2022-06-09: Pressure
- Log: Pressure
- Cast: Liam 7-020, Anti
- Where: Tokyo-03
- Date: 2022-06-09
- Summary: Anti comes to capture Liam. Liam declines to be captured.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam does not attend school, much less the same school as most of the Eva pilots--but that doesn't stop him from passing by on a fairly regular basis. His apartment isn't far away, and the quickest route to the nearest grocery store passes by the school's gates.
It's mid-afternoon. School has let out for the day, and the students are cleaning up, or going to after-school clubs. Some are milling outside the entrance. Liam glances at them, as if searching for familiar faces in the crowd. He doesn't find any.
That could've been him, if he hadn't lost his family and his home. Now, it feels like these students might as well be aliens--or more likely, he's the alien, on the outside and looking in.
Not that much of this shows on Liam's face. He walks down the sidewalk, an older teenage passerby with in a sleeveless hoodie, shorts, and sandals. A reusable shopping bag sways gently from his grip, full of prepackaged dried ramen. It's not much, but it's food that didn't come from a packet or a vending machine, and it does need to be cooked. There's some fruit in there, too; a bag of pears, and a single starfruit.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti does not attend school. End of sentence.
(No concept of an apartment, either.)
It's mid-afternoon, and it isn't as cold in the outside world, any more. The temperature has -- shifted. It's getting warmer, now. Closer to normal. Closer to the sort of temperature which would be comfortable, for a boy in long, light uniform sleeves, a ratty off-grey cloak, long slacks. (Pale gloves, on his hands.)
Oh, don't get the wrong idea: Anti is usually hot, in an outfit like that.
But it's comfortable.
In those clothes -- which haven't been washed for long enough that it's of issue, again, hair unbrushed, a fleck of old lettuce on his scarf and dirt on his knees -- Anti waits, by the gates of Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High.
Asuka said she'd find him.
Looking over the crowd, Anti finds someone else.
He's never met the boy before, personally -- but he's seen the pictures. He's quite sure that's subject 7-020, walking by.
Anti looks back to the school, and with a little shake of his head, starts walking after Liam.
Following behind.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
It's not terribly odd to see a young teenager outside a school. What is odd is the boy's manner of dress--unwashed, unkempt, clearly uncared-for. A faint whiff of rotting food carries by on the breeze, and Liam wrinkles his nose, ever-so-slightly; he glances into the crowd, and sights someone who... doesn't quite fit.
Liam had no home, for a time. Arguably he didn't have a home for a very long time--merely a place where he was held prisoner. But they at least made him shower and brush his teeth and shave his head. They gave him fresh clothes every day. For a moment, Liam's gaze grows distant as his mind flickers back--
He keeps walking. But that glimpse of the boy's face doesn't leave his mind.
And as he walks on, it does not take him long at all to realize he's being followed. Liam stops in his tracks, body tensing up; the other set of footfalls isn't heavy, so it's probably someone of lighter mass. They're irregular, quiet. Someone doesn't want him to know. Liam turns around, holding the bag handle tightly. His other hand clenches into a fist. He wishes he had his knife.
It's the boy. For a brief instant, Liam looks shaken, but then his face settles into servicable, detached calm. Almost dissociative. "Identify yourself," he says.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti doesn't operate on this level.
Akane once asked him to get some new Tarabaman toy or another -- and it's the only retrieval mission he's ever had. Anti is someone who destroys, not someone who collects. He identifies Liam, and...
and...
What does he do now?
Does he call that man?
Does he disable him first?
How much red can come out of a human before they die instead of being disabled, anyway?
(Is Yuta still --)
Anti blinks. He keeps walking. He buries his hands firmly in his pockets.
And then Liam turns.
Anti stops walking. He does not take his hands from his pockets. He thinks this is a pacifying gesture.
His lips part, and for a moment, he says nothing. "...", deliberately, without voice, as his intense sunset gaze burns into the other boy.
"Anti."
His voice is low to the gravel, all its embers banked and aglow. It is a voice which remembers how to blaze; a voice lashed down to a small existence.
He answers the question, and he waits.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
A voice like that should not be coming out of a little wisp of a boy. Liam's gaze focuses on Anti with an almost laser-like intensity, but his awareness extends beyond the immediate problem. He hears the breeze, the distant sounds of kids talking, the cars traveling down the street. Is anything else out of place? It doesn't look like it, but Anti's hands are still in his pockets. He has no idea who this child is, and he does not remember him from the Crucible.
Is it the food? Liam remembers those nights when he went to bed hungry, and considers. (He's suspicious. Probably the enemy. Don't give him anything.) He reaches into his bag, rustles around for a moment, and frees a pear from its reusable produce sack. "Catch," Liam says, and he lobs the pear at Anti in a high, slow arc.
"Why are you following me?" he asks, once the pear's disposition is resolved.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti blinks. The pear comes at him, and in a flash, his hands emerge from his pockets to catch it. He does not fumble; he does not drop it.
He does tear into it as soon as he catches it, though. It's a savage display of hunger -- Anti presses it to his mouth, and chomps, and chomps. Shortly, it's all gone.
(Core and stem, too. Akane said not to eat apple cores, but this is not an apple. Wrong shape, wrong texture.)
"..." Anti says, still a scrap of half-liquid pulp on his lip, cheeks made damp from the mess.
His gaze flicks to the side. His head does not move in the motion.
He looks back to Liam. "I can't say. But, I..." Here he pauses, and it's not deliberate; he's trying to figure out what he's even supposed to say, here. "I need to be here," he settles on, finally. "There's something I have to do."
It's a desperate sort of determination; it might even be familiar. They asked if he could pull off the acting, but it's questionable how much Anti really is, right now.
He is the perfect image of a boy in trouble.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam's gaze flicks back and forth as the pair is airborne, scanning again for anything out of place. Again, nothing sticks out aside from the strange boy who is following him for no apparent reason. His eyes widen as Anti devours the fruit with what he would describe as 'feral hunger'--something completely devoid of social graces. That's an indicator, too.
Anti speaks. Liam sees something achingly familiar in those eyes, and it stabs right through the layers of cautious, trauma-driven detachment. "Something you have to do," Liam says, and his lips curl in a slight frown. "Can you say? Is anyone after you? Where are your caregivers?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti looks behind him at that second question, which might be well enough of an indication that someone is after him.
He's quiet, though, for long moments. Finally, he returns his gaze forward, and says: "They're not here."
He is quiet, again.
"Since I come from somewhere else."
Which -- could mean a lot of things, really.
"... let me follow you," Anti insists, something a shade awkward to the request, brow knit in a troubled frown.
(Actually, it's guilt.)
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
That look. That's what Liam would do if he were asked that same question under the right circumstances. His frown deepens as he puts the pieces together. An unhoused child whose caregivers are not here, because he's from 'somewhere else'. Anti hasn't gotten any less suspicious, but despite all of BioNet's atrocities, Liam still has a heart. He's taking a risk, and he knows it, but even if this boy is a stalking horse, he is clearly not faring well to begin with.
"All right," Liam says. He starts off, slow and deliberate, trying to keep pace with Anti if Anti isn't taking 'follow you' literally. The thought of turning his back on a suspicious unknown factor makes him feel sick with nervousness. "Has anyone hurt you?" Liam says, "Or threatened to hurt you?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti keeps pace with Liam. It's a little hard, at first -- his inclination is clearly to follow behind -- but once he realises what Liam is trying to do, he matches his footsteps easily enough.
His lips part, in another of those deliberate elisions. "..."
It's not his business, Anti thinks.
It's not his business, but he remembers what they said, during that meeting. The way Liam kept people from trouble. The implication.
"... yes." The word drags from him. He is still reluctant.
He doesn't like to say it, because that makes it real.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Anti takes a little while to answer the questions. That's a worrying sign in and of itself, so by the time he answers, Liam has already braced for what he feels is inevitable.
'... yes.'
Liam turns to look at Anti, his face pulled into a tight frown. Something approaching anger glints in his eyes, but it's not focused on Anti himself. "I know a place where you'll be safe," he says. "Safer than the streets. If you ran, and they're looking for you, you need to weigh the odds in your favor." Liam pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice wavers. "Shelter. Security. Allies." They reach the next intersection, where Liam waits for the light to change. When it does, he crosses the street, and keeps going, walking past his apartment block.
"There's a place here for people without homes." But that's not all of Anti's problems. "Can you... tell me what it is you're here to do?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
"I can't." Anti insists, blunt, blunted.
"I thought I..."
He shakes his head. "Even if she'd asked before... I couldn't. I'm... not someone who can. I have to..." Do this. Bring him back. Keep Akane from getting involved.
"... I can't meet them now." There's something rueful to the words, driven as they are.
Did he want to?
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Anti is watching the street. Watching for them to leave that crowded street, to go elsewhere. It might have been somewhere to offer him protection.
It isn't.
What he's here to do --
Anti reaches out, to grasp Liam's arm, with a grip too tight for a boy his age. "I'm here to bring you back," he says, with no particular relish. "Don't make me hurt you."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"You can't?" Liam says. His throat starts to tighten. Is Anti that worried he's being followed, or--
Liam's thoughts trail off, and he listens to Anti's words, taking them in. 'She'. A person connected to him. 'Not someone who can'. Strong opinions about what he can and cannot do, though context is lacking. His eyes dart about, but there's still nothing grossly out of place except Anti. There aren't any cars following them, and he'd likely notice if he saw the same one more than once.
Anti grabs him. It takes every ounce of Liam's willpower to keep from following through with a gouge or palm-strike; instead, he whirls to face the younger man, shock and betrayal bright in his eyes. The little slip of a boy is much stronger than he looks. His grip is like iron.
'I'm here to bring you back.' There is a sickening emptiness in Liam's chest where his heart was mere seconds ago. He almost forgets to breathe.
'Don't make me hurt you.'
No more words.
In a heartbeat, the emotion drains from Liam's face. He doesn't pull away from the grab--he steps closer, moving with near-mechanical speed and grace. He strikes with his free arm--his open hand blurs forwards in a palm strike at Anti's face. There's enough force behind it to break a normal human's nose.
But Anti is neither normal nor human, now, is he?
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
He's a kaiju. That he is currently crammed into the space of a human has little bearing on the matter.
Because when Liam's fist flares forward, Anti flies back -- and lands, horizontal, against one of the buildings of the city. His feet press against one of those hinges which sends it underground when things like him attack, and launches forward.
From his sleeve -- from himself -- from nowhere, he pulls a circular saw.
"I'm not going to kill you!" Anti yells, even as he lashes out, with that weapon. "But you have to come with me! There's no choice!"
There might even be something to what he's shouting, because he seems for all the world to be trying to drive Liam back into a corner, rather than slice him through.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam feels flesh give, slightly, when his palm hits home. Anti goes flying, and a part of him--buried deep by trauma and survival instincts, but still very much there--feels sick. But the boy reorients himself in flight. Liam's eyes go wide as he sees light gleaming off a steel surface.
Liam's body whips back at the waist; his hood flies off, revealing a bare scalp encircled by surgical scars. The blade cuts a shallow but bloody gash across Liam's torso, buzzsawing through flesh and staining the right side of his shirt bright red.
The pain adds to the feedback loop that is Liam's augmented adrenal response. He steps to the side, and his torso snaps back upright; the motion carries through to a jab to the torso, but it's largely a painful distraction. Liam tries to leverage his height, sweeping down to try and hook his other arm around Anti's shoulder. If he can get it in a lock, he can try to relieve him of that weapon and even the odds.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
A painful distraction it might be, but Liam will find that he's working at cross-purposes with himself -- because Anti moves away, with that jab, flowing with the motion of violence. It takes him away from Liam's attempt to trap him entirely.
Having noted that Liam will take slashes across the middle like that, Anti redoubles his efforts to strike at Liam's sides, moving in with sharp motions -- again, with a greater will to herd him than to hurt him.
"Stop struggling!" Anti yells, in anger. "You'll fall over!" That sounds more like a prediction than a threat.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
With that first buzzsaw-strike, Anti forced Liam off the sidewalk and against the wall of a building. This is a bad place for him to be, and he knows it. More pain shoots through his chest as he tries for the arm-lock, but Anti is terrifyingly fast--augmented? It's possible. Especially if they sent him to get him back.
Anti does not let up. The first slice cuts through Liam's shirt, tracing another grazing wound across his ribs. He steps to the side, and then doubles back, dodging to the right; the buzzsaw goes wide, gouging into the building wall.
'Stop struggling!' That's not an objective Liam can complete, and it feels like a weight off his shoulders.
"No," Liam says, his voice hollow but intense. "I'm not going back." He lunges forward, driving his right knee towards Anti. It's backed up by formidable, augmented strength. "I'm not going back!" It's a small miracle he can talk at all.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti goes flying. He hits the bars of a window -- some attempt to keep the thieves out. One hand flies back to grasp them, and he makes them his new perch.
Only for a moment, though, before he dives back in. "You have to!" Anti yells, angry. "I don't have a choice!" Doesn't he mean -- Liam doesn't have a choice--?
Except -- this isn't Tsutsujidai. The world does not part for him.
Even now they're off the main road, people can still hear the sounds of yelling; the sounds of fighting. It is still the middle of the afternoon. Sirens wail, as a police car pulls up.
"FREEZE!" The officers yell, with perfect authority.
Anti clicks his tongue against his teeth. "Shit!" He bites out, as he looks back to the support Liam apparently has. His knees bend --
-- and he LEAPS, with far, far too much velocity, to spring up onto the smallest building, and from there, to the next, and the next, and the next.
The officers aren't exactly sure what to make of that in the slightest, but they can see that Liam needs help. "Son, stay there," one of them says, as she pulls out a radio. "We're calling an ambulance right now."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam presses a hand to his chest, fingers knotting in his shirt as he tightens it against the wound. It's ruined, but he does not have the luxury of tearing it apart for bandages while Anti's still right there, with a height advantage. He should run. He takes a few steps away from the wall, legs animated more by rote action and wired reflexes than conscious thought.
'You have to! I don't have a choice!'
Again, Anti's words tear through the conditioning, the trauma, the adrenaline-soaked desperation--they're about as subtle as the buzzsaw. "I'm sorry," Liam says. His jaw is tight, his eyes are wild, and the tendons stand out in his neck. "I'm not going back." Sirens, in the distance. Someone called the police? Liam's whole body tenses, but he can't run now, or else they might--
"They told me I didn't have a choice." The words fly from Liam's lips before he realizes what he's saying. In the next moment, the cars are screeching to a halt and the cops are shouting (at Anti??) and Anti is making good his escape with terrifying speed. Liam watches him leave, the numbness overtaking everything else. "It's not bad," he says. This coming from a young man who is bleeding from several wounds.