Lose-Lose Makes A Happy Lucy

These plans just come together for some reason. After her last endeavor went off without a hitch producing a successful follow up could take some time and planning, but most likely Lucy would think of something to do and just let the pieces fall into place. Maybe a tragic comedy, no she did that with the television reporter and the Asian kid. An expose, no Mockingbird fit into that category. You know what people just eat up, a thriller. A perfectly executed thriller in which the audience becomes so involved you would think their lives depended on the outcome of anyone trying to help. Well now theres a plan and some direction with just a hint of motivation. Lucy walked over to the mirror in her penthouse.

After Lucy ended her last public access program she made a deal allocating her a good deal of money and explosives to carry out her productions. Along with the assets she acquired from Elena she also kept the old outfit of the superhero Mockingbird. The first course of action would revolve making use of the Mockingbird suit to establish a new Mockingbird who perpetuated doing good. Lucy could pull off fighting crime in a suit for a bit, so she started there. Only, the deck stacked itself slightly.

Over the course of two weeks a string of violence erupted throughout the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles. Break-ins and home invasions completely going unnoticed by guards of the gated communities. When police showed up to investigate the break-ins they only found terrified residents and rough descriptions of the assailants. This string of actions increased patrols through the neighborhoods, but the incidents continued happening with frequency. With the surprise of the attacks no longer a surprise to anyone within the suburbs, Lucy began intentionally letting images of herself in the guise of members of gangs she tracked down slip out for cameras.

Police began planning a build up to conduct raids against the lower districts on L.A. but before they could act, a vigilante dressed in a black hood made stunning arrests deep within the heart of "Gangland" and delivered them to the precinct. Three rival gangs representing three of the largest communities began a savage infighting culminating in vicious gang wars to determine right of succession. With the police still providing protection to the suburbs, they found it difficult to maintain order all throughout the city, causing the city to fall into a dual state where police could and could not protect the citizens.

In the wake of terror, the vigilante Mockingbird took action against gangs with extraordinary insight and precision against any members who rose to power. With the lack of danger spilling over into an excessive amount of collateral damage the governor of California failed to gain the national guard units he requested. While the violence remained very concentrated within the slums of L.A. Lucy watched over the city using the invisible hand of destruction.

Lucy continued her use of Mockingbird to continue taking down gang leaders, whose identities she found out through asking around in the guise of members she tracked down. With all of her efforts she could probably make a good superhero, but doing good always brought out the worst in a situation. With the stage set she just needed a few more things to help make the situation more thrilling.

Since crime wars can keep the fire in their bellies going without her help, she decided to go scout out a person to play the role of Mockingbird. Last time she checked the measurements on the suit it placed Mockingbird at around 5'6. Not a difficult height to find for a thin girl. Lucy felt this part of the plan would only take her a few hours to finish, and later in the evening she successfully casted the role of Mockingbird by kidnapping a thin brunette, who while only 5'5 still fit all the other requirements. The drug she gave her would keep her out for a while and a pair of zip ties kept her hands and ankles together in the Mockingbird suit.

With night now upon the city, Lucy stepped back to begin the more hands on parts of her plan.

Andree Miller had been resting in her apartment when she noticed it on the news. It was her, but not her. The impostor on the news was in Los Angeles, a city that Andree had not visited before. Now, what am I doing in Los Angeles? Her eyes narrowed as her mind raced through possibilities as to whom could be pretending to be her. Lucy. She took my suit, didn't she? Filthy little bitch running around in my suit. I think it's time I pay her another visit. By the looks of it, she, or whomever she sold my suit to, are obviously in Los Angeles. She thought to herself furiously as she pulled her laptop lid open. Her eyes darted around the screen to find where she needed to go to book a flight as her hands worked the keyboard and mouse pad. Eventually, she had gotten herself a flight booked to Los Angeles, departing in two days time.

The two days between her first discovery of the impostor and the flight over to Los Angeles were uneventful. She didn't care whether or not the person running around in her hood and cape was doing good, she just wanted to stop them from using her suit. If Lucy didn't sell it and kept it instead, she knew that this was no good. Over the course of the last of the two days, she packed up her things. In one bag, she had books, a MP3 player, magazines, a pair of headphones and a small bag of makeup. She didn't use makeup often but decided to bring a small bit just so she wasn't caught off guard by anything. In the second bag was her toothbrush, toothpaste, money and clothing. In the final bag, she had packed her new suit that she had picked up from Brazil and her equipment. It had been changed since the last time she met Lucy, hopefully this would give her an advantage over the impostor. She knew her weapons inside and out and knew which ones her target could possibly have of hers, the impostor knew nothing of what she had. This was the perfect situation for her.

On the day of the flight, she woke up around six in the morning and ate a chocolate chip muffin for breakfast before getting dressed. Once dressed in a white tank top and jeans, she picked up her bags and went out to the elevator. No one interrupted her descent to the ground floor of the building. Once the elevator chimed to tell her that she had arrived at the ground floor, she stepped out off the elevator and into the lobby. As she looked through the glass doorway, she noticed that it had just started to rain. The weather out here, I swear it's bipolar. She thought unhappily as she laid her bags down and searched for her rain coat.

Once in her black rain coat, she trudged out the door to the bus stop, bags in tow. After waiting a few minutes in the slowly increasing rain, she got onto the bus and rode it to the airport. Once inside, she made her way through the usual hassle of airport security until she got onto her plane.

The flight itself was uneventful and boring. It consisted of watching old movies on the TV they had installed on the back of the chairs and eating assorted candies that she had bought while waiting for the plane to be ready to go. Eventually, the touched down at LAX and she breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that they hadn't crashed or something similarly bad. After making it through the airport security on the way in, she picked up her bags from the luggage claim and left the airport to find a cab. Once she saw one coming down the street, she waved at it to signal she wanted a ride if it was free. Luckily, it pulled over.

Night was setting in the city as the cab slowly pulled to a stop in front of the three star hotel she had booked. The tall, brown facade towered over her as she walked through the doorway and into the lobby. After checking in with the man at the counter, she allowed the bell hop to take her bags to her room and followed him as he made the journey up. Once up to the seventh floor, he walked out of the elevator and down the hall to room 712. After setting down all her bags, the bellhop left. I know I just got here, but it's time to move. Andree thought to herself as she put the "Do not disturb" sign on the door handle and turned the two locks on it. With the door locked so no one would disturb her, Andree unzipped the bag with her suit and equipment inside and slid it on over her tank top and a pair of yoga pants. Her brown eyes scanned the room as she walked towards the balcony. Using the thermal scanner in her mask, she made sure that no one would see her leaving. From the looks of it, she was all clear. The old suit had a homing device inside of it, making it easier for her to find it and her impostor. Time to go.

Watching the world spiral without a sense of vertigo came as a gift from inside of her mirror world. All the pieces of the puzzle falling apart and descending into darkness. Slowly the city would begin to turn on itself, and once it fell too low for salvation the governor would finally get his wish. And Lucy would win. Little strands of control slowly snapped from their supportive wall and etched closer and closer to finally collapsing.

This building would act as her catalyst for the transformation of this city. From within the belly of the sewer substation she could move any of her assets away from the prying eyes of anyone watching the watcher. She kept a vest with a timer on the substitute Mockingbird and kept her under a heavy dose of sedatives. The timer on her chest counted down from sixty all the way to zero, and then would turn over and count out again. The goal of the device sought to trick someone into trying to disarm the device which would trigger two actions from the device: one, it would send a signal to Lucy letting her know someone tampered with the device, and two, it would release a very powerful knockout gas to anyone within a five foot radius. Lucy can’t keep her eyes on everything, but she can keep eyes everywhere.

Everything within the heart of the warzone of the southern areas of the city continued to burn according to plan. Unifying the gangs would do her no good at all; she needed them at each other’s throats, less she wanted to manage the everyday maintenance of keeping small armies under control. Splintering the gangs into smaller factions played any formation they could muster against them at the cost of municipalities and churches. Doctors refused to go back to work within the lower district hospitals and ambulances feared raids from the roaming gangs, keeping the citizens of the district completely helpless in the paramilitary citadel of L.A.

Her next role to play would instill a fear within the rest of the city through the news outlets. Media sources never wanted to come late to the story, so she just needed to keep the story going. In the cover of her mirror world hiding her, she made her way back within the suburbs to spark a story. Anyone with means to leave grabbed everything and got out of the city. They hoped it would just blow over, but a few of the houses left would need to pay penance.

Wires ran the course of the house and once Lucy turned off the surge monitors and overloaded the circuits each house only needed a few minutes before the overload turned to spark and the spark incited an inferno. Speculation would run more rampant than the flames as to the identities of those responsible, and create a media frenzy linking the fires to a unified gang assault against several homes in the vicinity that once thought itself separate from the crime ridden areas.

The cold air of the Los Angeles night nipped at each person that walked briskly down the street. The sun had faded away hours ago and the golden rays of sunlight had been replaced by the silver shine of the moon. The moon cast shadows up the streets and back alleys of Los Angeles. The shadow of Mockingbird darted across the rooftops of the city. The city was not in a very good state, from what she could see. Of course, she hadn't seen much yet.

The shadowy figure continued to run across the rooftops, gunfire reached her ears. She knew that the city was going through hard times, news of gang wars had reached her ears. Despite it saddening her, she knew that there was nothing that she could do at the moment to stop two gangs going at each other. I'd probably get hit in the crossfire and that will do me no good in finding my copy cat. She told herself in order to make it sound better that she didn't go and help.

The moon cast the shadow of the hooded figure against the concrete sidewalk. She was crouched on a rooftop, examining where her tracker was telling her to go. It should be right there, in the middle of the street. Where is it? She asked herself, frustrated that she was unable to see her copycat. Turning on thermal vision, she took a look around the area. Heat signatures registered from small animals but, from what she could see, there were no human beings in sight. Not on a rooftop, not on a street, where are you? Her eyes narrowed as she asked herself the question. The ran up and down the street, looking for any clues. They stopped darting back and forth when she realized that the answer was staring her right in the face. The sewers.

She dropped down to the concrete below and scampered across to the manhole cover. After prying it from it's place in the ground, she climbed down the iron ladder. The tracker's signal beeped on her mask to tell her that she was getting closer to her suit. Well played, a sewer based lair. Was the thought that crossed her mind when she saw the back of her old suit, seemingly sitting there. As she approached, she noticed that this was not the case. Her eyes darted to her wrists and ankles and noticed the zip ties. Kneeling down in front of the thin brunette in her suit, she asked her in a modified, coarse voice. "Where is the person that did this to you?" When she didn't get a response, she realized that the girl had been drugged. What now? Wait for her to come back? That could take ages. I'm not here to fool around, I need to find Lucy or whoever it is who is behind this. Her eyes were then drawn to the device with a timer that was strapped to her chest. Now what do we have here?

A storm of coverage blitzed through the news coverages. No channel within broadcasting distance strayed away from the event of an entire block going up in flames. Time grew closer and people grew more afraid of each other by the minute. Each section of the city could barely remember who they should fear, and instead turned to shutting themselves off completely from each other. With churches acting as staging grounds for organized gangs and hospital patients who needed care the most being left in the dark the city collapsed under the weight of fear.

To try and rectify some order to the mid sections and business sectors of the town, LAPD deployed what units they could to try and hold back the tides of anarchy. Skirmishes between officers and armed gangs ran short and brief, but with the lack of man power and the better armaments of assault rifles the gangs pushed to conduct raids on hospitals and warehouses. Police made stands to defend sporting goods stores while they could evacuate guns and ammunition, but fell short of their entire goal by allowing two stores to fall to separate factions who claimed the stocks for themselves.

Gunshots rang through the streets. Every bullet grew louder and every street echoed the sounds of violence making every isolated attack an attack against every citizen. The calls went out with necessary evidence needed for deployment of the national guard. Mobilization would take hours to get even the first arrivals from San Diego and a full day before they moved into the city itself to try and wrestle control back from the gangs.

In the midst of all of this unprovoked terror, Lucy made her way back to where she left imposter birdie. Only she found more birds than she left with. Her guest checked over the form of the victim to try and gather some information as to what she should do as her next move. Staring from the side of the room with a view of the mask on Andree's head, Lucy knew her plan of using the gas bomb would fail and merely alert Andree to a dangerous presence near by.

Lucy made note of her surroundings and not just of the two girls in dire straights. Exhaust run off through gas lines needed to divert through extensions lines. With the pressure exerted against those lines Lucy could release a valve safety screw and the pressure would send the piece of metal into Andree's mask, allowing the gas to seep in. Slowly and with great patience she crept from the mirror. Her hand ran across the valve to begin the difficult action of removing something under such great pressure. Luckily disarming a bomb took even more attention. Finally the screw released and flew across the room directed to break the mask as Andree disarmed the bomb. "Birds go in cages."

The deep, modified, coarse breaths coming from under Mockingbird's mask echoed around the sewers as she leaned closer to the device on the girl's chest. Her mask was at work scanning the device but she was running out of time quickly. The device was counting down from sixty and had already reached forty seconds left until it did something. Okay, I don't have time for this. She said to herself silently, shutting off the scan in progress as the timer informed her that there was only thirty seconds remaining. On one knee, she began to attempt to disarm the bomb that was strapped to the thin brunette's chest. Once she attempted to do so, a gas erupted from the device.

Oh, gas. Boring. Though, I suppose it's better than explosives. At least I'm fine as long as my mask is on. Now, as for you, Lucy. I am going to find you and beat the crap out of you for hurting this innocent woman. If I see you, you will regret it. She thought to herself angrily as she rested on one knee as the gas was still erupting. Her mind was able to think fast enough that the train of thought took under a second. Now, let's see, how do I find you? Was the train of thought that traveled through her mind as the screw from the pipe made contact with her mask, making a crack in it. What was that? She asked herself frantically as she turned her head over in Lucy's direction to see her heat signature through thermal vision. Lucy, I knew it. Were the last words that passed through her mind before she noticed the gas seeping into her mask. Shit. She said to herself silently as she slumped over, unconscious.

Danger echoed through the streets, filling the city with the sensation of attack. Tall towers and curving roads carried them with television stations focusing the gaze of the city. No one could hide from the feeling of attack. In the wake of the ambient noises the citizens became their own worst enemies. Neighbors watched each other and hid when headlights crept through the blinds. Lucy found a way to cause a city to create a mental case against themselves.

After the acquisition of her second Mockingbird suit Lucy needed a second Mockingbird. College campuses shut down and asked for government help to secure their campuses, giving Lucy an almost impossible task of finding a new birdie. Normally she could bide time and wait for an opening, but this time she needed to get in and get out in under an hour so she could get back to dealing with the real Andree Miller. While making her trip over to the campus of UCLA, Lucy thought of an idea that never came to her. She just needed to get the girl; she didn't need to get her out of there. She could take the suit, get the girl, and then leave her with a bomb threat to alleviate the situation.

After the fruits of her labor went to work she took her second Mockingbird to an unguarded section of the campus. Campus police patrolled the interior of the campus and left the outer perimeter to police, making Lucy's trek with an unconscious girl from her room to the empty registrar's office. After dumping the girl with her hands and legs zip tied and a bomb sticking out from her new mockingbird suit. With a camera in place Lucy now could split any heroes coming to the city in two by placing two two girls across city from each other.

Still within the sewer substation, the first Mockingbird captive remained unconscious from the two druggings. After any kind of rescue she would need hospitalization for damage done to her head from the series of events. She wouldn't die from lack of treatment, but she could experience early age amnesia. Not the worst fate for someone captured by Lucy, but sometimes villains did anti-climactic ultimatums and dressed them up as more deadly than they really turned out. The complex consisted of a engineering room where the first mockingbird remained. The next room took an "L" shape curving out of from the engineering room and moving down to the third room, a large common area leading up the building above. From the common room a staircase in the back would lead to main terminal of the building and just a few doors down Lucy kept the real Mockingbird.

Lucy returned feeling triumphant to Andree. She would wake up soon with her hands and ankles restrained with an advanced bindings that gripped the wrist tightly and moved with the wrists when someone tried to escape. She picked the binders up from Clement Corp from money she received from Elena Marie when she sold her Andree. Lucy came in through a mirror and lifted Andree up and placed her in a chair. Wanting to secure to keep her in the chair Lucy started tying Andree to the chair. "Time to play for all the marbles. That something you would say right." Keeping in her rule of never wearing her real face, Lucy decided to maintain the guise of Andree. Surprisingly this form became a favorite for her.

The suite was deafly silent, grey and pink shadows cast over a lavish white rug and expensive auction house items placed delicately all over the expansive quarters. On the right side of the room was a massive bedstead, its extravagant velvet curtains pulled across to hide an equally beautiful mattress arrangement beyond them. Next to the bed, on the right, was something of a fortified kitten citadel reaching all the way to the ceiling and taking up nearly two thirds of the vast white wall it rested against. Two Siamese cats were curled up on their own raised platforms in the feline paradise, and were purring in a low pleasant duet.

Suddenly, however, like a gunshot in a safe neighborhood, there was a thunderous knock at the door, causing the calming quiet to erupt into maddening chaos. “PRISSY! DAMN IT! What are you doing in there! Our flight leaves in 2 hours!” Both cats meowed infuriatedly and pounced off their miniature turrets onto the floor, fleeing to any hiding place they could find as though it would make the angry holler of the woman any less annoying. “So help me- if we miss our flight because you’re snogging with some fit chap, I’ll go completely mental! Open this door right now!” The woman screamed in her thick British accent, and pounded hard on the doors like she wasn’t already being heard.

Laying haphazardly on the bed, beneath a lump of feathery comforters and jammed between a mound of cushions big enough to rival the Mount Everest of pillows, was Cypris, aka Prissy. With every angry knock on the massive wooden doors, she flinched slightly, until she couldn’t take it any longer and forced herself up in order to madly croak, “Cool ya jets Lucille I’ll be out in a minute!” in her fading New York accent.

Exhausted both physically and mentally the model by day and secret vigilante by night dragged herself from the bed, kicking the comforter from around her ankles with slow, lazy motions as she did so. She stumbled drowsily over to a glass table a few feet away with a controller of some sort on it. Picking the contraption up, she pushed the large baby blue button on the top left and watched idly as the blinds on all the windows of the suite mechanically slid open half way. The room filled immediately with sunlight, making the pink shadows turn bright white. Around this time her two Siamese came galloping excitedly from their hiding places and curled around her legs with poise and love, meowing happily in freakish unison.

Cypris bent over and pet the twin prize winning felines, cooing at them gently as they meowed in freakish unison. Soon, however, Lucille rasped abruptly from behind the doors again, “Prissy, let me in we have to discuss today’s schedule!” Twitching her brow in irritation, Prissy moved away from her welcoming pets and opened the door with aggravated obedience. “Lucille, I already know what’s goin’ on today! And tomorrow is my shoot with Covergirl, ‘nough said!” She snapped but moved out of the way as her manager strutted like a dignified noblewoman into her suite, ignoring the obvious displeasure in her presence.

She wore a black and white pinstriped skirt suite with a silk turquoise blouse to accent the otherwise dull outfit; topaz jewelry and heels complimented her attire and as well as her silver clutch and high sleeked bun sporting dagger-like chopsticks. It was definitely fashionable, which was only appropriate for a model’s manager, but her pent up, sophisticated style reminded Cypris of an old teacher she had in the 6th grade. Shuttering quietly the super model walked casually over to the kitchenette on the opposite side of the room and poured a cup of hot chocolate. She hated coffee, and on top of disliking the taste, the natural dyes were horrible for her teeth as well as the caffeine for her figure, at least hot chocolate was a bit less detrimental to her career.

As the demi-god sipped at her ready-made beverage, Lucille went down her busy schedule for the day then proceeded to mention the various major events planned for the rest of the week as well; it made no sense for her to read everything scheduled, as Cypris would just forget, so she was only made aware of things like TV interviews or photo shoots for multibillion dollar industries. When everything on the list was finished, Cypris meandered back towards her bed but went to an enormous ceiling to floor wardrobe instead. It was around this time that Lucille began to lecture her on the etiquette of appearing before top dollar business men, but by then her listener had stopped listening.

Prissy thoroughly examined all of her clothing, holding things up to herself in the full length mirror and shaking her head with a displeased grumble with just about everything until finally she found what she was looking for, a white all lace blouse with a pink camisole, skinny jeans, and white vintage 4 inch heels, simple yet flattering on her slender figure. Before long the model was in make-up, had her blonde hair tied back in a loose pony-tail, and was packed and ready to go. Lucille was still jabbering uselessly about things they would be doing on her 2 week tour as they rushed to the airport with not a minute to spare and boarded their plane to LA.

1 Week Later...

It was raining and the streets of Los Angeles were nearly entirely abandoned, not a soul dared to wonder out into the city when it had become so dangerous the last few days. Cypris had learned from both the news and from talking to police –she had amazing convincing skills with men- that some bizarre robberies left unsolved had the Department of LA Security depleted in officers recently; consequentially the lack of law enforcement was widespread enough that, through some unknown provocation, various gangs had begun to take advantage and start a war among each other for territory and goods. There was a lot of details she wasn’t able to understand, much of it the political side that just bored her, but what she did know was that LA was in danger and was possibly in need of another hero.

Needless to say, the demi-god had dawned an Amazon Warrior-like attire –teasingly short grass skirt with a brown barbarian-esque belt that held her pistols, a bare minimum coverage mid-drift with a low V neck collar tied in the front in pink criss-crossed strings, brown boots with pink 5 inch heels and a thin pink mask over her eyes- grabbed Cupid (her bow and arrows) and hit the streets the moment she found an opportunity. Luka, her mechanical gift from Hephaestus, floated like a nimbus cloud behind her, cheeping needlessly and spouting the occasional bit of useless knowledge about the scenery.

After taking a few bullets without so much as a scratch and fighting a group of marauding gang members, the heroin spotted what she hoped was progress; not that knocking out a few bad guys wasn’t, but she had been hoping to discover the one behind all of this cacophony.

A woman was striding pointedly towards the University of Central LA and skillfully slipped through the gates, if that wasn’t suspicious, than she didn’t know what was. Of course she followed from a safe distance, even taking the initiative to turn Luka off so that her careless chatter wouldn’t give her away.

Once within the building she removed her heels and padded behind silent as a mouse, watching as the questionable woman made her way to the common rooms. The moment she cursed, Cypris realized she had the wrong criminal but she still didn’t want to give herself away in case it was a trap, and so she remained hidden within the shadows of the corridors, inspecting the area beyond as the one she pursued examined the bomb strapped to an unconscious Super in a costume.

The situation was dire and she felt the urge for a moment to reveal herself and help them, but within seconds the crisis was over and a new problem arose for the woman she followed there; waking up the victim. It was then, when nothing happened even after the disarming of the bomb, that the masked vigilante put back on her heels, turned on Luka, and stepped out. She strung her war bow just in case, aiming her heart shaped arrow in the direction of the possible threat and moved in on them carefully. “Who are you?” She asked skeptically.

Night remained lucid under a burning sky. Television cameras captured the worst the world could offer with no signs of elevating those afflicted from harm's way. The chaos shown from television monitors only lowered the morale of police while bolstering the strikes of gangs into the main business districts of L.A. Gangs targeting major banks ran into two major problems; one, police placed extra protection on those assets as a major target for gang raids, and two, 1971 really made it hard to make away with a tangible bank account. While gangs struggled with firefights vs SWAT in the business districts, gangs who took a community college economics class hit the smaller regional banks to make more tangible finds.

On campus of UCLA two figures slipped through the large campus to find the thinned security more concentrated on the dormitories, leaving the way to the administration offices open for them. Grace shook the brunette out of her rest, beckoning a series of questions. "Why are you shaking me?" She lazily said with a slurred speech. Her eyes began opening with a more widened outlook. "Why do you have a bomb?" Her voice intensified. "Why is an Amazon woman here?" The arrival of Cypris brought more confusion to the room. When time sat still in the air she began to detect the absence of hostility that told her Grace meant her no harm. "Did you see who did this to me? I heard her say something about hiding out downtown, but never got a good look."

Bursts of violence rang out through downtown. The municipalities depot Lucy holed herself up in remained untouched by any roaming bands. Taking a municipality supply never truly caught the attention of any of the gangs during their grabs for power. They all struck for money instead of making a grab for the lifeblood of the city through the sewage treatment plants or power plants. In the chaos of the event both began faltering and no city worker wanted to risk their lives to make sure the city could function through extended besiegement from within.

Lucy sought to oversee the plant by making sure it went into disarray. She sought to sabotage the deployment of national guard members due to the tactics they would employ would require taking these points back instead of defending banks and other economic hot spots. The governor placed the request and now the guard would arrive in ten hours. That gave Lucy those hours to turn the municipality into the catalyst to poison the city.

Cypris was a bit thrown back by the crass, unconcerned response she received from the woman but then again most people willing to wear an army jacket that hideous were probably just as uncouth in character...especially before beautiful woman like herself. The demi-god was kindhearted enough, and had a huge heart for justice but there were definite limitations to her New Yorker temper, not to mention her godly mother's infamous mood swings that obviously had passed on to her. Despite having told herself hundreds, no thousands, of times that she would never be anything like Aphrodite, she failed miserably most of the time; it was just too easy to be stunningly beautiful in a world like Earth and being spoiled rotten was a common mishap! It wasn't her fault her mother was the goddess of beauty and it definitely wasn't her fault this southern belle needed a serious shot in the rear by her half-brother, Cupid.

Part of the model wanted to ask the woman if she had a man because she didn't act very charming, but then at the last minute she changed her mind and hesitantly lowered her bow. Luka chirped beside her, the pink fluff ball floating in circles with her tiny magenta wings, "No danger, no danger, no danger!" With that bit of information Cypris fully disarmed the weapon, placing the arrow back in the quiver strung over her back and reestablishing the bow fastened over her shoulder. The entire time she never took her eyes off the woman, until she dropped the bomb and she flinched, holding her hands up cautiously before returning her gaze back to her, this time with an 'are you insane' glare.

"Let's get one thing straight; don't order me around like I'm some sorta stupid kid or like I should be trustin' anyone right now!" She snapped in a full New York accent, feeling like a scolded child and probably acting like one right about then as well. Go figure, a daughter of Aphrodite with attitude and authority issues; but when one's parent was a god it was difficult to take orders from mortals without feeling an air of superiority. After her little outburst she repositioned her bow anxiously and crossed her arms, shifting the weight on her heels as the woman bent over the hostage and cooed gently at the frightened girl, perhaps she really had come in to strong but what was she supposed to do? Walk in unarmed and risk basically saying 'Kill Me!' if it was a trap of some sort? For all she knew the enemy was out to take out all the heroes in the region one vigilante at a time!

The girl was placed tenderly on the couch, and though Cypris really didn't like this Super already, if she was a villain she'd have already taken her out. Horrible as it sounded, it seemed the two were going to keep running into each other whilst looking for the culprit of the LA gang wars, so it was obvious they would have to work together. She reminded herself that two was always better than one and this girl was able to disarm a bomb in seconds, obviously she had skills that would prove useful. Prissy closed her eyes for a moment to absorb the situation and by the time she'd opened them again, the heroin had beckoned her and moved to a window at the same time.

Taking one last peek at the drugged hostage she frowned and followed, slipping nimbly out the window and into the rain. Somehow despite the water, her hair remained in perfection and her make-up without a single flaw as though the rain did not touch her, yet she still felt the cold sting of the droplets hitting her flesh.

"My name is Grace. I'm from Arizona and if you point an arrow at me again I will fry you to heaven, pointing arrows when you have a witness is a number one no-no. Who are you then? If you don't tell me your name I'ma keep calling you Blondie." Were the words spoken by the now named heroin. Luka spun around happily, moving from Cypris to Grace in order to circle her head and chant, "Grace! Grace! Grace!" The demi-god felt betrayed, Luka loved this woman for some reason! Great...just great. She'd be hearing for the next few weeks "Grace! Where is Grace?" That is if they got out of this alive.

Rolling her eyes in displeasure, Cypris gave her hero name to the woman glancing back at her, "Just call me Aphrodite for now." She told her, then pointed to her miniature friend and added hesitantly, "She likes you..." There was a brief pause before she quickly chimed in, "though I don't know why..." She just had to add the sarcastic comment at the end, she wasn't even sure she knew where it had come from, it just popped out and she rolled with it.

The plank in front of her was narrow but she'd done plenty of things like this in training, martial arts was all about balance and centered focus, so of course walking across it was as easy as counting to 3 for her. When she was across she flipped her somehow dry hair and smirked with crude satisfaction at Grace as Luka returned and danced around in front of her chirping nonsense, "1-1/4" x 3-1/2" 32 x 89 mm 3-1/2" x 5-1/2" 89 x 140 mm" Prissy just looked at the machine strangely and pushed passed Grace muttering something about board measurements as Luka flew back and sat on Grace's shoulder, nuzzling her neck like a small bird.

One situation diffused as the girl rubbed her wrists on the couch. "I can't tell you much about what happened, but I know a dark haired girl did it." The gas and haste of the attack left the girl with little to know identification of her assailant. Even though her information came through blurs it still gave them some clues as to the assailant behind the kidnappings. "I don't know if she is working with the gangs, but if she and the gangs have that kind of help we're in for some trouble."

Lucy needed a disguise. A dastardly villain hailing from a time where people used the word dastardly to describe a certain villain. An old man with some sophistication would work very well with the amount of time Lucy could work with. She just needed to steal an older man's image and she could take the rest from there. After a brief selection process of the area, Lucy decided upon a man with enough gray on his head to fit her desires. She stepped out of the window to gain his appearance, letting the aged skin wash over the youth of Andree's form and turning her eyes to a light blue. Avoiding detection from the nervous officers Lucy slipped back into the mirror and made her way back to the sewage plant she turned into her headquarters.

Seeing the duo of heroines arguing through the lens of the camera gave Lucy a sudden burst of joy. It would take patience, but she could kidnap a total of three superheroes if she tried now. First she needed to separate them, with the bickering between the two Lucy felt that wouldn't take much effort. After that, she could take her time picking each apart. As for separating them, she looked over to the unconscious Andree, she could handle the deed.

Dressed in a makeshift costume she scavenged from work lockers and her own bag of costumes she kept within reach, Lucy adorned herself as "The Janitor," a villain drove to the edges of madness after working his whole life in sanitation and seeing the world above as no better than the filth he worked in. "Oh, that's good." Lucy thought in the voice of an older man as she made up his backstory. "I need to get their attention so we can follow through with stage two of the program." Knowing her way around the inner workings of the cameras she regularly used to create her "programming" she reversed the feed of the camera in the UCLA office.

"Hello there girls." The elderly man dressed in a jumpsuit with weapons adorning his utility belt spoke with an accent that would place him outside of the general vicinity, a transplant to the city hailing from somewhere in the Midwest. "I see you have begun playing the game I created. Now that you've started I need to let you know the stakes." Lucy aimed the camera over to show Andree within the chair. Still unconscious Lucy presented the first ante. "You may or may not know this girl, but if you do you'll know why you should make your way to Gillian and Teller Marketing Firm." Even though Lucy broadcast her message from an office within the treatment plant she rewired the signal to show the feed originating from the firm through a series of wireless relays Lucy installed within the upper office buildings no gang members would bother to touch. A distance of about twenty minutes separated the two buildings, making Lucy's next statement carry a little more weight. "While you might get started on making your way over here, you should know I have planted a bomb with the waste management plant. The valve containers within the plant have been released so the pent up gases the plant regularly filters are ready to help the bombs explosions and with the access that a sewage plant has to the rest of the city, the damage will be catastrophic." Lucy began to fake a cough. While she wanted to portray her character as strong willed and capable, she needed to play up his age and paint an ailment about him. "I'll see if you both go into the plant and superheroes aren't so tough to get rid of when they can't fight back." The firm hands rested on Andree's shoulders as Lucy cut the feed.

Now she just waited for them to split up

"Oooh the sting. I'm crying on the inside, I really am," Were the words snickered in response to Cypris' turned back. The demi-god gritted her teeth for a moment before realizing what she was doing and stopped immediately, a move like that could damage her enamel and thus hurt her career in a moment of aggravation. Groaning to herself she clenched her fists instead, ignoring the sweaty sensation building in her palms from the dank humidity of the raining LA. As much as Prissy didn't want to admit it, she and the poorly dressed southern belle were likely going to have to work together to solve this mystery, at least she assumed that's what both their goals were despite their differences, which could only mean she'd have to hold her tongue...for now.

Suddenly, as the self-claimed heroine with the nostalgic title, Aphrodite, was about to turn and release some sort of snide remark to try and stick a foot in the mouth of the mocking girl, a monitor hanging conveniently over their head clicked to life. Cypris noticed at that time that there were several other screens mounted on the outside of the building, they probably circumvented commercials regularly, but now they did no such thing. An older man with a receding hairline and thin grey hairs brushed in a comb over across a noticeable bald spot, stared into the camera on the other end. His cold, dark eyes were sagged in hundreds of tiny wrinkles, and the somber expression he wore caused a deep hurt to arise in her heart. She could sense when someone felt no love, no happiness, when someone has felt lonely for so long they forgot the meaning of both of these things; it was more than just good observation, it was as though she could feel their sorrow down to the pits of her inner most core, a sensation like butterflies but wrought with stabbing pain in her chest, like a knife. This was their villain, of this she had no doubt, but something didn't quite seem right...however telling Grace that she could sense this man's heart would sound ridiculous especially because it was not her power, it was simply the godly intuition of the daughter of Aphrodite.

"Hello there girls. I see you have begun playing the game I created. Now that you've started, I need to let you know the stakes." Cypris dug her manicured nails into her sweaty palms, opening and closing her fists restlessly as she wondered if the man was trying to be funny by mimicking the Saw movies. She didn't want to play his twisted city-sized game, but there was little choice when he turned the camera to an conscientious hostage, tied up and sprawled out on the concrete ground. When his face returned to the receiving end of the monitors she felt so enraged that her mind completely forgot about the pain in her chest, this creep forgot about love because he did not know how to! Growling under her breathe she bit her lip until the screens went black and it was just her and Grace standing there alone again in the rain.

"Andree when I get my hands on you..." Grace said before anything could get from Cypris' mouth, it was probably for the best that way, the other Super seemed much calmer about the situation than she felt. In fact she could have run through acid rain just to knock the lights out of that man at that point. Taking in a deep breathe she tried to relieve the stress building up inside her like a corkscrew ready to pop, when that didn't work she chanted for a moment until the knot forming at the nape of her sanity uncoiled and she could think properly again. Another lovely gift from her godly mother, her terrible temper...she could have done with out that as well.

"Have you ever disarmed a bomb before?" She asked, suddenly. Thankfully before she could answer she followed up her question with several others. "Now don't go getting all happy over it, but I don't want to leave you alone. It's pretty shitty out there. Do you have powers? Or skills? Not just anyone could grab Andree so whoever this is, isn't stupid. They'll have something waiting at this place they're holding her. It could be a trap. I can bend energy, I take it from anything," Cypris had to admit her power was pretty cool, she imagined all the thing she could do with a power like that and smiled. Suddenly she comprehended what she was doing and immediately returned to a scowl, she could think about all the guns and cars she manifest with that sort of energy on a later date, for now it was time to woman up and take out the bad guy.

"I don't think splitting up is a good idea either, that's obviously what he wants us to do! Together we're strong but separated we're weak and he knows that...you did say he was smart after all." She eyed her skeptically for a moment before continuing "I can't disarm a bomb, our chances are better if you leave the hostage to me...but isn't there another way? I mean one that doesn't involve martyrdom..." To finish off she stared at the small blue ball of energy and smirked, "Shoot that at me." She ordered, raising a brow. It was time to show this country bumpkin that she was no dumb Yankee...