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Summary: Bruce catches Caleb stealing alcohol from the bar. Caleb causes large amounts of grief for the bartenders.
Log Title: Underage Drinking
Rating: PG (L)
Mutant Town - Nowhere
Nowhere is a community bar, with a slightly old world feel. All of the tables and chairs are made of wood, though there are some couches in a slightly offset room with green fabric. The music varies, depending upon the Owner's music taste for the day. Beer and Liquor are both served, but are both carded for as well.
At the front of the bar, right as one walks in,is a large sign. "Superhuman friendly establishment. There will be no tolerance for disparaging remarks based on one's genetic status. Any fights will not be tolerated within the bar. The management holds no responsibility for where combatants are teleported."
Scene
"A lot of the time the laws out for them selves, a quick bribe would sort it", with that the invisible teen phases though the bar and grabs a couple of shot glasses and the bottle of Sours he'd been eyeing before returning to his seat, however he remains invisible.
The back door of the bar opens and a man in blue jeans and a brown shirt walks in. he’s got bandages on his face and hands and an Australian hat on. Bruce surveys the bar and walks around to the counter. He lifts up the panel and steps behind the bar before washing his hands and tapping the other bartender on the shoulder. It seems it’s shift change right now. He swaggers up to the counter and leans on it, taking an order from a tall green woman.
Caleb sits there grinning an invisable grin and pours a shot, does it, then pours another and the cycle is repeated, he likes this stuff, he hasn't noticed Bruce just yet, he's having some fun.
Bruce pours a few shots and drafts a few beers. It’s a fairly decent evening, between his accent and his bandages he’s making a killing in tips. He’s not going to argue the pity. He narrows his eyes as he looks around, looks like there are a couple younger people in the bar tonight. Bruce curses the other bartender under his breath. He’ll have to double check Ids when some of these people come up for drinks. He would make a round to check at tables, but the second bartender won’t be in for a little while yet. Bruce takes a break from bartending for a couple minutes to flirt with one of his regulars, when suddenly, “Crikey! It’s a bloody spook!” He points at the glass at the counter and throws a lemon wedge in the general direction.
Caleb does another shot and is then hit on the side of the head with the lemon wedge, "Why did this hit me?", without looking he picks it up and thows it back in the direction it came from, he then does another shot, the bottle is clearly visable while he pours it, he smiles to himself and leans his elbow on the bar.
“Eeeaaah!” Bruce ducks as the lemon is chucked back at him, and he grabs hold of the arm of the patron he was flirting with. He looks at the other man and points to the bottle. “I ain’t crazy right?” A few of the people at the bar see it as well, some of them move back, but others seems to assume it’s just another mutant. “What do you do against spooks? Holy water! Wait, I don’t have any of that!” He turns around and looks for something with superstitious value. This being a bar, he doesn’t find much. No candles, no incense, no crosses. He kind of huddles near the edge of the bar furthest from where Caleb is right now.
Caleb does another shot then is distracted by the commotion, and some guy cowering in the corner (he hasn't seen Bruce's face yet), who seems to think he's a ghost, normaly in this situation he'd leave now before he gets in trouble but he's had a fair amount to drink now and his inner trouble maker wants to play, he climes over the bar and walks over to where Bruce is huddling, "I'm not a spook, i'm a Phantom", he whispers in a ghostly voice in his ear, but his accent is still heard.
Bruce is still staring at the bottle when he hears the voice in his ear. Actually it appears that three or four people hear it because they all jump back and stare at the spot where the voice came from. Bruce narrows his eyes where he heard the voice. It sounded slightly familiar. Slightly like that kid who turned invisible the other day. He may not be able to see where the kid is, but he seems to recall burning him with a cigarette when he was invisible the other day. He decides he can stick some particles to the boy’s skin to keep track of him. Sand is perhaps not the best item to use after his news debut, so he’ll settle for something similar that he can control. Bruce unscrews a bottle of salt and draws it up into his hand. He holds it on his palm and blows it toward the “ghost”, causing it to expand into a cloud so that he can try to determine exactly where the boy is.
As soon as that cloud of salt makes contact with Caleb's skin he yells in pain and falls backwards, there are a bunch of tiny burn marks visible on his arms and face, so Bruce know has a way to keep track of him, wincing in pain he gets up and stumbles though the door Bruce came in though.
Bruce blinks as he sees the reaction. Salt? The other patrons all look very confused, one of them is trying to rub salt out of his eyes. Bruce apologizes to the customer and stares at the door to the back room. “I think that ‘ghost’ is a bit too young to be drinkin’ me liquor.” The door to the back room opens again and a very confused looking second bartender steps out. Bruce tells her to watch the bar for a second and recollects his salt cloud. He shoves the back door open, assuming the kid is still in here and that he hasn’t left through the back door yet. “Alrighty Casper, I know yer in here. Why don’t you show yerself? Or do I have to look fer ya again?” He holds his hand palm up. There’s a sphere of salt floating a few inches above his palm.
Caleb is on the floor in the backroom and at the threat of being burned by the salt again, he reappears, he's dressed in black skinny jeans, a black buttoned shirt, a red tie, black airwalk trainers with red laces, his white hair is still a little damp from the rain, his violet eyes are glowing faintly as is the yellow stone on the silver wristband on his right wrist and while invisible he'd put on a Robin-style black mask (the kind that just goes round the eyes), there are a load of tiny burn marks covering the teens pale skin.
Bruce looks around for a moment before turning and seeing the boy on the floor. Salt, interesting. He’ll keep that in mind for the next time he goes to rob a bank. “What are you doing in here? You are way too young to be drinkin’ in here.” He puts his hands on his hips and frowns at the boy, his salt turning into a bracelet and affixing itself around his wrist. “What would your parents think if I called them up right now, eh?” He eyes the boy, “And how did you get here anyway? You didn’t drive, did you?”
Caleb looks up at Bruce though the Robin-like mask he's wearing, dispite the pain from the series of tiny burns covering his arms and face he grins, "You have no idea how old i am, i'm actully tweny one", he slurs his words a bit, "If you rang my parents i doubt they'd say much, it's gone midnight there", he scratches his head, "I think i got the bus".
Bruce chuckles, “Twenty-one? Right, and I’m the Queen of England.” He gestures for the boy to stand up. “What’s with the mask? You planin’ on doing anything else illegal aside from stealing me liquor and drinkin’ underage?” He assumes the boy’s description of his parents time zone means that they live a far way off. “Alrighty, well you’ve gotto have an oldie someplace. Ankle biters like you can’t live alone. Yer government tends to frown upon stuff like that.”
Caleb scowls, "I am twenty one, how old do you think i am?", he gets up when told to, wincing in pain from the burns, "The mask?, it's for my secret identity, shhhh", he grins again at the mention of "oldie", "Trust me, someone like you, dont want to meet my oldies".
“There is no way you’re 21. If you were you wouldn’t need a ‘secret identity’ or a mask or to be a spook to get some grog.” He shrugs. “You look maybe…I don’t know, 12? I wouldn’t serve you back in Oz, and they’re a bit more lenient out there.” He sighs and shakes his head again, “Well regardless they should probably know what yer up to? You gonna give me their number or do you want me to call the coppers?” Would Bruce really call the police on this kid when Caleb knows that he’s a bank robber? It is possible, but Bruce is probably just hoping the boy will be too drunk to put all that together right now.
Caleb looks very confused, "Whats grog?", he crosses his arms like a child, "I'm sixteen not twelve", he shakes his head, "I'm not telling you I'll get in trouble at school and if you call the police, you'll get done for the burns", he sticks out his tongue, he has completly forgoten about the robbery at this point.
Bruce also crosses his arms and taps his foot as he looks down at the boy. “I’m pretty sure that sixteen is not legal here. In fact, I know it ain’t.” He hesitates for a moment. “Why would your school care what trouble you got in on your own time?” Bruce wonders if the boy is in a club or college prep track. “Anyway, how was I supposed to know you’d get burned by salt? Who gets hurt by salt? No one I know of. I think they’ll forgive me when I tell them you were stealing my liquor.” He thinks for a minute, “How do you eat, anyway? Everything has salt in it…And can you swim in the sea like that?”
Caleb sighs and looks down, "Cos curfew was an hour ago", alcahol makes him very honest, in responce to the salt question, "How am i supossed to know?, it's magic, it make no sense".
Bruce huffs. "Magic? Magic ain't real. Neither's Santa, kiddo. What you've got is some sort of mutant ability, and for some reason salt makes it go loopy. I've got a few things that make me sands stop working." He doesn't elaborate on this fact. "All right, well how're you gonna get back to your school? You just gonna saunter up to the door and say "Woops! Sorry I'm late"?" He shakes his head, "Naw, one lookachya and they'll know ya've got the wobbly boot on."
Caleb holds up the wrist with the wristband on, "Of course magic is real, why on earth do you think i wear this thing?, i'm not a mutant", he shrugs, "I can go invisable, thats how i'm getting back".
Bruce eyes the glowing wrist band device inquisitively. “So if someone were to say…Remove that wristband from you, you would lose your powers?” He shakes his head and sighs, “Never mind that. If it’s already past your curfew won’t they notice that you’re gone now? They’ll probably be watching for you. Be careful or one of them might notice that you can turn invisible. Mutant or not, people will resent you for it.”
Caleb shrugs, "Possibly, the power comes from me, it's in my blood, the wristband just channels it, anyways it doesn't come off", he tugs at it to show Bruce, "There are other power kids there so invisability is no big deal", he really shouldn't be saying this.
Bruce frowns at the bands. “Well if the power is in your blood, then it must be genetic, so maybe you are a mutant and those just enhance your abilities.” But the boy can’t remove them? Maybe if the hand was cut off at the wrist… Wait, what did he say? Bruce snaps his head up to look at Caleb’s face again. “A school with other powered kids in it? Like…Like what? A training facility?” Children are easy to get excited about things. He could probably convince a few of them to help him with his future goals. “And one that you stay at. Like a university? Where is this school?”
Caleb shakes his head, "This power has been in my family for five centuries, I'm not a mutant", shut up Caleb, you shouldn't be saying this, "Yes, they're training us with our powers", he nods "Yeah, we live underground".
Ok, so maybe those bracelets don’t do anything to improve mutant abilities, but if this kid becomes troublesome again Bruce knows where to aim. “Well that sounds kinda like what I was gonna do. Collect up a bunch of people with powers, teach ‘em how to use ‘em right, how to defend themselves when they need to. How to use what they’ve got to achieve their proper place in the world.” If nothing else, whoever’s running this school would be interesting to meet. “Say, you think you could introduce me to yer headmaster sometime? I think I’d like to ask him a few questions about this place. Maybe I could help out. I’m a self trained mutant, have military background, all that good stuff.”
Caleb shakes his head, "You rob banks and burn people with salt, i'm not showing you my school, though i may tell them you work here and were involved in hurting Quicksilver", he grins a little at the though of Bruce getting caught.
Bruce frowns at this. If they would care about the fact that he robbed a bank maybe they’re not exactly what he’s looking for. But even so he may be able to sway the minds of some of the children. “Why would they care about Quicksilver? They’re not affiliated with the Avengers, are they? Self righteous bastards, the lot of them.” He spits on the ground and then frowns at it. He’ll have to clean that up later. He seems unconcerned with the threat, however. “All I have to tell them is that I kicked some drunk invisible boy out of my bar and he went on a rager about how he was gonna tell everyone I was a bank robber.” He shrugs “I managed to convince you that I wasn’t the bank robber and you’re the one who fought with me. I think I can convince a bunch of people who weren’t even there.”
Caleb smiles, he gets taught by the avengers, so yeah they'd care, at the mention of lying again about the robbery theres that tell-tale violet glow again as Caleb begins to feel very angry.
Bruce notices the glowing and holds up his hand. “Hold it there, kiddo. No blastin’ holes in my bar, got it?” The salt bracelet around his wrist separates and forms into about a hundred salt needles, which float in the air between himself and the boy. “I’m pretty sure that if being touched by salt hurts you, then having it forcibly stabbed into you might do a bit more damage, eh?” He smirks at Caleb and points to the back door. “If all yer gonna do is be a pain, then you can git. Have fun with your little hero school while you can. That’ll be the first thing to go when the war comes.”
Caleb disappears, he doesn't like being threatened, he has been taught not to stand for it, however he still can't figure out how to fire the blast, but doesn't run.
Bruce makes a fist. “Look kiddo, that little trick’s not going to work. Want me to search for you again? I can do that if you want.” The needles dissipate back into a sparse cloud which begins expanding. The larger it becomes the less dense the salt particles become. “I can keep expanding until I find you. And then I can just send all me salts that way, how’s that sound to you?” He opens a cupboard behind him and starts rummaging around. He’s sure they’ve got a whole canister of salt somewhere, where did he put that?
Caleb steps backwards as the cloud gets closer, he puts his hands out in front of him as if willing it to stop, instead he manages to realese the stored up energy.
Bruce finds what he was looking for and turns around to see purple energy flying toward him again. It strikes him in the shoulder and sends him crashing back into the wall behind him, knocking down a bunch of empty bottles and creating a commotion. The other bartender darts into the back room and looks down at Bruce. “Over there! It’s some damn invisible kid, been stealing our liquor all night. He’s got some sort of beam power, too.” The other tender snaps her fingers and creates an orb of light, illuminating the room a bit better.
Bruce manages to stand up again, holding his shoulder with one hand and shivering slightly. He puts a hand on the other tender’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I got this.” He bends down and picks up the container of salt he was looking for. He opens the top and begins pouring the salt into the air, where it whips up into a mini-sandstorm of salt. He expands it a bit faster now, intending to fill the entire room.
Caleb yells in pain as his skin begings to burn, theres another burst of violet light from everypart of the pale teens body, he then slumps against the wall unconscious, looking everypart the dead body other than the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
The second wave of energy strikes Bruce and sends him tumbling back again, but this time he managed to brace himself first. He does land in the broken glass, however, which causes him to get a nasty cut on his arm. “Bloody damnit! Stupid brat, I’ll kill him!”
The female bartender didn’t move during the light burst. A sphere of light was temporarily seen around her when the beam passed, but she remains untouched. She glares around the room and then at the kid. “Oh Brucie, if you think I’m cleaning up that mess you’ve got another thing coming. Make sure he’s not dead. I don’t want to cover for you if you’ve gotta go dump the body.” She turns and prepares to head back out to the bar “And hurry up, there are guests out there, ya know? Get rid of the kid and come help do your job.” With that she’s out, leaving Bruce in the wrecked back room with Caleb.
Bruce stands up and walks over to the sink. He grabs a towel and ties it around his arm before approaching the boy again. He holds up a hand and collects all the salt into another sphere before reconstructing it into a series of bracelets. The boy seems alive, and at least he’s not shooting beams of light anymore. He decides the easiest thing to do is to contact this school of his and try to get somebody out here to pick him up. Bruce leans down to inspect the boy, deciding that maybe he has a phone with a saved number on it.
Caleb doesn't have his phone on him, he forgot it in his hurry to get ready earlier.
Bruce finds no phone on the boy and contemplates calling the police. There would be no way to explain what happened without revealing that the boy had some sort of power. He’s not about to hand over someone with an ability to the human cops. At the same time, he can’t just leave the boy in here. If an inspector came by…Or his boss…Bruce would be in a lot of trouble. He decides he’ll try and revive Caleb. He walks over to the sink, fills a mug with water, and unceremoniously dumps it on Caleb’s face.
Due to the mixture of the damage to his body, alcohol and exhaustion from the blasts, Caleb doesn't wake up, the glow from the stone o his wrist is pretty faint atm.
Bruce frowns at the kid and places the mug on a counter before crossing his arms and thinking for a moment. That usually worked with the drunks back home. He decides to go ask the other tender for help. He walks toward the door, “Yo Lil! I could use a second brain here.” He walks out the door and leaves Caleb alone for a few minutes.
Out front he whispers the situation to the other Bartender. She just seems annoyed with everything and gives him the evil eye. “What? It’s not my fault! Blame Benny, the kid was here when I got in.”
She shakes her head and points to the back room. I don’t care what you do with him. Toss him in the dumpster for all I care, just get him out of that room!”
Caleb groans but doesn't wake up, the sixteen year old has had one hell of a day and now he's paying the price and will probably be paying it for the next few months to come.
Bruce frowns at the woman, but then he shrugs and heads back into the back room. He bends down and intends to pick up Caleb, but he cries out when he tries to lift him and clutches his ribs. It seems they still hurt him from the other day. That shoulder’s not helping either. The other bartender peeks back to see what the commotion was and just quirks a brow. He sighs and points at her. “Hey! Ricky’s here, ain’t he?” He darts back out into the bar, looking for whoever this “Ricky” person is. He returns a few minutes later with one of the bar regulars. “There he is. Think you could maybe send him home for us?”
The regular frowns at Caleb. “Why do you have an unconscious child wearing a mask in the back room of the bar? Also I need to know where to send him.”
Bruce shrugs and jots something down on a napkin. “Eh, he mentioned knowing Quicksilver. Send him to the Avengers Mansion.” He tapes a note to Caleb’s chest before allowing the other man to transport him. The note reads “Dear Avengers, Caught this boy stealing liquor in my bar. Accidentally knocked him out. Said he went to your school. Thanks. ~Nowhere”.
The man frowns at the letter and looks up at Bruce, “They have a school? Well that doesn’t matter. I don’t know where the Avengers live. You’ll have to pick someplace else to send him.”
It's at that point that Caleb wakes up with a gasp, "Agh, what happened?", he's got a throbbing headache to go with the pain from the burns, the back of his head is bleeding from where he hit the wall, "Did someone hit me with a hammer?"
Bruce frowns at the boy. “No, you drank a bunch of our liquor ILLEGALLY and then you started blasting us with your laser beams. So I…Threw some salt at you.” He shrugs, “Anyway, my friend here can send you home right away. Just picture where you want to be, right?” The man next to Bruce nods. As long as the school is within ten miles, the man should be able to send him there.
Caleb pulls himself to his feet groaning in pain, "No, i'll get myself there thanks, i need to…", he almost falls collapses again, but he recovers and stumbles towards the back door, the blood on the bsck of his head is clear against his white hair.
Bruce frowns at the kid’s head and moves forward to inspect it. He grabs a wet cloth and pats the wound. “Hold still a sec.” The wound isn’t bad, but head wounds always bleed a lot. “No, you should let him send you and go to the medical wing. I don’t want you traveling like that or falling asleep before getting that checked out.” He backs up and shrugs. “Or I could have him send you to a hospital. Your choice.”
Caleb shakes his head, "No, i'll get myself back, i'll be fine, i'm just in a little pain", he winces when the cloth is put to his head, "I'm a big boy, i know what i'm doing".
Bruce shrugs, “Alright fine, but don’t blame me if you die. But seriously, see a doc when you get back to that school. Don’t want to die of concussion.” He waves the kid off and goes back to the front bar to help work. He’ll be here late cleaning up the mess caused by that radial blast.
Caleb stumbles out of the bar, trying to stay conscious, it's gonna be a fun walk home.
~ Fin ~
