Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lt. Saponite was still new to the whole energy-draining thing, but he knew how to do it and that he had a quota to meet. The hard part was finding someone to drain energy from without attracting attention. When the freak storm blew through the city, he decided to head into the affected area to see if he could find a suitable target, Maybe someone that he could help to shelter while draining a bit of energy behind their back. The area was likely to be deserted until the roads were cleared, so he ought to be able to act with little trouble.

He was heading to the area when he noticed an odd feeling. He paused, trying to think where he'd felt this before. ...Oh! An Order signature. So there would be a senshi or a knight nearby, then. He swiveled his head, trying to pinpoint its location, then stopped when he found the direction.

Now, what do do about it? He could just avoid them, find somewhere else to work, but he was kind of curious. He decided to see if he could approach the individual without being seen, and started quietly down the street, then into an alleyway.

He approached the end of the alley, feeling the Order person was nearby, and peeked around the edge of the wall. He found a kid standing in front of a car splattered liberally with red. He breathed in sharply, initially mistaking the red for blood and alarmed at the sight. But after staring at it for a moment more, he noticed the area was littered with broken red berries, some of which had apparently bounced a fair distance away. He glanced down at some of the closer berries, then back at the car, and noticed it was occupied when he finally heard the screaming from inside.

He frowned at this. What was the kid doing to the poor woman? The Order signature seemed to be coming from him, which made him an enemy. He didn't look like a knight, so he must be a senshi. But he looked too young to be caught up in this war. Whatever he was doing, Saponite felt he ought to step in for the safety of the woman in the car.

He stepped out from the alleyway and called out, "Hey, what are you doing to that poor woman?" He didn't get too close, since he didn't know what a senshi was capable of, but he wanted to at least draw the kid's attention away from the panicked woman.

Saponite was not at all intimidated by the kid senshi, but he was kind of taken aback. The kid was acting rather hostile at the mere sight of him, and even flinging accusations around. Sure, they were on opposite sides of a war, and he might have been looking to gather some energy, but he hadn't actually done anything. (Yet, anyway.)

Still, he'd rather try and diffuse the situation than fight. He spread his hands wide to show there was nothing in them and said, "Right now I'm not doing anything in particular." Which was true enough; at this exact moment all he was doing was standing and talking, and he hadn't done any more than that all day.

He dropped his hands and looked over the situation. The car had a thick layer of ice on it, and judging by the recent reports of these flash freezes, it was probably frozen shut. He had no idea how long it would take for any kind of emergency crew to get there, but he rather figured the woman ought to get out sooner rather than later.

"Look, do you want some help getting her out?" he offered. He realized that with how hostile the kid had been, the offer was not likely to be taken at face value, so he raised his hand disarmingly and said, "I'm not looking for a fight or anything. I honestly just want to help. I don't know if any air can get in that car, and we probably want to get her out before she runs out. All that screaming is probably just using it up faster, too."

"No funny business," agreed Saponite, nodding. he considered making a joke out of it, perhaps 'This is serious business,' but he doubted the kid was in the mood for humor.

He approached the car, moving a bit slowly as if approaching a spooked animal. Considering both the woman and the kid were on edge, he didn't want to make any sudden moves and startle them further. When he was in arm's reach of the door, he leaned down a little to smile reassuringly at the woman. "Don't worry ma'am, we're gong to get you out of there," he said, raising his voice a little to try and be heard through the ice and metal.

Then he examined the door, wiping off some berries (were those cranberries?) so he could get a better look at the ice. It seemed to have smoothed over the cracks where the door met the body of the car, and when he rapped one knuckle against the ice, it felt quite solid. He tugged at the door handle just to see what would happen, and found the door was so immobile it may as well have been welded shut.

"I wonder if we could get a rock or something to try and crack that ice," he mused aloud. Though that was probably assuming they could even find one in the city that was big enough to be useful and wasn't frozen to the ground. Melting it with some hot water might be more useful, but that could take even longer to find enough. Then another idea struck and he leaned back down to talk to the woman.

"Ma'am, are you able to roll down your window?" he asked loudly, pointing to the window and miming something sliding down to help make himself understood. "If you can get that down, we might be able to break the ice." Here he rapped lightly on the ice coating the window to illustrate his idea. He had no idea if the window would be able to move, but if it could that seemed like the easiest and fastest way to at least get some air in.

Saponite was momentarily worried when the motors only whirred at first, but smiled when the window finally moved. "True," he replied to the senshi, "we can't get her out that way. But it gives us something to work with." And more time to work with, since she now wasn't in danger of dying from lack of oxygen.

He took a step back to look over the car and consider more options. To get the woman out, they needed to either get the rest of the ice off the window, or un-stick the door. If scraping off the surface ice didn't help, they'd have to reach the ice deeper in the cracks. Melting it still seemed the most likely to succeed, but getting a way to melt it still seemed tricky.

"Oh!" he said as a realization hit. Cars came with a built-in way to melt window ice, after all. "Ma'am, try running the window defroster on the highest setting you can. Maybe we can loosen up some more of this," he said, indicating the partially-open window. "And in the mean time, scraping more ice off wouldn't hurt," he speculated aloud. He was about to try chipping at the ice with his hands (and was thankful his uniform included gloves), when he remembered something else cars usually had.

"Ma'am, do you have one of those window ice scrapers in your car?" he asked her. "That could be helpful."

Saponite smiled and nodded when the woman turned on the defroster, then answered his question. She seemed much calmer now, since she hadn't screamed in a while and she could talk to him without cringing. That was good, staying calm in any situation was always helpful.

But as soon at the trunk popped open, Saponite was more interested in that than the trunk's contents. That opened a new, far faster possibility!

"Your trunk opens! That's great! Hey, does your car have a back seat that folds down to make more space?" he excitedly asked the woman. "My..." he was about to say Mom, then decided even that much was more personal information than he ought to share and instead said, "...friend has a car like that. If you could fold down the back seat, you could just crawl right out!" He beamed at the car hopefully, realized it would still be stuck in that spot even if the woman got out, then added, "And then maybe call the police or Department of Transportation or someone to get your car un-frozen."

Saponite laughed when the woman grabbed him for a hug, and patted her on the back. "You're welcome, ma'am. Glad I could help." While his hand was out of view behind her, he briefly considered draining a bit of energy off her. Just a little, hardly noticeable. But that was probably not a good idea with the kid senshi around. Instead he just patted her once more, then gently pulled himself out of the embrace.

"You may be free now, but your car still isn't," he pointed out to the woman. "You might want to call someone to help get that loose now."

Then Saponite glanced at the senshi out of the corner of his eye. He should probably just leave now, before the kid remembered they were supposed to be enemies.

Saponite let the senshi lead the woman off to find help. He wasn't sure they'd be able to find a pay phone, since they were kind of rare now that most people had cell phones, but he was sure they could find a way to make a cal somewhere. If nothing, else they could probably go into a store and ask to make an emergency call. He doubted store clerks would refuse to let someone dial 911.

He was starting to turn to leave himself when the senshi addressed him again. Despite the tone, and the hand gesture, Saponite didn't feel threatened. He was sure they could talk things out like reasonable people. So he just smiled and waved. "OK, bye then," he said, and continued to head off.