Participants:
| Scene Title | Guns and Illusions |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Mel talks to Kendall about a dangerous future and helps him figure something out about his ability. |
| Date | June 14, 2010 |
It's early afternoon and Melissa has come downstairs with a small box. She sits down on the couch, the box set on the coffee table in front of her. She sighs then tilts her head back a little. "Kendall! Come down here for a bit, will ya?" she calls, taking a pistol from the box, sliding the clip out and setting it on the table, then ejecting the round from the chamber, with both pistol and bullet set beside the clip.
Kendall has more or less been in his room for the past few days, ever since his party. Well, with all the stuff he received, it's a wonder he even leaves the room for meals, or pauses for sleep and bathroom breaks. After Melissa's call, there's a few minutes' pause, and then Kendall clumps down the stairs. "Dinner already?" he asks, then blinks at the pistol. "Is that… real?"
Glancing over at him, Melissa nods. "Yeah, it is. So are the other two I got here," she says, not exactly sounding pleased. She pats the couch next to her. "C'mere. Couple things we need to talk about. And then you…you're gonna learn somethin' about guns."
"Whaaaat? Me?! You mean… shooting them and stuff?" Kendall's pretty shocked. "Isn't that, y'know, illegal?" he seems loath to actually approach. After all, everyone knows that guns are bad, and kill people, and stuff.
Melissa shakes her head. "Just illegal for you to own one right now. But you don't own 'em." She leans back, watching him. "Honestly, I'm hoping that you never have to shoot a gun outside of a practice range, Kendall. I'd be thrilled if that were the case. But in case it isn't, I want to know that you can protect yourself. I'll do my damndest to make sure that I'm around if and when bad shit goes down, but I can't be in two places at once."
Running a hand through hair that has regained it's black streaks, Mel looks towards the pistol on the table. "The stuff in the box came from the Ferry, Kendall. It was sent for both of us. Someone is apparently picking off Ferry people, and even though I'm no longer Ferry, and you weren't ever Ferry, there's apparently a chance that we might be on the list. So we got this stuff to help us take care of ourselves."
"I don't… I mean, I don't think I could do anything with those." Kendall stammers. What, you can't expect Kendall to suddenly be a badass or anything! "Can't I just… I don't know, go around in disguise or something? I think I could do that." aww, he's wimping out, how cute.
A sad smile curves Melissa's lips. "Sometimes, yes. But honey…they have this gas that negates abilities. You can't go in disguise if you can't make illusions. But I'm not asking you to carry a gun with you, either. I just want you to know how if something happens. But it's not just guns in here."
Reaching into the box Mel pulls out a two way radio. "I've got a frequency for this, that we can use in emergencies. I want you to memorize this frequency. If something happens and I'm not around, you tell whoever's on the other end to help, then you grab the pistol and you hide or run."
"Memorize, huh?" ok, Kendall relaxes a little when the next thing she pulls out isn't a tool of death. "A walkie talkie?" weren't those in style in the 90s? This one looks kinda professional though.
Melissa smiles. "Two-way radio. But yes, memorize the frequency. I'll be damned if the bad guys get the frequency from us because we were stupid enough to keep it laying around, you know?"
"Well it'd be kinda useless if the bad guys ever got a mind reader, huh? That kind of thing's possible too, right?" Kendall's broadened his outlook on life. He grabs the radio, although he still seems to be carefully avoiding the pistol. Maybe if he ignores it, it'll go away.
Melissa grimaces faintly and nods. "Yeah, I've met a telepath. It's possible. Like I said, anything is. Still, memorize it. I don't want anything happening to you. And this is a dangerous world we live in." She falls silent for a long moment, then says slowly, "Kendall…if anything ever happens to me, I want you to go to Abby. She'll keep you safe."
Kendall blinks at Melissa, then frowns. Scowls, really. "Nothing's going to happen to you." he grumbles, managing to look fierce in a pathetic kinda way. "You're too, uh…" he pauses. What would be a good word to use here to describe her in a way that won't get his ass kicked? "…tough to have something bad happen to you." yeah, just go with a lame adjective there, Kendall.
Melissa smiles fondly at him. "I hope you're right. But still, just in case something does happen, I gotta know that you'll be safe. So promise me, will ya? If something happens, you'll go to Abby."
"Uh, alright, but one question. Where's that?" Kendall doesn't really know where Abby lives, after all, and he barely knows who she is, to boot.
Melissa grins. "I'll get you the address." There's the briefest of pauses, then she asks, "So how'd you like all the stuff you got? Looked like you made out like a bandit."
"I think so too, I hardly knew any of those people either, and they got me all this great stuff." Kendall smiles, sidling away from the pistol. Ignore it and it'll go away. "And now I have a PS3, an Xbox 360, AND a Wii. Thanks, by the way." Kendall isn't sure if he thanked her for that.
Melissa laughs and nods. "Yeah, you did good. And you're welcome. Had no idea what to get you, but saw that and figured it'd work for a gaming geek like you," she says teasingly. It seems that she notices him deliberately ignoring the pistol, because she brings his attention back to it.
"Look, I know you don't like the idea of the gun, honey, but please, just learn how to shoot it, then you can ignore it unless something happens, alright? You can just put it on the top shelf of your closet and pretend it doesn't exist."
"But isn't it kinda hard to learn how to use? I mean, it's only on TV where you have people who are sharpshooters and all that stuff." pause. "Batman never uses a gun." but Kendall isn't a millionaire either.
"Sharpshooting takes a lot of practice, yes, but you don't need to be a sharpshooter," Melissa says, shaking her head. "You…all you gotta do is aim towards the center of their body, the chest and stomach, and shoot. It's the biggest target. You shoot, and then when they fall, you run."
Kendall appears mildly distressed at Melissa's words, shifting in place. "B-but… I don't think I could do it, I'm not a coldblooded killer or anything, how could someone like me do that?" Kendall is a geek, geeks tend to do stuff like hack into bank accounts, or something, not shoot people! That's a whole other crime entirely!
Melissa gives him a sympathetic look, and slides an arm around him to give him a hug. "Just learn how to shoot at pieces of paper, and keep the gun in your room somewhere, and I'll be happy, okay? Like I said, just don't wanna see anything happen to you. I want you safe."
Kendall shakes his head at all this. "Well now, I guess the question is why they would be targetting someone like me? And who are 'they', anyway? It'd be hard to defend myself against someone I don't know about, don't you think?" that's actually a great point. "I never did anything to anyone. I'm not even sure why I deserved a punch in the face!" Kendall pauses and frowns at that. "Er…"
Melissa frowns. "A punch in the face? Who punched you in the face?" she asks, voice gone a little harder, while she searches his face for signs of said punch.
"No one did, I wasn't punched in the face." it's true, Kendall doesn't have a bruise anywhere. "I think I just imagined it, it must've been a dream. Or rather, nightmare." he sighs. "There's just so much weird stuff going in my life these days."
"Tell me," Melissa says, relaxing just a touch. "When it happened, and what happened."
"Oh, well… the day after my birthday." Kendall blinks at Melissa. "I musta been spacing out or something, because I blacked out like they're saying people have done on the news." he doesn't really want to be admitting this, because it might be another hint at Bad Things Happening. "Someone punched me in the face, then I woke up, and this lady was run over and I helped her."
"I'm afraid that it wasn't a dream," Melissa says softly. "I had one of these visions too. A lot of people did. But it might not happen. I don't think anyone can predict the future exactly."
"Huh? You mean…. it's actually predicting the future?" Kendall looks startled. "So everything that happened in them… is possible?" he looks thoughtful. "But… I did things I shouldn't be able to do in them, how do you explain that?"
"I don't see how it could be anything else. The person in mine was someone I'd never met before, so it can't be the past. And with this happening to everyone it's not just a dream," Melissa says with a shrug. "What'd you do in yours though? Was it illusion, just something you haven't figured out just yet?"
"W-well, I turned invisible, and didn't draw anything." Kendall replies with a faint shrug. "And it clearly wasn't anything someone else did to me, either, it was mine, but… I have to draw stuff for it to appear!"
Melissa smiles. "Not always. Didn't you say you'd done something once without drawing? You been practicing with that?"
"Oh, uh… I forgot about that." blush. "So, uh, I haven't, uh, y'know, I forgot." aww, right away Kendall's all embarrassed over whatever it is.
Melissa grins and shakes her head at the blushing. "Just work on it. I wouldn't worry about you so much if you could become invisible."
"Well, in the…. vision, you said? I put on a ring and became invisible, so maybe…." Kendall shrugs. "Maybe instead of drawing stuff, if I used objects…? I don't know. Seems kinda farfetched."
"A ring? Like Frodo and the ring in Lord of the Rings?" Melissa asks, brow furrowing as her brain starts to work.
"Er, well, I don't think it was that one, it had a little sign on the box it came from, 'Ring of Greater Invisibility'. It's uh… something used in LARPs and DnD and stuff like that." and therefore very geeky. Right up Kendall's alley, really.
Melissa may not know what LARPs and DnD is, but she can guess that they're geeky. After all, Kendall's a geek. "The first time you did illusion without drawing, didn't you say it had something to do with a game? A geeky type game?"
"Uhh, well, um… it's a computer game?" The Sims is kinda geeky, after all, how geeky is it to make little people, run their lives for them, and then kill them off at your leisure? "Ah, I suppose so…" Kendall shrugs at Melissa.
"And these LARP and DnD things, what are they?" Melissa presses.
"LARP, uh… Live Action Role Play. It's where you dress up as characters from a show, book, or video game, and play out scenes and stuff. And DnD is Dungeons and Dragons, it's a tabletop roleplaying game." Kendall knows stuff!
"So geeky stuff," Melissa says, nodding. "Do me a favor, Kendall? Go get some of those card things you just got. And maybe a comic book or two. I've got an idea."
"Uh, ok." Kendall has an idea of how this was going to go on, but he does as asked. He's a few minutes, due to the fact that he has to decide exactly which ones he wanted. He comes down with a few cards and a comic book.
"So you did something from a game before, and in your vision, you put on a ring like in another game, right? Maybe you're not as limited as you thought, you just need a…catalyst…to get the illusion going," Melissa explains. "So what I want you to do is get one of the cards, and try to make the thing on that card appear. Like, play it however you would in the game or something."
"Well, uh, in the game you wouldn't actually, but… the TV show, yeah." that's geekery too, so… Kendall eyes the cards. "Uh, it's kinda… well, it's a cartoon, so…" 'embarassing' is the word he'd use. "I'd feel silly doing that."
Melissa smiles. "I won't laugh. And if it helps you with your ability, then I'll probably stand up and cheer. So please, just try."
"Ah, all right." Kendall still appears self-conscious, but he picks up a card, and lifts it up. "Majestic Mech - Ohka!" he calls out. And just like in the show, the card glows, and then a monster that appears to be a mechanical, winged lion appears behind him.
Melissa looks at the glow, then behind Kendall to the monster, smiling. "Take a look. You did it," she murmurs, looking as proud as any parent ever did of a child who's done well.
Kendall looks behind him, then blinks. "Huh, whaddya know, it worked!" then he turns back towards Melissa, and grins evilly. "Majestic Mech - Ohka, attack Melissa directly!" the monster roars, then blasts a beam towards Melissa. Likely, she'd receive a jolt, but it's not too life threatening. It'd only take out 2400 of her 8000 lifepoints, after all.
Melissa grins at Kendall. Right up until he tells the monster to attack her. "Hey wa—" Zzzap! "Dammit, Kendall! Bad geek! No cookie! No more attacking the Melissa!"
Kendall nearly falls over laughing. "I end my turn!" he says, and as per the card description, Majestic Mech - Ohka fades away as it's 'sent to the graveyard'.
Kendall gets a light punch in the arm, not enough to hurt, and Mel tries to frown at him. "That wasn't nice. Especially when I helped you figure out something new with your ability!"
"Well I had to do something to get it to go away, and it seemed like a waste to summon it without doing anything, so…" Kendall grins at Melissa.
Melissa rolls her eyes, but can't help but grin at him again. "Yeah, yeah. Now try to use the comic book to make yourself look like whatever superhero's in it."
"Uh… I'm not sure it'd work that way. I need… something other than a book, I think." Kendall looks at the comic book, and shakes his head. "If this is how it works now, I need things, not just pictures other people have drawn."
"Can't hurt to try though. I mean, the card is just something someone else has drawn," Melissa says, shrugging.
"Well yeah, but it's an actual object, and I just used it the way they did in the show, so that's probably got something to do with it. I need a means of doing something, otherwise it won't work." Kendall shrugs. "Hmm, or maybe an action…?" he looks thoughtful, then makes a gun with his forefinger and thumb, pointing it at his head. He hesitates, though. Maybe he needs an Evoker…?
Melissa considers for a moment. "You think it's that, and not the geek element? Then…Hmm. Rings of invisibility, cards to summon monsters…maybe a toy gun can become a real one, or a fake sword, or a cloak for invisibility…I dunno."
Kendall lowers his hand. He'll experiment with that later. "I don't know about a fake gun becoming a real one, I mean, it won't actually fire anything, and certainly wouldn't hurt anyone."
"True, but maybe you could scare someone into leaving you alone. I don't know. It's something to practice with anyway." Melissa grins and reaches over to ruffle his hair. "You can go back to playing whatever you were playing. Serious bizness over for now."
"Ok." Kendall grabs his stuff and flees upstairs again. Well, now that he knows how things are, maybe he'll put off playing stuff for the moment?