"What's with that shotgun, Rotor?" she asks curiously, as he slides another bright yellow shell into the chamber, listening to the satisfying click.
"May I uses Rotor with a shotgun in one of my stories?" - Fish the Impaler, 2008
"Haven't you been watching the news lately?" he snaps back at her.
"Fuck yes, you can. Give that walrus a shotgun. Hell, give him two!" - King Hadbar, 2008
"You know I don't watch the news," she says, stretching out on the grass, looking wonderously up at the baby blue sky and the fluffy white clouds. The park is where they met. So the park is where they generally meet. "It's boring. Or depressing. Or both."
"Right," he says, looking up at her dumbly. "Right." He looks back to the shotgun, resuming. "But you've heard about all the recent shootings and bombings and stuff all over Mobotropolis, yes?"
"Yeah," she says, sighing. "That stuff's icky, though. I don't like to think about that stuff."
Rotor with a shotgun
"Well, you have to, Marine."
"Why?"
"You can't turn a blind eye to the tragedies around you just so you can live a carefree existence forever. You gotta grow up sometime."
"I'm TWELVE, Rotor. When did you start watching the news anyway? You know more about cartoons than I do."
"Last week," he says, matter of factly. "I'm an adult. I need to do more adulty things."
"Sounds stupid," she says.
"Well, that's why I have the shotgun," he tells her.
"Oh god," she replies, horrified, sitting up and shooting him a dangerous glance. "You didn't get INSPIRED, did you?"
"No. What? No," he says, racking the shotgun to stuff one more shell into the bottom. "How stupid do you think I am?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Yes," he says, grumpily.
"Pretty stupid."
"Hey," he says, obviously hurt. "That's not funny. I know stuff. I know lots of stuff."
"I'm sorry," she says, genuinely apologetically. Sometimes she forgets how easy it is to hurt his feelings. But she'd never say that out loud.
"Anyway," he says, ignoring his feelings for a moment. "I'm cleaning the streets."
"I think you need a broom and a dustpan to clean the streets. Maybe a street sweep," she says, laying back down on the cool green grass. It's such a nice day. "Not a shotgun."
"Crime, Marine. I'm talking about CRIME."
"The streets are crime? I'm not so sure I understand."
"No, Marine. Gosh. I'm talking about cleaning the streets of crime. With a shotgun."
"With a shotgun?"
"With a shotgun," he tells her again, with what he presumes to be flawless logic.
"I don't think you can clean the streets of crime with a shotgun."
"Says who?"
"I dunno," she says, her index finger to her chin. "Just thinking about it logically. There are police. They have shotguns. There are lots of police. There are lots of shotguns. Why aren't the streets already clean?"
"Because, stupid," he tells her very arrogantly, "they don't have a license to kill."
"Neither do you."
"I have more of a license to kill than they do."
"Not really. Cops get away with killing more than civilians do. Technically they have a license to kill and you don't."
"But they have to operate within the confines of the law."
"But so do you.."
"But the idea is to present myself as some batty insane upstander of the law, with nothing to lose and a license to kill. And a strong distaste for scumbags."
"What? Like a vigilante?"
"Exactly like that. Exactly like a vigilante."
"So, you're going to kill people?" she says, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes.
"No, no. Not at all. But they don't know that, do they?"
"What's your endgame, here?"
"What do you mean?"
"You won't kill anyone, but you've fully loaded your shotgun and intend on cleaning the streets of crime. What are you after?"
"To get them to act right."
He racks the shotgun and a full shell flies out of the weapon. Hastily, he picks it back up and stuffs it back in through the bottom.
His name is Rotor. He literally just bought a shotgun.
He hangs out with a 12-year-old raccoon. He is 23 years old. No, there is nothing sexual going on. They're both essentially just children and good friends. If you're asking for more than that, you're disgusting, and can go ahead and look for another story. This isn't the story you want, you pervert.
She believes in cornwallace. He fancies himself a bit too old for all that nonsense.
And believe you me. It really is all nonsense.
"How are you going to find crimes?" she asks, curiously.
"Why, my dear Marine!" he exclaims, standing up from the picnic table and proudly holding his shotgun to his chest. "With a watchful eye, of course!"
"There's one," Rotor says, pointing. "There's one right there."
"The guy... crossing the street?"
"He's not just crossing the street, you poor, naive fool," he says, condescendingly. "He's jaywalking."
"Jay... walking?" she asks, dumbfounded.
"You see those two crosswalks on either side of him?"
"Yeah, so?"
"See how he's stepping out into the street between them?"
"Um. Yes?"
"That's jaywalking. It's illegal. A ticketable offense."
"Um. Rotor?" she asks, tugging on his elbow.
"What?" he asks, readying his shotgun. Looking down the barrel.
The criminal doesn't notice. He's staring at his shoes while walking.
"I don't think that's such a big deal," she says, gulping. "People do that all the-"
"ALL THE TIME?" Rotor snaps, looking away from the sights of his weapon and coldly into her eyes. "I know they do. They did, rather. I'm putting a stop to the madness."
"Rotor, wait!"
But it was too late. He's already in the zone.
"Stop right there, scumbag!"
"Who, me?" the pedestrian says, looking up. "Oh, shit."
"That's right," Rotor says, cocking his shotgun, a full shell flying out of the weapon and landing in the street. His eyes follow it and dart back to the perp as he tries to pretend not to notice. Tries. "Step back onto the sidewalk where you belong."
"Please," the pedestrian starts walking backwards, his hands in the air. "Please, I'll give you all my shineys. Please just don't hurt me."
"Shineys?!" Rotor shouts, enrages, cocking the shotgun again and pointing it at him, another bright yellow shell falling to the ground. "I don't want your shineys! I'm not a criminal like you!"
"Wh-what?" the guy shouts, bamboozled. "How many shells do you have in that thing anyway? You shouldn't be-"
"Shut up!" Rotor cocks the weapon again. Another shell. "Walk your ass to that crosswalk."
"Um. Which one?"
"Either! Do it slow! Don't try anything funny, you hear?"
"Okay, okay," he says, slowly sidestepping to his right. Rotor's left."Just don't shoot me, mister."
"Keep walking," Rotor says, leading him, just a little bit. He learned that from television.
The cat pedestrian stops at the crosswalk, confused. "What now?"
"Push the button."
The guy slowly and nervously pushes the button.
There's a moment of silence while they wait for the light to respond.
The crosswalk says walk. Rotor stares him down.
"Should I... cross?"
"Go ahead," he says, motioning the firearm. "And be quick about it."
The baffled animal walks across the street. Halfway across, the orange light hand starts blinking.
"Better speed up," Rotor says.
The pedestrian walks faster until he finally arrives to the other side of the street.
Rotor approaches with caution.
"There," he says, with his inside voice. "You have now crossed the street as if you were a law-abiding citizen. I hope you've learned something today."
Rotor lowers the shotgun.
"Yeah, I've learned something, all right," he says, hyperventilating. "I've learned that you're a nutter."
Rotor raises the shotgun and cocks it once again, losing yet another shell.
"AND WHAT ELSE?!"
"How to cross the street as a law-abiding citizen," he squeaks out, gulping in his tiny voice.
"Good," Rotor says, lowering the instrument of death. "Good. You have a new lease on life, boy. Don't waste it."
The "criminal" scurries away without a word.
"...Better be..." Rotor says to himself.
"And what exactly did that accomplish?" Marine asks angrily.
"That man will never again jaywalk in his life," Rotor says, proudly.
"And what does that do?" Marine demands to know. "I thought you were after big crimes. I thought you wanted to clean the streets."
"I do," Rotor says. "Little crimes lead to big crimes. For all we know, I just prevented the next 9/11."
"What's a 9/11?"
"I don't know, Cream. Go play with your dolls or something."
"My name's MARINE, stupid. And I don't have any dolls."
"Right," he says, snapping out of his daze. "Right, right. Let's get out of here before the cops show up."
Marine rolls her eyes.
Rotor racks the shotgun proudly, another shell falling into the street.
"Maybe I'll be in the papers," Rotor says proudly. "And I'll get one of those cool names. Like, The Lone Walrus, or something."
"More like Rotor Quixote," Marine replies, sticking her tongue out.
"Key-hoe-tee?" Rotor imitates her sounds dumbly. "I don't get it."
"It means you're mad," she says, giggling. "Verloren innen den Köpfen."
"The hell is that? Greek?"
"It's German, stupid. Lost in the mind."
"It's all Greek to me," he says, sitting backwards on the picnic table. He looks at her and follows her gaze up to the clouds. It's such a beautiful day. "Besides, I'm not crazy. Not THAT crazy, anyway."
"You're stupid, is what you are."
"Shut up, you. YOU'RE stupid."
"I know my times tables," she says, smartly looking over at him. "Do you?"
"I don't believe that's any of your-" he cuts himself off, something in the distance catching his eye. An old lady, walking her dog in the park. Her dog is pooping. "...business."
"What?" she looks at him, then looks at what he's looking at. "Poop? Dogpoop? A dog pooping?"
"No," he says, narrowing his eyes and watching the old lady and the dog begin to walk away from the abandoned bowel movement intently. "Crime."
Rotor grabs his shotgun angrily in the heat of the moment.
"Rotor," Marine starts, annoyed.
"Hey," Rotor says, ignoring his little buddy. "Hey!"
The old lady stops dead in her tracks. The dog keeps running to the end of its leash, causing it to do a cartoonish backflip.
"What?" she says, adjusting her coke bottle lens glasses. "What's that you got there, sonny?"
"This?" he asks, coyly examining his shotgun before cocking it and pointing it at her. "This is just a twelve gauge shotgun. Pointed right at your head. No big deal."
"Oh, my," she says, blinking and digging in her purse. "I don't have much money. Some quarters, I think. I may also have some peppermints in here, sonny. You're welcome to help yourself."
"I don't want none of that," he says, grimly. "You gonna pick up that poop?"
"Poop?" the old lady asks, confused.
"Yeah," Rotor says, licking his lips. "Yeah. You're gonna pick up that poop, or the paramedics are going to be picking up bits of your brain and skull off the ground."
"Ohhhhh... Skrumply..."
"Um. What?"
"Skrumply," she says, looking down at her stupid dog. "Did you poop? I wish you'd tell me when you pooped."
She fishes a clear baggie out of her purse and looks up at Rotor. "I'm sorry about that, sonny. Where's the poop?"
Her eyes are filled with wonder and confusion. Like that of a child.
He shoulders his weapon with his right hand and points to it with his left. With some effort, she bends down to get it.
"I think she's senile," Rotor whispers to his side, to Marine.
Marine just nods.
The old lady picks up the poop slowly. She pauses for a minute.
"Would you two like some peppermints?"
"Um. No thank you, ma'am," Marine says.
"Yeah," Rotor says, smiling with that stupid look on his face. "Yeah, I'll take some peppermints."
Marine nudges him with her elbow.
"Oh my," the old lady says, approaching. "What a darling little girl you have there."
Rotor just fidgets uncomfortably. That's his friend, not his little girl.
She hands Rotor a peppermint and leans over to Marine.
"And just how old are you, little lady?"
"Um," she says, shifting uncomfortably as well. "I'm twelve."
"Here," she says, grabbing her hand and dropping peppermints into her open palm. "Have some candy."
"OH. Oh, thank you."
"You're going to grow up to be a beautiful young lady," she says. Her smile turns into a serious expression, almost a grimace for a moment. "My advice, start carrying some pepper spray on you wherever you go, dear. You can never be to careful."
She smiles again, and with some difficulty, stands upright once more.
"Thank you, sonny! You take care, now!"
And slowly, she turns and walks off, poo in one hand, and leash in the other. She tosses the poo into a nearby trashcan as she drags her confused mutt in tow with the other, disappearing over the horizon.
Marine nudges Rotor with her elbow again.
"Whaaaaaat?"
"I can't believe you pointed a SHOTGUN at that nice, confused old lady."
"I can't, either," Rotot says, unwrapping his peppermint and tossing it into his mouth. "I feel pretty bad."
"Maybe you should just get rid of that thing," Marine says, maternally.
"You kidding?" Rotor asks through his mint. "I have a city to save. You gonna eat those?"
Marine groans and hands Rotor her peppermints. He pockets them and cocks his shotgun.
"Let's do this dance."
The sun is setting on the park in Station Square.
She can hear the clacking of the peppermint against his teeth and it's beginning to annoy her.
"What happens when you clean the streets?"
"What do you mean what happens? The streets will be clean. I will have done my duty."
"Yeah, but what will YOU do?"
"I dunno," he says, thoughtfully. "I haven't really thought about it. I'll have lots of shineys by then, surely. You know. Like Sonic."
"So, that's your endgame, here?" she asks, annoyed. "Shineys? You could just, you know. Get a job. Like a normal mobian."
"SONIC isn't a normal mobian."
"You really envy him, don't you?"
She's only slightly annoyed now. More than that, she's curious.
"Not exactly," he says, not looking at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Can we talk about something else?"
"No," she says, almost aggressively. "I want to understand you. Where you're coming from. What the heck your deal is with this shotgun business."
"You wouldn't understand." Hurt isn't the right word for the way he responds. More like insecure.
"Maybe I would!" she proclaims angrily. "You don't know!"
"I DO know. I DO know that you wouldn't understand!"
"What?" she demands, stopping, placing her hands on her hips. "You think I'm stupid, or something?"
"No," he says, stopping, too, but looking ahead instead of looking back at her. "But you think I am."
"Because you ARE!" she shrieks.
She doesn't mean that. She's just frustrated. And he's immature. "Maybe if you didn't do STUPID things like wander the streets with a STUPID shotgun, arbitrarily waving it in the face of misdemeanor crimes, I wouldn't think you were an idiot. But you do! AND YOU ARE!"
His grip on the shotgun tightens.
Tears roll down his face, but he doesn't want her to see that. So, he starts walking.
"Leave me alone," he says, wiping his eyes with his forearm, still clinging tightly to the shotgun. "Just go home."
"What?" she asks, following him, fists swinging at her sides like opposing pendulums. "So you can do something STUPID like get yourself KILLED?"
"Just GO!" he exclaims angrily, finally turning around and dropping his weapon. "If I'm that STUPID, if I'm such a BURDEN on your life, then JUST LEAVE ME ALONE. GO AWAY."
He sniffles and bends over to pick the shotgun up.
"I just.." she starts.
"You just nothing," he says. Crying. Very obviously crying at this point. "Go home, Marine. For some stupid reason, I keep thinking you're my friend, but you're not, are you? I'm just some STUPID clown you hang around for amusement, right? The CRYING CLOWN. Well, I hope you enjoyed it. No more."
He turns away again and starts marching, shouldering his weapon like a comical soldier.
"Rotor..." she starts.
"Go home, Marine," he calls back to her, bluntly repeating himself, desperately trying to sound and be definitive.
It's nighttime at the park.
He walks over the hill towards the light from the post on the one in the distance, disappearing into the darkness of the lower latitude.
The sound of a woman screaming echoes through the night.
"Hey!" she hears him call out, his footsteps carrying through the wind. "HEY!"
Marine rushes after him, running as fast as her little legs can carry her.
When she gets to the top of the next hill, she sees Rotor with a shotgun, pointing at a weasel who's robbing a young woman at knife point. His arm around her, blade to her neck, her purse in his free hand.
"Drop it, creep," Rotor says, his voice shaky.
"Drop what?" the weasel asks, smile stretching across his face.
"The knife first," Rotor says. He's scared. Obviously scared. Everything about him is trembling. "Then the purse. Then you back off the lady."
"Oh?" he asks slyly, pushing the lady to the ground. "And what are you going to do about it, huh?"
The weasel starts advancing towards Rotor. He almost looks black in this light, but he's a deep purple. Rotor, Marine and the girl are all frozen in fear.
"You going to kill me with that shotgun?" the weasel asks, stepping closer and closer towards him.
"Y-yes," Rotor stutters, cocking it.
But he's too late. It's too late. The weasel sheaths his blade into his belt and snatches the weapon from him in an instant with both hands, pushing him over with his own shotgun.
He lands flat on his behind, eyes wide open, too scared to speak.
"I didn't think so," the weasel says, pointing the shotgun barrel directly adjacent to his agape mouth.
"Rotor!" Marine screams, running across the grass, eyes filling with tears.
And he pulls the trigger.
And Marine screams louder than she ever has before.
And Rotor doesn't make a sound.
And the gun goes -click-.
And the world stops spinning for just a moment.
And the weasel laughs.
"I didn't think so!" he says, throwing the weapon to a shocked Rotor's chest. He awkwardly catches it, his mouth still wide open, his eyes still bugging out.
Marine runs to Rotor's side and hugs him awkwardly around the neck from the side, crying.
"Please, mister," she says, looking up to the weasel with wide, watery eyes. "Just leave us all alone. Please?"
The weasel looks annoyed. No, he looks pissed off, to be honest.
Wordlessly, he spikes the purse to the ground and storms off into the darkness.
"Rotor," Marine says, clinging to him tightly, tighter than she's ever hugged anybody in her entire life, burying her face in his neck. "Are you okay?"
"I..." Rotor says, but he's cut off by the poodle lady picking up her purse.
"Thank you," she says, her voice still shaky. "Thank you both. So much."
She disappears off into the other direction.
There's a moment of silence.
"I just wanted to help people," Rotor finally chokes out, his voice cracking amongst the crickets. "I wanted to be the hero, but not for the fame or for the glory. Not for the shineys.." he trails off, head hanging, looking into his lap.
"What for?" Marine asks, sympathetically petting his brow under his hat.
"To do something good for the world. To make a difference," he says, defeated. "To BE the hero. Not reap the benefits of being the hero. I just wanted to make people happy.."
"Oh, Rotor," Marine says, hugging him tightly from the side again. "You're a hero to me. Without the shotgun, even."
"Shut up," he says, leaning away from her, unsuccessfully trying to break from her grasp. "No. No, I'm not."
She laughs halfheartedly. "You make me happy, at least. When you're not being stupid."
"See?" he says, his voice cracking. He's trying desperately not to cry again. "I'm too stupid, Marine."
"No," she says, laughing. "You're just stupid enough. Just put that shotgun away and try not to get yourself killed again, will you?"
Rotor snorts, looking up at the stars, his eyes still filled with tears.
"I've got a lot of growing up to do, huh?"
"It's okay," she says, hugging him even tighter. "So do I."