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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 12:17:00 GMT
Croc frowned when she told him about her opinion of school. A frown that only deepened when she mentioned running away from an orphanage and that she no longer attended. Clearly this kid had had a tragic life so far, but still she managed to be so... chirpy? How was he suddenly envious of a child's resilience?
His red eyes moved up and down in a nod when she asked him about being shot, he didn't really feel like elaborating on that subject very much. It was a pain that he would really rather forget if he was honest. He was already finding himself wallowing in misery since he was relegated to hiding in the sewers again after his arrival.
"hmmm" Waylon pondered. He could answer both of her questions with the same story, but was it a good idea to tell her? He was torn as to whether she would even believe him the events themselves were so outlandish. But then again, she seemed to be taking what he'd said at face value so far, so what could be the harm?
"You'll probably think I'm makin' this up" he began with a sigh in his voice as he turned a corner in the dark. "But short answer, I did somethin' really dumb."
That there was the crux of it. He shouldn't have listened to the voice inside his head. He shouldn't have touched that swirling black mass. He should've taken the advice of the old man.
"Long answer, I ain't from around here." he said grimly, one red eye looking at her from out of the corner of his vision to gauge her reactions to what he was about to say.
"This world we're on, this city, none of it is the same as where I came from." he continued, his tone becoming distinctly sad as he continued. "This is still earth as far as I can tell, but the people here are different. And places like Gotham and Metropolis don't exist. And trust me, I risked some shi-"
Language Waylon.
"Risked some poop to find that out for sure." he paused for a moment as his memory drifted to the risks to his person he had to take to get access to a computer. Let alone managing to use one without completely destroying it with his claws.
"Basically I was in the cave one day, that's where Batman had his lair, the Batcave, ludicrous right?" he gave her a moment to respond to just how ridiculous it was for a grown man to name his place of business after where bats live, then continued on.
"And this weird black, portal, thing appeared. Kinda like a black sludge floatin' in the air. Thought I could hear someone talkin' from inside so I did the dumbest thing possible and touched it. I dunno, maybe I thought someone was stuck? I can't really explain what made me do it." He let out a deep sigh and turned to look at her with both eyes. "Promise me that if you see somethin' strange you'll do the smart thin' and stay away from it?"
His voice contained genuine concern as he asked her that question. From what he could tell, she seemed excitable enough that if she encountered something strange like that that she would more and likely investigate that. The last thing he wanted was for her to be torn from her world and end up somewhere completely unknown all alone.
Ironic.
"So yeah. Anyway." he continued with his story after hearing her response, he hadn't quite answered her question. "I was somewhere else for a while, but I don't quite remember it, and when I came to I was here and I was... different. I've always been scaly you understand, had Ichthyosis since I was a kid. But they weren't this hard, I didn't have a tail and I definitely wasn't this freakin' big."
He looked down at his enormous hands as he continued to trudge through the dark, the sound of water sloshing about as his gargantuan feet pushed it along. As he turned another corner, a light came into view similar to the ones they'd encountered previously, only this one wasn't moving. It was coming from a static lamp positioned over a metal door. They had arrived at their destination.
"Soon found out that people here hate people like me. Which ain't a surprise, didn't like me much where I came from either, but I found out I was bulletproof at least." Thus was the end to his story, one he hadn't had the opportunity to tell anyone so far. It was kind of therapeutic in a way, even though she probably thought it was the work of fantasy.
"Here we are kid." he said with a toothy smile she would just barely be able to see as they approached the light. "You'll be able to get out through here. I'm sure some cops would help you get home if you find someone to call 'em for you. Best you don't get no strangers to take you there even if they offer."
He felt like this was important information. A girl this happy to speak with a monstrosity like him was probably not aware of the wisdom of 'stranger danger'.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2018 1:45:00 GMT
 
"Strange like a portal or strange like a three headed cat?" she asked, before agreeing to something as sacred as a promise. Actually, she could think of all sorts of cool strange things that she'd rather investigate than leave alone and hoped that portals were all that he was thinking about. "Pinky promise~" she affirmed wiggling the tiny digit.
Ichthyosis was not what she was expecting him to say he had. Though it did kind of sound like a dinosaur. She'd thought he was a mutant like her. Like how Wolverine was a wolverine that went mutant and turned into a person. The little girl turned to regard Waylon, even though she couldn't actually see him.
"You're not a mutant?" she asked, which might have been insulting if she hadn't added: "I am. But I'm the good kind of mutant, not the mean kind like Magneto. I only use my powers for good. When I grow up I'm gunna join the X-men and save the world!" Her excited gestures almost unseated her. "You should become a superhero," Molly decided. "You're nice, and bulletproof, and we could make you a cape!"
Her daydreams of the pair of them fighting crime wearing matching capes blew away on the breeze when he announced they'd found her exit. Molly's smile matched his as she reached out for the ladder rungs in front of them. "Can't go home," she protested with a shake of her head. She had no home to get back to. "I gotta find Kamala before she gets worried. Thank you for helping me!" she bounced back to give the man a hug before grabbing the rungs again.
The grimy little girl followed the light upwards to the man hole cover at the top of the metal ladder. She slipped a couple of times on her way up but managed to keep a hold of it until she reached the top. The metal cover would have been far too heavy for any normal child to move on their own. Even a full grown man would have had trouble. There was a flash of pink, though, and the sound of metal on concrete as the cover was effortlessly shoved to the side.
A fish popped up in the middle of an empty alleyway. The rest of Molly's head followed. She scrambled up to the surface, sat on her butt, and stared up at the unfamiliar surroundings. She was lost.
"Waylon!" came the whine back down the hole. "Help!"
TAG: @croc 
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2018 2:42:59 GMT
She made it sound so easy. Just 'become a superhero'. Like anyone out there would believe he had ever come to save them. If anything, he'd find himself getting punched out by Superman before long because someone yelled that he was going to eat their baby...
No. He didn't have the potential she believed he had.
He didn't know how to react when she wrapped her arms around his waist, her head barely reaching his chest. He stood stock still, unable to respond to the only show of affection anyone had given him in his entire life.
He raised a hairless brow at her however as he contemplated what she meant by the fact she was a 'mutant'. Strictly speaking he was too, but why would she possibly think that about herself? She seemed perfectly fine to him. It seemed he lost his opportunity to ask her more about the subject as he watched her curious decision to climb the ladder out instead of taking the door to the building entrance; his mouth opening to tell her that she wouldn't be able to open the grate and hence why he'd brought her here.
Then she basically punched it off.
What the hell? Did every little girl in this world have some sort of strange power or something?! He stood staring at the light coming down from the manhole cover from the world above with unblinking eyes as if he couldn't fathom what he was seeing. If she had the power to create pink light and become super strong... Why had she needed him again?
Well it didn't matter now. She was back on the surface now and she had a guardian to take care of her up there so she would be fine. He was sure this 'Kamala' would be ecstatic to find she was safe and sound. Probably wouldn't even believe her when she inevitably told her what happened, a girl with this much imagination had to make up stories all the time.
With a strange pain in his chest he waved weakly at the hole above him in a gesture of farewell. He couldn't find any words to say, his jaw remaining tightly in a frown. When he turned to leave however, he heard a noise come from above him that made him stop in his tracks.
"Huh?!" He called back to her in a sort of call and response. She needed help? With what? He told her the best way to get back to wherever she needed to go. She shouldn't have any kind of issue she couldn't solve by herself now. Especially since she seemed to be as strong as he was.
With a heavy sigh the pain in his chest seemed to subside and the frown on his face lightened slightly. His next words sounded like those of an exasperated adult, but they lacked a true edge of frustration.
"Hold on" he called to her. "I can't get out that way."
With a sound of moaning metal, the handle to the door in front of him was broken upon turning, its lock no match for his herculean strength. Luckily the door was a fairly wide one so fitting through it wasn't so much of an issue, it apparently lead to a ramped walkway of some kind that lead up to a storage unit attached to a municipal building. Equipment necessary for work in the tunnels was kept here on wooden pallets. There was a door that lead outside to the alley Molly was in, and one on the other side that lead deeper into the municipal building that was a metal shutter that reached from floor to ceiling.
He chose to open the door to the alley since it was the quickest route, but as his hand reached out to it he stopped abruptly. He felt a tightness in his chest of a different kind than before. Memories of his time on the surface flickered briefly in his mind. It was dangerous out there. Who was to say that he didn't open this door and see a soldier on the other side? Like this was all some ploy to get him out of the tunnel and into this confined space for capture?
He placed a claws hand on his head and closed his eyes firmly so that his entire face was contort with pain. No. No. He had to get out of his own head. If something like that was happening, he wanted to believe that Molly didn't know. That it wasn't on purpose. He wanted to trust her.
He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, then looked to the right at a crate of supplies that was covered in a dirty grey cloth tarp. Nodding slowly, he pulled the tarp off the crate and wrapped it around his body, tying it at the holes to it was kind of like a cape that covered all but his head. It wasn't quite big enough for what he wanted, and a faint rustling could be heard from his tail moving back and forth beneath the cover, but it was better than nothing.
After grabbing a balaclava used for keeping dust and other harmful powders out of workmen's faces and donning that, he finally pushed open the door into the alleyway, a high-pitched snap announcing his arrival as the lock broke under the strain.
With his new mask and cape, it was only his enormous size, deep amber reptilian eyes and the tiny amount of scales around them that made it clear that he was Waylon and not just some suspiciously dressed lunatic. He leant out from the doorway and scanned the alley for Molly, only his head and shoulders visible through the gap that was too small for him to fit through.
"What is it?" he asked the small girl once he'd found her. "You need cab fare or somethin'?"
He hoped that wasn't the case. He'd left all his money in his other universe...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2018 2:29:12 GMT
The little girl fell flat on her rump and leaned back to stare up at him upside down. "I'm lost," she explained with a shake of her fish fins. Even if she could get in a cab she wouldn't know where to tell the driver to go. If the driver even let her stinky sewer-smelling butt inside the car. "I dunno where I fell from, or how to get back there, or where Kamala is," her voice became more panicked as she verbalized all these realizations and the tears were back in her bright green eyes.
"Can you help me?" she pleaded. "Please?"
Waylon would fix it. He'd gotten her out of the sewer, and he could help her find her way now. There was absolute trust on her little face as she twisted to study him properly. He was wearing a cape. The tears turned into something more like a hiccup that wanted to be a giggle. "You look like a ninja," she decided. "A superhero ninja."
TAG: @croc
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2018 12:02:53 GMT
"I look like an idiot" he responded to her assertion, the lack of enthusiasm for the statement apparent in his voice.
She didn't realise what she was asking him to do with those puppy dog eyes. She thought he was just another adult, someone she could rely on to help her when she was in trouble. He was touched by the sentiment and at any other time he would be truly happy, but in this situation? He found himself struggling to respond.
"You don't..." he began, but trailed off, sighing deeply. How could he possibly explain something like this to a child? His circumstance was like racism, speciesism he supposed, but dialled to the extreme. If he ran into the wrong kind of people out here, there's a possibility he could die.
He was clearly reluctant to agree to her request. His face and body were hidden beneath his haphazard disguise, but his amber eyes spoke volumes to how scared he was by the prospect. He didn't want to encounter the same men he had before with the blue-haired girl. He didn't want to have to run again.
He didn't want to fight again.
"I ain't welcome up here" he finally managed to say out loud, though it was a half-hearted compromise on what he was thinking. He didn't want to frighten her. "I don't live down in the sewer cus I like it"
That took more courage to admit than he realised, the sinking feeling in his chest causing him physical pain. He placed a hand upon his chest and thought of all the times he'd told himself that he was fine living in the underbelly of Gotham. Away from people. Away from the world. He hadn't realised just how desperately he wanted friends.
"I wanna help but-" he paused. 'People might try and kill me' wasn't something he could say to Molly. His honesty could only go so far. "You'd get in a lotta trouble if you were seen with me."
His head tilted down to the ground, his eyes averted from the child in front of him. Even covered as he was, it was clear that he was hunching more than usual as he was weighed down by his sadness. His normally moving tail had stopped dead beneath the tarp, the faint sound of scales on plastic stopping completely.
"I'm not sure I can help you. I'm sorry" he said apologetically, his eyes flicking back for just a second before turning away again.
"I just want you to be safe"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2018 2:00:03 GMT
"It's okay," the little girl said softly.
"Where I come from there are a lot of mean people," Molly explained simply. "Not meaner than here," her upper lip curled with her first memory of this new place, and how terrifyingly aggressive these people were to strange strangers, "but mean. They hate people like you and me because we're different. Because we can do stuff they can't or we look different and it scares them. So they blow up our schools and send policemen after us and put us in jail for no reason."
She said it like it'd been explained to her by her parents: how being mutant wasn't bad and that it was the other people that were wrong. That the atrocities she saw in the news couldn't get her because they'd protect her. What Molly hadn't internalized from the pair who'd raised her was a sense of superiority for being a mutant. She'd spent too long idolizing the X-Men and loving her non-mutant friends. "Because people were so mean Mommy and Daddy wanted to destroy the world. They wanted to make a new one that would be safe for me and my friends, but to do that they hurt other kids."
The little girl looked very, very sad in a world-weary sort of way no eleven year old child should. "My friends and I stopped them. That's how they died. The scary monsters they made a deal with for a new world turned on Mommy and Daddy because I broke the box and let the dead girl's soul out," it was my fault. She didn't know any other way to tell him that she was used to not being safe now. Ever since her friends came to her house that night to take her on a whirlwind adventure.
"It's okay if you can't help," she said with a watery smile. "But can I stay with you until Kamala finds me? I don't want to be alone out here, or for the police to find me. I'm scared alone."
TAG: @croc
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2018 2:43:19 GMT
He could relate. A sea of people hating you because you look different? Sending the people who were meant to protect you to your house to try and do you harm? That was what his whole childhood was. It was likely that if he'd seen the inside of a school for too long, people would have wanted to blow that up too.
His kind of filth couldn't be cleaned.
He shook his head to rid himself of the voice clawing at the back of his mind.
Her parents wanted to destroy the world? He was sure he had felt that way at one time or another. But after a while, it all just seemed so pointless. He knew he couldn't change anyone's mind, and if all he could achieve was to hurt people then what was the point? Anger and resentment seemed so pointless.
So why did he feel that anger now? That bitterness he was trying to ignore? He didn't understand why these things he'd let go so long ago were resurfacing now in this new world. Perhaps it had something to do with this new body of his. With those memories that he was pushing down into the abyss.
Her story seemed unbelievable, the subject of a child's fantasy, but there was something about that sadness in her eyes that told him that every word was true. She was clearly special, in many ways, but she had paid for that in tears. She was trying so hard to stay strong despite her past. She was courageous enough to admit that she was scared, that she needed help.
And what was he doing?
The amber eyes beneath the balaclava disappeared for a long while, the soft rumbling of breath in his throat and the slight movement of his tail the only indication he was still awake. Then, suddenly, he dropped down onto his enormous posterior, his tail sliding out from beneath the tarp before curling back inside it to wrap around the left side of his body. A pair of arms emerged from his makeshift cape, his left arm scooping up the little girl from around her thighs and the right closing in around her back in an embrace.
She was minuscule in comparison, a girl that barely seemed a sixth his size, but within her was a depth of emotion that belied her tiny frame. The embrace was fragile, like he was afraid to break her. His skin was not as smooth or as warm as he wanted it to be.
"I'm sorry, kid" Was all he said as he held her in his grasp.
It had been a spontaneous decision, he clearly wasn't thinking about the act when he had done it. This was apparent about a minute later when his eyes suddenly popped open and he let go of her abruptly. If he'd had some forethought, he might have remembered to palce her back on the ground before letting go.
"Sorry." he repeatedly, though now it was a genuine apology. He idly scratched his head, tearing two holes in the fabric with his razor-sharp claws. His embarrassment dragging his vision away from her.
"I'll help" he said quietly, still unable to look at her for the moment. "I don't know how much I can help. But I'll help."
Almost as if he'd lived his whole life with it, his pushing himself back to his feet with his tail was completely natural. It was an act he clearly didn't mentally process or it would have bothered him greatly how much of a part of him it had become.
"I can get you back to that hole at least." he continued, looking off in its direction. The maps he'd been following in the sewer had street names and references to the surface for proper navigation. "It's just gunna be a pain in the ass"
He forgot to censor himself this time, his mind distracted with other thoughts. He needed to lighten the mood, to distract from what he had just done. Maybe a joke?
"Just don't fall back down again yeah?" Perhaps not the best choice of joke. "I won't be down there to help you next time."
… Really Waylon?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2018 0:40:30 GMT
She managed to drop to her feet, flailing her arms unsteadily, before righting herself with an immensely proud expression on her little face. His apology was greeted with a cheeky wrinkle of her nose. Mostly because this time she'd managed to land on her feet. For once.
"Thank you," she said, eyes bright, as she watched him return back to his towering height.
The kid skipped forward in the direction he indicated with the movement of his head, pausing to make sure he didn't get too far, but mostly bouncing around him in her excitement. "Okay!" she agreed cheerfully to the idea of being brought back to the hole she'd originally fallen down. That was closer to Kamala. She giggled, immaturely, at the swear.
She took his morbid joke at face value. "You're moving?" Molly asked him, green eyes curious, as she stopped her bouncing to peer up at him curiously. "Where are you gunna move to? The bayou? Can I come?" There had been a Disney movie about a princess who got turned into a frog that featured a cheerful alligator who would probably love to be best friends with Waylon. Because he was obviously real. Duh. Wolverine and Doop seemed just as unrealistic and they were real.
"Going down the bayou~" she sang, hopping to the phantom music in her head, as she decided that Waylon needed to hear the whole thing as they adventured down the streets of New York City. Molly couldn't help but be loud and obnoxious. Even if it was adorably enthusiastic.
"We all gonna pull together. Down here that's how we do!
Me for them and them for me. We all be there for you~"
TAG: @croc
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2018 1:49:20 GMT
"Huh?" he said in response to her asking about his moving, genuine confusion written across his face. What the hell was she talking about? It took him longer than it really should have to realise what she was talking about.
"I meant cus I'm up here right now and not-" Nope. She wasn't listening to him. She was mid song and bouncing along in the world of her own fantasy. She was much different now she wasn't down where she couldn't see. Even after what she'd just said about her past she was a ball of energy with a smile upon her face. He couldn't help but envy her.
There was a part of him that knew her singing would attract attention he didn't want, but he couldn't bring himself to put a stop to her happiness. Instead he kept his distance from her, his eyes darting to and fro as he stuck to the shadows and darker alleys whilst keeping an eye on her as much he could.
As she bounced off down a street the wrong way, he let out a short, high-pitched whistle to get her attention and then gestured over toward the correct direction with a quick flick of his head. He was trying not to talk, his distinct rumbling 'accent' as much an indication of his deformities as his scaled skin.
Unfortunately, his waiting for the child to hop over to him meant that he was momentarily distracted. So when he turned to walk down said alley he was startled to find a woman who looked to be in her late fifties not too far from him, who shared his shocked expression when she looked up from the phone she'd been looking at.
The shopping bag in her left hand fell to the ground. She was terrified, but could she really be blamed? Waylon was enormous, even hunched over he towered over the smaller woman and his choice of facial wear painted a very different picture than he intended. As the woman began to shake on the verge of screaming, he subconsciously reached out to her in an attempt to stop her, revealing his heavily clawed hand.
He realised too late what he'd done when the woman screamed and fell backwards in her haphazard attempt to get away. This was exactly what he was afraid of. He took a few steps back, almost as afraid as she was. He could hear people reacting to the scream from a distance away with his hearing.
"No. Wait, I-" The deep rumbling voice as he turned back to the woman, despite the content, only served to further upset his unwilling 'victim'. It was clear that this was not a situation that he could resolve on his own.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2018 3:27:50 GMT
By the time she'd caught up with Waylon the scared lady had already lost her groceries all over the alleyway and had flopped over in fear herself. Molly skidded to a stop and stilled in a bouncy sort of way besides the giant monster man. "You scared her," the little girl told the man in an exasperated sort of tone that preteen girls were famous for. "I bet it's the mask. Ninja masks can look like hambugler masks and people will think you're gunna steal their groceries."
She peered at the woman, leaning over hands on her knees, with concerned green eyes. "Are you okay lady?" she asked, offering the woman a hand to help her up, even if Molly was much too small to really offer much assistance. "We didn't mean to scare you. Really," the kid used her innocent face to her advantage, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. "We're not hambuglers." She handed the nervous woman an orange that had fallen from her grocery bag with a delighted smile, as though it proved her point, and stooped to help pick up more.
"My friend Karolina is shooting a movie based on Little Red Riding Hood, but it's set here, and because we have no wolves we're using an alligator in the sewer," Molly informed the woman conversationally, voice reassuring. It was a lie, yeah, but it was a good lie because it meant they wouldn't get hurt so it was okay. Right? It certainly explained the dinosaur man, and she loved a good story.
"I'm the star~" the child informed the woman righting herself with an excitable twirl, arms extended, "Waylon's playing the alligator. Doesn't he look scary!?" she marveled brightly, gesturing at her friend. "But I dunno how we're gunna make him look like a granny," the child informed the woman with a sly sort of stage-whisper and a charming little giggle.
Her green eyes moved past the woman to the police and curious bystanders approaching. "Can you help us let them know it's okay?" she asked, sounding a little nervous. "We didn't mean to scare anybody. Not till they see the movie, anyway."
TAG: @croc
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2018 18:09:59 GMT
Nervous amber eyes flicked between the two people in front of him as they interacted. He didn't like this, this deep-seated fear that clawed at his heart. He took a few steps back, putting plenty of space between him and the woman who was as terrified of him as he was of her. In the analogy of the human and the spider in their home, he was the spider. She just didn't realise her power.
The woman had trouble tearing her eyes of him, a constant flicker between him and the little girl that was trying to get her attention. She accepted the orange purely because it was offered, her trembling lips opening and closing but no words escaped them. She nodded, slightly, at Molly's insistence that it was all just a show. Perhaps a part of her wanted to believe it, but it was clear that the niggling corners of her mind wouldn't leave her.
"But. But why..." she began but couldn't finish, her pointing at the unusual attire of the man in front of him seeming to indicate she wanted to know why he was so peculiarly dressed.
"Ironically, I was tryin' to prevent..." the rumble of his throat made the woman jump and push herself backwards along the ground, having chosen not to pull herself to her feet when Molly had offered. Waylon sighed a deep, guttural sigh.
"This." he finished, turning his head away from her.
The woman took his looking away as her 'chance' to pull herself up using a nearby dumpster as support, as if his eyes had been locking her in place. She sort of half smiled and tried her best to laugh at Molly's joke, but it was clearly that she was still deeply unsettled.
She turned to look behind her when Molly mentioned the approaching bystanders and a part of her relaxed a little seeing the uniform of the man in blue. Waylon however was much the opposite, moving further and further away, mirroring the steps of those who were approaching.
"We should go kid" he said to Molly, his reptilian eyes still nervous beneath the mask. "We got people waitin' for us"
It was a weak excuse for wanting to vacate the area before the others got closer enough to share in the woman's initial terrified reaction. He knew deep down that their story would hold up under scrutiny. The woman looked confused between the two of them, clear distrust in her eyes at his want to leave.
"You know I ain't meant to be walkin' around in this" he gestured to his body, trying to play on the 'it was a suit!' Of it all, but his voice cracked slightly. He just wasn't very good at lying.
"Let's go" he repeatedly, tilting his head toward the opposite direction than the policeman, hoping Molly would sjut follow along. "Yeah?"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2018 1:36:47 GMT
She was silent as she followed along besides him, a bunch of her tiny steps to keep up with one of his, until they were mostly alone again. Once they were, she regarded him with a huffing sound and addressed what she was sure was the elephant in the room. "I don't think you should dress like a ninja anymore," she informed him, green eyes serious as she peered up at him.
"If you look like a hambugler people are gunna think you're one and be scared. Even if you're not," the little girl pointed out as though it made perfect sense. "And people are mean when they're scared. I don't want them to be mean to you." She reached up to where his hand would be if it weren't covered by the tarp in a reassuring fashion. "But you don't have to be scared," she told him softly. "You're bullet proof, and I'll protect you, too. I can't see in the dark, but I can do lots of other cool stuff."
TAG: @croc
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2018 23:08:21 GMT
He was glad when Molly followed him despite her protests. It would have caused a lot more issues he couldn't solve if they tried to walk past the group of bystanders instead of going around. He was very careful to check streets and alleyways from now on, focusing carefully on his hearing to tell if people were going to cross his path. A couple of times he stopped, waiting for something Molly couldn't see to cross the end of an alley before entering it.
He sighed when she finally spoke. She didn't get it. How could she? She was just a kid.
They were going to be mean, Molly, he was a monster.
What he wouldn't give to have lived a life where he could be that naïve.
It was what she said last though that made him stop dead still. He could faintly feel the pressure of her hand through the tarp and he pulled it away from her like the touch was painful to him. For a second he glared at her from beneath the mask with his amber eyes, something animalistic bubbling beneath the surface. She had clearly forgotten how she felt when she first saw him. That fear he saw in her eyes as he leant into the light. That fear was all adults cared about. That fear enough for them to write him off. For long moment he held that glare, an anger inside him building as he remembered many cases of the same fear-filled eyes that she had back then.
Then he sighed.
"Look. Kid." he began, his voice slightly exasperated. "I don't think you get it, so I'll spell it out for you."
He squatted down so that he was sat on his thick tail, his head coming into line with Molly's so that she could see into his eyes.
"I. Am. A. Mon. Ster." his eyes closed hard, saying it out loud was somehow more painful than he had thought it was going to be. Clenching his jaw for a moment to steel his resolve, he carried on.
"I ain't a dinosaur. I ain't a person. Everyone out here wants to either kill me, or put me in lockup so they can experiment on me. Harsh reality kid, the people out here are my enemies." Okay, he might've gone a bit far with that. His head turned to the side and he scratched at his temple, tearing a small hole in the balaclava.
"I don't care if I'm bulletproof. I don't want people shootin' at me to begin with. And more importantly-" he lightly poked at her chest, tryign desperately to complete the motion without piercing her skin which was difficult, considering how sharp his claws were. "You don't seem that bulletproof to me. If they bounce off me and hit you, I couldn't live with myself."
His voice cracking at the end undercut the stern attitude he was trying to take with the little girl. His concern showing through more than he had wanted it to. He couldn't help it, he knew the danger he could put her in if he was careless and the last thing on earth he wanted was for a child, especially this child, to be hurt because of him.
"The mask stays on." he said stubbornly, returning to his full height and pressing on with the travel toward their destination. "At least that time we got to talk. Better to be seen as a mugger than a monster. "
Tag: @molly
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2018 1:11:12 GMT
His claw tore a small hole in her shirt, but it only lightly grazed her skin. Molly winced, her lips curling into a pout, as he backed off and stood up again. "You're wrong," the little girl decided, trotting after him. Her lips were now set in that stubborn manner only a preteen could muster. "You're not a monster where it really matters," she pointed out, gesturing to her heart by making the shape of one with both hands. "If you were you'd have eated me, but you didn't. You saved me."
"I've met real monsters. They eat people and destroy things. My Mommy and Daddy were friends with them, but they were bad friends," she explained, and her expression darkened at the memory of those giant, twisted beings. As much as she missed her parents, and often deliberately forgot about the fact they were gone, she was still upset with them. Molly wasn't really one to dwell on things that upset her, though. She gave her head a small shake as if dismissing the memory.
"You're a good friend," she pressed on with her point, skipping ahead so she could twirl and walk backwards facing him for a few yards. Because what she had to say was important and she wanted him to see how serious she was about it. "I think so, and I bet Batman thinks so even though you don't know any songs about friendship yet."
She eyed his ninja mask thoughtfully before she spun back around to skip forward a few paces. Seconds barely passed before she turned back towards Waylon with a delighted smile on her face. It was almost as if her fish hat had sprouted a visible light bulb on a spring popping above her head. "What if I made your ninja mask less scary?" she asked him, delightedly. Since he seemed determined to wear it. "I could make it look less like a hamburglar mask!" she suggested, hopping with excitement. Some sparkles and kitty ears would make him look less scary. Molly was sure.
TAG: @croc
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 3:28:41 GMT
If he'd have rolled his eyes any harder at her insistence that it was 'inside that really mattered' they amber orbs would have fallen out of his head. She spoke like every after-school special was the word of god. It proved one thing, even kids with terrible parents could fall victim to the brainwashing that was children's television programming.
Unfortunately, or perhaps in this case very fortunately, Waylon's family would rather he risk his life fighting scaly-skinned killing machines than watch anything even close to warm and fuzzy television shows. There was more money to be made that way after all; all watching TV got you was deep-seated naivete and your brain melting out your ears.
Or so he was told.
His cynicism was visible in his eyes as he watched the girl walk backwards in front of him. She really did seem to believe there was some kind of nugget of goodness in him that erased all the problems of the world. He of course didn't believe her, but he didn't know whether he felt touched that she was so convinced or sad to know that one day that confidence would end up drowned by how terrible reality was.
"Oh yeah, great idea!" he said with a heavy layer of sarcasm, though he did grin and snort a little in a kind of half-laugh at the idea.
"Set me up with pointy bat ears and a proper cape so I can roam the streets teachin' bad-guys a lesson." he continued, his arm gesturing to his surroundings in dramatic fashion.
"Let all criminals and 'bad friends' fear the wrath of the Dark Knight!"
Okay, perhaps he'd gone a little bit overboard with the macho pose that exposed his scaly torso to the world, hands on both hips and head tilted to the sky like a superhero. Truth was he'd been carried by the momentum of his little joke; the somewhat heavy air having been obliterated by the ludicrousness of it all.
He was of course making fun of his faraway friend as he had done the first time they met. He didn't buy into the need to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, he was damn scary to look at and all it meant was that they panicked and shot at him. He figured that would be a terrible hazard for someone that doesn't want to die to risk.
Besides, who even found bats that scary? Waylon thought they were actually kind of cute.
Shaking his head, a faint smile still present on his face, he continued on with their journey toward where she'd fallen down. Unlike the twisting labyrinthine halls of the sewers it was much easier to get around above ground and despite the detours and avoiding people as much as possible they were already nearing their destination at a decent pace.
"You can get right on that when we find Kamala" he concluded, his laughing clearly outlining that it was all just a big joke to him...
Tag: @molly
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