Like a good communist, I own nothing.
"Gauntlet: Redemption"
Part 2
January was typically a cold month, but here and now, it seemed even more so. Butch reflected on the biting sting of the wind, and grew his drab cloak more tightly about his body. Over his shoulder, he carried a sack of firewood, tied together by rags. High above, the full moon cast long shadows over the land, and as he walked, Butch alternated between darkness and twilight light.
He was a 'wave-man.'
He was Ronin.
At his side, a carefully wrapped bundle slapped lightly against his hip, reminding him of his past and his obligation - of his damnation and honor. In the interplay of light and dark that surrounded him and pervaded the world, Butch saw anew his life's story. He had danced the fine line that life had dealt him, between thug and warrior, between murderer and soldier. He lived to fight. He fought to live. Yet there was more to it than that.
He killed for honor.
He struck for a purpose.
That purpose, that honor, those ideals, were not his own. They were those of the only man, beast or monster he had ever been willing to take dictation from. They were the words of his brother, his liege lord: Brick. Since the beginning, from Butch's earliest memories, Brick had been their leader and their inspiration. Even after their death, it was Brick that had somehow brought them back, and nursed his brothers back to health. How Brick had done this was unclear, but the red Rowdyruff's secrets were his own to bear. Butch and Boomer knew this well, and respected it, even as they resented it.
Brick was dead.
The ideals were dead.
Butch dropped the wood in the clearing he had put up camp in, and made ready a small fire to keep warm through the night. He had been a samurai - a warrior of honor and discipline - now he was nothing. Now he had nothing. He had lost all honor the moment he turned against his liege lord, and played a direct hand in his fall. Butch had always believed in the primacy of strength, as had Brick. Yet he had fallen defending those weaker than him...
The memories nearly brought the young Ronin to tears.
He had been corrupted. By power. By affection. By companionship. By Her. With Brick gone, with his general dead, what was left for the soldier to fight for? Butch had been given the burden of avenging his master's name, yet at the same time following the orders and Plan that Brick had lived by. On one side, Butch had his obligation to avenge Brick's death, and fulfill his honor, yet also there was the matter of loyalty to the Ideals...
Butch silently remembered every word, and every action, Brick had made.
They were his inspiration.
They were his liege lords, now.
Still, however, his honor was tainted. Their Father... Mojo Jojo... had in full paid for his part in the crime: with his life. Butch knew his ultimate redemption would be in seeing Brick's Ideals to their end, whatever that was destined to be, and then, in death, he would fulfill his personal honor. Such a thing was only a matter of time. There was, however, one other aspect to things.
Her.
Buttercup.
What, he had wondered, was her punishment to be? What fate was fitting for her? She, who had tempted and corrupted him with her spirit, and her fire, and her independence? It tore his heart in twine to see her as he had: broken and fearful, and then... then... Butch closed his eyes, and slowly warmed his hands on the now crackling fire.
She had died.
He had died.
Or had he?
He opened his eyes and looked around. This was not the Hell he remembered. This was not the fate of death that plagued his deepest, darkest dreams. When he had died, the first time, destroyed by that same Greeneyes that had damned him a second time, he had been cast into the very animalistic pits of Gehenna itself. He did not really remember it, so much as a primal instinct, a mixture of fear and hatred and rage, remained forever within him, like a caged beast straining at its bonds.
He was not, yet, in Hell.
Was he lingering, Butch wondered, between the darkness and the light?
A crackle came, but not from the fire. At the faint sound of a foot stepping on hard fallen leaves, Butch jumped to his feet, and reached to his side. Gleaming steel glittered against the half-light as he drew out an inch of his katana, the cresting wave of the yakiba along its length easily visible from the hilt to where it dipped into the scabbard. He was Ronin; a broken man, but he was far from defenseless.
And, in sudden realization, he was afraid: afraid to be cast back into those dark blazing depths. He was not ready to embrace oblivion. He was not ready, just yet, to completely fulfill his honor, and let his mind and soul slip away... forever this time. Out of the shadows, a cloaked figure stepped into the clearing and reached up to its face.
In a single motion, Buttercup swept back her hood.
"You!" Butch snarled. His eyes narrowed, and the grip on his sword's hilt tightened in readiness to strike.
"Butch."
"What are you doing here?" The green Rowdyruff took a step towards the apparition. "On second thought, I don't care why you're here. Just leave."
"I can't do that, Butch." Buttercup's voice held a touch of anger. "We have to talk."
"FUCK TALKING!" Butch whirled, and in a heartbeat his katana was out of its scabbard, and pressed up against her neck. "You ruined my life... you turned me into a... a..." Butch choked at the word, and skipped over it. "You can't imagine how much I despise you."
Buttercup didn't move. She hadn't imagined that hearing those words would hurt so much, but she knew he didn't truly mean it. Brick's death had hurt Butch - it had hurt him terribly, and he blamed himself. He was lashing out at everyone and everything. She had almost done the same thing.
Her depression had been overpowering. She could admit now, however, that yes: she had wanted, on some subconscious level, to defeat Brick, and repay him for the humiliation she suffered at his hands. She could admit that a part of her reveled in causing pain. She had a dark side. Everyone did. At the same time, she knew that she didn't want to kill Brick, regardless of what he had done to her. There was a firm moral line that she would never cross.
Where, then, had Butch/Buttercup's rage come from? It had been a shared mind, and a shared experience. She remembered: "LIAR! You always lie...! Always! ALWAYS! But never again! NEVER, do you hear us!?"
Butch.
Butch, she knew, held Brick on a pedestal. He was Butch's commanding officer - he made the rules and guidelines that Butch felt he could comfortably operate in. Without these boundaries, she suspected that Butch felt his darker aspects growing bolder. Butch needed rules to keep his personal demons at bay. Yet, at the same time, Brick was secretive and guarded, at all times. Boomer, too, had likely come to understand and even dislike this fundamental trait in his brother, but Butch had always known it.
Having boundaries was one thing, but being caged was another.
They were both, in a way, at fault. Yet, they were neither truly responsible. She had to made Butch understand that. Buttercup wasn't sure why she was here, or where here was... She had been dreaming, and more importantly: thinking. She had been thinking about the last few months, about everything she had done, about what had happened. Her Dreams had not been ones of playing sports, or kicking monster butt, like they had been before... Was she even the same Buttercup anymore, after all that had happened?
"Do you mean that, Butch?" She asked, eyes sparkling with tears nearly shed, before composing herself. "But what does it matter now, anyway? We're dead, after all."
A moment passed.
"I... I suppose." He drew the weapon back, turned it about, and sheathed it. He seemed about to say something else, but instead turned away from her to look at the fire.
Sulking, Buttercup realized.
He'd been sulking all this time.
She sat down, in front of the fire, and stared at the lapping flames. She couldn't force him to talk, not about this sort of thing; it would only make him withdraw. He needed to want to talk. He needed to want to open that side of himself that was weakness and regret and pain. Looking into the flames, Buttercup almost smirked when she realized she'd likely be here, with him, for a very long time, if that were the case.
"You shouldn't be here," Butch finally said.
"You already told me you don't want me here."
"I mean..." Butch paused, and didn't continue his sentence.
"What?" Buttercup asked. "...What?"
"I mean... I wonder what will happen to you girls, now? As far as I know, those things didn't catch Bubbles... The Professor could probably recreate you when he figures out what happened from her."
"Like you guys?"
"Yeah... I suppose."
"What do you mean, you suppose?"
"I'm not... entirely sure how Brick recreated us." A detected in his voice a small bit of resentment and then sadness. "He never talked about it much."
"What do you think?"
"Maybe he survived Blossom's lip-lashing and..."
"Nope." Buttercup cut him off. "I saw him go up, just like you and Boomer."
"Mojo could have recreated him..."
"Only him?"
"He joked about time travel once..."
"That sounds more like a bad Star Trek episode."
"Ah..." Butch sighed. "I dunno. Don't really care."
A lie, Buttercup knew instantly. She and Butch shared a unique understanding, and a trust. The latter of those two had been shattered by their bonding/merging experience, but the former had been magnified. Of the three mergings, Butch/Buttercup had been the most powerful, and the most perfect. Boomer/Bubbles had destroyed herself and split up, despite Boomer and Bubbles 'close' relationship, though Buttercup wasn't totally sure why (Bubbles avoided answering the question when it came up). Finally Brick/Blossom, to hear Blossom explain it, had been more of a conflict between minds for control than a sharing.
'To answer: the merging is a unity-ity.'
A lie. Brick had likely been in control.
'The variables are subsumed-umed, but still conscious and separate, still whole-ole.'
The truth. Blossom, then. The merging had been a strange experience for all of them, and Buttercup wondered, off hand, what it would have been like if they had done as Brick had initially planned, and NOT pared off with their counterparts. She quickly shook her head, and came back to the present topic of conversation.
"Butch..." She took a deep breath, and boldly asked, "Do you want to talk about...?"
"Brick?" Butch finished for her. "No." A few seconds later. "maybe."
"Butch..." Buttercup reached to take his hand, but he flinched and pulled away. She had suspected he'd do that, after everything that had happened between them, but it still hurt.
"S... sorry." Butch looked down at his hand. He was quicker to apologize than Buttercup had been, when he felt it necessary. Buttercup had always been loathe to admit that she had been wrong in anything - Butch simply preferred not to make mistakes, but when he did, he didn't hesitate to face that mistake and admit err.
"Tell me how you feel about your brother, Butch."
"Yeah... ah..." Butch ran a hand through his unkempt black hair. "I... I dunno. I'm no good at this stuff."
"Let me ask something else, then. Why do you blame yourself for what happened?"
"What do you mean: why? It is my fault." He paused. "Yours too. Everyone... everyone is responsible for what happened to Brick."
She looked at him sympathetically. "How so?"
"He..." Butch shook his head. "No one ever cared... Mojo never cared... Boomer and Bubbles didn't do anything to stop us... Blossom was too weak and indecisive... and we... I... I killed my own brother, for Christ's sake! A part of me was... was..."
"Angry?" She ventured. "Angry because Brick kept you in the dark? Like he did to everyone? Angry because he didn't trust you enough to tell you everything? Angry... because he was better than you?"
Butch scowled at her. Buttercup was especially conscious of that last statement. That Brick had been the best fighter of all of them was almost a non-question. He wasn't stronger, or faster... he was just better. Smarter. Despite Butch's healthy competition with his brother, yes: there had been a measure of jealousy and anger at always being the challenger and never the titleholder.
"No."
Buttercup blinked, confused, at his reply.
"No," He said again, more forcefully. "That's not it. I want to be the best... I want to be the best fighter there is... but as much as I hated playing second fiddle to Brick, I sort of liked it too. It was a goal. Something to reach for." He tilted his head, and smiled a bit. "Besides, better my own brother than some stranger... It... it..."
Buttercup led him on. "What?"
"It was the lies." Butch's smile disappeared completely, and he looked deeply into the flames of the fire, slowly warming his hands. "It was the lies... I just... don't understand. Why he didn't trust me. ... I trusted him, you know. I trusted him with my life."
Buttercup listened. She listened as Butch said nothing. He just looked from the fire, to her. What he expected to see, she wasn't sure, but she knew he was afraid to see pity. Pity meant he was weak. Weakness meant he wasn't Butch. He was the first to blink, and let out a small sigh.
Caring.
He had seen caring.
Not pity.
Not amusement.
Just concern.
"I hope..." He paused, as if to stop, but kept going. "I hope we're not dead. I... I don't want to die, Buttercup. I don't want you to die. You deserve to live. You deserve to be happy." He gritted his teeth: the words hurt to say. "We never should have come back... we've brought nothing but pain to everyone... we deserve..."
"Butch!"
He looked up at her, eyes glistening.
"Shut up." Buttercup was angry. Raging. "Don't say that! I've never regretted anything more than ...killing you." She clenched her fists. "I didn't think of it... I didn't want to think of it... until you guys came back. Everyone deserves a chance at life. Everyone."
Butch turned away, ashamed.
"Don't say you don't deserve to live." Buttercup reached out, took his shoulders, and forced him to look at her, face to face. "Don't think that! I... I couldn't bear it. I couldn't stand it."
"Hey," He started to say, and reached up, his hand on hers. "Calm down, ok, Greeneyes?"
"Butch..." She gulped, and decided it was too late to turn back from what she had wanted to ask him for weeks now. "Butch, do you like me?"
"..." His face softened. "Yeah. I like ya."
"Thanks." She had needed to hear that. Not just wanted to: she had needed to.
"Even if you are a tomboy."
"Gee... thanks." She pulled him in with a jerk, and rubbed her fist into his scalp. "Noogie!"
"Hey! You're messing up my hair!!" Butch was starting to struggle, to try and get away, when his movements slowed. He blinked, hard, and the fire and the forest were gone. Replaced by a thick liquid that filled his lungs, and pushed all other taste from his mouth. Hacking and coughing, he reached out into the liquid darkness, trying to swim out, but his hands instead hit some sort of metal. Near panic, he was about to try blasting his way out with his eye beams, when a sudden suction and hissing sound filled his ears, and the liquid was gone. He fell forward, and into the light...
"Ahhhh..."
The raven-haired Rowdyruff let out a long sigh of contentment, as he felt the shampoo in his hair mingle with the hot water. He still felt kind of slimy, but the water would wash it all away. It was a very small price to pay for being brought back from near death. Vigorously washing his hair, he tried his best to make sure that he had gotten all of the goop out.
He was alive.
Butch couldn't help himself. He smiled, broadly, and held his chin up, letting the water run down his face and the length of his body. He was alive! It felt so good! So damn good!
Buttercup was alive.
Bubbles was alive.
Blossom was alive.
Boomer was alive!
Butch silently thanked whatever god might be listening for that last one. Boomer hadn't 'woken up' yet, but he was in stable condition. Tracing a line down his sternum, Butch found a small soft spot left where two of his ribs had been broken in the last fight. The area was still a little tender, but the bone had repaired itself. Closing his eyes, he remembered snippets of the fight.
His fist, turning the false Buttercup's face into something approaching silly putty.
Smashing the psuedo-Bubbles into the ground hard enough to liquefy the asphalt.
Breaking the other Blossom's head and neck in several places.
Tearing his fist out of the Boomer copy's mouth.
Crushing his own chest slowly, purposefully...
Shaking his head, he realized he'd been frowning. That brutality... that animal rage... it was a part of him. It was in his nature, just as it was his responsibility to keep that side of himself in check. He had been wrong to rely on others, to rely on anyone but himself, to set the standard he had to live by.
He saw that now.
Only... he wasn't entirely sure he wanted that kind of responsibility. He wasn't sure he could set rules for himself, and abide by them. It was far harder than just following orders, but it was also... better. Maybe.
Rinsing the last of the suds out of his hair, he turned down the heat, and cut off the water. Floating out of the bathtub, he reached for a nearby towel, and started drying himself off. There were, technically, faster and better ways to dry himself off. Boomer could spin around quickly enough to splatter water everywhere and dry himself off, and Brick knew how to make his body vibrate enough to shake the water off, but Butch preferred to take his time with a towel, just like everyone else in the world did.
Dry and clean, he wrapped the towel around his waist, and looked in the mirror at himself. More than before, he didn't so much like what he saw, but he accepted it. He was who he wanted to be. He could grow; he could be something more and something better, if he wanted to. If he applied himself.
He would apply himself.
He would live.
He would be happy, again.
Combing his hair with his hand until it looked somewhat presentable, he opened the door and floated into the hall. A gust of cold air hit Butch in the face: literally freezing compared to the steamy aftermath of his shower. Looking down the corridor, he heard the faint sound of someone in the other bathroom - the girls' bathroom.
She, like her sisters, preferred baths to showers, though with Buttercup, perhaps 'preferred' wasn't the right word. Curious, and a bit bold, he drifted towards the sounds, but stopped just outside the slightly ajar door. Knocking on it with the back of his hand, he called out.
"Hey, you in there, Greeneyes? You decent? I... um..."
"It's ok." He heard her voice.
"Ok. I'm... coming in..." He pushed the door open a bit more, and side stepped inside. He saw Buttercup - at least her head - sticking out of the water. She looked annoyed.
'Hopefully with the bath,' He thought. He also noticed Blossom and Bubbles, both clothed, standing next to the tub. Suddenly, the fact that he was alone with all three of these girls, without his brothers to support or back him up, he became... nervous.
"Ah... I just wanted to make sure..."
"I'm fine," Buttercup answered, quickly.
"Were you really...?" He didn't finish the sentence, but implied its meaning: 'Where you really in my dreams? ...In my mind? Was I in yours?'
She knew what he was talking about. "Yeah."
"What?" Blossom asked, breaking into the conversation.
"Nothin'" Butch coughed. "Well, I'll just be... going now..."
He quickly ducked out of the bathroom, and headed down the hall, when he heard someone come up behind him. Turning slightly, he saw a certain familiar redhead.
"Blossom."
"Yeah." She crossed her arms. "Butch I..."
"Don't go there," He said, gruffly. Butch really wasn't in the mood to hear her try and convince him to be 'part of the team.'
"I have to. Its my job." She sighed. "Its what I do."
"Well don't."
"Butch..." She took a step towards him, arms out. "Look, I just want you to cooperate with me."
He snorted. "Cooperate? Is this a joke?"
"I know... I'm not trying to replace Brick..."
"Damn straight you're not."
"But I am trying to keep things together. I'm not asking for blind obedience. I'm not asking for an oath of fealty. All I want... all I want is a chance. All I want is for you to work with me. Not for me."
"Work... with you?" He sneered, but at the look in her eyes, his sneered dampened. "I... I dunno... maybe."
"Thanks." She smiled. "Thanks. You won't regret it."
Holding his towel around his waist, Butch dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He really wasn't in the mood for all this. He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on... and just as importantly, why Buttercup had, indeed, been in his coma-dream. It shouldn't have been possible. Butch had never shared a dream with his brothers. Why now? Why with her?
Boomer would recover soon.
Hopefully, he'd get some answers then.
