Characters: Rahim and a couple NPCs Summary: Rahim catches a vandal Setting: Rahim's; early hours of january first rating: pg-13ish for violence
Rahim spent his New Years Eve at the facility, going over several dozen sketches. Sometimes he could create energy constructs and then disassemble them to get a clear view of their working parts, but most of the time, he had to already know every working part, immortalize it in his mind, understand every facet of it, before he could even start to create an energy construct of it. So he drew them out. Deconstructed constructs on paper. Hundreds of times, until he could build them from energy, bit by bit, until he could create them without even having to think about it. Swords, screw drivers, shit like that were easy. It was like breathing. Because every kid grew up knowing what a damn sword looked like. Every kid could draw one with their eyes shut. Those were literally child's play.
He left the facility late, because nobody signed up for classes on New Years day. Half the island would likely be nursing a hang over, so he was just gonna sleep. In the early hours of the morning, the streets were still quiet to a degree. He walked home with his guard lower than it should've been, dragged his feet up the stairs and then stopped. Because the door was ajar.
And he could hear voices inside. Rather than going to his roommate, his mind went to whoever the fuck kept breaking his damn front door. He pushed open his door and moved into his apartment, letting the door audibly click shut behind him. Without breaking stride, he moved forward, picked up a chair from the kitchen table and broke it over the intruding guard's head. The wood splintered from the force of the swing.
The apartment looked ransacked. Rahim owned very little valuable possessions, but his roommate was an avid dvd collector. The Tv was shattered, a mountain of shattered DVDs and CDs spread out across the length of the living room. The couch had been flipped on it's back and appeared to have been intimately mauled with a butcher knife. The knife in question was buried in a nearby wall. Windows were shattered, and he could see his bedroom door caved in from the living room. But he could also still hear movement, like an incessant rat infestation.
He dropped the shattered chair. The guard had fallen and stayed down, so Rahim left him be. He'd told his sister that he would handle his own problems. He meant nonviolently. He knew she knew he meant nonviolent. As he wrenched the contorted and malformed door open, he knew now that he hadn't been entirely honest to her or himself. There were two more guards in his bedroom. His bed had been stripped, his mattress thrown against the wall so hard, the corner of it had broken through his window. His shelves were stripped and thrown to the ground. Dozens of books had been torn to shreds. Walking into his room was like wading into a garbage pit. He didn't own many personal possessions, but he'd invested in a lot of books. It pissed him off.
The guards looked up in unison, and then moved toward him in unison. The one closest to him swung what look like a baton, and Rahim caught his arm and turned, throwing him through the door so hard, the door was knocked completely off of the hinges. The door crunched down on top of broken DVDs and shattered lamps from the living room. The guard, stunned, clumsily rolled off of the door and then half ran, half crawled to the front door. In the process of turning back toward the remaining guard, he caught a baton against his lower back and then the back of his knee. His knee gave out and when he went down, the guard kneed him in the face. Blood gushed from his nose.
He caught the man's knee the second time and shoved it back so hard, the guard lost his footing on the torn paper and wood in the room and fell. Rahim extended a hand, and a black baton, identical to the one in the guard's hand, materialized in his hand, forming as if from sand until it hardened. "Get the fuck out of my house," he said, his voice low and dangerous, as he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. He rose to his feet, pulled himself up to his full height, towering over the guard.
The man on the floor didn't move, which pissed Rahim off. These sentries could give orders, but couldn't seem to follow them very well. He angrily moved forward, kicking aside torn books and reached for the guard's collar, to drag him to his feet and personally escort him the fuck out of his apartment. He accomplished the first part of that, but the guard needed to save face. The guard was the one in charge in this situation - his belligerently alcohol addled brain likely told him. So when he came up, he came up swinging. Instinctively, Rahim moved back, but not fast enough. The blade of a knife sliced across his cheek. The guard pulled his arm back, to swing again, and Rahim brought his own baton up to deflect the second swing. The guard brought his baton down - likely swinging for anything he could reach - glancing it off of Rahim's hip.
"You think you're better than us, freak?" The guard spat out through clenched teeth, pulling the baton back to swing again. Rahim dropped his baton lower to deflect it, and the knife caught him in the collar bone. It wasn't hard enough to stab straight in and do actual damage, but the tip caught on his skin and dragged down in a jagged line, until Rahim used his forearm to knock the man back. "Because you got freak powers?" The guard continued, swinging the baton and knife in tandem. Rahim ignored the baton, and focused on the actual thing that could kill him if used correctly. The baton glanced off Rahim's shoulder and then connected with his cheek decently enough to knock his head back. "You're not. You're not even good enough to have this apartment, freak. You walk around like you're better than us. Like you deserve something. This is what you deserve, freak."
Rahim deflected the next swing of the knife and let the man's baton glance off of his ribs to smash his own baton into the man's face. He did it a second time, and then a third time, until the man stumbled back with the force, until he was gushing so much blood, he had to actually focus on it, even drunk. "Shut up," Rahim said, voice low and raspy. He moved forward, backing the man into a wall, and then slammed his hand angrily into the wall. A moving blackness spread out across the wall, until it formed a large circle. A large circle that Rahim shoved the man through. The man would be dumped out on the far end of the island, where the facility was, unharmed by the portal.
As the portal evaporated, he angrily threw his baton against the far wall, where it shattered like glass and evaporated into air.