voice + action ✪ there must be some way to bring the hero home

[herotypical]

[ after a week of agonizing combat, buffy summers returns home with only exhaustion on her mind. despite all the excitement and crisis, there's little left to do other than collapse onto her bed and fall into a sleep fit for a weary, worn-out soul. morning sees her feeling no less -- shudder -- zombieish. the horror of the last week is bone-and-marrow deep and has yet to fully make itself known in her system. the slayer is running on auxillery humanity, stringing herself along from second to second until she can find a friendly face. find willow and...

and all she finds is an empty room. an empty closet. empty drawers. her best friend is gone. deported while she wasn't even looking. come the afternoon, after she's gotten the first onslaught of emotions out of her system, buffy sits alone on the empty bed. she addresses her journal: ]

Willow and I have this game we like to play. Willow Rosenberg. She was in town...but now she's not. [ a pause allows buffy to catch her breath. to stay strong. ] We call it 'Anywhere But Here' -- self-explanatory, really. Pick a fantasty-elsewhere to be and a fantasy-someone to share it with. I'm not talking about the obvious ones: home or family or anything even remotely whiffing of responsibility. I'm talking about fun. I'm talking about pure escapism. I'm talking Daniel Craig on the beach or Amy Yip at the waterpark.

I'll go first. Show you how it's done. [ but which escape route from reality should she take? ] The '88 Winter Olympics. The Saddledome. Calgary, of all places. Brian Boitano is taking the time to personally skate me through his gold medal routine. Perhaps there's hot chocolate involved. I, being made entirely of my own imagination, copy each move perfectly.

Got it? Good. Because now it's your turn.

[ when her broken little tribute to an absent friend is finished, she'll be searching out her injured pirate (wherever he may be convalescing) and it's off to good spirits, where she can be found working a shift behind the bar. ]

Comments

[herotypical]

Nah. Or -- not usually. Some of the drafts have had'em. The last one did.

[fierybluebird]

I see... Kind of. I actually haven't been drafted yet. That was the one with the zombies?

[herotypical]

The...infected, yeah.

[ it's a subtle correction, but it needs to be made. ]

[fierybluebird]

So nothing like Gecko Moria's shadow puppets?

[Zombies from his world... not that it would make a lot of sense to Buffy. Something that slowly occurs to Marco.]

Have you dealt with real zombies before, that is?

[herotypical]

Mmhm. [ indeed, the puppets mean nothing to her. ] Well -- my world's version thereof. They don't eat brains. But they are dead. Undead.

[fierybluebird]

Zombies in your world eat brains?

The ones in my world aren't infectious, they're dead bodies that are controlled by shadows. It's a whole... devil fruit thing. It gets weird.

[herotypical]

No -- they don't. That's what I'm trying to say. It's a common misconception.

[ as for this shadows malarkey? she leaves it to sink in. ]

[fierybluebird]

Oh. The ones in my world don't either. [Shrugs.] I think they dance though, but that's because Gecko Moria is a freak. He's their shadow master. Or was. He died. Good riddance.

[herotypical]

So -- necromancy, right?

[fierybluebird]

Not exactly. Magic, in that sense, doesn't exist in my world. It's a process called devil fruits.

With a devil fruit... a lot of strange things are possible.

[herotypical]

Well. With a name like that...

[ the comment was punctuation. nothing more. she waits for him to continue explaining. ]

[fierybluebird]

[Grins.]

Aye. I take it no one's explained devil fruits to you before?

[herotypical]

Not a once. Are they common?

[fierybluebird]

Not especially, but the Malnosso seem to have a slight bias. I think probably just because they seem to draw more famous or unique people from their worlds in general. Or I guess, it's the world here that does it. Whatever, either way.

My world's been just called "The fruit world" by a few people here since it seems to be the only place with devil fruits. My brother Ace and I each have one, and a few of the other pirates, like Perona, or Robin. And the marine here. And... Blackbeard... when he was still here. He stole his from our brother Thatch.

[A dark look flickers over him but he shakes it off.] They're rare, but because they can do some crazy things, they're highly sought after. Almost all the top marines in my world have one, Garp's the only exception. And my Pops had one that caused earthquakes, my brother Jozu has one that turns him into diamond.

Every devil fruit is different and no two are the same. Gecko Moria's was shadows. He could steal people's shadows to make himself stronger or mobilize dead bodies as zombies.

[herotypical]

Wait. If they're fruits, don't they rot?

[fierybluebird]

They sure taste like it.

But no, generally the preserve pretty well. [He shivers suddenly though.] Ah... Teach, Blackbeard I mean... he found a way to steal someone's devil fruit after they've just died. I try not to think about it too hard. [Although he doesn't have a lot of choice. Blackbeard and all.]

[herotypical]

[ the whole concept still seems unsatisfactory to the slayer. ]

How, exactly, is it stealing when it's taken from the dead? Are there inheritance issues?

1/2

[fierybluebird]

[Rubs his forehead.]

The devil fruit usually goes back to the tree where they came from and then gets dispersed through other means to sail around the world. Supposed to find the person most suited to the fruit. You can't just reach into a dead corpse and yank out a whole devil fruit like an organ or anything like that.

And however he did it... he murdered... t-two people to get them. [Gulps. This is clearly not a man used to be shaken up, but extenuating circumstances.] He was a traitor to both. Thatch he used to call a brother, Pops... [Really, Marco just hides his head and looks away, voice steady but dark.] he called his Pops even while ordering his crew to kill him.

It's more freakish that he could even eat two. In all the history of time, no one's been able to eat two without exploding. But Blackbeard... his body is special.

2/2

[fierybluebird]

[He looks up and fixes Buffy with an extremely serious, piercing blue-eyed look, nearly shockingly intense given the rest of the relatively casual almost lighthearted conversation.]

Look, I hope it never comes up again. But you're close with Jack, aye? If Teach ever does come back, don't let Jack play the same game.

It's not one anyone can win. Teach makes everyone think he's a buffoon, a simple idiot, but he's not. I've known him for decades and even I was tricked, and I made a reputation for being impossible to fool.

Teach cons people by making them think they're getting the best of him, that they're the ones tricking him. And then he does the worst things he can to them. He conned the whole world. The government... they hate pirates, but they still thought he was going to play nice and be one of them, and then he broke out all their worst criminals that they tried to erase from history. Criminals we defeated, with Teach alongside us. [He can't even hide the venom he holds for the man at this point. It's beyond hatred really.] That's how he knew to get them. [Marco shakes his head.] And he used them to kill a man he was still calling his father.

It's not a game anyone can play against him without losing. No amount of unpredictability or destiny will do it. And Nami asked me not to get Jack caught up in the aftermath of our war, but if he sides with Teach again, I do not promise his safety. And it isn't even me he'll have to worry about.

[herotypical]

[ the tale is horrible. buffy's disgust remains undisguised; she has no qualms showing just how distasteful she finds the whole ordeal. although, much of it remains to be mentally digested.

while she tries to process this knowledge about fruits and death, she responses with a simple sentence: ] You're underestimating Jack if you're thinking he was actually siding with Teach to begin with, but consider the warning noted -- however unneeded.

[fierybluebird]

I didn't. Only a very select few idiots really think they're siding with Teach, but uses everyone who thinks they're conning him.

Shiryuu, Catarina Devon, Sanjuan Wolf, they don't follow him because they like him. They're just trying to use him until something better comes along. To keep him close so he won't go after them first.

They're as much to blame as he is, however.

[herotypical]

No matter what the history? It doesn't matter. Jack's in a different place -- the reasons he had to do what he did back then? They don't even exist, now. So I wouldn't go worrying about him. If I were you.

[fierybluebird]

[Shrugs.]

If it's a moot point, it's a moot point. If he tries to con the Blackbeard of my world again, it'll be a problem. Until then he's done nothing to me or mine, and I'd simply like to keep it that way.

Che... sorry for getting you peripherally involved, eh? I haven't seen Teach since he left, but I guess it's not as far from mind as I'd like.

[herotypical]

[ buffy sighs softly. presumption on the part of other people tires her rather quickly, so she eyes up the bar and... ]

No apologies required. We're cool. But I do have other patrons to look after, so should probably...do that. We might be not-for-profit, but that's no excuse for bad service.

[fierybluebird]

Aye, I'll leave you to get back to it, eh?

[Waves.] Thanks for letting me talk your ear off.