InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I only celebrate achievement."

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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_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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