ArchivedLogs:Artemis and Haephestus

Artemis and Haephestus
Dramatis Personae Kisha, Tatters
In Absentia	2013-03-20 Two strangers meet over coffee. A favor is asked, and an exchange is proposed.
Location <NYC> Evolve Coffeeshop - Lower East Side
Tatters sits in a chair by the window, a mug of something on the coffee table before he, doodling something in a ratty notebook, spiral-bound and wide-ruled and clearly Back-To-School Surplus. She looks a bit worse for wear, the fringes of her hair looking a bit singed and her left eye twitching slightly in its socket, but at least this set of clothes doesn't bare any battle-damage, or smell /much/ like the sewers. Mostly she's just doodling quietly, or doodling while grumbling to herself, or looking up and watching the passerby pass...by absently. Hefting a book on blacksmithing that could also serve double duty as an improvised anvil is Kisha, who is one such passerby. The difference being she passes by twice before finally shrugging and heading inside. She's wearing her cleanest most presentable clothes, which consist of some black pants without any chemical burns and the only clean t-shirt in her closet. Despite the cold her coat is wrapped around a messenger bag and she stomps her way over to the counter and seriously proclaims "I'd like enough espresso to give a rhino a heart attack please." The bold proclamation provokes a slightly asynchronous roll of Tatters' eyes (the left trails noticeably behind the right), and she leans over to fix the student with a curious look. "Are you gonna drink that or, like, inject it?" The look is /curious/ because she's scanning the customer for signs of visible abnormality; is she just being boisterous or is it some mutant thing? This is Evolve, after all. The barrista apparently has a similar thought, and after giving the youth a cool look just sets about making a super-sized espresso and charging her a fortune for it. Aside from some rather nasty burn scars up each of her arms the teen doesn't appear visibly unusual. "Before I even think about either I'm going to cling to it for warmth," Kisha replies with a grin. "Although I did once consider hooking a pot of coffee to a vaporizer, but I've never quite got around to building a prototype." She pays for her coffee without comment (still cheaper than Salem Centre prices!), then looks around for somewhere to sit. "...fair." Tatters concedes the point grudgingly, then gives the girl a closer look, eyes narrowing. "Hold on, do you go to Xavier's? I /think/ I remember seeing you, like, uh, last-- weekend /before/ last." With a grumble she leans back in her chair, then leans /forwards/ again to retrieve her drink. Then leans back again and sips at her beverage. "Uh, mind if I ask a favor, if I'm not just wrong about that? There's someone I need to, like, get in touch with." Kisha glances from side to side, then hustles over to the table Tatters has claimed. "Erm... First rule of fight Club," she offers quietly. "If you catch my drift?" With a thunk she puts her book down and cuddles up to her mega-sspresso. "Man, the school's not /actually/ secret. It's got a sign out front. I used to drive past it every week or so when I still lived up there." Tatters makes a noise of skepticism, but compliently lowers her voice anyways out of respect. "Anyways, uh, yesterday I fished this kid out've the sewers. Named Peter, doesn't shut up, friends with, like, Evan the Bug Kid? He got taken to the hospital but I don't know /which/ hospital he ended up at and I'm having trouble getting back in touch with the other schoolkids I know and I'd like to make sure he's okay." Kisha sniffs at her coffee, then shrugs. "It's more I don't want anyone to know I go there," she explains. "Because secrets like theirs have a habit of getting out. But anyway... uhm.... you found /Peter/ in the /sewer/? Seriously? Dare I ask what he was doing down there?" "Oh yeah, gotcha." Tatters nods an apology, then shrugs helplessly. "And man, I've got no idea. Something about looking for, like, the bloodmonster? But that was /days/ ago, I have no idea why he'd still be down there. /I/ found him being chased around by some creep with, like, these bullshit flying manhack grenades." She pauses for a second, closing her eyes and making a face that betrays /acute/ awareness of how ridiculous this story has gotten. "Um, I kinda want to ask him what the frig was up with that, too. Guy said Peter had stolen something, but he also seemed a bit /whoohoo,/" she makes an illustrative circular gesture by her ear, "so I've got no friggen idea." "Are you absolutely sure he wasn't just thrown down a manhole cover by some kind of bully? It seems more plausable than him being a secret monster hunter," Kisha wonders, finally sipping her espresso. "I also have no idea what a bloodmonster is. Spring break is over tomorrow, so I should be able to track either him or Ivan down though. If you have a name and some contact details I can see if they'll get in touch with you?" "The impression I got was that he, like, /wants/ to be a secret monster hunter. 'Cause you know, that's cool and glamorous when you're not actually hip deep in sewage? And the 'bloodmonster' was this weird mutanty thing that was going around eating people a bit back. It was in the news and stuff if you want to Google it. And, um." Tatters flips to the back of her notebook and scribbles down an e-mail address ('fhtugilist@gmail.com'), carefully tears half the page out, then folds it and hands it over. "That's the best place to reach me probably. I can usually check it pretty frequently. And uh, thanks, really." Kisha giggles. "Think nothing of it," she declares. "I'm Kisha by the way. Nice to meet you.. Who should I say is asking after his health by the way? Or is it something you'd rather was kept hush hush, because I can't imagine he ran into many people down in the sewers." She reads the piece of paper, then folds it and tucks it between the pages of her big book on blacksmithing. "Then again he /is/ the kind of guy who could manage to run into a ton of people in a supposedly empty sewer." "Uh, I'm--" Tatters takes a moment to replay events in her head, to make sure that -- nope, she hadn't made any /dramatic introductions/ in his presence. "Jill. And man, the sewers are /crowded./ Mostly it's just homeless people, but apparently it's a hotspot for crazy man-eating mutants now?" She makes her face and rubs at the bridge of her nose with both hands, grumbling. "Um, sorry. I'm the /actual/ monster hunter. I've had a busy couple of weeks." After a tired moment, Tatters shrugs off her fatigue and looks back up, smiling and remembering to /introductions./ "Pleased to meet you too, though." Kisha fixes Tatters with an appraising look. "You're a monster hunter? Aren't the monsters basically just mutants? Or do you get actual overgrown sewer gators and stuff? Because they can't be actual monsters... They're just beyond regular science and believe me I've tried. Although I freely admit my supplies are limited to what I can scounge from the science labs. But anyway... What do you even hunt monsters with?" "They're usually mutants, but like--" Tatters taps her fingers against the side of her mug, her eyes loosing focus as she thinks of the best way to phrase this concept. "You've got, like, metamorphs and physical mutants who's bodies turn into something, right? And usually they're just /people/ with bean sprouts or shark fins or wahtever, but occasionally the change'll turn their brains to mush too. I guess sometimes they just go veg or whatever, but sometimes they turn into, like, ravenous bloodthirsty animals who inevitably get chased down into the sewers and start eating homeless people. As /one/ of those homeless people, I started going after 'em. Um. Hitting them with things until they go away usually." With a shrug, she takes a sip of her drink and frowns back across at Kisha. "And yeah, it's tragic as frig but I'm not sure what else to do about 'em, and the police certainly don't do shit." She pauses and glances away, then back to Kisha curiously. "And, um. What's the difference between that and 'real' monsters? What've you been trying to make?" Kisha coughs. "Nothing... as such... I did search through the history of invention to see if anyone had ever raised the dead. Like Frankensteins monster sort of thing. But nope, it's never happened and so I can't replicate it. I did figure out the true way to make Damascus steel though. So not a total loss." She takes another long swig of coffee. "As for why they're not real monsters it's variable depending on what moral outlook you have. A person, no matter how mutated, is still a person and not a monster is the one I'd use for an ethics essay. While I tend to prefer option B, which is that to really be a monster you have to be entirely aware of what you're doing and still do it anyway." "Uhm. On the off chance you hadn't guessed my 'power' is sort of a headfucky one," Kisha explains matter-of-factly. "I have a knack when it comes to machines. If it exists and I have the parts I can build it." "Well, like, I guess that brings us back to, like, 'people are the real monsters' territory?" Tatters sits back and cups her mug in her hands as she talks, looking thoughtful. "Like, the guy going after Peter was definitely a psycho, but I could have a -- weird, creepy -- conversation with him. Like friggen Mutant Anthony Hopkins or whatever. All I could get out of the bloodspider was 'blood blood blood' and 'nooooo.' I guess which counts as, like, more monstery depends on where you're coming from." She looks interested as Kisha explains about her own power, though, a rueful smile growing over her grayish face. "Oh, neat. I'm always interested in those weird intuition powers. I've got, like, the inverse: lots of metamorphy shapeshifting ability, but no convenient hints about how to make things that /work/ or any of that. Or any, like, snapback, which is why I look like this. Um." She pauses, then continues, tentatively. "I don't suppose I could commission you to forge me up some arms? I've tried to cobble together some crap out of scrap, but the results are pretty shitty. Dunno what I can trade you, though, currently my most useful skill is /punching/ crap and I, uh, hope you don't need a lot of that at high school." Kisha blinks. "Arms?" she muses. "Like.... /arms/ or /Arms/?" The first is accompanied with jazz hands, while the second she makes a finger pistol motion. "I'm not sure how much you know about the school I may or may not attend, but they tend to frown upon the pew pew kind. I could maaaaaaaaaaaybe make some tools which a person would not enjoy being hit by. Might even have a spare Halligan bar in my closet, if that's something you could use." She chews at her lip, then adds "I could accept payment in broken electronics? I always have a need for circuit boards and stuff." "Arms like a sword. I already /have/ arms." Tatters grins. "Proper armor'd be awesome too, but I don't know what kind'd be, like, practical. But mostly I need, like, something sharp I can hit things with that's sturdy enough to survive me hitting things with it. Large cutting area is a plus. Maybe a shield too." With a sigh, she frowns in /mostly/ exaggerated sadness. "'Cause, like, I think the kind of 'pew pew' I'd find useful is probably heavy duty enough to be six different kinds of illegal, and also the kind of illegal that'll get me attention really fast." %r %r Finishing her beverage, she leans forwards to place it back down on the tabletop, then sits back and crosses her arms over her chest, looking back at Kisha thoughtfully. "And yeah, I can, like, see what I can scrounge up. Peter's Creep was /also/ throwing around some pretty nifty gadgets, so I might be able to get you something interesting if I can get to the bottom of that, but obviously I can't make any promises without knowing, like, what the deal with that actually is." Kisha considers this, then grins. "Swords are tricky because they're weapons," she explains. "But I could say make a 'Pig'. It's a firefighting tool you see, weighs about eight pounds, and it has a flat head hammer edge paired with a pick-head axe. Shields and medieval armour I could maybe do, because it's pretty simple with my power. Modern body armour is harder because the materials are expensive." She gulps down the last of her espresso, then puts the cup down. "If you do scrounge anything it's probably best if I never hear the specifics. We have mind-reading teachers, which sucks majorly." This elicits a chuckle from Tatters. "Oh man, yeah. I promise I will not tell you if I do anything illegal." With a sigh, she sits back and rubs at her eyes. "I...might not /have/ to do anything illegal, if this is just some crazy homeless technopath. Hopefully its just some crazy homeless technopath and not anything, like, complicated." Tapping her finger against her cheek, she glances back up and smiles. "Uh yeah, though, that sounds...actually pretty useful, for more than just hitting monsters. A round shield that's as sturdy as you can make it'd be great too, and I'm strong enough that you can probably err on the side of a little heavy. And I'll definitely, like, put the word out to see what bits of electro-junk I can get my hands on soon as I get back home." "And if you know anyone who is short on cash by high on electronic trash I would be willing to barter," Kisha offers in a sudden flash of inspiration. "I'll mail you the details, but for maybe six or seven broken cellphones I can put together a working phone. That sort of thing. And... maybe don't be surprised if I 'accidentally' drop in the receipe for home-brew thermite. Because hypothetically disposing of monster parts would work much the same way as they used for destroying Terminator pieces in the Sarah Conner chronicles." Tatters stops and blinks, looking as though her birthday had come early. "That'd...actually be really great. And if there's one-TWO things we aren't lacking for down there it's rusty friggen iron and bullshit regenerating monsters. Oh man, you don't even know." There is an expression on Tatters' face that has rarely been seen these last few weeks. It's a complicated emotion, but if summed up in a word it would have to be 'hope.' "I'll...see what I can dig you up." Kisha grins. "If you can email me..." she pauses and scribbes an email address down. "The measurements you'd require in a suit of armour I'll see what I can do. I'm thinking something like chainmail.. Japanese six in one... I should head back, because now I have ideas and they hate being contained." She glances ruefully at her burnt arms. "And I don't intend on losing control ever again. Blowing myself up once was enough." The sewer knight plucks the address and pockets it with a grin. "Yeah, especially if you can't grow those /back./ If you try not to get blown up, I'll try not to get eaten and get back to you with whatever specs I can come up with." With a glance towards the slowly darkening streets outside, she closes her notebook and stuffs it back into her backpack, standing and slinging it onto her shoulder with a nod. "I, uh, probably gotta get back home too. Pleasure doing business with you." "The feelings mutual," Kisha says cheerfully. "And don't worry about Peter, I'm sure I'd have heard rumours if something really bad had happened to him." She scoops up her book, then springs towards the counter. "I think I better get another coffee for the road. I don't seem nearly hyper enough." "Yeah, you aren't jittery or /anything./" Tatters deadpans, then collects her empty mug and wanders over to place it on the counter, pausing to wave back before heading towards the door. "See you around!" And then she's off into the twilight and the cold, pulling her coat tight around her as she joins the steady flow of pedestrians outside.