DC: 2012-05-11 - Seeing Red

Late afternoon in Bludhaven on a warm day, a little muggy as well. Kendra's returned to the city to pack up a few things. The whirlwind of activity over the past week or so has begun to slow down, giving her the chance to deal with some more mundane things. All the same, she couldn't pass up the chance to put the wings on and take to the sky over the area downtown. It's the first opportunity she's really had to do that like this.

Kara Zor-El was flying over to Bludhaven to see how Nightwing's doing - might as well, she's in the area, when she sees. Hawkgirl maybe? Slightly different costume though. She flies over, curious, over her, then peeks her head down in front of Redtail as they're flying. "Um hi there.... you're not hawkgirl right?" She hasnt bothered to use x-ray vision yet.

The red and black does separate from the green and yellow, wings also a different color. All Redtail's got at her hip is a mace with bumpy edges at the end, gliding with the occasional beat of wings as she circles overhead. A hand darts toward the handle of the mace when someone else is suddenly there, leading to her pulling back to take a more upright position in midair. "Huh? Oh..uh, no. That's the other one," she begins, fingers starting to move away from the weapon.

Kara Zor-El peers at Redtail. She wasn't exactly worried about the mace - gotta give people the benefit of the doubt after all. Still something's really familiar about her. Especially the voice. She peers closer, using x-ray vision. "Oh... wait hey... from the train, remember? You sent that guy packing who was heckling me?"

Kara Zor-El readjusts how she's flying so she's upright in front of you as well, hands lightly placed behind her back idly.

"...how did you know?" is the first thing Redtail answers, the wings moving as if to keep her hovering there even if it might not be necessary. It just looks real. There's a hint of suspicion, even though she really knows who Kara is.

Kara Zor-El points to her eyes. "X-ray vision and your cowl isn't lead-lined. Sorry, hope that wasnt being too nosy." She peers at the wings. "The wings are just like hawkgirl's though. Right down to the atomic level. Same unusual metal and technology." She pauses. "Really neat." She looks down at the city below. "So um......" she thinks, then asks, "Sup?"

Redtail's mouth shifts into a brief frown. "As long as you don't go around telling everybody," she says, deciding to let it pass. "Yeah, Nth Metal. Long story short, a few things happened, I talked with them about some other stuff, and now I've got my own wings." Plus the costume and the rest. "I'm going by Redtail."

Kara Zor-El looks around innocently. "Oh I won't tell anyone. I'm really good with keeping secrets." Yeah, like Kal's secret identity. Heck, she knows batman's identity and has kept it a secret that she knows... even from Batman! She points. "And a mace." She peers. "Hey is that made of the same stuff as the wings?"

"Good, because I'm trying to keep my public ID separate from this one. Most people aren't going to have any idea who I am, even if I was Hawkgirl before," Redtail answers, though given what part of her expression can actually be seen, it might dawn upon her others will have similar questions. "I think I'll have to repeat the story to others before too long." Glancing down at her side she nods. "This thing? Yeah, it was a gift from Hawkgirl."

Kara Zor-El pauses. "Even if you were Hawkgirl before. okay..." She nods a little. Kendra did say something about that last time, didn't she. Sort of went over her head with the whole reincarnation talk, though. Kryptonians recognize stuff like magic but not so much with the reincarnation stuff. She smiles a bit. "Maybe you can get like... a press agent or something? I have a friend who made a 'website' for her powers." She even uses 'air quotes' when saying 'website.' How cute.

Redtail shakes her head. "Well, I was but I wasn't. It's complicated. What's important now is that there's Hawkgirl and there's me, and we're different people but we're also connected." She's not getting into it past that. "And I don't need a press agent. I don't really care for all that stuff."

Kara Zor-El nods a little. "So.... are you both like.... you know, human, not human, metahuman? I mean that material doesn't look like anything I've seen on the planet." Although if she ever was to remember about the Legion's flight rings (or if it hasnt happened yet - who knows with time travel), she'd know that there -are- metals similar to Nth Metal.

"Yeah... I guess publicity can be a pain. I can't even go dancing in a club without the club shutting down." She shakes her head. "So... just out for a flight or doing some sort of patrol thing or what?"

"Human," Redtail answers, indicating there's nothing special about them physically without going into further detail about the more complicated stuff. "But the metal's got some techy bits to it that helps with the flying and all that." Then a sniff. "Yeah, I heard about that. I was just in the place a day or two before you went there. It's different. There was some motocross thing going on." Finally she flashes a more genuine smile, looking down over the city below. "Just flying. I've missed it."

Kara Zor-El nods smiling and looking down. "You know, of all the powers I got coming to this planet, I think flying's probably the best one. Not to mention the least stressful. No one's trying to show they can fly better than you, but show that you're superstrong or invulnerable and there are a dozen guys who want to prove they're better." She sits in midair. "You know, we really should hang out more. Especially since we're both doing the whole hero ... thing."

"It's liberating," Redtail explains, nodding slowly. The visage of that helm can appear threatening, even with a smile instead of a more aggressive, angry expression. "I don't have the strength or the invulnerability or super speed, but I know how to fly and hit people hard when I need to. Or..I've kind of started relearning how to." The idea of hanging out draws a tilt of her head, wings still in motion behind her as she maintains an upright stance. "I haven't really done that kind of thing. I'm more used to being a loner," she shares.

Kara Zor-El shrugs a little. "My whole planet blew up and the only other person like me's my -baby- cousin, who's now twice my age. Being a loner isnt that much fun, especially if you can have friends instead. Cmon."

And now, a frown. "Yeah, that's gotta suck," Redtail murmurs, shaking her head slowly. "Just let me get settled into this whole thing again, that's all. It's familiar but brand new at the same time. I've been packing up some things here because I'm probably going to base out of St. Roch for a while. I have some unfinished business there."

Kara Zor-El stands up from her sitting position in the air. "Need any help with packing or anything? I've never helped anyone move, but I'm told it's a standard thing friends do for others." She pauses. "What sort of unfinished business?"

"Nah, there wasn't a lot and I'm sending some other stuff in the mail," the winged woman explains. Fitting of her to have already taken care of it before coming out to fly. "It's..personal stuff," she adds in regard to the things she has to deal with, reluctant at first to say much more.

Kara Zor-El tilts her head. "Anything dangerous?" She pauses. "I mean... it's not like something you are flying to do with that mace or anything?"

A smile that could come off as menacing shows up beneath the nose of the helm. "Dangerous? Yeah, for whoever I get my hands on once I do," she says. Eyes shift down to consider the mace clipped there at her side. "Mace, spear, whatever I need."

Kara Zor-El winces a bit. "You're not like... planning on killing anyone are you?"

"That's probably part of the plan," Redtail says, not hiding the fact it's on her mind. "Why, is there a problem with it?" she questions, having caught the reaction it causes.

Kara Zor-El pauses, then nods a little. "Well... it's sort of frowned upon to go killing people so... yeah. Pretty sure there's a problem with it. Want to tell me about it?"

Redtail squints behind the slanted eyes of the mask, studying Kara closely. "You ever hear of 'an eye for an eye?'" she asks, arms crossing in front of her.

Kara Zor-El nods. "Heard of it when reading about Earth history. Code of Hammurabi, a couple of thousands of years ago. I also heard another saying by Gandhi about that as well expanding on it. Had to do with when everyone does an eye for an eye, it leaves the whole world blind." She pauses, realizing she's sounding preachy. Ugh. Like her cousin would be. Then again he's right a lot about that sort of stuff. "What did this person do?"

"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean he's right about everything and he was passive anyway," Redtail answers, a flash of irritation surfacing as she goes on, "Since it sounds like you have to know, I'm going to find the ones responsible for killing my parents and make them pay. If that means they die, then they deserve it. I didn't get the chance to take care of this before but I will now."

Kara Zor-El fidgets in the air. "It won't bring them back, you know. Killing their killers. There won't be closure. It'll just make you a killer." She adds, "Why not do it... you know... legally?"

"Spare me the 'let the courts handle it' stuff," Redtail says, a clear note of bitterness in the words. "When I was a girl, my mother and I were outside Austin painting in the desert when a couple cops came up to us. They were going to rape my mother and after they handcuffed her they said they'd do the same to me. I fought back against one of them and his gun went off. It killed the other one and I blamed myself for a long, long time, even more after my parents tried to find the first one when he left the area. They tracked him down to St. Roch but when they got too close someone killed them." Arms unfold and fingers ball into fists, the anger evident. "Nothing will bring them back, you're right about that. But when I find the guy there won't be any courts involved. He's already guilty and when I find him I'm going to handle it myself. I know a lot of heroes out there don't like the idea of killing people but sometimes it's the right thing to do."

Right around now would be a good time to be able to bring Batman in. Except she's been pretending to not know that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same. Because Batman could totally respond to what Kendra said better than Kara could. After all, no single person destroyed Kara's world. Plus she really wouldnt want to have to fight someone she likes and sorta agrees with even. So instead she asks, "Did you tell Hawkgirl and Hawkman what you're planning on doing? Because if you kill someone in cold blood, it'll have ramifications for them as well."

Redtail and Batman would probably not go over very well right now. "You can go ask them yourselves what they think of dealing with people who've earned what's coming to them. Go ahead." She gestures off into the distance. "Anyway, you asked for an explanation and I gave it to you. Sorry if it's not what you wanted to hear, but I don't need a lecture about it." This is off to a somewhat rocky beginning.

Kara Zor-El sighs. "Look I'm not trying to lecture." She pauses. "I guess saying something like 'It would make you like them' or 'It's a slippery slope' wouldnt work either, would it?"

"Not really, no," Redtail shakes her head. "Go back through history. Bad enough crimes have been punished by death. Rome, Greece, medieval times, feudal Japan, the Wild West. Hangings, firing squads, decapitation, worse. I'm just cutting out the middle man. Why should he be allowed to rot in a cell the rest of his life?" She grinds her teeth briefly. "I've had enough nightmares over my parents being gone. I can live with this." Or so she says, now.

Kara Zor-El puts her hands lightly on Kendra's shoulders. "Trust me, you'll have even more nightmares if you wind up killing them." Dangit, Cassandra Cain would be good in THIS instance! "Look... if there's something Diana... Wonder Woman... and my cousin and Batman kept trying to make sure I understand, it's that just because you have more power than someone else doesn't mean you can be judge, jury, and executioner. I mean..."

She pauses and says, "Look, I'm like... what... thousands or millions of times stronger than most people, including a lot of heroes. Do you really think it's a good idea for people like us to have the mindset of being able to kill whoever we want and sidestep the legal process and put ourselves above the law?"

Initially, Redtail does nothing about the hands touching bare shoulders, or right where the material of the costume ends. "Here's where you're wrong. It's not about me having more power than someone else. With or without this," she gestures to the outfit and wings, "I was going to find a way to track this guy down sooner or later and face him. I know you can smash someone's face in with a flick of your finger or something, but sometimes you have to do what has to be done. And this guy was a /cop!/ He used his /own/ power to put himself above the law /he/ was supposed to be upholding! A quick death would be a mercy to him!"

Kara Zor-El looks down at the city below. "There are a lot of people down there who have had others wrong them. If they were all going out to kill each other, it would be chaos." She bites her lip. "At least... please think about what you're planning on doing? You're better than that. Killing someone changes you. I've almost killed. Do you know who Lex Luthor is?"

"Have all of them lost their parents because they got too close to a crooked cop that tried to hurt them before?" Redtail throws back at Kara, shouldering herself away from the hands that were there. "I've thought about it for years. Once I know that guy can't hurt anyone else ever again, that book will be closed. I'm not leaving it for a judge who might let the guy off because of a technicality or some other reason. I'm the one whose life was screwed up by it, and I'm the one who got the chance to fix it. I don't care about Lex Luthor." At this point she turns to glance over a shoulder, partly obscured by a wing. "I know you don't agree with it, but this isn't your business."

Kara Zor-El nods a little. "A lot of us have had our lives screwed up by bad things happening. I just don't think..." She pauses. "You're right it's not. I'm just asking you to think about it again now that you have these new, you know.... capabilities." She looks around. "Look I'll leave you alone for now, but still would like to talk to you again later if that's ok?"

Redtail turns to starting to ignore the appeal to her better judgment, obviously not wanting to hear it any further right now. "Yeah, fine. I'm sure you can find me around St. Roch or San Francisco coming up. Just look for the wings and all that." Without so much as an 'until next time' she takes off over other parts of the city, hoping to wash away some of the anger in exchange for simply enjoying the ability to fly again.