#0 - A Comet in the Dark

Wesker continued to reply and explain their list, for Le Infante had turned his back on Jack to look out of his massive windows. "A number of these surfaced recently, Terrapin being one of them. He was thought to have retired after his gang was disbanded by the Sept, but new activity from him suggests otherwise. His former team, Aces, had been employed by Diavolo before. We want to establish whether he has returned to continue his association. From there we can either trace the connection, perhaps to Warp, or possibly back to Diavolo, assess if he is a threat, and either have him reconsider his options, or make him reconsider. Think of this as your first assignment."

Wesker arched his eyebrow at Jack's comment about equipping himself. "I think you should demonstrate your own initiative and foresight in this matter."

Wesker had left Jack with a location of where Terrapin was last seen. From Wesker's brief update, the Aces were a second-rate nova team who had worked with Duca Diavolo once or twice in the past. The team had distintegrated following their utter defeat at the hands of the Super Sept, with the lone surviving member, Terrapin, vanishing into their hideout, Murder Mountain. This was where Wesker had directed Jack to investigate. For if Diavolo were plotting a new scheme against Le Infante, it was conceivable that he might be tapping on novas who had worked for him before in the past.

Taking his leave from Wesker, and reaching the ground floor of the Tarocchi, Jack once again felt the unease he had experienced earlier when he entered the building. The day crowd before him was still abuzz, with people heading to the casino, or to the various restaurants and stores in the adjoining mall, or milling about the exhibition hall. There was no way to pinpoint the cause of the unease as far as Jack could tell, unless he wanted to stay and investigate.

Jack knew how to get to Murder Mountain, an abandoned amusement park on the outskirts of Capitol City, further upstate. It was a main attraction years ago as a brand new park known as Mystery Mountain, but it ran into disrepute after a major incident and was largely forgotten ever since. It wouldn't take him very long to get there in the air.

Comet's flight upstate was uneventful. He had headed straight up for cloud cover so that he could properly stretch his wings, something he hadn't had much chance to do. In the air, he had time to review some of the things Wesker had described regarding Diavolo. Duca Lucio Diavolo was a descendant of a long line of Italian noblemen, and inherited a vast fortune. He became one of of the most influential figures in the Mafia, a international crime syndicate operating out of southern Europe, as head of one of the crime families. His dealings in America had clashed time and again with that of Le Infante; there was no love lost between the two powerful figures. It was not surprising that Le Infante concluded that the attack on Withers originated from Diavolo's orders, although the hows and whys remain unanswered. This was where Jack came into play.

Jack could make out the shape of Murder Mountain from his vantage point as he soared down back to ground level, and that's when the rest of the amusement park came into view. Most of the rides still stood in their original place, all looking worse for wear, none of them likely to pass any safety inspections were the park ever to resume operation. As he began to descend, he saw something that caught his attention. An aerial battle! There appeared to be what he could only assume were three airborne novas, two of whom were locked in a stuggle: a man resembling Terrapin flying while being engulfed by what could only be described as a mass of living water. Near to them was an larger-than-life eagle, screeching in its approach as it appeared to be waiting for its moment to strike.

What do you do?