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Jun 21, 2016 11:00:02 GMT
Post by physis on Jun 21, 2016 11:00:02 GMT
 Physis is a friend to the mutant who owned the bar down by the Factory District. She helped him out when he ran into a spot of trouble, once. Her help took the form in a punch that hospitalized some Mafia runners for a week. Since then, The Blue Cat has been open to her whenever she needed to drop by. Sometimes she's scavenging for information. Other times, she's taking advantage of an open couch. Regardless of why she's here, the whisper in this part of town is constant: the Ghost of Arkham frequents here.
Tonight, she's washing her hands clean of blood in the backroom sink. Physis would rather not be dripping gore all the way back to her home.
God, it's so hot in here during the summer. Physis phases out of her helmet for a bit, just to take in some of the cool air. She sets the helmet aside and starts splashing water all over her face. When she finishes, she looks up in the mirror and catches the sight of a woman behind her.
She doesn't panic. For one, she's got a blindfold over her eyes. For another, she's just a woman in a motorcycle helmet to most people. She's only the Ghost of Arkham when she knocks several men unconscious.
Either way, Physis feels that she should leave. Quickly.
Justitia
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Jun 21, 2016 11:25:58 GMT
Post by Justitia on Jun 21, 2016 11:25:58 GMT
 She'd been a bit too slow.
Arkham was still not completely familiar to her, and it was... a sorry state of affairs, she had heard, and now she had... well, not exactly seen, but experienced for herself. Every passing second in the place was a nightmare--- the sound of a sniveling, crying child in an alleyway, the scent of blood and drugs and guns and death, the disrepair and palpable misery. She wondered if there was something... more... that the Initiative could do, even if the situation seemed hopeless. In fact, she had half a mind to ask someone--- but right now, that was not the concern.
She was... following a woman she should have been able to stop, had she been just slightly closer, slightly faster--- it was a pity her powers responded to threats to her, rather than to her needs, but it was not like she could just approach the creators of the ancient contract she was the latest successor of and ask for changes. As it was, when she had arrived at the scene, the poor man--- well, he was a criminal, but when she arrived he was mostly a bloody mess--- needed help, and she ended up wasting time getting him to a hospital.
Still, she had managed to pick up the trail of the woman--- the one who they whispered of as the Ghost of Arkham. And that trail had brought her here--- she was no longer in Arkham--- she was now--- in the Factory District, although the horrors remained in her head even when they had left her ears and her nose and her skin. She wondered if that was the reason--- that this woman believed the horrors could only be stamped out by becoming a horror herself.
"Good evening. You are Miss Physis, correct?"
"May I speak to you?"
physis
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Jun 21, 2016 11:58:47 GMT
Post by physis on Jun 21, 2016 11:58:47 GMT
Water drips from her face ever so steadily. Not like the climb of her heartbeat.
It's funny. A lot of veteran crimminals didn't know who Physis was until she planted her knuckles into their diaphram. Yet here she is, accosted by a blind woman.
Physis looks at her own dark brown eyes in the mirror, slightly bloodshot from sleep deprivation and the adrenaline. She doesn't like what she sees. It's too much of a cross between the Ghost of Arkham and the beloved princess of the Orion Conglomerate.
"We are speaking right now." Her voice is harsh. Hoarse. She clears it, spitting the phlegm into the sink. "On whose behalf have you come?"
Justitia |
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Post by Justitia on Jun 29, 2016 9:21:36 GMT
"I have come on behalf of the Initiative." she answered, to the point.
Her ears quivered. Her skin bristled. Her nose sniffed and her tongue within her mouth tasted. All of her remaining four mundane senses were focused on the woman who was cleaning off the blood from her person.
It was a very real possibility that the woman would fight her, or escape, or both, and so she was ready, listening and feeling and sensing with all her might, even as she stood. She knew what the Ghost of Arkham could do. at least to the best that her superiors could provide her, and was prepared... should things go awry.
"They would like to request that... you tone down your beatings." she said. "...some people have died from them."
"...they also ask that you join us---" she continued. "---that we may better coordinate against our common enemy." She was mostly parroting out words that were given to her, but she found them apt. She also knew that the woman might not take kindly to them... but she hoped there was at least a chance that even a little of the words could get through.
physis |
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Post by physis on Jun 30, 2016 6:27:42 GMT
She's unsubtle, this one. Physis doesn't really mind.
"Do we share a common enemy?"
The question tastes of iron in her mouth. She's been fighting for five years. That in itself is enough to convince Physis that they do not.
"You've a hero then. Surely you know the limits of your own power. Limits that are not by your design, but the designs of others."
She wipes the inside of her helmet. She's playing the old game, a game that has kept her alive for years as a child.
"I have mastered my own doubts. Have you?"
Justitia |
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Post by Justitia on Jun 30, 2016 7:03:32 GMT
The nuance of her question escapes the watchfulness of Justitia. For all her vigilance, she was still naive.
"Do we not?" she asks back. "Arkham is crawling with them." She does not think that Arkham is festering because of a lack of attention from the Initiative; she thinks they merely have been unable to because of the sheer amount of villains.
She speaks of her being a hero as if she was not one. She knows that officially, the name given to these heroes who do not fall under the initiative are... vigilantes.
She tilts her head the slightest bit as Physis speaks of limits. It was probably not the limits of her adaptive ability--- something that applied to all those who had the power to do good. The finiteness of their power? But why... "The designs of others?" she asks, not sure what the woman means.
"I do not understand what you mean by doubts." she says, sincerely. Perhaps she does not understand... because she had yet to have them.
physis |
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Post by physis on Jul 1, 2016 23:45:45 GMT
She is speaking with a child. Perhaps that is why Physis has not left yet.
"I have been exchanging blows with Arkham's residents since the year that your organization was founded. Your people do not patrol there"
Nor have they ever. The Initiative may be new, but the people who fund it are not. They could have saved a little girl any time they wanted. They did not.
"Would we be having this conversation at all if I was hiding in Cherry Hill, I wonder." Physis supposes that the Initiative only found it concerning that she was lurking in a business district.
Justitia |
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Post by Justitia on Jul 11, 2016 4:51:22 GMT
For a moment she is silent; Julia wants to say that the Initiative patrol there, but the state of Arkham... something she had seen only recently... definitely begs the question, if the Initiative actually has any presence there. Still, after that moment, she forges on.
"...perhaps that is true." she concedes. She lacks information about the current state of affairs in this part of Kingsport, it seems. "Still..." she pauses, thinking that certain words, if she used them, would be untrue. "...I would like to change that. And with your help, perhaps the Initiative can."
"Cherry Hill?" she asks, and then supplies herself with the answer, in her mind, a breath later. She was still unfamiliar with the names of some places. "Ah, the place in Arkham. ...I have actually been meaning to meet you there, but I had to bring the man you punched to the hospital." she says, simply.
physis |
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Post by physis on Jul 13, 2016 8:33:59 GMT
She places the helmet upon her head, her voice becoming muffled under all the padding. "Then you should do that, don't you think? What right do you have to storm into our home and tell us that we should cooperate when you have nothing to show but empty promises?" There it is. The truth: she is more at home here than in the gardens of Dunwich.
Physis doubts that the woman found any hospitals in Arkham. She doubts that anyone could even set up a first aid station there without being caught in a crossfire, or forced to work for the gangs. She feels no sympathy for what she has done. Inside her is a barren land where nothing will grow.
Justitia |
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Post by Justitia on Jul 21, 2016 9:14:40 GMT
She does not believe her--- that is easy enough to divine. Even she herself was uncertain if what she said will be enough, before she said it. But for a moment she had wanted to believe that it was possible, that there was something they both believed in, and that because of that they could work together. But apparently, the discrepancy is too great--- too great for someone new to the situation to realize.
"I simply followed you. I apologize if I have intruded." she says, simply. She does not elaborate how she got someone else to bring the bloodied criminal to a hospital that is definitely not within the confines of Arkham--- she had to wrangle help from the Initiative for that, even--- she does not realize that that is the point of disbelief. She looks thoughtful--- the vigilante was donning her helmet, probably about to go away. If this does not go the way she wanted it to... she would have to do something she does not want.
"Physis..." she breathes. "It means... nature, right?" she asks. "Is what you do what you think is... natural?"
"I have a similar name. Justitia." she reveals, belatedly. "And while you think my promises are empty, I swear by this name--- I will make them true." Perhaps to the listener it sounds a tad arrogant--- but to Julia this was... only natural. Perhaps it means nothing to Miss Physis--- that Julia was more aware of. After all, words are words, and one cannot always expect their speakers to follow them. "So, I implore you, again--- to come with me."
But whatever happens further tonight... whether the vigilante chooses to come with her, or she is forced to bring her in, or she escapes... she would stand by her word.
physis |
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Jul 23, 2016 22:57:22 GMT
Post by physis on Jul 23, 2016 22:57:22 GMT
She smiles bitterly. "Physis is a law dictated by emotion. She stands apart from universal law, of numbers and rationale."
This isn't what she was meant to be, but she has to read from the rest of the score.
"But she is a law." That's the part that Physis doesn't want anyone to miss.
The child is sincere. That's why the vigilante pities her. There is nothing like being let down by those who have sworn to protect the innocent. One day she will realize that she stands alone. On that day --
Physis thinks no more of such unpleasant thoughts.
"I believe you." But she also has no illusions about whether or not Physis has a place in the future that Justitia is trying to build. "And I hold no grudge against you or your ilk."
Physis is in no hurry to leave. Justitia does not have the means to hold her. "Would you use violence to stop me?"
She's curious about how this will play out, nevetheless.
Justitia |
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Jul 24, 2016 11:19:28 GMT
Post by Justitia on Jul 24, 2016 11:19:28 GMT
She listens closely. A law borne from emotion... something primal. Natural, as the name stated. The law that comes from feeling things. What are the vigilante's feelings, she wonders? Well, she could already guess some of them... and how she seems to think the other laws have failed her.
She hears the smile, the shifting of the facial muscles, muffled under the helmet, but she is unaware of the bitterness of the expression.
Her heart picks up, just a little bit, when she says that she believes her, when she says she holds no grudge towards her or those with her... and yet somehow, it sounds like what she refers to by 'ilk'... they were... not necessarily the Initiative. Then again... in some of her statements here... she had fallen back to addressing her just as herself. What did that say of her, she wonders? What did that say of the Initiative?
While she had no sight to do so, Julia moves her head so as to look down. She is out of words. "Unfortunately so." she says, her voice rife with sorrow. "You have used excessive violence in your apprehension of another." The law of emotion has trespassed upon the law of reason. Her tone said it all. I do not want to do this, but I must.
Without a word after that, she summons her scales. After a moment that seemed much too long, she uses them to reach and bind the vigilante with its chains.
physis |
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Jul 27, 2016 20:40:51 GMT
Post by physis on Jul 27, 2016 20:40:51 GMT
"I suppose it's your place to define 'excessive' violence." Physis sneers. Even so, she merely stumbles a little over her chains. There's no point in fighting if she doesn't intend to kill.
She slips past the chains, past the floor. When her feet finally make contact with a surface, it's the grimy floor of the sewer. Physis knows where she is going. She lights a match and navigates the pipes in the dark.
Justitia |
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Post by Justitia on Aug 13, 2016 8:42:19 GMT
She knows her abilities, but is surprised as she slips past the room's floor--- she had expected her to go for the walls, instead. She vanishes into the sewer system--- or at least that was how it sounded like, to her. The barrier of the ground muffles the sounds of the vigilante's movements, but she could still follow her, maybe...
...she left her with a barbed remark, as parts of their conversation had been. She would have wanted to tell her that it was not she who defined excessive violence--- that violence in apprehension was only so the transgressor could be incapacitated. Still, beyond that last statement--- there were many points that the woman known as Physis had brought up, things that she would have to think about and act upon. She still thought the vigilante was making the wrong approach, even as she seemed to be someone who had the right reasons for doing so.
It is a strange feeling, to be uncertain.
She tries to chase after her, exiting the restroom where they had been talking--- but after a while she was no longer able to track her. Perhaps it was the limit of her abilities--- or perhaps she was rattled by what the woman said. Perhaps some combination of the two.
She moves to report the incident and her failure, making for the Initiative Compound. Perhaps, beyond that report... she would have questions to ask, as well.
physis
[OC: I guess we'll end it with this?] |
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