18442/Dark Figures In Allways Are Bad For Your Health
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Dark Figures In Allways Are Bad For Your Health | |
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Date of Scene: | 26 June 2024 |
Location: | Alleyways - Hell's Kitchen |
Synopsis: | Karolina and Cloak have a Philosophy 101 discussion. And manage to not commit violence upon the other. |
Cast of Characters: | Tyrone Johnson, Karolina Dean
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- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
It's a brutally muggy and stifling New York evening. The moon hangs low and listless in the sky and the city's been baking all day. The alleyway, never fragrant at its best, absolutely _reeks_ of discarded garbage and bodily waste. But from deep in that alley, shrouded in darkness, comes a piercing scream. Female, at the top of her lungs, wordless. Just a cry of shock and horror.
The scream is quickly followed by a bellow of masculine terror and rage, but that one chokes off suddenly, as if something bad happened to whoever was making the noise.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
Have you ever seen a life-size Tinkerbell floating around New York? Or maybe at least heard of one?
She's not _exactly_ Tinkerbell. She doesn't have any wings and, to be honest, in the white-dress-and-boots she's picked for her 'costume,' she looks a bit more like what some ancient peoples might have called an 'Angel'. Her skin glows with translucent light, a feminine body made of plasma with a flowing mane of multi-colored energy that trails in her wake like the tail of a comet.
Hell's Kitchen hasn't exactly been super safe, lately, and it seemed to be getting worse. Crime was on the rise, and Karolina Dean -- Starlight, as she was going by in-costume, now -- was on patrol between classes.
She couldn't keep it up all night. During the day, she could fly for hours and hours and hours, soar up into the upper limits of the atmosphere, bask in the beauty of the curve of the horizon and come back down on another continent, if she wanted. At night, though, she didn't stray too far from home... which was Greenwich Village and the ESU campus.
Still, if she could do at least a little bit of good between studying for summer-semester finals and catching some sleep, she should, right?
And so that majestic streak of literal starlight -- one that looks just like a shooting star when she's high enough -- is close to the buildings. She lacks Supergirl's super-hearing and super-vision, so it's low-passes for her to see what's going on. Alley after alley flashes with a blink of her radiant light as she passes overhead...
Until she passes right over one, just as there's a shriek.
And then that light stops on a dime. Turns. Hovers. And zips back overtop of the alley, descending with an ambient glow that's like a disco-ball or a tiny sun being slowly lowered from the rooftops. A police searchlight couldn't even do as good of a job at lighting up the shadowy corners as she is, her hands already held up in front of her as she searches the scene.
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Karolina's light just _refuses_ to penetrate the Stygian blackness over the end of the alleyway. A boiling dome of black obscures what may or may not be going on within. The woman screams again, but this time there's words.
"WHAT ARE YOU? Oh, God, please don't kill me, pleasepleaseplease..."
"Look, lady. Just calm down. Nobody's going to hurt you." said a voice. Male. Accented, not from New York.
"Fuck you, man!" shouts another man. Then gunshots. Then the first voice, the one not from around here, laughs. "You're a bad man. Tried to hurt this woman here. Take things from her. Do things to her. Not today, buddy. And now, not ever again." said that same male voice.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
The reason that organizations like SHIELD have a command structure is so that more experienced people can train less experienced people. You've never met a Kree? Call in an expert! You've never run into an amorphous black shape that at once seems to exist and _not_ exist while either eating or at least absorbing all light that gets near it in an alley in Hell's Kitchen?
Well, they probably have somebody for that, too. Unfortunately, Karolina is not a member of SHIELD. And while she _is_ a member of the Titans, that apparently didn't come with enough on-the-job training to cover... this.
Whatever _this_ is.
"What's going on?!" the girl shouts. It's not terribly 'commanding,' specially given the edge of uncertainty in it. Also, she's not from New York, either. That much is apparent in her accent -- or lack of one.
Those hands generate a beam of light that shines into the darkness, absorbed as easily as the rest of her ambient glow, and the futility of it (along with the continued screams) dials her panic up a couple of notches.
In the end, it's the gunshots that push her over the edge, that have her descending into it to pierce the veil, to join the commotion, hands still up defensively, ready to make a shield, a beam, a.. whatever she needed to use her solar energy for. Not even really thinking about how useless that energy might be, given how thoroughly that darkness absorbed her light.
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Inside the bubble is a young woman, probably a streetwalker by the way she's (barely) dressed. She's slumped against the wall of the alley, stunned, staring at the other two ... now one figure in the alley.
Just as Karolina walked through the veil, she got to see a figure in a dark cloak, all features obscured by a darkness that devoured light, pushing a thug into ... his own body? The thug disappeared with another stifled scream, then Cloak turned to face the interloper.
"Hey." he said, trying to keep things friendly. "Who're you?" he asked.
For now, he was ignoring the woman slumped against the wall, as her rationality had surrendered to sheer terror based on whatever had happened before Karolina showed up.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
Yeah... this is why you don't go into scary black holes in you find in alleys in Hell's Kitchen.
Or maybe anywhere.
Because invariably, there's going to be one guy stuffing another guy into his body while some poor, defenseless woman watches in horror.
"Stay BACK!"
Starlight was not trying to keep things friendly.
She was too busy jumping to conclusions and, frankly, saving the girl against the wall from being eaten by the big scary man-shape-thing in the cloak. Because THAT is what heroes do.
...save people. Not jump to conclusions.
...okay, maybe both, sometimes.
It takes less than a second for Karolina to decide on the real 'victim' here and rush to the woman's side, kneeling beside her and holding up one hand towards Cloak.
A bubble of solar plasma made manifest springs up around the two women like a shield, but Karolina's all eyes for the woman, reaching out to offer a hand without touching her.
"Come on," she urges. "It's going to be okay, but I have to get you out of here."
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Cloak just watched as Stay Back rushed to the woman's aid, put up some kinda glowy cocoon around the two of them. Which, he had to admit, was fair. He put up a bubble of Darkforce around the alleyway, after all. But he let that die now, as a gesture of good faith. "There were four men. Attacking her. Assault, battery, attempted rape. I put a stop to it." he said simply, like it was no big deal.
"Interesting name you got there, Stay Back. They call me Cloak." he said, and for just a second a grin could be seen on the man's face before the darkness obscured it all. "You don't have to worry, I'm not going to hurt this young lady. But if you want to get her out, I won't stop you." he said. Oddly enough, Cloak cast no shadow in Karolina's light and looked almost translucent in her light.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
The woman she was trying to coax doesn't look at the glowing form of Starlight with a lot more trust than she had the others, and when Karolina realizes it, that glowing skin of hers simply... goes out. The radiant plasma seems to cool instantly to pink, fleshy skin that makes her look no different than any other twenty-something blonde woman.
That seems help... a little.
Karolina's eyes lift as the bubble of darkness recedes, as her light starts to shine back out into the alley again and the world becomes more than a black void.
That blue gaze shifts to Cloak, then, through the shimmering, prismatic force-field she was holding in place. That bubble itself didn't exactly make everything in the outside world look 'normal,' but the way the light seemed to pass through Cloak without creating a shadow was new, even for her.
"Yeah, then where are they?"
There's not a lot of trust in her tone. In fairness, though, she'd seen at least one of the men... for a second. Before he was EATEN. In a manner.
"Come on... up." Starlight gets a little more insistent with the trembling woman, then, who at least looks at her through the eyes of another woman -- a stranger, but not nearly as scary as four (five?) men who were all about to rape her. "Come on... it's okay."
"He... He..." The woman's standing with Karolina, still shaking, keeping her back to the wall, edging around her and using Karolina as a bit of a human(?) shield.
"He can't hurt you." Karolina's not certain that's true. She's not even certain Cloak couldn't hurt _her_, but she'd do her best to stop it.. and if it helped the woman get enough confidence to get back on her feet, all the better.
"He -- He stopped them... He... I can't... I have to..." The woman's still stammering, and when she starts to bolt, Karolina drops that bubble-shield around them, giving her a chance to flee.
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Cloak doesn't budge during this whole thing. "Not can't. Won't. Important difference." he said with one of those fleeting grins again. "So, Stay Back. We gonna have a problem here?" he asked, his accent making the words a little difficult to parse.
"Who, the bad guys? Oh, they're dying slowly, tortured by horrific visions while their life-force slowly boils away." he said, very matter-of-factly. "Nobody's going to miss their kind." he pointed out as Karolina gives him a look. The clack of the woman's heels on the pavement slowly fade away as she books it as best she can out of the alleyway and presumably down the street to what she considers to be safety.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
They look a little funny, in that alley.
Somehow, having that woman with them made it more normal -- gave them a 'victim' to add illegitimacy to their presence. Now, it's just a blonde in a stark white dress and gold sash, and Cloak being all... Cloak.
"Starlight."
Once the woman's safely rounded the corner, her gaze turns back on Cloak again, and a bit of softness finally creeps back into her expression, her voice, her posture.
"I go by Starlight."
One hand finds her hip, eyes sweeping down him and back up again as if looking for the hole he dumped those bodies into.
"There were really _four_ of them?"
It's a bit more incredulity than outright mistrust in her voice. A kind of resigned acceptance of the situation that both of them now found themselves in. Either she could accept what just happened, or she could decide to pick a fight with a guy who she didn't know.
All she really knew was that he'd definitely just saved that woman.
"You know it doesn't matter if no one's going to miss them. It's still murder..."
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Cloak nodded. "Yeah. I know." he said. He had really good reasons why he had to kill to stay alive, but he didn't really want to get into it in a stinking alley with Stay Back, err, Starlight. "The moral calculus is pretty simple. Four dead would-be thieves and rapists. One living would-be victim. And me." he said.
"What, you want to send them to jail? Where they can learn to be better criminals, make some connections on the inside so when they get out - and they will - they can be even better at crime? Cut me a break, lady. Down here, on the streets, that shit don't fly."
Had he been a little more self-conscious, he'd realize how much like the Punisher he sounded. Well, even deranged lunatics could get it right sometimes.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
"How is stealing worthy of the death penalty? Haven't you ever watched Aladdin?!"
Okay.. so.. Karolina's a bit of a bleeding heart.
And maybe kind of a hypocrite, given that her actions directly led to the deaths of her own parents.
In fairness, they were trying to end the world. Which was a little worse than stealing a load of bread. Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat isn't exactly the same as trading every human life in existence for a shot at immortality.
"So, what? You're the final arbiter? Judge and jury? No chance at rehabilitation? Does that guy jaywalking..." She thumbs over her shoulder. There's no guy there. It's a hypothetical guy. "...does he die, too? Or is it just misdemeanors and above? What about the kids spray-painting graffiti? Do they have to... what did you say? Suffer nightmares while their skin boils away?"
Her eyebrows are up near her hairline. And she's upset, but she's not screaming. She's just.. not exactly happy.
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"It's so cute that you think you know what it's like." he said simply. Calmly. "No, the jaywalker doesn't get death. Neither does the graffiti artist. But those who would take the lives of others? Those who would force poison into children? Who would debase others for their own lusts? Yeah. They can go away. See, the thing is, Starlight, I believe in freedom. So long as it harms none, do as thou wilt." he quoted. "I think of myself as a referee. A walking consequence. Karma given form." he said firmly. "And yeah, I know I'm a monster." he said, with a fond thought towards Venom. "A lethal protector, as a goo monster I know likes to put it." he clarified. "Not like I got a lot of choice in the matter. So while this has been fun and all, I think it's time for me to go. You going to try to stop me, Starlight? Or take the W, our streets are a little safer, a woman free to live the rest of her life?" he asked.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
Starlight's hands come up in front of her in surrender (although, given the nature of her power, it's not as absolutely innocent a gesture as it might be for a normal human).
"I'm not going to fight you, Cloak," she sighs softly. "Or stop you."
There's a moment of trepidation and resignation, though. A lingering thought that it took her a couple of seconds with her lips parted, trying to find what words she wanted to say.
"I just..."
Still struggling. More seconds. Eventually she blows out a heavy sigh.
"Thank you. For stepping in."
Beat.
"For saving her. Her choices, her lifestyle make her a target, but what those men were going to do was... much more monstrous than their punishment."
Her lips purse, her voice a bit softer.
"I can't condone murder as a one-size-fits-all solution. But... I get it. Especially in this case. So. Thank you."
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Cloak was surprised. He thought he was in for another tedious morality lecture. Instead, finally, he gets gratitude. Surprised, but ultimately pleased.
"You're welcome." he said, after a moment. Concentrating, he let Cloak fade back as Tyrone came to the forefront as he gained solidity. And then he held out a hand to her for a handshake. Statement of trust and vulnerability - he had to be solid to shake her hand which meant that if she wanted to lase him into his component atoms, she probably could.
- Karolina Dean has posed:
Fascination and maybe a bit of awe fill Karolina's eyes as she watches that shift -- like... what? Like something leaving its shell behind.
Her mouth hands open just a little, that surprise evident, until there's a hand offered to shake. From a... regular looking guy.
Karolina's smile grows, and she takes a step forward to take that hand, to give it a squeeze that's present without any pretense of challenge or dominance or any of that nonsense. It's just friendly. And _very_ warm. Her skin always has this almost-feverish quality to it, like she's been baking in the sun all day.
"My real name's Karolina," she says, pronouncing the end like 'LEENA.'
So, she definitely doesn't shoot him with lasers or anything like that. Except that smile is kind of beaming.
- Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Ty shook her hand and his skin was almost ice-cold. Like he'd been outside on a blustery winter day with no gloves on. "Ty." he said, glad for once that his stammer didn't choke his tongue. His grip wasn't a stuggle for dominance or anything like that either - just a brief human connection. He let her hand go, then let Cloak come back forward, fading his physicality back into the Darkforce. "Be seeing you, Karoleena." he said, only getting her name a little bit wrong. The smile was unexpected and weirded him out a little.
In his line of, well, everything, cheerful people didn't come along too too often. It was, he had to admit, nice to be reminded that they existed. He stepped back, so as to avoid the appearance of a threat, and opened a portal to the Darkforce Dimension. Darkness boiled forth from it like a cloud of inky blackness and then he gave her a little salute with one hand before stepping into the portal.
The portal obligingly closed behind him, leaving Karolina alone in the stinking hot alleyway.