Act 35: Past Secrets, Flowing Ink, and Fight Clubs

--- Joshua ---

After waking up and going through his morning routine, he started making his way downstairs intent on making the most of his weekend by checking out the fight club that had been suggested to him by the girl he’d saved from the Burning Man.

Only just as he started to open the door to the Saint’s Crossing he heard Maddie on the other side asking, “And you’re sure it’s Madness related?”

“Look I know you weren’t there but… I could feel this thing from like a mile away.” Chris answered, sounding exhausted. “At first I didn’t notice it until I was actually in the building but that gun it… the guy who owned it called himself the Cheshire Killjoy.”

“Oh, fuck.” Maddie cursed, that seemingly being more than some Mask alias to both her and Chris. “Those idiots have no idea what they’re sitting on do they?”

“Probably not, otherwise they’d slag the thing down.” Chris agreed.

He found himself unconsciously gritting his teeth at the idea that (they’d destroy something that belonged to him!)

“Would that even work?” Maddie asked unsurely. “I mean, if it was owned by a… Jack, and was close enough to actually belong to him that thing has got to be absolutely dripping in Madness.”

“It is.” Chris admitted. “But at the same time if the Madness is anchored to the gun, and you make it unrecognizable as a gun…”

“You’d cut the anchor.” Maddie followed, still not sounding convinced. “It’s just… you remember the last time we dealt with a Madness Artifact? If this thing feels threatened… Well, I can do without a reminder that reality is… malleable.”

Chris sounded amused as he said, “You do remember how my Rule of Cool works, right?”

“There’s a difference between running on a wall or bouncing off a car and the world around you becoming twice as big as all the shadows start whispering and crawling.” Maddie pointed out, her voice slightly haunted. “Whatsmore I’d rather not find out what a second hit of Madness like that would do to my head after the first one put me in psych for a month.”

“Ah…” Chris audibly grimaced. “Yeah, with your psionic scarring it’s probably not a good idea for you to go to the museum either. Otherwise that thing might take an interest in you.”

Maddie let out a bitter laugh. “Ha, yeah… Well at least I know my schizophrenia is actually real half of the time…”

“Yeah…”

He moved to step away from the door and take one of the fire exits so they wouldn’t know he’d overheard things that… while tangentially aware of, he hadn’t quite known any details of. (Details I really need to think about…)

“Speaking of, what do you think set Josh off? I mean he’s not a Madness user.”

His feet froze.

“Best guess? While he’s not a Madness user, he’s probably sensitive to it like you were.” Chris answered. “If we think about it from a science angle he’s probably a carrier for the family Madness gene.”

Maddie’s laugh was more amused but no less bitter this time. “We both know Madness doesn’t care about science or genetics. It cares more about what’s interesting than anything else.”

“I know, I’m just really hoping it isn’t taking an interest in him.” Chris sighed. “There’s a reason we avoided tapping that glass despite my powers coming from it.”

“Because we were smart enough to get out before it drove us insane?” Maddie offered.

“Yeah… that…”

“You think he’ll be smart enough to keep away? I mean, Madness is the source of your powers and…” Maddie trailed off.

“And Josh has wanted my powers since he was ten.” Chris finished for her. “I know, that’s why I didn’t tell him this thing was Madness based just that it’s cursed and interested in him.”

“You don’t think he’ll figure it out?” Maddie asked. “He’s a smart kid and if he puts together that you’re doing something when other people aren’t he’s bound to see the difference between you and them.”

“I know but I can’t really do anything else about the gun without… opening doors better left closed.” Chris admitted in a defeated tone. “As long as he stays away from that museum then… we’ll be fine and we can pretend this never happened.”

“And if that isn’t enough?”

“I protect my little brother, even if that means picking a fight with a god and the guild.”

Scene Consequences

-Joshua has learned details on several things.

---

He flowed across the rooftops trying to keep his head clear of everything brimming within it, his feet occasionally stumbling as he came out of the black off balance.

“Fuck… I can’t fight like this…” He groaned, leaning against a billboard as he stared at his hands. “I need to… I need to clear my head… but how? My powers maybe? Yeah, a bit of experimentation.” He nodded, trying to think up a power to mess about with.

(Whatever I choose, it can't be something I can hurt myself doing… don’t want to risk straining my healing factor before I get into a fight… Also can’t be anything that’ll burn through my Ink or draw too much attention to test it properly…)

He found himself stretching his legs out, both of them feeling tight despite the fact that he’d used his Ink Flow to cover the parts the leaps and bounds that would’ve been harder on his body to pull off. (Who’d’ve thought that teleporting would be hard on the legs… If I’m teleporting…)

“Guess that’s as good a place as any to start…” He frowned to himself as it occurred to him that he didn’t actually know much about his Ink Flow outside of the fact that it moved him from point A to point B and he needed Ink to make it work. “Right… just a few tests to get my thoughts moving… No, wait… Ink Flow uses ink and I can’t… I need to stay topped off if I want to fight today…”

He ran a hand down his face before remembering something and removing a vial of Red Malice from his pocket. “Alright… not the best for Ink but it’ll have to do.”

Downing the vial quickly he shivered as the taste of copper and strawberries filled his mouth and he began to hear the sweet sweet symphony of swing in his head.

“Right, now how best to test this out?” He wondered, looking down from his perch for a suitable testing ground, the normally lethal height doing next to nothing to frighten him. “Ooh, there’s something!”

He tilted his head to the side before hopping off the billboard and after a few moments latching onto his power and feeling the Ink drag him down as the world around him faded to black. When the inky black finally receded he softly landed on the ground at a speed significantly less than he’d been falling just a few moments prior.

“First test, complete. Ink Flow kills any external momentum upon use.” Which was good to know if he ever decided he had to jump off a skyscraper and wanted to avoid going splat. (Which I probably would being made of ink and all.)

“Now then second test.” He told himself turning to a nearby fence, half of it boarded over and the other half only with chain link standing after a few of the boards had fallen onto the alley floor. “Can I teleport somewhere in range if I can’t see it myself?”

To make sure he had a solid idea of what was on the other side of the fence he peeked through the chainlink before stepping back and imagining the other side of the fence as he stared down the wooden boards.

After a moment he latched onto his power, the world fading to black before abruptly returning to color as he slammed into the wooden boards with a wet smack.

He slowly peeled himself off of the fence, finding that he was sticking to it hard enough to actually stay a few inches off the ground. Whether this was due to toon physics or the fact that the wooden fence was now covered in black ink he wasn’t sure, nor was he really in a hurry to test out.

“Right, okay… cannot pass through solids.” He accepted, shaking his head out before turning his attention towards the actual chainlink. “What about a hole-y solid?”

Once more he latched onto his flowing power and let the world turn to black, half expecting to slam into the fence only to appear on the other side of the chainlink with little issue.

“Alright, cool… can’t teleport through walls but can flow through holes…” He tilted his head as something occurred to him. “Meaning this probably isn’t teleportation so much as a dashing? But how can I check… Oh, right phone.”

He reached into his pocket for his phone before turning the camera on -Being sure to wink at his toon self in it, and pleasantly surprised to watch a little star pop out of his eye.- before setting the phone against the alley wall and moving around until he had enough space to flow while still being within frame.

With this accomplished he used his Ink Flow to move to the other side of the camera -which he could instinctively tell the location of (neat)- before flowing to a few other points within frame and picking the camera up once he had a suitable sample size.

Upon playing the recording back he found that he wasn’t simply disappearing and reappearing as he’d initially thought, but instead was turning into a flowing mass of ink vaguely in the shape of a person before congealing back into himself. “So not a teleport but more of an Ink Dash kind of thing… Though I’m still wondering how the ink is floating rather than dropping to the ground… Eh, not important. Though if I’m turning into ink I wonder if…”

His eyes drifted to a nearby rain pipe, one that led to the roof of the building.

“This is either going to be really awesome or really painful halfway through…”

Inhaling deeply he rushed forward, grabbing onto his power and aiming the flow into the pipe. The world faded to black and when color returned he exploded -quite literally- out of the pipe and into the open air, where he scrambled to latch onto the building rather than falling to the ground several storeys below.

“Okay, so I can do that…” He nodded to himself as he clung to the building’s edge. “But just to be safe I should probably work on my range a bit before trying that again.”

Scene Consequences

-Gained (1+D6=4) XP to Ink Flow

--*Power Level Up* Ink Flow Lv. 3 (0/8)

A/N: Note Contest winner’s XP will not be applied until after the chosen event, but XP has been locked in.

---

By the time his vial of Malice had worn off and the swing in his head had faded to little more than a memory, it was a fair bit past noon and he decided that if he wanted to see whatever this fight pit had to offer he needed to move it.

After a bit of searching and cutting through the still half totaled trainyard, he found his way in the city’s warehouse district where after a bit of searching he found the address that Cameron had given him.

“Alright… So how do I get in?” He couldn’t help but wonder after circling the building a couple of times. “Do I just… go through the front door? Or what?”

“Side door is better.” A voice answered, causing him to leap several feet into the air with his arms swinging.

He landed in a crouch with his arms in a half guard as he looked at a- (Okay, I’ve got no idea what this is.)

(Same.)

“Ooh, you got some air there.” The man (?) in front of him laughed, his angular face crinkling into a smile that showed off several pointed teeth. “Much higher and you might out jump me.”

“Uh, who are you?” He blinked, giving the man -with abs that made him very self conscious- a once over, his eyes particularly locking onto the digitigrade legs that ended clawed (feet paw things).

The traveler snapped his clawed fingers and pointed up. “Oi, my eyes are up here.”

“Sorry!” He apologized, snapping his gaze up to the man’s feline-like eyes.

“You earthers really don’t see too many non-humans do you?” The non-human currently in question asked.

“Uh, not really…” He admitted. (Well unless you count Dreams and Deadmen.)

“Which is weird when everyone sees you hume everywhere.” The man told him. “Still, much as I love the looks of awe… Why are you watching that warehouse so closely?”

“I’m uh, a friend invited me to one of Tru Grit’s fight clubs?” He admitted, pretty sure the guy in front of him wasn’t a hero. “Though I’ve no idea if they’re here.”

“Who’re you looking for?” The man pressed.

“Uh, a girl named Cameron… Has these floaty arm things she likes to punch stuff with.” He tried explaining, figuring that the other teen’s ‘floaty arm things’ were pretty distinctive once you’d seen them. “She, uh, she said the club does walk-ins on the weekends?”

The Traveler gave a huff of amusement. “We do walk-ins on any day of the week, if she said to wait for the weekend then your girl is probably here waiting on you.”

He blinked. “Oh…”

(Ha! Told you!)

(Shut up.)

“Come on, let’s get you inside for your big date little man.” The Traveler laughed before backflipping off of the roof.

He leaned over the edge and spotted the man looking up at him from several storeys below. “Well are you coming?”

“Right, uh…” Rather than possibly breaking and then healing his ankles he instead used his Ink Flow to make his way to the ground.

“Ooh, neat trick.” The Traveler admitted, before starting towards the warehouse. “Were you planning on fighting in the tournaments or no?”

“Uh, depends on when the tournaments are?” He hedged.

“Eh, Boss likes to move them around a bit but this one’s tournament is in a week or so.” The man answered after a moment. “It’s also the lowest for Deviants so most have to beat this one to move onto the other tournaments.”

“Alright, so if the tournament is in a week then what are the walk-ins?” He wondered.

“Few things.” The man shrugged, opening the door to the warehouse with his tail (which he has apparently.) “You can rent a ring to spar, a gym slot to train, or a healer to patch you up. There’s also this Bloody Ballroom thing your Arcane came up with, fun but lacks the blood and thrill of a real fight.”

“Uh, right…” He nodded, a little unnerved by the faint trace of bloodlust in the predatory looking traveler’s words.

“Of course, first you have to prove you deserve to be here.” The man told him, gesturing around the open warehouse where he could see several rings along the edge of the pit as well as a small crowd gathered around each.

“And how do I do that?” He asked, pretty sure he already had an idea.

“Well, you can do this the standard way of dueling a guard and seeing if they vouch for you, playing the Bloody Ballroom and seeing how many rounds you can last.” The Traveler explained, before raising a clawed finger. “Or since we’ve got a few tournament goers here and our roster is looking a little full you can duel one of them for their slot. Whether they accept or not is up to them, though.”

He glanced around the warehouse once more, noting that while there were people present there wasn’t exactly a (real audience) in their numbers. (Guess if they’re coming in on a Saturday it’ll be a little later in the day…)

None of the people he could see sparring or training looked all that impressive from a first glance, though he doubted they were showing off that much for what was probably a simple warm-up. He did however note a couple of them seemed to be battling monsters that would explode into light when defeated, reminding him a lot of the Gamer Guild’s dungeon monsters. (Guess that’s the Bloody Ballroom thing.)

Of course none of that mattered quite as much as (putting on a show.)

“So what’ll it be kid?” The guard prodded him.