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Entry tags:

mistborn: vin

(no subject)

Who: Vin (

doomedtheworld) & You
What: Quests and stuff!
When: Throughout the month of April and early May
Where: Olympia and Wyver both. Your territories mean nothing to her.
Warning(s): Possible enhanced interrogation in one thread.

You Know How the Caged Bird Sings - Open
The nights are strange in this world, like everything else. There's no mists here and the stars shine brightly in the sky, making her feel a little too exposed for comfort, but she's dealing with it. The darkness is familiar anyway and sticking to the rooftops makes things a little easier.

She begins each night in Olympia the same. Crouched above the streets and shrouded in the streaming grey tassels of her mistcloak. She downs a vial of metal and secures the scarf around her face with it and her hood. She burns brass and zinc lightly, Soothing curiosity and Rioting anxiety in a short range around herself. With luck it should make anyone just a little too uncomfortable to look too closely at her. With everything in place she jumps and burns steel. Blue lines connecting her to window latches, sign brackets and even the heads of nails in wood and with a Push she carries herself even higher to soar over the city streets.

She's on the hunt. She'd already been planning to look into these extremists and with the Gilded Cage offering to pay for any information. Well, she might as well make a little on the side while she's at it.

Bone To Pick - Open

This one is a little less of a personal interest and more about the reward. As much as stealing something of religious importance leaves a sour taste in her mouth, she needs money to get by here and at the end of the day bones are just bones.

She eyes the saw she'd been given before tucking it away under her coat. The trees here are tall enough to lurk in out of sight and it's a relatively easy task to avoid the soldiers guarding it, using her Allomancy to influence their emotions to be a little less interested and a little more bored with their work.

Either way, she makes her way quickly to a field of bones and sets about trying to pick one to bring back with her.

Ideally, this will go smoothly enough.

Caged Birds 2 - Closed to Mikazuki

"I have a lead."

Mikazuki hadn't said much more than that, but there wasn't much else, only that he'd apparently heard talk of one of the extremists frequenting the underground fighting rings near the city. She's not sure why he'd approached her but she can't help but feel that they had some sort of understanding of one another.

And that's how she found herself here, on the edge of the ring and keeping a sharp eye out. She's a little hesitant to burn tin down here with all the racket but it's practically a necessity to keep the faces on clear sight.

For now, she waits, keeping Mika within sight in the crowds and waiting for the signal. If he recognizes whoever it is, it's just a simple matter of pointing them out.

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Opportunity knocks, or so they say. Initially, their job was just to pull a few strings at Flona's fighting rings to skew in Cree's favor. It's not Mikazuki's preferred method of work, depending a little too much on skulking and subterfuge for his taste, but he's not one to turn down good money either. Only when he'd been in the crowd had he heard it — whispers flickering in and out about a group of the ones responsible for the Olympian kidnappings being present.

It flipped on in him like a switch, a curl of anger in his gut to find them and wipe them out.

He just hadn't expected Vin to follow him along. But he finds himself grateful for the ally; she knows how to get into a crowd in ways he can't fathom. Still, it's not long before he's followed the cues along, nose to the ground like a bloodhound.

At his left, once the contenders in the ring begin to switch out, a man leaves his spot. Mikazuki glances across at Vin, giving his chin a tilt.

This way.

She'd been hesitant at first, about the bend this mission had gone in. It sounded personal to her and a personal job was always a complicated one. Still, he'd told her he would keep his head and, frankly, she's not entirely sure he wouldn't have just come in firing that gun thing of his around if she'd backed out.

She catches the signal, nods, follows the signal to set her sights on the mark and she's moving navigating the press of the crowd. By all rights, somebody of her size should be lost in a crowd like this and she is in all the right ways. If Mikazuki is moving like a bloodhound then Vin is moving like a predator in tall grass. The necklace she'd been given for this hangs around her neck tucked away beneath her shirt but she doesn't use it yet. It isn't the time.

Eyeing the mark through the crowd she spots his path and corrects it. She burns iron and steel together and sends a Push towards a burly man's belt buckle. The shove knocks him into an equally burly man at his side and as the two exchange harsh words she Pulls on a few studs set in a bracer worn by the second man, "tapping" the first below the belt.

The resulting slugfest sends the crowd into a surge of chaos but it does its job. The mark scowls, curses and alters his course out of the pit, staying caught between her and Mika and on a route that her partner can easily follow him on.

Keen on the row that breaks out and the trajectory that it drives the mark towards, Mikazuki is moving in the same breath, no where near as fluid in his tracking, but adept all the same. Years of prowling around back alleys as a child don't just disappear; only the fact that he's now the threat instead of the one avoiding it has changed. The man ducks out from the outer rings of the crowd — it's not as though it's a crowd unused to watching a fight, but there's nothing like the chaos of the unanticipated.

Flona's fight ring is tucked into a shallow underground alcove, usually concealed by a thin layer of magic and a simple maze of craggy, sea-worn rocks. As the mark heads into one of the pathways, footsteps heavy in the sand, Mikazuki follows.

And not quietly, either.

It might seem like a stupid move to draw attention to himself like that, but he's positive the man doesn't know Vin is there. She'll have an advantage over him. So he moves into plain view with a scuff of his heels, arms loose at his sides, and eyes honed. The man stops, rigid, and whirls, face contorted with anger and a fear he's trying and failing to mask.

"Got a problem, kid?"

Mikazuki doesn't break his gaze or stance.

"A little."

The brawl makes the press of the crowd a little heavier but she's practiced well enough at moving through them. Ducking under swinging arms and squeezing between shifting spectators. She keeps her eyes on the mark, glancing over only to see Mikazuki in pursuit.

The crowd comes to a bottleneck and she frowns as she realizes she's beginning to be left behind. Pewter and steel flares and she Pushes in all directions. A series of surprised and angry shouts sound out as nearly a dozen men lurch backward, tugged by invisible force on belt buckles, buttons and whatever other bits of metal might be on their person. They never quite catch the source of it either, only a brief glimpse of something small and dark rushing past them and to the outside.

Outside, she drops a single nail ahead of herself and Pushes against it when she moves over it to shoot up into the air before anybody can think to follow where she vanished to. At the arc of her Steelpush, she unfurls a grey cloak from a satchel at her side and throws it around herself.

The Push carries her down and she lands lightly among the rocks behind the mark. Briefly she straightens up, standing in Mikazuki's line of sight so her presence can be confirmed by at least him before crouching back down again. As dark and fluid as ink.

She studies the mark carefully. Anger and fear. Both of them emotions that are both harmful and useful, especially when you can use them together. Fear makes you fast and sharp, anger can fuel you. So, she takes one away.

She burns brass and zinc together with the extremist as her target. She Soothes his anger, Riots his fear. At the same time she withdraws her dagger and scrapes the point against a rock, just enough to make a sound.

Enough to make him realize that someone or something is behind him as well.

Keep him alive and scared.

Alive for now anyway.

It's a battlers' notice, when Mikazuki sees Vin. A confirmation he takes by presence more than by sight, her standing on his peripherals when his gaze is so fully focused on his target. That he's not immediately moving seems to unnerve the man more, and he shuffles back in the sand, more focused on Mikazuki's bright, steely gaze than he is on his back.

A mistake, but not one Mikazuki is about to point out. He'll figure it out eventually.

"You're one of the ones involved in the kidnappings here, aren't you?"

To the point — he doesn't see any reason to mince words on why he's here, already deviating from the job he actually took. He's not the quickest to throw roots this personal into a situation that's come from the festering relationship between the cities, but there is still a part of him he taps into, a part of him that relies on Orga Itsuka. In a situation like this, when the blood and lives of their own had been spilled and taken, he'd demand reparation.

He thinks of that, even now. Clearly spooked by this knowledge, the man starts fiddling with his coat pocket, fingers clumsy.

"What's it to a brat like you?"

There's a crackle of tension in the air as she watches Mikazuki's face off with the stranger from the shadows. As capable as he's shown himself to be in the short time she's known him, the thought is still there that the group this man is a part of had managed to take him down before along with several others. Of course, this time he's ready for it but she still keeps a sharp watch over what's happening.

So she doesn't miss it when the man, whether driven by her Allomancy or his own nerves, starts fiddling with his pocket. Weapon. Probably. She's not taking any chances. As soon as she does, pulls another nail from her pocket and releases it into the air point first and Pushes on the head of it like an invisible hammer. The course of it carrying is straight forward to stab into the hand between two knuckles.

"Answer the question. Try anything and the next one goes into your head."

Addled by the fog of fright, the man can't even get his hand all the way into his coat pocket before the nail comes whizzing in, embedding in his flesh. He cries out, hand rattling with adrenaline and shaking loose his bloodflow. Mikazuki smells it sharpen in the air.

A second attacker seems to drive him more to action than deter him, now that Mikazuki's sussed him out. He may not confirm out loud, but his bid for freedom speaks volumes. Even with the threat of another nail, attention torn between them, he panics and digs his hand in his pocket, producing a strange firearm, fashioned out of Olympian metals. Knowing what his own can do, he draws faster, attempting to beat Vin to the punch through the man's temple with another nail.

But when he fires, it's precise. Though his shinbone, smattering blood into the sand. He collapses, and Mikazuki is on him, giving him a solid strike to the face with the butt of the gun to disorient him. Getting his hands behind his back, he swivels him towards Vin.

Mikazuki is more a kill-and-get-out sort. Still. It's not just him. He raises his eyes to Vin.

"You had questions."

Didn't she?

Foolish. She recognizes her mistake quickly but not quickly enough to correct it. She'd acted too hastily, picked the wrong emotions to target and she can practically hear Breeze's voice in her head chiding her. Fear is too unpredictable to rely on, there's no telling how somebody will react to having it pressed on. It might cause one person to collapse and cause another to act even faster. As it does here.

It almost costs everything. When the weapon is drawn she frowns, readying a killing shot... until the sharp crack of Mikazuki's gun makes her gasp, sharp and deafening to her ears and leaving her head ringing. It's the first time she's witnessed one of the weapons in use and it leaves her stunned for a moment. By the time the ringing clears Mika already has the stranger subdued.

Scowling, she shakes her head clear and steps out of the shadows. She burns zinc and brass again but this time she targets something else. She needs him to talk, put his wellbeing above any loyalty so she Riots selfishness and Soothes away devotion and stubbornness.

Stepping close, she draws her glass bladed dagger and presses the edge into the man's neck.

"Let's try that again. You were involved with the kidnappings last month, weren't you?"

Mikazuki has an iron grip on the man, even as his struggling subsides under Vin's threat with the blade. His battle awareness flares high, making several things stand out to him — her reaction to the gunshot, the smell of metal, the dagger's composition. But he stays steady as the extremist reduces to adrenaline trembles in his unyielding grasp, mouth working around what he should say.

That stands out too, how he seems to fight against his own words more than anything, rather than the fact that his leg is bleeding out into the sand.

"I was."

It grinds out, wary of the blade at his neck. Deciding he ought to be a little more forthcoming to protect what's left of his own hide, he presses on.

"Here in Olympia. Heard those Wyver beasts did the same." A colorless chuckle. "Good news travels fast, eh?"

Her new tactic seems to be working much better. Good. The gunshot had been loud and even with the waves crashing nearby she's sure that sound would have traveled far. It probably won't be long before others start coming to investigate and whatever their loyalties are, she doesn't think they'll be siding with her and Mika.

So she keeps her metals burning, careful not to press too much, lest she give away that there's something at work. Keep her touch as subtle as she can, be patient.

"Why?" She presses the knife blade, letting him feel the edge of the blade without cutting through skin yet. "Tell me why you did it."

"For the throne."

There's a bite to that statement. It has meaning, but it also doesn't — at least not meaning enough for Mikazuki, who has no prior experiences with kings or empresses or thrones. Despite being at his back, he can tell that the man is looking up at Vin. Mikazuki can also feel his teeth grinding, as if he's trying to destroy the explanation that's there.

He probably doesn't need the incentive, but he silently strengthens his grip, sending the man into a painful twist. A blade at his front and his back, it seems.

It does for her. She's seen what can become of people who have that kind of loyalty and fanaticism, the depths of cruelty that they can sink to and it causes a lump of cold dread to form in the pit of her stomach, contrasting the comfortable warmth of burning metals that also sits there.

Except it's the wrong answer. The thrones of both kingdoms had stood behind the refugees, hadn't they? They'd practically thrown a celebration for the wave she'd come down on. She grits her teeth, frustrated by the non-answer. She can't help but feel like she's doing something wrong. Kelsier would have pried the information he needed from him by now and Breeze. Breeze would have gotten the man's entire life story by now.

"What throne? If you didn't notice, your leaders weren't exactly behind you."

"You got that right."

Brows ticking into a furrow, Mikazuki understands that the man is agreeing with Vin, but isn't seeing the larger game as it stands. Luckily, the man can't choke down his own words, the fanaticism for what he'd been responsible for rising in his throat, like bile he can spit.

"We don't give a shit about the empress. It's the throne we want!"

Even if Mikazuki isn't quite catching on, Vin certainly is. Her eyes widen a little bit as she realizes what's going on... and what she just set herself on the opposite side of. The stories were they'd kidnapped people to torture them for information about certain organizations, right? It becomes clear suddenly.

"A revolution." It comes out somewhere above a whisper. She'd been a part of one herself but even so, even at his angriest and most vengeful Kelsier would never have used tactics like these men had. "You're planning to overthrow the empress. That's it, isn't it?"

Revolution. Mikazuki has heard that before, too. He died for it, Tekkadan was destroyed for it, and it wasn't even his own. Though his reaction is nearly imperceptible, the man hisses through grit teeth as Mikazuki's grip tightens enough to bruise the wrists he holds. He knows this story, and it only adds another layer to what he came here for. His own life is one thing, but Yona's, Clair's — quickly, the emotion begins to hollow out of his eyes.

"Olympia lost its teeth ever since it s-started ignoring Wyver's. It had glory! We were the ones to bring down the dragons!"

He starts to get animated, wrenching forward to try and get in Vin's face despite the insistence of the dagger at his neck. Just the word weighs more for this man than his life.

She's not paying much attention to Mikazuki's reactions, too focused on the cool anger bubbling up inside her own stomach. Kelsier had given his life for a cause like that, he had done so gladly with a smile on his face. Something like this... it almost seems to spit on his memory.

So it's with a fit of anger that she leans forward herself, meeting the man's lunge head on and meeting his eyes with a seething anger.

"You kidnapped, tortured and murdered innocent people for that." With drawing the knife, she snatches the man's collar, her voice low and furious. "For who? Who told you to do something like that?"

"Want to know? They're useful. Crowns want some serious power, but they're fond of the mystery. It doesn't get more mysterious than the refugees, does it? Does it?!"

He chuckles, low and hoarse. Just to pause before the last question, knowing that Vin's patience for his being alive at all is fading fast. Fanaticism has risen in him like bile, his selfishness corrupting his devotion. Except when he goes to literally spit it out, he seizes, coughs, struggles like he's being choked. Mikazuki's expression ticks and he leans back, grip still on his wrists.

"What?"

He's not doing anything to him. Vin isn't either, unless she's hiding another skillset from him.

Useful.

The twisting in her stomach grows and her mind sifts through the possibilities. So the kidnappings hadn't just been to torture information from people? Had they been hoping to break their victims into servitude somehow?

Her frown deepens as she watches the madness rise in the man, spurred on by the pressure of her Allomancy. In the back of her mind she wonders who this man used to be. A merchant? A soldier? Is there a family waiting for him to come home to them? She supposes it doesn't matter anymore. She knows what happens at the end of this conversation. She knew it the moment she saw Mikazuki's eyes tonight.

What does catch her by surprise is the sudden spasms and choking overtaking their victim. She blinks in surprise and leans back, casting a look at Mikazuki but his expression tells her that he's just in the dark as she is.

"Answer the question! Who sent you?" She presses harder on his emotions, trying to pry an answer forth and she scoots back a step as he pitches forwards, feet kicking as he gasps and retches through a throat closing up under nothing. Something's wrong. "What--? What is this?"

Mikazuki's momentary surprise at the unprompted outburst doesn't last long. In fact, he lets go of the man who collapses to the ground in a fit, watching him stutter and seize. It seems even Vin can't get anything more out of him, and his mouth downturns at the corners.

"I don't know."

Arms loose at his sides, his grip on his gun doesn't shift, doesn't budge. Yet he draws attention to it regardless, the weight of it more chilling for not needing to move to do so.

"If he doesn't have anything else for us, we don't need to waste our time."

Whether it's something legitimate or if he's just trying to wriggle away from them, he's about out of patience.

And just like that, it all seems to be over. She watches the convulsing man drop to the ground, finally seeming able to draw in a harsh breath and she catches sight of Mikazuki's weapon with that same chill watching over her.

The thought of being involved in an execution sits like a heavy stone in her guts, and the thought crosses her mind of arguing to take the man in alive but it's gone as quick as it comes. She'd almost done it again, nearly let herself be distracted by beauty and peace the same way she had the night she'd stepped out of a ballroom and seen a young boy have his throat slit mere feet from the door. No. Maybe somebody else would defend this man after what he'd done but it won't be her. People like him... shouldn't be in this world.

Besides, Mikazuki had come here to take revenge for people he cared about. What right does she have to interfere with that? Because she'd be doing the same.

"You're right." She steps back and glances to the side, Pulling the extremist's dropped firearm toward her and snatching it from the air and extinguishes her emotional metals. "We'll bring this along as proof. Do what you came here to do."

On the ground, the man finally draws a breath and blinks as the odd effect fades from him. Rolling over, eyes wide, he stares up at Mikazuki and raises a hand shakily.

"Wait--"

Two gunshots sound.

Mikazuki's aim and thoroughness might be wasted with a target laying so close and virtually immobile. But he doesn't move like he thinks that's the case, each hit delivered without mercy and without joy or satisfaction for what's he's doing. He's simply eliminating a problem, moving one more obstacle out of his path, and the path of those he cares about. It's cold without being cruel.

The protests and movement silence, the enchantment on his firearm taking hold and beginning to decay the flesh and bone.

Soon, he'll be unrecognizable. Ash.

Holstering the gun, he looks off behind him, the body no longer meaningful to him. There's a commotion beginning to fill the caverns. Either the fight let out or some sounded the alarm. (Gunshots probably don't do anything to preserve their stealth, either.)

"We should go."

This time at least she thinks to extinguish her tin when she sees the gunshot coming. Partly so the two shots don't daze her again and partly so she can see what follows. She doesn't relish it, but she's a part of this and she can't turn away.

The two gunshots are still startling though, and she jumps a little when they go off. Again when she sees the damage they do even before the magic begins. The power of a Coinshot, and then some. The actual decay turns her stomach a little and that is finally enough for her to turn away.

Push it down. It's what must be done. This was a cruel man who did cruel things in service of somebody out for power and control. A man like Rashek. How many people like him had done those things in the Lord Ruler's service?

This is right. The world is a better place with this man removed from it.

She turns her tin back on a moment after and ignores the smell of the decaying body so close, turning her head toward the commotion. A dozen men or more. She can fight if she has to but none of them are her enemy tonight.

"You're right. We should split up, go in different directions."

This is still a mission, despite what Cree promised him. They'll have to bring their proof back to him eventually, and Mikazuki's attention has now jumped to that in short order. He'll circle back to Wyver of his own accord, but it's probably best that they return to the Gilded Cage together. They have something more important than just winnings, money.

After this, his decision comes quickly.

"When you enter Wyver, there's another path outside the city gate. Go north."

Not if she enters Wyver, but when. With that, the dragon bone pendant at his neck activates. He trusts she'll get there.

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