2013.07.24 - War Baby

It's pretty late when Constantine finally leaves the Oblivion. The exit to the establishment is never in the same place twice, they say, and tonight it dumps him out in Hell's Kitchen. It's not really that it's cold out because it isn't, but the brit shivers anyways and pulls his coat tighter around himself with one hand holding the two open flaps closed. The other hand clutches a cigarette that periodically moves up to his lips as he walks; lips that fill the air around him like a smoke stake on a freight train. 
Just under a minute later, the door opens again, barely making a noise. A tall girl slips out, hidden underneath a zipped up bomber jacket and a baseball cap pulled low.
Amy Winston juts her lip out, taking a moment to stare down the street at the staggering man, making sure it's still him. She also needs time to work herself up. Her breath comes a bit faster. She starts walking purposefully. Her boots can make an awful lot of noise when she tries.
The teen makes a gesture with her right hand. A shimmering, thin blade springs into existence in her waiting palm. Amy curls her lip, and gestures again. The blade is now a baseball bat.
"HEY CONSTANTINE!"
Ripping off her cap, Amy takes a few steps forward, just barely breaking into a jog. She slams the bat against a nearby wall.
The staggering man periodically leans against the wall with one hand providing the balance he needs to keep from faceplanting into the sidewalk. All while reversing one cigarette now burnt to the filter in an attempt to light a new one without lighting his oily blonde hair on fire, as it seems intent on hanging dangerously in the way of his mouth.
For the first bit of his journey, wherever it is fate decides to take him, he seems blissfully unaware of the woman trailing behind him. Paying favorable attention to the young, definitely drug addicted, hookers that call at him with smiles and lude promises. His hand drags across his mouth in a drunken sort of half spin to keep his eyes on them, without actually stopping on his way to a busted crossing light. 
Which is when the footsteps match the smashing of a bat against the wall. And was that his name? 
Constantine turns, flicking ashes from his cigarette and replacing it back between his lips so that it bobs when he talks, "I am not your father... I'm sure I've a blood test somewhere to prove it.." As if this sort of thing happens all the time. 
Amy keeps her pace up only for a moment. As Constantine turns to face her, she lowers her bat and walks the last few feet.
"Yeah, you're not my father," she snarls. Amy brings the bat up sharply, jabbing it toward Constantine's stomach. "Are you too drunk to recognize me or do you just not care that much?"
She narrows her eyes, looking the man up and down. Her voice is mildly tremulous, but she's hiding it well under loudness. "You killed a lot of people. I don't know what I'm going to do with you, but I feel like it should be bloody."
Constantine's right eye squints in an attempt to get a better, less fuzzy, picture of Amy as she comes sauntering up with her baseball bat. His cigarette just sort of dangles there from his lips, occasionally straightening for a drag, but for the most part just acting as a decorative accessory to his alcohol swollen face. 
"Nope, cant say as I know who the bloody hell you are." Pause... eyes either on her cleavage or the necklace hanging there around her neck... and honestly it could go either way with him.. Whichever it is, it has his brow perking slightly, "Oh wait..." Patting at the air, "I remember, yeah." 
His hand comes up and takes the cigarette from his lips, smoke boiling out from both his open mouth and nostrils, "You were one of them little girls from the childrens foundation program, right? Sorry, I didn't have any extra money that month.. I really did want to save your village with just a penny a day." 
Amy's expression breaks. Her eyes go wide, her lips part, and she chokes on the beginning of a noise that's mostly a laugh and only slightly a sob. Her free hand clutches at the necklace for a moment.
"That's it? That's everything you want to say?"
She shakes her head, almost seeming lost. "OK."
Amy steps in, forcefully sliding her foot into Constantine's instep. Simultaneously, she turns the bat around and brings its hilt into a classic target: the solar plexus. All of her force goes to knocking him (more) unbalanced and onto the ground. She's fast and stronger than she looks.
Then, she's over him, bat in both hands and raised above her head. She tries to make eye contact and then waits. For something.
Maybe that was his plan all along: Get her tired by attacking him. It didn't take her long, but he shows her bat whose boss with his solar plexus and stumbles over her foot with the 'OAFH' sound someone makes when they hit concrete a little harder than they ever intended or desired. 
He's not as young as he use to be and that really hurt. Tomorrow, anyways. He's still got alcohol analgesics in his system to help with the pain 'right this second'. His cigarette has flown from his fingers and rolled over into the gutter a few inches from where his face is laying on the ground. 
It still takes him a second to catch his breath, one hand held up at her defensively, almost pleading and pointing at his mouth in an indication that he 'has something to say'... 
Once he can, he breaths a sigh and voices it, "Don't blame me lady... that other foundation had better production value in their commercials." Snark. That's what she gets. 
And a suddenly blast black/purple energy from the palm of his outstretched hand. 
Her expression is mostly disgust. It's dark and alcohol causes people to overestimate negative reactions in facial expressions.
Amy tenses in preparation to bring her Hell's Kitchen Excalibur down. She's caught by the blast before she can even start the downswing. There's a surprised shout, and then she's gone from his field of view when the energy clears.
"Fine!" she manages to choke out. Further investigation will show that Amy ended up on her back, scuffed but not exploded or burnt or mangled or whatever black/purple energy means. Her hands are glowing, too. Purple, naturally.
Amy rolls to the side, making it to her feet in some bit of acrobatics. "I guess I should have read more into you being a creepy old stalker with a bad dye job!"
She gestures forcefully, ripping something invisible from the air in front of her. The ground explodes into amethyst, a jagged man-high wall ripping the street apart behind Constantine. Her palms face out to the older wizard.
Constantine is a little less graceful with his standing up, rolling over and pushing up to his hands and knees, then one foot under him... finally both. Then there's a wall shredding up concrete and earth in front of his face and the distinct impression that she's very serious shreds up his mind. 
He coughs a bit and leans against the crossing sign he'd just been laying beside, rooting around his pockets until he comes up with a pack of cigarettes. 
"Listen..." Quietly at first as one of the silk cuts slips between his lips and a zippo used to light it. His face is temporarily highlighted in that orange glow, eyes again staring at her with a bit more intensity than he was able to manage in his previous drunken stupor. 
"You seem like you're an alright kid.. I get that I must have wronged you in some form or fashion." Pausing to take a drag, motioning with a flicking finger over her shoulder. They curl and point, twist and jerk, much in the way of a warlock casting some heavily physical intensive spell. 
He didn't have to do any of it, to be truthful. It's all show. Get her prepared for one thing while actually doing something else. Like pulling a weapon that kind of resembles an arcubus from inside his coat. "Will it help expedite all this if I just said I was sorry for whatever it was?" 
"Wronged me?" she says. Her vocal level is just below shouting now. Hell's Kitchen is used to this, or things like this, and there's no one visibly around to hear her. "I didn't lose anyone, but a lot of people did!"
Amy stops as Constantine begins to gesture. She's visibly conflicted for a moment and finally spares a quick glance over her shoulder, grimacing as she does so. There's little surprise in her face when she looks back to find him holding a gun.
She still favors her hands. An invisible, but highly charged shield stands between her and Constantine. "You gave a murderer free reign over an entire world and people died. He's back in his gem, by the way. I was going to ask you to help me find it."
Amy lashes out with one hand, flinging an invisible projectile. Unsurprisingly, her gesture has an all too visible effect: a whirlwind gusts into life, briefly drowning out all polite talk with its howling winds. It's almost alive, bending and twisting as it hunts across the street for Constantine, disappearing with a thunderclap after a moment. The winds are strong enough to toss a full grown man a dozen yards, and it likes to throw low.
The Arcubus explodes like a cannon going off, but it was clearly not designed to do physical harm to the living since the projectiles that erupt from it only tear apart the whirlwind she's sent flying at Constantine. 
It still smokes in his hand as he lifts it up, wind bellowing in his coat just a little and tossling his hair. "You've a really fucked way of askin' for help, you know that?" Disregarding that he probably should have offered to help her, given he is mostly responsible for the situation to begin with. 
Try telling him that. 
"Can you be civil long enough for me to sober up so or are you going to insist that we fight to the death like a couple yanks? Bollocks, woman, you've ruined a perfectly good buzz.." 
Amy sucks a breath in between her teeth as Constantine succeeds in shooting a tornado dead. She looks from the gun's owner, to the gun, and then back to the owner.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm in a position to demand help. I also think I have a right since you're being such an asshole about it."
The teen lowers her arms ever so slightly. A gesture, and then she's holding a thin sword again. She immediately points it at Constantine. "I'm pretty much a yank, so you'll have to buy me off if you want me to be civil. Say it. Say my name and what you did."
Constantine adjusts his aim so that the barrel of the arcubus is pointed at her, "You're grossly over estimatin' yourself, so... yeah, you really are mostly a yank." He drolls in an almost bored tone. "Listen, you want help, fine... but I'm not admitting to doing anything. All I did was tell you he was a diplomat, you didn't do your research that he was a fallen angel of vengeance... That is just shoddy politics." 
He takes a long drag and lets his cigarette hang down at his side, moving it slowly around so that the smoke traces something in the air. "When you're ready to act like an adult you come find me later. We'll assume that by doing so we both have let bygones be bygones, but I don't have time for a sword fight in Hell's Kitchen." 
"Well, you know," Amy says. "Magical princess versus museum piece holding a museum piece. I think I'd do well. I've been up to some real Lord of the Rings stuff this past year."
Amy continues to hold the sword. She even shifts her weight onto her leading foot before lowering it to the ground. Her left hand continues to glow with that annoying purple fairy-light.
"Fine. Go sober up, take a shower, and then we'll talk about Ambassador Satan. If you run, I'll find you again. More importantly, you'll have been running from an eighteen year old wearing a tiara. I didn't know you had such a big, bad reputation until recently."
The teen glares. Despite her look, the amethyst wall begins to recede into the ground that formed it, becoming perfectly normal street again.
Category:Log