[Dane Wayland]

(CW: Violence -- per usual with this frickin' dude, amirite)

"Okay, okay.... let me go, Wayland, and I'll fucking," the words pitched high at the end as Snowcone adjusted her grip on the man's ripped bicep; coaxing a sharp hiss from his lips and a new sheen of sweat across his twisting face. "I'll fucking tell you!"

Dane pushed away from the streetsign he'd leaned against and shifted his weight to one foot. Watching the panting figure below him, he lifted a hand to cradle his jaw and hummed thoughtfully. "Sounds like... a pretty good idea, don't you think, Snow?" he asked after a long, musing moment, his voice laced throughout with a sickening amount of deliberate lightness. Tapping the tip of his knife against his cheek, he snapped the fingers of his other hand and nodded when Snowcone gave the guy's arm one last, painful squeeze before releasing him. A smirk curled at the corner of the guild member's mouth as he watched the male wince and whimper, before his beady little eyes rose and his arm began a slow — and what Dane imagined was meant to be inconspicuous — sweep to the gun concealed at his waist.

Dane whistled quietly and let the man's fingers brush against the handle — let him think he was a breath away from saving himself — before his lip curled further into a lopsided smile and he nodded again. With a snarl, Snowcone snapped her jaws about the man's forearm and tossed her head violently from side to side; only ceasing when she felt Dane's hand on her head and the man's shouts had quieted to shuddering whimpers.

"But here's the deal, Dale." Dane's voice remained unchanged, neutral and light, as he bent down, scratched behind Snowcone's ears and wiped the sweaty bangs from the man's face with the tip of his knife. "You tell me.... exactly what my father's wanting to know, okay. Or I'll kill you. Hmm... you following?" Dale's eyes had fluttered closed and Dane slapped lightly at his face to keep him from passing out. "Hey, stay with me baby, we're not done yet." Mouth pulling into a frown, Dane grabbed the man's chin between his fingers and tried shaking him back to awareness. Blood trickled from his face and down Dane's hand, into the sleeve of his jacket, and the warm feel of it made him chuckle. As he released the man and Dale's chin fell to his chest with a weak pant, the guild member drew his bloodied fingers down his own face and sighed as the hot scarlet smeared across his features.

Pushing back to his feet, Dane called Snowcone off with a featherlight stroke down the dog's spit-slathered muzzle and watched with the beginnings of disdain as Dale slumped forward and tried cradling his mangled arm against himself. Cocking his head to the side, Dane gave a disappointed sigh before kicking the bloodied mess of flesh back out with the toe of his shoe and pinning the man's fingers to the dirty cement by leaning a fair amount of weight onto one foot. As the first crack brought a cry from the man (and attested that he was, in fact, awake), Dane eased back and tapped his toe at the wedding band on his broken middle finger. "Your wife's name, Dale, what was it again? Rosemary? Rosie? No... real pretty name, real fitting. Oh, that's right — Rosalind. Yeah, that's it."

Dale's eyes lifted to Dane again, suddenly dark beneath the hazy pain, and the guild member smiled back as he kneeled to slip the gun from the man's belt. "Lie to me and Snowcone will have to take a bite outta her, too." On cue, Snowcone leaned forward to sniff deliberately at Dale's clothes; growl rumbling deep and dangerous from her throat as her lip curled up over her teeth. "Isn't that right, ya good girl?" Dane quipped happily, throwing an arm around the massive dog and tugging her closer to him. Snowcone's growl grew louder and more warning at the contact, but she still licked at the blood on his face before drawing her hardened gaze back to Dale.

"What.... what does Antonio want to know?" The man croaked finally and Dane laughed heartily as he slipped the gun into his own waistband. "There we go, baby! That wasn't so difficult, right?"

- - -

OOC: Open to anyone, feel free to timeskip if ya wanna and just have Dane walking out the alley or through the street or something.

[Deleted]

Her dad would have a fit over her for this. And she knew, Osh knew, this wasn’t smart. When she first turned her bike into the entrance of the alleyway for a shortcut and saw the scene unfolding, the firs thought had absolutely been to turn around and call the police from a safe distance. That man had a gun and that dog didn’t exactly look like a friendly pupper and Osh wasn’t stupid enough to think all the martial arts classes in the world would protect her from a bullet or those teeth.

But.

The dude bent over the other had a gun and the mutt did look pretty vicious. And the man on the ground was already visibly bleeding. And Osh couldn’t live with it if she could have intervened some kind of way and didn’t and found out later someone died. So here she was announcing herself to what was definitely some kind of dangerous criminal like she wasn’t a hundred pound soaking wet and could actually do something other than get seriously hurt in this situation.

”Hey!” Osh shouted in as hard a tone as she could muster, pushing the visor on her helmet up with what hopefully looked more like a determined glare and less like an ‘what have I gotten myself into’ expression, trying to keep any waver from her jackhammering heart out of her voice.

”Break it up y’all or I’m callin the cops!” One hand stayed on the throttle, more than ready to book it in the let’s-be-real-pretty-likely event that this all went super sideways but the other brandished her phone as threateningly as possible, thumb hovering ready to dial nine one one.

Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

Just as Dale was becoming more agreeable — more complacent and pliable under the threats— there was the growl of an approaching motorbike. Both men turned their heads, eyes drawing to the source at the mouth of the alley. A woman idled there, brandishing her phone in one hand like a weapon as she called out to them. Her voice, as well as her small frame and the peek of her eyes under a lifted visor, implied youth.

Dane shucked a suffering sigh before casting Dale a dark, warning look. He could almost hear the chiding voices now, berating him for being hasty and impatient. While it was probably true, he should have taken Dale somewhere a little more backwater, where someone wasn't likely to come upon them, an underused alley had seemed private and appropriate enough at the time. He'd been so eager to begin. It was simply bad luck that this woman, or this girl, had turned down this way. More bad luck that she felt she had to play Good Samaritan rather than turn the other cheek and speed off another way.

Dane straightened, angled his body toward the happenstance intruder, and plastered on a toothy, placating smile. He regretted the warm crimson he'd smeared across his face with an inward sigh. Must he be so self-indulgent and dramatic all the time? He lifted his hands in front of him, palms out and fingers splayed, and let his knife drop to clatter loudly against the concrete. "Alright, hey," he tipped his head, voice dropping imploringly. "We're just having a bit of grown-up, dudes-being-dudes fun."

His eyes flickered again to the phone in her hands. What to do? Snowcone was quick enough to close the gap between them before the girl could get turned around. Strong and large enough to upend the bike with her body. But Dane imagined the girl would likely scream and draw more attention where there was already too much. He supposed he could leave Dale there and split, but a lot of people would be pissed. And Dale had been difficult to track down once, a second time would be harder.

As if answering some subconscious cue, Snowcone whiffled low in her throat and took a few steps forward, hackles raised. "Sit!" Dane commanded, smile unflinching. She planted herself immediately, fluffy tail sweeping back and forth, scattering pebbles and loose rocks across the alleyway. The girl had obviously seen him stow away Dale's gun, so with one palm still raised pacifyingly, he drew it from his waistband with the other — moving slow and measuredly so as to not spook her. Holding it out before him, he released the mag and cleared the chamber. "We may have taken it a bit far, I agree." Dane chanced a small, untroubled chuckle. "But we're all friends here, isn't that right?"

He kicked lightly at Dale's shoe, and the man drew his gaze slowly to Dane's face from where he was looking so obviously at the dropped knife, contemplating his options. The panting man simply raised a hand to him, fingers all curled down except for the middle. Dane looked back to the girl, smiling broader. "See! So why don'tcha just fuck right on off and let the adults finish their talk?"

@osha

[Deleted]

Oh… damn. Osh thought she’d come across something banal. A mugging attempt gone ugly, a bar brawl taken too far, something along those lines. She’d been ready for the aggressor to take off or threaten her. But this… this made her feel like she’d stepped into the middle of something a lot darker. This was like some kind of sociopath off one of those “true crime” shows or something. Was he actually, legitimately, serious right now? What he was saying made zero sense. Just dudes having fun? Really? But if it weren’t for the scene around him and the blood smeared across his face the mannerisms and tone with which he tried to placate her would have seemed sincere, apropos for casual conversation in a much less high stakes environment.

It was creepy as hell.

Osh managed to suppress the shudder that wanted to come up at his unnerving manner but visibly flinched when the dog made a move towards her with a growl. She was stilled by a single word from the uncanny man however. Which was good, okay, thankfully but also… Osh felt bad for the pup. Animals shouldn’t be used as weapons and she didn’t want to think of what kind of training someone like this would use to get that kind of obedience.

Yeah, the reasons were just piling up why Osh would definitely be calling the cops no matter what. Keeping that as a threat for now though, the young woman suspected, was all that was keeping her from being attacked.

And the creepy-sociopath-blood-smeared dude was still keeping up this whole casual, “we’re all friends here”, “just a pleasant talk”, demeanor and honestly she wished he would just stop. At least he emptied the gun; that made Osh feel a little more confident that she could handle herself in whichever way this situation spun. Honestly, when he finally flipped her off and told her to fuck off, it was kind of a relief. Better than the weird show he’d been putting on before.

”Yeah, sure,” Osh agreed, revving her bike a bit too indicate that she would absolutely like to leave yes please, thankyou very much! But…

”Him first though, yeah? C’mon dude,” she called to the man on the ground almost imploringly. She didn’t want to leave him to his fate, especially now that she’d gotten a better read on just what kind of probably-total-psycho he was dealing with but she didn’t want to be in this situation any longer than necessary either. Osh really needed him to shake the totally-understandable frozen fear thing and work with her here.

”Get outa here, man! Go!”

Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

When the Good Samaritan spoke up again, seemingly in agreement that she should leave, Dane's lips pursed into a sickly-sweet, overly-pleased smile. She'd taken a moment to take the scene in — to take Dane in — and had come to her senses. Smart girl. She revved her bike and his face screwed up with mock glee, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he scrunched his shoulders close to his neck and raised a hand to give her a small, departing wave. A cutesy shoo shoo, as if she were some mindless little puppy who only required a bit of gentle redirection. Or a pestering gnat to be swatted away.

But the expression staled and his hand stilled as her attention flickered to Dale. She called out to the bleeding man, imploring him to run, and Dane's mouth slipped at one corner, falling into a lopsided scowl. His eyes, abruptly flinty and cold, darkened and he dropped his shoulders. "Really?" He scoffed, shaking his head with clear disappointment. "You're gonna stick your neck out.... for him?" He lowered an accusatory finger at Dale. "C'mon... you don't even know him."

He stifled the urge to scoff again and instead chuckled. It was just ridiculous. Dale wasn't even a good guy! He was a Guild member like him. Hell, they'd done terrible things alongside one another once upon a time! But unfortunately, Dale had decided he was done with the Guild. Had fled. And they'd set Dane on his trail like a bloodhound. If only this girl knew that, then maybe she'd be more willing to leave the pair alone to rip one another apart in the shadows.

But of course, there was no way she could know that. He imagined if the shoe were on the other foot, and it was Dale looming over his bloody body, she'd have stopped just the same. Would have offered to help poor, little, broken Dane in the same way. Bless her heart.

He cocked his head, letting a light-hearted, imploring smile tug back over his lips. "Trust me, you wouldn't be helping him if you knew just what kind of dude he was." Dane dropped the pointing finger and clasped his hands behind his back, rubbing them together before pulling them apart in a quick summoning. In front of him, Snowcone's ears perked and she whined low in her throat while casting a forlorn look over her shoulder at him; loathe to give up a portion of her own strength to supply the power for another beast.

Between his palms there was a quick swirl of heat, the sound of crinkling and snapping bone, and then from behind him, a bird shot into the sky on fresh, newly-formed wings. Unlike Snowcone, the small, beady-eyed falcon was a hasty, less-practiced summoning — not perfect nor pretty in form by any means, but still practical. It lifted itself into the air above them, then with a piercing cry, tucked its uneven wings close to its body in a dive straight toward the phone in the girl's hands.

Dane barked a sharp laugh, feeling a bit of glee crop in his stomach. "I mean, as far as you know, I could be the good guy here." Unfortunately, the bird's mismatched proportions and poor construction made its dive clumsy and its aim imperfect — rather than ripping the phone from the girl's hand as intended, it scored its talons across her helmet with a disheveled squawk before beating itself back into the sky and circling around, preparing to make another attempt. Dane sighed. "You know... making the world a better place and all."

- - - -

@osha - If this is too much and I'm letting Dane get out of hand too fast, please just lemme know. I can change, I promise. Or if you're not okay with the bird's attack at the end, likewise, just send me a message somewhere! ;v; Also, feel free to god-mod the bird or Dale at any point lol.

[Deleted]

The patronizing way the man prepared to wave her off grated against Osh’s ego even in the current circumstances. It was a long-standing dichotomy of her life. On the one hand, those who actually knew Osh, had seen how the girl strove for and succeeded in accomplishment in nearly all areas of her life. On the other, everyone else so willing to dismiss her for any one of a number of petty and irrelevant at best or ignorant and even hateful at worst reasons; her age, her gender, her size, the color of her skin.

The cold pit that his sudden shift in demeanor, upon realizing the young woman wasn’t actually going anywhere just yet, knotted in Osh’s stomach was worse however.

”You’re wrong. And not just about me,” she snapped back in a hard tone, clinging to righteous fury from the moral high ground over the less-useful fear at the revelation of how far off true north the stranger’s own compass evidently pointed. Osh’s life had never actually put her face to face with anyone willing to so casually dismiss a human life, much less be so sure that her own value place thereon must surely be conditional enough that it wouldn’t exist if she merely had all the facts.

”Maybe he’s not a good guy, don’t know and don’t care. Not about to let whatever ugly, sideways, this is just go down while I turn a blind eye.” As much as her parents would have chided her for putting herself in a dangerous situation like this, Osh liked to think they’d be at least a little proud; they’d always cautioned their daughter to heed the lessons of history on what happened when good people stood by and did nothing.

”What are y-?” What was he even doing with his hands right no-? But then there was a bird. Like an honest-to-god trained hunting bird or something, flying at her face. She’d be bleeding if it weren’t for the helmet.

”What the actual..? Yeah, the good guy who beats people up in alleys and turns animals into weapons… I’m calling the co-!” slamming her visor shut and indignation and shock overcoming fear for the moment, Osh went to dial but the bird’s second dive took the cell clean out of her hand.

Damnit, damnit, damnit, what was she… oh hell, what choice did she have? She was in it now. Heart jackhammering in her chest, the young woman let reflex take over reason.

”What am I doing, what am I doing…” Osh muttered as, in a series of fluid motions one to the other: she heeled down her kickstand, vaulted off her bike, rolled under another dive from the bird, slipped a can of pepper spray out from her riding jacket, and came up in front of the man and his dog.

”Sorry puppy!” And she sprayed at the dog’s face with her right hand while reeling back to deliver a high kick towards the side of this sicko’s head with her left booted foot.

So… her day had just gotten totally insane.

Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

Dane tsked, eyes still watching his bird circling in the sky while the girl spoke her protests. He had to give it to her. He'd done his best to unsettle her. To make it clear she was toeing waters too deep and tumultuous for her to tread. And yet she remained, calling out her righteous insisting in a voice made to sound steeled. It was so annoying. But also brave. Stubborn. Very stupid. She dug her heels in, practically begging him to stop being so nice and to just be mean already.

He laughed, just two short barks of delight, when the bird took the phone from her hand with its second dive. It skittered across the alley and slid beneath a dumpster, making him smirk. He almost wished the bird had taken a finger or two as well — surely that would dissuade her. But perhaps it was unneeded. Without the small semblance of protection that the phone provided — how laughable — perhaps she'd turn tail and run, morality crumbling as she realized she had nothing else to lord over him threateningly.

He prepared to wave her off again. She hadn't liked that the first time, so (of course) he strongly wanted nothing more than to do it again, this time with a pleased smile when it was successful and she ran. But the girl began muttering to herself and, in a shocking sequence of too-quick movements, vaulted from her bike, dodged another assault from the falcon, and rolled to an expert stop in front of Snowcone. Bold. She pepper-sprayed the mastiff's eyes and Snowcone stumbled back with a sharp, pained keen, pawing at her face. Though usually quick to defend — and repay — any harm befallen his beloved dog, Dane was too honest-to-God flabbergasted by the whole sequence to even begin forming a protest. Before anger or disbelief could register in his mind, let alone translate to action or some snarky retort, the girl shifted. Moving with a grace he hadn't witnessed in a very long time, she kicked at him.

Dane barely got his arms up in time. But the blow, though cushioned painfully by his forearms, still rocked him. He stumbled back, unbalanced and teetering, but managed to plant his feet firmly apart to keep himself from falling. He blinked at her, the shock on his face beginning to pull into an excited grin. "What the fuck wa—" Dale, spotting the opening and seizing it, made a sudden move. He kicked out and swiped Dane's feet from under him, sending him crashing on his back with a harsh exhale of all the air in his lungs. The bloody, beat man swiped up the discarded knife and fell atop him. Again, Dane just barely got his hands up in time to stop him from plunging the point in his chest. Dale's blood dripped onto his face, making him blink, and the pair struggled for the upper hand.

"Hey!" Dane called out, strain evident in his voice as his eye drew to the girl once more. "Little Miss Taekwondo! He's trying—" Dale grunted and made a renewed effort, throwing his weight more seriously into the drive of the knife and forcing Dane's words short. He blew out an exhale and pushed back. "Trying to kill me now! Aren't you going to stop him!?" In a risky gamble, he let his hand skip from the knife and up Dale's mangled arm, where he pressed his fingers into the gruesome wound left by Snowcone's powerful jaws. Dale slackened with a pained cry, just enough for Dane to buck him off and roll atop him. He punched him square in the nose and stood shakily, kicking the knife from his hands before kicking him again in the face, knocking him out.

"This is feeling awfully biased!" He shouted, running a hand through his mussed hair as he turned to face the girl. He eyed her, feeling considerably less nice than before. "That was your one free hit. And the last time I ask you — leave."

@osha