(Untitled)

[fated_end]

WHO: fated_end and messiah_maybe
WHERE: A random abandoned building in the slums.
WHEN: Sometime after Takaya's rescue.
WARNINGS: UHH NONE? References to violence, I guess.
SUMMARY: Takaya tells Jin about his experiences in the City, Jin (understandably) freaks out. Also evil will likely be plotted somewhere along the line.
FORMAT: Paragraph?

Comments

[messiah_maybe]

Takaya had been thoroughly enjoying the small respite from the shitstorm the past two months had shaped up to be. He sat on the floor, back to the wall and one arm draped lazily over his knee, eyes closed, dozing for the first time in a long time. Living alone for six months had left him nervous, paranoid, lacking sleep and on a hairtrigger twenty four hours a day. To be honest, he was incredibly relieved that Jin was finally here to watch his back.

"Well enough," he answered simply, opening one lazy yellow eye. "Far more so than before you had arrived, at the very least." He sat up, hand instinctively falling where his revolver should be. It was still in asylum custody, most likely - a shame. He really did like that gun. Probably get it back later, when he wasn't in such bad shape. "And you, Jin? From what point in time did you arrive here?" He'd forgotten that Jin might not know that people could come from far separate points in time.

[fated_end]

They did still have the handgun Jin lifted from Katurian, though it wasn't a revolver like Takaya's had been. He was planning on giving it to his partner to use, anyway, since Jin could pretty much only aim accurately at point-blank range.

He shook his head. "It--doesn't seem to make sense." He'd thought about it a little bit, at least, though not in-depth. "You've been here for a while, you said, without me. But when I got here, the last time I'd seen you was in Tartarus -- January 31st." Which was the last time he'd thought he was ever going to see him, but anyway.

"I guess if that Porter or whatever can..." He made a vague gesture with one hand, "-drag people here from different dimensions, then it can manipulate time, too?" A question, because he wasn't quite sure. It seemed as good an explanation as any, though. He'd accepted stranger things before.

[messiah_maybe]

"I have been told that time stands still for those who arrive here." A pause, thoughtful and quiet - he gave Jin his full attention, though as always he didn't really show it in a way that people who didn't know his quirks would understand. "When the machine grows tired of us, it will return us to the point from whence we came. In my case..." Another pause, a more awkward one, because he knew this might not go over too well.

"I will return to the point in which I died. I assume it is a similar position for you?"

[fated_end]

Yeah. Awkward, but not at all unexpected. That was part of their true goal that night, after all.

"It -- would be, yeah." It didn't seem like the best time to launch into an account of his last moments; Takaya could likely make a good enough guess. He wasn't sure how his partner would feel about a suicide, anyway. Probably wouldn't blame him, but still.

"So what do we do? If we're just waiting to die again..." Then was it really any different from home?

[messiah_maybe]

Takaya thought for a moment. What had he really been doing with all the time he'd been here? He'd tormented Katurian on a fairly regular basis, died, and...bided his time, really. Was there any point to the City, or was it just a waiting game?

"We cannot die. But the remainder of the population is not quite so unfortunate." It's really all he could think of, now that he had to come up with plans again. There hadn't been a point when he was living day to day, alone. "Our goals remain mostly unchanged. We liberate those who may permanently experience death from the grasp of their miserable existences. Free them of their fear and pain and the delusions of having any semblance of happiness as a powerless citizen in the midst of inhuman beings."

[fated_end]

So normal people could die, but not them. He'd keep that in mind.

"It'll be -- difficult, without the Dark Hour," he said, deciphering what he assumed was the real intention behind Takaya's word. The idea wasn't too far from what Takaya had always preached at home, so he could safely guess that their methods would be similar, too.

"We'll have to get a lot of stuff in order before we can start anything." It was hardly a question of if they would do it, only how, and how soon. And Jin was already working on that. "What've you done so far?" First he needed an idea of where they were at to begin with. And, though he would never admit it, he was honestly curious as to what Takaya had been up to without him. It had been a long, long time since they'd acted separately, at least for any extended amount of time.

[messiah_maybe]

"While here, I have taken the liberty of setting up certain...resources, in the event of your arrival." A pause. "Less than wholly trustworthy resources, but unless he would rather I let out a certain well-kept secret, he will no doubt comply." Though his ties to the Thunderbolts were distant at best, there was still the matter of what he knew - and if Nygma didn't want to play ball with them, he could always hold it hostage and drain the resources he and Jin needed. It was more or less the only reason he'd accepted the invitation to join at all. "In any case, relying too heavily upon him would be a mistake. I have another contact who supplies our medication, so death by that manner is not an issue."

[fated_end]

"I see." Made sense; otherwise, how would Takaya have survived that long? -- Of course, Jin didn't know that he hadn't survived that long.

"Sounds like you've been busy." He paused. Jin was blunt by nature, but around Takaya he tried to use at least a little tact. "Obviously you weren't just making friends, though." Time to get at the things he really wanted to know. Like why he'd needed to beat the shit out of a seemingly random stranger in the first place. "...What happened between you and that Katurian guy?"

[messiah_maybe]

"Katurian is, to be quite blunt, the epitomy of what we seek to eliminate within this world. He lives his life in constant and pure misery, self-denial, and pain - and denies it all as much as possible. And to deny it further, he has taken up the guise of a white knight, one who will protect this city from me." Takaya smirked, a particularly nasty one. "He is merely a stone's throw away from my viewpoint and knows it. I am a totem of his hatred, and in silencing me, he may believe that he has done something of worth within his pointless life."

He waved his hand idly, as if to elaborate somehow. "In truth, however, he is of no danger himself. He merely took advantage of my highly prone state after a confrontation that left me incapacitated at best."

[fated_end]

He made a quiet tch-ing sound. Jin's suspicions were mostly correct, then. Katurian had been a total pushover. He knew there had to be some other force that had helped him capture Takaya.

"Are you sure we should've let him off the hook so easily, then? He's gonna keep harassing you. When I fought him, he was determined not to cooperate with me. He said he'd rather die." Jin had gotten around that anyway, but that was mostly by luck.

[messiah_maybe]

Takaya mused on whether or not now was the appropriate time to bring up Tyki Mikk or his torture.

"He torments himself in every way possible. What he attempts to do to me is little more than a brief annoyance - he is as lethal as a fly or an earthworm, as just as far below us." A pause. Better now than never, right? No secrets. "The more pressing concern is a man by the name of Tyki Mikk - he is the reason Katurian had any opportunity to capture me. After a particularly...brutal round of torture, he left me for dead."

[fated_end]

Not quite buying his opinion on Katurian (the situation a few days ago was pretty serious), but he'll trust him on it for now. Unless something happens again.

"...That's where your wounds came from?" And though they had healed somewhat, Jin could still tell that they'd been particularly nasty injuries.

"What happened?" ...Tread carefully, Takaya.

[messiah_maybe]

"Indeed." Treading carefully. He knows Jin. "I was caught unawares during an assault on the city - we crossed paths in the same alley. He is inhuman - by will his body becomes transparent, and he has a dearth of wasp-like butterflies with a taste for blood within his body. After a half hour or so, he departed and left me for dead. I was apparently put into a hospital for weeks - on awakening, I took my leave and Katurian took advantage of my weakened state. Were I able to harness Hypnos' power without the physically taxing effects driving me into further wear, I would have incinerated him within an instant."

Quick, clean, and ignoring the fact that he passed out in a gutter right before Katurian found him.

[fated_end]

It was upsetting, to say the least, but likely less so than if Takaya had gone into all the gory details.

"You should've been more cautious," he said, although the warning was basically irrelevant now that Jin was here. Jin was Takaya's missing sense of self-preservation. He wasn't really angry at Takaya at all, just at this Tyki guy, at Katurian. Takaya had very effectively skewed it as a random attack, rather than something that he'd had a hand in provoking.

"Things'll be different now. No one'll get the best of us again." That was a promise.