ArchivedLogs:Falling Up

Falling Up
Dramatis Personae Blink, Marinov	2017-04-18 "We're...kind of stuck."
Location <NYC> Lower East Side
Historically characterized by crime and immigrant families crammed into cramped tenement buildings, the Lower East Side is often identified with its working-class roots. Today, it plays host to many of New York's mutant poor, although even here they are still often forced into hiding. It's a balmy evening and the sunset shines brilliant red through the pollen-filled spring air. Perhaps it's the weather, or the more abstract tension of the political atmosphere, but there's a kind of restless energy on the streets. Groups of friends walking together laugh just a little too loudly at jokes, gridlocked drivers honk more than usual, and dirty looks others of choice abound. A scrawny teenaged latinx is trudging along the sidewalk, shoulders hunched under the weight of their (large, bulging, patch-covered) backpack. Their hair is done up in an amaturish looking undercut, half-way to a chelsea, and they wear a t-shirt screenprinted with the album cover of Ryan Black's /Brighter/ and cut-up black jeans heavy on safety pins. Two other teenagers, both larger, are following them and giggling. Marinov wanders down the sidewalk with a distracted look on their face, carrying a paper cup full of tea and with (modified) earbuds in to try and drown out the sounds of a tense city. They stare off with a bit of an unfocused look as they walk towards the other teens, wearing a pair of tight tan corduroys, a white dress shirt and red suspenders over them, a bag slung over their shoulder. The young mutant's fur is still black with blue and purple swirls and points of white. They snap out of the reverie upon seeing the latinx teen, pulling out one of the earbuds to prepare and comment on the other teenager's shirt when they get close enough together, as Marinov happens to be listening to just that album. One of the giggling teenagers finally pushes the other forward, saying, "Yo, Magda, what you got in that bag anyway? Look /heavy!/" The one who was pushed forward dances aside and flanks their scrawny fellow. "I told you to call me /Jair/," says 'Magda' darkly, ignoring the others and speeding up a little. They look as though they are about to say something else, but then two things happen at once. One, they spotted Marinov (who is even a more extraordinary sight than usual). Two, the teen behind her yanks her backpack by the handle. One of the shoulder straps comes off, but the other does not. The tug itself and weight of the packing hanging off one shoulder throws them off balance, and they start to tumble into the street. Start to. Tilting, they seem to hang in mid-air. Likewise the backpack, even though the one who grabbed it has since let go. Marinov, too, feels suddenly weightless, their earbuds drifting around them like kelp in water. Small blobules of their tea float up through the hole in their cup's cover. "Oh no," Jair moans. "Oh no..." Marinov's expression darkens a bit as the others kids start to bother Jair, "Hey-!" The felinoid teen's pace quickens, and they reach out to try and run forward and keep the other teen from tumbling out into the street. "Fuck!" they cry in panic as they find themself instead floating upwards. They toss the tea aside to free up their hands and free their phone. "Aw fuck I'm gonna end up in space!" cries Marinov in a panicked, higher pitched voice. This very thought, it seems, is enough for them to hit the panic button on their phone, and they flail their arms and legs and tail uselessly to try and get righted and slowed down. Only a few blocks away, Blink is getting ready to purchase a tea of her own at Evolve when her phone starts blaring klaxons. She pulls it out of a custom pocket sewn into her amethyst satin vest and blinks at it. "Lo siento, Ravenna, I have to run." She passes the barista a five dollar bill anyway. "For the next person who needs one. Which might be me in a little while!" With that she vanishes in a swirling haze of purple light -- -- and re-appears on the street a few steps away from Marinov. Her feet don't quite touch the ground, even after the purple light has faded away. "Whoa!" Her huge green eyes look even wider than usual. "Is everyone alright?" Marinov's tea cup tumbles end-over-end in a straight line, spilling little spheres of tea in a widening spiral. Jair gathers themself out of their panic and reaches out, trying to catch Marnov as they drift past. This slows Marinov slightly, but causes Jair to start floating up, too. "Oh no oh no." Their dark brown eyes dart left and right. "Lo siento!" they whisper, "I don't know how to make it stop!" Though, looking down now, they whimper. "Though if I /did/ make it stop now it'll hurt a /lot./" Twisting around in mid-air when they hear Blink speak, they call out, "We're...kind of stuck." Of the other two teens, one was far enough away that he can still walk. He is now emitting expletives while backing rapidly away and pulling out his phone. The one who had grabbed Jair's backpack, however, is flailing a few inches above the ground like a tortoise turned on its back. "Help!" he cries. "I only wanted to dress up like space, I didn't want to go there!" replies Marinov to Blink, still trying to re-orient themselves and stop the spinning, forward momentum they caused by trying to run. Jair's catch helps Marinov to at least break the spinning part of their float and slow down a bit. Their pupils are dilated as much as they can be, and the felinoid teen looks over towards Jair, "If you drop me I'll be okay, but... are you okay?" They begin surveying to try and find something to focus on, and they say to Blink, "Prosti, I panicked. Do you have like... a rope?" "Don't worry, that's what the panic button is for!" Once over the initial surprise, Blink doesn't look all that /bothered/ by floating slightly above the ground. "Unfortunately, I left my rope at home, but I'm pretty good at weird physics. Let's try this..." Purple light surrounds her and she vanishes again, reappearing just above Jair and Marinov. "Slow and steady," she says, "Let's keep you from getting too high up. No space tour today!" She waits a few seconds until the teens have drifted close enough, then reaches out and pushes each of them gently but firmly back toward the ground. Jair shakes their head. "Um...the first time this happened I broke two bones in my arm, and that wasn't nearly so high." There's an edge of terror in their voice. But then, their dark brown eyes go wide at seeing Blink teleport. "Oh, wow! You have your own special effects and everything." Blink's push does not actually cause either of the teens to start descending again, but it does slow their rise even while causing Blink to start floating up, if slowly. "Couldn't you like, teleport /us/?" "I should sleep less in physics class," laments Marinov in reply to Blink, looking down towards the ground as they slow down from her push. "That helped a bit but, uh, yeah. What Jair said..." They hold out a hand to the other floating teen to more solidly hold onto, "Here, this is pretty high up and I dunno how well I'll be able to break the fall but... if we fall, I'll at least... try to, yeah?" While they are trying to be reassuring, there is no small amount of nervousness slipping into the felinoid youth's voice. Blink bites her lip. "I can only directly teleport myself," she says. "For anyone else, I have to send you through a portal, but thpse don't last very long, and it's bad news if you get caught in one as it's opening or closing..." She trails off, looks down at the one teenager who is fumbling with his phone, feet still planted on the sidewalk. "I'll be right back. If you start falling, scream. I'll catch you." She vanishes again in a purple flash and reappears in mid-air not far from the grounded teen, falling a few feet into a swirling portal that she has placed beneath herself -- -- and falling out of an identical one a few feet above Jair and Marinov again, this time with more momentum when she pushes them back down toward the ground, though still far more slowly than a normal freefall. "What portals?" Jair's question is almost immediately answered by Blink's demonstration. "Whoa!" This second push is much more effective, and all three of them start drifting down toward the ground. But both Blink and Marinov can feel a weird sinking sensation in their gut all of a sudden. "Oh, no, not /now!/" Jair wails. "It's going to stop, I can feel--" And all three are suddenly accelerating toward the ground at the prescribed 9.8 meters per second. Jair, as instructed earlier, screams while clutching at Marinov's arm. "Oh... oh. Yea, don't... slice me in half," mumbles Marinov awkwardly while still floating. They seem a bit relieved by the second push, but when gravity kicks in, they cry, "Fuck!" They pull on Jair's arm hard to bring their body closer to the other teen's and get a more stable hold. "Hold tight," they growl, while bracing for landing, tail flailing around some more to get righted, intending to break the impact of the fall with their natural ability to land (relatively) softly. Blink makes a small noise like a yelp and drops a portal beneath the teenagers. It begins as a brilliant point of purple light that rapidly expands into a misty, swirling disk about two meters wide. Marinov, Jair, and, a split second later Blink, fall through the portal -- -- and into the sky?! Beneath their feet there is only dusky blue sky ringed with buildings. Gravity suddenly reverses, doing unpleasant things to their stomachs. Then suddenly they are falling through another portal, head-first this time. When they emerge, at more-or-less sidewalk level, gravity is back the other way again, feet-down-heads-up. Blink gives the teens a small push to make sure they all land clear of the portal, which closes again a second or so later. With the full return of normal gravity, the teen who had grabbed Jair's bag falls just a few inches and staggers back, finally losing their balance and sort of /sitting/ down on the sidewalk, dazed. The backpack itself thuds to the ground, its zipper bursting open to spill a few library books. Free falling, Jair needs little encouragement to wrap themself around Marinov, still shrieking and /pointedly/ not looking down. Their scream changes pitch but maintains impressive volume during the passage through both portals, and they are still clinging too Marinov even after they've been safely return to terra firma. Marinov's tail spins, instinctively trying to get them uprighted each time they are turned around, but upon actually getting to the sidewalk level, they still managed to break even what little momentum there is left, knees bent but still standing. They hold onto Jair as well, tail bushy, eyes wide, muscles twitching anxiously. "Fuck," they say breathlessly, finally releasing the other teen, "that was a predicament." To Blink, "Spasibo, for the save. I'd probably've broken my knees if you weren't here. Uh, good hustle by the way, that's... faster than the panic button usually. You know. Summons someone." They turn their attention back towards Jair, "You okay?" Blink does not look either disoriented or unnerved by the rapid flipping of the world around them through their descent. She is shaking out the loose sleeves of the gauzy blouse she wear under her vest, smiling. "De nada," she says, "I'm new to the superheroing, but getting places has been my thing for a lot longer. Apologies if the ride down was a bit rough, though." She turns around and looks over the other two teens, making sure no one is injured. Jair is slow to let go, and looks faintly embarrassed by it. "Oh! I'm fine. Nothing broken. You?" They twitch a small smile and retrieves their backpack, stuffing the spilled books back in. "Lo siento for dragging you into that. It just kicks in sometimes when I'm startled...or mad, or happy." They frown. "Or bored. Usually it's indoors and /messy/ a-f but not that dangerous." The other two teenagers are fleeing down the street now, yelling excitedly at each other things to the effect of "Did you /see/ that freaky shit?" Marinov gives a feline scowl after the fleeing teenagers. They move to help with the books, but see that Jair has it under control. "Well. I was gonna say, I like your shirt. I was just... listening to that. By the way, I'm Marinov. Taylor Marinov. I think I'm gonna get myself some more tea..." They glance over towards Blink and remark, "Well, it's the second time you've pulled me out've a jam, so I'm not gonna criticize a ride I might need a third time. Spasibo." "Oh! Yeah, Ryan Black is /so/ awesome." Jair smiles for the first time since the incident began. "I'm Jair Romero." They heft their heavy backpack up and shoulder it. "I could use some tea, too, especially if it's full of sugar and cream. If...you don't mind me tagging along, of course." Blink bows deeply. "I'm just glad everyone's unscathed. But yes, actually, I was just getting tea before I came, and it's probably ready now -- probably still warm! C'mon." She makes a casual gesture with one hand, purple light flicking off her fingertips like drops of water and spinning into a portal. "Next stop, Evolve!"