Kid's Music These Days... (Open)

[The Question]

Dusk was quickly falling on the once-heralded city of Metropolis, and it was largely the time in which both the criminal element and the hero one were in full swing. This particular group of unsavory individuals had a front to draw away suspicion from the law, but putting sufficient effort and a prying eye to work, it was fairly easy to determine their true activities; drug trafficking, arms dealing, a little bit of prostitution on the side. They were certainly blessed with the entrepreneurial spirit, because they'd expanded quite a bit since their formation and were quickly shaping up to be a major player in the world of seedy activities that, for the moment, were hard at work in the former home of the Superman. Due to her extremely narrow exposure to Earth's culture, limited mainly to stories about their heroes and villains, she often found herself disgusted by things she hadn't' been expecting to witness; these people certainly evoked that particular emotion.

As the sun slowly sank below the horizon, the lights from inside the building she was standing on seemed brighter in contrast to the blackness of the night swiftly encroaching open them. Largely unconcerned with the time of day, Ildon instead made use of one of her more particular abilities: with her telepathy she hopped from gangbanger to druggie in the rooms beneath her, scanning the rooms of the building and taking a mental inventory of everything of possible note. Of pretty big importance were three things: this place was a front, not a business venue. There were no whores present, no drugs in visible sight, and no guns in visible sight either - though Ildon knew that there would be. These kinds of people were too paranoid and arrogant to walk around without a 'piece', as she'd heard them refer to the weapons.

Crouching low to the rooftop, she absentmindedly adjusted her fedora as she double-checked the contraption in front of her. Ensuring that it was still running on battery power, and that the volume was cranked as high as it could go, she slipped away to the edge of the roof before lowering herself to the fire-escape. Withdrawing one of two devices from an over-sized pocket (of which the other was clearly a garage door opener that had seen better days), she extended her arm above the edge of the rooftop and angled the remote at the machine before pressing the button distinctly marked 'Power'.

-----

Down below her, the members of the glorified gang were well underway with a celebration; alcohol everywhere, voices raised in the preliminary tones of a friendly argument, a card game or two, moderately loud discussions on who exactly was "the baddest of the bad" amongst them when they were suddenly drowned out by some music blaring from somewhere above them. The party antics ground to a halt as they all paused to glance up, one particular man in a wife-beater testily jabbing his finger into the air.

"Will someone go see what the hell's up with that?! You two, go up top and shut that stuff off!"

Two men, looking considerably beefier and angrier than their compatriots, rose from their seats and moved towards the stairs leading to the rooftop access. Halfway up, they'd already drawn their pieces: two glocks that had certainly seen some action.

Once they kicked open the door to the roof, one of them instinctively covered his ears with both hands as the other one made his way to the center of the roof. There, situated directly on top of the gravel, was a fairly modern-looking boom-box. The two yes-men exchanged an inquisitive look before the first was stooped down, placing his gun down beside him as he made to turn down the music. Had either of them been paying attention to anything other than the boom-box, they would have caught sight of the Question vaulting over the edge of the roof...

Within moments both men were down and restrained with nylon zip-ties, of which she'd grown to appreciate; against most of the 'flashier' criminal elements they didn't fare well at all, but they were sufficient enough to keep normal people leashed, unless they were hopped up on something. She looked up at herself through one pair of eyes, watching as the vision slowly faded before the second man lost consciousness. Despite happening across the situation numerous times during her short time on Earth, she always found it just a little bit weird.

Stuffing her hands into her coat pockets, she kicked away the men's firearms before stalking her way over to the rooftop access' door, absentmindedly wondering if any of the members of the gang would question why the two guys were taking so long.

[Thestral]

It was night time, the time at which Amanda's powers were strongest. One might ask, however, what she was doing in a place like this, however. It was quite simple. Drug lords were among the most powerful and richest of men. Thestral's current "boyfriend" was among them. As a matter of fact, he was the top dog around here. While his other men were playing cards at the table, Amanda was sitting on top of his lap as he sat on the couch. She was making out with him wildly. Her tongue in his mouth, his hands on her cleavage. During all of this, she wouldn't have noticed any of the noise going on outside if it weren't for the druglord separating mouths with her for a moment to tell some grunts to go upstairs.

"Mmmm..." she moaned a bit as she continued making out passionately. She wasn't paying any attention to what was going on outside, and really didn't have a care anyway. As of now, her back was facing the door, so if Question did come in, Amanda probably wouldn't be the first to see her... along with the fact that she was busy right now.

[The Question]

Having made her way quietly into the building, she quickly traversed the short hallway as she considered her course of action. Up until now she had only used the Question persona as a means to an end; she'd been out looking for information or breaking into someone's office to find out who they really were and what they really wanted. Now, however, was when she was going to stop using the costume as a tool. Tonight she would fully assume the identity of the Question, and all that it entailed.

She paused outside the door to the next room as she fumbled around inside one of her pockets for the items that would be necessary in a few moments. With one hand resting on the doorknob, the other withdrew from the pocket with a small package of white powder and a few pictures taken from a digital camera, blown up slightly to draw attention to their subjects. With a firm grip on the items, her outstretched hand slowly turned the doorknob before easing it open. When the door was open enough to accept her she slipped into the room, her back never once being exposed to the people in the room. Initially it appeared that they hadn't noticed her just yet; most noise was drowned out by the boom-box, and the matter had left their minds as soon as the two men had left to go deal with it. Placing the bottom of one of her booted feet against the door behind her, she pushed it shut the rest of the way with a small 'click' as it recessed back into the doorway.

It wasn't long after that that she was noticed, just standing there in front of the door and all, and the idle conversations slowly died down. Making her entrance the way she did, she'd probably be getting the same reactions if she'd done this without her mask on. As it stood though, some of the more superstitious people in the room would be weirded out by her non-face - definitely not something she was banking on, but it was an appreciated effect.

Now having their attention, she merely raised her hand to show off the items. With her free hand she took the package of cocaine and tossed it to the ground near the center of the group, letting it tumble end over end until it came to rest next to a chair leg. On the visible part of the package was a marker - the gang's own marker. She'd personally pilfered it from one of their venues a few nights ago.

One by one, she flung the photos after the package, the pictures drifting lazily through the air until they settled upon a spot on the floor. There were several of them, and each one told a story; one was of an arms deal going on between the gang and a group of people wishing to start one, a series of pictures of a trashy looking woman leaving a limousine and handing off money to one of the members, another series of photos showing some of the beatdowns that the lower-ranking members of the gang were required to provide to innocent bystanders in order to rise up in the ranks. The last photo to be thrown was the coup-de-grace: two groups meeting in an abandoned warehouse. On one side, members of the gang with guns visibly stuffed into the fronts of their pants; on the other, black-suited security often assigned to government officials. In the middle was the senator from Metropolis, and standing no less than five feet away was the leader of this growing gang. To their sides, an exchange was going down - gang members were handing off three suitcases to the senator's security team. Ildon wasn't a mathematically-minded person, but one of the suitcases in the picture was open, and banded stacks of money were quite obvious from the vantage point of the photographer. She didn't know exactly how much was exchanged just yet, but she knew that it was in the ballpark of half a million dollars. Very clearly a bribe; albeit a small one, and a way for the two of them to reap only the benefits of their 'jobs'.

She remained silent for the moment, her hands resting at her sides. In her mind, speaking right now wasn't necessary, and she'd never been a braggart by nature, so she resigned herself to letting the evidence speak for her. The implied, but unspoken message, was thus: and just what are we going to do about this?

[Thestral]

It wasn't the wisest of plans to disrupt a nymphomaniac's makeout session with her date. Amanda had taken offense to this disturbance, and was perturbed even further by the fact that this person before her now wore a mask and was so high and mighty that she felt it necessary to throw pictures of the gang's underhanded dealings on the ground. Some of these pictures, of course, even contained pictures of Amanda, though she had truly done nothing illegal and just happened to be there at times when things were happening.

Amanda would have preferred to ignore this mysterious woman who had so rudely interrupted, but apparently everyone else was much more concerned. The gang boss quickly shoved Amanda off his lap and onto the floor just to make his way over to the photos which had completely stolen his attention. Amanda fell on her back, but soon stood up, though rather angered by this point. Both at her prospective boyfriend, and the woman who had entered the room.

In any case, Amanda went back to sitting on the couch, this time by herself. She crossed her legs and waited for this to end. Obviously, this mysterious Question woman had yet to call the cops. If she had, she wouldn't have any need to show them all of the pictures. Instead, the cops would be here arresting everyone. Of course, Amanda had no plan as to allow herself to be arrested, especially considering that she was wanted for the homicide of her parents already, but she wouldn't quite use her powers in public. She didn't want anyone here to know that she had them in the first place.

If anything, Amanda's thought at the moment was simply to slip out of here and not have to worry about it. She honestly didn't care about anyone in the room, nor did she ever care about anyone other than herself. After two months or so, she usually ended up killing her boyfriends and raiding them for whatever they were worth. However, as of now, this boy was a new toy to her. She had only just started to use him, so she wasn't quite ready for him to be broken yet. She wasn't ready to go and find a new toy.

"So what about it bitch?" Amanda spoke. Everyone else seemed to still be in their thought processing. Amanda on the other hand was rather relaxed and comfortable. She wasn't fearful. It wasn't like anyone here could do anything to her when she had her powers to aid her. As for now, she planned to wait until Question left, and kill her on the way out.

"What are you going to do?" Amanda asked crossly. She glared at the woman and finally stood up. Everyone else was somewhat shaken by Amanda's rising temper. She wasn't the leader of this group, yet she was acting like it. She made her way to Question and raised her finger to poke her.

"We can kill you where you stand."

[The Question]

Ildon evidently hadn't had to wait long for someone to question her, although she'd been expecting it from the leader of the gang instead of the woman who had been swapping bodily fluids with him. She'd obliquely noticed her when doing her own brand of reconnaissance from the roof, but she'd had no need or reason for her vantage point, so she hadn't ventured towards her mind. Now in the same room with her, and the woman making her way over to her, a slight uneasy feeling came over her - an event that some humans referred to as 'getting goosebumps', a reaction she'd never had before. Given that the woman portrayed little more than arrogance, it was also an irrational one - on a whim she attempted her usual trick, and her assumption was proven correct when she found that she just simply couldn't access the person's mind. The feeling grew in intensity as she tried, and only receded back to it's previous level when she ceased her attempts. She was like a void unto her. Whoever or whatever she was, she was definitely one to keep an eye on.

Bitch. Bitch? Original definition, term for a female dog. She'd heard it often enough to know that it garnered a different meaning for humans in modern times. Frankly she'd had the word directed at her enough times to find some degree of humor in it, at the audacity inherent in hurling the slur. Deciding that her silence had served it's part, she inclined her head slightly to look down in the general direction that the woman's face was; a gesture made solely for the effect, as she had no need to actually look at anything, even if she was able to.

"If everything goes smoothly, nothing. At least for a very long while," she half-droned on in her monotone voice, raising her head to it's normal position in another gesture meant to regard the others in the room. "No sense in any more needless violence tonight. Your two goons up on the roof already filled that requirement."

"I just have a simple request of you. Hang back on things for a while, revel in your current status; you're in the top 5 gangs of Metropolis, which is already a pretty illustrious position. That's your first option. The second is you continue doing what your doing, but stop deliberately harming innocents. The third is that you stop paying out to your good old friend the senator. I'm sure he will understand; plus, if he tries to blow the whistle on you, you'll blow the whistle at him. Mutually assured destruction."

"I could give you the whole tired spiel of 'if something happens to me, these pictures will reach the press', but I'm sure you've heard that before - even though it is true. I am no photographer." She paused to place her hands back into her pockets. "And then there's option number four, which really is not an option: you try to kill me, and I take you down. Personally I would go with one of the first three, but it's really your choice." She made no further gesture to indicate she was talking to the woman again, but it was mostly to her that her next words were directed towards. "If you choose number four, I welcome you to try. I'm sure your trigger fingers are itchy, and one or two of you might have already fired on me, if not for her."

Her conditions finally laid out, there was again nothing she could do but wait for a response. Touching the mind of a man standing at the opposite end of the room, she used his vantage point to watch over the small crowd as she waited for an answer.

[Thestral]

Amanda found it rather annoying that this masked woman thought she could come into the hangout of one of metropolis' top gangs and make whatever demands she wanted. Such audacity. Amanda was so upset that she had blown her top already. She was much too upset to back off. If there weren't so many people around here right now, Amanda would have just killed her with her powers of darkness. Unfortunately, she didn't want anyone else to know of these powers yet.

Unfortunately, Amanda didn't have a gun on her right now, so shooting the woman wasn't even a choice. Aside from that, guns were rather distasteful. She didn't like the idea of shooting someone in cold blood. She'd much rather use her powers and strangle someone to death for a number of reasons. Firstly, it made her feel so much more powerful to be able to use such a unique ability to kill someone. Secondly, it left no evidence that could be linked to her. There were no finger prints to trace, and no DNA could be found near the body. It was almost full proof.

Amanda crossed her arms as she simply looked and listened to what the woman said. She sounded rather silly. Option four was obviously the best option in Amanda's mind. Kill this woman would be easy. She was outnumbered by men who were probably stronger than her. Amanda was the type who really didn't think that an unarmed woman could defeat a man by battle, even when skill came in to play, though Amanda, having powers, was an exception to this rule. In addition to that, Question was outnumbered. No one in this room right now had anything to fear. They had all killed before, and if these pictures were already in the hands of someone else as well, then they would be tagged for the crimes anyway. One more murder wouldn't make a difference. Aside from that the insinuations they had been given by the woman seemed to indicate she may be alone in this.

Amanda sighed as she went back to her man's side, wrapping her arm around him, where he placed his arm around her waist.

"She's crazy." Amanda said under her breath. She was still sneering at the woman. She wasn't going to tell them to kill her, but if they didn't, Amanda was going to go after her. She wanted to see this woman dead. She'd find her and sniff her out later. She'd have to get her in private.

SPOILER: Click to show

Just wanted to say, I'm going to let you have the other guys do whatever you please for the thread. Amanda's current boyfriend has no significance on her plot, and whatever you chose to happen to the gang or what you have them say/do does not impact her in any way. So, it's your choice for where you want this to go.

[The Question]

With her hands still stuffed in her coat pockets, she observed the woman as she made her way back to the side of the gang's leader, talking under her breath. She wasn't close enough to hear what she was saying, but given her attitude so far, it was doubtlessly something insulting. From her viewpoint in the back of the room, even she would have admitted that she looked crazy; even despite the fact that the ammunition used by them would do little more than sting, she was still standing in front of a veritable firing squad with no visible protection. Although had there been another source of light from outside shining through the windows, they might have noticed the space directly in front of her glinting in the light.

"Made a choice yet?"

Most likely coming to the same conclusions that Amanda had, the leader drew his gun, followed in part by all the men around him. Ildon's face under the mask remained expressionless, but in truth she'd been banking on this response being the one they would take. She didn't even flinch when the started shooting, sending a wave of gunfire her way. This went on for at least half a minute, before they realized their plan of action wasn't having it's desired effects: she wasn't full of holes, she wasn't dying, and she was still standing. Lowering their firearms, they simply stared at her as she withdrew her hands from her pockets, rubbing her chin in an introspective gesture as she pretended to inspect their handiwork - every single bullet fired hung directly in the air in front of her, no more than five inches from her face.

"Not too bad. You get points for effort." Extending her pointer finger, she gently pushed on the glass-like construct shield in front of her, sending it crashing to the floor as it dissipated into nothing and the spent ammunition scattered around the floor. "Not too late to reconsider, you know."

A young up-start charged at her, very clearly telegraphing that he intended to pistol-whip her upside the head. Before he could bring his hand down she grabbed his wrist, squeezing tightly enough to make him cry out and drop his gun, Spinning him around and putting him in a choke hold, she paused to reach into one of his jeans pockets and pull out a cell phone. A fable from her home planet popped up into her head, with the moral of the story being roughly translated as "good and bad intentions alike are often foiled by one's own devices". Dialing only three numbers, she didn't even let the voice on the other end of the phone finish talking before interrupting them. "911, please state the nature of your emergen-" "52nd South Street. Gang activity." The operator began to ask her for details, but she simply slipped the cell phone into a shirt pocket.

In an instant there was movement among the group as they quickly processed what had just happened, another one breaking away from them as he made for the pocket the phone was in. He was rewarded with a backhand to the face before Ildon kicked away the unconscious man that had previously been in her choke-hold. Droning on, she sounded almost bored in her monotony even as several other men surrounded her, holding improvisational weapons like folding chairs and even a crowbar. "Still not too late to change your minds..."

[Thestral]

Shooting her seemed to make quite a bit of sense, but what Amanda hadn't anticipated was that the woman would stop the bullets with some kind of... force field? It was rather odd. Amanda hadn't seen anything like it before. Either this woman was a meta-human or she had gotten her hands on some rather impressive equipment. In either case, Amanda was going to be careful around her.

The forcefield dissipated as though it were made of nothing other than glass. Intriguing. Not many types of glass would be able to withstand gunfire. It had to be strong. And in addition to this, some youngster in the gang thought he could fight against her and ended up getting beaten down rather easily. Through all of this, Amanda stayed back, at least until the woman called the police.

She groaned. Amanda definitely didn't want to have the cops on her tail. Even though she could escape from jail rather easily, she didn't want to get a record under her name. She didn't want any of that attached to her and wanted to be able to live her life as "normally" as she could. She frowned.

"Can you guys really not kill this bitch?" Amanda screamed, she was now rather frustrated. "Fine! I'm leaving! Have fun going to prison."

Amanda stormed out in the direction of the door. They couldn't fight Question, apparently she had strange powers, however Amanda was certain that she could. All that was required was her uniform to hide her true identity. Of course, going to the door meant that she'd have to walk straight past Question. Amanda paid the woman no mind, and aimed to just walk straight past her.

[The Question]

Ildon was about as aware of Amanda trying to leave as she could have been at that point, also keeping a figurative eye on the men surrounding her. They had started coming at her two at a time now, sometimes more, and she felt the table leg break against her arm as she braced herself against the force of the hit. Another man, one who had picked up one of the metal folding chairs, swung it down towards her head. Before it could touch her she'd gabbed the opposite end of it, yanked, and squarely elbowed him in the stomach before tossing away the chair and kneeing the man's chin as he stood there doubled over.

"Well you're welcome to leave I guess, you're not really a major player in this. Though I'm assuming you saw yourself in those pictures, and it's inevitable that the police will keep an eye out for yo-" Her words were interrupted as someone at her side clocked her good with a crowbar, causing her to stumble a step or two from the unexpectedness of it. Reaching behind her head she caught the crowbar on the next swing, flipping the man over her and into the floor hard enough to crack the floorboards cracked around him. "Starting to get a little annoyed here, guys."

She found herself stooped slightly as other guys started to dog-pile on her, hoping to weigh her down in a desperate effort. It didn't have a very high chance of success, but as long as they were focused on keeping her down, they weren't going to get the smart idea of leaving like that odd woman had. "So like I was saying, feel free to run."

[Thestral]

Amanda did indeed decide to take this as an opportunity to escape from there. She had no intention of remaining behind in her current attire and swiftly exit through the door. After this, she quickly scurried away, though she didn't want to use her powers of flight just yet. She ran downstairs to where there was a particular crate and quickly opened it. Out of the crate, she pulled a black robe and placed the hood over her head. It would hide her form completely.

Before she could make her way back to the main room, however, she heard the sound of cop cars approaching the front of the building. Now finally taking into the air, she approached them and flew above them floating above them.

In night, her powers were greatest, and she planned to use this in her own advantage. Before the cops even had a chance to get out of their car, she raised both of her hands into the air. She held her palms open, and just as she rose them, the shadows rose from around the cop cars, picking them up, and flung them across the street.

[The Question]

Ildon had just about finished up inside when she heard the commotion going on outside, causing her to pause in her gait towards one of the few still semi-conscious combatants. Briefly she reached out to other minds she felt in order to get a view of the situation, but she happened to pick one of the police officers still in their patrol car - she very nearly lost her balance from the image of the world spiraling around her.

Not wanting so pick another mind at random, and sensing that same 'void' feeling out on the street, she had few options to consider as to how she'd handle this. Coming to a decisions fast she returned her attention to the man she'd been after previously, taking a firm grip of his shoulder and dragging him out of the room at a medium pace. One of the man's feet bounced around unnaturally as they went, the man crying out in pain with each jostling motion. Underneath her mask, Ildon rolled her eyes at him; his ankle was broken, but that didn't mean he had to sound like a ghost from Irish folk-lore.

Finally reaching the front door, she left the man near the stairs on his back, which meant that her view was upside-down. It was easily fixed, but it was another occurrence that she reasoned 'normal' people would never experience.
"I was expecting something a little more... subtle.".

[Thestral]

The cop cars were still flying at this point, though Thestral had no desire to stop until every cop car was down and she no longer had any to worry about. As a matter of fact, she didn't really know why she was doing this. For the most part, she didn't care about anyone on that gang. To her, they were merely play things to keep her entertained. Perhaps that was the reason, however. She hadn't finished playing with her yet. They hadn't become expendable commodities just yet.

"You live." Thestral said in a rather deep, masculine-sounding voice as she allowed the cops from the car she had just thrown to limp away, though they really looked they could pass out any moment now.

"You die," she said as the shadows began to rise around another car into a black aura which soon crushed it causing the car to explode. No doubt the officers inside of it would be dead.

"Hahahah! This is so much fun!"

[The Question]

Death was no stranger to her - even back on her peaceful home planet of Ramore, there was no shortage of it. Sure, murders were few and far in-between, but accidental and otherwise unnatural deaths weren't as scarce a concept. Over time she'd grown accustomed to it, and as long as it didn't happen to be anyone she knew personally, it didn't tend to affect her much. Despite her relative indifference to it, the act still garnered her attention. Even without the proclamation by this person, she was aware of the exact moment when the unfortunate policemen died.

Humanity holds such little regard for other sentient life.

It was a momentary thought, and now her mind was back on the current situation. From what she'd just seen, this person had the ability to command shadows - really unfortunate for her, seeing as it was only getting steadily darker by the minute and she had no reason to believe that the street lights would provide any hindrance. Whatever she did, she'd have to do it fast, because the man lying on the stairs behind her was whimpering loudly enough for them to take notice.

And so, going with the first thing that came to mind, she proceeded to form a solid ball of psychic energy, wind her arm back, and chuck it at the person's back like a baseball. At the very least she could serve as a distraction. At best it would allow her to act in a reactionary fashion, and personally she'd always seen that as the easier way when exercising caution.

[Thestral]

The police were so much fun to play with. Thestral loved the control and the power involved in this. She was invulnerable to them. There was nothing they could do to her. As soon as they raised their guns, she would heighten her guard. She couldn't be killed by them. That was part of her power. Their attacks would phase through her. For now, she simply got to enjoy herself in deciding which humans would die and which humans would live.

More cop cars were coming, but Thestral wasn't going to run. She could keep going like this for ages. She saw another cop car coming, but just as she decided to throw it into the air with the shadows, she felt something smash into her back. It was somewhat irritating. Whoever threw that had a good arm. it felt almost like a bullet, except much more blunt and it didn't pierce through her. It was going to leave a bruise. Thestral turned to face the woman who threw it at her. It was that woman from inside earlier.

"Tell me... Just who do you think you are?" Thestral asked as she descended from the sky and landed just a few meters in front of the woman. Thestral still used her masked voice as to hide her identity and make herself seem much more masculine than she truly was. The shape of her body wouldn't reveal her true gender either thanks to the build of the robe.

"I'd suggest you get out of here now."

[The Question]

Well at least that tactic succeeded; she couldn't speak for the future what with having no precognitive abilities, but at least the attention was on her now instead of the police. She hoped that it would stay that way, at least to give said police enough time to think of a different approach.

"Me? I think an apt phrasing would be 'a loon in a suit', but I'm getting the feeling that question was rhetorical." The remark came off as cool and collected as ever, but inwardly Ildon was still preparing herself for the inevitable clash. Aside from a couple of small-time bruisers, this would be her first fight against a super-powered opponent, and training could only do so much - if she lost here, the consequences would be far worse than a few bruises and a bad grade.

Thankfully the captive man had stopped whimpering, and she was very glad for that; he was very annoying, and she was really hoping that he wouldn't just get louder when things really started to go down. While her arms remained tensed up at her sides, she shifted her balance onto the balls of her feet. "I'd take you up on that offer, but I wouldn't be able to call myself crazy if I listened to good advice." A beat pause. "So make me."