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 Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:59 am
Really, he should have known better.
Youma were still sort of a mystical, unbelievable thing, if he thought too long and hard about it - but at the same time, it was relatively easy to just overlook things and go with the flow. It was a method of thinking that had been cultivated over long years worth of less-than-ideal living situations, so it was only natural to apply it here, as well.
Scamander shook some leftover youma dust off of his boot and tried not to wince a little. There was another small youma lurking somewhere in the shadows, but it didn't look too dangerous. Just...sort of annoying. And sort of crab shaped.
That was sort of unpleasant.
The small building he was working beside was some sort of bakery or cafe or some such homey, pleasant place, but it was late, and maybe no one would notice the scuffling noises coming from the side where the dumpsters were as Scamander kicked the crab thing away from himself.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:12 pm
It was true, no reasonable person would have any reason to be wandering out by the dumpster so late in the evening. Then again, it would be safe to assume that Daniel McKay thought it perfectly reasonable to take the day's trash out when it grew closer and closer to closing time. Armed with a plastic bag in each hand, the garbage was held out at a distance, away from the young man's apron or formerly-pressed slacks. He did his best not to think about how particularly dark the back end of the shopping mall area looked nor how suspiciously noisy it was, with random scuffles and movements going around. Probably just rats. Just rats. Right?The company that owned the mall had yet to do anything about the dead lamp post that was supposed to be shining overhead, lighting up the dumpster area. The patch of darkness awaiting him was only slightly terrifying - it was just his imagination trying to run wild, of course. Just him and his overreaction, conjuring up dark and spooky thoughts as he worked on finishing up menial tasks before he could go home for the evening. Taking a deep breath, the young man stepped forward into the darkness, fully prepared to toss both bags and make a quick retreat back into the store's back door.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 3:03 pm
By now, the crab-lobser-thing - had decided to scuttle its way up one of the walls of the building. Scamander latched hands onto its small, sturdy body and attempted to yank it free, but it was stubbornly resisting all of his attempts at prying it off.
"Come - on - " he muttered.
He heard a door somewhere swing open, heard the sound of footsteps. The crab thing scurried a little higher, and Scamander snatched at it, bracing one foot against the brick wall for more leverage, now more determined than ever to get it off - and hopefully before anyone noticed.
"Let's - go - "
There were footsteps - nearer - nearer -
The crab thing finally let go - or maybe Scamander had just managed to yank it hard enough at long last. Either way, it came off the wall suddenly and abruptly, and Scamander staggered backwards, lost his balance, and went flying back, crashing into something - or rather, someone - who had the misfortune to be walking to the dumpsters.
There was probably a lot of squawking, definitely too many limbs flying everywhere, and possibly an elbow accidentally in a ribcage. The youma, still in Scamander's hands, gave a protesting shriek, flailing tiny legs.
"Ouch!"
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 11:40 pm
Okay, those scuffles were beginning to sound a lot bigger than rats and if he didn't value his small little shop, he might try to make a run fo-- oh!The bags of trash went flying as a heavy force pushed him directly in the back. Danny felt himself flying forward, the weight of the mysterious figure falling down directly on top of him. Instinct had him kicking and flailing - not very brave or graceful - while green eyes went wide with fright. Was he getting robbed? Had Fate returned to see him finished off - and not even in the parking lot this time but the dumpster? "I-I don't have any money!" His voice came out as more of a squeak than anything else. There was no confidence, just sheer panic as the young man twisted and turned to see... another young man? Whoever he was, he certainly didn't look the part of a thug, but then why did he.... O-Oh. Oh my god.Eyes found themselves focusing on the giant thing in the other man's hands and Danny found himself letting off a sound that was very unmanly. "W-What is that??"
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:08 am
Needless to say, this wasn't how Scamander had planned to have things go down.
"I don' have any money, either!" he yelped out instinctively, flopping around like a fish with whoever it was that he'd crashed into. He was still trying to keep ahold of the crab - youma - thing - which was now shrieking again in protest, flailing tiny legs.
There was still an excess of limbs and too many elbows. Scamander finally managed to roll away from the poor guy and get up onto his knees on the ground, all while Mr. Krabs kept wailing indignantly. The guy looked positively faint with terror - or maybe it was just the crab.
Maybe it was the pink uniform.
" 's'a youma," said Scamander, debating now what he was supposed to do with the stupid thing. He gave it a critical look, eyeing it sideways with his arms outstretched to keep it as far away from him as possible. "I was fightin' this other real big one, and this one jus' kept followin' me, so..."
He glanced over at the other.
"You all righ'? Sorry, I didn't mean t'knock y'over."
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Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:41 pm
He didn't have any money... wait, what? Danny was looking more confused than ever as he too worked to scramble his way free from the pile of body limbs and crab parts that had managed to squish together. If the guy wasn't trying to knock him out and mug him, why was he... and what was the deal about the crab?? s**t - what did he just say? "There... there was a bigger one?" Youma? What the Christ was a youma? "Is that a...." Feet shoved him backwards as he made sure to add at least another yard between them, ".... type of crab or something?" It was hard to keep the quiver out of his voice, fear gripping his spine as he stared at the strangely dressed man and his pet crab - both out too late at night in an area that was far too dark for comfort. "Who are you?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:43 pm
"Oh, don' worry," said Scamander hastily, flashing a friendly smile at the other. "I got rid o'the other one real quick. It was a li'l bit bigger than this guy, but it wasn' too bad overall. Didn' take much time to y'know," - He made sort of a stomping gesture, since he couldn't use his hands, " - get rid of it."
Which left the question of the crab.
It was still squealing. Loudly.
Scamander gave it a long, scrutinizing stare as the other young man scrambled backwards, the space between them now gaping. Not that he could blame him; it wasn't like this sort of thing happened every day, after all, and besides, it was dark, and the poor guy had just been trying to take the garbage out.
"It's a youma, like I said," Scamander offered, his tone quite conversational for a guy who was holding a wriggling crab creature in shades of black and purple. "They're monsters that are scuttlin' 'round here in the dark sometimes. Y'can get rid o'the smaller ones if you're real careful, they're not too bad. I just don' know what I wanna do with this one yet."
He eyed it, then smiled again at the man.
"Sorry. I'm Scamander, o' Jupiter. Have y'heard of the powered people in this city?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:17 am
The color was quickly draining from the blonde's face as he listened to the stranger's explanation for everything. The man in pink was talking to him as if it were an every day occurrence - stumble across strange, odd colored crabs that scuttle around in the dead of night large enough to require both hands... As this Scamander O' Jupiter fellow implied he stomped on the youma-creature like an oversized cockroach, Danny winced. Alright, not exactly the mental image he wanted going home with. Then again, going home thinking about oversized screaming crabs lurking in the shadows wasn't a picnic either. "Powered people?" His tongue snaked out to wet his dried, chapped lips as he thought for a moment. Rising to his feet, hands moved to brush against his apron as he stared down at the ground for a moment. Powered....people? Like the steroid riddled gangs that seemed to be fighting all the time? "Sorry... I'm not much for the news. It's usually nothing but depressing stuff, so I try to stick to happier topics." A tinge of pink colored his otherwise paled face as he offered his hand for a shake, then quickly retrieved it when he realized what the other man was still holding. Oops. "I'm Daniel." He forced a smile, still unsure of the whole thing before finally blurting out, "So... you go around stomping these things? Every night?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 6:24 am
He was probably leaving a very bad first impression. Scamander gave the other a sort of apologetic look, head tilted so that a stray blond curl fell across his forehead. Really, he probably shouldn't be so obvious about everything, but well - he'd almost knocked the poor guy over.
"Not a bad reason for avoidin' the news," Scamander conceded. The crab thing wiggled again, its screeches slowly devolving into smaller, more pathetic squeals. "But there are a lotta strange things happenin' 'round town and all that. It's a l'il hard t'explain, but basically there are good powered n' bad powered, and I'm one o'the good powered. Means I help get rid o'these things here - " He held up the crab meaningfully, " n' the bad powered creates 'em."
Scamander gave the hand outstretched to him a look, then smiled again as the same hand was hastily snatched back. "Nice t'meetcha Daniel. N' not every night, nah, but I go out maybe three or four times a week just lookin' for these things."
He considered Daniel for a moment, wondering if he was getting the poor guy in over his head. He seemed nice enough as it was, but Scamander wasn't sure if explaining all of this was going to make everything better or worse. He sincerely hoped it wasn't the latter.
"Did y'wanna watch me get rid of it?" Scamander offered. "This one ain't so bad, it'll only take a second."
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:29 pm
Eyes widened at the offer and Danny's hands moved out in a frantic wave. "I mean, you don't need to... I don't...." The idea of watching the oversized crab (screaming or not) getting squashed cockroach-style right in front of his eyes was a horrific thought. He could already feel his stomach churning at the grotesque CRUNCH it would cause - god, what would that even look like afterwards? Did monster crabs bleed blue? Green? Ooze? Granted, the man did just say it was an evil crab. Evil crabs probably needed eradicating but... hm. "So wait...what you're saying is... bad guys creating monsters for the good guys to fight? Like... super heroes?" It was a cool concept... a little hard to believe in the normal world of Daniel McKay but a neat concept, nevertheless. "So you have magic powers?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:05 pm
Scamander laughed good naturedly. "I mean...I don' really think I'm a real superhero. I'm not that cool or nothin'. As for magic, I hear I get it the stronger I become, but I ain't got any now. All I got is an old fashioned tide clock, one o'those things that keeps track o'the moon. It's kinda useless, I'm afraid."
The crab wriggled again. It had stopped squealing and was now just flopped uselessly in Scamander's hands, as though finally accepting its fate. Scamander, friend to all creatures and humans, felt almost a little disappointed at having to crush it like a bug.
Almost. Were it not for the whole trying to eat him thing.
"You've really never heard of the senshi and Negaverse and all that?" Scamander asked, then said, "Well, I mean I guess it's not that surprisin'. Most of 'em apparently like to stay undercover n' everythin'. Don't want people knowin' who they are for safety n' stuff."
He smiled at Danny. "You seem like a nice guy, though; m'sorry to spring all o'this on you so suddenly."
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:37 pm
He wasn't sure what a tide clock was but the young man in pink seemed pretty nonchalant about it, so maybe it was something more common in his part of the world - whatever part that could be, judging by his very non-DC accent? Clocks didn't seem like very useful weapons when it came to super hero business and no matter what Scamander implied, if he was out fighting forces of evil while wearing a disguise - the getup was an attempt at a disguise, right? - that made him a super hero in his book. Everyone had a rough start sometimes when it came to their big gigs. Superman had to learn to fly, Batman had to fall in a hole - you had to grow into the role, it wasn't just magically thrust upon you.... right? "No, no - don't be sorry at all," he stammered, bringing himself back into the conversation, "I... it just seems so unreal, honestly." If it wasn't for the fact he was definitely staring at some monster crab, he'd be questioning the validity of what the other young man was saying. But, then again, he was already beginning to question his sanity as he stood there by a dumpster, late at night, talking to a stranger who was toting around some sort of monster in his bare hands. "So uh... when you kill it...." The blonde man asked quietly, ".... what happens to it?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:38 pm
Scamander's tide clock was, at least, something pretty to look at. Maybe entirely useless, unless he wanted to swing it around on his chain, but very pretty nonetheless. He liked old fashioned things; it fit right into his wheelhouse of interesting objects.
But it was useless.
He waited patiently while the poor guy seemed to sort through everything in his head; which, granted, did seem an awful lot. The crab in Scamander's hands wiggled back and forth in a pathetic sort of way, as though trying for one last hurrah to be freed, but then flopped again.
"I know," he said sympathetically. "I mean, I was jus' sorta thrown into everythin' as it was, so I jus' had to learn to accept it. Still kinda bizarre n' all, and sometimes if I think too much about it, I get worked up - " Only half true, as he rarely actually got worked up over anything, " - but mos' of the time I just sorta...gotta go with the flow, y'know?"
Scamander glanced at the crab, then over at Danny, giving a small, apologetic shrug.
"Turns to dust. No guts or anythin' like that. These creatures try n' kill you or take your energy if you're not careful, so we gotta get rid o'them pretty much all the time, even the ones that don' look that bad."
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Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 5:35 am
"Thrown into it? You mean there wasn't like... you didn't just start off knowing you had these sort of powers?" All of what this Scamander fellow was saying kept slowly creeping up towards the lines of being worthy of Superman or Batman or most any other superhero that Danny had ever grown up reading comic books on (save for Wonder Woman - she was something entirely different, god bless her purity). Someone indifferent to the world's woes until called upon by a higher power to embrace the power to change - to fight the bad guys and ... apparent evil crab monsters... and secure a safer world for the citizens that still walked around oblivious to the dangers surrounding them. "I.... see." Another glance towards the small crab had Danny turning on the balls of his feet until his back was displayed for both monster and man. "J-Just.. do what you need to do then, okay?" Curiosity was killing him, but not enough to actually lay witness to something being murdered in front of him. Movies and video games were one thing, real life was another - even if it WAS an evil dark supersized monster crab. A thought popped into his head as he glanced off into the darkness, wondering just how many other monsters lurked off in the distance. "Hey, so... maybe you'd want to come inside, y'know, and clean up? I've put up most of the sweets but I'm sure we can find something for you to nibble on while I finish closing." What better way to learn more about this magical world than by taking advantage of what Fate had dropped into his lap? Or rather, his back??
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:25 pm
"Nah," said Scamander. "I was jus' a regular human for most of m'life, I've only been a part of this whole..." He gestured with the youma in hand, "lifestyle before now. I can't say I was all that interested at first, but it's been gettin' a little better every time I power up."
He wasn't actually entirely sure that Daniel did see, but at least he was trying. And he certainly seemed nice enough as it was, considering that Scamander knew almost no one in the city so far save for one or two people. He hated to sort of squash out the other's niceness by...well, squashing...a crab youma in front of him.
"Just, er...step on it, probably," said Scamander. "Y'don' have to watch, I'll, uh...go behind the dumpster or somethin', it'll be fine."
The offer to come in both surprised and gratified him. A pleased smile touched Scamander's face, and he gave a nod before he could stop himself, likely because the idea of having to go back to his shabby little apartment at present was very unappealing.
"That'd be nice, if y'don' mind? I don' wanna impose or anythin'. But yeah, uh - gimme a minute or two to dispose o'this and I might take y'up on that offer."
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