The Legend of Ivy - Kidman

(OOC: This isn't to slander Ivy. It's to show the enviroment Kidman grew up in, and how she developed her fear of Ivy.) It was a cool fall Saturday, the sort where you got a bunch of friends together and fixed machines while a taped Brit-com played on in the background. There were at least six grunts either doing odd-jobs or drinking coffee, one of which was unusually small. "I'd like to go live someday. What do you guys think?" A man with a five o'clock shadow glanced at the grey-haired girl that was handing him tools. The term ‘go live' was a grunt term for going on a heist, or any situation where arrest was possible. ‘Grunts', as they lovingly called themselves, usually worked behind the scenes. Very few actually went to the front line, and while some considered it a great honour to be chosen to do so, others had a different view. "Go live? And risk getting Ivyed? No thanks. Maybe if I had fightn' skills or sommik, but I like my bones how they are." "‘Ivyed'?" "You know, beat up by Ivy, the ACME chick." Kidman scratched her head. She was still getting her footing and didn't know much about ACME, other than the fact that they wanted to catch all her friends and put them in jail. "Why would she beat you up?" "Because we're criminals?" "I thought we were just arrested if we got caught." "Well, that's how it's supposed to go down," came another voice from across the garage. "There's supposed to be this thing that if we don't hurt them, they don't hurt us, and usually, it works. But then... there's Ivy." Kidman chewed her lip. "Surely it can't be that bad..." "Yeah? Hey Boulder, you got access over there?" A heavy built man with tanned skin looked up from his computer. "Aye. Whotcha lookn' fer?" "Ivy Monaghan." The room went quiet. "The kid here doesn't think she's that bad. Why don't you go over there and take a looksee?" Kidman heard a few chuckles as she looked over Boulder's shoulder at the screen. A red-haired woman stared back with frightening intensity. She was smiling. "That there is Ivy," Boulder said as he scrolled through what VILE had collected of her. "‘Multiple black belts, with specialty in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Taekwondo. Also incorporates kick boxing, Krav Maga, and Black Tiger Kung Fu. Has short temper and is easily provoked. Has caused serious injury. Use extreme caution.'" He paused. "You want to see? We have pictures of the injured." "I..." "We got pictures? I wanna see this." A thin man with a mangy beard came over to the table, followed by the others as Boulder navigated the database. "All right, so this is from a job in Russia. We had two grunts blocking for Carmen to get out. Her brother just fakes his way out, but Ivy-" "Sails right through the air, slams a guy right in the shoulder, full force. Bam! And then down on the floor! The guy's just blocking! No gun, hands out, you know? But he got out okay. Just bruising. No wait, dislocated shoulder. See?" Kidman winced. "Why, why would she do that? It says security was already there!" "Because she likes to hurt us, kid. Because we're the bad guys, and heros beat up bad guys." "Yeah, ‘cause, you know, we ain't human beins or someten' Tell her that one with the sphinx." "Yep. Infamous Sphinx incident. Okay, so some grunts are on top of the Sphinx, the one in Egypt, and they're there to make sure the kids get the clue Carmen left for them. And Ivy just sweeps his legs out, just knocks him over the edge." "‘Sweep the leg, Johnny. No mercy.'" "And that thing is high! He managed to fall onto a ledge, but busted his leg up real bad. Guy could have died, though." Kidman looked at the picture of the man's leg. "She knocked him off? Did he come at her?" "He was a watcher! I mean, what do they expect? Do we ever hurt anyone? I know we grab them sometimes and lock ‘em up, but seriously, your average mugger on the street does worse. But here's the thing; the only one that does this is Ivy. Here, this guy got kicked in the face. In the face!" "Like WHAM!" "This chick here, another dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone. This guy, broken nose. This guy... oh this guy really got f*cked... He was on a log transport and Ivy cuts the ropes. Guy falls off the truck, over a cliff, and then the logs land on him. And these are heavy, right?" The thin man squinted at the picture on the screen, then whistled. "Greg Mirkum... You know, you don't often hear about that one because it makes the boss upset. I mean, Ivy busts on us, but she didn't mean for that to happen. Besides, we don't know for sure that's what killed him." "Aww bollocks, Tony. Wha'd she think would happen? We're noffik but traffic cones to these guys-" "Ivy-" "Whatever. I still say she should know she probably killed a guy." "There's no proof of that. You can't just something that serious without knowing for real." "But we can agree that this guy, right here, got knocked off the truck when Ivy cut the lines, and then died, like, two weeks later for no reason." "Rum, for god sake, we're f*cking criminals! You think they're gonna be all pansies with us? And we aren't being made to do this. Greg could have fallen off on his own." "But he didn't fall off on his own. He got crushed because Ivy don't see us as worth a thought. We're supposed to care about them, but f*ck us, right? And we aren't just criminals. We're flippn' VILE. We're the PG of crime. He was a nice guy. He didn't deserve that. No reason for it. No reason." The room got quiet save for the rain and the Brit-com's laugh track, which was now wholly inappropriate. Kidman anxiously pulled on her fingers as Boulder continued to scroll through the injury reports. They were mainly regular work-related accidents mixed with a more than a few others related to live events, but whenever it was mentioned that an ACME agent was involved, Ivy's name was alarmingly common. "But...why, then? If the others don't, then why her? Why do the ACMEs allow it?" Boulder shrugged. "I don't know, kid. I don't think she killed that guy. Some say she did, but most don't. I will say she does a lot of damage, and she don't seem to care how much. As for why ACME don't stop her? Like Jag said, we're f*ckn' criminals. We're awesome f*ckn' criminals that do it classy and try not to hurt anyone, but they don't care about that part. As far as they're concerned, we deserve anything they give us, an Ivy's only too happy to do it. Stay away from her, or she'll break you too." **** From that day on, Ivy became a point of fear and frustration for Kidman. She soon found that a few of her guardians had suffered Ivy's wrath at some point, and was further traumatized when she began to see the results first hand. Most didn't care or laughed it off. They had had worse, and what could a thief expect? But others were like her; docile types that lived in the grey space that Carmen had provided and had little experience with violence. They were the engineers and technicians who needed to be on site, and couldn't conceive of a reason to fear a broken rib. Was it mistaken identity? Heat of the moment? Or was it that this Ivy truly enjoyed what she did? VILE had very little in the way of proper propaganda, but as the grunts circulated their war stories, Ivy's infamy grew, until she became a veritable boogeyman. Keep alert, or Ivy will throw you off a building. Train hard, or Ivy will kick you in the face. Don't mess up, or Ivy will break you in half. And above all, don't get caught, Or Ivy might kill you.