Wild ARMs: Off on a Tangent
By: Chibi-chan
Part 17: “The Great Pretender”
*
“So, why’d you call me here, Lucadia? You said it wasn’t just a social call…” Cecil asked the massive sea-dragon Guardian.
I had information for you, the Guardian responded, but alas, it seems you already knew what I had to say. However, I have something else to say that may be of interest. Perhaps you know of it already…
“Just tell me what it is, for Stoldark’s sake!” the prince snapped, irritated by Lucadia’s ramblings.
Fine,
fine. You already know that there are
three higher powers above Stoldark, Moa Gault, Gurdijeff, and Fengalon, right?
“Well, duh. It was drilled into all the students of Sister Mary Barracuda. Raftina, Guardian of Love; Justine, Guardian of Courage; and Zephyr, Guardian of Hope. The Guardian Lords, I believe they were collectively called,” he said, impatiently waiting for the Guardian to get to the damn point.
Well, you might want to check out their old haunt, past the Wandering Isle and the lake after that, south of the place you humans call ‘Court Seim’. They may be able to help you… if they’re all right. None of us have heard from them in ages.
“Is that it?” Cecil asked flatly.
Well, there’s a couple of other places of interest… Northwest of… Milama, do you call it? On an island, there’s an old research facility of the Metal Demons. And somewhere else… Oh, I don’t remember, there was a fortress. It’s surrounded by mountains, so unless you can fly, it’s not important anyway, Lucadia said, trying to mirror a bit of Cecil’s attitude in the last sentence.
“Nicholi might be able to tell us more about those last ones. Thank you, Lucadia,” Elmina said before Cecil could be snotty again.
You’re welcome, dear. Please try to keep the Innocent One in line for us all when you leave. An attitude like his’ll get him in trouble someday…
“He-LLO! I’m still right here, you know! Could you wait ‘til I’m out of the room to talk about me?!” the prince noisily complained.
“No,” was the basic gist of the replies everyone gave him.
*
Some time later, because “some time sooner” doesn’t sound right…
“One damned identity crisis on top of another…” James muttered to himself. “First, this thing about him, and now Lucied… I don’t know what to think any more…”
“Well, first, I’d think talking to myself wasn’t very healthy,” the voice of a certain prince drawled with purpose behind him. “And second, I’d just break down and admit a few things you’re too stubborn to say.”
James didn’t look at Cecil. “Admit what? What do I have to admit to anyone?” he said resolutely.
“Oh, that you were played like a violin by Lucied, and probably still are being played,” the blond boy said, and added with a little mischievousness, “And that you ‘like’ me.”
James immediately turned to face Cecil and stammered magnificently. “W-w-w-WHAT?! What d-do you m-mean, ‘I like you’?! I-I-I only l-like girls…!”
“Says the man who only a week or so ago I caught ogling me,” Cecil replied remorselessly.
“I W-WAS NOT OGLING YOU! I… I… I had the shirt…” the dark-haired boy explained, retreating a bit as he talked.
“Mmm-hmm, so you did. It may take me a little time to recognize it at times, but I do know that kind of look when I see it,” Cecil told him coolly. “So, just admit it, that you’re interested in me. I’ll just pester you until you do; I can assure you that.”
The bounty hunter turned away. “I… uh… You… You’re quite m-mistaken. I wouldn’t even think…! Not if you were the last living being on the planet…! You just want to think someone like me would even consider…!” James said, trying to sound insulted and indignant. Meanwhile, what he was thinking was along the lines of what Laine says when she’s well and truly pissed off, and it was directed mainly at himself, which was also in the grand tradition of Laine’s little hissy fits (read: events that could make even Sister Mary Barracuda go bald or at least terribly flustered).
Cecil, scowling, stomped over to the stubborn, stubborn young man, grabbed the young man’s shoulder and forced him to look at him. “Pff, don’t flatter yourself, Jamie. It just annoys the hell out of me when someone’s not being honest. And I may be a lot of things, buddy, but at least I’m true to myself.” James just stood there and said nothing. “Fine, let’s see you deny it after this.” He then surprised both James and himself, doing something he later thought was amazingly and thoroughly stupid.
He grabbed hold of the front of James’s shirt with one hand and reached around to the back of the startled boy’s head with the other hand to and held onto a good handful of hair to ensure the boy wouldn’t get away. Cecil then tilted his own head up and then, having to pull the other’s head a little closer first, firmly pressed his lips to James’s.
The bounty hunter’s next thought were as such: He’s kissing me?! Holy fuck, he’s kissing me!! He’s… kissing me… This is… I don’t know… Yes, I do. It’s… Oh, damn…
However, Cecil’s thought were more like this: … what the hell am I doing? I can’t really think this will help! All right, so I did a moment before, but now it just seems kinda like a dumb thing to do!
Cecil let go of James and pulled away. They both stared at each other for a bit. James looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, whereas Cecil looked like he felt like the biggest fool in the entire known and unknown universe.
Determined to save face, the scowl returned to Cecil’s face. “Can you still deny it now?” he asked positively frigidly.
James said nothing. Wide-eyed and most certainly stunned to say the least, he quickly opened the nearest door, ran into the room behind it, and shut the door behind him.
“Cecil Lynn Adlehyde, you’re a damned fool…” the prince told himself. He turned to go somewhere else before he heard yelling from the room the frightened bounty hunter ran into. The door opened and he saw James pushed out with more force than was necessary. He was able to see from where he was standing Laine in her underwear just past the other side of the doorway.
“… and if you ever even THINK of barging in on me when I’m changing again, I’ll…!” the angry young woman yelled. Noticing Cecil was looking at her, she turned her rage on him. “And what the HELL are you staring at?! Take your little would-be boyfriend and GO!!” She stepped back and slammed the door. The sound of her locking the door could be heard faintly.
“See? She hasn’t even been around us for a while and she can tell,” Cecil smarted off.
James, however, took no notice. “Red panties…” he murmured to himself stupidly.
Correction:
we’re both damned fools, Cecil thought. …hmm? Red
panties? Dammit, how’d I miss that…?
*
Time passed. It’s really all that time does, pass. It passes quickly and it passes slowly. Never did time pass so slowly than on the remainder of the trip back to Court Seim. James and Cecil avoided each other as much as they could. Elmina was unusually quiet, perhaps because of the way Harken escaped in Lucadia’s shrine. Laine was her typical quiet and antisocial self, aside from another incident where James yet again managed to push the wrong buttons with her. Lina left after reaching Rosetta, so that made one less distraction. Zed tried to brighten things up, but either got hurt in the process or was completely ignored altogether.
When James finally made his way home, his father was still trying to get Allison out of his house and back to her own home back in Adlehyde. Not sure his father would be listening, the boy said without enthusiasm, “Hi, dad, I’m back. Found out momma’s still alive and that Lucied’s been manipulating me, and I’ve also been seriously questioning my sexuality and stupid Cecil’s been no Guard’-damned help at all. All that adds up to my life sucking in general. I’ll be going to my room now,” before he passed them by to get to the staircase.
Both ARMs meisters stopped their discussion, looked blankly at the boy at the bottom of the stairs, and blinked a couple of times. “What?” Nicholi asked.
“He said Ceilidh’s alive, her ‘illustrious companion’ has been manipulating him, he’s been questioning himself, and that he’s had a bad undisclosed period of time,” Allison rephrased cheerfully.
The corner of the man’s eye twitched ever so slightly. “It was a rhetorical question, Allison,” he snapped back, really wishing she had left already.
*
Elmina was wandering aimlessly through town. A cloaked woman had followed her ever since she had left the tavern. Distracted though she was, this did not go unnoticed to the warrior woman. Finally, she managed to lead the woman into an alley behind the item store and cornered her there. “All right, lady, you’ve been following me for an hour now. Who are you and what do you want with me?” she asked coldly.
“You already know my name, if not my face,” the cloaked woman said calmly. “You know Nicholi and his son, correct?”
“Yeah, what of it?” Elmina asked. She wasn’t liking the line of questioning already, and it had only just begun.
“Is his son… James… all right? I have been told he has suffered much emotional distress by an… acquaintance,” the strange woman asked hesitatingly, worry creeping into her voice.
“I suppose so. Why? Why do you want to know? What concern is his welfare to you?” Elmina asked, although the beginnings of an idea of who this woman was were forming in the back of her mind.
“Any worried mother wants to know if her child is doing well…” the cloaked woman said before suddenly disappearing into the night.
“Any worried mother would ask her child herself, if she were any good,” Elmina said, annoyed. “Coward.”
*
“That
old ocarina? Will that really work?”
“Sure
will! Your ‘grandfather’ might even
have made it with you in mind.”
“*sigh*
Great, I’ll have to leave them again to retrieve the stupid thing…”
“Oh? Let me guess: your plan is to send them to
that old research facility first while you go get the ocarina, then catch up
with them at the Wandering Isle?”
*
Traces of the conversation downstairs could be heard a little from Nicholi’s position next to the door to his son’s room. His son refused to come out of his room, but Nicholi was determined to talk to him, even if it couldn’t be face-to-face.
“James, I know you’ve been through a lot recently, but holing yourself up in your room’s not going to help you or anyone else,” the ARMs meister said. There was no response, so he continued. “I know I can’t force you to come out-“
“Good, because Cecil tried that already and it didn’t work,” James said bitterly. “Stupid Cecil. Stupid, stupid Cecil.”
Nicholi took a moment to ponder if he should ask about that or not. Deciding against it, he spoke again, restating his last statement, “I know I can’t make you leave your room, but… I honestly don’t know what to say about your mother, and I don’t think saying ‘I told you so’ about Lucied would help now, but I know… I should say that… that… whatever answer you find to your… ah… question, I… I’m still your father, and I’ll still love you, son.”
The door opened a little bit. James peeked out the door and said with a little smile, “Anyone ever tell you that you sound like an After-School Special when you say things like that?”
“Only you, son, only you.”
*
The next morning…
“WHAT?! Again?!” Cecil cried. “You can’t…!”
Laine calmly shouldered her duffel bag. “And I suppose you have a better way to cross a lake that’s so closed off from the rest of the world,” she said, oddly determined. “Besides, I’ll be back soon enough. Investigate that lab first, and by the time you get back, I’ll have it and be back.”
“But-“ the prince began.
Elmna cut him off. “Cecil, let her go. She knows where she’s going and what she needs to get from there.” She eyed a half-asleep James coming down the stairs. “And good ol’ James’ll go with her, right?”
“Huh? Me? Go where?” the bounty hunter mumbled.
“Go with Laine to fetch something or other, that’s all,” Elmina told him brightly. “A gentleman like you wouldn’t let a lady who seems to attract as much trouble as her go out there alone, would you?”
“Huh? No, no, of course not…” the boy replied, still not exactly aware of what he was agreeing to do (or of much else, for that matter).
Laine was
quite annoyed. “Jamie? A gentleman? And I don’t need any help…”
Especially the help of someone who up until a short time ago wanted
to kill me…
“Well, you’re getting it anyway,” Elmina said. In an ambiguous tone Cecil would be proud of, she added, “We don’t want you running away again, you know.”
Laine studied the “morning zombie” that was James intently. Hmm… I think I could take him if I absolutely had too…I still don’t trust him, but I don’t think they’ll let me out of this house if I don’t take him with me… she thought. She sighed. “Fine, I‘ll take him with me. Make sure he’s ready in twenty minutes; that should be enough time for me to get a few things I’ll need for the trip before I set off. I’ll meet him by the south entrance of the town.” She then left quickly before anyone could say another word.
Cecil tilted his head slightly to one side and asked, “What happened to the shy, sweet girl she used to be, ‘Mina?”
Elmina shrugged. “Maybe Lina blew her up and the doctors couldn’t put her back together right?”
“Huh? Wha? She a shy, sweet girl? In what universe?” the half-asleep James mumbled.
*
End Chapter 17
Chibi’s notes:
Short chapter, but it’s a set-up for a split-chapter (think chapter 5), so it’s OK.
Rudy: For who? Sure as hell ain’t OK for that poor Jamie guy.
Well, it’s OK for the girls over that the WA HQ Message Board. They liked what they saw when I showed them part of the chapter. ^^;;
Rudy: So? Screw ‘em and at least find my other-universe me someone who is at least partly sane!
Uh… Sane? Eheh… I can say she takes an interest in someone, but… *hides*
Rudy: I fear for Laine now. Zephyr protect you, alternate me. -_-;;