Welcome to Gaia! ::

Newbies came in waves, Evan had noticed, and it was difficult to keep up with all of them. Sometimes he never met them at all, not face to face. Others had reputations that they created from the safety of Twitter. 140 characters were enough to give Evan a general idea of who they were as a person if they kept abusing them over and over and over.

Evan had to admit, though, that Leslie was smaller than he figured he'd be with a mouth that big. Little dog syndrome, he figured; if you bark loud enough, even the big dogs will stop and take notice. They also seemed to be the types to tuck tail and slink off once all eyes were on them. It would be interesting to see which type Leslie was.

/Too skinny,/ Gir declared as they watched the boy whack at training dummies. /All bones, no meat!/ He heaved a dramatic sigh as Evan headed Leslie's way anyway, leading with a friendly smile.

"Hey," Evan called. "You up for a live opponent?"

Leslie was smart to be cautious. Little as he was, Evan imagined he had spent an awful long time of being picked on and pushed around. It had to have done something to him. Evan wanted to see what.

"Yeah?" Evan asked, still smiling as he summoned Gir. Very deliberately, he put the rounded front of the blade against Leslie's chest and pushed, just a little. "You don't sound too sure about that. The monsters aren't going to wait for you to decide whether you're up for a fight or not."

HP: 50/50
Damage: 3
Charge: 1/1; 1/1, 1/1

All bark, it seemed, and no bite--disappointing, but not unexpected. Gir growled expectantly in Evan's head and was satisfied as Evan took advantage of the opening Leslie had made with his wild swing to prod the young man in the side.

"A reach that long and you still can't hit me? If you try that against them, you're going to die horribly. Try harder," Evan said, still smiling that pleasant smile. It wasn't outright mockery so much as a deliberate taunt to motivate Leslie into doing better. So far he wasn't meeting any sort of expectations, and while Evan didn't think much of him, he didn't want to see him die for lack of knowing how to handle his weapon. That would just be embarrassing.

HP: 50/50
Damage: 5
Charge: 2/3; 1/1, 1/1

Evan grunted as Leslie struck. It was a solid enough hit for someone as little as he was. Maybe he just needed the proper motivation.

"Sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier. My name's Evan." His smile suddenly dropped, flattening into a thin, disapproving line. "Stormy, she's kind of adopted me as family. Noemi's her cousin, so that puts her under my watch, too. I just wanted to see if there was anything to the little a*****e on Twitter who'd go out of his way to be a d**k to them." He swung like he was trying to hit Leslie right out of the park. This was meant to be a friendly warning, after all.

HP: 44/50
Damage: 13
Charge: 3/3; 1/1, 1/1

Leslie really was just the littlest thing, wasn't he? Flopping around like a rag doll, but still solid enough to break things if he hit them hard enough. It would have been funny if it wasn't kind of sad. Still, he could admire the way Leslie kept getting back up. He was more stubborn than Evan had given him credit for, and he could respect him--grudgingly--for that.

He could not condone stupidity, though, which was what Leslie so boldly displayed as he smacked Evan in the face. He allowed the strike to turn his head to the side, but the rest of him stayed resolutely in place. All the better to intimidate as he slowly turned back to face Leslie, genuine irritation on his face.

"I dunno," he said conversationally. "You're making Noemi look like a genius right about now." Later, he could remind Leslie that getting in so close with a mid-range weapon was just as stupid as Leslie's hair looked. Now, though, he used Leslie's proximity to his own advantage. He didn't have to reach out far to slam Gir's teeth into a narrow shoulder. His weapon howled triumphantly as he devoured the boy's shield, Fear condensing and exploding all over both of them, but mostly over Leslie.

HP: 30/50
Damage: 28
Charge: 0/3; 0/1, 1/1

Evan wasn't too concerned when Leslie fell down like his strings had been cut. There were barriers to keep him from getting anything more than his pride hurt, and he wasn't really worried about that, either. He very calmly dismissed his weapon and strolled up to Leslie, very pointedly looming over him. "Yeah," he said, "some days it's worse than others. Today was an okay day."

That he claimed Stormy as a friend gave him pause. Putting up random posters in other peoples' rooms did sound like something she would do--and had threatened him with in the past. "Why are you such an a*****e on Twitter, then?" Evan asked, genuinely curious.

"Watch it," Evan idly warned Leslie. There was nothing more he could do to him now other than remind him that one of them was on the ground. "You don't get to tell people they're wrong for being happy. We can't all be emo, depressing little shitheads like you."

Actually, they could, given where they were and what they all did for a living. Still, "If you don't like it, just leave them alone. Didn't anyone ever teach you that if you don't have anything nice to say, shut the ******** up?"

"How terrible for you," Evan replied, drier than sand in the middle of a desert, "to have managed to make friends despite yourself. You should be thankful. Those 'bundles of ******** sunshine' might save your life one day," he reminded Leslie.