Zombiedude101 — Roleplayer Guild

Rowan Campbell, & Lihua Zhao
@Mr Allen J
Academy 61

".. and again, if you're interested in some additional studies, my door is always open to you. Now go, be free, I can tell you're all itching to stretch your legs." Mr. Silva remarked with a chuckle as he gesticulated towards the door, his class finished for the day. One of the last ones out, Rowan had casually waved the room off as he filed out with the others. For what it was worth, Mr. Silva's lessons weren't bad, but Rowan was glad it was done with - he'd had a plan ahead of him for the day.

But first, he needed to make a quick stop by his room to pick up one or two things. It was small by any standards; a compact little slice of the dorms on the first floor, with just enough space for a bed, a desk and a set of drawers to store his clothes and personal belongings. Rowan had heard some of the other kids here whining about it, but he preferred it - the peace and quiet his room gave him was a long way from the paper thin walls he'd known in Brookacres, forced to listen to every word of the old man's ravings. None of that he had to deal with here - and he was grateful for it. 

In front of his desk was the window, which overlooked the exterior of the dorms below and gave a nice view for those who were into that sort of thing, but what actually interested him was on the windowsill; a sculpture no more than a few inches in height,  that looked like a cluster of vines coiling around something. That, he'd made in one of the art classes offered by the Academy -  and it was  practice for something he had in store for another one of  his own little 'pieces' that would be showing up in Baybridge soon.

Under the bed was where he'd found it - a messenger bag with a few of his art supplies inside, light glimmering off one of the paint cans as he took a peek inside to make sure they were all still there, next to the s. As it happened, they were, so he quickly tucked them back under to give them a little concealment, then pulled the hoodie off his bed and slipped that on too, before tugging the strap on over his shoulder. There was one more thing, though - a quickly fumble through the drawers revealed where he'd stashed the pills in the lining of one of his old coats. He considered himself lucky that he still had a little supply left; getting a hold of prescription meds had once been easy thanks to the old man's medicine cabinet. Not that it was any good to either of them now.

Good to go, Rowan downed one of the pills, then headed out, locking things up behind him as he left, narrowly avoiding brushing past one of the neighbouring dorm's occupants and paying no mind to the freshly plastered notice about student behaviour that had been pinned to one of the many noticeboards in the corridor, heading downstairs and out towards the exit. 

"... Going somewhere, Mr. Campbell?" Lihua asked in a rather teasing tone as she stood in the doorway. Rowan most likely wasn't even paying attention to her up until she stepped up. She noticed the bag that he was lugging around. Rowan was a known troublemaker, and Lihua was going to keep her eye on him. 

Ah, shit, Rowan had thought for a moment. "Walking, I guess?" was his reply, though judging by the look on her face it wasn't going to mean much. Then again...

Rowan hadn't exactly set the best impression with the Zhao Matriach; in his first week, he'd got caught up in a fight with some prep-prick who'd snatched some pills from his bag and had demanded that hook him up, as if he was some kind of junkie. Judgemental asshole.  By a stroke of luck, Zhao never actually caught word of the pills - she just saw two kids cutting their teeth and promptly broke it apart, but it had set the stage for any future encounters.

"Oh?" Lihua said with a coy smile on her face. She walked around Rowan. He was certainly a trouble maker, he came from Brookacres.... After a certain incident regarding his father who was a believer of the Pure philosophy. Lihua paused for a moment, and then looked at Rowan from over her shoulder. She shouldn't be that hard on him - she wasn't in the mood to be hard on him - especially after how her night went - but it was her responsibility as a teacher to ensure that her students aren't going out causing trouble.

"Through the woods?" Lihua asked, nearly playfully. "Rowan, I never saw you as the... Ahhhhh, nature type." 

"Yeah, me neither," Rowan shrugged, "But stuff happens."

"Ah, I see." Lihua said... but she didn't believe him. "What's the bag for, then? Are you taking a walk, or are you really going into town?"

"Does it matter?" Rowan asked with an arched brow. It wasn't as if he was planning on causing trouble, he just just wanted to stretch his legs. "Walking's walking."

"Very well then, Rowan." Lihua stepped aside, and simply let Rowan walk on by. She has better things to do than dog one student all day - if he gets in trouble then... then she can lay into him. "Enjoy your walk." She said in a friendly tone as she let Rowan by.

"Yeah, thanks." Rowan made a steady exit, glad that business was done with. The way Zhao looked at people... it could cut through anything. 

Soon enough, he found himself at the terminal where the academy's daily shuttle bus would stop around to pick up students looking to head into town and vice versa, dropping those coming from it. It was free of charge, and Rowan had learned it was a lifeline for many here. In today's case, he didn't want to be heading into Baybridge on-foot and planned to avoid walking. Lining up behind a couple others, he quickly filed onto the bus and grabbed a seat, content to sit back and relax until he hit his stop.

Ironically, he had little other choice when it came to heading to the spot he'd had in mind, and an hours or so's worth of walking took Rowan down towards the edge of Springshore Walk, straddling the forgotten, impoverished district of outer Brookacres. Looking up, he could still see the old man's last haunt, the Ferryman's Tavern. A 'gentlemen's club' who's regulars consisted largely of the Brookacres community, it was also a popular watering hole for the likes of the Pure.

Usually if he wasn't giving shit to him or his mom, he'd be out making trouble or planning it here. At least, that's how it had been before he'd got what he'd deserved and now, Rowan planned on giving both him and the rest of those bigoted, judgemental assholes the middle finger with what he had planned.

Across the street sat a billboard way up high, giving all in the area a nice good view - especially from the Ferryman's Tavern. Plastered across it at the moment was a promotion for a notable politician who had made heavier metahuman legislation a major point of their election campaign, clearly appealing to a particular group in the area, yet another reason why Rowan planned on hitting it up.

Checking one way, then another, Rowan made his way towards the billboard - which stood atop another building, some boating store or something like that. He took a walk down the alleyway beside it, then rounded the corner until he saw the ladder which led up to the rooftop and made a hasty ascent, before vaulting over the ventilation unit mounted a few feet ahead of where he'd hit the top.

The ladder which ascended the billboard itself was surrounded by a cage and locked off, to boot. Concentrating, Rowan set his gaze on the padlock, raised a hand, then closed his palm into a fist - crushing the padlock like an aluminum can. That was one little technique he'd had some time to practice at the academy, though up until now he'd had few opportunities to apply it. 

Now able to make an ascent, Rowan tugged at his bag once more and headed up the ladder, ready to start off. He took a knee on the walkway around the billboard and set his bag down for a moment to retrieve the first of his many stencils.

Weeks of meticulous preparation had gone into the stencil templates, down to cutting out the edges to make sure they didn't look too rough. That, he had to work on in his room - keeping them out of sight from anyone else who might have seen, for obvious reasons; he'd had to get the paint from somewhere, after all.

It wasn't stealing, not how he saw it and he did plan on returning what he could. 

Besides, it was all in the good cause of art.

Tugging out the first can from his bag, Rowan gave it a firm shake until he heard the rattle clanking. Then, he planted a gloved palm against the surface to hold the cutout up, then pressed down on the nozzle. One can, then another, then another and then the first can again - Rowan crossed over the wall, filling the dull political bile with colours, taking care not to layer his paint on too thick so as to avoid creating drips. Before long, he'd exhausted all his cutouts, the fresh paint already ready to dry on the board. Taking a couple of steps back, he looked on at his new piece.  

Rowan's piece, as it happened, stenciled over the politican's likeness, twisting his face into a smug grin and inserting a wad of dollar bills into each hand. Next to him was another series of stencils portraying a group of drunken, chest-beating, ape-like neanderthalic thugs in wifebeaters jeering and slinging junk at a hooded figure with a glowing outline who's arms were spread in a Christ-like fashion whilst another one of the neanderthals (who, funnily enough, resembled the old man) looked ready to kick out at a frightened child, the caption "Pure" sarcastically scrawled above in stylised letters.

All that was left was to head back, grab a quick change of clothes (the smell of paint would give him away if he was caught walking around in the the next day), only something else occurred to him after he'd grabbed what was left of us stuff and descended down the ladder. Given what kind of area they were in, he wouldn't have put it past the suits to try and tear this down the moment they realised it was there and how it would've been such a shame to see his art brought down so fast, so with that in mind he decided to go the extra mile and make any further ascent a little more difficult.

Realising just how flimsy that ladder cage looked, Rowan was certain on making sure it would continue to bar further access to the billboard and raised a hand, making a grasping motion with it. Focused, he pivoted his hand in an attempt to jam the cage in place...

And instead wound up tearing the whole damned thing off its fittings, ladder, cage and all. 

"Oh..." Rowan said, wincing as he heard the ladder hit the street below with the loudest clatter that anyone had ever heard. If his piece didn't catch their attention, that certainly would've.

Heading back across the roofstop, he made a quick descent of the ladder back down to the alleyway and slipped back through the streets, taking whatever shortcuts he could to get out of there. Eventually he stopped running once he'd realised there was nobody behind him, yet for a moment his heart skipped a beat when he heard the distant whine of a police siren before he finally realised it wasn't even headed in his direc-tion. "Stupid, scared idiot," he scolded himself, before breaking back into a brisk walk in the direction of the bus terminal.

With a little luck, he'd barely make it back in time to avoid breaking curfew.

Counting himself lucky, Rowan was able to catch another shuttlebus back to the academy, one of the last for that night before curfew. For good measure, though, he'd opted to slip out of his hoodie - the odour of paint was still pretty strong and it'd take a trip to the laundry room in the morning to get it out. Fortunately, there were too few to notice even if he'd left it on - most of the others here were stragglers just like him, catching the late bus so they weren't busted.

The trip back to the academy was noticeably shorter than before, due in no small part to the fact that the bus only had to make a few more stops before they were on a straight stretch out of the city. After another dozen or so minutes of driving, the familiar exterior of Academy 61 came into view from the illuminated interior of the bus and soon they were pulling up at the departure terminal. 

Climbing out, Rowan made a straight line for his dorm, passing through the entrance as quickly as he could and heading inside. By this point in the dorms, most of the other students had already filed back into their own rooms or were otherwise in the process of doing so, whilst others were still idling on the couch in the main room or using the pool table. For the most part, the academy staff were fairly lax on students so long as they weren't causing trouble or being disruptive - on weekends it'd fill up late at night and especially now it was summer, you'd see people wandering outside as late as now.

Headed upstairs, Rowan quickly popped open his door and entered his room, shoving his bag and hoodie under the bed and locking the door behind him. Frankly, he was tired - a walk through town had left his legs feeling like they'd earned a little rest whilst the temptation of the bed called him over for a good night's rest. Deciding to compromise, he slipped off his shoes, slipped out of his clothes (save for some shorts) to leave beside his hoodie and grabbed his black book from under his desk, deciding to see what else he could plan out for future 'projects.'
Zombiedude101 Member

Urban

Status

Bio

Most Recent Posts
