As the transaction is finalized and all purchases besides the phones themselves are bagged, Jonathan has set about filling his contact list with the information from the impromptu supervillain social circle symposium last night. Unfortunately, his super-speed doesn't do him much good with most technology as the majority of devices can only accept so many inputs at any given moment.

For the rest of that time period, apart from finalizing payment, Lucas is busy giving Willy a photo shoot, trying to decide on wallpaper for his phone.

In the end, the victorious photo is a shot of Willy sprawled out on his back with his legs up in the air. He's curled into a C shape, he has the pseudo-Josephine resting on his stomach, the imitation Mind Flare across his chest, the artificial Black Ash Snow sideways between his teeth, and last but not least; his tongue is lolling out of the side of his tilted mouth.

After the transaction is over and the last round of empty pleasantries is exchanged, Lucas claims the bag and loops it over his left wrist, heading to the glass door to continue with their day.

Willy arranges his chew toys so he can carry all three at once and proceeds to do so, then pads over to exit the door that Lucas is holding open for him.

Jonathan nods a farewell to the service bot and with a short blur, he's suddenly outside, next to Willy on the sidewalk. He holds up the supervillain digit index and gives Lucas a questioning look with one eyebrow raised, receiving an affirmative hum in response. With his question vaguely answered, he tucks it into an inner pocket of his suit jacket.

Lucas finally steps out as well, scanning the nearby area with far more attentiveness than normal. Focused on the scattered bird droppings and one lone gray feather, he loses object permanence on the door the moment he no longer has physical contact with it.

'Guess their work here was done. I almost wish they continued hanging out, then maybe I could convince myself it was a coincidence.'

[I would think you would be much more concerned with what is currently happening on the other side of the street.]

'Eh?'

Now that 427 has directed his attention, he looks between the gaps in the passing traffic and manages to catch a glimpse of the headless corpse. At least, what is still left of it.

A filthy street dog had managed to get hold of one of the arms and dragged it to the entrance of a nearby alley, enjoying the freshest meat it has had within the last few days. The trail of blood from the corpse over to his breakfast isn't exclusively from the human, a few bleeding peck marks are visible on the scrappy dog's body.

The rest of the man's body is in a half-eaten state, and is still actively being torn to shreds by a murder of crows, an apt term indeed.

A few feet away is a raven that Lucas is familiar with, perched on the left cheek of the severed head. It's currently in the midst of savoring the delicacy which is the last of the late man's brains.

'Oh... Oh my god. That is so much worse in person than some animal corpse in a documentary on TV. I think I'm gonna be sick...'

While most pedestrians have made an effort to take the long way around to avoid the scene, the few that merely circle around the edge are scolded with quite a few squawks of warning whenever a crow or two feels that someone has come too close to their buffet.

One man, in particular, is focused on his phone call and steps very close to one of the corpse's feet, earning him a dive bomb attack from three of the crows that scream at him the whole time. A few pecks in, the phone gets knocked out of his hand and falls to the sidewalk, cheerfully giving a live demonstration of what happens when you don't protect it with a nanogel case.

Angrily cursing the whole time, he covers his face with one arm and crouches down to grab his phone with the other. As the territorial onslaught continues, he receives several bloody peck marks, much like the street dog is covered in.

At least the store is nearby for him to get a replacement. Apparently, crows are good for business.

One of the crows that stayed at the corpse can't stop coveting the still uneaten right eyeball, starting to hop over with the intent of stealing it. It gets shooed off with a loud squawk that bears so much authority that even Lucas is intimidated all the way across the roadway.

As Lucas forces himself to look away, he chokes back a repulsed gag.

Curious as to what made Lucas react like that, Jonathan and Willy both look over at the grisly spectacle on the far sidewalk. Jonathan blanches a bit and looks away as well, though he is coping far better than Lucas currently is. Willy gives a lingering look for a few seconds, then lets out a whine and rubs up against Lucas's leg with the side of his head.

[...Not even 24 hours ago he probably would have been excited to see the potential meal.]

427's observation only worsens Lucas's situation, causing him to dry heave once.

'Dude! It's bad enough knowing I did that to him, but that's too fucking disgusting to watch. Fuck, now that I'm aware of it I can hear it sometimes too. Guhhh...'

Lucas chokes back another wave of retching, swallows a mouthful of bile-flavored saliva, then starts walking down the sidewalk away from the murder-covered murder scene.

"Any... Urk... Anyway. We should hurry up and get to the DVO already." As Lucas states the next agenda on their itinerary, he starts power-walking away from the evidence of his blunder. He doesn't even bother checking if it's the right direction with 427, he's just fleeing the scene at random.

Jonathan opens his mouth, about to say something, but decides against it and quietly follows after Lucas, with Willy at his side.

[Lucas.]

'Eh, what? I'm kinda mad at you right now.'

[..? Even if you didn't like seeing it, you should have been aware, especially since your raven friend was there. Anyway, you're going in the completely wrong direction. I'll give you a route that doesn't go past the feast in progress at least.]

'...Okay.'

Three left turns later, they're finally properly en route to their next objective. Jonathan tactfully stays quiet about the path they're taking, it was an easy guess as to how it was started and how he's gone about correcting himself.

After a few blocks, Lucas slows down from his power-walk into a more normal pace. Now Jonathan no longer has to keep alternating between walking slowly with his power active and hustling a bit at normal speeds thanks to the difference in their strides due to height. Given the majority of his heritage, Willy is just happily trotting along the whole time.

Traveling several blocks more, just as Lucas is starting to feel a bit tired, a particularly large building with a very wide footprint comes into view, squatting between two skyscrapers.

There are three major entrances, each with a stone portico bearing a large sign above it. Following an order relative to the trio's current position from across the street; the leftmost entrance's sign is for "Department of Villainous Organizations", the central one is marked "Municipal Clerk's Administrative Center" and the rightmost one is labeled "International Identification Integration Incentive Local Office".

'I.I.I.I. What the fuck kind of name is that?'

[...The common parlance is I-four. It's where they handle anything regarding your ID chip, whether it needs information updates, gets damaged, or... Lost.]

As Lucas criticizes I4's name, Willy makes a muffled bark up at him to get his attention.

Following Willy's success in receiving said attention, he sits down on the ground and noses at his right hind leg, poking where there is a scar over a small chunk of the leg that is missing. When he's sure that Lucas noticed what he's pointing at, he then lifts his head and aims his nose over at the I4 entrance.

"Eh, you want to go to I4? Wait... Did you used to have a chip and... Now you don't?" As Lucas tentatively asks this, he gets one muffled bark in answer.

Jonathan crouches down to get a closer look at the scar that he hadn't paid too much attention to previously, his expression thoughtful. Looking closely at the scar for a few moments, he then looks at Willy's snoot, then back and forth a few more times.

Lucas has his own thoughtful look, though it is less productive than Jonathan's.

"Did you... Did you ch-chew it out?" As Jonathan finally asks in order to clarify his guess, he gets a muffled bark in return.

Both Lucas and Jonathan suck in a sharp breath as they imagine the event and how painful it must have been. And unsanitary.

[Well, that pretty much confirms that he most likely escaped from a lab. Whether he had the powers naturally and was being examined, or if they were artificially created, maybe Black Ash Snow can translate for us.]

"...I guess you want a different ID this time." As Lucas makes the easy guess, he gets a single muffled bark that is accompanied by a wagging tail.

-----

Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 7

Lucas deaths this chapter: 0

Lucas total deaths: 10

Lucas current GDV: 8.8 (+.01 +.01 = +.02 net change)

Lucas's fame level: 2.5* (Mostly just local)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

Jonathan kills this chapter: 0

Jonathan total kills: 5

Jonathan deaths this chapter: 0

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 1.92 (+.01 net change)

Jonathan's fame level: 1.75* (Just local)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan is fixated on how horribly unsanitary it must have been when Willy chewed a piece of his own leg off to get the chip out.

Willy is just happily wagging his tail while looking up at Lucas, expectantly.

Lucas is fixated on how fucking painful it must be to chew off a chunk of yourself, and how desperate poor Willy must have been to do so.

427 is calculating the probability of Willy being artificially powered vs bred into developing superpowers in something that could maybe be considered natural growth.

Author, musing out loud: When a dog has a more tragic backstory than the MC, in a sense...

Mr. Quacks, a mighty being beyond feeble human understanding, even with super intelligence: Quack!