strangetrip | [GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

It was arrival day, and therefore it was possible that there would be new inmates arriving at any time. Someone else might have delayed this until some other day, but for Loki the prospect of new people was simply a bonus. New arrivals tended to be confused and upset already, any consideration from him was unlikely to change that, so he didn't plan on displaying any. He'd already raided empty rooms and moved much of their furniture into the hallways, that was enough general consideration for one day.

Instead, he took a seat on the front desk (ignoring Darryl, who also ignored him) and wove a spell that would let him be heard by everyone in the Inn. "Good morning, fellow residents. It's been a quiet few weeks, hasn't it?" All the weeks, barring undead invasion, tended to be quiet here. It wasn't exactly maddening, but Loki had spent two months being quiet and exceptionally well-behaved, for him.

"To break the monotony, I give to all of you a rousing game of The Floor Is Lava. For those of you who may not know it, it's a descriptive name. When I call time, the floor will become lava. If you touch it, you will die. Metaphorically, at least, so take this seriously." Those who sincerely wished not to play would have no difficulty; the lava was an illusion, and any 'reality' to it depended on belief or buy-in. For those who sincerely didn't want to play, the floor would simply look odd. This was fun mischief, not viciousness. "Also, because I know some people need encouragement in order to engage with fun, the spell creating the lava has been broken and invested into several individual runes and hidden around the Inn, discoverable only by those playing the game. The lava ends when all of those runes are disrupted - you win - or when no one is left alive to disrupt them and I win." That was only sensible. There was no reason to continue playing a game when no one else was playing it.

"Furniture only, staircase railings are fine. No books, no bags, no cloth, the dead can't speak but if they wish to continue playing they may come back as a lava monster under my dominion." Even in games, there were fates worse than death. "Lava monsters may do as they please, including trying to pull the 'living' into the lava. Should there be a clear non-me winner somehow, I'll owe that person a favor of their choice, at some point in the future."

Did that cover everything? It seemed like it, but he could always make another announcement if he had to. "The floor becomes lava in ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two...." He spaced out the countdown enough to make sure that everyone who wanted to scramble for furniture high ground was easily able to do so.

"...One." Loki released the spell and the floors everywhere in the Inn (for those who believed it or at least bought in to the game) turned to churning hot lava.

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Tandy. Peter commits the name to memory.

"What's Tandy like?" he asks. Peter wonders if their clashes were anything like the ones he and Mr. Stark had. Have. They still have them sometimes, even though it's a lot less frequent than it used to be.

He laughed.

"Tandy?" He replied. "She, uh... well, she's stubborn and driven, but really smart.... probably too cynical for her own good."

He looked at Peter and sobered.

"She didn't exactly have a great life." He said. "So it kind of took her toll on the way she looks at the world."

Not that I'm one to talk.

Peter nods. He kinda gets that.

"What about you?" he asks. "What's life like for you?" Peter can't help but be curious. Ty's about his age, and he's the only superpowered person he's known that is.

Tyrone didn't think a white boy would understand a lot of his life, but he didn't say so. He shrugged like a typical teenager at such a question.

"Up until a month ago... it was sort of normal." he said. "I was on the basketball team, got good grades, you know. Then when this weird stuff happening, things sort of got... complicated. I haven't told my folks yet, but right now they have bigger problems. I was framed for the murder of this cop. He was a good cop, too. Tried to uncover corruption in the force and ended up dead himself."

Tyrone blamed himself, but he didn't think Peter wanted to hear that particular sob story.

Peter listens quietly as Tyrone talks. It's not until he's done that Peter opens his mouth to speak.

"How'd you get framed?" Peter asks. Then: "Do people still think you killed him?"

Tyrone visibly hesitated. Then he looked around where they were and noticed they were alone. He considered the answer for a few more minutes while he stood there and stared upwards.

"There's this cop back home... when I was younger, he killed my older brother Billy." he replied. "He set it up like he didn't do it, even though I saw it and I was there. I didn't know who the police officer was, so I couldn't pin it on anyone. it was a big cover up."

He paused and took a deep breath. Even talking about it now it angered him.

"Fast forward to a month ago and I run into this guy again. It's the same cop and he's dealing drugs on the side. The good cop? He helped me get a confession out of him. Got Connors to admit to killing my brother." he said. "And I guess Connors knows a lot of people."

"That's..."

How do you even describe something like that.

"...really messed up," he finishes, because it is. "Were you able to stop him?"

"Connors?" He replied. "...Yeah, sort of. I don't actually know what happen, if I'm honest. Tandy and I were trying to stop all the crazy angry zombie-like people and he showed up with a gun. In the end, the darkness that helps me teleport, it sort of just... I don't know. Ate him, or something. I wasn't even controlling it. I have no idea where he went or what."

"That's... also really weird," Peter says. But that reminds him of a question he meant to ask earlier:

"Do you and Tandy have superhero names?"

"Names?" He said. "Uh... I don't think so. But... we're not really superheroes either, I guess. I mean, yeah, we stopped that one thing, one time, but only because we had to. We're not..."

Tyrone thought of some of the things that Tandy had done with her powers. He knew those were not things superheroes did. He also knew he had done some things as well that were very superhero-like.

"Not sure we should be lumped in with people like you or Iron Man," He said truthfully. "You guys are the real deal."

"Because you don't have a costume or a name?" Peter asks, perplexed, because this can be the only reason why Tyrone wouldn't consider himself one. "If you're trying to good, that makes you a superhero."

Name and costume or no name and costume.

"I don't know... I mean, yeah, we stopped the bad thing from happening because it was the right thing to do," He replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "But, I mean... for the most part I've been using it to try and get justice for my brother, you know? And I phrase it like that cause it sounds nice, but other people would probably call it revenge. I don't know if revenge is a very superhero quality."

"Well, they are called the Avengers," Peter points out.

He looked to Peter.

"I guess you have a point," He admitted, lowering his hand. "I guess I just never thought of myself like that, if that makes sense. I'm just sort of... doing my own thing."

"Did you want to not do your own thing sometime?" he asks. "I mean... do you want to be an Avenger?"

"No, I don't think so." He said, then paused. "Not that I don't think what they do isn't amazing or whatever, but... there's a lot of people here in New Orleans that need help and stuff, you know? It's great that we have people keeping the whole planet safe, but if life is still really shitty for people, then what's the point of saving it, you know?"

"That's almost exactly what I said about Queens," Peter says. "I just want to keep Queens safe for now. They're so much going on and they just need a neighborhood friendly Spider-Man."

Sure, he was no Avenger -- not yet -- but he was still doing some good, even if it was little time.

"Someday, the Avengers are going to get too old to keep protecting Earth," Peter says. "And I'm not going to just have to protect Queens anymore. I want to make sure that I'm ready for that, and from what I've heard, I'm going to start doing that soon."

Tyrone never thought about the future.

"Wow.." He said, looking to Peter. "You've really thought a lot about this, huh?"

He looked impressed.

"Yeah," Peter says, running a hand through his hair. Suddenly, he's feeling a little self-conscious. "I mean, most of them are getting old now. They don't have families of their own. I'm sure some of them want to, too, but maybe they don't think Earth would be safe without them."

Peter's not really sure.

"I think being a superhero is sort of like being a police officer, firefighter, and airplane pilot all at once." Tyrone said. "It's dangerous and it means sometimes you're gone for long periods, you know?"

He shrugged.

"I mean, I wouldn't sit around if sometimes was happening and I could help, I guess," He continued. "But I only just got my powers like, a month ago. I don't think I'd be much help to anyone right now."

"That's what I thought when I first started," Peter says. "But I was still able to make a difference, even though it was really small."

"I guess I just got to work my way up the ranks then, huh?" He said, smiling somewhat.

Tyrone wasn't convinced he'd be good at being a superhero. He was too angry right now at the world, but he didn't want to disappoint Spider-Man. Tandy would have probably flat out laughed at the idea...

Peter nods. "Yeah, it just takes time. If you call me when you get back, maybe we can help each other out."

From afar, of course. Peter didn't really have the money to go far from home.

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[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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