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Post by Temporal Paladin on Feb 20, 2020 18:13:02 GMT -5
The rock blasted through the shop front window, exploding into razor shards as it impacted with the floor inside, a figure encased in solid rock steps through the broken window to give the rest of the crew a safe way inside. The familiar yellow baseball caps and brown shirts denoting this group as a bunch of Bricks from the Outcasts, their leader dropping the rocky armour as he cheered triumphantly.
"ALRIIIIGHT! No playing around, grab as much as you can to make Landslide happy. Anyone who doesn't pull their weight knows what happens. This goes double for you.."
He pointed past the others to a taller firey haired woman who had stepped in casually, looking around the store she grumbled and spat before stepping down and pushing through the group, her gaze resting on the back room rather than the tech that was on display in the front.
"I thought this was meant to be a big score? Don't tell me, you saw a cape flying around, pissed yourself and now we're picking through scraps? No wonder people think you're a fucking joke."
The room bristled and the remaining gang members seemed to shy backwards, the Lead Break scowled towards the woman though she never once bothered looking back at him. Tension hung heavy in the air before suddenly she charged towards the back room door, radioactive rock and material growing on her arm as she shoulder checked the door with impressive force and sent it flying off the hinges. The rest of the group froze for a moment before their boss barked orders to carry on looting, leaving Ana to work alone in the back by herself. She was used to the way things worked around here by now, she fell in with one group of Bricks and worked with them for a while before tempers finally flared and she usually put the other guy in hospital. Now here she was taking orders from some wannabe who wasn't even getting his hands dirty like the rest. For the moment she put all that to the back of her mind, finding the safe hidden behind some panneling in the office. Dusting her hands off she grabbed at both the top of the safe and the door itself and began to tense. The changes shot through her body, muscles bulking up and her stare growing more intense as she clenched her teeth and tore the door off and cast it aside. Pickings looked good, plenty of money, enough to leave her hands free while she grabbed one or two things from out front on the way out.
Then she heard a cry and more shattering of glass, stepping out of the back room the place was empty and she saw the rest of 'her gang' running up the street, though many of them didn't seem to be carrying much. Ana let out a sigh as she held her hand out a handle of radioactive rock started to form in her hand, then the head of a wicked mallet formed. Hefting it over one shoulder like it was a toy she made her way out of the front of the shop, gazing around before looking up she rolled her eyes as one of the seemingly endless supply of the city's capes floated there flamboyantly in the air. Ana took her eyes off the figure for a moment and shouted down the street to the fleeing Outcasts.
"OH YOU MOTHERFUCKERS BETTER KEEP RUNNING! ONCE I'M DONE HERE YOU'RE ALL.."
She flew back through the window as energy impacted her chest, the familiar crack of a broken rib gave her a sense of focus, she jumped back to her feet and dusted herself off. The rib would have to wait, it'll fix itself as long as she could keep her powers charged, just had to make sure she didn't burn off too much fighting this cape. The figure in question loomed in the window and fired another barrage of pure energy at her. It struck again but this time Ana used her hammer to keep her upright and steady, slamming it down behind her and pushing off of it to run full tilt at the hero. The hammer broke away into inert shards as she lept over the counter and threw a haymaker with a fist wrapped in the same radioactive rock, a damn good hit it was too as both of them fell to the floor. Though perhaps it was a bit too early to be celebrating, the other figure was up quicker than she was and the last thing Ana saw was a pair of glowing fists that came down upon her head.
------------------------------------
Ana sighed and sat staring out the window in her small studio apartment in the row. The view wasn't even that great and she could swear she saw a couple skulls doing some dealing in the alley below her, but now wasn't the time. She'd been drinking and worst of all she'd been thinking, thinking about the past and how a chance encounter led her here. Thinking about how for the first time in a long time she could truely say she was actually happy, thinking about..
She threw her jacket back on as she stood at the window, reaching into a pocket as she pulled out a small slip of paper. Looking down at the scrawled number she started to write a text on her cell. She felt like a stupid teenager doing it, but honestly up until recently she'd gotten pretty used to playing it stupid.
Hey it's me, u still up?
Collapsing back on the bed she grumbled a little to herself and looked around the room, this place was a mess, she never realised it until this moment. Was it always this way and she just didn't care? Thinking about it that seemed like a fairly good answer as to how her life had been going in general, things had changed now though and they were making her care.
Ana still wasn't certain if she liked that idea or not..
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Post by British Steel on Feb 20, 2020 19:21:29 GMT -5
Kait was laying in her bed cuddling. She was content, and happy. Her life was good. Not only did she have someone she loved dearly, but she also had close friends and her brother. Yes, life was definitely good.
She grabbed her phone when it vibrated. She grabbed it off the bedside table, then looked at the other person laying in her bed. She was still asleep. The phone hadn't awakened her.
"For my best friend? Always. What's up?"
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Post by Temporal Paladin on Feb 20, 2020 19:55:59 GMT -5
(Warning: Strong feels and violence)
The soft buzz of her cell phone on the bed caused her to shift a little, a look of genuine surprise on her face as she checked the time and scratched her head. Of course she was going to respond to the message, why did Ana think any differently, that's what friends do after all. She sat up as she opened the message and started to type a response, then she froze. She deleted the message and started to type again when the same sense came over her and she stopped once more. Taking a deep breath she downed the last of the beer that was sitting on the cabinet beside her bed, it tasted stale and it did nothing for her in the moment. She got up and started pacing with the phone in her hands, going through the process of typing out and deleting it all again as she sighed, why was this so difficult? Everything she's done before now and -this- was what made her on edge?
Answer her..
ANSWER HER..
ANSWERHERANSWERHERANSWERHER
ANSWER HER YOU GODDAMN..
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"FREAK!"
The rock caught her in the head by surprise, the young girl fought back the tears and rubbed her head, a sudden rush of crimson pouring out from beneath her hairline as she nervously clutched her tail with her other hand. The group of teenagers laughed and jeered at her, she couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 and had the displeasure of being born different in an impovrished part of the city. Sniffling and drying her eyes while she sat there, she looked around for a way out or a way to defend herself. More rocks came her way but at least this time she was ready to duck and hide behind a set of stairs. This orphanage was a rough place to grow up for the best of people, Ana was far from the best here.
"Hah look.. The freaky demon girl is gonna cry. That's why you're here isn't it, cause your parents hated having a freak!"
The advanced towards her slowly, laughing as one reached out for her to grab her by the shoulders. She twisted and kicked like an animal backed into a corner, swinging uselessly at them until something snapped and there was a sudden rush through her form.
Show them your strength
She let out an anguished scream and a sudden wave of force radiated from her. Her fists were covered in some strange stone like material and she swung with all her might towards the nearest..
--------
The phone hit the wall as Ana snapped back into the present, her eyes wide as she scrambled across the floor the pick up the pieces of the now shattered phone. A look of visible panic on her face now as she tried her hardest to piece the shattered pieces back together.
"Nonono.. NO.. FUCK.. Damnit.. What the hell is up with you."
She laid back against the wall and held her head in her hands, when did life become so confusing?
Nm, jst thinking bout things. jst wntd 2 say thx 4 bn a frnd
(Text speech kills me inside a little every time)
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Post by British Steel on Feb 20, 2020 20:20:44 GMT -5
Kait's phone buzzed again. She looked at the message and smiled. For a moment, just one brief moment she thought....if I were in the same situation as Finn, I'd want Ana to be the other person. Shaking off that thought, she typed another message, then frowned. Okay that didn't sound right. She typed again, then deleted the message.
*text* Of course! I'm always here for my friends. Of all the people in my life right now....Finn, Gwen, and you are the most important. i'm just glad I can be here for you. Everyone needs friends.
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Post by Temporal Paladin on Feb 21, 2020 5:44:41 GMT -5
A half hour had passed before Ana had moved, staring down at the shattered remnants of her phone she looked up at the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh.
"Great job, now she's going to think you're some sort of asshole. Way to be a good friend Ana."
She stood up slowly and took another look around the room, her eyes resting on a few easels propped up against one wall. It had been a while since she'd picked up a brush, longer still a spray can. Maybe if things had worked out differently she could have made it as an artist. She shook the thought from her mind and returned to the window, another beer in hand as she looked out into the alleyway.
Even during the early hours of the morning there was still life to be found on the backstreets of the row, though typically not the sorts of people your average citizens wanted to encounter.
Movement caught her eye, normally she wouldn't think much of it, but this hero gig was rubbing off on her now and she started to fumble with the old, rusted latch on the window.
"Come on man this is good stuff, ain't gonna find dyne like this anywhere else and I know how much you boys like this sorta stuff."
A couple Skulls and a Caliban, not exactly much to be concerned about. Deals weren't really uncommon around the row and the PPD had their hands full at the best of times. Some parts of the district were much harder to police due to gang presence, this was one of those neighbourhoods and the gangs knew it.
"Look either buy it or stop wasting my time. Plenty more fi.."
The dealer was cut short as from out of nowhere a powerful blow impacted his jaw and sent him reeling. His mask cracked from the blow as the others turned quickly, Ana stood there flexing her fist and rolling her shoulder.
"You boys really picked a bad night to be slinging in my neighborhood. I've had a pretty bad night, busting up this deal should make me feel better."
The Caliban wasted no time bull rushing Ana, lifting her up off the ground and trying to impact her into a wall. In response the woman twisted and drove her knee into the troll's gut, slamming a powerful uppercut that knocked the troll boss off his feet and left him doubled over clutching his chest and jaw.
During this time, one of the other skulls left standing had called in the rest of the crew who were keeping watch. As soon as the Caliban had been laid flat out they opened fire, a couple stray shots catching Ana off guard as she staggered back and let out a pained grunt. Alright, time to show these idiots you don't mess with a pissed off Cape.
She focused her energy forcing her body to accelerate the healing, pulling out the stray bullets and throwing them down to the ground. There were a few panicked cries as Ana leapt forward into the fray, a flurry of unleashed anger as fists flew and foes fell. As they fell one by one, she grabbed the final one by the collar and lifted him up the wall, her eyes exuding an air of menace behind the almost toxic smoke that seemed to just emanate from her form now.
"You. Go tell your boss or whoever the fuck thinks it's a good idea to dirty up my streets with your poison. Tell them you're not welcome here anymore, tell them I'm not going to stand for your shit. Most of all, tell them Gamma Crash is protecting this neighborhood and I'll put a stop to anything you try here."
She cast him down the alleyway with surprising strength, letting the witless goon escape while all his friends laid flat out and unconscious across the floor. Ana sank to her knees once the adrenaline left her, her breathing drew heavy as she felt her clothes hang off her now. Her mass waning as her reserves were near empty. She looked back up to the open window she dropped in from and with what little she had left, she threw herself up, tripping over the frame as she landed on her back in the room. A groan of pain as she rubbed the back of her head and let exhaustion claim her, the woman passing out on the floor as she grumbled.
"Really.. Took to this life.."
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Post by Temporal Paladin on Mar 6, 2020 18:41:31 GMT -5
A few weeks passed, Ana had been doing better and things had been going well for her. Ever since the night helping out at Lyrick's for feeding the homeless and generally trying to keep trouble to a minimum she'd found a sense of peace almost about everything. Even starting to endeavour to work towards projects of her own to help and enrich the lives of others around her. The most important thing had been finding closure and understanding about her life and why she was set down the path she was on now. Whoever was responsible had gone out of the way to make sure that Ana had no idea about them or who they were and it was gnawing away at her now. She'd pulled a couple strings and got some advice from people close to her. Now she stood there in her apartment looking through the reports of her arrest log. Her eyes scanning across it as she could feel a barely contained rage bubbling to the surface. She tried to regulate her breathing, tried calming herself down and tried to think of things that would take her mind off the maddening rage that was brewing.
She failed..
"This is BULLSHIT!"
The papers hit the wall, followed by a sudden impact fromher fist that left a hole in the plasterboard, her body shaking as she pulled her fist from the wall and drove it back into the wall once more.
"Is this someone's idea of a FUCKING JOKE!? IT'S ALL WRONG! EVERYTHING!"
She kicked her bed, sending it reeling across the floor and slamming into another wall as she grabbed the papers and looked down at them once more, nothing was right about the arrest log. She shuffled the papers and looked over them all again, according to the logs she was arrested by an Officer Morano at a warehouse in Talos Island for graffiti and vandalism. A normal officer would have likely been eating food through a tube if they'd tried to arrest her and vandalism? She'd been in trouble for it when she was younger, but she knew the log was from a smash and grab in Steel Canyon. She knew that it was no cop that had arrested her but a hero, she had the cracked ribs to prove it. Her rage started to subside as her already shoddy looking apartment now looked like a full on fight had broken out in here. Ana brushed her hair back and sighed, slumping down on the floor as she cursed herself. If the others saw her now, what would they think of her? She still had a bad temper and was prone to violence when losing her cool, the sort of thing that could cost her everything at this point.
Collecting her thoughts and letting her head cool she picked up her phone and dialed a number, waiting for a reply on the other end.
"Ciaran? It's Ana.. No just shut up and listen to me here it's important.. I need you to find out about a guy meant to be a PPD officer.. Samuel Morano.. I don't care how you get the information just get it to me, you owe me for all the trouble I've kept out of your bar. Yeah I'll be by later to grab the details from you. See ya."
She put the phone down and picked up her things, hearing a commotion out in the hall, likely from her little tantrum. Ana opened the window and leapt out of it, taking a look over the papers for the location of the warehouse. You could just see the statue of Talos in the back left, maybe that would help her find the place.
-----
She leapt from the streets into the docklands of Talos Island below, landing on one of the rooftops heavy and stumbling. She rolled a little and grumbled as she dusted herself off, capes always made this stuff look easy. Ana checked the photo one last time then pulled up her camera as she hopped off the rooftop and moved around the dockside warehouses slowly. This started to feel like someone was playing a game with her, Ana didn't particularly like the idea of being manipulated into doing all of this but she'd come too far now to just let this die. She stopped, gazing up at the warehouse in front of her she looked to her left, sure enough there stood Talos in his eternal watch over this part of the city. The curious part was the fact that the warehouse wasn't occupied by normal dock workers going about their business. The place looked a little more run down than the picture would suggest, and the 'additions' on the doors, walls and windows were recent. Strips of metal plating and rebar welded together haphazardly, wicked looking spikes and jagged sections.
"Fuck.. Guess I'm walking into a freak base now huh?"
The phone rang, causing Ana to quickly move away from the location before she was given away. Ciaran's number, he must have pulled some strings and come through quickly for her.
"Looks like you can move your ass after all, what have you.. Wait what? Council Archon?.. You're sure about that?... No one else in the city?.. No it's fine, just someone is sending me on a really fucking weird treasure hunt.. Thanks Ciaran, I promise I'll get you something nice for this."
She put the phone away and leapt up to a rooftop to survey the location some more. She sighed quietly and looked to her communicator, this was eating away at her but perhaps it was more than what she could do by herself.
"This is Ana.. ID Gamma Crash, anyone out there looking to help me with an investigation. Meet me back at base, we've got a lot to go over."
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Post by British Steel on Mar 6, 2020 19:07:25 GMT -5
Kait pressed a hand to her ear and listened. She thumbed the talk button on her radio.
"Patroller Leveque, Kaitlin M. Codename: Miss Inferno. I'm on my way. I'll meet you at the base." She pulled out her cellphone and shot off a text to her brother.
*Finn, get to the base. Something's going down.*
She shoved her phone back into a hidden pocket, then leaped into the air and took flight heading toward the base.
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Post by Scarlet Storm on Mar 7, 2020 22:44:29 GMT -5
Finn jumped as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He slipped out of the restaurant to check his messages. Upon seeing the one from Kait, he frowned. He stuck his head inside and said, "Lyr, I gotta go. Something's up." The tiger-girl kissed him goodbye before he took off, heading for the Dawn Patrol base. He didn't even stop to change clothes. Kait wouldn't have been so curt if it wasn't important.
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Post by Temporal Paladin on Mar 9, 2020 10:39:31 GMT -5
(This AE arc will be running tomorrow and spans the course of 5 missions, 1 with no enemies and just investigations. The arc is built to tell a story through clues that will typically consolidate after a mission, Ana will not be joining you in character as she features in the arc so I'll bring another character. Feedback on this mission would be wholely appreciated, but please make sure to read the mission through the navigation link when you run it to get the full story, the souvenir from this also pushes the upper limit of what you can put for an AE souvenir so that kinda tells you how wordy this can be in places)
Ana was pacing back and forth in the lounge, she held the papers in her hand, now mixed up and crumpled as she'd clearly been less than light with handling them. As people started to filter in she threw the papers down on one of the tables nearby as she took a prime position in the middle of the room.
"Everything I know about who I am and was? Complete bullshit according to these papers. But I know my own damn mind and I'm not crazy, so I think someone's leaving me one hell of a paper trail to follow.."
She paused for a moment as if giving people a moment to catch up with her before she launched back into her rant, still seemingly quite irritated about the whole situation as she kept pacing.
"So I have a friend who's done some digging for me.. The officer who arrested me? Never existed, well not as an officer of the law. Archon of a Council though? Abso-fucking-lutely. And where I was arrested? That's a freakshow hangout, anyone starting to see a problem with this report? This is why I called people here.. It's not easy to say this but I need help. I've too many leads to follow by myself and I don't know what's going to go on if I chase up one lead and leave the other. So.. I'm going after this Council Archon, I have a pretty good lead of him but I need someone else to check out this warehouse for me. There's a lot of freaks in there so be ready to cause a fight. I need something, ANYTHING that can point me towards who the hell is wanting me to jump through hoops. If we can get a name I've got another lead we can go with. There's this family fixer and information broker who owns a repair shop and garage in Independence Port. He's been in the game for years so if we know who is doing this, we can press him for information and see if that gives us anything more to go off."
Ana took a deep breath as she tried to calm herself, she noticed that she was exuding a minorly toxic aura, a literal one as she kept her distance from the group. Focusing again she regained her control and clenched her fist.
"I don't know where this is going to lead or what we're going to find. All I know is that I'm going the distance on this one and it doesn't matter who gets in my way. I AM going to find the truth to all this."
Ana passed out a note with the written address of the Freakshow hideout, seeming to be on the docklands in Talos Island. She also handed out her personal number as well as keeping the group up to date with her communication channels.
"Good hunting, you find anything.. You let me know."
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