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No guns? Like Hell.; Open
Topic Started: Mar 31 2009, 06:59 PM (404 Views)
Relentless
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It was only her first day at the school, and already Devi hated the place. Not because of annoying staff or students, but because of the policy forbidding anyone to have firearms on their person outside self defense or special powers class. Frankly, it wasn't necessary to even ask her what her thoughts were on the rule, as she was currently wandering through the courtyard with a thigh holster for her Super Shorty plainly visible. Extra shells for it were clinking around in the black messenger bag she wore, and quite frankly she didn't see the problem. She had a permit to carry the gun (granted, that was for New York, but she didn't care about whether or not that had any legal weight in Japan), she knew how to use said gun, and she wasn't running around pointing it at everyone.

And as far as she was concerned, if she was going to walk around wearing the school uniform she'd been assigned (which she was), she'd damn well do so well armed. What moron thought the no weapons rule was a good idea when the girls' uniform allowed for a whopping three inches of a skirt, she had no idea. The last thing she wanted was to go around showing off her legs to a bunch of total strangers without a means of discouraging them from getting any bright ideas in their heads. Granted, she knew a few different styles of martial arts, and wasn't ashamed of aiming for the groin or knees, but she found most people respected the sight of a shotgun far more than the possibility that someone like Devi knew how to defend herself. Call it the polar opposite of a little black dress.

Eventually the young woman decided to take a seat between a particularly shady tree, of a species she wasn't entirely familiar with. It wasn't a maple or oak, and that was the extent of her knowledge on the subject. All she knew was that the grass was softer than a bench, the shade was better then sitting in direct sunlight with a black uniform on, and that she absolutely hated having to wear such a short skirt. She made sure to position herself on the ground in such a fashion that even the measly amount of fabric kept her from flashing anyone, then set her messenger bag down in her lap just to be safe. And because she wanted to get something out of it anyway. A little rummaging was all it took, and she pulled out a fresh copy of Sun Tzu's famous work, The Art of War. Not because she was contemplating going to war anytime soon, but because most of the book's contents could be applied to something other than trying to kill someone...she could do that well enough on her own. Whether with the shotgun strapped to her thigh, or the Five-Seven pistol she was hiding in her messenger bag.
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It was with a jaded eye that Dodge noticed the girl was reading "The Art of War." How pretentious, he mused silently. To his eyes, she looked as though she had a chip on her shoulder the size of a log, and was just begging for someone to be confrontational and set it off. But Dodge, being the calmer, pragmatic sort, decided he wouldn't take the obvious bait and start posturing and showing off the way he'd seen other students do.

His decision was most definitely not in the least influenced by the fairly large shotgun she had hidden on her person. Not at all.

He was standing a fair distance away, not doing anything in particular. He was soaking the surroundings in, trying to memorize every detail he could lay eyes on. It was his first day, as well, and he was perfectly willing to savor the finer details before he started mixing things up. His school uniform, fresh from its box, still hung about his scrawny body with that awkward stiffness of clothes straight from the factory, clothes that had yet to be washed. He figured he'd break them in soon enough, though it would take some getting used to. His attendance to school during the past few years had been spotty at best, cutting down his time spent in uniform. He jammed his hands into his pockets as the wind mussed his silver-blue hair, and blinked to adjust to the sunlight.

He could feel that empty sensation in his stomach, and he couldn't help but feel a small flutter of annoyance with it. Already? he asked himself. He pulled a slice of beef jerky from his pocket, unwrapped it noisily, and munched on the open end. Ugh. I haven't even been using June today... He supposed he should be grateful; there were plenty of people out there who wished they'd be able to eat all they wanted and never gain a pound. Of course, Dodge was not a thirteen-year-old girl and regular subscriber to Teen People, so he fell well outside that demographic.

As the last of the jerky strip disappeared into his mouth, the wind caught the wrapper held loosely in his hand and carried it scurrying across the courtyard's bricked floor. He watched it go serenely and figured someone who cared more about the environment than he would take care of it eventually, or else a squirrel would choke on it. In either case, he'd ceased to think of it as his problem the moment it had left his fingertips, and now he found his eyes falling on the figure of the reading girl again. His old thief's instincts kicked in, and he began appraising how he might go about stealing this and that off her person. He didn't plan on starting off his career as an AHS student with a rash of pickpocketing, but after so many years at it, he really couldn't help it at this point...
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Eventually, Devi took notice of the boy. Not because of his obnoxiously loud munching of the jerky, but because there was a brief mental alarm that went off. He posed a threat somehow, and she looked up from her book to find out who was responsible for the alert and why. He didn't seem to be doing anything terribly threatening at the moment (which is the only reason he wasn't shot on sight), though Devi wasn't about to ignore him and return to her reading. If her danger sense had gone off, albeit briefly, there was a reason for it. She couldn't see any visible weapon, so she assumed it must be because of some kind of power he possessed. But that wouldn't make sense, everyone here had powers, she'd have gotten more than just the one alert today.

...hmph. Mother was right, I do need more training with this...

"...is there a reason you're looking me over like some sort of prize?" Devi asked, lowering her book as she looked over the boy. To be fair to him though, this was largely just her impression of why he was looking her over. Call it the result of too many bad stories about Japan. How accurate her assessment was had yet to be proven. "Because it's putting me a little on edge."
Edited by Relentless, Mar 31 2009, 09:47 PM.
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Zero
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Dodge's manner was mild, much like the spices on the jerky he had just swallowed. Absently, he fished in his pockets for another snack, and produced a small bag of Oreos. They were far from his favorite, but their calorie content was high and they were pretty cheap, even for Japanese vending machine fare. He took his sweet time opening the package and enjoying his first cookie, letting her question hang in the air for a good awkward moment before bothering to answer.

"I'm looking at you because you're the only thing worth looking at," he said nonchalantly. A complete, total, unnecessary lie, but Dodge had always been fond of a good lie told for a bad reason. "And if it's putting you on edge...well, I guess the go-to joke here would be, 'Is that a sawn-off shotgun in your skirt, or do you just have a nasty surprise for the first guy who takes your clothes off?'" He smirked wanly. "Or maybe it was worded a different way. I've never been a great joke teller."

He slid another Oreo into his mouth. "Look," he said while loudly chewing his food. He didn't particularly care about impressing this girl, cute as she was, and so he didn't plan on observing the usual social decorum. "I could posture and beat my chest like most of the boys at this school do, maybe point my finger and blow up that tree over there." He jerked his head at a solitary tree swaying gently in the breeze. "But let's do the thing where we don't, say we did, and kill anyone who says otherwise, hm?"

He finished a fifth cookie before taking a moment to place a hand on his chest. "Dodge," he said, by way of introduction.
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"I'm looking at you because you're the only thing worth looking at,"


...not the best answer he could have given, but given the fact the boy didn't follow it up by a wink or some other kind of idiocy, Devi let it slide and just chalked it up to a poor choice of words. Still, she didn't take her eyes off him. She wasn't stupid after all, and until she deemed he wasn't a threat and her power had just gone off as a fluke, she wasn't about to drop her guard.

Quote:
 
"And if it's putting you on edge...well, I guess the go-to joke here would be, 'Is that a sawn-off shotgun in your skirt, or do you just have a nasty surprise for the first guy who takes your clothes off?' Or maybe it was worded a different way. I've never been a great joke teller."


"I can tell. Though I don't really know how it goes either, so I suppose I don't have much room to criticize," Devi replied dryly, though was gradually ticking away the chances that the scrawny kid was a threat. Maybe it was a fluke after all. One way or the other, her power had yet to go off again, which was certainly helping the boy out. "And it's not sawed off, it's perfectly legal. I just don't like walking around dressed like a harlot if I can't provide a little deterrant to anyone with wandering eyes or hands. I'm just waiting for the school day to end already so I can get out of this ridiculous uniform..."

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"Look, I could posture and beat my chest like most of the boys at this school do, maybe point my finger and blow up that tree over there. But let's do the thing where we don't, say we did, and kill anyone who says otherwise, hm?"


Well, that statement, combined with the fact her danger sense had stopped going off, was enough to convince her he wasn't too big a threat. At least not enough to merit watching with her hand a few inches away from the loaded pistol in her bag. It also placed him inside the realm of 'tolerable people' that she kept a mental tally of, which also helped the whole 'may not shoot him' cause. "Sounds good to me. Though you could always settle for conversation. Your call though."

Devi actually was fine with the kid sticking around at this point. As far as she could tell he'd stopped staring at her, which was always a plus. He'd also declined to go into a boasting session or demonstration of his raw power or some other nonsense, which gained him bonus points in her book. So frankly, she wouldn't mind having him around. At the very least it'd reduce the likelihood of someone coming around and bothering her who WOULD do all the things he'd avoided doing. One of the downsides to having to share campus grounds with a high school, she supposed.

"Devilyn. Devi's an acceptable alternative," she stated plainly in response to the boy's own informal introduction. She wasn't particularly inclined to tell him her full name. He might call her DiDi, and then she WOULD have to kill him...
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"Devi and Dodge," Dodge mused. "D, D." He swallowed the last cookie and crumpled the wrapper, sliding it back into his pocket. He had a corny line about getting team t-shirts made up, but thought better of it and helped himself to yet another snack item from his pockets. He was starting to run low on over-processed sugars; he'd have to buy more tomorrow.

His eyes wandered back to the weaponry she was trying to conceal. The shotgun was fairly obvious, but the pistol hidden in her book bag would have completely passed his notice if he hadn't seen her subtly reaching for it while they exchanged what could only loosely be described as pleasantries. His eyebrows kneaded themselves in mild amusement as he pondered how best to phrase his question. He was not exactly unarmed himself, but the difference between Devi and him was that, as far as he could tell, her trigger finger was far itchier than his. He did some quick calculations in his head and determined that even at this distance, her weapons posed no real threat to him. Dodging shotgun spray was easy enough for him since it moved so slowly, and he could handle small arms fire easily enough. Still, his curiosity was an itch, and Dodge was the sort of person who did not like to skimp on his scratching.

"So, Devi," he asked, "I don't suppose there's a particular reason that a perfectly normal high school girl such as yourself would be packing a poorly-disguised shotgun and a well-concealed sidearm on a day like this, would there? Unless you're one of those Americans...what are they called?" He thought for a moment, and when it came to him he snapped his fingers and grinned with a small look of triumph. "Ah, yes. Republicans?"
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"High school? I wouldn't let myself be flown this far from home just to attend high school, I'm at the university," Devi replied, and though she'd just been caught, she had no intent of showing off her pistol. Better to let him try to figure out on his own what was in the bag, it could have been anything from a Derringer to a Desert Eagle for all he knew. And the unknown was also a good deterrent against people making stupid decisions, something he'd almost done earlier with the 'D, D' comment.

"It's not poorly disguised, I'm wearing it openly for a reason. I hate showing off this much skin, and I'd prefer it if I had something with me to keep the hormonal crowd at bay. Shotguns work pretty well," she continued, shrugging her shoulders as she spoke. "And considering I lack fangs, scales, or a rattle for a tail, I figure a twelve gauge is the best warning I can give short of publicly castrating some kid on his way to class, and bloodstains are hard to wash out."

Granted, she could explain where she'd picked up that little tidbit of knowlege, but she wasn't the sort of person to go blabbing to everyone who would listen that she killed people for a living. She'd leave that to the 'assassin' and 'demon' crowd. She'd come up with a believable enough excuse anyway, if the kid really wanted to know. "I'm not a Republican either, never bothered to register. I just drew the short straw when it came to powers is all. I can't blow up a tree, kill you with my mind, or summon some animal to tear someone's throat out to defend myself. So, hot lead's the best alternative."
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Dodge couldn't help but smirk; deep down in his heart of hearts, he felt that it was a great way to subtly annoy her, and Dodge had never been one for ingratiating himself. He wasn't the deliberate social wrecking ball that some of the louder rebels out there tried to be; rather, he simply enjoyed being the fly in the ointment. If anything, it at least made for amusing circumstances. Certainly, it meant that he would have been perfectly suited for a job at the DMV.

"So, while you were soliloquizing," he said, taking a plaintive step closer, "I've managed to glean that you're scholastically gifted, experienced when dealing with blood, possess special powers but not obvious ones, enjoy stealing my examples,"--his thoughts were on the phrase 'blowing up a tree'--"are paranoid enough to think that you're in enough danger that you should be packing at all hours of the day, and worst of all," he added, letting a small pause hang between the words, "you're an apathetic voter."

He was enjoying himself now, almost as much as he was enjoying the Doritos he'd begun munching on. He enjoyed the give-and-take of some good, honest-to-Loki banter, especially when he was the one doing most of the taking. He could tell she was trying to sell the "mysterious and dangerous" vibe, but those sorts of things didn't impress a man with a past such as his nearly as easily. Idly, he did wonder for a moment about what sorts of powers she had. She had made a big deal about how indirect they were, and her complaints about receiving the short end of the stick definitely echoed Dodge's feelings about his own set of abilities. But he wasn't about to let her know that. In fact, he was content letting everyone think he was the next Carrie.

"Besides, if one of these meta-types here really wanted to put the hurt on you," he said as another Dorito disappeared down his gullet, "are we so convinced that hot lead's gonna do much of anything?" He shrugged. "They could melt your gun, stop your bullets in midair, hit you with something ten times as nasty...and even if they didn't," he added with a mischievous grin, "what if you miss?"
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"So, while you were soliloquizing, I've managed to glean that you're scholastically gifted, experienced when dealing with blood, possess special powers but not obvious ones, enjoy stealing my examples, are paranoid enough to think that you're in enough danger that you should be packing at all hours of the day, and worst of all, you're an apathetic voter."


"And you figured all that out without having to employ a deerstalker cap and a magnifying glass," Devi replied, deliberately doing a poor job of feigning amusement, stopping just short of twirling her index finger in the air. "And I'd hardly call it paranoia. Better to have it and not need it than not have one when necessary."

She had a feeling he'd be compelled to chime in with a comment along the lines of 'like a condom,' but she didn't bother warning him not to. At this point he was on safe enough ground, and she'd probably just ignore him anyway. She put her book away now, she didn't think she'd have too much time to finish reading at the moment, and besides, the conversation was a welcome break from the usual silence that tended to follow her around. Maybe people just thought all the black meant she was a witch of some sort...oh well, she wouldn't get too annoyed until somebody asked her to perform a hex on someone or something.

"If I miss, I keep shooting," Devi replied, leaning back agains the tree now that she knew she wouldn't get back to reading anytime soon. "And when I run out of shells, I use my fists. When that fails, I'll start biting if I think it'll help. The point is, I'm persistant."

True enough...that, and it was damn near impossible to catch her off guard. One of the benefits of a danger sense, and downright useful in a pinch...
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"A deerstalker cap? That's really what they're called?" Dodge blinked. Something new to be learned every day. "And you're forgetting his trademark pipe. And the violin, but music's never really been my thing. And of course, we can't forget that Holmes was also a habitual user of cocaine. The movies like to gloss over that tasty little detail." His smirk grew even more self-satisfied. He was more than just an ex-thief; he was an erudite, literate one.

He listened to her outline what could only loosely be described as a plan for how to deal with meta-humans. Direct, persistent...and entirely the opposite of Dodge's general plan for any given situation, which was flee until the situation all but guaranteed his victory. "Persistence is great and all, if you're trying to play in Carnegie Hall someday," Dodge said. "But I've seen some of these types in the newspapers, on TV...persistence won't work against a guy who sneezes and vaporizes an entire city block. At least, not unless you're being persistent with something more along the lines of a MOAB. And I doubt you could hide that in your skirt with everything else you've got."

He was starting to feel the slightest craving for some nicotine to compliment his steady diet of junk food, but declined to reach for the box of cigarillos in his back pocket. It would be just so trite for him to light up here and now, and he was never one to play to expectations. He hushed up his craving with another Dorito from the increasingly empty bag, and swallowed. "What are you supposed to be, anyway? Some kind of dark and brooding assassin or somesuch? Or would the guns qualify you more as a hitwoman?"
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"It was opium for the most part. Popular at the time as a cure-all," Devi interjected. If he was going to be cocky, she'd sure as hell seize any opportunity to knock him down a peg. She rolled her eyes as he criticized her determination, mentioning something in regard to the more powerful meta-humans who doubled as one-man wrecking crews whenever their testosterone ran high. "Everyone's got a weakness. Just takes someone to find it."

Devi was, obviously, a bit arrogant. Still, it wasn't entirely undeserved, as she did make a habit of waiting for an ideal moment to strike at someone rather than simply rushing in, guns blazing and hoping the Rambo approach to dealing with a threat would work out. She'd leave that to amateurs. She didn't give off any tells when he actually managed to accurately guess what she did with a living, and instead simply raised a brow in curiousity. "Humor me and fill me in on where that assumption came from. I'm going to hope you're not just assuming I kill people because I have a gun and wear black, because I was starting to consider you pleasant company."
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"Sure everyone's got their two-meter exhaust port somewhere, just waiting for the right proton torpedo," Dodge allowed. He felt his phrasing was a rather more interesting variation on the sentiments meant by the clichéd, "Achilles' heel." "But you're not going to find it by dying. And I especially doubt that there's a soul in that school over there who goes into battle praying their enemy doesn't have an overabundance of enamel in their mouth."

"As for your supposed profession," Dodge began, and here he really felt that now would have been the perfect time, dramatically, to light up a cigarillo. It was precisely for this reason that he remained smokeless. "Let's say it takes a professional to recognize a professional." He left it deliberately ambiguous. Why bother clarifying anything when that would take more or less all the fun out of the equation? He flashed a grin at her, and there was a certain sharklike quality to it, as though he were sizing her up. Which, to be fair, he was. He could hardly help it, with all the posturing she did. She was doing the whole macho bit so he wouldn't have to.

Dodge was generally the sort of person that only stuck around for fights he knew he could win. Though he wasn't about to start anything, he had a good feeling that if Devi lost her patience, he would be able to handle himself here. With no reason to worry, at least in his mind, he settled on the most obvious course of action: needle her just a bit more.

"Of course, the gun and the blackness really do help."
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Devi found his lack of faith disturbing, but didn't bother making an issue out of it. Frankly his cinematic reference also flew right over her head, but just from the context she was pretty sure she got the gist of what he was trying to say. If he didn't think she'd figure out a way to handle herself, that'd be his business. Could work to her advantage too, should he ever decide to do something, say, really, really stupid. Still, she felt she ought to set him straight regarding his misconception of what she did for a living (however accurate it was).

"Even so-called 'professionals' make mistakes. As annoying as it is working a customer service gig, I have yet to go on a killing spree," she explained, and it was really a testament to her upbringing that she was able to tell such a bold-faced lie without completely blowing it halfway through. "But to be fair, I did have homicidal thoughts when one woman came in trying to return a blouse because it shrank in the wash. Though at least now I know why they keep those pens on chains."

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"Of course, the gun and the blackness really do help."


Tempting as it was to shoot him, Devi knew that sort of thing was frowned upon. Best wait for a time and place where she couldn't get caught for that sort of behavior. So instead she rolled her eyes, an obvious enough signal of her displeasure, and was then promptly saved by the bell. Or in her case, the alarm going off on her phone to let her know she needed to get to her meeting with Residence Life. Granted she still had half an hour to go, but arriving fifteen minutes early for anything was a good way to make an impression. "What a shame. As much as I was enjoying hearing all about how I must be a crazed gunwoman, I'm going to be late for a meeting. Try to keep out of trouble, hm?"

As she was placing her book back into her bag and getting up and trying not to give anyone a show as best she could manage with such a short skirt (no really, she'd murder whoever mandated that for the girl's uniform, and not just to give Dodge something to talk about), the phrase 'get the hell outta Dodge' just happened to come to mind, and her lips curved upward in a bemused smirk. She'd keep that thought to herself though, she did have a little manners. And while she wasn't terribly fond of turning her back on someone who'd previously triggered her danger sense, that was precisely what she did as she turned and headed toward the Dormitory building...
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