pugbutter

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

109 hangar crewmen, including ordnance and reactor handlers, handling officers, launch & retrieval crew, QA, and UNREP "powder passers." 76 mechanical and electrical engineers, servicing the UFR Artaxerxes's hull, her autosystems, and of course, her flight of warmechs. 44 crane, lift, blast-door, airlock, and drop-gun operators. 36 nuclear engineers. Seven crewmen per gun turret and torpedo bay. Fifteen bridge staff, including the captain and his helmsman. Thirty navigators, airspace traffic controllers, and communications officers. Nineteen physicians, surgeons, dentists, nurses, and cybernetics engineers. Four logistics officers. Sixteen liaison officers. Fifteen clerks. Four chaplains. Twelve cooks. 28 janitors.

Six hundred and six personnel, all laboring day and night to keep two fireteams—that is, eleven 'ADAMAS' warmechs and eleven pilots—in the sky; greased and ready for combat. Gan appreciated the irony: from a certain point of view, he and the other four on his fireteam had 55 crewmen (each) assigned to personally keep them trim, fit, fed, rested, and getting where they needed going; that many maids and majordomos could staff a few bromine-barons' mansions back home. That many miners could keep a quarry open for a year. Each of them practically had an army to pamper them. And yet, when it came time to wake up for these ever-important missions, the best the Artaxerxes could muster for an alarm bell was—

"MISSIONNNNNN!"

—Ana Calypsi, smacking a titanium plate with a ball-peen hammer.

"COME ON, EVERYONE, UP AND AT 'EM! THE MISSION'S HERE! WOOOOOOOO!"

Ripped from the warm, tranquil womb of sleep, Gan found himself cradled, with the same quiet protest as a toddling, afterbirth-slick foal, in a familiar steel chrysalis: the paint on the floor worn down by his invariable flat-footed shuffle from bunk to toilet to sink and back. From the toothbrush in a beer mug sitting on top of the hot water pipe, to the Down with the Dogs poster (the collector's edition released on the album's tenth anniversary—with the band's blonde, buxom mascot straddling a rattlesnake) duct-taped above the porthole, to the crusty old bomber jacket hanging from a hooked locker handle, everything was where he had put it, and seemingly where it would sit forever if allowed, like it had been trapped in aspic and forgotten in the back of a forlorn refrigerator. Gan ached; not because his mattress was thin, or his sheets cold, but because the cold, rigid steel floor waited just beyond them; and beyond that, the cold, unyielding vacuum of space, through which he'd soon be floating in a different, even more cramped chrysalis of steel, glass, and worn-down padding. He groaned, quieter than the neverending groan of the hull and the strain of its copper arteries gushing with coolants and jettisons.

He heard Ana's fist rattling a door across the hall from his. Soon she would be haunting him. And this alone—the spite—would have to suffice once more for motivation. Peeling himself forcibly away from his bunk, he braced, landing on rolled ankles and springy knees. At once the floor began to sap away with his warmth. Tiptoeing over to the door, Gan dared not peek through its rusty, squealing peephole. He only waited to hear the telltale signs: the clang of jump boots on metal grating first, then her fist against iron. Of course, she was still chirping away: "ARE YOU ALL DEAD IN THERE? COME ON, YOU'RE ALL SO GORGEOUS ALREADY, HOW MUCH BEAUTY-SLEEP COULD YOU NEED?!"

Once her auditory assault-and-battery had finally reached his door, Gan knocked right back at her from the other side. "YEAH, YEAH, WE GET IT," he barked.

She only giggled back through the hinges—"Mornin', Gaaaaan!—" and skipped away on inch-thick rubber soles to the next door down. "C'mon, commander, that's enough cat-nappin' for you ..."

Gan propped himself against the wall and groaned a second time. One would think the weight of the world would be easier to bear in such low-gravity places. "How the hell does she do it ..." he murmured.

"She's still in her twenties," grumbled Yrma, who was finally stirring in the bottom bunk. All knotted up in her bedsheet, she freed her left arm, and held it up just long enough to read the digital interface on her clock before letting it drape over the side of the bunk once more.

"Are you implying I'm old?" Gan said.

"Gettin' there. As fast as anyone. Pass me my leg."

Gan picked it up from against her locker, a cruel room's-width away, and handed it to her by its rubber peg. "I dunno about that. Not with your fifteen-year head start on the rest of us. What time is it?"

"It's 0247 Universal. And thanks a lot," she answered, growling and grunting as the muscles ached and creaked in sliding the cup over her stump, and fastening the clasps to her thigh, then threading the metal leg through the leg of her flightsuit. "Hrrk. At least when she wakes us early, she wakes us early enough for MidRats."

"Sugar and carbs are ... one consolation," Gan groggily agreed.

"Careful," she replied. "One day you'll go to bed 'getting old,' wake up the next and learn you're there. That's when all them sugar and carbs catch up to you." She clapped her belly as if to prove she was the cautionary tale, and indeed the impact rippled in her skin. But not much. Under her loose skin Yrma was mostly muscle. Muscle and vinegar.

Yrma's laugh was raspier, huskier, than Ana's. She didn't smoke, and the scars spanning the left side of her leathery, loose torso were shallow, no more than skin-deep, which left Gan to wonder at times whether her dad had smoked, or an invasive cybernetic in her throat had degraded over the years, or if she'd contracted a lung sickness long ago on a faraway strip-mining colony. Not that it amounted to anything more than curiosity in the night; he'd never hold the answer, or the question, against her. Through all the static and the degradation, no matter the mission or the miles, the rasp of her voice was unmistakable. Irreplaceable.

"I think that day will hurt you more than me. What will you do with yourself once you can't call me 'beanpole' or 'noodle-neck' anymore?"

She chuckled again. "I'll just have to switch to calling you 'doughball.' C'mon, Gan, let's get outta here." Quietly they zipped up, laced up, and threw on their leathers, kicking up against the wall out in the corridor as they brushed their teeth and ran fine-tooth combs through their hair. They were the first ones out there save for Ana, with whom they swapped "Mornins," and after they ducked back into their bunk to spit and rinse, Yrma had a question for her. It was the type of question to warrant checking both ends of the corridor for eavesdroppers; leaning in close, close enough to smell the mint oil on Ana's breath; and stoking Yrma's voice down into a low, smoldering pit of coals.

"I've been meanin' to ask: are you okay? You know—with a new bunkmate?"

"Of course!" Ana lilted. But a graveness soon conquered her face, and cast her gaze to the green and yellow lines painted on the otherwise naked steel of the corridor floor. "Or ... I'll get used to her easily enough."

Gan and Yrma didn't have to say anything; their gazes sufficed in squeezing down on her for more juice.

Ana, looking either ashamed of something (how easily she acquiesced to this interrogation, or how she was in some way "betraying" the rookie by saying this), or, at the least, worried that the subject of their illicit dialogue might overhear it, continued quietly: "How do I put this? I don't know. When I'm trying to sleep, and my eyes are closed, I can ... just tell that it's not him. F—For example, when he had a glass of bourbon before bed, he'd always be swirling the glass. The ice hitting the crystal ... clink, clink, clinkle. I got used to falling asleep to that sound, but she doesn't do that with her cup. And ... oh, and her footsteps are lighter, too; I think she puts socks on to walk around during lights-out. So I can't even shut my eyes and pretend that it's him. You know? All the little things like that that she does. Or doesn't do. They make me ... sad. It's like even his memory is being ... no. That's too far. I shouldn't say that."

Yrma stepped closer, her fleshy foot encased in rubber and leather and her sterile, surgical-steel peg alternating on the hard floor, and rested a heavy, callused hand on Ana's narrow shoulder. "If you ever wanna switch bunks—"

"Oh, no, I couldn't!" Ana insisted, shrugging herself away. "Thank you, but you're still mourning, too. Everyone is. It wouldn't be right."

Ana visibly anguished as several raging forces came to a stalemate inside her: should she resort to gratitude or to empathy? Stay on this path of obstinance, perhaps overcoming the grief sooner, if more painfully; or double back on her assurance, take the bunk across the hall, and give herself the sort of time she clearly wanted? Needed. To forget their former teammate and fallen comrade. Seeming ready to sound off her next excuse, Ana's face lit up with a moment's epiphany instead. "... Oh, and no offense, Gan! It's not that I'm avoiding bunkin' with ya! It's just—"

"I know," he said, to spare her from her own explanation. "If nothing else I'm sure she appreciates it. We're all teammates—her included, starting now."

"Right," Ana said, as much to herself as to him, with the glimmer of fresh, newfound determination. She inspired easily. "You're right."

"Besides," Gan continued with an impious smirk, "would Scyto have wanted anyone to be late on his account? You've got three more to muster before we can eat, Ana. Including your new bunkie."

Ana straightened out, bristling. "Ah!" she cried. "Thanks for reminding me! Chlotho! Ke—"

"We're up." Unceremoniously, the two shuffled out: the team leader, who, though grim-faced, her single eye glowering at nothing in particular, looked scarcely worse for wear, knotting the sleeves of her flightsuit around her waist, goosebumps ridging her full-sleeve tattoos. It was Chlotho, callsign Romeo, who emerged like a voodoo-zombie, shambling, groaning—even teasing his hair into its typical cowlick, dual-wielding a comb and a wad of pomade for the purpose, seemed an automated act, performed entirely through instinct and habit. After sliding into his flightsuit, he'd forgotten to zip it up.

Gan scratched his scalp. "I guess that leaves one more. Well," he corrected, eyeing the other dude, "one and a half."

"I'll go wake her," Ana whispered, slinking off toward the last door on the left fore-ways.

That's right; earlier Gan had ruminated on the 46 engineers, seamen, and other personnel per mech pilot aboard the Artaxerxes. But through an instinct and habit all his own, his math had been wrong: it wasn't just the five of them anymore. Despite all their hopes (and delusions) to the contrary, they couldn't leave that top bunk in Ana's room empty forever, as some kind of memorial; they had corporate hierarchies to please. Bottom lines to meet. A fireteam needed six mechs on the ground, not five. And it was this way for a reason.

To Gan, it only seemed a bit ... soon. To be acting like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had ever happened. To replace what they had lost. This rookie ... and insult to injury, she was making them wait for her.

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

Rad. When should we expect that post?

Welcome back btw!

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

Recommended Listening

Yūya soldiered along the wall and tried the next door, and the next and the next. He had no choice. Hesitate and he’d start asking questions; questions which would ferment into doubts in his gut, and sit there heavy and leaden like stones; doubts, which would slow-release suspicions, and theories, into his bloodstream, the worst of all poisons for someone like him, just trying to follow orders and get back home mostly intact.

Theories like Tamura ain’t showing up.

Tamura was never supposed to show up.

Ishida made sure you’d be going up against whatever’s in there alone.

This is Ishida’s way of getting rid of you for all your grumbling at his meetings.

He didn’t want anyone getting in the way. Not someone who pities the outnumbered underdog like Toronaga. Not an “ally” like Umeko.

Umeko … if it was an ambush and there were two, three, ten guys in there, was keeping his promise to her even possible anymore? From where Yūya was standing, only if he deserted and didn’t show his face around school for a while. But the entire weight of the mission—whatever the hell it even was anymore—rested on his shoulders now, and his alone. But how could he know in the moment the exact importance of it all? Was he walking into the jaws of death or was he bravely (albeit stupidly) carrying a Sarayashiki torch behind enemy lines? Was he a soldier; or the sacrifice?

Maybe Tamura’d had the right idea after all, avoiding this shit-show altogether. But of course; if she wanted to keep her little Mary-Janes shiny and her white, starched button-up clean, the most efficient way wasn’t to wade out from the scandals and skirmishes in some elegant, blaze-of-glory way. It was to avoid these situations completely.

Suddenly, Yūya, like he was the anchor at the end of a chain, was ripped away from his daydreams and his trance, as his hand enveloped a doorknob which answered in a different language from the rattling rigidity of the others. This doorknob rolled leftward with a heavy click. And it let the door it was attached to whisper open with a creak. Yūya looked up; the gymnasium’s wide walls, high ceiling, and heavy windows glared back at him austerely and menacingly, no longer a place of entrance ceremonies, brass bands, and home games. Soon this place would be a battlefield, where either he, or some other unsuspecting kid or two, would be beaten, broken, and exiled into the night a loser, the lowest of the low, the dregs at the bottom of the dregs.

To believe in the cause, Yūya would have to know what the fuck it was first. So all he had to fight for right now was not wanting to be that loser. For all the naysayers and doubters back at school, that reason for fighting hard, as ignoble as it was, would simply have to suffice.

He hunched himself through the door, and eased it closed behind him.

The weight of the baseball bat on his shoulder proved a solitary source of comfort in its sureness; its loyalty in simplicity. No moving parts which could seize up at just the wrong time. No thoughts of its own which could conspire to abandon him behind enemy lines, or throw him to the jackals of another school. Just a lump of metal at the end of a handle. Yūya wouldn’t find much more kindness in this place; in fact, already he was beginning to hear sounds from the darkness of the wide, empty auditorium, which his brain didn’t know completely how to process. It sounded like … a thumb flipping through a wad of thousand-yen bills? Through the pages of a coloring book? Something frivolous and papery called to him from across the room. He squinted into the shadows behind the tatami mats piled against the wall, and spooled under the bleachers, and spanning deep into the lengths of the room; but the thought of all the enemies laid in ambush among these shadows dizzied him, so he only focused on scanning what he could see, and not getting jumped from behind.

The voices came next.

A male one first, hushed but urgent: “Oy, they’re here. Play your game later.”

“Karuta is done when it’s done.” The replying voice, dripping with the tone of a spiteful, scolded child, was younger, less gruff, and decidedly female.

“Don’t you need a second person? … You know what, never mind. Just have my back when shit goes south.”

“Hey,” said Yūya, “can we get some light so we can do this thing?”

“Huh?” the male replied. “Oh, sure. Sorry, bro.”

As rubber soles, definitely not belonging to uwabaki, squeaked away to a corner by a chain-locked door, Yūya strained his ears for breathing, for shuffling, for the shifting of weight onto another foot; any clue at all that someone else laid in wait under the gym’s most esoteric shadows. A moment later, fluorescent bulbs began flickering awake high in the rafters, submerging the room in a blinding, pale-white hum. There were two of them.

The girl had chosen to stay in her school uniform, one of those newfangled blazer-styled ones with a ribbony cravat. She had her hair up in two more mismatched ribbons, and her gaze slid up, drenched in an annoyed expression, from a handful of playing cards clutched in her tiny hand, and a few dozen more spread out over the floor just before her. Yūya supposed she was cute, as least as far as such a vicious sneer allowed. As for her partner, Yūya wondered whether the scars sliced into his forehead were real, or put there just for show, a trembling hand scooping them out in front of a bloodied mirror. He wore a Cuban chain and a fur-collared jacket, the latter unbuttoned to show off just enough pec through his wifebeater.

Faceclaims

”So where’s the rest of ya?” asked the Scarface wannabe, wringing his knuckles so hard that his leather gloves squeaked as if in tortured protest.

“She’s, uh, on her way,” Yūya replied.

“You see that, Kageura-chan? These Saranasha-whatever pricks are underestimatin’ us.”

Yūya narrowed his eyes, but made an effort not to shift around too much anywhere else in his body, lest he looked ready to lunge into an escalation. “I’ve got a question about that,” he said. “How do you know who we are?”

The wrinkles sent the hereto-unnamed Keiko boy’s forehead, sheened with sweat) and bristly with close-cropped hair, sliding a few centimeters across his skull. He guffawed, and floated in his shoulders. “A real good question, too, champ. Some dumpy little backwater-school like you? Believe me, we wouldn’t know ya if we hadn’t been expressly told to expect ya.”

“Well? Told by who?” Yūya growled. He would’ve glared too if not for how the lights still ached his eyes, forcing them into a burning squint. “And which a’ you is the Diamond, anyway?”

“Bwa ha ha ha! Where do you dumb fucks keep coming from?! No, my friend, they come to you; and the Diamonds got no reason of being here. Not until one o’ you or one o’ me has been … chosen.”

Yūya could tell that the other guy could tell: he’d just struck the perfect nerve. “Chosen for what?”

“My, my. Sounds like someone doesn’t trust you very much.” The Keiko boy effected a great heaving shrug of his shoulders, and an exasperated, damn-it-all sigh. “Tell you what: I'll tell you whatever ya wanna know. That is, if you can beat it outta me.”

Looking him up and down, Yūya searched for a holster, a bulge under his jacket or down his pantleg, anything to betray his opponent’s … methods. When that failed, he asked outright: “Weapons?”

“Not really my style!” The way this guy shrugged and cackled made Yūya think that he and Ikue must’ve taken the same seminar on pushing buttons and, well, overall, being smarmy little shits.

“Rules?”

“The usual gentlemen's engagement: no eyes, and no genitals. Anything else goes. Whaddaya say?” said the Keiko boy.

Yūya released his grip on the bat, a noise which rattled to the gym floor and bounced sharply off the walls in turns. “Fine by me,” he said, running a fistful of fingers through his pompadour. “Just keep that tongue of yours greased and ready to squeal. Don't make me rip it out.”

Scarface took a defensive stance with his ankles spread and his fists raised, his gravity undermined by an unquenchable grin. “Big words!” he giggled. ”But are you the type who’s all words and no action? Please. Try not to disappoint me like the last one.”

“Oh, an optimist!” Yūya said, crescendoing into a roar. “Enjoy it while it lasts, ‘cause there won’t be a ‘next one’ after I’ve finished this!”

Recommended Listening

He sought to close the distance fast, and to get his answers just as quickly. The meters contracted between them as Yūya rushed forward with his chin down and his arms up. Scarface gave less ground than he thought he would, but this didn’t faze the attacker, nor stagger the coming assault; kilograms and kilograms of muscle collided at the crossroads of Scarface’s elbow and ulna, raised just in time to block his neck. He replied with a kick, which if nothing else forced Yūya back a pace, and an early end to the attack as he glanced the torpedo-like foot to the side and away from his vitals, redirecting all his offense toward this, this grinding halt in momentum.

Scarface smiled and winked, and at once Yūya wanted to grind that smug little smile under his boot, so he advanced again and with twice the fervor. The exchange played out a second time, and in much a similar stalemate, including a second kick easily deflected away from Yūya’s organs.

He seems to like those flashy「Hollywood」moves … If I can get him to do that kick again, maybe I can ...

Yūya hadn’t noticed before, but his advances had forced his opponent against the wall. As he moved in again to trap him there, Scarface circled around, and in passing managed to clip Yūya in the head, then skittering backward just in time to avoid retaliation from a wide haymaker.

... But thankfully it’s as I thought: those showbiz muscles of his sure look nice, but they’re not all that powerful. Just can’t let him goad me. Patience.

That smug little bastard, pretending he was so nonchalant and omniscient … that intense, focused gaze, as if he was scouring Yūya’s very brain … He had to stop Scarface from reminding him of someone, else he’d keep rushing into his traps like a fool for sure.

Think; he had to turn the tables on this guy. How? It had to be tied to that jacket he refused to shed in the summer humidity … the phony scars he’d given himself to look cool.

… So he needed to be taken seriously, huh?

As if the revelation galvanized him, Yūya at once straightened out and stiffened. He dusted himself off, and began to preen his messed pompadour back into place. “Alright,” he said, “outta the way. I’m done with you.”

“... Hah?”

“So, little girl,” Yūya said, “think you can put up a better fight than this twerp?”

“‘Little girl’?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this bullshit?! Bro! If you wanna chicken out, just say so; none of these excuses, man!”

Yūya suppressed a smile. He’d expected neither the intensity nor the quickness of this reply. “You think you’re gonna get ‘chosen’ like this? You’re a waste of my time, ‘bro.’ Let your baby sister handle this one.”

Scarface opened his mouth to say something, but Yūya had already turned ninety-some degrees to saunter over toward the bleachers; more specifically, the seat where Kageura had perched herself, and splayed out her playing cards how a magpie displays its pilfered bobby-pins and shirt buttons.

“How about it, baby?” Yūya said with a hum. “Wanna have a real go?”

She scoffed, scowled, and averted her gaze to the right. “If this is your attempt at being smooth, maybe land a few more punches first. Oh, and a little less … KIRA, LOOK OUT!”

“Too late.” Yūya didn’t have to turn to look or even listen out for the pitter-patter of his jika-tabi to know that Kira wasn’t going to heed his partner’s warning. He timed it, he watched Kira in the corner of his eye, reeled in the waist and shoulders, and …

Yūya’s body wasn’t much to look at, but unlike one puffed up at the gym, his was sculpted from work; from toil and grime and sweat, earned everywhere from sending splitters to the outfield to gutting carburetors in the forty-degree afternoon broil. “Kira” wasn’t interested in heeding a warning from the very girl he had been spurned for, and when his cheekbone connected with Yūya’s fist, it cracked like a bullet leaving a gun. He didn’t know when he staggered backward faster than his legs could stumble. When he landed ass-first and face-up in the layup section of the basketball court. Or when Yūya finally couldn’t take it anymore and cracked a smile which had been itching to get out for a whole minute before that. The concussion was setting in too quickly, or maybe just the all-familiar rattling shock of having just gotten his own ass handed to him.

Yūya crossed his arms and waited, both watching the girl and letting Kira put himself back together. It wasn’t over, after all, until he spilled everything. Whether he had to lose his blood, his teeth, or his fingernails before he’d start explaining what the hell was going on at this school.

“Had enough already?” Yūya said, though being honest, the arrogant act was superfluous by then; that punch should have more than sufficed in incensing Kira’s honor. He’d want revenge for the rest of the fight, if not the rest of the damn school year. He’d get reckless. Then, if Yūya still hadn’t yielded a haymaker or two to him before they went home, he’d get desperate. “Take your time, ‘bro.’ I’ve got all night to wait for you to recover from one little love-tap.“

“Sh … Shut the hell up.”

“You want me to shut up, then get over here and shut m—whoa!”

“WITH PLEASURE!” Kira swung a right hook which Yūya almost didn’t dodge, eating about a meter of ground just on the backward stumble and recovery alone. And to neither his surprise nor (seemingly) Kageura’s, Kira kept up the assault, chasing right hook with right hook, even resorting to wild haymakers when he just couldn’t put a crack in the Sarayashiki fuck’s armor. Unfortunately, that single punch, stiff and merciless, had already softened Kira’s sense of balance, his speed. And it was Yūya’s turn to play his hotheadedness against him. Every time he baited his prey in, he’d provoke him with a jab; quite worthless in the delivery of pain and injury, but devastating to the pride. And just when Kira had gotten sloppy again, forgetful of what punishment his eagerness had earned him mere moments before, Yūya would remind him; in the ribs, in the stomach, in the throat, in the jaw, he would remind him.

Soon Yūya had earned a few bruises himself, but nothing like Kira, reduced to little more than a sack of spongy, flesh, dead blood, and tender ligaments, seemingly only barely held together by bones and skin. He had to admit: Kira had spirit. Even in certain defeat he didn’t want to back down. And until his fighting partner forced him to, he probably wouldn’t, not even under the screaming protests of his own body.

Speaking of Kageura, Yūya hadn’t heard the shuffle of her deck of cards in a minute or two; and Kira’s eyes had just shifted slightly to the left, as if looking past Yūya instead of at—

Thwump. Like he’d just been gored by a stag or shot by a cannon, the force of a blow to his left kidney sent Yūya gasping, sweating, and tumbling to the side, struggling to stand on his own two feet as if they had turned to bamboo stilts.

C-Crap. Ugh ... Of course. Should’ve seen it soo—oomph!

She was close enough that her skirt brushed against his pantleg, and her breath misted on the back of his neck as she sucked in air and readied herself for attack after relentless attack. So it wasn't a bokken or a bat. And yet when she punched him, it was as if she had peeled the skin away from her knuckles, and she was punching him with raw bone. The power! Brass knuckles, maybe? Yūya was too busy getting his ass kicked, however, to be disgusted with their trickery (“Not my style,” indeed)—or even impressed with how elegantly she’d turned the tables.

By the time the beating was over, all he could do to stop from dying then and there was keep breathing; through the jagged shards which were his ribs, through the sputtering of the blood in his lungs. Though they seemed a kilometer away, he heard them bickering over what may as well have been his corpse.

“Kageura, what the hell?!”

“You said ‘Have my back when shit goes south.’ And shit went south.”

“But, interfering with a man’s duel … !”

“They’re the ones who chose to send this loser by himself,” she said in a cold, clinical tone, apathetic to his indignation. She kicked Yūya over to look into his clenched, already-swelling eyes. And for good measure she aimed such a kick at his jaw, just to make sure he couldn’t get up again and try another trick. “It’s not our fault they underestimated us.”

“I guess, but what do we tell Sachimoto? That we had to cheat to defeat them?”

“The truth: we won, and they lost. That’s all that matters here.”

“... Tch. I guess,” he muttered again, but Kira couldn’t help spitting off toward the bleachers. Heh. If the red strings of fate had crossed differently, Yūya probably would’ve been friends with this guy, conquering the halls of Keiko together, their backs pressed together amidst an overwhelming host of pompadoured, punch-permed rivals.

As they walked away in silhouette, his posture more hunched and limping than hers, and propped against hers for support, too, something unfurled from the girl’s fist. It was a long, thin piece of something, like a chain or a strip of studded leather. She folded it neatly away into a pocket, and closed the door behind her latest victim, locking him in the harsh white burn of the gym lights. Hazily, somewhere in the wine-cellars of his mind, Yūya knew that the school day was only a few hours away, and that he’d better be far away from Keiko Lower High School before even the earliest rheumy-eyed teacher turned up for work. Getting to his feet on sore, trembling legs, with swelled-shut eyes and a pounding head for balance; that was the first emergency to handle, right at the top of the list. As for operating a clutch lever with a busted hand … As for getting home before the old man woke up … As for looking Akina-chan in the eye at school tomorrow ...

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

Another angle to consider: this is the third person who's dropped out. Inevitable in every Guild game, but always demoralizing to the ones who remain, too. What you're feeling right now is completely normal and not your fault. @Noblebandit

Have we thought about recruiting to replenish the ranks a little? Or are we sure that the 5-6 who remain can proceed faithfully from here?

CC: @TheWendil@Courtaud

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

@Courtaud How far should @LostDestiny and I get into our posts before you want to take over for the NPCs?

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

When he didn't know whether to pity the others or envy them, Yūya resigned himself to waiting, and listening. He ached with anticipation; a breath went stale in his lungs. At this point he almost—almost—hoped for something as boring as a stakeout. Just imagining the look on Tamura-san's face as she realized she'd be trapped with him for hours, days—that alone could have made wasting two or three days in a family restaurant or a train station worthwhile. Hell, if he grossed her out so much, why not tease her a little? If Ishida-san wasn't gonna give him the means to have fun, of course Yūya would make his own. Who wouldn't? Yonaka-chan and Li-chan were probably putting together their good-cop-bad-cop routine down in the parking lot as he spoke. Oh, oh, and Marada-san; she had that singsong tone of voice, like she was deigning to spend lunchtime babysitting the boss's toddlers, down to an art form! She had to be tiring of sitting in a leather chair up in a penthouse somewhere while all the action happened down on street level.

But this compromise was not to be, as Ishida grabbed Yūya's thoughts, small and tender, and dashed them against the rocks of his conviction:

"Tomorrow night, you two are going to meet at Teiko Middle School, and beat whichever punk they choose as their fighter," he said.

For those thirty-five seconds, Tamura Ana may just as well have never existed at all.

"There's no telling if they'll be a boy, girl, or whoever else. One of the Diamonds is supposed to be in attendance to deliver the real invite to the summons to whichever gang wins. And that's going to be us."

Yūya pumped his fist in triumph. He didn't seem aware that he was grinning, either, in his side-cocked, leering way. "You just sit back and let us take care of it, kanchō," he declared. "You ain't gotta worry 'bout nothin’."

And here he’d been worried that Yonaka-san would see the most of the excitement. Yeah. Hell yeah. If those glittery pricks were trying to make plays, better to squash them while their master plan was still small, undeveloped, and fragile, like knocking a defenseless cocoon off a leaf. Give ‘em no chance to sprout their wings and they couldn’t fly away and out of reach. A two-on-two bop sounded real good right about now, too. Nothin’ to lose.

---

22 hours later, on a public road in Itabashi Ward ...

---

... Well … that was yesterday. And it wasn’t yesterday anymore.

Kuso. He’d been so excited back there, he hadn’t even stopped to think a little. Moron!

Tomorrow night, you two are going to meet at Teiko Middle School, and beat whichever punk they choose as their fighter.

“Whichever punk”? What sequence of coincidences and happenstances had led to Ishida knowing that there was a meeting, but not who would fucking be there?

A curt honk behind him. Yūya looked up; the light inside the traffic light had skittered down from the red lens to the blue. He cried out a Gomen, gomen!—lost to the muffling of his helmet and the din of the evening work-rush—and turned his head and bowed to the frayed salaryman behind him, at the wheel of an overworked, underpaid Toyota. Hurrying his left hand to the clutch, his gearbox into first, Yūya leaned the Honda backward, taking weight off its front forks, with the urgency of his acceleration, strangled downward like he was a sick, sick man, and the throttle cable his battered housewife.

... Unless Ishida did know. But why? Why entrust a mission to them if they couldn’t be trusted to keep it confidential? And ... and why go to such lengths to keep it a secret from the others, only to keep it a secret from the participants, too, anyway? He seriously shooed Yonaka and Toronaga and Umeko off the roof just to clam up in front of Yūya and Tamura, too?

More chūnibyō bullshit ...

Yūya’s peripheral vision suddenly filled with a red flare. He looked up from the road to see that the Mitsubishi in front of him was braking for some danger further ahead. With no time to brake himself—not without locking up his rear wheel—he gave a nominal glance to either mirror, found his escape route, and swerved into the passing-lane. As yet another driver hit the brakes to stop from slamming up into the motorbike’s rear fender, Yūya flashed his thanks in his rear indicators.

... Okay, maybe save the theorizing for when I get there. It wouldn’t do to break his promise to Akina-chan so quickly, nor to such worthless ends. She’d at least understand if the Diamond guy or the Teiko girl turned out to be some hulkin’ motherfucker that the two scrawny Sarayashiki kids didn’t stand a chance against. But a crash? Smear himself on the pavement like a meat-crayon and Yūya wouldn’t even be a back-page addendum to the footnotes to the children’s coloring-book of history. Road rash didn’t give a shit who you were or what you had come to do.

One of the Diamonds is supposed to be in attendance to deliver the real invite to the summons ...

Not now, shithead! As the words once more intruded upon his thoughts, like rain soaking through his undershirt, Yūya turned the droplets to flies and swatted them away. He had to focus; the phonebook said there’d be a Lawson’s around here somewhere, right across the street from a florist … there! Even from around a corner and past a house he recognized the blinding white glow spilling out onto the sidewalk, a late-night oasis on many a stumble home with friends, whether from the liquor in their blood or the fresh wounds pounding in their skulls ... He was close. Just past the convenience store, on the right, would be 3-chōme-10, and on the left ...

Itabashi Teiko Junior High. Yūya braked just hard enough to get a good look at the sign screwed to the wall beside the sliding gate. Once he was sure, he sped up again. Didn’t want any sentries or lookouts knowing they were coming ...

... right?

Okay, park first. Around the block should be fine. He found an alley between two closed-down storefronts; near the street without being right next to it. If a cop saw, he’d tow the bike for loitering, not paying the meter, or some other crap. But if Teiko saw ... popped tires? A knife through his brake lines? They’d strand Yūya here and then call for backup. At least he had to assume as much. For his own sake. If he didn’t care whether he rotted out here then no one did. Not Ishida. Not Tamura.

Umeko ...

... Anyway, were Teiko Junior High and the Diamonds expecting this little knock-knock on their front door? Or was this supposed to be an ambush? Leaving his helmet on his mirror—pocketing his key and shouldering his baseball bat, retrieved from the struts of his san-dan seat—Yūya accosted the front gate to find out. It was the hour of evening strolls, dog-walks, and last-minute grocery trips, so when the gate tugged away and dug its heels in protest, he decided not to make too much of a scene. He circled around the north side, where it would be quieter and, maybe, they’d left a gate open for their so-called “summons.”

So if this is an ambush, we gotta take out the Diamond, too. Buy ourselves a few more days to move before he gets back to his little hive and rats to his buddies. But considering Ishida didn’t even have his own hallways locked down, wasn’t it too early to be moving against another school?

... Wait, and what did he mean, “Ishida’s hallways”?

...Anyway, then it’s not an ambush. They’re expecting us. So why is the gate locked? And ... hold on. Is anyone looking?

Yūya checked both ways, watching the shorter, quieter street on the north side for any idlers who could end up gawking; he scanned the parking lot up the way for just the same. There was a single woman smoking a cigarette in her cucumber-green power-suit, but she looked too disheveled and frayed to be paying attention. The building looked to be a hospital.

Heh. Well, they won’t have very far to go after we’ve ground them into hamburger paste, in any case.

Yūya chucked his baseball bat over and into the courtyard; rolling up the left leg on his tokkōfuku, he retrieved the kitchen knife stowed in his boot and clenched its octagonal handle between his teeth. Almost as quickly as he’d jumped and grasped, he was over the fence, bracing in his knees and ankles for a landing on naked concrete. No sign of Tamura; not surprising. Seeing as that bitch took the trains, she’d arrive when the civil workers decided she would; that is, if she hadn’t chickened out and stayed home first. Well, he’d give her until twenty-thirty to declare her a no-show and start trying doors on his own.

Recommended Listening

Yūya, after shedding the upper half of his jumpsuit and tying it to his waist, reached into its folds and knotworks for his cigarettes. Nobody on the roof or stairwells. No one patrolling the courtyard. The flicker of his lighter and the glow of the tobacco would have given him away, but—

Click. Scrape. Crackle. Click. Inhale.

—maybe that would've been best. He certainly wouldn’t have to go in and find them if they raised the alarm. And maybe their reaction would help a few more things make sense.

Ishida knew about the meeting but not who would be in attendance. He’d said something about the Diamonds choosing the gang that “won.” So then ... he and Tamura were champions; representing their schools, proving their mettle in some kind of contest? But now something else didn't make sense. If this was the Diamonds’—raise, draw, linger, blow—idea, then were they petitioning for allies? Handpicking the strongest gangs?

Something else Ishida had said now crept to Yūya's toes, his fingertips, like venom from a spider bite:

“Ikebukuro is letting their power-plays get out of hand.”

“Ikebukuro is letting their power-plays ...”

“Ibekuro is ...”

And once the venom reached his core, it broke from its crawl into a dead sprint, striking Yūya like a heart attack.

Yūya wanted to deny it. But at the same time, it was too plausible to just discard like all the other theories: Sarayashiki, a nobody-school with no fingers in the city, winning this strange little contest. Proving it’s got some guts, and even a little skill and strength to match. Winning the approval of this “Diamond representative.” And ... what came next? God damnit, what else could come next? Why else was Ibekuro pitting schools against each other in controlled-environment, regulated tests? Only one outcome seemed possible anymore: the Diamond, nodding in approval, would take them to their next challenge, or maybe to the guy who’d orchestrated the whole thing to report the results. And knowing that this “Sarayashiki” place had what it took, they’d ...

Were ... Were Yūya and Tamura joining some kind of newfangled rengō, handpicked and headed by the Ibekuro Diamon—

Ishida! Were Yūya and Tamura just his fucking double-agents; his spies?!

No more waiting. Forgetting (or no longer caring) where he was and who might be listening, on the enemy side or his own, Yūya kicked the baseball bat skittering across the walkway. He ripped up a fistful of flowers from the decorative bed and cast them to the ground, leaving them bent and broken.

“You fucking scumbag!” he roared into the still, empty schoolyard air, “This ain't what I signed up for, kor-r-raaaaaa!”

Maybe Ishida was innocent. Maybe Yūya had just dreamed up the whole scenario again. But one thing now was certain in the roiling adrenal soup of his thoughts: that little prick was gonna start spilling more of his beans at rooftop meetings from now on. Whether Yūya found out the quiet, civilized way, or whether he had to wring that scrawny little neck like a wet mop. Whether Ishida didn't trust him personally or he simply didn't trust anyone at all in his own gang, or he thought it too unimportant to mention, or it just slipped his fucking mind that night, starting tomorrow, the reason didn't matter: if he didn't wanna tell them how their missions fit into the big picture, then he could get off his futon, go out his front door, and do it him-damn-self!

"It's not in my nature to be mysterious," my fucking ass!

A damn shame that Yūya had to even try and find out this way, but maybe the Teiko twerps had more to divulge than Sarayashiki's illustrious leader. He tried the first doorknob, to one of the classroom wings, then the next, to an infirmary, both locked.

Sorry, Tamura, Yūya said halfheartedly to himself, as if to project the words telepathically along the Chūō line, or to the Tamura household, or wherever the hell she was right now. I'll save one for ya.

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

Do we submit our NPCs to you or just post them ourselves

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

Yeah some of those fan sites are all "original screenshots do not steal" and don't want you embedding their images somewhere else

You can copy-paste its URL into your search bar to see it

On that note, Jesus Christ if I knew we were going up against JoJo characters (and not Part 5 twink JoJos either; the Part 2 brick shithouses) I would've stayed home 😭

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

It may already be assumed, and I've said it already to a couple of people in PM's, but with the new post out maybe I should say it here too just for transparency: in real life I definitely don't endorse, use myself, or in any way condone some of the homophobic/racist/shaming/etc. language which goes into my posts. The aim is to authentically emulate an attitude which not only originates from a conservative country which still holds such views to this day, but also is about forty years removed from our current zeitgeist of inclusion and tolerance (it being a pseudo-historical game and all). And let's face it, we're roleplaying violent teenaged shitheads who would be more apt to say such things flippantly, and sometimes I roleplay as bigots and misc. scumbags on purpose, but I digress. Everyone's safety and comfort matters more than this authenticity, so if any of it makes you uncomfortable please send me a PM and I'll quietly edit the slurs and stuff out of the posts. Thanks.

Street Punk Serenade: Delinquent Days

*definitely didn't have to look up wtf a keisatsu is*

Personally I'd think his encyclopedic knowledge on the local bust/waist/hip and cup measurements should be the first clue, but yeah that too