Grandiose Delusions pt 3

The metal feet of Metal Foot that he swore were his own rang loud and bold with each step along the tracks, as if issuing a challenge to Underground Number Nine. “Man I feel good today!" he declared," We better get some real action tonight, im in rare form!"

 Mond chuckled cooly as the huge man shadowboxed, pushing aside dark, drifting fog. “Rare form implying you’re not always this raring to go?” Mond sneered, “Hah, good point mate”

“Still, most of the time these little outings the old guy finds end up being a bust, should know better than to get my hopes up too often in this piece o’ crap world.” 

His spring rigged legs clicked as he bent down to pick up a small dark stone, which he chucked into the void with surprising strength even for someone of his size.

“What are you expecting in the way of a fight? Thinking of suplexing the train?” a proud smile stretched on Mond's face at the hearty reaction his joke got out of MF, who rocked the deep blue-crimson rail burrow. 

"If I have too” He slapped one of his mechanical limbs, “just wait till you see what these babies can do, strong as fifteen men, sturdy as eleven fat ones! Hell I bet I can even outrun the rattler itself goin’ full blast!”

The boy wasn’t sure what to make of the man's claims, but sneered playfully at his confidence.

 “What, you doubt?” he threw his hands on his hips, walking backwards with exaggerated sass, “Just what exactly have you done in your lifetime, exploit wise, huh Mond? What’s your feats, your specialty?”

He thought about the question, another attempt to wrap his brain around one more facet of this anti-existential puzzle. Just to what extent could the human mind rationalize what their physical nature is capable of? And what were the conditions one would have to go through to forge a belief system skewed enough to give such a powerful result? 

He thought about his childhood, about his painful rip from youthful magic despite a relatively normal life, about the woods, the sky and the Moon.

“Think about it, yeah?” he gave Mond a playful shove, gesturing to his tightly gripped hands, softly sizzling with electric light 

“ you got that going on dontcha’?” He’d nearly forgotten about his paracasual grip keeping them all safe on the normally charged tracks, his hands had become numb from the constant action, yet still very sturdy in their intent.

“I’ll be honest I'm not really sure what this is, but if I had to guess, I suppose it’s like a sort of hairtrigger reaction” He thought back to that night with the power plant, had that been him? Like the compulsion to cover one's face from an incoming vehicle, ultimately pointless, yet still instinct. Only in his case the pointless action coincided with a rather fortunate result.

“It’s kinda like a physical expression of synaptic firing, electrical action that just flows with my natural movement.” He stared down at his sparking fist, growing brighter as he fell deeper into the self-conspiracy

“I dunno about all that, kinda seems like an honest-to-God guardian angel to me, you said you made friends with some kinda fairy didntcha?” MF gestured back at Mond as he continued to lead the way through the dark, “If you ask me, that’s the simplest answer here. "

“Well yeah, I suppose but… something like Biblio couldn’t really exist even with the laws of synchronicity, especially taking the Alphatlas into account”. 

MF looked back with wrinkled brows, “Aplh- what now?” 

“Its-” Mond stopped with his tongue in his teeth, as if the explanation got jammed in his delivery . That word, it had nestled in his mind so smoothly and discreetly, its concepts so obvious to him ever since that night he met Sonne. But the words of it couldn't even escape his inner voice, an idea that was all data and no shape or sound or any kind of tangibility.

MF sighed, stopping his march and turning in one swift motion to lay a huge hand on Mond's shoulder, easily a half meter below . He gazed down with a serious, oddly wise aura about him that Mond had yet to see, and it grabbed his attention like a warrior's regard to their general. 

“I know what Sonne says, about syncro-whatever and causality and all that, and hell maybe he’s right, probably is”

He knelt down, hands on knees so that he could be eye level with his smaller companion, “ Wanna know how I lost my legs?” 

Before Mond could respond, and slightly to his relief that he didn't have too, MF continued. “Well ya’ can’t, because like I said before, these ain’t no plastic contraptions, I'm a true to God genuine cyborg.” 

He ran a large dark hand up the curved metal of the blade, his eyes darkening softly, like his inner strength was fighting a black wave of mourning come to loosen the comforting grip of denial in its inevitable typhoon.

“But I can tell you the first time I really came to appreciate these ol shanks, really appreciate em, for what they made me.” Mond followed his gaze up there sleek red composite angles, dotted with sticks for british rock bands and car logos.

“Time was I was about your age, assuming you’re early twenties yea?” Mond nodded, it was close enough and he didn’t mind coming off a tad older in all honesty. “Back then I just saw em’ as shitty pieces of metal, cheap replacements for the real thing” his eyes glossed over gently, like dew on a tank, “like I was less of a man now, less human.”

“Doc’s tried to help me adjust, therapy and whatnot, but nothing took, I didn't want it too, I figured a quarter of me was already gone, the rest would just be on its way out sooner or later.”

He looked up suddenly into Mond's eyes, demanding full attention in both gaze and tone. “But that all changed, as you can clearly see.” He stood up high, towering over Mond not just in statue but spirit, casting an olympic emanation in his presence.

“See the issue was I those doc’s were trying to teach me to walk on legs that weren't my own, but what I needed to see was that these were every bit me as any bit of saggy flesh” he slapped his left limb which rank out in clamoring emphasis.

“Oh but I learned fairy boy, I learned quickly” he got up into Mond's face again, quieting the crescendo of his voice to a halt. “One cold night, after a particularly straining and hopeless day of P.T, I heard my dear old Mama shouting across our flat.”

 “ You take one more step up those stairs and I’ll gut you, you hear me? Gut you!”. He shrieked with in high pitched Immulation 

Quickly dropping his voice to a cold, hard whisper, “Bastard neighbor cross the hall always was a drunk, and not the fun kind like Mahou, oh no, he was the kind to take advantage of an old lady and her disabled son for their kindness then stab em in the back." a rare anger replaced the confidence in his eyes. 

" Break into their place and beat on em’ just cause he could.” A mix of hurt and determined nostalgia crept across his face, “ Mond, you think I got all brave then, found the strength to defend my poor little Mama?” his smile stayed, but his gaze filled with more deep somber blue than the dust that surrounded them, “Nah”

“I was afraid Mond, curled up like a big fat baby, cryin.” His voice cracked, even more noticeable with his strong accent. "That' s when the screamin’ started, but not from my Mama, nah, it was drowned out by that bleedin’ bastard, screeching and howling like an injured animal.”

MF’s large hand gripped around Mond's shoulders tight enough he would have asked to be let go, had his story not gripped him even tighter. “I wanted to hear her screams man, can you believe that? I pulled myself arm over arm out of bed, nails in wood, forcing myself up the side of the wall to stand on those shoddy pieces of metal just to see over the banister, to hear her screams under the demonic whales just to know she still existed in this world.”

His eyes become like glass, icy and clear, as if all color had faded from them in order to let the world's color in. “You know phantom limbs are Mond? When the body is detached from a part of it, it sometimes just can’t cope, the brain knows it's gone, insists on that fact. But the body refuses that ethos.” 

He let go of Mond's shoulders, the pressure dissipating like a headache calming in a sudden smooth relief, and stood up straight. “The moment I saw down those stairs, I chose to believe in my body and not my brain. I stood, I ran, better than I ever had, better than anyone ever has or ever will.” 

His crystal clear eyes blazed with cool icy fire, his own storm swallowing the tides of grief in flames of glory.

“Make no mistake, Mond, these are my legs. And they will never, ever- fail anyone ever again”