I just want to hug you, fabianh. ^_^
Okay, here's your first update, more to come as I remember/rewrite. Honestly, though, the last bit is just not as good as my first attempt; I was in the zone then, and it's so hard to reach those glorious heights a second time. u_u
BUT, the first part is much better in its second form! Enjoy. ^_~
Jason honestly didn't know what to do.
Did Tiana really want to be left alone, or was she just being Tiana? And what was all that 'special' talk?
"Did you hear it? Sense it?" Jason closed his eyes and tried to recall the fuzzy memory. It had been dark, but Jason had heard the sickly ripping of flesh as Rafe stripped the scab from Justin's hand so he could heal it properly. The green light had made the blood shine dark green. Justin's body had been rigid with pain, then relaxed as he passed out... then... Jason racked his brain, trying to remember all the details, but the hunters were being incredibly distracting!
“Justin, what in the name of all dragons' gold is going on?”
“You owe us a better explanation than that.”
“You were going to leave the party to go with
her?”
“What do you mean, she's special?”
“Justin...”
“Justin!”
“Justin?”
Jason slammed his palm on the coffee table, commanding attention. “I understand why she was getting so mad at you now!”
The hunters silenced. “What?” Evan asked indistinctly.
Is it always like this for her? Jason wondered, suddenly realizing that whenever Tiana forced someone to ask her to explain, they were not only giving her their attention, but also permission to continue uninterrupted. It staved off arguments, kept people from trying to talk over her. Now Jason found himself doing it. “I understand she was getting mad because you people don't seem to get it! If Justin wouldn't tell her, the one most entitled to an answer, what makes you think she'll tell any of you anything? Now would you kindly
shut up so I can collect my thoughts?”
"Dude. You sound exactly like her," Dylan pointed out. The truth of the observation disturbed Jason greatly, and the fact that Tiana would've ignored him too only made it worse.
Never mind that, concentrate. Jason closed his eyes again.
"Did you hear it? Sense it?" When Justin came to after passing out, Rafe had asked that question, and Justin had nodded.... Tiana had exchanged puzzled glances with Jason. Then Morgan had staggered onto the scene... through a curtain of tangled, soggy, cooked kudzu, which he'd had to cut Zack out of. What had done that to the kudzu, anyway?
Concentrate, he told himself again. Hear what? Sense what? A prophecy? Impending doom? What could possibly have convinced Justin that Tiana was 'special' enough to change or destroy the world? How special would she have had to be to get a man like that to just abandon his men?
"Now that we're both here, we each have responsibility..." A man like that wouldn't up and leave his hunting party on a whim... Jason cracked one eye open, eying the metal wolf on the table.
Where have I seen that symbol before? “Done 'collecting your thoughts' yet?” Dylan asked sarcasticly.
“Oh, go kiss a troll,” Jason retorted, resting his left hand on his sword hilt. “I have, actually, and I conclude with the fact that everything is up to speculation and educated guesswork due to the fact that certain people are withholding key information. So draw your own conclusions in your own time. What matters is what we
do. Tiana is gone, and will probably attack anyone who follows her with extreme prejudice. There's a leader's emblem on the table. The Rare Ones have been yanked from wherever to here, and need to figure out where to go and how to get there, and the security is going to either throw us out or collect the fine any second now. Technically speaking, none of this is my problem. Tiana has waived any responsibility or whatever Justin owed her, and I'm pretty sure she'd call
us even because I saved her life yesterday. I'm getting out of here while I can. I suggest the rest of you do the same.”
Jason collected his few possessions and dropped them into a space-saver-- a magical container like Mary Poppin's carpetbag. Jason's right trench coat pocket could hold a truckload of items; anything small enough to fit in a pocket would shrink down to the size of the period at the end of this sentence. To retrieve something, he just had to think, 'Pockets of infinity, give (whatever item) back to me' and it would grow to its normal size, and he could then take it out easily. He'd spent a year working for that item by guarding a spoiled Phoenix hatchling while it slept. Its parents had been rather important in the court of the Phoenix King, and Jason had slain many an assassin/would-be egg-snatcher in the dead of night.
Jason dropped the last of the frozen burritos into his magical pocket, along with three or four water bottles, and closed the refrigerator door. “Whatever's left, you can have,” he told them as he left.
The street outside the hotel was deceptively normal, excepting the thick layer of ash which blanketed everything in a shroud of grayish-white. Jason didn't exactly
choose to turn right; the shortest route from his room to the outside world had led him out on the right side of the building. The air was smoggy, but breathable; the sun failed to penetrate the smogginess, but it was bright enough to see. Barely. He sighed. Traveling with Tiana had been exhausting, but staying alive and out of jail was pretty exciting. Just talking to her had been stimulating for the mind; trying to keep up with her was a bit of a challenge, and exchanging verbal blows was almost impossible... but it had given his brain more of a workout than he'd had in years. But now she was gone, and he was left with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Jason continued up the street. The scene was surreal; the ash looked almost like snow, and kept an impression of each boot print he made. It looked so innocent... but then things began to change. The illumination posts' lights were blown out. Abandoned cars lined the sides of the street; the traffic-conducting computers must have been overloaded with a thousand commands at once, all from panicked citizens reacting to the disaster, trying to change directions or get on or off the road simultaneously. In such an event, the computers deposited everyone on pedestrian streets, so as to clear the 'fast track' above for emergency vehicles.
Finally, he reached the point of total destruction. Flipped or smashed cars, tilted skyscrapers, buildings with huge sections destroyed or missing, debris and rubble everywhere.
What kind of monster would do this? He wondered. He knew of at least one person who'd enjoy this kind of destruction.... but that was the past. Unwelcome memories began to rear their ugly heads, and Jason forced them back down. He'd learned long ago how to block them by drowning them out with angry music, and sounds and images from recent experiences. Tiana was enough to overwhelm anyone, and the memories involving her helped greatly in the strangling of his past's ghosts. He chuckled slightly. Never at a loss for words, that was her. Except when Justin had gone on about the whole 'you are special' thing, and then... well, she had seemed very... unsettled. And upset. Or maybe that was just because she feared people? He'd realized it before. She was afraid of betrayal, and one cannot be betrayed by a stranger. When Justin had tried to insist on being close to her, like a guardian, she smacked him down and ran like the wind.
But I guess I can't really judge her when I'm on the run from my own past. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't hear the footsteps behind him. Didn't see the shadow fall in front of him. A tap on his shoulder brought him back to reality, startling him. He whirled around to see a figure in black withdraw a slim, pale hand with darkly polished nails. Her hood shadowed her face, much like Rafe's had, and her dark lipstick made her chin look white. Her figure was entirely obscured by a black... cloak-crossed-with-a-robe thing. To Jason, she could well have been the Grim Reaper's sister. Her voice was deeper, lower than most females', but was still feminine. “How are you?” she asked quietly.
Thanks to Tiana's annoying way of forcing him to look through her lens of reason, he recognized the loaded question when he saw it.
'Do you need help? If not, can I just... talk to you?' How
was Jason? Tired. More than a bit apathetic. What wasn't unresponsive was disgusted at both the destruction around him, and at the turmoil within him. “I'll work it out,” he responded. “How are you?”
“Alive,” she replied. She stepped back, and crouched to examine her footprint in the ash. “We're so small,” she said softly, tracing the outline. “So easily broken. We're born. We live. We die. We're forgotten.” She wiped the print out of existence, and stood. “So why do we bother with our petty struggles? Not even all the power in the world can buy you happiness. Why bring misery to everyone else? Why shouldn't we strive for a better world... a kinder world... why would anyone do this?” She inclined her head at a building, tilted at a 45 degree angle, half-destroyed.
“I don't know,” Jason admitted. “But there are a lot of things people like me do when we shouldn't, and and things we don't do when we should. So it's not hard to see how stuff like this can be brought about.” A fluttering piece of red fabric caught his eye. A tattered doll's dress. “Though I hope I never understand the twisted mind of the monster who actually does it.”
“Few humans are
born monsters,” she said evenly. “Most are just like you. Humans.... humans are meant to be taught. Taught how to coexist peacefully, taught how to work to become self-sufficient, taught how to grow and mature, taught how to love and love well, and taught how to teach the next generation. The most important lesson is often underrated; the power of a compliment or an insult is usually grossly underestimated. Either can inspire one to otherwise unattainable heights, or bring them to a suicidal low.”
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” Jason remembered. More often than not, the jibes to which he'd responded really had hurt when he said it.
“And words leave psychological wounds which never heal,” she finished. As she went on, Jason got the impression that she ceased talking to him, but was rather thinking aloud. Their minds were occupied enough by the scene and their thoughts to bother with introductions or eye contact. One spoke, the other listened, and that was enough.
“The ones we call monsters are those who we consider to be beneath humanity,” she continued. “But if they were not born, then how did they come to be?
Some look at the world, and decide that it is nothing but chaos, and therefore morality only exists in the minds of the unenlightened. They throw away any sense of right and wrong, exempting themselves from the laws of the weak-willed and feeble-minded, and do whatever they damn well please. They can take a child and perform horrific experiments on it because, after all, what makes it any more wrong than abusing a lab rat? Who has the right to tell them what they can and can't do? They can take a child and manipulate into a mindless killer, which would gladly destroy itself at a word from the Master. Or they could take a man a break him; set him up for failure at his job, plant evidence about his wife, bring his life crashing down around him. Then, when he has nowhere left to turn, offer a glimmer of hope. He will bite and bite hard; hook, line, and sinker.
If they and their slaves were the only monsters that existed, life would be that much easier. But they aren't.
There are those who were abandoned by their poorly-raised parents, thrown into the meat grinder that is life. They emerge a grotesque mass of scar tissue, twisted beyond recognition, though they appear to be just like everyone else.
Others are shattered into a thousand pieces by trauma or personal crisis. Those who don't destroy themselves or go stark raving mad staple themselves back together with sheer willpower. They walk among us, bitter and broken inside.
And there are some who don't have an explanation, or an excuse. They just 'felt like it'. But why? Where did such ideas come from? They don't know and they don't care.
More have explanations aplenty-- but if you asked, they probably couldn't tell you where their ideas came from, or whose words opened the door in their minds just far enough to allow them to formulate their twisted logic.
Some are just born with the inclination to bend rules as far as they can go, are more apt to lie than tell the truth out of fear, and are unusually attracted to darkness; it's almost natural to take what doesn't belong to them if they want it and it's there, unguarded. They struggle every day, trying to keep themselves in check.
Still more do daily battle with the shadows of their past, trying not to let their parent's mistakes dominate their lives. Anger, pettiness, selfishness, greed; if one is not taught self-control, they can wreak havoc. Today, it's a sandwich that you had no right to eat; but there was no name on it. Tomorrow, it's a few swiped mushrooms; your bonus had to go into an unexpected repair, but you should get SOMETHING out of it because you DESERVED that bonus! Or perhaps you altered your numbers; a bad day shouldn't jeopardize your entire JOB, should it? After all, you're a hard worker, loyal, and you've never been late except for the time the alarm didn't go off... It is when one begins to excuse oneself that they begin to turn from a law-abiding citizen to something darker. These people aren't monsters, per se, but they are the ones who neglect their children. They're just so busy, they're doing their best, they're going to settle down just as soon as they can, ect, leaving their children to grow up by themselves or be raised by strangers. Then the children become adults, and are faced with a choice: to rise above their parents and strive to be the best they can be, or deliberately choose to abandon the path their parents trod.”
“So...” Jason finally ventured, “You're saying bad parenting gives rise to a flawed generation, who in turn spawns a worse generation, which creates--”
“Poor parenting?” she asked, louder.
Jason looked at her. “That's what you--”
“I said 'the mistakes of their parents',” she corrected. Her head was raised slightly, her stance straighter and more alert, as though she were shifting gears from 'pensive' to 'engaged'.
“I think poor parenting is what we call a mass of mistakes,” he said.
“Everyone makes mistakes. It's part of being human. We're supposed to do our best, apologize when we slip up, and forgive others when they do. But their parents probably didn't acknowledge their shortcomings at all! The children would resent that, would they not? And if the children did not possess the wherewithal to forgive or forget, it would influence them negatively, would it not?” she said with quiet excitement, getting more animated as she neared what appeared to be a personal breakthrough. The figure in black had seemed like a stoic, quiet, laid-back kind of person, but now she was beginning to act almost normal-- which had to mean she was actually getting quite worked up. Jason felt like he should begin to gently apply the brakes. “This is a pretty heavy subject, and we're painting with some really broad brushes here.”
“Yes, but this is important,” she insisted. “Small mistakes lead to larger errors which lead to the mind-boggling conundrums of society! Do you... do you realize what this means?”
“I think you're over-simplifying, but--”
“Monsters are not born,” she declared. “They are
made. They are the product of mankind in grand form of the butterfly effect!” She turned and pointed at him accusingly. “You, Jason. The things you do when you shouldn't, the things you don't do when you should, and the things you say without thinking.” She gestured at the wreckage around them and finished, “We all have a hand in creating monsters, so doesn't it seem to them that we deserve this?”
), although I don't really want to talk about that right now, and it makes me think a bit sometimes. Sadly I'm not good at writing stories, but I'm already looking forward for the next part of YOUR story. Please keep it up man, you're the only one left in these forums 
