[center] [sup][h1][center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019e955d-c7ac-71af-ab26-948b50548d89.webp[/img][/center][b][center][color=black] R O C K[/color] [color=green]R O C K[/color][/center] [/b][/h1][/sup] [center][b]Chapter One[/b][/center] [i]”To do the right thing at the right season is a great art.”[/i] - Helio Gracie[/center] Saw said that when he died, he wanted his funeral to be a party. It was meant to be a celebration of life, a balm for those left behind. There would be heaping bowls of kayuk kyaw, dancers, music, hell, maybe even a ring for some old fashioned pro wrestling, show off some of the best of the old man Mountain’s moves. It always sounded like some quaint fantasy to Rock. Like listing off what you’d get if you won the lottery (Saw’s answer was always a lot of meals down at the soup kitchen). As if The Mountain [i]could[/i] die. He had to be a million years old, and he still rolled out of bed and into that costume every single day to deliver his nine limbs of justice to whatever chump needed to feel them. Now, here Saw was, before Rock in a pine box. Rock was sure if Saw could crack those eyes open one more time, he’d grimace at what his funeral actually turned out to be. No peals of laughter ringing out, no gongs of knockout at his ring. Just sad faces drenched in black, crowded around a tiny pavilion in the rain, hiding the tears. Rock missed the public funeral, but even here the sycophants were thick on the ground. He could only count a handful that had been true friends of the Mountain, in his time. Those heroes that had actually fought alongside them, the lawyers and workers that had most righteously supported Saw’s campaigns, and his children, now processing the loss of their second parent. The rest were alien to Rock, faces locked in pantomimes of grief, wanting to be seen mourning the legend, counted among his inner circle. But he knew that could be wrong, too. Rock had been gone for almost a decade, and the Mountain never lived life standing still. They had to be invited by someone in the family to make it here. Perhaps these new faces were just as close to Saw as Rock ever was. Perhaps Rock was the real alien, even to the ones he recognized, only included out of obligation. He doubted they expected him to come. They probably thought he’d shrug off the invitation like every other message that had found its way to him. If you asked Rock a week ago, he’d say he would never be back. The old man had run out of things to teach him. Rock had never been a real part of that family, he’d never cared to be. Since before Rock could remember, he only cared about the training, the work, the challenge. It gave him purpose. As soon as that challenge dried up, his purpose was elsewhere. Then the impossible. The man who could not be killed was dead in an alley. Rock didn’t believe it until he saw it on the NHK. He didn’t ask his tutor’s permission, he bought the first ticket out of Japan. He thought of when The Queen of Blades died, the look on her brat’s face at her funeral. He said later how weak the kid looked, how undisciplined. Saw raised a hand at him for it, for the first time not for training but in anger. Saw never hit him, but now Rock wished he did, wished he had a hundred times, so Rock wouldn’t be burdened with this grief. Now he was close to the pavilion, feeling the rain soak his hair, and the looks of recognition and shame wash off him. Saw’s kids were there, Saw’s [i]real[/i] family, the ones who had earned their grief. Could Rock face them? Before he could decide, the sound of dress shoes across wet grass shook him out of his reverie. [color=peru]“Been awhile, Ken,”[/color] William Lichtenstein said. Mirage, the Beacon’s boy himself. He had a shock of dark dirty blond hair, and a gleaming, chemical treated smile. He was meant to be a mentor to the kids of the Vanguard back in the day, perfectly placed as a role model of what a teen hero could be. Even as a kid, Rock thought he was more like a third rate youth pastor, clutching his pearls and riding his father’s coattails. He had an ability, but no talent. There was a difference. Now as an adult he came off more like a televangelist. Rock would call him a grifter if he didn’t seem to totally buy what he was selling. [color=green]“Too long, William,”[/color] Rock offered. [color=peru]“Please, Ken, William is for business. My friends call me Will,”[/color] William said, like he was actually calling Rock by the nickname Saw had given him, the one he wore with pride. Rock just nodded and stared back at the pavilion. He saw Thiri, Saw’s eldest daughter, bent over the casket, clutching it like a life preserver. [color=peru]“Tough thing they’re going through,”[/color] William said, like Rock wouldn’t understand, like he wasn’t one of them. Rock never counted himself as a true member of their family, but that was not for William to decide. [color=green]“I know, William,”[/color] Rock said, his jaw set. [color=peru]“I missed you at the public ceremony. At least you’re here now, to support them,”[/color] William said, like Rock didn’t deserve that support. Like he was a prop for their grief. [color=green]“Least I could do,”[/color] Rock allowed. He clenched his fist in his coat pocket. [color=peru]“I’m sure they appreciate the gesture. How long are you in the states for? They’ll need all the help they can get sorting through Saw’s things.”[/color] [color=green]“Don’t know. Few weeks. Months. Longer,”[/color] Rock said. He didn’t have a return flight booked. All he had was the hot anger in his gut, the questions boiling to the surface. [color=peru]“Why so long? Don’t you have that dream of yours out there to chase?”[/color] William asked. Did he not have a right to stay? [color=green]“Maybe to see if you people are any closer to finding out how the hell this happened,”[/color] Rock snapped. [color=peru]“Every official channel is on it. Vanguard is all over it,”[/color] William confirmed, putting his hand on Rock’s shoulder and squeezing, [color=peru]“and will [i]stay[/i] on it until we have something more concrete to go on.”[/color] Rock huffed and shook him off. [color=green]“I thought you capes were supposed to be [i]good[/i] at this shit.”[/color] [color=peru]“You’d be surprised,”[/color] William joked, trying to defuse, but his smile dropped when he saw Rock’s expression. [color=peru]“Look. I said all the official channels are on it… But there are always the unofficial ones.”[/color] He produced a plain business card from his dress coat and passed it to Rock. [color=green]“Dominic Dusk?”[/color] Rock read aloud. [color=green]“Really? You sure this clown doesn’t just do birthday parties for goth kids?”[/color] William shrugged. [color=peru]“Apparently he’s been getting his clients results. Vanguard isn’t interested in him. You want to take another angle on it, you can start there.”[/color] [color=green]“[i]Thanks[/i].”[/color] Rock said. This guy was near the head of the Vanguard and the best he could do was PR promises and an edgy private eye. [color=peru]“If you need anything else Ken, the Lichtensteins are here for you and the Chaws. Keep in touch.”[/color] Rock expected him to float up and fly away on the high of his superiority, but he marched off along the wet grass to another gaggle of Vanguard suits. Probably to discuss how to best keep their thumbs lodged in their asses. Until Rock's plane landed, he assumed that the Vanguard would already have the killer in hand, prepared to make an announcement. When he touched down and connected his phone once again, he was struck by the headlines: there were no answers. Vanguard represented the best lawmen and detectives in the world, but they couldn't find a shred on who had killed the greatest hero in the world. They couldn’t even find [i]how[/i] he died. No one could hurt him for long. The only one that could, Darksaber, was rotting away in jail, with his broken, cursed sword sealed in a Vanguard vault. But what was Rock supposed to do? He wasn't a hero, not anymore. Would he walk up to some low rent detective and say “I have no leads, figure out what the greatest detectives in the world can't”? All he could do was put one foot in front of the other and see the family. He saw Thiri first, pulling herself up from the casket and wiping a line of snot from her face. She was tall, with austere features, and long dark hair that reached her waist. She was Saw’s first child, a product of tragedy. Thiri inherited Saw’s phenomenal healing ability, but his wife’s body disagreed with the foreign power growing inside of her. After countless complications, Aye Than Chaw died in childbirth. But Thiri would not squander the life she’d been given. Thiri and her wife were now a power couple of defense lawyers, Chaw & Munroe, Attorneys at Law. Together, they had defended hundreds of men and women put away by capes and Vanguard alike. Her work always rubbed Rock the wrong way. As he and Saw fought to put these animals away, Saw just smiled as Thiri worked to let them spill back out onto the street. He insisted she was an important part of the system, keeping them honest. Saw said Thiri saw them a similar way, a check against the worst of the worst. But Rock could tell just how she saw him from her look as he approached the casket. The tear streaks in her makeup turned her frown lines into a mask of rage, poised to unleash on Rock. But Thiri’s wife caught her before she exploded, nodding stiffly at Rock and ushering Thiri away. That left just two figures, gathered close around the coffin. The taller figure was Khaing Min. He was a head taller than Rock with a shaven head and small, fierce eyes. He was a decade younger than Thiri, Saw’s first child with his late second wife. It took Saw time and a lot of prodding to decide to try again after Aye Than, but Mya Sein’s head was harder than even Saw’s. It was incredible, then, they were able to produce a boy with a harder head than either of them put together. Khaing Min was the only other martial artist in the family, but the only one of the three kids entirely without Saw’s gift of healing, and the only one without his good sense. He worked like a fiend under Saw, studied the Lethwei of the masters. He was built for the sport, tall, broad, and strong. He’d travelled to Myanmar and back a dozen times, learning from the greatest, but still had never won a single match. In Lethwei there are no ‘belts’, only your measure against other fighters, and Khaing Min simply did not measure up, for all his heart. Despite his failures, he always held onto the hope that he would one day inherit the mantle of The Mountain… Until Rock came around. [color=aquamarine]“Rock! You came!”[/color] The second figure wrapped her arms around him before Rock had properly lain eyes on her. [color=green]“Hey, Shennie,”[/color] Rock put an arm around her and squeezed back. Shenden was Saw’s youngest, a few years older than Rock. Though she had received Saw’s ability, she had not gotten his height. Still, she held fast to her old man’s good natured smile and bright, cheerful eyes. [color=mediumaquamarine]“Rock,”[/color] Khaing Min greeted him, [color=mediumaquamarine]“hell of a thing to bring you back.”[/color] [color=green]“Hell of a thing to see,”[/color] Rock said, nodding at Saw's box. It was a plain thing, six lacquered sides without other ornamentation. You couldn't tell there was a legend inside, had no sense of his prestige, his honor. Here he was anonymous, another name on a stone. Like wearing a mask. [color=aquamarine]“We missed you,”[/color] Shenden said. [color=aquamarine]“[i]He[/i] missed you.”[/color] [color=green]“I missed you all, too,”[/color] Rock said, lying through his teeth. He had hardly thought of them. Even Saw, his real Dad, seemed a thousand years away, ancient history. Over the past few days he’d wondered after them more than in the past few years. Saw especially, the question of how this could have happened. [color=mediumaquamarine]“We could tell,”[/color] Khaing Min said, stepping closer, [color=mediumaquamarine]“from all the cards and the birthday presents and the visits.”[/color] [color=aquamarine]“Khaing Min,”[/color] Shenden cautioned. [color=mediumaquamarine]“He couldn't even send us a [i]text[/i], Shennie,”[/color] Khaing Min said, in Rock’s face, [color=mediumaquamarine]“now he's here for his slice of an inheritance. To claim our legacy.”[/color] Rock bristled. He could [i]always[/i] take Khaing Min, even when he was a boy and Khaing Min had the physique of an adult. Did he really want to make this a fight, here and now? [color=aquamarine]“That's enough, Khaing Min,”[/color] Shenden snapped, nominally at her brother, but Rock felt it was at him, too. [color=aquamarine]“Go talk to Thiri.”[/color] As her brother stepped away, muttering curses to himself, Shenden stayed close. [color=aquamarine]“You know he doesn't mean it,”[/color] Shenden said, rubbing Rock's arm, [color=aquamarine]“he's hurting.”[/color] [color=green]“Aren't we all,”[/color] Rock said. The contact felt foreign to him. Over the past decade, the only times he'd been touched were for someone to grapple him or strike him, or otherwise correct his movements. But his body refused to move away. [color=aquamarine]“Give him grace, Rock,”[/color] Shenden said. Rock almost laughed. [color=green]“You know I've never been great at that.”[/color] [color=aquamarine]“Can you try, for me?”[/color] Shenden looked up at him. She'd been using the same look since they were growing up together to get what she wanted from him. [color=green]“Fine,”[/color] Rock said. Even a decade abroad hadn't diminished its usefulness. They talked for a while, about Saw and the family as the funeral went on and the casket was lowered. All the cousins and the changes. While Rock was away, Shenden's healing grew to rival her father's. Unlike her brother, though, she never cared for violence. Shenden had never thrown a punch. Instead, she turned her gift towards healing others. She was born with an O Negative bloodtype, unique among the family, and had since used it to become the single most prolific blood donor in US history. She was in talks and testing now about the viability of organ transplantation. With any luck, her resolve would allow hundreds to see again, receive new hearts, lungs, and kidneys, among other miracles. [color=green]“You're incredible, Shennie,”[/color] Rock said. Together, they stood out of the pavilion and in the rain, watching as the cars began to peel away from the funeral. An icon was buried today, and they were all that was left to carry the torch. For a moment, Rock felt like they'd had some small shred of the ceremony Saw had actually wanted. [color=aquamarine]“I'm just my father's daughter,”[/color] Shenden said, [color=aquamarine]“just like Thiri is, just like you and Khaing Min are his sons.”[/color] [color=green]“I'm just happy I get to call myself that,”[/color] Rock said. Shenden's eyes darkened, as if in sudden remembrance, and she bit her lip. [color=green]“Something wrong?”[/color] Rock asked. [color=aquamarine]“Listen, Rock. You should know. At the public ceremony…”[/color] She began. Rock put his hand up. They had a good hour together, she didn't need to ruin it by grilling him about the public funeral. He didn’t need to hear it, how everyone wondered after The Mountain’s boy sidekick. How many came to honor Saw, the tears, the performances. How beautiful his new monument was shaping up to be. It was useless. Shenden sighed. [color=aquamarine]“You’re not listening, so [i]look[/i].”[/color] She held up her phone, brightness maxed so Rock could see it through the rain and the shade of the pavillion. It was a zoomed in shot of the crowd, dozens of rows of seats packed well beyond the edge of the frame. It was shaky, out of focus, with a pixelated crisp like it was a shot well beyond the camera’s intended range, yet through the artifacts, a giant white man dominated the frame. Through the all grain, Rock could only make out his silk suit, stretched over muscles even Saville Row could not hide. But Rock’s mind began to fill in the details the picture could not. The weathered knuckles elegantly clutching an ivory-headed cane that could not support his frame. The pale surgical scars tracing up his thick neck, hidden behind paisley cravat. The crooked nose, broken and reset countless times, supporting the designer bifocals that framed the intelligent, vicious eyes behind them. His name was Sir Edward Arthur Barton Baskerville. In polite society, he was known as the Earl of Belgravia, scion of an obscure but powerful Anglo-German noble family whose forebears included the Counts von Ormstein and the Grand Dukes of Cassel-Falstein. But to Rock and The Mountain, he was best known under another name: The Count of Combat. He was Rock’s father. [hider= Author’s Notes] -This post was written in a number of parts, which is probably evident in the final product. In order written, it was Ending Stinger -> Introduction -> Rock and William -> Rock and Saw’s kids -> Minor polish. I couldn’t bring myself to edit it too much on account of how long its already taken, and the fact I don’t want to keep Sep waiting, he could code-bomb the thread again. -Though I will expand on it heavily in future posts, I want to be clear that The Count of Combat is far from a public figure. Though he may have been The Mountain’s greatest enemy, he is known only to the Chaws. -Looking back through my history as a writer, I tend to gravitate towards relatively stoic characters going through action setpieces. So, starting with an emotionally charged funeral scene was quite the challenge. Many writers in these games, like Stormy and Roman, have an amazing ability to weave in complex emotional realities, and inspired me to try and tackle these aspects head on. I still have a lot to learn (for instance, in the showing versus telling department), but as Miyamoto Musashi tells us, “Step-by-step walk the thousand mile road.” -I don't remember who coined the phrase, but I worry about falling into the trap here of “lore, but no meaning.” -Still settling in on Rock’s voice. I feel at this time it starts a little indistinct, and then proceeds to some tonal whiplash between how he talks to his family and then how he rattles off the Count’s titles. [/hider]