Fandom Hell's Kitchen Vol. 1 (Complete)

[Loki The Trickster]

As he's about to leave, one of the dancers catches Jeremy's eye. "Ballista," his client says to him. "The star of the show."

"I've seen her before," admits Jeremy. He doesn't often drink on the job. Gin and tonic, however, is only an arm's length away and, besides, his consultation with his client is more or less over. It's time to unwind. He turns around and takes one of the cups from the table. Gulp. Approaches the stage as he readies some dollars from his wallet to toss the stripper's way.

"Why d'you dance?"

Two Fives

 

[Two Fives]

"Why do I dance? Because I like it. Freedom," the woman answers--breathlessly, for the dancing has done a number on her stamina. She twirls twice. What she does in stiletto heels could be considered a superpower in itself... "And money." With the upbeat saxophone of a jazz record sounding from all around, Ballista raises her voice up a notch.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

"Honestly--" Jeremy laughs slightly. He wants another swig of his drink, but there's nothing left in his glass but ice cubes and lime water. He isn't an alcoholic. Just knows his way all too well around a drink. All attorneys do. Especially the ones in Hell's Kitchen. "Honestly, these stages would be empty if you girls could pay your rent any other way. You feel free? Truly? That you got a choice?"

Two Fives

 

[Two Fives]

They talk philosophical theories of determinism while she, upside-down, slides down a stripper's pole. She finds this funny and laughs back. Any of the other strippers here would be offended, but not Ballista.

"Leave that question for the philosophers. We're only dancers here. Simple girls," says the woman, but the manner in which she speaks--contending with this lawyer with wittily wise words--suggests anything but simplicity. "Give us money and we shake our asses for you. That's determinism in a nutshell, sweetheart." Sharp sarcasm.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

The man assumes the double entendre is intentional, smiling. As if on cue, he thumbs through his wallet, taking out several bills. "Talk about free will," the man laughs, making it rain. "Let's not beat around the bush. Enough of the smalltalk. I saw what you did to 37th Street."

Two Fives

 

[Environment]

She answers not with words, but action. With a shove off her heel that caves in the cobblestones under her heel, the swordswoman delves into the deep dark of the back street. She's under the lurid light of a lamppost in one second, then somewhere else in the darkness the next. Where?

Above.

Moonlight catches her blade. Turns the shimmering silver to white ivory. She intends to taint this colour... to turn it red. White Rabbit's blood will be her gouache. She comes down from above, having leapt from a brick wall a moment before, purposefully poised with a strike that could split the average man in two, a clean cut through the middle--crown to crotch--in an explosive burst of guts and gore and gouache.

Daric J Fender

 

[Daric J Fender]

The weapon hit him, but didn't cut. The impact knocked him down but he recovered quickly, spinning around and snagged her by the leg thus tripping her. The man must have been drunk, seeing as the commotion hadn't even made him stir.

 

[Environment]

The blade strikes true, cutting right in between the pointed ears of White Rabbit's head. The steel, however, doesn't cut, ricocheting with a horrific screech, the embers of sparks casting to the cobbles in sprays of red-and-orange. Almost like a clash of steel against steel. When she applies more pressure, her fingers red with it, the blade snaps in two like the brittle branch of a riverside willow. “Impossible,” the woman mutters in Japanese.

She might trip, but years of martial artistry catch the woman on the flat of her hand. And, in the same movement, her other leg whips round in a roundhouse, the back of her boot primed for White Rabbit's throat. There's a shimmer of moonlight under her heel, the steely glint of a concealed knife strapped to the underside of her shoe... a gambler's knife that wrenches the windpipe into wastes of beating flesh, the jugular exposed in a flood of blood and muscle fibre flotsam.

Daric J Fender

 

[Daric J Fender]

He yanked at the foot he managed to grab before and threw her against the alleyway wall. He let her go about this point and backed up, positioning his legs shoulder width apart and putting his hands out in a defensive position. "Nothing will be obtained via fightning ma'am. Perhaps we could talk this through?"

 

[Environment]

Thrown, the Asian woman boomerangs on her way to the brick wall, but she lands skilfully on her two feet, remaining upright in defiance of gravity. She runs vertically up the wall, then hops from balcony to balcony, reaching into her cloak to brandish a fusillade of throwing stars that shriek through the air like steel rain from above. They're sharp enough to cut cleanly through flesh to bone and make ruddy ribbons and ruins of sinew, all aimed for White Rabbit and the homeless man who has seemingly slept through it all. "I'll be back for your head. Just like the ghost man," the samurai threatens, having decided to take her leave via a rooftop after hearing a cacophony of sirens and screams from across the street...

Meanwhile...

Across the street, cops are storming the Hellfire Club. One of the bouncers threateningly rumbles, "Oi," immediately after which the officer simply aims at him his firearm, reducing the doorman to humble silence. The other cops have their firearms out of their holsters too, not seeming to be taking any chances. Their target is a super. Precautionary measures are, of course, necessary.

Guns, they see, and everyone is thrown abruptly into panic-stricken disarray.

Strippers on stage, dressed only in their stiletto heels, scurry out through the nightclub's doors, a crowd of half-naked women with suited men not far off flooding frantically into the street outside. The officer stops in front of Jeremy Jones and Ballista, otherwise known as Swara Singh, and tells the latter, "You're under arrest for the murder of Shiba Shogun (who is the victim of the earthquake)." The officer continues with the Miranda warning, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you," and proceeds to handcuff the woman as they wrench her outside to a cop car.

Daric J Fender BackSet Loki The Trickster Two Fives

 

[Daric J Fender]

He covered the man to prevent the blades from harming him, then started climbing the fire escape stairs to reach the building's top. He caught just a glimpse of her as she made her escape. Without hesitation, he took off after her.

 

[Two Fives]

"I didn't murder anyone!" protests Swara Singh impassionedly, her teeth ground. She could break these handcuffs with a flex of her wrists, but that, without a shadow of a doubt, would serve her a death sentence; executed with a burst of bullets. At a loss for words, she calls Jeremy's name, pleading, but the cops pull her along outside the club into dwindling night, and into the car she goes.

 

[Daric J Fender]

When he realized it was no used he decided to make his way back home.
As soon as he layed back in bed, he transformed, and Kiara woke up with a throbbing headache. Not a good day for school. She shuffled out into the living room, grabbed a glass of water and that's when she saw the time. "Oh no. Oh no no no no." she set the glass in the sink and rushed to the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair. Late! Late on the first day of college! Not cool. She grabbed something quick to wear and hurriedly shrugged it all on over her pj's. Jeans, hoodie, boots.
"Honey, did you eat?"
"I'm late Dad! I got to go!"
"Kiara, you need your books!"
"Oh! Thank you!" she quickly grabbed the hardcover stack he was offering to her and she quickly went out the front door after he pecked her on the forehead. "Bye Dad!"
"Bye Kiara!"
Thank God she was only a fifteen minute walk away from campus. GamerKitty205

 

[Loki The Trickster]

When one of the cops approaches, Jeremy has a look inside his head. He knows everything. Childhood memories, the chicken tikka masala he ate for dinner... that one night stand he indulged in last Friday night. Naughty boy. What would your wife say? He finds a case file not long after, the details of Swara Singh's arrest warrant made clear to him like the sky on a cloudless midsummer day. The information he ought to know should he represent the woman in court.

Before they escort her out, the attorney tells her he'll represent her; but he adds very smugly that, "I'm not a charity."

With the party crashed by the cops, the attorney decides to take his leave. The dancefloor is empty, everyone having left shortly after the commotion, so he simply takes an iced bottle of champagne from the bar on his way out--because who will stop him? Walking home from the Hellfire Club, he strolls towards some traffic lights and sees a purple Lamborghini Hurucan he likes the look of, deciding to take it just because the colour matches his paisley print tie and just because he can. All in broad daylight too. Who will stop him?

He rummages the driver's mind like a disorderly drawer or disused shelf. Insurance agreements. Car registration. Tax rate and expiry date, SCORN status, MOT data. Things he might not remember himself, but things he has seen at one point or another. That's all the Trickster needs--a snapshot of the memory. He knows information not even the man himself knows.

The Trickster's ploys come into play and he laughs, "Noone will stop me."

The driver seems to think the passenger seat of his car is on fire, then tumbles out the door as he cries, "Fire, fire, fire," toppling away on all fours in wild apprehension, before suddenly the car blows up right before his eyes, billowing upwardly in a plume of vermilion smoke and a smell of burnt aluminium. All an illusion, of course, one only the man can see--as Jeremy takes it on himself to step into the unscathed car, then onto the accelerator, zooming down Hudson River to his apartment with an obnoxious rev of his engine. The cars behind, which were beeping incessantly, are appreciative the car isn't holding up the green light anymore.

Only a fool would think to recover ash and cinder. This car is as good as his.

 

[BackSet]

Wilson had been watching the whole thing from a half awake position. Sure he could have done something, and had that rabbit guy been killed he would have, but he was tired from not having slept for two days and not exactly feeling like doing anything unless he had too.

 

[GamerKitty205]

The moment Alina was certain that the lady was safe, she had fled the seen. A whole hour was spent mulling over her knew supposed hero status before she finally decided something. She needed sleep. No good sleep for the last two days so she might as well try to day.

The next morning Alina woke up late. So in other words, nothing different then normal. She ate a quick breakfast, heard some gossip from Aubrey and rushed out of their dorm just in time to make it late to class. Well everything was normal minus her running head first into a fellow student on her way there.

Daric J Fender

 

[Daric J Fender]

She dropped her books instantly. "Sorry sorry." She hastly mumbled as she bent down to gather them up.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

After a nap, Jeremy heads to the Precinct House in his Lamborghini and a new suit, Burberry-branded. It hides his cheap degeneracy well. He visits Swara Singh, explaining her rights along with his fees (which are generously discounted), "A thousand dollars."

Two Fives

 

[Environment]

Swara Singh accepts the lawyer's offer, paying him in full, and following the trial the woman is acquitted of all charges. Sometime after the trial, however, the judge is mysteriously murdered. As are half of the jury. Somebody seems to be hunting down everyone in connection to the case; everyone in connection to Swara Singh; everyone in connection to the earthquake that killed that woman and her Chihuahua.

Loki The Trickster Two Fives

 

[Loki The Trickster]

Jeremy Jones rinses the woman for all she's worth. "Pleasure doing business," he tells her after the trial.

Sometime after, Jeremy connects the dots of the murders and buys a gun. With all his criminal connections, finding a seller--a reliable one--is easy. All he need do is look inside a gangbanger's head to know where he can get his hands on a .45 caliber--all without drawing unnecessary attention to himself. He makes the deal in one of Hell's Kitchen's back alleys.

 

[Environment]

(Closing Hell's Kitchen up now. It doesn't seem like there are any more responses coming in but let me know if you want anything about your character changed here. No more posts)

The exchange student Kiara bumps into Alina at the school and they become the best of friends. She introduces her to Aubrey and they become the clique everyone is gossiping about on campus. Students by day. Superheroes by night. Dion is drafted to a third-world country to handle an epidemic and Wilson bumps into his ex-wife, explaining to her why the relationship didn't work and what he saw on the other side that made him lose interest in humanity.

A year later...

There's someone at Jeremy Jones' door. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

"Alright already," shouts the lawyer as he slips into a purple Gucci bathrobe. He opens the door, expecting a client. "Who the hell are you?"

 

[Environment]

The woman at his door has a long blade in her hand that curves to one side. A katana, unsheathed. The lights in the hallway catch the steel in a beaming white luminosity. She steps the threshold of Jeremy's home and swipes her blade up. "Suezo Shogun," whispers the Japanese girl. “Remember this name. This blade. This face. These will be your final memories. Just like Swara Singh's."

 

[Loki The Trickster]

The telepath has a look inside her head, taking several steps into his living room, backpedalling. "You must have the wrong man," he tells her, "I'm not who you're looking for." He's a lawyer--good with his words. Words, coupled with his ability, have always gotten him out of tough situations. He knows exactly what to say, exactly what to do, exactly what to think, to get any and all pestering people off his case.

Her mind might as well be a hotel hallway, all rooms leading into a memory. He doesn't only open these doors--he's panicking--he boots them down, rushing from floor to floor to get the information he needs.

 

[Environment]

Her mind isn't a hotel hallway. This woman's mind is a dungeon, her vile memories locked away behind blood-burnished bars of cast-iron. These memories depict all of her murders with graphic imagery. She has murdered so many in the name of her sister, Shiba Shogun, the woman who died in the earthquake.

The Intangible Man, who Jeremy Jones might remember as the man who stole his Ulysse Nardin wristwatch, dead. Swara Singh, who fought to the death in her horrifically hideous alien form, the advanced technology that hid her tentacles, making her seem human, utterly destroyed by the Japanese woman's blade. The judge and all twelve of the jury responsible for Ballista's release. Dead. White Rabbit's parents. Dead. White Rabbit, not dead, but reprogrammed, for he was an android. Turned into her personal assassin; who took care of the Demoness, Aubrey, on his way by plane to Dion--the latter she found out about through Ballista's call history and text messages. The swordswoman was close to killing Wilson Mason, but she simply lost interest for some reason, leaving him alive. Everyone else in connection to the earthquake that killed Shiba Shogun--in connection to Swara Singh--have been slain by her hand. In an all-consuming vengeance, born in the heated blood of her dead sister, and Suezo (feeling him inside her head) says to the lawyer, "You're next. Words are wind. Try to weasel out all you want, just as the others did--it won't work."

She brings her blade down in a strike made only to decapitate, lopping off his head in one fell swoop, all the arteries in his throat along with the jugular vein a fountain of beating flesh, showering down, pitter-patter-pitter, like a cast of red rainfall. "You will feel my pain," she angrily whispers.