Terra: The low and rhythmic beat of the drums came in perfectly and shortly after the vocals slid in smooth as spread peanut butter. The song really only lacked one element and Tara aimed to provide it her hands gripping the large guitar shaped controller tight as she struggled to hit the notes as they flew buy on the screen of the television before her. Each missed note brought forth a sharp and disharmonious note that only caused the crowd to boo louder, making her angrier by the second. Narrowing her eyes and tightening her grip further Tara refused to be beaten by a song she had killed in expert mode a thousand times.
Her fingers slid up and down the buttons with increasing speed as her frustration grew and her successes did not. The lingering grease from a recent plate of pizza rolls certainly didn’t aide her in any efforts toward virtual rock stardom. A low rumble seemed to be building as she failed again and again but Tara seemed to care little or simple not notice as her abilities impacted the very ground on which she stood.
At least until something glass and most definitely now broken could be heard hitting the floor in the kitchen. Muttering something best not repeated Tara slid the strap from the controller over her head and dropped the whole thing to the floor. Moving with a quick but not terribly so pace Tara made her way toward the modestly appointed kitchen in the next room. Despite the relatively low square footage of the apartment in which she lived the trip took sometime to accomplish.
Between the television and the coffee table a pile of laundry could be found and just past that a precarious stacking of half eaten pizzas could be found in the place cardboard went to die. Whenever she passed it she thought perhaps she should have gone to go play hero in the dessert. The offer had seemed like a trap at the time and Tara knew she should be cautious. Looking back though she couldn’t see how now, and sitting on her ass had grown old.
For the longest time she had thought all she really wanted was a safe place to lay her head, the truth it seemed far more complicated. Making her way into the kitchen to see just how bad the damage had been Tara found a single plate shattered across the floor. Yet again had the pizza rolls come back to fuck her afternoon.
Something had to change, she couldn’t put up with this domesticated bullshit she had fallen into for much longer. No matter the danger she knew the time had come to roam once more.
M’gann : THEN
“Or you could actually do something productive to justify the oxygen that you’re using up.”
She’d been quite alone when she entered the kitchen, or at least it had appeared that way, no sound and no movement had given away the snooty looking blonde who’s now perched on top of the place that had previously been occupied by the plate that is no more. Rather, she’s occupying the space directly above it, because despite a cross legged posture there’s no part of her actually touching the counter. No sense in getting her pants dirty, as if she weren’t in absolute control over that sort of thing to begin with.
No open windows, no suddenly developed holes in the walls, to give a point of entry to the apartment, it’s like she’s been here the whole time and just was somehow never noticed. She’s barely noticing Tera, either, seemingly absorbed in mile-a-minute texting on the phone in her hands. One leaves the device to be held up in the air between them, an indicator to stop that becomes a finger twitched back and forth.
“Don’t bother. Best case you bring the whole place down, worst option is I get bored and decide I don’t really want to do Deathstroke a favor after all.”
It’s a casual thing, as if refusing the mercenary was a thing people just glibly considered, let alone ones that look like spoiled, fragile, teenage girls. Her entire air takes the ‘don’t care’ to another ‘can’t be bothered’ level. The truth is, the Martian does care but she is never anything but fully committed to a part and this particular one wouldn’t. It had also seemed like the best option, out of the literally endless choices she had, for the approach based on what information she had about the other occupant of the kitchen. The one that actually was supposed to be there. Which was actually a great deal more than would probably make Terra comfortable. Then the roaming would have even more reason to begin, and while that worked for M’Gann, she needed it to not be pointless roaming.
Terra: Tara stopped so suddenly at the sound of the text happy blondes voice she nearly slid on the just slick enough linoleum that started just inside the kitchens confines. Luckily for the sake of her meager pride Tara found her footing and stopped in time to avoid this minor humiliation. Clenching her fist and concentrating Tara made the building shake even more then it already had been the rumbling effect increasing by second.
“Wait.”
Holding her hands up in surrender she willed the world still again and just like that the floor found its stability once more. The room grew quiet again with only the sounds of distant car alarms and barking dogs disrupting the calm. That and the not so distant tic tack of rapidly pressed virtual keys on a Smartphone.
“You know Slade? Did..did he send you?”
Lowering her hands she moved to the counters edge nearest her side of the room and there she leans back placing her hands behind her for support. Well support and to palm the three small stones she had left sitting there earlier. It was unfortunate she didn’t realize just how futile attempting a surprise attack would be on her present guest.
“If you are I’d think he’d be bright enough to tell you not to just show up…”
With the question asked Tara waited her muscles tensed as she prepared to bring her hand around and using her unique talents send the stones flying at speeds likely beyond even that of a bullet. Regardless of what the small discs clocked in at they had usually been more then enough to drop anyone who had ill intent toward her.
M’gann: It looks, to all appearances, as if the young woman perched on and/or above the counter-top wasn’t paying attention to anything at all, let alone Tara and it’s unlikely she would have noticed the abrupt halt that almost wasn’t. But then, she looks oblivious enough to have not heard the entrance at all and she clearly had. She was anticipating an attack, and the way the room and entire building around the pair of them (and everyone else unfortunate enough to be inside of it) vibrates and shakes only proves that she was right in the assumption. Is that because it’s incredibly difficult to surprise a telepath? Had she been briefed? In this instance, it’s a little of A, a little of B.
“Do people generally namedrop Wilson to you if they don’t?”
A light brow has climbed high enough on her forehead to be plainly visible over the rim of her sunglasses, but thumbs are still busy tik-tik-tiking away at the screen in front of her. Truthfully the meta in front of her isn’t someone to be lightly dismissed, while it would be difficult forwarned as M’gann is to inflict any real harm on her, the Martian doesn’t actually want any harm brought to the innocent civilians in the building. Which there aren’t actually very many of at this exact moment, since most had just remembered something important than they needed to go and do before her appearance. An irritated opponent is more prone to making mistakes, and an irritated mind is more susceptible to. Well. M’gann.
“As much as I’m usually down for debating the intelligence, or lack thereof, of my psuedo co-workers… he’s not the boss of me. And I’m not always super great at listening to adults.”
She finally stops texting. With one hand at least, in order to push those sunglasses up onto the top of her head revealing vividly red irises, in an otherwise perfectly regular face, though the levitating had probably given away the fact that she’s not. A rise and fall of her shoulders preceeds the phone finally being lowered, and slipped into a pocket.
“He didn’t send me so much as I worked out a little quid pro quo situation. And Slade is a little busy with a road trip with a different blonde, and so here I am. So. Super Blonde… hmmm… feeling a decided trend here. Wonder Princess. You know the one. You think her offer still stands?”
Terra :
The instinct to attack and run continued to climb in Tara which each new word from the strangers lips. She had been told in no uncertain terms and with considerable repetition that she should trust no one. In fact the very man they had both mentioned a few times already would be the one who had drilled this mantra into her brain. She had little doubt Slade Wilson would already be halfway to being knee high in spent shell casings by this point in the conversation. If a raging gun battle could be considered any real manner of communicating that is.
Tara knew she could only stall whatever this was for so long before it would be forced down one of the limited paths before her. She needed time to think and knew she simply didn’t have it. Quick thinking could not be said to be a skill Tara possessed unless one counted not thinking and simply doing as quick, most just called her impulsive. Tara took a step forward a hand out as if she intended to respond her lips parting as she looked about to speak.
Instead one of the smooth stones she had now revealed to be in her palm flew forward at unnatural speed curving at the last moment away from her guest and into the living room. The sound of shattering glass and a bright flash followed as the stone impacted the television still broadcasting the game Tara had been playing. Or at least it was as now it only smoked a bit from the sizable hole the stone had made with the occasional spark illuminating the now darkened living room.
The two remaining stones flew from inside her palm at a much slower speed and began to fly around her body there speed randomly slowly and quickening, as if the two were acting as her tiny yet deadly sentry.
“There…NOW…I can think and actually hear you without all that distracting noise.”
Tara would never admit most of the noise continued and had originated from the chaos outside on the street, she mostly just wanted to smash something and show off a little. The small grin that thought had brought to her face disappeared at the mention of the offer from….what was that girls name Candy?
“Is that really what’s this is all about? What you want me to go play hero too? Your both wasting your time, I’m not hero material. I’m not interested in helping anyone…no one ever helped me..”
Her words trail off as her mind drifts to the day she learned her mothers true motives and how heartbreaking it had been. Tara had loved her mother but her mother had only thought of her as a fascinating meta human experiment. In truth her only remaining hero could be said to be Slade, the man who had bought her freedom at the end of his sword.
“You can do better…”
M’gann: There’s something primal and frightening about what Tara can do, a natural and normal fear that rises in humans and animals alike when the earth beneath and around them begins to behave in any way other than what they’re used to. After all, it should be still, silent, unmoving and not making an uncaring effort to dump you on your ass while it works out a serious case of indigestion. Or in this case, obeys the whims of a petulant meta-human. If it’s not rocks fired like bullets, it’s the ground swallowing you up and both of those are pretty difficult for even a superhuman to deal with. Unless, of course, they don’t obey the laws of solid matter themselves.
M’gann lives in that particular space of existence. It wasn’t the only tool at her disposal in order to deal with the earth manipulator, though. Red eyes follow the direction that the rock had gone, almost languid in the path from hand, towards the smoking, sparking remnants of the television.
“What else are you going to do with your time? You just destroyed your TV. But no, sweetie…”
This time, she puts the phone down completely on the counter beside her. The Martian hadn’t been intangible for the first non-attack, just prepared to counter it with a telekinetic push, but as squirrely as Tara is acting she wants to be prepared to shift her form. And not break her phone in the process. Getting another one wouldn’t be hard, it’d just be a pain, and she has other things that she’d like to do with her day than have to mind control some mobile associate into doing their job properly.
“I want you to go along with it, report back to Slade anything fun and interesting that they get up to, and get paid. Like I said. Quid pro quo. He’s busy, or he’d be the one bringing this to you. Plus I was in the neighborhood.”
Tara’s like a big, loud, raw nerve and the way her thoughts move from place to place makes M’gann feel a little bit like Marie Kondo faced with a truly horrific episode of Hoarders. There’s a compulsion to tidy things up, to organize, to put things where they really ought to be. She doesn’t, but what she does begin to do is subtle little nudges. Yes, she could force the other girl into doing what she wanted. There was always a chance for accidental lobotomy if there was too much struggle against her influence, and since Miss Martian wasn’t actually lying about her connection with Slade, that was a can of worms she didn’t want to open. Or even dent. But the adventure of sneaking into that goodie-goodie’s crew? Of pulling one over on exactly the kind of people who would try to control what she wanted to do? That was starting to sound appealing.
Terra:
“What the hell…I’m in.”
Tara offered back with little obvious consider of the proposal. She only smiled and walked over to the refrigerator and opening the door removed the single beer inside. Popping the top she looked back to her guest and asked…
“So when do I start?”