I stand alone [open]

[Talen Trahan]

He could honestly say that his best friend at the moment was his iPod. Sure, he had three of them at the moment; one was in his room, one was used for working out, and one was currently in his pocket, jamming away some music into his ears, but he loved the way it made the world disappear around him. He didn’t need Ari with her sad eyes and voice, or Zach with his sarcastic comments and nasty smirk. All he needed was the music in his pocket and he was fine. Well, he needed other things too, but music was most important to him. His eyes opened and scanned the building he was in before he stood, throwing away his lunch and walking.

The mall wasn’t very large, but it had everything someone his age needed in order to fit in. Journeyz, Victoria’s Secret, Apple, Abercrombie and Fitch, Hot Topic, and Spencer’s were just some of his favorites. He cruised into the Apple store, checking out the latest iPads and accessories, the new square-shaped iPod touch nanos, and all sorts of other stuff. He contemplated asking his parents to get him an iPad for Christmas, but he had a perfectly able laptop back in his room. He walked out again, walking through throngs of people, admiring the food court and of course letting his eyes wander over the cute girls milling about. He couldn’t ignore them, could he?

[Eric Bower]

His ipod used to be just as much of a part of him as his fingers. He never went anywhere with out it, but recently, he's been party to a string of bad disasters thanks to him listening to his music so now he elects not to take it with him when he leaves the dorm. Today, in particular, he walked quickly from Hammel to the mall with a Google Maps sheet of walking directions from the school to the mall, so he wouldn't make a mistake this time! He'd gotten there pretty quickly (also thanks to the cardio workouts with Zac). Once he arrived, he roamed aimlessly, just to get used to the stores in the mall and what was where. The setup was pretty simple and the stores were the normal ones, nothing too scary or intimidating.

After a while, he started to meander towards the food court, his eyes on a banana strawberry smoothie, because yum. After he had one in his possession, he started to move through the people bustling around, his eyes on everything. Today's mission was to escape from life for a moment, and just....browse. He needed a break from things. Not that anything was going badly. He just needed a pause from Zac's constant scrutiny and grabby-hands. He could take the guy, because for some reason, the two of them clicked, but he just needed a moment to himself. Already, he could feel the difference in their workouts, and he was feeling better and more invincible.

However, he still hadn't had a breakthrough with his powers, much to everyone's dismay.

He was engrossed in a window of Halloween things that he didn't notice that he was on a collision course with a fellow male and teenager. He smacked into him and nearly fell, but with a pinwheel of arms, he managed to stay on his feet. "Sorry! That was totally my fault!" He wasn't above admitting his mistakes. "My bad, dude."

[Talen Trahan]

A couple girls noticed the tall, dark-haired boy looking at them and shyly waved, to which Tal waved back with a smile. Ah, girls! He simply loved them. He moved on down the mall, checking window displays and other fancy trinkets that caught his eye. He ended up buying a couple of paintings for his mom and sister and a fancy watch for his dad for the upcoming holiday season. Christmas was two months away, but he wanted to be prepared.

It was on the way back to the door in which he opened the mall that he noticed the Halloween store. It was impressive, seeing as the spiders looked lifelike and the costumes weren’t that bad either. Too bad it was already packing up because Halloween was past. Sighing, he turned to walk away when he bumped into someone. Feeling his stomach drop at the feeling of falling, he threw his arms out to protect his purchases, landing with a loud crack as his body hit the floor.

“Aaaaaaah…” he groaned loudly, stunned for the moment. His body was quickly repairing the damage, so he lay there for a couple seconds as he heard the kid apologize to him. He chuckled. “It’s okay, man,” he replied, sitting up slowly among the circle of onlookers. “Maybe I wasn’t paying attention either,” he told the guy as he stood. Brushing himself off, he moved to collect his bags. His stuff was okay, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

[Eric Bower]

Eric felt a bit stupid for actually knocking the guy down, because size wise, the guy had at least thirty pounds on him, and from the look of it, those thirty pounds were all muscle. Eric rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and was about to stick out a hand to help the guy up, when he climbed to his feet. "I feel like a doofus, I'm really sorry." The guy seemed to not be offended by it, and as he checked his bags for possible breakage, Eric prayed everything was alright. He seemed relieved with was great news.

During his flailing to stay on his feet, he had managed to keep a hold of his strawberry banana smoothie, which he now remembered he had in his hand so he took a nice pull from it. Yum. He let out a small sigh and glanced around them, those that had seen their collision had decided it wasn't entertaining anymore so they had started to go back to what they were doing before. "I am sorry about knockin' you over, I wasn't paying attention, like, at all. Name's Eric." He pointed to himself and offed his hand out for a shake. Eric is a pretty open guy and now that they two of them had nearly bonked heads, well introducing himself just seemed like the next step. The guy might want to return to his walking, but Eric still had felt the need to give out his name.

[Talen Trahan]

Tal looked over at the boy, his dark eyes veiled by his dark hair. He was younger and a little smaller than him, but he noticed that the kid had some muscle to him; must of been why he was able to knock him over. Then again, Talen hadn't been paying attention. "It's okay, really," Tal insisted, smiling at the younger male. "It's not often I get knocked over by a munchkin." He grinned wickedly, hoping his little jab, no pun intended, would make the guy happy that he was joking around.

"The name's Talen, but you can call me Tal," he replied easily, shifting his bags to one hand so he could shake with the other. He watched as their hands shook, and then his eyes shifted to the smoothie the kid had in his hand. "That looks delicious. Where can I get one of those?" he asked, genuine hunger reflected in his eyes.

[Eric Bower]

"'Mm not a munchin," Eric retorted with a wrinkle of his nose. He'd get no where in life if he got offended by everyone that called him a name. He couldn't count the nicknames he'd been given, this week. Zac was particularly heinous with all his nicknames, his favorite being Eric-poo. Munchkin was hardly that bad, but it was also not true. Despite being smaller (as in not as tall and gerth-y), Eric was actually a bit fluffy, and he knew that. Thanks to the relentless training, however, that was starting to tighten and Eric was damn proud.

"Well nice to meet you Tal. Is it like 'Talon' like the claw, or are your parents a bit silly? Mine were a bit boring with the names, I mean Eric hardly breaks the creative barrier, and Liam isn't all that unheard of either." In Eric's world, it wasn't a bit off to accuse someone whom you've just met that their parents were silly, or anything out of the norm. Eric was just a joyful guy and liked to joke around--the boy is hardly ever serious. When Tal eyed his smoothie and grinned a bit and held it up for closer inspection. Zac had been telling him that dangling things in front of people's eyes was a good thing. Eric lowered the drink again after he'd sipped some more and then he nodded behind him.

"It's by the food court, actually, but like...not actually a part of it, so there usually isn't this huge line," Eric told him with a small grin. "I can show you, if you like," Eric suggested with a lift of one of his eyebrows (Zac said he should get it waxed so they weren't so bushy, but the idea sounds...off to Eric).