10-26-2018, 10:35 PM
[align=center][div style="width: 51%; text-align: justify; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: -1px; font-family: verdana;"]Forty-eight hours had yet to pass and already Bruce felt like another wasted second would burst a blood vessel in his head. He had yet to master the art of patience, even though he liked to think that keeping his claws sheathed and his head down counted as "working on it".
The only thing that kept him tethered to this godawful place was the anger that roiled hot in his chest at the sight of something so cruel, so deprived. It took him back to places he didn't want to be. And in both reality and memory, no matter where he looked, how long he mulled over the things he'd seen, he was left with one unsolvable word branded on his tongue: Why? Everything that seemed to make sense to him as a child had turned out to be wrong. He thought the world was a good place because his parents had protected him from the sight of death, of war. He thought material goods made people happy because that was their business, trading, and the kitten had only known smiles on strangers' faces when they held a pretty gem or piece of gold. He thought he'd always be happy because he used to be. Now he was just alone.
And he thinks, there's no possible way he could do something with all this rage, all this energy buzzing livid in his chest. He'd be strung up and quartered, left to rot the second he lashed out. He wants to swing fists, to crack his forehead against the skull of that Stryker bastard, he wants to open these cages and let the captives run free and laugh as the fragile ties that kept the Pitt's empire standing were torn from the ground. Instead he's nursing wounds in these caves, isolated as he's ever been among a crowd of degenerates, and it's doing well to whittle his patience down to a razor-sharp edge.
These caves - tunnels, really, but occasionally they widen into cavernous spaces that make up the joints of a complex labyrinth - are what have housed the cheetah since he faux-joined the Pitt. The ever-fiery sun, although autumnal, still seared the jungle to its core and made the desert sands into a brutal wasteland; his interest in the pyramids and surrounding ruinous city waxed and waned with the position of the sun. Thus Bruce (and the few other Pitt dwellers that had a fistful of brain cells) took to the underground web to beat the day's heat and nightly chill. Not to mention the fact that the higher-ups seemed to spend more time on the surface than below, leaving the unwilling soul to find his bearings alone in what felt like a personal hell on earth.
(As if he hadn't been brutalized enough in all his years.)
Bruce moved with a confidence that he forced into every muscle and bone, a careful facade. His expression was set just as it had been on the desert border: calm, unwavering, detached from its surroundings. It gave no reason for any other Pitt member to pay attention to him, in spite of the occasional twitch of an ear as pain welled up like blood in his still-fresh wounds. He moved past slaves, their flinching bodies pressed to the walls or hunched in their exhaustion, and felt that same anger he'd felt at the sight of Tsuyu and her so-called toy tighten like a hand around his throat. He felt something, something like a want of vengeance, a want of -
The word slips from his mind before he can parse it. Fiercely determined, yet not sure what for, he moved through the narrow tunnels towards an open space, the sun filtering through cracks to reveal barracks for the slaves; cages against the walls, bodies shifting in their desperate attempts at nest-making in the dirt.
And he thinks of two bodies on the ground, faces turned to their son, still screaming, frothing at the mouth with spittle and pink blood. He thinks of shallow graves and watches the slaves scratch at the ground as though this hole will be their deathbed. And he feels something.
"Why this?" He doesn't know who he's speaking to. He isn't sure if he's ready for an answer.
The only thing that kept him tethered to this godawful place was the anger that roiled hot in his chest at the sight of something so cruel, so deprived. It took him back to places he didn't want to be. And in both reality and memory, no matter where he looked, how long he mulled over the things he'd seen, he was left with one unsolvable word branded on his tongue: Why? Everything that seemed to make sense to him as a child had turned out to be wrong. He thought the world was a good place because his parents had protected him from the sight of death, of war. He thought material goods made people happy because that was their business, trading, and the kitten had only known smiles on strangers' faces when they held a pretty gem or piece of gold. He thought he'd always be happy because he used to be. Now he was just alone.
And he thinks, there's no possible way he could do something with all this rage, all this energy buzzing livid in his chest. He'd be strung up and quartered, left to rot the second he lashed out. He wants to swing fists, to crack his forehead against the skull of that Stryker bastard, he wants to open these cages and let the captives run free and laugh as the fragile ties that kept the Pitt's empire standing were torn from the ground. Instead he's nursing wounds in these caves, isolated as he's ever been among a crowd of degenerates, and it's doing well to whittle his patience down to a razor-sharp edge.
These caves - tunnels, really, but occasionally they widen into cavernous spaces that make up the joints of a complex labyrinth - are what have housed the cheetah since he faux-joined the Pitt. The ever-fiery sun, although autumnal, still seared the jungle to its core and made the desert sands into a brutal wasteland; his interest in the pyramids and surrounding ruinous city waxed and waned with the position of the sun. Thus Bruce (and the few other Pitt dwellers that had a fistful of brain cells) took to the underground web to beat the day's heat and nightly chill. Not to mention the fact that the higher-ups seemed to spend more time on the surface than below, leaving the unwilling soul to find his bearings alone in what felt like a personal hell on earth.
(As if he hadn't been brutalized enough in all his years.)
Bruce moved with a confidence that he forced into every muscle and bone, a careful facade. His expression was set just as it had been on the desert border: calm, unwavering, detached from its surroundings. It gave no reason for any other Pitt member to pay attention to him, in spite of the occasional twitch of an ear as pain welled up like blood in his still-fresh wounds. He moved past slaves, their flinching bodies pressed to the walls or hunched in their exhaustion, and felt that same anger he'd felt at the sight of Tsuyu and her so-called toy tighten like a hand around his throat. He felt something, something like a want of vengeance, a want of -
The word slips from his mind before he can parse it. Fiercely determined, yet not sure what for, he moved through the narrow tunnels towards an open space, the sun filtering through cracks to reveal barracks for the slaves; cages against the walls, bodies shifting in their desperate attempts at nest-making in the dirt.
And he thinks of two bodies on the ground, faces turned to their son, still screaming, frothing at the mouth with spittle and pink blood. He thinks of shallow graves and watches the slaves scratch at the ground as though this hole will be their deathbed. And he feels something.
"Why this?" He doesn't know who he's speaking to. He isn't sure if he's ready for an answer.
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[b]THOUGH WE REPENT AND DON SACKCLOTH AND TRY TO
MAKE NICE — YOU CAN'T CROSS THE SAME RIVER TWICE
MAKE NICE — YOU CAN'T CROSS THE SAME RIVER TWICE