10th Frost | Action

[icy_heavens]

Who: Toushirou, Ethan, and later Phillip
When: December 2nd, afternoon
Where: At the middle school, and on the way home
What: So Toushirou found out Winter got taken away by the cops. He's a tad angry about it and a couple of the other Numbered kids want to know what's up with him.


A: For Ethan

Just damn everything all to hell. He didn't even still want to be here, but he was at least trying to be rational. And he was totally succeeding. Really. Nevermind the far darker than usual scowls that crossed his face, the sharp words the instant anybody bothered him for anything. After he'd snapped at a few people, most had at least stopped approaching him.

And how aggressively he'd been kicking the ball around had even gotten his soccer teammates to give him a wider berth. There was no restraint, none of his usual finesse. Which was probably how the ball had wound up on the school roof. His foul temper was pretty clear for everyone to see, and wound up getting him benched for the rest of the practice.

Well fine. He had more important things to worry about anyway. They'd taken her. Who the hell even knew what they could be subjecting her to by now? Goddamn it, he wanted to hit something besides a soccer ball.


B: For Phillip

Even later, his temper wasn't much better, his whole body tight with suppressed anger. Over and over, he reminded himself that he couldn't go storming the police station. No matter how much he wanted to.

He'd elected to walk home instead of taking the bus; a bunch of loud, stupid kids wouldn't be good for his mood right now. At least most people he passed while walking didn't pay any attention to him. Good. Let him be angry in peace and woe to anyone that dared try to talk to him.

Comments

[darkhourdear]

Phillip was out and about as well- and, unfortunately, he could be pretty oblivious about stuff like this. Not to mention he didn't access the network in the middle of the day, and between that and being at the elementary school, he had no idea about the drug bust.

So, when he sees Toushirou walking down the street, why wouldn't he greet his friend. "Hi Toushirou!"

[icy_heavens]

Toushirou couldn't not check the network in the middle of the day, especially not now, with how things were ramping up. Great, and now somebody was talking to him.

He scowled. "What?"

... Oh. It was Phillip. Well, whatever. He wasn't going to modulate his tone; he just wouldn't hit him.

[darkhourdear]

The tone gets a little bit of surprise out of Phillip... but he's also used to Toushirou being pretty cranky. "Um... I just saw you, so I said hi." Looong pause. "Are you ok?"

[icy_heavens]

His tone was definitely further into 'cranky' than usual. Sure, he frequently had a low-grade disagreeable quality to his voice, but this was different.

"... This had better be because you didn't hear about it."

He didn't want to deal with this weird emotionless crap that Phillip had been doing about death. If he knew, and was still confused as to why anything would be a big deal . . .

[darkhourdear]

"Didn't hear about what?" Phillip looks completely lost, if that helps. (It probably doesn't.) "...Did something happen? I haven't been on the network today. I just got out of school." The teachers had been acting a little weird, but no one had said anything.

[icy_heavens]

Actually, it did help a little. Not knowing about it was a perfectly good excuse to not be bothered by it.

He huffed out an angry breath. "Cops raided the highschool on a so-called drug bust. Some of us got arrested."

[darkhourdear]

Oddly enough, Phillip's emotionlessness really only applies to death. Being afraid of being arrested he understands. "Wait, some of us? Did people actually have drugs? Or do you mean..."

[icy_heavens]

Well, that line of questioning got him a deeper frown. "Of course not! They used this as an excuse to round us up."

[darkhourdear]

He had to ask! Teachers keep telling him people will offer him drugs in high school, after all. "But how do they know? I thought we were being careful."

[icy_heavens]

He was a little defensive about the fellow Numbered sometimes. Especially when he knew there was no way in hell that a certain one -- or two, but only one really concerned him right now -- would be involved in that crap.

"Somebody's been tipping 'em off." That was what Bakura had said, anyway. It made enough sense when you didn't stop and think about things too deeply.

[darkhourdear]

"Really?" Oh. That wasn't good. "There was a guy asking for names a little while ago... was that it?" He hopes that was it. Because otherwise that meant someone else was doing it.

[moonlitblade]

Ethan hadn't really ever seen Toushirou... well, like this. And it bothered him. In an effort to gather information, he waved that he was going to take a break for a minute, then moved to sit with his teammate, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"What's going on? This isn't like you at all."

[icy_heavens]

And that hand promptly got shoved off. No touching him when he was angry. Was that so hard?

"Exactly how much attention have you paid to what's going on?" He perhaps didn't mean for that to sound so accusatory, but to hell with tone.

[moonlitblade]

Sheesh, touchy. "You mean in that place, right? I keep an eye on it, sure, but I haven't looked since this morning." The reason for the grumpy attitude suddenly clicked, and Ethan's face took a grave turn. "Something happened today, then." It wasn't a question.

[icy_heavens]

He didn't particularly like being touched at the best of times. This? Was far from one of the best times.

He huffed out an angry breath. "So called drug-raid on the highschool by the cops. Some of . . . us got taken in."

[moonlitblade]

That was enough to make Ethan worry, though not as severely. Not yet. He was certainly ready to move out and do something, though, and it was evident in his voice. "Do we have a plan yet? Do we know anything else?"

[icy_heavens]

"I don't know." That was one of the most frustrating things. He didn't know what to do, what would be a good move or a stupid one, and he didn't want to just sit still and let it all happen.

"I don't know," he repeated, less emphatically this time. "One of us is a double-crosser or something. I don't know who the guy is or anything."

He hadn't paid too much attention to that part. Yeah, it was important information, but when you heard that one of your friends might be in mortal danger, things like that kind of went on the back burner. Get Winter (and Lyall, though that was a secondary thought to him) out of there, and then worry about backstabbers. There were priorities, here.

[moonlitblade]

"Don't take this the wrong way, but..." Ethan fished for the words he wanted, but didn't come back with anything useful, so he continued with his usual sharp attitude. "How important is 'keeping ourselves hidden' versus 'getting back our people'? If we don't need to keep ourselves a secret, a smash-and-grab is probably in my - our - abilities. If we can't be seen, that changes things, and without more information we can't act. Once we know what we're doing, though, I'm right behind you."

[icy_heavens]

"Already did a breakout once; they're probably ready for that."

Stupid Octavia. Stupid Alan. Now when they needed to get people out that couldn't have avoided being arrested . . . His fists clenched. Why was there no good target for him to hit right now?

"We've got people on the inside, it's just --"

It was his friend in there this time. Somebody he looked out for. And he could do a big fat nothing about it.

[moonlitblade]

Ethan recognized the tension in his friend, and he was fairly certain Toushirou would really hurt something - or someone - if left to his own devices. That wasn't acceptable, and even if they couldn't do anything...

"Come on. Sitting here won't do anything, and it's not like you're being useful on the bench. This is important enough that we can skip practice."

Pushing himself up, he started to walk off the field, back to the locker room, waiting to see if Toushirou would follow.

[icy_heavens]

"They're gonna miss you. Not like they're expecting me back."

But whatever. Ethan could do what he wanted. After a moment of internal debate, she shoved himself off the bench and followed. Might as well get the hell out of here. Nothing useful happening here anyway.

[moonlitblade]

He shakes his head. "I can miss a day. I can't be the whole team by myself, so everyone else needs to work on their skills too."

Once they're out of earshot of the team, Ethan sighs, turning to business. "Any ideas? It's not like I can do much to help, but if you have something to start with, I'm game."