In a dark and hopeless void...stood justice!

[Ambrosia_64]

The superhero was a dying breed. As politicians became more corrupt, so did the laws-until many had given up in disgust and gone back to their daily lives, refusing to uphold such corruption.

While others continued on as outlawed vigilantes, struggling to stand for the truth and justice the courts no longer represented. Villains started to take over, carving entire territories for themselves in cities, states and islands-some the costumed meta humans of yesteryear, some just plain criminals.

Gangs ran rampant. Anarchy ruled. The police were either easily bribed shams or much hunted -animals-. Everyone, everywhere, was struggling to eek out an existence in the madness.

But here and there, beacons of light shone. In certain cities across the globe, powerful meta human heroes kept the grime away through their mere presence. Their reach was limited, but those places were safe. As the years passed, such places became fewer and fewer-but they were near legendary, as faraway and unreal as whispers of Atlantis.

For the rest, however-the superhero was a thing to be hunted down and destroyed. Alliances were broken as the sheer number of foes grew to outstanding heights-masks were beaten, murdered and cast into other dimensions. The people ceased to rally to them. The world became jaded and broken and then-he showed up, and changed the game forever.

They called him the Mask Killer. He wore a helmet with a face shield, black street clothes-and was supposedly invincible. Metahuman and as powerful as the once heralded Superman, the Mask Killer arrived on the scene and started slaying superhero after prominent superhero, just another super powered villain punk-until, in front of a stadium full of horrified onlookers, he beat the Blue Streak into a bloody mess-and raped her on national television.

Then he went after White Flame, a buxom, leggy blonde commonly seen in the skies of California, her blue cape whipping in the wind, the white, sparkly spandex costume, the miniskirt. She was lovely and outrageous, had sat for an interview (and photo shoot) with Maxim and, when the Governor of California demanded she stop "harassing the good people" of the Powder Keg gang-given a press conference where she implicitly told him to kiss her ass.

A bold heroine, and while slightly crass-one who had always stood for truth, justice, and the American way. She had been one of the few hold outs-strong enough to thwart the attempts on her life, powerful enough to protect an entire state-and the Mask Killer still cut her down, kidnapping the woman in broad daylight over the skies of L.A.

Days later, her rape and murder were broadcast live online to hundreds of thousands of viewers.

The world became that much darker for the superhero. Countless more died at the sadistic hands of the Mask Killer, a man who never spoke, never allowed too much of himself to be caught on his tapes-but managed, one way or another, to eliminate every female who dared don a cape, and a good number of men too.

The world was not a safe place for anyone, anymore. It was dark, terrible and awful. Innocence was dead-it was all the good people of the world could do to go on surviving in a world without hope.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

And Liana Immaculada was sick of it. "Surviving" was not enough-it wasn't right, that mothers were afraid to send their kids to school. It wasn't right, that the jails had revolving doors on them, people out as soon as they were in. Wasn't right, that you could be robbed and clubbed down in broad daylight and no one, absolutely -no one- was going to help you. Call all the senators you want. They didn't care. Call the police-they were taking bribes and snorting coke on street corners, threatening hookers into sleeping with them.

No. And the common man was powerless to do a damned thing, the laws that should have protected him made instead into a prison.

But as The Protagonist, she could do something. Sprinting across a roof and making the leap across an alley, she landed with a breathed Spanish curse and rolled to a kneeling stop, the crimson cloak settling around her petite form. Admittedly, she didn't look like much. Called red riding hood by the mooks and media outlets, it was hard to shake the phrase-she DID look like a fairy tale reject, but the cloak was lined with a special material to allow her to whip it at foes and knock them down with it's weight and the baggy had saved her life on more than one occasion so far in her little adventure-the past six months the hardest, and yet most satisfying of her life.

It hid where her body truly lied beneath it, and as she rose to stand-made for a memorable sight. She was shorter-five two or three at the most, wearing black flat heeled leather boots, black leggings, and a dark grey tunic with a weapon belt hanging off her curved right hip. Her mouth and nose were covered with a simple black cloth, a domino mask over her almond shaped, dark dark eyes. For the most part, the hood of the cloak kept her face in shadow, appearing for all the world like the proverbial grim reaper.

She crept along the rooftop silently, dropping down over the side to a protruding window ledge without being seen. She'd caught rumors and a few tips about a gun deal going down tonight, and she was determined to stop it-and possibly shake some answers out of a few knucklehead gang members.

She slid the window open, shifting to climb inside and stay crouched behind a stack of crates, a slinky, graceful figure in the dark. She heard voices below, and chancing a peak-felt her heart skip to see not knucklehead newbies getting in on the scene-but the skin head, snake tattooed freaks with such a hold on her city.

Well shit. This was going to be harder than she thought.

No backing out now though-she already knew a gun deal was going down, she couldn't turn her back on it. She was a -hero-, after all, and she'd be damned if she went yellow now. She reached up within the cloak and pulled a pair of night vision goggles off the top of her head. They had cost her damn near four months of pay, but they were worth it, so long as they didn't break.

Slipping from behind the boxes and darting towards the west side of the building, she pulled the breaker to cast the place in absolute darkness-and then she silently took out the posted watch on the catwalk ahead-the softest of hisses to get his attention and when he whirled-her left hand striking hard against his throat to silence him, her right smashing his gun up and away as she seized his wrist and squeezed at the pressure point, forcing his trigger hand open-before she struck him hard at the temple with her black jack. Hard enough, perhaps, to fracture the poor fuck's skull.

The crack, of course, got everyone's attention-but not before she cut the tension wires with a bladed boomerang, dropping the catwalk down on the group at large-along, of course, with herself.

Leaping the railing just before the catwalk crashed down she took out an armed man with a strong kick-and the fight was on as she took out gunmen left and right, using the cloak to distract and deflect bullets as she flew from one to the next, lit only in flashes of light, the petite powerhouse deadly economical with her movements and -clearly- skilled in hand to hand as she beat men down with her blackjack and shocked the hell out of them with her electrified baton.

Still, more men poured into the place, ready and willing to murder the -hell- out of the pain in the ass Protagonist.

 

[NotShyGuy]

Jin Clarkson had been watching the deal go down from the rafters. He had spent weeks carefully following and manipulating the deal so it would go down exactly the way he needed it to. The Snakes were building an arsenal in preparation for a turf war and the Yakuza had been willing to make the sale. Unbeknownst to either side, a tracker had been planted inside one of the guns, which would lead him directly to the weapon stockpile of the Snakes. Unfortunately, because the tracking device was so small, the tiny battery that powered it was beginning to lose power, making the signal weaker and weaker as time passed, making it necessary for him to be here to follow the shipment.

Jin, or Titan as he called himself, had been a mask in this city for over 20 years now. He had watched his city decay before his eyes as his allies, his friends, were either killed, or quit. Some in disgust at the corruption of the city they were trying to defend, others in grief, and others just thought it best to give up than continue fighting what they saw as a losing war.

Occasionally, a new mask would appear. They were always the same, young and idealistic. He had used to encourage it, had even tried to mentor a few of the more promising ones. But it was the same result as the old masks. Some of them were killed. But more of them simply gave up. It was difficult to fight when there was no hope.

From his perch, he watched the two representatives make the requisite small talk and threats and posturing before finally getting to the deal. The tracker was still transmitting to his handheld GPS. Just as it seemed the exchange was about to happen, the lights for the entire building went out. Jin's pupils immediately dilated, to the point that he would be blinded in normal light, but in the darkness, it granted him a natural night sight. It was an effect of his augmentations reacting to his surroundings.

Every single gangster immediately drew handguns and yelled accusations of treachery began to fly back and forth, interrupted by a sharp crack, followed by the crash of a falling catwalk. He watched as a sleek, graceful figure leaped from the catwalk and began causing chaos amongst the gathered thugs. He saw the cloak flowing out behind her and recognized her description as Protagonist, also nicknamed "Red Riding Hood."

Shots began to ring out on both sides, in the darkness, no one who was shooting at the other, only that Snakes were on one side of the warehouse and Yakuzas were on the other.

Jin buried his face in his hands with a silent groan. Weeks of waiting and preparation, and it had been for nothing, because of this....amateur's interference. He watched as his carefully-laid plan fell to pieces but had to admit, Protagonist was good. With the advantage of the darkness, she was cutting a swath through the oblivious mooks. 'She just might even come out of this on top,' he thought to himself.

Unfortunately, one of the gangsters had realized that instead of using their pistols, there were crates upon crates of more powerful weaponry sitting in the warehouse. Smashing one open, they began handing out shotguns and assault rifles. On the outside, cars and trucks full of backup were arriving, smashing down the warehouse doors, illuminating the pitch black room bit by bit. Things were escalating rapidly.

He jumped down from the rafters, entering the brawl. A half-mask covered the bottom half of his face and a pair of reflective sunglasses covered his eyes. His suit was a metallic grey, thus his nickname of "Tin Man." It could blend into background colors if he stayed still long enough, but while he was in motion, it reverted to a metallic grey. He went around the outside of the crowd, targeting the loners and stragglers one by one. With bones reinforced with carbon-fiber, he had no need for weapons. He could easily break jaws and crack skulls with a single blow.

He and Protagonist could probably take down the gangsters in the warehouse right now. But reinforcements were pouring in, the mooks were getting better armed, and eventually, someone would find the breaker and flip it back on. Time was a luxury that Titan couldn't afford at the moment. It was time to leave.

He took a deep breath. Expanded lung capacity, another augmentation. Reaching down to his belt, he threw a tear gas canister in the center of the warehouse. The gangsters began to cough and choke, fleeing the warehouse, blinded by the tears streaming from eyes as they struggled to breathe. Taking another cylinder from his belt, he began to pour thermite over the weapons crates, before igniting it with a road flare. It would burn hot enough to melt the weapons down to liquid slag. It wouldn't cripple the Snakes, but maybe it would slow them down.

He found Protagonist and pushed a miniature gas mask over her nose and mouth, pulling her out of the warehouse through a back door. About a block away, they ducked into a derelict apartment complex. Sadly, an all too common sight in this part of the city.

After checking to see that they weren't followed, he began berating her almost immediately, "What the hell do you think you were doing?! Do you have any fucking idea what you've just done? I've spent weeks, weeks, waiting for this deal to go down so I could follow those guns back to the Snakes' armory!"

 

[Ambrosia_64]

Titan.

Liana saw him in glimpses and flashes as he worked the edges of the crowd-but her focus had to be on not dying herself. She had the feeling he wasn't here on a lark...

She struck a man in the solar plexus and then kneed him in the face when he bent forward, shoving him aside to meet another foe, another mook-when the hissing sound of a canister hit her ears-and the choking started.

She was just as vulnerable to it as everyone else, and as she staggered away to escape-someone had a hold of her. At first she threw an elbow back into him, her eyes wide behind the goggles-but then she realized who he was and that he was -helping-. Titan. In person.

Holy shit.

And from there she was led along through the streets, catching her breath before he yanked her into a derelict building and started to yell at her. Not how she imagined their meeting would go. Not...at all.

She jerked the goggles down to hang around her throat, a stray dark curl falling into her face from beneath that hood-and glared at him. "And how the hell was I supposed to know that?! You're so busy on your lone ranger mission-I'm working this city too Tin Man. What I was -doing- was my -job-."

She was angry with him for being that lone ranger. Angry she was being talked down to, dissed like this. Despite her petite frame the Protagonist was toe to toe with him, head tipped back to glare up into his sunglasses so that he could see the domino mask, the dark, lash fringed eyes. "All I knew was some very bad gringos were about to get a whole lot of weaponry. Maybe you shoulda dropped me a -god damned line-." She punctuated the last three words with hard pokes to his chest.

Oh my.

 

[NotShyGuy]

As she poked him in the chest, he had to resist the urge to slap her across the face. "Oh, I apologize," he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You know, you're right, I should have sent out fliers and hired some town criers."

He mimed ringing a bell and reading from a scroll, "'Hear ye, hear ye! Stay away from the warehouse district because Titan is about to follow the Snakes back to their armory. So don't fuck up his plan.' I'm sure everyone involved would have appreciated it very much."

His voice became less condescending, and more serious. "And what the hell were you thinking, jumping in there like that? There could have been anything in those crates. Will that fancy cloak of yours stand up to armor-piercing rounds? A grenade? An RPG? You could have at least waited until the Snakes had locked the damn things inside their trucks."

Titan leaned against the old brick wall. His suit began to shift, matching the color and pattern of the battered brick as well as it could. His hand came up to massage his temple, "And the Snakes already have a whole lot of weaponry. That was the point of this. If I could have found where they've been keeping them stashed and melted all those fancy toys into so much slag, the other gangs would do my job for me and tear the Snakes apart."

Pulling out the GPS, he checked it again, in vain hope. There was no signal. Either the weapons had been moved out of range or the battery had finally died. He sighed, "Instead, all we've done is slow them down a little."

 

[Ambrosia_64]

"That's not what I meant-" Liana started before he went into his little act, the woman backing off of him like he was poison, muttering a stream of angry Spanish as she paced, her small hands in fists at her sides.

She ceased the Spanish as he began speaking again, the hood shadowing her eyes-but her lips were pressed together in temper behind the cloth that covered them, and then, in a frown. She felt so -stupid-, messing up his bust. She may have lost her temper with him, but the worst of her anger Liana saved for herself.

Her pacing slowed into a stop, back to him-her shoulders slumping within the cloak. He had a point. Things could have gotten bad in a hurry...

Her flat right boot toed into the dirty floor as embarrassment took hold. She felt like a rookie who had drawn his gun too soon and caused a fire fight...except- "Look, I'm sorry." She offered lamely, turning to face him, her entire face concealed, her arms crossed.

"I didn't, couldn't have known it was a sting. And if it had gone bad...well, there are worse things that could happen to a mask." Her mouth went a little dry just thinking about it. She snapped one of her pouches open, slipped her fingers into it before holding the hand out to him, a small white card caught between her fingertips.

"I swear, we're on the same side here. I'm not asking you to trust I won't fuck something else up-I'm still getting the hang of it, I'm sorry-but I promise not to stumble into something else you're planning, if you let me know about it. Or at least, tell me what area to steer clear from."

The card was small, and it embarrassed her a little, to be handing him one of the stock pieces she usually gave to domestic abuse victims, to the downtrodden, the homeless. All it had was a phone number. That's it.

It felt like a business card. "We all have to start somewhere Titan." She said tiredly, a shrug within the cloak.

 

[NotShyGuy]

He took the card from her and looked hard at it for a moment. Part of him wanted to tear it up. To tell Protagonist to give up and go home before she got herself killed, or worse. That this city was going to chew her up and spit her out. He had enough problems on his hands without having to worry about tripping up because she was underfoot.

But he recalled what he had been like in his younger days, brash and headstrong, and realized that it probably wouldn't make a difference whether he told her hang up her cape or not.

Jin pocketed the card and replied with a tired voice, "Yeah. I know." He pulled something from his own belt. A metal tube, about half the size of a cigarette. It was a tracker, a larger version of what he had stowed in the weapons. Handing it to her, he said "Pull the ends apart until you feel it click, and I'll find you."

He went to the door of the abandoned apartment complex, preparing to leave. Now that his plan had failed, he had to start figuring out what to do next.

Before he left, he said to Protagonist, "Don't get yourself killed, kid. This city has buried enough heroes, masked and otherwise."

 

[Ambrosia_64]

Her gloved hand curled around the small tube, shadowed eyes inspecting it as she turned it over in her deft fingers. Fancy piece of tech-she would be sure not to waste it. "Thanks." She pocketed it, looking up as he moved to leave. She had made a fool of herself, ruined God only knew how many months of his work-and then argued with him. Not a good first impression. "I'll try not to become one of them anytime soon." She agreed grimly, watching him go-

"H-hey Titan?" She called, flushing with embarrassment behind the face mask. "Uh. Thanks. I mean-for being out there."

And with that awkward bit of gratitude-she turned and slipped up the stairs to escape up top.

------------------------------------
"Looking a little tired, Lee." Her partner chimed as Liana stirred her coffee, tearing open a packet of sugar to pour into it. She was supposed to be limiting her sugar intake to -one- packet and one donut a day-but cheating every once in a while never hurt anyone. Besides-she was burning those calories at her "hobby" anyway.

"Finally getting a slice of the action?" Liana ignored him as she took a deep drink of her coffee. She had been a beat cop for four years, and always it was the same old shit. Her superiors called her Lee "Stick up her ass" Mexican.

Stupid fucks. She wasn't even Mexican-her mother was Puerto Rican, the racist morons. Her partner was Charlie Ebbs, otherwise known as "Chubs". He was forty two, overweight, and an idiot. He wasn't going to be promoted and he knew it, so like every cop in this town he made some money on the side bilking small time criminals. Liana wasn't corrupt, and rather than fire her-they stuck her in a car with this idiot and waited to see if she'd quit.

It'd been a long four years, but through out, Liana had at least been able to claim she was one of the cities honest cops. Of course, that was before she took up vigilantism. That was before she started getting so angry. Angry enough to sacrifice her high morals and oath to uphold the law. Angry enough to put her life on the line in a darker, more dangerous fashion than her day job of parking tickets ever required.

And today she planned another hard sacrifice, all to try and clean this God forsaken city up for the common man.

"Actually, yeah." Chubbs cut her a surprised glance as she spoke up, the Latina hardly giving him the time of day, let alone conversation.

Staring down at her coffee, Liana took a sip, striving to look casual. "Sold a couple confiscated guns." She allowed a rueful, sheepish little smile, pretending to be a bit ashamed of her nonexistent "crime". "I needed the extra cash, ya know?"

Chubbs laughed, a heavy hand striking the back of her seat hard in a congratulatory pat, coffee spilling onto her dark blue pants, her hat knocked askew on her head. "PRISSY miss Lee, dealing arms?! That's hilarious-I didn't think you had it in ya kid, hell-none of us did!"

And just like that, Liana was drawn into a whole new world of scum.
--------------------------------
The next few weeks The Protagonist was in the news no less than six times. She had busted and beaten the crap out of some drug pushing PCP addicts in the lower east side-and when a high, armed thug ran into the street firing into the doorway of the building, a local student started recording on his smart phone, capturing for the first time the Protagonist in action as she burst through a side window and took the larger man down.

To the amusement of reporters, Red Riding Hood now had a bow.

She had somehow tracked down a small child pornography ring operating in the basement of a Happy Pizza Parlour, leaving a bundle of files on the doorstep of an ace reporter who still gave a damn about the news. Several police officers were implicated in the ring, and despite no actual evidence to support it, everyone knew it was the Protagonist who had exposed them.

And now, after a while of playing reluctant, newbie crooked cop Liana Immaculadora-she had figured out who the Snake's cop contact was, and even better-who the particular Snake was that bought, occasionally, assault rifles from the evidence locker.

She had stolen the detective's cell phone and gotten the number straight out of his contacts before replacing it as if it'd never gone missing. Cold calling the guy, posing as the girlfriend of a gang leader, she convinced him her "man" wanted to buy-and set up a time and place.

Not that anyone would actually be meeting him, however-all Liana wanted was to follow the jackass back to base. Could it be so easy? Maybe, and as she slinked along the fire escapes and rooftops of the sinful city, she dared to hope it might be-the darkened former club of Ritzy Daniels proving to be her jackpot.

Staring as the angry arms dealer banged on the door and demanded to be let in, Liana wondered if this was too good to be true. A slit opened, a voice muttered something she couldn't hear from two stories up, she ducked behind the theater sign as the man cast a glance behind him, moving inside once the door opened.

Had to be. The location was good, the building was nondescript enough, the man was the man! supplying and buying the cops dirty merchandise.

She snapped a pouch open and found the thin metal tube, pulling until it clicked.

This had been Titan's bust, after all-she only hoped she wasn't wrong. Slipping into the shadows to lean against the back of the sign and wait, Liana looked like a cloaked guardian of some kind.