| Well, THAT Escalated Quickly | ||
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| Summary: It's a nice peaceful day on the boardwalk. And then... ROCKET LAUNCHER! Who: Ari, Gundham, Josuke, Kairu, Rainbow Dash, Steel Valkyrie Strimla, Skeeve When: June 16th, 2017 Where: The Boardwalk       |
It's getting on into the warmer months, so Josuke's decided to come down to the boardwalk! It's one of the few times Josuke's out of his very expensive footwear, too. Sleeveless tank top and flipflops! He's still wearing pants, though, since he's not planning on going for a dip just yet. He's Japanese, they tend to have a... overly healthy respect for the water, particularly the open ocean. Right now he's just sitting on the edge of the boardwalk, probably people-watching. A pair of sunglasses is perched on the bridge of his nose, and there's a drink in his hand -- one of those fruit slushie things. There's a small smile on his face. He finishes the slushie, and then a blue-and-pink figure appears. Josuke hands the cup off to the figure; the figure crumples the cup tosses it in the trash before disappearing again. Josuke shifts, folding his legs under him, and scooting back from the edge of the Boardwalk, but staying out of the main walkway. He sets his hands on his knees, closes his eyes... and starts to breathe deeply. Practice! He's been doing this for some time now, ever since he'd happened across Zeppeli. For being a delinquent, he's amazingly diligent at practicing this 'hamon' breathing stuff... The sketchy van slowly grinds to a halt near Josuke, pausing for a moment before the engine stalls out. After the sound of feedback starts and then subsides, a drawling, almost redneck sounding voice comes out, "Are you, uhhh..." The voice gets quieter as perhaps the megaphone is pulled away from the speaker's mouth. "I can't read no more, what's this say?" "Joe-soo-kay High-Gash-ick-at-tah," says a lower slower, more gruff voice, doing barely better than the first speaker in all honestly. Well THAT'S impossible to concentrate past. Josuke's eyes go wide, and then he winces at the loud screech of feedback. "Ow!" he complains, squeezing an eye shut and lifting a hand to rub an ear. Though he doesn't think much about it until he hears... well, quite honestly that's a really bad butchering of his name. He winces a bit, but turns towards the van. "Aa? Yeah, I'm Josuke," he offers. He looks pretty calm about it. But mentally he's looking around. Looking for features he might be able to use for self-defense in case this goes bad. He marks the trash can mentally; he could throw that. He could break the Boardwalk itself, turn it into a wall with Crazy Diamond's power. What else...? The first voice shouts out, "Good!" before one of the heavily tinted windows is suddenly broken out with what appears to be... a rocket launcher with a bayonette on it. "We're s'posed to kill ya!" The man wastes no time at all before going ahead and just opening fire with a fired rocket on what he thinks is an unsuspecting Josuke. Well, THAT escalated quickly. Josuke's eyes go wide in shock when the rocket launcher appears. As quickly as he can, Josuke deploys his Stand, the purple aura appearing. He looks towards the trash can, and Crazy Diamond picks up the can, flinging it at the window the rocket launcher is sticking out of. Small-ways. So one of two things will probably happen -- either the trash can will shove the rocket launcher into the van again (which may result in the rocket exploding INSIDE the van), or the can will just impact with the fired rocket. Either way, Josuke's getting some space. The one who fired the rocket? Unless that person's got some supernatural powers, it might just look like Josuke looked at the trash can and it suddenly shot at him (or her)! Did their employer tell them this kid was a TKer?! Indeed the rocket does get fired before the trash can hits, so it catches the rocket as it's fired. For a split second, it simply interferes with the rocket's path, knocking it downward, in its trajectory, but it doesn't even make it to the ground before it explodes in a spray of shrapnel. It being NeoTokyo, it's not until that explosion that anyone even seems to notice anything is going on, but people are quickly vacating the area. Not Strimla, though, no, she's standing up and drawing Gnistra, quickly switching the massive blade into the form of a longbow. From the van, the second, slower voice yells out, "You idiot! You missed!" before the side door is apparently ripped out from the inside as a fairly large man tears through it to land on the sidewalk in front of the now even more beat up van. He's wearing that door like a shield, and is completely covered in what looks more like cold weather gear, complete with goggles and a thick scarf for some reason. The back of the van, however, explodes even more violently as an even BIGGER man with a helmet that appears almost bucket like kicks out the doors before stepping out, carrying at combat rifle in each hand. The man with the bayonetted rocket launcher scrambles out after the huge guy, and from the passenger's front door(which opens normally) appears a very... very short man with a shotgun. From the driver's side door is kicked open and a large man with a submachine gun with green glowing bits steps out, and then finally from that ripped open door leaps a wirey man without a shirt and an odd buzzsaw weapon who immediately charges at Josuke. "Mine!" that last one yells out. Everyone one of them is wearing a mask of some sort, most of them white. When all of the people pile out of the now beat-up van, Josuke frowns. "Che... bet I can guess who sent you," he notes. The sunglasses are removed and quickly hung on the neckline of his tank top. He needs to be able to see clearly. However, when that guy with the buzzsaw starts charging at him? Josuke employs what he may later come to find out is the Joestar family's secret technique. He turns and runs! This isn't just Josuke running away, though. He's heading down the beach, to a place where there aren't so many people, and that isn't so close to the city. Closer to the waterline, so if they DO shoot at him, it'll be towards open water rather than towards a crowded beach. It was going to be an evening off. A rare, not often taken evening off. But no. Ari steps onto the boardwalk just in time to see the chaos unfolding. The half-elf narrows her eyes, kicks off her flip-flops (they're not exactly good fighting footwear), and takes her combat knives out of her bag, one in each hand. She silently starts running towards the men, trying to get close enough to strike before she gets shot at. "STAY STILL, DELICIOUS SANDWICH!" shouts the man that is now chasing after Josuke. The others give chase as well, of course, but not nearly as quickly. The one with the rocket launcher seems to be the fastest of the others, setting up on the edge of the railing to try to get another good shot at Josuke, while the one with the SMG isn't far behind, jumping over the railing to land on the sand below, looking fairly badass with his landing before he opens up firing with the gun, the spray of bullets... actually exploding into spray as they collide with the sand in Josuke's general area. It's quickly evident that these shells are apparently quite caustic, as the green goo sizzles as it lands back on the sand again. The other three are considerably slower. The short one is predictably so due to, well, having small legs, as he tries to keep up with the others, but the larger men are much more slow and ponderous, barely making it to the guardrails before Ari makes her presence known. The larger one with the bucket head barely gets a few rounds out of his twin rifles before she's too close for bullets and he starts swinging with his massive hands, while the one with the shield-door puts it down in a bracing position and pokes out a large revolver from around it, making only a single shot at her in the time he has. As for the one with the rocket launcher? He now has what looks like a metal rod with fins sticking ouf of his back, and he slumps over to fall over the railings, no longer moving of his own volition. It was just another night out with the guys. Wandering down the boardwalk at this hour with no destination, no plan. Just hanging out, loitering, seeing what kind of limits they can push this time around. Seeing what girls they can ogle in passing, especially this time of year. Oh, yeah. Kairu is suddenly finding himself standing alone as his friends make a run for it at the first sound of an explosion. "Really?" he asks dryly of nobody in particular. "Really?" Really, he finds this more of an irritating convenience than anything. That particularly Asian girl with the long straight hand and the tight pencil skirt had his eye until somebody, SOMEBODY decided to scare everyone away. "Is this the kind of shit dad also had to put up with?" he mumbles to himself, circling behind a margarita stand for cover. Okay, so there's a van, at least five guys, all of them armed. Being a teenager sucks; no gun! Looks like they're after someone, and it's not that blonde girl over there... and look at the dude go! ( Smart move. ) O o . he thinks to himself, peering through narrowed eyes . o O ( Except there's nowhere to g- unless he plans to swim away. Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeeeaaah. WTF are you doing. ) What would dad do in a situation like this, he wonders. He's sure his twin would already have an answer for that. Wait, he knows! ( Oh no, you don't! ) O o . he swings an arm out at the assailant with the van door, having an idea of just what he's going to be up t- yep, going to try to take a shot from behind that cover. From his arm comes a large whoom-ing disc of brightly luminous purple. Namely, it's a lightsaber throw going for the doorman's forearm. Incoming! Ari manages to dodge the hands of the guy swinging at her with relative ease and with a wicked grin on her face. She reels back for a strike of her own when she feels the sting in her right shoulder. She didn't see the guy with the gun, and now has a bullet in her shoulder to show for it. With a growl she points at the shooter with one of her knives. "I'mma take care of this bit-brain, chummer, then /you're next/!" With little flourish, she jumps a good bit off the ground thanks to her bionic implants, and tries to catch her current target's head between her legs to take him down hard. 'Sandwich'? OK, thaaaaat's more than a little disturbing. Though at the moment, Josuke is more concerned about getting out of range, and making sure that nobody's in the crossfire, than much else. He isn't looking back just yet, so when that spray of caustic goo flies up, some of it lands on the legs of his pants. He hears the sizzling and emits a quiet grunt -- that hurts! "<Crazy Diamond!>" At his call, the Stand appears, ripping the bottom of the legs of his pants and tossing the (presumably) dissolving cloth away from Josuke before disappearing again. Out here, though, there's plenty of room and space for him to face his attackers. It's then he notices Ari fighting, and then Kairu seems armed with a lightsaber! And the guy with the rocket launcher is... dead, somehow? Josuke's not going to question his luck. It looks like there are three people helping, even if he can't see the third. The most immediate threat? The guy with the chainsaw. Crazy Diamond can punch bullets out of the air. But if it tried to punch a revving chainsaw it'd probably lose a hand... and so would Josuke. Let's avoid that, yes. However, he does let the man catch up to him. Kind of. As soon as the guy gets in range, Josuke summons Crazy Diamond again. Not in front of him. To the man's side. He's counting on the man not being able to see the Stand, like most can't. And the punk-and-blue Stand lets loose a loud Cry of, "DORARARARARA!" as it sends a flurry of punches at the man's hands. If those hands are broken, he can't hold a chainsaw, right? Right? A low, slow voice comes from the man with the van door as a shield as he says, "What the-" before he manages to pull the door barely into place to keep the blade from going entirely through him. Not that it completely deflects the lightsaber, no, far from it, and the roar of pain proves that something connected behind that shield. As for the even BIGGER guy, Ari's grab and takedown works... almost too well. The giant man is taken down, yes, but his bucket-like helmet goes flying as well... Revealing a grotesquely misshapen, very small head underneath. "I'LL KILL YOU!" he absolutely roars as he stands back up, throwing the rifles away, not even noticing as another finned metal rod embeds itself in his back. As for the crazy guy with the buzz axe, he suddenly stops as Crazy Diamond is almost on him and suddenly shouts out, "MOMMY! YOU DO LOVE ME!" before he proceeds to get utterly pummeled. In the meantime, the midget with the shotgun makes a turn back around towards the fight now behind him. He lines up the shotgun on Kairu and pulls the trigger, the recoil sending him flying off the boardwalk to the sand below. Speaking of below, the one with the specialized machine gun yells out, "Eyes on the prize, boys!" as he continues to lay down fire at Josuke's general direction. SMGs aren't generally known for their accuracy. Unlike the clearly less sane man, he doesn't appear to see Crazy Diamond at all. Ari crouches, outright growling from the rush of the fight and the pain in her shoulder... which honestly is only serving to piss her off at this point. She sneers. "I doubt it." she says as she launches up, knives out, literally going for this guy's ugly throat, and not having seen whatever hit him, not that it would have stopped her anyway. Kairu purses his lips in clear dissatisfaction as not only the doorman was able to get a shot off, nevermind that he can't just break his focus away to see if he actually did hit the blonde girl, he also didn't quite get the hit he wanted, although he still did get a hit. Holding his hand outstretched as the purple spinning 'saber makes its return trip, its journey is interrupted as his eyes go wide at a really, really bad feeling, and he breaks his focus, finally, to roll aside back behind the stall he's using as cover. Only to hear the shotgun go off and see its handiwork in the form of stall turned to smoldery swiss cheese where it would have been him. "Whoa," he mouths, "Dude," as he stares at that would be, might be the effects of a caustic shell? Only then to remember his lightsaber, which deactivated in mid flight to clatter and roll off in a random direction. Okay, bad guy with acid shotgun, and here he is now unarmed. Bad odds, man, bad odds. Wait, there's got to be someth- oh, what the hell. Nevermind that he looks like the average teenager, if unusually well built, he tears off a section of the now damaged stall he's hiding behind, like it was made of paper, and throws that at the little guy with the shotgun. Incoming, again! Wait til he sees the former buckethead. Not quite there, yet. One threat at a time. At least his pals had the sense to run and get the hell out while the getting was good. 'Mommy'? Josuke raises a brow. This guy isn't right in the head. Not that this is the FIRST time Josuke's noticed it. Hopefully, though, the pummeling of Crazy Diamond has left him less of a threat. Because there's a guy shooting at him, with bullets that seem to have some sort of acid in them too. Not good. He can't try to help the crazy guy until he can concentrate, and he can't do that right now. He's smart enough to get out of crazy dude's range, though. As for the guy with the SMG? "Let's see how you like a taste of your own medicine!" Crazy Diamon appears, and digs a hand into the still-sizzling sand. Careful to avoid the liquid itself, the Stand snaps its hand foward, emitting a "DOOOURA!" as it flicks the sizzly liquid sand at hte with with the SMG. The behemoth's throat, despite looking extra vulnerable with it being not properly attached as it should be, is tougher than it looks! He takes the cut and just keeps on going, raising his fists up into the air to swing down HEAVILY at Ari with a wordless scream. "Now you've done it!" shouts the man with the van-door shield. He turns his revolver on his own ally now as he unloads, apparently now more afraid of him than he is of Ari or Kairu. Meanwhile, the midget climbs back up onto the boardwalk just in time to get smashed by the section of stall. As for the psychotic guy, he's currently dazed from the pummelling, and is wandering around a bit, likely blinking rapidly behind that mask. The man with the MSG, however, gets caught completely off guard by the sudden eruption of sand in front of him. "What the-" he shouts out as he raises an arm to shield himself from the sand. "What kinda crazy stuff's going on here?!" Meanwhile, suddenly a magical girl is more visably on the scene as Stimla rushes in, trying to knock Ari out of the way of the heavy smash! Ari sees that the cut did nothing really, and is about to go for where she hopes a heart is on this.. thing... when she gets the full force of his fists. Luckily she managed to twist so her head is out of the way, but her back isn't so lucky as she hits the ground with a shriek before a thud. Kairu looks as he scores a direct hit, looks back at the section where there was once a piece of stall still attached to the stall. Looks back at the little guy. Okay, whups. He sometimes forgets how strong he is. Nevermind that, his lightsaber. Hoping Shorty is out of commission, he reaches out with his hand, feeling, focusing for his weapon, which rattles atop the boardwalk before starting to roll on its own towards him, bouncing and clattering before taking off into the air and into his waiting hand where it lights back up with the same purple blade with a hiss and a hum. That's when he hears the blonde girl is in trouble and for the moment forgets about the little guy, turning his head to look and gape at the hideous monstrosity that... what is up that that guy's head!? He's not even supposed to still be alive like that! And there's the doorman shooting him up, too! Friendly fire! Okay, whatever. It's hero time! Kicking off into a weaving sprint, and leaving a dent in the boardwalk for good measure, he makes a beeline to see about flanking Mister Revolver to see if he can't liberate him of his hand or arm, and that pesky six shooter(?) on the way to make a leap onto Stretchy Neck for a saber impale through where his anatomy lessons have taught him is the heart. Yes! Josuke thinks. Exactly what he'd been hoping for. Still, Josuke needs to close with the guy... but that's a long distance between himself and the guy with the gun. Far longer than Crazy Diamond can cross. And if he just starts running, the guy's going to just fill him full of that acidic lead before Josuke can cross half the distance. But Josuke has another idea. Something he's seen Baron Zeppli do. He breathes out quickly... and then draws a deep, hissing breath inwards, his chest expanding with the breath. The sand around his feet seems to tremble... then to ripple slightly. Then he jumps up and towards the SMG-wielding guy, the sand exploding around where his feet were, as though something had struck there the instant he leaped. He leaps high into the air, much higher than he should have been able to jump. Hopefully this will place him above the SMG-wielder's view so that when he brings his hand back down he won't immediately see Josuke. And when Josuke comes back down? "<CRAZY DIAMOND!>" The Stand appears, between Josuke and the SMG-wielding assassin, and as soon as the assassin is in range... "DORARARARARA!" Crazy Diamond lets loose with a barrage of superspeed punches. S. V. Strimla curses as she watches Ari get hit in front of her, then quickly turns and draws Gnistra again to whirl around to strike at the berzerker, though she misses cleanly in her haste. The shield guy keeps firing at the berzerker as well, not seeming to notice Kairu until it's too late, when he turns the gun on the advancing teenager, almost being able to pull the trigger before the trigger hand is entirely cut off, the strike going well past and into his chest as well. Presented with a new target in front of him, the berzerker doesn't seem to care that it's not who he struck at before... or possibly doesn't even know it is a new target. He reaches back to swing the fist forward, only to stumble backwards as the lightsaber impales itself on his chest. With some more unintelligible gurgling, the giant beast falls over backwards before stopping moving entirely. As the Last Bandit Standing, the man with the SMG lowers his hand from a guard... And then looks around rapidly as he sees the cloud of sand where Josuke /was/ before. He manages to look up just in time to raise the submachine gun up to aim. "Oh no you don't, little boy!" But he doesn't see Crazy Diamond in front of him as he opens fire, the bullets colliding with the invisible(to him) fighter. It doesn't take the last bandit to lay off the trigger finger after that, considering he's getting sprayed with his own acid... and then he flies back, punched away by the unseen force. "What the hell is going on here?!" Ari is looking pretty beat up as she struggles to get to her feet. Okay, that may be a tad of an understatement. She's got blood coming out of the wound in her shoulder, and her front is scraped up, including some splinters in her cheek from where her face met the boardwalk. "Frak.." she groans. "There's some ribs busted.." she looks at the berserker, and once she's satisfied that he's not moving, she looks around to find a target. The elf is hurt. The elf is pissed. Thankfully the Stand WAS in front of Josuke. A barrage like that, at close range, would have utterly shredded him. As it is, though, even with the flurry of punches, some of those bullets get past Crazy Diamond's superspeed fists, finding purchase on the Stand. Josuke emits a choked sound as those acidic bullets start to burn Crazy Diamond's fists and torso where they hit. The injuries will show on the teen's hands and body exactly where they'd hit the pink-and-blue figure. Quickly Josuke dismisses Crazy Diamond, just long enough for the acid to stop burning his Stand -- can't burn something that's not there. That said, the damage has been done; there's patches of skin missing on his hands, and blood is starting to stain the inside of his tanktop. And it's not healing. There's not too much time. He needs to disable that weapon, and FAST. Re-summoning Crazy Diamond, Josuke pauses, to get his bearings again. He exhales completely, vacating all the air from his lungs... then inhales deeply through his nose. He thrusts out a hand at the Stand before him, clapping the flat palm against the Crazy Diamond's back. There's a small, but sharp crackle of golden lightning (this should be able to be seen by the SMGer). And then the Stand begins punching the sand beneath it as fast as it can, with the telltale "DORARARARA!" Its fists spark with that energy, and the sand beneath those hands starts to melt. And then the Stand digs its still-sparking fingers into the molten sand, then flicks his hand out towards the SMG-wielder, with a Cry of "DOOOURA!" The molten sand forms in the shape of a blade as it travels. Josuke's aimed it at the gun, though. He shoots, he scores! Kicking off of the toppling berserker's back so that he's not flattened, Kairu rolls to one side to then quickly, very quickly scan between that and the guy with the van door who he just, uh... "Oh shit," his eyes widen. Did he just accidentally kill that guy? His attention's diverted to the injured cute blonde girl nearby before his thoughts can go any further down that road. "Hey, you oka...y?" he turns to look at Ari, and now that he's actually close to really see what she looks like, trails off. Because, why it's the super cool nightclub owner that his half-sister's kid Michi has told him about! At least, she looks just like the one in the pictures Arika's shown him. Alas, he's not going to be getting Skeeve's girl's number! Then it occurs to him that there are still two, potentially three bad guys still standing, assuming he didn't entirely take the little guy with the shotgun out of commision, and he falls back into a guard stance. He can deal with a pistol being fired at him, but an SMG or a shotgun are going to get through his saber defense one way or another. S. V. Strimla winces as Ari regales her injuries. "I'm sorry, I was too slow," she says as she pushes on to the edge of the boardwalk to see what is going on below, switching her weapon back to longbow form and drawing the string, causing a steel rod of an arrow to form in her hand as she does so. "Sorry I don't have any healing. Encouraging words can only do so much, right?" The magic knight passes a quick look to Kairu before releasing the arrow at the guy who, at least for now, still has his submachine gun. Meanwhile down below, the bruiser looks on at Josuke, seeing the damaged and bleeding hands. "Oh, it's only a matter of time little boy!" he shouts as he ejects a clip from the side of his brightly colored orange and white gun. Reaching for a new magazine, however, offers just the opening Josuke needed. He looks up halfway through the process as electricity starts sparking in front of his target. "Oh no you don't!" he shouts, but it's too late as the SMG is ejected from his hands by the glass blade, his crip further loosened by the shock of an arrow now embedded in his back. His goggled eyes follow the flight path of the gun as it rises up, over and then finally down to land right at the feet of someone else. The other person reaches down, slowly picks it up, then raises it up to the sky. "I'VE GOT A SHINEY NEW MEAT BICYCLE!" declares the new owner of the submachine gun. The original owner curses, this time a bit more quietly than he's been yelling, looking around further and spotting a suitable replacement weapon. He starts running, somehow ignoring the pain of the arrow in his back, though wincing slightly with each step as it moves as he runs back toward the boardwalk for the weapon waiting for him there where his ally fell. Ari pulls a splinter out of her cheek and scowls. "It's alright. I'll live." she winces. "This guy though? I'm gonna geek his hoop." She takes a step and grimaces. "And enjoy it." she starts heading towards the new owner of the machine gun. Kairu doteyes, "..." Is that a magical girl who is right there that he had just missed. Leave it to having a one track mind to be so focused on the cute blonde in a sundress (oh yeah) that he had just missed a freaking magical girl. His twin is missing out! Not that she'd be accompanying him on his evening excursions of mischief with the guys. He didn't get a tomboy for a sister. That realization didn't keep him from noticing the cool effects the Stand just produced, and watching the SMG sail up into the air and into the hands of the psycho, his jaw drops. "Are you seriously kidding me," is his comment to the psycho's triumphant announcement, "Okay, this shit is getting too weird." Then, seeing as Mr. Badass makes a break for the boardwalk, likely for the little guy's shotgun or the doorman's revolver, he breaks into a sprint of his own in an intercept course. Sure, he's leaving Ari there, who is now going after the shiny new meat bicyclist, but chilvalry is more likely to get them killed! Bad guy who's still a threat > injured girl who looks so pissed off that she's probably going to be okay even as she goes after another target, so yeah, "Oh no, you don't!" Heat of the moment! Josuke sees that the crazy guy from before now has an acid-spitting machine gun. "...Oh that's just <great>," he mutters. Then he looks in Ari's direction, noticing her heading for the crazy guy. "Don't kill him! That guy doesn't know what he's doing!" Trying to plead mercy for the guy? Even though he tried to kill Josuke? But the former owner's going for another weapon too! Deeming him the greater threat (since if the guy was reloading it's because the gun was empty), Josuke looks in the direction of Crazy Diamond. The Stand actually grabs hold of the front of Josuke's tanktop and, with a loud "DOUURA!", actually THROWS Josuke at the former owner of the SMG. He tries to turn on the trip, hoping to hit the guy's back with his foot. He sees Kairu too late, though, and decides it's better to lose the element of surprise versus former SMGer than risk accidentally hurting the other guy on an intercept course. So he calls out to Kairu, "Look out!" Ari almost growls as she heads towards her new target. "FINE." she concedes. If this guy's target wants him alive? Sure. She can show /some/ restraint. She picks up speed with the full intention of getting on the bad guy's back with her arms around his neck, wanting to knock him out with a choke hold. "I swear if your head pops out too, I'm gonna play tetherball with it!!" It's one of those moments when it feels like time moves in slow motion as Ari rushes towards the psycho, and he lowers that submachine gun down, down, to aim right at her head as he pulls the trigger... CLICK Of course, the bruiser never did finish reloading the thing, and as the psycho pulls the trigger, the end result is the half-inserted magazine falling out of the submachine gun. He simply looks down at the magazine now on the sand, then back up at Ari. "NO! MOMMY DOESN'T LOVE ME ANYMORE!" he yells just before getting choked out. As for the bruiser, it's a massive run across the sand, and the question is... who gets where first? The answer is Josuke's foot reaches the bruiser's back first. He stumbles forward, landing on his hands in front of Kairu, though he does scramble up to his feet again fast enough. But it's still a good thing Kairu has him blocked, however, because at Kairu's back isn't the shotgun or the revolver. It's the rocket launcher. Meanwhile, Strimla also has that question of who to help that Kairu did. She, on the other hand, seems to side with Ari instead of Josuke to help, as she leaps off, beginning to cast a spell as she quickly shows herself to be able to deal with her problem on her own. She instead swerves around as she finishes casting, and suddenly there's not one Strimla, but /eight/ tightly packed together, drawing that giant sword out from nowhere once again with a yell. Did that guy seriously just call out not to kill that demented freak? What. That happens to be the least of Kairu's worries, however, as Josuke is apparently coming right at them, too. That... was one hell of a throw, by the way. Thankfully, he's coming from a good enough angle that he's not reeeaaaally in any danger of ending up in a same team intercept. He's leaving Ari and the magical girl to take care of the crazy guy, at any rate, as the former's got blades, right? And the latter has that bow. He's learned from growing up with a strong and chivalry-proof twin sister that it's better not to get in a girl's way when she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Nevermind that she could have just gotten her head blown off just now, but Kai's still a kid. Cut him a break. And he has a bruiser dude in front of him, now and what the hell is that bigass gun that he was going f- nevermind. Not going to let him have it, if he can help it. Then as the bruiser scrambles back up to his feet, he's likely to run face first into a flurry of- "ATATATATATATATATATA!!" Oh, look. It's... Chestnuts Roasting over an Open Fire? Why, it sure is. Once the guy with the giant gun is down, Ari climbs off of him. She then grabs him by the shirt and wails on his face a few times for good measure. He said alive, not necessarily undamaged. The half-elf has forgotten in her blind rage that she's a righty, she hits with her right arm, and she was shot in the right shoulder. Having taken some of her rage out on this guy's face lets her calm down slightly, and all the pain she's been blocking from her shoulder, face, and chest comes rushing in. She curses loud in several languages: Russian, English, German, and French, then drops the knife in her right hand just because she can't focus to grab it anymore. Ari just kind of falls to her knees in the sand, gritting her teeth. WHAM! Josuke wasn't exactly flying through the air with the greatest of ease. So when his heel slams into the guy's back, it hurts! And he falls down to the ground. Give him a minute, that kind of hurt. After all, it's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the end. And that was definitely a sudden stop! However, as Kairu explodes into a punching flurry, Josuke's eyes go wide. Ari being an elf and Strimla being a magical girl, it's not so surprising for them to bust out the awesome. Kairu looks like a pretty normal guy, though. Normal-looking people doing amazing things always surprises him. But there are weapons on the ground still functional! While Kairu punches the guy who took a Josuke to the back, said Josuke scrambles to his feet and runs over to where the weapons are. He summons Crazy Diamond again, to smash the weapons he can get to! And speaking of Ari? He looks up, noticing her in pain, and winces. "I can help once all this is done with!" he calls out. "I can't concentrate on fixing things when I'm fighting!" The big guy gets pummelled repeatedly, barely able to tell what's going on at first, but it becomes more clear fairly quickly to him. He manages to step away after a few seconds, only to have the swarm of Strimlas come in behind him, greatswords swinging. Well, sword singular, the other seven, along with their Strimlas, are all illusiory. As the Gnistra comes down across him, he stumbles forward into the pummelling once again, knocking him back further towards Strimla's waiting blade once again. "I don't wanna die!" he yells out, and Strimla... Shifts her grip, raising the blade for the beaten, bloodied, slightly acid-burned man to tumble backwards past her and into the ground without moving. The tip of the greatsword's blade is lowered immediately, and it appears that now eight blades are pointed at his neck, inches away, waiting for him to make a move. "You should count yourself lucky you did this around people that show mercy, then," she says with acid in her own tone. While all the Strimlas move their mouths, only one voice is heard. Meanwhile, Mamma's boy over there is quite unconscious and taking the pummeling like a champ. Kairu does look like an ordinary teenager, to his credit. Noticeably a lot more well built than most teens his age, but still. Hey, he also recognizes at least four of those languages Ari is spouting out. Russian is the one that he doesn't manage to identify off-hand, though it sounds like something his aunt Zuzu would say every now and then. Just not in the form of curses. He's also not going to be letting the bruiser off the hook so easily, unloading into his face and upper body, until, until he sees Strimia incoming. All seven or eight of them, causing his eyes to go wide and jump the hell back to that he's not caught in that excessive pincer attack that he's pretty sure is going to turn the poor bastard he was beating up into hamburger. Except that it doesn't, but that's still a moment that he gets a respite from his beating before Kai decides it's best to let the magical girls have the guy, stepping back some more for good measure with his hands held up, "Whoooaah, okay! He's all yours, ladies, if you insist." He does find it rather odd that he can only hear one voice, and it doesn't take him long to catch on that, "....oh." The others must all be illusions. Yeah, he's seen that trick before. "Hey, you okay over there?" he calls out to Josuke before eyeing Ari's situation and reaching into his pocket for his phone. Through still gritted teeth, Ari seethes. "I'm fine..." she says, rather stubbornly as she tends to do. "Make sure they're all taken care of!" She, however, is not going to be doing much herself for a while. Josuke breathes a sigh of relief when things seem to calm down. Weapons smashed, assassins either smashed or ran away... good. First order of business? He looks to the three in turn. "Thanks. I'd have been a goner if you three hadn't been here," he offers to them, earestly. He nods to Kairu's question. "Thanks. I'll be fine," he assures. "What about the rest of you?" He looks between the three of them, Kairu, Strimla... then his eyes fall on Ari, who he knows to be hurt. And he's jogging over there in her direction, despite her insistance that she's fine. He stops when he reaches her, and then takes a deep, calming breath. The purple aura appears around him again, and his Stand reappears. This time the pink-and-blue figure seems quite calm. It reaches out a hand with intent to touch her shoulder lightly -- an uninjured part, mind -- and an orange-gold aura surrounds the Stand. And then... Ari mind find everything that was injured, including her clothes, repairing itself! S. V. Strimla, not particularly satisfied with just trusting the guy to stay still, looks like she's about to kick the guy in the temple when a sleepy-eyed police officer shows up. "Don't worry, citizen, I've got it from here," he says before flipping the guy over and cuffing him. Strimla give him a look of 'where the hell have you been?' before looking about to spot other officers approaching the other attackers and talking to bystanders. They're taking care with the midget, it seems, but are clearly treating the other three as being no threat at all. Strimla sighs and shakes her head, letting the spell fade and leave only one of her before she walks on over towards Ari and Josuke. "Well... that was new," she says, trying to be conversational. Ari winces as her ribs re-align, and when the bullet seems to push itself out of her shoulder. She looks up at Josuke and smiles a little. "Thank you." he turns to Strimla and nods. "Little bit. Kairu is flashing a quick thumbs up at Josuke, looking like he's about to call someone while he watches him go towards where Ari is. "Hey, Auntie Anne. It's me, Kai," he speaks into his phone, "Listen, are you anywhere near the boardwalk right n-" Then he stops talking the moment he sees, "oshi the fuzz" That last part was mumbled under his breath. Yeeeaah, he should have known the cops would start showing up, what with the explosion, the gunfire, and who knows how many people calling the authorities for help. He's just... going to go follow Josuke, yeah, and see how Ari's doing. It'll be way too obvious to try to just slip away, especially out here in the open. Yeah, before one of them decides to question him, which is going to be a matter of time once they've apprehended the ones that are still alive and... and... that's when it dawns on him as he hastily conceals his lightsaber. He may have just killed at least two of those guys, didn't he? The realization makes all of his blood run cold and he suddenly feels dizzy, almost not hearing the voice calling his name repeatedly from the other line. "I'll... I'll call you back," is all he says into his phone before hanging up. Well, there he just went and made his aunt all worried sick for him. Speaking of sick, he's really starting to feel it, himself. Better to just keep walking toward the others. Better to distract himself somehow, and there's no better way than to engage in some post-battle banter. "Not for me, unfortunately. That's like the second time someone came after me," Josuke replies, to Strimla's words. Then he explains, "See, my family has an old enemy, showed up during the Victorian era in my world. Apparently he's showed up here... and it seems like he's made it a point to kill me." He gestures at the assassins. "These guys were probably hired by him. I think he's still testing my strength before he comes after me himself." Ari's thanks gets a smile. "Sure thing," he offers happily. "It did fix right, huh? I gotta be careful about that." Kairu gets a worried look when he starts to look space-y and nauseous. "...Hey. Are you all right?" he asks, concerned. "Did you get hurt?" he asks. And then, he notes the cops starting to cuff the Psycho, and his eyes widen a bit. He jogs over, his Stand reappearing behind him and floating there as he runs over, requesting, "Whoa, whoa, hang on just a second." He doesn't say why. But Crazy Diamond does the same thing it did to Ari, hand shooting out to grab hold of the Psycho's head. And he tries to do the same for the Psycho... but he's trying to fix his brain! Rainbow_Dash comes flying at high speed! She zooms over the boardwalk towards all the commotion! Flying into the center of things, she looks around, "The hay is going on?! Sirens?? Explosions...what did I miss??? S. V. Strimla looks back over to the discarded SMG. "...I was more referring to getting involved in a fight with guns, but..." she trails off as she watches Kairu approach with the dazed look. She tilts her head, wondering when he took a head hit. As far as she saw, he made it through unscratched. She almost says something, but then nods at Josuke's words. "You don't look so good. Maybe you should sit down." Ari fidgets a bit, testing out her ribcage. "I... think? they reattached alright." she hehs. She reaches around and picks up the bullet that just fell out of her shoulder. "Well, as far as I can tell. " She glances around a bit. "Anyone see where my flip-flops went?" she asks, brushing off the splinters that are now freed from her skin. The psycho slowly starts to move again. "Wha?" he says... the first vocalization to come out of his mouth that wasn't yelled at the top of his lungs. "Where the hell am I? This ain't Pandora! Get your hands off of me, what are you, cops?! I'm a minor now! I'm doing my time that way!" Well, he seems significantly more sane now... but still seems like he might be a bit of an asshole. Magical powers can't fix everything. S. V. Strimla looks up at the flying pegasus and waves to her. "Had a bit of a fight!" she yells up to her friend. "Lots of guns involved," she adds with a nod before looking to Kairu again with a concerned look. Still looking at him, she responds to Ari with, "Sorry, that wasn't really something I was paying attention to..." Rainbow_Dash says, "Looks like it! Everybody okay?? Are there still butts to kick?! Totally missed out....!" And the cops are now towing away the admittedly already wrecked van, too. Kairu blinks, "Huh?" at Josuke's question. He looked very, very distracted, there. "Uh, yeah, I... guess..." he looks himself over, not even really paying attention to that. His shirt is a bit dirty from rolling, but he otherwise looks unharmed. Then, just as quickly, he watches Josuke run off. He'd look to see just what he was up to if it wasn't for the fact that a talking animal comes swooping down and now things have really gotten weird! He turns to look to Strimia and Ari to make sure they're seeing what he's seeing. Okay, maybe this is really just a dream. He smacks himself in the face once to make sure. Okay, not waking up, and that stung. And he is so not feeling okay. Way too many people here doesn't help matters and he can't get sick out like this with all the cops around, too. Urgh~ Just off the boardwalk, there's an area of churned-up sand, indicating something big happened. Strewn around the churned-up area are unconscious (and possibly a couple dead) people. They're dressed in freakish ways, some missing their shirts. They look like they all just came from a Mad Max convention! The sand is also strewn with bits of metal, as though many metal things with a number of fiddly bits had been broken. Also some of the sand is glassed, one bit from heat and the rest from some kind of acid. Josuke draws back from the crazy guy, sighing as he starts to rant. At least it's SANE ranting, and getting smacked around by the police will probably calm him down some. But the sigh is one of relief, since it looks like he's better now. Even if he's a dick, he doesn't deserve to live insane. He looks to Ari as she mentions her flip flops. Looking over the beach, he tries to spot them. "Uhhh..." He didn't see where they went, since he was already running when the footwear went flying. As he's looking around, he sees Rainbow Dash, and waves up to her. "I have someone after me; these guy were hired by that guy." To note, Josuke has a few injuries of his own -- his tanktop is stained with blood, though there's no visible rips in the fabric. And his hands look... burnt somehow. Burnt and scraped. There will be blisters later. Rainbow_Dash watches the goons get carted off. "Yeah! That's right! That's how we roll around here! See ya in ten to twenty!" Since she didn't get in on the fight, she can at least taunt a little! Skeeve chooses this particular moment to stroll - if stroll could be said to be the right word - out of a nearby alley. The sight of the churned up sand and glass does give him some pause, and he starts through the crowd of police, looking for those who were actually involved. Of course, it's not hard to pick them out, heading towards the group of battered people near the pony. "Hey... what happened here? Cosplay event get out of hand?" S. V. Strimla keeps giving Kairu a look of concern before turning back to Rainbow Dash, then down at Gnistra, her greatsword. She stows the giant blade behind her back, the sword vanishing where it really shouldn't be able to hide before she says, "Yeah, uh... You might want to do something about these assassination attempts, then. Josuke, right?" She then looks up to Skeeve and just tilts her head, likely not knowing what 'cosplay' is. Ari looks up as she stretches a little, not standing up quite yet, looking for the source of the voice. "Well, hi honey." she says, wrinkling her nose a bit. "How was your day? Skeeve offers a hand down to Ari, as though to help her too her feet, while glancing over at the other four persons of interest. "Apparently better than yours, Ari... what happened?" Josuke grins as Rainbow Dash taunts. "Serves 'em right," he adds. Pause. And he observes thoughtfully, "Though... you know what they say. 'Money talks'? Is that the phrase?" Skeeve's statement prompts Josuke to shake his head. "They were hired to kill me. By someone who has a problem with my family." Josuke nods to Strimla's words. "I will. But I have to find where he is first. And get stronger. I doubt I could take him on now." Ari takes Skeeve's hand and smiles. "Well... yeah. That. I tried to take one down, then his buddy shot me, then his skull popped out of his head, then he slammed me to the boardwalk, breaking a few ribs and making me feel like a porcupine with the amount of splinters I got from the wood." She motions to Josuke. "Then he healed me." Rainbow_Dash says, "I've had bad lucj with healing spells. O.o" S. V. Strimla points over at the SMG still sitting on the ground nearby. "You're gonna need to be a lot more careful if he's sending freaks like those guys after you! I've seen a lot of wierd stuff in this city, but those guys.... I don't know, man." She sighs, shaking her head again, then looking over everyone. "...At least they're the only ones that got very hurt." Josuke shakes his head to Dash's words. "I don't do magic. My Stand did it." Notably his Stand is nowhere to be found at the moment. "It can do that -- heal people or fix things that are broken. I just have to concentrate on it, or I mess up." And he seems a bit sheepish at Strimla's words. "I can't just barricade myself in a room," he points out. "I don't know where, who, or how he's going to send the next assassin. In fact, one DID patently break into my apartment. Broke THROUGH it, in fact." Skeeve winces a little bit at Ari's descriptions of her wounds, even as he pulls her back to her feet. "Yeah, Dash, healing spells can be pretty dicey, but it looks like you did okay... you are okay, right Ari?" Kairu has apparently now also been presented with a familiar face. Skeeve, even, thanks to his parents and their stories from before he was born. Such a long time ago. Skeeve himself may or may not notice, that this kid has Daizy's eyes. He also looks like someone who has seen some shit, if that is putting it mildly. He'll just, uh, stare at the pony that had casually joined in and is talking like one of the guys, so to speak. Yeah, getting way too weird, now. Looking back over at Josuke who has returned, he finds himself at a loss for a thing to say. Gotta suck to have someone put a price on your head just because they've got a beef with your family. Wait, a... Stand? He thinks he needs to sit down. "I think I need to sit down," he utters this thought out loud before his phone starts ringing. A large wave suddenly comes up almost splashing over the board walk. It then ejects a jumping dolphin, which in turn drops off some human gothish looking guy.... Said guy proceeds to take a short moment to shudder at something before standing upright and peering at the others, quiet for the moment. Ari smiles at Skeeve, kissing his cheek. "OF course I am! I got to beat the crap out of someone." she chuckles, then blinks at the person arriving via dolphin delivery. Rainbow_Dash pffts, rolling her eyes a little, "I missed the whole fight," to Skeeve, "Shouldn't have stopped for that extra cider." She glances over to Kairu and nods, "Im Rainbow Dash, hey," she greets. S. V. Strimla sighs and nods, she can't really argue against Josuke's point. She then frowns at Kairu before turning back to Josuke. "...You might want to take a look at him, too. He doesn't look too good right now..." She trails off again at the very odd entrance by the goth looking guy. "Um, right. Anyway..." Skeeve slips an arm around Ari casually, smiling lightly at her. "Well, then, all's right with the world, then." The wave and the dolphin occasion relatively little commentary, although he does chuckle a little at Dash's off hand comment about cider. Still, there is something about Kairu that's kind of pinging him... Shaking his head a little more, Skeeve says curiously, "You okay, kid? Or is this just your first day here? I promise it's not always quite this crazy." Recently-attacked Josuke is a jumpy Josuke. So when a goth guy appears via dolphinback, he tenses as if expecting an attack. When none is forthcoming, though, he seems to relax a little. Kairu's condition worries him, and he nods to Strimla. "Probably a good idea." As he heads over to where Kairu's sitting, he notes to Strimla, "Don't worry too much. I've got someone I'm training under, and we hang out a lot." Then he tends to Kairu. "Are you sure you're all right?" he asks. Ari starts looking around again, wrinkling her nose in an annoyed fashion. Skeeve knows that nose wrinkle, and Kairu seems like he's got enough people looking out for him anyway. "So how'd this all go down, then, Ari? I'm sorry to have missed the brawl." The goth by dolphin dude seems to have regained his bearings and makes his way closer. "So it was some sort of brawl that was disturbing the great warriors of Jabberwock?" Kairu finds himself staring at the talking pony, which is now talking to him, it would seem. "I'm Kai," he cracks an awkward half smile at Dash. Wait, why is that name familiar? Did he heard it on the news one day a while ago? Then, of course, the evening only gets weirder as a wave gets way, way too close to comfort and is that a dolphin? It's a little hard to see, but what is more obvious is the guy who just seemed to fall off from it. Nevermind that his phone is still ringing. Does he even notice? "I'm okay," he shakes his head at Strimia before Skeeve has his attention. Oh, he had to go there. "I guess? I think I just-" he cuts himself off, biting his tounge. No no no, don't say you may've just killed someone! He looks pretty shell shocked, though, and thank you phone! Convenient distraction. Even if it's been ringing for close to half a minute. "Huh?" he looks at Josuke, "Yeah," nodding quickly, "Excuse me." There, he's finally answering his phone. Rainbow_Dash opens her mouth to say something else to Kairu, but then he answers his phone. She pffts. Then looks to Gundam as he approaches, "Hey Gundam, naw, just some Madmax wanna be dudes," she shrugs, maintaing her hoovering a few feet off the ground. Ari frowns as she finds one of her flip-flops... trampled and destroyed. "Well, I was on my way home and there was an explosion. These weirdos started attacking him.." she motions at Josuke again, "and I actually started playing good guy which you know is so not me usually, and jumped in to help. Got my hoop handed to me but not before getting a few licks in... I didn't actually geek any of the bit-brains but man.. I forgot how much being that hurt pisses me the slot off. S. V. Strimla sighs as a cop taps her shoulder and says he wants to ask her a few questions. Not the first time she's gone through this, she nods and follows the cop away. "Well, my turn to be grilled. I'll see you guys around later," she says. When done giving her statements, she summons her steel-feathered wings and flies away. Josuke looks up at the destroyed flipflops. "Want me to fix them?" he offers. And he nods to her statement. "These guys were sent by someone who really doesn't like it that I'm breathing." The explanation will probably suffice for Gundham, too. Skeeve can't help but grin for just a moment at that, eyes twinkling merrily, but replies, "Well, you know, if I had my skull dislocated I'd be pretty pissed too." | |
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