tushanshu_logs | Sokka's Late Winter catch-all

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Sokka's Late Winter catch-all

Characters: Sokka, Toph, Michaelangelo, Zuko + OPEN
Date: Late February ~ March
Location: Practically everywhere
Situation: Finding Michaelangelo's hidey hole, Friendship tidings with Zuko, and whatever you want to do.
Warnings/Ratings: Y7 to start; will be changed as appropriate.

A. [Closed to Zuko]

Sometimes Sokka does have a rather nice heart. He may be full of sarcasm and rather annoyed complaining sometimes, but he has a nice heart, and you have to give him that. And so today he's actually going to go do a good deed. It's an unexpected deed, but it's a good deed nonetheless. Of course, the real challenge is going off and finding the guy he's looking for. Who's he looking for? That happens to be one disposed Fire Lord. He knows he's staying at the Palace (hopefully somewhere out of the way of the construction crews!), but he's not actually been up that way to call upon him specifically. And so Sokka is just wandering around, hoping to find where that firebender went off to.

B. [Closed to Toph and Michaelangelo]

"Okay, yes, I'll say it again, I need your help. Yes... to track someone down."

He did need Toph's help in this case. Mikey was... well, a ninja. He was extremely hard to find. He had gotten everything more or less narrowed down; there were tell-tale clues that Sokka had discovered, and so he had a vague idea of where he'd scurried off to, but he still couldn't find out exactly where Mikey had gone. And that's where Toph entered the picture. She had the uncanny sense to find someone. And lo and behold, she had been brought here at just the right time to track him down. Besides, it was a good opportunity for Sokka too. He had missed Toph, and he wasn't shy about saying it... to anyone except Toph herself. Usually. And so it sounded like a good project. Why not?

"So... yes?"

C. [OPEN] - Midnight Hotel Lobby

Sokka is still working on that stupid "puzzle" that's been displaying over the consoles. Really, he's been bashing his head on it for a while now, and it's just not going to get out of his head easily. So in part, he's going to be sitting at a table evaluating symbols and trying to figure out what to do. He might be in deep concentration, so it might take a few pokes or louder-than-normal voices to make him notice you. He might also be wandering inside and outside the doors with regular frequency as he's trying to visit the sectors of the city and potentially logging into the consoles there. Of course, he's not expecting anything to happen, though he probably will believe that other people are looking at him with a fair degree of oddness.

D. [OPEN] - Stark Industries

Sokka's working for Zanru at Stark Industries. He's certainly nowhere near management level, though he's not exactly a lowly peon either. For the moment, given how cold it's been, he's not far afield and instead just working on the edges of the town to help dethaw the ice around the construction vehicles. Of course, he's not driving any of the sophisticated gear, though he is doing some amount to chip away at the ice and hopefully break it apart. You might see him bashing through the ice with a small machete if you see him.

However after a long day at the construction site, he'll be returning from the edge of the city and back to Stark to pick up the few belongings and head back to the hotel. It's a long day, and the work's not exactly the easiest of jobs, but hey, he's striking it with juulan finally, and there's a net cash flow that's not in the red any longer. He'll be window shopping on the way back to the Hotel, though he certainly won't be buying.

E. [Choose your own adventure!]

[If you would like to meet Sokka while he's pretending to be Wang Fire, turn to page 46.
[If you would like to meet Sokka while he's hanging upside from a bear trap, turn to page 127.
[If you would like to meet Sokka while he's being chased by wild echidnas, turn to page 195.
[If you would like to meet Sokka while his sister is reminding him who can whip his butt, turn to page 87.
[For all other potential meet-ups, please stay on the line, and an operator will assist you shortly.]

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It seems innocuous enough, right? Abandoned building. Couldn't possibly be anyone in there.

Yeah, that's kind of what he's hoping, at least at first.
That there's no reason what so ever to come across the sagging and creaking threshold, let alone find your way down to the cellar.

Which doesn't really explain the trip wires, caltrops, or buckets of water over doorways.

Inside Mike is huddled around a small cobbled together terracotta space heater.
Donnie would be so pround.

Her feet are rather numb at the moment, so she won't be moving anywhere fast. With her shoes pulled on, Toph trails after him with a handful of the back of his coat -- both to steady herself and to let him keep her from running into anything she shouldn't. No one's told her about traps, but seismic sense gives her enough sense about the state of the building. If anything is hanging down or the floors are wood, she'll be blind to it, and she knows it.

"In the basement," she mutters. ". . . Can't you just call him up or something?"

If he doesn't, she's sure tempted to. Wandering through the building does not feel like the best of plans.

Sokka doesn't move extremely fast—half because Toph is following him and he doesn't want to pull her too quickly along, half because this building is really old and dangerous, and half because... well, Mikey did sneak into his room in the middle of the night, and so he doubts this is going to be easy.

"Well, I wouldn't expect him to just be lounging right in front of the entrance, happily awaiting any guests that happen to come his way," he says back to Toph. There's a sigh. He's not expecting this to go easily at all. "Though it couldn't hurt, you're right."

He reaches for the front door of the house, which happens to be propped open ever so slightly. "Mikey!" he calls out with a yell. "It's your old pal... Sok—"

And that's when he pushes the door open, causing a large bucket of water to fall on his head.

The water comes first, completely drenching him. And then the pail falls down upside down, plopping right on top of Sokka's head.

"—ka..."

The bucket clangs a warning note as it slips from its perch . . . But there's no time or space to guard against it, and holding onto his coat as she is, wetness spills over Toph's mittened fingers. Startled, she yanks away, stumbling back . . . only to slip on cold feet, and fall back on her butt.

She's wet. No doubt Sokka's even more wet. And it's cold and she's already tracked down a creep with her bare feet in the middle of winter . . .

With a noise somewhere between a huff and a growl, she pushes herself to her feet, reaching forward to yank Sokka back and out of the way.

Her feet plant, sliding into stance. She gathers herself, pulling energy in . . . and slams her fist into the nearest wall.

The entire building groans and ripples, the crack resounding throughout the space. Beams snap, dust rains . . . and a good portion of the building (with its traps) crumbles in an avalanche of rubble.

Awake now, Turtlemuffin?

Each wall falls in turn, like a really big domino rally, until finally one doesn't.
That wall, as it turns out, is the western most facing load bearing wall. The one underneath which Mike has set up his domicile.

Just as the rumble from the building begins to quiet, a cat screams and runs away and there's the tinkle/crash of one final piece of glass.

Mike looks up through the dust and gloom towards the front door, where a soggy Toph and Sokka stand.

He blinks a couple of times, and then begins to slowly clap.
Mike rises to his feet, applauding, because...what else could he possibly do?w

Sokka feels the back of his coat loosen for a few seconds before he's finally pulled back. He hasn't even bothered to pull the pail off of his head yet, he's that nonplussed with the situation. Sokka nearly stumbles down the steps as he's pulled back, and he only barely stays on his feet at the bottom. He uses his hand to push the bucket up over his eyes so that he can sees as Toph practically goes on an absolute rampage.

Hold on, Toph, he just asked for you to track Mikey down for him, not to bring down the house and nearly kill—oh never mind, you're going to do things your way... It's too late for Sokka to intervene as is.

But thankfully, "nearly kill" is as close as Toph gets, and Sokka just looks into the gaping pit below them and sees one turtle down there, all alone, looking up at them with quite a bit of shock.

"So... you ready to come up now and rejoin civilisation, Mikey? Or do I need to get another bucket of water dropped on my head before that happens?"

Really, Sokka, that is the wrong way to approach that sort of diplomacy.

Hey, no killing or even "nearly killing" over here. She knew exactly where Mike was and how much power to put in -- give her some credit. Leveling the house was to cut all the crap, because frankly, she'd had enough.

And really, he's clapping? Cue the flattest of flat expressions from Toph as she tucks her arms into a cross -- both to shield her damp hands from the cold air, and because she's really, really not amused.

"All I can say is you'd better have a way for both of us to dry off. I already did the wet plus cold thing, and it's definitely a no."

Toph pwns at diplomacy too.

"Well I'd offer you a blanket or a towel or something, but...at the moment I have no idea where they are. Cripes, Sokka. What the hell do you two do for an encore when your first trick brings down the freakin' house?"

His voice is scratchy along the edges, one might say froggy...were he not, you know, a turtle. It's the kind of thing one hears in a person who's just woken up, or who hasn't used their voice a whole lot that day.

There's a brief moment after Michaelangelo's joke before Sokka just bursts out in laughter. "Bring the house down, encore, I get it! Hahahaha! Oh, that's a good one." He could be wiping a tear from his eye right now... if it probably hadn't frozen to his face. Or the fact that it was probably still water from the bucket on his head.

The laughter continues for a second or two longer before finally he just sort of awkwardly trails off. He clears his throat a bit an attempts to become serious. The bucket is removed. "Though really, Toph is right. Do you know how cold I feel right now?" Sokka's teeth are admittedly chattering. "I haven't seen you in weeks. Have you been out here all this time?"

"What about whatever that thing was you were squatting beside?" Toph isn't going to let Mike off the hook that easily. "It's either that or you're coming with us somewhere warm. Your choice."

She'll kidnap him if she has to. No problem on her end. But she has priorities, and even though they don't quite match Sokka's, she'll make sure they happen.

She's not about to let Drippypants next to her or herself stand around in the bitter cold while wet because of some stupidity like conversational niceties.

Mike smiles ever so slightly as Sokka's praise, soggy though it is. His head tilts slightly at the mention of Toph's name.

Where had he heard it before? Why was that name itchy around his brainmeats?

Then the girl spoke again and the connection was made.
The Bookends. She was training with The Bookends.

"You're asking the guy with cool blood if you know how cold he is right now," Mike deadpans, turning his attention from Toph back to Sokka...and then...to his makeshift heater.

How did she...wasn't she supposed to be blind?
You'd think he'd have a better memory for friends, or at very least acquaintances, given how few he and his cousins have had.

"You're more than welcome to the heater, if...well if you can get down here." He pauses to consider something. "You can even have some of my extra layers, but...it'll cost you."

Well, at least Mikey had to be at least a little bit warm down there or else he would have found better shelter. But still, the challenge was always getting down there. Sokka would still prefer to get inside so he could change out of the wet, but fine. He's fine with either or.

"Well it's either you coming up here, or we're coming down there, and I think I'll leave it up to my partner here which one she prefers." After all, he wasn't really in a position to negotiate that one... or with the earthbending skills to make either happen.

Toph weighs the two options out briefly in her mind, scrunches her nose irritably, and circles around the building towards Mike's end. A sharp scuff of her foot along the ground creates stairs delving down into the earth -- down into Mike's hidey hole.

"Keep your clothes on," was her dry retort. "Unless Sokka wants them." And to the aforementioned, "Come on before I have to find your sister to break you out of your own icecube. And you know how she'll feel about that."

Mike remembers something else about Toph while watching her move the ground with what looks like the power of her mind...and feet.

"...you....you're the one who hit me in the face with the ground!" he says pointing at her.

"Sokka, why did you bring the groundpuncher?!"

Sokka follows Toph around, shivering like the dickens because of the water. When Toph decides to head downstairs, and Sokka will hurry down the staircase, practically scrambling down the stairs down to where Mikey is to huddle next to the little space heater. It, of course, is going to start losing its ability to keep any amount of space warm except right next to it, but hey, Sokka isn't prone to being picky about it.

"I'll thank you in advance, Toph, to not mention this to my sister," he says with an amount of annoyance. However, it's more because he'd like to spare himself a little bit of embarrassment. Granted, ordering Toph around was about as effective as playing tug-of-war with a komodo rhino, so...

Sokka looks up to Mikey at his question, and he just facefaults. Really, is he going to ask that question after this? Geez! "Do you know how hard you have been to find!? I've been looking for... a week? A month? I don't even know how long any more!" He points back to Toph. "She found you in like 15 seconds flat!"

Groundpuncher. Hey, she kind of likes that. Has a nice ring to it. Absently she yanks the ground up around Sokka as he settles at the heater in an impromptu earth tent -- the effects of which he'll soon feel as the earth holds the heat in around him, keeping it from dissipating into the open air.

"Only because you ran into it," she tosses back at Mike, flopping down next to Sokka's tent and stretching her hands towards the heat. "Seems like there was a reason for that too, hm, let me think . . ."

"Oh, yeah, because you were following me like a creep."

A nod to Sokka's commentary as well, though the comment is for Mike: "Yeah, you're welcome."

You can totally thank her now, Mike. Any time.

"I'm a ninja, I'm supposed to be hard to find. It's kind of, you know...the definition of ninja: we don't get found. We find."

There's also flipping out of shadows and breaking necks before disappearing without a trace, but that too should go without saying.

Mike just...stares.
It's been a while since he's seen someone bend, and it still blows his mind every time he sees it.

"And using magic avatar powers to find a guy?" he says once he finds his voice again. "Is totally cheating. And while we're talking about keeping records straight, I wasn't chasing you like a creeper. I was following you because you looked like you were in trouble and I wanted to help, thankyouverymuch."

Then he grumbles something about how if he had a nose it'd likely have broken.

Well, this is a fun tennis match. Sokka seems to have been completely ignored now that he's set up with his nice personal sauna of sorts. Which he is extremely thankful for. In some ways, this is totally going to make up for him carrying Toph piggyback through the streets of Keeliai back to the Midnight Hotel. He'll have to thank her more explicitly later when he's not watching this verbal tête-à-tête.

"So... let me get this straight: You... like living down here? All alone? Just by yourself? Without anyone who cares about you? In a cold winter? With only... achoo!... this thing to keep you warm?" Sokka just looks at Michaelangelo with a bit of doubt. "Don't you have any, you know... hobbies? Activities to do? Something? Anything??"

Sigh.

"Look, I don't know what all happened in the past or anything. Can't we just... let bygones be bygones or something?"

"And I told you I didn't want help," she retorted back. "And you came anyway. So guess what? You don't get a say now. Suck it up and swallow your medicine. I about froze my feet off finding you, so you'd better listen."

Is that your answer, Sokka? It kind of sounds like it. With another grump and mutter, she settles into a huddle, hands determinedly thrust towards the heat.

Meanwhile, you'd better not get sick, or she's going to get ticked off about that, too.

"No I don't like living down here, but what other choice did I have? Most of the few friends and all of the family I had here are gone. So it's not like I had a whole lot of choice," he says with more than an audible pout to his tone.

With an immune system like Sokka's? You can bet your sweet patootie that he's getting sick.

"Okay, okay, fine," he says, giving Toph her moral superiority or whatever. "You guys have bad history. And I got you involved. Unaware. Take it out on me later instead of him please?" It's like they're an old married couple by the sounds of it.

As for Mikey, Sokka just covers his face with a cold, wet glove. "You could have reached out to the few friends you still have here! Or you know, made new ones! It's not that hard!"

Toph raises an eyebrow sharply in response to Sokka and replies with a "Hn." Which . . . he can probably safely take as a no. For the time being, though, she keeps quiet, works on warming up her hands, and lets the other two talk.

As far as she's concerned, she's done her job here.

Mike shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Reaching out to others hadn't...well it just hadn't occurred to him for a multitude of reasons.

At least that was the case with other foreigners.

"I tried. After Donnie went home, I...none of my students would give me the time of day. I mean, they weren't jerks about it, but end result was the same."

Yeah, he's totally going to get rocks in his bed from Toph later. Or so he's thinking in his head, even if it's not going to happen.

"You... tried..." Sokka says before just shaking his head. "Well, for a guy that's pretty good at sneaking into people's apartments and getting the jump on other people pretty easily, I never once did see you." Yes, Sokka, because that's what it means to be a ninja. "Still though, aren't you... y'know... bored of just being holed up here, you know, indefinitely?"

He lets the question hang for a moment before looking around and realising just how cold it is.

"Anyway, can't we have this nice and happy reunion... somewhere else? Where it's actually warm? In the middle of civilised society?"

"Fine by me." Though Toph's hands are still damp, and Sokka's most definitely still damp, so that's still a thing.

The question is more if Turtlemuffin planned on coming.

She's still up for force if needed. (And at this point, probably kind of hoping for it.)

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