Sting (OPEN to a HERO)

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If she had her way, she would never find her way to this part of town. She had grown up in a ghetto like this in Los Angeles, where the gangs were more of a law than any police officer. There was a different sort of law in places like this, where the poor and desperate tended to congregate.

She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she had a lot in common with such people. The system had failed them, and so they decided to live outside of it in order to make their way in the world. They made their money by selling drugs, and she made her living by stealing from people who could afford it. The overlap was the reason that she found herself in this dark end of nowhere, waiting for her fence to arrive. He was her route to the higher circles, because his bosses could have great use for a particularly gifted thief.

Straightening the mask on her face, she leaned against the wooden fence, she glanced from one direction to the next, wondering what was taking him so long. Hanging out here for too long was going to get one or the both of them caught, so why was he dawdling? If he was trying to double cross her, she would make certain that he regretted it.

Her ears picked up his footsteps approaching from the other direction, and she smiled as she recognized the mousey man slouching down the street toward her. She wasn't fresh enough to this life to touch the place on her body where she had the goods hidden, but she was already a bit off center, since the exchange time frame wasn't what she'd told him she would accept. His eyes were shadowed over sunken cheeks, and she was sure it wasn't from lack of sleep.

"You got the bling?" he asked, his whiter than white-bread skin making his slang sound forced and lazy.

"You're late," she accused, crossing her arms as he leaned against the fence beside her.

"Couldn't be helped, chica," he groused, rubbing his arm with a bony hand. "Things happen."

"Did you bring the cash?" Shadowfox inquired, tilting her head to hide her rising impatience.

"Always."

"Then I have the product," she confirmed, extending her hand.

He tossed a heavy paper sack at her, and she opened the top to ensure that it was cash inside. It was. Her eyes raised to him as she closed it again and smirked. He barely looked like he should have been standing, but he always managed to have the cash she needed. That was the only reason they still interacted, considering how distasteful she found him.

Reaching into the pouch at her side, she tossed a much smaller plastic bag at him, the jewelry clinking inside. His grin revealed discolored teeth, but he sauntered off without another word, his gait increasing in speed to a near run. Something was very wrong.

That was when she realized that they were being watched.

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It hadn't been the mark a a malevolent presence. It was probably the reason the presence had gone unnoticed up until now.

The night was calm, quiet, some could say serene, if not cold and damp. A good night really, for some sort of backalley deal involving paperbags, cash, and probably zippy bags and needles, too.

At least, the tweaker with the literal jewels, not some drug, seemed to want to do so. Snort it up, snuff it, maybe bake the diamonds into some sort of brownie. Hard to say really. Maybe it was some sort of fetish thing.

It didn't matter really. It was a pretty shady deal, no pun intended considering the shadowed alley.

The girl had been there, slipped away in the night from the Titan's Tower, having run out of food, and with everyone currently unresponsive, she couldn't ask them. THey didn't like waking up with her in the same room, considering her face. A bit of a mean way to look at it at first, until you realize this greyskinned girl's skeletal face and needle teeth, first thing in the morning asking 'want to eat', wasn't exactly pleasant.

Jian saw the two show up, one at a time. First the one with the weird plasticky face, the other with crooked teeth as yellow as her own eyes. They followed the paper bag in the air, glinting momentarily in the pale light of the moon, beneath the shadows of her sunken eyes.

The man was the first to sense something was amiss, retreating quickly, from the strikingly cold alley. Well, colder than the streets at the roads. In fact, instead of cold and damp, it was frozen here. He slipped, though had been able to regain his footing during his retreat. Ice that had not been there when the two entered to make their blackmarket trade, was in spades. Frost creeped across the ground. Pop, crack, chk, krk, it went as the ice broke as it became rigid faster than it could to create a sleek sheen, before becoming little more than an eerie creek came from it.

"Titans, goooo..." In a dry, feminine more than masculine, raspy voice, stepping forward, her presence become much more prevalent. The thing girl's mouth was agape, the tips of her teeth just noticeable behind dry and cracked lips. She hopped forward, producing a soft ching that seemed to echo in the alley, produced by a pair of chimes attached to the belt of her dress. Well, it was more like she lurched herself forward, like her body didn't cooperate with itself. Rigid in joints, particularly at the knees and waist, balanced with the aid of her outstretched arms.

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When Sheba first saw the ice, she was worried that some superpowered hero wannabe had figured out what she was doing, and she'd been prepared to fight back. When she saw the zombie, however, she was more disgusted than frightened, and for a few moments she forgot that it was going to try to attack her. She had seen some weird, dark magic before, but she hadn't thought that zombies were much more than a nerd's fairytale until that moment. The realization that it was real, and that it was actually coming at her, was slow in coming.

"That's disgusting," she commented to herself, making a face. "It's not gonna try to touch me or anything, is it?"

Fully expecting that it didn't have the ability to respond, she made her counter attack. Her blue eyes darkened to black as she made the shadows come alive, weaving them into tentacle-like tendrils with sharp tips. The shadows rose from the pavement as they approached the Titan, looking to stab and slash at the lurching zombie to keep it from touching her.

She was fighting the urge to run, considering that it was simply too gross for her to go toe to toe with. It looked like it had already started decomposing, for goodness sake. If she touched it, who knew the kinds of germs and maggots there could be? Not to mention if it tried to bite her. Zombie virus aside, she would get rabies shots every week for a year if that thing tried to bite her. Just to be sure.

"Back off, you ugly freak," she groused, raising her arms defensively in front of her as she prepared to mount another attack.

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The rotten looking girl made another hope forward, the fingers on her hands becoming something of claws on each one, extending out. They were black, fitting her dark and dreary outer appearance. Disgusting was a good way to put it, as she was quite inhuman, despite having the proportions and general build of one. Less human than say, aliens even. Ching, the bells echoed out, an ambient nature of the sound, much like how cold everything seemed around her, even crystallizing the damp ground.

Jian opened her mouth, the normal sized, albeit needle like, teeth elongating to less than normal lengths, and her mouth even gaped larger than it should have. Clearly not human, despite her bodies origin as one. "Ha....." her breathing likewise, had the ambivalent quality the sound of her bells did.

The shadow whip cut into her easily, and she didn't flinch beyond a slight ripple effect from the impacting pushing her a little bit. It's not like simple fleshwounds meant much to a zombie. Something unexpected happened though, and if you weren't familiar with the process of preserving bodies. Or if you were, but never been present, might hit someone like a truck. A thick pungent smell filled the air, emanating from the wound. It would be hard to describe later, but it was sickly sweet, and felt like it would burn your nose hairs. Rather nauseating to some, even.

"Not touch." she said, bearing her teeth in a snarl, her fogged yellow eyes looking to the girl with the whip. Jian could hardly see her, but it didn't matter entirely,when she hardly relied on her sight. The sense of life coming off of the woman was like a beacon to the undead girl.

"Only eat." Jian's voice changed from the breathy 'goooo' she spoke earlier. Much clearer, with a growling aspect to it. Then she took a step forward, hunching herself over, unafraid of more glancing shots like what'd happened earlier.