Documentary (open)

[Zeke]

Old habits died hard. The freshly arrived red-head was finding himself snapping photos at every given opportunity, taking pictures of random people in the halls, none of which he knew. But every once in a while, he’d get an interesting shot, a rare treasure of information he never knew he had to begin with. As he learned the people of the school, he’d learn their crews and their enemies. Those photos could reveal oh so much, or even just help him to connect the dots. And every once in a while, he’d find a couple making out in the hall, just to call out “say cheese,” and snap the photo right then and there when they turned in surprise.

Times were cold this time of year, so Zeke was dressed the part, with a zipped-up blue windbreaker covering his chest. The white and blue strap of his single-shoulder backpack was clearly visible. A white knit scarf was wrapped about his neck as well, the ends handing straight down on his right side. Black cargo pants finished off the rather baggy and slightly puffed out look. If he weren’t in California, he’d have fit right in with the snowboarder crowd.

His photo taking device of choice was an iPhone, just for the sheer utility. The imperfect pictures it took were actually a help most of the time, when a little bit of blurriness could enhance the plausibility of manufactured photos, or just add enough doubt to cause problems. Too clean of a picture always looked suspicious. What was nice was being able to auto-upload to a photobucket account. The occasional person that wanted him to delete the photo got their wish… Sort of.

[Vespyr]

Yet another day at Public High School #259.

Vespyr, accompanied by her two loyal servants, pushed open the heavy double doors and entered the hallway with the redheaded minions trailing along on either side of her. They were only slightly taller and more muscular in stature than the femme, and walked with a notably enthusiastic gait, their complacent grins mirroring each others as they followed Vespyr down the hall.

She, in contrast, walked with an air of seriousness, her visage grave, her violet eyes glinting with a sharp coldness, and she seemingly paid no mind to the twins on either flank. As usual, her reasons for being here were strictly business… the twins, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy being at school, as they attended on a regular basis, just a part of the masses.

And easily manipulated.

Vespyr walked briskly and silently; the world seemed to be a blur, the roaring of human voices subdued to a dull throbbing in her ears. Faces were obscured by indifference, and she passed by them with barely a glance. Except for one—standing in the middle of the hallway, she was compelled to move out of the way until she realized that he was beginning to turn in her direction, holding a camera of some sort. Quickly, almost instinctively, Vespyr reached into the bag she was carrying and withdrew a very macabre-looking mask, which she swiftly pulled over her face in less than a second.

“What are you doing?”

The sudden appearance of such a nightmarish-looking thing would most likely alarm the boy, which wasn’t her intent, but would amuse her all the same. Her immediate intent had been to conceal her identity, of course, from the boy’s camera. Caution was the thing, especially in her position, with her devious reasons for being here… It seemed contradictory, however, since the mask was no inconspicuous thing.

Vespyr liked to keep things… interesting.

[/blockquote]

[Zeke]

Pictures uploaded: Fifty-two. Photobucket was going to hate him by the end of the day. But he was dishing out a small sum for the premium access, which granted him a hell of a lot of internet space to hold all of the random pictures he'd never find a use for. It was the only problem with random shots. As he spent more time around the school, he'd learn who was who, and what was important. Then he could separate the chaff from the valuable information. For now, it was more initial probing than true reconnaissance. Still, information was information.

A destined turn led him to meet the gaze and voice of an oddly-faced being, who at first appeared completely out of place. Some might have jolted at the unusual sight. Yes, it was a mask resembling a bestial skull. But Zeke wasn't feeling jumpy. Right now it was more of a half-hearted investigation, so he just wasn't as easy to jump. It had it's advantage right then. He even pointed the camera and clicked the button, tilting the camera just so to make sure he got a glimpse of the eyes. Violet. His own were a bright electric yellow, with a vertical elliptical pupil. Artificial of course. He could only assume the same from the one opposite. The camera also got two more redheads in the background. Much happier figures. He only took note because those two didn't continue on their merry way but instead stopped with the masked one.

'No, I will not join your boy-toy parade.' Was his first thought. Of course, he kept that to himself. No need to toss in a possibly scathing comment for an introduction. Instead, he would sound like he felt, indifferent, like he wasn't doing anything wrong. "Just taking pictures. First day, so I figured I'd make a photo journal of my time here. I was a part of my last school's journalism club. Kinda my way of keeping my skills sharp 'till I find out if there's still space on this school's club." Seemed plausible to him. Sure, not everyone kept a photo journal, but it wasn't exactly a suspicious activity.

[Vespyr]

The femme’s violet eyes narrowed at the click of the camera. Upon hearing a giggle behind her, she reached over her head and swatted at the twin’s hand that was giving her bunny ears. The redhead fell silent, the playful grin still clinging to his face, and the face of his identical twin. Vespyr muttered to herself, wondering why she bothered keeping them around at all, they were such a nuisance at times.

But they were also valuable… they obeyed her every order without question, which proved to be quite useful. But they were still f***ing annoying.

She turned her attention back to the camera boy, who had offered some sort of explanation which Vespyr hadn’t really bothered listening to. She caught the words ‘school’ and ‘club’ and immediately she categorized the boy as one of those ones with spirit, who kept involved, an ideal student.

“How… quaint.”

She was tempted to grab and destroy the camera, half for the sake of deleting the picture and half for the sake of pure meanness. Nevertheless, she remained still and silent, regarding the boy with mute coldness. While she abhorred the fact that he seemed scholarly, she noted the air of indifference that solely kept her from snatching the camera and throwing it at his head. She—

“Move it, freak,” grunted someone beside her, followed by a half-hearted shove that merely caused the femme to sway slightly. Before the offending student even had the chance to pass her by, Vespyr had raised and slammed her elbow into the girl’s head, causing her to shriek and tumble to the ground, stunned. Without even turning to look, Vespyr brought a heavy boot down on the girl’s back, crushing the breath out of her. Pained squeals came from below, but Vespyr kept her cold eyes rooted to the boy with the camera, assessing his reaction.

“Kodak moment.”

A small smile came to her lips beneath the mask.

[Zeke]

At least the redheads had some bullocks to go with their smiles. Sadly, the picture wasn’t snapped when the ears got thrown up. Itchy trigger finger kept that away. Honestly, the picture was better without it. It kept the tone of a downward-looking authority, coldly confident in their own ability to pacify anything that opposed them. He liked that in women, the self-confidence and inner strength anyway. It made them less fickle. If they wanted something, they weren’t just going to turn tail for the next shiny object that caught their interest. Then again, his last girlfriend had soured his taste for the more fickle types. Not that he had any such intentions with this one. That mask didn’t exactly scream “kiss me.”

That aforementioned trigger finger came in handy as a girl tried to push herself past his current subject matter. Zeke saw naught but a blur of motion as the arm came up, chin-checking the intruder and even lifting her off the ground some. Snap. A cascade of hair and flesh fell upon the floor, a dull thud not unlike a sack of sand being thrown into the bed of a truck. To capitalize the woman’s “don’t fuck with me” statement, she stomped on the girl’s spine. No snap. One photo was all that was needed. And the elbow had so much more personality to it. It had been impulsive, irritated. That motion blur was preserved in the picture, right as the elbow reached the end of its path, the girl flung back, eyes aimed at the ceiling. It showed the extremes of the movement. It conveyed force, emotion, power. Snapping a shot of the boot was cold, motionless and dull. Posing at its worst.

He turned the touch screen to face the woman, letting her see the elbow rising past the victim’s face. The entire time, Zeke hadn’t changed expression. In fact, he’d gotten colder. His heart has steeled itself to deal with the nearby pained student. Last thing he needed was to be a bleeding heart right now. “Action speaks louder than poses.” His voice was matter-of-fact. Cold and to the point. He’d certainly seen worse. He’d instigated worse. The girl would be fine.

Without letting her have a shot at swiping the camera, he flipped it around and tilted it just so, not even looking at the screen as he caught the little smirk she wore, using an upward angle to catch her eyes and her lips. The superiority that was coming from her was too much to not capture. “I take it you don’t wear the mask often. Camera shy?”

[Vespyr]

Vespyr tilted her head slightly at his words, savouring them as if they had been a pleasant draft of air on a hot day. The statement seemed to be wise beyond his years, and delivered with such stern lack of emotion to prove it so…

She tilted her head the other way, her eyes narrowing slightly as he snapped another picture of what little of her face that wasn’t covered by the mask.

“No, I don’t wear it often. But at certain times, like this, I must retain some level of secrecy.”

The voice behind the mask was fluent and aloof, and to the stranger she would have seemed almost relaxed were it not for the darker undertone that played beneath her words and glinted in her eyes. A sort of anger, to be sure, though seemingly not directed at him. The femme glanced off in an arbitrary direction for a moment, and when her gaze returned to those unnatural yellow eyes, it was apparent that some calculation had been made.

“Come with me, if you please.”

Vespyr stepped past the young male without so much as a glance at him, making some sort of gesture to the twins to stay put, and perhaps… to finish the girl off, as well. The masked one walked to the end of the hallway, and whether or not the young man followed, for it was no loss if he didn’t, she would push open the heavy double doors and step out into the cold grey world.

The air was thick with the scent of rain, as If a downpour would ensue at any moment. Vespyr pulled her black hood over her head and crossed the courtyard, and to the young man behind her (if he had chosen to follow her,) she would say:

“I have a job that may interest you. I assume you are well-practiced in the area of collecting information?”

[Zeke]

Secrecy huh? Bad idea to tell him that. It just made him know he’d hit upon a decent scoop. His old school really had conditioned him nicely into the reporter mindset, it seemed. No matter, it had proved most useful of a skill to have. Investigation was his nature anyway. Now he wanted to know what was under the mask. And seeing from his two pictures already taken, aesthetics weren’t the problem. It was identity. It was subtle enough that he could look at her face, but notorious enough that he couldn’t snap a photo without concern. Interesting. Considering the boys, perhaps they were members of a posse or gang. That could be it.

Wouldn’t her face be on the school’s security footage? Jackpot. Now all that he needed was access. That meant dean. Which meant he had to prove himself worthwhile. Perhaps it was back to photo manipulation and rabblerousing. That was a good way to get the student hierarchy pissed though. No, he wouldn’t go back to being the Dean’s tool. At least not without a better incentive than petty rage. For now, he was going to play what he could to get better standing. And she seemed to be a potential source. Even more so when he was invited to walk with her.

Of course he followed. Curiosity killed cats, not humans. When they stepped past the double doors, without the company of the other two red headed boys, he didn’t even flinch at the cold. He was wearing his cold weather gear after all, and it was only California. They walked a short bit together, the area much, much less populated.

Her next words caused him to put away the camera, leaving it in his right front pocket along with a pack of strawberry gum and eighty-seven cents in change. A job offer, and so soon. It seemed she pegged him for information gathering. Which was true, but he’d said as much by saying he was in a journalism club. “Well, it depends on the job. And mostly what I get out of it. But I can’t imagine it being anything too hard.”

[Vespyr]

She led the way across the courtyard, entered another building, and veered left toward a door marked ‘staff only’. Disregarding that, she opened the door and stepped through silently, having thrown the door open wide enough so that it would not slam in the boy’s face if she didn’t hold it open for him. Which she didn’t.

In the room was only a staircase that wound upward for a good distance, which Vespyr began to ascend without hesitation, with a confidence that showed she had obviously been here many, many times. The student behind her seemed interested enough to follow, so she didn’t bother speaking while they climbed the staircase. In about a minute they reached the top, and were greeted by a very prosaic-looking door. Vespyr turned the handle and pushed the door open very mechanically, a rush of cold air brushing past as she did so. They were now on the roof.

“Hard, no. Whatever we, …I would have you doing wouldn’t be terribly difficult. I’m afraid I can’t give you much detail on it at the moment, but I assure you that the job has its benefits…”

As she said this, she pocketed her hands in a comfortable manner, looking out across the landscape of the school, narrowing her eyes at the tiny specks of students that wandered about like ants down below. After a long pause, she turned to look at the fiery-haired boy.

“Whether it is money you seek, or fame, or simply the satisfaction of being a part of something… grand.”

Now was usually the time when they either told her one of two things:

‘I don’t join gangs, you can go f*** yourself.’

Or…

‘Tell me more?’

Or even, perhaps...

'Why the hell are we on the roof?'

Vespyr didn’t have high expectations, or any sort of expectations to begin with, but she glared looked at the boy almost expectantly, waiting for him to make a decision based on his principles. Whether what he said fell along the lines of the ‘usual’, or was something completely unexpected, Vespyr was ready for anything.

[Zeke]

Time passed slowly, as silence dominated the majority of the walk. Secure locations and all that. And the stairwell leading straight up told the whole story of where exactly they were going. The roof. That quaint “staff only” sticker would probably commit suicide if it could feel remorse for all the students that just didn’t care and passed it by on the way up. Roofside had always been a nice vantage point for him. Nobody looked up often enough. And from up there, he could look down and decide who lived, and who died… Socially. Armed with a Canon camera and a lens made specifically for zooming in, he was able to get some of the best shots for spreading the rumor fire.

“We?” He asked, at her choice of wording as soon as she opened her mouth. It was a group. Gang perhaps. Seemed likely in the least case. Benefits were of course there. It was a matter of risk, and a job with no details was all risk. “Well, I can’t say for sure if I’m in or out until I get details. I assume you’re looking for something along the lines of ‘spy and snap.’ And if you’re any indication, it shouldn’t be too hard.

That’s when the offer of the reward came up. Interesting word choices aside, it seemed like he could name his price. “I work for what I need. Right now, I need my foot in the door to the goings on to the school. You’ve already so kindly given me that. So I guess the next step is information. Maybe protection? No. I’ve always handled myself. Tell you what. My price is simply this: I want to be in your good graces. Don’t have to be friends, don’t even have to talk much. Whatever you’re planning, I want to be in the loop enough to know what’s going down, and when, so that I can make sure my face is nowhere nearby if shit hits the fan. That kind of confidence will come with a job well done, of course.”

He took out a small pocket notepad from his cargo pants, a pen shoved through the spiral binding. A small click, some scribbles, and a tear of paper later, and he was holding out a note to the woman. It was seven digits, the first three separated from the last four by a dash. Above it were two letters. “T K.” Name and number. “There’s my card. Call it when you can spare more details.”

[Vespyr]

Facing the school again as the redhead spoke, Vespyr withdrew a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her coat and lit one, tilting it to take a drag from beneath the mask. A she exhaled, tendrils of smoke twisted and drifted from the bestial nose and between the macabre fangs.

"Of course.~"

As the boy continued, the femme turned slowly and thoughtfully to face him, taking another drag of the cigarette as she did so. The boy was smart, she had to admit. He knew what he wanted and how to get it. He had brains... but does he have what it takes to... join her cause? That question in mind, Vespyr noted that it was his loyalty that would need testing and possible enforcing. Without loyalty... he was no good.

But that was a discussion for another time; for now, she was satisfied in knowing that he was interested, and would devise a way to draw him in and seal the deal later on. It would be counterproductive to scare him off so soon. She reached out and took the note between two fingers, keeping her cold violet eyes on the boy, and pocketed the note without glancing at it. Her head bowed slightly as in a slow nod. She stepped backward toward the edge of the rooftop. One more step—

And Vespyr fell gracefully, vanishing from sight in an instant with nothing to be heard but the rippling of her coat in a sudden rush of air.

. . .

Down below and out of sight several moments later, Vespyr stood aside as the redheaded twins quietly rolled up a large white sheet, which she had landed in several moments before. Why all the theatrics, one might ask? Everything had its purpose.

Sighing, Vespyr entered the building and removed her black trench coat and her mask, revealing a sleek black long-sleeved shirt and her pale face, which was placid, a dark glint in her violet eyes. The cigarette hung from her lips as she pulled on a black beanie, tossed her coat to one of the twins, and put the mask back into the bag that one of them held open for her. She put the cigarette out on the sole of her boot and walked down the hall to the building’s back exit, where she would emerge looking completely different, unrecognizable from when she stepped off the roof.

[Scene]

"So."

From the shadow of the door Ron stepped, staring at the female with a look of curiosity.

"How is it that a girl like you can suddenly gain control of one of the most potentially powerful groups to come into existence? Is it because your fucking him? Or is he just out of his damn mind?"

He shrugged.

"None of my business, i guess. Orders are orders." He looked up at the roof, before staring back at her. "You gonna tell the boss about that?" He was trying to gauge what she was doing, what she planned. If she even planned anything. Hell, did Scene plan anything? Ron pulled a smoke from his pocket, lit it, and would wait for her response as he inhaled.

OOC((Ron is Scene's NPC))

[Vespyr]

Vespyr turned at the sound of the voice, slowly, with a heavily sinister darkness in her eyes. She recognized the young man; he had been present that day in her room, with Scene and the others. One of his minions, obviously. One that didn’t like her, more obviously. But she didn’t care, and while she didn’t appreciate his snide comments, she was barely affected. In fact, she found it a little amusing that he would question her in such a way, for it only went to show how little he knew about the one he pledged his loyalty to. It wasn’t Vespyr, obviously; he didn’t trust her.

Vespyr merely shook her head, her eyes open and glaring, a small smile on her lips.

“You don’t trust me, I see that plainly. But it isn’t I that needs to earn your trust, boy. You need to earn mine.”

She turned and continued walking toward the parking lot, apathetic to his presence. A car was waiting for her there, and as she came upon it she rapped impatiently on a window with her knuckles. The driver exited immediately, Vespyr took his place, and after several moments the rest of the passengers exited as well. They stood on the curb as the car sped away, looking rather confused.

[Scene]

"Trust you? No no, you've got it all wrong-"

She would start to leave, and as the boys jumped out of the car, he would jump in.

"You see, im here to try and understand you. I mean, why do we never see you? How come you don't give many orders? Why treat everyone like shit? I think they are relative answers, don't you?" He would hold up a hand. "And before you tell me to shut up and get the fuck out, i have orders from Scene to try my best to see us partners. To talk with you. I'm only doing as i was told in the letter. As i said- orders are orders."

In other words- he trusted Scene completely, and through him, her.

Ron would watch, waiting for a reaction. Being a man with a number of different psychosis, Ron had no fear, no brain to mouth filter, and no conscience. He didn't know what hurt peoples feelings what upset individuals, or how he came off. He simply...spoke, and hoped things came out as he intended.

[Vespyr]

Vespyr kept her eyes forward as the boy spoke, her frustration beginning to simmer.

And THIS is why I avoid you people.

She slammed on the brakes, steeling her arms to keep herself from pitching forward, and turned her glare on him.

“Partners? You have got to be kidding me.”

She leaned back, closing her eyes, pressing the palms of her hands to her forehead and emitting a frustrated sigh. After several moments, she spoke, lowering her hands and fixing her glare on some point in the distance.

“Look—I don’t like you people. I don’t like people in general, so I avoid you. And as for partners, it’s not going to happen—you follow my orders when I feel like giving them to you. Other than that, you stay the fuck out of my way. It’s as simple as that. This is not open for debate.”

Should he attempt to speak again, Vespyr would cut him off with a snap of her fingers and a strict point toward the door.