[color=deeppink] ͬ̄͆̈́́ͤ ̛ͦ̓̚ ͌̋̈́̓͊͡ ̏̿̅ͦ ͆͐̑ͦ͂ ̈́́̌ ̆͐͋̇͆́ ͣ̈̾̾̐ͬ͜ ͦͩ́ ̉ͣ̔́͒͠ ̎ͭ̏̑͒ ̉̎͠ ̴̓͋̒̽̈́ ͊̐͑ͮ͌ ͧ̉ ͥͧ͆̆ͦ͛ ̔͑ͨͨ͒ ͬ͂ͧ̅͛ ͧ͜ ͮ̈́͒̐͌ͫ ͂ͥ ̧̏ ̿̓͑̔̽͞ ͮ̆́̀ ̓͒̉̚ ̀̓̍͑͑ ͑ͪ̊͋͆͂̈́ [/color] [hider=M͘E̛͟A̶N͏̨W̴̨H͝I͢͟͡LE] [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/JsoyXoT.png[/img][/center] [indent][i]"--joyrider who crashed an out-of-service metro bus into the bay has still yet to be identified--"[/i][/indent] Mike Jones, aka Killa Deth, lounged on an orange plastic wall-seat as the television chattered in one corner of the [i]Donutcahedron,[/i] tapping out a rhythm on his enormous thighs. The warm air of the store smelt distractingly of batter, sugar and mouth-watering deliciousness, and if there was a better way to start the day in this town, he hadn't found it and hoped he never did. [indent][i]"--downtown riots believed to be caused by panic due to the developing metahuman crisis--"[/i][/indent] Carrie Crowley, the forty-something proprietor, heaved a wide cardboard box onto the counter, its base already beginning to turn damp. "Here ya go, hun! Two dozen extra-hots." [color=lightblue]"Mm-MMM, smells good!"[/color] He stood, stooping slightly to keep his head from hitting the roof, and lumbered over, taking the box under one huge brown arm and slapping a bill down on the counter. [color=lightblue]"Thanks, Carrie."[/color] [indent][i]"Well, Shelly, I think it should be pretty clear to everyone that these domes are a false flag operation designed to draw attention away from the actions of the global Illuminati--"[/i][/indent] "You betcha. Hell, I'll give ya the cop discount, too." She dinged the register. [color=lightblue]"Uhhhh...."[/color] Deth rubbed the back of his neck, [color=lightblue]"...Yo, you know we all bad guys, right?"[/color] "Sweetie, last week there was a guy in the next district callin' himself the Texas Battlesnake [i]literally[/i] tryin' to drop Agent Orange on Mexico. You and your pals rippin' off a bunch of Wall Street parasites and spendin' the money on donuts just doesn't come close. Now g'wan and get outta here, you're blockin' up the entrance." [hr] "Heyyy Killa Deth!" A couple of local kids boarded the swaying, rattling subway train, heading his way and throwing high fives as the doors closed. "[i]Villinus[/i], man!" [color=lightblue]"Hey little brothers. You keepin' in school?"[/color] He pointed with both hands, giving them an exaggerated, interrogative look from under his brow. They chorused in the affirmative. [color=lightblue]"That's [i]good.[/i] I know it sucks, yeah? But you gotta learn. The more you know, the less ways the Man got of lyin' to you and keepin' you down."[/color] "Just pile-drive him like you did t' Manifest Density." One of the kids piped up. Jones shook his head, chomping down on a donut directly beneath the [i]No Consumption Of Food Onboard This Train[/i] sign. [color=lightblue]"Man, violence ain't th' answer to nothin',"[/color] he said between chews, [color=lightblue]"That's just what you do when you got no options left."[/color] "You cleaned out that Gene place, tho?" [color=lightblue]"Yo, those guys were experimentin' on puppies and shit. I got [i]no[/i] regrets over trashin' that place. Gave that money to a animal rights group, too."[/color] He licked sugar off his fingers, nodding firmly. "Like, PETA?" [color=lightblue]"Hell no not like PETA! A [i]real[/i] one."[/color] "But you beat up th' Anchorman, right?" asked another. "Davey was tellin' us about it." [color=lightblue]"Well he didn't leave me no damn choice. Fool was bustin' up one little demo got a little hot, and starts disrespectin' women. In [i]my[/i] neighbourhood. I ain't havin' that! So yeah, I called him out and then I kicked his dumb ass til he manned up and said he was sorry. You remember that, little brothers,"[/color] He frisbee'd them a donut each, heaving himself up as the carriage slowed to a halt, stooping slightly to avoid banging his head on the roof. [color=lightblue]"Bein' badass ain't about pushin' folks around or gettin' rich. Bein' badass is about stayin' real and stayin' true, no matter how hard it gets, or how many damn cops get in your damn way."[/color] [hr] There were several cops in his way. They were arrayed all along the street as he emerged from the subway station, lined up behind a low wall of plastic barriers and parked squad cars, blue and red lights flashing noiselessly. The foremost raised his hand, the other already hovering over his gun. "That's far enough." [color=lightblue]"Man are you for real?"[/color] "I mean it, Deth! Step back from the barrier or we'll be forced to, ah..." The cop had the decency to look uncertain. One of the other officers shrugged at him, helplessly. [color=lightblue]"Get outta my face, Johnny Law! What, you gonna arrest a brother just for headin on to work, now?"[/color] "Lucky for, ah... [i]you,[/i] we're not after you today, Deth." The cop rubbed the back of his neck, "Whole district's cordoned off, can't let you through." [color=lightblue]"And why the hell not?"[/color] "Ah, some kinda disturbance before sunup, commuters and night workers rioting over something, they hadda bring the water cannons out." [color=lightblue]"Folks shook up over this meta thing, yeah?"[/color] "Might be. Ahh, not supposed to talk about it, but they're not ruling out some kind of chemical agent. Terror attack, maybe." He sighed, deflating. "...Look, they don't pay me enough to take on guys like you and the department's overworked as it is. If you're set on going through, I can't stop you, but for your own sake, watch your step. If you get dizzy, if you start to feel abnormal in any way, get back behind the line as soon as possible. And [i]try[/i] not to bust anything else, okay? My ulcer's killing me." [hr] A few helicopters roared overhead, circling. Jones gave them the finger, chewing with his cheeks stuffed full. City was turning into a god damn police state. Past the barricade, the street was mostly deserted. Some broken windows, a few smashed shop fronts. Smoke still trailed from a burnt-out cab that had been flipped onto the sidewalk, but as riots went, this one looked pretty tame. The weird part was that everywhere, brick and glass seemed to have been defaced with psychedelic, nonsensical swirls of graffiti. Some of it even looked like kid's drawings. Hell, the middle of the street was covered by a gigantic pink mural of a grinning cat. Least it gave the place some color. The sparse, withered trees that lined the sidewalk grew thicker as he got closer to The Rabbit Hole bar, mingling with the wire fences and rusting street signs, casting deep shadows over cracked concrete. It was getting colder, too. Shallow drifts of snow were heaped in the gutters and stairwells, and there was this [i]tune[/i] in his head, old and distantly familiar. It was getting maddeningly harder to think about anything else. Right as the thicket was getting too dense to negotiate, he saw the neon sign, its lights currently dark, its arrow pointing down and twined with the dim frames for the animated rabbit. That had been Black Rabbit's gimmick, of course, back when she was running the show. Jones started down the stairs into the alcove, licking powdered sugar off his fingers, humming that goddamned tune to himself, and that's when he saw it. [color=lightblue]"Aw-- [i]maaan![/i]"[/color] The bar's lock had been broken open. The door creaked faintly on its hinges, showing only a thin crack of darkness behind. And there it was again -- the random colors, and a weird-ass gang sign, like a crude archway formed of horizontal lines, the word BABE sprayed across the width of the door, followed by the letter L underneath it [color=lightblue]"Buncha damn animals in this town,"[/color] Deth mumbled in an affronted tone, cradling his box under one arm. [color=lightblue]"...When I find out who Babe L is, he better watch the hell out."[/color] He shouldered open the door, [color=lightblue]"I'm gonna bust a track and roast his ass but good..."[/color] He stopped dead. The donuts fell to the ground. [color=lightblue]"Aww hell,"[/color] he whispered in a hoarse voice. [color=lightblue]"Aww hell, no, I always cry at this part..."[/color] The bar opened into a clearing, the dark, cold forest framing an old, familiar scene, one he had long ago forgotten but which now flooded back in a torrent of raw anguish. Bambi's mother, laid out in the snow, silent and unmoving. And Bambi slumped next to her, weeping softly, now hopeless and alone in a bleak, uncaring world. The moment had unmade him when he was a boy, like it had unmade him when his uncle had taken him and his half-brothers on that first and last hunting trip. The terrible weight of the senseless, tragic loss overcame him. [color=lightblue]"They killed her, man,"[/color] he choked, [color=lightblue]"Just straight up killed her, in front of her little boy."[/color] Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, a reservoir of fresh childhood grief gushing to the surface. [color=lightblue]"That ain't right. It ain't [i]right.[/i]"[/color] The music distorted, becoming off-speed, as though playing through a broken gramaphone. The scene melted and subtly changed, warping nightmarishly from Walt Disney to H.R. Giger. The trees grew ribbed and cadaverous. The doe's corpse now lay steaming and bloody, her beautiful head half-shattered by buckshot, her ribs exposed, her kindly eyes bulging and red, and Bambi was no longer sniffling weakly at his mother's side, but throwing his head back and screaming, and [i]screaming,[/i] and [i][b]screaming.[/b][/i] The noise rang like a colossal bell, boring into Michael's skull like an industrial drill. He cried out and staggered, falling to his hands and knees in the snow. [color=lightblue]"Jesus! Stop!"[/color] Panic strained at his voice. The noise was maddening. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. [color=lightblue]"I'm sorry, okay? [i]I'm sorry![/i]"[/color] The corpse of Bambi's mother lifted its ruined head a few inches, flopping weakly as though tugged up by invisible strings, its tongue lolling from the side of its exposed jaw. Something slithered from its torn nose in cold gobbets of blood. [color=deeppink]"Michael."[/color] it rasped. Something dark and foul dripped from its single, sightless eye. The musician blanched, flinching in raw horror. [color=lightblue]"Oh god, no!"[/color] he shouted. [color=deeppink]"Michael, I need you to listen to me carefully." [/color] [color=lightblue]"Oh [i]Christ[/i]."[/color] His stomach heaved and he retched, his last three donuts gurgling from his lips and staining the snow a sick yellow-brown. [color=deeppink]"Michael, I am actually in a whole lot of pain here, so if you could just stop acting like a retard idiot for once in your goddamn life that would just be swell. Do you see the teapot to your left?"[/color] [color=lightblue]"I know, I know they hurt you, I was just a kid--"[/color] [color=deeppink]"[i]Do you see the teapot, Michael?[/i]"[/color] He saw it, through the blurred flood of hopeless tears. A piece of bright pink plastic, a child's toy, fallen to one side. [color=lightblue]"Yeah. Yeah, I see it."[/color] He wiped vomit from his lips and clawed at his face, his hands shaking. The fawn was shrieking like a gale force wind now, quivering in grief, the noise lashing at his sanity like a rowboat in a typhoon. [color=lightblue]"--God please make him stop I didn't do it I couldn't stop it I don't know how to make it--"[/color] [color=deeppink]"--Michael, if I get the teapot, I can make it stop. I need you to pick up the teapot and bring it to me. Can you do that for me, Michael?" [/color] The doe's sightless eye stared at him through a film of blood, its jaw crackling unnaturally every time it spoke. Jones stared at it, gasping, sobbing wordlessly like a lost child. [color=deeppink]"MICHAEL PICK UP THE F***ING TEAPOT!"[/color] The baby deer shrieked in unison with its dead mother, unsettling the snow, shaking the trees to their withered crowns. A chorus of lost lambs and wailing children bleated plaintively in response from the hidden depths of the wood and Jones screamed in anguish, clutching at his head and scrambling to his feet. [color=lightblue]"Alright ALRIGHT! I got it! I'm doin' it!"[/color] He stumbled through the bitter snowdrift, seizing the plastic container and limping back toward the talking carcass, turning his head away and covering his eyes in revulsion and pity. He set it down at arm's length and retreated, falling, scrambling away from the morbid scene on his backside until his spine met the cold wood of the twisted forest and he could go no further. He shrank down on the ice, hugging himself and rocking back and forth. [color=lightblue]"Hell is wrong with us?"[/color] he wept, brokenly, tears streaming down his cheeks, [color=lightblue]"Why we gotta do this to ourselves?"[/color] He started sobbing like a child, heaving down lungfuls of air as the murdered doe tried feebly to drag the teapot to her shattered jaw with her broken leg, her son's screaming growing unbearably louder, splitting open his mind. [color=lightblue]"Why can't people just eat beans and shit?"[/color] he babbled, through the film of tears, [color=lightblue]"They taste good. They got protein. We don't gotta hurt nobody."[/color] He collapsed, shaking, crying helplessly, [color=lightblue]"We don't gotta kill nobody..."[/color] The dead doe swallowed, hideously, making a strangled gagging sound in its throat, and finally lay still. And when it seemed the appalling din could be borne not one moment longer, Bambi's unbearable screaming at last began to subside, becoming a keening, then a wailing, then a gentle, snuffling sob. The little fawn laid piteously down in the snow beside its mother as the trees faded into the dark shadows of the unlit bar, and little by little the ice began to melt, disappearing, leaving only dank wooden floorboards and a thin puddle of vomit. Michael's hysterical misery began to recede. He took deep, hard breaths, heart still pounding a million miles a hour, wiping his eyes on his shirt and his nose on a discarded paper napkin, mopping his sweat-streaked brow. What the hell had come over him? It wasn't real. It was a story. Just a fairy tale. He was a grown-ass man, for god's sake. [color=lightblue]"Ho... Haah.... Holy jeez..." [/color] The shaking stopped. His vision slowly cleared. Where Bambi's mother had lain rotting in the snow, a scrawny, unpleasantly familiar punk girl in a pink catsuit and a pair of glossy black stripper boots now draped herself face-down over a sticky public-room couch. She was pale, damp and breathing weakly, and she looked as though she had the mother of all hangovers. Little pieces of the scene continued to warp and flicker, subtly, at the corners of his vision. But even in the day-glo getup, even after all this time, he recognized her immediately. [color=deeppink]"[i]Hi.[/i]"[/color] she said, in a dry whisper heavy with sarcasm. [color=lightblue]"Aw, no. No, no way,"[/color] he held up his hands, dragging himself unsteadily to his feet and struggling to reassert himself, [color=lightblue]"I don't need your kind of trouble, girl!"[/color] [color=deeppink]"Well that makes two of us, asshole, [i]thanks so much for the warm welcome.[/i]"[/color] [color=lightblue]"Screw yourself, Lewis!"[/color] He scrubbed at his eyes furiously, stepping around the acrid puddle that had been his brunch, [color=lightblue]"You show up outta nowhere in some porn-ass clown suit, bust up my door and drop a mindfuck on me and think shit's all cool?"[/color] He lifted the plastic bottle of nupharamine, shaking it in her face, [color=lightblue]"Oh, and you off the horse and back to the pills, is that what this is?"[/color] [color=deeppink]"HEY!"[/color] Babel snatched the bottle out of his hand, smacking him across the knuckles on the backswing. [color=deeppink]"You don't know ANYTHING. You have NO IDEA what kind of night I've just had, Michael, so just shut the hell up and back the hell off!"[/color] [color=lightblue]"You ain't even screwin' Vallis no more, so I got [i]no[/i] reason to have to put up with your skinny white ass. And what the [i]hell[/i] did you just do to me, huh? Bambi?? You think that shit's funny? [/color] Caroline responded the only way she knew. She lashed out. [color=deeppink]"...Watching an ex-gang rapper cry over a cartoon animal? Actually, [i]yeah,[/i] that [i]was[/i] kind of funny, thanks for asking--"[/color] [color=lightblue]"--That was you, right? You terror gas me or some shit? There better not be no gas in my bar--"[/color] [color=deeppink]"--The only gas in this downstairs toilet is the hot air pouring out of your fat stupid face--"[/color] [color=lightblue]"--I got a reputation here--"[/color] [color=deeppink]"THERE'S NO FREAKING GAS IN YOUR FREAKING BAR, MICHAEL!"[/color] She half-stood and swung at him, pounding his enormous chest awkwardly with both fists. [color=deeppink]"IT'S ME. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? IT WAS ALL ME! MY SHITTY, MESSED-UP HEAD IS EVERYBODY'S PROBLEM, NOW! OKAY??"[/color] [color=lightblue]"Hell are you--"[/color] He swatted her hands away, tried to hold her gaze and failed as some crucial part of his brain spasmed. Being around her was like being around a migraine. His vision twitched and splintered until he was nearly blind, white noise tearing at his inner ear until he looked away, rubbing his eyes. [color=lightblue]"God damn girl, I can't even [i]look[/i] at you right, what the [i]hell?[/i]"[/color] Even with the medication, her willpower was cracking. The bar pulsed like a racing heart. Pink mice swarmed over the furniture, whispering a hundred different nursery rhymes in little girls' voices. [color=deeppink]"I don't. [i]Know,[/i] Michael, I'm sick, okay??"[/color] [color=lightblue]"You were [i]always[/i] sick, Lewis."[/color] He shoved her back onto the couch as gently as he could bring himself to. [color=deeppink]"You may not believe me, you fat, sanctimonious [i]prick,[/i] but I am doing my best here."[/color] Understanding dawned. He stepped back. [color=lightblue]"...You went meta."[/color] [color=deeppink]"Yeah. I went f***ing meta."[/color] [color=lightblue]"[i]Tell[/i] me you didn't get messed up by one o' them dome things."[/color] [color=deeppink]"No, it was..."[/color] she pressed her hand to her face, groping at the memory, [color=deeppink]"I don't... Some guys, like government or something. They did something, just... People, you know? I was kind of in this..."[/color] Her eyes slipped away, [color=deeppink]"...At a friend's house."[/color] [color=lightblue]"Uh-huh,"[/color] he said, not buying a second of it. [color=deeppink]"OKAY, fine, I was high as a frickin' kite, okay? Look, we got arrested, but they didn't... I don't know okay, there was a truck, I got like stun-gunned and it was like a secret lab or something, and I woke up on a table and now [i]this[/i] happens:"[/color] He reeled as his ears blared with the sound of every carnival on earth and the bar exploded into pink, nonsensical chaos. It lasted less than a second. He was still screaming when he came to. [color=lightblue]"DON'T..."[/color] he flailed, pointlessly, [color=lightblue]"Just [i]DON'T![/i]"[/color] [color=deeppink]"Yeah."[/color] she said, bitterly, subsiding wearily and letting her head and arm flop over the edge of the couch. [color=deeppink]"Yeah, so it turns out I'm a freak like the rest of you, now. Figured I'd come join your little idiot clubhouse and at least maybe get some kind of roof over my head."[/color] He gave her a look of avuncular disapproval. [color=lightblue]"That ain't nice."[/color] Babel threw up her hands. [color=deeppink]"Holy WOW do I not care about your feelings right now."[/color] Jones cursed, trying to force his eye to stop twitching. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly -- he hadn't been since he'd got near the bar, and being around whatever Lewis had turned into was pulling at his reason like taffy. But he couldn't help thinking back to the kids on the subway. The lab thing. Rich men with money doing any damn thing they wanted. His brass-knuckled hands ripping open white cages filled with tortured, vivisected animals. His heart breaking the whole time. He had never been that angry in his entire life. He was a criminal, sure. But that? That was pure evil. And even though he didn't want her within a hundred miles of his business, when he looked over the pale, malnourished girl hung over his couch, he couldn't help but see it all over again. [color=lightblue]"...They all just gotta keep makin' this meta business worse, don't they?"[/color] he said, his voice rough. [color=deeppink]"Yeah."[/color] she sniffed wearily, massaging her eyelids. [color=lightblue]"Messed with your brain but still left you a damn bitch, huh?"[/color] [color=deeppink]"Guess so."[/color] [color=lightblue]"Okay, listen... You ain't crashin' here. This ain't a hotel, I got a business to run. And even before you got all f***ed up you weren't exactly welcome."[/color] [color=deeppink]"Yyyyyeah."[/color] Her head flopped over to look at him, her black-smudged eyes flitting open, [color=deeppink]"That's why you're gonna let me use the trainyard."[/color] His face went blank in a flat admission of guilt. [color=lightblue]"...I don't know what you're talkin' about."[/color] [color=deeppink]"Oh, I think you do."[/color] He rubbed his mouth uneasily. [color=lightblue]"...Amstrad ain't gonna like that."[/color] Caroline explained, in detail, what the Professor could do with very specific portions of her anatomy. [color=lightblue]"...Naw."[/color] he hesitated, shook his head. [color=lightblue]"...Naw, look, Lewis... I feel you, yeah? You got a bad deal, and it ain't no secret we all birds of a feather round here. But [i]you[/i] got serious problems ain't gonna get solved just hangin' round a bar all day poppin' dope. 'stead of comin' here, you oughtta go find some actual friends."[/color] [color=deeppink]"I don't [i]have[/i] any [i]actual[/i] friends."[/color] [color=lightblue]"Yeah."[/color] He stepped over his own puke and recovered his fallen box of donuts, sulkily. [color=lightblue]"Wonder why [i]that[/i] is."[/color] Caroline bristled. [color=deeppink]"Do you want Bambi to come back, Michael?"[/color] [color=lightblue]"NO!"[/color] he shouted, panicked. [color=lightblue]"Damnit girl! The hell is wrong with you, huh?"[/color] The keychain jingled instantly in his free hand. [color=lightblue]"Hell can't you just be normal??"[/color] The girl made a thin, wheezing noise. And then she laughed helplessly, a weak, unhinged giggle on the brink of unreason and despair. [/hider] [color=deeppink] ̺̞̗̤̘̫͞ ͞ ̱̖̱͢ͅ ͙͇͇͟ ̮̣̘͔̺͕̬ ̟͔̜̺̀ ͎̠̞̠̀ ͕ ̨͎̰ ̗̲̯ͅͅ ̵̼̼̠̫͇ ͉̦̳͎͡ ̰̟ ̱̖͉͎͞ ̨̠͙͇̥ ̱ ̴̖̹͕̤͚ ͕̼̲̤ ̦͢ ̟̹̙̥͍͖̬ ͈͇ ͕͚̻͚͓̤̕ ̡̰ ̸͕̟͍͍̤ͅ ̣̠̗͈ ̥̻̘̠͜ͅ ̴ ́ ̞̤͈̳[/color]