maskormenacelogs | you better run for your life if you can little girl

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you better run for your life if you can little girl

WHO: Freddie Lounds & Power Girl
WHERE: A coffee shop!
WHEN: Sometime after the two talk.
WHAT: hello there potential new bodyguard, I am scared of cannibal serial killers and legless serial killers
WARNINGS: possible eventual talk of violence

Freddie was starting to wonder if her blood would eventually turn into caffeine. Between unintentionally meeting Gideon and Danger in a coffee shop, to purposefully meeting Kate Bishop in a coffee shop, to meeting this Power Girl character in a coffee shop, she had a feeling she was single-handedly funding the production of the syrupy overly sweet monstrosity she drank. But Freddie liked coffee shops. Coffee shops were public, they were neutral and (most importantly), they consistently had people in them. People watching others as they wait in line for their drinks, people watching others as they drink their drinks, not like a restaurant where everybody was wrapped up in their own mind. Coffee was different.

Freddie sat at a table near the window, coffee monstrosity in her hand, thinking about Power Girl. She knew next to nothing about the woman, just that Chilton had listed her as a superhero and possibly someone to be a bodyguard. Normally, she wouldn't even consider a bodyguard and would just go about her daily business. But, with the arrival of Hannibal Lecter, the idea of getting more powerful friends suddenly sounded attractive.

Because it wasn't just Hannibal Lecter that worried her. Oh no. Who knew what would happen to poor, easily swayed Will Graham now that Doctor Lecter was here? She had let Will tell her his side of the story, after he had attempted to kill Lecter, but some of the pieces were still worrying her. And, she still had Gideon to worry about. Freddie had partially been working on assuaging that worry of hers by befriending Danger--after all, at the moment? His scary robot girlfriend worried her more than the not to able-bodied Abel Gideon.

Heh. That was kind of funny.

Still, the truth was unavoidable: she needed stronger friends. Or, at least, she needed stronger people that she could coerce into being something like friends. She was all too aware that nobody would let her hire them as a bodyguard, especially since Tattlecrime was up and running. A half-assed attempt at friendship seemed to be the only option. So, sipping her drink, Freddie's eyes scanned the coffee shop, looking for obvious superheroes.

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Peej waited far above in the sky, far enough to remain unseen to most regular human eyes, watching quietly for the curly, red haired woman known as Freddie Lounds to enter the designated coffee shop she had picked out for the two to meet up in. She lets her enter first, order something if she has to, and settle herself before she began to slowly lower herself down to the sidewalk just outside the front entrance of the shop.

While she was bound to draw attention from the locals, she preferred a more public meeting spot in the case something was about to go awry. Without knowing who Freddie was beyond sketchy tabloid reporter with zero capabilities in coding (and probably morals that were bent in the "name" of "journalism"), Peej wasn't about to chance getting blindsided by anyone, tiny woman with massive hair or not. Strangers granted god knows what kind of superpower from a sentient machine? Strangers who may already have superpowers they aren't adverse to using on other strangers?

The little bell attached above the entrance rung out as she pushed open the door. Some jaws dropped and silence befell the shop for the most part. A woman with her colleague was so startled she dropped her macchiato at the sight of one of those imPorts, only for Peej's quick reflexes to kick in and grab the drink before spilling across the floor.

"Hang onto that," she handed the plastic cup back and moved toward Freddie's table without looking back at the woman. Everyone's eyes trained on Freddie then as Peej approached. "Miss Lounds, I presume?"

( ooc: also permissions stuff in case! )

As the bell rang, Freddie looked up from her coffee...and had to try her hardest to keep her jaw from dropping. Wow. This woman really was a superhero. If the outfit didn't give it away, she looked like she could easily crush a head if she wanted. When Peej walked over towards Freddie, she suddenly felt like the kid in a classroom who was singled out by the teacher for passing notes.

Still, she could handle this. Plastering a wide grin on her face, Freddie smiled as Peej approached. "And you must be Power Girl. I've got to say, it's certainly...impressive meeting you in person."

"I'd love to say the same," Peej finally glanced back at all the curious but intent gazes focused on the two. She sighed and waved a hand. "Go back to your caffeinated lives."

It didn't do much, but at least people were trying to be discreet about it now. It's not like Peej had anything to hide. As far as she knew, she and Freddie were just strangers. If Freddie had had something on her, she would have made it clear in their previous conversation. Maybe.

"As I was saying," she shuffled into a seat, leaning back against the head of the chair and folded toned arms over her chest. She cocked a skeptical brow. "I would say it's nice to meet you, but I'd like to know what a nosy tabloid reporter wants with me."

That entry hadn't been hard to find on the network.

Freddie had a feeling that would show up. She made no bones to hide the fact that she was a tabloid reporter. All Peej had to do was scan the network and that much was obvious. Time to drop the smiley faces and exclamation points that she was using in her text. Taking a sip of her drink, Freddie frowned, annoyed.

"I'm a nosy tabloid reporter who's got some annoyances from home lingering on," she responded, with an overly-dramatic sigh. "Murderous annoyances, to be specific." She wanted to keep her suspicions about Hannibal and Will as close to her chest as possible. Will had been here longer and had already made some allies and Hannibal would easily charm the hell out of Power Girl. Which meant that Abel Gideon got stuck with the blame.

She was a-okay with that.

"Consider this a pre-screening process."

Freddie had seized Peej's attention not too quickly after that apt description. Her shoulders fell for a moment before they regained their tension, but she never unfurled her arms and instead gazed back at the other woman with renewed caution, indicating she was listening even closer now than ever. As she thought more carefully about it, it was probably and very tragically likely a tabloid reporter had built up a line of enemies wherever she went.

"For what?"

Freddie's heart hadn't missed a beat, meaning her words rung true to Peej's hypersensitive ear.

"For friendship," Freddie responded, with a small little smirk. And using Power Girl as a human body shield. But that part doesn't need to be known. "Friendship with someone who doesn't have murderous tendencies. You know, someone to have girl's nights with and not spend all our time talking about serial killers. What better person to ask than a superhero?"

After all, weren't they supposed to be paragons of morality or something like that? There's no way that this Power Girl person could be a supervillain in disguise, could she? At least, she certainly didn't seem murderous...though Freddie knew that judging someone by their cover was a terrible idea.

"You have bigger things to worry about than making friends, Miss Lounds."

And now Peej herself was concerned about the possibility of shooting someone down, only for them to wind up hurt or worse. With the memory of Ted's death at the forefront of her mind these days, she's not about to walk out on this conversation with Freddie no matter how grating or suspicious it got. She was going to get to the bottom of this one way or another.

"I know," Freddie idly responded, with a sigh. She had to worry about Hannibal Lecter. She had to worry about Abel Gideon. She had to worry about the fact that since she started up Tattlecrime, she knew that she would have to deal with possibly irate people.

"But this is one of the things that I can easily fix." And it's back to that small little smirk.

"So... I'm a solution to your problem." Which was now Peej's if she was going to be honest with herself, but she didn't have to be with Freddie. She didn't owe her that much just yet. "If you think having a superhero friend is going to solve the problem of murderous annoyances, you are way off the mark.

"Not that criminals still don't try to harm the more sturdier types, but I might be digressing."

She leveled Freddie another deadpan look, unfolding her arms so she could lean against the table. She kept her voice low enough out of respect for the subject matter.

"You want friendship? Friendship entails honesty. You earn it. So here's your chance to explain why I shouldn't walk right out that door."

Freddie wasn't good at honesty. She dealt in half-truths, wrapping words around her fingers to say what was possibly true and probably only the top layer of the story. So now, when Peej was demanding honesty...this was going to be tough. And honestly? Honesty would only make her walk out of the door faster. Oh no. Total honesty wasn't the answer.

So half-truths and lying it was.

"Because I'm desperate," Freddie remarked, with a frown. She hated to admit this, but she was. Desperate for some friend that might offer a small measure of protection, desperate for someone that could act as a barrier against Hannibal's probable advances...and someone who could just be a girl friend.

"I highly doubt my friend from home will show up here and my closest friend in Heropa is a robot." Which, while she liked Danger, the robot was too close to Gideon for Freddie to trust her. "So sue me if I want a little someone to have girl time with."

It was an odd thing to be begged for friendship of any kind by a complete stranger. As far as she knew, Freddie wasn't pulling any dirty, underhanded tactics to win sympathy points or to use as leverage. The longer she sat across Freddie Lounds, the more sorry she began to feel for her, though that uneasy, skeptical feeling prickling the back of her neck never quite lifted. If she was going to help, she had to be safe about it.

"... Okay, fine," she huffed, exasperated. "You want friendship? I'll give you acquaintanceship for now and we'll see where we go from there." She leaned back into the chair. "But you're going to have to tell me about these 'murderous annoyances'. I can't help you if I don't have the whole picture."

"Well one of them is Abel Gideon," Freddie responded, with a grumpy sigh. She took another sip from her drink, obviously annoyed expression on her face. Oh, Abel Gideon. Even if he was partially legless, he still made a convenient excuse. "He's from my world. I wrote an article about him in the past, and he retaliated by essentially kidnapping me. I'm sure you can see already why I'm wary about anything he'll try to do."

There's a ton of missing details in there: he kidnapped her to keep Dr. Chilton alive, he didn't harm her, so on and so forth. But Freddie didn't feel like going into that with a complete stranger--time to keep her mouth shut, for once.

It's difficult to ascertain if she's getting the whole story, half-truths, or blatant lies from Freddie and Frederick Chilton (what was up with two Freds in her life suddenly?). There was no misstep in her heartbeat as she spoke about this Abel Gideon, a name she had seen around the network enough.

"Dr. Chilton says you saved his life." She canted her head, gaze never wavering. "Sounds like you ruined someone's plan."

As Peej mentioned Chilton, Freddie couldn't help but look surprised. He had actually told her that? At least from her part, Freddie had carefully tried to dance around that question, tried to not tell what had really happened in that observatory with her, Chilton and Gideon. After all, she wasn't the one who was gutted. But if Chilton had told Power Girl this...then surely there wouldn't be any harm in talking about it.

"Honestly, I don't know if his plan was for Chilton to be alive or dead. I just was to keep him alive during the...ah, 'procedure' and then keep him alive until the FBI arrived." Freddie's obviously a bit fidgety here. Talking about this act of goodwill (though she would argue an act of necessity) didn't sit well with her at all, the self proclaimed woman with no shame.

"What happened?"

There were a number of scenarios she could run in her head, but only Freddie and Frederick knew the truth. While it was best to hear the tale from the victim's point of view, Peej hadn't wanted to push it in her conversation with Frederick. She could be brash and short-tempered, but tact was important to her when she could help it.

And it might have been a little test to determine if Freddie could be trusted to some degree — any degree.

Chilton had told her already, Freddie kept reminding herself. So she could tell Power Girl what happened--even though really, part of her didn't want to talk about it. After a short inhale, she started talking, in a matter of fact tone, trying to keep her voice steady.

"Abel Gideon kidnapped Doctor Chilton. He also lured me to an abandoned observatory where he...for lack of a better term, he vivisected Chilton." A dramatic pause for effect. "Gideon surgically removed one of Chilton's kidneys and then took some more organs out of his body. It was my job to keep Chilton alive during Gideon's 'surgery' and until the cops and ambulance came." She was tense, obviously not really wanting to talk about this unless she had to.

"Chilton's fine now. He just walks with a cane and has forcibly joined me in being a vegetarian. It was...certainly an experience, though," said with an annoyed sigh.

The expressions on face morphed between horror, disgust, and anger at someone doing that to another human being. It made her toughened skin crawl to think about the sheer number of humans who never experienced even the slightest hint of remorse for their cruel actions. And it seemed at oftentimes that putting them into a system that was supposed to take care of them did more bad than good.

Chilton said it had been a patient. Someone he had been trying to help was the bottom line. It breached all levels of trust a psychiatrist and patient were supposed to share between each other and it was pitiful.

"That's horrible." For the first time since she had sat down and began this conversation, sympathy laced Peej's words. "I'm sorry the both of you were forced to go through that."

Freddie shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, trying to seem like she didn't really care about the fact that she kept a guy alive, it didn't bother her, no psychological scarring here no sirree bob.

She was trying but pretty much failing. And she knew she was failing. So, Freddie turned her head downwards to look at her coffee as she continued to speak.

"We both made it out alive which, at least in Baltimore, seems to be a bit of an accomplishment." There were a lot of murders in Baltimore for some reason.

Well, that didn't curb her concerns at all. Who knows what kind of psychological damage Abel Gideon had done to both Freddie and Frederick. The question she wanted to ask, however, is why. Patients attacking their doctors wasn't uncommon, but there was always some kind of catalyst for it. She wondered if his treatment simply wasn't getting him anywhere.

"He's here, isn't he?" she pursed her lips. "Has he made any contact with you?"

It could have been the catalyst for this unorthodox, budding "friendship".

"He is and he has," she tightly responded, trying her hardest to seem rattled. Because here was a good opportunity. She was perfectly fine casting Abel Gideon as the villain, the reason why she had sought out Power Girl. Better him, who had essentially became a public villain, a public nuisance, than Hannibal Lecter, who Freddie was certain would slither out of any sort of trouble, or Will Graham, who seemed so annoyingly normal at first glance that hardly anyone would pay him any mind.

"I won't lie, it's tough on the nerves."

"Has he threatened you?"

And more importantly, why hasn't she gone to the police with her concerns? There's got to be something they can do from Peej's perspective, though her UNSETTLED status may make it difficult to get their full cooperation if it's ever necessary. She's been fortunate enough so far to avoid the police getting on her case.

"Not yet." Though, from the tense tone of her voice, it's pretty much implied 'and I have no idea why.' Freddie idly tucks a strand of hair behind her ears, accidentally flashing her 'unsettled' tattoo at Peej while she does so. Here's another one who doesn't entirely trust the government.

"I don't want to be up a creek without a paddle when he does."

Bright eyes flickered over the glow of the tattoo for a split-second before settling back on Freddie's face, watching for any strains at the corner of her mouth, the tightening of a muscle in her temple, involuntary twitch of her nose... anything.

Freddie Lounds may be a tabloid reporter with a sketchy request or at least an unorthodox method of gathering protecting for herself, but she was acting like most people would whenever they felt threatened. Someone who had nearly turned Frederick Chilton into an organ salad was someone to rightfully fear.

"And have you spoken to the police yet? Or did they say they can't help you until Gideon's done something."

By then it could be too late. She rarely railed on the police when she got along swimmingly with them back in New York, but they weren't perfect and the system wasn't either as much as she liked to pour her faith into it.

Time to lie.

"There's no proof that Gideon did anything against me. He attacked Chilton, but he hasn't made any overtures towards me yet. The police said that once he did something-sent a threatening letter, attacked me, something like that-then they'd protect me. But at the moment, it's just our words."

Yet another problem. Tossed in a new world, she had no records. No Jack Crawford and the FBI to back up her assertions that Gideon was dangerous. Even if she did talk to the police, what could (or would) they do for her?

"He hasn't attacked the doctor here, has he?"

That would help build a case, if not grant Freddie the protection she needs from someone as dangerous as Abel Gideon.

She could always drop by Gideon, wherever he is, and warn him that if he were to lay a hair on Freddie or anyone in this world she would personally see to it that he would be stuck in a body cast for a month or two.

But being Unsettled means she may not be able to risk it. Besides, if he's got a "clean" record here, she's threatening an "innocent" man. Peej knows better than to provoke the authorities without good cause.

Freddie shrugged, frown on her face. "I don't know. Chilton and Gideon both have been here longer than I have--for all I know, Gideon might have attacked him here or back in the City." She absolutely had no idea herself.

"But if he has...I doubt Chilton would talk about it." The good doctor, at least in Freddie's mind, didn't want to appear weak, to appear helpless. That was one of the reasons she was so shocked that he had told Peej about Gideon's first attack on him. That was weakness. That was a sign that you had failed. Never mind the fact that she was essentially kidnapped by Gideon as well.

"I understand it's not easy," she began solemnly, "But it's hard for people like me and the police to do their job without people stepping forward."

She may be a living lie detector, but she's no telepath. She had an over abundance of abilities, yet telepathy was not one of them. She doubted she would have enjoyed a power like that anyway.

It didn't hurt to at least mention it to the cops. Freddie was certain she'd be shoved away in a filing cabinet somewhere, never to see the light of day again, but at least then she would have told them. And plus, if she ever did end up with her throat slit or her organs sitting pretty on her chest, the cops would have an idea about where to go.

"You're right. I'll go to the police later today and file a report, or whatever it is." Plus, it would win Peej more over to her side. Win win situation.

"Good," she rapped her fingers along the surface of the table. "They may not be able to do anything yet, but they'll have a heads up about Gideon."

She had fought a lot of murderers over the years, but she often dealt with the superpowered sort who were after something more. Power, land, annihilation of mankind... the sort of criminal Abel Gideon apparently was was not something she dealt with on a regular basis. It seemed more up Batman's alley.

But once brought to her, she couldn't turn the other cheek. That wasn't what a superhero did.

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you better run for your life if you can little girl

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also let me know if listening in on her heartbeat is okay? i'm worried it may be godmodding

naw dude, go ahead and do it!

thank you!

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wow that icon sure was sincere