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“That’s tit
for tizzat.”
Larry Wilmore, Daily Show
“Life sucks, Edgar,” Everett said, as the two knights sat
around a pair of glasses. Edgar’s was filled with a brown liquid, decidedly
alcoholic, while Everett
simple drank water. But still, it seemed the younger of the knights was the
more loosened by the evening, and doing all the talking as he went.
Everett
was sitting in the large chair around the low coffee table. Bent over, his
red shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his white tank top underneath. His
elbows rested on his knees as he held the water directly before him, almost
as if he was talking to the water rather than to his guest.
“I mean, first, Armand has to go nuts and try to get
himself killed by attacking the Brotherhood of the Sun,” Everett recapped. “Not to mention very
possibly starting a war between the Brotherhood and the knights. But then
Morgan has to interfere, an act that could just as well start a war with
him, and then he has to kick the World Alliance’s ass before nearly killing
Armand.”
“While Morgan may no longer be a knight,” Edgar said,
sitting across from Everett.
His right leg was crossed over his left as he lounged back on the single
futon couch. “He is still every bit as dedicated to doing what he feels is
right.”
“Well, he may have done the right thing tonight,” Everett said. “He did
what we, as knights, couldn’t do.” Everett
looked up at Edgar, a harsh sincerity in his eyes. “He really saved our
collective asses tonight.”
“That he did,” Edgar nodded. “Even if the moral and
just and fair thing was to attack, he did the right thing. No matter how
hard it may have been.”
“I don’t know about hard,” Everett muttered. “Morgan’s never had a
problem about going against the grain.”
“True,” Edgar also nodded with a touch of a smile.
“But no man is an island. Even Morgan needs encouragement. And he also
needs to be reminded of where the boundaries are.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that will ever be a problem,”
Everett
said.
“Maybe,” Edgar said. “But the problem with so many
knights is for them to get so wrapped up watching for one type of
transgression, they forget to be mindful of all qualifiers of action. They
forget of all the things that must govern their actions, instead focusing
solely on one.”
“The knights are governed by four things,” Everett said, still
seeming to speak to his glass. “What is right, what is fair, what is just,
and what is moral.” He looked up at Edgar. “Do you think that I did the
right thing?”
“Huh?” Edgar said, sitting forward. “Weren’t we just talking
about Morgan?”
“Yeah, but…” Everett
said, shifting nervously. “About the Knights. About reforming them.”
“Oh,” Edgar said, taking a strong swig of his glass.
“That.”
“Yeah,” Everett
said. “That.”
“Well, Everett,”
Edgar said hesitantly, biting on the brown. He looked at his half empty
glass, shaking it a bit to swirl the contents. “Let me answer you this
way.”
“I always get worried when you say that,” Everett said, leaning
back in his chair.
“It’s not something I would have done,” Edgar said, choosing
his words very carefully. “And had it been anyone other than you, I think
it would have been a mistake.”
“What makes me so special?” Everett asked. Edgar looked up at him,
confused by the interjection. “I mean, why would you trust me to ‘pull this
off’ and not someone else?”
“You mean like Roland or Ledger?” Edgar asked.
“Good lord no,” Everett
said with an aggressively dismissive wave. “If Ledger ran the thing, we’d
be in some real trouble. He wouldn’t have started the war; he’d have
finished it by now. And if Roland ran it…well, he’s not ambitious enough to
balance his checkbook, much less run an organization of knights.”
“Of all the knights I’ve known, Everett,” Edgar explained supportively, “you
are the most honorable, the most trustworthy, and most committed I have
ever dealt with.”
Everett
looked up at Edgar, surprised by the words. He stared long and hard at
Edgar, taken back by what he had said. He tried to speak a few times, but
nothing came out. Finally, he just stuttered out “Thanks.”
“Everett,
forming a group of Knights has a lot of pitfalls,” Edgar went on. “But the
strengths that come from it may well counter-balance those. You, as the
leader, must guide the knights through this. Like Arthur guided the Round
Table to acceptance and dominance, you must guide these knights to
acceptance and placement.”
“I guess,” Everett
said, noncommittally. He looked up at Edgar. “For being thirty-three, you
come across a lot wiser than your age.”
“Wiser?” Edgar asked, smiling to laughter. “Or just
older?”
“Wiser,” Everett
said, smiling sentimentally. “What would we do without you?”
“Get laid more often, that’s for sure,” Edgar said,
finishing his glass.
Marilyn looked at herself in the hospital mirror. The
face that stared back at her was still filled with fear, still filled with
apprehension. She was still afraid. And that made her angry. She stepped
back from the brown-haired girl in the mirror, her face turning to anger.
She felt her hand ball-up into a hard fist. She stared at the fearful girl
in the mirror.
“Hey there.”
Marilyn’s head jerked to the side as Victor slid into
her curtained off little room. Carrying his shirt in his hand, all he had
on his arms was his white undershirt. But his slender, athletic muscles
flexed as he stood before her. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling as best she could to
him.
“That’s my girl,” Victor said, stepping towards her.
He moved close quickly, snaking his arms around her waist. He pulled her
close, rubbing up against her. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she repeated, nodding her head as she
looked down.
“That guy took us by surprise,” Victor assured her,
rubbing Marilyn’s stomach. His fingers danced over the bruise she carried.
“Don’t worry, though. I’ll get him next time.”
“I just hope there isn’t a next time,” Marilyn said,
her voice low.
“I can take…” Victor started to say.
“Victor, please,” Marilyn implored. “Just please. Not
right now.”
“Alan’s going to be so mad,” Kim said, as she sat on
the bed, under the covers of the emergency room bed. She looked at Malcolm,
then to Ruwani. Both waited on opposite sides of the foot of the bed. “How
am I going to tell him?”
“Well, right now he doesn’t know,” Malcolm started.
“But he’s going to find out,” Ruwani said, glaring at
Malcolm. “I can’t believe you guys pulled a stunt like this. What the HELL
possessed you to pull this?”
“Listen, it wasn’t a big deal,” Malcolm started.
“Ledger told me everything, Malcolm,” Ruwani said
back, her black hair flying as she turned to glare at Malcolm with her full
intensity. Just the same, Malcolm didn’t back down from her. “He told me
about you guys trying to break into a corporate building, to kidnap two of
the…”
“We weren’t breaking into a corporate building,”
Malcolm started to argue. He stopped. “Okay, we were. But it was to go
after the Brotherhood of the…”
“I don’t care about the Brotherhood of the sun,”
Ruwani started to shout. “You guys nearly got yourselves killed because you
were…”
“STOP IT!”
Malcolm and Ruwani both turned instantly at the shout
as Kim sat at the head of the bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, tears
streaming down her face. She looked at the two of them, her eyes wide and
shaking in fear and sadness. “Stop arguing,” she demanded childishly. “My
mom and dad. They argued all the time and I couldn’t stand it. So don’t you
two start. Don’t either of you start.”
Malcolm looked down at the floor, embarrassed. Ruwani
looked away. She was the first to speak, however. “I’m sorry,” She said,
softly, but sincerely.
“Yeah,” Malcolm nodded. “I’m sorry, too.” He looked
at Ruwani, his sincerity honest. He tried to smile, but the expression was
too weak to hold.
In the darkness, Everett sat on his couch, staring at the
rain streaks that stained the world outside. The rain was getting heavier
now. The pounding on the window was harder than ever, reaching an almost
deafening level.
He chuckled to himself, looking down at the empty
glass he held in his hand. Alone now in the darkness, he let his worries
consume him. “We nearly got killed tonight. If everything hadn’t gone so
badly today, everything would have gone to hell tomorrow,” he muttered to
himself. “After everything else, with everything just kind of hanging on a
knife’s blade, it could go from dangerous to suck real fast. Something
needs to happen. Something good needs to…”
As if on cue, there was a knock on the door.
Everett
turned to look at the door, as if disbelieving what he had heard. He
glanced at the digital read-out on his DVD player, seeing the amazingly late
hour. He looked at the door again. “What the…” he complained as he stood.
He walked over to the door, grabbing up his ninjato
as he came behind it. Standing by the side with the hinges, he glanced
through the peephole. It was dark. Someone was covering the hole. “Okay,
wise guy,” Everett
said, getting a stronger grip on the straight sword he held. He opened the door, almost unwillingly.
He held the sword ready to use, but just inside the door, nearly impossible
to see from outside.
Standing
before him was an athletically shaped blonde woman, smiling with a knowing
grin. Dressed in a black trench coat and a red shirt, she stood before him,
her smile growing. “Everett?”
she asked with a confident smile.
It took Everett
a moment to recognize the girl. But when he did, his eyes went wide. “Sydney?!” he
exclaimed.
“Glad to see you remember,” the young woman said,
stepping into his apartment.
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