Who:Kylie "V" & Blytech What: Working out some issues. Where: Somewhere in Rainier Valley When: Wednesday (12/1) - the wee hours of the morning Warnings: Awesomeness? XD
Even with the insulating modifications to her bodysuit, V was still cold. Traveling in warmer climes had spoiled her, she supposed... and maybe a couple months of not donning her suit and playing out in the dark, of course. That might have had something to do with the way that she was currently missing the warmth of her apartment and her bed. She could have been home, sleeping soundly, not stalking the alleyways of Rainier Valley in an insulated jumpsuit.
Except she hadn't been sleeping. If she were honest, she hadn't been sleeping soundly since the memory onslaught. It had unsettled her, the view into the heads of her fellow Creations... well, at least the view into one had unsettled her. She still couldn't dismiss it completely from her mind, the things that the memory had conveyed to her – not just the self-loathing, the push-and-pull of a twisted mind. There were flashes of a girl in that memory. A pretty blonde girl, young and scared and at the mercy of someone she knew was only biding his time before he gave in to the depravity that she had felt clawing at him.
The thought made her shudder, and she found it hard to swallow down the bitter taste of fear that filled her mouth. It hit a little close to home, that memory, and had pushed her to slip into her jumpsuit and stealth her way out of Aubade. She just needed to work out some of her fear, and then she'd sleep easier again. Maybe in helping herself, she could help the next girl that the Memory Guy was going to take. There was no question in her mind that there would be another one. He had been too desperate to stop at just one.
Prowling around in the alleyways of the Valley probably wasn't the best place to be deep in thought, but V's peripheral senses were still in good working order. She heard the voices before the owners of them heard or saw her; the black jumpsuit allowed her to blend into the darkness, and her footfalls were light on the asphalt. The mask that covered the upper half of her face did double-duty, both hiding her identity and further keeping her in shadow.
Three large men, one smaller woman. None of them looked particularly like innocents. If V had her guess, the woman was a hooker. She was dressed inappropriately for the weather, she was hanging out in an alleyway, and she wasn't screaming her head off to get away from the aforementioned men. The guys were thugs; they looked the classic part. Thug #1 was looming over the girl, keeping her trapped between his body and the outer wall of the building. Thugs #2 and #3 were on standby, hovering in an intimidating fashion just over his shoulders.
"Look, we know Kelly is gone, and she ain't coming back. But you were tight with her, right? You lived together." V stopped, leaning silently against the wall of the same building, just listening.
"I don't know where she wen–"
"Yeah, we know that too. It doesn't matter where she went. All you gotta worry about is paying what she owed us. You just pay off her debt, and everything'll be just fine."
"Funny." V chose that moment to pipe up, her voice drawing the attention of all three Thugs and their harrowed hooker. "I thought civil court would be a lot warmer. I don't suppose you guys want to save me some time and move along, would you?" The thugs changed their positions, and V's teeth flashed in a smile, very white in the darkness. "I thought not."
The next five minutes were a blur of movement and crackling energy. There were short bursts of sound – a yelp from the hooker, snarls from the trio of thugs, the sharp electric whip-crack of one of V's energy-based weapons. The hooker disappeared before the last of her assailants had even fallen, running away to spread a whisper through the Valley. The subject of that whisper didn't leave until all three thugs were unconscious. She took a different route out of the alley, hauling herself up onto the building's fire escape.