InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Scars can come in useful"

Moriarty doesn't act crazy. He actually is. (crimeconsultant) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-09-01 16:36:00

Entry tags:

gabriel 'sylar' gray, jim moriarty

WHO: Gabriel "Sylar" Gray and Jim Moriarty (and various NPCs)
WHAT: Moriarty sets up a little test for Gabriel. What can I say? He's curious. And bored.
WHEN: Early evening.
WHERE: An apartment building (for NPCs) downtown.
RATING: TBD
STATUS: In Progress

Fire, in Jim's opinion, was quite possibly one of the most breathtaking things to behold. The way the flames took on a life of their own, the plumes of smoke as they wafted lazily toward the sky, the popping and cracking sounds that served as warning of the destruction being wreaked... all of it was, quite simply, beautiful. And when you added in the screams of the terrified people from the upper levels, as well as the smell of burning gasoline that ensured the fire burned both hot and fast, well, needless to say Jim was having quite the good evening. Watching from his spot across the street, concealed by the shadows, he really couldn't find a single thing wrong with his plan.

Of course, that was because his plan was so simple. A mere test, to see just what sort of man Gabriel Gray truly was. Would he rescue the poor souls trapped within the building, nevermind that they were locals and not anyone he was intimately familiar with? Or would he keep to himself, letting the inept authorities deal with the situation, and continue home to his wife and children? It was quite an interesting decision he faced and, depending upon what he chose, would determine just how Jim planned on executing the next phase of his little game.

For now, though, he simply stood in the shadows and watched, biding his time until the man in question came along. Or didn't. Either way, setting the fire had been fun and as for the people? People died. That's just what they did.

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inaworldsocold
2010-09-01 09:29 pm UTC (link)

Gabriel Gray had been a lot of things in his thirty-three years of life, but nowhere among that list would you find the description 'hero'. But as he headed home from his small watchshop in the heart of the city, Gabriel caught the hint of smoke in the air and had taken a detour, staring up at the raging inferno and listening to the screams of those trapped in on the higher levels of the building. Memories flashed in his mind of standing on the hill and watching Primatech burn to the ground, the bodies of the level five prisoners and Meredith, the unfortunate victim of him attempting to prove a point, going down with it.

As a scream ripped through the air, Gabriel was jerked out of his reflections and stared at the building, glancing up and down the street for some sign of the fire department. Straining, Gabriel couldn't even hear the distance call of a siren. Glancing back up at the fire, Gabriel exhaled heavily before throwing his hands up into the air, lightening shooting from them and up into the clouds, lacing through them and provoking a crackle of thunder. Once, twice more, and the sky had darkened, the clouds looming heavily over the building before breaking out into a downpour.

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crimeconsultant
2010-09-01 09:51 pm UTC (link)

Jim had managed to maintain a somewhat neutral expression as the fire had raged. Not due to a lack of emotion, really, but rather because he didn't want to risk others seeing his pleasure and the focus shifting from the fire to him. No, that wouldn't go over very well at all. However, when Gabriel came along and began his little lightening show, Jim couldn't help but smile. It was a small one at first, barely there, but grew quite a bit when the rain began to fall.

With his umbrella already in hand, he calmly opened it to avoid getting drenched himself, then glanced casually at his watch. Mentally, he began to count down. Five...

Someone screamed from the roof of the building, wildly waving a sheet around in the hopes of getting someone's attention.

Four...

A few windows shattered, sending shards of glass raining down on the streets below as flames leapt out of the hole and began trying to wind their way up the side of the building.

Three...

Distantly, the sound of sirens could finally be heard. They would be too late of course, but most of the onlookers breathed a collective sigh at the sound nonetheless.

Two...

Jim tightened his grip on his umbrella in anticipation, mouthing the final number with a positive gleeful gleam in his eyes.

One.

As if on cue, there was a deafening explosion and bits of brick went flying in all directions. People screamed and began running from the debris. Jim calmly stepped against the building where he'd been standing, letting the natural roof that extended beyond the structure protect him. His gaze cut from the building that now had at least one floor less people shrieking for help, to the man for whom the test had been set in the first place. His head tilted a bit as he studied Gabriel from his hiding spot, wondering if the man would step up his own game or just consider the entire thing a loss. After all, a burning building was one thing. A burning building that was potentially going to explode from some reason or another (bombs, of course, but Jim wasn't sure Gabriel would realize as much, that fast) was something else entirely.

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inaworldsocold
2010-09-01 10:08 pm UTC (link)

Gabriel hadn't run. He'd been surprised, certainly, but he'd stood his ground, ignoring the fragments of brick that had shot from the building and embedded themselves in his skin, leaving a shower of brick and blood as he scanned the building, eyes darting from one edge of the building to the other. Somethings was wrong. If that had been a gas main explosion, there would have been a smell in the air, and yet...nothing. Nothing at all to indicate that there were violate enough substances in the atmosphere to provoke that sort of destruction.

There was a moment of hesitation in his stance. This honestly wasn't worth it. The fire department would be here soon enough to put out the flames, and they would figure out whatever was going on. He could just walk away now and be home in time to play with Maddie a bit before they sat down for dinner. He could just walk away, and...

Oh, goddammit.

Gabriel was running towards the building before he even knew what he was doing. God, he was going to regret this.

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crimeconsultant
2010-09-01 11:08 pm UTC (link)

Oh. Oh. Well, wasn't this interesting? Not the running toward the building bit as Jim had half-expected such a response but rather the significant lack of concern for his own physical well-being as bricks rained down upon them. He'd thought the man might risk it regardless but he wasn't just taking the hits as they came. No, Gabriel seemed to not even be phased by the rubble. As though the pieces that were falling upon him didn't even matter.

There was a reason for that. Jim was sure of it. He just needed to figure out what.

Later, that is. For the time being he simply stayed where he was, mouth quirked into a faint smile and gaze upon the building. There were two more bombs, on two various floors, and at least a dozen or more people trapped inside. The clock was ticking, both literally and metaphorically, and Jim was truly on the edge of his proverbial seat as he waited to see what Gabriel was going to do.

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inaworldsocold
2010-09-02 02:26 pm UTC (link)

This was dumb. This was risky. And if anyone found out about it, he'd never live it down. But as he slipped into the building and cast his gaze around the lower floors, ignoring the flames that whipped up to singe his skin, he strained. There was something, there had to be something here that had caused that explosion. Whatever it might have been, though, didn't seem to be on the first floor as he cast his gaze over what remained of the burning rubble. If it had been, the entire building would have come down a long time before.

The stairs were a complete loss, twisted metal and cracking concrete, but Gabriel luckily wasn't reliant on them. Searching each level was a tedious task, one that he could feel ticking down the seconds that he had to actually make a difference. No, he couldn't feel that ticking. He could hear it. Two times over, in fact.

But just where it was coming from was anyone's guess.

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crimeconsultant
2010-09-02 10:15 pm UTC (link)

Not much time left now. Jim glanced casually at his watch, the umbrella dipping forward a bit as he did so, before looking once more to the building across the street. The sirens were getting closer and authorities would be there within the next few minutes. A little too late for those on the fifth floor, unfortunately, as the bomb there was set to go off in less than a minute, but such was the way of things. He grinned faintly as he cast his gaze to the floor in question, watching as a woman held her young child - it looked to be a girl but it was hard to say - close to her chest as she peered down fearfully at the ground below.

Gabriel, of course, could get there in time. However the bomb on in the basement was much easier to locate. Jim was fairly certain that the hysterical teenager the bomb was strapped to likely made that statement of fact a definite one. Then again, she could have passed out from terror. That tended to happen from time to time. Nevermind that she had nearly eight minutes before the bomb was set to go off, victims of her sort didn't really think about things like that. They just made as big of a spectacle as they could in the vain hope someone would help them.

Maybe she'd get lucky. Maybe not. Maybe Gabriel would give up and just leave. Anything, really, was possible and Jim for one couldn't wait to see what happened next.

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inaworldsocold
2010-09-02 10:31 pm UTC (link)

One was close, one close that he could almost reach out and touch it. So that's exactly what he did, reaching out in both directions and drawing things towards him, ignoring the flaming debris that crashed into his hands, burning them momentarily, until he caught a device, elegantly crafted, that was ticking out the time that the building had left. Turning it in his hands, Gabriel stared down at it for a moment, taking in how much time he still had, before turning to follow the last noise back down.

Down to the first floor and looking around frantically for something. Ice coated his hands, keeping the timer on the bombs frozen in stasis as he threw his gaze around until he happened to spot what looked like a set of stairs covered by debris. Down. He had to keep going down. Pulling the fallen material out of the way, Gabriel headed down the stairs, his eyes going wide at the sight in front of him.

"The sick fuck..." Gabriel said quietly. He'd had an inkling who might have been behind this, but it wasn't until this moment that he was sure. What sort of monster strapped a teenager to a bomb?

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