2008-02-27: Messing Around With The Demolition Man

Starring:

Church_icon.gif Madison_icon.gif

Summary: You come to me like a moth to the flame--

Date It Happened: February 27th, 2008

Messing Around With The Demolition Man


Central Park

Late afternoon in Central Park is a mellow affair- just before the rush hours and just after many schools let out. Naturally, there are an unusual number of students passing through on their way home or to part-time jobs flipping burgers. The weather is warm, but on-and-off rain all day has made the world into a soggy gray color, the muddy grass and intermittent clumps of ice making it just a tad more hopeful of a day. Spring is coming! A relief to many, including Church.

He sits on one of the benches just a short distance from a familiar statue of Alice, facing the ice-checkered pond with a small notepad in his hand. Writing rather swiftly, as well. Lawrence is having one of his rare moments of lucid philosophizing, as he looks incredibly intent on getting this paragraph down onto the yellow paper.

By coincidence, Madison happens to stop right by the same bench, setting herself down on the opposite end and bringing her hands to rest on her lap neatly. She doesn't actually pay attention to you at first, however — she's looking off and watching people go by. As her eyes follow, however, it soon becomes apparent to her that she's seen you before — she eyes you warily for a moment out of the corner of one eye. Scary guy from the other day! She tenses up faintly, but doesn't flee quite yet. No sudden movements..!

BRB, Lost in thought. Lawrence doesn't look up from his pen, reaching his free hand down to his side to pick up a cardboard, lidded cup. If it weren't cold, it might smell like- wait- there it is. Smells like something with chocolate. The catch being once he picks it up onto his knee, his fingers only need to wrap around it for all of three seconds before a curl of steam floats out of the lip of the lid again. Who needs fresh coffee? He can just reheat his own. Unfortunately, probably right in front of the little creature that has slipped silently into his peripheral bubble.

Watching Church for several more moments, Madison quirks an eyebrow as she watches the coffee reheating!.. … … She lifts her gaze up toward him for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You're a lot better at that than I am. I usually make it bubble up and spill on myself. That really hurts." She suddenly blurts out in Church's direction, apparently trying to strike up a conversation — though her tone of voice is cautious, and she doesn't get too specific in her wording.

If there was a moment where Lawrence actually stopped moving entirely, this would be it. His pen actually drags dumbly across the end of his sentence when he looks up to his side. What. Where did she come from?!

The man looks from Madison, down to the cup in his hand, and then back up to glance out at the sidewalk. "You usually- Excuse me. What?" He takes this moment of guilt in being caught to examine her better. She looks familiar, but he does see a lot of kids all of the time. Church can't place her, but it doesn't seem to bother him.

Tilting her head to the side with a vaguely curious look on her face. "That.." Madison murmurs out in reply, lifting a hand to point at Church's cup. "Making stuff boil like that. I'm not very good at it. I've never seen anyone else do it, so, I wasn't really sure how to it right.." She murmurs off, as if it were relatively normal. After all, Church seems reasonably normal, if a little scary. Can't be something oddball if they both do it, can it? Madison stares up at you for a few moments, looking rather unsure.

The edge of one eyebrow jerks up in question at Madison. Okay, so she saw him- but being a Company man affords him some degree of gravitation with the same types- and she's not very disturbed. Because she claims the same. "Oh."

Lawrence takes a breath, blinking down at his cup before deciding to take a good, long draw. "Is that all you can do? Boil things?"

Madison nibbles her lower lip lightly, and swings her leg just a little. "Er.. well.. I don't know." She says, shrugging her shoulders. "It doesn't always work, but, sometimes I can, ah.." She murmurs off for a moment, looking thoughtful — as if she isn't sure how to word it. ".. Sometimes I can get hot enough to burn something, but, it doesn't always work really well. I have to be really close or touching it." She explains, looking a little nervous and awkward as she looks up at the inquiring Church.

"Is it just heat, or does it feel like… a little torch under your skin?" Church lies his hand close to the bench between them, his palm hovering around half an inch from the wooden beams. A torch- like this one. A tiny, hollow bump is the only noise to come with a small flicker of orange-white. The discharge from his palm leaves a vaguely hand-shaped brown mark over the wood, steam evaporating and the smell of a used matchstick wafting around the bench. Lawrence is rather quick to retract his hand, lest he look suspicious for different reasons. Anyone else watching might as well think he was just patting the bench, but Maddy will know better so close-by.

Madison's gaze follows the hand that moves down to the demonstrate — she seems pretty calm, all things considered. Her green eyes lid half way, and she nibbles at her lower lip.. looking thoughtful before she nods. "Underneath, yes." She says, frowning just a little. "But it.. doesn't really.. I mean, it doesn't burn like that. On the outside. I mean, I don't think, anyway.." She says, tilting her head and taking on another thoughtful expression, as if she was trying to remember. ".. I mean, that's why I end up hurting myself when I try to boil stuff." She says, returning her gaze up to Church sheepishly. "I have to get my hand really close, and then, well, it bubbles up and gets all over the place, and.." She explains, curling her fingers in against her palm self conciously. ".. Is it supposed to be that way?"

"The ability? Yeah." It's not normal, FYI. Church watches the little girl with a look of observation. "It doesn't burn you cause it's an internal reaction. Part of you. Like spit or something." Only you know, more explosive. His voice is somewhat tentative, as if he didn't quite believe coincidence sat a power-twin there on a park bench beside him. "You're boiling over cause you're trying too hard. You just need to know it is there instead of thinking you need to strain to make it appear. It's always there, even if you aren't doing anything. Do you overeat sometimes? Always register a little bit higher on body temperature when the doc takes it?"

A confused expression! Ability? What's that? Madison stares at you quizzically for a moment. She nods her head slightly in reply to your questions and instructions — and then glances down toward the faintly singed bench surface. ".. I don't.. overeat.." She mumbles off, looking bashful. LITTLE GIRLS DON'T PIG OUT! "I.. just eat more than usual sometimes when I do because I usually forget to eat regularly.." She mumbles, bringing a hand up to scritch lightly at her cheek in a faintly embarassed gesture. No fatty!

"Haha. I eat about enough for like, three guys my size. Or one guy three times by size. All the time. I suppose if you're only boiling things, you're not really… at my level of energy expense, eh?" That part was rhetorical. One day, she might eat enough for a horse. But for now, it seems as if she is just a little girl with strange eating habits. Lawrence leans back on the bench, taking the last draw of his coffee and tossing it in the bin just a few feet to his side. Score, basket! His sharp brown eyes flicker back to Madison. "Ever blow anything up?" Say what.

"Blow.. up?" Madison can't deny that the sensations certainly had that tug once in a while — to explode. But she could never actually do it. "No.. I mean, unless you count that time I made an egg blow up." She says, touching a finger thoughtfully on her lower lip. Not quite the same thing thing as a real explosion, sadly! "Ah.. Why? Am I supposed to be able to, or something..?" She asks, looking at Church and once more quirking her head to the side. "I mean, it seems like there would be more things blowing up in that case.." If everyone could do it, she clearly assumes.

Church has enough experience with the clueless to pick up on the more subtle things. Like if someone might think this was normal. "We're special, you know. So no, there shouldn't be more things blowing up. Just us. And maybe a nurse with a Hercules complex." But Church won't get into that, and he skims right over it. "I can explode. But you sound like you still have a ways to go." At least she didn't start out with the exploding instead of the boiling, yeah?

Madison doesn't look terribly sure of all this! She still looks a bit confused, and glances down toward the ground, swinging her legs a bit times. "Oh," is her brief reply after she listens to the first — but the latter gets her sounding a little worried. "Explode..? Exploding sounds like it'd be kind of.. uhm.." She murmurs off, closing one eye slowly. ".. not survivable?"

Church smiles over at Madison, eyes having that familiar spark of mirth that one gets when faced with something at least a little entertaining. "I'm still in one piece, right? Dragons don't burn their tongues, after all." Another way of saying that maybe not everything is what it is supposed to be. The next breath to leave him is paired with a slow stream of smoke, thin and exhaled through his nostrils into the air. No cigarette in sight. Maybe Church is really a dragon in disguise. "I'm Lawrence. Most of my friends call me Church. Last name." His hand lifts from his side to hover towards Madison, palm tilted in an offered handshake.

Madison lifts her eyebrows just a little as she watches — and when the hand is offered to her, she hesitates. Burny hand. For several moments, she looks indecisive — until she finally lifts her hand, slowly moving it over to take hold of the offered one. She allows Church to lead the shaking. "Madison." She replies, biting her lower lip for a moment. "Madison Skirrow. I'm really new to the city." She explains, putting together her relevant history in a short phrase.

His hand isn't much warmer than anyone else's, so there is no scorching touch or anything to that effect. Church smiles again, and sooner than later his more normal side peeks through. "Nice to meet you. You out here all by yourself today?" Maybe she was going home? If it helps- "I'm not from around here either- just moved up… six months ago? Seven…something. You get the point."

Madison nods her head a few times in reply. "Yes. I'm staying with my uncle, but he's busy a lot. I don't really see him often." She replies, pulling her hand back away after a brief shake. "Oh, I just got here a few weeks ago myself." She says, returning her hand to rest neatly on her lap, one folded over the other. "Umn.." She murmurs off, shifting a few times where she sits. ".. Are there any tips you could give me? On how to.. do.. that better?" She asks, looking off in another direction. How does one describe EXPLODIFYING?!

Church brings his hand back to scratch at his jaw, smirking to himself. This is too good of a chance to bypass, right? Unless some third party sent her here, then Madison's appearance is genuine luck(which Lawrence has had a short stock of as of late). "Just remember it doesn't really…turn off. Don't strain like you see in all those dumb movies about superpowers." Straining means more power and less control. Hence why his more destructive techniques may be reminiscent of something out of a Toriyama storyboard. In the midst of speaking, he takes his pen to the bottom of his notebook now, scribbling somthing down and tearing out the bottom third of that page. He hands it over to Madison with a chiming laugh. "I promise I'm not a weirdo. There's my number. We freaks gotta stick together."

Then it's probably a good thing that Madison only fizzles for now! "Alright," She says, taking the paper that gets handed over and holding it between her hands; she looks at the number for a few moments. "Umn.. I'll call you some time, then," She murmurs, still looking down. She then glances up and over, tilting her head to the side. "— I should probably get going, though.. before it starts getting dark or something." She says, slowly sliding herself off of the bench and back up to her feet.

Trolling the world for powers strikes one as harder when it comes to little kids. Church watches Madison get back to her feet with a certain amount of concern- though not immediate. Such a tiny person- with the same fire insidethat he has, by all appearances. Destiny rears its head in mysterious ways. "Yeah. The troublemakers start coming out in about an hour or so." Troublemakers like him! but only on days that end in 'Y'. "Stick to crowds on your way home, Madison. Maybe we'll chat again." Church gives her a final smile, polite and quick.

Madison turns herself slightly, and looks back at Church for a moment — she offers a timid smile in reply. "Okay." She replies, before turning back forward. "I'll see you again some time, then, Church. Maybe you can explain this whole thing to me better, or something." She says, with a little shrug of her shoulders. She starts to walk along slowly.. and hesitantly glances back a few times. An exploding person. Now that isn't the type of person you meet every day. Even if you are one too, technically!

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