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Interlock: Internal Link

by Mr.RMA

Mr.RMA Michael Tourniquet returns to the sight of his dreaded nightmare from Vital Parts to confront his other half once more over his decisions since the Birth in Blood's tragic close.
He was back here…lying on the concrete floor where he had concluded his last nightmarish vision, the blood from that skirmish still littered on the floor, still freshly stained on his clothes...and there he was, motionless in his ensanguined smock, staring blankly at the ceiling in shock. It was as if someone hit pause after that series of events, just waiting for the right moment before pushing play again. Michael reached for his lips, feeling the blood still seeping from his nose as he sat up, looking around once more at the illusion of his old basement lab in disgust. He had been so happy when he had drifted off to sleep this time, so content... Why did he have to return now? It was a question he probably shouldn’t have bothered asking himself…He knew why…Meical had a few words for him, he was quite aware, and if he wouldn’t listen to him consciously, he would make him listen here, where he had no other choice. The boy stared down at his other half, incensed that he had to see him from the outside like this again.

“You just couldn’t accept the fact that I wasn’t completely miserable again, could you?” He growled as Meical blinked back into awareness and stared up at his emotional half.

“You think what you’re doing will bring you this true happiness you seek, Michael? You think satisfying your animalistic lust will just make all your mistakes go away forever? I’m afraid that’s not how things work, especially for us,” he said, as blank and detached as usual as he slowly got up to his feet, wiping the blood off of his face as if it were nothing more than rainwater. “You know this is true, I’ve told you before, countless times, but you never listen. You’re just too desperate to have a companion in your life that you don’t care what shit you have to go through just to have them love you back.”

“What do you know about it? You’re not the side of me that can understand love. You have no right to assume what I’m doing is in the wrong,” Michael spat back, very quickly aggravated, as he had been before, but he tried his best to restrain himself somewhat this time around.

“You broke things off with Lyni as I correctly assumed you would. Obviously I know more about this than you give me credit for,” Meical responded, quite matter-of-factly. “And if I might be so honest with you, you appear to hardly have a true grasp on such feelings yourself.”

Michael gave a rather vicious scowl at this remark. “Lyni deserves better than me. She deserves someone who can take care of themselves…someone she doesn’t have to worry about at every waking moment because he’s a simple, powerless human...”

“And you mean to tell me that this…dragon lady…She doesn’t deserve someone more worthy than us in that case? She’s a queen, Michael…of an entire planet. She’s bound to have more enemies than that nymph does, more opportunities for us to die, and to top it all off, this is a done deal. We are literally bound to her soul for eternity, an eternity we will have to live out, mind you. You figured that this kind of commitment was something you could make, in good conscience, to a woman you’ve known for just a few weeks now? Where is your logic in that?” Meical asked, bewildered by how ridiculously rushed the whole thing sounded.

“It’s always logic with you, always going by the numbers…You don’t care about others, and how they feel…It’s all about you, and that’s it, isn’t it?” Michael answered, steadily, menacingly, approaching his heartless reflection, their identical eyes locked.

“It’s about us, Michael. You seem to forget your will to survive sometimes, but I never forget. I have no desire to let you die, not while I’m a part of you, and as you know, I will always be a part of you, that fate cannot be altered. I always try to remind you not to get caught up in the lives of these companions of yours, but you never listen, and we only get closer and closer to death because of it. I don’t care about these friends of yours. As far as I’m concerned, every other creature, in this universe and all the others, can all rot in the depths of hell, and I wouldn’t bat an eye, so long as you and I survive. That is all that matters to me, and that means that as much as you try to repress it, it’s what matters to you in the end as well. You can shroud it with this idle sense of morality for as long as you want, but you can’t ignore the fact that you still would rather see another pal of yours suffer Karu’s fate before you draw your last breath.” This was enough to cause Michael to raise back a fist, but Meical didn’t flinch. “Go ahead and hit me again. It won’t change a word I said, because you know that I’m not lying to you. I’m the only person who will never lie to you, Mike. Everyone else might, because they want to manipulate your feelings, for better or worse, but I don’t have feelings, and I don’t care about yours a single iota. I look to the future and what will benefit us the most. Immortality may be a tempting proposition, but at what risk? Should we throw away the inevitable, yet slow approach of a natural death just to have killers at our doorstep, awaiting a single mistake to end us on the spot? It’s hardly an indisputable tradeoff.”

Michael’s fist remained frozen in the air. “She wouldn’t let that happen…She’ll protect us…” he reasoned, but Meical could only shake his head.

“How can you be so confident in that? Do you think you know her enough already to trust every word that comes out of her mouth? Why do you think she speaks with such nobility? She probably manipulates her subjects on a regular basis, just to get what she wants. That’s royalty for you…kings, queens, controllers, conquerors, tyrants, all the same in the grand scheme of things. Rulers by power and fear...They don’t have to look like beasts to act like them...but that’s not a problem for Miss ‘Sia Itov’ now, is it?”

Michael let his punch fly at this quip, but Meical was prepared this time, snatching Michael’s wrist before his fist could collide with his nose a second time. “You obviously understand where I come from…you wouldn’t be this upset otherwise. I won’t say anything else for now, but really think, Michael. You don’t need my vast intellect to find your own common sense.” The scenery went black again and Michael felt himself gently falling back as the softness of his mattress enveloped him once more. He didn’t open his eyes as he felt consciousness return to him. He knew who was still lying beside him, and, ashamed of his inner thoughts, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her…
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