I may be skinny and undersized, but I like to clobber people and prove them wrong.
-The Book of Robin
Six years pass by, tearing off the ragged veils of numerous secrets on their way. The twins change a lot, their father changes little, Warsman changes not at all. For the past couple of years he's been spending far more time than he'd like in a city he detests, London, the city of grey dirt and greyer people, with a history bloody enough to rival good old Moscow. As one of the perpetually angry, he detests most things, all detailed excruciatingly in a list he keeps in his head, and when he steps off the sopping, leaf and garbage strewn roof of a Soho nightclub to land in a particularly disgusting, particularly dark alley, he underlines the entry titled: 'discarded fast food: wet', with enough force to give himself a headache. A girl screams but only for a quarter of a second, generating no need for him to silence her, not that anyone will investigate shrieking in an alley when there's chippies to stumble to. Sparing an entire fish-lensed eye in order to convey the maximum of contempt for his dank surroundings, Warsman uses the other to study Jane, his relentlessly regal posture intensifying his height. He hates what he sees.
First, he sorts through the shadowy forms he calls 'potentialities', those physically realised thoughts passing through her head that show him in real time what actions she's thinking of performing or not performing, many of them born as reactions to the minutest body language she senses from him. The power takes an unusually flamboyant form, but it's only a result of the more than mortal processing speed of his brain and in-built computer working in tandem. Everyone has the ability to forecast the future to a limited degree, they simply don't realise they do. One grey Jane-shape darkens, the one showing her stepping out of his personal space. Typical English hyper standoffishness. Fine, he'll not do anything about that. It's not as if they haven't known each other for more than fourteen years. He once put his ear to her mother's belly while she was carrying Jane, but still she is afraid of him?
He lets her step out of his space then dives into liminal time and his own deeply held grievances, the world freezing, a frosty burst of sweet girly breath floating towards him like a glorious white balloon. Ah, no one throws him surprise birthday parties. They no longer even speak as if he has an age and a birthday. But he emerged from the womb, same as everyone else, on the first of October, fifty-five years ago. It doesn't matter that fifty-five years sounds and looks like twenty-five, it should be marked down. His AI rolls its 'eyes' in the background. Anyway, vital signs, below optimal, although Jane is wearing one of his many gifts, a sable coat, the silvery fur reaching to her thick ankles. She's physically okay so he indulges himself in her scent, taking a bath in it, telling himself he's interested in it because it provides clues to her health. At fourteen she's become an adult, although to him, who was not raised in either the chojin (or mediaeval) world, this is still strange to think about and of course he cannot tolerate the sight or smell of a teenage girl, the worst type of creature in the known universe. No, he's the uncreepy sort of sadistic serial killer. Everyone knows this.
Jane is frozen in a shadowy half blink while he writes mental essays on himself. A truly superhuman woman, she has grown to be a typical representative of her dwindling kind, far taller than human women at (soon to be) seven foot five, a voluptuous hourglass, as soft as chojin men are hard. Her greatest and only ambition, apart from the mission that has sent her to the streets, is to marry an elite chojin man with a strong faith, strong fathering abilities and no less than kosher tendencies, with whom she can have at least thirty children and for whom she can keep house. She should be married already but her lucky fiance is a typical modern man, meaning that he is too busy playing marbles with the other boys to walk her up the altar and settle down to the hard work of procreation.
She looks down at her 'uncle', literally, his eyes narrowing in response, regret and jealousy and frustration pervading every not quite human cell. He should have kept her small. But instead the fluffy little fox has turned into a gangly maned wolf. Ordinarily, unhappy feelings are expressed through his fists, but here they sharpen his usually harmless vocal synthesiser, and like the weirdest Bond Girl ever he rises out of the dangerous waters where time borders eternity.
Jane blinks and smiles a small smile, her eyes gentle and kind, but sad. Without mind reading abilities there is no telling what the block of onyx that's landed beside her will do from one moment to the next. Not that it matters, she couldn't fight off an ordinary chojin man, let alone Warsman. Afraid that he might have his feelings hurt by her evasion, she steps forward, over a puddle, her clothing swishing, stray hair lifted by a breeze, neon light failing to reflect properly off her mask, failing to light up her face or even cast proper shadows. The long, yellow, high waisted dress she wears is spangled with pale pink sunflowers, the giant plants looking like they want to escape their fabric prison and devour the viewer, black maws ringed with thick conical teeth. Earth type sunflowers don't consume chickens, so they have no place on Warsman's list. Holding a present wrapped in pretty pink paper, he thrusts it at her without saying anything. Jane takes it, slipping it into her unicorn satchel with practised ease. Present successfully given, present duly received...profit?
"Thanks, but please, Uncle Warsie, I'm going to have a heart attack if you keep jumping off of roofs." Lighting a pink cigarette with hands each bearing another pink Midnight Oil sunflower, this time made of ink, she takes a deep drag, blowing smoke out of the side of a cherry red mouth, nails as long and pointed as talons and even blacker than Warsman's skin, as well as shiny, clicking against each other. These things and other evidence of her no longer being a tiny tot pushes his patience dial backwards, into the negative. A pair of barely dressed girls scarcely any older than Jane turn the corner on spindly heels, squealing raucously. The instant they spot a red eyed gargoyle in the shadows they shriek and back out, dropping reheated steak pie on the already squalid ground. Warsman, at this point, cannot be said to possess any patience whatsoever. "I do not 'jump', I step or at most, leap. You can't be wandering around by yourself, Lady Jane. I am fed up with it and this will be de last night it will be occurring. Have you never heard of trafficking?"
Smirking, Jane cocks a hip, jetting smoke from her lips so that she vaguely resembles a very wonky teapot. "There aren't any slavers on Earth, you boys keep them away. And I can be wandering around, I'm all grown up now, it says so in our charters." Her great height might have something to do with her foolishly free and easy attitude towards her 'uncle' since from her point of view he is a very scary but very dinky toy, one of her figurines come to life. Its not rock, paper, scissors. It's height, beauty, money. Knowing he fails in all three stats when compared to The Clan, Warsman considered lengthening his limbs but there's nothing less attractive to a woman than a man trying to get her attention…and the mockery, oh the mockery! And then there's the paperwork.
While shaking his head at the thought of paperwork and other horrors, Warsman steps into Jane's personal space, manually turning off the physical discomfort associated with doing so. For atmosphere he pops some lights and lightly freezes the immediate area but she's already cold so on second thought he confines himself to making the neon sign of the bar opposite them flicker. "Da, silly girl. I dispatched group three streets back. They had unconscious females in their van, en-route to de slave markets in dark space. Do you want to be a dMp chief's broodmare? Because that would be your fate if they caught you. You think you're strong because you walk around on stilts now? You will fold like wet paper before a human with a gun, and your father and I will not be able to save you."
Already pale skin blanches further and the trickle of denial becomes a flash flood, combining poorly with Jane's dream world where everything will turn out the way she wants. She steps back, tossing her cigarette away. "Liar, you're a big fat liar, you're just saying that to scare me. Did my mother put you up to this?"
The scuba diver in Warsman's chest suffers a fit. "Say that again, girl." An evil voice slithering out of a robotic face as a low, metallic hiss would cow many other girls but Jane's a Robin on a mission, she's not afraid of worms or spiders or snails, or the family retainer. "Liar, you're saying that to sca-" she doesn't see him move but four wicked claws manifest an inch before her face, each shiny blade a sticky, smelly scarlet, blood and gore oozing down onto his clenched fingers. Leaping backwards and hitting a weeping brick wall covered in grey moss, she checks for murder, her hands fluttering over herself, making sure that blood didn't come from her, her beautiful face a silent banshee mask.
Immediately after the burst of intense, prurient pleasure generated by hurting someone, comes shame and shame calls forth rage, which creates the urge to do harm and feast on pain. The only way to end the cycle is to stop the death train before it comes off the rails and Warsman retracts his claws, clamping his hands to his head, striving to think of something else, anything else but the fiery river of blood whooshing between his ears. Why did he do that? The terror in her eyes is him. Why did he do that? A villainous headache threatens.
"I'm s-sorry I called you a liar, Uncle. I was being stupid. Thanks ever so much for looking out for me." Jane says, utilising a little known life hack.
It works, catastrophic breathing calms, the headache retreats, Warsman returning to being just generally annoyed with her. Though mollified for the former insult, he tosses his head, quickly searching out another reason why there can't be peace between pretty girls and ugly boys. "Don't call me that. I am not your uncle, I am not related to you in any way, I am not married to your aunt."
While opening her mouth to protest, Jane's attention is diverted by a group of young men trying their best to look badass as they swagger along the pavement, each one sporting the same buzz cut, indescribable shirt and tight jean pant combo, none matching her imaginary description of Kevin. She gapes at them from the depths of the alley, carp-like and worrisome. He'd never take off his helmet in public, he'd be much taller, he'd be cool. Remembering the wrathful grizzly bear a foot away from her when it begins again to huff and puff, she tries to get out of this nonsense. "I'm sorry, Father told me to call you that, I thought it was respectful."
"He wouldn't have told you to call me 'Warsie'." Actually, maybe he would've. Robin's little joke. That man, butter wouldn't melt, and yet.
"No, that was-" a wave of despair wells up from the organ only Jane seems to have, a watery, diseased organ that often cuts off her speech by threatening to make her cry. Endangered by the convulsions her face is going through, Warsman looks aside. What a disaster. There's nothing between them for almost half a minute, car alarms, ape-like screeching and incoherent music, the soundtrack of their mutilated lives. Soon Jane gets it together, break over. "Hey, I still have places to check. Thanks for the pressie…bye."
Snapping his head around in a way that is simultaneously too jerky and too smooth, Warsman obstructs the exit and the light. "Nyet. I told you, I am fed up with this. You are going home and staying there."
"I have to find Kev."
"You will not. You think you can find him by ineffectively searching one city on one planet for a couple nights a week? We have looked, he is not here and you will not be de one to find him. Instead you will go missing and your mother will have lost two children out of three."
The hurt of his words rolls past but is not felt the less for it. Jane lifts her gaze up from her feet, the steel of the mask arcing across her forehead giving her eyes a hard edge. "I don't really know if you guys looked, since you were lying all that time about him training, but I'll ask Jamie if you did. Jamie knows all your secrets." She smiles the grim smile of a besieged person who will never open the castle gates. "You pointed out that you're not my uncle and not related to me, so you can't tell me what to do. You're just a rather weird family friend who sometimes hangs out reluctantly at ours but who never invites us over to yours, and who gets super mad about random crap for no reason but go on, call my father and see if he cares about me searching for Kev. See if he even answers. You're hopping around here on your own time."
"He always answers me, girl."
"So call, man." Annoyed now herself, Jane sticks out her tongue, just the tip but that does not lessens the insubordinate defiance conveyed. If anything it makes Warsman's agony worse for being adorable. The scuba diver slams full speed into the cave wall and then dances around manically as if he's a puppet on strings held by a mad man. That's it! No more play-play! Too much Nice Guy! One of the novelty joke layers of Warsman's vision engages accidentally and transforms the adored and hated giantess into an infuriating potato with googly eyes.
After tossing her over his shoulder in the required manner, he leaps into the air, not stopping to rectify his eye problems.
After a short flight the superhero most terminally tinged with villainy touches down on the bluey-green copper roof of Robin House, before hopping down into the garden guarded jealously in the centre, setting to flight an amorous maid-footman pair. Stalking through oversized glass doors, Warsman, a poor doll, enters a brilliant doll's house, perfectly kept, ceilings, furniture, windows, doors so large that he is comfortable while the human servants are made to look like dwarves. From her upside down position, Jane looks curiously upon a 'Robinesque' sofa she can't remember seeing before, sitting in a corner between two gold boar statues, it's reinforced frame disguised by bold wrought iron scrollwork, it's seats made of the heavily textured and jewel bright leather of a sonata jellyfish, the wall behind it tiled blue in the shape of a peacock's fan. Most of the furniture is hundreds of years old but it's difficult to tell, so little has the style changed. Her captor stomps up numerous flights of marble stairs, no one attempting to stop him to inquire why he is carrying the lady of the house in such a demeaning fashion, and eventually he comes to a corridor like a storage room, grandfather clocks and suits of armour, both taller than him, standing around as if they had been dawdling about, waiting until he turned the crimson corner. Three shiny steel shells of men obscure Jane's yellow and pink rococo door, Warsman looking upon them as robots or rivals but heroically refraining from inflicting undue property damage. So pissed off is he that he can't bear to touch Jane in setting her down, besides, he can already hear the mockery from Kinnikuman at the next eight hour League meeting: 'You touching a woman? Nooooo! Aren't there, ya know, curvy robot chicks out there for you? I definitely saw some last time I was strolling around Shibuya.' His stupid lecherous grin making Warsman turn his eyes off. Terryman will put down the muffins for five seconds and attempt to be the voice of reason in the absence of Meat. 'Suguru's right, pardner. You gotta be careful not ta risk babies and all that good stuff. Humanity is a biological only herd.' He doesn't deserve a response and doesn't get one from Warsman but surprisingly it's actually Brocken who slaps down the eugenics talk, turning his glass of schnapps contemplatively, not wearing in private so much of his hangdog public face. 'Robo-chojin or not, you can't ban him from being a father if he's capable of siring a child. Down zat dark path is…" He shakes his head, reaching up to pull his cap down, hunching into his great coat.
Back to what he's currently doing. On her own Jane slips off his shoulder to her feet. She's supposed to stand but instead collapses to her knees, cut down by fright and clumsiness and cold. Somewhere along the way the new generation of chojin have not been taught to fly, along with the other things that they've not been taught and she thought she'd be dropped during the trip. Incredibly long limbed, she flails about like an upturned spider before hauling herself up with the help of a suit of armour. The butler at the other end of the infinite corridor decides now is the time to go for smokes. Girls more blessed than her would feel hurt by this lack of assistance but to Jane it's normal not to receive help so when she makes it to her feet she doesn't rebuke Warsman in word, thought or deed.
Tilting his chin up, which is an extreme indulgence in gesture, Warsman's synthesised voice gives away its artificiality. "This will be the last time I try and ward off a tragic fate from you, Lady Jane. I have things to do, I am not being paid to be your bodyguard as you are being attempting to get captured in some sort of trite, riches to rags story. You will find being a pirate's wife to be a fate worse than death. They have no respect or love for women, using them only to refresh their numbers and to take out their frustration, and you are wery frustrating."
It's very easy to miss the lowered tone and implications of that last bit, especially if you're fourteen so Jane rolls up her lips and smooshes them together. Funny that even he, Mr Brutal himself, is dancing around the topic when she has to live with the threat daily. "You can say the word, I'm a big girl. It's rape and being beaten that you're trying to warn me about."
That horrible word on her delicate tongue and in his powerful imagination sends his core temperature ping ponging and Warsman hisses, eyes flashing, their light drenching the pair the silver suits of armour standing on either side of Jane. "Nyet, you do not but you will if you keep behaving like a podonok." He very helpfully translates for the non-Slavs. "I called you a stupid person, de worst, a butt monkey, of de Kinnikuman type." Since calling people names is common practice in her family, Jane only smiles.
The next morning, a damp and misty one, she skips to breakfast down in the 'family' breakfast room, a room as long and vast and cold as the ordinary breakfast rooms, arriving just ahead of her brother. Sporting a wide grin on his ruddy face, he attempts to run her over with his heavy duty wheelchair, the RGB ringing the rims of its wheels flashing blue, the rook piece in the centre shifting between white and black. Like his twin he's undergone a growth spurt, not quite as shocking but still ongoing, and like his twin he's suffered damage. "Looks like you've been up all night partying, unlike me, the goodest of good boys. You're all pale and minging."
Sticking her tongue out to it's fullest extent, Jane sits down at the immense oak rectangle called a table, to scrambled eggs, bacon, bagels and all kinds of wonderful things, a narrow dart of gauzy light dodging in through a window, bringing a bit of life to her cheeks. "Don't be mean, I only got a few hours sleep and I feel like a bag of crushed bone."
"Eurgh!" James makes a face, parking to her right, shoving a misplaced chair out of the way. "How macabre. I'm guessing you met Grendel while dodging drunkards? I can always tell because some of his creepiness rubs off on you."
Humming the theme tune of her favourite cartoon extra loudly, Jane carefully slices up her fluffy eggs, trying not to destroy the plate and table underneath. Her brother's eyelids lower, one side of his mouth scrunching up, the other side turning down, blood draining from his face. He has been told often enough that his weird sister is an adult while he remains a child and so she might very well be up to the adult things discussed constantly by his more annoying schoolmates. Sometimes he wishes his brain would stop making intuitive leaps into the dark because it must be so peaceful to be stupid and ignorant. "Jay, be honest, do you have what Grandfather calls 'an understanding' with the Big Apple? Are you dating him? I won't tell, promise, even though that would literally be the worst thing in the world." James grimaces at his own words, groaning as a frightened squeak escapes his twin, her cheeks hot pink daubs of paint on an ashy canvas. Her brother lets out a long breath, making his fried egg ripple. "You're not? Thank God because the thought makes me want to off myself."
It takes a lot for Jane to winch her jaw back into place, teeth slamming into teeth with a loud clack, and she ends up looking like she's about to cry. He hopes she does because she hasn't for years and he's afraid something has broken inside her. "Jamie, how could you think such a terrible thing?"
He taps his temple, his meaty forearm straining at his dragon patterned pyjamas. "Basic reason, Jay. If it was me out there choking on party people BO, he would still be off-world, defending the rights of multi-gazillion pound corporations, or fighting alien gods, or whinging about the same old shit, or whatever it is he does all day…but he's not is he? he's creeping around London and Dad says he hates cities, parties and people. Get it?" He winks, so much and so fast that he appears to be suffering an episode.
Jane watches a bit of egg yolk wobble on the end of her fork, imagining it's a yellow cloud. "I don't get it."
"Now you're just lying. Listen, I don't want you to marry Crazy Eddy but there's worse choices. Steve Jobs in a Halloween Costume is one of them." The twins take a moment to snort and giggle over that image before Jane begins playing a unicorn farming game on her phone. "I don't want to speak about any of that. You hate him, I get it. Everyone gets it. Mr Warsman gets it. The man on the moon gets it. Kev, wherever he is, gets it. We all get it."
"Now you're making me sound irrational. I hate him cause he's a douche. A douche I've seen you flirting with."
"Untrue!" The blue fire of Jane's eyes sizzles, a growl rising in her throat. Snatching his fork, she stabs his last fried egg with it, spilling the yolk. This desecration will not stand and James punches her arm as hard as he can and for a while shrieks and yells drown out the classical music that is mandatory in every room, the footman designated to serve the twins suppressing a yawn, blinking sleepily.
A chojin versus human fight cannot last long and they soon return to eating. "Nothing's going on. I don't like him like that and remember what Father says-" she unconsciously does a Robin Mask imitation, developing a pitch perfect accent, as well as raising a teacherly finger. "Warsman thinks all women are his mother and as he's more machine than he admits, there will be no brats emerging from his tragic loins."
Reddening further than is his default so that he looks badly unwell, James suffers since these days he really doesn't enjoy snorting or rolling his eyes at any statement made by his father. He won't even admit to himself that the man is capable of uttering a slightly foolish or less than savoury word and the best he can do when paternal ignorance, shit talk or dumbassery strikes is either to write it off as whiskey talk, or to let whatever profound verse from the Book of Robin is quoted float through his head, exiting out the further ear as white noise. "You're obtuse on purpose because you don't want to look the truth in the face. I understand, Jay. I get it, I'd be freaked out too if I were you and I had that guy leaving off reciting villian monologues to the victims in his cellar, in order to come and stare at the back of my head, breathe heavily on my shower curtain, and spy on me with his supercool GPS mafia phone that shoots laser beams and blows up."
The footman layers more egg and sausages onto their plates, a housemaid entering with coffee and tea, both servants ignored by the siblings, as they've been taught is proper. Acknowleding the help only embarrasses them and causes their opinion of oneself to irreversibly lower. "You're so dramatic, Jamie. I don't know if he tolerates water and besides, he hates me. Yesterday he called me a monkey butt. I've been demoted to Kinnikuman and I don't know why."
Turning aside to 'cough', James laughs silently into his fist, his eyes squeezed shut and overflowing with tears. The maid allows herself a small smile at the footman. Once in control of himself, Serious Face back in place, James returns to telling his sister off. "Well, that's good, he does detest King Muscle rather hilariously for some reason, but you must've misheard, Dad said Russian swearing contains far worse things than 'monkey butt'. I looked it up and yeah, butt monkey is basically a term of endearment. And hey, he'd better freaking 'tolerate water', Jay. He'd better freaking know what a bloody bath is! Didn't he swim across the world once? He's not that badly built of a tin man."
"Yeah he did, but I think that was for a joke."
After breakfast Jane dodges into her room, slapping a hastily done piece of homework onto an elaborate four poster on which a regulation backpack sits beside a pyramid of lovingly sewn soft toys, each one having eyes of red glass. An ivory unicorn (named Doris) prances across a black oak headboard, a twenty-four karat crown encircling its neck, its single eye made of ruby. The canopy of the bed is a tapestry of paradise, the massive spiral posts of the bed carved with flowers, rubbed lightly with gold leaf. The bed once belonged to a queen of 'Planet Robin', then it came into Jane's mother's hands, and now it's been relegated here, where Robin is unlikely to be offended by it.
Picking up the present of last night, a pretty vintage book depicting all the different types of sunflowers, she places it on her burgeoning bookshelf among copies of Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, Peter Rabbit, Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh, various fairy and flower books, books of baby's happy faces, books about cute animals and the only books ever given by her family: conduct books. Hair as much loose as it is braided cuts through centrally heated air when she skips over to a monstrous Elizabethan wardrobe, little men watching her getting changed, statuettes, figurines of her favourite chojin standing on every available surface. Once done she sits down at her rose gold desk and looks through the GoPro footage captured last night, skipping past the bit where she lurches into the air, searching for something she may have missed with her eyes, a goody two shoes in a royal blue helmet. Inevitably her mind starts slipping backwards to the last time she saw her big brother.
The bells of Big Ben are tolling, it's an exceptionally gloomy day, fog owns the streets, giving the impression of the rest of the world having been torn away, the house plunged into a grey void. At six years old Jane's main hobby is putting jam hands all over any animal or animal adjacent object within reach. She receives schooling from a governess but it can't be said that she knows much beyond what everything in the zoo is called. The ground floor is not the place for her but her father is busy training and Miss Emily is gossiping with Cook, but lo and behold, perfect Kevin sidles through the doorway closest to her and the gold lion cub she's hugging. He's dressed in one of his two outfits, workout gear the exact shade of mist, the fastest way to be run over while jogging. It would probably be safer if he wore his home schooling uniform but one does not question these things. She assumes he's going for his three o' clock run, the shifty way his uncanny eyes dart around raising no alarms in the child's mind. Her big brother has been becoming increasingly jumpy as the years go by, not that she has much experience with him, being as he's generally shut up in another wing of the house, subject to special meals and special treatment.
Kevin turns his cat yellow gaze on her. "Psst, Sis, come here." his rather high pitched, nasally voice cuts through the muted atmosphere. No gesture accompanies his words, he's always strangely stiff, like he's made of concrete that's just set. In general he's very odd, wildly affectionate in huge violent bursts, brooding at other times, not much like other Robin men yet much loved by the twins.
Bouncing over, Jane hops onto his feet, clad in clown sized Adidas trainers. The size of his feet gives Robin hope that his heir will outsize him soon. "Hullo Kevvy, want to play a game?" It's a good day because he picks her up, careful of his rather spiky helmet. "No, yes, listen here, find James and go ask Daddy to explain the rules of the 20th Olympics."
"Why?"
"Never you mind why. It'll be fun. Don't tell Daddy I told you to ask, okay? It's important." Kevin looks restlessly out of the windows at the enveloping white before putting his sister down and mussing her hair.
"Uh, okay Kevvy. I'll ask." she scampers away, leaving her brother all alone in the trophy room.