Cold-hearted boy I used to be (Ch. 5 sidestory pt. II)

psikeout · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 11:23 am

"Hale'n hearty," Rock had sputtered under what Jam was saying, along with a(n exaggeratedly self-deprecating) comment along the lines of "You been gettin' into that book learnin'."

"I wouldn't'a thought we'd end up here, either, but the world's gettin' a little crazy," said Rock with a certain jovial, brow-raised tiredness, "and, at this point, it's just... honestly good to see a friendly face."

The implication there being that there weren't many left. The secondary implication being that he was genuinely able to consider General Green's battle-scarred, cyber-eyepatched robo-face friendly. And he was.

Rusty · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 4:34 pm

Green fixed his new, seemingly-permanent attachment with a look that, despite his ever blank face, oozed suspicion, the what did you blow up now kind. Of course, he should have expected these two wouldn't spend the rest of their days sipping martinis at golf courses. Judging by his reaction, though, he didn't seem to entirely understand. He must not have been totally up-to-date on... things. At the same time, he still seemed quite pleased.

"Well," he said eventually, "the more friendly faces, the merrier. Ones that can actually smile or otherwise express emotion without saying something that will likely irritate me are a fresh change."

"Where's the General can I see him, I want to show him what I learned earlier."

"He's busy. Go away."

"No wait check it out, check this out seriously. Here we gooo."

"You already showed me."

He gestured to a pair of wooden office chairs in front of the desk, in case their legs were objecting at the moment. "Dare I ask what hijinks are following you around? Or unfriendly faces, perhaps?"

Mie · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 5:22 pm

OOC: Composed entirely on my phone with hellishly uncooperative Swype apparatus. Typos will be fixed when I have a real keyboard.

And Jam accordingly grinned like scarab in a cow pasture in initial reply, before momentarily oscillating a confused glance between Rock and the seat offered her. But at last, she realized with not nearly adequate sheepishness (see:none) that they weren't going to be discussing such matters on a ratty sofa over Hilltop Drop and cheese puffs, and promptly disengaged, depositing herself neatly into the chair. She even crossed her legs, and folded her hands atop her knees.

Green sure was a refined bloke these days.

"In a nutshell," she replied airily, "Taking over the world, and all of them."

With a less than pleased shrug and a matching frown, she added, "We're kind of a big deal, I guess."

Rusty · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 6:48 pm

For his part, Green took a seat on the desk itself, facing them and resting a palm on a metallic thigh. When Jam took to sitting like she'd just gone through a My Fair Lady transformation, he sort of stared for a second, like one might do when they've just witnessed something inconceivable, and he was a robot. A sight like that should have popped up somewhere in his logistical calculations of foreseeable events. It was Jam...

"Ah-huh," he said simply. Remember who they were talking to. He'd tried the whole take-over-stuff-by-force thing before himself. "The price of leadership in a society that builds its inherent foundations on disagreements and conflict."

He got the sense that sooner or later she was going to get uncomfortable, and he further got the sense that he was causing some of that inevitable discomfort.

So, reeeaaaching back to his desk, he opened a drawer and soon tossed her a small yellow bag of potato chips. It was his meditative bag, the bag that he would take when feeling oddly organic, and he would sit and stare at it, dwelling on the slow entropy of his organic-based thought psyche yet the failure to repudiate the pining for certain organic fuels, and he would form his own conceptions of the universe about him, observations of his vague yet solid, thoroughly indistinct existence flooding him like a burst dam, and right around here Dizzy would interrupt and ask him why he had been staring at a bag of potato chips for forty-five minutes.

It occurred to him that he would need to get a new bag. He felt a small pang of sadness.

psikeout · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 8:43 pm

For what it was worth, Rock didn't seem uncomfortable. And neither did Jam, though she seemed happy enough with the potato chips. Whatever the case, Rock plopped promptly (and roughly) down and took a seat and just deflated, slouching and sinking with his arms draped over the chair's arms.

"I dunno if you've been keepin' up with the news, but," began Rock, thoroughly unaware of Green's background existential snack food crisis, "have you heard anything about, ah... Chimera?"

Rusty · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:17 pm

"Chimera," he droned slowly, as if dwelling on it. "A fire-breathing quadruped of mythological origin commonly represented as having the body of a lioness, the head of a goat protruding from the spine, and the tail of a snake . . . A single organism composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells originating from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction . . ."

He hesitated before getting to the one he knew they were talking about (his overly-analytical thought process had practically forced him to mention the others). ". . . A paramilitary organization built largely on the infrastructure of the Eggman Empire. I know that, if nothing else."

Folding his arms, he fixed them with a long look. "What's your business with them?"

Mie · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:29 pm

Despite the resolute staleness of the bag's contents (how long had he had those, anyway?), they were dispensed with quickly, and with a surprising lack of intrusiveness to their crunching. The wadded up foil-lined ball sailed through the air, and into the nearest convenient rubbish can (which may or may not actually have been intended as such). Jam shifted in her chair, repositioning her newly emptied hands in her lap as her chair eased back onto its hind legs, while she, saying absolutely nothing, stared unblinkingly at the robot, with the widest, toothiest, most incriminating smile imaginable.

psikeout · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:33 pm

Rock sat forward, elbows on his knees for support. He glanced at Jam, suppressing an odd smile of his own, brows raised. After a short stretch of silence, and a single, quiet, contemplative-sounding sniff, he craned his head back and looked up.

"That's us," he declared in the most understated fashion possible.

"That last one, I mean."

Rusty · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:42 pm

There came a lengthy silence, then Green emitted a soft, low chuckle that was somewhere between amused and dour.

"Why didn't I see that coming?"

He really didn't sound too surprised. Considering the mishaps they'd all gotten into before, few things would surprise him now short of Metal Sonic smashing in, tossing a sombrero onto his desk, and salsa dancing around it.

"So now you're basically in charge of the world, and you also compose an organization that has earned the ire of every civilized things in its span." He shrugged. "Why do I let you two out of my sight?"

He shook his head reproachfully, mourning their sore lack of foresight on such a matter.

"To think you were off having all this fun without me."

Mie · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 9:56 pm

Contrary to the general's mock-scolding, Jam couldn't have looked any more pleased with herself, as though each reproach were a shiny gold star.

She could really only shrug and nod obligingly at his painfully accurate synopsis of their completely harmless antics, in a sort of wordless, "Pretty much."

At that last lamentation, however, her chair's feet dropped to the floor serving almost as a kind of pre-sentence punctuation. "Well, see, that's why we're here," she prefaced looking ever the cat who ate the canary, as she, too, leaned forward with much more casual (see: normal) posturing, resting both elbows on her knees.

"Our last fun run? Nnnnot so fun."

Pause. Blink.

"Okay, that's a lie, but our almost-dieds are getting a little redonk. That's where you come in."

psikeout · Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 10:18 pm

"Not to presume, a'course," Rock added after Jam with a tone most instructional, "but..." He inhaled slowly, and took several seconds to decide the best way to say it. "When you break it down, what Chimera is... is me, Jam, and a rogue AI named Tau. That's it. Everything else is a former Eggman Empire robot, and, frankly, keepin' control of everything is like... tryinn'a herd cats through a sawmill."

The primate paused. "I mean like, little cats," he corrected quietly, gesticulating a petitely-boxed frame with his hands. "Not like... Rekk."

He digressed.

"Anyway. Tau's been doing amazing things to coordinate everything, but when you get right down to it, we need... a command structure. A real one, in the field and out. People to direct units, see problems before they become problems, and keep control. Not to start wars, or cause havoc, or, anything, just... keep control."

He looked very directly, very purposefully at Green, with a certain under-expressed "smile" about his features, that lit up without actually smiling with his mouth at all, as if he was very pleased with what he was about to suggest.

He stood up with a breath and exhale, and squared up to face the captroop directly.

"I'm the commander of Chimera, and I need a general. I didn't wanna try drop another burden on you so soon after just... saying hi, but, there's no sense for guys like us to beat around the bush. So."

"Do you want to be the highest ranking general of the most powerful military on Earth?"

Rusty · Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 7:13 pm

Green looked from Rock to Jam and to Rock again as the explanation came forth. Through it, he did not seem to emit any kind of emotion, merely listening, visibly unsurprised at what was being asked of him.

At its conclusion, there was a very long silence from the Capsule Trooper Elite, and it was clear that while he'd been subtly amused by their apparent antics before, now he was coarsely serious.

"I already was once," he said, sliding his solid frame off the desk and sauntering to the shelves lined with texts. "That did not go... entirely as I'd have liked at the time."

His bright eyes traversed the rows. "I know my way around a battlefield, yes, but I am not so impetuous in my haste to do great things as I once was. I have my fill of combat now but without the complicated courtship of an army under me. As such," he gestured with a small wave to the rows, "I am free to engage in other--" he paused, head turning slightly in the direction of an obnoxiously-neon green electric guitar leaning against his desk and hopefully out of their view (only the headstock would likely be visible), "--pursuits that I could not know before. In doing so, I've found myself... happier. Better, maybe." He removed a thick, red book from the shelf. "Look," he remarked with a slap of the cover. "Great Dialogues of Old-Century Critics. I can actually read garbage like this now and realize I have good arguments as to why these so-called philosophers are a bunch of f***wits." The book slid back to its resting place.

He cupped his hands behind his back, pausing, studying them both silently for a few moments. The air in the room was quiet; the base itself knew little noise even with the lounge just down the corridor.

"I cannot keep control when it does not exist in the first place, Rock. Here, I have known the first real peace of my entire veritable life. Out there," he said with a point to the door, "is a world that is consumed with children adventuring for Chaos Emeralds and thinking it's okay to destroy anything that might get in the way, with mad doctors constantly engaged in brutal conquests, with little lunatic snakes trying to end the world just because they feel like it. With chaos that finds new ways to spring up regardless of steps we take. And in the middle of it all is a sad, miserable, brilliant populace that will never quite understand this peace I cling to. There will never be control for us, only a desperate grasp for a semblance of it."

His hands left the small of his back to rest at his sides. He wasn't trying to be a blabbermouth (and he knew Rock and Jam hated it when someone wouldn't shut up), but sometimes things just needed exposition.

"But I also understand that sooner or later, that chaos would come here to my little realm of peace of mind. And the best soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he cares for what is behind him. So I'll try to give you the control you need." He bowed his head slightly. "I don't know if my presence or order will help, but it would be my honor to try."

psikeout · Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 9:06 pm

Rock had the look, the preoccupied focus, of one who was pleased, but had something on his mind, or something that he was considering. He certainly listened to Green, and didn't seem impatient about it; he just sort of shuffled and swayed his way around a couple steps, and came to rest with his back and a little of his weight to the edge of the desk. His eyes wandered the shelves and the room in general, taking in what had become Green's refuge and lifestyle; his hand wandered the desk for something to fiddle with, and found the yo-yo.

When the captroop stopped talking, he nodded appreciatively.

"It'll be great to have you on board," he said plainly. Fwip went the yo-yo down, and flap, back up. There came a pause; he glanced off to the side, almost conflicted-looking, as if seeking the correct way to phrase something. He kept yo-yoing in the interim.

"I just want you to know, though, that... I'm not trying to bring you on to put the fires out."

He looked solidly back at Green. The yo-yo whipped down to its full length and spun there, sleeping.

"The world's gonna burn; that's what it does. It's entropy," he declared matter-of-fact. "I just wanna facilitate a controlled burn."

It buzzed loudly at the end of the string. It was an insanely long sleeper.

"The idea is to stay at a distance," explained the primate, eyes on the yo-yo. "We'll help rebuild now, be the good guy sometimes later on, too. Maybe sometimes we'll be the bad guy when we need to be. But when the crazies come out to dance 'n sing, or when somebody starts tampering with things they oughtn't—"

Green would know exactly which two people Rock was talking about. A flick of his wrist sent the yo-yo climbing back up the string, crisply into his leather-bound hand with a clap.

"—We rein it in."

Rock just smiled and blinked.

"What I'm tryin' to say is I ain't under any illusions about how these things go down, bro," he finally said with an air of conclusion, relaxing his posture and his colloquial tone. "We do what we can and we make the best'a life for ourselves," he gestured to Green, Jam, and himself with the yo-yo, "not just everybody else. We don't have to try to be some kinda kings or heroes to do that."

His eyes caught something in the reflection in a picture frame's glass. He glanced over his shoulder. Barely above a whisper, all too pleased (or maybe even amused), he added:

"... you'll still have time for that."

The obnoxiously green guitar gleamed.

Mie · Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 9:38 pm

Perhaps contrary to convention or expectations, Jam didn't lose focus, or become bored with the General's explanation. Rather the opposite; she grew tense, seeming to hang on every word with subtly furrowed brows, her brain wracked with the effort of searching for underlying meanings or hidden context, but plainly worried — She thought he was going to say no. And honestly, she'd not have blamed him for it, either.

There was no mistaking the release of tension and relieved sigh as anything but when his willingness was at last revealed. Flopping against her backrest, the more volatile of the monkeys merely listened as Rock set straight some potential misconceptions. She looked utterly at peace, nodding with conviction every now and again, until the whiter primate's last statement drew an intrusively confused stare, which followed his line of sight, and promptly had Jam leaping to her feet.

"Dude!"

So much for poignancy.

She dashed invasively over, leering greedily at the axe with hands on her knees, as though it was unfettered joy in a box.

"This a new hobby, General?"

Rusty · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:35 am

Green appeared to consider all that had been said, and one shoulder shrugged. "Sounds reasonable enough--"

His line of sight traveled toward Jam as she went ape--... crazy over one of the general's toys, where an amp lay nearby, neatly tucked under one side of the desk. It was one of the few things in the room that action-rawk-wildpeople like Rock and Jam probably wouldn't find utterly dull (Green didn't understand why people often did not appreciate his possession of the Wylder ball), so he should have expected it would be discovered sooner or later.

"Yes, well, something like that. One can't focus all their efforts into book learnin'. And bloodshed, and swinging ball-and-chains at people, and..."

He watched her, as though watching a puppy hunger for a ball.

"... You can try it if you like."

Cold-hearted boy I used to be (Ch. 5 sidestory pt. II)

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