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edenfallingI hate it when plots sneak up on me. I'd planned to sort of duck the issue of the Sarguls and the portals (they were supposed to be a McGuffin, damn it!), but apparently my subconscious is not in favor of that idea. I now have a genuine evil plan that needs foiling. What's worse, the plan also needs discovering, and I don't write mysteries! *wails*
I knew the random dimensional theory world-building was going to come back and bite me somehow. I knew it. And yet, I couldn't help myself.
Anyway. Chapter 7 of "Lemonade," in which Faith, Duo, and Sasuke once again fail to reach water or have sex. I swear to god, there will be sex sooner or later -- it's in the damned outline! -- but the path to certain plot milestones just gets longer and twistier as I keep writing. *beats head against table* Argh.
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Lemonade
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Part VII: in which there are hints of a plot
Faith slammed into the ground, rocks jabbing her back and Sasuke heavy across her legs for a heartbeat. Then he rolled off and jumped to his feet, facing the mojo guy, a handful of those tiny knives held between his fingers.
Faith grabbed a handful of rocks and scrambled to her feet. A quick glance gave her the lay of the land: mojo guy behind her, two Sarguls in front of her, each with a short sword -- like a cheap reproduction Roman gladius -- and two fighters up by Duo. One was on the ground, bleeding out from gunshot wounds. The other swung his sword against Duo's staff with a metallic crash. Faith crossed that fight off; Duo would win.
Sasuke had magic; he could deal with a wizard better than she could. "Don't kill him -- we need answers," she said, raking her mind for words she knew that Sasuke knew. "We need to speak with him. Shit. Um... prisoner! Take him prisoner. No kill! Go!"
She hoped that was enough.
Faith drew her knife and ran toward the two last Sarguls.
The left one, in a ratty gray hoodie sweatshirt, raised his sword and charged with a strangled yodel. "Look sharp!" Faith yelled, and threw her rocks into his face. He jerked his arms up -- she kicked him in the stomach -- he dropped. The other demon, Baseball Cap (a Yankees fan: one more reason to kill him), lunged in from her right, aiming for her side. She blocked with her knife and spun, stomping on Hoodie Sweatshirt's sword hand as she turned. Bones cracked and snapped, and she smiled.
Baseball Cap's sword caught in the teeth of her knife -- sweet fucking Christ, she loved that knife -- sparks flew as she held the pressure, not letting him pull away. "Come on, tough guy," she said. "Show me what you've got." She beckoned with her free hand, middle finger raised.
Baseball Cap snarled, mouth tentacles writhing, and let go. Faith lurched -- off balance for half a second -- and he kicked her thigh, spinning her sideways.
She dove with the motion, tucked, rolled, and jumped up. "Nice, but no cigar." One glance back -- Hoodie Sweatshirt was dragging himself up, sword in his left hand -- and she swung her knife at Baseball Cap before he could grab his sword. He didn't duck fast enough; greenish blood poured from his left arm, and he howled.
Faith rammed a stiff-finger strike into his throat and slammed the hilt of her knife against his temple; he dropped, out cold.
She spun. Hoodie Sweatshirt hung back, panting and wary. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she asked him. "Who sent you? If you talk, I might go easy on you -- no torture, just death. What do you say?"
"Die, Slayer!" Hoodie Sweatshirt shifted his grip on the sword and started to run toward her. Faith grinned and raised her knife to meet him.
"Faith, stay!" She blinked, jolted out of focus. Billowing flames enveloped the demon, hot enough to singe Faith's hair from yards away; a heartbeat later, there was nothing left but a greasy pile of ash.
Faith whirled. "Sasuke!"
The kid shrugged. "I say you, stay. You not stupid, you stay, no die." He looked pointedly from her head to her toes. "Not dead."
She took a deep breath and counted to ten. All right. Much as it killed her to admit it, he had a point, and he'd been clear enough despite his shaky grasp of English. "Okay, good job. And thanks -- I could've taken him, but your way was faster." No fun for her, but definitely faster.
Sasuke gave her a blank look. Then he pointed behind himself, to where the Sargul wizard lay unconscious, lightly charred, and peppered with knives. He seemed to be breathing, though, and that was all Faith cared about.
"Prisoners? Good thinking!" Duo jogged over from his two corpses and leaned on his staff, its glowing energy blade turned off for the moment. "One grunt, and one guy who might actually have some clue what the big picture is. Hey... if Mr. Voodoo here's a wizard, do you think he might be able to conjure us out of this dimension?"
Faith shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. Let's tie the prisoners up and see if they're carrying anything useful. Then we can work out some questions for when they wake up."
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The demon wizard was dressed pretty much the same as the one who'd summoned them through the portal and started this mess: shapeless black robe, wide belt festooned with pouches, staff, and a silver necklace with a black opal charm. The staff was basically done for -- ten to one Mr. Voodoo had tried to block Sasuke's pyrotechnics and failed, dramatically -- but the belt and necklace might be useful.
They might also be dangerous. Duo's hand drifted to his pocket, where he'd stashed the opal pendant from Mr. Portal. Time to test a hypothesis.
He swung the cloth-wrapped stone near Mr. Voodoo's necklace as Faith tied the demon up with strips of his dead flunkies' clothes. The necklace flashed blue-green, and he could feel vibrations in his own opal, which he was at least ninety percent sure weren't caused by arm tension or his imagination.
Sometimes, he hated being right.
"They're tracking us by this stone," he said, unwrapping the first pendant.
Faith glanced up, frowning. "Shit. It figures. But I still think it's tied into the portals, so don't get rid of it. In fact, take this one too." She slipped Mr. Voodoo's necklace over his head and tossed it to Duo. He made a face, but he unhooked the clasp and strung the first pendant onto the chain to be sociable with its partner. Then he fastened the chain around his neck; the opals, in their cages of silver wires, slid down to rest against his cross.
No sparks flew. He was a little disgusted to realize that he'd almost expected some reaction. Holy symbol or not, he was pretty sure his cross didn't have any magic powers, and if crosses worked for just anyone, even if you didn't have faith, he'd... well, he'd have to rethink a certain number of assumptions. Unless other religious symbols worked too, of course -- that would be less irritating, though it'd still fuck around with his personal metaphysical view of the universe. Alternate dimensions and demons had smashed enough assumptions already; he didn't need more revelations.
"Okay," he said once Faith and Sasuke finished tying up the two demons and hauling them into the shade of a convenient stone slab. "Three things. What do we need to know, what do we want to know, and how far are we willing to go to get the intel?" He translated for Sasuke, since he didn't think the kid's English was up to this level yet.
Sasuke, predictably, scowled. "We go as far as we have to; that's not an issue. I can fix broken bones and internal bleeding a few times before I'll need to conserve stamina, so they won't die before we allow them to. We need to know how they're tracking us, how large their organization is, and whether they have illusions or barriers around us or this world to prevent Faith's people from tracking us. I want to know if time is passing differently in our worlds, why they picked us, and how they planned to control us." He glared at the demons, lying several feet away on the stony ground. "I also want to know if they're likely to try again."
Duo hummed thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought that they might be hiding us; that'd fuck all our plans to hell and gone. Also, if people can reach across dimensions, I wonder why it hasn't happened before in my world. Did these idiots have some special power, are the rules changing, did people just not talk about portals, or are we just spectacularly unlucky?"
"For those of us who don't speak Japanese, translations?" Faith leaned forward impatiently.
Duo obliged, and she joined him and Sasuke in glaring at the demons. "I can answer one of your questions -- nobody ever believes supernatural stuff, even when it smacks 'em in the face. But not all dimensions are equally accessible -- some don't open for anything short of the Key." Duo could hear the capital letter she attached to the concept; he tucked it away for future examination.
"I think they got you guys because of those stones," Faith continued, "and because your luck stinks. As for the rest..." She threw a pebble at Mr. Voodoo and spat on the dusty ground. "I think we're still here because nobody's called Willow to Cleveland yet -- they may not have figured out that it was a full-on portal, not just somebody trying to open the Hellmouth -- but if the Sarguls can block the traces and pull some sort of Jedi mind-trick on this dimension..."
"Everything's fubar," Duo finished. "Well, it's all speculation until we persuade them to talk. Sasuke says he can heal them a couple times, and he doesn't care about limits. Normally I'm opposed to heavy interrogation, but these guys threw the rules out the airlock when they started this mess, so I'm basically okay with whatever works. So. How far are you willing to go?"
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Faith and Duo seemed to be having an argument over interrogation techniques. Sasuke watched the unconscious demons and listened with half an ear -- he couldn't make out details, but he thought that Faith was squeamish over the stronger methods, whereas Duo saw no reason to hold back. It was true that torture often produced false information -- if you weren't careful, people broke too far and would say anything to make the pain stop -- but they didn't have time to be more gentle and thorough.
Finally the others trailed off. "Are you done?" Sasuke asked Duo.
Duo shrugged. "For now. Faith has some bad memories about torture. Can't say I blame her -- it's a hell of a mind trip even when you don't let it get personal -- but she's going to stand watch while we work on these two. I'll ask the questions; you just do what I tell you." He paused. "Will that be a problem?"
It burned to let Duo take charge, especially when Sasuke was sure he had at least as much experience in this area, but it made sense. He couldn't speak English well enough to understand the nuances of the demons' responses, and it was important to have one person in control. "That will work. Which one first?"
"Him," said Duo, pointing at the ninjutsu master -- the wizard, Faith had called him. "Can you keep the minion asleep for the duration?"
"Yes." Kabuto was secretive about his stronger jutsu, but anyone who spent more than a few hours in his workrooms saw a wide variety of anesthetic and restraining seals; Sasuke had copied most of them out of boredom, and had later discovered a number of practical uses for them. Apparently nobody expected him to know medical jutsu -- beneath the dignity of an Uchiha, uninteresting to a combat-oriented shinobi, better suited to a kunoichi, or some such drivel -- and that element of surprise could win fights. It might even save his life once he broke his bargain with Orochimaru.
He was fairly sure Kabuto had noticed him watching, even though he'd tried only to use the Sharingan when the medic-nin's attention was fixed on healing or dissecting the results of Orochimaru's experiments, or on his own medical research. If Kabuto had noticed, then he probably knew what Sasuke was thinking -- he was disturbingly good at reading people. But Sasuke didn't think the medic-nin had said anything to Orochimaru, if only because the snake Sannin hadn't said anything about the time Sasuke spent in the medical wing.
Sometimes it was hard to tell where Kabuto's loyalties lay. Sasuke's private opinion was that the man would betray anyone in a heartbeat, so long as it benefited himself, but it was hard to be sure about Kabuto. It was hard to be sure about anything in Hidden Sound, beyond the dangers of weakness and compassion.
Sasuke shook off his momentary introspection and bound the demon in an induced coma. Then he turned back to Duo, weighing his options. He worked best alone, but...
"I'll threaten them occasionally, for no reason," he offered. "You can restrain me."
Duo raised an eyebrow. "Good cop, bad cop? Yeah, okay -- it's a cliché, but that's 'cause it works. Can you turn on your freaky eyes for this?"
"I would anyway. I read body language better with the Sharingan."
"Good. Tell me if anything seems fishy." Duo leaned forward and prodded the wizard with the end of his staff. "Hey, stupid -- wake up!"
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End of Part VII
Back to part VI
Continue to part VIII
See the original crack pairings meme and the scene that attacked me and became the first section of part I
Read the final version on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
You know, this story is interesting from a structural standpoint. There are a number of conversations and internal reactions that I'd love to show, but because of POV issues (and language barriers), a lot of them go by the wayside and I have to use semi-flashback internal monologues. It's a funny way to write.
I knew the random dimensional theory world-building was going to come back and bite me somehow. I knew it. And yet, I couldn't help myself.
Anyway. Chapter 7 of "Lemonade," in which Faith, Duo, and Sasuke once again fail to reach water or have sex. I swear to god, there will be sex sooner or later -- it's in the damned outline! -- but the path to certain plot milestones just gets longer and twistier as I keep writing. *beats head against table* Argh.
---------------------------------------------
Lemonade
---------------------------------------------
Part VII: in which there are hints of a plot
Faith slammed into the ground, rocks jabbing her back and Sasuke heavy across her legs for a heartbeat. Then he rolled off and jumped to his feet, facing the mojo guy, a handful of those tiny knives held between his fingers.
Faith grabbed a handful of rocks and scrambled to her feet. A quick glance gave her the lay of the land: mojo guy behind her, two Sarguls in front of her, each with a short sword -- like a cheap reproduction Roman gladius -- and two fighters up by Duo. One was on the ground, bleeding out from gunshot wounds. The other swung his sword against Duo's staff with a metallic crash. Faith crossed that fight off; Duo would win.
Sasuke had magic; he could deal with a wizard better than she could. "Don't kill him -- we need answers," she said, raking her mind for words she knew that Sasuke knew. "We need to speak with him. Shit. Um... prisoner! Take him prisoner. No kill! Go!"
She hoped that was enough.
Faith drew her knife and ran toward the two last Sarguls.
The left one, in a ratty gray hoodie sweatshirt, raised his sword and charged with a strangled yodel. "Look sharp!" Faith yelled, and threw her rocks into his face. He jerked his arms up -- she kicked him in the stomach -- he dropped. The other demon, Baseball Cap (a Yankees fan: one more reason to kill him), lunged in from her right, aiming for her side. She blocked with her knife and spun, stomping on Hoodie Sweatshirt's sword hand as she turned. Bones cracked and snapped, and she smiled.
Baseball Cap's sword caught in the teeth of her knife -- sweet fucking Christ, she loved that knife -- sparks flew as she held the pressure, not letting him pull away. "Come on, tough guy," she said. "Show me what you've got." She beckoned with her free hand, middle finger raised.
Baseball Cap snarled, mouth tentacles writhing, and let go. Faith lurched -- off balance for half a second -- and he kicked her thigh, spinning her sideways.
She dove with the motion, tucked, rolled, and jumped up. "Nice, but no cigar." One glance back -- Hoodie Sweatshirt was dragging himself up, sword in his left hand -- and she swung her knife at Baseball Cap before he could grab his sword. He didn't duck fast enough; greenish blood poured from his left arm, and he howled.
Faith rammed a stiff-finger strike into his throat and slammed the hilt of her knife against his temple; he dropped, out cold.
She spun. Hoodie Sweatshirt hung back, panting and wary. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she asked him. "Who sent you? If you talk, I might go easy on you -- no torture, just death. What do you say?"
"Die, Slayer!" Hoodie Sweatshirt shifted his grip on the sword and started to run toward her. Faith grinned and raised her knife to meet him.
"Faith, stay!" She blinked, jolted out of focus. Billowing flames enveloped the demon, hot enough to singe Faith's hair from yards away; a heartbeat later, there was nothing left but a greasy pile of ash.
Faith whirled. "Sasuke!"
The kid shrugged. "I say you, stay. You not stupid, you stay, no die." He looked pointedly from her head to her toes. "Not dead."
She took a deep breath and counted to ten. All right. Much as it killed her to admit it, he had a point, and he'd been clear enough despite his shaky grasp of English. "Okay, good job. And thanks -- I could've taken him, but your way was faster." No fun for her, but definitely faster.
Sasuke gave her a blank look. Then he pointed behind himself, to where the Sargul wizard lay unconscious, lightly charred, and peppered with knives. He seemed to be breathing, though, and that was all Faith cared about.
"Prisoners? Good thinking!" Duo jogged over from his two corpses and leaned on his staff, its glowing energy blade turned off for the moment. "One grunt, and one guy who might actually have some clue what the big picture is. Hey... if Mr. Voodoo here's a wizard, do you think he might be able to conjure us out of this dimension?"
Faith shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. Let's tie the prisoners up and see if they're carrying anything useful. Then we can work out some questions for when they wake up."
---------------------------------------------
The demon wizard was dressed pretty much the same as the one who'd summoned them through the portal and started this mess: shapeless black robe, wide belt festooned with pouches, staff, and a silver necklace with a black opal charm. The staff was basically done for -- ten to one Mr. Voodoo had tried to block Sasuke's pyrotechnics and failed, dramatically -- but the belt and necklace might be useful.
They might also be dangerous. Duo's hand drifted to his pocket, where he'd stashed the opal pendant from Mr. Portal. Time to test a hypothesis.
He swung the cloth-wrapped stone near Mr. Voodoo's necklace as Faith tied the demon up with strips of his dead flunkies' clothes. The necklace flashed blue-green, and he could feel vibrations in his own opal, which he was at least ninety percent sure weren't caused by arm tension or his imagination.
Sometimes, he hated being right.
"They're tracking us by this stone," he said, unwrapping the first pendant.
Faith glanced up, frowning. "Shit. It figures. But I still think it's tied into the portals, so don't get rid of it. In fact, take this one too." She slipped Mr. Voodoo's necklace over his head and tossed it to Duo. He made a face, but he unhooked the clasp and strung the first pendant onto the chain to be sociable with its partner. Then he fastened the chain around his neck; the opals, in their cages of silver wires, slid down to rest against his cross.
No sparks flew. He was a little disgusted to realize that he'd almost expected some reaction. Holy symbol or not, he was pretty sure his cross didn't have any magic powers, and if crosses worked for just anyone, even if you didn't have faith, he'd... well, he'd have to rethink a certain number of assumptions. Unless other religious symbols worked too, of course -- that would be less irritating, though it'd still fuck around with his personal metaphysical view of the universe. Alternate dimensions and demons had smashed enough assumptions already; he didn't need more revelations.
"Okay," he said once Faith and Sasuke finished tying up the two demons and hauling them into the shade of a convenient stone slab. "Three things. What do we need to know, what do we want to know, and how far are we willing to go to get the intel?" He translated for Sasuke, since he didn't think the kid's English was up to this level yet.
Sasuke, predictably, scowled. "We go as far as we have to; that's not an issue. I can fix broken bones and internal bleeding a few times before I'll need to conserve stamina, so they won't die before we allow them to. We need to know how they're tracking us, how large their organization is, and whether they have illusions or barriers around us or this world to prevent Faith's people from tracking us. I want to know if time is passing differently in our worlds, why they picked us, and how they planned to control us." He glared at the demons, lying several feet away on the stony ground. "I also want to know if they're likely to try again."
Duo hummed thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought that they might be hiding us; that'd fuck all our plans to hell and gone. Also, if people can reach across dimensions, I wonder why it hasn't happened before in my world. Did these idiots have some special power, are the rules changing, did people just not talk about portals, or are we just spectacularly unlucky?"
"For those of us who don't speak Japanese, translations?" Faith leaned forward impatiently.
Duo obliged, and she joined him and Sasuke in glaring at the demons. "I can answer one of your questions -- nobody ever believes supernatural stuff, even when it smacks 'em in the face. But not all dimensions are equally accessible -- some don't open for anything short of the Key." Duo could hear the capital letter she attached to the concept; he tucked it away for future examination.
"I think they got you guys because of those stones," Faith continued, "and because your luck stinks. As for the rest..." She threw a pebble at Mr. Voodoo and spat on the dusty ground. "I think we're still here because nobody's called Willow to Cleveland yet -- they may not have figured out that it was a full-on portal, not just somebody trying to open the Hellmouth -- but if the Sarguls can block the traces and pull some sort of Jedi mind-trick on this dimension..."
"Everything's fubar," Duo finished. "Well, it's all speculation until we persuade them to talk. Sasuke says he can heal them a couple times, and he doesn't care about limits. Normally I'm opposed to heavy interrogation, but these guys threw the rules out the airlock when they started this mess, so I'm basically okay with whatever works. So. How far are you willing to go?"
---------------------------------------------
Faith and Duo seemed to be having an argument over interrogation techniques. Sasuke watched the unconscious demons and listened with half an ear -- he couldn't make out details, but he thought that Faith was squeamish over the stronger methods, whereas Duo saw no reason to hold back. It was true that torture often produced false information -- if you weren't careful, people broke too far and would say anything to make the pain stop -- but they didn't have time to be more gentle and thorough.
Finally the others trailed off. "Are you done?" Sasuke asked Duo.
Duo shrugged. "For now. Faith has some bad memories about torture. Can't say I blame her -- it's a hell of a mind trip even when you don't let it get personal -- but she's going to stand watch while we work on these two. I'll ask the questions; you just do what I tell you." He paused. "Will that be a problem?"
It burned to let Duo take charge, especially when Sasuke was sure he had at least as much experience in this area, but it made sense. He couldn't speak English well enough to understand the nuances of the demons' responses, and it was important to have one person in control. "That will work. Which one first?"
"Him," said Duo, pointing at the ninjutsu master -- the wizard, Faith had called him. "Can you keep the minion asleep for the duration?"
"Yes." Kabuto was secretive about his stronger jutsu, but anyone who spent more than a few hours in his workrooms saw a wide variety of anesthetic and restraining seals; Sasuke had copied most of them out of boredom, and had later discovered a number of practical uses for them. Apparently nobody expected him to know medical jutsu -- beneath the dignity of an Uchiha, uninteresting to a combat-oriented shinobi, better suited to a kunoichi, or some such drivel -- and that element of surprise could win fights. It might even save his life once he broke his bargain with Orochimaru.
He was fairly sure Kabuto had noticed him watching, even though he'd tried only to use the Sharingan when the medic-nin's attention was fixed on healing or dissecting the results of Orochimaru's experiments, or on his own medical research. If Kabuto had noticed, then he probably knew what Sasuke was thinking -- he was disturbingly good at reading people. But Sasuke didn't think the medic-nin had said anything to Orochimaru, if only because the snake Sannin hadn't said anything about the time Sasuke spent in the medical wing.
Sometimes it was hard to tell where Kabuto's loyalties lay. Sasuke's private opinion was that the man would betray anyone in a heartbeat, so long as it benefited himself, but it was hard to be sure about Kabuto. It was hard to be sure about anything in Hidden Sound, beyond the dangers of weakness and compassion.
Sasuke shook off his momentary introspection and bound the demon in an induced coma. Then he turned back to Duo, weighing his options. He worked best alone, but...
"I'll threaten them occasionally, for no reason," he offered. "You can restrain me."
Duo raised an eyebrow. "Good cop, bad cop? Yeah, okay -- it's a cliché, but that's 'cause it works. Can you turn on your freaky eyes for this?"
"I would anyway. I read body language better with the Sharingan."
"Good. Tell me if anything seems fishy." Duo leaned forward and prodded the wizard with the end of his staff. "Hey, stupid -- wake up!"
---------------------------------------------
End of Part VII
Back to part VI
Continue to part VIII
See the original crack pairings meme and the scene that attacked me and became the first section of part I
Read the final version on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
You know, this story is interesting from a structural standpoint. There are a number of conversations and internal reactions that I'd love to show, but because of POV issues (and language barriers), a lot of them go by the wayside and I have to use semi-flashback internal monologues. It's a funny way to write.
