OOC: *Shamelessly snatches pie and hides it behind his back*
What trickery is this?! There is not pie here! Do you seek to insult us, BB? XDDD
Regardless, that was a nice post right there. Gotta' love the side remark he made to Valen (Ohh...I can see those two sparring verbally many times. Although I think neither of them really wants a real battle. JJ is too nice for that and Valen cares too much about his pok?mon.).
Anyhow, you're sharp Charon. Yep, that's envy right there. Notice the adjectives used in conjuncture with JJ? In Valen's opinion everything is negative about JJ. It's pretty obvious though, because he's being all too friendly with a certain someone whom Valen considers to be cut above the rest of the people he's met. Ho-hum...he's very jealous, Valen, not to mention he's got this whole tough-guy thing going on. I agree with you Charon, he so needs a slap, or a good kick in the arse. But it will have to come at the right moment and from a suitable person, because he's very much in denial. XD
And it's good to hear that you didn't think that I think like Valen. One can never be too sure on the internet, though, and people have made that mistake before.
Just, one thing that I do agree with Valen on...people who just can't stop touching their hair!!! Especially boys!!! >__< I swear, there's nothing more annoying than trying to talk to someone who keeps fiddling with his friggin' hair. Once, I was holding this really big presentation in front of the class, and wouldn't you know it, right behind the desk in front of me sat a hair-fiddler of the worst order, ready to aggrevate me through the whole ordeal. About halfway through, I had half a mind to just take a little detour in my presentation and add the phrase "And you, mister *Name removed for the sake of non-flaming* can put your hand down now, your hair isn't getting any prettier." I contained my urge, though, and got my own back later on when I held a presentation about how you shouldn't hold presentations, mimicking his way of fiddling with his hair as one of the definitely wrong ways of relieveing performrance pressure during a presentation. Dang, looks like there's a little Valen in me fighting to get out after all. o.o
IC:
Meeting new people? Valen scoffed for himself at JJ's remark, although he pretended not to take notice, striding onward and purposefully keeping himself from looking at the others, something which, it had to be said, he was far more experienced at than JJ. In the end all people are more or less the same... the boy continued furiously in his mind, bluntly elbowing a stranger out of the way without giving him, or her, he didn't really care, as much as a glance. Nothing more than a bunch of ridiculous stereotypes. See one of a kind and you've seen them all... The boy absent-mindedly spat at the carefully cleaned pavement, intent on persuading himself of his thoughts more than anything else, Still, there are some stereotypes that just shouldn't be bunched together... his thoughts drifted to JJ and Reina, his expression growing even more savage than before. "Bah, what does it matter?" he thought out loud irritably "Return, Kachiko.", the boy added as an afterthought, feeling that he needed some time to think for himself; if Reina was half as intelligent as she seemed to be she could handle herself around that dimwitted prettyboy, and if she couldn't...well, then she obviously wasn't the person he had thought she was. Yes, nature would take care of things as always, there was no point for him to bother. Heck, he didn't even fully know why he cared about this Reina person in the first place. Well, granted she was far more honest and far less irritating than the others, which made her likable in a sense, but still, first impressions could very well be decieving. Just as he was pondering this, Valen suddenly came into contact with someone else, something which, he noted with annoyance, seemed to be happening all too often this day, and which he was quickly growing tired of.
"Watch where you're going!" he snapped irritably, darting up viciously from the ground and shooting a fierce glare at whoever it was he had run into before even properly registering the person's appearance.
"Wise words, child..." came a cold, male voice in return "Perhaps you would do well to heed them yourself."
As he began formulatin his reply, Valen took a closer look at the person he had run into, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly with suspicion. Before him stood a tall and fairly well-built man, even though he appeared far older than the boy, maybe in his mid-forties or so, although it was surprisingly hard to tell as almost his whole face was carefully covered in the shade of a dark brown hood, part of a similarly coloured robe which he wore as his attire, its hem completely concealing his feet from view and a simple but sturdy piece of rope serving as a makeshift shash to keep the garment together. The only visible feature of this man, apart from a slight glimpse of pale knuckles from beneath the sleeves of his robe, was a large, and decidedly sharp-looking, chin jutting from the shadow of the hood, as well as the thin line in the slightly worn-looking face that constituted the man's mouth, and what looked like the beginning of a nose. There was very little which could be used to identify the man, however, and this hardly made him more reliable in Valen's opinion.
"Oh, would I now?" Valen asked coldly, maintaining an unbothered expression and posture, "And what, if I may ask, would you know about me?"
The thin line that constituted the man's mouth curved upwards ever so slightly, "Oh, I know all about you, Valen." he replied, "I know you better than you know yourself, every fear, every doubt, every secret...and I know what they're keeping from you..."
"You don't know anything, old man!" Valen snapped, his voice sounding far less certain than he would have wished. There was something thoroughly disturbing about this man, not only the way he talked and the sound of his voice; a chilling drawl reminiscent of two bars of steel grinding against each other, and to top it all, it seemed to possess a disturbing echoing quality to it, as if the words had been shouted from the other end of a wide chasm, the sound waves reflecting and distorting in their desperate attempt to make it to the other side, but also the fact that he seemed all too certain about his case, and knew the boy's name. And how could he know that Slythe and Lori were keeping something from him when he had only learned it himself a couple of hours ago?
"Who are you?!" Valen demanded, "And how do you know my name?! How do you know any of this?! Answer me!"
"I'm not here for your questions!" the man snapped irritably, "I give you this insight of my own accord." his voice returned to its previous state of calm, "If that is inadequate, walk away..." he took a brief pause, studying the boy's expression while maintaining his own completely blank.
For a moment, Valen merely glared indignantly at the stranger who had dared to defy his questioning but in the end, although very reluctantly, he nodded, "Go on..." he said gruffly, his voice still bearing a considerable amount of hatred.
The triumphant smile, well, perhaps not smile, it was truly more of a malicious smirk, spread across the man's face as he resumed speaking; "This is the year of a marvelous undertaking." the man continued, a hint of enthusiaism entering his voice, "The dawn of a new era. And you, Valen, are fortunate enough to be one of those chosen for the glorious duty of bringing this tired old world to its end. It has already been decided..."
"And what if I refuse to co-operate?" the boy asked in return, his voice now as icy as he could manage, a deep-rooted hatred for the man in front of him welling up inside him, accompanied by a more unsual emotion, one which he definitely didn't approve of, a slight knotting of the stomach, a hesitance to his manner, a faultering in his normally so well-controlled voice...fear.
The man's reply was simple and cold, "Typhoeus' will is absolute. If you cover with the cattle then you shall die like the cattle. When the time comes, the choice will come for you, do not fail in it if you appreciate what hangs in the balance..." the man straightened himself up again, beginning to make his way back into the shadows.
"Hold!" Valen managed to say, "What makes you think I won't tell my employer about you?"
"Why that's simple..." the man replied, an amused expression once again making its way to his face, "You do not trust him. You never did, you think him mad. Why should you confide information which could just as easily be used against you? And even if you did tell him...do you think he would believe you?" the man let out a small laugh, a cold, mirthless sound that resounded around the boy in front of him in an eerie and peculiar manner, "No, I don't think you will tell anyone of this, Valen, I don't think you will tell anyone at all." the man burst out laughing again, and before the boy could manage any kind of reply the man's outline had already begun fading, and soon, Valen found himself staring at nothing more than a normal, shaded, if unusually clean, alley, a few beads of cold sweat running down his face.
After a moment, the boy had managed to gather his composure again, however, glaring fiercely at the spot where the man had been and shaking his head. Could he have imagined the whole thing? Was it some kind of peculiar daydream? The boy frowned, contemplating for a moment wether to contact Lori about the event or not, finally deciding against it. Whoever it was, or wasn't as the case might have been, had been right; he would only end up drawing suspicions to himself for such an absurd report. Besides, he couldn't even be sure if he had really experienced the whole thing or not. Frustrated, Valen attempted to push the thoughts out of his mind, returning to the already thinning crowd so as to not turn up late for the tournament, but even as he walked, the words he had just heard still echoed within his mind, filling it with countless questions he couldn't answer.
OOC: Dang the site being down again, and just after I had finished the IC too. I hate it when that happens. ~_~
