Rahne: Log

Who: Ralph, Rahne
What: The lovebirds go scavenging in the city.
When: February 26, 2010
Where:
Army-Navy Surplus - Tribeca - Manhattan

The shop isn't exactly awash with military precision. Perhaps at one point, there was an attempt made to hang all of the uniforms in neat lines, but it would appear that any such attempts have long been abandoned. Circular and long utility clothing racks are jammed into the large, rectangular space, all manner of army and navy uniforms hanging from them for varying prices. Heavy gage wire has been strung from roofing nails along the back wall, coats and rainsuits hanging from them - everything from navy-issue wetsuits to arctic-ready parkas.

Down a rickety wooden set of steps, one enters the arsenal area. Army-issue knives and nonlicensed weaponry are available for sale here, although only available once a member of the staff has unlocked the glass display cases. On the other side of the room, metal racks hold row upon row of scuffed-looking black army boots in every size and condition imaginable. Helmets and hard-sided canteens hang from the open rafters above, along with long rows of fluorecent lights. There's definitely a bunker-like feeling down here, with its lack of windows and cement floor and walls.

----

Rahne steps into the musty shop, wrinkling her nose a little. She blinks as her eyes adjust to the dim interior and she holds the door open for Ralph to come in behind her. "Ach, have yeh ever seen a place like this before?" she asks a little rhetorically. "Do yeh think we'll be able to find something good here? All I've got so far is my bit of litter frae the street." She checks her pocket to make sure that hasn't gone missing.

Ralph steps on in behind her, likewise wrinkling his nose a bit at the mustiness, though in his case the expression is far less cute. "No, not really... I don't really, um, go out and buy stuff all that much..." When she mentions her litter, he nods. "I'm sure we should find /some/thing..." He reaches in his own pocket. Sure enough, there's the crumpled Milky Way wrapper he'd plucked off the street. Probably a good thing he didn't take Barbara with him for this - her eyesight would've been invaluable, but she'd still be busy scrubbing her hands at the /thought/ of picking something like that off the streets.

"Aye, off on another whirlwind adventure, righ'?" Rahne says as she looks around the shop after stepping a little further inside. After their last adventure, this is definitely more her speed. "Ach, these up here seem to be mostly jus' uniforms though, dunnae? Maybe further back..." She shrugs, before considering. "Maybe we coul' get tha' picture of someone in uniform." Still, she continues weaving her way further back into the shop.

Ralph can't help but laugh a little at her adventurous spirit. Shopping for scavenger hunt items - about as adventuresome as Ralph gets, all right! He nods about the uniforms. "Yeah, probably... um... I think Jill said she had one of those for the Deviants, but you guys could probably get that..." He, too, starts to roam through the shop. He peers down the steps further down. "Um... what do you suppose is down there...?"

"Ach, I dunna," Rahne says, slowing at the mouth of them to peer down into the even dimmer light below. "I cannae see it frae here." Or at least not without causing a rather major kerfuffle in the store. And that really just doesn't seem worth it. "We coul' go down an' see maybe?" She glances over at him, her eyebrows lifted slightly as she seeks his opinion. "An' aye, if I see anyone actually wearing one of these things... Or maybe I'll talk yeh into trying one on," she teases with a slightly impish grin.

Ralph smiles with a light blush as she teases him. "Oh c-come on, can you imagine what I'd look like in military fatigues?" The pudgy, boyish Ralph certainly isn't a natural fit for the military look. He then looks down the steps and shrugs. "I guess we can check it out..." He starts walking down, though he can't help but hesitate when he sees a little sign halfway down with the words "KNIVES, BLADES, WEAPONS" and an arrow pointing to the bottom of the steps. "....Er...."

"Aye, an' I think yeh'd look dashing," Rahne insists confidently, albeit not without a slight blush of her own. And so she rather quickly ducks to make her own way down the stairs, not noticing the sign as he does. Already under it, she turns back to look at him questioningly as he hesitates. "Wha' is it? Yeh dunnae /really/ have to try the uniforms on," she assures him kindly. Ironically, her position on the stairs is such that the arrow looks like it's pointing at her now.

Ralph blushes just a bit more as Rahne insists on his handsomeness. Still, it's a pleasant sort of blush, not at all the crippling awkwardness that Ralph endures... well, most of the time. When she pauses on the stairwell, he shakes his head. "Oh, no, it's not... It wasn't because... I mean, um, look." He points the sign out to her. "I, uh, think we should be... careful down here?" He tries not to think about the thought that's crossed his mind a number of times - if my powers were activated and a gun was nearby, would I shoot it?

Rahne still looks a little puzzled even as she looks up, since she can't read the sign with it directly above her. It's not until she's come back up a few steps that she at least begins to understand his concern, if not the exact nature of it. "Ach. Aye. Maybe ... maybe we dunnae need to go down there?" she suggests, seeming rather wary of the idea herself now, albeit for different reasons.

She doesn't have to suggest it to Ralph twice. "Y-yeah, good idea." Let it never be said that Ralph can't be accomodating. Or afraid of pointy things. Whichever. He retreats back up the steps, heading to the uniform shop section and peering around. "Ooh... hey, look! There's some flyers in that window! Someone must've left them for customers to find?" He jogs over to the windowsill, where two different stacks of flyers have been left to sit. He grabs one of each, handing the one in his left hand, with the letters UMCC emblazoned on the front, over to Rahne without really looking at it. The other one, which he keeps for himself, has the letters SUFMA on it. He frowns as he glances at it.

Rahne gives a relieved nod and jogs back up the rest of the stairs, beginning to look a little wary about the shop as a whole now. At least until Ralph finds them another item from the list. "Ach, good on yeh!" she enthuses as she takes the flyer, about to simply quarter it and tuck it away when she thinks to look at it first. "Well, tha's ... weird. A - A..." She steps in closer and drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "Mutant Church. Wha's yers say?"

Ralph makes a slightly sick look as he looks over the flyer. "Students United For Mutant Accountability..? It, um... wow. It's a pro-registration group, looks like..." He flips it over. "Hey, looks like we missed a dance." Yes, Ralph is capable of sarcasm, he just doesn't employ it often. He then blinks as Rahne's words sink in. "...A mutant WHAT?"

"A dance? For registration?" Rahne comments, sounding downright confused as to how those could possibly go together. "Aye, a church," she confirms of her own, leaning over to take a better look at Ralph's, while holding hers out for him to see. "Wha' will people think of next? Ach, bu' I guess they still count as flyers, righ'? An' ... An' maybe it isnae the worst thing tha' the teachers see these," she adds in that undertone again.

Ralph nods to her suggestion. "Y-yeah... though, the Professor probably already knows about these... I mean... he always seems to know about stuff already, right?" He glances over the UMCC flyer, brow furrowing. "...Geez, that's weird." He shrugs, folding his lovely SUFMA flyer and putting it in his pocket. "At least we've both got one more item..." His gaze wanders over the shop again.

"Aye, I'm sure it willnae come as a huge surprise, bu' jus' the same, it cannae hurt, righ'?" Rahne shrugs, trying to shake off lingering concerns from finding two such ... unusual flyers here, side by side, right where they happen to be looking. "Righ'. Tha's one more down. An' if I can change yer mind abou' putting on the uniform... Or maybe I shoul' jus' do it my ainsel'," she realizes.

What can Ralph do? She doesn't even realize it, but the poor boy's putty in her hands. "N-no, it's fine, I... I can try one of them on... I mean, I don't think any of them are your size, right?" Even though he blushes at the idea of it, he can't rightfully object when it's clear Rahne would be amused by the sight of it.

And he's rewarded with a surprised but rather radiant smile. "Really?" Rahne blinks demurely, going a little pink in the cheeks herself as she promptly busies herself with tucking away her own flyer, in the same pocket with her bit of litter. "Ach, if yeh're sure. Thank yeh! Which one woul' yeh like to be?" She nods at the variety of uniforms around.

Oh yeah, Ralph's powerless. Well, you know, not LITERALLY. "U-um... let's see..." Military fatigues? Eh. Air force? Hmm. Sailor? /NO./ "...Huh..." He pulls a heavy, thick firefighter's coat off of a hook on the wall. A few telltale smudges of ash suggest it may have actually seen action - or else the storeowner just wanted it to seem that way. "...Maybe this...?"

Rahne glances at the coat with her eyebrows raised as she trails after him. She even leans in to take a better look at the ashes smudging it, before drawing back with a grin. "Aye, I think tha' will do jus' fine. Though wi' an outfit like tha', yeh really shoul' have a hat too." She starts scanning the area nearby to see if any are available.

Ralph is already ahead of her on that front - he's looking too, and it isn't long before he spots a section aptly labeled "Hats". "Look! Over there!" He has to step on a nearby footstool to reach the hatbox on a somewhat-high shelf, but rooting around in it eventually turns up a genuine, slightly dusty firefighter hat, which, with a little bit of tugging, fits on Ralph's head. He grins a bit self-consciously, nevertheless enjoying himself in spite of it all. "All right, see if you can get the camera to work in here..!" He starts donning the firefighter jacket - it's a size or so too big for him, but at least it doesn't dwarf him the way it would Rahne.

No, they'd probably lose Rahne for good inside of that thing. But the petite girl can at least handle the photography. She fumbles for the disposable camera, pulling it from her other pocket and winding it forward. This is about her speed for technology. Taking in the sight of him in the uniform, she can't help another grin as she brings the device up to her eye, having to step back and back until she hits a rack of clothing in order to fit him in the tiny viewfinder. "All righ' then, say cheese!"

Ralph closes the jacket front so it's not quite so painfully obvious he's dressed in T-shirt and jeans underneath. The hat slightly blocks his eyes from view, but he still looks in the camera's vague direction, predictably blushing yet still finding a smile for the picture. "Cheese!!"

Rahne gives a little laugh that's punctuated by the mechanical click of the camera as the flash goes off, filling the dim space momentarily with a blinding light. "There. Now I'll have the verra best picture of a person in uniform of anyone," she comments with an amused grin, as she winds the camera forward again before tucking it away.

"Oh y-you will /not,/" Ralph denies, blush deepening as he pulls the hat off his head. His hair is going to be mussed for the rest of the adventure, now. He conscientiously returns his borrowed uniform pieces to their proper places, even smoothing out the firefighter jacket on the rack. "Was there anything else on the list that we might be able to find in here..?"

"Aye, I will," Rahne insists, that well-repressed stubborn streak showing itself at these most inopportune times. She's a true redhead, this one. The mussed hair gets a secretive sort of grin from her as she drops her gaze to consider the list again. "Ach, I dunna. Do yeh think any of these buttons are square?" She hesitates, making a bit of a face. "Then again, I wouldnae want to tear any off, knowing tha' they have a basement full of weapons." Not that she's the sort to steal buttons normally either.

Ralph eloquently sticks his tongue out in response to her insistence. Ah, the wisdom of youth. "Yeah, I don't think I wanna try that either... Think we could take a button back at school and maybe, I dunno, file it down to a square or something? Is that against the rules?" He looks around, searching for other items. Something cheap enough to buy three identical copies of it? Something broken - hopefully meaning they wouldn't have to pay for it?

Rahne wrinkles her nose up and grins as he sticks his tongue out at her, before shrugging her shoulders. "Aye, I'm sure we coul' find one there. I'll check my sewing kit firs' even. Ach, I keep forgetting we arenae really working together on this!" she adds with a laugh. "An' here I am giving yeh all my best secrets." She doesn't seem too fussed about it, though. "Do yeh see anything else yeh want?"

"-You're- giving me secrets? I just posed for a hunt-item my team already had its hands on! If anyone's the turncoat, it's me," he accuses playfully. Another cursory glance reveals no additional items to scavenge. "I think that's everything for now..." He reaches out to squeeze her hand. "Want to head back?"

Rahne can't help but laugh a bit at that. "Ach, I suppose yeh do have a point there. An' I've got photographic evidence of yer treachery. They'll string yeh up for this one." She seems willing enough to leave the scavenged items at that, smiling as he squeezes her hand. "Aye, we shoul' get back before it gets too late."

Ralph chooses not to point out that if they tried, he'd wind up stringing THEM up first before he even knew what was happening. "Yeah, well, I'll just have to pretend you tricked me into it then or something." He grins, in particular as he takes her hand. "All right, let's go." And for the record, he brought a map of local subway stops with him. And highlighted several.


Scavenger Hunt Items
Deviants: litter, flyer
Exiles: litter, flyer, someone in uniform