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 Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:12 pm
Fracture/ˈfrak(t)SHər/noun: fracture
1. the cracking or breaking of a hard object or material.
"bone density testing can predict the risk for fracture"
synonyms:breaking, breakage, cracking, fragmentation, splintering, rupture
"the risk of vertebral fracture"
• a crack or break in a hard object or material, typically a bone or a body of rock.
plural noun: fractures
"a fracture of the left leg"
synonyms: crack, split, fissure, crevice, break, rupture, breach, rift, cleft, c***k, interstice; crazing
"tiny fractures in the rock"
• the physical appearance of a freshly broken rock or mineral, especially as regards the shape of the surface formed.
2. PHONETICS
the replacement of a simple vowel by a diphthong owing to the influence of a following sound, typically a consonant.
• a diphthong substituted by a fracture.
verb
verb: fracture; 3rd person present: fractures; past tense: fractured; past participle: fractured; gerund or present participle: fracturing
1. break or cause to break.
"the stone has fractured"
synonyms: break, crack, shatter, splinter, split, rupture; informalbust
"the glass fractured"
• sustain a fracture of (a bone).
"she suffered a fractured skull"
synonyms: broken, cracked, splintered, shattered, ruptured
"he's laid up with a fractured collarbone"
• (with reference to an organization or other abstract thing) split or fragment so as to no longer function or exist.
"the movement had fractured without his leadership"
• (of speech or a language) broken.
adjective: fractured
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Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:09 pm
  Isabella walked the halls of the Tower aimlessly, letting her curiosity guide her versus the map that was built into her communicator. Graham, the base psychologist that Superman had sent to aid and evaluate her as needed, walked not far behind. He admired the way she found wonder in every little thing. She wasn’t quite as naïve as the Atlantean, Lola, but there was something about her that seemed rare. It was more than just her gifts or her disability. She spent almost as much time watching sunsets as most people did watching television. The petite brunette never said a word, but her smile was easily worth a thousand. Her eyes were huge and greener than anything he’d ever seen.
This was not the worst assignment he’d ever had.
Graham paused when his ward stared at a door curiously and he chuckled when he realized that she didn’t know how to open it. The indoor solarium required proper authorization. It wasn’t for the faint of heart. “Hang on Bells…”, he took her wrist and brought it up to the scanner so that it would let her pass. His heart skipped unintentionally when she glanced towards him, gratitude woven into the glimmering halls of her eyes. No, definitely not the worst assignment. He allowed the dark haired beauty the freedom of moving around on her own and took a seat on a bench near the door. When, and if, she wanted to talk…She knew where to find him.
The sound user wandered into the vaulted room slowly, biting softly on her lower lip as she spun in a small circle. A quick glance back at Graham told her that it was okay to look around and she didn’t waste any time. It was amazing. Someone had thoughtfully crossed a comfortable solarium and a green house. There were plants she’d never thought existed. Colors that she hadn’t found anywhere else in the Tower. She smiled and took small unhurried steps, unsure of what she should examine first. Until Deacon came to find her for a training session her time was her own.
Jade orbs caught sight of a large red flower and she went toward it unthinking. The inside was the color of blood, deep and pure. If it wasn’t planted in the ground she would have thought it to be fake. Gentle fingers reached for it, just to see of the petals were as soft as they looked, but she didn’t expect thorns the size of dinner forks to pop out of it. Startled she drew her hand back and held it to her chest, a small laceration marring her palm.
It wasn’t bad enough that she wanted to give Graham cause for alarm, but a few droplets did splash against the floor. The Siren winced as she closed her hand to keep from making a mess and held it close, taking a lesson from her first experiment. Look, but don’t touch. There were trees with low hanging purple flowers blooming, and a little pond with orange lily pads not far away. 'Look, but don’t touch.'
She walked further down the clearly marked pathway and found a seat on the edge of a marble fountain. There were several glass fixtures that filled with water every now and then, all different colors, shapes, and sizes. A little concentration allowed her to bring a soft tone from it, essentially causing the glass to sing. Children did it by running their finger around the edges of expensive glasses at weddings. The way she caused the noise to propagate was a simple longitudinal sound wave. Her ability seemed so gentle, when used this way, at least.
So long as she didn’t speak.
The quiet woman pulled a haunting lullaby from the fountain, head swaying just slightly in time with the tune. Light spilled through the clear windows, refracting off of crystals that hung from low hanging tree boughs. This was such a serene place in all of the chaos of the WatchTower. It surprised her that more League members didn’t pass through. Perhaps they didn’t know it was here either. She thought she’d thoroughly examined every nook and cranny with Lola in their free time but honestly… They spent so much time for fighting and training. Missing a small door at the end of an otherwise boring hallway wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Her usually dark hair seemed to hold an almost reddish tint in the sunlit area, the pale pink of her sundress taking on faint hues of blue from the water. It was clear that she dressed more comfortably than some of the women in the Tower. She forwent armor for a pair of ballet flats. The dress she wore stopped a few modest inches above the knee, fitting, and accented with bits of retro eyelet lace around the hem. Sheer cap sleeves and a lowered back would have revealed the edges of a tattoo, were in not for silken waves of hair that kept it secret. A sweetheart neckline led the eye to a rather intricate looking metallic necklace. It seemed gaudier than something such a dainty creature might choose, suggesting that she hadn’t picked it out herself.
At first glance, she didn’t seem real. The Tower was full of harsh things and menacing warriors…But she wasn’t like all the others. Her memories were all but gone. She didn’t bear the scars of war and defending peace. She knew her name, knew who she was, knew right from wrong… But she couldn’t remember anything that mattered. Friends and family were lost to her. Faceless, nameless people. Did they know she was missing? Did she even have anyone to miss her?
Her expression grew pensive, a little saddened. Batgirl and Nightwing had given her a safe place to call home. Now, the Watchtower was her home. She shouldn’t be so wistful for people that had never come looking for her.
Still, her heart ached. The soft pain expressed itself from the glass in the fountain. The song that she pulled from it was nearly enough to make the hardest and coldest of men weep. Isabella couldn’t speak. Couldn’t cry. Little insignificant things like this was really all she had.
At least she was following Deacon’s directions. He’d been very keen on her learning to control the intensity of her ability. She was a sound manipulator. In essence, it involved manipulating vibrational forces that few else were aware of. Combining this and glass was usually a disaster. It was a good sign that nothing had cracked or exploded. So far.
“Bells…Are you okay over there?”, Graham called from the front of the Solarium as he stood up. He’d lost sight of her when she turned the bend that led to the fountain. But song she played, like something from an old music box, made his chest hurt. He unconsciously rubbed the spot over his heart as his jaw clenched in order to swallow an unbidden emotional response. This was not a song that a happy twenty-something girl turned to on a beautiful afternoon. Despite her smiles and cheerful nature…He now understood that she was hurting. He wondered if she knew how much she let others feel. No doubt, if she knew that her sadness was spreading, she would stop immediately. “Isabella?”
He approached the fountain carefully, eyes pinned to the young woman, as he adjusted his collar. Graham couldn’t see her face but he knew she was upset. She’d seemed more melancholy than usual, but he’d attributed it to recent missions. The museum fiasco and subsequent raid had taken a lot out of all of them. He’d listened to her play many an instrument since meeting her. It seemed to be her favorite thing to do. But, he’d never heard anything like this, “You seem troubled.”
Isabella immediately felt regret for worrying Graham. Realizing that it was the song in the air she abruptly changed it to something a little sweeter, offering the soldier and psychologist an apologetic smile.
He laughed lightly at the change and shook his head. She was always trying to make someone else happy. “You didn’t have to do that… I was just checking in.”
His eyes drifted to the hand that she had in the fountain water and he noticed after a moment that the young woman was bleeding. “Belle, what happened?”, Graham immediately wracked his brain as to how she could have gotten hurt between the door and here. Kal-El would not be pleased if the girl was injured during a session, while supposedly safe, locked away in the Tower. She’d barely even had a scratch after the raid. s**t. How the Justice League expected such a gentle girl to be a superhero was beyond him. Just because she was a metahuman didn’t mean that she was suitable for field work. They’d have better luck sending a baby rabbit after their enemies. “Let me see.”
Bella shook her head, trying to convey that it was nothing. It would have been so much simpler if she trusted the necklace that rest heavily on her collar bone. Deacon was hopeful that it would let her control her ability better. He thought it would let her speak. ‘A flower bit me.’, she thought petulantly, willing him to understand. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and she lifted her hand from the water for her friend and doctor to inspect. He couldn’t be with her all the time because of his other duties…But she appreciated it when he was.
Graham had been the one to look after her before she’d been dropped off at the Tower. It had been an assigned duty…But she tried to make it as easy on him as possible. No outbursts, no running away. She sighed when he pulled the decoratively folded handkerchief from his breast pocket, face squinching a little as he put pressure on her palm and tied the cloth neatly around it.
“There. That should do for now, but stop by the infirmary later if you feel feverish.”, Graham instructed, patting the top of her hand. The plants in here were not all from Earth. Some had adverse reactions to them. It was strange, but the mysterious metahuman seemed to inspire a feeling of duty or loyalty to those that came to know her. Some of the other staff had mentioned it jokingly… But they weren’t wrong. He looked after the so called Siren as if she were family. Maybe sound wasn’t her only power. “Do you want to stay here a little while longer?”
She tilted her head back and forth for a second, thinking about it. After a moment she nodded her head in the affirmative. It was almost dinnertime in the cafeteria anyway. Graham would have to leave and she’d be terribly bored unless Lola came to find her. She loved the Atlantean girl to death. No one in the Tower was more amusing, or friendly.
Since her wound was bound up she rose up from the fountain, but continued to play songs from the glass. They were light, cheerful, for Graham’s benefit. He snickered at her while she started walking along the edge of the fountain, wavering to and fro as she forced a smooth pirouette. She’d found out while goofing off with Lola that she could dance as well. Many different kinds, in fact. Her muscles always seemed to remember things that she didn’t.
That was how she spent the next hour or so, wandering through the randomly dangerous foliage in the Solarium, and playing little songs from the fountain.
Graham kept a watchful eye, warning her away from any plants he knew not to be friendly. Usually the rule followed that the more beautiful it was, the more deadly. She was too curious for her own good. He worried for her. She had more power than she knew what to do with. He stood by his initial assessment. Isabella had a good heart. Yet, her ability needed to be trained or contained. The necklace that she wore was their last effort in containing her. Everything else, including dampeners, had failed. They became overwhelmed and ineffective almost immediately. It was worrisome…The results of a loss of control would be catastrophic. Her determination not to speak was admirable, sweet girl that she was, but it wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.
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Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:53 pm
 
【】Name: Deacon Richards, Just a regular joe right now
【】Location: Watchtower
【】Thoughts: Starting my "Training Day" on just the right foot!
It had been a few days since the raid, and he’d been working with Garrett on how to get the story right. Not spin it, he wanted things to be honest, but it was important that news coverage didn’t run on tangents. Covering the charity events, the assaults, the raid those were the important things. There was no sense in covering the fact that one of his own had been ‘spooked’ by a sonic trigger to go on a rampage at the soup kitchen. All the good that happened that night did not need to be marred by the one black mark of the night. The raid alone was a solid story, one filled with acts of heroism and a great example of police action. They made some significant arrests, nabbing some high level suspects and some very high end weapons and evidence from the docks. It was a damn good bust, to say the least.
No sense in letting a good thing go to waste.
Deacon went about flying throughout the city, it was an early morning ritual for him. It was a time for him to be away from it all, from the conference calls, the meetings, the business of it all that came with being a leader for a superhero team. He kept himself just above the skyline, no reason to wind through and about the city buildings. It wasn’t like a walk or a run on the streets, this was a way to separate himself from the earthly constraints and struggles that plagued him down below. With a broad smile he took in a deep breath as he glided along in the jetstream of the cityscape. He contemplated the things he planned to do that day, watching as the sun rose over the horizon before him. This high up things would be cold rather quick, but fortunately the suit he was provided was modified for temperature variables. Data stream showed that he was flying at 10,000 feet above sea level, air temperature around him was about 30 degrees lower than the surface. But right now he was flying along feeling as if he was back on the ground. Taking in one more sharp, deep breath of the crisp cool air, he decided to bring himself back down into the rat race, of it all.
His flight time came to a smooth end, though he chose to have a bit of fun with his descent. He chose to phase through the side of the Watchtower. He’d slipped quietly through the walls and other materials as he went to the next part of his series of daily rituals when not trying to save the day. The garden. Technically it was a solarium but with all the exotic plantlife, both terrestrial and beyond, he’d generally consider it a standard garden. He slipped through about 20 feet from the entrance, the sounds of an eerie song echoed through the entrance. He stood there for a moment, watching the League psychologist that had been assigned to Isabella, Graham. Nice guy, he’d gotten his personnel file to get an idea of him, and liked what he’d seen as far as his credentials went. He didn’t move the entire time, opting to be invisible as he watched the event unfold. He listened as the therapist helped Bella out with a cut she received from one of the plants.
Taking a moment to wait for her to walk away from the gentle watchdog, he phased back into the visual spectrum as he walked towards the entrance of the solarium.
“Graham, how’s everything?” he asked, his voice calm and collected. He noticed that he startled him.
“Oh- uh, hey Deacon.” he responded, his voice breaking a moment. “Things are good, Belle’s in there if you want to talk to her.”
“Exactly who I was looking for.” he answered, “How’s her hand?” he asked, the question causing Graham to feel a bit of surprise. He smirked for a moment, “Beauty of being a ghost, I can slip into a place without anyone, barring anyone with super hearing, able to hear it.”
With a clap of his hands he finished, “I’ll follow the melody.” and he walked inside, walking through the botanical site, hearing the music and following it like breadcrumbs. It took him a few minutes but he finally found Isabella as she pondered a flower that if he was not mistaken was a Thanagarian Black Orchid. A beautiful specimen, the result of cross breeding terrestrial orchids with Thanagarian botanicals. Things had changed quite a bit with Earth’s relationship with the winged aliens since his time. Instead of anger and disdain now humans were trading and crossing plant life together. How things changed so quickly between now and then.
“Orchis Quadripunctata Thanagar.” he opened, his voice soft and gentle. “You’ve got quite an eye for flowers Isabella.” looking at her hand, he continued, “Don’t let Graham spook you. The plants in here aren’t dangerous, other than the thorns of course.”
“I see you’re working on control of your abilities, that’s good. Great really. That song was very pleasant.” his voice ringed with sincerity, the kind of genuine sincerity that would be hard to miss, even without the ability to hear heartbeats from several football fields away.
“I want to take you out… he stopped for a second, realizing exactly how that sounded, “wow that came out wrong. I want to get some training with you, if that’s alright.” He stood there enjoying the sunlight as it poured into the room, and could not help but take note of Isabella in the light. Even from an objective standpoint, she was a remarkably beautiful woman. Her outfit was simple yet elegant, and perfect for the place they were in.
Hopefully he’d get over the sudden flush in his face to continue this conversation, and then get through training.
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Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:19 pm
Isabella knew that she wasn’t alone with Graham long before Deacon made his presence known. She was incredibly hard to sneak up on. It was difficult enough that Nightwing had actually created something to disguise his bio-rhythms to keep her from noticing when he was skulking in the shadows. She listened as her team leader and psychologist spoke from a distance and continued to walk along the stone edge of the fountain for a little while. She wobbled from time to time but managed to keep from falling in. Generally speaking… She felt bad for Graham. It had to be hard dealing with powered people all the time. Nightwing had always made it look so easy…But his skill in stealth and hand to hand were second to none. That being said…If Nightwing was that good… Batgirl was classified as terrifying.
Graham was human, like the Bat Family, but that was comparing apples and oranges. He had exceptional powers of observation and experience as a soldier but that wasn’t what led Isabella to trust him. He was kind. He listened, even when she had nothing to say. He might have been her doctor and occasional keeper but he was also her friend. He reminded her, despite her dreariest thoughts and fears, that she wasn’t actually alone. He cared. Even when he didn’t have to.
Isabella let Deacon find her when he was finished with Graham. She didn’t hide…But she also didn’t bother standing still. He’d discover her eventually. Emerald eyes remained on the flower that seemed entirely out of place among the bright colors and pastels of its neighbors. It was beautiful, that was a fact. But it was also out of place. Wrong. It made her keep a healthy distance. Deacon spoke the proper name of the onyx colored orchid and the sound user remained still. She could feel his eyes. Feel that he was trying to reach out to her. She knew that she could be hard to connect with.
The music playing from the glass in the fountain stopped abruptly. Her eyes closed as she focused and at first there were dozens of notes playing all at once. Loudly. It was cacophonous and discordant. There was nothing beautiful about it. A lesser man might have felt a little queasy from the dizzying sharp and low tones. Just as quickly as it happened it was over. Little by little the softest sound seemed to pull from the glass. It was gentle. Quiet. It seemed to form around itself before the tones grew in strength. It would soon become apparent that she was tired of communicating with a cell phone. She was using the unwitting musical elements in the garden to lend her a voice. ‘Graham…’, the name spun in the air, echoing off the vaulted ceilings, as unsettling and remarkable as an angelic whisper. It was broken. Fractured and fading in and out. ‘Graham doesn’t scare me. He keeps me safe.’
‘I am not afraid.’
Isabella had definitely been working on her abilities. It was shocking to her that they could be used for something other than destruction. She couldn’t keep this ghostly voice going for long. Not without running the risk of blowing out one of the glass pieces…But it was enough for now. Deacon complimented her song and a slight smile crossed cherry glossed lips. He was so sincere that it hurt. He wanted her to believe what he was saying above all else. She did, in a way. Superman had asked that she trust him. Have faith in him. Deacon didn’t make it easy—but it was easy to see that he needed someone in his corner. Isabella could do that. He needed help just as much as any of them.
She turned to look at Deacon for the first time when he misspoke of his intentions. Her cheeks took on a pink hue that was mostly invisible on tan skin. Her eyes turned toward the ground as she waited for the warmth and momentary embarrassment to fade. He explained it away easily enough and eventually emerald eyes lifted back toward his face. Her expression was conflicted. He couldn’t know that the offer of a date would have been preferable over a training session. She couldn’t always trust herself.
‘Are you sure that is wise?’
She frowned as her hands came together near her midsection. It was an anxious stance. What exactly did he have in mind? What kind of training? After the museum she didn’t even really want to throw a punch. It was scary day when her ability felt like the most reliable thing her life. The swiss cheese memories she had to go off of were mostly useless. She kept coming back to the same conclusion. Perhaps, she was better off not knowing who she was.
What if everything came back to her and she didn’t like the person she’d been? What if she’d hurt people?
That was actually a question she DID know the answer to. With the skill set she’d randomly recalled from nowhere…It seemed unlikely that she hadn’t hurt people. Why else would she know it? The new question she had was why. Why was she like this? Why had she done it?
She bit her lower lip gently. She didn’t want to turn Deacon away…But she didn’t want him putting himself in danger for her sake. She needed the help and aside from Graham he seemed to be the only one with perspective enough to recognize that she was a problem. A problem, that needed fixed. It was only a matter of time before she slipped up. She couldn’t let that happen.
Not again.
Eventually she acquiesced and they headed toward the exit. Graham was sitting on the bench again and smiled up at her when they passed. “Same time next week?, he questioned as he closed the notebook he’d been writing in.
Isabella nodded her head and reached out to touch his shoulder. He seemed to understand what she wasn’t saying and placed his hand on top of hers for a brief moment. Unease was written all over her. “You’ll be fine. Promise, Belle.”
"Take good care of her.", he finished off, glancing toward Deacon. He had every faith he would. She was just so internally fragile. Failure would make her recede into the shell he tried his hardest to coax her out of.
The sound user stuck her tongue out petulantly at Graham before she continued walking with Deacon. She wasn’t worried about herself. She was worried about Deacon. He seemed completely sure of himself…But Isabella still had reservations. It was only the reminder that Superman vouched for this young man that kept her from running in the other direction.
Sometime later found them stepping out of an armored League vehicle in busy Metropolis. It had been a fairly quiet drive while the auburn haired woman took in the sights. Isabella had picked up a light shawl to wrap around her arms and an equally small clutch after getting her hand looked at in the infirmary. It held a debit card, her ID, lipstick, and a slim cell phone. It was needed to effectively communicate with her teacher for the day. There were dozens of people walking along the white concrete pathways that led to an inner-city park.
They were all talking. Laughing. Walking dogs on hoverboards, shopping, stopping at the icecream vendor, and just generally enjoying the sunshine. Isabella could hear everything. Every word, every whisper, every breath, every blade of grass being bent in half when someone walked on it. Everything. She flinched a little bit when a child rode by them on a bicycle and rang the bell. It would take a moment for her to acclimate and isolate what she needed to hear versus every sound in the area pouring in against her will. Just like the Museum. The paparazzi had taken some getting used to.
She closed the door to the passenger side of the shiny black sedan and looked toward Deacon as she pulled out her phone to type a message. “What now? If this was a secret way to take me shopping I am all for it.”, the mechanical female voice came out of the speaker as she waited for her team leader to join her on the sidewalk.
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Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2017 8:38 pm
【】Name: Deacon Richards, Just a regular joe right now
【】Location: Watchtower
【】Thoughts: Taking a stroll
He knew he hadn’t caught Isabella by surprise when he went through the walls of the Tower. The woman could probably hear him coming in from a mile away. Hell she could probably hear bee sneeze from across the city. Hyperbole aside, he dismissed any attempts at getting the drop on the sound manipulator. Unless he figured out a way to stop moving on the atomic level, chances are he wasn’t going to ever do that with her. Though, and he thought about it, he had no reason to want to actually do that. She was a kind soul, even with the issues she was facing with her memory he had faith that those memories would reflect the woman he knew now. And with a guy like Graham around guiding her, she was in good hands. He had to give the psychologist some credit, he was walking into a volatile situation. Not just with the decided mute, but really the whole group of heroes each had their own various issues. And this turned the entire building into a massive tinder box, ready to burn at the strike of one very small match.
But he put those thoughts off to the back burner, focusing on the task at hand. He spoke with the soldier turned head shrink for a moment, catching him by surprise when he eavesdropped an earlier interaction between the two of them. Much as Bella was going to be able to notice that, he was more interested in seeing how Graham acted when he did not know he was being observed. It was a strange thing, the way people act when not being put under a level of scrutiny by a superior or a colleague. And based on just that snippet of time, he liked what he saw in the army head shrink. He had a candor about him that someone like Isabella needed. She needed someone that would act as a safeguard, a shield from the strains of this chaotic world that even he was having some difficulty adjusting to.
The music that she generated, a remarkably pleasant melody, was quickly cut short when he arrived near her. Perhaps it was part of whatever they altered his DNA with, but the sudden cut didn’t have much of an impact on him. He offered up the Latin name for the orchid that she was taking in, a remarkable example of how far things had come since his time. Years ago, the Thanagarians invaded Earth, planning to eliminate it for the purpose of building a interstellar passageway for a war they were caught up in. After the fight, things had been rather tense with, well most aliens that weren’t Superman. In the time he’d been frozen, apparently a group of separatist Thanagarians came to Earth as interstellar refugees. Seeking to flee the totalitarian regime that their people had succumbed to, they offered their technology, in particular their feats genetic engineering, in exchange for safe harbor on Earth. Following months of intense debate and discussion, the UN Security Council agreed to allow them residency on Earth. The nation of Thailand volunteered to host them, initially under UN peacekeepr supervision. Now, so many decades later, the Kingdom of Thailand boasted one of the world’s most advanced agricultural divisions on the planet, boasting a massive export economy of genetically engineered crops and foodstuffs.
And remarkably so, they now had such things like this beautiful orchid.
The melody that had been provided was now replaced with a voice. Not her voice, but a voice none the less. It started out broken, but righted itself into a pleasant tune.
“He does, in fact he may be better at his job than I am.” he replied. The man was not one of them, not a metahuman, yet he had the wit and wherewithal to be among them. He offered counsel to a woman who likely needed it far more than anyone else, and for that he was grateful. Taking in a deep breath, he managed to completely make an a** of himself in trying to state he was bringing her outside into the world for a bit. The songstress questioned the idea, asking if there was wisdom in it. He chuckled for a moment, looking at her with a moment of levity.
“We’ll never know until we try now won’t we?” he answered, his voice cracking just a tiny bit in nervousness. The truth was, he was concerned. He was not only concerned, he was terrified. He saw what she could do a few days ago, during the museum and during the raid. Incapacitating people, blowing open heavy steel doors, all with the power of her voice. And that was just her letting loose, with minimal control. Who knows what she was truly capable of, when she’d finally master her abilities? Or if her memories ever came back to her? But for the most part, he kept up a brave face, acting cocksure because it was something he needed to be. He was a newly appointed leader for a team of superhumans that regularly fought arms dealers and other insanity.
He didn’t have the luxury of showing indecision, of doubt.
Graham popped up as they moved towards the exit, talking with and reassuring Isabella that everything would be fine. The psychologist told him to take care of her, giving him a knowing nod that acknowledged his request. Yet another ironclad piece to affix to his façade.
Not too long afterwards, they found themselves in an urban park. It was rather crowded, remarkably so, pleasant even. But for him, what may seem pleasant, was likely a bit of a burden for Isabella. He waited a moment, to let her try and acclimate herself to the area. He looked about, taking in the area, as Isabella asked him if this was an opportunity to take her shopping. With a chuckle, he turned to her.
“You have a remarkable gift Isabella.” he said, blue eyes taking her in, “A gift that while it has its dangers, is capable of great things. And while practicing on base helps, you need to put yourself through your paces in the real world. There is only so much that simulations can accomplish.”
“I may be your superior in this case, but this situation rests on you. The moment you are uncomfortable, or lose confidence, we will head back to the Tower. There will be no sign nor indication of failure on your part should we end this early. Like building Rome, working with you won’t take a day.” his voice was gentle, yet firm. He wanted to show her that even though he had confidence in her, he was not going to push her unnecessarily. It was not worth putting her into a dangerous situation, forcing her to draw back into her shell.
He wasn’t about to undo all of Graham’s work with her.
“And maybe afterwards we can head out and so some shopping.” he finished, with a smirk, “I’m in need of some new clothes, since most of mine are 40 years out of style.”
“Now,” he added, “I know this place can be disorienting, so I want you to try and drown it out. I want you to try, and I mean try, focusing on something that will kill the background around you. It can be anything you like. But I would like for you to try.” he offered his hand to her as a gesture.
“I know that you will be focused, so rather than trying to communicate verbally, I want you to squeeze my hand if you are having difficulty.” His voice was gentle now, providing a way for her to back out should things get out of hand.
He had no desire to put her, or anyone else, in a dangerous position. He cared too much to put themselves in such a event.
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:35 am
Isabella didn’t immediately disagree with Deacon’s assessment of Graham. She held him in high regard. Expressive emerald eyes flickered away from the black orchid to sweep over the young man beside her. She was only a little bit older than he seemed to be, but somehow, with his generally youthful outlook she felt ancient. ‘Not better. Different jobs. A chef cooks. A painter paints. You lead. He protects.’
It was a simple explanation, that somehow, broken crystalized whispering carried to Deacon’s ears. It wouldn’t seem to be coming from any particular direction. From nowhere and everywhere it floated throughout the Solarium. So soft, so gentle, it held little more impact than the wings of a butterfly stirring the air. Graham could have heard something from a short distance away but he wouldn’t be able to make it out. Just little sounds, like the gentlest of wind chimes.
She only gave Deacon her full attention when he informed her he intended to take her on a field trip. He chuckled when she questioned the idea and the corners of primrose colored lips pulled down as she frowned. Did he not understand the full scope of what she was capable of? He may not have known the worst of it, but surely, Mr. Kent had explained that her abilities were dangerous. There was a reason Batgirl had notified the League that she was in Metropolis. Big cities could be a scary place for a girl with no memory and an inability to speak. When she got frightened or upset…
Someone could die.
Deacon’s voice cracked when he finally responded to her inquiry and her head tilted. The action was almost bird-like and gave the impression that she was suddenly looking at him through a microscope. In essence, picking him apart. His vocal chords had clearly betrayed his nerves and the strong face he wore. Her eyes grew distant for a moment before she looked away. No matter his intent…He hadn’t practiced lying enough to be able to fully get away with that. ‘I might have believed you if it did not sound like you were going through puberty again, Mr. Richards.‘
He knew it was a possibly AWFUL idea. But, he seemed determined to go through with it anyway. She exhaled slowly as he led her out of the exotic garden. Men. Always taking unnecessary risks, always trying to poke the bear, to find the answers to what they thought they needed to know. Isabella didn’t have any secrets that led to anything good. All she seemed capable of were a few parlor tricks and a whole boatload of pain.
‘You are either very brave or very foolish. I am not sure which.’
Graham did his best to make her feel better before they left. Was she really projecting her emotions so clearly? Probably not, she mused, reluctant to leave the man that had been there for her since she had first set foot in Metropolis. It was true that Kal-El had assigned him to her. But, he treated her like more than a case. He had served as her keeper, her counselor, and her friend. He returned her smile as he made some gentlemanly demands of Deacon and sooner than she liked they were out the door and on their way.
It didn’t take Isabella long to adjust to her surroundings once they arrived. It wasn’t her ears that she really had trouble with. Sure, she occasionally heard things she didn’t want to hear, but that was the easiest part of her ability to control. She remained still for a moment after she shut the door to the discretely armored car before she tugged out her phone to speak Deacon. She didn’t have access to the pretty glass whistling from before. She hoped against hope, that he really just wanted a shopping buddy, and unfortunately he shot her down.
She gave him a wry expression when he called her ability remarkable. That certainly wasn’t what she would call it. Isabella honestly felt like maneuvering through the real world was doable. Mostly, because she wasn’t alone. If all he wanted her to do for the day was pretend to be a normal person without powers…She’d be happy to oblige. All she had to do was tune as much out as she could. Small fingers typed out a slow message on her phone as kids on hoverboards went by. “I lived on my own in Blüdhaven for almost a year without a problem. I can deal with people. Just as long as they don’t surprise me. Or try to hurt me. Or try to hurt my friends.”
Like the man in the alley. Like the reporter had surprised her in the Museum. Her reflexes had taken over when she felt threatened. Those same reflexes had taken over when she felt Lola was being threatened during the raid. The small woman had used a handgun to shoot out a man’s kneecap without thought. She hadn’t felt anything. No fear, no doubt, no remorse. That wasn’t a normal response.
He mentioned shopping and she perked up a little bit. If he wanted to see something amazing—He could see his credit card statement after she ran it into the ground. There were so many interesting places to buy things in Metropolis. Fashion here was totally different than it was in Blüdhaven. She gave a cheeky little smile when he mentioned that his wardrobe was forty years old and started typing away again. “You do dress like an old man.”
Deacon explained the rules of engagement to her and she nodded her head slowly. She could do that. He offered her his hand and the self-conscious Siren let her fingers find the crook of his elbow instead. Holding hands in public was a little too personal. It would make her more nervous. Not less. She could still type with one hand and not have to worry about someone from the Tower seeing them and getting the wrong idea. He’d already accidentally placed ideas in Karmen’s head by giving her a necklace meant to give her vocal control. She was just lucky Lola didn’t understand the significance. “Am I supposed to be listening for anything in particular?”
Somehow she managed to look down at her phone and walk without tripping or bumping into anything. Deacon would realize eventually that she was cheating. All of the sound in the area could be disorienting, sure, but sonic waves bouncing off of everything and everyone painted a clear picture of her surroundings in her minds eye. Echolocation, reading sound waves, gave her an innate sense of grace and spatial awareness that most simply assumed came from good breeding or classical training.
“Or am I just practicing not being a basket case?”, she questioned as they made their way into the park itself. Lord, it was loud. There were kids screaming from one end to the other. Construction work on the road about a block away was enough to make her teeth grind together. At least, at first. Just like anything else she eventually acclimated.
Isabella found herself slipping from person to person, picking up tidbits of conversations, between the general everyday noises. There was a man in a suit with a briefcase taking a short cut to get to work on time. He kept mumbling about how late he was and kept silencing the phone in his breast pocket. Someone was definitely in trouble with his boss. A couple passed them, obviously very into one another, and she took note of them for their silence. Well, verbal silence. Their heartbeats were fluttering quickly enough to put humming bird wings to shame. She thought it sweet.
There was a police officer trying to get a few kids out of the fountain. He seemed to have given up when they started splashing him. She could hear the water fall, hear the parents rush over and start apologizing, hear the children giggle despite being scolded.
All in all it seemed like a fairly nice day in Metropolis. What could go wrong?
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 8:20 pm
【】Name: Deacon Richards, Just a regular joe right now
【】Location: Downtown Metropolis
【】Thoughts: Getting the lay of the land in the mind of the Siren
Standing there in the garden, he couldn’t help but take in the other exotic life that was inside the garden. It was an impressive collection remarkably rare species from both on and off world. Alien species like Andromedean Wild Flowers sitting next to Jade Vine along with Thanagarian Black Orchids, and other incredible examples of botanical wonder. Beautiful Andromedean Wildflowers sitting next to Jade Vine and Dragon Flowers, it was a stunning display of floral beauty. One couldn’t help but get themselves lost within here, a visually stimulating maze of colors that act as a testament to nature’s purest wonder. He couldn’t help but comment on Graham, the resident shrink, and his ability to hold his own in the Tower and its varied life.
“Part of my job does involve making sure my team’s welfare is safe as well. I may not be as hands on as Graham, but you are my responsibility.” She was right that they had different jobs, but it was also true that they had a good amount of overlap. Graham’s position was to protect her from harm, as was Deacon’s. Even though he lead her and the others into danger, his job was to make sure they came back in one piece, both physically and mentally. He was meant to bring them home.
Whatever that meant. His ideas and conceptions of “home” were rather strained, since the only place he knew as that term was long gone.
The look on her face when he brought up going into the field was quizzical, almost inquisitoritical. He forgot at times that she could pick up even the slightest hint of something not right with a person’s voice. He chuckled when she pointed out that according to her he was going through puberty, to which he smiled, “Isabella I’m chronologically about 40 years older than you, also I may be putting on a brave face, or rather trying to have a brave voice, but in truth I’m trying. Trying to be brave about all this, like how The Duke once said. Courage is being scared witless, and saddling up anyway.” he remembered his old man watching old westerns with him when he was younger, one of his favorites was the classic “True Grit”. It was John Wayne’s best film, the Oscar he won was well deserved.
“The line between bravery or stupidity is often razor thin.” he said to her, his voice genuine and calm. He kindly lead her out of the garden and out of the Tower. It took her a bit of time to adjust, with her pointing out that she’d lived in Bludhaven for a year before she came to reside in the Tower, and that she knew how to handle herself. The fact that situations such as surprise and general harm were areas of concern, lead to him looking at her with pensiveness. He’d seen what she was capable of, even after reading the after-action report from the police following the warehouse raid, he knew that she had some remarkable skills that were ingrained deep within her memories that had been taken from her.
“See, that’s why I want to work on you in the real world. Things are going to surprise you, get the jump on you, try to hurt you, and sadly they may try to hurt people you care about.” he didn’t bring up the reporter at the Museum as an example, he didn’t want to make the situation a negative one. “We need to figure out, and potentially work out the reflexes, those automatic motions you go through.”
“Just understanding them, or even refining what you’ve worked on now, will help.” the elation at the mention of shopping got him smiling, along with her remarks on his attire. He chuckled, “Comes with the territory of being a literal man out of time.” his voice shrank a little bit, the fact that he was once again reminded of the life he had was harsh. There were times when he was able to leave his room he went on field trips out to Metropolis. The city was a remarkable one really, all the terrible things that happened to it and yet it was still rebuilt and remained strong. He’d read about what Metropolis emergency workers had done when the quake hit, coming in as first responders to the disaster. They brought people out of the city and into their homes, getting them away from the chaos and eventual anarchy that followed any natural disaster.
Part of him wished that he’d been dug out of the rubble.
He took note of the woman’s self-conscious face when he offered his hand. She took the crook of his arm instead, which he accepted with as much grace as he could muster from that blunder. “I just keep putting my foot in my mouth now don’t I?” he quipped, to which he took note of her looking down at her phone. He knew she was using her powers to navigate, a form of echolocation that he had to chuckle about. She asked if she was listening for anything specific, or trying to not be a basket case. His answer was simple.
“Nothing specific, but if you… keep an ear out for anything out of the ordinary that would be a plus. Hopefully we can be enough in case something happens.” his voice was pleasant, and he kept his eyes about. He walked about with her in tow, his eyes darting about. It really was a nice day, nothing should go wrong.
The sound of screeching tires told him another story.
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Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 4:11 am
The dark haired Siren listened to Deacon as he explained his job description as he understood it. She frowned a little bit but tried to take it with a grain of salt. She didn’t want to be a responsibility or a burden. Superman had explained that the Watchtower was full of heroes. Of people that were more than they appeared to be. Isabella would bet her favorite batarang from her growing collection that they were all able to stand on their own. They didn’t need to be shielded and protected by Graham and Deacon. ‘I never said that the work exclusively belonged to either party. Some people are just designed to do it better. More efficiently. The results are more favorable…But It doesn’t mean that others can’t try their best.’
He explained that he was, chronologically speaking, several decades older than she was and silent laughter bubbled up in her eyes. That didn’t mean anything. If he hadn’t lived through those four decades he didn’t have the experience that necessitated a reason to point it out. If anything it worked against him. ‘Courage is many things…It is the resistance to fear, the mastery of fear, not the absence of fear. Mark Twain.’
Her ghostly voices echoed throughout the room as she quoted an author that he held a fondness for. It was nearly impossible to find his works in Blüdhaven but Batgirl had some serious connections. The only hard copy books she had were extremely worn and frail. The rest were digital.
‘Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision. Winston Churchill.’, she offered up another perspective. There were dozens of quotes she could think of that pertained to courage and strength. It felt like she must have spent time writing up motivational speeches in her past life but most of her source material seemed outdated for much of Metropolis OR Bludhaven. ‘I believe I like that one best. It is simple and straight to the point. Our decisions, for better or worse, are really all that matter.’
Isabella stared at her team leader for a long moment when he explained that the difference between bravery and stupidity was very small. She knew that. All that mattered was which side he seemed closer to. ‘For the record…I said you were foolish. Not stupid. Foolish refers to a lack of good sense or judgement. I do not think you lack intellect.’
Deacon seemed rather calm when he led her from the Solarium and subsequently out of the Tower. He countered her words about living alone in Blüdhaven and she exhaled soundlessly. Dealing with being surprised was reasonable. He didn’t say it but it didn’t take a brain trust to realize he was probably referring to the reporter that had grabbed her a little too roughly in the Museum. If she’d wrenched his arm any further she would have pulled it completely out of socket. It would have broken, tendons hyperextended, and they never would have escaped without a law suit. Perhaps it was the man she’d shot the knee out of during the raid. In her opinion, he’d deserved it. Therein lay the problem. She understood that now. Deacon thought her a liability. “I agree to an extent. If someone tries to hurt my friends or myself…Do they not have it coming? Should I not fight when someone is attacking us?”
He wanted to work on her reflexes and autonomic responses. Understandable. And yet… This didn’t seem the place to do that. If he wanted to see how she reacted, or try and find a way for her to control it, why not take her to the training area in the Watchtower? It could withstand her. The soft, breakable, adults and children in the park could not.
The lecture paused for a moment when he brought up shopping. Lola had very much enjoyed going with her before the Tower was put on lockdown. There were so many things to see, so many colors of fabric, so many material textures. It took them hours to get from one store to another because Lola cheerfully wanted to try anything and everything on. Bella couldn’t say no. He smiled at first, when she called him an old man, but his mood fell quickly. The dark haired sound user could hear it. Feel it, at his shrinking tones, pulling down on the tip of her heart as if there were weight attached to it.
She paused for a moment so she could place three fingertips beneath his chin. The young woman gently pushed upward and offered an apologetic smile. Her words had been playful, however thoughtless. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. Her soft gesture should have been taken literally. Chin up.
Isabella let her hand drop to the crook of his elbow, much preferred over his hand, and only smiled knowingly when her team leader asked if he kept putting his foot in his mouth. They both knew the answer to that. He didn’t need her to drive his embarrassment further by agreeing with him. Instead she began typing out a question on her phone while using her ability not to smack into people or trees. He told her, for the most part, simply to keep alert.
It was both easy and difficult. Without a clear goal in mind she found herself sifting through bits and pieces of dozens of conversations. She walked easily, smiling when appropriate, emerald eyes a shimmering shade of beach glass in the midday sun. She was a picture of pink perfection and satin waves of hair. To anyone that happened to look in their direction they seemed little more than a bashful young couple enjoying the day. That is, unless someone recognized them from the media coverage at the museum. It was possible. They’d been photographed a lot together then.
She heard what was happening, loud and clear, long before Deacon did. The several seconds she had over him already had her turning in the direction the sound of screeching tires had come from. Auto pilot had already set in as adrenaline flooded her system and her footsteps carried her to the busy street on the other side of the park. The songstress didn’t even realize she’d let go of his arm as she lost him in the crowd. Vehicle after vehicle piled up as they smacked into one another. People were screaming, shouting, panicking.
Phone still in hand she rapidly texted 911. It was equipped with handicap functions for someone that couldn’t speak so she was able to text emergency messages. She could count twelve cars in the pile up and there was no way of seeing what had caused it from her vantage point. She could hear something strange but for the life of her she couldn't place it. There was some kind of metal near the front of the accident on the ground--But the people trapped in the cars stole her focus.
She slipped her phone into her clutch and moved up the small flower covered hill. There were so many people hurt. So many. They were all screaming, all crying, some mad, some begging for someone to help them. Her eyes filled with tears as she went toward the nearest car she could. There was fire. Smoke. The front end was demolished with the engine block pushed back way further than it should be. The drivers head had hit the windshield. She swallowed hard when she realized that he had no heartbeat. He was dead. Very, very dead.
Isabella forgot to breathe when she realized there was a little girl in the back seat.
She could hear liquid falling to the ground and realized after a time that it was some sort of fluid from the car. Isabella didn’t know if it was oil, gas, or some unknown element that hover cars utilized. Either way it didn’t seem like a good idea to leave the little girl in the car. The chain of smashed up vehicles could explode. Not to mention the body in the front seat. She approached the sedan carefully and felt her heart skip when she realized the door was locked. The little girl wasn’t moving. She went to the front passenger window and held her hand over the glass. A short moment later it crumbled away like paper, almost as if she’d used a life-hammer, versus simply touching it.
Her fingers found the release for the door lock and she immediately moved to wrench open the back door. If someone else was helping her, she didn’t seem to realize it, and delicately removed the seatbelt from the child. She was secure in a booster seat. She didn’t seem to be hurt, physically, but something had knocked her out. She picked the toddler up, doing her best to cradle her, and support her head at the same time. She moved away from the car and back down the hill to a safe distance. There were groups of people forming. Some helped, some just stared, completely stunned by what they were seeing.
She knelt down and lay the girl down as softly as she could. She was so afraid to move her head the wrong way so she kept her hands extremely gently on either side of it to keep her steady. It bothered her to no end that some people were still just standing around while others were just watching her. How could they just stand around like that?
The sound user reached her hand high in the air and snapped her fingers. The sharp crack rang through the crowd with a small sound wave attached to it would sure as heck wake them up. It dwarfed the sounds of everything else in the area and the slight push it gave drew the attention of those around her. Hopefully it would snap them out of their useless stupor. She pointed at the little girl, and slowly, too slowly by her standards, a man and a woman joined her. They asked what they could do to help and she motioned for the woman to hold her head and the man thoughtfully placed his jacket over the girl.
She gave them a thumbs up for the time being, unable to speak, and turned back to the wreckage. EMS still hadn’t arrived. Nor the police. What in the world was happening? She’d seen things like this in Blüdhaven. Not here. It was then that she again noticed there was something metal trampled underneath one of the first cars. It was metal and diamond shaped with what looked like stingers sticking out of it. She squinted for a second until she realized that it was a spike strip. Tire shredders.
Someone had done this on purpose.
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Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:02 pm
【】Name: Deacon Richards, Just a regular joe right now
【】Location: Downtown Metropolis
【】Thoughts: Hell in a handbasket
It took him a second to realize that the way he phrased how he viewed his position that she might consider herself a burden in his mind. But that wasn’t the case, a burden is something that was often thrust on someone, in his case he willingly took on this responsibility. The fact remained that he needed to watch out for his people, taking the actions necessary should the situation demand it. Part of the reason why he had Dahlia taken into custody. Her instability in the field was a liability, one that put both herself and her teammates in danger. He had a duty to both the people of the world and the people under his command. They were heroes, some of them not of this world, from realms and even realities beyond the comprehension of even the sharpest minds of this universe. But they were not infallible, they were flawed, imperfect individuals striving to bring the world to a point where such individuals were no longer needed. They were facilitators of change, in his mind. And while they were flawed, the goal they sought was truly noble.
“Very true. Guess I’m trying to say that I am another cog in the larger machine that is meant to keep you and the others safe. Even though putting you all through your paces in the bellies of beasts may seem a bit contradictory.” he intoned to her, he took in the ghostly voice as she recited a number of quotes related to courage and how it is meant to overcome fear, to master it rather than being the absence of it.
“Churchill, Twain, you sure you didn’t work in some kind of leadership position before you wound up here?” he jokingly questioned. It was as if she knew just what to say on the matter, when it came to leadership. The fact that decisions are what mattered in the long run hit him like a MAC truck. Decision, action, that was what mattered at the end of the day. One might question how a man speaks, but the actions behind said speech resonated far more than just words. After all, Churchill wasn’t just speeches and brilliant wit.
He was the man that held strong in the face of insurmountable odds, against a war machine that he and his nation faced alone before the world finally came together to put an end to it.
She added further clarification that she thought him foolish, rather than stupid. This lead to a bit of a chuckle as he lead her out of the Solarium and into the city. The hustle and bustle of Metropolis reminded him of what Gotham had once been in its heyday. When the city had not been inundated by rampant crime and corruption. When the city died in a cataclysmic earthquake, and it’s bloated corpse had been hoisted up into the heavens as a twisted offering of a future made of megacorporations and massive skyscrapers. The ghost appreciated her understanding that he was trying to help work on her reflexes. She questioned him about whether or not someone has it coming if they attack a friend or herself, to which he answered simply, “Of course, no one is going to deny self-defense, or actions meant to protect the lives of others.”
“The question is what kind of force one should use in such a situation.” he elaborated, “We can’t risk our decisions, no matter how in the moment they are, to come back and haunt us.”
“I hold everyone I am in charge of to that standard. And I hold it even more so on myself.” It might have seemed questionable to bring her out into the field to work on such a thing, but in his mind it was ideal. Training rooms ran on fixed variables, static, programmable. The tradeoff was that it had low-risk, if something happened the situation could be handled much more easily. But he didn’t want easy, life wasn’t easy, reality sure as hell wasn’t easy. So here he was, with her, out in the park working with her the best way that he could. He also did bring up the possibility of doing a bit of shopping, in particular to update his wardrobe. With a smile he offered “Perhaps we can find something for Lola as well. I’m sure she would want some article of surface world clothing, or even some jewelry. Something to better understand our ways, as a guest here.” he didn’t reveal to her that he had the means of affording quite a bit. One of the benefits of being on ice for 40 years is that the trust that was set up by his family had been sitting and building up funds. Decades of steady return on investments, with interest, lead to a pretty sizeable account.
To think that it only took the loss of his entire life, as he knew it, to become independently wealthy.
She seemed to take note of the pain that overtook him, and the gentle touch from the sound manipulator put a bit of a smile on his face. The two of them, in their own way, had similar experiences. Both of them had their lives pulled out from under them, and while she may not have her memories, he knew what it was like to wake up a strange world and a strange time. He wasn’t going to try and delude himself into claiming they’re bound by some grand design, but he wouldn’t argue that the two were in some ways kindred spirits.
He knew that the young woman was onto something the moment she started turning, the sound of screeching tires immediately put his brain into “work” mode. He lost her in the crowd as she burst forth towards the noise, and he began to move fast. This is what they did, when the sound of danger rang out, this was their duty.
And when he came along the other side, witnessing the chaos, his heart skipped a beat. It was a nightmare of shattered glass, leaking gas, and twisted metal. He saw her move towards a car, and began working on getting a child out of the back seat. Trusting her actions, he moved towards the another vehicle. It had been flipped over in the crash, broken glass glittering off the sun like a morbid constellation of stars. The smell of gas hit his nostrils fast, and he knew this wasn’t the last vehicle to be in such a situation. Inside was a couple of children, one was conscious, the other out cold with a nasty cut on their head. The driver was strapped in, limp but alive, faint breathing was detectable by even him. The child that was still conscious was scared, eyes were the size of dinner plates as she was trying to figure out what was going on, the shock quickly taking her.
“I need some help over here! he roared, out as he grabbed at the door. It wouldn’t budge, s**t. Must have gotten jammed when it flipped over. There wasn’t any time for him to scramble to the other side, so he used the gifts science had given him and took a deep breath. His body went through the metal easily, sliding through the atoms of the far more dense material, and he began to work. The young girl that witnessed this remarkable display, was sitting there stupefied over the spectacle. Quickly he put a finger to his lips, and ripped the seatbelt out from the harness. He caught her as she fell, and quickly brought her out. He checked her over, seeing no visible injuries. Before anyone arrived he quickly punched out the glass window, clearing it out so it looked as though he was able to enter that way.
“I got her.” he heard someone say behind him, he quickly hoisted her up, letting the bear of a man take the kid. Others gathered around the car, all doing their part to help. That’s what it took really, to see the people helping, that inspired others to do the same. We all lead by example, in everything we do.
“How are we doing on your end?” he whispered, knowing that Isabella could hear him through the chaos. He started to look around at the scene, to get a better picture of what could have possibly caused all this, the sight of someone holding up what looked like a spike strip immediately got the gears turning in his head. Someone planted these, wanted an accident. What could they possibly want to do that for? He pondered this for a second, hearing the sound of sirens as emergency responders came upon the carnage. He looked around for anything that might be another target.
The sound of an explosion coming out of a building a block away from him gave him his answer right away.
Jesus, someone’s been watching Die Hard re-runs. he thought to himself as he ran towards the fire and flames.
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Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 5:48 pm
Isabella didn’t respond to Deacon when he tried to explain himself further. He seemed to agree with her, but at the same time, he didn’t really understand her position. How could he? She didn’t expect him to. Instead she fell into something a little more positive. The quotes that she brought up regarding courage felt special to her. As if they held some sort of special meaning. She just didn’t know what it was—only that she believed in it. Deacon jokingly asked if she had worked in some sort of leadership position previously and emerald eyes grew distant.
‘I do not know.’
It was a sad truth that broke her heart when she admitted it out loud. She was embarrassed and wounded by her lack of knowledge when it came to her history. She’d held two jobs in Blüdhaven. One, as a hotel maid, and the other, a pianist in the lobby of a lawyer’s office. Neither of which took much skill linguistically or intellectually. She played piano without thinking about it. Doing laundry took no effort at all. As far as she knew…She was nothing. She was no one.
She felt her mood change once they were in the city proper. It was hard to stay miserable with the sights and sounds of Metropolis beckoning. They fell into a pseudo-serious discussion about Deacon’s thoughts on their training exercise. Isabella raised a red flag that he was quick to counter. His words felt idealistic. Isabella didn’t lift her phone to respond as they passed happy parents watching joyful children playing in the fountain. Instead, she watched them, almost wistfully. Eventually, she did reply to Deacon.
“I regret the reporter, although, he should learn to keep his hands to himself. I do not regret shooting the thug at the docks.”, she responded with the mechanical voice on her phone, smart enough, to surround them in silence. No one would hear what seemed like an admission to murder. Even though, to her knowledge, he hadn’t died. The soldier inside of her had deliberately aimed to maim and incapacitate—not kill. “Although neither of those incidents were my decision. It was like breathing. It just happened.”
“He could have hurt or killed Lola or Karmen. Or me. Stopping him won’t haunt me.”
She didn’t look away from the children playing. She loved the joyful expressions. She loved the way they didn’t seem to have a care in the world. More than anything, she loved the precious bubble of safety and security they lived in. Everyone deserved that. This was what the League was striving to protect—wasn’t it? They would he heroes to the world…Until suddenly, they weren’t.
The hand that held her phone dropped to her side. Deacon suggested that eventually they find some sort of trinket Lola might like. The prospect of making the sea star smile made her relax a little. She had a rather sizeable savings that she’d accumulated while living with Cassandra Cain. It was nothing special, but to some that had lived in Blüdhaven, it was enough. She never expected Phantom to pay for anything. Superman had picked up the bill often enough.
The ever kind woman forgot about her own problems when she realized that she’d inadvertently been insensitive. Deacon reacted to her touch favorably and seemed to forgive her. She didn’t agree with his method of training her—but she would also never deliberately hurt someone’s feelings. Isabella couldn’t help but want to pull the pain out of him. It just didn’t belong. Especially not when she’d been the one to put it there.
The quiet moment of mutual understanding was short lived when everything about the peaceful afternoon crashed down around them. She moved without thinking. She pulled a little girl out of the back seat of a thrashed vehicle without thinking. Everything was auto-pilot. Even analyzing the scene, noting the tire shredders, felt as if she were on the outside looking in. She could hear Deacon yell for help and she gestured some of the men in the crowd towards him.
It was so frustrating not being able to speak. A word, a whisper, would blow their brains all over the sidewalk. All she could do was set them in the right direction and hope that they took the bait. Slowly, but surely, she began distributing other civilians to other cars that had been flipped or otherwise crushed and destroyed. Most were in too much shock to refuse. She seemed like an authority figure, even while silent and dainty, in a pink, lacey dress.
She couldn’t respond to Deacon when he asked her how things were going. Instead she crept toward the front of the wreck. She wasn’t sure what was happening and it made her nerve endings tingle with warning. No one had come to try and take anything from one of the cars. So what was this? The answer came with a bang not far away. An explosion.
The car wreck was a distraction.
Isabella could see Deacon taking off in the direction the smoke came front. EMS were arriving now. The sound user was hesitant. Torn. There were so many people hurt. So many people that still needed their help. At the same time, whatever this was, didn’t feel like something Deacon ought to face alone. It was their duty to stop whomever had done this. To stop them from hurting anyone else.
She wound compressed sonic waves around her hands and pushed it toward the ground. The small woman launched herself forward and flew about a foot from the asphalt that rushed by beneath her. Something happened, and by the time she landed, she was wearing a black uniform that seemed like it belonged to some kind of super spy or assassin. Low heeled boots hit the ground running and she eventually caught up to Deacon by using her ability to bunny hop closer.
The building on fire was the First Bank of Metropolis. Classically so, there were men in neoprene face masks running out the front doors with duffel bags that she could only assume were filed with valuables. The bank housed more than just money. Safety deposit boxes from citizens’ rich and poor stored items within the typically secure walls. Graham had brought her here to open local banking accounts when she’d first arrived. Transactions could often be delayed when they were routed through Blüdhaven. The ceiling looked like it had nearly fallen in and there were shards of glass everywhere. The smoke burned her eyes and nose but it didn’t stop her from going on the offensive.
There were people inside. How could they get to them when they needed to go through these guys?
Isabella held out her hand as a domino mask covered the top park of her face and sound waves echoed from her fingertips in a wide and powerful cone. The force of it picked up broken pieces of metal and debris along the way before it slammed into two of the bank robbers like a truck going at top speed. The sound user could hear bones crunch and splinter as they sailed through the air. Her attack clipped an empty car and sent that flying down the street as well. Just as she’d explained to Deacon at the raid…She had one setting. Her ability was most always at ten. She could see six other masked men outside as the car she’d sent flying screeched to a halt in the road—but that didn’t mean there wasn’t more. This job had to have been huge. The main vault was supposed to be uncrackable.
She glanced over at Deacon briefly…But she didn’t have time to wait for orders. The remaining criminals had high powered automatic guns. How she knew they were guns, let alone automatic, she wasn’t sure, but there was a certain click that put her on the defensive before she realized what she was doing. She forgot for a moment that Deacon could easily phase through bullets and pulled him down behind the nearest car with her. Not even a full second passed before deafening gunfire ripped through the other side of it.
Isabella, the Siren, held her hands over hear ears for a moment. God, that was loud. Adjusting was difficult—but she could do it. All she needed to do was block out anything that didn’t matter. She could do this. She had to do this. An eerie silence crept over the area like a slow rolling wave. Everything stopped. The sound of the sirens, the alarms, the fire crackling, guns firing, people yelling all stopped. Deacon wouldn’t even be able to hear himself breathing.
For about half a city block from their location it became a pit of silence. The men on the bank steps looked at each other confused. They were yelling, but none of them could hear each other. One of them started shouting into what looked to be a remote radio but to no avail. Communication had been completely severed. Isabella exhaled in sweet relief but felt a rather large mote of surprise. She hadn’t realized she could do that. In all honesty, she had no idea how far the sonic blackout went.
She also didn’t know how to reverse it.
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:55 pm
【】Name: Deacon Richards, Just a regular joe right now
【】Location: Downtown Metropolis
【】Thoughts: Explosions and Feints…
The League Captain tried his best to explain his perspective when it came to her care. With everyone’s care really. Fact is he was afraid, afraid that he was going to screw up and get the people that trusted him killed. The sound manipulator put a few quotes up in the air about the idea of bravery, from some pretty solid sources. He cracked wise about whether or not she once held a position of leadership before, to which she answered in the negative. Things turned a tad dark when she answered, reflecting the fact that much like him she was also adrift. However, unlike him, she had no memory of her past life. Of what she was before she was brought here. He couldn’t help but feel a tinge of pity, given the circumstances.
But things soon lightened up as they got into the city. The city was a glowing beacon of progress, far more than anything he’d ever truly grown up in. He may have been a resident of Gotham, living in one of the nicer parts of the city, but the truth is that place is a different animal. Even in this futuristic era, Gotham was always a vicious beast, that can and will happily swallow people whole, grind them into pieces, and spit out whatever was left into the world. And often, it was not pretty what came out. The Joker, Victor Zasz, Poison Ivy, and even more insanity that had been born from within that old dark city of Art-Deco architecture and other horrors. He’d heard old rumors, once when he was a kid, about old cults and dark secrets that had been at the epicenter of the city’s birth. He has always had some thoughts as to whether or not the events leading to him being frozen were by accident.
He always feared that something more nefarious was behind it.
Soon the topic came to Isabella’s use of force. He knew she wouldn’t regret her actions, not in the intrinsic sense that they were right or wrong. In truth what she’d done was in the right. She took down a violent thug who was threatening the lives of her teammates. However, unfortunate as it may be, the world doesn’t see things that way. “I don’t doubt it. But you know how people can be. We see appropriate force, others see excessive action. When I say the situation may haunt you, I say that in the sense that people would hound you about it. That people can and will raise an uproar over actions that may otherwise be in the right.” He took note of her more relaxed state when he brought up getting something for Lola. The two of them were very close, he liked that about the two of them. Lola was a wonderfully innocent and naïve of the surface world, and it drew Isabella toward her like a moth to the flame. The moment of good conversation as marred by a flash of his old life, but he was brought back by her attempt at connecting. He appreciated that, how despite not being able to speak she was able to connect with people with simple things like touch.
Their moment of levity was quickly interrupted by the sound of cars crashing. They rushed forth and moved towards the site. It was a scene of pure chaos. Utter insanity. Broken glass, bent and torn apart steel, it was pure carnage. The two of them went into rescue mode, looking to help whoever they could. Getting some victims out and into safety, the sound of an explosion rocked the area. It was a distraction, a feint, creating such a scene of pure destruction as a means of diverting emergency personnel and police attention that they could pull something off so brazenly in daylight. He didn’t know who was behind this, or what they were after.
But he was not amused. In the slightest.
Flying forward, as fast as he could he went into the building, what he now realized was the First Bank of Metropolis. It was another scene of chaos, this time filled with blood and broken glass. There were several men in masks, all wielding a weapon and holding bags filled with valuables. Gunfire erupted from within, ripping the concrete walls apart. Whatever these guys were packing it was some heavy artillery. Military grade if he had to guess. Taking a breath he tried to let the stray rounds phase through him, ripping apart the metal and stone behind him. But before he could, the quick tug of Isabella pulled him into cover. Things then became very odd, as for a few seconds he could hear his breathing, the sound of gunfire, the sound of sirens.
And then nothing.
It was as if someone had set a “mute” button on the world. Looking to Isabella he gave her a quizzical look that asked “You did this? taking a moment to observe the environment. Everyone who had a gun was scared shitless, they didn’t know what was going on. He took in a deep breath and looked to her once more. Making a gesture with his hand, towards the gunman, he tried to say with his lack of sound “I’m going to use this moment.” Taking another deep breath he phased through the car and flew toward two of the gunmen. He moved fast and the fact that they couldn’t hear them gave him an advantage. He grabbed the two of them by the necks and knocked them into their skulls. The impact should keep them incapacitated for a bit. Dragging them off to a corner, he found a pair of handcuffs from a security guard, choosing to secure them to what remained of a railing.
God knew how crazy this situation was, and based on what just happened, it was going to likely get even crazier.
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Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2017 10:37 pm
Isabella wasn’t sure how to take Deacon’s criticism of her actions in a combat situation. Her long auburn curls took on a reddish hue in the sunlight. Jade eyes were distant, quiet, and shadowed. She couldn’t promise that her reflexive responses would always fit the scenario she was reacting to. The sound user couldn’t control it any more than she could force her blood to stop circulating. She began to respond bit by bit as they walked through the park at a leisurely pace. Her pale pink dress fit right in with the happy families and bright flowers. Eventually she played her message for Deacon—still keeping a bubble of silence wrapped around them for privacy. “I understand.”
“But…If I am such a liability…Perhaps you should pull me from field work.”
It was an honest question. Isabella didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not even people that deserved it. But if she stayed with the JJL it was inevitable. They were required to fight. There was no way around it. Her gaze swept the ground and lengths of hair hid her tumultuous expression from view. What would happen to her if she left the team? Would she be sent back to Blüdhaven? Part of her missed Batgirl very much. As much as she missed Nightwing. It just felt like a step backwards versus moving forward.
They moved to less murky topics such as Lola and going shopping but somehow she’d still managed to offend her team leader. She didn’t quite understand exactly what she’d said was wrong. But, she recognized emotional pain. It was obvious if you knew it well enough. Deacon accepted her gentle gesture and she smiled briefly in return. He seemed so grown; and then, like such a little boy. She wasn’t sure which version of himself was the real Phantom. If they weren’t powered people with important jobs she wouldn’t think twice. As it stood, the leader of the Junior Justice League could be many things, but not a child.
Isabella pulled away from Deacon when the sounds of an accident filled her head. She was gone without thinking, losing hold of his arm in the mix, headed straight for the epicenter. Her ears took in the horrors of the several car pile-up better than her eyes ever could. She willed herself not to feel her heart climbing up her throat when she realized that half of the people involved were dead. No heartbeat, no life. She helped where she could. It wasn’t enough. The emergency responders would need to use hydraulic rescue tools to free some of these people.
When a secondary explosion went off not far away the truth of the crash revealed itself. It was a setup. Isabella felt a brief surge of anger, but it died quickly, replaced with urgency. She followed Deacon as well as she was able. He was definitely faster but she could use small sonic bursts to propel herself forward. She arrived moments after he did. And seconds later—the bad guys noticed them both.
She pulled Deacon down without thinking when the sounds of gunfire ripped through the air. The sound user flinched and covered her ears as she kept her head down. Instead of regulating the sound as she’d intended the Siren accidentally shut it off. Isabella looked exceedingly guilty when Deacon asked if the sonic blackout was her fault. Her uncomfortable expression would tell him everything that he needed to know. Instead of chastising her the team leader decided to use the distraction to their advantage.
He phased ahead and took out two of the goons easily enough. Isabella followed his lead and vaulted over the car that she was using for cover with the help of a sonic burst. The gunmen didn’t see her when she dropped out of the sky on their heads. They were stunned but it didn’t take long for them to recover. One of the men raised a gun at her to which she reflexively grabbed the end and forced it upward. The sound user twisted it from his grasp and cold clocked him with it—only to throw the weapon backwards at the other man that was taking aim. She delivered a swift kick to the first man’s gut that sent him tumbling down the stone steps. Again, her attention turned to the other, and she whirled around in time to see him getting ready to shoot at her again.
Drawing back her hands she released an extremely powerful sonic boom that ripped the sound back into the area. Everything spilled in all at once, the sirens, the gunfire, yelling, screaming—and the sound of a man’s skull smashing like a water balloon against a concrete wall. Isabella stared down at her hand and then back at the bank robber that lay in an unmoving heap. She hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. Her ability was always rather potent but he’d been far enough away…It shouldn’t have happened.
Stunned to inactivity, she dropped to her knees, as she tried to remember how to breathe. It was then that she heard the sound of a combat shotgun being readied near her head. She was too shocked to look up, the sound of a skull caving in playing in her head, over and over.
“Die.”, growled out one of the two remaining bank robbers. From this range he didn’t need to aim. He planned to take her head off it one go—Just in case she was one of those regenerating freaks. “b***h.”
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:00 pm
【】Name: Deacon Richards, Just a regular joe right now
【】Location: Downtown Metropolis
【】Thoughts: Explosions and Feints…
The blonde walked with her in the park, the topic at hand related to her use of force in the field. He definitely came off the wrong way with how he wanted to help her learn how to harness her powers safely. The reality is that she had great potential, but the risks associated with letting such potency go unchecked, without any sort of controls put in place, she’d be a danger to both herself and others. That would mean he’d be unable to protect her, knowing their luck some government organization, like ARGUS or even Checkmate would want her locked away or worse. He wasn’t about to let that happen, not as long as he had her under his watch.
“My concern is making sure that when you do fight, and you will, we’re not getting protests calling you a murderer. Because from what I can tell here, you are far from it. You’re a fighter, a protector, but definitely not a killer. At least, not one that would do so intentionally, or indiscriminately.” he said in response to her thoughts on benching her, “The League faces a lot of scrutiny from governments across the world, as part of the growing relationship they’ve had over the years with the international community. If one of them thinks that benching you after you being in action for so long is indication of a clear and present danger, they can rally other representatives to have you detained.”
“I don’t imagine that orange would be a good color on you.” he smirked, trying to add a bit of levity to the conversation. Topics soon turned to shopping, with the past coming back and haunting him for a moment. It hadn’t been as bit of a deal, but some of the material that had been recovered from what was stolen were files from his time. A lot of which were video files of his family, messages his father and mother sent back and forth. His father never left his side during the time he was being tested, dormitories were set up for the two of them to live in the whole time. So he was able to, when not dealing with the initial side effects, talk to his family. One of the only files that hadn’t been corrupted by damage from the initial earthquake was a video of his mother and siblings. They were all sitting there, singing his favorite song, “Blackbird” by the Beatles. His mother used to sing it to him when he was in serious pain, it was one of the few things he’d be able to focus on when his nerves were on fire.
Now it opened up a deep wound that wasn’t going to heal any time soon. Though her attempt at assuaging the moment was pleasant. But it was soon cut short by the cascading sound of multiple cars crashing at the same time. After doing what he could to help some of the victims, he and Bella were drawn to the real crime, a daring and remarkably violent bank robbery. They opened fire on the two of them, Deacon quickly being pulled down to cover. The stress of the situation must have gotten to Isabella as soon the entire area was in mute. He could hear nothing, not the sirens, not the gunfire, not even his own breathing. The shameful look on Isabella’s face told him everything, but he couldn’t be mad at her. It was something that couldn’t be helped, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him from doing the right thing. He quickly subdued two more thieves using the silence as a cover, Isabella following suit.
He wasn’t quite sure what happened, but in a few moments the sound came back to the area. The sirens, the screams, everything. He even heard what sounded like a body being smashed into a wall. Turning to where he thought the sound came from, he saw Isabella on her knees, in some kind of shock. The sight of a thief wielding a shotgun had it pointing at the back of her head, made him act quickly. He didn’t realize that he could fly as fast as he did, getting in front of him right as he finished cocking the weapon. With a, practically gentle, swipe of his hand he sent the gun swinging to the side and opening fire. The concussive blast from the shotgun was practically deafening with the sound rapidly returning, but he didn’t care. He’d put a gun to his subordinate’s head, and he was pissed about it. With another quick, yet simple, move he slapped the gun out of the man’s hands. He didn’t realize the strength he had, never really using it his physical abilities, but he was realizing that he was effortlessly manhandling this guy. Trying to defend himself the thief attempted to punch him, but all he did was punch through air, his fist going straight through him. His eyes were hard, his features locked in place, rigid like stone, his hands were even harder as he replied to his strike with a simple backhand. He barely felt it as the thief spun about, his head reeling from the impact. He quickly ended it with a hard punch to the head, watching the man crumple to the ground.
Seeing the threat taken down he turned to Isabella who was still on her knees. He got down to her level and put his hands on her shoulders, “Siren, are you ok?” he didn’t see any injuries but he knew something was up. It took him a few moments to register the rest of the area, but the sight of a masked man limp on the ground with blood on the wall told him everything. It was an accident, he knew, but it was something that Isabella was truly afraid of.
“Siren, can you hear me? he asked, his voice as calm as he could make it, with the adrenaline dying down in him.
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Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 3:06 am
Deacon claimed to think that she wasn’t a murderer. Isabella didn’t look up from the ground. In all honesty, with all cards on the table, she should have told him the truth. Only her promise to Nightwing kept her silent. The man that she’d killed the night that he’d saved her from the police was dangerous. The poster boy for the Bat Family had told her that knowledge of it was dangerous. Both to her and anyone who knew. Isabella didn’t want to place herself or Deacon in harm’s way.
The sandy haired JJL captain was wrong. He assumed that she was good despite her propensity for violence because she appeared sweet and soft. He didn’t know that she WAS a murderer.
“How can they expect us to fight entities that are more than willing to kill us if we are always on a leash?”, she questioned via her phone, trying her hardest, to understand the new demands that were being made. How could they hope to match the enemies they faced if they were always holding back? “Orange is better than red.”
By red, she referred to being covered in blood, dead. Isabella knew above all else that she didn’t want to die. If a thug came at her and wouldn’t stop it was entirely possible that one of them would meet the maker. She didn’t long for that outcome—but they weren’t children playing dress up. The threats, the danger, it was all real. How did they cope with the things they did and claim it was for the greater good? How did the government determine who the real enemy was?
“So we will be heroes. Until small men, with small lives, and small ideas, decide that we are not.”
Deacon was wounded by her words soon after that. It was palpable but there was nothing she could do except to offer comfort. It came in the form of touch, gentle, and sweet. What happened next was anything but gentle or sweet. The massive pile up of hover cars was gory and disturbing in a way she could scarcely describe. Still, she was able to act. Her body moved without her mind and she did what she could before the emergency responders arrived.
That is, until, a secondary explosion went off.
Things went quickly, too quickly, after she joined that fight. She didn’t think after a point. She acted on the instinct that she had come to recognize as something keeping her alive. It was protective of her. Protective of the things she loved—Almost violently so. When she sent one of the bank robbers careening in to the wall at a high velocity she knew he wouldn’t be standing back up. Blood oozed from his crushed skull onto the startlingly white pavement.
Bright squares of it were lit up as the sun peeked through the shadows of the trees. The light made the blood cherry-red, shiny. It always struck her that new blood was brighter than it appeared to be on the television or in the movies. Real blood was screaming fire-engine red, in larger quantities, but a darker red shows up better on the silver screen. So much for realism.
Only fresh blood is red, true red. The trick of the summer sunshine would keep it shiny and glossy for a long time. The meatier chunks, the grey matter, wasn’t even something she could begin to comprehend. The liquid parts reminded her of something that had been heavily coated in nail polish. Cherry Blossom Red, Carnival Crimson, Candy Apple. Her vision swam in the warm air but she couldn’t look away as she swallowed convulsively. Even as the shotgun was pressed against the back of her head she remained still—clearly in shock.
The deafening blast from the gun caused her to flinch and snap back to reality. Deacon blocked her view of the dead bank robber and placed his hands on her shoulders. At first she grabbed his wrists, ready to turn his arms inside out, but then she realized who he was. Her small body surged forward and her arms wrapped around his neck for a moment in a tight embrace. Her small face buried itself against the crook of his neck. For just a moment, she was terrified, of herself, of everything.
Eventually she let him go, silent tears falling beneath her domino mask, but she came to her feet of her own accord. Steady. Could she hear him? Yes. Was she all right? No. Isabella looked Deacon straight in his baby blues and he would know the truth. She wasn’t all right. But, she would make it.
She gestured toward the inside of the bank. It was on fire. There were people inside—and possibly more armed suspects. Her heartbreakingly sad expression went flat. It emptied of all things. Her feet took her forward without preamble and she disappeared into the smoke that billowed out. She could hold her breath longer than even the best Olympic swimmer. Her lungs, throat, and vocal chords were all super human. She could last longer than any fire fighter—So long as the building didn’t come down on top of them.
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:07 pm
【】Name: Deacon Richards Caught in the Crossfire
【】Location: Metropolis First Bank
【】Thoughts: Things gone wrong...
The League captain looked to his charge as they wandered through the crowd of people, getting into a surprising debate about the nature of how much force they can use when dealing with criminals. He wasn’t a huge fan of how their actions were dictated by the whims of whom Isabella described as “small men” but the reality remained. They had to show restraint, despite the reality that they were up against forces that had the means, and desire, to see them dead. He didn’t, and would not, ignore the seeming hypocrisy of the situation. They were supposed to stop threats, yet they couldn’t truly stop them. They could only delay them, put them on hold, until the next time they broke out of prison, wherein they would be called on once again to find yet another way to put them back behind the same bars that they just only recently broke free from.
It seemed like an exercise in futility, ad infinitum. An Ourobouros filled with violence and destruction all along a never ending loop.
But there was a reason for it why Superman, the embodiment of a god, had yet to reach the point where he would end the life of a villain, even after all these years. She brought up the fact that one day, we would no longer be branded as heroes, to which he looked towards her with a bit of consolation in his eyes.
“If that day comes, hopefully we will have served our purpose.” he said to her, “Hopefully by then, we’ll have helped usher in a world where citizens with capes and masks aren’t needed.”
“Maybe then, we can hang the capes and the masks up, and go on to live mundane lives.” he finished. He always saw superheroes as a means to an end, a guiding light to the rest of the world to push forward to. And sure, chances are they’d still be needed long into the future, but there was always hope that one day the need for superheroes would no longer exist.
That was a dream he was willing to fight for. Then again, it was the only thing he really had at this point. Dark thoughts came back to him, about the family that he had lost. He knew that it was never meant to be, to be reunited with them, but he’d have to make do with the life he was living now. Though things quickly shifted when the sounds of explosions and destruction, forcing the two of them into action. They moved quickly, taking down the robbers with ease, even after they were rendered deaf as a result of Isabella’s powers backfiring. But soon things came roaring back to his ear drums, as the sight of a dead body came vibrantly into his view. He took down the last thief and quickly went to check on Isabella. The sound manipulator looked him dead in the eyes, and it told him everything. She’d been working on instinct, and things went horridly wrong. She quickly wrapped herself around his neck for a moment, he was almost stunned it happened so quickly. She drew back, tears streaming down her face, as she soon went into the smoke and fires. Deacon quickly rose, taking note of the state of the destruction inside the bank. He knew that she could hold her breath for a while, but he was not about to let her continue on her own, in this state, in the midst of what is likely going to be a demolished building. He moved quickly, figuring that at this point they needed to get the fire department and police in. Taking hold of his communicator, he raised it and sent out a comm to any first responders in the area.
“This is Justice League member Phantom, I’m a first responder to Metropolis First Bank. Confirmed all perpetrators are incapacitated, I can confirm multiple fatalities. Be advised explosives were used, suggest bringing in EOD along with Fire & Rescue.”
He moved through the fire and smoke as he radioed out, quickly finding her trying to look for survivors. He moved next to her, and took note of someone trapped under the rubble. Moving fast, he started to scramble and dig through the shattered remains, trying to pull out the victim. It took him a few minutes but he was able to get them out, a teenager that had been knocked out from the blast.
Gesturing to Isabella he motioned for her to help get him to safety, “Come on, let’s get him out. EMS and Fire is on their way.” he said to her, he was going to get the two of them out of the destruction and get her out of there.
She needed to be away from the chaos, to process what had just happened.
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