19, man this one changed so much since the rough draft.
There was something about that pocket watch that I’d managed to forget… Ken and I were debating on how to proceed. We were still pointlessly trying to time out how often shit moved. Even if we both knew by that point that it was absolutely random, what the hell else we’re we going to do?. During a brief lull, the silence must have been gotten to Ken so he struck up a conversation like he often does.
“What do you wanna do when you’re alive again.”
“God I’m not even thinking that far ahead… Not even sure if that tower will actually get us out of here.”
He groaned, obviously annoyed that the rhetorical question of his was being shot down by my honest answer.
I thought about a lot of things, wandering around the web to find obscure movies, going for a simple walk, maybe I could learn how to play baseball… Yet I kept going back to how things left off. There’s no doubt that it would have made noise… It’s going to be a fucking mess if I make it back anytime soon, that’s assuming the place hasn’t already blown up. So I guess I had only one real wish...
“Try and not get swept up in more bullshit? Hell for all we know there won’t be anything left by th-
“Eyyy!!! You figure something out about how this place works?!”
“God no, but the watch stopped ticking.”
“What…? It can’t do that! Relics you trade your soul for don’t just break.”
“God I didn’t trade my soul for this, at best it was just the cherry on top.”
“Cherry on top of getting your ass kicked… What kind of idiot makes a deal with the devil and
still loses their fight.”
“Me apparently… Really though It still hasn’t moved…
Oh right… I mean to ask, why didn’t you get a watch then if you made a deal with her too?”
“I can’t exactly leave your side, and I’m part of you so what’s the point?
Did she say anything else about it when she gave it to you?”
“You think I remember that shit? It was basically years ago for me.”
“She said something about time… and… hmm.. Urghhhhhhh..”
“Come on Gaspar, I didn't get to hear that part!”
“...Thinking of something, did something…? I think…”
“Well I was asking you about home when it happened.”
“Right! Right… I remember, when you think of a place it shows the time there. So if it’s stopped moving…”
A grin stretched across his lips as the signs of a plan started brewing.
“Then we’ve got all the time in the world to fuck around with.”
We sat there starting for a while, longer than felt reasonable, till we finally saw the second hand move. So time wasn’t frozen but it passed slowly enough that we wouldn’t ever have to worry about it. This opened new doors, but for what? Ken had basically been wandering around his circles as he rubbed his chin. He did eventually let me in on his little plan but I still don’t know how it took him so long to reach it.
“No rush huh. Well then let’s take our time and get you used to altering your body. Since nothing seems to bother us, and we’ve got more than ample space we may as well take advantage of it.”
“Wait… Let me guess, you’re suggesting we just start fist fighting while I get that other shit figured out?”
“Why the hell not? You heal faster, so I assume I will too. Those assholes were planning on training you anyways, why not get a head start?”
“Ken, do you even know how to fight? Didn’t you just mind control people back then?”
“That wasn’t on purpose, most of the time… and no, I mean I helped with smashing people into chunks sometimes back in the day, but the other two involved in all that did most of the grunt work really. I just got people into place.”
“So basically nether of us really has any idea what the fuck we’re doing.”
“Then we’ll just fuck up till we don’t anymore, easy.”
The logic was stupid, but not wrong. I still couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of using my death as just another excuse to train another abstract concept parading as a skill. But I guess it’s better to be prepared, than losing out there in the wastelands and having to deal with getting captured by something incomprehensible.
Didn’t matter how slowly we went. Learning to change my body even in this weird dead state was more than just a tad difficult. A few things were quickly hammered out during the mixture of fighting and bodily alterations. Blood being the first thing, Ken didn’t bleed while I did. Well most of the time I did at least… A lot of learning how this stuff worked came down to me and Ken fighting until one of us stopped moving.
As predicted we really had no goddamn idea what we were actually doing. But over time I reached some answers. For me if something felt like it ought to bleed it ended up doing so. Thankfully enough when I wasn’t thinking about it anymore it disappeared. So at the very least, I wasn’t gonna be risking another mental breakdown thanks to the stone turning permanently red. Displaying the extent of the madness of the entire plan to me every second of the day. A small blessing but I’d take it.
The other thing about my blood was it didn’t drench my clothes like it should… though those clothes were their own can of worms. Could take them off sure, but the second we weren’t actively fighting they’d shift back into existence as pristine as they ever were… I guess whatever they represented had specific standards… and getting torn, or stained sure as hell didn’t fit the vision. It’s a small blessing that this trip won’t have me wandering around in tattered blood soaked clothing again. So it’s an improvement over that little trip to fleshy isolation.
While I was dealing with blood and the horror of the shit I was putting my body through, Ken on the other hand was having a grand old time. He obviously didn’t really have the same inherent connection to his body. So rearranging it into a goddamn monsterious mass of loosely human shaped flesh was a walk in the park. Ripped apart his clothes every time he did it, and the first he just changed back when he was done testing it out. Leading to a sight I’d really rather avoid, and learning that the clothes take a bit to come back. He shrugged it off and said
“It's not like I don’t see your bare ass all the time.”
Fuck man… yeah I figured that was a thing, but I sure as hell didn’t want to acknowledge it. That shit is some cursed knowledge I would have been happy to go to the grave without knowing… Yeah I know it’s a little late for privacy concerns when he’s been hitchhiking in my brain for years… But fuck man, being dumb as shit and never thinking about the details was the best plan I never made.
That terrible realization aside… Ken still took hits and all, but the only physical signs that showed up were short bursts of black dust. Even then I couldn’t be sure if it came from him or the stone beneath our feet. It was kinda unsatisfying, like nothing I did had an impact till he was laying on the ground not moving.
During some down time, I found myself looking over my scars again. The fact I still even had them while I’m just supposed to be a soul was weird. God having an extra eye would have been so nice too… Sure I could make up for it by opening my senses that thankfully still worked on Ken somehow. But why is that eye still missing? All that shit should have been left behind with my body.
The only thing I can think of is thanks to Ken not having blood. He didn’t expect to be there so it wasn’t. Somehow each of these scars must have hit my mind hard enough to convince me that the memory of it deserved to be engraved into my body…
“Just get over that shit and it’ll go away.”
Ken was reading my thoughts then… I couldn’t help but scoff, like it was that goddamn easy.
“Sure, let’s start with you giving back my eye then.”
“You can’t just take back a gift Gaspar. You’ll have to live with that one as long as I’m around.”
“So kicking you out is the answer? Easy enough.”
“HA! Says the man who off’d himself when I was gone for a day or two! Bet you were thinking about me the whole time like a little lost puppy.”
“Fuck off… You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”
“Hell no! I’m going to rub it into that stupid face of yours until it sinks into that crippled brain of yours how idiotic you were and still are. Then I’ll repeat it a million times more for good measure”
He’s justified, sure, but damn was it nice to hit him in the face after that. Really it was a great stress reliever, at least when I was winning. Fighting against him was strange at first. It’s not that I’ve never been in one before. I’d been in a few before mostly when I was being a piece of shit as a teen. All purely in self defence of course. This was all different though, it’s not fueled by emotions and adrenaline. Without the desperation there was a little more clarity to get out of it. Even if we were going to the point of nearly killing each other.
Like they say practice makes perfect, and those brawls started lasting longer and longer. Partly because we were building up skill, and partly because we were getting used to getting hit. Take enough blows to the head and at some point they don’t leave you as dazed like they used to.
We may not be alive but we still got worn out after long enough, it’s annoying but it’s not like it mattered how long this took. The extra time was always able to be spent watching the land, or making sure none of the residents here were trying to climb up. Nothing ever did, a pretty puzzling fact, but it could just be Lucy protection doing work. Or just that nothing can sense us this high up, let alone climb the basically 90 degree wall. Was pretty thankful that we didn’t seem to get hungry, or thirsty. The fact that the platform we were on was about the size of a football field was it’s own blessing too.
There was more than enough room for me to step away and not see Ken’s stupid fucking face after the bastard cheated and threw gravel he’d found in my single working eye for example.
I took the longest and angriest nap after that. Sure we didn’t really seem to need sleep, but even the brain needs a break. It gave time to process everything too, build up ideas and plans, to be ready for the next go better than the last… I’m not really sure if Kenneth slept, he’d lay down, but I dunno if he got further than that. He always happened to be awake by the time I got up.
God knows how long passed after that. Changing my flesh was still a mountain I was constantly climbing. You’d figured it’d be easy, after all I taught myself how to move again after countless failures in that dark nothingness. But back then it was a matter of working out what was the real me, and how the parts all worked together to achieve motion. I had a base line thanks to my instincts sure, but the arrangement of it all took time and endless effort to realign.
This was more like… Breaking my entire body into different points and using that as a stepping stone to grow out bone and tissue. If I wanted claws I needed to figure out what bones they would extend from, then work on changing everything around it in a way that’d allow its function. Sure I could make a 5 foot long bone shoot out the side of my arm, but without planning the added weight, unwieldiness would make the entire arm unusable, or just snap off entirely due to weight. I quickly lost count of how many times I’d tried something to just end up completely destroying my body in the process. In a fucked up way I was thankful I was dead, learning this while dealing with the long term fallout of my mistakes would be goddamn impossible.
Though I’m not really sure how useful any of this will be when I’m alive again… I’m still going to be limited to how much pain I can take, or how much blood I’ve got… Yeah maybe I could tap into the flesh lands for more fuel, but who knows what kinda bullshit long term effects that could have. Would blood or meat from there touching things change them? If you cut someone with it and it leaks into them what’ll happen? Sure I’ve used that to heal people, but it’s still up in the air if that’s just a temporary solution that’s just waiting to blow up in my face or not.
I sure as hell don’t want fucked up abominations popping up and wanting attention cause I’m their dad. Or more likely their stupid goddamn king. I’d say that all sounds stupid as fuck, but ken could control people, and he gave me his bullshit. It hasn’t shown up and I hope it never does. Even if it would be useful, I’m not so far gone that using people with their own lives as puppets sounds like a good time. I’ve got enough strange crap on my plate as is…
Ken was the first one to pull out his claws mid fight. He’d been carefully watching for a while, and waiting until I’d started to figure things out. The changes were still slow but I did manage to replicate what Ken did with his hands. I still hit a real bad losing streak, claws worked for Kenneth, and he was becoming a quick son of a bitch. I just couldn’t get used to it. When I asked him how’d he’d make his hands work like that he’d just say something dumb like.
“Damn Mills, don't you know anything about fingering? You must have been real shit at foreplay.”
How the fuck do you respond to that? He doesn’t even answer or offer any ideas just goes into his crude bullshit. Plus goddammit I know he’s got 0 experience, most of the time he talks like someone who’s just read about sex and proclaimed to be a pussy destroyer. I just have to groan and move on because like many things to do with Kenneth the less said or thought about it the better…
It was during one of our many breaks that Ken brought up something… Off.
“Mhm… can’t turn that off unfortunately.”
“Yeah… That brain of yours is a real piece of work, you should demand a refund.”
“I’ll get bodily support on the line, I’m sure they’ll be out to replace it in 4 to 6 business days.”
“Hahah…I meant to bring this up but forgot while I was kicking your ass. Your teeth are looking sharp these days.”
“Rub it in my face will you… and literally, or figuratively?”
“...Really? Even if I answered you're just gonna stick your hand in regardless to check.
He called me out as I was in the middle of pricking myself on them. The answer was literally. Not sure when or how they got like that…but I tried to push them down and change them like I would bones, and they stayed for a bit until slowly changing back.
“God, that feels pretty dire… If I’m just my soul here, changes like that seem like signs of bad things to come.”
“What’s wrong with change? You’re not the same person you were a week ago, no reason to get hung up on something that’ll be normal come the next one.”
“I wish I’d stop doing that at least for a day or two. It makes it a little hard to figure out who I’m supposed to be.”
“Wow thanks, I had no idea… You know what I mean.”
“You want a complex answer but what’s the point? No matter how often the details change you’re still the same you. Disappointing, stupid, resilient… at least most of the time, and somehow pulling off shit that should be frankly impossible. Not that you really notice it, you get hung up on the fuck ups, and ignore the achievements.”
“Ha, like I’m the only one selling me short.”
“Anyone who undersells the shit you do is a goddamn fool, yourself included.”
“...Why do you get like this? Caring while also wanting to see me go through hell. I can’t figure it out.”
“Cause I know you unlike them?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Who knows, figure it out yourself. We’re wasting time, let’s go another round."
Always with that ‘who knows’... Even if he couldn’t run away like he used to, attacking served the same purpose. The conversation was quickly buried under the chaos of the following losses. He was still better at this, and getting distracted by worthless thoughts wasn’t going to help.
The answer I eventually found boiled down to stop trying to fight like Kenneth does. He’s not human even if I forget that most of the time. He’s not stuck in the mindset of what people can normally do or how they tend to fight. So that quick moving, changing body parts on the fly and slashing thing works out for him.
What I needed was something more traditional, then at least the only fucked up thing I need to figure out was the other worldy crap. The answer ended up being spikes that covered my knuckles at first, and eventually learning to cover my arms in bone to better block the on coming attacks. The whole process ended up looking like fucked up gauntlets by the end of it but let me actually start pulling off some wins for a change. It did lead to the natural problem of trying to get rid of all that bone when the fight was over. The first few times I just got frustrated and smashed my arms on the ground till they shattered. Ken spent the whole time laughing at me, and saying ‘figure it out’ like always when I asked for a hint.
I ended up feeling stupid as hell when I realized I could just change it into blood and the problem solves itself… It’s not like I instantly knew how to actually do that, it took a bit of work since I’d mainly been focused on bone and the tissue needed to support it related additions. So the blood part of everything got a bit overlooked. It actually led me to a pretty good set of realizations.
Since I bled here it gave me an added tool. At first I used it to form rope made of tendons, with the right timing it could be used to wrap around limbs and knock Ken off balance. Since they could quickly form and dissolve it was unpredictable. Ken started putting more time on strengthening his legs, and added more blades to his ever changing form. He’d figured out best to angle as a follow up to his rapid slashes. I kept up for a while and even started to stack up a few wins, but he kept going further. Everything altered for the intent purpose of growing faster and faster. If that led to holes appearing places that was just to cut wind resistance. Or getting rid of his ability to speak in exchange for more mass to attack with. He was willing to do it.
Speed could have been partly countered with my blood tricks, and more bone armor, but his newly added habit of jumping around made him hard as hell to keep track of. Let alone try and hit him with a punch. Again it was loss after, loss… Going a bit too far when he cut straight through my arm and we both stared at the still twitching limb.
I could still feel it where it should be, but it was on the ground now… I knew it, I could see it… Silence grew more and more intense until a blinding pain hit, as my arm slowly rebuilt itself from the bleeding nub. Returning covered in the same scars it used to have before and leaving the old one still laying on the ground.
“Ohhhhh!! That’s really neat!”
“You should have blocked it. Least we know now limbs grow back.”
“What if it didn’t?! What the hell would we do then?”
He waved it off like it was nothing
“...Man, you already know that you could just make a new one. It doing the work on its own is just easier.
Huh, it isn’t disappearing like your blood does.”
“You’ve got the fist fighting thing down already. If you’re gonna be using a bat eventually you may as well start practicing.”
“It’s just going to shatter if I'm not actively reinforcing it. Not sure if I can do that while keeping up the armor.”
“Don’t people have iron in their blood? Make the center out of that.”
“I don’t even think that kind of metal is the same as the blood kind…”
“Then what about kidney stones? That’s a thing that happens.”
“Ken… When the hell did you pick this stuff up?”
“Hey I had some time to myself before I met up with you again, and I don’t judge what you do or watch in your free time.”
“You sit there judging me like 90% of the time, what are you talking about?!”
“Details, details, now don’t move too much. Maybe close your eye too.”
Dread filled every fiber of my being. He was about to do something real fucking stupid…
My words fell on deaf ears. With a burst of speed, his full weight smashed against me and sent me tumbling before I even got the word out. Yet again the asshole was on top of me but this time for a new purpose.
“Since stuff ripped out of you will stick around… Well we may as well get you a kidney to work with. Hell while I’m at it I may as well scoop everything out. Plus aren't you curious to see what that watch is connected to?”
“Wait, wait, wait! I can just make new ones you don’t-”
His claws were already cutting through my chest, I was screaming but Ken quickly slashed out my throat to keep me from protesting.
“You can, so could I… but who knows if they’ll be accurate Why risk fucking it up when you’ve got the pieces alread-
Huh… would you look at that…”
He had my ribs pulled open, there was a goddamn hole in them where the scar was.. It went deeper than it should’ve… Fuck I couldn’t look anymore. I wanted to scream at him to stop fucking around but I was too busy choking on my own blood. This asshole… He can read my mind this is just adding fucking insult to injury.
Fuck, fuck, fuck… no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t look away, there was something sickenly captivating about it. In the center of my chest was a strange purple and red mass that pulsed with the beating of my slowing heart, hell maybe it was my heart? It was too fucked up in there to tell. There was a bigger issue that was revealed anyways. The watch’s chain wrapped and weaved around in the mix of organs, leaving not a single one spared from its embrace.
Ken moved his hand over whatever the hell part of me that clock was attached too, a little too goddamn fascinated by everything going on.
“Let’s see what’s inside tha-”
The claw that tried to slice it open was immediately stopped, as chains wrapped around my insides started moving. Unraveling from inside of me outwards towards ken. Before either of us had grasped it most of Ken's arm had been sliced to shreds. When the sudden shock of what’d just happened past the pieces fell into place. It must have moved so fast that it acted as a chainsaw, before recoiling back inside me like a goddamn tape measure.
“H-huh….! So that’s what this feels like… It’s not too good is it…?”
Oh no really who would have ever guessed losing a limb would hurt?! Damn he’s taking leaps and bounds today. This shit seemed like a wash, but Ken still got up as I was trying to pull my insides back together.
My arms were sliced into forcing them to go limp, leaving me silently screaming as he ripped out my organs one by one. Chains didn’t do shit as long as he left their source alone, great to know that they’re traitorous bastards that won’t protect anything else… So Ken was easily able to untangle them from my insides and pluck them out one by one. That was worse than the pain of fighting, or anything I’d felt before… Yeah, there was still a degree of hollowness to it but it was the fact I could still feel what was removed long after it was gone. God why did I even still have organs? I’m fucking dead, I don’t need accurate organs! Why couldn’t I just be empty, made of goo or some other bullshit like that. This to too fucking much.
Ken looked so fucking proud of himself when he was eventually done. He just placed them on the ground next to me and fell backwards.
“...I think… I want to try sleeping…. Yeah that… sounds good.”
We were not going to be moving again for a while… Even when I can again, it’ll be more learning… More pain, and fighting, and still we haven’t left the starting line. War’s going to follow, and I think I almost pity anything that would go against how batshit insane we’ve become…
…Ken had the right idea, I can't really move yet either so a nap sounded pretty good…
