Participants:
| Scene Title | Staining the Mask |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Brian comes up with a plan to frame and blackmail Tracy while Isis is still in control of the blond's body. |
| Date | August 13, 2009 |
Washington D.C.
"Here is fine." Winters insists after Tracy gave the order for them to stop. Getting out of the vehicle, the pair watched the last taste of Pentagon they would see all day and hopefully for a long time fade off into the distance. And then it's Brian and Tracy, alone. The van has been moved and parked into a nearby parking lot. But for now, they're behind a building. Secluded.
All the stress he had been shouldering trickles off and dissapates in one gigantic exhale. His lips curl up into a triumphant smile. "We pulled it off." He laughs out, giving her an overjoyed look. "You pulled it off." His hands come up to grasp his head. "I could kiss you."
Blink blink. Blink blink. Tracy's oceanic gaze follows the departing vehicles, half expecting them to turn back about and snatch up the criminal duo. She sighs as the taillights disappear, the disassembly of her composure, mask, and walled-in anxiety showing in the way of crystals forming over the backs of her hands, wrists, and forearms as far as her elbows.
She wheels back around, Tracy's visage not quite sharing in Brian's relief and joy. "I could hit you," she snips, her hushed tone a hiss in order to keep Tracy's voice from reaching the crescendo of shouting. "How dare you. You marched me in there blind. In here," she makes a wild, arm sweeping motion along Tracy's body, "blind. Do you know what could happen when I don't have time to train another Evo's ability? I've almost killed a man before. That missing tidbit alone could have ruined us!"
Brian stares, tilting his head. "You pulled it off. You won the day. We made it." He says, holding his hands up in concession slash surrender. He takes a step forward his eyes locked hard onto the frost forming on Tracy's arms. "You don't think I would have let anything knew out on purpose, do you? I gave you everything I had. There was no way to know for me to know that you are a closet Evolved." Brian admits.
He takes another step forward, putting his arms out to her. "You did it." He says gently. "You played the Pentagon." His hands go to touch against her shoulders gently, if she'll allow him to tough her.
The touch is allowed, briefly, and met with an obvious tension starting in Tracy's shoulders only to flow down her feminine form. Being in a new body didn't make Isis any more comfortable with the idea of contact, and so she puppeteers her shoulders up and back to shrug off the connection. "You promise you didn't know?" She lofts a brow. Promises - perhaps only the only childish thing she had left.
Tracy's lips part on a quiet sigh, the woman lifting a hand to press a crystallized, cold hand to her forehead. She looks to the pavement beneath them. "I can not believe we did that!" She grins slowly, thinking about their impossible victory, but the expression is short lived. "She's seen my face," she mumbles, snapping Tracy's startling blue gaze back up to her partner. "Worn my face… I'm on the camera's in there." She makes a gesture to the hotel and turns away, pacing a moment before resting her back to the rough building beside them, hugging her cold arms across her torso. Did she mention she hated the cold? Grr.
Grinning, he lets his hands drop. "I still could kiss you. You did amazing." He shakes his head, giving another sigh of relief. "I can't believe we pulled it off either. If anyone ever finds out about this a movie should be made about it I swear." Though when she mentions cameras, he places his hands on his hips.
"I promise I didn't know. I promise. But now that we do know, we have a distinct edge, don't we? My plan to keep Tracy's silent was to use a video camera after we had finished the deed. And film her body doing some.. lewd things." Sex tape. A political figure's bane. "We still may do that. But she has a power.. And no one knows about it. Can you imagine how damning this is? Do you think you could freeze a person with that power? Maybe kill them?" He takes a step back, scratching at his chin. "I have an idea."
The promise, though it might not mean the same to some, seems to ease the body snatcher significantly. She pries Tracy's gaze from the concrete beneath her heels and looks back to Brian. Then another conveniently absent part of his plan is made privy to her little ears. "Lewd?" The wall behind her begins to sparkle with a subtle layer of ice. "I'm a person in here, you know. I feel everything in here." She shudders and steps away from the cold wall, looking back at it with a distasteful wrinkle to her nose. "… Yeah, she could probably kill someone." She looks back to Brian, her lips puckered with a sour expression - she can't imagine what lewd things he might have had planned.
"Lewd." Brian repeats flatly. "We go into a room, put the nightvision cam on and make it look like you're having sex. You say some naughty things, we imply naughty things being done. And there, blackmail. I wouldn't make you hook up with some random guy. I'd lay down with you, but we wouldn't even have to get completely naked. It would be a hidden sex tape, not a porno." Brian frowns at her. "I remember you're a person, I care about you. Don't forget that."
"I think a random passerby needs to catch Tracy Strauss killing a detractor on accident on camera." He gives a confident nod but before she gives any protest, "Just me. One of my selves. We'll catch it at a far angle make it seem like we're having an argument, you get heated. And do whatever it is that you do.. Kill me. We just make sure we have unmistakable shots of Tracy's face. Get audio of a voice calling her Tracy Strauss. Make it all seem candid, and there. We have a tape that guarantees Tracy won't bother us. We'll be in the clear. It might be good to make both tapes. If she does anything we release the sex one, showing her we mean business. And should she try again, then we release the big guns. Her life would be over."
Isis withdraws a sharp step at first, the idea of murdering an random and innocent ind- Oh, well, if it's just Brian that certainly has some appeal. It also answers her earlier, unvoiced questions. Lips part to make comment, only to seal shut in a thin, tight light of frustration. "No sex tape! If you're so eager to screw Tracy Strause, taze her after I get my own body back and have at it." She steps forward and pushes to her tiptoes out of habit to appear more threatening in her usual tiny body, pointing a finger up at Brian. "You already told me you had a girlfriend. Trying to collect one of each of you? Pervert." She grunts and steps back. Maybe he wasn't such a softy.
She grumbles and indulges in one of her own habits, rather than those practiced and acted for the inhabited body - cracking the knuckles on one hand in the opposite palm. "Let's just finish this. Please?" Brian was beginning to irk her - she couldn't quite peg him and it bothered her.
"It's purely for blackmail." Brian growls. "I do have a girlfriend who I love very much. We wouldn't actually screw, we just make it look like it for a nightvision cam. I'm telling you it would be better if we had both. God damn, we could get a mannequin if it would make you feel better." He gives her an agitated look. "Can you please just trust me? I'm just trying to make sure we're both going to be safe, alright?" With that, the van appears, pulling into the parking lot. And out the back, Brian exits.
"Kay. We'll make it look real. From far away. Have a little tussle, and then as you run away from the scene of the crime, we get a closeup of your face. So everyone knows its you. When I address you as Tracy Strauss, make sure you answer, confirming it's you." The new Brian walks over and hands the video camera over to the suit Brian. Pulling up his jacket collar, and pulling his hat down so his identity on the camera would be undiscernable he goes to walk around the corner.
Tracy winces, her shoulders lifting ever so slightly as if she might curl in on herself. "Oh," she mutters sheepishly, as the details of the 'sex tape' are explained. "Sorry," she adds.
She turns to note the van and the Brian that appears from within it. Why did she always have the urge to greet all the Brian's individually? She wiggles her nose at the thought, but then gives a curt nod. "Got it." She steps back from the van, putting a larger distance between herself and the 'camera man'.
Stepping back to a secluded position. Brian places himself behind a wall. He clears his throat, preparing to disguise his voice. Once Tracy is a clear way away he turns the camera on. "Yeah so this is the spot where we're going to be having the reception. My mom said we were going to have a whole bunch of banquet tables set up over here with those outside heaters in case— holy shit!" The camera swings rapidly to the side. In a distinctly 'un-camera man' like fashion. "That's uhh.." He says in his distinctly deep voice. "That's that's that lady!" He says dumbly, zooming in from behind his position onto Tracy Strauss.
Back in character for what is hopefully the last time today, Isis puppeteers Tracy's body through fluid steps. Her heels click out a beat to match the lady-like sashay of her hips. She makes a point to give a quick nudge of her chin, banishing Tracy's golden locks from her elegant features, revealing them all the more clearly for the unnoticed camera as she sets her nose a bit higher in the air. A last adjustment to the cord of the purse and she continues forward, late for her imaginary meeting.
"Tracy!" Comes a gruff voice from around the corner. A man walking hotly after her, looking both ways. As if checking for anyone watching. The strange man then makes a beeline for the woman. His head down, and hat lowered. Making getting his identity visually impossible. Storming up towards her, he throws his hands out. "What the fuck Strauss?! We had a fuckin' deal." He growls as he nears her. "Where's my fuckin' money?" Classic.
The movie takes a dramatic plot turn when it's not a meeting to which Tracy is rushing, but a man from which she is hurrying. Isis wheels the stolen body back about at the sound of the woman's name. "Just back off. You do not want to peruse this…" She lifts her hands, which sparkle with a unique gloss not present anywhere else upon the beauty's frame, as she back away cautiously from the angry figure. "Just walk away. Forget about it. You played and got burned."
"Stop the act, Strauss. You've been dancing on a dangerous line. Time to pay up, and if you can't, you can pay up with.. well.." The camera takes in the footage of the man taking a step forward and grabbing at her wrist. "Come on!"
"Get off me!" Tracy's melodic vocals turn into a sharp shriek. The outburst the arctic ability is perhaps more powerful than either of them had expected. Throwing her thoughts headlong into pressing out the searing, cold embrace of Tracy's ability, Isis reaches its limits with a crashing force.
The outward affect is a rapid crystallization of the man's body, starting where the man's fingertips are gripped around her wrist. She wishes her might have started somewhere else, to spare him the pain that becomes all to obvious when ice seeps into flesh, nerves, muscle, bone - deeper and deeper, farther and farther, until is seeks to encompass the whole man. What was only no more than five seconds feels like an eternity. Her breath shows as a plume of smokey condensation on the air before her, frost cracks like Rice Crispies on the cement. Isis, on Tracy's lips, lets out a sharp yelp and shakes her chilly forearm, trying to dislodge the stolen body from the frozen hand.
Letting out a cut off yelp, "What are you doing to m-" He never gets to finish it before he's frozen solid. Then broken up into little tiny pieces of thug, rather than a whole one. Shattering on the ground, the man behind the camera lets out a startled yell. "Holy shit! Holy fuck! Did you fucking- Holy shit. She just, holy shit!" The camera continues to roll.
Tracy's visage is turned down to the people-popsicle-pieces winking and sparkling on the ground like gems of diamond and ruby. Isis felt like she could vomit, not from the sight, but from the strain of this damnable ability. She turns unsteadily and takes a moment to kick off the freakin' heels. The camera's still rolling, she must remind herself as her head swims with pain and her vision with the winking of icy crystals stuck on her lashes. She braces her hand to the brick wall with a groan and uses it to push herself off into a graceless jog, tucking round the corner.
The camera zooms in from behind the camera man, hushing himself he gets a perfect shot of Tracy's face before making a show of running his own way. That's when the camera is shut off.
Brian is then sprinting after Isis, throwing one arm out to support her, he frowns deeply. "You okay?" He asks, catching his breath from the sudden run. "It's over." He murmurs in a soothing voice, "You did good."
Isis has no choice but to accept the help, to show weakness, as Tracy's body slumps into the offered arm, head lolling forward to rest against Brian's shoulder. Still, she offers, "I'm okay. I'm alright." She tips her head back, keeping her eyes closed to lessen the strains on her pounding head. There is a pause. "Did well…" she corrects him idly. Her knees give a bit, but she aims to straighten them with a quick jolt to lock them sturdy. "Can - Can I have my body back now? Please?" Never has she sounded more like her 20-year age then right now, like a child asking for a snack before bedtime.
"We should do the other tape, babe.." He pauses, taking a look at her before frowning deeply as she leans against him. She's not a trained operative. She's an asset that he's been pushing. Too hard. Bending his knees so that he can fully support her, he goes to swing his arm under his legs. To carry her. "Yeah. Let's go get your body back. We're done here. Just relax." He murmurs to her softly, soothingly. "You did well."