[center][img]https://puu.sh/zIzLb/06221f497b.png[/img][/center] [b][center]Henry--School Daze[/center][/b] [i]"...And we have to remember, back in those days...relationships like that didn't just [/i]happen[i]. A black man and a white woman? The Civil War's just 'round the corner, mind you, and she's also [/i]writing[i], about ALL of this..."[/i] The lecture was a dull drone in Henry's ear, barely a ripple on his radar. The names, the passage, it all blew around his head in a nonsense slurry of half-acknowledgment. He [i]knew[/i] Mrs. Duverne was talking about their homework assignment. He [i]knew[/i] the homework assignment, and the author--Eliza Montgomery--whose name was nailed, stapled, and branded into every corner of Henry's high school. He didn't know why he was wasting his time listening to this when there were more important things going on outside of these walls. Kidnappings, territory squabbles between rival gangs, good old-fashioned armed robbery... [i]"...Daring to write it down, daring to keep those thoughts by her side at all times. And, to think, we're dealing with similar issues today..."[/i] Words, words, words. Henry just had this class, and then he'd head to the computer lab. Maybe he'd have time to swing by the art room, ask unassuming Mr. Munroe about borrowing more acryllics. Deal with the loud bus ride home, and then square up in his room for the night. Head out [i]later[/i], if he managed to wrap up his project. Just had to put on the finishing touches. Make sure the paint was dry. [i]T[/i]s crossed, [i]i[/i]s dotted. Henry's eyes were nearly closed. He could just barely make out the full-body shift of the girl in front of him, slumped in boredom. He sensed the muted silhouette of his English teacher pacing back and forth in the front of the classroom. He tagged her with a few loose granules of dust in the air. They settled in the taught fibers of her gray hair, pulled tight against her bony profile. He had taken to using his powers out in the open like this within the last few days. It was easy, once Henry got a sense for subtlety. Henry's abilities were always on, and ever since his late night stint a few days ago, he was feeling more comfortable sweeping his surroundings at every opportunity. Thoughts rushed back to that fateful night, scoping out the wannabe-kidnappers' van right under their noses. Jamming guns, mapping out schematics of their vehicle. This was just the same. Henry could easily manipulate the resting particulate that had a tendency to settle in well-used classrooms like this. The thin layer of dust in the ventilation ducts above them stirred to life. It covered all four sides of the labyrinthine airways. One activated, the dust swept through the vents, poured through grates and seeped soundlessly into the classroom. Tendrils of near-invisible specks crawled out from behind off-white ceiling panels and dispersed, mapping out the room. Henry's head was filled with thousands of data points, all arranged into a model of his classroom. He seized control of the lint and dander particles on his peers, populating his map with thirty figures, desk-width apart. Henry closed his eyes, lowered his head, and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. He focused, and dug deeper. He swept over his classmates, dirt flowing into their pockets. More often than not it just buffered up against a smartphone pushed tight against pantleg, but he found occasional contraband: packs of cigarettes, a tin of snus, and even the smooth rounded ends of pills. Henry frowned. He exerted more effort, put more dust to work, and mapped down one level further, pushing particulate into backpacks and purses. At this stage, it was getting harder for Henry to keep track of everything. It wasn't as if he was reaching the limits of his power--Henry didn't know if he even [i]had[/i] any, besides range--but that the dust formed imperfect pictures of clumped items. Square masses of books, pencils and detritus strewn at the bottom of bags, tubes of lipstick and mascara. It was only when he delved into one bag in particular, positioned diagonally behind him four or five spaces, did he sense something worth a pause. Sleek, angular, and metallic. Handle and barrel. A dustless space in the shape of a gun, stowed away in a container packed matryoshka-style within the backpack. Layered in old rags and crumpled papers, it was inconspicuous to all but the most wandering eyes. Henry smirked. The metal detectors that city officials were fond of bragging about hand't exactly [i]arrived[/i] yet. Some were still using school grounds as their own personal black-market depot, chief among them a budding gang recruitment. A ghostly gunshot rang between his ears, audible phantasm of the scuffle with the kidnappers. Though no one else was phased by the concealed firearm, Henry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This was a complication. Henry dispersed most of the dust, letting it fall by the wayside and choosing to ignore most it in his mind's eye. His final act was to clump a layer around the gun's hideaway. Henry leaned back into his seat, arms crossed. He focused on Mrs. Duverne, and waited for the swansong of the class bell. - - - No sooner did it sound than Henry took to action. He kept his head down, still leaning back, and pretended to doze. His target moved with quick precision to an aisle and tried to dart out of the classroom. Henry swung his backpack into the empty pathway to intercept, in time with the sensory input of the dust-tracker in his head, causing the gunman-to-be to pause as Henry further filled the space. Henry yawned, stood up, and stretched. He offered an all-but-normal smile to the girl standing next to him. Henry heard an agitated sigh escape the target's lips, but didn't turn around. Henry took his time to reach down and sling his own backpack over his shoulder. He then smiled innocently at Mrs. Duverne, adjusted his glasses, and made for the hall. Henry stopped when he was a few yards into the steadily-crowding halls and diverted off the path. The gunman continued forward, and Henry got a good look at him. Familiar, but not someone he knew by name. A class here or there. Asian, or maybe mixed, with short-cropped hair and a baggy hoodie. He was a generous head shorter than Henry. Henry averted his eyes and followed at a casual distance, always keeping that square-shaped box of dust in his power's radius. "H-hey, Henry...!" He almost bowled into her, a girl in his grade with a head of curly hair and dark, caramel eyes. "Yo, Cynthia," He replied, smiling but distracted. "You're heading to the computer lab, yeah?" "Y-yeah, I just--shit," Henry cursed. He sensed the target's backpack dipping in and out of his awareness as the target stepped back-and-forth around a mass of traveling students. The dots in Henry's head fizzled like they were displayed on a busted tube t.v. "Whoa, sorry, uh, I-I mean, you're going the wrong way, and I wanted--haven't seen you online in a while. They added a new hero and everything, and--I wanted to..." "Sorry Cynthia, but like, not [i]now[/i], you know? I'm gonna be late to class anyhow. Later." He pushed past her, their shoulders butting against one another. He didn't meet her glossy gaze. Henry felt bad, kind of blew her off, but this was actually [i]important[/i]. He ducked through an opening between a group of girls passing around one of their phones, and finally sensed the vessel of dust. [i]'Plus, I don't even got my rig anymore. She knows that, right?'[/i] Henry stopped dead in his tracks, right down the long hall from his prey. The crush of bodies prevented him from getting [i]too[/i] close, but that was just fine. He saw the black-haired dome stop in front of a slender green locker at the very end of the row. The boy looked right, and then left. Henry's breath caught in his throat--for just a moment, he could have swore that short-stack locked eyes with him. Henry's target opened the locker nonetheless, and then shifted his shoulders around to swing his backpack towards the opened locker. Henry couldn't see into it, wasn't able to visually verify if there was [i]other[/i] contraband stowed away. Henry's focus drifted to his mind once again; all he had to do was seize control of some particulate in the area. Trick is, was there [i]enough[/i]? The layer of grime on the slanted top of the row of lockers shifted under Henry's control. [i]'Custodians must be shirking the deep-clean,'[/i] Henry mused. He only had a few seconds at minimum to pull this off. If it would even work. The dust flowed along the metal slants and traced the edges of the target's locker. The particulate was willed into crevices, so as to not draw suspicion. The wannabe-gunman unzipped his backpack, and looked around again; then, finding himself safe in the crowd, he struck out like a viper. The dusty rectangular carrying case was deposited into the nook of his open locker. Henry closed his eyes and set his dust to work. Particulate poured into the locker. Henry tracked the kid's head movement, and waited for averted eyes before a tendril of dirt snaked up from within the locker and slid its way into the locking mechanism on the interior side of the door. A simple set of blunt locks and levers was mapped out in Henry's mind, positioned askew of the kid's block head. As the target stepped back and swung his locker closed, Henry wedged dust in-between the two prongs of the locking mechanism. The door slammed with a barely-audible [i]clack[/i]. His target turned to walk away, seemingly satisfied at the drop-off. Henry pretended to futz around on his phone, eyes glued to an icon he was idly spinning around. The dust he placed in the gunman's hoodie dropped out of range a few moments later, and with that, Henry knew the coast was clear. He tangled around a few lingering swells of chattering students. Henry picked up the pace, now at a light jog towards the locker. He only had a few minutes left to cross the school back to the computer lab; however, presently he just wanted to get this gun situation over and done with. In front of the locker, Henry looked around. Satisfied no one was watching him, he jammed his thumb up against the black tab. It sunk upwards, and Henry caught his breath as the locker swung open. He took a quick peek behind the door, and saw the multilayered wad of dust and debris coating the locking mechanism. "Damn, guess it worked." Wouldn't make it a repeat performance. Special circumstances called for extreme action. Henry leaned forward and rifled through the locker, pushing aside a stack of papers. Plastic bottles spilled behind him and clattered noisily onto the tile floor, but Henry paid them no mind. He grabbed the small, hard suitcase, and clicked the locks open. Out spilled the shiny profile of a handgun. Henry held his breath, and delicately turned the firearm around. He didn't know much about guns, but could at least verify the safety was on before he hurled his backpack into the locker and jammed the weapon into the furthest corner of his own bag. [i]'No sense in lugging the case around,'[/i] he figured. Henry turned around and slammed the locker door. A quick look-see didn't indicate that anyone had paid him much attention. Too close to the next period for people to linger around. Henry bolted for the computer lab, knowing that the added baggage in his pack would weigh on him the rest of the day. - - - "Badass..." Henry reached down and softly exhaled. He bent backwards to avoid inhaling acrid paint fumes, and then smiled as he looked down upon the completed project. A plastic mask, contoured roughly to fit over his face. While at one point a generic skull-slasher halloween mask, Henry repurposed it to serve as an alternate for his crime-fighting costume. Easy enough to see out of the eye-holes, though he'd have to default to some recently-expired contacts in the meantime. Bright colors and shapes outlined the eyes and cheeks of the skull, and its gnarled clenched teeth now seemed an exaggerated smile. The [i]Calavera[/i], a sugar skull. Henry admired the flower-like designs around the eyeholes. Those had taken a while to get right. Days of looking up photos on his laptop, making sure he was getting the psychedelic pastiche near perfect. Then, realizing it rubbed off almost instantly, he had to apply a few layers of an odorless ceramic finish, repaint everything, and then let it dry for a full day before applying another coat. Lather, rinse, repeat. It would definitely stick out, especially when paired with Henry's utilitarian tight-fitting track pants and underarmor shirt. He'd spice up the ensemble maybe, repurpose the wrappings from his other costume into a caballero-esque poncho or something. But that could wait until he heard back from Flint. Henry turned his eyes to the corner of his desk where the tailor's business card still sat from many nights prior. The card made Henry so nervous that he thought it was liable to burn a hole right through his desk, fall through the floor, and land on his dad's bald dome downstairs. So many things he had to figure out before reconnecting with Flint's crew. "Can spend some time tonight figuring that out," Henry muttered. He then turned to his bed. Fragments of the confiscated glock were strewn all over his comforter. Disassembling the gun was easy enough, you just had to look up a how-to video on youtube. It was getting rid of the weapon that posed a problem--he knew that his parents were streetwise enough to recognize any of the pieces if they happened to show up in the trash. [i]'Then again, not wise enough to catch me sneaking out the other night.'[/i] And they'd be none the wiser if he bailed again tonight. Fuck waiting for the perfect costume. Fuck holding up with this gun in his room. Henry would get rid of it and go on his sophomore night of patrol, all in one fell swoop.