2012-11-04 Hurt Me, I Dare You

Some things never change, especially when it is instinct - second nature and well ingrained into Ravager. Stalk. Hunt. Kill. Collect. Inquiries passed casually to a few, leaving one man with a broken jaw and a migraine, waking hours later in an alley.
Sitting atop a 3 story building Ravager was taking a break from a job that should have only taken hours, to one that was lasting weeks. One leg dangles over the ledge, booted foot swinging to tap against the decaying paint that had been layered over old brick. 'Chips' in hand, Ravager dips the hot sliced potatoes from the nearby mom and pop restaurant into a hot sauce and ate while cold blue gaze sweeps down along the street. With her back propped against a small uprising she was silently amazed at how people below could just carry on and never look up. Always look up - this is the prime example why.
Ravager heard that who she is looking for has been seen in this area, but the time constraint on exactly /when/ was jumbled it seems, so Ravager jumbled him further, but she took the tip off anyway. Along side her other leg that was outstretched before her and clad in that conforming black body suit, was her swords and a large military duffel. Looks like she brought the arsenal with her...
Superboy is displaying the whole 'super' aspect right now as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop adding in the occasional flight assisted glide. Safer this way he tells himself. He's learning to land without causing property damage as well it just takes use of the additional powers. For some reason he is actually happy with his injuries - a badge of accomplishment. He might have even helped save the world, it came at a cost of course that guy Sam had died. Illyana had said she would deal with it so no doubt she was, however.
In hindsight Superboy is confused at the lack of empathy he really feels towards the whole scenario, he knows he was acting out expected responses, concern, care, loss but why? No one else seemed all that affected and wasn't it supposed to be social norm? Isn't that what he was being taught at some point or another. Superman would have acted the way he had right? Who knows. With a huff he lands on a rooftop blocks away from Rose Wilson aka the Ravager - entirely unaware of her presence. He's not hard to miss though - it's not like one can look up and miss a leaping, hopping meta-human. Especially in times like these while the registration act is stirring up drama it would seem just about everyone was looking skyward but not for the usual or expected reasons.
Not hard to miss at all when a shadow was cast over her Chips as she picked at them, no longer eating them for the past few moments and now just treating them like an annoyance - bored. A clear dusk and a cloud? Ravager knows better, even with overcast that was nothing of the norm and has her gaze snapping heavenward, swords in hand and the small paper hand tray of her meal dropped off the ledge to the sidewalk below.
"He---!" A pedestrian below manages to yell about the near miss below but Ravager is gone already in a near silent but fast pace run across rooftops. Thankfully they are closely placed in the downtown area as she leaps from one to the next and finally reaching the same roof Superboy is standing on, clearing the gap between buildings with legs parted, feet planted and swords drawn. One crosses her front at an angle, the other pointed in Con's direction like a threatening accusation, her chest rising and falling but nowhere near as much as it should be for someone not like Superboy clearing that distance in moments.
"Connor.."
Ravager's quick pace surprises Superboy and he turns facing her. He doesn't look as she might remember him not fully at least. His hair has grown out and he is wounded, a coil of scarring forming up his right arm where he had caught a 'Demonic' Wonder Woman razor lasso around it one eye is puffy and shut.
"Rose..." He says quietly at first before the panic hits. The Project! Without further words he is a flash of movement and that wounded limb is thrusting itself out at her in a balled up fist. No longer is there distance between them.
Ravager's eyes didn't move but she knew his state was one that was not superior, not like how they had wanted him until his escapes. This was what they want her for, this exact moment was more what she /lived/ for. That calm was not it, but when his fist came at her with a force that could easily concave her skull she ducked low in an attempt to let his body weight carry him through while she thrusts back up in a bursting force, swords now crossed and brought like scissors for his torso.
Oh she knows very well it won't do much good, but knock them down; peg by peg. As she attempts to land her swords across him her leg comes up to kick her body futher back from his, trying to gain a small gap between them once more. "Doing well for yourself, I see."
The kick off of his chest and the slices cause Superboy to snarl like some animal as his eyes light up red. The girl knows how to get under his skin, clearly.
"Just leave me alone!"
His shirt opens with the weapons trail and she manages what she had intended and that is clear distance from him. Almost gracefully for perhaps once in his life he spins on one foot and closes that same gap - his left hand reaching out to grip anything he can on her; hair, arm, collar and then hurl behind him at the large satellite dish on top of the roof.
A dance, albeit a deadly one, Ravager steps in time to. Spinning one one heel as his hand come out she attempts to dodge his grip as he reaches out for her, but what is not solely kept close is not as easily kept track of. Superboy's fist manages to grip within white locks as she parries away, that abrupt yank on her searing a heated pain along her scalp as hair is used as leverage and ripped from the scalp just before she is tossed like a rag doll.
Well, his graceful moment, her not so graceful one as ravager's body hits the satellite dish with a hollow 'gong' sound, one sword rolling to the rooftop while her body rolls in a natural attempt to absorb impact and dangles from the ledge.
"Trust me, I wish I could Supes Junior." Ravager says as her sword bearing hand helps keep her from slipping from the satellite dish while her other hand now holds that small yet punch-packing blaster. "This is just for fun." One shot fired it is intentionally aimed for his feet to make him remain back as she releases the satellite dish and falls back to the rooftop, landing in a crouch.
"Fun? You're messed up and broken, Rose." Superboy glares as she pulls out that nasty pistol. "I'll hurt you this time. Just so you leave me alone... I'm not in the mood and I won't go back. I'm free now." Bold and angry the clone doesn't budge from where he is standing even if she fires at him; the ground at his feet getting struck. "I have friends who will look for me if I go missing again. Powerful friends... and if you think you can take me without any backup..." He doesn't hear anyone near her. No helicopters, no com-chatter, why is it so silent? Uncomfortably so. This isn't usual. She never attacked him like this before without others waiting.
"Pot/kettle, Connor." Ravager says as she stares at him through a haphazard veil of white hair. Even her 'uniform is different now, no longer the black and white, but black and small placements of plate mail over her hips as well as down her arms coat with the form fitting reinforced black latex body suit.
Ravager's gaze upon Superboy does not waver as she stands and sheaths one sword, gathering up the fallen. Remaining where she stands she inspects down the length of the honed weapon for any nicks on the edges that would ruin it's perfection. "Your threat is cute. But I see no friends..." None on either of their sides. "...I /know/ I can take you without backup. That's not the point." Ravager states it rather matter of factually before sheathing her second blade, the blaster now the only weapon in hand and hanging at her side just above it's holster but still ready.
"Hurt me Connor. I dare you." Now a slow smile begins to form on Ravagers lips as she meets those words with steps forward towards him.
"They're close enough." Superboy retorts, "And you're too cocky, I'm not as weak as I was before." He has noticed the change in her and his are obvious as well - the black tee shirt with the red S logo on it, dark grey sweater, olive cargo pants and combat boots. Not quite what he wore before. He does look like a real boy now and not just some Pinocchio as Vandal Savage had called him. Yeah, he looked it up. That guy deserves an extra punch next time Kon-El sees him. "See... sick." In reply to the 'Hurt me Conner. I dare you.' "Someones already hurt you enough is my guess, Rose."
Frowning he looks around them then back at her. "What are you doing here? Are you tracking me still?"
"Not close enough to be here by now." Ravager is only two feet from Connor now, unblinkingly bearing blue eyes down on his own if he does not look away. The smile has not faded, in fact it only managed to hang by a thread at one corner of her lips, lopsided grin as she watches him. She knows life, she rather likes it, and despite being 'broken' she'd like to keep her one little life.
"I know very well what you are capable of Connor, I'm not broken, I just don't care. Just. Like. You." As she says that, to make her point she steps forward, and with each syllable pokes that blasters muzzle into his chest. "Don't try to analyze me, you're not paid enough."
At his inquiry about her presence she snorts, rolling her eyes but promptly putting them right back on him, that larger predator. "Yes. I think what you want to as is why I'm still tracking you. Old habits.."
"Close enough." Superboy insists and slaps his hand out to knock the gun aside. "Don't push me, Rose. Seriously... back off and get a life. Tell Cadmus they can go rot while you're at it. I am free. Understood?"
The blaster is relinquished easily enough with his slap aside, Ravager didn't even bother to keep a tense enough grip on it. Shrugging she steps back and turns to walk back the way she came. "I have a life, it doesn't involve them anymore, though." With a a small burst of speed she leaps from that roof to the next, heading back to where she had left her duffel.
The blaster is relinquished easily enough with his slap aside, Ravager doesn't even bother to keep a tense enough grip on it. Shrugging she steps back and turns to walk back the way she came. "I have a life, it doesn't involve them anymore, though."
"What do you mean it doesn't involve them?" His hand even snaps out to grab at her bicep. "We're not done here.. you owe me an explanation. You've tormented me and helped make my life hell since I've been alive. Is this some sort of game?" Superboy's jaw is clenched and it looks like he is beginning to boil over again. This is what they have done to him, mess with him, feed him in to scenarios, trap him, turn his life over that he didn't even have and now they're tossing Rose back out at him to lure him back in. To bait him in to another game.
Ravager stops, it's a rigid feeling beneath his grip, the arm he clasps tensing while the other had already risen to have her hand wound around the exposed hilt of a sword. "You've got quite a bit wrong Connor. The only thing I did is what I was paid to do and that was to take you down if you went nuclear. Everything else, was them. You think I wanted to be dressed in denim skirts and paraded around like Leave it to Beaver?"
Ravager's eyes slid from his hand that was coiled around her bicep to his face, pale brows dipping over the bridge of her nose. "I'm the real deal and I don't play word games, so I suggest you let me go." Emphasizing her point her hand tightens on that hilt.
Superboy's grip remains on that arm held there in that moment in time before it eases up and hesitantly falls away. "You expect me to believe you just up and quit? Just like that? That isn't possible. It can't be that easy." His shoulders tense and he steps back giving her space.
As his hand falls away Ravager's own leaves her sword in it's place. "Believe me or don't. I can understand why you wouldn't considering, but I have been nothing but very real to you." A short huffing exhale of breath passed her nostrils as she watches Superboy and then looks back towards where she had left her things to pursue him.
"It's very possible when you're not putting us both in corners and under a firing range. I'm not bulletproof like you." Ravager's tone finally changes somewhere in that last sentence, going more introverted.
"Are they after you as well?" Superboy isn't wanting to be naive but at the same time there is something genuine about her. He can feel it or at least thinks he can he did after all know a Rose that was based off of this own that was a lot more... soft. Real. Even for something so unreal. "And I don't believe you but I really don't have reason not to... you've always been straight with me. Even when you were trying to carve out my intestines. Probably your only redeeming quality." Was that a joke?
"When I don't come back with you soon enough, they very likely will be after me. That's my problem Super-boy." ravager laid emphasis on his namesake, taking a few more steps away from him, closer to the edge while her hand digs into one of a few pouches at her side. "It's the quality that gets peoples attention, the only one I have." The smile is half hearted and tossed his way by a slight cant of her head over her shoulder.
"Then why aren't you still trying to get me?" Superboy asks ignoring the drawl out of his moniker. "You said it paid well right? You always acted like you're having so much fun being a sadist." His gaze narrows down looking like he is scowling again as memory flashes back to him of all the grinning times she's kicked him or another in the face, the delight she'd get out of punishing others, the hunting, the fighting, the taunts. Nothing like that girl in the V.R. he grew up programmed inside of.
"Good question /Connor/." Was that a hint? It may as well have been. From within that pouch an inhaler was withdrawn, a finger tapping over the small white canister inserted into the plastic.
"You missed the lines where I was told if I didn't for them to shoot me as well, eh?" Pausing she rolled that item in her hand, looking down at it as if in debate. This conversation was making her uncomfortable, and she wanted to leave, go somewhere... Do something. "I do my jobs, because they are what I know and what I do well. I don't work well at the end of a leash. It takes away my flare." That should have sounded so much more conceited coming from Ravager, but this conversation was knocking the wind out of her. Something about it bugged her - replacing the wind with an inhale off the inhaler.
"So you're on the run too?" Superboy couldn't help but grin at that thought. "Ironic. Do you know how often I had wished the same on you?" His left hand rubs over his right forearm, tracing the markings and what will eventually be scars there. This felt awkward, worrying and too comfortable just like being back home in Kansas... No, that was fake. Just as quickly as he realizes this the grin fades and he goes silent. "So what will you do now?" Ignoring the inhaler, it smells as strange as always and it's just something she does. He's accepted that without question. Another of those odd quirks of his. He doesn't know he doesn't generally care as long as it doesn't collide with his own existence.
"I'm on the run for as long as they don't have you, or as long as it takes me to have a change in heart and haul you in like the sadist I am." The words were said through teeth. "Difference between you and I, Supes Jr., is I knew Cadmus had its strangle hold from day one, I didn't wake up and realize..." Ravager stops and looks at Superboy, her eyes narrowing and head shaking as she leaves it at that. "I'll do what I'm good at, what redeems me." Pride got in the way of saying, 'to hell if I know, thank you.'
"Redeems you?" Superboy's brow knits together. "Long road for you, Rose." He states in a non-taunting matter. From what he witnessed, she is cold, prepared and very much an assassin. That comes with experience and no doubt shes earned it. "You really want redemption?" The fingers brushing over the marks on his forearm stop and he stares flatly at her. "I may... I may no some people. Friends I guess... some of them are seeking redemption too and justice. Like us."
"Life's an uphill battle Connor, even in virtual reality it wasn't perfect, but it made you want it, right?" Leaning against a large metal box that likely bore the buildings main wiring Ravager fold her arms across her chest and props one foot up as well, fidgeting yet trying to look relaxed, poised. Tilting her head she looks at him. "Justice..." She says the word with a small exhaling laugh, but there was no smile to say she was truly amused by the concept. "Me and people..." One hand rises to make a waffling gesture, "We tend not to mix well long term. Oil and water." Lowly now she speaks as if its more subconscious then anything else. "...give it a shot."
"Right, I suppose, I... I don't want what i had there. It was lies. I want this, I want reality." Superboy shrugs. "Take it or leave it. I'm offering you a chance for something better. You have skills and experience... you could be more than just some worthless mercenary." His chin lifts up making him look both proud and stubborn as he studies her. "My friends want to help the world and keep it safe. We already defeated a nightmare and he warned of more to come; it's only a taste. Strong fighters like you are needed and you'll be doing more than just helping yourself out or whatever it is you do."
Ravager laughs then, one hand falling from the fold over the heave of her chest to reach back and smooth through her hair, resting at the spot that still sears over her scalp where a small clump had been ripped free. "Worthless and mercenary do not go in the same sentence." Pausing she listens and shakes her head. "We're already in a nightmare, and I help people lighten their wallets for a good cause. Me, having a place to live... Despite not being able to go there right now." She mutters the last and eyes him. As much as he questions trusting her, she questions the worth of walking away from Cadmus and into Nowhere.
"Whatever. You know what I meant." Superboy glares that tension still there to some extent or he is trying to make it be there so he doesn't get comfortable. "Follow me... we'll walk so it doesn't look so obvious." Funny him saying that. Considering he was just grasshopper'n rooftop to rooftop like the Tick.
"We'll walk because if you intend to take me it's the only option *I* have." Ravager pointedly looks at him and goes to follow - after a quick detour to get her bag.
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