Once out of sight, Kage went to work applying gauze while wrapping Daniel's fists. The boy noticed the careful yet smooth strokes Kage took in his application. It was expert in nature.
'Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap!'
The boy's gloved fingers cut away at the bandages synchronizing them to the correct size. Meanwhile the bandages were soaked with the disinfectant proceeded by the wounds being brushed. Daniel could tell Kage had only conducted this practice on himself. Rough and harsh movements stung Daniel's skin as it felt like Kage scraped the skin straight from his body.
"S-s-seems like you know a lot about this." Daniel asserted with a curious gaze.
A single eye was drawn to the boy's face yet the other still focused on the work ahead, "In my condition you have to train continuously to be on par with the lowest of the low. So, occasionally I had to find other means…
of practice."
Daniel slurped down the water from his titanium bottle. Each stream of fluid furthered his pondering. Screwing up his face and bringing a hand to his shaggy hair he came to a conclusion with a largely expressive toothy grin. "Why don't you take me the next time you go out on one of these training expeditions."
Kage was taken by the question. He had been caught off guard with Daniel's pursuit that superseded his own. There was still too much to plan before bringing Danile into the fold of such work. "No." Kage curtly replied.
"Why? The only reason I was able to take you down there was because I had memorized your moves. Th-that's crap in life! In the real world I would be killed like- 'Snap!'- and that will be the end." There was no anger or annoyance in him. This was a cry, a plea, to not be left behind.
"P-please."
Kage tossed the towel into the trash, it was now stained with a mixture of bloody dirt, then packed up the medical kit. "You do realize what I mean by training, don't you?"
"We would just be rustling up some c-criminals, right? Bring them to justice and all that."
"Not just that. No help will come for us. We do it without giving away our identities. Masks, gloves, carrying nothing else but our nerves and intuition. If we get caught, prepare to be killed or worse. Once we go out there only your fists are to be trusted. Don't bother counting on me to help you when in a pinch. Understand?" Kage's tone had slowed into an abyss of icy coldness. The words pricked into Daniel's mind persuading him of their truth.
He would be alone. He would have to kill. He would have to be ready for death.
Daniel knocked himself from the stupor. Squinting, Kage wanted to squeeze out the last bit of stutter to Daniel's actions, yet he could not find any. "You have to prepare to beat someone to death. Slowly, terribly gruesome."
"H-h-have you ever killed someone that way?" Shaking at the prospect. Kage peered into those eyes wavering with fear, within there was another element. The boy was still the same as ever for inside could the hint of faith.
"Of course not, but you still have to prepare and steal yourself." A drawn-out silence followed this wake of information. The worry and hesitation persisted as the battle of glares continued.
A cackle let itself ring out through the recesses of Kage's thoughts. Laughs played by a bass of heinous cries to be melodized by the horridly putrid sick wheeze of the same cackle. In its embrace, Kage was paralyzed for he knew that voice. It was one that rattled him awake in the deepest throes of the dewy sun which threatened to touch him. It controlled his actions day into night while they faced one another planning the grandness of paradise.
Flickers of red strands danced about his vision. They eclipsed the room as Daniel's face spun itself to a twisted snare. Eyes that once stood with brilliance echoed a malicious glare pointed by the iris of a feline. Between its wetted lips, the echo whispered, "Liar." Then disappeared as it had seemingly existed.
Breaths rattled by clogged thoughts brought forth Daniel's greatest fear. The cramped dark room shaken by the stir of a belt and scratching of nails upon that finely cut birch door. Giants stood above judging like the gods they pretended to be. A stare beckoning the weaponization of doubt to materialize.
Grave and waiting to torment. This stare oddly resembled the one Kage had on Daniel.
Recognition almost shook his body to its core. If doing this 'practice' was the next step in his training, he will not be moved. Yet the images of old played about in his mind. Battered fists, bloodied blue children, and the disheartening venomous sneer symbolizing the hope of no escape.
A great ocean could envelop Daniel at any moment. Wave after wave crashing, tossing him about in its glistening green vortex. No room to adjust or resume a state of peace. Bubbles popped in his ears developing him into some deaf decapitated worm struggling to survive. Escape will never be swift and the journey even worse from past to present. Even more so to the future.
This was how Daniel had seen his life. Destruction of progress each time he had achieved a goal. The mind never changes but only persuades to adapt. Daniel hated the scars along his arms but never stopped to accept them and pursue livelihood.
It was a curling despair that Kage was familiar with encompassing. He had embraced a similar flame for so long and to see the very suggestion tear open Daniel's heart wound inside himself like a clockwork soldier. In a booming voice came the shattering of this barrier, "The past is there, now the present is all we can have." Daniel perked up acknowledging him. "We've all had some shit occur. So, to supplement we get a desire, maybe a promise to settle deep within. What's yours, Daniel? You have to have one by now."
Water from a leaky rusted pipe drenched the tiled floor forming a small but noticeable puddle beneath his feet. This water could be morphed and forced to the shape of another, but the volume is definite. Core values are steadfast through life.
'What are my values? What do I want to accomplish?'
The sight of Sam, bodies of debtors heaped into piles stretching to the sky, fog of ashes which coated the streets of lower levels, and the decrepit cretin that infest the streets far from the view of the powerful. Amidst that carnage is the ignorance of Heroes who refute the cause of justice in these homes. The same who have grown relaxed by the drip-fed villains that compose the majority of small-time heists with accidental murder every now and again. They do not realize the stirring and rumblings beneath their floorboards. Something is bound to break soon.
'An evolution'
Daniel clutched his fists, "I want to j-just help people. Someone who can get up and go against no matter who. To save someone no matter the cost!" His temples could burst from the concentration of forming the right phrase to conjure all the frustration from within.
'Drip, drip, drip, drip.' Droplets sprinkled their hair. The pipe had begun to drizzle onto their forms. A prospect found its home on Daniel's shoulder nearly toppling his existence. "That'll do, that'll do."
Spinning, Daniel had to hear from Kage once more, "What's your desire? Why do you want to become a Hero?"
"Oh," the light above flickered sparring with the dead bulb, "Quite the same really." He raked his hand through the locks of hair wiping them from his eyes. "You look around, nothing but sadness and decay stands to greet your step. It doesn't sit right to not be able to do anything. No, it has to stop. We have been blessed by the knowledge of experience, many have not." Kage's voice was softly compassionate like a bear cuddling beside a frosted rabbit shielding it from the harshest winter. "Maybe then… there can be paradise."
Jumping to his feet, the indescribable itch to ask strangled Daniel to speak, "What kind of paradise?"
Never having been asked before, Kage drew up a blank.
'Could there be different paradises? It's obviously a good place without all this rot. But could there be more to it?'
"I don't really know… Do you have something in mind?"
Twiddling his fingers Daniel was remiss to answer. Perhaps he was troubling his friend more than he had wished. Maybe he would laugh then be called stupid like before. But why go through with everything else? Could he be the one to listen? "I th-think paradise is a beautiful place. One where mountains of flowers, all of a different species, dot the f-field. Trees around each corner you go with creatures there as well. A peaceful place."
Indeed, it was, Kage casually threw back his head, closing his eyes to imagine the place described. And indeed, it was paradise. A place unbelievably beautiful with the scent of long extinct nature to accompany such sights.
Their exit from the room spawned a host of complaints from Sophie. Why did they take so long, how can boys be so slow, and if she had done a good job on Kage's wounds. Kage rubbed his neck while the other hand hid deep inside his pocket. Although Daniel could not see his face, he knew that a cherry red was plastered from cheek to cheek.
Joy formed a smile which forced Daniel to wrap his arms around them creating a hug. The other two were shocked by this exchange and measly wormed away. Despite being pure with intentions they couldn't understand the expression. Only during this moment had Sophie noticed the burns on Kage's face and arms. The makeup had washed off under the shower leaving behind the horrid dark red marks.
Her eyes nearly exploded with such worry that tears could be seen just etching out from them. Quickly Kage took both her hands into his own, calming Sophie. Reassurances fled from his lips like well-oiled lies, but this only heightened her woes. Then, Daniel stepped forward rolling up his sleeves exposing the self-inflicted torture.
"W-We've all got our own kinks. S-Some may be a little more unusual than others." Pulling off an unbecoming wink to Kage, they observed how Sophie's tears ceased while her actions mellowed.
Sophie pushed away from them and removed her sweatshirt, making for her black paint-stained t-shirt next. "Hey! Hey, what are you doing?" Questioned Daniel as Kage forced his eyes closed with the palm of his hand. However, instead of the perceived threat that Kage expected, Sophie only revealed the center mass of her stomach. On first glance someone would notice its soft and flabby archetype not taking in the texture on display. Yet, there was a difference along the skin.
Between the holes in Kage's fingers Daniel saw the stark scraps and cuts in the flesh. Barely visible, testing the time from whence they were procured. The two boys studied the carvings, especially Daniel who took some form of kinship with how they were done. Going so far as to ask, "What tool did you use, f-f-for me I only had some scissors."
"Uh… um, I think a medical knife from a kit, and I might have used an exacto-blade at one point. I don't really remember all that much about what I used, just that I felt the need to use." The attack of ogles increased Sophie's haste in stuffing her shirt back over herself, flying into the recesses of her jacket once again.
Daniel stood on top a bench, arms still exposed for all to observe. "Y-Y-Y-You know, I think we should come up with a name for the three of us. Equally as fucked as the other and yet we still move about without pitying ourselves. So… how about the Trio of Talent."
"How does that fit at all?" Kage remarked with an annoyed snark to his pronunciation.
"Well, I'm talented at being dirt poor, you're talented for having the ugliest mug out there," pointing a finger at Kage's inflamed temple, "and Sophie is the best at str-str- Daniel was abruptly interrupted by the thick knuckle from Kage's index finger inserting itself into his spine.
Restarting, Daniel reformed his words, "Best at starting a conversation." Kage's head anchored away at this poor attempt. In contrast, Sophie quietly giggled. The one at fault rubbed his neck with an increasing intensity. Flakes of dried skin were peeled off littering the floor with their infectious coating of elder blood.
An intense stupor flowed over them creating a mess of snarky laughter due to the ruckus that Daniel had stirred.
Lights dimmed against the cobwebs catching the bulbs for a spider's snack.
Roars of engines passed transfixed, shaking the glass to storefronts with their immense cylinders. Armored trucks painted a matte black, branded by the infinite red swirl of the Military Police. Curfew was well under way and soon the guards would be everywhere.
Kage's eyes left a scowl in the vehicles' tracks. Briefly, he caught the cyan visor to one of the guards. Shot with the blood of their skirmishes and marked on the side by the simple scratches of their kills. Both Evolved and regulars were squashed by this division of the government. Although unofficial it's known that an Adapted soldier trained from birth resides in each squad.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Sophie and Kage shifted, finding Daniel at the door. His eyes yellow with the glow of the light bouncing from the infinitely tall skyscrapers. A misty haze snuck in on top the street, caking the air with a coolness felt long after exiting. The buildings overhead sat with a hunched back, toiling with their teaspoons. Rimmed glasses bright with the echoes of a reading merchant, active couples, and lost souls. Echoes drifted from one solid structure to the next, creating an eerie industrial screech by the moving metals on construction sites. For a city built under the endurance toward villainous attacks the architects were compelled to outdo the other in their attempt to summon disaster.
With a raised eyebrow Kage responded, "Sounds ghastly."
"No, don't just focus on the growing pains. What about the silent coughs and yips of joy." The caws of birds flung themselves far above, perched in a straw nest between two slabs of marble. Worms and beetles gifted as a nightly meal for their offspring chirping giddily at the prospect for nourishment. Jaywalkers danced while their lips flapped with song to the living beat of a road untamed. A cool air not just cold but injected with a touch of moistness prickled the cheeks. "Ch-children coming home to the smile of their p-p-parents, old friends drinking to the days when they pl-played…
All of our lives surely have some woes, but why should we be stuck there, right?" Daniel placed a palm on a glass fixture cleaning the fog into the shape of his right hand. He cast a glance over his shoulder to Kage who still stood in the cover of the facilities roofing, "We need to remember what we got and what we can do before g-g-giving up." A chuckle and sharp blush devoured the last of his bravery.
"Uh, I-I-I guess that may not make much sense." The rubbing began with more fervor.
Kage took a chance at the outside. He still saw the dark degenerating rot of the cracked stone and alley soldiers greeting their meals of junk. Some without movement. Yet, among this an encounter of a pink tulip cut through the dirt. Cultivated by the gentle touch a woman beaten and ragged carried by the touch of debt.
'Pretty.'