Neutrality Order (TomBoo)

C.L. - Chapter 3: Picking a Side

This had to be the absolute worst day of his life, bar none.

Ranboo felt his world tip slightly as he took a step forward in the rubble he'd just caused, squinting at the man he was after. "....aren't you supposed to die when you fall from a tall building?" he asked, squinting a little. "...you were in that Detnerat commercial, weren't you?" He took a step back squinting harder. "...were you always this big?"

The CEO referring to himself as Re-Destro just looked at him, his pulse almost visible through his very skin. Ranboo scowled, feeling his migraine reach peak levels.

"Hey. Tell me, Detnerat...how are you feeling right now?" No response. "Answer me. How many soldiers were you bragging about having? A hundred-ten-thousand or so? You tried to rely on numbers while watching safely from your little perch. We were already over-matched, with foils at every turn and environments perfect for our demise. But we still got this far. After all that...how does it feel to have your tower toppled and brought to earth?"

Still no answer. Ranboo could almost see his own pulse right in front of his eyes, exacerbating his already life-and-sanity-threatening migraine, his world tipping again before he slammed his hand on the ground, breaking it in his path. "ANSWER ME, YOU CEO ASSHOLE!"

He didn't even notice things he wasn't touching -excess rubble, his own shoes, a nearby shrub- decaying around him, only hearing cottonlike muffling of Bommer's clone shouting something as they ran. Everything was numb and cotton in his ears, except for one thing.

"I'M ANGRY."

Ranboo supposed he should be thankful that his severe lack of sleep had numbed up his sense of pain, but it was hard to be thankful at all when he finally processed that something important was missing. He stared at his left hand, seeing only his ring and pinky fingers among a mess of broken red.

"I try to keep my anger bottled up," Re-Destro was saying. "It's how I got this receding hairline, actually. You killed many of my soldiers to get here, didn't you?" Ranboo hissed when two massive fingers pinched his entire broken hand and jerked it toward the other, shifting already-broken bones and sending needles of pain up Ranboo's arm. "Was it these little palms of yours that did it?"

Ranboo threw his other arm out in a bid to make Re-Destro let go, but his wrist was caught by another two fingers in a hold that was one twitch away from absolute crushing.

"'Don't judge people by their quirks'," Re-Destro recanted. "A wonderful lesson I was raised by. However, superpowers ARE in fact linked to one's personality." The fingers around Ranboo's broken hand ground in slightly. "'Anything you touch with all five fingers will crumble and decay'. So what does that say about YOU as a person?" He ground his fingers harder, and Ranboo felt his knees shake, so damn close to actually FEELING the pain hit. "I forgot to ask you, Ranboo...but what responsibilities do you carry? What are you trying to create?" He gave a mocking pause as though Ranboo would answer. "Let me guess. Nothing. You create NOTHING. You only lust for death and destruction and NOTHING MORE!"

Ranboo felt Re-Destro's words wash over him, his eyes shifting from his own broken hand to the disembodied one on the ground, seeing delicate fingers twisted and snapped beyond repair.

'...Mari's hand...'

His vision swam hard, seeing a girl in front of him holding his hand before the image changed again to a boy with diamond eyes and a smile brighter than the sun, lacing his fingers with Ranboo's own.

"I'm on your side!"

"What I want is a world where being with you doesn't have consequences."