vFear

Post-Apocalyptic Cyberpunk RP (Concept, Interest Gathering)

Looks awesome, interested.

The Lines Between Us

It was overwhelming - but yet, was it? As Vilĉjo worked on focusing his aim and catching his breath, he tried to make reason with himself. Nine shots: he had nine shots to take down some native punk with a chain if she tried to close the gap. That, and he was here in the streets - this was his home territory, his stomping ground.
"Listen, lady!" Vilĉjo began, his breath steadying as his finger rubbed the trigger guard of the pistol. "You're in no position to be making threats right now, so why don't we both just- wait, either of y-?" His gaze swung to the right, then to the left, where his pistol promptly followed. He didn't even notice the second man come into the alley. For a moment, he almost mistook him for his pursuer: between chrome and an outwardly tough and collected demeanour, he might even be forgiven at a glance. His eyes skimped for further details, or at least for now. He began to backpedal to get himself a bit of room, the barrel of his pistol jumping between both of the people in the alley with him all the while.

After just calming himself down a bit, Vilĉjo was rattled again. He just managed to slip away from a bad situation - maybe, if they aren't chasing the gunshots - and he's carrying stolen cell phones that are about to be hot. As if that wasn't enough, now he's stuck in an alley with two people that look like they could put him to the flo- ..that was, until the man vomited. Okay, at least one person that could put him on the floor. Point being that...

"I'm pretty happy with my 'peacemaker' where it is, friend." Vilĉjo almost spat at Haban, pushing the words out from between his teeth. The last word carried a thick coat of apprehensive venom. "Now, why don't you both just... go take a walk, alright? Just go, get out of here!" He could feel the small weights in his coats burning and the longer he waited, the more he felt their weight. He needed to burn those phones before they burned him, then he needed to get the hell out of this city. The van- "Fuck..!" Vilĉjo muttered under his breath as he struggled to path a route back, his eyes wandering to his feet for a moment in thought.

NEON GODS [Japanese Country Cyberpunk]

No rush here my dude. We gotchu.

The Lines Between Us

Vilĉjo barely had time to blink. One moment, he was playing with someones hair, letting it slip gently between his fingers while he slipped her phone out of her pocket. The next, he was on the floor.

Vilĉjo lifted his hand to his face, pressing at it to try and feel something other than what felt like the ring after a good hit from a sledgehammer. His vision blurred and his ears rung, his senses screaming defiantly at him as he rubbed at his face. It wasn't the first time he'd been caught, but it didn't always come with a king hit. He lifted a hand above his head, muttering out the first excuse to come to mind as his vision began to clear:
"Now hold on, let's talk abou-.." But his words fell short. As clarity came back to his eyes and the ringing slowly faded, he found several other patrons on the floor. Some hung onto the bar, others had crawled underneath tables; one of the windows was even smashed in, leaving glass about the floor.

Vilĉjo's mind lagged. As he pulled himself up with the help of a nearby table, things started to tick into place. He wasn't the only one, others were hurt, and the window was smashed in, so that meant that it was something else - something big. That meant injuries and injuries meant...
"...a nice itch in my hip pocket..." Vilĉjo finished aloud, muttering under his recovering breath. He reached into his coat, aggressively wrenching his fingers through his pockets. He yanked a small container out, his eyes glimmering as they came to the pills, before-
"You!" shouted a woman's voice, "You monster!" Vilĉjo threw his head up, meeting the bloody and infuriated nurse who stared murder at him. He looked down to find what gave him away: a small pile of mobile phones and wallets, the very same he had all hidden in his coat before he turned it upside down.

It was hard for Vilĉjo to hurry to his feet, but he somehow made it. He threw the container back, slipping what felt like a couple of the pills into his mouth with one hand while offering a cocky, two-fingered salute with the other.
"Just holding onto them for you, ladie-!" he started to taunt, being quickly cut off when a rush of movement out of the corner of his eye made him duck. A bar stool: it was a bar stool, suspiciously attached to the arms of a well built middle-aged man. Oh, right... he was being attacked.

Vilĉjo lifted a knee, driving it towards the mans crotch; instead, he caught his thigh while whisking up a phone and a wallet from the floor. A second and a third swing from the stool followed: Vilĉjo slipped by the first if only barely, where he then grabbed a half-filled glass and threw it at his assailant before the next. The glass shattered against the middle-aged man, warm beer with a hint of blood splashing across the bar. A hint of blood, sure, but not nearly enough; this only occured to Vilĉjo as his gaze wondered down to his metallic arm, which was left almost entirely untouched. Oh, that wasn't goo-
"Him!" shouted another voice. There were too many for Vilĉjo to keep track of now. "He planned this - he must be one of the attackers!"
"Someone get him!" pitched in a third. The cogs in Vilĉjo's mind began to turn for just a moment, before they stopped early with only one word to show for it: run.

The bar door flew open. Vilĉjo scrambled onto the street for the middle-aged man to follow. The man had a nasty scar across his forehead and a small collection of medals across the left side of his chest.
"Police!" the man shouted, pointing at Vilĉjo with a glass bottle. "He's with them!" The bottle followed the words shortly after, smashing on the ground a few feet besides Vilĉjo. Vilĉjo ducked as he run, where he slipped into an alley and slammed the first thing his hand could find down behind him: a garbage bin, which spilled its guts all over the concrete. It hardly phased the veteran, who plowed right through it.

"Fuck- go and finish your drink!" Vilĉjo shouted as he ran. It didn't tempt the veteran at all: instead, it might of encouraged him, because the ground between the pair of them was getting smaller and smaller. Vilĉjo, with a grunt, felt the once faint weight in the left side of his coat grow heavier. "Shit..." he muttered, hesitating before abruptly slamming to a halt. He twisted around, presenting something new to his pursuer: a gritty looking pistol, not an entirely foreign sight to the streets with wires and diodes running along the sides. A trio of shots rocked the alley, breaking the veterans sprint and forcing him into cover behind a dumpster. A pair followed, dinging off the steel as Vilĉjo started running again.

Overhead, a drone buzzed quietly against the rising smoke in the background. The camera lens on the robot tightened and widened inquisitively.

---

Heat had built into a painful knot in his chest. His stomach churned, threatening to empty itself if he kept going. Vilĉjo wasn't sure how long he had been running now - it could have been ten seconds of ten minutes for all he could tell. Sirens dominated the streets and smoke threatened to waft above the skyline. What a mess-

"Talei si ajirih, talei ja’aiye!" The voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Vilĉjo nearly fell over trying to stop himself so suddenly. The very visage of the sage advice his brother once told him: 'don't stick it in anything that might take it off.' The swinging chain, the fights stance, the snarl that better suited a wolf than a woman: if whoever was still after him was a rock, then she was the hard place.
"No, wait-!" Vilĉjo shouted, presenting the barrel of his pistol towards the woman as he panted. His aim was wide and wandering, erratic and wild. His eyes scanned the alley, panicked, to find only a dead end. Beads of sweat had formed on his skin long ago, but now his sweat was starting to run cold. In his panic, his body locked down, rooting him to the floor: he froze, all bar the wild aim of his gun.

The borderline hyperventilation that followed only made it worse.

Jigokuraku Academy

---

@AdmrlStalfos19

---

The girls head came up. His eyes remained blank, flat but inquisitive, as his starkly rigid expression stared into hers, which brimmed with emotion.
"I, uh... I-I'm sorry. I d-didn't mean to z-zone out l-like that..." Umi explained. Slowly, Taro's head tilted to one side, expressing curiosity. In his mind, one simply didn't click to the other: why was she apologizing to him? Familiar words danced by his mind but they evaded his senses. "Oh! J-jeez, I... p-please keep it; y-you might need it m-more than I w-will." As Umi stood and made her way off the bus, Taro remained knelt by the seat, lingering there in stillness for a moment. Suddenly, his head corrected to sit upright and his eyes wandered down to the bottle.
"Is something wrong with it?" he monotonously wondered out loud, tilting the bottle in the sunlight to inspect the water inside. It looked clear enough and nothing seemed to be wrong with the cap or the label. Maybe her quirk lets her see something he cant? As Taro stood and stepped off the bus, he tossed the half-full water bottle into the bin on the way by. Better safe than sorry.

As Taro stepped off the bus, he rubbed his hands together and rolled his feet from ball to heel, feeling the gravel through his boots. One arm went over his head as he leaned over to one side, rocking into the stretch before reaching for his toes. There was no denying it: it felt good to get off that bus. As he pulled his arm around his body, his eyes wandered to the others. As if he could ever do anything else, he scowled in thought as he listened to the conversation. Something was being thrown back and forth about teamwork, competing, and strategies; he tried to give it some thought, but he found himself stumped pretty fast. As he pulled one of his feet to his butt, he dismissed the thought as too bothersome. He'd just wing it. That'd work, right?

A little voice with convenient timing pulled Taro back to reality.
"I, er... I n-never got your n-name," Umi mentioned, continuing with the introduction: "I'm Sug-guro Umi. My b-brother and I t-took UA's ent-trance exam t-together, but... I-I couldn't cut it..." Taro looked down to her as he pulled back on his fingers, waiting quietly for a moment before speaking.
"Oh." he let out, flat-voiced as ever. You would have to go panning for any sympathy from it. A moment later, Taro reached up to the zipper of his puffer jacket, sliding it down and slipping it off his shoulders. "I'm Inoue Taro. This is the only school that's considered me, so let's work hard to get in together, okay?" His eyes glimmered a little, contrasting his demeanor, as he folded up his jacket and slid it into his backpack. Underneath, despite it being cold enough to see your breath, he didn't wear much to ward off the cold. Arms clad in horns grafted to the grain of his muscles ran out from his tank top, which led down to a pair of plain tracksuit pants and unremarkable boots. In fact, everything he had on once the jacket was off looked really cheap given anything more than a glance.

Taro reached out a hand towards Umi, as if to offer a handshake-
-before it swung back as he cast his head about, responding to the cascade of screams.

He jumped- no, more so leaped in fright. His jaw slackened with ragged breath and his brow threatened to press an arrow through his nose. Horns across his body grew in his panic reflex, ripping through his pants, boots, and tank top alike. His eyes frantically searched the space around him over the cusp of his left fist, his left forearm lingering in front of him. It was about then that his brow gave a little: that he realized this was the start. The fear in his eyes phased partially over to focus as he looked over his shoulder, back to Umi.

Taro had no words for Umi; only a presuming nod.

Jigokuraku Academy

---

@AdmrlStalfos19

---

The bus rolled on. The suspension, almost as if a premonition of what the school had to offer, was lacking; every bump in the road translated with rocks and shifts across both pairs of wheels. Few were more aware of this than Toro who, with a quiet grumble, was shaken out of his mid-transit snooze. His brow stiffened as he rubbed at his temples, eyes still pressed shut and his forehead dipping towards his palm. A couple of meaningless words slid out under his breath as he pulled the neck-pillow off his neck and yanked his back up from between his legs. The quiet sound of a zip running, barely getting over the conversation in the cabin - one in particular, and the re-furrowing of his brow heralded his lackluster arrival.

Taro's head turned to his left, peering out the window to the rolling scenery yonder. While his brow stood stiff and his lips threatened to scowl, some interest sparked in his eyes. He was still new to town after all, and the lovely old lady next door had regaled him enough stores from the times before that the idea of further reading felt bothersome; but now it was here, right in front of him... was it really? He rustled through his backpack, taking his phone sideways in his hands to take a few photos of the scenery. Maybe he should invite the old lady around for dinner again soon.

Taro's eyes wandered back to the interior of the bus. His eyes wandered over the motley crew of would-be heroes as he took a water bottle from his backpack. He never did take the time to examine his classmates... and after his quirk survey, he remembered why: it seemed bothersome. As he finished his glance over the cusp of his bottle, he kicked around the thought of doing it later. Not everyone might make it through, after a-
A quiet chime pulled his attention away from the class. His eyes lowered to the phone in his hands, shifting to the text message notification. A text from Minato: that very same lovely old lady next door. 'Could you get some broccolini for me on the way home dear? I forgot it today.' The scowling Taro let out a content breath as he thumbed in a reply. How jarring... while relics from the rule of villains is right outside the window, he's chatting to his welcome neighbor.

"How will these next few years go?" he wondered aloud. It was the start of his new life, after all; maybe even his life to begin with. Could he, the man people skirt around on the sidewalk... really become a hero?

---

The bus slowing to a halt yanked Taro out of his daydream. He lifted a hand to rub at his eyes as he gathered his senses. The cue was obvious enough: all the students filing out of the bus prompted him to follow. As the mainstay of the students stepped out of the bus, Taro packed his water bottle back into his bag and slipped his phone into one of the pockets of his puffer jacket. Once the end of the line of students went by him, he tacked onto the end, following it in that awkward bus isle shuffle all the way to the door; yet as he came to the twist to the door itself, he hesitated. He found himself looking back to the length of the bus, his eyes wandering over all the vacant seats that were all so active just a few moments ago.
"Where it all begins, huh?" he asked himself as he pulled his phone out of his coat. He lifted it sideways to put the length of the bus in the sight of the camera, including the destroyed buildings through the windows, before something caught his eye. One of his eyebrows inquisitively perked up as his phone slowly drooped down, parting way to reveal a woman small enough to fit in your palm with her head in her hands and her knees in her chest. His eyes waved to his right towards the rest of the class, ignoring the chagrin of the bus driver besides him, before they wandered back to the girl still in the bus. "Well," he mumbled with a bit of a huff, "guess it all starts now."

As Taro got closer to Umi, he slowed his pace. His eyes skimmed over the assortment of tubes and other pieces, trying to make some sense of them, before they centered onto the woman herself. An observation went through his mind as he slipped his backpack off his back.
"Hey," Taro began as he prodded her arm with his mostly-full water bottle, "they're going to start without us." He held the very same bottle out towards her - offering it to her. It made a contradictory sight: his voice was mostly apathetic and his face was firm in its trademark furrow-and-scowl, yet there he was, kneeling down to her height with his arm outstretched and a faint edge of sympathy in his voice and eyes.

Somewhere else in the world, Minato shook her head as she looked down to the text message. 'Sure, I'll see you around six?'
"What an enigma..." she observed aloud with a faint smile.

Jigokuraku Academy

i've been challenged. i must escalate this conflict.

The Lines Between Us

@Virgil Oh he's swiping phones. He's trying to figure out the hospital social network for any leads on who might buy organs, so he's gonna read through texts and that. also sells for more money

The Lines Between Us

Smoke gently wafted to the roof of the room, where it congelated into something of a lingering fog. A well presented speech cut in over one of the local radio stations, the two mixing with several conversations to make an audible mess. A pair of balls clinked together on a green table before one of the balls stumbled gently into a third. A passing siren briefly broke over the conversations, leaving the patrons as they were hardly a moment later.

An electronic bell rung gently through the bar as Vilĉjo pressed through the door; the static in its ring was almost fitting. A couple of wary patrons looked over their shoulders to the newcomer to go back to whatever they were doing just as promptly. Vilĉjo let his eyes wander across the tavern: several patrons sat lined up on stools at the bar itself, watching the ceremonies and speeches on the television with drinks in their hands. Most of the room seemed to be waiting, while a few others jabbed balls around a pool table to pass the time. Underneath some jackets, Vilĉjo spot some sets of scrubs and uniforms; it didn't help at all with the weight hanging from his shoulders.

"Excuse me?" Vilĉjo asked, lifting a hand to wave lazily to the bartender. The woman - a middle-aged woman with a scowl melted into her expression - barely lifted her head. Vilĉjo waved a credit chit at her. "Just a Taja Titty-Twister for me, thanks." The woman let out a scoff as she set the glass she was cleaning down, instead whisking out a phone to look up how to make the cocktail in plain sight. The gesture helped Vilĉjo ease up, if only a little: it reminded him of home. The drink was sat in front of him and the chit was swiped. "If only everything could be so simple," he muttered over the rim of his glass.

Conversation was hardly moving, Vilĉjo noticed. Some nurses from the hospital up the road complained about some of their patients over drinks after their shift and the rest were here to raise a glass to the ceremonies on the television. It was a somber atmosphere - one that made it hard for him to work. Pressing himself out of his stool, he wandered over towards a flock of nurses.
"Uh, pardon me-" he began, the conversation awkwardly stumbling to a standstill as the small crowd looked over towards him. "I couldn't help but notice the scrubs you guys have on under your jackets. My sister is a-" he paused to think, his deft hands moving of their own volition and brushing something off his nose. "-She's a a theater technician but she never talks about her job, so it's hard to relate to her, you know? I was hoping I could tempt some of you with a couple drinks for some of your favorite stores." The group initially seemed disinterested, but a couple of evil glints spread throughout the mob. Who could say no to being paid to complain?

But as Vilĉjo slid the second mobile phone of the score into his coat, he quietly mused to himself: if something is too good to be true, it probably is. He was never good at networking but he had his ways of making ends meet.

Jigokuraku Academy

Toro moved into town by himself afterwards.