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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[He had been almost positive he hadn't actually been talking to the guy he'd spoken to before, but he still hadn't expected it to be a Pokemon. He'd been expecting... maybe a kid borrowing the the 'Gear instead. Still, Ocelot puts on his poker face because he had told the story.]

You know, those are good questions. I believe in the story, birds are supposed to be able to know the future. The story doesn't make it clear how Ivan can talk to the one bird, does it? I suppose that means that the bird spoken to him in Russian, not the bird language.

It's a folk tale so fantastic things are possible. There's another story, about a creature called Baba Yaga, that looks like an old woman with chicken legs. Are there legends about Pokemon here? Maybe that's the same sort of thing.

Because of how old the story is, there is a different culture around it. Birds ask the king for advice because the listener of the story should ask the king advice on important matters. Of course a son can follow his mother, too. It's just a story.

[Steve has not seen this face before. She's certain she would remember one like that. One ear lifts in curiosity.]

What's Russian?

An old woman chicken would be interesting. She would have to work hard to balance.

There are a lot of Pokemon legends...my trainer never pays attention to them. He says he's not from here and he's not sticking around, so he doesn't need to hear about [She takes a moment to remember the phrasing] Magic Animal Jesus.

[Her little paws fold tightly together. Worry etches her brows.] I don't know if I'd want to know the future.

Edited 2014-06-25 08:30 (UTC)

Russian is a language in the place where I'm from. It's the language I speak normally.

[He still can if he really concentrates, but he hasn't exactly made a habit out of trying.]

...Magical Animal Jesus?

[You know, Blake might not think that this information is important, but that sounds like something that people should really be paying attention to, if only to understand the world they're stuck in.]

[Steve makes an attempt to grasp the concept.] You mean the way Pokemon talk? And you have to have a Psychic type change it to human?

[She is now under the impression that, logically, Ocelot usually communicates by going, "Russian guy Russian guy Russian guy."]

That's what he calls it. You know, the Pokemon who they say created the world.

[Her ears lower, and her eyes draw tight at the corners.]

Do you think someone made this world on purpose?

[If he knew, he'd find the idea more funny than anything else, thankfully. As it is...]

No, not quite like that. It's... different. People here all speak the same language.

[...now that's an interesting question. Ocelot hasn't ever thought about god much. He's a spy, playing a number of different sides at once. It's an incredibly dangerous game and so easy to get caught up in.

Or found out. He thinks of Tatyana-- though that isn't her real name, and how he'd known from the beginning that she was a Chinese spy. Does she think about there being a divine being, guiding them?

Does Ocelot?]

I believe that even the most random of circumstances probably happen for a reason. Not fate, exactly, because people are in control of their own destinies, but there probably is something out there. Maybe not to guide people, but... there. Watching over.

Like a parent, but one that wants to make sure her children are fine on their own.

[..Which still doesn't entirely answer the question.]

I believe that someone or something could have made this world, yes.

Right, Human.

[It's not hard to understand, but she can't pronounce it for the life of her.

Her ears quirk up. She finds what the young man says very interesting.]

That...would be nice. If there's somebody watching. I don't have parents but I have my trainer. What do trainers have?

If someone made the world, did they make all the worlds? People come here from so many.

Some of them don't seem like good places.

Edited 2014-07-01 09:34 (UTC)

[He doesn't really get how it's possible for humans to all speak the same language, but most things about this place are bizarre as it is so really, he shouldn't be surprised at all.

He's talking to a pink dog right now, after all.]

I don't know.

I think it's possible. Even places that sound bad still have good people in them.

[Ocelot is cynical as hell and is of the belief that most people are out for themselves, but The Boss is not exactly someone he's ever going to forget.]

Maybe it was all the work of one person. A god. Maybe it was multiple gods. I don't know how anyone could tell.

[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.

[You know, there's something incredibly funny about this whole conversation.

Maybe it's that Ocelot is having a reasonable conversation with a Pokemon belonging to the guy he really wants to fuck with.]

It could have been.

I don't think about this sort of thing often, myself.

[The guy who is just starting to notice, over the sound of the blood in his ears and his fists against the pads, that there are low voices coming from the other side of the room.

Steve doesn't notice. Her ears are lifting with curiosity at something else.]

You don't wonder why you're here? Most people seem to. They ask about it a lot.

[Her arms wrap around herself.]

Do you think it's because you did something bad?

[Since he is talking into the 'Gear, you'd think that Ocelot would eventually figure that the trainer would notice, but he's actually enjoying the conversation for some unknown reason.]

No, I don't think so.

[Because he doesn't consider himself a bad person, not exactly. Sometimes people have to do bad things. It was his job.]

Maybe it depends on the person.

[Steve's attention is all on the young man on the screen, leaving her none for the shadow moving steadily closer behind her.

She's absorbed in asking something she hasn't been able to ask anyone else.]

Are you happy here?

[That makes him smile. It's not entirely a warm smile, because Ocelot doesn't do that, but it's not nasty by any means.]

I think so. It's nice here.

I think so too. But it's my home. I've never been anywhere else. Are other places nice?

My trainer talks about The Real World a lot. It sounds dangerous.

[He shakes his head, looking thoughtful.]

I wouldn't know. Where I'm from isn't so different from where he is.

You're from Philadelphia too?

[She has just finished snubbing that out when she finally notices the soft steps on the pads behind her.]

You don't know anything about where I'm from.

[Steve turns and yaps in alarm, then scrambles away.

Blake gazes coldly down at the phone on the floor. His breath is ragged, and sweat marks his face and clothing. His voice grates.]

Who the fuck are you?

Not exactly, but it's close enough fo--

[To his credit, Ocelot smiles politely when Blake comes on screen.]

Call me Adamska. Your Pokemon had a question so I was answering it for her. Nothing else happened, I assure you.

[Blake doesn't like the guy's smile. Right now, he doesn't like much of anything.

Steve is barely visible at the edge of the screen, crouched low to the floor, ears pulled back.

It doesn't sound like any name he's ever heard. He echoes it flatly.] Adamska.

[He looks from the Snubbull to the phone. Behind him, the Hitmonlee is running through a regimen of kicks to the air.]

I don't see what my dog has to talk to you about.

[He shrugs. He doesn't exactly want to get the Pokemon in trouble. She's intelligent and sentient and more than likely capable of feeling humiliation. Ocelot's a jerk, but he's not that much of one.]

She asked for people to tell her a story.

I obliged.

[His expression isn't angry. It's something haunted and distant.]

Let me guess. One about somebody bad who went to Hell.

No, actually. I told her a story about a man who forgave his father.

[Which... might be a bit more personal than he really wants to let on.]

[The sound Blake makes is nowhere in the same nation as a laugh.]

Tell me this. Have you ever once in your fuckin' life met anybody who really forgave anything?

They'll say it. Might even think they mean it. But if a chance for payback came down, they'd take it.

The reason is, you both know the truth: being sorry doesn't change a damn thing.

Revenge has never solved anything.

[But if Blake wants to play this game, he can play it. Ocelot has no reason for revenge. He's been all about business his entire life.

Certainly there are those who would probably want vengeance for something he's done, but he'd be lying if he said he gave a damn about that.]

It's true. Saying you're sorry is a hell of a lot easier than actually being sorry, isn't it? That's the way the world works.

People lie to each other all the time to save face.

Edited 2014-08-02 03:43 (UTC)

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

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