Right To Be Forgotten [Inv]

[Devon Ridgeman]

Playing Tetris! Dropping blocks right here, over there, everywhere!
That ain't even fair. (I don't even care!)
Here's a T, there's an L! I'm gaining speed, Level Three!
All I need is just a freakin' square! (Put it over there!)
Now I'm on my way to Level Nine! Scorin' high, blowin' minds, all the freakin' time.
(Like it was a crime!) I'm on fire! (I'm on Level Nine!) I'll retire! (I'll never die!)
No score higher... than mine!
______________________________The Adventures of Duane and BrandO - "Tetris"

He couldn't help but inwardly smile as he directed the chunk of blueberry pancakes into his mouth.

The fact it had been this long since Khalidah had entered his life and steered him onto the straight and narrow - and sober - had mostly slipped him by. His mind had been occupied with the myriad trappings of what he would consider a normal life. He had a place to live, friends to spend time with, no contact with any who wished him harm and, ever since a certain Christmas party, he'd even got himself an actual girlfriend. Amalia had been so good to him and, while a part of him insisted that he didn't deserve her affection, it was a part of him that was getting smaller by the day, leaving him to simply be happy with how his life was.

It was now a couple of months shy of being five years since he'd met the Rahals. Half a decade had simply gone by and, during that time, he felt he'd achieved so much. Which he had. Anyone in their right mind would have come to the same conclusion. He'd kicked a debilitating drug habit, he was able to expertly control a rather destructive ability, he could kind of hold his own in a random conversation with strangers and, thanks to the Rahals, he wasn't even in dire need of money. The money may not have been his own but, with a job pretty much out of the question for someone with his past, he was simply appreciative of the fact he had something he could spend as he wished.

With little else for him to do at the moment other than eat, pay for his meal and leave, Devon started to think to himself about what job he'd have, were he allowed to get one. An athletics trainer? Maybe, but kids and adults alike would have been unable to shake how creepy he looked. While his pallor had now all but vanished completely, leaving a more natural looking, sun-touched complexion, his features and short black hair weren't going anywhere any time soon. Felicia still liked to joke about it from time to time, though far more in jest than she once had. There was no spiking his drinks with bleach or hurling him out of windows to spice up his day anymore. Both of them had got the cycle of murderous arguments and ability-assisted reprisals out of their system a long time ago.

Having heard of his desire to go out for a wander around the built-up areas around the Cazenovia estate, Amalia had asked him to run a couple of errands in her stead. They'd been nothing too embarrassing - she was never going to ask him to buy tampons for her, for example - but they were something that needed doing for the house in general while Felicia and Helena were elsewhere. At work, he assumed. Most of the Cazenovia residents were on weekdays. It amounted to a glorified shopping trip, but the items she'd asked her boyfriend to buy were so few in number that he could easily carry them back to the house on foot.

The diner which had offered pancakes as part of its menu was just a bonus, one which he was taking full advantage of after skipping breakfast that morning. With the last of the pancakes finished off, he got up from his table, parted with ten dollars - more than enough to cover the food and tip the waitress pretty nicely - and strolled his way out of the door. Even away from the centre of Manhattan, New York was full of crowds. There were just that many people living there that the streets simply couldn't help it. And, rather predictably, his emergence from the diner coincided almost precisely with someone's attempt at entry.

"What-..?" No. It was no-one's fault. Like a disruptive dog, his mind quickly slapped down the flicker of anger, causing the mild frown to vanish from his face. The man he'd bumped into looked like any other inner-city businessman - freshly ironed suit, briefcase, nothing much out of place - and as their eyes met, Devon couldn't help but find the man oddly familiar. "Sorry. My fault." The man's accent definitely wasn't local, far less so than his own. He sounded a bit like one of those British actors Amalia had been watching on TV one night; sort of a cross between Idris Elba and Tom Hiddleston; an inner-city forty-something guy who was habitually trying to sound a little more sophisticated than his voice made him out to be. The same way everyone of a certain age compulsively did on the telephone so their voice would be clearly understood.

The businessman's slightly shaggy brown hair - which had only just started to grey out near the temples - fluttered in the breeze for the moment they spent side-by-side and, after tearing his gaze away from its focus, Devon offered a slightly sheepish smile. "Yeah. Mine too." And, with that, the strangers parted ways, Devon shifting his posture in order to allow the man free passage into the diner he'd just left before setting off on his way. There were just a couple more things for him to get before he could return home to Amalia with his mission accomplished and, as he navigated himself through the grid-like streets, his destination gradually rose into view: a department store he could never remember the name of.

It was one to which he could recall the directions with perfect clarity however. A couple of years back - or however long it had been - it had, like many places, been the victim of rioters and looting when the news of the famine had broke out nationwide. At the time, Amalia had been in the store doing shopping of her own when a gang of looters had rushed in and started smashing their way through display cases and helping themselves to whatever seemed valuable. Not wanting to alert them, Devon had used his ability on the nearest external wall, literally boring his way through and gaining access in a dusty cloud of rubble, just to find his girlfriend and make sure she was alright.

The wall he'd damaged had long since been repaired - the devastation chalked up to an act by the rioters - and there was little evidence of what he'd done. The store, like the rest of the country following the government's reaction to Christian Moynahan's gambit, was simply going about its business as normal. Just like he was.

[Amalia Djanescu]

Bir derdim var artik tutamam icimde
Gitsem nereye kadar
Kalsam neye yarar
Hic anlatamadim hic anlamadilar

______________________________Mor ve Ötesi – Bir Derdim Var

Cazenovia Lake Estate

Cazenovia, NY

For the better part of the last year, Amalia had been deep in the midst of completing all of her capstone courses, lectures, and essays on her way to achieving a doctoral degree in mathematics. Why she'd chosen such a difficult topic was, well, easy. Her mother had been involved in the financial industry for her entire life, and she'd inherited her father's intellect and ability to grasp incredibly abstract mathematical concepts. Honestly, she hated math—at least its higher levels—because it left more questions than it answered.

For the past two weeks, she'd spent most of her time piecing together her thesis on how everyone wasn't “living in the Matrix,” but rather how reality didn't exist and everything was just one complex mathematical formula. It was a real pain in the ass. Why couldn't she have picked an easier topic?

It was her father who suggested that she take a weekend off and go to her grandmother's estate in Cazenovia, something she was generally against doing as she didn't enjoy spending time in her grandmother's company. He'd eventually appealed to her more reasonable side, saying that she could spend time babysitting her much younger cousins, which she was surprisingly okay with. Although they lived in the same state, she didn't really spend much time with Tivodar and Ildiko, mainly because NYU's mathematics doctoral program was a giant time sink.

She hadn't lived with her parents since she'd gone to college, though they did have a key to her apartment and her car just in case of an emergency. Prior to her departure, they'd confiscated her work laptop so she wouldn't have any distractions. Well, that was great. She knew she shouldn't have kept all her research in one place. At least they meant well. A few days away from her work, her father had told her, would help her see things more clearly. That wasn't to say that she wasn't pissed off at them for taking her property without asking her first, but coming from a family of Rahals, she knew when to pick her battles. This was not one of them.

Felicia was at work, pulling another 72 hour shift, which left her at home with her shapeshifting niece (cousin? Whatever) and ergokinetic nephew—or whatever the hell Daro's power was. It was similar to whatever Helena could do. She genuinely enjoyed taking care of them, and if she could have afforded to move mid-semester, she probably would have moved in with the small family as a nanny.

She'd put the twins down for their afternoon nap and picked up her phone, scrolling through her list of recent calls until she came upon Devon's number. Pressing the 'call' button, she held the phone to her ear and listened to it ring a few times before he picked up. “The kids are asleep, and there's nothing for me to eat in this house. Can you pick up something on the way back, or do you want me to meet you somewhere?” Amalia didn't want to wake up the twins—not after it had taken her nearly an hour to corral them in their rooms—but she also knew better than to leave them alone.

✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲ ✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲

ƸӜƷ Word count: 604
ƸӜƷ Outfit: This
ƸӜƷ Other: None.

[Devon Ridgeman]

Maybe I should let her go...
...but only when she loves me. (She loves me!)
How can I just let her go?
Not until she loves me! (She loves me!)
______________________________Slipknot - "Killpop"

"Hey. You still sane?"

Although he'd missed their evolution, Devon had become quite accustomed to the mainstays of twenty-first century technology during his time around the Rahals. While Felicia still mocked his ineptitude when it came to playing most videogames, he'd been able to largely figure out how smartphones worked. He knew how to make calls, he knew how to avoid the pitfalls of predictive texting and, after a little bit of assistance from Khalidah, he'd worked out how to give every contact on his phone a unique ringtone. With this degree of mastery under his belt, it didn't take him very long at all to answer his girlfriend's call.

Mired in the world of higher education and the compilation of her doctoral thesis on... something about math he really didn't understand, he and Amalia had actually spent quite a lot of their time apart. She was such an enlightening boon to the structure of his life that he often found himself forgetting that they didn't actually live together. While they were easily able to cross paths to some extent, it was usually when Amalia paid a visit to the Cazenovia estate that they were able to stay face-to-face for more than a fleeting couple of hours here and there. Devon, of course, didn't mind. It was better than nothing and, as his past easily proved, nothing could potentially be soul-crushing.

"The kids are asleep, and there's nothing to eat in this house." Whether due to her own preference or the fact that his own inexperience made asking him a risky proposition for Felicia, Amalia was spending the weekend at the estate to help take care of the twins. Tivodar and Ildiko were now a pair of rampant four-year-olds, full of everything all other children at that age were prone to as well as their powerful abilities. The fears he'd had surrounding them when they were immobile newborns had only been amplified when they'd learned how to talk and run around and he was sure that Ildiko loved shapeshifting into slippery - figuratively or otherwise - animals just to spite him.

How was he meant to keep up with taking care of a girl who could suddenly become a husky puppy and bound away from him to her twin brother's amusement? "Can you pick something up on the way back, or do you want me to meet you somewhere?" His original reasons for venturing out of the house were nearly taken care of and, as he surveyed his surroundings, recalling mental notes of which shops were where, a quiet thoughtful noise swam out from between his lips. He was sure that, somewhere in here, there was some food Amalia adored whenever she was in town.

"I'm at that big department store about a mile or so away," he mused, covering his bases. He had no way of knowing how immediate the twins' needs were at that point, even if they were asleep. They could wake up at any moment and, if Felicia came back from her three-day shift to find out that he and Amalia had left her kindergarten-age son and daughter unattended, even if only for a short while, he doubted they'd be able to survive the wrath she'd visit upon them. "You... could meet me out here. Though that'd probably involve waking up the twins." As he stepped onto the escalator and started to ride it upwards from ground level, he caught sight of a high-end deli on the first floor. "Either way, I'll get you some of that, uh... olive-cheese-salad stuff you like." He had no idea what the culinary ensemble was actually called, only that it had olives and cheese in it. "There anything else you want? Candy for the twins? Might as well tell me while I'm here."

With the addendums to his itinerary for the next hour or so firmly in his head, he hung up the phone and set about forging a path through the mall, going from one store to the next and only remaining in each one for long enough to buy whatever it was he and Amalia needed and leaving. The whole process was mundane and slightly monotonous and, as much as it dragged on, Devon was incapable of viewing it unfavourably when compared to how his days had progressed before. It might have bored him to go out shopping, but it was normal. Stable. Without any real complaint outside his internal griping.

Near the bottom of the list - underlined numerous times mostly at Amalia's own insistence - was the word rakı. Rakı was, according to her, an anise-flavoured alcoholic drink from Turkey. Devon didn't even know what anise was but, from what his girlfriend had told him, he knew at least where he could start looking. On the mall's uppermost floor, nestled in between a bookstore and a pharmacy, was a store specialising in the myriad forms of alcohol from around the world. Getting there was simple enough and, once he'd found the shelves dealing with eastern Europe, it was a case of scanning his eyes along each one in turn until he found one of two phrases: Tekirdağ, which he couldn't pronounce, and Yeni Rakı, which he could. Thankfully, Amalia had seen fit to inform him that the word on the piece of paper was largely pronounced the way he thought it was.

Since walking through the liquor store's main doorway - and unbeknownst to him - Devon had been watched. The man behind the counter was in his mid-thirties, with a set of slightly dull green eyes in amidst his noticeably tanned skin and, when Devon approached him with the bottle of rakı in hand, it was taking a considerable amount of willpower to just go through the motions and not look like he'd been staring the whole time. It wasn't every day that Eric Ramos found himself gripped by déjà vu but, the more he looked at the man before him, the more he found himself unable to shake the feeling in the back of his head that something wasn't right. "You, uh... got any ID on you?", he inquired, doing his best to exude some professionalism. "We've gotta card everyone who comes in here, y'know? Store policy."

Sure enough, Devon complied, handing over his ID. With his crimes largely forgotten by the public - and perhaps a few in the know sort of seeing a dozen years cooped up in a psych ward as time served - Devon had, under advice from Khalidah, foregone his fake ID and got himself a real one. If he wanted to learn to drive at some point in the future or do anything which needed him to have non-forged legal documents, then he'd need one. Everything was present and correct, from his name and date of birth to a slightly unflattering photograph of him from the neck up.

Devon Ridgeman. "Okay, that's... fine." It couldn't have been the same one, could it? "That'll be twenty-five dollars." There were probably hundreds of Devon Ridgemans in America, plus he was in New York. Nevertheless, Eric spent as much time as he could without drawing suspicion surveying the customer's features. Pale skin, jet black hair and... piercing, haunted eyes that were a hit on Hallowe'en.

"Thanks. My girlfriend told me to look for this stuff." And a Nevada accent. Holy shit, it was him. And, for better or worse, he seemed to have no clue at all who he was. Devon was thirty-six now. They both were. It had been nineteen years since they'd last crossed paths. As far as he knew, Devon should have been spending the rest of his days in Las Vegas; if not in jail then in a dark corner of some psych ward, not in a public mall on the other side of the country, buying booze for his...

My girlfriend...

He had a girlfriend now? More to the point, did she even know who - or rather what - she'd fallen in love with? "It's nice stuff, if you like anise."

"I meant to ask her. What is that stuff?"

"It's a plant. As well as flavouring rakı, it's sometimes used in candy. Commonly British and European stuff, but we use it too; in black jelly beans."

Devon smiled, clarity appearing in his facial expression. "Oh, right. Should be pretty good then. See ya." And, with that, Devon was gone, sauntering out the door as if he'd done nothing at all nearly two decades ago. Just as Devon started to key in a text message to Amalia, informing her that he'd managed to find and buy a bottle of rakı, Eric waited until he was out of sight before making his way into the back of the store. As always, there was at least one other person there, taking care of the excess stock or online orders. "Hey, man. Can you cover for me for about... an hour? I've gotta go take care of something."

By the time Eric made it back to the front of the shop, Devon was stepping onto the escalator to get back down to the first floor. Stealth and espionage wasn't really his thing but, with the crowd of a weekend mid-afternoon to help him out, he was able to shadow his new quarry pretty well. After swinging by a deli to pick up a salad box, he was making his way outside and, presumably, home.

[Amalia Djanescu]

Time took away
That glow in your eyes
Slew from your tears
Joy turned to pain
Love to hate
______________________________Myrath– Tales of the Sands

The Rahal-Soler Estate
Cazenovia, New York

"Hey. You still sane?"

“Yes, I'm still sane.” Babysitting was a nice change from studying for once, though she'd never admit it. She'd still brought her research with her in the form of a small laptop, but she hadn't had much of a chance to do since she'd arrived. “The twins are both out cold. I think they ran themselves ragged.” Once they were down and out, they were usually out for a good few hours. A bomb could have gone off next to their beds and they would have slept through it.

"You... could meet me out here.” Devon suggested. She was about to interrupt him and tell him what a horrible idea that was when he continued. “Though that'd probably involve waking up the twins."

“Yeah, not a good idea. I'm sure Felicia would be thrilled if she came home early and found the kids alone in the house.” Amalia knew better than to leave the two children alone. That would have been a disaster on a dozen different levels. The only thing she really wanted was a bottle of rakı which was nearly impossible to find anywhere in New York outside of Manhattan. While not a big drinker by any means, she always liked to keep a bottle of it around the house.

She hung up the phone once the conversation ended and for the first time since she'd arrived, opened her laptop and brought up several tabs-worth of documentation and formulas she'd been working on for the better part of the last six months. Honestly, if she'd really wanted something to eat, she could have just opened up a portal, walked through, got what she needed, and brought it back—but like most everyone else in her family, she didn't like using her ability when it wasn't needed.

Since he probably wouldn't be long, she needed to make the best of her time alone and get back to the grind. There was no such thing as respite for a Ph. D. student, because every waking moment was a moment that could have been spent doing something productive, like finishing her capstone thesis and practicing for her oral exam which was coming up at the end of her term. She'd already gone over it hundreds of times before and had it memorised, but she tended to over-prepare just in case.

✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲ ✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲

ƸӜƷ Word count: 433
ƸӜƷ Outfit: Same as previous post.
ƸӜƷ Other: None.

[Devon Ridgeman]

Crestfallen kings and queens cavorting in their faith.
Unbeknownst to them is the presence of the Wraith.
Since fate of Man is equal to the fate of lice...
...as new dawn rises you shalt recognise. Now behold the Lord of Flies.
______________________________Ghost BC - "Year Zero"

So Amalia was stuck at home until Felicia got home from work. No big deal, he thought. Pretty much everyone else who, at one point or another, called Cazenovia home had a lot less free time than he did. Felicia and Helena both had their working lives to take care of, Khalidah was a CEO and, as she often did on her visits, his girlfriend was lumbered with babysitting the twins. Illy and Daro had now got to the age where they could run, jump, use their abilities and generally cause chaos around the house on their own but, infuriatingly, still needed round-the-clock supervision. With Felicia out of the house, the two of them hadn't really been able to spend any quality time together alone.

Rather than try to put his foot down and selfishly goad Amalia out of the house, he'd simply hung up and allowed her to get back to working on her thesis. Her PhD studies had been the main factor that had kept them apart recently and, like her, Devon couldn't wait until her work was over. The sooner she defended her thesis - or whatever the hell she still had to do - and finish university, the better. Of course, that didn't solve the problem of how Devon could better his own life, but it was one of many bridges he could easily cross when a more opportune time came. Just as the Rahals had helped him this far, he knew that they'd have no problems with helping him further.

The mention of jelly beans back at the mall had got him thinking. He might have been the twins' spooky sort-of-uncle, but he didn't want to return home with nothing for them. His route back home, despite having set out from a mall, still took him by more than a few smaller stores before he got anywhere near the Cazenovia estate. A two minute detour and the better part of four dollars later and his shopping bag was burdened with a few child-sized bags of jelly beans. Provided the twins rode out the inevitable sugar high by the time Felicia got back, there'd be no danger of incurring the doctor's wrath.

For the past half a mile, Eric had done his best to make sure that there was at least a few people between himself and Devon but, as his quarry ventured further and further from the mall, the crowds gradually started to thin out. The Cazenovia estate had been deliberately sited in a location that was mostly devoid of traffic, with most of the people who ventured into that part of town simply passing by on their way to a more crowded destination. Eric knew about the palatial household - there weren't many in New York who didn't - but he was still surprised when Devon turned his attention towards it and plodded on towards the gate.

He had to act now. If it was secured by third-party personnel, then they would have never let him in. As far as he knew, Devon was still a danger to those around him and, at the very least, he wanted to know why he was walking free without a care in the world.

"Devon!!"

The voice, he'd heard before. Back in the mall. Sure enough, as he turned around, he saw the cashier from the liquor store standing forty feet away. "What are you doing here?" Still, Eric went unrecognised. The fact he knew his name could easily have been chalked up to the fact that he'd seen his ID. What irked him ever so slightly was... well, this. "Are you following me?" He'd never been much of a fan of being followed. Or thinking he was being followed. Neither had ended particularly well for him in the past.

"You don't even recognise me, do you?" Silence. Devon instead contemplated what he should be doing next. Rushing for the gate? Calling Amalia? "Eric Ramos? We were in high school together, back in Vegas?" The name didn't ring any bells. Not yet, at least. Then again, not much from that far back did so anymore. The late nineties were clouded over with so many bad memories that he genuinely struggled to find the good ones anymore. "I was in high school with a lot of people in Vegas," he sighed. Already, he didn't like where the conversation was heading.

But still, Eric carried on. "I know you were in the track team. We both got in after the same set of tryouts." With each word, Devon's interest was piqued. Even if this guy was a former teammate of his, he was struggling to pair up the face. Then again, it had been almost twenty years. "I also know a lot more about you; how the team once stole your clothes after practice that one time sophomore year? You had to wear the school's mascot suit for like two straight hours until we all came clean. Just like I also know you murdered your parents."

"That..." Eric hadn't meant to say it so bluntly. He hadn't meant to give them both whiplash from how abruptly the mood of the conversation had shifted. But he couldn't go back now. Devon found himself advancing a few paces. The security camera mounted over the gate could still see him from where he stood, but its presence wasn't a concern to either of them at this point. "You don't understand even half of what was going on."

"I know they're dead and you're not." Eric kept his eyes firmly on Devon, watching for any signs of trouble. While Devon had been a middle-distance runner back in high school, he had been a sprinter. He'd always been able to outpace the paler and slightly taller man but, with their chosen events differing, that hadn't been the point. Now, though, if Devon tried to run, he'd be on him in seconds. "I know that the news said you'd been locked up indefinitely." Devon was right. He didn't know what had gone on from his point of view. That was part of the reason why he'd followed him home. The jury was still out on whether he'd try to haul him to the police station but, right now, he felt... at least slightly content with just knowing why he was here. "You know what 'indefinitely' means, Devon?"

"Forever." Devon's expression stayed blank. As blank as he could muster, at any rate. "It didn't stick."

"So... what? You escaped?!"

"Thirteen years was long enough. I wanted out."

"But you don't get to decide that you 'want out'!" It bothered him to see how... lackadaisical Devon was about the whole affair. It was almost as if he viewed his incarceration as a sort of extended vacation! Of course, the notion was far from the truth, but Eric didn't know that. All he really knew was what he was seeing. He was seeing a man who didn't seem to care about what he'd done. "The only reason you weren't put on death row was 'cause you were still a fucking juvie. That and you obviously needed some kind of help. The news mentioned little bits of your defence. Your touch accidentally melted their skin?! Come on. Nobody in their right mind would believe that."

Gently, Devon set his shopping bag down on the ground, unburdening his hands as he found himself slowly advancing. "You don't know anything." His voice, surprisingly, remained quiet for the time being. But the anger was starting to bubble up in the back of his mind. The last person who had confronted him about his earlier deeds like this had been Felicia, during one of their historic arguments. Eric was pushing many of the same buttons, albeit with less effectiveness. The years which had passed had done a lot to bolster his coping mechanisms and he was now a relatively well-adjusted and functioning member of society... if an unemployed one.

"I know enough to know that you shouldn't be here!" Eric's hands clasped against Devon's upper arms. He wasn't set on restraining him yet but, if push came to shove, he'd put him down and call the cops. Did they know that a fugitive was living here? "You escaped from jail or... hospital or wherever the hell it was they put you! As far as the law's concerned, you're not an ex-con, Devon. You're still a convicted killer!"

"From a crime I committed when I was seventeen." He wasn't even trying to hide it. What was the point? He knew what he'd done just as much as Eric apparently did. He wasn't sure if incarceration on a psych ward counted when it came to crimes committed while legally a minor, but he'd watched enough television to know that the rule must have been present somewhere. "They should be thankful I waited until I was thirty."

He didn't even sound remorseful, much less look it. For Eric, that was the final straw. As far as he was concerned, two innocent people - people he'd actually met once upon a time - had lost their lives and, now that he'd stumbled across their killer purely by chance, it was as if the man didn't even care. His hand darted away and pulled out his phone. All he'd need to do was swipe the screen and dial three numbers. The phone would have been ringing within five seconds.

That was, if Devon hadn't seen what he was doing. The moment Eric's eyes flickered over to the screen to ensure his thumb went to the right place, Devon's arm snapped upward, snatching the phone from his grasp. "What the hell?!" They spoke near enough in unison, but for entirely different reasons. "You were gonna call the cops? Is that it?!" Not caring that Eric would likely pursue him, Devon began to walk back towards the gate, picking up his shopping bag as he went. "The fact I served a sentence three times longer than I should have done isn't enough for you?! Why do you even care?!"

"Give. Me. The phone, Devon."

"What phone?" Eric's pursuit was interrupted when he caught sight of Devon's right hand. Still holding the freshly-stolen phone up for him to see, he couldn't help but notice that, like some Hallowe'en stage make-up, all of the veins and capillaries in the raised limb had turned a sickly shade of purple. And, of their own accord, pieces of his two-hundred dollar phone began to crack, splinter and warp. The screen suddenly winked out into darkness as the display near enough split down the middle. The plastic shell began to shrivel and blacken as though Devon had taken a blowtorch to it and, as all of the materials began to weaken in unison, the whole thing began to crumple down and in on itself until the phone was a shrivelled, inert mess.

"Th-.. the fuck did you just do..?" Eric looked dumbfounded as Devon casually dropped his broken phone to the ground. Though, as Devon quietly gave his response, Eric's confusion shifted to something else as he realised what must have happened all those years ago. "There are people out there who can do some really crazy shit. That's the crazy shit that I ca-..." Devon Ridgeman... had an ability. And it must have been that ability that he'd used to kill his parents. He may not have known why but, with his own family having known Kieron and Maria back when times in the Ridgeman house had been good, Eric simply lost it.

Before Devon knew what was happening, he had been pitched forward and shoved roughly against the wrought iron gate face-first. Miraculously, despite being dropped to the ground again, nothing inside the shopping bag had actually broke and, as the two former classmates descended into an impromptu brawl, their contact with the gate was enough to trip the estate's anti-vandalism alarm. Devon knew of the countermeasure - one of many - from Felicia, back when she'd left him home alone and actually trusted him enough to do so. She'd told him all about the elaborate security system which encircled and permeated the property and, while he didn't remember most of it, he knew that the main place one was able to see what was going on was an internal control room on the first floor, approximately seventy metres down the corridor from his bedroom.

Devon was defending himself as best he could but, with Eric having got the drop on him, he was taking far more punches than he was managing to block or dish out himself. "I'll make you wish you'd never broke out, you piece of shit!" It was a wonder no-one was stopping to break them up. But, then again, nobody really passed by the Cazenovia estate who didn't already have business there.

[Amalia Djanescu]

The waves were gushing by the shores of my heart.
Yet weary I felt not
For I have fought for what was right!

______________________________Mid Autumn Nights – And I Entitled It: “A Dirge . . . ”

After she got off the phone with Devon, Amalia checked on the twins to make sure they were still in their room and that they were still asleep. Since Devon was going to be back soon, there really wasn't anything she could do to temporarily occupy herself. By the time she fired up her laptop and got settled enough to start writing more of her thesis, he'd already be at the gate. So in the meantime, she decided to get on Facebook and message her great uncle Caleb—probably the only Rahal relative with whom she kept in fairly consistent contact when she was able, and when he was available.

:أماليا، ابنة تين هينان
مرحبا، كاليب. كيف حالك؟

:كالب بن تين هينان
على ما يرام. تقيم في فندق في تمنراست. انا ذاهب الى لرؤية هيثم الدراسات العليا

Amalia Tin Hinan:
I can't believe Haitham is graduating. Maybe the two of you can come visit this summer.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
I know he's planning on it. He'd really like to meet the rest of the family state-side. It's just getting out there that's a pain.

Caleb was an Imushagh, commonly referred to by the rest of the world as the Tuaregs; nomads of the Sahara desert. Tracing his lineage wasn't difficult, as his mother (Khalidah) was rumoured to have been the legendary Queen Tin Hinan. Amalia hadn't figured out whether or not that was true, because her great grandmother liked to keep her personal history close to her vest. She believed what Caleb had told her, even though the historical record was a bit murky regarding Tin Hinan. Some sources said that she had no children, while others said that she had many.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
Well, there are teleporters now. I'm sure grandmother—sorry--your mother could send for one.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
She could, but locating me in Tinariwen is difficult. We don't exactly carry around sat-phones and GPS locators, and honestly, if I told them I was on my way from El Borma to Douar El Ma, they'd be dead by the elements by the time they I located them. lol

Amalia Tin Hinan:
But you're in Abalessa right now and you'll be in Gabès soon. I'm pretty sure in a college town like that, there's bound to be a teleporter.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
True, but I prefer flying, even if it takes me a few days to get there.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
Planning on albatrossing it?

Caleb Tin Hinan:
Cheaper than paying and having to deal with the jet lag, honestly. Don't have to climb all over people when I have to piss, so that's a plus. How are your studies coming along? I should be able to make it out there to see you graduate as well.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
They're coming. Half the time, I swear I'm just bullshitting everything since reality is such an abstract concept and mathematics is . . . equally as abstract. It's like trying to mix smoke with Silly Putty. Pretty much fucking impossible.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
Nothing is impossible if you can dream it.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
Thanks, David Avocado Wolfe, you're so inspirational. </sarcasm>

Caleb Tin Hinan:
But it's true, though. I mean, really, that's what you do. You can literally make your thoughts a reality.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
I try not to since most of my thoughts involve stabbing certain people in the face or throwing my research off the nearest cliff and saying, “FUCK THIS SHIT I GIVE UP YOU KNOW NOTHING JON SNOW.”

Caleb Tin Hinan:
Yeah, well, don't do that.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
I didn't even want to come up here this weekend, but whatever, I haven't seen the twins in a few weeks and Helena and Felicia are both out, and Devon and Lilka needed a break. I don't even know what Lilka does. Does she even have a job?

Caleb Tin Hinan:
She's a “social scientist.”

Amalia Tin Hinan:
So she's a Communications Major who sits on Facebook all day posting dank memes. In other words, unemployed.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
Well . . . yeah.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
That's not a job. Does anyone in this family have an actual job? I'm not including you here since you don't count.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
Gee, thanks. I'm actually a folk musician and a modern-day storyteller, and when I'm in a more or less settled area out here like Abalessa or Gabès, I do run a rather nice souq.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
You ever think of setting down permanent roots?

Caleb Tin Hinan:
I do have permanent roots. They just like a constant change of scenery. My home is the entire world.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
Yeah, that's one thing about this family I will never understand. I don't like moving around. Even driving up north is too much of a pain in the ass sometimes.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
I think the concept of wandering is in our genes, in our family at least.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
Must have skipped my parents & me. Either that, or the move from Turkey to New York was enough to get it out of us.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
How's Devon doing?

Amalia Tin Hinan:
He's fine. He's out running a few errands.

Caleb Tin Hinan:
He seems nice. I haven't spoken with him much. Though I guess you can't really 'speak' with anyone through here unless you call them.

Amalia Tin Hinan:
Eh, he balances me out. I'm always the manic one who wants shit done THIS WAY RIGHT NOW and he just does things on his own time. Which is infuriating, but I'm learning to deal withbbbblks;ibbbfh0mklllllllll

Caleb never learned what she was learning to deal with, as Ragnarok, the large half-wolf beast Felicia kept as a pet, leapt over her on the couch, and one of his rear paws caught on the keyboard of her laptop. Miraculously, when it fell out of her lap and hit the floor, it was still mostly intact—two of the keyboard keys had popped off, but she could snap them back into place later. He took off down the hallway toward the front door—unusual for him, as even when he knew someone was coming home, he was generally extremely docile. She ran after him and came upon him practically trying to run through the door like a battering ram, charging at it and hammering into it with his shoulder. He'd very nearly succeeded in breaking the top lock free from the door where it attached to the jamb when she reached up and pulled on the mechanism, then turned the knob.

Before she'd even opened the door, the knob shot away from her as the nearly 180 pound black and grey monstrosity burst out of it, his bristled fur making him appear much larger than he already was. Ragnarok took off at a full sprint which was definitely not something she could keep up with. Perhaps he'd just heard a bear outside or something and wanted to kill it. Whatever. The entire estate was essentially 'caged in' so it wasn't like he could run off and get lost. She was about to shut the door when she heard the house's security system sound off and she sighed. Great. So much for the twins sleeping.

Figuring it was just a false alarm triggered by high winds or Ragnarok running full tilt into the front gate, she decided to follow the large animal to see if he was behind triggering the sensor. At least she'd had the good sense to keep her running shoes on; once Felicia or Helena returned home that afternoon, she was planning on going on a nice long jog with Devon.

Amalia followed Ragnarok's long strides and jogged towards where she him trying to force his body through the steel rebar of the gate and immediately stepped up her pace. He was snarling and growling at whatever it was that was attempting to come through the gate, and she could hear the sound of his jaws snapping together every time he tried to get a bite in to defend his territory. It was only when she got within site distance that she saw two men fighting within arm's reach of the gate that she realised one of them was--

“--Devon?! What the fuck?”

She had no idea who the person was who was on top of him and was currently beating the shit out of him, and she really didn't care. Ragnarok had already managed to bend the freaking steel bars enough on either side of the front of his body so that one of his massive shoulders could fit through. In as deep and intimidating a voice she could muster, she snarled a command at the wolfdog—a sound which would have been intimidating in any language, but German always made things sound terrifying. “Ragnarok, erhalten Sie Ihre pelzigen Hintern hier zurück! Ich habe einen Keks für Sie, Sie entzückenden Hund!”

It had been Helena's idea to train him in German, and for good reason; he couldn't be called off an attack in English, and most Americans were dumb and didn't know any other language other than English. The 'command' was enough to give the large canine as well as the two men tussling on the ground some pause. “Hinlegen!” Ragnarok lay down where he was, half in and half out of the gate, his yellow eyes still keen on the young man who'd been attacking Devon. His lips curled as he growled again, warning the intruder in his own unique way to 'kindly back the fuck off.'

Her own power wasn't really anything to behold. Her veins didn't turn a different colour, she didn't have the whole mirror-gaze or golden-gaze thing both her grandmother and her great-grandmother exhibited, she didn't shapeshift, nothing. Stepping into another reality was, for her, equivalent to stepping aside or stepping into another room; it wasn't something that was noticeable unless she wanted it to be. In this case since she knew that throwing people into rifts generally had consequences in her current reality, and because she was too far from the house to run back, grab a weapon, and return to the gate—she had no idea if the guy had a gun on him or whatever—she ducked out of her current reality into a 'control room' of sorts which showed her the various outcomes of the situation unfolding in front of her. Keeping in mind where she'd left off, she opened a small portal into the tall gun safe where Felicia kept a set of shotguns and hunting rifles under lock and key. She snatched whichever one was nearest to her, checked to make sure it was loaded, and bagged a few extra shotshells of buckshot for good measure before returning to her primary reality and leveling the muzzle of the gun directly at the unwanted interloper, her finger hovering outside the trigger guard until he gave her reason to shoot.

“I think it would be in your best interests to get the fuck out of her before I blow a hole in your chest large enough for a train to pass through, yes?” Amalia gestured at the unknown man with her chin. “Or I can just throw you to the dog. He won't mind, I'm sure.”

✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲ ✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲


ƸӜƷ Word count: 2016
ƸӜƷ Outfit: Same.
ƸӜƷ Other: Their whole conversation on FB is in Arabic but I cbf to Google Translate everything.

[Devon Ridgeman]

Hey goons, thugs and bosses! Guess what? I BROUGHT COLOSSUS!
Time's up, better count your losses! Kicking that ass as my girlfriend watches!
Run away, you know that I'll chase every bad guy; put 'em right in their place!
REVENGE! I'm gonna give you a taste! I'm sexy as hell, but I cover my face!
______________________________Teamheadkick - "Deadpool Rap"

"Devon?! What the fuck?"

It would have been so much easier, he thought, to just give in. Eric, for all his obvious disapproval about what he'd done in the past, was just a squishy container of water, meat and bone. He could have had this fight won in around five seconds and have his former high-school buddy hospitalised or worse. All he had to do was grab onto something, squeeze and think about chemistry. But he didn't. Even now, when punches were raining down upon him in seemingly random spots all over him from the waist up, his ability was off-limits. It may not have been the genetic capability to summon an all-consuming inferno or to level a city in a torrent of primal energy, but in its own way, it was quite the destructive thing he could do.

Devon didn't realise that Amalia had rushed out to find him until the noise of his assailant's fists slamming into him ceased, giving way to an incensed barrage of growls, barks and the snapping of a large set of canine jaws. Ever since he'd met and been around the colossal wolfhound, Devon had been convinced that Felicia's pet was in some way psychic. While the entire estate was encircled by a state-of-the-art security system no doubt paid for by Khalidah, Ragnarok had on numerous occasions proved to be a far better early warning system than anything money could buy. Having sensed that something was amiss at the house's front gate, he'd galloped his way down there and, having spotted one of his Mistress' treasured friends in mortal peril, had set about trying to defend his territory.

By attempting to force his way through the solid steel gate. A snarling mass of ebon fur that weighed about as much as Devon did, managing to actually bend the bars of the gate as he tried to get at Eric was more than enough to cause the liquor store cashier to momentarily back off. "Hinlegen!!" As ever, Ragnarok had been trained to only respond to commands uttered in German and, as Amalia insisted that he desist further, the large wolf complied and hunkered himself down, still effectively impaling the gate with his body and growling imposingly at the now-rattled Eric.

"Are you his girlfriend..?" He was doing his best to avoid sounding afraid, but it was more than a little bit tricky. There weren't many people in the world that could maintain their composure when face-to-face with a hostile Ragnarok and, as Devon slowly slithered his way up to his feet, the wolfhound was precisely where Eric's attention was directed. There was simply no telling if it was able to burst through the gate and maul him in the middle of the street. "Do you even know what he is?! You know what he's done?! He's dangerous!" From his point of view, this was all firmly within the purview of 'the right thing'; stopping a dangerous criminal from visiting any more harm on innocent people.

But, if Eric Ramos thought that seeing his former high-school classmate melting his cellphone with his bare hands was the weirdest thing he was going to witness today, Amalia was on hand to make him a hundred percent wrong. Having finally caught up to Ragnarok and slowed herself to a halt, her whole body appeared to stutter for the briefest of moments as though she was on a laggy internet video. Having the capability to manipulate the fabric of reality - something of which even Devon hadn't yet been made aware - her jaunt into her own makeshift "void-realm" where she could interact with... whatever the hell it was she interacted with effectively caused a glitch in all who witnessed her doing it as the human brain struggled to process just what the fuck she was doing. All Eric knew was that Amalia was empty-handed once second...

...and holding a twelve-gauge shotgun in her hands the next. "I think it would be in your best interests to get the fuck out of here before I blow a hole in your chest large enough for a train to pass through, yes?" Even when she was threatening a man's life, Devon couldn't help but adore the sound of Amalia's voice. It comforted him in more ways than he could count, making him remember that he was at least loved by someone again. "Or I can just throw you to the dog. He won't mind, I'm sure."

It took a while for Eric to speak again. Just who the hell lived at the Cazenovia estate?! First Devon and now this! "He's a murderer, you know?", he remarked, his breathing slightly shaky and worsening by the moment. "Broke himself out of jail after doing... fuck-knows-what to get past the guards." And, in the heat of the moment, he finally did the one thing that sealed his fate. "The last woman who loved him, he killed in his own house on his fucking birthday. So where do you think that puts y-..."

Devon was going to simply let Eric run away unscathed. To let a snarling dog and a shotgun barrel be the sole impetus for his retreat. Having him try to call the cops was something that he could at least have let slide. But this? Insulting his mother and his girlfriend in a single sentence? A bad move if ever there was one. Within two seconds, Devon had lunged forward, doing to Eric what he'd initially done to him. But, instead of ramming his fist into the back of his head as soon as Eric's torso met the gate, Devon pinned together the index and middle fingers of his left hand and prodded them hard against the back of Eric's shoulder.

The sensation, at least at first, was like someone taking the business end of a soldering gun to his skin. Devon's battered, bruised and bloodied face was contorted into a ironclad frown of exertion, concentration and anger as he allowed his ability to work, flaying apart Eric's skin precisely beneath his fingers. "Give me enough time... and I could rip your arm off," he growled. What was scariest of all was that he wasn't joking. Without something like Felicia's ability to heal in his way, Devon knew he could tear someone limb from limb with enough effort. He'd managed to literally pull someone's heart out through their chest in a withdrawal-fuelled frenzy once, a long time ago before he'd discovered the serenity of chemical sobriety.

There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he was lying. Eric was howling in pain by the time the first joint of Devon's fingers were nowhere to be seen. In another day and age, he would have gone further than that. Much further. But this was different. The fact that he'd employed his ability in anger alone after all this time was startling. Using the hole he'd bored into Eric's shirt, he latched his bloodied fingers around it and, with a few sharp pulls, managed to tear a sizeable section of the sleeve away. After a bit of scrunching and no real consideration for how it must have felt to the man who had been pummelling him, he started to stuff the inch-deep wound with the fabric. It likely wasn't medically sanitary for him to do so, but warzones had settled for worse. The plug of fabric was, albeit ineffectively, staunching the bleeding and buying him the time to check himself into a hospital.

"Seems I'm not the only one who's turned into a dick in the past twenty years, Eric." Devon did remember him. They had been friends. But now, after this debacle, the past tense was the only one which truly applied anymore. "Now fuck off. And think yourself lucky you didn't find me four or five years ago." Once released from his grip, Eric finally took the hint and fled. Between a shotgun, an irate wolfhound and a moderately-functioning psychotic who could melt anything he touched, there wasn't much chance of him saying anything to the wrong people. Of course, Devon and Amalia would likely tell Felicia about the whole situation regardless, but that was something for later.

And, once the adrenaline had surged its way out of his system, Devon let out a agonising groan and slumped against the gate as the pain set in. "Thanks, you two," he sighed. It took him a few seconds to push himself upright again and retrieve the shopping bag from the ground. Miraculously, nothing had broken and, by carrying the bag with his other hand, he was keeping any blood well away from the salad he'd fetched Amalia for lunch. Whether she'd actually eat it was another matter, though. After waiting for Ragnarok to pull himself out of the gate, Devon wearily let himself onto the estate and closed the slightly broken gate behind him. "Think we're gonna need more booze than this now, though. Sorry."

[Amalia Djanescu]

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry
______________________________Florence and the Machine – Girl With One Eye

"Are you his girlfriend..?"

“Yes, I'm his girlfriend.” This guy was obviously full-throttle stupid. Did he even know where he was? Amalia didn't need to name-drop, but she'd do it if she had to. The Rahals had what modern day hoodlums would have referred to as “street cred.” They quite literally had their hands in every realm imaginable except politics. That was something that they tried to avoid.

The man, whose name she didn't know, had gotten up from where he'd been pummeling Devon on the ground and took several steps backwards as he realised she had a very large, very loaded shotgun pointing directly at his face. "Do you even know what he is?! You know what he's done?! He's dangerous!"

“Yes, I'm well aware of his past. I'm also well aware that what happened was an accident from when his powers manifested. I also know that if I shoot you right now, the Castle Doctrine applies.” The most she knew about the gun she had under her control at the moment was that when loaded with 00 buckshot, it could bring down a full-grown black bear.

"He's a murderer, you know?"

Hadn't they already been over this twenty seconds ago? Yes, she knew that Devon had accidentally killed his parents and that he regretted it deeply. What the fuck was this guy's problem? It wasn't like he had a horse in this particular race. Whatever other words were coming out of his mouth, she was busy ignoring since he was obviously an idiot, and stupidity was something that just couldn't be helped.

"Broke himself out of jail after doing... fuck-knows-what to get past the guards." Given the security at some of the mental hospitals she'd been to visiting friends of hers who'd had breakdowns due in part to crazy school schedules and master's theses, exams, and whatnot, getting past the guards wherever he'd been probably hadn't been that difficult. That was what happened when you put minimum wage paid rent-a-cops in an asylum.

And then Devon shoved the man up against the gate. Ragnarok growled at the man and looked at Amalia for direction. Amalia shook her head at him. She didn't need the dog attacking this dude and then having this little asshole call up Animal Control because he'd been bitten. Felicia would have murdered her if anything happened to Ragnarok and she wasn't about to risk that. She lowered the muzzle of the weapon to the ground when she thought he was under control.

When he started to struggle, she realised it was because Devon was standing behind him and was doing something to him. All she could see from her vantage point was Devon's fingers pressed against the guy's shoulder, and the veins on Devon's forearm were a sickly shade of purple, demonstrating that his ability was in full effect. "Give me enough time... and I could rip your arm off,"

“Devon, no. He's not worth it.” When this guy left, there was no telling where he'd go. To the police? To the media? She couldn't really have either of those things happen. Ugh, how was she going to take care of this? She couldn't just move him into another reality; that wouldn't work. She couldn't shoot him because technically he hadn't done anything wrong. Yet.

Devon ripped a chunk of the man's shirt off and packed it into the small wound. With a few parting words, he sent Eric on his way, and although he was obviously in pain, he bolted down the lead up to the front drive and was nearly out of sight within half a minute. "Thanks, you two." He picked up the shopping bags and activated the outer sensor of the gate. Amalia stepped aside and allowed the gate to open. Ragnarok eventually got himself out of the gate when it started moving and dragging him along the ground. "Think we're gonna need more booze than this now, though. Sorry."

“That's probably true. Wait here. I'll be right back.” Amalia tilted the gun so that it rested against the support pillar on one side of the gate and jogged past Devon, then ran down the long paved drive until Eric was in her sights. He'd slowed to a walking pace which made it easier for her to catch up to him. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called for a cab, providing the driver with strict instructions on where to take the injured young man. Her grandmother might have been a cardiac surgeon, but she knew how to treat basic wounds. As she caught up to him, she finished firing off a text to her grandmother, letting her know all that had transpired, and that she was sending the source of their problems directly to her doorstep at the hospital. She and Devon could deal with the fallout later.

Amalia caught up to him at the end of the block and laid a hand on his shoulder, fully expecting the reaction she received, which was for him to flinch, look behind him and take off running again. He only made it a few strides before karma bit him in the ass and he tripped on a rock, staggered, and ended up falling onto the gravel. “Hey, asshole, I called you a cab. They're picking you up here in five minutes and taking you to a doctor who'll take care of that wound for you.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a $20 and handed it to him. “That'll cover the cab ride. For future reference, if you see Devon around town again, leave him the fuck alone.” Amalia leaned over and helped him to his feet, then deliberately patted him rather hard on the injured part of his shoulder. “You seem like a nice enough guy. Would be a shame if something happened to you.”

She left him wondering whether or not she'd just threatened him and 'ported herself back to the front door of the mansion, getting there just as Devon walked up the front steps with Ragnarok in tow. “And now I'm not much in the mood for drinking, but whatever. I'll deal with it, I'm sure.”

✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲ ✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲

ƸӜƷ Word count: 1131
ƸӜƷ Outfit: Same.
ƸӜƷ Other: None. Bedtime now.

[Devon Ridgeman]

No more options to cope! A glimpse of the hanging rope!
Madness, embrace the vault! Cannot wait any longer!
A string of lights blink, mesmerise my senses!
A pulse that keeps me together for one last time.
______________________________Between The Buried And Me - "The Coma Machine"

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

He could feel the aches already raging beneath his skin as the bruises from his beating went about the process of forming. It had been quite a while since he'd last been attacked on the street though, unlike those much darker prior times, Devon had been in sufficient control of his faculties to stop himself from going on a rampage. Whether he knew it or not, Eric was pretty lucky today that the track star-turned-murderer-turned-junkie-turned-reforming all of the above had only given him a finger-width borehole in the back of his shoulder. For any unversed in medical care, it would have looked like he'd been shot, but foolishly extracted the bullet himself before checking himself into...

...the hospital. "Amalia, wai-..!" By the time he turned his head to look upon realising where she was likely to 'be right back' from, she was gone. Somehow, she'd vanished into thin air. "..the fuck's going on now?", he couldn't help but sigh to himself. He struggled to remember if his girlfriend had in fact told him that she, like him, had an ability. If she had, had he been listening at the time? If she hadn't, how was he going to ask her about it? Since his numerous run-ins with Felicia when they'd first started living under the same roof, Devon had found himself rather gunshy when it came to prying into other people's personal lives. There were things he wanted to know but, for the most part, he'd always been wondering if they had wanted to tell him.

But he and Amalia were, as unlikely as it may have sounded to all and sundry, lovers. He'd felt Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool put it best. Her kind of crazy fit perfectly with his own and, as differently as they appeared at first glance - with Amalia working on her PhD and all - it had been pretty easy for him to get close to her. She just seemed to understand him. Most of the Rahals he'd got to know over the years did. The only reason he felt Lilka and Nireva technically didn't was simply because he'd only ever met them over the holidays. They simply weren't in his life remotely enough, but they seemed like good enough people, albeit if the former was able to transform herself into a large animal at will.

"Come on, Raggie." Unable to speak German, Devon simply settled for English and a brief gesture with his free hand. The ebon wolfhound did follow him though, in the state he was in, Devon surmised that Ragnarok's reason for doing so was more out of protective concern than actual compliance with his command. It felt as though he was going to have to bury his whole face in bags of frozen food. It was a wonder Eric hadn't managed to knock out any of his teeth. What confused Devon the most was why Eric had seen fit to follow him home and beat the shit out of him for something beyond his control that happened two decades ago. It wasn't his family. Why should he care?

Some weird sense of betrayal, perhaps? He was no shrink and no amount of wasted time dwelling on the subject would ever lead him to a satisfactory answer. Devon doubted the two of them would ever cross paths again after this. Nor, similarly, did Eric. The prospect of abilities was a genetic bullet that he and most of the people he knew had been fortunate enough to dodge, which limited his viewpoint on the subject to what he'd heard on the news; a resource which was famously skewed at the best of times. Devon's girlfriend - itself a strange enough notion - had remarked on how the deaths of Devon's parents had been an accident; one brought about by the manifestation of their son's ability.

Just the thought of what Devon could do - what Devon had just done to him - was enough to turn his stomach and make him feel ever so slightly dizzy. He could feel the mercifully small wound on his back, exposed to the elements and providing an incessant painful stinging sensation as well as the feeling of fabric where it definitely shouldn't have been. Eric didn't know the specifics of what his former high school friend could do and, right now, he didn't want to know. He just wanted to get patched up, take the rest of the day off and get blind drunk so he could stand a chance of forgetting the whole day ever happened.

So, when he felt an errant hand clasp onto his shoulder, his first instinct was to flinch away and run. After all, Devon had said that he was capable of tearing off his limbs, were he so inclined; definitely not an event he wanted to be present to experience. Sprinting was something he'd always been good at. However, navigating around obstacles while in a blind panic definitely wasn't. By the time his foot caught a large rock and tripped him up, Amalia saw fit to reveal her presence. "Hey, asshole." Devon's girlfriend had dashed through the gate and down the path to catch up to him. After getting rid of the shotgun from earlier. "I called you a cab. They're picking you up here in five minutes and taking you to a doctor who'll take care of that wound for you."

The twenty-dollar bill she all but thrust into his hands, he presumed, was to pay for his ticket away from the Cazenovia estate. "Sure," he replied, sounding timid and defeated. He was definitely both right now. "So... it was all just an accident?" He wasn't expecting an answer and, sure enough, Amalia wasn't in the mood to give him one. He was mostly rambling to himself, asking himself the questions he should have asked had his meeting with Devon proceeded in a way resembling normal. "He couldn't control it?"

"For future reference, if you see Devon around town again..." Reaching down a second time, Amalia helped Eric up to his feet and, giving in to her need to be vindictive for just a moment, patted him squarely on the mound of bloodied fabric sticking out of his shoulderblade. "...leave him the fuck alone. You seem like a nice enough guy. Would be a shame if something happened to you." And, with that, she was gone again. Just... disappearing as though she'd never been there, leaving him to wait for the cab alone. She'd vanished right before Eric's eyes...

...and reappeared again in front of Devon, just as he was about to reach the mansion's front door. "Aaaand now I'm not much in the mood for drinking, but whatever. I'll deal with it, I'm sure." It was a wonder Devon didn't drop the bag to the ground in shock as he saw his girlfriend appear out of nowhere, beating him to the door by... teleporting? As ever, Ragnarok took the display of abilities very much in his stride, not even flashing Amalia a second glance as he made his own way up to the door. Unfortunately, he would have to wait to get inside. "You... you just-..." After taking a few seconds to get over his own disbelief, he waited for Amalia to open the door for him before making his way inside. "Did you... ever tell me that you could-.. ugh, I look like shit."

Sure enough, once inside the mansion, it wasn't long before he passed a mirror mounted to the wall. Now, he could finally see just how badly Eric had pummelled him. He'd live, but the bruises and swelling would take a while to subside without outside assistance. "I can't remember if you ever told me about your, uh... thing. Don't think I've seen you teleport before." A short distance away from his reflection, Devon found a table big enough to set his shopping upon. The bottle of rakı was first to emerge, if only to see if it had been damaged by the events outside. Thankfully, the glass and alcohol were precisely where they were meant to be, which meant that the candy for the twins and Amalia's lunch were equally unscathed. "Then again, don't think you've seen me... break stuff apart before either. So we're still even."

[Amalia Djanescu]

I'm seeking the life between the ruins 
Questions I find between the ruins 
About the gods, about the mortals 
the consequences of genesis 
Only questions I find between the ruins 
______________________________Eclipse of the Sun – Between the Ruins

Hadn't she told Devon that she had an ability? It wasn't something that she normally brought up in polite company, and she never really tapped into it unless she absolutely had to. Whereas some people liked to use their abilities to make their lives easier such as by teleporting to and from work, she still wanted to get things done the more traditional way.

"Did you... ever tell me that you could-.. ugh, I look like shit." His initial question petered off as he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror hanging on the wall just off the front foyer. He had a nice shiner forming over his left eye and there were probably some bruises under his clothes that neither of them could see; Felicia could tend to those later.

“I might have. I might not have. Sorry.” Amalia didn't really see the need to tell people that she had an ability. She already had enough things working against her that she didn't need to add 'being an evo' to the list. Even her closest friends didn't know that particular secret since she kept it so well-guarded.

"I can't remember if you ever told me about your, uh... thing. Don't think I've seen you teleport before." He gave her a questioning look to see whether his assessment of her ability had been correct.

Amalia shook her head. “No, I'm not a teleporter. I can distort reality and generate tulpas.” When his head twitched to the side at the foreign-sounding word, she took one of the bags out of his hands and walked into the kitchen where she grabbed a small mug, then opened the bottle of rakı and poured it into the ceramic handled container. “How to explain what a tulpa is . . . ” She'd only first heard the word on a radio show and had to research it to find out precisely what it meant. “It's kind of like manifesting an idea. Like the bogeyman. Or the Easter Bunny. If you tell a story enough to enough people, they start to believe it, and it gathers energy and eventually manifests. So if you ever wanted to meet Slenderman or Santa Claus, I can make that happen.”

"Then again, don't think you've seen me... break stuff apart before either. So we're still even."

“No, I don't believe I've seen that. Well, I didn't really get to see it, but I did see the blood, so . . . yeah.” She handed him the bottle of the bottle of sweet alcohol. “Give it a try. I think you'll like it.”

She was surprised that with the alarm and all going off that the twins hadn't woken up. Then again, the two of them did mostly sleep like the dead. But when toddlers were being quiet, it generally meant they were getting into something that they shouldn't have been getting into. “One of us should probably go check on the kids. They're being way too quiet.”

✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲ ✲´*。.❄¨¯`*✲。❄。*。¨¯`*✲

ƸӜƷ Word count: 586
ƸӜƷ Outfit: Same.
ƸӜƷ Other: None.

[Devon Ridgeman]

You passed out, but now you're back.
And all the windows are painted black.
A few more minutes of your shame...
...'cause this is my game.
______________________________Tiamat - "384"

"I might have. I might not have. Sorry."

Once Khalidah and Felicia had learned about his ability and were giving him advice on how best to keep it under control, Devon had simply stopped telling people that he had one. On one hand, it had simply slipped his mind. If he could hide it perfectly by simply not using it, then what was the point of disclosing it? Beyond the expensive niche medical tests which allowed people to learn which debilitating illnesses and disorders to which they would become prone in later life, there wasn't a single thing around that required him to inform people of the little quirk in his DNA. Attitudes towards evos like himself weren't brilliant at the best of times and, with his past shovelled on top of it, he'd thought it best to try and remain away from the whole thing.

His girlfriend, it seemed, had the same idea. Though, when she explained to him that, rather than teleporting, she in fact had the ability to distort the fabric of reality and create things she called tulpas, Devon found himself utterly lost. He barely understood how his own ability actually worked and, even when Amalia told him that tulpas were the physical manifestations of ideas, fuelled by the power of shared belief, it took him a while to actually respond. "And, uh... if they get a mind of their own and start rampaging around the city? What then?" He thought it was a valid question, at least. Were these tulpas completely under her power like some sort of puppet? Or did they exhibit some sense of autonomy so that they were able to act in the manner people believed them to act?

No. This wasn't the time to try and get to the bottom of something he didn't understand. His head was already spinning enough. "Give it a try." By the time he paid attention to his girlfriend again, he'd managed to follow her - mostly on autopilot - into the kitchen. She hadn't seen his ability in action. Then again, nobody really had since he and Felicia had got their practice of deadly oneupmanship out of their system. Nevertheless, he found himself forming a fist with one hand, partly to see if his hand had broken from any retaliatory punches he'd managed to land - which it hadn't - and partly to see if his ability was still "running". Of course, it took him a moment or two to remember that his own ability didn't work on him. He'd tried that before a long time ago.

So he settled for eyeing up the veins on the back of his hand. With no purple to be seen, he allowed his tired appendage to latch around the bottle Amalia was presenting him. "I think you'll like it." Rakı wasn't something he'd tried - or felt like trying - before. It tasted sweet, with a flavour slightly reminiscent of the jelly beans Eric had mentioned at the department store. All in all, a little weird and not how he imagined alcohol of any kind to taste. Then again, up to now, all he'd really had was one form or another of whatever cheap crappy beer someone at Cazenovia kept buying in. Probably Felicia, he silently mused to himself, if only for the satisfaction at having a little fun with him.

"It's weird," he replied lazily, setting the bottle back down on the counter. "A good weird, though." The alarm was still sounding, pulses of a high-pitched trilling that resounded through strategically-positioned speakers in regular intervals. Between it and the beating he'd just endured. Devon wasn't entirely sure which was making his head hurt more. At least he had some strange Turkish alcohol to dull the pain, either way. "One of us should probably go check on the kids. They're being way too quiet." When Amalia piped up again, Devon finally realised what was missing from the auditory picture.

Normally, the alarm was more than enough to wake the dead - or, in Cazenovia's case, people who had once been mocked for looking like the dead - but, right now, he couldn't hear any loud griping from Tivodar and Ildiko. And, for a pair of four-year-olds who were heavier sleepers than he was, that was mildly disconcerting. Either they were managing to sleep through the alarm - a remarkable achievement in itself - or they were up to something. After introducing another mouthful of rakı to his system, he hauled himself out of his seat. "I'll go and check on the twins, you go and shut that alarm off. I doubt even these bruises could make me look any creepier than those two already think I am."

The twins' bedroom wasn't too hard for him to find and, after trudging out of the kitchen, he made a beeline straight for it, doing his best to ignore the alarm while he located the correct door and pushed it open. He hoped that the twins were right where they'd left them. He didn't much feel like hunting down a couple of ability-carrying kids right now...