Lovely Weather We're Having [Open]

Heavy snow drops silently on a midnight road.  Here slumbers a quiet backstreet very almost illuminated by a handful of barely-operable streetlights.  

The scene’s tranquilly is disrupted by the slow struggling progress of an unmarked black van.  Its driver, a woman obscured behind a gas mask, listens intently to the smartphone beside her.

“All units be advised that we’re calling off the search.  I repeat we are calling off the search.  This weather is only set to get worse, we’re not going anywhere and neither is the subject.  Return to base immediately before you get trapped out there.”  Announced a voice from the police scanner app.  

Alicia let out a sigh of relief; it had been a rough night.  All chaos had broken loose about an hour ago and for a moment there it seemed like half the NYPD was after her.  

She glanced into the back of the van.  Her latest acquisition was still secure.  She had no idea what the device was, but seemingly it was important to the Makeli group and that made it important to her.  Even if that just meant stealing it to piss them off.  It looked valuable though; perhaps she could find a buyer.  

Roughly the size and shape of an arcade machine it had taken a hand truck just to get it in the van.  Getting the device all the way out of the city might be wishful thinking at this point.  

Alicia squinted out the front of the van, her window wipers barely managing to keep up with the falling snow.  She flicked a switch on the side of her mask, turning on her thermal imaging display.  

“No good, nothing but cold out there. I can’t see anything, shit!”  She proclaimed to the empty van before flicking the switch back.  

The police were right, she wasn’t driving anywhere in this weather.   Alicia pulled over the van.  She wound down her window trying to get a look at the nearby buildings.  She didn’t know the city at all, but by the looks of it this part had yet to experience the mass reconstruction that benefited the rest of it.  If there was anyone living in this dump, chances are they weren’t very happy about it.

She wound her window back up.   What should she do now?

“Think Alicia think, how can you get out of this one… ”  She asked herself, rubbing her arms for warmth.

The snow made New York look nicer. It did not make New York nicer.

The inability to move around the city in a car made it difficult for Danny to follow the sounds of the sirens, but it did give her a foot up on the police with the ability to cut through alleys. With the amount of pile ups forming at the banks of every major intersection, the lifeblood of the city came to a stop, coating the city in a form of stasis- but god, was it cold. "Police radios say they aren't pursuing the perp anymore." Danny took the radio down from her ear and placed it in a pouch inside of her blue thermal jacket. A headband stuck out from under a wool hat hugging her head like a brain leech while a pair of pink snow pants tucked into a thick pair of boots. "The weather is getting worse." The slow dying wails of the sirens as they faded into the distant, fading sun.

"You should go somewhere that isn't the street." The vapor trail of a cup of hot coco moved from a desk towards Abby's chapped lips. "I think I'm going to go back to the hotel." Abby took a movement to rethink that. "My brain is too cold to think. I'm going back to the hotel and will stab someone to get there if it comes to that."

"Oh good, Abby might use violence in a situation for once to help herself." The alleyway Danny ducked into looked held together with rust. Opening a door looked like it might shake down the entire neighborhood. Time for a shakedown. "Did the police say where the perp went?" The crack of the door drowned out the sound coming from her headset. "Abby?" Well, the crack drowned out nothing. "Dammit Abby. I'm doing the hard work of trying to find this thing. Must be great to turn invisible in every way imaginable to hide how useless you are-"

"I had to change the batteries. I'm still here."

"Oh." Danny walked further into the room, seeing nothing in the darkness until she created a construct stretching from the floor to the ceiling. "How long you been there?"

"Long enough to tell you 'have fun in the snow.'"

A click went off from Danny's phone. Well enough. Danny needed her phone for something else. She attached the phone to the constructed prism and turned the light on. Light filled every part of the prism, creating a massive lantern. "Never chased someone in stasis before. I don't know if this makes it easier or harder. I might need help"

“Useless rubbish!”  Alicia slammed her fist into the dashboard as the Van failed to start for the third time.   She’d left the engine on to battle the cold but it had failed regardless.  

She let out an exasperated sigh, leaning back into her seat.  It was only then she heard it, a low hum, previously unperceivable over the noise of the engine.  She got up and climbed into the back, following the sound to its source, the device.

“Huh… It’s got its own reserve power supply - didn’t see that coming when I unplugged it.”

She pressed a few buttons on its front panel experimentally, only to be met with a familiar EHR-UR noise.  

“Still code locked then.  Well no sense freezing to death here trying to figure out what the hell you are.”

She rummaged around in the dark, eventually finding a thick black winter coat with a fur trim and donning it over her hoodie.

She wouldn’t last the night in the Van without the engine; she’d have to take her chances in the surrounding buildings.  She quietly departed the back of the van, locking it behind her.  

Reaching into her satchel she pulled out a flashlight and switched it on, heading for the nearest building.   At least her gas mask kept the cold & snow off her face, even if the leggings were a stupid choice.  

“I thought it was meant to be hotter in the US” she muttered to herself, reaching a doorstep.

She tried the handle quietly and carefully… It yielded; apparently the front door was unlocked.

With a torturous creak the door pushed open.  Alicia grimaced at the sound.  

(Relax, nobodies going to live here with their doors unlocked.  The place will be deserted.)  She thought to herself as she entered the building.

The light chased all the shadows from the room, back to whatever crevices they sought shelter within. Shelter for Danny took a little more priority, but what shelter did Danny put herself in? The woodwork on the walls looked well made, neglected but hand carved. Decorative fixtures looked like wonderful hostels for dust, but also possessed the same expert craftsmanship as the wood working. The deeper Danny walked, the warmer she became. She unzipped the jacket and removed her hat and headband, placing them down on a dusty end table.

The light from her prism continued to shine off while also providing Danny with an easy to handle, hard surface to use to defend herself in a pinch. The pinch came with a little pressure. A door off in the distance creaked open. The furnishings around the home looked unlived in for decades. If anything, the attention of two different people would be two more than the house had seen since the sixties. Danny thought about calling out to whomever entered the house, her light would definitely give her away first. "Hello?"

Still clutching a staff, as well, as her bracelet, Danny felt good enough to see whom sought shelter. Probably just someone out to try and find some refuge from the storm. She stepped out towards the sound of the creaking door, but a growl sounded out within the wood below her feet. Probably just the age of the house.

Alicia froze; she had been noticed.

Her brain worked overtime to counteract an immediate fight or flight response.

(Calm down, its not a police officer, they have to announce there presence, think it through Alicia, be smart) voiced her internal monologue.

She quickly proceeded to struggle with the many buckles of her gas mask, nothing says don’t trust a stranger like a gas mask.

(Damm, why did I make this thing so hard to remove!)

There’s a considerable moment of quiet messing around with straps before Alicia successfully stuffs her mask into her satchel, hiding it.

After that pause she calls back in her British accent:

“Sorry, my vehicle’s broken down outside and your door was unlocked. I hope you don’t mind?”

The feeling of stability under Danny's feet felt compromised. She took a step forward, causing the entire chorus of wood beneath her to squeak in unison. They even spoke out with the sounds of buckles snapping and changing out. Wait.

The ground immediately beneath her did not look as thought the ground would snap, giving Danny some time to think about the sounds coming through the wall. "What the hell is that sound?" She turned back to hear the sound of a woman saying she was stranded in the snow. Take a card, Danny thought. "Hey, I don't mind. As long as you don't tell anyone I'm here, I won't tell anyone you're-" Danny looked over the woman standing in the hallway. Young. Able bodied. And with a bag. "Here."

Could it be that easy? No. No way could the person she was chasing waltz right in. Danny made the whole suspicion up in her mind. This happened before and it started to happen again. "You look cold. Were you waiting for someone in particular or were you just stuck shopping?" Danny looked around for some way to heat the house. Finding shelter would help, but a central way of warming would beat just having four walls. "Do you know how to get this place warmed up?"

Alicia paused as Danny did… (Did she know?  How could she?) Alicia then brushed the moment aside as Danny continued.  (I must just be getting paranoid; I’ll have to keep an eye on that.)  

“I won’t tell if you don’t, squatters honour.” She smirked trying to lighten the mood and then listened to Danny's first question.  

“Yeah, my legs are turning into icicles.  I was just on my way to a friends house when the weather turned from bad to stupid bad.” She replied nonchalantly whilst appraising Danny.

At Danny’s next question Alicia stops to survey the house further taking in its age and décor.  

After a moment of thought she responds: “A house this old might have a proper fireplace, we could break some of this furniture down for firewood.  Nobodies going to miss it.”

She peaks into the room nearest her, looking for a fireplace.  

“So… What landed you here?  And what’s with the stick?” She says gesturing to Danny’s staff.

Warren was in New York, because why not? It'd been years since he'd left government  employment, to work as a meta-for-hire, taking odd jobs here and their.

He bit into a chili dog ,which he'd managed to sneak off of a sweaty little street vendors cart, and walked purposelessly through the streets of NYC, just waiting for something to occupy himself with. It was snowing tremendously, but he wasn't bothered by it.

As if on cue, several police cars, with lights flashing and sirens blaring, sped down the street and through a red light.

"Hmm" he hummed, slightly interested. He glanced at his wrist, then, upon realizing he didn't own a watch, turned into an alley way, and changed into his "work" outfit, becoming Ares.

He climbed a fire escape to the top of the building, and ran across, jumping from roof top to roof top following the squad cars, eventually jumping on top of the one taking the rear, hitching a ride.

He listened to the description of the suspect, as the car turned onto the backstreet of a quiet little neighborhood.

The officers circled the area for a while, before calling off the search. As they began to turn back the way they'd come, Ares hopped off, and ducked out of sight. He could understand why they'd given up, because the snow would've made it nearly impossible to see, for most people. However Ares continued walking, covering the eye slots in his mask, with his hands, as the snow whipped his tattered cape around.

Eventually, he came upon a black van, and someone had clearly just exited it, as indicated by the fresh foot prints leading towards the large, seemingly abandoned building. He began to head towards the door, but stopped as he heard voices inside. He slowed his pace, and began to climb up towards a second floor window he spotted.

As he pushed the window open, and climbed through, he saw a light shining through the door of the room he'd just entered and heard two seemingly female voices.

He inched closer toward the door way, to attempt a look, when part the floor gave way beneath his foot, making a huge crashing sound, as he steadied himself.

"Well..shit."  He huffed, annoyed. There was no way he could remain undetected after that.

Alicia tensed as a crashing sound emanated from an adjacent room turning on her heel to point her torch at the door obscuring the noises’ source.

“What the hell was that!?” She exclaimed, possibly interrupting Danny mid-sentence.

She crept forwards across the squeaking floorboards with tentative footsteps gently pushing the door open; unsure of what horrors could lurk behind it.

Her free hand moved cautiously towards her satchel, just incase.

Ares heard one of the voices excld in surprise. As he suspected. This heard him. His hand moved at once to one of the daggers sheathed at his side, as he slowly backed away from the door. He didn't know what to expect to come through the other side, so he didn't want to take a risk.

He looked down to make sure his guns were loaded, and ran his hand across the second dagger, assuring himself it was there. He door began opening slowly, as Ares crouched into an attack position, eyes squinted, dagger glistening with light from a nearby street lamp. The floor board creaked under his weight.

Danny could do a few things about the light, but the heat would still continue to barely exist in the house. "Yeah, I can't do much about the cold, but I figure we can find something to burn." The furnishings in home looked old enough to be made of wood, but it also felt like the age of the house could also catch on fire and never stop burning. Thinking back to her time with Alpha, she could set fire to a few things. And this time it would actually help something if she did it. Nothing in her mind kindled the flame. In fact, the exact way and dimensions to the creation of the fire, completely slipped past her. "Well, maybe we can find some other way to burn it other than magic."

The light from her staff reminded her of the information spewing from her dialogue. "Oh, yeah the light. Kinda cool huh?" Nothing like coming off nonchalant to try and take down the aspects of someone's power. "I can kinda just make things like this. I can do a little more, but the staff is pretty cool. Well, the light id from my phone though." Maybe she lost some cool points then, but she did pick out the phone at the carrier office.

Setting a blaze to a couch would require a little girl scouting, but Danny thought she could deal with it. "Hey let's-" Before things could get kindling, something from hidden in the house began to stir- grabbing Alicia's attention.  "I don't know. Looks like someone else wants to hide in here." Leaving Alicia to spread out and search under some situations would work, but it would leave Alicia without any light. Well, it looked like Alicia searched her satchel for something. Danny went ahead and assumed she grabbed for a light. "Okay, you're good."

OOC Comments:

The mysterious noises were only partially distracting Alicia from the building number of questions within her.  Magic?  Was this girl serious?  She’d heard about that sort of thing, who hadn’t these days, but it was the last thing she expected to be casually brought up in conversation.   She had said “other than magic”.   I mean the staff and its light was weird sure, but even she admitted it was electric, what did she mean by magic?  Maybe this girl was just a LARPer or using colloquialisms; anyway for now Alicia had more important things to focus on.  

She finished pushing the door open and scanned the room with her flashlight.   The room itself was a dark wooden abode clearly home to at least a dozen spiders.  A lot of the furniture remained intact having simply been abandoned.  It’s seemed pretty clear at this point that whoever owned this house never stopped to move out properly, maybe they died in New York’s Assault.  

Her thoughts were quickly interrupted as the light from her flashlight glistened off something; a metal figure crouched down and armed to the teeth.  

Her brain went into overdrive; this guy was beyond any LARPer, what was he?  A Superhero?  What kind of super hero carried guns?  Did that make him a super villain?  

“Who-What are you?  What do you want?  I’m unarmed, I don’t want any trouble…”

The door fully opened, and the figure in the doorway seemed to take a moment before spotting him. As he'd thought, there were two young women in the hallway. One of them wore a wing jacket and spoke with what seemed to be a British accent, holding a flashlight that was pointed at him. The other held some sort of staff, with a light emitting from the top.

The first woman was obviously concerned at his sudden appearance, and asked who he was. Ares smiled slightly under his mask, he felt that familiar tingle, looking at the wide eyed girl, that he got back in his Army days, when he looked into the eyes of his victims.

He cleared his thoughts, he wasn't like that anymore. He stood up straight, but still clutched his dagger. "Which of you owns the van, and more importantly, why are the police so interested in you?" Ares asked, sounding slightly menacing, but not totally threatening. He figured that is the van was something worthwhile, he may "take it off her hands" and make some money. He could tell that the girl was hiding something, and he wanted to know what.

He moved towards them slightly, and his hand twitched along his daggers hilt, still not drawn.

If the word 'interesting' suddenly became synonymous with 'confusing' or 'complicated', then the situation just took a turn for interesting and interesting. Danny liked it interesting, but needed to know what this whole debacle would break down into. "Police?" It made sense. "I own the van." Danny held her staff close. What this woman did could be looked into later, but for now, Danny wanted to make sure the man who appeared more threatening could be stood down. "I picked up a lot of stuff tonight, maybe I'm looking to sell some of it, but some of it I want to keep."

The light from Danny's staff took up most of the room. In comparison to Alicia, Danny would look like the more powered of the two, making Danny more firm in the belief her bluff would work. But, believing too much in a bluff always had a way of backfiring. She stood firm like a pink guardian angel who needed to get out of the snow before she froze. "You know what. It's actually really cold in here. Would you mind if we found away to warm this place up or find somewhere warmer to do this?"

Alicia backed away from the approaching figure slowly, her palms facing him.  

“And I barely know her.” She said, adding to Danny’s confession.  

She felt a little bad, dumping her problems on a stranger.  Especially when that stranger was younger then her and seemingly less well armed.  But the girl was the one stepping up; apparently she thought she could handle this guy, pistols and all.  She wasn’t about to argue with that sort of confidence.  Better not to look a gift horse in the mouth.  

Guns, why did they always have guns here, god she missed England.  

“She has a point you know, that getup looks metal  - you must be getting pretty cold in there.” She added to Danny’s latest question.