Karks Hideout
Kussatawnee, New Hampshire
2 Months Ago...?
The sounds of machinery and sawblades were constant, as Charlotte had learned over the past week. For a bunch of criminals, they sure did seem to be busy carpenters.
Donnie had gone over it with the whole gang in the form of a "Here's-where-we're-at" meeting. According to him, the building still wasn't quite up-to-date in terms of proper defenses in case the cops came by and tried to take them down. This needed to become a fortress, and it needed to become a fortress quickly; you could never know when someone might try to take the gang down....
Well, that was exactly what Charlotte had intended, wasn't it? And so far, none of them had had a clue as to what she was doing. All of them seemed to be comfortable around her, except for two people.
"Jagg" and "T".
"Jagg" was a blondie who had shoulder-length hair and knives. She didn't seem distrusting of her, so much as she seemed...jealous, maybe? Neither one of them was particularly petite or ugly, so there wasn't much to bother over in terms of appearance. Perhaps it was the attention she was receiving as the new girl in the gang, or maybe it was the fact that she wasn't the only lady in the team anymore. Either way, Jagg had initially been irksome around Charlotte, but it had worn off. At least, if it hadn't worn off yet, she certainly wasn't showing it.
But then "T" was a different matter altogether. This guy was tall, well-built and quiet--in all her time, she hadn't heard him utter a single word to her or anyone else on the team--and was almost what she'd call handsome. However, he wasn't exactly appealing in that his left eye was completely black, from the pupil to the sclera. It seemed to function like any other normal eye, it was just...unnerving. Every time he looked at her, it was as if a demon was staring at her, piercing into her soul.
Yet that wasn't what was wrong with him. Every time the two were around each other, T always gave her a certain look. It wasn't threatening or full of desire...rather, it was just...alert. Like a dog that had spotted a home intruder...or something like that. In any case, there was something about him when he looked at her that just screamed that something was wrong...but was something wrong with him, or her?
In the end, it never really mattered that much, simply because T was always busy in the other building of the hideout. The hideout itself was an abandoned refinery that had been composed of two different buildings. One building was a rather large shed, too big to be a garage but too small to be a hangar; this was where T went to do...well, whatever it was he did. When asked, the gang members said it was some kind of "personal project" that T had gotten into in the past few months, using funds and materials stolen during their robberies and heists. It was such a busy project that Charlotte hardly saw him during the entire week she was with the gang. But when she did briefly see him now and then, it was always a very chilling moment.
Regardless, nothing really came of the two gangsters. This was fortunate for Charlotte, as she only needed to bide her time for the right moment to kill them all. She couldn't find the opportunity to do so, simply because if she tried, they'd all be there to shoot her. She'd learned during her time there that they were a clever group of individuals, clever enough to figure out when they'd been betrayed. So she'd have to wait for the right moment, the moment when she could make the perfect strike....
That moment came at the end of the week.
Johnny Smith and Jagg came barreling into the main building of the hideout inside the gang's van. It took them a while to catch their breath before one of them explained that they'd just gotten into a really bad chase, and that they had had no choice but to come back to headquarters...with the cops still in tow. Naturally, Donnie was furious, but this soon changed from fury to determination. He ordered the three gangsters he'd known the longest to prepare the hideout's defenses so that they could be properly shielded when they evacuated; as for Charlotte, he asked her to go fetch T from the other building so that he could help with the defenses.
"And when ya get 'em, Girlie, ask him to bring his 'project' with him," Donnie had said.
"The 'project'? What does that have to do with anything?" Charlotte asked, curious as to how Donnie seemed to know what T's "project" was.
"Now's not the time to ask questions, Girlie! Just go and get the man before the cops get here!" Donnie snapped.
Charlotte hardly wanted to press questions on him when he was this angry, so she simply ducked away and ran over to the other building. As she darted between the buildings, she began to feel her heart thump. If the cops came and saw her helping out the Karks...if Felicia thought that Charlotte had been helping these monsters all along...was this the day that she would have to do the deed? If she didn't, the cops would catch them all, including her, she was sure of it....
She opened the door to the other building and looked around. In all her time, she hadn't been over to this part of the hideout. All around were parts from deconstructed vehicles and armor and weaponry and equipment and...there was just so much stuff in here! And over by the opposite corner of the building was T, sitting at a table, working on some kind of black-and-red cylindrical object. He appeared to be...rolling up some kind of wire?
T didn't seem to realize that Charlotte was in the room; he hadn't moved his head up from the table, and she wasn't in his peripheral vision.
The thought from earlier came back into her head: If you don't act now, the police will find you....
His back was exposed, and he didn't even know she was in the room.
You have to do it.
She began to slowly creep towards him, being careful not to make any noise as she did so.
This is your only chance.
Closer and closer she came...it was only the two of them in there, there wouldn't be any other gangster to come running in to help "T"....
You have to act!
She was right behind him now. All she had to do was create a dagger from the light around her, and it would be done....
You have to kill him now!
"I know you're behind me, 'Girlie'."
The sudden remark made Charlotte take a few steps back. How had he known...?
T whirled around and suddenly grabbed Charlotte by the cuff of her gray hoodie. Both of his eyes, the human one and the black one, stared straight into her own.
"But that's not what you'd like to go by, is it?"
He knows!
"Ah...T! What are you...I'm one of you guys, remember?" she panicked, trying to keep her cover but instead blowing it with her nervousness.
"I knew from the start you weren't running around the streets like the rest of us were when we joined the gang," he snarled, his eyebrows beginning to furrow. "You ain't got the dirt or the scars...you're not a freak, like the rest of us. I don't know where you came from, but you certainly aren't who you say you are. I haven't called it into question around Donnie because he seems to trust you...but don't you dare think for a second that I do. So how's about you tell me who you really are? And how's about telling me what you're planning to do to us?"
A whirl of emotions was building up inside of her. Fear from being caught with the real wrongdoers, surprise at being nearly found out, and just plain old hate for the goddamn Karks was all that was clouding her mind. And in her chest, she felt a strong urge, an impulse, to do what she needed to do.
She returned the glare that T was giving her and said, "I'm Charlotte Gilligan--but that's all you're ever gonna know about me."
With that, she spat in his face, causing him to flinch a bit but not let go of her. She mustered all her willpower and used it to create a bright orange shard of light that cut T's left arm, causing him to drop Charlotte as an involuntary reaction to the pain. As soon as her feet hit the floor, she kicked the gangster in the chest and sent him stumbling backwards into a pile of barrels, all marked as hazardous. Still acting on impulse, she took the floating shard and threw it at one of the barrels, piercing it well enough to release what seemed to be canned air into the air.
T began to get up, looking to his left as one of the barrels continued to shriek with the sound of some escaping vapor. A look of horror became etched on his face, just moments before said barrels exploded.
A vast orange plume of fire swept up from the spot where T and the barrels had been. Charlotte was far enough away to where she could only hear the blast and feel the heat; but T himself was smacked by the fire, and consequently caught on fire himself. The fire itself began to spread along the roof and floor of the shed, and spread fast it did. Charlotte, still acting on impulse, ran for the door, taking one final glance back at the room before leaving.
The last thing she saw was T, still alive but screaming in agony as he clawed at the burning side of his head. A rumble came from the roof above them both, and Charlotte leapt from the room as the ceiling collapsed, burying everything within it.
She kept running, not stopping to take a breath until she returned to the main building where the four other gangsters were waiting on her. Naturally, they wanted to know what had happened in the building, why there had been a huge rumble and roar, and most importantly, why T wasn't with her.
"The...the cops...launched something at the building...T, uh...didn't make it...."
"You mean he's...?" said Jagg, the "truth" of the matter dawning on her face.
"Look, they're here!" she cried out instinctively, trying to draw the focus back on the "cops" that had supposedly attacked Charlotte and T. "Outside! They're already surrounding the building!"
"Where? Where are they?!" said Johnny smith, turning around to face behind Charlotte.
"If they did in T, I'll kill every last one of them! I'll kill them all!" roared Donnie, arming himself with a rifle.
As the four gangsters grew more paranoid and angry, they began to form a circle around Charlotte, as if mindlessly protecting her like she was what remained of their deceased comrade. And this, this moment right here, was the moment she knew was too perfect to let go. All of them, unaware of the true threat that lurked behind them....
All it took to stir 'Girlie' was the memory of her father's dead body, lying still on the ground with a bullet lodged through it's forehead. That was enough to create a whirlwind of shards and glassy daggers, all sent flying into the four gangsters.
All it took was a painful memory.
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Apartment Complex
Lost Haven, Maine
1 Week Ago
That memory was the dream she had. Not the memory of her dead father, but of the memory of her killing the Karks.
Ever since Felicia had called her, that was all that seemed to be running through her mind. One of the bodies was missing...one of them might still be out there, somewhere....
But surely it was impossible for them to be alive! She had watched all of them die! T had been crushed by a collapsing roof, and Donnie and his cronies had been stabbed to death by flying light-debris! She'd seen it all happen, and it was enough to haunt her.
So how could one of them be alive? There's no way, Charlotte, there's no way....
Time passed on. All the while, Charlotte had to keep reminding herself of how a survivor was impossible. It was enough to keep her from breaking down and forming some kind of freakish shard of light, that was for sure; but it was never enough to keep her at ease.
Eventually, she began to rationalize other factors. She was in an entirely new city, for one thing; how could one of them find her? If they were alive somehow, were they even in a healthy enough state to get revenge? Did they even know it had been her? How would they find her if they managed to get into the city at all?
Fear and paranoia were building up inside of her. But one thing kept scratching at the back of her head, enough to keep her on edge. Yet she couldn't quite figure out what this thing was...was it a thought? And emotion? Some piece of the puzzle gone missing?
It took her a while, but she finally figured it out, after about 5 weeks.
Felicia had said she would call back after dinner with her neighbours. She never did.
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Slums
Lost Haven, Maine
1 Week Ago
It had been a pretty long day of work for the cashier. Tons of customers, a bit angry and a bit sad, came in to buy stuff. The odd thing was, few of them had even gotten gas; maybe he should've just turned this old heap of a store into a small store after all....
He certainly knew that that girl in the hoodie would like that. All she'd come for in the past few weeks was just food and supplies, never for gas or anything else. Was this place all she had? A shame, someone as courageous and kind as her deserved more than what a gas station's aisles had to offer.
Regardless, it was getting late. Maybe he should just close up early tonight, get some rest for tomorrow...he did need to go out and get a coat to keep him warm, after all; the winter air of Maine was already here, and he needed to be better protected than in just worker's casual....
As he pondered these thoughts, a single customer walked through the door. He seemed to be wearing...well, a very strange outfit. It seemed to be some bulky, metallic suit of some kind.
Man, cosplayers were weird.
The stranger kept looking forward, his entire left side hidden from the cashier's view. He simply stood there, staring ahead.
Yup, cosplayers were definitely weird.
"Um...sir? Can I help you with something...?" the cashier asked, a bit unnerved by the stranger.
"That girl who keeps coming in here. Why do you continue to shield her?" the man said all of a sudden, still staring forward.
"I beg your pardon?" said the cashier. "Do you mean that girl in the hoodie?"
The man remained silent.
"Uh...well, she did save me from a thief...." he stuttered, not wanting to get into the details; he'd made a promise, after all, not to reveal the girl's secret.
"You don't know what she's done, then?" the man spoke up again, continuing to keep his gaze fixed away from the cashier.
"I...look, what do you want from me? What do you know about her?" the cashier began to speak up, now starting to grow worried.
"Why don't I let you know just what a monster she is," said the man, ignoring the cashier's questions.
And with one turn, he looked straight at the cashier, no longer obscuring the charred, torn side of his face, as well as his dark black eye.
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Apartment Complex
Lost Haven, Maine
The Day of the Riots
After realizing that Felicia hadn't called back, she tried over and over to call her back. Had something happened to her? Why didn't she call her back, let alone just answer her own telephone?
It was so stressful that Charlotte nearly broke down and cried one night. It was all too much for her to bear; the guilt of the murder, the loss of her father, the paranoia of being hunted down, and now the silence from one of her only remaining friends...it was becoming too much to deal with.
She had decided that perhaps going on walks would be the best way to handle the situation. She would take laps around the city, just clearing her mind of everything that bothered her. But this time, she didn't try to find some explanation; she just ran, ran to keep her thoughts free of anything that might come out of Kussatawnee to haunt her.
As she jogged along, she heard passer-byes talk of all sorts of strange things. She kept hearing the words "super" and "meta" and all sorts of stuff like that, but never stayed around to hear what they were talking about. Just what exactly did this city have to hide? Maybe when she got over the issue of a Kark survivor and Felicia's silence, she'd look into it.
One particular night, she managed to go on a pretty short walk. She hadn't gone far when, in the distance, she began to hear the loudest commotion. It wasn't a regular city bustle, but instead a mixture of yelling and banging and all sorts of noise. It unnerved her, to the point where she felt like staying home would be enough. So she turned back and headed for the Apartment Complex.
On that subject, she'd actually managed to stay far longer than she should have. As it turned out, the owner of the apartment was a drunk who often forgot about the people living in his building. During the few times he remained sober, he didn't even seem to care about a lack of paid bills. Sometimes he'd remember, but the others in the building had learned a simple trick: leave a bottle of whiskey outside the door, and he'd be on his way with nothing to scold you about. She'd caught on to this trick and had used it to keep her roof over her head. Perhaps money wouldn't be at the root of her problems, unlike so many other people in the city...let alone the world.
As she reached her door, she fumbled through her pockets to grab her key. She turned it and entered the room--
It was dark.
This took her by surprise. She didn't remember turning off the lights in her room. Had the power gone out in this side of the complex? The stair lights seemed to work, anyhow....
She walked over and flipped the switch by her lamppost. Yeah, the lights worked...but she hadn't turned them off.
Slam!
She whirled around to see that her door had been closed by someone standing in the room. That part of her apartment was still dark, so the figure couldn't quite be seen. However, what she could tell was that he was wearing something very bulky, and was almost taller than the door itself.
"Who's that?!" she demanded, taking a step back.
The figure began to take a step forward, revealing a brutish man with a disfigured face as he came into the lamp's light.
"Oh, you don't remember me?" said T, his torn mouth forming a grin.
Charlotte gasped. It was him, the one she had burned and buried in the other building of the Karks' hideout. How had he gotten out of there, he should have been crushed!
"Well, if you still don't know...maybe I should jog your memory." he snarled, raising his forearm forward. On the forearm was a part of his suit, a black-and-red cylindrical gauntlet--the same one he'd been fixing during their brief struggle. Out from the side of it a little nozzle popped out, hissing like some kind of...canned air....
Instinctively, Charlotte lept out of the way as the nozzle on T's wrist launched a stream of fire above her head. It missed her by mere inches, and more fortunately it missed everything else in the apartment room.
She scrambled up from the floor, backing away until she found herself pressed against the window.
"You're gonna pay for what you did to my friends, Charlotte!" he yelled, whipping out another nozzle on his other arm.
In just a matter of seconds, she found herself slamming a shard of light through the window behind her, and herself leaping out of the broken window as flames licked behind her. On impulse, she solidified the light around her into a slide, bringing her safely to the streets below. At this point, she couldn't care less if someone saw her; she needed to get out of that apartment, and out of there fast.
How had he survived?! How had he even found her?! Was he the reason Felicia didn't call her back? She feared what she had done to her police counterpart....
Those thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of yelling and banging, the same she'd heard in the distance earlier. Looking over at the other end of the street, she saw a gigantic crowd of people, running down the roads with torches and hammers and all sorts of things, furious over...well, frankly she had no idea.
Behind her, she heard the shattering of her light slide. Wheeling around, she saw T, leaping down to the ground, staring right at her with a glare more hateful than she had seen before. That was all it took to get her running forward into the crowd, making sure to lose herself in the chaos ahead.
Meanwhile, T watched as she disappeared in the crowd. Her sudden loss in a wave of civilians didn't seem to matter to him, however, as he began to jog after her.
"Oh, you think you can run, can't you?" he smirked. "Well, you better believe that I can, too. And you'll come to find that out very soon."
The chase was on.
