[Megan Daniels]

By Megan’s estimates the Hero Program seemed to go through a couple hundred cases of things that could potentially be considered signs of dangerous metahuman activity. For everyone who dramatically blew something up or such there were a few others who had some clue that subtlety might be a good idea. There had been an increasing amount of reports of a human-controlling Puppeteer in San Francisco, and frankly it was embarrassing that the nightly news programs had noticed the pattern before the Program did.

Menagerie was, unless one had come in without her noticing despite all the social media buzz it tended to make, the newest Hero in San Francisco, and thus it was quite rare that she was asked for specifically like this. Megan supposed it made sense though, her skeletons meant if a fight broke out she didn’t need to be all that close to the teenage girl- a particular fact of the case that definitely didn’t make her feel all that comfortable. But she couldn’t exactly refuse the assignment, both because it would be a truly terrible look and because she was genuinely safer than any other local Hero would have been and couldn’t exactly ask someone to go into a dangerous situation because she felt uncomfortable, hence why she was up and in costume before sunrise to respond to the latest sighting.

It was a cool and, at least by city standards, rather quiet morning in San Francisco as she dashed through the streets, albeit not very fast dashing considering her armored outfit. She was certainly trying to be stealthy but while she wasn’t making any noise it wasn’t hard for anybody actually paying attention to notice the woman in chalky bone-lined armor surrounded protectively by half a dozen skeletons of rats, dogs, and deer. Megan turned, jolted by a sound of wood creaking close by. “Alright, show yourself".


Kiran Wagner

[Kiran Wagner]

Kiran's vigilante outfit consisted of a blue hoodie, a black ski mask, a pair of old jeans, and a baseball bat. It wasn't very good looking. It did the job of hiding her identity, but it didn't provide any extra armor, or have a bunch of cool gadgets, or do any of the other things that real Hero outfits did. Kiran had considered trying to take a tailor or someone like that and making them make a costume for her, but she couldn't actually use someone's skills when she captured them unless she had those skills herself. In theory, she could force them to make her something by threatening to torture them with the pain of her touch, but that seemed like a choice with a lot of problems. So here she was.

The problem with being a vigilante was that you had no idea where your services would be needed. Heroes, Kiran knew, primarily did two things: first, they were kind in for certain special situations, like a superpowered SWAT team, and second, they did patrols. Patrols were less about stopping crime directly and more about having a visible presence in an area, which was supposed to decrease crime.

Lacking these resources, the vigilante was forced to seek out criminals on their own, with mixed success. Finding muggings or robberies in progress just by luck was nearly impossible. Breaking up organized crime was possible, but required a lot of legwork and preparation. Finding people using drugs wasn't hard, but Kiran didn't feel a great urge to do that. She felt like she understood people who would want to wash the world away and it didn't seem like being high hurt anyone.

There was one other option that would probably have been her most effective choice if she had had the stomach for it. Putting pictures of herself on the internet, using them as bait to lure in pedophiles, and then ambushing them when they showed was both within her means probably very effective. The problem was that the very thought of doing that made Kiran's stomach churn. She didn't want to be close to anybody like that ever again. And if she ever was close, she sure as hell wasn't going to just hold them for the police. They were dead. That was that.

So Kiran stuck to patrolling, wondering around the city at random and rarely stopping any crimes. Maybe she'd encourage a few people not to try something, who knew. She walked around late at night, did her best to look intimidating, then went back to her latest haunt and slept late into the day. It was the best she could manage just now.

The truth that Kiran had managed to miss was that in her choice of outfit, she looked more like a crook than a hero.

She had managed to stop a drug deal in progress this night and had liberated an amount of cash, forced a man to tie himself to a pole and then give a full confession while she held the phone by her face. The news knew she existed now, so a report of something happening thanks to a human puppeteer wouldn't raise nearly a many eyebrows. She knew the authorities still looked for her, but they didn't know exactly what she looked like.

She was headed home for the day when she got the impression that she was being followed. A clicking, a clattering... Kiran knew better than to try and face any potential threat head on. Hers was a power that worked best to strike from the shadows, to sneak close and lay a hand on someone to end it. She hid under a construction platform and waited for whatever it was to pass on.

What came into view was something monstrous. The figure was clad in bones and surrounded by a dozen lumbering skeletons. The effect was like something out of a horror novel. Kiran stared in fascination. This... this...

This was clearly a supervillain.

It was the only explanation. Who else would wear armor made of frickin' bones? Who else would have an army of skeletons? That was next level evil sh*t right there. Kiran's heart began to pound. Instantly her head was full of visions of conquering whoever this was. Catching a villain... surely that would ingratiate her to the hero program. All it would take was a single touch. Which was clearly going to be a problem, since the villain had armor and a small army.

Her mind raced. She was so close! Her first real supervillain was right in front of her, yet might as well have been miles away. Could she get close through all those skeletons? Did the villain's power work on skeletons that were still inside people? That was a scary thought. She couldn't risk a direct fight. Who knew what those skeletons could do. She couldn't let the villain realize she was really a hero.

In the shadows, she pulled off her mask. No longer a vigilante, now just a homeless girl. All right. Maybe he wouldn't suspect. No, not he, Kiran realized as the figure called out. She. That was fine. She could defeat a woman supervillain as well as a man one.

What she said next was important. She needed a way to get close to the villain. Needed a way to make her think she was harmless...

She didn't know if what she decided on was a great choice, but it was what she had.

“F**k off!” yelled Kiran. “I was here first!”

Megan Daniels

[Megan Daniels]

Megan pivoted to where the creak had come from, there was a building thickly covered in scaffolding, a mess of metal bars and planks put into rectangles and stacked up the building's side like blocks. She caught a vague movement between them, and Megan realized somebody was standing there shrouded in shadow. Nothing about them was especially clearly visible right now, so she took a few cautious steps closer as her skeletons turned to keep close. Oddly they seemed to get more intelligent the longer she practiced with her powers, though they were still completely and utterly under Megan's control.

Though nobody would have been able to tell due to both her mask covering most of her face and the low light, the girl's statement caused Megan to adopt an expression of puzzlement. What on earth was she talking about, saying she was there first? For all the worry over her image Megan had, the idea that somebody might mistake Menagerie for a villain never once crossed Megan's mind, not knowing who she is was one thing and assuming she was practically the opposite of what she actually is was another altogether. By the voice's pitch and height of the shadowy outline the speaker was a girl somewhere between twelve and fifteen, likely not a very well off one at that considering the time of night she was up and on the streets.

"I'm sorry, what? I'm not here to take this place over or anything if that's what you mean, I'm here looking for someone who's been causing some issues around here." She was being vague to attempt to reassure the girl, assuming the idea of a human puppeteer running around the area would pointlessly frighten her. Megan's voice was very sincere, but she certainly was cutting a very intimidating figure especially in the low light with all her body save her mouth, chin, and hair covered in armor and with a small legion of skeletons standing immediately behind her. Megan felt bad for the kid though if somebody coming to try and take what little she had was a real danger, but maybe it would turn out to be helpful "Hey, sorry to bother you about it but have you noticed anybody else around here recently?"

[Kiran Wagner]

Kiran was running on instinct. Fortunately, her instincts were pretty good. Growing up alternately in the orphanage and the street she was intimately familiar with environments where face and verbal sparring were valuable weapons. Her immediate realization was the the girl in front of her (it was a girl, from the voice) had not. That didn't change Kiran's assessment of the other girl as a villain- it just changed her assessment so she believed the villain had grown up among rich people (which to Kiran included anyone middle class).

She wouldn't have been able to put it into words, but Kiran immediately sensed that she had the advantage in their verbal bout. She could posture and declare herself and more than likely the other girl wouldn't joust back. The realization gave her courage and she came forward a bit until she was in the light. She gripping the baseball bat tightly across her chest with a hand on each end. In her ragged hoodie and torn jeans she knew she didn't look like a vigilante. She came forward, giving the bone-clad figure her best death glare.

“Yeah, I saw someone,” she said. “A f**king necromancer! Are you going to make me part of your slave skeleton army or what?”

Megan Daniels

[Megan Daniels]

If nothing else Megan had to hand it to the girl for bravery, while she might have been oblivious to just how frightening she could be Megan was far and away from the level of idiocy it would take to not know that facing somebody in full armor surrounded by living skeletons with only a baseball bat and a lot of attitude was something that took guts. As the younger girl approached the two could see each other far more clearly now. Megan's armor was accented in bone but mainly made of chalky white plastic, a mask covering everything above her lips, her hair was tied behind her head, the feint light of impending sunrise showing it's bright red color.

Rather taken aback by the aggressive and in hindsight probably rhetorical question, Megan replied automatically with a look of disgust saying "Ugh, I can't do human skeletons nor do I want to and... you know what, I am not having this argument right now, I have far more pressing things to occupy my time with. Whether you like me or not I'm here to find a dangerous metahuman seen in this area recently, so I'd advise you watch out. I'm here to help people and they can like it or not, I prefer the former but I'm not letting what other people do or could think keep me from doing the right thing any more." She turned to move away, her skeletons turning and moving to close back into formation behind her.

[Kiran Wagner]

Stepping out into the light with the bat had been Kiran's way of issuing a challenge to the other girl. She'd expected an answer along the same lines- some posturing, some act of aggression, some spitting spitting of her own words back at her. To see the other girl simply turn around and start leaving left Kiran in momentary confusion. The other girl was... just surrendering? It didn't make any sense.

She stood in the light, holding the bat, watching the other girl turn away. Was she just... being ignored? Seen as not worth the other girl's while? Kiran had sensed the contempt in the other girl's voice as she had spoken. The air of dismissal. The feeling of being looked down upon. Like she was dirt beneath the other girl's shoes. The feeling was one Kiran was sensitive too.

A burst of anger passed through her. Oh, so skeleton girl thought she was some cool sh*t, huh? F**k her! They weren't that far apart in age; what had skeleton girl done that Kiran hadn't? Oh, so skeleton girl could control bones, huh? Kiran could control whole people! Kiran could bring her under control with just one touch. No way she was going to let this happen. No way she was going to just be shoved aside. Not by skeleton girl, not by anyone. Kiran had spent her life being stepped on, ground into the lowest of the low. She had been nothing for a long time. But now? Now she was something. Now she was someone. Now she had powers. And she wasn't about to let skeleton girl treat her like she was still nothing.

The movement was barely a conscious decision, yet by the time she was aware of it she had committed to it with all her heart and soul. Her face was contorted into a snarl and she run forward, bat held high, intending to bring it down on skeleton girl's helmet with all her strength.

Megan Daniels

[Megan Daniels]

Megan most definitely had not been expecting that she would be attacked by the girl. This was not out of arrogance but simply due to the fact that while she was usually relatively adept in reading other people but in this case she had made several serious misjudgments of the situation. In the short period between her turning and the skeletons being able to close rank behind her the bat had hit her.

Crumbling to her hands and knees Megan turned as her ears rang, she looked at the girl in surprise as she shifted so did the skeletons, with a barely audible creak all six were standing in formation around Megan as she slowly and awkwardly got up, still utterly baffled what on earth had aggravated the girl. Bringing her arm around to be able to turn on her earpiece at a moment's notice she said "W...what the hell was that all about?" she sighed, she knew that what she was prepared to do was going to make her feel terrible, but this was a cut-and-dry example of what the whole law was far "Assaulting a law enforcer is a rather serious crime miss, I really don't like pulling my authority like this but I think in this situation it's the right thing to do. Now how about you explain yourself?" of course she knew perfectly well that the girl was under absolutely no obligation to explain anything to her and in fact procedurally speaking was not at all her duty to perform, but Megan was certainly not going to pass on a chance to ask.

[Kiran Wagner]

She'd never actually hit anyone with her baseball bat before. It was there as a last line of defense, when she couldn't get in position to touch someone. Her power was the main thing she relied on for protection. On some level, Kiran had assumed that a hit with the bat would function like it did in the movies: painful, but ultimately not harmful. It was when she swung for the first time, when she brought it down on the girl's helmet and heard the crack as metal impacted bone, that it suddenly struck her what a serious this was, how much it could hurt and maim, even kill. And then a sudden panic: Oh god oh god I've killed her... She nearly dropped the bat at the thought.

But fortunately it wasn't so. The girl dropped to her knees, clearly dazed, but her helmet was made of something sturdy and she didn't looked permanently injured. Definitely not dead. Definitely angry.

And now it began to dawn on Kiran that she might have made a mistake, maybe a big mistake, maybe a mistake that would keep her out of the hero program. Fear seized her- and anger. It wasn't supposed to be like this! It wasn't supposed to happen this way!

“Y-you're not a hero! Heroes don't dress like they're the grim reaper! Heroes don't have the power to control freaking bones!” But she was thinking of her own power even as she said it.

[Megan Daniels]

Oh. Megan was cursing herself for not realizing what the girl had assumed earlier. Her costume was mostly polymer with very small amounts of actual bone but that wasn't very obvious in the faint light of the approaching dawn and either way she couldn't really help what the skeletons themselves looked like, so there was only so much she could do in the first place to reduce how intimidating she looked. She certainly wasn't happy about being hit with a metal bat but in retrospect it was a damn brave thing to do. 

Moreover this girl seemed to have a remarkable talent for pushing people's buttons, not a lot really aggravated Megan but keeping her cool here was becoming a challenge.

She sighed "I didn't get to choose what powers I got, but I get to choose what to do with them. Now I really do have a job to do finding somebody, so look..." she sighed "Stay safe and stop hitting people and I'll be on my way. Deal?"

[Kiran Wagner]

The girl was a hero. The thought came crushing down on Kiran with impossible awareness, and with a widening of her eyes and a beating of her heart she realized how much she had messed up: she'd insulted and attacked a hero, someone who probably knew Paladin, come just shy of hurting her, made herself look an idiot... in the space of a moment she felt her dreams evaporating, her future hope going up in flames. She looked at the hero with the skeletons with abject horror. No. No no no no no... She'd ruined everything. Her hope for becoming a hero, for becoming anything, had just gone completely away, and it was her fault.

Kiran's hands began to tremble. The bat dropped to the ground. She couldn't think of what to do. She had to do something, say something... had to find a way to fix this. She couldn't think of anything. Her chance... her chance was walking away from her, ruined. Had to do something. Had to say something. Only able to think of one thing.

“Wait!” Kiran called. “I want to be a hero too!”

Megan Daniels

[Megan Daniels]

Megan swiveled around as she heard the girl. It was the sort of thing she expected she'd be hearing a lot but there was something about the way it had been said that caught her attention. More of the situation started to click into place in Megan's mind, she took a step in the girl's direction, dismissing her skeletons and causing them to fade into smoke as their bones seemingly returned to their original resting places. 

Being a Hero was one of the most desirable seeming jobs on earth while simultaneously being one of the most brutal in practice. Many people said they would want to be one, but very rarely did they realize what it even meant- to be responsible for the safety of people at all times, to be placed in situations there was no way to prepare for against opponents you could never have predicted, to hide who you even were from the world just to get a chance for peace and quiet every once and a while. Most people said the words the girl had with a wishful undercurrent; she had said it more like a goal.

Softly, Megan said "Are you sure? It's a tough way to live honestly, though... I suppose you get hat that's like already" she sighed and cracked a small smile "Nonetheless, an admirable sentiment, there's not nearly enough people around who truly want to help" Megan probably could have listed a number of reasons why the girl couldn't be a hero (for a few more years at any rate), but she had never wanted to be that sort of a person. What mattered was that there was a voice to be heard, not who it belonged to.

[Kiran Wagner]

Was she sure? What kind of question was that? How could this other girl not realize what she had, being a hero like she was? When you were a hero, people looked up to you. When you were a hero, you made a difference. Kiran wanted that for herself. Wanted it more than anything. She wanted to have control of her life again. She wanted to be respected. Right now, it wasn't like that. She was just Kiran. As a hero, she could be something more.

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Yes! I want it!”

Her voice was stretched. Stressed. Her hands were shaking a little. She was so close. Had to do this right- had to convince-

The girl had come out here to look for her. She knew that. She was wanted. She didn't know what would happen. But she had this chance, and she had to take it. All or nothing. Do or die.

“M-my power is kind of scary,” she said. She looked at the girl helplessly. “But so is yours.”

She hesitated. Last chance to back out. She didn't. She met the girl's mask where her eyes would be.

“If I touch people, I can control their bodies.”

Megan Daniels

[Megan Daniels]

Of course this couldn't be simple. She had suspected the girl might be the very person she was sent after but hadn't had confirmation. Officially, she knew this girl had broken the law (several times over in fact), but try as she might Megan couldn't see the girl as a criminal- she was a frightened teenager on her own in the world who genuinely seemed to want to help. She let out a deep breath and said something she realized she had been holding inside for a while, waiting for someone else like her in this way. "It is... difficult, isn't it, nobody chose what they got, but everyone seems to expect certain powers to be more or less 'heroic'. I think a lot of Heroes are probably more dangerous then us, but people's fear has never been rational."

Megan kneeled down, focusing on a familiar type of signal, and floating up from bellow the ground, a collection of dozens of tiny bones knit together into the skeleton of a squirrel, which climbed around her arm and perched on her palm as she rose "It's not really about what people think in this case though. I... I never really thought I could be a Hero actually, but the world is always so much more complex then it seems- and that's sometimes for the better." she put her arm down, the squirrel scampering to rest on her shoulder "Sorry if I'm rambling on. Anyway, I can't really promise anything conclusively but I want to help. You want to help people and there aren't enough people like that sometimes. I don't think you can legally become a Hero at your age, but I can see how far along to being one I can bring you." Megan held out her gloved hand "Menagerie, San Francisco Hero Program, pleased to make your acquaintance."
 
She was going to have a lot of paperwork to do, but this chance to be compassionate was what she signed up for, to help people in any way she could.

[Kiran Wagner]

Kiran stared at the outstretched hand a moment.

“Wow,” she said. “That was a really corny speech.”

Heartfelt, she supposed, maybe even a little touching- but of course Kiran wasn't about to admit it. Guardedness was in her nature, and admitting that something was touching meant admitting you had a weakness... but she felt the force of it, all the same, and she felt a little grateful that Menagerie had taken the time to say it. Of course, she did feel the other girl was exaggerating a little bit. Controlling skeletons was villainous, sure, but it was way better than controlling people.

She held out her hand a bit but frowned. “I'm not going to jail,” she told Menagerie. “Not ever.” She said it with a fierceness that bespoke of a willingness to do anything... anything at all to keep it from happening. Probably there were supposed to be consequences for all those people she hurt and mind controlled along the way. Whatever, Kiran was intending to avoid them. She didn't see it as irresponsible, she just saw it as getting what was rightfully hers. Not the best way to start out a hero career, maybe. But, as said, it was just a start, after all.

Slowly she stuck out her hand and took Megan's gloved one. “Call me Menagerie.” She suddenly flinched, realizing what she'd said by mistake. "Wait! No! Crap! That's not my name! My name's supposed to be Silencer... uh..." she trailed off as she realized she had just botched her introduction as a hero.

[Megan Daniels]

Megan chuckled at the girl's comment "Yeah, I guess it was. It's kind of just the way I tend to talk so I don't think too much about it. Still, corny or not I meant everything I said". she had never expected the night would turn out like this but it was quite welcome, the girl wasn't a bad person by any means she could tell, and Megan had long ago learned she could usually trust her 'feel' for what a person is like. She had committed some crimes, admittedly Megan couldn't even say for sure what crimes she had committed beyond vigilantism, controlling people kind of fell into a legal gray zone, but this was (at least from her superior's perspective) her biggest weakness. Criminal or not, this girl was trying genuinely to help people, there was a harsh aggressive edge to her but not much genuine malice, how could she fight or capture somebody who seemed to have gone through a lot of struggle and yet still maintained the same goal to help Megan herself did?

Pressing her lips a bit she said "I don't want you to go to jail. I'm not the one in charge of everything of course but I can try to show people that you're more than any mistakes you made getting here." the truth was, they needed Heroes. As much publicity as they got and despite how many people envied the job, the Heroes are vastly outnumbered by the number and magnitude of threats in the world. Inherent image difficulties hadn't kept her out, and they shouldn't keep anyone else out. Most of them lacked Paladin and Celerity's amazing talents to be both effective and generally beloved, but now that she'd seen it from the inside, the Program needed all the help it could get.

Her usually unflinching smile briefly returned at the recently introduced Silencer's slip up "It's okay, I'll keep it between us that you accidently tried to steal my name. Great meeting you Silencer." she shook the hand a little and smiled warmly. "Do you want to come back with me or just give me a way to contact you? The latter might be a bit safer and give me more chance to vouch for you"