tushanshu_logs | OPEN LOG; The Masked Man

Entry tags:

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

The rumours hadn't started flowing yet in earnest, but there has been a fair bit of discussion about someone lurking around in the middle of the night. Sokka had originally ignored the first of these because, let's face it, the tensions between the kedan and the foreigners have always seemed to be at a boiling point. Though when one person had mentioned that there was this flowing sort of black water that this guy could control, ironically that was the point at which Sokka started paying attention.

And so, perhaps purposefully one night, he actually stayed at work late. After returning with his daily reports to Stark Industries, he remained working in the lab, doing a little bit of personal research late into the evening before deciding to go home, oh, something like 10 ~~o'candle~~ o'clock in the evening. He didn't know if he'd run across the guy in question, but he would certainly be on the outlook.

Space Sword was a little difficult to justify at Stark Industries, but Boomerang never left his side (and was easier to hide), and so he would be armed, so to speak, on his nightly foray back to the Midnight Hotel. And instead of taking the quick way back, he would go lurking through the city as if it were enemy territory. Probably a little more dangerous than he'd like to risk, given the state of the kedan, but it wasn't like Sokka wasn't willing to volunteer for dangerous tasks. He had a knack for finding his way out of them.

This night, Yokai's in a mood.

His past couple of forays have been frustrating at best, and the attempt tonight has led him in to trouble with a local gang- ones who aren't taking his attempts at intimidation in the way he'd like. As such, when the four sweep around him, drawing upon aggressive forms of their own...

There's something to be said about taking out trash.

The muffled shouts and grunts will probably attract Sokka's attention first; by the time he gets there, three of the kedan will be on the ground, only the biggest one still standing. And currently fighting against that 'black water', which alternates between trying to wrap around and restrain him- and flowing with him as he tries to shift his way out of it.

Everything moving. Everything shifting. Yokai's hands themselves are practically molding invisible clay, his attention fully on keeping the microbots one step ahead of the proving-tricky threat.

Muffled shouts could be the result of just about any sort of trouble. It's impossible to say for sure if it's the result of the man in a kabuki mask or not, but no matter the source, it's definitely trouble. And that's trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for Boomerang!

Sokka starts running in the direction where the sounds are coming from. He's not sure yet who's getting the best of whom or even if there's a foreigner in the mix, but he's going to be off just in case he's been given a lucky break. Thankfully, it's not far, and a few around a corner and then into an alleyway.

And that's when he sees the aftermath of three kedan collapsed on the street. Alive? Maybe? And then there's a fourth that looks like he's sinking in a black substance that's splashing around like a violent sea.

Hot diggity, Sokka's found himself his mark.

Yokai might be taking out the trash, but Sokka's going to one-up that. He's going to do some recycling. ~~You know, because it's going to involve his Boomerang spinning through the air. Cycling around. In a circle. Cycling. It's funny. Geez.~~

Sokka's going to start running after him. "Hey!" he calls out to the man just... standing there, watching it all. He... wasn't sure what he was doing there, but he certainly was looking on. "What in the world do you think you're doing?!"

Perhaps a bad call to announce his presence first without attacking, but you know... it's sportsmanlike.

The kedan surely have trouble right here in Keeliai city- at least, these ones do. But at the sound of interference...

Yokai's hands clench in to fists, the microbots immediately tightening around what serves as the Kedan's neck as he turns to judge this newest source of trouble. It looks like...

Another Foreigner, like him, wielding a- boomerang?

With the microbots 'wrapped up' with the other, he can't use them to speak for himself- grimacing behind his mask, he decides to risk it, roughing his voice as much as he can.

"Defending myself."

The moments between question and reply seem to draw out far too long. Sokka watches the microbots clamp down around the kedan's neck, and if there's anything in that that says, "Hey, I'm defending myself," well, Yokai needs to learn to translate better. Because something is definitely lost in the translation.

"Yeah, I can see that," Sokka says with some degree of raw sarcasm. "You are so defending yourself right this moment." Yeah, maybe there's some degree of raw truth in there—disregarding the fact that there is truth in it, hush—but Yokai isn't exactly letting bygones be bygones at this point. He's going for the gusto, either to teach a lesson or to kill someone. And given that this guy is already stealing things from Zanru, well...

Best not to take chances.

Here, have some boomerang. He hurls it in a wide arc, keeping it away from that pile of sloshing metallic water.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN LOG; The Masked Man

Where are you on the evening of April 10?

OUT CAUSING TROUBLE well stopping it here

Goddammit, Leeroy.

and then callaghan pretended he was christian bale

I am Batman. Hi, I'm Daisy.

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