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| Old Battles; -Kevin | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 1 2012, 05:42 PM (358 Views) | |
| Rusty Collins | Aug 1 2012, 05:42 PM Post #1 |
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Date: May 26 Time: Late morning Two days after the fight and nothing seemed particularly real to Rusty any longer. For the past couple of days he’d been isolated, holed up in his room. He spent the majority of his time lying in his bed and staring at the walls. This didn’t feel real. The sound of screaming and the roar of fire…the adrenaline rush of battle still washed over him. They’d been in combat with a species that wanted to replace them. He’d tasted their hostility in more ways than one, and watched as they stole away several of his friends and turned them against him. The emotional impact of that was still echoing through the student body. And Rusty’s physical body had been seriously damaged. As the rush of fire had left in the wake of the fighting he realized that he’d been cut deeply in several places. Two sets of stitches ran down his back, just below his shoulder blades. His left leg was bandaged tight for support. The verdict was that it was just a sprain, but he had a hard time walking nonetheless. To top all of that off he had bruises that mottled his skin, and darkened an area around his eye. All in all he looked like he had barely survived a very ugly fight…and that was precisely true. Picking his way through the trampled underbrush Rusty made his way into the clearing where a few days prior he had almost died a few times over. He was following Kevin Zaan, seeing the boy (moving at a much greater pace) making his way into the clearing a few hundred yards ahead of him. Rusty leaned on a thin-trunked tree and looked over to the spot where the Brood had him surrounded and pinned down. Visions of the monstrous Freakshow tearing through the foliage and knocking his opponents off of him flooded his mind and he hung his head a little with conflicted feelings. Realizing what he had to do, Rusty cursed under his breath and pushed off of the tree to head into the other part of the clearing, where Kevin was bent over the fallen Brood Rex in distraction. He coughed a little into his hand, finding it hard to look Kevin in the eyes as he stepped near. “Damn,” he said as he looked at the beast from head to toe. It was charred black, a disfigured and smashed piece of broiled meat…and somehow the whole blackened area still smelled like smoke. “That bitch looks even worse than I remember.” |
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| Freakshow | Aug 1 2012, 08:00 PM Post #2 |
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A part of himself was still here. Not in the whole "I've lost myself," emotionally traumatized sort of deal. Rather, that animalistic side, the monstrous side that had jagged teeth and a rampant need for wanton destruction. It was here that he felt it bristle within him, churning with pleasure at the sight strewn upon the ground. The still body of the Brood Rex, twisted by the brutal assault he had given it, the scent of charred and crispy meat still staining the air around it. Its skull was caved in, Kevin observed, hardly remembering how exactly he did it. All he knew was that it was done. Still, he could barely fight off the urge to take a bite. The Rex was untouched. Its mangled, mutated body withered away by the cure, but still full in size and breadth. The skeleton of the Brood characteristics remained, fused with the several day's worth of rotting meat. No scavengers would eat it, not even the bugs. It would be here to rot for months until something was done with it, buried, burned, or something desperately hungry enough to try the body came along. He just hoped there were enough rations left that it wasn't going to be him. Even the disgusting sight made his stomach twist and growl with emptiness. Letting his eyes wander, Kevin played through what he remembered of the battle. Trampling footsteps of the Rex crushed footprints into the ground, one Kevin himself was standing in. The size of the beast was massive, even by scientific assumptions of the Tyrannosaur's mass. It looked bigger from this perspective -- small, tiny, and human sized. He could see why Rusty had nearly shat himself at the appearance of it, now more than ever. "Still not as ugly as I get, though, judging by the reactions the girls give me," Kevin mused, stepping forward towards its head. The Genoshan's arms became cloaked in a hazy fog of greenish-yellow, the distortion field that was produced when he shifted. It was just a matter of seconds before it faded again, his arms changed into scaley forelimbs ending in three-fingered appendaged, capped off by curved claws. Approaching the fallen titan, Kevin stepped between its jaws -- the collapsed top and broken bottom mandible. Raising his monstrous leg, Kevin propped it up against the skull. Clawed hands wrapped around the longest tooth he could find and he began a tug of war with the dinosaur's head. "Damn," a voice said behind him as the head shifted by inches. "That bitch looks even worse than I remember." The Genoshan looked over his shoulder, glancing at the other. Rusty. The guy looked a bit beaten up, which not really a surprise considering he was in the same fight Kevin was and a lot smaller. Rusty was bandaged and stitched up, but alive. Kevin had been scratched and bruised himself, but nothing that wouldn't heal after a few minor shifts. He just looked like he had ran through a bush full of thorns. "Yeah," Kevin agreed, looking back at the dead creature before him. "Smells worse too." Standing in the monster's mouth, it was like standing in front of a hot vent of rotten eggs. "I remember it being a lot smaller when we left last." Pausing in his endeavor, Kevin considered the pyrokinetic for a moment. "Going to guess yeh didn't come out here looking for trouble, right? I'd hate to thrash someone who looks like he can barely stand on his own feet," Kevin said with a slight smirk. His tone wasn't malicious, more joking than anything. "At least yeh can walk, though. How's that rat girl yeh took to the infirmary? And yehr girlfriend?" |
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| Rusty Collins | Aug 1 2012, 09:36 PM Post #3 |
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Rusty couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose a little as he saw Kevin half-morphed and sticking his arm into the beasts rotting mouth. But where he might have once thought Kevin was just doing it to get some sort of gag-reflex reaction out of him, he just shook his head with a slight smile. At some point he’d finally learned that some of this stuff was just how Kevin was. Could be that he couldn’t even help himself. And then he actually laughed a little. “You proved your point some time back. I think it was when you turned into freakin’ Godzilla and squashed the T-Rex like a bug.” Looking the beast over he glanced back at Kevin. “Nah, I’m definitely not looking for trouble.” He stepped closer, peering into the mouth as Kevin fished around in there for a prize. “Look,” he said with a serious expression on his face. “I followed you out here because I wanted to talk to you.” This wasn’t going to be easy, and if he knew Kevin at all he wondered if Kevin would make it even less easy. Probably. But he still had to do this. “I almost died out here,” he said, swallowing a hard lump in his throat. “Several times.” He turned his attention back to Kevin. “And even though I’ve been a real dickhead to you pretty much from the get go, I know that I’m only standing here because of you.” Rusty turned his head and looked around the clearing. “And so I want to tell you to your face,” he said turning back with focused eyes and a tight jaw. “You’re a better man.” His eyes went back to the arm that was sunken in the rotting meat. “You’re a gross fucker, but a better man.” He paused and then nodded. “And for what it’s worth…I got your back.” And though he didn’t really have to, he felt like adding one more thing. “And…she’s not my girlfriend. Just for the record.” |
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| Freakshow | Aug 2 2012, 07:55 PM Post #4 |
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In a way, Kevin was glad Rusty caught that he wasn't being serious. He gave a simple nod of the head, not a hundred percent sure what a Godzilla was, but with how many times he was compared to it he had the general idea. Hands twisted around the hard tooth. The curved edge of it threatened to cut through the hard, dense scales on his hands, but they fought off any actual wound. His foot still propped up on the jaw, he tugged and twisted. The root began to become loose, he could feel, jostling around in its socket. He remembered losing his own teeth as a child, how it just seemed to wriggle around in its spot. "Talk? What about?" He asked, half curious, half suspicious. Kevin wasn't big on the whole sit-down-and-talking stuff. They had been put through anger management together and those talks usually ended up in a trade of blows. Though he didn't suspect Rusty was here to stir up trouble, like he said, there was still that chance that it could happen. Kevin was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, however. Rusty had a hard time getting the words out, croaking like there was a frog in his throat. Kevin grunted when the tooth finally yielded to his demands, popping out with a blackened, chunky meat around the root attached to it. The thing was eight inches long, easy, still sharp enough to slice through meat. The root itself was just as long. Dropping it aside, he set to digging out another one as he had before. As he did, he made a face. He wasn't sure how to respond to what Rusty had to say. These things, being appreciative and expressing himself with words, they weren't easy. He never learned how to do these things fully. His early years were spent in complexes learning to obey. Once put into the work force, life with the other mutants in Genosha had been as difficult as it was with the humans. They were, as Ajax explained it, just animals in a circus. People split apart into cliques, the guards often encouraged the mutants to fight, and there was constant stealing and hoarding among them all. It wasn't an easy life, not one that Kevin sought pity for. Ever since Sanctuary, he had been struggling to be his own man. It was difficult, but being around these people, it was helping. Even Kevin could see that. "It was nothing," he said plainly. "I can be a monster and an arse, I know that, but I don't care to see anyone that doesn't deserve to die get killed. I wasn't just going to let yeh get eaten. I know what it's like for people to be eaten. It's not a way yeh want to go," Kevin noted grimly. He'd done the act himself, him and the monster both. "Yeh or anyone here. I wouldn't let anyone get killed if I can stop it. I grew up with people who would, humans that didn't give a bloody fok about mutants, who would let them work themselves to death or never get anything for it. That's not the type of person I want to be." His jaw locked up for a moment at the thought, his clawed hands twisting at the tooth. It came out with a shunk and Kevin looked down. He didn't look at the tooth, but at the inhuman hand holding it. "I'm glad someone thinks I'm something more than a monster. Ajax, Humberto, a few others, all who I haven't seen or are dead... Hn. Nevermind." Turning, the Genoshan tossed the tooth he just pulled at the pyrokinetic. "Take some credit for yehrself, Rusty. I wasn't the one that cooked it. Besides. Yeh're the one who got to play the bait that gave me the chance to change into something bigger and kill it. I probably could've killed it eventually, but not as fast as I had in the bigger form. Probably would have eaten me, too, in the middle of changing. Yeh're here because of me as much as I am for yeh, same for everyone else. Even the girl who isn't yehr girlfriend." |
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| Rusty Collins | Aug 3 2012, 03:13 PM Post #5 |
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Half-expecting Kevin to just brush him off, Rusty was a little surprised at the response he got. Kevin wasn’t the most expressive individual, and the only time he’d ever seen much more than blithe indifference out of him was when he was in the process of pushing his buttons and pissing him off…which as it turned out he had a gift for. But it wasn’t disdain, hostility, sarcasm or don’t give a crapitude that Kevin responded with. It was something a lot more sincere. “I can’t imagine,” he replied honestly. He couldn’t even begin to fathom what it was like to have a monstrous form and a monstrous nature. He was starting to get the idea, but it would be one of those things that he never truly got. And that wasn’t apparently all that he couldn’t imagine. For a moment he got a rare look inside of Kevin, watching him stand there with his massive malformed arm and comment to himself about how nobody really saw past the monster. Rusty felt ashamed that he’d been in that camp just a few days ago. He hung his head and didn’t say anything, but looked up again when he saw Kevin move out of his peripheral. With as quick of reflexes as he could manage he snatched the tooth out of the air, and held it in the palm of his hand. An introspective look gave way to a wry grin as he looked at the dagger-like tooth. He looked up at Kevin, holding the dagger tooth in his hand like a trophy. “I always liked a good fight. Found a way to get in them everywhere I went for as long as I can remember,” he said haltingly. “But when I saw that thing step into the clearing…I almost dropped a pile of bug turds behind me.” He stepped over, the reek of decay hitting him hard as he got near. “Man…how are you not puking right now?” The humidity and the hot sun were causing a rapid decay. The only thing that was probably keeping this from being unbearable was that some of the meat had already been as Kevin said-cooked. Rusty pulled the collar of his T-shirt up over his mouth and dropped the tooth into his shorts pocket. “Maybe I should finish incinerating this thing,” he said with watery eyes. The last thing they needed was for anyone getting sick off of this, and cremating seemed a lot more plausible than burying something that large. Coughing again, he looked over at Kevin. “Are you getting any more trophies out?” |
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| Freakshow | Aug 5 2012, 12:08 AM Post #6 |
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"Fighting is one of the few things I'm good at," Kevin mused. Even like this, like a human, he knew how to throw a punch. That was just another part of the game he was forced to play in his youth. He wasn't the best, he didn't think fights through or use strategy, though, so he was missing out on a lot in that respect. He managed not to laugh at the notion of Rusty actually dropping a pile in the middle of a fight, an amused smirk playing at his features. "Yeh didn't, then? I could have sworn I saw a brown lump behind yeh. Smelled like it, too. Then again, the Brood all did smell kind of funny. Yeh probably just smelled a little more foul than normal." Stepping from between the shattered jaws of the fallen Tyrannosaur, the Genoshan stooped to pick up the first tooth he had pulled out up from the battered grass. He could still feel the pressure of the Rex's jaws biting into his monstrous skin in his other form, breaking through natural armor that few other things could. The primordial battle had been liberating in a way, despite the desperation they were faced with. Harnessing all of his strength and power, feeding his monstrous instinct without losing control, it satisfied the monster as much as the man. Kevin managed a snort, stepping away from the monster. "I'm breathing through my mouth. Still smells, but it won't knock yeh over." Kevin shrugged, moving to stand by the pyrokinetic. He looked back at the Rex, considering Rusty's option. "I would. There aren't any other animals eating it. There aren't even flies or maggots. It's just rotting. Burning it will clean up the mess quicker. Ms. Sinclair can probably smell it from the temple. That way, it would only stink for a few more days. Or I could just eat it." The Genoshan glanced at the tooth in his hand. "I might come back for a toe or something, or see if Beast wanted to get the skeleton and take it back for a museum or something... I imagine that might be able to help fund build the school back up." He held the tooth up, looking along its edge. "This is good enough for me. Besides, it's bigger than yehrs. Go ahead and burn it if yeh want. At least I don't need to bleed on yeh this time." |
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| Rusty Collins | Aug 6 2012, 11:29 AM Post #7 |
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It still felt a little weird, the whole talking with Kevin instead of trying to piss him off. It felt more than a little…unreal. And more than that, as Kevin made comments such as ‘Fighting is one of the few things I’m good at’, Rusty had to admit that he could seriously relate in some ways. Then again-a more honest self-evaluation might say that Rusty was pretty good at whatever he focused his mind toward if he really gave it time and effort. Like learning to control his fires. In six months, he had developed some degree of mastery over it from relentlessly practicing. And having no real social life certainly helped that. Still-he could at least relate that fighting came naturally. “You know I didn’t,” he said with narrowed eyes, for a second the irrational fear of something about him having the literal crap scared out of him getting back to someone in particular rose his defensive ire just a notch. But he let it go after thinking about it and shook his head with a wry smile. Apparently one other way that Kevin was like Rusty…they were both incurable sons-a-bitches. Switching to mouth breathing did help, but not much. “Blech. Now I can taste it.” He chewed on his tongue and spat into the leaves. So freaking gross. Kevin affirmed that he should incinerate the bastard and Rusty nodded, urging him to step back a pace and wholeheartedly ignoring the visual of Kevin’s option of ‘eating it’ instead. He was already on the verge of puking. No need to tempt fate. A few paces back, Rusty turned to the dino with eyes that shone like the sun. He swept his arms up, helping him to visualize a gathering of kinetic energy and above the dinosaur a wispy trail of fire followed his arm movements into the air. Then he brought both palms down hard and a ceaseless wall of fire came crashing out of the sky like judgment onto the lifeless remains of their foe. He was stronger than he had been during the fight by far. Kevin’s blood had freed him somewhat during the battle, but after fully transforming back and resting a few days he was stronger than ever. A few minutes in the blast and the beast was consumed. Rusty kept his eyes on it and cocked his head a little. “Ms. Sinclair is it?” He pursed his lips together in a tight and sarcastic grin, the heat of the flames pushing him back a step or two. “Sounds like I’m not the only one with a girl who isn’t his girlfriend.” He glanced over at Kevin again with raised brows. “And by the way, don’t call her rat girl. I’d hate to have to kick your ass after all we just went through.” He smiled. |
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| Freakshow | Aug 8 2012, 09:51 PM Post #8 |
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"I've tasted worse," the Genoshan said with a grunt. That he had done, too. The body of a dead reptile didn't bother him as much as the next dead thing. Big though it was and smelly too, his pallet had been exposed to far worse subjects than this. Taking a few paces back, Kevin watched as Rusty prepared a firestorm to ignite the Rex's body. The dead thing wasn't going to resist, so there was nothing to worry about from the dinosaur itself, but Rusty's aim was his concern. He knew the boy had some outbursts with his flames, having been subjected to them several times before, but he didn't take any more steps back from the corpse than Rusty had. Fires crackled in the air, the humid gases heating up around them as the pyrokinetic conjured the flames. They struck down with a vengeance, scorching the Rex's body. There was nothing to hinder Rusty's power now. The Brood infection had afflicted him the last time Kevin saw this display. The difference of power was obvious. Without the infection, Rusty's control was better, and the fires just seemed stronger, more full, more vibrant. The acrid stench hit Kevin's face in a wave rank enough to make him scowl in disgust. He could smell that, even without breathing in. The tongues of flame licked along the Rex's body, becoming a regular bonfire. The heat was scalding hot, but somehow Kevin managed to enjoy it. Seeing the fallen Rex finally disappear and being swallowed up by purifying fires, it sort of felt like closure. "T'ch. She's my teacher. That sort of thing doesn't even seem right. Miss Moonstar, though..." He let the words hang off in the air before moving on. "Yeah. I'll try not to do that. Just make sure yehr Squirrel doesn't get any tree limbs that are lying around. She tried beating me up with one once." He kept his eyes on the burning Rex, dark smoke billowing into the air. "Let's just make sure this fire doesn't spread then head back. This is making me hungry." |
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| Rusty Collins | Aug 9 2012, 09:37 PM Post #9 |
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To his credit, Kevin didn’t really rise to the bait. Of course Rusty realized that it was possible that he just might not give a fok, but in this case neither did he so it worked out nicely. They stood side by side as the raging fires cackled hissed and popped, sending a choking column straight up into the clear Arctic jungle sky. Rusty kept his attention focused on the flames, keeping them extra hot at the base and trying to make sure that they were low to the ground to avoid catching any trees on ablaze. His eyes flashed orange as he kept close watch on the embers and turned the lapping flames under to incinerate it as quickly as possible. As the tongues of flame went up, they curled back down unnaturally as if caught in a cyclone. With a massive thunk the body collapsed, sparks shooting up like miniature fireworks and Rusty turned it up even hotter until the crackle subsided and the hissing stopped. Eventually there wasn’t even any smoke so he did his best to calm the fires. Little by little they disappeared, until all that was left was a smoldering mass that no longer resembled anything recognizable. “I have to admit,” he said as the power faded from his eyes. “The thought of Doreen kicking your ass with a stick brings a smile to my face.” He patted Kevin good-naturedly on the back and nodded toward the open clearing exit. As he made his way out he looked over. “And about that whole riding you thing?” The look on his face could have said it all. “That…never happened. No matter what people say they saw or what they think they know…deny everything.” Because no matter how you looked at it, this was still the equivalent of high-school…and that was the last thing either of them needed. -fin- |
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2:20 PM Jul 11