66 Posts
EP
EXP
Total
10 Years
male
"batty"
Civilian-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Shiloh Dubois on Jun 19, 2020 16:25:18 GMT -4
straight outta wesker's backpack WITH WATER STILL DRIPPING FROM HIS MUZZLE, the child listened as Bishop began to concoct his plan. He declared that Shiloh was the net, which earned a flick of the bat’s ear.
“Like… for fish…?”
As Bishop continued talking, it became clear that he hadn’t been talking about fish. The child listened quietly. So… find someone to talk to, and talk to them while Bishop tried to play cards with them, and Wesker… also… played cards? It was all very confusing, but if all Shiloh had to do was talk, it shouldn’t be… too difficult. Either talk or keep a lookout.
“I’m good at talking,” the child said huskily, rubbing his nose with the back of his wing. He could be even better at talking if it meant having people to keep him safe, too. Shiloh might not have understood Bishop and Weskers’ intentions of conning people out of their money with cards and pickpocketing, but he did understand earning his spot in the group.
But when the smaller of the two brothers proposed that Shiloh play cards, the bats’ ears dropped uncertainly.
“B… but I can’t see that good…” Shiloh squeaked, “Not the cards, anyways. How will I know which one to pick?” Seeing with sound, remember? Cards were flat… virtually indistinguishable from the top of a box. In daylight, he might be able to distinguish white-blurs from the bigger, brown blur. But at dusk, it’d probably be all-muddled. And echolocation wouldn’t help him.
“I like talking or keeping lookout better,” the youngest of the trio insisted, pouting slightly as he turned his large, dark eyes on Bishop. Unless Bishop could propose some sort of happy compromise, the child would remain firm. It wasn’t that he cared about the card game, or how it went—he only cared about doing a good job and earning his spot. And the things that Wesker was proposing presented the opportunity for the bat to do a bad job.
| ft. wesker + bishop atkinson ooc notes: pwease mistah atkinson, i'm onwy a baby bat. |
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52 Posts
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Post by Wesker Atkinson on Jun 24, 2020 6:36:42 GMT -4
| Hard days made me, hard nights shaped me I don't know, they somehow saved me | |
>> "Hey uh...Shiloh, was it? Yeah, no worries Shiloh. It won't actually be that difficult. If things were down to actually guessing the right card by luck it would be a fool's errand picking the right card. But that's not how this card game works the way we play it. Sorry I made it seem so complicated; me and my brother are pretty quick with planning this stuff out since we used to do it all the time back home! Here, let me show you..."Wes shuffled around where his brother was sitting, and skidded to a stop at Bishop's backpack. Hardly looking to see if he got it right, his hand plunged into the correct pocket and came out with one of the decks always stored there. Then he acted like someone hit the rewind button and walked backwards to Shiloh's side again. He also used that chance to pull an empty food container from behind his back, hoping the child didn't notice. The food container was set face-down to provide a portable card-playing surface. >> "Nothin' up my sleeves~! I swear, the dog ate the whole thing!"He gestured to his non-existent sleeves as if he were opening them up to prove the transportation "spell" wasn't rigged. Warming up his slight of hand muscle=memory seemed like the right thing to do to keep his pickpocket skills sharp for the occasion. The process came with some slight embarrassment when he remembered this kid only just met them today. After looking away to catch his breath and clearing his throat, Wes continued: >> "Okay, keep your eyes on the queen, and it could be your lucky day."He showed the queen in his hand so the bat could squint at it and know it was, in fact, one of the queens from the deck. Then he placed it face-down between two other face-down cards on the makeshift table. >> "Now I can't do this as convincingly as Bro can, but you'll get the idea. Guess which of the three cards is the queen and if you guess right, you win. And if you guess one of the other two jokers, ya have'ta try again."Wes did a bit of switching and shuffling, the best he could manage from watching Bishop along with some practice on the side when they were younger. If anything, he was a lowly apprentice in card handling skills compared to Bishop, despite how much Wes learned from him over the years. >> "Alrighty, go ahead and give it a go."Shiloh was allowed to pick a card next. That card, of course, was the queen after all. >> "Good job, you won that one. If you had bet any yen on that choice, you'd be a few bucks richer! Alright, now try one more time for good measure."The process was repeated and the queen reshuffled into the set of three and switched around a bit. >> "One more go, to prove that last one wasn't a fluke and that you are, in fact, a very lucky bat."Wes gestured to let Shiloh pick, and his card was revealed to be the queen again. >> "See, that wasn't too difficult, was it? That's basically what you'll be doing to convince other passerby that they can win it too."The other two cards were flipped over, proving that all three were actually queens in the first place. >> "Now, this game wasn't rigged to insult your intelligence. It's rigged to convince other people that a 1 in 3 chance of winning is not too shabby. When Bishop shuffles the cards for the next person that sees your winning streak, he'll be making the queen a bit harder to guess correctly. If they bet high, Bishop can make it really hard to guess the queen almost every time. If they bet low and the streets are crowded enough, I can swing by and snag their wallets while they focus on the cards moving. When I was with Bishop in Chicago, the drunk and the sober both kept quite a lot of cash on them most of the time. If I took a single 20 dollar bill from a wallet that had 4 or 5 of them, and put the wallet back without them noticing, then we'd be in business. They still have most of their money, we get some to spend on food that day. Sometimes it could even be fine letting them win once in a while if we were successful enough to get an entire 20 dollar bill from someone. That way we could work the same area without people suspecting much more other then the possibility that they dropped one at some point earlier that day buying groceries or something..."Wes crossed his arms and closed his eyes in thought for a moment. His neck circled his head around a few times. >> "Although, that's usually when we feel especially generous and when we only get the most plastered of alcoholics to go for the bait. The last time we tried to Three-card the same street twice after giving the crowds a few wins, we got jumped by an angry couple running at us with baseball bats! Geez...that was hilarious, wasn't it Bro? I'm really glad they never figured how to climb a chain-link fence or..."Wes shook his head with a smile and held back from dealing Shiloh another long story. >> "Anyways...I hope you find that Bishop will be sure to never let you lose, no matter how dark it is outside. And once you win a few, he'll signal you to move to your lookout position. I'm sure you're mostly aware of what the police look like and sound like: jingling all those keys and equipment around...walkie-talkies back and forth? We could even try to keep tabs on the nearest police boxes ahead of time. Then you could echo-locate that direction and let us know if anyone comes out. I'm sure it would be enough time for us to wrap up and get out of there, just in case we have to bail out that quickly." He gathered up the cards and reached awkwardly behind from his seated position, handing the packaged cards back to Bishop and hoping both their arms were long enough. >> "Think he'd be up for a task like that, Bro? I'm sure we could scrape some of the rust off for a job like this, no problem if he's up to the task. These acrobats would probably love to swing around real flashy and confident when there's a bat-shaped safety net down below. Am I right, or what?"▲ WORD COUNT: 1,086 ● NOTES: "Do you wish to hear this tutorial again?" *Accidentlly presses 'A' one too many times*...
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52 Posts
0 EP
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15 Years
Male
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Post by Bishop Atkinson on Jul 17, 2020 0:58:00 GMT -4
throw out the map, don't look back Bishop kept that explanation to his brother, since he seemed to be on a roll. He just nodded at the appropriate moments for confirmation and threw in little words of agreement now and then. It was rare to see Wes get so vocal and much less confident about something, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him when he was a roll. Especially when it was actually a pretty good explanation of their little operation back home. It probably helped that they’d pulled this one quite a few times, it was an old hat job in a way. They’d even enlisted someone to play the part that the bat was being proposed to take a few times, but never someone consistent. Just friends who agreed to it, and it was too dangerous to use the same person twice. People would get suspicious when they were working similar areas over a long period. But for a quick little initiation ritual in a completely new area? Yeah, they could do that. Only once his brother ended his spiel did he bother speaking up.
“Well shit, maybe we should put you on hype man sometime. If you can talk to random people like that, we could take a break from me running the table sometimes. But yeah, that’s the meat of it, batty. Try your hand at the game, I’ll make sure you win, and once we butter ‘em up into thinking that they can win too, you can switch to bein’ our camera to keep and eye out for cops and be cute for the crowd if they see ya. I think you can pull that off, if you’re telling the truth about the whole ‘see with sounds’ thing. And with ears like that, I’m sure you can pick up on the sound of cops. Think that’ll make a good little test. Lets you be cute and show off what you told us.”
Well, and to show off his ability to work within a team, but he wasn’t about to throw that on the kid too. This was already high-stress enough. It had to be to really test him, but much like actually pulling off the Three Card, he couldn’t show all of the cards to the bat right off the bat. He passed the time until it got a bit darker with small talk, but soon it was time.
“Alright, put on your game faces. Shake the rust off, keep your eyes out, let’s head out.”
After all of the time wandering the streets before they’d found their little spot under the bridge, Bishop had a general idea of where would be a good place to set up. Next to an alley, visible from the street but not immediately, able to net people in without being found out immediately. He made a stack of cardboard boxes to act as his table, taking the cards out to lay the important ones and set it all up. He looked to his compatriots in this and gave a toothy grin.
“Alright, go for it. You know the drill, Wes. If we get found out, alley. Shiloh, just follow one of us, and if you lose us, meet back at the bridge. When I’m ready for you, I’ll rub the back of my neck, and I’ll do the same thing once you can get to lookout. Gotta get the crowd first though…”
He cleared his throat, taking a moment before putting on his best face, making a point to light it up a bit and keep his tone enthusiastic but measured. People were people, Bishop. This would work. Everyone was supposed to at least understand English here, right?
“Come one, come all, make some easy money! I’ve been having an unlucky night, but maybe you won’t be! You sir, you m’am, konichiwa, are you interested in making some yen? 500 yen, low stakes, come on, you can afford to put that up! Double it up, leave better than you came, come on.”
He waited until he’d snagged a few people before he rubbed his neck, gesturing the bat. And so it begins...
WORDS: 690- NOTES: Nothing hidden in my hands, see, look at 'em, you can trust me! made by Jasmin of GS
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66 Posts
EP
EXP
Total
10 Years
male
"batty"
Civilian-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Shiloh Dubois on Aug 4, 2020 1:27:49 GMT -4
straight outta wesker's backpack IF SHILOH SQUINTED HIS EYES just right, he could make-out the outlines of the cards. All blurs, though-- even when Wesker showed Shiloh the card, it was still unintelligible to the child. It could've been something totally different from a queen, and Shiloh would've been none the wiser. Oh the irony of using a blind kid for a scam-- this irony, of course, being totally lost on the bat. And even with Wes's less-than-perfect shuffling skills, the bat was lost as soon as the cards moved. His brow stitched, he dipped his nose, making a small, concerned noise. When prompted, he chose a card. One success, followed by another. As Wesker explained how this worked, the look of concern didn't leave the bat's expression. "But-"He stopped. That was stealing. And stealing was bad. But he didn't want to be alone, right? No… he really didn't. So, in a small, reluctant voice the child agreed. "Okay. I'll do my best."… The trio milled-about for a while until they found an appropriate spot—the underside of a bridge, decently trafficked but still off to the side. The cars that thundered past painted a clear auditory schematic, for the bat… so he should at least be able to see the contour of the people present decently well. The bat watched as Bishop set the makeshift tables up, rocking forward-and-back on his feet. He fidgeted with his claws, nodding as the older boy directed him. He hoped that they wouldn’t have to run… ‘cuz Shiloh didn’t know if he’d be able to keep track of the brothers in a crowd, and he didn’t remember the way back to where they’d come from. But regardless, the child still nodded to show that he understood. He followed Wes, initially, but his ears were facing Bishop, who’s voice rang-out and filled the whole underside of the bridge. There were plenty of people passing—mostly working men and women who were on their way home from work. Were they curious as to what the strange foreigners could do? Or were they more interested in the foreigners themselves? Regardless, people were gathering… steadily, when Bishop’s arm bent and the older boy rubbed his neck. Wes nudged Shiloh, and the bat wandered over, craning his head around the gathering people to get a better look. | ft. bishop and wesker atkinson quirk: e-rank echolocation, flight, speed; f-rank durability, multilingualism |
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