shellphones | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Type: Accidental Video
Sender ID: 🖕nunya🖕(Sidestep)
To: Public
Subject:
Warnings: Mention of death and torture. Threads are likely to end up going deeply traumatic places.

(It's a typical day on Nogard, though many people who see this might be elsewhere.

Many have probably heard by now that Chris is dead. Has been dead for several days, in fact, after being captured and tortured by Ganon.

Except... they're not?

That's definitely a shot of a very panicked looking Chris running... somewhere, not paying attention to the shellphone clutched in their hand or noticing that it's recording.

Several people can be heard yelling in surprise in the background as Chris darts past them.

...The fuck are they even running from? It doesn't sound like they're being chased.

The hand holding the shellphone bumps into something, and the video cuts out.)

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I don't think you should reward him for that! Every time I tried to sneak out, he'd bark and Richie would show up.

[ He's pretty weak to doing what Richie wants. ]

That's the point, idiot! You're supposed to rest!

(There's not any particular heat behind this exclamation.)

You wanna avoid being out of commission for months, you're gonna have to learn better self-preservation. (Says the hypocrite who got themself killed.)

I'm alive, I have plenty of self-preservation. [ He quips, not really thinking about it because, well, for Keigo that's enough. ]

I've rested plenty, I definitely would've been back at work by now, weeks ago.

Keigo, your employers were abusive.

(Blunt. They don't have the energy for subtle.)

[ He settles on a bit of a shrug. ]

Maybe. I'm not sure it was that bad. They did deliver on making me a hero.

[ Sure, he wasn't happy with them, but they did have purpose in everything they did, right? ]

(They flinch.

...)

I was a hero too.

(The Directive gave them the powers and training they needed for that. Hawks knows they had similar experiences: is he really gonna say those experiences are in any way good?)

[ He doesn't think what happened to them was good at all, but it's okay if things happen to him. ]

I know...

(And well, they can, perhaps unfortunately, see that in his head. Which makes it hard to be mad at him.

They sigh.)

The heroes I met were doing just fine without that kind of training. Better, even, if you consider the fact that my "masters" were what ended my career. (More quietly.) They'd end yours too, eventually.

(It's not quite the same scenario. They were never supposed to be a hero at all. They escaped and earned that freedom. Hawks was made to be a hero. But it's also the same: Hawks wasn't meant to be a real hero, just a pretender the Commission could use.)

[ Keigo lets out the loudest, heaviest of sighs. ]

I know that too. I was never under any delusion how it would end. It's very likely that had they been around, this injury would've been enough for them to move on from me.

(A bitter snort.)

If my people existed in your world they probably wouldn't be happy about you trying to save one of us, either.

(They look away from him, at the table.) You'd have probably been a good hero without them.

Vigilante, maybe. I couldn't have afforded hero school. As terrible as they are, were I guess, I would've been in a no win situation to begin with. They saved me and condemned me at the same time.

[ He's under no illusions that his mother would get it together. He doesn't know, but he also doesn't think she has. Not with the way she ran. ]

I don't think I would've had a pathway into heroics without them.

So they gatekeep saving people for those with money too.

(Wow, they didn't think another world could be worse thsn theirs, but there it is!

They're gonna look at the menu. They already know what they want but maybe there's something else.)

Something like that, it's really hard to get a license without attending school and I'm not smart enough to have pulled off a scholarship or anything. [ He is, actually, but he doesn't realize that his cognitive abilities are higher than most. ]

It's a what if that is pretty terrible to entertain on its own. My mom could've sold me to someone else, we could've struggled for my entire childhood, or I guess I could've died. [ He doesn't consider a possible rosy outcome. No, as optimistic as he can be, in that case, he knows his parents would've doomed him to something awful, one way or another. ]

(...

...Should they tell him?

Well, they were going to and then he says that.)

...Yeah. (They swallow. They can, unfortunately, think of considerably worse people his mom could have sold him to, and they also doubt that she was just gonna get better or someone would swoop in to save him. Doomed from the start.) I'm sorry she was so terrible.

[ Keigo sighs again, looking like he's thinking that over. ]

I'm not even sure she meant to be, I can't even be mad at her. [ That's not entirely true. He's a little mad. ]

Both of my parents were broken, fucked up people. I knew that much. Probably I am too.

She probably just didn't care.

(They put the menu down. No, nothing else they'd like.) You definitely need therapy, but you're better than a lot of Humans.

Probably not. [ He could believe that. ] She certainly didn't care about me or my dad more than she did what she could get out of us.

[ Keigo lets out a little scoff. ] I don't think that'll ever happen, but thanks, I think.

Exploited you to the very end, huh? (They make a face.) Bitch.

[ He doesn't defend Tomie. He can't. ]

She clung to my father because he stole her what she wanted. She was comfortable with that and tried to keep him there. When he got fed up and left, she dragged me around and had me go out and find her food. She sold me for a cushy life that probably my work was funding, all these years. So yeah, I guess. She strikes me, mostly as kind of...pathetic, actually. [ He probably shouldn't say that, but as compassionate as Keigo is, his hurt does cloud his judgment. He can't forgive her and let go the fact she sold him off and discarded him like he was trash in their shack. ]

Even running away now, it's just nothing to aspire to.

...Yeah. For what it's worth, I don't think going to the Commission being the best possibility out of all the likely ones excuses any of what they did to you.

(Keep him on the defensive.

...Also it's true.)

[ He sighs softly. ]

Mm, but I was willing to take that because if it wasn't me, it would be someone else and that wouldn't be right. I don't want anyone else to have to deal with it.

[ And yet, he wouldn't fight for himself. Keigo's just not wired that way. ]

What, you don't think they could have been lying to you and training up the next one?

(They sigh.)

That's a common tactic, you know. Convince a person that by tolerating being hurt they're saving someone else. Even if they aren't training your replacement just yet it's always a lie.

Oh, I know, I was very careful to keep track of that. Even when I was picked up it's because they thought Kaina would crack. [ She did. ]

Now that we know for sure, they didn't, but I'm sure they had a potential list.

...Yeah.

(They're not sure where to go from here, and sink into a sullen silence.)

Kind of depressing, isn't it?

[ His life is like that, but he doesn't like to dwell on that aspect. ]