Participants:
| Scene Title | Judgment Day |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Adam, Huruma, and Jessica exercise their abilities on Elle: the first to bring back to life, and the other two to hurt. |
| Date | September 20th, 2008 |
Somewhere in Brooklyn
It's been a little bit of time. On Huruma's suggestion, they've gone out to Brooklyn. Works for Jessica; she knows the neighborhood. Getting access to a building was as fast as hitting one of the abandoned buildings, and heading inside. A quick run to a store has also provided some basics; men's shirt, pants, shoes, socks for Adam. Skirt, sandals, tanktop for Huruma (since skirts don't care about height). And, of course, some things for Elle. A big tub, the kind you use for dog bathing. Rope. Scissors. Pliers. And at Adam's recommendation, a turkey baster.
Stretchy skirt bands are also quite beneficial; even if you don't worry about height, there's still the idea of the person having a different figure. Huruma does have one of those, but luckily the clothes fit, and she's not complaining. The woman is currently hovering beside a creaky wooden window, obscured on the outside by a rusty metal fire escape. She leans her thigh on the concrete sill under it, one sandal dangling from the front half of her foot. Tap. Tappatap. Subconsciously, she is also batting the rubber heel against her own with flicks of her ankle, creating an intermittent noise to replace the sounds of being a primarily quiet refugee.
Rather than observe the world outside the window, Huruma has been watching Elle. It's not that she thinks something new might happen, just that she may or may not be going over ways to make her miserable without driving away the pair she came with.
Adam is standing in front of Elle. He's fussing with the cuffs of his shirt, buttoning them in a way that's almost awkward since he hasn't had to be in practice with the movements for quite some time and now he has to avoid the quickly-fading wounds on his left arm that were the feeding point for a good dose of his blood. The clothes he's been given fit reasonably well, though he'll have to get replacements soon enough thanks to the spattered bloodstains that have nevertheless gotten on one sleeve. The turkey-basted blood transfusion (right into the hole in Elle's stomach) wasn't a particularly pleasant experience, immortal but the ends are going to justify the means. The baster itself is now lying on the floor atop a rag to keep blood from getting all over the floor, and as he finishes getting the buttons into the proper holes Adam leans forward to squint at Elle's face, frowning thoughtfully. "Wake up, dwarf."
Elle looks like she's seen better days. Far better days. Her legs, though together, are splayed at a strange angle on the non-slip bottom of the tub. Ankles and wrists are both tied, the ropes binding them pulled tight and already heavy with water. It's a wonder she has any circulation to speak of where those parts are concerned.
Heal-all blood transfusions do take a while to work, and so Adam is left to stare at an unconscious body for quite a few seconds before it stirs. When she does, it's as suddenly as though from a dream — after all, there is no more pulpy red hole in her belly. (Her bloodied and tattered t-shirt, black blazer, and jeans are still there, though.) No longer is she clinically dead, though what awaits her upon waking probably isn't a lot better.
"Where am I." It's a snarl.
Jessica walks up to the edge of the tub. "In your worst nightmare, sweetie. You wanted to do away with me? You wanted to keep us all locked up? I can honestly say I'm not even sure how much pain you're going to go through the next few days." Her tone is honestly contemplative, not threatening. She looks down to Elle, smiling. "But you were so sweet to Niki. So you get to pick what I break first."
Huruma makes quite the silhouette against the gleam on the window, her head turned to watch the events unfold like a deliberate overseer. Not that she doesn't want in on it- she will simply allow those who came first, go first. Here and there, the woman's attention will flicker towards Adam, the bloody turkey baster, the window- but it always rolls silently back to Elle.
"Maybe I can even… make you like it." Once Jessica finishes speaking, Huruma picks up with a taunting, velvet croon. Who wants to see Elle giggle uncontrollably while her fingers are broken?
Oh, Adam likes Huruma. She's creepy, sure — but in a good way. He crouches down to put himself on a more even level with the captive, folding his arms with a grin. "My friends aren't very happy with you. Neither am I. Remember all those times I told you that you'd eventually answer for all the things you've inflicted upon me? Judgment day is here, princess."
The catch of fear rises in Elle’s throat, though her blue eyes –- both wide open and perceptibly lidded with anger –- glare. Her lower jaw tenses, her upper row of teeth exposed. “Let me go, disco boy.” She breathes deeply as she locks murderous eyes with Adam. Beneath her, her wrists shift vainly against the bottom of the tub, slipping a little in what inches of water are there.
Jessica looks to Huruma. She seems approving too. "Oh, I like you. And since I'm feeling more myself without your little vitamin supplements…" She considers the shorter blonde. "Not like you need to go anywhere anyway." She takes a moment and slides Elle's heels off, tossing them idly aside; they're far too small for either Jessica or Huruma. She smiles to Huruma. "You need anything special for your trick?"
Huruma brings her palms together, lying them business-like on her leaning lap, keeping her shoulders straight. "I do not." The dark woman glowers back at Elle, white eyes narrowing and lips pressing together. Then her top lip lifts in a disapproving sneer. "Jus'tell me wha'you want her t'feel." Huruma drawls, leaning her spine onto the side of the windowsill behind her. "You've got a rainbow of emotion t'choose from, Jessica." The other woman's name is said with a pause, though it is hard to tell why.
As Adam gets to his feet again he reaches out with one hand and offers the top of Elle's head a condescending pat, almost as though she's some sort of little dog. Mr. Muggles has got nothing on her. "Sorry, but we're not going to let you go just yet. First you need to get acquainted with these wonderful ladies."
"Aren't you brave?" It's said in a low growl; the top of Elle's head is tossed violently away from Adam's pat. She thumps her twined ankles against the side of the tub closest to them, once, in soaring frustration. "Aren't you such brave little warriors. It takes all of you even though I'm strung up like this? Are you afraid?" Distractions. Anything. It is an action that had come into her mind, absorbed from the reminder of Adam lingering nearby. "Untie me. Let me dry off."
Jessica smiles back at Huruma. "I'd like to say fear. But that would be too easy. I want her to be happy while I'm doing my little work. Ecstatic, even." She reaches down and grabs one of Elle's feet (getting both, more or less, given the tied ankles, but only grabbing one. "I'm sure you people have what I can do on record. So you know how this is going to go." Jessica usually is more the practical killer. But after the electroshocking, she's willing to return kind for kind.
"This is not abou'proving ourselves to an inexperienced whelp." Huruma dismisses Elle's attempt at riling as if it were a buzzing fly, all with a curt, icy voice. In accordance with Jessica's wish, Elle will feel that bizarre, alien feeling of elation begin to bubble throughout her veins.
It’s a slow process on Huruma’s part; perhaps deliberately so. And indeed, those feelings of euphoria are already flowing warmly into Elle’s chest, in spite of the violent rage already cutting its course there. The latter is leisurely forced down as though it’s a level of water being drained. A calmed expression appears on her face; she breathes.
And that's the point when Jessica starts her work. Elle's petite; she has little feet. The taller blonde grabs one in each hand, grasping them from the bottom so her thumb is on the inner curve, fingers on the outer. And then she starts to squeeze. With a normal person, it wouldn't do much. Might be a little painful, but nothing serious. But with the woman who can rip people in half? She starts squeezing, and will happily break, crack, and otherwise grind to powder any bones between her grip. It's a good thing there's a regenerator at hand. But it's still gonna hurt. A lot.
Once Jessica begins to squeeze, the elation rises within Elle; her rage and distress boils down and away, replaced with a feeling of bliss, closely followed by small shocks of pleasure, now and then the spikes of the mental result of having one's feet broken cropping up through the fake delight.
Huruma remains perched by the window, a windy September chill rattling at the old glass and the fire escape outside. The African has a soft smile on her face, eyes alight as she concentrates the effects on Elle.
Adam walks along behind Elle as Jessica delivers what she believes to be a fitting punishment, and eventually halts — and then moves forward, sliding his hands onto Elle's shoulders to give them a little squeeze. "Feels good, does it? I doubt it'll feel that way for long."
Excruciation rolls through Elle's nerves in waves as her feet are mangled into a shape human feet were never meant to be in. There are two large, sickening CRACKs, and then a clicky sequence of tinier ones. She gags and giggles with a violent upheaving of her breath, muscles now thrashing, now settled and relaxed and smooth. It's almost impossible to tell what's behind it: pained bliss or a fantasy of agony. Or, by anyone's count, both.
Once she's more or less pulped the other blonde's feet, she takes a step back, smiling back to Huruma. "All right. Some well-timed panic would do us wonders about now." She takes a couple steps away, glaring back at the agent.
If it is panic we want, it is panic that Elle gets. The pleasure, the delight, the elation— it slips away as if Huruma had grabbed the edge of a warm blanket and pulled it off in the middle of a maliciously cold winter. The shroud around the pain that Elle knows is there is gone, replaced with fear, panic, horror— what Huruma does best— and Elle gets every drop of it.
Gone it is. In its place floods the most basic of instincts for Elle, or at least the one that had become a customary reaction for her since earliest childhood. No scream escapes from her lips, though pain is there, as it had ever been, eating at her until it explodes into terror. In the middle of it all, sweat prickles down her forehead and cheeks. "Daddy—" she stutters, anguish bundled into that single word.
Jessica smirks a little bit. "Daddies are rarely the ones who help you out. They're usually the ones causing the problems." Because Jessica has her own series of daddy issues. She turns away from the other woman. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the blonde. "That should do nicely. If we leave her like that a couple weeks, the bones will start to fuse like that."
Huruma allows the panic to set into a more natural state before letting it slide. Elle can feel how she pleases, but it probably isn't going to be very pretty anyway. Leaning back onto the sill and stretching her legs for a few seconds, Huruma steps slowly away from the window. The woman practically glides with what moves she makes to cross the space between herself and the side of Elle's little Torture Tub(tm). There she jut looms, staring down at Elle with a pair of half-moon eyes.
Adam gives Elle's shoulders another reassuring squeeze. "Now, Jessica. We're not going to be cruel about this. We'll let you girls get better acquainted, and then we'll heal her up at the end of the night so you can start fresh tomorrow morning." The immortal might be enjoying himself a little too much, and he gives the captive a broad grin. "Daddy's dead, princess."
Now that Elle’s in a more natural state of things, she slips into resuming everything she’d felt before the process had all started. “You’re lying,” she says calmly, patiently. There is a fixed grimace on her lips, thinned into a line; she twitches hard in reflex as she feels Adam’s hands on her shoulders, since she can’t swat him off. “When I’m out of here, you’re going to be sorry you didn’t just let me die the first time.” Sorry indeed.
Jessica looks annoyed with Adam. "Why? I like the thought of being cruel. They didn't care much about being cruel to us. Let me break the bitch and we can send her back to them as a jigsaw puzzle." She's also not happy about their overall situation, and she looks to Adam. "We can't stay here too long, either. We're going to need money, and new identities. You said you had resources. Time to start following up."
Huruma lets out the smallest of huffs at the words 'new identities'. Yeah. Whatever, lady. You do that. "She's right, f'th'most part…" Huruma's voice is conversationally low, just to get Adam's attention before she fixes her eyes down onto him. "I believe it is time t'elaborate, m'dear." Her lips curl into a grin.
Elaborate? Not quite. But Adam will provide the Legion of Doom with new quarters, finances, and new identities. "I'll get right on that, ladies. I was intending to make a few stops around town tonight to that effect." He gives Elle a short pat on the head again, stepping back a pace. "Never fear. Just keep our darling princess occupied, and I'll take care of everything else. I'm sure you two can find a way to entertain yourselves until I get back." Odds are good that Elle won't enjoy them - but a hostage situation is no vacation.
 September 20th: Three Days Later |
 September 20th: Coffeebreak Confrontation |