recolle | [OPEN] He knows if you've been bad or good ♫

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[OPEN] He knows if you've been bad or good ♫

WHO: The vigilante and YOU
WHERE: Various locations around the city
WHEN: At night, December 17-24
WHAT: Some guy in a devil costume keeps stopping crooks
WARNINGS: Typical vigilante vs criminal violence, minor blood, will add warnings as needed

Back in November on the news there had been buzz about an attempted kidnapping that took place at the local arena while the Ninja Warrior event had been ongoing. Arena security found a little girl crying and accusing a man of attempting to stuff her in the trunk of his car. Security found the man knocked unconscious and tied up with the rope from his car. Police were keeping the other details quiet but an arena employee mentioned to reporters that they saw a figure dressed in black struggling with the would-be kidnapper. Had someone saved the child? Gossip simmered down by the time December snow arrived.

December brings with it holiday shopping and all the chaos that ensues. It's prime time for shoppers and for those who want to take advantage of their full wallets and bags. Night brings out the worst of it, giving muggers the upper hand sneaking up on unsuspecting people and robbers a chance to take off under cover of night.

You were likely going about your business peacefully, between stores or on your way home, when trouble strikes nearby. Either a stranger on the street gets confronted or perhaps you fall victim to a crime. The police won't arrive on time to put a stop to this. What do you do? Fight or run? And what's that red figure moving up on the rooftops? Santa?

[ ooc: Pick your poison- or crime in this case. Violence and/or armed criminals are fine. If you'd like to plot send a PM or talk to me on plurk @

thoughtbubble ]

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The darker colors Amelia favored usually meant she was the one surprising others at night, rather than the other way around. But a quick trip away from her penthouse and its view of the glittering city to pick something up for her son had resulted in a knife in her face. A knife that Amelia was terribly unamused about.

"Drop the bag!" the thief said, a hood pulled over his head and making his face anonymous.

Amelia said nothing, expression stony. She had a baton on her, but she'd need to, in fact, drop the bag to get it. An irritating dilemma.

Togusa is off the clock, out of uniform, getting that last bit of shopping in for the holidays. It's important that he's off the clock, even if someone can probably tell that he's nearby, because it changes his instinctual reaction.

The movement is sudden, the snatching of a laptop bag, but the mugger shoves the woman quite forcefully to separate her from the bag. She goes down hard on the pavement. Although Togusa shouts at the same time as the woman's cry, his instinct is to help her. He moves to her side, rather than pursue the perpetrator immediately. He ghosts a hand over her arm, not quite touching but looking her over.

But he looks up to watch the man run. Togusa has gotten a look at the man's face. It's strange to think now that it's all he needs to find him again.

Elda was out at night. Honestly, she was all the time these days, the better to have less strain on her red eyes, light-sensitive as they were. She was normally content to walk about the neighborhood or go to the local park, but she was wandering further today. By this time of night anywhere she was normally going to shop was long since closed, but...

Well, she decided to go a little further. With Toushiro asleep and trying to make sure none of the cats heard her, she got in the car and headed out to a local convenience store outside of her neighborhood in Veia Village but still nearby. when she entered, she was the only person there other than the cashier, who seemed mildly surprised to see someone with as nice of coat as Elda arrive there but thought nothing of it as she went to get some milk or something.

They were short on some essentials. not distressingly so, but enough for her to use it as an excuse to be out closer to midnight than not.

... But then it happened. Something that no one ever expects to be in the room for. Two young men in ski masks showing up to the cashier and brandishing weapons. An armed robbery, with Elda only unseen due to how short she was and being down three isles in the corner.

What the fuck.

[ James isn't really allowed to go anywhere after dark on his own any more. And while, technically, he's the one who's picking up his little sister after her school club, the embarrassing reality is, she's the one chaperoning him.

Until someone they'd both assumed was just a random passerby whips out a knife on them and demands they both hand over all their money and the girl's backpack. Before Becca even has a chance to make a move, though, James steps in front of her and pushes her behind him. ]

You and what army? That puny little thing?

[ The attacker clearly does not take kindly to insults about his knife. He leaps forward, blade out, and James manages to duck, but haphazardly shoves Becca back, hoping the blade didn't reach her either. Turns out, fighting and defending someone aren't totally overlapping skillsets. ]

Amelia might have seen a blur of motion drop down behind the thief, followed by the thump of feet hitting the pavement. The thief just barely moved, knife hand lowering, neck starting to turn in response to the noise when he was yanked back by the back of his jacket and slammed into the opposite brick wall with an audible crack. The knife flies out of the thief's hand and slides across the ground into the dark.

There's a yell and someone is in between Amelia and the thief, covered in red from head to toe. The shape of the person punches the thief once, the thief tries to hit back only for his attack to get blocked and he's hit again, stumbling sideways.

"Leave and don't come back, before I decide to knock you down," the man in red growls at the thief.

The mugger sprints down the block with his sight fixed ahead and mind on his route. At this hour there's little foot traffic and no crowd to weave through, only an empty sidewalk and a corner up ahead that he thinks he's about to turn down. He's almost at the corner when something comes flying right at his head from the alleyway between buildings. It hits him straight on and he almost trips and falls. If the mugger's veins weren't filled with adrenaline he might have thought to keep running but he's angry and confused now, turning toward whoever or whatever just threw something at him. The mugger charges into the alley with a shout and gets knocked back. He lunges again and there's motion of a fight half blocked by the buildings and barely lit by nearby store signs. The mugger disappears into the alley, shouts and yells from two different voices the only clue of what's going on.

The cashier starts babbling in a quivering voice as the robbers shout at them to open the register and to hurry it up when their hands shake uselessly as they sort through a ring of different keys for the one to the cash drawer. The cashier fumbles and drops the keys on the floor behind the counter and scrambles to pick them up but the robbers are paranoid and yell at them to put their hands up, suspecting it's all a rouse to delay or fetch a weapon from under the counter. One of the robber slips around the corner to keep his piece aimed at the cashier's head.

There's an obnoxious chime, the sound of the motion sensor at the doorway picking up on someone entering. Both robbers turn their heads to look toward the door in time to see a figure in red with what looks like horns and dark eyes charging toward them. The robber in front of the counter fires his gun with a surprised cry but the devil dives between the aisles and the bullet gets buried in the floor. A split second later the devil tosses a can from the shelf and hits the robber in the hand, his gun flying aside and sliding on the smooth linoleum floor. He barely has time to cry out in pain before the devil is right in front of him throwing punches, hitting him hard. His partner is frozen in shock for a moment then lifts his gun to aim at the vigilante. The devil ducks behind the counter as the shot rings out.

[ James don't egg them on with your sister there! Matt's internal dialogue grumbles.
On the outside a very different tone. A figure in red flips off of the fire escape of the nearby building and lands next to the attacker, kicking him in the side, sending the man stumbling sideways and grasping at his gut. ]

Grab the girl and go!

[ The vigilante shouts. Go James! ]

Li-Na hadn't meant to stay out so late. But the more she gets used to her boots, the more she wants to experiment with them. She might as well take this opportunity to see how they work in snow, right? (Somehow, the traction is amazing. Snowy tree branches are apparently not a problem?) That, and they are surprisingly warm. So instead of changing back into her winter boots, Li-Na leaves them in their deactivated boot form and catches the bus back to the city. By the time she gets back to Tisse, it's dark, and she'll have to wait almost a half hour before she can catch the bus she needs to get back to Chiyo's house. Mentally berating herself for not noticing how quickly the sun was setting, Li-Na doesn't see the man approaching her at the busstop until he was right next to her.

And grabbing her dance bag.

"NO! Give that back!"

The man takes off down the street, Li-Na's bag over his shoulder. The bag that contines her precious dance equipment.

Furious, Li-Na digs a toe into the pavement.

"Innocence, Acti--"

She hesitates. What if someone sees the green flames and markings of the boots? What if she kicks him and seriously hurts him? These boots are for monsters, not petty theives. She can kick a hole in a wall. What would that do to a human? Maybe she should just report it to the police and let them handle it...

[ what do you get when you have a rich kid, from a rich family, alone in the streets just a few days before christmas? a hostage situation, easily. it’s not difficult to tell from observation, from the shops he’s been going to, to the things he’s bought in such a short span of time, and to top his banging shopping list off, he’s just purchased a five thousand dollar piano, in cash. his car is stylish, sporty and on point, his coats and boots are expensive— he’s got money. most would look and say he’s spoiled, because how can a young man, that young, dispense cash like an atm? he’s probably got more than someone recently graduated.

tonight at least, he’s not buying anything fancy, only about ten rolls of festive wrapping paper. the streets are quiet and empty, and he’s trekking over to his car in a rather empty parking lot, clicking open the trunk, setting down the bags and tying them up so it doesn’t make a mess—

all eren feels are large arms cutting off air as he’s put in a sudden chokehold and lifted, being forced into his own trunk while pairs of hands move all over him; one to get his keys while the other attempts to tie him up and gag him before he could yell. eren, at least, doesn’t put up an easy fight, kicking and screeching through the cloth between his lips and striking one of the offenders with his boot, to the face. he can’t see their features to identify, they’re all covered, but there are three. he thrashes like a rabid animal while one turns his car on, says something about what a monster the motor was while the other two hush at him to stay quiet and help them out.

holy shit, knock ‘em out says kidnapper 1 in frustrated distress, while big guy hesitates, clearly unsure of hurting him or running the risk of killing him because that wasn’t in the plan, but he squeezes anyway. eren still thrashes, but his eyes flutter to stay awake and slowly begins to stop. ]

Oh what the fuck. That's something that flies through the older woman's head. She glances around the fairly dark convenience store, trying to get a better grip on her vision to see...

A man with dark eyes, two robbers, a gun - What -

She hesitates the move, somehow amazed that she's not been noticed yet. Okay, let's just pull out her phone and- she should call 911, right? But if she makes a noise she'll be noticed so in the end she ends up hesitating there.

[ sakutarou had never experienced a mugging in his life. at most, he had heard about them on the news, seen scenes of them on television.

so when he sees a woman fighting a masked man for her purse, he actually has to take a few seconds to realize what's happening. and even then, he doesn't know whether to look the other way and continue walking or to disturb the scene. on one hand, the idea of leaving that woman defenseless doesn't sit well in sakutarou's stomach but...he's no hero either.

he bites his lip. his decision is made. ]

Hey, you.

[ he makes his way to the two of them, the woman's expression one of horror over the sight of a nearly 6 ft male making his way over. but before she can scream for help, sakutarou does something that even he didn't think he had in him: he punches the mugger on the jaw. not enough to knock him out, but just enough for him to lose his balance and allow the lady to run, purse in hand.

what sakutarou did not expect, though, was for the mugger to come back up, gun in hand. he sighs, accepting his fate. if he has to die...then so be it. ]

The older woman started back slightly when movement caught her eye and sound her ears, but she did not flee. The knife was out of her face, the thief was no longer in an immediate threatening distance, and there was someone Amelia didn't recognize orchestrating all of that. Now she dropped the bag—it thumped softly, full of clothes—and pulled out the baton from where it was hidden at her side. The shock prongs stayed off, though.

The thief staggered, dazed, but he wasn't so far gone that he didn't get the message. He was an opportunist, not a brawler, facing uneven odds and disarmed to boot. The thief fled into the dark, snatching glances back before he disappeared.

One threat gone. But Amelia didn't know who this new person was, what their intentions were.

"Who are you?" she asked.

[ whAT THE FUCK IS THIS NOW

James finds himself staring at the new figure, and then checks behind himself to see where Becca is. A few feet behind him, looking terrified and clutching her backpack, but still okay otherwise. And yeah, he could follow this guy's directions and take off with his sister, and he knows that's the better, safer course of action...

But James Barnes is not particularly known for making the best decisions. ]

Becca, get out of here and call Dad to come get you!

[ James runs forward, aiming to land a one-two punch on the attacker: the first hit to his already weakened gut, and the second hit an elbow crashing down on his back.

And in that same moment, Becca shouts back, "No! I'm not leaving!" Because Becca Barnes is also not particularly known for making the best decisions. ]

Togusa's head jerks back up in alarm. He only hesitates for another second, but the woman starts to wave him off. "I'm fine, I'm- okay." She didn't hit her head, at least, despite her hands being badly scratched up from the pavement.

But there are other people here to help, so Togusa stands, and he starts to move towards the confrontation. If someone else is getting involved, this just got a lot more complicated. His hands still go absolutely nowhere near his revolver, but he shouts when he gets close to the mouth of the alleyway. "Hey!" He's ready to jump into the fight, if needed.

[Personally, Derek feels anyone jumping him and trying to rob his are doing it at their own risk. Not only does he always keep his gun on him, but also a pocket knife. But then again, who ever said a thief was smart? So here Derek is backed up against an alley wall and he has just been forced to kick his gun across the alley because the thief has a gun pointed at his head. Derek is fairly panicked, but he trying his best to stay calm.]

"Hand over your wallet!" the thief says.

[Derek slowly reaches into his back pocket and start to slowly pull out his wallet.]

[I bet this bloody idiot doesn't even realize I can totally see his face and can look him up at the police station.]

Do you mind lowering your gun?

Thankfully somebody else is around to kick the thief. Compared to the armed robbers and muggers wielding knives this runner is tame but Matt isn't about to sit around and let the thief do as he likes. He drops down from a ledge on the building the thief is fast approaching right in front of him. Seeing what looks like a rather menacing figure (with horns?) suddenly appear in front of him has the thief crying out in alarm and attempting to change direction. Matt takes full advantage of the thief's attempt to slow and turn and kicks the man's feet out from under him. The thief lands on his back and head in the snow and Matt snatches the bag from his hands.

"Run," he growls down at the man. The thief whimpers and scrambles to his feet, taking off.

[ Eren! Matt had heard the struggle from afar and sprinted across the nearest rooftops to get to the parking lot. As he reached the edge of the nearest building he caught a whiff of the victim's sweat and realized, heart pounding faster, that it was his friend. He had fought off several criminals already in these first few days as a vigilante and his blood boiled with every battle but this made the rage spreading in his veins feel like fire.

Just as Eren starts to tip off the big guy holding him gets hit in the back of the head by a thrown club, making him yell in pain and lurch forward, losing his tight grip on Eren. Within the couple seconds the other two kidnappers are left stunned a figure comes charging out of the dark straight at the smaller of the two kidnappers behind the car, suddenly there right next to him, punching him once, then again, again, making him topple over, face bloody. ]

[ Matt heard the woman's cries from a couple blocks away and rushed across the city roofs to find the scene of the crime. He thinks for a moment that the situation might be under control when the sound of Sakutarou's voice and the woman running away reach his ears but then he hears the metallic click of the mugger's gun. He'd need to intervene after all. He can sense the position of the mugger and Sakutarou down on the sidewalk up ahead. Sakutarou seems... unusually calm for someone with a gun pointed at them? Hopefully that means he'll stay still in the next few seconds, it will make this a lot easier.

There's a sound from up above their heads on the fire escape of the building they're standing next to. That's when a figure in red flips forward off the fire escape and onto the sidewalk next to the mugger, kicking the gun from the mugger's hand with expert precision. ]

[ Before the thief can reply he's getting grabbed by the gun arm and slammed into the nearest wall face first, a strong arm shoved behind his elbow joint and his wrist pulled in the opposite direction. He cries out in pain and the gun falls from his hand. The figure in red releases his arm and shoves him back away from the wall, a nonverbal push to leave.

This is your one chance to be smart and run, Matt thinks. ]

If she's wary of him he can understand. It's not like he's dressed up like and angel in broad daylight. He steps back a couple paces to give her space.

"Just someone who wanted to help," he answers in a tone slightly lower and quieter than his normal speaking voice.

Togusa will find the laptop bag lying on the ground in front of him. In the minute since the mugger charged into the alley he and the other person exchanged blows, his cheek is red and starting to swell, his lip is bleeding. He's still swinging, one of the more athletic and better brawlers among the local thieves, but the tide of this fight has already turned against him and his punches don't land. Whoever or whatever he's fighting in the dark evades his swings and the moment his guard drops he gets hit by a round kick to the head. The thief stumbles sideways and clings uselessly to the brick wall. His opponent goes still and the thief throws a hand up, surrendering, and turns to try running, only to find Togusa in his path.

Skepticism was part of a healthy daily diet.

"And you dove out of a window for that purpose?" Amelia asked, grip still tight around the baton. She didn't look up yet, not wanting to take her eyes off the strangely dressed crime-fighter. He certainly didn't look like a police officer.

Li-Na's hesitation only lasts a moment. Her dance bag also has her cell phone and her keys to Chiyo's house! She takes off after the thief with the boots not activated, her heels making a metallic sound each time they strike the ground. She knows he turned a corner up ahead, so as long as he doesn't get too far ahead of her she might be able to catch up? Hearing someone cry from the alleyway, Li-Na feel a knot of worry form in her throat. Did the thief encounter someone else? Had they hurt someone?

But what Li-Na finds when she turns the corner is not what she expected. Down at the end of the block, the original thief is disappearing. And someone new is standing with her dance bag in hand. Great, now even thieves are getting robbed. A bubble of anger replaces the worry, and Li-Na stops her foot. She wants that bag back. If this guy does not give it to her, she really is going to kick him and damn the consequences.

"That is mine!"

[ whatever calmness sakutarou had over a gun pointed at them flies away when a sudden man in a ridiculous red suit interrupts them. his startle isn't in the form of screaming or running-- just an increased heartbeat and tension in his muscles.

he has no idea who this person is. he watches in silent shock as the gun is kicked away with ease and wonders, just for a second, if this person could be his friend. but then, an ugly thought creeps into the back of his head:

what if this person is actually a foe?

but when the mugger pulls out a knife from a bag, sakutarou pushes those thoughts aside. friend, foe, or whatever, he doesn't want this person to be hurt. so, not really thinking about it, he forces himself to move enough to grab the mugger by the arm and keep him in place...but only manages to get a hold of a sweater sleeve. but boy he's going to hold onto that like a lifeline. ]

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[OPEN] He knows if you've been bad or good ♫

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Die roll says this is 12/19

12/22 I think

idk like....12/18 i guess?

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