Issue 1 Downtime

Mercy is making her way across the gardens, soaring gracefully... no, sort of... dipping and weaving in the air. She seems to be distracted by something. Maybe it's the smartphone in her hands. Not being the most amazing flyer, she gets caught by a sudden gust of wind and plummets to the earth!

Darkforce sprays everywhere, most of it just harmlessly crashing into plants, but one round hedge is gothed out a bit, growing some nasty spiked thorns.

Mercy crashes to the ground in the most undignified manner possible, and manages to roll over on her back, staring up at the sky with her wings spread to either side of her.

"Ow."

The shadow that swept over her, growing steadily larger, wasn't moving clumsily at all. With a rush of displaced air from his wings, Ryan landed, taking a few steps toward her to come to a final stop. He smiled slightly as he walked over, looking down at her. "So. Anything other than your pride hurt?" he asked.

Mercy squints up at Ryan. "You have wings." Truely, she is the Churchill of her time.

"I do," he agreed, reaching down to help her up. THere was something about him... a very warm feeling that made it seem like a very appealing prospect to take his hand. "And so do you, while we're at it," he teased.

"I've never met someone like me, uh, I mean another... I've never met anyone else who has wings." Ryan gets a bit of a jolt when he touches Mercy's hand, some kind of energy interaction, perhaps even some of his power being absorbed by Mercy?

She falls back on her butt, releasing Ryan's hand at the shock, and tries to brush grass out of her hear. "Ooof. Okay, that's new too."

Ryan rubbed at his hand, trying to shake the cold sensation off, feeling fairly reassured when the familiar warmth spreads back into his fingers. "Sorry, that's a new one for me too. I... hm," he said, catching sight of the hedge and its new thorns. Odd.

"So uh... I'm Mercy." She tucks her hair behind her ears, and manages to rise more or less gracefully, tucking her wings behind her.

"Ah, that's right," Ryan said with a smile as he held his hand over the bush, a puls of light washing over it. "I didn't think I'd be meeting you before the next power control class. My name's Ryan Gabriel."

"Oh, you're in the class?"

He seems kind of older, he's probably like a senior. A hunky senior.

"What's it like? I've never really had a formal class about that."

"Sort of," he said with a smile, "I teach it. And it's... really what you make of it. We've got some people that love it, and some that seem set on hating it."

"Oh, you teach it? I didn't think you were that o... I didn't realize you were um... an instructor." Mercy blushes, easily visible on her pale skin.

"So uh... how long have you um... been teaching?"

"It's my first year. I guess they didn't think I was an old enough man to do it before," he said, shooting her an amused look.

Mercy gives a flustered gasp. "Er, I didn't mean... you're not that... uh..." She gives up on that line of thought entirely. "So uh, what was that heat thing you did when you were helping me up?"

"I didn't do anything, I thought you did that," Ryan said. "What's your power? I mean, aside from the obvious there."

"Oh, I can make darkforce." Mercy holds up a hand and a little demon-goth-chick appears in her hand, the darkforce pooling in her hand and then rising up to make a simple winged figurine, then coming apart in motes of darkforce that float outward. The ones that get close to Ryan may feel like they are attracting his power.

"Ah. That would be it," Ryan said. "I have pretty much the polar opposite of darkforce going on. They usually seem to cancel each other out." And, sure enough, as the motes got close enough of them, they would dissolve when they got within the field of his power. It felt... odd, but Ryan kept that to himself well enough.

"Oh, weird." Then she chuckles. "I guess we should be like biblical enemies or something."

"I think we can avoid being mortal enemies until school's out," he joked.

"Deal!" Mercy smiles.

"So um, what do you know about darkforce? Because I don't know much."

"I don't know a whole lot about it, honestly. Energy from another dimension, doesn't seem to be much of a set way that it can be used. A lot of claims that it has it's own type of behavior, and just as many people saying that that's just a cop-out for people who use it to do nasty things. Although..." He looked over the shrub again, "This is a new effect, I think."

Mercy looks at the shrub. "Huh? What do you.... oooh."

She squats down and looks at the shrub. Touches it lightly, mindful of the thorns. "That's... hmm. I can't pull it out. I can kind of feel the stuff that's in there though."

She also finds her phone under the shrub, slips it in a pocket, and stands. "Yeah, I've never managed to do anything like that before. Never really tried I guess."

Ryan, meanwhile, held his hand over it, letting his own energy wash over it. "Yeah, Darkforce is a bit of an enigma. We know mostly what to expect, but definitely not always."

"Inscrutable, slightly evil energy. Yay." Mercy shrugs.

The bush twitches... and then there's a popping sound. Some of the stems burst open, some of the stems have their thorns grow precipitously, and other parts of the bush just wither like it's been dead for a week!

Mercy jumps back from it, instinctively flying up a foot or two before settling to earth. "Ah! What'd you do to it!?"