ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Ends Justify the Means?

Vignette - Ends Justify the Means?
The Ghost of Christmas Past
Dramatis Personae Mai
In Absentia	2016-12-31 '
Location Brooklyn
New year's eve, a very busy day for most people due to one reason or another, it is also the day that Mai has chosen to execute the next step of her quest for bringing justice to the men who killed her parents. She has during the past few days scouted out the place where Keith Greene lives, an apartment building in Brooklyn, and has carefully planned every step of how she is going to do that, even down to counting with a stopwatch exactly how long each part is going to take, for those parts where that is possible, and made estimates of the rest. Just getting ready in her own apartment, she is dressed quite differently from her usual faire, wearing pair of faded jeans, a gray hoodie, and a pair of sneakers. She picks up a white plastic bag, and fills it with a few items, a backpack, her leather jacket, a cider bottle filled with water, and a can of black spray paint. Checking her phone to make sure it has battery, and turning it silent in case someone would call her during this, she slips it to a pocket and then carefully gathers her hair to a bun behind her head, and then pulls up the hood of the hoodie, making sure not even a single strand of hair is coming out from it, she has watched enough csi tv shows and movies to know how important that is! Finally pulling a pair of gloves on her hands, not that she intends to touch anything to begin with, but can't be too careful. Taking a look from the mirror, she looks kind of androgynous dressed like this, which she doesn't mind, if anyone who might see her thinks of her as a boy thats only bonus. With that, she picks up the bag and heads out of the door. Few hours later, in Brooklyn. It is starting to get dark, Mai is standing front of an apartment building, sipping from her 'cider' idly while she watches the all the time increasing traffic of people in party mood walking past in varying sized groups, the cops should be plenty busy tonight with all the various hassles related to new year, which should increase their response time significantly, not that she expects to need to stay long enough for even their regular one. Broken out of her contemplations when it finally happens, she hears the door to the apartment building opening as a young couple exits, heading to a party somewhere no doubt, she had been waiting out here for awhile for someone to open that door as she didn't want to break through it as that would cause too much attention too early. She does not move from her spot a good distance away from the door, waiting until the door has almost fully closed behind the people before focusing on it to hold it with her powers, keeping it just slightly ajar, waiting a few moments for the couple to have disappeared to the crowd before she puts the cork back on the bottle and slips it in her bag, and walks to the door and opens it and slips inside, letting it fully close behind her as she heads up the stairs. The buildings on this block are not too tall, only four floors, Mr. Greene lives at the third, she takes the stairs because there is likely to be security camera in the elevator, she knows from her earlier scouting that there is also one at each floor, but that she will have to deal with in more direct fashion. Knowing exactly where it is, there will at most be a brief glimpse of a silhouette coming from the stairs before the camera is crushed by the power of her will. She walks along the hallway to door of apartment 305, giving a glance at rather loud music along with voices of several people coming from behind door 303, sounds like there is quite a party going there, which is a fortunate coincidence, as that should mask most of the noise that she is about to make as she stops front of 305, taking a moment to compose her thoughts, it is time to knock... The next parts happen quite fast, she starts a timer on her cellphone, that she can keep track of her timetable, as this is the earliest moment when someone might call the cops, even though she suspects the noises of the party will cover it, right before projecting the full force of her will at the door, which smashes against it like a battering ram, making the door nearly crack in two from the middle and fall right off its hinges and inside the apartment. Mai walks in straight after with determined steps, Mr. Greene who was sitting at his couch watching the tv with a beer can in hand is to put it mildly, rather surprised. "Who the fuck are you?!" he yells out as he stands up, but doesn't have time to do much more than that before he is lifted up by invisible force and slammed back against the wall, and suspended there with his feet off the floor as the hooded person walks in closer. "The ghost of Christmas past." is the reply given while she takes out the spray can from her bag, while dropping the bag on the couch for now, shaking it as she continues. "I have but one question, the longer it takes for me to get the answer, the more painful this will be for you." to emphasize her point, she twists the mans left foot sharply, dislocating his ankle. All of this done while she is still physically a distance away from him. "A few months ago, your 'patriots' staged a shootout in Chinatown, two of them made it out from there, I need you to tell me their names and addresses." As she explains this she takes off the cap of the spray can and starts spraying words on the wall. "Fuck you, freak! I am not telling you shit! And there is....aagghhh!" his words are cut short by a cry of pain as the fingers of his right hand get broken one by one with cracking sounds. 'MUTANT-' is the first word sprayed on the wall, when she addresses the man again. "Wrong answer, there is plenty more bones left in your body, how much pain do you think those men are worth? I will soon move to more sensitve areas." 'HATERS' is sprayed to the wall next. It takes a few more broken bones before Mr. Greene gives in, while the next word sprayed below the first two forms 'CANNOT'. She flips out her phone and opens the phone book to check that the names and addresses given to her match, Jack Coleman, and Frank Burton. Finally she has the identities of the men who killed her parents. "Thank you, Mr. Greene, your pain will end now." she states flatly as she finishes spraying the final word, 'HIDE'. That should sound political enough slogan to make this stamped as a random mutant terrorist attack. Turning her attention back to the man she was questioning, she pulls him a bit off the wall and to the side before setting him down, right front of the window which opens to an alley between this building and the next. She hesitates for a moment, starting to feel sorry for the man, but then, the memory of her parents laying on the street bleeding comes sharp to her mind and her eyes narrow, gritting her teeth as she summons all of her strength into one -shove-, which sends the unfortunate man straight through the window with great force and hitting the brick wall of the opposite building with a sickening sound, most likely killing him instantly, though if it didn't, the following three floor fall to the concrete of the alley below certainly will. Taking a deep breath and slumping slightly forward, having to lean her hands on her knees for support for a moment, feeling like she might throw up, that was lot more taxing than she had thought, it is the first time she really unleashes her powers fully, but it was neseccary, to make it seem like someone with clearly superhuman strength rampaged through here. She can't rest just yet, though. Gritting her teeth some as she straightens back up, putting the cap back on the paint can and tossing it in her bag which she picks up and then walks to the hole in the wall where the window used to be, and simply steps off the edge, but instead of falling down, she flies up to the roof of the opposite building, somewhat awkwardly, but does anyway, closing her eyes for a moment after landing, wondering if she will ever get used to that, she then runs on rooftops to get few blocks away, 'jumping' with the help of her powers from one roof to the other, until finding another alley between two buildings where she lowers herself down to, moving behind a cadre of dumpsters to be out of sight from the street as she drops her bag to the ground, taking her backpack out from it and opening it, then taking off her hoodie and stuffing it in there, along with the cider bottle and spray can, and her gloves, and then takes her jacket out from the plastic bag and puts it on, and frees her hair again with a shake of her head. She then folds the now empty plastic bag and puts it in the backpack as well before zipping it up and tossing it over her shoulder as she walks out of the alley and then starts calmly walking towards the nearest subway station to head home, taking her phone out to check the timer, it took few minutes longer than she had anticipated, she stops the timer and puts her phone away again, easily merging into the crowd of new year celebrating people filling the streets.