Last Stop

[Nox]

Nox rolled his eyes as he put his own sunglasses on. His choice of music was wide. However his companions secondary comment let Nox ignore his initial reaction. Nox couldn't play any instrument, not that that he ever had time to learn always living on the road like he had. But he had his own classical draining in dance. It wasn't official, his mother had been a dance instructor before his father had saved her from a some monster or another. The tale was too long and boring. As they drove Nox changed the background music with a simple command. "Play Dance 3."
Swan Lake started playing. "It's not Mozart but it's the best I can do on short notice."
It was the last piece his mother had been teaching him before the hellhound came for her.

Their stop for food had been authentic Mexican from a Mexican cook in Mexico, he'd eaten Mexican everywhere in the States but this was no comparison. He didn't even know what he'd ordered he'd just pointed to something he knew was steak and it was heaven.

But nothing to that point had prepared Nox for the view of the beach they had as they pulled up to the secluded resort. Nox had been to A beach once upon a time. But there was nothing could match this. He was thankful for the dark lenses of his sunglasses, he didn't look like a complete idiot as his eyes grew wide at the color and beauty. If the girls were anything like the scenery this was going to be an excellent day trip.

Their first stop was the little outdoor bar on the beach. Nox was longing for shorts though his jeans were starting to get sticky with sweat. Such was the price to pay he supposed for spontaneity. Though he probably had some in the Jeep but he'd rather just tough it out for now. Nox sat down on the bar with his back to it and surveyed the area like it was his own personal kingdom. He found all the convenient exits, it was a beach there wasn't much place to really hide in wait but it was habit. The people were his biggest concern, if he wanted to hook up today he had to find the right target. But he also had his new friend to entertain too, and that could be almost as fun.

There were a few couples floating about the beach hand in hand. A pair of blonde girls who were clearly on vacation sat at a table whispereing behind their hands and stealing glances at them. He smiled brightly at them when he caught their attention and they giggled to themselves as they started their hushed talking.

There was another pair of girls walking past the bar who caught Nox's eyes. Dark hair golden skin and more than likely residents or employee's on their break relaxing. But what troubled Nox was the pair of men who were sitting at the end of the bar. Their eyes never really strayed from the blondes, like they were staking a claim or watching them for some other reason.

Nox turned to the bar and ordered a beer before he looked over to his companion. "So, there is plenty to do here. A pair of cute blondes sitting at a table. A couple of dark haired beauties just walked past and of course there is the fun we can have."
Nox turned back towards the water and nodded towards the surfers on the board and quickly Nox grabbed the power and caused the water to shift underneath the board, an under current, a wave, whatever water terminology wasn't his strong suit but it obeyed him with ease and the surfer tumbled into the water completely unknowing that anything amiss happened. Nox grinned. "The choice is yours."
Nox had his preferences, but he'd let Dane choose.

[Dane Gregory]

The wind blew hot off the water, carrying the scent of salt and sun-tan lotion. From the shade of the bar, he lounged, legs crossed casually, and surveyed the view. "Relaxing isn't it?" The crash of the surf was quiet. This side of the continent lapped gentle on the sand compared to the might of the Pacific-side.

He produced a payment for the bartender, and with a single thumb print, their spending for the day would be routed from Dane's accounts-which were bursting from Damien's generosity anyway. Dane liked fine things, and Damien was lackadaisical in his accounting.

"Do you want to go swimming?' He asked as the surfer toppled into the water. The man was bleeding when he stomped onto the beach, dragging his board, and complaining about hitting his face against shallow coral.

If they opted for swimming, they would need to buy gear in the shop. And Dane was far too comfortable at the moment to leave his seat. The tickle of warm winds around his collar pushed his lips into a slender smile, even as he sipped a refreshing mojito.

There were plenty of people to watch. A man in a hip hugging speedo lathered up his chest with oil. A woman with beads in her braids kicked at the foamy surf, a poodle trailing behind on its leash.

A shard of power reached out from Dane, and snipped that bejeweled leash on two. Freed, the poodle sprinted off, it's owner chasing it down. Swimsuit not constructed for jogging, more than one person watched. Dane chuckled. But he was soon bored and roamed for another target between minty fresh sips of alcohol swirling his brain with fuzzy delight.

Dane's imagination wandered as his eyes returned to the man working on his tan. He was a lean, athletic type, not unlike Nox. How hard would it be to hold his head under the surface of the sea until he stopped kicking?

[Nox]

Swimming had a certain appeal. It was hot. His jeans were sticking to his skin but the question seemed more rhetorical than anything. Nox sighed when he saw they surfer bleeding as he emerged onto the sand. Fuck! He hadn't meant to hurt the guy.

But it seemed Dane had answered his question without really saying so. Nox watched as the power clipped the poodles lease and ran for freedom. Nox remembered his little pup at home and smiled. The smile turned to laughter as the dogs owner took off after it. She bounced in all the right places and a few that weren't.

Nox watched Dane's gaze linger on a man lying in the sand. His skin looked freshly oiled up. Nox grinned and sent a small weave of air towards the man. A tiny cyclone of dust and sand blew past the man sending sand over his body and beach towel to get stuck in the oil he'd slathered on moments before. "The water looks enticing."


He didn't care if they went swimming but that would be a short end to the one beer he was allotting himself. Last thing Nox wanted was to get wasted with a man he didn't know. He could feign tipsy well enough and he could easily keep his beer full though Dane wasn't like the other people he'd done the same with, he could tell when he used his power.

[Dane Gregory]

The water was enticing, but like Nox, Dane was content where he was. They continued to trade showing off, like a duel of mischief, for some time. And after half an hour Dane was genuinely chuckling between sips of his drink.

A member of the resort staff hurried out, and by the ghostly look on her face, Dane surmised that trouble was brewing.

"Alejandro! The news!" She barreled behind the counter and fumbled at the controls for the bar's screen system. The bartender paused in his work as the image of a CCD press conference was projected.

They all watched. Dane especially. But so also did the other guests of the bar.

The female employee squeezed the bartender's arm. She was afraid.

Looking around, expressions varied from disbelief to awe to fear. Dane's jaw was loose, however. Such wasn't new information to him. But absorbing everyone else's reaction was fascinating.

He turned to Nox, but carefully lowered his voice. "Is it true? Did you have the sickness?" Dane recounted his own, and the memory briefly darkened his features. It had not been pleasant.

[Nox]

Their fun came to an abrupt stop when news of the CCD announcement came on the screen. Nox listened with mild interest and was shocked to say the least when the Ascendancy claimed to be a god. Not that the Atharim didn't know but everything in the press conference just made his life all that more difficult. Nox had pointedly been ignoring his wallet. He knew exactly who was messaging him, and he knew that he was getting tons of Atharim notices as well. He couldn't imagine what things were like back home.

Nox pulled out his wallet and read Aria's text. Call me! She'd only sent one, the rest had been Atharim reports coming in from all over.

But it was the Question and Answer section that made Nox pale. Not only had Ascednancy outed godlings, but the Atharim as well. Fuck!

But his new friend didn't seem to notice his reaction and Nox hid it quickly. He didn't need to show to a near complete stranger his fear at the situation. He was royaly fucked. He could register with the CCD for protection but that would leave him penniless and alone, the Atharim would surely hunt him first before the rest. He knew way too much about the Atharim.

He knew he should call Aria back but she was probably sleeping by now. He instead smiled at Dane's question. "My sister manifested a year before I did. She had it and we didn't know what it was, her manifestation wasn't observable. It wasn't until I threw a fire ball that we knew what we were and I didn't have it as bad because we had some idea of what it was that was causing it. But to answer your questions. Yes."


Nox nodded towards the screen. "That group he's talking about is dangerous. But I don't think registering is a smart idea either. "
Everyone's name all in one place - a great place for the Atharim to hunt from.

Aria had mentioned godlings in the hidden facility she'd been taken to. Nox wondered what Ascendancy was up to. Commander Vellas was one of them, but he wasn't about to out the man either, but Aria knew him - personally. She'd met with him a while back but he wasn't of much help to them. Was he creating an army? Nox sighed. He did not like where this was going.

[Dane Gregory]

"Oh? Are they? You say as though you know first hand." Dane curled his fingers around the glass and shook the ice so it clinked inside the empty vessel. "Bartender! Uno màs!" He sniggered.

He almost floated the glass over to him, but Nox's comment drew the decision short. "But we are dangerous also." He clapped a hand on Nox's shoulder in brotherly comradeship.

"It wasn't long ago I thought I was the only one, and here it is we have a father and thousands of siblings." Dane laughed. This was the end of Mockingbird. If he wasn't alone, what was the purpose in the identity? He could live in the open now. "I don't think I'll be registering either, but I might give my ass of a brother a call, simply to brag. Maybe that group will go after him if they found out about me!"

Dane didn't notice Nox's distraction. He simply didn't care.

"Let them try to find me. I'm dangerous too."

[Nox]

"I do."
He knew first hand because he was one, but he wasn't about to put that out there for anyone to just hear who was standing by watching the same broadcast.

Dane ordered another drink and Nox followed close behind with a wave of his hand. He didn't intend to get drunk, but one beer just wasn't going to cut through the shit that had just fallen in his lap. At least the drink would fuzz his mind but he needed to distract himself.

The clap on his back brought Nox back from his thoughts of doom. But the words that came from his mouth sent a shiver down his spine. Wishing his brother dead. Dangerous man, he played a dangerous game.

Nox turned to watch his companion. Who the fuck was he getting involved with? He wasn't sure he liked the tone in which he claimed he was dangerous. Nox knew exactly how dangerous they could be. He knew because he could do a great amount of damage if he so choose to.

As if the thought egged him on, Nox was grabbing the power and stretching tendrils out into the ground. He'd seen Ascendancy doing it. But Nox really had no objective in mind. The power just flowed from him into the earth. He knew he was dangerous. Aria knew he was dangerous. She kept him in check and he her. It was the nature of their partnership. And now she was not here and the power called to him. The earth called to him.

Ascendancy had been looking for something. He'd only caught a glimpse of the pendant he'd found, but that wasn't what Nox felt, he didn't want to look for something. He could feel each of the threads pulling and twisting. The power was distracting, he finished off the weave and the power winked out as the ground shook beneath them.

Nox smiled as the vibrations subsided and he could hear alarms of various sorts going off. Hopefully his distraction hadn't caused any major damage - or deaths. He hadn't meant to do it, but then maybe he had, their games had been a good distraction. Now he needed that distraction more than he needed to drink.

Nox knew he should care more about the man sitting next to him. Find out who he was, but he already had a bad feeling he already knew. That nagging feeling had been with him since he'd met him. And Nox didn't believe in coincidence - he didn't believe in fate. But it would put icing on the cake if this was the one man he truly did not want to meet in Mexico. It would be no problem using his wallet and looking up the photo of Dane Gregory to ease his mind. To say that he had better taste in friends than Aria. But then he'd truly be fucked, so ignorance was bliss. Nox didn't want to know. If only Ascendancy had chosen another time to let the man next to him announce just how dangerous he truly was - Nox could have gone on living in said bliss.

Nox downed the second beer then asked Dane. "Where were we before we got rudely interrupted by real life?"

[Dane Gregory]

Nox knew first hand about the Atharim. How interesting. Dane would not mind meeting some of them. Let the powerless, weaklings come. It would inject some fun into these tedious days.

As he pondered the cat and mouse game he might play with one of the atharim, the bartender brought him a fresh mojito, and laid a signature pad down before him. "Sir. Could I get an identification print to tabulate the bill, please?" Dane accepted the drink and laid his thumb on the pad. The ID registered and the bartender nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Gregory."

Dane smiled and raised his glass to Nox. "Cheers my good man. To real life."

[Nox]

Nox paled as the bartender thanked his companion. Fuck! Well confirmation. What was he going to do about it? Aria would kill him if he touched Dane. And right now that was not something he wanted to do - pissing Aria off now meant she'd go darker than before. He sighed.

Dane toasted to real life. Nox clinked his beer bottle to Dane's glass with a faked smile. "To Real life."
It sucks!

Nox closed his eyes and turned to face the water before he opened them again. "I'll be honest with you. Dane."
Nox said his name with emphasis. "You are already on their radar after your display in an interrogation room. Thankfully you've a guardian angel who claimed your name and hunts you personally. Though I doubt she'd ever hurt you."


Nox opened his wallet and pulled up Dane's file and smiled. "Everything they know about you."
Nox grinned, "Anything you want them to know specifically?"
Nox could delete it but it wouldn't do any good, hiding information like this would just get noticed faster. Aria claimed the name it was the best way to hide a god in plain sight.


Edited by Nox, Jun 25 2016, 05:36 PM.

[Dane Gregory]

Dane didn't notice the use of his first name. He was absorbed in watching a beach patron picking through the surf and kicking at the water barefoot. Nox was going on about something, but Dane had tuned him out. The birds were chirping.

Only when Nox showed him the Wallet display did Dane slowly raise his eyes to meet Nox's. The display was a record of his life. The name of the boarding school he attended in France. A picture of his family's home in the country. A list of his siblings.

A grip tightened his stomach. He roamed the record again, snatching away Nox's device to scan it himself. There was no mention of Mockingbird. Thank God. No mention of his victims. Just a record of dates and places. People supposedly important to him. Family. A picture of Declan and his offspring, a niece Dane had never met.

Brow furrowed in thought, he handed the device back to its owner. "You're one of them then?" He spoke quietly so others wouldn't overhear. Who was the guardian angel?

"Yes. Add that my brother is also one of us. A god...?" Dane liked the sound of that.

If Declan was dead, the title he always wanted would rightfully and legally pass to Dane. What did Declan care for it anyway? The title was wasted on that recluse.

"So. Since you're one of them. Shouldn't you kill yourself?"