Stop assembling this bewildering cartography

[martyrofduty]

who: Pyrrha Dve | Duty & others
what: Various September happenings
when: All month
where: Bone House, Outpost, Staging Point, Around Trench

content warnings: see individual starters

Comments

Calculated Regret [Closed to Illarion & Oscar]

[martyrofduty]

CW: River of Regret typical imagery/gore, discussion of murder (of romantic partner/enemy), death of newborn, & more to come

A feather floats in the air, one of many Pyrrha has seen as the month goes on. This time, she catches it. As soon as it makes contact, she burns it to ash, hot blue-green flames. In the next, she freezes each piece of ash and gently holds the sub-freezing crystals in her fist. In the split moment it takes her to do as much, ravens surround her. For a moment, she reaches again for the flames, but though they surround her, they do not hurt her. Pyrrha treats them with the same respect.

It's over in a few seconds. Instead of cobbled stones outside a gambling hall where she was, Instead of dank moldy hallways reminiscent of a dead world the last time she slipped between places, she's in a bright silent world. Even the river on which she floats is quiet. Her attention slips over familiar faces, lingers long enough to see they are not an immediate threat in the guise of those she loves, and takes in the broader suspiciously peaceful view. She doubts ravens deposited her in a canoe with family for a sweet September picnic.

"I don't recognize this place," she says softly as they drift down the river and the smell that greets them is less serene.

[justoscar]

"Me neither-- but I think I've heard of this."

Oscar sat quietly in the canoe, looking as much like the lost and confused teenager that he felt like. He had managed to avoid the falling feathers of Never Mind's birds by a stroke of luck last year-- a rarity for someone that lived with and worked alongside a literal bad luck charm. Stilling himself in the little boat, he looked around at the other passengers and tried not to panic. Palebloods were on a sensory roulette that month, and for the moment Oscar was having a hard time feeling what his body was touching. There was a certain detachment to it; he felt the pressure of it, but none of the attending details.

Stillness was the only sure way to be safe.

Cautiously, he shook his head-- and watched as a black feather fell out of his hair and onto the bottom of the boat.

"Boat, feathers, and a river... this sounds an awful lot like something I heard people talking about. It was something about... personal fears?"

A shrug. So much had happened. At that point, he was focused on learning to filter his new telepathic and empathic abilities that he didn't pay as much attention as he should have.

"We should probably stick together. No one I heard stories from sounded like they enjoyed their boat rides."

[unsheathedfromreality]

"Regret," says the third figure in the canoe. The unworldly voice with its echoes of walls and spaces not present is surely familiar to both Pyrrha and Oscar, even if its owner is presently huddled up beneath his heavy cloak (ornamented with raven feathers) with an uncharacteristic moroseness. Like all of his obvious moods, Illarion's current black one has an air of pretense and overacting to it; this is something he has to put on for it to be seen, even if the emotion beneath it is genuine.

Might be, in this case, very genuine. Both he and the Omen huddled unhappily beneath his hood are sporting flashes of dawn-pink, hoopoe-pink, in their feathers--a giveaway the shrike's corrupted, if the visible feathers themselves weren't.

"It is regret we are here to confront, and confess, to be shriven of. Then the ravens return to take us from Hell's River." He pauses the space of a mortal breath, then adds, "Or not. This is not one of these places that forces the truth from one, though I am not recommending ignoring what we will see. It is a worse way to leave, whatever secrets it is keeping intact."

[martyrofduty]

"Noted," Pyrrha acknowledges both Oscar and Illarion. Sticking together is common sense. Refusing to play along in Hell's River, the promise is in the name. The longer one stays, the worse it gets. Everyone has secrets. Oscar and Illarion have painful ones she's never heard, she's sure. If they didn't, if none of them did, they probably wouldn't be in this boat together.

Unlike her companions, however, Pyrrha's secrets wind their way back to John. It's a byproduct of her long life, such as it may be called, and she hasn't had that particular conversation yet. His absence is a gift. It shouldn't be forced. There's never a good time, but she'll have to make time.

Before the river has time to call her out, Pyrrha exhales slowly. "Like anyone, I dislike secrets being forced," she says, "unless any of us give permission, I propose we all agree to keep what's shared between us. Agreed?"

Pyrrha acts on her own terms.

[justoscar]

Oscar looked between his newfound parent figure and the mysterious bird that sometimes roosted under the same roof as the man who would be God with a gravity that I'll befit a teenager. The situation was unexpected, and the company-- though kindly enough-- provided their own kinds of perils with these challenges.

Oscar didn't doubt they had painful secrets. He had his own, as well.

"Agreed," he said solemnly.

"This world has a way of tricking people into speaking even when they don't want to. I've worked hard to make sure that people have the option not to speak if they don't want to. "

A sigh. This had caused him a few headaches in the last couple of years...

"Sometimes other people are involved, too. The stories aren't always just our own."

[unsheathedfromreality]

"Agreed," Illarion replies in nearly the same breath as Oscar--then falls silent to give the younger man space to speak on. It's a kind philosophy the human expresses; the shrike inclines his head in mute approval.

"Then I would propose further that none of us seeks redress or explanation from anyone whose secrets these also are--whether they are in Trench yet or not--unless, as before, permission is given."

Many of the worse secrets that lay between Lyctor and Lord had already been given away in Gideon's spasm of contempt for her negligent god. But ten thousand year's a long time even as elves reckon time, and Illarion's sure that myriad hides a thousand other black secrets that Pyrrha wouldn't want turned indiscriminately on her Monarch.

And those of Oscar's relations Illarion knew certainly deserved their secrets guarded as carefully.

CW: body horror (infant)

[martyrofduty]

"Agreed," Pyrrha echoes them, grateful that this event is with them. No matter how hard it is, if it's kept between them, she can handle it. For a moment, Pyrrha almost laughs. The calm and security that comes with it. This doesn't make monsters of them. This agency is healthy, what people should be able to expect. It goes back to that old saying—do unto others as you would have done unto you.

She feels good about that one.

They round the curve, and her heart feels like it misses a beat. Of all the corpses to see in terrible injury, it's an infant, a baby, a newborn only one day old. So small, and its skin cannot contain its organs and their injuries. A horror Pyrrha has never seen and imagined so many times. It's a particular baby, one everyone in the boat knows, though it is far older than one day now.

As terrible as it is, she wants to gather it into her arms and assure it that everything is okay. Something she never got to do. Something she regrets. Because of course, this one is hers.

"There was a time that I thought a baby was mine," Pyrrha says after a few moments. No one asked her about it before, in the Mithraeum. They were too focused on other issues to give it enough thought. "Her mother was our enemy, and my necromancer killed her."

Love wasn't enough compared to the fate of the universe, the lives of millions. Not for Duty or the Saint of Duty. "It should have killed the baby. Odds were it did," Pyrrha continued, "so he didn't check. It was a secret mission. Even the Houses weren't told about it. A Lyctor showing up would've gotten notice. Would've endangered the secrecy." It wasn't everyday that people fell out of the sky, particularly those of unknown origin.

She takes a slow breath. They can see where it going.

[justoscar]

It's a lot for a young person to take in.

A part of Oscar had witnessed horrors such as this-- had witnessed the death of armies with a single choice that his Crown revealed to him, witnessed villagers form a Circle around him across multiple lifetimes and wage war in his name, had witnessed the face of the woman he once loved slaughter their children... and himself. That part was, however, not quite Oscar. Not yet.

The sixteen year old that was supposed to carry the weight of lifetimes and centuries was struck breathless with the sight. He found his heart aching in a sympathetic reaction to Pyrrha's words.

For the moment, he didn't know what to say. With an unsteady hand, he reached out and grasped for her's.

"So, you never knew what happened?"

Oscar ventured finally, hazel eyes flashing gold in the dim lighting like a small woodland creature.

You should be afraid of the person with weapons (Absolute Immersion) [Open]

[martyrofduty]

CW: violence, complex identity issues, ethical quandary

The following prompt comes from Chapter 21 of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

CW:
Duty stored the book all day to work as usual. The chill weather makes his leathery skin crack like book bindings as old as he is. Though Trench is dangerous and though there is much to do, he goes to Sanctuary and reads instead of other activities to reduce corruption. The book opens to a spot long in the story—leaving him the odd man out the way the younger lyctors may have felt—but it's compelling, interesting, and familiar. A confrontation many years in the making, consequences for actions long taken.

“Seivarden Vendaai,” said the left-hand Mianaai, “this ancillary—and it is an ancillary—isn’t human. The fact you thought it was explains a good deal of your behavior that was unclear to me before. I’m sorry for its deception and your disappointment, but you need to leave. Now.”

“Begging my lord’s indulgence.” Seivarden still lay facedown, speaking into the floor. “Whether you give it or not. I’m not leaving Breq.”

“Go away, Seivarden,” I said, expressionless.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding almost blithe except her voice still shook slightly. “You’re stuck with me.”

I looked down at her. She turned her head to look up at me, her expression a mix of fear and determination. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” I told her. “You don’t understand what’s happening here.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Fair enough,” said the Mianaai on the right, seeming almost amused. The left-hand one seemed less so. I wondered why that was. “Explain yourself, Justice of Toren.”

Here it was, the moment I had worked toward for twenty years. Waited for. Feared would never come. “First,” I said, “as I’m sure you already suspect, you were aboard Justice of Toren, and it was you yourself who destroyed it. You breached the heat shield because you discovered you had already suborned me yourself, some time previously. You’re fighting yourself. At least two of you, maybe more.”

“Both Mianaais blinked and shifted their stances a fraction of a millimeter, in a way I recognized. I’d seen myself do it, in Ors, when communications cut out. Another of those communications-blocking boxes—part of Anaander Mianaai, at least, must have worried about what I might say, must have been waiting with her hand on the switch. I wondered how far the effect reached, and which Mianaai had triggered it, trying, too late, to hide my revelation from herself. Wondered what that must have been like, knowing that facing me this way could only lead to disaster, and yet obligated by the nature of her struggle with herself to do so. The thought amused me briefly.

“Second.” I reached into my jacket, pulled out the gun, the dark gray of my glove bleeding into the white the weapon had taken from my shirt. “I’m going to kill you.” I aimed at the right-hand Mianaai.

Duty pitches forward into the book and keeps falling until he finds himself on his feet aiming a gun at one of two identical looking people, Mianaai he presumes.

That Mianaai, the one he's aiming at, sings in a baritone, slightly flat. Though he's never heard the language before, though he's sure it's been dead a long time, the kind of time he understands, he understands the words.

The person, the person, the person with weapons.
You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.
All around the cry goes out, put on armor made of iron.
The person, the person, the person with weapons.
You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.

Despite being the person with the only visible weapon, Duty cannot move. No matter how much he focuses on the few millimeters necessary to depress the trigger, his finger doesn't budge. It's like facing John, except she sings instead of saying 'stop.' She isn't John, but Duty gets the vibe they have some similarities. Otherwise, why this book, this scene, this memory?

“Justice of Toren One Esk,” says the right-hand Mianaai, “shoot the instance of me to the left of the instance that’s speaking to you.”

Muscles move without him willing them. He shifts his aim to the left and fires. The left-hand Mianaai collapses to the ground. It continues from there, out of control of his own body, able only to play along as the person he has the briefest impression of and reading the reactions. Shortly enough, he gets his movement back.

Seivarden asks for an explanation. When Duty doesn't answer, Mianaai spells it out enough that Duty can understand. The trouble with so many bodies, so many Mianaai's. They are not all the same person. Duty doubts it stops at two.

He's still not in control of himself, just as Mianaai promised. He shoots a guard under orders. He learns more about Radchaai ships and AIs. They walk out into the civilian population, panicking and causing chaos. When he spies someone suspicious, Duty acts on instinct. Not only does the gun point toward the person, a silvery layer expands from within him and coats him.

Something hits him hard in the side—a bullet. He shoots the first armored person because this is too open, too many civilians, too sloppy. He turns the other way and sees the gleam of another person with silver around them. Some kind of armor. That's them. He shoots, and the silver layers disappear. They're dead.

Still not in control of himself, they head toward the docks. If this person in control gets her way, everyone in the station dies. If she doesn't, civil war, and even more people die.

No matter the cost / For all that was lost (Growing Pains) [Closed to Billie]

[martyrofduty]

CW: letting go/loss, grief, so many feels feels feels feels

Once more, Pyrrha treads the now familiar route from Bone House to the nearest lamp, traveling to the lamp near Trenchwood Farm, and walking the rest of the way there. No more deals by lamplight. The farm is familiar and comfortable. It's a place where things grow, whether crops of plants or herds of animals. It's a farther cry from the reaches of the Nine Houses than her abode. Today, that feels right.

One hand slowly turns a skull carved of bone—her own bone, her own carving—around and around, wearing it down, though it has lived for too short of a time to yellow with age. Her eyes look upward at the clear sky that looks not a spot out of place. This strange peace amidst various trials is precious. Life in Trench is precious, no matter how many times people may die. It never stops mattering.

Her steps take her to the chickens, decked out in little hats that make perfect sense in the weather. Her head has red ocher fuzz soft like moss. That russet hair is covered by its own hat, one measure to preserve body heat when the air leeches it out of her. Not that it does much good. Her aches are magical in nature after all.

She smiles. It's still a good day.

[wapples]

Overall, Billie has been enjoying his time at the farm over the summer. It's a bit like being back in the halfling lands at home, except no one stops him from eating as much as he wants, or makes him do anything really. There haven't even been any fires, or chicken fights.

He's outside when Pyrrha arrives, just laying in the grass, and watching the wind blow the leaves around. He grins when he sees her and hops up and goes to greet her with a hug as she approaches the chickens, free roaming across the lawn.

"Pyrrha! Hi!"

[martyrofduty]

In one smooth move, Pyrrha picks Billie up in a firm hug. She turns that into a full circle rotation and a second one before she kisses the top of his head and sets him down. She exhales and smiles at him. Joy crinkles the deep grooves on her face.

"Billie," she greets in return. Her eyes return quickly enough to the farm around them. With her usually gravelly voice, Pyrrha asks, "What spot on the farm makes you think of me?"

[wapples]

Billie laughs with joy as Pyrrha scoops him up, and spins them around. She is quickly becoming one of his favourite people in Trench. It is always a good day when she turns up at the farm.

He has to think about the question, though, not for long. It's not too hard to pick out a spot that reminds him of her. Of course, it's perfect.

"I know just the place, come on." He grabs her hand to lead the way to the cherry blossom tree growing behind the greenhouse. He looks from the tree back to Pyrrha. "It's a Guardian Tree. It protects people, animals, and nature, but we have to look after it, too."

[martyrofduty]

Pyrrha follows Billie along, relaxed and trusting. If something (or someone) jumps out to attack them, she'll handle it. There are stories going around of a monster attacking farms. However, that won't be Billie's doing.

The tree is beautiful, even in autumn. It reminds her of the tree at Sanctuary, and she wonders if they're related. Amaterasu, the name she's heard around Sanctuary, isn't with them anymore. The trees still are. That's a sentiment Pyrrha feels kinship to. Not in the sense of a cavalier to a lyctor protecting him from heralds. Simply that their impact outlasts them. It can be good, and it can still help. Whatever they move onto, there's always that.

"You get me," Pyrrha says. "We all need some looking after, even me." Everyone. The protection also means that the flower should be safe. Yes, the stories Pyrrha's heard says the flower cannot be destroyed, not so long as someone is here. That's no reason to tempt fate or any passing Pthumerian.

[wapples]

There's not much the boy is afraid of, and that includes the Bugge. Let the monster come. He will fight it. The farm has become his home now, of course he will defend it.

Billie stands with Pyrrha, still holding onto her hand as he looks up at the tree, and nods. He feels an affinity for the trees in Trench, especially the Guardian Trees that, like the Sleepers, have found themselves in this place, so far from home.

"Yeah. Everyone needs someone to care about them and take care of them. No matter how big or strong they are," he says quietly.

[martyrofduty]

Pyrrha squeezes Billie's hand. She stares into the dirt for a moment, but her mind was made up before she came here. She crouches and presses her free hand against the soil. The world is always changing. They are always changing.

"Are you familiar with the ritual people are doing this month?" Pyrrha asks. She's learned enough herself, enough to complete it.

[wapples]

He returns the squeeze of her hand gently, and watches as she crouches to press her hand against the soil. The Guardian tree helps keep the earth here free of corruption, and helps the plants nearby grow and thrive.

He nods a little. "Yeah, I heard people talking about it. You bury something to let go of the past, right? And a cool flower grows from it."

He hasn't done it himself, not yet anyway, but he doesn't have much trouble letting go of the past. He does his best to keep the past at bay himself.

Duty Lawrence of Cobra Kai (Absolute Immersion) [Closed to Daniel]

[martyrofduty]

CW: property damage, arson, violence, grown men solving problems with karate, sexist language, toxic masculinity, Johnny Lawrence^*.

The book is embossed with the logo of a familiar snake, an emblem of a cobra. Duty picks it up off the street, brings it to work at the Outpost tucked away among his things, works the whole day, and travels to Sanctuary with everyone. He's taken enough naps during this time now that no one thinks twice when he heads away from them for a private corner of the space. There's no rush. Instead, Duty makes sure he is alone, no one secretly nearby within memory book sucking distance. This one he's sure will really be something.

Pyrrha Dve opens the book to a potentially touching scene with potential for character growth (ever a red flag if ever she's read one, in literary terms).

Johnny sits in his barely furnished apartment at the round dining table, his back to the window, with pen and paper.

Dear Robby,

I know you refuse to answer my calls, and I refuse to text or email. So I'm going old school and writing this letter. Done a lot of thinking lately. Realized just how much I screwed up my life. My biggest screw up is my relationship with you.

Johnny stops to look up at a photo propped up on the table. Slowly he picks it up—a young boy of maybe 9 years poses on one bent knee holding a soccer ball under one arm. It's a professional photo of the sort used for kids sports teams, and the caption printed on the unframed photograph reads 2010 Champs. Alone and in private, Johnny's face twitches in the barest manliest show of remorse and regret.

I know I can't change the past, but if you give me the chance—

The sound of breaking glass cuts the sentence off. Wary but not immediately panicked, since it's a bad part of town, Johnny looks out the window. The sight makes him forget everything but what's before him.

A real pussy of a man and two bikers trash his car. With a bat and crowbars, they smash the windows, bang down so hard—that's the bikers, not the D-class nerd with them—it dents the roof and the cover of the engine. It's nearly totaled, and one of the bikers pours gasoline on the car's open wounds.

"Hey, Sons of Anarchy," Louie LaRusso Jr. whines, "I said we want to send him a message, not burn down the whole block."

The Sons of Anarchy, being realer men than that poser, don't give a shit.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" Johnny demands, striding up toward the trio. Three on one. Real men can handle that.

Louie puffs up really big, like one of those big puffing fish with no poison, "Consider this a message from Danny LaRusso." He swings the bat down as hard as he can into the trunk of the car. A weak man, armed with a bat, can manage a little shit on a sitting duck.

The first biker, big and bald, doesn't see the snake in the grass. "What are you gonna do, Nancy?"

Johnny's answer is action, not words. He kicks that biker square in the chest sending him tumbling to the ground. The other biker grabs him from behind for a choke hold, but he slips out of it the same way he teaches his students to and punches the biker in the face once, twice— Even during the punch, he turns to see the first biker returning for punishment. Johnny pivots, ducking under a wide telegraphed swing and blocking the second attempt. Gripping the wrist with the crowbar, he kicks that biker hard in the torso, kicks the mustachioed biker behind him with a back kick, and uses the recoil counterbalance to pull the biker in his grip lower to the pavement. A heel to the back of the neck drops the bald man and forces him to release the crow bar. He hits the one coming for him, and he's down on the ground. Big and bald doesn't know what's good for him, so he gets a hard kick scraping his face into the asphalt.

That's a Cobra Kai's answer.

Louie, now without his muscle, backs away lifting the puny bat like Johnny's gonna play ball.

"Back up, I got a bat, man," he says. Johnny marches toward him with a face of death. "Back up, I got a baaaaaaaat," Louie whines. He swings, and Johnny angles aside. The momentum carries the swing all the way to a pitiful end against the pavement. Johnny steps on the bat, which falls out of Louie's hands like butter.

He pulls Danny's cousin up, and the man's already blubbering, "Look, things got away from me okay. Just calm down!" His voice squeaks on the last word, like his own body knows Louie isn't a real man.

Hyperfocused on the only issue that matters, Johnny grabs Louie by the shirt and holds up his fist. "Where does Daniel LaRusso live?" he demands.

"This is between you and me. This has nothing to do with him," Louie squeals. "I made all that shit up. I'll... take my licks like a man." Johnny could almost respect it, if it weren't an obvious lie.

"Hey asshole," one of the Sons of Anarchy calls. Both Johnny and Louie look over at the spot the mustachioed biker stands. He flips open a lighter, sparks a flame, and throws the lighter into the gasoline soaked Pontiac. It lights up like the Fourth of July.

"Holy shit," Louie says, like he expected any different from a Son of Anarchy.

Johnny grabs Louie with both hands and lifts him bodily off the ground. "Where does Daniel LaRusso live?" he repeats, shouting with real anger in his eyes.

Louie sputters the address, a snitch in the end, just like Johnny thought. He drops the pussy, straddles one of the motorcycles, and revs the engine. Like that, he's gone into the Los Angeles night. Johnny Lawrence doesn't need a map because this is his valley. He recognizes the cars in the driveway when he reaches them—

Pyrrha exhales as she's sucked into the book.

She drives right into the back yard, on the brick that makes up the driveway and patio. Dismounting, she eyes the architecture, the open archway into the house proper, what looks like a kitchen. She steps up so that she will be perfectly framed when Daniel (it's clearly him) turns around. Her hands clench to fists, and she affixes the angry look that can scare John shitless on her face.

Because as far as Johnny's concerned, Daniel did this. He kept his hands clean; Daniel LaRusso doesn't get his hands dirty the way Johnny does, not with something like this. That's the thought process behind coming here. Johnny doesn't stop to ponder whether Daniel would entrust that idiot and two members of a biker gang to send Johnny a message. No, it always comes down to them.

Daniel turns around and drops a small white cup of espresso. Her face snarls upward, ready for the fight Johnny anticipates, ready for the fight—she suspects—Danny will give him, if it's just the two of them.

[miyagimagic]

Of course the Daniel in the story doesn't know anything is up. He doesn't know that it's not really Johnny standing there in his backyard, that there's instead someone else reading this story, having been drawn inside of his longtime karate rival's spot and head.

All he can see as he turns around is Johnny standing there. In his yard. At his house. It'd be one thing if he had rang the doorbell and Daniel found him there after opening the door. That would have been weird still, especially with the dumb pettiness back and forth between them ever since meeting each other again after decades, but at least it wouldn't mean Johnny freaking Lawrence just straight up breaking into his house. What if one of the kids found him like this first?!

He marches out of the kitchen, over into the backyard. His face twisted into a frown, his hands - in their typical Italian way - already wildly gesturing along with his emotions.

Maybe he could think about this. Be reasonable about this.

It feels hard to do that though when anger takes over the moment he sees Johnny just standing there, looking like the blonde is ready to punch something.

"What the hell are you doing?" He starts as he wanders out into the yard, stepping closer and closer to where Johnny is standing. "You come to my house? Are you insane?!"

[martyrofduty]

It's a beautiful, if tragic, thing to watch rationality get dropped to the wayside. Daniel, with far more money and prestige than Johnny, has the air of respectability, the community standing to be believed in the right no matter that someone torched a car on his behalf. That's enough to drive anyone to see red, and Johnny has a lower threshold.

"Don't pull that Mr. Nice Guy act on me," Pyrrha accuses Daniel, "I was being the bigger man. I was putting things to rest and looking forward." Everything Daniel gets credit for more readily, Duty assumes, when he does it. It's too personal to mention the letter to his kid, but it symbolizes something in the cycle of growth, misunderstanding, rivalry, and hard earned lessons.

"But you cannot let anything go," she accuses, "you got to stay the good guy and paint me and Cobra Kai the villain. You don't get to call yourself the good guy anymore." Pyrrha weaves his own pain and anger and loss to make something approximating the betrayal Johnny felt at his car getting burned. Just like his anger, easier to burn and aim that pain at Daniel than anything else.

Daniel, she suspects, will not handle it with the maturity of a man their age.

[miyagimagic]

"What?"

It's hard to tell what the exact emotion behind that single word is. If anything - it seems to be a mix of both confusion and offense, both in equal measures. Like Daniel is offended instantly by the words coming from Johnny's mouth (as usually), yet he's also a little baffled why this is happening right now.

And right here. In his back yard. On a peaceful morning where he was just trying to enjoy his morning espresso.

"I'm not painting anyone as the villain! Cobra Kai is the villain!" Sure, it sounds like Daniel just being petty, but there's also something firm in the other's voice as he says that. Like it's just an objective fact to Daniel. A fact which, honestly, doesn't even have that much to do with Johnny himself.

But the other deciding to bring it back after everything also isn't doing much to endear Daniel's former bully to him.

He spreads his arms, still something confused mixed into all his anger.

"Why are you even here?! You came to my house and broke into my yard, just to tell me this?! This is crazy even for you, Johnny!"

(And Daniel has noticed Johnny's level of crazy is pretty intense, so that's saying something.)

[martyrofduty]

Pyrrha's head nods and jerks at that statement. Whatever Cobra Kai did to Daniel, it helped Johnny. More than that, it's become a lifeline that helps him now. Teaching other kids teaching him how to reach out to his own. Stuff Daniel might appreciate if only the name weren't Cobra Kai.

"Your house?!" Pyrrha accuses, "At least I came here myself. I got the balls." She's really enjoying herself immensely. Here it is, that fun and joy that comes from slipping into and out of other people, the freedom to be someone else, and the game of meeting expectations.

"You came to my house. You torched my car. You wouldn't even get your hands dirty. You wouldn't even face me like a man. Well here I am. You can send your messages right to my face, unless mine reaches yours first," Pyrrha ties together anger and hurt and emotional distance even with overwhelming pain (anyone recognize which friend she's stealing from there?).

She lifts her fists and shifts to a fighting stand, one that she's seen Johnny take in his dojo. Something recognizably him. Pyrrha knows his motto, so she winds up to strike first.

[miyagimagic]

Daniel's expression turns only even more baffled as he hears 'Johnny' speak.

"Your car? What?" The confusion is so genuine that it can only mean one thing - Daniel sure wasn't behind some order to do anything to Johnny's property, because he looks like he has no clue what the other is talking about. And worse, he doesn't even have a moment to try and process what he's being told here before the other is already moving on again.

And even worse, moving to take a fighting stance. Right here. In Daniel's own backyard, at his house, where his family is--

"This is ridiculous! I'm--" Emotions flash across Daniel's face, so easy to read. But then again, Daniel has always been like that. Even when he tries to hide his feelings, it's obvious they're there. So even now, when he's visibly trying to keep his anger contained (and is rapidly failing) it shows. "I'm going to ask you one last time. Nicely."

Except there's nothing really nice about it. 'Nice' in this context just means that he isn't striking first here, as per Daniel and Miyagi-do's own policy. Instead Daniel moves to grab his smartphone from his back pocket. "Get away from my house now or I'm calling the police."

[martyrofduty]

"Nicely," Pyrrha mocks him, "Just as nicely as you and those bikers set my car on fire." It isn't a question but a statement. The snivelly little LaRusso at the scene is clearly, for Johnny, an avatar of Daniel's. Same name. Same family. The clear line Consider this a message from Danny LaRusso. Oh she's taking Louie at his word for Johnny.

That means no cell phones.

The kick's precise and powerful—just enough to get the phone out of Daniel's hand without hitting his fingers or palm. Johnny's done plenty of impressive moves from what she's seen, and if it comes from a touch too much experience, well, it's her time to shine.

"You can't solve all your money with problems," Pyrrha tells him because this time it is some white guys a bunch richer than Johnny who are in the wrong. The cops likely wouldn't give a damn, so even without money changing hands, it's working for Daniel. Something she doesn't expect him to get here and now in the memory facing 'Johnny,' facing her purposely riling him to see his reaction.

[miyagimagic]

The part is played well - to a point where the Daniel in this memory doesn't even seem to notice anything is off. The way his phone is just kicked right out of his hand is Johnny in every single way possible, from the execution of the move to the fact that he'd even kick a phone out of someone's hands in the first place in a situation like this.

So the offense that shows up on the man's face has nothing to do with any perceived roleplaying in this situation, and entirely with the sheer agitation he feels at being faced with Johnny Lawrence at his Johnny Lawrence-est.

Which means that the moment the phone is kicked out of his hand and lands onto the pavement with a sickening crunch, Daniel is raising his hands into a fighting stance - different from 'Johnny's' own, but absolutely recognizable as the stance of someone who is ready to get into this.

"So that's how you want to do it, huh, Johnny?!" His voice is even rawer, clearly angrier. Worked up, more than anything else. "Come on then!"

But before either of them even gets the chance to move, there's a change. Way back, behind Daniel - so visibly to the other, but not to him - a boy appears where Daniel had been standing earlier before he headed out to meet the intruder in his backyard. The boy looks like he's in his early teenage years at most, but every single inch of his expression is stoked. Like he just saw Santa Claus.

"Kick his ass, dad!"

Daniel still seems aware enough of the situation to reply, but doesn't take his eyes away from Johnny for a moment, like he doesn't trust the other to wait while he's looking away.

"Anthony-- not now, go back inside!" Before something happens. The presence of one of his kids only gets Daniel even more worked up, natural protectiveness taking over.