Densoro

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

As they planned together, the clouds continued their listless crawl through the sky, freeing a sliver of moonlight. Ms. Koizumi was still little more than a shadow, but at her suggestion, he began to look around the apartment. The architecture was uncanny -- predictably generic, but cavernous with unfamiliarity. The carpet was filthy...He realized he still hadn't taken off his boots and grinned, guilty. Not like I'm sticking around...

His wound pulsed, and he remembered the rough-worn edges of the three-pronged claw. Somehow, it had missed somebody as huge as him, but even still...He looked down at the top of the girl's head and heavily reconsidered her plan.

"I'm coming with you." He stepped back, glancing around for the bathroom. "Where's the kit again? We..." He thought back to the almost comically large trio of blades again. "...might need it later, anyway."

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

Hiko dashed toward her collapsing form, the last vestiges of worry still clawing at his scalp. He extended his good arm, though he wasn't sure where; did she need a hug? A hand? Help walking? The stranger's distance made it hard to find his place.

"Are you hurt?" He thumbed for the flashlight in advance, ready to check on her wounds.

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

The unearthly scratching was punctuated by the stranger's urgent voice, both hushed and secretive, yet deafening in the darkness of Carmo's apartment. Her heart rose to her throat as her frantic mind tried to piece together their situation. There was something inside the building with them. They were in her apartment. Her apartment that had no fire escape (how would a young girl living on her own be able to afford a place unless no one else wanted it?) just a four story drop to the asphalt below. There was no escape. No alarm. No police.

Carmo grit her teeth against the fear bubbling up inside her and fought against the tears building in the corner of her eyes. The scraping was getting closer.

"Turn the camera on," she said, swallowing, "and get to the back. After… if you can, get it to Josh Chan at the Seattle Sun. Tell him –" Carmo trailed off. Tell him what? She shook head to herself and a tear escaped. "Just get it to him." Standing before the door, she tightened her shaking grip on her bat and raised it, ready to strike.

Then she looked over her shoulder to see the stranger's blurred figure.

"Carmo Koizumi," she said in a soft, frail voice. "You?"

--

He flicked through menus with a practiced thumb, checked the indicator in the corner to see that the flash was on, and framed the small, protective woman and her door in the viewfinder. Too tired to argue, he just chewed the rising, acidic guilt in his throat; why the hell was she already prepared to make a last stand over his stupid mistake? If he just got out of here, maybe he could make this his problem again.

Still, they needed to know what they were up against. He held his ground, ready to get a picture...when the woman's weight shifted. She said something about caramel, and it took him five seconds to recognize it as a name. He sighed misty respect for her in the biting night air.

"Hiko Kogawa," he nodded in response, forcing husky strength back into his voice. "Yoroshiku." Something in that firmness said, Stay strong, Koizumi. We'll get through this. He only hoped she could hear it. In the next, tense moments, the tearing of linoleum gave way to a thud of finality.

After a moment's pause, the shearing continued, muffled somehow, until it faded into the distance. Did...did that thing just walk away? Its heavy nails raked back over the metal door frame and returned to the familiar, fruitless task of piercing solid concrete.

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

Carmo hurried up the stairs after him and his ridiculous strides. Seriously, what was up with this dude's proportions if he could clear five steps at a time?

"Fourth floor," she called after him. When they got to the correct landing, she pushed past him to run to her apartment door, jamming the key into the lock and shoving it open. Once they'd both cleared the threshold, Carmo slammed the door shut – just as she heard the sickening crack of snapping wood and shattering glass from the ground floor. She didn't know if the ice seeping through her veins was from the rain or terror. Gritting her teeth, she spun to face the stranger in the darkness.

"There are families in this building!" She hissed it at him like it was a threat. The crackle of destruction had died down, but now there was the scraping again. It was getting closer. Fear and anxiety mixing with frustration, Carmo's hand curled into a fist and she slammed it against the wall. "Call the police," she said as she pushed past him, marching to her bedroom. When she returned, she was holding an aluminum bat.

--

No matter how rapidly he climbed the steps, the screech of his attacker's claws never sounded any more distant. Like a needle at the peak of his spine, the groan of metal on undulating concrete reached intimately through his bones and deep into his nerves. The hair on the back of his head stood on end. His skin felt taut to his trapezius. Still, he made it upstairs in good time -- whatever that meant.

Crash.

His panicked mind struggled to make sense of the splintering. For an instant, he assumed the worst. He turned to look for his new ally -- futile, in the black night -- only to hear her voice, urgent and desperate as his own. This was all wrong.

Before he could begin stammering his justifications, he had orders. His thumb swished across the screen, back-lighting the watery, red smear he'd left behind. His gaze fixed on the upper corner of his phone. No signal. His molars creaked into one-another as he pounded out 9-1-1.

For his efforts, he got the frozen, off-color tone of the busy signal. His ears rang, pleading.

"Connect, damn it..." He might have said it more harshly if he hadn't had this argument every hour before. Had the outage claimed the cell tower, too? He wiped the screen on his coat and tapped the numbers in three more times as he stood at the door. None of his attempts surprised him.

His knit brows lifted to face the woman -- who was now armed.

"I don't understand -- it ignored everybody else! I thought if I came in, it would..." Does it matter? he asked himself. It's here now. What are you going to do about it? He glanced back at the door of the apartment, toward the figure that had followed him so far.

He weighed his options.

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

For the first time in some hours, he heard a new sound: a voice. His heart expanded in his throat. He felt sick.

He was relieved. Apprehensive. Exhausted. More than anything, he was ever mindful of the scraping around the corner -- couldn't she hear it? He spun on one trained foot and lunged toward her house.

Then stopped.

"Please!" he panted, bent at the waist with trembling hands on his knees. "I'm being followed and I don't know what..." He gulped his desperation and looked up at the woman lost in the shadow of her doorway. "Can I come in?"

--

Carmo stumbled back when the towering man lunged at her. She bit out a curse, steadying herself on the door frame. His words spun through her mind as she scrambled to process them. He was sopping wet and there was a manic edge to his voice, and for an instant she regretted drawing his attention.

"Wha- no!" Carmo knew how to take care of herself, but she wasn't an idiot. She leaned away from him, trying to get out of reach in case he tried to grab her, but she doubted it'd do much luck, lanky bastard that he was. "Who's chasing you? What's wrong?"

--

The raised hood twisted, looking between the street and the woman again. The sound of steel on blacktop dug into the roots of his teeth.

"I don't know. It's got...claws? That's all I could see. Please...I just need somewhere to hide for...maybe half an hour." He ran his hand over his wounded right shoulder again, disappointed but not surprised when he found it as sticky as ever. Even as the rain beat down against the gash, his blood felt unmistakably thick between his fingers. "And...maybe some bandages. That's all, I promise."

--

Carmo froze at his answer. Claws? What sort of– but then her eyes widened when she realized why he was holding his shoulder so tightly. Blood, inky black in the night, seeped between his fingers and stained his ruined coat. It was then that she finally heard the scraping.

"Shit," she bit out. Jamming her hand into her pocket, she fished out her keys and scrambled to open the door. "Inside!" she commanded, all but shoving the stranger through the door. Once they were both inside, she slammed the door shut, the automatic lock clicking into place. The door did nothing to dull the scraping sound, but Carmo did her best to ignore it. She reached in her pocket again for – she'd left her phone in her room. Letting out a sound that was some mix between a groan and a growl, she spun back to the stranger. "Upstairs. We need to get away from the door."

--

Wiping his hand on his jeans, the man pulled out his own phone -- still at a respectable 67% charge -- and awoke the screen. Light on his size 12 feet, he dashed through the living room and leapt up the staircase, five steps at a time behind the ghostly blue glow of his phone's LED.

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

12:31 am

Between the power outage and the hard, black clouds overhead, Seattle was little more than rain-slick silhouettes. The metallic drum of raindrops on dormant street lights competed with a barrage of echoing, hard-soled footsteps on the pavement. A pair of boots and a billowing black raincoat darted around a corner and under an awning to meet the front door fist-first. His slender but well-muscled hand pounded wet prints on the cheap paint. With a grimace, he clutched at his shoulder with his free hand. The blood warmed his icy fingers.

"Hello?" He shouted loud enough to be heard across the street, but received no reply. "Somebody, please -- open up!" He rested his wide back against the door, panting; his voice was hoarse with over a mile's fatigue. He released his shoulder and inspected his hand. It came away dripping crimson. "Fuck..."

He caught only a few breaths before he heard scraping in the distance. Without turning to look, he pushed himself off the door and took off again down the street.

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

Name: Hikaru Kogawa (aka Hiko or Coffee)
Appearance:
With bleached-brown hair, artistically highlighted with blond pastel, Hiko is 6'2", 192 pounds of lean muscle and monolithic Japanese-American.
Learning style: Auditory-kinesthetic
Means of expression: Painting, athletics, music
Inspirations: Music, artistic community
Cardinal values: Compassion, exploration

DC Funtime Shenanigans – CoCo's Bizarre Adventure

wootwoot
look at me, applying for this and stuff

Insurgence | Medieval Pokemon RP

So I've been meaning to ask: has anybody invented potions yet? Maybe in olde tyme perfume bottles instead of aerosol cans?

Insurgence | Medieval Pokemon RP

Paro

Paro almost hadn't realized the girl from the banquet was in this platoon; he'd been more focused on his dinner and the man aboard the enormous dragon. But the girl in green had a point: the atmosphere between the cooperating nations was still tense and unfamiliar. Somebody needed to open up.

Looking on toward the mid-afternoon sun, Paro's eyes narrowed beneath knit brows.

"We'd have to steer clear of a village near the border. They don't trust Pokemon." He hesitated only an instant before adding, "Or me, for that matter." He scanned over the group, seeking any glimmer of recognition. His expression softened. "But the bigger issue is: it's hot. You get used to it after 22 years, but we don't all have that long. So," he turned to address the two women who weren't in any summer clothes he'd ever seen, "is everybody confident they can make it through the heat, or should we go another way?"