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WHO: Everyone!
WHERE: De Chima
WHEN: Feb. 16
WHAT: This month's swear-in!
WARNINGS: Possibly some violence

A spiraling new skyscraper has just completed construction in De Chima and, to celebrate, the owners and several of the businesses renting space in the modern wonder have elected to host this month’s swear-in on the top couple floors. These floors can be reached be elevator, slowly strolling up the winding ramp that circles from the bottom to the roof or, if you can, fly or leap or use whatever other superpowers you have to get to the top or to reach one of the many open balconies and gardens available along the sides of the tower.

Though it’s a few days late, the theme of the gathering is still an unsurprising one for this time of the year: love. And, really, after the past couple of months who doesn’t need that in their lives? There are several activities available to celebrate the many stages of romance, all available in different subsections on the top couple floors. On the second floor from the top is where you enter and houses the business end of the swear-in, what you typically find at these gatherings. A lovely ballroom decorated to the nines in red, white, blue (and pinks) with an open buffet of finger foods, drinks, and various information pamphlets about local businesses, the government, and job opportunities for new imPorts.

Branching off the main ballroom are gorgeous balconies looking over the city, as well as a few indoor/outdoor gardens. These gardens range in themes from tropic jungle, to evergreen paradise, to desert oasis. They are all only about 600 square feet each, but they are a nice break from the socializing and whatnot of the main gathering. There are also special drinks provided by the Color Me Cupid company making their way around, both in alcoholic and virgin varieties. They have no clever names, sadly, but rather are labeled after the bright, almost glowing colors each is. A few sips just leads to a fizzy feeling on the lips, but have at least half of the drink and you’ll feel a few effects for the next twenty minutes or so:

Pink Drink: Sentimentality. You’ll feel a fondness for people, places, events, or even a nice piece of furniture. Cozy on up with this soft puppy love or platonic general desire to be near that person/item of interest.

Blue Drink: Melancholy. Alas, love isn’t all butterflies and sunshine. But this isn’t just being in a bad mood, wanting to go home. No, this is artistic, bohemian angst. The kind of mellow drama the poetic soul feeds on. Drape yourself over a table and opine on your lost loves, or stare tragically at the stars, sighing loudly until someone finally asks you to reveal your dark, mysterious past. Follow your tortured heart in getting that attention you suddenly need, just make sure to make a show of your inner turmoil.

Red Drink: Passion. Whether its for a person, a sports team, or a favorite hobby, you suddenly feel the need to share your enthusiasm with the world. Talk for an hour about a baseball game, or shout your love from a roof top. Or challenge someone to a duel over the hand of your loved one- or a balcony you really wanted to stand on. How ever passion works for you.

Green Drink: Jealousy. It’s an ugly part of love, but hard to escape. Depending on the person, this could induce feelings of neediness for attention from people you care about, to paranoia that others are out to steal what is yours.

Scattered throughout the main floor, a couple of the balconies, and along the twin ramps spiraling up to the top floor are two person tables, set for enjoying those finger foods and drinks. Also on each table is a stack of brightly colored note cards. These are important because, you see, the Loose Lips communication service is showing off one of their newest innovations in dating technology: Speed Honesty. When two people sit at a table, a small force field is suddenly erected around them. It won’t suffocate you or anything easy like that, no. It will simply stay in place, keeping you two at the table, until you pick up a note card and, worst of all, each of you must answer the question on the card. The speaker hidden in the table will evaluate your tone of voice, as well. No sarcastic answers accepted and, unless you’re a skilled liar, dishonest ones won’t do the trick either. The table’s AI needs to believe both parties have sincerely answered the question picked, then the force field will lower. Then you can either run or, if you wait more than ten seconds without moving, the forcefield will reactivate and you have to do it all again. This will happen every time two people sit at any of the tables, and sometimes an unwitting third standing too close may be trapped and must answer as well. Good luck, guys.

[[Questions for the cards can be found here or here, or you can OOCLy make them up for fun.]]

The top floor of the building is owned by the With Your Best Shot company and, trying to keep with the theme of the night, they have opened the (bullet proof) glass enclosed training areas on the roof of the building for duels. Hand to hand, with (dulled) swords, (paint ball) pistols, it’s all open for use so long as you declare your grievance against the person you are about to duel and declare what the winner will gain. These can be anything from traditional romantic items- the hand of the maiden fair- to silly things, like who gets the last soda in the fridge back at the apartment after this. Seconds are encouraged, but not required. There are viewing spaces for people to enjoy both the fights and the amazing view of the city below.

Enjoy the evening, imPorts. This month's swear-in appears to be going well until, later in the evening, the shadows seem to grow darker. Attendees might assume there's been a change of lighting to facilitate a romantic mood until hundreds of Heartless emerge from the darkest corners, intent on attacking imPorts and capturing as many hearts as possible.

Quite a few of the unwelcome guests are of the Shadow variety, stronger in swarms than they are individually, but still dangerous. The more fearsome Neoshadows are also in attendance, as are more colorfulvarieties -- some of which may have been people imPorts knew, before their own hearts were claimed.

Whoever they were and wherever the Heartless came from, attendees have three options: fight, run or hide. Whatever they do, they'll want to guard their hearts closely, or they may find themselves becoming the enemy.

[[OOC: Please ask any questions here!

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He does. Rising from his seat, he grins as he wanders over, flopping in a chair next to hers, and nudges her.

"Hey."

His grin is warm, and bouncy, but he also just relaxes next to her, easy in her presence. She will see, too, that he looks much more rested, much more calm, than he had before. And there is an energy in him, even when sitting, that makes him smile wider.

He reaches into a pocket, and out floats a pear, which floats over to her, and bobs in front of her. "Pear?"

She's glad for his presence, and even more relieved by his renewed attitude of hope and cheer. Considering how rough those few weeks had been for Superboy, she's glad to see him feeling better. Leave it to Sal to worry about the well-being of a super-powered Kryptonian, anyway.

"What's with all the snacks, huh? You don't trust the food here or something?"

Sal takes the pear and bites into it, even so. Something ought to balance out all of that discounted Valentine's Day candy she bought earlier. As for herself, she's looking pretty calm and measured—although she's definitely got her weapons on her too. Hey, sometimes she bothers to remember what the other imPorts try to tell her, and if anything they mentioned at the last swear-in proves to be at all true, there's no point in leaving them at home.

"Almost every swear-in is a goddamned trap, clusterfuck, or disaster in some way. Trust anything at these things? Nope. They're lucky we don't burn the sites down, salt the ground and have a picnic on the space instead."

In addition to having his suit on under his street clothes, he's also got a taser in his pocket, and a hand baton strapped on one leg. He has learned from the Bats, okay? Be prepared. especially at these damned things.

"How the heck are you, finestkind groovy one?"

"You know what, I'm gonna take it as a personal offense if something bad happens to these gardens," she jokes and stretches an arm out toward the carefully cultivated greenery. "This is too fucking beautiful for any of the usual mayhem."

Everything else at this particular swear-in seems, at least so far, just the bland, same old welcome process as the time before. Granted, Sal's keeping her distance from whatever the fuck seems to be happening at those tiny tables, but she's not sure if that's a real issue or more belated Valentine's Day celebrating. She's not going to ask.

"Me? Shit, I'm having a leisurely stroll through this place," and Sal seems to be doing well enough for herself too. She hasn't spent much time in this particular city, so it's been a nice distraction, just flying around. "I could still do with some mild hijinks, I think. There's supposed to be some kind of dueling up on the roof, right?"

She's been going through each floor at a leisurely pace, taking her time getting all the way up to the top.

Kon grins at her and nods. She has a point and he glances at those gardens, then nods. "Good luck, then." Swear-ins are bad news.

At her words, he laughs. "Want to test the set up out? I'm no sword master, but I've got a wee small amount of training." Mostly from implanted knowledge from the douchelord Lex Luthor, but still.

The offer is there.

Sal can't help but be surprised. Not in a bad way to be sure, but when you're like Superboy (or Calto back home) and your body is the weapon, well...why learn something like swordplay? Although, she's definitely not turning this opportunity down.

Oh no, she wants to see this—and now thanks to a certain someone, she knows better than to try to bend certain rules of friendly sparring either. (And she's at least vaguely aware of what MMA is too‐look, everyone fucks up sometimes, okay?)

"Of course I want to, you shit. Let's go up there and see what they have." She's up on her feet already, excited to be doing something she likes. No alcohol means there's got to at least be a little harmless, friendly fighting. Something to keep the amusement going, not that the gardens are boring but...that's more for quiet contemplation, which is never too relaxing, in her case.

She bumps him on the arm, amused. "There's no chance you're getting out of this now."

He follows, grinning, eyes dancing, as he sees her excited. It's a good look, he thinks, and nods. He can't wait to do it, and find out how fun it can be with someone who knows what they are doing.

"Then lead on, you silly idjit." he bumps her back, grinning, feet already a little off the ground. "Are you going to make me chase you there?" His eyes dance with the idea and an amused smirk crosses his face as he wiggles fingers at her.

This speaks of fun, and trust, and he is ready for this. A lot. He likes this solid friend, fighter, and lady person.

There's a part of her that really missed this. Letting herself experience this kind of happiness, sure, but also that levity she thought she had lost for good. Like a broken doll with its pieces missing, important ones, and unable to pull itself back together. So, even with all the weird shit that happens here, she still finds herself grateful, inevitably, for moments just like this.

Just like Superboy, Sal allows herself to float free from the ground, and even though she knows she can't really outdo his faster-than-lightning speed, she answers that challenge and takes off toward the open balcony.

"That's fucking right, so be sure to keep up!"

Well, the good behavior was nice while it lasted. She's flying between the tall indoor shrubs, a gust of wind gently rattling through their neatly pruned leaves. This is exactly the kind of behavior that got her in trouble as a young girl, in fact, and it's both strange and welcome to feel this again, even for a moment.

She looks back, wondering if he's already ahead of her.

He laughs and just watches for a second. Tio see her smiling and happy? That was the best damn thing ever. And he shot after her a moment later, grinning, finding himself just enjoying this, and not worried about anything else.

when she looks back, he is floating right behind her, less than a handsbreadth away, grinning that grin of his at her. "Surprise."

She tries not to flinch from the surprise, because as always he moves faster than the normal eye can track, but those well-honed fighting instincts are hard to temper. Sal knows he isn't a threat. That she trusts him. So she reminds herself, offering up a small snicker of a laugh.

"Fuck off," she says with an eye-roll, obviously meaning no ill will. As they move closer to the open balcony and it's time to fly up, he's close enough for her to reach out and put a hand on his arm. It's a light grip, but it's an effort toward affection.

She reaches the roof in no time at all. The air is nice today, and regardless of the noise of the busy city, it feels nice to be up here. Sal lands around the collection of glass dueling spaces, taking stock of the equipment. "Well, it's look like there's still plenty of practice weapons." She shrugs and glances over her shoulder at him. "Let's take up that room over there, huh?"

Oops. He winces just a touch, and then grins at her words. Okay good.

"Sure, sure. Okay." he grins as they fly together and the touch earns a grin and a nudge from him with his telekinesis, an almost fist bump to her as he barrel rolls to face upward and laughs.

Landing on the roof with her, there is a moment where his eyes search the roof for trouble, but when nothing happens, he relaxes and nods.

The whole thing looks cool to him and he glances around. "Lead on, yeah. I wanna see how good these things are." He did like bladed weapons, even if he didn't like hurting people a lot. Blame his first lover Knockout for that.

Walking over to the nearest weapon rack, Sal remembers her own time training in mock duels. So many years ago, back in Cathama; before any of them had set eyes on a real battlefield or done any kind of killing. During those days, they were all just young, headstrong mages sharing the same training ground. (Even Jindu, with his arms wrapped around that clunky, over-sized training sword of his, all smiles and just for her.)

She takes out two wooden practice weapons and throws one over for Superboy to catch. She has her favored sword, Jeff, belted at her waist like usual; however, that's the sort of weapon she wants to save for real enemies. Leading them into the open dueling room, she takes a few wide practice swings, trying to get a feel for the unfamiliar weight of the blade. Once it looks like her friend is ready, she takes up a loose battle stance.

"Ocumani oth rethar," she says in Old Imperial. "Well? Go ahead and show me what you know."

Catching the sword, he tests it, his mind whirring as he feels the implanted memories fill his cortex. Swordfighting and fencing, both, were there, and he takes a long breath, pushing back the overwhelming sense of it, even as he sinks into the feel of the skills.

"here goes nothing..."

And then he attacks, eyes almost closed as he moves in. His form is exquisite as he brings the sword to attack, swirling it into a sideways extended drive toward her lower abdomen, before snapping it up, instead, to swing toward Sal's upper torso on one side.

He is no expert, no warrior in this, but Lex was always very ambitious at learning.

It's kind of unsettling, watching Superboy sink down into his fighting stance, almost as if he's under some sort of spell. There's a sort of otherness in the way his body moves that speaks of something or someone else, and he strikes at her with the kind of confidence Sal expects of some of her more strict and formal adversaries. People who like to perfect their stance just so, practicing a single blow until it's text-book perfect.

Well, she's never been about any of that shit herself.

She moves with all the experience and confidence of someone who has lived for fighting for a long, long time. Deflects that blow and doesn't shrink back; instead, she's right up in his space with a counter-attack that he'll need to be quick-thinking to avoid.

Regardless of Superboy's skill here, she's determined not to treat this as a real fight. Whatever the results, she won't hurt him, and all of her concentration goes into this effort. In other words: none of the usual shit-talking her opponent into distraction.

And the way she moves, the way her face looks, breaks him out of it, makes him blink and stagger, and at that moment, his skill evaporates as he stares at the practice blade in his hand and realized he has done it again.

"Fuck." And then enthusiastically, with far less skill, and with a never do well smirk, he attacks.

"Fuck that memory shit. You are fucking amazing with swords." The swears are coming out tonight, yes.

"What kind of memory shit? Where'd you learn to fight like that, anyway?" Normally Sal doesn't pry too far into other people's past, but it's Superboy, and she would be lying if she said it wasn't enough to make her worry for him, even if just a little.

Besides, it's easier to talk when he switches tactics seemingly out of nowhere. Gone is that strange expression and gone are the intense, precise fencing techniques. Superboy swings at her like she expected at the start, strong and fast but not as learned.

This way, if anyone from the outside happens to watch, they might see Sal quickly taking control of the flow of fighting. Predicting and countering his moves, she seems more interested in learning what he can do than to win.

It's meant to be fun, after all. She wants to spend time with him, distracting them both away from the troubles in the recent past. Or maybe even much further back, because it's easy to remember who she once sparred with the most like this; and memories like that are meant to be replaced.

"Not your Young Justice friends, I'm guessing." But it's just that, a simple guess. Their worlds, after all, seem to have been very different.

"When I was made. Lex Luthor was half of the genetic material made to make me, and they manipulated the science somehow to give me portions of his memory skills. But it's... it's not me when it comes up." And the horror of it seeps into him, but he shakes it away.

he shakes his head and grins at her, sliding back and saluting her like Errol Flynn might with the sword.

"I have no idea what I am doing, but it is fun." It was always fun hanging out with her. And he is glad he is doing it, too. She makes him smile.

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Fruit!

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