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I'm Waking Up: Origin Stories.
You’re an old man who had a nasty run-in with Something That Went Bump in the Night, and once believed that the only way to make sure that you never had another problem like that again was to pick up a gun and shoot supes in the face before they killed you or hurt your family – and then some government shitheads called you up and told you that they’re your friends, you all have to get along. They took your weapons, sent you to some fucking program that felt too much like Alcoholics Anonymous. You hang up on them every time they check on you, but they still know exactly what you’re doing, every second of every day.
You’re a house wife in a quiet little town, accustomed to turning a blind eye towards the strange things that happened to people after dark because the local police either didn’t have a clue or were letting those things happen in the first place – and then some nice people in coats came in from God Knows Where, arrested some crooked cops, and made it all go away.
You make a new batch of cookies every Sunday, to give to the coated fellows who still hang around at the street corners downtown; some of them are young, so very young, and remind you of your younger brother. Your little ones want to be just like them someday.
You’re the kid who learns Judo rather than Track and Field after Math every day (Teacher Felipe says that you have to know how to defend yourself), then takes a quiz all about vampires, fairies and werewolves in Occult Studies. Every Wednesday, you tumble around with your classmates, and get mad whenever your best friend does his Superman thing and beats everyone to the top of the hill by flying there. Every Friday, a guy with more guns than you have teeth comes to school, takes over PE classes, and talks to everyone about what he does for a living. Sometimes, he takes “special kids” with him to another school, for special people like them. You hope that he won’t take your best friend away.
You’re the manager of one of the biggest call centers in the country. You’re happy because life’s been great ever since you opened your doors to the local vampire community. They’re damned good at their jobs, and you don’t have to deal with the HR nightmare of overtime, of medical bills and lawsuits anymore. And you feel safe, because you know that if one of them ever steps out of line, you know exactly who to call.
You’re the girl who leapt through time, who met a handsome stranger who took you to a fantastic place full of talking trees and flying fish, the girl who was loved and fucked and tossed aside when you started getting boring.
You came home and found that your house wasn’t your house anymore, that your parents have been dead for decades and all of your friends were old and gray while you haven’t aged at all.
They found you crying on a swing. They told you what happened, and helped you set things right.
You’re the drunkard at the local bar who sees monsters in every face, and still remembers what it was like years ago, when you didn’t have to be afraid of the dark, or wonder what’s beneath all the human skin and human smiles of every person you meet. The Truth fucked you up, you see. You wish that once upon a time, you had the better sense not to listen.
o r i g i n s t o r i e s.
no subject
"You know," he swallows. "I was already going to agree to your fucking terms, and then you started doing," he waves his hand, here, "some fucking scare tactic shit. That's like, abuse of power or some shit."
He probably should have kept his mouth shut, really. Aside from Madge giggling uncontrollably now, he probably made the guy angrier(???), and he has no idea what other Magey things he could do (probably everything ever.)
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"I'm allowed one of these per week. Any more and Kaiser Delacroix will kill me. Anyway! Are you gonna tell me what you wanted from that station or not? Hurry up, kid, and we might make it to Falner Estate in time for dinner."
#taningpls
Madge just giggles and says, "He's a funny man." Dragon, please.
Rin hesitates again, uncomfortable with sharing too much information... But Estanislao (that was it, right? yeah, that was probably it) did say he was going to help, and he's... sort of trustworthy, kind of...
"A report," he says. "I'm looking for an investigation report on a fire that happened at an orphanage this morning."
<3 u rin
What the kid said tracks with the information he saw flitting out from the police station. So at least, that checks out. The kid isn't lying.
"I take it that's your orphanage, then? What did your dragon say your name was again? Erin James? Hang on a sec."
He boots up his tablet, accessing the MayaNET database. From there, he enters the kid's name, and the country, and filters the search results to orphanages. True enough, there are several hits within Ireland, the latest being a news clipping on an orphanage fire, and... yes, a police report detailing the incident.
"I just sent you the report. You should find it on your desktop."
no subject
But he checks his laptop, anyway, balancing it on one arm and opening it. He's checking his programs (they're still running), but he sees the files.
"Do you like, do this every day? Just pop out of fucking nowhere and help hackers get the files they need because you've got the backing of some Hunter conspiracy?"
It's casual the way he asks it, but he's going through the report already. Madge moves down to his shoulder and oohs and aahs at the screen. When he gets to the end of the report though, he frowns.
"Nothing there that I don't already fucking know," he says, almost growling. Orphanage fire, two charred bodies found, the children taken to nearby hospitals for treatment before being ferried off to other institutions. Nothing about four-- no, three now, technically--kids missing. "Is this the only file you found?" As he says so, there's a ping on his laptop, one of his scripts found a report from sixteen or so years ago. He saves it for later reading. He doesn't... he doesn't have to check that one yet.
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"Yeah, under the parameters searched, that's the only one I got. It seems you got a hit of your own, though." No, he wasn't peeking over your shoulder. "But come on, I need to go. You're nominally under arrest, but if I chuck you in Balamb, you beat the espionage charge and you get free board, lodging, and education in the best school in the world. Beats mage jail, let me tell you. So, we're done here?"
no subject
Yeah, he's going to be stubborn against an older mage who can probably do anything-- literally anything. He could probably read minds, which, fuck you by the way, is rude.
"Also, I think you just fucking made 'mage jail' up, so you can kidnap me, or some shit."
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Taning whispers into his comm.
"Send boarding beacon at my coordinates in three seconds, mark."
He smiles at Erin for two seconds, and then blinks right behind him at the last, hand on his shoulder. Right at that instant, a pencil-thin beam of red-orange light lands at their feet and expands into a runic circle, and the next thing they both see is a short, futuristic-looking hallway.
[OOC: this is what it might look like - http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/30400000/Normandy-mass-effect-2-30424578-1920-1080.jpg]
"Welcome to the USES Manila Bay, kid. Find a seat. It's a two-minute hop to Falner Spaceport."
no subject
Rin's jaw drops and he looks around him in half-panic, half-amazement. "That's-- This is--" He looks back at Estanislao and points an accusing finger at him, his other hand holding his laptop to his chest now (just-- thank god he was still wearing his laptop bag, it'd be just fucking horrible if he'd left that behind). "That was fucking cheating, you son of a--"
"Erin! Can we do that again? Please please please, can you ask to do that again?" Madge interrupts, excitedly crawling down that extended arm and shoves her face in front of him. He gives her a look, lips drawn in a line, then curls his arm toward his chest so he could have both his laptop and his dragon (still can't believe that, bee tee dubs) close.
He looks again at Estanislao and glares. "I was fucking right, you were gonna fucking kidnap me anyway!"
Although, at the back of his mind, the traitorous thought of "Holy shit, that was cool, I'm in the space ship, can I hack into it?" buzzed happily ignored.
no subject
"I did tell you I was in a bit of a hurry, didn't I? Sit down on one of those seats and strap yourself in, we're landing in a bit."
He then walks off and starts giving orders to his crew, leaving Erin to his own devices.
no subject
He and Madge watch Estanislao walk off, Rin glaring and Madge happily swishing her tail.
"He's funny," she says. "I don't like him," Rin responds. Still, he finds himself a seat... and pushes all the buttons to see what they all do.
no subject
Taning spends a horrible half-second where he imagined frying his passenger on his seat. The moment passed really quickly, but that didn't mean that it didn't make him extremely upset.
He appears right beside where Erin is seated and just lays into him.
"I understand being curious but you almost killed every single person on this ship, you fucking idiot! You're curious? I'll tell you what you just did: you flushed the ship's gravitational field, and we almost crashed into a mountain."
He turns his back on you and summons two crewmen to watch you.
"Sit still and keep your hands to yourself."
no subject
In his defense, he was never told not to touch anything, and why the fuck would there be a button to flush the gravitational field on some random chair on this deck anyway, shouldn't buttons like that belong to the bridge---- unless they are on the bridge, then fuck, okay, he screwed up.
He watches the man walk away only to be replaced by two uniformed men.
"Ohhhhh, I think we made him mad, Erin," Madge stage-whispers. She'd curled herself up on his shoulder when Estanislao arrived, and hasn't crawled back to her usual perch on his head. "You should say sorry!"
"No way," he says, mostly because he liked being stubborn. He crosses his arms and slumps down on the chair. "He never told me not to touch anything, anyway."
That doesn't mean he doesn't feel guilty, of course.
no subject
Taning walks back to where you are, visibly none the worse for wear, and displaying none of the anger that was there earlier. In fact, it is probably unsettling just how nonchalant he looks about it now.
He casually gestures to Rin to get up and start moving. "Come on, kid," he says, "let's meet the people who'll be taking care of you." The ship's door opens... someplace else, definitely not at the disembarkation area. Helpfully, Taning remarks, "We're at Arrivals. My stepdad and stepmom should be picking you up shortly."
He offers no further explanation than that.
no subject
"Whatever," he grumbles, gathering his things and holding them to his chest. He was totally regretting not bringing that knit beanie his sister made him. He hugs his things tighter now, willing his homesickness away.
Meanwhile, as the leave the ship, Madge is distracted with the sights, ooh-ing and aah-ing on her perch on his head. At least one of them was having fun.