Play the Frail (Cassie)

[circe]

Long slender fingers curled along and pulled strands of purple hair out of her red eyed gaze. Her attention was diverted from what she’d been doing. As lips pulled back in a sneer towards her own distraction, the youthful, pretty face was twisted and it lost some of its otherworldly beauty, but that look and twisted features could only last so long, the woman who was looking down into a pot of boiling water, with colored purple smoke coming from its depths.

As eyes gazed into the water looking for a sign that the potion was complete. Her lips pulled up in a small smile as she curled her index finger and her thumb adding a small pinch of green dried leaves. As she let them fall, she was pleased to see that as soon as they touched the concoction in the black pot, the fire under it sparked up engulfing the pot in its green flames. She stepped back a laugh bubbling up from her lips, as she watched her eyes glued to the flames, watching them die down and extinguish themselves. If she’d had any doubts she didn’t need to hold them. It was done and Wonder Woman would pay with watching her beloved heroes fall around her.

It didn’t take long to load the twenty small glass bottles with the slightly glowing purple liquid, once she was fully on Earth’s soil, the color would change, the glow turning into a dull sparkle, and the liquid depending on whom it affected would either turn into a gel like substance and refuse to come off as it attached itself to those of immortal decent or it would curl around them in a visible gas that would seep into their bodies through their extremities. She didn’t need to test it, she knew it would work. She’d after all made it, her potions and spells were never wrong. She was far too precise to allow mistakes.

Her purple painted lips pulled into a smirk, as she looked in the mirror watching as her body changed shape, her eyes changing to blue and her hair from purple to black. She allowed her robe to drop from her body, watching as in its place came the star-stripped shorts over her ample curvy hips, the red top connecting to the dark blue material, and traveling up over her flat stomach and higher over her chest, finishing the touches with white outline at the top and that ugly silver star between her breasts, too bad Diana liked to try and be modest when her shorts were half way up her rear end. Those blue eyes rolled and she turned admiring her transformation in the mirror, finishing up the last of it with those silver bracelets that adorned her enemy’s wrists and those boots, yes those couldn’t’ be forgotten.

It would seem she was a little behind the times, but perhaps no one would notice that where gold should be it was silver. She seemed to have over looked that, but it had been some time since she’d seen Diana, the last time had left a mark, she’d been fatally wounded thanks to taking a spear through the chest, now that had been a rather interesting wound to heal from. She was thankful though to have no been scarred from the incident.

As she waved her fingers over her body from her waist and up to her face, she felt the magic pull around her, and in a flash of light she was gone from her drav little hovel to somewhere far more exciting. 'Who better to start hurting Diana than with her little prodigy.'[/i] she thought as she looked around the downtown city streets of the busseling city of San Fransico.

As she dipped into the shadows of an alley way she had a feeling this wasn't the way to go about getting Cassandra Sandmark's attention, no she had a far more interesting idea, an idea that if played correctly perhaps she could from the Tower of the Titans get to the Watch tower to better handle the big bad heroes.

With a wave of her hand from her waist to her the top of her head, her body changed growing shorter to just under 5'5 inches. Her hair changed from black strands back to the lovely deep purple that was her own, her cheek bones rose a little higher and her eyes took on a wide innocent look to them. Her eyes changed from blue to a lovely deep gray, her face narrowed out a little. She looked like a younger version of herself but yet not quite, if run through a facial recongination machine she wouldn't be picked up. Covering her chest was a white v neck and a stylish deep purple coat to battle the chilly air that whiffed up from the ocean waves. Her legs covered in low-rise light blue jeans and a pair of tennis shoes.

It wasn't hard to find someone else to play her pet dinosaur for the day. A middle aged man passed the alley way and with a wave of her hand she had her dinosaur. His body grew and morphed as he stopped walking stareing at his body in shock. His gaze locked with Circe's from the alley way as if he knew she'd done this to him. She could only flash him a chilling smile and touched his mind with her will. In his place was mighty drooling T-Rex, people were screaming and running away in fright.

'Yes, I did this to you, now show me your rage, you mindless beast. Come attack me with whatever skill you think you pocess'

Her mind easily slid into his as she told him what to do, what to become. Stepping out of the alleyway she moved to the center of the street, as cars had stopped and people had abadoned them, at the sight of the monster. He came at her his beady little eyes filled with anger and his mouth hanging open, mighty mouth hanging open to devour her. She stared with wide gray eyes up at the massive creature coming at her and tripped over a crack in the pavement and went down, a femine screech leaving her mouth as she looked ready to burst into tears. The teenager that was Circe tried to crawl away from the approaching monster.

"Someone, anyone help! Help me please!"

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

The sound of people with too much money shopping for stuff they really didn’t need, the sound of taxi drivers shouting, the sound of a t-rex roaring and people screaming, it was just another day… Cassie paused to re-examine that train of thought, then cocked her head to one side as she listened. For a moment, there were just the familiar sounds of San Francisco. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. Then a second loud roar cut through it all and Cassie sighed and raised her head again, staring irritably up at the heavens. "Seriously?” She asked of no one in particular, hands with palms raised by her sides as if she was demanding answers from the sky itself. "I know I stole your lariat and stuff, but does that really mean you get revenge by interrupting my day shopping with a gods-cursed dinosaur?!”

Unsurprisingly, there was no reply and Cassie just scowled to herself. She really ought to just leave it. Somebody else would be along sooner or later, before it ate too many people. Really. This wasn’t her problem and this was her, Cassandra Sandsmark, walking away right now. She was just going to keep going, like the rest of the people now running in a thoroughly sheep like way away from the big scary monster. She ought to have known there was trouble when her war bracelets showed up.

She let out a deep breath. Yeah. Blast it again, blast it all to the nether realm of choice. With a last metaphorical shake of a fist at the heavens, the blonde clenched her fists and slammed her forearms together. With a blinding flash of red light, her civilian gear was replaced by the tight red bodysuit that was the Silent Armour’s manifestation on her, the tube-top style outfit adorned with the very basic form that it preferred for most fights – the bronze covering little more than bits of her arms and shoulders besides the greaves wrapped around her calves. The glowing barbed-wire of her lariat looped around the swell of her hips, twisting around her muscular legs as if it had a mind of its own.

Which it did.

Ignoring the crowd suddenly gathering, gritting her teeth at the calls of ‘Wonder Girl’ and resisting the urge to go and jam the reporter’s camera – and where had they come from anyway? – somewhere painful, Cassie gathered her feet under her and sped off towards the roaring. She arrived on the scene just as the dinosaur lunged at a teenager (with purple hair, it was weird the things you noticed) that was trying desperately to crawl away. That is to say, the dinosaur was lunging until a red-bronze missile called Cassandra Sandsmark slammed into its middle hard enough to lift the thing off its two monstrous feet and slam it into the nearest building with the sort of force to expel all the air it had in its lungs.

"I.” Slam.

"Hate.” Slam.

"Dinosaurs!”

At the last part, the blonde powerhouse caught the t-rex with both hands across the jaw. It roared and lashed her with its tail, the impact knocking Cassie far enough back to let the dinosaur drop to the ground. She in turn made sure to stand between the recovering dino and the girl, taking time to glance at her. "Are you ok? You should probably get out of here, this could get messy.”

Casting her eyes back to the t-rex, Cassie grinned and cracked her knuckles. "I’ve been looking for something mythological to punch. I guess prehistoric works just as well…”

[circe]

Circe was indeed surprised but not so much as the fact she'd been saved, she knew those goodie two shoes would have jumped in eventually. No the immortal playing dress up as a teenager was surprised Wonder Girl had been the one to come, it humored her and made her life so very easy. Her lips curved up into a small smile, but she was quick to hid the grin. She knew what she had to do and it was now time to work on making this far more interesting indeed.

Her face easily moved into that of the frightened girl she was supposed to be. But on the inside no she was picking another subject. The female police officer doing the lockout of the other civilians was a great pick. With a small twist of her finger she had the woman already changing, and it was easy to pull her into this fight. And easier to still to get to her feet and remain in her docile facade.

She gave a small nod of her head and muttered something she couldn’t hear, as she started to back away out of the street and to the other side of the street. Her eyes darted to the other dinosaur and then back to Wonder Girl. She made her lips tremble and her hands go to cover her mouth, a defenseless position most women in these beaten down society took.

The other dinosaur gave a low growl and moved forward, her head lowered to head-butt Cassandra in the back. It wasn’t hard to force strangled low words into her mouth as she tried to tell her to look out. Her powers stretched out brushing against her mind. “Look out!”[/color] The creatures matched in every way but the female was slightly smaller and her coloring was a black with gold markings, instead of the males black with a bright yellow. The reptile yellow eyes flickered to Circe, but her path was decided and going at blonde she did.

Her hands went forward stretched out at arm’s length as she tried to think she could get the dinosaur to stop in its tracks. There was a shield that came up between Wonder Girl’s back and the approaching lizard. The shield was in the shape of a triangle with the points rounded, it flickered to life as though it wouldn’t stay up, as though it had faded and then reanimated itself. It was white in color, and as the other dinosaur collided with the shield it cracked and split in little pieces, but not before being forced back three steps. With a mighty roar, its head turned to start at the teenager.

“W-wh-what…h-how…w-wh-at w-was…t-th-at?” she stammered out looking with shock at where the shield had been. Oh how playing the frail was frustrating, but it was needed greatly so it would seem, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy playing this much needed role. She’d win, in time. She always won one way or another.

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

Having made sure that the girl was still alive and not about to do anything really stupid like complain about Cassie’s treatment of the dinosaur, the blonde had stopped paying any real attention to the girl. She wasn’t underfoot, she wasn’t getting in the way, therefore Cassie was going to get back to the important job of punching the t-rex back into the Cretaceous. Not a huge deal really – the monster was big and ugly and had a lot of teeth, but that was about it. Cassie could fly, was the stronger of the two and actually knew how to fight. Plus her armour was better by far than the dinosaur’s hide. It was just a question of how much of a pounding she’d have to deal out before it gave up.

There were probably easier ways. If she’d wanted to, she guessed she could have got her lariat around its neck and snapped it or something. But Cassie didn’t want to kill the t-rex if she could avoid it. For one thing, she had no idea how a dinosaur turned up in San Francisco and there was the tiniest possibility that it might be important. Keeping it alive might help. But more importantly, it was just doing what it needed to do to survive. She couldn’t let it eat the girl and she was going to enjoy having something to pummel, but killing was a step too far here. At least until she’d exhausted all other options. Cassie liked hitting things, that didn’t mean she was going to just kill things for no reason.

Having levelled the dino for now, waiting to see what it did, Cassie wasn’t paying quite so much attention to what was happening behind her. After all, the threat – if it was really a threat – was in front of her, so it would have been stupid to turn around and give it a free shot at her back. Besides which, with the noise of the city surrounding her, she missed the low growl that might have warned her about the second t-rex now behind her. As it was, she was very nearly caught on the hop. She might have been even, but before the creature could get her, Cassie heard the girl behind her – or thought she heard her. Even as she tried to rationalise hearing things in her head, the blonde spun around…

… To find a second t-rex charging at her, mouth filled with teeth like swords. But before she could do anything or the dino could get to her, a shield formed of white energy flickered into existence between the two. Cassie just stared as the dinosaur’s head slammed into the field, shattered it, and left the dino staggering back, apparently dazed. In eerie unison, her head swung to regard the girl at the same time as the t-rex’s. Huh.

The girl in question was staring right back at them, like she didn’t know what she’d done. Cassie, who didn’t have time to tell her or really worry about it herself, chose to take advantage. Before the dinosaur could react again, she grabbed it by the tail and dug her heels in. Then the blonde girl spun, holding onto the tail as hard as she could, and hurled the creature with a grunt into the first t-rex as it recovered. The two went down like ninepins and Cassie snuck a glance at her saviour.

"That? Was a T-Rex. Unless you mean the shield, in which case I’m guessing you’re either a meta or a mage. Just stay behind me if you’re not going to run. This is going to get messy, but I refuse to lose to a couple of lizards.”

[circe]

Oh for the love of Aphrodite this was infuriating. She could will these stupid humans to their true forms, the forms that their personalities truly displayed them as and yet. She was stuck here, in this spot playing the frail and while she understood the need, it was after all part of her glorious plan, she seemed to have over looked the fact it would be rather boring and she’d be doing very minimal tasks and having to act out the part of her outer appearance, it wasn’t hard, Circe could act, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have liked the idea of just turning Cassie Sandsmark without the need for a disguise but all these young heroes these days were so suspicious of those like herself that seemed to just look as though they wanted to do bad things.

Her outward expression was still in place and her gazed at the young blonde and breathed in a breath before exhaling as she stayed where she was. She wasn’t sure what to say to her, but something needed to be said, the pendulum needed to go at least somewhere one way or another, either further towards her or away from her, fate always did play in the most agonizing ways.

Her eyes watched the two lizards try and get up, their bodies entangled enough that it made it hard to do so. The female was up first; shaking off the disorientation she was likely feeling. The male was not far behind, no not at all. They seemed to be able to realize their only option was to get rid of her to change back; oh that was quite the idea. She almost hoped they’d try it, see how very weak the human race was. The one person in their way was the Cassandra Sandsmark, but perhaps they were dumb enough to try and get to her, she always wished they would, but alas she had to play someone far weaker than her true self, she understand the reasoning behind it, this was her plan, and she wouldn’t let her desires not to be weak, and her stubbornness to get her way of the plan, no she’d thought too long on this and she wouldn’t allow it to fail. Not after all the time and energy she was putting in, had put in. She scowled at the dinosaur, her eyes flashing briefly the true red that they were, before her disguise altered the color, bleeding the red back to the deep gray. Try if you dare…come show me that you want to be human again, that you really are the monsters I’ve made you.”

Her gray eyes widened at what this Wonder Girl, the idea of being a meta-human or being anything but normal must be hard for other humans to make, but she was more than pleased to special, she didn’t want to get old and she could live with being forever beautiful, to be young and youthful and lovely forever. She was getting bored and this fight was getting old and she’d much rather have time to gain the girl’s trust. ”Time to end this, after the next blow stay down and perhaps I’ll change you back.” she told them with a slight smirk.

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

Cassie had been hoping a little that the dinosaurs would stay down after that one. True, she didn’t have any real problem in knocking a few skulls together, but she couldn’t quite shake the nagging feeling that she was missing something. On top of which, these were just animals as far as she knew, acting on instinct not malice. That didn’t mean she was in a mood to let them eat her or anyone else, but it did mean that (unlike, say, people trying to arrest her) she didn’t really want to hurt them much. She refused to lose. People’s lives depended on it, including her own not least though something told her that the Silent Armour wasn’t going to have any trouble at all stopping dino-teeth. Still, it’d be disgusting and nothing about picking bits of broken dinosaur teeth out of her hair would be fun.

But they were slowly getting back up, a process not helped by the simple reality of them having two legs and a tail each that were all mixed up but really small, weak to the point of daintiness forearms that couldn’t do anything much about untangling themselves. Between that and the mix they’d gotten themselves into, they were really struggling. The newer of the two… she thought, because it was actually really hard to tell them apart, was already rising. The second one was taking a bit longer and Cassie grinned as she spotted an opportunity. It was a hard expression, gone in a flash as the blonde powerhouse crouched, muscles bunching in her thighs beneath the tight cloth for a moment before she uncoiled them, letting the harnessed force drive her skywards in a ballistic arc. A little application of her power to fly steadied her course and then Cassie descended armoured boots first on the dinosaur’s skull with crushing force, slamming it back to the ground even as it regained its feet.

For a moment, a cloud of dust shrouded the two, before the breeze caught it and blew it away, leaving behind the sight of Wonder Girl stood atop the t-rex’s skull. The ancient creature was clearly unconscious while Cassie cracked her neck before hopping down nonchalantly as if she did that sort of thing every day.

That hadn’t been so hard.

"One down, one to go.” She muttered, untangling her lariat from her waist and readying it.

Now, she wouldn’t ever pretend to be an expert, but Cassie was happy to say she’d guessed what the other dino would do. It charged her, those huge teeth on full display as it came at her like a runaway truck from the Cretaceous era. Which was fine. Cassie flicked her wrist and sent the lariat flashing out, the blood-red coils twisting around the creature’s ankle for a moment before the armoured blonde flashed another grin. Then she pulled, hard, the dinosaur’s leg coming out from under it and the one remaining being totally unable to take its weight in mid-stride. Before it could stand, Cassie had freed her lariat from its ankle with a deft twist and the finishing punch was already headed for the creature’s skull.

And with that it was over. The blonde wiped her hands together, relishing the fight as always. Neither of the dinosaurs was permanently hurt, so far as she could tell, but they should be down long enough for the authorities to do… something with them. What, she had no idea.

It wasn’t really her concern either. Coiling her lariat up and tying it back in the loose knot that secured it around her hips, Cassie marched back towards the young meta girl who’d helped her. True, she hadn’t needed it at all, but that didn’t mean she could just leave her here with the mess and the authorities coming. The least she could do was make sure she had some family here or whatever.

Not that she cared. Or so she told herself.

Anyway, reaching the girl, who was still on her knees, the young warrior stood over her for a moment before she offered one bronze-armoured hand to the young meta.

"Need a hand?” Cassie asked. "And what’s your name?”

TAG: Circe

[circe]

She watched as the dinosaurs went down and stayed down, she wondered what injuries if any they would be suffering from, and more then likely it would be more then one or two. She grinned broadly, more than willing to show her gratitude for the rescue she didn’t need, and pretend she wasn’t the least bit pleased, even a small bit with the pain she’d caused those lowly humans. She took a breath and wondered just what name she would be going under, she laughed a little nervously and reached out her hand.

Pale fingers wrapped around the hand that offered her a lift. She wasn’t surprised by how easily she was lifted to her feet, in one smooth, graceful moment. Her silver eyes gazed at Cassie with a form of awe, and it wasn’t hard to fake, no this young girl was lovely, and she held such promise, a great promise indeed. If things fell into place just as she wanted this girl would soon be hers and all of her own free will, not real tricks involved, accept for what she was doing now and playing the part. But she was sure she could be forgiven; with time anyhow.

“Donna.”

She said quickly, her voice coming out a little breathless, as she shook the hand that had pulled her to her feet.

“Donna Milton, thank you for the help with those…I’ve never been the victim of an attack like that before…I really appreciate the save. Can I do something for you?”

She asked her, her grey eyes wide with an innocence that was so very hard to fake. “Oh I’m sorry I never got your name, how rude of me,” She said her cheeks heating with color, as she bashfully lowered her eyes.

“I know you’re clearly a hero, but I just moved here from back east and we never have any problems that the police can’t handle…oh this makes me sound like a country bumpkin”

she muttered the last part more to herself and couldn’t help the laughable little grin that stretched across her lips. She did raise her eyes to look at Cassie, wonder just what name this woman would give her.

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

It was so easy to lift the girl to her feet, a simple tug drawing her from her prone position to standing with as much effort as most people would take to lift a book. Not that this girl she’d saved was big or heavy at all, but it would be just as easy for Cassie to lift a bodybuilder in the same way or someone who weighed more than double her weight. It was just that simple when you were able to lift a hundred tons – people who weighed pounds instead just didn’t really register. In fact, the opposite was true. It was the need to control her strength that was the hard part, to make sure that she just tugged the person to their feet and didn’t accidentally rip their arm off or crush their hand in her grip. These days, that wasn’t a problem. A year ago, when she’d just got herself into this mess…

Cassie shook that thought off, tightening her fingers around the girl’s slim, pale ones, taking in the difference between her own tanned skin and the bronzed metal that armoured it and the whiter skin that was contrasting with it. It really did show how much of her life she had spent outside, on dig sites… A quick motion and the other girl was standing beside her, the look that she was directing at Cassie not one that the blonde was at all familiar with. "There you go,” She said anyway, letting go and letting her hand drop to her side. In the mess, it hadn’t really dawned that she had purple hair. That was different.

Her eyes widened a bit though at what the girl – Donna, Donna Milton – had to say about not being used to attacks like those, and she shook her head before laughing ruefully. "Trust me, you already did plenty with that shield thing of yours. Besides, it’s not like San Francisco is dino central either. I really have no clue where those two came from – but that’s ok. Let’s leave that to the brainiacs to sort out, I say. Me, I just like hitting things, particularly things tough enough to take a decent punch.” She shrugged, not entirely at ease now. This was the first time she’d done the ‘talking to people afterwards’ part of this life she’d fumbled her way into – or more precisely been dragged into – and while Cassie didn’t have any problems talking to people normally, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do or say in this case.

At least the Armour, somewhat contented by the violence its host had unleashed, was quiet for now, quiescent and tame… though she knew better than to be fooled.

As for what Donna should call her, Cassie had intended to answer that, she really had. The girl sounded a bit naïve to her – there were plenty of problems everywhere that cops couldn’t handle – like her, when she was feeling in that sort of mood, all the way up to actual supervillains – but maybe she’d just been lucky so far. Cassie was not mean enough to wish bad luck on anyone who thought that way. In some ways, it was nice to meet someone who didn’t take one look at her and go ‘Wonder Girl’!

But, before she could say anything, one of the bystanders, who’d either been listening in or just by luck, spoke up. “It’s Wonder Girl! One of the Titans is here!” Cassie gritted her teeth. Great. Just great.

"You’re a metahuman, right?” She asked, doing her best to ignore the use of her hated name in favour of steering Donna away from the crowds. "You probably ought to get going. Before people see you and think you’re with the Titans. You’ve got parents? Somewhere to go?”

TAG: Circe