Super Punch Mans

[Null]

The boy had made a real effort to appear conciliatory and at least somewhere in the general vein of "nice" as he congratulated the other team on their victory. He still had some dignity, if not an identity.

It wouldn't take a telepath to realize, however, that he wasn't taking this super well, as anyone who went out into the hallway after the fight would find the wall smashed in a couple places, with bloody handprints making it fairly clear who had done it.

The sound of someone beating the shit out of a punching bag may also be a key indicator of frustration.

((open))

[Samantha McManus]

"So how'd we end up here, anyway?" Sam asks as she comes in.

"Fighting for a name, and all that."

[Null]

The boy slammed the punching bag a couple more times before turning to answer.

"ASHLIE figured this was the best way to go about it. I...didn't want to be associated with it. It's all the things about me that make me weak, and powerless, and vulnerable," he said, punctuating each line with a shot to the bag.

"Or I thought it was all the things. I guess I have a few more to burn off, here."

[Samantha McManus]

"You're not exactly the things he likes about himself, either."

[Null]

"Yeah, I get that."

Punch. Punch. Punch.

"He wouldn't have been able to drag your ass back from the fight, or interrogate a prisoner to figure out where they had fled to, or go back out and fight them again. He's a liability in the field; a weight tied around people's ankles. He doesn't like that I get things done, and he doesn't. You know what, if he's fine with that, great. I just needed him to not be associated with me."

Punch. Punch. Punch.

"And that's just listing the practical problems. We're not even into the embarrassing ones, yet."

[Samantha McManus]

"And in the process you abandoned me, and I had my body taken over."

"So now I know how he feels when you force him to change. Isn't that pleasant?"

[Null]

"Abandoned you? C'mon, Sam, we were in the middle of a mission. I could have left you on the street and chased after the Brotherhood right then and there. I took you to safety and made sure they'd patch you up. If I had stayed with you, we never would have found them, and your boytoy would be gone forever.


And do you think you know how he feels when he's forced to change? Because I'd wager..." he hesitated. "Not that I have anything left to wager, but I wager that if you did know how he felt, you wouldn't be complaining about it."

[Samantha McManus]

"He's complaining about it, aye? So why should I second-guess that?"

[Null]

"Mmm. I somehow doubt that he is, and even if he was, I doubt he'll continue to do so in future."

Punch. Punch. Punch.

"Good move with the banana slug by the way. Might have been better had you continued the connection and shrank me down; you left me a loophole. Sean probably had you pretty busy, though."

[Samantha McManus]

"Last resort, and I notice you bloody hated it, too."

[Null]

The boy sighed, blowing some hair out of his eyes.

"Two things.

One, I'm not him.

And two, what makes you think I hated it? It was inconvenient because I couldn't punch you when we were fighting. I will admit, it was not one of my life's grand ambitions...but as I said, I'm not him."

[Samantha McManus]

"I think you hated it because you broke your damned thumb to try and resist it."

[Null]

"You've got me there. It's definitely what you think it is, and not what I just said it was. Three minds smarter than one and all that."

He sighed.

"Had you shifted me into a mutated hell-beast, or Jean Claude Van Damn, or the Hulk, it wouldn't have been an issue, because then I could have kept fighting. Banana slugs, even massive ones, are notoriously slim on offensive maneuvers. Also, a little embarrassing that that was the first thing you thought of when you saw me being a threat, but I suppose that's just because I've got what passes for an ego between the two of us."


He turned around.

"I was enjoying that, by the by. The fighting. It's been...too long since I tangled with someone who knew what they were doing."

[Samantha McManus]

"...well, as much as it drives me up a bloody wall to be compared to her, you've probably guessed that I like to fight."

[Null]

"Yes, I can see how frustrating it would be to have people thinking you're someone you have no control over and/or don't particularly like," the boy deadpanned.


"I don't suppose you'd put the name back on the line in a rematch of some sort?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't think it should've been on the line in the first place. You're both Will, even if you hate each other."

[Null]

The boy clenched his fist, some more blood dripping to the floor as he did so.

"If you didn't agree with the contest, why did you participate?. I would have won the one-on-one fight."

[Samantha McManus]

"Because you'd bloody steamroll him? Because you got all the backbone, apparently literally, and that wasn't even remotely fair?"

[Null]

"And having a war goddess on his side somehow was fair. I getcha."


"You know, I really thought I had you there," the boy said after a pause. "I thought I'd driven up the right combination of powers to knock you down. Called in a lot of favors, and I still couldn't do it. Little humbling, you know? Then again, I suppose I should have known the result when Nailah told me that he had recruited all of you. Heck, ASHLIE probably recognized that as the most likely result of the contest when she created it. A way to bump my ego in check? Protecting her investments? A little of both? Who knows what she calculated."

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't think you underestimated me. I think you underestimated us together."

[Null]

"Possible," the boy admitted. "And it's possible I overestimated some of my teammates. Nobody's perfect, I suppose."

[Samantha McManus]

"The way I see it, both of you have blind spots you could drive a lorry through."

[Null]

"You're probably right.

As do you, and Tereza, and ASHLIE, and the prime minister and Charles Xavier himself. We're only human.

It feels like you're leading towards something here, Sam. Are you? Or are we just poking holes in one another?"

[Samantha McManus]

"You can't think like him. He can't think like you. You used to be able to do both."

"And you used to be able to shift into more things."

[Null]

"Woahwoahwoahwoah, hold on with that last bit. I can shift into fucking anything you want right here, right now. Name it, and I'll do it right here.

I have SOME pride, you know."

He puffed up his chest and looked Sam in the eyes, growing a couple inches taller to make it slightly more...impressive?

[Samantha McManus]

"Okay."

"Turn into a working cell phone."

[Null]

"Oh, I thought you were going to ask for something hard," he said, falling to the floor at Sam's feet -- a shiny silver box clattering as it came to a stop.

The boy's face was on the screen as the lock wallpaper, but the phone was otherwise devoid of the branding a Will object usually had on it -- a generic phone, I suppose.

[Samantha McManus]

"Here's the test."

She picks the phone up and tries to call Tereza on it.

[Narrator]

It seemed to be working, at least! The phone had three bars, and was ringing.

[Samantha McManus]

She sets the phone down after the call ends.

"If you really wanted to see who was worthy of the name, you should've had a shapeshifting contest."

[Null]

The boy shifted back, crouched.

"And if I had been able to propose the details of the contest, that's what I would have done.

It was ASHLIE who set the rules, ASHLIE who technically owns..." he trailed off. And then grinned.

"ASHLIE who technically owns 'Will Stanton'. For now, at least."

[Samantha McManus]

"You know, I think both of you are putting a little too much stock in being 'owned.'"

[Null]

The boy waved his hand dismissively at that.

"You're just saying that because you're not. You'd be singing a different tune if the university had a piece of paper with your name on it."

[Samantha McManus]

"I'm fairly certain it's the only thing keeping you from being brought up on murder charges right now."

[Null]

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yes, we're all held responsible for things that we do when someone else is controlling us, aren't we?

I think you'd have some compassion after your recent experience. The only reason you're not in my shoes is that your targets were stronger people."

[Samantha McManus]

"I'm saying it's an arrangement she's only used to benefit you. I don't buy into the whole unperson kick your other half tends to wallow in, but I'd wager completely lacking a legal identity isn't something that would work out for you either."

[Null]

"I mean, I currently lack a legal identity. I can't vote, I can't rent a car. Can't get on a plane. Can't buy a beer in a pub. I'm not a citizen of any country -- these are significant problems if you want to be your own person, you know?

If ASHLIE had really wanted to, she could have forged all sorts of background papers and all that. She didn't. She has us -- and I do mean all of us -- under her thumb, for reasons which presumably make sense only to her."

[Samantha McManus]

"What makes you so certain that whoever programmed her gave her that leeway?"

[Null]

"She always seems to fall back on that excuse when she wants one of us to do something nasty, have you noticed?"

[Samantha McManus]

"Everybody's got limits. Hers are as out of her control as yours, aye?"