i found a puppy

who: medea and isabelle
where: their house
when: after this scene

Medea walked into the house, and headed straight up the steps to she and Isabelle's room, peeking inside to see if her sister was in there. Smiling, she shut the door as she eyed her. "I found a puppy." she said sweetly, going to flop onto her bed. "He's brand new, and amazingly easy to play." she continued. "Should be fun. His name's Porter, and he's into comics, zombies, and generally seems harmless, if eager to please. Definitely baby faced, he looks about twelve." She grinned wickedly at her sister as she hugged her pillow beneath her, settling onto her stomach. "He wants to carry my books for me at school." she said while batting her eyelashes.

Isabelle glanced up from her math book as Medea flopped down on the bed; she was stretched out on her stomach on her own bed. The goal had been to work, but mostly she'd been sifting through all the dangling little tails of potential schooltime fun, trying to decide which projects she'd pick first. "Isn't that sweet," she commented with a grin. "Maybe if you're lucky, he'll want to give you his class ring and go steady, too." She propped her chin in her hand and tapped the book with a pencil, thinking. "Gabe has a secret," she announced. "Something worth fighting over - he's pretty messed up about it. Of course, with teenage boys that could be as harmless as accidentally getting a boner in the locker room, but I have a feeling it's more. I'm going to see what I can dig up on that. And that Chrissy girl? She needs to go. Bitch thinks she's queen bee around here because a few select toadies fall in line. She's not a fraction of what we are. But anyway," she said, setting her plots aside for the moment. "Tell me some more about your new toy."

"Ooo. Secrets. Nice. They're always good for leverage. Let me know if I can do anything to help you out in that endeavor, though I've got faith you have it covered." Medea said with confidence. "Mm. Shall we depose her?" she asked. "Might as well, I feature you for being the queen bee, really. You'd be much better at it. I mean, certainly I've heard enough about Chrissy, but she seems to be hated as much as she's adored. We could always just start playing up on the hate aspect of things. Get her to fall...die out...could be fun." she suggested. Then she smiled and it might have been a sweet expression on someone else, but on Medea there was something twisted about it. "Well, apparently he had health problems when he was younger. So of course I've shared my own frailties. Play on his hero complex, which I think he very much has. So that'll be an easy way in. He's already invited me to his house, and offered to burn me a dvd. And I slipped in a kiss before we parted company, and he didn't seem adverse. Though, just a heads up, I'm playing the shy, hesitant girl for him."

"We'll have to build up to it," Isabelle mused. "Once I figure out who her least useless key flunkies are, I'll let them know that I can be a lot scarier than she is. Play nice for everyone else and we can get her nicely undermined before staging something big to totally knock her down." Her smile was almost a match for Medea's, something that seemed like it should be sweet but was somehow... not. "So we're playing opposites this time?" she said, amused. "We're off to a good start for it. Sounds like you've already got him mostly in the bag."

"He'll be easy. He's a cute little puppy and so long as I keep him petted and fed, I'm sure he'll stay that way. So yes, I think playing opposites works in our favor at current. We'll have to see about long term on things, maybe we can switch things up later, but for the moment, we're two sides of the same coin. I can play it sweet, you can play it spicy, we'll cover a lot of ground. The only real decision is if we want to feign dissension in the ranks between us, or if we want to continue the idea of unwavering solidarity. I see merits in both. If we alienate each other publicly, there'll be ways to play people off of that. If we stick to 'you just don't understand her!' then we can flip things better later if we have to." Medea said, musing things over. Then she smiled at Isabelle. "What do you think would be more amusing?"

"...We'll stick together for now," Isabelle said after a moment of consideration. "We don't have the same kind of pull here that we did back in Iron Mountain; we'll need to play it close to the vest for a little longer until we've got enough people under us to ensure the whole game doesn't come crashing down. The key is to make people both love and fear you, not just to think 'oh, hey, the new girl's a total bitch.'"

"Right. Well, I'm going to continue to work the fringe, you get yourself out there and get in with as many of the popular crew as possible. Pick your targets and arrange meetings, let me know if you need me to push anything in certain directions. I know I hear the name Gabe a lot. I'd hop that train and see where it takes you." Medea said with a smile. "Jocks. Unintelligent bunch but easy to play."

"The one with the secret, yeah," Isabelle said. "I'm working on it, but he's got some kind of triangle thing going on - something about some chick he likes but who's dating someone else? I'll need to get more info on that before I try anything. That reminds me, though," she added, remembering. "At the party, there was a guy named Kyle, friends with Gabe, I believe, another one in that popular crowd. I can't read him. At all - not even the first hint of anything. If you can, see if you can get anything off him next time you see him. I want to know what his deal is."

Medea looked surprised. "What?" she asked. "You couldn't? That's...very strange indeed, I'll have to see if I can't run into him." she said, thinking that was just weird. Their gifts worked pretty damn well, really, so for it not to, that wasn't anything that could be considered good. Irritating as hell, perhaps. Hm.

"It was like he didn't exist," Isabelle confirmed, nodding. "If I hadn't been standing right there, speaking to him, I'd've thought he was braindead or something. There was a man at the mall yesterday - older, tattoo on his face - he was hard to read. I was only getting bare surface impressions, not even whole thoughts. I'd've thought he and Kyle were blocking me, but they didn't give me the sense that they knew."

"That's distressing. I'll definitely have to arrange a meeting. Let you know. Then we'll have to figure it out, if it happens to me, too. I don't like the idea of someone blocking us." Medea said firmly. People weren't allowed to do that. People were just little pawns, meant to give off what they were meant to. It wasn't fair.

"Neither do I," Isabelle said. "We haven't practiced blocking ourselves that much, either. I don't want to run the risk that we're leaving ourselves open and vulnerable in case we ever find people with similar talents."

She sighed, and tried to think of things. "Maybe there's something out there to help us with that. Something that'll block others but not our own abilities." Medea said. They really needed to learn more about...well, everything. They simply didn't know enough, but it wasn't as if B. Dalton's had books on the supernatural that weren't in the fiction section.

"If there are secrets in this town," Isabelle said, with a sigh, though she refused to give into frustration so easily, "then people are remarkably good at keeping them." She was better than average at finding them out, but even her talents did no good if people weren't at least thinking about them. "Let's do a little more poking around town," she suggested. "Maybe something will turn up that can help."

"Alright, lets." Medea said, getting up as she stretched. "I'm still getting a better idea about the town layout as well anyhow, so might as well go take a walk." Besides, she would rather be out of the house if she could help it. The kids were irritating at best, not to mention the foster parents, who were oh so terribly supportive, when all she wanted was to be left alone.

"Sure," Isabelle agreed, setting her things together and marking her place in her book. She slid off her bed and stood, pausing to crack her back, then grabbed her coat and gloves. "Anywhere in particular you wanted to go, or are we just wandering?"

"Just wandering. Maybe try to figure out downtown better. It seems to be in a T shape as opposed to anything else." Medea commented. "I really want to be able to get around this town quickly and quietly should we have need." Which was going to be helpful in the long run. So far, however, she really did feel like they were progressing nicely in the area. Things were looking good, so far.