applesaucedream | Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

Current Music: September 22nd/23rd, 2013

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Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

Welcome to another ordinary day in Manhattan. This barely even qualifies as a dream at all, it's so like waking life. The dreamers will find that they're their own perfectly normal selves going about their perfectly normal business and thwarting perfectly normal crimes in their perfectly normal spandex outfits.

What's that? No, of course it's normal to wear spandex (or leather, for the more chic among you) and go around beating up muggers and thwarting your villainous counterparts, don't be silly. What else would you do with your afternoon, not use your superpowers to better the world? That's grossly irresponsible of you; don't you know that with great power comes great responsibility?

So get out there and make the world a better place -- and be sure not to let that disguise slip if you do make it in to work today. Wouldn't want anyone to learn your secret identity, after all.

[OOC: Characters will find themselves thrust into the role of superhero...or at least, super-powered human. Whether they'd use those powers for good or evil (or use them at all), they'll think they've always been this way (or maybe just since that time they fell in toxic waste and developed ~~cancer~~ telekinesis). Usual dream party rules apply: all players and characters welcome regardless of membership status. Characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at players' discretion.]

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"B" is a problem, and has been for a while. Little more than a low-level irritation, but Fring - or El Ocaso, as he's known outside the office - has a particular dislike for daily microaggressions. This little busybody, reporting on him, constantly dropping scrapes for Asadi or Rush to pick up, has been a thorn in his side for well past the limit of his patience. And he is a very patient man.

It has taken him some time to find a sufficiently surreptitious way of tracking the man down, but now, finally, as he watches the unassuming civilian tinker distractedly with his phone (via feed, of course - can't get too close to this one), he allows himself a satisfied smile.

Causing the diversion was simple enough, all it took was a couple bribes, some capable interlopers B won't be familiar with. And Ocaso can swoop in for the proverbial kill. It's not B's head he wants, not yet at least - it's whoever that is he's in contact with.

He arrives at the scene quickly, quietly, and approaches as unassumingly as if he were at his day job. B will sense the approach, however it is he does that, but not before Ocaso opens his mouth.

Persuasion was always a talent, and now it's a superhuman one.

"Stop walking," he says calmly, with the slightly lower register, the commanding pitch that is his signature ability. "Turn around and behave as if you know me, which you do, of course. Tell your friend it's me, and that you're in need of assistance." He smiles politely. "In your own words, of course."

The diversion should be wrapping up by now. Not too much fuss. Some smoke bombs, some disorder. This is the real danger. It always was.

Jay rolls his eyes, impatient with the question and his whole damn situation. "Here," he says, gesturing unnecessarily around them. "Manhattan, the real one, not this... whatever this is. I mean before that it was a different universe, but who even gives a shit about that. Is any of this ringing a fucking bell?" Of course he had to wind up in the big dream where no one remembers shit about anything. He could add he's dead, but he isn't quite ready to just drop that out all nonchalant and shit, not quite the way he is with 'different universe'.

The scene itself isn't much; nothing more than a quick robbery, really. It stings at him a little not to stop and investigate that weird smoke cloud, but that isn't his role. After taking mental note of the direction the guys took, he continues on his way as if he hadn't seen a thing. It'll be alright. He'll just let Iman know...

...wait. Is that...?

As predicted, he lifts his head in alarm, chest tightening at the sound of El Ocaso approaching from far too close. But before he can so much as try to run, Ocaso speaks, and the tension drains out of him as he instead stops in his tracks. Oh. This isn't so bad. Things actually seem just fine now! Why he was getting so worked up? "Okay, sounds good," he says, turning and flashing Ocaso an agreeable smile, as if they were friends meeting on the street. Then he drops his gaze to his phone again, obediently erasing the message he'd been writing and sending out another in its place:

Ocaso's here. I could use some help.

It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Ocaso's right - it's a good plan.

Nhodd turns on the spot, face a rictus of offended righteousness as he wheels on the stumbling Asadi, too late to assist her in the matter of falling to the ground but meaning to pursue her while she's still off balance. The movement of the little clattering projectile catches his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he instinctively lurches away from it, toward Asadi --

And then his vision is interrupted by an unreasonably bright flash, leaving him momentarily blinded. Forgetting that he is intangible, he panics and catches himself on fire, the flames licking along his pinions as he lashes out blindly.

Is that raised eyebrow enough of an answer?

He's not sure why he expected something coherent anyway. Johnny holds himself together, but people who have gone through things like that...you probably can't blame them. That doesn't particularly sound like someone who's died, either, unless he's deluding himself over it. "Right. Sorry, I'm not sure I can help you with...that."

In the rising conflagration of someone who, apparently, would prefer to self-immolate rather than confront the problem directly, Nick recoils from the range of the hungrily licking flames, eying the utter disarray warily.

It is of little consequence.

Nick withdraws a second object, rattling and globular, and drops it into the chaos their mutual enemy has helpfully generated on his own. With a bright hiss, the small orb releases a thick burst of choking gray smoke.

Oh well now this is happening. Iman pulls a fold of her hijab up over her mouth and nose with a sharp jerk, assesses Nhodd's position, closes her eyes, and ducks into the smoke. Not the smartest move ever, but she never rode on smarts alone. Her prosthetic emits another burst of energy and she throws a punch. Lots of variables on this one. Does her normally flame-retardant energy shield work on whatever fresh hell this is? Did she propel herself at the precise correct angle that she can blindly strike Nhodd in the spine? Is Rush going to throw another fuckin trick grenade in while she's still in there? Let's find out.

Oh, shit. So much for getting a break.

This is a first, too, B actually implying they are the one who needs help. Coupled with Ocaso's particular ability, it's not too hard to stretch that anomaly into a hypothesis and a theory, that this is a trap, and B is the bait. It's all fun and games until you get caught, ain't it, B?

Iman huffs out a breath. There's no locational information given so she clicks on the little signal-tracker Rush cooked up and zeroes in on the burner. She's not too far off actually. Small world.

She breaks into a dead run. Killing B wouldn't be Ocaso's style, but he's not above just about anything else, and she'd really rather not lose that resource.

As she gets close she drops off the path and practically skitters up a tree. Dense enough here that she can move in from above, hopefully get a literal drop on them.

There's Ocaso - and there's some guy. He looks the part in that he doesn't particularly look like anyone special. The perfect spy.

Ocaso glances at B and says politely, "Perhaps you could point them out, when they've arrived."

Iman smiles at the thanks, and takes both their drinks to a little table tucked away in a corner with two high chairs sitting reasonably close together. She sits nearer the wall and sets Greta's glass down for her.

"So what do you do?" she asks casually, taking a generous sip of her cocktail.

"Yeah, sure." He nods again at the glance and turns his attention to to the street, listening intently. He knows where Iman just was; it's easy enough to predict where she'll come from.

This isn't what he does. Even now, he knows this isn't how he uses his abilities, reporting right to someone like this. Iman's his friend, in a distant anonymous sort of way, right? But it's Ocaso asking, and that somehow makes it feel very important. He needs to do a good job on this one. Bending slightly, he sets his guitar case down on the pavement, then tilts his head slightly as he straightens. Ah, there she is!

"She's coming," he reports, glancing around and then right up into the treetops on the side of the path. "She just went up there. She sees us." Right now he doesn't feel any particular alarm about that, though of course being seen is another thing he never does. There must be a plan here; he trusts Ocaso.

"Bake," she replies with a wry twist of her mouth once she's settled herself. Not that she doesn't enjoy it - she really does - but it just sounds so incredibly ordinary next to 'superhero.' "I have a little shop in Greenwich Village. Well, it's not just mine, it's..." she flaps a hand vaguely, "family-run. But I do most of the actual baking, these days." Even if it means shooing her father out of the way with a broom (something her mother is willing to stoop to, even if Greta herself wouldn't).

"Nice," Iman comments, nodding in between sips. "That's a skill I never picked up. So now you have something you could teach me."

The mention of family catches her a bit off guard, and she surreptitiously checks again - no ring on her finger. Maybe she's the younger generation. Still, better to ask than to guess. "You run it with... parents? Husband?" She smiles easily, not remotely sly. "Wife?"

Greta's smile is a little uncertain at first, as if she can't quite believe Iman's interest is sincere. It broadens at the thought of teaching her, though. That would certainly be something. It wouldn't be that hard to repurpose a cape into an apron, and she comes perilously close to snorting into her wine glass at the thought.

"Parents," she replies, and if there's a faint hint of good-natured reproach in her tone, it's less because she's scandalized by the 'wife' comment and more because wouldn't her mother just love it if there was a spouse involved, gender notwithstanding. "And they'd be thrilled if you stopped by for baking lessons, I'm sure. Although..." she gives Iman's metal arm a considering look, wishing she could examine it more closely but resisting the urge to do something as presumptuous as reach for it. "Is your arm flour-proof? Because I have to warn you, it gets into everything."

There is too much smoke -- there should be no smoke at all, for his is a holy fire that burns beyond the ken of mortals. Black spots still interrupt Nhodd's vision, but that is nothing compared to the smoke that bounces back the light of his fire in duller form. No matter -- he resolidifies himself, clapping his wings like thunder to disperse the smoke and --

And that is a robotic fist in the small of his back. A repeat of such a direct attack was unexpected, to say the least; even without knowing that the fire is aetheric energy, most mortals have the sense not to attempt to touch him in this state. There's no shout this time, but a surprised grunt as his legs give out beneath him -- but then he's rolling with the impact as he hits the ground, throwing an arm up to shoot a gout of flame at his attacker.

Useful as he finds the tactic of lobbing a concatenation of expertly-prepared optical and pulmonary irritants into the fray rather than entering into direct conflict himself, Nicholas does not terribly find himself predisposed to linger on the sidelines as their joint opponent sweeps the smoke aside with a wing flap whose strength and sound and velocity approximates a sonic boom.

Asadi has helpfully positioned herself behind him, allowing Nick clear shot as the other man, possibly some sort of partially-avian pyrokinetic, lashes out at her with a gust of flame.

He raises the dark coil of his weapon and fires once, a bright blue bolt of energy arcing at the presumably organic target with a high-pitched, distinctly electrical whine.

He contemplates firing twice. Firing twice would create a positive feedback loop of electromagnetic energy that would build into an overload and superheat one's internal organs to the point of manufactured necrosis, but killing the other man seems drastically counter-intuitive, particularly provided the consequences should he miss, which he will not, because he is fair deadly accurate with his choice in sidearm and has been for some time.

And so. Nick only fires once.

Are you sure about that? she almost asks. It's tempting. She didn't work so hard to get here just on principle; he's freaked her out, more than she wants to admit, and why the hell shouldn't she return the favor? But if he doesn't know how her power works, she already has the 'intimidation' angle well covered. And if he does... well, same answer. She doesn't have to go out of her way to threaten him.

Keeping up with him is probably enough, and there's nothing difficult about that particular task. Her pace has always been brisk, anyway.

"This doesn't have to be a scene," she says, not sounding menacing so much as tired, because she is, more than he probably knows. Not to be confused with 'weak' or 'defeated,' of course, more of an implied 'I could do this all day.' She could. She has. "I just want to talk."

They're rapidly approaching the bar B came from, and she gives the place a pointed look. If he's not just a tourist, this should put an end to his feigned ignorance. "Back in there, if you don't mind." Look at all this courtesy she's affording you.

The thought does briefly cross his mind that he could just break into a dead sprint and try to make it to the nearest subway entrance. It's pretty easy to lose people down there.

In the end, though, the damage is done. She's seen his face. She knows.

His shoulders slump a little as he follows her glance towards the bar. "Fine." He'll even enter ahead of her, because honestly at this point it doesn't much matter if he turns his back on her or not. It'd be better not to show her that much fear anyway. She sounded honest enough about just wanting to talk; unfortunately, she's shattered what trust he had in her basic decency with the frighteningly prescient stalking. "But I'm not buying."

Rita actually smiles at that, faint triumph and weary relief at the confirmation. She's made it this far. Fucking finally. "Deal." She actually sounds cheerful - or as close to cheerful as she can be expected to get, all things considered.

Still, she keeps a close eye on him as she heads for the bar, making sure he doesn't get any ideas about bolting. It might be unnecessarily unnerving, ordering him what he was drinking before (a tidbit picked up during previous attempts to find him), but hell if she knows what else he might like, and there are more important things to discuss than his beverage preferences. She joins him at a little table - small, but not too intimately so - sets his drink in front of him, and sits down with her whatever-the-hell-was-on-tap, which she utterly ignores.

"How the hell did you find me?" Blunt and to the point.

He certainly does draw into himself a bit as he sets the drink down, staring at her. There is absolutely no way he's going to drink it.

"...people notice when there's new heroes running around, you know," he replies after a moment. It's not a direct answer, nor is it even really to the question she asked. "I bet there's three blogs about you by now." They'll have given her a moniker. He wishes briefly that he'd looked it up; she seems like she'd be very unamused by the entire thing.

Four, actually. She keeps tabs on all of them to make sure this very thing doesn't happen. It's not like she expected a complete lack of attention - the crime fighters who go out of their way to avoid the limelight are more intriguing than the ones who don't bother with masks or secret identities - but she already knows what happens if her actual identity goes public, and she doesn't want it. Never again.

"They don't text me," she says, unamused anyway because that's her default state. "And I'd like to keep it that way." So if there's a leak, it needs to be stopped.

"Easy enough." He shrugs carelessly, mentally noting the people around them before he continues. No one's listening; it's still early in the day to be in a bar at all. "You aren't too high-profile yet, and none of the super-villains are talking about you." He says it mockingly, as he always does. They're a bunch of idiots, jockeying amongst themselves to be the biggest and baddest. He should know.

But they both know those aren't the people she's concerned with right now. "You said no. We could've just left it at that. I'm not a telemarketer."

Rita doesn't bat an eye at the mention of 'super-villains.' They don't worry her - not yet, anyway, not when the worst any of them could think to do to her would just result in a reset and a smarter sequence of moves on her part. She'd have to live with whatever had preceded it, but that's nothing new. She already has to live with a lot.

The actual worst thing someone could do to her is what B is doing now, and there he sits, heaving his shoulders in a dismissive shrug, like this is nothing.

"No." Rita leans forward, her chair creaking beneath her. "We couldn't." And again, since the question obviously needs repeating: "How did you find me?"

He doesn't lean back. He very deliberately does not lean back.

"I might ask you the same question," he points out instead. "I'm not the one following people - though I guess that's not the right word, is it? Preceding, that's the one." If nothing else, this unwanted proximity has given him plenty of time to listen. The more he thinks about it, the more different she sounds from the way he remembers. That was only a week or so ago; what could possibly have happened in such little time?

Oh well fuck. He's looking right at her now.

B spotted her without even trying. How'd he do that? Guy must have some serious premonitory senses or something, with all the shit he pulls on the regular, but now is not the time to think about it.

She drops down, attention fully on Ocaso. He doesn't usually use his power on her, wouldn't be sporting or whatever, but that isn't a reason to trust him an inch.

"'Sup," she says with a lackadaisical wave and a nod toward B. "You got somethin' for me?" Her hand lowers back down to meet its mechanical counterpart, fingers lacing together. The fun thing about the prosthetic's design, this intentionally jank-ass rusty dieselshit look, is that it effectively masks the plethora of higher functions buzzing away inside it. Looks analog, runs like a supercomputer. Sure, everyone knows she can do limited spatial warping with it, but do they know she can text? Well, she hopes not. Cause she really needs Nick Rush to get this text, and get his ass over here, preferably in an ambushing capacity.

-

She's in luck, as far as Ocaso's concerned; to him, her arm is a dangerous weapon, nothing more. He also believes her proud, and he's not wrong, but is it pride that precludes calling for backup? Not when there's another party involved, as it turns out; to be fair, this is a first for them.

"I thought you might be interested to know who was behind so many of our scrapes," he says calmly. "I know I was."

His influence over B will last several minutes more at least, and it'll only fade if he doesn't give new commands. He lets the man be, not seeing reason to restrain him more than with words. It's not as though he's a threat when he's here in the open, is it.

He really doesn't know, does he? That's some small relief, though the quiet snort she lets out is more exasperated than anything else. So, he managed to figure out her scrupulously hidden identity and snag her phone number, but is unaware of what she actually does. Christ.

She could tell him.

It's not without risk - he must have something going on, to have found her in the first place - but if he had a way of sussing out the extent of her powers without her telling him, he'd have done it already.

Getting here was difficult. Making sure this conversation didn't actually happen will be easy.

"You want to know how I found you?" She leans against the back of her chair and gives him a maddeningly blasé shrug of her own. See how he likes it. "Trial and error. Weeks of it." She gives that a moment to sink in, then leans forward again. "But you started this. And if you don't want me to finish it, you'll answer my goddamn question."

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Page 7 of 11

Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

oh my goodness look who it is

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many days later, a short novel

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