InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "plus ultra!!"

Rorschach (_rorschach) wrote in utr_logs,
@ 2008-07-26 02:02:00

Entry tags:

rei hino, rorschach

Who: Rorschach and OPEN
When: Tonight.
Where: New York.
What: Patrolling the streets. Probably stopping some crime. Potentially with a partner, if somebody shows up.
Warnings: I want to say none, but…it’s Rorschach. He’s probably going to break some people. So definitely violence and possibly gore.

Rorschach had spent most of the day on the internet, researching the history of this place. He needed to know the kind of playing field he’d landed in. He’d greeted a few people while doing so, but had then decided to commit himself fully to the research and ignored any new responses. After a few hours, he’d learned most of the big things. Cold War, drastically different outcome to Vietnam, and the Nixon bullshit he’d already discovered…

Then the time came, and he shut down his computer and slipped on his mask and hat. He was a fairly wealthy guy here, which surprised and disturbed him a little. What use did he have for all that money? His life was crimefighting. He supposed he could develop gadgets, as Dreiberg had, but that just wasn’t really his style. He was much more of a street level, “talk or I’ll break your fingers” guy.

Of course, there were no open cases tonight. Tonight was just a typical patrol of the streets. He hoped he’d find something, truthfully. He had way too much on his mind, things that his simplistic worldview was having a hard time dealing with, and he just wanted to take his mind off of it and focus on work. Work, in this case, being a stroll through the shadowy areas of the city, his fedora pulled low and his head down, to keep people from seeing the shifting inkblots of his mask. Other than that, he looked fairly normal. A faded tan trench coat buttoned up, gloved hands stuffed in his pockets, brown work pants, and tough work boots gave off a distinctly noir vibe. If Rorschach realized this, he didn't seem to care.

It was a measure of how out of it Rorschach was that if someone were to run into him, he probably wouldn’t brush them off. At least not until he heard screaming or saw a crime that needed to be dealt with.

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	flame_sniper 2008-07-27 08:50 pm UTC (link)
	Rei hated idiocy, which was ironic, considering how many of her friends were somewhat bubbly and sappy. She moved into a crouch,cocking her head to the side, straining her hearing as hard as she could for conversation, indicators of what the duo was going to do. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_rorschach
2008-07-27 11:51 pm UTC (link)

He saw her tense up and held up his hand. "For now, just drunks." He didn't want to cause a scene when all they were doing was being typical drunks. Would it be a great thing if they started fighting each other? No, but it would be a normal thing, and not really something either of them should get involved with.

Now, if they stepped over the line...well, Rorschach did have his grappling gun...

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	flame_sniper 2008-07-27 11:55 pm UTC (link)
	She nodded. If only humans were more like youma! She could sense those, and knew that they were there to cause harm to others, it's what they did. People just... were. They were capricious and unpredictable, to the extent that she almost wished there were youma about. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_rorschach
2008-07-28 12:47 am UTC (link)

Rorschach had never dealt with anything other than humans. Not that his outlook would have changed one bit if he had. Humans, superhumans, it didn't really matter to him. Evil was evil, and it had to be punished.

Not that he was stupid. You don't fight superhumans the way you fight regular humans, it was just that simple. After that thing with Veidt, he was beginning to wonder if he should be coming up with methods to neutralize his allies as well as his enemies, in case any of the former ever became the latter. Veidt proved to him that even the good guys could fall, and that he couldn't trust anyone.

His attention was called to the drunks once again when he noticed that they were approaching a waitress, coming down the alley after leaving the bar, most probably where she worked. Maybe he'd been wrong about these two, maybe they were evil. His suspicions were confirmed when one made a sloppy lunge for her. "Hey lady, y'got any change," he sneered. He wasn't even trying to be subtle.

Rei might not have even seen his arm move. One second he was standing in the shadows, the next he was standing there with his grappling gun pointed and, in fact, fired. A fraction of a second later she would hear the scream rip from the drunk that had lunged for the girl.

Then he pressed the button and the grappling gun yanked the man up. Now she could see that the hook had literally taken out the man's kneecap, and what little bone was left there was what the hook was attached to. He pushed the button again to stop the retracting as the man got close, leaving him suspended upside down. Rorschach ducked his head and hunched his back, so that he could be eye level with the poor upside down man. "Not even subtle. Shameful. Sloppy drunk."

"M-m-my knee!" Those were the only words anyone could make out. Down below, the girl had run off, while the other drunk stared in open-mouthed horror at what was happening to his buddy.

"Want it back?" The inkblots shifted and Rorschach continued, "Go get it." And with the push of another button, the hook retracted the rest of the way, ripping its way out of the man's leg. The man barely even had time to yelp before he landed on his head on the alley floor, the sickening sound of bone snapping accompanying a yelp from the drunkard's buddy.

Then he turned his head to look at Rei, as if to say 'that one's yours'.

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flame_sniper
2008-07-28 01:00 am UTC (link)

Rei blinked, watching the gory display of violence. Her mouth hung open for a moment before she realized she'd have to save the other assailant as well as the girl. She glared at Rorschach for a moment before jumping off of the building, landing in a blur of red motion. She backflipped fast and hard toward the other guy, hitting him squarely in the jaw and knocking him out. To the woman, she nodded, telling her to run home.

Then she moved to jump back up onto the roof where Rorschach was. "Killing is uncalled for." She reared back into a defensive stance. "I thought you defended people."

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_rorschach
2008-07-28 01:08 am UTC (link)

Rorschach simply shrugged. "Evil must be punished." It was, to him, that simple. If you were too soft, criminals never learned. They just thought that the worst that could happen was you beat them up. Yeah, it would deter the wimpier criminals, but the diehards, or even the slightly nervy, wouldn't care too much about that. To really make a dent, you had to do something more final.

That meant killing. Besides, they were evil. It wasn't like killing a person. It was eliminating evil. That's how he saw it, at least. Why cry over people that set out to harm others? It seemed pointless and stupid to Rorschach. "Girl is safe," he added, in response to her last statement. The girl was safe, the evil was punished, it was a good night so far.

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	flame_sniper 2008-07-28 01:12 am UTC (link)
	Rei narrowed her eyes. "And killing is evil. You've got that blood on your hands now." She pointed down at the figure in the alley. "She's safe from them, maybe, but not from you. What do you think she's done, hmm?" She felt stupid for not realizing the danger he was from the get-go. Even her abilities let her down sometimes. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_rorschach
2008-07-28 01:20 am UTC (link)

The inkblots changed. "Killing innocents is evil." They shifted again. "Drunkard was evil. Evil must be punished." He gestured down the alley, towards where the girl had run off. "The girl is innocent. In no danger from me."

The inkblots shifted again. "Calm down or leave. Your choice." His voice was still just as monotonous as ever. "Will not attack unless attacked first," he added, in case she tried to use his statement against him. "Don't like fighting other capes, but will defend myself if misunderstanding causes attack."

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	flame_sniper 2008-07-28 01:25 am UTC (link)
	"Killing anyone is evil!" Rei's voice tried to be authoritative, but she was young and it still cracked. "I'm leaving, but if I see you kill again, I will attack you as well. Be forewarned." She jumped back down to the ground to check on the criminal, making sure he was conscious. Once he'd come to, she let her hands glow bright, igniting them a bit. "Run!" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

_rorschach
2008-07-28 01:34 am UTC (link)

The inkblots shifted once again. He watched her handle the other criminal, and watched him take off like a bat out of hell. He didn't do a damn thing to the guy.

Afterwards, he used the grappling gun to sort of rappel down the side of the building, then retracted it. "Your way," he told her, gesturing at her. "My way." He gestured at himself.

Then he did something that people from his own world probably wouldn't have expected. He crossed his arms, and after a moment, the inkblots changed again. "...Prove your way is better." He sighed deeply, the first sign of emotion from him this entire time. "Been wrong before. Maybe..." He didn't really know how to finish that sentence. "Prove it," he said again.

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flame_sniper
2008-07-28 01:44 am UTC (link)

Rei blinked hard, then shook her head. "I can't prove it. I don't think you're wrong with certain people. People that do things in wars, or kill lots of people. But some people are good and just make mistakes. And maybe even if they make too many. I don't really have a way. In my world, I had to fight youma - sort of monsters. I defended people from them and let the police handle the humans."

She looked almost sad, wondering how someone like him could become so bitter and cruel. "I know I've made mistakes. I've changed. In my past life, I failed to defend the Earth and everyone died. I stopped that from happening in this one. Change can happen, does happen all the time."

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_rorschach
2008-07-28 01:58 am UTC (link)

Rorschach considered what she was saying. Monsters? The only monsters he'd ever dealt with were the human kind. "Used to be like you. Beat but never kill." He seemed just as monotonous as ever, but the inkblots shifted, and with them, something in his manner just became visibly darker. "Worked a case once. Little girl. Kidnapped. Finally found lead." The inkblots shifted again. "...Too late. Little girl chopped up, fed to German Shepherds. Possibly raped beforehand, not sure. Found bones. Panties mostly burnt in furnace."

He illustrated his motions now with two swift chopping motions. "Split dogs heads open. Waited for owner. Tied him to a pipe and burned house down. Watched on sidewalk." He went on, still in the same monotone. "Saw truth then. Evil is evil, must be punished. No compromise, not even in the face of armaggeddon."

Now he did look away, turning his whole body, his arms slipping around himself as if he was suddenly cold. "Veidt. Cape. Staged alien invasion, killed everyone in New York. Wanted to bring the world together. Everyone else agreed to keep silent. Everyone." Suddenly there was the slightest hint of anger in his tone. "Worked with Veidt. Smartest man in the world. Refused to compromise, even then. Doctor Manhattan killed me."

And there was the crux of the issue. Had he been wrong? Would it have been better to compromise? According to the comic book he'd found...yes. And that thought shook him to his very core. "Prove it." Now there was no monotone. Now there was bitterness. A great sea of it. "Prove it," he said again, quieter.

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flame_sniper
2008-07-28 02:12 am UTC (link)

Rei blinked, eyes tearing up at the story of the little girl. "I would've ... probably done the same thing," she said softly. "Evil like that - yes. You have to kill that. That's evil. Those men? That was just stupidity."

She let her transformation fall, looking like the headstrong, stubborn, scared teenager she was. "You can't prove everything. Some things require faith. We can't test to see how it would work one way or the other. But my way means I have faith that people are good, that people can change. Your way means that you have faith that everyone is evil at the core and will fall. If everyone is evil, why bother living at all?" She'd stopped being Mars because she wanted him to see her as a person, not as a "cape", and because since she'd done no wrong, she trusted his scarily rigid moral code that he wouldn't hurt her.

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_rorschach
2008-07-28 02:23 am UTC (link)

Rorschach never really doubted that he'd done the right thing concerning the little girl. No matter what else he was doubting, that one he felt pretty certain about. It was everything else that was being called into question. Not for the first time, not really. Back on the Owl Ship, after Dreiberg broke him out of prison...he'd recognized that he was a hard guy to be friends with. Was admitting that the first step to his current doubts?

Rather abruptly, all of the anger, the pain, the confusion and rage decided it wanted out now, and the next thing he knew he was fairly sure one of his knuckles was broken and his fist was pressed against the brick wall of the alley. "...Different world." His voice was low, but it was back to the monotone. "...Maybe different rules."

He pulled his fist away from the wall - definitely a broken knuckle, the pain from the motion guaranteed that - and stuffed his hand back into his jacket pocket. Things were just too confusing. He'd thought Veidt was proof that deep down, everyone really was evil...but then he'd read that comic book in this world, and seen that the world Veidt created after the New York disaster really was better. Nothing made sense for him anymore, and right about there is when it actually hit him: He was a relic from an era long gone, and if he wanted to survive, he'd have to adapt.

"...Done for the night." He turned abruptly and headed for the entrance of the alley. "...Will try it your way." The inkblots were a mass of constantly shifting blackness on his face now, and though the stark black and white would never mix, the constant motion almost made them look, for a second at least, a little gray.

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