Participants:
| Scene Title | Abuse of Power |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Many people are afraid that the Evolved will do bad things with their abilities, and there'll be nothing they can do to stop it. Sometimes they're right. Will someone else step in to save the day— and if so, will their help be appreciated? How will it affect the public debate over registration? |
| Date | April 21, 2011 |
Many places have a self-selecting audience. Go to an arcade, you'll find a lot of teenagers; go to an expensive restaurant, you'll find a lot of white-collar types; go to a sports bar, you'll find a lot of sports fans and barflies.
Central Park, on the other hand? Draws all types, and today is no exception. Joggers and dog-walkers here, loiterers and smokers there. Hungry people with iron stomachs lined up near a hot dog cart. Individuals and couples alike just hang out and watch the world go by.
More than just dog walkers and health enthusiasts, Central Park is a fine thoroughfare for those getting to and from work. And Devon Clendaniel is one such individual. He's once again shirked the stuffy suit and tie his employer insists is far more professional and respectable, choosing instead to dress down in khaki pants and a blue and gray striped polo. Of course, a lightweight jacket mostly obscures the shirt.
It's after hours for Studio K's intern, and the teenager is plodding along the bike paths, taking a round about way to get back home. The smells of hot dogs are tempting, though, threatening to deviate his focus and hold him up. It'd spoil his dinner, too. A rueful shake of his head keeps Devon on his path, hands going into his pockets and eyes scouting toward the other individuals he passes.
Besides being somewhere that he used to live, Nocturne Ziadie still likes to take walks through Central Park. He'd visited some of his friends who are far less lucky than he is, and now he walks in the general direction of Harlem at a fairly slow pace, leaning on his cane as he does so. The older African American gives the hot dog cart a glance, overall, but doesn't slow down much, continuing to take one step after another, cigarette unlit in his mouth and scarf pulled around his neck against the chill wind.
Luke is a loiterer. Appearing around the age where he should be studying for some kind of exam, he's clearly not. Appearing bored, he's got a paperclip and is currently gouging something crude into one of the wooden park benches.
And he's got an audience, too. A girl in pigtails, barely half his height, wanders away from the hot dog line to go stare openly at his handiwork. "You're not supposed to be doing that," she declares proudly to all within earshot. "Bad boy!"
The girl's parents step up to the head of the line, father placing an order while mother peels off to go collect her kiddo. Behind them, the line… does not move, held up by another couple in the midst of an argument. "--do you mean I gotta do it? I always gotta do it! You know, once in a while--" "--when? After work? I don't got time after work, you know that—"
The tattling of the pig-tailed girl draws a smirk to Devon's face. He glances toward Luke, a brow raising as though to ask what his response is. There's little slowing, however. That is to say, little slowing until he rightfully gets to the hot dog line. Which isn't moving and blocking the way. After an exasperated sigh, the teenager pulls up short of the patronage for the vendor and moves to go the long way around. Behind the bench.
The line at least has Ziadie definitively not considering a hot dog. Instead, the former cop draws out the zippo from his pocket, lighting the cigarette with a slow, careful motion as he looks around. Eventually, he too decides to skirt the hot dog stand by way of farther around the bench, drawing a small silver flask from his pocket as he does so. A few steps later, it's raised to his lips, tipped backwards next to the cigarette, put back away, and he keeps going. Really, though, as long as he gets back home with no incident, he'll be happy with things. Even if the tension in the air is also enough to make him double-check the location of one handgun after the flask is put away.
Luke eyes the girl and snorts. "Yeah, and in about 8 years when you're knocked up just think back to today and wonder why you did something bad too." he retorts. Wow, guess Luke's not very good with kids. Ignoring the fact that she just outed him to the entire area, he continues vandalizing the park bench.
Griffin normally doesn't show his face, these days, even if he is quite present in New York City. Being a wanted fugitive does that for a person, really. Makes it difficult to actually go out in public when you can be spotted from a mile away. But today is nice. Nice enough that Griffin is craving a hot dog. A delicious hot dog with mayonnaise, ketchup, spicy mustard, onions, and cheese. Certainly not the most healthy thing in the world, but he's got a baby on the way.
He's got a rather nice beard adorning his chin and upper lip, with the rest of his face cleanly shaved. His hair is a bit longer than normal, too. It's enough to keep most people from looking at him too close and recognizing him from the pictures in the paper. Back when he kept a clean face. That and the less obvious clothing, the tattered jeans and the well-worn hoodie, all help him keep a rather low profile. He looks a bit more like a bum. And people don't like to look at bums, usually.
Quietly, he peers at the couple ahead, frowning. But really, his attention is on the guy messing with the bench. That familiar guy who is vandalizing a bench. The guy whose hand he broke, last they met, because that stupid kid has way too much of a bad habit of picking a fight. His gaze doesn't linger, however. Mostly, because his eyes are closing briefly…just as Ziadie seems to mysteriously lose hold of that flask right before he can get it closed. Probably a butterfinger moment.
Before the girl has a chance to answer, her mom grabs her by the wrist and hauls her off. Along the way, she shoots Luke a freezing 'fuck you, buddy' look for all of half a second, but leaves it at that. The father quickly follows suit, chili dogs in hand, not even bothering to look at the scene of the crime.
Back at the cart, the younger couple is still at it, to the point that the people behind them have started cutting ahead and around. "Oh, like you really work till eight," the woman says. "You probably been cheating on—"
But before she can get another word in edgewise, she's abruptly knocked backward three or four feet, losing her footing in the process and landing awkwardly on one bent leg. Just like the guy shoved her with full force— except his arms haven't moved an inch.
A choked off laugh comes from Devon as result of Luke's unfortunate exchange. Kids say the darnedest things, and those who haven't grown up aren't any better. Once the family has moved away, his attention flicks back toward the cart over the conversation, brows raising. It's no surprise the line still hasn't moved, the voices of the couple carrying even to him though he'd taken himself further from it.
When the woman falls backward, unfortunate boy scout that he is, Devon jumps over the back of the bench. Okay, little dramatic, but the shortest distance between two points and all that. He carefully steps over her, lacking any medical experience, but inserts himself between the woman and… whatever might have attacked her. His eyes are on the man she was arguing with, all amusement gone, just a single brow raising over an expression of dispassionate calm.
There's a fumble, and Ziadie catches the flask, putting it back in his pocket. And when the argument happens, his grip rests on the concealed gun for a long moment, before the old man simply stays put. Beyond perhaps dismissing the fumble as something as far as age goes, though, he does look around, catching sight of Griffin right as things go down. And there's a moment of hesitation, where the former cop wants most to just walk away, but he doesn't. Just stays put, beyond the bench, watching.
Luke sneers at the mother when she gives him the look. Yeah lady, you probably lost your virginity as soon as possible too. "Heh, that poor guy, a bitch for a wife and a bitch for a daughter. No wonder he cheats on her." smiiiirk. And when the lady gets knocked about, Luke doesn't even get up to help. He'll leave that up to that blatant suckup right there. "Huh… that seems useful." he comments. He doesn't notice Griffin just yet, fortunately.
It's almost instantaneous. Griffin's eyes flash briefly, and the woman will feel what seems to be a hand on her back, preventing her from harming herself after the shove. His eyes squint, however, as he does this, and once they open fully, they're green once more. Discretion is key here. Especially when it seems that a telekinetic is doing some Pretty Bad Things. He breaks his spot in line, taking a few steps closer to the woman, but keeping a wary distance all the same.
No use putting himself in the spotlight, after all.
But he does, however, put a few of those telepathic arms between Devon, the woman, and the accused man. At the very least, if the guy is a telekinetic, he'll have to get through the elder telekinetic in order to do any further harm. Sunglasses are pushed down over his head, and he moves a little closer to the woman, leaning down to offer her a hand up. "Are you okay, miss?" He asks this in a deep, gentle tone, though his white eyes are on her companion, the one he believes did this.
"What on earth was that?" The innocent question is directed to the woman, though he's watching the man with an unreadable expression. Looking for any sign that the man may have the same ability as him. Or if anyone has the same ability, really.
Man, can't a guy rough up his girlfriend in peace without not one but two busybodies getting in his way? Mr. Definitely Not Cheating ignores them at first, attempting to follow up with a Vader choke as his accuser struggles back up to her feet… only to run into some sort of barrier. The hell? Attention switching to the first one to stick their nose in, he turns on Devon and lets loose with an invisible below-the-belt blow.
If only the kid could have seen it coming. The strike nearly brings Devon to his knees. It does bring tears to his eyes as he doubles, hands pressing into his thighs. But it allows for him to grasp at sweet and protective anger. "Faaack," he groans, then sucks in a breath. It takes a moment before the teenager is able to set himself upright again, and now there's a touch of wariness within that cold gaze.
As he straightens, Devon's jaw clenches. "It's people like you," he says quietly, a tightness to his tone, knuckles tightening at his sides, "that give others a bad name." One of those fists winds up and returns with full force, knuckles going to plant themselves in the center of the man's face.
Heyyy, now things are starting to get interesting! Tossing the paperclip to the side, Luke stands up, cracking his knuckles. He can sense a fight in the making even if he can't see anything. Oops, well he saw that. Heh…. that kid just threw a punch. That's enough for him! Luke grabs a nearby rock and tosses it lightly at the man. Which means that…. it'd hit him hard but not hard enough to knock him out or anything.
Oh yeah. That is definitely another telekinetic. Griffin's white eyes narrow from beneath the dark sunglasses that nicely conceal the only visible effect of his ability. But he knows that look of concentration, and he can feel that resistance against his vectors. And then, there's that poor kid that he and Nadira argued in front of, getting a nice little telekinetic punch to the groin.
His face slackens slightly, into a look of awe that is made easier by ths limited visibility of his eyes. The man simply moves to pull the young woman behind him with one gentle but firm hand, assuming a gentle protector stance. Then, as Devon is promptly widing up and sending a fist flying at Mr. Definitely Not Cheating and Luke is throwing rocks, Griffin is working his own little magic.
Mainly, in the form of two kidney punches to the man's sides, via telekinetic fists.
Fortunately for all present, Mr. DNC is way too much of a hothead to think of waiting till he was alone with his girlfriend and then slapping her around— and too scrawny to take what he's dishing out. Outnumbered, hit from multiple directions at once, he goes down like a sack of wheat.
On the up side, Devon's punch to the face lands at just the right time to keep anyone from getting suspicious about Griffin's ability. On the down side, Luke's target just moved, which means that Griffin is about to take a rock to the head in his place.
A follow up punch intended for Mr. DNC is stopped before it ever leaves Devon's side when the man goes down. His hands lower to his sides, still clenched into fists and caution still evident on his features. "She okay," he calls over his shoulder, unaware of the rock being thrown, his attention on the dirtbag boyfriend.
At the moment, Ziadie's taken small steps. Pushing away further spectators because the situation is already bad enough as it is. And when he finally does approach the situation, his voice is raised. "Alright isn't that enough by now?" His voice carries, and there's a distinct mix of Jamaican and Harlem accent. His gaze roves over Luke, Devon, Griffin, Mr. Definitely Not Cheating, in turn.
Now, here's the dilemma: Griffin could probably catch that rock, and even throw it back at the offending party. It wouldn't be too difficult. But that would completely blow his cover, at the same time. He should probably just take the hit. But he really doesn't feel like dealing with a head wound. It's never fun, really, to bleed from the head.
He decides to make a compromise. Using his vectors, he promptly ensures that very little of the rock actually touches him. Enough to draw a little bit of blood as the rock strikes him, then promptly clatters to the ground. He even stumbles back slightly, his head snapping away from the rock. Then, one hand raises to wipe his blood from his forehead. He stares over at Luke for a long moment, then promptly turns toward Devon. "She's fine."
Then, offering a nod toward Ziadie, Griffin turns and promptly makes his way toward the south. He doesn't feel like sticking around would be a good idea right about now. Not nearly worth the potential trouble.
So much for that delicious, condiment-smothered hot dog.
Mr. DNC is also too stupid to stay down, but by the time he makes it up off the ground again, the girlfriend has already taken off running— for better or worse. Muttering under his breath, he starts to dust himself off, neither pursuing her nor pressing the fight with Devon.
Nearby, the mini-crowd continues to stay out of it. A couple of them are on the phone; others are just watching, one of them mentioning 'those people' in a disapproving tone. No one seems to consider the situation worth bothering 911 about.