Lovely Weather We're Having [Open]

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.

The women didn't seem to be aggressive, which was always good, but Ares remained cautious. The older looking woman made it clear that they weren't associates, although he couldn't know if she was lying or not. They both made it clear that they wanted to leave, because the building was extremely cold after all.

He squinted again, but after a while, his hand edged away from the dagger. "Alright," he said "What do you have in mind?". He would go along with them, until he had reason not to, he'd rather not HAVE to hurt them. Besides, he wanted to get a look at whatever was in the van.

Danny lifted a finger. "Well. Okay." She could live with this. One day she would tell Xiao about this, and in between bouts of dodging food, she would tell her how she outmaneuvered a- oh wait, that part had not happened, but it would involve- oh wait, she had not thought of the next part just yet. But, it could not be any colder than the current old house. "I figure a home invasion should be avoided, but we could start a fire in here. I've got a way to renovate the house."

In the short time she gained power she never tried something quite as strenuous as reinforcing a house with manifested constructed light. Can't' be that hard. The light from her staff dissipated. A turquoise light built up around the first floor of the house within the inner wall, but holes dotted the walls and the entire east side of the house remained untouched. "Well, that kinda worked." Danny spoke to her darker side of the room.

A cracking sound alerted Danny towards the floor. She took in the image of the phone she used with her staff to illuminate the room, except now it was cracked from the spill it took towards the floor. "Dammit!" Danny reached to grab her phone, letting up enough control for the north side of her construct to disappear. "I told the girl at the counter I wouldn't need insurance!"

Alicia watched the partially concealed lightshow with shock and awe - her mouth agape.  “So… this is what you meant by magic…”

Then Danny’s phone dropped to the floor and broke, abruptly shattering the whimsy of the moment.  

She let an awkward few seconds pass following Danny’s exclamation.  “You should probably get a case for that.”

“Alright, well… This ranks pretty high on the strangest situations I’ve ever been in… I’m going to go and solve our problem the old fashioned way, by seeing if I can find a fireplace.”  

She glances over to Ares

“These are the nosiest floorboards I’ve ever walked on, trust me, you’ll know if I make a run for it.”

She considered making a break for it regardless, but she really didn’t like her odds outside, from what little she could see through the windows the weather had only got worse out there.

Alicia departs the room and is clearly heard cautiously walking around the building, after a time she calls out.      

“Found one!”  She shouted back to the others.  Her shout was shortly followed by the booming crash of a piece of furniture collapsing.  “-And some firewood!”

Ares watched as the girl used some sort of light to reinforce the building. Maybe he had underestimated them. He had no idea what else she could do with these abilities, so whatever he choose to do, he'd have to be careful.

The other girl seemed to think it was a form of magic. Ares had never faced a magic opponent before. He may by the end of the night, but for right now he would be cautious.

"So," he began tilting his head slightly "You want to start a fire..in a wood building? He motioned to the parts of the building that weren't reinforced, and picked up and snapped a piece of the old, weak wood. "Perhaps we'd be better off elsewhere. I for one," he turned to the girl with magic abilities "Am curious to see what's in that van."

So, they had a fireplace. And the acceptable amount of zero blood lined the floor. Maybe lying could work for heroes in certain situations. Danny sure knew a fire would feel nice. "I think if you want to know so much about my van, I should first know how you know about my van." A lighter would help along the fire making ceremony, but to carry one around would require Danny to make some poor life decisions. "Even if I let you see what was in my van, I wouldn't let you take it, but maybe asking isn't what you're wanting to do."

Picking up on this trail of questioning left Danny more in the dark than before. She continued to try to walk down the path of ignorance, but the questioning musing over her mind kept pushing her to want to know more about this van. What did this English woman take to pull both the police and a personal investigator on her tail.

And then Danny remembered why she went out into the snow herself. She needed to get alone with Alicia, but hardly thought the man encroaching on them would believe they would meet him somewhere else. Could she give up the van, and find a way to keep Alicia away from him? Would it be worth it? "If you want to check out the van, have a look."

The two supers were still talking in the other room and hadn’t followed Alicia.   She was glad for the momentary reprieve, it gave her time to think.

The room she was in was pretty cozy looking. Some kind of lounge with the sofa’s still intact, (Though leaking a little stuffing.)   The fireplace was a sturdy construction of stone and metal, complete with a fireguard.  Like most fireplaces it was constructed to stop the fire from escaping and catching wooden floorboards alight.  

Alicia got to work getting the fire started, she’d struck it lucky not only was there plentiful furniture to break down and burn, but she’d found a bit of coal in an old bucket by the fire.  Alicia pulled a lighter from her pocket.   She didn’t smoke of course, not really, but accidently dosing herself with Compound 2.2 that one time had left its mark.  

Within minutes she had the fire going, god that felt better.  She‘d heard the other two talking but couldn’t really make out the words over her endeavors with the fire.   Hopefully she could get out of this peacefully – whatever this was exactly.   The girl seemed like a decent person, she’d hate to end up gassing her whilst escaping Stabby Mc’Deathface back there.  Maybe she should just tell him about the device… But he might want to sell it straight back to its former owners.   No she needed to know more about him.    

“The fires lit over here!  Y’know… incase you feel like warming up...”  She called back to the others.

Ares raised his eyebrow under the mask. This girl changed her tune very quickly. First it seemed like she didn't want him anywhere near her van, now it seemed like she didn't care. He could tell if it was a trap or not.


Before he could respond, the other girl (who had slipped away) called them into a room, where she had started a fire. Ares, turned to the one he had been talking to. "After you.."He said, waving his hand out towards the room. As he walked forwards, entering the room, he looked down at the smaller of the two, then to the one with the light abilities. It was clear that th were hiding something.

He looked at the shorter one. "If what you're both saying is true, and you only just met this woman, aren't you the slightest bit curious to know what she's hiding in there? Because the police certainly are.." He turned his back to the wall, looking at both women.

The likelihood of Ares stabbing Danny in the back seemed low. Danny still created a construct under her puffy jacket just in case. "Wow, that is way better than freezing to death in the hallway with this guy." The heat moved up the sleeve of her jacket as she motioned back towards the man following her.

Then he brought up good points. "Who her? Care? She's just some girl who wandered in here, probably not from around here. She may not even speak English, you know, with the accent and all. I can't really understand her." At some point Danny knew she would need to actually show Ares the van, but it may get awkward when Danny would be unable to find where it was parked. Or what it looked like. "So you want to see that van and the thing in it?"

Alicia waited patiently for Danny to stop answering the questions directed at her.   Danny was probably trying to antagonize him, draw him off her.   She appreciated it but she wasn’t about to let these two strangers start poking around in her van without more info.  

She took a deep breath getting to her feet and addressing Ares directly.  “Of course I do.  I have loads of questions; but as a habit I tend to hold my tongue around gun wielding people making demands.  Besides, despite her barely being able to understand my accent, she’s been perfectly gracious and polite.  So when faced with two apparent criminals, my questions for you weigh heavier then my questions for her.   Maybe if you tell me who you are, what you really want and why you think it’s appropriate to threaten strangers with knives – then I’ll concern myself with whatever she’s done.“  

Ares smiled under his mask. The girl had valid points, and was brave to talk to a random armed stranger so boldly. "So you found I better to stay alone, in an unowned home with a criminal who the police are actively searching for?"

He swiftly turned and headed to the window he came through. " I think I'll have a look.."

Another great idea popped into Danny's head as Ares walked towards the window. "Be really quiet." A constructed pair of handcuffs formed one cuff around Danny's wrist with the chain stretching out and would link around Alicia's wrist. "This might seem like kidnapping, but I'm pretty sure you did something terrible and I'm a hero- also, I'm pretty sure I'm saving you or something."

While Ares would go check on the van, Danny would try to find a back door to get Alicia out through. "I'm pretty sure that guy is crazy. And, I'm not crazy-" Danny poked her head outside, letting the cold breeze remind her of how much better staying in the warm room would be. "I'm just improvising right now." The cross winds from the street started to die down a little, but not enough to make the swell of snow dissipate by any stretch. "Alright, we're going to make our escape. And don't make any noise or I'll gag the crap out of you in a very heroic way!"

Alicia wasn’t happy about her new accessory, but she held her tongue until Ares had departed.  

With little time to explain the complexities of her situation to this girl her options were getting slim.  She could go with her into the nigh-deadly cold, probably end up arrested and risk the device falling back into the hands of its lawful owners.  Or she could bite the bullet and try to finish what she started. She wasn't a particularly brave person, but with the first option sucking so badly the bolder option gained appeal.

“I’m really sorry about this.”  She said as she sneakily drew a tiny aerosol sprayer from her pocket and attempted to catch Danny by surprise with a single spray to the face.   (Spray contains invisible high -see sheet- feel free to evade if you don’t want your character’s mental state influenced.)  

MEANWHILE AT THE VAN…

The heavy snow had quickly built up over the black van, however even through this white blanket an unnatural sight could be seen.

The van was frozen… Not simply frozen shut, but entirely entombed in a huge chunk of ice.  The size of the chunk was such that it was pretty clear no natural cold could have done this.  Any approach to the van would reveal a powerful chill emanating from it.

Ares jumped from the window, expanding his cape to glide down towards the van. This was curious. The van was encased in a block of ice and a chill could be felt on it. The van hadn't been like this upon his arrival, and there was no natural way to explain the sudden change.

This didn't make sense, it must've been one of the two women using some meta ability. He pulled out his hook-line and used it the pull himself back into the window and room that he'd just left. "Which one of you did it? " He asked, clearly annoyed.

But the two girls were no longer just standing there, and it appeared that shorter one was attempting to blind the other, with some sort of spray. Ares rushed over and attempted to separate the two. "One of you,"' he began "Needs to get that van open for me, or this could get unpleasant..". One of his blades was fully drawn, and he was clearly frustrated.

"It's going to get pretty cold, so just-" Danny turned back right into a spray of aerosol. Her nose hairs twinged at the sudden invasion, but the burning in her mouth took center stage for discomfort. "What are you- I'm the one trying to get you out of this- oh, this is kind of painful." Danny looked down to the light construct on her wrist, letting the light dissipate into nothing. More nothing overtook the constructs around the house.

"Hey. It's that guy." Danny could barely muster up any energy to take a defensive stance. "He has a sword now." Something within Danny wanted to take immediate action against Ares. If she did not, the chances Alicia could make against Ares looked bleak. "I don't' know anything about that van. Ask her." A nod of Danny's head betrayed the truth of the situation about Alicia. "She brought it."

Alicia was easily pushed away from Danny.   Fortunately the handcuffs attaching the two had deconstructed by this point or Ares might have been less successful.  

She cursed under her breath; this had all backfired very quickly.  “Did what? Alright alright it’s my van here take the keys just don’t hurt us!”  She blurted out tossing the van keys at him.  

“It’s got some kind of machine in the back, I stole it from a corporate R&D department.  Look, you can have it if you want, just don’t sell it back to them.   As long as they don’t get it back I don’t really care what happens to it, this was payback more then profit.“  She confesses hoping Ares will calm down.