ArchivedLogs:Trains

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Trains
Dramatis Personae

Trib, Noah Ringe, Cage

2014-01-30


Noah interrupts Cage and Trib. Some trains are involved.

Location

<NYC> Trainyard


Cage sent out the text late Thursday night. --Meet at the trainyard. On my way now. You will sweat.--

And Luke is in fact already at the yard by now. He's dragged out the hodge-podge equipment he and Trib have used from time to time, lit a barrel fire because it's colder than a witch's teat outside, and he's doing 'burpy' pushups on his own in some open space. It looks like he's been doing them for a while based on the scuff marks, and he just keeps going at it.

Trib doesn't get there all /that/ quickly, despite his familiarity with the route. Today, he's taken a detour by the office, presumably to check the legitimacy of the text, and found no one there. So now he's /here/.

The boxer rolls around a corner, hands jammed in the pockets of his army flack jacket, and shoulders hunched against the bite of the winter chill. He's wearing a pair of heavy grey sweats with a pair of running shorts on over those, and clearly ready to throw down. On his head, (ostensibly to ward off the afforementioned chill), a ten gallon cowboy hat is jammed down low on his ears. It's a little like Mongo meets Rocky, appearance-wise. The big man walks up to where Cage is doing his showy push-ups and looms there, watching the big man with a narrowed eye. "'scold as fuck."

Following someone is only interesting to a certain point, while it's a challenge, to the awkwardly built, obvious mutant. At least the area nearby was extremely noisy, with all of the traffic nearby from Penn, and no screaming was needed to keep track of quarry. And so it is that the black, spined mutant tracks, well out of sight at all times: no need for sight, of course, he doesn't use sight. It is, as mentioned though, extremely cold, and insulation of his natural armor isn't enough to keep Noah comfortable. The open area of the trainyard presents a problem with being stealthy, so for now he explores around several trains relatively quietly, still out of sight, deciding the most entertaining way to suddenly appear.

"298, 299, 300." Cage says with a sound of accomplishment. He pushes himself to his feet and shows a gleam of sweat in the flickering light of the barrel fire. "Christ, it's about time. I told myself I'd do burpies until someone got here. Fuck, I'm like /500/ pounds, you know that? That's a lot of weight to move." Ok, so not really, not for Luke Cage anyway. But still. There are fresh cracks in the weathered pavement where he was working out.

Trib snorts at the count, and rolls his eyes as he extracts a hand from a pocket to thumb his hat back on his head. "Fuck you," he says dispassionately. "You know you started countin' at two hundred an' ninety." He shifts his shoulders, and frowns into the night. "Besides, can't you lift a fuckin' /car/?" He digs a toe of his boot into one of those cracks, and his mouth pulls tight as he looks around again, bringing his gaze around to pin Cage with a hard furrow of his brow. "'sfuckin' cold," he repeats. "Like, fuckin' Star Wars ice planet cold."

There's no entertaining way to do it that he can think of. And so instead, Noah opts to try to remain stealthy. It's not -easy-, because he's really blind with the quiet train yard, but he makes the best of it... by mostly using the fire barrel as a landmark. He carrrrefully slinks around his train, and then bolts out across and down the tracks, putting the barrel between himself and the people to use the smoke to cloak somewhat. His armor isn't extremely heavy at the moment: he's relatively sleek, a spined black panther in the night. Which arrives, suddenly comes around the side of the fire with a loud announcement of, "/Extremely stealthy!/ So there!" Proudly.

Cage brushes his hands off on his light gray sweat pants and does a double take when he finally looks at Trib. His eyebrows shoot up and he says, "That hat looks fucking ridiculous. Where'd you get it?" He sighs and shrugs, "I can life a /couple/ cars, but that's not the point man, everything's in perspective. And I don't cheat my own damn count- JESUS FUCK" Cage whips around when Noah jumps out, dropping into a boxer's fighting crouch before his eyes adjust to the darkness surrounding the mutant's dark body. "What the fuck, man?" He's not really mad, just startled as hell.

"Hey, lay off the fuckin' hat," Trib grunts, narrowing his eyes. "I don't know where if fuckin' came from. It was hangin' in my bedroom when I woke up the other mornin'." He rolls his shoulders, and smirks. "I kind of like it, though. Reminds me of my pa." The big man's smirk deepens as Cage boasts of his strength, and he might have a reply, only there is a ROACH, there, and the big man wheels. His hands come out of his pockets, fists clenched, and he drops into a defensive stance. "Motherfucker," he growls, as he settles on who it actually is, and his fists drop. "Good way to get your ass handed to you, Franz."

Well, the answer to Cage's startled outburst is mostly thoughtful, a touch analytic. "You prefer the screaming as a warning?" Noah the 'Roach' asks, sounding more amused by the question than much else. Probably hard to tell if he's actually being cheeky or really just asking. "My ass handed to me? WELL, I do get shot a lot. A /lot/." He squats partially where he is, forearms against his rugged, twisted knees, relatively close to the fire, which lights up the shiny black armor on that side fully. "Not that it matters." His tone is strange: a mix of pride and dismay.

Cage sighs and stands up straighter when he recognizes Roach. "Jesus Roach, are 'screaming' and 'fucking jump out the shadows' my only two options?" He's grinning though as he shakes his head, stepping forward to offer the monster-man a fistbump. "Here's to catching bullets. But that's why I wanted you guys to come out. It's not always bullets. I heard there's a guy... out there somewhere. Once he gets moving, he can't be stopped. I think that's mostly bullshit, but if we don't have to worry about bullets, let's train for the shit that /can/ worry us, yeah?"

Trib's expression darkens when Roach mentions getting shot, and he nods in a sharp jerk. "Yeah, well, I heard about that. You tell me if that guy does that again," he rumbles at the bug-man, hunching his shoulders. "'Cause I told them to leave you the fuck alone." He falls silent, then, listening with a tipped head as Cage explains the gathering. When the boss is finished talking, he snorts. "Maybe /you/ two ain't got to worry about bullets," he drawls. "But that metal armor I fancy up with ain't impenetrable. Right /kind/ of bullet could take me down pretty easy." His expression flattens as he looks over his shoulder. "Cops liked to talk about it in the cages where I could hear 'em. Thought it was funny." He shrugs, and looks back at the other two. "But yeah. We should train for that kind of shit, no matter fuckin' what."

"Well, those are my usual options. I don't do snuggles and kisses," Roach says flippantly, arching his back, the spines shifting and arching in a liquid, smooth motion all along the raised spinal ridge. He shrugs some at Trib's offer about the man shooting him, seeming to prefer to not talk too much on it. His body seems to work smoothly when he's this leaner shape, he's not doing as much of the awkward, heavy positioning for now. In a sense, he's probably much creepier this way. Roach turns his body a little when Cage moves forward at him, and there's a slight vibrating 'churrrrrr' rattle from his throat: he's trying to pick up on what Cage is doing. The fistbump, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be understood, because the blind Roach doesn't react properly to it. He decides Cage has some object in his hand, and automatically moves one taloned hand underneath it, palm up, expecting to be given something. But something else clicks. "You wanted /us/ to come out? Me /also/? Or another person is here?" Disbelief. Then a new assumption. "/Oh/, do I play the bad guy role and get hit?" He isn't even offended, but seems pleased to be included.

Luke nods approvingly at Trib's protective attitude, but visibly makes a mental note to ask him about it later. When Noah doesn't get the fist bump, he gently rolls the Roach's hand into a fist and gently taps his knuckles to it. "It's a fistbump, brother. Didn't you get my text messa- Oh. Shit, my bad, man." Luke frowns briefly and then just shakes his head. "But no, you don't get to be the bad guy. /I/ do," he says with a fierce grin. "Maybe you can next time, but I want the two of you to square off, work together, and try to pull me down to the ground. You can even go off and make a plan without me hearing if you want."

"...Square off? Work together?" Roach asks, as if Cage has absolutely lost his mind and suggested they should wear special sombreros to walk their new poodles to China. "I... think I need more infos. Cause I'll accidentally disembowel somebody, maybe, 'cause I don't really, um, 'plan', and I hit hard; I dunno even HOW hard," he says, in a kind of quiet (for him) voice, which means about normal speaking level. He sounds sad, but at the very least, his point is clear: More prep is needed before actually fighting, due to the lethal style his mutation lends to, and he's making an /effort/ to not harm anyone.

Sounds like if Roach is included, some more awareness of what to even do to 'train'.