bakerstreet | THE FIGHT MEME

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THE FIGHT MEME

THE (august) FIGHT MEME

What else needs to be said? Release your inner warrior and partake in some epic (or hilariously bad) battles! Do you use a sword? Are you a martial arts master? Are you a wizard? Can you even fight?

It doesn't matter if you're just having a friendly spar or deciding the fate of the universe. You're suddenly filled with the urge to fight the next person you meet. Cut loose and show off your skills!

RULES

◘ Post with your character! List your fighting preferences if you'd like (Sparring, Death Battles, Anything Goes, etc.)
◘ Reply to someone else
◘ ROUND 1...
◘ ... FIGHT!

Here are some prompts to pick from (or RNG from):

1: VERBAL
Not all fights are physical. Maybe you're just really mad and really loud.

2: WUSSY
This is possibly the dumbest limp-wristed flail fight you've ever been involved in.

3: WITS
Because why would you beat someone into the ground when you can humiliate them with your massive intellect instead?

4: PRIZEFIGHT
There's an audience to watch and a prize at stake that only one of you can walk away with. Best bring your A-game.

5: SPARRING
You're fighting to improve. Whether you know your partner or whether you've
just met, you can be pretty sure you're walking away from this one.

6: GRUDGE MATCH
Your hated rival is in town. It's time for a rematch.

7: BAR FIGHT
Welcome to the mother of all drunken brawls.

8: YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS!
Maybe your opponent is your friend/sibling/love/other cherished person. Maybe
you're a pacifist. Either way, you're in this fight, but you really
don't want to be.

9: TO THE DEATH
This is it. Too much has happened for this to be anything but a fight to the end. Only one of you is walking away from this.

10: OBLIGATORY SMUT OPTION
Hate sex is the best. And some people like smut and some do not.

11: AGAINST THE HORDE
It's you and your ally against many. Demons, zombies, whatever. Rip and tear, until it is done.

12: GODMODE
You and your opponent both have world-breaking superpowers, and frankly everyone would be happier if you weren't fighting. You are, though, and it's awesome, even if there might not be much left when you're done.

13: RANDOM
Your very own personalized scenario.

Original here.

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"I died. It didn't take." Booker wasn't going to lay his whole life story at the guy's feet. "That's it. I woke up from death. Nothing more complicated than that."

Immortality was something of a curse for him. Booker hated the weight of the years and the grief he felt constantly in the back of his mind and heart. It had certainly led him to ruin.

"That's not how it was for you?"

"That's what immortality is, yeah." But reminding himself that he wasn't trying to push this guy away like the others, Marcus tried to dial back his negativity and sarcasm and answer the question. But like the man, he wasn't ready to give all the facts yet either. Another immortal could either be his friend... or end up being his worst enemy.

"Someone upstairs didn't like something I did. As far as I know, that's the story since. It's been a while, things got a little hazy."

Again they were interrupted with the waitress coming back with Marcus' coffee, and asked if the other wanted a refill. Marcus waited until she left to continue.

"So, can I get a name? I go by Marcus now."

Unfortunately, that was the only answer Booker had. He just didn't die. The sarcastic response only got a roll of his eyes. He was used to a little sarcasm and traded barbs though that was with family not a stranger.

"If that's all it took, we'd have a lot more running around." He smiled warmly at the waitress and nodded for her to refill his coffee. If she picked up on the tension between the two men she didn't show it.

Marcus. "Booker," he said with a small nod. "You seem to be living something of a normal life."

"For me, the big guy didn't like someone setting a precedent case," Marcus explained, although it would probably be lost on the young immortal without knowing Cain's full identity. And that he wasn't quite ready to share just yet.

"I don't know about others... didn't know I wasn't the only one until, well, yesterday." Again, despite how guarded both men were, there was genuine awe in Marcus' tone when he talked about that discovery. "In all my wandering..." He shook his head, shaking away with it the melancholy that followed.

"And you've made a name for yourself. We all need to keep going somehow."

Joe and Nicky still had their faith so Booker wasn't completely surprised that another immortal would still have faith as well. Blaming this whole thing on God made as much sense as anything else in this fucked up situation.

"You didn't have dreams?" That was unusual. Booker had never heard of an immortal not having dreams about the others. But... he hadn't dreamed of Marcus all these years and as the youngest he should have.

He had enough dreams of drowning to almost be grateful he never dreamed of Marcus. "I made a name being a mercenary. You have a day job."

If Booker only knew, Marcus lost his thousands of years ago. His case was a little irregular anyway. Not that there was anything regular about any of this.

"What dreams?" Now it was Marcus who looked confused, his brows furrowing slightly as he wondered what the other immortal meant by that.

"Yeah, I move around a lot. It's..." He shrugged when the waitress came back with his breakfast. He thanked her and waited until they were left alone before continuing. "It's just doing something." Because what else was he going to do otherwise? So he continued to pretend to live like a normal person even when it was no more real than the rest of his identity was.

Booker licked his lips. He didn't want to talk about the others even though Marcus was immortal. Perhaps he was a little gun shy after betraying them all the Merrick but it felt like a step in the wrong direction.

"I knew of one other immortal. Trapped at the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed of her drowning over and over." Now, he had no loyalty to Quyhn. He would happily throw her under a bus without hesitation. "That's how we found each other but she's gone now. Disappeared and I don't dream of her anymore."

After two hundred years that was a relief. Booker hated those dreams and how they constantly plagued him. It didn't help him sleep at night at all.

"Just... never met another who didn't have dreams. She dreamed of me." Booker was confused by his lack of dreams. If he was that old then he should've dreamed of them all before.

"There was another?" Perhaps Booker was wise to not disclose about the others because Marcus' eyes definitely sharpened at the mention of another immortal until it was revealed she was stuck at the bottom of an ocean. His eyes unfocused over slightly at distant memory. "For how long?" He wondered, unaware he had even asked that aloud, until he saw the way Booker looked at him.

He cleared his throat. "No... never had dreams of anyone else," Marcus confirmed, finally taking a sip of his black coffee to wet his lips. "If I had, I might have... I don't know, done something. Met sooner. I never met someone who didn't die normally." And from the way he said it, he considered that to be their blessing.

Oh, yeah, he wouldn't mention the others now. While he could understand longing for company after years alone he didn't like that Marcus had never shared dreams about them. Was he something different from them? Was that possible?

"I don't know how long. I've dreamed her for as long as I've been immortal." Oh, he knew but Booker wasn't going to say. That was too long and too much information. He wouldn't be able to handle it if he put the others in danger again.

"Well, we've met now." He smiled sardonically. "I'm not really sure what to do about that."

Honestly, neither did Marcus. He sat back, as if the question caught him off guard and he never really thought about it either. The man was too young, and from the sound of it had no new information to offer that Marcus himself didn't already know.

He wanted to talk, they talked, but it was like he hadn't actively tried to make a connection with someone for so long he wasn't sure what he should be doing either.

"Do you want to.... keep in touch?" he asked, because a hundred, two, maybe even a thousand years down the line, he might want to see that familiar face.

"I don't keep a phone after a job," Booker said with a shrug. "I disappear."

But there was an instinctive surge of emotion at the question. Yes, he wanted to keep in touch. His only friends, his only family, had exiled him. He deserved it but fuck, it was lonely.

His paranoia warred with his loneliness. It was not an easy choice to make. "But you found me once. You should be able to find me again."

Booker wasn't sure he would reach out. He was really torn over this. Talking to another immortal felt like he was cheating his exile. That he was really close to breaking the punishment set out for him. Like always, Booker was making a mess of things.

A similar surge echoed in Marcus' eyes when Booker turned him down, like some unknown hope he had been holding onto had vanished to curse him back to his lonely existence. But then the man suggested Marcus find him again.

"That was an accident," he pointed out, although who would have thought that one thing would lead to the next like this. It was like too many happenchances had brought them here today, and Marcus wasn't sure the same circumstances would ever repeat themselves if he missed the opportunity now.

If Booker wasn't going to take the chance, then Marcus would have to.

"Marcus Pierce... I'm working Lieutenant in violent crimes right now, Chicago PD." It was a risk, sure, the man knew of his identity as the Sinnerman criminal boss as well as his immortality. If Booker wanted to ruin things, he had enough information to burn Marcus' current identity in a bad way. Yet Marcus learned if he was going to gain something, he had to take risks. "I plan to be in Chicago for another decade or so if it holds." Normally he would be out in less, but now he might have something worth waiting for, and an open invitation for Booker to come look for him.

That was more than enough for Booker to take a deep look into the guy. He could maybe pull a Copley and find this guy throughout history. He might just to see this guy's record. Was he a good guy? He was a cop right now but Booker was still cautious about it.

"How do people not notice you're different?" His family had noticed only a few years after he returned from the war. He didn't age like his wife. He didn't get sick like his sons. They figured out his gift and then everything went to hell.

If Marcus was living a normal life people had to notice he was different and not like them. They had to. Booker felt a little panicky by the idea that someone could live a normal life and not suffer the same miserable consequences he did.

It wouldn't be that easy though. Marcus changed his name every few decades, changed cities every few years. That was how Sinnerman even started, he needed criminals to help him forge identity papers and reinvent himself in the modern world, and it got to the point that running his own gang made controlling that information flow easier. One thing led to another, and he was now an immortalized crime boss too.

But Marcus Pierce, that name went back only a decade, although Marcus went back two millennia. Good luck finding the five dozen or so names he cycled through. Sinnerman was a more consistent one, but he was a legend. Any crime could have been contributed to it.

Marcus might have provided his current information, but he gave away nothing that was too deep.

"I move around a lot." A wanderer, a drifter, cursed to a life of loneliness. It really wasn't a normal life at all. "Everyone who knew are dead... Well, there's now you." Which was the real question, what would Booker do with it.

Moving was pretty much the only way to avoid being known these days. It was harder with modern social media and the twenty-four hour news cycle but someone smart could still disappear and start over.

"But no one notices you getting sick? No one notices broken bones healing?" Because those were dead give-aways in Booker's experience. His family had absolutely noticed.

Someone had to notice the more than mortal things that happened with Marcus. Booker was just... amazed by his normal job and relatively normal life. Those things didn't seem possible.

"I take my sick days, I try to avoid hospitals." It couldn't always be avoided of course, and if things get hinky he would apply for a transfer out to a separate department. Bad enough and he would have to stage a death and reinvent a new identity.

But the main thing, he didn't heal quite as quickly. He stayed upright and alive, healed at ten twenty times faster, but it still sometimes took time enough that it still be problematic.

"It's not impossible as long as no one's there to see." That was the key to it, wasn't it. Never let people get close. "Just need to change identities... Could help you with that." If Booker wanted, Marcus was willing to help. A fellow immortal. He found out for a day and the concept still boggled his mind.

It sounded like so much to juggle and balance and hide. Booker wasn't sure he could manage something like that. To know people and work with them every day and then disappear? No, that sounded worse than being alone.

"I don't need hospitals at all." Booker hadn't been in one since his last visit to his son. He simply healed too quickly. "Leg gets blown up by a landmine, I get torn up by a grenade, and fifteen minutes later I'm fine."

It left him tired and hungry usually because his body burned so much energy healing but that was really the only downside. Oh, and not being able to die.

"I know how to disappear," he said with a little surprised chuckle. "I've been faking identities for centuries." The offer was kind but Booker trusted his own work best. He was a forger before he knew he was immortal. It wasn't hard to adapt those skills.

"Offer's all on the table if you need any." Because with the digital age, forging things was becoming harder and more complicated. It used to be he just relocated and gave a new name. Nowadays identity meant cards, history, papers, digital records. Marcus couldn't do it without knowing criminals who were experts in this area. If someone were to try and look up Marcus Pierce, they would find school records, military records, credit card statements, things that Marcus never did himself until he took over the identity but was written somewhere nonetheless.

"That's... Fast. When I tried the grenade down the throat... It was a rough few weeks after." And he meant it the way he said it, he had tried to end his existence and perhaps Booker might understand why.

"Sorry about yesterday anyway." He started eating half his breakfast, drinking the coffee as he glanced at the time. Although he took half the day, he probably would want to be ahead of the investigation from yesterday.

Booker was one of those criminals. That was what he did for his family before the exile. That's what he was good at.

"Been shot that way a few times." Guns had a very particular taste that Booker was not fond of but familiar with. So many people thought that would kill them and it never did.

He shrugged a shoulder as he sipped at his coffee. "You might have some house cleaning to do. I'd rather not get involved in the personal grudges of your business."

Killing a drug lord was one thing but something that could lead to grudges and personal infighting? Booker wanted none of it. "I assume you're going to keep my out of your investigation."

But he might still leave Chicago. Maybe go south to Brazil or Peru. Booker was never really fond of the US.

"No, its fine, I'll make sure you're out of it. That wasn't supposed to go down like that."

Yet it felt so liberating to be able to talk about these things with someone, even a random stranger who they knew nothing about each other. Most of his very long life Marcus had held himself aloof from contact, and even though he lived more lifetimes than he had digits to count, he could count on two hands the number of people he ever had an honest conversation with about his life.

"So you're off the job?" Understandable if Booker was, Marcus wouldn't blame him, but a part of him couldn't help wishing there were other reasons to contact the fellow immortal.

"I'm debating that." After everything that went down Booker felt gun shy. He didn't hang around after something went wrong or the work was finished. In and out. "I doubt we took care of your problem last night. Whoever you've been working with is done working with you."

And hanging around Chicago doing work for Marcus could get him tangled up in all of it as well. That would not help Booker stay under the radar. It wouldn't help meeting with a cop on a regular basis either.

Another immortal, though, was hard to walk away from. Booker felt the same sort of longing for someone to talk about this bullshit with. He had someone who understood. "And do you really want to follow this incident up with another violent murder? The city will not be happy."

"You're in Chicago," Marcus pointed out with a half shrug. "A violent murder is Tuesday. Quadruple might be Thursday. One who's selling to kids? We won't be in a hurry to find the guy who did the bastard in." It was an honest opinion representative of the police department, and even if it didn't fall under Marcus' jurisdiction to head the investigation, he knew how the system worked.

"But it's up to you. I'll take care of things on my end." And there was a determination in that tone that hinted at the dangerous man he could be when the line was crossed. There was no such thing as an immortal who wasn't dangerous, which was why both of them were wary to begin with. "You won't get trouble from them."

That was a promise. It might take a few days and a bit of traveling, but Marcus would need to handle that personally.

Wasn't that an ugly comment on the world because it was true and awful. The murder of a drug lord might not make the news unless Booker made it noticeable which wasn't his plan. It would be clean and professional because he was a professional. That was why people hired him.

"Well, even if I did it's not like they can kill me." Booker sipped at his coffee with a little smirk. It would suck but it wouldn't kill him. Well, it was unlikely. Six thousand years seemed to be the limit for immortality.

Sure, it was a grim way to look at his own body but that was the truth of it. "Why do you do this? The job, I mean. What's the point?" he asked because that thought was nagging at the back of his mind. Why be with people who would just die?

"They tried. I'll get them for that too," Marcus promised. The waitress saw he finished his coffee and started over, but Marcus waved her off. He didn't want their conversation interrupted at the moment.

Especially with Booker's existential question. Wasn't it something that Marcus asked himself over and over, yet he always returned to these big cities, huge metropolises full of busy anonymous people.

"It keeps me busy," he answered at last, his eyes reflecting the weariness he felt over the question. He knew the futility that was behind the question, understood why Booker asked. "It fills the hours with... something."

Booker hadn't spent these centuries alone. He had his family but they didn't really live with people. They bounced from place to place and only split up every now and then. It was rare they spent so much time apart. Now, Booker had one hundred years.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment. He understood that weariness. It had pushed him down and down and down even with his friends. He couldn't imagine thousands of years alone. That would drive people insane. Marcus thought he was alone so... maybe there was some sense to living with people.

That sense of loneliness and guilt twisted in his stomach. "I'll probably take care of the bastards you wanted dead." And stay in Chicago a little while longer.

THE FIGHT MEME

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