Easy Beginnings [OPEN]

[Diantha Gardner]

Hurray for Monday mornings. Truly, the best time of the week. Only not really, in fact Mondays sucked and this particular Monday were not any different from the last god knows how many Mondays in her life. Diantha were currently at work. She worked at one of the local coffee shops, not Starbucks, because that place was by far too commercial for her. This tiny local Coffee shop provided the citizens of Manhattan with cheap quality coffee. Certainly, the prices were a bit higher than the mass produced stuff made by Starbucks, but this coffee were made with the love and care of true coffee knowers. At least that was what her boss wanted the customers to think.

Diantha had been at work since five AM, which meant she had been working for four hours straight now. She did not quite understand her boss’ obsession with opening early. Rise early and shine in contest with the sun, was her boss’ hippie motto. She did not care for that one bit. However, she needed the money and her parents had been kind enough to get her the job so the least she could do was to feign interested. Now that she thought about it, maybe she should not have been raiding until late in the night. She could have done with a few more hours of sleep but her guild had wanted to finish gearing up for the new expansion release. She yawned, but tried to suppress it. Luckily, there were no customers right now to notice her. The last one had left three minutes ago.

She was simply doing the menial task of cleaning the counter. Not because she particularly cared, but rule number one of the shop was to keep everything clean to keep up a neat appearance. Therefore, whenever there were no customers and she was not on a break, she would clean. Mostly to make time fly by rather than because of the number one rule. The number one rule did not apply to her clothes. Since the standard uniform for all workers consisted of a simple black shirt and black pants with a similarly black apron on the front with the shops logo on. The boss thought it made his employees luck professional. Diantha thought it made them look like they tried too hard to be something they were not, but again his authority outweighed hers.

She finished cleaning the top part of the counter and proceeded to cleaning the lower back parts, hiding her from the view of any customers coming from the outside and them from her view. She mumbled silent curses at the stains left behind by anyone from the evening crew. At this point, she was actually hoping for a customer to arrive and give her an excuse for not doing this menial task.

[Jason Sutherland]

S E E ,  W E  D O  T H I S  F O R  A  P U R P O S E
J U S T  T O  K E E P  T H E I R  F I R E  B U R N I N '

A N D  W E  D O N ' T  N E E D  W A T E R  T O  L E T  T H A T 

M O T H E R -  M O T H E R  B U R N

9. 0. 6. That was the time burning in to his iris's from his phone. Six minutes past nine in the morning; far too early to do anything. Far too early to live. If it were any other day, Jason would have quite happily stayed in the comfort of his bed. It was warm there. And it was somewhere he could sleep. Unfortunately for him, Jason had a client today. He had stupidly and without thinking agreed to meet a Mr. Jones at Central Park in order to provide a boost.

Mr Jones had explained to Jason over the phone that he needed space for his ability to work fully. Not entirely certain of what that entailed, Jason agreed. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. And, at its most basic, Money was Jason's biggest motivator. This was an easy three thousand dollar boost. Jason worked on the ethos of the bigger the risk to him, the better the reward. For the most part, it worked. There were incidents, however, that did not work as he intended. It was unfortunate but was a part of the job – and he welcomed it. The risk was his rush. He could give himself an adrenaline rush whenever he pleased so Jason needed real excitement – falliable excitement. Sometimes walking in to the unknown provided that.

And Khalidah – his new interest – certainly constituted consideration of being unknown. And it was a risk that most definitely paid off.

The Adrenal Manipulator looked to the sky, smiling to himself as the thought of his night spent with Khalidah brushed through his memories. He shook his head and yawned, turning to look around. He was almost at Central Park; a few streets and he would be at the entrance. Jason, however, had not quite woken up. His ability was strange when he was tired.

His pupils dilated as his ability surfaced and Jason felt the rush force its way around his body like a snake in a tunnel. It wormed through his veins, pushing itself into his muscles and the boy inhaled. Feeling the effects of his ability, Jason darted his eyes from left to right and caught sight of a small coffee shop.

It was near enough empty and it seemed the only customers there were on their laptops. For a moment, Jason wondered if they were drinking Pumpkin Spiced Lattes and then thought to himself, why were they not in Starbucks? Mentally shrugging, Jason walked to the coffee shop. It wouldn't hurt to drink a coffee – the caffeine would most likely help. Somehow. Epinephrine was a much better drug. And Jason had plenty of it at his disposal. It was a mystery that he had not developed a tolerance. He was happy he hadn't but it was a wonder to him why he hadn't.

Upon entering the coffee shop, Jason glanced at the Barista. She was dressed in all black. A stylish choice, no doubt. He liked it. It accentuated her complexion; she wasn't bad looking. But she did look a little fed up and tired.

And then an idea came to mind. A coffee for a boost. That was a good trade.

Jason approached the girl whom was wiping the surface and opened his mouth, “I fink it's clean, luv.”

Jason smiled.

[Diantha Gardner]

Why won’t this come off? She thought as she placed more and more pressure upon a single coffee stain. Silent curses made their way through her mind, though she hoped that she would not be broadcasting them telepathically to some of her fellow employees that would be very inconvenient. She considered herself grateful that she was not one of those specials with that kind of ability; in fact, she was not a special at all as far as she knew. She certainly hoped that she never would become one; it just seemed like such a bother to be a special. She wondered how or even why someone would choose to continue life knowing what they could do.

She had been so intensely focused upon her work or rather the thoughts originating from her task, that time seemed to have flown by and she had not noticed when someone approached her. She almost did not register it when the man spoke until she realized that it was not a voice she knew. She looked up and noticed that a smiling customer of the male gender awaited her professional help.

She immediately put on her game face, no frowning or disheartened looks, she is completely in the game. She had to be. “I believe so to.” She said returning his smile with one of her own. She quickly dusted off the apron with a few quick hand movements of her left hand, removing any bits of coffee powder or cloth wrinkles that might be. “I do apologize for the wait. I hope you haven’t been waiting for too long.” Playing it humbly often turned the customer in her favor; she hoped it did so too. She really could not be bothered with a bad customer right now.

“What can I help you with?” She asked using her most professional tone. She tried to keep a healthy amount of eye contact with the customer, she knew that most people enjoyed this since it made it seem like she was attentive. She still held the cloth that she had used to clean the counter with in her right hand. She wanted to go put it where it belonged, but she knew paying attention to the customer was first priority.

[Jack Murdock]

Jack staggered inside, his head throbbing from the new hangover. He looked at the blond bimbo still cleaning the same damn spot over and over again. He lost patenice and shouted:

"Hey move your pretty ass and provide some service for a change."