Phantom Thief (end)
((Co-authored; continued on Skype from this thread. First person voice is me; third person voice is the one and only Matt Engarde.))
That caught him off guard as he felt his body weight pulled back, but it didn't bring him down. /This fucking twat is serious about fighting me.../ Matt was reaching his boiling point now and it took all of his strength to not fall to the floor. He twisted around to glare at the body on the floor, “Fuck off, I have no further business with you.”
I didn't care anymore. I was seeing red. I was sick of this asshole--sick of looking at him, sick of the sound of his voice, sick of being nice and polite while all I could think about was the horrific things he'd done to innocent people. I wanted to beat him bloody and toss him at Cabanela's feet. I was done.
I staggered to my feet and, without preamble, took a swing at his jaw.
Engarde just tutted and grabbed his fist, though the force of the blow caused him to stagger back. "You won't beat me in a fight, android or whatever...You're obviously not trained to fight like I have been." He bent the hand back, tightening his grip as he narrowed his eyes at Sissel.
"Ackgh--!" One eye squinted shut as I winced--but the other eye stayed fixed on his face, burning. "Let go!" I shifted one leg forward and stomped on his foot, hoping he'd reel enough to release me.
He scoffed at such a childish attempt to get him to let go. "What are you 5? That only worked on the play ground kid..." He yanked Sissel forwards and drove his other (damaged) hand into his stomach (or whatever it was, Matt didn't really give a shit).
Whatever it was, it was enough to get a choked noise out of me. Fists did not belong digging into ribcages; that hurt. Reeling, I tried to stagger backwards, but my hand was still captive. I found myself at a loss of what to do, and my mind screaming at me to lash out at him didn't help at all with thinking straight.
He let go of Sissel's fist, pushing him backwards. "Look isn't that enough proof you won't last this fight?"
It took me a moment for words to form. Right then, the only thing my mind wanted to process was rage--and it took some doing to fight out of that mire and string together a sentence again. When I finally did, I was still panting.
"I could kill you." The growl was a statement of fact. "You're better at this than me, but all it would take would be me bashing your head against the wall, or snapping your neck. I'm stronger than you. Hell...I wouldn't even need this body to kill you." My eyes narrowed. "Your body could be mine if I wanted. That doesn't scare you?"
He only smirked. "You wouldn't be the first to jump into my body to try and scare me...He was a right side better at it that I would assume you to be. I know you can only possess inanimate objects and last time I checked, I'm pretty fucking animate."
I pulled in a sharp breath. Yomiel. Crimson, that is. Just hearing mention of the man from Matt's lips made my blood boil.
"What you know is only what you heard from him," I spat. "Truth is, I've had the power to manipulate organic things since the moment I died. I just haven't explored it till recently...but, I have."
I was bluffing. I was out of options, too livid to stay silent, and bluffing. If I could instill even a spark of fear into my opponent, I could use it somehow. I wasn't sure how--hadn't planned that far ahead yet--but somehow. I genuinely could manipulate Matt's body if I wanted to. Every word out of my mouth was true. But that didn't mean I wanted to. It was wrong. It had felt wrong the first time, and it would always feel wrong, no matter the circumstances.
"Funny I know a bluff when I hear one...You should know you won't outsmart me with those retarded words ghost cat." He stepped closer, forcing the other to take steps backwards. "Prove it to me. Manipulate me."
I let out a snarl. I was an animal and he was pushing me into a corner; what the hell did he expect? I was angry enough that my reservations vanished like a candle flame in a breeze. I clamped my hands onto his shoulders and dug in, keeping him near enough for me to jump Cores, just in case he should change his mind and bolt.
Without a word, I disengaged from my body, and jumped into Matt's. He didn't have a Core of the Dead, but now that I knew what to look for, he didn't need one for me to be inside him. My own body crumpled at his feet, now nothing more than a lifeless doll.
I could see them all. The Leylines of the body: not just the arteries and veins, but the spiritual channels that carried the lifeblood of the soul. They lit up in my psychic sight like highways in the night, rivers of light crisscrossing every which way. And my spirit surged into them--all of them at once--and took hold.
My will was in his flesh. I commanded that flesh to stand still, to snap his arms to his sides.
"Didn't think you had it in you kitty cat.." Matt spoke out, despite the feeling inside of him of another mind, almost demanding him to follow his orders. No way was he going to be bested by this man or cat or whatever. He resisted the urge to push his arm to his side and instead forced himself to lift his leg at the knee and slam his foot into the chest of the body on the floor
What?! That shouldn't have been possible! How had he been able to move--I was inside his limbs; he should only have been able to move according to my will.
Will. Of course. I remembered what Yomiel had said, about Lynne. That night, he'd found it hard to control her because she had a strong will. That, he said, was when he'd stepped up the control to the next level: to dominate not just the body, but the mind.
I hesitated. The idea of it sickened me. But then, the image came to me of marching Matt into the police station, forcing him to spout out a confession to all the horrific crimes he'd done. It was too tempting.
I isolated the part of the spirit that connected to the mind, and gripped at it with ghostly fingers. If this worked, Matt wouldn't be aware of or remember a thing until I was done with him.
"Are you forgetting something? I'm not the only one IN this body..." He laughed and quickly shifted to his other, more placid persona. "Uhm, what are you doing? I don't want anything to do with this..." Just shut up and deal he can't possess us if we switch over.
What...?! What the hell?! I couldn't hide the confusion or alarm in my mental voice. Was I forgetting something? No! I'd had no idea that this bastard had two personalities!
I felt my budding control over the man's mind reset completely. I needed to take a second look at this. I backed away from the mind, analyzing its pathways of light more closely. How had I missed this? The answer was that I wasn't able to see it at all. There'd been no indication to me that this was the case.
I didn't know enough to truly have mastery over what I was doing. I was fumbling in the dark.
You bastard...
There was one other option. There was another piece of the trinity of humanity that I could still possess. In order to march Engarde into a police station, to bring him to justice...I'd have to take over his soul.
Despair welled up in me at the very thought. The fact that I was even considering doing this was disgusting. The fact that I was actually inside his body, trying to manipulate his mind...My anger drained away, leaving me with a sickening sense of clarity. What was I thinking? What was I...?
I couldn't. I couldn't dominate the soul. I'd promised my brother I would never do that, no matter what the circumstances. But gods, it was so tempting...so, so tempting...and even that disgusted me. Was I becoming addicted to the power-high that this ability brought? I'd already overestimated myself...
I tried dominating the body again, commanding the flesh to turn away from my fallen shell. Once more, I leaped for the mind, hoping for a quick pounce this time, to take Engarde off-guard.
His other side was weaker in many respects so the moment he felt Sissel try to take over his body once more he switched back to his darker side, taking full control of the body and pushing the invading spirit away.
"You won't win this..."
I hated to admit it. Hated it. But he was right. My control wasn't strong enough. My will wasn't in it; my heart wasn't in it. And he could just keep switching personalities on me over and over, giving me the constant run-around. I couldn't fight him physically, and I didn't...I didn't have the nerve to kill him. He was right.
And gods, that made me angry.
You can't just expect me to give up! I raged at him; I knew my mental voice was plenty strong, even without a possible connection to the Ghost World. You torture people--kill people--for FUN, and you expect me to just be okay with that?! To walk away and let you roam free, to keep on hurting people--people I care about! No way in hell! You're a MONSTER, Matt Engarde, and you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a cage!
"For fun? Really? You think that the people I hurt I do so for fun? Oh no, it's all to hurt that man...Phoenix Wright...Sure I'm not denying it's a little amusing to watch your victims bleed and cry at your feet but whatever." He shrugged. "You may as well leave...This is over."
If he was looking to make me see red again, it worked. My rancor surged through my being and bled into his like a flash of fire.
Nick is a good man, you disgusting son of a bitch, I seethed. He doesn't deserve this--no one would.
Don't forget, Engarde--I've got all eternity. I may not be able to control your mind right now, but give me a few hours of me shredding at your psyche and we'll see what happens.
The words curdled in my soul even as I thought them, but gods, I was so angry. I felt helpless, and it sickened me. Helplessness was a wholly alien sensation. I was so used to being invincible--I couldn't be killed because I was already dead; I couldn't be touched because I was a spirit. But this time...there really was nothing I could do. But I still couldn't bear the thought of just slinking away and letting this bastard go.
"...You're weak. Your will is weak, you're holding yourself back. Is it because of your dear little family? You wouldn't want them to be disappointed in you now would you ghost cat? That's why you're so hesitant to take me over isn't it? Pathetic...Just let go of me and return to them before i beat you to it."
Don't...don't you mention my family. He was right, though: I was holding myself back. I'd already gone through the nightmare of facing the Manipulator, only to become one myself...? I'd called Matt a monster, but to which one of us did that term really apply? I'm not letting you go. You're going to answer for what you've done.
"Just give it up! You can't expect to beat me when you're questioning your own morals and how far you're willing to go for fuck's sake." He was losing his patience but he couldn't leave with Sissel holding onto him like this. "Though if you don't let go I can always tell Crimson to come here..."
Anger swelled within me again--a spark of fear, at the thought of what a Yomiel's powers could do in a situation like this--but mostly fear. You leave him out of this! You...! You're a sick fuck, I hissed as something occured to me. You've got no reason to do the things you do...worse, you take PLEASURE in it. Crimson isn't like you at ALL. What the hell did you tell him, anyway? What did you SAY to drag him down with you?!
"Oh woah getting a bit ahead of yourself...And that reaction proves to me you are afraid of him. Ha. Pathetic." Matt shrugged. " I said nothing to him, we're just friends who share several interests"
Friends?! A man like you doesn't have FRIENDS, I seethed indignantly. I was shaken; I couldn't deny that. Was I afraid of Yomiel? Yes. But the innate wrongness of that thought hadn't hit me before now. Why was I afraid of Yomiel? Crimson may have been different from my own Yomiel, but he...he was still a man who'd been put through hell, who suffered through hell even now. Being dead...was hell. I knew that one all too well. I was scared of him though--why? Because he wasn't a nice guy? Because of the possibility that he might do as Matt said, align himself with Matt just because they were 'friends?'
No. Yomiel wouldn't want anything to do with Matt's actions, would he? The way that a Yomiel killed...it all had to do with revenge. He was a man hurt, scarred, push past the point of no return--in his own mind, at least. But what was Matt? A man fixated on a lawyer, who took pleasure from spilling blood. No. They were not the same.
What the hell is wrong with you. My internal voice was haunted, shaken. Why are you going after Nick like this? What did he ever do to you? Nothing Nick could ever be capable of could ask for something like this. What...what the hell are you, Engarde?
"Does it matter what I am? I have my reasons for what I do and that should be enough...You won't ever fucking understand...Nobody will ever fucking understand my choices and reasons for what I do and that's perfectly fine."
You're... Even my internal voice shook a little. ...you're right. I can...I can see your mind, but even then I...I didn't know there were two of you. So how could I...how could anyone...
I was stricken. The walls of my defiance began to crumble on me, adding to the weight of my helplessness. I didn't have the power to control this man, to kill him, to understand him...to stop him. There was nothing I could do.
Shame enveloped me, shame so intense that Matt must have felt it too. I felt disgusted--disgusting, too. I wanted out. I wanted out of this man's body, I wanted him away from me, before being too close tainted me somehow.
"Leave my body and leave me alone. We're done here, Sissel."
I did. I retracted the threads of my spirit out of the Leylines, gathered myself up, and hopped back into the android body's Core. I winced, biting back a groan as I pulled myself up off the ground. Suddenly I remembered the kick to the chest while I hadn't been inside. Then there was the punch to the gut, the bleeding, lacerated hand, the sprained wrist...I had been about to push myself to my feet, but I remained slumped back on my knees, clutching my chest for a moment as I struggled to re-orient myself through the alien sensation of pain.
Matt had nothing more to say. Once Sissel had left his body he turned and left. "Don't try and find me again. Next time I won't be so forgiving."
I did nothing. I sat there, head bowed, hands limp and useless on my knees, and did nothing.
What had been the point of all of this? Calling him out here tonight. Trying to convince him to turn himself in. Allowing myself to get angry enough to try to start a fight--one I was completely unequipped for. What had I been thinking? Did my brain just turn off at midnight or something? In the end, nothing had come of it...I'd gotten my body damaged, something was wrong with it and it wouldn't heal, and I...I was here on my knees...letting Matt go.
It was useless. There really was nothing I could do. I was useless. Why had I even stuck my big nose into this mess in the first place.
