Dereliction: A Supernatural Dystopia

His deeply tanned, scarred hand blurred to his holster and back to eye level, the revolver blasting a hole through the mugger's head.

It happened in the space of a second. He thumbed back the hammer and fired again, the smoking barrel hot to the touch as he slid it back into the leather holster. The boy pulled his jacket over his clothes to conceal his gun and reminded himself to load two more rounds in later.

"Vamonos, Luciana. La policia esta veniendo..."

The girl next to him, presumably "Luciania", nodded her head and the two left the bleeding, partially headless corpse in the street. As they turned the corner to head to a somewhat more populated region of town, there was still no sound of sirens.

A few hours later, someone saw the body. A few more hours later someone else saw the body and bothered to report it.

And a few more hours later, the police showed up.

—-

"You know what's kinda funny to think about?"

"You being useful for once?"

"Chlo, you wound me. No...most of our contemporaries are busy at prom right now."

That made Chloe hesitate, for only a second. She wiped Riley's handgun, a massive hand cannon of a pistol, clean and handed it back to him. He checked the slide and slid it into the rig beneath his jacket.

"Well, I'm sure we could still show up if you're really in the mood for a slow dance."

Riley smirked as he slowed the car down, putting it in park. He turned to the passenger in the backseat, who was rather lazily checking something on his phone.

"Hey. Daniel."

Daniel looked up, visibly irritated at Riley's distracting him from Reddit.

"Keep the car running. Don't let any fuckers in here. And don't even think about ditching us."

Daniel was tempted to say, "In that order?" but instead nodded and went back to reading. Riley very nearly ripped into his mind and casually mentioned a closely-held secret of his, such as, "You're more afraid of Chloe than me right now, aren't you?" or "You only sleep on your right side, Daniel R. Jameson," but instead stayed silent. There would be no use in antagonizing the child.

Chloe and Riley got out, Riley opening the door for her in typical gentlemanly fashion, to which Chloe rolled her eyes.

"Pompous bastard."

"Uncivilized wench."

Hand in hand, they walked into the gang hideout. Shortly afterwards, a cacophony of screams, gunfire, and howls echoed through the nearby streets.

—-

Chloe and Riley emerged, bloodied and weary, yet hand in hand, and Riley cursed rather violently.

"Son of a bitch ditched us!"

Chloe spat out blood on the ground; her clothes were drenched in blood, as if she had given a rather wet corpse a rather intimate hug. Her eyes glinted with a feral passion, in stark contrast to Riley's collected, calm demeanor. The pistol in his rig was empty, out of spare ammunition, but the cane in his off hand was dripping with blood and hungering for further use.

"Fuck it. Running never hurt anyone."

Gunfire ripped across the lawn as the remnants of the gang opened fire, prompting Riley and Chloe to take off sprinting.

"That was poor timing and you know it." Chloe snapped. Riley laughed, forcing his exhausted body to push faster, and soon the two were soon in relative safety, outside the reach of the gang's guns.

I say relative safety because there was no absolute safety in Sanguine City. Only relative safety, and varying degrees of it.

—-

Like most metropolises, the city was never truly quiet. There was always some level of ambient noise, although in Sanguine City it tended to be darker in nature than in other steel mazes. Here, the sounds of distant gunshots and the sound of getaway cars burned through the night, where other cities were blessed with taxi traffic and the sounds of millions of pedestrians strolling the sidewalks.

Chloe and Riley walked further along, their hearts beginning to balance out at the normal pace after their intense evening. They resumed the normal stance of walking hand-in-hand, which helped to distract them from what they were doing. Feeling someone's pulse through their hand made the feeling of warm, wet blood drying to your skin easier to deal with, or the way a teenager, no older than yourself, dying looked, a bit easier to forget.

The two came across a corpse in the street. Riley stopped only long enough to look down at the corpse. He nudged it with his shoe and glanced at the two bullet holes in the man's forehead, the knife that was a foot or two from his clenched, frozen hand.

"Mugged somebody who came prepared, did you?" Chloe asked, coming to the same conclusion Riley had.

Easy now. Riley spoke into Chloe's mind, his voice echoing from within her own skull. There might be more. Let's just keep moving, we're in no shape for another fight.

Chloe nodded, tearing her eyes away from the dead mugger and stepping over the corpse. It was someone else's problem now.

She clung a little tighter to him as the blood hardened on her clothes.

The year is 2030: for those of you who share my ineptitude at math, that means a baby born now would be able to get into R-rated movies at the time of this RP. But it wouldn't go see that R-rated movie because his mother would kill him, but I digress.

Technology has made huge leaps and bounds forward, as you might have been hoping. Things are more or less the same, albeit with slightly faster cell phones, slightly more fuel efficient cars, and slightly fewer hipsters. And as you may have ascertained from Daniel's actions, Reddit is still around.

Once again, I digress.

The problem that sets the scene for this dystopia is a rather common one in RP's, but I'm hoping to take it to its cynical extreme in this one. The conflict is teenagers with superpowers. However, it's not quite that simple.

There is no academy for them, no safe haven. Perhaps there are, but they are few and far between, and hopelessly understaffed, incapable of teaching children to manage their powers as the movies would have you believe, and incapable of even bestowing upon their students a normal education. Thousands of children growing up with inexplicable gifts. Some hide them in fear, living "in the closet", if you will, afraid of social ostracism or outright being killed.

Some don't have that choice. See, most superpower stories focus on America. And this one will, too, but it has a slightly more global perspective. Not everywhere is as well-policed as the United States (or as inefficient, but I digress for the third time). Some places are rampant with cartels and violence, with trafficking and drug wars, with slavery and famine. The impoverished, "Third World" countries of the world were no less populated with these children, capable of supernatural feats.

But they didn't have as easy a time managing them.

Imagine cartels or gangs or rival clans or whatever you will fighting for years. Enough died as it was: but now present those gangs, fighting over territory or drugs or any other reason, present them with fighters capable of incredible things. Pyrokinesis. Teleportation. Feats less mundane, more unexpected.

The result was a massive global conflict. Child soldiers became commonplace-until they were killed off, and an entire generation fell prey to the escalating violence. Even in "First World" countries, the relatively minor drug wars became huge conflicts when seven year olds with more destructive power than a nuclear arsenal began to join in on the fight.

The economy's taken a beating, to say the least, and its slowed to a crawl. Thousands unemployed has led to a further rise in crime and with corruption rampant and international tensions rising, the power of the government-and the faith of the people, subsequently-is crumbling. It's a matter of time before an insurrection, a war, or an assassination, and it's merely a question of which comes first.

This is where you come in, however. We will not be dealing with global wars or Presidential assassinations-unless you so choose, that is. No, you are a teenager in Sanguine City, for whatever reason. Perhaps you were born there. Perhaps business of one sort or another brought you there. Perhaps you woke up and can't remember how you got there. Please don't do that last one, it's kinda cliche.

So, let's have some fun. My ideas for a plot aren't tightly structured, so this will be fairly open, with some overarching elements you can participate in as much as you wish.

—-

Rules. 1. This RP will be highly literate and serious. Please do not enter if you aren't prepared to write a significant amount per post. 2. Everyone is busy towards the end of the year, so don't worry about infrequent posting, I sympathize. Try to post frequently, but we're in no rush. 3. No godmodding, metagaming, etc. 4. Autohitting is allowed in some instances. If you have a gun pressed to someone's back and they're asleep, then you can go ahead and shoot them. This relates to the next rule... 5. I will not be policing what you do with one another. That came out wrong. I mean that you are free to kill one another. This RP is going to have a very high level of realism (aside from the supernatural children) and I will be enforcing it. If you walk your character into an unwinnable situation, I don't care how many superpowers they have, deal with the consequences. If you lose a fight to another character, you are entirely at their mercy. You do not have to break character and spare them if that isn't what they'd do. Don't kill each other without provocation, but don't expect to come out of every fight unscathed. 6. Be civil to one another: particularly with the previous two rules. 7. This RP is going to be dark. We'll be dealing with mature things, so be forewarned.

—-

Templates

Name: Age (If a metahuman, then it should be under 21. If a normal human ((hey, they aren't to be discounted)), then you can be any age you like.) Sex: (M/F) Description: (Physical appearance. Height, weight, clothing, stance, gait, voice, etc.) Personality: (Morals, beliefs or lack thereof, what makes them angry, what makes them sad, etc) Weapon of Choice: (Not everyone will be a gunslinger: my character in the very beginning of the OP is to be the exception, not the norm. If you RP with a weapon, I will expect you to be very realistic with it. I mean ammunition, maintenance, etc, etc.) Endowment: (This only applies if you are a metahuman. If you are a metahuman, I would really like to see some original powers. Not everyone needs to go with the more mundane powers. If you have a more mundane power, give it a somewhat original twist. For example, Riley in the OP has telepathy, but will be made fairly original once the RP starts.) Talents: (Anything they're exceptionally good at. If it overlaps with their endowment, include it for redundancy's sake.) Other: (Anything else relevant.) Writing Sample: (At least 3 paragraphs RP'ing your character in some situation. Once again, this is a literate RP, so I have the right to deny your application if I don't feel it's up to the standard we're going for. However, I'm a pushover, so I wouldn't worry too much.)

I didn't include a backstory section because I hated writing that section. I'll trust

This is my first RP here but I have several years of experience elsewhere, so if I use any unfamiliar terms or break any local taboos, let me know and I'll fix it. I would join an RP before starting my own but none currently interest me (and the ones that do are several pages into the plot).

I may/may not post Cesar, Luce, Chloe and Riley's sheets in the future.

edited 1st Apr '13 8:36:25 PM by DeviumFilius

some interest here

Interest in a detective type character.

• Name:Patrick Sherrill
• Age: 18
• Sex: Male
• Description: Pat is somewhat average in looks, his hair being a darker shade of brown and eyes pretty much the same. He wears whatever he can manage to scavenge or trade off for, currently clad in a simple pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. He stands at about 5'7, weighing in around one hundred and ninety to two hundred pounds, being stocky and a little 'soft' around the middle. If one watched him, they'd see he walked usually with his gaze held towards the ground yet his body upright and his steps slow but striding, as if he found the ground more fascinating than the people that walked on it, which would not be too far from the truth. When he finds it necessary to talk, his voice is mellow and laid back
• Personality: Pat is a bit of a Cynic, in the classic sense as well as contemporary. He prefers to stay away from people, generally distrusting them as well as their intentions. He eschews the material, growing what he needs in his Haven. He also has a disdain for unnecessary violence, preferring to talk out disagreements, and fighting when he cannot outright leave a situation
• Weapon of Choice: Pat typically has no weapons on him, being a martial pacifist. If he cannot talk out his problem, he will first try to walk away, and if the problems persist...a pack of 'wild' dogs can do marvelous things to a body
• Endowment: Pat can make things grow or shrink, be it plants...minerals, just about anything that could conceptually grow or minimize, he can expedite the process. He also has a low-key form of telepathy, using it mostly to 'converse' with the animals he meets(he can't read minds beyond something's intent, or converse beyond as much).
• Talents: Pat has a knack for plants and animals, personally taking care of a small 'haven' in an abandoned lot in a, pun not intended, seedier part of Sanguine City
• Other: As Pat will tell you, he owns nothing and wants for nothing, his haven providing him with all he truly needs

I'm interested, but want to know more about Chloe's powers. If it's too close to the one I have in mind, then I'll look for something else.

I hope my character is suitable, and not too good..or terrible