Mischief and Mayhem

Dolores was super excited for today. She had talked Ray into letting her tag along for one of his "adventures". Since it was her first time going out, he said it would be best if they went someplace with fewer police around, so they settled on Jadetown; not the safest place they could be going, sure, but far from the most dangerous. She told her parents that she was going out to study with a friend (not a complete lie), and brought a bandanna for her face and some safety glasses from her dad's workshop as Ray suggested, as well as her pills, a switchblade (no such thing as too safe in East Diamond), and a waterbottle, all put in her backpack. She sat on a bench beneath a lightpost on the street where they agreed to meet. She was casually tapping her foot to some old song she could hear from one of the stores, a relaxed smile on her face. When Ray arrived, he would see that she was neither as nervous as she was when she first met him, nor as dreamy and loopy as after she took her meds.

Ray walked over with his backpack of materials. Ready to etch a forest landscape, he carried many shades of green, brown, and blue. He would be ready for this to be a good piece of work tonight. This location was going to be nice. Ray had scouted it out a few times, and it didn't seem like a lot went down in this area. "I see you decided to show up" he teased as he walked up. "Ready to get going?"

Dolores laughed at his teasing. "Of course I did! I want to see how you do this." She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and nodded. "Yeah, totally. Let's get going." She quickened her pace to keep up with him, a distinct spring in her step. Instinctively she pulled up her hoodie; as much as she knew there wasn't any real threat, East Diamond always put her just slightly on edge, so she felt being a little extra careful couldn't hurt.

Leading her down a few paths, Ray continued to head toward his designated "mark" tonight. Coming to the blank wall, Ray decided to really show this technique off to Dolores. "First lesson, location" he began to explain. "This spot is large, wide, and smooth. Because of its format, I know this location will be good for the spray paint to adhere to" he begins. "Starting with this, I'll be doing a background simple. Since I'm starting with a skyline, we'll begin higher up with the light blue"

Dolores nodded, her eyes scanning up and down the wall, trying to see at as he did. She struggled to, mostly because she wasn't ever that "artistically inclined", but she did see it looked good for painting on. She quickly put on the bandanna and safety glasses over her normal glasses as he said he was going to start higher up. "Makes sense to me." She said, her voice somewhat muffled from the fabric.

Having his own safety equipment on now, Ray just began to get to work. First, he created a blue rectangle that roughly would be the size of the mural once he was done. Filling up more of the top, he created a good skyline for most of the background. Smiling, Ray pulled back and just began to look it over. "Now I have to wait for it to dry, else the colors would start to blend in together. So honestly, we can't do much else tonight"

Dolores's shoulders went down slightly as he said that. "Well that's... Kinda disappointing. I guess it makes sense, though." She stepped back and adjusted the bag on her shoulder and turned to look at the alley's entrance.
"Oi! What're you kids doing here?" Someone called to them. It was a young man, but he certainly didn't seem much like a cop. He was in baggy pants and a hoodie, had a hostile look in his eyes, and a baseball bat slung over his shoulder. "This is our territory, what're you doin' tagging it?!" The man began walking towards them briskly, holding his bat aggressively.
Dolores froze. Ooooh, fuck...

Ray froze for a moment, hearing the voice of someone calling out to them. Slowly turning his head, he saw the guy with the baseball bat approaching. Shit, at least it was just a bat but still...this didn't look super good. He breathed out slowly before turning fully to the guy. "Listen now....we are not tagging your area. It's just a picture, no hangs or any sort of organization behind it" he explained. "We don't want any trouble, I swear"

The man scoffed at him. "Yeah, sure. Genuine artist, totally believe you." He raised his bat and immediately swung at Ray's shoulder.
Dolores let out a panicked sound as the bat connected with Ray, likely knocking him back several feet if not completely knocking him over. She rushed the man, driving her shoulder into his chest, driving him back a few feet. The man let out a grunt as he staggered, and Dolores turned around to Ray for a moment. "Do your thing, I'll hold him off so you can!" As she turned back, the man had already started another swing, the bat connecting firmly with the side of her head, the force of it sending her staggering into the brick wall. "I'll be fine!" She shouted as she charged at the man again, her voice strained from panic and the blows.

Ray dropped to his knee, letting out a pained yell as he fell. A bat with any force behind it would be really painful. Looking over, Ray saw that Dolores was now fighting the guy. He didn't feel good about leaning her to do the fighting, but he had a plan now. Pulling out his spray cans, he started to create the glyph that would slow anyone that touched it down. Pushing himself up, he looked over to see how Dolores was doing.

Dolores ducked beneath another swing from the man, then rushed forward and grabbed him by the wrist. He tried to pull back, but she managed to keep ahold of him. After about four seconds, the man let out a loud cry of surprise and pain as he felt the side of his head explode with the pain Dolores was transferring into him. It was only half as much as she was experiencing, but it was more the surprise than anything. He leaned back and hauled forward with a meaty fist, sending Dolores sprawling on the ground. She landed on her stomach, facing Ray. She rolled onto her back quickly and raised her foot, kicking the man in the knee as he ran towards her. He let out a shout and staggered back again. Dolores scrambled to her feet and started running towards Ray. "I hope you're ready, I'm done with his shit!"

"Come on!" Ray called out. As the man ran in with his bat, Ray lifted up his spray cans and fired a steam of paint into the mans eyes. "Let's go!" Ray called out as he turned around. Leaping over the glyph, Dolores would have plenty of warning and information about where it was. Ray glanced back, making sure that she was following at this point.

Dolores nodded and leaped over the rune. The man let out a loud scream as the paint hit his eyes, but he managed to keep one of them from getting too sprayed up, so he managed to follow them for a short time, but as soon as he hit the glyph, he slowed to a near complete stop. As Dolores followed Ray through the back roads, they could still hear the man yelling for them in rage and pain. After a few minutes, she slowed down and tugged on Ray's shirt, signaling him to do the same. "Nice job back there. Nice touch with the spray can!"

Perfect, the paint in the eyes managed to slow the guy down. Ray hated using such material for something like this, but it was better than the alternative. He looked over to Dolores and was just breathing heavily, not being much of an athlete himself. "Huh....huh, yeah...you too" he said between his heavy breaths. "That was incredible, you just charged right at that guy. Weren't you scared?"

Dolores nodded, a nervous smile on her face. "Oh, hell yeah. Of course I was. But the way I see it, I can't outrun many people, especially someone like him, but he really can't hurt me." She let out a nervous laugh and took a breath. "What about you? You doing okay?"

"Bit of a headache and I'm gonna have one hell of a bruise, but I'll be fine" Ray says as he just wags his arm back and forth to try and shake off sone of the pain. It wasn't working so well, but at least it was something. "We should get out of this area. That guy will probably tell his friends about us. Shame...it was such a good spot"

Dolores looked at his shoulder and frowned. "He got you pretty good back there, didn't he?" She asked, the phrase seeming somewhat ironic coming from her as a small amount of blood was visible on the side of her face where she was hit by the bat. She tentatively stepped towards him. "I can't heal any damage, but I can help with pain at least. It's my fault you're out here instead of someplace less violent, anyways."

Ray glanced over as he realized what she was offering. "Hey I don't take hits well but I'll feel better by morning...I think" Ray said that last part to himself. "Honestly, you shouldn't do that. He got you worse than he got me. I can take this just fine"

Dolores raised an eyebrow and gave him an incredulous look. "Ray, c'mon. He may have gotten me worse, but I gave that pain back to him; I'm totally fine. Right now, you're the only one of us in any pain, and, at the risk of sounding rude, I'd be willing to bet I'm better at handling it. I've had more experience at least. And besides;" She reached into the side pocket of her backpack and pulled out her bottle of oxy. "If I can't handle it, I've got these." She offered him a smile and shrugged. "Nothing to worry about."

Well, Dolores knew how this worked better than Ray did. If she insisted that she was fine, he believed her. "Very well, but only take what you're comfortable sigh. You know how your ability works" he says. As Dolores started, Ray began to think. "I think I'm gonna start working on my power more seriously. Maybe I'll create glyphs that earn me if someone passes it. Or, maybe a healing one...or an explosive one...I don't know. I bet it could be pretty versatile if I keep working on it"

Dolores nodded. "Of course." She gently took his hand into hers, closed her eyes, and started to use her power. After a few seconds, Ray would feel the pain leaving his shoulder and see the side of one of her eyes twitching as she took the pain into herself. For a moment, she held her breath she was so tense. After a few more seconds of this, she finally gasped for air and released his hand; the pain was fully gone from Ray's shoulder, and his headache was all but gone. Before Ray had a chance to speak, Dolores was fumbling with the cap on the pill bottle. She quickly downed one pill, put the cap back on, and sighed. "Yeeeaaah, he got you pretty fucking good back there." She laughed nervously, rubbing her shoulder as she adjusted to the pain.

Ray just gave a nervous chuckle as Dolores said that. He still felt bad that she did that for him, but he did feel infinitely better because of her power. "Your ability is so fascinating. Out of curiosity, what's the most you can take?" He asked as they walked further away. "I mean, you can't take away the pain of an amputation in guessing?"

Dolores shrugged with her non-hurting shoulder. "Not too sure. I do seem to have a higher pain tolerance than most people, but the thing is, whenever I take pain in, it's doubled, so it all kinda balances out. So I can probably take however much pain a normal person can take. Theoretically I could take the pain from an amputation, but that person's pain would start up again if someone pressed on it. And then both of us are sitting there with really nasty shoulder pain." She sighed and leaned against a wall. "Found that out pretty early on. I don't make it impossible for a wound to hurt, just take away what they're currently feeling."

Ray nodded, thinking that he understood the explanation well enough. Smiling, he stopped as Dolores stopped and seemed to want to rest against a wall for the time being. "Well, it's a pretty cool power if you ask me. I don't think this makes you a sadist in the slightest"

She grinned and nodded. "Thanks. Really, it means a lot hearing someone say that." She opened her eyes and stepped away from the wall. "I think I'm gonna take a rain check on lesson two of mural-making." A light laugh escaped her and she continued walking home. "I did have fun, though. Weird as it is to say."