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Post by Savino Antonucchi on Aug 7, 2015 3:20:06 GMT -5
A school seemed like a strange meeting place for an estranged father and son. Perhaps if he had attended the school, if it had been a place of great importance to him, or them both if it turned out his father had attended the school; it might have made sense. As it stood, he was just confused and out of his depth, a new and not welcomed feeling for him. Savino looked around slowly as he walked, drinking in the location as best he could. He identified every exit and entry point, potential weapons and- HOLY SHIT the paintings move?! Savino froze on the spot, watching as the inhabitants of a painting- there was no better word than inhabitants- moved around gaily. Was this some kind of elaborate trick, meant to put him ill at ease? He remembered his father testing him extensively, and no matter how fast he ran, how high he jumped, how hard he hit, it had never impressed Enzo Antonucchi. Perhaps he was being tested again, twelve years on, for some unknown reason.
It had been hard enough to find this school, the map that his father had given him had not actually had the school on it, but rather went up to the path leading to the front entrance. Savino didn't think he could have found it without the map though. The whole place made him feel vaguely cross-eyed and slightly nauseous, just this sense that he shouldn't be there. He took another couple of steps forward, and placed on hand on the wall. It took him a total of ten seconds to clear his head of the feeling, leaving only a mental note about what his intuition had told him. It was never wise to totally ignore than unscientific, unquantifiable sense. But despite that, he was still totally lost in this bizarre school. What part of it would the headmaster's office even be in?
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Post by Pietro Antonucchi on Aug 7, 2015 4:12:51 GMT -5
Pietro had never, never been on guard duty before and had to do anything even remotely related to protecting the school. Yes, he had caught students out of bed. Yes, sometimes they were just looking for a place to get it on. But this was not one of those nights.
This man was not a student. This man was, plain and simple, an intruder. Pietro didn't know what he wanted, but he knew that it was his duty to stop him. Fortunately, the man was distracted by the paintings and by his own apparent confusion. He walked right by the spot where Pietro lurked within the shadows of a doorway. A simple "Stupefy!" and then an "Expelliarmus!" had him frozen on the floor and his weapons ... his many weapons ... scattered around Pietro's feet.
He went for the wand first, then took a moment to bind the intruder with the Incarcerous spell. His other weapons, though ... well ... how had this many weapons been hidden on one person? He recognized many of them; that was a pistol, and that was a sword, and that was ... well, it was vaguely familiar ... was it one of the things that Indians had used when they were common and constantly making war on each other? Why did this man have one of those? And what was its name? Pietro couldn't remember.
Well, this was just absurd. He would have to use an Undetectable Extension Charm on one of his pockets, and that process took a few minutes, even for the most highly-developed wizards. By the time he had finished and stuffed the first few weapons into his pocket, his captive was coming to. Good thing Pietro had thought to bind him.
"What is all of this? What brings you into a school with an entire arsenal?" he demanded, completely baffled. Who was this man, who came into the presence of children with all of these weapons? A strange little "Y"-shaped piece of wood, and a few stones, and a long stick with a rock attached to it ... what was all of this?
And then Pietro bent down to collect one of the final pieces ... and his heart nearly stopped. Lying there on the floor was a trench knife. No, no, no, he didn't want this to happen, but suddenly there he was in the mud again, and Finley was staring into his eyes before lifting the knife to slice through his face, and he almost heard the flesh tearing before it, and there was Kyra's voice -
A trench knife ... Mhm ...
- as she licked his blood from her fingers.
White-faced and trembling, Pietro found that he couldn't touch it. Instead, he said "Accio weapons!" and everything dangerous came zooming into his pocket. He took several deep, calming breaths before stepping toward his captive.
"I do not pretend to know what you are doing in a school with all of these weapons," Pietro said, his voice stony and full of threat, "but I believe the Headmaster can determine exactly what you are up to." With that, he employed the Levicorpus charm and started to make his way to Uncle Enzo's office.
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Post by Savino Antonucchi on Aug 7, 2015 4:40:29 GMT -5
A moment before he was attacked, Savino stiffened and tried to turn around. Apparently, though, he wasn't fast enough, another unusual experience for him. He barely registered the strange curse words that were yelled at him before he collapsed to the floor. It was definitely a test, there was no doubt about that. The dreamless unconsciousness that he fell into seemed to him to last only a moment before he awoke with a splitting headache.
As he came to, Savino attempted to rub his now-sore head. He found his body had been efficiently bound, especially when he figured out by their relative position that mere moments had passed between his blacking out and return to consciousness. "You could win a prize in a rodeo for tying me up that fast, I'm sure of it." Not that he'd ever been to a rodeo, but he'd heard about them. And read of them, too. It had been a common game among his peers at the military school to see who could catch and bind the most people in the shortest length of time. He'd never come close to winning, but neither was he one of the poor sods who ended up bound and face-down in the dirt.
"It's not my fault that this school was the meeting place. You can take that up with Enzo Antonucchi." Hopefully the name actually carried some weight here, he didn't know if his father was the janitor or the head of a department here. He could still be in a lot of trouble, especially given that this man had somehow managed to remove every single one of his weapons. How was that even possible? Half the time he forgot where some of them were, and yet they were all gone, including- "Aw, come on. You took my stick, too? What do you expect me to do with that? It's about the length of your average measuring stick, I'm not about to be able to spear someone with it."
Apparently, though, his captor had taken a fancy to his trench knife and was quite possibly in the process of making it his own. "Hey, you can't have that-" No. That wasn't the face of a man who had seen a particularly well maintained knife. That was the face of a man who was back in the field, fighting in a war that he had missed by mere years. Shell shock, no one who had been near as many veterans as he had could miss it. Savino could remember the first time he'd seen the tremors on the hands of one of his teachers, remembered how the man had forgotten that any of them were even there. Just from the sound of a car backfiring. "Hey. Hey! It's okay, it's okay man. You're not in the field, you safe. Hell, you're the one with me tied up."
His captor got over it as quickly as it had come over him, just in time for Savino to start hallucinating vividly. "I swear my knife just leapt into your pocket. It's never done that for me before. Traitor." He was treated to a spectacular view of the man's shoes as he was threatened. He decided not to respond, especially since apparently there was a great big man who had crept up behind him, and lifted him into the air. And was completely silent. Didn't even breathe. Maybe he should have just burned that letter, and given up forever on his father's approval. He'd lived long enough without it.
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Post by Pietro Antonucchi on Aug 7, 2015 5:39:27 GMT -5
"Rodeo?" Pietro asked, extremely suspicious of this strange word. "What is that, the name of one of your many weapons? I guarantee that the Headmaster - "
Oh ... wait. This young man already knew the Headmaster's name. He knew of Uncle Enzo. Well ... that just meant that he was trying to steal from Uncle Enzo, correct? Yes, that was the most likely thing. This man had intended to steal from Uncle Enzo, and now he never would. Pietro wouldn't have been surprised if he used the Killing Curse within the hour. This man was bad news, coming into a school with so many weapons ...
He couldn't help looking up in confusion when his captive mentioned his "stick." Stick? Stick? Who on God's green Earth could think of a wand as a mere stick? This simply did not make any sense, not at all. Who would carry all of these muggle weapons in addition to a wand and call his wand a stick? Pietro wanted to reply, but he simply had no words for such idiocy.
Of course, that was when the trench knife came into his view and, despite how hard he fought against it, he went stiff and white. That weapon had done so much damage. It had torn him apart. But all that would have been all right if not for Serafina ... Serafina ...
No, no no no, no no no! He couldn't become weak now, couldn't be overcome by memories of soft skin or sweet lips or fragrant hair or Professor Holland - Pietro - No! Right now he was delivering an attacker to the Headmaster and he couldn't let go of that fact. He couldn't be anything less than what an Antonucchi man should be: strong, solid, unafraid.
Glaring down at his captive, Pietro clenched his jaw and shook his head once. "I am always in the field," he replied without any intention of elaborating. "Come."
What was wrong with this man? He was treating magic as though it were something foreign, as though he couldn't make the knife do whatever he wanted it to do. Well, if he thought he could play the part of a squib and thereby escape punishment, he was very, very wrong. Uncle Enzo would make that clear.
"I will take you to the Headmaster," Pietro offered, his voice more growl than anything else, "and he will tell me what to do with you." Arriving outside the door, he summoned a house elf and asked, "Ollie, please tell Uncle Enzo that it is urgent. There is an intruder in the school." With that, Ollie disapparated to fetch the Headmaster.
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Post by Savino Antonucchi on Aug 7, 2015 6:02:18 GMT -5
"A rodeo is... well actually, I kind of hoped you would know that. They aren't exactly common in Germany, not like they are here. There's pig-tying involved? And people on bulls, but for what reason I don't know." Apparently rodeos weren't common in this part of the United States at least. Savino was rather disappointed, a whole joke entirely wasted because neither of them really knew what a rodeo was. He'd have to do better, otherwise he got the feeling this guy might get it into his head that the only way to deal with him was by killing him, and Savino rather wanted to avoid that fate.
It appeared that his stick was in fact a weapon far too horrible to even consider giving back, so Savino contented himself with the fact that the man hadn't snapped it in half and thrown away the pieces. He'd had that stick for quite some time, and he was quite attached to it now. Losing it would be quite a blow. Watching his captor struggle with his emotions was interesting, at best, but as he wasn't stalling for time at the moment he didn't know that it really helped him.
"This doesn't look like a field, it looks like a school. A very weird school, but still a school. Also, I'm not sure if I believe that you've actually been in the military at all. If you had, you'd hardly let marching to someone's office be the only point of contact you have in an emergency. How easy it'd be to block off communications, just hold the right corridors and you would all be so disoriented." Maybe he shouldn't be planning a hypothetical assault on the school in front of this guy, but it was just too tempting. "Discipline is lacking too. I mean, if you're just a teacher, you were totally not looking for highly-armed soldiers. You were looking for errant students."
"WAIT!" he yelled as the strange creature appeared and disappeared. "Oh come on. If he's going to Enzo, he could at least have told him that Savino Antonucchi was here to see him. Even if I am upside down and bound very expertly. I'd shake your hand, but again. Upside down, bound. You get the idea. Also, honoured guest, not intruder." He wondered, once again, exactly what his father's job in the school was. The letter suggested he was very important, but surely he wasn't the Headmaster. The man he remembered could teach about as well as a swarm of angry bees.
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Post by Pietro Antonucchi on Aug 9, 2015 15:31:22 GMT -5
What on earth was this man on about? Talking about this "rodeo" thing when he didn't even know what it was ... babbling, joking. Why? If this was meant to earn Pietro's trust, it certainly wasn't working. Baffled, Pietro shot a stare at his captive and replied, with no amusement in his tone, "Yes, I suppose I am skilled at pig-tying. As you can see." This person was strange, and he just wanted Uncle Enzo to come sort out this mess.
No, Pietro hadn't been in the military, but that didn't mean he wasn't constantly fighting for his life. Even when that struggle was against himself, as it had been since Serafina's death, it was still very real and harrowing. He was not interested in replying anymore. He did not understand why this man insisted on talking so much. It was absurd and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. "Stop talking," he snapped as he arrived outside Uncle Enzo's office door and summoned the house elf.
And then ... well, this just got more and more interesting. Savino Antonucchi? It wasn't a name he had heard before, but, then again, Emilio Antonucchi had been supposedly dead. Clearly there were things Uncle Enzo didn't tell him about. Pietro took a moment to look more closely at his captive. The man did bear a certain resemblance to other members of the family, but that was no reason to set him free. "Honored guest, you say? ... Well, if you are truly an Antonucchi, you should have a hardy enough constitution to remain upside down and bound a bit longer and suffer no ill effects. You will get your desired audience momentarily, and then we will see what is going to happen to you."
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Post by Savino Antonucchi on Aug 10, 2015 22:23:36 GMT -5
"Impossibly good. Impossibly. I don't get it, you took such a short time to do it the ropes would practically have caught fire from the friction. How?" No matter how he did the maths, he couldn't for the life of him figure out how the man could have managed it. Even a pre-tied set up, which this clearly wasn't, would have taken longer than that to fit on him and tighten to thoroughly. This guy should stop creeping around schools at night time and go find himself a rodeo to utterly destroy at. It'd certainly make him a lot more money, and a lot more friends.
Apparently he was now supposed to just stop talking, as if he had anything else to do at that moment. "No, I much prefer talking to not-talking. You seem to think you've got a good deal more power over me than you actually do, so I'll keep the respectful head-scraping, bowing and order-taking for your superior. Thanks for the offer, though." That was possibly not true, but he didn't care much either way. His captor clearly needed some lightening up, and Savino was quite convinced that he was just the man for the job. Few people could spout ceaseless witticisms like he could.
"It wasn't the effect on my health that I was getting at, but whatever takes your fancy. You never actually introduced yourself, other than the whole 'sneak up behind me and knock me out' bit. I can't just keep thinking of you as the grumpy guy, it's hardly refined." It fit him though, he certainly was grumpy enough for a dozen men. The mention of his full name was apparently enough to capture the interest of his captor. He started looking intently at Savino's face, which brought a reaction unbidden to his lips. "Whatever you're about to do, please don't kiss me."
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Post by Enzo Antonucchi on Aug 19, 2015 0:38:08 GMT -5
This wasn't out a desperation, he was simply a man who liked to use every single asset he had. And Savino, despite his lack of magic, was at the point where he was a asset. To think he had two sons, one that couldn't do magic, the other couldn't stop asking questions. Both disappointments, both now needed more than ever.
The attack on the warehouse went of swimming, despite reports that the person he wanted dead the most got away. Still he knew the O'Brien's well, he knew it wouldn't take long before they got back at him. He needed men; men that could fight, men that would be willing to fight. And while Savino probably didn't have the loyal needed to the, he was a soldier. Soldiers are what he needed if he was going to win, skill fighters that could lead... or a very least shape those that were starting to waver into shape.
He had a plan for Savino, an important plan. He might not have magic, but had something two other family members didn't have and needed; discipline.
Enzo tapped his fingers against his whiskey glass as he looked at the note sent to him from Pietro and he shook his head. That boy... This is why he would take over someday, he thought everything though. Realized that there would be people coming for them and you could never be too careful. He had Savino outside his office and Enzo got up and open the door, "Let him down." He said narrowing his eyes some. "It's fine, he is who he says he is."
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