Notes and Sketches

"Go gently into that good night, darling."

2007-10-09T19:29:25Z

I'm such an idiot.

I'm lucky I don't make people angry. But crazy, happy people aren't made of rainbows and bubblegum.

I'd say fuck the landlord and buy a new set of locks for my door, but that wouldn't exactly help.

In lue of a moon in absentia, the lights of New York permeate the Central Park night, painting the sky in a hazy pallete of browns and sickly purples that do little to flatter the tepid stretch of the reservoir beneath it. Nevertheless, there is movement near the shoreline. A lone figure in a thick overcoat paces the length of the railing assembled around the water's southeastern fringes. From the silver ruffle of his hair, he is likely older. It is more difficult to tell from a distance that he is also a wanted terrorist.

Central Park is an auspicious place tonight. A path not far from the shadowed form of the older man at the edge of the water is occupied by a lanky woman, tall and skinny, with an odd rise to the back of her sweatshirt and a hat pulled low over her face. Her shadow is not quite right, too angular at the elbows, protruding at the forehead and cheeks. Cigaratte smoke dances from beneath the bill of her cap and the ocassional glow of the embers of the tobacco illuminates the red and white Umbrella Corporation logo.
Perhaps not so wanted as the terrorist by the water, Sarah, Marrow, whatever the name, she stands out just as well.

Jason is not a wanted terrorist, nor does he make a point of looking for one-- ever, really. But he is with Sarah, obscured by her shadow. Not entirely naturally. But there is a twitch of light. He is clicking something into his phone.

Wearing a white blindfold since presumably there aren't many people around to see, Magnes is walking through the park with two crutches under his arms and sky blue sneakers on his feet, finally stopping at at the start of the water. He inhales, standing next to the rail. "Water is so much nicer when it isn't falling out of the sky..." He idly comments to himself.

Elias is simply a passerby, clad in jeans and a tshirt, dark shoes on his feet and a beige bandage on his left hand. He has a black canvas messenger bag slung across one shoulder and a plastic CVS shopping bag in his good hand. He keeps his head down as he walks one of the paths.

Cipto is another individual who has been on the news, though for reasons entirely unrelated to terrorism. The plane crash survivor has, however, faded further back into the general canvas of city life (as much as one can fade in a searingly green and yellow batik shirt) more than any terrorist really could hope for. For now, the Columbia student is also just a walker in the park, steps slow and expression serene but bright-eyed.

After a late shift at the Tavern on the Green, Eliana is heading home. It's not cold enough to put the bicycle away, but Eliana blew a tire last night. Cutting through the park still knocks fifteen dollars off her cab fare, and a one-time splurge on a can of mace makes it the economic choice, be it on bike or foot. Dressed in a pair of black slacks and a white shirt underneath a camel brown knitted sweater to ward off the cold of the night, Eliana grips the strap of her ration-bag style purse in one hand and the small can in the other, letting the sleeve of her sweater obscure it. As she passes Jason and Sarah and nears the old man and the younger one on crutches near the water, Eliana shrugs her shoulders defensively. She hadn't expected the park to be this 'crowded' this late, but then again, 'crowded' is a relative term.

Likewise made somewhat wary by the population density around this particular bend of the reservoir, Erik pauses frequently to squint after flickers of movement and changes in shadow. Sarah's odd shape has certainly not escaped his attention, but right about the time he seems ready to outright stare at her, something with a blindfold and crutches steps between here and there, so that he finds himself staring at Magnes instead. For the moment, at least, he lifts his brows, and says nothing.

As Sarah and Jason are passed by, by the woman in attire from the Tavern on the Green, the former looks at her companion. "The fuck're you doing?" she asks, her voice a gravely hiss, like someone who has smoked a few too many kin of the cigarette hanging from her thin lips. The question comes at such a time that it could just as easily be aimed at Eliana, no matter how little sense that may make. It is, however, confrontational and in a nasty tone of voice.

"Loitering." And on closer observation, Jason is playing a kind of heavily pixellated fighter-pilot game on his cellphone. All right. He slides a glance from game to Sarah and beyond. Eliana briefly marked. And away.

Magnes' face begins to twitch slightly, familiarity insues as people begin to enter the 40 foot mark of him. Sarah is easily noted, but he makes no effort to make himself known. Erik and Jason are much harder to figure out with a blindfold on, but familiar indeed.

When one walks Central Park at night, one generally listens for all types of confrontational noises. Eli is no exception. When he hears Sarah's voice, still somewhat far off, he pauses and looks up, searching the immediate vicinity for the source. He spies the different groups starting to converge and makes a turn, taking the first path that will take him immediately out of the park.

Sarah's harsh voice rattles Eliana. Her heart starts to beat a little faster, but the cloud of gas that seeps from her skin isn't large enough to effect anyone without a breeze. "Fuck you," Eliana barks back, but her voice isn't nearly as forceful as Sarah's. She picks up her pace a little, wanting to get through the park without running but before panic sets in. Panic is never fun.

His curiosity stirred reluctantly to life from the depths of whatever brooding gloom brought him to the reservoir in the first place, Erik draws one squared hand from its respective coat pocket. A gleam of metal between the splay of his fingers scarcely has time to be registered before it vanishes -- zooming along with intent to whizz harmlessly past Magnes' blindfolded head. Unfortunately, the exchange between Sarah and Eliana catches him off guard, and his concentration wavers, prompting his little test to deviate directly for the space between Magnes' eyes.

Never call Sarah one not to take a compliment! She whirls on her bootheels so fast that she nearly slams into Jason in the process. "What was that?!" she bellows, her voice louder and harkening to her stage career in screaming for rowdy audiences. "You wanna come say that to my face?" she demands, straightening up so that the horns her mutation has gifted her with along her cheekbones are plainly visible. She decides to try to get in pace with Eliana, which means trying to go past Jason in her eagerness for confrontation.

Jason slings invisible weights around Sarah's ankles, not so so heavy as to impede movement entirely. Just slow it. "Go gently into that good night, darling," he mutters after his horned compatriot, but his visible attention appears to be on Eliana. Curious.

Barely having time to even say anything, Magnes simultaneously drops his crutches and stands on his right leg as his head quickly tilts to the side, trying to get out of the path of the metal, not having nearly enough time to move his entire body. The metal dices through the blindfold, causing it to drop to the ground as a slight trickle of blood comes from his earlobe. That was -close-. "Where the -hell- did that come from? What was that?" He exclaims in surprise, but his eyes catch Erik's very quickly. "What exactly are you trying to do?!" Rubbing the space inbetween his eyes, it hasn't even registered that he's standing on one leg. "Oh, trying to kill me..." His tone turning grave.

When she's yelled at again and more directly, Eliana turns her head. The sight of the horned woman is enough to send her heart racing and the odorless, colorless, tasteless gas practically pouring from the tiny holes in her skin and clothing. But when Sarah starts to catch up with her? Eliana gasps and starts to run, sliding the hand on the strap of her back to her hip so that she isn't impeded by the bag itself. Because she is running, the majority of the gas stays behind her, though it does cushion her in the front for two feet before it starts to fade.

Magneto, whose head has turned to track the progress of the shouting match between the two young women, turns back to squint at Magnes, now unblindfolded, in time to skip the offending bit of metal neatly back into the flat of his palm. Rather than address the fact that he very nearly just added another murder onto the end of his already impressive list, he knits his brows and curls his fist, considering. "Are you /pretending/ to require the assistance of crutches?" He is having an increasingly difficult time not looking back over his shoulder. He is missing drama!

In spite of her build looking like she could probably run pretty quick, her progress after Eliana is not exactly speedy. Her steps are slow and plodding, as if she were dragging a great weight chained to either leg. Jason is terribly helpful. She gives up on the chase and instead turns over her shoulder to look at Jason. "Do you really fucking gotta?" she asks, sounding more exhasperated than angry.

"Huh?" Magnes looks down at his legs. "Oh, I got stabbed." Keeping his tone low. "Technically I can walk like this easily, but after a while it gets tiring. I'm on crutches until the wound heals." He looks over at the drama every few moments himself, it is quite hard to ignore. "If you don't mind, Dr. Lensherr..." He pauses for a moment, before finally asking, "Why did you throw that piece of metal at me? It was moving very strangely, like no object I ever felt. I'm guessing that's your power, it feels so unnatural, like on a railroad track." At least if he keeps a conversation and isn't annoying, he might not get picked up by the collar again.

"Public place. Exercise restraint. But I'm hardly your master." Jason releases Sarah with a flick of his head, thoughts. And sneezes.

Sarah may have given up the chase, but Eliana has not given up running. Not at all. Though when she hears the voices behind her again, her sprint becomes more of a jog. Even the slight slowing pulls the unseen twelve foot sphere of gas back to her, intensified by her attempts to catch her breath. She normally wouldn't need to, but the weight of her bag coupled with the oddity of the situation (how often do people get mugged/beat up by women with horns?) has caused her no small amount of shock.

"You were blindfolded like a complete fool," Erik informs Magnes without looking at him, tone distracted and eyes narrowed elsewhere, after Marrow. "I was curious." An answer thusly supplied to his own satisfaction, he finally turns to pace for Sarah and the cloud of invisible gas, still ignorant of Jason's presence, apparently.

"Damn right you aren't my master," Sarah tells Jason. Her fire has drained, however and her voice does not rhasp quite so hard. She sounds almost, almost normal. She takes a drag from her cigarette and seems to be calming down rather nicely. Perhaps more quickly than her companion is used to seeing.

Jason is meeelllow. He's also paying very little attention to his surroundings. His back is half to Sarah, his head all that's inclined toward her. He hums out his breath and turns even his head away. Hello other end of the park. "Working on our tempers, aren't we."

"Dr. Lensherr, are you gonna help that woman?" Magnes wonders curiously, wanting to see exactly what he will do. He's quite pleased that he hasn't been noticed, and a track record has shown that Sarah noticing him is much more dangerous than Magneto noticing. "Oh, and be careful of that illusion guy, even if you have those metal powers, I'm betting he can still screw your head up." He warns, knowing (Or at least thinking) that keeping Magneto alive will likely save his ass. "And that woman is the one who stabbed me, with the bones."

Now that she is closer to the older man and the one on crutches, Eliana can hear their conversation. And it doesn't help to put her at ease at all. Taking in a ragged breath that catches in her chest, the young woman's heart is urged on in it's race, and the gas shows no signs of letting up. But despite Magneto and Magnes' strange exchange, they aren't nearly as frightening as the horned woman, and so Eliana presses on, intent on passing the two men.

Shoulders back and nostrils flared, Erik advances upon Sarah's rear at his usual military pace, ignoring Magnus question in favor of sizing up the familiar ex-rockstar/ex-terrorist's bony profile. That is, at least, until mention of the 'illusion' guy is made, and he half turns back to squint vaguely in Magnes' direction. "Who?" His jaw slacks a bit, and he looks a little suspiciously back to Eliana, and then to Sarah, who is closer. "Jason?" Then he chuckles. This is going to go /so/ well.

Sarah is occupied for a minute looking at the back of Jason's head. She takes a couple of long strides closer before she prods at the back of his head with a fingertip. She actually laughs just a tad, "Yeah, my temper. Not everything is serious. Sometimes I just like yelling." By chance, perhaps, she turns her head at hearing conversation and an approach from behind her. Her green eyes end up going fairly wide at taking in the silver-crowned figure that had been approaching her. "Hey," she says, grabbing at Jason's shoulder to try to get him to turn as well.

He grabs one of his crutches from the ground, putting it under his left arm and beginning to follow Erik. "Yeah that guy, I haven't actually seen him, but with my power and all..." Magnes points in Jason's direction with his free arm. "Over there." Finally spotting Jason, now coupled with Sarah.

"Mmm?" Jason got but a whiff of Eliana's gas, but he has mental defenses comparable to the immune system of an AIDS patient, and the transition mellow is skittering away into a (mild) excitement. He sniggers out the last m. Fffgg. "What?" Amenably, Jason turns-- and doesn't quite complete it.

In her haste to remove herself from the situation, Eliana doesn't see the loose brick in the path. The toe of her semi-dressy sneaker catches on the lip of the brick, and with a surprised shout, Eliana trips and falls to the ground with a loud "umpff!" She skids a bit, and thanks to her grip on the bag, the young woman retains it. The can of mace, on the other hand, is lost to the night. The production of gas actually stops for a split second as Eliana's heart skips a beat, but it's soon back in full force. Now that she has stopped completely, the sphere has a chance to settle instead of trailing behind her.

"/Hello/." Low and rumbling, this is precisely the sort of 'hello' that nobody wants to hear, least of all from Erik Lensherr. The fact that it is directed down at Sarah's bony chest does not at all help the gravity of the situation. Magnes is pushed to the back of his mind, and for an instant, so is the imminent threat of Mastermind lingering far too close for comfort. The 'umpfff' however prompts a half turn back to Eliana, and Erik furrows his brow. "Friend of yours?"

Between Erik Lensherr purring at her, one hand still holding onto Mastermind (and her fingers stroking a tad at his shoulder), and her eyes falling on the fallen form of Eliana, Sarah is too occupied to notice Magnes yet. There is not yet an attempt at a return engagement on her stabbing act she showed him. Instead, she smiles a completely uncharacteristic smile at Magneto. "Been a while, huh?" she asks, her voice calmed almost into something that sounds feminine.

Jason is not so affected as to throw a dweebish smile in Magneto's direction, but his expression lacks fear and even surprise is quickly lost. "Hello," he echoes, sliding a companionable arm around Sarah's waist. Sexless, but stilll -- atypical. Touch!

Magnes looks to Eliana, but keeps himself relatively behind Magneto. "I don't know her myself." He wants to help, but has no idea what might happen in this situation. He finally decides to ask, "Are they like, your henchmen or something? I'm seriously not lying about this illusion thing..." His voice low, trying to keep it in a whisper for Erik. "They seem incredibly happy, I've never seen them this happy, they must really like you."

"Uggh," Eliana groans before she hisses with a wince. That /hurt./ And while everyone else is getting friendly, she's got no 'drug' to dull the pain. Pushing herself up, Eliana outright ignores Magnes and the goings-on behind her while she sinks back into a sit, her back between her outstretched legs. She lifts a dirty and perhaps bloodied hand to touch at her face, wincing once more when her fingers find scrapes on her cheek and jaw. There go 'pretty-tips' for awhile. But even in a state such as this, the gas persists.

"Everyone likes me," says Erik, entirely too earnest in his reach back to settle a hand upon the small of Magnes' back. Non-threatening, but not in a good way. In the worst of ways, really. "My henchmen these days all wear fancy suits and have manicures. You're looking well." The last is departed to Jason and Sarah, who also get a smile that is very nearly polite.

Sarah leans into Jason perhaps a little more than she should be. One of her hands snakes up to begin lightly, ever so lightly, tapping at the freckles along one of his cheeks. "They don't feel different than the rest," she notes as if this were the discovery of the century, or at least of the evening. She smiles over at Magneto, from her spot leaned into Jason. "I don't have a manicure. Do you think I should have one?" she asks, earnest as can be. She peers with grave concern at her dirty nails. She got a rather good whiff of Eliana's personal little fog.

Magnes is startled for a moment, but quickly calms down. Something is -very- weird. "Dr. Lensherr, something is very -very- wrong." Noting their behavior, he turns a head to Erik. "Are they..." Raising an eyebrow. "High?"

As the "whiff" of Eliana's power becomes rather more concentrated, Jason's cheerfulness acquires a hyper-charged unsteadiness. A jitter under the excitement. Warning jitter. "I'm weaned off manicures, sir--" With the hand opposite the hand of Support, Jason flicks at Sarah's tapping. "They're just off-color marks, dear." The night, fine fall night as it is, warms, then cools, then warms again. Sky is slightly lighter in the west, but lighter like a -- strobe light. Subdued strobe light!

The sudden change in temperature catches Eliana off guard, and when she looks up to see the sky to the west...flickering? Well, it's more than a little off-putting. The sky is /not/ supposed to do that. She turns to look over her shoulder at Magnes, apparently unaffected by the gas. "Don't you know laughter is mankind's greatest weapon?" she asks, borrowing words from one Samuel Clemens before she tries to get to her feet. Her knees and hands are scraped as well as her face, and a wounded woman is easier prey on the streets of the Big Apple. The walk home is sure not to be a fun one.

For Erik, meanwhile, the effects seem to be waning. He blinks at Sarah's question; slow processes working to thread out the reason it makes him uneasy, though he has the presence of mind to nod politely. "They're dirty," he explains, more to himself than to Sarah, only to look aside at Magnes, who he realizes that he is touching. His brow knits, and his hand falls immediately away so that he can look accusingly at Jason. The hell. "I think you're right."

Sarah, having gotten closest to Eliana's mutation, is still a it adrift from her moorings. She looks weirdly at Erik, while remaining leaned into Jason. She is, at least, no longer exploring Mastermind's face. "You never see me anymore. You should. I'm not mad at you anymore," she announces. She is a diplomat. A very pointy one. She is at least highly accustomed to Jason's tweaking with the environment these days. She glances at the odd light in the sky, but it doesn't so much alarm her as steal her attention. She stares.

"Right about what?" The sky flashes a bright fallout green (fallout is green today) and Jason's brain, unhappy with even waning amounts of outside influence and lacking any resistance to anything, declares itself over-stimulated. As Jason stares dilated at Magneto, blankly genial, his brain flips into its one sure defensive mode. Mastermind passes out.

Magnes closes his eyes, trying to ignore the visual illusions. Turning his head to Eliana he says in a serious tone. "Ma'am, I don't think you know how potentially screwed we are if something goes wrong." He doesn't elaborate on -what- could go wrong, but he nods at the light in the sky, without opening his eyes to do so. "It's getting cold." Another whisper to Erik. "It doesn't matter if she's high, but if he is, and isn't in control, we could be in for something very painful. I can lead us out of here even if the visual illusions get too bad, but if it gets to the physical ones..." He just shakes his head, attempting to discuss strategy. Sarah and Jason have yet to speak to him, and he doesn't intend to call attention to himself by acknowledging them. When Jason passes out, Magnes feels it, opening his eyes and just sighing. "Yeah, nevermind..." Insert anime sweatdrop here.

Did the sky just.. yes. Yes it did. Magnes's words are completely forgotten as Eliana's eyes snap wide in response to Jason's final illusion. But, of course, she doesn't have any clue who Jason - the Mastermind - is, and she wasn't paying enough attention as she ran by to compare the faces of those she ran past with those of any list of celebrities in her head. As her heart jumps and then races again, the fading gas receives a new 'dose' of Eliana's secretions. The others are again forgotten for a moment as Eliana, not unlike a dumbfounded sheep, stands staring at the sky, trying to make sense of what she just saw.

Eyes narrowed at Sarah as the fog begins to lift, Erik can do little more than look starkly surprised when Jason simply...collapses. The fresh dose of adrenaline this change in events provides is, on the bright (dark?) side enough to clear the haze lingering about his thoughts, and with Mastermind eliminated as a suspect -- well. A quiet, "Shut up," cast distractedly aside at Magnes, Erik turns swiftly to bear down upon Eliana, only to get whalloped by round two before he's anywhere close to being within arm's reach.

Sarah was not entirely prepared to have Jason collapse against her. She struggles momentarily to keep his limp form from spilling to the floor, all awkward limbs and spikes poking this way and that. She manages to gingerly lay him upon his back on the cement path that had been on before all this began. Her own fog is parting a bit and she looks up as well, watching where Erik goes. And there is Magnes. Her eyes narrow and she stares right at his leg. "Shouldn't you run away?" she asks, her snarl not what it should be.

Magnes lets Magneto go to Eliana, but he starts walking toward Sarah. Jason is passed out now, but there was never a time where he saw Sarah by herself as a threat, especially right now. Cocky bastard! "No, I need to make sure you're alright. Why would you come into a park while high?" He shakes his head, an exasperated sigh. Strange way to talk to someone who stabbed you. "Magneto said you're not his henchmen, so I wanna get you and..." Eye twitching at Jason's body, must be friendly to get out of this. "Him, out of here. Can you lift anything?"

Wait, Magneto? /What?/ Eliana snaps her head around to look at Magnes over her shoulder once more, only to be met with the Master of Magnetism himself coming toward her. Eliana shrieks, or thinks she does, and so covers her gaping mouth with both hands - but no sound escapes her. The gas once again pours from her, unseen and entirely against her will.

Jaw clenched and expression increasingly baffled, Erik staggers a bit in his step, the silken lining of his overcoat flickering blood red in the dark before he manages to straighten out a bit. Some distance away, the hollow railing around the reservoir gives a hoarse, rattling groan, and brows lifted, the master of magnetism laughs.

When Magnes approaches, Sarah takes two steps backwards and nearly trips over Jason's fallen form in the process. She is out of the range of Eliana's little sphere of love. Her fury is free to grow unabated, flames stoked into a fine roar. And then, strangely, she starts scrambling to take her sweatshirt off. She yanks at it almost desperately before flinging it onto the ground. The jagged spikes of bone at her elbows (one inches longer than the other) and rising up dramatically along her spine are open to the air. "Who... the /fuck/ do you think you're talking to?" she hisses. A hand goes behind her back and there is a loud snap as she breaks one of her own bones off. It is long and sharp in her hand.

"You're not affected anymore, but that's not normal at all." Magnes' mind calculating, running over the events in his head, then he looks back, hearing Magneto laugh and the feeling the groan of the rail without looking at it. "Now -he's- high, but I'm not. The girl isn't. Something is wrong, damnit what is it..." Holding his head with his free hand, he looks over at Sarah. "Sorry, I didn't mean anything insulting by that, something is happening. -Please- calm down, I have to figure this out or we all might be dead." Not one to take Magneto suddenly laughing and bending a rail lightly. "Or maybe he isn't affected and just finds something very funny, I have to test this..." A swallow, he's about to do something that may get a rail sent through his head, but he has to find out. "Dr. Lensherr! Think about the truffle shuffle!" Even if he doesn't get the joke, he knows that if someone is high they might just laugh at that series of words.

Groaning metal and bones breaking are scary sounds, but they aren't /nearly/ as scary as Magneto's laugh. Eliana cringes and gasps anew, reaching down to clutch at her back. Her mouth flaps for a few moments before she finally adds volume to her voice. "I'm sorry," she squeaks. Magento. Magento and cronies and /look what she did to them./ "I'm sorry. So sorry." Afraid of even running from the notorious mutant, Eliana starts to back away slowly, muttering her redundant apologies all the while.

The rail is not doing anything particularly threatening beyond the short series of creaking moans and groans that eminate from its direction. Perhaps of more immediate concern, a nearby lamp yellows and flickers dark before the bulb shatters and the post shrieks and doubles neatly over into halves. Delighted by all of this, and by Eliana's apologizing, and by...whatever it is that Magnes is yammering about, Erik chuckles and attempts to catch his breath. Calm, very calm.

Marrow is not such a calm woman. "Don't you ever /stop/ fucking /talking/?" she hisses at Magnes. She moves quickly. He may not have been introduced to that during her previous round of stabbing him, thanks to Jason's interference, but she is. Above the speed a normal woman of her size and build should be able to manage. That bone is awfully jagged and sharp as well. She lunges at him and swings it at his belly like a woman who means to cut something, an inarticulate scream of fury a sure sign that she has burned off her hit of Eliana's gas.

"Don't you get it, Magneto is fucking -high- in a goddamned city park with metal everywhere!" He does indeed notice her speed, even with everything slowed down it's hard to react. He holds his crutch up as quickly as he can, but the force of her strength is enough to knock a guy on one leg over quite easily. He puts one hand on the ground, but with one leg it's very hard to balance and he ends up falling on his back anyway. "We can't do this right now! Look at the street lamp!" Trying to pick himself up, keeping the crutch between him and her.

So much is going on that Magneto is likely to /stay/ high. The street lamp's submission and Sarah's charge, not to mention Magnes's shouting aren't helping at all to calm Eliana down. Her heart continues to beat like timpani in her chest, filling the air around her with the gas. "I'm sorry," she continues, her voice shaking. "I... I didn't mean to!" It was all that crazy bone-lady's fault. Honest!

Chilly eyes gone nearly black, Erik draws in one deep breath as he watches Eliana, then another, metal still flexing noisily beneath the oppressive span of his mutation when he turns away from her. He moves first for the lamp post, smiling to himself, and then for Sarah and Magnes, only to drop to one knee before he...quite makes it there.

Sarah exhales loudly and looks away from Magnes and toward Magneto as he ends up on one knee. "Don't you pass out too," she snaps at him. She shoves past Magnes and his crutch to start over in that direction. Still armed with a hunk of her own anatomy, she reaches a hand down to help the Master of Magnetism to his feet. "This is fuckin' weird," she decides. For once, she agrees with Magnes.

Magnes slowly stands, sighing in relief. "Me and that girl are the only people who haven't gone super trippy. Now, people don't just get high and then come down from it in a matter of minutes like you did, unless it's something to do with your abilities." Eyes locking on Eliana. "He got weird when he started walking over to her. Think she's doing some weird psychic thing?" Hopefully if he helps, she won't maul him!

Magneto gets to his feet again without protest. The flat of his chest rises and falls more quickly than it should, directly contradicting the sluggish sort of euphoria that urges him into a companionable lean into the bone-wielding Marrow. That his left hand finds support specifically on her rear is a little too convenient to be coincidental. "Hello."

Unsurprisingly, Sarah has a bony butt. She guides Magneto away from the cowering woman and back toward where Jason has been abandonned. "Get your hand off my ass ad let's get the hell out of here. We're both acting like fucking idiots for some reason. C'mon, walk." She gives him a not ungentle shove toward the path and leans down to actually physically pick Jason up. Of all the weird things, she pockets her bone-dagger in the process and tries to sling Mastermind unsteadily onto her shoulders. "Let's go back to my place and... yeah. Let's just go." She looks suspiciously at Eliana again, her eyes narrowing. "Gonna remember your face, pretty thing," she hisses loudly at her.

Magnes, despite his urges, decides to fight his lemming instincts, he doesn't follow, he simply says. "Be safe." And looks over at Eliana. "Yeah uh, I'd normally go and comfort you and like walk you home, but do you mind if I do that like thirty feet away?" An awkward smile is given, leaning over the crutch in his arm. "Well I'll be damned, I only need one crutch." He randomly notices.

Despite how honorable Magnes's intentions may be, Eliana really doesn't want anything else to do with these people. And she /really/ doesn't want them to know where she lives. Shaking her head, the young woman pulls the hood of her knitted jacket up over her head before she turns and starts off. She walks for a few steps, but then quickly slips into a run. She'll splurge on a taxi.

Unprepared for the shove (and well on his way to nuzzling into her neck), Erik very nearly goes down again. How fortunate for everyone involved that his current state of mind is such that he merely chuckles to himself when he catches his step, arms out and hands lifted to aid unnecessarily with balance as he plods distantly along. Just another evening in Central Park.

In which Eliana, Sarah, Jason, Magneto, and Magnes all cross paths in Central Park. Eliana gets frightened, which means everyone else gets...well, not frightened.

Application!

2007-10-09T06:12:39Z

Character’s Full Name: Eliana Suri Pasternack
Codename: None
Aliases/Nicknames: Euphoria
Species: Homo Sapiens Superior
Gender: Female
Age: 23(Birthday: March 22)
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Origin: Miami, Florida (parents emigrated from Israel, are of Ashkenazi descent)
Powers: Eliana has the ability to expel an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas that makes people who inhale it feel elated, exhilarated, and ecstatic. To put it simply, she makes people feel good. The gas travels through Eliana’s bloodstream and has the potential of stretching out in a twelve foot radius at full concentration, with a concentric sphere extending half that distance again wherein which the gas fades to nothing. Of course, when Eliana is moving or there is a breeze, the reach of the gas alters accordingly. The gas is emitted when her blood pumps at a faster rate than normal (her resting heart rate), the gas in the blood vessels closest to her skin is pushed out through her pores, much like carbon dioxide. When in the gas, one becomes subject to symptoms/effects similar to what one would feel if one had taken Ecstasy. These effects may include: increased positive emotion/decreased negative emotion, increased sense of well being, increased sociability and feelings of closeness or connection with other people, reduced defensiveness and fear of emotional injury, a sense of increased insightfulness/introspection, pupil dilation, involuntary rhythmic eye movement, general restlessness, loss of appetite, increased heart rate and blood pressure, decrease in fatigue, and dehydration. (Effects taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) Standing closer to Eliana while the gas is active constitutes a stronger “dose” even if not much is being released, whereas standing on the edge of the gas’s range is a smaller dose, which would take longer to affect said person. It is possible for the gas to become addictive and given enough “doses” will have the same long-term effects as excessive Ecstasy use. How the gas affects a character (within reason and the effects listed above) is up to that player. Feel free to ask questions!

History: Eliana’s parents, Avram and Ilana, were both born and raised in Israel. Their respective parents moved to Israel from Poland in 1967, settling in Gush Katif on the Gaza Strip. Avram and Ilana grew up only a few houses apart from each other. Both attended Tel Aviv University and studied biomedical engineering. The pair married and came to the United States to pursue graduate degrees at University of Miami. In 1984, while Avram and Ilana were teaching and working on their masters, Eliana was born. Ilana did not go on to pursue her PhD like Avram did, but instead remained an associate professor so that she could spend more time with Eliana. While Ilana taught, Avram obtained his doctorate and went on to be a prominent member of the biotech community.

While never exorbitantly rich, the Pasternack family never went without. They lived within their means, and Eliana knew little discomfort growing up. She attended private schools, and though she was not at the top of her class, Eliana did well. In high school, Eliana fell in with the “partying crowd,” but never did anything heavy. Her mutation manifested during puberty, and though there were a few minor, inexplicable episodes while she was in middle school, her first real “show” of her abilities came while at a party. The only “illegal” substance present was alcohol. Eliana exerted herself through dancing and general horseplay, and as her blood vessels widened as a result, the gas in her bloodstream came out in quantities that Eliana had never released before. Unaffected by the gas, the sophomore was puzzled as to why her friends were acting so strangely. The party, held at one of Eliana’s classmate’s houses while his parents were out of town, was raided by the police. Eliana’s blood continued to pump quickly as she paniced, but those around her only continued behaving in that same, if not moreso, strange manner. They were all taken into the station so that their irate or eye-rolling parents could come to take them home. Eliana fought with her parents, like many of her friends did, insisting that she had not taken any drugs. They, like many of the others, had Eliana tested the next day. When the tests results came back negative for Eliana and some of the others not affected by the gas, they were met with apologetic parents. Those who had positive test results weren’t so lucky, but none suffered anything worse than a revoking of privileges and grounding. But Eliana’s relief in her parents’ admission wasn’t enough to make her feel totally at ease. Something had happened at that party. The others who had been tested and proven right in their claims weren’t anywhere near Eliana, while those who were all tested negative. But Eliana knew that no one had anything other than alcohol. The idea that it could have been something that she had done took awhile to form, but after it entered her mind, Eliana proceeded to experiment over the next few months on her dog, a Labrador retriever named Hillel. She was able to determine how she produced the gas, and that she was immune to it. Hillel suffered little, as Eliana was as careful as she could be. Already elderly, the dog’s senility only appeared to be more severe before he finally died of old age.

Eliana was accepted to New York University, where she, much to the chagrin of her scientifically minded parents, earned a Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing with a minor in Journalism (picked up to assure her parents she would not starve). In her college years, Eliana would sneak into clubs using a combination of her decent looks and a fake ID courtesy of a computer science major. There, Eliana would hone her abilities amongst ravers, studying them to determine their reactions. While in the various clubs, Eliana went by the name “Euphoria” in order to avoid any potential consequences for her subtle actions. After hitting a club, Eliana would go to a diner to record her findings in a composition notebook. Eliana filled three of these notebooks while in school. Through her experiments, observations, careful documentation, and research, Eliana determined just what it was she did to people and came up with a general, but nowhere near exact, idea of how she did it.

Even though she was unable to get a job or the attention of any publishers with her work after graduating, Eliana stayed in New York City. She works as a waitress at Tavern on the Green in order to support herself and her cat, a stray she rescued and named Maimonides.

Personality: Eliana is a bookworm, but it applies to nonfiction as well as fiction. If she doesn’t know something, she wastes no time in finding out more. She is impatient when it comes to conversation, and while she likes idle chit-chat fine, any long pauses in a conversation easily grate on Eliana’s nerves. She keeps her status as a mutant guarded, and still has not told her parents, nor her co-workers. Because of the way in which she secretes the gas, Eliana is careful to keep her life generally stress free so she can keep it under control. Having been acclimated to the club culture in college, Eliana still enjoys that scene, but is usually one hanging out with a small group of friends or coworkers at a table or alone at the bar. Eliana is a stickler for good grammar, both in writing and speech, and is known to correct people without thinking – no matter her relationship with them. She avoids cabs for this reason, preferring her bicycle as a means of transportation.

Miscellaneous: Always looking for fodder for a new story or other literary work, Eliana carries a Moleskine notebook with her wherever she goes, usually tucked in the back pocket of her jeans. Eliana speaks fluent Hebrew in addition to English. She does not, however, keep her parents up to speed on her life, and dreads their weekly phone calls. Eliana practices Reconstructionist Judaism, and is concerned more with the culture than the belief system.