Silver Age Universe - Riot City

Anything taking place in the Riot City of the Silver Age OFFICIAL RP will be here. Note: This will more than likely be the most commonly used thread.

[Attn: Open]

The D.A sat in the downtown office of the Chief of Police, the blinds closed and the overhead fan rotating. He was a lean man; well groomed and kept. His desk was orderly and the room itself was nearly spotless. The paperwork was piling up. He was cracking down on criminals as best he could but this city's criminal underworld was like a Hydra. One gang or mob pushed aside would all too soon be met by another. Sitting across from him was the Chief of Police himself, looking through a few files of his own. Unlike the D.A, this man was larger. He wore a tired suit with a loose tie and suspenders. His coat hung in the corner of the room. In his mouth a cigar as big as his hand. Every few minutes he would belch smoke into the D.A's face and glance up at him as the smoke was fanned away.

These last few weeks were just altogether fruitless. They were looking high and low for this guy. It was as if he had found a way to erase himself from the face of the planet. They even checked old locations where he'd been found out in the past. The drug lord known simply by the name of his craft, Drug, always was the elusive one. Everywhere the police looked, his tracks were covered. That is, assuming there were any tracks left in the first place.

This awkward silence floods the room for several more moments. What were they looking for? These files were obviously old. there were brown rings still on the corners of the ones in the Chief's hands from when he'd used them as coasters for his coffee. The edges were worn on them all and one of the files was even ripped nearly in half across the center. Then comes the intrusion of their world by the one beyond those walls. A young woman opens the door. "Chief," she says in just over a murmur. She stands at the door with her hand on the cold knob and waits. When the chief's eyes focus upon her rather than the files in front of him, she continues. "There was a call, sir. Another shoot-out downtown."

"And the casualties?"

The girl remains silent. What more need she say? The police in this town were either corrupt or outgunned. Did the chief honestly expect there to only be one or two? No, that would mean this city had even the slightest glimmer of hope. Did it really? No. There was no hope here. Everything was in black and white. When the girl makes no response, the Chief glances to the D.A before giving a grunt and hoisting himself up from where he sits. He passed the D.A who follows him with his eyes before dropping the files and following with his legs.

Moments later as the two walk through the station, they continue with their other habit; constantly arguing about how to run the city again and control what happens in the streets. "I'm telling you, Hudson, you're putting your faith in the wrong officers. You know, as well as I do, that Lee and his boys are just as bad as the scum we're letting run the streets."

"Faith? Web, some advice. If you're trying to run this slophouse of a city with faith, then you've already got the wrong idea. The Mod, the corrupt cops, the super criminals, these vigilantes, they're all makin' jokes of us. I don't trust you or any of the cops around here as far as I can throw 'em but we don't have a choice. You win wars with strategy, not heart."

"I'm not sure you know this, but your strategy isn't working!" Webster argues as he stops walking behind Hudson. He then flashes the files to the Chief as he turns around. "This is a strategy worth investing in. But you're too busy wallowing in your own pride that you don't see how well it's working.'

"WORKING?! All your plan's done is cost us dozens of men! Corrupt maybe but it's manpower we could use and possible accomplices we could have interrogated later! Admit it, Web, your strategy's as flimsy as mine!"

"Then why didn't you crack down on the suspects in the first place?! You know I had about ten of your boys, including Lee, last week on-"

"Don't try to turn this on me and hide the fact that these crooks have people in your office, Web!"

With that everything grew quiet. People at their desks all glanced up in the direction of the two arguing men. People had begun to stare. By now it was really nothing new. Yet the arguments were like a good Pay-Per-View fight every time. Each battle was more intense that the last and with the bonus of being free.

In another few short moments, the two of them sat in a squad car on their way to the scene of the shootout further downtown. "And the vigilantes?" Webster finally says after a bit of silence between the two. "What do you expect to do about them? It's bad enough we had one psychotic around publicly, killing criminals and causing mounds of collateral, but what about the ones behind the scenes?"

"They'll be the last to go," Hudson sighs calmly after a moment.

"That part of your strategy? Leave the most unstable ones to roam around freely until we've got the easier ones?"

Hudson says nothing until they finally park near the scene. "The vigilantes are going to answer for their deeds. But right now they scare the crooks. Makes 'em easier to round up. Makes our job that much easier to do. They practically drop 'em in our hands. Once we're in a place where we've cleaned up the place enough..."

"This city doesn't need an example like them, Hudson. You'd better be sticking to that plan."

Then comes the scene. Ten cops lay dead, shot down in cold blood at this very spot. Both of them look over the situation and analyze the situation. The shootout wasn't random. It was too well executed for it to be. This wasn't done by average gangsters. Webster notices something at the edge of the scene and kneels down. A bullet shell casing. Slipping on a pair of gloves, he picks the casing up and looks it over before sticking it into a bag. There he saw it. It was the same symbol. The Rioteers did this. Their insignia was on the casing. After giving the casing to the chief to examine, Webster turns and leans against the car, his arms crossed. He knew the Rioteers...he knew them all too well.

The more he stared at that casing, the more vividly he remembered. He'd put a large group of Rioteers away. They were the largest criminal group in the city back then. He got a knock on the door one evening and a note had come with the police. His brother had been killed. The note had a Rioteer Insignia. Then came the worst of the memories. After leaving duty as a cop and taking the D.A Position, he met his girlfriend, Vivian. Three years later they were married. The following year they had a child...Billy. He was only just turning seven back when that life changing notice came.

Vivian had gone after the Rioteers. One day she headed out with her partner. They broke into a Rioteer base and...they had company. Drug...Drug and another man were there. The partner got away...Vivian wasn't so lucky. Over a month later, her body turned up. Another month later and it was missing from its grave. The Rioteers were now his only reason for going on. They'd taken his wife...the mother of his son. It was war from then on, no doubt. But, unfortunately, it was a war he wasn't winning.

They return to the station after some time at the scene. "Hudson, the Rioteers are-"

"I know, Web...trust me, I know."

"Thank You for understanding," Webster says as he stares through the window. "What if we've been going about this the wrong way? If you're going to build a house you don't start with the roof. You start with the foundation."

Unknown to him, another figure had long had that idea but now they were worried about something entirely different. Standing alone on a Riot City rooftop is a figure dressed, head to toe, in black. Her face is made up to be purely white with solid black make-up along her lips and around her eyes. This woman of velvet black hair, flowing in the night breeze, is known to all as Mime. A vigilante without a pulse or sense to her name, she watches the streets, stalking any criminals unlucky enough to draw her attention. But she is no guardian angel. Her one and only purpose remains always and forever the same; Vengeance.

Late that night, one thief foolish enough to provoke the supernaturally undead woman finds himself landing on top of a rolling police car from a three story building, rolling off and passing out. He'd be all right...minus the several broken bones. But the police slam the breaks and get out of the car. Looking up and about, they scan the rooftops. Nothing. Nothing was there. They point their guns only at the cold night air before turning to the criminal that'd landing upon them. Protruding from his pocket is a playing card...a blank one. But while there is no design, there is an image. A face...a smile drawn in black on the back of the card with the word 'Thief' directly beneath it, leaving the officers scratching their heads as The Mime always did.

[Attn: Open]

It was more painful than one could possibly imagine. On the first day they hadn't done much. They only tested a drug on her, injected into her arm and neck. It instilled a sense of manic rage. Day two and it wasn't a drug at all. Just an experiment. Using this manic rage and feral behavior, they made her fight a subject injected with a violent super steroid. She, of course, lost. But she didn't merely lose. She was beaten to within an inch of her life. Day three saw the painful injection of a new drug. The pain was going away and she began to fade away mentally.

By day twelve, nothing mattered. She knew she was going to die. The drugs and substances in her system, combined with regular experimentation...the pain was immense. She remembered once being tied down to a table and violently electrocuted at one point to trigger a reaction from one drug they'd been testing. She'd live through that. They kept her alive through it all. Eventually the days all began to blur together. Was she even alive anymore?

That last experiment...what was it? What had they done to her? What was the experiment that killed her for that long month? Needless to say, that wasn't the only thing on her mind. The nightmare would never end. She was no longer human. She didn't sleep, she didn't feel, she was a machine designed purely for vengeance. Still...he humanity hung her by the neck.

She sat on a gargoyle atop the Hamming Building as it poured down rain that night. Her make-up never ran...even in the rain. Violent images flashed before her eyes practically at all times. She remembered everything but that one experiment. What's worse...she remembered hearing it. She had found her way home that first night after her revival. Her husband was talking to their son. "Daddy, I think I saw Mommy today."

"No, son," Kevin had said. "I told you. Mommy left. She's in a better place though."

"She's never coming back, is she?"

She heard every word of the following conversation. Kevin...he'd sounded so lost for words. As if the life had left his body entirely. Billy had exhausted the conversation for the last month it'd seemed. Probably the last two. She'd been gone for a whole two months...amazing. She could hear the defiance in Billy's questions. He absolutely refused to believe that his mother was gone. She could only sit by and listen. She couldn't bear to face them...not now. That was the same week that the simple mention of the word 'mime' would induce nightmares in every criminal across the city. All of her confusion...all of her rage went into trying to make the city safe for her son. She would destroy the crooks one at a time if she had to.

Then her own nightmare began. Kevin's mind had gone. For the longest time he had praised heroes, glorifying them. He once took such joy in the exploits of superheroes. Then came her murder...everything she knew of him just warped after that. He began a campaign against vigilantes in his city. It was working. The criminals were winning. They'd succeeded in taking the good cop and dragging her down to their level. Now they were tearing down the city's D.A, their shining knight, and using him to clear their tracks.

The very thought...Mime knew only one thing. No matter what happened. No matter what her husband did, she had to keep fighting for her son. If she didn't have that...then she may as well have stayed in her grave.

[Attn: Arcadian]

There she sits as lightning illuminates the night sky. She suddenly hears a voice, sounding off in surprise, likely at her presence. But who else would even be up here? She then turns her head just over her left shoulder. There he stands...how perfect. He did exist. She wasn't exactly thrilled...to say the least. Mischief was a headache, Mantle was just a kid, and now another one to put up with. Things were easier when it was just her. Another flash of lightning and she stares into his stunned eyes, tilting her head. She obviously couldn't speak and she was out of cards for the night.

[Attn: Arcadian]

Mime simply stares. Did this guy actually just ask if she spoke? With a name like 'Mime', she figured it be pretty obvious. But she let it go. Then he began requesting communication with her. Well, if he was going to ask her a question or...something of that nature, it'd make sense to ask it, she figured. The farthest her response to him even ventures is the raising of an eyebrow as if to say 'What do you want?' It was a facial expression read easily enough.

[Attn: Arcadian]

Mime listens rather blankly as the younger hero rambles about ridding the police force of corruption. Either he was new to Riot City...or really really late. He thought he could get rid of the corruption in the ranks? Well, she could give him credit for dreaming. She then pops the marker from her top and takes Arcadian's hand, pointing at his gloves. She then looks up at his face. Being mute was...inconvenient occasionally but it had its uses. Removing his glove for him after long enough waiting for him to figure it out, she writes on the palm of his hand.

She writes simply the word 'Police' and crosses it out, then writes 'gangs'. In this kind of city, the only way to attack the police corruption was to first attack them where they were getting their money. Then when they started getting desperate, they'd start getting sloppier.

[Attn: Open]

Now Mime was growing impatient. Why? Did she really look like she was interested in bothering with people? She'd been in deep enough thought just before this...incident. With this statement, she backs up before dropping clean over the side of the building, sliding down the windows and springing herself onto an adjacent rooftop before disappearing into this darkest of nights. The guy could go tag team with Mischief or Mantle. They'd be better company than her anyway.

[Attn: Open]

Elsewhere in the city, a young woman stands at a crosswalk, waiting for her chance to move along. The cars are quick and unrelenting. It was bad enough to be on the streets at night around here. But to be on the streets and be a pedestrian was far worse. She was entire open...or was she? There were reasons this mousy young woman shook and waited so impatiently. Looking around, she eventually throws herself across the street, barely avoiding being hit by a car. She can see her apartment from sidewalk. It was just a matter of...of course it was too good to be true.

Gangsters. They surrounded from all sides, emerging from the alleys. Most of them had crooked looks about their faces. Poor them. They had no idea what they were about to provoke. One of them approaches her from behind and wraps his arms around her while another takes her purse. She's then released from the one man's grip as the others proceed to swarm her...well that was their mistake.

They don't notice as they begin to crowd her and grab her but she isn't crying...she's laughing. It's only when the laughter grows louder that thy question it though they don't entirely stop. It was a manic laugh, not one of pleasure but of insanity, growing the longer it went on. She suddenly tears herself from their grips, standing loosely.

HmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhheheheheheheheheheHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

God, what was wrong with this woman? She then removes her hat from her head and holds to in front of her face, muffling the sound. One of the gangsters draws a knife and rushes toward her but she removes the hat from in front of her face. Clown-Like make-up? How'd that get there. She then reaches into her back pocket and from it she hoists a large phone booth. "Do me a favor and wait right there, boys!" She then steps into it, popping out in mere seconds with a change of clothes. "MUCH better!"

Jesus, it was her. Was it safe to say that in a poll choice between Mime and this chick, the crooks in this city would prefer Mime? At least she was more likely to leave them alive. This chick was just downright psychotic. Reaching behind her back, she draws out a mallet the size of a bulldozer as she continues to laugh. "BATTER UP!" She then lunges forward as the wails of those pathetic scumbags carries over the rooftops.

[Attn: Arcadian]

Mischief hoists her mallet up and perches it over her shoulder. There had been a gangster beneath it...well, not anymore. He'd been crushed. Several of them had been. The lucky ones were sent flying. These poor gangsters...they were pancakes...leaking strawberry syrup. "I just love the filled kind," Mischief laughs to herself. She then hears the sound of a voice overhead and looks over her shoulder. "What's it to you, Grandpa?" Says at noting his silver hair.

[Attn: Arcadian]

"Ah, they'll bounce back! I always do!" Mischief says, pocketing the mallet as if it were the size of a wallet. She then hears a the screech of tires and a car jets around the corner, racing by and slams into Mischief without stopping. She then peels herself from the ground, flat as a cutting board and blows herself back to proportion like a balloon. "All right, who's the wise guy?!" She then takes off in a blur after that very car."

[Attn: Open]

Mischief races around the speeding car and stops in the path of the vehicle before getting out a pallet of paint and painting a brick wall on a large canvas then leaving it in the street for the car to slam through. But the car didn't slam through a canvas...it slammed through an actual brick wall. There waiting behind it was Mischief who gets out a bullhorn and yells into it, the massive soundwave of which causes the car to stop in its tracks and literally fly back. "B'bye, don't forget to write! Khehehehehehehehehehehehe!" She then turns and darts off.

[Attn: Open]

Mischief cyclones her way into a local gang hang-out and stops. Now upon her head is a cowboy's hat, on her feet are boots, and around her waist is a harness. She walks in slowly with the hat tipped over her eyes, holding her head down and keeping her face out of clear view and she sits down at the bar. When the bartender shows up before her, she crosses his arms. "Well, what can I do for a pretty little lady like yourself?"

"That depends..." She then tips her hat up and grins a devious, almost soulless grin in his face. "Don't reckon ya plan on tellin' me where I can find me a varmint by the name of Roark, do ya?"

"Wha- YOU! Ice This Clown!"

The entire bar suddenly erupts in gunfire as Mischief ricochets around the room. Finally everyone runs out of bullets and she stops in the center of the floor, laughing now like Woody the Woodpecker. "MY turn. Time to bring out Big Bertha!" She then reaches into her pocket and removes from it, a bazooka nearly twice her own size. "Hasta La Vista...Babies," she says, putting on shades she seems to just acquire from nowhere as if they'd appeared behind her back.

[Attn: Arcadian]

Mischief then pulls the trigger and a burst of confetti erupts out from the bazooka. "You were sayin'?" She then picks up her hat and pulls out a can of black paint and opens it, pouring it on the floor. This creates a massive hole in the floor. She then pushes each and every gangster inside. "I say this calls for a time out! Wouldn't you boys agree? Now If I have to say it again, you boys get to meet-" She then pulls the same giant mallet from her hat. "MR. HAMMER! And his FAVORITE game is Whack a Mole!"

"We don't know where he is, honest! He was talkin' about skippin' town! Drug took over his turn uptown! He's too good for Roark, he's forcin' him out!"

"What do YOU think, Mr. Hammer? Is that good enough for you? All right! Don't move, boys! Like you even have a choice. I'll be back for YOU later!" She then turns around and bumps into Arcadian. "Oh yeah...you."