Otoko Michi: The Path of These Men! [Hawke, OPEN]

___It was hobo season, this was well known in the spiritual world. Summer and spring, homeless or down and out humans populated almost every street corner. Winter was harder, the spirits would turn on each other, but for now nothing beat the fun and taste of a bona fide human being. Such fare the vixen that trotted along the dirty alleyways, as black as the night itself, never partook of until last night when she dined on the delicate meat of a teenager out past curfew. His tender flesh held a unique sweetness that came only from a creature who absorbed too much energy drinks and soda in his lifetime, but there was something primitively gratifying in the dish. Thus, being the hedonist she was, she was out looking for another.
___As such, the sounds of the physical activity going down in the quiet alley drew her like a moth to a streetlight, her tongue lolling like a dog's, until she came quietly upon where she judged the sounds to be coming from. Before she could think to go into stealth mode or spring, however, she recognized one of the few young men who would purposely be out this time of night, as if to taunt fate itself. "Hotaka, eh?" she thought to herself, trotting into the alleyway and noting the fleeting scent of injury on the air. Though she would only turn on a customer if he had no intentions of ever buying again, there seemed to be another person. Perhaps he was crippled?
___Shifting back into her more familiar form, she would approach the pair of men with a warm smile and amiable greeting. "Kaito!" she'd move to pat him hard on the shoulder if he didn't resist. "How've you been my good man? Enjoying yer purchase I hope, ha ha! Who's yer friend?" The wistful gaze she gave the stranger had an excited and ominous air to it, like a child at a dinner table awaiting permission to eat. "I heard a loud crash, he injured much?"

___The newcomer seemed unphased by the return look the non customer gave her, instead perking up at the sight of his initial lack of balance when unboarding the trash can like a cat at the sight of a flailing bird. She settled back down when he regained his balance, however, an almost disappointed expression in her eyes. "Ah... a spill..." she mumbled distantly, looking up for the closest fire escape and wondering exactly how far the man could've fallen. "Well, if ya ain't a regular customer means you have to fill out a custom order so I'll know what ye want. I tend to supply on a need - is basis, eh? But my normal inventory is the good ol' Super Skunk... err... that's Mary Jane for ye uninitia... less knowing people. I got speeddust, that's good stuff let me tell ye. Tried some the other night, got wasted like a motherfucker. I'll do a demonstration in a bit, makes ye a lot faster, and I got my good ole lovemusk. Speakin' of which, is the little tyke ye bought puttin out? Ah, that's none of my business. I guess ye don't want me talking about yer personal business in front of yer friends... might spill, chick is awfully young. Anyways!"
___Though her malicious gaze rested on the man since she stopped looking at the fire escape, this was her first time addressing him directly and sans any interruption from the man's Good Samaritan she would trot over, extending a hand to him as though for a shake, purring, "Name's Grunty. Ies a merchant of pleasure, fun, and escape... make quite a few sales on this end of town. Ye don't look like a spirit, what're ya doin out this time of night, eh? Kinda dangerous if yer not from these parts." Her toothy grin widened perceptibly and her eyes narrowed to very small slits, glowing vile hues of yellow and green as if to make the rest of her form look darker. The hand she extended, like the rest of her skin, was dark, maybe from melanin, maybe from dirt and covered with a frayed black fingerless glove. Her fingernails were cracked, slightly yellow, and black, more like claws in form. A T-shirt with a dove with its back turned to the viewer adorned her torso, covered in turn by a big, baggy, dark green camo coat with fake fur trim, the white of the collar lost long ago to yellowish brown dirt. Long and ragged, her hair hung down from below a grimy baseball cap, bound only by a few ninja-style bandages on the tendrils of her bangs. Black cargo shorts covered her skinny waist and legs, from which she drew the different drugs as she talked about them and put them back, all except the speed sample, which she held in the hand that wasn't out for a shake. All in all, she looked like she had been bathing less than usual these past few weeks. "Bad shit happens, trust meh."

___"Inventory?" the woman purred distantly, far too caught up in her thoughts to figure out what in the heck "gatherer" meant and deciding that since she'd come so far without one she could do without one now. The tenseness of the object of her focus, however, was almost tangible... delicious. "Eh... males don't sell too well unless they real young. There ain't many guys like you out there like guys, but they do pay alot. Anyways... Ran was it? Maybe we aughta get acquainted, you is a little cute, ain't ye?"
___During the latter portion of her sentence, the darkness in the alleyway seemed to consume the woman, covering her until it became clear that she was a small black vixen again, a little larger than a large cat. In a similarly feline manner, she went to rub her head and body against the stranger, seeming peaceful for the moment.

___Stopping briefly, Grunty accepted the scratch under the chin, purring despite her apparent species. The alley seemed to be filled with an odd energy. Only slightly detectable would be the force that would make the hair on one's head stand on end ever so slightly [lytscatters]. The timing of it made it seem as a reflex to the pleasure of the touch, but she only briefly licked Kaito's hand and almost capriciously continued on her way to the other man. An odd combination of his status of non-customer and the fact that he simply looked and smelled nicer than the other compelled her forward. Seeming to want his attention above the other's, she'd go to lick his hand and sit in front of him expectantly.

___The vixen sat calmly, her tongue lolling out and her head tilted to the side slightly, waiting, expectant. What she was looking for seemed to come in the form of Ren, in a daze. When the hand reached out in her general direction, the playful, almost flirting demeanor stayed. Stayed even as she launched herself at the base of his arm, fangs bared and ready to clamp down like a steel trap. To her, this was all just a game, would remain all just a game. She wasn't the sort to take seriously the lives of others except as devices to advance the goals of her own pleasures. Running through her mind, making her smile, had been the vision of the boy she'd overcome and eaten before... poor soul had no hitorinji around to help and no spiritual friends to even care. The anticipation of the taste of that blood... the somewhat rusty taste and the unique texture as it dried... the snap of tendons and the crunch of bones... the softness of the flesh... such things drove her forward with all of the weak speed she could muster like the wicked demon she was.

___The fox flows backwards with the movements of her "prey" as it were, but her goal wasn't simply to latch on, it was to tear off a piece. Like any carnivore, it mattered little to her if the man lay dead or not, thus, since she seemed to have grasped a sufficiently fleshy portion of his arm, she didn't need to worry about pulling him down, she simply moved with the momentum and shook her head until the muscles ripped free, bracing herself against the garbage can so she moved opposite the motions of the falling man.
___Thus, she landed some twenty or so feet away to the right and forward of the man, turning, her red mouth grinning with silent wickedness. So Kaito did intend to protect this man, she thought, her primitive mind running through her flighty memory in an attempt to recall any manifestations of power he'd shown previously other than being a schoolboy that walked the dangerous streets this time of night. Well, since he did walk and hadn't been eaten before that means he should know how to do something defensive at least other than taste bad, but she found herself not caring after she finished the bit of meat. Whatever the defender had, she'd be prepared for it.
___However, she didn't rush to attack him out of uncertainty. Did he really intend to fight a demon clearly past caring to defend this man, or would he try to flee when she made it clear she meant business? Slowly, the magnetized alleyway became lit with one large yellow spark, then another slightly smaller until a charged spiral glowed on the ground outward from the fox. For now, though, they stayed on the ground, the gesture to all appearances a bluff to see if it would make the customer back down to avoid a fight. Nothing's worse than an injured customer after all, but it seemed that he wasn't going to be reordering soon anyways.

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___It seemed that the boy performed some sort of... well, spell. Humans had to do those silly chants and all. Her yellow eyes went back to the man. Not attacking Ren's legs looked like a bad decision now, he could probably flee if he wanted to, so she'd have to be making sure that he didn't escape while Kaito was doing all of these distracting... mischiefs.
___The ominous chanting got the vixen on guard, however, so she began a counter attack as soon as she recovered from her last spell (probably around the middle of the rain). As quickly as possible for such a massive action, she began to raise the garbage bin from behind her victim and move it off the ground and a bit towards herself, letting it go above the head of the student (magnetism). Hopefully the weight would injure him enough to keep him out of the way.

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___The trash can failed due to her victim speaking out... an unfortunate turn of events, but less worrysome than the sudden speed she found the student able to move with. Simply put, fast moving students did not exist in her frame of mind, or resilient humans for that matter. He must be one of those special ones as she'd guessed before, since he could use magic and such. However, instead of being put into the state of fear and repentance such displays of skill would ordinarily put her in, she found herself increasingly angry. There lied a perfectly good pile of untouched, unspoiled meat as though heaven itself had placed it there for her consumption with a little red gift ribbon around it. She'd found it fair and square, but instead of giving her, the poor starving spirit, what in the course of nature would've been rightfully hers, this ex customer of hers practically dripping money out of his behind healed the runt up and tried to keep him out of her reach. Did he have any idea how hard it was to find an adult male of the right age, size and level of proneness that hadn't already been horribly raped and eaten up by Jezebeth or Xaphan or Furfur or what the hell ever demon lord decided to go frolicking through her turf that particular night?
___Thus, these thoughts kept running through her head, but she lacked the proper mouth and throat structure to speak it, other than growls steadily increasing in their ominousness levels. Unfortunately, last on the list of things she was good at while doing something else was thinking and thus her reflection, though making her angrier, left her in a position where as the student rushed in with his unexpected speed she wasn't completely prepared.
___She tried to hop out of the way, but the suddenness of the maneuver combined with her ineptitude in this form, the form that until the recent year she hadn't been doing much with other than frolicking through the meadows of the perfect plane, made her instead fall backwards, her feet in the air and her tail in the trajectory of the stomping attack she'd put so much energy into avoiding.
___Pain is a bad thing for such a dedicated hedonist. The frustration levels got so high that it appeared the small form of the creature could not contain all the anger and resentment, thus, she went into what appeared to be a very violent seizure. Fifteen or so seconds of howling, growling, choking, thrashing violently, and foaming at the mouth later, she lay completely still on the ground of the alley, her eyes glazed and staring forward in an oddly unsettling manner.

___As the other two talked, another odd transformation seemed to transpire. Once again she seemed to fade into the darkness of the alleyway, the shadows of the alley seeming to swallow the small form of the fox as the lights she'd created went out completely. Even the sickly glow of her eyes disappeared beneath what seemed to be a sooty mist. A deep growl, like stones tumbling down a mountain echoed about the alleyway as the shadows stood up and the form they'd taken, a much larger, but completely black canine with ragged vulture wings stood to it's menacingly clawed feet.
___Slowly, the electric lights seemed to pick back up, glowing red and purple instead of their usual yellow and green. Once they came to full power, it would be easier to pick out the features of the creature. Where the smaller form had black fur that at least reflected some light, this thing had only swirling, amorphous black mist about a gaunt form. The feet seemed solid enough, but even the claws that were once sort of ivory grey were black like onyx, matching the swirling fog of the animal. Though disturbingly thin and skeletal, it stood some eight or nine feet at the shoulder. It's crazed, yellowish green eyes, similar to her human form's but without the reassuring whites that distinguished a person from a beast, and coursed through by dark veins, settled on something near the ground and it's mouth widened, as though in a grin. The canid's teeth and gums, like everything else, was black, and a disgusting black substance, like some sort of syrup composed of mold, drooled forth as it's sooty tongue licked the dark teeth. "Ah..." Grunty's voice, lacking it's normal pseudo friendly airs would sound without the aid of the creature's mouth, seeming to simply come from its thoughts. "I forgot to give y'all that demonstration I was talking about."
___Ducking her head, the beast sniffed around on the ground until she found one of her baggies of speed and would consume it shortly.

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Oni Transformation

___After a quick snap upwards of her head to swallow the contents of the baggie and subsequently spitting the plastic off to the side, she looked up. To all appearances, the universe ran in slow motion and vivid color. This form made it easier for her to reason, or perhaps it was the drugs. Looking up, she could see her would be victim, his hand... it moved slower than the hour hand of a clock towards his chest, clutching at the fabric that lay over his heart. A gnat from the dumpster, as though submerged, floated on it's tiny wings lazily, apathetically past her field of vision. Perhaps it was a trick of the dark, but she thought she could see the smallest bead of sweat go down the student's forehead. It must've been made of molasses for all the stiffness of it's flow.
___Her own breathing went at an impossibly heavy pace, as though it were water and not air her new form breathed. A drop of drool, hardly visible in the midnight, broke off from the larger lake of spit and proceeded to parachute down to the ground.
___Then she made her move. What seemed the space of a minute and a half were seconds after she'd eaten the dusty drug and though her movements were at the same pace as Kaito's, her perceptions and thought processes had sped exponentially until it matched the lytning she wielded. Quietly, she summoned a bolt to strike Hotaka (Lytning Bolt), and not waiting to see if the fire from the sky would strike him, attempted to run past him towards the fence where the other seemed to be crumpling.

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Oni Transformation

___Now this was strange, the beast thought in her drug drenched mind, this stuff claimed to make a person move faster, but all it had done was slow the entire universe down. The poor guy she planned to pounce on in the next... well, at the rate things were going, 15 minutes or so, seemed to be having some sort of a heart or mental attack, the way he simply stood there. That seemed normal. Most humans hated to see death coming, much less death from something dead. None of this meant she cared, however, it simply meant that with the pace of the world now for once she had time to think... something the she fox wasn't well practiced in and an activity that tended to lead to trouble for others. Her eyes sliding down, she noted the plight of her legs. Her back feet were on the ground and her front feet were lunging forward... she felt as though she were swimming in an endless sea of clear syrup. No matter how hard she pushed her feet, they continued to fall at the same slothful pace, like trying to push down a spring. Disappointed, she looked up towards her target. The expression on his face... such terror initially. It was an expression that appealed to her simple, wicked nature and mindlessly she smiled and drooled, though it seemed the muscles responsible for her smiling could only respond as slowly as the universe around her.
___However, her eyes weren't content with staying on his face and inevitably wandered down to his body... to the arm that she'd bit when she was smaller. Perhaps the starlight shone a little bit stronger here... maybe a once dead streetlight in some distant alley flickered on and made more light available to her night-tuned retinas... perhaps the drug's effects of slowing things down and making colors come alive gave her a more clear picture of the young man, but now that she looked at him he was remarkably skinny... like eating wasn't something he did on a frequent basis... perhaps semi-frequent, but protein as a general rule was expensive and he hadn't been consuming enough to plump him up to taste. A pity too. He wasn't half bad looking, especially his hair... a pleasant shade of brown and the sort of light, stringy texture that would twitch pleasantly, even in this stale air.
___He certainly wasn't an incubus like her beloved police chief, but... well, perhaps if she'd gotten a better look at him initially he would've done for a quick kidnapping.
___The drop of spit from what seemed half an hour ago hit the ground, splashing gently. Her front feet tapped the ground, but what happened made all four sets of her claws dig into the ground so she could stop and look up. Yes... the man before her was the only thing that moved at an ordinary pace. Some sort of defiance resided in his expression, completely different from the hopelessness that was there before. The smile in progress stopped as the man sprung up from his former posture, in what seemed some sort of a leap. Blinking with sudden admiration and curiosity, a rare feeling for the thug, she stopped completely and simply watched the man's progress running. In the narrow alley and at the speed he was going he was likely to run into a wall or a dumpster and damage himself if he wasn't careful. Moreover, if he had a gift then perhaps he was more useful than the spirit initially thought.
___As the vixen thought on these things, the little purplish pinnk lights in the alley rose off of the ground in the spiral they were already in, seeming linked together by some invisible force into a chain, which would try to restrain the man by the left ankle as he traveled through the air (Lytning Bind). If they made contact, the rope would snap up suddenly and hold the man upside down, bringing him before the creature's face.

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Oni Transformation

___So fascinated the beastly woman was with the way the man on the ground before her's hair fell around his face gently on to the pavement below, and so awed was she by this sudden display of not-uselessness that an almost tender expression was on her face by the time she got around to raising him off of the ground.
___Alas, she failed to notice the other hitorinji behind her trying to rush forward, instead wondering if perhaps she'd underestimated this one who probably quite nearly knocked his teeth out. Excitedly, she asked, "Whoa... yer awesome. How'd ye get that fast?"
___It would be cool to have a member of Propaganda who was actually weaker than her and male. He'd be easily sexually assaulted in a pinch, especially since Adrian left. If he could duplicate that speed trick, then that could be useful for thefts and distractions... the possibilities, in the apparent long length of time that she had to think, were expansive.
___Continuing in her rapid, but comprehensible talk, she went on. "Ha ha, my good brother! I was just testing ye. I thought my good customer Pedo... err... Kaito made a right sensible suggestion, eh? Can't believe ye fell for it! Ye ain't got no meat on yer bones... something we'll be fixing soon if ye'll accept my offer."
___Provided there was time before Kaito made his Dynamic reEntry, the vixen would shift back to her Drug Dealer appearance, but keep the man suspended upside down before her, continuing, still friendly but slightly more ominous, "Course, I'd be right injured if ye didn't. Welcome to Propaganda, eh?"

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Oni Transformation

___"Huh?" The effects of the drug, slowly but surely wearing off, there seemed to be some sort of a commotion from the previously forgotten hero. Shaking her head and snorting shortly, she found that time was a great deal faster than it had seemed a mere few hours ago... or seconds... or... oy... such thoughts made her head hurt as they would in the natural order of things. Keeping her grip on her victim's ankle, she began talking perhaps an octave above her normal, gravelly sort of voice, gradually returning to its normal range as she replied to the man behind her. "Standing 69? Yer full of great ideas, I like that! You get a discount on yer next perchase. Personally, I think that'd be great recompensation. Nothin worse than a woman spurned and all. This made me go through all the trouble of testing him. I figure if he don't accept my offer instead of getting mad maybe I'd offer him another payment plan." Her eyes turned to the man who, now that time resumed didn't seem fully conscious. "He's kinda cute and helpless, smashin himself into the floor isn't he? Wonder if I could finish before he wakes up. Whatchoo think, Perv?"
___Her tongue lolling out like a dog's, the creature was smiling quite widely and seemed to be fostering some pleasant mental images.

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Oni Transformation

___"Ah, got some spunk in yew..." the large fox chortled as her captive gave a death threat to Kaito. "No killin of customers, or threatenin to kill customers... except by other customers of course, which I figure yew ain't unless I could interest you in some of the stuff I just showed ye. Next week I'll have some juice that can take ye from weak to powerful in 3 seconds, eh?"
___Her mood mellowed out, and she dropped the transformation, instead appearing in the human form she'd originally approached them in. Her hand on her chin, she seemed to be examining the hanging man further. "Actually, Kind Customer O' Mine, I'd prefer if you'd beat it if you don't plan to buy anything. I'm sure yer moma's callin' ye and I actually have some business to settle with this one. Ain't gonna eat him, though. Not enough skin on 'is bones. I'd have to feed 'im alot before he'd even be worth killin'. Speakin of which, how much yew eat, son? If yer havin' trouble getting food I has the perfect plan for ye..."

___The woman's nose wrinkled at the neck cracking, as though she'd just sniffed pepper. "Mmm... business? Ah, naw, I'm a very playful person," she grunted matter-of-factly to the hanging man's crotch. "It's just that you need money to have fun on this earth, eh? Ha ha... yes."
___Very pompously and ceremoniously, the woman withdrew a green bottle with a red star on it from the inside of her baggy coat. Inverting the bottle over her head, she took a few deep gulps and wiped her mouth, offering the bottle to the non customer as she continued. "As Kaito said, I have a merry little band of men and Ies looking to recruit. You seem like a fellow who performs well under... uhh... pressure..." Realizing she just pointed out what the man's weakness seemed to be based on the past hour or so, she amended the sentence as though she'd never made a mistake. "Of course I mean you can move a lot faster than I thought ye could. Pretty useful. Plus, I like the homeless look combined wif yer hair. Easy on the eyes. Might let ye get out of the offer for a comfy night, but that ain't here nor there. What's yer askin' price to join, eh? Other than yer life I mean. Ha ha!" Though she kept her tone formal and her gestures friendly, there seemed to be some ill-intentioned glint in her eyes, not necessarily of hunger.

___Smirking, the woman retracted her offer of a drink and took another swig, licking her lips and regarding him with a perverse wistfulness. "Ye prefer to be thought of as food? Ah, I guess that's what some guys are into nowadays. Ies met a homeless guy who liked dolphins an awful lot. No 'countin for taste, ye know."
___The liquor tasted good, and the vulnerability of the man hanging upside down and the subsequent empowerment from him being righted wasn't lost on the spirit's unsophisticated mind. Tapping her forehead lightly, she smiled a little wider. "Ah, don't think of ole Grunty as dumb. Naw, I'm just a little uneducated. I put you down, you try to break the chain by running off with that speed without answerin, eh? Not that I don't has yer smell. Ies assume you don't have a home to hide in... even then homes can be destroyed. They say hells have no fury... but Ima let ye go anyways. If I really wanted ye, well, I can find ye in yer sleep. But I guess the first step to a professunal relationship is trust, my good man..."
___Though her words held worry, her tone and manner continued to be casual, as though she was making an offhand observation about her own actions. Slowly, she lowered the man so he would have time to right himself as he descended, but the energy chain remained. The hold grew tiresome, but the casualness was to cover up the exhaustion. All of this transformation business combined with the raw energy of having to fight and the slow drain of the chain chipped away at her energy gradually.

___Well, the direct threat of death and the less subtle threat of rape failed to make this man want to join up, so he probably did have some stuff he had to take care of first... fine by her. One night when she felt more energetic and there were no gar guardians to protect him, she could find him and make him see the error of his ways.
___For now, she'd already wasted enough time not-hustling. Smiling pleasantly, but to such a degree she hoped it would be unsettling, she dropped the spell. "That's fine. I'll give ye as much time as ye want, but if ye want to come to me and not make me track ye down, ye just ask any bum or lower class demon. They know me. See you around, eh?"
___Waving over her back, she trotted off and rounded a dark corner, leaving the man to his thoughts.