"Let go! I have to get to -- he's my brother, I have to --"
The adults barely have a chance. They're still struggling to hold him back because even as a small child, there is no immovable object that can stand in the way of the unstoppable force of a human rocket, but then there are small hands against him, wrapping around him, and a small voice.
And shorthand.
They have a shorthand. He and his friends have a shorthand. Things they can say where one word makes something click because of all they've done together.
"NuPonder -- what are you even saying?" he says, turning to Robbie, tears still streaming down his face, and then he stops, as the gears start clicking.
"Not here. Not him," he says, nodding. "He wasn't on Legion World. You and I were, if we see any other Legionnaires, it might be them, but he's not -- it's not --"
He wipes a hand over his face to try to get the tears off, but it's futile when they're in the rain anyway. Fake parents come over and fake grieve, as he gets himself back together and starts stumbling along with Robbie -- with his other Robbie. The one that's real. That's really here.
"It dug in. He was one of my probies. Took on this Strontian war criminal -- he pinned her with the Nova Force for two hours. My baby brother pinned down a Strontian. I almost didn't make it in time and he got hurt real bad; he was in the healing tanks for days."
It took something real to use against him. His brother's baby face, yes, when now he was long grown, but he was even positioned the same way on the ground as when he flew in and saw that witch smiling with his little brother's blood dripping from her hands.
"Geez, Robbie, this place is working us over from the get-go. What is it? What story is this supposed to be? It's...familiar. It's not just what happened to --" pause "--to that kid, it's something else, something --"
A little brother in a yellow raincoat. Small town. Rain. Dull-looking adults with dull eyes that didn't react the way they should to a dead kid, concerned but almost...unsurprised. He was dead in a gutter, near a sewer drain. Why a sewer drain, what was that calling up? Something...old. Something from childhood.
That's when he sees the red balloon. The adults are all gathered around the dead boy, around the grate he bled out into. Now that the two boys have walked away, there's another drain near them and no one's watching the two of them.
And there's a red balloon, just floating there. It moves in the wrong direction, going upwind instead of downwind. It moves in the opposite direction of the rain and their hair and the leaves getting tossed around. Another balloon floats out of the sewer drain, letting them know where the first came from and it floats the wrong way and up, up...
The adults don't see it. One even glances their way, eyes lazily glancing over the balloons, and then looks away.
"Robbie, I don't think they can see the balloons -- why can't they see 'em?"
no subject
The adults barely have a chance. They're still struggling to hold him back because even as a small child, there is no immovable object that can stand in the way of the unstoppable force of a human rocket, but then there are small hands against him, wrapping around him, and a small voice.
And shorthand.
They have a shorthand. He and his friends have a shorthand. Things they can say where one word makes something click because of all they've done together.
"NuPonder -- what are you even saying?" he says, turning to Robbie, tears still streaming down his face, and then he stops, as the gears start clicking.
"Not here. Not him," he says, nodding. "He wasn't on Legion World. You and I were, if we see any other Legionnaires, it might be them, but he's not -- it's not --"
He wipes a hand over his face to try to get the tears off, but it's futile when they're in the rain anyway. Fake parents come over and fake grieve, as he gets himself back together and starts stumbling along with Robbie -- with his other Robbie. The one that's real. That's really here.
"It dug in. He was one of my probies. Took on this Strontian war criminal -- he pinned her with the Nova Force for two hours. My baby brother pinned down a Strontian. I almost didn't make it in time and he got hurt real bad; he was in the healing tanks for days."
It took something real to use against him. His brother's baby face, yes, when now he was long grown, but he was even positioned the same way on the ground as when he flew in and saw that witch smiling with his little brother's blood dripping from her hands.
"Geez, Robbie, this place is working us over from the get-go. What is it? What story is this supposed to be? It's...familiar. It's not just what happened to --" pause "--to that kid, it's something else, something --"
A little brother in a yellow raincoat. Small town. Rain. Dull-looking adults with dull eyes that didn't react the way they should to a dead kid, concerned but almost...unsurprised. He was dead in a gutter, near a sewer drain. Why a sewer drain, what was that calling up? Something...old. Something from childhood.
That's when he sees the red balloon. The adults are all gathered around the dead boy, around the grate he bled out into. Now that the two boys have walked away, there's another drain near them and no one's watching the two of them.
And there's a red balloon, just floating there. It moves in the wrong direction, going upwind instead of downwind. It moves in the opposite direction of the rain and their hair and the leaves getting tossed around. Another balloon floats out of the sewer drain, letting them know where the first came from and it floats the wrong way and up, up...
The adults don't see it. One even glances their way, eyes lazily glancing over the balloons, and then looks away.
"Robbie, I don't think they can see the balloons -- why can't they see 'em?"