Highly-Visible Ninja

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Who: Edge and OPEN
What: A much-disliked ninja tries to choose his time and place for confrontation.
Where: The greenhouse car.
When: Egret 28.



Considering things had reached the point where open calls to murder him were expressed on the message system -- and though Edge was sure they'd be written off as jokes, he was also sure that the ones making those jokes would not show the slightest moral qualm were they to happen -- Edge believed that an actual attack was only a matter of time. Any number of people on the train believed themselves superior, didn't they? And he felt certain the Council would, if not look the other way, debate such a situation without any meaningful resolution occurring. In other words, someone who wanted to hurt him had no reason not to try.

That being the case, this called for a little strategy.

So the mid-morning found Edge in the greenhouse car, sitting atop one of those large crates full of seeds, legs folded and hands resting on his knees. His eyes were shut, and overall he gave the impression of being deep in meditation. Of course, someone who could (and did) expect an attack would be an idiot to meditate in the open with his guard down, wouldn't he? But enough people thought he was an idiot that he fully expected it would meet their threshold of belief.

In reality, he was focused entirely on the environment around him, as he perceived it through his hearing. The end of his ninja scarf, pooled on the crate beside him, in fact hid his folded-up shuriken, right where he could snatch it up easily. So he was ready.

Now to see if anyone would take advantage. He hoped, at least, that he was being excessively paranoid...

Comments

[emerald_mirror]

Oh, Edge can feel another presence enter the greenhouse car. As was normal, Xander got yeeted ways across the train, back to his room, once the time hit. As usual, stubbornly, the nephilim just heads back to the greenhouse, ready to get down to business.

His business being planting seeds. Though he's a bit startled to see a man sitting on the seed crate.

"Um. I'm sorry," he says, lifting his hands. He'd seen what was definitely a weapon sitting there! "I--can I get in that seed crate? I'd been planning to plant a few things, you see. Sorry to disturb you." Because it was fairly obvious the guy was meditating.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Okay. If this guy was gonna attack, he was being crazy-duplicitous about it, so Edge was leaning towards him not.

"Of course. Sorry about that." He slapped down one hand, pushing himself smoothly off the crate and scooping up his shuriken in the flow of his scarf in the same motion. "What are you planting?"

[emerald_mirror]

"It's not a big deal. Today, it's work on one of the boxes," Xander says. "So edible flowers like nasturtiums and clover, and then some chives, up where they won't be invasive and get into everything else!"

Though that was more a concern with the chive. Most flowers weren't that invasive--left unchecked, the clover could be. Thus the wooden box. "I admit I'd kind of like to get some hibiscus in here, but I'm not sure I've got enough talent to grow them from seed. If they even seed! A botanist, I'm not." Though surely Xander tried!

"After I do that, I'll probably go around and talk to the plants a bit, because they like that, but if I'm gonna be a disturbance, I'll wait until right before I go to bed and do it then. Give you some space," he says with a smile.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

"Talk to the plants?" Edge had to back up to that comment, forgetting a bit that he was supposed to be on guard, because what? "Is this some branch of magic I haven't heard of?"

[maxwellsdaemon]

Lemonade, he decided, sucked. He really wanted to get his hands on a soda. Maybe when he had the points to do it he would, but for now the lemonade would do. Sure, he supposed he could have made a coffee, but that got boring after a while. And the juice didn't have a bad flavour. Just no fizz.

He was sipping at his drink as he wandered through the train on his way back to his cabin. But had to stop halfway through the greenhouse when he spotted someone he hadn't met yet.

So he paused, just standing there and sipping lemonade, wondering if he should say something. Wufei used to get pissed off if he bothered him when he was doing his meditation thing. More than once he'd tried to teach Duo, but Duo had just gotten bored and wandered off.

... So he decided to sit down and wait and sip his drink. Maybe by the time he finished the guy would be done? Or by the time he was finished he would get bored of waiting and wander off, just as he had done with Wufei.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Well, from everything Edge's ears told him, someone had settled down to wait. That was... not a response he expected, and he wasn't sure how to interpret it.

Really, he could only do one thing, then -- open his eyes, and look in the direction of that person. See what came of it.

[maxwellsdaemon]

Duo wasn't often someone who did what was expected of him. So he was just happily sitting there with his glass to his lips and sipping at his nice, cold lemonade when he noticed the guy on the crate had opened his eyes and noticed him righg back.

He grinned. "Hey there, didn't mean to disturb you!" he lowered his drink to his lap. "You doin okay up there, buddy? There's gotta be more comfortable places to meditate?"

[hashtagparkerluck]

Peter's only barely awake when he has to cross through the greenhouse car. He doesn't usually sleep well and last night had been a particularly rough one that he'd rather just ignored. He stumbles in looking very much like a kid with his hair uncombed and still in pajamas. Unfortunately for both Peter and Edge there isn't any other way to get to the dining car other than teleportation and Peter's not awake enough for that nor is he scared of getting attacked. Honestly, the whole thing is just kinda stupid to him.

He doesn't know quite what time it is because there's no real way to tell but his normal routine has him head off to get breakfast after first waking up and drinking coffee with Tony. He lets out a yawn and then freezes as his senses tell him there's someone else in the room with him.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

So. Sounds like somebody noticed him and stopped moving. That's what Edge's ears told him.

Suspicious and worrisome. After all, who would stop except someone who had a reason to stop specifically upon seeing him? Which of course implied someone who'd wish to cause him grief.

(Yuffie was a very outside possibility, but he was almost entirely certain she'd get louder, not quieter.)

His muscles tensed slightly, as he waited to hear more.

[hashtagparkerluck]

That tiny prickle at the back of his neck has him glancing around to see what could possibly be causing his sense to go off this early in the morning. It doesn't take him long to notice Edge and he jumps almost comically as if startled.

"Holy shit, you scared me." He says, hand on his chest before letting out a breath to calm his heart. Ninjas man.

[mtsilver_conquor]

Eva didn't really have much of an excuse, as of yet, to visit the greenhouse. But, she was hoping to change that when she had points again. She wanted more things from home - familiar plants for one.

She was aware of the tensions Edge had created with his antics; it was hard not to be, but at the same time, she wasn't letting it get to her. Cultural clashes happened. She'd stumbled onto them herself and was honestly amazed they hadn't happened sooner.

Now, to hope she didn't put her foot in it, but. Whatever.

"Do you know the term 'cultural clash'? Asking as someone who's run into it before."

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Oh, it's her. Edge didn't have a good read on her yet, having not really had the chance to talk to her much. He didn't think she was the attacking sort... though it sounded like she was here to attack with words.

Well. She wasn't a kid. They'd likely pillory him for speaking harshly to a woman, or some other excuse, but it hardly mattered at this point.

"No, but I can guess. That's what allows everyone to attack me for having standards in leadership?"

[mtsilver_conquor]

"No. It's a conflict arising from the interaction of people with different cultural values, often only found out because of things like this. You have your values. I have mine. They have there's. No-one is in the right, because from our view, we're right. But, what happened shouldn't have happened. I plan on addressing it as soon as I figure out how." There is steel in her voice. Steel and fury and anger at what happened.

But her voice softens now. She's not heard to attack, she's here to understand and she holds up her hand as she speaks. "As far as I care, everyone made fools of themselves and that's that. But I can see where you come from after a fashion because my world still has semi-functioning monarchies and we have positions that are very much like monarchs. I think they do a good job with what power they have. So. Would you care to tell me about how it works in your world?"

LET ME KNOW IF THIS ISN'T COOL

[knifewithnoname]

It was him. They had met before. Talked before and she was aware he was probably not quite light blinded. But he hadn't been a shadow god sworn servant either. Not like she knew anyways.

He was a magic user, which meant he was to be obeyed but not even that means anything here. He's not from her world and his is very different. So it is only the new rules that apply.

There aren't many of those. But this is one of them. He hurt Peter. Not physically but with words and when someone was as weak and leaky eyed as Peter words were like daggers. She should know. She had hurt him that way herself.

But that had been before they were friends. Peter was her friend and she might not know anything about friendship. But she knew friends protected each other.

Honestly why this man wasn't dead yet was beyond her but she can find respect for Tony in acting to what he believes. He is a light addled fool but at least he is not a hypocrit.

She is not a light addled fool. She is not Peter to believe in life above all. And she is not Tony to believe in protection. She is a killer.

She hasn't killed anyone on this train. She has killed monsters but not people. No one has ordered her to. No one has ordered her to hurt this man.

She had never done a mission without orders before. But there is no one to give orders here. No one at all.

So she is bare foot, dagger in hand. She knows he is a fighter, she knows he is stealthy and is powerful. He is no lazy noble who wouldn't know caution if it stuck a dagger in him. But she was trained. She was not a child. Not like the children here. She is in the emptiness, as silent as she can be.

She has to be fast. She cannot fight him, he is too big, too strong. It has to be quick and deadly.

She dives, rushing towards him, prepared to strike.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

In one smooth motion, Edge whirled, unfolding the fuma shuriken in the same movement as he stood up. The motion finished with the shuriken leaving his hand -- off into the wall of the train, as he recognized his attacker and clung to it just long enough to send it flying far from the girl and the conflict.

Instead, he snapped out a hand to catch at the dagger and pull it free from her grip. Ninjas were, after all, quite skilled thieves among other things.

[knifewithnoname]

She saw the weapon and got ready to dodge but it missed her. Missed her by a huge margian, like he was not trying to hit her at all.

But he was still fast, far too fast and her dagger was out of her hand before she knew he had grabbed it.

She landed and span around, face in a snarl. She had been learning how to fight without weapons, being weaponless would not stop her. He might be harder to kill like this but she ran towards him once more, focusing her weight towards his legs, to try and topple him.

[laurefindil]

Glorfindel walked into the Greenhouse, he and Xander had discussed the plants they wanted in their cabin, so now he just needed to get them started so they would thrive once transplanted.

He was immediately aware there was someone meditating on one of the crates, but this was a popular place for quiet contemplation, so it was not unexpected and he does not want to disturb them.

However, as an elf (and one trained in sneaking through the forest so as not to be heard by orcs), he then had to decide how loud to be to make sure he did not give this person a heart attack when they realized he was there, yet quiet enough not to disturb them. It was a constant balancing act on this train, as there were so many people he was unfamiliar with.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

One slight flaw in Edge's plan was a failure to account for those who were just unfairly stealthy. To him, the elf's efforts to make enough noise to not sneak sounded like someone making an effort to sneak instead.

Which meant trouble. His fingers flexed the tiniest amount, as he readied himself to act...

[laurefindil]

Glorfindel nudged over two pebbles on purpose as he went over to the plot of earth he'd claimed as his own for now, feeling like he was making enough racket to wake the dead. Let's see, he was going to need the seeds, and his gardening tools, of course...

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin was heading for the garden carriage, his own favorite meditation spot. He had to walk through the greenhouse coach to get there, however. He was not much of a gardener, so he rarely lingered long in the greenhouse -- except occasionally to pluck a rose from the climbing vines along the walls. Red flowers suited his tastes, and he detoured to the vines to pick a red rose, stick it in his braided hair, and grin at himself in an imaginary mirror.

He had seen Edge sitting on the seed crate on the opposite side of the coach and moved quietly so as not to disturb him. But then he thought, Why don't I wait for him and see if he's willing to talk? He had read all the comments in the raging arguments in Tony's election results post on the network, but he hadn't tried to take part or intervene. It would only have made the situation worse, he believed. He did not disagree with everything Edge had said, and he could understand his point of view.

And so he sat crosslegged in the grass, pulled his notebook out of his jacket, and worked on a poem he had long meant to make into a song. The soft scratching of his pen would probably be audible to Edge.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Edge's plan didn't account for absurdly quiet elves, having been developed in accordance with human limitations -- even really skilled humans. So the pen-scratching startled him badly. On pure reflex, he sprang to his feet, the shuriken unfolding as he snatched it up by its inner ring.

But it really was just pen-scratching. After one tense moment, he relaxed, not relieved but definitely more surprised than alarmed now.

"How did you DO that?"

[so_dark_a_road]

It is true that Elves are absurdly quiet. They are so attuned to the physical world that they can slip into an environment without a sound, even Elves of Curufin's clan, who were attuned to war and could crash into a battlefield and make as much noise as any other armor-clad, sword-clanging warrior.

When Edge leaped to his feet and brandished his weapon, Curufin simply turned his head and smiled. "How did I do what?"

Late <3

[thegreatninja]

Yuffie didn't try and sneak when she saw Edge sitting in the garden car with his eyes close. Well, she tried to sneak but she didn't do a very good job and she knew that he'd have heard her approach. "Guess what?!" She spoke just before jumping and wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

"I'm on the council now!" Which meant that they could make things happen on the train instead of just butting heads with Tony. Who was coming to see how awesome Yuffie was, even if he was a butt-head.

"What cha doin' anyway?"

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Yuffie wasn't too subtle, and more to the point, Edge could recognize her well enough by her approach not to worry. Instead, when she jumped at him, he simply reached behind with one arm to wrap it around her and scoop her up.

"I heard the announcement. Looks like your efforts to shake things up have been welcomed!"

[thegreatninja]

"Whoa!" A surprised giggle escaped from her chest as the air exhaled from her lungs.

She looked up at Edge with a bright smile, her arms looping around his neck. "Hiya." Yuffie flashed him a bright excited grin. It was easy to forget that she was pissed off at the train when Edge was around.

"It's my awesome charm." She shifted and sat more comfortably across his lap. "Besides, now I can get your back." Yuffie was worried about Edge because the people on the train were fucking crazy. At least this way she could try and keep him safe; in her own backwards way.