tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Characters: Toph and OPEN
Date: Backdated to just after this thread during the party.
Location: Anywhere between the party and Toph's home in the Earth sector.
Situation: Toph learned she has some family on the turtle. She was not prepared.
Warnings/Rating: Bit of angst? Family issues. Probably rocks.

She goes.

Seismic sense is on autopilot; she sees the patterns between people, furniture, walls, and shifts through them. They might as well be obstacles on a course -- simply something to get around. Her eyes are closed; her head is down.

There is one focus, and one focus only: To get out of Sinbrilee. To get home.

And if you're in the way . . . well. Hard to say what will happen. Approach at your own risk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She feels him. She doesn't need to hear him. But he's one more bit of noise, and one more voice she doesn't know.

She doesn't pause. She lets him fall away behind her.

He winces.
"Soooooooo, that's a no. Yikes."

Mike looks back towards the party fully expecting to see someone in hot pursuit of the girl. He waits a good five count, spending half time watching her retreating form and the other half looking for someone to come and give chase. When no one appears, he sighs.

"Fine then, I'll just go. 'Cause you know...yeah," he says to one one before he breaks into a run and makes to catch up with the girl.

"Hi, I'm Mike," he calls to her when he's about four paces behind her.

It's him again. Same voice, same steps.

Why?

Toph twists, rounding on him, and is suddenly still. Her eyes are open now, and if she could glare, she would. Even in the faint light, her unfocused eyes are pale and potentially startling.

"If this is your pickup line, I'm 13. Go away."

She doesn't want to be seen right now. Doesn't want to be looked at.

When she turns, Mike starts.
When she goes still, Mike does as well.

It's not the eyes so much as the practiced stillness. It's the kind of thing that only comes with training. The body, when agitated, wants to move. When it stills, it's for a reason, and very seldom is that reason a good one.

He keeps his hands in plain sight, though...a better look at the girl's face makes that point moot.

"I'm sixteen," he says lamely. It's the first thing that springs to mind. "No one's following, if...that's what you're concerned about."

"You're following." Toph was hardly worried about anyone else following the two of them. "And I really don't care how old you are."

No earthbending right now. But that doesn't mean it won't happen if he's persistent enough. He has no reason to be following her. Therefore, he's just another something in the way.

"I'm not following you...well, I mean, I guess I kind of am. But only because I wanted to make sure you were okay. You kind of moving like someone lit your hair on fire...is all."

Through all of this he's kept himself as still as she has. His hands never move from his unarmed and open position.

Sure here eyes were milk white and she hadn't screamed when she turned on him, but that doesn't mean she couldn't see. After all she was making her way through the obstacles and people like she could...

Plainly turtles need to talk to one another more. Toph is currently learning under both Leos, still coming to an understanding of how to move and fight when powers are completely out and even her seismic sense abandons her. Apparently neither Leo has mentioned her to Mike.

"I'm fine." Her voice carries an angry flatness. . . . Yeah, she totally sounds fine. "Satisfied?"

Communication between cousins never did run smoothly. He doesn't really ask what they're doing, mostly so they'll take the hint and not ask him what he's doing.

Even though he's not doing something to be disapproved of, these guys are Leos...and as such genetically predisposed to be disapproving of damn near everything.

"...that you don't have a future in acting? Yeah, pretty much."

Toph's expression flattens further, if that's even possible, and she whips around again to leave, her hand making a slicing gesture through the air. The earth chops a thin wall of rock between them, inches from Mike's nose. Toph herself is already striding away.

Hint, Mike. Are you going to take it?

Mike leans back as far as he can without needing to windmill his arms around in order to stay standing.

"Woah."

He looks up at the height of the wall, then to either side.

"That's some good...wall," he's forced to admit. Mike's the kind of guy who'll compliment your form as you're reaching out to punch his lights out. We know this because he routinely does so just as his brother Raph is about to punch his lights out.

Mike takes a half step back, jumps at the wall, and then scrambles over it. Why? Because walking around would be far less fun. Then...he chases after the girl again.

"That was amazing! How did you do that?"

Which is all a long way around saying, No, Toph. He won't be taking that hint.

What is this guy, and why the hell is he so persistent? Toph is running out of patience fast. She's clearly expressed to him that she wants him to go away, and he's not listening. More than that, he's chasing after her.

She doesn't even stop moving; her hands jerk and yank through the air. Mike will find himself running straight into an earth tent that pops out of the ground right at his feet, the front of which is closed by a slab of solid rock. Fortunately for him the back is still open, but if he keeps coming, Toph has no qualms about upping the ante.

This can be full-out war if he wants it.

Mike never sees the new wall, because it takes him down with two hits:

It hitting him in the face, and then him hitting the ground with such a force that it blacks him out for a few seconds.

Stalker neutralized. Toph feels the strike of his body against the ground. She doesn't turn, continuing on her way.

After all, he was warned.

It's not very long after Toph disappears down the path that another steps onto it. Although the party on Sinbrilee had been enjoyed by both of his cousins, the truth is, it just isn't Leonardo's scene - and while he's more than content to observe others from the sidelines, his cousins certainly don't need him hovering around them all day and night. He eventually parts ways with them to do some people-watching of his own, but even that gets dull after a while, and Leonardo decides that a walk to relieve some restless energy is in order.

But Turtle Luck, as Raph would say, runs true to form. Leo barely makes it out of Sinbrilee when he spots a figure lying on the ground in the distance, slumped in front of what looks to be a wall of solid rock. Alarmed, Leonardo picks up the pace, and his concern only skyrockets when the figure becomes defined by green skin and the outward curve of a shell. It sends Leo into a full sprint, calling out his cousin's name.

"Michaelangelo!"

If Mike were in a Chuck Jones cartoon he'd have little tweeting birds circling his head right now. He's breathing at least, so that's good. Judging by the series of bruises beginning to set on his snout and forehead, almost as if he'd run into the stone wall face-first.

His eyes flutter a bit at the sound of his name, but that's about the only movement that comes.

The minimal reaction to his call only increases his worry. Leonardo skids to a halt in front of his cousin and drops to his side, one hand coming to rest on Mike's arm while the other hovers just over the palette of bruises forming across his face. His brow creasing in worry, he gives Mike's arm a gentle shake, trying to rouse him. At the same time, his teeth are set on edge, his eyes and ears flickering briefly across their surroundings in preparation of an ambush. It's only a cursory check in the scope of things, but he keeps his well-trained ears wide open even as he turns his attention back to his cousin.

Very softly, he touches the uninjured flesh on the top of Mike's head in a further attempt to stir him. "Michaelangelo, can you hear me?"

"...don't tell splinter i blew up the microwave again..." is his quiet, whispered response. Slow and steady his eyes begin to focus.

"Leo?"
He tries to sit up and quickly learns how bad an idea that is.

"Easy," he soothes, giving Mike's arm a slight squeeze as he gently pushes him back down. "Looks like you took a hit."

Leo frowns, glancing back up to the rock wall stretched out in front of them. Mikeys can be a clumsy bunch at times, sure, but he's pretty certain that his cousin didn't just give himself a possible concussion by bull-rushing a stationary slab of rock.

He looks to Michaelangelo again, keeping his voice low. "Do you remember what happened?"

He alternates between blinking and pinching his eyes shut in an effort to get his vision to stabilize.

"Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it..."

Mike raises a hand and pinches the bridge of his snout experimentally. He then winces...not so experimentally.

"ow."

Leo lets Mike do his thing for a little bit, hovering worriedly as he regains his bearings. After a moment, he leans forward to push Michaelangelo's mask up with his thumb, peering into his pupils to check for signs of a concussion.

"'Ow' sounds about right. You with me, Mike?"

Mike makes a play of batting away Leo's hand, but...it's a half-hearted effort at best.

"There is no Mike, only Zuul."

That would be a yes.

Leo sighs, but it's more out of relief than exasperation. Marginally. He pulls his hand away and offers it to his cousin to take, and if it is, Leo will help pull him into a sitting position.

"All right, Dana. You want to tell me how, exactly, you lost a fight with a rock?"

Mike will take that hand up, thankyouverymuch.

"Would you believe me if I said it jumped out of nowhere? Because...I swear to Aykroyd it totally did."

With Mike in a more vertical position and speaking coherently - or at least with the normal amount of coherency for Mikeys, anyway - Leo relaxes somewhat, taking his eyes away from his cousin to frown at the wall of rock. He dubiously raises an eye ridge.

Okay, he's fought a stone golem before. He could buy that. But at least it was vaguely humanoid, and not...a slab.

"Last time I checked, rocks don't jump, Mike." His voice has a strained note to it, as though he's not quite sure whether to be amused or to do the whole Bushido spiel. He can't exactly vow punishment against allegedly animate terrain for attacking his cousin.

"They didn't jump the last time I checked either," he snipes back. "Which is how this one," here he pauses to gesture to the outcropping of rock. "Got the drop on me."