ya_assemble | [LN] Dangerously Genre-Savvy [closed to Nico]

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[LN] Dangerously Genre-Savvy [closed to Nico]

"Inspector!" Rafa cried out, as the Inspector's ship crash landed in the purple jungles of Khalafross. Clad in his traditional animal skins, he was an imposing figure, even despite the fact that the Inspector was taller than him. "The danger light blinks! Rafa can see with the eyes of the ship! Our most hated enemy comes for us: Blorgons!"

Native to the planet Tumantis, Rafa was one of the Tessujex, a subgroup of the people known as the Suveteem. In the Inspector's adventures, he had discovered that the Suvateem were actually descendant of a crashed space exploration survey team. (Their name, in fact, was what "survey team" had devolved into over the centuries). The Tessujex had evolved from the animals on board that had accidentally been exposed to mutagens during the crash and developed human intelligence. (Hence the name Tessujex, a twisted version of the words "test subjects.")

After the Tessujex were used as slave labor for centuries, the Inspector was responsible for making the Suveteem realize that the humanoids among them were not the superior species they'd once thought they were and that their claim that they were descended from the gods was false, the Tessujex finally had a chance of being treated equal in their society. After that, Rafa, one of the Tessujex's most noble warriors and resistance fighters had declared that he would follow the Inspector to the end of time until the debt could be repaid, especially if it meant the Inspector could teach him the ways of peace after a lifetime of battle.

"We must leave! Quickly! And fight them in the jungle. Rafa knows the way!"

They had no way of defending themselves on the ship and there was no way to repair it while the Blorgons were on board.

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A nearby alien, one of Jabba's guards, chirped in alarm, the chirps resolving into something they could understand, using that same young man's voice from earlier.

"Not cool, not cool," the alien said. "Wrong order of events. Luke and Han get taken to the sarlaac pit first, then Luke starts his rescue. Leia chokes Jabba to death when everyone is distracted by the spectacle. Not canon. This isn't canon."

They both briefly got a glimpse of the same tall man as before, only rather than being an alien, for a moment he was dressed like Han Solo.

Then the world shifted again.

Edited 2014-12-26 09:19 (UTC)

This was Nico Mori's first time in a Jaeger. She'd dreamed about this day for years, that she'd find someone with whom she was drift compatible and she'd be allowed to do this. She'd never expected that it would be this Jaeger, with this guy.

The amount of hair she'd had to stuff inside her helmet meant that she could see the red streaks she'd dyed in it out of the corners of her eyes. But she'd known that before she put her helmet on, and so had secured it so that it wouldn't be getting in her face and obscuring her vision. She looked beyond her hair, to the young man inside the Jaeger with her.

"Ready?"

"Hell yeah," he said with a wicked grin through the clear pane of his helmet. "Let's send this squid-monster packing. In a bento box."

Their jaeger was called the Shell Raiser, a turtle-like Jaeger with heavy armor that his younger brother had insisted on naming. Due to the fact Raph Becket and his other brother, his copilot Leo, were so damn good they'd let them actually use the name. It had made operations easier, anyway, since the two of them refused to use any other name on the comms.

They'd seen it as good luck to have Mikey christen the thing.

That luck, however, hadn't lasted. Raph had seen Leo die, felt it, and because of it, he thought he'd never find someone else to pilot with again. He'd walked away from the program altogether.

Until Stacker Pentecost had dragged him back in and he'd met Nico Mori. Then everything had changed.

This was their first time going up against a kaiju together, and the first time he'd be facing one after losing Leo, but he couldn't have been more confident about it with Nico at his side.

She was the one. After thinking he'd never find someone else again she was the one and now the Shell Raiser was back in action.

Nico flashed him a grin in return before turning her gaze toward the screens in front of them, double-checking that her boots were locked into place, and trying to prepare herself to engage in the neural handshake.

She wouldn't embarrass herself. She'd prove that they were right to give her this chance.

And, yeah, she'd help Raph cram this thing into a bento box no matter how much it wanted to get to shore instead.

A voice came on over the comm, informing them that they were within seconds of arriving on-site and that it was time to engage in the neural handshake so that the could hit the water running.

She could do this. She would do this.

"Neural handshake initiated. Pilot-to-pilot connection engaged."

They both fell into the Drift, syncing up, their thoughts and feelings pooling together into controlled maelstrom. Back when he and Leo were partners, Leo's calm always tempered the storm that was Raph's mind, but it worked differently with Nico. They were both part of the storm, winds and crackling lightning raging, but were able to direct that storm where they willed together.

The only problem was the modesty reflex. The more time they spent together, the more Raph had something to hide. Right now that came into play, thoughts creeping in that he didn't want her to see, feelings he didn't want her to feel.

She couldn't know.

You're not human, she'd never -

Wait. Wait.

I'm not human.

He wasn't human. Outside himself, there was the feeling of the jaeger being an extension of his own body, but he could still feel his body within the shell, and it was - it was the wrong body. He was supposed to have a shell of his own, it was the wrong body.

What was happening? Something was happening, something had gone wrong with the Drift.

"Nico!" he choked out aloud, as he started to panic. "Something's wrong -"

He was starting to panic, his breath coming in jagged gasps.

In the Drift, his thoughts were going somewhere strange. He and his brother were training together in the Kwoon combat room - no, no that wasn't right. It was a dojo and Leo was there, but so were his two younger brothers. They weren't supposed to be, they weren't supposed to be there. They weren't in the program.

And Stacker Pentecost was overseeing them fight, that was - no. No, that wasn't Pentecost, it was - it was his real father? But his father was a hydraulic engineer, not -

Nico!

Edited 2014-12-26 10:39 (UTC)

For a few glorious moments they were synced, the storms of their minds meeting and merging instead of struggling against each other. It was still the most amazing thing she'd ever experienced.

Then something went wrong.

Nico!

A boiling, overwhelming panic pursued her name to her mind, Raph plummeting like Icarus from the sky and their connection pulling her along behind him into the Drift.

They were about to go into a fight for their lives and for the city of Hong Kong, now was not the time for this.

Raph!

Maybe she could find him and they could climb out of whatever rabbit hole Raph had tripped into -- before they hit the water.

He chased the rabbit. He needed to see where it went, needed to know why he felt this way.

He knelt in front of his father - who was human, like he was - in a strange dojo that looked...almost like it was underground. His brothers all knelt next to him in a line.

"Anger is self-destructive," his father said sternly.

"I always thought it was others-destructive," Raphael said, somewhat sassily.

The image changed and he was moping as he sat at a kitchen table, watching his pet turtle chew on a leaf in front of him.

"You understand me, don't you, Spike? Chew on your leaf if you understand me," Raph said. The turtle chewed on its leaf. "Yeah, I thought so."

His father suddenly appeared behind him and said, "I understand you, too."

"Seriously, you gotta knock or something!"

But he did understand. He'd understood so much more than Raph had understood that he'd understood, and now he was gone, now thanks to the Shredder, he'd never be able to see him again, never be able to thank him for trying so hard, for caring so much -

Shredder. It was the Shredder's fault that Splinter was gone.

Hatred sparked to life and brought back so much more of Raph's memory. He was standing at a sewer grate with two of his brothers and his friend April, watching, helpless, as the man in metal armor beyond it killed his father, screaming as he was thrown down a sewer drain.

He shoved April out of the way and grabbed onto the bars.

"YOU! Yooou monster!"

Then he started screaming and pounding his fists against the bars, absolutely hysterical, pain and rage taking over.

This wasn't right. He'd never told her about this, it wasn't in his profile. His father had abandoned the family after his mother died, not died like this. And why was he wearing weapons?

Edited 2014-12-26 11:09 (UTC)

This...this wasn't in his profile. What was going on? She'd never heard of anyone chasing the make-believe rabbit.

She waded through the shallow water, ignoring the memories of the people around them.

"Raph! Raphael!"

Under any other circumstances, she wouldn't have tried to touch him; but they really couldn't afford whatever this was right now. She brought her hands down on his shoulder but didn't grab hold -- she may have been taking risks, but she wasn't taking stupid risks.

"Raphael, it's me! Nico!"

He turned around at her touch, almost frothing at the mouth, screaming out his grief and anger, looking as if he wanted to punch something, anything and was only just holding back from punching her or the people around them in the memory.

He was angry. So horribly angry.

But through the strange red mask on his face, she'd be able to see tears in his eyes.

This was a rage that came more from pain than anything else.

Nico shrank back from the rage and pain on his face. Whatever he was caught in the grips of, he was caught in it but good. Shouting at him wouldn't do anything. Heck, if she waited too much longer to do something, he might start swinging.

She rocked back on her heels, bent her knees, and dove forward, wrapping her arms around him and being glad that his helmet meant that he couldn't try and bite her in this state.

The obvious display of comfort and affection seemed to drag him back from the abyss. For a moment, he froze there in her arms, and then leaned his helmeted head against her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her.

"He killed my dad," he said, voice quavering. "We couldn't do anything, all we could do was stand there while he killed my dad. I couldn't protect him, I couldn't protect Leo..."

There was a flash around them of his brother being pulled out of the cockpit of their jaeger...but then it changed to something different. The image reversed. Instead of being pulled out, his brother was thrown in through the window of an apartment, glass shattering, the world seeming to slow down as his bruised and bleeding body tumbled against the floor, limbs flailing in rag doll motions as he landed.

Then they were back in the sewer again, the frozen ghosts of his other two brothers and April standing around the two of them.

"I couldn't protect my family," he said, voice finally cracking and giving way to a sob.

It was too real, too hard to hide it all under bravado and a tough guy exterior. After all, this was inside his head, not outside it.

None of this was in his profile. Nico had no idea what to do with any of this. She just hugged him more tightly and hoped for the best.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But you can still protect the ones that remain. All is not lost."

No, that wasn't it. Those weren't the right words. She frowned.

"It sucks, what happened."

Better.

That struck a note.

It did suck. Just like her losing Gert and -

He remembered. He remembered all the times he'd talked to her, all the things he'd said to her, the Guardians, the Kraang, Shredder, he remembered it all.

"I remember it. All of it!" He backed away, ripping off his helmet and looking down at himself. "I'm not even human. None of this is real, and I'm not even human -"

The suit morphed into his shell - what was supposed to be there - and he looked up at her, his eyes wide and wild.

"Nico, I'm not some guy named Raph Becket. I'm Raphael. I'm a ninja! I'm a mutant - I - I - remember everything." Something important occurred to him. "Leo's alive! We weren't pilots, we were ninjas, and my dad taught us, and he was a giant rat, and we grew up in the sewers, and I know this sounds crazy, this totally sounds crazy but -"

Edited 2014-12-26 11:43 (UTC)

Okay, maybe he wasn't chasing the rabbit. Maybe she was still asleep somewhere because her Drift partner just turned into a giant bipedal turtle.

"AAAH!"

Seriously, what.

"Raph?"

"Nico, I know this is crazy but something is messing with our heads right now. Your name isn't Nico Mori, it's Nico Minoru," he said, gently taking her by the shoulders, trying to ignore the sting that came from her scream. "And we're not pilots in some kind of monster fighting program, you're a witch that occasionally accidentally superheroes and I'm a ninja mutant, and -"

He froze in place as the full weight of that hit him.

"I'm a mutant."

Which totally meant he had no chance with her now, of course, but there was far more to it than that. He was a mutant and he'd fought mutants and monsters and aliens and all manner of terrifying things, that all exploded into his head. It was too much to handle. For a little while he'd thought he was some kind of alien-fighting robot mech hero, but this was still something of a softer reality than his own.

Back home, he still fought monsters, and he didn't have a nice, hard robot body between himself and them. He had still lost family, even if it wasn't Leo, and had almost lost Leo, too. Karai had been mutated, the city had been lost, they'd had to risk their necks day in and day out. It all came rushing back, flashing around them like that scary scene in Billy Bonkers and the Candy Factory, mutants incubating in his stomach, and being infected by a parasitic wasp and biting his own brothers after fighting a black-eyed, hissing Leo, and zombie wolf mutants, and horrible alien monsters pretending to be April's mom, and -

Vines. Vines grabbing him in the dark and dragging him off -

Vines that suddenly exploded out of the sewer grate behind him, dragging him through them as they shattered into black glass, as he chased the rabbit even farther down.

He screamed a muffled scream of abject terror through the vines that had clamped over his mouth, was yanked backwards, and then all that was left was a black hole in front of Nico, one that threatened to swallow her up if she followed him.

Edited 2014-12-26 12:02 (UTC)

"Raph!"

Nico lurched forward, catching herself before she went tumbling down that black hole after him.

What was she supposed to do? Was this something that the Kaiju was doing? Was that turtle-thing even Raph in the first place?

That one had an answer: the tug told her that it was him. Or maybe that thing that had grabbed him. Either way, she wasn't getting them back to piloting Shell Raiser standing here.

"'Occasionally accidentally superheroes', huh," she said, and flung herself down the hole after him. She'd just have to trust that they could find their way back out.

She landed in the middle of a dark woods, barely lit by the light of the moon. There was a furrow in the ground, as if something heavy had been dragged along it, and far off in the direction that furrow went in, there was the sound of Raph's muffled screaming.

If she followed it, she'd find Raph being dragged into a terrible little rundown shack in the middle of the woods by...something huge and hulking, wearing overalls.

Heck yes she followed it, she'd already jumped down a dark hole for this guy. He was her drift partner -- even aside from her affection for him, she couldn't pilot the Shell Raiser without him.

She broke into a run as she saw the thing drag Raph into the shack.

"RAPH!"

It was just someone else's memory, after all. It couldn't hurt her.

The shack had rusted tools hanging from the walls, and a strange little bottle of something sparkling and green on what looked like a homemade altar surrounded by flowers.

The terrible monster was hovering over him, its body comprised of disgusting looking gook, plant roots, and even live earthworms. Raph managed to position himself so he could kick it in the stomach with both feet from the floor, knocking it over, and then he tried to inch worm away, but the creature got up and hurled a pitchfork so that it stuck in the ground just inches from Raph's face, making him screech a terrified screech. Then it started to drag him back by the vines that were wrapped around him, causing them to grow into the floor to tether him there.

It was like something out of a horror movie, a helpless victim being dragged to some remote and horrible torture den, screaming as they were chained to the floor.

Raph thrashed against the vines, still clearly terrfied, and the monster bent over him a plant-root hand grasping over his face and doing...something to it, that made him scream even more in pain and fear.

Nico's first impulse was to take a swing at the monster with the branch she'd picked up off the ground (she must have picked it up, it was there in her hand. Strangely smooth and clean for something she'd picked up off the forest floor, but it was in her hand...)

But no, this was a memory, wasn't it? She couldn't defend him from the monster, because she hadn't been there. Instead, she skirted around it, reaching out to touch him.

"Raph, this is just a memory."

Or something. She still wasn't entirely sure she wasn't dreaming.

"Raph, look at me, I'm here!"

When the creature withdrew its hand, it was finally clear what it'd done to him. Somehow, it had implanted strange roots and growing vines in Raph's skin - and they were spreading, worming their way in and growing all through his flesh. Strange grass-like growth was spreading with the vines, moving over his face and shoulders, creating moss-like growth over his shell. His drivesuit was missing in this little memory scenario, making the grotesque changes abundantly clear.

The creature left the shack, slamming the door behind it, taking the pitchfork with it. Raph desperately tried to rip the vine up from the floor or off of himself but found it wouldn't budge.

As soon as Raph had judged it was gone long enough, he managed to work his mouth free of the vines and started screaming. He clearly was so lost in this he didn't see Nico because he was calling out for his brother's help instead.

"LEEEOOOOOOO!"

Calling out for his big brother was instinct. It was rare that Raph was ever this terrified but now that he was, of course he was yelling for his older brother first. No matter how much they'd butted heads or argued, Raph knew how much Leo cared about them all, how much he tried to keep them all safe.

A memory flashed, like it so often did in the Drift, light and fleeting, the image of a young Raph - a turtle-boy, not a human boy - clinging desperately to some sewer pipes over a large and dangerous sewer drain. He'd slipped when they'd been playing hide and seek, slid down one of the pipes they weren't supposed to go down, and he could barely hold on as the waters churned below. He was scared - like actually, really, really scared.

"LEEEOOOO!"

And he came. Of course he came. He was always there when they needed him.

"Raph! Where are you?!"

"I'm down here! I slipped! There's a big drain and the pipes are broken and I can't climb up. I'm slipping!"

"Raph, hang on!"

"Already doing that, in case that wasn't obvious!"

"Use all that energy you're using for sarcasm for hanging on!" Leo called out sardonically, and thudding noises came from above, as if he was banging a bent pipe out of the way. "Mikey, gimme your kusarigama!"

He'd come skidding down, hanging onto the chain, grabbed Raph, and helped him scoot up, inch by inch, as Donnie and Mikey helped by pulling up the chain.

"I've got you, little brother, we're almost there."

"LEEEOOOOOOO!"

As the growth took over, threading its way through his skin, Raph curled up in pain on the dirt floor of the shack, weeping now, terrified over changing like this into something unknown. He closed his eyes tight, tears squeezing out and dripping down his face, and then opened them again, revealing that they'd turned into something even less human.

They were now a glowing light green and he was clearly losing himself, less and less aware of what was happening or where and when he was.

"S - sensei!" The word held layers of meaning, and one of them became clear because he said it aloud. "Dad!"

The upside to his worsening fear was that he wanted someone, anyone, to help him, to comfort him. Which meant Nico would now find that she could touch him.

Edited 2014-12-27 23:53 (UTC)

"Raph!"

The branch she'd picked up hit the ground with a metallic thump and she dropped to her knees to cradle his face in her hands. They were in uncharted waters here -- this wasn't like any incidence of chasing the rabbit that she'd ever heard of. She had no way of knowing if this was a memory or a dream or if it could actually kill him because it was some combination of both or neither. She didn't know what to do.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed her forehead to his and desperately grasped through her mind for something, anything that could help. There was a foggy idea somewhere beneath her memories, something...

This was a real memory. Neither one of them was dreaming or making it up, this had happened to him; he wasn't a human dude, he was a mutant turtle.

And she wasn't a girl orphaned in a Kaiju attack and adopted by a Jaeger pilot. She lost her parents to sea monsters years before she was even born.

"I'm here, Raph," she said, opening her eyes and gazing unflinchingly into the glowing green of his. "I'm here. You're gonna be okay."

Outwardly, he was turning into a monster. It was thematically appropriate considering the little conflict in his head.

"There's something wrong with me," he said, his words shaky. Looking into her eyes had ensnared him - in a good way - reeled him in where she could hold him tight and keep him from flapping around in the wind.

"Even with this, even with...everything -" Tentacle monsters and mutants and pain and loss and constant, relentless fighting, all of it flashing where she could see "- I love this life. But that's not right, it's not supposed to be like that."

She saw him in battle, felt what he felt: exhilaration, rage, straight up blood lust. Vindictive pleasure over hurting his enemies. Oh sure, he was happy that it helped people and a lot of his ruthlessness and rage was rooted in love and protectiveness and a desire to protect his own - whether it was his family or his city or his world - but a lot of it was just that he liked kicking people's heads in.

He tore off a robot's arm in the memory and jammed it through the door handles.

"That'll hold 'em!" He turned to see his brothers staring. "...What?"

"You. Are seriously twisted," said Leo.

"Thanks!" chirped Raph.

He pretended he was happy with it, with himself, and he was. But no matter how much he tried to pretend it was okay, it ate him up inside, knowing that he shouldn't be happy with himself. There was a flash of him freaking out on the roof of a building, before his fight with Casey, venting his anger by just...breaking things. For pretty much no reason.

"Since I got pulled here, I keep having this nightmare. I think it belongs to one of the other me's but it feels...right. Like it fits me, too." She could see it now, flashing around them in black and white and red. "Where I just fight...everyone."

Every single one of his enemies, all of them, and every time he killed them all. Every last one. The Shredder was always the last and his death was always the most brutal. Then blood-soaked and crowing in victory, Raph died atop a pile of his enemies, exhilarating in his own death.

"People aren't supposed to want this," he said, still looking at her in the eyes, voice raspy. "What does it say about me that aside from losing people, the thing I'm most scared of is that I'll run out of people to fight?"

What was scarier was how...okay he was with it all. Yeah, it bothered him, but not in a 'I feel empathy, I don't really like hurting people' way. It was in a very cerebral, logical 'Why is it I do all this and never second guess myself?' way.

Edited 2014-12-30 06:47 (UTC)

Nico managed to stop herself from recoiling at the glimpses she got of Raph's life, and the glimpses she got of how much he enjoyed the ugliest parts of it. Barely, but she managed to keep a hold of him.

What was she supposed to say to that, though? What could anyone say in the face of that much violent exhilaration?

"Dreams aren't literal," she said, because she'd killed her parents in a dream once. It hadn't been bloody; but with her magic, it wouldn't have had to be. She couldn't bring people back to life, but she could kill with a word. "Neither are nightmares. Not even here, I don't think."

She licked her lips, staring into his eyes and willing herself not to blink.

"I don't know what it says about you, but I don't think it makes you a bad person. If you were, you wouldn't worry about running out of people to fight, because there would always be people to fight if you didn't care who you fought."

Her parents hadn't cared. Alex hadn't cared who he'd kill if he'd succeeded in his plan to help them.

"If you weren't worried about it, I'd worry," she said. The corners of her mouth kicked up briefly in a weak smile. "I'm still here, right? I'm not scared of you. I know monsters."

Maybe that was true. Sensei had never treated him like he was a monster. Sensei even said he'd been similar when he was younger.

And he'd settled, hadn't he? With a family, even. Twice over. He'd become a quiet, gentle man with an impish sense of humor and boundless self-control.

It scared him, thinking about what might happen if things changed, if their never-ending battles stopped, but maybe she was right. Maybe being scared of that, maybe not taking it as a given that he'd take all that out on innocent people meant something. Because he wouldn't right? There was no way he could ever go kicking people around that didn't deserve it. The fact he was worried about who he was and his place in the world came with the given that he would never be someone that hurt the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Maybe he didn't have to feel all soppy empathy all over the place to be a good person. Maybe just having that little voice of "hey, it shouldn't be that easy for you to do that" was enough. If he was a little twisted, at least he (mostly) directed in the right directions.

"Maybe you're right. This place, whatever it is, it's - it's messing with our heads."

It was digging in deep, digging down to the fears that were far under the surface, in the places he wasn't usually conscious of. But now that those fears had been unearthed it meant they could be put to rest, too.

Where she touched him, the vines and roots started to shrivel and fall away, spreading away from her hands in a wave in a way that seemed less like her touch was killing them and more like they were rotting, parasitic things and her touch was something life-giving. They choked and died and healthy green flesh and hard shell appeared in their place.

He blinked once, twice, and his eyes faded back to their usual clear green. He was still staring into her eyes, not quite ready for the moment to end and the way he looked at her made it clear that yes, he did care what she thought of him, quite a bit.

"Nico, I - uh -"

He wanted to thank her, especially since she'd just seen some of his most intimate thoughts and fears and managed not to flinch or do anything but treat them with sensitivity, but he didn't know the words.

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