Sometimes You Just Gotta Fly. [Tobias]

TOBIAS WAS CONVINCED THAT THE GOVERNMENT had a sick sense of humor—he was their dog, of course, so could be directed to do whatever they wanted him to do—but this was wrong on so many levels.

“The Informant” had ascended to his pro hero status strictly because he’d been goaded into it by someone with whom he had a history. In his years of activism, Tobias had created waves—and then the government found a way of silencing him. Unauthorized quirk use. Forget the fact that he erupted on a very strict schedule, forget the fact that if he resisted an eruption it would only become more violent and destructive—Tobias was breaking the law by erupting. So, he could either join the professional heroes of Japan’s society—or serve jail-time for his transgressions.

Had Tobias not been a librarian, and surviving on his pittance of a librarian’s salary—he would have filed a suit against the government for discrimination. But Tobias was too broke to sue, so he took the position begrudgingly. Now he was contractually incapable of suing them.

And, as if to add insult to injury, the igneous gentleman’s task today was simple—accost a young woman for her unauthorized quirk-use.

“I apologize if this is untoward of me,” Tobias had muttered tersely into the receiver of his phone, “But my investigative techniques really lend themselves to... more high-profile cases. Slapping wrists over unauthorized quirk-use isn't really... a good allocation of department funds. A normal police officer could write a citation.”

“Yeah,” the representative said with equal flintiness in their tone, “And today, the real pro’s need extra support in their patrols. This is a directive. Any other complaints, Informant?”

Tobias gritted his teeth. Real heroes. The audacity.

“Yes, sir, one more,” Tobias said thinly. His tone had reached a new level of polite—which one might think was a sign of a simmering temper, but actually suggested more danger, “Your bedside manner could use some work.”

The Informant lowered the phone from his ear, and hung-up, not even waiting for a response. Tobias slid his phone into his pocket, mentally running through the beats of this “investigation”. There was a dark-skinned young woman with flight capabilities who frequented this neighborhood whose frequent flights had garnered the attention of the authorities.

Tobias’s task was to find her and give her a formal warning about the further legal consequences that might follow, should she continue to go for flights.

“Stuff and nonsense,” the crimson-haired man muttered, rubbing the crown of his head with his muscular but well-manicured hand.

He canvased the streets of Tokyo, periodically stopping to ask denizens of cafes or people at bus stops if they’d seen this woman. Some had, some hadn’t. One woman had said something untoward about “a big guy like Toby getting hung-up about a girl”, and wouldn’t listen to his protests about how it wasn’t like that.

He was an hour into his investigation and already beginning to lose steam when the gasps and screams of onlookers snagged his attention. A collection of pedestrians were looking skyward, pointing. Tobias followed their line of vision, in amongst the skyscrapers.

A person was plummeting. His stomach dropped. His powers weren’t such that he could catch anyone—but as they drew closer to the ground, their silhouette seemed to expand against the sun, amorphous and then—wings. Multitudes of wings that blotted-out the sun.

Seemingly at the last moment, six wings unfolded themselves and the woman pitched into the air, taking flight.

It took Toby’s breath away. The normally expressionless man gaped as he shielded his eyes from the sun to watch her graceful gliding through the air.

Wow.

And only moments later, he realized, She fits the description.

Damn it.

As if in a trance, Tobias lowered his hand from over his eyes and began to follow the airborne figure down the sidewalk, albeit from a distance. The sunlight glinted off of his sunglasses, bathing his entire suit in warmth. At a glance, he looked just like a businessman walking aimlessly down the sidewalk, but he seemed to be short a briefcase.

Tobias would continue to follow at a distance, walking casually, only periodically glancing downward to check his surroundings. He wouldn’t speak unless the woman was within earshot, and she was far faster in the skies than he was on the ground.

ft. noelle weaver

ooc notes:

AND THEN, THE SPELL WAS BROKEN. he woman’s apparent control over her quirk was not as perfect as Tobias had initially believed. She banked when she should have bobbed, her wings caught a wall and the woman crumpled to the ground, out of view, with a crash. Tobias involuntarily clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes widening. Well… at least she wasn’t using her quirk for long extents of time.

Tobias broke into a light jog, towards the last place he’d sighted the woman. He paused to wait for traffic to clear, then broke into a run again.

He moved carefully through the crowd, mindful of not bumping into anyone as he moved, skimming the crowd for the woman in question. Fallen, dark feathers marked the entrance to the alley where the woman had fallen. Tobias entered slowly, lifting his sunglasses to see better in the shadows.

“Hello?”

Only his voice echoed back in response. The woman was gone. He hadn’t passed her, so… Tobias moved slowly down the alleyway, his eyes scoping his surroundings.

He saw another feather, caught on the breeze, too big to belong to a bird. Toby strolled after it, followed it around the corner. And then there was another—and another—it led him down another street. He lifted his gaze, and saw the form of the flying woman now limping towards the gate of a park.

Tobias followed casually, keeping tabs on the woman with her eyes. Running raised suspicion, walking was safer. He’d first assess if the woman was okay… and then broach the original reason for his arrival. Tobias waited again at the street corner opposite of the park, glancing both ways, before crossing.

He approached bench loudly enough, clearing his throat. Her wings were splayed out, so he was careful to avoid them.

“Uh… pardon me, Miss?” Tobias spoke up, his voice uncertain, “Madame… sorry to, uh, bother you. Yes, hi.”

Oh yeah, this was hero work, he should be wearing his sunglasses—Tobias lowered his sunglasses again.

“I saw you flying… and, erm… landing?” he began, “And I was, erm, wondering if you were alright. That landing looked… rough.”

ft. noelle weaver

THE WOMAN SHIFTED HER WEIGHT and groaned which, at the very least, meant she wasn’t dead. Tobias stepped back in order to avoid getting battered by the woman’s wings—they were quite big. She did not roll-over to regard him, but instead gave her response to the back-side of the bench. Tobias remained rooted on the sidewalk, smiling a tight, polite smile. She insisted that she was fine, that her wings had taken the brunt of the fall, and that they were incredibly durable.

“That is a relief to hear,” Tobias replied. Even if she was breaking the law, he would never wish ill upon another Quirker. Tobias adjusted his sunglasses, which had slid down the bridge of his nose, “Wounded pride aside.”

She finally sat-up, stretching her wings and regarding Tobias. Business suit, shades—he didn’t look like much. The red hair and robust build usually gave people pause, but this winged woman seemed to take it in stride.

“Murakami,” he offered, bowing slightly at the waist. He cracked a modest smile, “Although… in some circles, I’m referred to as The Informant.”

Dropping his hero name wouldn’t earn him any street cred the way it did other heroes. No one knew him. Such was the nature of his work. He cleared his throat, straightening his spine.

“I wish my intentions were altogether altruistic, Miss,” he sighed, “But I was, in fact, sent by the Public Safety Commission to look into reports of a winged woman taking flights in the business district.”

It took no stretch of the imagination to intuit who he meant. Tobias paused for emphasis. One could not refute what he had seen with his own two eyes. So, logically—she would be arrested, right? At the very least, apprehended?

Well, perhaps by someone other than Tobias—who’d been cuckolded into pro-hero-ship by the same transgression this woman was committing. Albeit, Tobias had no choice, but still. The PSC should think twice before calling him a “fake hero”. Insensitive jerks.

“So, Miss,” Tobias trailed, keeping his intentions close to his chest, “Why, of all places, would a six-winged angel choose to fly around the business district? There are lots of prying eyes, and not a lot of clear, open spaces to land.”

While the woman had proclaimed herself to be a pigeon, Tobias had a much more sympathetic interpretation of her quirk. Besides, six-winged angels were common in some religions, so in a way that was far more poetic.

ft. noelle weaver

THE CRIMSON GENTLEMAN WAS USED TO the ill reception to his airs. Some people thought he was being sarcastically-proper. Others were just… assholes. Whichever category this woman fell into, Tobias would eventually find-out. Her sarcastic bow in return seemed to send a bolt of pain down her side, which earned a thinly-amused expression from Tobias. Served her right, for being cheeky.

Tobias clasped his arms in front of him as the woman’s (however stilted) niceties fell away as soon as Toby declared his intentions.

“Indeed I am,” Tobias said simply. Albeit an oft-overlooked hero. A small-timer in the eyes of the public with more power than most of those combat-oriented grunts would likely ever have. That was on a need-to-know basis, however, and this woman didn’t need to know. He listened with feigned interest as the woman explained that the wind had blown her off the roof of an office-building, and it was pure coincidence that she’d flown to the ground. Alright.

“Our reports show that you, or someone who looks like you, and the wind have rather routine encounters,” Tobias said politely, totally unfazed by the woman’s gruffness. He’d seen worse than this.

She made conjectures about Toby’s reason for being there.

“That depends entirely on our conversation,” Tobias answered frankly, pocketing his hands, “You are correct in your assumption that I’m not just here to talk. I was sent here to apprehend and question someone that fits your description, regarding routine quirk use.”

Apprehend. As in, arrest. Take-in. He lifted his chin slightly.

“I’m also willing to talk-it-out, however, assuming you are amenable to that,” Tobias explained, “For example… why the business district, where there are plenty of potential witnesses?”

Again he was circling back on that piece of information—he wouldn’t be here if this was a singular occurrence—they both knew that this wasn’t a one-time thing. If this woman had half a brain, she’d realize that Tobias wasn’t attempting to arrest her just yet. He was just trying to get to the root of her motives. And if she gave him the information he wanted, he’d get off of her case.

ft. noelle weaver

THE WOMAN WAS A TOUGH ONE, Tobias would give her that—even in the face of numerous eyewitness accounts, she was still vehement that it was not her who was responsible for flying around. You just… had to love the civilians that played stupid, irredeemably stupid, in the face of concrete evidence.

“Well, the only way to verify that, short of an outright confession, would be to take you in and cross-reference your appearance with the security camera footage from various locations around the city,” Toby sighed theatrically, touching a hand to his ear—and to the bone mic that lingered there, “I had hoped we could discuss this independently of the police department, but if you’re absolutely positive that this is a one-time thing for you, then a one-time visit to the police station will certainly not sully your unblemished reputation.”

Perhaps this woman was unfamiliar with the Japanese justice system and its “guilty until proven innocent” approach to crime. Well—she’d find out soon enough. Unless she actually chilled the fuck out and talked to Toby like a human rather than acting like some cornered, feral cat.

Her attitude alleviated for just a moment as she declared, “Fuck the witnesses!” and went on a diatribe about letting her wings wither in order to adhere to the law.

“I mean… if someone were hypothetically were routinely breaking the law by hypothetically stretching their wings in flight,” Tobias began to muse aloud, “Choosing somewhere less populated would remove the issue of witnesses being present.”

Speaking from personal experience, of course—he always drove to the outskirts of town when an eruption was imminent. To avoid collateral damage, and the likes. Of course, this woman seemed insistent that Tobias had no idea what she went through. Which was partially true—Tobias lived in-fear of what havoc his quirk could reap, left unchecked. It totally restructured his life.

“There are no situations wherein my quirk would be good for society,” he finally said, the levity of his voice petering-out, “Unless society collectively decided that the best course of action was to burn everything to the ground and start afresh, in which case, fire away. But I digress-“

Tobias touched a hand to his earpiece, interrupting the radio silence to say the following.

“This is Inferno,” his alternate name, in the field. He couldn’t very well go-around saying that he was “The Informant” could he, “Please send a unit to my coordinates. I have a woman who fits the description of our joy-flier.”

A pause, some indistinct static-filled chatter followed.

“Thank you.”

He lowered his hand, pocketing both of his hands in his pockets.

“Using my quirk is actually how they roped me into pro-heroing,” Tobias advised the woman, adjusting his glasses, “I was something of a hell-raiser in my younger years. And when they learned that I had to systematically release my flames or risk exploding, they said ‘Work for us or rot in jail’.”

He was purposefully adjusting key aspects of his quirk—flames rather than lava—for the intent of maintaining a little bit of anonymity. But the story, quirk aside, was accurate.

“There’s a little more collateral damage when I use my quirk,” Tobias insisted, “Hence why I wanted to discuss this, just the two of us. But since you’d rather turn this into a personal attack upon me, or an opportunity to soap-box about the very same system that we’re all beholden too, rather than discuss this as one person to another… my hand has been forced.”

tagged person

quirk: c-rank burn, durability, heat resistance; combat abilities: jujitsu (e), magma sleeves (e), regeneration (d), cinder sprites (f)(summon); etc.: info. sifting (f), problem solving (f), interrogation (f), first aid (e)

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