Murdered in the Coldest Blood (Open)

Grace had saved up her money for a month to be able to buy a bike. Finally, she was able to get around Jump City without taking the bus. For the last few days, Grace had actually felt a little bit happy. The bike had definitely been a worthy investment.

And then somebody stole it.

Grace stared at the void where her bike had once been locked to the library bike rack. The lock around her front tire had simply been snipped with a bolt cutter. Now some idiot was off to pawn her most prized possession for a day's worth of drug money. And just like that, Grace hated this town.

Technically, Jump City still had less crime than Steel City. Here the crime was usually just more grandiose. Meta-humans came to Jump City to make a show, to battle the Teen Titans, to try to take over the world (or destroy it), or to turn half the citizens into rabbits for a day. However, it seemed that petty crimes still existed here, and it had ruined Grace's day. It had ruined her entire month.

The girl grumbled as she walked, carrying her library books that were getting heavier and heavier. Maybe she could get a backpack for Pirate and make him carry them for her, but maybe that would just get stolen, too. The doberman walked beside her, and seemed to show some sort of empathy for her pain. Either that, or Grace was just projecting it.

She walked through an alleyway. This was definitely not the part of town she wanted to be in, but without a bike this was the fastest way back to the motel.

"Hey there, Cutie, where are you off to?" Grace tried to ignore the man, but he started walking beside her. "You got some books? You don't need books. I'll teach you everything you need to know."

Grace turned to face the man, murder in her eyes. "Pirate, kill." The doberman was too happy to obey. If jumped at the man and bit at his neck. To the dog's surprise, his teeth could not penetrate the man's skin. He had enhanced durability, to the point where a bullet could barely hurt him. The dog's teeth stood no chance.

The man shoved Pirate into a brick wall, and he glared at Grace. "That wasn't very nice. I was just saying hello." He walked closer and put a hand on her shoulder. "You should be nicer to people. Just having a dog doesn't make you invincible, but being invincible does." The man laughed. "I'll just have to teach you some manners, little girl."

Grace glared back at him. This man had hurt Pirate, and would hurt her too unless she did something. "Get away from me." She focused her power on the man's hand, and it froze in an instant. The man let out a cry of surprise, and tried to move his hand in vain. He managed to get his hand off of Grace's shoulder and started hitting it with his other hand, trying to break the ice off. The fool didn't understand that his arm wasn't encased with ice. His arm was ice.

With another punch, the man shattered his brittle, frozen hand. He let out a cry of disbelief and fear. There was no pain, as his nerves were still frozen, but pain could be psychological.

Grace wrapped her arms around the man's torso, and focused on freezing him as fast as she could. His stomach and chest froze, and then the ice spread to his arms and legs. His head was the last thing to be covered, and he stayed conscious long enough to hear Grace's words.

"Be removed from my sight." She punched his gut, and the frozen man was shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. He was, without a doubt, dead. There was no liquid blood. It was all still in little frozen crystals. In an hour or so, though, Grace knew the little shards of flesh, blood, and bone would instantly thaw, leaving an unsavory mess.

Pirate was already back on his feet. Hurting and limping, but he would be fine after a couple of days. He limped over to Grace and she petted him. "It's alright, Pirate. The bad guy's gone. Mommy will protect you."

Hotwire was on the trail of a metahuman with increased durability. He had committed some small crimes, and hotwire's networking had finally placed him in this area. He was staking out from the top of a building. As soon as he saw the man beginning to advance on the girl with a dog, he swung into action. He dropped down to street level by using his grappling hook, but was then treated to a grisly sight.

He was in pieces. Not huge gory pieces mind you, but little, fractal pieces. He made his way across the street, his arm lighting like a strange blue christmas tree. The traffic lights at his intersection complied to make sure he could safely cross.

"Don't make any sudden movements. Keep away from the frozen remains, and explain yourself."

Somebody Grace hadn't been aware of showed up and ordered her to explain herself. Uh oh. Grace turned around to see...Hotwire. Yes, that was his superhero name, at least. She had seen him on the news. She didn't know that his arms could glow, nor did she know what that meant, but it couldn't be good. She knew he had some sort of techie-gizmo power, but she didn't know the specifics.

Had he seen the whole thing? If he had, then he knew that Grace had just killed this man. Although, if he had seen the whole thing, then he knew that this guy deserved it. What should she do? Hotwire had been around for a while, apparently, fighting hardened criminals and aliens. Grace couldn't beat that...or could she? She had just taken down a self-proclaimed 'invincible' thug. Strength and power meant nothing when you were a pile of ice cubes.

But Grace didn't want to get shot.

"I...I don't know what happened," Grace said, trying to look and sound confused and lost. "This man kept harassing me, and then he hit my dog, and then...I don't know, I tried to hit him back, and he turned into ice. And then he...exploded." Grace hoped that she had been convincing. She was no actress, but how hard could it be to look like an idiot who couldn't control her own powers? Even legends like Terra had been unable to control their powers at one point. Hopefully, Hotwire would think Grace was just a confused teen who had recently become aware of her powers, which was mostly true. She had only learned about her powers this week.

"Do...do you think I did this?" Grace looked at her hands, feigning shock. "I can freeze things?"

A girl who couldn't control her cryogenic abilities. It wasn't unheard of. Heck, it was the plot of that whole movie "Frosted". Hotwire's arms began to return to normal.

"It would appear so." He said, using his wrist communicator to dial 911. He then bent over the remains of the man and began a scan. "So this has never happened before?" He asked. So far, all hotwire had seen was the dog defending her owner against an attacker. Perfectly fine. And if this was accidental... well it was all up to whatever legal system Tiberious had in place.

"No, never," Grace said. It was half-true. She had frozen things before, and she had killed, but she had never killed anybody with her power.

Hotwire dialed something into his communicator. Grace could only assume he was calling the police or more Titans. This was bad. She wouldn't be able to keep her story straight if she ended up getting interrogated. She tried to look panicked as best she could. Christal was really much better at this.

"I...I can't be here. I don't want to go to jail. I don't want them to experiment on me because I have powers." Come to think of it, hadn't Hotwire been on the news as one of those 'unregistered' vigilantes? That meant he was a rebel or something, right? If that was true, then he probably wasn't in a rush to meet with California's own team of ninjas that enforced HIVE law.

"They've been disappearing. Everyone who gets powers gets taken away by these ninjas so HIVE can torture them." Grace was making all of this up, throwing in a little inspiration from recent political events and the plot of a movie she had watched the night before. She wasn't even sure if what she was saying would make any sense, but maybe it didn't have to. If she looked distressed enough, then maybe Hotwire would actually help her escape, instead of hindering her. She looked at him with desperate eyes. "Please, get me out of here."