Participants:
| Scene Title | Sons of Thor Are Lunatics |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A chance encounter in Greenwich village leads to hijinks. |
The Bohemian center of the city, Greenwich Village is the place to be for artistic enlightenment. Several book stores and coffee shops can be found here. Also the home for many of the city's struggling writers and musicians. The streets are relatively clean, the atmosphere humming with the pulse of New York's underground. At night the Village comes to life. Many of the shops host poetry readings and college students from New York University flock to the coffee houses once the sun goes down. The Village is now such an in-demand place that most would-be world-shakers simply can't afford to live there. Greenwich Village is also the center of New York's gay community, especially in the area around Christopher Street, which, like San Francisco's Castro Street, has become synonymous with those sporting an alternative lifestyle.
It's a summer weekend in New York City, and there are a lot of people out enjoying the evening. Greenwich Village in particular attracts many who are strolling, window shopping, or heading to or from dinner or an off-Broadway show. It's a nice evening, and one that also attracts some people-watchers. One of those is Dee, who's sitting on a concrete half-wall looking like she has absolutely nothing better to do.
Alone and walking down the street, Rufus Scrivner steps out of a bookshop. He's got a couple of hardbacks in his hands, and he's thumbing through the pages of one in an idle manner as he wanders down the pavement. Satisfied, he snaps it closed and whistles quietly as he sets off at a brisker stroll, looking fresh from the office with a suit, his sword in its carrying case across his back and a heavy laptop bag slung across one shoulder. It's by pure chance alone that he approaches Dee's section of wall, and after a glance up, he stops and doubletakes, then calls out, "Miss Dee? What are you doing up there?"
Marius is out for a walk himself, whistling a little to himself, he has the classic news paper up over his face and is reading as he walks, not paying attention to those on the street.
Suddenly, something large and shiny smashes through the half-wall about five feet to the left of where Dee is sitting, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. It disappears, partially into the wall and staircase bellow. A minute passes before a groan sounds from the darkness, then footsteps.
Pauline drags herself to the top of the stairs, her metallic armoring dissolving from her skin and clothing with a faint steely smell. Blood is smeared on both sides of her head and while it looks fresh, whatever wounds it came from no longer seem to be bleeding. Despite all this, the first thing out of her mouth seems to be: "What street is this?!"
Dee smiles to Rufus, having been watching him since he walked out of the bookstore. "Hello there. Just doing a little people-watching. It's a nice night for it. A little humid, but no-" Then there's that smashing through the wall, and she's hurling herself in the opposite direction from the suddenly smashed wall. She lands gracefully, at least, and is immediately waiting to see what else will happen. Busy as she is making sure nothing else is incoming, she leaves it to the others to answer where they are.
Marius rolls when the object from orbit lands, diving for cover and turning to bring the enemy to bear only to realize it is Pauline, his paper flutters in the air.
When that wall explodes, Rufus drops his books and throws up his arm, bracing himself instinctively against the force of the blast. As the dust settles, he lowers his arm and strides forward, looking more than a little horrified. "Er…. Eighth Street. Miss Hightower! Are you all right? What's going on?" He leans to one side, looking past her, to see if he can find anything horrific coming up after her.
With the ringing in Pauline's ears, she doesn't recognize Rufus's voice right away but she does when she gets a good look at him. She shakes her head a few times and smears some of the blood off her cheek. "Eighth? Jesus, he threw me seven blocks." There's nothing behind her, thankfully. She climbs to the top of the stairs and leans against the remains of the wall to catch her breath. "These froggy looking guys that smelled so bad they must've come out of the Hudson. Durandal and I were fighting them and he /threw me/. He was all 'Oh, let me try something!' and…rrgh, I'm going to hit him so hard."
Dee's forehead furrows deeply as she tries to understand what Pauline's saying. After a moment, "Wait. Randal threw you here? On purpose?" She tries to wrap her head around that as she keeps looking around them for any trouble.
Not /seeing/ anything coming after her, Rufus quickly tucks his books into his laptop bag so he doesn't end up losing them. "Randal? Durandal is his name? Mr. Haymer? My God, will he be all right? Seven blocks isn't too far of a run, if we need to come back with you."
Marius says, "There are Frog things coming out of the Hudson?"
"He threw me at one of the frog things as it leaped into the air." Pauline says, flicking a gob of something green and red off her shoulder. "I hit it hard enough to make it explode like a dropped garbage bag full of vegetable soup but it wasn't enough to stop me from flying all the way out here. Yup, that Durandal. He's my bandmate. …oh right, let me check."
Pauline fishes in her pocket for her cell phone and finds it. Unfortunately, it looks a little smashed and cracked due to her seven block flight. "…well, I needed a new phone anyway. Does anyone have a phone I can borrow? Yeah, these little frog men that shoot darts. We found 'em when we went to go investigate those missing swimmers."
Dee shakes her head a bit. "Ew." she pronounces, at the comment about how the thing exploded. She waits then, for someone to get hold of Randal and see if their presence is needed 7 blocks up.
"Of course, of course," Rufus says quickly, approaching the lady and reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out his own cell phone. "Here you are," he says. The man offers it out to the young lady and then peers past her again, staring at the damage done to the building by the flying meteorite wannabe. "He always did strike me as that sort of lunatic," the man muses, mostly to himself.
The cell phone remains are stuffed back in her pocket, probably so she can mess around with them later. "Thank you very much, Rufus." Pauline says politely before punching in a number. She turns away from the others and rocks from one foot to the other as the phone rings away. After the fourth, her bandmate presumably picks up because she promptly starts yelling at him. Five minutes later, she passes the phone back to Rufus.
"He's fine." Her voice sounds a little cold though, "I think all sons of Thor might be lunatics."
Marius says, "He doing ok?" He asks walking up to the group, he smiles a little at Pauline."
Dee listens, then shakes her head. "Well. I guess we don't need to go anywhere. You might want to clean up a bit though, Pauline?"
Taking back the phone, Rufus hesitates for a moment, then he looks up into Pauline's face. "Son of Thor?" he says, suddenly quiet. He turns his phone over in his hand, studying it for a second or two longer, before he stuffs it back into the pocket of his jacket. "I didn't realise he was …. Well, it doesn't matter." He clears his throat, and backing off a step, he says, "Miss Hightower, do you need any help? Perhaps a drink or at least a sit-down? And tell us what is going on with the Hudson River? Or at least me? Miss Adams did mention something about missing swimmers to me awhile ago, but…"
"I could use a shower." Pauline mutters then glances down the stairs where some of the bricks in the wall that finally stopped her have fallen down into a little pile at the end of the landing. She steps out of the stairwell completely. "Sitting down sounds nice though."
Dee considers that. "Well, there are no-tell motels around here. Why don't you grab a room long enough for a shower? Then we'll sit and eat, and you can fill us in?"
Announcement: Pikachu shouts, "See you guys soon MUSH people! Don't blow up the MUSH while I'm gone. Charmander and Magikarp will be in charge. YAR"
Marius smiles, "If it makes you uncomfortable to rent a room by the hour alone, I can go with you.
Dee laughs quietly. "Because renting a room for an hour in the company of a man is SO much better?"
Rufus opens his mouth, closes it again, then slowly pinches the bridge of his nose. He clears his throat quietly, and he says, "Or if you prefer, either Forest and I can acquire the room for you, sparing you the embarrassment altogether." He gives Marius a rather flat look, only vaguely disapproving. More like… geez, man.
"I like that plan." She grins but eventually begins to falter. "Uhhh…" Pauline finally fails it in the presence of Marius and goes red in the face. She looks away and wipes the blood and frogman ichor off her other cheek. "How about you both do it, then?"
Dee grins, watching for the moment. "Nearest one is that way a block and a half." She gestures the right way.
Marius says, "Got it…me and Rufus get a room at a notell hotel for an hour?""
Dee looks like it's almost physically painful not to comment.
Rufus opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, then he just sighs. "Oh yes," he finally drones, sounding like a long-suffering martyr. "Come on, Forest."
Pauline looks like she probably didn't get it. "Thanks you guys, I owe you all one," she sighs and follows after Rufus.
Dee grins, and follows the rest. She does still keep an eye out. Just in case. "Getting a table this time of night is insane. What kind of food, and I'll get us one while you're at the hotel."
Marius gets a room for Pauline, as he hands over the key he does ask if she needs anyone to wash her back, giving her a smile and a wink.
Scrivner follows Marius around, but any suggestion that anything untoward is going on elicits a gritting of his teeth and a twitch at the corner of his eye that is not altogether too pleasant. He coughs and clears his throat at Marius' quip, and more loftily, he says, "Not at all, Miss Hightower. Think nothing of it." And he steps out with Forest to let her get on with her business.
"Any food. Whichever's closest to the hotel is fine by me, Dee." Pauline's not very picky right now it seems. The keys are grabbed quite hastily and Pauline quickly disappears into the room. About twenty minutes pass before she emerges, her clothing a little damp. "For some reason, I still feel unclean."
Dee finds them a decent place to eat near the hotel, and does the waiting for a table.
About twenty minutes later, Rufus Scrivner hasn't gone far from Pauline. He's waiting around outside the door of her motel room, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, talking quietly on his cell phone. He glances around, murmurs, "I have to go now. I'll call you later. Yes, good bye." Then he flips it closed and smiles at the young lady. "If I'd been used as a baseball bat against a strange fish thing, I'm sure I'd feel the same way. Are you certain you're all right, Miss Hightower?"
"Fine now that I've gotten some time to recover. See?" Pauline pushes some of her wet hair aside on her head to reveal…well, nothing it seems. No wounds, no dried blood, no indication of injuries at all. With that demonstrated, she sets about putting her hair back up in a ponytail, albiet a wet one.
Marius smiles and returns the key, checking out, once Pauline is all cleaned up, he then offers her an arm, "You know we still have some job openngs if you are still interested.
Dee finally gets seated at the nearby Italian restaurant, and orders a round of drinks while she waits. A cell phone call goes to Marius, to let the others know where to find her.
"Job opening?" Rufus inquires, following the pair wherever they might like to go. The phone in his fingers is twirled around lightly, then slipped back into his pocket.
Pauline eyes that arm and hesitates for a moment before taking it. "Funny you should mention that, I wanted to bring that intern thing up with you a while ago but didn't seem to be running into you at good times." Looking over her shoulder, she nods at Rufus, "I moved here about a month ago and come the end of August I'll be starting school at NYTI. Getting a part-time job was part of the plan!"
Marius nods "drop by the station with you resume, drop my name, they will see what they can do.
Dee sips her drink as she waits.
"Ahhhh… Good luck with that venture, Miss Hightower," Rufus says with a faint smile. He hasn't got too much more to say about that, and he's not inclined to keep interrupting their conversation, so he keeps his silence until they reach the Italian restaurant where Miss Dee is waiting. Upon entering, he glances about inside for her, and when he finds her, he smiles a little and approaches her table. "Hello again."
"Will do." Pauline grins, though slightly worried about that resume bit. She's not too sure how her particular skillset would work at a television station. "And thanks, Rufus." She's silent until they arrive at the restaurant. The smell of food hits her and immediately her mouth begins to water. "Italian, that's good, they always serve big portions of noodles at these places."
Dee smiles to the others. "Hello there. I took the liberty of ordering drinks. If anyone doesn't like theirs, I'll be happy to suffer through drinking it, too."
Marius says, "I will warn you it will mostly be work as a Gopher though""
Scrivner doesn't yet sit. He does pull out a chair for Pauline and gives the young lady another faint, polite smile, then steps aside and a pace back. "I'm sure it will be quite suitable, Miss Dee. I'm not a particularly fussy man when it comes to drink. Now how have you been since last we met at that… ahh… eccentric party?"
Pauline gives a polite nod at Rufus before taking her seat. "Gopher work's fine, I don't think I'm going to be accurately predicting the weather anytime soon." A bit of turn of phrase gets her attention and she looks over at Dee, "Eccentric party?"
Dee replies to Rufus "I've been alright, thanks. And that's kind of an understatement." She smiles to Pauline, and says "It was our very own murder mystery. Ending in the demise of an annoying demigod."
Marius nods, "Quite an interesting murder mystery party."
"Eccentric party," Rufus solemnly says with a nod, seating himself once Pauline's settled. He smoothes down his suit jacket and reaches over to take up a menu, glancing over the choices. "A very eccentric and wealthy woman, as well as her boyfriend, invited a whole group of Scions to a lavish party in upstate New York. Miss Dee, Miss Adams, Forest here and I were among the invitees. While we were there, the host was murdered, and the demigod responsible went rather ballistic when he was inevitably found out. There was a round of bloody violence, we emerged victorious, and as Miss Adams would surely say, a good time was had by all."
"Whoah." Pauline leans forward a little. "Now that's pretty nuts. Did the lady know you all were Scions or was it some kind of crazy coincidence? …'cause that kind of crazy coincidence stuff does happen with us."
Dee laughs quietly. "A good time. It was pretty entertaining. Mostly in retrospect. It wasn't a coincidence though, no." she says to Pauline. "Her boyfriend was a child of Tyr." She sips her single-malt scotch, apparently already knowing what she wants.
Marius says, "The Man was told he would die that night, at the hand of a Scion living in New York, he invited all those he knew, and set a trap that noone would leave alive as long as the killer lived"
"He knew any one of us could have done it, his girlfriend said," Rufus quietly states. "Whether by direct intent, indirectly or by accident, and he wanted to be certain that he got his revenge. It was Fate." The man shrugs his shoulders, and for a moment he looks down at the table, a frown furrowing at his brow.
"Set up a trap so no one would leave alive as long as the killer lived." Pauline frowns now. "That's a pretty vicious bit of vengence. So how did this demigod do the man in?"
Dee replies "A poisoned blade. He was ID'd first by Simone, who could smell the poison still on his hands. There was some very nice cooperation, though." The waitress comes over, to take their order. For herself, Dee opts for a classic - spaghetti and meat sauce.
Marius orders the Chicken Fettucinni Alfredo. He leans back and listens to see what is going on.
Scrivner places an order for a mushroom-stuffed ravioli, then he folds his hands upon his lap and scowls. "Yes, she did. I caught him out in his lie, and after accusing him, he showed his true colours. We split into teams, all of the guests, and we hunted him throughout the house."
Scene faded to black, with a pleasant dinner and idle chatter.
Any additional notes fall to the bottom.
