Copy, Paste, Cut

Chapter 3: Beyond Confused

Anti hated this. Looking back at Jackie, he wanted to rip his throat out and he was pretty sure he looked like he wanted to, too.

Jackie had the decency to look a bit worried but tried to hide it behind that stupid smile on his face.

'He hasn't said anything yet' Anti thought, 'Why isn't he mocking me? Or taunting that he found me?' he swallowed, thinking about all the ways this could go down.

And yet he also knew that Jackie could be dumber than a box of rocks so he'd give his copy's idea a shot with him first.

"Well . . . hello there . . . Jackie" it pained him to use the hero's real name but it was effective on confusing him.

Jackie blinked but then suddenly flashed a big smile that made Anti cringe.

"HI ANTI! How ya doing?"

'What the fuck is wrong with him?' Anti always hated this happy asshole but this was even weirder than usual. Yeah, if Anti was causing trouble in public, Jackie would have no choice but to stop him by force and usually in instances like these where they were by themselves, Jackie always SEEMED to be nice but Anti could see through him.

That twinge of fear. Anger. Reluctance.

Anti felt himself growl, not wanting anything to do with this Labrador retriever of a man. But he bucked up. He could at least try.

" . . . . I'm fine"

"Oh that's good! That's great!" Jackie clapped his hands, "So uh . .  just saw ya walking by and thought I'd say Hi"

"Why?"

Jackie's smile persisted and he shrugged, "Why not? You in a bad mood again?"

" . . .maybe"

"That's okay. You wanna hang out with me? I'll buy ya lunch"

Now this was just insane.

'I thought I was the crazy one. . . ' Anti blinked, obviously floored by Jackie's proposition.

"Wh-what? Why would you want to be around . . me?"

"Why not? . . ." Jackie tilted his head to the side as if inspecting him, "You know, we all think you're just misunderstood. We always wanna just give you another chance. Just haven't the best of opportunities with you glitching away and trying to kill us and all"

"Wouldn't that be  . . . an obvious answer then?" Anti didn't understand this conversation. Was Jackie on drugs? He didn't look like it but he really sounded like he was either high or just very stupid.

"HA! You're funny! Come on, I'll buy ya a sub sandwich! Looks like you need it, too, skinny!" Jackie slapped his back, making Anti glitch.

In that moment, Anti really wanted to reach for his knife but also . . he should really see how this would play out. It could be interesting. Was Jackie just making this way too easy for him now? Did he have a death wish all of a sudden?

"Sorry, didn't mean to freak ya out" Jackie gave another toothy grin, "Let's go, yeah?"

" . . . . Fine . . . . but don't even think for a second this means we're anything but enemies, still. This means absolutely nothing" not that his words meant anything to the hero. They seemed to go straight through his ears.

'I know this works well for my own benefit but it's also moving way too fast for even me. Maybe I should have had the copy do this side of things. he might have been more convincing. Then again, he seems more aggressive than me for some reason. Perhaps this is better after all . . .'