[center][h2]Alice Marlowe[/h2][/center]

[u]The Beach[/u]

It was a warm summer's day, the sun was shining, and until just now there had been nothing to spoil Alice's decision to go down to the beach for some ice-cream. In short, the exact opposite of any sort of setting for a noir feel. You'd have hell trying to get decent chiaroscuro with this level of ambient light. Such were the faux-detective's idle thoughts as she waited in line to be served.

Fortunately for her enjoyment of the day, the reports of a downpour-ranked threat only came in after the mint-flavoured treat was handed over and paid for. Making rather less haste than the situation strictly called for, as running into people coming the other way would not help matters [i]and[/i] lose her snack, the superhero headed for the shore. Monsters were such a pain to deal with; they never seemed to appreciate the efforts you had to go to in order to create a suitably dramatic monologue

It ended up not being the crocodile-man that Alice ran into first. Instead...

[i]Blade of Ire. A two-bit hack of a villain with no goals and as much taste in clothing,[/i] Alice thought, having made a note to learn as many C-rank or higher villains expressly for the purpose of being able to get into the right mindset, [i]The sort of broad that seems like a good date then bleeds you dry after.[/i]

Seeing as she'd started on the wanton destruction of property rather than attacking people, it seemed prudent to stop things without escalating: the law still applied to heroes. Or if it didn't, Alice was going to apply it anyway. That meant no assault, but she had an easy way to deal with wanton sword-swinging: move towards Irene's path, then interpose her hair between sword and phone. A bunch of the strands wrapped together and shot out, intercepting the next attack, and then endeavouring to wrap around the blade and yank it free.

"Hero, here. Something you need?" The hardened expression and disaffected-sounding words were undermined somewhat by the hero's decision to keep eating her ice-cream. She'd paid good money for it.

[@Xiphonic]