trans_9 | Tightrope

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Tightrope

It had been a few days since the Outsider's gathering, where Hit Girl had finally been able to utilize her strength and talent to help others. All in all, it went pretty well: choices were made, friendships were had, blah blah and kumbaya. What SHE had wanted to show was that she was the type of girl who got the job done, and if anyone needed to be reminded, she would show that to them. Grabbing the flag had just been the start: now she wanted to make sure that whatever happened next, she would be ready, she would show people the type of person her daddy trained.

Which led to today's excursion in the Sensorium: she was doing tightrope walking, one of her weaker points, in order to maintain balance and poise. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop had demanded both, and while she had mastered that, she had not yet made her foray to really careful jumping in tight spots. To give her some energy, she had this playing in the background, and she jumped from rope to rope, her eyes concentrating, her tongue sticking out slightly in concentration.

Each step took courage, and the slightest imperfection would result in her falling, although of course it wouldn't be that big of a deal when you were in the Sensorium anyway. Despite this, Hit Girl demanded nothing less than imperfection: once she had this mastered, going to Negi and learning the delayed spells would be next, not to mention training Sasami.

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Zouichi hadn't been sure where that music was coming from, but when he looked up, well... there was a young costumed girl jumping around on tightropes. What was this, some sort of new aerobic routine?

"...what are you doing?" he asked, shading his eyes with one hand as he called up to her.

Hit Girl paused and looked down. She recognized this guy: he was one of the people from the Outsider's skirmish, and he was one of the pretty good fighters. Without thinking about it, she jumped down, making sure to hit the ground lightly enough where it wouldn't hurt, and walked over to him.

"Making sure I'm able to keep balance. You never know when you're going to need to be jumping narrow gaps and all of that. You were one of those guys in the Outsider's simulation, right?"

Zouichi watched her land -- she did it with grace and relative ease, so it didn't look like she was hurting for training in any way. It made sense, though; balance was essential for fighting, especially when speed was a factor. It could mean the difference between dodging a blow and having a limb lopped off. Or worse.

"Outsider's simulation?" He looked a little puzzled. "Did that take place in one of the Sensoriums? I certainly wasn't there personally, though I did pay a recent visit to the headquarters building."

"Is it true what they say about not looking down?"

Beastboy watched her with a big toothy grin munching on some pop corn, "This is kind of a neat idea, I wonder why we never did this back home. Probably because three of the titans can fly and one is too heavy."

"Are you sure? As far as I knew, there was one of those things that took place, and then the Overlord went all crazy with the stuff he was showing us, with all the obstacles..." Well, if that wasn't him, oh well. It's not like it was that big of a deal, right?

"So what's your deal? You training too?"

"Overlord? Obstacles? Are you talking about Zetta?"

"Well, I do train here fairly often, but it has been getting a little repetitive lately. Mostly, I was just curious about where the music was coming from."

He paused. "May I ask why you're wearing that costume?"

Hit Girl heard the familiar voice and nodded. "It helps to not look down, believe me. Dad had to repeat that to me several times when I was first doing this stuff. Jumping rooftops is easier than actually keeping balance on tightropes though. You hardly have time to think about it."

She grinned. She knew all too well who he was talking about, but she had to make sure not to let on that she knew, otherwise there would be issues, like, Back to the Future paradoxes and what not.

Beastboy shifted into cat form and trotted along the wire as confident as well... a cat.

"Your dad taught you how to do this? Neat! My dad just tried to teach me super science and other languages."

"Yeah, the Overlord. He's actually the guy that's been training me, and I've actually gotten better because of him."

She grinned. "Well, I was feeling a little homesick, and I wanted to train, so I decided to play a little Pantera to get me in the mood. It really gets the blood rushing to the skin you know?"

She nodded. "In my world, we were talking down some pretty tough guys. So we were in disguise. We were heroes, in our own way."

She laughed, petting Beastboy absentmindedly. "Well, I'm a little young, and I'm not a super genius like you, so dad sorta had to settle with making me one of the toughest S.O.B's out there."

"Really? Training in what?" He wasn't too clear on what the Overlord did in his free time, but he looked like a fairly ordinary magical book. Er, as magical books went.

Zouichi thought Pantera was a little more likely to get the blood rushing to his temples -- but it wouldn't be polite to tell her that he thought her favorite training music was a bunch of racket.

"Ah, you're a masked vigilante? Can I take it that you have secret powers as well?"

"In fighting, or as he calls it, gathering Mana," Hit Girl said. "Right now though, I'm going to train to be an Overlord. I figure its about time I have a future plan, if my world is gone."

It was just as well: she didn't expect that music to be for everyone, because if it was, likely she wouldn't like it. She didn't need tame music right now, she needed something that would give her energy.

"Yeah, something like that," Hit Girl said. "But until recently, no, I didn't have secret powers. My strength comes from surviving and making sure the enemy doesn't. In my world, real criminals go for the throat whenever they can: they don't show any restraint. Heroes can't fuck around either, or they don't stay heroes for long."

"Oh yes, he was talking about Mana earlier," Zouichi said. "I admit I didn't really understand his explanation too well; magic doesn't exist on my world, and he seemed rather distraught at the time."

Was it okay for heroes to train as Overlords?

"Hm. Sounds tough," he said. Actually, it sounded rather a lot like what he did. He usually didn't ask things like this at first meetings, but if she was going to be blunt about it -- "Does that mean you've killed people before?"

"Yeah, I kinda only vaguely get it myself. In my world, those terms are usually really applied to video games and stuff. I didn't think it would actually be something that would apply here."

In Hit Girl's case...she had little to be a hero about anymore, particularly when there were so many heroes with actual powers on the ship.

"It is," she said, "But I'm used to it. And to answer that question: yeah, I have. They want to kill people, I will them first. I don't really feel bad about getting someone who would do you in a minute if you let them."

"There are a lot of things that apply on this ship that don't apply elsewhere," Zouichi said, with a hint of exasperation. "Magic, dragons, gathering Mana." And angry magical Viking girls.

"I see," he said, pausing for a long moment. "I understand the sentiment, I suppose, but I don't usually run into humans who are so cavalier about taking lives. Is crime very prevalent on your world?"

"Yeah, I've noticed," Hit Girl said dryly. "It's sorta hard to miss that there are people in this place with all of these super powers and stuff. In fact, a few of them are actually fictional characters in my world, but I know enough to not stupidly say something like that to them."

She shrugged. "Actually yeah, and what's more prevalent is people getting away with crime. You can usually pay off the law enforcers, and most people are too scared about being killed to stop all the law breakers. That's where we come in, and why we're different from the heroes on this ship. They have powers and the ability to not kill the criminals trying to end their lives. We don't do that because we don't have the ability to live in an idealistic world. We have to live in theirs, and its fucked up, but bt has to be done, period."

"Yes, I was told that everyone on this ship is, apparently, a fictional character somewhere. It's a little hard to believe."

He looked a little confused at her mention of 'people with superpowers'. "But aren't you one of those people with superpowers, now?"

Zouichi frowned; he'd killed an awful lot of people, but he'd never heard anyone justify themselves like that. "That seems like a false dichotomy. People who lack powers are often forced to choose between killing their enemies or leaving them alive; likewise, those who have powers may be forced by their very nature to kill."

"Who is this 'we' you keep talking about? Are there other people from your world on the ship?"

"I hardly believed it myself, to be honest," Hit Girl said. "But that changed in a few days. They're too much like the characters I read about."

She shook her head. "I just know a little magic, and not enough to really be that strong just yet. If anything, most of my strength has come from learning weapon proficiency and training my body."

God, this was frustrating, explaining how crappy her world was. "People who have powers have the ability to defeat an enemy without killing them: in fact, most of the guys on this ship who are heroes never had to do it. Most of them even have a code where they don't kill, period. For me, the criminals are the one with the weapons and the ability to make things happen for themselves. Killing them is the most efficient way of making sure they don't help the powers at be to become stronger. Where one person is let free to do what they want, he'll have plenty of people wiling to do his dirty work."

She shook her head. "Force of habit. Dad was a hero alongside with me back on my world. But he isn't on the ship, and probably never will be, unless Stacy is able to bring people back from the dead."

Nokosi stared in relative silence for a few moments, watching the scene before him. Costumed girl...tightrope walking? And the music...

The music playing from...wherever it was made the scene seem far more dangerous than it was; after all, he didn't even see any angry crocolisks or hungry hyenas snapping at her from below. Then again, every performer needed practice before their shows, right?

"You are training for the Faire? Circus? I loved the Darkmoon Faire!" he suddenly exclaimed.

The distinction between slightly weaker supernatural powers and slightly stronger ones seemed like an inconsequential one to Zouichi, but he didn't know very much about magic anyway. "I'm afraid I'm not very familiar with a lot of fiction -- but many of the crew members do seem to resemble something I would see in a film or book in the Media Library."

"I disagree; the ability to defeat someone without killing them isn't mutually exclusive to people with powers. It may be easier to do so, especially if they fight against ordinary humans. I wouldn't begrudge anyone who refuses to kill others, even if I don't agree with their principles -- though I would expect the same in response."

It was strange for Zouichi to be defending the decision not to kill enemy combatants, but she seemed to be convinced that she had no choice about the matter. He'd been taught that human beings always had a choice, unlike, say, artificial intelligences, which might be inescapably bound by their programming.

"I see. I'm sorry to hear about your father." Of course, it was always possible the ship might have rescued him from a different timeline, but it wouldn't be the same.

Beastboy snorted and laughed leaning into the petting automatically, "Dude, clearly we have not been hanging out. Me? Super Genius? I wish." His tail flicked amusingly, "Still looks like your Dad knew what he was doing."

"Where I'm from, defeating them means you kill them," Hit Girl said flatly. "There are humans that are supposed to take down criminals without killing them, those are cops. My dad used to be one too. The problem is humans are bought and sold pretty easily these days, and when my dad refused to be, he was wrongfully imprisoned. My mom took her life in grief, and dad learned a lesson: to take down criminals, you can't BE on the side where killing is the last resort. They don't play by the rules, and they'll do whatever they can to take you out. So you have to be a vigilante, be willing to do the things a normal hero wouldn't do."

Not she felt she needed to defend herself, or that she would stop killing an enemy. If anything, the Ohm were proof that restraint meant death. The idea that you could take out an enemy without killing them was still something she looked at as fiction and going along with heroes with super powers. When she was strong enough to b an overlord, then she would feel safe enough to NOT kill her enemy.

"He went out doing what he had to," she said. "And one of those things was making sure I was safe."

"Well, I mean, that was at least an option, to learn science and languages. My dad used to b a cop, so he had to teach me what he knew about weapons and hand to hand. Sure, there was some geeks stuff thrown in there for good measure, but he wanted to teach me what he could to keep me alive."

"What the..." Who was this guy, and why was he talking about a circus? She hadn't even bothered to consider that was precisely what it looked like, though she had hoped the music might be a giveaway that she was doing something far more involved than just a balancing act.

"Training!" She said, shifting her weight a little. "I'm actually not as good as I should be at this stuff. That's why I'm doing this now!"

Steady, steady.

"Your world was pretty bad huh?" He asked opting to climb up onto her shoulder not making balance any easier. "I mean you know...dangerous."

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