Rooftop hopping Who: Juan and Rowan Where: Out and about the city When: Late afternoon
Juan had decided that it would be fastest if he went out alone. His ability to teleport got him through many apartments from when he began in early afternoon, but yielded him very little in the way of supplies. The most of what he found were new vividly decaying mostly eaten corpses... a sight he was becoming all too comfortable with. In the last apartment he found a few cans of baked beans and one of corned beef, which he wasn't certain if it was still good, but he still was on the look out for more canned goods. One find made the trip almost worth it in and of itself. It was a backpack filled with camping equipment. It had a medium-sized machete, a small set of binoculars, a few army rations, and the most impressive of all an emergency radio. The addition of this device to their supplies would probably help a great deal. Juan hadn't tried to use the radio just yet, since he was still out and about, but he definitely wanted to share this find with at least Joyce if not Terry. He teleported out and up to the roof of the next building and pulled out said binoculars and began to scope out the next complex.
The next complex had a pair of drooping, blue-gray wings on them, along with the long-haired boy who came attached to them. Rowan had landed a couple minutes before, and was trying to catch his breath. He thought he'd flown far enough away-- and out of the way-- to not only get away from those stupid flying monsters, and do his best to draw the ground ones away from Liah, but also to be further from the hotel than he'd meant to be, as well as tearing open the claw marks in his back again. So, now that the skies and streets nearby seemed clear, he was taking a break, crouched tiredly on the roof of what he was guessing to be an apartment complex, one hand on the ground and the other braced on his knee, while his wings dragged in the sun-baked roofing.
It'd been a long day. Seriously.
The wings and the Rowan was surprising, but a welcome sight. He didn't want to yell at the boy from across the street, but he knew just teleporting over there would probably cause a bit of a stir. After weighing his options for a moment, Juan thought it best to just teleport over there and deal with a bit of a surprise than a loud shout. Rowan would probably be more pissed about that. Juan concentrated for a second and then teleported a good 20-feet away from Rowan within his line of sight. "Rowan, hey. Funny meeting you here," Juan joked as he appeared before the older boy.
Rowan did jump, leaping fully to his feet and flaring his wings with every obvious intention of taking off-- but then he recognized the face, and voice, and lack of monster-ness, and he relaxed, slumping back down again tiredly, this time sitting down entirely and wincing as the movement pulled at his back. "Hey. Uh... Juan, right?" The teleporter kid who he'd gone house-robbing with, along with that big Pepper woman. Hence the surprise. Juan had probably just appeared there. "Yeah, kind of random, but I was escaping monsters... this looked like a good place to rest."
"Heh… cool… yea," Juan couldn't help but be impressed by the wingspan. It was really a sight to behold. When Rowan mentioned the monsters, Juan's stance became guarded, "Are they still around? Did you have anyone else with you?" He looked through his binoculars of the surrounding area. Rowan said this place looked safe, but Juan wanted to make sure. Getting caught unawares of the creatures was never fun.
"Naw, I left 'em behind a few minutes ago...." Which Rowan also thought was a little odd. First their sudden convergence on him and Liah, right when they got to the mall-- and then how they just seemed to lose interest and give up once he'd gotten further away. He was tempted to go back and see if it would happen again, but he wasn't quite that stupid. His back hurt too much. "What're you doin' out here? Just... exploring? Grabbing shit?"
"That's good," Juan dropped the binoculars to dangle from their loop, "Yea, had to get out for a little while. It's just been claustrophobic in the hotel the passed few days." He teleported closer to Rowan to share his loot with him. "I haven't found much in the way of food this time out, but I did find this," Juan pulled out the emergency radio he found. "Thought this was really cool. I haven't had a safe place to see if it still works, but we don't really have to worry about battery power with it." Shrugging he looked at the birdman, "What'd you get?"
"Nice, nice...." Despite the compliment, Rowan's glance over the collection of goods was cursory, automatic more than interested. "I don't got anything. Left the backpacks with Liah on the bike... couldn't really fly well with 'em myself. But we had a few good things, I guess." Which he, Liah, and the kids were keeping, thanks. Rowan was not necessarily a team player of any sort. "Things weren't what we were out for, though."
"Oh? What were ya after? Maybe I can help you find it," Juan was pretty poor on picking up on 'what's mine is mine' but no matter what he was eager to help,"I could even help ya carry it back! Since I can teleport, I can carry a whole lot more than normal." He smiled happily and put his radio back into his pack. Picking up his binoculars he began scanning the nearby buildings, "Mostly apartments around here. Would what you're looking for be in any of these?"
"I wasn't here, dude," Rowan pointed out. "I've been escaping monsters. I was way the hell over that-a-way." He gestured with one tired arm, still holding the gun he'd been using to fend bird-things off with. It was out of bullets now, damn thing. "We went to that place Terry sent Verity and the rest, you know, that they didn't come back from." If Juan had even heard about that...
"Disappearances?" Juan had indeed not heard about any disappearances and he instantly became worried, "Wha-what happened to them? Does anyone know anything?" He supposed they kept more from the 'younger' people than he realized. He had barely heard about the spiders much less anything of this magnitude.
Yeah, he hadn't heard. Rowan wondered if he'd have known, himself, if Verity hadn't been involved. He didn't even know about the spider thing, beyond that there'd been trouble with Terry and Landon and Catie, since Terry had kind of gotten pissy with him over it. "They went lookin' for Landon, I guess? Since Landon kinda disappeared, himself. Then they didn't come back. So I went off where they were supposed to've gone, and got mobbed by monsters." Which, now that he was thinking about it more, was just weird shit, and actually kind of suspicious. Hadn't the same thing happened when Verity went out with Terry and tiger-guy last time, too?"
Juan had heard about Landon and Catie having problems with the spider bites… but they were missing at one point? "I see… yea. Weren't they all attacked by like… people or something in a supermarket?" That was the big news in the first week of the disaster. Horrible people had killed some little girl and carved a message on her. "Terry, Verity, annnnd I think his name is Tayne? The tiger guy. Got attacked by monsters suddenly and when they ran, the monsters didn't follow… like… some sort of control maybe? And you're saying' the same thing happened again?" If this was the case and Verity got kidnapped by these people and the same sort of attack happened to Rowan… it all added up too perfectly, "This happened at the Mall? You may have found something really important Rowan! Should you get back to the hotel? I could getcha there quick. Or what now?" Juan's fifteen year old brain was working at 100 miles a minute. It was almost dizzying to think that something like this was happening in real life.
"Back to the hotel was where I was goin' once I caught my breath, yeah," Rowan agreed, frowning as he thought over the reasoning. It did make sense-- and really, it *did* suggest that the people he was after were there. It was something Terry should know-- and Terry hdt wanted anyone to go! Bah. "I was just gonna fly it." He eyed Juan warily. "Can you *go* that far? With someone as big as me?" He lifted a wing to demonstrate the size-- though at least he was a lot lighter, for all his size.
"Hmm… I think I could bring you, but you already look pretty tired," Juan looked over the giant wings before him, "I've noticed teleporting others seems to wear them out really fast so it might not be good to do that to you right now in your state." He was sure he could bring Rowan through the teleport, but he wasn't sure he could physically carry Rowan if he passed out from the teleport once on the other end. Before they did anything, it looked like Rowan needed a longer moment so Juan plopped down on the roof next to him making sure to keep an eye out.
Rowan eyed Juan even more warily, at that. "Think I'll fly it, once I'm ready to get up 'gain. I didn't know that teleport-thing actually, like, caused problems. I mean, it'd make sense if it was tiring for you, but for the other person, too? That's fucked up, yo." And he'd rather not experience it, thanks. He didn't trust people well enough for that. He grinned a bit, and added, "Though you could 'port along rooftops beside me if you wanted. I won't be goin' that fast." As much as he wanted to make sure Liah was safe and sound at home, he really couldn't go very fast without just falling out of the sky, at this point.
Juan shrugged, "Teleporting doesn't wear me out that much at all… only when I'm carrying too much weight. I figure… whatever caused me to get this ability changed my body to where I can handle it just like normal… but that hasn't changed with anyone else, so it makes people really tired. Nothin' more serious though." He was babbling a bit, but this was the first time he really got to think it out loud to anyone but himself. He smiled at Rowan's suggestion, "That sounds pretty cool actually. I'm pretty much ready whenever you are."
"Still sounds like your power is draining other people," Rowan pointed out. "And still means I'd rather just fly myself, if I'm gonna wind up more tired either way." At least if he flew himself, he was sure of where he'd go and how he'd get there. "And I still need a few more minutes. Sorry, man." He didn't even want to think about what was happening to his back, under that stretched-out bandage between his wings. "So what else did you find?"
"That's what I'm sayin'. I don't get drained by it because my body changed, but other people do. It's not draining energy or anything into myself… that I can tell anyway," he figured since he never felt a burst of energy or anything after teleporting another person, so Juan was fair certain of this assumption. "Nothing as impressive as the radio, but a machete, some army rations, annnnd oh!" he almost forgot about the binoculars dangling around his neck, "These! Pretty handy for teleporting around. Might be good to find you a pair as well. You'd be able scope out anything easily with how high up you can get."
"Oh, nice." Rowan held out a hand, curious, to investigate the binoculars. He could use something like that-- some way to get a closer look at the ground as he flew by, though it might throw him off, too, as he flew. Maybe he'd have to land to use them, or catch a strong thermal so he could glide without thinking about it too much. "Guess you ran into a hunter's apartment, or somethin'. Or a marine's. Any guns you found?"
"Yea, I'll keep an eye out for another pair," Juan said as he handed the binoculars over to Rowan. It was always good to have survival gear like this and for a teleporter and a flyer, one would think it should be standard. "Maybe army, there was some camo stuff in there, and no guns… there were some empty ammo boxes, but no guns…The place was wrecked so I'm guess he got surprised by something or ransacked and whoever took the guns and ammo missed the bag." There was no blood that he could find in the apartment, but something had definitely happened there. Juan was just glad he found the backpack, "Got a machete at least. Guess they didn't think big knives would ever come in handy."
"Awesome, thanks." Rowan peered through them with interest, playing with the dials to focus further and closer. At the furthest distance, he spotted the winged, serpentine thing he'd been fleeing last, heading vaguely in their direction. "Well, shit. Break time's over. We'd better move. We're not in trouble yet, but if we stay put, we will be." He gave the binoculars back to Juan, pointing him in the right direction, if he wanted to look, and pushed himself to his feet with a groan.
Juan took them back and peered through the lenses, "Oh man… and I thought the furry ones we saw the other day were bad." He stood and packed away all of his booty and slipped the binoculars around his neck. He unhooked the machete from his belt loop and teleported to the edge of the building. He took a look around the surrounding area towards the hotel with the binoculars, "Hmm, all looks clear up ahead. If we keep a good pace, we should be able to get away from those things."
"Sounds good," Rowan said, shaking his wings out and wincing at the dampness he felt along his lower back, between the feathers. He just hoped the feathers themselves didn't get soaked... bloody, sticky primaries were just disgusting, and awkward to get properly clean. "So that's it for your foraging today, huh?" he added with a wry little grin to Juan, holding his wings open. "See you at the hotel, I guess."
Arguing the values of just bamfing to the hotel or staying near Rowan's flight path, Juan decided to go on ahead. He really wouldn't be able to do much if it did come to blows and really? The hotel wasn't all THAT far from where they were, especially for someone who could fly. Rowan could fly and dodge a lot better if he didn't have someone to look after as well, so Juan chose to head straight back to the hotel. He'd wait on the roof to keep an eye out for Rowan and then retire to his room for the night. With a nonchalant salute Juan disappeared from sight and reappeared on the roof of the hotel. He then proceeded to watch the area around the hotel to make sure there weren't any nasty surprises that Rowan would have to worry about closer to home.