have_your_lives | TYL Event - after Nagi's return to his normal age

TYL Event - after Nagi's return to his normal age

[You know who has no respect for personal property? Or, apparently, bazookas? This guy. He literally tried to just grab the thing off of Lambo, because there is no possible way wrenching a bazooka out of someone's hands could end in anything other than candy and rainbows. Or whatever would be the evil equivalent as far as Schuldig is concerned - probably tears and kicked puppies.

It's been mentioned before that Schuldig has no inkling of common sense, and this should be an excellent reminder to everyone how crippling of a disability that is.

What actually happened was that the bazooka got dropped onto hard concrete and went off more or less in the telepath's face. And instead of being blown into the bloody, quarter-sized pieces he probably deserved, he got rocketed back into the past, while his twelve-year-old self has been jerked forward in time and dumped into Mayfield.

The upshot of this is that a small, skinny boy with scruffy orange hair is prowling around Mayfield. He's dressed in worn, nondescript grey clothing and looks kind of malnourished; there are many methods of discipline in Rosenkrüs, and denial of food is actually one of the pleasanter ones. Unlike others in this same situation, he seems less confused than wary and suspicious...but those who expect Schuldig's usual personality in a smaller package will be significantly surprised if they approach him. He's fairly easy to recognize with that hair, in any case.]

[OOC: I wish I had more icons for him as a kid, but this is pretty much the only one that even looks remotely close. :| You may see a lot of it.]

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I don't care. [This is said quite matter-of-factly.] If we get out of Rosenkrüs, that's all that matters. [Well, that and Brad's apparent approval of what happens afterwards. Things get better. That's more than enough.

He does cast a somewhat bewildered look at the neighborhood around them, however.] ...this isn't the kind of place I'd expect us to end up. [Even at twelve, enough damage has been done that he feels out of place in cheery suburban surroundings.]

Keane? [Filed away to ask adult Schuldig about.]

All right, then. [So he doesn't believe in what's happened? Farfarello isn't sure he can blame him for that. He sighs when he's called out on hiding things, and gives him a baleful look.]

You don't want to look in my head. It'll give you a headache.

It's an amazingly temporary arrangement. [] Japan is dreadfully sickening in its own way, but it's not quite so abysmal. You seem not to mind it much. Not that it matters. []

[You keep puzzling Keane, Crawford, though he seems much more relaxed about this than Schuldig would be. Schuldig needles and questions; Keane trusts almost unreservedly as far as Brad is concerned. The possible reasons for this switch are known only to Crawford and Schuldig himself.] Japan? Really? What do we do there? [He's already resolved to take back as much knowledge of his future as he can.] Why doesn't it matter?

[] Japan because it's where Eszett finds us to be most effectively and fruitfully deployed. You'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I...don't know what happened. Maybe it hasn't yet. He doesn't seem much like me at all. [The boy looks a bit troubled by this.] Apparently I even change my name...but I don't even know what I might become guilty of.

No. [His tone is one of utter negation, even as he clutches at his head.] No, I know they're messing with me. Brad wouldn't get trapped. This is one of their damn tests, I know it, but why can't I get out?! [He sounds well and truly panicked by the last sentence - but then, he knows what happens to those telepaths who fail Rosenkrüs' tests. Sometimes they make the good students watch, just to make sure they remember.]

Try to get out. [This answer is prompt.] I can't fail. [Then, with a far less businesslike childhood viciousness - ] And I'm not letting them drive me crazy.

[The boy looks around, either for the kid's mother or, perhaps, volcanoes. He sees neither.] I don't think there are any around here... [This seems like a safe assumption.]

[Ema isn't sure what the proper response is, so she simply nods in agreement.] I'm sure you won't. [She knows he won't; at least, not in the way he means. Schuldig is a mentally screwed up person, but he's not flat-out crazy. ~~That's Farfarello.~~]

Don't let me hold up your trying to get out, though. I'm just a figment of your imagination, right? Don't waste your time on me. [Might as well just let the kid try until he's back to his older, meaner, making-her-life-miserable self.

She gives the kid a wave and continues with her day. He seems determined to navigate the place on his own terms, and who is she to insist otherwise?]

Yeah.

[This gets Farfarello another look of exasperated childish superiority.] I'm a telepath. I always have headaches.

...we work for Esset? [It's hard to tell what Keane thinks of that. Not because his face is hard to read, and certainly not because he's learned to hide his emotions yet - even if he had, he wouldn't from Brad - but because he seems conflicted. On the one hand, even after only two years, he hates Rosenkrüs and Esset and has harbored quietly seething fantasies of ripping them apart...on the other hand, Brad said he'd like this future. Does something change? Or is there something he doesn't know?]

...you keep talking like something's going to happen.

I know you're a telepath, 'Keane'. But I'll give you a worse headache than you're used to.

I may not be psychopathic, as some say I am... [He gives him a very crazed smile.] ...But I wouldn't say my mind is a very good place to be if you're not used to it.

[That said, he stops trying to keep Schuldig out (not that he actually could have if Schuldig actively tried to get in anyway).]

[Keane's eyes visibly unfocus as he goes looking; that's something else that was trained out of Schuldig before he left Rosenkrüs, but Keane isn't that far along yet.

Surprisingly, he doesn't react too much to Farfarello's mind or its contents. The knowledge of Schuldig isn't much he hasn't picked up from others before him, like Ema or Ken; as for the mess that is the Berserker's mind...well, Keane has spent two years at Rosenkrüs. He's seen minds in far worse states than even Farfarello's. Twisted instructors, broken psychics, and almost everything in between.]

...I told you I could handle it.

[Noms on Schuldig's pants]

Keane. KEANE! Calm down! Take a deep breath and look at me! [Well this was just going to shit]

We do, after a fashion. It's convenient for some time. They provide a high level of utility for minimal deviation from our own objectives. You'll have to trust me on this one, Keane, but... it's worth dealing with them, in the end. We get to see the end of the world.

I don't know that either. I don't think any of us do.

[Younger and more tolerant though he may be, he still has to draw the line somewhere. And a little boy gumming his clothes is a fairly reasonable place for that line to be.] What do you want? [Now he sounds rather irritable.]

[Keane does look at him, fingers raking through his orange hair. This might explain Schuldig's 'hairstyle' later on, because messed up as it is now, Keane looks almost exactly like what he is - a miniature version of his future self. His eyes are bright and almost feverish; they're dry, but Ken might get the feeling that a more normally adjusted boy would be crying at this point.] What? [The question is telepathic; Keane is out of sorts enough that he's losing track of which method of communication he's using.]

[Keane's mouth opens, then shuts without anything coming out of it. It's fairly early days for him yet in Rosenkrüs, long before he became Schuldig and developed an actively sadistic streak, and to him - or at least him as he is now - seeing the end of the world holds little appeal. He tries to think of a way to phrase the question properly before he eventually ventures it.] ...why do we want to see that? [Because it's clear that Brad is holding this up as some kind of reward.]

You don't? Don't you work with h - me?

Yeah, but we don't know a lot about each other's pasts. You know the most from being in our heads, but that's it.

[] Because it's coming rather quickly, whether we like it or not. We'll see it from the position to weather it.

And... it's a long ten years.

...what happens during those ten years, anyway? You seem pretty much the same, just - older. But I don't even have the same name.

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TYL Event - after Nagi's return to his normal age

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