lieutenantantichrist | [17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

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[17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

[ACTION]

[In a low-rent corner of Mahogany, there's a real gym. No mazes, no boss trying to fight you in exchange for something they call a badge, no lackeys, just weight machines and a floor covered with rubber mats, the way it should be. Open twenty-four hours, and this late there's no human in this room but Blake. He's in a sweatsuit, gray in contrast to the brown of the Hitmonlee holding pads for him in its upraised paws. The only sound is his harsh breaths and the thump of his fists on the canvas. His shoulders are hunched like a boxer's. His eyes look straight ahead. Judging from the sweat darkening the back of his shirt, he's been here a while.

On the other side of the room, a Snubbull is sitting on the floor, looking at a Gear that's resting on the mats. A Musharna floats beside her. Fifteen minutes of frustration proved that claws are no good for texting with, but she wants to talk to someone. She really wants to.

She snubs softly, so as not to make her trainer angry. The Musharna's eyes show no reaction, but the buttons on the Gear depress. The text that Steve watches appear seems to be accurate, more or less. The transcription might come strange through the dreaming creature. It's close enough for what she needs.]

[TEXT]

Hello lo low hello

Please talk to me.
I want to talk.
I will tell you my favorite story.
He told it to me when I couldn't sleep. His eyes were closed for some of it but I shook his knee and got to hear the end. Without the end it isn't a story.

Once
upon a time there was a girl. She was poor and alone because her parents were dead, and child services didn't exist then, so she had to go to live with her wicked stepmother and do work for her. Hard work, the kind that nearly killed her, but in time she got used to it.

Then one day she heard the prince was giving a big ball. She asked to go, but her stepmother wouldn't let her. So she tried to run off and get a ride to the castle from a knight, but her wicked stepmother had tailled her, and she found her and dragged her off the horse. While she was going, the wicked stepmother threw the knight a gold coin. He held onto it, and he kept looking at it all the time. He kept thinking about the girl.
He wanted to help her, but he couldn't.

The knight went to the ball, and he was going to kill the prince, but there were too many guards around watching him, so he ran away.

Then the knight went to find the girl and save her. The wicked stepmother grazed him in the neck with an evil spell, but he killed her and all the other guys too, even though he got hurt bad. At first the girl was scared, but then she was free and she was okay. She got to go back home to her real parents. The knight was a hero. All the papers said so.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

..........
..........
..........

Tell me your favorite story.
Voice or video if you can.
The words alone are lonely.

Tell me please.

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[No wonder they get along so well. Yusuke smiles at her.]

All right. Ahem -

[He presses his fist to his mouth and clears his throat - loudly and exaggeratedly, like he would if he was about to tell a story to a kid and was trying to get a laugh out of them. Come to think of it, this entire conversation had felt sort of like he was talking to a kid rather than a little pink dog. Maybe this wouldn't be so weird after all.]

So uh...

... once upon a time...

[He grimaces. YEAH, NO, NEVERMIND, THIS STILL FEELS WEIRD. He has no idea what the hell he's doing. Then again, he usually doesn't know what the hell he's doing, so why should he let it bug him now? He shouldn't. And he's not gonna. When in doubt, say "fuck it" and go full speed ahead! That's the Yusuke Urameshi way of dealing with things. Determined, Yusuke leans in closer to the screen and continues to speak.]

There was this guy. Right? A real jerk. Nobody liked him and almost everybody was afraid of him 'cause he had a bad attitude and got into trouble all the time. He skipped school, he smoked, he drank, he got into a lot of fights - hell, he'd never even lost a fight. He really liked fighting. Lived for it, even. It was the only thing he was really good at, and it made him feel better when he was pissed off about something, which was pretty much all the time since life wasn't goin' the way he wanted it to. Thing is, he didn't think things could change, so he didn't do anything about it. Figured that, hey, nobody else cares whether I crash and burn, so why should I? Life's just gonna continue bein' one crappy bullshit day after the other, so fuck it. It's easier just to not give a shit than it is to try doing something different and risk setting myself up to get burned.

[Yusuke pauses, seeming... a little awkward all of the sudden. Then he quickly moves on.]

So yeah. Aaanyway, one day, the guy was in a crappier mood than usual. Everybody and their cousin was getting on his case - this noisy girl he'd known since they were kids, this asshole teacher who had it in for him, the principal of his school, his mom who'd spent like the past two days partying with her circus freak friends and for some stupid reason still thought she had a right to nag him about bein' responsible when she was hungover as hell and sleeping in 'til noon. About the only person who hadn't chewed his head off about something was this butt-ugly dude who was always trying to kick his ass. He showed up with his gang to try to pick a fight with the guy like he always did, but y'know, of course the guy wiped the floor with him. By the time he was done with him, he'd smashed his face up so bad his teeth had black eyes! You think he was hideous before, well, now not even blind people'd wanna lay eyes on him.

Basically, the guy felt a lot better afterwards. Nothin' like a good knuckle-buster to make your day a little brighter.

[Yusuke looks pleased.]

Anyway, after he'd ditched the ugly dude, he kept walking. Figured since his mom didn't want him at home and his asshole teacher'd kicked him out of school, he'd go spend the rest of the day at the arcade or something.

But then he met this kid.

The kid wasn't all that old - maybe like, I dunno, four or five. He was playin' with his ball along the side of a busy street, though, so of course when the guy saw him, he told him off. He said, "what the hell, kid, are you stupid or d'you want some car to come along and splatter your brains all over the pavement?" This, uh, kinda upset the kid, so to make him feel better, the guy pulled a couple faces, like this.

[Yusuke makes faces at her. They're pretty silly. Clearly, pulling terrible faces is one of Yusuke's superpowers.]

And it worked, too. The kid was having a great time. Since the kid didn't look like he wanted to cry anymore, the guy decided to leave. Before he did, though, he gave the kid one last piece of advice. He said, "go play somewhere else, kid. It's not safe to play here, so do yourself a favor and get lost."

He thought he'd made himself pretty clear, but y'know, of course, the second the guy turned his back to cross the street, the kid started doin' the same damn thing he'd been doing before: playing ball on the side of the road like a dumbass. The guy was pissed off. Like, shit, what even was the point? If the kid's really stupid enough to continue playing on the side of the road even after he was told not to, the guy might as well've just left him alone and let him get squashed. That'd teach him not to listen to people older than him.

He was about to leave, but then he saw the kid kick his ball into the street. "Oh shit," he thought. "That kid's not gonna go after it, is he?"

He did, of course. Just walked right into the street like it was no big deal. The guy freaked out. Yelled at him to get out of the way. That's when he saw a car coming at the kid like a bat out of hell, and before he even had a chance to think about it, he ran in there, shoved him out of the way, and...

WHAM! The car hit him. The next thing he knew, he was floating in the air, looking down at his own body.

[And Yusuke pauses again, this time with the intention of giving Steve an opportunity to comment if she wants.]

Course not.

[Lancer shrugged, answering almost immediately.]

I mean sure, people that knew the other you could try to blame you for it. But you can't hold that shit over your own head--we're ourselves, not some other alternate world duplicates.

[That's a reasonable approach, really.]

Yeah...sometimes you run into somebody as a swarm in a cave, and they turn out to be a good friend.

[Steve's claws click together as she thinks.]

If someone made the world, they must have brought you all her, too. Do you think it was for a reason?

My trainer said something strange about that. I don't think I was supposed to hear.

Something about paying for crimes.

That lately? You made it sound like ancient history.

Yeah, there's kinds of people you're allowed to kill. The ones trying to kill you first, to start with. Or the ones who the whole damn world is better off without. Nobody's gonna cry for some drug-dealing scumbag.

It's all in killing the right guy.

[Blake's aware, distantly, that he's not making a whole lot of sense. Something in his eyes isn't all there.]

Yeah?

[The Musharna's mists rise higher.]

What if you'd've done the same thing in his place?

[In the mists, below the rooftops, a dark doorway. Two forms emerge. The mists blur. One form emerges.]

What if the only difference - the only reason it wasn't you - was luck?

[A dozen muzzle flashes light up the rain.]

[Steve thinks it through, then nods rapidly.]

So he got enemies, but a way to handle them>

I see. It's like how every type has different strengths. So that one got a lot of speed. That can win you fights!

[For a moment, Steve has forgotten all about her trainer.]

That was a really good story. Thank you for telling me.

Hm...that's a bit of a trickier thing, ain't it? I'm not one to talk matters of luck--mine's goddamn awful. But I guess if you didn't do it, you didn't do it. I don't usually care for the black-and-white approach, but there's not a whole lot of other ways to approach that.

The events that started it all are ancient history, and what I lived through might be ancient history byt the time it all ends. Hatred and resentment do not fade away so easily.

[But the rest of that is starting to sound a little alarming.]

...How can you be absolutely certain who the right guy is, unless you've got dozens of witnesses who saw him torture kittens or condemn random civilians to death?

[No. No, they don't.

Blake isn't looking at the screen. He's staring past his reflection in the window.]

You know if you got the wrong one.

His little kid'll tell you.

...Oh.

[That's. Well. What can anyone say to that?]

Conclusive evidence that turned out to be not so conclusive after all? Car chase or shootout gone wrong?

[Please let it be something accidental, or well-meant but incorrect.]

Yep.

See, in the end it was a story about being smarter than the rest... not stronger.

Pretty cool, right?

_{[And as if on cue... there's the building. She makes a beeline for the door-- shouldering it open without announcing herself.]}

It should have been him.

[The sweat is turning cold on Blake's back.]

Everything pointed to him. Clear as day. Guy loses his kid, goes nuts, starts blacking out and waking up with little origami figures. Anybody would've thought the same thing. Nobody could've known.

[Jayden did]

I didn't kill him. He's not even dead. But his kid says he is. And I could've.

[The rain down the back of his neck. The two dark shapes emerging from the warehouse. Stand down and Fire, both in his mouth. Waiting. He'd said one, and somebody else said the other.

He shouldn't tell Ash this, Nobody should know the thing that follows him around, floating in the air. That hidden, ugly little secret.

He starts again.]

Point is, there's this guy. He was a fugitive, everybody thought he was nuts, but the whole time, he was a hero, doing everything he had to to save his kid.

If there's such thing as parallel universes, there's one where he's dead.

Cause of me.

Edited 2014-07-08 08:52 (UTC)

[Steve is deep in thought, picturing the beast with a thousand enemies and a tail that flashed like a star.

It's the Musharna that turns, drifting as if by accident a moment before the door opens. A second later, Steve looks up with an excited snub! Then she remembers why she told Heather not to come, and casts a frightened eye at Blake.

But Blake doesn't hear a thing. He doesn't feel anything except the burn in his muscles and the blood in his head. The Hitmonlee keeps the pads steady, and all he cares about is having something to hit.]

Huh.

[Blake is quiet for a while. His breath comes in and out.]

You know what the funny thing is?

[His hands open and close, making his knuckles sting.]

If it was the real me who did it, it wouldn't be so bad. Then I'd know for sure why I made the call.

[He'd know if it was a moment of judgment that there was a real danger, or if it was one of those times when it's been too damn long and you're too damn tired to care about right or wrong anymore, and you just think, you know what? Fuck it. Shoot him.]

Hey. This shadow world you were in. You said that lady was there cause God was pissed off at her.

Is that what happens to everybody God doesn't like, where you're from?

Stuff like that's probably harder to say when it wasn't you, strictly speaking. Might just be down to a matter of trusting your own judgment.

[Lancer shrugged, draping an arm over the back of his chair.]

The gods of my homeland were tough to deal with. Even I pissed one or two off in my lifetime. In Scathach's case, I think they were angry someone came so close to their level--that ain't something just anybody can do. When it came to dealing with them, your average mortal stayed the fuck outta the way.

_{[Steve might be worried, but Heather isn't. What's the worst Blake can do? Try and punch her? Not pleasant, but she's had worse and she's pretty sure her Pokemon are tougher than his are.]

[So after shooting the Snubbull a reassuring smile, she heads over to where the normally-grouchy cop is engrossed in pounding the hell out of those pads.]}

Hey. Blake.

[His fist hits hard enough to send the Hitmonlee a step back.

Blake's head jerks up. He sees the girl standing there. For a second it seems like he's going to drop his fists.

He doesn't.

He turns away and says coldly]

Get out of here.

Nope. Free country.

_{[She doesn't sound too phased.]}

If you didn't wanna be interrupted, you probably shouldn'tve gone to a public gym.

Yeah. I don't always get them, either.

[Dragons, he's pretty much got. People, though? Nope.]

I guess some things never change...

Let's see... Well, I'm a Viking, but I was never the best example of one... Usually they're big, strong people with a bad attitude and a bad smell. They've gotten better about it over the years, but learning to ride dragons is still their greatest improvement.

They're really...nice people, in the end. Most of them.

You say he isn't, his son says he is, and the difference between those two "worlds" would be something you did or didn't do.

[That sounds complicated, even by this world's crazy standards. But that also sounds important, for Blake and the kid if for no one else.]

Could there be other differences between what you've both lived through? Anything that could have made his guilt seems even more likely under certain conditions, or that would have obscured his true motives? If there's such a thing as parallel universes, there has to be a branching point. ...I mean, if the exact same you was faced with the exact same facts in the exact same circumstances, you should have made the same choices every time, right?

[Better to think about the theory behind parallel worlds than to think about how far against the law parents can go to protect their children.]

Hmm... That depends on what you're talking about. This got anything to do with war?

[That's the one thing that came up recently about those seemingly 'mundane' words that grabbed his attention, but is that really what Blake means? He'll refrain from jumping to conclusions until he knows for sure.]

You don't wanna be here, kid.

[He swings his fist at the pad in the Hitmonlee's hand, hard enough to send it a step back.]

You don't wanna talk to me.

[That enthusiastic clearing of the throat does in fact get a muffled doggish giggle. Steve is quite a receptive audience.

And, despite the urging it took to get him going, Yusuke has real talent as a storyteller. Soon Steve is listening intently, nodding and snubing along.

She can understand a lot about a grumpy guy who likes fighting.] I get it! Fighting is fun! Especially if you're strong.

[When he talks about one crappy bullshit day after another, that's funny, too, because for a second he sounds a lot like her trainer. But that quickly leads to things she doesn't want to think about, so she just listens.

She especially likes the part about the fight with the ugly guy (though the idea of teeth having black eyes is disturbing). She pumps her little paw enthusiastically.

It's sad, though, to think that someone's mother wouldn't want them at home.

She perks up to hear about the kid, though she knows that the side of the road isn't a good place to play. You could get hit by somebody on a Ponyta.

And now the giggles are hardly muffled at all, when she sees the faces he makes. You've got a heck of a talent for that, Yusuke.

(It's that odd little noise that makes Blake's head turn. If you are paying close attention, you may notice that the sound of impacts on pads has stopped, and Blake's feet in the background have gone still. Steve is too absorbed in the story for it to register.)

Her paws go to her mouth in alarm.] Oh no!

Did the guy die?

The way I remember it...

[The rain down his neck, the snipers arrayed around him, ready for his signal.]

We were all waiting, watching the door to see who came out. The killer had to be in there.

But when he came out, that damn journalist was with him. That meant something was weird. Made me stop for a minute, try to figure it out.

If he'd been alone and made a single false fuckin' move...

...It would have looked normal, exactly what you'd expect of a dangerous fugitive.

[Exactly what would convince a cop to shoot a man.]

But he wasn't, he didn't, so you realized there was something wrong with the situation. I'm... not sure you can be blamed for a decision you could have potentially made under slightly different circumstances, thinking you were dealing with a dangerous individual.

[Then again, the fact that it apparently did happen for the man's son complicates that, doesn't it...?]

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[17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

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