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“Say Isaac?”
“What is it, Miria?”
“I don’t think we’ve quite left our mark on this city.”
“It’s like we were never here—stealthy as Ninja!”
“That’s exactly my point, we need to be better than Ninja!”
“How so, Isaac?”
“Well, remember all those people in Gotham City?”
“Of course! No one could forget costumes like that!”
“Exactly my point! No one forgets people like Catwoman and Bane!”
“That clown wasn’t very funny, though…”
“But like the Clown, we must be audacious!”
“Auspicious too?”
“We must go back to our roots and steal something the likes of which no one has stolen before!”
“Back to basics!”
“But it’s going to be hard to follow our grand ol' traditions, but therein' lies the challenge!”
“Stealing stuff while still bein' good guys is hard work.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong, Miria!”
Miria gasped, “I’m wrong!?”
“But there’s no need to fret. I have just learned of the best possible targets to steal from!”
“You don’t mean—?!” Miria’s shocked face was replaced with the innocent grin of a 9 year old.
“Indeed I do, Miria!”
The two blondes hugged each other tightly, “The most patriotic way to steal is to steal from the Nazis!” the crowed in unison as they fluidly moved their embrace into a tango and strutted towards mischief.
*
He was confused by this place, it didn’t make him feel good. He kept a hand on the black lab walking beside him so as not to fall over. They were an odd sight, only more hallucinatory than he currently felt. A spiky haired teenager with colorful clothing and large shoes walking next to a black Labrador retriever in a bulletproof vest with large pockets, being ridden by a white duck with a sailor’s hat tied to its head like a party hat. All walking down one off the grimiest, foulest streets the boy had ever seen.
They got quite a few glances, but the boy couldn’t really focus on the people around him.
Maybe it was the smell—the streets had several repulsive smells wafting through them: the pungent odor of rotten fruit, the heavy odor of the sweat of hundreds of people in constant equatorial heat…
And the acrid smell of gunpowder and iron-laced smell of blood.
This was not a place of light.
But there was something more to it—a darkness that permeated the air and even touched into the people around him—something that he could feel was ready to pounce all around him.
The next thing he knew he hit something and was knocked on his butt. Some of the words that followed were so repulsive and dark to his ears, that his brain almost automatically began filtering them.
The woman who knocked him down smelled like cigarettes, liquor, gun smoke and blood and her voice sounded like a tar pit. Given the heat, he could understand why she wore so little, but her cutoff jeans were nearly nonexistent—the twin gun holsters under her arms covered more skin. “Alright, you little ****, fork it over.”
“Um, what?” the boy tried to get his brain to work.
“I said fork it over,” the woman placed a gloved hand on her face and sighed, “a crappy grabber like you” she leaned over to him, the smell off cigarettes became stronger as she did, “I’m thinkin’ it’ll be about 3 days before some ****damn pedophile picks you up and leaves your **** sucking corpse in the bay for the crabs to crawl through all the new holes he's made. I’m tryin’ ta be nice here and steal a dinner from the ***damn crabs. Just give back whatever it is you stole and I’ll let you go crawling back to mama.”
The duck began to squawk and flap its bill at the woman. The dog did not move, almost eerie in its calm silence.
“The **** is that? You some kinda circus act? Whatya do, the Aristocrats?” the woman sneered.
The body rubbed his spiky hair, trying to wrap around exactly what the woman said. “Uh, I didn’t steal anything from you.”
Her eyes narrowed, “Oh, really?” she growled as she drew a rather large pistol from her holster and rested it against her thigh. The dog and duck tensed, the boy did as well, but only managed to wobble in response.
“I think I’ve seen that kid before,” A man in a white collar shirt and tie standing next to the growling woman whispered and rubbed his chin briefly.
The woman continued, tapping the gun against her thigh, “I’m gonna ask only one more time, give it back.”
The boy did his best to stand firm, but did not do as well as he hoped, “Lady, I dunno what your problem is—”
The man with the tie smiled nervously and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder, “Um, Revy, I don’t think it would be a good idea to shoot the cosplayer.”
“The ****'s that?” she barked at him.
“Besides, I really don’t think he stole something from you.”
“Then why the hell did he bump inta me?”
“I dunno—because he can barely stand under his own power?”
The woman, Revy, blinked several times and look at the boy again. He was a boyish looking teenager, he knew that much, lightly built (but with pretty big feet), but he didn’t look healthy at all. he got a good look at his hands while holding onto the dog and they did not look good. Pale, despite the sun and the heat, and gaunt, as though something drained the vitality from the boy.
The woman looked at the man with the tie again, her gaze focused into daggers.
“Rock,” She snarled, “You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking. Because if you’re ****ing thinking what I think you’re ****ing thinking then I’m going to take ****ing Old Yeller here out back and take care of ****ing business.”
“Revy,” the man, Rock, lightly chastised the woman before turning to the boy, “Sorry about all this—are you lost?”
“What?” the boy said, “Sorry, it’s just—the darkness here—there’s so much of it.”
Rock blinked at that answer. He seemed like a good kid, and had an honest politeness to his voice he hadn’t heard in a while. At least, when the boy talked to him.
“I just—I just need to get my head on straight,” he said, or, at least, that’s what he intended to say. The world becoming blurry around the edges and the sky flying down to overtake the horizon probably didn’t let him finish that sentence. The next thing he knew, he was with his friends on a cough in some strange office, listening to the gravelly voiced woman complain.
Her voice was as dark as before.
“****ing boyscout,” she kicked a wall with her heavy boots.
“He’s our first real lead in all this,” Rock sighed, “It’s something to work from.”
“Yeah,” he could hear her sneering, “I bet Ms. Balalaika or Mr. Chang would pay a pretty penny for the guy.”
There was a pause, “But Mr. Boyscout doesn’t think we should try to make a buck…”
“Well,” he heard a chair lean back with a mild, creaking protest, “considering the last time we tried human trafficking—”
A slam on a table and the rattle of glasses cut the man off.
“Oh, come on! That ****ing bitch is a one in a billion find—there’s no way, no ****ing way a **** like this is gonna have that kinda backing.”
“That all depends on if its cosplay.”
“What the hell is that? Some Japanese madness?”
“It’s dressing up in like a character from a TV show or video game.”
“And?”
“And, you remember that…that monster from 2 months back.”
“Which one? Darna or—”
“The one who changed identities every other hour.”
There was a silence. The woman swore. Several times.
“I’m thinking it’s somethin’ like that.”
After another pause he added, “Whatever’s going on right now, I’m betting its worse than that time.”
The heat held the silence in the air easily, even the boy felt uncomfortable just lying there, but his body just wasn’t ready to move.
Revy broke the silence, “So the costume’s—”
“Either it’s real or he’s a powered up fanboy.”
“***ing fanboys.”
“Given the way he talks, he probably has some powers.”
“Well,” Revy snorted, “Who the **** else would around with a ****damn dog and a mother ****ing duck like that.”
The sound of a door opening hit the boy’s ears as a new person entered.
“Yo, Benny,” The woman called out.
“Hey guys, what’re you two doin’ back?” the new voice said, the boy assumed it was Benny. Benny’s voice was lighter and had a softer aid about it too. He could hear the man walk in casually, with little care for his placement. He wasn’t a fighter like he heard from the woman’s steps.
“Um,” Benny paused, the boy could feel him lean over him, “Why is there a Sora cosplayer on the couch?”
Last edited by Majin Gojira on 2011-09-15 12:23am, edited 1 time in total.
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NOOO!