forum Halp- boredom sucks- (Open OxO)

Started April 13, 2023 by @lord-of-the-carnival group

tune

Renata stood above the hero on her craggy mountain of concrete, staring at him.

Her old friend.

Her new enemy.

The one she knew they'd sent after her because of who he was.

"Dust." she says quietly. "You know it's useless. You could never beat me."

She looked. . . sad. But more determined than anything.

Determined to win. Determined to change things. Determined to survive.

"And if you try, you'll hurt yourself." she adds.

Dustin crosses his arms, looking up at Renata. He’d met her a couple years ago and they’d become friends. Then she’d started to tear down government buildings. He didn’t agree with what she was doing, but he agreed with her end goal. A new government, but for now. . . He had to stop her.

“I can always try though, can’t I?”

Renata smiles sadly, looking down at Dustin.

"You can," she starts quietly as the earth starts to liquefy beneath Dustin, turning into quicksand.

She lowers her collumn of concrete as well, to be more even with her old friend, now turned rival.

"But that doesn't mean you should." she finishes.

Dustin huffs, moving back and summoning a platform of metal underneath his feet, “Probably.” He mutters, “But still, I have a job to do.”

Renata looks at the platform with sadness before crumpling it - harmlessly but tightly - around his legs, leaving her just slightly winded.

"Your 'job' is protecting a flawed government that at any moment can turn into a dictatorship if the wrong people get power. Hell, the wrong people have gotten power. Do you understand? You are protecting the people that have turned us against each other. They break friendships and lives with little effort. They can't even distinguish friend from foe anymore!" she says passionately.

Dustin puses the metal away from his legs, vracing his feet, "I know! But you're going about doing it all wrong, Ren!"

"And you're not doing anything at all, Dust!" Renata says sharply. "At least I'm trying to alter the system!"

Dustin sighs, "Well, yes, but that doesn't mean I'm never going to do anything. There are more peaceful ways to change things!"

"We've tried peace! Look at human history, Dust! Mountains of corpses followed by these so-called 'Golden Eras' which are really just fronts for patriarchal bullshiterry and murder. Look at where America is right now! We're following the same pattern that's happened in history before. NOTHING is changing! So I'm making it change." Renata growls.

“What you’re saying makes sense, Ren, but you doing stuff isn’t going to change it! Humans will still become corrupt! There’s no way around it. So why don’t you just live instead of Bo stupid things like this?”

"You know why I can't just live with this, Dust. You, out of everyone. I grew up in a damn trailer park! I got into juvie at 11! I saw firsthand at a young age what the real world was like. Developing powers added an extra layer of hell, but you know what I did? I tried to use them to help. You know I worked in construction for a while there. That's when I realized how truly, deeply fucked the system was. Whenever I tried to do my own thing to help, it got backlash to the point where they passed laws to regulate people like us. So no, I can't just fucking 'live,' Dustin, because 'living' is an impossibility. It doesn't matter if people will still be corrupt - I will do everything in my power to change that." Renata growls.

Dustin sighs, “There are other ways of doing that, Ren. . .” He whispers, looking away, rubbing the back of his neck, “I just don’t see why you have to do it like this. I don’t want to fight you, you’re my friend, and I care about you. I don’t want you to get hurt, I don’t want to have to be the one to drag you to prison. MY life wasn’t a piece of cake either.”

Dustin was right, having struggled constantly with his gift and his family being to poor to pay the bills or put their son in a proper school so he could learn to control it, Dustin was stuck in the backyard, learning his own limitations. He’d passed out only God knew how many times from it. He’d been rushed to the hospital so many times because if it. Eventually, they learned that his gift va used him to have an iron deficency in his blood.

On top of that, he had spontaneous bleeding from his Hempophila B, and they had to take care of that. Money was really tight with them in their tiny, reeking and rotting apartment. He could still rember the rats that lived in the living room. He looks back up at Renata, crossing his arms, “And yet I still lead a ‘lawful’ life, I make enough money to live by, making small changes at a time.”

"Like what? Sitting around and blandly staring at the people who abuse their power daily? Wait for everyone to try and nuke each other and watch as the missiles blaze their songs through the air, mixed with sirens and screams? Or maybe watch my friends die because the government couldn't care less about healthcare? Should I do any of that?" Renata glares. "And besides, they've tried putting me in prison. There are no cells that can hold me."

She pauses, and continues more gently. "And I know your life wasn't easy. But the way you're going about things, it will continue to be hard. My way may be 'villainous' and 'despicable,' but I do not harm those who are innocent, nor do I kill - which is more than can be said for any government. Your 'small changes,' as you call them, will only lead you to bleed out because you ran out of money for the hospital."