The Ghost (Overhand!)

[ALASTAIR!]

Miles was making his daily run through town once more. Things had been picking up as of late, experience-wise. They made his life more interesting, sure, and they gave him a reason to get up just a bit earlier. But maybe somewhere inside of him he was thinking that perhaps he should become some sort of a recluse before the rush of new experiences stops becoming so profound.

Nah.

Truth be told, Miles loved all of these new happenings. What would happen today? He didn't know. That was the best part about it. There was no sense of monotony at all- something different and something crazy happened every day. He was all smiles, even during this drizzly night. The rain worked its away across the buildings, giving it an almost unearthly glow in the night. Miles had the glow of the streetlights and the buildings to guide his way. He wasn't running on rooftops tonight, that would be just a bit too dangerous, even for him. He was simply running through the streets, clad in a black hoodie and a pair of black jeans. They weren't the best to run in by far, but he was still managing to be pretty quick. It must have been because they were on the skinnier side. He wasn't wearing those kinds of jeans that are so tight you can't move in them, no, but skinny enough. The hood was pulled down over his eyes a bit to shield them from the moisture, and it also concealed his music.

The music and the glow were what drove him. These times were some of the only ones he got throughout the day just to think. Nobody ever bothered him when he was running. They just thought that he was some sort of criminal because of the hoodie, which wasn't true and could be debunked by his pants, shoes and the fact that he still left his face mostly uncovered. A criminal or some sort of hoodlum. Moocher, maybe. Freeloader, that's pushing it. But hoodlum? Never.

Naive, maybe. Miles took a turn into an alley. He wanted to just check out the roofs, just to see how they were. He stopped, scanning the area for a fire escape. The glint in the moonlight guided him right to it, and he began to scale it before feeling something hit his back. Hard. He let out a stifled scream before dropping down and turning to face his attacker. The glow came from this guy, too, but in a much more malicious way. Miles winced in pain as he backed up, lightly touching the spot where the guy hit him. Bumping into another individual was something he didn't want to do. That, however, was exactly what he did. He turned around as quickly as he could, seeing one more person, this time blocking out the moon. Its glow was gone from Miles, as was all that resembled even a bit of protection. He had his ice picks, and he had his reflexes...

Miles backed against the wall, reaching into the pockets of his hoodie, feeling for the handles of his ice picks. He'd use them if he had to, but he just hoped that he wouldn't. Miles was being mugged. The realization hadn't dawned upon him until his back was pressing against the cold, wet bricks of the nearest apartment complex and the two men started inching closer. Miles was going to die. Miles' internal panic siren started shrieking at full blast, and his eyes quickly darted from man to man, trying to discern any possible route to get away. He could always just make a break for it, but that might not work. He needed some sort of miracle. And some sort of ice pack or something, damn that hit stung.

(Not short at all, yay~ xP)

[overhand]

The rain collided with the steel of Isaac’s mask as he sat above the streets, awaiting any signs of trouble from below. He wasn’t really keen on bounding all around the city searching for thugs and dealers for the soul reason of the rain. Rain, plus roofing material, plus high speeds equaled zero traction for a man running at an excess of 20 miles an hour. Seeing this problem ahead of time, Isaac had picked out a nice lookout point that had a good view of the city below. He could see the occasional person hurry through the dimly lit. Cars rolled by, engines silent from distance, casting up clouds of mist as they headed home.

As Isaac sat there, he noticed something. He needed a new kind of outfit. Gray coveralls just didn’t cut it anymore. More specifically, they were not water-proof in the least. He could feel the water slowly seeping through; giving him a generally soggy feeling made him feel like the coveralls were two sizes too big. Maybe an umbrella would rectify this awkward situation, but a random umbrella sitting on a roof would be a little bit suspicious. Plus, it would probably get stolen if he left it there. So many problems, so little solutions. In amongst his “deep” thoughts Isaac just barely noticed a sound rise up from the gray veil below. Slowly raising his head up and scanning for the source of this disturbance, Isaac’s gaze set upon two large figures cornering a smaller one.

“Alrighty, good old fashioned mugging in progress. Let’s go bust some skulls.”

The coveralls peeled off the cheap vinyl of the lawn chair and Isaac straightened his posture, coaxing a few audible cracks from his spine. Quickly plotting the alleyway with the straightest run at the crime, Isaac hopped down off the roof. It was a bit taller than he had recalled, as he plummeted off the 10 story apartment building. About land hard on his feet, he attempted to roll to ease off the pressure but ended up sprawling out on the ground. Quickly staggering back to his feet, Isaac quickly checked the alley to see if anyone had seen that debacle of a leap. No witnesses, just the way he liked it. The situation at hand slid back into the forefront of his mind as he jogged down the alley. Peering down the alley, across the street Isaac could just make out the silhouette of the muggers and their victim.

“Now, if I take one out, the other might run or beat the hell out of the dude. But if I take them both, it’ll need to be spot on,” Isaac thought aloud as he shifted his suit. “The weather would make taking them both pretty hard... Ah hell. One it is. Hope this guy scares easy or cares about his bud.”

Isaac shifted his mask into a better position and bent down like a runner about to start a race. The gun shot rang through his mind as the race began. His steps were small and frequent at first, but with each step they carried him farther and faster. Bursting out of the alley, he sped on the street and straight into the final approach. One of the shadows turned away from their prey and faced the fast approaching runner. Alas, it was too late for him. The shadow was charged into with all the force of a speeding sedan and carried down the alley. His joyride from hell ended with a collision with a solid brick wall. The second shadow called for his comrade, but received no response. His concentration wavered as he called against and was met with the same result. The man slowly turned his back on his victim and turned his full attention to the condition of his friend. As he took his first step to investigate the blur leading to the disappearance of his friend, the blur returned in full force. And with that, the two shadows had been brought forcefully to the light.

[ALASTAIR!]

They advanced slowly, like vultures waiting for the leftovers. Miles was hurt, yes, but they couldn't take him. The second one of them tried to hit him... Miles planned it out all in his head. He could just evade, twist his little way behind one of them. Take out both ice picks. Hold them both to his neck on opposite sides. Mug over, Miles wins. Though, he would have to do that in a way that made him seem... Manly. Tough. Like he would- and could- plunge those two little steel rods into a person's throat. Right, Miles wasn't intent on doing that, so he had to act. Not one of his strong points. He figured he could always just... Say a couple words, not much. That way, there wasn't much to base him off of. Besides the fact that he was a scrawny little pansy to them, an easy target. Vultures relied on dead things to take from, and Miles was far from it. Plan or no plan, he had some fight in him.

Or, maybe someone else did? A rush of wind and a blur, and one of the men was simply gone. Miles could hear the impact and he cringed a bit. That had to hurt. At least... Ten broken ribs. Wait, did people have ten ribs? Miles didn't pay attention in Anatomy, ever. Uh... Well, as many ribs as he had they were all probably broken at this point. Unless he landed the other way, and then... Ack, Miles had no clue. Mugger man number one was either dead or knocked out with one hell of a move. In one more quick move, the other guy was taken out in the same way. Miles would have to call 911 or something, these guys could die! Or, on the other hand... He could just... Not. Yeah, that sounded nice. Not calling 911 and bringing unwanted attention to himself. Maybe that was a little selfish. Whatever. Miles only lived once, and he wanted that life to be as long as possible. It didn't work when people were targeting him in dark alleys. In the rain. At night.

Miles breathed a sigh of relief when he recalled just how bad his back hurt right then. The deep breath didn't quite help anything either, and he visibly cringed, making a little pained grunt as he touched his back tenderly. That was going to be one hell of a black and blue. Miles was lucky it hadn't knocked the breath out of him. He was lucky, too, that this guy came along and took these two out for Miles. Taking them out himself wouldn't have ended well, he didn't take his injury into account when formulating a plan. Giving another little 'Ah', he slumped down into a sitting position, resting against the wall behind him. At this point, Miles could safely say that his back hurt like a bitch. And Miles was usually a clean-mouthed person. The worst word he would say was hell, or damn if he was feeling particularly offensive. But bitch? No, that wasn't a part of Miles' everyday vocabulary.

"Hey... Thanks for the save," he said, grinning while attempting to mask the pain. It didn't work, as he ended up flashing a half-grin, half-grinding-his-teeth-in-pain combination with a wince. But hey, to make it better, Miles offered a thumbs up. Just to say that he was, at least, going to make it.

"So, who are you?" Miles asked, hoping that the conversation would find itself focused on the man, rather than Miles' well-being. He was fine. In reality, this was going to take a while to fully recover from. He might even have to spend a whole day not running. That would kill him inside, but it would be necessary. He remained right where he sat, the rain beginning to drizzle once more. If this didn't suck enough, he was so going to catch a cold.

[overhand]

Isaac had rammed the second mugger much harder than he had planned; half-embedding the man and himself into the solid brick wall of an apartment building. Isaac struggled for a few moments, getting himself untangled from the wall and the man. As he turned away from the wall and started his way back to the helpless victim, Isaac noticed it was significantly darker than before. In fact, it was nearly pitch black out. Maybe a cloud had moved in front of the moon. No, the street lights would cast at least a bit of light. Maybe some super-villain had blown up the moon. Isaac chuckled at his own imagination as he continued to relocate the citizen.

“Hey... Thanks for the save.”

Isaac turned his head to the part of the darkness from which the voice came and retrieved suitable from his mental filing cabinet of heroic responses. As he was about to utter this phrase, the taste of iron danced upon his taste buds. Blood? Slowly turning his back on the speaker, Isaac raised his hands up to his face. Isaac's internal panic rose up a level upon his discovery. It seemed that his steel mask maybe had dealt with the second impact as well as Isaac had hoped. As Isaac ran his hands over his visage, a mental note was made of the damage. The eye holes had been forced shut, the forehead had dented inwards and the bottom had pushed up into his nose causing a small bleed. He needed to get the hunk of steel off his face.

“So, who are you?”

This was not helping. Isaac had two choices: run away or take off the mask and expose himself to this kid. Running away was looking pretty good at the moment, but he had to keep up 'appearances' with the public. It would look bad if one day, while Isaac was saving the day, some guy walked up and accused him of running away from him. He couldn't let that happen, oh God no! It was decided then; he would take off the mask and answer the kid. As he reached up to remove the steel covering, the super hero part of Isaac's brain begged, pleaded and bargained with him to stop and just run. Isaac internally told that part of his mind to shut the hell up and have a beer or something. Mask in hand, Isaac turned again to the kid sitting against the wall.

“They call me Collateral.” After Isaac said this, he paused for a moment, a defeated look sitting on his face. “You know what? Forget I even said that. Name’s Isaac...” The same look flickered on his features for a second time. That was a VERY stupid desicion. Now this kid knew his name and his face. All it took was one search on that website MyFace or SpaceBook or whatever they were called and BAM, no more free life for Isaac. Or alternatively, nothing bad would happen. Isaac liked that second path a bit better than the first.

[ALASTAIR!]

After telling Miles his super hero name, he seemed to grimace a bit. Like he didn't want to reveal himself. Miles could understand, he would be shipped off to Gehenna in a heartbeat if Miles was anyone but himself! Miles had powers himself, it would be wrong to rat him out. He grinned a bit, trying to relieve the conversation of a bit of the tension it once had because damn, Miles probably couldn't even cut this with a bullet.

"Don't worry about the whole 'powers' thing, I'm not about to tell on someone else with abilities." It was subtle, but within that sentence he gave himself away, too. Because now, if Isaac went running to the police- unlikely given his current attire- Miles could just turn around and turn him in! He'd still feel guilty, though... God, Miles wasn't made for prison. He wasn't made for anything that involved confinement. It was a good thing he was an average law abiding citizen (with powers).

"I'm Miles," he said, grunting a bit as he pulled himself to a standing position. He let out a sharp breath as pain shot through his body once more. Man, those muggers. They didn't have to use the full amount of force they could muster every time, did they? Miles hypothesized that his relatively small frame probably didn't help him any, either. All that force wasn't really spread out in a large area. He didn't believe it, but science, for once, helped him. However, upon stumbling on this realization, he found himself traversing around another. He hated science, and didn't want anything to do with any of this intellectual junk. Though, English and history were always alright... Math... Eh, it could be worse...

Whatever. He was out of school. Didn't have to worry about this anymore. Now, he had to worry about going to the most hellish prison in the world! And muggers! Wonderful, this 'real life' stuff was, even though he had a couple years to adjust. Screw that, he wasn't going to adjust for a long, long time. He half-leaned, half-sat on a nearby dumpster. This couldn't be sanitary, but it felt a lot better than standing right now.

"Y'think we could maybe go somewhere where it isn't raining and have a conversation there?"