foolishwren | 022. Action

Current Location: Violet City, a short distance from the Pokemon Center.

Entry tags:

022. Action

_{(ooc: Locked to Liquid, although because it's outdoors and in a semi-public area, others may have to endure overhearing some of the CAPSLOCK RAEG if they're nearby, so if you want to officially say that your character overheard Heather screaming "BAG OF DICK" or something, feel free.)]}

_{[After being gone from Violet for about a week, Heather's been making her way around the town. Checking up on things, tying up loose ends, y'know, the usual after you'd been gone for seven days, fighting flying alphabet soup and searching for kidnap victims.]

[Heather's usually a casual stroller, but today, there's an urgency in her walk and the shadows under her eyes say that she's stressed and in no mood to be deterred from whatever it is that she's doing. That something is looking for somebody. Not a kidnapped victim this time, though.]

[It's awhile before she thinks to actually check the Center-- because frankly, she was hoping to find him somewhere not so... public... but oh well. Sure enough, a short distance from the red-rooftopped building, she spots a familiar bare back and head of blond hair. Taking in a deep breath, she hastens her pace and calls out to get his attention.]}

Liquid!

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[At that moment, Liquid was angrily shoving supplies into his pack, things that he'd picked up last-minute at the PokeMart. He wasn't going to be hanging around this city; it wasn't big enough for two Snakes to be in it.]

[He wasn't waiting for Otacon. He wasn't waiting for anyone. He was just going to leave, because it was obvious to him that hanging around with these people had made him start to go soft, and he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't become weak-- he was already weak enough.]

[And once he didn't have that annoying engineer hanging around, there'd be no one to get inbetween he and Snake.]

Hn--!

[He didn't reply to Heather; he just started shoving things into his pack harder.]

_{[That annoying engineer wasn't the only person around who'd get between him and Snake if it came to it. Heather might not have had as much at stake, and might not have had loyalties as extreme as Otacon's, but she still didn't have the principals of someone who'd just stand aside.]

[She sure as hell wasn't gonna do it right now.]}

Hey.

I'm sure whatever you're doing there is real important, but it can wait a second. We need to talk.

_{[She drew up behind him, noting what he was packing.]}

.... Where're you going?

To the next city.

[His voice was terse and short; he was obviously pissed as hell.]

Whatever the hell you want, say it now. I'm not going to be hanging about very long.

_{[... Fine, fair enough. She wasn't necessarily pissed that he wasn't going to stick around, just that... well. Squaring her feet and folding her arms angrily, she decided to cut straight to the chase.]}

What happened while I was gone for the past week?

I know it was something, because Otacon called me sounding like he'd just seen his dog run over by a truck. _{[And had told her Liquid had basically admitted to using him just to get to Snake. It hadn't... entirely surprised Heather, but that didn't mean it had been something she'd wanted to hear.]}

My dear brother showed up.

[Those two words were emphasized with two particularly hard shoves of something or other into his pack. If he shoved things in any harder, he was going to tear the bottom of it.]

If you've spoken to Otacon already, then you know what happened and all of this is just wasting my time.

_{[Yeah, it kind of WAS wasting his time. It was too bad he caught onto that so quickly, because she'd sort of been hoping to delay him. Oh well. So that was out the window.]

[She was too tired, too spent to feel like beating around the bush like that anyway.]}

Did it occur to you that your dear brother doesn't wanna fight? What the hell makes it so important that he dies? Are you really that insecure that your entire self-worth is based on whether or not you can cap some sucker in the head and blow him off the face of the earth?

_{[She knew she was asking for a monologue. Which was a little depressing, because she DIDN'T want one. But ...]}

I don't care. He's a soldier, fighting is his profession. If he didn't want to fight, then he should never have set foot on a battlefield.

[Liquid was just too pissed to deal with people taking potshots at him that actually hit the mark. His self-worth? That implied that there was something there that was worth anything.]

And what if I said yes, Heather? What if I told you that whatever worth I might have hinged on whether I could beat my brother? That for over a decade, that one purpose has been my entire life? I'm not giving up my life's purpose just because a few people don't like it.

I worked at a burger joint for awhile. That doesn't mean I want people coming up to me on the street and expecting me to ask them if they want fries with that.

_{[She listened, brows furrowed and mouth pressed into a grim line.]}

... Then I'd tell you that you were wrong. It's not a matter of not liking it, it's just flat-out incorrect. Like saying two plus two equals five.

_{[Inwardly? Kicking herself. Why was she doing this? Why was she picking a fight when she was so tired and cranky that even the wind blowing in the wrong direction was enough to piss her off?]}

Is it really so wrong?

[His mouth curved in a self-depreciating smile.]

What else am I good for but fighting? That's all I can do, all I was ever trained to do. It was what I was born for-- killing and a battlefield. Nothing but a weapon or a dog of war. It's only fitting that if all I can do is kill, then my worth should be judged by killing.

And if it's all true, then dear brother is even better at killing than I am.

Then shouldn't it say something to you that the guy who's better at killing than you are doesn't want to do it? HE'S found other stuff to do with his life, so why can't you?

Just because The Man raised you with a plan in mind doesn't mean you have to abide by it. You're a grown man, you can make your own friggin' decisions. Your worth could be decided by-- I don't know, how many pretty flowers you could plant if you decided that's what you were gonna do with your life!

Anyway, that still doesn't explain why the hell you're treating Otacon like crap. What'd he do, look at you wrong?

Because I refuse to go soft. I refuse to be weak. Who ever said that I wanted to be anything other than what I am? I enjoy what I do.

[He was through with packing. Liquid closed his bag and slung it over his shoulder.]

I'm treating him only as he deserves. I don't want him hanging around me.

So you think a person's weak unless they treat killing people like some kind of competition? Good to know.

_{[Her voice is laden with barely-disguised bitterness. She's no saint, not when it comes to... well, killing... but she doesn't think of it as some kind of test of merit.]}

You didn't answer my question. What'd he do? You're acting like he kicked you in the face and insulted your mother.

No. Not all people are as I am. But my brother and I... whatever humanity we could have laid claim to was gone long ago.

[Bitterness? He'd expected disgust.]

He took my life from me. He took my birthright, he took everything from me. The only way to regain it is to kill him!

_{[There was a possibility it could turn to disgust before this exchange was over.]}

That's not true.

That's not true at all.

The only birthright anybody has is that they're a person, and you can't take that away from somebody. And even if you could, getting it back by KILLING is kind of a contradiction.

We're not even IN any of our worlds anymore, why the hell can't you just DROP that and find a new life like he's doing, if you want what he has so much?

[Good. That's what he'd deserve.]

A person...? Didn't I tell you already, I was only ever a weapon? People are born; I was made.

What kind of life could I have? What is there for me to live for if not for my obsessions? All I know is the battlefield. All I live for is the weight of a gun in my hand. I will either become the perfect soldier-- the world's greatest soldier-- or die in the trying.

_{[... Something about that little description of him sends her hackles up. She knows he's talking about HIMSELF, but the implications crept towards home in a way she didn't like.]}

That doesn't matter.

Whether you were grown in a tube or inside somebody, you sure look human to me. Humans are flexible. They can find other things to do when the thing they were meant for is wrong, or doesn't work out. They learn.

What the hell is stopping you from learning?

Are you scared of it?

[She's hit home on him enough times that he ought to get close to it on her at least once, even if it was unintentionally.]

I'm not afraid of anything!

[Hit a nerve there, Heather.]

_{[Yeah, and she's not as emotionally untouchable as she'd like to think. It doesn't help that she's exhausted and not quite on top of her game.]}

Oh really?

'Cuz it sure seems that way to me.

Otherwise you wouldn't get so fucking bent outta shape at all of this.

I. Am not.

[Really hit a nerve.]

I am not bent out of bloody shape, I'm furious that I'm being stonewalled by-- tch!

[By people who shouldn't matter. He should have been able to brush Otacon aside as though he was nothing; he shouldn't have cared about a word that came from Heather's mouth.]

Stonewalled?

The only thing anybody's asked you to do is just... open up your mind a bit and realize how many options you actually have!

The only person stonewalling you is-- ... is yourself, by carrying on with this whole... 'GRR I AM A WEAPON I CAN ONLY KILL GRRR' bullshit!

_{[That's right, Liquid. She called your perceived life's meaning 'bullshit'. Are you gonna take that? Or set her straight with a good, old-fashioned speech?]}

I've never had options! I've never had a choice to be anything other than what I am!

I was made to be a killer, to have the kind of instincts and reactions that make me a perfect weapon. It was programmed into me on a genetic level-- I cannot resist what was written into my very genes. I am... a monster created from the hubris of science, an abomination of nature. And you're surprised that I can be nothing but a weapon, knowing my origins? Knowing how I was... manufactured?

I was made, like a knife or a gun, and what can either of those do but what they were made for? A knife will cut whether or not anyone wishes its purpose to be otherwise. A gun kills. The only way to change this is to destroy them so that they cannot perform their functions.

[The only way to make Liquid other than he was is to make him a corpse.]

I cannot be anything other than what I was made as-- you cannot change a thing's nature.

_{[Oh boy. She'd known it was coming, and yet she'd had to poke that sore spot anyway. Why don't you ever learn, Mason?]

[As Liquid launched into his spiel, Heather threw up her hands, turning to the side and pacing-- well, sort of pacing. Walked back and forth in tight little lines, like a caged tiger, with one hand to her temple and a really, really annoyed expression on her face.]}

Yeah.... yeah... yeah, maybe you were made to be a gun--

_{[And then soooomething inside Heather's frazzled, overworked brain put on goggles, said 'Fuck this shit', and hit a switch.]}

You know what I was made to be? A fucking DOOMSDAY DEVICE. That's what I was born as, but I decided I had BETTER shit to do!

_{[... And then she looked sort of surprised at herself. That... had totally been supposed to come out as 'But that's wrong, you can decide to be something else!' Whoops.]}

[Well, that threw Liquid for a loop.]

...a what?

_{[Ffffffuuuuu...]}

Nothing.

_{[It was said hastily. And obviously Heather was not a bad liar, but she was a bad cover-up-blatant-slip-up- ... er.]}

Can we get back to the point?

Doomsday devices are generally not nothing.

[Nope, he's not going to let them get back to the point.]

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