thetube | Test Drive Meme: August 2015

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Welcome to the Underground test drive meme! This is where you can try out the AU version of your character, start some potential CR and get a feel for the world of the game. Choose your character's species, read up on the available factions and you're ready to go. Put your character's name in your subject line when you post, tag out, and have fun!

Note to current players: Activity in this meme counts as game canon! So you can use it for activity check. If you end up playing anything that you can't or don't want to use as game canon, it's fine to ignore it. (In that case you shouldn't submit it for activity check.)

For prospective players: Thinking about bringing a character to the game? Feel free to comment to our Potential CR Planning meme for OOC planning and discussion.

Here are some prompts to inspire you:

1) BABY COME BACK. Is there someone you miss? Maybe you've come to visit for the first time in months. Maybe you'll even stay.

2) FULL MOON. (29th August) Uh oh, it's that time of the month. Werewolves, have you been feeling more aggressive lately? A little short of temper? Better start preparing for your monthly transformation and hope that you don't get interrupted. And then there's the morning after, which feels like a massive hangover. Wait, where are your clothes?

3) CARNIVAL. (30th-31st August) It's the August bank holiday weekend and that can only mean one thing: the Notting Hill Carnival! With the sun high in the sky, enjoy the parade, the music and of course the food. Jerk chicken, anyone?

4) SPECIAL EFFECTS. There's nothing like a touch of subtle magic to add to the occasion. Dress up and show off. Mind you, there could be other supernatural types around who see straight through your tricks.

5) PARTY ALL NIGHT. It's not over when the sun goes down. Get yourself to one of the bars or after-parties and keep on partying. Just don't drink too much. You know it makes it harder to control your powers... and your urges.

6) BRAWL. The police work hard to keep London's gangs away from Carnival. When you have supernatural gangs to contend with, their job gets a whole lot harder. Drunk and disorderly or simply looking for an excuse to cause trouble, encounters between rival factions can soon become hostile. Now are you here to cause a fight or to stop it?

7) NIGHT IN JAIL. Oops. What did you do? And who's that with you?

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

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Unsurprisingly, it does cause Elizabeth alarm.

She's been on edge since the station-- this man has been following her, she figured that out right away, and she could almost see him reaching into his coat for whatever weapon he had tucked away. Fitzroy Clan, witch hunters intent on destroying Comstock's 'heir', despite her vehement insistence to the contrary. They wanted to believe they had an enemy to fight-- she was it.

And this man sneaking up next to her is the last straw. She jumps and screams, putting her hands out in front of her and creating a shield. The Fitzroy agent makes his move, pulling a crossbow out of his coat and firing it at her. She barely shifts the shield in time to allow it to bounce off harmlessly onto the ground. But she's in trouble now-- there's one of her, two of them, and she's only got one good leg.

"Man, fuck the police."

She says it with a thick Brooklyn accent and flashing gang signs, but she smiles in a way she hopes he knows is joking. It was better to be safe than sorry when it came to joking around like that. But if you were here, then odds were you didn't like cops. Supernatural or otherwise.

"Hey...where are you from?"

She didn't sound Russian - not really - but she knew the accent from her parents.

Usually, his reply is 'Moscow.' It's not a lie, and he lives very near the city, but... Well. Perhaps it's because he's still calming down from the anger that young man provoked or because he's still wary of the fire she had in hands or because he just feels like being difficult.

"Krasnogorsk," he says. "I arrived four days ago."

From Istanbul, but that doesn't really matter right now.

Illya moves at almost the same time she does, and he sees the weapon a second before it fires. Not at him, and the girl has magic. Smart to display it? No. But she may have no better way to defend herself. He, however, does.

Which is why he unzips his jacket as he turns toward the attacker. His hand pulls out the pistol he has. Two quick shots send blood spattering and the man falling. After which he puts the gun back in its holster and covers it with his jacket. Just because guns aren't supposed to be carried around England doesn't mean he's just giving his up.

Then, he looks over the girl, assessing to see if she's been further harmed.

That certainly isn't what she'd expected would happen. It's been a while since she's seen a gun, it's startling again when her tail gets summarily shot-- twice-- and that's the end of it. Who is this man? A cop? He's no witch, that's for certain, or he would have just turned the hunter inside out instead of drawing attention to them with a gun.

A siren cuts through the ensuing stunned silence, and Elizabeth's shield grows holes and vanishes. "If you're trying to mug me, you've got another thing coming-- but if you're trying to help, we have to run, now!"

"Are you able to run?"

From his tone, he highly doubts it. But there are more ways to evade police than to run. In fact, nothing tends to attract more attention than that. Still, the sirens are getting closer. And what he can do in a short amount of times depends on how injured she is.

"I've been doing it for years, why stop now?" she says off-hand, trotting into a nearby narrow alley. Maybe it would cut through the block, maybe it would be a dead-end-- Elizabeth hasn't gotten the hang of London's streets yet.

She goes a couple of feet, but her limp is getting worse the more she tries to push herself to move. There's blood coming down her tights.

Illya watches her for a moment then shakes his head. He moves forward and puts a hand on her shoulder before gesturing to a fire escape. It provides a vantage point, if nothing else, and climbing puts more pressure on he arms than on both legs. It won't be easy, but it's something.

"Do you know any cloaking spells?" If she did, she'd probably have used them already, but it's worth asking, he figures.

She runs slow, but the second the man touches her, Elizabeth is jerking out from under his hand and backing away. It's already been one hell of day, she's not on board to get manhandled again. But, admittedly, the fire escape is a better idea than limping into a strange alley.

"Do you?" she raises an eyebrow at him. "Sorry to break it to you Mr. Romanov, I disappear like anybody else does." For a woman on the smaller side, she does have some arm strength to speak of-- Elizabeth takes the fire escape by pulling herself up most of the steps. "By getting out of sight.

"Who are you anyway? An informed citizen?"

"Kuryakin," he corrects automatically. Once she's up the fire escape, he follows in short order and forces a window open. One that had probably long since warped shut from heat, exposure, and other such things that came from being unattended. Then, he motions her inside.

An elegant escape? No. But one that could be used.

"You knew how to make a shield. You might know cloaking magic."

It had been worth asking, at least. Though that left her question... which he didn't answer quite yet. There would be time for that when he could be certain the police wouldn't find them.

Elizabeth watches him force open the window, then with a wince she crawls into what appears to be a musty guest bedroom. She looks around the room and spots a table lamp.

"Sorry. But speaking of that, Mr. Kuryakin--"

She picks up the lamp and yanks it out of the wall, shouldering it as the man comes through the window. "You better tell me whether I should use this or not. If it was your aim to shoot me, you would have done it in the street, and you know a lot about what just happened down there for a random Good Samaritan with a pistol."

Illya looks at her, torn between amusement and annoyance. A lamp to the head might hurt, yes, but it was hardly going to incapacitate a trained solider. Not that someone so young would know that. And she was obviously scared. Which didn't make it any less troublesome, but.

He shakes his head, motioning with his hand for her to keep her voice down. Then, he speaks quite calmly.

"I saw a man following a girl. So, I followed him. I know what magic looks like, so I know you used it. Is that sufficient?"

"Not when the girl being followed has reason to be hunted down by people trying to put her down. How do I know you're not with Comstock's coven? Killed off the Fitzroy interloper, figured you could get me to trust you and then into a duffel bag and away in a helicopter. Well I'll tell you something, Mister-- if you thought what I did in Columbia was bad, you're in for a surprise now that I've been trained. I could peel the paint off these walls with a thought if I wanted to."

...she actually can't, but it sounded good anyway.

"You want me to not go postal with this lamp? Tell me how you know what magic looks like. Right now, go!"

"Typical American," Illya mutters with something that was almost a laugh. If this girl was the type to hurt someone with magic, she wouldn't have used a shield when attacked. Or, at least, that's how his thinking goes. "Everything must centre around you."

He shakes his head again but makes no move toward her.

"Russia has witches, too. I work for one. So, I know what magic looks like."

Kenzi doesn't know the area he's talking about - no. But she knows Russian when she hears it and grins excitedly before responding in her - and his - first language.

"No kidding? How're things back there?."

She's asking for her family - seeing as she hasn't been on Russian soil since she was four when her family came over on a shitty boat to a shitty Canadian town.

Russian.

It's a strange relief to hear someone who doesn't sound foreign when they speak the language. His shoulders relax a bit, and there's even a hint of a smile on his features.

"The same as it always is, the good and the bad haven't changed much."

Of course, he doesn't know how long she's been away, but he feels that statement holds true whether it's been a year or a decade.

"Good. Mom likes hearing that kind of thing. You hungry? I have a cousin who runs a place not far from here."

Normally Kenzi would never make an offer like that to a total stranger but - he wasn't a stranger was he? He was from home. She was obligated to show him a good time and warm food by virtue of being a good Russian girl.

Okay maybe she wasn't actually a good Russian girl. But she had some values installed in her.

Normally, Illya doesn't accept meals from strangers. A restaurant is different, of course, but even then he's careful. This girl, though? Like her, he doesn't consider a fellow Russian to be a stranger. Merely an acquaintance.

"As long as it's warm and edible, I'd be grateful." Then, after a pause, his smile still in place. "Where is your mother from?"

Kenzi begins walking without much preamble. She could use some food herself, and she's got just the credit card (not hers) to pay for it. When he asks where her mother is from she has to think about it for one hot second before replying.

"Piter."

St. Petersburg, really. But her mom always called it that, so she figured it'd be appropriate to do that with someone from the country.

"I haven't been back since I was a kid though."

Most would say she still was a kid...

"Yeah, well, the next time somebody sets an entire dark magic coven and an entire witch hunter's clan on your trail? I'll let everything revolve around you, how about that? Then I'll call you a typical Russian and it'll make the same amount of sense."

She narrows her eyes, lips pursed, suspicious but she believes him for some reason.

"Do you know who I am?"

God she hopes not.

Dark magic. Witch hunters. Really, it's not anything he hasn't heard before. But at least it's not vampires. He had enough of that in Germany. Still, when she asks her question, he arches an eyebrow.

"Am I supposed to? Did Solo tell you to come here?"

That is the only connection he can make. That maybe this girl knows the fae who likes to act American. After all, his kind predate most of those borders. They are of the country they choose to be.

"If not, then no."

"A beautiful city. I lived there until I was twelve." The rest comes out before he can really think. Speaking in Russian to another Russian, it feels like a natural thing to talk about. "My father was the mayor."

A man trusted by government officials at a federal level. Who had decided to take more than his share of money. And his family had paid the real price for it. But that shame would be wiped from their name with his service.

The name doesn't mean anything to her, and it shows on her face. But she tosses that away after a moment because the main thing is that she's apparently not going to be hitting anybody with a lamp.

"Good. Let's keep it that way," Elizabeth says, putting the lamp back on the dresser. She's about to head for the window when she sees colored lights against it-- looks like the cops have arrived, and they've found a body. For the moment, it looks like neither of them are going anywhere.

Elizabeth sighs and strips off her coat, laying it down on the ground. She's wearing a blouse, sweater, skirt, and thick tights-- at least, on one leg she is. The right leg of them has been almost completely severed, hanging on by threads, cut by some kind of razor wire wrapped around her leg with weights on either end.

Awkwardly, she starts trying to lower herself so the injury will rest over the coat-- she can't get blood on this poor family's carpet. "Guess I'm doing this here."

The smell of blood makes him shake his head. At least he isn't a vampire. Then, this poor girl would be in even more trouble. As it is, he merely sighs a little.

"Do you know healing magic?"

Better to ask that before he does anything else.

"Pretty much the only thing I'm really good at," she says with a faint smile. Elizabeth pulls her purse over to her and fishes around for her Swiss Army knife. She's going to have to cut the wire, it's knotted around her leg.

"If it wasn't causing me so much pain, I'd have to applaud the design. It cut right in so I'd have to stop to remove it before I could heal myself."

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Test Drive Meme: August 2015

I HEARD MY NAME

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