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 Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 7:42 am
The apartment felt too cramped with the three of them there - and since Shale and Porsha already established a relationship with other another, Slate wasn't keen to play the third wheel. Friends or not, simply existing there felt awkward and stilted when the pair of them were around. And what was with the way they spoke hush-hush around each other? It left Slate all the more suspicious of their affairs, but he hadn't quite readied himself into snoop mode.
Or maybe he did. He heard the pair earlier in the morning, before they knew he woke, and they discussed one of the creature attacks in the city. Shale called it a youma - and context informed Slate precisely of what he spoke. Initially he dismissed it as nothing, since Slate wasn't completely up-to-date on the colloquialisms thrown about the city, but the more he heard it, the more he considered the phrase closer to nomenclature. And whose business was it to make monsters their profession? It sounded all the more suspicious, which rendered it something worth investigating.
In early afternoon, Slate left absent his violin. The library wasn't a long walk, maybe fifteen minutes at most, which involved Slate constantly feeling like he had forgotten something. His right hand felt unusually light without the familiar case, and Slate struggled to divorce himself from feeling like every outing involved his violin. At one point, he retreated so far into his own mind that he nearly lost track of his location. Getting back on track involved a quick cut through one of many alleyways barely wide enough for a delivery van, but he righted his course without incident.
It was only when he neared the library that he glimpsed an emaciated dog half-obscured by the shadow of the library itself.
Already, Slate felt his esophagus sink down into his stomach. What the ******** is with these things. They're everywhere here. Why haven't the police started in on their asses. It's like a wild animal problem, isn't it? But before he finished his thoughts, he caught sight of cars speeding up and swerving to avoid attracting the attention of the beast. Such motives only lured it out of hiding, where it then stared hungrily at a pair of teenagers that hadn't yet noticed its presence.
Better them than me, Slate though as he started walking backward, his gaze still set upon the beast.Daekie derp sorry i forget so often
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Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 11:52 am
If Warhol was a less kind person, or a person less prone to visiting the library to check out books about Andy Warhol because Senshi facts interested her more than the properties of matter, she wouldn’t have even noticed the dog: hell, she likely would have been at home doing homework, like any good child would. But Ivy Sutors was walking out of the library when she suddenly had a feeling -- it was less a feeling than it was a sighting of something that...well, if it looked like a youma, acted vaguely like a youma, and felt like a youma; it was a youma. Did she have better things to do than power up and beat up a dog? Not particularly. Did she actually want to get home and research why her Senshi form was named after a 1960s artist? There wasn’t a question about that. But, a little voice in Ivy’s head whispered, there’s nobody else around. If you don’t do anything, someone will get hurt. They can’t fight it like you, miss superhero.Why did her subconscious always have to be so correct? Ivy took off on a short sprint behind the library. She dropped her backpack, tucked it away in a corner, and pulled out the special article: her henshin pen. Then she whispered “Warhol Power, make up!” so quiet that nobody more than half a foot away would hear - and when the light faded (she’d never get tired of that), the newly clothed Sailor Warhol checked her mental radar. Yes...there was no way that wasn’t a youma. She stepped around the corner of the library after a quick and whispered apology to her backpack (“sorry, sorry! I promise I’ll read you later!”) - and that same subconscious instinct made her think well, then, what better time is there to draw attention? The youma hadn’t noticed her, yet; it was advancing on two teenagers, barely older than she was. So Sailor Warhol coughed - once, then louder again. “Warhol Mood Reversal,” she then whispered, hoping to draw attention and hit with magic and then have it all fixed - the orb fell into her hand, and Warhol stood as tall as 5’2” would allow her to, eyes steely-focused. “...You’re a bad dog, so somebody’s got to put you back in the pound, mutt.” And there she stood with bated breath, hoping, praying, that it’d look at her, go after her - she couldn’t aim at it from this distance, then she’d miss and it’d be embarrassing - and Warhol experienced what was probably the looooooooooooooongest five seconds of her fifteen years of life. Strickenized omg, trying to format via phone is awful sad
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Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 7:50 am
Her statement turned four heads in total: first came the youma, whose reaction time far surpassed its prey or onlookers. Then came Slate, who looked to her in utter bewilderment. The male of the teenage pair looked next, offhandedly, while he discussed his assignment to build a trebuchet in freshman physics class. His female friend, nodding along during a daydream, only took notice when he stopped walking.
All four of them looked to her, at various angles, yet all loosely connected through her. The moment lasted the breadth of a second, perhaps less, before each broke off on a different tangent. The youma growled and the girl took off first, running in the same direction they headed - away from here, wherever that was. The man came next, following behind her while casting frequent glances back to ensure they weren't followed. Slate froze in place while the youma looked on toward the one who heralded it. He knew the idea nearly killed him last time, but his legs shook terribly and every portion of his body went cold with the knowledge that it might notice him if he so much as breathed.
He thought of the centaur creature, bucking wildly with the metal man on its back. The suggestion to go to a safer place rang loud in his head. But regardless of the impetus, his legs would not budge. The youma growled again, and all he managed was a step back.
Slowly the creature edged into the street, still growling, teeth slathered and dripping in some gelatinous form of saliva that landed in clumps atop the macadam. Coarse black hairs bristled and shook on its back with every low roar loosed. And soon the squealing of tires sought its attention, with the youma-dog jumping backward, barking in its low, hoarse voice at the offending vehicle. The woman inside cowered and sank into her seat, giving the dog its encouragement to climb atop the car. Clawed pads scraped against the windshield for an unearthly pitched screech.
With a higher vantage point, the youma returned its attention to the girl who taunted it so. Finally it leapt through the air with claws extended and aimed for the offending senshi's throat.
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Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 4:13 pm
Sailor Warhol had just enough time to realize she'd probably made a mistake before taking an awkward sidestep, half-ducking -- the youma hit a wall with too much momentum to change position, and Warhol winced in vague sympathy. She'd done that before, messing with her senshi form's enhanced physical reflexes. It'd hurt. But never mind that; she had to look good, there were civilians here! - it was starting to pull itself up, and she flung herself at the creature, shoving the energy ball straight into any available flesh. Youma were simple - she'd provoke them, and then hit them with magic, and then for thirty seconds (they were really too stupid to throw it off) they'd run scared. Predator-to-prey. That's how it went. Well, her knees were scraping the ground and there was the beginning of a run in her tights, and her arms were pretty awkwardly wrapped around the dog-thing; but she had to make up for her size and relative weakness somehow. Strickenized sorry about the short; didn't want to play the youma too much since that seems to be your thing!
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Posted: Fri May 08, 2015 6:02 am
The creature remained stunned in her grasp. It tried to shake off its dizziness immediately, but only succeeded in worsening it. Combined with a strange orb to the ribs, the youma's day continued to deteriorate. For now it howled, suddenly stricken by fear, and attempted to break loose from its captor's grasp. Sadly, that went nowhere.
Slate, on a much safer stretch of street, looked on toward the soft-looking girl who fought the thing. She looked no more impressive than he - and shorter, too (not that 5'7" spoke of great height). Seafoam green hair splayed out in a frazzled mess, she looked fairly tired, and yet there she was making a mess out of that monstrosity. It left him feeling jealous, and reminded him of the man in shining armor that saved him from a creature that looked like a centaur. During that moment, Slate reminded himself that he was marginally better off - he hadn't caught the beast's attention, and his violin wasn't in danger of destruction.
Small improvements.
But with the creature distracted, Slate knew he had a chance to watch the pair throw down. Adrenaline still rushed in his ears and flooded his veins while the pair struggled with each other. From what he processed (as they moved a bit fast for him), the girl in white was winning, with some kind of hold around the emaciated dog's ribcage. The dog looked solely interested in getting the hell out. He hoped she held no interest in letting it go; he'd rather watch the damnable thing crumble into dust.
Break its neck, he wanted to say, but safety necessitated his quietude. Instead he approached a nearby parallel parked car and ducked just beneath its front fender, peeking out only to survey the battle. It helped that the car was red enough to blend with his hair.Daekie np, it is a public use youma!
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Posted: Fri May 08, 2015 4:06 pm
"I gave you a good line," Warhol complained quietly, digging in her gloved fingers as hard as she could; it wasn't too strong, for a youma, but she also wasn't too strong for a teenage girl - so it approximately evened out. Her magic was...maybe a third done, half done? It was a bit hard to count the seconds when one was wrestling with a monster dog. It howled again, right in her ear, and Warhol gave a distressed whimper and headbutted it as hard as humanly possible. Thing had a skull like a rock, but Warhol had a tiara with a diamond-hard stone in it, so again: it just about evened out. As the youma was terrified and confused, Sailor Warhol picked up a stray rock (...was that asphalt? man, these roads, dude; it was a good thing she wasn't old enough to drive) with one hand and kept the other right around the thing's neck, and brought it down as hard as she could. And again. And again. There was jello-slobber on her shirt and on her arms, but the thing eventually poofed into ash, howling the entire time. So Warhol did the obvious thing: she looked up, gave a sheepish wave, and stood up wiping her knees off. "...it's okay, I promise! The thing's gone. I'm sorry if it worried any of you..." Strickenized i almost typed monster dong and that's the only note i'm going to leave here
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2015 5:51 am
The raucous howling issued by the creature only grew to a crescendo while the girl wrestled with it. It looked like animal abuse, and sounded like animal abuse, but he was pretty certain that no humane society wanted to come around and break up that mess. While he stayed hidden, he watched the girl seize a rock and bring it down on the creature once, twice, many times over until a crack spoke of a shattered skull. It presumably died, then, when Slate witnessed its emaciated form giving way to dust. No blood, no corpse, no membrane tissue washed about the street.
Just ash.
Is that what they're made of?
Slate pushed the question aside when Warhol presented herself, dusting off what she could and scraping the gelatinous saliva off the rest. Slate stood to greet her, and at about the same time, the straggling passersby erupted into clapping. One whistled, another issued a 'good job', and a third tried to tale a cell phone picture before his buddy urged him out of there. Slate started to wonder if this sort of thing happened really often.
"Worried? No, I wasn't worried." Slate's fingertips danced along the car fender while he slid out from behind cover. "I was only scared shitless." He smiled. Okay, maybe not so much 'scared shitless' as 'I'm going to watch casually while these two schmucks get devoured by a creature and possibly walk backward to get the hell away from it' but she doesn't need to know that. "Bravo on you for taking it down. Weird little trick with that ball thing, though. What was that about?
"And do you happen to know what those things are? Some kinda ash construct, or something?" Might as well inundate her with questions while I can. 'Do you know a guy named Camelot? What's your story with the whole weird getup and crazy baseball thing?' Was that even a baseball? Kinda looked like a baseball. Weird colors on it though.
Time to see how far I can push this before she tells me to ******** off.
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2015 7:04 pm
There was a brief moment of terrified blankness on Sailor Warhol's face when Slate stepped closer to her, and she took a step back, before steeling herself - wringing her hands a little - and smiling a small little polite smile. "...they're not that bad if you know how to deal with them. I just have a little trick that makes it easier, but I can't tell you how I do -" her fingers fell into temporary airquotes, and she didn't quite look Slate in the eye - "the 'ball thing', I'm sorry...it's pretty complicated. Are you alright? It didn't hurt anyone right before I got here, did it...? And those things are called youma; they're evil monsters."
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Posted: Sun May 10, 2015 6:15 am
His eyebrows climbed his face at her comment about their not being difficult. "Well s**t, lady, start teaching some classes because I'd sure like to know how to veto them outta my life without, you know, someone coming around to pummel it into dust for me." With a rock in the alley. Hopefully the resilience that Camelot fostered wasn't required. But lacking that, what would destroy the creatures? A gun? How the hell is a seventeen-year-old going to get a gun?
Slate finally took a seat on the hood of the car; his legs felt weak from the ebbing adrenaline. "I didn't see anyone else get hurt." He took a glance around, spotting no particulars of violence - just street trash, more cars, more sidewalks, some alleyway at an angle he couldn't peer into. "It just walked in from out there. Then it saw those two kids, but other than that, I don't think anyone had the pleasant experience of getting their face mauled off." A glance toward the girl in white confirmed that she got off pretty scot-free too - no blood to speak of, only dog slobber and ash.
"So youma, right? Where the hell do they come from? Or is it hell? I mean, I'd like to know if there's some kind of hell portal around the corner somewhere, you know? Gives me an idea of where to step." And hopefully never encounter these creatures - these youma - again.
"And besides that, you're the second person to pop right up when one of these things appears. Is there a number someone calls to get some assistance out here, or what goes on with that?" He entertained a certain level of suspicion in these apparent superheroes coming to the rescue at the best times. Had they caused these monsters to appear? What would be the point of that, beyond adoration?
Then again, sometimes adoration was all the motivation someone needed.Daekie it was in reference to your earlier ooc comment
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Posted: Sun May 10, 2015 8:37 am
Warhol cringed back from Slate's sarcastic comments, head dipped and shoulders high. "I'm sorry, I don't know...! There's a lot of us patrolling the city, I promise...I haven't met a lot, but if someone's uniform isn't mostly black, they should help you. I don't know a lot myself, I've only been doing this for five months...and I'm a student, I can't be a superhero all the time." She gave a gentle shrug. "I don't know where they come from. Usually you just beat them up until they poof, and then it's done...as far as I know, they just appear around Destiny City sometimes. I don't think having evil monsters is that good for tourism, but...if you've found youma twice, you must be pretty unlucky. A lot of people never see any." Strickenized warhol does not know monster dongs please let's keep it that way
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Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 11:20 am
"So what's up with the ones wearing mostly black? They Gestapo or something?" Slate's gesticulations picked up while he committed himself to the conversation. This girl was, at least, someone else willing to provide information on these creatures. And maybe if he adopted the damsel-in-distress role often enough, he might obtain a better picture of these strange, happenstance conflicts.
"And how'd you get into the gig of superhero'ing around town? Five months is a pretty good go of it, I think - I mean, there's plenty of chances to turn your a** to grass, right? Those things might be no big deal to you now, but I've seen what they can do to a man. Without actually trying." And such scars were partially visible to the discerning eye; Slate's chosen tank top left exposed the claw marks that curled up his shoulder. The skin still housed a fair pink hue in the still-knitting tissue. He supposed the skin wouldn't turn alabaster white for many months yet - possibly years. "Taking them on along with your algebra homework is a pretty big plate of s**t to do. I'm not trying to say you're slacking or anything." Though, it had Slate wondering what kind of nine-to-five Camelot ran with his youma-killing gig.
I must be unlucky. A lot of people never see any. And what about the ones who do? They usually wind up dead - in my experience, anyway.
Slate shifted against the car to engaged the girl more fully. His proposal felt a bit stilted, but it couldn't hurt to try. "So, since I'm a youma-magnet at all, I was wondering how to get into this whole superhero club. However it's called. This guy named Camelot said he thought everyone had the potential to turn into multistory-falling, face-bashing badasses, and if that's the case, I'd like to edge my way in. Is there some kinda ritual you perform, and then you've got the whole thing started, or what goes on with that?" If Camelot was right, and this 'awakening' was something simple, then most people on the street would know how to become one. That'd make it a pretty low-key talking point beyond how many creatures you killed that day. I think I'd have picked up on something like that by now, but it's not like I've ever lived in the city. For as much as I know about it, I'm still an outsider.
And the things I am familiar with... follow some pretty dark paths. If this super-resilience bit has anything to do with what I'm used to, I might as well crawl back to my hometown and tell them all that they were right all along.
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Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 1:27 pm
She quirked an eyebrow at the phrase 'gestapo' - it only vaguely rung a bell, but Ivy had never been very good at history, and powering up didn't exactly give her a supercomputer for a brain. "Um, they're...this sounds silly, I know, but they're the ones controlling the youma. They try to harvest people for energy...I know it sounds really silly, but it almost happened to me before." She shrugged. "It's not very fun, and they're not very nice." "As for how I 'got into it'...I don't think I should tell you, I'm sorry!" Warhol stared at the ground like her head weighed a million pounds, distressedly curling her fingers through her hair. "Even if you've been attacked before...I don't think it's something that just anyone wakes up to. If you were going to, it'd have happened by now. Just...it's kind of like those superhero comics, where you only get superpowers when you need them most? It's sort of like that... butnotreally. I don't want you or anyone to get hurt trying to get superpowers." The Senshi's hands knotted in her hair, grasping, holding tight. "I really wish I could tell you more, but I don't think it's safe, please stay safe! I know there's some of us out there who've been doing it for a lot longer than I have, but please don't get yourself in danger to try and meet them...stay safe, please, mister." The more Slate talked, the more tiny steps Warhol took back, hunching into her shoulders like it'd make her invisible.
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 7:12 am
"It might sound silly to you, but I've been exposed to a lot of weird s**t growing up, so I'd buy it. I mean, if these 'youma' are like animals, then they can be domesticated, right? I bet if you captured one, you could train it to obey you too. And then fight fire with fire or something." Harvesting people for energy, though... That sounds rough. Slate swapped between mental images of athletes on stationary bikes when forced to put out energy, and mulching people for use as a fuel source. He wasn't certain which was right, or if it was something entirely different. It seemed worth looking into, though.
Slate's expression sank into a lopsided frown at the declaration that he might only receive superpowers when most needed. "I'm guessing you don't get to decide when that is." Well, looks like in the interim I'll stay weak and lame and useless. Don't mind me here.
"Okay, okay," he raised his hands in a universal sign of surrender. "I won't go asking you any more questions on it, I promise. I'll stay indoors after dark and avoid all the sketchy shortcuts during the day. You go ahead and get on with the monster fighting; I won't bother you anymore." Besides, that's a lot to take in at once. From the sound of it, these youma things pop in outta nowhere, harass whoever, but they're also under control by these weird people in mostly black? But why would they send their youma to attack people if they needed them for energy? Unless they harvested energy with the youma. But that doesn't seem entirely right, since the youma usually wind up killing whatever they attack. Well, that one supports the people-mulch idea. Creepy.
He spared a wave, but given how distressed she looked, he wasn't sure if she noticed it. "Thanks for kicking a**, by the way. Keep it up." I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that aren't interested in becoming dinner or mulch.
Slate still needed to visit the library, and any further delay might just deter the girl from her post-heroism schoolwork. He pushed off from the car, unsteadily, but his shaken legs still walked well enough. Luckily the library wasn't far.
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 3:44 pm
As soon as Slate was gone, Warhol hurried off like a frightened mouse, quick as could be to make it back to her backpack and henshin down, fuku and glamour slipping off of her skin like so much glitter in only a second. She'd already checked out her books, anyways; so Ivy was no longer fussed (although a bit perturbed by the older boy's cavalier attitude about stupid dangerous things)! She headed off home, humming a tune as she went, with only a tiny speck of youma-sludge on her left arm to show anything remotely supernatural had ever happened.
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