Award Winning Tear-Jerker! (Open)

Once again, on a cold, windy night in Jump City, Riley Armitage trudged down the sidewalk and to the closest place he'd consider his home. The Jump City Cineplex was one ahead of its time! It had just about every arcade game that one could think of and it seemed like they got their movies before any of the commercials even came out. Today, though, Riley really didn't have any idea what he wanted to see, so, when he made it to the ticket teller inside the warm lobby, he really had no idea what to say.

"Hey, welcome to the Cineplex. What can I do fer ya today?" said the ticket teller, quite grumpily in fact. It seemed obvious that he was having a long night, his red vest was in stark contrast with the blue carpet. These were some of the only things that Riley didn't like about the theater.

"Um...well...what do you recommend?" he responded, unsure with himself.

Instantly the teller lit up with a glow in his face that said, 'I might actually meet my quota with the new movie today!' "Actually, we do have the academy award winning flick for movie of the year here for a director's cut addition, only this weekend! You've probably heard of it! It's called Never Again!" He ended with a huge smile.

Riley's eyebrow rose slowly as if expecting it to be a joke but the teller continued staring on with the same hopeful expression. "Is there any other recommendations?" Riley responded, bluntly.

"No." he said quickly, with a frown.

With a slight groan, he went with it, feeling pretty uneasy but still deciding to enter theater five. He sat down in the last row in case the movie was too terrible and he could toss popcorn in front of the projector to freak people out. The screen widened and a voice of a man broke the silence of the almost packed theater. "Last summer I took a new job in Paris as an independent photographer. When I was taking photos of the Eiffel Tower, I saw the most beautiful person I'd ever see. I knew immediately that I would marry this girl. I knew I'd marry Sara Scarlet..."

Riley groaned and sunk in his seat. "This is going to be a long two hours..."

You know that feeling that someone's watching you? Y'know...that sort of sixth sense that everyone has that just makes you feel...uneasy? Well that's what awoke Riley from his slumber in the middle of the movie. He jumped a little bit, letting a quiet yelp escape as he settled back into a comfortable position in his seat. Looking back at the scene, he saw the two main characters arguing about some relationship probably that they were ultimately learn to get over and strengthen their love even more in the end...

"Wow...lucky me..." Riley whispered to himself as he rubbed his eyes to wake himself up fully. He tried to stretch his back a bit when he realized that his shoes' soles were covered with some unidentifiable substance. This movie was perfect at highlighting terrible movie theater experiences!

Suddenly he found what had awoken him. A few seats away sat someone who was staring at him half confused. Oh no! he thought frantically. I haven't been out to a movie in a long time as Riley! I didn't think anyone would recognize me as Scope! Although he may have just been getting paranoid, he couldn't risk his secret identity. With his eyes widened, he got up and attempted to nonchalantly shuffle down the aisle as quickly as he could without drawing too much attention.

Once he made it to the lobby, he full on sprinted out the doors of the theater and around the corner into the back alley. With his back pressed up against the cold brick wall, he stopped to catch his breathe. As his shoe flattened down the snow under his foot, he looked down and realized what he'd done. "Stupid!" Riley exclaimed. Following him to his position was a purple stained footprint through the theater, the lobby, the sidewalk and all the way to the back alley. Hopefully this stranger wasn't the curious type...

Just as he thought, soon, around the corner poked the head of some confused looking girl asking what was the matter. It seems that Riley had grown a little paranoid with his new alter ego. He didn't really know how to act in public anymore...

"Err...sorry," he began scratching the back of his head, "You're fine...I just...um...never mind..."

He walked back towards the girl calmly and held out his hand for shake. "I'm Riley...just Riley." He said with a shiny smile. He still should protect his identity shouldn't he? He didn't really have a big family to protect but, he had no idea who this girl was...

"...And you are...?"

A smirk spread across Riley's face as this girl named 'Vene', whatever that means, held out her left hand to shake his right. She then awkwardly corrected herself and apologized by saying that she basically didn't know how to talk to people. His jaw dropped slightly as he tried to wrap his mind around the type of girl he was talking about. He completed the far too difficult hand shake and started to casually walk out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, turning to where his usual hotdog vender would usually be if it was early enough leaving room for Vene to follow if she felt the need to but purposefully walking down the street, late at night, to try to make her want to return to the comfort of the movie theater's lobby.

"Yeah half the movies that come out are exactly the same...boring..." he responded without a thought. He really wanted to know why this girl was staring at him to be honest. It was a dark theater and, although the movie was outplayed and overrated, he doubted that he was somehow more interesting than the movie.

"Okay...so...you wanna be honest with me for a sec?" he began again. "Why were you staring at me back there?" he asked with an eyebrow raised. He continued to walk without wavering his gaze from the slushy snow covered walkway that lay in front of his feet. He had to protect his own identity if he wanted to protect his family or any of his school friends. He really had no idea who this girl was anyhow...

Vene followed Riley out of the alley. "I'm sorry. It's just..You seemed familiar, like I'd seen you around town or something. Again, real sorry about that." she said, feeling all the more embarrassed. Even in the cold winter temperatures, her face was red. "I hope you didn't get too freaked out." she said, hoping to ease the awkwardness. She shoved her hands into her pockets, trying to look normal. This was an awkward situation for her, and she hoped Riley wasn't mad. she hated making people mad at her.

Riley wasn't really mad. He just got annoyed sometimes when people weren't real with him. People that came up with acceptable excuses for why they did things when the truth probably wouldn't hurt anything. "Like I said, I'm fine..." he trailed off, looking out of the corner of his eye and realizing that she had decided to follow him to, who knows where.

"So, are you like new around town or something?" he asked indifferently. He shoved his hands into his trench coat as the wind picked up slightly.

As the two came to the end of the walk, they found themselves at a deserted street corner, amongst various warehouses devoid of any sign of life besides themselves. Riley leaned on the lone street light that actually seemed to be the only source of light in the area as he realized that he didn't know where he was planning to go, and Vene was probably becoming more aware that he was trying to ditch her.

"Well Vene, it was nice meeting you, but I really have to go..." he said with a slightly annoyed underlying tone. As he took a few steps in another random direction, away from the girl and the theater, he heard a loud band from the alley that they had just been standing in.

Riley ran back to the street light to Vene. "What was that!?" he asked, concerned. Sprinting down the sidewalk and back into the alley, he found the trash can that they had been speaking near, smoking and with a huge hole in it.

Leaning down to investigate, Riley discovered a metallic remains of what seemed to be a bomb! "What the heck!?" Riley exclaimed. After pausing for a moment, he raised his head to look at Vene. "Do you know anything about this?" he asked although he doubted it a lot. He reached into his pocket to feel for his razor sharp discs in case they were needed and tried to be especially aware of his surroundings.

Vene had followed Riley to the street light, and was about to answer his question about being new to town, when suddenly an explosion could be heard. She followed Riley again to the back alley, and found the trash can with a huge hole blown into it. He asked if she had anything to do with it. "What?! No, of course not! I don't even know anything about bombs!" she shouted, a little harshly. She face palmed. "Again, sorry. I just keep messing up today..." she looked closer at the hole in the trash can. "I have no idea what kind of bomb could have caused this.."

After a moment of silence, only some light crackling echoed through the alley from the now flaming garbage can. Riley was staring at Vene, breathing exasperatedly, when, out of the periphery of his vision, he saw a strange shard whirring through the air. He quickly grabbed Vene and shoved her out of the way as the shard cut his trench coat and slightly sliced at his left arm.

"Agh!" Riley yelled, clutching his wrist. What was going on!? Assassins!? Was Primarch back somehow!?

Suddenly a blur seemed to dash into the alley way and hit Riley, causing him to spin and land on the ground, now undoing his trench coat and revealing his Scope-Titan armor. Blood drips from his arm as he struggles to his feet.

He glances over to see that Vene was alright. Looking back to the entrance of the alley, he sees a beam of light blast the ground to create a line of fire. As his eyes refocus in on the intense light, he sees five figures walking through the fire...

Spoiler:

"Brucie!?" Riley exclaimed.

A man with a red shirt and a stern jaw walked ahead of the other four men that Riley now recognized as Bruce's old gang from before he was a Titan, but, each of them looked different. Marco now had his hair slicked back very sharply as if to make sure it wouldn't become messy at high speeds, Chet now had scars around his body as if shards had just recently broken off, Ralph now had almost metallic looking gloves that seem to be for protection against fire or some sort of energy, actually, the only one that looked about the same was David who seemed to just be clothed with wires and cables for some reason.

"Y'know we've been watching you, Riley?" Bruce began, smiling with a sinister scent. "We know that you joined those 'Titans' and have been hanging around that Tower ever since...We were getting worried that we'd never see you again."

The guys snickered like hyenas as Bruce continued. "You see, we ran into some fortune ourselves, recently, as you can see..." he stared down at his arms which were drastically larger than they were before. "Now you're not the only one from the old neighborhood with some talent...We're here to teach you and everyone else that this is our turf and no one's going to mess with us here!"

He nodded to his gang and they all separated as if they had practiced this many times. Marco sprinted straight at Vene and Scope while Ralph took to a stance and sent a laser beam into the air as if to show off his power. Chet made two shards grow out of his wrists and held them like two swords as he charged towards Riley and Vene behind Marco. Bruce and Ralph waited at the alley entrance, keeping watch for any unexpected visitors and to enjoy the show...

Vene was examining the hole in the can when Riley had suddenly grabbed her and moved her out of the way, getting cut himself by a shard that came seemingly from nowhere. Riley fell down, and his trench coat fell open, revealing the armor underneath. Vene knew she had recognized the teen, but was he actually Scope, a Titan? It was at that moment when a few guys had shown up, who appeared to know Riley. Vene wanted to think of him as just Riley, but she knew he was more than that. She was interrupted from her thoughts as one of the men suddenly charged at her and Riley. Very quickly she released a jet of gas at the oncoming attacker, hoping to at least slow him down as she began to leap out of the way.

Vene then rolled to the ground, pulled off her gloves, and grabbed a stone from the ground. Instantly the rock was covered in her trademark acid, making it a frightening projectile. She launched the rock at the guy shooting lasers, aiming for his hand. She quickly followed up her attack with a kick to the guy's face, and landed on the ground beside him. She looked at Riley. "You seem to know what to do, so, do it!" she said, before going to attack the two guys standing at the other end of the alley.

Without having time to think, Riley chucked two of his blades at the attackers. His two attacks, combined with the moved that Vene had dealt made the stagger back a few feet. Trying to think quickly, Riley searched through his pockets to find a match, after examining the acidic gas and liquid, decided to light the match and cause a sort of wall of fire to form, separating the two groups.

"Now you know, Riley!" Bruce yelled through the wall of fire. "Consider this as a warning! This is our territory now, so back off!" Bruce then nodded at another member that Riley couldn't see clearly, but, he seemed to lean forward and, suddenly, his shadow seemed to change drastically! His shoulders seemed to draw sharper corners and shards started to appear around his body. Through the fire, walked what seemed to be a walking rock as Riley recognized the creature as Chet.

"What happened to you!?" Riley yelled.

Chet held out his hand and a long spear like shard grew out of his arm, he leaned back as if getting ready to throw, so Riley grabbed Vene and yelled. "Run!"

They bolted as fast as they could down the corner, hearing the spear fly towards them through the air, but, the slid and twisted around the corner before making contact with either of them, causing it to shatter as it hit the brick building.

Riley kept running, knowing that, although Bruce wouldn't be chasing them, he was still too close to be comfortable. Whatever happened to them...Riley wasn't ready to face that yet...He and Vene ran around downtown for nearly ten minutes when they finally happened upon the peer and Scope slid to a stop as he skidded onto a wooden walkway.

"Are you okay?" he asked the girl, concerned.

Vene was shocked when the giant walking rock had launched a spear at them, and at that moment Riley had grabbed her and started running. They finally stopped at the pier, and Riley asked if she was alright. "Yeah, I'm fine. But, who were those guys? They seemed like they knew you." she replied, absolutely confused with the situation.

Looking back over his shoulder quickly, Riley took a deep breath when he decided that they must be safe. "They're...they're just a bad crowd..." he said rather vaguely.

He turned away from Vene and stared at a poster that was taped onto the stone gray wall that seemed to be advertising for some magician's act. He decided to gaze at it and try to act captivated by it while he thought about what had just happened.

How could this have happened!? What is wrong with them!? ...Is anything about my life the same anymore...?

He put his hand on the brightly colored poster and leaned, staring now at the ground. This really changed things. He had always thought that he could turn back to his regular life if he decided that he shouldn't be a Titan anymore...but...now being Scope was basically his only life. The Titans were his family now...

Riley turned back to Vene and nodded. "Well, as long as you're okay...I guess I should be going..."

He then turned to the general direction of the park, hoping that Vene wouldn't still follow...although there was basically nowhere else that she could turn seeing as they were stuck in the back alleys still and she probably didn't know the area too well.