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 Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:12 pm
Consciousness returned to the young child, and with it, the sharp realization that although he was relieved from the solitude of his own mind, he was greeted with the solitude of the downers.
Even worse, his short reprieve in his mind did nothing to counter the burning pain that had been plaguing him for the past night. He wanted to yell out in pain--he wanted to rip off his flesh--he wanted to damn the very god that he knew must be the cause of this pain.
It was a bitter, stinging pain of raw flesh hitting cold, impure air mixed with the harsh, burning pain of fire.
And yet he wouldn’t just burn to ashes and die, even despite that pain.
At least he was in the alleyway alone. If anyone had been there to see him he would have—And then the memories flew back to him. There had been someone there. Some godling: an older one. With ears… And he was a smartass… A real b*****d…
Well, he would remember that. In fact… this new enemy would get precedence over the Coffee-Retard boy on Ciro’s hit list.
With a groan, he leaned against the nearest wall, hoping to once more faint and be done with this horrible pain.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 3:37 am
Fish had gone home earlier and explained his changes away as due to heavy radiation levels in the air. His parents, who were constantly blaming radiation levels on mutations of the fish they caught had accepted that answer, so for now he could stay at home. At least until he became too dangerous a target.
But Fish wasn't at home right now. He was taking a stroll through Downers, the dark streets around him whispering quiet secrets as the whole City seemed to settle on its foundation. The lumps of trash against the walls were quietly moving as the homeless awoke for another day of scavenging.
One lump wasn't moving. And it wasn't covered in trash. Maybe an unlucky being who hadn't survived the night. Fish started to go right past it but then he got a whiff of the aura coming off it.
Ciro?
Now he had to check it out. Ciro lying dead or almost dead in an alleyway wasn't good news for Fish. He rushed over and crouched by the boy, lifting one of Ciro's arms and feeling for a pulse. He was amazed at how hot his skin was - to touch it almost burned Fish's fingers, but he did find a sluggish pulse.
"Damn it, Ciro," he muttered. "Who did this to you?"
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 3:50 pm
While the boy stirred slightly, he didn’t respond at first. He was fairly certain he was hallucinating now, because there was no way anyone would be able to touch him… or would have tried, for that reason.
His eyes slid open, however, and he noted that the boy was Fish. Fish: ally. It was fine.
“I’d recommend not touching that…” He said awkwardly, the other eye opening.
And then the question actually registered in his mind. Slow reaction, but at least he had caught it. Mmm… How to answer that? Should he say his god did it? It was true. But there was the other addition of the other godling. Admitting that there was another, particularly one that was capable of beating him, would really hurt his image… If everyone thought he was weak, then more people would come after him…. It would be safer to stick with his god.
“I’m just great like that... Wait…”
Fish was… Different. Older looking…. OLDER. OH LORD. THAT WAS IT. If Fish could do it, maybe others could too. Now Ciro felt like a bloody idiot and he was more than ready to go chase that kid down and pummel him. It was the coffee retard that he had met up with!
“Is it just the drugs… or did you get a haircut?”
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 4:05 pm
"Something like that," answered Fish, dropping Ciro's hand. He'd hit his maximum for pain tolerance and couldn't hold on anymore. Frowning down at his fingers, he saw the flesh begin to blister. "I'll explain later."
"Drugs, Ciro? Drugs did this to you?" That just didn't make any sense! Right now the suddenly-younger boy's skin had to be hot enough to boil water. "What kind of drugs?"
The situation seemed dire. The last thing Fish needed was for his ally to overdose on something. His mind seemingly afire, he tugged the chain and ring out of his shirt. "Maybe I can call Miss Floros, or Anubis, and get them to take you somewhere, and we can get help."
Still, in all honesty, he didn't think drugs could ever make someone warm like this. It was more than a fever. It was unnatural - with a temperature this high, Ciro ought to have been dead. It didn't take a medical genius to know that.
Unless it wasn't the drugs.
"Anything besides the drugs happen? Anything at all?"
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 4:29 pm
“Nah, not drugs.” He pulled himself onto his feet, dusting off his pants and reaching down for his collar.
”My god’s just having fun. The drugs were supposed to stop it.”
The collar latched into its rightful place around his neck, before he reached for his other shirts…The fibers began to melt when his hand clutched around them, so he opted to drop the other shirts for now.
His hands went to feel his own upper arms, followed by his forehead. “I’ve actually cooled down a lot, so you’re lucky.”
The boy sucked on his cheek for a moment in thought, before opting that Fish would be a lot more useful in the know than not.
“Actually, I could barely move from that before… And some ******** came to mess with me when I was down. He pulled some crap, and I…”
Fainted sound wayyyy too girly and weak of a thing to say.
“Well, I blacked out. I’m pretty sure Shamash took control, though. I’m amazed the guy got away alive. ”
Wow… Was his head supposed to spin? Maybe he had gotten up too fast after all. Leaning… Yea, leaning against the wall seemed like a good idea.
“Hey… The guy with the ears..” (Oh, yea, he was specific there), “Did he ‘get his hair cut’ too? Somethin’s going on, and I think I’d like to know what. … And how I can get on board.”
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 5:32 pm
"You mean Writ," Fish interjected. "Yeah, you could say that. Though it's more like he got his hair grown, and the rest of him, too."
Personally, Fish had been amazed by Writ and Crow's growths. While he only looked five or six years older, Writ and Crow had to be nearly eighteen now. Was that even fair?
"It happened to Crow, too. She's, um... big," he added, trying to be helpful. "I think it's gonna happen to everyone sooner or later. Come on, let's try to get you to Seasons before Writ comes back with reinforcements."
Like Crow, he thought, still trying to figure out what her actions towards Writ had been about. And if Writ and Ciro had fought, Fish's future didn't look too bright.
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 5:57 pm
So Writ was that jackass’s name. Good. Now he knew who to go after. Crow was older too, then? Good. Maybe she was a bit less creepy now that she wasn’t a ten year old barking at him. That was a really good thing. Even better, if it was happening to everyone… Then he had a chance for it to happen to him. Hopefully he would be even cooler and taller than that Writ kid… He’d love to rub it in if he got a chance.
“Nah, he’s not coming back. Shamash gotta hold of him. He’s probably regretting coming up in the first place.”
He grinned weakly, feeling damn proud that even if he had a tiny body, Shamash could always annoy people away. Little did he know, however, that he had made them leave not by bad-a**-ness, but by simply being an annoying narcissist.
“Wait… What is ‘Seasons’?”
Maybe… he was more naïve than he had thought.
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 7:14 pm
"The flower shop," replied Fish, sighing. He'd excuse that to Ciro being groggy. "Where Miss Floros works. The one I was sitting outside of when we met. It's neutral ground. There's no fighting allowed there."
He extended a gauntlet-covered arm to Ciro. "Come on, I'll help you. You're in bad shape, but if we make it to Seasons he can't hurt you."
Suddenly the whole thing seemed like a game of tag. But, then again, this was The Game. It was fitting that it felt like that.
"You can walk, right?"
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 8:27 pm
He brushed away the arm (Being sure not to actually touch Fish), and sent him a grim smirk. “I can walk just fine. I don’t need to be hangin’ on another man’s arm. It’s a little too fruity for my taste.”
Neutral ground, eh? That was certainly an appealing sounding place right now. A place where little cheaters didn’t come to attack when you’re already down.
“ So it’s neutral ground-- I can’t attack him either: that’s the flaw in that logic. Get me a place where I can wail on him and he can’t do a thing back, and then I’ll be happy.”
He trudged onward after Fish, feeling as if he was playing anything but a game. This was pure and unadulterated, yes, but this was war.
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Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 5:28 am
"Well, short of sitting on top of a building and pelting him with rocks, this is the best you're going to get," replied Fish, motioning up a staircase to the next street level before taking it. "There's a people-lifter a few streets up, but we're going to have to walk to get to it," he explained.
But really, thought Fish, though he hadn't mentioned it, if Writ had been involved in this he would personally pummel the boy. He'd just needed another reason and now he had no reason not to run him through with his trident.
"I saw Writ and Crow and a new kid, Jubs earlier," he said. "I didn't get who Jubs's god is, though. He had feathers and paws if it helps. No one's seen Len lately, no one's seen Maria. And Crow was... um... What's the phrase?"
Fish wracked his brain for the words and came up blank.
"Well, she was snuggling Writ and acting all flirty. I don't know if that means they're allies or what. Come on, down this street.
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Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:52 pm
“You mean an elevator?” Even while drugged, Ciro found the use of words like ‘people lifter’ to be just a little bit strange.
“Maybe ‘Jubs’ is somehow associated with Crow? Some kind of animal clan or something?” He mused to both himself and Fish, figuring that a little bit of thinking would be in order. He wasn’t particularly sure how much order his brain was making, but at least he could feel like he was doing something to help the war effort.
He pondered over the idea of Writ and Crow being a couple. Well, they were both animalistic. It fit them, in a strange way. But if they were going to get cuddly while Writ was going to try to kill him… Well, maybe that broad was lying to him after all. Damnit, that was why girls were so useless. Backstabbing little traitors who say one thing but then go and do something completely different.
Women could not be trusted.
“God damn, buddy.” He was musing over how strange these kids were “You’re name is FISH, that one kid has PAWS, Crow has WINGS, and that b*****d has EARS the size of Texas.”
He smirked at the boy, though not sure if he was making any sense or not. Mayyybe a bit of clarification would help.
“Hell, it seems like I’m the only one based on a god. You guys are all just animals.”
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 4:55 am
"No," replied Fish, considering it. "I don't think Jubs liked Crow very much, or vice versa. He seemed to be good with Writ, though. Writ was making an effort to be nice to him. Crow and I just wanted information. We didn't even get him to tell us who his god was."
Fish had to laugh at the Ciro's statement about the animals. "I dunno, Ciro," he replied. "You look a little like a goat."
"And besides," he continued, "Fish is a nickname."
He didn't continue with what his real name might be.
"And there's this one girl, Maria, who doesn't seem like she's got any powers or traits at all. I mean, she says she's playing for Izanami, but I have no idea. And she's a dumbass, too."
They came to the elevator and Fish pressed the call button. This would take them up about fifty stories from Downers to Middling, much closer to Seasons.
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:16 pm
He entered the elevator casually enough, absorbing the information, and rested against the wall of the narrow box. “So we pick her off first, naturally.” He was calculating this out, trying to think of how to best use the scenario. “If we can do it with other kids watching, we can set an example to teach them not to mess with us. Morbid as it may be, it’s effective. It’ll scare the s**t out of them and they won’t pull s**t like what just happened.”
The boy flicked his head back and forth, trying to clear it up. The sweating had mostly stopped. And Ciro was feeling slightly more in control. That was probably on account of the fact that he was being simply led around rather than trying to fight. Trying to kill someone whilst drugged probably wasn’t the smartest thing… Thank god he had Shamash there to save him.
“Oh…Hey…” Ciro’s eyes were staring at the ceiling, though whether or not he actually saw what was in front of him was questionable. “Does your god ever like…. Push you out?” Well… That sounded insane, “Of your body I mean. Does he ever just… take control?”
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:40 pm
Fish pondered the question for a moment. "I don't think so," he answered, selecting their destination and leaning against the wall. The elevator lurched to life. "If he does, he's being awfully sneaky about it."
He frowned at a stain on the wall and then did a double-take. "Wait, do you mean your god does?" he asked quizzically. He wasn't even sure that was acceptable within the rules of the game.
"Er, actually," he added, considering it, "If you count growing six years over night, I suppose the answer is yes."
There. The cat was out of the bag.
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Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 11:40 pm
As the blond stared at Fish in disbelief, the elevator crawled to a slow halt. The doors opened invitingly, and yet still he stood staring.
“See… Now that… That I seriously thought was on account of the drugs.”
He considered just what the significance of six years could be… six whole years.
“Yea… I think I want that now.”
A wry and conniving smile was spreading across his face as he thought of the very great and slightly embellished significance that could have. But then, almost as if he had heard a loud crash, his attention snapped to outside the elevator. His body recoiled slightly before lunging into action, leaving Fish a few feet behind. Shamash clearly was having a word.
“Sorry, man. I think I have to take a rain check…”
The face plastered on the boy was one of utter confusion. “Something is going down and apparently I have to stop by. Thanks for the information, though.”
And with that, he lunged forward, out and into the crowd.
[For Continuation]
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