January 17th, 2020 at 01:03am
For as long as Tess could remember, all she knew was petty crime and sleeping on the streets. She would steal to eat and get by, nabbing food from poorly secured gas stations and grocers, and small bills out unsuspecting people she passed on the street. The girl had been orphaned at the young age of nine when her parents had mysteriously just vanished. With the disappearance of her family, she knew what would be coming next. Orphanages, foster families, adoptive parents... It terrified her. Tess was a smart young girl, so before she could be taken by the authorities, she ran away herself.
She only had one friend, a pale freckled girl with fiery red hair who was right around her age. Her name was Ivy Pepper and she had spectacular gifts when it came to botany, and some supernatural ones she wasn't aware of yet. The two were practically always inseparable and always getting into trouble. They had caught the attention of the Metropolis Police Department on numerous occasions, but tonight for her would be a little different. The unlawful pair were about to find themselves under the stern eye of the golden boy of Metropolis. Their very own superhero.
Superman.
Luckily for the two, it wouldn't actually be for anything they would do that night. Well, sort of. Tess had just returned to where she had left Pepper; in a small alley sandwiched between a small bank and a vacant storefront. Her friend was curled up on their pile of blankets shielded from the street view by the dumpster. "Here, dinner." Tess tossed the girl a gas station hotdog and sipped from her own large fountain drink. None of which she had paid for. The pale blonde was just about to take a seat next to her friend when she heard shattering glass only a few feet from where they planned to sleep. Turning on her heel sharply, she quickly sat her drink down next to Ivy and ran to the opening of the alley.
Broken glass littered the sidewalk, but there were no civilians around to witness the break-in. A group of ragtag thugs had smashed the front window of the bank to get inside, instantly setting off any and all security alarms. Her friend appeared behind her like a ghost, her cold hand brushing Tess's exposed shoulder. "We should get out of here, it's not safe..." Ivy was always the more level headed of the two, but Tess was much too impulsive.
"Are you kidding? It's not like I broke the window!" Her laugh echoed through the alley as she ran to the shattered window. After all, she figured at the most only cops would arrive and she had outmaneuvered them more times than she could count. And surely, they would be focused on the big goons wearing ski masks and she only planned to grab what she could stuff in her pockets. Once inside, Tess could hear the idiots fumbling around in the safe, but she decided to jump over the clerks counter. This was a family-owned bank, so there were no security measures like bulletproof glass or huge steel safes. The young girl pulled out a lockpick from her pocket and began to work on one of the registers sitting behind the counter. Her ears perked open when she heard a weird ruffling noise coming from the window. Snapping her head to the side, her eyes widened when she saw a muscular shadow and saw a bright red cape wafting softly around the man's frame in the gentle breeze.
Quickly ducking down behind the counter, she clutched her hands over her mouth, hoping he hadn't seen her or could hear her. She hoped the loud men in the back of the bank had his full attention. It was obvious who it was and her heart was racing a mile a minute in her chest. He'd be a little harder to dodge than the police...