12325/Al's Chemists

Al's Chemists
Date of Scene:	06 August 2022
Location:	Hell's Kitchen
Synopsis:	Delores seeks out a source of magical energy and finds a graffiti artist named Hex. Delores observes her, then bounces.
Cast of Characters:	Valerie Killmore, Delores Klein

---

Valerie Killmore has posed:
Outside of Hell's Kitchen there's a lot of competition for graffiti, from the more prosperous gangs to the more power oriented ones. Hell's Kitchen has a lot of baddies, but they aren't your low level thugs, at least they aren't for long. They have competition from Heroes like the Defenders, The Punisher, and others. This means they tend to avoid calling themselves out so any graffiti in Hell's Kitchen is some rando person or a crazy weirdo.

In this case, the hot pink scratchy designed Cheshire cats, with weird rune symbols built into them, plus various other creatures including frogs with fangs, all seem done by the same hand. The paint itself is strange all on its own, resistant to flaking or losing color, it's all BRIGHT, and to those accustomed to alchemy they might notice something else. Maybe not enough without a lab, but anyone sensitive to magic may notice it just by getting close. These markings are interconnected, pulling on energies all around, grabbing at little small forgotten strands of magic, and sucking them in before sending them off somewhere.

To someone not sensitive to magic, the runes themselves are definitely magic based. But, what, in the WORLD?! Who puts a teleportation sigil next to a shield rune, with a mix of some other offensive and defensive runes, and none of them complete workings. Just, random, it seems. But it is 'doing' something, and not exploding - yet.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Even at the best of times, Delores would look out of place in Hell's Kitchen. She's dressed completely out of fashion, she's cheerful and clean, and she's wearing a skirt of all things! Even if not for all of that, occasionally, she ducks behind something and pulls a device from one of her skirt's pockets. The thing is made of a dark-bronze colored metal that an alchemist might recognize as the mythical orichalcum, an alloy of noble gold with impressive properties. Granted, modern tech does it better, but it's still an impressive, alchemical feat.
    The device is vaguely rod-like and has a globe about the size of a golf ball on the end, surrounded by arms of that orichalcum metal. It works vaguely like a semi-translucent plasma globe, only instead of fingers touching the surface, it glows in the direction of magical energies. Delores has been following it for miles, and now it's got glowing points all around. She pockets it again and looks around at the graffiti.

Valerie Killmore has posed:
At this particular venture, in an alley behind one of those 24 hour a day convenience stores that smell of spilled beer and hot dog sweat, can be heard some commotion. A tussle of something, a shout of, "This IS an exit, it just says Emergency!" As a door comes flying open from a quick kick.

Striding out of the convenience store with a spray paint can and a whole lot of attitude is a blue haired woman, the hair of which reaches near the ground despite being braided into two long pigtails. She looks more like she's just left a yoga class, but she has some metal and cog stylized goggles lifted up onto her head instead of over her eyes, for the time being, and on her thigh is a large barreled gun the size of a large pistol with similar chicken scratched on symbols as makes up the graffiti.

Swinging back, she sticks out her tongue with force, making a nnnyyyyyaaaah sound before she kicks the door to close it. Leaving behind a dent and some damaged wall, swinging back around on one foot she looks to the can, "Alright, good, they had you in stock. Time to doctor you up, and finish this... MASTER PIECE!" A few laugh-chuckles as she hasn't yet taken notice of Delores.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores watches the artist with some curiosity. She's got her share of things to be used if the lady turns out hostile, but for the time being, with a broad smile and a cheerful attitude, she approaches, hands in her floor-length skirt. "Hi!" she suggests with cheerful aplomb!

Valerie Killmore has posed:
Stopping in her tracks, Hex looks around, then looks up, then looks around again. She purses her lips together while her eyes squint, and then she steps quickly in Delores's direction, "Did you hear that? Someone said hi. Be mindful. Someone's on the prowl." She nods quickly, her eyes seem to indicate a level of seriousness, before she looks around. Then to the side of Delores to peek around her, and then back, "Unless. Are you hiding a gremlin under your skirt? Be careful, I know they SAY they're friendly, but whoooaaaa, do they play a mean hand of cards..." Her hand busily popping off the top of the spray paint can, and now working on the nozzle to carefully remove it without spraying anything out.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores's smile only briefly fades, and not quite all the way. When she's asked about a gremlin under her skirt, she watches the girl and says, "Almost." She looks over the artwork for a moment. "You're clearly not working with your own alchemical paints," she says. "It's impressive you've managed to achieve so much with off the shelf stuff." She looks back toward the girl. "With the psychometry of that synthetic garbage, it's a wonder you're able to do anything at all with it."

Valerie Killmore has posed:
"Ah HAH! You lose!" Hex shouts out at the can as she frees the nozzle, then she's pulling out a small paint pen from the waist line of her pants. With that she is shaking it up, and starting to work on getting the top of that off. "Huh? No no no. You got it all wrong sister. The regular paint helps to balance out the draw. I usually mix this at home, but no spare tires, chicken bones and lost puppies to mix together for the batch. Just this moment. And besides, the microwave in that place." She thumbs over her shoulder to the convenience store, "Has been broken for weeks." And she's staying focused on her work, getting just the end of her paint pen popped off and starting to try and affix it to the top of the pressurized can.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores nods. "Of course," she says, the grin on her face one of pure amusement. "Oh, but I wish I could have found you before the paint fumes did," she says. She lifts her skirt and a flash of light hits Valerie from behind right before Delores drops her skirt back down. It doesn't hurt, or at least it shouldn't. It wouldn't hurt a normal human. This doesn't seem like a normal human, though.

Valerie Killmore has posed:
"Paint fumes?" There's a light from behind that happens, but she doesn't notice as she's gripping the can and the pen, forcing them together. With that done she holds them up to Delores, "Here, hold these." And Hex is pushing them in the skirted woman's direction. It's not something that she can force someone to do, of course, but she is pushing them out in a way that indicates she's expecting her to, and probably hold them together like they are.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores pulls her hands out of her pockets wearing gloves. Okay, those weren't there before. She grips the can and pen as they are in the air, holding them at arm's length, but making sure they're not pointed at her.

Valerie Killmore has posed:
With that, Hex let goes of the can and then pen, trusting this stranger to hold them together, and she puts a finger in her mouth, chewing on a nail. Part of one side, then another, till her nail is a jagged triangle, then she sets about going to work. The goggles on her head get pulled over her eyes and she steps up closer, holding onto the can for stabilizing it and starts to scratch into it some symbols, "Hold on tight. There's gonna be some pressure."

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores has surprising amounts of strength for someone of her size. She grips the items in her care firmly, but without much danger of squishing them.

Valerie Killmore has posed:
With Delores holding the can and pen together, as the scratching into the can's outer layer continues, the pressure of the two objects wanting to jettison away from each other grows. Any human scale strength would be stressed pretty heavily, but superhuman strength can manage without failure. It takes a few more symbols being etched in by her jagged nail when finally there's a little rumble and the pressure ends.

"Waste of a good pen, but needed a bit more to finish up this work." Standing back upright Hex raises the goggles, holds out her hands to take back her paint, and asks, "So, were you coming down here to get robbed, murdered? Maybe both?"

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores's smile finally fades when she's asked if she came to get murdered. "Oh my," she says. "If you're threatening me, that's not a great way to go about it." She narrows her gaze. "And here I thought we might learn from each other."

Valerie Killmore has posed:
There's a shake of her head, Hex mentions as she holds up the can and starts shaking it. "I wouldn't threaten you, I'd just do it. I was just meaning, look at you. Dressed all up like you are better than the rest of us? Cause ooooh, look at me, I can buy clothes." Hex rolls her eyes and shakes her head, "It's gonna get you killed toots. In a place like this, where the mornings are always smoggy, and the air is oh so ... coughing fit making." She takes in a breath before heading over to the wall with her graffiti on it, "What was it you wanted to learn from me? Or, thought you could teach me?"

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores narrows her gaze and tightens her lips slightly at the girl before her. "How dreadfully lucid of you," she says. She slides her hands back into the pockets of her skirt and pulls out two things. One is a perfume bottle with a little hose leading to a pump bulb. She opens her mouth and squirts some therein. Her veins bulge slightly as she pushes it back into its place. She smiles broadly, her dimples forming again. "You seem quite capable on your own," she says. She tosses up the other thing she'd pulled from her pocket, a glass phial about the size of her little finger. As it tumbles through the air on its way up, she continues, "And clearly I don't have the basics of any skill you could possibly teach me." The phial begins its long journey downward as Delores's muscles all seem to flex at once.

Valerie Killmore has posed:
Turning her head, Hex looks over as the second vial is sort of broken and there's some sounds of flexing. A purple and blue nailed hand reaches up to blue hair and scratches, Hex looking a little perplexed as she watches the woman tense up and flex somewhat all at once. "Huh." Then she looks down to her thigh, "Did you see those muscles? I sure didn't see those muscles." And then she looks back up, squinting at the other woman. With a slow motion, Hex settles her paint can on the ground and then her goggles, turning she tilts her head, "Most of the time when people go flexing and being all rude spewing mouth lip moving at me, they're about to start a fight. Pick on the freak, the one with the blue hair, the skinny bitch, is that it? Or, are you just trying to show you can crush cans against your head?"

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores won't be baited so easily. "Have a nice day, sweetheart," she says just before the small phial smashes against the ground. Shards of glass are instantly vaporized by small explosion that goes *CRACK*! The bluster is combined with an intense amount of smoke. It's not smoke from the little bomb itself, but rather something gooey or liquid explodes with the initial burst that spreads out like the glass before quickly combining with the air and turning to smoke at that point. It lingers for several seconds, thick as pea soup. When it starts to clear, Delores is nowhere to be seen.