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Love and War; An RP Side Story
Topic Started: Feb 13 2009, 09:23 AM (243 Views)
Makokam
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Apostate
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Mako's Message:
This was something I wrote back in...wow, 2006. It was part of an RP that I was in, and took my character away from the main plot to devlope his character and motivations. I'm telling you this to explain the "prelude" section, which is basically the transitionairy part from the RP to the story I was writting within it.
I still think it's a pretty good peice of writting, and I hope you all enjoy it.
There was also some fallout from these events that took on their own sort of side stories in the RP as well, I may or may not post those as well. Anyway, on with the story.

Prelude to Love and War


Jonathan considered what Eros was saying, and thought, but didn’t voice, that it was technically he who had initiated combat. Well, if you wanted to get really picky, it was Ayame who made the first attack. All he’d done was blow the door in, which, for an anti-titan, is the equivalent of knocking politely.

He left when dismissed and headed towards his quarters. The room was sparsely firnished, just a table, a couple of chairs, a bed, a trunk, and a couple of bags holding spare clothes and such. He picked up one of his bags and headed right back out. He stopped in the common room, or whatever the hell it was the Slacker, Kami, and goo-boy hung out in.

“I’m going out. If Eros comes looking for me, assuming he doesn’t already know, I’ll be at that coffee shop a few blocks away.”

And with that, he left.

The walk was relatively short, and occasionally he got strange or outright horrified looks from passerby, but he ignored them. In the coffee shop, he found a secluded corner and pulled a laptop from his bag.

He booted up the computer and after confirming he had a connection, signed onto the internet. He looked at some of the things he’d bookmarked over the years, some he still got a chuckle or “holy shit” expression from him. Others he wondered why he’d want to go back there and deleted them.

His e-mail was overflowing with spam. Teach him to go almost a month without emptying the fucker.

He stopped and stared at the computer. He drummed his fingers against the table as indecision wracked his brain.

Finally he took a deep breath, and signed onto his instant messenger.

He looked at his list of contacts and exhaled.

The only name he’d entered was online.

Love and War: Part One

Hellfire: Hello.

RocMaSox: Jonathan! It’s been too long! What have you been up to?

Hellfire: (shrug)The same old song and dance.

RocMaSox: … I see.

Hellfire: How’ve you been?

RocMaSox: Okay. Things are hectic. Just started school. Are you okay?

Hellfire: I’m okay. How’s school going?

RocMaSox: You should come home

Hellfire: You know I can’t.

RocMaSox: Why not Jonathan?

Hellfire You know very well why I left and why I can’t come back.

RocMaSox: Just stop Jonathan. If you stop you can come home.

Hellfire: I can’t.

Hellfire: Do you remember that night we got high?

RocMaSox: … yes.

Hellfire: What happened?

RocMaSox: You…you started acting like… like a predator.

RocMaSox: You had this feral expression, and you left… we never saw you use your… abilities so …freely once you were outside

Hellfire: And what did I do?

RocMaSox: You smashed the head of the first person you found through the side of a mail truck.

RocMaSox: You didn’t even pause, you just came down the street, hit him, and kept going.

RocMaSox: You scared the shit out of us.

Hellfire: I tried to stop once. After about three weeks that’s how I started acting.

Hellfire: It took every ounce of control I had not to smash everything and everyone I saw until I could kill someone quietly.

RocMaSox: It chills me how calmly you can say things like that. It really does.

RocMaSox: How many?

RocMaSox: How many people have you killed since we last talked?

Hellfire: That was about a month ago, so… 12

RocMaSox: You killed 12 people!?!

RocMaSox: Do you still have a webcam? I can’t keep talking to you like this.

RocMaSox: I need to see your face.

Jonathan rummaged around in his bag until he cam up with a small ball with a lense on one side.

Hellfire: Yeah, I’ve got it. Give me a moment



Hellfire: Okay, it’s set up

RocMaSox would like to start a video conversation Accept/Decline

Jonathan accepted and fitted a headset on. A moment later the image of a girl with dirty blond hair and wearing a jean jacket appeared on screen.

Her eyes shot open, “Oh my god! Jonathan, you are NOT okay!”

“What?”

“You… you,” he could see her gesturing to her screen, “You’ve got this bloody gash over you eye! It goes all the way from your eyebrow to your hairline! You’ve got these huge bruises on your jaw and neck!”

Jonathan ran his fingers across the areas she mentioned. He guessed it did feel a little tender.

“What happened to you!”

“I got in a fight.”

She looked at him incredulously, “Who could do that to you?!”

He shrugged, “A guy who could bench a bulldozer.”

She suddenly looked like she was going to cry and dropped her head into her hands, “oh my god Jonathan. You’re going to get yourself killed! Can’t you at least stick to regular humans? If you keep this up your going to find someone, biger, stronger, and faster than you and your going to die.”

He nodded, “It’s possible. I think I met one the today,” He gestured to his bruises. “I’ve had some time to think about it I know how to kill him now. I’ll be fine the next time. I keep getting stronger anyway.”

“Next time!? You’re planning on fighting that guy AGAIN?!”

“If we meet up, yeah, probably. I’m not gonna go looking for him though.”

“Besides,” he lifted his shirt up exposing a huge bruise and a slight swelling at the upper right corner, “That was the best shot he landed and at best he managed to crack a rib. Give me a few months to get stronger and he wont even be able to do that.”

She looked horrified, “Oh, god. Don’t show me things like that. I’m worried about enough as it is. I don’t need to see how much you're getting hurt.”

He could see the tears gathering in her eyes and her voice started to quaver.

“Where are you?”

“Grand City. Why?”

“Oh no, no no no. You’re not part of that … that terf war down there are you?”

Jonathan took a second to long to answer.

“Damnit Jonathan! How could you get yourself mixed up in that!” The tears were flowing without hesitation now, “Even if you win you’re going to face the Titans or even the Justice League! You are going to get killed!”

“I’m goin-“

“NO! You are not going to be FINE!”

“Kaitlyn…”

“I’m coming down there.”

“What? NO!”

“Oh yes I am. I’m going right now and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

The connection ended and Jonathan hurled his headset across the room where it shattered against the wall, “DAMNNT!”


Love and War: Part Two

After hurriedly stuffing his computer into his bag, Jonathan hurried out of the coffee shop.
His mind was a mess of conflicting emotions. Yes, it would be great to see Kaitlyn again, but not like this. There was a reason he left, and it wasn’t entirely what she thought it was, and to top it all of, he was a soldier in a goddamn war! He couldn’t just take time off to spend with her. They should be training to fight the little league titan, which was a sad fact in it’s own right. After all, after only escaping the last fights by the skin of their teeth he was sure theyweren’t wasting time going on dates and hanging out in nightclubs.

But he’d get to see Kaitlyn again.

Godfuckingdamnit

He reached into a pocket of his coat, picked out some plaster that had gotten into it, and pulled out his cell phone. He called his landlord to make sure the ass hadn’t rented out his apartment after he’d left without saying anything a week ago.

“Hello?”

“It’s Jonathan Rose. Do I still have an apartment?”

“It hasn’t been blown up if that’s what you mean.”

“So you haven’t rented it out?”

“Your rent is all paid up until the end of the month, I have no reason to try and rent it out until you miss a payment.”

“Good to hear,” and he snapped the phone shut.

He ducked into an alley and leapt to the top of the buildings and a quick print and a couple of ten foot hops later he was down on the ground and through the doors into HG before anyone could notice.

He dashed through the corridors and took a short cut to their living quarters through the detention facility.

He skidded to a stop after passing the crayola girls cell. He looked into the cell adjacent to hers, seeing an extremely irritated Supergirl. In the Crayola girls cell, there was nothing. He could imagine how the conversation with Eros would go…

“Jonathan, did you notice anything strange in the detention facility?”

“Didn’t see a thing.”

He rapped on the bars to get her attention and then quickly bowed to her saying, “Kara Kent I presume? Jonathan Rose. I didn’t kill you earlier. I hope to talk to you later. But pressing business, must be off,” and sprinted down the hall at double speed.

In his room he tossed the rest of his things into his other bags and slung them over his shoulder, the weight not hindering him, but the bags making things a tad more awkward. He went into the common room and said again, “I’m going back to my apartment for couple days. I’m sure Eros or Muertos can find me if the need me.”

“And they better not,” he muttered darkly.

He took off and left the terrible trio looking at each other, wondering what the hell was going on, and then going back to the TV.

He headed back the way he came, passing a confused, yet still pissed off, Supergirl in his wake.
He took to the rooftops and practically flew across them. No building to high, no street to wide. It wasn’t more than half an hour later that he crossed the city and entered his apartment, which was located near the old Wayne factories and warehouses. Great place to work out the kinks in your system by throwing a few cars around.

The place was exactly how he had left it, which he realized wasn’t a good thing.

Pizza and Take-Out boxes in the trash. … Empty the trash. New bag. Check the cabinets and fridge. … Toss it all. Buy new food. Do dishes. Do laundry. Change sheets. … Vacuum up to Tostitos crumbs. Figure out what the hell he’s going to do with Kaitlyn in the middle of what she didn’t want him, damn powerful meta-human, to be in the middle of.

He fell back into the couch, stared at the ceiling… and groaned as he brought his hands up to his face.

This was one hell of a mess.

He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he remembered when he woke up. Ten to nine.
It was his phone that woke him. The caller idea said it was Kaitlyn. It was a mark of her respect, or anger at him depending, that she did only call when it was an emergency.

“Kaitlyn?”

“Jonathan. We’re about to land, can you come get me?”

Jonathan chuckled to himself. She just took off and left without knowing anything more about his location than he was in Grand City.

“Yeah. I can get you.”

“… Thank you,” and she hung up.

He left the apartment and took to the roof tops. His only real difficulty was when he had to cross a few highway overpasses that ran along the edge of the city. He stopped, looked at the steady stream of traffic, took a step back, and leapt.

He fell a lot longer than usual, as he was jumping to something farther than the usual gap between buildings, to something much, much lower than he was. Still, he judged it perfectly and landed dead center on a passing eighteen wheeler. He stayed crouching on the roof as it drove towards the airport and he leapt off one it came within sight.

The quick jaunt across the air field was boring, with the exception of one hair raising moment in which he paused to figure out which way he should go for to long, and had a plane com barreling down the landing strip he stood on.

God that was fucking stupid

He ran over the top of the airport and dropped down in a secluded section near the baggage claim. He walked in with a crowed of people and saw her look in his direction, not notice him, and turn back to the luggage-go-round.

He walked up to her slowly, stopping just past where the concourse turned to carpet, crossed his arms behind his back and stood with his legs spread slightly. It wasn’t long before she turned to look for him again. He could see the expression of worry on her face for the split second it took to notice him and her face to light up.

“Jonathan!” she cried, running up to him and embracing him.

“Hey.”

She suddenly pulled away, “Oh my god, I’m sorry I didn’t hurt you did I?” she said running a hand delicately over his chest.

He resisted the urge to tell her that she couldn’t hurt him if she tried.



Well, not physically at least.

“No, you didn’t hurt anything.”

She punched him in the arm, “Now?”

He rubbed his shoulder and looked pained, “Yes.”

“Serves you right,” and turned back to continue looking for her bag.

He stood next to her in silence until her bag came around.

After a few minutes her bag came down the slide and she picked it up, “I’ll carry it,” he said.

She handed him the bag and they started walking towards the doors. As they walked she lagged a step behind and watched him.

How could this man she cared so deeply for cause her so much pain? Why did he cause her to be unable to enjoy being in relationships with other men? Why could someone who could kill without hesitation or mercy take the front in her heart.

She shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. He did have a heart. He wasn’t a cold blooded killer. He knew he only sought out bad eggs. People who only their mothers would miss. He only killed innocents if he had no choice.

Except for that night.

She pushed the memory aside and took his hand. He didn’t want this. She knew that. She just wished he could stop. Come home, and stay with her. When he left her alone she constantly argued with herself over whether she should kiss him the next time he saw him with arsenic lipstick.

She pulled herself closer to him. He smelled like the wind. His hair was messier than usual, a sure sign he’d been leaping from rooftop to rooftop. He’d taken her on piggy back jaunts a few times.

By the time they left the airport she was hugging his arm tightly. She just whished he wasn’t such a jerk that she couldn’t stay with him for more than a month at a time. She;d broken up with him twelve times since they met. She wanted to be with him, but he caused her too much pain and worry.

“Hold on, I’ll get a cab,” he said.

“Uhm… I’d much rather, ah, go the…the other way.”

He looked at her and lead her around the side of the building and helped her climb onto his back, then took off.

She smiled into his neck as the wind whipped through her hair and blew the tears away.








Love and War: Part Three


They landed on the roof of his apartment and he led her down a fire escape. When they reached his apartment he said, “The couch folds out if you want it.”

“Okay.”

He set her bag down, “Are you hungry? I’ve got lots of food. Or we could get Take-Out.”

“Is there anywhere good around?”

Jonathan thought about that for a minute and said, “There’s a bar around the corner that does Take-Out and they make pretty good sandwiches.”

“That sounds good.”

“I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes then,” he turned and left.

Kaitlyn looked at the room she was in, then decided to move onto the rest of the apartment.

The room she was in, the living room, lead directly into the dinning room. There was a hallway that lead to a door, with two doors branching off. The first was the kitchen and the next the bathroom. The final room was his bedroom. She noticed that every piece of furniture seemed to be from Ikea, which made sense since he never took his furniture with him when he moved on and Ikea was cheap but not shitty.

The only thing he spent a lot of money on, if she remembered correctly, was his clothes. The coat itself was custom made with the inner lining made from whatever it is that motorcyclists wore that protected them if they wiped out. The outside was some sort of waterproofed fabric. Or leather. It was designed so he could change the outside if it got torn up.

She found herself staring through one of his windows and lost herself in her thoughts.

He came back in to find her leaning on the window sill in his bedroom, staring up at the night sky, “Hey. You ready to eat?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.”

They walked into the dinning room and she said, “You have a very nice view.”

“I was lucky. The building on the other side is too tall to see over.”

As they ate, Kaitlyn said, “You still haven’t cleaned up that gash… the bruising seems to be clearing up though.”

“It tends to do that.”

“Do you get into fights like that often?”

“Not like that one, no. I’ve fought a few meta-humans though.”

“I know.”

She put her sandwich down as she stared at the table, “Do you have to fight meta-humans? Couldn’t you at least stick to regular criminals?”

Jonathan paused while chewing, then swallowed, “I would… but… how do I explain this… Ya know how in RPG’s how you gain experience points?”

She nodded, looking both confused and curious.

“Well, killing meta-humans gives me more experience points than normal humans.”

Kaitlyn ate in silence while she digested this fact.

Finally, Jonathan pushed the last of his sandwich away, “Kaitlyn, why are you here?”

She looked up at him and saw his pained expression, “I’m here because I wanted to see you. Because I want you to come home.”

“You know I can’t.”

She stood up stormed off from the table, “I know! I know you can’t come home! I know you can’t stop, and I know you left because you don’t want to bring down the military on you once they find out some meta-human is on some sort of killing spree and you don’t want me caught up in it!” her voice had slowly broken until he could tell she was on the verge of tears, “But I still want you to."

He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, “I want to come home too. I just can’t. This isn’t the life I wanted to live. I wish I could stay with you and not be out here leaving everywhere every two months so I don’t draw to much attention to myself.”

She broke out of his embrace and turned to look at him, “I… actually kind of like this,” she said as she ran a finger along the streak of blood on his forehead. “It makes you seem more human.”

“I am-“

“No, your NOT Jonathan,” she pulled away and dropped onto the couch. “That’s the problem.”

She sunk her head into her hands, “God Jonathan. What am I supposed to do with you?”

He had no answer to that.

He sat down and she let him put an arm around her, “I love you. You know that.”

“I love you too damnit. That’s why I can’t just let you go and get the crap beaten out of you.”

“You know I can take the abuse.”

“Yes. I do. And that’s one of the things that scares me. I mean, you got hit by a car when you were 17 and it was like you didn’t even feel it.”

She turned to him, “If you can’t feel that, how can I expect you to feel this?” she said, as she brushed her hand against his cheek.

He reached up and held her hand to his face, “I feel it. I feel it more strongly than anything else. I don’t feel pain because pain is from harm. This is caring, love.”

She was crying again, he let go and she put her hand on the back of his head and kissed him.

Soon, she wasn’t crying at all.















































Love and War: Part Four


Jonathan lay in bed, his hands resting behind his head. He stood and slipped a pair of pants on then lit a cig and leaned against the open window. He looked back at the bed, at the sleeping form of Kaitlyn. A vague smile came to his face and he shook his head. There was no point in thinking like that. This was his living hell. A constant punishment for his sins; unable to be with the ones he wanted, except for these brief moments of bliss which where then ripped away from him.

Ugh. He needed to clear his head.

He picked up his jacket and was in the process of shrugging into it when Kaitlyn stirred.

“Mmmm? Where are you going?”

“I just need to get some air. I won’t be gone long,” he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Mm,” she said as she snuggles into her covers, “You better not; I want sex in the morning.”

He laughed to himself. It never ceased to amaze him just how blunt she would be when she was tired.

He slipped quietly out of the apartment and down to the street.

The cool pavement felt good on his feet, as did the slight breeze that slipped through his loosely fastened coat. He took a deep breath of the fresh night air before starting down the street.

His apartment was near the strip, both closer and further from it than he would like. The old Wayne factory and warehouses, though the factory seemed to have undergone some extensive renovations of the last month, so perhaps the warehouses wouldn’t be empty much longer. So much for his playground.

However, if you went the other way, you found yourself surrounded by nightclubs. Now, Jonathan didn’t have anything against nightclubs, he’d been to several, it was the loud, obnoxious drunks that they produced, and the random pools of vomit that the drunks in turn produced that he took issue with.

Even if it did give him a decent reason to kill people.

However, Kaitlyn was here. So, for the time being he wasn’t going to do that sort of thing.

He walked down the road, with no real destination in mind.

He found himself near an all night coffee shop. He paused under the streetlamp out side to have a smoke before he went in.. He paused as he heard footsteps approaching, and looked up through the corner of his eye. A young blond woman with striking violet eyes was coming up the street.

He nodded to her, “Hey,” he said not wanting to startle her.

Women tended to be jumpy late at night.

She stopped and looked at him as he took a drag on his cigarette, “I don’t suppose I know you,” she asked with a slight smile.

He exhaled a thin stream of smoke, “I’d be surprised if you did,” he took another drag and dropped his hand down to his hip, “After all, I don’t know you.”

She raised her brow, “Just thought you’d be friendly then?”

He exhaled, “Something like that.”

He dropped his cigarette to the ground and ground it out with the ball of his foot, “I’ll see you around then.”

She had glint in her eye as if to say, “Yes, we will meet again,” as she nodded.

They both started walking, but suddenly Jonathan backpedaled as the girl walked right into where he would have been had he taken another step.
She smirked up at him with that same glint in her eye’s and he reached out, opened the door to the coffee chop, “Ladies first.”

“Well, since we seem destined to be together, would you mind giving me your name?”

“Not at all,” he said. He looked down at her and he noticed something strange, it wasn’t idle curiosity, or a desire to make small talk that made her ask this. The look on her face he’d only seen once before. When he was 15. “It’s Jonathan.” She looked pleased with his answer, And what do people call you?”

She grinned devilishly, “That depends on who you ask.” She tilted her head and a long section of her hair cascaded, “My name, however, is Saeraphin. But Saer will do.”

He paused in the doorway as she continued forward. He raised his eyebrows, “’Saeraphin’? Isn’t that some sort of angel?”

He paused as a man who had been sitting behind the counter stood up, apparently ready to make an issue of “no shoes, no shirt, no service”. Jonathan glared at him and let brief flare of fire flicker inside his eyes, turning the blacks of his eyes a smoldering red.

The man proved his intelligence by sitting his ass back down.

He turned back her, and said, “It suits you,” she looked back over her shoulder at him as he continued. “Almost,” he said with a smirk, “so ‘Saer’ it is.”

She turned fully to face him, “My mother had a sense of humor,” and there was that grin again.

They approached the counter and he ordered a decafe, she a regular.

“You planning on staying up all night?”

She sighed theatrically, ”Afraid so. I need to make sure my patrons don’t burn the club down trying to do flaming shots in my absence.”

“You own a club,” he asked as they headed back to the door.

“Code Red. It’s quite the hot spot.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He turned his way, and she hers, with only a small parting glance, at least on his part, and wished each other a goodnight.

He’d finished his coffee by the time he entered his apartment, and he headed straight back to the bedroom. The rustling his coat made as he took it off must have caught Kaitlyn’s attention, “Jonathan?”
He smirked. Even half asleep he knew what was coming next.

“About what I said before. I changed my mind. I want sex now.”

He crawled across the bed and happily obliged her.



Love and War: Part Five

The sheets were ruined. Yes, ruined.

Not even the combined efforts of Mr. Clean himself and the Quilted Northern Quilters could overcome the damage they had done last night. The sheets were still damp in places and stiff in others. Holes had been torn through the sheets, and in one place the mattress. And then there were the burn marks.

There was nothing to be done about it.

He scooped the lot of them up and carried it into the bathroom where he dumped them into the tub, and promptly set them all on fire.

He stood there for a moment, watching them burn. Just as he was about to turn away though, soft hands wrapped themselves around his bare torso, “Hmm. A Bathroom Bonfire. Always the sign of a good night,” Kaitlyn said as she snuggled against him.

“Truly.”

She kissed him, “Breakfast?”

He smirked, “It’s after noon.”

“Well it’s still breakfast,” she said, and swatted him.

“Fine then, breakfast it is.”

“Come on, it’s almost done.”

She’d cooked omelets. She made great omelets. She sat wearing one of his button up shirts that just barely managed to conceal what other would want to see, and he just his pants.

“So where did you go last night?”

“Just for a walk,” he shrugged, “Got some coffee, talked to this girl while we… well, there was no line, we just bumped into each other going into the place.

“Oh? Who was she?”

He shrugged, “She owns Code Red. It’s the most popular spot around. And it’s probably the largest producers of the drunks around here,” he smirked.

“I bet you like that. I know how much drunk people piss you off.”

“Well, it’s not that their drunk, it’s that they tend to walk down the street at two in the morning singing loudly, and out of key, only to stop to puke on the sidewalk.”

“I bet you the offenders don’t last very long do they?”

Jonathan looked up, his fork halfway to his mouth. Why did she say that? Was that a smirk on her lips? Was she just playing? How should he answer? Should her tell her that yes, those that disturbed his sleep and retched on his steps did meet a quick and efficient death? “Not really.”

“So what do you want to do today?”

Normally he spent his days wandering around looking for a fight or stories like Jessica Tamlin’s, the poor girl, so that he could make his kills productive to society. That of course, was unless he had something to watch on TV or a movie he wanted to see.

“I don’t have anything in mind. Is there something you’d like to do?”

“I’d just like to spend a nice day with you.”

Nice. Right. No violence or indiscreet use of powers.

“Sounds like fun.”

Later, after Kaitlyn had picked out a dark blue shirt for him, “It goes better with your eyes,” they headed out for the first date they’d been on in four years.

But first he kicked the drunk still passed out on the steps to his apartment hard in the ribs while Kaitlyn wasn’t looking.

They visited a park, sat by the pond, and headed to a movie, which they discussed afterwards in a coffee shop not too far from his apartment.

“Well, that settles it,” he said.

“Settles what?”

“Whether the guy can act or not. Seeing how he always gets cast as an idiot.”

She grinned impishly, “So which is it?”

He scowled at her and tousled her hair.

She laughed and shoved his hand away, “So what was your favorite part?”

“Hmm… Probably when the guy climbed out on the ledge.”

“Oh god. That was so scary. And all for note.”

“Well it was an important note.”

“But the window shut and he was stuck out there!”

“Well he didn’t plan for that to happen now did he?”

She stuck his tongue out at him.

He smiled and then it started to fade. He looked around the room, thought he recognized a young asian girl couldn’t place her though. His gaze drew distant and then came back. He stared into his cup, and asked something he was dreading the answer to.

“When are you going back?”

She hesitated before saying, “I-I need to go back tonight,” she shifted uneasily in her chair, “Ya know, just starting school and all.”

He nodded, “Do you have a flight out already?”

She nodded, “Packaged deal.”

“When do you leave?”

“It leaves at eight.”

Jonathan then felt a very rare sensation for someone like himself, he went cold, “How early do you have to be there?”

“They want you there at least half an hour early.”

It took Jonathan a half hour run to the airport.

“So… you have to leave… now.”

She nodded, “I’m sorry Jonathan I really wanted to stay with you longer, but… I can’t stand being with you and not be able to be with you. I can’t stay with you while you do this. I don’t want this life.”

“I don’t want it either.”

“I know but I can’t handle it. I like fun and craziness but I don’t want to have to keep moving because… they way you move. If you I couldn’t convince you to come home, so I have to go back by myself.”

Jonathan sighed, “I guess we should go get your bag then.”

“I’m sorry.”

It took him 45 minutes to get her to the airport. He didn’t want to jostle her so he had to take a more gentle route, and he didn’t cut across the airfield. He stayed with her while she checked her bag and followed her to the security station. He watched her walk through the gates, and she waved sadly before she disappeared from sight. He waved back. When she turned around the corner and left he turned on his heel and stormed out of the airport.

He needed to smash something.

















Love and War Finale



Jonathan ran across the tarmac and leapt over the fence and onto the freeway. He leapt from car to car, not wanting to just sit and wait on top of one. When he reached his destination, he leapt off and landed on the roof of a building. His feet barely touched it before he was off again. He only ran when the building was so wide or high that he couldn’t see the next roof, touching ground for so little time he seemed to be flying. His eyes where watering and he kept telling himself it was just the wind, but he knew that wasn’t true.

When his feet hit the rooftop of his apartment building, he just kept going. He covered the four blocks between his apartment and the strip in three jumps. He turned away from the clubs and ran parallel to the river until he came to the old Wayne industrial complex and it’s myriad of empty warehouses. He leapt across, blasting a hole in the roof as he came down. He hit the ground and lifted his head to sky and screamed.

He leapt straight at one of the steel support beams and punched it. He hit it again and again and again. He kept hitting it until it was an unrecognizably twisted piece of metal, then kicked it one last time before moving on. He kicked a crate across the warehouse where it shattered against the wall.

He launched himself into the air, denting the metal wall, before rebounding off to the ceiling. He hit the roof and kicked off onto a new surface, and again, bouncing around the warehouse like a superball from hell leaving a path of destruction behind him.

.-o-O-o-.

On a plane, hundreds of feet in the air and rising, Kaitlyn sat staring out a window.

She hated him. She hated him with the burning passion of a thousand suns in all seven hells. “No, I can’t come home,” He says. Puh. Well see if she cares. He can go on all the bloody rampages he wants and bring the Justice League down on his head for all she cares. That’s what he gets for being a bloody bastard.



God, she’s so fucking in love with him. Why oh why did she have to love someone she could never be with? The longest they had even been together after their first break up was a month. This last visit was probably the shortest they’d ever been together, but there wasn’t any helping it. If he’d just come home it wouldn’t have to be like this. He could even take trips each weekend to kill a couple people.



How fucked up is that? That she can just talk about killing people that casually? It was almost as bad as Jonathan doing it. The only different was that he actually does it. When she says it, it's more abstract. At least that’s what she tells herself.

She sighed.

At the core of it, she just wished it didn’t have to be this way. She knew it was the way it had to be, but it still sucked. She wasn’t going to be able to talk to him after this for at least a month. She’d send him and e-mail saying she was sorry though. And perhaps, take that guy from her English Lit class up on that offer of dinner, lord knows she’d need something to take her mind off of all this.

.-o-O-o-.

Everything in the warehouse was trashed. Every thing and every part of it that Jonathan could get his hands on was smashed, broken, beaten, or twisted. He wasn’t done yet though, he need one more thing, just one more. His eyes finally fell upon the over turned, beaten, broken, and twisted form of an innocent fork lift.

He stalked over it and picked it up.

He took a step started a spin, and then hurled it across the warehouse and through the wall. Yes, that was what he needed. He was tired now. As he heard the forklift splash into the river, he lost all strength to hold it in, and collapsed to the floor sobbing.

It was no surprise to him that pain was the only thing in common between Love and War.


End Love and War

THIS is my side, THIS is the demiltarized zone, and THAT is your side.

"Good and Evil" is too complicated. I prefer, "Us and Them".
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Xantar
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Not Jeff Probst
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I'm sorry to say I found this to be pretty bad, especially coming from someone who I know can do much better. I could tell that this was writing from an RP because it was very hasty and superficial. Contrary to what you say in your notes, I don't think this really did turn out very well at all. Maybe it was good by RP standards, but you're posting it here as a piece of short fiction which is the standard by which it will be judged.

Firstly, there are way too many grammar and spelling mistakes. It's clear that you didn't take the time to really proofread this.

Secondly, this was the ultimate extended example of "tell, don't show." How do I know that these two people are in love with each other? Because you tell us they love each other. And you have them say they love each other. And you have Kaitlyn hop on a plane to go visit Jonathan and have sex multiple times with him. This doesn't really impress me. You want to convince me that they're in love? Show them doing something nice for each other. Something nicer than just wearing skimpy clothes and eating breakfast together after having just screwed each other's brains out. Like maybe if Kaitlyn got Jonathan to open up a bit and talk about what's going on in his life and then listened attentively to him. Or maybe if Jonathan remembered that Kaitlyn really likes seeing the moon so he arranges the mother of all viewing nights for her. As it is, these two kids aren't in love. They're just dating.

Incidentally, there are many ways to interpret the way you describe Kaitlyn's feelings of simultaneous love and hatred toward Jonathan, and you need to make it clear which it is. Is she just exasperated? Worried? Does she genuinely hate him from time to time and wish he would just die already and get out of her life? Your words don't give an adequate picture of her feelings.

While I'm at it, I have no idea what Jonathan sees in Kaitlyn, and that's a big problem. I assume she's hot, but other than that, she just comes across as a needy worrywart which is generally not what men who think of themselves as powerful would go for. Frankly, Jonathan had more chemistry with the random club owner he bumped into than with Kaitlyn. Other than sex, what does Kaitlyn give to him that no other woman does? I imagine the answer might be in the rest of the RP you pulled this from, but that's the problem. It's in there and not in here.

Thirdly, the dialogue in this story is substandard. The problems were especially evident in their online chat. If you look back through it, you will see that the way they talk to each other without the webcam (i.e. by typing) sounds just like the way they talk to each other through the webcam (i.e. by speaking). This is a big problem because nobody types the way they talk. I don't mean that you should start using acronyms and the letter "u" instead of "you," but you ought to study chat room transcripts a bit more. You will notice, for example, that two people will often talk over each other for a few lines because one will by typing out an answer while the other is still talking.

Finally, the plot just seemed kind of flat and pointless. What happened here? A girl chats with her boyfriend, gets worried, grabs a plane to come over, spends the night with him and then leaves. This would be fine if it offered genuine insight into their relationship and the nature of their existence, but as I explained above, it didn't do that. I understand that this was probably just a sub-plot of a longer RP, but once again, this was posted as a short story, and I'm reading it as such.

The best I can say is that this was borderline competent, but it still just wasn't very good. And that's a major disappointment because I know to expect better from you. You're the guy I borrow love scenes from when writing my own, for crying out loud. You can do much better than this. Next time, at least do some proofreading. And perhaps you just shouldn't post segments of an RP out of context as their own short stories. Ever notice how novels based on a storyline developed by a group of people around a Dungeons and Dragons tabletop session are always pretty awful? Yeah, it's like that.
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Mikito
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First off, I think Xantars 'critique' was overly rude, but sadly to say, fairly accurate.

I am aware that i write this in the light that my own literary short comings have yet to be listed beneath my freshy posted story, however here are my opinions: (Please Mr Mako and anyone else, don't be angry at me but if i wasnt honest about it then it would be a waste of Mr Mako's time reading this)


Nitpicky bits first - the typos. If you proof-read, you didnt do it more than once, there are quite a few gramatical mistakes and misleading sentances that made me have to double take to understand it.

Also... you kept switching tenses. for example in the follwing, you switch frompresent to past tense in the blink of an eye.

"“Mm,” she said as she [snuggles] into her covers, “You better not; I want sex in the morning.”

He [laughed] to himself. It never ceased to amaze him just how blunt she would be when she was tired."


okay, onto the flow: (and i write this with a great sense of irony for i am guilty of the same) You seemed to find the need for us to know exactly what he is doing, to the extent of the flow of the story. To give a crude example: "He booted up the computer and after confirming he had a connection, signed onto the internet." In real life, and with the flow of the story, taking out and turning on the computer is an everyday thing, made ordinary by common experience. Im sure something for him, im sure he would have been more interested in looking around the shop than watching his computer boot up - instead of telling us what he was ding in a blow by blow description, we would have enjoyed more if we'd have known what hee felt of the coffee shop.
The sentance itself could have safely been abbreviated from "Ihe found a secluded corner and pulled a laptop from his bag.

He booted up the computer and after confirming he had a connection, signed onto the internet. "
to
"He found a secluded corner, away from the noisey denizens of the coffee house and pulled his laptop out, letting it boot up as he looked around the coffee shop."



NOW FOR THE PRAISE!

Whilst they are few and far between there are a few sentances in this short story that really brought a grin to my face... "All he’d done was blow the door in, which, for an anti-titan, is the equivalent of knocking politely." and "Now, Jonathan didn’t have anything against nightclubs, he’d been to several, it was the loud, obnoxious drunks that they produced, and the random pools of vomit that the drunks in turn produced that he took issue with." - whether these sentances give us an insight into your own writing style and mind set, or are skillfuly placed sentances giving us a truer feeling of the characters thoughts i dont know - i dont know you well enough to answer that - but either way they were gratifieing to read.

I also appreciated the stark contrast of the end, his girlfriend leaving so suddenly and forever was not too overplayed. Although the female characters... erratic thoughts were an annoyance. I didnt find her realistic, whilst i did understand her thoughts to well.

I also think that this work has been judged to harshly and out of context with what it is!

As a short story or novelette, it is - sadly - inferior.
HOWEVER
As an aside, or plot enhancement device for an RP you were playing, quickly written up and more or less unplanned- it excells. The fact you wrote it as an aside for the benefit of the other players is something i would be very happy with if i had been involved in the RP, and i salute your thoughtfulness.


There are a few things i have left unsaid and uncommented about, Xantar has HARSHLY but fairly summed it up.


But all in all, i enjoyed reading this short story, I dont view it a waste of my time.


Now please feel free to dismember this hippocritical little person in your own review of my work! ( *hides under her pillow and whines* and and dont try hit me T¬T)
Edited by Mikito, Feb 23 2009, 06:26 PM.
'Give me a gun that never fires! Give me a sword that is ever blunt!. Give me a weapon that deals no wound, so long as it always strikes awe!'
- Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor, address to the Convent Sanctorum
 
Mikito
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Ninja
[ *  * ]
oh, and in response to Xantar's statement:
"This would be fine if it offered genuine insight into their relationship and the nature of their existence, but as I explained above, it didn't do that."

I would like to say in Mr Mako's favour that: Sometimes, its the journey thats important, not the destination.
By that i mean, sometimes it is just nice to write a story involving characters that doesnt nessecarily go anywhere, there are many popular examples- Azumanga Diaoh is charming, wonderful, and plotlessly pointless, any number of soaps (i hate soap drama) are also completely plotless and pointless, but they are popular because of that.

There is no shame in self-indulgance... if he wants to write tripe featuring his characters, there is no shame in that ^^
'Give me a gun that never fires! Give me a sword that is ever blunt!. Give me a weapon that deals no wound, so long as it always strikes awe!'
- Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor, address to the Convent Sanctorum
 
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