Mid-Morning Heist | OPEN

[Cyril Kirabo]

The urge to do something itched under his skin, a need that had driven the part-time actor, part-time criminal onto the sidewalks of the city. His feet wandered, body and mind along for the ride as Cyril pondered what he wanted to do. Nothing sounded exciting - he had no jobs, neither from his acting job nor anyone looking to hire a masked villain for something. It was annoying, but he'd been through leaner times than this, ad he'd make it through this one, too. Besides, he didn't need a job to make money, not with his powers.

A hazy plan forming in his restless mind, the suddenly chipper young man ducked into one of the more secluded alley-ways in his neighborhood, emerging a few minutes later in a very different set of clothes than the skinny jeans and polo shirt he'd been wearing minutes before. Those clothes were neatly stashed inside of a cardboard box, and he hoped nobody decided to go snooping into it while he was busy with other matters. Pausing to make sure his mask was on firmly - god bless the commonality of well-fitting masks; it was one of the few things heroes and villains had in common - Cyril hummed lightly as he paced through the city, the cracked sidewalks and rusted beater cars giving way to mid-size sedans and nicely trimmed trees.

It was early afternoon, in that hazy patch of daytime that brunch took place during, and the streets were just shy of really bustling. Schools around town were starting again, meaning his apartment complex would be quieter during the daytime and the hero population would, out of necessity, dwindle. That was one of the drawbacks of the Teen Titans - Jump City lost a good half of its' protectors during the school year, when tests and school dances held them in check. So it was with confidence that Chairoscuro wrapped his forearm in shadow and then smashed his elbow into the nearest jewelry-store window front. The glass flew - mostly inside - and someone screamed, the store alarm blaring.

Cyril grinned, reaching into the show case to pluck a particularly expensive looking necklace off of the velvet it rested on, gloves brushing aside shards of glass with ease. It was good to be back in business.

CYRIL
KIRABO

✪

[Deleted]

The whine of the machine's thrusters could be heard overhead, to anyone who didnt look up could only assume a plane was flying overhead, however Steel Bastion was surging towards Jump City with a purpose. However once the alarm at the jewelry store had been set off a chain reaciton of alerts occurred all at once. Naturally a place like that was hooked up to an emergency auto-system that would alert the police that a robbery was in progress, at the same time the wide-band scan of Steel Bastion's systems caught the alert.

Even as operators were defining which of the police units was closest, Bastion was already taking a sharp turn mid-air, bursting in the direction of th emian street. Armor plating shifted, fanning out to increase drag, retrograde verniers in the shoulders as well as his boots and hands fired so that he could land pinpoint on the street without impacting too heavily. The boosters in the armor cut shot with a soft whine one could attribute to jet engines.
Good landing.. Low impact, the road might be slightly scorched but that's minor. Midori thought to herself quietly, staring through her vision of Bastion's sights to look at the store and the would-be thief.

Without even an instant's hesitation, the mechanoid warrior pointed at Cyril with one hand, flourishing his other in the air behind him, as he struck an extravagant pose, perfectly poised,
"Halt, villain!" He ordered loudly, "I am the hand of Justice! Steel Bastion!" Steel Bastion proclaimed loudly his eyes glowing brightly before dimming again, his face focused on Cyril,
"Thievery is not acceptable! Return what you have stolen and submit yourself to Justice! Its great arm shall reach out to punish even the smallest of criminals!"
Enter assessment mode, even the smallest of criminals might have some tricks up his sleeves..
Information was already displaying across Steel Bastion's field of vision, giving Midori a HUD that streamed the data it was collecting.
Medical Assessment, human male, six-foot-one, physical condition is healthy, physique is athletic, but light, adjust limiters to Danger Grade: F - Minimal threat.
In a near instant of this exchange, the armor plating on Steel Bastion's body transformed slightly, folding down and the more rigid stance loosened slightly. He was allowing Cyril to make the first move base dont he assessment. The less he acted, the less risk there was of actually critically injuring the store-robber.
Running Identification Check for possible matches to known criminals.

[Cyril Kirabo]

The sound of a plane passing by - familiar enough any city - didn't draw Chiaroscuro's attention a whit. He barely registered it, not with the alarm blaring from the store's back wall. None of the workers or the customers had tried to stop him - all of the civilians on the same stretch of sidewalk had scattered, too, when the glass had started flying, if they hadn't done so when they'd seen a man in a costume walk up to a jewelry store. It wasn't exactly subtle, Cyril would freely admit, but this wasn't for subtlety's sake, it was for fun. Subtlety could wait.

And speaking of subtlety taking a break... The clatter of a landing wasn't entirely lost in the blaring of alarms, and if he hadn't noticed Steel Bastion's landing (and he hadn't) there was no way anyone could miss that voice, the kind that had righteousness embedded into it in the way only Saturday-morning heroes could, or so Cyril had thought. Turning to catch sight of the posing robot, he rethought his position on that. Steel Bastion was imposing, would have been imposing to physically bigger criminals than Chiaorscuro, and to top it all off, even if he wanted to fight, Cyril knew he had almost no skill at it. Good thing he didn't have rely on fighting skills alone. (And the fact that the hero's eyes glowed wasn't giving him much confidence that he wasn't powered, too.)

But he couldn't just wrap himself in his shadows and slink away - with his luck, naturally Jump City was in sunny California, and the afternoon had barely started. There were no shadows to slink to, and anyway he wasn't able to teleport - the nightlife of most criminals made it easier for the villain to seem like he was teleporting and just duck behind a crate while the police scratched their heads. It wasn't very glorious, but everyone had to start somewhere, he knew; it was just like being an understudy before getting to take the stage yourself.

Even so, the 'smallest of criminals' line stung his pride. Or, more accurately, his ego, although Cyril wouldn't have thought of it as such. That the heroes' body rearranged itself was bizarre enough, even for Jump, that it snapped him out of his surprised gawping. Switching his pilfered jewels to his non-dominant hand, Chiaroscuro flung his right hand out, an unnatural slash of darkness flinging itself across the stretch of concrete between them towards Steel Bastion - if it hit, and Cyril hoped it did, it would hit his chest. it wasn't a sharp attack - it was blunt and hard, a shove instead of a knife-thrust.

"You heroes just don't know when to mind your own business, do you?" The masked villain sneered. "Since we're making introductions, I'm Chiaroscuro - a name you'd better remember, because you'll be seeing it on the front pages, rustbucket!"

CYRIL
KIRABO
@shamir

✪

[Deleted]

The motions Cyril made prompted Steel Bastion to brace, but when the strike hit the chestplate of the machine, it barely shifted. He registered the attack but the negligible damage to the plate merely made him chuckle, his weight and size absorbed the blow well enough,
"But my business is to put criminals out of business!" He announced proudly,
Chiaroscuro information obtained, involved in several bank robberies and jewelry store thefts, spotty information regarding light and shadows moving around him,
"Identity confirmed, Chiaroscuro, your spree of petty crime ends here." Steel Bastion announced proudly, beginning to step towards the masked Villain in broad confident steps,
Strange, nothing mentioned telekinesis, he struck you by moving his hands.. I didnt get any recorded data at all.. No rise of kinetic energy until the strike..

"Of course you are welcome to surrender if that attack was the strongest you had available to you!" The machine added confidently, hands flexing calmly, "Return what you have stolen and I will put in a good word for your civil behavior!" He added, "Justice is, after all, merciful to those who observe it!"
I doubt this man has ample enough knowledge of robotics to use that form of attack in any meaningful away against Steel Bastion.. Deploy left arm stun blade. Observe, subdue. Steel bastion's left arm changed again, a black, rod-like edged protrustion extending the full length of the forearm past the back of its hand before electricty sparked off it,
"My left arm sings to the heart of righteousness! Prepare yourself Chiaroscuro!"

Sure the machine was lumbering towards him but he was also delicately but smoothly avoiding damage to environmental objects as he raised his left arm up past his right shoulder, readying to strike out at the villain. Meanwhile Midori was still trying to think of a way to scan the strange attacks he was using. There was the possibility of trying to scan air movements, just in case it was some other form of attack. But that would be imprecise and too difficult to keep up with, not to mention she couldn't monitor all the air being displaced in an area if it was range kinetics.

[Cyril Kirabo]

His attack hadn't done much - not that Chiaroscuro had expected it to. He was, as far as he could tell, fighting a big dude in a suit of armor...or maybe a robot? With heroes, it was always hard to tell what kind of nonsense they had going on. He would be surprised if this joker was some new Teen Titan recruit - they had all kinds of weirdo's on their team. He couldn't remember any Titan he'd ever run into sounding so...eager? Boastful? Whatever it was, it was getting on Cyril's nerves. Here he was, trying to make a living and get his name in the papers, just a simple thing, and this guy comes along and tries to steal his thunder? Not gonna happen on his watch!

"Hey, Titan, look behind you!" It was a basic trick, really basic, but the skinny villain hoped Steel Bastion fell for it. If he actually turned to look, he'd see a burst of white light - about eye level, or roughly what Chiaroscuro could figure from where he was. Making bursts of light like that was hard enough! He usually 'flung' his attacks, so making a burst of energy like that - meant to blind, not to do harm - was more difficult than he'd expected. While he spoke and made the grabbing, unclenching hand motion that would make the light burst, Cyril slipped the little he'd been able to steal into the pouch on his side. It wasn't very big, more of a glorified fanny-pack than anything, but he made due.

In between his little light show, Bastion moved forward, advancing steadily as Cyril backed away from the broken window he'd been standing next to. "That wasn't my strongest attack, are you kidding? I've got plenty more where that came from - you had better give up now! You don't want to see what I can really do when I'm annoyed!" He threw back, in response to what he heard as a condescending attack on his powers. That the robot before him might be genuine about his offer didn't even cross the villains' mind; nobody who had faced the court system could say it was merciful. And that electric baton of his really didn't look very fun, either. Cyril snorted, then laughed - sings to the heart of righteousness? What? Was this guy for real? This would be the weirdest day dream he'd ever had if it wasn't. "Man, you really need to get with the times - who taught you how to be a hero, Saturday morning cartoons? Uh, newsflash - the only way you're going to catch anyone is if they're laughing too hard at you to run away!"

If Steel Bastion didn't turn around to get - as he planned - temporarily blinded - Chiaroscuro would lash out with another shadowy attack. This one was broader and stronger, now that he didn't have to worry about dropping the profits of his heist. The 'wall' was a little wider than Cyril himself - it wouldn't quite span the entirety of Steel Bastion - and seven feet tall. He didn't worry about making it thick - his shadows didn't work like that, really, though he was fuzzy on how they really worked; he didn't have time or resources to poke into the fabric of what his powers were made of. The wall, if it hit the advancing hero, was meant to smack into him, hard, and knock him away - or, hopefully, bowl him over and stun the guy for long enough to let himself escape.

CYRIL
KIRABO
@shamir

✪

[Deleted]

"What do you see, citizen?!" The goliath of metal questioned, spurred to half turn and look past himself to whatever Chiaroscuro had been pointing out.
Oh please dont.. Midori began but it was already too late. Yet there was nothing, even as Steel bastion scanned the area. In the middle of the masked villain's barrage, the machine stared back towards his would-be opponent as he flung his hands repeatedly and closed his fists, the odd flailing of his hands made the Hero cock his head to the side,
Note to self, teach you to not fall for cheap tricks in the future, Midori stated, however again she found herself confused, she couldn't see anything, she relied on the recorded data of the machine to provide her with information yet he was capturing nothing, the only clue they had at all that he was launching some forms of attack was the motions of his arms and hands,
"What exactly are you doing..? Are you in need of lessons for proper posture and form when posing? I would be delighted to teach you and your comrades as part of an inmate re-education plan! Even a villain could have a chance to become a hero, one day!"

"And my name is not Titan. As you may or may not recall, I am Steel Bastion!" He added, this time finally jumping in for his own attack, the whir of machinery and the sound of its form sailing towards Chiascuro was met with a loud clang as his shadow attack struck the large open target of the robot's body, however instead of being bowled over the vernier thrusters in the backs of his shoulder fired in response, forcing his balance and stability to even out once again before Steel Bastion stepped forward, slashing the stun lance towards chiascuro. Although they looked swordlike in appearance, they weren't cutting tools. With his attacking strength reduced to nonlethal levels, it would be like being struck with a training weapon, with the added bonus of being shocked by the strike.

He was tempted to consider using a flash minibomb, but it would have been wasteufl if he could simply disable the thief with the stun tools. Again Midori had to wonder about what was happening here. Clearly the man was using some form of attack, and he was evidentaly capable of seeing whatever it was they were not. The information on the robberies were questionable since people talked about light and shadow being alive around them, but the on-site cameras recorded nothing of the sort, making the witness testimonies strangely suspect at first, until Midori hit on another possibility,
Could it be that.. Midori wondered briefly, I can not see it because Steel Bastion cannot see it. Does it affect photosensitivity in the eyes of those who look at it..? The microcameras in Steel Bastion's eyes aren't biological, I can only see what he sees. That may explain the contradicting witness statements and camera recordings.. We're blind to his powers, but clearly there's also a kinetic property to some of his attacks..