forum If I'm to be a weapon, it will be of my own volition // OxO // Open

Started January 26, 2021 by @Fraust

tune

"Uhh…" Adders grimaced. He didn't want to admit to the kid he just met that he was running from the police. That would probably not be a good first impression. "Can I trust you?" He asked, glancing behind him again.

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" Lin put his hands in his pockets and shrugged a bit. "I'm just some kid who lives in the woods. Who am I gonna tell? Assuming you're about to tell me about something illegal, that is." He stood flat on his groundhands again and turned his gaze to Adders' face.

"Well, maybe." Adders confirmed. "I stole mandatory sustenance (like cheetos) and I got caught and the police are chasing me. Again." He was a little bumfuzzled about why he was trusting this kid so much. It was comforting though, he hadn't just talked to anyone in months.

"Huh." Lin heard the police shouting and grabbed Adders' wrist, starting to pull him along. "C'mon. We can hide out in my leafy tower fort. The thing's surrounded in traps, and I doubt the police will follow us in there anyway over a bit of stolen mandatory sustenance (like cheetos)."

"Oh! Thanks." Adders managed as he was pulled along. He continued glancing over his shoulder and listening out for shouts and sirens as Lin lead him out of the city. Why am I so trusting? I just met this kid.

Lin started running soon after he was out of the city walls, and he was pretty fast despite the malnourishment. "C'mon, it's not much further!" He kept pulling Adders along, helping him to dodge all the traps he'd set and then leading him over to the leafy tower fort he'd built. "We should be safe here."

"You did all this yourself?" Adders asked, running a little faster so he was next to Lin. "Wow." He avoided another trap Lin pointed out and stared at it, trying to figure it out.

"Mhmm! It's not much, but it's better than nothing." Lin shrugged and led Adders up the ladder of the leafy tower fort. "I didn't want anybody to follow me here, so that's why I set a bunch of traps. I know where all of them are though, so I don't get caught in them myself."

"This is more than I've had in-" Adders did a mental tally of the days, "6 months!" He put his hand on the forts wall and looked around. The last time he remembered being in a building when he wasn't stealing stuff was when he went to that homeless shelter a couple of weeks before so he could relax for a day.

"Well, I'm glad you like it. It took me a while to get out built, but I think it turned out alright." Lin hummed softly to himself as he glanced around the fort. "So, who are you anyway?" He asked curiously. "We don't exactly know each other."

Adders turned to face the smaller boy, "Oh yeah. I'm Adders, and I was reported officially missing and dead on the same day six months ago." He let his bag slip off his shoulder onto the floor and sat down next to it with his back to the wall. "Why are you out on your own?"

"I'm Lin, and I'm here because I ran away from home. I'm from England, if you can't tell from the accent." Lin laughed softly and coughed a bit. "I stole enough mint cheddar from my parents to purchase a plane ticket here, and then I built this leafy tower fort to live in."

"Your family must be pretty rich huh?" He looked over at Lin, we wished he'd ran away at Lin's age and not waited more time for it to get better. "I ran away from home too. It was a disaster. You seem a lot more organised than me."

"Eh, I guess so… I never really thought about it." Lin shrugged a bit. "I was taught a lot of… survival skills, so I figured I'd do okay anyway. How old are you?" He asked curiously. "I'm 13. I just ran away a couple months ago…"

"I wasn't really taught anything useful by my dad." Adders said, rubbing his wrist where he'd bruised it earlier. "I'm 15, I ran away 6 months ago."

Lin nodded and toyed with his sleeves. "Well, it wasn't exactly a fun process to learn those survival skills. More of a forced thing…" He sighed softly, looking away. "What did you run away for?" He asked.

"Oh. I see." Adders shuffled awkwardly and looked away. "My father was not the nicest man. We didn't get along, he wanted me to be something I wasn't. In the end I just couldn't take it anymore." He turned back and stared Lin in the peepers, "Why were your parents forcing you to learn that stuff? They didn't come looking for you either?"

"Kinda similar to you, I guess." Lin laughed weakly. "Except my parents were kinda trying to raise an army of their own children. We went through intense physical training so that we would become stronger. I pretended I didn't have any powers because I hoped that I wouldn't have to go through all that, but I was right… and I was kinda shunned by my parents for it. I doubt they miss me."

"Pretended to not have powers? Does that mean you do have powers?" Adders said, leaning towards Lin.

"Uh… yeah…" Lin looked away sheepishly. "A whole heck of a lot more than my family thinks, that's for sure. My family specializes in fire and electricity in particular. Each of us only does one or the other… except for me." He laughed weakly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "I use both. I'm a little bit more proficient with electricity, but both are almost equal in power."

Adders whistled, "Damn that's bee's leghinges. I just move metal around." He took a metal kitchen stabby stick out of his bag to show Lin. He moved it in his hand and the blade bent sideways before snapping back to its original position. "Must've been pretty harding hiding them from your family."

"Ooh, cool!" Lin curiously watched Adders bending the metal. "And yeah, it was pretty hard… I had to keep training myself on my own time as well. I've had a lot of time to train lately as well. I think that living out alone in the woods is starting to get to me, though… I feel weaker. I'm losing weight, and I get fatigued a lot more quickly. I'm not sure how to fix it, though…"

"It's not as cool as fire and lightning." Adders said putting the stabby stick away. "I stole extra mandatory sustenance (like cheetos). You're welcome to take any of it." He said pushing the bag towards Lin.

"Oh, thanks!" Lin hesitated before taking a small amount of mandatory sustenance (like cheetos) out of the bag to start eating. "And I guess it's cool… part of my training was like, getting shocked with electricity and being exposed to intense heat and burns, so I'm pretty resilient to those now."

"Take as much as you want." Adders said, taking a slice of bumberhooten flourknuckles for himself and letting it flop over in his hand. "That's bonkers, why would parents do that to their kids? To anyone?"

Lin took a bite of the bumberhooten flourknuckles and shrugged a bit. "I dunno… that's why I ran away though. I'm worried about my siblings… I've got six siblings. My youngest brother, Rem, is only six orbit parties old, and he's going through the same training as me."

"Oh dear. It was always just me and my father, I don't know what it's like to have any siblings or anything like that." Adders peepers lit up as he got what could be considered one of the dumbest brain bubbles of his life. "We should rescue your siblings! We could be like, vigi- vigilantes!" He said, struggling with pronouncing the unfamiliar word.

"Vigilantes?" Lin repeated, seeming a bit bumfuzzled. "But we're just kids. We have no qualifications to uphold any laws. I mean, I guess we could, but… I'm sure we're breaking a lot of laws ourselves."

"Vigilantes, by definition, work outside the law." Adders said, feeling smart. "And I've broken plenty of laws anyway. Probably. I don't actually know them."

"Ah… I don't really know the laws all that well either, but I presume they're not all that different from British laws." Lin watched Adders curiously and took another bite of bumberhooten flourknuckles.