A person stepped out onto the paved street, hands glowing with unrestrained power.

Around them the cityscape gleamed; in the distance held several white towers spiraling up into the hazy smog of pollution, and looping flying objects surrounded the spires. The glow from city lights and holograms made the air bright, brighter than the night should ever be.

The person had a hood up over their face, covering their eyes and shadowing their movements. The jut of their lips was blanketed in the pale pink light extending from their palms, and from their collar peeked the silver symbol of a teardrop.

“You!”

The person turned to see a man with a badge and a weapon pointed at their heart.

“Stop right there! Do you have a license for public power usage-”

The person flicked a wrist, and water from the smooth pavement jerked up and wrapped around the man, tossing him into someone’s unfortunate pool with slick and practiced ease.

The resulting splash was familiar. People always drowned the same way, the person thought, watching the thrashing and the blurry outline of a man through the water. Gurgling, begging, gasping— pleading for air but lungs receiving only water, chlorine down your windpipe and slowly dripping into your body, blood diluting and eyes going blank.

The man, face down in the water and now not making a single sound or movement, drifted with the slight back and forth of bleached water; mouth open and face down towards carefully polished tiles. 

---

“This certainly is a curious case, Nahya,” said a man dressed in a heavy white coat. In his hand held a tablet, displaying holograms that illuminated the dark summer air with a faint blue glow. Under the shining glass skyscrapers and the smoke clouded sky, a man and a woman in identical uniforms stood around a pool fenced off with holographic lines.

“Not too curious regarding current events, Florence,” returned Nahya. “I think it’s rather obvious what happened here— same killer, same method.” Nahya flicked her glasses up her nose, the dark lenses reflecting the light from the holograms over her sharp irises.

Florence paused before speaking again. “A water powered user, then-”

“That’s not for certain, Florence.”

“Right.” Florence bit his lip, hands fiddling idly with the protective case of the tablet he was holding. “Then a drowning.”

Nahya eyed the slowly paling and stiff corpse in the middle of the water. “That much is obvious.”

“Right,” Florence repeated. “Then- well, I-” He fumbled for words. What were you supposed to get from this scene?
“Do I really need to tell you what the issue is here?” Nahya hissed, her dark glasses falling slightly with her movements. “Obviously there’s a body. Obviously they’ve been drowned, the observer powered ones already said so. And obviously you’re ignoring what’s not obvious.”

“Right,” Florence said slowly, yet again. “Well… we don’t know the killer.”

“That’s also obvious, Florence.”

“Uh, yes.” Florence said, fiddling with his tablet with a newfound ferocity. “But we know that the drowning- or, I mean- well, it’s forced, right? If the victim wasn’t held down… then he would have crawled out. He’s an officer, he should know how to swim.”

“Correct, Florence.” Nahya said, finally taking off her glasses. “So, because there were no footprints leading out of the pool – and knowing we got on the scene not even a minute after the supposed muder – we can assume that the killer does have a water power of sorts.”

Florence sputtered, almost dropping his tablet. The holograms flickered for a second before he straightened himself. “That’s— that’s literally what I said, Nahya! And that was pretty obvious anyways, which is why I said it!”

“I know,” Nahya replied, nonchalant. She slid her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose, crossing her arms. “I was trying to get you to think.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Florence grumbled, turning back to his tablet and playing with the holograms. 

Nahya hummed, stepped forwards with heels clicking on the concrete, and idly lifted a hand to her teardrop shaped necklace, observing the still body with a gaze that revealed nothing.

After a moment of silence, Florence put his tablet away and sighed, long and loud. “What’s thinking gonna do if what’s obvious is already all I need?”

Nahya smiled, sly and slow, the ends of her lips curling up as she bent over the pool and let the water lap at her fingers.