I have the sinking feeling that Slur may come across as OOC in the course of this fic. Then again, the same problem could arise with Forte…he seems too eloquent here.
Slur was cool but also quite scary. Her devotion to Duo frightened me but then so did Forte's method of killing her in cold blood.
Warning: contains a slight trace of Forte x Slur but it is equally possible to intercept this as a strange and rather twisted link based on their mutual rivalry.
He flies silently, flits on, on, out into the dark recess of the Undernet. How many times has he stroked the pale underbelly of the light with the edge of the cloak? The coarse material will one day scar. He just knows it.
So it has been thought, so it shall be done.
He doesn't need to speak for things to be true. And just because others tell him their own stories, their own fables of life and gingerbread cottages, doesn't mean he has to listen and believe. The time for day-dreaming is past and dead. Yes…the past is death. History may repeat itself but it drowns out feminine oppression and the lives before it. There is no existence before the present.
That's why he decides what he wants to do before he does it. No good speaking rashly and then living with regret. Not that he has any of course. Regret does not live or fester in him, a corrupted soul. And yet…he has spoken rashly. That's why he at least tries to plan out his actions beforehand…because then there is no possible way to wish they were undone afterwards.
He has no illusions about the future.
And so he flies, flies, ponders in the shadows and lets tattered wrists curl up and become gnarled in his rage. He knows all this and more. They are facts, undisputable. They will never rot and vanish like he takes care not to. He wants to silence the unimportant things. Unfortunately you cannot kill the things that are a part of you.
And for once it is all his fault.
Boots land on a platform of flimsy blue that looks as though it could break through and through, stretching out just this side of forever. It reminds him of oblivion as he catches glimpses of complex green lines and codes that flash between the slight gaps that disengage beneath his feet. He could read them if he so chose, but he has never cared much for building structures. Just laid down the concrete formations of his own power and dipped his body in clay that could shatter and break.
Replenish and repeat.
The light, what little of it there is down here, floats across his irises. It does not bubble like the neon glow of Internet City or even buzz like a technician's web page. It shimmers in a cold, calculative way, streaking across his vision with all the subtly it hides.
Refugee.
Except it cannot hide him from the future which has now become the present.
Blue, green, purple, they flash by, greedily consumed by the broken servers that linger in dark whirls of light and space. Occasionally there are screams and then silence that pronounces the blow of the commonplace executions. There is never any indication of spectators and he does not bother to provide some.
There is no entertainment in the suffering of the weak. It is the strong who prove to choke a laugh through his lips or smite down a smile on his face. They curve out the cruel lust on his mouth. And it makes him feel.
The colours, their therapy of darkened hues rain down, bleaching his brown with stains of ebony and riding the ridges of his crest with abandon. He grants them this slight freedom at least.
"Is this your idea of a rainbow?"
He feels the buzz behinds his ear plates and knows he must be hallucinating.
He grins.
"I wondered when you would be back."
He can feel the static of a template behind him and can picture the stranger now, the shape engraved on his memory as clear as every surge he feels when he flexes his muscle. His memory. The past. Dead.
"You didn't answer my question."
He laughs at the directness, the dryness of the clipped tone serving the superior air of the other.
"A rainbow comprises of seven colours, all of which make up pure undiluted white light. Or don't they have colours in outer space?"
He can see the tilt in her head now, the proud cheekbones echoing with haunty whiteness. Stern chalk that throws coolness out towards his own bronze variety.
"We have darkness. And the light of the stars. We do not need any other colours apart from our own and we merely endure the whims of the creatures who live beneath the stars we thrive in. They feel the need to paint out their existence in different hues."
He shakes his head slowly.
"Stubborn are they?"
He hears the snort she gives off and knows that the sneer is curling into place on her face as a barrier of gleaming teeth bare out in contempt.
"Very. What difference does it make? The paint cannot hide the lies. It cannot save them. Good is good and evil is evil. Colours cannot change that."
"Then we are of agreement."
He chuckles at the whirl of her head, can almost feel the heat of her searching gaze scoring him through with anger
"No we are not. You are a mere hypocrite. You are just like these humans. You paint yourself with darker colours, that is all. You play with your hatred and hide in the darkness."
It takes all his restraint not to spin round and snap at her.
"You know nothing. I do not hide in these colours. I watch them. I control them. I am colourless."
A thin twist in his lips and he lets the wryness sail forth and bask over so she can feel it.
"I am the prism."
He visualises the toss of her head, the slam of her green hair as it solidly charges after her movements in a single block. A lone female who does not care for fashion or change unlike the prancing antics of the girl navis in the light-choked squares of the City. Therefore she is not a girl. Not like the ones he has seen. A woman perhaps?
"We do not care for metaphors. There are a countless number for evil and good alike. Light and darkness. Hope and despair. Faith and betrayal. Doves, peace, unicorns, purity, religion, sacred trees…demons, ravens, war, corrupted, blasphemous actions, 'the 'belly of the beast'…we do not care for such things. They are one and the same."
He smirks, idly observes his thumb as he grates it against his bunched-up fingers. He knows it will annoy this part of her.
"This 'we' you speak of…I'm sorry? I don't see anyone else."
There is a slight breeze, a sure sign of her indignant flush as it bruises her cheeks and stiffens her limbs with what she conceives to be righteous fury.
"Duo and I. I am a part of him and he is my purpose."
It should not annoy him but it does. And his eyes narrow, their crimson streaking forth in a piercing shade of discontent.
"Duo is empty. And so are you."
The wind intensives. Which is wrong as there should not be any sort of force down here at this level.
"I do not need to be full to complete my purpose."
But he traces the shakiness in her voice and he is pleased.
"Again with the 'purpose'. You do not need it. With your power…you can do anything you please."
He stumbles inwardly after his usage of the present tense. This is why he hates words. They make mistakes too easily and so he makes an effort to correct himself.
"You could have done anything."
"No I couldn't."
Her scorn is heavy, carrying the weight of judgement and reprimand.
"That would have been selfish. And we all knows where that leads. I will never become evil."
The conviction in her voice is scaring and frays his pertinence.
"Oh? What have you become?"
She says nothing, standing stock still like a puppet pulled taut by the strings. He tugs them with unrestrained vigour, letting his wood cut through the panels that separate his regret.
"I'll tell you. You are a part of me now. Not Duo. Me. You have become my memory. You are nothing."
His hands uncurl, fleeting out into black palms stained with something disquiet. Not remorse. Not even anger. He does not understand himself.
"I am nothing?"
He voice is near the edge of silence, bordering into a tremble of breath that should not be there.
He sighs, a little more heavily than he should.
"You are nothing."
There is no wavering in his voice.
"But I must be something…"
She presses on, urgency creeping in. When one has lived as she has, over acres of galaxies and arches of unstainable space, the concept of dying is so foreign that she tricked herself into the role of a deluded immortality.
"…otherwise I would not be here."
He keeps his eyes fixed on the streams of whirled data crawling down in a hurried fizz.
"Why do you think I have not spoken to you face to face? Why haven't you pulled out any weaponry against me? We have not fought…why would we not fight unless there was a real reason not to?"
She stares, now frightened of the back he so coolly displays to her.
"Face me."
He does not move.
"Face me you coward!"
She screams and he listens, steeling himself as her voice rings out and quivers in a trap he has produced. There is no silver lining and so he waits and waits while she hollers and slays whatever feeling he has left. Except it doesn't quite work and he cannot be reduced to the same state of numbness he has became accustomed to. Rockman once stirred it. His memories often whirl it round. But she sets it aflame. And he does not know why.
Is this her power? Is it a curse? It beats inside him even after his claim of ownership, the grease of her data sailing through the cracks in the arm that grabbed her virtual heart and squeezed. He tore out her heartstrings and everything she was and fed it into himself.
Now she burns inside him and refuses to merge, stubborn breed showing in flashes of white and green. She is staining him with her own colours, colours she claimed not to have. That is why he sees through her trickery and snorts at her claims. He has everything about her inside himself. She has corroded through his walls and he sees all of her.
Is this the power of these dratted women he has heard other male navis referring to in equal admiration and humour?
He sees nothing funny about the situation. Especially since she is no woman. She is his woman. Stuck inside himself…shouldn't that be enough to eradicate her sex?
Obvious not. The damn woman refuses to lie down and go to sleep with the other navis he has absorbed before. She flares up every now and then, surprising him with her whiteness, her scorn and hot, hot fury, a sharp pain he has never seen on the face of those other girl navis. She belongs down her in the darkness with him, not in the radioactive vastness of space. She is too judgemental for her role.
He observes the silence strung out between them. Her words have rung hoarse.
"I am going to turn around soon."
He can picture her glancing up, shock inscribed in her eyes as they glance over his cloak inspecting the tawny colour for any loose ends or knots that betray his condition. She will not find any.
For some reason his voice turns gentle.
"Would you like that?"
She is a mere cub to his soft words. She has been prey to Duo's monotone declarations so long that she has forgotten how to detect emotions until recently.
She nods bleakly.
"But first…"
She starts again at how he knows her response without even seeing her figure in the course of some motion. She ruffles out her arms sensing the change in his voice and knowing her chance to regroup and collect herself is at hand.
"…are you willing to part from Duo's company for good?"
She gasps.
"You should not even think to ask me that! My loyalty is absolute."
He smirks.
"I know. You rattle about him long enough. But he has left this world. Left you."
She bites her lip. It still smarts and hurts. Duo became a part of her for so long she has not ever included anyone else in her equations.
"He left you and you cannot leave me. But you refuse to become a complete part of me and insist of torturing me with your echoes."
Now it is her turn to smirk.
"The fault is entirely yours. You deleted me."
He closes his eyes briefly, seals away her words.
"I would do the same ten times over given the choice. What I ask you is to speak no more of this Duo business. It is...tiresome. And in the past. The past is over and what use is there is dredging it up?"
"You keep on dredging me up. I'm part of the past remember?" she points out, confidence pouring out in waves of speckled authority.
He smiles, irony slapping him fully.
"You are dead. I know that. The problem is you refuse to die. You live on in my mind."
She pauses, eyes scanning over the slight quiver in his shoulders before they turn stoic.
"Or maybe you refuse to let me go."
He shivers at the implication.
"That is possible. You are not real and yet you are here. I can hear you, visualise you…but I cannot see you, feel you."
She extends an arm towards him then lowers it stiffly. Such actions are meaningless to both of them and she knows it. But still…curiosity dwells in her after stifling it as unnecessary for so long.
"Is that why you cannot look at me?"
He pauses.
"If I look at you…you will not be there. I know, we have had conversations like this before. Each time I look…you are gone. You exist only when my eyes are not there. Your voice continues to talk though…but it does stop."
"Only because you never reply."
He grins.
"True."
She sighs. There is no point in bringing judgment day to one who reuses it.
"You said earlier you were a prism. What did you mean?"
He pauses again swishing his cloak as he lets the whirlwind of spiralling server food blend in even more over the drabness. She waits. The only person who ever will now.
"I cut up the colours. A prism divides the light up into a rainbow the same way I am a corrupt version who splits up individual power sources and make them nestle side by side inside me. I can separate a navi from it's power the same way the light becomes fragmented. Only of course, the navi is killed."
Slur thought for a moment.
"You will never subdue me. No one could ever tame me. You've failed in your mission as a prism then."
He shakes his head a slight rumble of a laugh entering this grim offset of illusion.
"You take up a lot of colours."
She growls.
"I don't need them."
He does not bother to correct her. Why should she believe his concepts? She is an alien after all, even more than he is.
"I won't promise to keep silent about my master…he was more of one than you will ever be at any rate. But I am stuck with you…and I'm not happy about it. I can't leave you, can't betray you…but then that's what you've always wanted? Someone who can't stab you in the back and wound you."
She smiles. But it is not one of ordinary pleasure.
"I am the only one who can actually touch you."
And then her hand goes out towards him and she strides forward, ready to leave a ghost of a hand imprinted on his cloak. She will mark him with her presence.
He turns.
She is not there. She never was. But he saw her move in his head, he swore it.
An impatient sigh.
"You should have let me finish."
He grins maliciously.
"Why? You're with me. You've seen more of me than anyone else ever will. That's more than enough."
His grin glimmers.
"Besides…I'm far more of an interesting individual than Duo."
She sputters.
"Take that back!"
He does not honour her with a reply. The insufferable woman will have to learn how to wait. He is happy to be alone now. Because she is alone with him. And in the end that means they are never really alone, twisted within each other, not quite Forte but not quite Slur either.
He growls as he wonders if he should pay a visit to Rockman. He thinks Slur would quite enjoy seeing the freaked out expression chipped away in his hollowed eyes.
"We're leaving stupid woman."
He drifts up, out of the world that has learnt to shelter him.
Her bitter reply wipes off his temper.
"Of course, you bastard of an earth navi."
He's going to have to get used to being witty now he thinks. Females like to chatter about trivial matters.
"I can hear every word, you sexist pig."
He voice is dipped in flashing ice that gleans at the edge of his faint conscience. And it jutters just a little.
She lowers her voice.
"And I can distract you from your future fights by screaming very loudly into your ear…I can make Rockman win and you know it. The humans will be crowing over you for days."
It is the first time in history a woman has ever made Forte tremble.