Melissenos Residence

The mayor dead? That did not bode well, no. Her decision to stay away had been correct then.

She spared a few moments to consider her answer. Meeting up was possibly risky. The mayor's death proved that Oldport was in no way a safe place anymore. Still, the onus was on her to help her classmates if they were in need.

Perhaps they could actually take the yacht? She had floated the possibility before. It would be nice to be able to make good on that. The whole rigmarole of it did not appeal at present, however.

"I'll check the television after we decide where to meet up," she said, evaluating locales in her mind's eye. "You know Fort Adams? It's close to where Rose and I live. My family has its boat docked there. We needn't use the thing, but the space is a bit cut off from the rest of the town. Alternatively," she paused, taking a deep breath. "I might host the lot of you here. If you've just gone through something trying, something hot to drink and a bite to eat might be good for you."

Edited by joergenjetsam on Dec 30th 2020 at 9:33:15 PM

Slumped on the ground, head between knees, gasping for breath. Stomach finally settling. Clothing scattered on ground, might get muddy, should probably fix. Money on ground. Money that was stolen. Old shopkeeper on the ground, back at the shop. The way he collapsed...is he dead? Did she kill him? No, she couldn't have, right? But she doesn't know her own strength yet. Not my fault. Not my fault. She was saving me. He was bearing down on me. She just helped me.

"...Nadine...thank you...for that punch..." Breath back, head steadying, mostly recovered. Enough energy for this next part. "...and screw you for putting me into that to begin with!"

I shove myself up to my feet, finger waving like a badgering lawyer. "Hey, let's go rob a shop! Fantastic frigging idea! Not like I'm inevitably going to get collared by Old Man Satan back there. Christ, I'm going to be seeing that face in my nightmares. And he saw my face! I'm a criminal now! I'm officially a fugitive from justice- well, I mean I was before, but now I'm gonna have a frigging criminal record! God- you know, at least you've got a new face now. You're not gonna show up on any official listings or anything. You're basically a non-person, a spook! You've got carte blanche, tabula rasa, you can be whoever you like right now! Me, I'm still stuck with who I am..."

Listen to me rabbiting on. Don't even know where I'm going with this, but I'm not about to stop now.

Spring Park, Wooded Area - Look Forward To Funny Header's Return In 2021

Ciro considered the options that Irene had laid out. Hot food and drink was quite an appealing thought, as was having somewhere comfortable to sit down, but on the other hand... "I'm worried it might draw attention to you if we all show up at your house. Two of the attackers knew my name when I'd never seen them before; I don't know how much else they know about us. Plus, Fort Adams is a state park, right? It wouldn't be as strange for a group of us to show up there."

He looked to Zia, who was doing that rhythm-tapping thing she liked to do when she was either deep in thought or talking to people in her head. Not wanting to interrupt, Ciro gently waved his spare hand and, if it caught her attention, spoke to her quietly: "Do you have access to the group chat? Um, my phone doesn't, and we should let everyone who was here know that we're planning on meeting up."

Organising everything was going smoothly so far, so naturally someone else would jump in at that moment to throw things back into chaos. Ciro's eyes widened when the taller boy ran up to them quite suddenly and started speaking at a mile a minute. He took a second to see if he could recognise the boy- Ciro had definitely seen him around school, his height made him hard to miss, but he didn't know him beyond that- and then another second to parse the words that had been flung at him. "A spear..? Wait, first of all, what group of three are you talking about? And what exactly did they-"

Ciro had looked beyond the newcomer to see if he could identify the trio himself, and so sighted the spear that had followed its way over. He was certain that he'd seen it before, but, more urgently, its trajectory was flying it straight towards the tall boy. At a leisurely pace, but still- "Ah, watch out!" Grabbing the boy by his forearm, Ciro attempted to step them both out of the way of the mysterious weapon.

Mina's scan would provide a slightly confusing answer: there were no injuries in the tree boy's body, but his body certainly 'believed' it had been injured. It was as if David's energy blast had affected the inner workings of the boy's mind...

"I appreciate your input," Benedict began, pointing at Mina. "But I don't know if you noticed that the people you're talking about, the people you don't want to be like, killed the Mayor. Kidnapping one of them and getting answers is nowhere near the same level." He harumphed. "Your beginner-level moral quandaries are not effective here."

Marko watched as Tom made his way out with a vaguely confused look. "How could someone lie to themselves that much and not notice it?" He mused out loud, until Kyle's hand transformation prompted him to yell in surprise. "Oh my God— I mean, I get it that we just told you about it but don't do it in public!" He said, trying to motion Kyle to hide his hand fully. "We can be stupid, but you shouldn't be extra stupid!"

Luna did see the hair stethoscope, which she immediately got to work trying to justify. It's just a tile, her brain said. It's just the light, her brain added. No, wait, that doesn't make sense, her brain told itself. Shut up, do you want to actually go fight whatever that is? Her brain yelled right back. She began fumbling with the keys, doing a really bad job of pretending that she wasn't thinking about the hair.

Maybe it's not there anymore, her brain suggested. She looked back and— fuck, no, it's there, her brain cried. Okay, you can't open the door and let that into your house, even if it's just a trick of the light, her brain said, but now in a posh British accent, which was how her brain conveyed 'important' and 'intelligent' information.

And so, Luna half-turned around, glancing over her shoulder at the hair stethoscope. She held out her finger and sent a tiny lightning bolt aimed straight at it. Wouldn't be enough to hurt the hair's wielder- if there even was a wielder in the first place- but it would certainly give them a surprising shock (as shocks often are).

By the time Simon had begun his little rant, Nadine had already gotten back up on his feet, still breathing heavily. He watched, in pained silence, as Simon outlined all his stupid little voices in his stupid little voice. "Oh my god, will you shut up?!" He roared, at first surprised with just how deep his voice could get, before diving right into his own rant.

"You are white, man! You are the most pasty kind of white, the most generic kind of white. There is absolutely nothing discerning about you, Simon. That man looks at you, and you don't even leave a mark in his brain- that's how generic you are! You walk down the street and people just process you as part of the scenery!" Nadine banged his hands against his chest. "I stand out! I'm brown— black! Fuck, I'm fucking black now! That guy could probably spell out every single little detail from my face. He might even say I 'pushed' you to 'rob him blind' and that you looked 'kind' while I looked 'vicious.' YOU ARE WHITE!"

Nadine stomped forward, towering over Simon and jabbing a finger at his chest. "So don't you fucking start with this, okay?! Don't you fucking start complaining, and don't you call me a non-person again, because if you do, I am going to shave your hand so far up your ass, you're gonna be able to puppet your own fucking mouth, alright?! I did not die and come back in a man's body to hear some pasty white boy complain to me about how he's going to be tagged a criminal. Got it?!"

After that last yell, Nadine got down on his knees, searching thru the clothes for something to use. "Let's get these out of the ground. No point in stealing if we don't get to use them— and I'm tired of wearing a fucking hospital gown." He turned back, pointing at Simon again. "If you ever want to switch powers, I'd gladly take yours. Let's see how you deal with waking up one day with fucking boobs, you moron." He hissed, and went back to the stolen clothes.

Tom, Revenge of the Funny Header — "Lights Out"

"Wow, thanks." Tom honestly wasn't sure whether he was being sarcastic or not. On the one hand, Ciro had just yanked him aside when he wasn't in any danger, but he had also thought there was danger. Tom watched as the spear floated up close to him and then back away. "Yeah, I don't know how it's doing that. I think they might be controlling it somehow." That was when Tom fully registered what Ciro had said before trying to pull his arm off. "Oh, the group of three is, uh, Josephine, Harriet, and Marco. I think."

The two of them made eye contact. "If you can tell me about the spear, great, but if you can't...just...tell me something, at least. Anything. I mean, I just walked in here and ghaah! What is that?" Tom's body tensed up, as if some weird feeling had occurred all over it. "You can't feel that, can you?"

Wilmarina Printer, Spring Park

"Y-Yes, well..." Mina mumbled for a second, unsure of how to respond to Benedict. "I'm sure we can work our way up to their level somehow. It's not like there'll be escalating hostilities or anything if we do it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with potentially pissing off a force that we haven't even quantified yet. Get over yourself, Benedick."

"This is s-strange," she noted as if her previous outburst never happened. "H-His body believes th-that it's injured, but there are no w-wounds on him as far as I can s-see. The energy th-that hit him must h-have...altered the w-workings of his brain s-somehow. As hard as th-that is to believe. What sh-should we do n-next? He m-might wake up at a-any moment now!"

Mina looked around at the others for guidance.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Feb 18th 2021 at 9:31:06 AM

Once again, a goddamn blindside manoeuvre from Nadine Bauer. Whatever response I expected, it was not an absolute condemnation of me and my whiteness. I can't form any kind of response, throughout the whole thing I just keep backing up as this great big guy looms over me, pushing me back and giving me the dressing down of a lifetime. And she's not totally wrong, I mean her points are valid and some part of my brain would be telling me half of this anyway. But the way she's backing me into a corner right now, threatening me like this...never mind the fact that she's holding my race against me like I had any choice in the matter- like I pulled it out of a crackerjack box or something! Now there she goes, back to her packing and dressing, the whole reason we got into this mess. I should be helping her, but I'm stood here, shaking like a leaf, my brain filling up with all these pictures of me kneeing her in the eye, or bashing her head against a tree, or clawing her throat out with just one hand

"...heheh...sure, yeah, okay, lets run with that. Let's run with this whole idea that we can change things up, like freaky powers or skin colour are things we just decide or earn or whatever the shit." Goosebumps tingling, I feel the sparks crackling again, shut up, you'll have to wait. "I mean, hey, sure, I can deal with that. Waking up with boobs, vagina, a thong? I'm a guy, of course I'd be happy with that shit! Play with 'em all day long and never get tired. So come on already, let's go ahead. I'll be the one who died one day, woke up in a black girl's body, hell of a time, hell of a time. And meanwhile, mon cher, you can be the one stuck with firey lightning powers, which you have absolutely NO control over mind you. And hey, why stop there? YOU can be the one with the fricked-up brain for a change. Yeah! You can be the one taking pills every night, and the day you decide to take a damn break for once in your life, you get to have aaaall the hallucinations with whisperings in your ear and heart-stopping monsters jumping right in your face, a-and you get to find out you-y-you've got some kind of split personality, who wants you TO MURDER YOUR FAMILY!"

CRACKABOOM! Bright flash to the left of me, a tree bursting into flames. Bolts arcing everywhere, oh god no no no keep control, covering my face, deep breaths, bottling it up, got to keep it down, Let me kill 'im, LET KILL 'IM too much, it's too much. Heat's squirming all over, and I'm not just wrestling me, I'm pushing back these scaly arms and claws, no, no, it's not real JUST FOCUS already. Fall to the ground, pinning him down, keeping him down, keeping him bottled

"hrrr...rhhh...hrrr...hhh...hh..."

I'm curled up, on the ground, staring at the grass, arms over my heads. There's cloth tugged up around my neck. A buff, from the shop. Don't even remember picking it up when I left. Think I blanked out there, just now. How long? When did...glance a bit, haven't moved, haven't left the place I was in. Think it was only a second, like one second unconscious. Everything's still where it was, the tree's still on fire, Nadine's...hell, I don't know what she did, just hope I didn't get her with...that...

"...I have to keep it down... Have to keep my cool, keep under control, every, hour, of the day. Because if I lose control, even for a second, people get hurt. People could die. I could kill people, while I'm lost in some fugue state and my brain thinks I'm somebody else. Then when I wake up, I'll be carted off to jail, no lenience, no mercy, bereaved mothers screaming in my face. 've already had the sample taste. People hating me and knocking me down for something 'I' did while I was out. So I know for a fact..." Getting choked up, gulping it back. "...I know that if some drunk guy harangues me and ends up tasered so hard he might be hospitalised, he got off lucky. I could have ended his life, then woken up hours later with the whole world rightly calling me a monster, and I'd never know why."

I let my curled-up body slump to the side, so I'm looking at the woods. Not ready to look her in the eyes right now. "So you pull any race card you like, Nadine Bauer. I've got my own hell to live."

Edited by LizardOfAus on Jan 3rd 2021 at 9:52:51 AM

Kyle just nodded, hiding his hand and letting the flesh and bone change form again.

He gave a wave with the free hand.

"Feels more normal now" He commented idly.

"Need help with something?"

Spring Park

And the next moment, commotion.
The stillness that had followed the boy falling and David going to check on him- thankfully, he had not found much in the way of emergencies- had attracted a few looks, at least.

A girl, too, had shown up and knelt next to him to look at the tree boy, still unconscious. Mina, the one whose petition he had signed. He had signed it? He could have. The events preceding the attack on the park were becoming sorta blurry. He shook his head when she asked if the tree man was bleeding.
And, at least, when he heard the girl confirm there were no injuries he was more relieved, and calmed down a bit. She also said something about how the way that guy's brain worked was changed, but that part sort of went in one ear and out the other. No, more accurately, he sort of made note of it in the back of his mind- but turned his head to the other voices he had heard.

In his panic to check if this guy he punched was not, you know, in critical conditions, he had ignored them, but now he did speak back to them. Truth be told, he didn't really understand the situation he was in or anything. But...

"What hostage...? What prisoner? What escalation? What is this? What the fuck?!"

He didn't know anything, the poor child.

"First I find out there's people with superpowers and shit..."

That day had been the point of contact, but

"Then the park I always pass by while joggin' gets assaulted by... I dunno, a bunch of kids, I guess?"

But what was this? What had he come in contact with, really? He recalled the petition. The thing he had discarded as a conspiracy, before.
—'The girl is innocent. We have superpowers, and there is more to that incident than what people know'
He had laughed at that, with his friends. Today was supposed to be no different. He was supposed to ask them for evidence and write to his friends' group chat about the ridiculous arguments they'd definitely bring up to support that absurd claim. So what was all that about prisoners and hostages? Just what had he found himself dragged into?

"And now someone's dead and y'all are talking about hostages and prisoners and whatnot. And I... I don't want anythin' to do with this shit, ok? There's already too much shit I don't get. So, if you two aren't callin' an ambulance, please get the fuck out of the way, yeah? I can't see any injuries and this girl can't either, but he might have some kinda broken bone or some shit. Thing is, I won't feel ok 'till I see this guy get on an ambulance and hear he's ok. Got it?"

Spring Park:

'Can't hide from him now. I have to work with this person', she thought while looking at the superhuman who possessed beast hands.

The sudden distraction abandoned this place, for now. However, Josephine knew that remaining in this open space would draw more distractions and detours, especially with Harriet's floating spear. The girl cringed at the thought of having to go though that haphazard frenzied explanation of a conspiracy nut again. It worked like a wonder only this time, there was no guarantee that it would again. Her clothes began to dry out, but it still stuck to her skin, making her wince a bit.

"Do please ignore everything I said before," Josephine said as her face blushed. However, she quickly recovered her cool. "If you have powers, just like us, then it's inevitable that you too will get embroiled in it," she told the one with the beastly hands. "The superhumans, just like us, attacked this place and killed the mayor, along with others on the way. They were also kids around her age. But the important thing is one of them wanted for me to join them. And they mentioned about... people who have plans for us."

Josephine embraced silence. 'What if they will refuse? What happens then?'

The answer to this question did not take long to form.

'Then I'll have to go alone. And, even if they refuse, they still deserve to know.'

"What I'm trying to say... no, what I want to ask all of you is... to go to them. And get closer to the truth.'

Kyle paused for a moment, wondering how to answer the girl's words, closing his eyes for a second. Well, he definitely ran into something big. Jumping on some big conspiracy out of nowhere.

Life can't be simple, can it? Just when he thought he got his body back under control, he landed himself into this.

Now, what's the best move?

He simply nodded.

"Might as well" He said, finally "I was trying to look for a new goal, anyway, and no one tries to take control of me without finding a fight"

He extended a hand, as a sign of peace.

"I am Kyle, by the way"

Eh, if things go south, just fight everything

Spring Park - The Eye For An Eye Corner

No, Benedict's right. Ivan had written that before he had time to finish thinking, as if some force had possessed him. But he wasn't going to take those words back. Standing back, trying to protect people from all this - that only worked when you could protect people. He scribbled, messily, on the sullied sections of the notepad he had been avoiding previously. We need information, they won't just stop because we let one go. It all fit into place. Finn - and Benedict, perhaps - could get information on these... peoples' plans. Ivan would get context for whatever insane game was unfolding on his phone, even now. They could stop this. The town would be safe. His family would be safe. If they weren't already- no, never mind that. There was work to do. He hurriedly shoved his pad and pen into his bag, switching to faster sign language. What do we do with this one? He looked at Finn and Benedict, the worry on his face slowly melting to a determination rather more grim.

...Funny, wasn't he panicking before? Never mind, he had work to do.