Teenage Revelations
Date: 09/03/2009
Participants: Aleksei, Diana, Jacob, Leigh
Summary: After Diana's revelation, the other teens at Leigh's 'sleepover' decide to reveal their own powers.
Aleksei stands on Leigh's doorstep, a little nervous as he contemplates what could have happened in the interim time since last night and all it's attendent revelations. He knows Jacob is supposed to stop by as well, so he rings the doorbell and then adjusts his glasses, the wiry boy suppossing he looks harmless enough her parents won't simply turn him away at the door.
Shortly after Aleksei rings the doorbell, Jacob shows up, a taxi stopping to let him out. He takes just a moment to pay the driver, and then turns to run over to the door and Alek, "Hey."
Leigh does like Diana — Leigh's a sweet and good-natured girl and likes most people. But that whole 'stayed up all night sitting in one position and staring at me' thing has left her a little edgy this morning. Still the teenager is up and about and trying to pretend it didn't happen — next time she'll point Diana at the computer and let her watch old episodes of Alf all night. She's still in her pajamas when Aleksei arrives, and comes to the door in bare feet and silky, shimmery white fabric — very loose pants and shirt. "Morning, Alek," she says, covering her mouth when she yawns and then offering a sleepy, though genuine, smile. "C'min. There's coffee. Mom 'n dad are at work."
Diana is sitting at the table, drawing. She's not good. In fact, she draws like a child, with crayons and giant strokes of thick heavy color. There's a few broken ones now, her hand not gentle. She looks up as Aleksei is admitted and waves. "Hey again!" She grins and shows off, "I don't know what it is, but it's super colorful." Maaaaybe it's a rainbow?
Aleksei tries very hard not to stare at Leigh when she comes to the door in her jammies, and he gives a nervous smile to Jacob as they enter. "Thank you, that would be good," he says in response to the offer. "Hi, Diana!" he say as he enters the kitchen and makes for the coffee pot, pouring himself a mug. Black. He sips it gratefully, sniffing the rich aroma.
Jacob steps in after Aleksei, waving to Diana as well as he sees her. He grins at her drawing, "Cool." He looks up to Leigh, a lot more subtle with his glances than Alek, but still doing so. "So, what's up this morning?"
"And Jacob," Leigh says at the other boy's arrival, and she leads the way back into the kitchen. She's got coffee (heavily dosed with cream and sugar), as well as a large bowl of something multicolored and vaguely fruity-smelling. "Corey took off, too, so I guess we've got the house to ourselves," she says as she settles at the table across from Diana and spoons up a mouthful of brightly colored cereal. "Other 'n that," she says, her mouth full and a drop of milk dribbling down her chin (she reaches for a napkin quickly to wipe it off), "na' much goin' on so far." Except that Diana is really creepy at night. Sorry, Diana.
Diana stands up and says, "I wanna meet more special people!" She grins and claps her hands, "I haven't been able to tell anyone and now that I have I want to know more. I want to be special…like…like that guy in the paper. The one that saved people in the city. I'm strong, look!" She gets up and walks over to Aleksei as he finishes pouring his coffee and holds him above her head. "We should do stuff like this!"
Aleksei yips and barely manages to set the hot coffee down before his frame is hoisted off the ground and held by Diana. "Diana!" he says, "Please! Wow, you are strong. I do not weigh that much but still… um, can I get down now? Like what people in the paper?"
"Put him down, Diana," Leigh reiterates. A little more firmly. But she adds the word "Please" to the request to gentle it. Meanwhile, she's still finishing breakfast. "I think there's meat in the refrigerator. I know there's a drawer full of leftovers from last night that you can have for breakfast."
Diana ooohs and delights, setting Aleksei down. "There you go, all safe." She grins and heads into the fridge, pulling out the package of raw hamburger they bought the night before. She pops the plastic with a fingernail and inhales, before taking a handful and bringing it to her lips, sucking what blood she can from it…you know, like a sno cone! "Mmm. And that paper," she says, pointing to a newspaper with big heroes on the cover.
Aleksei reaquirres his coffee and turns to look at the paper, both to see what she refers to and so he won't have to see what he knows is going to happen. "Oh, so.. I see," he says. "Well.. Leigh can do things with light, and you're very strong and obviously not much is going to really hurt you.." he says, glancing up at Jacob to see his reaction, then back to the paper.
"I helped rescue people when that train crashed a month ago," says Leigh. "I haven't heard about anything else in time to go help. That's the real problem, Diana — we need to know stuff's happening in order to get there and help stop it from happening." The eating of raw hamburger doesn't bother her so much… though the sucking of blood from it might make her a tad nauseous.
Diana looks at Leigh and says, "Oh…well…maybe we could find something that would let us know what was gonna happen. Or like, we could watch the news all day, and when we see a special report we could race to the scene!" She smirks, as she chews, meat squishing in gorey mess between her teeth. She looks to Aleksei. "We never saw what you do."
Aleksei blushes a bit, looks to the others, then to make sure the curtains are drawn. "OK," he says. "I've been doing what I can, patrolling around.." He fishes out the small amber necklace he always seems to wear and grasps the stone. There is a second's hesitation, then a brilliant light flares over his body and three arcs of light whirl around him in imitation of the classic 'atom' symbol. When the flare dampens, Alek is /gone/. Standing in his place is a costumed young man, obviously older, taller, and more muscular than Alek. He smiles slightly, and in a deeper voice. "That's what I do. I call myself Proton, when I'm like this." Even most of his accent is gone.
Leigh raises her eyebrows as Alek becomes Proton. She's impressed, even if she doesn't say so in so many words. "Very nice," she says. "So what do you -do- as Proton?" Her brows arch a little higher at the question, and she shovels one more spoonful of cereal into her mouth before she rises and puts the bowl in the dishwasher. "I go by Daybreak, anyway. When I'm, you know, in costume."
Jacob's eyes widen as he sees Alek change, but he grins then, "Wow, that's amazing." He looks to Leigh then and back. "Wish I could do something like that. Everybody already knows what I can do, so a costume won't hide who I am I don't think."
"That's you! That's you in the paper!" Diana bounds over and picks it up and looks at it, and her face is disappointed, "Oh it's not. But it kinda looks like you! That's amazing. I…I go by Diana. I'm not even sure it's my name, but I liked it. I think I should have a special name too…like…like…" she stands there, a vapid empty look of thought on her face. She's a standing dead, rather than the walking lumbering happy kind.
Proton quirks a slight smile, but doesn't blush. "I'm really strong and so far, pretty much invulnerable. I can fly and I'm space-worthy, and I have some pretty keen super-senses." The caped man smiles at Leigh. "Daybreak; that's a pretty cool name." His body blzes with light again, and he's left as plain old Alek, who pushes up his glasses and picks up his coffee again.
"I like it," Leigh says. She's far too pleased with her own cleverness for coming up with that codename. "So why 'Proton', then? I mean, they're, like, little tiny things, right? In atoms?" Leave it to her to sum it up that way. And then she turns her eyes toward Diana thoughtfully. "Hm. Most of the names that seem… right-ish for you are sorta… evil-sounding names."
Jacob looks to Diana again a moment as well, and says, "What about Revenant? It means one who returns after death, but isn't as evil sounding. More like The Crow, though I guess you probably don't know that movie…"
Diana blinks and looks at Jacob…"Reven…Rev…Revananent? I think it's hard to say, and I'm not a bird. Oh, movie…no. I don't really know many movies. I know a lot of those cartoon ones downstairs." She shrugs, and says to Leigh, "I'm not evil. I mean, I don't think I am. I really haven't ever eaten a living /person/." Did she just emphasize a word, the wrong word? But looking back to Aleksei, "Hey you're you, and not…you."
Proton smiles. "I.. think I am me, still. In a way. Like, if I eat all my veggies and exercise like a demon for like five years I turn out like that. Maybe." He looks back to Leigh. "I used 'Proton' because the Proton rocket is the workhorse of Russian space program. I'm way faster, though."
Yes, that was possibly the wrong word to emphasize — though it's entirely likely that if she'd emphasized 'living' instead that would have been worse. Leigh regards Diana thoughtfully for a moment, keeping any hint of fear off her face, and says, "I don't think you're evil, but we may have to work on your dietary habits. Especially now that we're going to be hanging out more often." She nods to Alek in understanding, though she hasn't a clue about the Proton rocket or the Russian space program. What little she knows of Russia is mostly gleaned from cold-war spy movies, so she smiles and nods, smiles and nods. Leigh'd make a great spokesperson because she looks good on camera and doesn't know enough about the topics to deviate from the message one intends to give. "I think we need something a little simpler, Jacob. Maybe something from another movie." Her lips twist into a slightly devious grin. "What about 'Dawn'?"
Jacob blinks, and then shrugs a little, "Sounds ok, yeah. Gives you guys a connection too, dawn and daybreak." He looks to Alek then and grins, "Really, you're faster than a rocket? Cool. How fast can you go?"
Diana hmms and seems unsure, "Dawn? I don't get it." She looks at Jacob and says, "That's a cool link, but…I don't get it." She looks at Aleksie and says, "What if you did work out and eat all that? What would you look like after you transformed? You'd be an even bigger monster!" She grins but looks at Leigh, confused, making a meatball, before chewing on it. "What do you mean?"
"'Raven' sounds pretty cool," Alek says. "Simpler than 'Revenant' and kinda like that." He doesn't get the movie reference quite yet, but nods. "'Dawn' could work." He sips his coffee and looks back to Jacob. "I am not quite sure, but if I really push I can be in New York in a half-hour or so."
"It's… sort of a joke, Diana," explains Leigh. "Sort of." At least she intended it that way. "See, there are these movies about people who're dead but still walk around. One of the really big ones was 'Dawn of the Dead.'" Pause. "Two of the really big ones, I guess."
