Act I - Tea Shop Protection

It was a good day, Gage had just finished a rather intensive job out in Markuzi town in China and he was still going through the massive amount of money that he had gotten paid. Such a large sum would have normally been enough for some one to retire on but Gage had different plans, he was so used to living like he was in poverty that he had a bit of a tendency to splurge every chance he gets when the cash hits his hands. The first thing he did that morning was reset the breaker in his house, the storm from the night before causing his AC and other electronics to fail on him. Resetting the breaker was simple enough, basically like a light switch had popped off, just needing to be flipped back up.

Heading downstairs he throws on the shirt that he had taken off at the base of the stairs, still hanging on the base of the hand rail. Tucking the blue button up into his pants he heads straight into his shop so that he can finish the work on the last of his jobs for the week. While working as a mechanic was technically his 'primary' form of income this was most definitely his second job. It was actually a little sad as he had put so much time and energy into getting this shop into a self sustaining point. Picking up the alternator that he has in pieces on his work table he taps the table with his free hand flooding all the small parts with Soul Communication energy so that they float up and reassemble the part on their own.

Almost literately tossing the alternator at the bike it came off it catches itself mid air and floats to its appropriate spot and bolts itself together so that it is all set to go back out. "Test drive time." This was most definitely his favorite part of the job, getting to test drive the high end bikes that come in from all over the city. Hopping on he hits the button to start the engine but it just turns over, the battery still dead so it does not have enough juice to jump-start itself. Tapping the engine with his hand he floods the block with enough energy to charge the battery and start the engine with a roar.

Snapping his finger at the garage door it slides itself open, Gage roaring out of the garage before the door was even half open. Reaching into his breast pocket on his shirt he pulls out his necklace, slipping it on and laying into the throttle on his way to a small Tea shop that he frequents nearby. Breaking nearly every law on the way there Gage ignores all signs of people, traffic and pedestrians, not worried about being spotted due to the necklace of his own creation. Pulling into a screeching halt Gage takes off his necklace when he gets to the shop, leaving the bike running and pops the kickstand before paying the meter.

Adrenaline settling down in his system he heads into the tea shop, walking in on a rather odd sight, stopping short when he spots a rather large man standing over a young man on the ground that was rubbing his head. Eyes opening wide in a bit of surprise he wonders what he had just walked in on and watches to see what happens next. Maybe he had walked in on the kid falling down and the man was about to help him up. For the mans sake lets hope that's the case.

What was possibly an accident went from a small incident to an assault rather quickly. The bald man standing over the young man plants his foot into his face violently, starting what was to be a beating for the news. Surprisingly however the man responded, grabbing the foot and twisting so hard that the man would most definitely have a sprained ankle at the least. The mans accomplice, bald as he was white, leaps over the counter in a bit of a sprawling manner and puts an unimpressive knife up against the neck of the woman behind the bar. This had gone from a quick tea stop to a flat out hostage situation in just five seconds, a pair of muggers getting their times worth in the shop.

That's quite enough. Walking forward to the counter Gage is spotted by the man holder the woman,"GET BACK! I'LL SLIT HER FUCKIN' THROAT I SWEAR!" That was all the time that he needed though, a small green arc of electricity leaps from Gages hand to the knife, pulling the blade and arm towards Gage and away from the womans neck. The man, his grip more than sturdy did not slip but that was not a problem. Reaching out and grabbing the wrist of the man he yanks, a mixture of Soul Communication energy on the mans shirt shoving him down and Gage pulling so that he head cracks rather satisfyingly against the counter top hard enough to disorient him.

Pulling the limp body he drags the man over the counter and uses the momentum to fling the body into a table a few feet away breaking a chair and knocking over the whole set. "Well now, no one likes a bully." Walking forward Gage literally football punts the man in the face just as he struggles to his knees, enough force being sent through his body to flip him onto his back unconscious with what must have been a fractured face. Looking over to the other two Gage watches expectantly. "Well you two were in the middle of something, don't mind me." Gage was not one to step into another mans fight, where he was from it was a sign of disrespect and belief that they could not handle themselves. "Carry on." Walking over to the counter top Gage leans over and watches the events unfold. It would be a good day after all, as long as this kid does not get himself hurt that is. How ironic would it be if it was the kid that started this whole thing.

"Ha, well it does take a bit of practice. The biggest thing keeping people from being out right dangerous is that they tend to hesitate. Normal people would just watch, 'is it okay now? How about now? Now?'. That's what gets you killed in a fight, or at the very least uppercut into unconsciousness. Yeah its about time that you got out of here, police are coming and are going to have some questions. Me personally, I don't like having to deal with the cops," Gage reaches back into his breast pocket and slips on his necklace again, pleased with the security that it provides him. Even if the cops did manage to walk up and want to know something the 'Medallion of the Hunter' would provide him with the appropriate shroud of disillusion to just ride away unnoticed.

"Well I am always looking for someone to tango with if your ever interested." Gage pulls out his business card from his wallet. He always manages to keep a few on hand even though he seems to never really need them. It was more to justify in his mind the extravagant amount of money he had spent on getting professional cards made up. Popping his kickstand up Gage straddles the bike, flipping the ignition and letting the engine roar to life, the RPM's peaking before settling down to an idle. "Seriously though, hit me up. Not enough good people in this town to not try and hang out some time." With that Gage lays into the throttle, the rear wheel screeching, sending the rear end around so that he is now facing the road. Letting off the brakes Gage pops a small but continuous wheelie, actually steering the bike down the road as only its rear wheel touches the ground. The card that he handed to the man holds his phone number, address and email so that if he does decide to get in touch there will at least be one way to do it.

The rest of Gages day passed mildly quickly, the tea shop incident being enough to set the peak of interest for his afternoon. He however did happen to get some work in though, a package coming by fed-ex, too big to be delivered by hand so the truck had to drop it off on a pallet. By the time he arrived back at the shop the truck had already finished unloading and the driver was just standing out side his office door with clip board in hand. Pulling to a stop in front of his garage door he dismounts, dropping his kickstand and parking the bike. "Sorry bout that, I had to run and get some breakfast."

The driver seemed un-phased, shrugging when he gets his paperwork signed that the package was delivered. "Not a big deal, I was only waiting about fifteen minuets." With that the rather rude man just turns and walks away, not a word else, and just climbs back into his truck pulling off. Jerk...So what did I get? Walking over Gage tears a small hole in the side of the waterproofed wrapping, looking into it from as many different angles as he can seeing nothing but forearm sized blocks of metal, wood, what looks like copper and finally a rather large box of wood, sealed shut with metal bands. "Oh cool, my Boracite is in." Walking back over to his garage door he pulls it open, shuffling some things around inside to make room for his package.

Walking back to the package he is not worried about any passerby's spotting him using soul communication because his whole little parking lot is surrounded by a six foot privacy fence made of concrete. It was actually one of the main reasons that he had chosen this lot for his own property. Moving it all in with some supernatual assistance he begins to unpack, setting the ingots of steel on shelves beside the ingots of copper. Below that he has all the wood stacked in blocks, in total everything taking up much of his storage space but for good reason. Soon, not today but soon he would be working a full fledged forge in here.

Taking a bar of steel Gage flips it over in his hand, looking it over from top to bottom, checking it for visible flaws but machined metal generally does not have visible flaws to the bare eyes. Touching the bar in the center he fills it with his own Spiritual energy, pulling on the soul and getting what information that he can from the bar. Pulling on the soul he communicates with the metal, concentrating as best he can in the silence of his shop, the sun shines in through the window heating his body from the legs down. This particular peice of metal had apparently spent the most...significant portion of its life in some thing hot, a volcano? Some super heated vent of some kind.

Setting the metal aside he is about to start manipulating the metal when the sound of shattering glass sends him jumping into the air. Spinning about Gage is face to face with what looked like another brawl, two times in twenty four hours, the first one being at the tea shop. Oh is that the guy from the tea shop? What was his name?...Did he even tell me it? Taking a step forward he can feel just from the reiatsu in the air that the two of them were not something that he needed to worry about, the energy levels being on par with a new hollow.

Gage watches for a moment to see how Justin, the unnamed man, handles himself against another aggressor. Wanting to know how he would handle himself in a tough situation he looks out the glass window and keeps himself at the ready to intervene, the off chance that Justin who had handled himself so well yesterday did manage to find himself in over his head.

Gage watched as an all out brawl began, the man from yesterday was being run down, rather roughly, by some stranger with a night stick. A woman, to scared to react like a reasonable human being stares in awe for a moment before she is shooed off. The beating continues, the assailant getting the upper hand against the young man. Landing one solid blow against the young mans arm, taking advantage of his distraction due to the woman, he burns through his jacket and sears the flesh underneath. Apparently this man had more than the muscle to get a job done. Justin, distracted by the pain in his arm, is blown backwards by a solid boot to the chest. His back slamming into a brick wall makes Gage wince from the impact, he hasn't felt that kind of blow in a while, the sound of a body striking a hard surface bringing back old memories of fighting out in the wild with hollows.

A short bit of banter that escapes Gages ears and an impressive flip of the assailants leg to pin Justin to the hood of the car makes him smile with amusement. Perhaps this man would be able to play a game of one two's after all but this man would have to go before he breaks his new acquaintance. Hopping through his blown out window Gage starts on his way over just in time to see Justin break the hold on his neck with a well place blow to the mans gut. Shoving the man backward he gets a bit of distance,"Hey there. You doing alright?" Gage steps over and puts himself in between Justin and the man of fire. "You looked like you were having some trouble there for a second." Gage turns to the man and looks him over once, he was not much up close. His face was worn from years of stress and his ability was under developed, it could be so much more with the right training but he obviously lacked the appropriate morals to work hard for the sake of hard work other wise he wouldn't be out here mugging people.

"This fight hardly seems fair. You got...what is that...a night stick? Yeah that's going to have to go." Gage steps in and reaches forward towards the man, his stance wide and appearing open to anyone that knew something about fighting but it was a ploy. Blocking Gages right hand with his fore arm the mans right hand with the night stick fly's up to meet the side of Gages head but Gage's left hand was there to meet his wrist, catching the mans fore arm in his iron grip. Twisting the mans wrist Gage does not put enough pressure to break anything but it places the mans wrist at such an odd angle he must let go of the nightstick. Reacting with his left hand he throws a short punch at Gages face but he was still just a man, slightly more impressive but just a man.

Gage catches his other wrist with his free hand now holding both of the mans arms. Flooding the air around the mans left forearm Gage hits it with the force of a blow torch [Tier II Fire Soul Communication] burning through the clothing and burning the man with what Gage felt was a similar intensity to the night stick attack earlier. A screech of pain escapes the man, his flesh singing under the energy of Gages Soul communication burning into a blister. Throwing his head forward into an ugly attempt at a headbutt Gage grins and meets it, their noggins cracking together with what must have been a sickening sound. No matter how strong the man must have been if he was out on the streets as an enforcer then he was just not ready for Gages thick skull. He could quite literally hammer nails with his own head. The man staggers back, dizzy from his own attack and bleeding from his forehead. "Awe, dammit. I was just trying to get him down to where you were. My bad. I don't like interfering but he had a night stick and was totally taking advantage of it. Well either way I think that you two are about par now so the wrest of this is yours." Gage walks over to the night stick which and rolled away a bit and picks it up, looking it over to see if it was anything special.

Gage grins at Justin, now stepping away to get a better look at the fight. If the stranger had not used the woman as a distraction to blind side the other Fullbringer then he would have not stepped in but he had a hard time swallowing those kind of fighting tactics. Nodding his acknowledgment he sits back to watch the show unfold, the now even fighters about to go head to head. Absorbing a side kick to his stomach Justin wraps up, grabbing a hand full of shirt and uses the top to pull the man in closer and do a rotating shoulder throw straight down into the ground cracking the pavement under the blow of the mans back on the ground.

Wincing Gage actually flinches as he hears the center of the mans back slap into the ground, imagining the feeling of having all the wind knocked out of himself. "Maybe I set him up a bit too much..." Then spinning Justin flings the man, full body, into the car so that the windshield shatters behind him and the roof crumples under the blow letting the limp body wind up in the back seat. Gage, impressed with the sudden turn of events, feels as if maybe he didn't actually need to step in and help out the way he did. This was the exact reason that he never does it in the first place.

Feeling a bit silly he responds to Justin,"Nah, not special. More of us out there than you would imagine. Just more experienced than most. Your stronger than I thought you were yesterday. I didn't think you would be able to..."Gage gestures to all the damage in the area,"well to do all of this." Walking around to the back of the car Gage opens the driver side door of the back seat and grabs the ankle of the man, dragging him body and all out, letting his head hit the frame of the door before bouncing off the ground. Closing the door Gage kicks the tire of the car, sending a spark of green energy into the vehicle, spreading like he had just supercharged it all.

Popping out the hood reforms itself and the glass in the drivers seat and passengers floats up, melding back together so that the car is whole once more. "Well that will get her back of the road at least. So what brings you by?"

Gage, used to his ability for Soul Communication was not really paying attention to Justin when he was surprised to see the car repair itself. As such he was caught off guard by Justin's outburst, exclaiming about how he could do nothing close nor knew how. "Well its more of a practice thing. All Fullbringers are able to do it to some extent, some more than others. Its kind of like a muscle so you have to exercise it to get it to grow." Stepping away Gage grabs the man by the back of the collar and starts dragging him to his shop, throwing him through the blown out window to land limply on the ground.

Gage was surprised to see Justin get embarrassed by the conversation, perhaps he was feeling his own insignificance in the whole scheme of things, to be at that level of power meant that every other person that you meet is someone that is four time your strength and five times as dangerous. "A job huh? Well I can use a bit of help around the shop and if you are as good a worker as you are determined a fighter then we might be able to make these things work."

"Come on in, we can discuss the terms of your surrender," Gage didn't mean anything by it offensively, it was just a saying from back home and if Justin was paying attention he would be able to hear the sarcasm in his voice. Inside Gage cleans up and rebuilds the window in the same manner as the car, even rehanging the blinds so that the sun gets locked out. Snapping his fingers one more time he sends out a gust of air, strong enough to rustle papers but this air was just above freezing, speeding up the process of getting the room back down to AC temperatures. "How bad do your ribs feel? He looked like he got your pretty good but you should be fine in a couple of days."

Sitting in his generic office chair and gesturing to the chair opposite of his desk he wants Justin to sit. "So what kind of work were you looking for? Anything in particular?" Kicking his feet up onto the desk he reclines and watches how Justin reacts. He seemed like a good enough guy but first impressions can be misleading if your in a hurry.

Gage has not had a strenuous fight in some time so to see this man winded and at a level of exhaustion that he was at just seemed to be...odd. He knew that Justin was capable of more, his powers not even having fully manifested themselves in what ever experiences that he has had so far. Justin was even so injured from his less than spectacular fight with bruised ribs and an aching body. Offering to move some of his equipment around Gage was less than hooked. He needed an assistant that knew what they were doing but the opportunity to get a Fullbringer on his side was too good of a chance to pass on.

Then he dropped the bomb, telling Gage that he did not even know what a Fullbring was. The most basic of knowledge and he has no idea. He could remember those days, back when he though that his fullbringer abilities were a one of a kind thing and that he was destined to be a hero, the naivety of his age apparent in his ideals. Now his new goal was not to save lives but to educate them. You can feed a man to live one more day but Gage preferred the option of teaching the world to fish on their own.

"Well I will tell you what I will take your offer and I will give you the basic run down on what it means to be a Fullbringer and a Human. I will teach you how to access your Fullbring, the Souls of the world around you and how to manipulate them to do your bidding. If you seem capable maybe I will even teach you how to build things with your own hands. That depends on-" Gage looks back at Justin, stopping when he sees that the man has gone completely unconscious. "Well I guess there is no point in having you be all busted up when you wake." Gage walks forward and places his open palms a few inches away from Justins shoulder, flooding the body with energy, speeding up the natural healing process of his upper body, it takes about five minuets before the bruises would be gone but it comes with an odd side effect. Severe dehydration and hunger after the body has used up much of its own energy reserves to heal.