Kenta - Alleyway

Of the many things Kenta had been hit with, a pen was a new one. Hardly enough to really hurt, but it did make him reflexively cut off his foxfire before he could really torch the bastard.

He snarled, turning to the would-be interloper, and saw a young man who looked remarkably out of place in a fight, holding up a piece of paper with 'Kyuubi no Yoko' written on it. Even at this distance, his eyes were sharp enough to read it. "Shit time to ask for an autograph, kid!"

Give in? Me? Who the fuck does he think he- Thought Kenta, standing stock still for a second or two as his body refused to move. Oh goddamn it.

His body visibly twitched, as he tried and failed to blast the poet, but he couldn't. Simmering with hate, indignant that the great Kyuubi would be brought down by some magic poetry bullshit, he nonetheless took two steps away, as the wording of the poem didn't expressly forbid him from running.

Since the heroes seemed to have the drug deal well enough in hand, he figured he'd just slip out and try his luck another day, but his attention was drawn back to the fight when the dealer explained how the arrow worked.

The arrow that Aleksei was still holding.

"Fucking idiots." Kenta felt his chakra suddenly surge as Aleksei grew, and grew, and grew. With the man's threat level suddenly shooting up, Kenta responded in kind by growing a tail of crimson power, chakra swirling around him.

The poem had told him to give in, and for a few seconds he had. But now he was mad, and determined, and while the poem told him not to attack 'us' - the poet and his allies - it said nothing about Aleksei and Luca.

Gathering chakra into his hand, he formed it into a ball, which condensed and darkened from crimson to nearly black, crackling with energy. Then he threw it at Aleksei's chest like a baseball, ready to explode on impact.

Alleyway

"Oooh, nice!" Kareta commented as the cavalry (or rather, main force) arrived and quickly dispatched and restrained the pair of ne'er-do-wells.

"No problemo, old guy!" she assured JoJo, shooting him a thumbs-up in reaction to his thanks.

Moments later, however, Aleksei pricked himself with the "arrowhead", causing him to totally hulk out and grow massive.

"Hmmmm... this might be a problem..." Kareta contemplated, thankful he was facing away from her and toward the Bud-Nippers, then quickly deduced how she might contribute. "Oh well! You know what they say: The bigger they are, the harder they fall!"

Reeling back the Black Monolith in her grip, she backed up a bit, and then with a running start, made a mighty leap toward the back of Aleksei's leg, aiming to thrust her huge shield-like device forward and strike the back of his knee joint to hopefully stagger him a bit.

Edited by darksidevoid on May 1st 2024 at 5:54:02 AM

Doppo Kishibe, Alleyway

"To my knowledge, he hasn't been sighted doing any criminal activity since the disbanding of the Bijuu Boys." Doppo replied to Joseph. "Though he also hasn't been sighted doing much of anything since then. He pretty much disappeared. But even if he genuinely hasn't done anything in that time, there's no telling what he might do if we let him go free. He hasn't stopped being a dangerous individual, and hasn't made any sort of apology for his crimes either. He could easily prey on someone as soon as he's-"

However, their conversation was interrupted by Aleksei's transformation, and Doppo growled as he turned to face the now superpowered thug.

"Ugh, seriously?"

Dealing with him wasn't going to be easy, especially now that he'd seen the poet's powers in action paralyzing the Kyuubi no Yoko. He'd have to think up a new plan, and fast. He pulled another pen from out of his pocket and hurled it at the goon's face, aiming for one of his eyes.

"Take this, you brute!"

The man might have been mostly covered in armor now, but his retinas were probably still just as sensitive as before.

Edited by SushiKraken6414 on May 1st 2024 at 5:26:41 AM

The Alleyway

Aleksei waved his arms and twisted wildly to try and swat away the spirits swarming him, not even noticing the boomerang striking his armor and bouncing off, nor the pen that narrowly missed his eye when it hit his face.

What he did notice was Kenta's energy ball and and the Black Monolith striking him in the chest and leg, respectively. The force knocked him out of the alleyway and off-balance, and he skidded on all fours to stop himself, though it took slamming into a parked car to halt his movement, an impact which crumpled the vehicle.

"HA! Yer nuthin'!" the armored giant roared. "Ya could've beat Aleksei Holden, but ya got nuthin' on RHINO STRANGLE!"

Rhino Strangle looked to the left, then the right, and then the left again, before heading down the road to his right, running on all fours. Any car unlucky enough to not be able to get out of the way was knocked aside by his horn.

"Yer all nuthin'! There ain't nobody who can keep me from getting all da money out of da bank dat I want!!" Rhino Strangle yelled as he charged.

"Well, we're gonna have to slow him down," Joseph remarked. "Because the nearest bank is that way," he said as pointed in the opposite direction Rhino Strangle was heading. "So who knows how far he's gonna go."

Retracting his cable, Joseph turned to Kareta. "I don't know who you are, ma'am, but I can tell a no-power guy like him has got nothing on you," he said as he gestured his chin towards Luca, who had started running down the alleyway as soon as his legs were free. "If you want to help us out, keep him from getting away. We need to ask him a couple questions."

With that, Joseph started running after Rhino Strangle, using his right hand to keep his hat from flying off his head.

Blaze Butterfly- Alleyway

While most of the rest where looking over the situation from a camara in the restaurant, Blaze butterfly, magical fire princess from another dimension was spying the situation of the superpower sell hidden from a top a building next to the alleyway since her appearance as an anthro cat would draw too much attention in public, as the bald man suddenly become a massive rhino brute, Blaze knew she couldn't stay idly anymore, as he began to rampage she ran right after him, running so fast she was running down the building vertically as she went down, leaving a trail of fire as she passed, quickly she arrived to him and began to run in circles around him creating a huge fire tornado around him hoping to stop him or at least slow him down.

Anemone- Alleyway

A bit disappointed that the boomerang didn’t do anything, Anemone raised her hand and caught the boomerang as it returned. “This nullhead ain’t going down without a fight, huh? Let’s see what happens when I shoot him.” With that, she took out her gun, aimed it at the fleeing Aleksei, and began to charge up the weapon. After a short time, she pulled the trigger, releasing a long barrage of white bullets at the brute.

Alleyway

Jaden watched with the others as the man morphed into a stronger, more unnatural form before them. Out of the corner of his eye, he also noticed the man he had aimed a fireball at earlier running deeper into the alleyway.

"You guys take the big guy, I'll go after the one with the shades!" Jaden called out to anyone who was listening, having made the split-second decision to do just that. While it probably would've been more fun to lob fireballs at the armoured Aleksei, most of the good guys here were focused on him already, leaving an all but open escape route for the greasy dealer that someone was going to have to block off. Not to mention, he couldn't really afford to goof off right now after being so late.

Jaden gave chase to the now-fleeing Luca, drawing a card from his deck as he sprinted down the alley. As he ran, he rotated the 'Burstinatrix' card on his Dual Set-Up Disk 90 degrees and slammed a new card down onto it with a cry of 'Come on out, Elemental HERO Clayman!'

Jaden's actions caused a hulking, nine-foot-tall figure with orange, cracked skin to materialise a distance in front of him. If he had managed to close the distance between himself and Luca, the clay giant would be standing in front of both of them, blocking off the rest of the alley to cut off Luca's escape route.

Doppo Kishibe, Alleyway

Doppo produced another pen, and tossed it at Luca as the criminal fled, hoping that in combination with Jaden's Clayman, that would be enough to take him down. He then began to join Joseph in chasing after Aleksei, though he was looking all around at his surroundings as he did so.

"We're probably not going to catch up to him on foot at this rate, not when he's got that power-up. We'll need a bike or a car, or else we won't be able to-"

However, he immediately stopped in his tracks when Blaze made her entrance, crossing his arms.

"...Finally. Took her long enough..."

Edited by SushiKraken6414 on May 3rd 2024 at 4:35:59 AM

Kenta - Alleyway

The armored man ran off to rob a bank (why he would announce this was a mystery; from the sound of his voice, his intelligence had gone down as his strength went up) which left Kenta with the option to do the same. The heroes weren't gunning for him, so he could just leave.

And he would have, really, but the thing about demon foxes was that they had a certain stubborn pride. "You lot are lucky I'm feeling charitable today." Kenta rumbled, dropping to all fours and taking off after the charging self-proclaimed rhino.

Even with only one tail, he could move quite quickly, and so he swiftly caught up to the fleeing Aleksei. Seeing the cat woman surround the man with flames, Kenta took a deep breath and roared, unleashing a blast of wind that melded with the fire and fanned it, his own chakra suffusing with the magic of the fire-tornado and focusing it to an even hotter temperature.

It was a trick he'd done with Tabi, back in the day. Funny coincidence it was, meeting another flaming she-cat.

Alleyway

"You got it, old-timer!" Kareta confirmed, turning back towards the freed Luca and bending down into a runner's crouch for a moment - but only for a moment, because a second later, she was off, sprinting full-tilt after the dripping Mafia member, not seeming encumbered by the huge slab in her right hand at all.

At Jaden's summoning of Clayman, she bared her teeth in a grin and shouted, "Nice move, red guy!"

Depending on whether Clayman had been summoned behind or in front of Luca, Kareta would take the dealer's opposite side, either jumping over his head again to land in front of him and turning her device to form a wall blocking off his escape, or simply rotating the Black Monolith to do the same if she was taking the side closest to Jaden.

"I said it before, and I'll say it again~!" she trilled, smirking. "Nowhere~ to~ run~!"

Alleyway

Luca had been hoping to escape while everyone was distracted by Aleksei gaining powers. Unfortunately, when the hulking Clayman appeared in front of him, it became clear his running had not gone unnoticed.

Acting too fast to really consider how likely it was to work, Luca attempted to strike Clayman with his shovel... but before he could make the hit, Luca screamed in pain when Doppo's pen sunk into his right shoulder.

Dropping his shovel, Luca reached into his jacket to grab his right side (though his hand seemed to be too low compared to the wound) and spun around to try and figure out who else was attacking him... and found himself face-to-face with Jaden and Kareta.

"You know, this deal was going perfectly fine until you showed up," Luca spat at Kareta. "Someone should've taught you not to butt in where you're not NEEDED!"

With that last word, Luca pulled his left arm out of his jacket, now clutching a knife he had tucked away, and thrust it as hard as he could at Kareta's chest.

Alleyway

"A regular knife? Oh no!" Kareta enunciated dryly, easily managing to block it with her Black Monolith, and then shoving the shield-like device forward to hopefully push the thug back. If she succeeded, she would press forward in an effort to make the space between herself and Clayman even more tight and uncomfortable for Luca.

"You're selling stuff that gives people superpowers for $5k a pop," she pointed out in the meantime. "I think that means pretty soon there's gonna be people who say we were needed here. Maybe someone shoulda taught you not to mess with random superpower-giving artifacts?"

Edited by darksidevoid on May 3rd 2024 at 1:37:40 PM

Rebis floated past the the screaming Russian towards Luca, creating a small invisible spirit hand. They then used the hand to pick up the used arrow off the ground. "Y'know out of all the ways you could gain superpowers, some weird antique arrow is probably not the most elegant way to do it." they said, examining the artifact.

Edited by nellyfrommovies on May 3rd 2024 at 3:37:53 PM

Alleyway

Luca was easily shoved back by Kareta's push, and when he bumped into Clayman, he jostled the pen lodged in his shoulder, making him wince in pain and drop the knife.

"Owowow! Okay. Okay. Okay! I give! I give!" Luca cried out, holding up his hands in surrender. "And if you have a problem with the Arrowheads, take it up with the man up top. This was his idea."

Streets

While Rhino Strangle was caught in Blaze's fire tornado, it did nothing to reduce his speed. However, with Kenta having raised the temperature further, Rhino Strangle emerged from the flames with his metal hide glowing red hot, and when Anemone's bullets struck his back, they easily punched holes into it, with some even starting to leak blood.

"We could do that," Joseph told Doppo as he ran after Rhino Strangle, noticing that his wounds were at least keeping him from gaining anymore speed. "Or we can make him slow down!" With that, Joseph shot out his cable at Rhino Strangle, using his ki manipulation to wrap it around one of the thug's rear legs. However, while this slowed Rhino Strangle down slightly, he was still moving fast enough that Joseph was now getting dragged behind the charging villain.

"Woah!" Joseph exclaimed, grabbing his left arm to make sure his mechanical hand didn't get yanked off. "Anemone, Blaze, Rebis! I need some help here! Kishibe, once we slow him down, get our big fella over here to read something that'll make him stop running!"

Rebis saw their friend being dragged along and immediately yelled out "Got it!" Rebis then darted over and sent out their negative form. Moving in front Aleksei, they put their hands on his shoulders, discharging large amounts of negative energy to stun him.

Anemone grinned when she saw her shots made their mark. “Just like he taught me,” she said to no one in particular. She snapped to attention when she heard Joseph’s cry for help. “On my way, bud! Don’t sweat it!” Running towards him, she shoot her grappling hook towards Rhino’s leg, hoping to hog-tie him with the rope.

Doppo Kishibe, Streets

"Understood." Doppo replied to Joseph's request, though his vision drifted over towards Anenome's gun. A weapon that was devastating, had very good range, and could be used for grappling...he wasn't too fond of guns, but he had to admit, that was a weapon he wished he had, especially right now. But he could think about that later. Right now, he had to focus on the task at hand.

He pulled out yet another pen, but instead of using this one as a projectile, he began writing in his notebook, preparing a poem to present to Rhino Strangle.

Oh Rhino Strangle

Cease all movement and comply

Obey us, you brute.

He tensed up, ready to move in an instant and thrust it in the criminal's face as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Alleyway

"Thanks... well, whoever you are," Jaden responded, giving a quick thumbs up to the armoured girl's words of encouragement. Clayman remained unmoving, not flinching when a shovel was swung at him or when the digging implement's owner backed into him.

Jaden closed in at the same time as Kareta did, staring him down. She seemed to want to do all the talking, which was fine by him for now, especially since she was actually raising some pretty good points.

When Luca surrendered, Jaden quickly ordered "Clayman, grab him," a command which the Dual Set-Up Monster immediately complied with by lunging forward to clasp both of his sandpapery hands around Luca's torso. Jaden then turned to Kareta and asked "You wouldn't happen to have any rope on you, would you? We'll need a more permanent way to restrain this guy." Turning back to Luca, Jaden narrowed his eyes and slowly asked "Now then... what exactly do you know about these Arrowheads?"

Edited by TheGoldLeaf on May 5th 2024 at 7:40:13 PM

Kenta - Streets

The flames didn't quite burn him, but they did seem to weaken his metal plates. While the others threw out ropes to slow him down, Kenta dashed past him, leaping off of several buildings and spinning to a stop in front of the charging beast.

His energy crackled with the faintest beginnings of a second tail, as he rose from all fours and swung his clawed hand upward at the air.

With a burst of energy, his claw unleashed a shockwave that would hopefully bowl the villain over so he could be more easily bound.

Alleyway

"Look, kid, I just sell whatever Headman gives me," Luca replied, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know how he got them. All I know about these things is that whoever the pricks themself with one first gets waaayy stronger."

The name Luca mentioned might ring a bell for Jaden if he recalled the briefings the Bud Nippers had before the stakeout. "Headman" Massimo was the most notorious drug distributor in Synthe City, and it was confirmed that he had ties to the Eight Passions. However, he knew to cover his tracks where it counted, and it was unknown who "Headman's" supplier was. But whoever it was presumably knew more about the Arrowheads...

streets, Blaze butterfly

Blaze felt shocke and a bit frustrated that the rhino man was barely even affected by her fire tornado, even after the fox guy began adding to her technique, but she trusted that her writing companion may be able to stop him with a little help "Roger mister Joseph" she responded to the orders of her team leader, she ran back to grab on to Doppo so she could carry him in front of Rhino "read him your Hokui or whatever it's called, before he crashes into someone" she said while holding him as steadily as she could would running away backwards from a rampaging brute.

Alleyway

"Nope, don't got any rope on me!" Kareta admitted freely, then cocked her head in thought. "Maybe we could break his legs so he can't run?"

Then came Luca's admission that he was just a small cog in a much larger machine. A machine orchestrated by "Headman" Massimo, if his words were any indication. Kareta's eyes briefly flickered a brighter red as she quickly did some research on the name "Headman" in relation to drugs. She processed the many news stories about the city's most notorious drug dealer in a couple seconds, then frowned, glaring hard at the peon.

"Where and how does Headman distribute the goods, and how does he arrange meetings?!" she demanded sharply. "You better start spilling the beans, or else we start breaking your bones, one by one!"

Edited by darksidevoid on May 7th 2024 at 11:14:25 AM

Streets

Rhino Strangle's charge slowed as he pushed against Rebis, and even more when Anemone wrapped her grappling hook around his other hind leg. Eventually, he was reduced to the speed of the average jogger as he continued to press forwards, past a sporting goods store, a flower shop, a bank, a book store, a... wait a minute.

Joseph looked back behind him to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Nope, as indicated by the well-lit sign on the front of the building, Rhino Strangle had indeed charged right past a bank. But why? He didn't seem smart enough to be trying to trick them, but it could be part of the act...

But as Joseph tried to figure out what the thug was doing, Rhino Strangle was hit by Kenta's shockwave, and the force was enough to slow him down enough for Blaze to safely get Doppo in front of him without fear of the two of them getting trampled. With Doppo thrusting the poem in his face, Rhino Strangle was able to take a good, long look at it...

...and then reared back up into an upright position.

"The two of ya think a piece of paper can stop ME!?" Rhino Strangle roared as he raised his arms over his head, and then swung them down in front of him in an effort to smash Doppo, Blaze, and Rebis.

Alleyway

Luca's eyes went wide behind his sunglasses upon hearing Kareta's threats to start breaking his limbs.

"WHOA WHOA WHOA!! Are you crazy!" he cried as he began to squirm in Clayman's grip, though it was pretty clear he wasn't going to be breaking it anytime soon. "You think I'm going to tell you something like that out in the open?! If they find out I ratted them out, they'll do way worse to me than whatever you've got planned! Throw me into whatever cell you want; you're not getting a word out of me!"

Edited by RapidFirestormer on May 7th 2024 at 11:35:03 AM

Blaze Butterfly, streets

As the haiku spell ended up having no effect, Blaze growled in frustration at how it was starting to feel like anything they threw at him was useless, as he tried to crush her and her allies, she grab onto them and pulled them away as she jumped to the side to get out of him stampede.

"ok the fancy words didn't work, are there any other ideas?" she asked not sure if she tried using her wand, if she made a mistake she could just end up making the situation worst.

Alcides Itto's Dynamic Entry

Alcides was late to the party, that was true. He'd have to apologize to the head honcho later. As for why he was late? Well, he wanted only the best impression on his teammates (he didn't consider the fact that he was late might impact said impression).

The Raging Oni panted, tiredly hunched over as he desperately kept up with Rhino Strangler over the rooftops, his teammates doing their best to slow down the monster. When the shockwave hit Rhino Strangler ( "Dang, these guys are something else...") and the magical creature tugged their allies away, Alcides saw his chance and jumped in with an elbow drop, hollering.

"HERALD THE ALMIGHTY OX KING!"

The oni would try to land his elbow drop on the distracted Rhino Strangler. If it hurt him, whatever, it would be Worth It.

Edited by Jules-Firenze on May 8th 2024 at 2:55:12 AM