basic_powers | Toronto, Canada, January 14th 1935

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Toronto, Canada, January 14th 1935

Tyler jolted, jumping up at the sudden touch of someone's hand on his shoulder as Enzo was inside the tree house. He fell forward, face first into a puddle of grim and slush, and got up coughing to look back at what had grabbed him when he saw his surroundings.

He wasn't near the treefort anymore.

I'm pretty sure I'm not in Milliways anymore... Tyler thought as he looked around, wiping the muck off of his clothes. He was in some kind of back alley, between two old brick and wood buildings with a bunch of junk, paper and debris collected in the corners. Pretty sure this isn't Kansas either.

There were voices, people talking outside of the alleyway, he could hear them, but not make out what they were saying.

I bet I've fallen into the past. AGAIN. Tyler thought to himself creeping up towards the voices slowly to see if they were friendly.

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"I dunno about this, Sully..."

"Relax, Jake, it'll be easy. We step in, wave our gats around a little, an' make off with all the money in the till. Piece o' cake."

"Says you. If th' cops don't get us, the--"

"There ain't a cop around for blocks, Jake. An' the costumed creeps are over on the east side checkin' on some supervillain caper. By the time anyone knows this place got robbed, we'll be long gone. Now are you in or are you too chicken?"

"...alright. But don't say I didn't warn ya."

Ok. Definitely not friendly, Tyler decided quietly, glancing around to check for puddles before moving towards the two voices.

I am invisible, I am the wind, you can't see me, I'm not here

Whoever these mooks were, they were going down.

It's a shabby little street, gutters filled with old leaves and remnants of slush from a several-day-old snowfall. It must be late in the evening--the grocery store across the street is the only place still open. The lights inside illuminate picked-over shelves of dry goods, half-filled bins of shabby-looking vegetables, and an elderly man behind the counter, who is currently staring, terrified, at the pistol being shoved in his face.

"Please! Don't shoot! I've got a family!"

"I got no intention o' shootin', so long as you open up the register now."

Oh boogers. ...okay...all I have to do is delay those guys long enough for the cops to get here. The mini-gadget hero thought to himself as he ran across the street, still cloaked in invisibility and through the door.

In Tyler's time, there aren't any bells on doors, so by the time he passes through it, he's kicking himself in the pants over the amount of noise he must be making.

The smaller of the two crooks turns toward the jingle of the shop door. "Who's there?"

"I don't see nobody," says the other, looking around in bewilderment.

"Well, go out there and find out if anyone's watchin'!" snaps the smaller one before turning back to the shopkeeper. "But not you, Gramps," he says with a wicked grin. "You're stayin' right here."

The larger crook--his voice identifies him as 'Jake' from the alley conversation--lumbers toward the door and opens it far enough to poke his head out. He peers up and down the street. "Ain't nobody there, Sully..."

...'Jake' should know better. A lone target placed like that is just too much to resist.

Which is probably why from out of nowhere a can of baked beans is thrown right into the back of his thick skull, from a direction of behind one of those shelves of picked-over dry goods.

Nighty-night.

CLONK.

Jake topples face-first onto the pavement outside the shop. For a moment, Sully stares slack-jawed at his fallen partner. Then he whips his pistol around to point it at the approximate spot from whence the can of beans was thrown.

"Who's there?" Sully demands again, but there's a hint of panic in his voice now. "Come out where I can see ya!"

If Sully looks...he'll see noooo body there at alll.

Which is probably because A) there really is no one there, and B) whoever was there is sneaking around him invisibly.

Time for a quick illusion trick. Nudge the shelf enough so that can someone precariously placed on the far end falls off as if someone knocked it.

Predictably enough, Sully whirls and empties his revolver into the air next to where the can fell.

If the man isn't emptying at the nice elderly fella at the register who by now is probably making a VERY important phone call...

Good enough for Tyler, who appears right behind Sully with an upper cut to the...uh.. Oh. Ow. Yeh.

That's gotta hurt.

"You missed." The kid says before peering around the shelf again at the elderly man. "You okay, mister?"

Edited 2008-03-04 03:51 (UTC)

The shopkeeper hasn't moved for the telephone yet. He's too busy boggling at the ten-year-old boy who appeared out of nowhere to deliver a below-the-belt hit to the would-be robber.

"Yes, yes, I'm alright, sonny, but--" His eyes go even wider. "Look out!"

Tyler whirls about to see what's coming up behind him, skittering away with a grace of someone's who's been spending most of his current life dodging things.

It's Sully. He's not quite upright, but he's up, and he's pissed.

"YOU LITTLE--"

Not quite upright is just high enough for the little guy to hit your head with everything that he has on hand, SULLY.

Apply Beancan directly to the source of the problem

CLONK!

See! It works!

Indeed it does. Sully keels over sideways onto the floor.

"My stars, boy!" The shopkeeper's eyes seem ready to bug out of his head. "How'd you get it into your head to face down an armed man with only a can of baked beans??"

...Because Tyler's faced scary men with more power than these chumps before?

"...cuz they were bad guys and had ta be stopped?"

Use the cute kid face, use the cute kid face.

"Are you gonna call the police now?"

The shopkeeper blinks at Tyler a few times. "Oh! Yes, yes, of course." He turns to the rotary phone mounted on the wall. "Oh, and feel free to help yourself to a chocolate bar, young fellow," he adds as he picks up the earpiece and starts dialing. "You've earned it."

"Thank you!" Tyler says trotting over to the slim pickings or the candy rack. ...Huh. This world is weird. They have a candy called chicken bones? Oh well, when in Rome and all that.

And he does deserve a treat, the Revenant would be proud of his work right here tonight.

Hey, these chicken bone things ain't half bad!

Edited 2008-03-06 03:37 (UTC)

"Hello, police? I'd like to report an attempted robbery..."

* ~ * ~ *

Ten minutes ~~and one music sting~~ later, two uniformed officers arrive to collect the would-be thieves and take statements from Tyler and the shopkeeper. The older one, a short, stout man named O'Toole, is questioning Tyler.

"Now, I'd like ye ta repeat that one more time," he says, eying Tyler suspiciously. "Ye heard the two men planning ter rob Mr. Cully's shop, and then..."

"Then I ran in making the door bell ring, and that made the guy the other called 'Jake' peer out the door to see who made the noise." Tyler repeats for what seems to be the fourth time. "I threw the can of beans at his head and then hid behind that other shelf."

He points to the small-enough to reasonably hide a little boy about his age crack behind the shelf.

"The other guy didn't see me and he walked right by."

Why is he making Tyler repeat this? AGAIN?

"An' why did ye try ter stop them yerself instead o' callin' the police? Are ye tryin' ter get yerself killed??"

"Hey, take it easy on the kid, Bill," says the other officer, who is about two decades younger and considerably less gruff. "He doesn't need a lecture after what he's just been through."

"That's one man's opinion," grumps O'Toole.

Tyler will give that nice officer a very grateful look.

"Because this was the only place that I saw had a telephone I could get to quickly enough to stop them."

"An' another thing," says O'Toole. "What are ye doin' out walkin' the streets at this hour? Yer parents must be frantic!"

At that...Tyler does something that the Revenant would give him a lecture for. He looks guilty, like a kid that's been caught hiding out in an old factory.

"They don't know I'm here." Tyler says quietly. Heck. Even he doesn't know where here is.

"Oh, a runaway, eh? Well, we'll let them decide what ter do with ye. Where d'you live, boy?"

"...Kansas?"

"Don't play games, boy, I'm tryin' ter help ye! Where do you live?"

"I just told you! Kansas!" Tyler says. "Here, i'll even show you my school library card if it'll prove it to you!"

He digs around in one pocket and produces a laminated paper card with his photo and a series of numbers on the bottom.

O'Toole takes the card. "'Excelsior Elementary School'? Never heard of it."

"Probably because it's in Kansas." Tyler retorts softly. "You know, Kansas, United States?"

Unless this is some weird alternate universe where there isn't a United States of America.

Now the other police officer is staring at him. So is Mr. Cully. Both of them have strangely sympathetic looks on their faces.

"Tyler?" asks the younger officer softly. "How long have you been on your own?"

...

Tyler does not answer that. He just kicks the floor with the tip of his sneaker and looks down at it. "A while."

That's not entirely a lie either.

O'Toole huffs a humorless laugh. "Ye must have, ta get ter Toronto from Kansas."

He looks up dismayed at that.

Toronto? He's in Canada? AGAIN?

Well... At least I don't have to worry about any automatic home-runs from the little supers league at home...

"Am I in trouble?"

Edited 2008-03-06 05:15 (UTC)

"I should say so," says O'Toole. "Next time ye hop a freight train, lad, ye should pay some mind ter where it's headed."

"Bill..." The younger officer shoots a sharp look at his partner before turning to Tyler. "I'm guessing you'll need a place to stay for the night?"

Let's see...sleep out in the butt-freezing cold with the hoodlums or go with the nice policeman to someplace that's likely to be a little safer and nicer.

"Yessir." Tyler says, nodding.

"Come with us to the police station," says the younger officer. "You can stay there for the night, and tomorrow we'll see if we can get in touch with your parents, all right?"

"Thank you, Mister." Tyler says quietly moving along with him. He doesn't have high expectations for them to find his parents.

... Come to think of it. They haven't even been born yet.
The only person he could possibly 'know' in could be not born yet..Or just a little girl still.

"Call me 'Constable Parker'."

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Toronto, Canada, January 14th 1935

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