Participants:
| Scene Title | Probability Drive |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A skating pizza delivery boy, a homeless puppeteer, and a physicist walk in front of an apartment… |
| Date | March 13, 2009 |
In front of an apartment!
It's near dusk with a growing chill in the air, and a certain pizza boy has done his last delivery of the evening. Magnes wears a pair of plain red inline skates, cheap things Mr. Panucci got for him until his professional ones arrive in the mail. Now he's simply standing in front of a large apartment building, slowly skating along with a few ten year olds skating behind him. "Remember, when you fall, fall forward on your knee pads!" he cheerfully instructs, stopping to turn around and face the children.
One of the boys crosses his arms and gives Magnes a raised, very not-amused eyebrow. "Knee pads are for pussies!" the ten year old declares, what a mouth.
Magnes shakes his head at this, leaning down with a patient smile. "Knee pads are proper protection for children your age, if you don't use them, you might hurt yourself really badly, then you won't be able to skate anymore. You wouldn't want that, would you? And children your age shouldn't talk that way."
The kid just turns around, waving his hand for the others to follow, which they do. "Come on, I thought this guy was cool, but he's just a pussy!" the kid repeats, all of them skating away, leaving Magnes to sigh in defeat.
Hrrf! It's /cold/. Well, maybe not too cold to someone with proper clothing for the weather, but in a t-shirt and slightly torn jeans, Chloe is shivering a little. She rubs at one arm with her free hand while her fingers curl tensely inside of the handpuppet she wears over the other — hey, at least /that/ hand is warm — and she walks along slowly, looking grumpy at the fact of the weather. Now, if only she could find someone to simply take a coat from. She's glancing around a bit, but noone really looks any combonation of coat-having and vulnerably positioned! Alas.
"A-ah…" Magnes moves a hand up to straighten his own glasses, only wearing his silver-rimmed oval glasses during work hours. "I was just trying to teach them to skate, more children could benefit from knowing proper inline skating, you know? They could grow up to be great delivery boys, or some other form of employment." he explains, being terribly formal in his nervousness. He hasn't noticed Chloe yet, too busy trying not to make an ass of himself. "M-my name, it's uh, Magnes." he manages to introduce.
"They could…" Chu-hua admits. "Or they could grow up to be chemists or physicists; help brighten the world with knowledge. But…" She fiddles with her hair again. "I suppose boys need exercise. And it would keep them out of trouble. Probably could use it with those mouths. Though I imagine they heard that language from their parents."
She pauses again. "I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I am Chu-hua."
A-hrmhrm! Chloe makes her way over toward the two — Chu-hua and Magnes — conversing. She moves up along behind Magnes before calling "Hello!", with a BEAMING smile, and little regard to being actually being looked at or addressed. Oh, friendly and joyous. "A-hrmhrmhrm~ What're you two doing? You should just kick little kids if they don't listen to you." Ah, world advice from this homeless-looking woman, too!
"Yeah, science is always good. And don't forget, there are delivery boys who deliver scientific equipment, materials, important research papers. The world doesn't function without delivery boys." Magnes explains with a firm nod, then holds out a shaky hand, cheeks bright red. "Ah, Chihuahua? That's a cute name." he says with an uneasy smile, but before Chu-hua can shake his hand, Chloe scares the hell out of him, and he jumps a good ten feet into the air before slowly falling back down. "C-crap… sorry about that…" he apologizes, clearly embarrassed as he straightens his glasses again.
Chu-hua is about to shake Magnes' hand when Chloe comes over. "Oh." she says, a bit startled. "You can not…" And then she realizes that the delivery boy just leaped into the air like a flea, and jumps about a foot backwards herself….away from him.
"Whoah!"
Chloe stares at Magnes the whole way down — but who gets the real staring is Chu-hua, after Chloe hears her reply — Can't? "Of course I can. I don't, though. Because I don't have to! I'm very good at making children so as I say." She replies, with a bright smile. "But, I mean, our friend here should do it if he has to, don't you think? It'd be much easier than trying to get them to listen."
"Um, don't mind me, I'm just really good at skating…" Magnes says, even though his ability isn't a secret, this is… well, he's panicking. "Ah, w-well, it's not good to hit children, you should educate them…" he trails off, starting to slowly skate backwards, figuring he totally screwed up the situation.
Good at skating? Chu-hua's a physicist, she's not fooled by that. "Its alright, you do not scare me." she replies. "I'm not going to dehumanize you. I'm a scientist." She glances at Chloe the Creepy Homeless Lady again, but focuses her attention for the moment on the shy evolved.
Chloe puffs her cheek up childishly! Which is, perhaps, a little strange considering she's older than either of you. She lifts her handpuppet hand and stares at the birdy puppet she has for a long moment — as if there was something that was supposed to be happening. Suddenly, she shoves her hand out toward Magnes, and..! "Chirpy says that little boy was right, and that you're a coward. You should hit the people you want to make do something, because it's the easiest way to make them do it." She then nods firmly, at her own logic.
"A physicist? That was gonna be my major, but I was just really bad at it, then the bomb happened." Magnes explains, sighing in relief that the situation isn't completely beyond salvage. Then there's Chloe, speaking again, where does she get this stuff? And why is there a puppet… "I could throw every criminal and corrupt politician into space if I wanted to, but I don't do it, because with great power, comes great responsibility."
"Yeah…uh, its too hard for everyone." Chu-hua admits. "Thats the secret. I didn't finish on time because of the bomb either. I had started college early but…" She trails off akwardly, biting her lip. "Anyways, I just finished recently. Just got my degree. Dual-major."
She glances towards the creepy homeless lady again, trying to decide if she should ignore the lady or speak up. "Hitting people doesn't do anything other then physically harm someone. Only knowledge and compassion can really win, in the end."
Written on Chloe's face is the fact that she clearly thinks neither of you 'get it' — her eyes lid half way, and she leans back away from the two, almost a little.. angry looking. "That isn't true, and you know it. You're just repeating silly things that people tell you." She replies, lowering her puppet hand back down. "People who know that they'll be weak one day and don't want you to turn against them when they are." She then sticks her tongue out at the two. Oh so mature! Nyeehh.
Magnes shakes his head at Chloe, clearly disagreeing, completely unswayed! "She's right, knowledge and compassion. You have to understand the seemingly bad people in this world. Sure, there are true monsters, I've seen them, but I've also met people who are only misunderstood as monsters, people who would only become truly 'evil' if all they did was get met with violence." he explains, pointing in the general direction of Manhattan. "I met the man they say blew up Manhattan, and while I don't truly believe he did it, he has done many terrible things. But it's all a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding that would be cleared up if people opened their minds, and their hearts!" he raises a passionate fist, getting deep into everything he's saying. Then, his cheeks go red again when he looks at the girls, then just lowers it bashfully to his skates. "Sorry, I-I got caught up…"
Chu-hua breaths in deeply at the mention of Sylar. She lost three family members in the blast. After a moment, she composes herself.
"Tell me. You are faced with a child. He does not listen. You can either kick him - quickly and easily, and go on kicking him for the rest of his life, or explain to him why he needs to listen. Kicking him is easier…and weaker. But you do not speak of strength; you speak of power. True strength is something else."
Chloe doesn't look impressed at the slightest at the pair of Good Guys(tm) she has infront of her! She listens patiently, but once the pair have finished, she once more raises her puppet hand. "Tweet tweet!" She says, in a slightly higher voice than she was using before — and she tweaks the beak of her bird puppet open and closed with her fingers inside. "You two are going to end up getting walked all over by someone!" Again with the high voice, and then she pauses for a moment — and then takes on a friendly smile. "But it's okay! I'm sure Chirpy will forgive you some day. I certainly do." She says in her normal voice, lifting her other hand and waggling a finger.
"Well I can't argue with that." Chu-hua admits. "The world is a harsh and dangerous place, full of selfish, greedy and stupid people. I never said it wasn't."
"I'll change the world one day, bring the true destroyer of Manhattan to justice, fix all corruption. But not right now, I think I still need to grow a bit…" Magnes says with a soft smile, almost starting to roll over to Chloe, but he freezes in his tracks, realizing he's speaking casually to two strange girls. "U-um, maybe I should get going, I don't wanna accidentally say something stupid…"
For a moment, Chloe stares at Chu-hua — but then, with a sudden motion, she jerks her puppet out into Magnes' face once more! "Tweet tweet!" She calls — why does she say tweet, anyway, if it's name is CHIRPy? — "See you later, strange boy! We'll see you again some time..!" She says, in her higher voice, before she tries to bap the plush beak against Magnes' nose with a reach of her arm.
"Well…alright." Chu-hua says to the skater. "It was nice to meet you though. You should have more self-confidence."
"It's hard, with pretty girls around." Magnes adds, reaching into his pockets and holding out a Panucci's Pizza menu for both, which has business hours and phone numbers for the place. "I work at Panucci's Pizza, in Brooklyn, feel free to stop by or order sometime. I deliver long distance." he explains, attempting to get something out of the situation before he leaves.
Chloe whirls herself around on her heels and looks off in a random direction! ".. I think I'm going to go too!" She announces, moving her hands back behind her lower back — though, she can't put them together since one is covered. "Good bye, strange people!" She says, glancing back over her shoulder — the menu from Magnes is quite crudely stuffed into her pocket first, and when that doesn't work, she folds it and slides it in. Wrinkly mess!
Chu-hua glances from Magnes to Chloe, playing with some hair near her ear idly. "Err…alright." she says a bit hesitatingly. "Have a good night."
 March 13th: Yes, Higher |
 March 14th: The Charming Pizza Pusher |