Snowball fight, anyone? 8D

[lilquid.livejournal.com]

[James has been getting antsy and so, even though he's been warned that going into random rooms is dangerous, he's eager to take on any challenge today. Energetically, he flings open a random, seemingly normal door, and enters a room, temporarily blinded by a cold gust that suddenly kicks up snow.]

[Once the initial wind dies down, James finds himself in a pure white snowy field. It's nearly immaculate, fresh and untouched. There's an old log cabin off to the side and on its porch stands some kind of weaponry that James has never seen before. Very curious now, he rushes towards it, and starts to hear an interesting whirring sound...]

[... before he gets hit right in the stomach with a snowball, nearly losing his breath at the hard impact. He doesn't notice the TARGETS HIT: 0/3 counter above his head, either...]


((Welcome to the SNOWBALL FIGHT room! You must hit three people with snowballs in order to leave. :3 There are special snowball-shooting weapons stored in the log cabin if you can reach it... as for what kinds of weapons they are, I leave that up to you. :3))

Comments

[starofchaos]

"Ari"?

[He frowns, a dark look on his face.]

We've never met, correct. At any rate, the only Iraqi torturer I know that happens to be here is an enemy of ours. A man named Talib. Short, sly, completely depraved. I'd steer clear of him if you see him.

[Liquid has the scars to prove it. ...although how someone as short as this alternate would judge Talib's tinyness was curious.]

Why are you carrying that thing?

[bb11]

...'Talib', huh? Could you tell me more about him? Appearance, MO, known associates...

[He'd kicked -Well, pistolwhipped, technically speaking - the man into a heated pool, after all.]

[He waves the case in Liquid's direction]

This is my computer. The room was kind enough to supply a case for it.

[It's a state of the art 90s laptop, which means it's pretty darn clunky by later day standards. It's still his baby, though]

[starofchaos]

He's practically the only middle eastern person in the Nexus, so it's not really hard to find him. Dark eyes, black hair, extremely short. He's well-trained but he's still just an ordinary soldier. He tends to focus on us, however. He's a sociopath. I don't know anything about his associates. I'd be surprised if he had any.

[Talib actually has a surprising amount of them, not that Liquid knows that. He frowns at the words.]

Laptop? Since when do any of us know how to use a computer?

[Liquid can send email, but that's about his limits. Even that is extremely prone to error on his part.]

[bb11]

[They didn't know how to use computers. James felt like banging his head against the wall, except that there was no wall within reaching distance. All his alternates couldn't be like Stupidbrother, right?]

Come on, computers are the wave of the future, Brother. [Smile, smile]

There're not that difficult, and they're getting easier to use all the time! Um, what year are you from?

[Oh, but he missed his Stupid. So, so much.]

[And 'Talib' had been a Iraqi torturer, and was obsessed with his alternates, which meant - ]

[Molten. Rage. Raising.]

So why does this 'Talib' have such an obsession with - us?

[starofchaos]

It was 2005. And wave of the future they may be, but I don't tend to use things like that.

[He folds his arms over his chest and looks away.]

You're... a little young, I'm guessing. The middle east? Or beforehand?

At any rate, Talib was the torturer assigned to interrogating us in the early nineties. He spent four years trying to break us and failed. As he will always fail. However, he is determined to succeed. Watch your back and don't let your guard down. Don't let anyone you care about relax either. He'll target them if he can't get you.

[bb11]

...I never got sent there.

[Or anyplace else. Nobody ever officially gave him any codename with the fabled 'snake' in it, either.]

[Too short, too small, too weak physically, and too good at adding two and two together. Zero gave up on him and handed him over to Dr Clark when he was 13 going on 14. And that was how he met David, that bloody damn Stupidbrother of his.]

David was the one that went MIA in Iraq.

[starofchaos]

[Silence.]

[Liquid doesn't look at him. His hands twitch slightly with the effort not to let them curl into fists. He simply battles with himself for a moment, averting his eyes, before he speaks.]

...and to think, once I would have proclaimed that justice.

[bb11]

...Oh?

[His smile does not reach his eyes.]

[starofchaos]

Since you call him "David", I'm going to assume you're one of the rare few that did not grow up hating him. My tolerance of Brother has grown over my time here, but the fact remains that prior to coming here... I would have considered it divine justice to hear that he underwent that.

[A pause. No, that's a lie. While he had let Ocelot torture Snake with pleasure, the idea of Snake going through the same four years... that was intolerable.]

...no one deserves that.

[Even failures like him and monsters like Brother. Even they did not deserve that.]

[bb11]

...I did grow up hating him. [Though the parameters were probably all different from most of the other Liquids.]

[And James still called David 'Stupid', while David called James 'The Freak'. James has tried hard not to show him that the words actually hurt, sometimes, even now.]

- Why did you?

[His eyes and smile are as empty as the cold north wind.]

[starofchaos]

Why did I what?

[He folds his arms over his chest, not seeming to care about the cold smile. Liquid Snake does not get intimidated easily, especially not by a scrawny, skinny, short alternate.]

[bb11]

Hate him. [Empty, empty, empty.]

Why?

[He gestures to his alternate, making sketching gestures.]

You are everything they ever wanted you to be. Correct?

[starofchaos]

...you're insane.

[He shakes his head slowly.]

Brother is the perfect one, the one that they chose to have the "right" genes. I'm nothing more than what was left over! The remnants of what was used to make him.

[bb11]

[He huffs, slowly, eyes angry now.]

The 'right genes'? Don't be ridiculous.

[He'd kept his eyes and ears open all during everything that had led to the 'downsizing', and he was almost sure that if either of them were supposed to have the 'special' genes, it probably was he himself, not David. The one with the supposedly special supersoldier genetics was the weak little shrimpy - Ha, ha, so bloody funny, eh?]

[But no, this alternate of his was from a different world entirely. How would he know what had actually happened there?]

Never mind 'them', then.

You are everything that I ever wanted to be, once upon a time before I knew better.

[And even now. Even now, he dreams. If he was bigger, stronger, faster - More like David more like Father]

[Make everybody heed his words stop laughing at me and pay attention for once in your bloody lives -]

[He could have gone in with his Team to get Stupid back]

[starofchaos]

Ridiculous? [A cold laugh.] The truth is as it is. Les Enfante Terribles resulted in two children, one with superior genes, one with inferior. Brother is the superior. But it doesn't matter.

[His voice softens.]

You can't do anything about your height... but you could train. Become stronger. I'll even help you if you want.

[He wouldn't be the first peron Liquid has assisted on that front. It's good training.]

[bb11]

[He sighs]

Les Enfante Terrible resulted in three children that managed to make it to adulthood, and they were all flawed in various and sundry ways.

[And yes, he's met a version of 'George' here in the Nexus, in person.]

And, uh, thanks for the kind offer, but...Let me think about it, please?

[It's not that he doesn't train - He does, every day like clockwork. There are - things he has to consider, though]

And me - Liquid. If I ever heard my Brother say that he was genetically inferior to anybody or anything, I'd probably hit him hard enough to break my hand. Because I would be obligated, as his elder brother, to beat the stupid out of him. So there.

[starofchaos]

Brother, trust me. Les Enfante Terrible's first two products were the twins. Brother gained the dominant genes, I gained the recessive. Therefore, I am the inferior twin. The third... I don't know much about him and nor do I care.

Master Miller says... that brother is far stronger than I am, but in different ways. That the two of us are more evenly matched than we think. At any rate, it's irrelevant. Nothing more than a footnote of annoyance.

[Albeit one that still pricks and strikes at him, that tears at him when he let himself think on it for too long. Luckily Ocelot would not let him think on it for long.]

Think about it all you want. We have all the time in the world here.

[Everything has stopped, after all...]

[bb11]

Those words do not mean what you think they mean.

[Shrimpy groans]

You don't have to take my words for it - Go ask a geneticist. This place has those people too, right?

And anyway, you're not inferior, because I say so. Case closed.

[Illogic can only be countered by illogic, after all.]

Say, about that 'Talib'? Do you think he has alternates, too?

[He really wanted to go kill 'Ari' now, no matter how illogical it was...]

[But no. That would be - irresponsible. If he was really 'Talib', he was obviously dangerous, and had to be handled with care.]

[starofchaos]

... [He bites back a laugh at those words.]

You're so very bossy. You don't even know us.

[Liquid shakes his head.]

There's only the one in the Nexus. [A pause.] Ah - Ocelot did say that Talib has one ally. My apologies, I forgot.

[bb11]

I'm a elder brother - being bossy comes with the territory.

[He grins]

And I don't know you and your Brother, but I do know me and mine.

And since I'm clearly not inferior to David, so you aren't to yours, either.

Q.E.D.

[And then, about Talib]

- So he does have an ally. Damn. Do you know what this ally's like?

[starofchaos]

Heh. I suppose I can accept that.

[Then comes the question and he actually falters.]

...

[He frowns.]

It's David. Or... a version of him. I don't know the details.

[bb11]

...David!?

[James groans. What?]

...For heaven's sake, why?

[Why the hell would any version of his Brother ally himself with somebody who was that damn fucked up, if he was to believe what his alternate had just told him?]

Uh. Is he insane? ...How old is he? Is there any way to tell him apart from the others?

[starofchaos]

I've never met him, but if I remember correctly he's around my age. I don't know much beyond that. If you wish to find him, I advise you ask either Talib himself or Ocelot - the young one. You likely won't know him yet and even if you do, the one you want is the young cocky one with the spurs and the beret.

[Folding his arms, he shifts his weight back onto his heel.]

[bb11]

...Ooookay? [Well, he wasn't planning on contacting 'Talib' himself without a great deal of prior planning, but]

Thank you very much for your help, Liquid. [Smilllleee...]

[And that is when he steps right into the tripwires.]

Drat! [Short shrimpy in snow. He's almost buried in there.]

[starofchaos]

[Liquid bursts out laughing.]

Clever, brother. [He chuckles and smiles back.] You're welcome. [Casually, he offers him a hand]