Log:Drexler's Friends, Scene 2

Drexler's Friends 2013/06/06 	 Drexler Forge Porter 2

Champions Mush - Thursday, June 06, 2013, 10:06 PM

''This is The Underground, the university's on campus night club. It has just about everything any other club would have, minus the alcohol. During the day it serves as a simple grill, a place to get decent food at semi decent prices. But at night, it really comes alive. There's a large dance floor in back complete with flashing lights and loud music. Local bands often supply live entertainment. The bar is near the front. Around it are several small tables. In the left corner is a huge big screen television that is almost always tuned in to some sporting event, and therefore almost always surrounded by large groups of men. The club is almost always packed with students. It's a great place to unwind with your friends after a long day of classes and studying. ''

It is a slow day to be a hero in Colonial Bay - no giant animals or marauding superteams - which is a good thing once in a while. So it would be perfectly reasonable for a hero to relax and enjoy his lunch, perhaps on campus where the warm weather has done pleasant things for the view.

A short time later, for those that have such things, the police radio says, "Attention nearest available unit, please investigate possible disturbance at The Underground on CBSU campus. Campus security has no units available."

Seated on a chair by the giant screen television is Malcolm Gibbs. He still looks bruised from the brawl on campus the other day, but looks to be healing nicely. At the moment, Malcolm's eating a grilled chicken parmesean sandwich whilst watching the modern version of SportsCenter on the television. By some stroke of good fortune, Malcolm does have his headset on, though the visor is currently off, when the police band spikes to life.

Very, very slowly, Malcolm turns his head to look over his shoulder at what's going on in the rest of the club/grill.

Malcolm 

About 6'6" tall and looking to be about 175 pounds, this is one rakishly good looking black guy. His hair is cropped short, fading still shorter as it nears his ears, while his eyebrows are strikingly thick without being embarrassing or distracting, and he even has a short, neatly trimmed Van Dyke encircling his mouth. Of course, his most striking features are his steely gray eyes. 

''Below the very handsome face, he's made of a whole lot of muscle. Much of the time he wears a gray or black shirt that showcases his impressively muscular build. Still further down, he wears comfortable blue jeans of a generic, workman's style. As for his feet, they're typically clad in leather work boots. ''

''Functional, inexplicably stylish, and quite comfortable to be sure, but it also doesn't give much hint to who he is or what he does. ''

Slow days, meaning things not exploding, burning, falling out of the sky, or otherwise destroying, are good days. Porter was enjoying one such day by walking across the campus in search of a friend... until the commotion. Lucky for him, he was about to enter the club in that search, anyhow, so he doesn't have far to go.

Porter 

''This young man is several inches under six feet with an average build. Brown hair is cut in a short but current style and coffee eyes are bright yet generally unremarkable. As a whole, he could probably be overlooked in a crowd fairly easily. ''

''His clothes are fairly common, with comfortable jeans, name-brand sneakers, and a tee that varies by mood. Most common are popular bands or catchy quotes. When it's cold or wet outside, he covers up with a jacket. ''

The underground is in full daytime mode. The dance floor is off and most of the students wandering in and out are making use of the club's grill. In the midst of the student traffic stands a short thin man, a hair over five feet tall, who is channel surfing on the club's large TV.

He stays on a channel for a few seconds, then switches to another one, only to switch again in a few seconds. The effect is quite annoying, and some of the male students who hoped to catch a bit of the game during their lunch are grumbling loudly. However, the little man already has one burly athlete in a what appears to be a rather painful one-handed wrist lock, and the others are hesitating to also get a beating.

The stranger is a thin man, highly attractive in a pretty way, with pointed ears, long white hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, a white silk dress shirt, black tie, red paisley vest and black slacks. His black wingtips are polished to a mirror shine and his cufflinks and tie tack are matching fox heads in real gold.

A long sigh escapes Malcolm as he takes note of the guy with a student wrist-locked and hogging the main television. The remaining half of his sandwich is neatly closed up in its corrugated microboard serving container before Malcolm heaves himself to his feet. He suppresses the grimace that should have followed all of the joint popping and spine crackling noises.

Moving smoothly in the white-haired man's direction, Malcolm calmly intones, "Excuse me, sir, but I have to ask you to let the kid go."

Porter isn't surprised to see a little bit of rowdiness, especially with someone messing with the TV when a game's on. Seeing the ... well-dressed man with a jock in a hold... that's different. Porter walks towards the two, now make that three, though Malcolm gets there before him.

The football player starts to rise off the floor and the white haired man pushes his thumb into the back of the football player's right hand, bending the palm toward the victum's forearm as well as twisting a bit thumb-ward. The football player goes back down to the floor and the stranger hits a few more channels before stopping on an ancient Mighty Mouse cartoon. He says to Malcolm, as of continuing a conversation already underway, "See? That is what I expected to find: capes!"

"... Capes?" Malcolm looks at Mighty Mouse. He looks at the stranger. After looking at the jock, Malcolm returns his gaze to the stranger's face, one eyebrow slightly quirked. "They're out of fashion this season, I hear," remarks Malcolm, tone somewhere between playful and quizzical, "Again, I gotta ask you to let go of the kid."

Porter looks between Mighty Mouse Man and Malcolm. "Yeah, the mouse on the screen's the only one here with a cape. And I'm agreeing with him," he nods to indicate Malcolm. "You don't need to rip off the guy's hand just for trying to grab the remote. It's public, not yours to hog. You need to let them both go."

Drexler drops the football player's arm and the remote and steps to the side. Before he completes the motion, a pair of vertical glowing disks appears in the room and the step into one disk ends out of the other disk more than ten feet away. "Do you think so?" he asks Malcolm from three meters away. "The haberdasher assured me this was the latest Earth style." A prone savage kick from the released football player encounters nothing but air and the football player rises, looking murderously furious. "No overdressed pipsqueak does that to me!" he roars as he rises.

"You're not wearing a cape," comments Malcolm, "Capes are out of fashion this season."

Malcolm looks at the football player. He sighs again. After a moment to collect himself, Malcolm coolly states, "Kid. I think maybe you're a little out of your league on this one. Why don't you head for the lockers while the professionals handle this?"

Porter is referenced as a professional? By someone who knows him? That's ...empowering. "So..." he turns to keep facing the man after he shifts, "We're not wearing capes, but you obviously wanted somebody here. Why don't we go outside and talk about whatever you wanted to talk about." Not that he really thinks it's just talk, but they can do that outside a crowded club, too.

As luck would have it, something about the attitude of the three men just seems to rub the football team the wrong way. At an unseen signal, the six bystanders rush Malcolm, Porter and the white haired stranger.

The team rushes forward catching all three by surprise. Porter and the elf each manage to avoid an attacker, but gets grabbed by a second one. Finally, the leader rushes at the white haired stranger and leaps over his buddy to catch the stranger around the shoulders and slam him to the ground.

There is an instant between Malcolm pressing his luck and the impact of two football players on him where Malcolm realizes everything just went down the toilet. He manages to get out, "Oh for the love of," before he's taken to the ground by two intersecting tackles.

Malcolm hits the floor hard enough that him and his two attackers bounce marginally off of the floor. Being squeezed down, the football players may find it incredibly difficult to actually compress the tall man's muscular form. Narrowing his eyes, Malcolm regards both of his attackers as liquid metal starts flowing steadily from his pores to coat his entire body.

"Boys, you've got five seconds to get off of me and leave."

Porter blinks when the offensive line comes rolling in. He's somewhere between surprise and laughing at others getting tackled and grabbed when he joins them. Porter isn't that tough, per se, but the touchy-feely guy probably can't get the best grip. "What the hell are you doing?! We're trying to help you!" There's a few other words in there concerning stereotypes of athletes and their intellect. They probably don't help Porter, but that doesn't stop them from coming out.

One second later, the two boys on Malcolm start to look worried but don't either jump up or attempt to inflict further damage on Malcolm. Porter's opponent seem to have the same plan: hold and wait (although one guy just can't seem to get a grip on Porter). Everyone waits, even onlookers, and the entire club gets very quiet - quiet enough to hear a single football lineman punching a single held elf.

Drawing in a deep breath as the two football players holding him fail to act, Forge flexes his muscles. Metal undulates and ripples in an eerily organic fashion as Forge first draws both men in toward him and then, with all the outward appearance of exertion of a man throwing open some squeaky storm shutters, Forge heaves both jocks off of him.

Porter is not metal, nor is he even big and strong compared to jocks. He struggles, but to no avail. "Get off of me!" Even if the pointy-eared man is getting pounded, which Porter doubts, he isn't thrilled.

With his captors heaved aside, Forge shifts his weight until it almost looks like he's going to perform a tumble in reverse. Abruptly, Forge uncoils his muscles and kips up to his feet with a near casual ease. The metal man turns in place, eyes surveying the surroundings very seriously as he considers his next move.

"I said /STOP/, politely. This is a Starguard matter now. So /STOP/ or I will be forced to /STOP/ you myself."

The white-haired elf summons a 1 meter wide portal and ocean water shoots into the room like a cannon blasting himself, and the three football players on him. Ocean water hits Malcolm and Porter too, but with negligible force. As quickly as it appears, the portal disappears.

The football player on Porter lets go as water rushes over him, finally realizing how out of his league he is.

Porter is free! And drenched. And it was not his fault. He shakes his arms to get rid of some of the water as he stands up. "Ok..." As odd as that was, he's even less sure of what to do when he sees that Mighty Mouse Guy is out cold. "... so now what?" If someone was looking for capes, he has to think that someone could've vaporized football teams. "Maybe we need to get this guy out of here?"

Or... Drexler could stop everyone, including himself, by himself. Forge is sent skidding backward a half-foot or so by the sudden crush of ocean water before his feet reflexively dig into the flooring with metal spikes. The metal man walks forward slowly, but purposefully, as the water stops gushing as suddenly as it started.

"Why don't you three sit down with your buddies?" instructs Forge, pointing at each of the three conscious football players, "I'll deal with you in a minute."

Forge may, in fact, be lying. He moves over to Drexler and crouches down to heft the other man off the ground and across his shoulders. Looking over at Porter, Forge nods toward the door - apparently he wants Porter to lead the way.

The underground has drainage pipes (it is underground after all and sometimes accumulates a little water) but the pipes are not prepared to deal with 100 gallons of water trying to find a home and even those people not prone find themselves with wet shoes and backpacks. When Malcolm picks him up, the elf sputters and coughs, struggling to consciousness. He's takes a few good hits and might need a little while healing some of the worst damage to his face. Sensing he is not yet free, he struggles a bit as he wakes.

One of the football players whines, "If we get in trouble, we could lose our scholarships. ... and I didn't do nothing, really."

Porter has no problem letting Malcolm do the heavy lifting, and he leads the way out of the Underground. So much for his search. Well, he found /someone/, just not who he was looking for. "Maybe you should've thought about that before you started tackling people?" Porter isn't really going to get them in trouble, but it doesn't mean he can't let them worry.

"Whoa there, man. I'm just taking you outside and away from your fan club," intones Forge. He has to shift about to keep his grip. Glancing over his shoulder, Forge shoots the whiner a look and coolly replies, "I said I will deal with you in a minute."

A pair of policemen with bored expressions meet Porter and Malcolm heading out as they head into the Underground. Their bored expressions grow worried as they sense something not quite reputable about these two... and the barely conscious bleeding man doesn't help.

"Malcolm Gibbs, I'm with Star Guard," intones Forge. He has a feeling his day is going to get worse than just wondering if his legs are going to rust again and losing out on half of a delicious chicken parm hero. "I'm, uh, not entirely sure how to show you my ID with this guy on my shoulders."

Porter is already prepared for the cops. Even if they don't give him looks, it's habit. "We're just dragging this guy out of a bar fight." He waves at the bleeding man, then further back down the stairs. "You might want to check on the other guys, but they got this guy way worse than he got them."

Drexler says, "Setting me down might be a good first step to getting that 'eye-dee'." With the skill of a stage magician, he pushes something small into Malcolm's back pocket, then gives that buttocks a firm squeeze - perhaps to make sure Malcolm notices the object, perhaps to signal something else.

It takes an actual act of willpower for Forge not to make a highly disconcerted facial expression when Drexler squeezes his metal rear end. Forge opens his mouth, pauses, and then carefully, shifts both his grip and his position to gingerly set Drexler on his feet again. "So, uh. Officers. I'm going to reach into my pants pocket and take out my Starguard ID. Is that alright?"

Porter tries really hard not to grin when Malcolm gets the ...gift in the pants. He doesn't have a fancy ID to offer, so he otherwise just stays quiet and casual for now. Nothing exploded or burned down, so they shouldn't really have any reason to grill him. He hopes.

One of the policemen places a hand on his sidearm and steps away from his partner, but the second man shakes his head and says, "Nah. I know who you are."

Just then, all three men drop away from the policemen and fall six feet onto the sand of North Beach. "Thank you," Drexler says as the portal closes above him. "The coin will allow me to find you later. I came to this world looking for heroes like you two."

Then a second portal opens beneath him and he drops out of sight.

"... Was it really necessary to grab my butt?!" calls Forge into the open portal. He looks unwilling to charge into a gash in space-time without any idea of where it might lead.

Porter has had more than his fair share of teleportation mishaps, so he doesn't do more than brush some of the sand off of himself as he looks down. "Uh... You're welcome?" Whatever control he had breaks with Malcolm yelling and he can't help but laugh.

"The name is Drexler the Explorer," the elf says, "and if we only did what was necessary..." but whatever Drexler was going to say us cut short as the portal closes.

Within a second, most of Forge's metal disappears, leaving Malcolm behind. Malcolm shakes a single, up-thrust, and metal-coated fist at the ground where the portal was. "Not. A. Word, Porter. Not. A. Word."