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Post by marci2 on Jun 24, 2011 16:31:10 GMT -5
Darkness surrounded her. Cynthia had the common sense not to be out so late, knowing that even with her powers a young woman alone after midnight in the middle of downtown maple hollow was begging for someone to came steal something from her. Or violate her, or shoot her, or get vengeance on her. All of the like was on her mind, but she went out anyway. She ignored the academy curfew and just stayed away from the place, feeling altogether too restless to sit around a bunch of sullen, quiet thunder students. They respected her, but very few of them even made a pretense of being her friend.
She'd not been in this part of town for quite awhile, but her steps carried her as if she'd been there all her life. Her assured air didn't change, not even when she needed desperately a place a to sit and cry, or a place to delve through the emotions she hadn't let loose in awhile. Without thinking, she walked past the closed tattoo parlor, paused, and looked at it for awhile. She'd never been in there, but she had been rather intrigued by the sort of air it gave off. Especially in this part of town, it didn't seem all that safe. Even less so in the middle of the night.
What was she doing here? She really didn't know. Cynthia wasn't thinking about what she was doing. Rather, her mind was far away, in the place where she fancied her brother had died, facing down his killer. She started walking again, around the side of the big building as if she was following someone. But, as usual, no one was there. Cynthia was beginning to go insane. She had to find this person. She had to kill him. Throwing a fist forward, she sent a bolt of lightning out of it to char the side of the building.
”My my....what are you doing here?”
Cynthia whirled to face the speaker, her eyes narrowing against the darkness to get a good look at him. The voice was low and rough, and by the tone of it she didn't suppose he meant to do anything good with her. But she stayed her hand, merely drawing so extra energy to her right arm for later use. She took a step away from the speaker, trying again to make out his features through the gloom. She'd never had very good vision in the dark, and all the fog from her breath wasn't helping things. ”Who are you?”
”Cynthia, you are very, very pretty.” He said, moving closer to her and raising his hand. She started to match his steps, her own carrying her away from him, but the ground gave out beneath her. She cried out, feeling the fissure snap closed again around her leg, trapping her. Immediately she pulled all of her energy to her arm and then threw it at the mysterious man, hoping it fried him. But he blocked it, or he dodged he, she couldn't quite tell. And he continued to moved toward her until she could see that it was a man, aging but not old, and completely unknown to her. He bent down, ”But you really are not very smart.”
The ground started to close tighter about her foot, and pain shot up her leg. She gasped, gritted her teeth, and sent another bolt at him. He stepped back, taking the hit with his hand and letting out an angry snarl. He backhanded her across the face, and while she was disoriented she heard a click and something pressed against her stomach. Gun.
”You fight back more than most, you know. But I've already decided not to toy with you.”
She tried for another shot of lightning, but the ground at her feet was somehow draining her, and she'd already sent three very powerful blasts in the past minute. She turned her head to say something scathing, but she never got the words out. A silenced bullet went straight through her abdomen. Time seemed to slow down, and she looked down at where she'd been shot. The bullet went straight through. The man smirked, waiting just long enough for the pain to blossom in her stomach before shooting again.
She screamed that time. Whether from anger or from agony, she wasn't sure, but she reached forward and sent another wave of electricity at her assailant's gut. He grunted, but was not extremely hurt. Patting her head once, he leaned down and brought his face close to hers. ”See you in hell, Bainbridge.” What the hell? Cynthia was too weak to speak. Indeed, she'd fallen to the ground, her foot still trapped in the earth, before the unnamed man was able to grab his casings. He smiled down at her and then ran off, leaving her there, on the frozen ground in the middle of the night.
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Post by amps on Jun 25, 2011 4:27:15 GMT -5
It was late, but the dark had never really bothered Conrad before--nor had the streets or the thugs that walked them. For it was all a lesson in familiarity to the Thunder boy. He knew from experience what to expect in dark alleys and on shady streets corners. There were a few differences, of course, because he'd lived in Britain back when the streets had been his main home. But for the most part, it was almost like nothing was changed as he passed the drugs off to the shaky younger boy and pocketed the money which the sorry bugger had probably stolen from his parents.
He'd never been into the dealing of the merchandise before he'd came to Canada, however. That was Nathaniel's job. Hannah worked the streets to get up some cash, then gave it to their youngest brother. He bought some goods and divided them up, selling for double. It was how they'd made their money. Of course, any street-run business had competition, and competitors had tried to permanently take them out of the running before. That was where Conrad had come in. He was the bodyguard, the muscleman. You fucked with his siblings and he wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in your head.
Perhaps that was why the smell of gunpowder made him frown. He had not heard the silenced shot nor the conversation that took place between the two, but as he strolled past the tattoo parlour on the way to the smoke shop to get some cigarettes, the all-too-familiar smell made him pause. Hmm? He was not normally a very curious person--curiosity killed the cat, as they say--but something made him hesitate, glancing down to the end of the street where the dingy neon sign declared the mini mart where he purchased his fags to be open twenty-four hours. It wasn't like it was going to get up and walk away if he took a quick nip down the alley to see what was going on. And so that decided it.
Whatever he had expected to find, this was not it.
"Bloody hell--Cynthia?" And 'bloody hell' was a little more literal than usual, looking at the scarlet liquid that pooled around her. She was still alive, still breathing, but given the severity of the wound it didn't look like she would be for long. Conrad was hardly compassionate, but he was not enough of a tosser that he'd just walk away. Instead, he crouched down a bit. "Shit," he cursed, shaking his head. "Wha' the hell happened to you?" he questioned, then asked, "D'you want me to call an ambulance or somethin'?" He didn't even know if it would be worth the call, but hell.
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Post by marci2 on Jun 25, 2011 11:46:11 GMT -5
So close, Cynthia was so close to just closing her eyes and letting herself sleep, when she heard a familiar voice curse nearby. For a second her disorientation allowed her to believe it was that man again, that he had come back to make sure she would not be found. But no, it was someone from the academy. It was...it was.... Wonderful. She thought, turning her head to see Conrad crouching beside her. Of all the people who could have found her, it would be the one person who didn't give a shit. About anything, but much less about her. She took a deep, shaky breath, ruing the fact that she had to just lie there pathetically in front of someone else.
It was odd that she didn't seem to be afraid. Most people feared the day or moment they were going to die, but all she could think about was that she wasn't going to be able to get the person who killed her brother. The bitterness of that thought entered her voice enough to give an edge to it. ”What do you think...happened? I was shot.” Damn, she couldn't even talk right. She gave a short sort of growl as she weakly tried to pull her leg out of the ground, but it was all in vain. She gave a short, weak laugh when he asked about calling an ambulance. ”Think they could get me out of the ground in time?”
No, she was going to die. And she couldn't exactly tell Conrad her life's story and ask him to find her brother—no, that wasn't going to happen. Even if he deigned to listen to it, he certainly wouldn't consider performing her request. That would just be a shitload of trouble he'd never asked for, and Cynthia was not humble enough to even try to ask it of him. So she just sat there for a few seconds, feeling herself weakening even further as she was consumed by quiet rage and bitterness. There had to be something she could do, something to keep her from going insane in the last moments she had.
Then a thought came her here through the mire of pain and cold. She even smiled a little bit with it, though it was hardly a nice smile. She exerted herself in order to shift enough to lift and hand and grab Conrad's shirt. If she'd had the strength, she would have pulled his face toward her, but she did not. She took a deep breath and said. ”Nell Doe Shepherd. You know her? She's....She's an earth student.” She had to take several seconds to keep herself from coughing up blood, then she tried again, ”You need to go back.... Tell Alex Blackthorn that she killed me. She can't... get away with this.”
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Post by amps on Jun 25, 2011 13:06:22 GMT -5
Conrad shook his head and rolled his eyes a little. "Obviously," he replied. "I was talking about that." He gestured toward the fact that she was stuck in the ground. It didn't occur to Conrad that it could have been an Earth elementals work because Con wasn't the most intuitive of guys. Maybe it was the years of drug use, maybe not. All he knew was that she was stuck in the ground and that it wasn't exactly her day. The almost nonchalant tone he'd used when replying with sarcasm to her comment clearly displayed his apathy and deadness to the world. Any reasonable person would have been freaking out and fussing over Cyn and would have called an ambulance regardless of whether Mrs. Shot and Dying thought it was a good idea.
Not Conrad.
"Got a point there," he agreed, staring deadpan at the earth that trapped her in place and pocketing the cellphone that he'd been readying himself to use. Cyn was going to die, apparently. And Conrad had a very inappropriate thought for the situation, Wonder who'll take her place as Thunder leader, then? Really hope it isn't one of those stupid bitches I hate. He truly wasn't all that empathetic. Even if Cyn had opted to tell him about her brother and her desire for revenge it probably would have been all for naught. Oh, the boy might have had enough of a soul to make an effort to find the killer... but not enough to remember three days later. No, she'd take her desire for revenge with her to the grave.
She grabbed his shirt, and Conrad probably would have been heartless enough to punch her in response if her grip hadn't been so weak. Instead he just backed out of her grip and frowned when she mentioned some Earth girl. "Nope, don't know her." He shrugged and actually might have walked off after Cyn went silent if she hadn't gathered up her voice and continued at that moment.
Oh yeah, he had to go back and tell Blackthorn, huh? So Cyn was making this his problem? Conrad arched a brown brow at her, then decided that he could at least make an effort to have her killer taken down. It wasn't like it was going to do him any harm. He had no loyalties or attachments to Cyn but for the sheer sake of just passing on a message, he decided that he would do it. "Yeah, whatever," he agreed with a bit of a shrug. "I can tell 'im." Now what would he do--stay with the dying girl as she bled out the remainder of her system onto the pavement or get the fuck out of here?
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