On the N-Train
Pandora really hoped they didn't show up. She just wasn't in the mood to deal with flying train pirates. Her eyes closed, one leg crossed over the other, leaning back in her chair. Listening to the sound of this preposterously fast magnetic train. Might as well be magic to her, for all she knew how it worked. Unlike many of the others, Pandora was not in the storage room. She was in a passenger car.
Unusually for her, Pandora was smartly dressed. A red dress up shirt and black trousers, kept on her waist by two slick suspenders. Some dress shoes completed the look, and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Her hair was still that vibrant red color, her eyes that Altered orange color she had made herself. And of course, her hair was still tied into a loose bun. That much hadn't changed. One new thing was the watch on her left wrist. It might, just might, help the long-lived woman keep track of time.
The Assistant Director, the one that went by Man-Titan, explained their mission. If she bothered to open her eyes and look, she could spot his personal vehicle keeping a calculated distance from the train. Pandora sighed.
"Couldn't they get the robots do this?" She asked the air. Maybe another Hero was in the train car with her, she couldn't tell.
"They're only people with jet packs. Just-" She mimed a finger gun. A little tiny explosion happened on the edge of her finger trip as she did so.
"Shoot them." On second thought, perhaps she should be hoping they show up sooner rather than later. Like ripping off a bandaid or having to put down your favorite horse with a shotgun, best do it quickly and get it over with. Jetpacks. Absurd. They weren't real pirates. No, Pandora knew what real pirates were like. For a while she had served the Queen in hunting those bastards down. Utterly depraved scoundrels, the lot of them. Even worse was the pirate-themed supervillains. Or that one time, with the kraken. Now what? They steal weapons from trains? Pittering around with their little school-boy backpacks? It was insulting, is what it was. Pandora didn't know why she was complaining internally. She'd chosen to come on this mission. Complaining was just something to do, she supposed. Something she could think about. She had vowed off drinking and smoking back in the 1910's, and there wasn't much to read. So she just sat here. Waiting. Of course she knew in her mind, the waiting would be nearly instantly forgotten. Nobody ever remembered the actual amount of time they sat in boredom. It all got compressed in retrospect.
Didn't help her now, though, did it?
Brookside
Darkness. A city at night. Each stalwart light like a star against the sky. An artificial substitute as the progress of man dominates even the radiant beauty of the heavens. Streets still warm from the heat of the machines and the sun. Concrete cracked under the weight of a thousand years of hierarchy and disrepair. A people, a world, closer together than ever before and yet so divided. Race, class, gender, metahuman or not...
A spinning wheel, set in motion by events. When the time where times passed passed into the time of when times
went past. And now the will of millions hibernates in the tenement halls and torn plaster walls. Kept asleep by the alluring siren's song of convenience and false luxury. Modern civilization in all it's glory, built in by the plundered value of labor and resources from all over the world.
The only way to shatter these chains is to unite. Only when the common man truly realizes the shared humanity of his brethren. Only when the chains of oppression can be melted down and reforged into the links that can united us can we truly be free. The people need heroes, now more than ever! And more than that, the heroes need the people! That is the power of human compassion!
That is the power of Shadow Scythe- "Penelope!"
"Wuh?" Penny blinked into focus, looking around the storage room.
"You were day dreaming again, dear." A kindly elderly woman that runs the Brookside Homeless Shelter says with a smile on her face.
(I was night dreaming. The shadows are where I belong!) "Oh, uh, sorry, Ms. Tabernacky." Penny says aloud, smirking.
"Are you done moving these boxes in, sweetheart?"
"Yes, ma'am." Penny nods.
"That's wonderful, thank you dearie. Would you mind helping out in the soup kitchen for a while? Robert needs to head home soon."
"Sure thing."
"And goodness, girl. You should turn a light on if you're going to be heading in and out. It's practically pitch black in here." The woman flicks on a light in the storage room.
(It matches the color of my soul.) "Sorry, haha." Penny rubs her shoulder.
"What if you hurt yourself?"
(THE SHADOW SCYTHE WOULD FEEL NOTHING BUT THE BURNING FIRE OF VENGEANCE.) "I'll be more careful." Penny smiles warmly, grimacing slightly. "I just, uh, don't mind the dark."
Ms. Tabernacky shakes her head. "Well, okay. Sometimes I worry about you, that's all. You're such a sweet girl."
(Justice is sweet. I'm not.) "I, uh, appreciate it ma'am. But you don't need to worry about me, I'll be okay. Soup kitchen's on the left?"
"Mhm."
The halls of the Brookside Homeless Shelter (BHS) are nicely painted, freshly done only a couple years ago. Cardboard and plastic boxes full of miscellaneous supplies are scattered throughout the halls. Or stacks of chairs, or ladders, occasionally a janitor's cart. Distant sounds of chatter become louder. Pushing open a pair of swinging kitchen doors, Penny enters the kitchen. She smiles and waves at the soup chefs. Penny isn't much of a cook, but she has a pair of hands. And that's all a person really needs to help others. Sometimes you don't even need that much.
Her role was to move food out of the kitchen and into the lines, where it can then be transferred onto the plates and trays of the people in the cafeteria. Penny was a regular volunteer at the BHS, often showing up after school or on the weekends. It was a community center, a place where folks could come together, create connections, and lift each other up. Penelope Mai Lu liked it there.
---
Later that evening, Penny was at home in the bedroom of her apartment, finishing up her homework. The bedroom had a small TV, a face camera, a Playstation a generation or two behind. There were posters hanging on the walls of heavy metal bands. A bookshelf full of political theory books. A closet and a backpack within. Overall pretty normal room for a teenager. Ish.
Her father could be heard negotiating with the management of the massive tech company he worked for. The place where, very occasionally, Penny piggy backed off his access into the building and made off with some of their weapons. The expensive stuff they well off to security forces and riot cops. You know, thicker boots to crush people under. Penny thought they were much better off in her hands. That way they could be an implement of the people, not the government. Besides. They screwed him over a lot. It was vengeance.
Penelope finished off the last of her homework for the night, sitting back and sighing. The sooner she could get out of high school, the better. The flexible schedules of college would allow for more versatile community service. She would just do easy courses. Ideally she could get enough funding from the public through donations that she could be a vigilante volunteer full time. And being a video game streamer. She just needed to be in college long enough that her parents wouldn't get suspicious, really. Then she could just be vague about what she does for a living?
Ugh. It's hard. She would tell them, but they wouldn't understand. They would just think it was her being reckless and stupid and inconsiderate again. Just another manifestation of her condition. Not like she could blame them. But she was being careful. There was even a doctor that had agreed to help her off the table!
Beep beep beep. Bum bum bum. An ominous alert from her cellphone. Penny quickly checks it. Several people have noticed suspicious activity from an abandoned warehouse. Running theory is a meth lab. Stange smells, people in suits, under the board activity. Meth in Brookside? Not on her watch.
Penny grabbed her Duffel Bag of Doom or Something. It was heavy and full of useful supplies. She headed out of her bedroom. Her father was in the kitchen, her mother, Susan in the living room watching TV.
"Where're you off too, hon?" Susan, her step-mother, asks, concern lifting her eyebrows.
"I'm heading to the gym."
"...You've been heading off by yourself a lot lately."
"I'm practicing my independance. Just, moreso than usual. You don't need to watch over me every little step of the way." Penny goes to the door. "I'm not a kid anymore."
"I- I know. I just worry about you, sometimes."
Penny exhales sharply through her nose. "Lots of people do. But I'm fine, I promise. I like going to the gym and hanging out with my friends, and spending time at the BHS. I'm-" She rolls her shoulders. "I'm happy, Mom."
Her mom smiles sadly. "I'm glad to hear it. Just be careful, all right? I do trust you. I love you, Penny."
Penny smiles back, nodding. She opens the door, steps outside and begins to close it. "I love you, too, Mom. After I hit the gym, I'll just be doing some more
community service." She growled, squinting enigmatically.
Susan looks startled. "What?"
"Some community service!" Penny repeats, brighter this time. "Love you bye!" She closes the door behind her and smirks. Easy peasy. She's totally clueless! Now it's time to fight some crime.
---
Much better. Shadow Scythe Vengeance is on the prowl. After biking to the general area of the warehouse, she deposits the Cycle of Violence and the Duffel Bag of Doom or Something and takes to the rooftops like a panther. Fully suited up, she's lithe and agile. She's got her two Scythes attached to chains, sheathed in her hips. As well as a pair of bolas. Two fighting sticks placed in holsters on her shoulders. Several pouches and a belt full of more easily concealable and compact tools, such as grenades and bolas. She was a veritable arsenal, even if she couldn't unfortunately bring every little gadget with her on every mission. Otherwise she would sacrifice her impressive stealth and acrobatics.
SSV took to the rooftops. Making jumps as long as fifteen feet, the vigilante had pushed herself well beyond what most people would consider their limits. And she was only going to get better. This was her hobby, her career, and her passion all in one. Nothing else mattered. In this world, people could fly. If they could do the impossible, then so could she.
(I fly on wings of hope.) Once the warehouse was in sight, she pressed a button on the side of her mask. Two lenses covered her eyes, creating little beady white dots on the inside of her skull mask. Very creepy and badass, if you asked her. Zooming in on the building, she confirmed it was the correct warehouse. Setting a metal case she had carried with her down, she remote piloted the Guardian Angel quad-copter drone. Silently it scouted out the entire place, looking for an entrance. She set the empty box down, but left the Guardian Angel floating in place.
(Rooftop ventilation shaft. There's the way the Shadow Scythe shall enter. No better way to strike down enemies of good then from above.) In order to cross the street, she tossed her scythe across to a building opposite of her. It embedded itself in the edge, and connecting the chain to her other scythe, she created a makeshift tightrope, pulled taut. She grabbed on to it and climbed across rather quickly, her legs hanging beneath her.
Once she was there, she leaped over a few more rooftops and made it to that of the warehouse. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she quietly unscrewed the vent (it was already falling apart, so it was very easy to do.) Then she set it aside. But she wasn't going to enter- not yet. First, some recon. She piloted the Guardian Angel around the place. She peaked into windows and got an accurate count of the people inside. One of them was a mutant, possessing a fish head. He could be more powerful than the others. At the very least, he had a bigger bite and she couldn't phase him with water. And yes, this was a meth lab all right. There were workers and chemicals, set-ups that she recognized from other labs she's busted. Not on her watch.
(Divine sight sees all. No evil can escape my vision.) Guardian Angel continued rotating around the building, peaking into various windows. Some of them were cracked open, or slightly broken, allowing the quietly whirring machine to get a good look at just about the entirety of the inside. Moreover she found hiding spots, paths to take, places where her enemies might find cover or security. And she was looking for more metahumans, since apparently one was involved. Metahumans can make things trickier, but in her experience they often rely on their powers as a gimmick. No versatility. They all have a weakness that can exploited. And rarely do they have anything that would help defeat the element of surprise. Getting the jump on someone negates almost all superpowers.
(Just one more reason I was born in the night. An invisible protector, a grim avenger. I walk into the darkest depths of humanity...and become their master!) Shadow Scythe Vengeance thought to herself, her eyes on the little screen infront of her as she sat cross legged on the roof, her back against the ventilation shaft she was intending to enter.
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