010 - Voice

[iamtetsuo]

Listen up... I'm only gonna ask this once before I get the answer myself.

[There's a half second pause as he breathes in.]

Which one of you assholes stole my tiger?!

Comments

[iamtetsuo]

Yeah, that's what I thought. What's the matter, realized you're saying shit you can't back up?

[beautiful_monster]

No, I just don't need to prove anything to random assholes.

[iamtetsuo]

Yeah, right. Says you.

[beautiful_monster]

I do, that's the point.

[iamtetsuo]

You think you're so smart, don't you?

[beautiful_monster]

Oh, I know I'm smarter than you.

[iamtetsuo]

[Which is about the time Tetsuo starts splitting his focus - can he find someone's mind just by having listened to their irritating, smug voice? He's not sure - it's certainly not easy to know where to start. But even if this bastard didn't take his tiger, he has to take him down every peg he can.]

Heh! You haven't done a single smart thing yet!

[beautiful_monster]

[Well, it isn't as if Yuri has any defenses against people snooping around in his mind. The only real obstacle here is whether or not Tetsuo can manage to look in the right spot for him.]

Pretty sure not telling you where I am after you threatened me was smart.

[iamtetsuo]

[That is the obstacle, too. Casting his mind out reveals a sea of discordant thoughts, all blending together into an ocean of distracting noise. He can cast it all aside, but wading through to listen for just one is time consuming, and headache-inducing. That doesn't mean he's not mad enough to try, and mad enough to try to make a campaign out of this until he physically can't anymore. Any one of them that happens to sound like the guy he's talking to...

He spreads his net out near him first, through the Nonah housing. That's local. That's easy. In theory.]

How cute. You really think that's gonna matter?!

[beautiful_monster]

[Unfortunately for him, Yuri is all the way down in Heropa. He hasn't left the city since the anachronisms finally left.]

Ugh, are you being serious? You're seriously going to hunt me down just because you're mad at me?

[iamtetsuo]

Unless you can give me a reason not to!

[None of the explanations so far have counted as legit reasons, apparently.]

[beautiful_monster]

Don't you have a tiger to find? If you can really find me with no information, what's stopping you from finding that instead?

[iamtetsuo]

That's none of your business!

[beautiful_monster]

You made it everyone's business when you posted to the network about it!

[iamtetsuo]

It's my business to find my tiger! You don't need to know anything else!

[beautiful_monster]

I didn't ask to know anything else!

[iamtetsuo]

Well shut your face! Stop asking questions about shit you can't understand!

[beautiful_monster]

You're the one who can't understand anything, idiot!

[iamtetsuo]

I understand more than you could ever know!

[Most likely true.]

[beautiful_monster]

I really doubt that.

[iamtetsuo]

You have any idea who I am?

[All of this is buying time...]

[beautiful_monster]

You're some pathetic loser who can't even keep track of a goddamn tiger.

[It's too bad he doesn't know who Tetsuo is or he might know when to shut up. Instead, he feels much too safe tucked away in his bedroom in Heropa.]

[iamtetsuo]

I'm gonna be your worst damn nightmare!

[beautiful_monster]

There's no way you can be the worst.

[iamtetsuo]

[Where the hell is this guy? All of Nonah's beating down on his skull, weighing his thoughts under a sea of irrelevant babble about stuff no one cares about. By now, it's getting hard to talk underneath the sea of
'he's looking at me!'
'I want the large, but I've eaten way too many calories today-'
'Is that today or tomorrow? Oh no, what if I missed it!'
'-This one for them hood girls, them good girls, straight masterpieces-'
'Please don't notice me please don't notice me please don't notice me'
Until there's nothing left but the noise. It's not like the other times where he has to shut all of that out, searching for one. This time, he has to listen to all of them, hoping he'll find this one person. They swirl around him like a whirlpool of needles, the sheer weight making each new one he finds a stab of pain in his head. And still, he persists. By now, he's committed himself thoroughly to this cause. He's suffered way too much to not make this guy suffer the same... and to make him angrier and angrier that he has to endure this for him.]

Go on! Keep thinking that while you still can!