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 Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:44 am
This routine was already starting to wear thin; doing it every day for over a month made Warwick's head ring a little, left him slightly less enthusiastic than he had been originally, less brimming with energy. He still balanced expertly on his volunteer's shoulders, still managed to lever himself up onto the wobbly platform, the wobbly edge to his steps feigned as opposed to real -- but he was tiring of it, yes, and was starting to think it was time to come up with something new.
Maybe something that didn't require he carry around all that damned wood.
And maybe something involving a chainsaw, just in case of attacking monsters.
He hit his spot, though, and grinned down at the two volunteers who supported the legs of his platform, who kept him from tumbling to the ground, swaying just enough to make them nervous without knocking the whole construction down, and stepped forward to hold up his juggling supplies. The torches weren't on fire, not just yet, but he flicked the lighter on for dramatic effect: they would be soon.
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:32 pm
Ah, Painite loved it when things were set up for her. True enough, she enjoyed her plots and ploys, and she felt such pride in her work. But sometimes she ran low on ideas, and she turned to finding people who did the work for her.
Here she had a small crowd of people, watching some guy balancing and juggling. She tried not to let herself get too distracted watching. She had other things to do, after all.
Plan forming quickly in her mind, she hid nearby and grabbed the next single person to pass her. It was a rather classic movie move, considering. She drained him of his energy and hid him away, pulling on his coat to cover her attire. She felt she blended in well enough with the coat done up, and her weapon not yet summoned.
As long as no one was powered up and could feel the General's energy, she would be in business.
Slipping into the back of the crowd, she subtly touched someone's arm, reaching behind the person next to her to touch the person next to them. This was a strategic decision: she didn't want to be right next to him when he fell. And fall he did, as his energy left him, which drew the attention of those around him. While that was happening, gasps and worried voices filling the air, she slipped back and did the same thing to another person, a young woman, who fell as well.
"What kind of a show is this?! Why are people getting sick?!" she called, feigning horror to match that of the crowd around her, and to shift their minds to panic. Let the fun begin.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:27 pm
The platform wobbled as heads turned, but at least Warwick had experience at it this time: at the first jiggle of the supports, he came tumbling neatly to the ground, clubs and lighter clutched in close to his chest. He recognized the tremor that would come before the fall from that green-haired girl's little prank. This time, he wasn't going to stick around and make an a** of himself.
"...Uh. What?" There was panic in the faces around him, yes. Warwick blinked and reached out to grab a support as one of his volunteers dropped it and backed off, clubs tumbling out of his grasp. Blue eyes flicked to his hat, and couldn't make it out. It had three dollars in it already, a little seed money to encourage people to give, and he really didn't want to lose that cash...
So he set the whole rig down carefully and took a step toward the first fallen man. He seemed genuinely concerned, even in the face of accusing looks and a couple grumbles, asking what kind of game he was playing. "...I didn't...is he okay?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 1:27 pm
Someone else fell and Painite let someone else react to it first. She couldn't spread the fire herself: she had to let them do it.
Yes, she knew the importance of being subtle. Of leaving no damage and not letting anything get traced back to them. But she also knew that it was a whole lot of fun to mess with civilians when she was in the mood for it. And today was very much one of those days. So she would let them pick each other apart and steal whatever energy she wanted from them, watching the chaos.
Three people passing out was more than enough to get things moving.
"There's something wrong with them!" Someone yelled helpfully.
"Is this some kind of terrorist attack?" Another cried woefully.
"Mommy!" A much younger voice cried out, "What did he do to that man?!"
Painite grinned and watched. People were hurrying away, pushing and shoving, while others were trying to get to the bottom of things. It was a big mess, and the scene was just drawing more people over. More than it was driving away, even in their fear.
All eyes were on Warwick.
"What's going on here, buddy?" A thick, burly man said, taking it on himself to get to the bottom of this mess, grabbing the performer by the shoulder and hauling him up.
"No, that's not the answer, don't be violent!" Painite offered, but just by saying it she further instilled the idea in the guy's head. Meat head, that was what he was. And she liked him for that. At least for now, and until after he drained the guy's energy.
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Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 1:47 pm
Warwick's wide-eyed expression wasn't exactly that of a criminal mastermind, nor even that of a thug. He looked horrified by the tumbling bodies, perhaps even more so than by the ham-fisted a*****e who had a firm grip on his collar, now. His eyes tracked another woman as she gracefully collapsed not too far from his feet and he made a very faint noise, flicking a look up onto the man's face.
He looked like a lost puppy, not like a trouble-maker, but there were certainly people out there who couldn't see past the hair or the tattoos.
"I don't...I don't know. Maybe they were...spraying the trees?" It wasn't exactly a great explanation, but it was better than anything else. Belatedly, he seemed to realize that he was in trouble, and twisted to get out of the guy's grasp -- hopping back a few steps.
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2011 10:21 am
The thick muscled man did not seem too afraid of punching puppies, as it were. He saw the woman fall nearby and was thoroughly convinced that this guy was to blame.
Painite watched, wishing she could get close enough to drain the muscle guy. If he went down, there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that the performer was clearly to blame. Still, it seemed to be going in her favor anyway. She didn't have to be so blatant about it: mod mentality would do most of the work.
They were so silly.
The guy followed after Warwick and with his start others pressed closer to follow, yelling and waving their hands in the air, fists clenched. Painite watched, keeping an eye on the few that had been downed already, and the people helping them. She counted maybe twenty people total, give or take. The burly guy moved in to punch Warwick, because that would clearly solve the problem of the unconscious people.
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 7:45 pm
His first swing would hit, certainly, and Warwick would stagger back awkwardly, trying to get out of the man's reach. When he went for the next one, though, the Australian was ready: he ducked and danced away, never actually hitting back but constantly in motion in a way that at least kept the blows glancing, prevented the man from swinging hard enough to knock him down.
"It wasn't...! I didn't...!" They were hopeless protests. He sounded foreign and looked, with those tattoos and that hair, like someone most people branded 'troublemaker'. Instead, Warwick tried to dig for some kind of logic or argument that would work on them.
"How the hell would I have even done this? I was up on the platform..." He ducked again, hands thrown up over his head. "I coulda been hurt when it fell!"
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Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 12:26 pm
"You're gonna be hurt now!"
The burly man wasn't interested in his protests, though some of the crowd were yelling for them to stop now, while others still were yelling for blood. Painite watched and shook her head, basking in how quickly the mob mentality took over, and turned what were probably reasonable people into wild apes.
She was not the kind of lady who could let someone have her credit for long, however. She kept her disguise as she drained two people at once, draining their energy and watching them drop. She thought it might draw attention to her, but it didn't. They were focused on Warwick now that he was trying to defend himself, like that made him more guilty.
"This is all some kind of set up! Let's get out of here!" Someone with half a brain finally cried, and a lot of the crowd agreed. They began to split off, until only the burly man, three of his new 'beat up Warwick' posse, and Painite remained with all the scattered bodies and with the performer himself.
Painite grinned and stepped up to stand behind Warwick.
"Plan didn't go as well as you thought, did it, boss?" she said playfully, just adding fuel to the fire at this point.
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:21 am
"Boss...." It took him a moment before that clicked, and his eyes lit up with understanding. Warwick wasn't terribly bright, in general, but even he could pick up on the most obvious of clues. His immediate reaction was to point at Painite, ducking back a step and trying to put her between him and the crowd.
"You're doing it!" A dangerous sort of accusation, but at least he spoke to her instead of trying to sic the crowd on an apparently-defenseless young woman in a crazy outfit. He sounded betrayed more than anything else, the tone of someone who didn't usually take advantage in this way. Whatever else Warwick was, 'good guy' was pretty high up on the list.
"Stop before they hurt someone!"
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 12:40 pm
Painite looked innocent, and the burly men weren't sure punching a small woman was really what they wanted to do. They also weren't sure they believed Warwick at all. But the woman was smirking, and giving them all the wrong context clues to work with.
They had no real idea who was to blame now. Or even what was going on.
Painite was surprised Warwick had tried to turn things around on her. She was aiming to solidify his role as a mastermind in all this.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, mate," she said, emphasizing her accent. Maybe boss had just been a word she always used in where-ever-she-was-from land. The leader of the attack group glared at Warwick.
"Tryin' to weasle away, are you?" He moved to take a swing at him. While those two were busy, Painite strolled over to the guys left. there weren't many now, just the posse for the burly man. She drained them while he was busy, wanting to watch the fight between the giant muscle and the walking tattoo.
Something told her it might not be much of a fight, though. The performer didn't seem like a gruff type. He actually seemed nice. Too bad for him.
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Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:32 am
Warwick really wasn't much of a fighter. It wasn't that he'd never been in a scrap -- oh, he had, some bar fights gone rowdy, some conversations about football [the real sort, not the American crap] gone terribly sour in pubs across the UK -- but that he didn't actively seek them out. When he was sober, he wasn't inclined to strike back, nor to throw himself into the fray.
However, 'weasel' was a good word to use, because that was exactly what he did. He didn't have to hit back to keep himself in one piece, didn't have to fight the man. If he had one skill in the world, it was that he was quick on his feet, and right now he was making good use of that.
A duck. A hop back. A pivot and a twist, working his way back toward the line of trees at the edge of the grove. His intent was clear: a low-hanging branch. He didn't think the thick man would have the agility to follow him up into the foliage.
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:50 pm
Painite laughed as she watched the slow, burly man become increasingly frustrated with his target. He couldn't fight this guy if he was ducking all over the place all the time! He was trying, though, putting his all into his swings and huffing like a steam train. He slammed into the low branch and fell over.
She was going to step in now, though, to make things a little easier on the would be enemies.
"Oh boys," she called sweetly. No one was left but the two, and the thugs Burly had brought with him were on the floor beside her feet. She grinned broadly at them. "You guys are such goons. Look at you boys, fighting each other because you're just confused. Scared. One scared of being hit, the other scared of pretty much everything else."
She grinned at them, walking over to Burly as he struggled to get to his feet. She would catch up with Warwick just after she drained this guy of everything he had left in him from the fight.
"Come out of hiding, litle tattooed mouse," she cooed, "I won't hurt you. I liked your show!"
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:58 am
Warwick was a hell of a tree climber. Actually, he was a hell of an everything climber: trees, walls, buildings. If he'd gone to high school like a normal teenager, he would have been the one kid who didn't mind that solitary woven rope hanging from the very middle of the gym ceiling. Instead he would have scampered up it like a monkey.
He also knew that most people, especially city dwellers, didn't have the same enjoyment -- and talent -- for it as he did. Up onto the first branch, he paused to watch Painite at her work for only a moment. His head tipped his mouth shifting, he hesitated like he was considering coming back down again, and then hopped up onto the second branch.
He assumed she couldn't follow him.
"...what did you do?" It was sharp, surprisingly quiet, uncertain.
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:32 pm
Painite, or at least if she had been powered down, wasn't sure she could even jump to the first branch and reach it, let along drag herself up an entire tree. She had no intention of following him up there, though. It wasn't like she didn't know where he was, and couldn't get him down if she wanted to.
She looked up at him like he was the most delicious looking apple on the branch.
"I helped you!"
She watched him, debating how she wanted to play with him now that she had him all to herself. Maybe she could make a minion out of him, and pick him for the Negaverse. He showed promise, after all: he was very agile and he hadn't panicked. Well, not really. That spoke volumes.
"They were being very disruptive. A shame, that your show had to go so poorly. Did you at least make any money?" She grinned at him pleasantly which, when coupled with everything she had done so far and was still capable of doing, wasn't very pleasant at all.
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:47 pm
Did he make some money? Her reassurances made Warwick hesitate and peek out between the branches, his eyes flickering over Painite's head [and then past the crumpled bodies] to where his bags and supplies lay sprawled. His hat, included, tipped up so that people could toss bills in as desired, a rumpled brown thing much crushed from being shoved in under the bits of wood...
Warwick made a noise, his eyes flashing back to Painite, and licked his lips. He looked less wary, now, fingers curling against the branch that supported him. "...I don't know. Did I?"
It wasn't a particularly clever ruse. She could go look, and maybe he could dash down and run for it -- except that then he'd leave everything he owned behind.
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