savetheearth | 007. action. mostly open!

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007. action. mostly open!

[ Skyler has been out and about for a great deal of time during this Christmas holiday! Let us count the ways: ]

[ Option A: Oh Shit Let's Be Santa; or, Christmas shopping with his kid sister ]

[ THIS PROMPT IS WIDE OPEN CONTEXTUALLY! On the day of the 21st, Skyler will be walking around local shopping centers and the mall with a very cheery looking little girl, her jingle bell earrings tinkling as she turns her head and points at the next store she wants to go to, and the next, and the next. Skyler himself looks pretty harried, but allows himself to get pulled every which way, his arms slowly getting loaded down with shopping bags.

Catch him between trips resting on a bench while she traipses through the local Claire's clone, or intervene somewhere before or after he gets dragged into Build-a-Bear. IT'S UP TO YOU. THE SKY'S THE LIMIT. Hey, that stray Echo your character may get upon looking at him face to face might be enough, right? ]

[ /Option A: Oh Shit Let's Be Santa; or, Christmas shopping with his kid sister ]

[ Option B: Oh Shit Let's Be Santa mk II; or, Christmas shopping on his lonesies ]

[ The same as the above, but with no kid sister and totally available between the 21st through the 23rd. He will be keeping much more to himself and sticks mostly to department stores, checking his phone or brushing past in an aisle or standing in line at a register, not really looking anyone in the eye, but the Echo trigger may still apply! ]

[ /Option B: Oh Shit Let's Be Santa mk II; or, Christmas shopping on his lonesies ]

[ Option C: Blood Key Off Duty: haha duty ]

[ This Blood Key is sitting on a bench in the bohemian district, off duty and on his phone, but the sunglasses and the hoodie are a dead giveaway. He seems to be pretty distracted and not at all interested in your character... Advance or abscond? ]

[[ ooc: please note that i'd prefer to plan it in advance a little bit if your character wants to pick a fight! feel free to pm me or leave me an ooc message in the post so we can hash out the scenario really quick :) ]]

[ /Option C: Blood Key Off Duty: haha duty ]

[ Option D: Blood Key On Duty: YA GETTIN ROBBED SON ]

[ Oh, friend, why are you even here? They came in twos and threes and surrounded you faster than should really be possible. A guy in a dark grey hoodie and a metal pipe should be present, but he's not going to be the first one to talk. ]

[[ ooc: again, please note that i'd prefer to plan it in advance a little bit if your character wants to pick a fight! feel free to pm me or leave me an ooc message in the post so we can hash out the scenario really quick :) ]]

[ /Option D: Blood Key On Duty: YA GETTIN ROBBED SON ]

[ Option E: Blood Key On Duty: The One Where Skyler Tries To Rob a Girl [laugh track] (closed to blastiaobsessieanonymous) ]

[ Ever since the encounter with the girl with the purse, Skyler's been struggling to justify the fact that... holy shit, they're actually robbing people. People who probably don't deserve it. "Everyone else deserves it if they're on our turf" tends to be the general attitude among the Keys, but... Skyler tuts to himself as he rounds the corner and sees a lone figure wandering a little too close into Key territory. He doesn't exactly see eye to eye with the Keys, but he's not about to blow his own cover either. He's going along with it. It's a struggle, but he'll get used to it, he thinks.

Which is why he goes alone to tap her on the shoulder with his pipe. He pushes a little roughly, but it's mostly just to get her attention. He coughs a little and prepares to adopt a deeper voice that he's been using for these encounters. Mostly, he's depending on his appearance to make his intentions clear. The shades and bandanna over his mouth should make it pretty obvious, right? ]

[ /Option E: Blood Key On Duty: The One Where Skyler Tries To Rob a Girl [laugh track] (closed) ]

[[ ooc: Please note that if your character interacts with Skyler in any of these options, they will gain one echo if they haven't gotten a Blood Key echo yet! ]]

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[It's usually not such a long walk to get to his car from work in downtown Locke City, but he's been parking outside the lot lately, partly because it's hard to get any exercise at a desk job, but partly because he just likes walking around some.]

[He's not aware he's taken a wrong turn into gang territory until he looks up and notices they're all around him. A spike of fear jams its way into his heart, but also awakened is a sense that he can deal with a situation like this. He's a genius, right?]

[He clears his throat and drawls at whoever seems the closest.] So, is it true you guys have robot parts?

[ Oh... even from afar, this guy seemed like an easy target. None of them are sure if this guy is confident or just stupid, but Skyler suspects that the reason should be obvious enough soon.

The guy he gestures to is a burly guy in a green sweater, who just stares at him. The other two individuals, a girl with blond hair and a red crowbar and a guy with orange Nikes look at each other and sigh. Heavily. Skyler, for his part, rolls his eyes under his sunglasses. Oh, god damn it, another network guy?

Eventually, the blonde girl chimes in with an answer. ]

None of your business, shrimp dick. Just hand over your shit and no one gets hurt, ok?

[Oh, the dick jokes. Racist much? Anyhow, he curls his hand around the weird cell phone gun in his pocket... He's taken to carrying it around with him all the time for reasons he can't quite understand himself. But hey, it might be good enough to spook these kids, right?]

Oh, so you do, then? Better watch out, kids, I'm a medical robotics engineer, and untested weird-ass robotic implants can give you some skynet problems down the road. Not to mention graft vs host and all that jazz.

[He switches his hips and brings his left hand to his face in a thoughtful pose.]

I guess the real problem for you guys would be that your joints aren't set up to take the load. That's what I always worry about when I consider larger-scale bionic replacements... You guys haven't had any arthritis, right?

[He points at the green guy, then glances at the girl.]

Oh right, the mugging. I don't have much, y'know.

[ ... During this monologue, Skyler has to grasp the pipe in his hand ~~firmly~~ to keep himself from clapping both hands to his face. Dude. No. This is not how you act during a stick-up with the Keys. He is not stuck in a 1950s comic book with unlimited speech bubbles. Why is this happening?

... And the worst part is that what he understands out of what the guy says is enough to make him... A little uneasy, maybe? Weird. He looks down at his hand, almost by reflex, and catches orange Nikes rolling his wrists around. Oh, come on. He tries to shake himself out of it.

Green sweater is a little quicker on the uptake, and steps in, taking his hands out of his pockets. He's got a pair of steel knuckles clenched between his fingers. ]

... Even if that's true, we got the jump on you and no one gets arthritis that fast. Empty your pockets, asshole.

Edited (html more like htmHELL) 2013-12-28 18:27 (UTC)

[Okay, so fast-talking is not getting him anywhere. But it could be worse. He could have a bunch of important things in his pocket. Like the gun he got back in a pulse that doesn't work. OH WAIT HE DOES HAVE THAT WITH HIM. He definitely knows he can't give that up... So he just pulls it out of his pocket.]

Like I said, I don't have much.

[He flips the phone into the gun and points it at the guy in green.]

If you want, I can give you a taste of this?

[The half-nervous question rise at the end of that sentence is not winning him any cool points. He laughs a little neurotically under his breath.]

I mean, I don't know much about what enhancements you guys have, but I'm pretty sure a laser gun can shoot through both flesh and metal.

[He's not sure whether he's winging it or not. He doesn't know that this gun actually would shoot lasers... If it shot. Which it doesn't. But there's nowhere to put bullets to load it, so why not lasers?]

[ None of them flinch when he takes the phone out of his pocket - it's not the best haul, but they'll take it - but they all do when he turns it into a gun. Skyler doesn't have any idea what this guy thinks he's up to, but he definitely knows what his squadmates are thinking - aw, shit, another weird one. We may or may not die here. Still... There is a possibility that he isn't, in fact, a master gunman like the other bozo earlier this month, and they still have him outnumbered.

Before he can say anything, though, Orange Nikes pipes up, his voice clearly strained. ]

Nice toy, doc. You think you can shoot that?

[ ... as stupid as that was, Skyler is pretty sure he has a point. This guy is clearly nervous enough for this to be his first stick-up. Even if that thing worked, does he have the nerve to shoot them with it? ]

[He gives a false, light laugh and lightly spins the gun around his finger.]

As a father myself, I really don't want to kill kids. But as a robotics engineer, I don't mind ruining messed up cyborg implants that are likely to hurt kids. So let me guess, legs? Arms? It's really impressive how hard it is to tell.

[He glances around at each of them, trying to figure out the placement of the prosthetics or implants...]

[ Green Sweater laughs loudly and abruptly. The other three members look at him, puzzled, before he waves them off. ]

You don't know a thing about guns, do you? Either that or you're really good at pretending you don't. That's fake or we're all dying here anyway. Newb, come on, you and me grab him.

[ Skyler nods. That's one of two of his appellations, and honestly, it's getting easier to answer to it. He shoves his iron pipe through a length of scarf he's tied over one shoulder, then walks forward to grab him by the elbow, the green hoodied guy going for the other. Any last actions between now and when the two grab him? ]

[Jin gives a ~theatrical~ sigh and spins the gun around on his finger again. Of course, it being what he thought was a fake gun means that his trigger discipline isn't really that bad, if he knew what trigger discipline meant, but he is spinning it around by the trigger and it goes off twice, firing two yellow laser beams, one into the sky, and one into the ground near the kids. If it hits anyone, it's obviously an accident.]

[Jin freezes, eyes wide and round as marbles, the gun hanging off his hand lamely. Then he puts both hands on the gun and points it at the two of them alternatingly.]

Don't make me use this... again!

[He backs away, glancing at the gang member behind him.]

Th- Whoever's behind you guys is gonna be mad if you come back having broken one of their precious robot parts!

[ They all flinch at that, Skyler himself hopping back a bit, the second bolt just barely missing his knee. They all stare at the guy for a moment, absorbing his reaction to the gun and his belated threat.

The blonde girl finally breaks the silence by muttering to herself. ]

Or maybe that's real AND he's stupid.

Look, mister. [ Green Hoodie scratches the back of his head. ] The people doing our repairs don't care. I think they like it, actually.

They do it pro bono.

Yeah, that. I know you're probably one of those weird homicidal superpowered people, or you jacked that off one of 'em. Hell, I don't care. Point is that we're going to steal your shit or die trying. It's our turf, we're in this all the way.

We don't have to die trying. [ That'd be Skyler in his grey hoodie, his voice deepened and lowered into his chest. ]

Shut the fuck up, newb. What I'm trying to say is that you'd might as well save us some time and hand your shit over. You're not gonna come out on top here.

Edited 2013-12-30 17:00 (UTC)

[He pauses and listens.]

Aw, man, that makes sense... I'd love doing that too.

[He groans and lowers his hand.]

All right, all right... Look, I dunno who's telling you guys about us... Or, I guess, who you're talking about... I don't know everybody like this, all right? But I got a kid, and you're all just kids. I don't want anyone to get hurt either.

[He rubs the back of his neck.]

So how about I give you my wallet and my phone and we call this done. I'll race you, see if I can get home and cancel my cards before you guys max them all out.

[He grabs his wallet and phone and waves them, then tosses them lightly to the ground in front of Skyler.]

I'm gonna keep the gun, though, cos I really don't want to wake up in the morning hearing about a mysterious dumb dead cyborg kid who accidentally shot themselves in the face.

Kind of hard not to hear about a bunch of psychos crushing us every other day.

Yeah, the werewolf, right? Was that real?

Shut up. [ Green Hoodie tilts his chin at Grey Hoodie, who sticks his pipe through the sash tied around his back and goes to pick the wallet and phone up. ] Give him the gun too, pops. He's gonna follow you out of Key territory.

[ Skyler panics a little, but his face is covered by the shades, thankfully. Hopefully, that little jump of his telegraphs as surprise. He looks back at Green Hoodie. ] Are you kidding me?

Do it, newb. Meet up with us in ten.

[Jin makes a face as he watches the other gang members take off. Then he looks at Skyler.]

Man, they don't like you very much, leaving you here with a crazy guy with a laser gun.

[ ... Skyler curses under his breath, then turns back to the guy, sizing him up carefully. He can definitely take him in a fight, but one person who knows he's probably a Network person is enough; he'd prefer to wash his hands of him as soon as possible. He makes a small grunt of frustration, which also serves as a way to remind himself to make sure his voice is still disguised and deep. ]

Once you give it to me, I'll be the crazy guy with a laser gun. Sounds fair to me. [ He holds out his hand. ] Hand it over. We'll take a little walk and I'll give it back.

[He raises an eyebrow at the kid, and sighs.]

What, you gonna tell them I booked it? I'm not a big runner.

[He's reluctant to hand it over... It's important to him.]

Promise not to shoot me?

[It's not a promise he expects the kid to keep, really. He just wants to get home to Yoko. He offers it with a little bit of a hangdog expression on his face.]

Look, like I said I've got a daughter. Just don't make me leave her without a dad, all right?

You heard the guy. Take you, take the gun, follow you out of Key territory and let you go. [ Skyler shrugs, his hand still out for the gun. ] If you're not gonna put up a fight, why bother? Just makes us look weak if you didn't fight back.

[ Skyler swings his pole over his shoulder, listening to his request and thinking... God damn it, now's not the time to get soft. He doesn't have to think about what would happen if he attacked a guy like his dad, leaving his own little sister without a dad. Not that it'd matter since he's never around anyway-- egh. Now that's just getting unfair. And does he really have time to think about his own family issues in a situation like this?

He just sighs and takes the gun, being careful to avoid the trigger. ]

Won't start shit if you won't. And even if you do, I promise I won't use the gun.[ ... eh, why not. He takes the pipe from the sash around he back and bounces it off his own shoulder, letting a tiny smile grow across his face. ] Besides, I can think of a shit ton of ways to have fun without it.

[He holds his hands up, shrugging.]

Works for me, kiddo. Last time I try to take a shortcut to my car, anyway.

[He sticks his hands in his pockets and follows along.]

I can think of a lot of ways to have fun without beating anyone with a pipe at all! But that's not what today's about, I guess. So... You're a young guy. You really have nothing better to do than harass people like me and get sweet robotic legs?

[He sighs and takes out a business card.]

Well, if you ever get problems with 'em you don't wanna tell the guys in charge about, let me know. Call me from a throwaway phone or something if you have to, I might have some halfway decent ideas.

[ Skyler's smile fades into an expression of incredulity as they walk, although the expression is kind of blocked off by the shades. Does this guy usually chat up his robbers this much? ] Nah. I'm really into wasting away my youth.

[ He can't hide an even deeper state of bewilderment as the guy shoves his business card in front of him. Where did that even come from? Didn't he just give his wallet to Green Hoodie? Wild.

He takes the card, more out of reflex to take something given to him rather than a conscious need for it, then looks at the scientist through his shades. He has... so many questions. So many. ]

... So, what makes you think I need your help?

[He laughs.]

You want the God's honest truth?

[He leans in, his hand at the side of his face conspiratorially.]

I just really want any chance to check out those prosthetics.

[He flicks the card.]

That's my job! It's pretty lame of me, I know, but I really wanna see how your gang leader guys are showing me up at my own business.

[ He can't see this, but Skyler is giving him the most dead-eyed stare he can possibly manage. Great, we got a mad scientist over here. ]

... You're with the other crazies, aren't you? Just ask for one of our dead guys. You guys should have a ton of 'em. Or did they all just disappear when the clinic shit went down?

[He rubs the back of his neck.]

Look, I just... got drafted into this mess, you know? I'm not good friends with murderers. I just got the news reports on that...

[He looks faintly distressed.]

I mean, I'm not really in this to take apart dead kids. Or anybody. I just wanna keep my family safe. I just want to know who I really am.

[ ... Ok, this? This is why Skyler lets other people do the talking for him. For all of his shit and backtalk and bluster, he empathizes way too easily with other people's problems, especially when they echo his own thoughts to a T. He's concerned for this random stranger's sake now, and doing that won't do him a bit of good, and he hates that he can't help it. He can't even manage to come up with a decently sarcastic response to that speech. God damn it.

... Time to take the asshole's way out. After a brief, oddly somber silence, he manages a scoff, shaking his head as he pockets the card and turning his attention to the wall. ] I can't wait until I drop you off, man. Telling me this shit like I care. God damn.

[ -- Oh hey, conveniently enough, isn't that the last alleyway out of the district? Huh. Skyler studies the gun in his hand, then holds it out to the guy without a word. ]

[The silence makes Jin feel awkward, exposed. He hadn't meant to be that emotional either. He slaps on the same smile that got his ass a divorce 14 years ago.]

Haha, yeah shoulda realized you were too cool to get wound up in some old fart's old fart feelings. I must be goin' senile. Maaaan, I didn't used to be this old.

[He takes the gun and gives the kid a solid salute with his free hand.]

Later, kid. Don't get killed.

[He's not too proud to jog away, at least, and he rounds a corner before he breathes out a sigh of something akin to relief. He doesn't start sweating until the danger is gone, but he knows he's gonna need to calm down before Yoko sees him like this.]

Yeah, you too.

[

Yeah, you too?

Why does anyone let him do anything. He just hopes that the guy beat it too fast for him to hear that. Skyler just turns and books it himself, trying not to hate himself too much. THANK GOD THAT WAS JUST A RANDOM HAPPENSTANCE BROUGHT UPON BY PURE COINCIDENCE, SURELY THEY WILL NEVER MEET AGAIN. ]

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007. action. mostly open!

DDDDDD???

d...elightful

thx for giving me the d

time to d-rail this before i start coming up with terrible puns

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