Desolation: IC

1:36 Am, Location -Unknown-



It was common procure. Over the night skies of Eden soared at least five jet black stealth helicopters, one four times larger than the others. Far up enough so that nobody (except those with the keenest senses) would ever notice them. Every ten miles or so the flock would descend on a empty plain or big enough building and soldiers would shove off a human being, and ascend before someone would take notice and attack them seeking an easy way out of the hellish city of Eden. Even the Goverment and those who even thought this would be a more humane alternative than killing mutants/keeping them imprisoned forever.



So, shortly after the remainder mutants had been dropped off. Only Leon had remained. He was heavily sedated and injured (in his chest and arms) after his dramatic battle against the special operatives that were sent to bring him in. Slowly and surely the sedatives had begun to wore off, enough so that he could pick up on what the -surprisingly- chatty soldiers were speaking. Of course, he wasn't sure who was talking or if they were even there. He was spinning and higher than a kite.


"This is Leon?"


"Damn. I heard this one fat bastard nearly took out an entire squad."


"Nooooo? He doesn't even look like he can take out a old prostitute." One of the soldiers deliver a painful blow to Leon's head, making him tumble down.


"What the fuck soldier!" The sergeant charged over to the rookie and grabbed him by the dog tag and screamed into him about how stupid his action was, and how he's going to be discharged. Leon couldn't notice.


When it ended, all of the forces remained quiet. Yes, Leon almost defeated an entire squad. Not alone that is. Only by luck was Leon hit by a car and opened a portal and released all sorts of dangerous monsters that overwhelmed the team. If it wasn't for backup Leon would have gotten out of that scots-free.


The sedatives had nearly worn off, Leon was going to tear one of these asshole's jugulars out. When he was formulating a plan of attack; the helicopter landed and Leon was shoved off, he hit the ground like a bag of bricks. "Good luck!" Somebody shouted before laughing their ass off. The Helicopter ascended and returned to one of the many bases outside of Eden. Leon clambered up, looking around cautiously. He's not truly sure what just happened or where he is. The first thing he did was get up on his knees. The place was quiet, other than the occasional scream.


The place he was dropped off was a park, covered in trash, debris and dead bodies (which offset Leon greatly). Like the place was once maintained and stopped. So, he figured that he should just find the nearest bus and go back to his apartment for all he knows; he's in some park because of something like those stupid reality shows he always sees on MTV.


"You're new." A hoarse old man's voice spoke quickly and blankly. Leon put his attention on the man, he was sitting on a filthy park bench. To Leon he was strange right off the bat. Because he wore this enormous cult-ish cloak, sown together from parts of other clothing, made obvious by the patches of leather, fabric, and metal bits. His cloak concealed every bit of his being. Until he pulled it up and revealed his face. The man looked strange to Leon, his face and head were covered in protruding veins, he had no hair what so ever and looked like a god damn crack head. In addition he looked dirtier than a hobo, which Leon assumed he was.


Leon spoke, confused to the situation, "Where am I? Do you know how I can get back to 18 Grant's street?" The old man smirked, "Hmph. You don't know where you are do you?"


"No." Leon narrowed his eyes at the man.


The old man points at a burning sky scraper in the distance that Leon was unaware of, "You're in Eden now. In case you haven't noticed this whole city is one big prison. For mutants."


Leon looked around shocked at the revelation, "Wait what?! Listen old man I didn't do anything."


The old man put the cloak over his head and got up from off the bench, clenching a wore and deteriorated shillelagh, "Listen boy. The government had just thrown you into hell. They don't show prejudice. If you're a mutant you'll end up here one way or another. This place is infested with the worst scum this city has to offer; killers, rapists, hedonists. They'll prey on you if you show weakness. Rip you limb from limb. Destroy you."


Leon looked around shocked. Confused on what's going on, "What. What do I do?!"

"Your best bet is to find a place to hide. The killers here will tear you apart if you're seen lurking the night. Then find food. Every week the government drops food here." He gestures to his wrist as if he's wearing a watch, "In fact. You're lucky. Tomorrow they're going to be doing a drop. Here is going to be one of the drop off sites. Come early. Everyone will be all over this place."


The old man starts to walk off, before stopping when Leon called after him, "Wait what about you? Who are you?"


The old man kept his mouth shut, forgoing Leon's question about what he'll do. Honestly, because the old man has been here long enough to more than care for himself.



...




....




.....




"Neron. Neron, Corana" At long last the old man's name has been revealed. With that, he disappeared into the bushes. Leaving a confused Leon to ponder what to do next.






--------


[i]5:27 Am



"Dammit!"


Amy was in a former dump, covered in dirt and muck that you would expect anyone climbing around ankle deep in trash would have. She was looking for a phone, with her connection to electronics, she could in theory use the government networks to enable the phone. Then she can call her family and friends and tell them where the hell she was.


It's been months since she's been thrown into this hell hole. Every fucking body wants to either rape her, or kill her. Most just try to preform the former, and thankfully they've only been successful five times. Compared to the other women of the city who are raped fourteen times a day by these monsters.


So far her search has proven to be a waste of time, as whoever runs the largest gangs have everyone steal anything of value, or the scavengers steal stuff to hope to find a phone that works. The only way she could hope to get a real working phone is jump from Gang to gang and hope to find one with a working phone. By jump from, she means become a sex slave to every one of these monsters until she gets what she wants.


She looked straight up, the food drop will be in an hour. She better get to a drop site before the gangs get to it and eat it up and she'll be starving again.

((I wouldn't think it'd be accurate to say that women get raped 14 times a day- most of the women in this city should be about on the same level of competence as the men, meaning rape would be relatively uncommon simply due to the risks involved))

Jenna wandered the halls of her home, the massive complex of tunnels and dilapidated buildings that made up the base of operations of the most powerful house in the city. She didn't know where she was going to, she rarely did, but eventually she found herself exactly where she needed to be, like always. Someone was telling her something about a supply drop, and how they needed her to come along. She nodded, suddenly glad she had worn shorts today, instead of the pretty peach dress she had longed to wear.

Eventually they were ready to go, and she got into the first truck- something to do with it being safer for everyone- and they were off, hoping to beat the supply drop to it's destination so none of the beggars could make off with the goods. She wondered why it was such a big deal, but eventually got distracted by the sights passing by- pretty signs twisted into new words, broken buildings fixed with whatever happened to be at hand, and even the occasional new building someone had used their powers to build- those were he prettiest of all, granite towers and marble walls and glass castles.

A soft whistle drifted off the top of on old building. It looked so old and unkempt that it was a surprise that the building was staying up. A young girl sat on top of the building, mindlessly brushing her fingers through the dusty rubble atop the roof. From this perch the girl could see for miles. Although one could not see her eyes under her greasy bangs, she could see everything.

This girl was Cassie, clearly a loner. Cassie didn't talk much, and people didn't often talk to her. The only daily interaction she received was from thugs trying to coax her into doing things she didn't want to do. She was usually able to shut them up and temporally blind them with a quick blast of sand to the face.

Cassie looked up at the sun, a small grin playing across her face. Cassie had been living here so long that she now knows where to go to get the good stuff, places where people can't find easily. By now Cassie was slightly infamous in the hellish town. Cassie stood up, ready to descend down the ladder on the side of her base to make her way towards her favorite loot drop off place.

The echos of Leon running through every alley ways as he attempted to find a safe haven. This place is madness; people are just getting killed on the streets for no reason. Or at least that's what Leon though. Neron was correct about this place. It's Mad Max mixed with X-Men, he stopped and rested himself on a wall. Panting, facing the ground. As apart of his lazy lifestyle he


Unaware of what was approaching. Footsteps of something that had to be as big as the hulk was slowly approaching. Leon wasn't sure if it was going to him or something else; unfortunately it was the former. When Leon raised his head a being was standing over him, at least ten feet tall. Had enormous bulging muscles, and what made Leon afraid the most; his demonic appearance. Cyan-ish skin, which was textured almost like ice, or diamonds. Horns which were large and sharp enough to impale buses, he even looked like he could carry those buses. And finally a very long tail. Nothing interesting about it other than it appeared to be a tail of an dinosaur.


This "Demon" wasn't even fully dressed; merely wearing pants sewn together very similar to Neron's outfit. When it spoke, it sounded monstrous, like Leon was about to have an conversation with the devil, [i]"This is the turf of tha' Allegiance" That was all he spoke. At this point Leon was terrified, shaking. He knew that one strong swing from the guy could kill him.


"O-o-okay?..." Leon muttered.



"Ain't okay. Tresspassers are killed. No exception." The Demon delivered one quick and sharp kick to Leon's stomach. Since he was far larger and stronger than Leon was, he nearly sent him through the wall that Leon was previously leaning on. When Leon hit the ground, face first, his shadow got darker and darker until it seemingly appeared to be a pitch black puddle of goo.



A fatal mistake for the thug.



In an instant a monster fifteen times larger than Leon clambered out of his shadow in a way that defied the laws of physics. Fortunately, the demons of Leon's dimension didn't follow those many laws set by our world.



The shadow monster was as large as the demon that had attacked Leon. Jet black and gooey, with a liquid dropping on the ground and fading away in seconds. It had a wolf, or lion feel to it. As it walked on all fours, though it had no tail. It's mouth was incredibly slender, very much like a alligator/crocodile, with rows and rows of incredibly sharp teeth. With glowing blue eyes (( Bet you thought I was going to saw red eyes)).


The first thing the shadow monster did was open it's gaping jaws and take a bite of the demonic thug. Who resisted by thrashing about and hitting the beast that he inadvertently assisted in summoning. Leon didn't even stick around, he climbed up and ran as fast as he could. It's barely been a few hours and he's almost been killed one time. Which was more than enough for Leon. He got at least five blocks away from the incident. He didn't know what became of his shadow monster, neither did he care. It either killed his aggressor and returned to it's home dimension, or was killed.


He was frantic, he just wanted a place to hide in case the former occurred. He found some building ((Cassie's home base)), it was untidy and nigh-destroyed. Much like the rest of this city. He just ran in the front door and hide behind the nearest thing that could be used to help him hide.

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality, Edgar Allan Poe once said. Over the years, many readers and fellow poets alike contemplated the meaning behind this phrase. To some, it means that the truth hurts most when it is something that you know, but refuse to accept. We all wish that this hell, Eden, and with all of the irony behind its name and purpose, did not exist. So that we may sleep in our beds pretending to be warm without fear of being found so that we may be raped or murdered in the midst of our cold, temperate nights. So that we may not have to hide while we look for food, or run for our lives on rock hard asphalt stained with rot, and dung, and blood and semen. None of us wish to wake up in the night hearing a shattered scream that may have been our own. We don’t want to look into the unstable eyes of murderers and pedophiles, but sadly, as we all know, not all of us are so lucky.

A young blonde woman ran through the brick alleys at a breakneck pace; panting, adrenaline rushing, and with her heart ready to burst, she made a quick turn before slipping on a puddle of mud and painfully stumbling onto the wet, hard ground. Mud dyed her tattered white tank top and caked onto her jeans, but she refused to even acknowledge it, and pushed herself back onto her feet before running off once more. Sounds of mob permeated behind her, and they were catching up. She heard laughs, shouting, beckons, taunts, insults, and all sorts of vile things she would dare not repeat to a child. The woman looked ahead and saw that the alley was coming to an end. She was about to reach the street, where she could finally hide inside one of the buildings and wait it out. She looked behind her and saw approaching shadows. She looked back to where she was running, and her life flashed before her eyes before coming to an abrupt stop at a bulky thug’s chest.

“Hey, look at what we've got here!” The large man laughed as his massive arms grabbed her by the shoulders, painfully squeezing until she submitted and fell to her knees, now only being able to see the stained paints and broken zipper that was located just in front of her face. A dreadful realization haunted her, and she broke into tears. “Thought you could get away, didn’t you? Slut…”

The mob that had hounded her up to this point had finally caught up, and consisted of a group of countless dozens that consisted of men, who made howled sounds of merriment and cheers as they found their target in the hands of one of their larger gang members. One in particular paced smugly towards her. His hair was a dirtied up blonde as well, and his leather jacket fit snugly around his arms and imposing chest. One of the thugs in the crowd cheered out, ‘Go get ‘em, Dallas!’ The tearful blonde wept as she turned her head to look up and recognize the face of the man that held his gaze on her. Her red sorrowful eyes soon became one of rage, but the man earlier referred to as Dallas met her eyes with a look one patronizing before kneeling down to meet her face to face.

“You gave me and my boys quite a chase, you did,” he taunted, making her shudder as he stroked a finger under her chin, “what a wonder you are. How good you must be!”

“Gunnar, you sick fuck!” she shouted in his face, “Leave me alone! I’m your sister!”

Dallas laughed, joined in with a couple of the lackeys behind him. “Oh, but come on! You’re so beautiful, so sexy! Let me see how you look shirtless, at least.”

The man that held Dallas’ sister grunted. “Hey, I’m the one that caught her! I should be the one to do it!” He said aloud as his grip on the girl became tighter. Dallas sighed just before a resounding cracking noise, came from his body. His face grimaced as a large leg of some sort shot out from his back, and stabbed the thug who held the woman in the shoulder, causing him to yelp in pain. Dallas looked into the pain stricken face the large man who had challenged him as he dug the leg deeper into his shoulder, causing him to whimper again. Blood oozed from his wound and dripped down in a steady stream besides the girl below, who sat shocked. Dallas jerked the sharp tipped leg out of his lackey’s arm and his smile returned to his face. “Now then… any questions?”

“No,” the thug gasped, “no sir…”

“Good, down to business then.” Dallas said as he picked up his sister from the cold ground and pinned her against the alley wall. The other seven of the extra appendages painfully extruded from his back before Dallas regained his composure and pressed the extra legs against the wall, as if forming some kind of cage surrounding her. From one of the inside pockets of his jacket, he pulled out a pocket knife and flashed it in front of her face as the rest of his gang watched. Tears rolled down his sister’s face as he took the knife and ripped it down her tattered shirt, and tore the piece of cloth to shreds, revealing a very fine toned and curved body, somewhat pale. On her chest sat a c cup lingered bra that held her breasts. Dallas couldn’t help but gawk at her as he slid his hand around her waist and up her back before finally squeezing in his hand between her back and the bra straps before ripping them off her body.

Dallas, being lulled into a false sense of security by her shock and fear, felt the need to lean his mouth and slip his tongue in for a kiss before being brutefully bitten on his lip before he could go any further. “Fuck!” he shouted as he immediately pulled away. He raised his arm and punched her in the side of the face before getting down to business. The rough removal of her jeans and undergarments followed, and the crime was committed. The alley ways of Eden echoed with the confusing mixture of bellowing tears, moaning, and screaming, as the rest of the gang gawked at the scene as if it were some quality porn movie. Dallas’ sister had undergone at least twenty minutes of forced and violent sexual intercourse, filled with comments like, “you deserved this” or “you had this coming”, and “dirty whore” before falling helplessly to her knees when Dallas was done. She was naked, exposed to the cold, dirt, and piercing stares of the other thugs. Her face was puffy and swollen red, and wet with tears, along with a nasty bruise on the side of her head. She weakly looked up, thinking the torture was done, but as she looked up to see the rest of the gang, she was haunted by the inevitable fact that she was nowhere near done.

Dallas grabbed her arm and tossed her towards the center of the gang and laughed. “Dig in boys, get all that you can.” Much of the men in the mob hooted and laughed, poking and prodding the beaten body of his beautiful sister. “You’re great by the way,” Dallas taunted, “I might save you all for myself later. Keep her in one piece guys…”

The appendages that had sprouted from his back shrunk away and were gone, leaving a painful stinging sensation all over his back. He panted, and took a couple of breathes before looking over at all the other guys. They were already getting started, and she had no more energy to wail any sort of noise of pain or pleasure. Dallas signaled a couple of thugs to his side, no more than half a dozen. “They should be dropping down food soon enough. You guys come with me, and we’ll take over one of the rooftops, and we’ll be taking it all for ourselves.”

“And the girl? Your sister?” One of the thugs asked. He was large, much larger than Dallas, he was bald, and his skin appeared to be made of metal of some sort.

“Get a couple of guys to watch over her. She’s not too much of a threat if she’s outnumbered by a bunch of people.” Dallas looked over towards the scene behind him. “When they’re done, of course.”

The thug seemed to appear worried at the sound of ‘threat’. “Dallas?”

“Don’t worry yourself with it. When they’re done, make sure some boys are sent off to some of the other drops spots. We gotta take control if we’re gonna be respected or feared.”

One of the other thugs piped up, dressed in what seemed to be normal attire. “What do you mean 'if we wanta be—“

“So far the Allegiance has us beat by infamy.” Dallas snarled, “Everybody fears them. Everybody wants to be with them. So I want you all out there making a name for ourselves, so that not only do they fear us, but the God damn Allegiance as well! Now get the fuck outta here!”

“Y-yeah boss.”

“Nobody makes a fool out of us,” Dallas grumbled, “nobody. We’re The fucking Foragers, for God’s sake.”

Night. For the masses not trapped in this hell of a city, those blissfully ignorant fools, this would be just another time spent fast asleep in their comfortable houses, nestled deep in the sheets of their lush beds. But for the residents of Eden, it was just another period of time spent paranoid, just another period of time spent clinging franticly to this horrific semblance of life. For those unlucky few that existence would end tonight, but others would live to see the sun rising over the tops of the skyscrapers. Although, in all honesty, no one here was ever truly lucky.

Far above the rubble-strewn streets and shadowed alleys, a form crouched on a windowpane of one of the multitude of dilapidated building. The window had been smashed open long ago, so now it served as Lilith’s lookout point. This had probably been an office building at one point, all steel bars and reflective glass. Now it was a skeletal form with only a few windows still mirroring the destruction and terror that was the signature of her home.

Well, the ground level wasn’t truly her home. She stuck to the skies, gliding from rooftop to rooftop, an ever-watchful angel flying on wings of darkness. Staying above it all had kept her alive so far, no reason to fix something that wasn’t broken. Her obsidian gaze scanned the ground below, expression remaining fixed in the same solemn expression it had worn since her first night here.

Another supply drop will be happening tomorrow.

Supply drops were one of those few times where her feet alighted on the pavement; therefore they were also the most dangerous times. A breeze snaked through the air, ruffling the feathers that coated her overlong arms. With a soft sigh, she rose to her feet, wings held tight against her rail-thin body. The climbing sun illuminated her form, shades of shimmering vermillion and azure shining within the black coloration of her wings.

Getting there in a timely manner and getting out right after the drop is the key. Every person in Eden will be trying to get their hands on those supplies.

A few weeks ago, Iggy would have been sleeping right now. But that was a few weeks ago, before he got dumped in the world's biggest, most ironically-named shithole. It was a bit like naming McMurdo "Hell." Now he was stuck running for the supply drops in order to not starve.

If you'd let me out to play more often, maybe you wouldn't be having this sort of problem. A spectral woman's face ghosted over Iggy's field of vision.

"Last time, you took a man's face off," he thought.

It wasn't that much blood - The woman smirked, and her features flashed something different for a sudden, like she turned halfway into a reptile and then turned back.

"With my hand. MY. HAND." Iggy's fists clenched involuntarily.

Come on, you're just squeamish. See; this is exactly the sort of problem we have in our relationship. When you need to be bold, you're cowardly, and when you need to be careful, every idea you have is bad. I don't even know how you're planning to accomplish this by yourself.

Iggy looked down from the first-floor fire escape. The drop area was below him and a bit too far away for what Iggy was planning. "You're going to help me. Just a little."

The woman smirked again, then her image changed again, this time permanently and completely. You're not freaking serious. You want to borrow my wings to drop ten feet. This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're too chicken to actually get a decent glide!

"Well, we can't all be winners like you."

Well, if everybody was a winner...

"You wouldn't be stuck sharing a body with me." That shut her up. "You and I are both losers. That's all we'll ever be. Just get down off your high horse and help me."

A disturbed pigeon cooed and fluttered away from Iggy, keeping its eyes on the new presence near its roost. Thanks to the pigeon, above and behind him, a bird-winged woman watched, entirely without Iggy's knowledge.

Cassie, her feet still guiding her way down the ladder, stopped a few feet away from the ground. It was as if climbing down those last few rungs would be a waste of time. She jumped off the ladder, her feet softly hitting the ground. Cassie looked back of the ladder, not bothering to fix her hair. She grinned stupidly, as if she was oh so proud of herself for climbing down without attracting lots of unwanted admirers. After marveling in her stealthy work Cassie decided to pull back the rats nest she calls her hair into a pony tail, to make moving towards the supply drop easier.

However, even when she finished 'neatening' her hair, her bangs still dangled over her eyes. She liked how it made her look a bit more intimidating or mysterious. Without seeing someones eyes it's hard to tell how they feel. Anger, sadness, weakness, all hidden behind a curtain of hair. And this somehow made her feel safe.

Something suddenly snapped her out of her safely thought, which are dangerous thoughts to have while living in Hell. Cassie could hear the sounds of something, or someone in her home. In her base. Cassie frowned. This felt like a personal attack, an invasion of her privacy...her safely.

Even though Cassie hardly used the inside of her home, she preferred to stay on the roof, it was still unsettling to know that someone is in her house...but who? Cassie clenched her fists, the sand around her feet swirling to life. Maybe it was a raider, trying to scoop the last of her supplies. The sand picked up speed. Or someone from that rotten gang the Allegiance.

She tried to calm herself down. Maybe this person was neither of these things, maybe it was just her imagination. Cassie stood in the doorway of her house, trying to locate the noise maker, and if worse comes to worse, kill it.

Leon flicked on the lights. It's very surprising that despite all of the anarchy that consumed this ironically named City. In all the murder and death he's seen in less than an hour. The power still worked.


The building that he found himself in was some sort of abandoned office building, and he was specifically standing in the section that had all of the cubicles. Reminded him of where he had formally worked before being captured against his will and thrown in here. Hopefully he'll find a way to escape back to his former life.


He slowly walked through the cubicles, taking his steps very lightly. In retrospect most might question his decision to turn on the lights because all sorts of horrors could be in the shadows, and seeing where he's going would be nice. The more of more he basically wandered around the more he thought that this place must have been in it's prime at least a few months ago. The only things missing from here were the phones and computers, he had almost the perfect place to stay. It had thousands of hiding places on this very floor, countless more were on the other floors.


So, he had shelter. Food. That's a whole another discussion. Right now he had zero sources of food. From what he was told by Neron there was going to be a supply drop in less than a few hours, not exactly sure when that is. But, from the lack of people on the streets he believed it would be soon. Now, he took into account that loads of other people will want these supply drops as well. If only he knew more he could make up an plan of how to go about.


He slowly walked towards the nearest window. Somehow during his race to get away from that demon thing he went up one flight of stairs. Not surprising since he was panicking. By now he started to calm down and more importantly collect himself. This town. This city. It was the very embodiment of all sorts of hell.


While, he was lucky enough not to see much for himself, but just from the blood, bodies and pools of man-juice he knew it was bad here. Bad enough to warrant leaving as soon as possible. With a place lik-


"- Fuck... me..."



He shouted. In his observation of the local neighborhood somebody was waltz straight to Leon's de facto "house" like they owned the joint. As if he was expecting a fight, his razor sharp claws slid out of the very tips of his fingers. Looked much like bones, in appearance. Could easily slash someone's throat in one swing. But that's if this escalates. His main objective was to hide, he dove into one of the back rooms and hide under someone's desk. It was near flawless. Hopefully whoever's coming will simply pass by.



---------------



((Somewhat shitty post down here, sorry. Joural, just uh, take control of the Allegiance a weee bit until like tomorrow. Walking Dead comes on in a few minutes and I needed to pop popcorn!))




What a lowly and poorly thought out convoy.



There were a large amount of trucks just rolling through the streets of Eden. Normally the Allegiance never went this far away from home but with the supply drops in a mere thirty minutes they needed to go far and wide to claim what is their's. It was a simple suggestion: take out some of the minor organized force and they'll be less out to get the supplies.


Last supply drop was a disaster as a group kicked their collective asses.


They've learned much this time. Far in front of this convoy was a figure. Tall, and wore a strange pirate hat and a brown overcoat. Who was in the way was a female without a doubt. Any other details were hard to make out at the distance she was.


Her hands crackled with emerald-green electricity. She merely pointed one hand at the very front of the bus and a mighty green bolt of lightning came out of her hand and struck the bus in front with astonishing force. It destroyed the very first bus in front, and launched it a few feet back. Halting the rest of the buses to a forced stop. She smirked, her handiwork was near perfect.


With that mutants of every size, shape and power leaped off the rooftops to pounce on this lowly gang that was heading to the very supply drop that they were planning on claiming for themselves. There was violence in their eyes, as they tasted the familiar taste of slaughter once more.


"Kill em' boys. Take whatever fancies you!" She shouted as she slowly approached, preferring to watch her small army tear these fools limb from limb.

The front bus approahed a woman in pirate clothes. Jenna wondered who it was until a sudden explosion ripped the bus to pieces. She screamed as twisted metal flew about her, and one particularly unlucky corpse to be at the back of the bus flew forward and immediately got impalled by a flying chunk of metal just in front of her. Jenna panicked and pulled herself from the wreckage, only to find herself surrounded by angry looking mutants. With a yell she ran off, stumbling and slipping as people fell around her. Eventually she found herself outside the conflict, and looked back to see her friends putting up a valiant fight against the attackers, illusions hiding their numbers so they could catch their enemies by surprise, fires engulfing groups of enemies, and a few going into direct combat with knives, swords, and anything else convenient.

She turned to continue fleeing, only to find herself face to face with the woman from before, who had moved around to block her escape. The woman stared at jenna, and jenna cowered back in fear. She seemed to be assesing her, before seeming to reach her conclusion and firing a bolt at her. The bolt hit the ground just shy of jenna, the resulting explosion of dust entirely failing to harm jenna, and allowing her to escape under cover of the cloud.

Startled cooing and fluttering wings caught Lilith’s attention as quickly as most would spring to attention at the sound of a gunshot. In her time here she’d learned that birds were usually an accurate indicator of danger and sometimes death. Fleeing birds meant disturbances, possibly mutants on the move, whereas circling crows meant decaying matter below. Managing to keep herself from shaking nervously, she leaned over the rim of the window.

How did he manage to get there without alerting me?

Given that he appeared to be gesturing at and talking to thin air, the boy didn’t seem all that much of threat, but the simple fact that he’d managed to get within that short of a distance to her without her realization was unnerving to say the least. But what was she to do now? She had to get to the drop sight in very little time, but suddenly appearing in the boy’s vision could startle him. Startling someone with abilities was never a good idea, especially when his possible reaction to her presence was uncertain.

Should I approach him? What if he’s hurt or trying to stay hidden from someone? I can’t just leave him here at the mercy of whomever, or whatever, might find him…

Reaching a decision, she stepped off the ledge. Unfurling her wings, she used her wind-shaping abilities to gather pillows of air underneath her to slow her descent. Angling the tips of her wings, she made a U-turn and landed two stories above the delusional boy, wrapping the three claws at the elbow of each wing around the rusted metal railing. There were a few seconds where her monstrous shadow was painted on the pavement below, which the boy might catch if he were observant enough. However, that was rather doubtful at the moment.

Arms extended in case she had to lift off in a hurry, she tilted her head and listened to his conversation with no one. He kept speaking of help and how he needed it. Lilith bit her lip; thinking over what she was leaning towards doing. Shaking her head at her own weakness, she spoke up.

“Hey,sorry to bother you, but... do you need any help?”

Someone with which to weather this hell of a storm could mean the difference between life and death, if that companion was useful enough.

"Hey, sorry to bother you, but... do you need any help?"

Iggy very nearly jumped out of his skin. Normally he'd know when he was being watched or not, so how had this person gotten the drop on him?

Oh... You thought it was the bird, didn't you?

"Fooled you too," Iggy thought, looking off to the side. He stood and looked up at the harpy? bird-winged woman clinging to the fire escape above him. "Uh..." This he said aloud, but the unexpectedness of the situation robbed him of his words.

"Er, can I help you? I mean, I don't really need help, per se... I just... I was saying that out loud, wasn't I?"

Yes, you were, evidently. Are you always this suave around women? It's a wonder you aren't married by now, at this rate.

Iggy's face flushed. "Don't even get me started on that," he thought. "That was your own damn fault."

The dragoness feigned innocence, and her face changed to that of a lecherous man. No need to blame me. I thought you wanted a bit more tongue in that last kiss, so I just helped out.

"That was no excuse," retorted Iggy mentally. "Now shut up, I'm trying to talk here."

Cassie already knew something was off then she entered her home base. The lights were on for one thing, and she never kept them on. Keeping them on would be like shooting off fireworks that spelt out "I'M HOME COME ATTACK ME!" Whoever this guy is he must not be to heavy in the common sense department. Now that Cassie thinks of it maybe it was just common sense to keep it low key when you live in hell. In the real world it was normal to keep your lights on when it was dark inside.

This guy must be new, he must not know of the dangers of this place. That or he is really stupid, or has a death wish.

Cassie shuffled through the floors, her steps nearly silent. Oh of all the places this guy choose to hide in it was her home. The floor of this office building was filthy, it wasn't like Cassie was going to sweep them. Every so often she would see a footprint, one that didn't belong to her. Cassie assumed that they belonged to her unwanted visitor.

"Come out come out wherever you are!"

Cassie called out. Maybe she didn't want this person coming out, what if he was hostile. That was the problem of living in a city of only mutants, you never know what someone can do until they are killing you.

"Oh boo. She got away" The woman said to herself. Even though she could sense the girl's emotions from very far away, easily track her and kill her. The thing stopping her was the fact that she didn't care if one lowly rat scurries away from the nest, Eden is a harsh place for somebody to be alone, if she wasn't killed then she would live a life of fear and pain without her group of vagrants.


She dusted off her hat and turned back to view her handiwork. It was amazing how powerful she can get when in the presence of so many emotions. Counting these vagrants, the Allegiance and those that were just in the street near this bloodbath. Oh yes she can sense their fear as they were killed.


Emotions were a vital part of her powers, in fact she gets her powers solely from emotions of others. You see, her strength was the ability to detect, absorb and convert emotions. Convert emotions such as anger into a bright red fire storm of flames, as demonstrated before happiness into a astonishingly powerful bolt of green lightning, sadness into a blizzard of dark blue snow, fear into a yellow force field, and so on. The best part is that she gets stronger from more and more emotional presences also demonstrated here, she's near god-like in a large group in the numbers of up to the hundreds. While at the mere drawback of being weaker with less emotions, and powerless with no emotions to absorb.



Unless she goes one on one with somebody with apathy then she's totally fine.




Within minutes her murderous legion had fully wiped out the convoy. As expected they didn't stand a chance, her bolt had wiped out a good number of the oh-so-lesser gang, and wounded the rest. The boys had their fun finishing off the rest. She looked down and examine herself to see if she hadn't been hit with any stray debris or shots.



She was a attractive woman in what seemed to be her mid-twenties, with a slender but well-built frame due to the years of living in Eden and fighting her way to survival. She was obviously Hispanic, either from the many South America countries or Mexican, wasn't relevant. Her hair was black and untidy, since hair style doesn't matter in Eden at all, her eyes were black, though when she uses her powers her pupils shift colors depending on what emotion she's tapping into.


As stated before she was wearing a large black pirate hat that she kept as a trophy, from a costume shop that she used to reside in before joining the Allegiance. The rest of her clothing went together in terms of color, a brown overcoat and brown jeans. With a rusted, loose chain acting as her belt. Finally she wore undersized boots. Which was most she could scavenge these days.


Her name?



Because of the Allegiance's power over Eden and fearsome reputation, she had dubbed herself the Queen of Eden. It was either her ego, or in fact her power. But that would be lame to just call yourself the Queen of Eden. Long ago she wasn't in Eden, she barely remembers much of when she wasn't a prisoner. But the one thing she'd never forget was her name: Carmelita Arrabal.



Queen Carmelita.



The remaining members of the Allegiance dispersed into the alleyways and shadows, to meet up at the largest supply drop and run off whoever else might want the supplies. Carmelita choose to take the scenic route and walk down the street to the rendezvous point.




-----------------



Standing on a tall building was Neron. He watched the whole fight without being detected, wearing his hood to hide his being.

"Animals."


He disappeared in a light-green fog.


---------------------




Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.




Leon had really fucked it up this time by coming here. Some chick was screaming for him to come out. She was pretty pissed off, either because he's trespassing, or she's having a bad day. She might just be waiting for something to take her anger out on.


From what he was told by Neron this place is full of lunatics, it might have to come to killing her. Something Leon had never purposely done before. He reached around and grabbed somebody's black stapler, and threw it at a adjacent cubicle. With the sole intention of throwing off her search, then he'll run out the door and find another hiding spot.

Michael normally didn't bother with supply drops himself; they were a risky place to be, and he generally kept people around for this sort of thing. Like his current compatriot / goon / whatever else one might call him. He made up for Michael's lack of firepower and would hopefully keep him from getting smushed like a bug if a gang came around. Tonight was a bit different, though. Tonight, one of his other goons was in charge of keeping house, and the new kid and a couple others were going to help him. He had someone to meet, and they had agreed to an outside location so as not to reveal where each other's hideouts were (though Michael's place wasn't entirely uncommon knowledge, and the gang leader hadn't considered that doing executions in the alley wasn't the best idea with Michael around).

He turned to the new kid and waved him over. "Keep an eye on the drop situation, kid. If anything interesting happens, let me know."

Tony nodded as he leaned on the wall at the end of the alley. Look out duty was easy enough, and no one would pay them any heed with the supplies being dropped. Now he hadn’t been here long, and he was quite fortunate to have been picked up by Michael before he’d made more than a few guys combust from the inside out. Still, he had been here long enough to know how these things went. Eventually something fight-y was going to break out over the few supplies the government would feel correct to drop, and people were going to die trying to get the bare minimum. Frankly it made him sick, that any government would be this excessively cruel, and that the people here were so thoroughly without heed of each other. It was enough to make a man…

Tony’s inner thoughts were disrupted of course, by a searing pain in his left hand, and dancing sparks from a gutter pipe on the wall on the other side of the alley. He needed to keep his emotions under control right now, too easy to get someone’s attention, and that wasn’t much good for a secret meeting now was it.

“All clear, Boss.” he called back, shifting his glare from one location to another. Hopefully it’d stay that way for once, and everyone could go back home more or less in one piece.

Lilith nodded slowly as the boy struggled to regain composure. She’d really caught him unawares, hadn’t she? Well, they were even then, because he’d sure surprised her earlier by just being present. Unclenching her wing-claws from the bar, she pushed off, using the billowing air creating by the ensuing down stroke to slow her descent. Coming to a halt at the green-horned boy’s level, she held her wings out, using a cushion of air to keep her stable without needing to create lift through the flapping of her wings.

Smiling encouragingly (or at least that’s how she meant it to look, she hadn’t smiled in quite some time now), she said, “Yeah, I think you were talking to yourself earlier.”

“It’s alright if you don’t really need help, I just figured I’d ask… seeing as there’s another supply drop happening soon,” she paused, turning her head to quickly scan behind her in case any people had passed by during the time she’d been talking to him.

I should really get going… I mean, if he doesn’t need me there’s no reason to stick around.

“It’s not too far from here, that is, if you want to come with me,” she continued, “I’m… uh, Lilith, by the way, Lilith Suraci.”

He seems a bit spacey sometimes, but given his appearance, there’s got to be some kind of power hidden in him. An offensive ally could be useful, I’m more of a dodge-and-possibly-flee type.

((I'm going to try making Iggy's mental conversations a different shade, because bold doesn't really work here.))

Iggy gasped involuntarily when Lilith looked away. For an instant, his control over the situation vanished, and the dragon loomed large. Then just as quickly, it ended, and Iggy had himself back.

She's totally coming on to you, Tiger. Got her name and everything. Shame there's no cell phones in this dump.

"You're pathetic."

"Well, actually, I'm really pretty new here, and I don't really know the best way to go about this... I'm going to the supply drop, too. If you wanted to go together, then we could do that. I mean, I wouldn't mind if we did it together..."

Out with it.

"I'm Iggy Evans, and I have no idea what I'm doing, hehe." Might as well make that humorous. "I'll admit that. I'd really like your help on this. That, and... stuff happens when nobody's looking. Literally," Iggy said, sighing.

"There you go. Happy now?"

When Lilith had maneuvered down to the lower level of the fire escape, there had been no eyes on Iggy. When Lilith glanced behind herself, it had happened again. If she'd noticed in the poor light, she would have been sure that before then, Iggy didn't have a four-foot green tail with a cartoonishly large gold arrowhead on the tip of it and a few spikes on the base of it. If she wasn't sure, then the enormous draconic wings he had when she looked back at him the second time really sealed that something was different.

The big moment was here. Several Boeing C-17 Globemaster III soared far over Eden, out of the reach of the Mutants. The only reason why they even wasted time trying to feed these savages under the city, despite the rumors bouncing around the forces stationed outside of Eden; Order 15. Most have no idea what the order is, some say that they've finally found a cure for these monsters, others say it's a easy way to kill them before they find a way out.


Orders are orders. The pilots of these many floating fortresses dropped the enormous crates of food and medical supplies. Not at the designated points. Overlord park which was the point where almost all of the supplies were usually dropped, crowds and crowds of people, and those gangs hiding in the shadows awaiting their time to come and take the prize.

When the planes flew over them, everyone just stood there looking confused, as if they've just been tricked. Just before the whole situation breaks out into an all out riot, with most of the scene attacking each other, and the rest just escaped the chaos and followed the planes.


The real supply drop was in a large mall's parking lot. The issue wasn't that it was somewhere else, it was that there were far less supplies than usual. Not even enough to accommodate more than a thousand people. An issue since in Eden there are millions upon millions.

((So yeah, now it's a race to get to the REAL supply drop. Sorry for the derp post, I just pulled it out my ass since I had to leave))

Cassie was about to investigate the thrown stapler, when she heard the sound of planes overhead. Cassie swore out loud. She took one last look around the room before speaking. "Whoever...or whatever you are you better your ass in gear or you are going to miss the supply drop!" Cassie moved quickly to the doorway, about to head down stairs. She paused, speaking out loud but to herself. "The planes...they aren't going towards the normal spots." She took one last look around the room before ducking through the doorways and hurrying down the stairs as quickly as possible.

Her plan was to locate the plains by sound, which weren't going to help her for long. Cassie wanted to get to the supply drop before the rough and tough gangs, even though she already had a bit of supplies. You could never have to much.

Lilith nodded, black eyes squinting slightly as she focused in on his forms in the shadows thrown by the buildings around them. It looked like she might gain an ally after all. Sure, he might be on the inexperienced side if he was recently dropped into Eden, but another set of eyes was always good. It was more hands to grab supplies as well.

“Nice to meet you, Iggy.”

Stuff happens when nobody’s looking? What does he mean by that?

Once she had settled into her hovering position and checked behind herself, her head turned back to the bo- Iggy. She nearly did one of those comical double-takes, but managed to check herself before it actually happened. All that happened was a sudden loss of her wind-cushion, requiring her to make a long downward stroke with both wings. Then the air softened beneath her once again. She let out a huff of air.

“You didn’t have that, uh, tail earlier, right?” she said, before she could stop herself, “Those wings definitely weren’t there before!” One hand raised, finger pointing directly at the features in question.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean… that sounded rude, didn’t it?”

“I'm really sorry. I guess being on my own hasn't helped much with some things,” she mumbled, rubbing the earlier accusatory hand on her shoulder self-consciously. Thankfully, attention was taken away from her blunder by the sound of a plane overhead. Lilith stared up at the sky in confusion.

“Wha- they should be over at the park. What are they doing flying that direction?”

"I don't know," Iggy replied, following up with her statement about the plane. "Whichever way they're going, you should probably lead the way; you could get there faster than me."

Then nobody would be watching, you fool.

"You wouldn't."

Even I don't have full control all the time. I wouldn't, on purpose, but still.

Iggy facepalmed. "Right. No, I should go first. I don't my wings to suffer critical existence failure on the way there. Just... as much as you can, don't stop looking at me, okay? That's when I change. You're right, I didn't have the extra body parts before; that happened when you looked away. They can disappear when you look away too; it's kind of random. I'll explain on the way. Uh, that is, assuming you're coming."

He swung his legs over the fire escape railing and flexed his wings, trying to look more confident than he was.

He really needed to get better at talking to women. That much he was sure of, and he wouldn't hear the end of it from the dragon when they were done.

On the other hand, Lilith seemed like a pretty cool person. At the very least, she hadn't tried to knife him (or worse) when he was unawares. She was obviously better than Iggy at the whole "not dying in Eden" thing, and she could fly consistently. Of all the people Iggy had met so far (namely, fairly few on friendly terms), Lilith looked the most like she would actually make a valuable friend.

Jenna whistled as she walked through a parking lot, glad to have escaped the murderers behind her, when she was surprised by the sound of planes overhead.

She looked up, watching them pass by, until the doors opened and supplies fell out. A few moments later,when the supplies reached the ground, she immediately climbed atop the pile and began digging through, quickly filling a backpack she had found recently with food, gobsmacked at her luck.

((I had to.

I just... I couldn't NOT.))

Lilith kept her eyes on Iggy as he spoke, still unnerved by the materialization of those new appendages when she wasn’t looking. She was about to agree with his assertion that she should lead when he got a brief distant look in his eyes and promptly disagreed with his earlier statement. His ensuing explanation soothed her doubts though, even provided an explanation of his abilities.

Wow, that must be a trying experience… whenever eyes are on him, appendages either appear or disappear. Does it hurt him?

“Of course I’m coming,” she replied, smiling, both as encouragement to him and to try and soothe her own rapidly beating heart. There were so many variables changing in regards to the supply drop. She didn’t like unpredictability.

“We just have to follow the sound of that plane anyways, you can lead,” she said, backing away to give him room to liftoff, “I’ll make sure not to look away.”

I wonder if any of the new appendages could act as weapons… my only offense is creating blasts of wind. Hopefully he's an attentive leader, I won't be able to scan the area for possible threats if I have to keep watching him for fear of his wings fading into nothing.

"Thanks."

Iggy glanced down over the edge - big mistake! - and tightened his grip on the railing.

Are you a pansy or something? Way to impress her.

"Seriously. I'm not trying to impress her. Give it up."

You'll have to if you want her to stay with you. You're ground-bound normally. Think about it. If she's to stay near you at all, you'll have to look useful, and not being visibly afraid of heights is a good start. Off you go!

With that, Iggy's fingers involuntarily let go, and he went off the side, recovering with his wings at the last second. He climbed as straight as he could, then circled near the end of the block, trying to stay within sight of Lilith. When she took off, he would star in the proper direction.

His flight wasn't nearly as graceful as hers; where Lilith, being more or less bird-based, had a certain degree of poise, Iggy was rather like a giant bat; maneuverable enough to do the job, but he'd get no style points doing it.