IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE EPILOGUE...
Luca Pavone was still wandering through the wake of his destruction in the Delsaurian desert, buffeted by dust devils and still trying to get a grip on his wounds. Now that the worst of it had settled, he could see his handiwork in the distance, crashed into the Maharhombi Duneway. If anything, it just made a hoverbike race there a lot more interesting.
Unsure of his bearings, he looked at the ship, looked at where the Industrial zone was - and where he was fighting only what he thought was an hour ago with his team, and started heading back towards the Industrial Zone and he noticed something sticking out along the way. An oasis.
Figuring that all of that sand in his wounds wasn't healthy, he started shambling towards it. He grunted and groaned under the weight of his own wounds as he watched the little pond come closer and closer, and then he noticed something else clearly unnatural amongst the scenery. He paused to assess it from a distance.
It was a woman in the water cleaning dirt and sand out of her hair.
Luca continued moving, cautiously towards the oasis - he was in no condition to fight, or no condition to talk as he approached the water, peered down into it to momentarily assess his injuries, and fell in - ignoring the woman entirely.
He floated, face down in the water for a few moments, staining the Oasis with streaks of red, yellow and brown.
And then someone pulled him out. He was lain out on the sand and squinted up at the sun, which pounded into his eyes until the brown hair obscured it.
Still faint, and still addled by his injuries, Luca examined the face before him. His mind was wandering - he felt as though he'd seen it before somewhere, but some things didn't quite match. Her eyes and hair colour belonged to someone else. He'd only seen that person a couple of moments ago... in the reflection of the pond.
And he still hadn't put two and two together. It was only a while ago that he did so on the most literal of terms.
The woman wiped some of the water off of his face with a sandy palm.
"How did you get this far gone?"
"How did I what?" Luca inquired.
The apparition smiled, taking damp strands of hair off of Luca's forehead with a delicate touch. "Coming to a graveyard with all these injuries. Are you here to die? Is this really what you want to do with yourself?"
Luca looked up into the sky and blinked somewhat. It hadn't occurred to him that it was about to start raining until he saw twinkles in the daylight sky - each streaking like a comet. He always kept it in the front of his mind - but how much time had passed between his fight against the NMX Cruiser and his escape?
There was a hole in his memory he couldn't fill, and something was being made up to cope with that hole. The rain had passed. "How... how long has it been since that over there fell?" He raised an arm meekly at the ruined NMX Cruiser in the distance.
"Wait. I don't remember three days." He put a sandy palm to his temple and rubbed the side of his head. "What was I doing, where was I, and who are you?" He still hadn't put it all together yet.
"I don't know," the woman answered - when she sat back, it became a little more obvious that she wasn't quite a woman yet. Or at least she hadn't been a woman for very long. Maybe thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen, at most. "And, I don't know where you were, either."
"But," she added cheerfully, "I am pretty sure I'm your daughter."
"Are you now?" He blinked. All of the shocks that'd happened in what he perceived as the last few hours had dulled his mind against surprise and shock.
The girl giggled. "Hi dad."
And then it clicked as he sat up. "You got your mum's eyes." He then laid back down on the sand and exhaled. He then looked at the disturbed grave and made a simple inquiry: "Are you a zombie?"
Following his gaze, the girl shrugged. "I am pretty sure I am alive."
Luca then rose to his feet slowly, overbalancing somewhat and almost falling back over, but eventually standing up straight, watching the desert before him, putting a hand over his eyes to shade them. "All things considered, that's a good start to this predicament. Has anyone come looking for me yet? Crew? Bounty hunters? Anyone?"
"You're the first I've seen. It took me a long time to dig my way out." The girl rose to full height, which was a head shorter than Luca, at least. She modestly turned away, folding her arms over her breasts too. "Hey dad, do you have clothing on your ship?"
"If I knew where my ship was, I'd say yes." He inverted his pockets to show that his communicator and wallet had gone missing, as had most of his possessions, save for a dinky ODM 10mm Pistol, and the Grapple Stunner attached to his right arm. "Have this for now." He pulled his jacket off of his body and placed it around the girl. It might've been a size too big for her, but it was adequate cover.
The further extent of Luca's injuries could be seen now that the jacket was gone. How he wasn't on the floor in the fetal position was a mystery.
Buttoning the jacket up, the girl glanced Luca over, and said, "You're really hurt."
Luca started walking out towards the Industrial Zone, the unspoken plan was to get off of the planet without being noticed. "Tell me something I don't know. Two more things: One, let's get off this rock. Two, you don't have a name, do you?"
Padding along after Luca, sidestepping what she thought might be the more scalding sand, she said, "No. Sorry dad."
Luca sighed as he continued walking along the desert floor, feeling the occasional gust of sand on his face and in his wounds. "Well so far I've been a worse parent than my Dad. Better make amends ASAP. Naming time... and unlike most kids who get their name, you have a better say in the matter."
He was referring to the fact that most people got their name when they were infants. The lack of a grip on the language and the fact that they'd come out kicking, screaming and covered in blood, scared to death of it all would make you unable to object.
"Hmm..." He hmm'd aloud in thought as he and his daughter strode across the desert as two silhouettes. "Something starting with a V. Valencia... Victoria... nah, been done. Oh - I got one: Vitalia. Vita for short."
"Where is it from?" she asked as they started up a sand dune. Her voice had a sort of downturn to it - they were walking through a desert, in daylight, and she was almost dancing now.
"Vitality, a common attribute in people. I mean, if you dug out of that grave yourself, that's pretty fucking hardy." He then thought as the destination started to come closer. "Say, did the Cruiser crashing into the planet wake you up?"
"I was never asleep," Vitalia admitted, now bouncing from foot to foot. "But I heard it."
"And the name? Yay or Nay?"
"It's good. Ow. Ow ow."
"Good! Now what do you say we do some father/daughter bonding, and steal us a shuttle so Dad can lick his wounds and trick the universe into thinking that he's gone?"
"Ow," Vita whined, tearing up, "I hate sand. I hate all sand everywhere."
"Then hop on my shoulders." Luca responded, crouching down.
"You're really injured, though," said the bouncing Vita, torn. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Its fine. Nobody else can hurt me." He sighed as he awaited for her to hop up. “I don’t think I can feel anymore.”
-
NOW...
About a month and a half would pass as Luca was laying low, but becoming restless enough to fight who he perceived as enemies by himself. NMX, traffickers, criminals, warlords - all of them fell by his hand in the shadows. His only calling cards to the rest of the universe would be the audacity, brutality and mysteriousness of each attack.
But, there were some common threads, and people were starting to suspect someone was responsible for it all - but that only made their blood freeze because they still didn't know who it was exactly. Even the perpetrator himself had fallen into a pattern.
Of course, after each excursion, there was someone waiting for him in the gloom of his retreat over on Nepleslia Prime. A reason for all the fighting.
One day he returned, more or less the same. Duffel bag full of ill gotten gains under one arm, and large-calibre revolver in the other. He'd put them both down on the dinner table and sit down on a couch. Unlike most of the other apartments in Ferros Towers, Luca did spend some time and money working on his little slice of home, stimulating Sargasso's economy a little, and making him feel a little better about himself. The apartment was in good shape all around, and liveable by a stingy Yamataian’s standards.
After all, he didn't have running water until a couple of weeks ago. "Vita, I'm home." He announced to little fanfare. His overexertion hadn't done anything good to the wounds. At this point, they were still only half-regenerated. He could barely see out of his once-blind right eye. This was in addition to a variety of fresh bruises and electrical burns.
Vitalia was sprawled out on the living room couch, which had its back to the door. She sat up, looped an arm over the cushion, and smiled at Luca. “Hey dad. Where you been?”
“Oh, doing the usual. Meeting old friends along the way too.” He replied offhandedly. He’d usually be gone for a few days at a time, returning inexplicably with all that money and those gains. He never elaborated upon how he got them, but given that he came back smelling like war and cordite each time - occasionally sporting a new injury in due process, it was fairly obvious. “Someone thought they could conspire to turn a block of flats into an NMX breeding ground in town.” He then chuckled. “Funny thing about conspiracies - they all have a plan until someone punches them in the nose.”
His daughter gave him an arched eyebrow, and settled her chin on her arm, examining him. He went out for long bouts at a time, but somehow it didn’t seem to bother Vitalia. She would always give him the same sort of quirky little smile, no matter what state he was in. Today was a little bit different. She normally didn’t get to hear how he got the wounds.
“Some friend. You look pretty bloody, dad. The hot water got turned on a couple of days ago, and I bought you new soap. You know, that machinist soap that cleans everything. The towels are all in the cabinet.” Vitalia gave him a genuinely worried expression. “You should let me help you, dad.”
“Thanks. Be sure to look through the haul, I think there’s something you’d like.” He removed his jacket and hung it up on the wall. It’d taken him a long time for him to get a new one, since he had to prove that he was the genuine article - he did so by sending his jacket to the manufacturer. They replied by sending a new one with a genuine assurance, free of charge - no questions asked.
Sitting upon the desk was a duffel bag. It appeared to be half-stuffed with hurriedly stacked bundles of currency acquired from Luca’s day out, and half-stuffed with crisp, clean clothing - all in Vitalia’s fit. She’d note that on some bits of the money, there’d be the occasional splotch of blood, or a bullet hole or two, confirming where the money came from.
Luca took a towel and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The shower could be heard turning on shortly afterwards. Vita didn’t get up off the couch. She looked at the duffel, and looked at the door. And then, after she’d made certain the water was running, she tossed the magazine she’d been reading onto the end table and went to sort through her dad’s bag.
She found the clothing immediately, and held it up to herself to check it out. It seemed almost the right size, which turned her bemused smile into a full on grin, and she nearly skipped over to the mirror - which of course wasn’t too ostentatious, but at least it was still in one piece - to check it out.
The money she’d sort accurately later - the clothing she wanted to try on. It wasn’t local, that was for sure. Around Sargasso, everyone seemed to be wearing industrial clothes or hand-me-downs, stuff they’d bought in one of the corner stores that still clung to life on the cracked and dirty streets. She tossed the shirt she’d roughed up to fit in over on the back of the couch, and tried on a clean, new Zen Arms camo one.
She checked her profile real quick - and sighed, once again slightly disappointed.
The Nepleslian miners and workers around here, the ones that were always on the streets and in the clubs and everywhere, were fucking huge and here she was, just trying to get by on tight shirts. This wasn’t working.
“Hey, Dad!”
The shower eventually came to stop, followed by its occupant drying himself off, and donning some house clothing. Tracksuit pants, a plain shirt and socks. He exited the bathroom and asked: “Yeah?” He then got a look at how the clothing looked on his daughter. She noticed, and turned for him.
“It doesn’t look too bad, does it? Goes with the cargo pants, right?” He nodded in agreement - since he’d bought it in a hurry on his way out.
“I wonder, Vita.” He asked, his tone becoming slightly more subdued now that he’d settled back into home. He sat down on the couch and looked out at the view of the Sargasso bay. He watched someone catch a zipline towards the building. “Do you think I’m fated to keep doing this sort of thing? Finding someone I disagree with, destroying them, taking their stuff, running back here and suffering no consequences because I’m apparently ‘beneficial’?”
Vita settled her hands on her hips, and looked out the same window, as a man started to shimmy across towards the roof of their building. She looked sort of thoughtful, but wasn’t concerned - couldn’t really be. This sort of thing was pretty common with the residents of this building. That guy out there was actually kind of cute for a street rat and a housebreaker. Third time this week. Vita had been considering... but, well, he never looked in this window. She came up behind her dad, the scruffy beraggled guy, so worried he looked almost old. He fit in here, a little more than was natural.
She slipped her arms around her father, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Doing whatever you damn well please, right?” Vita rested her head against his, nuzzling in as she stooped over the back of the couch. She squeezed him, carefully. “You’re not a bad person, Dad. You’re actually really nice and it’s other people that are the problem. I still love you. Thanks for the clothes.”
“Do you think its time?” Luca responded as he accepted his daughter’s comforting embrace. “Time for me to step back out into the blinding sun and stop fighting the symptoms in shadow?” He contemplated the evening sky. “My friend gave me one hell of an epiphany. I have been a bad person.” Each and every Heavenly Fist that battered him earlier was smashing a layer of grime away - and he’d imagined that he was seeing the light now.
“Is that what you want?” Vitalia’s hair was warm against the side of his face. “I know you aren’t a bad person, dad. We’re not bad people. We’re not.”
He stood up. Vita had to let go of him. “I wasn’t a bad person, but I’ve slipped - I’ve let my impulses go out of control and now I need to take responsibility. It’s what I must do. I’ve avoided it for too long.” He looked back at her daughter, one of the reminders of his past. “I’ve had my fun, but its time again for me to put a brave face on for the audience.” He looked over to the computer he’d gotten last week as a thank-you present from the crew of the YSS Tanto. He sat down and opened up a mail client. The military-grade Kessaku OS was mostly familiar to him, and it had the power to put the message out.
“Who’s watching?” Vita asked, dropping down to her ankles, turning, and leaning against the couch back as her father started typing. She bored into his back with her brown eyes. Normally chipper and bright, she actually seemed a little forlorn as she hugged her legs. “You got a little beat up today but I don’t think you’re a loser, dad. Why do you care, anyway?”
It was actually exactly that - the fact that someone had confronted him about his conduct on this last job. Someone he knew. Someone who’d given him the convincing he’d needed all along. He opened a letterhead, flagged it and made it a public announcement. “Because someone cared about me, even like this.” He stated. He knew that the other people close to him cared, and they would’ve been disgusted by his excursions, even if Vitalia wasn’t.
“Well.” Luca wiped his brow and stretched his fingers. “Now we wait. I wonder who’s going to come back. John? Zeta? Aerin? Uriel? Seiren? The chef? Smith?”
Vita shrugged and pulled the tie out of her ponytail, shaking her hair out. The resemblance, in darkness, sent a sort of eerie shiver down Luca’s spine. Vita with her hair down, in the dim and sort of grimy apartment lighting, really did seem like her mother’s daughter. Noticing his attention, she looked up in silent concern. Then she settled down even further, from her ankles to the floor, and stretched out her legs. She sounded mopey as she asked, “so do you want me fighting too, dad?”
Luca looked into Vitalia’s eyes, his expression stern, but caring. “I don’t think I could risk losing you again.” In response, his daughter looked down and thumbed at the hem of her shirt, just finding something to pick at with her hands. She didn’t really want to look at Luca just then.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“As far as the rest of this town is concerned, you’re just my daughter. You don’t have cat ears, and you don’t go to school, just like any self-respecting Nepleslian girl.” He said. “If you were to partake in the fights actively - it’d, ah, ruin the surprise.” He made an upwards nod.
Vitalia, amused, couldn’t help but smirk a little bit. “Coffee and doughnuts?” Luca mumbled a ‘yes’ and nodded. “Figures.”
“Salad too. I need to get back into shape.” Luca pinched a very thin roll of fat on his ‘pristine’ Yamataian body. His Nepleslian treatment of the Yamataian hardware was starting to wear on it - say nothing of all the half-healed wounds. He pouted: “Yamataians are supposed to live for a century and a quarter, but I doubt anyone has ever lived that long. We only have, what, thirty five years of recorded history?”
“I don’t know about you dad, but I’m going to live as long as I feel like living.” Vitalia thumped her head back against the couch. “So I can’t carry a gun or do stuff like ripping people’s arms off or stuff like that. I’ll just pretend like I’ve been doing. Right?”
“Unless its dramatically appropriate to do so - ie: we’re in a pinch. They’ll see someone like me coming to tear their arms off and flog them into dough with them, but they’d never see you coming.”
“I’ll be a good girl,” Vita said. Then she turned her head slightly, as if listening, eyes distant. “I think those guys you robbed are coming up the stairs. Someone just cocked a gun. Did you have to give them our address?” After a couple seconds looking straight at the door, Vita got up and dusted her hands off on the baggy cargo pants. Their floor wasn’t exactly the cleanest place to sit in the apartment. Gathering her hair and tying it back up as she walked, she said, “I’ll just go hide in the bathroom and see if I can get myself to cry. I like this couch, dad, so don’t shoot it up too badly.”
“‘course, sweetie.” He picked up the high-calibre revolver from the desk and moved to the door. He could hear them behind the door debating how to burst in.
Near the bathroom, he heard Vitalia say, in a perfectly level voice, “You have ten thousand and fifteen Nepleslian in the bag, dad. About as much as it will cost to repair the apartment probably.”
Then she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her with her toes. “Status Quo. Damned Status Quo!” Luca yelled as he put his hand to the doorknob.
“3... 2... 1...”
That’s when Luca opened the door, and watched someone overbalance and fall face first into the apartment while two men were standing nearby with assault rifles. Luca then pointed his revolver out of the door and fired a shot into one man’s head. The other started firing his rifle wildly while the man on the floor tried to get up.
The bullets ripped through the wood of the door, and Luca noticed that it wasn’t just three men trying to take back what was theirs. It was twelve. He leapt away and started firing again, watching the wild shots from the rifle go over his head, hitting the ceiling and shattering the glass out to the balcony behind him. Disappearing behind the couch after landing, he rolled backwards to reload. If he were counting his hits, he struck one man in the face (at the door earlier), his friend, a wall outside the apartment, a wall inside the apartment, another criminal’s heart, and a shotgun-wielding delinquent’s groin.
Four out of six wasn’t bad. He stood up and watched the remaining eight men storm in. Now it was getting too close for guns as Luca picked a sawn-off shotgun from under the coffee table and fired it one handed into the apartment. He fired both barrels into the crowd before dropping it and engaging in a melee - using the unwieldiness of their longarms against them.
During the melee, Vita watched as a Nepleslian man’s face was pushed through the bathroom wall, and pulled back out. She could hear several bones breaking. There was also the sound of screaming, and another series of gunshots. And then all was silent.
Vitalia dodged a bit of plaster that tried to brain her when she opened the bathroom door. She looked out around the apartment, and then, mutely, made her way over to the couch, dancing through partially mutilated corpses and trying not to get her boots too wet with blood, since it would probably stain them or something. Some of the stuffing had been shot out of it, but she flopped down on her front anyway, and grabbed a pillow, rubbing into it with her cheek.
Very tenderly, she said, “I’m sorry, couch.”
As far as a new lease on life was concerned, things were off to a flying start. Luca sat down on the couch with his daughter and waited for people to come. It might take a couple of days, it might take a couple of weeks or even a couple of hours before someone walked through that door to show off what they’re capable of.
“Well. Things can only get better from here. Rock bottom is a solid foundation.” He said as he looked at the open door to the interior walkways and ziplines of Ferros towers, hanging and swaying in the void precariously. He looked over to Vita and gave her a smile.
“I wish you hadn’t given them your address, dad. Everyone’s going to know, now. I won’t be able to talk to anybody,” his daughter complained against the couch pillow. “Sucks.”
“Oh just do what every girl does and sneak out beneath your parent’s notice. I was the master of it.” He rolled his eyes at his daughter, wistfully remembering his childhood escapades.
The conversation after that went back and forth about trivial things as they waited for arrivals, who eventually came, and died, joined, parted peacefully or ran away screaming as it seemed necessary to the theme of the story.
The couch, on the other hand, was royally fucked.
ISC PHOENIX - VOLUME 2
START!
Luca Pavone was still wandering through the wake of his destruction in the Delsaurian desert, buffeted by dust devils and still trying to get a grip on his wounds. Now that the worst of it had settled, he could see his handiwork in the distance, crashed into the Maharhombi Duneway. If anything, it just made a hoverbike race there a lot more interesting.
Unsure of his bearings, he looked at the ship, looked at where the Industrial zone was - and where he was fighting only what he thought was an hour ago with his team, and started heading back towards the Industrial Zone and he noticed something sticking out along the way. An oasis.
Figuring that all of that sand in his wounds wasn't healthy, he started shambling towards it. He grunted and groaned under the weight of his own wounds as he watched the little pond come closer and closer, and then he noticed something else clearly unnatural amongst the scenery. He paused to assess it from a distance.
It was a woman in the water cleaning dirt and sand out of her hair.
Luca continued moving, cautiously towards the oasis - he was in no condition to fight, or no condition to talk as he approached the water, peered down into it to momentarily assess his injuries, and fell in - ignoring the woman entirely.
He floated, face down in the water for a few moments, staining the Oasis with streaks of red, yellow and brown.
And then someone pulled him out. He was lain out on the sand and squinted up at the sun, which pounded into his eyes until the brown hair obscured it.
Still faint, and still addled by his injuries, Luca examined the face before him. His mind was wandering - he felt as though he'd seen it before somewhere, but some things didn't quite match. Her eyes and hair colour belonged to someone else. He'd only seen that person a couple of moments ago... in the reflection of the pond.
And he still hadn't put two and two together. It was only a while ago that he did so on the most literal of terms.
The woman wiped some of the water off of his face with a sandy palm.
"How did you get this far gone?"
"How did I what?" Luca inquired.
The apparition smiled, taking damp strands of hair off of Luca's forehead with a delicate touch. "Coming to a graveyard with all these injuries. Are you here to die? Is this really what you want to do with yourself?"
Luca looked up into the sky and blinked somewhat. It hadn't occurred to him that it was about to start raining until he saw twinkles in the daylight sky - each streaking like a comet. He always kept it in the front of his mind - but how much time had passed between his fight against the NMX Cruiser and his escape?
There was a hole in his memory he couldn't fill, and something was being made up to cope with that hole. The rain had passed. "How... how long has it been since that over there fell?" He raised an arm meekly at the ruined NMX Cruiser in the distance.
"It is difficult to tell time, but I think three days since the battle." Luca's eyes widened in reply, punctuated with incredulous blinking.
"Wait. I don't remember three days." He put a sandy palm to his temple and rubbed the side of his head. "What was I doing, where was I, and who are you?" He still hadn't put it all together yet.
"I don't know," the woman answered - when she sat back, it became a little more obvious that she wasn't quite a woman yet. Or at least she hadn't been a woman for very long. Maybe thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen, at most. "And, I don't know where you were, either."
"But," she added cheerfully, "I am pretty sure I'm your daughter."
"Are you now?" He blinked. All of the shocks that'd happened in what he perceived as the last few hours had dulled his mind against surprise and shock.
The girl giggled. "Hi dad."
And then it clicked as he sat up. "You got your mum's eyes." He then laid back down on the sand and exhaled. He then looked at the disturbed grave and made a simple inquiry: "Are you a zombie?"
Following his gaze, the girl shrugged. "I am pretty sure I am alive."
Luca then rose to his feet slowly, overbalancing somewhat and almost falling back over, but eventually standing up straight, watching the desert before him, putting a hand over his eyes to shade them. "All things considered, that's a good start to this predicament. Has anyone come looking for me yet? Crew? Bounty hunters? Anyone?"
"You're the first I've seen. It took me a long time to dig my way out." The girl rose to full height, which was a head shorter than Luca, at least. She modestly turned away, folding her arms over her breasts too. "Hey dad, do you have clothing on your ship?"
"If I knew where my ship was, I'd say yes." He inverted his pockets to show that his communicator and wallet had gone missing, as had most of his possessions, save for a dinky ODM 10mm Pistol, and the Grapple Stunner attached to his right arm. "Have this for now." He pulled his jacket off of his body and placed it around the girl. It might've been a size too big for her, but it was adequate cover.
The further extent of Luca's injuries could be seen now that the jacket was gone. How he wasn't on the floor in the fetal position was a mystery.
Buttoning the jacket up, the girl glanced Luca over, and said, "You're really hurt."
Luca started walking out towards the Industrial Zone, the unspoken plan was to get off of the planet without being noticed. "Tell me something I don't know. Two more things: One, let's get off this rock. Two, you don't have a name, do you?"
Padding along after Luca, sidestepping what she thought might be the more scalding sand, she said, "No. Sorry dad."
Luca sighed as he continued walking along the desert floor, feeling the occasional gust of sand on his face and in his wounds. "Well so far I've been a worse parent than my Dad. Better make amends ASAP. Naming time... and unlike most kids who get their name, you have a better say in the matter."
He was referring to the fact that most people got their name when they were infants. The lack of a grip on the language and the fact that they'd come out kicking, screaming and covered in blood, scared to death of it all would make you unable to object.
"Hmm..." He hmm'd aloud in thought as he and his daughter strode across the desert as two silhouettes. "Something starting with a V. Valencia... Victoria... nah, been done. Oh - I got one: Vitalia. Vita for short."
"Where is it from?" she asked as they started up a sand dune. Her voice had a sort of downturn to it - they were walking through a desert, in daylight, and she was almost dancing now.
"Vitality, a common attribute in people. I mean, if you dug out of that grave yourself, that's pretty fucking hardy." He then thought as the destination started to come closer. "Say, did the Cruiser crashing into the planet wake you up?"
"I was never asleep," Vitalia admitted, now bouncing from foot to foot. "But I heard it."
"And the name? Yay or Nay?"
"It's good. Ow. Ow ow."
"Good! Now what do you say we do some father/daughter bonding, and steal us a shuttle so Dad can lick his wounds and trick the universe into thinking that he's gone?"
"Ow," Vita whined, tearing up, "I hate sand. I hate all sand everywhere."
"Then hop on my shoulders." Luca responded, crouching down.
"You're really injured, though," said the bouncing Vita, torn. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Its fine. Nobody else can hurt me." He sighed as he awaited for her to hop up. “I don’t think I can feel anymore.”
-
NOW...
About a month and a half would pass as Luca was laying low, but becoming restless enough to fight who he perceived as enemies by himself. NMX, traffickers, criminals, warlords - all of them fell by his hand in the shadows. His only calling cards to the rest of the universe would be the audacity, brutality and mysteriousness of each attack.
But, there were some common threads, and people were starting to suspect someone was responsible for it all - but that only made their blood freeze because they still didn't know who it was exactly. Even the perpetrator himself had fallen into a pattern.
Of course, after each excursion, there was someone waiting for him in the gloom of his retreat over on Nepleslia Prime. A reason for all the fighting.
One day he returned, more or less the same. Duffel bag full of ill gotten gains under one arm, and large-calibre revolver in the other. He'd put them both down on the dinner table and sit down on a couch. Unlike most of the other apartments in Ferros Towers, Luca did spend some time and money working on his little slice of home, stimulating Sargasso's economy a little, and making him feel a little better about himself. The apartment was in good shape all around, and liveable by a stingy Yamataian’s standards.
After all, he didn't have running water until a couple of weeks ago. "Vita, I'm home." He announced to little fanfare. His overexertion hadn't done anything good to the wounds. At this point, they were still only half-regenerated. He could barely see out of his once-blind right eye. This was in addition to a variety of fresh bruises and electrical burns.
Vitalia was sprawled out on the living room couch, which had its back to the door. She sat up, looped an arm over the cushion, and smiled at Luca. “Hey dad. Where you been?”
“Oh, doing the usual. Meeting old friends along the way too.” He replied offhandedly. He’d usually be gone for a few days at a time, returning inexplicably with all that money and those gains. He never elaborated upon how he got them, but given that he came back smelling like war and cordite each time - occasionally sporting a new injury in due process, it was fairly obvious. “Someone thought they could conspire to turn a block of flats into an NMX breeding ground in town.” He then chuckled. “Funny thing about conspiracies - they all have a plan until someone punches them in the nose.”
His daughter gave him an arched eyebrow, and settled her chin on her arm, examining him. He went out for long bouts at a time, but somehow it didn’t seem to bother Vitalia. She would always give him the same sort of quirky little smile, no matter what state he was in. Today was a little bit different. She normally didn’t get to hear how he got the wounds.
“Some friend. You look pretty bloody, dad. The hot water got turned on a couple of days ago, and I bought you new soap. You know, that machinist soap that cleans everything. The towels are all in the cabinet.” Vitalia gave him a genuinely worried expression. “You should let me help you, dad.”
“Thanks. Be sure to look through the haul, I think there’s something you’d like.” He removed his jacket and hung it up on the wall. It’d taken him a long time for him to get a new one, since he had to prove that he was the genuine article - he did so by sending his jacket to the manufacturer. They replied by sending a new one with a genuine assurance, free of charge - no questions asked.
Sitting upon the desk was a duffel bag. It appeared to be half-stuffed with hurriedly stacked bundles of currency acquired from Luca’s day out, and half-stuffed with crisp, clean clothing - all in Vitalia’s fit. She’d note that on some bits of the money, there’d be the occasional splotch of blood, or a bullet hole or two, confirming where the money came from.
Luca took a towel and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The shower could be heard turning on shortly afterwards. Vita didn’t get up off the couch. She looked at the duffel, and looked at the door. And then, after she’d made certain the water was running, she tossed the magazine she’d been reading onto the end table and went to sort through her dad’s bag.
She found the clothing immediately, and held it up to herself to check it out. It seemed almost the right size, which turned her bemused smile into a full on grin, and she nearly skipped over to the mirror - which of course wasn’t too ostentatious, but at least it was still in one piece - to check it out.
The money she’d sort accurately later - the clothing she wanted to try on. It wasn’t local, that was for sure. Around Sargasso, everyone seemed to be wearing industrial clothes or hand-me-downs, stuff they’d bought in one of the corner stores that still clung to life on the cracked and dirty streets. She tossed the shirt she’d roughed up to fit in over on the back of the couch, and tried on a clean, new Zen Arms camo one.
She checked her profile real quick - and sighed, once again slightly disappointed.
The Nepleslian miners and workers around here, the ones that were always on the streets and in the clubs and everywhere, were fucking huge and here she was, just trying to get by on tight shirts. This wasn’t working.
“Hey, Dad!”
The shower eventually came to stop, followed by its occupant drying himself off, and donning some house clothing. Tracksuit pants, a plain shirt and socks. He exited the bathroom and asked: “Yeah?” He then got a look at how the clothing looked on his daughter. She noticed, and turned for him.
“It doesn’t look too bad, does it? Goes with the cargo pants, right?” He nodded in agreement - since he’d bought it in a hurry on his way out.
“I wonder, Vita.” He asked, his tone becoming slightly more subdued now that he’d settled back into home. He sat down on the couch and looked out at the view of the Sargasso bay. He watched someone catch a zipline towards the building. “Do you think I’m fated to keep doing this sort of thing? Finding someone I disagree with, destroying them, taking their stuff, running back here and suffering no consequences because I’m apparently ‘beneficial’?”
Vita settled her hands on her hips, and looked out the same window, as a man started to shimmy across towards the roof of their building. She looked sort of thoughtful, but wasn’t concerned - couldn’t really be. This sort of thing was pretty common with the residents of this building. That guy out there was actually kind of cute for a street rat and a housebreaker. Third time this week. Vita had been considering... but, well, he never looked in this window. She came up behind her dad, the scruffy beraggled guy, so worried he looked almost old. He fit in here, a little more than was natural.
She slipped her arms around her father, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Doing whatever you damn well please, right?” Vita rested her head against his, nuzzling in as she stooped over the back of the couch. She squeezed him, carefully. “You’re not a bad person, Dad. You’re actually really nice and it’s other people that are the problem. I still love you. Thanks for the clothes.”
“Do you think its time?” Luca responded as he accepted his daughter’s comforting embrace. “Time for me to step back out into the blinding sun and stop fighting the symptoms in shadow?” He contemplated the evening sky. “My friend gave me one hell of an epiphany. I have been a bad person.” Each and every Heavenly Fist that battered him earlier was smashing a layer of grime away - and he’d imagined that he was seeing the light now.
“Is that what you want?” Vitalia’s hair was warm against the side of his face. “I know you aren’t a bad person, dad. We’re not bad people. We’re not.”
He stood up. Vita had to let go of him. “I wasn’t a bad person, but I’ve slipped - I’ve let my impulses go out of control and now I need to take responsibility. It’s what I must do. I’ve avoided it for too long.” He looked back at her daughter, one of the reminders of his past. “I’ve had my fun, but its time again for me to put a brave face on for the audience.” He looked over to the computer he’d gotten last week as a thank-you present from the crew of the YSS Tanto. He sat down and opened up a mail client. The military-grade Kessaku OS was mostly familiar to him, and it had the power to put the message out.
“Who’s watching?” Vita asked, dropping down to her ankles, turning, and leaning against the couch back as her father started typing. She bored into his back with her brown eyes. Normally chipper and bright, she actually seemed a little forlorn as she hugged her legs. “You got a little beat up today but I don’t think you’re a loser, dad. Why do you care, anyway?”
It was actually exactly that - the fact that someone had confronted him about his conduct on this last job. Someone he knew. Someone who’d given him the convincing he’d needed all along. He opened a letterhead, flagged it and made it a public announcement. “Because someone cared about me, even like this.” He stated. He knew that the other people close to him cared, and they would’ve been disgusted by his excursions, even if Vitalia wasn’t.
He then pressed Send.I Return said:
“Well.” Luca wiped his brow and stretched his fingers. “Now we wait. I wonder who’s going to come back. John? Zeta? Aerin? Uriel? Seiren? The chef? Smith?”
Vita shrugged and pulled the tie out of her ponytail, shaking her hair out. The resemblance, in darkness, sent a sort of eerie shiver down Luca’s spine. Vita with her hair down, in the dim and sort of grimy apartment lighting, really did seem like her mother’s daughter. Noticing his attention, she looked up in silent concern. Then she settled down even further, from her ankles to the floor, and stretched out her legs. She sounded mopey as she asked, “so do you want me fighting too, dad?”
Luca looked into Vitalia’s eyes, his expression stern, but caring. “I don’t think I could risk losing you again.” In response, his daughter looked down and thumbed at the hem of her shirt, just finding something to pick at with her hands. She didn’t really want to look at Luca just then.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“As far as the rest of this town is concerned, you’re just my daughter. You don’t have cat ears, and you don’t go to school, just like any self-respecting Nepleslian girl.” He said. “If you were to partake in the fights actively - it’d, ah, ruin the surprise.” He made an upwards nod.
Vitalia, amused, couldn’t help but smirk a little bit. “Coffee and doughnuts?” Luca mumbled a ‘yes’ and nodded. “Figures.”
“Salad too. I need to get back into shape.” Luca pinched a very thin roll of fat on his ‘pristine’ Yamataian body. His Nepleslian treatment of the Yamataian hardware was starting to wear on it - say nothing of all the half-healed wounds. He pouted: “Yamataians are supposed to live for a century and a quarter, but I doubt anyone has ever lived that long. We only have, what, thirty five years of recorded history?”
“I don’t know about you dad, but I’m going to live as long as I feel like living.” Vitalia thumped her head back against the couch. “So I can’t carry a gun or do stuff like ripping people’s arms off or stuff like that. I’ll just pretend like I’ve been doing. Right?”
“Unless its dramatically appropriate to do so - ie: we’re in a pinch. They’ll see someone like me coming to tear their arms off and flog them into dough with them, but they’d never see you coming.”
“I’ll be a good girl,” Vita said. Then she turned her head slightly, as if listening, eyes distant. “I think those guys you robbed are coming up the stairs. Someone just cocked a gun. Did you have to give them our address?” After a couple seconds looking straight at the door, Vita got up and dusted her hands off on the baggy cargo pants. Their floor wasn’t exactly the cleanest place to sit in the apartment. Gathering her hair and tying it back up as she walked, she said, “I’ll just go hide in the bathroom and see if I can get myself to cry. I like this couch, dad, so don’t shoot it up too badly.”
“‘course, sweetie.” He picked up the high-calibre revolver from the desk and moved to the door. He could hear them behind the door debating how to burst in.
Near the bathroom, he heard Vitalia say, in a perfectly level voice, “You have ten thousand and fifteen Nepleslian in the bag, dad. About as much as it will cost to repair the apartment probably.”
Then she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her with her toes. “Status Quo. Damned Status Quo!” Luca yelled as he put his hand to the doorknob.
“3... 2... 1...”
That’s when Luca opened the door, and watched someone overbalance and fall face first into the apartment while two men were standing nearby with assault rifles. Luca then pointed his revolver out of the door and fired a shot into one man’s head. The other started firing his rifle wildly while the man on the floor tried to get up.
The bullets ripped through the wood of the door, and Luca noticed that it wasn’t just three men trying to take back what was theirs. It was twelve. He leapt away and started firing again, watching the wild shots from the rifle go over his head, hitting the ceiling and shattering the glass out to the balcony behind him. Disappearing behind the couch after landing, he rolled backwards to reload. If he were counting his hits, he struck one man in the face (at the door earlier), his friend, a wall outside the apartment, a wall inside the apartment, another criminal’s heart, and a shotgun-wielding delinquent’s groin.
Four out of six wasn’t bad. He stood up and watched the remaining eight men storm in. Now it was getting too close for guns as Luca picked a sawn-off shotgun from under the coffee table and fired it one handed into the apartment. He fired both barrels into the crowd before dropping it and engaging in a melee - using the unwieldiness of their longarms against them.
During the melee, Vita watched as a Nepleslian man’s face was pushed through the bathroom wall, and pulled back out. She could hear several bones breaking. There was also the sound of screaming, and another series of gunshots. And then all was silent.
Vitalia dodged a bit of plaster that tried to brain her when she opened the bathroom door. She looked out around the apartment, and then, mutely, made her way over to the couch, dancing through partially mutilated corpses and trying not to get her boots too wet with blood, since it would probably stain them or something. Some of the stuffing had been shot out of it, but she flopped down on her front anyway, and grabbed a pillow, rubbing into it with her cheek.
Very tenderly, she said, “I’m sorry, couch.”
As far as a new lease on life was concerned, things were off to a flying start. Luca sat down on the couch with his daughter and waited for people to come. It might take a couple of days, it might take a couple of weeks or even a couple of hours before someone walked through that door to show off what they’re capable of.
“Well. Things can only get better from here. Rock bottom is a solid foundation.” He said as he looked at the open door to the interior walkways and ziplines of Ferros towers, hanging and swaying in the void precariously. He looked over to Vita and gave her a smile.
“I wish you hadn’t given them your address, dad. Everyone’s going to know, now. I won’t be able to talk to anybody,” his daughter complained against the couch pillow. “Sucks.”
“Oh just do what every girl does and sneak out beneath your parent’s notice. I was the master of it.” He rolled his eyes at his daughter, wistfully remembering his childhood escapades.
The conversation after that went back and forth about trivial things as they waited for arrivals, who eventually came, and died, joined, parted peacefully or ran away screaming as it seemed necessary to the theme of the story.
The couch, on the other hand, was royally fucked.
ISC PHOENIX - VOLUME 2
START!
