Take out the trash? Of all the cliche heroisms she could’ve chosen, she had to pick that one. Evelyn’s face remained blank, but her eyes rolled deep into her head. So far, this wasn’t looking to be a particularly challenging fight. Intellect is the most important part of combat, and if ‘take out the trash’ was the most inventive thing this woman’s pitiful intellect could come up with, it didn’t bode well.

Evelyn stared blankly at the woman as she delivered her little ostentatious speech. She was boastful, with an overbearing attitude. And was that anger she detected in her voice? Emotional and unintelligent. Not very good signs at all. Oh well, she could function as practice. Her landing served to display her might; she seemed lithe and strong, and power was very much a significant part of battle, even if it wasn't as important as certain other factors.

”How can I be both smug and soulless?” She asked blankly, letting her hood down and her hair go free, displaying very well how she could be both smug and soulless, though of course on paper the two very much contradicted. She loved making other people feel stupid. It served very well to heighten her own perceived (and on some level very real) intellect.

She heard her hallucination of a brother let out a breath between his cheeks “This is boring!” He stressed. “Less talk, more action. Even if what she says is comically ridiculous.” He grinned pointing at the woman.

Evelyn would have to agree, her combat muscles were getting itchy, and since the woman wouldn’t go first, she shrugged, ”Fine. Have it your way.” And in one fluid motion pulled out another, much larger knife and slashed it at the woman’s masked face, quickly adopting her own combative stance. Immediately afterwards, she slid backwards and tossed the throwing knife at the woman’s shoulder, aiming to disable the use of her arm.

“Now this is what I’m talking about!” Axel grinned. “Finally some action around here.”

”What are you talking about? We’ve had plenty of action lately.” Evelyn said in Axevian - the twins’ secret language - as she pulled out another knife (this one could function thrown or in close combat melee) and tossed it into her other hand.

“I know, but that plane ride was boring.”

Evelyn snickered as she drew out a large melee knife and stood, ready for battle.

She bit her lower lip as she stared intensely into the tiny, rusted mirror hanging above the sink in her trailer and brought her eye close as she intently smeared the pale foundation over her scars. She had trouble finding the right shade, much less finding one without getting recognized. Her skin had always been unnaturally pale, something she and her brother had always taken great pride in. Before the incident, her appearance was something she always took pride in. She never even thought about touching makeup, although Axel did play with it from time to time. Even after she acquired her scars, she didn’t want to cover them up, although she did think about it. She wondered if covering them up would somehow heal her, at least mentally, but she was scared that she would try and fail and would know once and for all that nothing could ever fix her, so she avoided it.

Putting on the finishing touches, she stepped back. This was her third try, and, being the incredibly fast learner she was, she would have to say she succeeded. If one looked close, they could see the faint outline of twisted flesh, but it would take a conscious effort to notice. She cocked her head to the side and once again brought her eye close to the mirror, examining herself closely. Did she feel any more whole? That would have to be a disheartening and resounding no. No, she didn’t feel any different. She could still feel the scars, she could still tell they were there. In fact, the makeup made her feel even worse. She felt like she was lying, not just to the world but to herself, and she always felt uncomfortable lying. She let out a curt, reserved sigh. Unfortunately, she would have to wear it until things died down. The price of fame.

She grabbed the colored contact lense and slipped it into her right eye, covering up the gold. It was a slightly lighter shade of brown than her left eye, but it would have to do. This was a practice she was quite familiar with. She and Axel did it all the time when they had to blend in. Axel did it far more than she did, but she was still accustomed to it. She blinked a few times, letting the contact set in, and stared at herself again. She looked so...normal. It was weird. But at least all her identifying features were covered. It would take a close eye and a huge Sunny Slater fan to recognize her.

She walked out into what could liberally be called the living room of her trailer. Cat was lying curled up on the floor. He was almost completely healed now, healed enough to take care of himself. The wounds had turned into scar tissue, a huge patch on his back half was completely hairless, just twisted, pink flesh. All that was left of his tail was a tiny little nub, it wasn’t healed enough to implement the prosthetic. Plus, she hadn’t finished building it yet. It hurt her to see him so disfigured, it reminded her so much of herself. But she still loved him.

She kneeled down and ran her hand down his back. He lifted his head up and looked at her, blinking a few times. ”So, what do you think?” She asked, smiling. He ran his rough tongue across her hand, then set his head back down with a grunt. She laughed, ”Yeah, I’d have to agree.” She stood back up and picked up her mostly-packed duffle bag, then went into the bathroom and scooped the large pile of makeup into the opening. She went back into the living room and pulled on her black jacket and a pair of gloves. Every ounce of her disfigurement was completely covered. She knelt back down by Cat and gave him a kiss on the forehead. ”Be back in a couple days.” She said. He licked his lips in return. And like that, she was out the door.

Why go the San Francisco? Well, there was the obvious answer. Everyone would be looking for her in New York. She would be much safer elsewhere, it would take so much less effort to hide. But San Francisco seemed like such a bad choice of hiding place. It was a huge, populated area, full of people to recognize her, and so full of metahumans. Well, she wanted to see the sights, and by see the sights she meant see exactly what metahumans San Francisco held. She felt like she had experienced the array of what New York had to offer, and now that she had such a high profile, running into a metahuman to fight would be so much easier. Hopefully, they’d be much more competent than Sunny Slater.

As she walked into the city, she smiled politely at everyone she passed, she put on a different face, one much softer, less threatening, more normal. She was like a completely different person. She held this persona as she walked into the airport. She’d gotten a couple double takes so far, but nothing substantial. She hadn’t been noticed.

She’d booked her flight using a false identity - Kylie Booker. The ID was flawless, she’d had it for years, before her incident, making small changes along the way as needed. Thus her ID, like her current face, was scarless. The only problem she had was the metal detector, but that had a simple solution. She approached the detector with a heavy limp, and as soon as the detector went off, she rolled up her pant leg to show them the metal leg in place of a flesh one. State of the art technology, she said. Everyone was very impressed and they let her go without a pat down. No one would dare question the poor, helpless amputee.

She got a seat in the back corner of the plane, and the ride went without a hitch. She buried her face in a book - a nonfiction piece on evolutionary psychology - and went completely unnoticed for the four and a half hour ride.

Once they landed, she took her time on the way to the hotel, walking slowly, taking in the city. She’d rarely been outside New York, but it was just like they said, every city had a different feeling, a different soul, and she wanted to take it all in.

The hotel was nice, four stars. She wasn’t one for luxury, but she wanted plenty of space in her room. She didn’t have any plans to stop inventing while she was away and she needed enough space to to build things and weld materials.

First things first though, she wanted to take in the city. She stepped outside the hotel and began wandering aimlessly, making a map in her head as she walked, head swinging back and forth, taking in the sights. She dropped her normal persona and returned to her blank expression, although she checked several times to make sure her makeup was still on right. She wanted to attract a metahuman, but she didn’t want a militia.

Evelyn swelled up with confidence when she noticed she was garnering a crowd. An audience for her performance. Still, she couldn’t help but notice with some disdain that the crowd seemed to be admiring Sunny. Evelyn was aiming more for humiliation, but that was more the icing on the cake, and she could do without the icing. She just wanted Sunny to feel pain, and so far mission accomplished, but she wasn’t done yet.

She heard a giggling to her left when Sunny smiled at her, a sentiment that matched her own inward smile. What a naive little ditz. If anyone could buy her performance, it would be her.

“Oh come on, don’t sell yourself short, look around, the whole audience is buying it.” Axel grinned.

She looked around, and sure enough, the crowd seemed enraptured in this assailant-turned-worshipper, snapping photos, feeling safe enough to stick around. Or maybe they were just stupid enough. Evelyn was never a great performer. She was better than the average person, of course. In order to even remotely blend in she had to pretend. Her brother, however, outperformed her by leagues. He wore a different personality like he wore a different shirt. Thus, he was a fantastic teacher, but in terms of acting she was always in his shadow.

Now, however, he had no shadow to cast. She had to perform for the both of them.

“We’ll deal with that when we have to.” She spoke softly as she helped Sunny up. ”Look, I’ll explain everything later, but right now we have to get you to safety. You’re not safe out here.” She looked around frantically, as if searching for assailants. ”We have to get going.” She said urgently.

“Here, let me just set your arm into place.” Grabbing her arm, she suddenly and violently twisted it, aiming to distract her with an immense amount of pain as she, with great speed, pulled out a knife and nonlethally shoved it into her abdomen. She would turn that pink red no matter what it took.

That crack was more than satisfying, and her screams of pain were the cherry on top. It was a delight to see the flesh bend in twist in ways it was never supposed to. She felt powerful. She let Sunny’s arm go slack. “Isn’t it nice,” she said, bending forward, speaking directly into her ear, “to finally feel something real.” There was something cathartic to causing her this pain. Like it made her own so much more tolerable. Like it provided some kind of excuse, some explanation for what she endured. It didn’t, of course, but that’s what it felt like in the moment, and that’s all that really mattered.

Her celebration was interrupted when she realized they’d begun falling. She thought, perhaps, that Sunny would catch herself, but that quickly seemed like it wasn’t going to be the case. At this height, the impact would kill them both instantly. Evelyn was by no means ready to die. Not with so much left to avenge. And there was no way this idiotic woman would be the cause of her death.

Certain powers, as far as she understood, required a deal of concentration, and she had no doubt that something as powerful and complicated as Sunny’s abilities required a great deal of it. The pain must’ve disrupted her attention. That left Evelyn with only one option for survival: she needed to help Sunny regain her focus.

Evelyn knew quite a bit about finding focus in the face of pain. She endured months of torture without ever allowing herself a single facial twitch, even as they pulled off her fingers and took a chainsaw to her leg. She walked half a mile on a single broken leg, supported only by an improvised crutch in the form of a splintered slab of wood. She knew much about controlling herself while in a great deal of pain; a much greater deal than Sunny here. Now all she had to do was somehow impart her knowledge through the thick skull of this absolute halfwit of a human being.

“Listen to me and listen close.” She spoke directly in her ear in an even, unemotional voice. ”Remove yourself from your pain. Separate your mind from your body. You are not your pain and you will not be controlled by it. Focus all your being into your powers and fly before we both end up a smudge on the concrete.”

To see her whining and crying, it was so pathetic it was almost disappointing, she wanted a fair fight, but at the same time, it was so very gratifying. To see someone snivel and whine before her, to have such complete control over them, it was absolutely delightful. She needed this. To see this human unfairly blessed with power, power that they did not earn, power not born from skill but from luck, finally put in their rightful place. And by her no less. It was exhilarating.

”Looks like you do care about your fans.” She said, dislodging the knife from the girl’s throat as Sunny was bombarded with her fans’ belongings. The girl stumbled back, weeping, her makeup marred by tears. ”Or at least you care about your reputation.” She casually hopped over the small, metal fence separating the crowd from the star. ”Now, let’s see if you can live up to it.”

”Everybody keep throwing stuff at her! We wouldn’t want to give her a chance to put her guard up, would we?” She commanded as she walked toward the middle of the red carpet. Her inward grin was large and confident, her heart was pounding with excitement, but no one could see it in her face or hear it in her voice. As usual, she was a blank slate. ”We want this to be a fair fight, don’t we? Wouldn’t want your gravity guard getting in the way, that seems a bit too unbalanced.” She paused, smirking inwardly. ”Well, I suppose I want it to be a fair fight. You don’t really have any say in the matter.” She twirled the knife in her hand, standing directly in front of Sunny. ”Now comes the real test.” She swiftly and suddenly threw her knife at Sunny’s abdomen, again, nothing fatal, but it would hurt like hell. The knife flew towards her as fast as an arrow, slow enough for her to put her gravity guard up, but fast enough she doubted that Sunny could react fast enough to physically dodge out of the way of it.

Half anticipating the impact, she let the knife fall out of her had before the shock got back to her wrist. The knife clattered to the ground. She was surprised Sunny had reacted so quickly, but was more glad than anything. Her idiocy was overwhelming, but her power level was astonishing. This was looking to be a satisfyingly difficult fight.

She was taken somewhat aback by how stereotypically girly she was. She knew it was bad, but she didn’t know it was this bad. Was that a valley girl accent? She didn’t know people had that any more. Typically, Sunny's arrogance would annoy her (Evelyn’s superiority should be immediately obvious to everybody), but at the moment it was more cute than vexing. She knew it came purely out of her evident lack of brain cells. This would be just the right amount of easy. She couldn’t wait to put her down.

Of course, there was the problem of her gravity field to address. No knife could penetrate that. But she was prepared for this particular conundrum. She had a plan. This wasn’t simply a matter of skill versus power, but brains versus brawn.

She easily dodged Sunny’s dainty tap, knowing exactly the power that could be put behind it. As she did, she grabbed a young woman that was running away and wrapped her arm around her body as she held a knife against her throat. “Lower your gravity fields, or I'll start killing your fans.” She stated plainly. There was a chorus of screams from the audience. The woman started crying, which simply invigorated her. Without warning, she quickly drew her knife deep into her jugular. “Oops, there's one.” She said as she let her limp, dead body fall to the floor. She grabbed another one by the back of the shirt as they were trying to make their escape and put the now-bloodied knife to their throat. “And if any of you move, I'll keep killing more!” Of course, not everyone obeyed her orders, so she reached into her pocket, pulled out a large throwing knife and tossed it deftly at a fan who had continued running away. It hit her right in the back of the neck and she went down, dead. “I told you.” She scolded the audience. Nearly everyone froze. A scared and eerie silence fell across the crowd, the only sounds were of people crying.

”Now,” she stated, pressing the knife slightly into her victim’s throat, drawing blood; the girl gasped, she couldn’t have been more than sixteen, ”I want everyone to start throwing whatever you have at our icon here. Phones, makeup, spare change, whatever you have in your purse. That way we’ll know if Gravity Girl here truly cares for her fans.” The fans slowly but surely started lobbying their belongings at their idol. If she’d lowered her gravity fields, these items would hit. This would ensure that she would be vulnerable enough to penetrate with her blades. Not to mention this would serve very well to humiliate her.