savetheearth | [open] monstas!

Alex has just recovered from the shock of seeing real-live playing cards when the screech from Hajime burning rubber hits the air. He winces, then hurries to his truck, nearly dumping the drink holders onto the roof so he can grab his keys out of his pocket and unlock the door.

He throws a bewildered glance over his shoulder. The pink cards have stopped and twisted their thin bodies around to find the source of commotion. Alex doesn't recognize Hajime in this form, familiar only with him as the Lord of the Bugmen.

Hajime's coming in fast when he feels the sense of an echo going off in his head. He ignores it, because these cards are suddenly pissing him off. They're wrong. The king is not a tarantula, the jack is not an elephant, the eight is not a scorpion, and the seven is not a jellyfish. He doesn't even take a moment to think about this as he pops a wheelie and goes in to ram the king, using the motorcycle sort of like a knight might use a warhorse.

So far, he hasn't noticed Alex in the area. He's too focused on delivering armored motorcycle justice to these inferior card monsters. Watch out, card creatures, the Joker's running wild. He is also yelling at them in his monster language, partially to see if they respond to the language of other card monsters, and partially because it is excellent for cursing in.

Alex is more than happy to let the armored guy who sort of looks like a human-sized Gundam (to his eyes, anyway) wrestle with the cards while he wrestles with getting the door open and his drinks in the passenger's feet area. Casting glances over his shoulder every couple of seconds, he catches brief snippets of the wheelie, then a card down, and then the Jack of Clubs jabbing his spear Hajime's way while the other two swing their crowbar and bat at him.

As he's whipping his cab door open to snatch his sword, he freezes for half a second, then slams the door closed. That is a language he thinks sounds familiar. The only person he's ever heard it from -- not the mention the voice itself--

He unsheathes his sword, throws the sheath in the bed of his truck, and charges into the fray.

Hajime is well aware that he's under attack on multiple fronts, but at least he gets the satisfaction of putting tire tracks all over the King. Besides, whatever he used to be--and to some extent, whatever he is now--thrived on fighting. He's twisting in an attempt to catch the crowbar and bat on his armor as he briefly touches down with the bike only to rear up in another wheelie and try to swing it to knock the spear out of the Jack's hands.

He barely glances at Alex when Alex charges in, though that's more out of necessity than just not caring. Fight now, figure out what's going on later. "See if you can get the one with the bat!"

Hajime's second wheelie attack connects. The Jack, stubbornly refusing to release his spear, instead hits the asphalt.

Because the cards are all focused on Hajime and his noisy (and quite rude) motorcycle, Alex has an easy in. He swings his sword across the back of a card (either the Eight or the Seven -- he can't tell from behind).

The blade slices right through the card, successfully halving it. Turns out that was the Eight. The bottom half falls flat to the ground, legs wiggling helplessly. The top half follows suit, angrily waving its crowbar around. It catches Alex in the ankle.

With a startled, "Ow! You little fucker," Alex half-hops away and swings his sword again-- this time to knock the crowbar out of the card's hand.

Meanwhile, the King picks himself up and tries to slash Hajime's tires.

Edited 2014-03-31 06:46 (UTC)

"Hey! Don't you dare!" The bike touches down from its wheelie as Hajime sets about trying to kick the king's weapon out of his hands without actually getting off the bike.

It's at this point that he's noticed Alex there also fighting the cards. "You have any idea what the hell's going on with these pretenders?" He sounds pretty offended at the other card monsters running around like this.

The crowbar clatters to the ground. It's shortly followed by the King's sword.

"No, I--" His face scrunches up in confusion. " 'Pretenders'? Whoa!"

He ducks and sidesteps a swing of the Seven's metal bat with inhuman grace -- yet another product of Echoes. Speaking of Echoes, though, whatever trigger set off an Echo in Hajime finally hits Alex. It leaves him temporarily disoriented -- an easy target for the Seven and its bat.

"Yes, pretenders!" Hajime sounds annoyed. He throws another kick in the direction of the card that was trying to slash his tires, revs the motor, and charges over in an attempt to run over the Seven. "Stupid thing isn't even a jellyfish..."

The Seven is just about to bring its bat down on Alex's back when Hajime runs it the fuck over. The clatter of the bat falling to the asphalt snaps Alex out of his reverie in time to notice the Jack stirring. He jumps on the card before it can rise.

Thus the battle has been won. The King and Seven are flattened, the Eight cut in half, and the Jack is pinned under Alex's weight.

Alex takes a moment to catch his breath and sort out the fishing knowledge that had flooded his brain after the Echo. What even... Why fishing?

He casts Hajime an odd look. "Why jellyfishing? I mean, jellyfish. Is it supposed to be?"

Hajime hopped off the motorcycle, the better to look at the other downed cards. "I...the monsters I fought. That I remember fighting. Playing cards were important, and the suit of Clubs wasn't like this. The Seven of Clubs I remember should have been some sort of jellyfish." Not that he remembered what it looked like, just that it should have been a jellyfish. "Like if you're going to do something stupid with card monsters, you should at least do it right..." He nudged at the pinned Jack with one of his feet. "This one's supposed to be an elephant. You want me to finish it off?"

"Uh..."

He lifts the side of his foot, looking at the ridged rubber sole of his sneaker, then glances back up at Hajime. "Sure. Do you want me to get off...?"

There's something a little odd about the prospect of finishing the card off when it's already down. Alex isn't bothered, exactly, but he isn't raring to deal the 'killing' blow in this scenario, even if the card isn't human... or animal...

"Yeah, get off. I'll do it with the bike." Hajime, on the other hand, has no issues with finishing the card off like this. Something deep within him is quite happy to see these very wrong things get taken care of.

Besides, Alex should have seen what happened to the rat that ended up in Hajime's apartment a few years ago. No mercy, even without any echoes inducing questionable behavior.

Rat extermination is something Alex can get behind.

Regardless, he steps off of the Jack slowly, one foot at a time, and keeps the tip of his sword on the card's surface until Hajime's in the position to flatten it even more into the asphalt. Then he pulls his sword back and watches, though not without a wincing tug on the corner of his lips.

"So these, uh, these cards..." Vague, circular hand motion. "They're not related to you at all?"

Hajime doesn't really know how one properly kills a playing card like this, so he pops a wheelie and just sort of bounces up and down on it, while trying to rub it out like it's a cigarette butt. "Not at all. They're not...I don't know, they're not right. Not monster enough."

An incognito Lord of the Bugmen bouncing up and down a playing card with his motorcycle. Even with all the hard-to-believe experiences and sights Alex has witnessed, the one before him is odd enough for him to pause and appreciate the absurdity of this situation.

He lifts a brow at Hajime's answer. "Not monster enough?" His gaze slides down to the felled cards again. After a brief moment of consideration, he says, "I guess so... They're more 'what the fuck-y' than 'monster-y'."

The observation is accompanied by a hand wiggle.

"Yeah. They're...kind of offensive, actually." He sounds appropriately sheepish about that as he finishes snuffing the card out, because, really, getting this worked up over playing card monsters is just not right. But at least it doesn't look like the card's moving anymore. He can stop with the bouncing. "Probably better that than some of what I'm remembering...less collateral damage."

He starts gathering up the now-discarded weapons from the parking lot as Hajime answers, eyes narrowing in slight confusion.

With another sword in his other hand and a crowbar held in the crook of his elbow against his chest, he glances at Hajime over his shoulder and asks, "Why are less dangerous cards offensive to you?"

Less dangerous cards sounds great!

"I...don't really know." Because that sounds really reassuring, right? Hajime is not at all reassured by it. "Like it's making me look bad, I think..."

He's watching Alex pick up the weapons. Weapons are a good distraction from the implications of relating oneself to walking playing cards. "What are you going to do with those, anyway?"

Maybe Hajime's other self was really proud to be a dangerous badass...?

Before Alex can voice his thought, Hajime continues forward to another topic. He shrugs, letting the transition run smoothly. "Keep 'em. As backup," he adds, lightly swinging the King's sword up, "since swords aren't exactly easy to come by in this day and age."

He nods towards the fallen spear. "You mind grabbing that one?"

"Not a bad idea. Here's hoping they can't be traced to anyone..." He bent to pick up the spear before getting back on his motorcycle. "But do you know anything about fighting with spears?"

"Not a bit," he says lightly. Clearly, this lack of knowledge doesn't seem to faze him. "But someone else might. It won't hurt to have it on the ready."

Satisfied, he walks back to his truck, just assuming that Hajime will follow since he's got the spear. He opens the back door and carefully lays the weapons one by one onto the floor, keeping his own sword for last so he can re-sheathe it.

Belatedly, he asks, "Do you?"

"Some sort of numbered armory?" Not that a spear and a crowbar and a baseball bat would be good for that much, but better than nothing.

"Nah. Right now, it's just the bike when I'm like this or my own two fists when I'm the...other way. It's all I need." He gave the bike a pat.

At that, he chuckles and holds his hand out for the spear. "You're a full on superhero, you know that? Not American-style, but you got the powers, the disguises, and the vehicle."

A pause.

"The bug-mobile. Bug-bike. Roachercycle."

Edited (html) 2014-04-15 22:24 (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess so..." Being a superhero felt kind of silly, for the most part, though secretly pretty cool if Hajime stopped being so serious about everything. he was about to say something else, but then Alex had to go and name the bike.

"...Roachercycle." With the way Hajime is flatly repeating that, he does not seem to be amused by the name.

"Roachercycle."

Said like it ain't no thang as he slides the spear with the other weapons and swings the cab door shut. He holds out his hand for a handshake, continuing, "Thanks for your help, man. Things could've been a lot different if you hadn't popped in."

[open] monstas!

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