Minature Disasters (Haley)

[Henry Ballo]

It all started when Henry was once again looking for a quiet afternoon. That wasn’t such a hard thing to want, was it? He’d never found it to be such until he’d gotten to Hammel. The whole mess with Jared, for example…But today, he had been convinced that he would have real success. He’d planned everything out. Go to the gym in between classes and hang there until everyone had left. He’d even fetched a basketball from his room to maybe shoot some hoops. He’d checked this area before at this same time and no one else had been there. Therefore, he’d assumed it was logical for the same to be true today. Apparently, that was not the case. Instead, as he approached the door, he found himself listening to what sounded like…shouting? He paused in mid-step to listen to it, head tilted, then shook his head and moved forward, opening the door to the gym just a crack to look inside. There were a ring of students, all quite younger than him, and they seemed to be yelling at whomever was in the center. Not good. His brows rose, then he shook his head ever-so-slightly and tucked the basketball under his arm before going inside.

“Hey!” he shouted, making his voice carry. “What are you all doing? Desist!”

Henry doubted that any of the children actually knew what “desist” meant, but the point was the same. A tall muscular and rather frightening looking man was crossing toward them and yelling at them. It was almost depressing how fast they all fled, and he shook his head and watched them go before turning back ahead. And, much to his surprise, a small little girl was left there. He looked down, and down just a little further, and much to his surprise, he felt his features softening from his usual scowl and into a real, genuine smile. He pushed it back just a little, so it just lingered around the corners of his mouth, and tilted his head to the side, studying the small girl, who looked more defiant than afraid or injured.

“May I ask what you are doing here?” he asked, his tone mild. “And what exactly was the point of all the others being here?" Another question was, of course, are you all right, but that would wait for later.

[Haley Shapiro]

It had been an accident. She was sure of it. Haley didn't go about school damaging other people's property. Someone must have pushed her and she had stopped herself from falling down by grabbing on to one of their school projects and because she still couldn't control her powers, she had crushed it into a pulp.

So now the offended had called all his friends and they were all yelling at her. She had been in this situation before. Hell, she had started these things before but suddenly, she found herself curling into herself. Maybe it was because all of them had abilities that rivaled hers.

As the boys pushed and shoved her, she had half a mind to shove back but she knew that could mean disaster. She didn't want to intentionally hurt anyone.

All of a sudden, a booming voice made the boys scatter, leaving her both scared and annoyed that it took a big guy to make the other boys run away.

Much like the meeting with Vincent the other night, Haley had to look way up to find the guy's face. She scowled at him, hiding away the fear she had felt being ganged up on by those boys.

"I could have handled myself, man." She grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest as she looked away from him in defiance. His question left unanswered.

[Henry Ballo]

“Of course you could have.” Henry decided not to argue with her on this point. For all he knew, she could have. Another lesson he had learned from Hammel was to never judge based on appearances. She was small, but that didn’t mean she was incapable of defending herself. “I just wanted to make sure you did not get into trouble. Fighting is frowned upon here.” He wasn’t sure that had been fighting, though. To him, that looked like bullying, especially if she said she could’ve handled herself. He was half tempted to haul in one of the teachers (something he usually avoided, because some of them were frighteningly and frustratingly keen and seemed to know things they really shouldn’t) and report the students, but he didn’t know enough about them to give an accurate report.

Besides, doing that probably wouldn’t make the girl any happier with him. She seemed the independent type. Fine. So instead of running off to report them, he knelt and offered his hand. This way they were more of a similar height, and it made things easier for both of them. She wasn’t looking up, and he didn’t have to step back to see her better either.

“My name is Henry,” he said. “What is yours? And then we can move onto a couple of more important questions. For example…” His brows lifted. “Are you all right?” He’d move onto the other questions later.

[Haley Shapiro]

His condescension was left unnoticed as she looked down to the floor, scuffing the ground with her worn blue sneakers. And she knew she really could have! It wasn't that hard to ram through the circle of boys and run away. She was tiny enough to fit into spaces other people can't reach so the boys wouldn't have been able to bother her any longer. But God had she been frozen back there.

His advice however was met with a scoff. "You must have trained with the security guard. Do I look like I care about the rules?" She grumped, blowing out air from the corner of her upturned lip to brush the lock of hair that had fallen to her eye.

And then he surprised her by kneeling down to her height and reached a hand out to her. Stunned, she just took it and shook it briskly. "Haley. I'm Haley." She stumbled over her response. His next question jarred her even further. Nobody asks her things like that. She understood why which made his concern over her kind of...nice. "Dude, I'm fine." She shrugged and ran a hand over the top of her head.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, she looked up at him [even with the kneeling, he still towered over her. Annoying] with a slight frown. "Thanks anyway." She said a little quietly.

[Henry Ballo]

Henry hadn’t really meant it to be condescension. Had he thought of it as such, his mood would have spun into a black pit. Condescension reminded him of rather nasty family times, which he far preferred not to think about, and had he known that his words had sounded like that… Well, it would have been bad. Luckily, however, Haley didn’t call him out on it.

His smile widened a little at her scoff, and he shook his head. “No, you do not seem to be the type, I agree. But this one is practical to listen to, I think. In a school with others of many abilities, some harmless, some not, it is wiser not to fight and perhaps acceptable to ask for help.” A hard lesson. Actually, one that Henry had never learned, which was why he added, a little ruefully, “But I am no example. I remember many fights, most of which could have been avoided. But I thought I should tell you what is…appropriate.”

He nodded to her name and smiled faintly at her response, then nodded. “Haley. I am glad to hear you are well. And it is…” If she looked awkward, he also looked a little embarrassed about the thanks. He wasn’t much used to hearing it. “No problem. If I may, what happened to cause the fight? Nothing too bad, I hope?”

[Haley Shapiro]

Oblivious to the emotional turmoil the older boy was going through, Haley crossed and uncrossed her arms, contemplating on just walking off and save herself the humiliation that might come if she so much as gave this boy a little piece of her respect. Although she hardly thought he was anything like the boys who had bullied her were, he was still a boy. Boys aren't nice.

When he pointed out exactly what she had been thinking the whole time the bullying happened, her lower lip quivered slightly without her permission. He didn't have the right to understand her! The scoundrel. "Yeah? ...well, whatever." Haley turned away from Henry with her arms crossed tightly in front of her, the fight in her obviously diminshed with just a few choice words.

She did, however turn back to him when she realised that he really enunciated his words. Usually when she talked, it was just a jumble of smooshed up words but he was kind of pronouncing the words syllable by syllable. Did all adults talk like this? Was he an adult? He couldn't be a student. He was just waaaay too tall to be one. But he looked way too young to be staff too though...

"What happened was those guys were jerkwards." Haley frowned, not so sure this boy would actually believe her if she told him what had really happened. "They were just looking for someone to pick on. If you hadn't come alone, I woulda taken them." How true that statement was could never be determined.

[Henry Ballo]

Hm. Not an easy one to gain the trust of. All right then. He wasn’t quite sure he wanted it yet anyways, or could handle it if he had it. She was a prickly little thing. He just mainly wanted to be sure she was all right, and that this wasn’t something he would feel obligated to report to the teachers—something he avoided on a regular basis. The last thing he wanted was attention drawn to himself. When people started noticing you, there was trouble.

The girl’d probably agree with that part.

“Jerkwads?” he repeated, a slight frown on his face as he tried to puzzle out the word. It wasn’t one he’d heard before, but after a moment, he thought he could figure out what it meant. Or, what it implied. An insult. Okay. He could work with that. “And of course you would have.” This time, it was not meant condescendingly. He was studying her curiously, wondering what exactly her power was that she was so confident. “I am guessing…” Something offensive, right, and probably not useless like his own. “Strength? For your meta-gift.” The phrase rolled awkwardly off the tongue. He was still fairly new to the idea of humans that were different from other humans in a very obvious way, even though he was one himself. “I think they call it ‘super strength,’ yes? Is that what caused the problem?”

It was just a wild guess. What would be the most ironic gift to be paired with her small size, and what could lead to trouble and give her confidence that she could handle things? Logical. But truthfully, he doubted he was right. He just had fun guessing and trying to figure it out.

[Haley Shapiro]

"Yeah, jerkwads. You know when you have wads of tissue maybe full of snot or something? Yeah, imagine it full of jerks. Jerkwad." Haley smirked at her own wit. She scuffed her shoes against the ground when he once again confirmed she could have taken those boys. "Yeah well..." she replied, not having anything else to say.

When Henry guessed her powers correctly, Haley narrowed her eyes and tightened the arms across her chest, pursing her lips as she did so. "Maybe. What are you, a telepath? Power Mimic? Power Sensor?" She prattled on. It was clear the girl was getting a little tired of Henry being nice to her. She could deal with bullies. She was used to it but nice? No. She can't handle those.

"Look. Thanks and all for desisting those dudes. Or whatever you said. But just...don't do that again unless I ask you to, aite?" Haley glared up at Henry, looking completely ridiculous doing it. "You've got some nerve thinking just because you're a giant you can come along and desist little people." She paused momentarily before picking one foot up, swinging it backwards and releasing it forward, making contact with his kneecaps. "Jerk." She spat before running off.

[OOC: And that concludes Haley Shapiro's short short career being a little idiot. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME ^^]

[Henry Ballo]

Henry stared at her, brows rose, as he processed this rather…colorful description. And she seemed to think that was funny? Right. “Very interesting,” was what he said carefully, instead of saying another phrase that probably would have been along the lines of ”Huh?”

Yeah. He’d gone too far there. His lips twisted into a grimace, and he opened his mouth to offer a retort, or even a simple “Sorry, I did not mean to frighten you,” but by the time he had begun to do so, she had already moved on, and he was more bemused by the description of “desisting those dudes” than paying attention to her words. A bit of mistake, as it turned out, because she kicked his knee before he even knew what she was doing and ran off. Which was good, because the words that came out of Henry’s mouth—while in Tswana—weren’t words even a cynical twelve-year-old should know. Once he thought that he had regained some feeling in the limb, he carefully climbed to his feet and limped off.

Well, that taught him not to go helping odd little girls. Next time he would let her handle herself.

((Wrapped!^_^))