Shineforce: Drone Strike (Force+Shine)

[Deleted]

“I've got a fairly love/hate relationship with the concept of irony. On the one hand, ironic humor is some of the best humor you'll ever have the pleasure of experiencing. On the other hand, irony is probably the cruelest force ever named by mankind. Sometimes, though it's neither cruel nor humorous...irony can be pretty damn fine.”

-

Jewel Junction, North Carolina. Wasn't exactly a place Dante Williams ever expected to be visiting. Of course, until a few weeks ago, the young man hadn't even heard of the city. It was only through Simon that he had any clue about it, and the blonde haired youth hadn't shared much either. Yet here he was, celebrating a few precious days of his reading week...trekking through the park of another school's campus.

“Listen, Dante.” Dante was dragged from his thoughts by Simon's energetic voice. Lately he was lucky enough that the blonde's girlfriend, Vivian, was capable of absorbing most of the blonde's energy these days. Unfortunately she decided to spend reading week with her parents, which meant Dante had to handle the full brunt of Simon's...Simoness. “As SOON as we finish visiting my cousin, we'll hit up the hot spots. The bars, the clubs, and especially the campus bar. If my cousin's right, then the JJU girls man...”

“Really, it's all right. I'm not in any rush...” Dante replied with a weak smile. “I'm just trying to remember why I agreed to this trip?” Ultimately Dante assumed it was pity. Vivian wasn't keen on Simon meeting her parents JUST yet. Something about a promise she made to them, no boyfriends until she graduated or something ludicrous like that, but either way he didn't want to leave his friend alone for the full week.

“No man. I swore to you that I'd be the best wingman you've ever had. That's not just a promise, it's my duty as your best friend.”

“Best friend? Quite the upgrade you gave yourself there. When did this happen, exactly?” Dante asked with a small smirk.

“Maaaan, why do you have to go and say things like that.” Simon protested, prompting a small chuckle from the redhead. He turned his attention to his surroundings whilst Simon resumed some sort of brocode rant. For a supposed mining town, it wasn't as smoggy as he thought. Dante's old home town was a heavy factory city as well, plenty of men and women working in various steel mills. They were eventually bought out and shut down, though, leaving a lot of people out of work. That said the air quality certainly went up...

“Dante, dude. You're doing that thing again.”

“Hm? Oh, what, where I tune you out? Yeah, sorry. Force of habit.” Dante replied dismissively. Before Simon could protest again Dante gave him a smile, stopping right near a rather large fountain in the center of the park's path. The college buildings were in sight, but still a few minutes off. “Really, I appreciate your...determination? But I'm not exactly looking right now.”

“Exactly! That's the PERFECT time to get lucky man.” Simon throw his arms up wide, a grin plastered across his face. The wild expression caused Dante to quirk his brow, but he figured he'd give Simon a chance to explain his point.

Actually, no, he wouldn't.

“What about you and Vivian? You'd been “looking” that entire time, and not just at her mind you.”

“Shhh man. I'm special, we've been over this.”

“Sure, that's one word for it.”

“Trust me, my young liege.” Dante sighed as Simon placed a hand on his shoulder. Once again the blonde succeeded in utilizing a word incorrectly. “It's always when you're not looking when opportunity hits you!”

[Shine]

City breezes were common enough, but right then it was feeling pretty good to Ashling. She was running. Running uphill, towards the campus along the numerous trails that populated Jewel Junction. She hit a shaded area as she neared the park, and sighed in relief to herself. She'd been hitting the track harder recently. There were some big runs this year, and she didn't want to underperform in them. Truth be told though, since she'd stumbled across a strange silver mirror with otherworldly etchings in it, things had changed for her. Especially since she'd taken on the task of helping the needy and protecting the helpless, she'd found that running was easier, and her athletic pursuits grew easier. As though she were more now than she'd been in the past. In her heart, she knew that wasn't the case. She'd tried to help and protect young runners before, and still did when time allowed. Now though, she just happened to be able to do a little more, and with all the superpowered villains that seemed to be moving in to cal JJ their own, the city could use someone to shine the light on them, and put an end to those dark misdeeds.

Wow... Listen to me get all epic there. Give me a few more weeks, and I'll be quoting from Shakespeare. Ashling kept running along, lost in thought about the last few weeks. She'd made her debut as Shine, shortly after having saved her younger brother, Nate from an angry and foolish street punk who'd thought to get back at his old manager at his old job. She'd worked a few places, and heard people talking about being afraid of someone coming back and shooting the place up when they left unhappy. She'd never scoff at that talk again. Nate was ok, and she'd survived without too much trouble. Just her family's worry that she'd get a big head and step into something foolish since she'd stopped that jackass from Snappy's Pizza. They probably though that she was going to mouth off to some street tough up here in Jewel Junction. If they knew that she now considered it her opportunity to confront all the whackball's that seemed to be moving into town, her mom would probably have a heart attack. The only thing she really missed was the chance to talk about a little of this mess she was into. Between Irish Gods, and furious firees, it was about all she could take.

She snapped a hand up to push a braid out of her eyes as she ran, and turned her head. Had she just seen something watching her? She turned her head back to look the behind her as she ran, but could see nothing spectacular. Just a lone crow on one of the sculptures along the park and the trail.... Really! Just how paranoid did she have to be these days? Sometimes she felt like she just needed to catch her balance again. Slow down for a bit, and she'd figure it all out. The problem was, she never slowed down.

With a shake of her head, she turned back to face front as she kept going and plowed directly into the back of something that she could not identify. Whatever she hit, didn't stop her though She let out a quiet "Uff" at the impact, and tried to stop, but completely failed to. In fact, it seemed like he more she flailed wildly to keep herself from falling, the more entangled she became in whoever she'd run into. With a yell, she tumbled forward, and tipped over the side of the fountain, landing with a definite splash. She came up a moment later, sputtering, hair laying in a curtain in front of her face, except for a small gap left where she'd tied her braid near the front. She looked around, fully alerted now that she'd already fallen in the drink, and pushed her dripping hair out of her face. She wasn't thrilled, but she was more concerned about whoever she'd hit. She'd been running at a good clip. Oh Gods! She hoped it wasn't an old person!

[Deleted]

“...So, yeah. About that whole irony spiel...”

-

It was times like these Dante had mixed feelings about how he handled his barrier on the everyday basis. On the one hand, had his barrier been up, he could have avoided the situation that was about to unfold completely. On the other hand: he would have exposed himself and drawn far too much attention.

Ultimately, like always, it was best that his barrier was “turned off”. But damn, Dante really wasn't a fan of surprise baths.

While Simon was dumping one of his many mantras onto Dante something collided into the two of them rather suddenly. Initially this colliding force nearly dragged both boys into the fountain with it, but Dante's “heroic instincts” had been coming along quite nicely, and he was able to shove Simon away at the cost of his own balance, the blonde boy sputtering with shock as he stumbled in the opposite direction of the fountain.

Of course this came with a sacrifice: Dante hit the fountain hip first before falling backwards into the water.

“...Ow...” He mumbled to himself, more out of some sarcastic self-pity than any sort of real pain. It then suddenly hit him that it was likely a fellow human being that fell into the water with him. Dante thrashed about a bit until he was about to regain his balance, his back and most of the rest of him totally drenched, and looked to his left to see what happened to this other person. “Uh, hey! Are...”

Dante paused, a bit flabbergasted at the sight. It looked to be a young woman, ginger hair like his but of a lighter shade. Green eyes and...uh...a nice er, figure? "That's putting it mildly...holy hell..." Dante shook himself, likely still a bit shaken up by the whole thing, and forced himself to look the girl in the eyes. In his defense, it didn't help that she was drenched.

 “Sorry about that, I should have been paying attention.” There was the Canadian in him. It was totally the girl's fault but, hot or not, his first instinct was to apologize.

He stood up, immediately regretting it as he felt the fountain water soak through his shoes slowly but steadily. Well...it was too late anyway, so he may as well just roll with it and get the rest of his body drenched. He extended a hand to the young woman and gave a small smile. “Are you all right?”

Of course, it wasn't until he noticed the recovered Simon shooting him a grin so large it was nerve-wracking that he felt the heat rise into his cheeks. He already knew where Simon was going to go with this...

“We weren't looking, and bam. What do you know? A hot girl. Of all the people to randomly prove right, universe, why did you have to pick Simon?”

[Shine]

Gone were the thoughts of before. Being chased by shadows, that she was growing more and more secure against couldn't stand against the assault of attention that this demanded. She was relieved that she hadn't bowled over some old man or lady tossing pennies in the fountain. Luck had even kept her from running over a small child in her haste and moment of inattention. No. The worst that she had to deal with was the bruise to her dignity from running into someone and dropping them both for a quick dip. Her face reddened as she thought of how much of a klutz she looked.... HE looked fine. He already looked recovered....

At least he's polite. He was kinda cute, and she might have stopped to enjoy the view if she wasn't so busy being flabbergasted herself. She tucked her knees up in front of her, when she saw him reaching a hand down to help her up, and sighed.

"I'm alright. Only my pride's hurt." She said quietly as she let him pull her to her feet. Unlike him, she'd done the full face first plunge, and had in for broke. She didn't have to worry about parts of her staying dry. She held onto his hand, gingerly stepping out of the fountain and letting the park water drain onto the sidewalk. Her face reddened just a bit at the feel of her clothes clinging to her as she straightened her shirt and pushed her hair back from her face once again.

"I'm sorry. That was absolutely my fault. It's just, I was looking back, and I was running, and... well...." Words were spilling out as her brain tried to keep up with what she'd gotten herself into now. It ended off with a small chuckle at how ridiculous this all was.

"Thankyou, for the hand up." She said quietly after the laugh. What had she been doing again? A warm-down run, right?

[Deleted]

Things only went from great bad to amazing! worse for Dante when he helped Ashling out. Not only was he naturally a little embarrassed by the...situation, but he had to try even harder to look away because of Simon. Of course his friend would only wind up teasing him even more for looking away so much, so really it was a lose/lose sort of game for Dante. At least nobody was hurt.

“Well, at least no one's hurt.” This time he said it aloud, giving the girl a smile as he stepped out of the fountain. “The whole situation is comical, though. How you managed to knock me into this fountain I'll never know.”

“It's because you're not as skilled as I am.” Simon said, his tone mockingly snobby yet teasing. “You should have seen how I dodged the whole thing. I tried to drag you with me, but...eh, can't save 'em all.”

Dante gave Simon a rather flat, blank look. There was no way he thought that he had actually juked the girl himself...was there?

“You're right, Simon.” Dante decided to answer. “I've got a long ways to go before reaching your level. If I was already there I'd be nice and dry too.” The redhead shrugged his shoudlers innocently. “But...since you're still warm and dry, you won't mind lending your sweater to the nice girl? For her to dry off and warm up with?”

Rather than shut down Simon's fun and teasing, Dante decided to elevate him up further...just so that he had a longer fall coming up. He felt it was a bit more impactful to take that approach.

Simon opened his mouth to complain or retort, but instead relented and took off his blue sweater, offering it to Dante reluctantly. Some wingman...

“Er, here you are. Probably best if you dry off and warm up a bit, since you were just doing a run, or you could get sick.” Dante suggested with a small smile, holding the sweater out to her. It dawned upon him that he ought to introduce himself. “Oh, er, I'm Dante, by the way. Dante Williams. This is my...” Dante hesitated for two reasons. One, because he was oddly nervous. He hoped the flush of his cheeks could be passed off as a result of the situation itself rather than the, er, view it had provided him.

Two, because screw Simon. He could practically feel the blonde squirming anxiously behind him, eager to be introduced but too dedicated to the wingman role to do it himself. It wasn't the most pleasant feeling... “...My friend, Simon. We're uh, not from around here so...”

Dante chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Sorry, I was about to ramble.”

[Shine]

The whole back and forth between these two seemed a little overdone. Maybe it was the blondy's joking around about how he was so "cool" that he could dodge all by himself. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. All she'd seen was redhead's back, followed shortly by pennies, nickles, and a splash.

"Thanks." She took the offered sweater without complaint, inspecting it surreptitiously as she handled it before dabbing the worst of her wet hair with it, and then pulling it on over her head. There. Now everyone could be a little more relaxed. She wouldn't be quite so cold, wet, and vulnerable, and they could feel like they'd made things a little better. That's it. From now on, I want to keep some changes of clothes in the mirror. I should have Keeper make a dresser.

"Dante, and Simon...." She nodded her head to each of their names, as though committing them to memory. "Nice to meet you. Sort of." There was a little grimace on her face as she spoke. Nothing against them, but, well, this wasn't ideal first impressions making material.

"My name's Ashlyn. Ashlyn Evans." She corrected the grimace with a cheerful enough smile. She was in good enough humors, considering events. Just ready to move past it.

"Visiting JJ, huh? Did you come for the Beltaine concert? I heard there's alot of people coming in from the area for it, since they don't normally come this far."

She laughed at Dante's apology. "Hahaha, Oh, that won't bother me. I'm used to rambles." She worked with kids as her part time, after all. Plenty of rambles to be had while handling them.

"Do you want to go and sit down and talk for awhile? At least until I can..." She tugged on the sweater, indicating it to the two young men. "Get this back to you. There's some nice benches across the road, and up a little ways. Even some outdoor cafes. That might be a little more comfortable than just standing here." She pointed up the road. The sky was sunny enough today, and that was a blessing. She always liked running this part of the trail in the sun, with its dappled light through the leaves.

[Deleted]

The other redhead accepted the sweater and introduced herself. Ashlyn Evans, and quickly caught on to what Dante had said. Didn't even seem too bothered by the rambling he almost began. Either way it was better he interrupt himself rather than have Simon wind up doing it. Dante was pretty certain he would.

She mentioned something about a concert? Dante couldn't recall ever hearing about the group, so he shook his head.

“Actually, we came for-”

“We DID come for the concert!” Simon interrupted with a big smile, proving Dante correct once again as he strode on up beside him “We uh, were just having a bit of trouble finding the venue's location.” There was a quick, meaningful glance from the blonde. Dante figured Simon was trying to “wingman” him at the moment, and didn't really see the harm in going along. After all they might wind up seeing this concert anyway. Sounded marginally more entertaining than hitting up the clubs.

“Yeah, we were having a bit of trouble finding the place, so we came to this park to sit down and figure it out.” It was the best Dante could come up with, but it sounded convincing and fairly honest. Depending on how it worked out they could always bring up Simon's cousin, but it was better to get Ashlyn engaged. Figure out if she was going to the concert as well.

“And sure, we wouldn't mind sitting down to chat. Honestly I'd like to ask if you know anything about the concert's location...” Dante considered. Cafes seemed a bit much...but the park benches were nice and close. The park was fairly calm and quiet as well, so it'd be easier for him to focus on her there...not that he was having any trouble with that at all, but still. “I think those benches will do nicely, if you don't mind.”

With that Dante began to make his way over to the benches, sitting down once the other two caught up to him.

[Shine]

Ashling's face turned from one and thn back to the other. Simon was just a little too excitable, unless he really liked irish folk music. It was a little bit of a niche popularity among cultures as near as she could tell. Hmm.... I wonder....

"Sure, I can help you find it." She took a seat in a bench opposite where Dante had seated himself, and whipped out her phone. It was sopping wet, and shut off... whoops. She'd have to do it from memory.

"Ok... Give me a minute...." She counted off the blocks in her head from where they were. It was a ways away from where they were, but she ran past an easy place to get off and head to the music hall almost every time she ran. "Ok. I can't remember the street exactly, but it's about ten minutes past the school from here, and then up that one street until you get to Jewel Miner's Music Hall. I'll have to get the names of the streets once my phone dries out.... In the meanwhile, this is staying turned off." She slipped it back into a pocket. It'd be fine as long as she didn't fire it up. She hoped.... She'd have Keeper dry it out for her later.

"Concert's still a few days off, but I was thinking about going. I just found the troop recently, and they're really good." A twinkle in her eyes would betray the mischief she was up to in place of the excitement. If they knew her at least.

"I have to admit," she smiled at the pair of boys. "I've not met many men who are as enthusiastic about Opera as you seemed a moment ago, Simon." A test, and a game.... What did she really have to lose here, after all.

[Deleted]

Dante and Simon both nodded patiently as Ashlyn attempted to recall the location of the concert's venue. Evidently it wasn't that far away, but aside from the school Dante had little idea about the landmarks she spoke of. Perhaps Simon knew, or at least his cousin did, but it didn't really matter either way...since the duo WASN'T there for the concert.

“Ahh I see, and thanks...too bad about your phone, though. Hopefully it's all right.” Dante added. He didn't really think about that. His phone was probably fine. It'd been dropped in a pool before and worked just like normal once it had been dried out.

Ashlyn then said something that was just a touch peculiar. She seemed surprised Dante and Simon were interested in the concert given that Beltaine was an Opera singer. Was Beltaine a name? There weren't exactly opera GROUPS or bands, so it would have to be a name, right? It didn't sound very Italian or Opera-y.

“Oh yeah, well, we're not HUGE into it or anything, buuuut...” Simon already began, before Dante could really think on what Ashlyn had said. “Beltaine's pretty neat and my cousin helped spot for the tickets to see it with him. So, here we are.”

That was...like, a half-lie? Okay, more than half of it was a lie. A three quarter lie? Two thirds? Either way there was a kernel of truth in it: they had come to visit Simon's cousin and then hit the town with him. They just had no idea Beltaine was in town, forget the fact they weren't actually fans.

[Shine]

"It'll be ok. I think...." It should be, as long as she didn't mess with it too much. Or else the damage had already been done, and it was time to get a new phone.... Ah well.... She had an upgrade available, right?

Her smile turned a little predatory, and an amused twinkle shone in her eyes as Simon told her about how their cousin had helped them out with tickets. Either he hadn't been listening to what she said at all, or else

"You guys have no clue what I'm talking about at all, do you?" She leaned forward a little, resting a fist against her mouth to cover the growing grin she wore. She had them now.

"Beltaine is a Celtic folk band. Nothing could be further from opera!" Her smile grew in strength, and she let it out, leaning back and laughing musically. She rolled her eyes a little at Simon's antics, but she wasn't mocking them. Just "feasting" on the catching them in a bind.

"For real though.... I doubt you came to Jewel Junction to take surprise dips in the fountains." The sun and the breeze were still nice out, even if it was a bit chilly now. Now she'd just set about figuring out these friendly gentlemanly tricksters.

[Deleted]

Dante's vaguest suspicions turned out to be reality: Beltaine WASN'T an opera group. He KNEW it wasn't, but he still didn't say or do anything to stop Simon from running his mouth. The two young men exchanged glances, Simon just chuckling a bit awkwardly and giving Dante some sort of innocent shrug. Some wingman.

“Er...yeah, you've got us.” Dante replied, turning his head back towards Ashlyn. Thankfully she seemed to find the situation more humorous than anything else. He supposed he was lucky for that. “We didn't come here for Beltaine, in fact we've never even heard of them.”

Of course Simon was awfully quiet now. Probably figured he'd done enough blabbing for the day without any positive results. “We came here to visit Simon's cousin. It's reading week for most college and universities, so the idea was to come here and...hit the town, I suppose.” Dante was being honest now, he just still wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea.

“...Celtic folk music, huh?” He mused aloud, yet quietly. Dante did have some Irish in him, but he'd never really heard anything quite like that before. Probably wasn't his style either way. “Anyway, er, sorry about all that.”

[Shine]

It was almost comical how sheepish they became when she found them out. That was okay. She'd pulled some pranks like this before.... Maybe they'd learn to prepare their little tricks better next time. She wasn't surprised that the'd never heard of Beltaine before. She'd only recently found them herself. They'd just come down to visit the family it seemed.

"Yeahhhh.... And instead the town hit you." She was not going to apologize again, she stopped herself. They'd already been through that. Twice. She found herself enjoying herself as she talked with the pair. She'd had a hard time connecting to people her own age at Jewel Junction University. It was too competitive, and the people that she did get along with normally wanted to spend their time out late. That was something she couldn't afford to do too often, if she wanted to keep up her running. Instead, her closest friends had become her coach, the young home schoolers she worked with from time to time, and their families. And her own family of course. With Shine taking up the little time that remained, it was getting really hard to maintain everything, so it was a breath of fresh air to just be able to relax like she was now.

"Right. Reading week."... She probably had reading somewhere that she was supposed to be doing..... "So what are you guys studying?... Do you mind if I ask that? I know we kinda... just met." There was a small nervous chuckle tagged on at the end of her question. She enjoyed speaking to the pair. Especially Dante, who'd been a gentleman to her earlier. And she definitely didn't want this to degenerate into awkward silence as they waited to dry off.

[Deleted]

Again, Dante was thankful that Ashlyn wasn't mad about their fib. It meant they could get some actual conversation going. The female redhead had asked about what they were studying, which Dante was fairly happy to divulge. “Huh? It's fine, really.” He started off. The girl seemed a bit awkward asking that. Just natural shyness? Seemed a touch out of character from what he'd seen so...no, Dante. Don't analyze the pretty girl, that's not fair. “Well, psychology mostly. We're starting to get more into sub-sections of that, such as criminology.”

“It's a loooot of reading, and I think even more writing, but despite all of that it's actually pretty fun.” Simon chirped in, sticking with honesty this time as opposed forcing a lie somewhere in there. Probably for the best.

Dante nodded in agreement with his friend before deciding to turn the question back onto Ashlyn. “How about you? What are you studying, if anything?” He couldn't recall if she had mentioned anything about school so far, but now that he thought about it the answer to that seemed to be a “no”.

[Shine]

Ashling's eyes lit up a little, and she made the appropriate "Ooooh" sound. That was an impressive and virtuous field to get into. There was a time where she'd wanted to be a police officer growing up. That had changed over time from judge. She'd liked the little hammer when she was little, although she now knew that she'd wanted not that position, but a prosecuting attorney, and it was because of people like her biological father.... Then she'd wanted to be a race car driver, but now she was pretty satisfied with how she could use her running to help the community around her.

"Wow. So you guys are like those guys on the CSI shows? That sounds like it would be alot of work." It sounded like it could get dark too, but now that he'd brought it up it was probably something that she could use some study in. At least, if she was going to keep this "Super Hero" gig going that she'd been juggling.

"Well, I'm a runner on the JJU track team.... Big surprise." She rolled her eyes a little bit. This whole scenario was an interuption to the end of one of her training routines. "And, I do whatever else I need to do to stay on the team. Sometimes I help younger kids train to run like me."

They chatted for awhille. Long enough that Ashling lost track of time, but not so long that the whole day was wasted. Or that her clothes dried out, as she'd hoped. She got up to leave, and looked at Simon apologetically. "Can I borrow this?" She asked, indicating the sweater he'd loaned her.

"Look." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen and a small pad of sticky notes that she kept with her for emergencies. She peeled back the notes until she got to the center, where they were only damp, and not soaked and started writing. Then she reached out, and stuck the note onto Dante's arm. Cute and smart, the both of them. Jackpot.

"There's my number. We should go out some time while you're still in town. At least, if your single."

She waved bye to the pair as she headed off down the street and towards the school. She'd parked her car down there. That'd give her the fastest ride home and get her tidied up again. What was she doing that night again? She wasn't sure it mattered right then. She was just starting to settle into the plan of getting herself home and finding out what she was supposed to have been doing for the last while, when the sounds of a heavy thud filled her ears, followed by ear-piercing screams as a park bench flew through the air over her. It smashed hard into the windows overhead, and she looked up in time for her eyes to widen as the shattered fragments of glass and smashed wreckage from overhead fell towards her. The will to live and swift muscles threw her to the side as the wreckage came down around her. She scrambled back closer to the wall again and yelped as the solid constructed awning overhead came crashing down right over her. It didn't quite land flat, instead leaning against the front of the store that she'd been walking by. She scrambled up into a crouch and saw that there was a momentary hollow that she was in as it was leaning against the front of the building, but in front of her and in back of her was blocked with the wreckage of the falling roof and front of the buildings. The Wreckage over her shifted, and she realized that if she didn't get out of there fast, all they'd find would be a very flat Ashling once they dug her out of there.

She checked the front of the building she'd been walking by, a jewelers, and was in luck when she saw just enough of the window accessible to her and still in tact. She led with her head, vaulting through the window, and landed flat on her face, having crossed dimensions to the mirror world. She shook her head, and saw Keeper looking her way, as surprised a face as he could wear on his strange angular face, and then she turned back to look where she'd come from. Through the reflections, she saw the rubble around where she'd just been finish fully collapsing on where she'd just been. That was a sobering vision.

Without taking another moment to worry, she ran into the small structure in the Mirror's Sanctum, yelling over her shoulder at Keeper as she ran to get "dressed for work".

"Keeper! I need full visibility on whatever caused that. Shine has work to do!"

[Deleted]

Ashlyn seemed impressed at the two boys' subject of study, likening it to the sort of stuff you would see on CSI. Dante had to chuckle and shake his head at that. “Uh...not exactly. That's more forensics. If you had to liken it to a crime show, Criminal Minds would be more accurate...sort of.” Realistically those crime shows didn't really represent how these special forces operated at all. They DID represent some of the things they had to deal with well enough, though. Law & Order in particular.

The trio chatted on for a bit, Simon chiming in every now and then, but for the most part it had been mostly Dante and Ashlyn talking. Evidently she was a track runner, big surprise there, but she never did mention what course she was taking.

Eventually she stood up to go, sheepishly asking Simon if she could “borrow” his sweater. Simon blinked before shrugging. “Yeah, it's cool I guess.” It had caught Dante off guard as well. But not as much as what she did next. She pulled out a sort of sticky pad and stuck it to Dante's arm, leaving her number on it, before suggesting they go out.

A bit flustered, Dante smiled and nodded. “Okay, sounds good to me.” He really didn't know what to say to that, especially since she left so swiftly afterwards. Once she was a fair distance away Simon prodded Dante's non-sticky padded shoulder, grinning.

“You did it dude!”

“Yeah...I guess I did.”

“But you owe me a sweater now man.” Simon pouted for a moment before patting Dante's back, smiling. “Or at least make the most out of this date, yeah?”

Dante chuckled and nodded. “Thanks, Simon...and yeah, I guess I will.”

Of course, that's when they saw it. A park bench soaring across the entire park before crashing into nearby store, screams and heavy thuds accompanying the crash it made on impact. Simon practically jumped out of his seat while Dante's eyes widened. Park benches weren't exactly light as feathers. Whatever made that thing soar had to be STRONG, and probably angry.

“No! No, no no no! Not here, not now!” Damn it! He didn't have his “costume” at the ready, it was at Simon's cousin's place. He'd have to get Simon somewhere safe, and then find a solid way to ditch him.

“What the hell was that?!” Simon exclaimed, looking over at Dante. “Come on man, we've got to GO!” Well, at least his priorities were straight. Dante had never been around Simon when something like this happened. He was afraid he'd be the one to want to alert the authorities, not knowing that the authorities probably have solid ways of finding out about park benches spearing themselves into stores.

“Right, let's uh, let's head to your cousin's place!” Getting there was the easy part. Getting out would be trickier. Was it even worth it? If this city had monsters or villains or whatever abound, then surely it had it's own heroes.