Work Text:
You aren't easy, great
I think I like that, stay
No, let me chase you
My little breakthrough
Something's come over me
This time (inside, inside, inside)
Feelings that wrongfully
Feel so right
One of these days, Jabber will learn to stop accepting jobs from the weird guy who’s going gray in his twenties. That on its own is a sign that something isn’t right with him, and that should have been the only sign Jabber needed.
Unfortunately, today is not that day, because the money he promised this time is an exorbitant amount, and the second smart thing to do is wonder where the hell he’s getting it. Jabber decides not to do that either as he sneaks into a building that didn’t much look like it needed sneaking into. The entire thing was dilapidated, the walls practically crumbling with every step Jabber takes. He should be more worried about this, but honestly, the threat was kind of exciting, and Jabber currently isn’t in the business of making smart decisions at the moment.
All he has to do this time around is find some sort of artifact that he wasn’t given a description of because he ‘will know it when you see it’. He’s not really sure what these people are using these things for (he doesn’t care), nor does he know why they keep asking him to carry out these missions. Aren’t they supposed to be a rather sizeable group? He can’t say he’s around them often, but the times in which he did see more than the blue-haired woman and the young old man, he saw some people that looked rather intimidating in their own right.
A large man with a huge prosthetic arm and a somewhat unnerving smile, a woman with long, long blond hair and eyes that cut like daggers, and…well…okay maybe not all of them looked all that formidable. There was a short guy so fidgety that he looked like he would shake himself apart in the next three seconds. Jabber had wondered, briefly, just what brought him in with a group of people like the Raiders, but hey. Again, he’s not really in the business of asking questions when the questions could lose him access to large sums of money. Money he would then use to buy more ingredients for venoms and other supplies to bring back to his base of operations, obviously.
The building they sent him to this time wasn’t a very tall one, with walls falling apart at the seams and a seeming complete lack of life, human or otherwise. He’d scouted the entire outside area first, searching for any signs that someone had been by recently, and found quite a few footsteps leading into the building, but not heading out, and the entire place so quiet that there was no way anyone was still there. Not alive, at least, and this bothered Jabber much less than it should have. Sure, he’s seen quite a few dead bodies at this point in life, but he’s partially sure that isn’t something someone should be used to. Oh well.
Jabber makes his way through the building with ease, and it’s around the midway mark of his scouring that he finds something. Well, someone.
Up against the wall in a random room, Jabber enters to find a person sitting on the ground, head tucked against their chest, arms crossed over it, and a large, odd-looking wooden stick in their grasp. Their clothes are ratty and torn, blood soiling a great deal of them, yet it was hard to tell whether it was their own or someone else’s, given that they themselves didn’t look too roughed up. In fact, Jabber would go as far as to say they looked clean despite the condition of their clothing. Their face was clear of any blood or bruises or anything, and not a hair looked out of place on their head. From where Jabber stands in the doorway of the room, it looked as though this person were alive. Jabber knows they aren’t, though, because he couldn’t hear a single breath escape them, nor did their body do any of the usual twitching that (alive) human bodies did. He wonders how they died.
Stepping closer, Jabber scans the room curiously, as he had done to every room he’d come across thus far, and as he will do for the rest of them. Aside from the body, nothing about it truly stood out, so Jabber decides to investigate the only interesting thing about it, and he makes his way over to the body.
He stops just in front of it, dropping into a squat to examine the thing as a whole. Up close, it’s even cleaner than he initially realized. This body had to be an incredibly recent one, given that there had yet to be an odor emanating from it, and there were no visible signs of decomposition yet. Whoever this person was, they were obviously a pretty good fighter. Maybe they were sick, or someone managed to inject them with a lethal dose of venom that had them passing away so peacefully—
Jabber springs backward abruptly, and the ground where he had just been now sported a new crater embedded deep into the concrete. Absently, he wonders at the fact that the floor hadn’t fallen through just yet before he focuses on the decidedly not dead body before him.
Its eyes were open now, and wow, they might’ve been the bluest blue he’s ever seen, boundless and roiling as they glared hard at him. The stick that had been in their arms was now extended in front of them, and it looked quite a bit bigger than it did a few moments ago. It was also no longer wood, and that was odd. How did they manage to transform what was obviously their jinki without him noticing? Jabber had sensed not a hint of anima emanating from their being, but now that they were awake, it was wafting off them in waves, an endless reservoir of strength and potential. Clearly, they held a lot of love for their stick, given the way that it’s shifted into a metal mancatcher topped off with spikes on its edges. A Hellguard weapon.
“Another one?” The body—person—guy?—speaks, voice low and kind of raspy, almost, like rocks grinding against each other. “How many times will I hafta keep sending y’all runnin’ back to yer boss like pathetic little bugs before he gets the message?”
Jabber’s eyes widen, and he blinks, his head jerking back. The words hit a bit like a wall of wind pushing him backward, and he finds himself wrongfooted. “What the—bad attitude much? The hell is your problem, man?” He asks, feeling a bit far away from himself. His heartbeat is kinda loud in his ears.
The guy scoffs, rolling his eyes and pushing himself to his feet. “My problem is that you Raider motherfuckers keep comin’ in an’ pissin’ me off with yer bullshit when I’m tryin’ ta meditate.” Rolling his neck and shoulders, the guy adjusts his grip on his stick, clearly preparing for a fight, but Jabber hardly pays any attention to it. He’s much too caught up on the fact that he’s never heard the South Ward accent so strong before.
“Holy—are you from Kamuatari? Your accent is thick as shit—” Jabber springs away from the staff that comes swinging at him before he can even finish speaking, once again slamming into the ground where he’d just been moments before. Jabber has half a mind to worry about the floor actually crumbling beneath their feet. The rest of his mind laser focuses on the glower in the guy’s gaze, his fucked up eyebrows drawn together so tight that he had to have a headache. Jabber swallows down the urge to laugh at him—it certainly wouldn’t do him any favors in this moment.
He kind of wanted to see just how mad this guy could get, though.
“Leave. I don’t feel like whoopin’ yer ass just so I can get back ta meditatin’,” the guy growls, eyes flashing.
“Lotta confidence for someone who hasn’t landed a hit on me, yet.” Jabber retorts, shaking out his wrists and waking Mankira. He watches the guy’s eyes widen subtly when he sees her, and he feels a stroke of pride well in his chest. She was beautiful, after all.
“So yer one of those types, huh? You like gettin’ yer ass beat before acceptin’ defeat?” Wow, this guy’s certainty was off the charts. Jabber’s never been more intrigued.
“Can’t say I like somethin’ I’ve never experienced before, so…” He trails off, wiggling his fingers eagerly. The guy narrows his eyes, and he decides not to waste another moment talking, springing at Jabber with a quickness Jabber doesn’t see often. He doesn’t make it a habit to get into fights, but when he does, they usually end shortly after they begin, and never with him on the ground. The missions that guy—what was his name again? Damn, it’ll hit him in a second—gave him tended to be on the easier side. Well, for Jabber at least. He got the impression that the Young Old Guy only ever called him when none of his other employees(?) could handle the task he was assigning them. Made sense, considering Jabber wasn’t doing these things for free, and certainly not for cheap. He had better things to do, things like exploring No Man’s Lands and discovering the dangerous plantlife within, experimenting with said plantlife, and whatever else he felt like doing. After finishing these missions, Young Old Guy constantly tried recruiting Jabber, insisting that he’d be a perfect fit for their hodge-podge team, an offer Jabber staunchly refused every time.
“Listen man, I really couldn’t give less of a damn about your whole goal of—what was it again—bringin’ down the Sphere, right? Yeah, that ain’t got nothin’ to do with me. It sounds like a whole lotta work, and I’m pretty happy livin’ my life right now. You can keep payin’ me for these missions, though. That, I don’t mind not one bit.”
And he’d meant it—he really didn’t mind being a makeshift mercenary for these Raider people, even if he didn’t care much about their overarching goal. Money was money, and he’d go damn near wherever he could make the amount needed to fuel his interests. It only just so happened that the Raiders were pretty consistent with their cash flow.
Now, though, Jabber is thinking that he might mind a little bit more than he did before.
“Whoa!” Jabber exclaims he ducks under the staff flung at him like it was a boomerang. Their fight had taken them outside the building now—which was probably the guy’s goal—and the guy has taken to throwing his stick at him now, seeing as he still had yet to land a proper hit on Jabber. “Where the hell didja learn moves like that? I thought you were Hell Guard, but that ain’t like nothin’ I’ve ever seen ‘em do!” He chatters as he continues slinking out of the guy’s reach, watching gleefully as the dude’s anger rose like a tidal wave, threatening to break a dam made crudely out of sticks. “You are from—” Another toss, the mancatcher sailing through the air toward him, faster than before, and he just barely manages to jump over it. “—from Kamuatari, though, right?”
“Quit fuckin’ talkin’ and fight me like a damn man!” The guy bellows in answer, slamming his staff onto the ground and using it to propel himself forward, flipping through the air a bit like a boomerang himself, and wow, this guy was more agile than Jabber thought. Definitely Hell Guard training; he’d faced them a few times in the past when he’d maybe been involved in a large-scale fight that might have been completely his fault (the circumstances just happened to find him, alright?). That, and they probably thought he was with the Raiders, considering that he sometimes wore the uniform that Young Old Guy provided (for some reason). What could he say? He’d lost more pieces of clothing to acidic mixtures than he cared to admit, and the uniform was surprisingly sturdy. That was probably why this guy caught an immediate attitude with him, though.
“Such a potty mouth! Do you ever speak without swearin’?” Jabber teases, pivoting out of the way of the guy’s extravagant flips and ducking low under another swing without missing a beat.
“Piss off!” The guy grits, pausing his attacks briefly to stand across from Jabber, red in the face, but not appearing all that exerted. Anger, probably. Jabber fights another giggle. He feels…weird. “Quit bein’ a coward and fight me! I’m sick of the dodgin’ bullshit!”
“Hey man, I’m tryin’ to do you a favor! These claws are sharp as shit, and if they graze, you get hit with a not-fun venom. Just let me search this building in peace, and I promise I won’t bother you." He knows that attempting to reason with the guy was probably useless at this point, but it didn’t hurt to try. “I’m not here to fight you, dude.”
“It’s Zanka.” The guy says suddenly. Jabber blinks, so he continues. “Tell that name ta yer boss when we’re done here. Maybe it’ll finally scare him away fer good.” Jabber snorts, and he’s about to correct him—Young Old Guy was not his boss—but then he squints.
“Zanka? As in Zanka Nijiku? Of the Hell Guard, right?” The guy—Zanka—nods, puffing out his chest, and a few pieces click into place. “So that’s why you fight like that! And why your accent is so thick!” A startled laugh escapes him. “Damn, the Hell Guard must’ve gotten real lenient lately, if they’re letting one of the kids from that big family run around swearing like this—and with a stick no less!” Another laugh. “And you’re a Giver? With a stick as your weapon of choice? Holy shit, what has the world come to?” Finally, he’s unable to fight it any longer, and he breaks down into a fit of giggles, bending at the waist as he’s wrought with it. Zanka has to be one of the most interesting people Jabber has met so far, and he can’t help but laugh in his face over it. Zanka couldn’t have been in a worse situation if he tried, and the entire thing just strikes Jabber as particularly hilarious. It takes him a moment to recover enough to say, “I bet that’s why you’re even out here in the first place. They kicked your ass out—”
A heavy strike lands right in his stomach, and Jabber is sent flying, crashing into the building and going straight through the wall. It’s a shock to his system, and more than just the air is knocked out of him when he lands. A bit of his meager breakfast comes up with it, and he’s left heaving as he attempts to stand, dizzier than all hell for a few long moments. Vaguely, he can hear Zanka approaching him, so he forces himself to stand, staggering on his feet. Strangely, alongside the pain, he feels a bit…out of it. It’s more than just dizziness—something light and airy rising like bubbles in his chest. His fingertips feel weird. Far away, maybe. He’s…warm.
“Damn—shit! You hit like a damn—holy fuck—” Jabber coughs, wiping away the blood dripping into his eyes from his head. Zanka dares to snort.
“Whose doin’ all the swearin’ now?” He snickers as he gets closer. He’s stowed away his staff, and he shakes his hand out as he approaches. It takes Jabber hazy mind a moment to realize that he’d been punched. “Surely you can take more than that.” He taunts now, standing in front of Jabber with a disdainful look, one that sends shivers down his spine. That weird warm feeling spreads like pins and needles up his back. “C’mon—we ain’t done yet.”
With this, he swings again, and for some reason, Jabber…doesn’t move. He lets it hit him straight in the face, lets himself jerk back with it, lets it hurt like all hell. He goes flying back again, and Zanka is right there with him, refusing to give Jabber even a second to recover as he moves to sit on top of him. Then, he begins raining down a barrage of fists on him, brutal and unrelenting and utterly astounding. They’re harsher than any attack Jabber has suffered at the hands of others so far. Usually, if someone managed to land a hit on him in the first place, their strength was nothing to write home about, something Jabber could easily recover from without a second thought.
Here, though, each hit lands like a weight pressed upon him, a boulder thrown at him in the form of tenacious fists that just don’t stop coming, and none of the concoctions he’s ever made felt like this.
Zanka doesn’t stop.
He doesn’t stop until the guy’s face is bloodied and bruised, doesn’t stop until he’s panting, and when he does, he’s trembling. His hands shake, and his fingers twitch, and he can’t think right.
This guy insulted Zanka. He laughed at him, in his face, unabashed, and obviously, Zanka couldn’t let that go. Who would he be if he let a perceived slight upon him slide? Not a Nijiku, that was for certain.
So, he dealt with him. He did what was necessary, as he always did. Sure, he hadn’t left any of the other Raiders before this guy, this beat-up, but he clearly had to this time because their boss just wasn’t listening, and that was another reason why Zanka did this. He killed two birds with one stone; that was all. It didn’t matter that he’d been itching to get his hands on this guy since he opened his eyes, didn’t matter that he didn’t stop when he knew he should have, didn’t matter that this guy looked…looked a bit distracting as bloody as he was. It didn’t matter that Zanka didn’t mind the clouded look in the guy’s gaze as he looked up at Zanka with—not fear, no. It was different—more intense. More—
Every muscle in Zanka’s body tenses up suddenly, spasming painfully, and he’s seized with agony. Choking back a cry of pain, he falls to the side, unable to do much else as he abruptly loses control of his limbs. It’s worse than any training he’d undergone in the Hell Guard, worse than the poisons they had Zanka drink to develop a resistance to. He can hardly breathe, hardly even think under the relentless waves of pain that crash over him, so fierce that he thinks he might have passed out for a moment.
It had to have only been a second, yet when he comes back to himself, his vision is filled with the guy hovering over him. Bruises have begun to form already, and his face looked bloated with them, yet his grin is still obvious. It’s all teeth, and they fit well with the way his eyes shine, somehow an even brighter pink than they were before.
The guy leans over him, smiling with the force of a thousand distant suns as he says, “I think I like you, Zanka.” He doesn’t seem to be fully present when he speaks—his eyes seem to shake a little, much like Zanka’s hands—but it hardly mattered as he held up one of his clawed hands. There, a light blue liquid dripped from one of the tips. “It’ll wear off soon, I think, but you’re strong, so I bet you can take it no problem, right? B-but anyway—” he stammers, tripping over his own tongue in obvious excitement. “I’m gonna come back, okay? I like you, so I’m gonna come back, and then we’ll fight again, cool? Just—Just don’t go anywhere until then, because then you’re lame, and I don’t wanna think you’re lame, so prove me right, okay? Promise I’ll be back though.” With this, he stands up, swaying dangerously but remaining upright. When he looks back at Zanka on the ground, his crazed grin has faded into something smaller, more personal. Intimate, almost. “The name's Jabber Wonger, and I’ll see you again soon, Mr Bad Attitude.”