Aura moved down the crowded Sidewalk. She still hated crowd's even if few people would have ever realized it was her. She went into none of the store fronts though she stopped for a few minutes outside a clothing store. She was amazed at how much she had changed. Shaking her head she moved back into the pull of the crowd and took the first alleyway she could to get out of it.

Aura took a few random turns not really looking where she was going. She was for once happy she saw no one who looked like they might try and start anything, just the occasional homeless man, who usually ran away when they saw the flicker of her power. She was trying hard not to kill anyone in the daylight, as it might break her cover.

It was then she heard the click behind her of a cocked gun and a man who threatened to rob her. It did not last Long, Aura drover her elbow into the man' stomach a pink blade appearing from the end of it. While she had no idea if she killed the man, she heard the gun fall to the ground. She quickly made her away away from the scene not wnating to be associated with it. She had enough blood on her hand's after all to drown the city.

"For the last time NO!" Clay grumbled as he slid back under his car. The sounds of banging and scraping restarted in an effort to drown out the protests of the crowed of people filling the small car park.

Their leader, a small homeless man with a thick beard and overly ambitious nose, his clothes still covered in the damp snow and ice that had killed him fairly growled at the skeletons lack of compliance. He stuck his upper half into the car and through the bottom his face obscuring the part Clay was attempting to fix. "When you settled in this city you told all of us that you would help us when needed in, exchange for us helping you when you ask."

Clay ignored the face and worked through it. "A fair arrangement."

"And one you are not living up too!"

The skeleton wheeled back out into the open. He stood thrust and oily gloved finger at the ghost. He spoke angrily. "Speak for yourself Robert. I do everything I can for you people, more than I necessarily have too and you all know it!" He glared around the small crowed of ghost with his eyeless gaze.

"And yet you will not help us with this!" Robert glared right back at the detective. "This would not just help us few ghosts find peace Clayton Stark! This would help the living too as you know well."

Clays shoulders slumped inside the dirty overalls he wore. He pulled out a rag and began wiping the oil off his gloves. "Do I look like a SWAT team Rob? Do you not think that if I could I would help you all? I know my limits and this is one of them."

Robert sighed and nodded. "Clay, all that we ask is for you to make the attempt. Even that would help a few of them gain a measure of peace. Come. I have something to show you, it will help you make up your mind."

Clay gathered his tools and walked away from his half fixed car. He watched as all the ghosts but Rob drifted away, apparently satisfied. "Let me get dressed first then."

---

An hour later Clay was once more dressed in a tailored suit and wide brimmed fedora, skull hidden behind sunglasses and scarf. He looked down at the corpse in the alleyway half obscured by shadow and litter. The detective took in the scene before speaking only half to himself. "He was stabbed over there." Clay pointed to a trail of blood drops a few feet away in the middle of the alleyway. "He staggered back and fell where he is now, the shadows and the wind hid his body from a casual glance down here. Gun over there, police issue, he dropped it when he was stabbed." The skeleton knelt and with a long gloved finger carefully pulled aside the mans jacket. "Single stab, severed the aorta so he died within a few seconds. Not enough time to use his phone and the surprise probably prevented him from yelling for help. Not that he could have been saved, even if a doctor was standing next to him when he was struck. No ghost. Well at least he moved on to were ever he was meant to go. That's something at least."

"He was an undercover cop." Robert said as he puffed on a ghostly cigarette. "Recognized her and got overly ambitious I guess. Killed him as soon as she heard the cocking of his gun. Poor kid didn't even get a chance to speak. She didn't even look back apparently."

"It was defiantly her?" Asked Clay as he picked up the gun and checked to see if it had been fired and then placed it back where it had been.

"The ghost of Cathy Price saw the whole thing. Do you see now? Do you see why we want you to do this?"

Clay pulled out his phone switched the sim card and called in the murder into the NYPD then switched it back. He didn't need to spend the night being questioned about the murder of the poor young man. The skeleton nodded to his ghostly friend before disappearing up a fire escape. Hunting the woman calling herself Aura.

An hour later Aura had abandoned her earlier discretion. She had tried to ignore it but killing the man had been a release. She considered briefly that she should have checked the body to see if he had been one them, visually anyway. Still their was little she could do about it now, Police might have found the body already and that was more then she wanted for the night. Police deaths attracted way to much attention, more so if one had time to use his radio.

Aura found her target, not that it was hard. She even knew the guy from anti-Mutant groups during the riots. More then that Aura knew how to hunt. He was a minor thug really ir never occurred to him to be afraid of the rushsishing Teenager. Aura never turned on her power, until she moment's away. Aura's fist encased itself a rapidly spinning drill, The uppercut that trailed it connected with the man's jaw and kept going.

Her Aura was all that kept her clean, the Man's head exploded in a mess Aura was sure would require heavy therapy for the cop's who found it. The rest of the Alleyway was a crime scene. She smiled it had felt good to let loose, to simply let herself go, But human without M put up littile fight, gun or not. Looking back down at the corpse, Aura formed a dagger like blade around her fist and kicked the man a number of time's trying to make it look less like her MO. Surrounded by her Aura it would have been hard for anyone not to recognize her.

One of the best things about being dead was the fact that no matter how far and how fast you run you never get tired, weighing only a fraction of a normal man only helped. All this meant when Clay started running he could reach some really impressive speeds. In front of him ghosts appeared, silently pointing which way he needed to go before fading away again as he passed. Each one was different, indicating the number of ghosts helping him tonight was a lot high than normal. The skeleton didn't need to wonder why. Aura had killed a lot of people.

Clay jumped high, landing on a windowsill for a fraction of a second before leaping straight up onto a fire escape heading to the rooftops. The skeleton ran across the roof scaling impossible gaps between buildings almost effortlessly, landing lightly hardly missing a step. Robert reappeared floating next to him matching his speed without even running, drinking heavily from the ghost of a bottle of whiskey. The dead homeless man burped messily and wiped his mouth with a hand blue with cold. "You armed?" The skeleton jumped over a heating unit, landed without missing a step and nodded. "Good your gonna need it. She just killed someone else." Clay glanced over at that. "No I don't know who. And he didn't become a ghost either so I cant ask. Hurry it up Clay."

The skeleton jumped down, stretched out a hand to catch a fire escape and swung himself down. He landed on top of a dumpster with a loud crash and thump. The skeleton straightened looking around and then lightly stepped off the dumpster and onto the ally floor. The body lay in the middle of the ally, a bloody mess of blood, flesh and shattered bone. The blood was everywhere over all the walls, the floor, the dumpster and everything else. It pooled around the victim thick and still leaking. Clay moved forward knowing he was contaminating the evidence but at the moment not caring. He was covered in stab wounds but they leaked sluggishly so a few were probably postmortem. The death wound was obviously whatever had taken most of his head off. Disgusting but he'd seen worse cleaning up after the Nazi's.

"She enjoys this." Clay mused as he crouched pulled aside the guys jacket trying find an ID. He glanced at what remained of the head. "Worryingly inventive." Something caught his eye, and he pulled up the mans sleeve. An anti-Mutant tattoo was sliced in half by one of her blades. "Well at least its not another cop..." He stood, checking his gloves for blood. His shoes were ruined, covered in blood and evidence, that was slightly annoying.

Clay looked around scanning the ally, he wasn't that far behind now, so which way did she go...?

Aura was less then fifty feet from the Skeleton when she heard something loud coming from the direction she has left just minutes before. She froze listening to the wall trying to hear who it might have been/ Oddly their was no scream or cry for the police. She also did not hear a radio that police carried with them. Whoever had found the mess had the stomach of a champion or performed such act's themselves.

Her ears could not pick up on the skeletons footsteps do to their light nature. Half wondering if it were a cat or something else, Aura moved to a wooden door that looked like it had seen better day's. The battered boarded up storefront, had once been a diner, they had refused to pay protection money and So Aura had eliminated the issue. That had been a year ago and no one had moved in since.

Relaxing and starting to believe more and more the sound she had heard was nothing to worry about, she decided to keep on the side of caution and stay hidden. Her foot print's left a clear trail through the large amount of dust that covered almost every surface of the old place. SHe let her Aura fade other then a thin pale outline around her body. Well she was mostly sure she had nothing to worry about, she knew it only took one good shot to kill even her without her aura.

Walking over to a wall she flipped the power switch which after a few seconds of flickering came to life, though the light was hardly enough to light up the entire space. Satisfied the light would not be seen past threw the wooden door and the boarded up window's Aura's took a seat, pulling a pepsi from her bag and slicing off the top of the bottle just below the cap.

Clay finished wiping the blood from his shoes with a handy rag. They were still ruined but at least he wasn't leaving bloody footprints everywhere he went anymore. He stood and gathered his bearings looking back at the dead body and then back down the ally. The ghost of a young man at the end pointing, giving Clay the direction he needed to go. The skeleton hesitated before going on looking back at the body leaking all over the ally floor. He should call it in like he had the undercover cop. But he was close and he didn't want to scare her off if they came in sirens blazing.

Clay moved down the ally at a light jog. He passed the ghost of the young man heading down the street in the direction he indicated. The skeleton glanced around and saw the ghost of a woman standing, silently looking at a boarded up door. Clay drew level and the ghost glanced at the skeleton before drifting through the door and out of sight. Clay looked at the door, it had been boarded up for a while but had recently been opened. He pushed it open slightly before slipping in and closing it behind him. There wasn't much light but he could see the footprints in the dust. The skeletons head tilted to an angle that meant he was grinning.

Empty eye sockets took in what appeared to be an abandoned diner. The footprints lead around a corner into a dining area where a dull light was on. Clay slowly and carefully moved forward, he crouched and glanced into the room. And almost fell over in shock.

Clay had expected Aura to have a few ghosts surrounding her. Not everyone who died made a ghost. He'd met a soldier who'd had three hanging around. But Aura... There were hundreds of them crowding the little dining area. From all walks of life, all ages. All of them swirling around the young woman in a vortex of swirling grey ghostly energy's. Their details were ill-defined blending into each other. That was why those that had directed him here had been so quiet. There were so many of them they had blended into a single mass of emotions and energy. And Aura sat drinking a pepsi oblivious of the swirling tornado of death that surrounded her. That always surrounded her.

His head lowered his hat shadowing his skull as he attempted to gather his calm. He stood and unwound the scarf that covered his jaw and tipped his hat back. Skull fully exposed he moved forward and stood in the doorway leaning against the frame in a nonchalant way. He dug into a pocket and pulled out a black business card. He flicked it across the room, it spun and landed on Aura's table. "Hello Miss Aura. How has your evening been?"

SHe looked up from her drink and as she did she noticed something flicked toward her, as it landed and spun Aura reacted instantly. Her Aura flared to life around her ans her fist came down at the card even as a thin pink Aura blade emerged from the bottum of her hand impaling the card and the Table. Aura did not like being surprised by anyone and people she did not know was worse. However she visibly relaxed a bit at the appearance of her guest.

"Quite well and your own my new friend? " she said causally even as her eyes looked over the mutant before her. Where many might have been revolted or disturbed by the skeleton before her, Aura was fascinated. She wondered if he could die though she imagined he could be stopped if she needed to.

"Either your a mutant or the goddess of death has a strange sense of humor" she said shaking her head. "SO why are you here? You know who i am and unless your a moron you know what i can do. Im guessing you wither need something from me or wish to capture me" she said sipping her drink her voice remaining calm, despite her own considerations of a possible ambush.