ArchivedLogs:Everyone's A Critic

Everyone's A Critic
Dramatis Personae Masque, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-02-28 NSFW/Trigger Warning for disfiguring ultra-violence.
Location <NYC> Lower East Side
Historically characterized by crime and immigrant families crammed into cramped tenement buildings, the Lower East Side is often identified with its working-class roots. Today, it plays host to many of New York's mutant poor, although even here they are still often forced into hiding. Today's forecast: Depressing. The afternoon has been overcast, the sky a dull steel grey and the earth beneath following suit. The low temperatures are keeping most off of the street but in any city of this size, there will be those who are out and about for whatever reason. Case in point: Shelby "Smith", truant. The teenager is loitering at the bus stop a block up from Evolve. A few plastic shopping bags dangle from the fingers of her left hand, their sides marked with the logo of the local dollar store. Her right hand holds a Sharpie and is currently engaged in drawing a smiling Buddha wearing hippy shades and a peace sign pendant on the side of the bus stop's shelter. This is a vast improvement over the ad slipped behind the plastic wall, which shows a number of yellow lemons with one red lemon, and advises anyone who sees blood in their urine to be checked for bladder cancer. As the forecast said: depressing. There is something just so strange about these days. Like someone's pressed the world's pause button and as it is slowly grinding to a halt, no one cares. Then again, the most anyone can do is hope for a brighter day tomorrow. And most do hope, whether or not they are aware of it. One hooded figure, however, does not. He revels in it, and today, he is all /but/ depressed. He walks a little taller than usual, a little lighter, and... more willing to contribute to society? This, judging by the fact that he feels the need to make his way over from the shadows of the dreary sidwalk to Shelby, slinking up next to her. He doesn't face her, however, instead choosing to 'admire' her artwork first, the side of his face that's the most human, still, toward her. "/Peace/." He spits out, a voice like gravel. "Whatta novel idea." The Sharpie's point is pulled away from the plastic but only briefly. When Shelby glances at the hooded man, it's to check whether or not he's going to get on her for grafitti. When he doesn't, she gives him the sort of eyeroll only a teenager can manage and resumes drawing. Buddha's belly needs some shading around the belly button, and she's scribbling in a happy trail just for fun. Up next, the hand that will indeed be flashing a peace symbol. The criticism just rolls off of the girl--she's probably used to it. "Whatever, dude. Everyone's a critic but no one recognizes /real/ art." Implying, of course, that what she is doing counts as the real deal. The implication reaches Masque with no trouble at all, and even his humourless face can't help but slowly crack a grin. A grin that's gone by the time he turns his head to the side to stare at Shelby, though, that one eyelid hanging just a little bit more open and his crooked teeth bared in such a way that it would make a stroke victim look like a super model. His cheeks less cheeks and more ragged flesh and skin, pulling at th rest of his face awkwardly as he speaks, "Oh, I know art. Beauty. /Perfection/." They should be good words, but they certainly don't sound like it when they come out of this mouth. The last stroke is laid to complete Buddha in all of his hippy glory, leaving Shelby to cap the pen and shove it into the pocket of her jacket. She's in the midst of another eye-roll while turning towards the man and that's when she gets her first good look at Masque. Her reaction is probably everything he's hoped for--she squawks in alarm and hops backwards a good foot and a half, clutching the shopping bags to her chest. "Jesus fucking Christ!" So great is her surprise, that Shelby's control slips momentarily. A dragon in the Chinese style pops its head up over the collar of her coat, pressed against her neck. Its mouth is open in an empty roar and its beetle-browed eyes glare at the man who's frightened his owner. And it is that dragon that Masque chooses to focus on, stepping closer again to close the distance Shelby created by being oh so very obliging in her reaction to his appearance. He seems to harbour no grudge regarding it. About as much out of the ordinary as it is for a baby gazelle to stumble away from a lone, starving hyena. A hyena with a certain hunger in his mind, in his eyes, reflected in the way he draws closer, still. "What, is that." A spindly arm raises from his oversized coat, poking out of the sleeve to point halfheartedly toward her neck. Shelby claps her hand to her neck, hiding the dragon and scowling at Masque. The best defense, in her mind, is a good offense--she is less a gazelle than the sort of bird that puffs up and shrieks when cornered, to seem more threatening. "Say hello to my little friend," she quips, all snarky like. The more he advances, the more she goes scrambling back, poised to run...or maybe to swing those bags at his head. "And you can just back off, asshole, if you don't want it to eat you." The street isn't deserted, this being rush hour. There are others out, some approaching the bus stop, others driving by. Shelby's eyes flick to the side, marking those closest to her and the guy who's creeping her out. It's clear she's either about to start screaming for help, or going to bolt. Hyenas aren't easily threatened. They don't retreat, unless they are outnumbered. As as it stands now-- well, the people who frequent the Lower East Side are used to the dodgy and the unconventionally social, so while they may not like what they see, for now the animal he is preying on appears to be strictly on her own. "/Eat/ me?" He repeats dryly, stopping his uneven gait toward her as if to show just how unimpressed he is with that remark by tilting his head back and looking her over. Bags, a moderately sharp wit and a two-dimensional mythical creature. He looks dubious of her chances, eyes rolling to once more settle on her face. "I just wanted to /give/ ya something in return for artsying up the place. I do so appreciate some good old... vandalism." "Yeah, well, whatever the fuck you're selling, I don't want. Go. Shoo. Be creepy at someone else, 'kay?" Shelby's nerves are /somewhat/ eased by Masque choosing not to advance but she's far too much a street creature to be entirely lulled. This means sharp blue-green eyes remain locked on him as she continues her retreat. Slowly now, as if sudden moves might trigger a chase--which, when dealing with predators, is always a risk. "Go check out the walls over there," she adds, flapping her free hand in the opposite direction to urge him away. "The assholes who did those are /way/ better than me." Ego has no place in a hunting situation. Masque doesn't even pay the hand any mind, greasy strands of hair swiping across his face as he dips his head again, the hood casting a shadow over his eyes and he peers upward at Shelby. His mouth twitches gradually into half a grin, half a grimace, before he mumbles just loud enough for Shelby's ears, "You stole my wallet." A strange thing to say, and perhaps a stranger thing to lie about. A few seconds later, he pushes back his shoulders as he pats his empty pockets where a wallet never even had its home. "YOU STOLE MY WALLET!" He bellows then, loud enough for everyone to hear that he is positively /disgraced/. If only everyone else could see beyond that hood, the look that has so easily turned to something so eagerly predatory, aimed right at Shelby's face. His muscles tense. For all intents and purposes, he might as well be saying it; Go on. Run. Oh no. Oh no he /din't/. See, this is a situation Shelby has run into before and given that fact, she's had ample time to consider how she /should/ have handled it. It helps, in this instance, that Masque looks the freak and /she/ is the sweet, innocent, wide-eyed teenager staring at him in goggle-eyed amazement. Heads are turning, some disinterested, some looking for some entertainment, and others with concern. Shelby opts to fight fire with fire: "Oh my /god/, you grabbed my /tit/! HELP! This guy, he /grabbed/ me!" she screams, even as she swings the bags--loaded with small cardboard boxes filled with sparkly Christmas lights (on bargain sale!)--right at Masque. "HELP! RAPIST!" And that's it. All bets are off. Masque has no time to process what just happened, looking absolutely dumbfounded as his bluff is ignored and turned 'round back at him. On top of that, he gets a bag of useless shit tossed at him unexpectedly, and it ends up hitting him squarely in the face. It may be the fact that he does not handle being one-upped very well, or maybe the fact that something about Shelby is just downright infuriating no matter what she says or does, but Masque seems to put 'what other people might think' at the very bottom of his priority list for now. As is evident by the fact that when the box has barely even managed to hit the ground, he /lurches/ forward into a sprint, fury evident on his face and adrenaline helping in the process of attempting to straight up /tackle/ the gutsy teen. Guts compensate for a lot. What they do /not/ compensate for is facing down pure insanity. Shelby's second scream is far more authentic and she wheels to run but is caught from behind. With a grunt, she's knocked forward and goes down /hard/ on the sidewalk. Her forehead smacks into pavement, her left arm is caught beneath her, crushed by doubled weight. The world goes woozy and grey--but instincts keep her struggling, albeit with less coordination than she might have otherwise shown. There's a shout, in the distance, the sound of running feet. "G'off," the teenager wheezes, kicking and blinking through the trickle of blood winding down from her brow. The dragon has emerged to cover much of her face but its movements are erratic, uncontrolled. It flails around with far more energy than she evinces. Masque is not the most elegant of predators- He falls to the ground with much the same force Shelby does, though /he/ has a human pillow. Chances are the knee he presses down on her back puts more pressure on it than needed, but he doesn't seem to care very much, aware of the fact that he needs to act fast lest someone yanks him off before he's able to... he's not sure yet. But something has to be done. "You've ruined my good mood," He breathes the words down her neck in a hiss, one hand moving to push her head further down onto the floor while the other draws a line from her neck, to her shoulderblades, to her exposed right arm, nails trailing down it like knife, yet never quite breaking the skin. Once he gets to her wrist, it is grabbed as tightly as he can manage. Something is wrong. This is clear the moment he stops moving, but her flesh, around that wrist... starts. It /starts/ moving. It doesn't hurt, but it's wrong. All wrong. Shelby knows right from wrong, she just chooses to ignore it most of the time! When wrong starts, in this case, she recognizes it right away and she sucks in a stuttery breath. The subsequent scream is less than impressive given the force being exerted on her diaphragm but she gives it the old college try anyway. It doesn't help. Without recourse or natural defenses, her unnatural ones kick in. Masque had best work quickly, not least due to the people running towards the pair. As soon as his hand wraps hard around her wrist, the dragon that /had/ been decorating her cheek takes off. It disappears under her jacket again and reemerges at that trapped joint--and from there it flows over his fingers to begin making its way up to /his/ face. It feels a little like having insects crawling just under his skin, or the sort of itch one gets on the sole of the foot that proves unscratchable. Not painful either but certainly to be noticed as it lashes upwards on a course for the man's eyes. But Masque is entirely too busy for these frivolities! The initial feelings of the dragon hopping from skin to skin is ignored in favour of him pressing Shelby's face further into the sidewalk as he pushes his hand upward along her arm again, long and bony fingers digging into her skin and leaving marks in her flesh wherever they go, pushing and twisting the skin and muscles out of place as if they were nothing but soft clay. It is then that the full extent of the dragon's effects finally hit him, and just like that... it's two to one. "AaaAAAAGH!" The madman reels back and away in a wild flurry of flailing arms and red fabric, just in time to watch the back end of the moving image disappear into his sleeve as his hand releases her arm with a last /pull/ that's strong enough to shift the bones in her forearm around enough for them to curl ineffectually around each other. His eyes now wide enough to just about fall out of his skull, he fumbles to reach for and pat down the path of the dragon in desperation. "WHAT DID YOU /DO/?!" Because clearly /she's/ the one who needs to explain herself. And quickly. But something that is two-dimensional, that is bonded with his skin itself, cannot be impeded. The dragon reaches his face, its teeth gnashing and its mustache flowing in majestic glory as it makes several painless but persistent snaps at his bad eye. The girl rolls onto her back in the meantime, gasping for air and staring at Masque through a bloody...mask. It doesn't register, the full extent of what he's done to her arm, until she tries to raise both hands as if to ward the madman off. That's when she realizes that her right arm now curls and bends uselessly, the movement causing more discomfort than the actual process had--tendons are pulling in ways they shouldn't, muscles bunching like wires beneath skin stretched thin. Shelby looks down at her arm and /that's/ when the real screaming starts, wordless and without the consideration of an answer for Masque. Her hand is facing the wrong way! Her hand is /facing the wrong way/! "What the FUCK, asshole!" This is the first of the two men to arrive on the scene. Both are black, one with a weightlifter's physique and the other lanky. It is the muscley one who bellows at Masque, moving to slam his hands down on the man's shoulders to restrain him. The other circles him to flank, scowling. "What the hell did you do to that little girl?" Masque, while he usually may have at least moved to escape half of that slam, is caught off-guard when a /fucking dragon/ is /in his fucking face fucking biting at his fucking face/. What happens next is the result of a man acting on reflexes and instinct alone; When his shoulders are hit and grabbed, Masque buckles and falls to his knees but wastes no time in grabbing those hands and /holding on/ as he drags downward from the knuckles, digging his fingers into slowly stretching skin as he rolls stiffly to the side in an attempt to break free. Unlike Shelby, her erstwhile rescuer is able to see what is happening to his flesh. His jaw drops at the first tug and then /he/ begins to scream as well, tearing his hands away to hold them in the air before his face. His companion just stares, backing quickly away--courage and anger both fleeing with this horror happening before him. Thus, Masque is allowed to make his escape. But for the teenager, who is struggling to sit up with her mangled arm clutched fast to her chest. Between the blood and the tears, her face is every bit as grisly as the "art" performed by Masque--and her eyes are blazing panicked hatred at the man. "I'm going to fucking /kill you/," she hisses at him. And the dragon, the dragon tries to make this true. Its thrashing carries part of its body across his eye, and the vision on that side goes black as light no longer travels through the pupil. Yet he stays. Masque stays. He rights himself and stays where he is. The screaming, something about it seems to keep him near, his head whipping around as if the looks he shoots from victim to victim, from one horrified bystander to the next actually, physically nourish him. He could even, for the moment, stand the thrashing of whatever magic it is that is now on his FACE if not for the fact that it then robs him of the sight necessary to properly survey his surroundings. Then, between the grunts and growls that his hurting shoulders and unnaturally writhing skin are bringing on, he says, "I hope you're using to killin' people /left-handed/." There's something noticeably forced about his confident tone, now, and it's clear enough in the way that he isn't even looking at her anymore, peering around wildly at every potential enemy around them as one of his hands reaches to rub at the blind side of his face as if that will help. Then, he just starts off, briskly, into the direction of the nearest alleyway, hoping to God the ratio of cowards in the people he passes on the way is high today. The ratio is indeed high today. Very high. The people in the crowd back away, almost as if they'd all inhaled at the exact same moment. No one moves to help the girl on the ground, no one moves to help the screaming would-be saviour. They back up and they stare at the man moving so briskly towards darkness. In the distance, sirens rise, and on the sidewalk, Shelby begins to cry, her head dropping over her ruined arm.