sixthiteration | Test Drive 23

It has to take place in the 6I universe.
It cannot be the character's arrival into the game.
Please only test new characters who do not have a version in the game. Our cast list is here.

Holds Application Want Ads

Prompts

FULL VIEW - The Observers really do their best to make each villager's wrist device as user-friendly for them as possible, but with all new tech, sometimes there's a learning curve... And sometimes, you just screw up. Like now, when you've accidentally triggered the video option and called someone completely random on the network without realizing it. Yep, you're just going about whatever, totally oblivious. Here's to hoping that your clothes are fully on, and that the person on the other end is nice enough to speak up sooner rather than later.
SHADOW OF A DOUBT - Being the intrepid (or just bored) villager you are, you've gone exploring and found yourself a very interesting (if moderately spooky) cave. What lurks in the dark? Might it be some shadow dust to turn you intangible? Or perhaps a cave wolf with all of its little goblin-monkey friends? Maybe, just maybe, it's both.
ILL AT EASE - 'Tis the season for the common cold, and you've got it. Unfortunately, the village doesn't have a corner drug store, so you're achy, miserable, maybe a little feverish. The good news is a little time in bed should do the trick. That is, if you're not the sort who has to be bullied to take care of yourself anytime you get sick. Either way, maybe you'll be lucky enough to find someone to tuck you in and bring you some chicken soup.
WILDCARD - Choose your own adventure. Maybe play powers roulette.
NETWORK - All characters are fitted with a smart watch-like device on their left wrist, which they can use to send text and video messages to other villagers. Text and/or video are allowed, any length. Display names may be changed by characters on the fly, but anyone can tap to see someone's real full name.

Please list your CHARACTER NAME, CANON & PROMPT NAMES in your SUBJECT LINE.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ill at ease

The last time he got even a hint of sickness, he remembers calling Isobel, downing two bottles of nail polish remover, and getting right back to business. It's not like he'd been healed, but he's never been actually sick in his life. Physically injured, yeah, but that's not something he's going to think about.

Unfortunately, the fever is starting to cook him like a lobster in hot water, making Michael worry about what happens next. He's never been sick, he doesn't know how this works. Common colds don't really happen to uncommon aliens, but all of a sudden, he's the kind of green that people always think when they think Roswell.

He leans against the frame of the inn's door as he lurches inside. His forehead beads with sweat, he makes it to the couch before he collapses on it, grimacing as he peers blearily up past his arm (which half-covers his eyes from the light). "Aren't people supposed to help convalesce the sick?" he complains, when he starts hacking, his whole body shaking with the pain of it. "How can this be so shitty?" he wonders, and this is not a human experience he ever wanted to impersonate.

telekine-clumsy

He has to buy his own powers back.

Whatever hope Michael had about this place being home turns into something more bitter, angry at one of the few things that makes him so uniquely him being made available in a fucking vending machine like a twinkie. The noise in his head is going wild and the chaos is worse than ever.

Without a guitar around, he swallows his pride and punches in an order for telekinesis, ignoring the other powers, though he keeps it in mind. If there's others, then does this mean there are more people here? Is this where he'll actually meet those long lost family members he kept thinking about, lying on Foster Ranch's ground, staring up at the stars.

Once he finishes the transaction, Michael takes a deep breath and looks around.

For the longest time, he worked so hard not to use his abilities because of Max's rules, but he's been without them for days and he needs them again, if only to prove that he hasn't lost a piece of himself. What he didn't count on was the fact that his calibration might not be exactly so settled, so when he moves to bring a few pieces of paper over, he gets a tornado of them swirling and smacking him in the face instead.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Plucking one off his face, he freezes when he finds out he's not alone. "What'd you see?" he demands, old habits dying hard as he wishes that he'd bought the damn enhanced senses to see them coming. That, or he just wants Isobel and her trusty taser around.

text

n e 1 know if there's a junkyard? place with spare parts that I could rummage thru?

Definitely not alone, and definitely the best amusement that Diego has seen since he came to this place. Leaning against the door, pretending he isn't wearing a sweatshirt that's a bit too big, and jeans a bit too small, and overall looking like he probably dressed in the dark. At least it wasn't medical scrubs making him look like an escaped mental patient. Well, the clothes didn't.

A brow arching at that, smirking as he peeled a piece of paper off his shirt where it had stuck and let it flutter to the floor.

"What I saw was something that looked like something out of my childhood memories," he admits, thinking of them all coming into their powers and trying not to kill one another. Well, not have it look like murder, at any rate. "You, uhmmm, have that before or just think playing around with powers you don't understand might be fun?"

He's betting a lot do the later, but he couldn't help but to come and check and see if his own lost ability might be in the machine.

Michael pries off the last of the papers from his face, feeling like he's fourteen again and things are flying around the room every time he has a dirty dream. Not exactly great memories, seeing as that led to his exorcism, but at least he'd figured out control.

It's just that it's been gone and he's never done well with his powers when he's angry, so he grabs them and shoves them down. "You think I don't understand this?" he challenges the asshole who can't find a pair of jeans that fit him.

Clearly, the angry is going to linger for a while.

Lucky for him, he does have years of practice, which is why it's so easy to do nothing but stand there with a smirk while the seams on the guy's jeans just get tighter and tighter, pressed up against precious little places. "What do you think?" he asks, leaning in to ask, under his breath.

It takes a second for Diego to realize what's going on. Shifting, his eyes narrowing. Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck is wrong with people?

"I think you're an asshole who fucked up and then blames other," he says, voice tight, a bit breathless as he slid one hand around to the small of his back. Maybe he hasn't looked at the machine yet, seen if it can help, but years of training are enough.

"I happen to like my dick where it is, but if you think this is a fun game to play? Two can play it,' he says, gripping the handle of the knife, calculating the angle, the velocity needed, all of the things he's taken for granted most of his life. "So back off or I'm going to show I don't need to know if that machine has what I've lost to castrate you like you do those little yapping dogs."

Michael eases up, just enough for the jeans not to threaten to cut off circulation, but at the prospect of knives flying at him, he doesn't flinch or back away like he should. No, he's down for this challenge and maybe just a little masochistic.

He nods, gesturing with his scarred hand for the other guy to do it. "I dare you to try," he says, feeling like he always does when he gets into a fight at the Pony. It's that kick of adrenaline that's so fucking good, it's better than alcohol, and it'll make him feel alive in a way he hasn't since...

Yeah. Not going there.

Diego draws a quick breath, the pain still there, his skin aching where the stitches had loosened slightly. He considers that and then snorts, shaking his head. "Oh no. You aren't getting an agreement to that yet. They took everyone's abilities," he points out, in case this guy didn't know that. "Now, you let me see if they have mine on there, and we can even this playing field."

He's not sure if the guy will let him, but he's going to buy time as he can, find a distraction, so that he's not using that telekinesis immediately.

He'd kind of figured out that he didn't have his abilities when he hadn't been able to unlock his own pod, like the first time. Then again, the first time, he didn't know how to speak and had to learn how to walk. He'd huddled with Max and Isobel, clinging to them after they got out.

This time, they stole his powers, so maybe whatever he needed them for is over with. If that's the case and this really is home, he's not sure he likes them making him buy them back.

"So, you're a weirdo too, huh?" He knows he's goading him deliberately, lifting his chin in his direction. "What's your freaky power?"

The downside is, Diego knows he's a freak. He was paraded as a freak for all the world to see. Plastered on magazines and turned into action figures. He stopped being offended by words like that thrown at him since before his father finally let them out of those damn uniforms, short pants and all.

"Born and raised one," he says, letting his hand ease away from the handle of his knife and down to his side. "I've got two of them," he admits. "I can hold my breath as long as I want, and I've got a bit of a skill with knife throwing," he says, which is an understatement but explains enough, he figures. "Well, I had them. I don't anymore. Even dead we still have the abilities, apparently. I don't get how I can't have them now," he admits, frowning heavily as he makes that admission.

It's being more honest than he's comfortable with but that too has him taking a chance. He's never had a chance to hide what he is, so why start here?

Michael slumps back against the nearest wall as he looks the other guy over. "You can hold your breath as long as you want," he echoes. "Sorry, I didn't see that kinky little number on the list," he drawls, hooking his thumbs in the loops of his pants as he eases back, because you can take the cowboy out of New Mexico, but not all of him.

The knives thing, that's more interesting. "Telekinesis," he says. "Just, knife-specific telekinesis? And you didn't get into cooking?" he scoffs. "Missed opportunity, that's all I'm saying."

"We don't exactly pick our super powers,' He points out, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the door jamb, semifacing off with the other man. Though there's a twitch of his lips, amused by that comment. He can't say it hasn't benefited him in all ways.

"Any projectile I throw," he admits. "I just prefer knives. It's funny the number of people that have no issue with a gun in their face, but freak when you nearly put a knife through their foot." Definitely amused talking of that. Though he actually laughs at the comment about cooking.

"Let me guess. At one of those places where you slice and dice at the grill in front of them?"

"I mean, I was figuring a regular kitchen, but your idea's so much better," Michael agrees with a smirk as he leans forward to make little motions with his fingers, of chopping and slicing. He can use his telekinesis on knives to slice himself a piece of cake, so he already knows how useful it can be.

As for choice, he snorts. "Trust me, I know all about that, but I won the lottery," he guarantees, though there were definitely times when he'd wanted Isobel's power and just once, just the once, he'd wanted Max's. "Some people can make anything terrifying," he says.

"So? You got your breathing power in there? Or are we gonna have to wait for you to show off your synchronized swimming talents?"

"You know, maybe you're right. Maybe the goal should have been celebrity chef all along instead of helping people because the police can't always do it." And much as his tones are tinged with sarcasm, there are days when he doesn't wonder why he took this path, as bad as it has gotten over the years.

He snorts at that. "You're not wrong there. A whisper. A small child in a school uniform. A violin. Seen a lot of people fear things most just think are ordinary," he admits, nodding.

"Came to see what these machines offer up and how much I can get back. Would settle for thumbing my nose at the law of physics, but both would be nice. None of it has been working since I came here though. Not sure how they manage that."

Michael scoffs at the idea of the police doing anything. He's lived his life in cells more often than not, so the idea of them actually being helpful is ridiculous and it shows in his face.

"You'd make more money and get more credit," he points out. The unspoken comment is why bother helping the world, since it's a shitheap anyway.

People feared him, but they didn't know it. They feared aliens and their presence, they just had no idea that they were talking about Michael Guerin and his siblings when they talked about the imposing alien threat. Funny. They just wanted to make a home and live their lives, but they don't get to do that.

Max said it best. They don't get to be with the people they want, and that's been true for Michael for ten years.

"If you're gonna go with telekinesis, I'd offer to teach you, but seeing as mine mostly works when I'm angry, it might not do much."

"If I wanted money, I would have stayed at home," he points out. "Or taken a deal to write a tell all book about my family. Though apparently that didn't work for my sister so..." He shrugs, not caring because that damn book deserved to tank.

"Because I seem the kind of guy that just smiles sweetly and lets the world shit on him?" He chuckles though at that. "I don't think working from anger would be touch. Could be interesting, and would technically still let me work with things as I'm used to them."

What difference was there in his ability and using telekinesis to throw knives?

Michael snorts, because apparently sibling problems range the whole world around, though it's not like he's surprised. After all, they don't have a monopoly on fucked up family situations, it just feels like it, sometimes.

He raises a brow. "I don't know, man. Compared to me? You seem pretty calm and easygoing," he deadpans, smirking at him. "I can do it when I want, it just goes a little haywire when I'm angry." Or it turns off completely, like those times with Alex when he should have used them, their secret be damned.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive 23

Michael Guerin | Roswell, NM

telekine-clumsy

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject