Hawlin

The Protomen

The bumps.

The Protomen

Fading in from black to the next scene, the moon drifts through a veil of smog, serenated by the melody of the last song which Jericho softly hummed to himself before a boot splashed into the puddle which had reflected the sky. He stood for a moment on the corner of the street, watching the walk signal blink and then go to red, the reflection of his side's sign over his shoulder in the calming puddle.

~ No cars...no cars...I lean against the signal post and elbow the 'walk' button a few more times while simply watching the ping of the GPS slowly pinpointing the origin on the city map on my hud.
The Rusty Screw; I couldn't say I had heard of it, although reviews were spotty at the very least. Needless to say, I had no intention of staying for a bite. Then again, the thought of the concept of the saying was...hrm...sobering, I guess. It would be funnier if the punch line wasn't so permanent. Still the name was a bit familiar, although I had been to a few 'Swill Stands', a few recently just to sit around. Well, recently being some few months ago...and only one, I learned my lesson quick.
The lights going the other direction switch to red as to herald all the nothing that they conducted during any other time of the day. Not many people choose to be out this late, for laughably obvious reasons. I mean, I didn't want to...okay, yeah, if they were going to look at me like I would hurt them, I may as well. Talking never seemed to help and- oh! Walk. ~

The calm of the image was broken again as Jericho started across the street, the pressed-steel sole of his boot kicking up a small spark as he dragged it from the puddle.

---

His stride slowed to cautious deliberate steps as he noticed the door broken from the hinge of the location the signal came from. Perhaps he should have picked up the pace; if he had been aware of the direness of the situation-
Well, again, 'what-ifs' seemed to have come and passed, and there still seemed to be some kind of commotion coming from inside.

Approaching the doorway from the side, the singing had died off and a little chatter hinted to the door not being a big deal. With a hand on the frame, Jericho took a step into the bar and was already rocking back on his heel with the consideration of leaving after noticing the patrons. Rather, one of them, and frankly, given the events of the last few months, it was hard to remember his initial aversion to the good doctor, Thomas Light.
Jericho hung there for a minute in silence before his gaze broke and he looked out across the others, his eyes seemingly piercing them each with the second of glance he gave them with his fixed expression, resting on Ness for a second longer than the others.
Without a word, he hoisted the door from the floor and set it back into place, holding it in the frame while inspecting the damages, perceivable as an excuse not to look at the others as he had his fair share of human contact for a lifetime.

"Light..." He sighed, the steam gently curling from the calm in his voice, despite the scene. "...I wouldn't suppose you happened to send-" he begins, bending the hinges back into place, his fingers pinching down on the nails in the frame and dragging them out as not to damage the wood before resetting the door in place...weakly, but it would have a good few slams left in it, even then it was just the nails, and it was clear there was a debt to be had regarding its initial damage. "-A distress signal, tonight?" he inquired, giving the door a few easy openings and closings to test the hinges which squeaked. Jericho's fingers traced the strong-bar braces which were hopelessly bent, not to mention the bar which laid in two. Rolling his eyes, Jericho turned around and leaned against the door to hold it closed, figuring he would serve as a better doorstop than anything and everything in the room combined.

...mostly because a pile of chairs can't throw a punch.
~ This thought made me smile to myself, in spite of my face. I didn't want to talk myself up, but tables and chairs don't try to keep danger out of a room. People do. ~

The Protomen

Hrm ~_~;

The Protomen

I'll start working on something, tonight.
:x

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I was waiting until someone else posted, continuing their scene before I started mine.
:x

The Protomen

Thanks. Sorry about the change in perspective at the end. I forgot RPG doesn't have its text color system working, yet. >_<

The Protomen

Intro

(Read-along :x )


Through the dull night, a distant clock chimes in a mechanic tone to mark the midnight of a new day. Through the haze from the smokestacks of the city, the scene opens as the camera descends through the smog to find Jericho sitting on the edge of the roof of a small half-constructed apartment complex on a block of others like it with a small courtyard in the middle of them which he faces. Next to him, he sets a long blue box, adorned with a small sticker of a rose and opens it to reveal a set of worn paints and a wooden brush. He reaches into his coat and pulls out a medicine measuring cup which he lifts to his skeletal jaw plate, blowing gently into it. The mist of his breath condenses on the sides and runs down to gather at the bottom as he begins to sing softly to himself.

'I feel you Johanna
I feel you
Do they think that walls can hide you?
Even now I'm at you window
I am in the dark beside you
Buried sweetly in your yellow hair
Johanna'

He turns the cup slowly, swirling to get everything off of the sides as he dips the brush in before tapping a bit off on the edge and letting the water drip onto the paints of the discarded water-colors paint set, narrowing his eyes before mixing colors on the palate and musing to himself, touching his chest as if feeling a heartbeat. His fingers click for a moment against the rib-like plates under his shirt. He continues, to the painting...

'And are you beautiful and pale,
With yellow hair,
Like her?
I'd want you beautiful and pale
The way I've dreamed you were'
"Johanna..." he sings to himself as he works on a piece of paper from a stack to his left. His hud shows only the outlined square of the sheet and shaded outlined splotches with words representing their color. His motions are swift, drawing in beige of her skin and tracing in texture with a smaller clean brush he leaves in the water.

'And if you're beautiful, what then,
With yellow hair,
Like wheat?
I think we shall not meet again
My little dove
My sweet
Johanna...'

He pauses for a moment while drawing in the texture of the hair and sighs, the steam washing over the painting as he looks at the brush which is simply marked 'Yellow' on his hud. 'I'll steel you...Johanna' he thinks to himself, closing his eyes as he takes a deep breath.
In frustration, and partially in disgust for not even being able to see the color...if it was even the right color, he dunks the brush in the water, tipping it over and spilling the liquid across the roof.

'Good-bye Johanna
You're gone and yet you're mine
I'm fine Johanna
I'm fine'

He crumples the painting as he sings before stopping to look at his work, the blotches of the display showing a young woman's face from a time that felt so long ago...she shape of it at least. A small blip appears on his HUD from a distress signal as a notification of heart stats read across the bottom as he touches his chest, again, rising to his feet.
Somewhere below, the footsteps of one of the street dwellers stop as Jericho sighs the name once more before a dark haze envelopes his arm, a skull washing over the painting, violently setting it alight along with a bit of the roofing around him for a second.
The horrified mutterings of a small crowd gathered in volume from the shadows, shocked by his power; many crouching behind dumpsters or other trash for cover. They hid, both terrified and curious of the figure who tossed the ashen cinders of the painting into the darkness below, gradually going out and being consumed by the drafts before reaching the ground. The crowd grew quiet as it died, as not to draw attention to themselves though not invisible to Jericho in the slightest by now.

'And if I never hear your voice,
My turtledove,
My dear
I still have reason to rejoice,
The way ahead is clear
Johanna'

Jericho looks off in the direction of Wily's tower, the pollution obscuring it to near invisibility to the naked eye, though the GPS ping read its location through the darkness.

'And in the darkness
When I'm blind with what I can't forget
It's always morning in my mind
My little lamb
My pet
Johanna'

The image inverts a few times, to try in vain to pick up any trace of the building before giving up and bending down to pick up the paint set.

'You stay Johanna
The way I've dreamed you are
Oh look Johanna
A star'

He clicks the box shut with the brushes inside and returns it to his coat with the medicine cup. He looks up and notices movement in the sky, although it could be anything...though usually something unwelcome.

"A shooting star..." He sings as he once again ripples with his shield and kicks the pile of collected papers into the air, taking a chunk of the roof with it in a small explosion of burning cinders and half melted roof tar which peppers the neighboring building and a few of the onlookers as it rains down upon them.
Meanwhile, Jericho starts to walk off back to where he had climbed up, ignoring the cries from the congregation of paranoid gutter rats he had left in pain, but otherwise unharmed. A few were in uproar about their supposed 'protection', especially the ones who had been hit and burnt by debris. Seeing he had already left, they focused on quietly stomping out the smoldering pages in the small clearing before they either ignited other trash or attracted the attention of patrols...which it very well may have.

'And though I'll think of you, I guess
Until the day I die
I think I miss you less and less
As everyday goes by
Johanna'

He slides down the ladder, the rungs bent and broken in places from his weight as he had gotten up. The pavement cracks slightly from the landing, but his wastes no time in starting off down the ally away from the scene.

'And you'd be beautiful and pale
And look too much like her
If only angels could prevail
We'd be the way we were
Johanna'

He shifts the box of paints in his to make them less noticeable, and to make way for his hand as he touched his chest again, narrowing his eyes in as sad of an expression he could make before snapping back up, his tone laced with anger.

'Wake up,
Johanna
Another bright red day
We learn Johanna
To say
Good-bye~'

He lowers his hand from his chest into his jacket pocket, the camera lifting back into the sky. In the distance, he pulls the collar up on his jacket as a flying patrol robot passes in front of the camera. He is gone, but the scene of the event is now increasingly visible with the movement of the camera, revealing the courtyard to be buzzing with two other patrols which the previous one flies to join, spotlights flicking on and scouring the area in a different direction from Jericho. One seemed to notice something and take chase as the scene fades to black.

As I watch the marks on the radar disappear of the edge of the display on my Heads-Up-Display, I step out from behind the corner of the ally and onto the sidewalks of the mainstreet. Setting a GPS ping on the distress signal, I took a turn at the next block as per directions detail while I questioned my interest. Certainly others got the same message...or the police.

Jericho spits...or tries to...at the thought; the police were only good for meddling and ruining lives...the fading sounds of patrols at the scene he'd left were proof of that. Still, with the strength of the signal, the patrols should have 180'd by then to find the source. There was something strange about it, and Jericho made it in his mind to investigate.

The Protomen

DaliKnight said
What do you mean with TM?

"Thread Master" Reap.

EDIT

I figured another way to bring characters together (if anyone needed help thinking of a way to start :x ) would be to cause a tiny commotion. idk >_>

The Protomen

I'm a little unsure about the availability of the TM. The topic has been up for quite a while, and I can expect it may be another while before it actually starts.
*shrug*

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Also, I've been listening to the albums while reading along with lyrics and narrative direction.
I love it. If I hadn't been committed before, I certainly am now.

My comment about 'Skull man' is that he was a master robot (boss) in megaman 3 and 4. I was just curious if the 4 mentioned in the music video were the only ones; I didn't want to steal one of them from the intended cast of antagonists, but I figured it could be a clever twist that he chose to side with Light instead of succumbing to Wily's influence...given their reasons.

I'm a little curious who you will play as.

EDIT: password edited into 'appearance' section.