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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The lack of any undue hostility is hardly a ringing endorsement as to the opposite party's intent. Nicholas lets the point of the weapon drop. He makes no movement to reholster it.

He looks away, the wind lifting the hair from his face, one corner of his mouth tightening. He cares very little for the novelties of hiding one's face, though clearly this second party doesn't share his opinion on the subject, establishing a tenuous balance of power from the initialization. It is not an outward subset of events, generally, of which he can say he is very fond.

"Nothing so interesting, I'm afraid," he says. "Keeping an awareness of anomalous events." He looks obliquely at the other man, his suspicion unconcealed and readily evident.

Anomalous events like people dropping out of thin air, probably. Seth hesitates for a few moments. Rush is more or less in the same boat as him. Not exactly an ally perhaps, but not an enemy, nor someone he particularly needs to hide his identity from. An enemy of my enemy and all that. Anyway, he doubts he'll get much out of the conversations while masked. He could just leave, of course. Their last encounter was hardly positive.

In the end he decides that, well, he's been meaning to have a word so it might as well be now. He reaches up, pushes down his hood and pulls off the mask, lifting the other hand to ruffle through his hair a little, as it tends to get flattened a bit by the disguise. "That has to be done too, I suppose."

Nick compresses an impressive amount of contempt into his weary scoff as the opposite party makes his identity and intent patently obvious. He replaces his weapon with curt efficiency, drawing forth a thin silver slip of a lighter and a box of cigarettes in the same continuous series of movements. He lingers for longer than the socially acceptable allotment of time over the depression of the button, the hiss of spark turning to steady flame, the bright bead of light at the end of the cigarette and the smoke curling thinly into the sky.

All of it a clean display as to how little he cares for this intrusion in its entirety.

"Should I be concerned over the likelihood that your pursuers may be capable of following?" he asks with projected indolence, watching the smoke trail lazily upward.

"They've never managed before, so it would surprise me," he answers, watching Rush. At least he puts away the gun, so he can't be so resentful that he'd return the favour, nor does he hurry to leave. Suppose that's somewhat promising.

He remains quiet for another long moment, then gets straight to it, no beating around the bush. Small talk is the strength of neither of them, that much is clear.

"I owe ya an apology," he says, earlier levity now nowhere to be found in his demeanour. "I was hurt and angry, and I took it out on you. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

It doesn't exactly sound rehearsed, but neither is it all that spontaneous. Seth isn't great with interpersonal skills, but at least he makes a point of apologising when he's in the wrong. And given they have friends in common and aren't completely unlikely to meet again, it would be good to be able to interact in at least a somewhat civilised manner.

Nick snorts once, tapping ash from the end of his cigarette to send it drifting over the network of flickering city lights.

"Yes," he says after a long, unhurried drag, "well. Generally speaking, I'm beyond severing ties with anyone who's ever attempted to beat the shit out of me." He arches an eyebrow, subtly tilting the box of cigarettes in the other man's direction. "The list is too long. It wouldn't be sustainable."

Seth nods, interpreting that as an acceptance of his apology, though he doesn't take a fag - that's something he only indulges in when he's particularly stressed.

And to be honest, he's not surprised to hear that it's not the first time someone's punched Rush. Seth may not have been right in attacking him, but Rush was doing a pretty good job in making him want to, saying those things about...

He hurriedly directs his mind away from the context and circumstance of what he's apologising for, though. That whole topic is still quite sore and confusing, and if he's going to discuss it with anyone, it certainly won't be with Rush, who seems to have the sensitivity of a boulder.

"You don't strike me as someone who tries very hard to make friends, no," Seth answers, going to sit at the edge of the building, dropping the mask and looking out over the city. Heights don't bother him too much, compared to other things.

"I prioritize," he says shortly. He slides the box back into his pocket, blowing out a slow hush of smoke to spiral over the irregular glittering mass of lights below.

"I hear he's back, in any case," says Nick, his tone and the uneven slope of his shoulders radiating languid unconcern. "Jackson. I did say he wouldn't be long."

Seth snorts gently at the answer. He doesn't seem very good at prioritising, if 'avoid getting punched' is that low on the list.

"You haven't spoken to him?" Seth asks in surprise, looking up at Rush, forgetting to be annoyed at how his answer could be summerised by 'I told you so.' He'd rather gotten the impression that Rush was the first person Daniel had found, but perhaps he hadn't actually made himself known to him.

He looks at Seth skeptically.

"Of course not." He scans the city below with a brief, jerking sweep of his eyes, the toes of his boots scuffing the building's edge. The wind sluices cleanly overhead, unoccluded by the tips of skyscrapers jutting outward.

"We're operating on entirely separate frames of reference," he says, the obviously readily implicit.

Seth watches Rush, debating for a moment if should correct him or not, but, well, if Daniel's taken this long in doing it himself, then maybe it's about time. Seth would want to know if someone had read his mind.

"Not any more," he says finally. He is however stopped from elaborating on the how and why by a loud hiss of static coming from behind them.

He quickly gets to his feet, sweeping up his mask from the ground - there's a ripple in the air, like something trying to break through. Seth can feel it - like a metallic taste in the air, something messing with the equilibrium or the world, or at least the Rift.

"Guess I was wrong," he comments. The tear hasn't quite opened, but it's getting there. "Don' suppose you've got any helpful powers?" he asks, pulling the mask on and his hood up.

Nicholas twists sharply to look at him, suspicion darkening the edge of his stare. The impending crackle heralding the rending of quantum foam immediately derails the cryptic mundanity of that statement.

The weapon unfurls from his side in a graceful catch-and-pull, the tip coming up to train itself unwaveringly on the separation of two planes as they come apart in blazing asynchrony.

"Please," says Nicholas, the word a dry pull. "I've gotten by quite well without them, thank you."

His free hand tangles into the smooth gray of a canister at his side, which he tosses out with a fluid insouciance. It skitters over concrete to rest at the foot of the split in spacetime.

"Hold your breath," he says somewhat unhelpfully as the container bursts open with a hiss of gray smoke.

"You know this isn't a gas mask, right?" he asks, his voice now distorted by the mask. He doesn't have any weapons himself - evasion is usually his tactic, and if he needs to harm or kill them his powers can actually be very effective, at least at close range. And thankfully he doesn't need to hold his breath - he just needs to be very specific about what he phases through. The smoke remains undisturbed as he walks through it.

He steps forward towards the tear, and pulls it open with a gesture, catching the people on the other side by surprise as they come into view, or at least in view of Seth who is in the middle of the smoke. He phases one of their weapons out of their hands, while beams shoot straight through him and into the night air.

"I didn't care," he says lazily, skirting the edges of the thickening cloud. The heat of arcing plasma shears easily through the gray mass, singeing the air with a sharpness that stings his lungs with each indrawn breath.

Nick narrows his eyes, the dark set of Seth's shoulders little more than a vague outline. Output is directly correlative to whatever input he next implements, so he depresses the trigger and discharges his weapon thrice, bright blue bolts streaking into the graying void with a high-pitched electrical stutter.

Seth's glad Rush has his back, as whatever that weapon is seems to take them out pretty effectively. One shot whizzes past them all, but two connect with the people directly in front of Seth, who drop, seemingly in a fair amount of pain before they pass out. Seth kneels and touches one of them, and he can feel his now dormant mind, so yes, they're still alive.

He narrows his eyes against the cloud, then a powerful gust of wind (By chance or manufactured? Hard to say.) seems to dissipate most of it, and Seth can see the.. surprisingly large group on the other side.

A few bright green bolts whizz through him, as he's the primary target, though of course they do no harm. However, one of them aims for Rush, and the bolt hits him squarely in the stomach, singing right through his clothing. However, it does not get a chance to burn his flesh, as Seth - stupidly, impulsively - uses his protection power to absorb it all, and immediately doubles over in pain and a stifled cry.

Return fire is to be expected; the first onslaught Nick counters by throwing himself gracelessly out of range. He's not and never has been terribly adept in the physical skills department but he is what he's always been, which is fair fucking fast and fair fucking agile, and being rendered useless via a bright streak of blistering plasma to the abdomen will completely demolish his credibility in that regard.

He draws inward an anticipatory recoil, expecting pain, but none comes.

Rather, Seth cries out, and Nicholas might not be predisposed to participate vigilantism but his deductive skills are certainly finely tuned enough for him to draw his own fucking conclusions.

He unleashes a secondary salvo, catching the other man's upper arm with the close and drag of fingers wrapping around thick cloth and yanking him away from the disruption with a violent torque of his upper body.

"Are you completely deficient in tactical thinking?" he hisses.

Seth stumbles in whatever direction Rush is pulling him, a hand going to his stomach, distracted from the finer details of his surroundings by the pain. Now that Rush is actually touching him though, he extends the phasing field to him. And in good time too, as their opponents seem to waste little time in shooting at them some more, but this time the blasts pass straight through them both.

"Probably," he answers with a humourous tone, but definitely sounding more than a bit strained as he tries to get his bearings again. He doesn't think it's lethal, but it absolutely fucking hurts.

He fixes the other man with a glare, a muscle twitching in his jaw. This has entirely dismantled whatever nascent plans for attack he's formulated, and his strategy will require a full rewrite because fucking Seth got himself fucking shot.

"Fuck," he pants between clenched teeth, "you."

He is distantly aware of the sensation of becoming insubstantial, which is certainly a feeling he will have to categorize as among his least favorites, along with the distinctive impression of being fired upon by virescent energy-based projectiles through the fading thick smog of his own design.

"Make us fucking corporeal already," Nick snarls, unraveling a grapple from his belt with the intent of clamping it along the building's edge as soon as it becomes logistically possible to do so.

Even in the middle of all this, Seth can't help be amused at how Rush is insulting him while also trying to save his life. It's comfortingly familiar in a way.

Seth gives a nod and does as he's told, though he keeps an eye on the advancing enemies.

"What're you doing?" he asks. He doesn't have the strength to be specific about what's insubstantial and what's not, so if Rush wants to interact with something, Seth will have to let them be at risk. Any sign of getting shot at again though, and Seth's going to have to make them intangible.

"Executing a fucking plan," he says with airy exasperation, fastening the grapple over the lip of the building's edge with the satisfying click and rattle of locking bolts shooting into place. "Hold the fuck on, will you."

Without any further warning, he readjusts his grip around the man's midriff and drops over the edge. The line takes them down the sheer drop, wind tearing through his hair and catching at his jacket, the cuffs of each sleeve. He squints against the inevitable shift in pressure, against the stabbing pain of staring into the churning buildup of wind resistance.

For a moment, there is only the vertical streaks of lights blurring into obscurity and the hum of the line paying out.

Then their trajectory catches and slows, and Nicholas swings one foot to plant it against the side of building from which they fell, sliding them to halt something like five feet above the asphalt of the road below.

"This," he says calmly, "would be your stop."

Edited 2015-07-08 02:01 (UTC)

Oh, Jesus. Seth might not have a significant problem with heights, but swinging yourself off the edge of a building is usually enough to make anyone a bit queasy, especially when you're not the one in control.

He specifically does not look down, just grips on tight to Rush. He almost opens a tear underneath them out of pure instinct, maybe have them drop into a pool or something, but it's okay, they may be flying down the side of the building at an uncomfortable speed, but they are not actually falling to their deaths.

Once they've finally come to a stop, Seth does at last look down, to make sure the drop is a lot less deadly before he lets go. Five feet is still pretty significant for someone who's been recently semi-seriously shot, but he lets go anyway. His landing isn't all too grateful, collapsing onto his hands and feet, and reaching up to clutch at his stomach again. Jesus Christ, that hurts.

He unclips the line and lets himself drop, gloved hands catching smoothly against the rain-slick wall with the rasp of leather over concrete. His legs nearly buckle beneath the impact as it stings his ankles but he's fully and entirely capable of righting himself and moving swiftly to the other man's side in a relatively expeditious manner.

Nick stoops to hook one hand under Seth's arm and tug him upright.

"I'm assuming they'll attempt to follow," he says crisply. "I recommend we no longer be here when they do."

"Good idea," he answers, letting himself be pulled up, his legs thankfully holding him once he's on them again. His breathing is hot and heavy underneath the mask, and he reaches up to pull it off again, his face damp.

"Hold on, just..."

He leans a little on the shorter man, concentrating hard. A moment later another tear opens up in front of them, showing the inside of a mostly empty warehouse.

"Have you no insight as to your own limits," he hisses, managing to sound breathlessly annoyed and not the slightest bit concerned for the apparently flagging strength of his unwanted, unneeded, inept companion. With a low dragging sound of annoyance he yanks one arm over the uneven set of his shoulders and heaves the other man through the split in the quantum fabric of their spatial existence, into the relative safety of a conveniently deserted warehouse.

"If you suffer some sort of fucking vasovagal episode," growls Nick, dark and weighted with unconcealed warning, "I will be extremely annoyed."

"I do, I just choose to ignore them," he answers lightly, though he knows he would be every bit as annoyed if it was Rush who got himself hurt for Seth's sake.

The rip closes immediately behind them with the sucking sound of fluid disappearing down the drain. Seth groans a little and untangles himself from Rush, leaning against a wall instead, dropping the mask onto the ground and letting himself sink to a sitting position.

"I have no idea what that means," he admits, wishing people would stop using big words at the clueless drop-out, and unzipping his leather jacket.

He pulls up the bottom of his hoodie to inspect the wound - it's weirdly patchy and only somewhat burned, only vaguely resembling anything that blast should've made. Thankfully his power significantly lessens the damage when he redirects it onto himself. The area is stained dark with blood, but it's no longer bleeding - his healing power is doing a good job too.

Spatial tears are evidently fully capable of hydrogelizing, which is both expedient and appropriate given the situation Seth has unwittingly placed them both in. Nick backs away from the man as he recovers, hands clenching and unclenching with an arrhythmic, frenetic energy he seems unable to dissociate himself from.

"If you fucking pass out," he clarifies, shooting the man a glare from beneath lowered brows, "that will go significant lengths to make the current situation unworkable from a biomedical standpoint."

He crosses the gap between them in a brusque step, eyes raking the dark ridges of the burn and the - the points where the skin appears to have melted or singed beyond recognition unless he is, he is very much -

Nick swallows, closes his eyes, and breathes through his nose.

In retrospect, this is not one of his more well-reasoned ideas. The smell of burned skin is, as he is well aware, beyond fucking unbearable.

He opens his eyes. It's not so terrible.

"I'm not that sort of doctor," he says, utterly composed.

Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

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