Sunlight peered through the trees of the English countryside, signifying the dawn of a new day. The light was slowly forced itself through the small cold eyes of Christian Calaway. With a deep groan, Christian, against his wishes, began to awaken. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Christian struggled to take in his surroundings, with the rays of the sun pelting him in the face like snow on a winter day blurring his vision. Overcoming the pain of the sudden rude awakening, Christian slowly sat up, groaning and swearing to himself. A loud yawn followed a second rubbing of his eyes. Looking around, Christian had a brief shock only to remember why he found himself camping last night in the middle of the English countryside. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Christian leapt a little at the sight of a sleeping woman at his side. Still wearing his jacket, she looked awfully comfortable sleeping beside him. Whether or not, they cuddled….well, he didn't remember. Blushing slightly, he shook his head trying not to read too much into it.
Leaving her alone for the time being, Christian stood up and stretched his back and neck. Nearly every movement led to a number of cracks, pops and realignments as he got the kinks out. Sleeping on the raw ground was not exactly comfortable, especially compared to luxurious feather beds Christian grew accustomed to. Making his way to the lake a few feet away, Christian knelt down and stared at his reflection. His face looked noticeably dirty, stressed and tired. Clearly the previous 24 hours were more intense than he had anticipated. Joining a mysterious organization, discovering his abilities were more than he bargained for, a helicopter crash and waking up in the middle of nowhere were not events that occurred to the every day university student. He chuckled remembering that he was still technically enrolled to a university…looks like that didn't really matter anymore. Taking a deep breath of the pleasant country air, Christian dipped his heads in the water and threw the water onto his face, attempting to clean himself up a bit.
With a sigh, Christian lifted himself off the ground and stared into the great landscape before him. He let his mind wander, muse over the recent events, and awaited for some epiphany to arrive in a gift basket.
The leather jacket felt heavy draped over Antonia's body, but she was glad to have had it as a blanket since it had kept the chill winter's night air off of her. With eyes still closed despite the sun trying to blind her, she cuddled further into the jacket, but it was slowly loosing the heat that it had retained during the night. Vague memories of the previous afternoon crossed her mind, she remembered the fear that had swallowed her whole when the helicopter was about to crash, the bravery of the guy sitting next to her as he tried to save them. She remembered the awful feeling of nearly drowning as the lady named River had saved her and the American.
She sat up and looked around, trying to find the guy who had been next to her on the helicopter. She wrapped the jacket further around herself, and when she stood up, it hung down to below her knees, her arms barely reaching the ends of the sleeves. She turned around in circles before finding the man who had tried to save her, watching as he bent down to take a drink from the crystal clear lake before gazing out at the landscape.
Antonia had hardly been to England before, River found her only just the other day, before all the events that had transpired, and taken her into her care when the Syndicate had tried to take her from her parents. Still, the landscape, no matter how beautiful it was, still paled in contrast to her Italian homeland.
She wandered over to the man who was about a head taller than herself. She took in his profile, the graying hair and muscular physique, he was at least in his twenties was all that Antonia could figure out, but he looked much older than that.
"Thank you," she mumbled quietly, "Thank you for saving me. Or trying to." She spoke a little louder this time, giving a half-hearted laugh at the end. Where most people would have found the acrid fumes emanating from his body disgusting, she liked it, it was something different.
"I'm Antonia Costa," she introduced herself, "and you are?"
"Christian Calaway," he answered, continuing to gaze into landscape. He never did well with women...not since her, at least. Christian's brain came to a screeching halt, unable to process anything more than a name. "It was....it was nothing. No need to thank me. I didn't do much anyway. If anything, I put you in more danger. If it wasn't for River..."
Antonia's smile faded, although it was true that he hadn't been able to fully save them, he had at least gotten her out of the helicopter. If it hadn't been for Christian, she would have still been in the helicopter when it crashed, rooted to her seat, too scared to move. "Still..." she moved a lock of hair from her face, the sleeve of his jacket falling down to reveal her hand, "we are alive." She always tried to look on the bright side of things, but Antonia often found it hard to not put it in such a negative context.
"So what is it like to control smoke? I mean, how does your power work?" she asked, it was the only thing that wasn't really personal, they all had an ability, it's not like everyone can hide their like she can.
Christian put his hand before Antonia and small streams of smokes rose from each finger. The streams blended together, forming shapes, figures, and small pieces of art. The various creations appeared to dance around in the sky before them. Christian was crafting a shadow puppet show for Antonia, revealing a slightly more playful side to stern man.
"My ability is powered by thought, focus and concentration. I can do plenty of things with this smoke but all of it requires that I concentrate on it and picture it in my mind. I guess you could say, if focus is the weapon than my imagination is the ammunition. I can generate smoke, control it and...." Christian paused. The smoke figures that performed for them blended together in a sphere. Christian brought the sphere to his hand, hovering in its palm. Looking around casually, Christian suddenly turned and launched the sphere at a innocent tree a few meters away from him. The sphere became a solidified concussive blast that crashed into the tree and when the dust settled only splintered debris remained.
"I can manipulate smoke on a molecular level; make it solid among other things. Even then, I am...I am not quite sure how it works. Half the things I do is a mystery to say the least. I frequently find myself becoming an intangible gas with barely any form to it. Or even worse, I wake up as a smoke cloud floating above the ground. My powers are constantly active so the second I let myself...erm..slip I guess is the best way to put it...I can lose my physical form. I guess that would probably explain why I have been a bit...uptight to say the least. Oh, and apparently I smell like smoke all the time," Christian joked, hoping to stop sounding so melodramatic. "What about you? What's your ability?"
Antonia shied away when Christian asked her about her ability, to her it was nothing over the top like controlling smoke, and next to him, she felt quite powerless. She also found it quite hard to explain exactly how her ability worked, which was always the difficult thing whenever someone asked. "The general term for it is Adoptive Muscle Memory." she started, that was if Christian even understood what it means, "essentially I see someone do something, then I replicate it almost perfectly." She took a step back, "like this," and removed her shoes alongside Christians coat.
She ran forward, towards the edge of the water, but before she leapt in, she jumped into the air, spinning in mid-air before landing in the shallows. "Up until a week ago, I could never have done that, until I watched my cousin do it." She returned and put on her shoes as River and the others woke. She handed Christian back his jacket, despite her body being wracked by shivers for landing in the cold water.
Antonia returned just at Michael had woken, and River began walking of in a north-east direction, apparently towards somewhere safe, but after last night, Antonia began to think that perhaps nowhere was safe for them now. She waited for Christian to catch up to her before responding, "so, that is my ability, compared to yours, its not strong at all." she said, letting her head fall, "I don't even see why they need me."
"Don't doubt yourself. Your ability is quite impressive. I wish I could do that," Christian smiled, patting his stomach to imply he was too fat. It was a poor joke, uncharacteristic of himself but he felt the need to be supportive. He caught up to Antonia and threw his jacket back over her shoulders. "Keep it for now. You look cold," Christian said, refusing to take no for an answer. At this point, Christian was practically immune to changes in temperature. In fact, he had constantly felt a bit warm. He theorized it was an unintentional side effect of his power, being that his body had effectively become smoke. And smoke traditionally occurs where there is fire, which is warm. Made sense in a way.
"Where do you think River is bringing us?"
Antonia wasn't exactly sure where they were going, River had been scarce on details, the only thing she absolutely knew was that they were heading for the Atlantean Royal Family's headquarters. Apparently they were safe there. Apparently.
"From what I know, their headquarters, but where exactly that is, I have no clue." Antonia replied, she continued on, head down trudging through the grass. "It's not like I completely trust her," she said raising her head to look at the ever looming clouds in the sky, "she's a total stranger, she could easily be lying to us and we wouldn't even know it when we are hearing only her side of the story. Am I right? or am I just being paranoid?" she finished, looking back at Christian.
Christian met her glance and nodded in agreement: "I don't trust her at all to be honest. I want to but I find it difficult to trust anyone affiliated with any large organization, even less so when they are part of a government. And now that I think about it, River is becoming harder to trust. She is definitely hiding something. Now what exactly? I don't know, but I do have one possible explanation. It's a bit... ludicrous to be honest but humor me on this one," Christian said before pause. He brought his right arm to his chin, rubbing his stubble lightly to articulate his thoughts. His left arm remained idly across his chest, bracing himself for nothing. "We are finding ourselves involved in some secret struggle amongst several organizations that knew about the 'the Atlanteans' for some time. At most I would date this conflict about 100 years though. This assuming there is bad blood that could date back for generations. Though if it's political strife, it could be shorter. Gah, never mind. Anyway, the 'Royal Family' used the 'reveal' and registration 24 hours ago as a massive recruiting project to gather as many as possible to staff their organization for a major...project let's say. Could they be building an army? Or gathering 'support' for something much greater? I am not entirely sure. My gut says a war is brewing hence why she is bringing us to a base. What are bases used for traditionally? Training. My heart wants to believe there is a good intention behind all of this though. Now, one or more of the other organizations caught wind of this 'project' the family is planning and more than likely launched several attacks targeting high ranking members of the 'The Royal Family'. River, and subsequently us, happened to be victims of those attacks," he finished before placing his hands into his pockets. "She is telling us her story because it is what she wants us, her followers, to hear. Then again, I could be completely wrong. Blame my interest political theory and obsession with conspiracy theories for constructing this elaborate scenario. But...it makes sense if you think about it." Christian sighed a bit, kind of depressed as his own take on the whole ordeal.
Antonia found Christian's rant hard to take in at first, the amount of information he had told her was quite large, but the more he talked the more it seemed like things were beginning to fit into place like pieces of a puzzle. Antonia quickly shoved her hand into Christians palm as River looked back at them to make sure they were following. They had been walking for a while now, and Antonia began to get paranoid that River could hear their conversation and was leading them into a trap. She tried not to look River in the eyes, instead she cast her gaze down at their hands interlocked. Christian had quite big palms that almost swallowed her small hands.
Standing on her tip-toes, she leaned in close to Christian's ear, "You have a good point, we should talk about this later." she whispered in his ear before dropping back down. "So what is your favourite colour?" she asked a little louder, trying to sound like mindless chatter, but to also get to know Christian better.
The interlocked hands and whisper caused Christian to blush, a bit unintentionally. Never really thinking abou it, Christian did find Antonia attractive to say the least. She had a fairly athletic figure, with dark brown hair framing her a youthful face. The fact she was a head shorter only helped. Christian always had a thing for shorter girls. Most impressive was her brown eyes. Christian preferred green eyes in women. Hazel was ideal. But Antonio's eyes had a captivating allure to them that captured Christian's attention any time she glanced upon him. Just thinking about it caused him to become more flustered than normal, being embarrassingly noticeable.
"Favorite color! Right, right," Christian said aloud, his red face burning with nervous energy. "If I had to pick, I guess it would red. Something about the energy red has. Reminds me of fire. It's a powerful color. What about yours? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say...mhmm green?"
Antonia chuckled, Christian was far off from his guess on her favourite colour, but at least he had tried. "No, you're wrong. Guess again!" she challenged.
"Yellow?"
"Correct!" Antonia said quite loudly, bringing her hands to her mouth, she had said it a bit louder than she intended to. She laughed quietly, Antonia hadn't had this much fun since being picked up by River back in Florence. A piece of hair had blown in her face, and as she moved it, she took a glimpse up at Christian. There was something about this man, that made Antonia like being around him.