just wing it [open]

[Tayte Abbot]

So maybe standing on the edge of the roof wasn't the most calming thing for most people, but at that exact moment Tayte was as and serene as was possible for him. His usually hyperactive bouncing or shaking was simply replaced for a slow look over the city. Right now he was standing on the edge of the hospital roof. A pair of raggedy wings lay out on the ground behind him. They were made from some strong material he had found laying around his apartment sewn together with a lightweight aluminium frame. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea for his first test of the wings to be jumping off of a building as large as the hospital, but doggone it, now was not the time to backdown.

Tayte stepped down from the ledge and start going over his check list. No tears in his sewing. All the proportions were correct. He was in peak condition. The wing wasn't too fast, but also wasn't still. Everything was in his favour in order for him to be able to fly today. He undid all of the straps for them and slid his arms into them. If this worked then he would be able to fly. If it didn't then he would hit the ground slightly slower than usual, be incredibly injured, and maybe even a little bit dead. Of course that was why he was on the hospital roof instead of any other roof. If his wings failed then the doctors could just rush out and help him.

So there he was standing on the edge of the roof with a pair of fake wings strapped to his arms feeling much calmer than he usually did. Tayte gave them an experimental flap and felt gravity lift for a second. That was a good sign. It meant that the wings had the power to lift him, even if it was only slightly. Now all he had to do was jump. As of now a small crowd had gathered below him, shouting up and trying to get him to stop. They thought he was suicidal, but really he was just ready to fly. A door slammed open behind him signalling that somebody had come up onto the roof trying to stop him. Quicker than anybody could possibly reach him Tayte jumped.

For a split second while Tayte flapped his wings there was a glorious moment where he went out instead of down. "I'm doing it." He muttered for a second. There was a general catch of breath from his audience below as they all waited to see if he would fall. For a good twenty metres or so Tayte get going out over the tops of people's heads. He stayed suspended in the air for long enough that he thought he might actually make it. Then there was a tearing noise and the wind attached to his left arm fell. There was a moment where he kept traveling over the sky, but then he start to plummet towards the ground. Slowly at first and then picking up speed. "Well, this sucks." Tayte stated as the ground got closer.

[Dream Wolf]

Dream watched with everyone below. While the young man was concerned for the fellow on the roof, Fang was shouting for him to jump. Thankfully no one but Dream could hear Fang, but it was still loud in its own way. When the wing sheared off Dream knew instantly that the metal was weak. His first reaction was offer a prayer, the he remembered he could manipulate metal. He focused on the wing that was still attached to the other young man, felt the aluminum with his mind, made it bend to his will, slowly, to avoid heating the metal to the point of melting the plastic and fabric, he made the metal thin out and form a membrane, thinner than paper, but much stronger. He reinforced the still intact wing. His knowledge of physics and flight in particular was limited, so he tried to just make a parachute out of the remaining metal. It was hard and required a lot of focus.

Slowly the metal spun out like spider silk threads, catching other thread and forming a web, then spread to fill the gaps. He couldn't make a perfect sheet of metal, so he opted for a woven fabric design. He wasn't so sure it would work, but what he knew of parachutes said it would. Had the person used a heavier metal like copper or tin, it wouldn't have worked at all, the other metals were too dense, but aluminum could be made into a fabric, if done properly.

[Tayte Abbot]

As Tayte fell he began to try and figure out what had gone wrong. He had checked over his stitching before and made sure that all of his metal framing had been in order. As he was going through his memories he remembered feeling a small give as he had been sewing. He rolled his eyes. The fabric hadn't been strong enough, therefore it had ripped when put to the actual test. It was a stupid mistake to get hurt over. Of course it also didn't seem as if he was going to be hurt over his mistake.

Slowly his aluminium framing on the wings unravelled and then turned themselves into a sort of woven fabric. Tayte's decent was slowed drastically. He looked up at the new form his wings had taken and smiled. It would be a lot better if his failure didn't end in him being in the hospital for a few months. Every time Tayte got hurt the pain lasted at least five times longer than it would a normal person so every time he tested his wings he had to weigh the pros and cons. The pro of flying always outweighed the con of falling to him.

As Tayte got lower to the ground he noticed that the crowd had mostly scattered and ran screaming or whatever it was that people did. All of them except a few who were still there watching. He landed with a thud and although it hurt a little he was instantly running around the new metal membrane and trying to figure out just how it had been made. He hadn't done anything and if he could figure out how to make it then he could use it in his next pair of wings. 

[Dream Wolf]

Dream walked over as the other person, a guy he realized as he got closer, ran around inspecting the woven mesh of metal. He considered this. The individual seemed to be completely unaware of his close call with death...either that or he just didn't care. Dream figured it was the latter, since this person seemed to be trying to figure out how to prevent it from happening again, although not in the way a normal person would go about it.

"I could have let you die you know." He didn't mean to say it, it was Fang who said it, and in one of those rare occasions when Dream was focused on something else, Fang managed to spit something out. Dream didn't correct though, since it was true. Dream watched the other person closely, he was always watching other people anyway so it wasn't a new thing for him.

The teen took a half ready stance, his hands behind his back, with a slight effort on his part the aluminum stiffened, from a flexible fabric to a bendable sheet, but, still malleable enough to be worked on. All it needed was a good light weight frame and it could be used for a new set of wings, if the person making them knew what they were doing.

[Tayte Abbot]

Tayte snatched up the fabric made of metal. He brought it up close to his face and inspected each of the little threads. It was made in such a way that would be nearly impossible for him to duplicate on his own. Not only would he have to figure out how to make metal soft enough to be woven, but also he'd have to figure out how to weave. He groaned as he took in the sight of the entire metal membrane. It had to be the work of somebody else's power. That meant he had to find the person if he had any hope of using it in a new set of wings.

Then Tayte heard a voice sound behind him. They said something along the lines of letting him die, which meant letting him live in the first place. Tayte hastily set the metal down and in a matter of nanoseconds was in front of the other guy. He noticed the stance the person was in and prepared himself for an attack. He was fairly certain he could dodge any hand to hand attack, but if they could control metal, like Tayte suspected then he had to be prepared for that too. It was something that was at the back of his mind.

Tayte zipped around the other guy like a hummingbird. While he might be able to control metal, Tayte had super speed. He took the guy in and then came to an almost stop while still bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Yeah, yeah, killing me would have been fine. Listen can you make me more of that metal stuff? The blanket thing yea? It's really aerodynamic, letting enough air through to give it traction and being able to cover a lot of surface area without weighing me down. Perfect for wings and the like. If you could make lots of it, or maybe just teach me how to make it? Either way is fine." Tayte sped along through his words, taking a total of nine seconds to say it all.

[Dream Wolf]

Dream actually had to process what was said. He heard every word, but, his brain needed a few more seconds to understand them than it took to say them. He looked, or tried to look, anyway, at the other kid, no man, he was definitely older despite how he acted, maybe twenty, but Dream doubted that probably closer to seventeen. He was tall, but not massive, and built more like a stick figure than a person. The word the grown ups used would be lanky, to Dream, who wanted to be a grown up, it was still just a stick figure. The obvious was that this person had super speed."

Thank you captain obvious, try guessing is it's a boy or a girl next moron. Fang's ever present voice was loud today, but Dream ignored it.

"I could make more, but you would need some serious specialized tools to make it yourself. A forge for one thing, and a wire stretcher, and the knowledge of how metal bends and shapes to avoid breaking the wire. Even then you'd end up with a woven sheet of metal, not a fabric. Not sure if I can say I'm the only one who can do it, but I'm the only one I know of who can do it. I'd have to know what dimensions and tensile strength to make it to, and even then I would have to know more about what it needs to do. I don't know much about flying, which you seem to be trying for, but I know that a woven fabric is needed for a parachute, so I just did that. I think we should start with names first. I'm Dream Wolf, a student at the Academy. Most people call me Dream or Dreamer, except for the teachers who mostly call me Mr. Wolf."

The fifteen year old was not entirely sure his mother would want him talking to people like this, but he felt compelled to help, if only because Fang said not to. And because he had a feeling this person would likely get hurt if not assisted, in one way or another. He was half tempted to call the authorities and have this possible lunatic locked up for his own good. But again, Fang was cheering for it, so Dream wouldn't do it. He was actually surprised this person didn't know who he was already, but then, most people knew the story but not the face. And if this person wasn't part of the Academy or the Chasers than it was likely he had only heard rumors, if even that.

[Tayte Abbot]

Tayte wasn't a huge fan of talking to others, mainly just because of how slow they talked. Slow things were probably one of his biggest pet peeves. As the other guy talk Tayte still listened intently though. They said that they could make the fabric, but Tayte himself wouldn't be able to do it without a bunch of tools and even then it wouldn't be the same. He groaned and took to hopping in circles as the guy spoke. Even then he wasn't fully focused. His eyes darted over at the people who were starting to rush towards them, presumably to see if he was okay.

Just as the other boy, Dream was his name, finished his infinitely long speech Tayte smiled and held out his hand. "Hey, listen, I'd really like to continue this conversation seeing as I'd really like to get my hands on some more of that metal you can make, but doctors tend not to like it when you jump off their buildings so if you wouldn't mind coming with me that would help a lot. Of course you could always stay here, but I have a feeling that would result in a lot of stupid questions for you. That is, more stupid questions than I'm going to ask you. I'm Tayte by the way." He was really anxious now and he kept glancing over the other guy's shoulder at the growing crowd slowing coming forward to see what had happened.

This had become a regular occurrence for Tayte. The hospital wasn't always the place he jumped off of, it was just the safest. Every now and then he still felt pains from the time he tried to jump off a cliff on the mountain. Since his body was faster than everybody else's he healed faster as well, but that didn't effect the pain it dealt or the pain he felt. He smiled at Dream as he waited to see how he would react. Tayte really hoped that the younger boy would agree to come with him so that they could talk.

[Dream Wolf]

Dream glanced at the people who were running towards them, he decided someone had to look out for this odd person, and he was the only one who seemed unlikely to lock him up, despite his first instinct that Tayte needed serious help.

"Ok let's go, take a left at the next building and go through the second door, its always unlocked and leads to a tunnel that takes you to a building six blocks east, I used to use it to get home when I was a blacksmith's apprentice. It's mostly safe during the day, and if we run into trouble, well I have a some steal wire that I can protect us with. It will be the fastest way to avoid these people. You're a lot faster than me, but I will catch up, I can go pretty fast when I need to." Dream actually started running towards said building as soon as he finished speaking, trying to speak quickly to keep Tayte's focus on his words without risking the other guy missing something in his haste.

It kinda bugged Dream that Tayte was so fast with everything, he preferred slow and steady, but he had been fast since he absorbed the Razor, not like a real Razor Fast, but faster than most kids his age, when he was practicing swordsmanship people often said his sword looked like more than one blade it moved so fast, and when he used his arm blades, the blades he had made for himself after realizing he could move the way he did, people couldn't keep up. His instructor often told him that is he kept going he would be as fast as true Razor, since he could slice an apple into six pieces in the time it took a normal person to blink. But Dream hated moving fast because it reminded him of what he was. He wasn't human, he wasn't even proper darkness, he was a freak, and a dangerous one at that. His teachers never said it, but he knew they thought it. He wasn't in the academy to be trained as a Chaser, he was there so they could keep an eye on him, and if need be kill him while making it look like an accident. Dream dreaded what would happen if Fang ever got control of the body, if Fang took over, his Darkness would be in place to destroy everything he loved. A Darkness with human level intelligence? The Chasers would never let that happen. But Dream held out hope that they would find a way to take the darkness out of him. For now though, he ran towards his goal. This moment was for him to live.

[Tayte Abbot]

Tayte kept glancing over the younger boy's shoulder as the crowd kept getting closer. They looked concerned, like they meant well, but now really wasn't the time. Tayte wasn't even listening to the boy's fast paced explanation of the route they would be taking. He heard it, but he didn't really catch any of the information, it was a good thing he had perfect memory and would be able to just recall the directions once he was actually off and running. Tayte's power of memory helped him a lot when it came to his lack of focus. If he missed something he could just look back and figure out what it was he had missed. Simple as that.

Dream was running the second he had finished talking. Tayte nodded. "Got it." He mumbled to nobody, since the person he had been talking to had just run away. He didn't run the same way as Dream, at least not right away, instead he ran over to the crowd. He stopped a good distance away, so that they didn't make him go in for needles or something like that. "Thanks for worrying about me," He addressed the civilians and doctors. "But I'm fine and have no injuries so there's really no need to follow me." Tayte explained to the crowd before making a hasty exit. He hoped that would put their minds at ease that he wasn't dead or going to die soon, but he had a feeling they wouldn't be forgetting him soon.

As he passed what had once been his wings he bent down and picked up the fabric, only to realize it was more solid than it had once been. Strange, Tayte thought as he kept running. He brought the sheet with him. After he was on the move it seemed that it was the time to use his memory. "Left at the next building, second door." Tayte stated to himself out loud. He passed Dream rather quickly, which was to be expected, and kept going. He skidded around the corner and then counted out one door before she slammed on the brakes. It wasn't the longest trip, but it also wasn't really over. A tunnel that led to a building six blocks away.

It was a pretty weird pathway, but Tayte was up for it. He just hoped the guy would actually go through on his own instructions and show up. There was a small pause where Tayte propped the door open slightly with a stick just to make it easier for the other boy to figure out the place, although it seemed he knew it pretty well. Dream was an interesting guy so far and altogether pretty likeable. The only downside was that one little quip about letting him die, of course Tayte could let it slide if it meant getting materials for wings. In a matter of moments the eighteen year old was running through the described tunnel.

[Dream Wolf]

Dream waited until he was in the tunnel to really open up and run. Still not as fast as Tayte, he was much faster than the people chasing them would be. He made sure the door was closed and used his power to trigger the locking mechanism. He ran down the tunnel, never quite catching up to Tayte. He argued with Fang while he ran.

"Why did you have to say that? What if he decides I'm too bad a person to be around him? You could have ruined everything!" He was talking out loud, which for most people would be bad, as talking while running made your breathing out of rhythm.

Stop being a cry baby, he didn't seem to notice. Besides, you should have let him die, people like him always end up dead anyway. You could at least have let me see a funny thing. This of course made Dream angry, but he kept his anger in check, lest he make Fang more powerful.

"It would not have been funny. It would have been terrible. Death is not funny, it's bad. I mean it's part of life, but its not something that should be celebrated. If you weren't such an evil person I would let you talk more often. But you always do things like that." The boy reached the end of the tunnel and slowed. Waiting to see Tayte. He would decide on what to do after.

[Tayte Abbot]

Tayte arrived at the end of the tunnel and decided that it might be easier to just wait in the tunnel. So he took to inspecting the metal mesh again at the end of the tunnel. It was strange how it had solidified into something that was harder to move. Before it had been almost like a fabric, movable and perfect for wings. This would work too, but it would be harder to move around and manipulate it how he wanted. Tayte still hadn't decided if it had hardened on it's own or if Dream had done that, but it would be easy enough to ask the younger boy about it.

Tayte looked up when he heard a voice and footsteps approaching. For a split second he was worried that it would be somebody else in the tunnel and he would have to explain why he was there, but then he saw Dream and smiled. "Hey good meeting place. Also this sheet is harder than it was before, did you do that or is it some after-effect as in the metal only stays flexible as long as it's new. I mean this is still flexible, it's just different than it was before you know what I mean?" Tayte held up the sheet and wobbled it as it to show the way it moved was different now.

With a small smile Tayte took to running around again. He really wanted to just run back to his apartment and get to work on a new set of wings, but if he wanted some better material than fabric he found lying around his house then he'd need to talk to this guy. "Oh by the way, those people probably won't follow us. I told them I was okay so I think they'll probably believe me. No way to be sure though. So, yadda yadda yadda, let's talk about the wings." Tayte was excited to get a move on. The sooner he could test a new pair the better. In his haste he sometimes sounded a little rude, but he never truly meant it.

[Dream Wolf]

Dream was now used to Tayte's rapid fire speech, he adapted quickly, and his absorb power allowed him to take in some of Tayte's speed, though not much, it made it easier to understand the other person, if not allowing him to speak back in the same rapid clip.

"In my experience, doctors are very tenacious...they don't like to leave people alone until they've run every test and poked them with a needle a few thousand times..." He thought about the metal. He had made it stiffen on purpose, as running around with the metal as a fabric would have been more difficult, he nodded his head and with a 'flicking' thought made the metal loosen and become almost fluid again.

"I can make almost any metal do what I want, but it's limited by the metal's natural properties. Aluminum was the best choice you could have made. Anything heavier a it wouldn't have been able to become like a fabric, and if you had used anything more light weight, like tin, it would have shredded under the stress. I wouldn't suggest using that piece though, the metal is at it's limit, given some time and samples, and detailed explanations of what you're trying to accomplish with the material, I could make you something stronger. I think an aluminum mesh with a hollow frame would be the right weight, but you would need something stronger if you wanted to flap the wings. Every metal is different, and it would take multiple experiments to get the right combination of frame and fabric. I may not know much about flying, but I do know metals, and quite honestly, I have to say this mind you just so I feel like I have tried to explain to you, YOU ARE INSANE! Jumping off a roof with wings made of scrap metal and cloth? I mean it takes all kinds to make the world turn I know, but if you want to fly so bad, why would you risk dying before achieving it with such a hare-brained idea!? I'm not trying to be mean or rude or anything, but if I hadn't been there you could have died, or at the very least been crippled. I don't care if your super speed allows you to heal really fast, which would make sense, but, if you break your spine, you aren't going to be able to walk OR fly! Well unless you can heal from that kind of injury, but even so, it would take a long time, I assume, and you would be going crazy from not being able to move, because you can barely handle how long it takes me to talk!" The teen paused for breath, the rant taking more effort than fifty laps around the academy. He held up a hand to signify that he wasn't done talking.

"If I am going to help you, you have to promise to never do something like that again without taking the proper safety precautions. I would die if you fell to your death while using wings I helped to make. I'm not saying you can't test the wings, but you have to have a back up plan. Like a parachute, or someone who can slow or stop your fall. At the very least a...a Chaser level healer who can put you back together again. And if you don't promise we might as well take our separate ways here, because I won't help you kill yourself, I've seen too many people die because they thought they were unbeatable, or were ready for anything. My own parents died because they didn't prepare enough, and I bet you have a family that would feel a lot of pain if you died, so I won't be a part of making that pain. I'm not holding back here. I want to help you, because for you flying is your life goal, its what you want most, I can see that easily, even if my teachers like to say I don't see the details in what is around me. But I will NOT help you do something completely suicidal." Finishing he heaved for breath. He had said more than he intended, but if Fang had slipped out like he had tried to, well there was no possibility that Tayte would want to be within a mile of Dream, let alone working with him.

[Tayte Abbot]

As Dream explained how the doctors probably wouldn't give up that easily Tayte grumbled. He felt phantom pricks of needles as he thought about his last visit to the the hospital. All that pain and lying in a bed doing nothing was awful. After Dream was done talking about the doctors he nodded his head and just like that the piece of metal was back to being more like fabric than water. Tayte shook the metal to make sure it really was just the same as it had been before. He chuckled and draped the metal over his shoulder.

Once Dream started talking about the stuff that Tayte actually wanted to hear, things like how he could make more metal and manipulate it however he wanted, that was when Tayte actually began to make an effort to listen to things as they were happening instead of after it all happened. Dream was talking about metals and their properties. Maybe later Tayte would watch a few lectures on metal so that he could keep up with the younger boy's knowledge on the subject, but for now he was just a little lost. The only reason Tayte had chosen aluminium was because he knew it was lightweight enough to not weigh him down too much. Maybe next time he'd actually research more than that.

Tayte was nearly ready to jump out of his running shoes he was so excited to get started on the project. The was that Dream described it made it sound really fun, if not time consuming and slow. Planning how to fly was the only thing better than flying itself, of course when Dream mentioned how he was insane Tayte froze in his tracks, if only for a slit second. It wasn't like he was unaware of how strange he was, it was just that to him there was a method to his madness and a purpose behind both of them. He took to bouncing in spot again and Dream ranted. There were a few times again where Tayte faltered in his movements, like when the younger boy mentioned him being crippled. He had calculated the percentage of that actually happening and as long as he hadn't lost both wings it wouldn't have been too likely, but even the idea was terrifying.

For a second, when Dream paused, Tayte thought that it was over and he would get a rebuttal, but the other boy held up his hands to signal that he was going to continue speaking so Tayte continued bouncing. It was true that he couldn't even stand to sit still though the other boy talking, or anybody else talking for that matter. It was agonizingly slow. Tayte hadn't even slept in the past five days because that meant stopping by his apartment and actually laying down for more than twenty seconds. When he did end up sleeping it was more of a passing out thing.

Dream was now talking about how he wouldn't be a part of Tayte making his wings if he tried something that stupid again. Tayte frowned and took to pacing instead of bouncing. So far one of the only ways that Tayte had been testing his wings was to jump off of buildings, of course it wasn't the safest, but it was the easiest and the fastest, so he was willing to compromise safety. At one point Dream mentioned that his parents were dead. At first Tayte felt bad for Dream, but then he thought about his own parents. He frowned and stopped moving altogether then. For the first time in a long time Tayte couldn't recall something. When was the last time he had talked to his parents?

When Dream actually stopped talking talking Tayte looked up and was back to hopping. "Listen I'm not suicidal, I calculated the risk and decided I was willing to take it. I've been in the hospital before and although it is torture in more ways then one I can deal with it. There was a time before I was this fast and I'm sure there will be a time after. I'm not some little glass shard or anything you don't have to worry about me, but if the only way you'll agree to help me is to go slower and do less field tests then sure. I can tell you all the stuff you need to know about the wings and all of that, so there's no need to worry there. Sorry about your parents. Don't ever call me insane again. I can get you some blueprints within the day if you want." Tayte jumped around a lot in his own little speech and it was a lot shorter than Dream's, but he hoped that it got his point across.

[Dream Wolf]

Dream listened to Tayte talk, he nodded at the end of the short speech, and held out his hand. "Shake on it then. I will help you fly, if only because I want to prove I can do it. And I don't really think you' were suicidal, but I've done things without thinking and almost gotten killed before, like the time I tried to make a submarine, I nearly drowned, and the mechanized armor thing was a total disaster...A good suggestion for a metal NOT to use is carbonized Titanium, too heavy for just about anything, and super hard to shape, even for me. I was almost crushed when the armor collapsed in on itself..."

Dream opened the door leading out. "Point is, even with a calculated risk, if it almost kills you, people are going to call you suicidal. I've been dealing with it my whole life." He stepped out and waited for Tayte, watching foot traffic go by. He felt like he was being watched again, but ignored it.

[Tayte Abbot]

This time when Dream spoke his speech wasn't nearly as long and drawn out. He still went on a few tangents, but it generally stayed on the same train of thought. Tayte went back to not really listening. He understood that Dream wouldn't be associated with him if he kept leaping off of buildings in hopes that he might fly, but at the same time that was really one of the only ways that he had tested anything. He had tested his glider like that, and it had worked, but a glider wasn't the same. Either way Tayte still had the old thing as a reminder of what he was striving for.

Tayte shook Dream's hand in a heartbeat. There was no need to think about it. One of Tayte's only dream was to fly, and here Dream was offering to help him do that. Who wouldn't take that offer? Tayte stepped out of the open door and stood beside Dream. "Okay so no more stupid stunts for me, but until the next testing phase I probably wouldn't do anything like that anyways. So we have a couple options now. We can go to my apartment and get some blueprints started, or we can go find some metal to use in the project. It's up to you." Tayte sped along through the choices and waited impatiently. His apartment wasn't the most welcoming place, but if they chose to go there and Tayte wouldn't have to worry about the doctors seeing him and taking him back to the hospital.