capeandcowllogs | [Open] We don't miss a single step,

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[Open] We don't miss a single step,

WHO: DOC SCRATCH AND YOU
WHERE: CENTRAL PARK, at the Chess House
WHEN: SUNDAY
WARNINGS: see permissions post for omniscient asshole
SUMMARY: Scratch is disconcerted and disoriented by only knowing MOST things. He slowly comes to terms with this and ponders his next step.
FORMAT: whatever you want; first post is TL;DR but I welcome action tags
Notes: Teal cannot play chess and sucks at it, so if your character actually wants to play chess it'll have to be handwaved.

He stumbled through the streets of the city, trying to gain some sort of composure, some kind of balance. Some anchor. The darkness sloshed about in his head, and the pockets of unknowning shifted like stormclouds, shafts of light piercing the gloom with almost painful clarity.

He already knows where he is, why he is here, and how he has arrived. He does not know who built her or for what reason she was originally created (he can make any number of guesses, though). He knows that he is mostly human now, that his skull is full of actual fluid but through a complex process he is still able to cognate, and yet that this advanced fluid dynamic computing does not allow him the degree of control over his omniscience that it did previously. Trying to focus on too many points of knowing at once is painful, and that, in turn, is distressing.

The hot dog he purchases and then consumes holds no pleasure for him. While he has never eaten food before, his knowledge allowed him to understand exactly what it was like, down to the smallest detail; nothing was a surprise. At the same time, it allows him to know with certainty that this is the one vendor in the area who cleans his tongs properly and that he likes his hot dogs with horseradish and relish but not with hot peppers.

Too much data, for once. That part isn't important. He's processing the influx of knowing in entirely new ways, and like most novel experiences it isn't exciting but rather troubling. He needed some way to slow down, to process this, to gain some sure footing in the new uses of these abilities.

He tossed the wrapper in the rubbish bin and squinted up at the tall buildings. He knows where Central Park is from here and he knows that there are public tables where he may play chess. He chooses to walk, though he could teleport it seems more right to take a walk. It doesn't take him long, and he finds (to his surprise) that there really is a difference between intrinsic knowing and the immediate experience of having photons interpreted by receptors in one's eyes.

He brought his own chess pieces; or rather, he reached subtly into space and borrowed a few fine hand-carved chess pieces from the dusty collection of a retired gentleman in Canada; he'll return them when he's done. He then slid into a seat, set up the pieces, and waited, also pulling a copy of If on a winter's night a traveler from the New York Public Library (again, he'll return it when he's done) to stare at. He had no need to read, of course, he already knew the book from start to finish, but, well. Little things. And the gesture was necessary. Eventually, a scruffy red-headed young man stood awkwardly for a few moments before he said, “If you wish to play, then play. Otherwise, please do refrain from standing there boggling vacantly. There are hardly even shenanigans to boggle at.”

The young man continued to boggle vacantly, at which Scratch raised an eyebrow. “Sit.”

He did so, and the game began. The first game he focused only on the moves themselves, which ones the young man would make in advance. The young man tried to make small talk, but Scratch answered only with noncommital sounds. The first three games were flawless victories.

But then he began to change it up slightly. Rather than focusing on the moves, he focused on the boy. Divorced parents; lived through the Godzilla incident, disconcerted by Imports but goes to Import rights meetings anyway as it makes him more attractive to that one girl in the club, or so he thinks, really she's not interested in him at all. Secretly masturbates to furry porn every night.

From there, he discerned the moves the young man would make. A little slower. A little harder. But much more instructive.

“You're going to leave soon,” he said, finally. The young man looked up at him, puzzled.

“You're going to get a phone call in a few seconds. Your mother's had an accident.”

As he finished saying the word, the young man's phone rang, and he went white as a sheet. Scratch watched him go. And then, the curious thing – he couldn't tell if he'd get any more challengers today, or who they would be. It was a blank slate, a mystery.

Then simply do not worry about it. This is less chess and more backgammon. Learn to improvise.

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Bakura was often in the park on weekends. Normally Friday was his chess day, but with the weather being so nice, he wondered if he could spot anyone for a game. It hadn't been planned, just a distraction after spending some time at a museum, so it was a very pleasant surprise to see someone sitting at the tables in wait.

"Looking for a game?" he smiled as he reached the table.

"No," he replied, closing the book and putting it back on the shelf in the library (an invisible gesture - he seemed to merely place it under the table). "But you are."

He gestured at the opposite chair. "Please, sit."

A bit of a strange answer, but Bakura sat, non the less. "Heeeh, this is a nice set!" he admired with a smile. It was pretty rare to see sets like that in the park!

"It is nice, isn't it. I'm glad you approve. You'll be Black, yes?"

The last sentence wasn't so much a question, as a statement with a question mark stuck on the end.

Bakura nodded with a smile, going to set up the board. It was the side he always went for if the other person wasn't partial. Though it was a little amusing to have someone guess that rather than the usual assumption. In truth, part of why he preferred that color was that assumption...

"Right then," he said. He debated making the pretense of considering his first move, but it seemed... frivolous. And in terms of future actions on a very small scale, he couldn't be completely certain anymore. He didn't know with total certainty how Bakura would react.

So why not. He began with a somewhat unorthodox opening move, a feint of sorts. He knew exactly how to win from this position, and all possible counters; but it was the emotions of the other he was more interested in.

Well that was interesting. He was used people starting with a safe or standard first move on the first game, waiting to scout out the opponent before getting serious. To go straight in... Aaa, this was going to be a fun game!

"So do you play often?" he asked, never one to be silent while a game like this was on. Chess wasn't Duel Monsters, after all. Even if there would be awkward lapses in conversation while moves were debated, there could still be civil discussion that wasn't shouting and posturing over a long distance.

"In a manner of speaking," he said. "The version I play is a bit more complex than this."

All true statements. The destruction of the universe was on occasion quite literally a game of chess.

"Really?" Suddenly, he was a bit more focused on the conversation than the game. "What variation is that? What's it like?"

He smiled, very slightly. "Well, really, chess is but a very small part of the game I used to play. There were bits of billiards as well, and all manner of card games; and for the pieces in play, well, it seems more like a traditional role-playing game. All a matter of perspective, really," he said.

"Heeeeeh, really? That sounds like a pretty amazing game!" He'd never though to mashing together various games like that. Though really, that was a bit like how Calvinball was for outdoor games, wasn't it? Aaaa, it sounded fun! Asobitaaaai~

"It's the ultimate game. There is no game more meaningful, more dangerous, or more fulfilling, should one actually win," he said, then making his move - another mildly surprising choice.

There was a slight pause as that hit a little close to home. There weren't many Dark Games Bakura could remember, however...

He looked down at the board, fragments of a nightmare he used to have far too often briefly haunting him. The board for the Egypt game, that sickening familiar laugh declaring the ultimate Dark Game....

He shook his head slightly to push the memory away.

"One of those that has real consequences?" he asked, interest visibly faded. He'd had enough of that sort of game to last a lifetime.

"Yes, of course," he said. "Ones far more dire than the game you're thinking of, and, unlike that game, inescapable."

"But of course, the rewards for those who win are equal to or exceeding what's lost in the playing. Depending on your point of view and how well you succeed at it, of course."

Bakura blinked a few times. Another telepath? That was going to make the game a bit trickier.

"Inescapable?" Though, considering every Dark Game he was aware of had been a trap of some sort...

Not so much a telepath as just someone very, very good at deducing what another might be thinking about based on their past history.

"If you choose to play the game," he said, capturing one of Bakura's pieces and twirling it in his fingers. "It propagates throughout the timestream, ensuring that you will have always been meant to play it. The outcome is predetermined. Which isn't to say that your choices don't matter - they do. But thinking from a fourth dimensional perspective with the limitations of human intelligence, it can seem that way."

That didn't quite seem inescapable as Bakura though of it. The Egypt game could have easily been avoided if certain choices hadn't been made. It was just that the Ring had been very certain those choices would be made. Like any trap, it relied on prediction and leading the one to be trapped up to the point so they would make that step...

"But the future can always be changed, can't it?" Or was that just because of the Items... His friends had more focused on the dramatic reversal when talking about Kaiba's duel against Isis than anything else... aaaa, he really wished he could have been able to watch that!

"That depends. In some ways, it's a matter of perspective. In others, a conundrum of quantum mechanics. If you know the future, it must come to pass; the waveform is collapsed. To alter that outcome would create a paradox, would it not?" he said. "But if you live in uncertainty, then you could try to change the future... but that very unknowning might cause it to happen anyway."

"Check, by the way."

Bakura pondered this and the board a moment before making his move. "There are enough alternate realities that it could just be that the moment you change the future, you've just split the time-steam again. The you that followed that hunch continues on one path, the you that ignored it on another. So maybe it's more that instead of a paradox, the future you saw would just be the future of an alternate world, created when that future was changed."

The unusual many kidnapped by the machine responsible for Scratch's own arrival were, in many cases, stupendously obvious in appearance. Take the child, for instance. Thirteen, fourteen at the oldest, is dressed in knee socks, knee skirt, and a shirt with sleeves to the wrists. Below that, gloves to the elbow. The unnatural green hair was natural.

More than that: on her right arm, beneath sleeve and glove and hidden to all observers, was a strange marking granted to her by a being some in her world worshipped as a god, guardian and protector of that world and its people. A fragment of its power, locked into a hand burned into her skin.

Her immediacy was clear: her morning had been a dull, welcome reprieve from her usually hectic life; from this moment, her plan was to venture into the greenery of the park to meditate, to tap into that god-granted power resting in her arm, and when she was done she would return home.

That was what her future would be as well; at least, if nothing interfered.

The only interference would not disrupt her day, but it might cause a bit of surrealism.

It took him longer than normal to get a sense of her, a kind of groping through dark clouds, grasping at what he should and should not know. But immediately he took a shine to her. Young, strong-willed, and with a destiny. His favorite sort of girl.

He watched her quietly, not yet attempting a greeting (apparently that sort of thing was frowned upon. Who knew.)

There were some people who had a talent for knowing the precise moment someone began watching them. Those people often could tell without looking whether that gaze was from someone familiar, some predestined foe, or just a flirty sort of examination. Ruka was not one of these people.

In fact, it was little more than chance that had Ruka even glancing toward the chess tables as she walked. Perhaps that could be blamed on the presence of Scratch, though not in the cosmic sense; simply for how starkly the white stood in contrast to the green, and to the park. She just happened to be looking when he was looking. It was enough to make her slow her step, not quite to a stop, as she gazed across the green.

He gave her the slightest of waves and the ghost of a smile. No reason to stand up yet - either her curiosity would get the better of her or she'd leave. He couldn't be certain anymore (how irritating) but he could be close, and he garnered she'd choose the former.

And the former she chose, after a moment's hesitation. After all, of all the places to get kidnapped, the middle of Central Park on a nice day seemed low on the scale, surrounded by people as they were. She crossed his way with even, unhurried steps, her hands and arms folding behind her back. (Part was a reserved sort of confidence, of being sure but not presenting arrogance; part, the subconscious reining of the power in her hands, of shielding that star-marked arm from view.)

"Hello," she greeted, cordial enough.

"Hello, miss Ruka," he said with a smile. "Would you like some chocolate?"

One of the peculiar dark spots in Scratch's vision was that he still failed to understand how this was at all creepy, disturbing, or inappropriate. Goodness, isn't it kind to offer candy to strange little girls?

Why yes, the candy thing was quite strange, but Ruka barely registered it in the surprise she felt at the sound of her name. His wasn't a face she recognized, nor was his voice. Her eyes, which naturally had the appearance of looking on the big side, only seemed to grow larger.

"I'm sorry, but, do I know you from somewhere?" It was always possible he was from the Network, after all, and that would explain everything neatly.

"No," he said. "You've never met me before in your life."

It was as she suspected, but it didn't explain anything. "Then, how did you know my name?" she asked, feeling wary. There were many reasons how he could, of course -- even if someone had just described her in casual conversation, it wasn't like her appearance could be mistaken for anyone else's. But without knowing why, it was a little uneasy.

"Let's call it my 'power,' shall we? I know things," he said, and left it at that. She would probably specify and ask 'what kinds of things' and he would continue to be vague and coy about the matter.

And that would be rather dull to stage out unabridged, wouldn't it? For Ruka could sometimes be stubborn in seeking the truth; the back and forth of the conversation would be revealing to one extent, certainly, but on the whole it would go the same predictable pattern of dropping pebbles in water, noting the minuscule rise in water level, and retrieving the stones to find that both they and your hand are now wet.

And so, after a couple of the more vague answers, Ruka let the matter mostly rest, uneasy. (She did not, truth be told, like being known without knowing in return.) Instead of questioning his knowledge directly, her gaze turned toward the board and pieces laid out.

"So, have you ever lost? Without meaning to, anyway."

"No," he said. "Not once."

He paused thoughtfully then, drumming his fingers softly on the table.

"I did come close to losing once, but at the last moment I had a little assistance from a rather unexpected source. A bit of a black mark on my record, but one I suspect will not be repeated."

From the way he spoke and what he'd already told her, that sort of answer was what she expected. Mostly, anyway; a near-loss was fine, but the line about assistance made her eyebrows raise, then furrow in thought. One wasn't supposed to receive any help in chess, after all. It was a one-on-one game; that was the point.

So, she thought, he probably meant something more than just a board game.

"If you always win, why do you play?" Her eyes, that unusual amber-yellow, drifted from the man's completely ordinary face to the ornate chess set, then back. "It doesn't seem like it would be very interesting, after a while."

"I have to," he said. "It's an imperative. Part of my... calling, as it were."

His smile was completely mirthless. "Though at present my purpose is a little different. Here, I don't have to play, but old habits die hard. And right now I'm playing to find my limits."

Immediately Ruka thought of her own "game," in her own world; though she was a Signer, and though Duel monsters was an incredibly popular and important game, Ruka didn't enjoy it. She only dueled when her hand was forced. Her expression in that moment was thoughtful.

"Your limits?" she echoed, "To how much you 'know,' you mean?"

A sorta-teenage girl in a black shirt and long skirt, with unruly hair and a poker face, having recently returned from cheating the City's stock market in 1994. The familiarity of her appearance was marred by the lack of grey skin and curly horns, to be fair, but the red Aries sign on the previously-mentioned shirt would have been enough to clear up the disparity even if her past and future didn't already lie open to this particular, newly-minted man. As they had from the beginning. As they would, for the conceivable future.

Aradia, on the other hand, remained totally in the dark. As far as she knew, this was a white-haired human male playing chess in Central Park who simply happened to seem... not familiar, but something else. Ever since her arrival in the City--more properly, ever since her death--she had become used to not having a proper vocabulary for what she felt, but this was especially disconcerting. There was no reason for it. It was pretty stupid, actually.

Nevertheless, she approached the chess table.

"Aradia Megido," he said, taking a split second too long to look up from the book he was pretending to read. "Please, do take a seat. It's a pleasure to meet you in person at last."

Aradia did, indeed, take a seat.

"I guess I should say the same thing." If she had an idea of who this was! But she could guess. Discounting the spirits, there were a limited number of variables, most of which could be easily eliminated. She blinked. "What are you going to do?"

"A far more complicated question than you realize," he mused. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not certain yet."

"Your recent stunt was very clever, I might add."

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[Open] We don't miss a single step,

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[/always late. forever.]

[/is perfectly okay with this] also i am writing up her in-game history write up. it's. it's so long

woah that's some tl;dr also hey johnny didn't mean to break miles' skull

crying over the stumps that are my fingers and the blood all over this keyboard.

mmmmm candy red

it's like skittles all over

argh late reply and I get ONE SENTENCE fjfjdf sorry

<3

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