Redirection (TAG)

[Riley Jackson]

As Riley, in full Breakneck gear hurtled through the air at immense speed, she thought back over how she got here. Her brain was fast, she had time before she hit... whatever she was going to hit.

This morning when she woke up, it was like any other morning. She brushed her teeth, ate breakfast, went for a run, got breakfast again, went for another run, checked out the zoo before it opened, and reported for her assignments. All before 6 AM. She woke up at 5:45. Typical day.

Her task for the day was to take out a powered person that was starting to cause some minor disturbances to the underground of the city. They weren't entirely sure if this guy calling himself Vector was trying to set himself up as a new crime boss, or clean up the dirty underbelly as a hero. Either way, it didn't matter. He was bulletproof apparently, and causing trouble. Intel had him pegged somewhere near Liberty Heights. 

Bulletproof was fine. Riley was faster than bullets, and would find out if he was blade-proof. And if he was he probably wasn't snap-your-neck-proof.

Riley took her time. Got breakfast again. Visited Paris. Watched her target until she got bored (which was maybe two minutes). Then she made her move.

She honestly shouldn't have shouted "Later hater!" as she approached him, in hindsight. Perses was going to chew her out for that. She didn't think it would matter, most anyone she approached like this was going to be missing their head a moment later.

But that was when she realized what his powers actually were. Vector turns, saw her, and put his hands up as if to gently catch her and turn her.

And without her wanting to do so, she flew off to the side at the same speed she had been running at. He changed her vector.

She kicked herself for not thinking of that. But that got her caught up to where she was now, hurtling through the air and...

Impact. The armor-clad speedster smashed directly through the wall of one of the nearby homes, bounced off a kitchen island, and finally came to a stop in a closet, smashing through the door. 

She stood up and knocked her head into the shelf above her, knocking a box of tangled cables on top of her, further complicating her exit.

"Sorry! Sorry. Sorry about the mess. I'll be out of here in two shakes. Hold on. Just gotta..." Riley shook her tangled arm at immense speed until the cable around it flew off.

She walked over to the hole she flew through and paused, shouting back into the house. "I'll see if I can help fix this up when I get back! Sorry!"

With that she zipped back off to confront Vector again. She knew how he worked now, she could take him by surprise.

Two seconds later she crashed into the same exact house again, making a new hole. 

"Fuck! That fucking bastard fucking cunt! Fuck he's fast! Sorry!"

Another exit, and another return through another new hold. "FUCK!"

Lara Greene

[Lara Greene]

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[attr="class","aodmtop"]Lara 'Jericho' Greene

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[attr="class","aodimgtext"]tag : Alice

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❝

But you're monochromatic, lost in the static

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It was a normal morning for Lara. And normal, it means that Lara had drunk an energy drink to wake herself up because she was working on four hours of sleep. In truth, she knew better than to leave herself on a sleep deficient. Something about a sleep debt that ended up wrecking her immune system. But she hadn't had one of these days for awhile. She'd been taking care of herself so her brain was working at peak efficiency for her job with Aegis. Had to be able to catch things if the firewall or Alice didn't get it. Plus Lara had a few places she wanted to hack and get information through. It was good to have a database of facts she could pull when she needed a reference for something. Perhaps hacking into the local walmart security cameras wasn't the best use of her time. However, knowing which people shoplifted DID make it easier to tackle. Of course, if they were stealing essentials she...admittedly looked into their backgrounds before putting anyone on their tail. Someone stealing formula to feed their baby wasn't getting dinged by her. She knew how to mind her own damn business. It wasn't legal sure. But capitalism taking away their capability to feed their child probably wasn't the most legal EITHER. She wasn't being an obstacle to the law by doing this, she reasoned. But if she was aiming at efficiency in solving crimes she just wasn't improving efficiency in that particular sector. They could do it themselves, she wasn't doing that dirty work.[break][break]

So as she was sipping that energy drink, blue raspberry if that mattered, she heard a fuss outside. See this is why she liked staying inside her house. No need to bother with stuff outside like that-WHAT THE FUCK IS A WOMAN DOING INSIDE HER HOUSE AND WHY IS THERE A GIANT HOLE. And as Lara got up from her couch to assess the damage, the woman ran off. She went to look at the hole. Just in time because in came the woman again, smashing into the place with the couch that she had just exited. If she hadn't looked into insurance purposes, she wouldn't be existing now. At this point she was thinking bad things happened in threes and she just really hoped it wasn't gonna end up with a trip to the hospital. She understood this wasn't property damage sheerly on purpose because of the swearing and the apologies. She still wasn't happy though. Could be worse, she supposed. But fixing this would likely require her to relocate her residence for some time and she did NOT want to do that. She had the perfect setup and she didn't like to leave it.[break][break]

And then, as Lara was thinking everything could be worse, the third thing in the trio of bad things happened. The woman came back in and...hit a support pillar.[break][break]

"MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!" Lara, prioritizing her life quickly dashed under a very solidly built piece of furniture and gave thanks for the fact she bought quality furniture. She hadn't cheaped out, but it was for an aesthetic reason and to last longer. Not to...help with a house collapsing. Still, it did sufficiently. She closed her eyes and just hoped for it to be over as she heard things crumbling. Hopefully this was the last time that woman smashed into her house or it would get even worse. Turns out that 'motherfucking shit' she had let out was only the first in a long line of expletives. However, the rest of them were in the other languages she knew. Italian, French...the German and the Russian swears were particularly satisfying because of the nature of the languages.

[attr="class","addy"]addy

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[Riley Jackson]

Riley shook her head, trying to clear the headache that was starting to develop, despite her protective headgear. She was about to sprint back to try to hit Vector again, but things were getting worse in this poor house. The resident, a woman who looked like she was just waking up, had come out, and started letting out a string of what Riley assumed were curses. The woman dived under a sturdy looking table, because as Riley started to grasp, that pillar she’d split in half with her body was kind of important.

“Ah shit.”

Riley felt bad. She did the dirty work for the Cabal, sure, but they were the good guys. They were trying to protect and make a better world for normal people like this woman who just had her whole house smashed. Riley sighed, already mentally preparing herself for the reprimanding she was going to get for this.

Moving fast, fast, faster, she started to zip around the collapsing house, grabbing anything that looked important and stacking it neatly outside. Riley paused for a few nanoseconds when she saw the computer, not wanting to wait for it to shut down, but made her decision when she saw the battery backup sitting near it. She switched the plug before the system could even realize it had changed, and took it outside too. During the whole time, she kept an eye on the table and the woman, grabbing a thing here and there that she worried would be too much for the table or make it hard to get her out later, but for the most part Riley applauded her choice of furniture.

Despite Riley’s speed, the building still collapsed quickly. There was a deep pit of sorrow in her chest, she felt so bad about causing this, even inadvertently. She went to the table and bent down, offering a hand.
“I am so, so sorry. There’s this asshole I’m trying to fight and he can just turn me in whatever fucking direction he wants, and he kept sending me this way and I’m so fucking sorry. I saved as much as I could, which was a lot honestly, I’m fast. Shit! I forgot the fridge. Is the fridge okay?”

Riley zipped off to the fridge and opened it quickly, whereupon several energy drinks fell out, the sides of the cans piercing open on sharp debris and spraying the highly caffeinated beverage all over the speedster. She zipped back and shook herself off.

“Yeah it looks mostly fine. Probably going to want to get that stuff outta there though, it’s not gonna keep cold long. You okay? Can I help you real quick before I go feed that guy his teeth?”

Lara Greene

[Lara Greene]

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[attr="class","aodmtop"]Lara 'Jericho' Greene

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[attr="class","aodimgtop"]

[attr="class","aodimgtext"]tag : Riley Jackson

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❝

But you're monochromatic, lost in the static

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Lara was just trying to stay alive under the table. Her eyes were closed for a moment, but when nothing large immediately hit her makeshift sheltering table, her eyes snapped open. She wasn't sure what was happening, and suddenly she had a woman in front of her explaining what was happening. So it was a super. Presumably this woman was too, but that wasn't a big deal to Lara. She wasn't IT for Aegis for nothing. When she heard the words about the fridge, she waved dismissively. [break][break]

"I don't care about the fucking fridge, I needed to get groceries delivered soon anyways. All there are are some energy drinks in there and honestly I should be trying to wean myself off those anyways." She heard some more crumbling, but it seemed further away. She crawled out from under the table, unsure of what was going to face her. And while she was doing so, the super responsible for launching the other woman into Lara's house approached. She didn't realize it. He looked at the speedster and grinned. And then changed the vector of some falling debris to go towards the woman whose house was crumbling around her. What he didn't realize was that her house had been her world. And she was both pissed, and afraid. So while he was redirecting debris at what he saw as a bystander he could use against his opponent, Lara turned sharply. She saw him, and saw the debris. And suddenly, some instinct within her switched on. Her fear took control. Her eyes glowed the hue of molten copper and the piece of concrete stopped mid-flight. It floated in the air for a few seconds before flying right back at the man who was attacking her. [break][break]

And then she looked around her, her eyes changing to the shade of regular copper. She saw most of her house destroyed. She could see the sky. Blue sky above her. Wind brushing its way through the debris. She was outside. Lara panicked and screamed, and in her panic every piece of dirt and metal flattened around her. What parts of her house hadn't been flattened before were thoroughly flattened now. The interesting thing was that none of it touched the speedster who had helped her. It was like her consciousness recognized a friend in her. Lara fell to her knees and her eyes went back to their normal blue grey hue. She looked at her hands. Just like the rest of her, they were shaking like a leaf. What....w-what was happening to her.

[attr="class","addy"]addy

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[Riley Jackson]

Riley was fast. Very very fast.

But Vector had already proven that the things he redirected were faster.

Riley saw the debris start to move toward the poor woman who had just lost her entire house, and knew what was about to happen. Instinct kicked in and Riley started to run, but she knew it was too late. Her mind was already weighing whether or not it would be wise to put herself in between the woman and the debris, because she knew she didn't have time to catch or redirect all of the debris.

She just decided to do it. She skidded between the two, expecting a thud that she wasn't sure she'd survive, only to see the concrete stopped in midair.

Riley looked at the woman who's eyes were glowing a brilliant copper sheen, and realized what was going on, especially when the debris knocked Vector on his ass.

"All right! Epic. I owe you a shake. Or something. Or--"

And then everything went flat. The woman screamed, dropped to her knees. It suddenly clicked.

This woman had no control. That was all instinct and she just flattened everything in a 90 foot radius at least. Riley even felt the blades and other metal parts of her suit get pulled downward, and she almost lost her footing.

"Right okay panicking, can't have that right around... well everything you can apparently mess with. Come on! Going for a ride."

Riley had no idea if the woman even heard her. She said this quickly as she picked up the woman and sped off toward town, looking for something unnatural, a skyscraper mostly made of glass. Spotting a good option she zipped up the side of it, and set the woman down.

"Right. Okay. Doing better now? Breathe deep. You just saved my life. Well, saved it after I put yours in danger so I suppose I owe you double then."

Despite her training and the shit she knew she'd get for it, something in her told Riley it was more important to let this person see a friendly face in this moment than to maintain a secret identity. The helmet came off.

"Hey. Look at me. Hi! I'm Riley. That was righteous back there. You doing okay? Need some water?"

Without waiting for a response Riley zipped off and returned with a cup. "Take a sip, slow, and just try to breathe, okay? I have some very close friends that had powers go haywire when they were younger, it'll be just fine."

Lara Greene