Rabidporcupine

Feast Fantasy

@AwesomeZero5
Looks alright to me, chuck him in.

Feast Fantasy

@AwesomeZero5
Nah no worries in that area, I reckon it's safe to say we're kind of used to slower replies here!

Feast Fantasy

@AwesomeZero5
Eyo! Doing alright here, what's up on your end?

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@LilSwifty@DClassified

"Now, I know what you might be thinking." Joseph said to the still very much unconscious reptilian man slung across his shoulder. "You're probably thinking something like 'No way man, I don't wanna go to prison, it's all boring and cold and shit!' But you don't need to worry about that. I hear prison's actually pretty nice this time of year. Not that I know for certain though, because the only time I've been to prison, I was being held illegally, and it was basically one big rat king of human rights violations. Compared to that, this'll be a walk in the park!"

It might have been strange that Joseph took the criminal to a normal prison rather than Coldwater, but honestly, from the stuff he'd heard, both in and out of his own dreams, he felt like he shouldn't condemn anyone to something like that. At least here the most unpleasant thing he'd have to deal with would be the three canine cops.

Speaking of whom...

"Hey Copberus." Joseph called to the three, who were already in the lobby for whatever reason. "Got a guy for you. Tried to rob a cornerstore, out by... Brookside, somewhere... Anyway yeah, I'm sure you'll figure it out. The investigation's your job, I'm just here to pawn the guy off to you. Think fast!"

As he chucked the guy to Officer Bulldog, because out of the three he looked like the one who could probably take it without being knocked over, he turned to see a... kind of familiar figure entering the precinct.

"Oh, hey... I wanna say Tarzan?" He greeted Samson, who to be fair, hadn't had an interaction with Joseph in a little while now. Maybe the point where he was delirious in the helicopter flying back from Mexico, but with his mind the way it was at the time, he didn't really think that counted. "Anyway, my rapidly dilapidating memories aside, whats up? Don't say Tom, that's my joke and I'll have to arrest you if you try to steal it. WHICH, speaking of, is why I'm here myself, as I was just passing by to drop this guy off after he decided to rob a cornerstore and got beaten up by the Cashier. After that, I can return home to rest in peace and-, shit, I left the groceries at the sto-"

And at that very moment, he heard a small, high-pitched whine in the back of his head, and looked dpwm to see the rune in his pocket activating.

"Oh wow, nice timing..." He mumbled to himself, before sliding his hand over the runes. "Well if it isn't my good friend Cashier, to think you were that desperate to see me again... Well I'm sorry to say, but I'm afraid there's only room in my heart for one, and that spots already been taken by one particularly unfortunate colleague of mine. Very flattered though, honestly."

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@LilSwifty

Joseph watched as the cashier took down the would-be thief with surprising ease, and slowly slid the rune he'd been discreetly pulling out back into his pocket. She actually did better than he'd expected, even managing to blow the smoke through the fabric of the balaclava to reach his mouth, while also flustering the poor idiot too much for him to react properly. All in all, he was pretty impressed.

He looked behind him when she referred to a 'Piss Breath' while looking in his direction, but it didn't look like anyone was there. Oh well, he supposed everyone had their little quirks, although whether or not hallucinations could be considered little probably differed from person to person.

Because she definitely couldn't have been referring to him. Nope.

"Well, I've gotta say, that wasn't half bad..." He said, leaning down to take the balaclava off the man, revealing a lizard-like face that, in all honesty, probably shouldn't have been able to fit under the balaclava the way it did. "Huh, I don't think I've heard of this guy. Oh well, I'm sure something'll come out of it later when I've brought him in."

After inspecting the lizard-man and removing any other weapons he had on him, including a pair of honest to god gunchucks, he stashed them in his shopping bag and turned back to the cashier.

"Hey Cashier, nice job." He said, before pulling a new runic array out of his pocket and handing it to her, pointing specifically to the rune in the center. "If you can't find a new job somewhere else, press a drop of your own blood into this symbol here in the center, and it'll let us talk without having to worry about phone numbers or anything like that. I'll talk to Powers when he gets back from France. I reckon he'll be interested in someone with... I'm guessing some kind of wind manipulation?"

He shrugged.

"Oh well, whatever. If you're ever interested in a job at HERO, use the rune and I'll organize a meeting. Or just go to the Lucky Cow at some point and ask for Joseph if you wanna do it the boring old fashioned way. Old man there knows me by name, so he'll be able to give you my number."

And with that, he grabbed the unconscious lizard man and slung him over his shoulder, put the milk, bread and eggs in his shopping bag with the mans guns, and left to take him to the station, not quite managing a grin, but the small smirk spoke volumes to how he was feeling.

After all, he'd heard rumors about there possibly being a recruitment bonus for anyone who brought new heroes in to HERO, and he was itching for some more money to not pay rent with...

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@LilSwifty

"Well, aren't you just the most pleasant person I've ever had the joy of interacting with..." Joseph said tiredly as he endured the waves of emotional abuse the winged cashier had decided to subject him to. "You treat all your customers like this, or am I some kind of special case?"

Without waiting for an answer, he shrugged.

"Well, whatever. Luckily for you, everywhere else was sold out, so this dump is all I've really got."

Luckily for everyone involved, he decided not to get a drink today. He already had a good stash back home, not to mention that he had just noticed the prices of what he was buying and-

"Jesus. The hell kinda daylight robbery is this?" He asked, an actual frown beginning to appear on his face. "Hey Cashier, next time you see your boss, tell them they're a dipshit for me, won't you?"

However, before he could pay, he realised he'd also been asked to get bread, and while he was... hesitant... to get it here, the Hag had promised that if he didn't come back with all everything she'd asked for, she was gonna actually start acting on his lack of rent payments.

"Hang on, I've gotta get bread." He said, trudging over to a shelf he'd noticed while entering, just out of view of the door.

Coincidentally, it was right at this moment that a new customer entered the shop, although this status was somewhat questionable considering the balaclava and pistol combo they had going on.

"Open the register." The robber said with a slight growl to his voice, pointing his gun at the winged girl as if he wasn't even afraid of her potential superpowers. Meanwhile, Joseph sent the cashier a look that, while still clearly tired, seemed to ask the question 'Do you wanna take care of this, or should I?'

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@Hitman@LilSwifty

Ok, Joseph supposed it was about time to admit it. He had no idea where he was. Seriously, how the hell did he manage to get lost? He'd been here in the city nearly ten months now! That should be enough time to get used to the place! Hell, he couldn't have even been far from home! He'd left maybe fifteen minutes ago! This is why he didn't like getting up in the mornings!

"Fine, whatever, let's just get back to it. Gotta go shopping for breakfast stuff at one in the goddamn afternoon... Because the feckin' Hag couldn't just send out a robot to do it, right?!"

It was times like this that he wished he had a phone that could actually use google maps. Although this was Brookside, so who could say whether or not satellites even reached here. Hell, he was surprised they got clean water after some of the places he'd seen there.

He was briefly distracted when he saw a surprisingly non-shit car parked in a nearby alley, and decided to keep walking before the scavengers converged on it and picked it clean. But then he saw one of the shops that made up that alley, and realised that it was probably the kind of shop he was meant to be looking for. Even if it did look kind of shit.

"Heeey." He said, walking into the shop. For a brief, solitary moment, he thought he was about to end up in a fight, but then he remembered he was in Brookside, and Seraph was too much of a stuck up shitbag to come to a shithole like Brookside, let alone the matryoshka-esque shithole that was this store within the shithole that was Brookside. "You got any milk or eggs n' shit here?"

More importantly, would they look as bad as this place when he found them? Because if so, he'd better try and look for a normal shop before he somehow managed to get himself involved in some kind of stupid, miserable, plot-furthering shenanigans...

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph

@Jumbus@KiwiTime@datadogie

“Oh shit.” Joseph said, his eyes widening in worry for a second as he spun away from the retreating villain to Starbright, Ava and the others. “Is something wrong, Abba? Are you hur-”

However, his face went blank when all he saw was an Ava that, while definitely somewhat bruised and battered, just seemed more grumpy than anything bad.

“Ah, what the hell Jojo, I thought she was actually hurt.” He said, before walking over to Ava. “Hey Avdol, are you ok? I know you're probably upset she got away, but don't worry. You did a good job. And if you need someone to chomp on, you could always go for Jojo. Not me Jojo though, that one.”

He gave the mutant girl what he hoped was an encouraging pat on the head, before wandering off to try and find some plants to shoot.

Just Another Hero

Yo I was joking before, I might give it a shot.

《 H. E. R. O. 》

Joseph and Brie

@Jumbus@KiwiTime@Scarifar@datadogie

Brie stepped outside the bar, groaning inwardly at the bright sunlight. It was far too early to be awake, especially in her state. Most people would see the dingy alley she had stepped into and fear for their safety, but Brie simply glared at the patrons who were stumbling into the bar for their first drink. She sipped on her coffee, contemplating how best to make her way over to New Athens. Normally she could gather a decent amount of speed while running, enough at least to get over there fairly quickly, but there was no way she was doing that today. Tapping in a number, she waited impatiently for the call to go through. "I need a lift." She pronounced suddenly, without even a 'hi' or 'how you doing?'. "Can you get to Brookside?"

”Huuuuuuh?” Joseph grumbled into the phone. ”The hell is that, telling me to come get you without so much as a ‘Hey Joseph my dear, badass pal, you up?’ How the hell am I meant to get my beauty sleep when everyone keeps trying to wake me up? It’s only…”

He glanced up to look at the cheap, digital clock, which told him that it was in fact the early hour of nearly 12:30.

”Motherfu-... Fine…” He sighed, getting off the cheap hammock he called a bed to try and find a shirt that didn’t bear the scent of whiskey. Unfortunately, all three did, so he decided to just settle with the one that stank the least, chucked on his jacket, some jeans and his helmet. ”Hag! I’m heading out!”

“Don’t come back until you can afford rent!” The old hag in question shouted back from somewhere in her workshop, and he promptly sped off on his moped to get the young hag who’d called him out.

It only took a few minutes for him to reach the bar, sending Brie a lazy wave as he slowly drove up to the sidewalk.

”Heeey.” He said, chucking her a spare helmet. ”So I guess we got called out or something?”

Brie managed to catch the helmet just before it hit her square in the face, eyebrows raised at the moped Joseph had arrived on. “That’s your ride? Looks like a gentle breeze would topple it over.” She continued to eye it warily for a moment, before shrugging her shoulders and hopping onto the back. There were worse way to die, she supposed.

“Mm yeah, something about Ambleweeds. Not sure why HERO insists on sending those alerts so early in the morning.” She continued, ignoring the fact that it was about noon at this point. “Powers is going to kill me if I don’t get more credits this month, so figured they’d be an easy job.”

”I’m sorry, did you just say we’re out here because of a few ambleweeds? Joseph asked incredulously. ”Why the hell did we get a big alert for that?”

As he drove, he started looking at his phone to find the closest group. When he was what it was, he smiled to himself. Today might not be so annoying after all…

Well, not for him, at least.

“Hey, guess who just so happens to be not too far from us at this very moment?” He asked Brie, before shaking his head and shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Actually no, don’t. It’ll be funner as a surprise. But in the interest of keeping to my personal motto of ‘Always be prepared’, if you have any jokes about light, get them ready now.”

He paused for a moment, before adding something that was probably more important.

“Also hold on.”

And then he pushed the moped to it’s top speed, which thanks to some tinkering from his horrifying landlady, was far beyond what a vehicle of it’s type should normally be capable of. Hell, maybe more than a motorcycle should be capable of.

Brie frowned as she tried to figure out where he was taking them, “Aw come on...do we really have to…” She groaned as it dawned on her where he was going. It was her fault really...she should have known better.

“Didn’t know you were such a fan of his.” Brianna said with a smirk, holding onto the back of the Moped to stop herself from flying off, “You know that you’ll probably have to line up behind all the other teenage girls, right?”

“I mean, we don’t have to do anything. We could just turn around and go back to the bar if you’re really that opposed to it.” He said, before his voice turned deadly serious. “But the thing is that I heard there’s a camera crew there, so everything we say goes out to the world. Considering that, I’d say it’s our duty to go there and send out the rallying cry for all the people who think they’re making fun of the idiot alone. We’re not just doing this for fun, we’re doing this for a cause!”

He took a hand off the handlebars to place it over his chest as he said this, before quickly putting it down to stop the scooter from swerving around, giving a quick shrug.

“Besides, I wanna get his autograph so I can forge his signature. Big celebrity like him gives me a lotta options, you know?”
Finally, after about ten minutes, he caught sight of… Well, no ambleweeds, but they were fighting something that looked kind of familiar…

“Hey everyone, I made it.” He called out to the group. “Please, please, hold your applause, I’m just here to do my job, which is apparently playing taxi for this alcoholic here.”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Brie as he parked, before looking over at their opponent.

“So, it’s you again...” He said, deciding not to clarify whether or not he actually knew who she was. “Listen, I know he’s a big celebrity so he’d probably be too worried about his PR to outright say no to you, but I don’t think he’s into robots, right… Joestar?”

Ignoring the fact that he’d just casually said something he was absolutely not meant to say, he looked back to Skylar once more.

“Besides, are you sure you want someone like him? Have you not heard all the gross rumours about this weirdo?”