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Mutants & Masterminds: The Unlikely Prophets - Side Story: Norman and Sharatur Go To Chicago


Charlotte

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The door opened on a back alleyway in a dying Chicago neighborhood. After finalizing contact instructions, Norman and Sharatur stepped through. It wasn't too far from there, to the funeral home - or, if the home was gone, wherever the home had been. It was approaching dusk, the sun rapidly setting.

Here is Necronaut and Jade's side-thread for their trip to Norman's stomping grounds.
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Norman glanced around, not nervous but wary. The dilapidation of the city stood out painfully against his memories which had largely been formed in a haze of willful obliviousness.

"Right. We should hit the graveyard first. Hopefully the Order hasn't figured out how to bug the other-side yet..."

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"We should check. But after seeing you the last time he seemed to be at peace. I would guess he has moved on to whatever comes next." Norman slowed his pace slightly as he tried to put an ambiguously encouraging spin on what was a fundamentally morbid topic. "But I'm reasonably confident that you'll meet him again. Someday."

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Wonder still suffuses her tone as she says, "You know? So am I. And that alone, would make all this worth it. --Well, maybe not meet him again" she adds, just a bit pedantically. "But that something will happen after I die. But you're probably right, he probably has moved on. I hope he has. I'd still like to check though, if we have the time after."

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Norman and Sharatur walked towards the graveyard, which was still there - and Necronaut was surprised to find little curios atop many of the gravestones, tiny men in lab coats and gas masks, probably left behind by mourners. His reputation was preceding him, it seemed.

Norman did not find any souls who needed help, though - and Sharatur's father was no longer amongst them, either. He'd moved on.

Past the graveyard, there was the funeral home, as always. The lights were on.

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The Necronaut knelt down, eye to eye with one of the tiny ushabtis. "This is so weird..." He looked up at Sharatur. "But they are remembering. At least some people out there are thinking of the dead. I'm sure that's a comfort to them, even after they've gone all the way over."

"No restless spirits to inquire with... which is a good thing. Let's check out the parlor. If we're lucky everything will be quiet and they won't even have to know we were here."

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The closer he got to the parlour, the clearer the second story window became. Susan Pine was in there, focusing on a computer, and bearing the look of someone with a lot of work to do and a great need to do it. She seemed to be the only one around, at this time of the day.

They were within a few meters of the door, and the door buzzer.

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Norman took a step forward, as if planning to hit the buzzer. His plan changed in mid stride. He looked up at Susan for a moment and then sighed as he turned to Sharatur. "I'm going in through the Nether. You take the downstairs, I'll take the upstairs... and the embalming room if you like. We can meet back in the graveyard in ten minutes. Sound fair?"

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"It's not that. The work that gets done here is important, so I would prefer not to disturb it. It would be better if we don't put her..." he paused and adjusted his coat absently "...them at risk by making our presence known. The more we interact and the more they know, the greater the danger. If there's no sign that the Order is bothering them, we're ghosts tonight."

With that he stepped into the nether and walked through the door. This may not sound so unusual, but technically speaking most people only walk through doorways.

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Teleporting downstairs let Sharatur to the storage room, where she found out just how many different kinds of coffin, cremation urn, and enbalming chemicals there were. There wasn't anyone there, though.

Drifting upstairs, Norman found Susan reading an "official" Order news article about the delays in the "repurposing plant" that would render inefficient final resting places a thing of the past. The spin in the article, to Norman, seemed transparent - and Susan seemed to be picking up on it too.

Susan then picked up a by-now familiar curio on her desk - a tiny wooden carving of Necronaut's mask, painted black and white. "Hey," she said - and it took Norman a startled moment to realize that she was talking to the totem, and not him. "I just wanted to say thanks, for whatever you did, to get them to lay off."

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"Hmm" Sharatur muttered very quietly to herself. "I don't really understand why I'm even sneaking around here like this. But..." she shrugged, and made her way to the door. She listened there for a long moment, then teleported to the other side if she heard nothing, listening again before continuing on with her explorations.

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Norman's first inclination was to hover indecisively and agonize about revealing himself to Miss Pine, but lurking invisibly in his friend's office for any length of time seemed rather impolite. Instead he acted decisively, sinking through the floor in search of a second opinion.

He materialized near Sharatur in the midst of her search, though far enough away to give her a chance to reconsider any reflexive self defense moves that might come about if she were surprised.

"I think the place is clean. At least, if the Order is watching the staff doesn't seem to know about it. Er, do you think I should communicate to my former colleagues that I'm doing ok? That I'm at her disposal if there are any more problems with the Order?" He chuckled weakly. "I guess it doesn't seem like much of a question when I say it out loud."

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"It's me, Norman. Just, er, thought it might be a good idea to drop by and check on things. May I come in?"

He bit his lip and quickly pondered how he could allay concern about the veracity of his unexpected appearance. What was something only the real Norman Yan would say? "It's definitely really me, not a hallucination or an Order spy or anything like that."

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There was a long pause. Then the door slid open a hair.

Then it flung wide, and she grabbed him in a hug. "Norman! It's been months! How are you? Is it true what I keep hearing, you're really taking on the Order? Are you winning? When will it end? What's going to happen after? Did you see the dollies?"

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