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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...Your story starts somewhat like Cinderella, but the end is different. Guess it's one of those things that changed over the centuries.

[It's also not a color he ever expected to see from that particular Gear number, but he'll keep that quiet.]

I'd tell you a story in return, but I can only think of the bad ones today.

[Steve knows she knows that voice...her brow furrows as she thinks about it hard.

The handsome gentleman who asked her to dance. Steve's ears perk up, and the translation of her snubs appears rapidly.]

Ash! Is that you?

[She calms down a little and nods at the screen.]

Bad ones are okay. Bad things happen too.

Yeah, it's me. Hey there.

[The number of potential Gear users on the other side has now drastically dropped, at least.]

Let's see, then. ...Once upon a time, there was a planet that had many people on it. Too many people. Its people were running out of space, and there was so much pollution that plants and animals were dying out.

So, they decided to send millions of people out to another planet nearby, to try and give their home a chance to heal.

[In the background, a pair of sneakered feet scuff backwards as the thump of a hard blow resounds. Steve's ears flinch, and she focuses on the story.]

That must have been horribly crowded. But if they had somewhere else to go, that's all right.

They thought they had somewhere to go.

[Which is why he said it was a bad story.]

But when they reached that planet, for some reason people started getting sick. Really sick. They kept dying and dying, and trying to keep them alive cost a lot of money.

...So, their home planet decided to stop sending help and pretend they'd all died instead.

[Steve is rapt. She's a very curious little dog.]

Was it needles? My trainer says a lot of people get sick from dirty needles and crack. And their teeth fall out.

That's a terrible decision. Couldn't they take back the people who were still alive?

[Ash laughs at that, but it's not a particularly nice laugh.]

That would have made fixing the situation too easy. No, it turns out that the planet they chose lacked protection against what they now call the Mars Rays. Taking everyone back would have saved them all, but it would have also been expensive. It would have meant admitting that they made a mistake during the preparation, too, and the government couldn't accept that.

So the survivors stayed there, and the longer it lasted, the more hateful they became.

Money and being embarassed aren't a good reason to let people die. That's a waste.

How did anyone live?

Not everyone fell sick, and some who did were first healthy for fourty, fifty years. So by that time they had plenty of children. ...Children that watched their friends and loved ones grow ill and die, and started hating the people that remained on their original planet for not suffering like they did.

Oh...Of course they had to be angry. Did they ever find a cure?

[All effects and sicknesses have some way to fix them. Steve knows that.

She's listening hard for Ash's answer, and doesn't hear that the gym has fallen silent.]

They didn't.

[Medicine to hide symptoms would never be as good as a true cure, just a way of pretending things could get better.]

But they did find something else, while exploring space. A database of long lost weapons, all of them powerful enough to defeat any army.

...All of them powerful enough to destroy those who had left them there.

Oh.

[Steve is a bright enough dog (who'd been around a cynical enough person for the last year) to see where this is going.]

They fought and took the old home back, didn't they.

Is home worth that?

They tried. They tried very, very hard. But the people of their original planet found themselves a savior, to lead the war effort and crush the invaders.

[His tone gets a little strange, when he says the word savior. There might be some disdain there, some anger, a lot of fondness, and perhaps a touch of regret.]

...Millions died on both sides of the conflict, over nearly seventy years, before both sides decided to try working differently. Is anything worth that much blood?

Did the savior save anybody?

Seventy years...that's so long to fight. Did they live so long, or was it their children, too?

[Steve pulls her knees up. She doesn't notice that the room has gotten quieter.]

I don't know. Fighting is fun. I'm good at it! But from how people talk, and what he says, and what you say, it's different other places. The loser doesn't get up again. He told me that.

And he said sometimes it's better that way. There's people who the world is better off without.

[Sunk in thought, she doesn't notice the shadow looming behind her.]

He saved many people. He killed many people. Because he chose to become the savior for one side only, no matter what would happen to the other. And some did live that long, naturally or not; but that did not stop their children and grandchildren from joining in.

[Still, he can tell himself that his own future grandchildren will probably not have to take part in it, if nothing else. Considering the circumstances, that's something.]

...He's right when he says that it works like that for other worlds. He's also right when he says it's sometimes for the best. But ideally-

[Uh. That is most definitely a not very Snubbull-like shadow.]

My trainer says sometimes you have to hurt people to help people.

But that's sad, for all of them. They were still all people, weren't they? Just living in different places. How different could they be-

[She's in mid-snub when a hand reaches down and picks up the Gear. There's just enough time to see her jump and try to shrink into the mat before the Gear is lifted up and the only thing visible is Blake's drawn face and dark, deep-set eyes.

He doesn't yell or raise his voice. His words are low and cold.]

What the fuck are you telling my dog?

[Well, someone certainly looks unhappy today. It's even enough to make Ash switch to video. The glass that's now visible in his hand might explain a lot about his choice of subject, too.]

A story.

[Ah, but that's not quite true, is it? And Blake doesn't seem in a mood to hear lies at the moment.]

A little alternate history lesson, really, but calling it a story makes it sound less painful. She's a very good audience, too, asks all the right questions.

There's questions that shouldn't get asked.

[There's no expression on his face. Not even the usual anger.]

You were telling her about some guy who killed a lot of people.

What happened to him?

...He finally, finally realized that destroying a civilian enemy colony would not avenge his lost loved ones, or keep those that remain to him safe. Good thing, too, because he was one trigger away from launching a missile at it.

[He's speaking of a barely averted atrocity, but his voice holds an undeniable fondness, a touch of pride, a drop of sadness.]

Fifty years of hatred, only to realize it wasn't helping anyone, least of all himself. Fifty years spent pretending he couldn't empathize with his enemy, only to fight to save them in the end. I wonder if that hurt? Realizing that he'd wasted so much time?

Well. Isn't that nice for him. Not blowing up a planet. Gotta get you some karma, something like that.

Doesn't bring back anybody he killed before, though.

Whatever happened to that guy? Everybody he killed, all the shit he did. Did he pay for it?

How would I know? It only happened half an hour before I ended up with a fire-breathing hellhound and a crazy woman calling herself my mom.

[Any and all softness in his voice is replaced with... defensiveness, perhaps?]

...He's a popular high-ranking army commander, most of his casualties were enemy soldiers killed in battle, and he has the support of the current government and the rest of the military leadership. He'll probably be fine. If they wanted to punish him they have to shoot everyone in both armies to be fair, anyway.

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.]

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.]

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