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It is, all things considered, a very nice drawing room. Portraits adorn the walls and the heavy drapes are open to let starlight from the moonless night through. There's a table far too small for the large room with a pot of tea, a set of tea cups and an arrangement of cookies and fruit. Two oaken doors are firmly closed to one side, and to the other a single door is slightly ajar, the sound of sobbing coming from past it. Every once in a while it's possible to hear a page being turned in the other room as well. The drawing room on its own is silent, save for the ticking of a grandfather clock and then, with no prelude, an exclamation.
Haru meets a regency superhero Lucien
stage-manager
A bright white light shining from a second story window of a three story townhouse catches Lucette's attention from two blocks away.
"That's a signal torch, which means someone there thinks they need help."
stage-manager
"Unfortunately no - but mostly likely it's because of empowered villains, since commoners are often too scared to light such a signal in less dire circumstances."
Closer to the building he can see a young terrified woman holding the signal torch up to the window.
No smoke, the window is closed (and too small to fit a person easily), and the door to building is unlocked if he checks.
Yep, then he can hear a man laughing, followed by them saying something unintelligible to someone else, followed by a woman whimpering.
He will find himself in a reasonably well decorated common space, not as nice as Lucette's, where a man with blue flames licking at his skin and hair is standing over a young woman with torn clothing. The man is smiling, while what might be his friend is standing nearby, inspecting his fingernails, seemingly bored. Two other women huddle in a corner, while a fourth is facedown, unmoving.
stage-manager
She could go through the wall, but orange doesn't indicate an emergency that would justify that, so it's down through the front door and up to the second floor, where she's on the flaming empowered before he has time to react, clapping her hands over his ears and sending a shockwave through him in the process, knocking him out.
The other, empowered on the other hand, has time to react, irises expanding to fill his eyes, followed soon after by his pupils, followed by his irises blossoming once again from the center of the inky blackness, repeating.
"How about instead of harassing my friend, you join our fun," he suggests, staring at the hero with his strange eyes.
stage-manager
Lucette takes a step toward him before collapsing forward, holding herself off the ground with both arms and breathing heavily.
