Umbri's brow raised at the lack of financial recuperation expected of her from the Rogue and the shapeshifter. Even her snappier companion didn't expect anything from his vigilantism, but there was something so mundane about the thought of superpowered Rogues needing day jobs. No wonder Stake was a thief.
She bolted up as Jemma's mass was sucked into a black hole, jumping the radio and making it cut out. She was horrified, and
mesmerised by the way the ink rippled across the sphere, the tide being pulled on a little planet that had halted its orbit above the op-table. Her consciousness had been rolling in that ocean, just moments earlier... There was a somber weight to the air, as Aegis mentioned the 'old timer'.
Graham bowed his head with a quiet sigh.
“A real hero, that one. Ain’t easy to live up to, even with all the strength in the world.” The blacksmith’s gaze - subconsciously or not - wandered as he spoke. Umbri discreetly chased it to the daydreaming Rogue and swallowed the question,
'what are you talking about?' She had a decent picture.
She pushed herself off Temujin's table with a bounce and walked to Jemma, head cocking as she neared. All of Jemma was in that little ball? That ever-rotating gallery of nightmares that had towered over her head? She held her hand towards the sphere. The inky fluid seemed to pull towards her fingertips as they neared.
“What the hell are you doing?” Temujin barked in an instant.
“Get your fingers away from that!” He rolled his shoulder forward in a flaccid sort of pointing.
“That’s how it eats, enveloping everything in that black slime, like some… freak of nature!” His mask was glaring right at her, baring fangs that curled with unbridled hostility.
Umbri drew her hand away, frowning. The ink slapped back to the surface of the sphere in a ripple.
“Does it have to be people?” she wondered.
“What?” Temujin asked… and then thought.
“How should I know? I’m not exactly the world’s leading expert on monster-o-logy. Maybe garbage will do.”She strained her memory of that unreality and the shapes and quiet storms that moved through it.
“It has to shine,” a thought slipped. It was the only way she could put it in her understanding. The shapeshifter had asked for only a sandwich and a housesitter, but of course, to Umbri, she owed a lot more.
“If we could find that woman, that warden of sun and fire she talked about, we could learn how her body works - and who the Warden works for.” All she desired was a user’s manual - the Rogue must have been craving something a lot bloodier. The Warden had tortured his friend and aided in her imprisonment for years. Which sparked another terrible thought,
“It wouldn’t be so hard. If Jemma’s escaped… the Warden must already be hunting for her.”At the mention of Jemma’s previous captors still potentially looking for her, the lights and shapes orbiting Alex suddenly took on sharper and dangerous looking forms. A sound not too dissimilar to glass cracking could be heard as he squeezed the bauble in a clenched fist.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Whatever happens, she won't be taken again if I have anything to say about it.” His helmeted gaze turned to Temujin.
”Also, if you keep being a hypocrite I’m going to give you a few new dents. Eating people due to compulsions from one's powers? Fucked up but powers can be that way,’ He pointed at the currently quadriplegic cyber ninja.
”You however butcher people of your own volition. Wearing the flesh of your kills is fucked up, them being scum doesn’t make it any less fucked. Pretty sure you skinned some poor fuck a few weeks back, alive if I heard correctly.”Umbri jerked her head to Temujin in shock.
Of course she’d known of the Red Oni’s violent exploits, he was the bogeyman where she was from and many of her patrons had reason to fear him. But having the reminder thrown at her after fighting together, suffering together, and laughing together didn’t feel… good.
“You wear what?”That was when Alex threw his hand in the air. If it wasn’t obvious that he was fed up before, it was now. His constructs visibly glitched and reformed in jagged shapes but stayed within a close orbit of him.
”Look, even I have taken a life when it was necessary to protect people, but most of the rest of us Rogues don’t slaughter and maim every criminal or “Sinner” we come across.” His voice remained steady and didn’t rise, but there was a hard edge there.
Temujin fumed. Audibly. A low, raspy growl underlined by static.
"You can call me many things, Alexander, but 'hypocrite' isn't one of them," he replied, with an uncharacteristically even tone.
"I do what you and the rest of the Rogues are too chickenshit to do. I revel in the blood, shit, and terror of a never-ending horde of vermin, of the dregs who fester my city with the sort of cunning and evil that only humans possess." Temujin's eyes were a pitch-black, seething glare, denying even the slightest glint of light.
"...The sort of evil that only fears itself."The ninja fell quiet, allowing the silence to emphasise his point.
"In spite of it all, I have never taken the life of an innocent. I am no beast, I don't kill without feeling or purpose. If you think otherwise…" He shrugged.
"...Then do what I'd do, and kill me right here." His voice had only gotten calmer.
"...And after you're done, stare into the abyss of depravity that is Northbridge. My ghost will be watching when it breaks you." Umbri buried her face in her hands. Of course he denied
nothing but being a hypocrite.
There was a long pause from Alex before all the constructs orbiting him fizzled out and he was left shaking his head.
”Ok, fine, you're not a hypocrite. But at least be more fucking professional and don’t go throwing real names around you chrome asshole. SOME of us still have identities they’re trying to keep safe.”A loud series of rattles and grates came from behind them as the garage door rolled up. Light from the sun lamp streamed beneath folded metal, and Ako's petite figure followed, her cheeks puffed and her hands rested on her hips as she strolled.
"Jeepers… why can't I ever remember where I put my-" she came upon the group, and straightened in an instant.
"Howdy! Don't suppose you fine folk saw my wallet? Pink little thing, with dinosaurs stickered all over?" The mechanic's eyes flicked towards Umbri.
"You're alive!" Her lips parted in a telltale attempt to say Umbri's name… only for the horror of not knowing to settle in her eyes.
Graham stood up and cleared his throat. His entire body jiggled as he shouted,
"AKO! Where have you been?! You don't leave a fixin' mid surgery! That's so bad for literally ANYONE!" Ako stammered, mouth agape and blinking, not from fear, but rather…
"W-what??? But you're the one who… told us to-" …Incredulity.
Graham waved away any further words from her, his face a bright, flushed pink.
"Just- just get back to work. I'll cover your tab. I owe you from last time anyway." He wiped the sweat from his brow.
"And I should go and round up the rest of these lazy good-for-nothins'."The Doctor, remarkably still present, huffed.
“And there’s nothing more to do here, and nothing I can do for that,” he jabbed his thumb at the ink ball.
“So I’m going back to work, where somebody might actually need a doctor. Which is getting fewer and farther between these days…” he muttered on the way out.
Koba, who had been content to sit back and watch, signed towards Graham and Ako,
("I'll stay here and watch over Dove.") His attention returned towards the swirling ball of ink.
("If anything changes, I'll send a message.")Umbri removed herself as the shield between Temujin and Aegis, compelled to be helpful,
“Is there anything here that Jemma can eat?”Graham glanced up to recall.
"There's chia pudding in the employee's fridge. Margot left it four months ago, after she gave up on another fad diet." ‘Doesn’t glow,’ she almost spoke aloud, which would be crazy. Umbri bent over, fished her heels out from under Temujin’s table and leaned on it to shuffle her feet in. When she stood up again she’d gained six inches of height.
“I’m going out,” she announced and gestured to the Jemma 8-ball.
“She said she’s hungry, and that looks -- wrong. We can't leave her like that.”Umbri started to walk towards the roller door, but her steps slowed as she realised, for the first time since forever, she didn’t know where she was going. It was such a strange absence that instantly had her missing her shithole of a home. She looked back to Aegis.
“Is there a market around here?” She asked, but what she really meant and lost against her tongue to ask was ‘can you show me’.
Shopping? Probably a good idea. Get away from all of the drama . . . and everything that was brought up about the cyber ninja that Umbri had put a lot of trust in. Way to go big guy.
Alex looked to Umbri then back at the ink ball before nodding his head.
”Yeah . . . I should get out of here for a bit anyway before I do something I regret.” Getting up, the chair dissipated once again while helping him up in one smooth motion.
”Give me a second, I’ll meet you outside.”She watched the superhero's back as he left before her thoughts returned to her silly talking backpack that had recently flayed someone alive and worn hats fashioned from human remains.
"I'll, um, see you," she said, unable to look at him properly.
Temujin did not reply to her immediately. It didn't take a smart man to see that Aegis's comments had rattled her.
"I don't wear them," he blurted out, a correction so belated that she was already walking away. She whipped back around.
"I don't even keep them… the effigies I make are warnings, not trophies."It took Umbri a second to figure out how to react, but a smile was already twitching on her before she realised.
"That's… good, I mean, terrifying," she squeezed out between a laugh that was equal parts relieved and nervous.
"Be back soon." She gave a little wave on exit.
Ako lowered the hand she waved back, tossed her head between Temujin and the door, and leaned down to him.
"Ya know, Mujin, you really should quit wearin' em tongue necklaces," she advised with a wiggling finger.
"Or you're NEVER getting a second date.""Second date?" Temujin asked, his head lifted with bemusement. His attention turned towards the exit, lingering as the metal unfolded and shut out the light.
TheRockening
