Boat of Destiny

Boat of Destiny
Date of Scene:	11 December 2012
Location:	Castle Oblivion
Synopsis:	The third part of Hobo with a Shotgun.
Cast of Characters:	Will Sherman, Riku
Tinyplot:	Hobo With a Shotgun

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Riku has posed:
It had been a desperate scramble the last hundred yards to the lake. The Veil had parted and the heartless had found them, and by virtue of that, the nameless voice had found them and it had taken both of them working together again to make that last few feet.

In a numbed existance, the feel of the voice's irritation was one of the few positive emotions Riku had felt for this unspecific time where there is no sun or passage of time. The boat had gone without their permission and rightly so because they had been somewhat occupied at the time. Now it was bearing them where they needed to be, and Riku had blocked out from his mind what that could mean.

Riku opens his eyes. It has been a long time. A short time? He's not immediately sure. Waters flowed around them, the river having opened up into a flat plain of smooth obsidian waters. He hadn't slept. He was keeping himself from doing that by virtue of being afraid. Mostly of who and or what he would be when he woke up again. If he woke up again. One of the very few advantages to being part omnicidal monster in a place where omnicidal monsters are common is the ability for him to pick his poisons.

He drew thin threads of darkness from the environment saturated by it, and he sat-- unmoving in his side of the boat leaning up against the wood. He didn't know how long it had been now. Only that he had needed some time for his mind to retreat into peaceful darkness. A trance perhaps, but not unconsciounsess. He felt the voice looking for him several times-- but something about this boat. Something about the river of dark waters that flowed from Central park into places beyond Manhattan had kept them from finding him.

Riku felt every joint scream from being stationary for so long, but he shrugged off the pain as inconsequential. Despite this, he had difficulty struggling up away from the back of the boat to look around.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will had fought with everything he had to get to those last few feet. These days he's grown confident with the shotgun, using it to powerful ends and awesome follow up attacks with his fists. The two braved the darkness, and finally the boat took them. Will retreated once they were safe, and the threat of heartless were gone for the moment. He leaned against the rail of the boat and looked down into the water that didn't reflect his image.

He had slept, but he felt more tired than ever now. The weight of his existance came down on him like a hammer, confirming some of his greatest fears...but even then questions remained open. Some of the where and whys...but ultimately it didn't matter.

He was just a container who gained sentience...he wasn't even a real person, just ment to serve a purpose and even failed to do that. Every once in a while he moves to keep the ache out of his feet, but he always returns to the boat. Despair about himself...about Manhattan...his friends...what Loki did to them... it all came back to haunt him.

Riku has posed:
Riku looks out over the glassy waters, fingers trailing over the side as the boat meandered. It was not the first time the thought had approached him that the boat seemed aimless and drifting, as if Hel had been wrong. Or worse than wrong-- and there was simply no place for either of them to be. Riku closed his eyes again. When he opened them, time seemed wrong and there was a flutter of panic as he tried to regain the shreds of his sense of reality.

There was no longer just a flat expanse of ocean in all directions. Instead a shadowy mass was on the horizon. The entire realm around them was lit by a pale silvery radiance that came from nowhere. Now it had a source. Riku craned his eyes upwards to see stormclouds where there should be a blanket of nothing. A moon that had appeared as if it had only been obscured by clouds.

Riku squinted hard at the slowly growing stretch of land on the horizon. His eyes widened slightly as the silent ocean began to mumble to itself. Gentle waves lapped across the surface while Riku reared back from the side. He silently frowned, summoning a black pole into his hand.

It plunged straight into the water to steer the boat away from the approaching land. He might as well try to redirect the ocean itself. The boat continued oblivious to his efforts.

Will Sherman has posed:
The commotion got Will's attention, for the first time in...days? Weeks? He didn't know, but it got his attention as Riku attempted to steer away from the island. Will blinked a few times, moving to stand up and look out towards the Horizon.

An island...but...why? There weren't any answers for him on any islands...right? RIGHT? Will hated the ocean.

He closed his eyes and slowly opened them...and it was still there. "Riku..? What is wrong?" he asks, curious to the boy's panic.

Something had to be wrong right?

Riku has posed:
Riku coughs as he tries to speak. He clears his throat several times and shakes his head, simply trying harder. The boat continued to slide on as Riku abandoned the pole and manipulated the dark water around them.

It rose up like a wave and parted in the middle as the Boat brushed aside the dark water aside like tissue paper. Riku stands there with his hand outstretched. He slowly lets it fall back to his side. Useless.

"Nothing." he sighs very quietly. He coughs again as the words come only roughly to his throat. He sits down in the boat, quickly and hard. "It's just.. not somewhere I want anything to do with." He closes his eyes, putting his half folded hands to his face and leaning his elbows on the edge of the Boat as it carried them closer.

Riku drew in one deep breath after another while they got closer. A beach could be distuinguished now. A flow of silver sand wrapping around an island joined by a much smaller one. The vague outlines of lush tropical plants begin to fill in the outline of the distant island. The line of a rickety bridge connecting the smaller island to an even smaller outcropping with a single lopsided tree curving out over the side to hang over the water. Riku doesn't move again. Not even when the Boat gently bumps against the sand, grounding itself.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will watches as they get closer...

Will sighs, he's not much for being supportive right now...and not at all to Riku, but...

"It's your home, isn't it?" Will asks, perhaps already knowing the answer based on what Riku has said before to him, about the few times it has come up. He sighs, "She did say...it would send us where we need to be. Perhaps...this is where you need to be."

"Also, we do need food."

Riku has posed:
Riku finds himself muttering "Yeah" in a dispirited voice. Then the anger begins. It builds up in a relentless surge of hate. He shouldn't be here. He didn't want to be here. Didn't deserve to be here. Riku feels like lashing out at Will, at the world, at the damn boat-- at-- anything. The hating words fill up his mouth.

/Yeah. I'd eat you but you'd just be empty calories./

The teenager turns towards Will to spit them in his face when his eyes unfocus. The armored guardian is standing behind Will, for a flickering instant, a single slice of film and he feels such a burning shame that he drops his head to the sand. The words go unsaid.

Footsteps crunch along the sand but they don't carry the same echoing malice as the nameless voice. The laughter of children doppler past Will and Riku, the teen following something with his eyes and his shoulders sagging as he stares into the distance. After a long minute and a longer silence he nods.

"Okay." his mouth barely moving as he drags himself away from the beach deeper into the isaldn. "Let's get you some food."

He looks back and forth but seems to be doing this automatically as he picks his way across the terrain automatically. "Houses are on the main island but there's food enough here. Either way, it's not too far." his voice is calm and absolutely dead of inflection.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will blinks at Riku and his...odd behavior. It is something for him to focus on instead of his own problems. He sighs, and moves to Follow Riku onto the island, though the laughter sends a chill down Will's spine...it shouldn't but here...here it does. Frowning, he tries to speak...but the words don't come right away. He needs time to think...

Finally... "Stop running away." he finally says to Riku. "Get angry. Feel SOMETHING. Hell, I don't care if you deck me right now. Seriously, you acting like this isn't going to actually do anything for you." Will finally says.

"Yeah, I pretty much hate you right now. You hate me too, for what I am starting to see...and for that I really really am sorry."

He pauses... "Goddamn it, I am doing the soapbox thing again. Sorry, really...just..." he tries to find right right words.

"Tell me what is eating at you."

Riku has posed:
"I can't." Riku looks surprised at himself for saying it. He looks at Will and shakes his head. "I'm not--" he calls up the fire again, looking at the play of it over his fingers as he concentrates on controlling the flame. When he closes his hand the fire goes out. He continues to walk, waving away the conversation. He deftly climbs into a small cave, staring at it for a few moments as he has to duck his head to move through it. He takes several steps. "I--"

He stops there, because the small cave doesn't lead to where it is supposed to. Instead he sees lights in distant houses. Grass and trees. A white fence. Two boys lay on the sand looking up at the stars.



"I'm going to head back" -- the white haired kid, maybe 5, picks himself up and the brown haired boy is quick to follow. "Me too!" Riku slowly lists to one side as he watches the two walk away, leaning hard against the rough rocks as his younger self stops. "Huh? What's wrong Sora. You're--" Sora stops and turns towards him, wiping his eyes. His face was confused rather than sad. "Huh. Weird."

Riku slams a fist into the rock and begins to laugh bitterly, muttering to himself the words. "You know.. they say every world is connected by one great big sky." He slams out a hand, an arc of darkness slicing through the place where the ghosts hung in the air. They shredded like vapor and were gone. He spins around, breath heaving in his chest. "I'm going back to the boat. I'm not putting up with this. Not again."

Will Sherman has posed:
Will watches...glimpses of the life Riku lead before whatever happened to his home had turned it into this...place.

Will can't help but feel some comfort that the guy, despite everything, was a kid once. Well...a small kid who kinda sounded innocent. The scene between him, and Sora...yes that was defintely Sora, plays out, as Riku's anger dismisses it.

"Are you sure we'll be able to go back to it through that way anyway? There is something about this place.." Will considers for a moment...and he looks at Riku. "Besides. You're running." he says, once more. "Hell...I'm running I think. I don't want to be here either..." he shrugs. "Bad things have happened, Riku, but maybe this is a chance to see things outside looking in. All I gota say is...why not follow the path, see where it leads."

"Nobody said it was going to be easy...or fair. Or even happy."

"But do you feel his presence? I don't. I think something is trying to help us. Help you."

Riku has posed:
Joyous laughter. "Ahaha. Too slow Sora. See you at the finish line." "Aww. Hey. Wait up!"

Riku starts to laugh. It downscales quickly into a hideous laughter as he then sags over his knees. "You.. You think It's here to help me?!" He continues making that noise that has nothing to do with laughter. "It's not. It's just here to JUDGE. It's just here to grind in how much I've failed." Riku bolts forwards, running away from Will down the beach and away from the boat. As he passes underneath the rickety bridge, another scene echoes into existance. A blue haired warrior woman is speaking with the young Riku and Sora. "Sure I do!" the brown haired boy says in a cheerful voice. "He's my best friend!"

"Good." the female warrior says. "So then if something happens, and Riku is about to get lost--" The echo begins fading as Riku gets farther away. "-- or say he starts wandering down a dark path alone. You may sure to stay with him and keep him safe." she smiles, the images overlapping and blurring with time and distortion.

"That's your job Sora. And I'm counting on you to do it okay?' she ruffles their hair, causing both children to laugh.

The female warrior looks up, past the children at Riku disappearing down the beach. The echo then turns their eyes on Will as they fade away completely.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will sighs...damn it Riku. Seriously. He is not in the mood to be Mr. Positive today...

The scene plays out infront of him as he tries to keep up with Riku, he pauses though, the woman...

It was like watching things through a sort of looking glass, the distortions don't take away, not enough to be not understandable. He watches, those final lines, before she stares right at him...was it just the memory...or was it something...else?

Will shakes his head, damn it...damn it! Why did he have to still care so much. It'd be easier if he wasn't such a goshdarned bleeding sap. He chases after Riku, however, Riku has a head start...time to cheat!

Yes, fate powers go! Bring him closer to Riku, through sheer chance.

Of course, overtly using his powers like this isn't exactly subtle.

Riku has posed:
And hey. Subtle is never the best option. When things get rough? SMASH THEM WITH A HAMMER.

Riku appears to be taking this to heart. The shadowblade slams against metal armor. Each time he does, the entire island seems to snap backwards and forths slightly, like an echo, greater than the rest is trying to assert itself and swallow the island but is being blocked from doing so. An armored shape parries the teenagers frenzied attacks and pushes him backwards with a single slice.

It sends him flying a dozen feet to land, luckily (in some cases) and unluckily (in other cases) right at Will's feet. It looks like he has caught up. The moment Riku hits the sand, the armored shape is gone.

"Come back here." Riku screams at the empty air. "Come back here and face me you LIAR." He screams Liar again at the empty air and then thumps back onto the sand. He raises a hand at Will as in 'I swear-- if you use that soapbox again' and then thumps his hand back to the beach. He lets go and the echo asserts itself.

"Fine..." he mutters to himself as the echo comes into sharper focus. "You can't hurt me anymore. You're dead. Oh. Wait." Riku snorts. "Nevermind."

Will Sherman has posed:
IT'S BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT!

Will looks down at Riku, who has been knocked to his feet. The man in the armor stands over them both, who has conviently reappeared.

"What did he lie to you about?" Will asks, instead of standing over Riku, he bends down, aiming to try and help him back to his feet. "Who...is this anyway?" he asks, looking back up at the armored figure...the strange blue haired warrior too...both seemed to have a hand on Riku and Sora. For good or ill..

"Besides, hitting him with your sword seems to not exactly be working. Perhaps we should try another method? Yeah, I know, odd for me to say."

Riku has posed:
"Hit it harder?" Riku asks in a dully curious voice. He sighs, banishing the shadowblade and glaring at the armored figure. "You have no right." he pushes himself to his feet. "You have NO RIGHT. I kept my promise. I kept Sora from throwing himself at every stupid, bleeding-heart problem and lost cause he could FIND. I made myself ready. Hell-- I made sure HE was ready, because gods know Sora in an entire universe of trouble would just destroy the universe first before him. I DID everything you asked."

The armored guardian creaks, the keyblade in their hand planted in the sand with the hand clasped over it. The echo continues while Riku continues to rant, expelling a lifetime of resentment and self-doubt and bile that has been amplified and twisted by the darkness until he is literally dragging himself across mental thorns to spit out the hating, gnashing fury of his words.

"Hey." A younger Riku seems oblivious to this tirade. He walks towards the ocean where a young man stares out at the water. "Why do you say that?" "Oh-- Nobody lives out here, and you're not from the main island. " The echoes jerk and clash, the voices distorted "Smart kid. Must be hard huh. Being stuck in one place."

Riku has stopped temporarily in his tirade. The younger version of himself turns to give him a speculative look. "Are you done yet?" Riku grimaces at himself but doesn't respond. He just growls something like 'magic--" to himself and stays quiet, although punching something does look like it is still on the table despite the damage it would do to his fingers.

Will Sherman has posed:
A...keyblade?

This...is more distressing...Will can put two and two together...even without his eyes not being able to see the strings now. These things weren't things with fates...not in the same way Will and Riku did. Will's not bothering for details now...no, he's trying to puzzle this all out. The man, though...that man must be...

The same as this armored figure.

"You know.." Riku says, "You blame him for things...for a broken promise...and he stands before us...like this." he says, thinking. "I don't know what happened, but...I wonder." he muses, "Maybe he too, made choices, bad or good I can not say, that prevented him from coming back to make good on his word." he looks at Riku.

"We all have choices...rather they are ill infromed, bad, or what not." he continues, "We sometimes move forward, without knowing which way is the right way...sometimes we stumble. Sometimes we fall down a fight of stairs." he coninues... "But, if we continue forward, we eventually can pick ourselves back up. Maybe this is all what it is about Riku."

"Why does this make you so angry? Do you not have good memories of this place? Is it all such a source of bitterness for you?"

Riku has posed:
"Because it went to SORA." Riku whips around. In the background, the man is kneeling and a young Riku looks absolutely thunderstruck as he looks at the keyblade the man is presenting. He touches it as Riku continues to flare, this time at will. "He gave it to ME. It should have been /MINE/-- Sora wouldn't be dead if he hadn't given that fool something to draw the heartless right on top of him. I could have handled it. Together we could have saved Kairi."

He doesn't seem to care about the abruptly conflicting statements. Clouds begin to gather and a storm begins to blow about the island, wind beginning to shriek through the trees. "BUT NO-- I wasn't worthy. I wasn't good enough. It had to go to Sora and now where are we? With a Broken Manhattan and a Dead Sora and a Kairi who will never wake up, no matter what I might dream. I feel like every moment I'm slipping farther away from the dreams, from the future I was shown.. and what do I have to show for struggling towards them?

A pile of scrap metal who has the ABSOLUTE gall to say they are disappointed. So much for the vaunted legacy of the keyblade wielders. All they bring is more suffering." Lightning cracks in the sky and Riku seems jarred out of his thoughts by the sound. He looks around at the gathering storm and looks, very plainly-- like he wanted to simply disappear.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will...blinks...

"Riku...Sora isn't dead." Will says, calmly. "I don't know where he is, but he is very much alive. We saw him, fairly recently before everything went down. It's a huge world, and that kid is fairly happless, why...do you think he is dead?" Will seems genuinely confused by all of this.

Will thinks...the keyblade went to Sora...but Riku was the one chosen...

So why did it go to Sora? This is something beyond him, he thinks...he doens't have the right information, or really any real knowledge about them. Or maybe...its...

Wait... "So you did...find her." he pauses... anger wells in him again, "Yeah, we do have one. I was there to remember that one." he bites down Bile, "How in the hell did you think that doing this would be a good thing? He's upset that you sent a place into darkness...Riku, do you think there is a soul in existance that isn't a blasted Shadow Lord that thinks whatever you did was remotely good?"

"Stop getting angry, stop blaming others for what you did wrong. You messed up...things went wrong, and it seems that not everything is e-.." he pauses...

"Oh god. Oh god..." he has the realization, "Remember what the presence said!" he shouts, "Change your memories..." he shudders, "Riku...Maybe the reason the Keyblade went off...is because something else caused it to leave. Something else has been messing with you Riku."

Riku has posed:
"He wouldn't have let me do this." Riku says as the storm gets worse. "Even knowing everything. It wouldn't have stopped him. He would just say 'It doesn't matter. You're a good person.' and that would be it. He's thrown himself into beatings that should have been mine. That no one has seen him? --That's wrong. He would never just hide."

THe lightning flashes and thunder cracks across the sky. The dark waters turn black, pools of shadow raising up into swarms of heartless. "Did I ever tell you about how I lost my world?" He is absolutely calm now and Will and he are alone on the stormy beach. He snorts faintly, seeming completely unperturbed by the heartless.

"Yes." he nods slightly. "I think I did." he pauses, then continues. "What's been---eating at me, Will?" He chuckles faintly, extending a hand towards the quickly darkening island.

"I was so desperate-- So.. very.. willing to listen. That's what I do, Will. I listen while other people tell me how grand and magnificent my future will be if I will just listen to them.. just.. this..once."

Will Sherman has posed:
"So you listened...because the man you once knew said something similar?" Will realizes those things aren't part of the dreams of the island. "Riku. I am listening, but lets listen and run." he says. Grabbing the other boy's hand, and runs, dragging if necissarily, to the boat. "You were unhappy about being on the island right? I think you told me this once...and the images of the island reminded me." he says, between breaths.

The boat...the boooooat?! Where is it?

Riku has posed:
Ye can't get Ye Boat.

Riku finds himself being pulled along. He looks back on it as he runs. There is a man standing with his hands behind his back staring at them as they run for the boat. The man gives a cruel smile.

I thought I would find you here, boy. As shackled as you are to your past.

"Run.. faster." is all Riku contributes to Will talking at him. The Heartless surge and nip at their very heels as they run across the beach and out onto the surf to climb into it.

Will Sherman has posed:
"I'm Trying." he says, running as fast as he can, the shotgun of leadership comes out, aiming towards a nearby heartless. BAM.

The man...the form is finally visible to him. Fate...it is dark, so very dark...the blackest he has ever seen something. He turns away, it was so black it was like looking into some sort of anti-sun.

"You say you listen, right Riku?" he says, towards him. "I can't do this without you. Stop listening, Riku, start doing! So you'll fail! So you'll scrape your knees, and get hurt. But..."

"But I really shouldn't be trying to give pep talks right now! Between the heartless and my own problems, I am sure I am sounding stupid." he shoots again, trying to run. Fortune, he reaches out...come on luck, don't fail him now...

Riku has posed:
"I am going to feed you to your damn ducks, Will. I swear-- I am going to do it." is what Riku finally manages to say. He gasps in pain as he feels that icy slime try to destroy any semblance of control he has over his own thoughts.

Another heartless explodes with the shotgun blast. The others start to explode, vanishing in puffs of vapor as Riku can't hope to control them with the voice straight behind them-- but he can send them away. If only for a moment. They clamber into the boat which hasn't moved even as they approached it. It appears to be waiting for something. The heartless rise up in a dark tide, a rogue wave that is going to crash onto the island and wash it away.

Somewhere down the beach, the man is idly walking towards them with the confidence that they have nowhere to go. Riku knows the boat is waiting for something but he is emptied-- he is completely drained. He remembers the rest of the first conversation-- the one he had destroyed-- he had given Sora the advice he should have always given to himself.

Riku looks at Will, sitting in the boat because he didn't have the strength to stand. "I screwed up. I thought I-- I thought I was saving everyone, but all I do-- all I've always managed to do-- is blind myself."

The Boat stirs, starting to pull away from the shore towards that onrushing wave of darkness. "I'm sorry, Will." He looks out at the Island, watching it be destroyed for a second time as the rogue wave passes to either side of them.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will pauses, taken by surprise.

"Well.." he says, surrounded, cut off, and staring certain death in the face.

"I'll accept your appology." he says, grim. "I am starting to realize that this wasn't all your fault...but reguardless, we gota accept what is and is not and trudge on forward, right?"

Will doesn't say die, no, instead he aims the shotgun at the old man...and then fires it near a heartless trying to jump at them.

"Yeah, sorry, I am not that stupid. That'd backfire horribly." he says, genre savvy suddenly. Then the boat...the boat was coming?

"So that was.." he pauses. "Riku. Do you have enough in you for one more of those dark portals?"

"If so..the boat is moving towards us. I think we might have a chance."

Riku has posed:
"Sure. It could only /possibly/ cut us in half." Riku grumbles this but shakes his head. Not listening. The Heartless explodes. The shotgun blast simply loses all of its force. The pellets dissolving before any of them hit their pursuer.

He raises an eyebrow, slightly amused as Riku struggles to wrest enough power to control a corridor. It was everything he had not to simply make a grab for Will. The world squeezed down to a box, then a point-- distant and far away. "JUMP." he says, while pushing Will forwards at the same time. They drop through a hole in the world, crashing hard into the boat. Riku sagged in the bottom of the boat, unmoving-- and unconscious.

Will Sherman has posed:
Will crashes into the boat, next to Riku...the boat moves, hopefully away.

"...Riku?" he says, looking down at him. He sighs, alright...so the poor guy was probably exausted, he sets him up in a comfortable position, and then returns to his spot.

Then Will, looks back at the island, and offers it...well not IT, but the old man a very unfriendly gesture. Will, if anything is full of tact.