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 Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:48 am
Seconds pass. Several tense, ominous, slightly awkward seconds. Before is all tight nerves, taut muscles, cold dread. He's seen enough movies to know what his current situation means and what it requires of him. And, yeah, the Voice not being cryptic and going on about fighting the foe within couldn't have been any more obvious if it flashed neon signs that literally spelled it out.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" the other Before smirks, shoulder propping up the large wheel between the dagger-points.
"Uh, dude, you got Vanna," his reminder is rhetorical, and his tone seems more apt for saying duh, which he amends by actually saying "Duh. Like I'm really gonna be that dumb to attack an armed man when all I have is myself. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm also with myself."
The other Before laughs, confident and amused, but there is a very heavy air of condescension about him. "Yeah, I do get it can be confusing, so call me Milton then."
Before goes rigid. While his identity before Before is no secret (especially since Caelius and some of the Lifers flat out ignore his requests to be called Before), it's been some time since he's heard his name spoken aloud.
"Oh, dude, seriously? You're really gonna, like, embrace the whole I-am-your-inner-shadow-fear-thinger label?" Before snorts, folds his arms across his chest to show how very not impressed he is with himself. And if he ever hears that sentence out loud, at this point in his life, it will make him very sad. So it's a good thing then that Milton flashing a too-wide smile full of teeth makes Before think of Jaws or Bruce from Finding Nemo after either has gotten a whiff of blood in the water. Namely that it provides adequate distraction.
Then again, when Milton starts to shift in shape, when his muscles bulge, rapidly expands until the air fills with the sound of ripping fabric, Before would have taken sadness over the hulking monstrosity holding Vanna any ******** day.
OAORown I will get to the rest tomorrow. Sleep times for me.
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Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 10:18 pm
Before scrambles back, trying to put distance between himself and the abomination passing himself off as Milton. The Mist thinks to turn around and run, then remembers there's no where else to go. Which forces him to stand his ground as Milton leaps forward and brings Vanna down with a deafening crash.
The dust clears and Before is on the ground, flat on his a**, legs splayed apart. But the large wheel is a good six inches away from the soles of his feet. Teal eyes just stare in confusion, and the words are out of his mouth before Before knows it, "How could you miss? I was standing like, what? Three? Four feet away!"
Milton looks down at the sorry excuse for an aim he has, then begins to rapidly shrink back to the same size as Before. The copy's lower lip quivers before falling over onto his side, curling up into a ball, sobbing at how pathetic he truly is. "We try so hard at everything we do and, and -hic- it just blows up in our faces. Y-you'd think we -hic- got better but we didn't!" Milton blubbered, "We'll always be a big fat joke and ******** things over and-"
"Awww jeez, c'mon, that is totes not true!" Before huffs and slowly gets to his feet. As loathe as he is to admit it, Milton was, is a very important part of what makes him Before. He stands for all the times he took the easy way out, when he forbids himself from believing in his own competence and purposely squanders his talents (few and weird as they are) on frivolous matters.
"O-oh yeah? Name me one time you didn't ******** up!"
Before just stares at his clone, finding the entire endeavor of comforting himself awkward and strange and possibly when this all blows over even funny. So he tries his best, begins listing missions where he had not killed anyone, the chores he's manages to complete, and the latest experiments in the kitchen. "Plus, remember what Harrison said? About me -er, us doing good?"
Milton wipes the tears and snot away with the back of his hand while nodding. "I-I guess we have grown some, huh?"
"Totes, dude, totes. And it's not like I'm gonna pretend you never existed. I never did and I never will," Before smiles and reaches over to give his other self a hug. Only to have pain explode through him as one of Vanna's dagger-points stab into his shoulder. Over the hum of the runes, Before hears Milton laugh.
"s**t, what the <********>!? I thought we were getting through this?!" Before gurgles out, his trembling hand gripping the large wheel's rim. The slightest movement sends fire shooting through him, and Before thinks twice about pulling himself free. Maybe he'll try again when the buzzing in the back of his head clears and his shoulder's gone numb from blood loss.
Milton, however, has other plans. He gets to his feet, dragging Vanna up along with him, forcing Before to rise and driving the spike deeper through him. The smile on the double's face is serene, pleasant, the sort you find on people's face when presented with a bunch kittens playing with a bunch of puppies.
The smile brightens, and Before is bent in half from a kick to his stomach. The abrupt shift in positions has the spike bursting through to the other side and all Before can do is let out a strangled scream of agony.
"Wh-why?" he hiss, coughing up blood in the process. His other hand clenches tight around the tattered remnants of Milton's shirt, desperately trying to achieve the necessary leverage to pry himself free. "I'm n-not cruel," he reasons. Before hears the disbelief in Milton's snort and focuses on that, trying desperately not to black out from the pain.
"Yeah you are," Milton sneers and then shoves Vanna forward, pinning Before to the ground. He looms over the struggling Mist hunter, "You like to think yourself some sort of underdog, the lovable loser, the fondly remembered joke, and under certain circumstance the crouching moron hidden badass." The double pauses to ponder if he remembered that last term correctly then decides he doesn't really care.
Milton grins, stomps roughly down on Before's stomach, scuffs boot-heel against fabric-covered skin as if he were putting out a cigarette, "You pretend you're a doormat and let people walk all over you while remember every little slight they made against you. You wear your incompetence like a badge of honor, hoping that people will believe it so that when you reveal your true capability, it's pleasant surprises all around."
The expression on Milton's face turns vicious, "But secretly, you want to be an a*****e and destroy others. We both know if presented with the opportunity, you wouldn't think twice about throwing someone under the bus. Literally and figuratively. And you know that makes you worst of an a*****e than Rep because you don't own up to it."
Before narrows his teal eyes dangerously up at his double, them mumbles something underneath his breath.
Milton frowns, "What was that?"
Before continues to murmur, and only when Milton leans forward does Before swiftly bring up his knee to collide at the junction of his double's thighs.
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Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 11:59 pm
"Holy s**t you fell for it," Before half-laughs, half-gurgles, neither half particularly sorry for what he just did. "But bee tee dubs, I totes said yeah, I'm an a*****e. And I'm obvs a bad person for doing that nut-shot, but that's what you get for making me be honest with myself," Before snarls, the adrenaline finally kicks in, helps him ignore the pain long enough to pry Vanna off of him. God he was going to be so ******** sore if he woke up and his wounds turned out to be real and not psychosomatic.
Milton isn't done, not by a long shot. And the two brunettes begin to fight. Sadly there's no fancy Kung Fu moves, no highly complicated series of strikes, no witty banter exchanging. All in all, it was very much like watching children fight in a school yard. There's hair pulling and eye clawing and even biting (YOU BETTER NOT HAVE RABIES!!) and maybe it's through sheer luck that Before manages to force Milton down and pin the double's arms by straddling him.
"Feel like a big man now? Beating on someone like this?" the double leers up, still trying to wiggle his arms free.
"Mebbe, because, yeah, I'm an a*****e. And I'm also a joke." Before smirks wryly, pulls his arm back, hand clenched in a fist, "So here's a PUNCHLINE!"
Milton cringes at the joke, then groans when the fist strikes his jaw. Then his cheek. Then his mouth. Then pretty much the rest of his face. Again and again and again until one of his eyes is swollen shut and blood stains his teeth and cheeks and Before's knuckles.
"Finish me," he weakly coughs.
Before snorts in response, reaching for Vanna to hold her close. (Meanwhile in Deus, Before suddenly pulls Ofelia to him.) Before looks down at everything he hates about himself, the shameful truth that yes, he wishes so fervently he had the guts to be an a*****e and a b*****d that truly, sincerely give no ******** about people's opinion of him. But he doesn't finish Milton off. He simply helps his double to sit up, then claps Milton roughly on the back, "Nah, dude, killing you'd be suicide. I need your edge and I need to be reminded it's a bad idea to completely become you. 'Sides, we kill with kindness, remember?"
Milton's lower lip quivers as he hugs Before, shoulders heaving in throaty sobs. But when he materializes a dagger, Vanna's voice screams a warning in Before's mind. It's instinct and quick-thinking and the weirdest desire to make puns that prompts Before into doing a Mike Tyson on Milton.
His double screams and drops the dagger, reeling back, clutching at his torn ear dangling by a strip of cartilage, growling out in pain and disgust as blood pours out in rivers. Before spits out the chunk of flesh, viciously states, "We really do taste like chicken."
"Oh bite me," Milton snaps as the color begins to drain from him.
"Totes sure I already did," Before chuckles, oddly grateful for the setup and somehow knowing Milton shared his love of puns. "You know I'm really not going to finish you off, don't you?"
"I'd say something about you being a coward about it but, iun think I have it in me to finish you off either."
"Stalemate?"
"Nah, I'll concede. Just don't ******** this up for us. I'm... actually happy here with the few peeps we've made friends with. Keep them safe or I am so totes gonna come right outta your subconscious and take over."
NO YOU WON'T! Vanna's voice roars.
Both men laugh, and continue to laugh until Milton's completely devoid of color, darkens into a featureless void, then simply winks out of existence.
Silly Before, I believe it's time to wake up, his weapon declares.
So he does.
The first thing he sees is Ofelia. And the first thing he does is smile.
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