Boyhood

[Un-Persona*]

This was new. Not the nut-shot, that has happened more times then he had liked, but it wasn't an unfamiliar type of pain. Nah, what was different was the finger wedged deep into his eye-socket. On his right, he saw Gabe, drips of blood falling down and being absorbed into his skin. On his left, he saw red. Red and pain.

His hands had now wrapped around Gabe's neck. Davis now saw Gabe in the sky, soon about to fall. All this while he couldn't even hear himself scream. All that was there was a sense of action.

So Gabe was brought down to the concrete, having been chokeslammed, Davis watching as he withered in pain. Davis remembered that his brother Leon had always liked that pro-wrestling stuff. Davis grabbed his bag, and began swinging it down at Gabe.

Game time.

[General Goose]

((Yagmur continued from I like my ladies like my coffee))

Yagmur's first reaction upon seeing a daycare centre, one which advertised ball-pits, was to do his characteristic girlish giggle (his high-pitched and heartwarming chuckle being one of the only things that he naturally shared with Nick Offerman) and almost break into a gleeful sprint. His manly exterior and gruff demeanour aside, Yagmur was a child at heart. A child with a very cynical and libertarian outlook on life, a near-comprehensive knowledge of swear words and a gun, but still a child.

He loved ball-pits. So many vague yet happy memories of his childhood.

Yet he stumbled, and Lisa and Gabriel, his two allies whose company he was already begrudgingly forcing himself to accept, went in first, as he paused to tie his shoelaces which had randomly come undone. He still failed to see what advantage shoelaces had over Velcro besides nostalgia and social acceptance, but whatever. Probably a powerful shoelace lobby.

Yagmur was trying to distract himself from his grim surroundings, you see.

And then a "yo shithead".

That brought his attempts at having happy thoughts to a standstill, as apparently his allies had rushed straight into the drama which the mouth-breathing idiots back home went mad for.

So he checked his gun. He'd gone over the manual as they walked, but he knew the basics of how pistols worked, he knew the misconceptions around gun safety, and he knew how to treat and respect a gun. Now was his time to put that (admittedly woefully insufficient) knowledge to good use. Well, hopefully he wouldn't have to, but he had to be prepared.

He walked into the room, surveying the scene in a few split-seconds as he raised his gun. "Everyone SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING," he exclaimed, after seeing that no-one else was raising a gun at him, instead caught in violent confrontations in the ball-pit.

Oh, he was out of his depth.

[Bikriki*]

If there was a time to ask for popcorn, it would be now. Alas, Lisa didn't have any popcorn and the baconnaise was too "lite". The scene unfolding before her was exciting enough to ignore the massive issue of lacking snacks, because even if Lisa had no idea what problem Gabriel had, it was pretty much the most exciting bitch fight she has ever seen.

Lisa stared at the fight until she noticed something odd in her peripheral vision. Then she turned towards said odd thing.

"Oh, hi Louise! Didn-"

Louise was more than happy to see her, it seemed, because she tackled Lisa. Well, that's great! Lisa opened her arms and embraced her buddy in a tight hug.

Yagmur rose his voice and Lisa freezed, Louise still held in her arms. Oh great, now she just listened to one of his commands.

"I did nothing!"

[aristeia*]

Louise and her assailant toppled back into the pit, sending spheres flying everywhere. She felt the girl's arms wrap around her and tried to twist out the hold. At this point she spoke nearly deafening Louise in an all too familiar voice. Louise had heard it many times albeit in very different circumstances.  She was almost used to Lisa's outdoor voice, shouting no matter how close they were and traveling across rooms.

"Oh hey Lise, sorry 'bout that"

she said with a sheepish grin.  However, the happy reunion was cut short by a second voice which even topped Lisa's shouting ability. Twisting to see the new arrival, who was only notable because of his entrance and the fact he was holding a gun, she stopped what she was doing and raised her hands. Or at least raised them as much as it was possible in her present position, hoping she looked suitably innocent of blame.

[Latin For Dragula]

Shouting wasn't really the best way to reach Gabriel in most circumstances. Just about any other time he would have told Yagmur to shove it, but he'd make an exception for the moment, given that he could really talk in the first place thanks to Davis's bag beating the shit out of him.

Yagmur's antics seemed to slow the situation back down. That allowed Gabe to take stock of the situation. On the bright side, the blood on his hand seemed to be from Davis's eye. On the other hand, he could still barely fucking move from having the breath and energy beaten out of him with that choke slam. He'd get better, though. Davis was gonna have a harder time. Sounded like a win.

As his head lolled weakly to the side, he picked up on Louise. He also picked up on her bandanna. That brought a weak smile to his lips, and he waved to her before pointing at it. Maybe she'd pick up that it was the same color as the one on his head.

[Un-Persona*]

There comes a point where you should just stop what you're doing before it ends up going too far and you find yourself regretting everything you've done in your life. Davis, on account of only having one eye left, decided that they were all past that point and they might as well just keep going, if only to just see what happens.

He did, however, stop for a little while after another guy came in waving a gun and telling them to cut the shit. He looked back down at Gabe with the eye he still had. Gabe, who had a shit-eating smirk on his face. Gabe who had a black bandana on him. Davis turned his head towards Louise. Black bandana, same as Gabe.

He had nobody here. He was fucked. Gabe was just gonna waltz on off, with his fucking eye as a trophy. This was horseshit. At least, that's what Davis thought...at first. He remembered the team he was on, who his mentor was. He realized the position he was in, how Gabe was getting the shit beat out of him because he deserved it, and Davis could do all he wanted and yet he'd still lose.

At least he could consider himself lucky in one case. Jared wouldn't be blowing his head up anytime soon. So he looked up at the other guy with the patchy beard, holding his bag against Gabe's face. Davis wouldn't allow him to get out of this so easily.

"He. Has. My. Fucking. Eye."

[General Goose]

Okay, the women weren't the problem here. Lisa and this other girl seemed to be quite cordial with each other, actually, now that Yagmur had the time to analyse the situation a bit more (he had a gun, he was allowed to take his time). As the stereotypes would suggest, it was the two guys who were doing all the melodramatic violence here. Probably some petty school-time grudge, by the speed it happened, as opposed to a serious or strategic reason.

Idiots.

So he moved his gun from the general direction of the ballpit, hovering his sights between the two groups, to focusing on the boys. The one who wasn't Gabriel, to be exact. Technically, Gabriel was an ally, but one of convenience, one not on his team, and also apparently a volatile, close-minded and petty ally at that and holy fuck what happened to that guy's eye.

"Okay. Err, one of you two is going to explain to me what is going on here?" he said, successfully keeping his voice firm and monotone. He was in charge of the situation, and not just because of the gun - he could take any of these fuckers in a fist-fight if it came to it. He wasn't sure he could rely on the gun that much, anyway. The others could not see it, beyond some awkward posture and constant fidgeting to try and make it comfortable, because he was covering the grip with his other hand. But if he took out his left hand, and tried holding it with just his right, his lack of all necessary fingers would make it slightly more difficult.

Scratch that, extremely more difficult. But as long as he used both his hands, he should be fine. Hopefully.

[Bikriki*]

"Lemme explain!"

Lisa let go of her mate, turning towards Yagmur towering above Lisa.

"I am what they call a society expert.

...or maybe not, because I'm not sure what their beef is, but these guys once initiated a really cool foodfight in our school, so much I know."

She pointed at her cleavage.

"I was wearing something more revealing that day and got a potato landing right here."

[aristeia*]

Louise felt the vice-like grip end. She wriggled to the side still staying near her friend, her eyes fixed on the gun and her hands still raised. Her left ear started to itch as she felt the gun pointed at her. Louise's hand twitched to go to try to scratch it before thinking better of it.

Her mind raced for a good excuse, or even a reason for her actions.

"Oh well, you see it was like this...."

At this point Lisa chose to explain, in her own unique way, so naturally enough Louise's attempt at an excuse was drowned out. That was probably for the best.  Louise looked at her friend with an amused expression, it was nice to see the situation hadn't changed her irrepressible mate. She smiled remembering Lisa running around the school, with the precariously balanced potato, informing everyone who would  listen of her situation. Louise had never got round to telling her friend how it got there.

[Latin For Dragula]

Yagmur was fumbling with his gun. Davis was growling back at him. Louise and Lisa were tripping over each other to try and explain the situation.

Gabe could have added his own bit of analysis. Instead, he curled his finger into a hook and jerked it out of Davis's eye-socket as hard as he could. The probing digit tore out, followed by splashes of blood riddled with chunks of ruined eye and an unearthly, screeching wail from Davis.  Before Gabriel could process what he'd done, he curled his crimson-stained fingers together into a fist and swung hard into Davis's face, throwing him backwards towards the pit.

Wobbling weakly, he gathered himself up and panted backwards to find space. No words were coming yet. Just rest. He needed rest. He needed everyone to stop staring at him. He needed Davis to shut the fuck up.

Fuck, fuck, fuck...

[Un-Persona*]

Davis literally had his eye pulled out.

As Davis fell back into the pit after Gabe punched him in the face, it didn't take much for him to start flailing as garbled yells escaped his mouth.

All was there in his mind was pain. It's not exactly easy to take a boy and turn him into a man. It is a lot easier to take just about anybody and turn them into a fighter. At that point, all Davis wanted to do was fight. At that point, that's all he knew. At that point, that was all he was allowed to do anyway.

So he wouldn't remember a lot of things when he woke up. Wouldn't remember who he was aiming at or which hand he held the gun with, or how long it took him to get his gun out. He wouldn't remember where he fell or what he was inspired to do before all of this. Wouldn't remember if he even pulled the trigger or not.

As he fainted back into the ball pit, all he would remember were the colors black and red.

[General Goose]

((GMing approved.))

Yagmur didn't know whether they noticed his uneasy stance with the gun, or whether they seized on the opportunity of Lisa pointing to her cleavage as a rather bemusing distraction (a distraction that raised his eyebrow, but nothing else), but he was unable to immediately respond to what transpired. It was all over so quickly.

Luckily, the bullet hadn't hit anyone, from what he could tell, and Gabriel's enemy was apparently out for the count. But it caught him off guard, nevertheless, and he wasn't really paying attention for a couple of seconds, too stunned to process just how quickly things had gone to shit.

This shit already?

The Gabriel alliance would need to be terminated, pretty damn quickly. That guy was not reliable, and Yagmur had no reason, rational or emotional, to keep by the side of this sociopathic pot of repressed violent urges any longer than he had to. Yes, he'd formed an alliance based partially on baconnaise (he was going to die with the taste of bacon on his tongue, damn it), but that was more just so he had an alliance at all. He wasn't stupid. Going it alone would be safer than this hysterical, violent, ruthless loose cannon he was now pointing his gun at.

He'd tried to stop the situation from escalating, using his strengths of an intimidating physique, powerful voice, and gun. He'd failed. He now had a guy with half his eye torn out to deal with. He was pretty much a powerless spectator.

Which reminded him.

"And you guys get off to this?" he said, turning briefly to the camera, speaking in a low tone, trying to gather his thoughts before addressing the situation. "A five year old could write better entertainment than this shit."

He breathed out. He walked forward, stopping at the edge of the ball-pit, no longer distracted by the bright colours and childhood memories, his gun held to his side and pointed at the ground but still in clear sight. He got on his knees so he could better speak to his teammate, and started talking in what he hoped was a disarming, apathetic tone. "Gabriel, I don't care what problems you had with this guy back at your school. I don't care what hocus-pocus bullshit Freudian rationales you have," he began, placing a particularly spiteful emphasis on Freud's name, a man he was not fond of. "I understand that this may seem like the perfect opportunity to settle old scores and all that crap, and I understand the desire to get a head start on playing this game. But ripping someone's eye out is not acceptable. It's a very disproportionate reaction."

With a heavy sigh, he continued, hoping to make eye contact with Gabriel (no pun intended - was that a pun? Yagmur didn't know or care). "You said you know first aid, right? Well, you implied it. So, tend to his wounds. Give him the best healthcare possible under the circumstances." Hoping to add a cherry on the cake, and deciding an appeal to bleeding-heart humanity wasn't likely to work, he added a sweetener. "Hell, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't cleaning wounds sting like hell?" Hopefully the chance for causing more pain to this other gun-wielding psycho would move things along quicker.

All this time, he avoided looking at the eye. There wasn't enough therapy and absinthe in the world to make that a palatable sight, and Yagmur didn't want to linger on it more than necessary. So he kept his eyes on Gabriel's face. He was on his knees, despondent and clearly not happy with what had transpired. No eye contact had been made. No words had been spoken. Yagmur was about to go on, try and provoke a reaction from him, when he looked down.

One of Gabriel's little fingers had been blown clean off by the gunshot. There was a lot of blood. He wasn't even sure if Gabriel was still conscious.

He felt ashamed that his first thought was to try and think of a witty one-liner, but meh, he also was missing fingers, he could make those jokes.

[Bikriki*]

It was just now when Gabriel jammed his finger out of Davis' eye that Lisa realized what happened there. Gabriel just ripped a piece of eye out of Davis. Lisa could not do anything but stare at the bleeding boys.

"Wow... badass."

Then a shot rang out, which caught Lisa offguard and made her release a short-lived scream, which sounded more like a kitten being upset about not reaching a certain place by jumping onto it.

Lisa looked over to Louise, to see what reaction she had, but her eyes quickly focused on the bandanna on Louise that Lisa just noticed. It had the same color as Gabriel's. Which meant that Louise already found one of her teammates, and that guy was pretty cool. Lucky her.

"Hey, Louise! Look! Gabriel and you are on one team!"

[Outfoxd]

A voice echoes from Yagmur's collar.  "I appreciate you trying to keep this under control, big guy, but they might be a lost cause.  I will say, from what I can see, most of your team are a little more...pleasant than these gentlemen.  And they all have both eyes.  So that's a plus."

[aristeia*]

Louise was generally fairly chilled but she could feel her stress levels elevate. This was too much.

'I can't take this'

Davis' eye, blood, gun shots and psychotic players  - sorry team mates it turned out, psychotic team mates so psychotic allies?

She avoided looking at Davis, all she had wanted was a nice chat and to hang around in a ball pit. It wasn't a wild leap of logic to say things had gone terribly wrong. And she wanted out.

So Louise did what she always did in these situations, or at least when she was hit by stress albeit rather different more mundane stresses, she ran.

Without a second thought she pulled herself out the pit running away from the blood, the guns and the psychos. A strange subconscious part of her enjoyed the flow of adrenaline, it was unlike any she had experienced before. Shame it required being in this mess in the first place.

(Louise Luna continued elsewhere)