tushanshu_logs | OPEN LOG; The Masked Man

CHARACTERS; Yokai and YOU!
DATE; Throughout the month of April. [Mostly at night.]
LOCATION; All about Keeliai!
SITUATION; A certain old man has terrible coping methods when it comes to dealing with racing thoughts and stress. A certain masked man finds himself exploring Keelai through yellowed eyes, and may or may not be running in to trouble in the meantime.
WARNINGS/RATINGS; Possible violence. Otherwise, nothing past PG-13.

See me, the red lines cry. See my role in this story, see that I have a wrong to right; see that I am power and that I will not be denied.

Callaghan hadn't chosen the mask without being ignorant of its meaning; he had, however, chosen it for a multitude of reasons. All symbolism aside, it offered full-face coverage, and hardly blocked his peripheral vision. Secured with the ski mask underneath, it would take (and had taken) a heavy strike to knock off, but since arriving here in Keeliai, he'd made a few further tweaks to ensure that if, for whatever reason, he had to don it again...

To be fair, he hadn't considered donning it for the freedom it offered. Dressing in the outfit again felt inherently good, as did running along the building edges with the microbots enhancing his movements. He did not know parkour, per se, but he didn't need to - not when the microbots were there by his feet to give him the push or pull he needed to cross an alley, not when they could toss him in to the air and his own strength could grab on to a protrusion to haul himself in to another position.

God, but this felt good. It felt right. And as long as he could keep himself out of view, the microbots next to him, and the terrain itself from betraying him...

He just had to be careful, was all. Without nearly as many microbots as he had before, he tried to keep to the shadows. And if that ended up with him overseeing a few gang members or so...?

On one hand, it wasn't any of his business.

On the other, there's something to be said about getting carried away.

((Over the course of the month, rumors will begin to spread regarding a mysterious figure, some mugging incidents [unclear as to what side they were partaking in], and some thefts as well. feel free to put a general time period/area in your first comment, or PM/plurk me and we can do something specific!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Why yes, yes he is. Thank you for noticing, young man. One can just picture Yokai rolling his eyes, taking a look back at the kedan falling to their knees-

-motion. The sharp memory of an incoming discus has him sidestep, throwing a hand out to the side as the microbots abandon their now-mostly-incapacitated 'prey'. Yokai's fingers curl as he recalls them, attention on Sokka as every iota of his posture and presence screams malevolence.

And then, THWACK.

Yokai stumbles forwards, the return of the boomerang knocking him solidly in the back of his head. Give him a moment to recover, won't you?

Sokka didn't realise just how little time had passed between when the masked man had caught sight of his movement before the black slush suddenly dashes away from the fallen kedan and are recalled to him. It was mind-numbingly quick. Impossibly quick. It practically looked like bending in every sense of the action... except, it wasn't. He'd seen bending of every shape and size (okay, not lavabending, but he didn't know about that one), and this wasn't any of them. Most importantly, it wasn't metalbending. Whatever it was, it was something rather dangerous... and Sokka, well...

Suddenly he's re-evaluating all of the life choices he's made up until this point.

Thankfully, Boomerang connects and then, via some manner of strange physics that would probably frustrate the Doctor Callaghan beneath the mask, Boomerang keeps on flying in its arc back downward towards Sokka. A quick mental calculation allows him to start moving with a few paces to intercept the boomerang so as not to be completely caught flat-footed. And the direction he's running?

Away.

Karma, please save the poor fool who decided that this was a great idea.

Unfortunately for Sokka, Yokai regains his footing after a few seconds- and doesn't seem inclined to let bygones be bygones. As much as he could just let the boy run away, now that he seems to be fleeing...

He'll give him a real reason to flee.

Half-kneeling on the ground, he throws out a hand, those microbots scuttling to respond. They swarm after Sokka like a tidal wave, and with the sound of a hundred thousand angry rattlesnakes. And their intent?

Overwhelm.

It's not much of a head start, admittedly. A few seconds isn't even enough time to get out of sight before the Yokai recovers. But to Sokka's credit, at least he's fast. He may not be the most muscular warrior there ever was, but he's built for speed. And so those few seconds will probably end up being what saves him.

Because when he hears the clattering of an angry black cloud rushing after him... he will look back to see what the hullabaloo is about. And then subsequently scream. In an octave that will probably remind Callaghan of a little girl crying for mummy. It won't shatter windows, but it will still shatter eardrums. Provided one could hear it above the metallic jaws of death.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE go go go go go getawayfromme!"

The worst bit? They're gaining on him. Which is why Sokka will try to be smarter. And hang a right after passing a building. Hopefully getting out of sight is going to make it that much harder.

The microbots are persistent, and fast; those few seconds of a head start are solely needed, because they are right on him as he turns. About the only thing that 'saves' Sokka is the fact that Yokai can't see where to direct them- they follow him on that right turn, rattling like mad and going absolutely nowhere. Oh, there's the implication that there's something else to it, that they're like a blind animal hunting around to try and find their lost 'prey'...

...but in the end, they move towards the nearest wall and flow upwards, abandoning the hunt.

Time to go.

And perhaps thankfully he continues running for just a little bit around that corner instead of just stopping right there because, really, who could say how far they'd chase him? But Sokka does hear the sudden difference of their movements once "safely" around the corner. Suddenly, the rattling isn't quite as fast and quite as... well, imminently lethal.

Sokka turns in place, still continuing to run, albeit now backwards and still ~~bravely~~ away. And it's only then when he gets a good look at the structure of this metallic wall of water. Perhaps too close of a look really for comfort as, perhaps unluckily for Callaghan, it actually does come within a good couple inches of Sokka's face as it blindly searches for him.

And it's just enough time for Sokka to get a mental photograph of it before jumping back another ten feet (in short increments, of course), flattening himself against the far wall before the microbots eventually start heading back to their master.

And that's it. Suddenly he's alone again. With the clattering of the robots fading further and further away.

Sokka slumps down to the ground, practically out of breath.

"Yeah, that's right," he says, practically winded. "You run away. Next time, you won't be so lucky." Thankfully he doesn't say this all that loudly. Callaghan... won't hear that. Thank the spirits.

OPEN LOG; The Masked Man

quick someone find Groot

Time to live up to my family name and face full-life consequences for that.

i don't suppose there's a 'brave sir robin' in that family tree somewhere?

Sokka will bang two coconuts together. Really fast.

he was not in the least bit scared tOH GOD MICROBOTS

He is packing it in and packing it up / And sneaking away and buggering up