[center][color=ff0911][h3]Jason[/h3][/color][/center]
[b]Balibago, Angeles City - 10/18/2022, 20:48 UTC+8[/b]

As much as he wanted to keep his anonymity, the far side of the alley was fenced off and didn't visibly lead anywhere he could hide. He could get over the fence, easily, though the voice behind him came from above, and the words 'state your name and purpose' seldom came without a Noble Arm being trained on you. That or just a gun. Against an unknown enemy, he couldn't risk letting them get a good look at him, nor risk being unable to find cover from aerial bombardment. He reached into his jacket, pulling out his mask, and affixed it to his face before turning around.

He had already checked for potential witnesses before attacking that woman, who was, instead of attacking a storefront like he had initially thought, apparently now attacking a bank. What he had failed to do, however, was sweep the skies. [i]Rookie mistake, Jason.[/i] He knows, logically, he can't spend his entire life looking over his shoulder for Noble Arm-based boogeymen, but some form of flight is pretty common among combat Noble Arms. Maybe not many within a given group, but at least one? Almost guaranteed.

In any case, he needed to bullshit his way through the flying guy with a rifle trained on him. He had no idea what the guy was talking about, and even if he did, he didn't care for deception. That's been true even before the OPL fucked with his head. That being said, a lie by omission isn't a lie at all. It's not his responsibility to volunteer information to people, and what they do with what he gives them is their own prerogative.

It was rather awkward shouting up at the guy from so far away anyway. It was, amusingly, a genuinely opportune moment to practice his piss-poor sign language skills. He covered his masked mouth with a fist ((the symbol for mute but held against his face the wrong way)) and then did some bullshit swirl of his two index fingers before tapping two fingers on one hand beneath his chin. That definitely meant that he was not going to talk, source: bro trust.

Amadeo just stared at him, looking confused. Jason repeated the totally accurate and not at all made up gesture that was just as likely to be a real sentence in sign language as it was to be the somatic component of an Occult Programming Spell. Amadeo visibly didn't get it, so he tried a few more gestures as he slowly walked out of the alleyway. Amadeo kept his rifle trained on Jason the whole time, and didn't seem to object when he came to a stop on the sidewalk outside the alley.

Reaching a communicative impasse, Amadeo reached into his pocket for a phone, perhaps to look up sign language. That was bad. Potentially worse was the possibility that he was looking up Jason's mask. He hadn't been too high-profile since nobody connected him to his virus' debut until after it had been mostly dealt with, and subsequent infections never made headlines like the first, but the mask was distinctive. The connection between the virus and the man in a plague doctor mask is known, and he wouldn't have a hard time looking him up if he was with Task Force Obsidian, which, based on the volunteer comment, he almost definitely was.

Not giving Amadeo the time, he began making additional gestures towards the nearest busy storefront - Sullivan's Irish Pub. The interior was dimly lit by colorful lights, and despite the mess going on across the street, it was full of patrons, probably not paying much attention from the loud sound of music coming from inside. Jason begins walking towards it, eyes still trained on the man floating distantly up above.

"Stop."

Amadeo shifts his rifle, keeping it on Jason, and Jason stops. He doesn't actually mind getting shot, though it wouldn't be good to let on just how little he would mind it - He does mind, in fact, that it'd put a hole in his clothes, and a headshot would be particularly bad, but best practice is generally to aim for center mass, which ironically isn't likely to slow Jason down too much. Jason continues making gestures he invented on the spot to indicate that he wanted to enter the pub. He even makes a gesture indicating that he's trying to get away from Amadeo, which probably reads as nothing since he can't do sign language to save his life. Amadeo continues giving him confused looks before trying to respond to his made up sign-language.

"Not the Pub. If you want to go somewhere, pick a place without people."

Right. Guess it's time to get to cover.

Jason doesn't acknowledge Amadeo - a nod would be a lie - but he stares up at him, patiently waiting for his attention to flick back to his phone. When it does, he dashes straight towards the pub, and a gunshot rings out as the sensation of a bullet wound hits the back of his right calf. It rips right through his leg, but either misses or ricochets off the bone, because he finds he can still put weight on it. It's unsteady and he's liable to collapse with every step, but it keeps him going long enough to enter into the pub full of aghast patrons and throw himself over the bar counter, leaping up with and sliding over it on his good leg. He generates a few knives in his back, grabs two with one hand and tosses them into the crowd of patrons. When push comes to shove, he finds it much easier, and he's going to need more blood than whatever he can pull out of himself for this. He grabs the man behind the counter as he pulls the third knife out of his back and drags the man down, holding the knife against his throat. It never hurts to have hostages. Sitting on his ass with his back against the counter, one arm draped around the man with his other arm holding the knife, he begins pulling the loose blood he can sense from over the wall of the counter, modifies it with the loneliness virus, and shoots it towards the front of the shop, blindly splattering the first of the patrons to run away - maybe that guy too, if he followed. Afterwards, without waiting for any sort of confirmation of the situation, he switches to the fear virus and shoots it towards the patrons stuck at the back of the pub, including the band who were, up until his entry, singing a song about whether some girl would spend time with him if he told her the world was ending. He pulls the rest of the blood closer to him, ready to splatter the first person he sees peeking over the counter.

He's been in the pub for about three or four seconds, and although he can't see most of it from his angle, it no doubt already looks like a horror show. He saw it as he entered - relatively little standing room between the occupied bar stools on the left and the tiny tables lined up against the wall on the right. A live performance occupied the small stage at the back of the pub, probably a local band that performs for fun. He wonders how bad it looks with all the walls covered in blood.