HereComesTheSnow

Warped Earth, Twisted Air (An Urban Fantasy Dungeon Crawler RP) — Now Open!

Depending on the time of year, Kirk might be off somewhere competing at Wrestling meets, but beyond that he largely stays in Southern Louisiana.

Warped Earth, Twisted Air (An Urban Fantasy Dungeon Crawler RP) — Now Open!

_{20 | 5'11 | 174-195 lbs}

Kirk Dean Poirier

Personality

Laissez les bons temps rouler! Kirk is at heart a very jolly and friendly soul, hailing from a from a humble home in the heart of Lafayette, Louisiana. Despite being one of the larger cities in the state not named New Orleans (pronounced, of course, "Nawlins"), essentially every bit of his large extended family hails from more rural towns such as Opelousas or Laplace, and they've imbued him with that small-town southern kid politeness and humility. Like many Cajuns, he's a practicing Roman Catholic whose worship celebrates the life God gave him and the community he grew up in, and so he intends to live in an honest way that does both proud. He's as hard a worker as you'll ever meet, and though he does carry that classically fiery, long-lasting temper if you cross him, even a Ragin' Cajun would scarcely stoop to underhanded reprisal. If it's a matter of honor between men, you fight it out and settle it, otherwise find somebody to mediate. For as hard as he works, he's every bit as willing to play hard, and will extend his own joie de vivre to all comers. Nobody's unwelcome here at the dinner table. We all live this life together, may as well have fun doin' it. To echo our beginning: Let the good times roll.

Attribute: Adhesive [Element]

Kirk has yet to discover his Attribute, but it is primarily control over and the creation of adhesives, binding agents that he can theoretically dial the strength of up or down as needed. As such, he could bind objects together through the use of these substances, coat a surface with a thin layer to catch things upon them, or potentially even "catch and release" to the point where he could scale sheer faces. A weaker glue could simply add an extra boost to his grip strength, he could revive an old sticker's stickiness, and maybe even remove something you glued on wrong.

But first, he has to figure out that he can do it.

Abilities

Being a Collegiate Wrestler for Louisiana State University's recently-revived (as of 2021) Division I Wrestling Team, Kirk is something of a minor deity on the mat compared to most men in the world, with a technical arsenal of trips, throws, body locks, blast doubles, high-crotch singles— the list is exhaustive. A lifetime of Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling has granted him a number of physical gifts, including a fully-developed athletic profile: he's strong as an ox, quick on his feet, he has amazing balance and flexibility, and above all else, he is as hard-nosed as they come. A wrestler embraces the grind, and to compete at the highest level outside the Olympic Games, the Cajun has an unfathomable mental fortitude and toughness.

Additionally, while he has no appreciable striking training, he is every bit as aware of the UFC as any honest man in his sport could be, and understands punching mechanics well enough to not break his hand in a fistfight as well as hit with that classic "Wrestler has a wicked Overhand Right" power. Should one attempt to teach the Lafayette boy boxing or kickboxing or some other such art, they would likely find that he has an easy time applying underlying principles that exist between both realms of hand-to-hand combat (e.g. timing, misdirection, feints— fighting is a game of lies), and could potentially make great strides in his skill in that area.

Owing to childhood winters spent with Poirier family both to the north in Opelousas and south in Reserve, Kirk is also a fair shot with most long guns— he's been on Deer hunts for food and Nutria hunts for pest control. The little bastards tear the fuck up of the swamp, nahmean?

Skills

As mentioned above, Kirk is in tremendous physical condition, even moreso when he gets to be fully hydrated and not shave his weight down to his weight class. It's not always a tremendous cut to 174, but his natural weight is somewhere closer to 190 or possibly even 200 pounds (during Mardi Gras), and he has the build to reflect it. He is an all-around athlete that is every bit D1-caliber, but owing to his rural community ties he also has some skills one might not expect from such a man. He's stealthy, able to limit the noise of his movements through both forest and swampland. He's good at fishing and cooking, excelling in his grandmother's recipes for gumbo, anything that needs a roux, jambalaya, and other Cajun delicacies. He has a decent grasp on French, it being the natural Foreign Language credit of just about anyone growing up in Louisiana's schooling system. That said, he has every bit as thick of a Louisiana accent as he does in English. Finally, he could likely operate a boat and navigate the bayou in a pinch, but is not licensed.

History

Lafayette, Louisiana has proven itself to be the home of champions. Despite being overshadowed by the state's cultural titan in New Orleans, or the most prestigious University's seat and state capital in Baton Rouge, the comparatively small town of a couple hundred thousand is alive and well, and is with no doubt dominated by the Acadian-American culture. Descended from the French expatriates kicked out of Nova Scotia by the British, they're a people full of hard work, hard play, and hard ties to their fellows. It was this atmosphere of family and love for life that Kirk Dean Poirier was born into, and his life has been steeped in it ever since. He had a childhood full of visting and visits from extended family, grandparents, aunts, and uncles alike all in pretty consistent contract with the boy in his formative years. If the saying is that it takes a village to raise a child, the Poiriers were roughly a village's worth all on their own, taking Kirk into their lives just as much as they entered his. From an Uncle in Opelousas, he learned to fish. From an Aunt in Gramercy, he was taught to make his first biscuits. His Grandfathers took him hunting. His Grandmothers helped him with his times tables. It was this type of life that the young boy had, steeped in tradition, and like any good Cajun upbringing, it instilled a profound sense of honor and pride in your work into him.

He would take this ethic not only to academia, where he proved himself fully capable of staying on top of his grades, but also into athletics. A bit small as a child and somewhat bored by football, he instead began an after-school wrestling program in the third grade— and by the time he could try out for the middle school team, it was little more than a cinch. Kirk was fully hooked. He began placing well in local tournaments right away, something that would prove true all the way through puberty and well into high school. He would be a regular face in the State Championship bracket from Freshman year onward, and this blossoming mixture of talent, training, and athleticism caught the eye of none other than Mike the Tiger. After his senior year, he was offered a scholarship into the LSU Wrestling program— itself having little more than a decade to its name as the second iteration.

He accepted after some deliberation. While it wasn't a titan of the sport like Oklahoma State, when it came right down to it? LSU was at worst an afternoon's drive away from home. A home full of proud purple and gold fans, no less. It wasn't a big move so much as a bold one, to ignore truly established venues such as that, but, hell. This way if anything ever truly went wrong, he'd have someone he could turn to close by. He wouldn't have to give up on his way of life that he'd known for eighteen years, the fais-do-dos, the crawfish boils, the boudin, and besides—

Who'n the hell was to say he wouldn't be the one to put Louisiana back on the map in the Wrestling world?

Geaux Tigers, baby.

Now he is fully entrenched in the LSU campus as one of their athletes, even jovially participating in the athletic program to assist new students move into their dorms— after all, even the football players know to respect just how used a wrestler is to picking up heavy, awkward things. His training and studies both are reaching their zenith, and honestly, it is for the first time in his life starting to really catch up with him. Like many a wrestler (due to the lack of post-collegiate opportunities outside of the Olympic Games or a transition to MMA), he doesn't have the luxury of not pursuing a degree of some form, and as such is majoring in Kinesiology, and eyeing a minor in either psychology, anthropology, or maybe even biology. The combination of schooling and sport is deadly for a mind that doesn't have some release, and as such, Kirk Poirier has gotten quite good at kicking one back.

Or kicking two back. Or three.

Or however many it takes to wander into a rift at "dumbass o'clock". It was one of those very short, very small manifestations, the kind that didn't even send you anywhere and disappeared by morning— but it appeared somewhere on campus, and he managed to make contact. That's about all he remembers, and while the subsequent hangover has made him consider swearing right the fuck off of booze for a good long while, the thought of exploring a new world as his getaway, to at least once in a while to have a think for himself...

It's appealing.

Warped Earth, Twisted Air (An Urban Fantasy Dungeon Crawler RP) — Now Open!

@PKMNB0Y

Sure thing. Working on a draft now.

Warped Earth, Twisted Air (An Urban Fantasy Dungeon Crawler RP) — Now Open!

@PKMNB0Y Cool. Would you want that reflected in the profile, or just have the planned power in for transparency's sake?

Warped Earth, Twisted Air (An Urban Fantasy Dungeon Crawler RP) — Now Open!

This seems pretty interesting. Going back to the question of instinctual understanding versus one gained over time, is it possible to dip into a rift (potentially inebriated as all hell) without said power immediately manifesting?

Olympus Academy // A School for Demigods and Demigoddesses

Jonas Highwind

Pond Pugilists
@NeoAC@Plank Sinatra@Krayzikk@Altered Tundra@Write

The screams that had heralded the arrival of these monsters had given me mere seconds of warning, before Vivian's introduces them to the light. I pick up upon the first, and by the time I hear the second, it almost feels as if somebody else has left the driver's seat to me.

I am here. I am present.

I am born for a time such as this.

All at once, my threat matrix has changed. This is far from the time to be worried about spats with girls. Hound-shaped manifestations of shadow, each with prehensile tendrils rising from their inky fur, wide paws ending in ten claws apiece, and baleful crimson eyes that pierce the soul. I run through my mental catalog of beasts from myth... Either I'm rusty, have a blind spot, or am coming up with nothing.

Not good. In that case, what is needed is an active logging of abilities. Shape and call resemble that of wolves. Tactics...

We're surrounded. They've cut a half-ring round our little nugget of shoreline. Melting out of the trees and splitting off to cover holes, these bastards are working as one cohesive unit.

Similar enough to wolves. So saying, but there is no clear alpha amongst them. Too much to ask for. With such a social dynamic either hidden to me or otherwise unexploitable, I move onto the next best idea.

I will scatter them.

A knock upon the door in my head, and I consult my mental library. Myths from the world over flood forth. Tales, songs, prose, and verse. It is far from complete. Thinking of it like that would neuter my strength as well as be way too damn arrogant. It is, however, extensive and obsessive. Imagined faces of those I wish to emulate, to recreate, to become flash by as great acts, deeds beyond human measure, are rattled off in lightning quick succession. Kings, Warriors, Knights, Samurai, Gurus. Those that ascended to immortality in the collected tales of humanity. I search. I search.

I search for the hero who wielded the weapon I have in mind. I do not take long in finding him.

At the same time, I hear murmurs run through the crowd. I only know a select few here well enough to have a worthwhile opinion on their skills in a fight, as well as how to utilize them. I'll have to trust many to either fend for themselves, or listen to those of us that can fend for others. There are dozens of shadowy beasts to maybe two dozen of us. Under the assumption that they aren't much stronger than their perfectly normal counterparts, I know for certain I could take on this whole pack. I am not Herakles, not yet, but I am certainly a class above what it takes to survive this encounter.

A bow of hardy Yew appears in my left hand with a flash. My Father's armory has answered my request and granted me an old favorite. Bit of a cheat, but in a battle against literal shadow, I don't have a problem with flubbing things in the slightest. If Kelso wants to grill me over it, she can do it later if she promises to shore up my technique.

This, however, is not your normal day at the archery range. A fantastic foe calls for a fantastic armament, and amongst bows, this one is easily my best bet.

I nock an arrow, fashioned from the feathers of the Ornithes Areioi. Brought them with me in case we ran into something setting the party up—

What I hold is a Glorious Eidolon. A copied image from the armory of My Father himself, filtered by my own understanding of what I request. A storage of theoretically infinite volume, containing likely every weapon ever created. It is bound to have abstractions that come close to genuine articles from myth, and this was one such. A shadow in its own right, one that is cast by something emblematic of a hero.

Failnaught. Fail-Not in some translations. The bow of Tristan, A hero of Cornwall, Knight of the Round Table, and Lover of Iseult. It never misses its target, each shot taken with perfect accuracy. Innate to the bow, the concept of "never missing" is potent indeed. Really difficult to attempt to replicate.

But even through my understanding of an old legend, of which there are many interpretations, it remains after a fashion. These shots will have a homing capability. Not total accuracy by any stretch. It won't be able to loop around and hit you in the back...

But it's more than enough to adjust course mid-flight.

My aim is pretty good already. This is just insurance.

I can hear a pin drop. The atmosphere has changed. It's about to go down.

I inhale, and with it, draw the Failnaught Image to full, shoulders, arm, and back working like a tandem of steel cables. It's a practiced motion. There's no clause that says I can't work my ass off at an aspect of war that an Apollo or Artemis child has a preternatural gift for. I've been working my ass off everywhere.

I level the bow, holding my arrow steady. Luckily, nobody's in front of me yet.

Nobody except my targets. A whole bunch, all lined up in a neat little row.

Perfect.

They howl again—

And charge.

Immediately, with neither hesitation nor trepidation, my eyes flash to the area of the line where they are packed the densest.

The bow follows, and I release the arrow.

Their charge is met with sound, fire, and force as it explodes in their midst, equaling explosive yield to a modern grenade.

I am already barking orders even as I draw another to send downrange. My voice booms clear, thanks to big lungs, a strong core, and a whole lot of yelling experience. I may not have any clue what I can do with most of these people, but I know a few other very well.

Bekah will argue that I leave planning to her. Normally, I would acquiesce, but this ball needs rolling, and I have at least a preliminary one in mind. One that takes into account the mass of those that likely are not up for this.

"Rhea! Gather up everyone who can't fight and hit the water! You can keep them safe there!"

My faithful student. She can manipulate the sea itself. Physicality is greatly enhanced after only partial submersion. Could keep things at bay through that combination much better than on land.

"Marcy, scare these things if you can! Fear of God on deck now!"

Command over the fear of death. Could override pack cohesion, plus alter this upcoming choice in melee weaponry.

"Dana! Bekah! Kelsey! Truck's as good elevation as you'll get without climbing trees!"

Three who are as proficient or outright better than me in ranged combat. For at least one, important information. Dana will... at some point, probably get bored of blasting with her gun and come down to kick something. Bekah's the brains of the operation, her having eyes on as much of the field as possible is good. Kelsey is a no-brainer— a natural-born savant of anything that was a projectile. Of course you stick the ranger somewhere high.

As the wolves approach, the image of a pair of swords swells in my mind. The most infamous pair of Spain's history, and terrors of the Moors.

"If anyone's got weapon requests, say so now!"

A Certain Parallel Cosmos

Ryuji Igarashi - Hitting Traffic - District 19

@Krayzikk

Ryuji Igarashi was, normally, a pretty observant sort. A fair student who managed to comfortably stay on top of his grades and crack into the top 25 in his year come time for exams, he had a knack for both picking things up and noting small details. A Smash Bros enthusiast, such an eye for detail was naturally honed further as he learned to read playstyles and opponent tendencies, turning him into a local nightmare amongst Sakurai Central High's fighting game community. With his job being primarily service-based, he again learned a new facet of this all-important life skill: reading people, reading rooms, reading between the lines of a conversation.

All this he had quietly and unassumingly learned over the course of seventeen years. His perception had just found and fostered an environment where it could grow to an admirable level, nothing more, but that still had its own hand in shaping the boy. It helped him deliver a deadpan joke right when it would inspire the most confusion, it helped him learn when to filter and when not to filter his wholly honest opinion, and it helped him even to understand some of the idiosyncrasies of the people in his life— Takeda-kun liked goofing off and talking about seedy subjects to ease the tension he felt as karate club captain every day, Hanazawa-san's gossiping about coworkers peaked whenever she wasn't certain she was in on something, "Luigi" was still smart enough to sign his name on their checks as "Ryuuji" so they would clear without issue.

Now the point of all this—

He rounded a corner, having returned to the sidewalk upon his entry to District 19.

...And his gaze narrowed upon a shambling, almost sloshing figure.

"Huh?"

—Somewhere along the way, it hadn't clicked that District 19 was one of the "weird ones".

Maybe it was desensitization. A quiet street wasn't anything to worry about compared to an angry Level 5. Or a Skill-Out gang. That was all he ever encountered out here, no matter when he was called to make the walk over. Just a quiet, slightly windy, slightly worn, and otherwise unremarkable section of town. He hadn't thought too hard about it at all. It was just kind of nice, easy to move through, and maybe needed a couple lights fixed.

Here, he belatedly realized that he had never heard anyone else get sent to District 19.

Not once.

He skidded to a stop. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, each one standing at attention as a sickening pins-and-needles sensation followed in their wake. While this was the exact reason he must have been the one always fielding this District, he was damn certain he'd never heard anything, either officially or less so, about...

Mud...men?

Mudmen walking the streets. Maybe a Golem, but that was the territory of magic. He would only know about the collected details that showed up amongst things like RPGs or books, not any actual, real world rules on it. Putting aside thoughts about finding a "weak point", he only knew that it looked like a godless abomination, something that very much should not have been— he could say those things about his classmate Zippo and his lighter fluid fingers, but this was different. Its form, if you could even say it had one, looked like it was barely trying to be humanoid to begin with. It ambled slowly, brokenly, shifting down the street just as much as its shadow did, long enough to meld into his own in the low light of afternoon.

Not... necessarily threatening just off of looks, though. If it was a golem, that mean automaton, and basically mud-robot. Academy City was full of those.

Almost as if to answer his thoughts, the clay thing raised it's "head"—

A̭̳̺̕A̡̝͙͕̲̯͉̩̅A̮̜̙̹͈̲ͨ̐ͨ̀A̅̈́͒ͥͮͭ̕A̜̅͂ͬͧ̎̊̓A̠͓̪ͬ̀̈̏ͭ̈́͠Ȃ̦̳̰̖̠̃ͪ͗ͣ̃A͈͎̣ͧ̇͋̆̈́̅ͅḀ̪̬͑̍ͮ̔̚͜Á͕̦̫͗̿͐̆̐A̐̇̿ͦ̓͏̥̹̲̦̤̫ͅḀ̫̯͈̜͈͉ͦ̅̃͂̿̓̊Ả̺̰̦͓̬̠A͍̗̦̱A̵̘̔̓Ắ̤A̬̣̳̭̥̤̜A͗̄͆̿ͦͣ͏̖A͕͚͍̙̎͂̎́ͤÄ͙͓̜́

There was no sound. He was sure of it.

There was nothing echoing off of the buildings. There was no ringing in his ears. There wasn't even a mouth that opened—

And yet he felt his head threaten to split. Every muscle tensed as his eyes went wide, clawing at his scalp to stop not ringing eardrums, but a ringing cerebrum.

He could now scratch "potentially harmless" off the list. Gathering his shattered wits into a tiny pile, he looked up. Amazingly he hadn't dropped the pizza. The construct continued to shamble forward, each lumbering step squelching against the pavement.

He felt his heart grow light as a very specific hormone sent his whole body into overdrive, spurred on by the attack on his very psyche. The primitive part of his brain had immediately known what his conscious mind was realizing— he was in danger.

He wasn't the only one, either.

His pupils probably looked like saucers, as his vision managed to clear further than it ever did on its own. Between short, sharp breaths, his hands found his phone in its pocket on their own, without him taking his eyes off the mudman until they brought up the screen.

There was also his customer. By now, a regular. A beautiful blonde that had surprisingly little accent and clear grasp on most conversational Japanese. A good tipper from the Nordic West with the exact kind of phonetically impenetrable name you would expect. Someone who he didn't quite expect to be normal, because in all honesty, nobody in this town was.

But normal or not, she needed to know.

He didn't know if anyone else lived here, honestly, but he could get ahold of her, and she would.

He could warn her, she could warn her neighbors.

His fingers flew across the keypad, making use of as much time as he could before this thing noticed him here.

>hey this is pizza guy

This was the upside of being personally accountable by phone to your customers.

>theres something that looks like a golem walking around here. screamed at me
>no sound felt it in my head
>stay inside and warn people around you

Letting them know about the shit you ran into in real time was much easier.

Raising it, he snapped a photo and sent it to one Sieglinde Driessen.

It was blurry, but so was the thing's outline even when your adrenal gland was going nuts. Probably didn't matter.

It was interesting, absurd in a way, how much of his usual sangfroid remained. Perhaps he hadn't just felt his blood turn to ice. Or that subconscious bit treated this like an encounter with a wild animal— No sudden moves.

>call the police
>i'm gonna try and find a different route so i can get u yyour food
>Luigi's Pizza apologizes for the inconvenience in advance

With that distinctive flip-phone sound, Ryuji cut communications there, and—

What if it follows me to her?

—Froze for a moment, before slowly sliding backwards the way he came, gauging for a response.

A Certain Parallel Cosmos

Ryuji Igarashi - Out Doing the Rounds (Near District 15-District 7 border)

The 5:30 PM streets of Academy City, just as the sun began to sink in the May skies.

In a word...

"'Scuse me. Pardon. Shitsurei. Pizza, coming through."

Packed. Paaaaacked. Packed, packed, packed.

Stepping off into the nearby bike lane, a teenager of roughly 173 centimeters in height freed himself and his cargo from the throng of people clogging the Academy City walkways. Dressed in a sharp green polo and denim jeans, he brushed his cobalt hair away from his eyes, taking care to balance the cardboard box upon his fingertips as he took a running start. It was a natural part of the Academy City ecosystem, and it wasn't as if the concept of "rush hour" could ever be alien to anyone in an urban setting; the only truly unique part about this place was how many of these people were his peers. Fellow students, as opposed to nine-to-fivers, were what made up the majority of sidewalk congestion. People getting off of club activities, going hang out with friends after getting home, whatever could drive a teenager to be out and about was.

The grip of the asphalt released upon his feet with little more than a thought. Placid blue eyes squinted slightly, as they were brushed by the breeze of a casual cruise.

"There we go."

For Ryuji Igarashi, that drive was work. Luigi's Pizzeria, a local spot with (in all fairness) pretty good pizza, was popular enough to be delivering, and had historically needed some fast movers to get the food to people who needed it. Ryuji, a young man who often found himself needing a quick buck on the side, fit that bill with aplomb— they didn't even need to trust the kid with a vehicle! With his Esper Power, a level 2 friction-control type, he could just glide along the ground as he was now, providing easy, quick, and remarkably smooth transportation of these artisanal goods!

For a given value of "artisanal", anyway.

It was an instant hire.

He had no doubt it would be the easiest job offer of his life, but the job itself was another matter. Being a high schooler, Ryuji by necessity worked a lot of evening shifts, which meant dealing with a lot of people in a lot of places. Pizza was a popular dinner choice. It was doable, sure, especially when you could get around with as little effort as him, but even his calm demeanor could get worn down at the end of a long night of stingy tippers and obscure locales and pedestrian traffic.

The first two he couldn't help, so he tried to not let himself agonize over them. The third, however, he had developed a robust cheat sheet for—

"'ey, good hustle." He gave a thumbs up to a cyclist as he leaned past them, pushing off the air with that same hand afterwards to add a bit more speed.

Chief of which was the bike lane. Free passage for anyone who could keep up— And he certainly could, at least with bikes. Venturing out onto the road road wasn't smart unless he really wanted to run for it. And this early in the shift...

Nah. This was a game of endurance, not raw speed. Better to do it on cruise control for anything except priority delivery. By all means, skip the masses of people lining up for Gekota merch, shouting profanity into their cell phones, or making tracks for the local mall— but you'd be dumb to run yourself ragged before your first break.

So, he slid on, at an easy pace of "just faster than most bikes".

All in all?

Normal day. Just another one to knock off the calendar, nothing too important or special about it. He'd probably run into a weird character or two answering the doorbell, but that would be about it. Not terribly engaging, he noted, but that was the service life. A man had to learn to deal with it and move forward, just like anything else.

Especially in Academy City. Any other town and his power, the way he gracefully flowed across solid ground like an ice rink, would turn heads for miles. Here? Maybe a glance brought on by the uniform more than anything else. This place was a den of the amazing in that respect. A city full of those who, with enough will, could break certain parts of reality and rewrite it with their own new rules. Espers that could teleport from one place to the next, freeze ambient moisture and shape the ice, even cause localized earthquakes— All of them called this place home. Far more fantastic things than him were a part of everyday life.

In that respect, you couldn't say something so simple as "ah, lots of people here today" measured up in the slightest to "Uh oh, that's Amori. Better be ready for uneven surfaces". In fact, he was for once glad that the day was trending towards a little dull. Better that than having to answer to an unreasonably, angry Level 5 that he was not actually allowed to deliver to her.

A bit of a frown pulled upon the edge of his lips. Apparently, his propensity for managing to "get away" with that (and straight up get away from it) meant that his coworkers tended to field him "the weird ones".

Unfamiliar numbers. Like those with area codes outside the country.

Unfamiliar locations. Like the ass end of a cram school.

Unfamiliar demands. Like "send your cutest delivery boy~!".

Ah, Ryu-kun can take care of himself the best, probably! He's cute enough, and it's not like anyone could keep up with him if they disapprove, right?

"They all gotta live a little." he muttered. "Not like I'll be around forever."

That last one did happen, by the way. A couple Garden Schoolers thought it would be a fun prank after seeing something about it on tumblr.

They were disheartened when he showed up in mint condition, and not suffering from any scrapes or bruises earned by defending his honor and ranking as "the cutest".

It was the end of the shift, too, so he was a bit more frank with them than usual when he informed them of their folly.

He doubted they'd ever called back since.

This order, however, was pretty normal. A regular customer, living in a regular part of town, at, honestly, a pretty regular hour. Part of the reason it wasn't any skin off his back that he was out during "rush hour" was in the simple fact that this was when a lot of people wanted a slice of faux-Italian goodness.

He caught a sign and used it as a centrifuge, swinging to the right side of an intersection, and allowed himself a beguiling smirk.

"Helps that everyone tips, too."

A man's gotta eat.

Olympus Academy // A School for Demigods and Demigoddesses

Jonas Highwind

Lake Lunks
@Dirty Pretty Lies@Plank Sinatra@Krayzikk@Altered Tundra

He had failed.

It was a small, insignificant failure, especially in the grand scheme of things, but Jonas had failed spectacularly at his one stated goal.

Around him, the enhanced acuity of his hearing drove it home, with a half-dozen murmurs and titters entering his register even as the final sentence had left his unassuming lips. All it took was a single exchange. On a battlefield, that maxim held just as true, with totally more dire consequences... but still, it was an immediate and seemingly unavoidable failure.

Such was a chilling thought. This was why he left these things to Dallas. He knew how to work a room better than the larger man ever had, and though it wouldn't be subtle— most of his working mind was spinning the gears towards the conclusion of "Ariana Mossos draws enough attention that the only subtle conversation you could have with her would be behind closed doors", Dallas had the social wherewithal to set much more realistic goals.

And now, Jonas was left with the aftermath of his hubris. He and the Daughter of Aphrodite, fresh off of what could only have felt like trying to seduce a brick wall in public, now held the gaze of most everyone here.

His name left a couple mouths, none of which he was fully certain he knew, nor had even spoken with. They were laughing. They were shocked. Some were upset. Some were sardonic. They ran the full gamut of emotions. How bold could he be to reject her? More shockingly, how bold could she be to approach him? He didn't mind it, given that he was the one who was simply trying to politely turn away someone putting themselves out there, but her—

"It was pretty bold of her to think Jonas Highwind would actually be interested in her brand of whatever product she was selling."

Yeah, that was bad. Every dig and every chuckle was just going to make this worse, especially if those assembled were going to put his name in their mouths.

Has my reputation really gotten to this extent?

...I have a reputation?

Half of my efficacy comes from the fact that I'm always written off as Dal's thug. They don't expect me to have a mind of my own. When did this happen?

Throws a hell of a lot out of whack.

"Onii-chan."

Oh come on.

Stepping out at a right angle, he bladed his body to keep both of the friends accosting him in view, sparing a moment to look his sister in the eye—

"Ari-chan is good girl," she insisted politely, mustering all of her inner strength and her middling command of English. "But if you want to hang out with your friends tonight, I can hang out with mine. We can both keep eye on things together."

And confirmed what his experienced ears had long known, from the tightness of the syllables to the distinct stressing of the honorific.

His sister was royally upset— and the Bekah behind her wasn't far off. The latter seemingly not at him, but that strayed from the point. The willowy Japanese girl's eyes were ablaze.

Add another issue to the list of "how this backfired horrendously."

As a preemptively cordoned off part of his mind spun off in about a baker's dozen directions, quickly gauging the severity of the situation and its likelihood of blowing up in his face, his eyes found Dallas. His brother in all but blood. His equal and opposite. The Dante to his Vergil. The Ken to his Ryu. The man who could save him from this mess with a word, a smirk, and a cavalier attitude.

He felt a hint of hope as the Son of the Sun smiled upon him...

And just as quickly found it dashed against the waves as he received an all-out broadside, straight to the face. A torrent of memes and inside jokes, spewing out into the airspace without care nor consideration of friendly fire. Immortan Joey. The Foundation of what We Are Now. Fucking FRAM CAM! Asshole, 2015 passed us by ages ago.

"Look at him go. It's like watching Scott Summers try and take a fucking eye exam."

His "thick brainpan" realized a crucial fact, prompting yet another fragment of his inner monologue to well up, frothing against the tight lid that was his self-control and gift of Courage.

This was on purpose! Looking at his eyes, looking at the laughter in them, the mischief, he could tell! Forget Danger Close, forget Friendly Fire, this was Enemy Action!

He forced down a shudder in his shoulders, and tightened his jaw before it could loose any sound.

Bastard, you're just trying to make me crack!

Busting a gut now would sink this ship outright. No amount of explanation that "no, see, the Fram Cam was this really poorly done shill that showed up a lot during mid-decade UFC cards, and I was laughing at the callback" would fall on charitable ears with a first impression of joining in on the guffawing.

So, he refused to laugh.

Alright.
Fine.
He couldn't count on Dallas.
He would have his head for the betrayal later.

For now, he would take full measure to regain a handle on this. He inhaled through his nose, lungs swelling with the clean lakeside air, and shepherded his thoughts back to center. Back to baseline. Within Cells Interlinked.

First, he would establish a threat matrix. A list, bottom to top, of what in this moment he was worried about the most. Who he was worried about the most. Naturally, the conclusion was that the current spectators sans the Solar Saboteur weren't worth worrying about. Most he didn't know. Most he couldn't hope to control. Doing so would only further exacerbate things. An appeal to any one of them would be poorly placed and poorly worded, coming across as simple panic. That would only further feed into the current atmosphere. Mirth wouldn't be just at his expense, it would be at their expense.

So in Ariana's mind, her expense. To tell the truth, he did shove the brunt of it onto her with the simple act of playing dumb. That was on him. But now, that in turn meant that he needed to keep her from flipping out if he wanted to remain true to his original mission statement in any respect. That was also a pragmatic act. Perhaps his firebrand of a mother was skewing his perception of things, but he understood well the old saying about the Fury of a Woman Scorned. With the little he knew of Ariana, mixed with the mercurial vibe he had picked up during their brief conversation, he doubted that she was going to let some of the things being said here slide with a smile on her face. What he didn't doubt in the least was that this would prove a blow to her pride.

Part of him noted that in a campaign of Psychological Warfare, it could potentially be a thread to tug.

The rest of him had common sense and said to both focus on the here and now, not hypothetical battles in which trash talk could serve a purpose towards a victory that escaped his massive skill and physical advantages. If only he'd paid more attention to Dana's friends, he might have a better shot at solving the problems of the current moment... something that could ameliorate an embarrassed daughter of Aphrodite.

This of course lead him to the top of the list: Dana. Dana-chan. Harada Danaye. Five Feet and Ten Inches tall, One-Hundred and Fifteen pounds. A firecracker that could produce strength tripling that of such stature on a whim, and go further, much further, if upset. She was definitely upset. She was making an effort to control that anger, yes. She wasn't dumb enough to start a fight with her own brother whilst on security duty, yes. But she was upset with him.

And in his personal terms of importance, when choosing between an upset Daughter of Aphrodite and an upset little sister, better the devil you know. One hundred percent. Sister takes priority. He could even rationalize it that their shared bond meant that he had a much better shot of cooling her head than the almost total unknown of Ariana. When push came to shove, one girl simply mattered much more than the other.

He had a feeling he would have eventually upset Ariana anyway, had she continued ignoring clearer and clearer signs. At some point, he would get patronizing and sarcastic. Dallas's influence was what he always blamed that on.

"Wait," he began, after what was only a beat in real time.

What could she have been upset about? Surely not rejecting her friend, she knew him too well. Danaye Harada had discussed the subject with him often, so there was no way she wasn't aware of his thoughts on the Olympus dating pool and a prospective dip within. That was right out. His sister was cheeky, his sister was stubborn, but his sister could read the writing on the wall.

They could keep watch together, she said. They could both hang out with their friends, she said.

...

Yeah, that was what Dallas had said. Just hang out and punt anyone who starts something into the lake.

More specifically from her... "If you want to hang out with your friends tonight, I can hang out with mine. We can keep an eye on things together."

Why if?

"Dal said you're free to hang out and enjoy the party just like the rest of us, remember?"

He glanced to Bekah for a brief moment, who inadvertently given him ammunition.

"The whole idea's that you won't be busy, you just need to be around to kick any ass that needs it. It's not like I'd have to take over for you, you know? Wouldn't be 'slacking' in the least, so there's nothing to worry about."

A Certain Parallel Cosmos

Ryuji Igarashi

"I moonwalked to get here, dude. That's sick enough for a tip."

Registration Fields

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_Names

Igarashi, Ryuji,

_Nicknames

Ryu-kun
Short Ryu
Slip 'n' Slide
That Generic Looking Pizza Guy

_Gender

Male

_Nationality

Japanese

_Ability

"Wavedash"

Characterization

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_Affiliation

Sakurai Central High Student, working part-time as a deliveryman for Luigi's Pizza

_Personality

Ryuji is a man that seems to have fully adapted to life in Academy City, taking the weirdness in stride with little more than the mild sarcasm that any teenager thinks themselves to have carefully cultivated over their whole lives. His sense of humor is consequently dry and deadpan, often delivering phrases you'd normally expect from a goofball with the same level of calm and even flatness, to the point where some of his peers have had heated debates with each other as to just how much of it is irony and how much of him is a true-blue space case. None of this, of course, is to imply he's a stoic— Far from it.

Ryuji loves the hype. He's a big fan of amazing displays of prowess with high stakes behind them, and as such is probably one of the most eager spectators you could find for anything suitably rad, be it an action film, a monster truck rally, EVO— he loves to watch cool things happen and loves even more to see people pull cool things off. He is a fan of spectacle, and will gladly live by that code— but not, thankfully, to the point of being completely dumb. Part of the fun of seeing stylish stuff is in recognizing when the opportunity to do so exists, having the knowledge and confidence to just go off when the time is right and not get wiped out two out of every three attempts.

This attitude and relative comfort with the spontaneity of Academy City life might make one assume that Ryuji is a "water under the bridge" type. In fact, he can be surprisingly petty, especially about a rough loss or something he perceives as not getting his fair shake. He's more than willing to tell someone "I told you so", and is just as willing to punish a mistake in competition while taking no prisoners. He'll lord over his victories and grumble about his defeats.

Beyond that, though, he's a fairly normal dude. Gets by on his part-time job, likes to hang out with his friends, tries to be a good person at the end of the day, and has met all sorts of people at least once.

_History

​As far as life within Academy City goes, Ryuji's was that of, again, one of their everymen. With a father and mother that both work stable jobs within the city, he's lived the majority of his life within the urban sprawl as one of the many children enrolled in the power curriculum program. Due to his rather personalized Esper Ability, there was only so much development that could logically be given resources to— as of his second year in high school, he only remains a Level 2, and theoretically caps out at 3. Nonetheless, this has done little to prevent the enterprising young Igarashi man to fully embrace the boons he was granted, and he constantly tries to find new ways he can practically apply it. Especially now that he does a whole lot of work moving around the city, a deliveryman for Luigi no Pizzeria, a local joint owned by a man confusingly named Ryuuji who acts as if he is a full-blooded Italian. There is an unspoken code amongst the staff that nobody brings it up to Long Ryuu that nobody buys it, lest he fires them. To avoid miscommunication, the "Short Ryu" moniker was birthed for Igarashi-kun. Currently, he lives his life day-by-day, taking it as it comes and doing his best to keep up with his job and his schooling.

Ability

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_{Wavedash - Level 2}

A type of personalized friction control, Ryuji can alter the the drag between his body and another surface up or down to a fairly great degree. He commonly uses this ability to move around town at high speed by quickly sequencing "pushes" off of the air in his personal space with a zone of slickness at the soles of his feet, gliding along the ground with that momentum in a manner not too dissimilar to ice skates or skiing. He does not seem to be able to extend the zone of his command over friction coefficients beyond his personal space, nor can he apply it to abstract surfaces—it merely effects him and something he's touching.

_Equipment
Standard high schooler fare. His phone, crucial to his livelihood, and its charging cord. His work uniform, a green and blue number that is maintained in professional quality (more or less). Any textbooks and notebooks that may be required for his studies as a guy who can fairly comfortably keep up with his grades. A Gamecube controller if invited to school his friends. Sunglasses. Deodorant. Often a box of Pizza, unfailingly being delivered the way of hungry customers and quite rarely home to himself. His Dorm Complex key. On colder days, an insulation bag for the aforementioned pizza.

_{Expertise Kit}
Fast reactions, a good understanding of spacing and distance, a natural at working with momentum, zero fear of icy surfaces, keeps a very clean space, is in good physical shape due to constantly pushing and pulling himself around (plus just the school physical education program), has an eye for aesthetics in motion, Up throw-Rest, a connoisseur of delivery style pizza, frugal with his money, good fighting game fundamentals, knows the city like the back of his hand, good judge of sneaker quality, always stays grinding. He is also fully confident in all of these traits.

Relationships

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_Family

Both Parents, and an older sister currently attending a University roughly halfway across the city. They don't see each other too often day-to-day, but go out for lunch sometimes. Pizza is mutually agreed to never be on the menu as of Ryuji's second week on the job.

_{Organization and Alliances}

Dominoes Japan can suck it. Not really any personal enemies to speak of thus far. Is under instruction to not serve a certain Level 5. His school supposedly has a Rivalry with Noriaki North High. His friend group consists of, as one would expect, his classmates and coworkers. He's a pretty friendly guy! He'll give you the time of day as long as work isn't in the middle of crushing his soul. If it is, please just don't bother him. If you've worked service, you'll understand.