Forbidden Kingdom - Bamboo Forest -> Esaka’s Middle Tier
Yayama Yama, Big BandWord Count: 2893 (+3)
Yayama watched the sun droop further toward the horizon. She'd poked around a bit after meeting Meidra, but it seemed most places she found had already been covered by the rest of their little adventuring squad. "Time to head back, I guess," she said aloud, to no one in particular. The lalafell trudged through the underbrush to where her mount from earlier had been left.
Thus ensued several minutes of pulling at something much larger than herself, and also quite heavy even for her. Eventually, though, she was able to free it of its photosynthetic prison. The frame was rather banged up, and if she had to guess, there was almost certainly something that had been knocked out of alignment from the roll and then crash. When she moved to start it, however, it reluctantly groaned to life once more. "Nice. I like this thing." Yayama gave the Chopper a pat as if it were a trusty chocobo, before wheeling it back the direction she'd come from originally.
It was getting late by the time she reached the city outskirts. She sent her vehicle back up, with a note apologizing to whoever ended up having to fix it after she made a quick tactical decision. The rest of the journey was made on foot, heading toward the establishment Pit found for the group.
Although Esaka was a big city, it seemed to lend itself to fortuitous encounters. When Pit volunteered over the Gold Team Seekers’ collective linkshell call to hunt down a suitable spot for the group’s evening rendezvous, Big Band had decided to walk his old friend Ileum back down through the Pools Tier to Lab 8. He’d half-jokingly explained his accompaniment away as wanting to make sure Ileum made it home safely, and also to ensure that he’d be able to find his way back to his new lodging without a guide later in the evening, but neither agent objected to simply spending a little more time in one another’s presence.
That meant that by the time Yayama returned to Esaka from the north, Band had already discovered that Pit’s chosen destination -Chanko House Edomon- was not in fact in the city’s Low Tier and that he needed to make his way back up to the Middle Tier at a minimum. Being plumb tuckered out from a day full of fighting and stomping up and down Esaka, though, Band was none too fast, and on her way to the restaurant the Gold Team’s newest recruit happened to catch up to him a few minutes away from the Low Tier’s northern lift.
She raised an arm to wave the distinctive investigator down. “Hey. Band, right?” She picked up her pace, closing the distance surprisingly quickly for her diminutive stature. “Today was productive on our end.” Yayama glanced over him. “You doing alright, though? Seems like you got a bit roughed up.”
Given how central Band’s head was in the huge iron lung that comprised most of his mechanical body, he needed to crane his neck a little to see the source of the familiar voice that greeted him. When he recognized Yayama he cracked a warm smile. “Hey there, li’l miss. You got that right.” Hopefully she didn’t take that the wrong way–almost every miss was little compared to Big Band. “Heh,” he chuckled. “You shoulda seen the other guy.” His jocular manner gave way to serious commentary rather quickly, though. “Actually, I was worse off earlier. Got my respirator sliced up by some beefy tiger. That thing ain’t got no business bein’ in bracket.”
After a weary shake of his head, the detective continued, chatting on as the two Seekers approached the lift and began to wait for it to descend. “Woulda been up the creek without a paddle if I didn’t get lucky and run into a couple old pals, not to mention a mad scientist. They fixed me up, even kitted me out with a couple upgrades. Used ‘em to knock the block off this dirty boxer they put me up against.” By now his nose wasn’t bleeding, but it still looked a little askew thanks to Balrog breaking it, which gave his wry smile extra character. “Asshole still got his licks in, though.” If nothing else, the experience made for a good story. The lift came to a rest in front of him, allowing the Seekers and a random passer-by to board.
“Good to hear. I’d have offered to help with that process if you weren’t alright.” She climbed into the lift without interrupting her conversation. “Not that what you’ve got going on is exactly my specialty, but I might’ve been able to hammer out some dents.” Yayama side-eyed the other passenger in the lift, figuring it probably wasn’t good to be
too open with what she’d been up to all day with some unknown passerby right there. Or maybe her paranoia was just getting to her.
You don’t even start, she thought preemptively. “Have you ever met a spirit by the name of Meidra, by the way? Curious sort, seems to be a big fan of moral dilemmas.”
Wondering if Yayama would be better at field repairs than Junior, whose main solution had been to bold extra bits of iron onto him, Band shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.” His first thought was that Yayama was talking about someone in Esaka, but then he remembered what a number of his comrades had been up to: undermining G-Corp. The conundrum-happy entity she alluded to didn’t exactly gel with that mission, but if Band could count on anything, it was his allies getting into unexpected misadventures. “How’d things go on your end? You don’t seem banged up too bad.”
“A few people took some nasty hits. Anji in particular was in bad shape. I fixed him up, but told him to get to a real healer afterward.” She rapped a gauntleted hand against the oversized gorget crowning her cuirass. “This kept me from getting more than the occasional bruise. The kids did a lot of work before the other guys even got close, too.”
Her jaw somewhat abruptly cracked into a yawn. “Gods, I’ve been busy. And there’s more matches tomorrow. Hope yours are a little less brutal than today’s.” Her mouth curled in a rueful grin. “Probably gonna be less brutal than mine, at least.”
Band breathed in deep, then exhaled heavily. Then he found himself unable to suppress a yawn himself, infected by Yayama’s contagion. “...I sure hope so. But I bet it ain’t gettin’ any easier from here,” he groused. Like his companion he glanced at the citizen who occupied the lift with them, naturally suspicious, but the rotund,
gray-bearded old dwarf seemed thoroughly uninterested in his fellow passengers, and more concerned with holding onto the railing with both hands to not stumble over in his drunken stupor.
Right now, Band felt plenty old and clumsy himself. “Guh…just thinkin’ about goin’ through today all over again, or worse, makes my head swim.” He squeezed his eyes closed, then shook his head. “Sure, I can throw a good punch, but at the end of the day I’m a gumshoe, not a prizefighter. Competin’ like this just ain’t my game. Dunno how much further I can go.” This sentiment didn’t stem from a lack of motivation or confidence; it wasn’t something a pep talk could fix, and Band wasn’t necessarily looking for one. It just felt prudent to let the others know so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he couldn’t clinch the win, and Yayama happened to be the first comrade he met.
“I understand the feeling.” She nodded. “Mind, I’m not exactly new to combat, and I’ve fought in tournaments before, but to be frank, I prefer my fights to be as unfair as possible. Fighting one-on-one isn’t my specialty in the slightest. I’ll see how far I can get, but to be completely honest, I wasn’t ready for the Heavenly Principles equalizing people. I win by taking more hits than anyone else can, but it seems like whatever entity runs this place isn’t a big fan of victory by attrition.”
Band nodded as his compatriot explained her own difficulties, turning toward the lift exit as the elevator began to slow down. “Guess I can’t complain too much, heh. Whatever the Principles is doin’, it ain’t done much to me.” From what little he’d observed so far, his best guess was that the Heavenly Principles endeavored to not just make fights fair, but to make things from elsewhere work like they did here. For people whose varied skillsets weren’t crafted with dueling in mind, that meant a lot of adjustments. “Sounds annoyin’,” he observed, reasoning that the Principles’ interference would require a lot of tedious self-rediscovery to make sure one’s abilities didn’t fail them in the heat of battle. As he and Yayama set off across one of the many wooden walkways of the Pools tier, the planks creaked beneath Band’s weight.
The lalafell eyed the flooring with concern, but figured that Esaka probably had heavier folks than Band that wandered through here without breaking anything. “It is,” she confirmed. “I can’t heal myself during these fights, and I swear people are hitting me from further away than they ought to be able to. Not to mention that most of my barriers don’t work, and a few of my techniques are just useless in a one-on-one anyways.” She shook her head. “But, I’m managing so far. At least on the fighting side of things. Still coming to terms with. . . you know.” Yayama waved a hand in a gesture that seemed to indicate everything around them. “Everything.”
That one word carried a lot of weight given the layers of the Seekers’ predicament, and being one for a lot longer hadn’t made the burden any lighter for Band. He gave a tired, empathetic nod. “Uh huh. It ain’t easy. Dunno if I’ll ever come to terms with it myself.” After rounding a corner, the two continued on a sturdy stone walkway. The sunset to the west was in full swing, close to finishing actually, and the water of the Pools glittered in its dying light. “Maybe we don’t have to. Maybe the impossibility...the unacceptability of what happened, how things are, can keep us movin’ forward. Settin’ one foot in front of the other, even if it’s hard.” Most detectives were analytical and dispassionate if not outright cynical, but Band was an exception. He cracked a self-aware smile. “Sorry. I romanticize stuff sometimes. When you got a soul full o’ jazz, it tends to find a way out.”
Yayama just gave a soft, sad smile back, slowing slightly as memories of happier times came to her at the sight of the sunset. “That’s what it comes down to in the end, isn’t it, though?” She glanced up at Band. “Just one more step. That’s all you have to do. One more step forward, and then again, and once more. For those we have lost, and for those we may yet save.” The dark knight chuckled, mostly to herself, as her eyes slid back toward the horizon. “Don’t worry, I’ve known the type before.” It wasn’t clear if she meant an actual acquaintance, or was simply referring to her own ability to wax poetic on occasion.
“You’re right, is what I’m really trying to say. That anguish, that all-consuming grief. . . you can’t throw it away. But you can’t drown in it, either. Walking that blade’s edge is basically what I’ve done for a living for the better part of a decade, even more than most.” She didn’t look away from the shadow at the edge of the vision that only she could see, feeling oddly serene at the moment.
Going to ramble on about the dark arts, are we? That won’t actually get you anywhere, unless you plan on teaching the extra-large tin can here about them.“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” she said aloud, before pausing to look at Big Band directly. “You know, I could probably teach you the arts of the dark knights, if you wanted. It wouldn’t be easy for you, but something tells me it won’t be quite as fraught as my path.”
When Yayama stopped initially, Band had been about to say that it sounded like he didn’t need to worry about the lalafell staying the course. What she described sounded a little more soul-rending than what he’d been through, after all. Grief wasn’t something he’d grappled with, not really. He’d known agony, and at one point resigned himself to a grim fate, but he’d never questioned or struggled with him own nature. Whether a lone cop trying to shine bright amidst a sea of corruption, or a cyborg opposing the Skullgirls for humanity’s future, he’d always known exactly who he was.
The offer to train him as a Dark Knight took him by surprise. For one, knights were a little old-fashioned even for him, and that was saying something. Then again, mankind hadn’t advanced much in any way that mattered between the eras of partisans and tommy guns. Even if arms and armor weren’t Band’s style, the idea of a dark knight was cool enough to appeal to some long-forgotten juvenile part of his mind. Yayama did warn him that this path wouldn’t be easy. Nothing worth doing ever was, of course. But did she really think he had what it took?
“Hmm…”
On one hand, that old adage about old dogs and new tricks held some serious water. He was probably too stuck in his ways to learn a whole new discipline or fighting style, whatever dark knighthood entailed. On the other hand, being a dark knight -an edgy subversion of the classic knight in shining armor- also suggested a certain personality. By Yayama’s own admission her path had been ‘fraught’, a single word that contained almost as much subtext as ‘everything’ did earlier. At her past, he could not begin to guess. He did not generally contend with stuff like grief or doubt, but he’d been through his own sort of hell. The pain that he’d experienced was long past…but the scars it left were indelible.
Even now, righteous anger burned within him, rage at a system and society where leaders and lawmen alike abused others for selfish gain. If he hadn’t been beholden to Lab 8, he might have turned the strength they gave him toward vigilanteism. The temptation was there, even now, and his mission as a Seeker of Light muddied the waters even further. But…
When the word of law falls, pick it up and hold it higher.Band had always clung to his principles, the lines he wasn’t willing to cross. They were all he truly had. He believed that if one fought fire with fire, the whole world would burn. That there was no such thing as a good man who did terrible things. Maybe he was thinking a little too symbolically, but if becoming a dark knight meant letting his inner darkness out, maybe that wasn’t the right choice.
Without realizing, he’d wound up on the lift to the Middle Tier with Yayama, and the elevator was already nearing the top. He’d been lost in thought for a while, and only just now did Band find his way out. He tore his gaze away from the last embers of the setting sun on the horizon, looked down at Yayama, and smiled. “I appreciate the offer. There’s a time, years ago, that I might’ve accepted. When I was broken, full to the brim o’ nothin’ but bitterness and pain. I’m still a little broken, I know, and I doubt that’s ever gonna change. But you got your path, and I got mine. Don’t mean one of us is wrong and the other right. We just are who we are. That’s all.”
The duo’s ride came to a stop for the second time. In front of them lay the Middle Tier, where Pit’s latest update confirmed Chanko House Edomon to be. Before setting off, Band raised an eyebrow at Yayama. “That said, if you got any tips for my fightin’ in the comin’ days, I’m all ears. Brass don’t corrode, and yet somehow I’m all rusty.”
Yayama just shrugged, the gesture causing no small amount of clattering from her pauldrons. “No offense taken. I’ve got plenty of battle wisdom that doesn’t involve channeling the powers of hate and love together, and it’s a hell of a lot less of a commitment. ‘Course, a lot of it is about fighting people bigger than you, or bigger than the average house, but
most of it is pretty transferable. I know you’ve got your first principles down, but I’m gonna run through them anyways. . .”
The lalafell continued to chatter about various fighting techniques and foibles to avoid over the rest of the walk to the meetup, interspersed with the occasional anecdote demonstrating its usefulness. They largely revolved around ways to not instantly die when struck by a powerful attack, but she continually reassured him that they were more than useful in smaller-scale fights, right up until they reached their destination. “After you,” she said, pulling open the door.
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