking for someone, My mama.” She began explaining. I found out she was somewhere here in Coruscant, so I thought I'd start from the bottom and go up. But it's obvious she isn't on this Tier. Vivio said sadly. She looked at the Spectral Hand that was holding the creature down.

“Harry-san.... If you don't mind me asking... What is that thing? And will that hand be able to keep it pinned?” Vivio asked worriedly as she watched the creature thrash around under the hand trying to escape.

[Harry Dresden]

A Prime? This little kid? That surprised Harry; she didn't look like much. Then again, she had one hell of an uppercut, at least. He felt the drain that continued Soulfire use had on his hand, that feeling of pins-and-needles that would soon rob the appendage of most sensation, and he shook his head. "I can't keep the spell going for very long. It uses a bit of my spirit as fuel, I have to be careful with it." He walked over to the downed orgosynth host and released the magic, swinging the staff like a golf club and catching the man in the groin. Cheap? Yes. Effective? Definitely. The downed half-zombie let out a high-pitched whine as a small, red organism leapt free of his soon-to-be-unconscious form, and Harry watched the little red blob squirm into a crack in the sidewalk and vanish.

The immediate threat gone, Harry turned to face Vivio. "That's just a person. There are a bunch of people being possessed by those little red things. Orgosynths, they're called. There's a bunch of bounty hunters looking for the main Orgosynth so they can try to use it. I'm looking for one of those people, using the thing as bait and trying to keep the little ones," he gestured to the unconscious man on the sidewalk, "from hurting anyone." He didn't move to go back to his hunt; Prime or not, he wasn;t leaving Vivio alone in the middle of Tier 7, especially with the elevator out of commission. He felt kind of bad about that one. Remembering what Nick always told him to do with lost kids, he knelt down onto her level, smiling slightly. "But enough about all that. What does your mama look like, and where did you see her last? I'm really good at finding people, maybe I can help you find her."

[Harry Dresden]

As if things weren't getting complicated enough, Harry's speaking stone started vibrating within his duster. He pulled out the phone-sized rock and held it to his ear, and was greeted by an unfamiliar voice.

"Is this Harry Dresden?"

The voice was male, and a tad gruff. There were only a couple people who Harry had connected the stone with; Proto Man and Samus. This man clearly wasn't Proto Man, or Samus, which raised a certain question. "Yes, speaking. How'd you get in contact with me?" The man wasn't in the mood to bandy words with anyone, it seemed. His response was succinct and to the point. "My name is Adam Malkovich. I'm with Samus Aran, who is currently engaged in combat with Stormtroopers and fighting her way to the gate leading to the Vasty Deep. The lady's in a spot of trouble, and she could use your help."

Harry muttered something irritated and cast a glance at the direction the orgosynth was hiding in. "Adam? Tell Samus that I'm in Tier 7 and I'm coming to find her." Without waiting for an answer from Adam, Harry grabbed Vivio's wrist and pulled her along towards another elevator, mentally working out a suppression spell to keep the thing running smoothly once he got there. "Vivio, one of my friends is in a lot of trouble. Don't get involved, it's not safe for a little girl. I wish I could help you find your mother but I don't even know where to start. I'll leave you with a police officer on Tier 1." He didn't wait for her to answer before he started chanting in faux Latin under his breath. The mantra helped him hold together a spell that would keep his magic self-contained and stop it from breaking the elevator.

The elevator was even faster than Harry had hoped, and soon enough he was stepping out onto Tier 1. He located a security officer within 2.5 seconds; they were everywhere on the uppermost tier. He pointed Vivio over to him and took off running, ducking around a corner and sliding to a stop as a ship colored a strangely familiar shade of orange flew overhead, pursued by honest-to-god Stormtrooper ships from Star Wars. Harry couldn't keep up on foot, and summoning a flying mount was impossible here. He tried for a normal horse and set his speaking stone on the ground, ready to be scooped up once the irritatingly long process of summoning was complete.