Closed RP Great At Crime

[illirica]

Red had never considered how hard it would be to be a criminal.

It wasn't really something that came up very often. People were bad guys, and sometimes they had tragic backstories that came up fifty episodes in or something, but usually the whole part where they actually started being bad guys just got glossed over. Maybe she just needed a bad influence or two, but she felt like she had a few bad influences already and it just didn't seem to be working out.

In the cartoons, there was a lot of jumping across the rooftops and things like that. Red was pretty sure that she could not even get up on the rooftops, and if she tried she would probably hurt herself. Unless there was an elevator? But those usually went to a particular rooftop, and she wasn't sure how you got to the next one unless you were a metahuman or really really good at track and field or, really, both. Both was good.

Red was technically a metahuman, but she didn't think bleeding on the rooftops was going to help at all, although it did seem like a very likely outcome if she tried to run around on them. She was not good at track and field. Mina - who was totally not Red - was not necessarily an indoors sort of kid, but she was the sort of kid who appreciated the outdoors while sitting on a bench with her headphones on.

This was not conducive to crime.

There was also the whole issue that she didn't actually think she wanted to kill anyone. Or seriously injure anyone. Or destroy anyone's home or livelihood. She sort of just wanted to mildly inconvenience people and-

Okay, she was really bad at crime. She felt bad going past the "Employees Only" sign at the gym, and she was actually an employee. Well, Mina was. Red was a supervillain.

Kinda.

She was trying her best. Or her worst? Was she supposed to try her best, or was this more of a "do your worst" situation? Was answering that question going to get her where she wanted to be in life? Where did she want to be in life.

She wanted to... go to a concert.

And she definitely couldn't afford it. So she was going to have to either steal tickets or break in. She didn't want to steal tickets if they belonged to someone, because that would be more than a mild inconvenience, so breaking in it was! She'd picked a very small concert from a band most people had never heard of, because it was less likely to get her in a lot of trouble if she messed up. And then she'd gone up to the roof of the apartment building next door, using the fire escape stairs, and now-

Well, now she was staring at the gap between the buildings are rethinking her life choices. Which was exactly what the superheroes were always telling the supervillains to do, and they weren't even here.

"Really, Red, you are very bad at this."

 

[Katpride]

Adelyn finds the alleyways more comfortable to explore than the streets. She’s run around the parks so much that she’s kind of bored of seeing the same scrawny trees all the time, and so she decided to finally stay true to the promise she set for herself.

She was going to Do Good. Only…

Well, she doesn’t really know how to do that. Helping people is good, but there aren’t that many people in the alleyways to help. The few she has come across gave her bad vibes, and she hurried along before they could try to talk to her.

Maybe she should just go back to the park. Surely there’ll be some rabbits to chase or something.

It’s just as she’s turning to retrace her steps that she hears a quiet voice. She’s gotten a little better at blocking out the sounds of the city, but new sounds always catch her attention. Her head snaps up to the rooftop on one side of the alleyway she’s in, and she sees a small figure standing on the edge.

“Are you okay up there?” She calls, head craned all the way back. Her hood has slipped with the angle, but her ears are covered by fluffy white earmuffs. Her grandpa had gifted them to her, and they’re great for muffling loud sounds. She has her sunglasses and gloves on and everything, too, so she’s totally inconspicuous. Just a young girl wandering the alleyways while covered head to toe.

She thinks the figure on the roof is also a young girl, but it’s hard to see her exactly.

 

[illirica]

Oh, no, someone had noticed her.

Not getting caught had been part of the whole deal, so that meant Red had already failed the stealth event. Did she have to start over, or was this one of those things where you just failed the stealth section and then you could still win by murdering everyone on screen?

Not that Red actually wanted to murder everyone on screen, because there weren't any screens, and also, she didn't murder people. On purpose. She had actually murdered several people, if you thought about it, but she tried really really really hard not to think about it. None of them had been on purpose, so... actually, didn't that make it not murder? Murder had to be on purpose, wasn't that one of the defining characteristics? So it was more of an involuntary manslaughter.

Which was still not great. And not what she was here for. And the only other person on the not a screen was asking if she was okay and she had fluffy earmuffs and Red was not going to go murderhobo on someone who was wearing fluffy earmuffs. Or involuntary-manslaughterhobo. That did not have the same ring to it, like, at all.

"Um." Um? That was a great opener right there, for sure. Red was stalling and she knew it. She sighed. "Actually, I was thinking about jumping."

Just slightly too late to have not said the thing, Red realized what that sounded like. "Not like that!" A hasty addendum. "Across! I was thinking about jumping across. I am fine. Mentally. Thank you for worrying. Not that you were. Just that you might have been. Um. Anyway. I was thinking about jumping across, and I am not sure if I can make it. I don't suppose you know anything about parkour?"

 

[Katpride]

There’s a really long pause, during which Adelyn continues to stare at the figure on the roof. Is this some kind of staring contest? She’s pretty sure she’d win one of those, especially with her sunglasses. She waits patiently for the girl to admit defeat.

Then there are a lot of words, and Adelyn just blinks from behind her sunglasses. So it wasn’t a staring contest. She’s a little disappointed. “Oh.”

It takes her a moment, and then she smiles. “I don’t really know what that means, but maybe I can help! I’m trying to do more helping.”

Spotting some kind of ladder contraption on the side of the building, Adelyn makes her way over to it. The lowest ladder is drawn up, but she jumps and catches it with relative ease. Just like climbing a tree. Then it’s just a matter of digging her claws -

Wait, no, this isn’t a tree, and she’s wearing her boots. The mental misstep has her fumbling for a moment, but then she finally figures out how to swing up onto the platform. From there, luckily, it’s mostly ladder-stairs, which she has a much easier time navigating.

“I never thought about coming up here,” she admits as she rounds the last corner and steps onto the roof. It’s surprisingly flat. She thought there’d be more stuff up here like there is everywhere else. Huh. “How’d you think of it?”

 

[illirica]

Fluffy Earmuffs didn't know what parkour was. Red was debating whether or not she should be surprised by that - did people know what parkour was? Was that a normal thing to expect people to know, or was that just one of those weird things that she knew and then when she brought it up in conversation everyone looked at her like she was weird and asked her why she knew that. Like that there were sea slugs that breathed through their butts! That was absolutely true and cool and every time Mina mentioned it to anyone, they looked at her funny.

Sometimes she wished she were a sea slug. Life would be a lot less complicated. Of course, sea slugs probably didn't do a lot of parkour, so there was that. She walked over to the side, where Fluffy Earmuffs was trying to climb up the ladder, unsure if she should offer help or if that would just make things worse. Like, if you were going to pull someone up, you probably needed to be able to pull them up, right? And she might have been a supervillain, but she also definitely kinda had noodle arms. And noodle legs, which was why she hadn't tried the jump.

Fortunately, the other girl seemed to have it figured out.

"Oh, I was going to break into the building to go listen to the concert, but the street level entrances all have security guards, so I thought it would be easier from the top, but I am not sure all those movies about people running around on rooftops are very realistic." Maybe she should not have just said that. Maybe that was one of those things that was going to get her the look. Maybe she should just not talk, like, ever, at all.

She was probably even worse at not talking than she was at parkour, and she could tell that without even trying to make the jump. "So, um, what's your name, anyway? Because I keep thinking of you as Fluffy Earmuffs, but that's probably not your name - although, I do know someone who calls themselves Spork, so I guess it could be your name? And I don't mind calling you Fluffy Earmuffs if that's how you want to roll, but like, it seems like it should be your choice and not mine, you know?"

Did she know? Did anyone know? Did Red know?

"Oh. I'm Red, by the way. It's not my name. But I'm a supervillain so I have to be secretive when I'm breaking into buildings. So you can call me Red. In case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't. Is it weird to wonder about that? Sorry. I'm still figuring this out."

 

[Katpride]

Adelyn nods like she understands what the girl is saying, even though she really doesn’t. It’s a new trick she picked up -- it works great, except for when it doesn’t.

What’s a supervillain?

“It’s nice to meet you, Red. I’m Adelyn, but you can call me whatever you like. I don’t have a fake name.” She thinks that’s the main question the girl is asking her, anyways. “The earmuffs were a gift from my grandpa.” That wasn’t the answer to any of the questions, but she says it anyway.

Reminded of their presence, she adjusts the earmuffs, lifting one side at an angle so she can hear better. Faintly, she can hear music from the building across the way, and the shuffle of people moving about. She stares consideringly for a long moment. “Breaking a building sounds hard. Maybe you could just find an entrance on the roof.”

The jump doesn’t look too far, considering the trees she’s used to leaping between, but the fall is considerable. Adelyn keeps one foot on the lip of the roof and the other on solid ground as she peers down at the alleyway below. “I think I could jump across. Hmmmm. I could try to give you a boost? Or maybe stand on one of those platforms below us to catch you if you fall. Would that help?”

 

[illirica]

"Adelyn is a pretty name." This was not a very supervillain-y thing to say. Weren't supervillains supposed to be, like, evil? But Red didn't really know how to be evil except maybe the high school mean girl thing, which she'd never really been, but seen a lot of. And she didn't really want to be that. Maybe she could be evil but also, like, not awful to people. Except for the evil parts. But she didn't have to say awful things. Maybe nefarious laughter here and there? Red had tried that a little bit but it always just came out sounding silly and then her mom came up and asked if this was "part of the lyrics to one of those new albums?" and that was awkward.

"I like them. The earmuffs, I mean. My grandpa's in Te-" Wait, she wasn't supposed to be giving out identifying information. "Um, another state." There was more than one state that started with a T, right? Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, something something something, ... no, wait, there's Texas and Tennessee, ha! Totally safe. Were there more, though? T- T-... T'Indiana? That wasn't a thing. Maybe one of those west-midwest-sorts of things. Out there by, like, Nevada and Colorado and all the rest of them that were in that big area that she could never remember. Wasn't that where Arizona was? Or was that more south? Shoot.

She was way off track. Where had they been? Oh, right, grandparents. And states. "Um, of the United, I mean. Not, like, solids-liquids-gases. Geographical not, er, material. I'm not sure that's the word I want." Adelyn seemed a lot more confident about this roof jumping thing.

"Um." Um. Um, indeed. "Maybe... you could try a boost? But I don't think you should stand below. Because if I fall on you, you could really get hurt." Because my blood will eat you. Red was getting better at not saying that part out loud, possibly less to do with secrecy and more to do with it being kind of embarrassing now that she thought about it. "And I don't really want that. You seem nice."

She probably should want that, if she were a supervillain, right? But you just couldn't murder someone with fluffy earmuffs. It just... you just couldn't. There had to be a line somewhere. Not that Red was really planning on murdering people regardless of earmuff status.

She really needed to sort all this out at some point, when she wasn't thinking about jumping across the rooftops. It just wasn't really a great time for thinking, was all.

"You'd have to be pretty strong, though. I mean, not that I'm saying you're not or you can't be! It's just, you know, I'm definitely not."