Not My Best Side (IC)

[Raveled]

10:48 AM

August 24th, 2011

1480 King Boulevard

Apt. 438

Elizabeth Moya, also known as the alien warrior Leyla, also known as the heroine Starlight, was not having a good day. She didn't have any classes at FCU until this evening (MATH 131 and PHIL 120) and had been hoping to get some day-time patrolling in. Something she hadn't taken in account when taking the Freedom League's offer to asylum was just how much time a secret identity took up. 'Living two lives' didn't begin to touch it.

So when her alarm clock went off at 7:30, she had dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom. She had glanced into the mirror before jumping in the shower -- and had almost cracked a tooth as she bit back a scream. The face that was staring back at her was square and masculine, with brick red skin and dull, flat green eyes. It was the same face that oppressed uncounted trillions across the galaxy, the face of a race that wanted to stamp out individuality and free thought throughout the universe. It was the face of a Grue, and for who knows how long it was Liz's face. She had broken from the Meta-Mind and started a new life for herself, and she hated to go back to how she had been.

She quickly shook off the shock. It must've been a bad dream or a moment of inattention on her part, but either way it was a quick fix. She concentrated on her bones and internal chemistry and... nothing happened. She tried again and, once again, nothing happened.

Oh, no. Oh no no no. Oh, God no. This can't be happening! It seemed like she was... stuck!

[Supercape]

GM

*Knock Knock*

"Ms. Moya, are you there? I...I'm sorry to bother you Ms. Moya, but its my Hector....he's gone all peculiar! I'm scared...he's violent...I think he might be having one of those stroke things, you know, like on the TV..."

Mrs. Betty Furrows from across the hall was an elderly lady, maybe 60 or 65, but like her husband Hector, she was active and sprightly. Neither were particularly educated, bright, or smart, but they were hard working, and Hector had made a reasonable amount of money running a DIY store. He still helped around the block doing odd bits of work for people, and the couple were well liked, and well known. Liz knew them both.

Now, poor old Betty sounded really scared, and her knocking was quite incessant!

[Raveled]

Liz's heartrate tripled at the pounding on the door. All the worst senarios flashed through her mind in an instant. The League's coming to kick me off-planet... They're coming to put me in Blackstone... Phantasmagore found me... The Meta-Mind found me!! When she heard her neighbor's frantic pounding, she calmed down a little. At least there wasn't an immediate issue... Except that apparently she had to leave the apartment right away, or someone would die.

Liz walked over to the door, resting her (bald, red) head on the wood and forced herself to breathe. She coughed, hoping that any irregularity in her voice would be taken as the flu or something else. "Mrs. Furrows, did you call 9-1-1?"

[Supercape]

GM

"I can't dearie"...replied the fretful Betty Furrows..."Poor Hector, he...he won't let me, he got...oh my, its shameful...I don't want to get him into trouble...but he got violent...not like him at all...he smashed the phone, pulled it out. I don't know what to do. Should I call 911, could I use your phone?"

[Raveled]

Liz swore under her breath. She couldn't leave Mrs. Furrows out there, but she couldn't risk going out in her current state. It would cause a panic, or induce a heart attack or stroke in the poor woman! But if her husband was really getting violent...

Well, as they say. Set a monster to catch a monster.

"Mrs. Furrows, I don't think it'd be a good idea. I'm really sick, I don't want you to... Oh god, what is that?" She sucked in a breath and let loose with a full-throated scream worthy of a horror starlet. She shot out a blast of mystic energy, smashing her front window and spraying glass everywhere. The heroine took a running dive through the gaping hole and immediately made a U-turn, smashing into the Furrows' apartment. She kneeled there, in full Grue warrior mode, eyes hunting for the elderly Hector. "Mr. Furrows," she rapsed out, doing her best to disguise her voice once again. "The monster union is come calling."

[Supercape]

GM

"Rah....Wanna...Wanna go play...let me out...not fair...nobody understands...gonna smash this place up good...real good...."

Hector came in, brandishing a hammer, and started tearing up the Kitchen that Starlight had landed in. The place was already a mess, but Hector was quite uninhibited in smashing up crockery and tiles with his hammer.

"Who are you?" he said, his eyes quite glazed as he looked at Starlight.

"Bah! Hate you!" he said, shaking his hammer aggressively at Starlight. SHe was not quite sure if Hector was going to attack her, himself, or the Kitchen. Whatever the case, he looked quite unpredictable...

[Raveled]

"I don't blame you," Starlight rasped, feeling a pang in her heart. "You should hate anyone who looks like this. Regardless, I cannot let you injure yourself or your apartment anymore." She put out her hand and the very light around Hector grew hard and cold, like infinity clear glass or crystal. The heroine applied more of her power, trying to trap the maniacal old man in a cage of solid light. "Speak to me, Hector! Who did this to you?"

[Supercape]

GM

Hector gave a few, rather forceful, but strictly experimental blows with his hammer against the hard light. A few cracks appeared, and surely given enough time Hector would have broken through.

But it appeared whatever else Hector had been blessed with during this "incident", patience was not on the menu.

"Mummy mummy" he answered. "Locked me in, again, again...I'm not naughty you know..." he gave Starlight a sheepish look.

Then he exploded in instant rage, shouting and screaming. "I'n not naughty... NOT naughty... NOT NOT NOT...LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!!!" he yelled, and then with ghastly effect, he started striking himself on the head with his hammer, drawing blood and bruises that would surely be life threatening if he were to continue...

[Raveled]

Starlight hesitated. Whatever had happened to Hector, it was obvious that he would kill himself if he wasn't stopped. She knew that most Grue wouldn't care about that, but she wasn't willing to play the part of the monster that far. She absorbed the hard light keeping the man hemmed in, the energy concentrating itself in her hands. She rushed in, putting one hand on the back of Hector's head and using the other to retrain his hammer hand. "Shh, Hector, quiet. It's okay, it's alright. Just calm down." She let the soothing power of the mystic White Light flow into the man, stopping his bleeding and causing his wounds to knit themselves together, while Starlight kept up a steady stream of soothing noises. "Please, Hector. Tell me what happened."

[Raveled]

As soon as her hand touched Hector's flesh, the former Grue felt a psychic force begin battering at her mental barriers. She wasn't some hapless bystander, though -- she was the wielder of the White Light, the Light of Pharos, and after a brief dizzy spell she fought the mental intrusion off. At the last moment she tried to get a feel for it; it was powerful, but uncontrolled and primitive. Like someone had just gathered up a bundle of negative emotions and forced them into this poor man's head.

The heroine took the hammer from him with little effort, laying it down as far out of his reach as she could. She continued to pour healing energies into his body while making soothing noises, hoping to calm the man. "Hector. Listen to me. Who did this to you?"

[Supercape]

GM

"Mummy said bad boy! bad bad bad boy! nasty smells, cleaner came!" shouted Hector.

"I hate you!" he started screaming directly at Starlight, tears running down his cheeks.

At that moment, Mrs. Furrows appeared, cautiously, at the door to the kitchen, her eyes equally moist.

"Hector...Hector...is that you?" she asked. "I can't find Elizabeth from next door... there was a sound and she screamed and...oh my!" she gasped, looking at the Grue form of Starlight.

"the monster! what have you done with Elizabeth!" she screamed "Police! Police! Ms. Elizabeth has been abducted by aliens!!!" and with that, she started to run off down the corridor to the lifts.

"...B...B..Betsy?" mumbled Hector in a moment of clarity, before waddling off after her.

[Raveled]

Starlight released Hector, sighing. It seemed her plan had worked perfectly, which would at least stop anyone from asking where Elizabeth Moya went to. Unfortunately, it would probably have the side-effect of calling down every single superhero in the city with the intent of being able to hang an actual Grue off their figurative belt. Not that she of all people would blame them, but it would certainly make her job here a bit more... prickly.

Well, no sense in hanging around, anyway. The heroine flew back outside the building, taking up a perch just above the Furrows' window, chin resting on a curled fist. The most straight-forward thing to do would be to go see Langston Albright, or even the Freedom League. At the same time, though, she couldn't leave the Furrows, and who knew how many others, in the grip of some psychic nutjob with a grudge. What to do, what to do?

[Supercape]

GM

The brief moment of calm was certainly a good idea. Things started to fall into place away from the chaos...

"Police, Police?" Mrs. Furrows was calling down a hardline in the Appartment block "there is a monster here! I think it has abducted Ms. Elizabeth! and my husband Hector! he has gone mad!"

As if to make matters worse, Starlight started to smell smoke.

"Pretty red lights!" she heard from below. It was Scaretto, the Janitor, giggling to himself in a completely childish, regressed manner.

[Raveled]

Starlight's flat green eyes widened and she dropped down swiftly, slowing herself just before she ran straight into Scaretto. She grabbed the jumpsuited janitor by the shoulders, barely suppressing the urge to shake him until his neck broke. "Scaretto! What did you do! What did you do!?" She glanced around and noticed tendrils of gray smoke curling around the front doors of the apartment building. A blast of white light smashed the doors off, letting out a backwash of flame and smoke. Most of the lobby area was engulfed in smoke, and she could hear the fire from where she was standing.

Narrowing her eyes against the smoke, Starlight plunged into the growing conflagration. Maybe if she could find the source of the flames and smother it...

[Supercape]

GM

Scaretto laughed hysterically.

"Pretty flames, pretty flames teeheehee!" he said, hopping from one foot to the other and waving his cigarette lighter in his hand.

He looked directly at the horrible Grue in front of him, and pointed at him.

"Monster! Monster!" he yelled. "Monster burn!" he said, shaking in fear.

A moment of clarity hit him, before he shook his head and returned to idiocy.

"You...you know my name?" he asked, lucidity shining in his eyes for a brief moment.

[Raveled]

Starlight again felt the alien presence try to invade her mind, and against fought it off -- but by the skin of teeth this time. She reminded herself to stop grabbing the 'infected' people, but for now she had a bigger problem in mind. An easily-solved problem, though; the alien gestured sharply and the can rose in the air, covered in a bubble of light -- an airtight bubble of light, and with luck it would handle the flames easily enough.

Turning her back on the problem for now, Starlight turned and confronted the janitor. "When did this happen," she asked, sharply. "When was it that you wanted to see... 'pretty lights'? Do you remember where you were, who was around?" She needed to confront whoever was behind this instead of just running around and dealing with their results

[Supercape]

GM

Scaretto seemed to flit and out of lucidity as Starlight spoke to him.

"Wha...wha...?" he mumbled.

"Power out, called in, Four onety-two, Four-onety-two, cryin' kid, always, the place was a madhouse"

He shook his head, as if clearing his head from clarity.

"..."

"...me go make sparky sparks from wires!" he giggled, and danced off down to the basement.

Outside the apartment, Starlight could hear the distant sound of sirens...

[Raveled]

Starlight lunged and grabbed the janitor's sleeve, steering him back to the front steps. "No, no, no," she admonished. "You just sit here. See those pretty lights?" She pointed down the road, where the flashing red and blues of emergency vehicles could be distantly seen, bobbing back and forth as they wove through traffic. "Watch those. Pretty lights, right?" She took a few steps back, still watching the man, and once she was convinced that he wasn't going to go running off into traffic she flew back up the side of the building.

Apartment 412 was on her own floor. She dimly remembered a young couple with a toddler moving in a couple weeks ago. She wracked her brain for details on them. If she was recalling things correctly, the husband had some job in the city government that kept him away for long hours, leaving his wife with their young child. She imagined that it would certainly be stressful, but who was responsible for this mess? Was it the mother, the husband, the child? Or were they innocent victims here and the real villain just happened to start there?

[Supercape]

GM

As Starlight picked up the Janitor he could feel the presence again... the contagious force that had overwhelmed the poor man, and Hector too. Touching anyone infected with the force was clearly dangerous - the presence seeped into Starlights own mind and started to overwhelm it.

Starlight's mind was somewhat resilient but still felt the force seep into it. It was childlike, powerful, and pervasive....

[Raveled]

As Starlight proceeded up the side of the building, heading for the probable source of the calamity, a cold wave pulsed through her body. This was infuriating; she should be enjoying a day off, or at least protecting the citizens of the city from some other danger, not tracking down a child with too much power on his or her hands. This was a hideous waste of her time, not to mention locking her physical form! The cold flash left her hot and bothered in its wake and as she smashed through a fourth-floor window, she was breathing heavily. She stamped down the hall towards apartment 412, absently blowing doors off their hinges as she passed.

[Supercape]

GM

....

Whatever force was controlling Starlight - and indeed the others - enshrouded Starlight's mind...

....

She could feel primeval primitive emotions rage through her brain, as though all her more advanced cognitive faculties simply shut down - thought, memory, reason. Somewhere, in the depths, she fought to regain control.

...and so she did. It was as if waking from a dream.

She was in, what she presumed (although she had no way of knowing for sure, the time had passed with no memory of it), in room 412. The windows were smashed, and the whole room was a complete wreck. Somebody and gone to town destroying it.

She looked at her hands. They held a television set in them, the fuses blown, sparks and smoke now wafting from its shattered form. Apparently, she had been intent on launching it out of the smashed window.

"Want to watch Teee Veee....." she heard herself yell, just as she regained control.

Below her, three police cars had pulled up outside the appartment building, a Fire engine not far behind.

"Put down the...err...weapon....!" called up one cop from below her, holdinga microphone in one hand a pistol in the other.

"It's...Is it...Is it one of them Grue?" asked his buddy, clutching his own firearm and looking up at STarlight fearfully.

[Raveled]

Starlight slowly came back to her senses, taking in the scene quickly. She ducked back inside and set the TV down gently -- unnecessary perhaps, but she was feeling distinct guilt from what she had done on her rampage. She worked so hard to help people, but just a little slip up like this one and she had turned into the sort of monster she normally fought!

The heroine squashed such thoughts. There wasn't time for her to wallow in self-pity, she needed to find the occupants of the apartment, and now speed really was of the essence! If the cops knew there was a Grue up on this floor, they wouldn't hesitate to call in heavier firepower and cordon off the building. She prowled through the devastated apartment, wincing each time she came upon another scene of destruction. "Hello," she called out, hoping for a response. "Is anyone in here?"

[Supercape]

GM

The flat was badly trashed throughout. However, two figures lay in one room - a child's room. Or to be more accurate, a toddler's room.

The poor mother was unconscious (at least, Starlight hoped it was only unconscious) face down in her pyjamas. The cause of her state would probably never be known for sure - her forehead looked like it had some nasty bruises on it. Whether they were self-induced or inflicted on her it was hard to say - perhaps a forensic expert could shed some light on it.

Standing in a cot, his face thunderous was a small child. He must have been around three years old, dressed in night wear. He had clearly been crying and was scared and angry in equal parts.

"Mummmmy!" he was wailing.

[Raveled]

Pieces began to fall into place for Starlight. A child with overdeveloped psychic powers, a disabled parent, and a pressing need on the child's part. It all painted a rather grim picture, but one that was easily solved. Of course, there was the question of just how this psychic plague had spread to the rest of the building, but before that could be solved she had to shut down the source of this terror.

The Grue kneeled down next to the unconscious woman, pushing healing energy into her. "Miss," she called out softly. "Miss, you have to get up. Your child needs you!"

[Supercape]

GM

"Wha...wha...." mumbled the woman, he head clearly bruised, her hair straggled over her face, and her eyes still giving away a rather glazed and dazed expression.

"What happened...my baby...Billy...Billy...."

She crawled to her hands and knees, shaking the last cobwebs from her head as Starlight's power wove its magic.

Then she caught sight of Starlight.

"Aaaaargh!!!! help!!!! help!!!! monster!!!! get away from my Billy!!!!" she screamed, backing away to the wall, and grabbing a teddy bear in one hand that she used as a sword to fend of the monster in front of her...