Magic Isn't Phakking Real [Phakk]

    By all accounts Lowbig Park was a failure. A hack job splash of greenery encircled by overgrown hedges, taunting the surrounding art nouveau buildings with a very gothic, very cursed aura. Nobody went there, but the space was at times rented by conventions and LARPers and lunatics of that sort. Lunatics like K4.

    The mercenary had rented the place for the day, and spent much of that morning setting up the atmosphere of a desolate battleground. Collapsing as Lowbig already was, craters, uprooted trees and small fires further carried the message. As for the 'actors', useless scrap welded to seem like battle robots, they lay scattered in a pattern that could be read and analysed as if an actual battle had taken place. Not counting stray bolts and shards and bits of glass, a total of forty-one 'corpses' were to be found. This was entirely too much, but the pleasures of landscaping and storytelling were too great for K4 to stop! He just had to make the scene whole.

    And he managed, by the skin of his teeth.

    His audience of one had arrived. Phakk read bizarrely to his sensors, completely different to whatever creature or machine registered in his database, perhaps the most complete archive ever put into a meat-brain. Not that his mind was inclined in that sense, but why was she so oddly proportioned? No environment would pressure a species to develop such a prominent rib growths without it serving a second primary function. A lo reservoir of some sort? He wasn't here for them either.

    "Hello, hello." stepped the cyborg from behind a gnarled tree that looked as if it had been used for countless hangings throughout centuries. He had in his hand a phone like the one used to fish out Phakk, he conspicuously shutted it with a satisfying CLACK "Fancy a talk? These killer robots sent out to get us are already offline. Permanently."

    K4's fake robots were meant to have a spiky, legionary bend to them, calling them rustic would have put into question not only the machine's taste, but his knowledge of it. So his pride remained unscathed, but he was nevertheless befuddled by the reaction he got. Usually people mistook him for a robot or a saiyan in armor, this was... the first time he was called a cyborg.

    "Yes!" was his answer, as sudden as the question. And he was called cool! Nobody ever called him cool! Handsome, scary, dangerous, but never cool. His excitement died when Phakk asked for the 'storyline' to continue. Not because his immersion was broken, but because the fourth wall was acknowledged. As in, she knew this was a lie. Yet she wanted to talk, carry on the fantasy? It seemed to him... that she thought she was privy to a deceit that was not his. Something far more benign. Playful, even.

    He could work with that. And have a little fun along the way.

    "I'm meant to kill you." he placed a hand on his chest "But I'm having second thoughts, because your weird cloud ability appeals more to my curiosity than your bounty does to my greed. You're supposed to reveal how you do it, whether through biological processes or advanced technology. Because you're not on a bargaining position, you accept my terms, not knowing whether I'll actually spare you after you're done. Sounds good?"

    The storyline was to Phakk's liking. Again K4 was proven a purveyor of wholesome fun, whose true calling was far away from any battlefield and ring. Too bad he was part warmachine, and paid for these moments of happiness with acts of unabashed cruelty and greed. And he knew he'd have to be very cruel and greedy to Phakk if she kept refusing playing along with the narrative. 'Black mist' is what she called the phenomenon, stupidly admitting its existence while not giving detail. She looked suitably nervous, but perhaps too in character. It didn't suit right the adventurous atmosphere the cyborg wanted to create.

    "Calm down," his voice changed to a timbre synthesized to reduce stress levels in most humanoids "I have theories on how your black mist operates, but for reasons that are classified I must know how to reproduce it at a molecular level. Otherwise an evil far greater than the two of us will destroy Central City." That ought to do the trick. Still he found himself wanting an aspirin, just in case Phakk got a headache from sheer stress. He could blast her brain until its chemistry recombined in his favor, but that would be a bit... genuinely warped? It was the sort of trick to pull on an actual enemy. For all intents and purposes Phakk and him were just in a very genuine game of pretend.

    "So this is a bit of a dilemma. You can either play it safe and be selfish, or save the entire city in the long run by helping me, a minor villain with aspirations of turning good." he cleared his throat, returning his voice to its default settings "Mind if I take a DNA sample? I don't have your kind recorded in my database."

    There was a latent intensity in Phakk's panic-stricken reflection staring back at her, the cyborg's white visor seemed as final and absolute as the barrel of a gun. It was his fault for botching the pacing of the story, which was doubly tragic because he was genuinely fond of the creation he had made from destruction. Again, there were forty-one 'corpses' around. Phakk's would join them soon.

    K4 pulled out a gun.

    "Bang."

    The harmless red laser shone a dot between Phakk's eyes. Not only was she dead, her glasses were broken. Figuratively speaking, of course.

    "The dead don't talk, but they can tell you a lot." it was why the best writers and artists were noticed after passing. K4 holstered the gun back into his thigh "Say that before sawing off your head I decide to dissect you, what can I extrapolate about the shinjin from a single carcass?" he scratched his chin plate "Rare minerals, gas passageways, maybe something on your diet makes you blow out black mist? It must come from somewhere." Saiyans turn into oozaru, namekians regenerate, arcosians survive cold weather as exotherms; maybe the shinjin quirk was manifesting their ki as air? Impossible, some sort of energy would have had to corrupt the data. And air is air!

    Phakk would live. For now. Possibly forever. Earth preferred its criminals taken back alive, and K4 really couldn't bring himself to kill so... casually. He needed to be in danger, something he couldn't see this ditz pose. And if she had really destroyed a city, perhaps the fault was in the government. For such a soft and squishy people, fleshies really skimped on infrastructure.

    Phakk was checking out K4's robot thighs a bit too long for comfort. It was why the android had phrased his question like a serial killer. But wasn't that, in essence, the role of a mercenary? The difference is they were legitimized with pay. Which was... something to stress about later. Certainly people could kill without being killers.

    "Magic." the cyborg repeated with brutal cynicism. Immortal species were astronomically rare but not unheard of, now K4 really wanted — needed — a flake of skin or strand of hair or whatever piece small enough to go unnoticed. He thought immortal folk were groovy to the extreme, but unlike Phakk he had a little something called dignity. He wouldn't just gawk at her like an object! Nor were his robotic addons objects!

    "You do know I'm not actually going to hurt you, right?" he was unsure just how in-character her stuttering and shaking was "It'd be redundant since you're already dead. Well, whatever... Immortal, are you? Is it because you're inherently magical? Or are you born mortal and use magic to keep living forever?" A man and machine of science, K4 didn't believe in magic. He did believe, however, that at times what people believed to be magic was just technology they didn't perceive as such... Or just lies. Being very good at making both, perhaps the cyborg should look into this 'magic' business.

    "Do all shinjin make mist?" he kept looking for answers that wouldn't be gleaned from carving Phakk up, but was she really in a state to hold back any answers? Well, she did refuse to let him take a sample, but he could probably talk her into it. For some reason he was really popular with most of everyone. It wasn't like this when he was plain, normal Kalabas Strongbone!

    K4 was feeling... pranked. Not by Phakk, who he doubted had the guts to lie so daringly, but by the universe. An infinite number of potential outcomes, and he got a talk with a — he hesitated to brand her a moron, more like a child. Most people had claims to some ancient golden era, but the shinjin's comparisons to gravity and time made it sound like they were current! Perhaps her perception of time was affected by immortality? He was working on a theory that, like Earthen lobsters, shinjins grew to the point stillness. Whether through accumulated damage or an executioner, entropy would end even the deathless...

    He would have asked her for details, but Phakk looked plenty spooked already. Still, that annoying stutter of hers eased to the point that he could actually focus. Lobster humanoids? Really? What a stupid idea! All 'immortals' were tentacled blobs, void musicians or something as contradictory!

    "From a tree." he repeated, again. It sounded like the sort of story parents told their childspawn so as not to explain somatic proliferation. Also known as phakking. He hid his snort with a cough. A specie that actually incorporated such a deep vegetable element, like the saibamen, would reflect it in more superficial facets. Phakk just looked like a typical female humanoid, no offence. "That's cool..." Maybe she was just ignorant. Everyone was, even K4.

    For a moment he mistook Phakk's twirl for the set-up of an attack. He sighed, not because he didn't find it delightful, but to vent out the warmth of his sudden, totally uncalled for overclocking. Unlike other shinjin, it seemed, her ability to combine atoms was limited to making mist. A fault K4 shared (except he also generated radiation), until he could crack Programmable Matter. Stupid tuffle antivirus!

    Had the shinjin developed something like that? Was Phakk's foolishness why it 'malfunctioned'? It seemed the sort of tech one would only wield fully after proving they were responsible, intelligent and not the sort to be overtaken by maliciousness. She did attack a city, most definitely in a state different than this ditz before him. "A thing you don't know how it works, that you don't want to talk about... I'll respect that." he lied, of course he'd manipulate her! "Are there other shinjin around that I can talk to? It's good to find more than one good source, but the bounty didn't mention whether there were other folk with you. Or that you are immortal and magic. Is there anything else about you that's... unusual?" A bold strategy, let's see how it pans out.