05-19-2009, 03:03 AM
Enter Tish Fuego.
Picture yourself sitting out of Phys-Ed class as a Junior in High School staring out at all the jocks and random students playing football in the field divided
into random teams. Something inside you raging with spite at each and every last one of them as they go on living their normal lives. For them... nothing is
wrong, nothing is brewing on the horizon and they have nothing save their own piddly high school melodramas plaguing them.
You envy their normalcy and because of it you find yourself stewing as you look down the bleachers at them from a bench that's all your own. Most of the
students know there's something different and dangerous about you. Year after year the silence and solitude grows because of it. No one sits with you
here or in the cafeteria, no one would have picked you to be on their team, they hate you for something that is out of your control. Not even your educators
can find a shred of empathy for your "condition."
This is your life. You're living in a mobile home with your alcoholic mother, your father unknown to you save for mother's skewed view of the man that
came and went long before you were born. She starts to get mad at you for no reason, yelling, surly and belligerent, blaming you for all her problems. You...
get so raging pissed off the furniture smolders then ignites as you yell back at her. The look on her face isn't quite the one you were going for. You
just want to be left alone, you just want the one person who you think you can share your secrets with to be civil.
But she's afraid now.
Of her own flesh and blood.
You have no friends, your only family is terrified of you... what do you do?
"Screw this." as her final proclamation before storming into her room dumping out her backpack of it's school supplies and books only to toss two
changes of clothes and sparse toiletries into it and storm out of the house. Mother scrambling to save what she could from the fires in her half drunken
stupor protesting profusely as Tish grappled and tossed the woman out the door. A concerned neighbor looking after his own calling the fire-department from
his porch across the street.
Mother cussing and screeching profanities as the hostile teen flees the scene on foot with no intention of returning. One word... mother belting
'freak' at the fleeing teen whipping round and without thought she let slip a fireball. Not at the mother but the already burning home, the neighbor
and mother figure both ducking for cover as the whole exploded. The fire-starter turning on her heel back to her path.
She would spend the following years as little more than a transient amid the Greyhound lines. Stopping in small town after small town trying to find one that
wouldn't treat her the same as her home town. Sleeping on park-benches and in bus stop lavatories till roused by the local PD and told to push on. Tent
cities and homeless shelters always found her quite, calm and appreciative of the kinship between strangers sharing that same outcast sort of lifestyle.
Come winter she would find other undesirables gravitating closer to her for the warming fires she could keep without fuel or kindling. Time past slowly as she
learned to better control when her powers would spark but as she did she realized there was more to her plight than just starting fires. The homeless were
also fearless having little left to loose and Tish learned she could empower them in ways no mere mortal should be. Inhuman speed, increased resistance to the
elements even healing.
It was a quiet night much like any other in her life as she sought out the green line, Lexington Ave Express in Southern Brooklyn to crash on a bench for a
nap. Two hours curled up around her back pack disturbed by the sound of a dispute. Tired eyes opening slowly to see a man in respectable attire being
harassed by some punks for his wallet. A full blown battle erupting as a skateboard from behind the man sought to end the argument.
Being homeless and transient Tish had seen plenty of these sort of things fizzle down to someone being in the emergency room. A slow and dull blink of her
eyes as she sat up wavering on the bench as the chap defending his belongings shrugged off every blow the pack of rabid teens let slip. His own return volleys
leaving the horde fairly unfazed. She, on a whim, rose to her feet leaving her pack on the bench as she drifted closer as fearless as any homeless teen would
be.
As she came into view a teen paused to look at her and sputter "Move along." he said curling up his lip at her daring her to start in as a concerned
citizen for a righteous beat down. Her head canting oddly a moment as her eyes drifted from the speaker to the fray to meet those of the victim who gave
warning that she not get involved with little more than the look in his eye. For a flicker she thought to back away, grab her pack and walk off. A compulsion
so deep that she turned around taking a step back to retrieve her things.
Something bit at her deep inside, something that told her if she walked away she'd be less of a person. A glance back over her shoulder she noted the wear
he began to show and without more thought than that she turned to empower the victim, nailing the punk teens motionless to the floor in rings of fire. The
tables turned in favor of the one as the teens started to drop one by one to the intended victims blows. Laying in with that same fireball that had destroyed
her mother's mobile home as they all fell down singed and weakened from her interruption.
Their intended victim left standing amid the crumpled, moaning in pain gang around his feet as he glanced down then back up at her with a sort of smirk on his
face. "Well, that was unexpected." in a nearly sarcastic tone to her as she shrugged up a shoulder dully and replied tiredly "They were
disturbing my beauty sleep." With a soft glint in his eye he offered to buy her a cup of coffee as thanks. She accepting in lieu of moving on to the
next stop to avoid the hostility that would surely follow a moment such as this one.
He'd come from a city called Paragon where people like herself and himself were widely accepted by the population. A sort of safe city for those who's
capabilities surpassed that of the placid mortality most enjoy. She took his advice and enjoyed a hot cup of coffee but declined his offer to take her in
knowing she had no where to go. Years of homelessness had made her overly cautious of the kindness of strangers. He pressed asking her if she was sure she
insisting she wasn't his problem, thanking him for the coffee and drifting out into the night to find another place to crash for a few hours.
Talk of this 'freak paradise' would plague her for weeks to come and eventually she found herself on her way if only to discredit the stranger's
claim. At each connecting line she'd ask travelers exiting for their transfers or picking through the trash for them. "The shit you do when
you've got no money but need to get somewhere." she thought while boarding that last connecting line on someone else's discarded dime.
She arriving in Atlas Park in the wee hours of the morning only to wander about this Utopian freak paradise as the great unknown. Five or six other's
wandering about the mammoth statue at the epicenter freely using their abilities to one up one another. She slipping into a quiet corner to curl into a ball
and nap for a few more hours before exploration of this place. A very soft and nearly silent sigh as she slipped into unconsciousness, her final thoughts
churning around one simple term she'd not considered since before her powers started to develop.
Hope. The possibility that she'd finally be accepted, even if in minor ways. This day being the first of many that would follow. Days which would
slowly, one by one gain her and her abilities both fame and fortune from the steaming pile of nothingness and spite she'd grown jaded because of.
She'd rise to the challenges that faced her, aide those who had once called her a freak, gaining notoriety and steam before locking her into place as one
of the city's finest.
Picture yourself sitting out of Phys-Ed class as a Junior in High School staring out at all the jocks and random students playing football in the field divided
into random teams. Something inside you raging with spite at each and every last one of them as they go on living their normal lives. For them... nothing is
wrong, nothing is brewing on the horizon and they have nothing save their own piddly high school melodramas plaguing them.
You envy their normalcy and because of it you find yourself stewing as you look down the bleachers at them from a bench that's all your own. Most of the
students know there's something different and dangerous about you. Year after year the silence and solitude grows because of it. No one sits with you
here or in the cafeteria, no one would have picked you to be on their team, they hate you for something that is out of your control. Not even your educators
can find a shred of empathy for your "condition."
This is your life. You're living in a mobile home with your alcoholic mother, your father unknown to you save for mother's skewed view of the man that
came and went long before you were born. She starts to get mad at you for no reason, yelling, surly and belligerent, blaming you for all her problems. You...
get so raging pissed off the furniture smolders then ignites as you yell back at her. The look on her face isn't quite the one you were going for. You
just want to be left alone, you just want the one person who you think you can share your secrets with to be civil.
But she's afraid now.
Of her own flesh and blood.
You have no friends, your only family is terrified of you... what do you do?
"Screw this." as her final proclamation before storming into her room dumping out her backpack of it's school supplies and books only to toss two
changes of clothes and sparse toiletries into it and storm out of the house. Mother scrambling to save what she could from the fires in her half drunken
stupor protesting profusely as Tish grappled and tossed the woman out the door. A concerned neighbor looking after his own calling the fire-department from
his porch across the street.
Mother cussing and screeching profanities as the hostile teen flees the scene on foot with no intention of returning. One word... mother belting
'freak' at the fleeing teen whipping round and without thought she let slip a fireball. Not at the mother but the already burning home, the neighbor
and mother figure both ducking for cover as the whole exploded. The fire-starter turning on her heel back to her path.
She would spend the following years as little more than a transient amid the Greyhound lines. Stopping in small town after small town trying to find one that
wouldn't treat her the same as her home town. Sleeping on park-benches and in bus stop lavatories till roused by the local PD and told to push on. Tent
cities and homeless shelters always found her quite, calm and appreciative of the kinship between strangers sharing that same outcast sort of lifestyle.
Come winter she would find other undesirables gravitating closer to her for the warming fires she could keep without fuel or kindling. Time past slowly as she
learned to better control when her powers would spark but as she did she realized there was more to her plight than just starting fires. The homeless were
also fearless having little left to loose and Tish learned she could empower them in ways no mere mortal should be. Inhuman speed, increased resistance to the
elements even healing.
It was a quiet night much like any other in her life as she sought out the green line, Lexington Ave Express in Southern Brooklyn to crash on a bench for a
nap. Two hours curled up around her back pack disturbed by the sound of a dispute. Tired eyes opening slowly to see a man in respectable attire being
harassed by some punks for his wallet. A full blown battle erupting as a skateboard from behind the man sought to end the argument.
Being homeless and transient Tish had seen plenty of these sort of things fizzle down to someone being in the emergency room. A slow and dull blink of her
eyes as she sat up wavering on the bench as the chap defending his belongings shrugged off every blow the pack of rabid teens let slip. His own return volleys
leaving the horde fairly unfazed. She, on a whim, rose to her feet leaving her pack on the bench as she drifted closer as fearless as any homeless teen would
be.
As she came into view a teen paused to look at her and sputter "Move along." he said curling up his lip at her daring her to start in as a concerned
citizen for a righteous beat down. Her head canting oddly a moment as her eyes drifted from the speaker to the fray to meet those of the victim who gave
warning that she not get involved with little more than the look in his eye. For a flicker she thought to back away, grab her pack and walk off. A compulsion
so deep that she turned around taking a step back to retrieve her things.
Something bit at her deep inside, something that told her if she walked away she'd be less of a person. A glance back over her shoulder she noted the wear
he began to show and without more thought than that she turned to empower the victim, nailing the punk teens motionless to the floor in rings of fire. The
tables turned in favor of the one as the teens started to drop one by one to the intended victims blows. Laying in with that same fireball that had destroyed
her mother's mobile home as they all fell down singed and weakened from her interruption.
Their intended victim left standing amid the crumpled, moaning in pain gang around his feet as he glanced down then back up at her with a sort of smirk on his
face. "Well, that was unexpected." in a nearly sarcastic tone to her as she shrugged up a shoulder dully and replied tiredly "They were
disturbing my beauty sleep." With a soft glint in his eye he offered to buy her a cup of coffee as thanks. She accepting in lieu of moving on to the
next stop to avoid the hostility that would surely follow a moment such as this one.
He'd come from a city called Paragon where people like herself and himself were widely accepted by the population. A sort of safe city for those who's
capabilities surpassed that of the placid mortality most enjoy. She took his advice and enjoyed a hot cup of coffee but declined his offer to take her in
knowing she had no where to go. Years of homelessness had made her overly cautious of the kindness of strangers. He pressed asking her if she was sure she
insisting she wasn't his problem, thanking him for the coffee and drifting out into the night to find another place to crash for a few hours.
Talk of this 'freak paradise' would plague her for weeks to come and eventually she found herself on her way if only to discredit the stranger's
claim. At each connecting line she'd ask travelers exiting for their transfers or picking through the trash for them. "The shit you do when
you've got no money but need to get somewhere." she thought while boarding that last connecting line on someone else's discarded dime.
She arriving in Atlas Park in the wee hours of the morning only to wander about this Utopian freak paradise as the great unknown. Five or six other's
wandering about the mammoth statue at the epicenter freely using their abilities to one up one another. She slipping into a quiet corner to curl into a ball
and nap for a few more hours before exploration of this place. A very soft and nearly silent sigh as she slipped into unconsciousness, her final thoughts
churning around one simple term she'd not considered since before her powers started to develop.
Hope. The possibility that she'd finally be accepted, even if in minor ways. This day being the first of many that would follow. Days which would
slowly, one by one gain her and her abilities both fame and fortune from the steaming pile of nothingness and spite she'd grown jaded because of.
She'd rise to the challenges that faced her, aide those who had once called her a freak, gaining notoriety and steam before locking her into place as one
of the city's finest.
