Vigilantes are Wronguns, but this one's okay

When all is revealed

WARNING- This chapter is lowkey fucked up, so if you cannot handle any of the following, please be careful with how you proceed!
This chapter includes; a graphic murder scene, blood, injury, vomit, graphic depictions of injuries, unconsciousness, really fucked up shit when it comes to our main bad guy, but if I explain it here it'll be spoilers.

Be cautious, if you need to skip certain parts feel free, if you need to skip the chapter that's fine as well! Be safe out there!

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The three heroes, Corvus, Specter, and The Blood God, gazed solemnly at the crime scene, barely holding back their breakfast from escaping their stomachs, the scene before them almost causing them to lose it.

Behind them stood a team of officers and civilians, in a similar state of horror.

The crime scene?

A well known and loved vigilante, one that has saved people a thousand times before, lay dead before them in the middle of a dirty alleyway.

Blood splattered across the walls, like a gorish mural, and painted onto the dirty bricks, a simple smiley face and a couple words, 'you thought you had caught me?'

The vigilante was none other than someone who went by Calico. Their cat ears and tail were shorn off, only bloodied stumps remaining.

It seemed they were killed with an axe, three hits, straight to the chest. Then their hybrid features were cut off and taken away.

Their body was laid perfectly in the centre of the alleyway, arms crossed over their chest, feet placed perfectly together, an odd and disgusting mechanism fastened to their face to force their lifeless lips into a smile.

The heroes had been able to keep the killer's news on the downlow, small mentions of it here and there barely slipping past their fingers and into the knowledge of the public. They thought they could take care of it quickly. Quietly.

Smiles used to just grab random people off the street, killing them before they had a chance to scream. But there was always, always, one thing the victims had in common.

Hybrid features.

Every victim only had stubs left of what used to be shows of their genealogy. Wings, horns, animalistic ears, pointed ears, tails, hooves, talons, claws; anything that wasn't human was stolen.

They wanted to keep it quiet. The idea of someone killing hybrids for their traits was a thought too horrific to endure.

But today, Smiles proved that they wanted to be seen. And seen they were, camera crews already crowding behind heroes and pushing against the officers and yellow tape that barricaded the alleyway. Begging heroes for answers to their reporting questions.

"Guess there's no hiding it anymore..." Techno muttered weakly, only his family hearing him speak so softly he might as well not have spoken at all.

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Tubbo didn't understand why the news cast suddenly swarmed out the building. They were all about punctuality and performance, but someone got a call and before he could blink, the entire crew had practically sprinted out the building, packing their equipment in record time, squeezing everything onto the elevators and speeding off down the road in multiple vans, the sounds of helicopters taking flight around the same time.

No one took the time to address them, to apologize, absolutely nothing! Tubbo even tried to ask someone what was going on, but they shrugged him off and ran for the stairs, leaving the two boys completely clueless to what was going on.