savetheearth | Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

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Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

Who: Anthony Sparado, Hajime Aikawa, Chinen Shou, and NPC mcfirestarter
What: Cleaning up some loose ends.
Where: Downtown Locke, couple of areas likely
When: December 1st, late afternoon/evening
Warnings: Violence, death, probably profanity.

Text: [The hurriedly typed address of a small bookstore somewhere downtown.]

Got a bite. It's show time, hope you're hungry.

Action: After the sting at Espresso Yourself things had fallen quiet again. By now quiet was worrying, instead of signalling peace and a break from madness Tony had come to associate the quiet with an impending shitstorm. With luck, and a good bit of skill, maybe he'd be able to cut this one off before things got unbearably messy. That was the plan, anyway.

Shou's contacts had given Tony a lead or two, and that coupled with his own ever increasing hunter's instincts he'd finally tracked down his quarry: The modified human that had been made to look like him.

After shooting a quick text to the both of them (he couldn't give them more time as much as he would have liked to) he began to move in. Storm clouds rumbled ominously overhead, briefly distracting Tony. Something about all of this was weirdly familiar, and unsettling. He adjusted the sword on his shoulder, shoved aside the anticipation causing a funny knot in his gut, and began to move in. Now he knew he spotted the guy around there somewhere. He couldn't have gotten too far, could he?

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The school had come a long way since L had initially purchased and begun work on it. Many had contributed to helping him renovate the old building and whip it into habitable shape, but he had been the one there, every day, working himself to the bone and pouring endless time, effort and energy to the project. Though his stamina for a labor of love was almost preternaturally high, even he had his limits, and following his relatively successful interview with Energy Up earlier that day, he'd returned to the sparse dorm room he'd claimed for himself and collapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Only now, after dark, he was beginning to resurface to a relative state of general alertness. He sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily and putting a pot of coffee on.

If only he'd known how thoroughly he'd soon be woken up, he might have saved himself the trouble.

He stiffened as he heard the roar of a motorcycle. It was closer than most traffic that passed the school. Very close, too close, and it was only getting closer. Hastily pulling on his boots, L made his way downstairs, an ever-growing sense of dread quickening his pace.

Edited 2014-12-07 18:36 (UTC)

The motorcycle engine cut off, and soon the sound of firm, insistent knocking sounded through the air. Hajime hadn't bothered to transform back to human or to his Lord of the Bugmen form; he was still in the form he called Chalice. The one that wasn't quite familiar to many people of the network yet. He'd left Tony with Shou for the moment so he could get them inside.

But at least he thought ahead enough to call out, "It's okay--we're friends." Granted, enemies were prone to lying, but he hoped his voice, at least, would be familiar enough from the network to get them in. "And we've had a hell of a night." Hell. There was a joke in there somewhere, only Hajime was too exhausted to make it.

Even if the armored Hajime was not a familiar sight, the sight of Shou probably was, though he did look a lot wilder than normal. His eyes were huge, the color lighter, and his fangs very visible. He seems to be a little hurt but it didn't seem to affect him although one of his shirts was now ruined. He was also holding onto Tony, half carrying him and half-dragging him to the front door.

"L, is there a place we can stretch out?"

L flung the doors open; Hajime looked unfamiliar but sounded like someone whose voice he'd heard before, and when he saw Shou and Tony's slumped form, there was no sense hesitating. He shook his head for a moment in overwhelmed disbelief, expression between concern and deep confusion, before standing aside and holding the door.

"Bring him in," he urged, "and tell me everything. Why and how this happened..."

Why I am only finding out about this now.

"Is a healer on their way? Did you contact one?"

Do we have any left...?

"We went after the guy who was pretending to be him," Hajime explained as they stepped inside. "He got shot. There was a fight. Things got complicated." And once they were in and he was away from the open doorway and therefore out of sight, he breathed a sigh of relief, took a card out of the box clipped to his waist, and swiped it through his belt buckle. His form rippled, and he was once again human. "We were going to take him to the clinic, but there were...he...this seemed safer. And he's doing a lot better than he was..."

"I don't think a healer's necessary," Shou said as he manhandled Tony into the building and heads for some space. There was no telling if Tony was going to go into a demon rage or not and he rather it would be some where there was space in case he had to get messy again.

"He lost some blood, and tore me up a little but otherwise I think he's healing."

At all the manhandling Tony did stir, grumbled something irritated and nonsensical, but otherwise didn't protest being hauled around too much.

Yet. Who was to say this would stay the case once his energy started to return. Devil Trigger took a lot out of him, but his knew strange regeneration put it back much faster than it would have returned normally.

L nodded in appreciation at Hajime's brief but informative explanation, trying not to feel too horribly dazed by the sheer suddenness of this drop-in. He registered the young man's transformation into a more human-looking state, but by this point his attention was more on Shou. More than anything, it was all a desperate effort to stay on top of a situation and, with any luck, understand it to some degree.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, seeming troubled at Shou's mention of a sitaution L remembered vaguely, if he did at all. He had seen Tony's demon form, under circumstances so unimaginably stressful that his mind had systematically deleted much of it from his memory. But that snake woman had died somehow, and the catalyst for the escape must have been on that wavelength.

"Healing...?" Self-healing, that was something helpful. "The gymnasium is probably our best bet if you think we need space, so..."

He left that hanging, striding in that direction and trusting the others to follow.

Hajime moved to help shou with Tony as they headed towards the gymnasium. "He got up on his own after getting shot. I know how it goes; I think one of my legs got shattered by one of those stone snakes a while back, and I was limping around just fine the next morning." He glanced over at Tony. "Good thing that kicked in for him." Even if things had gotten really hairy afterwards. Tony hadn't died, and neither had he or Shou. That was the important thing.

"I've got a touch of healing too, but when it first hit, it was a little weird," Shou said, nodding in thanks as Hajime came to give him a hand. Unlike the other two guys, Shou didn't know he had it. It only started to become apparent after the bruising fading too fast was pointed out to him.

"Kid's lucky he got it. I'd thought he did something stupid and that you and Richard were gonna pound my head in for letting him down."

Of all of them, L was not in the self-healing club, and knew that he was unlikely to ever be. His other was good for technical skills, languages, computer know-how and investigative insight. Not so much anything that would aid him in a battle or in dealing with a serious injury. In some ways, it felt grossly unfair, but in other ways, L hadn't gotten much weaker as a result of his pulses, and he supposed that was lucky. And Tony was lucky; he shouldn't have gotten up after being shot in the head, he shoud have been in critical care at the hospital or else very dead. Though he wasn't in one of his better moods, he couldn't disagree with Hajime; it was a stunningly good thing it had kicked in.

Shou was another story. Though L liked him, and had been humored with a few light-hearted kissing lessons by this point, it was probably a mistake to bring up L and Richard's expected possible reaction.

"He did something immensely stupid, and I can't speak for Richard, but I absolutely still might," he replied a touch coldly, pushing open the gym doors and stepping onto the wide-open basketball court. "The only thing stopping me from trying is the knowledge that he should have known better, after everything that's happened. He should have told me or Richard, preferably both of us. But this..." He sighed, shoulders curling forward. "...I suppose anger is something that should wait, until we're really sure he's going to be OK. I confess I would rather just commit to worrying right now."

He went to a gated-off area, pulling several execise mats out and beginning to arrange them on the floor, a soft place for Tony to rest.

Edited 2014-12-08 03:00 (UTC)

Really, Hajime could have carried Tony all on his own. He was freakishly strong now, in addition to being freakishly resistant to damage and healing fast. It might have been a nice gig, were it not for the fact that his default form was now that of a giant bug and that said giant bug had screaming monster destruction instincts he had to deal with. But he'd dealt with those successfully enough tonight, and he was feeling good about it. It put him more at ease with everything than he might have been otherwise.

"The important thing is it's over now. We got him out of there." Hajime nods back towards the door. "I can go kidnap a doctor if you really think we need one, but I'm pretty sure he's going to pull through."

At some point the fact that there was a lot of talking and motion going on finally dawned on Tony. At first in his exhaustion he was content to ignore it and let it be, but then a little more slowly the realization that he was actually being bodily moved somewhere also dawned on him. That, well that required a bit of a more immediate response. At least, that's what his over-paranoid instincts were telling him.

While the others continued with their relatively relaxed conversation, Tony quietly mustered up his strength... Then all at once wrenched himself away from Shou, teeth snapping in his direction as he twisted and pulled less than gracefully away. Though physically he might be well enough, his mind was still trapped in panicked survival mode.

"I'll make the call if you want. I told Richard that I was keeping him outta the way of getting hurt during the hunts."

Because that was true, he had been trying to keep Tony from getting hurt. He had been keeping up, and Shou thought that Tony was picking up on his tracking skills, but he didn't think that he had a get out of death by bullets card, and so made sure that Tony was well out of the way of a gun.

But anything else he was going to say fled under the immediate concern of Tony snarling and twisting away. Shou pulled back, glancing over at L for a second before throwing himself at Tony and getting in the way. If he tried to snap at hm again, well there was an arm to shove at him, otherwise he was going to try to talk.

"Tony, oi! Stop that! You're gonna make us scream, and I'm not in my skirt today!"

L seemed conflicted at first; he tended to view Tony as his co-responsibility, which meant that it naturally fell to him to contact Richard in case something went direly wrong. But if Shou was offering to shoulder that burden, it was more soothing than punching the guy, and certainly more helpful. He paused, but nodded briskly, accepting the offer. "OK. But it has to be soon... every second he doesn't know is a second he will be angry about."

He flinched at Tony's sudden lashing-out, but recovered quickly. The sensitivity instilled in him during his time at White Pines to situations like these was in full swing, only there weren't doctors and buff orderlies to keep everything under control and quell that wild panic. Though staying away would probably be wise, and L knew that Shou was stronger than him, he simply couldn't stay away.

"Tony..." his tone was soft, deliberate and patient. "Tony, it's OK, you're safe, you're with friends..."

Anything to soothe it, anything to make it stop. Too familiar. Too terrible. Though Shou's arm was holding Tony at bay, L reached gingerly past it, resting a thin hand on Tony's shoulder.

"Come on, Tony, pull it together," Hajime urged. He hung back; when he had his own issues snapping and going into monster mode, he didn't like contact or sudden movements. So that was just what he was going to do. The transformation belt appeared around his waist once more in case armor was needed, but he really didn't want to use it. "We don't want to hurt you. And deep down, you don't want to hurt us, right?"

Tony hit the ground with a heavy thud, letting out a quiet "oof" as breath left him. Even as he hit the floor he continued to snap his teeth and snarl, like a wild, frenzied animal. He was too weak and exhausted to manage another transformation thankfully, but that didn't stop him from clawing and biting for all he was worth. He would have found Shou's comments hilarious had he more of his wits about him, but as it was things just weren't making a whole lot of sense.

He still hurt, he still had blood all over his face in his nose and eyes, strange place and too many people even if they were friends his alarmed mind only recognized threats. So many threats. He squirmed and kicked as Shou pinned him down, but there wasn't nearly as much fight left in him as he liked to act.

Being pinned wasn't exactly helping matters any, true, but it was keeping him from mauling anyone so there was that at least. He just hissed and spat, even tried to snap at L's hand on his shoulder though fell quite short of the mark. Don't mind him just having a furious panic attack here no big deal.

"Hey, hey hey, Tony, stop that! L's too scrawny to bite, there's barely any meat on him."

Shou was still keeping his voice level and trying to get Tony to wear himself out by attacking him. The bites and punches and scratches won't bother him although he did wonder if Tony would be able to change getting some accidental vampire blood in him. Shou would have pulled away, but in all seriousness, he was probably the only person in this group that could handle it and not turn into another fighting and kicking monster. After all, the only person that smelled like prey was L and even to him that definition was weak. Shou would have to be starving to go after L.

"C'mon now. No one's impressed by the feral cat act."

Clearly, Tony was having a panic attack. L had seen enough of them to know what they looked like, and experienced enough to know what they felt like. Being held down was unlikely to be helping Tony in any immediate way other than keeping him from attacking others, and though Shou's jokes were good attempts at keeping things light... being reassured that he was too brittle and bony to contain adequate meat just received a dry, admonishing glance from the detective. It was entirely true, of course, and better than being a corpulent flesh bag in this particular situation, but no one liked being reminded that they were prey, especially by a vampire, especially by a vampire who had been close enough to kiss.

"Try to move him onto the mats," he said, turning and making his way quicky toward the door. "He'll be more comfortable there. I'll be back in a minute."

A short time later, he returned with a syringe in his hand.

"I've been starting to stockpile some medical supplies. Just in case something like this happens and a clinic or hospital isn't an option. This is a tranquilizer," he said. "I don't love the idea of drugging him, but I think we've reached the point where this is the kindest option. I need you to hold him down, but the tricky part is I need clear access, to a vein if possible."

Edited (Tablet woes ) 2014-12-09 16:45 (UTC)

Hajime stepped forward to help. He wasn't a fan of the drugs, but they were running out of options--and he knew poor Tony would feel even worse once he came out of this if he'd managed to hurt one of them.

He reached out to grab Tony's shoulders, to hold the other steady. Tony might have a harder time wriggling out of Hajime's grasp; he was plenty strong.

Shou's quips would have been funny were Tony capable of even really understanding him. As it was, he might as well have been speaking Japanese or something, for all the good it was doing. He still flailed and swung, snapped his teeth when he thought he could get a bite, and any time he managed to free a limb he'd swing for the closest target without regard for who or what that was.

He's not going to be happy about that syringe, L, but there really wasn't any choice in the matter at this point either. He wasn't going to calm down until he either exhausted himself into passing out again or someone did something drastic.

Shou was going to put his whole weight into this, which isn't much considering that he kept himself around 140 lbs. He was stronger than he looked, but that did not mean he was a complete match to Tony's strength, so he was pretty grateful for Hajime's help. But still, more often than not, Shou was getting bit and scratched and more or less being one body in the way of letting Tony go on a mindless fit.

Pressing one arm down, Shou let Tony scratch and bite at his side all the while ripping away the cloth so L had a clear patch of skin to stab.

"Hurry; I won't be able to keep him steady for too long."

That thrashing and squirming was difficult, almost painful to watch. L's heart was pounding; though he'd tried to rationalize it away, since being held and tortured by Albero's people, in many ways he was still conditioned to see Tony's suffering as his fault for not being better, cooperating more, succeeding in his expected duties.

He had an elastic band ready, tying it tightly around Tony's upper arm. Despite his nervousness, his movements were swift and deft to the point where anyone would be forgiven for thinking he had some experience as a nurse. He swabbed the inside crook of Tony's elbow with alcohol, a step he would probably skip for himself but bothered with because it was Tony and the thought of him getting an infection was a terrible one.

His eyes widened when he spotted a good vein almost instantly; it was so easy, incredibly easy, actually depressing when L thought of the state of his own. Still, his hand was steady, the needle slipping in without a problem as he emptied the contents of the syringe as quickly as he could without hurting Tony unnecessarily.

"How long does it take to kick in?" Hajime asked a little anxiously as he continued holding Tony's shoulders as steady as he could. He was strong, true, strong enough to crush things, and so it was hard to be both gentle and firm. He knew his limits these days, but knowing Tony's limits was another thing entirely.

Compared to the pain he'd suffered just earlier that day, the pinch of a needle was nothing. However, when immersed in a full-on fight-or-flight panic mode state of mind, being held down and injected with something was the ultimate offense. Up until he actually felt the sting he'd been too distracted trying to claw and bite at Shou to be overly concerned about the band and the swabbing. But when he did feel it he jerked suddenly and managed to wrench his arm free, swinging it in L's direction.

Not before L could finish, thankfully, but he still had enough wild adrenaline for a last ditch effort before the sedative began to take hold. Very quickly he felt woozy, grogginess following in short order. He shot L an accusatory look, as if he'd been mortally betrayed, before slowly slumping beneath the trio holding him down.

You know, the fact it took three particularly strong men to hold him down should be a point of pride, but really it was all just going to be incredibly embarrassing later.

Mission 7 - A Chance Meeting

Afterward- Willow Ridge Boarding Academy

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Look at me holding everyone up forgetting it's my turn

look me doing the same thing

XD

I don't know what happened to that notif

S'all good :3

we all have those weeks

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