Current mood:	okay
Current music:	Natalie Merchant - My Skin
Entry tags:	scion

Scion Writeup #1: Oh My God You Killed That Guy
John demanded this, so here it is. No editing or rewriting has occurred; I'm planning to sit down at the keyboard, type feverishly for fifteen minutes, and then go make drinks.

John Shimoda and Ray Dent were sprinting along in the wake of Colin's Land Rover, as quick as the wind that their presence always seemed to bring with them; not being blessed with such augmented physical capabilities, Alison and Vivian were sandwiched into the vehicle, the Creole girl clutching the edge of the dash with white knuckles as Colin slewed and swerved dangerously. Alison was trying to stop herself from caroming around the back seat of the Rover like a rubber ball, hurling her arms against the seats and windows and alternately cursing Colin's maniac driving and the lack of time she'd had to get properly belted in. Another clout to the head skewed her glasses, and she found herself hitting the driver's side window with a thump as she reached up to save them, just in time to hear John shout, "The inn! She's gone under the inn!"

Oh, thank god. This miserable experience was about to end. Getting a firm enough grip on the back of Colin's seat to haul herself upright, Alison just managed to right herself in time to see her brother spin the wheel violently to the left and thrust out a hand in denial as the brick-and-mortar wall of the Greek pub suddenly loomed in their windshield.

The impact of the wall hurled Alison most of the way over the back seat, her forehead making sudden, violent contact with the dashboard. Glasses went flying, and only her quick reflexes caught them before they turned into so much wreckage. When she finally managed to get upright and get them back on again, blinking painfully as she shook shattered glass out of her hair, the first things she was cognizant of were shouting, gunfire, and the blaring of the Rover's horn.

Out of the shattered remains of the windshield, which was mostly gone at this point, she saw that most of the inhabitants of the bar had sensibly taken cover from the vehicle crashing into their midst, except for four people with vaguely familiar faces--they'd met when she was getting out of the hospital?--and one very unwelcomely familiar woman with ice-white hair. "You--" Alison started, instantly on the offensive at the sight of the woman who had so recently tried to murder her with an army of zombies, but was brought up short by the sight of her brother lying limply over the steering column, his face pressed against a popped airbag and, presumably, the horn.

Vivian shoved Alison out of the way and she was happy to go, scrambling across the back of the seat toward Colin and dragging his body backward away from the windshield as her Creole companion drew an enormous gun and started screaming at the tall Asian man at the bar. She wasn't nearly as concerned with what he was doing here as with what the white-haired woman was doing here, but out of the corner of her eye she saw said harpy suddenly levitate out of her chair and vanish. Oh. Fantastic.

Halfway over the seat, Colin's eyes suddenly popped open and he said in a very serious-voiced stage whisper, "Hey, you should probably go save Vivian. I think she's going to do something stupid." Relief that he was apparently perfectly fine warred with outrage that he'd played dead, but Alison ignored both and finished hauling him over the seat, pressing him down to the buckled floor of the Land Rover.

"Vivian will be fine. I have no idea who she's pointing that gun at, and I'm not going to interfere," she said firmly, hoping that, for once, she could keep the two of them out of trouble.

Colin blinked uncomprehendingly at her, at the floor, at her again, and then wistfully in the direction of the windshield, from which Vivian's furious demands for information could still be heard. Someone else--she assumed it wasn't Vivian, since she didn't feel the reverberation of the enormous gun through the car--fired shots, and a wickedly sharp black knife shot over Alison's head and buried itself in the upholstery of the ruined Rover. She motioned for Colin to crouch lower, but instead he scratched his head, wide brown eyes looking soulful.

"If you don't go help her, I think I'm going to get bored." He looked pointedly at Alison.

She was unmoved, though a certain amount of desperation began to color her tone. "Colin, this is not the time for boredom. You can invent a game for yourself, here behind the car seat. The quiet game. Come on."

"Yeah..." He cracked his neck and started crawling around her. "I would do that, but you're here."

"I'll play, too! Colin, get back here!"

"Yeah... you're not good at games." He checked a nonexistent watch, then shrugged cheerfully at her. "Oops, looks like I'm bored. Bye now." Alison hurled herself at him and managed to snag a leg, but her strength was infinitesimal next to his; he merely towed her effortlessly along the last foot of the car floor and then shook her jarringly off before wrenching the bent back door open and crawling out into the bar proper.

"Colin!" she hissed, but it was no good. Well, she couldn't very well remain in the destroyed Land Rover with Vivian screaming at someone, so she stuck the knife that had come whizzing past her ear into the knot of her bun in case she might need it and slithered out the door after her brother, cursing his father and his impulses and anything else she could think of.

He was also, unfortunately, faster than she was, so even with him commando-crawling through a bar she was having trouble catching up to him. She risked a glance over her shoulder to see that a dark-haired woman was waving a black-bladed knife at Vivian, who immediately pistol-whipped her with the large gun. She wouldn't have pegged Vivian for being so violent, but the point became moot when the enormously muscled man at the bar cocked and fired his gun again, this time directly at Colin.

Her brother covered his head and the bullet glanced off him, probably having hit the gigantic wrench he was carrying strapped to his back. "Hey!" Alison yipped, redoubling her efforts to catch up to her brother; from her vantage point on the floor, she couldn't aim or even draw too well on the man, but Colin was in imminent danger. And, of course, the infuriating boy started crawling again, getting about a foot further away before the Asian man whom Vivian had been threatening produced a long, foreign sword from practically nowhere and brought it slicing down on him.

Alison didn't wait to see if Colin was injured, or how badly; giving up on a traditional shot, she dropped the rest of the way to the floor and pulled her peacemaker from its holster, squeezing off two shots toward the Asian man. "Get away from my brother!" she shrieked, and though the shots went wide remained there with her gun leveled at the man, hoping he didn't take her head off in her semi-helpless state.

She could hear angry female shouts from the direction of the Land Rover, but Colin arrested her attention by suddenly popping to his feet, a serious, disappointed frown on his young face. While a huge rip had been cut into his t-shirt, he didn't appear to have taken any damage, and she thanked the presence of the ridiculous wrench and its accidentally life-saving properties. He stomped up to the large man with the gun, the picture of seventeen-year-old annoyance, and crossed his arms, leveling a withering glare in the general vicinity of the giant's breastbone.

"Look, you," he said, completely ignoring the firearms swinging toward his head. "I have no idea who you are or what your problem is, but I'm tired of you fucking shooting me." His lower lip jutted out in pique. "So here's what's going to happen. We're going to go over to that bar there, and we're both going to have a Guinness. And you're not going to shoot me anymore." The force of Colin's unreliable but undeniably powerful personality hung hotly in the air for a moment.

The colossus blinked at Colin, and then lowered the gun. "Okay. I can do that."

Alison let the air out of her lungs in a rush of relief, lowering her gun. The Asian man turned away as if he'd entirely forgotten about the woman on the floor, and she was free to get to her feet and wonder how this time, against all odds and completely out of character, Colin had actually stopped a fight out of nowhere instead of starting one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"In fact, I think I can almost guarantee that you probably have in your purse right now something that is manufactured at least in part by my company." Kane Taoka's voice was deep, cultured, and British-accented, satisfying to the ear as his immaculate appearance was to the eye. Now that he was no longer trying to slice her brother in half, Alison was finding that she had plenty of common ground indeed with the Japanese man; after a brief round of introductions and an explanation of why the hostilities had broken out--something having to do with an old grudge plus Vivian waving a gun in his face, which Alison could understand was upsetting--she had spent the last several hours enjoying conversation with him.

"Oh, really?" She tilted her head coquettishly, blonde hair falling winsomely over the rim of her glasses. "I think I can guarantee that if I do, I can tell you exactly how it works. And possibly how to improve it."

His laugh was gratifying; so few men found her intellect appealing, most choosing instead to be intimidated or threatened by it. "Then perhaps I should be trying to hire you, Dr. Margaritas." He waved a hand at the terrified bartender, who had valiantly soldiered on throughout the night despite the impressive property damage to his establishment; at Colin's urging, Vivian had ponied up a blank check for the damages, but Alison suspected that he was remaining at work more out of a sense of fatalism than anything else. "One more drink, and then I'm afraid it's getting late."

"Another drink would be lovely." As long as it wasn't ouzo; that stuff Colin kept trying to hand her was like drinking gasoline. Luckily, Kane had very good taste in liquors, and she was enjoying his selections. She cast a sidelong glance for her brother, who was still trying to coax Ray out of his shell; the ex-athlete had withdrawn to mope over Colin's "new best friend", the gigantic man, Victor, but she'd sent him over there to make up and it looked like they were gaining ground. Silly children; as if Colin could ever replace Ray, though she honestly didn't know what he saw in the man. The two of them were giggling and drawing on some kind of paper between them, referring often to Ray's iPhone. Probably planning another one of their ridiculous parties or "adventures". Well, as long as he was happy and out of her hair.

The promised last drink was savored all too quickly, the conversation turning idly away from their mutual expertise in electronics and onto more classical, academic subjects. She was feeling more relaxed than she recalled being since... well, since before her father had turned up again, making demands. By the time Kane set his glass back down for the last time, it was after two o'clock in the morning; Vivian and her arch-nemesis had already left, so it was only the five of them, the two of them plus Colin and his two friends, remaining in the bar.

"Alas. All good things must come to an end." Kane stood as Alison sighed and smiled, about to offer her hand for a shake and hoping that the phone numbers they'd exchanged earlier would be a little bit of use. The Japanese man looked over his shoulder toward the stairs leading up to the rooms of the inn, one of which he'd mentioned he was staying in, and then, with a small but very inviting smile on his features, offered her his hand. "Unless you would like to accompany me."

Alison blinked, surprised and more than a little flustered, and not for the first time (or the five-hundredth) wished fleetingly but fervidly that Colin had never been born. The temptation was sharp--it had been a long time, after all, and she was really enjoying Kane's company--but the sound of glass breaking and Colin's distinctive snicker with Ray kept her anchored to reality. She sighed briefly, then took Kane's hand to shake it, feeling the warmth of his palm on hers. "I'm afraid I'll need to be taking my brother home." She smiled ruefully, hoping he wouldn't take the rejection as having any other root cause.

"Of course, I see." He didn't seem offended, and released her hand. "Perhaps another time?"

Alison's smile stayed firmly in place. "That would be lovely, Kane. Good night."

She sighed a bit, wistfully, as he mounted the stairs, but she couldn't very well have abandoned an autistic seventeen-year-old in the middle of Crete with no chaperone except two large drunken thugs. It couldn't be helped. As Kane disappeared into the inn proper, she smoothed the creases from her skirt and rose to go collect Colin and Ray and shepherd them back to the hotel. They'd gravitated over to the fourth member of Kane's party, a short, quiet man who'd had the sense to duck under a table during the short skirmish and avoid the ridiculous gunplay. "Come on, Colin. It's time to head home," she said, patting her brother awkwardly on the shoulder.

"Okay, yeah, in a minute." He waved distractedly in her direction. "I'm having a drink."

She frowned instantly, though his antics couldn't dispel her good mood yet. "That had better be fruit juice." He nodded, and though she doubted he was telling the truth (the most unmanageable, morally questionable child on the planet seldom did) she let it pass in favor of getting him out of here without further tantrums. "All right, say your goodbyes. It's gotten quite late."

She loitered near the door for a moment or two, lost in thought, and then several things happened at once. She turned to jog them into motion again, opening her mouth to insist that it was time to go; Colin, his cherubic face cheerful and excited, asked, "Now?"; and Ray, a crackle of strange energy surrounding him, confirmed forcefully, "Now."

Colin immediately grabbed the seated man and twisted his arms up into a hammerlock; surprised, he struggled, but Alison knew firsthand that Colin's prodigious strength was matched only by his inability to know when it was appropriate to use it. "Colin!" she cried, darting across the bar to pull ineffectually at his arms, though she was having no luck whatsoever in dislodging his hold. "You can't just--" Her indignant attempt to extricate her brother was cut brutally short as Ray pulled his katana from behind his leg and, in one swift and awful motion, completely beheaded the man that Colin was holding.

Alison screamed in shock and horror as hot blood fountained over her and her brother, both of them losing their hold on the corpse and stumbling backwards. The roar of rage from the huge man across the room prompted Alison to instinctively try to push her brother back against the bar to shield him; he probably had no idea what had just happened. He was just a kid. Ray... what the hell was wrong with Ray?

Ray was bounding through the bar, already-bloodied sword aiming straight for Colin's new friend of a few hours ago, and Alison managed to grab hold of Colin a second before he was running in that direction, too. She had no idea what he was up to, but she did know that both men were his friends and that he wasn't equipped to get into the middle of this fight. If Ray had really gone off the deep end, as it appeared, he could even be killed. "Colin!" she cried ineffectually again, but this time she concentrated, squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and then snapped them open, suddenly huge and golden with the power of her paternal blood. "Stop."

Colin stopped, suddenly frozen by the command of her gaze. The bellowing and crashing behind her was nerve-wracking, but she put both hands on her brother's chest and pushed him backwards, trying to lead him to the door without breaking her gaze. "We have to go now, Colin, we have to get out of here." She was shaking a bit now, succumbing to hysteria and the white edges of shock, covered in someone else's blood. "Ray's going crazy. We have to go!"

She ruined her own plan a moment later when another roar, a huge crash, and a crackle of thunder caused her to whip around, breaking her gaze with Colin to see that Ray had ridden the huge man to the ground, his sword buried in his chest. She screamed again at the sight, arms clamped tight to her little brother's arm, and went on screaming until Colin charged back in that direction. He towed her along as easily as a leaf, despite her panic, and as she tried to catch his gaze again he hollered, "Sorry, Alison!" in his most disingenuous tone and heaved her into the air. She somersaulted across the room and cannoned into a bar table, which mostly split, and landed in a heap in the wreckage.

Blinking muzzily through the impact, she was trying to crawl up into a sitting position when Kane and the woman with whom Vivian had been fighting burst out of the upstairs portion of the inn, both shouting in rage at the fates of their companions; she couldn't even begin to formulate what she ought to do in this situation, traumatized and confused as she was. As they started down the stairs, Ray, covered in blood and god knew what else, grabbed Colin around the waist and shot toward her.

"Get away from me! Don't touch me!" she screamed as she registered that a dangerous murderer was speeding toward her, sword that he had just used to kill hapless bar-goers still bloody in his hand. She threw up her arms in front of her as though they could do any good when it came to warding him off, but instead of the expected sensation of pierced flesh, she felt a sudden jarring warmth as Ray veered to the side and Colin reached out and grabbed her, bear-hugging her to his chest as they went by and out the door into the evening.

There you go, John. Next week: Alison's Adventures in Therapy.