[11] Video/Action for Route 39 - "4 THE MARE"

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Carter doesn't know he's gotten used to it until he wakes up alone.]

[What's supposed to happen is they get up, bitch about the cold, make some coffee and breakfast, bitch about the cold some more, pack up, and hit the road.]

[Today there's just the sound of birds.]

[When Carter sits up, the other sleeping bag is flat. There's a fat, fuzzy teddy bear thing sitting on top of it, and a crab perched on the pillow, where a head full of messy blond hair should be.]

[Both of the animals look at Blake expectantly.]

[He fumbles for his phone and hits the key that dials Dirk. He sits very, very still while it connects.]

[The prerecorded voice tells him what he already knows.]

[He drops the phone and leaves it to chirp out its message to nobody. He pulls on the nearest clothes to hand and crawls out of the tent. The bright light makes him squint. He walks toward the edge of the clearing. They'd found a good place this time. Level ground, no tall grass, surrounded by pine trees. You couldn't even see it from the road. Honestly, Carter doesn't know how Dirk knew it was there.]

[Blake rests his head against a tree and breathes in deep. The bark is cool and rough on his forehead. The air smells like pine needles.]

[Dirk had a good eye for these things.]

[He slams his fist into the trunk as hard as he can.]

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

[Over and over, and when he finally stops his knuckles are stinging and it's all silence except for his panting.]

[He turns and goes back to the tent.]

[Inside, the fuzzy thing is trying to open up his backpack. Its claws are giving it much luck with the ties. Blake unties it and dumps everything out on the floor. Soap, pokeballs, clothespins, socks. Some oranges roll away, and the thing goes right after them and starts gnawing. Doesn't even take the peel off.]

[There's something thin and white in the pile. A piece of paper. Blake picks it up and reads it.]

[He reads it again.]

[He sits there for a while as the teddy bear thing munches, and there's a low thrum and a shadow through the tent's wall as one of those ladybugs passes by.]

[He digs the little sewing kit out of the pile. He turns his backpack inside-out and opens up the seam at the bottom. He tucks the note in and sews it closed again.]

[By the time he's done, it occurs to him he's pretty hungry. Usually they'd be having breakfast by now. The fuzzy thing's gone through a lot of what he has already. Carter doesn't really feel like fighting it. For the crab's part, it's just watching with wide, unblinking eyes. It has a pair of mushrooms stuck to its back.]

[Carter remembers hearing those are edible.]

[VIDEO]

[Blake is sitting on a stump. He looks contemplative, and somewhat withdrawn. His beard hasn't been trimmed yet this morning. His pupils are a little too wide.]

Hey. You out there.

After a while here you figure things come and go. There's no point in bitching. You just gotta keep moving forward and keep your hooves on the ground.

I figure I might as well ask. I kept putting it off, thinking maybe I'd get home. But that's not happening anytime soon, and it has to be past by now. So if anybody here is from 2013 or so, maybe a little later, I got a question for you.

And all of you. Talk to me. [He thinks, then nods, and taps on the phone's screen.] Tell me something you'd want to know about what's going on at home. Wherever you're from. If you could find out one thing that's happened while you've been gone, what'd you ask?

[He looks out at the trees, his eyes a little glassy. He seems to forget the Gear is on. A moment later, he abruptly cuts the feed.]

[ACTION]

[If you venture down Route 39 today, you might come upon Blake staring out at the horizon, contemplatively chewing on some hay.]

((ooc: Blake's in a bit of an odd place right now...He'll be mostly coherent, but anyone who talks to him may get hallucinated into something unique. The Paras has one mushroom left, so you could also come join him on a spirit journey.))

Comments

VIDEO

[yoctogram]

Just got back here from 'home'. [Sho makes finger-quotes around the word] Found out that it's not home any more. This place is zetta strange, but it's not bad. Better than where I came from.

[By a measure of magnitudes.]

VIDEO

[lieutenantantichrist]

What happened, somebody drop a nuke?

For all I know, the same thing's happened to the real world.

[The guy on the screen has long hair, pale skin, and a lot of black clothes. It takes Blake a second to place him.]

Yeah. S'gotta all be real zedda for a Dracula.

VIDEO

[yoctogram]

[Well. Pale for a Japanese guy, except where it's black enough it looks like he's got tattoos.]

...No. Reaper. Ex-Reaper. Sort-of.

[The black hand (as opposed to what looks like tattooed whiskers) waves around a bit] Less killing people here. ...So far no killing people here. As time increases without killing, differences between here and home →∞.

[This is a man who speaks in mathematical symbols. Still, the concept of "approaches infinity" makes itself as clear as anything Sho talks about.]

Voice

[strongestoftheturks]

...how my partner's doing. And the rest of the team.

Voice

[lieutenantantichrist]

Yeah. That wouldn't be bad to know. Some of them are assholes, though, at least where I come from. Team, what team? Hah. Everybody was just out to cover their own ass. Couldn't even see what was happening right in front of us. The only one who figured out anything was my partner, and now he's gone too.

[Blake thinks about that voice. He knows it, and the big, tough bald guy it belongs to.]

Fast and Furious was fuckin' terrible.

[Video] FEEL FREE TO WAIT ON TAGGING THIS till we get further in the event thread, I'll backtag!

[foolishwren]

_{[It's a little while before she figures out whether she wants to respond to this or NOT. Blake looks... weird. And it's an unusually sentimental request of him, too.]}

... I guess I'd wanna know if they ever brought back the McRib. Serious life questions.

_{[Open with a joke, THEN ask what's wrong. That's the strategy. Her tone softens when she speaks again.]}

So... lose someone today?

[Video] I'm sorry in advance

[lieutenantantichrist]

That's a good one, too. God, those things were horrible. Every time they came in town, I always tried one again, just to see if I'd remembered wrong.

[She sounds pretty understanding and sympathetic, but he figures that's par for the course for one of those Disney girls.]

[He lets out a long sigh.]

Yeah. Somebody I was just starting to get to know. One minute he's here, the next there's just a crab.

[video]

[rocketralph]

_{[Slooooow brow lift. This isn't the usual scrnuchy crabby face he's used to seeing.]}


H-heeeey, you okay in there?

[video]

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake shrugs at the big, blocky yellow smiley face that comes up on the screen.]

Fine. Just great. I'm in my forties and my fetlocks haven't given out on me yet. What else can you ask for?

video;

[angerpoints]

[... damn, Blake, you look like shit. After having lost several hours of sleep to the stress caused by Keiko being in a coma for the last four weeks, Yusuke is looking a little tired and puffy-eyed himself, but the sight of Blake's scruffy mug on his screen reminds him that he could probably look a lot crappier than he does. Anyway, taking into consideration the sort of relationship he and the old man has, he almost doesn't respond to the broadcast, but considering the kind of crap that's been churning around in his head lately, the question Blake asks manages to pique his interest enough to make him reconsider. Besides, he can't help but wonder what the old bastard's deal is. He hasn't seen him look this out of it since those dumb secrets were broadcasted.]

... whether my friends are okay or not. I kinda left home in the middle of a demon apocalypse, so, y'know, if it turns out people here were bullshittin' me about time standing still while we're here...

[Then they and the rest of the world're pretty much screwed, and it's all gonna be my fault for not being there to protect them. Yusuke doesn't say that aloud, but the sheer amount of tension and anxiety this thought causes him can be seen in his expression, though he's clearly trying his very damn best not to show it. It might have been a whole month since they got plunged into that crazy alternate dream dimension, but all those nightmares he'd had about being too weak to defeat Sensui and the world ending because of it were still weighing heavily on his mind. It's not like he's had anything to do but sit around and stew over it: with Keiko unconscious and bedridden, it hadn't felt right for him to try and go out and have fun, and even when he'd try to de-stress by working out and dragging his Pokemon out to the forest to train, he'd find he didn't feel any more relaxed than he did before. Fortunately for him, Keiko was awake now, so that, at least, was a relief, but... man. What he would give to just be able to goof off and not give a damn about anything like he usually does. And people wonder why he'd avoided responsibilities like the plague before he became a Spirit Detective. :|

At any rate, Yusuke here has rather abruptly realized that he'd sort of trailed off after answering Blake's question, so he's just gonna go ahead and shoot Blake a question back before they both end up just sitting around looking contemplative and melancholy as hell. Don't want it to get weird, after all.]

Anyway, uh - [Yusuke lifts his chin and forces a steely-eyed Tough Guy look.] You're not lookin' so great, old man. What'd you do, pull an all-nighter?

video;

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Hey, a 50s greaser. Blake's never talked to one of them before.]

Demons, huh. Sounds rough. There was a guy who thought I was a demon once, no matter how many times I tried to tell him I walked on four legs like anybody else. Weird guy.

As long as they've got enough crucifixes, your friends are fine. I know where they can find some cheap, too.

[The kid goes quiet for a while after that. Blake lets him think. Probably has problems with his motorcycle and the molls down at the soda fountain. Besides the demons.]

[When he asks straight out, it's easier to put into words. Maybe not the right words, but they sound about the right area.]

A friend of mine went home.

[He cocks his head.] You don't look so great either. You just hear about the Big Bopper's plane crash?

[video]

[captainash]

I'd want to know if...

[He hesitates for a moment, stops himself, changes his mind. No, that's not something to share.]

...if that little truce we had going for a few minutes is going to last, or if I should expect to get shot at again. So, who left?

[video]

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Pirate outfit...jaunty pose...hey, it's the guy from the rum bottle. Blake waves.]

Whether you're gonna get shot, that's always a good think to ask about. Who were you fighting with, Johnnie Walker?

[The question's too quick to let thinking kick in.] A friend of mine. Sort of friend. I punched him once.

[Blake looks off to the side, where a dead leaf is caught by the wind and swirling up in the air. The orange is real bright, like in a high-def TV. After a second he remembers what he was doing and looks back.]

Hey, how'd you know?

text;

[freshprints]

...

Have you been drinking, Lieutenant?

[JUST GET RIGHT TO THE POINT THERE, KIRIGIRI, THANKS.]

text;

[lieutenantantichrist]

niope. its nine inthe damn morning.

[text]

[surpassedjupiter]

Your question is about what our questions would be? Why does it matter what year we're from, then?

[Seems...strange. But she's got another thing on her mind.]

So are you from 2013?

[text]

[lieutenantantichrist]

[The phone isn't so easy to hold onto. It keeps trying to wander around.]

no see teres athing i wanna know from then. but your own is good too. see?

nah its 2011 so the fourth just ended. thats wehn the rest is suposed to be. i ustve missed it by now.

[Video]

[itsjustdust]

You know I'm not where you're from but...

Can I still answer your question?

[Video]

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Covered-up eyes...something that made Blake thing of being yanked up off the ground and way high up..yeah, that's where he knows him from. Blake breaks into a broad smile.]

Sure you can, Spider-Man.

video

[islandshore]

Well, I've already heard bits and pieces about my future, but...

[He heaves a heavy sigh, looking off to the side.]

Of course, we're not even from the same world or even the same year. But I guess I'd want to know if it all turned out okay. Or how I'm gonna become the Keyblade Master I'm supposed to be. Sora mentioned that before, and it's still kind of crazy to think about.

video

[lieutenantantichrist]

Never listen to palm readers, kid. They say they're gypsies but nine times out of ten they're from Hoboken.

[His expression turned introspective and thoughtful. He doesn't understand a good half of that,but he thinks he gets the important part.]

...yeah. If it all turns out okay. That's a good one.

[text]

[notchinese]

[Yumi wasn't exactly sure if she should answer this guy's video or not cause of the whole "don't talk to strangers" gig her parents practically beat into her head but refusing an old guy's request? She sends a text just to be safe.]

i'd asked about how my friends and family are doing. plain and simple.

also 2013 kid here. what's your question?

[text]

[lieutenantantichrist]

old classic. im nt so worried. fuckin hindenburg couldnt kill m y ma.

[Blake gets excited. It sounds like his phone could know!]

mike ehrmentraut. does he ddie or what?

[video]

[ardent]

I have a lot of questions I'd want to ask; it's hard to just pick one!

[...because Ishimaru's usual volume is exactly what you need right now, surely. That said, however...]

Are...you okay, Lieutenant Blake? You seem a bit weird...

[video]

[lieutenantantichrist]

That's the challenge, there.

[Blake wants to reach out to ruffle his pointy edges. His hand bumps into the screen.]

I'm just fine, lil' stop sign.