2022-01-25: Definition
- Log: Definition
- Cast: Anti, Nidaime
- Where: Nouvelle Tokyo
- Date: 2022-01-25
- Summary: Anti exits Tsutsujidai for the first time, and finds himself incapable of transforming, because Gridman isn't here. Nidaime is, though, and she teaches him some interesting things.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
IT'S NOUVELLE TOKYO, AT DUSK --
And no one told Anti how to leave.
The train pulls from the station. The shadows pull from the sky. They fall over the station in chiaroscuro, say goodbye to the fires of sunset in the sky. We're blue, blue, blue, and all alone.
No one told Anti how to leave. Alexis handles things out here, and Anti doesn't want to talk to Alexis, who didn't lose control of the car. But Akane is distressed at how things aren't fixed, in her world. People keep pouring in.
Nothing and nothing and nothing poured into the ocean until the gap-between choked all the water out.
One shadow splits the light of the station, between the street and the sign. Night is coming. Time to rest.
Anti's already rested. It took him a long time to find the train. It took him a short time to realise he'd fallen asleep.
Now he steps off the last step to the station, all dirty from a day's heels, some forgotten wrapper sailing down the street from a stray breeze. It's cold. The wind is cold. The air is cold. The sun has fled and there is only the chill.
It is like and unlike rain, which is warm until it soaks, until it sets, until the damp drips to his bones.
He is breathing; he can see it.
Winter.
Sunset flees this place. Anti steps out.
Akane cannot fix her world with all this input.
"Rrrraaaaaaa......!!"
...
Anti howls to the sky. It is an anguished cry. It does nothing to light the gem at the seat of him, eyes bright as visors, scrawled into something large, large, large.
He screams, and he is
painfully
small.
"..."
Anti's mouth remembers to close, after a moment, as he frowns, deeply. He steps to that streetlight, a spotlight in the darkness. His arms fold; his chin dips.
He can't do it..? He can't transform here..?
... Akane...
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Honestly it's distressing to Nidaime too. She had a plan to sort of gradually make contact with Gridman and give him the lowdown so that the situation in Tsutsujidai could be handled without much fuss but with the outside world pouring in, that plan's a wash so it's time to think on her feet. She has a debt to repay and isn't about to let 'the planet' stop her. Her appreciation of the outside world doesn't mean it doesn't cause a lot of problems.
Anti screams at the world...
...and the world screams back! It sounds like--
"Raaaaaaaawwwrrrr...! heehehehehee..."
Nidaime, well, looks like a homeless person and is sort of crouching down on the floor, knees bent and hands on the floor. She is not REALLY dressed for this kind of weather. she has a hoodie on and is wearing gloves but she's wearing CROCS for shoes and her legs are bare. The cold doesn't seem to bother her. Or maybe it is, and she's just not the sort to express it. She is looking up at Anti like a curious dog. She steps to the side a bit, crouches back down, and looks back up at Anti.
"Are you lost?" She asks, tone friendly. "If you're having trouble with the trains, I know aaaaaalll about trains."
She's feeling confident! She has learned about boys. She hopes he roars again.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Rawwwrrrr, someone says, and Anti...
... keeps frowning into the middle distance, without even looking at the stranger making noises in his vicinity. He doesn't acknowledge her, because she isn't what he's focused on, right now.
(There are probably other people here; it's still Tokyo, even if the sun has just set. They all seem pretty prepared to ignore a couple of kids playing around, though.)
And he IS focused -- intent gaze, downturned lips half-hidden by that dirty scarf, all wound up like a twisted spring. He glares into the distance, and he thinks of his problem.
Why can't he transform?
Is it because Gridman isn't here?
Does that mean...
But that stranger speaks with a rising tone -- a question -- and his eyes widen, nostrils flaring, lips pressed together. Like that girl, she --
His eyes track to Nidaime, crouched on the ground like some stray. His head doesn't move with the motion.
He's staring at her, now.
And he still says nothing at all.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime raises her hands into the air like she just don't care, then handsprings so that she's upside down. She 'walks' forward a couple feet like this before swinging back around to a standing position. She thinks back intently to Chibodee Crockett's advice on how to deal with boys. Boys, he told her, are scared of girls because they're afraid they'll be rejected and they'll do dumb things to protect themselves.
"You don't need to be scared. I'm a good girl and I won't reject you."
She pulls down one of her earbuds. She usually has at least one inside an ear.
"Do you want to learn a neat trick?" She asks him. "I know all sorts of great tricks."
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Up she goes, and down, and upend-over. Anti doesn't even blink. It's not so much that he isn't fazed by her acting strangely, as -- he doesn't know she's strange. He is, let's be fair, barely a week old.
But she keeps talking, and his eyes narrow, sceptically. Fear..?
Is he supposed to be afraid of rejection?
News to him.
This one, he notes, has those strange ear-fillers, too.
But then she asks if he wants to learn a neat trick -- and that, out of everything, is what makes his head turn towards her, finally. Something about tricks has gotten his attention.
He grunts, and nods, once. His arms are still crossed iron-bar across his chest, his legs set solid against the ground, but... he's paying attention, now.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Advice from Chibodee Crockett the Queen of Spades, may be partially incompatable with kaiju. Nevertheless, Nidaime DOES know she's strange. She's seen enough human beings and is old enough to know that people like her are rare so she's pretty excited to be meeting Anti right now. The fact that he's out to murder the guy she's trying to help is secondary right now to 'Wow I'm not the only kaiju who can chat! WOW'.
"Great!" She says. "Come here, come here! I'll show you!"
Luckily they are at a train station so Nidaime doesn't have to go far. Indeed, even if Anti DOESN'T follow her, he can see what she's about to do. Meanwhile, Nidaime has taken Anti being silent as a sign that he is still afraid of rejection. So it goes.
She walks over to a vending machine.
She unhooks her backpack and withdraws out a shopping bag full of IMMENSE WEALTH and slides a few coins into the socket, pushes a few buttons, and then withdraws--
--a vending machine katsu sandwich, wrapped up! Anti may have seen this before.
"If you put this stuff the humans call 'coins' in the machine." She waggles the shopping bag and it makes rattling noises. "And then push the buttons, you get a free meal!"
She raises the sandwich up triumphantly like she discovered the world's most amazing lifehack.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti, give him credit, does follow Nidaime to the vending machine, even if he pauses a few feet away. His eyes track down to her shopping bag, and the metal she's collected there.
Like the ones Akane used...
So she takes one of those metal things, puts it into the slot on the box. All right. Anti understands those steps.
And out comes -- food?
It's wrapped in plastic, but that's definitely food.
(Here, his stomach growls, which is a distinct sound from his throat growling.)
Anti looks from the sandwich, to Nidaime, back to the sandwich. But there's something in her explanation which means that he has a question entirely unlike the one his eyes are asking, focused on that snack.
GRIDMAN had asked if he was a human, back then.
Anti isn't entirely clear on what a human is, but he knows he's a kaiju. And this girl talked about the humans, as if they were...
"You're not human," he says, voice all dragged through the gravel, with not quite enough inflection to build a question of his own.
(NOTE: he is still staring at that sandwich.)
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime hears Anti's stomach growl. "Here I have loads of these metal bits...!" She offers the sandwich to Anti, still in its wrapper, along with a few of those 'metal things'. Enough for one free sandwich! "But it's a pretty easy trick once you get the hang of it if you want to give it a try yourself!"
She'll step out of the way just in case Anti wants to give it a try. It may be a mistake to offer the sandwich first but, well, his stomach growled and that means he probably really needs that sandwich.
You're not human, Anti says.
Nidaime stalls a moment. She didn't really INTEND to let that slip, but well--she doesn't see herself as human so.
"Oh, nope, I'm a kaiju." She says. "You too, right?"
Nidaime can always find more coins if she needs to. That's the best part about this free food system. Sometimes if you ask humans for some, they just give it! Other times they drop it or throw it into fountains... They can get mad if she tries to take them from a fountain but when it's night time nobody minds. It's a perfect system.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti takes the sandwich.
No, that's much too bloodless a description. Anti scampers forward to grab the sandwich, only to bounce back a few steps, like a puppy who just investigated a hot grill. Anti tears the plastic off of the sandwich, having figured out from experience that plastic is not for eating. Anti mashes his face into his hands, and CHOMPS THE SANDWICH INTO ITTY BITTY BITS.
A bit of katsu flies off into the night, forsaken. There is now butter on his cheek. It probably won't teach him any important lessons about grooming, particularly with all the crumbs which are now everywhere.
Also there are some coins on the ground from where Anti was too busy snatching the sandwich, but never mind that.
Whether Nidaime is stalling or not doesn't matter a whit to him for a minute, because he is doing sandwich crimes. It's only when he's murdered the sandwich to a point that he can't eat it any more that he lifts his head from hands cupped like a saucer-bowl, and grunts.
"Yeah." There's a pressure to his sparse words, as if he doesn't know how to speak in any speed other than ominous, embers burning hot as his sunset eyes. "I'm a kaiju."
He volunteers the information without hesitation; he doesn't really KNOW he ought to hide it, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime watches Anti eat the sandwich with fascination. Boys must be messy eaters, she decides. She picks back up the coins and gets a second sandwich, opening it up properly and chomping down on it.
"Out here," Nidaime says. "If you tell people you're a kaiju they might not believe you. But if they believe you, they might get scared. Not all kaiju are as talkative as you or me."
Somehow this is a completely accurate statement even while describing Anti.
"So if you just tell them you're a kaiju, and they believe you, they might go 'AHHHH m-m-m-monster!' and run away and get you in trouble."
Munch munch munch. Munch.
"I'm not entirely sure why. Kaiju don't hurt as many humans as humans do," Nidaime admits. "But that's just how it is."
She thinks for a moment about a man she used to know. She crouches back down and rubs at her legs since that's the coldest part of her body.
"Though if you trust someone it's okay to tell them, but it can be hard to know if you trust someone or not."
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti looks frankly baffled, when Nidaime says they wouldn't believe him. His head pulls back, tilts to the side; his lips scrunch up, to match the sceptical narrowing of his eyes. He's a kaiju. Why would they question that?
... then again, the interlopers all seemed confused about who he was, even though he was in a comfortable form. If they wouldn't look with their eyes, maybe they wouldn't listen with their ears, either.
But not all kaiju are talkative, and that makes sense, to Anti, because he's a kaiju who looks like Akane. That's why he gets hungry, and goes to sleep.
He wonders, though. Is trust really hard to figure out..?
He doesn't want to get in trouble, though.
He jerks his chin towards a passing salaryman, who has had a long double-shift at work and frankly doesn't care what these loitering teens(?) are up to. "Human... like that?" He draws his conclusion, based on the context.
He doesn't quite bother to look at the man he's indicating, eyes still on Nidaime, but he must be at least passingly aware of him.
"... I don't care about hurting them." It's a dismissive statement, without warmth which can be read into it. Anti's lack of care is precisely the reason he doesn't look where he's stepping, after all. But by the same token, he's not trying to hurt humans, either.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime cocks her head towards the salaryman. "Yeah. Like that. Eheh..."
She's still looking at Anti she's just sort of wiggling her head in that direction.
"Yeha I know." Nidaime says. "But you might change your mind one day." HOW does she know? Well.
She finishes her sandwich too. She might not be as wild as Anti, but that doesn't mean she's a slow eater. Nidaime kind of huddles over the sandwich like it might be snatched away but she's methodical about its consumption.
"What do they call you?" She asks. SHe doesn't call it 'a name'. Is 'The Second' a name, really? It is what she calls herself. And she isn't inclined to change that either...
"They call me 'The Second'." She adds since she's perfectly willing to be courteous. Despite the conversation getting a little more serious than roaring at one another, she's still smiling. This is a happy child.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti grunts, when Nidaime says he might change his mind. It doesn't seem likely, but he is an autointelligence kaiju, after all. He's supposed to have a mind to change.
The way she's crouched. Is she afraid he'll steal her sandwich..?
Wait, he wonders, blinking, a little jerk of his head. Is that an option?
Can Anti just... take food?
It's a moot question for now, because Nidaime finishes her sandwich, but...
Anti will remember that.
She tells him what they call her, and Anti doesn't think it's strange, as far as designations go. She is defined by coming second; he is defined by his opposition to Gridman. It must be normal, for kaiju.
Still, it takes him a moment, slow to speak, before he answers:
"Anti."
He is as grim and serious as ever, downturned lips and stiff posture. He's all anchor to ocean, dark tone and a drag to his words.
"There won't need to be any more after me."
Kaiju, presumably.
Does he think someone made her..?
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Unfortunately Nidaime has picked up some habits from the street. She's oblivious to what her unconscious action is teaching Anti.
Then again, it's not like Nidaime doesn't just sometimes take food herself. Not from human beings. No, they get mad and yell.
NOPE. It's way easier to just take food out of trashcans and dumpsters and stuff that is just BEING WASTED. Nobody usually cares if she 'takes' that food. She hasn't needed to in a while, since she is now fabulously wealthy and has gotten good at finding metal coins, but it isn't a strategy that she's going to forget.
"Aw, that's too bad." Nidaime says. "It's fun meeting other kaiju like me who can talk. You're the first one I've met." She bunches up her wrapper tightly in her hands. She wasn't sure she'd call it loneliness exactly, but she's still glad she is getting to meet someone like her even if he isn't exactly like her?
"But I guess it's also probably for the..."
She trails off there.
Arguably everybody is made by everybody aren't they?
"But I'm glad I got to talk to you, Anti. Do you need help getting back to where you're from?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
"She doesn't need anyone else." She didn't need help, she said, because she has Anti. That means Anti is the one helping her. He's doing a good job, so she's doting on him. So long as...
Maybe Anti does need to be afraid of rejection, after all.
He'll give her one warning, since she gave him food, and taught him some interesting things. "... don't get in my way."
Anti isn't going to assume she's harmless, even if she's small.
After all, she's a kaiju.
They're not always small.
(Even if he is, right now, frustratingly.)
He looks back, to the station, and finally answers her question instead of standing in silence. "The train... right?" He issues brief interrogation, eyes darting back to the Second. She did mention them, earlier. It must have been for a reason.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
"Okay. I won't get in your way." Nidaime says. Is she confident that she won't need to, or is going that far just not her responsibility. Either way, it's not going to be Nidaime who is fighting him. "I don't like to fight anyway." Her DAD on the other hand...also doesn't like fighting. But he will. Because he's a big boy.
"I'm more a fixer." She grins fangly.
The train...right?
"Mmhmm. I'll show you, if you'd like."
She places a hand on her cheek and says, "It's really no big deal. OH but first--"
She puts her bag of loose change back into her backpack and zips it back up before slinging it back on her shoulder. "Okay now I'm good! If you pay attention, then you won't have to worry about getting lost anymore! It's no big deal, the train station can get pretty confusing. All those stops and detours..."
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
"Fixer..."
Anti echoes the word, intense expression on Nidaime. He knows Akane is upset because her world isn't fixed. But Anti was made to crush Gridman.
He can't fix Tsutsujidai. That's up to Akane.
How strange, though, that there's a kaiju out there with that sort of skill...
... was she one of the environmental kaiju? He wonders.
He doesn't ask, though. Anti is short on words, and a few other things, too.
"Mm," he grunts acknowledgement, as he moves to follow the Second back to the trains. He'll pay attention. He might not comment, much, but...
... he's always paying attention.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
It's true. It's ultimately up to Akane. In that world, she is God. Even Nidaime knows this. Not even Nidaime can fix Tsutsujidai.
Should she hold his hand? She thinks about that. He seemed pretty grabby about the food, very fast, so she ultimately leaves it be. For now.
Instead she leads Anti to the train.
She then glances over her shoulder, after, and adds, "This one should bring you back home." Indeed, if Anti looks, he'll see a Tsutsujidai marker sign where there wasn't one before.
"I hope we meet again." She says, "Eeheheheh!"
She grins widely.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Black follows red, and those persistent lights cut through the darkness. In this environment, before any other...
Anti follows the Second up the stairs, into the station, to a place warmer than outside. (Not that temperature means much to him; kaiju don't shiver.) He looks up, to the train indicators. Tsutsujidai...
... so that's how they're getting in.
His eyes track back down, to Nidaime, who wants them to meet again. He grunts, in acknowledgement, neither committing to nor denying her hopes.
With a single, curt nod, he strides out, to the indicated platform. He doesn't know to say goodbye, but... maybe that's all right.
They're kaiju, after all.