“Here’s the file of everything I was able to get from my contact.” Bryan passes me a manilla folder as I sit on the couch in his living room. Opening it, there’s several security cam photos of a man holding up various stores. A document underneath the pictures details the reports of a man having robbed several toy stores, only taking toys instead of money, and at several locations he shot workers who didn’t comply. The weird part is that he shot them with a foam dart gun and everyone who was hit by it has been in a deep coma ever since.

“What the hell is going on with this?” I peer at the words with a cocked brow. I cycle through report after report trying to make heads or tails of what they say.

Bryan opens up a laptop and connects it to his TV to display a video that looks remarkably like the images I’m holding. “Well, somebody’s been going around robbing toy stores around Brooklyn and Manhattan. He’s only been taking toys instead of cash, but the police have been monitoring several resale sites and nothing has come up there. The weirdest part is what happens when the clerks find out his gun is a toy though. Watch this.”

Bryan hits play and the security footage starts. A man dressed in all black with a ski mask runs inside of the store. He points a large plastic gun at the cashiers and starts yelling at them to go get him a series of very specific toys. The initial panic of the employees is quickly dispelled when they see the oversized orange weapon. One clerk tries to keep him calm and promises to go get what the robber wants. In the meantime, one of the other employees sneaks around and tries to tackle him. The robber responds quickly, expertly throwing the guy onto the ground and pulls the trigger on his gun. A foam dart pegs the employee in the head and he instantly goes limp.

The robber drops the body and then moves into the store and sweeps out the rest of the employees and moves them back to the front. He sends the one person who’d attempted to listen to him to get the toys he wanted. Once she hands the stack of boxes to him, the robber runs out of the store.

“Wow. That was really weird.” I lean forward and put my elbows on my knees and hold my head up, rubbing my face with confusion. “What even happened?”

Bryan sits back in his chair with a sigh. “We have no clue right now. The stores are random, the toys are random, the only thing is that they’re mostly ‘boys toys.’ According to my man on the inside, they don’t know how he’s inducing the comas either. They’ve tested the darts and the affected victims and there are no signs of trauma, toxins, poinsons… Nothing. There is no motive, no real weapon, they’re dead in the water on this.” Bryan scratches his head. “And there’s one more thing to worry about…”

I narrow my eyes and look at Bryan with concern. “And that is…?”

He lets out a large breath and smacks his mouth. “Supposedly, a new task force is getting built. CIA, FBI, NSA, whatever the hell acronym you want, they’re here or on their way. You, the guy you took out earlier, this guy possibly, and a few other minor stories are all getting out and the government is forming an anti-super task force.”

My eyes open wide as I snap up straight. “Well… I guess I should’ve expected that…” I shake my head and cover my face. Slapping my knees, I nod my head. “One problem at a time. Can you replay that video?”

Bryan shrugs and hits the spacebar to begin the playback. We go back through one more time, this time I try to watch very carefully to see what could be happening. When it ends the second time, I scratch my chin and take a long pause to think it all over. “Whatcha thinkin’, Sherlock?”

I chuckle and readjust myself on the couch. “Well, he’s clearly a cop or some kind of soldier. The way he held the gun, cleared the store, took down that employee, everything he did was done with perfect precision. But there’s something else that bothered me…” I bite my lip and furrow my brow. “The way he’s talking, it sounds almost like-”

“A whiny kid.” A voice from behind me interrupts my thought with almost exactly what I was going to say. Turning around, Lance is leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed, looking at the TV. “He sounds like a kid yelling at his mom for the newest toy… Or in this case, yelling at the clerks for the newest toys.”

I turn myself around and point to Lance. “Exactly! I’ve never seen it quite to this degree, but he’s regressed to the point of being a child again. It may have been an effect of his powers but he’s clearly thinking like a kid. There was probably a recent trauma that kicked the whole thing off. Given his skills and this mental shutdown probably being caused by other traumatic experiences: he’s mostly likely a soldier who probably lost a family member or a partner.”

I stand up and walk around the couch. “If i had to guess, his power is based around how he perceives the gun. He knows guns kill people and he knows when people are dead, they stop moving. He shoots the employees and to him they’re ‘dead’ which just means paralyzed.” I grab my bag, pull out my costume, and start to pull it on. “If we can find him and stop him to tell him that he didn’t actually hurt anyone, they’ll probably wake up. Plus I wanna get to him before the cops do to make sure they don’t make things worse.”

Zipping up the hoodie, I point to Bryan. “Bryan, you’re on figuring out potential suspects.” I move my finger to Lance, “I want you on figuring out where this guy’s next target could be and get me there. I’m gonna hit the roof and start moving. Let’s try to catch this guy tonight!” I’m out the door before either can respond to me, but the ringing of my phone gives me my answer. “Alright boys, let’s get to work.”

I pull up my hood and let my armor harden around me. Time to catch a criminal.