(Untitled)

[mmm_paradise]

Who: mmm_paradise, shrt_temper, mouthiness, eventually cutest_avenger and ultimaverum
What: The ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny! sort of. MURDER PLOT FINALE, THANK GOD.
When: November 14, 7:00 PM
Where: The library second floor, an out of the way (but visible) alcove
Rating: Who knows mang. PG-13 for Deadpool's mouth?

Comments

[payback]

At the moment more than anything Rin would have liked to punch something (or someone - she could think of more than a few folks right now that could probably benefit from a sharp blow to the head). But that wouldn't do anyone any good at this point, since Rorschach and whatever friends he'd picked up had apparently forged the Rubicon already. There was no going back now, and if she wanted to do anything for anyone she had to keep as calm as she could, just like in the prisons -

Knowing that didn't stop her breath from tearing sharply at her throat. It was possible (it was always possible) that she was just fooling herself, and he'd called her down to obliterate her brain in person for whatever bizarre reason he'd concocted. As if he couldn't do that from a distance...

It wasn't hard picking the little group out in the library, what could look like a relaxed tête-à-tête becoming a sick joke once you knew what was going on - Joshua's floppy silver moptop stood out, and she had practice at zeroing in on him by then anyway. Rin took a deep breath and forced herself to walk at a reasonable pace, clenching and unclenching her fists, moving towards the alcove and sure she'd been spotted.

[mmm_paradise]

Joshua was sitting on the table at this point, swinging his legs and looking for all the world like a rambunctious teenager planning his next practical joke for the library with two henchmen at his beck and call. Nothing could have been so far and so close to the truth at the same time. He looked up at the patter of feet, good, she was getting smarter; no need to sneak up if he already knew she was there, she was coming, she was picking up her things and dashing off like a shot - haha, what a game this was, what a show! His power was the only thing on the RG realm at this point; he himself had already tuned up to the UG frequency, leaving the decoy as his RG avatar.

It was a pretty petty trap, if you looked at it from a third person perpective - dropping hints, luring the brightest minds, making them traverse through all of the red tape and legislation that was the rules of the Paradisan reality, just so he (and Rin, he didn't want her to feel left out) would have something to do. But then again, what choice did he have? Neku had been off limits from the start. He couldn't do this to him. He had done enough, winning Joshua's game for him and all, and... now he had to live how he liked. Which meant that Joshua would have to stay a good arm's length away from whatever Neku chose to do. Look, nudge, but don't touch. It was all right. Joshua had done a very good job at entertaining himself without his Proxy, although from a dogmatic, mortal viewpoint, he was pretty sure that this stunt would probably have Mr. H on his case all over again.

His avatar waved at her cheerily. "Nice of you to make it, Bee. Ready for some fun?" It grinned, all teeth and innocence. "Have a seat, dear."

[payback]

She slowed at the acknowledgment, feeling a kind of sickness welling up inside her at. She had no idea what these people had tried to pull on Joshua, or what she was even going to do; whether she should try to protect them or cut them off now, leave them fluttering in the breeze, save her own skin.

Giving up was not really within Rin's character, but as she looked at Joshua - the horrible little godling that for whatever godforsaken reason she on some level rather liked, and was not going to just abandon - the possibility occurred to her and she swallowed hard.

Maybe she could bribe their way out of it with stories or information. Then again... a fire had never been quenched by throwing more fuel on it. Though Joshua burned too cold for the comparison to really hold water.

She sat, anyway, and folded her hands on her lap, pressing her fingers against each other. She tried to look at him as steadily as she possibly could. "What kind of 'fun'?"

[mmm_paradise]

A few seconds pause, and suddenly - woo, if they feel a little woozy, that means that they just felt themselves elevate, their physical bodies snatched up and away into the UG. Joshua was sitting in the exact same place, with the same body and the same smirk; the library itself stayed the same. After all, the UG and the RG were on dimensions one and the same. He stretched, creating a curious double image of himself; one on the RG and one on the UG, extended like a cat. "Hmm... I should really get rid of that." It was gone before he finished his sentence, and he stood up, leaning against the table with on hand in his coat pocket and the other out as he inspected his nails.

"'Fun' as in amusements, excitement, entertainment - aided by our two new friends here." He waved at them. Their hands slowly raised and waved back before settling back down by their sides. "Rorschach and Deadpool are very friendly, as you can probably tell."

[payback]

At that moment of vertigo, Rin opened her hands out again, pressing them against the arms of the chair as if she needed to keep her balance. It was stupid, she was sitting down, not about to fall, but the reflex surprised her enough that she reacted anyway. Even if she thought she had her balance, anyway... there were still far too many places for her to stumble.

One red and black mask, one black and white - Rin glanced them over, wondering which was the man who'd questioned her. They were both quiet, strangely still, more than she imagined herself being if she was in this situation. Rin turned back to Joshua with her eyes slightly narrowed, watching his languid movements. "What's wrong with them?" Although maybe what are you doing to them would have been the more relevant question. She'd start with that, anyway.

[mmm_paradise]

"Oh, lots of things." One of which was the loud, yellow-speaking one - he was not being easy to read, something that Joshua figured had to do with the deadly cancer in his body. The other guy was easier, though, his surface thoughts twisting and turning and naked. He pointed at him. "This guy, for example, is definitely your textbook definition of a borderline case. Psychiatry could do nothing for him." His shoes made arcs under the table. "Black and white, indeed."

[payback]

That smile. She had to say, she hated that smile, at least in this situation. Smug and feline, and it was always a shame to resort to cliche but Joshua did look exactly like the proverbial cat that had got the canary. Rin shifted, restless, wishing she could pace, and settled for tapping her foot against the floor, finding a rapid tempo. "Let me clarify that, then. What are you doing to them?"

Damn the masks - even looking as anxiously as she could, Rin couldn't find their eyes. Maybe it was just a delusion to think seeing them face to face would even shed a hint of genuine light onto what they were feeling, how afraid they might be, if they were intelligent enough to be afraid at all.

[mmm_paradise]

A tempo, a tempo, he hadn't let himself really go for a while, had he? Idly, he started composing a symphony in his head to that beat, a quick waltz for the final boss of this particular dungeon, but this one was rigged in the game's favor. No one beats a cutscene. He watched her eyes study them carefully, so full of concern Unfounded, really - they were more fun while they were alive.

"Just looking through their stats. I want to see if there's anything worth keeping, you know?" Joshua pulled a frown. "They were being pretty mean before, but if I wanted to, I could pull them into shape..." With a small frown, he stood them both up to face Rin. "Banzai," he commented, and both their hands went up, arms straight and parallel. "I suppose they'd make decent cheerleaders."

[payback]

That pulled a shudder out of her, quick and entirely involuntary. This side of him was one that was much better hidden, for once something she was glad she didn't know, and Rin was out of her seat and pacing a quick arc towards the trapped idiots before she could really think about it. It was macabre, really, and for a split second she was tempted to ask him to clarify what exactly cheer leaders did. But really, this wasn't the time for that -

Worth keeping, he said. Rin stopped, narrowed her eyes at the men, jerked around like marionettes. "Worth keeping?" God, (and she frowned a bit at even thinking that; she didn't like thinking of those things around Joshua, she didn't even want to use the words imagination or soul - ) he wouldn't give her a straight answer, but she would ask anyway. "What are you going to do? Joshua..." She pulled her gaze away from them, eyes narrow, lips tight and tense, "Why am I here?"

[mmm_paradise]

She was here because there was something the picture needed. Joshua took a film class, once, back in the nineties when everyone in Japan wanted to make American slasher films, just to see what all the commotion was about. (He knew what the commotion was all about - Hollywood was having a blast with its new Composer, they decided retro was in and the world followed)

But if there wasn't a feeling of security to the picture, there was no movie. Audiences wanted to be taken care of, and sheltered and comforted with something that was familiar. After going through several scenarios in his head, he decided that a protagonist was probably needed in this case.

(but who said there had to be a happy ending)

"Just to feel out your take on the scenario." The men's arms clapped back to their sides, scarecrows with no crossbeams. "You are what they call the audience's surrogate." A smile. "A proxy, if you will."