//------------------------------//
// New Marais: Sending a Message 
// Story: InFamous: The Unusual Conduits 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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Cole spent the next few minutes in one of the alleys that were near where Wolfe's lab was located, as he was interested in his new power and wanted to be sure that he memorized how to use it, which was why he was picking up random items and causing them to stay in the air for a few moments, allowing the Dazzlings to observe him, before he put the items back down and moved onto a new target. He didn't throw anything around, not like when he first used the new power, as there weren't any foes around their immediate area and he didn't want to draw attention to them until they were ready to go, as they had no idea what Kuo was doing or what Zeke was up to. The moment one of them revealed what the next step of their plan was, and filled them in as to what they were doing, the four of them would move from the alley that they were in and head out to the area where they would get a full briefing on what they were doing, but until then they were going to stay in this area and remain out of sight until the time was right for them to move. Of course that didn't stop the Dazzlings from making sure that the Militia didn't find them before they were ready to get out of the area, but for the most part it seemed that they would be able to leave without being seen by their enemies, allowing them to get underway the moment a call came in.

Fortunately they didn't have to wait too long, as not a minute or two after Cole stopped practicing with his new telekinesis ability, and started to take a break, their phones went off and they discovered that Kuo was calling them, which meant that it was time for them to move at last.

"I'm tracking the guys that took Wolfe, but it's going to take awhile." Kuo informed them, confusing the group for a moment because they could have sworn that Zeke said that both Kuo and Wolfe were chasing off the Militia that had attacked the lab, not that Kuo was chasing the Militia soldiers that had taken their new acquaintance away, "However, while I'm doing that I think the four of you should salvage some of the fallout from Wolfe's lab. We want to get to it before the Militia does."

"Alright, we'll move into position and see what we can find." Cole replied, as while it wasn't the best mission in the world, as he was sure that the four of them would be more than able to help Kuo track down the soldiers that had taken Wolfe and rescue him, it was still something for them to do and they moved out immediately.

The moment the call was dropped the four of them climbed up the side of the building that was next to them and quickly reached the roof, where Cole looked around for a moment before finding the area that Kuo had sent them the coordinates to, to which they got moving towards their new mission area. One thing that was good about the path they were taking to reach the area that Kuo wanted them to head to was that it passed through part of the city they had gone through to reach Wolfe's lab, meaning that there weren't any Militia soldiers in the area, for now anyway, and that was good for them. Along the way they only stopped for two things, one was to help the injured people that were always in groups of three for some odd reason, while the other reason was so that they could stop someone from being mugged by the Militia, though again they found something odd when they discovered that the three muggings they had stopped had been direction towards women. Despite them stopping the Militia a few times in the process, knocking them out every time they stopped, no alarms were raised and no additional soldiers came running out to kill them, allowing them to slip back into the shadows as they headed for their destination.

A few moments later, after they made sure that the Militia in the area weren't aware of the fact that they were currently in the area, the four of them gathered around the area that Kuo wanted them to gather in and prepared themselves for the mission that she wanted them to tackle.

"Okay Kuo, we're in position." Aria said, though at the same time the four of them looked around the area of the city that they were in, as while Cole was refamiliarizing himself with the area she and her sisters were taking in the area so they could have a better idea of the city's layout in their heads, "What do you want us to do?"

"I spotted one of Wolfe's carrier pigeons up near the top of the Clock Tower." Kuo replied, though as she said that Cole waved to the Dazzlings and pointed at the tower in question, knowing that they likely hadn't noticed it yet and was showing them what he knew, "I need you guys to retrieve it."

"Sure," Cole said, not really sure why they would want to waste time tracking down a carrier pigeon and capture it, even if Kuo said that they needed to recover it, and silently hoped that their friend had a reason behind what she was asking them to do, "but why do we need to do that?"

"Well, when Wolfe was undercover with the First Sons, he used messenger birds to smuggle reports to his NSA contact," Kuo answered, surprising the group once more, as while they knew that Wolfe had worked with the First Sons, or more specifically Kessler, learning that he was an undercover agent seemed a little odd, unless Kuo meant that she convinced him to betray Kessler in some manner, "Obviously I was his contact. And before any of you ask, no, he's not a boyfriend or a love interest, he's a contact we had inside the First Sons, and sometimes even a 'father figure'."

"Well, we'll get whatever the bird is carrying and get back to you." Adagio replied, to which they hung up their phones and got moving, as while Cole had to climb the tower she and her sisters could simply fly around the exterior and see if they could pin point where the bird was located.

Fortunately it didn't take that much time to locate the bird that Kuo wanted them to find, as it was circling the top of the Clock Tower, though the Dazzlings circled around it to make sure that it didn't leave the area, since it might contain valuable information on what was going on. When Cole reached them, however, Kuo contacted them and asked them if they had any stun related powers, since she didn't need them to actually kill the bird to get the message, though when Cole thought about his Shockwave power he knew that falling from this height would kill the bird anyway. It was in that moment that the bird glanced at Sonata, who had her arm raised out towards it, before flying close and landed on her arm for a moment, giving her enough time to take the thumb drive from the collar around it's neck, which was when it took off and departed from the area entirely. Once they had the message, and were preparing to head back down to a safe area to listen to it, Zeke decided to barge into the call and told Cole that he should use his Thunder Drop ability, though when Cole looked at the ground he saw a bunch of innocent people that would get hurt if he did that... so he simply used his Static Thrusters to glide over to a roof that they could stand on and listen to whatever the message had to say.

When the four of them reached the roof that they had chosen, and still found no Militia soldiers in the area, Sonata handed Cole the thumb drive, as it appeared that Kuo only uploaded the encryption key to one of their phones, and waited to see what sort of information it had to share with them.

Agent Kuo, a voice said, one that was definitely Wolfe's voice, confirming that this was his recording and that it had to be important since he tied it to a bird's neck earlier, I feel quite confident that only you will be able to decode these  messages and that they'll prove to be invaluable evidence in your case against the First Sons. The world needs to learn about what's happened. Efforts must be given immediately to repair the damage done by the Ray Sphere. Damage for which I am ultimately to blame. Share these recordings with your contact in Empire City. Time is short.

"It's a good start." Kuo commented, listening to the recording that they had listened to, though the way she spoke indicated that she was hoping that they could find the rest of Wolfe's recordings and keep them safe, or at least that was what they thought she wanted, "I saw a whole flock of those birds escape from Wolfe's lab after it blew."

"Okay, we'll keep our eyes open and see if we can't find some more of them," Cole said, though at the same time he was sure that, even if they spotted one of the birds, they wouldn't actually care to take it's information, as they only collected a few of John's dead drops back in Empire City before growing tired of them.

"Oh, that reminds me," Kuo spoke up, her tone indicating that she had been about to hang up and continue her search for Wolfe, but then she remembered something that she wanted to tell them and was going to do so before she hung up, "While you're collecting Wolfe's reports, I also spotted some Rayacite fragments near the tower."

"Ray-a-what?" Adagio inquired, as this was the first time she was hearing something like this, and based on the looks that both of her sisters had, as well as Cole, she knew that none of them had been told anything different, meaning that this was, once more, new information.

"You know, the chunks of earth irradiated during Ray Sphere testing." Kuo explained, almost as if she expected one of them to know exactly what she was talking about, when in reality none of them seemed to know what she was referring to and were a little lost, "Wolfe seemed to think that one of you would know what to do with them."

"Oh, those things," Cole said, as he had taken another look at the tower that he had climbed and discovered a glowing shard that was familiar, one that the Dazzlings recognized as well, "Back in Empire City we called those shards of earth Blast Shards, named after the Blast that happened when Kessler detonated the Ray Sphere. I'm the only one, of the four of us, that can absorb the energy of a Blast Shard, and after I do that to a few of them my body is capable of storing more power than it previously could."

"And, judging by how widespread the explosion was, I'd say Wolfe had a decent collection of them," Aria spoke up, as she and her sisters had avoided the falling chunks when the lab was blown apart, which meant that the entire city had a number of shards sticking out of their buildings now.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to pick up a few more of those before we move on to our next objective," Cole said, though as he reached to turn off his phone, or at the very least disconnect the call, he thought about the recording they had just listened to and something still didn't make sense, "Hey Kuo, in that recording Wolfe mentioned that you had a contact in Empire City."

"You all knew him," Kuo replied, which only raised several questions at the same time, as the only person that was in the NSA had died shortly after they met him and it was clear that he had no contact with anyone in his agency, "his name was John White."

"No way." Adagio said, as, like they were all thinking, there was no way that John could have been in contact with Kuo during the events following the Blast, meaning that either Kuo was lying or John was able to do more than they thought he could with his limited resources.

"The NSA had a vague idea of what Conduits were." Kuo stated, indicating that she was going to tell them everything that they needed to know, or rather what she deemed was what they needed to know about the current situation that they were in, "They scanned every single field agent, and both John and I had the gene. We were logical choices to infiltrate the First Sons, so John was assigned Empire City and I got New Marais. We worked together to maintain our covers."

"What did John say about us?" Cole asked, as this sounded like something they might need to know, as it appeared that their entrance into New Marais had given Kuo some insight as to who they were and what was important to them, and he could tell that the sisters were eager to hear what their new friend said.

"After the Blast, his reports got kind of sketchy and hard to believe." Kuo said, no doubt remembering some of the reports that she must have read at some point in time, though at the same time the group didn't say anything that would make her upset with them, 'Of course, after having seen the four of you and the Beast in action..."

It was clear that there was something she wanted to say, the four of them knew that just from listening to her, but at the same time Kuo seemed to think about something else and hung up, indicating that she either didn't want to talk about it or she might have gotten close to the soldiers that took Wolfe. As such the group collected a few more Blast Shards, those that were in the immediate area anyway, and gave them to Cole, as he was, as he said, the only one that could harness the power inside the pieces of earth, but as they were doing that Zeke called them again. From the sounds of it he was reminding Cole of the last time they were here, where he encountered some 'unsavory' characters and now they heard that they were in town and needed some help from Cole, as they specifically referred to him as the 'Electric Man', and said that he could bring along his friends, meaning the Dazzlings. Normally the four of them didn't want anything to do with Zeke's plans, but since they had no idea how long it was going to take for Kuo to get any information on what happened to Wolfe, they decided to play along and started to head out of the area that they were in.

As they did so, however, Sonata made a comment that caught all of them off guard, as they weren't expecting her to make such a comment, to which they stopped and turned towards her, so she could explain herself and tell them why she thought what she was thinking.

"Is it just me, or does the Beast now seem like a Conduit?" Sonata asked, to which she watched as both of her sisters stopped and Cole stood beside them, each of them looking like she had grown a second head or something, to which she stared at them for a moment, "What?"

"Why would you suggest that the Beast is a Conduit?" Cole inquired, as this wasn't something that the three of them had thought about before, despite the fact that Wolfe said that the RFI could subtract the Beast's abilities, which really made him interested in hearing what she had to say.

"When the Beast appeared, back in Empire City, didn't it look it he was emerging from the same vortex explosion that engulfed John when the Ray Sphere tore itself apart?" Sonata said, as the more she thought about it the more it seemed to make sense, at least it did to her, and she was trying to explain everything to the others, "Kuo said that both she and John had the Conduit gene, which means that either of them could have had their powers activated if they were caught in a Ray Sphere explosion. John was caught in the middle of the Ray Sphere being torn apart, which torn him apart until there was nothing left of him... and then, one month after that happened, the same type of explosion happened and suddenly the Beast came to life before our eyes. You have to admit that there's something strange about all of this."

None of them were actually willing to believe that, because John, who must have known he had the gene since his agency tested everyone, wouldn't have gone near the Ray Sphere for fear of becoming the Beast, if the massive creature was a Conduit like Sonata now thought he was. After a few more moments of standing around, however, the three of them headed out and forced Sonata to sigh before following after them, as there would be time for them to talk about this later, when they weren't being bothered and could have a moment to rest. Once the four of them were back together they headed towards the location of the coordinates that Zeke was sending them, pausing for Cole to heal people or for them to beat up the Militia that were mugging someone, all while being praised by the people for their assistance before they got underway once more. At the same time Cole kept an eye open for Blast Shards, letting the Dazzlings zip around to where one was located and pry it out of where it had landed, before letting him take it, though as that happened he could tell that none of the sisters seemed to care much about the shards, other than collecting them and increasing his own energy storage in the process.

After a few minutes of making their way through the city they found Zeke standing in what appeared to be an area with a number of small boats that weren't in use, though at the same time they were more interested in what he wanted them to do before they switched to waiting for Kuo to say something.

"Hey, word is out of our arrival." Zeke said, indicating that his contacts, whoever they were, now knew, for sure, that they were in town and were hoping to use the super powered beings to their advantage, though it remained to be seen since the Dazzlings recalled something like this from Empire City, "I got contacted by a cop and a junkie."

"That's one hell of a fanbase." Cole commented, to which he looked off towards the building that Zeke had been staring at the moment they arrived, knowing that the building in question had to be where they would find the people that had contacted Zeke recently.

"These people take you seriously, and I mean all four of you." Zeke stated, where he waved his hand towards all of them for a moment, indicating that everyone knew who they were, or at least what the news had said about them, which was lies since it was likely everything Moya told them to run, "Helping one of them out will send a message, but you need to think about this for a moment. New Marais is a fresh start for us... it's a clean slate. The people here pay attention to people like you... especially since one of you has lightning coming out of his hands, another can create fire and use it to her advantage, a third can use the wind to devastating effect, and the last one can manipulate the moisture in the air and do whatever she wants with it. So, what are you going to do about it?"

"We're going to send a message." Adagio replied, as she, both of her sisters, and Cole had seen the two men that Zeke wanted them to talk to, or at the very least one of them, and could see that one of them had a faint red aura around their body while the other had a faint blue aura.

One thing the four of them had discovered was that, when confronted by a choice like this, they were able to tell which was the 'good' option and which was the 'evil' option, to which the four of them decided to help the cop and let the junkie know that they weren't on his side. When they approached the cop, as that was who they would have chosen anyway, they discovered that the Militia had a gang in the nearby mansion and were shooting up 'deviants', and that the cop wanted them to stop the gang and heal the wounded, which wasn't a problem for them. Once they knew what they were doing they headed over to where the mansion was located and Cole immediately started to tend to the wounded, mending their wounds and allowing them to run, though after the third one the Militia soldiers forced a poor man off the roof and put a bullet in his head at the same time, executing him instead of doing what they did to the other people they were tormenting. The Dazzlings, seeing the Militia preparing to execute another group of people, sprung into action immediately, as Adagio manipulated the moisture in the air and formed some Ice Walls in front of the innocent people, preventing them from being hit by any stray bullets, while at the same time Aria and Sonata flew right up to the soldiers and beat them up... giving Cole time to heal the rest of the wounded and make sure that there weren't any additional enemies that were coming to attack them.

After that they were called back to where the cop was located, as he was under attack by three Militia soldiers, who the group beat up within a matter of seconds and let Cole restrain them so that the cop might question them later on, and hopefully put an end to this before it got out of control. Once they were done with assisting the cop, who was happy for their assistance, they ignored Zeke's attempts to get them to attack a street performer and heard back from Kuo, only with news that she still had no idea where Wolfe had been taken. She did, however, have some news for Cole, as she mentioned something about him flexing his powers and gave them some coordinates to head to before cutting the call off as she got back to work hunting for Wolfe. The group, one more having no leads, sighed and headed out for the new area that they were being sent to, as they were sure that they could do something to pass the time until they could actually fight the Militia, rescue Wolfe, and figure out what else they needed to do to prepare for the arrival of the Beast.