Fandom Hell's Kitchen Vol. 1 (Complete)

[Two Fives]

"Just do what you gotta do," Swara tells Dion as she draws back her sleeve. Though the blood has dried, it has soaked utterly into the cloth, turning all of the stitchwork a grisly red. There's a smell of iron in the air, the foul stench of old blood that, with one flare of the nostrils, could turn anybody's stomach.

 

[Slim Intoxicado]

Dion sighed, closing his eyes. He softly grabbed onto Swara's arm, gritting his teeth. Slowly - and painfully - her bones realigned, and the bleeding stopped. The torn skin died and fell off of her, while new skin grew. After about 45 seconds, her arm was completely back to normal. When Dion let go, he coughed a few times, and a couple strands of hair fell off of his head. He put his glove back on and put his hands into his pockets, looking down at the ground as if in shame.

 

[Daric J Fender]

Kiara woke to the sound of the news playing in the living room and she pushed herself up. She had to blink a few times just to get one open and smacked her lips a bit. Water. Must have water. She pushed on a pair of bunny slippers and shuffled like a zombie into the living room.

 

[Two Fives]

After a long dawn and dusk, Swara is home, comfortable in bed after some hours following her encounter with Dion. She checks her hand and, in spite of the empirical evidence, is still unbelieving. There isn't even a scar. Only a skin as smooth as porcelain.

She finds her phone somewhere in the bedsheets and, as any millennial does after waking up, checks her social media--Instagram, in particular. Smiles amusedly at every emoji and acronym of adoration on her profile. Next, Swara scrolls through her contacts and there he is--Dion. Because, you know, it's good to have modern-day Jesus on speed dial. She calls, "Hello? It's me. I've been wondering..." Pause. "I know it's late. Sorry. But how did you do it? I've been wondering."

 

[Environment]

Turn on the TV.

The camerawork is unstable. An office high-rise looks to be moving from side to side. A news anchor's voice behind the camera says, “Look,” and, should viewers listen, they see a woman at the very top, standing on the ledge, one step away from plunging to utter death. When the camera zooms in and the studio lighting flares across her face, there isn't any emotion--just an apathy. An apathy for life. Jeremy Jordan and Wilson Mason might recognise this woman as the police officer they encountered earlier in the day. Too much of their mental manipulation has driven her mad--driven her to suicidal tendencies that make her want to end it all.

GamerKitty205 Loki The Trickster BackSet Daric J Fender Slim Intoxicado

 

[BackSet]

Wilson Mason
​

Wilson was in a bar when the news was on. He had ordered a water to avoid being asked to leave for loitering. He recognized the woman but didn't care. He wasn't a superhero and it was of no consequence to him who died and who didn't.

 

[Daric J Fender]

She shuffled to the kitchen and turned on the faucet. She looked at the news as she passed by. "Morning." She said. Dad was sitting on the couch, a sketch pad and pencil on his lap.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

Jeremy unloads a tin of Pedigree-branded food into his dog's bowl. A puppy dog comes running from around the corner. A cute little Pomeranian. He strokes him and says, "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are." The six foot tall man tends his puppy who might as well be an ant by comparison, pampering him to no end; belly rubs, ear scratches and all. Seems this cut-rate / cut-throat crook of a lawyer has a soft side.

Shortly afterwards, he gingerly heads into the living room of his apartment, turning on his flatscreen Panasonic with a flick of the remote control. He recognises the woman on the news broadcast, yes, but a new episode of How to Get Away with Murder is on in five... He switches the channel.

 

[Slim Intoxicado]

Filing paperwork as he always did in the evening, Dion got a phone call. He expected it to be his mom or his sister, so he fished his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. What he didn't expect was the contact name to be "alley girl". Taking a deep breath, he answered the phone. "Hello?" He greeted.

Hearing the question, he stopped breathing for a few seconds. "Uh..." Stuttered the doctor. "I, uh..." Panicking, his first instinct was to hang up. However, he took a deep breath again, and spoke. "Little trick I learned in premed..." He answered, lying, of course.

 

[Two Fives]

"I don't believe that for a second," Shuffling. "There's no way. You're one of those mutants, aren't you?"

She rolls out of bed and gets ready. More scuffed shuffling over the phone. There's some interference along the line. Police sirens in the background. Couple arguing upstairs. Another couple next door, not arguing, but just as loud... "Your secret is safe with me," Swara assures him.

 

[Slim Intoxicado]

Before Dion could respond, the woman had already confirmed his secret was safe. "I... Uh... Thank you..." He mumbled. As he spoke, he realized he'd been scribbling on the paperwork. He gasped, putting the pencil down and picking up a large eraser, erasing the scribble marks.

Two Fives

 

[Two Fives]

"Be right back," She puts Dion on hold for five or so minutes as she showers and slips into some clothes, then tells him, "I'm back. Sorry about that. Getting ready. I work nights." More shuffling here and there. Slightly more hurried now. Scurrying.

She snatches some brass keys off the dresser along with her coat and says, “What you doing up so late? Did I wake you?"

 

[Slim Intoxicado]

"I work at a hospital, love... I'm awake at ungodly hours." He joked, even though it was true. He worked, more or less, day and night, almost every day of the week. Not much time for heroics.

Two Fives

 

[Two Fives]

"Of course you do," Jingle of keys. Thud of a door shutting behind her. Footsteps along hardwood flooring. More shuffling as her hair catches on the phone's microphone, "My name is Sarah, by the way. Not sure I told you. Did leave in a bit of a hurry, mind you." There are some notifications that blare on her newsfeed, beep beep BEEP, but Swara dismisses these for the time being, completely occupied by her conversation.

 

[GamerKitty205]

A single look at the woman could tell anyone that this wasn't normal. At least Alina would like to think so. Maybe the apathy was pretty normal, when people are driven to suicide they normally don't care about life anymore or they do and wish to escape it. Okay no maybe it was normally but as much as Alina hated to admit it she really just wanted a exscuse to go over there.

Alina left the Cafe and headed out into an alley and transformed into her demon form. If she was going to end up flying again might as well make herself unidentifiable as she did. Then she rushed over to where the building was watching the woman on the edge of the building, about to jump off.

 

[Environment]

"Oh my GOD," several bystanders shout from behind the camera. Shouts, shrieks and screams are all what's heard through the audio, all blending into a cacophony of startled disorder. Clearly, the woman has leapt. However, the cameraman has whipped the lens around for the purpose of censorship. A moment before he does, there's a brief look of the woman in her fall, only a fleeting second where all one can see is her flailing arms and legs like she's trying to fly, as the camera pans away-- CRACK.

While newsstations might have a censorship clause, social media doesn't. Twitter, Facebook and every other type of social media depict the happening in horrifying detail. One Twitter user tweets a video of the fall, following the woman all the way down to the concrete curb where she SPLATTERS like a housefly under two swatters. One side of her head opens up for spillways of runny brain to trickle down. Others snap images for their Snapchat stories, a macabre slideshow album of death stills. It's disgusting. The comments are just as worse.

 

[GamerKitty205]

Alina shot up into the air and caught the woman, taking some of the impact of the fall, but still managing to land with both of them safe. No bloody splatters, no mangled corpse. She had managed to save the woman... For now at least.

"I went through the trouble of saving you so please don't go and kill yourself in a week or something." Alina sighed to the woman.

E Environment

 

[Environment]

Alina saves the woman a moment before she hits the concrete curb. Studio and cellphone cameras cast light over the rescue as it happens--a winged silhouette darting across a high-rise's windows. Everyone is talking about the winged woman on social media. She's becoming a hero as conceivably renown as Daredevil or Spiderman. They call her Demoness. Everyone is wondering who in the hell this woman is.
GamerKitty205

 

[Two Fives]

She speaks with Dion by cellphone for the better half of an hour. She surprisingly tells him a lot about herself, everything except her super strength and stripper alter ego: Ballista. She has even told him about her father, how she ran lightyears away from him--just to escape an arranged marriage. Lightyears is literal, considering Swara Singh is an alien, but Dion probably assumes it's a hyperbolic overexaggeration.

When she descends the steps into a subway for a train's transit to a station close to the Hellfire Club, Swara loses signal underground and the call hangs up.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

After a call from a client, Jeremy Jones suits up, hiding his immorality in a Dolce & Gabanna three-piece. It costs over two thousand dollars. His client, the son of a Sicilian mobster, wants to meet in the Hellfire Club. It's common to meet in locations like these, especially when his clients are criminals. The noise ensures any conversations, should they be recorded in secret, are unintelligible. There's never anything to leak.

When he arrives in the early hours of the night, the lawyer is led to the VIP access area. They discuss money laundering and Jeremy Jones explains how they--not him--can do it without getting caught. Because he's in the mobster's head, he knows all the things he needs to tell him to persuade him to criminality. "That's all," consults the lawyer following the discussion, "I'll be taking my leave."

In hindsight, it's a failsafe. Should the mobster succeed in his venture, Jeremy is in on the money. Should the mobster fail, there's virtually nothing to link him to the crime. There's never anything to leak. From both ends.

 

[Two Fives]

She's Ballista the second she struts the threshold of the Hellfire Club. When the stiletto heels are on, Ballista is complete like a tawdry Cinderella tale. When she comes out the dressing room and the florescent limelights cast her in purples and pinks, Ballista is like a kaleidoscope. When she struts for stage, Swara Singh might as well be a memory.

She starts work in the late hours of the night with a whipcrack of her ponytail.

And they all go wild.

 

[BackSet]

Meanwhile, across town, Wilson was sleeping in some back alley. Yet another dangerous thing in the long list of dangerous things he's done. Luckily he sleeps light so usually he's woken up the moment anyone makes a move to attack him.

 

[Daric J Fender]

Another night. With what had happened in the previous, White Rabbit was on high alert and stuck closely to the shadows. He passed a few active bars and even caught a couple having sex in the open (Still with their clothes on but it wasn't discreet in the least.) But these weren't places he needed to be. The last time he had hung out outside a place like this, well, it didn't end well.

Along the way however, he caught sight of a man sleeping in one of the alleyways and paused. White Rabbit had been around long enough to recognize every homeless person he passed. This guy looked new.

Quietly and carefully he approached. Definetly male. Aproximately in his thirties. No sign of drug abuse, though maybe the man had been drinking and passed out. White Rabbit bent down and nudged him to see if he could be awakened.

 

[Environment]

What's this feeling?

At first, it's subtle, the pins-and-needles feeling you might get in your feet, but as footfalls come closer, thud thud THUD, it becomes a lot less difficult to ignore, carrying a wintry malice with it that rivals December's and shivers the spine. Heavy, hard, hitting. Like a weight on the shoulders. Like a gravity in your gut. Every fibre of the being saying to run--hide. NOW.

Rasssssp.

The unsheathing of a Japanese tanto. The sheathe material is ribbed leather, the blade cast-steel. Along the hilt hangs a tassel of crimson red. Carrying it between a white-knuckled fist is an Asian woman dressed head to heel in black, whose appearance at the entry of the alley clarifies the feeling utterly: killing intent. She's here to spill blood. Hudson River will run red with blood. Tonight.

"You killed my sister," she whispers witheringly.

BackSet Daric J Fender (Map of Hell's Kitchen)

 

[Daric J Fender]

White Rabbit stood, his ears erect as he looked at the woman who had recently appeared. "Forgive me ma'am, but I do not recall killing anyone, let alone your sister. Perhaps this is a misunderstanding."