[h3][center][color=ed1c24]Maverick[/color][/center][/h3]

Far away from the Towers, a small apartment housed an angry young girl who was currently slightly intoxicated. Wearing tattered, dirty clothes, with dark red hair that almost matched the fire in her eyes, Ciara McGuire was stewing in her room. Tapping a bare foot on one of the few clean place on the beige (previously white) carpet, Ciara was thinking. Loud rock music was playing into her ears from an earbud. At 19 years old, Ciara couldn't begin to tell you all the things she saw wrong with the world.


[hider=A thing that is wrong with the world, by Ciara McGuire]
For one, the ruling class. A bunch of crooked politicans paying crooked cops to make common folks have crooked legs. They beat us down, all the time. I mean, has anyone been paying attention? The public was dumb, thanking faceless suits for taking their money while the 'government' did nothing. 

Look at all the crime. Right? All this crime, all over. The police are all fat and lazy and expect these fuckin' chumps in their ivory tower, sellin' merch and makin' cash, to somehow come down here and actually help us. Like, just today, the Zookeeper. Dime a dozen super villain with robot animals. Yeah, whatever, take care of 'em. But what about the rest of the time, hmm? Where's Phoenix Dawn when the gas station gets robbed? No where. And yet, somehow, we have to rely of them for help. We have to rely on others to save us. We gotta call the lazy cops, and if we get hurt because of their incompetence, who has to pay? The victim! That's right, here, you get charged for gettin' hurt. What the fuck? We can't defend ourselves and we can't get hurt? 

And and and and, we gotta pay? Okay, we gotta pay to work. Yeah, that's right, all the jobs that aren't taken' by the bots need you to go to some scam of a 'college' where you empty your pockets just for the chance to get bent over the barrel and start working. Fuck that, man.  
[/hider]

So, what? What was she going to do about it? Was she just gonna sit there and complain? No. She had a power, from wherever the fuck those came from, and she was gonna use it. It was a damn good power, too. She could take on at least three guys at once- she already had. 

She had to stake out a lot. Staying up late at night with a police scanner and an ear out. She went to known trouble spots in her town and stuff, tried to look for crimes. One of her top priorities was increasing the effectiveness of her crime fighting. She wanted to be there before the police and teach a real lesson to these scumbags. If she could get there before the police could, than that would also prove she could fight crime better. All she needed was time and effort and her dream of a self-reliant community would come true. No more being under the thumb of these crooked cops and politicians.

In reality, it was a far off pipe dream, but Ciara wanted to make a difference- and a big one. Her dream? A group of people who went around, a phone call away. Your neighbor, a shop owner, your fuckin' dog. Everyone looks out for each other, ya know? Back up. There are no innocent bystanders if everyone steps in to help. You protect yourself and then the back up comes, friendly folks who will help you up and fix you up- for free. She had a few working titles- but the best one she had come up with so far was Maverick.

Ciara was agitated, thinking about the biggest crime she ever stopped.

She got lucky- she was standing on a rooftop next to a gas station late at night. Three shifty lookin' guys, all in masks, looked like they wanted to make a move. Recently, this group of villains had come to her attention; The Jack Winstons. Usually dressed in dark green and black colors, they've made moves in her area recently. Apparently some prick named Jack Winston had gotten this stuff started, but right now she was just focus on keeping them out of her neighborhood.

A few days ago, she saw three of them- like she said. They had their devices and were ready to hijack some funds, grow their little empire. One woman and two me with camoflague balaclavas- their signature outfit. One had a crowbar, one had a bat, and the woman had a pistol. The guy with the bat had the device to 'extract funds' from the place of business.

Well, not on her watch. She remembered thinking she had to take out the gun girl first. If she got her, the other two would be easy. 

It was chilly, that night. She had her dark red hoodie on, hood up, but with the sleeves cut off so she could move better. She had form fitting leggings on to allow maximum leg movement. It wasn't much of a costume but it was something.

She wanted to teach these Jack Winstons a lesson. They were on the opposite side of the street, the bat guy crouched, placing his device to the ATM. Crowbar and gun girl were standing watch, but they weren't looking up. On a three storey building across the way, Maverick was prone on her belly, pysching herself up. 

[color=ed1c24]"You ain't Ciara, you're Maverick. Maverick is brave. Maverick can kick their asses- no problem. Just be careful. On the count o' three, ok? One...two...three."[/color]

And with that, her fingers twitched and a small spark appeared from where they were touching the concrete of the roof. She focused, and essentially began to move through the air. She wasn't flying, or jumping, she didn't even push herself off. It looked like her whole body was being pulled by something. She oriented herself feet first and shot out her arms and legs- causing her to get another bump in altitude.

The man with the bat saw her. "What the Hell!?" He said, right when Maverick's dark silhouette was above the gun girl. She looked up, and Maverick can still remember the dumbfounded look in her face to see Maverick landing on her. Only her eyes and her mouth were visible- her eyes were wide as saucers and her mouth made an 'O' shape. Then, she was flat on her back in the concrete and got knocked the fuck out. Maverick had transitioned all of her kinetic energy from her landing into the armed crook. The bat guy yelped and raise his bat to strike. Maverick was crouched down over the unconscious crook, low down. He was in an advantageous position- a normal person would take the hit and probably go down.

Instead, Maverick charged her right hand with dampening energy. The baseball bat, swung full force by a 250 pound man, collided with the young woman's fist as if he had swung into foam. Incredibly unsatisfying- there was not even an impact sound. It just slipped off her hand.

His eyebrows were invisible, but she could tell that he raised one eyebrow in confusion. Then, Maverick charged her fist a bit, lept off the unconsious crook and lunged with an uppercut. The man reacted quickly and ducked out of the way, preparing for a counter attack. He was most likely expecting Maverick to have halt her momentum or follow through with the punch, but that didn't happen. Instead her forward momentum was converted into downward momentum. She went really low to the ground as the confused bat swung high over her head- at the same time she swept his legs out from under him. Normally, someone her size couldn't hope to knock out someone his size's legs. But her leg was charged, and sparked slightly with yellow-white energy. It looked like someone had attatched his leg to a truc the way he hit the sidewalk with a thud and a grunt.

The crowbar man had taken notice, and went to swing. They were all stupid, Ciara knew. They had no idea that you couldn't fight her like you could fight other people. She totally had them. Like second nature, the crowbar missed as Maverick simply moved out of the way. She didn't 'dodge' or 'leap' or 'sidestep'. Her crouching form simply moved like a bad animation. The man tracked her movement with baffled eyes as he stumbled forward from his strong swing. He moved his hand to stop her punch but he was too slow- a kinetically charged fist punched into his belly and he doubled over, gasping. The man with the bat was climbing quickly to his feet, but Maverick intercepted him with a kick to the forehead, which sent him sleeping to the ground. The woman had woken up, her eyes fluttering open. Maverick quickly made her way over, yanked her pistol apart and kicked her in the head, closing her eyes again. She wanted to talk the crowbar guy.

He coughed, on all fours, startling with Maverick put a hand on his shoulder. She willed him to be flung towards the wall as if there was a bungie cord pulling him towards it- and it happened. He was flung towards the brick wall and hit his head. He clutched in painfully. Maverick put a hand to his chest, and he slid up the brick wall until she was holding him up.

"[color=ed1c24]You don't fucking steal from us? Okay?"[/color] Maverick said, glaring at him with two overshadowed, angry eyes. 

"Man- fuck you!" He said, angry and confused at his defeat. Suddenly, Maverick's hand on his chest felt like it weighed 100 pounds.  

[color=ed1c24]"No, fuck you, man!"[/color] She yelled back, making this up as she went along. [color=ed1c24]"You don't get to come in here- to come in here and take what's ours! You tell your little friends here that when they woke up, it was a- a Maverick that kicked their ass, and it'll be a Maverick that kicks their sorry asses again if they try some more shit! You got that!? You understand!?"[/color]

The man, turning beet red from the pressure, nodded. He gasped for air when Maverick released her death grip. Placing a sneakered foot on his hacking device, it was ground into the dust like someone dropped a hundred pound weight on it. The man looked in astonishment as she leapt into the air and bounced off the brick wall, scaling upwards one jump at a time like she was a mosquito.

That was where Ciara's memory ended, but the man was very confused at the time. He looked at his two unconscious friends and decided he's rather not wait around for the skinny girl with the high pitched, irish accented voice to come back and beat the shit out of him again, scrambled off into the night. 

Ciara was giddy at the thought of it. Angry-giddy though. All she wanted was to do more. It was frustrating now knowing where the crime was going down. That's why she was looking at the useless web search results for 'Jack Winston'. He wasn't on the web, of course. Just some chump in the hood making trouble for good folks. She shoulda interogated that guy. Shit. She shoulda made sure the other two had woken up so they all knew what was up, too. Damn it! Ugh. Maybe next time she wouldn't screw it up so bad.