Chapter 1A: Stealth

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

At the sound of the equipment case hitting the flooring, Josh dashes into the back room, narrowly missing colliding with Tobias. The tableau presented is a shocking one.

Josh feels sick when looking at the charred remains of Magneto. “Oh my god…” Who would have done that? Everyone… and no one. A lot of people at the Institute would probably say they’d take a shot at Magneto if they had the chance, but when it came down to things most of them wouldn’t be able to go through with it. Myself included. Josh had no urge to kill anyone anytime soon - even if it was their enemy. He was too soft-hearted. Especially in what looks like cold blood, wow.

At the same time, Magneto no longer being an issue kind of made him feel safer. It wasn’t as if he expected Mags to show up on their doorstep and start slaughtering students… but it wasn’t too far off. In life, he was rather unpredictable. But… who killed him? Someone who could kill Magneto without dying themselves is dangerous.

“Any idea on how long he’s been here?” He begins to look around the room, careful not to disturb anything.

[Ororo Munroe]

The students gathering around the corpse somehow puts Ororo into action. After picking up the case from the ground, she moves over to the counter and sets it down, opening it up.

“This is pretty gruesome, guys. If anyone wants to wait outside, feel more than welcome to.” Ororo pulls a pair of gloves out of a compartment and puts them on. She spreads out a few tools and a small dish on the kitchen table, and begins looking closely at the remains of Erik Lehnsherr.

At Josh’s raised eyebrow she explains. “We’re assuming this is Magneto, but really, if he wanted to drop off the radar, this would be the perfect way to do so. The only way to confirm this is his body is a DNA sample. Which I’m trying to collect.” It seemed easier said than done - the man had been (presumably) burned to death, and DNA broke apart at high temperatures.

After a few moments, she’s successful at poking around some of the less charred portions, and closes the container. “As soon as we get back to the Institute, I want you and Hank to check if we have Magneto’s genetic profile on record. For now, we’ll have to assume that it’s actually him.” Josh nods at her request.

"Has anyone found anything else of interest?" Ororo glances around at the remains of the room.

[N.P.C]

Inside the bathroom, the medicine cabinet opens with no explosion, no traps, nothing spectacular at all… just like a medicine cabinet. (Of course, that’s probably what it wants you to think.) Inside, the source of the rattling is quickly identified as a standard prescription pill bottle… it must have fallen over when the cabinet door was closed, or something. The bottle itself is empty; the label reads “Dr. Albert Weinstein – Digitalis – Eric Smith – 3/14/07”

In the kitchen, Josh’s visual inspection reveals mostly negative evidence… no signs of struggle, no signs of anything disturbing the layer of ash around the room, no signs of arsonists hiding behind the burned-out refrigerator.

Finding relatively unburned tissue doesn’t turn out to be too difficult… while the metallic uniform did little to insulate flesh from heat, the affected tissue appears to be mostly skin and subcutaneous muscle, leaving plenty of mostly-intact flesh below the surface to scrape at.

(( OOC: Gonna close out this thread now; rejoin in the main “Discovery” thread as the Brotherhood walks into the lobby? Don’t want the Xmen hogging all the investigating, after all. ))