vigilante

- vig·i·lan·te
   [vij-uh-lan-tee]

noun

1. A member of a vigilance committee.
2. Any person who takes the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime.

adjective

3. Done violently and summarily, without recourse to lawful procedures: vigilante justice.

Option 3. That's what she was doing. That's who she was. Maybe not your by-the-book super hero. Maybe not your by-the-book superheroine. But dishing out justice, without recourse to the way of the law. Laws were weak. Laws were foolish. And she really wasn't a good guy.

There was a very good reason for this goal of vigilante justice. A very good reason. Someone she had loved had died. Someone she had loved had been killed. Taken away. All at once. She had seen it happen before her very eyes.

From across the theater, seen the woman's face in the balcony. Seen the flash of the scope.

Sloppy. The person had been sloppy. She had seen a face.

A face was all it took, sometimes, to track a person down.

Track, Jeanne, track.

Jeanne tracked her down.

Tracked down the woman who had murdered her father. The woman who had murdered her boss. The woman who had murdered the only family she knew, all at once. With one bullet. Tracked her down by face. And finally, by her learned name.

Very few vixens escape Jeanne's wrath. This would not be one of them.

The woman's name started with an L. It ended with an 'Enna'.

Kneeling on top a roof on a street overlooking the Sanctuary, Jeanne looked down the scope of her high-powered rifle, waiting for sight or sign of this woman named 'Lenna'.

Her eyes narrowed. A woman stepped out, accompanied by a second woman wearing pants and a bow.

She squeezed the trigger.

It all happened so fast.

~*~

A half ago, Lenna had found Isabel. She'd asked the woman out for coffee, a chance to talk. It wasn't often she had a chance to talk with a friend over coffee. Was Isabel a friend? An ally, at least. Friend, one could hope.

Cut to the second before last. The bullet whizzed by, missing them both by a hair.

All of Lenna's instincts and past experiences welled to the forefront of her mind as she grabbed Isabel by the hand and pulled.

"Run!"

It wasn't cowardly. It was going for better ground. And evening odds.

Isabel wasn't so sure how she felt about Lenna. She'd gotten past the whole Bacchus thing for the most part, but once the fact that the dirty blond was an Adapted got around the Sanctuary, the conflicting emotions cropped back up again. Lenna moving up to be a secondary leader of the Order after the Kabal merge didn't help any, either.

She wasn't at all a fan of Adapteds. If there was one thing Isabel hated more than anything else, it was being helpless, and without her mutation available to her, that was exactly how she felt, no matter how secure her surroundings were. Even in the Sanctuary she felt restless when that woman was around. The fact that an Adapted was a leader didn't sit well with her, either. Of course, Isabel would do as the woman said. If she was anything it was loyal, and she would do her job as a member of the Order. She just wouldn't be happy about it.

So when Lenna asked her out for coffee as a way to sit and catch up, she agreed, even if it was a bit hesitantly. Isabel wasn't put off by the young woman's personality. She could see them being on friendly terms with each other easily enough. It was the nullification ability of hers that put the bone manipulator very much on edge.

Following Boss Lady Number Two through the Sanctuary and out the infamous Golden Doors, the last thing the bow-bedecked mutant expected was to get shot at. She didn't think people were stupid enough to launch some sort of attack on a home for mutants, some of them well known to be dangerous. Especially if it was just one individual, which she was assuming from the single shot.

She ducked as the gunshot sounded, instinctively trying to throw up her defenses and only managing to put herself mentally on alert as her adrenaline kicked up. Before she could think of what to do next, she was being yanked away by Lenna with the instruction to run.

She did what she was told, partially because of an instinct to follow orders from certain individuals, but mostly because she was at a total loss as to what she could do without her mutation available to her.

"The hell was that?!"

"Gunfire!" Lenna explained in two syllables. And really, that was all she needed.

The nearest cover was a small alleyway across the street. That meant weaving around traffic, and over the hood of a car.

Another shot rang out, hitting pavement inches from where they'd just been.

Lenna's hand went to her chest, unzipping her jacket. It found a shoulder holster, and a pistol hanging there. Grasped the gun handle, and drew it out.

With a swing of one arm, she sent Isabel tumbling towards the alley. "Find cover." She said. In the same moment, she moved like water to turn towards the suspected source of the gunfire and take aim. A round pinged off the side of the building, inches from where Jeanne was stationed.

The blond assassin did not flinch. Instead, she took aim. Her body shifted, focusing the crosshairs over Lenna's form.

Gunfire was obvious. Isabel's aim had been to find out who and why, but there really was no time to sort out particulars when the aforementioned gunfire was aimed at her and Boss Lady Number Two. This was a first for her. She hadn't had anyone try to snipe her down before. At least, no one that wasn't part of the NYPD and surrounded by other officers. That is, assuming the gunman was aiming for her. She wasn't so sure why someone would be after Lenna, either. Maybe she'd gone around kissing other people's boyfriends besides Bane. Make that ex-boyfriend.

She was shoved before she could do much contemplating, and rather than swinging at the other young woman for such an action, she went with it. Alleyways were a good plan, and it finally clicked in her mind that taking cover on her own meant that she would make her way out of Lenna's aura and would be able to use her mutation once again. This realization caused her to pick up her pace as much as she was able, barreling carelessly into the street she'd have to cross in order to reach the alleyway destination.

Cars were easy enough to dodge when people were hitting the brakes at the sound of gunfire and turning into each other, causing minor road blocks. It was even easier once she could feel her second skin-like defenses slipping into place as she distanced herself from the Adapted. Cars couldn't do much damage when she was well enough protected and could shoot their tires out before they got too close.

Once she'd gotten herself out of the gunman's sights, or at least assumed herself to be, she was already making her way to the nearest rooftop, using those wonderful spindly bone legs of hers. Isabel was very rarely one to run from any sort of fight, and she didn't intend to change that in this circumstance. She could certainly handle something like a trigger-happy gunman when she had her mutation at her disposal. It was jut a matter of locating and reaching the individual.

A bullet grazed her shoulder.

No keeping Lenna in your crosshairs for you.

Lenna rushed across the street, and out of the line of fire. She put a parked truck between her and the shooter.

On the rooftop, Jeanne cursed. She was momentarily distracted from her sweet revenge by the fact that she was losing blood. And her right arm felt like hell. Oh, if only she were a healer.

Lenna took the momentary break in the action to reload. Her back pressed against the truck's side and she crouched.

It didn't take long for Isabel to reach the nearest rooftop. She had become very adept at using her spidery appendages whenever she deemed it necessary to take advantage of them. As it turned out, they seemed to be put in that situation fairly often recently, their use perhaps seeming a bit excessive to some, but she enjoyed it none the less.

Of course, it wasn't the rooftop the gunman was occupying, seeing as she had been moving in the opposite direction with the Number Two Boss Lady just a moment before. Now that she was away from that terrible nullification, though, she had no problem walking straight into the gunfire.

And that's just what she did, or at least that's what she would have done if the gunman was aiming for her. She, as it looked like the gunman was actually a young woman, was camped on a nearby rooftop, just slightly higher than the one Isabel had perched herself on. It was a simple enough task to skitter over the gravel coating the cement beneath her and close the gap.

That gravel, however, was the thing that alerted the young woman to her presence as she quickly closed the gap between them. That was when the gun was turned on her, though the young woman seemed almost reluctant to do so. The bonemancer was largely bullet-proof, and as such she paid little attention to the projectiles aimed at her. All she had to do was aim her own little bullet of bone at the girl and send it flying. The wannabe assassin couldn't shoot very well if the muscles in her arm were damaged.

Her shoulder was damaged. There was no way in hell she was going to let this random newcomer hurt her further. As the little white bit flew at her, Jeanne discarded her gun, bringing her arms forward to call upon her power. Her eyes sealed shut. Her mind focused. And. Her mouth opened.

A sonic scream flew out at the projectiles to knock them off-course. And also, to target the newcomer. Pesky Spider-B****. Get off my roof.

Isabel had made an error in judgment. She had assumed that, like herself, the young woman on the roof wielding a gun was using such a weapon because she had no mutant powers to take advantage of instead. She personally never used guns because she had no need to do so and much preferred relying on her abilities instead. She had been operating under the assumption that most mutants acted similarly.

She had managed to wound the young woman as she'd planned, hitting her shoulder with one of her projectiles and hopefully ruining the stranger's ability to properly hold her weapon. She hadn't expected the rest of her projectiles to be thrown back by some kind of super scream. Nor herself, for that matter.

Two of her six spidery appendages swung forward as she began to scramble to a stop. The two quickly flattened and pressed together in an attempt to create some sort of shield. It did catch the brunt of the sound wave, but she was still effectively pushed back a few feet, the two extra pairs of legs aiding in preventing her from falling onto her backside as she stumbled.

From the makeshift barrier sprouted several larger projectiles than the ones she'd used before. She wasn't so sure that the additional weight would do much against the woman's mutation, but it was worth a shot. She wondered where Lenna had fled as she fired off the spear-like projectiles. Isabel still didn't know exactly who the gunman had been aiming for, but a bullet in her back while she as distracted would be helpful.

Another scream welled up in her throat. She was injured, and the target was no longer in her sight. This was not what she had planned. But, like a mule, she was stubborn. She would simply have to make it work.

Somewhere down below, silent footsteps clapped against pavement and metal. They went unheard by the combatants above. There was too much sonic screaming and movement anyways, for either of them to pay much attention to anything else.

Isabel was getting angrier as the seconds ticked by and she was unable to get much closer to the offending young woman. She had some capabilities as a long-ranger fighter, but close combat was where she really shined, and with someone that could lay her flat just by screaming at her there wasn't much room for getting very close.

Rather than trying to get any closer to the gun-wielding banshee, Isabel began trying to take stock of what was around her on the roof. If she could find an air conditioning unit or something of equal or bigger size, she could potentially get some decent additional cover. Any advantage was a good advantage.

"You!" Her sonic scream pierced the air as it shot out in a cone.

"Why do zis?" The French accent was thick as another scream followed.

She paused to press a hand against her injury, applying pressure as they moved.

"You were not my target. You wish to die?"

The second she felt like it, so was so drawing her holstered gun.

"Sorry to break it to you, Sonic b*itch, but I'm not dying any time soon!" Isabel shot back, crouching behind her makeshift barrier and backing up behind whatever additional shielding she could find. Rooftops tended to be rather helpful when it came to somewhat large pipes, air conditioning units, and odd protrusions where one part of the building rose higher than others.

The woman had cleared a little something up, however. She hadn't been aiming for Isabel. She'd intended to hit Lenna. While she wouldn't exactly mind seeing an Adapted with a bullet in it, when the Adapted was Boss Lady Number Two, it complicated things. Isabel really, really didn't want to like the woman. However, she wasn't such a bad individual, and she was one of the bosses on top of it, meaning she couldn't exactly be outright mean to the other young woman. It was all one big headache that she had to deal with whenever she ventured to think about such a situation.

"The one one that's gonna wind up as a corpse is you, lady," she added. If only she could get close enough to land a solid hit on the woman. If she could just get a good enough shot at her chest, stomach, or throat, then she could stop that godawful screaming and finish this fight.

With an irritated grunt as the last shock wave in the line passed, she formed several more spikes from her unoccupied hand and then continued to lengthen them. Perhaps she could reach the woman with some thin, vine-like protrusions that snaked across the floor of the rooftop. Maybe she could keep them from being blown back if they were solidly attached to her and kept stiff enough until they reached her. A good strangling would be satisfactory.

She hoped Lenna hadn't ended up making a run for it and leaving her to the would-be assassin on her own. It'd just be another reason to dislike the woman and add to the conflict she already faced concerning the Adapted.

Okay. Now she felt like it. Jeanne drew that gun. And suddenly felt her hand lose all feeling. Funny sentence, that.

Blue-green eyes stared down the barrel of the handgun. Never lowering her sights, the woman drew closer, keeping the edge of the roof behind her.

She'd come up a fire escape while the two had been distracted by the fight. Maybe Isabel could have handled it on her own, but the second the woman had drawn that gun, she'd decided enough was enough. There was no way she was letting the hag take potshots at one of her own.

Jeanne held her hand, cursing caustically.

"Who are you? Who sent you, and why?" Lenna asked.

"Nobody sent me," the woman spat. "I came on my own."

"Revenge?" Came the question. A simple question. It got a simple response. A dangerous grin that told her this wasn't because the woman wouldn't let it be. "Why?"

Jeanne opened her mouth to let loose a sonic scream, in response. The scream fizzled down to nothing as it hit Lenna's aura. She didn't even bat an eye.

"Should we kill her?" She wondered aloud. "I don't think she deserves a second chance to attack me, and this isn't going to end in some Disney moment with everyone learning something about themselves."