Summary:Razorfist assaults a fun pier - and is promptly stopped. Log Info:Storyteller: Robbie Baldwin |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
"WINNERS! COME OUT TO PLAY-AY!"
Midway barkers call to passersby enjoying the day at the Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. All manner of improbably difficult games are crammed in beneath and between the larger rides and interspersed throughout an unending slew of fast-food kiosks and carts.
"THAT'S RIGHT! ANYONE CAN BE A WINNER! GOTTA PLAY TO WIN!"
Among the park's attendees are two parents and their teenage son.
"Robbie," the mother asks, "do you want to play one of the games?"
"Maddie, honestly," the father says with an exasperated sigh. "If he wanted to, he'd say so. Wouldn't you, son?"
Robbie rubs his face and groans. "Can you two just /not/, today? I thought the whole point of this trip was to try to act like a happy family."
"You see, Justin?" Maddie huffs, gesturing at the son. "This is the grief you cause him…"
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE AT THE PARK:
A man working a churro stand sees something that terrifies him, and he shouts in terror. He drops a churro he'd been handing to a customer and sprints, limbs flailing wildly, toward the park entrance.
From the crowd behind him, a man sheds his trenchcoat to reveal a sleeveless black leather shirt and mask. Most noticeable, though, are his two arms - arms ending not in hands but in long machete-like blades.
"Joe Zheng!" the costumed man calls. "You can't run any longer!"
Several people gasp or shout in surprise, and crowds form as they try to get out of the way of this figure.
Somewhere out on the parking lot, Junko had parked her Orange Fury colored Ford Mustang GT before getting access to the fun pier in just her standard clothing. Jeans, T-Shirt, a leather jacket with a stylized golden-white figure on the back with a 38 under it. Not a biker gang emblem but a ninetails with the connected pokemon above.
Roaming the stands, she's pretty much unarmed as she's out on leisure, not vigilantism. Which is exactly the moment the blade-handed man decides to shed his disguise and call out for a challenge. Great, isn't it?
"Yomi be damned…" she utters under her breath as people start to run away screaming and she starts to move in the opposite direction, making a quick detour through an abandonned stall to pick up one of the canival masks they offer while dropping a 10-dollar bill into the still open register and slamming it shut.
Razorfist jogs, picking up pace to chase after his target.
Joe Zheng, for his part, knocks over a trash can, ducks around a midway game stand, and attempts to hide in the middle of a fleeing throng.
"I don't want to die!" someone in the crowd screams before pushing Joe away. "You'll get us all killed!"
Razorfist, in his pursuit, isn't quite sprinting, but easily clears the hurdles set up to slow him down.
Hearing the shouts, Robbie frowns. "Uh, mom? dad? I think I need to use the bathroom…"
Both parents shake their heads. "No, it looks like we need to go," Maddie sighs. "Can you hold it?"
"To Connecticut?" Justin scoffs. "Ridiculous. Son, you do your business. I'll stand guard outside the bathroom door." He nods his head defiantly at his wife.
"Great, great," Robbie says, trudging into the restroom building. Moments later, a colorful figure leaps out from a back window, bouncing and flipping toward the source of the noise.
Razorfist, nearing his target, raises back an arm to prepare a deadly thrust of his arm-blade. "Courtesy of the Triads, Joe. You understand," he says coldly.
The thrust suddenly ends up with the blade stuck in a lamp-post, courtesy of a bouncy teen landing on it and then ricocheting up into the air.
"Oops!" Speedball calls out with a grin and a shrug. "As an old TV show character used to say: 'did I do that?'"
Razorfist grits his teeth and yanks his arm out of the post. "Okay, then. Looks like there's gonna be two dead bodies before the day's out."
Having slipped the ask on in full pursuit to at least do a token effort of covering her identity, Junko comes in dashing from behind Razorfist, right as he boldly claims to make his count double the amount he's paid for.
"Or none," she claims as she tries to kick him into the knees from behind, trying to get Razorfist onto the ground, in her left hand a bundle of thin rope.
Razorfist swings at Speedball as the masked marvel descends, and the teen hero grimaces for just a moment.
Joe Zheng takes the opportunity to collect his wits, scramble to his feet, and run off toward the entrance once more.
Junko's foot lands true, and the bladed mercenary suddenly drops several feet. "Wha-?!" he asks, more in surprise than pain, swinging blindly with his other arm to reach or feel for whoever is behind him.
Razorfist's change in attack toward Speedball has the additional unforeseen consequence of batting the boy off into a nearby midway game. Speedball knocks over a set of milk bottles and bounces back and forth around in the game box, launching hanging prizes into the air, before he himself springs back out and onto his feet.
In the game box, the center bottom milk bottle remains standing. Speedball chuckles. "Everybody's a winner, my butt," he calls.
The girl with the venetian mask just narrowly avoids the blind strike by Razorfist. A moment later she retributes in a fluid motion, sticking out her elbow as she throws herself down towards the felled masked attacker, aiming to hit his solarplexus.
Stunning Razorfist for just long enough to get a hold on him, she spun him to lay on his belly and knelt onto him, pinning him to the ground. The next moment she starts to unravel the rope from her left hand, looping it around the neck of Razorback in an attempt to start immobilizing him.
"Gack!" Razorfist spits out as he's pinned. He flails, trying to dislodge his assailant or better position himself - but that's quite tricky to do without opposable thumbs or even hands from which to push.
What ends up happening, then, is that he scrapes his arm-blades on the park concrete and curses in several languages at the rope expert.
Speedball strides over on light-footed half-steps, half-jumps. "Whoa!" he says, kneeling nearby (but out of reach from Razorfist). "That's incredible. Are you, like, a cowboy or something?" he asks to Junko, before adding quietly to himself: "I need to learn how to use a lasso…"
Not far away, Justin Baldwin bangs on the restroom door. "Robbie! You doing alright in there, son? That chili dog not settling well?"
After looping the rope around the neck, Junko starts to tie up one arm to his side with a few quick loops but taking care to not get the rope in the way of the blades. It's normal rope after all.
Without looking up, the girl replies while she works on the other arm, both upper arms pulled somewhat to the back of Razorfist, leaving his lower arm replacements to flop around all he wants but withoug a chance to reach the rope itself. "Na, that's Hojojutsu. The martial art of tying up criminals," she explains, pulling the rope tight.
"I see," says Speedball, clearly not following. "I couldn't even get the merit badge for it."
Razorfist, futilely struggling, sneers and looks up to the two heroes from the corner of his eye. "You two morons don't even know how dead you are. But you will. I /know/ people. Even witness protection won't be safe."
Speedball glances to Junko. "Well, I don't really know people. But I'm pretty sure that whoever this guy was after got away, so I'm gonna say my chances of survival are pretty decent. You?"
"More than decent chances," Junko remarks as she stands up, making sure to stay out of the way of the flailing razorback blade arms… or chicken wings.
With a little laugh, she points to the flailing Razorback. "What we do with him? Chicken dinner? Or want to call press to get a photoshoot?"
Slapping his forehead - which causes a number of colorful spheres to erupt for a moment from the point of impact - Speedball exhales audibly. "I'm such an idiot. I'll call the cops. I just … I hadn't seen anyone literally rope their enemy into submission. It was fascinating."
He gets up and stretches. "Ok. You stay here with him? Or make sure he's tied to something that'll keep him here?"
The teen springs into the air and over the restroom roof.
A minute later, Robbie Baldwin emerges, coughing heavily. "Whew. Sorry, dad. It was - well, you don't want to go in there." He slips his phone into his pocket.
Justin Baldwin shakes his head. "Yeah, I bet I don't, pal."
Maddie Baldwin points over to the nearby scene. "You two will /never/ believe what happened! It was incredible! I - I think if we stick around, I can do an interview for the news and get my face back out there." She waves excitedly at the hojojutsu heroine.
Justin rolls his eyes.
Luckily, police had already been called, and the sirens grow louder before a few uniformed officers arrive on the scene to deal with the situation.
One of them looks at Razorfist and lifts her radio. "We're gonna need SWAT, I think, just for protection. The guy's got swords for hands. Yes. No, I'm not making that up, dispatch. No, it's not Edward Scissorhands. Thanks."
Razorfist mutters under his breath.
Junko Saito says, "Oh, he'll be fine. A nice chicken tied up in a way just a foot can keep him down," Junko answers with a chuckle, waving to the leaving Speedball, just making sure he doesn't get up.
While she waits for the police, she gives a short courtsy wave to the passing Maddie Baldwin, still only guarding her public identity by pretty much a carnival mask.
As police arrives she steps back from him, approaching the officer, hands well visible. "I tied him up as a citizen's arrest while he was in the act of comitting a violent crime. You take it from here, Officer?" she asks, carefully looking back to Razorfist to make sure he stays down. "I suggest calling a fire engine and have them use car shears on the blades to make him transport safe.""
The officer slides her hat back on her head and wipes her brow. "Uhhh … yeah. Yeah, we've got it." She looks to Junko. "You mind giving a statement? I mean, we're collecting a few, but you're clearly a bit more on the ball with all of this -" she gestures at Razorfist, "- than most of the people trying to just get to safety."
Razorfist sniffs. "I want my lawyer. Make sure they don't scuff these babies up. You know how hard it is to keep fine-tuned tools of the trade when you don't have hands?"
The officer stares for a long moment at the tied-up villain and then turns back to Junko. "You know, I'll do that. You mind hanging around, you know, as a concerned bystander until he's readied for safe transport? I haven't been involved in too many of these kinds of incidents yet."
"Well, yea, I can give a statement. I mean, I heard him make a commotion and people screamed about him having blade-hands. Took him down and tied him up like the chicken there. I think he was after someone," Junko explains to the officer, shrugging a little, that venetian mask still on her face.
"Hm," the officer says. "Alright." She takes a moment to radio to someone about a potential, unknown target. "We'll get the area cordoned as best we can, in case that person comes to us."
After a moment, backup arrives to help with crowd control and investigation, including a SWAT escort to move Razorfist into a van.
"Thanks for the help. Any codename I should put on this report?" the officer asks.
The girl shrugs a moment, then lifts a finger "Uh, put down Firefox. Might be the first record to be tagged that way, havn't had a run in…" she explains, smiling a little. "Can I leave now?"