peccatore | Marco's Heart

Marco's Heart

You find yourself in a bright white, circular room. It's nearly empty; too bare, almost clinically so. But the bareness of it means that what is visible here stands out:

A podium in the center, where a familiar figure sits, head buried in his hands. Three paths running from the podium to three different spots near the edges of the room - not corners; circles don't have corners - where three doors leading seemingly nowhere stand with no regard for their complete lack of structural support.

It doesn't take you long to figure out where you are, does it? You only have to decide where to start.

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The second door... yeah, that tracks.

[She sighs and leans her head on Marco's shoulder for as long as the memory will let her before moving on.]

"Yeaaah, this one's kinda boring. He just sits there thinking about how much he wants to kill me, then apologises about it. You know, I've got a better one!"

Their surroundings blur again, but not before Marco gives Ashwyn a grateful, tender glance. Once more, everything moves and shifts until the space around them coalesces into the living room of someone with more money than good sense. Marco stands off to the side, his movements restricted by ankle cuffs - made of silver, naturally - while closer to the center are Kaphlar and Sabrina.

[Ashwyn grits her teeth. Would you believe this is a situation she's been in too? You should, Marco, because you visited that dream with her.]

So what's going on here?

[Said in the tone of voice of someone who knows there's not a good reason.]

Kaphlar (the figment living rent-free in Marco's brain) would shush her spitefully, but for better or for worse, Kaphlar (the one from this memory) provides an answer of sorts before long.

"Marco, buddy, pal, so good to see you! Thanks for accepting my little invitation~"

To which Marco responds, tired and with a dry throat,

"Go to Hell."

(A woman's voice chimes in: "You'll both be there!")

[All things considered, Ashwyn is doing a pretty good job keeping herself in check. Her fists clench, but she stays where she stands.]

Kaphlar grins. For how much he does it, it's no wonder the look is burned into Marco's memory.

"Oh, come ooon, don't be so upset. Look, you want me to leave you alone? Well, today's your lucky day!"

"'Lucky day,'" Marco echoes. "Somehow, I doubt that."

"No, really! Sure, yeah, okay, maybe I was a little rude in my invitation, and, you know -" He gestures at the cuffs "- Gotta keep your rabid ass from tearing into me now that you're dying to stop repressing the real you, but I want to work out a deal!"

"I-- I am not..." Marco clenches his fists, expression torn between fury and terror without, in truth, looking very much like either. "Get out. S-Stop. I won't. I won't."

But his glamour is failing. He hisses through his fangs even as he speaks. ("He wants to tear him apart," says that voice again. "Our rabid son, our wicked son, our wretched son!")

Marco...

[It's a memory. It's a memory. You can't meaningfully change the outcome.]

[Gods fucking dammit.]

[Ashwyn, once again, steps in, standing beside Marco. Her eyes are blazing. She's got a hand on his back, just to remind him.]

[She's there. The memory is painful. But she's there.]

Marco gasps. Not back then, but here and now. Regardless, Kaphlar carries on.

"Just listen to me for a second, alright? I promise - scout's honor - I'll leave you alone after tonight, if you just do me one little favor."

He pulls Sabrina closer to him, holds her at his side and says,

"All you gotta do is turn Effy here."

And then she says, so suddenly that neither Marco nor Ashwyn could possibly interject before her,

"What?! You-- What?!" A pause. "Without-- You didn't tell me...!"

... The other Kaphlar, watching somewhere behind Ashwyn, seems annoyed.

"Hey, what's the point of this one again? What are we doing here?"

[Ashwyn slowly turns her gaze from the memory Kaphlar to the other one. Keeping her hand on Marco's back is all that's stopping her from lighting Kaphlar up on the spot.]

You are slime.

"Hey-- Hey, why don't we move on from this one?" Kaphlar is... sweating? Meanwhile, Marco chuckles quietly. It's an unusual sound coming from him.

No. We're not going anywhere yet.

[She looks to Marco, then back to Kaphlar with a smug grin on her face.]

See, way I figure it, we're about to see you getting your shit kicked in. And I wouldn't miss it for the world.

[She manifests a bucket of popcorn.]

"No, you're not. Even if that was what happened, which it fucking WASN'T--"

"Not yet," Marco mumbles.

"We're moving on!"

Their surroundings shift again, though not by much; they're outside the living room now, but still in the same building. A half-dozen people aside from Marco are here, picking themselves up. Kaphlar's body lies on the floor motionless--

"NO!" The Kaphlar that's still upright isn't pleased by this, to say the least. Already, the background is trying to shift again. "What the hell is this even doing here, that's enough--!"

[Ashwyn eats a handful of popcorn.]

[Ashwyn grins.]

[And she snaps her fingers.]

No, we're not moving on yet. I want to see this.

"This memory is in the wrong place!"

It looks like he's trying to... swipe past it? Their surroundings stutter, but Ashwyn definitely has the time to see a certain child - the one who tried to tell her what to do earlier - kneeling by Marco's side, reaching towards him.

[She doesn't try to stop it, not yet. But she files it away. Where do they end up?]

Their surroundings fly in the opposite direction. Back past the living room, past the alley, back the arena; not much further back, but enough that the transition isn't instantaneous.

Ashwyn is now in the audience for a press conference.

[Well... guess the popcorn might still come in handy. She suspects that she's still not going to like this one, though.]

No, perhaps not. Intrigued whispers surround Ashwyn; nobody seems quite sure why they're here. An announcement, Marco Evangelisti had said. Nothing related to current or upcoming products; what is it for, then? Apparently, he'd been vague.

But he's stepping up to the podium now, with a perfectly diplomatic smile on his lips and something distant in his eyes.

"Thank you." That's how he opens. "Thank you all for coming, on this... very important, very non-standard day. Thank you for the trust you have placed in me. I hope I may continue to rely on your trust in the coming days. I expect them to be... unprecedented. Unprecedented, I think, is the word."

A pause.

"But that is probably enough beating around the bush. You didn't come here to listen to a rich man say nothing of consequence. I'm sure you get enough of that in your job." His smile is a convincing facsimile, from a distance. It may not fool Ashwyn. "My announcement is as follows:"

The room is utterly silent, awaiting Marco's words.

"From today on, I, Marco Evangelisti, vow to make the public aware of a threat that has menaced mankind since its inception. For centuries, all manners of inhuman creatures with supernatural abilities have lived among us in secret, and they pose a danger to us all."

[No, Ashwyn's very familiar with forced smiles, especially Marco's. But...]

[It takes her a second to understand why everyone around her looks so shocked. After all, Ennen is packed to the gills with inhuman creatures with supernatural abilities that pose a danger to everyone.]

[And then she remembers something Marco told her earlier. And she pales.]

[So this is that.]

[But what can she do but watch?]

Many cameras go off. The journalists seem universally hesitant to speak up, but once just one of them does, the dam breaks. The memory is fuzzing at the edges...

But Kaphlar is right there by Ashwyn's side, smirking.

"So how's that puzzle looking?"

[Ashwyn is frowning. She lays out what she knows, in a rough chronological order:
1. Marco did this press conference.
2. ??? (Possibly Kaphlar being an asshole.)
3. Marco organizes a tournament.
4. During the finals, Kaphlar lures him onstage and breaks his glamour, after which he gets angry in an alleyway.
5. ??? (Possibly Kaphlar being an asshole.)
6. Kaphlar shackles Marco and tries to bully him into turning Sabrina.
7. Kaphlar is on the ground, possibly dead. Good riddance.]

[There are two competing voices in her head: one that suggests that there's some 4th-dimensional chess going on here, and one that suggests that Kaphlar's an asshole and Marco's a nice guy and the two ended up on a collision course.]

[She growls under her breath. She's missing too many pieces right now.]

Kaphlar is still looking at her expectantly, perhaps too close for comfort.

"Penny for your thoughts, Ash?"

[out loud, as much to herself as to Kaphlar:]

I think the pieces I'm missing right now are... why did he organize a tournament after this? And why do you have an axe to grind with him?

"You know what? Despite your attitude, I'm feeling nice. So here's what I can tell you."

He holds up a finger.

"One, you're pretty much done with this door. That's aaall there is to see here."

Two fingers.

"Two, since it didn't come up earlier, here's the deal: that tournament was for people with magical abilities. Now, why would he want to finance something like that, and why in secret?"

Three fingers. His grin turns sinister.

"Three... Don't get your hopes up. Poor Marco doesn't get why I did half of what I did."

[That second point... Ashwyn's blood runs cold. Well, to be more specific, the magical energy that she has instead of blood runs puce and cacophonous, but the overall effect is the same. Marco, what were you doing...?]

[She glances to Kaphlar.]

Thanks.

[And despite the annoyance in her voice, she can't lie. She is genuinely thanking him for information.]

[She makes to leave the memory.]

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Marco's Heart

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