groovygamers.com

Colin and Kel leave the lunchroom and head over to the physics lab.  As they round the corner Colin notices a blackbird perched on top of an open window.  As the two boys walk by the bird seems to be looking at colin, it's head cocked to keep one of it's eyes on the young man.

Opening the door to the physics lab, which is currently empty they happen upon three boys beating the crud out of a fourth.  The three toughs pause when Colin and Kel enter the room.

((OOC: It's obviously not Kirby these guys are kicking the crud out of.))

"Hey," One of the toughs say, "If you're smart, you'll turn around and walk your freshman butts out of here."

Colin notices a blackbird sitting on the ledge of one of the upper windows.  Watching the scene.

"Well, I would..." Colin says hesitantly "But... Mr. Heep will be here shortly. He sent us on while he picked up some stuff. He will be here any moment now."  he goes on, as convincingly as he can.

Kel smirks and cracks his knuckles, "I was never one for intelligence."  Kel says as he walks right into the room picking up speed he brings his leg high coming down right at the person who spoke to him. http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=591769

Kel moves across the room and drops a high kick on the kid that opened his mouth to him.  The boy takes the kick and goes down (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=591790) to the floor.


((Both of you make initiative rolls.

Kel, Make 4 more attack rolls for me to speed up the flow.

Colin, Actions?))

Kel smirks "Oh this is a good day!" With a grunt of hoorah he opens up on the rest of the bullys.

((Initiative: http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=591830, Attacks: http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=591839))

Colin gasps at Kel's fury. He would have tried to foll them into leaving the room, but now that there's a fight he can't leave Kel alone against three older boys. He lets him do the the hitting, since he seems good at it, and Colin has red marks on his hands telling him not to touch people, but at least he tries to makes sure they don't gang up on him.
He frowns, worriedly. He wouldn't bet on the two freshmen against the bullies.

OOC: I take Aid actions to give Kel a bonus (+3) to his defense.
Initiative (1d20=12) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=592077) and Aid rolls (1d20=15, 1d20=6, 1d20=9, 1d20=12) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=592081).
It only works on the 1st and the 4th rounds.

Kel slides into a flurry of blows with one of the other boys, while the last one decides to exit the scene, pushing past Colin and into the hall.

Kel feels strangely at ease with the fight.  The other boy is a pretty good fighter, and a bit older then Kel, but Kel seems to have gotten much better since his last brawl and managed to duck a few blows that might otherwise have hurt pretty bad.  The boy does managed to land a couple of blows but nothing solid enough to shake Kel.

Then it's over.  Colin is sure it couldn't have lasted more then a few seconds.  Two of the three boys are lying on the floor moaning and the third fled the room.  the boy they were beating on is lsowly getting to his feet and manages to utter a weak "Thanks" between coughs.

Colin notices the blackbird again, looking right at him.  It blinks, then flies out the open window.  Colin gets the feeling that He and Kel should get the injured boy and get out of there, before something happens.

Colin stares wide-eyed at Kel as they remain the only standing persons in the room.
He's about to say something, when he notice the blackbird again. He wipes his eyes, but the strange feeling remains. He helps the injured boy getting up.

"Kel, please help me, I can't carry him alone. And... just trust me, let's all get out of here. Now."

Kel can tell there's a strange certainty in Colin's eyes, something he hasn't noticed before. He looks for the nearest men's room, the boy likely needs some water, and they need a hiding place.

Kel cracked his neck a bit as he looked at the two boys on the ground, he checked on them to make sure he didn't bang them up to bad and whispered to them, "Don't pull that sh*t around me again."  He then helps the kid up and says, "Hey, I'm Kel, this is Colin.  You wouldn't happen to know a guy named Kirby would you?"  He then says as they get into the hall, "Do you think you need to see the Nurse?"  It then hits him that there were only two guys, "Crap, where did the third guy go..."

Colin and Kel get the injured boy into one of the nearby restrooms and gt him some water.  His coughing has subsided some.

Kel can hear the sounds of footsteps in the hall and the voice of the boy that ran off, "I saw them down in the physics lab, hurry."  as Kel listens he can distinctly make out the jingle of keys on belts and the flapping of leather walkie-talkie holsters.  Three adults and the boy.  He's certain that one of the adults is the Vice-Principal in charge of boys, whatever his name was.  The other two are the police officers assigned to the school.  He hears them pounding down the hall, past the restroom and around the corner.  He smells the after shave them men are wearing, and their sweat.  One of them is a smoker, and one has the smell of chocolate on his breath.

"Thanks again.  I'm Alex, alex Browning.  Lucky for me you guys came along when you did.  I think those guys were really gonna hurt me."

Colin listens as the boy speaks, but is distracted by what he can see in the mirror.  Kel and Alex are both reflected in the mirror over the sink Alex is washing up at.  Colin can see what looks like smoke coming off of Kel, but only in the reflection.  It's rising slowly off of him, like steam might off of someone in the winter.  Alex looks even more bizzare, his reflection is only black and white, and looks like a TV with rabbit ears getting slightly poor reception.  Every time he coughs the reflection's "reception" gets bad for a moment then seems to stabilize.

Kel is a bit disturbed by his sense of smell, he always had been able to pick up the scent of say dinner downstairs but not the chocolate on someone's breath.  "Yea it's no problem, I can't stand that sort of thing."  Then gesturing to the door, "I get the feeling that third guy ran off to try and make it seem like we were the ones who just picked a fight out of nowhere.  If they come looking for us, uh, you will say that I leapt in to help you right?"

"Yeah, totally."  The boy coughs again and as he pulls his hand away from his mouth there is a bit of blood on it.  "Wow, I guess I bit my tounge."

Kel's eyes widen when he sees the boy cough up blood and he says, "Are you ok, people don't normally cough up blood, want to go to the Nurse or something."  Kel looks over the boy, trying to see if he really is ok.

Colin stood still for a moment, looking at the mirror. Then he wiped energically his glasses on his shirt, and looks again, at the mirror, then at Kel and Alex, then at the mirror again, then at the red marks on his hands.

Why? Why is this happening to me? And what is it, that is happening to me? I need, I have to understand.

"Alex, I am afraid it's not your tongue. I don't like.." he looks at the mirror for a moment again "...I don't like the way it looks. How long have you had this cough? Have you noticed food going down the wrong way more often than usual recently?" the native american boy asks thinking of the description of tubercolosis in a book he read.

He puts a hand on Alex's forehead to check  if the boy has got a fever.... and as he does so he notices the red sign on his hand. But it's too late, he has already touched him.

((http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=592177  Not that I could make it ever anyway with a -1 to Notice))

OOC: Will save (1d20+2=20) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=592179)

Colin places his hand on Alex's forehead and feels as though the heat from his hand is being sucked into Alex's head.  Colin sighs when he realizes he didn't stop himself from touching Alex, and in the mirror he sees what looks like smoke coming out of his nose.  Alex takes a deep breath, and Colin sees the smoke get sucked into Alex's nose as the young man breaths in.  A moment later Alex's reflection gets more solid, and gains color.  Alex takes another deep breath, letting it out slowly.  "Nah, I feel better.  I must have just gotten the wind knocked out of me really good."

Kel smells blodd, only for a moment, and then it fades.  He hears Alex's heart rate get stronger, and also hear Colin's heart pounding in his chest like he's scared or maybe just ran a mile.

Kel's face screws up a bit as he begins to hear the heartbeats of the boys next to him, but he just shakes his head and then says, "Alright, that's good, we'll just wait till passing time and then we can all slip out like nothing happened.  Though we still haven't found Kirby."

The boys don't have long to wait.  About two minutes later the bell rings and the hall begins to fill up with students moving from one class to the next.

Alex thanks Colin and Kel again and heads to his next class.

The throng of people and the increased background noise blocks out the sounds of heartbeats and Kel's senses seem to have returned to normal.

Colin's eyesight clears, and the reflections go back to being nothing more then reflections of what's in the real world.

OOC: Did we miss a class? I thought we were still in lunch break.

When the Alex in the mirror gets his colors back, Colin feels incredibly relieved.

Silly me! Tubercolosis?! What was I thinking? Those bastards just beat him so hard they broke something in his lungs, and I... I must have fixed it. Then I don't always hurt people! Thank God and the Great Spirit! It still makes no sense, but at least I can live with this. I have to ask Seth and Bruce how they felt after. Bruce really looked better this morning...

Colin sighs so heavily it looks like a windstorm to Kel's senses.

"Alex, why were they beating you so hard? They could have killed you."

---

As Alex is gone, Colin turns to Kel and whispers: "Man, you've been amazing! You were Chuck Norris good at least!"
Then he thinks at the smoke coming from him in the mirror.
"Do you feel something weird happening to you as well?"

Lunch is a period, just like all the other classess.  They divide the studetn body up into two different groups for lunch so that about half the studetns are in lunch and the other half are in class, then the first lunch group goes to class and the rest of the students go to lunch.

Kel's eyes shift around as Colin and he walk through the halls and he then says, "Well first off, while I know how to throw a punch and have been in a fight or three, I've never known myself to be able to take down a guy in one hit or fight three guys at once and win."  He then leans in close and whispers, "Or hear heartbeats and smell someone's breath from more than a foot away, unless they had just downed a large amount of hard liquor.

As they walk to their class Colin keeps whispering to Kel.
"For a moment there, it was like I could see it on you. In the mirror, you were like.. radiating heat and steam. Alex instead was in black and white, and every time he coughed it was even worse. But when I touched him... it was like i gave him something that cured him. Something that came out of my breath, maybe that's what you smelled."

"I guess from now on I'll keep altoids handy when you're around." he says with a smirk, finally relaxed.

"Did you notice that blackbird?"

Kel laughed a bit, "No, I smelled the breath of one of the cops or whatever that kid had went after to get..."  As Colin asks about the bird Kel just shakes his head, "What bird?"

"Well, the bird... oh nevermind, it was probably just my brain trying to tell me something. I'll have to learn to understand what's real and what isn't."

He smiles. "Kel, I'm so glad I can talk to someone about all this, you have no idea. Thanks. If you ever need something, just tell me, and it's done. See you later."

Kel nods but his face seems out of it, "Yea, yea, see you around, good luck with all those pictures and stuff."  Kel then stops to think, shaking his head, mulling over the fact that he had now just put himself out there.  He shook his head, this was crazy, something was happening, you just don't hear someone's heartbeat.  He begins heading off at top speed towards his next class.