ItsFulgrim
❤︎⊹𝓢𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓽⊹❤︎
The office smelled like stale coffee and regret, two things Jolyne was all too familiar with by this time. She tugged at the collar of her button-up shirt, the fabric stiff and unforgiving against her skin. It was suffocating, constricting, a symbol of everything she despised about her current predicament. A suit and tie felt like shackles, and in her mind, this office, this punishment, was nothing short of a prison sentence, maybe she was overreacting a little bit.
Heroes weren’t supposed to file paperwork or sit through disciplinary hearings like this! They were meant to fight, to protect, to be out there where they were needed most. And yet, here she was, bound to a desk by bureaucratic nonsense, and she was ready to jump to her feet and leave at any chance given.
"Suspension means you sit quietly and reflect," Her representative at the agency had told her, his tone firm, authoritative. "No field work. No unauthorized intervention. No bending the rules."
Jolyne had responded the way she always did, a simple, practiced smile masking the frustration boiling beneath her skin. She nodded as if she understood, as if she cared, and left the office by shaking the man's hand and thanked him for his time, leaving with a light skip on her step, reassuring herself this would be all okay once the agency lifted her time out.
The representative watched her go, rubbing his temples. He already knew, this wouldn’t be the last time he had to file a report on her this week. With the way things were going, he wouldn’t be surprised if she managed to make more agents quit. The last two had barely lasted a month with how many scoldings they got from their superiors, complaining on how unnefective Jolyne was.
Everything had gone downhill the moment Amadaine Inc. came into power. As soon as it did, all 'supers' were forced to register by the time they turned eighteen, signing away their autonomy in a flurry of legal paperwork and restrictions disguised as regulations. Jolyne had witnessed the debates as a teenager, had sat through endless discussions about what it meant for people like her, and now she was living through the consequences. The so-called heroes of the world were forced to jump through countless hoops, chained by rules designed to limit them rather than support them or their work.
Her latest transgression had earned her a bright red stamp on her record, banned from doing any heroics in an entire sector of the city after "disrupting an important mission." Never mind the fact that the mission had been botched from the start, or that she had stepped in only because the assigned hero had been too busy basking in the limelight to actually do his job. It didn’t matter. The rules were the rules. Amadaine’s president saw the rigid structure as efficient.
It most definetely was not.
Most zones had at least one so-called hero who was little more than a celebrity. Big on words, but lacking in action. They posed for cameras, smiled for the news, but when it came down to actually saving people? Useless. It was enough to make Jolyne sick.
Frustration churned in her stomach as she wandered downtown, though she wasn’t sure if it was hunger or anger, or maybe both, most definetely both. Either way, she needed food. Something cheap, something fast. A food truck, a convenience store, whatever she could afford. If things kept spiraling downward, this might be the last proper meal she had for a while.
With that sobering thought in mind, she stepped into the nearest convenience store, heading straight to the back. Candy bars. A fresh one unlike the stale stash she had back home. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something for now.
She looked around as if hopeful anything would take her out of the migraine she felt building up in her skull, at some point staring at a screen on one of the shelves, the news playing over the same things as always, celebrating some new hero who did a great thing or reporting the latest disaster striking town, but then again, was there anything she could do about it? Sure there was! Not as long as her actions were restricted though.
That is when she saw a few more people enter the store, giving them a quick glance without much thought, though the longer they remained in the space, the more she suspected the group was up to no good, she wasn't sure how to explain it, not that she had to convince herself in this case. The moment the group began to move closer to the worker behind the register, reaching for their pockets and the insides of their pockets, she could not hold it in any longer, her legs simply moved on their own, and there she went, like a dart made out of a violet blurr, a quick blink and she was already on the counter, her hands on her hips and a grin on her face.
"So then, I bet you are all having a great ol' time since old man Macoy Summers is on a break... Y'all got all the time in the world to bother innocents, making a big ol' mess around town? Well guess what, scum. Now you got me to deal with."
And the conflict started, thankfully no guns were involved, otherwise Jolyne might've had a much more different issue at hand.
The imp managed to count the group before her strike, six, enough for her to need a slightly more careful approach. A metal pipe was swung at her, quickly deflected by a shield formed from her palm, bouncing back onto the attacker. The rest joined, similarly armed, wrenches, knives, until the sixth decided to step onto the fight, a quick spark igniting from between his fingers as a surge of energy sent her flying back against a wall, crashing into shelves with a loud thud.
Lightning man, amazing, just what she needed. She stood up with a gasp, trying her best to look strong although she felt as if she would have bruises for the next few months. She was fast enough to dodge a few normal folk, but electricity wasn't exactly easy to dodge, particularly because these volts were following her with ridiculous precision.
Jolyne wasn't exactly sure how she would get out of this one.
Heroes weren’t supposed to file paperwork or sit through disciplinary hearings like this! They were meant to fight, to protect, to be out there where they were needed most. And yet, here she was, bound to a desk by bureaucratic nonsense, and she was ready to jump to her feet and leave at any chance given.
"Suspension means you sit quietly and reflect," Her representative at the agency had told her, his tone firm, authoritative. "No field work. No unauthorized intervention. No bending the rules."
Jolyne had responded the way she always did, a simple, practiced smile masking the frustration boiling beneath her skin. She nodded as if she understood, as if she cared, and left the office by shaking the man's hand and thanked him for his time, leaving with a light skip on her step, reassuring herself this would be all okay once the agency lifted her time out.
The representative watched her go, rubbing his temples. He already knew, this wouldn’t be the last time he had to file a report on her this week. With the way things were going, he wouldn’t be surprised if she managed to make more agents quit. The last two had barely lasted a month with how many scoldings they got from their superiors, complaining on how unnefective Jolyne was.
Everything had gone downhill the moment Amadaine Inc. came into power. As soon as it did, all 'supers' were forced to register by the time they turned eighteen, signing away their autonomy in a flurry of legal paperwork and restrictions disguised as regulations. Jolyne had witnessed the debates as a teenager, had sat through endless discussions about what it meant for people like her, and now she was living through the consequences. The so-called heroes of the world were forced to jump through countless hoops, chained by rules designed to limit them rather than support them or their work.
Her latest transgression had earned her a bright red stamp on her record, banned from doing any heroics in an entire sector of the city after "disrupting an important mission." Never mind the fact that the mission had been botched from the start, or that she had stepped in only because the assigned hero had been too busy basking in the limelight to actually do his job. It didn’t matter. The rules were the rules. Amadaine’s president saw the rigid structure as efficient.
It most definetely was not.
Most zones had at least one so-called hero who was little more than a celebrity. Big on words, but lacking in action. They posed for cameras, smiled for the news, but when it came down to actually saving people? Useless. It was enough to make Jolyne sick.
Frustration churned in her stomach as she wandered downtown, though she wasn’t sure if it was hunger or anger, or maybe both, most definetely both. Either way, she needed food. Something cheap, something fast. A food truck, a convenience store, whatever she could afford. If things kept spiraling downward, this might be the last proper meal she had for a while.
With that sobering thought in mind, she stepped into the nearest convenience store, heading straight to the back. Candy bars. A fresh one unlike the stale stash she had back home. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something for now.
She looked around as if hopeful anything would take her out of the migraine she felt building up in her skull, at some point staring at a screen on one of the shelves, the news playing over the same things as always, celebrating some new hero who did a great thing or reporting the latest disaster striking town, but then again, was there anything she could do about it? Sure there was! Not as long as her actions were restricted though.
That is when she saw a few more people enter the store, giving them a quick glance without much thought, though the longer they remained in the space, the more she suspected the group was up to no good, she wasn't sure how to explain it, not that she had to convince herself in this case. The moment the group began to move closer to the worker behind the register, reaching for their pockets and the insides of their pockets, she could not hold it in any longer, her legs simply moved on their own, and there she went, like a dart made out of a violet blurr, a quick blink and she was already on the counter, her hands on her hips and a grin on her face.
"So then, I bet you are all having a great ol' time since old man Macoy Summers is on a break... Y'all got all the time in the world to bother innocents, making a big ol' mess around town? Well guess what, scum. Now you got me to deal with."
And the conflict started, thankfully no guns were involved, otherwise Jolyne might've had a much more different issue at hand.
The imp managed to count the group before her strike, six, enough for her to need a slightly more careful approach. A metal pipe was swung at her, quickly deflected by a shield formed from her palm, bouncing back onto the attacker. The rest joined, similarly armed, wrenches, knives, until the sixth decided to step onto the fight, a quick spark igniting from between his fingers as a surge of energy sent her flying back against a wall, crashing into shelves with a loud thud.
Lightning man, amazing, just what she needed. She stood up with a gasp, trying her best to look strong although she felt as if she would have bruises for the next few months. She was fast enough to dodge a few normal folk, but electricity wasn't exactly easy to dodge, particularly because these volts were following her with ridiculous precision.
Jolyne wasn't exactly sure how she would get out of this one.
