Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ Coryelle Wilde

+ wearing

"Heads-up!"

Alice head did indeed go up. She'd been staring in shock at the man she'd knocked to the floor. Sure she'd been practising with her powers, but that was nothing compared to seeing it active like this. Beating up cabinets was a far cry from knocking full grown men on their asses with apparent ease.

Then there was another man hurtling in her direction. She backpedalled furiously, searching instinctively for an escape route. Her back hit the wall, and she realised that she didn't have one. Then she realised that it was her attacker that needed the escape route, not her.

He skidded to a halt, obviously reluctant to attack a girl, or at least a girl that had not explicitly already attacked him and his buddies. Then he saw the man groaning on the ground of the alleyway. He looked back to Alice, she stared at him.

Then when she resolutely failed to do anything, he took a step towards her. Alice ceased her attempts to burrow into the wall with her shoulder blades, and with an audible gulp she moved forwards, settling into what she thought was a fighting stance.

He laughed, showing startlingly white teeth, then threw a punch. It was fast, until it wasn't. He looked confused, and punched again, then again. It didn't matter. Every punch, no matter where it hit, did little more than brush her lightly. One hit her in the face. It should have broken her nose. Instead it did little more than brush aside the hair that had fallen in front of her eyes.

She could feel the power in her skin. Already it felt like an old friend, a bouncy energised feeling, as much a part of her as her geekery. It was excited, and as she looked at the now confused thug she realised that it felt excited to be used, it wanted to leave her body again. Behind the makeshift bandana mask, she grinned.

The girl who had started this whole thing was talking to her as she stepped forwards, but Alice wasn't listening. She pushed a flat palm against his chest, and breathed out. The power rushed out of her, eager to join something else. In that split second the man's eyes widened in shock, and then it was too late.

Alice had underestimated just how hard he was hitting her, and she'd lost count of how many times. Regardless, it was enough force to lift him off his feet and throw him along the alleyway. Now it was Alice's turn to widen her eyes. She took a step forward to check if he was ok, and was unreasonably relieved when he scrambled to his feet and took off back down the alleyway, battered, bruised, but very much alive.

She turned to the other girl, her voice muffled by her improvised mask.

"Ummm… hey…"

She should probably think of some better lines if she was going to be a super hero.

Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ Claire Elliot

+ Mason Warner

+ wearing

"Hey… I didn't tantrum."

Alice pulled a face in Mason's direction, which probably did not add much to her defence. She realised that about halfway through the face-pulling, and did her best to reverse it without attracting any more attention. She felt momentarily awkward between Claire and Mason, and unsure of why, moved on as fast as she could.

"It changes more than anyone else's, I mean Dom just throws lightning, and I can absorb like, energy I think, but that's all they do, just one thing. Yours makes your skin really tough and it does that too…"

She paused for a moment, "I wonder what it means…"

It was completely different to everyone else's abilities so far. Everyone else seemed to just do one thing. Claire's new discovery was something different, it didn't fit the pattern. Which was odd. Alice wasn't normally the kind of person who would pick up on patterns and signs like that. Admittedly though, this was more her area of expertise. She noticed these things in comic books, so why wouldn't she pick up on them when they were living in a real life comic book?

"Maybe it means that you can do something else as well, that would be cool. I mean, none of the rest of us can do anything like that, maybe it's like a new power or something? Did you see if you could do anything else after it happened?"

She shrugged, moving over to the couch to take a seat. She dropped back like her strings had been cut, then smiled at Claire, "yeah, come and see what we've done so far, Mason's building something for Dominic as well…"

She gave what she thought of as a knowing look. She was hoping that maybe after he made something for Dominic he might be able to make something for her. After all, she couldn't exactly throw herself down the stairs every time she needed to absorb energy. She wondered whether she could absorb it from something else. If she could fall down stairs could she jump off the edge of a building?

"I mean, you should get involved as well though, we could do stuff all together, wouldn't that be cool? I mean, it's not like I know anyone else with powers outside of you guys is it?"

Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ Coryelle Wilde

+ wearing

They had been discussing how they might start using their powers for good, and that seemed even more confusing and difficult than Alice would have thought. She just wanted to get out on the streets and help people, to stop muggers and recue babies from burning buildings. The thought of having to wait and go out in groups was frustrating, although she understood why it was a good idea. She certainly didn’t want the others to feel like she was just ignoring what they said, she just wanted to help people.

She’d had a long day at work, a late shift, but despite that, she found herself unable to sleep. She’d spent most of the last few hours on her laptop, searching for something that might help make a costume. She’d spent a great deal of her life reading and collecting comic books. She had read about characters like Iron Man and Batman, human beings with fantastic resources and intellects, and she had read about the X-Men, people born with extraordinary gifts that they chose to use for the good of others. She didn’t have a fortune or the control of an industry, but she did have super powers, and she was determined to use them.

One thing that was consistent through all of those comics though, was that every character announced who they were just in appearance. They walked into a room and their costume made them instantly recognisable. They were bold, eye grabbing colours, simple designs that seized your attention and held it. Alice might never be quite as shapely as the female characters that most often appeared splashed across the pages, but she knew that a strong costume might help her make an impression.

She was struggling, but she had a few ideas, and she’d sketched out a few basic concepts. Not that she was particularly gifted with pencil and pad. Maybe Steven would be able to do something with it. She saved the pictures she had collected into a folder and emailed them to him. He was certainly more artistically gifted than she was, and something like this might really pique his interest. It wasn’t as if he had much else to do over the summer other than his internship.

She closed her laptop and glanced at the clock on the wall, groaning as she realised how late it was. She stood up and dropped the laptop onto her dresser, walking over to the window to crack it open a little. Her tiny apartment was not so well equipped as to come with air conditioning and it was hot tonight. She’d have to deal with the noise from the clubs, but sheltered in this little alleyway very little of it reached the high window of her small home.

She didn’t expect to hear a shout from the alleyway. She looked down, peering between the grills of the old fashioned fire escape by her window. There was a small group of men gathered below, surrounding another who’s back was pressed against the wall.

Alice pulled back from the window suddenly, afraid that she might have been noticed. Then she remembered herself. She didn’t need to be afraid, she could make a difference now, she could help!

She pulled on a hoody and turned to the window, pushing it all the way open. Then she paused, grabbing a cap and bandana from a drawer. She wanted to use her abilities to help people, but it seemed important to her that she didn’t give away who she was while she did so. A moment later she was ready, the cap pulled down over her eyes and the bandana tied bandit style over her nose and mouth. It was makeshift, but it would at least do to obscure her identity. Then she clambered out of the window, closing it gently behind her. She rushed down the metal stairs, hearing something happening below and only hoping that she wouldn’t be too late.

It turned out that she wasn’t.

Someone else had already stepped in, and the group of men were charging towards a slight figure as Alice dropped off the ladder at the bottom of the fire escape. She didn’t have much time to think, so she didn’t bother, simply reaching towards the first movement she saw. She grabbed a man’s arm.

He stopped dead.

It wasn’t as if he’d chosen to stop, it was as if he was a character in a video game and someone had pressed pause. She let go of his arm, and reality returned to the situation. He turned, raising his fist. She flinched backwards as it hurtled towards her, and then opened her eyes to see the man staring at his fist in shock. She returned the favour, only she poured all of the energy back into her fist. The man went down as if he’d been tackled.

Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ wearing

Steven looked puzzled for a moment, and then the light of realisation dawned in his eyes.

“Oh…”

Alice’s face lit up in response, “Right?”

Alice and Steven had been a member of the same D&D group for years, they were both avid players, and often developed deep backstories between their characters even before the campaigns would start. Alice would inevitably create a ‘Lawful Good’ Knight of holy justice, a fearsome warrior in shining plate that paled in strength next to their convictions. In game she played exactly the same, the strong and courageous warrior who would throw themselves before danger, willing to sacrifice everything to protect their fellows, but unwilling to stomach any sort of concept of the ‘Greater Good’. Alice’s Paladin’s rarely got along with any character with a ‘Chaotic’ alignment.

She’d tried to play ‘Chaotic Good’ once, but had simply been unable to wrap her head around the concept of playing such a character. She’d gone back to her favourite after that. It was why Steven had nicknamed her ‘Palice’, or ‘Pally’, and most of the rest of their D&D group had followed that trend.

Her best friend nodded slowly, “Yeah… Paladin… That does sound pretty good… Like you’re a protector…”

Alice nodded eagerly, bouncing up and down on the bed, “It’d be perfect, I want to do this to help people! If I have these powers then I should use them for good. Like Spiderman!”

That had Steven worried, it sounded like Alice was actually about to start going out and fighting crime. And crime fighting was hardly know for its medical plan. He leaned forward a little, “Look, Alice, you’re not being serious with all of this are you?”

She glared in response, frustrated that he couldn’t accept that she actually had super powers now. She sounded, if anything, a little annoyed.

“Why won’t you believe me?”

Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ Dominic Weaver

+ Mason Warner

Alice felt suddenly awkward when the topic of money came up. As it was, she was just barely scraping by on rent, and it was only thanks to the kindness of her manager that she ate properly most days. When going out she had to weigh the cost of a bus against the time it would take to walk there. She certainly didn’t have the money to help buy things for the warehouse. She’d never really meshed well enough with a foster family to be fully adopted, and it had meant there was very little support now that she was ‘out of the system’. There had been some help to get her first place, and to help her find a job, but she was struggling now. Even more so after the crash, she’d missed nearly a week of work, and the small savings she had managed to amount had mostly gone on rent and bills when she’d got out of the hospital.

She was glad that the subject was changed, she really didn’t want to reveal the financial situation she was in to her friends, afraid that they might judge her for it, or worse, offer charity. Joking about Mason’s muscles though, that was something she could get in on. She put on the most unconvinced looking face she could conjure up.

“Hmmmmm, I don’t know, I saw you and Claire before you turned invisible, and I’m pretty sure she had bigger arms than you…”

She giggled a little, suddenly girlish. “You could try arm wrestling me to see if you can prove it.”

Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ Mason Warner

+ Dominic Weaver

“Oh my god that would be so cool! It’d be like building a proper training place for us as super heroes.”

It was possible to see Alice’s eyes widen as the realisation dawned.

“Aaaahhhh, it’ll be like the batcave! We’ll have our own batcave! Except not a cave… And without bats… I hope…”

She was grinning so widely that she surely couldn’t maintain it for long. It really sounded like they might be able to create a proper super hero team, something like the Avengers, or the Justice League. She wondered what they would call themselves, not just their own names, but would they have a name for their team?

She was excited about this opportunity, about having super powers, about being part of a group in a way she never had been before. She’d had friends at school, and she still had Steven, but this was something very different. She was part of something bigger than herself. For the first time in her life Alice felt as if she could really make a difference.

“We should make stuff for all of us, it would be cool to be able to come here and like… train or something. I guess we’d have to train pretty hard to be super heroes. I mean… Bruce Wayne trains all the time to be Batman.”

Paladin

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

+ Mason Warner

+ Dominic Weaver

Alice jumped in excitement at the apparent success of her idea. Dominic had demonstrated that he could act almost as a wire, simply moving electricity from place to place, not just absorbing it then releasing it. It might have been simple, much simpler than Mason’s ideas, which also meant very little to her, but it had worked, and it had apparently worked easily. Maybe that was just Dominic though; he did manage to make everything seem easy.

She’d managed to access that strange reservoir of power, but she certainly didn’t feel as in control of it as Dominic appeared to be. She wondered if it had just come that naturally to him, or if part of it was an act, she couldn’t imagine taking to something so naturally. Even with cookery she’d struggled at first, it had taken a while for her to get the hang of not burning things. Even things as simple as pasta had seemed difficult. She wasn’t sure where the love of it had come; maybe it was because of the challenge, or the satisfaction of producing something that she’d thought was too difficult.

“So cool!”

Alice started looking about the warehouse, as though a large fuse box would suddenly present itself. That was about where her knowledge of electronics ended.

“Ummmm, could we find like… a fuse box or circuit breakers or something? Would that help work out if you can do…” She awkwardly gestured in the direction of Mason’s voice, “That stuff.”