Description: Overkill (1989). For everything you gain, you have to lose something. Elle repeats it like a mantra, beleives in every word. The only goal is to make sure you gain enough to replace what you lose. But when you lose the only real friend you have, what then? Is there ever enough to replace that? It's a question Elle never thought she'd have to find the answer to. Until now.
Southtown Village is quiet. People are scared, staying indoors and out of sight so that the various soldiers, ruffians, and ne'er-do-wells don't brutalize the crap out of them. In trying times like these, heroes must rise up, braced against the tide of wrongdoing, firm in the face of adversity! One man stands against the darkness, battling it with every fiber of his being!
At least, if you're referring to 'delicious chocolate milk' as 'darkness', and instead of 'battling' you instead mean to say 'enjoying'. Which is not to say that battle has not been done here. The signs are clear: spent bullet casings, shattered armor, scorch marks, and the limp bodies piled in a heap. The lawnchair on top of the unconcious men is perhaps a sign indicating that not only was there a battle, but a battle in which someone very clearly came out victorious.
That man is Dr. Tran, lounging atop his makeshift throne in nothing but a pair of tighty whities and sunglasses, silly straw tickling the corner of his mouth as he enjoys his chocolately beverage.
Cruising through the streets of Southtown in an armored vehicle is pretty much the only way to go nowadays. Getting from point A to point B used to be all about style. Now it's more about 'not getting your head blown off'. While priorities change, it never hurts to have the biggest, most heavily armored vehicle in the road. It's something that Elle can agree with, given her current run ins with the various invading factions in town.
It's been a long haul, really. No friends. Few allies. The simple fact is that she's very much alone in her one woman mission to do... well. Something. It's hard to tell. Elle makes as many contacts as possible in the first few sorties of any new mission. What happens next is anyone's guess as she formulates a plan based on that information.
But it's left her with lots of information, potential new recruits. That's a plus, and taking it on a going-forward basis, Elle's got more happening for her than a great many individuals stuck in Southtown. But still, the fact remains that for the most part? She's going almost all of it by herself.
Gone are the times when she had a reliable fighting force at her beck and call. While the remnants of that force are still there, it seems that they're few and far inbetween nowadays. Or are they?
Like the proverbial Eagles song, Elle's in a flat bed armored truck, slowing down to take a look at an unfortunately familiar man in his underwear, longuing about on a pile of possibly dead bodies.
Only one man that short has the audacity to do that.
The brakes squeak to a halt next to Tran, and she rolls down the window, wordless as she tips down her sunglasses to make sure that the guy's for real. But she's not going to say anything. Not yet.
Far be it for Elle to interrupt a man from his chocolate milk.
"Do you /mind/?" Dr. Tran doesn't even turn his head to acknowledge Elle or her armored truck before his mouth starts running. "Some of us are trying to tan, here, and it's not getting any easier with you blocking my sunlight!" The sky, of course, is grey and full of clouds. It sort of looks like it might rain.
Tran takes another sip, a process that takes a solid ten seconds. The straw is /exceedingly/ silly.
When he deigns to turn his attention upon Elle's truck again, his face scrunches a little in further irritation. "Look, you're not one of these chuckleheads who keep coming by and ruining my R&R, so just go ahead and get out of here." He leans to the side and lifts his sunglasses, prepared to give an angry glare. It vanishes in the face of quiet surprise. "Oh. Maybe you are, then. If you are, give me a minute."
Tran sits up and stretches, setting his milk to the side. "I'll go find some pants."
She doesn't say anything. Instead, she turns off the engine. Elle pops open the door of the vehicle, stepping out onto the road as Tran goes to... get his pants. Whatever Elle's thinking or, godforbid, feeling, can definitely wait until the sawed off berserker-with-a-plan goes to put on pants.
Still, her face is deadpan as ever. Eyes like bulletholes, dark rings under them, hidden behind glasses for the most part. Barely anything has really changed. The outfit, maybe, and some of the cosmetic details, like the hair. Otherwise? Same face, posture, expression. That gaze that makes it look like she's studying something to an almost molecular level. All the minor details remain the same.
But she doesn't say anything.
Tran, like most things, takes time. And usually as long as she waits, Tran comes up with /something/. It may not always be good, and she many not always use what he comes up with, but Tran always comes up with something.
So she can wait just a little longer.
Unusually, as is usually the case with the man, Tran does not go straight for a backpack, briefcase, sack, or any container that likes of which a man might be storing his pants. Instead, he pushes the lawn chair to one side and starts rummaging through the bodypile, provoking the occasional groan of pain, misery, and humiliation.
At last, he seems to find a pair of grey and black fatigues that seem to be about the right size, and starts to shuck it off. He pauses, then looks at Elle again. "Don't look at me like that, have you seen the state this place is in? It's dog-eat-pants."
Tran quickly turns back and finishes with the pants removal and subsequent wearing processes. He gives a leg an experimental shake. "A little loose, but the price is right. So!" He turns to Elle again. "Are you a ghost now, or are you ready to say something, or what?"
Say something? There's quite a bit to say, really. Elle owes Tran more than a few explanations, that's for damn sure. But that's probably just icing on the cake compared to what the man needs.
For the most part, Elle does what she does without fear of retribution or concern about who she hurts along the way. After all, there are things that she needs to do. The side effects of hurt feelings and bruised egos are pretty much par for the course.
But in some respects, there's one thing that she's always recognized, and that's the fact that there's always been a level of loyalty Tran has shown to her despite everything. She stands in front of him, and his first words aren't accusing, spiteful, or filled with disgust. No, Tran's first words are 'talk to me'.
And truth be told? Tran's the only one that has ever actually wanted to hear Elle talk.
Most people simply /endure/ Elle and what she has to say. She says the unpleasant things that nobody else will, and says it without hesitation. As a result, people avoid her instead of having to deal with her. But Tran's always been the one that checked up on her, made sure she was sane.
What Tran deserves is nothing less than something Elle never gives to anyone: an apology.
"I'm sorry."
But if anyone has earned it, needs it, or deserves it, it's Tran.
Rather than dispell Dr. Tran's fears, those two simple words instead serve mostly to muddy the mental waters. The train of thought goes something like this:
(OK, so she's talking, so she's probably not a ghost, but if she is, she's definately the vengeful kind, or maybe just a really sorry kind I guess? So odds are pretty good she's some kind of hallucination, or maybe a dream, so I just have to figure out what my subconcious is trying to tell me and then wake up and everything will be fine forever. Unless...what if I'm the dream? What if I died and now I only remain as a fragment in Elle's subconcious, surfacing only rarely to tell her to take a vacation? I can't take this uncertainty! My world is falling apart!!)
Outside, in the real world, Tran kind of stares at Elle blankly for a few seconds, lifts a hand, and slowly reaches out to pinch her cheek.
What the..?
Apologies are one thing. Touching is a whole other mess of issues. Elle doesn't like to be touched at all, and rarely ever lets anybody near her. Tran or not, there's not going to be any touching, period. He hand immediately whips sideways in a broad arc to knock the short man's hand's away.
"The fuck are you doing, Tran?" She asks, her voice harsh and cold as ever, the dull frown on her face sort of deepening as she speaks. "I'm trying to apologize for leaving you in a lurch and you're staring at me like some kind of god-damned Moon Unit? Christ, I didn't hire you for your brains, but I didn't know you had taken to drugs."
She exhales audibly, then shakes her head. "No, look. I don't mean that. I apologize. I let you down. Screw the rest of those yahoos. I knew they'd run out the second I stepped off the radar. I couldn't have cared less. It's what I wanted. But you? I wasn't sure what you do."
She crosses her arms. "How're you doing, Dick?"
"Oh. Hi, Elle."
Finally, acceptance of the situation for what it is. Tran's eyebrows furrow for a second as he dredges up the parts of his brain, unused for so long, that he uses to communicate in a civilized fashion with other people who matter in the slightest. After several mishaps with untamed mountain forests and deserted tropical islands, it doesn't take as long as it used to. Heck, the doctor doesn't even have a hole in his head this time!
"Sorry, sorry." Tran looks more distracted than sorry, as he stares down at the scattered bodies. "It's just, you know, have you looked around here lately? Nobody at all worth even talking to, it's enough to drive a man a little crazy." He does not mention where that takes a man who is already a little crazy.
"So, yeah. Well as I can be, healthy diet, no lack of exercise." He gives the man whose pants he took a swift kick, eliciting a pained moan. Tran will have none of that. "Hey, hey! Shut it! Don't make me talk over you or I'll bury you in the sewers!" The man ceases to make noise.
"What was I saying? Oh, right. Fine, how 'bout you? Haven't seen you in a while." Tran states the obvious as his brain continues to kick up into working functionality.
"Been busy," Elle says, motioning the man to follow her to the truck. "Lot of things happened. Looks like the house that I built fell completely to pot. Vampirella ran off to join Shadaloo, Kid Vicious went rogue, Vicki upped and disappeared off the face of the Earth, and the rest of them may as well have gotten eaten by a dingo."
"So," she continues, tossing open the passenger door, "get in. Let's talk about you, me, where we are, who we want to be, and where we go from here." She slides into the driver's seat, putting her hand on the key.
"Mostly, I want to know if you're still in this, Tran. And I understand if you aren't. I owe you an awful lot, and I just want you to know that I appreciate whatever loyalty you've always had. I know I'm not an easy person to deal with," she says, shaking her head, as if disappointed in herself more than anything else. "But you've always managed, and taken the time to deal with it."
She almost sighs, as if that was a readily available option to her. It really isn't. Elle doesn't allow herself that sort of luxury, But she does speak up about one more important point.
"And for chrissake, Tran. Put on a fucking shirt. You're not a hillbilly."
"What? Don't give me that." Tran frowns, and brushes at his bare chest absentmindedly. "I had to let my shirt go after I lost my pants. It seemed...lonely."
Nonetheless, he bends down and quickly removes the poor pantsless soldier's combat vest, throwing it on before hopping into Elle's truck. "There, good enough. Now..." He reclines a bit, making himself comfortable, but despite his indicative leadup, he seems content to be silent for a moment.
"Well, I've got no idea." He breaks the silence abruptly, laying down his indecision on the matter. "How about we start with whatever this is, now?" He broadly gestures. "Is 'this' still what it was, with you going ahead and pretty much killing yourself for the people who do THIS kind of thing?" He sweeps a hand at the empty streets.
Tran quickly asserts, "Don't get me wrong, if some asshole warlords want to fight a war, I'm not going to stop them, I'm not sure I could care less if I tried. Being in the middle, though..."
Tran turns to face Elle, a frank expression on his face. "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but being in this shit bites."
As quickly it's said, it's forgotten. She's said her sorries, and Tran's moving on. If he's wanting to take things back up again as if she'd never left? Then that's fine by Elle. The frown on her face neutralizes to a semi-line, meaning that for once, she's satisfied with the way things are going. A hand turns on the engine, and she pulls out of the area, headed towards the outskirts area. "I found an old Shadaloo safehouse. We'll be good there, for now."
As for the rest of Tran's questions? "Look, I'm all for a little war. War's good for business. It made me rich the last time and put you in good lab coats. This?" She gestures out the window at the war zone around them. "This is stupid on a cosmic scale. Nobody's winning this one, Tran. There's too many people stirring the pot, and tempers aren't what they used to be anymore. So to answer? No. Not working for any side by my own for the time being, and I'm not coming down on one side or another. Not yet, anyway."
She guns the engine, shooting down a clear stretch of road for the time being. "In fact, I'm looking to get ahold of the resistance. I understand Hotaru... you remember Hotaru, right? Little kewpie doll girl you probably rendered sterile back in the day when you punched her in the uterus? She's putting together a refugee camp. Good place to start up a little bit of resistance."
Fingers drum on the steering wheel as she reaches to turn on some music. A little background to the discussion. A little AC/DC never hurt anyone, right? "Like I said, Vamp is with Shadaloo, holding her own counsel, so she's out. The Kid is working for the losing side, I think. So I'm working with people that can't pay me for goodwill later. What do you think?"
"It's not just...rggggh." Tran throws his hands up in frustration, then takes a deep breath to calm himself down.
"Alright. Alright. Vamp was a whore and I should've killed her while I had the chance, I've never even met this Kid, screw all of 'em, they don't even matter." Which is more or less what Elle is saying, really, so they're in agreement on that, at least.
"Hell, this goddamn shitsink we're in doesn't even matter, even being as completely miserable as it is." The doctor begins to ball up his fists and grit his teeth a little, quickly discarding the notion of trying to punch the window of an armored vehicle. "And screw Hotaru and all of them, too. Resistance. HA! If they had half a brain between the entire group of them, whoever HE'S wrangled together, they would just try to get the hell out! It's like helping invalids cross the street!"
Not even the music seems to help Tran snap out of his growing rage. If anything, it just pumps him up a little bit more. "What I want to know now is the same thing I wanted to know when we were starting up, right after I graduated from glorified manservant to right-hand man to the leader of an international mercenary company!"
And then, suddenly, Tran is calm again, his frustrations released. He exhales slowly, a small cloud of steam floating out of his mouth. Tran lets the silence hang before continuing. "Risk is one thing, but what reason is there that drives you to so systematically destroy yourself?"
There's the question, isn't it? The one question Elle never seems to give a straight answer to: why? She asks it of a lot of people. It's one of her big six: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. The answer to that is clearly important to the man, and she reaches over, and turns off the radio. She'd close her eyes, if it didn't mean running the armored transport off the road. She takes a deep breath.
"You want to know the answer?" She asks, her voice somehow growing even colder than normal, "Then fine. I'll tell you why. We only pass this way /once/ understand? You ask me this again, and I will hurt you beyond your wildest nightmares."
Hands grip the wheel of the truck at ten and two, knuckles threatening to pop out of the gloves on her hands. "It's because I don't deserve any better. I threw away a perfectly good life when I was growing up. I had everything I could have ever wanted. I had a mom, a dad, brothers and sisters. I had a job lined up, a master's degree on the way. I had everything ever girl dreamed of," she says, her monotone voice suddenly sounding very tired.
"Then I broke. It was too much. There was one thing that all that couldn't give me: control. Everything in my life was controlled for me. I was expected to be another Belmounte family robot. Another cog in the machine that was my family, set up to be another smiling idiot, married with 2.5 children in a white picket fence house. Good job, good car, all pooling towards a greater good with my family. Well guess what? I hated it. Hated all of it. Hated myself for hating it."
Hands grip the steering wheel tighter, even though nothing else seems to show any great emotion. Her face remains blank as she speaks, though her voice grows darker still, the rasping sound in her throat grating like gravel on metal as she continues, "So I ran. I blew everything up. Something in me snapped and I left. I left to control my own life, but the only way for me to do it was to ruing everything else. And it just kept going. I learned that the only way I could control anything around me was to break it, ruin it, force it to do what I wanted it to do. And you know, I lost something. I lost a lot of things. The ability to smile. The ability to laugh like a normal person. And then I did the stupidest thing of all, Tran."
"I made a deal with Vega. I wanted to see how his power worked. And he showed me," Elle intones, deadly serious. "He hit me with... something. And right there, everything became clear. I need to know, Tran. I need to know how things work. Everything. Because if I don't, I'm not in control. I need to be in control, Tran, because when I'm not in control, I'm not happy. Every step I take, it has to be the right one. Everything I do, it has to be the right way. And whatever I lose on the way? I make sure I make up for it in the things I gain. In order to be happy? I have to be in control. And I have to be in control because I hate myself, Tran, for all the things I threw away. If I don't control everything I see? I threw all the good things in my life away for nothing."
"And then, I'd just be left with nothing but hate... and that would kill me."
She turns her head to stare at Tran, the bullethole eyes placing him under the deadliest gaze she can manage. "There. You happy now?"
Dr. Tran, renowned scientific mind and stupendous badass, is not a psychiatrist. This much is obvious. However, despite this minor flaw in the armor of awesomeness that he has so carefully constructed, he listens to Elle. He listens hard, completely silent, waiting until the end.
He stays silent for a long time afterward, digesting this unexpected gush of information, working it over in his head, getting agitated as he tries to figure out just what, exactly, the fuck. Growing tense as he feels himself coming to a conclusion. Tran's not sure this is a good idea, but maybe Alma's rubbing off on him; he's not sure he's even capable of acting otherwise, not now. Not when it feels like so much is at stake.
"Stop the truck, Elle."
Now that the silence has been breached, Tran feels like he needs to fill it with as much words as possible, while carefully avoiding Elle's eyes. Somehow, he can't even really manage that. "I can't do it. I can't say I'm happy." He opens his mouth to continue, checks himself, and then starts again. From the beginning. "I've never been here for Blackjack. Even before then, I was in it for some pocket change at first, yeah, but how long do you think that lasted? You should know that by this point, I don't even give a fuck about money." Tran lets that hang a moment before plunging forth again.
"It's kind of embarassing to say it like this, but since I don't even know when, it's been you, Elle. As my friend." Probably even his best friend who's not actually a frienemy, although that's not much of a stretch when Tran can go crazy from being isolated in the middle of a city, however war-torn it may be. "And this...this isn't right. I'm one to talk about what's right or not, I know, but I can't...this, I can't overlook, I can't condone. Christ, it's like everything I was afraid of but worse."
Tran lowers his head into his hands, running his fingers up into his hair, looking progressively more shaken as he speaks, like he has seen a ghost after all. "I...look...I..." He swallows hard, and then falls silent, unsure again of what he can even say, of what he should say, of what he dares not to say.
The woman doesn't stop her stare. It's almost a mechanical stare, relentless gaze trying to suss out Tran's thoughts, motives. It's impossible to tell exactly what she's thinking when she doesn't want to make it known, and this is one of those times. Completely unreadable. Her face is set in stone. When Tran falters, she begins to speak.
"I don't feel very much anymore," she says. It has all the weight of a cannonball being dropped in someone's lap from six feet up. "Sometimes, I get a little angry, or a little sad. Sometimes I feel a little happy or the tinest bit scared. But it's going away. I can feel it going day by day and there's just not much I can do to stop it."
"But there's one thing I never stopped valuing. Emotions have nothing to do with it. You have always been there for me. Through everything I've put us through, you were there when others flaked on me. And I've always appreciated that. It didn't matter if it was my right to do it or not. I did my best to compensate for the fact that something inside me is dying. You knew it, I knew it. One day, there may not be anything left. No more laughs, no more tears. But there'll always be an appreciation for the fact that you stayed when others left."
She pulls the truck over, stopping the truck, shutting down the engine. The quiet hangs overhead, a chill pallor hangs in the air, filling the pause with discomfort. "I made mistakes. I owned up to them. Everything that happens to me is my fault. Nothing can be attributed to anything else. But nothing ever gets destroyed, Tran. Things break, but they heal. Cuts scab over. Wounds heal over time. Whatever I lose, I win back in replacement tenfold.
"I'd prefer you were with me than not, or worse yet, against me. But you need to listen to this, and listen carefully: as terrible as whatever happens to me may seem, /at least I made a decision/. And if you're going to tell me that you can't work with me anymore because you wish that I didn't make a certain decision, then fine."
"But don't you dare speak to me about right and wrong. That's all relative. You have nothing on me, Tran. Literally nothing. And if you think the chunk of humanity you beleive you have somehow allows you to make that judgment? Then might I remind you it's that part of that makes you susceptible the mental compulsion of that fruit you like to hang out with. Am I flawed? Yeah. Sure. But it's because of my own design, Tran. This /is me/. All of me. Every scar, every snapped bone, every stitch... it's all me."
She reaches to grab him by the vest, hands like claws of iron, neither pulling him closer not letting him pull away. "What part of you is you, Tran? What part of you is under your control? When do you make decisions? When do you make the calls? Now? Pithy, isn't it? Up until five minutes ago, you were living the life of a wild man, barely coherent. You aren't you anymore than anyone else is. So if you want to tell me you can't condone the things I do, then you're telling me you can't condone the fact that /I made the decision/ to make sure that /I am what I made myself/, warts and all. Don't be that guy, Tran. I trusted you more than that."
Her rasping voice drops to almost a whisper. "You can't condone, because you made a conscious effort to never be responsible for a fucking thing in your entire life. You can barely make an effort to keep from losing yourself to instinct whenever times get tough. I chose a destiny, for better or for worse. You didn't. So don't you *dare* judge me."
Tran shakes his head as Elle goes on, at first in disbelief at her, at him, at everything, but as she goes on, it becomes a denial of more than that. "No, no, no, no..." He trails off, unresisting when Elle grabs him. "No, no, NO!"
"Don't you understand?" Tran's voice starts to rise. "You're talking about building, about healing, but you! Are! KILLING YOURSELF!" He slams his fist down on the dashboard, putting a hefty dent in it and lightly fogging the windshield simulaneously.
"What do you have left when you're dead, a walking corpse, a robot? Not everything heals! Death doesn't heal! You're gaining and you're gaining and you're gaining but it's nothing!" Grinding his teeth, Tran jerks away from Elle, eyes getting quite literally misty. His hand clenches and unclenches, as he makes a half dozen futile little efforts to hold in his anger.
"I won't watch you hold a knife to your own heart! I can't help you! I CAN'T!" He punches the seat besides him, complete with tiny chisplosion, over and over, trying to work out his rage. "GRAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" It works well enough, insofar as it exhausts him enough to calm down a little.
He turns to Elle, a tired look on his face, and says with a lack of emotion that would do her proud, "You're right. I can't judge you, I can't tell you that you're wrong. I can't stop you if you want to keep going like this, no matter how much I want to. It's entirely in your hands." Reaching for the door, he pops it open and step out, holding it open behind him for a moment, standing with his head bowed, back turned.
"I guess this is my official retirement. Don't bother with a cake. But..." Tran slumps slightly, feeling exhausted and defeated and maybe a little depressed. "If you change your mind and decide to , it's not hard to find me. Later, Elle." He half turns and peeks back in at her before closing the door.
"I'll be waiting."
"Remember what I said I'd do to you if you quit?" Elle replies.
"Find some friends real fast, Tran. Show me that what I'm doing is wrong. Do your damndest to show me that heart and soul still have a place in this world, that you can still win by being something that can't be accounted for. Show me that no matter what you do, no matter where you go, you can change, adapt, and find an opportunity to grow and change."
The key is turned.
"Show me that a life where you don't choose your own path is worth living. Show me that you can succeed when you're ruled by your anger, pain, and frustrations. Show me that life constantly surrounded by people that smile and laugh at you one minute, then stab you in the back the next is better than the alternative."
The brake is disengaged.
"But most of all, you show me how those people can stand against me. Show me that they're better than me. Stronger than me. Smarter than I am. Surround yourself with them, Tran. And you wait there, surrounded by those people, and you pray that they stay there, and don't ever leave."
She presses her foot on the pedal.
"And pray to God," she says as the truck pulls away, "that they'll help you and protect you from me. Because if I see you again, Tran?"
"That knife you say I'm holding isn't going to be for /my/ heart."
Log created on 21:15:59 05/06/2009 by Elle, and last modified on 03:22:47 05/07/2009.