Mako's Message: I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Almost too much. Every time I tried to wrap it up I'd end up going into a whole other thing. On the up side, this gets you a bigger than usual chapter. On the down side, that means you're getting this about two days later than intended. Of course, I also got pleasantly distracted by things over the past couple of day. Like, when I took my son to the library, instead of working on the chapter I ended up reading Batman: Year One and Batman: Noel. Noel, if you haven't heard of it(which I hadn't until I played Arkham Origins), is an interesting retelling of A Christmas Carol. It's an interesting story, and far from perfect, but it's very much worth a read. And now I've been spirited away by my father to help fix up our poor neglected cabin.
Anyway, enough of my rambling, you've waited long enough.
Enjoy!
I got it. I FINALLY got it. It feels like I've been waiting FOREVER.
I know it hasn't really been that long, but still, it feels like I've been waiting for this for YEARS.
God, when I finally got to wrap my hands around it... It felt better than I ever imagined. It's like it was molded to my hands. I literally spent all day playing with it.
Well, most of the day. We had to stop and clean the place up for our grand unveiling to the rest of Justice Forever.
I mean, seriously, we made a total mess of the place. Everything was sticky.
I didn't mind at the time, but dear GOD did I need a shower afterward. It was all over me and in my hair. Ugh.
Seeing Katie freak out afterward was hilarious too.
When I came out after my shower, she was like, "AAAAHHH!" and pointing and she just kept gasping and making noises.
I waited a few seconds to see if she was going to say something intelligent(Which would have been a small miracle) then said, "What? Spit it out."
And she said, "I bought him that shirt!"
And Dave looked over and said, "Oh, so that's where it went."
Katie spun around and was like, "You aren't BOTHERED by this?"
And Dave shrugged and said, "It was annoying the first couple of times but I just stopped worrying about it after the third or fourth times."
Katie looked like her head was about explode when she said, "The THIRD or FOURTH times?! How many shirts has she stolen from you!"
That's when I said, "Excuse me, I don't steal his shirts. I borrow them. After awhile they stop smelling like him and I give it back and take a new one."
Then she looked back at Dave like, "Are you fucking serious?"
And Dave said, "Well, I didn't know WHY she taking them."
"Why THE FUCK did you THINK she was taking them!? Why did you think I took your shirts?!"
The best part of this was Angela just sitting in the kitchen drinking some Gatorade like, "None of my business."
I think Katie wished she had more coconuts to throw at me right about then.
In a strange way, I actually kinda like seeing Katie angry at me. She was always so calm and sweet. This perfect pretty princess, and then she was always afraid of me, like I was going to cut her open and drag her through the streets by the guts. One of the many things I'd thought about doing to her.
Now though, seeing her wanting to, I dunno, claw my eyes out or something. I would love her to try. Like seriously. Aside from getting to kick her around for it, it'd be nice to see something REAL from her.
Anyway, once we finished cleaning up from playing Fruit Ninja: The Home Game, we all suited up to show the place to the rest of Justice Forever. Except for Angela, who doesn't have a suit. I let her wear one of my spare wigs and masks. It took forever to show her how she had to tie her hair back to get the wig on properly.
It was weird, honestly, being in costume in the Clubhouse(I decided to go with Marcus's name for it, since it was never meant to be a real safehouse, it's not JUST a training center, and it's not set up to be a meeting place. Not the way our HQ is. So.. The Clubhouse). I mean, we've been working in it for awhile now in just our civies. It felt weird to be there in costume. Especially with Angela tagging along in one of my wigs.
Anyway, Angela and Katie waited out in the hall, so we could let them all in at once. Dave and I were trying to be all serious and bad ass looking when they came in, but then Dr. Gravity came in, dropped his jaw on the floor, pulled his goggles up and said, "By the power of Greyskull..." and I almost died.
John laughed and said, "This is amazing! The last time I saw this place I was worried I'd fall through the floor, now it looks like you could fight a war from in here!"
I said, "Well, not really. Everything is reinforced, but the guns are mostly decorative. there's only enough ammo to load each of these guns twice."
Insect Guy, who was still in the "Wandering Around in Awe" phase, snapped out of it long enough to scoff and say, "'Only' she says."
So then I lead them around, showed them the exercise equipment, the locker room, the workshop, the kitchen, and finally the upstairs living area. It's really not much. A couple small coffee tables, some armchairs, two futon couches, and a bunch of folding cots against the wall. They all seemed to like it a lot though. Especially the way you could look out over the exercise floor.
Alice kicked at the glass under the railing and asked, "This bulletproof?"
I just gave her this "are you stupid?" look and said, "Of course it is."
Sting came up then and looked over the room and said, "What's with the beams?"
I grinned at him and said, "I was wondering if anyone was going to ask about that. Those are the support beams for what used to be the third floor. Now they lead to the emergency escape hatches."
Alice and Sting looked around for a minute then she said, "Okay, I give, where are the hatches?"
I grinned and said, "Hidden behind the drywall. You run out along the beam, turn at either the first or second one, preferably the second one if more people need to get out after you, and then you just punch through the dry wall and it's a pretty standard fire door. Only opens from this side and it's drywalled and wall papered over on the other side. The third floor hallway is just a hallway. Pretty neat huh?"
"It's a nice set up, I'll give you that."
"So, how do we get to use this place? Do we each get a key?" Dr Gravity came over and said, ruining my mood, because honestly I haven't figured that out yet. I don't know if its a good thing or not but part of me doesn't want to trust these people with the keys or codes, cause they could give them up. And I don't like the idea of using something like a thumbprint because I can't help thinking how easy it is to cut a finger off.
I keep trying to think of some sort of code system, where they'd have to figure it out every time, but they'd still need a key, and if they didn't someone else would be able to figure it out.
Maybe a random collection of identifying information...
Fuck that'd be complicated.
Anyway, I told them that, for the moment, they'd be able to come in and work with us any time between 8am and 2pm.
Dr. Gravity wasn't too pleased with that, since his job starts at 9, and with travel time, would leave him with about half an hour at best. And trying on his lunch break would give him enough time to walk in, say "Hi" and then leave. He said he'd be better off with his current gym membership.
As much as I like this place, I don't really feel like spending all day there, so I pointed out that he could always come in on weekends. Then added that once I started school again I'd have to come in the evening myself and that cheered him up a bit.
Right after he said, "Oh right, I keep forgetting how young you are."
It kinda sucks that the best chance I'd have for getting Dave to fuck me seems to be to have never known him personally.
In which case I wouldn't want him to.
It's like the world is conspiring to keep me from getting laid.
So once everyone had had a good look around I called them all back down to the exercise floor so I could show off my new toy.
I waved Dave over to help me and he said, "This isn't going to be full contact, is it?"
So I said, "Depends, are you going to be a little bitch about it?"
And he was like, "Ugh, fine, let's just go," and he drew his batons and charged me.
Dave was holding back, but he was coming at me just hard enough to push me, so I didn't punish him for it. My new staff is so light, I was actually worried it wouldn't have much impact. Especially since it's hollow. But judging by Dave's reactions, I think it'll do just fine. Probably one of those basic physics things. Mass times Speed equals force and shit. It's lighter, so I can swing it faster, so it hits just as hard if not harder. I can also maneuver easier, which is really nice.
The only thing I could complain about is that it's just a little long for me, but as long as I don't stop growing any time soon I should be fine.
So, once I realized we'd settled into a pattern of strikes I decided it was time to notch it up a bit and hit the switch that made the sheathes retract, revealing the twenty three inch blades.
That got some nice gasps, "ooh"s and "Aah"s out of them.
Dave huffed and then threw the sheaths off of his blades and... he tricked me. Sorta. I didn't expect him to throw the sheaths at me, since it could damage our new stuff when it didn't hit me, and he didn't...not really. He let them fly off at a downward angle and it took me until it was almost too late to realize that he'd aimed it at my foot.
It almost tripped me, but I turned it into a cartwheel kick so I came out on top of that. Dave still knew he almost caught me with it, so he smirked at me anyway.
So a few moves later Dave came at me with a double overhand strike, and I blocked it, holding my butterfly sword up with both hands, and I thought, "Well, this is a perfect opportunity" and twisted the handle, the sword came apart, and I pushed through and headbutted Dave in the face.
He fell back swearing and holding his nose, and he said, "I think you broke my nose"
I told him I hadn't, and I've have felt it if I had and then helped him to his feet while Alice came over and started checking and giving him a bandage to hold over his bleeding nose.
I told him he did good and gave him a pat on the back while everyone else applauded and asked questions about my new toy. And I only call it a toy even though it's EXTREMELY serious business because I can't think of anything else that applies to it.
I love the fucking thing though. Not only is it the perfect fucking weapon for me, it's designed to look all techy and shit. The handle looks like a fucking lightsaber.
I think I actually like this thing better than I would a real lightsaber. That'd just make things too easy.
Even if it would be really cool.
So after that we just... hung out. It was fun. We ordered pizza again. It was kind of a party really. Like a Grand Opening or something.
So yeah. Good day. Lot's of fun.
Now that this is all finished though I think it's time I focused my attention on these cult killings. They're seriously overdue for an ass kicking.
