2010-01-15 - Youth in Revolt: Meeting on Aisle Twelve
From JLU MUX
| The information contained within this log is to be considered information gained Out of Character (OOC) . This information may not be used as In Character (IC) knowledge or in roleplay unless it has been learned in-game or permission has been granted by the parties involved. Questions should be directed to staff. |
| Meeting on Aisle Twelve | |||
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| Summary: A witch and a knight meet potential new allies in a clash of wildly differing chronal and ethnic cultures. Plot Scene: Youth in Revolt | |||
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Hey, a secret invitation to a midnight meeting from an anonymous stranger! Sweet! Ystina didn't even have to go to the internet to get perved o--offered free candy. She debates very heavily on how to handle this Secret Message, giving Pendragon the inescapable sense of guilt every time the young ward scampers out of her king's gaze. Nothing to be done for it, and she does not betray herself sufficiently to provoke confrontation.
Besides, it's not the first time she's slipped her leash and gone walkabout after hours. The challenge of the court must be answered, fools doth require their righteous schooling.
It is not the jersey and jeans that she wears today as she quietly escapes via window, however. Her armor glints and is in fact /terrible/ for sneaking around in the dark in.
Good thing she's a knight and not supposed to do that, especially the way she kicks cans and stuff out of her way down the alley to where she meets up with Vanguard and hits the air. It's a short ride, but running would have taken too long and maybe been a little tiring.
And so, the supermercado. It looks kind of forlorn. Vanguard is tucked into an alleyway where he's only half completely-obvious, and heads towards the building.
"Oh look, Teek'l!" Klarion near-squeaks in excitement as he beholds his crystal globe. Within is an image of the knight Sir Ystin, her physique distorted by simple nature of refraction. "A curious lad in armor! I wonder if he would like very much to play!"
The orange, white-striped tabby cat curled around her master's thin shoulders seems displeased. "Rwr.." she murmurs to his ear, her slitted eyes taking in the same sights as Klarion.
Klarion hmpfs. "Hush, you flippant feline. At the very least, we should hear this pitch. That Zatara boy could have something in his collection that /I/ could have and I'm sure it'd just be ~wasted~ in his hands anyhow!" Raising his slender hand up to his crystal globe, the Witch-Boy waves it around in gentle circular motion. His almond-shaped, dark-rimmed eyes glow bright and suddenly, he and his feline-familiar wobble out of existance..
...and appears on the sidewalk opposite of the closed-down Leawood Supermercado. "Hm! What a less dismal place than rotten old Gotham.." Klarion peers about.
The Supermercado is actually pretty well preserved, despite having been closed for the better part of a year; Central City isn't really a place with tons of destructive teenage crime, so while there's a bit of a back alley mural on one of its sides, nothing seems too be too badly damaged. The walls are covered up with plywood, the front doors are, of course, locked, but row upon row of empty shelves, as well as disused check-out counters are dimly visible within; it's not a /massive/ store, certainly not properly intended to match up to the average supermarket, but it's bigger than your average corner store, all the same.
Tonight, for the first time in many months, the store is not empty, either; the back door has been carefully picked and opened up. Gaudily clad youths are wandering the aisles.
"It's--it's like a /church/," a young man in missionary's robes murmurs as he runs his fingers along a dust-covered shelf. "Like a church to a false, dead god, all sil--"
"Oh my grife, shut up," hisses a red-haired girl in a sunburst-emblemed costume. "They're gonna /be here/ soon."
Ystina gives a somewhat un-laddish shriek at Klarion's sudden appearance. She pipes herself down quickly, though she does loosen Excalibur in its comfortable sheath as she looks him up and down. "A witch-lad!" She gasps. "Here, in the city?!" Misty was here before too of course. Her hand slides from the sword to a different spot on her belt, where she keeps her money-pouch (currrently money-free) and her authentic Medieval Times zippo lighter.
Her immediate burninating attentions are drawn by noises from within, however, and the young knight shifts her gaze between the store and then back to this newly appeared boy. "Hast thou come also to pick over yon provisioner's corpse then, witch-knave?" She inquires in a terse whisper. She will start looking for a way inside other than kicking down a boarded up door--that is /one/ option, but it would probably be the 'call the policingest' option, and thus would spoil any brigand-beating fun to be had.
"*HISS!*" Teek'l rises up on her haunches at Ystin. With orange-creamsicle fur puffed out and tail standing on end, she looks ready to mix it up with the young knightling. If she weren't such a little tabby thing, but then, looks are deceiving.
Klarion narrows his dark eyes at Ystin, face jutted out his a bit so he can look her over. "It would appear I am not the only anachronistic adventurer here! Though aren't you a bit.." he rubs his chin, brow slightly wrinkled with thought. "..short, for a knight? And rather shrieky. I dare say, I have not seen of such descriptions before on the wondrous television box!"
"But no.. I have an invitation for a meeting. And I believe, as I have watched you glance to this lonesome storefront, you do too, brave sir knight." Klarion's brows lift upward in wonder, leaving another crease on his pale-blue brow. "Curiouser and curiouser, a witch-boy and boy-knight, called forth to scold a Young Justice troupe!"
The problem of 'how to get in' is solved in, just about literally, the blink of an eye; following a very dim sweep of green before the doors, they swing slowly open to admit the two anachronisms into the supermercado.
At about the same time, the idle explorations nearer to the back come to a stop and the boy in missionary clothes and the girl with the sun on her chest make their way towards the front of the store; he's jogging, she's flying low along the ground. The former is toting an ornate, quarterstaff-sized golden crucifix over his shoulders; it makes for awkward running, but he seems used enough to it.
"Hey!" he calls out, waving to Ystina and Klarion as they come clearly into view. "Glad you could make it! I'm Kid Crusader, th--"
He goes flying off to the left, stopping a few feet away against a shelf in rather a tame landing. This is thanks to the girl shoving him before blandly calling to the pair, "Sun Girl." Beat. "/Sorry/, but he's been working my last nerve."
Ystin's brows furrow. Not so much at the cat, though it gets kind of a sneer in response. Ystina is not such a fan of familiars. "I hath not finished growing." She answers curtly to Klarion's questioning. "Of course I come by invitation, I would not steal into a building in the dead of night to loot!" She folds her arms over her chest. She might have said something else, or asked something else, but the doors open then.
This nets some peering. Kid Crusader is examined both for iconography and as he gives his title. Ystina is from pre-Christian Camelot and so bears no similar markings. Of course, it's harder to examine his costume when he's shoved. Now Sun Girl receives the gaze. "I am Sir Ystina of Camelot." She finally announces, to all three of them really. "Didst thou also receive a summons to this place?"
Klarion reaches down, allowing Teek'l to promptly scurry up his arm and drape around his shoulders. He joins Ystin, much to his kitty-cat's chagrin. While addressed by both Kid Crusader and Sun Girl, the sorcerous lad merely leans toward the knightling and whispers, "Growing is an ugly thing. One should stay a boy ~forever~ if one can." Once you think happy thoughts it is a small matter of going second to the right, then straight on till morning.
"And I am Klarion, the.." Klarion raises his hands into the air, wiggling his fingers as if to become stormclouds. "..bum bum bum, Witch Boy." Above, the heavens protest with a crack of thunder. The lad's lips smile wide, a strange mix of bright and sinister. "This is my cat, Teek'l. Say hello to this merry band, Teek'l.." Klarion reaches up to stroke his kitty-cat's paw.
"*HISS*" Teek'l replies. She likes strangers of no sort.
"My God! A witch!" Kid Crusader exclaims as he struggles to extricate himself from the shelving. Once he's managed to totter back up to his feet, he scrambles to bring his cross up rather like a baseball bat. "Sh--he--is--wait--"
He sags slowly, warily; his weapon is lowered. "I... guess we'll need the perspective of a pagan to save a pagan..." he murmurs.
"We--" Sun Girl begins to sharply reply before herself being interrupted, this time by another green(and black, but it's dark in here) blur that stills into the shape of a short-ish blonde boy with big, amber-lensed goggles and a costume consisting of green lightning down the center and black along the edges. He is in front of Sun Girl, placing him between the two pairs of teenaged superbeings.
"We already got our callings; we're just here to meet you." He makes a soft scoffing noise as he looks between the pair, mutters, "Grife," to himself, then offers a hand out between the two of them for shaking.
"I'm Inertia; we're Young Vengeance. How do you feel about being /real/ heroes?"
"I knew it! You are a witch!" Ystin accuses hastily. This is in part so that she can evade the assertions of the necessities of boyhood, eternal or otherwise. Her arms will fold over her boy-chest somewhat self-consciously. It doesn't take much to hide herself, and she isn't even making real attempts any more. Armor does what it does okay. Kid Crusader's response at least brightens her countenance a little. /Some/body gets it.
Teek'l is regarded further with narrowed eyes. "Thine beast is possessed of an ill spirit." She pronounces, finally. Ystina should know. Normally she gets along with animals, even if she doesn't actively seek the company of cats.
That is as much as she can get out, and rather than risk making friends with the cat, she will take the hand of the young blur. "Thou movest like one of the scarlet clan, Sir Inertia." She states with a confidant air. "Though thine colors speak of a different line. I am Sir Ystina of Camelot and so long as I live, the spirit of that perfect kingdom shall live with me."
Klarion smiles rather serenely, taking delight in their accusations and fear. It is offputting, given his pale blue complexion and horned hairdo. "Tch, Teek'l is perfectly amiable! She is just hungry. For mice," his eyebrows bob up his pale blue forehead when he makes mention of mice. That is exactly what he'll turn one of them into should they irritate him to no end.
"Who leads your Young Vengeance motley, Inertia?" Klarion wonders aloud. Rather than get suckered into pledging something he has no interested in, re: being a 'real' hero, he decides to get to the meat of it. "And why would they have need to pit us against a Boy Wonder and his friends?"
"I am /nothing/ like them, I--" Inertia begins to instinctively bite off - much to the amusement of Sun Girl, as evidenced by her barely restrained snickering - before drawing in a deep breath, composing himself, and then exhaling.
"I do; there are more of us, too, but they're busy. Mission, you know." He narrows his eyes a little on Klarion as he goes on to say, "Because they've all got something one of us wants, or a reason to be taken down a few pegs; Kid Crusader over there" his thumb jerks towards Kid Crusader "wants to save Wonder Girl's soul, or whatever, Sun Girl" and then towards the future Mean Girl "wants to kill the green girl for ruining her future, and you--" he finally points his finger directly towards Klarion.
"--we were hoping you'd be okay with leaving Zachary Zatara a hollowed out shell and put his magic to better use."
Sir Ystin tilts her head somewhat to Inertia's protests and then simply angles a bit further to signal acknowledgement. Her gaze is thoughtful. "Mission, of course." She agrees in turn. "I have met this Wonder Girl. I do not know what danger her soul might be in save that her mentor is the servant of the Olympians and a powerful warrior herself." She can make no comment on killing of green girls; she doesn't know any. Her gaze slides to Klarion, however, curious.
It's a strange request but then, Klarion is no stranger to being the tool of other's mischiefs. He smiles, oh what a wondrous choice of playmates fate has provided him. "What of my new friend, Sir Ystina the Boy-Knight? What particular quest do you have for him? And yourself?"
"Sss--/he's/ got an evil alien to capture and kill for glory; Guillotine Girl, or Guilloteen," Inertia says with kind of a weird look pointed at Klarion. "And... I've got to get rid of the, the /fake/ heir to my granddad's legacy, Impulse."
Meanwhile, Kid Crusader leans slightly forward, towards Ystin as he chimes in, "That's the /problem/, those--those /Olympians/, those false idols--she's got all this power, but she's using it in the service of idolotry..."
"I see," says Sir Ystina. And she does, perhaps in some way--though she continues to look thoughtful, an expression sure to inspire worry in her own mentor should it ever be encountered. "Guillotine girl? Dost thou mean the Lady Gilotina? I know she does thirst for blood more perhaps than many of the hero-kin of this age and hath no love for peace--" Ystina seems to consider it. "Still she hath been friend to me." She is unready to just capture and kill her as yet.
"And one would loathe to suffer those who fall in line with false gods, wouldn't they?" Klarion's eyes twinkle with past misdeeds and potential mischief. His slender fingers wrap together, rubbing in thought. "I begin to see the wisdom in our newfound friends, my knightling!" he cheerily explains to Ystina. "What a wretched world we'd come to inherit if it were one strewn in chaos and disaster by those with so much power but who've gone astray with misguidance from their false gods."
Inertia's eyes narrow sort of warily on Ystina. "Yeah. /That/ one," he says a touch sharply. Klarion, at least, is a bright, if mad spot in all of this; the young speedster even lowly remarks, "Glad you understand, uh, Witch Boy. Friends or not... it's for the greater good. They're kinda /like/ false gods, in and of themselves, y'know?"
"Yeah," Sun Girl mutters, "I'm still betting he's just got a crush on this Imuplse kid; some real torrid Winathian romance nass."
This earns a withering glare from Inertia; once his attention returns to the paierd anachronisms, he tries to settle himself before saying to Ystina in particular, "It's your choice, of course; we'd just need a little help picking up one other recruit, and then we'd be ready to go." A beat passes, and then he quietly adds, "She might not be so into the idea on her own, but I know she'll come around once we've got her."
Sir Ystin frowns all frowny-faced like. "I--I thank thee for the invitation but I fear I cannot make war upon mine comrade so swiftly at the behest of another, though thou doth seem ready to fight for justice and all that." They are also ready to employ witches, witness Witch Boy to the right there, complete with kat. "Who dost thou intend to recruit further?" The young knight shuffles her feet a little, trying to ask her question nonchalantly.
"Perhaps my newfound knightling friend would be more interested if you had some dragon-beast to slay! Or perhaps a Questing Moslem!" Klarion helpfully offers. He's already bright as a summer's day, at least in his smile. Those books he read as a Witch Child has been ever so useful for adapting him to this merry band. "Although I do have an uncle who is a demon that you could stab if you'd like, my friend!" With his orange fluffball having migrated from his thin shoulders to his hands, Klarion gives his kitty's ears a scritch. The attention Klarion lavishes on Teek'l and mere mention of puncturing Jason Blood makes her purr. "*prr*"
"Some girl, Anita--" Inertia begins to say before being elbowed sharply by Sun Girl. The two exchange a fleeting glance with one another, and then she steps in to say, "If you're not gonna be comin' with, you don't need to know, right? Give it a few weeks, you'll see it in the headlines." A beat passes, and then she glances between Klarion and Ystina before smiling kind of thinly and adding, "If it helps... the Martian girl can probably turn into a dragon, or whatever the sprock a 'Moslem' is."
"You have a demon uncle?" Ystina looks shocked, scandalized perhaps even. "I am so dreadfully sorry and would be most ready to make war upon this fiend at even your behest, young witchling. But no, fearfully I cannot join your quest at present. I shall look for thine exploits in the headlines, surely then." She says most solemnly to Sun Girl as she takes a step backwards along the front steps of the abandoned grocery. "I do--I do wish thee luck." Mostly. Probably.
"Oh yes, I do!" Klarion declares. "And we do so love to toy with Uncle Jason, don't we, Teek'l?" He dips his chin and nuzzles up the scruff of his kitty. "Oh yes we do! Yes we do!" He sinks into babyspeak, happily blowing raspberries into Teek'l's orange-creamsicle pelt.
Teek'l mews in response and after several moments, Klarion looks up, eyes wide. "Oh I'm sorry! Where were we? Oh. Yes. Well goodbye, my friend! I'm sure our paths shall cross again sometime! Won't they, Teek'l? Oh yes they will! Yes they will!"
"Uh..." Sun Girl lowly vocalizes as she stares at Klarion and Teek'l. "Uh--wow." She looks aside to Inertia, who's sort of studying the pair with a single eye asquint. "Wow, great pick, Thad."
"The Omen Room pointed him out, what do you want /me/ to do about it?" the young speedster hisses back. He then clears his throat, looks up to Ystina, and calls after her, "Yeah. Yeah, thanks; maybe you'll change your mind." His hand extends towards Klarion afterwards. "So... are we on the same page, then?"
"I... kinda like him," Kid Crusader pipes up with a sincere, if small and uneasy smile. His eyes flick between the frowns of his two comrades.
"I bid thee good night, sirs and lady." Sir Ystina says with a little bob of her head, formal as she is able to be. Then she backs off, turns a mite stiffly, and heads for her magical flying talking horse parked in an alleyway nearby. Vanguard's I-told-you-sos will not be easy to bear all the way back to Central.
"Mmm?" Klarion looks up from his fussing of Teek'l. Those dark, almondine eyes bat their lashes at the extended hand. With the verbal support of Kid Crusader, the Witch Boy's lips slowly spread into a smile. If you were a cat person, you'd know to be set off by such a smile. This is the smile that felines give as they fancy a piece of meat. Several pieces of meat, all ripe -- with powers. "Oh yes! I heartily think so, my new friends!" Klarion reaches out and shakes Inertia's hand. The handshake is like the limpest thing ever. And it'll make your hand smell of cat.
