dear_mun | Homeless, but looking

Homeless, but looking

Heh... hehe... Well, well. Look at the loser crawling back.

So, you lied to me. You said we could begin a new game all over again. Leaving me to rot inside your vacant mind isn't my idea of a game, you know. Were you too scared? Scared of having everyone lose more than they bargained for?

[The old man releases a laugh, but coughs mix themselves itself into it. At his extreme age, he can't move his body all that much. He's bound to a large, mechanical bed outfitted with sharp, spider's legs.]

Idiot. Coward. Useless. Totally and utterly good-for-nothing. ... But see, I can be a nice guy too. Mr. Porky isn't all that bad.

Listen. I'll give you just one more chance. ... Find me a good place, alright? We'll let bygones be bygones if I get enough of a thrill in my new world. No hard feelings, okay?

... Go on, then. Off you go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well hey that is just kind of the nature of losers! They just keep crawling back, don't they? We've just seen it all the time.

[Done it all the time, too. But he's hoping you get the irony of this already without having to say it.]

Man. I sure hope you have good luck finding a game. A bet you'll do just awesome.

Oh.

[You again. Time travelers really can be an annoying lot.]

It's you again. My younger, more annoying self. How've you been? ... Having fun back in that little town of yours?

Oh, it's my uglier, stupider older self. It's nice to see you too.

Eh. It's been alright. At least I've been doing something other than, you know.

Being hooked up to a machine.

[... Well, Porky couldn't disagree with that. Having to be hooked into a machine for mobility is a setback in exchange for immortality.]

Don't worry, you'll get used to it too. Smart-mouthed brat.

... Say. You've been getting a look at all my stuff, haven't you...? And you didn't even ask for permission when borrowing my toys.

[He just snorts a little at that.]

I don't have to ask permission for stuff that's mine. Not like it's that great anyway. Just the dumb robot and your stupid capsule.

[And the movie but that was pretty cool so he feels no need to mention that to you.]

No. They're mine.

[He expresses a little irritability as he says that. Considering how adamant this younger boy is about being a different person from his older self, taking what's his is nothing less than theft now. He can hand away a few toys to his enemies if it seems like it would be fun, but stealing isn't something he often abides by. His selfishness is the only thing that has grown about his personality.]

... Ever since you decided you weren't going to end up like me, you lost your right to all of them. To Lil' Ms. Marshmallow, to the Absolutely Safe Capsule... oh. And to that movie.

Oh well golly jeepers come get them then. You aren't even there you hole!

Fine. Hey, you ever come to town? You can have them. No skin off my nose, jerkface. I already closed the stupid capsule anyway.

Oh.

Have you tried stepping inside? It's pretty comfy. Gets even cozier if you close it right behind you.

I'm not falling for that. I already know what that thing is. What kind of a moron do you think I am that I would let myself get trapped in that piece of garbage?

[So you didn't fall for the same trick he fell for. That's kind of a shame. Porky gives a shrug or... well, attempts to make a shrug. Really, he's just kinda dragging his back a little upwards.]

You seem like the kind of moron that would. So how'd you find out?

And you're definitely the kind of moron who would.

Just ingenuity and poking around it a bit. It wasn't that hard to work out.

[Bullshit. He may have found it out that way eventually, but it probably would have been after locking himself in. He has Lucas to thank for giving him a better rundown of what the Absolutely Safe Capsule was that he didn't trap his stupid ass in it somehow.]

... You sure about that?

[Porky isn't buying it. As good as he is with machines...]

Heh. Look... We've tinkered around with machines in our time, but... I gotta admit, even I have limits. ... That's why I brought in old man Andonuts to take care of the finer details in my visions.

... That capsule? Yeah, that was his work. Not mine. I toyed around with it too. Thought I understood everything there was to it... till the end. Come on. Don't lie to me.

Why not?

Not like we're strangers to lying to ourselves, huh?

That's cute. Alright, then. Let's leave that point alone for now. ... Let's say... you were stupid enough to lock yourself up inside.

... How would you feel then? Or... Could you actually have wanted it to happen?

How I'd feel?

I guess I'd learn to try and start feeling nothing, because it's not like there'd be anything to feel there. I mean it's just...barely even the size of a closet the room you'd have. And you'd be there forever. When everyone else is dead. When everything else is dead, and every star really is just the dried husk of a sun.

What'd be the point of feeling anything, of wanting that? Only a moron would try and seek that out.

That's right. ... Unlike the rest of the world, that capsule's the definition of absolute. And we're absolute too. We'll live always and absolutely.

... And you know what? You sound exactly like that kind of moron. ... The kind of moron that thinks he was actually the problem to everyone else.

Maybe you will. I'm giving it up.

We are the problem, you tool! Or...were the problem or....whatever! I don't have to justify anything to you.

Nah. You don't. After all, we're not the same person anymore.

[No, that wasn't the case anymore. ... But the old man lips slowly stretch into an ugly grin.]

... Hey. It's easy for you to fight me now. ... You've proved your point that last time. And you might have accepted that other people may and will hate you. ... how easy is it for you to live with yourself like that? To be as you are. Knowing you could have turned out the way I turned out to be. ... oh. Knowing that you can still turn out the way I turned out to be.

I won't.

[He doesn't believe that. And the fact that he doesn't bother to add anything more to his statement kind of shows that.]

Seriously, just. Think about it for a moment. ... You want to give up your immortality at the next chance you get. After living for the first few hundred years, you're still alright... but what happens if you live a few thousand years more? Things started to get... a little unbearable, yeah?

... Oh. And see, I've never come to the conclusion you came to. People have and always will hate me, but you've got that nice sense of misplaced hope there. ... Now, what happens if somewhere along the line, you broke? You get a little more hopeful, you accept things the way they are... and suddenly, you fall. Deep.

Actually, even I have to admit that I got it all wrong. I have to admit that there's a chance you'll turn out to be... heh, even ten times worse than me.

I pity you.

[No retorts. No comebacks.

Just three words. But he knows they're the three words you'd hate to hear the most.]

... What?

[... And that's right. It is starting to get on his nerves...]

I said I pity you.

Jeez. This is what I was like, and how much worse I'd get? I mean are you even happy like this, because I know I wasn't when I was trying this crap. We couldn't even get Ness to follow us, and that's all we wanted.

It'd be easy to call you stupid, or worthless, or an idiot. But that's what you want. For me to acknowledge you.

You aren't worth it.

... You're just dodging the point here. Sure, I'm happy... as happy as a guy can be when he manages to destroy the whole world! And that's for every time I've felt bored...

But we're talking about you. The only one you're deluding is yourself.

... Hey. You want to know something? When I get bored, I find ways to pass the time... any way possible. And for the heck of it, I looked into getting rid of this immortality. I'd like to give you a hint, but there's no point when the answer's so obvious:

you can't get rid of it! You're stuck with it. You're stuck with living forever and ever, exactly as you're so afraid to. Are you letting that sink in...? I've spent the fraction of my life you've lived looking for it as a hobby and nothing. There's just no easy escape...!

You can trade in physical ailments and features at Mayfield.

You can trade in powers and items and anything that makes you you.

Are you getting what I'm saying, moron?

[Cheating... well, sure, he liked cheating as much as he could, but perhaps being at the receiving end of it has finally hit a nerve for him.]

... And just how long do you think Mayfield will last? Once that town drones you and decides to send you back, you'll be starting from the beginning all over again. Nothing will have changed! All those friends you've made will be like something out of a dream you can barely remember...

Heh. Heheheh...!

Don't get smug with me. You aren't even close to nearly figuring this out.

Doesn't matter.

If the town hasn't droned me yet I'm getting the suspicion it never will. Could be wrong, could be right, I dunno. And I kind of expect we aren't sent "back" when we're droned anyway, or that there'd be a "back" to go to.

You're no closer to figuring anything out than I am. But I'm at least closer to it than you are.

You're mistaking what you want would happen with what will happen...

[How are you such an optimist about this...?]

... You're really content with being there, aren't you? Heh... You make it sound like it gave you everything you've wanted...

Yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot just how much you knew! Please, educate me some more by yammering on in a circle about the same topics! "Hur hur, your friends will all leave you in the end!" One, your only experience with people was in Eagleland who we all pushed away and two, your only friend was Ness who YOU left, not the other way around! Sorry if I'm tired of believing you on what friendship is anymore.

Maybe it did.

[Yes, but Porky's mind is too far gone to really accept let alone rationalize any of that. .... Perhaps if given time, he might, but undoing thousands of years of self-induced bitterness often takes quite a bit of time. He feels anger for the younger self that believes he gained something the older self was never able to reach. Just what was it that Porky failed to see that Pokey didn't?

None of this was comprehensible.]

Then stay there. Why should I care anyway...? You can make Mayfield the prison, paradise, and home you've wanted. And die. Die because you want it so badly. Die because it's so much easier for you. ... And I'll live. I'll keep living and watch the end of the world, every world...

Good for you. I bet it'll make you happy.

But oops. We both know it won't.

No. I'll be happier than you might think. ... at least I won't be in the town when some punk stupidly opens up a package with the Ultimate Chimera inside.

Hey. When that happens? Think of me, okay? I can't wait to see you try to take that monster back to the post office.

Ah hell, there's two of you?

By my count... there's only one smart, handsome, crafty ruler of the world around. The kid there lost his chance.

[Man, all this time paradox stuff is beyond Lighter. All he can do is stubbornly make his distaste for King P known, whoever the real one actually is.]

Just one, huh. So where is he, anyhow?

... Some town called Mayfield.

[Porky doesn't have too many high opinions about the place. Yes, he's curious, but there's more annoyance than that. It's beyond him how a year in that place could have changed his younger self so much.]

He got weak there. ... Dependent on the same people that have and would hate him. Yeah, he's not me anymore.

Never heard of it. But I figure there's nothing wrong with needin' a little help now and then. I guess.

It's a hell of a lot better than other stuff he coulda done.

You think so? ...

... Wait. I don't even know who you are.

[Game pieces were disposable and there's always a considerable amount of them moving around in Master Porky's world. He tends to ignore a fair amount of them. Some simply aren't worth bothering with.]

Who are you...? You look familiar.

Leavin' ya alone somewhere to rot sounds like a good idea to me.

Too good for ya, probably. Gotta say, though, it'd be hard for me to come up with somethin' worse than what really happened to ya. I'd really hafta scratch my brain.

[Admittedly, he actually liked being in that Absolutely Safe Capsule. In a sense, by shrinking his world to just a population of one, himself, he gave himself a world where nobody hated him. A sense of fulfillment mixed itself in with the fear of being locked away for ages to come.

Even still...]

... Heh. Heheheh. Yeah. That's a nice dream, isn't it? Like before, will this come after I've taken away everything you loved...? I sure hope so. It'd make a boring game otherwise.

It wasn't a damn game. [Lol, irony.]

Maybe it is to you. You're the only sick bastard freak who thinks like that. Anyways, you don't have the power to take away all that. I love Lucas, and Duster, and Boney and a lota other stuff, and last time I checked, they were still around.

I just didn't do a thorough job as I would have liked to. But damned if I didn't give it a good try.

... So, hey, I never got to ask. What did you think... I mean, realizing that if it wasn't for one of those Magypsies, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did in Nowhere Islands?

[She sniffs.]

I don't hafta tell you. I know you're just tryin' to get my goat. If ya wanna know the truth, pretty much anything that comes outta your mouth is gonna make me angry, so don't worry about tryin' too hard.

[A metal bat taps one of the legs of Porky's machine.]

So. Still kicking?

Hey, hey...!

[Porky's spider bed raises a sharp leg at Slugger and gives a warning swing.]

... Yeah. And you got uglier.

[Slugger glides out of reach on his skates and grins up at the old man.]

Guess that makes two of us.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Homeless, but looking

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject