metalogs | OPEN | Disasters Mean Rethinking Decisions

Who: Mark Bryant

atypical_echo, Tommy Shepherd

slowmotionbuscrash, Open
What: A Bank Robbery Gone Bad, Photography Outside of Guild Headquarters, Awkwardness of confused coffee orders
When: Robbery: 10/14, Photography: 10/15, Coffee: Mid October
Where: First Bank of Central City, Outside Alliance Headquarters, Moondoe Coffee Shop
Content Warnings: Bank robbery might involve violence toward civilians, and will involve explosions.

I. Robberies Make For Bad Days | First Bank of Central City | Closed to Tommy Shepherd

From now on he was going to live his life only through drive through and online banking. With those sorts of things you didn't end up like Mark did, sitting curled up on the floor of the bank with a cluster of other civilians, shaking. The others shook from fear, whimpered whenever the masked robbers looked at them and gestured with either guns or what looked like energy pistols, and didn't talk about their hope that some hero would come and save them.

Mark? Mark sat there quaking not because he cared that he was being menaced with a gun, or that there was a robbery going on, or even that a bad twitch would get him shot. No, he was shaking because these robbers were Metas, and Mark was accutely aware of that in a way no other civilian there was. Sure, they hadn't made use of their powers yet, but Mark could feel them, pressing in on his mind. One was clearly a telepath of some sort, and that Mark knew how to keep control of, how to keep his mind to himself, how to hide from other telepaths. But there was also someone who, best Mark could tell, cause metal to melt, and another one whose power Mark couldn't pin down but made his skin itch.

It was too much. It was a hard enough to keep control of his powers around some Metas, but it was worse when there were more than a few around. With no familiar powers to ground them in it was enough to leave him off balance, and with the fear... Mark was growing terrified that people were going to get hurt if this didn't end soon, and it wouldn't be by the thieves.

"Someone help," he whispered under his breath. That was their only hope, and for reasons no one else knew.

II. Is Heroics Really A Shelter? | Outside of Alliance Headquarters | Open

What do you do with an unsigned Meta? It was a question running through Mark's head, to the tune of some old shanty about drunken sailors. The song had been running circles around his head for days now, and the only way Mark knew to work through shit like this was distraction. So he did his best for distraction. Today his distractions were coming in the form of photography. So Mark stood across the street from the Alliance Headquarters and turned his camera upon the structure, his lens always focused up at large structure, never dipping down toward the doors without Mark first turning it away.

It was important not to piss off people with supernatural powers by making them think that you are taking pictures of them. Which Mark totally wasn't going to do. He doesn't need his ass kicked and himself accidentally stealing someone's powers in the process.

Still, he has to sigh before taking another picture of the building, trying to capture the way shadows fell across it at this late time of day, as if to make a picture to call into mind the idea that the Alliance was come upon dark times.

"This was never what comics prepared me to think superheroes would be like," he sighed as he snapped another shot. "Feel more like sports and movie stars than heroes."

Which was probably a rude thing to say because someone overhearing it could assume weird things. Like that Mark himself is a Meta. Which wasn't wrong at all.

III. Coffee Mix-Up Meeting | Moondoe Coffee Shop | Open

Coffee, the magical brew by which many an artist runs. Or so Mark always thought. He stood near the wall of his local Moondoe Coffee, waiting for his name to be called. Or, well, the poor approximation of his name that places like this seemed to manage.

"Brian!" a voice called, and Mark looked around. No one was making clear motion for the drink, so he walked toward it. Okay, one more way to check. He lifts the cup and, instead of sipping, checks the writing on the side indicating what the drink should be. And there was the familiar shorthand for a dark chocolate machiatto.

Alright, resolved that this was most definitely his drink, Mark lifted it to sip. And immediately cringed when it hit his tongue.

"The fuck?" he sputtered as he winced at the taste. "Is that... apple? Holy shit, what?"

"Maybe it's not your drink," the barista behind the counter said with that look that said 'you picked up someone else's order'.

"It's literally labeled with my name and marked as a dark chocolate machiatto. Soooooo, um, I'm sorry but I think the order might be wrong."

Though he was definitely wincing at the attention this was drawing him. Maybe he should just take this and go? Oh man, would that be more or less embarrassing? He wasn't sure.

[OOC: Mark Bryant's main Meta ability is copying the powers of those near him. This is entirely opt-in, and you can go to opt in over here if you'd like to play with Mark echoing powers.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Motion. So much around him is motion. He can't even handle it, and when he finally looks up, he sees it. Sees it and gets it. Some of it at least. Everyone is moving around him like they are going through molasses, looking scared. Their attention turns slowly to the table. Like Glacial speed.

And yet there was Mark, staggering to his feet as he saw someone else moving. Someone actually moving. Mark himself felt like he was moving too fast, too slow, too wrong. And oh but how his body seemed to be vibrating.

"Whatareyou?" he demands, too fast, words slurred, he doesn't have practice at this kind of speed. It's not like any other speedster he's experienced before.

Tommy’s cleared most of the room by the time the man gets his attention. Cuts through the rush and blur and looooooooooong stretched out syllables by talking fast enough to not Doppler. Another speedster. Another speedster?!

Oh, shit. It’s really not Tommy vibrating the table.

The only speed rules he knows how to play by are his own, and he wouldn’t be able to affect a table that he couldn’t see. Molecules are molecules when it comes to vibrating them until they explode.

“Aspeedsterlikeyou.” Tommy grabs the man’s arm. “Run.”

And he doesn’t give him an option. They’ll run, or Tommy will fucking drag or carry him until they find some decent space where this idiot can’t blow people up. The alarm’s kicked on, the bank will be fine.

Not like him. Nothing like him, but Mark can't correct him now. He feels... can someone feel seasick on the land? His legs are so shaky and standing is happening but not well.

"Can't," he protests, but there's Tommy dragging him. Which keeps Mark close. Close enough that he can be sure he'll stay in the range of the other's power. If perhaps his own hand twists to keep ahold of Tommy, that's only logical.

"Nocontrol," he warns the other. The vibrating, the nausea is still there, even though they are further from the bank. Which to Mark means that somehow this man is the cause. But he has to keep going, he can't just stop. The guy will get too far away too fast and they are moving too fast. Whatever there is about that man's power that keeps him from getting hurt, Mark will lose that once he's too far away.

Something tells him he can't survive a crash at this speed.

“Iknow.” Nobody sane or half crazy is going to blow up a table in that situation.

Tommy doesn’t leave him behind or let him go. Not until they’re in a huge overgrown parking lot for derelict shopping mall that looks like it’s been abandoned for 20 years. It’s a controlled stop, so the guy should be okay as far as whiplash and broken bones are concerned.

The guy looks like he hasn’t had the best jog, so Tommy hovers nearby, dropping down to what his normal speech should be, about five times too fast for a snail. “You still gonna blow shit up?”

The world is so strange, the way they move through it. Everything looks so different at this speed, in this frame of thought. Honestly, it'd be beautiful if Mark wasn't so terrified. Once they stop Mark goes down to his knees, still shaking a little.

At least this time the words sound right. They sound like they are a reasonable speed, and yeah, he's processing them right too.

"I really don't know, man. Is... Is that what was happening? Was I going to blow something up? Shit, did I almost-"

Did he almost hurt people?

"I don't know." The dude sounds ... surprised? Like he didn't even know that explosions were a possibility. "You kept up with me, so - maybe? That table was vibrating so hard the legs were bouncing like it was about to blow."

Though Tommy's not sure if there's another mutant or metahuman that combines both speed and explosions. Not Quicksilver, Northstar or Aurora to Tommy's understanding, and he's a bit of fanboy. "Are you out of range?"

No, he didn't know. In fact, that explosions are a possibility is REALLY a serious upsetting thing here. Man, how can you be chill about that?

"Um, you're still standing pretty close so no, I'm definitely not out of range. Of course if I were out of range it'd be an awkward distance for a conversation."

Seriously, if this was what the guy was always dealing with, how did he ever dare be around people? Was it wrong that Mark basically wanted to hug him just like he sometimes wanted to hug Caleb when he could feel the empathic gift the kid had ratcheting up to eleven? Though, you know, no hugging Caleb when people are drinking around them, because empathy drunk is so much worse than real drunk.

Having had a major blowup when his powers manifested - leading to the derailing of his young life in sophomore year - helps with the nonchalance. The worst, or near worst, has already happened to Tommy.

"Out of range of what? I can get out of range pretty quick if I need to. Like sonic boom quick without breaking a sweat. You're fine."

"Out of range of you," Mark said, rubbing the back of his head as he was trying to relax himself.

And there it is, his little messed up secret out in the air. Sort of.

"I'm a mirror? Mimic? I don't know, we never really had a term for it."

OF course that means the important question then becomes 'how do I not hurt people like this'.

He doesn't get it for a second or two. Then it hits in a snap. "Oh, crap."

The guy isn't a speedster at all, and, in a weird way, it was almost Tommy who caused that table to blow up.

"You copy other people's powers." Tommy should've known when the table started shaking like that. Quicksilver and Northstar don't do that. It's not a universal superspeed side effect. "I can get myself out of range. You'll be okay if I go? I don't know how this shit works."

"Yeah," Mark said as he straightened, finally getting a free and clear breath. He's calming down. Mostly. So far.

"I mean, I will be. Unless something starts to blow before that. I think... I just... I know how to do speedster. I've been put in rooms with them before. It's the other thing I'm scared of."

"What's your range?" Ugh, he hates even asking the question. It sounds too authoritative, where are Eli or David when they need someone to handle this sort of thing?

"If I can book out of your range, before we're out of my range to beat the explosion to you, then you're fine. You should be fine anyway, until I get out of range. I can outrun the blast so you can too."

"Thirty feet. But the problem is the moment you would come back into the range, I would be like you. Just as fast in body and thought. And to make the shaking."

He sighs and rubs his temples, even as the ground under him starts to shake. Fuck.

"I learn fast. Comes with the territory. If you know how to make it not happy, maybe I can learn too?"

OPEN | Disasters Mean Rethinking Decisions

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Sincerest apologies for the delay - vacation + injury has caused a backlog

it really is okay

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I use the same icon so for half a second i thought I had responded to myself.

whoops

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