1866/Body Work

Body Work
Date of Scene:	27 May 2020
Location:	Grant's Gym - Amusement Mile
Synopsis:	Ted Grant and J'onn J'onzz work together to solve the mystery of a murder at Grant's Gym--with mind-blowing results.
Cast of Characters:	Ted Grant, J'onn J'onzz

---

Ted Grant has posed:
LATE--REAL LATE

"Hey," the voice on the other end of the phone said gruffly. "It's Ted Grant. I know it's late--real late--and you're probably not even actually answering. Friggin' AI voicemail tech these days..."

The voice trails off, and then its owner clears his throat. "Anyway. I need your expertise, and I need it quick. There's been...well, I don't know, exactly. There was a bout of some kind here at the Gym, and the loser's kissed the mat for the last time. Who, why, how--that's why I need you. If you can make it before sunrise, that would be great. Otherwise, I figure I'm lookin' to get fingered just because of the circumstances."

Grant hangs up the phone and sighs, standing over a dead body lying on the mat of the gym's boxing ring, blood soaking into it and flowing down onto the floor over the ring's edge.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
If it was his choice, J'onn would rely on telepathy alone to get in touch with pretty much everyone. But that doesn't get along very well with alternate identities and with looking more human, and so it is that he adapts, or tries to, and tries to use technology, including voicemail.
It is during one of the periodic checks of said voicemail, that he happens upon Ted's message, and fortunately before sunrise too. So he listens to it, rearranges his body to shapeshift into detective Jones' form, and wearing the shape and uniform of the tall afroamerican policeman, he speeds towards the gym to appear, seemingly out of nowhere, in one of those dark corners out of sight outside the gym itself. On whose door he knocks, twice.

Ted Grant has posed:
Grant's Gym is all shadow, but Ted Grant slinks into the street lamps' light filtering in through the front windows, his Wildcat costume on save for the cowl, which hangs at his neck.

A quick unlocking, and Ted gestures to welcome J'onn in. "Thanks for coming," he says quietly, glancing out at the street. "You'll see the victim in the ring. Who he is? No idea. Who did it? No idea. How they did it? No idea. You get the picture."

Ted rubs his eyes with a finger and thumb. "I'm not sayin' I'm bad at this kinda thing, but I've been up too long, and I need the best. This tends not to look good to the fuzz, and even as decently well-liked as I am, I'd just as soon not spend the next few days in a GCPD cell. You know?"

The body on the mat is a white man aged perhaps 16-24 or so, with a youthful look to his face. The man is dressed as an anime or comic book character of some sort, and the large pool of blood surrounding him appears to have exited his nose and mouth.

Superhuman vision can allow a perceptive individual to hone in on massive blunt force trauma to the man's spinal column.

However, there aren't any other footprints, or fingerprints, or other immediately identifiable signs of another's presence in the gym ... other than Grant's own.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz simply nods, walking in "no worries, I can imagine a cell is not exactly a place where most people would like to spend the night..." he replies, stepping towards the body, floating just a millimeter from the floor to not disturb the scene at all. His nine senses, all at full power, start examining every single detail of the room and the body, and it is as he leans on said body that his eyes spot the signs of trauma to the spinal column. "I suppose you don't have security cameras, mh?" obvious question, but protocol says he must ask... "also, do you know when this happened? I mean when did you find the body?" he asks, his senses scanning the room for possible entry points, then again scanning the body to try to identify, from the pool of blood, if the death took place there or the body was moved, all classical investigative things anyways.

Ted Grant has posed:
"Ehhh," Ted sighs, shaking his head. "I try to keep this place as old-school as I can. Feel more 'home' that way, you know? Maybe not. But it does. Plus," he adds, "most folks in this neighborhood tend to know better than to mess with this place. Or, at least, they did."

He looks at the corpse. "Unless it's not a local who did it, of course..."

Ted shakes his head and blinks. "Sorry. I found the poor bastard about fifteen minutes before I called you. Gave myself a few to check everything I could--locked doors, no breached walls or roof, any clues as to the perp's identity--and, comin' up so cold I was freezing, I reached out to the best private dick I could think of."

The room is, indeed, quite clean--although, perhaps, there may be something slightly off about one of the building's brick walls, like the patterns of its molecules are jagged rather than smoothly organized.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz starts pacing around the room, looking pretty much everywhere, and stopping in front of the odd wall. "now this is odd..." he mutters, examining the wall to see if there's a specific pattern, to try to identify what was done to it. Meanwile, his senses focus on the other side of the wall, to identify what's, or who's there. "well, lets see if someone saw something nearby..." something achieved via a quick, painless, widespread mental scan of pretty much everyone in the block. Something doable with just a moment of concentration, in which the man appears to be completely still and focused.

Ted Grant has posed:
The wall looks almost like it's been constructed--or reconstructed--with not-quite-correct knowledge of how the bricks should be put together.

And then, there it is--the brainwaves of someone near. Out in the alley--no! running, now, down the street. Fear, fright, desperation in their mind. A mistake of some sort.

"You seein' anything useful?" Ted asks J'onn.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz sighs, glancing towards Ted as he steps towards the wall "someone... You may want to come out, but be careful... We're probably looking at least at super strength." he states, and as his body touches the wall, he just phases through it, right into the alley. Where his body remains just enough out of phase to avoid being attacked, and his eyes seek the origin of said brainwaves. That whilst his mind wraps gently around the mind of the creature, trying to soothe it in a less paniked state.

Ted Grant has posed:
The thoughts of terror subside just a bit--enough for someone running down the street to slow in their pace, looking around as though they might have found a safe place to catch their breath.

Ted throws the front door open, following J'onn out front. Looking down the street to the left and then the right, Ted narrows his eyes as he spots the person about a block away.

"Oh, you're not goin' anywhere, you son of a--" Ted growls, launching himself forward into a sprint. "Let's go, J'onn!"

The unidentified person suddenly freaks out again, and an image of a flying car flashes in their mind. A parked car suddenly lifts into the air and is flung at Wildcat.

Ted manages to leap up, corkscrewing himself in the air to avoid getting clipped by the automobile, which smashes into an army surplus storefront. Wildcat hits the ground with a roll, trying to pick his pace back up.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz takes off in a sprint as well, propelling his body forward at what would be a quite fast, but still humanly possible speed. And meanwile his mind just sends a signal, aimed and sharp like an arrow, towards the mind of the fleeing person. "stop, and noone'll hurt you." in the calm tone that almost seems to contrast with J'onn's voice, shouting the classical "freeze!" that every policeperson must learn to pronounce at police school.

Ted Grant has posed:
The mental suggestion causes the fleeing suspect to look backwards again, which in turn makes them trip over their own feet and tumble face-first onto the ground.

"No! Please! Don't! Don't hurt me..." the person calls, shielding their face behind their hands, their body curling up.

Ted tries to catch up with J'onn as they reach the perpetrator. "What the hell?" he asks. "This is our stone-cold killer?"

The person on the ground slowly lets their hands slide down from their face. It's another young man, also dressed in some sort of anime cosplay. "It was an accident...I didn't mean to. I freaked out...I didn't--I didn't mean to, I promise..."

Mentally, the man's thoughts echo his statements--it feels genuine.

"Where I come from," Ted says with a snarl, "you make a mistake, you own up to it. You don't go dropping a dead body on someone's floor and hidin' out until they go to jail."

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz just stands there, hands clasped behind his back, looking at the killer both with his eyes and mind. "you may want to tell us what happened in there, mh?" he states, whilst glancing towards Ted "at least he's being honest, so far... He didn't do it on purpose, or so he believes at least." his focus, then, returns on the suspect "and please, no more car throwing... Or anything stupid, in general... Lets try and be civilized people"

Ted Grant has posed:
Ted responds by tightening one hand into a fist, cracking its knuckles by cupping it with his other hand.

The man on the ground slowly sits up. "We were headed home from an...an event. Gaming and stuff. My friend--my, ahh..." He sighs. "My friend Tyler had won a sweet prize, and he was shoving it in my face. Showing off. I snapped."

The man shakes his head and sighs again. "Something happened...my brain was on fire, and I pictured wanting to throw him through a wall. And I did. Kind of. He smashed into it. I was terrified. He wasn't moving."

He looks up at J'onn and Ted. "You have to believe me, I didn't know what was going on. I put him on the mat and hoped he'd get better. I thought about fixing the wall, and it happened. So I hid and waited to see if he'd walk it off. And then someone...you..." he adds, nodding at Ted, "...you came in."

The man bursts into tears, holding his face in his hands.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz goes back with his memory towards the gym, the position of the body in relation with the wall, then he nods "it makes sense and coincides with what we saw in there..." he confirms.
"were you awareof your telekinesis?" he inquires, staring at the guy choosing to get the answer the old way instead of just invading the guy's mind.
"if he wasn't, that may be something that cannot just be handled by local police..." he states towards Wildcat "fleeing like this, although an unwise thing, would also have been the only likely option..."

Ted Grant has posed:
Exhaling deeply through his nose, Ted lets his hands drop to his sides. He's quiet for a moment and then replies, "Yeah, you're probably right. I guess if it's the first time, it's all a whirlwind of crazy sensory overload..."

The man continues sobbing, shaking his head. "I'm so sorry, Ty...I'm so sorry..."

The man's thoughts drift between memories of himself and his friend and of minor discoveries and experiments with telekinesis, lifting small objects and the like.

"Please, please don't make me go to jail," the man chokes out.

Ted looks to J'onn and raises an eyebrow. "Whadda you think?"

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz sighs again, contemplating the situation, the killer and Ted. "that's a quite peculiar situation..." he states "on one side, he killed a man. On purpose or not, that's still a crime, which should be handled. On the other side, there are, attenuating circumstances to consider, such as powers spiking up and not behaving... Because you" and he glances at the guy "were not new to telekinesis itself, so you knew what you were doing although that may be attributed more to lack of training than the actual desire of using your power in such a way." he shrugs, continuing his line of thought "what we could do is proceed through the legal judiciary system, because we have a dead body after all, but make it so that he won't get a murder sentence. Then work on reabilitation and teach the guy how to control himself and his powers..."

Ted Grant has posed:
"No!" the man cries, his eyes growing wide. "Don't--I can't--I don't want--"

Images flash in his mind--this time, of the building nearby falling atop Ted and J'onn.

The street rumbles as the building facade groans and cracks, tipping forward.

"Jeez--!" Ted shouts, somersaulting to grab the telekinetic murderer and slide behind a car for protection.

"J'onn!" he calls out. "We gotta do somethin' or else this kid's gonna kill us and wreck the whole 'hood!"

The man, meanwhile, clutches his hair and screams, while the windows of those cars parked on the block begin shattering, one by one.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz lets his own telekinesis flare out, pressing against the buildings, the windows, wrapping everything in a protective cocoon of telekinetic force. Then again his mind leashes out, towards the guy this time, in what could be considered as a mental knockout punch that could have him at least out of the game for a littlebit, enough to transport him someplace safe hopefully.
"we might want to rush things a bit, apologies for, that..." j'onn mumbles "I should've been quicker..." he adds, glancing at the damage already done

Ted Grant has posed:
The terrified man slumps into Ted's arms from the force of J'onn's mental blow.

The explosive attacks he caused all cease, their energy sapped.

"Uhhh..." Ted says, looking up at J'onn, "I take it that was all thanks to you." He exhales deeply again and shakes his head. "Guess I'm gonna spend the day with the GCPD anyway. At least I won't be on the wrong side of the bars..."

He offers a smile. "Thanks for the help, brother. I can very confidently say that I couldn't have taken care of this without you."

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz bows his head in Ted's direction "anytime, I'm glad to be of help. I'll work behind the scenes on this one to make sure he doesn't get treated too badly!" he chuckles lightly, glancing around to make sure there's noone curious enough to look their way "are you allright from here or is there anything else I can do for you?" he asks

Ted Grant has posed:
Looking around, Ted thinks for a moment and then nods. "Yeah, man. Actually...the more paperwork you're willin' to help out with, the happier I know /I'll/ be." He chuckles softly before shaking his head and clearing his throat. "These poor bastards...shame I wasn't out and about where I mighta been able to help, somehow. If I could at all."

Ted shakes his head again. "Naw, J'onn. You've helped plenty. I'll take care of things with the cops. Go home, get some rest. I'll send you a thank-you package soon."

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz releases a small laugh "I'll smooth things out, paperworkwise, at the station. Just pretend like you've never seen me before" he grins and nods "and you're welcome. Be well, Ted! And call if you need anything else." he states, again making sure noone is looking before walking in another of those dark corners, to phase and then fly away.