The Boy with the Greatsword

[ChrisClark13]

It was the early evening when Samuel stepped out of his mom's car and walked through the gates of Claremont Academy. He wore a simple printed tee with the school's symbol on it, some jeans, and a black hoodie for protection against the cold; but what was really interesting was that he was carrying a sheathed greatsword that was just about as tall as he was and carrying it in one hand on the middle of it too, a sure sign of his super-strength. He also had a backpack on that was stuffed quite full.

 

it was after school-and cold outside-so the courtyard was mostly empty at the moment. He wasn't quite sure how that suited him, since he did want people to ask about his greatsword, but there was also that feeling that maybe he should be being a little more discreet than he was already being about bringing a huge sword that people could probably easily identify his soon-to-be hero identity by... though here at Claremont that really shouldn't be a problem since some of the other students were supposedly heroes themselves and he had also thought maybe if he carried his sword in the open he would attract their notice. He still wasn't sure how to go about getting in contact with other heroes here, but he was quite sure that one didn't just go around asking random people if they were a hero or not. Like his dad, most of them did just want to live a quiet, average life and not worry about their powers ruining it...

 

Samuel sighed, pretty sure that he was overthinking this whole sword thing, so he decided that he was just going to wing this situation and see where it went. He stretched his arms (and greatsword) above his head, put a cocky half-grin on his face, and started taking a roundabout route to his dorm. All the while doing his best to make it look like the sword in his hand weighed absolutely nothing, running the end of the sheath around things he passed by and giving it a good swing every now and then.

Edited November 3, 2015 by ChrisClark13
I stand up and walk away for all of ten seconds and then errors and things suddenly become super obvious to me.

[Electra]

"Prioproception," Raina muttered to herself, glaring down at the grass as she stood with the blindfold in her hands. She'd gone around back of the dorms where hardly anybody usually came, the better to work on her Talya-assigned homework without anybody seeing her. "I touch the world, the world doesn't touch me." She sighed and fastened the blindfold around her face and was very glad that Merlin wasn't around to watch her make a fool of herself. In a way the training was interesting, making her very aware of the tiny movements and noises around her, but it was also frustrating. And she suspected it made her look like a complete dumbass, flailing around blindly in the yard. 

 

She extended her senses and began to walk, carefully, carefully. There was magic at Claremont, always magic, from the wards surrounding the property, to the magical students, to the magic in Raina herself. That was all easy to detect, but below that was the soft thrumming life force of trees and grass and bushes that had been touched by power, as though anything on this campus could be totally unaffected by metahuman activity. She steered around a bush successfully, then narrowly avoided a trash can. Maybe she was getting the hang of this. 

 

Suddenly, she felt a new presence enter her range, a wash of magic that smelled of sulfur and fire, reminding her oddly of the basement at her home. Startled enough to forget her other senses, Raina blapped straight into a tree. She ripped off the blindfold and turned to the new arrival. "Who the hell are you?" she demanded, sounding more surprised than angry. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Cathy had over the week managed to convince herself that it wasn't wrong that was spying on Raina tonight. For a while she'd been acting weird, well weirder, and sneaking out of the dorms at odd hours. So finally Cathy had decided to find out what was going on. So she was currently sat on the roof trying to decide what Rain a was doing exactly, it was certainly  on the odd side but she'd often spent hours back home practicing  her abilities  where she wouldn't  be seen.

 

Lost in her thoughts she'd missed the arrival of the new boy but not Raina's cry of alarm. Without really thinking she created an ice slide and slid down to the floor landing beside her friend.

 

"I can ex... Oh hi there are you new here?"

 

[ChrisClark13]

Seeing a random blindfolded girl walk headfirst into a tree and then yell at him with a mix of confusion and anger was just about as far as you could get from how Samuel expected this to go. He stammered out the first thing that came to mind, "I'm-m Sam, are you okay?" Though before she could respond another girl with strange hair and eye colors slid down on an ice slide that appeared out of nowhere-no wait that must be the new girl's power he reasoned. He's done nothing wrong here, he just needed to play it cool and it should work out just fine.

 

He took a breath before responding to get his composure together, "Yeah, I just transferred here about a week ago. The name's Samuel Ryland, you can call me Sam though." he held out his left hand for a polite handshake as he gave a small, if a bit forced, smile.

Edited November 4, 2015 by ChrisClark13

[Electra]

Raina blinked when Cathy suddenly slid into view, but she filed that mystery aside to deal with in a moment. She smiled blithely and brushed a few leaves out of her hair, then extended her own left hand to shake his, lightly, politely. "I'm Raina Sanderson, this is my roommate Cathy Clouston. And I'm fine, I was just doing an exercise to increase my extrasensory perception. Work in progress," she told him airily. "And I can tell you're a magic user, something from below the surface unless I miss my guess? I work mostly with earth magic, but I've done some dabbling." 

[ChrisClark13]

Sam gave Raina's hand a good couple shakes, nodding his head along, before pulling his hand back. Her 'below the surface' comment made his heart almost skip a beat (since there's also the whole don't let Hell find out where dad's hiding thing going on), but he caught the gut reaction fairly quickly and did his best to turn it into a joke to help himself get a little less tense, letting out a halfhearted chuckle. "I guess that's technically true, though is it really that obvious? I didn't think anyone would catch on to it before I had been slinging hellfire around for a while."

[Tiffany Korta]

Cathy choose for now to let Raina do most of the talking, which to be fair she seemed to do most of the time anyway, except to raise a hand and say hi when introduced. Instead she stood back, arms crossed, and listened to the two speaking about things she didn’t quite understand. She was more a practically kind of girl, stories of magical Ice Maidens in her family's past notwithstanding.

“This is all really interesting but can we do it inside?” the cold didn't bother her but they weren’t technically meant to be outside after dark “Do you know what dorm you’re in?”

[Electra]

"Give it a rest, Cathy, nobody's gonna bust our asses for talking," Raina told her roommate airily. "And it's not super-obvious," she told Sam, "I'm just a magic-user myself, and sometimes I can kind of get a feel for the sort of magic somebody has in them. Sort of like a taste or a smell, you know? I can keep it under my hat if you want, no reason to give the holier-than-thou squad any reason to come down on you right off the bat." She gave the new boy an assessing look, taking in the muscles, the red hair, the decent-looking face. "So where are you from, Sam?" 

[ChrisClark13]

Sam takes a breath and looks between the girls, deciding to answer the more perky girl's question first, "I'm from right here in Freedom City, born and raised. My parents came here because of the heroes, my dad because it seemed safe with all the heroes around and my mom well, she's just a really big hero geek," he said with a smile as he looked between the girls. He then suddenly pointed towards the boy's dorm, "Oh yeah, my dorm's over there. I started here just a week ago actually. Just bringing my sword here so I can use it in training rather than the greatsword they have on hand, this one's a bit longer and a good bit thinner than that one," he said, lifting his sword up for a moment. He then smiled a wide, nervous grin, "Maybe head out on the streets a bit tonight, yeah?"

[Electra]

"Oh, you're planning to patrol?" Raina asked with mild curiosity, studying Sam and his sword. "That thing's not too sneaky, but I guess you could put the fear of gods into somebody with it. What does it do?" It looked like an ordinary sword, shiny and sharp, but she fully expected at any moment for it to catch on fire or crackle with electricity or become covered in creeping entropic darkness. Very few things in this place were exactly as they seemed. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Cathy stood back arms crossed as the two talked about sneaking out to patrol the city. She knew enough to try and talk Raina out of anything so reckless, it would only make her more determined to do something so daring.

 

Besides sometimes good things did happen from Raina boldness, it’s how they met Winifred after all, and beside she’d heard from some of the other Student’s that it discouraged but allowed among the students to go and fight crime in the city.

Though she was still slightly miffed and the air around her became a lot chillier and a frost formed on the grass below her feet.

[ChrisClark13]

Sam speaks as he looks around, "I guess it won't hurt if I show it off here,it's not like anyone's going to rat us out." ...or like anyone could even try to rat anyone or this place out, he's never heard of it before he came here anyways so there's probably some highly effective way this place and it's students are kept secret after all, though it's not like he's going to try and find out what that thing is; it is keeping him and everyone safe after all.

 

Having reassured himself of the relative secrecy of what he's about to show off, he grab the sheath of his sword with his left hand and draws it out with his right. The blade is a simple elongated blade made of a dark grey metal with a groove running down it's middle. He grins and flourishes the blade as it bursts into brilliant unnatural red flames, "Pretty cool right?" he asks, looking for Raina's reaction (and ignoring Cathy at the moment).

[Electra]

"Cool," Raina agreed, looking reasonably impressed by the firey sword. "The magic smells like sulfur, but it's still an awesome effect." She ran an experimental hand a few inches over the flames, but they weren't natural fire and not terribly inclined to respond to her commands. She took her lighter out instead and flicked it, growing the speck of flame into a softball sized sphere that she could hold cupped in her palm. "I like fire," she told him with a grin. "So if you grew up around here, you must know what's fun to do, right?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Whilst Cathy couldn’t help by being impressed by the new boys flaming sword, she also couldn’t miss that she was being left out in the cold. As tempting as it was to give them the cold shoulder, she was aware of the irony of the statement, she was a little worried about the trouble the two could possibly get into. She’d been getting better at it but the temperature still dropped a degree or two around them as she worried.

“And a few times you’ve been burnt! Did you not learn anything from what happened with Fred?”

[ChrisClark13]

Sam let the flames on his sword go out as he put it's point on the ground, "Burnt?" he asked with a bit of concern, "and well um... I was going to get my costume and head straight to the sparring room, I want to be able to attack some things I don't have to hold back on. Really go all out with my sword you know?" He motioned his head towards the building where said room was. Sam thought about options for what to do, "Besides I have class pretty early tomorrow," letting out a yawn as he remembered that fact.

 

He snapped his fingers, "How about I show you guys my costume? I haven't been able to get much feedback on it other than 'punk kid who thinks he's cool or something' and 'ow my face that burns!'" he said with straight a face as possible, though he couldn't help letting out a snort of laughter at the last bit of it.

[Electra]

"Yeah sure, show us," Raina invited, looking at least mildly interested, though slightly less so than at the thought that somebody might be doing something interesting off-campus. "But only if you want actual honest opinions," she warned. "I consider it a duty to not let somebody go out wearing something that makes them look stupid if they've asked for my opinion, so if your costume's a disaster, I'm going to tell you. You can't get pissed, okay?" Raina obviously considered this an extremely reasonable demand in exchange for her sartorial advice. "I haven't even picked out a costume yet, waiting for the inspiration to strike." 

[ChrisClark13]

Sam nodded as a grin spread across his face, "Perfect!" he practically shouted in his excitement and anticipation of showing off his costume to Raina. He raised a finger as if to say something important,  suddenly he snorted as the grin grew wider across his face, "Nah, you'll just have to see it for yourself! Com'on!"

 

He waved with his hand and ran off towards his dorm, first at full sprint, though perhaps slowing down if the girls had trouble following him. Once he got to his dorm he unlocked it with his key and opened it just enough for him to slip inside before looking back at Raina "Alright wait here, my dorm's a bit of a mess." He slipped inside and shut the door behind him.

 

A couple of minutes later Sam comes out dressed in his costume: the most eye catching bit of it being a red trenchcoat paired with the red domino mask around his eyes. The rest of the outfit is just black pants, gloves, boots and a dark grey t-shirt as to not draw too much attention away from the trenchcoat. The sword now hung on his back in it's sheath with it's strap looping over his shoulder. Putting his hands to either side palms up, he grins as he asks, "Well, what do you think?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Even though she got the distinct feeling that she really wasn’t wanted along Cathy decided to tag along, mostly to wind up Raina with her continued presence. She’d followed along behind as the two chatted away a little shadow following them around, she also choose not to say anything about them going into the dorm.

 

But she had to admit the costume wasn’t to bad, it was definitely a bold choice of colours.

“It’s... it’s very striking! I guess you don’t plan to strike fear from the shadows.”

[Electra]

"It's definitely bright," Raina agreed, studying the look. "Yeah,I see where you're going with it, it could work if you're not worried about slicing the coat all to hell first time you get into a fight with somebody. Leather's expensive to mend, and it still doesn't look right aftwards." She took a few steps, walking around him to look at the effect from the side and back. "Needs a hat," she decided. "The trenchcoat and the sword and mask and stuff makes your head look small without a hat or something. Plus, adds mystery. Your call on whether the hat has to be red or not, but it would be like a trademark." 

[ChrisClark13]

[color#cc1300]"A hat?" Sam asked as he raised a hand to his chin and squinted as he thought, "But... um, what kind of hat would even go with a greatsword? This outfit?" He looked down and rubbed thumb and middle finger together, almost snapping, "Uh- I um-..." he stammered a bit as he got what he wanted to say together in his head, "The only thing I can think of is maybe some sort of beanie? But that would probably make a really bad trademark."

 

Sam muttered to himself as he mulled it over, "Well.. maybe if I... but how would it stay on? Helmet.. full medieval?" He sighed and looked back up to the girls, being silent for a moment before speaking with a shake of his head, "I'm just not feeling a hat- adding a hat to this I mean. Maybe I could do something with my hair, but that's about it... Just not feeling it."

[Electra]

Raina looked skeptical. "Some kind of matching red hat, like the guys in old movies wear, or Carmen Sandiego. Something classy, nothing with a propeller on it, for pity's sake. But hey, it's your choice, your head doesn't really look, like, freakishly small, just kind of undersized," she assured him unhelpfully. "Other heroes use hats, you see them in the training videos and stuff. Guy graduated a few years back wore a hat and a gas mask all the time, plus a coat and belt thing. He probably figured out some kind of trick for it." She shrugged. "Maybe you could just bobby pin something to your head. Can you actually get the sword out from there?"