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Seediness and such; Icarius
Topic Started: Apr 4 2009, 12:24 AM (429 Views)
Zero
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The Kabuki-Cho's streets were well known for their constant thin layer of grime, for the piles of trash that steadily built up along the sides of the road. It was known for the sickly, unnatural sheen of oil that would taint every rain puddle, or for the perpetually rocky and pockmarked state of its roads. It was as though the Tokyo Municipal Department had simply abandoned it to its fate, while the bustling success of Shinjuku glinted just outside of reach.

But while it was known for all of these things, one thing it was not known for was its architecture. A shame, because Dodge Kanagawa was making as good a use of it as ever.

Running full tilt at the wall at the end of the alley, he leapt up just before running into it. He kicked out with his leg, catching the narrow side of a brick and pushing himself up just that little bit more. His fingers groped into the air, and with a small wave of relief, they wrapped themselves easily around the cold metal of a fire escape railing, complete with a peeling layer of paint. He swung himself adroitly under the bar and immediately began storming up the metal stairs.

Casting a look back over his shoulder, he saw his pursuer taking the long way up the fire escape. He was a Tokyo police officer, just a man trying to do his job. Dodge had no grudge against these working cops. He had seen Dodge steal the wallet now nestled in his right front pocket; he had really had no choice but to pursue. No, Dodge's problems were with the persistent assholes, the ones single-minded enough to make his life more difficult. It was for this reason that Dodge had not simply drawn his gun and ended the matter at that.

He sprinted across the length of the rooftop and leapt, his legs cycling wildly in the air to give him that much more momentum. He landed on another roof, this one lower, and came out of his leap into a well-controlled roll across his back. He sprung to his feet and looked back: the policeman was only just starting to make it to the top level of the fire escape from the old building. Smirking, Dodge already knew it was safe.

With the grace of a shinobi, he leapt off the side of the building, kicking off the one across the alleyway, rebounding from facility to facility to slow his descent. When he finally touched solid ground, he couldn't help but feel the customary trickle of relief that even a trained traceur couldn't shake. He straightened up, rolled his shoulders like an athlete, and slowly reached into his pocket. It was time to see what his take was for the day.
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Icarus
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"Let-go-of-ME!"

The screaming words were laced with anger and spite, contrasting sharply with the feminine voice that carried them. They echoed against the grimy, filthy brick walls of the alley, emanating from a point deeper in the gloom and rot of the District. A couple came into view as they rounded a corner; one, a male, had his companion's wrists locked together in a single, meaty hand. In only a black t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and heavy work boots, it was clear that this man was not to be taken lightly. It was no surprise then that no matter how hard she struggled she simply couldn't break his grip. The girl looked so delicate, not very tall, porcelain skin, and a beautiful face that was now contorted with unwavering fury and pain. Her ruby red eyes burned with a fire that could scorch any living thing into ash, yet her captor appeared not to notice.

"I told you to let go of my hands!"

"And I'm telling you to shut it!"

His free hand shot up and grabbed a fistful of her bright red hair, and with a sharp jerk, tiwsted her head and pulled it lower to better direct her feet.

"OW! YOU SON OF A BITCH, I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU FOR THIS!"

Her protests fell on deaf ears, despite the sincerity of her threats upon his life. When they reached what the larger man observed to be a fairly secluded spot, he released his hold on her hair in favor of wrapping his thick, powerful fingers around her throat. With the faintest squeeze, her firey words were cut short as she gasped and choked for breath.

"Bitch, I have done everything you've asked me to, humiliated me in front of my crew, and when it comes time to finally give some up, you hold out on me and kick me aside? Nuh-uh, I don't think so."

Her eyes were began to water, and her face flushed as she strained and struggled to get loose.

"Now, are you gonna give me what I deserve, or am I gonna have to take it?"

With a final, monumental effort, she manated to twist her right hand over to face her palm to the sky. With a venomous glare, she clenched her hand shut, digging her nails into the flesh of his hand. He grunted in pain, and involuntarily released her wrists.

Seizing the opportunity, she slashed at the arm that was clenched around her neck, and he once again caved to the deep gashes left by her crimson nails. Her windpipe finally back under her control, she coughed violently as the first breaths of fetid air rushed into her lungs, giving her limbs the strength to remain standing.

"You little slut! You'll pay for that!"

The air around the small female grew heavy, her face obscured by the hair that hung like a curtain around her face. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, her chest no longer heaving as it had been only seconds ago. Her kidnapper cocked his arm back, then threw his fist forward, his only goal was to smash her head back against the brick wall behind her.

With a sound like two sides of beef slamming together, his fist was suddenly stopped short of its intended target, caught in an unexpectedly steel-like grip of her fingers. With a sudden flick of her wrist, his wrist was broken with a meaty pop that was audible even from where Dodge stood, pilfering his prize. Without any sort of warning, the girl stepped forward and delivered a shove to the assailant's chest that launched him back against the opposite wall. The force delivered was so great, it caused his head to snap back and crack sickeningly against the building's side. He slumped against the asphalt in a daze, wavering between a conscious and unconscious state, his eyes glazed as recognition left face.

Slowly and purposefully, she closed the distance between them and crouched down to look him dead in the eye. Her face was blank, and the fire that had added such ferocity to her features was all but extinguished. In it's place was instead the sort of calm one finds in the souls of serial killers. The man saw it, but was too dazed to do anything about it.

"I warned you," she said, her voice cool and collected. She raised her right hand to his throat, placed her middle and index fingers against his jugular, and in a single, final motion, dug in her nails and sliced open his neck. Blood bubbled as he tried to gurgle out a coherent scentence, but nothing could be discerned amongst the blood. The girl's perfect features were marred by the flecks of red that spattered her face.

She stood and callously ripped the dying man's shirt from his back and carefully wiped the blood from her face and fingers before dropping it on his head, hiding his face as the crimson river flowed down his ominously still chest to puddle on the ground. As if unaware of the life she had just ended, she pulled out a compact and examined the redness around her neck that was already beginning to fade. Pleased, she snapped it shut and suddenly seemed to notice the agile thief standing not too far away.

She smiled happily as she approached him, her hands in her pockets as she looked at Dodge sideways, as if shying away from his gaze.

"Hi. Um, sorry to bother you, but d'you have a bit of money I could borrow?"
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Zero
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The irony of someone asking Dodge for money was not lost on him. He managed to restrain himself from laughing at the oddity of the situation, and instead presented a mild, if not unattached countenance to the girl. "You know, the funny thing about asking a stranger if you can borrow money," Dodge said as he produced the recently-acquired wallet, the one he had already begun to think of as his, "is that there's no real guarantee that you'll ever run into them again to pay them back."

He rifled through the contents of the wallet. His instincts had not disappointed him. It wasn't as though he'd up and robbed some wealthy CFO (those men were well-known for their inability to leave the office), but he had definitely done better than the night shift manager at a McDonald's. He peeled a few crumpled bills out of the main mass and handed them to her. He studied her with a practiced eye, able to make it inconspicuous.

In those brief seconds that he was handing her some of his hard-stolen money, he was able to glean that she was athletic, with callousing on her hands that would suggest she spent large amounts of time handling heavy loads, or something of that nature. There was an odd detachment in her eyes, as if something about her wasn't entirely whole. It was a sensation that Dodge hadn't really experienced before. Her hair was slightly out of place, which Dodge took to mean she had recently been running, or else there had been a struggle and she had come out on top. For this reasoning alone, he already had her classified in his head as a meta-human, and in all likelihood probably a classmate of his at AHS that he just hadn't met yet.

Also, she was pretty.

"Mind telling me what great cause I'm putting up cash for?" he asked nonchalantly as he tucked the wallet back into his pocket.
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Icarus
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"You know, the funny thing about asking a stranger if you can borrow money," the red-haired girl stared at him curiously, as if she was sincerely interested in the pearl of wisdom he was about to hand her, "is that there's no real guarantee that you'll ever run into them again to pay them back."

Almost nonchalantly, he handed her a few bills that she looked at before she folded them and slipped them in her pocket.

"That's true. Being strangers, there's no way you can count on seeing me again."

She could feel his eyes on her, but she pretneded to ignore his red eyes drinking in every aspect of her, trying to ascertain what kind of person she might be, where she might have come from, what she might do now that she had his money in her posession. However, there was no kind of game she liked better than mind games, so she gave away nothing of her true self when she turned back to him with a soft smile on her face.

"Mind telling me what great cause I'm putting up cash for?"

She giggled and moved around to his side, and pressed her head against his elbow. Almost like a cat, she sinuously slid in between his arm and his side, his arm now over her shoulders and her arm gently holding him around the waist. She looked up into his brown eyes with her red ones, and winked cheekily.

"We're going out. I just dumped my boyfriend, so I'm looking to blow off some steam. Interested?"

For a fleeting moment, she wondered what Malcolm would think if he could see her catering to this human's sensibilities, then discarded the silly thought with a mental giggle.
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Zero
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Dodge had been expecting anything from "bus fare" to "orphans' picnic." The words that came out of her mouth, however, were enough to swerve even the usually unflappable Dodge. Well, he thought. That was not the direction I expected this conversation to go in... But here she was, pressing herself against him, arm snaked expertly around his waist. He looked down at her, studying her.

He regained his cool after a moment, resolved not to let himself be thrown off-guard by this. He'd had women in his life before. Back in Nagasaki, he'd even had a little thing going with one of his fellow gang members, the Bonnie to their collective Clyde. Idly, he wondered if it was this easy to impress every woman in Tokyo. But as he studied her face, something else occurred to him, something he hadn't really considered when she was just a random passerby asking for money.

"I'm flattered, I really am," he said suavely. "Certainly, your way's a hell of a way to go around picking up guys." He started feeling in his pocket for a snack of some kind; he was starting to grow hungry again. His fingers closed around a stick of beef jerky, and he held off pulling it out just yet. "But, that said...aren't I a bit old for you?"
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Icarus
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"I'm flattered, I really am," he managed to respond, adding a little silver to his tongue to make himself seem cooler. Sarah felt her smirk solidify as she nodded her concurrence.

"As well you should be."

"Certainly, your way's a hell of a way to go around picking up guys."

Her cute smile showed a little bit of her perfect teeth, and she looked away as if abashed by his evaluation of her methods of seduction. She certainly hadn't beat about the bush, but in her experience doing anything else tended to confuse the boys she attempted to fawn over her, which inevitably lead to aggravation and... messy circumstances. Instead, she long ago opted for a more direct approach, and she had been rewarded with the discovery that simply telling boys what she wanted often bore delicious fruit.

"I haven't had any complaints yet."

For some reason she couldn't yet grasp, he began to feel about his person for something he believed he posessed. When his hand grasped something in his pocket, her senses zeroed in on his hand, her peripheral vision focused on the movemetns of his arm. If he had a weapon now firmly in his clutches, it would only spell disaster for their date, which was something Sarah sincerely hoped to avoid.

"But, that said...aren't I a bit old for you?"

Realizing that it would be up to her to diffuse the situation, Sarah sighed and released his hip before twirling around and away from him.

"And what is age, but humanity's bleak attempt to measure the immeasurable?"

She skipped back to him and placed her hands on his chest, her head tilted back so that her mouth was dangerously close to his. When she whispered, her warm, sweet breath cascaded across his skin, and her cheeks were kissed with rose as her heart beat faster, her half-lidded eyes staring deeply into his.

"Age is truly experience, and if you truly are older than I, then I long to find what you can teach me."

She sucked in her lower lip as her smile returned, only this time it was much more coy, many times more enticing than her original flirtations. That muscle-headed bastard that now lay rotting in the alley only around the corner had put her in a sour mood, and she desperately wanted to be relieved of her own smoldering anger.
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Zero
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Well, perhaps the safest conclusion that Dodge could draw from this encounter was that he was dealing with a very, very unusual girl. It wasn't much in the character of fourteen-year-olds, at least in his experience, to start spouting off purple verse about age being some man-made concept to shackle their mortal coils to the whatever. And yet, her countenance was far too bright and sunny for her to have taken up depressing beat poetry as a hobby, even a secret one.

He let go of the stick of jerky, and instead pulled out a peppermint patty. He needed something he wouldn't spend too long chewing, something that wouldn't make his constant snacking habit very obvious. Also, having fresh breath definitely didn't hurt his cause. He unwrapped it smoothly, in a practiced motion, took a bite. On average, he ate about a dozen of them a day, and yet the fresh feeling always managed to put that weird tingle down his back. If he'd thought he could make enough money doing it, he'd try and sell that sales pitch to whatever company made them someday.

"Yeah, I'm going to be doing this a lot," he casually explained as the second half disappeared into his mouth. He swallowed. "Long story, but the bottom line is, I eat a lot." He didn't look it; "sinewy" was a rather generous term to apply to his build. He could explain to her that he was burning calories with the equivalent of two fully-functioning metabolisms, but in Dodge's head this did not seem like good small talk, especially if an encounter was about to take a turn for the steamier. Instead, he merely said airily, "It's a curse."

He balled up the wrapper and tossed it expertly into the nearest dumpster. He returned his attention to the young nubile thing holding him so closely, her face dancing in and out of the danger zone.

Mentally, he paused. "Nubile?" he thought, bemused. When did I start using that word?

What actually came out of his mouth was something more along the lines of: "I know a decent okonomiyaki place around here. One," he added, "where I can guarantee there aren't any rat parts in the meat." Given their run-down surroundings, this was perhaps as high a recommendation as Dodge could have given any restaurant in the Kabuki-Cho district. "Sound good?"
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