A Story of Rain and Hobos

“Don’t like drunks.” Darren answered the priest matter of factly. Except he wasn’t exactly focused on the fact that the priest had been drinking only a short time ago. Now he was more focused on the fact that said priest had been capable of keeping up with him, and that Princess Diana had somehow caught the bottle of Jack Daniels out of the air as easily as Darren himself had caught the pocket watch. When Diana spoke up and asked if he was ‘one of those metahumans’ a faint smile found its way upon his face. “Yea I am, but so are you and the reverend over there. Aren’t you?” He spun to face the pretty not so crying anymore girl that was around his age. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to cat-“

It was about this point in time when Johnny decided he should sing a song about the rain stopping, This of course was probably not the type of singing that would win you any type of spot on American Idol, if they show was even running anymore. Last Darren had heard it got canceled after Simon Cowel, who had owned it the past three seasons, decided it wasn’t worth his time anymore what with all of the new ‘hit’ TV shows that had to do with singing and all that jazz. “My god, you sir are absolutely, positively one of the worst singers I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. I mean I know I’m probably no better but jeezus leweezus it wouldn’t hurt if-ooooo.”

Talk about ADHD, all the man had to do was point out the little rainbow that practically appeared at the end of his finger and Darren was distracted as all get out. “Hey! You’re Irish, and all plus you are at the end of a rainbow which obviously means you have the pot of gold. Unless of course you’re at the beginning of the rainbow…Are you a leprechaun? Because that would totally be wicked cool if you are a leprechaun.” Walking up to Johnny now Darren looked the man whom he was taller than by about an inch up and down before opening his mouth once more. “You aren’t the tallest man in the world but you aren’t exactly short enough to be a leprechaun. Do you have a leprechaun in your pocket or something? Are you positive you aren’t a leprechaun?”

Shaking his head Darren focused back on the more important, or seemingly important if he was John, Tyuki, or even Sean for that matter. Turning back to face Diana and the Reverend he took the sweater off the hilt of his sword and took the weapon out of his book-bag. Pointing the sword at the man and young lady he spoke, again “Back to what I was saying, you two aren’t exactly normal humans either. So…” Leaning forward on his sword now with a smile on his face “What can you two do?”

Diana’s dreary demeanor changed as she dropped her act, turning into a laughing riot at Darren’s joke. “Haha, Leprechaun! that feels so wrong to ask an Irishman... except... except I have seen leprechauns.” She said, letting out a sigh at the end. This alley outing had turned out to be entertaining, and promising.

“Awww... The Princess is already laughing. You see guys? All it took was a little honesty to get everyone out of a rut. Even though it’s pretty obvious you really weren’t broken up leaving your mom... not with your other companion over there... ancient greek or Persian?” He thumb pointed to the Ancient Warrior’s spirit, who had watched all the events unfolding with half-hearted interest.

“...If you know what’s good for you, Reverend, you’ll stay out of my business. I would hate to have to harm a genuinely good man.” Diana said, confident of herself, not realizing she was probably the slowest between Darren and the Priest.

“Lady, Morty over here can walk sweet talk an ATM to give up cash... and he doesn’t even remember where he was this morning. If I tried to bring in every troublemaker I’d actually have to work. I hate work.” The priest said, reassuringly, though his tone was beginning to become irritated at the troublemakers he had on hand.

At this point Diana’s desire to test herself and others came to the front. She looked at Darren after speaking with the priest. “So... you have a nice sword, but I wonder if you can use it well.”

From Diana’s shadow, a dark katana rose up out of the very ground, in a red cherry wood sheathe, the blade black as night. “But I have the better weapon.”

“Lady, Young man, put your weapons away... I am a man of the cloth, a servant of God... thus I am a peacemaker.” He pulled back his Cossacks to reveal holsters with a pair of gold plated Desert Eagles on them with magical script. “You two gonna fight, take it elsewhere. I don’t want any metahuman crap in my alley where I’m trying to do my job.”

“Enchanted pistols. So... you’re no regular priest at all. You have this power... why not use it for yourself? You could be-” at the point the priest’s calm demeanour exploded into a tirade against Diana.

“You think I wanted this power, Diana? You think it was my choice to become a Paladin? I had a life you know... wife and kids, house, bills to pay, the whole shindig. Then I found my Destiny, changed all that. I hunted evil for 25 years... and got nothing. Power means nothing. Screw that noise, I say, I’d rather feed the hungry homeless.”

Diana looked at the Priest in a new light. Somehow his tale paralleled hers, and right now she was genuinely dumbstruck, even as her hand when to the sheathed blade and carried it at her side. She looked at her spirit guide, who frowned at the man’s influence on her avatar.

Darren pointed the blade at both of them, but Don gave him an answer in a most serious tone, meaning every word he says. “I can put a bullet in both your kneecaps before either of you can draw. So, get outta here. I don’t care where. Just stay away from my hobos. Metahumans always bring trouble, and I particularly dislike hurting kids.”

“And as for you Irish, unless your metahuman power is horrible singing you can stay.”

“Oi you cannot be insulting an irishman’s singing, it’s just not right” Marcus said in a mock offended tone, he knew he was absolutely terrible and that was the fun part because everyone reacted to bad singing. As if that wasn’t enough for Darren he now accused Marcus of being a leprechaun, oh of all the things he could do to make Marcus happy, the fake Irishman now grinning from ear to ear as a wicked and fun idea came into his head. He was shaken from his own thoughts as Diana summoned a sword from what seemed to be nowhere which provoked the reverend to pull out his own weapons which weren’t as interesting.

The reverend’s little tired was rather boring Marcus thought so he decided that it was time to spice things up a little bit, “my meta human power is not terrible singing and I’ll have you know I have the best voice in all of Ireland”. He proclaimed rather proudly before standing up to adjust his trench coat “to have a meta human power you’d have to be a meta human” he said in a playful tone before he reached up to pull off his black bowler hat revealing a mess of dark brown hair. “But it seems Darren there discovered my true identity” he grinned crookedly as he placed his hat back on “you see I am thousands of years old and my name is not Johnny Mckinnley”.

“I be a leprechaun!” he yelled suddenly before his shape seemed to shift and move about, the effect only lasted a few seconds where he seemed completely boneless as he shrunk. Marcus now stood at only three feet exactly, gone were the black clothes and bowler hat, they had been replaced by a vibrant set of green clothing. His hat rather large and poofy with a golden buckle in the middle, “aye boyo you found me out rather quickly must have a good eye for the supernatural or fae folk that I am” he said in an even heavier irish accent now if that were possible. One tiny finger pointed to the reverend “you say ya hunted evil? What is evil might I ask?” he cocked his head to the side as he looked up at the man with bright green eyes.

A bushy thick red beard upon his chin hanging down almost to his chest, “what you call evil another might call good and another might call nothing, everything is in the eye of the beholder my boy” he said with a little clap of his leather shoes. “Over zealous religious people believe being gay is evil and worth going to hell, ask the Greeks or the Romans and you’ll find it was an everyday thing, some believe murderers are evil yet looks at soldiers they kill people every day”. The fake leprechaun shrugged his shoulders “your views upon the world are that of a young person seeking only to understand it in the simplest terms”. He now turned his attention to Diana “you are a walking lie in so many ways that I begin to doubt everything you say which makes ya interesting girly, you speak of family as if it’s suppose to be perfect”.

“Family is not something that can be defined, family is not blood, I can swap blood with anyone so that would make them family in these days but oh no that’s not family girly”. Marcus was enjoying himself immensely “family is about those ya care about, those that are close to you like no other can be, just because ya parents made ya doesn’t mean they are ya family and just because someone isn’t ya blood doesn’t mean they aren’t ya family”. He drew in a fake breath to continue “forget the past because that’s all it is the past, it cannot come back to bite yer ass unless you allow it to lassy to find your future and you’ll find yer true family that ya can be sure of or else I’m not a leprechaun”.

When Diana said something about having the better weapon he was immediately interested and became even more so when she pulled out a very dark Katana in a cherry red sheathe. Running over to where she was he bent down and looked the thing up and down. From his kneeling position his sword was pointed backwards with his right fist on the ground and his left hand touching his chin as if he was thinking. “Well, I dunno about having a better weapon and all that. I mean it looks cool but that’s probably about it. I mean come on a Katana? That’s a bit overused…” The talk of enchanted pistols got him interested as well and so of course Darren stood up and spun around on the tip top of his toes to see what the Priest was packing.

Except things started to get really boring around this point. Johnny had only defended his singing and then decided to be kind of quiet, and the priest was off talking about some boring back story stuff, and Darren’s mind was off wandering and wondering if he could take the priest and Diana in a fight. Not that he wanted to fight them really, but the Priest was saying something about fighting and Diana just made a Katana appear out of nowhere which was pretty cool if he was being honest. But he couldn’t let her know that…she was, well she was, well to be honest Darren didn’t know but he couldn’t just let her know he thought her sword was kind of cool.

He was actually contemplating leaving now that the rain had started to dry up and might have even done so with nothing more than a wave if the reverend hadn’t spoken up once more. A glint shined in Darren’s eye and the boyish grin that never seemed to leave showed even bigger if it was even possible. “Can you? Oh, I’d love to see you try. Come on pleeease try and shoot my knee caps out. Haven’t had anyone shoot bullets at me in quite some time. Last time someone shot bullets at me they were on fire and then turned into wolves. The wolves were harder to fight than the guy or his stupid fire bullets. Can your bullets do anything fancy? Can you try and shoot me so I can see what they can do? Ca-Woa!”

The only things that could have shut Darren up were the Priest giving in and shooting Darren or the end of the world. Sadly, for him, it was neither of those things and was instead something much better. Johnny had turned into a leprechaun which meant Darren was right all along. Oh happy day! He grinned and ran over to where Johnny was and bent down looking him in the eyes. “Hmmm so where’s your pot of gold? Is it candy gold, you know like the kind of chocolate they put in gold colored wrappers and make it look like a coin? Because I’d be fine with that…annnd boring.” He muttered the last part as the Leprechaun went all existential or whatever on them with talk of bad and good.

At that point the alley was now empty, and Diana’s focus was on the shapeshifter. “An amusing trick, Irish, but hardly enough to fool me.” Diana remarked. She slowly drew her sword. “So, a shapeshifter are you... I’m suddenly curious at what else you can do. Grow limbs back maybe?”

Darren and the priest have their own brief exchange, the boy actually testing the older man to fire upon him. Were he a younger Paladin, he’d likely have obliged this troublemaker. But years of conflict and struggle made the priest a patient man. “Don’t tempt me, boy. I’m about this close to making you a paraplegic.”

Reverend Earlman looked around his now abandoned alleyway, dirty and dilapidated furniture all over, as well as trash and dirt, bereft of hobos. “Well, now look what you’ve done, all my hobos are gone! Scared em off with your need to be special snowflakes. Pah, what’s the point...” The reverend sighed, kicking an empty can out of frustration and leaning against the masonry wall of the alley.

“Well... for what it’s worth... It’s all Darren’s fault. He started it!” Diana said, her grave demeanor giving way for an attitude that sounded like a bratty teenager accusing a sibling.

“Don’t start with me, missy! Ugh... I’m starting to sound a foster home owner. Well, it doesn’t matter... looks like I’ll have to talk to that tall Chinese gal over at the Enterprise about why half of their donation isn’t feeding the needy.” From inside his cassock he took out a book. He opened it, and suddenly dozens of pages began to fly out, swirling around the priest until he was covered in them.
“Goodbye you crazy kids, and Irish.” He said, snapping the book shut and disappearing beneath the swirling pages. The pages drifted up into the sun on an invisible current.

Diana became silent for a good minute as the pages drifted around in the street. She reaches for one out of instinct, only to find them blank, the yellowish paper was more fragile than parchment, and disintegrated in her grasp. Truly fascinating were his artifacts, but he felt they were probably out of her reach.

“I would love to get my hands on his little toys... but yes, I agree, we’ve made missteps and caused nothing but trouble for a fairly decent human being. You and the fake leprechaun... don’t be so disappointed. Goodbye, John, and goodbye as well Darren. Perhaps we’ll meet again. Put up a good fight and then I might show you all my ‘cool swords’.” Her half drawn sword returned to the sheathe, its magical presence giving of a disappointed feeling.

With that, Diana departs from the alley, continuing her existence of walking the earth, having found her amusement. She thinks she will see them again very soon.

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