ArchivedLogs:Boss Battle

Boss Battle
Dramatis Personae Kaori, Shane, Sebastian, Micah
In Absentia	29 September 2013 '
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. The sound of horns and cursing announces Kaori’s arrival to the park. She’s up and sprinting on her bmx bike, bouncing the bike forwarding, and over a low bench at the side of the street to get out of the way of a speeding yellow cab. Once in the clear on sidewalk, she sits up to ride no-hands so she can flip off the driver. In a clearly /cheerful/ voice though, as if this is the most fun she’s had all day she calls out after him, “Fuck you very much!” She sounds like she’s /thanking/ him. She continues pedaling with no hands, much slower now, and looks around. She pulls her bike helmet off, and gets her phone out of her pocket to look at it, /while/ riding. Apparently she’s looking for an address the way she’s peering at the nearby buildings. Long, neon green hair streams out behind her. Otherwise, she’s in black cargo pants with white vans shoes, she’s also got a skintight, short-sleeve bike shirt on, with all manner of gray logos and sponsors printed ghostly pale on the shirt. It sets off her figure nicely though, unlike her normally baggy clothes, which tend to make her look younger than her 23 years, which she doesn’t really need any help at. She’s also wearing black, fingerless gloves. Having confirmed the address she wants, she pockets the phone, and puts the helmet back on without strapping it. Taking hold of the handlebars again, she hops the bike into a 180, and rolls backwards, apparently trying to figure out if she missed the number she’s looking for, and finally rolls to a halt in front of the building Doug (and coincidentally several other interesting folks). She puts one foot down and perches on her bike seat, looking perplexed. The park is rather crowded, on Sunday afternoons, even moreso than usual with a small group of people -- largely young, largely kind of punk-leaning with a wealth of piercings and ink and brightly colourful hairstyles among them -- set up at a few long tables serving a hot meal to a much larger crowd of mostly-houseless folks. Shane and Sebastian have -- not been helping with this altruistic effort. They have /priorities/. Currently highest on the list: seeing who can /race/ Micah's wheelchair (with Micah in it, of course, fortunately or unfortunately depending on point of view) fastest in a loop between their apartment and the Food Not Bombs tables and back. Sebastian is therefore currently perched on the railing of the ramp up to the apartment door, phone in his hand with a stopwatch pulled up on its screen. In looks he is rather impossible to distinguish from his brother, digging differing wardrobe choices aside: the twin by the door wears a black pinstriped pencil skirt, though its zippers and straps render it more punk than businesslike. It is paired with a lime green long-sleeved fishnet shirt over a strappy purple tank. Currently zooming across the street (not bothering with going to the actual crosswalk), the other half of the pair. Also in pinstripes, though Shane's come in the form of slacks and vest over a neat button-down, a black newsboy cap over his spiky hair. He is sprinting Micah across the street with accompanying whooshy airplane sounds, though his racing stops short of the curb so that he can ease the (also bright green) chair up onto it without any unpleasant jolting. Sebastian hits the stopwatch once Shane is actually /at/ the railing. "I win." Shane peers over at the screen. "What the fuck, dude, I was totally faster than that." "You got slowed down by the curb," Sebastian objects. "It's /totally/ faster to use the cut at the intersection and just not stop." Shane bares his teeth in a grimace, confiding to Micah: "I'm totally faster." He turns to Kaori for confirmation of this: "I got across here way faster than that, you saw that, ri -- ohshit hey it's /you/ the fuck are you doing here?" He leans out from behind Micah to offer a fist, for the bumping. The occupant of the neon green ultralight wheelchair is a twenty-something young man with tousled auburn hair sticking out haphazardly from beneath his own newsboy cap, though his is a shade muddled between green and brown. Micah wears a black hoodie with the Bat Signal emblazoned on its front, neatly bisected where the zipper is open, to reveal a powder blue Totoro face peeking out from the T-shirt beneath. His lap is covered in a quilt that is patterned in squares of plaid and assorted red and green apples, a large centre square decorated with Applejack, Big Macintosh, and Applebloom standing under a Zap Apple tree. A pair of navy blue pajama pants dotted with confused-looking kodamas covers the one leg that peeks out from under the quilt, a black and green sneaker on the foot that rests on the fixed front end footboard of the chair. Micah is currently doing his best only to giggle and not to laugh harder at the boys' antics because /ow/. “My stomach votes that Shane was actually runnin' faster. But it also votes /thank you/ for not slammin' up the curb, ohgosh. 'Bastian's right. Crosswalks an' curb cuts next time. We're lucky didn't no cars try t'run us down.” He brings a fist around to tap lightly against Shane's before proceeding to poke him in the ribs with an index finger at his greeting to Kaori. “He /means/ t'say, 'Hello, it's good t'see you. What brings y'by?'” he addresses the girl with a lopsided grin, by way of greeting and half-jokingly correcting Shane's less-than-polite language at the same time. “Oh shit, is /you/…” Kaori grins and hops off her bike, leaning it against a trash can nearby. Her gaze drifts to the other twin and she cocks her head. “And… you?” She grins more and shrugs, reaching up to fix the bright green ponytail her helmet had mashed down. “I didn’t realize Shane’s come in pairs.” She bows slightly at Micah, forgetting about the hand-shaking thing we do here. “Hi, I’m Kaori. It’s nice to meet you. I think maybe I’m lost? I’m supposed to meet cuteDoug here, the web designer?” She throws the ‘cute’ in, in a rush, probably not even aware she said it, then turns the statement up at the end to make it a question in the last moment. Maybe they know him! NYC is a small town, right? "Cute Doug?" Sebastian sounds /so/ highly skeptical of this assessment. "We don't have anyone --" "I think she means 503. Doug-I-just-fu--" Shane is being /helpful/, see, until Sebastian cuts him off quickly: "/Oh/ that Doug are you a friend of his?" "I met her in the skate park," Shane explains. "I /kind of/ come in pairs. Kaori this is my sib Bastian and my dad," his smile brightens at this introduction, "Micah. Kaori skates like a boss." “Could be the Doug as lives in this buildin'. Blonde, kinda pouty-faced? Y'could try buzzin' his room.” An eyebrow raises at Shane's almost-sentence and 'Bastian's quick redirect. “Micah,” he introduces himself with a little wave just before Shane does, though he seems to like Shane's better from the way his little grin blooms into a smile. “Nice t'meet you. Skates an' bikes, huh? Talented with all kindsa wheels.” His head tilts toward the leaning bike to indicate the source of his commentary. “That’s because,” Kaori says to Shane’s introduction, winking. “I /am/ a boss.” Kaori beams and nods her head when they figure out who Doug is, making her ponytail swing. She is clearly, transparently, crushing on the young man in question. At least her foot isn’t thumping away, out of control. “Hi Bastian. Hi Micah,” she says, enthusiastically. “At least I have the address right! I can go up whenever now. It’s nice to see you again, Shane. You been practicing?” Shane and Sebastian exchange a Look. Shane's lips twitch into a small smirk, though whatever he is clearly /about/ to say is quieted by a small shake of Bastian's head. "Cool!" is what Sebastian says, and then, "wait, oh my gosh, Kaori?" "Yup. Lots of practicing," Shane chirrups now, "and yeah, right building. 403. You should go up, I bet he'd be psyched to see you. When am I going to teach you to throw down?" Sebastian's brows crease at this, though he doesn't correct his brother. "Oh yeah," he tells Micah, "she's talented with all kinds of things. Um -- where do you know Doug from?" “Uh-oh. Now I know I gotta be /worried/ when the battle music starts,” Micah jokes at the boss commentary. He is completely oblivious as to why 'Bastian finds the girl's name so exciting. His mouth opens to correct the apartment number given, but he is distracted by Shane's follow-up question. “You gatherin' more friends t'pummel each other now?” He pops his hat off to fuss his fingers through his hair before putting it right back where it was, hair still sticking out from under it just as messily. Kaori nods, making a mental note. Up close and standing still, it’s possible to see her light makeup job. Probably the only bit of it that stands out is the fact that she got pink and green sparkles into her lashes, /and/ eyebrows somehow. She looks glittery in the afternoon sunlight. “Awesome,” she says, when Shane claims to be practicing, and then she does an excited backflip, just standing there on the sidewalk when Shane mentions the fighting lessons. “Oh shit! I totally forgot!” She’s balancing on the balls of her feet now, pulsing lightly. “Let’s start right now!” Kaori glances around and seems to remember everyone else standing around. “Or I mean, uh…” She glances at Sebastian, her glitterbrows popping up when she remembers his question. “Oh, we met in the skate park, like when I met Shane. He showed me some of his work, and I decided to hire him to do my new site.” So I could spend more time with him because he’s /dreamy/. She doesn’t need to say it out loud, and no one needs to be a mind-reader to pick up her vibe. “You bet, Micah, I’m /super/ dangerous. I’m a regular Sephiroth!” Bounce, spin. Vicious, this one. Very scary. "Wait, this is a bossfight? Aren't they usually more --" Sebastian looks up and down Kaori contemplatively. "They can be deceptive," Shane tells him. "And no I wasn't recruiting for our /army/ I just promised her fighting lessons in exchange for skating lessons. Sebastian tips his head at Kaori's explanation. His hand reaches out, sharp claws curling gently to comb Micah's hair into place. "Web stuff? You shouldn't go to Doug for that," his head shakes, thoughtfully. "He's amazing with a lot of things but Dusk is way better for that niche." "Not /everyone/ we know knows each other," Shane points out with amusement, "you know she hasn't actually met Dusk right?" Sebastian wrinkles his nose sheepishly. "Feels like they do, sometimes." “Apparently this one is super-dangerous,” Micah assures 'Bastian, just repeating the girl's words back. “An' y'got an /army/ now? I can't keep up.” He doesn't protest the hair-combings, especially considering he is sitting right at easy-reach height for such things. His eyes dart back and forth between the twins in their conversation. When the debate starts about best web designers, he holds his hands up, palms-out. “I don't know nothin' about what either of them do, but they both have laptops in front of their noses often enough doin' codey-things. I'm...no help.” She grins at the debate about her fearsome bossness, but settles back on her heels, looking only slightly deflated when Doug’s skills are debated. “Oh, um, I’m pretty sure Doug is the best. I mean, at making webs.” She blinks. Yep, covered that well. “Wait, what do you mean ‘army’?” Kaori says, finally catching on to what should have grabbed her attention before. “Do you train lots of people to fight? Did I randomly make friends with a ninja /master/? This is the best day ever.” She turns her accent up to ‘ridiculous’ when she says ‘ninja master’, and grins. "He really isn't," Sebastian says, but it's offhand and distracted; he clearly does not have a whole wealth of caring to expend on Doug's web skills. Shane just rolls his eyes, though it's hard to see. "{Come on,}" he says to his brother, in Vietnamese after a snort, "{Should just tell her, this is pathetic. Plus you shouldn't make business decisions cuz of wanting to get laid.}" "Lots of people do," Bastian points out, in English here. "/Codey things/?" Now he sounds so amused. "What kind of geek are you? Remind me to give you a crash course sometime." He's still playing at Micah's hair, now more just petting at it than really straightening. "But Doug is incredible when it comes to game development. Or AI. Dusk's been learning web design since basically he could type. Webdev almost as long. They're /totally/ different fields. Any moron can hack you together a --" "You're nerding, dude." Shane interrupts this blandly. "I'm pretty much a ninja master," he agrees with Kaori. "And of course we're an army, what else would I be doing? You know mutants want to take over the world, right?" Micah tries not to giggle at the 'making webs' comment, distracted by images of cartoon Doug-spiders, web-spinning. The Shane Ninja Master picture that comes after does get a snort, however. He blinks at Shane's non-English-talking and shrugs. “I'm the not very computery kind of geek. Things usually come programmed for me an' I just have t'play with the settings. An' that's usually more like...units in prostheses or controls for power chairs or tablets like Horus's.” He blushes faintly, just enough to tint his cheeks pink. “I'm more of a biological systems specialist with some engineerin' thrown in.” Shane's plans for mutant world domination earn a literal face-palm, Micah's forehead meeting his own hand. Kaori looks genuinely confused by the differentiation in Doug’s and Dusk’s skill sets. She glances between the boys when Shane starts speaking Vietnamese, but apparently she doesn’t understand. Finally Kaori just resolves to be a little confused on the topic and lets it go. Even in English the situation is kind of confusing, and even as fluent as she is, she can still miss the finer points of a technical discussion. Her confused face vanishes in favor of a broad grin when Shane boasts of his skills. “Wow, a ninja army would be awesome. I didn’t know mutants were taking over, but they can’t do a worse job than non-mutants.” She shrugs and sits down on the cross beam of her bike, just balancing there without knocking the can over. She looks at Micah again when he starts to explain more. “Whoa, that’s so cool though. So, you design like, super wheelchairs and stuff? I know some guys who play wheelchair basketball. They let me play with them when I’m in town, but those guys play /hard/. Like whoa. Too tough for me. Definitely badass though.” "Do you not watch any news, dude? Just listen to Fox. Mutants totally taking over." Shane leans against the back of Micah's wheelchair, eyes drifting away from the others to turn back across the street to where Jax and his group are still serving food. "S'ok," he adds to Micah, "I'm no kind of geek at all." Sebastian just looks mildly despairing. He fusses more at Micah's hair. "He designs awesome cyborg gear for awesome cyborgs. His army and Shane's are going to battle for world domination some day." “Oh, no, I'm mostly an orthotics and prosthetics guy. I do some of the general assistive tech stuff, too, but not...usually on the innovation front. Except with some special cases recently,” Micah clarifies. “You just have t'figure out what your /thing/ is, kiddo.” He leans back to bonk his head into Shane's stomach where he stands behind him. “Y'can be a geek about just about anythin'...just gotta be really into it.” 'Bastian's cyborg plans earn a headshake, though it is coupled with a grin. “We're not fightin' armies. Besides, Horus already stole mine in advance of it even formin'. It was one of the first things he said once I set 'im up with the tablet, if y'believe that.” The memory prompts a soft chuckle. Kaori makes an exaggerated sour face at the mention of Fox News. “Ew, yuck. No thank you. /Dude/.” She sticks her tongue out at Shane, and listens politely while their father explains certain things about life. She seems mildly disappointed about the lack of future robot vs ninja battle, but she gets over it quickly. “Well still, Shane. I’d like to learn fighting with you sometime. I’m like a helpless baby until you teach me! But I’ll practice hard. Promise.” "I can believe it," Shane says with a snort, "I'm pretty sure Horus has /so many/ plans percolating that people never got to hear before." "You could start learning now," Sebastian suggests, "the roof is usually a good place." Shane crinkles his nose. He slouches lower, dropping his chin onto -- well, Bastian's hand atop Micah's head. "Eh. I don't think I have a Thing. Also I promised Pa I'd help with cleanup I can't go fight things." "I think once the mutants start marching on him, his cyborg army will stand up and defend themselves just fine." Sebastian turns his hand over, squeezing at Shane's chin to give his head a small SHAKE. “There's enough room up on the roof t'do all that safely?” Micah asks, one brow raised in concern. “An', yeah, we should prob'ly help with clean-up. Um. Well, okay, I might not be the /best/ help right now, but moral support! And carryin', if people wanna hand me things an' then push.” He grins at twins again. Constant antics! “Well, maybe I should help clean up? Then it will go faster!” Kaori seems quite intent on getting Shane fast-forwarded into a training montage. Of course, she has no idea what the mess is, but why shouldn’t a world-renowned athlete help with the chores? She waggles sparkly brows at Micah’s suggested mode of clean-up. “That sounds like fun, let’s try it!” "I mean, the roof's as big as -- a whole floor of apartments there's --" Shane waves a hand vaguely towards the building in front of them. "Have to be careful of the garden more than the edge, really." Sebastian leaves off his Shane-jostling to look at Kaori very seriously. "You're not allowed to push unless you make appropriate zooming sound effects." Shane glances back towards the park. "I don't know if they're even done eating yet or not. I guess we could ask." “I'm sure they won't mind an extra pair of hands. Just have t'see if they've gotten t'the point of cleanin' up. Kinda...lost track of time with all the back'n forth across the road.” Micah's hand flutters to the far side of the road and back, as if a visual aid were needed. “I don't know how much space fight-trainin' takes. Just seems like between the gardens an' the furniture an' the maintenance shed an' the vents an' the /drop offs/ on all sides. Be careful, okay?” He /might/ ruin 'Bastian's serious-talk by laughing, though this leaves him wincing just a little by the end of it. “Oh...laughin'. Still not 100% okay. Hm. Well, we won't know when they need us unless we keep checkin' in. So...back across the street with us! /Usin'/ a crosswalk.”