Perfecting *Open*

[Mercy Sanders]

Holy Hell it smells in here… What the fuck was that smell? Mercy had no fucking clue, either way it smelt like something had gone and died in here. Ew, that was just what the young woman needed today of all days. She had managed to not kill her mother, that was a miracle in and of itself in all truth. She had been far too close to doing it today and if felt as if every day she got closer to actually carrying it out rather than keeping her temper. Her temper was hard to keep, especially these days. It fluctuated constantly, making it harder and harder to do what she knew she was supposed to do.

It had been a simple matter of her mother telling her she needed to stop living in her stories and go back to school. It was the same argument that they very often had, but today it had set Mercy off to the point that the water in the sink, where she had been washing dishes, had frozen around her hands. She had had to shake it off as best she could and hope her mother didn’t question the ice in the sink. But she didn’t wait around to find out, she had tossed on her overcoat and was out the door before she lost control and drowned her mother in the sink water with that temper she so infamously had.

She was not entirely sure where she was going, but Mercy didn’t care enough to pay attention to where her feet were taking her, she simply walked. She had no other way to calm herself. It wasn’t raining today, and the water bottle tucked away in her pocket wasn’t enough to calm her. Unless she found a pool, she had no way of using water to calm herself. Or did she? It was then that she had the ingenius idea. Or, at least, she had thought that at the time until she had managed to find the abandoned warehouse in her memory and found it smelled as if someone had died in here sometime recently to cause it to smell as it did. It was horrendous.

She put her headphones back in her ears after she was sure that she was alone and tuned out the world, and hopefully the smell. She had come here once before after she had discovered water flowed not only to her emotions but to her will if she focused enough on it. And she had been working very hard on this very focus lately. Mostly so she didn’t kill anyone…murderous thoughts had always killed Mercy but never before had she had the ability to act on it. She had to make sure she worked this out so that it didn’t happen, had to learn how to focus long enough. But she wasn’t any good at that at all. She had been getting better however.

Good enough to notice that while water did as she asked, and would also change to mist or ice on her command if she focused—or if her emotions decided such as the sink displayed earlier—but once it was no longer water she had a hard time controlling it at all, most of the time it would only listen if it was water. This presented a challenge. For, while you can drown someone in water, it was ice and steam that were far more deadly. Not that she was thinking about how to hurt people, but Mercy had a habit of wandering the less safe sides of town, and being able to defend herself would come in handy.

She had come up with an idea the other day. Setting the water bottle open by her feet, and focusing on the beat of the music to calm her to the point that her emotions stopped fluctuating and distracting her, she got to work. All it took was a simple twitch of her fingers for a small globe of water no bigger than a marble to shoot up out of the bottle to just before her twitching fingers. She shaped it, making it pointy on both ends almost like a mini javelin. Now, came the tricky part.

She flung it at her target, a small black patch on the wall. She turned it to Ice too soon however and it fell too soon. She cursed. Too soon. Another twitch of the fingers brought up another globe and she shaped this one too. Calling water and shaping it, especially this small of a piece of water, was easy. It was when it got bigger, or when she had to change its form that it got tricky. She tried again. Too late and it was water that hit the wall, she hadn’t given herself time to fully change the state.

She kept this up, determined to get it perfect. And after three more tries, she did. But that wasn’t good enough. She had to be able to do it right every time. So, with her music on and blasting so that nothing could distract her…Mercy Sanders worked at perfecting what she could do.

[Taf Williams]

Taf scratched her calf with her foot as the gray winter sky loomed overhead like a brooding mother gazing upon her sick, feverish, demented children. The college student cussed for no precise reason at all and brushed some stray threads of copper back toward her ponytail.

She crept into a restroom and gazed at her face. Angry waves braced her pale skin, kissing it red in a shape not unlike a raccoon's mask. A toilet flushed, and she calmly washed her hands for the first time since the end of lab. She meticulously scrubbed beneath her fingernails. An elderly black woman in an old-fashioned flower-patterned dress stepped out of the stall, her purse hanging silently from the wrinkled flesh of her arm. Taf's cuticles did not go unattended. After a quick wash and a brief drying of her thick arthritis fingers, the woman finally left.

Taf ceased the scrubbing and walked across the bathroom, crudely shoving each stall door open with the palm of her hand.

The restroom was empty but for the American.

Thank god, thought Taf, stepping back over to the mirror. I seriously hate these goggle lines every damn lab session. Jesus fucking Christ. My shitty ginger skin lights up like a neon sign at the slightest goddamn touch!

She looked at herself. Her ponytail wasn't neat. The black hoodie that covered her sacrificial lab shirt hung onto her pale flesh like she was some drug addict. Her jeans had the occasional chemical hole or peculiar stain. Oh, and, of course, goggle lines encircled her copper brows and dirt-colored eyes like sign shouting: Look! I'm a nerdy chemistry student! See the chemicals ruin all the clothes I wear (thus, this day of the week received its own designated outfit) and red fucking lines on my face to boot!

Taf relaxed.

Her sight vanished. She felt her hair tie fall through her body and onto her hoodie.

Focusing, she became solid. The face came first, so she watched her reflection as the gravity-defying water lacing her scalp became tendrils of red hair, reverting to their original form--except for a few details. Her loose hair lacked any annoying post-ponytail ridges and looked like she'd recently taken a shower; and, more importantly, those damn ridges on her face and vanished into oblivion.

Hell, yes!

The door opened as someone entered the restroom. It didn't matter anymore.

Focusing a tad harder, her hair became dry.

Sweet.

Taf plucked up the hair band and slid it onto her wrist.

She left the restroom, her mostly-empty backpack slung over one shoulder. Fifteen or so minutes later, the happily-cocky college sophomore trotted on up into gang turf... but scarcely anyone was about. She wondered what happened to the crime rate in winter as her cold eyes danced from one dealer to a muddle of Caucasian brats all huddled together and finally tinkled over to a lonely warehouse not too far away.

She walked on over to it, her slender fingers tapping a tune on the strap of her bag.

Her sense of smell was quite dead from working with ammonia--otherwise, she would've instantly realized why everyone was avoiding it.

Taf stepped in quietly as the sound of ear buds with music turned up way too loud assaulted her eardrums. She gazed silently at the unsuspecting bitch--for she was, quite probably, a bitch. A lone woman throwing water balloons in an empty warehouse suggested she was a loner without good connections to people. They were in a fairly desolated area, after all. Around here, people stuck to their groups and didn't mingle--there was you and your people, and everyone else was just a faceless scarecrow that could move forward by landing one foot after the other.

Surely, she was a bitch. Lonely, playing on her own, friendless. She wasn't desolate enough to gather herself, but she wasn't near any people. She wasn't hanging with her buds.

Surely, a bitch.

Mean. Hateful. Lonely. Spiteful.

She flung the colorless paint ball into the wall with an unlikely amount of skill.

And angry.

Taf observed this person and sat against a pillar like a silent panther in the shadows of the shelter. She was located back and to the right of the angst-filled woman. She estimated the distance at about three meters. Flecks of litter decorated the concrete floor here and there.

Glob after glob of water slammed into the wall. Only, it didn't always sound like water...

Taf withdrew her sketchbook from her bag, slipping it out through a large scraggly hole rather than bothering to unzip it. A few seconds later, a pen dangled from her claws, and she got to work.

Line after line graced the paper as she watched this girl--Was she Taf's age?--do impossible things with H₂O.

Haha! Well, one thing was for certain--this bitch wasn't using no damn water balloon.

[Mercy Sanders]

Let’s try more than one, shall we? Mercedes Sanders thought to herself as she lifted not one, not two, but three globes of water from the water bottle. They were tiny. Easy to manipulate. It was changing them all to ice that was the fucked up part. She wasn’t sure she could do that just yet, but she never knew til she tried, right? She focused, perhaps she would get it right. The beat was sounding in her ears and she completely focused on it as the three water globes circled in front of her face, almost taunting her which succeeded in only raising her temper, even though she had done it herself. Mercy was….not predictable.

She shot all three at the wall. She was satisfied when two of them hit the wall, near perfect in their state, but one hit as water. She pinched the bridge of her nose to fight off a wave of frustration. The music dipped down in her ears as it changed from one song into the next. It was during this change when the music wasn’t blasting in her ears when she heard it. Well, wonderful. She wasn’t alone in this place, that was just what Mercy needed, someone else to have to deal with. It wasn’t as if her temper wasn’t already beyond spiked.

Practicing had calmed her enough though that she didn’t whirl around, nor did she jump. Instead she slid her hand into her pocket to turn off her music, pausing it, and tugging one blue headphone indelicately from her ear. She turned her head slightly, to look at the girl before she fully turned, her shoes making a slightly disgusting noise on the abandoned floor that would have made her gag but she wasn’t a delicate angel to be disgusted by things such as this.

The other girl appeared to be sketching, and about her age. Probably in the university like she was supposed to be from the looks of it, or she just randomly lugged around a backpack wherever she went. That was possible too honestly, people were weird here. On this part of town that is, she did it too from time to time, so she wouldn’t judge that. Not just yet. She also appeared to be paying attention to Merc despite her sketching. Wonderful. How to go about this.

She wasn’t sure if she should somehow hint about the fact that she had obviously been moving water all on her own. The other girl didn’t seem to be freaked so maybe she hadn’t noticed. Mercy had yet to meet anyone like her, though she had heard rumors on the street here or there, so she wasn’t sure how to go about this. Why the fuck was the other girl in here anyway? For a moment Mercy’s temper spiked, annoyed that someone else would be in here where she was trying to be alone and the water in the bottle swirled with her temper. She had about half of the bottle left in there, that hadn’t gone flying at the wall.

Enough amo just in case it seemed.

By the time Mercy was calm enough to speak, it had been a moment that she had been quietly studying. Mercy didn’t go out of her way to speak, she just spoke from time to time when she saw it necessary. She didn’t want to deal with people most of the time, she did if they caught her attention though, that was rare. Mercy was a loner and most people didn’t like the way her emotion’s wouldn’t stay still and the way she spoke to people, she spoke her mind was all.

”Can I help you?” she asked finally, figuring that this girl probably had been watching her, and would warrant the attitude. Though, there was no attitude in her voice, considering she had waited to speak until she could keep her anger and her attitude from her voice and affecting the thoughts and words she had about this other person who was in the horrific smelling warehouse with her. Because really? With that smell, who would bother coming in without a reason?

[Taf Williams]

Movement. Bitch aware. Bitch not appreciate.

Taf smiled.

"No, I'm quite satisfied, thanks," twanged her voice. Thanks? She removed her pen from the sheet and subtly angled her knees and shoulders toward the woman. The bitch had the full attention of her body language.

A beat.

"Say, you're a magician, right? That's some cool shit. I didn't know they had chick magicians around this part--I thought the dudes got all the glamor in London... I saw a guy's show once." On the tube. Fuck it. TV. Brits needed to get their vocab right. "He closed it by making it snow in the theater. Seems to be a gimmick that's catchin' on these days.

"Don' worry 'bout nothin'. I ain't interested in givin' your secrets away... I know this spot's a bit secluded an' all, but maybe you should find a more, eh, guarded place to work on yer tricks, right?"

Somewhat sleepily and somewhat calmly, Taf brushed a strand of copper bang back behind her ear.

If anything, one wee ginger wasn't gonna turn into no fucking water around this diva anytime soon. What the hell was with this setup? Hydrokinesis? Aquakinesis? H-two-fucking-oh-kinesis? Anyway, there was no fucking way in hell that Taf was gonna be picking fights with this dame.

Shit. If she went aqueous at any time, she could then become some crappy puppet thing, and that, goddamn, was not gonna fly.

Not gonna fuckin' fly, no, no, no.

"You sure are pretty, though." Flattery didn't mean she was lying. "Look like a goddamn model. So are you the assistant, then?" she continued, easily friendly as she tilted her pen suggestively at the damn pretty bitch who lurked in unsuspecting warehouses on her lonesome.

"Yer boss might not appreciate you out-doin' him on the stage much."

Her stealthy fingers slapped the sketchbook closed and slipped it back through the hole, the pen sliding in a second later. She stood. Her hands dusted off her poor chem pants and then slung the bag back over her shoulder. Other than politely getting off her ass to talk face-to-face with this stoic chick, Taf was now on her feet and ready to flee if this bitch decided to go all ice-dagger on her ass. Which would suck.

Would the daggers do damage? Probably not (Taf hadn't tested it). Would Taf get busted for turning into a fucking puddle? Yes. In front of a freakin' water-controlling mutant? Oh, hell, no!

Well, whatever. Hopefully, her babbling had sidetracked that diva's well-hidden murderous intent.

"Name's Taf, by the way. Yours?"

So what would her quarry do now, wondered Taf, her dark clothes darker in the shadows and her pale face and hands contrasting with the black hoodie enough to make her almost appear skeletal. The smile renewed itself, stretching out her mouth and glinting her eyes. Would the bitch play magician, or would she reveal her true talents?

Ah, the anticipation made Taf's heart race a tad--which she wasn't complaining about since she might have to run like hell to save her cheeky little hide in a minute.

[Mercy Sanders]

Mercy was slightly defensive, slightly pissed, and slightly trying to control both of these things as best as she could manage. It was harder when she was so moody, but she had been fucking moody her whole life and so much worse so since she got hit by fucking lightning. It was wonderful to have to constantly watch her emotions, and quite often she found herself ever so slightly murderous, and it was becoming slowly harder to ignore the need to act on those impulses. Perhaps she needed a vacation. Right, like that would fucking happen. She snorted a bit at the idea. She was lucky if she got out for a few hours in between her mother and work.

The other girl spoke and Mercy arched a delicate brow at her. Accent. Sounded American to the born and bred Londoner. Either way, Mercy was good at putting up a front of being calm, due to the fact that she had been moody her whole life and had to have come up with a method to dealing with it and appearing sane or she would have been taken away in a straight jacket a while ago. It wasn’t something she wanted to happen any time soon, thanks.

Patience, anger solves nothing she thought to herself and took a deep mental breath.

The girl went on and on about a trick and magicians and excetera and Mercy let her, only listening with half an ear. She didn’t care what this girl decided to rationalize what Mercy was doing with. She could pretend she was hallucinating for all Mercy cared as long as she didn’t call the cops. Mercy didn’t need that bull, might actually make her snap, never know. It was entirely possible, which would not end well for the tempermental young woman. She shook her head when she mentioned finding a better place to practice. ”Thanks or whatever” she said with a mini-shrug about the whole…being a magician and tricks and whatever.

But as for the place to practice, a slight smirk tugged at her features. ”Yeah well, usually I expect the smell akin to rotting bodies to keep out peepers” was her reply. She wondered, yet again, what had allowed this red-headed woman to brave the smell to sit and watch her. Mercy liked to watch people, fancied herself rather good at it. And she had pinned this girl as a student, about her age, but the back pack and the appearance. It was why she was here that Mercy hadn’t been able to fathom just yet, though she intended to manage to get an answer somehow. She was stubborn, that was for sure.

She kept studing the other girl, trying to make it not so obvious that that was what she was doing. Perhaps she could glean something more? But so far she wasn’t picking up anything that would do her any good. Like what this girl wanted and whether or not she would give Mercy away. She hadn’t, personally, given any thought to the possibility of others like her, but now the idea was slightly in her head, though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to think too hard about it. Dissapointed or happy to find out she was the only one? Or vice versa if it turned out there were others. Better not to think too hard on it.

The friendly tone the other girl managed to keep talking in, had started to make the tempermental Merc’s fake calm turn more into a real one, her posture relaxing slightly, though she was still on edge. Never one to let her guard down and all that. She called Mercy pretty and she just rolled her eyes. Her looks were fine cause they made her stand out, Mercy hated just being one of the crowd, and it got her partners often times. But that was all it was good for. She didn’t put too much value on being a pretty face.

She studied the other girl and shrugged a bit. Mercy was attracted to both genders in truth, but didn’t judge on looks at all, so she rarely bothered with looks. If people managed to get close enough to her that she saw their personality, that’s when she noticed attraction wise. So that wasn’t a factor. It was because the other girl had brought up looks that she had even bothered to look in that factor, she tilted her head slightly. ”Looks are a matter of opinion…but I guess. You’re pretty pretty yourself she said, letting the smirk twist at her lips that time. She didn’t know why looks had come up and she didn’t care. She’d just reply. Model. She snorted. Like she could do the whole model shit.

”But no, I’m no ones fucking assistant. You?” She said, taking wry amusement in the fact that she’d never take second fiddle to anyone. And asking if the other girl would ever do the same, though she had twisted the question her own way. It was almost like…Mercy would judge her on the answer. Mostly because she would.

She watched, semi-critically, as the sketchpad disappeared once more, and found herself slightly on edge as the other girl stood. It was almost…like she had to fight back the sudden mood swing back to being angered. She kept the calm face up however, despite the emotions that were giving her hell on the inside. Funny how the simple motion of the other girl standing had put her on edge once more, like it was a challenge to her authority, not that she had any, or to her being the first one here or something. Mercy still wasn’t sure what to make of this chick, it had her slightly on edge.

Another once over of the girl, taking in the smile as well, had her mood swinging back to calm, fucking moody today, and relaxing a tad, which made the water stop swirling in the bottle at her feet. She hadn’t even noticed it, fucking hell. ”Interesting name. I go by Mercy.” She replied, with her calm outer wall once more. It wouldn’t kill her to give her name.

[Taf Williams]

Taf knocked the dame down a peg on the bitch meter. She actually didn't seem that bad. At the moment. Besides, she called Taf pretty--perhaps this chick needed to have her eyes checked. The American hadn't been fishing for no goddamn compliment.

Smell akin to rotting bodies. Smell akin to rotting bodies?

Taf's brown eyes flicked down to her clothing for only a split second as she quietly sniffed the air. Then, she continued to smile quietly. Shit. The sensory organ stuck squat in the middle of her face was still totally busted. Ammonia was all she could smell, if that. Jesus. She'd have to smell her laundry tomorrow and see if it smelled like rat guts. Would her nose recover by then? Perhaps she could trick her roommate into it.

"No one's fucking assistant, huh?" echoed Taf, grinning. She liked the way this girl talked. And her name was Mercy. Taf was getting mercy from Mercy...

She wasn't sure whether to be excited about such sadistic irony or merely be bemused at her own fate.

The battered backpack strap felt withered beneath her fingers.

"Nah. Showbiz isn't really my deal," she continued, slightly shifting her weight. Out of this pair, which one was the psychologist? No one's assistant, she'd said. What a very unhelpful and proud person, this bitch certainly was. Taf could wing this.

"Besides, I'm not so good at being bossed around, ya know? I like to do my own damn thing." And she'd been in enough fights to prove it. "I sure as hell ain't gonna be someone's bitch, running about everyone's ankles and waggin' my furry tail to get all the fucking work done while he"--men were the enemy, of course--"just sits around with his feet high on the desk." She shrugged, one hand slapping her hip and then resting there, her elbow at a ninety-degree bend.

Mercy had neither denied nor affirmed the magician bit completely. Hell, if Taf got Mercy to come out of the closet, as it were, then she might even be able to explain the chemistry behind her little ice trick for her.

Then again, it might make her more deadly...

...Oh well. Deadly was fun, right?

"So you ain't nobody's bitch," said Taf, reflectively as she subtly suggested similarities between the women. "Does that mean you got a show of your own, or did you just get into some intriguing"--yes, quite intriguing--"hobbies?"