#therighteousflst

“stay back.”

They’re shivering. It’s cold, and Chara has been crouched in their hiding place in the alley for the last six hours— maybe even longer. They can’t remember how long it’s been since they ran off. Bare toes curl into the asphalt, and Chara is baring their wooden knife at the perceived threat.

There are more of those zombies in the streets. Chara is small, and quick, and avoids humans as a rule anyway. It had been easy to find a tucked away spot, but it figures that someone had come through.

Their hands are shaking. Chara curls their fingers around the blades hilt.

Wearing white at midnight certainly was a choice for a prowler, and definitely a statement. Perhaps it was a little to early to tell what kind of statement it was- bold and foolhardy, or a brightly calculated warning... like the toxic blowfish Daud's mother once harvested for poisons and hallucinogens.

White cowl, white mask, white wrappings- it was difficult for something like that to not draw the assassin's attention. But he'd been trained for years to look up and peer over rooftops. Most folk did not- something that he and his Whalers exploited for years.

Life on Earth was calm and peaceful but most of the time it was slow. Agonizingly so. Nothing like the pace he was used to out in space, Guardians of the Galaxy at his side. Every day was a new distress call, a new enemy, a new adventure. On Earth he was lucky if he got mail on a week for his dose of excitement.

This was the perfect opportunity. A world full of monsters and creatures and whatever else lurked in the darkness that Peter - no - that Star-Lord could defend the good people of Radial Island from. If maybe, just maybe there was a good score for him along the way, that'd just be a welcome bonus.

So here he was, on the dark streets of Fibonacci late at night, donning his helmet and...fists. No blasters and nothing similar yet. At least he was a decent enough fighter.

He hears the clattering of something or someone landing on a building above him and jerks his head up, eyes widening at the silhouette of a hooded creature against the bright light of the moon.

"No way..." He'd heard of this guy, seen pictures of this guy in the newspapers but never met him, unlike Iron Man, Thor and the rest.

"Moon Knight?!"

coming into awareness without any idea of where he was or how he came to be was, unfortunately, not a new concept for chuuya. but that didn't mean he was happy about his situation one bit. if he understood his situation right, there was no way he could be happy. to simply be the accidental byproduct of some higher being's mistake? hell if he could accept that.

Give my muse an item and see how they react!

A last, brutal blow sends his enemy sprawling: pathetic, now, beaten and bruised, too winded to call any more magic to sting with. He wheezes, trying to lever himself up with the hand that isn't holding a broken nose; a clawed hand stops that in its tracks, grabs him roughly by the hair and hoists him up with a snarl.

Pathetic. He'd thought himself so powerful before, pushing around prey who couldn't fight back. Now he stinks of piss and sour fear, trembling in the grip of a predator much higher on the food chain than he will ever be.

Words take a moment, come out guttural, growled.

"Don't. Pull this shit. Again."

The gasping response - high-pitched pleas, squealed promises - only irritates further. The man is dropped with a thud and a last, growled "Go" - luckily for him, he goes.

The beast left behind growls, punches the wall once out of leftover frustration. There's no satisfaction in restraint; he wants to chase the man down, to rip, to tear, to really show him what his targets felt....

Fingers fumble in a shirt pocket, practiced movements only slightly hindered by the presence of claws.

Breathe in. Out.

A click of a lighter: the stench of tobacco.

In.

Out.

[ patch ] sender patches receiver up using makeshift materials (i.e. torn shirt).

She should have known better than to try and handle fragile things. The glass ornament all but shattered in her grip, and sliced her hand up because of it. What she didn’t expect, though, was a stranger taking note and taking it upon themselves to try and help.

“You don’t have too-“ She stammers, hissing softly as a piece of fabric is hurriedly shoved into her palm, gripping it tightly after it’s wrapped a couple times, though the obvious smell of burnt fabric quickly followed as her virus started regenerating the lacerations at a rapid rate.

Those would be healed in the next 20 minutes, easy, but she draws the hand up against her chest, finally taking the time to really look over who had come to her rescue.

He looked like someone right out of the old superhero comics back home… What a hell of a costume.

Ikki was getting desperate. There seemed to be no jobs in Spirale or all its branches that he was genuinely qualified for. But he needed to eat, damnit, and a month's worth of food money was already running out fast. Damn his being a spellcaster with a ludicrous metabolism. But where the hell was he supposed to go, when all of his 'experience' wasn't his experience, but the memories of someone else? He was a Replica. A copy. And while he had a good relationship with the man he'd been copied from, that didn't fuck him over in this endeavor any less.

He was getting desperate, and he'd heard rumors.

Something about how desperate people could find a particular building in Fibonacci, and ask for help. Something about how travelers under the Moon were protected by a white crescent.

So, Ikki took a Corridor from Archimedes to Fibonacci, and started searching. He didn't have to search for long.

The architecture sure was unique--it didn't fit in either with the steampunk aesthetic of surface Fibonacci, nor the cyberpunk aesthetic of downtown. It looked more like it belonged somewhere in the spookiest parts of New York. Ikki tried not to stare too hard at the gargoyles leering down from above--just in case--as he headed inside.

"Hello? Is anyone--oh shit fuck. Damn, man."

He turned, and there he was--a man all in white, with a white mask that covered his entire head, sprawled in an armchair like a mob boss, seated under a statue of some Egyptian-type god that Ikki didn't know, couldn't name. He tried not to stare at the statue, either--the fine hairs on his arms were already standing on end.