2619/A Patch of Darkness

A Patch of Darkness
Date of Scene:	28 September 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Breath, Blueblood, Karen Page

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Breath has posed:
    Breath comes roaring through the sky and starts dumping speed, jetting back against the street so as not to set off any car alarms or anything. She touches down and takes a couple of running steps to catch herself, sort've stumbling slightly at the odd angle and catching herself. Bah, one wing is a bit low, probably. She sucks on a tube and the wings collapse and more-or-less fold back into her backpack. Her, damn it all, if there is one thing that light colored, skin-tight clothes of slightly dubious opacity is good at, it is rubbing everybody in the area's noses in the fact that hey! There's some curviness under this! Usually. Not always. ANYWAYS.

    This is near a school in the area.. which is mostly quiet really. But SOMETHING has her prowling around investigating. As it turns out, the something is a few ambush spots nearby, alleys and such where there is usually light.. usually.. but today? Not so much. Places normally safe, which are now dangerous.. and most people just wouldn't think of it.

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood retired. He *retired.* Well, that's the polite term-- more accurately he was hounded back into civilian life, all-but-disappearing, except-- well, except tonight. Darkness is cover, cover for mutant abilities not so carelessly flaunted in light-of-day. Having positioned a number of extra ribs within his eerily-durable shell, tonight he slithers snake-like between streetlights and past cars. On patrol, just like "old times..."

Karen Page has posed:
She'd only done a single shift today - mostly because she needed to buy groceries. Karen might be up to catching a meal (especially since it was free!) at the Mission, but she couldn't really expect Gwen to do the same. Not and not sound rude about it all. Her fridge had been woefully bereft of food, and her cupboards even worse. Not that she could afford all that many staples, but she'd managed a few things. Plus Piero at the bodega threw in a few vegetables that were about to be past their prime. "Enh.. nobody buy them anyway, you take. You eat. Make me something nice some day. It all works even." She'd laughed at him and said "It all evens out." But she knew what he'd meant. She'd just not meant to be quite so long, and now that it was dusk, she was hurrying home. Quietly berating herself for taking 'the short cut' that wasn't really a shortcut, but was a nice walk given the school nearby. This one had an actual playground, and sometimes kids were out. Just.. not at this hour. Nor should she be.

Breath has posed:
Breath looks around a bit, since she just wrecked any sort of cover of stealth she might have had.. nah, she's not stealthy. Like, at all. Which makes her doing these sort of Batman prowls a bit silly, but hey. 'Chased off' is good too! Anyways, the alley she's touched down near? Doesn't actually GO anywhere. So it's a nice quick spot to check. And she does! With a little flashlight. And this alley seems empty of all but a cat. Then there is a small crash from somewhere else nearby. Someone moving around? Well, SOMEBODY is walking around at this hour...

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood may've bumped a trashcan. Er... 'woops?' It's been ten years, we're not so agile as we used to be! Pulling himself upright, he takes a breath and checks the direction of the wind? Those gusts in this area, they're inhuman! The flicker of a darting flashlight catches even "plain human" senses, and laying belly to pavement he sidewinds over to investigate, fists pre-emptively clenched!

Karen Page has posed:
Jesus crimmeny christ on a cracker.. That crash made Karen jump, near fairly out of her skin. Not that she generally felt /that/ threatened in her neighbourhood, but with the invastion and all the creeps were crawling out of the woodword, and all she had to arm herself with was an about to wilt zucchini and some carrots. She supposed she could threaten with kale - there were some that would work on.

Karen pulls her bag closer to herself and quickens her pace. She's really only less than two blocks from home here.

Breath has posed:
Breath tilts her head and aims the flashlight for a moment at the walking person.. female, probably not going to attack anybody, good.. then turns the flashlight back on herself, holding it over her head and shining it down on herself. "Hiyah, everything okay? I'm just looking around for somebody, because they didn't want to walk down this way unless somebody had made sure it was safe." She puts one foot behind the other, smiles, waves meekly.

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood studies Breath from the alley. After a moment, calls up: "You are looking for whom? Did this civilian send you ahyead?" He's tried to put authority in his voice -- certainly age has helped some. But he'll probably never lose that particular Slavic twist on his English.

Karen Page has posed:
Trouble with hustling? You forget to look where you're going. Karen's foot hits a curb, and she nearly goes flying. //Nearly// but not fully - she manages to catch herself at the lst moment. Unfortunately, the brown paper bag she's carrying is having none of this nonesense, and decides to split across the bottom.

Oops.. there goes dinner.

Literally.

Breath has posed:
Breath blinks and looks back at the voice. "What? Yeah. Who is this?" Then there's a crash and some stumbling, and she rushes back, "Oh! Are you okay?" She kneels and tries to help gather things up. looking around again back at the source of the voice.

She hrms.. packrat she's not, so there's nothing to offer as a replacement bag. And there's still that mystery voice that has her nervous, because what is a military guy doing here? "Uh." She pauses in her helping to flash the flashlight back toward the voice, caught between wanting to help out a woman in a dark street and wanting to investigate the voice. Also, this remains a dark and shadowy spot, so that's still a latent cause for concern, though it's seriously unlikely that anybody is going to mug somebody in a superhero costume.

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood decides, lips pursed, not to play 'disembodied voice-tag,' as it were. Leaning into another set of s-shaped exertions, he comes to his full (if modest) height before the ill-fated zucchini. "When I was a hero, I called myself 'Blueblood.' I suppose I still do." Careful enunciation, carefulll... "... madam. Do you require an escort home?"

Karen Page has posed:
Karen doesn't have an ectra bag either. "Well, doesn't that just beat all?" The woman's shoulders rise and fall in an easy shrug. But she does squint at the superhero, Breath, who stopped, "Say, don't I know you? From the Mission - you were looking for some guy. Wanted to know if they'd register them under their legal name or the pronoun they preferred?" Karen gives a weak smile. "Figures. The bag breaking, I mean."

And then there's the someone new, which earns a slightly wary glance from the woman. "Oooo-kaaaay?" He seems harmless enough? He's not someone she's heard tell of, but it's not like she knows all the superheroes around by any stretch of the imagination, and with the invasions, more keep crawling out of the woodwork every day. "Unless you've got a bag on you, then I think we're all SOL, because somehow I need to get my groceries from here" the ground where they're sitting "to my house" not two blocks away.

Breath has posed:
Breath ohs! "Yeah, that was you! Yeah, they found him in a hospital. Uhh." She waves at the new.. uhhh... "Breath here. When you.. *were*.. a hero?" She looks wary, was this some sort of face heel turn thing? is she going to get attacked by a really odd looking supervillain now? Because that wasn't.. exactly how she planned to finish her day...

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood observes, to Breath: "I think we are only pursuing each other, this time tonight." He shrugs? "... I stopped. For... long time. This night I had the urge to stretch my legs." Which the observant will notice he lacks entirely, terminating in a wide serpentine point. At least he can't trip over his shoelaces. "... am afraid to report I cannot rescue your squarsh. Is dead."

Karen Page has posed:
As Blublood speaks about stretching his legs, Karen gets a better look at him. Okay.. no legs. No real biggie, but it certainly places him (is it a him?) on the less common side of the drawing board. "I was going to make that" the zucchini "into some sort of muffin or something." Of course what was already on the way to wilted is now a bit of mush given its recent adventures into the street. "Well, it was a nice thought."

Breath gets a quick grin. "You found him? That's great news. Not so much the hospital part, but the rest?" Considering the alternatives. Like dead.

Breath has posed:
Breath nods, "Yeah! I was super pumped. Bad part is, now they have to deal with his *parents*. UGH. Couldn't they have just left him abandoned? Look, uhm.. I can probably carry a couple things, but I really have to make a call first. That's sort of why I came here.." She digs out a phone and starts tapping in a message, looking between everyone.

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood rocks-and-slithers behind that trashcan, propping himself up on an elbow. He sinks a few inches, makes a few... pained grunting noises? Oh. em. gee, is he using-- thankfully it doesn't appear he's soiled the street, because after a moment lacing his inseams he returns on two reasonably-human but barefoot legs. "There, is better. Please do not break any glass," he jokes, pointing to his toes.

Karen Page has posed:
It's like watching a train wreck.. Karen' can't look away. But she forces herself to, finally, and when he's back, Blueblood has legs. Still, she tells him, "Uh.. not really sure what you did back there, but we don't do that in the street. Or we go in a lot further into the alley. Public.." Well, she's not sure if it was a number one or a number two, so it's kind of hard to specify much more in the scolding. "We have bathrooms for that," she finishes weakly.

Breath earns a careful nod. "Ah. His parents didn't like his transition, then, I take it?" There was a time she'd have been a little more sympathetic of his parents, but that was a Karen of long ago. Or at least it felt like it. She felt she'd aged years since her arrest. She certainly wasn't the same person. That's for sure.

While Breath makes her call, Karen sorts the groceries into three probably manageable piles. "That might do it?"

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood pinches the bridge of his nose. "Lady, I-- 'super-powers,' okeh? I was reappearing my legs that I own!" Hand's already down there after the joke about toes, which there are ten of. He gestures as if to indicate 'legs! Genuine human legs! Right here, sold in pairs!'

Breath has posed:
Breath cringes. "Oh heck no. They were going to send him to, " she makes a face, giving air-quotes, "Conversion Therapy", and looks disgusted, "..from what I heard. I'm half tempted to drop in and go full Big Bad Wolf on the place, if I find it. The PR would be aweful though. It's not like I can defend myself from it." She starts picking up the groceries in one of the piles. The excess that doesn't want to stay in her hands gets put in her skirt as a basket for the moment.

Karen Page has posed:
Karen winces at the word in air-quotes. "Yeah. I thought we'd got rid of that sort of crap like twenty odd years ago. I'm really sorry. Any way you could get him transferred to a different hospital?" Good luck with that, what with all the fallout from the invasion. He's probably lucky he's got a bed at all.

But Blueblood she's really not sure what to do about now. "You were making that kind of noise back there. People are going to jump to the wrong conclusions. And you're not from around here, are you?"

Blueblood has posed:
Blueblood narroweyes. "Yes, I am sure to go from snake to man is effortless for you." He does drop the sarcasm, curious: "... is bad neighborhood? I could pick worse." He nods to indicate Breath. "Am betting she is plenty protector for school."

Breath has posed:
Breath says, "Somebody I know needed a safety check for their trip home. This is the only part that was really dangerous. We can go now, they should be close by."

Karen Page has posed:
Karen helps everyone get their share of the groceries, and leads on. Their walk to her apartment is pretty uneventful, unless you count a mangy old tomcat out on the prowl for the ladies. His yowl annoyingly loud and off-key as such things are, but otherwise harmless. When they get there, she assures them she can manage up the stairs. And, as luck would have it, there are a couple of old bags lingering on the stoop, so she's not likely to have problems getting things up the stairs and put away. "Hope your friend does okay." Both get a nod of thanks, and the girl is off.