Eat the Rich [Isaac]

Coraline stared up at the ceiling of the abandoned office she and her companion had been dumped in, mentally going over the series of events and decisions that led up to this moment. Well first, she decided to take a walk after grading all the essays from the class she was TA’ing for. You know, since she couldn’t sleep anymore and meditation just wasn’t cutting it recently.

Anyways. During said walk, she decided to take a shortcut through an alley, where she was greeted with a man in a fancy suit being knocked out and kidnapped. So. Like the idiot she was, she tried to intervene. Normally, it would have gone all hunky dory since it was nighttime in a dark alley, except of course, one of the kidnappers was a metahuman whose ability amounted to generating very bright flashes of light. Her weakness. Especially since, like an ABSOLUTE idiot, she left her sunglasses at home.

While she doubled over in pain, the assholes apparently decided that it was better to ‘minimize’ witnesses and take her as well. And that’s how Coraline found herself where she was now. Trussed up with what was probably a rich dude that they were going to ransom off, while she was going to be killed or whatever. If only.

“So… you think you could broker an agreement to get me out of here too? Like, looking at that suit, you probably have enough money. No big deal if you can’t but it’d make my life a lot easier.” She said with a resigned tone as she squinted at Isaac (curse bright fluorescent lights). Using her powers now would be a bitch since they nabbed her wallet, phone, and id’s. They knew who she was and killing them was not an option thank you very much. Maybe she’d just let them mangle her body and one they dumped her in a ditch somewhere, she could make her way home from there. Healing would be a bitch but hey, what can you do.
Word Count: 337

Isaac wasn't one for making deals in person, he was one who usually did so via a phone/video call. There were times, of course, that required meeting in person, but always in an office or some dignified location, not some smelly back alley. However, being an adult meant sometimes you would have to do things you didn't want to, this was one of those times. Isaac had a plan in motion and this was a key part in it. He was meeting a local gang leader and setting up a deal to provide him and his group some weapons, they were nothing but thugs, but they had a use, at least for Isaac. He would provide them with "top tier" weaponry and they would provide him with a small payment as well as owing him a favor in the future. A favor he'd call upon very soon. Slowly things were falling into place.

At least...they were supposed to. He had begun to make the deal, though, something seemed off about the people he was making the deal with. He had expected to be meeting with the leader, that's the kind of respect he deserved, but instead he was meeting with a lower ranking member. Oh...how he wanted to strangle these two, but he had to hold back in order to keep his plan in motion. He had to smile through it and make the deal, but...before he knew it, he was knocked out cold. Something he hadn't expected had grabbed his attention for a moment, a woman at the end of the alleyway. If it hadn't been for her Isaac was sure he would've been able to avoid this situation. It was aggravating to have to deal with so many commoners today.

When he had awoken he had found himself in an unknown room with that woman who had been the one had caught Isaac off guard. Worst of all, he was tied up with her. Disgusting. Even worse! She was talking to him...HER! Of all people. What gave her the right to? He didn't talk to her, he didn't address her. She didn't know her place. He let out a breath, he was more upset about who he was stuck with more than he was being kidnapped. "And why would I do that?" Isaac asked, sneering at the woman. "Who are you? You're the one who got me caught in this situation, why would I help you?" He looked around at the room and shook his head. It wasn't good. There didn't seem to be anyway out. At least they left him with his clothes and his shoes. They had taken his weapon and wallet though. It didn't look good. They didn't want him dead at least, they would've killed him at the beginning so...there was that. Though, whatever they wanted Isaac for he didn't want to find out.

He let out a breath. If he did want out of here, he may have to work with this nobody. "Listen. Sorry. For what I said." He was lying of course. He wasn't sorry in the slightest, but if he wanted to get out of here he'd need her to at least trust him. "This is just a stressful situation. We need to get out of here. I don't think they want to broker a deal, if they did they would've talked to you when you woke up and they wouldn't have brought us here. We'll probably be tortured. So, I would like to try and think of some way out of this. Any ideas? Are your binds not tight or do you have some sort of plan that you've been working on? If you give me a minute I'll think of something if you don't have anything." Isaac didn't expect her to have anything, but sometimes lesser people could surprise you. They could have moments of competence. That's why they were useful, that's why they existed, so they could be useful to people like Isaac. Hopefully she could be useful, he'd have to wait and see and if not...well, he'd have to figure out some way out of here on his own. Though, it wasn't looking like there was a lot of options. This would require some extra thought.

Damn. That was some high level disdain rolling off this man. Maybe she should have spoken with a bit more tact but look, it’s not like he was the only one having a bad day here. Still, blaming her? That was a bit of a stretch. It’s not like she knocked him over the head personally. Heck, she had arrived in the tail end of the altercation.

“Hey I shouldn’t even be here. I’m stuck in this mess cause I was trying to help you.” Coraline shot back, frowning in annoyance. With that she turned away from the asshole, mulling over her options since somebody didn’t want to provide anything productive to this mess of a circle jerk. Honestly, the pretending to die plan was looking better and better. Theoretically if she started raising a fuss, it’d get her home pretty fast. Right as she decided on that course of action though, seems the mystery man had a change of heart that definitely had no ulterior motive because he’s right. This was a stressful situation.

“Don’t worry about it! I’m sure we can get out of this if we work together!” She said with a guileless grin. “And lemme see… I think I can get out of this if I dislocate my thumbs.” With a small pop, she pushed her thumbs out of their socket, sighing in relief when her hands slipped out with relative ease. With another two pops, her thumbs went right back into their sockets. She shot Isaac another grin, wriggling the fingers of her now free hands at him cheerfully. In her happiness, she forgot to show any signs of pain that a normal human would be experiencing.

“Ta da!!! Now lemme get out of the rest of this mess and I’ll untie you.” With that, she set to work undoing both their bonds.
Word Count: 308
Total WC: 645

Isaac could not be more displeased with who he was tied up with. That attitude of hers was repulsive. If she actually managed to get him out of here, though, he'd let her go. She'd prove to have worth that way and it was a waste to kill things with some worth. Even the most lowly rat had a use, though, that doesn't mean you want to work with it. Sometimes you just had to. Hopefully they wouldn't be here long. He wasn't sure how long he could put up with her for. To be honest, he wasn't sure how he even managed to make a comeback from his comment. There was a strong...very very strong urge to continue on with his previous rant. The desire to stay alive drove a man to do crazy things, he supposed.

At the sound of her thumbs popping Isaac could feel his spine shiver. That was....truly disgusting. She was a terrible creature. But at least she was a creature who got results. He really didn't need to see her pop them back in and then wriggle them at him. That was very unseemly. Once his bonds were finally were undone he quickly stood, fought the urge to slap her, and adjusted his tie which had been disrupted during their capture. He did have to look his best. He looked around the room they were in, keeping a sharp glance. "So...any idea where we are, girl?" He looked back to her, an unimpressed look in his eyes. After a moment, not waiting for her to reply, he turned and started towards the door at the other side of the room. He went to go put his hand on the knob, but stopped himself. Instead, gently, he pressed his ear against the door, trying to hear if there was someone or something out there. The last thing they needed was for their cover to be blown by seeing a knob rattling. Chances were it was locked.

He listened for a few moments, holding a finger up to the girl indicating he wanted silence so he could hear. His eyes then widened and he pulled away from the door. He made quiet hurried dash over to the girl and he started in a low tone. "Someone is coming down the hall...or whatever is outside, they'll be here any second. I don't know if they're coming or not, but we need to be ready." He looked over his shoulder at the door, but luckily the person wasn't there yet. He looked back to the girl with a sort of desperation. He wasn't scared, but he wanted to make sure they were on the same page in case she would try something stupid that got them both caught and recaptured. He really didn't want to be bound to this girl again. It was very...undesirable. "So, we could either hang on either side of the door, try to put out the lights quickly and hide, or...I don't know? Do you have any ideas or tricks or this all on me? Hurry. We don't have a lot of time to be discussing this."

Coraline was oblivious to Isaac’s inner struggle to not be an asshole as she quickly undid their bonds, stepping back to give the man space to compose himself in the form of straightening his appearance of all things. Were all rich people this weird? Signs pointed to yes, considering the ones she did know. Maybe it was due to the fact money shielded the upper class from as much judgement. She’d have to see if any studies had been done on this when she got back home.

Coraline was thrown out of her academic reverie at Isaac’s question. “Nope. They made sure to blindfold me before throwing me in there.” She said with a shrug, keeping out the fact that she honestly wished they had kept the blindfold on. Seriously, why did it have to be so bright in here? Granted, if she had said that out loud, she doubted the man would have even noticed, as he had turned around and walked away mid explanation. “I’m guessing it’s so— Oh shit.” She fell silent at his behest, eyes widening when he told her someone was coming.

“I like that idea.” She whispered, matching his urgency as she scanned around the room for a light switch. Unfortunately though, her visual search was heavily impeded by the need to squint. “Fuck there’s gotta be a light switch somewhere here.” She said before rubbing her eyes. She was about to just take the nearest object and break the lightbulbs herself. Of course, the light hurting her eyes wasn’t the only reason she had agreed to that plan so quickly. If as a last resort, she did have to use her powers… Well.
Word Count: 280
Total WC: 925

Useless. She was so utterly useless. If there was no light switch to begin with would she believe that it would be impossible to turn off the lights? He honestly was with the worst person for being kidnapped. A child could've at least made for a suitable distraction or could be thrown with little effort so he could make a run for it. But no, she was an adult who didn't even know how to break a bulb. He quickly took of his jacket, got on the chair where they were tied to, wrapped the jacket around his hand and squeezed the bulb. After a moment or so, the bulb popped, a shard of glass went through his jacket and cut his hand, but it was out and they were in darkness. He quickly jumped back off of the chair and left his jacket there, covered in glass and stained slightly with some blood. He held is hand under his armpit and went to the other side of the door, careful not to bump into her.

Just as he got the to corner, hopefully the girl would also be in position, the door swung upon and a dim light shone from hallway. The silhouette of a tall burly man reflected onto the floor. He took a step into the room, a confused expression on his face as to why the lights had been turned off. He could have sworn the light was left on to prevent the Meta-Girl from using her powers and it was a fresh bulb too so there was no chance of it going out. This wasn't good at all.

Isaac looked over to Coraline, hoping she'd make the first move. His hand was a bit injured after all and would prefer not to do all the work. He waited, shifting his gaze between the man and Coraline.

Before maybe ten seconds had even passed, the man decided to take matters in his own hands with an air of palpable irritation. What was his problem? “Oh… huh. I guess. ” She whispered after an awkward moment of silence due to her blinking the residual pain out of her eyes. Much better. Coraline could feel the man make his way to the door, probably for an ambush. After a moment of hesitation, she followed after him, only for her to sense the shadow of the lackey hitting the door. Not a second later, the door opened, revealing the rather confused face of an intimidating motherfucker, excuse her language.

Spurred into action by fear and something akin to instinct, Coraline leaped forward, grabbing the man’s hand. Before he could let out a single noise, she pulled forward, angling it so he slammed face first into the ground. From there, she placed him into a vice grip, using the shadows within his throat to suffocate him until she could no longer feel the man struggling. Once he ceased all movement, she let go, dissolving the shadows within and allowing the man to breath once more. Except you know, unconscious this time. Hopefully Isaac wouldn’t notice how the minion had barely made a sound when hitting the ground thanks to her handy dandy ability.

Hopefully he didn’t notice any use of powers in general. She was pretty sure she kept it relatively low key. “Wow, he must have hit his head harder than I thought. Guess I got lucky! ” She said with forced cheer, hoping it’d mask the anxiety in her voice as she looked over at the stranger she was stuck with. “Um… I guess we should get out of here then. ”
Word Count: 289
Total WC: 1214

Isaac let out a brief of relief. At least she could do something useful, and with his hand cut by the glass it would've been quite difficult for Isaac to put down the man. He gave a small appreciative nod to Coraline. He still didn't much care for her, but at least has proved to be slightly useful. Hopefully, she'd continue this trend, though, if she couldn't, he at least had a form of bait or someone he could sacrifice for his own safety. That was good, that was one card in the sleeve, but one card never won a game, he needed something else. He knelt down by the body and began to search the man's pockets. If Isaac was lucky there would be some form of weapon or maybe a key.

Isaac let out a small grunt at his companion's comment. "If we really got lucky we wouldn't be here, but, I guess....good work? This threat is down, but we shouldn't lower our guard or get overconfident. I am gonna take a guess that there was more than just this one guy." At her second comment, he nodded. "Yeah, we should, just give me one moment to finish searching through this guy. I want something to be able to protect myself. You seem to be able to handle yourself, but I am pretty useless without a gun." The second part of that statement was a blatant lie. He could handle himself and there was no chance of him being useless. He was upper class, he was too valuable to be useless. The lie mainly came out of not wanting to get into a long debate about who should get the gun, if there was one, and end up wasting time with a pointless fight. It would only attract more people to them and make their situation worse.

Then Isaac felt it. The shape of a gun. He pulled it out and smiled, the first time in this entire situation. It was a handgun, not one of his making, but it would get the job done. There was only one clip, twelve shots, so he would have to be careful with his ammo. He looked up at her and held up a key, something else he had found on the body. "Here, so I am not the only with something to help through this. Does that sound alright? Are we good? No complaints?" He kept his eyes fixed on her, hoping she would accept this condition. He wasn't sure what the key was for or if they were even going to be able to use it, but, perhaps she would think it had some greater value for their escape. It was the best he could do given the situation.

Despite herself, Coraline perked up a bit at Isaac’s compliment. She was a people pleaser at heart, and the thought of anyone disliking her was a nigh constant source of worry. Unfortunately, the person she was stuck with seemed to be the sort that didn’t like anyone. This added anxiety really wasn’t helping with the whole kidnapped-and-needing-to-hide-her-powers-while-getting-the fuck-out-without-letting-anyone-die situation. KNHHPWGTFOWLAD for short. So any sign that she may be getting on his good side helped to alleviate her need to please.

“Uh. Yeah of course. That’s fine.” She said after a moment of thought. He wasn’t wrong about her not needing a gun, but it’d probably be a bit suspicious if she didn’t even hesitate before agreeing. Also, she had never used a gun. Coraline was sure she could figure it out from what she’d seen on tv and in video games, but perhaps now wasn’t the best time to test that theory, especially since she was with someone who apparently knew what they were doing. As he rifled through the unconscious man’s pockets, she peeked around the corner and felt for any new shadows, keeping watch.

Hearing him address her a couple moments later, she looked back to Isaac holding a gun as well as a key out for her to take. Perhaps he thought it’d assuage any worry of him abandoning her or whatever (though to be honest, it’d make her life a hell of a lot easier if he did). Hey, if it made him feel better. With that, she held her hand out, taking the hopefully useful item from him. “Sounds great.” She said with a small smile, stretching her sense out. Coast clear for now.

“Now let’s get going before anyone else comes around…”
Word Count: 284
Total WC: 1498