Participants:
| Scene Title | Volatile |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A few days after a dream visit, Elle and Gillian meet up in the flesh. A certain ex-serial killer and a man who can switch abilities are the hot topics of discussion — that is, until things run downhill. |
| Date | July 20, 2009 |
Standing in the ruins of Midtown, it's hard to believe New York is still a living city.
There's life enough around the fringes — the stubborn, who refused to rebuild somewhere else; the hopeful, who believe the radiation is gone, or that they somehow won't be affected. Businesses, apartment complexes, taxis and bicycles and subways going to and fro — life goes on. Perhaps more quietly than in other parts of the city, shadowed by the reminder that even a city can die, but it does go on.
Then there is the waste. The empty core for which the living city is only a distant memory. Though a few major thoroughfares wind through the ruins, arteries linking the surviving halves, and the forms of some truly desperate souls can occasionally be glimpsed skulking in the shadows, the loudest noise here is of the wind whistling through the mangled remnants of buildings. Twisted cords of rebar reach out from shattered concrete; piles of masonry and warped metal huddle on the ground, broken and forlorn. Short stretches of road peek out from under rubble and dust only to disappear again shortly afterwards, dotted with the mangled and contorted forms of rusting cars, their windows long since shattered into glittering dust.
There are no bodies — not even pieces, not anymore. Just the bits and pieces of destroyed lives: ragged streamers fluttering from the handlebar which juts out of a pile of debris; a flowerbox turned on its side, coated by brick dust, dry sticks still clinging to the packed dirt inside; a lawn chair, its aluminum frame twisted but still recognizable, leaning against a flight of stairs climbing to nowhere.
At the center of this broken wasteland lies nothing at all. A hollow scooped out of the earth, just over half a mile across, coated in a thick layer of dust and ash. Nothing lives here. Not a bird; not a plant. Nothing stands here. Not one concrete block atop another. There is only a scar in the earth, cauterized by atomic fire. This is Death's ground.
Even outside the radiation zone, there's a lot of destruction and waste, shattered concrete and broken buildings. Rubble that hasn't been moved away yet. Repairs haven't happened much here, so there signs of trash and garbage and debris make up most of the area. There's long misshapen shadows and some signs of movement. People still try to live out here, despite everything.
The person standing near a specific subway terminal doesn't live in the ruins, and instead is waiting. The subway terminals are still good markers for meeting someone. Though any good seats are dirty or shattered, leaving her leaning against a mostly solid wall. Dark hair, dark clothes, the young woman looks different from most of her presence in the dream. Lipstick stands out on her face, giving more color, and purple slashes in her clothes stand out under the black. A shift pulls out a palm sized pocket watch so she can glance at the time, and then she drops it back into a pocket and folds her arms and waits.
Miss Childs won't have to keep waiting much longer — combined with the phone call Elle had very tangibly received earlier, this situation is simply all too interesting to merit anything but a timely arrival. The agent isn't sure if she appears in real-life as she had in her dream; after all, she couldn't see much more of herself than her arms from that first-person perspective. It isn't likely that it's even on her mind, though. There isn't much to distinguish her, physically, from any other slim young woman happening to wander down the streets. With her hair in a neat ponytail, she's dressed casually but smartly, attire consisting of a black blouse with three-quarter sleeves, skinny jeans, and peep-toe pumps.
From far away, she spends a minute or so scanning the scene for signs of the person she had come to meet. When she thinks she has her target in her mind's eye, she wastes no more time in looking around, but starts to head directly for the dark-haired woman in a brusque, lively clip. (This really isn't the nicest of all places to loiter.) As she nears, it can be seen that her brows are creased a little as she hones in her gaze on Gillian's face. Is this right? Yeah. Must be right.
"Um. Hi."
For all intents and purposes, Gillian's alone in the general area of the subway station. There might be the occassional flash of movement in the dark shadows, but those don't seem to be with her, or interested in her. There's a cautious glance away from the buildings at the sound of a lively clip, and she pushes off of the wall. Dust shifts as she moves, stepping forward. "Hi back," she replies, glancing over the girl's shoulder, past her, up and down what's left of the street.
"For the record, I didn't mean to fall into your dream," she says after a moment, a glance to confirm there's no cars with black windows in the distance, no men in suits approaching. "I only stayed cause I saw Gabriel." Something similar had been said before, but since she's not sure how clear the dream was to her…
"You said you'd answer my questions if we met in person."
There's nobody who had accompanied Elle in, as Gillian will be able to confirm pretty easily in a single sweep. If there is, they're well-hidden amongst the rubble indeed, or else just choosing not to show themselves at this moment in time. "Yeah, I guess I said something like that. So —- how do you even know him? Are you some kind of ex?" Pre-Sylar days, her uninitiated mind would assume, since dream manipulation is a pretty tasty power for the taking.
A short, silent breath of air escapes her nostrils at Gillian's claim that she had fallen into her dream by accident, just the barest hint of cynicism suggested in it. Meeting someone from one's dreams, quite literally, is still a brow-raising experience even for someone who's been around special shiny powers for the majority of their life.
"Yeah— I guess you could call me an ex," Gillian says after a few moments of thinking about it. "We were neighbors at first, then lived together for a couple months at a time. Almost half a year all together." It's far more recent than the pre-Sylar days, closer to the Sylar and post-Sylar days… And Tavisha days, even. The age she gives off is early twenties, so she would've been pretty young if it'd been the pre-Sylar days. Barely legal!
"What did you mean with me giving him my broken watch to fix? It was just a dream and maybe… but what did the watch have to do with it? He used to fix watches for a living— hell he was in a fucking watch shop, so I figured it fit right into the dream there. Considering the bastard never even fixed my watch." Course part of her didn't want him to, and now she doesn't think he will… Stuck forever, and she never even wears it.
"Wow. You were with him that long? I'm really, really surprised you weren't—" Here, Elle drags a forefinger through the air just in front of her scalp, miming telekinetic cutting. Her dark-blue eyes stay transfixed on Gillian, eyebrows going up a little. Either the woman's a liar or exceptionally good at keeping secrets from men. Hm?
As far as the dreambit goes, Elle actually does a little snort out loud, looking deeply amused. "God, it was a dream — I don't even remember it that well. The watch… had something to do with what I was trying to do. If you reminded him of what it was…" She cuts herself off abruptly, that entertained smirk still sitting on her face as she gives a one-shouldered shrug. Her eyes narrow the tiniest bit, wryly. "I should've written more of it down."
There's a pause, before Gillian shifts her bangs out of the way of her face. There's a scar on the edge of her forehead that travels for about an inch. Straight line, ragged, what one would except someone who survived the beginnings of a forehead slice might look like. The scar itself leaves a small indent, an off colored paleness, but it looks much older than it actually was. Partially healed, but not completely. The scar could be as much as a couple years old, when it's closer to six months.
"Almost, but he didn't finish, he— stopped." Made to stop or stopped himself? One wouldn't think he'd be able to have done the second part. "How well did you know him? I assume you were one of the people keeping him captive after… after everything that happened." She glances at the shattered buildings as if to indicate her topic. After the bomb. Which the public thinks he'd been responsible for…
"Keeping captive nothing. I really wasn't around him much after the bomb." This is true, actually. Elle just conveniently neglects to mention that she had quite an interesting bit of history with him before the bomb, some years ago. When the scar is shown to her, her gaze grows to reflect a level of interested surprise that she doesn't bother to hide. "Doesn't sound like the Sylar I know," she comments simply, scrutinizing Gillian as if trying to study her from afar, but very carefully.
"And why, has he mentioned me? How much do you know?"
"Gabriel's— he seems to be going through a lot of changes," Gillian responds quietly, though she understands how it's unlike him. Her arms cross quietly. She doesn't know how much of this would filter back to the people the woman worked with. Even if Phoenix was willing to release her back into the wild, she doesn't know how…
"I recognized you from the time you almost killed me," she says after a moment. "And I recognized the name on the computers you were trying to use. I know they're dissolved, the Paper Company part at least, the newspaper mentioned it, but… He did mention them. Not you specifically. Unless you're not working for them anymore." Only reason she knows for sure she had been didn't come from the dream, the dream could've been someone held by them too, actually. It was the Catabase that told her that much…
At the repeated reminder of nearly being the cause of this woman's death, Elle's expression evolves. It isn't a look suggesting apology that comes creeping onto her face, but rather, something entirely different: the light of suspicious recognition. Her eyes go flat, narrowing. "… I remember where I've seen you now. You're that weird purple-eyed chick from Moab."
With her own arms folded across her stomach now, she takes a step closer to Gillian, head going tilted as she pauses skeptically. "You did something to me back there. I don't know how you did whatever you did, but when I stood anywhere close to you, I felt like I had way more electricity in my body than it could hold. I was about to lose it. Maybe by putting you down, I saved all our lives. Ever think of that?"
"I lost control when you electricuted me. Completely lost control," Gillian says thickly, frowning at the memory of it. Containing her energy in a tight knot or controlling the flow to a few people close by suddenly became impossible when nothing but pain coursed through her. Though the memory of much of what happened after the jolt hit her is fuzzy in general. She couldn't think, to do anything, especially rein her ability in.
"Maybe you made it worse, maybe it was what was supposed to happen. Maybe you should have killed me on the first hit," she says, rather offhanded when speaking of her own death. "Maybe in one scenerio, you did. Not in the one that fucking matters now, I guess." Instead the loop got created, Peter lost control and threw a whole jail full of people in random places throughout space and time. "What were you looking for in the dream?"
From the sound of it, the two women effectively made each other lose control. Both of them, with their powers. Chaotic consequences all around — not all of them exactly pleasant for Elle, either.
"Wouldn't you like to know." That's in response to being asked what Elle had been searching for, dream-wise. It's probably also the one thing she will absolutely not tell, unless Gillian forced some kind of truth-telling potion down her throat. She smiles tightly. "Why are you so interested, anyway? I said it before. It was just a dream. I'm more curious about real life: like, why you keep calling him Gabriel instead of Sylar. Doesn't he go by that name anymore?"
"You'll have to ask him next time you see him," Gillian responds after a moment's pause, hesitating even then. "He didn't use the name Sylar most of the time I knew him— not with me." Not with her. Even after she knew he wasn't just a nerdy quiet man who lived down the hall. Even when she discovered his other name. Course everyone knows his other name. The man who supposedly blew up the city.
"I would like to know. If it was just a dream, then fine, just a fucking dream. I just thought you looked almost as lost trying to find it as I am trying to figure out what you were trying to find. I'm not in a habit of helping people who might toss me into a dark windowed car and drag me off somewhere…" But oddly she is in a habit of helping people who try to kill her. She must be wired wrong in some ways… "Figured I easedropped on your mind, so maybe I should find out what it was and took a chance meeting up with you."
The aloofness in Elle's demeanor retracts a bit. Just a bit. She straightens her shoulders in a kind of annoyed resignation, but resignation is there all the same. "Sorry. But you couldn't help me with what I'm looking for, anyway," she states with a tiny, brusque snort, never moving her gaze away. "It's not something that's as easy as just walking towards it in a dream. Thanks for the offer." Consindering they come from her, the words might not be all as insincere as they sound.
"I haven't seen Sylar in a long time, anyway. Not since the last time I ran into him, when he — bashed my head in against a wall." There's a grimace at the physical memory. "He did it for you. I remember that now, too. He must've really liked you."
More difficult than walking up to it in a dream. If it weren't for everything else going on… Gillian knows she's capable of so much more than that. So much more than glowing, too. But who knows if that would offer any manner of help in this situation. There's a physical stiffening of her own, when it's mentioned how much he must've liked her. "I didn't really— I don't remember what happened after you electricuted me. Not much of it, anyway. But it wouldn't surprise me if he'd been… upset."
Doesn't surprise her, yet seems to in some way at the same time. Almost as if she shivers slightly. "I wonder how differently things could've gone if I'd been teleported with him instead of…" She shakes her head. The past is the past. Maybe it can't be changed. Maybe it was how it had to be… this time.
"Since I can't help you…" She takes a step forward, away from the rubble she'd been leaning against. "I don't really know what more I can…"
That's as far as she gets when there's suddenly a sudden pop. A zzzt that followed before it. A familiar sound, really, but the direction is of. She glances downwards, toward the sound, in time to see a sudden spark popping off of her fingers as electricity forms, crashes together, then snaps out and dissipates.
Every thought that Elle had been about to form with her lips, retort, comment, whatever, drops out of her mind when she sees those streaks of neon-blue electricity from… Gillian? Her lower jaw clenches, her eyebrows lowering in puzzlement and consternation. "You. You stole my power—" Or, well, actually not, as she finds out only a second later. Two of her fingers lift down at her side, soon joined by the rest of them as she cups her palm close to her chin and ZAPS a round, hovering blob into being. In the shadows of the subway terminal, the flare the lighting throws on her features from below is a little creepy.
Oh, good. It still works.
It's only very slowly that the agent lets her hand drop again, bare; a parting ZZT marks the electricity's equally abrupt disappearance. "And I thought Peter was the only one who could absorb like that," she remarks critically, breathing somewhat more deeply than normal. "…Why the hell haven't I heard of you. Why hasn't anyone." After all, everyone's heard of Peter Petrelli and Sylar, twin gas giants of the Evolved solar system.
The young woman with the power of a twin gas giant doesn't seem to be too comfortable with the ability. Gillian gives her hand a shake to try and get the electricity off of it, which instead sends more sparks popping a few inches away from her hand. Her eyes no longer stick to herself, though, instead watching the blonde woman, for signs of that hand getting raised too far. "Because I couldn't do this before!" she exclaims, sounding frustrated at it.
"It's not mine," she adds on, shaking a few sparks off of her hand. It's not the electricity she's talking about, it's— everything else. What makes her a little brown dwarf in the solar system next to the two men who she'd been with when this happened to her. A few steps takes her away from the woman until she can close her eyes, leaving her temporarily open as she tries to shut down the electrical bursts trying to fly out of her hand.
Something extraordinarily weird is going on. "You know, I don't think I'm the one who needs help," Elle observes oh-so-helpfully, her mouth in a dry, slanted line. "You're really going to end up hurting something if you keep—" Her eyes dart to the crackles of electricity struggling to weasel out of Gillian's hand in all directions, before moving upwards to the augmentor's face meaningfully. Her brows are raised.
"Calm down." Panic isn't going to help with the control issue, that's for sure, and oh lord. This is an even funner meeting than she had first imagined. "If it's not yours, than whose is it? What are you talking about?"
Something extraordinarily weird is going on, and for once, it's not coming from her end. "You know, I don't think I'm the one who needs help," Elle observes oh-so-helpfully, her mouth in a dry, slanted line. "You're really going to end up hurting something if you keep—" Her eyes dart to the crackles of electricity struggling to weasel out of Gillian's hand in all directions, before moving upwards to the augmentor's face meaningfully. Her eyebrows are lifted delicately.
"Calm down; there's people around. You don't want someone to see you, do you?" There's not very many, but there are indeed furtive movements in nooks and crannies farther away. She can see them out of the corner of her eye, without trying. Panic isn't going to help with the control issue, that's for sure, and oh lord. This is an even funner meeting than she had first imagined. "If it's not yours, than whose is it? What are you talking about?"
Anyone who could see her around here had probably already caught a glimpse or two of her training in Midtown. Mostly at night. Usually not with much in the way of light like this. The occassionally electrical outburst, but— not like this. "I'm trying," Gillian says in the frustrated voice. The cloud cover overhead thickens a bit as the sparks finally stop flying. There— one ability she knows how to control can keep her from using one she doesn't. Flexing her fingers, she finally looks up, not relaxed, but definitely no longer trying to shake sparks off of her hand.
"I don't need help. It's only temporary anyway," she insists, voice raspy and dry, but… it's lasted months now and she still insists it's temporary? "I know how dangerous it is. I just sometimes loose control when I pick up a new one. It takes a moment. Whole thing started with that damn attack on Moab. I currently have the ability of the person I went there to break out."
Remaining watchful, Elle lets out an audible breath through her nose once Gillian's electricity recedes, glancing up only once at the cloud formation forming overhead. "You went to Moab to—" Realization clicks into place. It isn't all that difficult to figure out, really; she had seen him there, too. She had visited his cell, talked to him. Shaking her head, she closes her eyelids for a second, her brows furrowing. The next part is what she really, truly does not understand. "You have Peter's ability. How do you have Peter's ability? Does he have yours? Did someone do this to you?"
Some newfangled government experiment? Or maybe the injection that was supposed to suppress abilities did something funny and… swapped them, instead. Because that totally makes sense. At least she's trying.
"Some jack ass from the future shot us with red lightning," Gillian admits, not even caring too much if she shares that little bit. It explains what happened, and she knows more about the woman than the woman knows about her. As far as she knows, the Company knew about Tyler Case longer than even Phoenix did, too, so… it doesn't seem like a viable time to be quiet and hide the truth. "Switched abilities around, so I got his ability and have to figure out how not to blow up the entire fucking city all the time— I don't think I have anything that could, at least."
But now she has to worry even more about turning people into crispy charcoal critters. Which could be just as bad, if smaller area of effect. "But since you haven't heard of me, I must be managing better at it than he ever did." Possibly because she's not as naturally empathic as him? Or more likely because she got a memory ability first, which helps in recalling situations wherein abilities had been used, as well as her emotional state. As she talks, though, the clouds return to normal.
But even if it knows, the Company doesn't share such information with any old agent who happens to walk by, especially one that isn't even on active duty right now. That's right — Elle Bishop is le benched. Tyler Case is a subject who she maybe could dig up at last a few goods on if she looked in the right places, but she's never been faced with a reason to before.
"You haven't exploded," Elle points out about Gillian managing the ability better. Peter must be having a hell of a time, wherever he is. "And look. This is your problem. I don't have that much time to stand around and listen to you blab about your new ability, and I really don't want to be around you in case you do blow up."
As she talks, she raises on hand to her eye to rub at it, lowering it again in an irked fashion. "So really, I enjoyed meeting you—"
"I didn't meet up with you to talk about the abilities I have," Gillian says in a mirror of the blonde's irksomeness. It'd not even been a topic she wanted to discuss, until it happened. Of all times for it to happen, too. It's like the god damn power has a 'worst timing ever' sense to it, and chooses then to activate. Always. So many meetings had gone without incident— and then ones like this one seem to be built for disaster.
Speaking of disaster…
"I only told you as much as I did because you fucking asked," she adds on, raspy voice grating with frustration. "It's not like I explain what happened to every single fucking person that— " She meets. That's where the sentance was supposed to go. While she rasps angerly in frustration, though, her hands are waving around, mannerisms following her frustration. And the powers are as well.
There's a crack and a bzzt sound, and then lightning flows off her fingertips, seeking out the nearest target. Untrained, unfocused, it doesn't matter so much where it hits, just if it hits—
"Hey, don't talk to me like that. You were the one who decided my brain was a cool hangout and asked me all these questions like any of it was actually your business, so don't even go there." That seems to be the end of this whole thing, as far as Elle is personally concerned, and she pauses to aim one last, glowering 'so there' look at Gillian before turning away. Loitering to do that was a mistake. Catching the thinning of the clouds above and the wild, frustrated movements of the other woman's hands, her eyes widen just as: "Hey, watch it—"
A heavy line of lightning slams into the center of her chest, hurling the blonde backwards a short distance as it follows (or tries to follow) a linear path across the room. There aren't any obstacles to hinder her on the dilapidated, sprawling floor of the subway terminal, so her landing largely consists of a standard-grade -crash-. Miniature sizzles of blue arc still and twitch around her body, especially one hand that happens to be flung out.
Ow. Ow?
The argument could have gone on forever. If the electrical charge hadn't flown out of her hand and into the woman's chest. It cuts off soon after contact throws her away, but that doesn't mean the electricity doesn't keep flying. Just may not be the way that one would expect. Gillian's frustration turns to shock as she pulls her hands back against her body as if that would stop it from happening again. The sparks slide down her arms, into her own chest, making her twitch slightly, but not causing too much permenant damage. Not to her. She's the one who can heal.
"Fuck," she says in a off-balance voice, trying to hold it back as she moves a little closer, hoping to at least see signs of breathing, but not daring to reach out, or even get too close. The electrical sizzles give her some hope, cause she knows it's not her. "I didn't mean to do that— " Something she said a lot since she got this ability. Just like how she didn't mean to fall into the woman's dream. "Are you okay?"
It's just as well that Gillian lost control around Elle rather than anyone else, for a number of reasons. She hadn't been knocked unconscious, at least, because the first thing she does is try and sit up when Gillian gets close to her. That's mistake numero dos. But though she winces all through it, she doesn't stop from moving a hand to the back of her skull as she supports herself on one elbow.
The fingertips come away with a dribble of red. "Get away from me."
At least Gillian knows better than to take too many steps forward. Just enough to make a visual confirmation of condition, and she looks relieved that she's able to sit up. Arguing with her might be a bad idea right now. It could lead to inappropriately timed discharges of electricity. Very few of the abilities she's picked up are as volatile as this one could be. Weather comes close, though, but they share some particular properties.
Still, once the blonde sits up, and then speaks, she takes a few steps back, both to comply with the demand, and to just put distance between the two of them.
From the way she steps, she's likely tempted to leave at that, taking the words as a dismal, but after a moment of hesitating mid-step, she asks, "Are you going to be able to get back to wherever it is you need to go?"
Oddly enough, besides being clearly and obviously irritated and having a face made sour by pain, Elle doesn't seem to be angry -enough- to stop conversing with Gillian altogether. The unintentional nature of the control loss subtracts a few points from the score, as well as the fact— Elle hasn't forgotten— that she probably entirely deserves this. Agonizingly, she shifts herself into a kind of awkward sitting position, prying herself the rest of the way up with one knee up and the other leg crooked. "I'll kind of have to. I'll just say — what should I say happened to me?" This sounds as though she's asking a purely hypothetical question as she glances up and over at Gillian, lip curling coldly.
After all, she'll have to tell them something. Explaining to her caretakers that she had been attacked by someone with even less control over Peter's ability than Peter probably isn't going to turn out well, for Gillian.
There's a reason she's avoided saying her name, both in the dream, and since meeting. Gillian's got enough to worry about, already knows she can't return to her old life even if she wishes she could. Nothing in this world seems to want to be easy. "Fuck, I dunno. You could tell them you got attacked by one of the bastards from the future." There's a couple of them running around. "Niles Wight'd be a good one. Likes to talk about himself, could've even introduced himself beforehand. Has one of those Britishy accents. Creates electrical versions of himself, so he could shock the shit out of you, but maybe you got the upper hand, hit him with lightning into the river and he drowned. Water and him didn't mix too well."
There's a shrug of her shoulders. "Finding bodies in the river is nearly impossible, and he really is dead. I don't know if your people know he is yet. Hell, could win you some points for getting rid of a fucking time traveller, even."
"Why should I lie? Give me one reason why I shouldn't give them a physical description and have them try and figure you out for themselves," Elle retorts, looking Gillian up and down again with her eyes as if to emphasize her point. Unbeknownst even to her, a profile of Gillian Childs is in the Company database, her picture and Phoenix association recorded since January thanks to the efforts of Agent Dahl. Back when she was still an agent, anyway.
Very carefully, she reaches one hand up to draw her ponytail out of her hair, which shakes loose in bunches down around her shoulders; the elastic is saturated with dark blood. Ewww. The thing is tossed away from her, skittering into the shadow at the base of the wall. One hand of hers twitches on the floor, then turns over palm-up. "Don't you at least have a— cloth or something?"
There's a mutter under her breath, before Gillian reaches into a pocket and pulls out a small handkerchief, walking over so she will be able to drop it into her hand. No more sparks or other signs of loss of control at this point, but who really knows, right? She seemed fine right before it happened too. "Tell them whatever the fuck you want. I'm already in hiding cause of people like the shitheads you work with." The anger is obvious in her voice, but still at the same time she seems rather like she's accepted a majority of what she says.
"See you later," she adds, as she lets the handkerchief drop, obviously intending to leave soon after.
Without thanking Gillian for it, Elle lets the handkerchief float into her opened hand from above, fingers curling into the fabric soon after. She gingerly presses the thing against the back of her skull, holding it there. For a moment, she looks like she's going to open her mouth to say something, but then she draws her knees up closer to herself in a small, watchful motion instead.
If she wants to leave, Elle will make no move to stop her. Just a parting, ironic, almost inaudible: "Yeah, we will," at Gillian's assertion that they'll see other later.
Shitheads indeed.
For a moment, there's a long pause, before Gillian turns around and suddenly shoots upwards into the sky. Flying is faster than many things, and it seems that's one of the many abilities she's picked up. The dark form disappears against the clouds, turning into a speck easily mistaken for a bird. She could go faster, but right now… she just needs the ease of mind. Flying would be one of the few abilities she's picked up that doesn't leave her with much more than a stomach that demands food.