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 Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 6:31 pm
The city was just as full of noises at night as it was during the day—the puttering of a car engine, the sound of a horn, the rumbling of a bus, the screeching of an airplane flying overhead, the muttering of people meandering to and fro, from work to home or from home to work, here, there, and everywhere, going about their lives with hardly a pause, until life seemed like little more than one rush after another.
Never ending.
The ‘click-click-click’ of a pair of heels against the sidewalk joined in with the rest of the cacophonous sound. Attached to these heels was a pair of legs in a pencil skirt, which in turn were attached to a torso in a blouse and overcoat, crowned by a head of pale blonde hair, loose curls that fluttered in the night breeze. The face belonging to this body was set in an expression of mild annoyance, as the owner was forced to walk through the sudden, unplanned drizzle without an umbrella.
“Should’ve gotten a car, Marissa,” she muttered to herself as she struggled to send a “be home soon” text without getting her phone wet, shielding the screen with one of her hands while holding it close to her body, half under her coat, with the result that half of her message ended up laced with typos.
She frowned, looking up as she drew close to a bus stop and considered her options—either wait, or walk the rest of the way home. The walk wasn’t so bad on a more pleasant day, but then those days tended to be warmer and dry. At least the bus stop would provide her with some temporary shelter.
Waiting it was, then.
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Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 7:57 pm
There were few things Michael hated more than riding in the rain. Not only was it dangerous, but it was just annoying. Veteran's day had given him a day off work, and he mused over the irony that he was a veteran, himself. Twenty-seven now, and already out of one war and into another. And yet, there were no days celebrating the sacrifices made by senshi and knights to keep chaos at bay.
Maybe in the next decade or so... depending on the result of the war, of course.
Coming to a stop at a red light, Michael leaned back on his bike, cursing the weather man. This wasn't just a little drizzle, either. It was getting late and visibility was bad and he totally wouldn't have taken his motorcycle to school had he known it was going to be gross like this, now.
But there were better things to distract himself with, such as glancing over at the pedestrians in the bus shelter, glad that he wasn't stuck waiting for a stinkin' bus. Like that blonde that looked oh so familiar, and yet he couldn't put his finger on it. He felt like he'd seen her before, though.
"Hey," he called over the sound of his idling bike, pushing up the visor for her to hear him better. "If you need a ride, I wouldn't mind taking you," he said with a wink, glancing her over. Why did she seem so familiar? Maybe he'd slept with her before...
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 5:21 pm
For just a second Marissa was able to pretend that the young man on the motorcycle wasn’t talking to her, because as far as she was aware she didn’t know any young men with motorcycles—she barely knew any young men without them—and because it wasn’t every day she got offered a ride home by someone she didn’t even know. People these days tended to keep to themselves, which was fine by her because she liked to do the same.
She had almost convinced herself that the offer was meant for one of the other few people loitering under the bus shelter with her, but then the voice registered in her brain and she realized she’d heard it before.
Of course, she could very well have been mistaken, but when she glanced up to actually look at the young man in question… actually, she couldn’t see him very well through the rain which was steadily growing stronger, and she didn’t want to step too close to make sure, but there was something about his eyes that was decidedly familiar. It wasn’t long before she had the answer, as she didn’t know very many people to begin with. It wasn’t hard to go through her mental rolodex. No one at work rode a motorcycle as far as she was aware, and she didn’t have very many other friends outside of it. It wasn’t her son, or her son’s boyfriend, but thoughts of them brought another figure to mind, and then she had her answer.
“Michael,” she said.
She probably should have smiled and greeted him as one would normally greet someone they were at least mildly acquainted with, but there had always been something about Michael Gallo that made it harder to like him than it was to like his younger brothers. Marissa was pretty sure it had something to do with the arrogant way he spoke even when he was making the attempt to be generous.
Oh, and the way he looked at her. As well as his habit of saying inappropriate things, regardless of who might be around to hear it.
“Given that you didn’t bother to greet me by name, I’m going to assume it’s either because you’ve forgotten it or because you can’t remember who I am, in which case I’d like to ask why you’d offer me a ride specifically when there are three other people standing out here in the rain that might benefit from it.”
Not that she couldn’t make a pretty good guess.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:09 pm
For a few moments, the grin remained on Michael's face. She was going to play this guessing game? Fine... he'd bite.
"I asked because I recognized you," he said with a shrug under the raindrop spotted leather jacket. His jeans were already soaked through, but that's what happened when random rainstorms cropped up out of nowhere. "And you've got a nice a--"
And then he realized that he'd definitely seen the expression on her face before. Not on her face, but on one very, very similar to it. He got that unimpressed look all the time from his younger brother's boyfriend. And there was something about the way her eyebrows were set that made it finally click.
"-s**t, you're Paris's mom," he sputtered in almost uncharacteristic surprise.
Well that definitely explained why he'd recognized her.
The light changed but he didn't bother moving, ignoring the cars that honked their horns at him and eventually zipped around him. As if getting around a motorcycle was all that difficult, anyway.
He pursed his lips together as he ran through the situation in his head. It was only awkward because this woman was his mother's friend and Paris's mother, right? It wasn't like she was unattractive or anything. And she definitely didn't look like she'd just had a kid.
"The offer still stands," he said, the grin returning to his face as he leaned over the handle bars.
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Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:40 pm
Marissa met Michael’s sudden realization with a “no s**t, it took you that long to figure it out?” look.
Which was only different from her unimpressed look in the rising of her eyebrows.
She didn’t say anything else for a little while, just continued to stare at him with something of a dull expression. Let him wait. She could already guess what he must be thinking anyway. That wasn’t vanity talking so much as previous experience. She might not know much about him… —actually she knew quite a bit about him from all she’d heard from his mother, who liked to talk about her kids, but that still didn’t mean she knew him very well personally. Regardless, she’d heard enough of his crass comments muttered under his breath—or said without shame for others to hear as well—to have a pretty good idea that he was trying to hit on her.
Trying.
And failing.
“Not interested,” Marissa said. She almost added “you’re not my type,” but it seemed rather superfluous and so she let it go.
Instead, she glanced back down at her phone to check the time and respond to a text message, speaking just loud enough for Michael to hear. “You’re blocking traffic.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a soft roll of thunder sounded, or she assumed it was a roll of thunder, though she had to admit she hadn’t even noticed there’d been any lightning. She looked up curiously, noting that the people under the bus shelter with her appeared slightly uneasy. The thunder came again, but no light preceded it. In fact, the noise wasn’t even coming from above them or from afar. It originated in an alley a few yards away.
A growl that reverberated between the alley walls like distant thunder.
A stray dog, maybe?
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Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 5:32 pm
"They can go around," he shrugged, refusing to just drive off now that he'd crossed her path. He wasn't the kind to give up until the fat lady sang. The fact that she was responding to him gave him hope that she'd change her mind. After all, he was Michael Gallo. How could anyone refuse him for long?
He didn't really care that she was Paris's mother. She was hot, and he'd been dating a seventeen year old. And even if he didn't get anything out of it, it would still be a fun change of pace to bother her. Yeah, she might tattle on him to his mother, but it wasn't like he went home as often as his mother would probably like.
The growling from the alleyway was lost to him probably longer than it should have been. The low noise from his engine kind of dulled his senses as a knight as well. But when she and other started looking uneasy, he suddenly realized why.
A youma of some sort? s**t...
He grimaced as the energy wave caught up to him. Tempted to just hop off his bike and power up, Michael took in a quiet breath to get his thoughts together. He let his engine roar to life and turned to make his way towards the alley. If it really was a youma he was feeling, he needed to get out of sight before he powered up. Hopefully no one would pay much mind to him and stay were they were, out of the rain.
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 12:09 pm
“That was easy,” Marissa muttered to herself as she watched Michael slowly drive away.
Only he didn’t drive away, he was heading toward that alley in which the growling had originated. Probably meant to take the dog home or something, clean it up and keep it as his own like any other morally upright and sentimental Gallo would have done. Not that Marissa had ever really pegged Michael as the sentimental type—or morally upright, to be honest—but she supposed he must have it in his somewhere with parents like his.
It was in their blood or something.
Mangy dog.
“What do you expect to do for it on your bike?” she called out, though perhaps not as loudly as she should have if she’d wanted him to hear it, because the growling came again and it seemed somehow louder than before.
And it didn’t really sound like a dog at all.
Quite suddenly a creature that was certainly not a dog or any sort of animal Marissa had ever seen burst out of the alleyway, knocking trashcans aside to spill garbage on the sidewalk and street as it opened its mouth to issue another roar. For just a second, Marissa thought “wow, someone’s really trying to pull a Big Foot hoax in Destiny City?” before the creature turned her way. Well, the bus shelter’s way; she wasn’t the only one still standing there.
If it was a Big Foot hoax, it was a startlingly realistic one. Everyone else scattered, scurrying off this way and that. A few frightened screams pierced the air. Marissa took a careful step backwards, and another, and another. She didn’t want to just turn her back on it and go, since that seemed like an incredibly stupid idea when it could likely catch up rather easily. She did, however, increase the speed of her steps when it began to move forward.
And then she summarily tripped over something and landed in a puddle with an undignified splash and a “********, Marissa, really should’ve gotten a car.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 1:13 pm
"You okay?" Michael called as he swung back around and out of the alley. It had been his intention to keep the youma out of sight and take care of it there, but it had a mind of its own. His motorcycle skidded to a stop beside the now mostly abandoned bus stop, staring down in slight panic at the mother of his younger brother's boyfriend.
"Are you crazy? Get out of here!" he called down to her, revving his engine as the youma let out another roar, apparently now attracted to the sound of the bike, like it hadn't been before. It figured that she would be the last to run away, and he couldn't power up with so many people potentially seeing him... but now that the area had been mostly vacated, and the rain was coming down so heavily that it was difficult to see more than a dozen yards ahead, he figured once she was gone, he could have the whole block to himself.
At least that was his immediate plan.
As dangerous as he knew it was to ride his bike in the rain, he revved the engine again and sped off towards the youma, hoping to distract it away from the woman on the ground. The last thing he wanted was to have to explain to Paris how his mother had been eaten. Or worse... explaining it to his own mother.
That would be one for the records...
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Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 3:41 pm
“Working on it!”
Muttering to herself, Marissa hoisted herself back up onto her feet, sparing another quick glance to her phone which looked to have been ruined from its brief swim in the puddle. Her skirt was soaked and her blouse was well on its way to reaching the same state, and her feet kept sliding around in her damp heels. Annoyed, Marissa pushed some of her hair out of her face, mumbling a variety of curses to herself under her breath all the while. She slid her phone into her purse to worry about later.
It ******** figured, honestly. As insane as this was, it seemed like a pretty logical end to her day when one considered how poorly it’d gone to begin with. Of course something like this had to turn up. It was raining, she’d forgotten some files at home, she’d been dumb enough to turn down the offer for a ride from a friend at work, and then again from Michael, and the universe clearly thought it was a good idea to show her exactly why she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the ******** universe should mind its own god damned business.
“What the hell makes you think bating it is a good idea?” she called out again—but, again, she didn’t expect she’d been heard, not with the noise from the… thing… monster, whatever it was… along with the noise from Michael’s bike.
Backing up a few more steps and considering her options, Marissa found herself examining the… thing. The Big Foot hoax that couldn’t be a Big Foot hoax because no one could possibly be that stupid. Or maybe they were, she didn’t know. Today’s Destiny City wasn’t the same Destiny City she’d left eight years ago. She heard enough of that, rumors and news stories and a bunch of crap that didn’t even make sense, because the city hadn’t been like this when she’d been growing up and there wasn’t even any reason for it as far as she could tell.
“So that ride?” she continued. “Sounds like a much better idea now!”
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 2:12 pm
He hadn’t heard her, but he did think that bating it was a much better idea than letting some civilian get eaten, especially when that civilian happened to be his mother’s friend and his brother’s boyfriend’s mother.
That, and Michael did happen to have some dignity left in him.
The monster let out an angry roar, and Michael sped towards it, knowing full well the dangers he was facing in riding in the rain and up against a youma, but there weren’t many other options he could think of at that moment.
As he neared the monster, he pulled back on the handlebars, lifting the front of the bike off the ground in time for him to collide with the beast, knocking both it and himself to the ground. The bike skidded to a stop on its side and Michael scurried to get back to his feet after being thrown.
But the good thing was that the monster was down. For now.
“s**t,” he cursed, nursing his bloody arm through the torn leather jacket as the youma stirred and started to get to its feet as well.
He glanced towards Marissa with a moment of hesitation, realizing he’d be risking both of their lives if he didn’t do something.
Michael took in a deep breath as he steadied himself, powering up for the first time in front of someone else. But with his storm glass in hand, he stood a much better chance against it.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:37 am
For someone who was supposed to be pretty intelligent, Michael sure was behaving quite like an idiot.
Marissa was fuming. This was not how she’d wanted to end her day. This was not how she’d wanted to end any day ever, but here she was, sopping wet and standing around while some… failed Big Foot hoax or monster or whatever it was rampaged around by the bus stop, and Michael Gallo—the rudest, crudest, and, in her opinion, the least charming of the Gallos—tried to play hero by crashing into the damned thing on his bike. One would think that someone of his experience and intelligence would realize how dangerous that was ahead of time.
And maybe, like… not do it.
“Are you insane?!” she shouted, and took a couple of steps toward him to make sure he hadn’t killed himself even though that thing was still around and it didn’t really look dead yet.
She was pretty sure Michael had a few screws loose. She was feeling pretty insane herself. For a moment she wondered if this was all some weird hallucination caused by lingering pregnancy hormones, but it’d been two months and she was feeling pretty okay otherwise and was already back at work, so she didn’t think that was likely. She could be dreaming, she supposed. Having a two-month-old in the house again was more exhausting than she remembered. Maybe she’d laid her head down on her desk at work and this was the scenario her unconscious or semi-conscious brain had concocted.
And that was when Michael changed. He still looked like Michael—same hair, same eyes, same arrogant face—but he didn’t look like schoolteacher-on-a-bike Michael anymore so much as… Winter Wonderland Michael, complete with seasonal green fabric trimmed in fur, holding on to some sort of vial on a chain.
Marissa stopped, peered closer, and had just started to move forward again and was in the middle of asking “What the hell did you just do?” when she stumbled right over something—probably the exact same something she’d stumbled over before.
A teapot.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:53 am
Michael happened to think he was quite intelligent. Just because he decided to attack the monster than run away and hide did not make him unintelligent... it just made him, well, not a coward.
He knew there were only a select group of people who would understand that his recklessness was only because he didn’t know how much time he had to kill the thing before it caused more damage, or worse... killed someone. That same select group, however, was nowhere in sight or energy range and he appeared to be on his own.
“Don’t you dare tell anyone, I swear to God,” he shouted at her over the rain and noise the youma was making. “I’m a knight. We’re not ******** terrorists, we keep the city clear of these bastards,” he said as he held the glass vial at arm’s length, effectively “catching” the creature inside the glass.
It was frozen for a few moments, before it started looking around in confusion. Forcing it into a storm setting probably didn’t do much to disorient it, but it would definitely blind it for a few moments.
“I need you to help me. I need something to kill it with. A pipe or bat or anything I can swing would be good,” he said, hoping she would at least, you know, not run away now.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 9:19 am
“Oh, okay. A knight,” Marissa replied. She didn’t really sound like she believed him. In fact, she sounded pretty sarcastic. “Explains the attempt at chivalrous behavior, I guess. What, did you forget your suit of armor at home? Lost your sword and shield?”
Now probably wasn’t really the time for this, but what the hell? She had no idea what was going on. She’d heard a couple of things here and there, mostly from the news, which she actually watched a lot, but she’d thought it was a bunch of bullshit—people jumping to conclusions and spouting off a bunch of crazy speculations to explain something they didn’t understand. Humans did that a lot. It made them feel better, apparently.
It didn’t make her feel better at all.
And there was a ******** teapot chilling out on the sidewalk, all pink and cracked and looking totally conspicuous.
So this was serious? This wasn’t a bunch of bullshit spewed out by paranoid people? There were these things roaming around the city, and there were these people like Michael Gallo going around trying to stop them? Since when? And how? And what the hell was everybody else doing about it? Where were the authorities? How did any of this even make sense? Terrorists she could understand, but knights and monsters?
Not at chance.
But her kid was living in this city—kids, she reminded herself, though one was probably quite a bit safer than the other, given that the other was mobile—had been living in this city without her for years, and Henry was dead and she was trying to do the best she could by him, and this s**t wasn’t safe, it was actually pretty intensely crazy, and there was a very good chance that somebody somewhere was going to get hurt, and how the hell was she supposed to be able to prevent that? Or feel good about herself when it happened and she got that phone call from the hospital and she was forced to look back over every single mistake she'd ever made in her life?
She grabbed the teapot as she continued with her sarcastic muttering, "A god damned knight. A modern day William Marshal. Patrick Stewart's got nothing on you."
She meant to hurl it at the monster and maybe gouge it with some of the broken shards, but something entirely different happened instead.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 11:41 am
Had he not been in the middle of dealing with a youma, Sessrumnir might have found her sarcasm amusing, if only because of how wrong she was. Just because he wasn’t like historical knights didn’t mean that he wasn’t one. He knew it was a bit strange to take in, but as long as she wasn’t planning on announcing his identity to everyone, he was fine with her sarcasm.
But then something happened Sessrumnir wasn’t expecting. The youma obviously hadn’t expected it either, but noticed it right away. A sudden flash of energy, like a newly born star, nearly blinded his senses for a few moments. It was overwhelming and the squire quickly looked around for the source. The youma, now in some state of shock, flailed about, running into the side of a building and putting itself in a daze.
Sessrumnir spun to find the source, looking up and down the street for Marissa, but instead stood a lovely blonde page all dressed in pink.
“Oh, ******** you,” he said in a half whine, half groan as he pointed at her accusingly. “What the hell did you do?? I said pick up a pipe, not a ********... is your weapon a teapot?? What the hell??” he stammered almost uncharacteristically, but he was definitely not expecting this turn of events.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 11:57 am
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