Of Gardens and Skyscrapers [Closed/Rubband]

Blood dripped onto her forehead. It was her own blood. She blankly raised a hand up to the next drip, letting it run between her fingers and down her arm. Red on white. Her skin was so pale. The woman rolled onto her side, staring through the rows of flowers and out onto the street.

He was gone now, he’d left her here, beaten and broken. A doll on the floor of her flower shop. She’d just finished locking up when she’d heard him, she could just see the key where she’d dropped it. By the door. Alone. Like her. Somebody would help her right? A Hero. She had a quirk like them, she created pollen, only a tiny amount but enough to make her small flower shop successful.

Where were the heroes?

A shadow stretched over her. He’d returned . . . what had he been doing? Checking out back maybe? Looking for victims. She’d always thought she’d be a witness you know, the person who found the . . . now she was a victim. Her lips opened, attempting to form words, but it was so hard to breathe let alone think now . . .

“ . . . Why?”

Why had there been no heroes?

Why had nobody helped her?

Why was he doing this?

Then nothing.

Moments passed and a certain gentleman exited the alleyway next to the flower shop. He twirled a lily in his hand and hummed to himself, the serpentine tattoo running the length of his body, twisting around his face and tightening about his neck. Except. It wasn’t tight. Not at all. His skin for once fit like a glove, it felt comfortable as it always did after he fed.

Davey thought back to the question the woman had asked before she’d died. It had been a relatively simple question, a lot of his victims often asked it before he killed them. The truth was there had been no reasoning behind his actions, he had been passing the flower shop as the woman closed up and had felt hungry.

Was it his fault he was a predator? A shark amongst minnow? No. In fact when officers and heroes undoubtedly came to check the shop, there would be no cameras (he always checked for those), no forced entry (he didn’t use doors) and no survivors. They would find blood, they often did but that was his touch y’know.

Davey was a gentleman, had to leave clues for the officers, it’d be rude to not after all. A little pool of blood there, claw marks here. He’d read the reports, they thought he was some sort of clawed serial killer. Well, they weren’t wrong.

But there was no motive.

No reasoning.

He just killed, simply because he got hungry.

Davey tucked the lily into his back pocket as he continued down the street, he began whistling a tune he’d heard the woman singing as he’d effortlessly slide a glistening claw through her side and flung her into the counter of her shop. It was japanese, that was the language. Huh. Weeaboos man, they were everywhere.

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Davey is whistling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lNZ_Rnr7Jc

You think in a world of freaks and misfits a man with bright orange hair wouldn’t seem out of place to Davey, perhaps it was the way he skipped, perhaps it was the way his muscles twitched under a thin layer of fabric, or - and Davey suspected this was the most important reason - it was the way this buffoon grinned.

Either way the moment the hero - because he had to be one collided with him. Davey using his usual indifferent attitude glided passed the man. Like a bull in a china shop. You know, the villain wasn’t quite sure how he hadn’t noticed the man, perhaps fate strung a unique chord and decided that Davey just wouldn’t. Either way as he was already deeply, [i/i]deeply[/i] bothered by the collision, the fact the man commented on the lily did not help much at all.

He pulled it out of his back pocket and looked at it for a moment. Some god was playing his strings and Davey wasn’t much of a man to have any strings pulled. He played to the beat of his own drum, or rather the drum of whoever owed him a favour. Ah, how his skin was so fresh, so well-fitting, in truth it was luck that he had already been satiated this night.

He spun on his heel, his hand crushing the flower in his grip and tossing it to the air. Tilting his head, he calmly and methodically followed the orange-haired simpleton down the road towards the flower shop. . .

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At first, it didn't really sink in. After all, there were more than a few factors at play distracting him. He was off duty, having had an exhausting week beforehand. Thoughts of criminals were at the back of his mind, taking second fiddle to thoughts about how proud he was of his niece. Even when he noticed that Rose was not actually out in front like she said she'd be, the bells didn't sound. After all, he was late; An unfortunate situation that arose due to using public transportation and some serious traffic. No, the fact she wasn't there wasn't what raised his hackles. It was the lack of a note. He couldn't say he knew Miss Rose all too well. He was just a semi-regular customer, after all. But even with their brief interactions, Robert was certain that, having talked to her just this morning to confirm that he'd arrive later tonight, she'd have left something for him. And as he drew closer, a puzzled expression on his blunt-featured face, the metallic scent of blood slapped him in the face. Something was wrong.

Inwardly cursing himself for failing to bring a pair of gloves, Rubband drew back his hands from the door itself, several years of training kicking in. Instead, he pulled out a cell-phone (Naturally covered in a thick rubber casing) and dialed 9-1-1. A hero he might be, and no stranger to crime scenes, but he was poorly equipped to handle investigating this situation. Right now, the police would be far more suited insofar as discovering what had happened here. And while he'd love nothing more than to break down the door to see if she was inside, he'd have to settle for simply calling for her loudly outside the door while he waited to be connected. As the tone dial chimed in his ear, Robb took a deep breath, willed his body to responded, and felt his chest, already rather large, swell to a ridiculous size as he prepared to hollar

" MISS ROSE, ARE YOU THERE? I NEED YOU TO TRY AND RESPOND IF YOU CAN SO THAT I KNOW TO ENTER!"



w: 350

He walked up the street in his human form, he didn’t know why he did it. Perhaps it was because somewhere in the back of his mind he knew the man knew his face? That if he actually thought hard enough and shoved together enough electrical impulses, he would probably work out who did it. Or maybe Davey was showing sympathy? He wasn’t completely devoid of emotion, sometimes when he hit a puppy on the street with a body he legitimately felt bad. Poor puppy, shame the carcass flew too far.

Davey tucked his hands in his pockets and noticed for the first time in a long while. His skin wasn’t itching. Well, usually it did itch, especially when he anticipated a fight and this man was a hero. Boy. That was an odd feeling. Not itching. He held an arm up lightly and scratched it with his finger just to check. Nope. No itch. Huh.

“No use calling” he called down the street, his footfalls light on the street. Davey waved at the big oaf, poor guy. How did fools like this make it this far in hero academy? Something about pride and honor probably, maybe even not killing puppies with accidental tossing of corpses.

“No use yelling” he said with a wave of a finger. He almost, almost felt sorry for the stupid ginger man. He wondered what his quirk was, probably being ginger, fire maybe? That’d be delightfully ironic.

“She’s gone, has been for the passed thirty minutes, long gone” he hissed leaning forwards towards the delightful imbecile. He hated when hero’s called the police, it was almost like they were intentionally giving him a time limit and that was just rude. He didn’t call the assassins or the mercenaries even though he was those roles. Davey was a gentleman after all.

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