and after all this, the rest is all bullshit.

[scorchtheground]

For the most part, Buckingham Crater has been quiet, today. Not a lot of people are out and about in the aftermath of the plagues, and those that are are staying far away from the police tape surrounding the wreckage, save a few curious onlookers here or there

Comments

[archangelet]

Tay has been in the city looking for Mat. It didn't really occur to her that the dumb kid would actually be hanging out where his brother was killed, so she's been to the Conrad with no luck and now she's poking around the park.

She's a pretty safe distance away when Hiroto comes tumbling through the rift, and what with all the ammo, she ducks behind a tree to take stock of the situation. White and black blood, the white blood not his. Oh, this will be fun, but having a jumpy demon (probably a Rakshasa, looking like that) fully armed in the middle of the park is not good.

What is good is the fact that Tay decided that the possibility of leftover monsters meant that a shotgun might be needed. She grabs it of her back, cocks it, and comes out from behind the tree with it pointed directly at him. She's still a safe distance away, and she really hopes he'll listen to her, but she'd rather him not shoot her the moment she speaks.

"Okay, I don't want to shoot you," she calls out. "I just don't want you to shoot me. You're in Chicago, we have a peace treaty, and you're on angel territory. I do not want you to get hurt because of that, okay?"

Why did it have to be her and a demon?

[scorchtheground]

Hiroto whirls at the sound of her voice, training both guns on the girl approaching him. His brain registers angel and shotgun and doesn't really think farther than that; he squeezes the trigger of both guns, theoretically aiming to take her shooting arm out, and maybe get her in the stomach or something like that, let her bleed out, stretch the fight out longer, but he's far enough away that it's hard to tell if the bullets will even connect, not from the small guns he's using.

Then he ducks behind a piece of...he doesn't care what it used to be before whatever the hell happened to this place, he just cares that she's holding a shotgun. He kind of wishes he hadn't given Akane his.

It takes a few seconds after that for the English to settle in. He likes to think he's got a pretty good grasp on the language, but he hasn't had cause to use it in such a long time that even if he wasn't running on reflex he probably wouldn't have caught every single word. "You're a Throne with a shotgun and you're talking to me about peace!" he spits back in Japanese. He's only assuming Throne, given the gun and the demeanor, but whatever. Even if she doesn't understand any of the words, the scorn is evident.

[archangelet]

One of the shots goes wide, but the other manages to clip her arm, and she curses. "Fucking hotblood! I'm trying to help you!" she shouts down at him. All her training's kicked in and despite the fact that she knows better, she wants to blast this fucker to kingdom come.

Instead, she grits her teeth, mutters what might be a prayer to any saint that might listen, and holds her hands up, re-holstering the shotgun on her back with one smooth movement. "Look, I'm not trying to fucking hurt you, you bastard. There is a TREATY. You are safe from angels trying to kill you if you don't fucking try to kill us!"

If she dies because of this, she is haunting her ward's ass for the rest of his FUCKING LIFE.

[scorchtheground]

Well, that's mildly annoying. Here he was, ready for a decent fight since the universe seems to have robbed him of the one he happened to be in the middle of -- and he'll think about what that possibly means in a second, because right now he'd like to think about how this fucking Throne doesn't want a fucking fight, and that's weird.

Though, he supposes, if he's not in Kyoto anymore, he should maybe not riddle some angel with bullets in broad daylight with passers-by watching.

He peers out from behind the chunk of statue, giving her a skeptical look. She's holstered the gun and everything. Oh-kay then. So he swings around the cover, holstering one gun and saying, "Where's the fun in that?" And gives her a very slow headtilt, almost as if his head just was suddenly unable to hold itself up.

"What kind of Throne are you, anyway?" he continues, English this time.

[archangelet]

"A very fucking weird one," Tay admits with a bit of a wry grin. She's not sure what a Throne is, but she's guessing it's an angel. "I'm a guardian, my ward is a Neqa'el named Elashte. A hotblood. Look, dude, you're in angel territory, and even with the treaty, that's not a place to be bloody and packing so much fine weaponry. I can get you somewhere you can clean up and get a room, demon compound, no charge. Okay? Do you understand?"

Of course he would be from some other country speaking some language not English, which means she doesn't know if he even knows what she's saying. Just her fucking luck.

[scorchtheground]

Oh. She's not a Throne at all. That would explain it. He catches a lot more of her words this time around, but there's still a few seconds lag before he speaks again. A few seconds lag with him staring not-quite-blankly at her.

"Yes," he says with a nod, lowering the other gun. He doesn't care what she says; he's not putting that away just yet. Especially with the words 'angel territory' being applied to this place. He might be brash, might like killing whitebloods with no questions asked, might just want to fucking wring this girl's neck right now, but he's not stupid. If he's in the middle of a nest of angels, they'll probably tear him to pieces if he kills one of their own. He's certainly seen it enough with the tables turned. So he'll play nice now.

So he instead walks away, strolling in a casual circle to take in the scenery while still keeping an eye on her. "You lie. Just break the connection." Like he cares if she goes insane because of that.

He's...pretty sure he's getting what's going on here, now. He's also pretty sure he doesn't like it. They have Rifts back home, after all. So once he's finished his observational circle, he turns back to Tay. "Explain here again," he says, gesturing to the remains of the fountain.

[archangelet]

"Angels can't lie, idiot." Beat. "Erm... unless they can where you come from." She sighs and looks to her arm. Still bleeding, and her without her first aid kit. Lovely.

"You're in Chicago. You fell out of a Rift into the crater where Buckingham fountain used to be. I can call some demons over to give you a lift if you don't trust me, I wouldn't blame you, but can we at least go to my car so I can patch this fucking arm up?"

[scorchtheground]

Hiroto shrugs. "It hurts." Some of them are better than others at hiding that.

And if she were Akane, right now, he probably would have lashed out and shut her up right after 'you fell out of a Rift'; nothing like a few pinched nerves to send one unconscious and relieve him of having to make conversation. But she's not Akane, and she's nowhere near close enough for him to do that anyway -- which is probably a good thing, because while he's not shooting her, if she were close enough to grab...

Instead, he swears in Japanese at her, then sighs. Great. And she seems to be insisting that he's not from here, even though she's obviously an angel (albeit a fucking weird one) and he's obviously a demon and this is just inconvenient.

He nods at her suggestion of calling demons, because like hell is he getting in a car with an angel. "Yeah, do that." And then gestures with the gun for her to lead, and climbs out of the the fountain. "Your Chicago sucks," he adds, waving the gun at the half-demolished skyline around them. He's never been to Chicago, sure, but he's seen pictures.

[archangelet]

"Yeah," Tay says as she pulls out her phone and hits one of her speed dial numbers. "That's what happens when your mayor turns out to be the devil and killing him unleashes the ten plagues of Egypt on your ass."

Then she holds up a finger to let him know she's connected. "Hey, Malek, got a hotblood come through middle the park. Need some backup, he ain't trusting me. Yeah, fountain crater. Thanks."

She hangs up, shoves her phone back in her pocket, and sits herself on the edge of the crater. "Well, now we wait. Got a behemoth friend coming in. That okay with you?"

[scorchtheground]

He twitches the gun up for a second when she goes for her phone, but lowers it again when it's just a phone and nothing more. He's not going to put it away until he's sure things aren't going to go downhill suddenly, or maybe that angels aren't going to snipe him from the crumbling rooftops -- not that there's a whole lot he'd be able to do about that if they did.

He nods again at her question, but merely mutters something about the place being insane -- not that Kyoto didn't get its share of fucking weird wanderer-related shit, but nothing like that. Most of the really violent shit was started by his own family.

And now it looks like he can either run off and find some angel who's acting like an actual angel, and then probably get killed by a bunch more, or he can sit here and wait and hope she didn't actually call the cavalry, because he's not sure he brought enough bullets for that. So instead, he's going to check all the pockets of his cargo pants for that friggin' -- ah, there it is. The only non-weapon thing he has on his person, aside from wallet, at the moment: a small manga volume.

And then he's going to plop down and flip to where he left off on the train earlier that morning, and read it. Still holding the gun.

[homoraptor]

And in comes a velociraptor. In a trenchcoat. ...with a box of pizza in his hands.

He had to get it for takeout after getting Tay's call. He was planning on eating the entire thing himself in celebration of his favorite pizza place being mostly-not-burnt-down, but, you know, friends calling, he can share. Sharing is good.

He lopes up with a chitter of greeting, shoving the pizza box at Tay so he can shift back to normal form and do up the snaps on his coat. Then he turns to look at their new hotblood - wanderer - friend.

Well, he's certainly an eyeful. Rakshasa? They tend to carry all the guns. He likes rakshasa. They're a bit serious, but they also tend to be the big loud boistrous ones.

"Allo," he says, smoothing out his coat. "'m Malek. Runner for t'local Neq, ja? 'n' are?"

[archangelet]

"Pizza! Malek, you're the man."

Tay may take the opportunity to suck down a few slices of pizza.

Malek can deal with this asshole. She has pizza. Meat lover's.

[scorchtheground]

Well, it's hard to argue that this man's a Behemoth, like the angel said. Hiroto visibly relaxes, though not completely. Still in angel territory, even if it's apparently fine and dandy for a demon to wander around in form.

He does, however, pocket both the manga and holster the gun, finally. Hey, he's a quick draw if either try anything funny, and he's got throwing knives up one sleeve anyway, so he wouldn't even have to draw. Not to mention the very visible katana on his back.

Of course, when the other demon speaks he has to stop for a moment and staaare. Well, good to know there's someone around here with a worse grasp on English than he. "Sato Hiroto," he says, smiling, after processing to the best of his knowledge what this Malek guys is saying. There's a beat, while he waits for that name to sink in (and he'll probably be a bit disappointed at this universe's reaction), and then asks, "'Neq'? Neqa'el?"

[homoraptor]

Malek nods. "Ja, Neqa'el. He's - pfah. Shit."

He considers for a moment. Language barriers are not his friend.

After a moment, he asks (in French) «Do you speak French?» Then with a tilt of his head, (in Arabic) «Do you speak Arabic?» If not, well, English is what it's gonna be.

Then, long enough for what Hiroto actually said to penetrate his thick skull and bounce around until it ran into something it could connect to later, he perks up.

"Ahhh... know 'Arkness?" Hey, there was a Sato, he got to go pummel someone oveer her, life was good. Not that he really knows where Harkness is, if anywhere, but he could bring this guy over to Suzie. Or something. "Or, kuhh, wosserface? Tokio Sato?"

Fail, Malek. Fail.

[archangelet]

"Toshiko Sato," Tay corrects from her spot on the edge of the crater, enjoying the pizza. Malek may have to get a new one before he enjoys much of it. "We need to work on your name recall. I like my muscle sharp, ja?"

Yes, she makes fun of him a little. In love.

[scorchtheground]

Well, it's pretty clear what Malek's doing, even if Hiroto can't understand a word of what he's saying, so he shoves his hands into the pockets of his own trenchcoat and retorts with, "No, do you speak Japanese?" and a smirk. "English is ok."

Then it's back to business. "I know Neqa'el," he explains. "Just not Neq. I get it now." So there's a Neqa'el wandering around somewhere. He's...really not sure if he likes that or not. On the one hand, it means a demon can stay alive in this place long enough to become one. On the other, he's never actually had any experience with them.

...and it's a little disconcerting that neither of them react to the name properly. If anyone back home said that, there wouldn't be any need for 'do you know's because of course he knows them. And knows what angel they fought the night before in the pits. "No. One of the family?" he asks, wondering if they'll even know what he means. Hoping they will, but not expecting much.