A group of men, boys really, were gathered at the mouth of an alley. Gloating, it seemed, at a fresh catch. Their toothy grins and jeers seemed spurred on by the attempted retrieval of a broom by a young black-haired girl.
The words were more than a bit unneeded, full of offers, taunts and obscenities aimed at the girl, who was kicking at any extremity she could reach, seeing as how her clothes and hands were currently being held by a length of sturdy, slightly off-coloured, spiked chain.
The girl was obviously upset, and each time the brutish boys would approach her, she would snap at them like a rabid animal before lashing out at them with length after length of vile language.
"Just you scum-licking toadwarts wait until I get my brother back! I swear I'll let him rip your hearts out!" She screamed shrilly, yanking harshly at the spiked chains fastening her to the metal ladder of a fire escape.
A closer look revealed why the girl hadn't simply abandoned her garments. What was trapped in the barb-covered chain wasn't clothing at all, but a pair of finely boned black and blood-red wings.
Interesting. A black haired youth mused as he viewed the scene from the fire escape above.
"Brother ain't here now, is he? You can't do anything anyway little witch." The leader obviously was amused at the catch, taunting the girl with the broom in his thick, meaty hand.
"Doesn't seem he's needed, though. Does it?" The voice seemed to muse from atop the fire escape.
The brutes, and their leader turned their thick faces upward to see who had dared to interrupt their games. The lights from the building tops and windows only silhouetted an imposing figure with spiked hair and what looked like wide black wings.
Being of the cowardly persuasion, most of the thugs turned their blubbery rears into high gear and ran in the opposite direction, leaving only one brute and the leader behind.
The Leader, who had been lording it over the girl and now stood in shock of the figure descending the fire escape calmly was taken by surprise when a well-placed kick from the girl collided with his family jewels and floored him.
His underling saw the great thug hit the floor and swung a thick fist at the girl's head, ignoring the imposing figure that now leapt from the final level and to the ground. As the stone-like fist sailed through the air, aimed at the girl's cheek, a deafening crack resounded through the alley and the lout collapsed.
Nick looked on in surprise. What he had seen was unexpected at the least. The crack came from the lout's skull as the broom had flown from the ground and had swung through the air as though some invisible force had swung it like a baseball bat into the thug's cranium.
The girl, full of spite, glared at Nick. "Lemme guess, here to eye the freak too. I still have enough to give you one upside the head too!" She bared her teeth, the elongated canines gave her a most devilish look. It would have been cute, if Nick hadn't just seen the broom twitch warningly after the threat.
"Not in the least." Nick stated matter-of-factly as he strode over, unhooking the dangerous chain from it's hook on the ladder. "Hold still, however, would you?" His voice wasn't quite scolding, but it quelled the girl a bit as he disentangled her from the spiked chain as carefully as he could.
Now that she got a good look at him, she decided the lab coat look wasn't too bad on the man. No, he wasn't quite a man, but he was something like a man. Either way, the lab coat worked in his favour.
The girl, when released from the cold iron spiked chain winced and stepped away from it and Nick. "You a doctor or something?" She couldn't really help the bite in her voice.
"Or something." He mused, a smirk touching the corners of his mouth. He began coiling the chain up.
"Thanks for the help then." She rubbed her bleeding wrists tenderly, looking annoyed. No, she was beyond annoyed, she was pissed. Maybe she really -should- let her brother save their souls. Her wrists would heal, that was obvious. Her wings were next on the inspection list as she delicately pulled them around to look at the holes now sliced through the fabric of skin. Black-red ichor was dribbling into the cuts. "Stupid imbeciles." She muttered.
Her black hair was tussled, her skin as pale as death and her eyes were as bright and red as fresh blood. The wings weren't exactly bat-like, nor insect like, but somewhere between, like fleshy skin butterfly wings in shape. Jake was intrigued by the odd form of this girl, and couldn't help the rather creepy smile that came to his face.
"What?" Her red eyes broke through his thoughts.
"Nothing. I was just wondering if you could fly with those." He answered.
"When they're not torn up. Sometimes."  She let the wings drape down against her back.
Nick approached, looking over the damaged limbs.
"Leave 'em alone Doctor Creepy. They'll heal on their own eventually." She snapped at him, turning so he couldn't touch them.
"I was going to sew the wounds shut. And the name is Nick." He replied with a shrug.
"They'll heal on their own." She seemed a little apologetic before sighing and standing up to her whole height of five and a half feet tall. "Thanks for the help, Dr. Nick." She said, picking the broom up.
"And your name is? You know mine now. It's only polite after all." He looks at her patiently. In a good mood today it seemed. Or his interest had simply gotten the better of him.
"You want my whole name or the one people call me?"
"Whole, would be appreciated."
"Elizebeth Wictora Beelez Dante." She responded with a polite curtsy and a flourish of her left arm, the right holding the retrieved broom. "My friends, what few I have, and my brother, call me Wicky."
"Interesting name; Wicky." Nick looked amused.
"Yeah, I get that a lot. You'll have to pardon me, though. I need to go catch my brother. He got loose this morning while I was dealing with Riff, Raff and the goon squad." She turned the broom sideways in the air, then let it go where it hovered.
"Got loose?" Nick furrowed his brow, images of some creature breaking its chains flitting through his mind for a moment.
"Yeah, he chewed through the straps. He's not really what you'd call 'Mentally Stable'. Mental, yes. Stable, no." She sat delicately on the broomstick just as a lady would an english saddle.
"Chewed... through.. the straps?" Now Nick was somewhere between concerned and very interested in this strange girl and her brother.
"Yeah. Sorry, it's a long story. I don't have time right now." The broom began to lift into the air with her on it. She did resemble a witch now.
"Mind if I come with you?" Nick looked at her as she hovered a good four feet off the ground.
Wicky was surprised. The shock wore off quickly and she shrugged. "Can you fly?" Nick responded with a shake of his head. "Then you'd better get on." She lowered the broom a couple of feet and patted the bushy end of it.
Nick looked with doubt at the broomstick, but slid in behind the little witch anyway. How could one learn about someone if some small amount of trust wasn't given.

The implement rose into the air, carrying the pair with only a bit of jerk to it. "Pardon the bumpy start. I'm not used to carrying two people." Wicky said before the broom quickly righted itself and took off through the air. Flying just above the roofs, Nick's toes scraped over the tar, his legs being a bit longer than his pilot's.
As the pair neared the metropolis's downtown area, screams could be heard filling the air. Nick seemed quite sure the screams weren't caused by anything he had done. The source was rather obvious when Nick followed back the direction people seemed to be running from.
The broom touched down on a tall rooftop and deposited its passengers on the roof. Wick touched down quite gracefully on the tips of her toes, while the less graceful landing was taken by Nick, who stumbled before finding his footing on the gravel roof.
The screams continued to rise through the air and people fled down the street. The city centre, on the steps of the City Hall, there stood a figure unmistakeable from any other.
The figure stood at nearly seven feet tall with a wingspan of nearly triple that. Wreathed in flames that burned blue and gold as he lashed out at the nearby humans below him. The flames that stretched from his fingertips would strike and fell the hapless victim as they burned in something akin to what someone could mistake for divine justice.
There sprawled around the figure nearly a dozen bodies, still burning in the brilliant flames and it was nearly beautiful in it's simplicity. Wicktoria simply stared as Nick could barely turn away. Odd, that looked like the Mayor, and the committee heads that were currently aflame.
"Aren't you going to stop him?" Nick asked casually.
"Why should I? This is divine choice. They're burning in their own personal hells right now. If He's chosen them, they deserved it." She smirked, then looked at him with a sweet smile. "Besides, do you really want to go down there? He'll stop soon."
Nick looked at the agony being caused and decided perhaps it was in his best interest to stay on the roof with the strange girl.
Wick shifted her damaged wings with a hiss, likely of pain, before folding them back against her back. "See? He's calming down already."
The angel dolling out firey punishment seemed to be halting his movements when the last of the humans around him were writhing. He descended slowly and the glow of his aura faded into darkness. The wings shrunk and fell away in a cloud of swan-like feathers that floated to the ground and vanished, leaving only burn scars on the concrete.
When the afterglow of the carnage left the figure all that stood in the angelic figure's place was a scrawny, bed-headed boy about the same age as Wicktoria. He was pale, gaunt and with deep set eyes and an almost empty look to them.
He stood a moment, looking blankly at the carnage surrounding him. He then began walking straight, the bodies of the fallen men twitching slightly in his passing, the only hint of their still being alive.
"Excuse me, I need to get him." Wicktoria remounted the broom and began floating into the air before flying down to the street. Honestly, Nick had to give her credit for style.
Nick walked down the fire escape to the street calmly while Wicky gathered her brother in a warm embrace. The sirens were silent for only a moment as the pair  embraced. The boy's eyes remained blank and eerily dead-like in their blackness. Wicktoria held the boy a moment longer as he, child-like, touched one of her torn wings with the look of innocence, as though the ichor were some alien substance.
His eyes took on a very frightening quality after that, his eyes narrowed, then began to glow. Wicky seemed to sense the change and began speaking in an ancient sounding language. The glimmer of hatred faded and he relaxed, falling limp in the girl's arms. She hefted him onto the hovering broom at her hip and began walking calmly away from the carnage-filled scene. Just as lights and sirens began to enter the square.
Nick had to hand it to her, she had timing down to an art.