The mystery (hotwire)

Hotwire blushed slightly when Haruhi squeezed hotwire again. Something about that story must have hit kind of close to home. "Even if he's not there, there should be evidence. He only bought the locker a month back. If he were to be killing anyone, that's the best bet." Hotwire explained.

"Then we can get a warrant and send out the police to find him and bring him in." Hotwire said. With that, they pulled up to the storage locker facility. He led Haruhi up to the locker belonging to Songin.

"Who needs passkeys?" Hotwire said smirking tapping the card reader. It blinked a few times before disengaging. Ah the ability to control any electronic device. It sort of makes you the best hacker ever.

He wasn't there. The place was empty to save for a small workbench with some drawers. "Well Haruhi? Detect any blood?" Hotwire said, his computer scanning and recording their investigation, creating a submission for an arrest warrant as they went.

Haruhi stepped inside the almost empty storage unit, and began looking around. She looked at the the ceiling, the walls, the ground, even the little workplace. "Detect Blood? This place reeks of it." She said smelling the rusty potent smell of blood, what was odd was that she couldn't see any stains or drops anywhere. Although on closer inspection she noticed the smell was stronger as she got closer to the workbenches drawers. "Hm?" she looked over the workbench, and then tried opening the drawers, but they wouldn't budge.

"Allow me." Hotwire said. He pulled out a small device and placed it on the lock of the door. A small trail of smoke emitted from it, before a small pop occurred and the drawer cracked open a bit. "There we go." Hotwire said opening the drawer. He almost gagged when he looked in. Blood stained rags. A bloodstained knife.  Another look at the room revealed bottles of bleach in the corner. A small digital camera rest on the desk. He began sifting through it with his powers. There were pictures of all the victims. The timestamps on all of them were mere hours before their times of death.

"We have all they evidence we need." Hotwire said tapping his communicator.

"Police are on their way." He explained. "We just have to sit tight." Hotwire said. He was satisfied. This was pretty simple. Odd how nobody else had solved this case. Although... there was something a little off.

"Wait a minute..." Hotwire said scanning the room with his powers. Then he saw it. At the corner of the room. A little device transmitting a signal. According to it's log... it had begun transmitting the moment they stepped in. Stifling a gasp, he hacked into the buildings outdoor cameras, the only ones on the premises. His car was here, and had been for a few minutes.

"Oh god. He's here." Hotwire said, looking out the open door. Something felt wrong. Very wrong. Why wasn't he here right now? His home-brew alarm system went off and he was definitely nearby... but why wouldn't he... unless he knew he was dealing with people you can't sneak up on.

Hotwire began scanning the buildings just nearby, searching for the thing he hoped wasn't there. But then he saw it. A brief glint in the light The muzzle of a rifle. Aimed right at them. Without even thinking, hotwire yelled out. "Haruhi! Get down!"

He jumped to push Haruhi to the ground. Across the street the trigger was pulled, the bullet shooting straight down. Had hotwire not done the jump, it probably would have hit Haruhi square in the chest. However, as luck would have it, it hit Hotwire in the arm. Not fatal, but it sure as hell hurt. Even better, the spot he would push them into was in a blind spot to his rifle fire.

Haruhi plugged her nose as Hotwaire opened the drawer, the stench was strong now, and with her senses a little too overbearing. She took a couple steps back, "yup, blood detected." She said as she saw Hotwire examining the room again, this time he spotted a small camera and his attention seemed to be drawn by it, after he was done with the camera he told how they had all the evidence they needed and began tapping on a small device in his hand. "Then our job here is done?" Haruhi asked, but just then Hotwire began glancing around the storage again.

"What do you mean he's here?" At that moment Haruhi payed attention to her sense of hearing and smelling, but as soon as she noticed the scent of someone else near by, she was pushed down by Hotwire. She sat up quickly, after being pushed down and noticed Hotwires arm. "Your bleeding!" She said concerned and now on alert.
Haruhi peeked over the wall to the direction of where the shot came from. She caught sight of the man and noticed him reloading his rifle. "I've got him." Having the opportunity she dived out and began running towards the man. She heard the clink of the gun and dove for cover again.

Hotwire sat against the wall for cover. He put some pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding. The wound wouldn't be fatal, but unfortunately, that meant it hurt like all get out. "I'll be fine." Hotwire said. "It's not as bad as it looks. Go get him." He said through pained breaths.

He left the rest up to her. The police would be there any minute. If she could at least hold him off for that long... then they'd be safe.

Haruhi, hearing the clunk of the gun as it was getting ready to aim and fire again, she jumped out from behind the storage corner and lunged forward in the direction off the man. She weaved from left to right, not staying in one as to avoid being shot. Haruhi knew that with her speed it would be difficult for the murder to aim.
Haruhi leaped up onto the building on which the man was perched, at that same second he dropped the rifle and pulled out a small hand gun for better aiming. But it was already to late, Haruhi was upon him and delivered a roundhouse kick and kicked the small hand gun from his grip and delivered a second kick to his chest, knocking the man flat on his back. She then walked up to him as he scurried to get up and run, but it was useless at this point. Haruhi  grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him down, sitting his rump on the roof. "Just sit still, the cops will be here any second." She said as she had heard them approaching, entering the storage units with sirens and lights blaring.

Hotwire leaned against the wall. A couple officers, in securing the perimeter had stumbled on him and radioed for an medical assistance. The officers began running up the stairs, and made it to the location Haruhi and the man were at. Holding their guns at the ready, the man surrendered with a grumble. One of the officers, holstering his weapon turned to Haruhi.

"Don't worry about the titan. We've gotten to him safely." He said motioning to the ground below, where the officers were helping to keep Hotwire from entering shock. Not that this was hard. His nanobots were already helping to numb the pain.

Haruhi saluted the cops after they had arrived and took the murder off her hands. She jumped off the building and ran back to the storage unit where the investigation had taken place to check up on Hotwire. She saw a medic crouched down by him, cleaning up his wound.
Haruhi slowly walked up to him, "hey.... you okay?" she asked as she crouched down beside him. "..Thank you, by the way." she said before looking down, if only she had noticed the sniper before, if only she had been paying attention.

Hotwire looked up at Haruhi. "I'll be fine. I've taken worse." He said trying to downplay it. As soon as he was back in the tower, he'd see if Kale had any voodoo-hoodoo whatever to help him heal. One of the few things magic is good for...

"Eh, don't worry about it." Hotwire said. "I'm still here aren't I?" He said with a slightly pained smile.

"For a couple of rookies, you two did good." Agent Carnell walked up to the two young heroes. Haruhi turned around to face the agent and stood up. "With only one, minor causality." She said, looking at Hotwires arm.  "But otherwise great job you two, and nice teamwork." She said with a smile before reaching out to shake their hands.

"Well thanks" Hotwire said smiling about to reach out when he realized the hand he was about to hold out was in tremendous pain as the arm it was attached to was currently being treated for a pretty nasty gunshot wound. Man... it must have clipped a vein or something...

Hotwire unclipped his communicator and spoke into it. "Sarns Street Slayer has just been apprehended. Mission accomplished." He said with a smile.