Ark 20 Episode Episode 87: Nature And Science; Two Different Worlds

Participants
Heather the Heathen

Rude All-Around!
Myrrh: Heather was dancing around her apartment, listening to loud music and beating her fists against the air. She moved across each room, looking around and inspecting all of the items sprawled across her shelves, drawers and floor. She closed her eyes and smiled real wide, dancing as if nobody was watching. Well, nobody was; it’s just a cool saying. She placed herself infront of her window and looked down, watching the people on foot, pacing to their jobs; sad expressions plastered across their faces. They probably work 9-5 jobs sitting in an office chair, wasting away their lives to support their families. Booooooring. Heather clambered on the ledge of her window, leaning her head as her hair fell in unison. ---There he fucking was. Simone. That shit-stain. She waited all day for this. She ran back to her bathroom and picked up a bucket filled to the brim with a putrid, horrid smell. It was brown-ish green with lumps and hairs sticking out. The eager woman ran back to the window as fast as she could and leaned over the ledge, tipping the bucket. “Drip, drip, drip.” Finally, Simone was under her. She flipped the bucket upside down and let sloshy, disgusting “liquid” poor onto Simone. Used, bloody tampons poured out, vomit from last week’s party and scrunched up, shit-smothered toilet paper and Heather’s own urine sloshed against Simone’s chubby, evil face. He hadn’t seen it coming. Heather’s laugh was shrill and lustful. LUSTFUL FOR REVENGE. That’s what he gets. In fifth grade, when he scarred Heather, well, that’s revenge. For all the disgusting, knowing eyes he pierced her violated skin with, that’s revenge. That, folks, is pure bliss. Simone screamed and yelled, smelling all the bodily fluids and vomiting all over the pavement. People avoided him and tried to look away, running past and covering their noses from the terrible smell. Simone cried, and looked up to see a grinning Heather. Now, see; Simone doesn’t remember Heather. But, ever since that day, Heather watched him. She followed him. She waited. And when Simone looked up, with his mouth open in shock and terror, lips covered in his regurgitated breakfast, well, that’s when Heather dropped a sandwich. Similar to the sandwich Simone ate in fifth grade, but made by her. It fell, and in the air, came apart. Bits of it landed on Simone and others on the pavement, drowning in her urine. She yelled, “Would you still eat that!?” And Simone, with his big nose and flushed cheeks, he knew. He realized. His eyes widened, tears glistening and mixing with Heather and his own putrid puke. Simone ran away, leaving Heather crying with laughter on the floor of her apartment. Revenge tasted sweet; not as good as she hoped, but she was satisfied. ---Heather got up and went into her room, (after washing her hands of course) picking up a notepad and pen on her nightstand. She checked off an item on her To Do List and looked at the next task. “Go bother Wade.” Easy enough. Heather yawned and put on her boots, swishing her hair out of her face and walking out of the door. She walked, slowly, to where Wade lived. Not the prettiest place, but she couldn’t complain. See, Wade lived in a warehouse. It was like a warehouse where you’d think some Mexican immigrants were selling drugs; cocaine probably. The only visitors Grease Boy got were most likely skinny whores and nervous gangsters looking for dough. Heather laughed at the thought of Wade opening the door, and upon seeing a crack-head, punching them in the mouth and slamming the door. Heather managed to reach the warehouse, and she debated acting like a coke-junkie and then passed on the whim that she might actually lose her nose (or worse, receive a fractured skull). The woman didn’t even bother knocking, she walked in; the door was unlocked. How stupid. She yelled out, “Honey, I’m hooooooooooooooooome!” and laughed. “God, I’m hilarious.” She pretended to wipe tears from her eye and grinned.

Pallas: -(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NxrQipUkwg) In the old District One warehouse that both Darius and Wade live in, the young weapons builder continues his work on perfecting his Nano Suit creation. Modeled after Donnie Yuns original Nano Suit technology, Darius has ran into a lot more obstacles than the old Yun did without having the use of Plasma Energy to help him out.

She’d see all kinds of high tech weapons, gadgets and other tools of the Nano Suit trade while Darius slowly lowers himself down to the floor. Looking at the woman she would be able to stare into the glowing blood red eyes of the Nano Suit as he asks-“There something I can help you with, chick? This isn’t really the homeless adoption center if you came here for a place to sleep.”- He then waits to see her response as the huge .50 caliber gattling gun sits over his left shoulder.-

Myrrh: Heather had a bag of chips under her arm. Lifting the bag up, she opened it loudly and started munching on the bits. After having walked around the rooms and coming across a really high-tech and complicated one, she saw this floating thing. It was. Almost comic-book like. It was a suit, metal or something. Heather was never very knowledgeable on this sort of stuff. It just had a lot of lights and bolts. Its eyes stared her down and a voice erupted from it, kind of insulting her. She thrust a handful of chips in her mouth and spoke loudly, chewing equally loud. “Yo, man. What’s up? That’s a cool suit you got there. How much did it cost you to build that?” Heather eyed the thing and swallowed her food. She had completely ignored his rudeness and instead walked around the room, touching everything with her greasy, crumb covered fingers. “Huh. Lots of stuff. You know, I wonder how much you could get for all of this if you sold it.” Heather licked her fingers and grabbed more chips, speaking with her mouth full. “Wade owes me money, this would probably do it. He’s such a jerk, not telling me he totally had the money all along- Hey wait, you’re not Wade. Who the fuck are you?” She turned to the suit. “Are you fucking Iron-Man or something? Cause I mean, that guy’s cool,” she said. Her eyes were wide with questions, biting her fingers and licking her lips, prying chips from inbetween her teeth.

-When the girl walks in with her chips and crumb covered fingers; Darius looks at her through the mask with a somewhat disgusted face. He thinks to himself-“What is this chicks problem?”- Then as she begins to touch everything in the place with those fingers, he begins to forcedly walk over to her as he would reach out with his metallic right hand to attempt to grab her arm. If he did grab it she would feel the cold metallic grasp of his hand wrap around her forearm as he says-“Okay, that’s enough of touching my equipment with your nasty fingers.”-Listening to her talk about Wade owing her money and how he hid this gold mine from her; Darius comes to laugh hysterically.-“HAHAHAHAHA Wade? With money? HAHAHA”- He would then release his hold on her arm as he takes a few steps back. He then mimics her own joking motion as he raises his right hand and acts as if he were wiping tears away from his right eye with his right handed index finger. He continues to speak as he says to her-“Honey, Wade wouldn’t know money if it came and bit him right in the ass. And this gear isn’t for sell, missy. So don’t get any funny ideas. When she asks who he is, making the comment about Iron man; Darius shakes his head and answers her with-“My name is Darius. I am Wade’s brother…And who might you be, besides rude to people’s stuff.”- He then waits for an answer from her, even though his HUD had already showed her who she is through the KPD and Kasaihana Databases that he is able to hack into. Being a boy genius that he is, hacking to him comes so easy that a caveman could do it with his brain power. Being able to easily hack into the city servers, he sees anything and everything available to the public about this girl; even some classified information. Using his facial recognition technology to find her information, he waits to see what she has to say; almost testing her to see if she is cool people or not. To be honest, Darius doesn’t exactly know if what she is saying is true. Usually when Wade owes anyone anything, he would kill them just so he wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. So seeing this girl especially knowing where they lived, brings Darius into all kinds of curiosity about her.-

A Teenage Boy in a Giant Metal Suit. Take That Away, What is He?
Myrrh: Heather nodded and rubbed her arm from where he touched; walking over to what she believed was a garbage can and throwing her empty bag of chips away. She smiled. “You’re right. Wade hasn’t any money at all. I don’t know why I expect him to pay me back- or yet, the library.” She took long strides to the edge of a table, picking up some shard of metal, shiny and bright. “Look at this. You could sell this for at least a few hundred. What are you using it for anyways?” She set it down and kept scanning the room with her dull eyes, chewing on her bottom lip. “Wade’s brother, eh? He never told me he had a brother. Cool.” In reality, Heather didn’t care. But she did laugh at Darius’ remark. “I’m not rude, I’m simply touchy. Don’t get mad at ME.” She snickered and turned to face him. “With technology like that, I’m sure you know all of my legal information. You know my name, my age, my birth place, even my parents’ ethnicities. So how about I tell you things you don’t know.” Her expression was soft, much more calm than when she met Wade. “I’m a cool-cat, with awesome style and flawless hair.” She flicked strands of her hair backwards, acting posh. Her lips always curled up into a smile, she walked to the suit, placing her hands over the pseudo-red eyes. “My name is Heather, and I’m your greatest nightmare. So please, face me like a man and get out of that goddamn suit. Mostly so I can steal it and make a fortune, but also so I can beat your ass for being rude to a guest; a girl, no less!” She lit a cigarette and waited a few moments before taking a drag and putting it out on the chest of the suit, scoffing.

-When Heather picks up the shard of metal that is on the table and throws out a price that the Cast Iron could have been sold for, Darius scuffs a bit under the mask of the suit as he quickly replies to her with a simple-“Not all things have a dollar worth…These help me build the weapons of the future.”- He then looks away from her-“Well not really weapons…but technology that can help me keep the world in balance…”- His face then turns to a serious one as he scrunches up his nose with his eyes squinting at her a bit through the mask as she talks about how his technology probably allowed him to see into her files and understand who she is probably better than herself. Hearing the way she talked to him, Darius can tell she does not fear him. Annoyance came over him as she continued to go on about telling him things he wouldn’t know about her the files do not say. At first he figured she would feed him some kind of lie or story to change what is on file. But in reality, she only spoke about attributes about her personality and looks. This came to surprise Darius as his face quickly turns into an expression that actually makes him look slightly confused for once. Then when she flips her hair with a sweet smile, Darius’ face can’t help but turn into a slight crimson color under his eyes. The boy had very little to no female interaction with his head always into building tech from his imagination. Seeing such a beautiful girl in front of him, acting sweet like they do in the movies comes to be a new thing for Darius to see. If it weren’t for the mask covering his face, she would be able to see his boyish innocence coming over him like a schoolboy. When she tells him to act like a man and come out of the suit, his nervous nature begins to win over his body. She would see how his helmet slowly moves down to look at his hands as he wonders if he should come out or not. He doesn’t know this girl. For all he knows, she could be a trap for someone to catch him with his guard down. He’d feel a weird feeling in his stomach as a small bead of sweat drips down from his forehead to his chin. He takes a quick gulp of saliva as she places the drag on his suit. The heat from the tobacco product would sizzle out as the Cast Iron armor feels nothing from it. But once she would pull the cigarette away from the suit, it would begin to open up. Little by little, the center chest piece begins to open up. With a hole being created in the center, the head and the limb portions of the suit begin to open up and reveal Darius; the real boy to her. Within a few short seconds, his real body steps out of the armored suit; giving her a full look at him. Darius is a lengthy teenager with some muscle too him, though not as much as even Wade in his normal form. He has long brown hair and a smile that would knock a girls socks off. Wearing a red headband he gives Heather that dashing smile of his that would give off a slight twinkle as he gives her a nervous-“S-sorry for being rude…J-J-Just not used to visitors, I guess…”-The suit begins to quickly close once more and return back to its dormant state. He looks at her with his shiny brown eyes and begins to say-“I am sorry to tell you, but Wade won’t be back for a while. He said he had some business to take care off a few days ago. Hasn’t been back since.”- After saying that, he waits to hear her response and wonders if she will be upset at hearing the news of Wade not being present in the warehouse.-

A Girl In the Giant Metal Suit. What is She?
Myrrh: Darius is fiddling around with his suit, debating things, she assumes. When he steps out, he’s vulnerable. He speaks and.. He seems a lot more nervous and squeamish when he’s not behind a giant, metal, and robotic suit. She stares at him and can’t help but laugh, patting his back roughly. “Oh man. You’re killing me. You thought I’d be intimidated by THAT?” She placed her index finger on the tip of his nose, pushing his face back. When he smiled at her, she snickered. “You think you’re charming, don’t you?” She swiveled her head, curls of hair bouncing off her shoulders. “I’ll show you charming,” she winked. She licked her mouth, glistening lips puckering like a doll. “Just kidding,” she laughed and stepped back from Darius. “That’s alright, by the way. I’m sure Wade will be back eventually. He’s probably creating havoc and more property damage.” Heather rolled her eyes and pinched Darius’ cheek, eyes smiling. “Can I wear the suit?” She stared at it, touching the arms and chest, petting it almost.

-As she begins to laugh at him, it annoys him even more now than it did when he was in the Nano Suit. Having always been the “smaller” one in comparison to Wade, Darius grew to have a vast annoyance with being treated less than if Wade were around. Even though Darius is still considered “big” for his height, he still gets treated like a runt when Wade is either around or people know of Wade. He blinks a bit when she places her fingertip on his nose and gives him a playful push. He can’t even believe it happens when it does. He thinks to himself-“Did this girl just!? What the hell!?”- But then when she asks him if he was trying to be charming, his face turns red a bit again. Not trying to be charming at all, that smile being his natural smile he wondered what Heather meant with her statement. But when she accepts the challenge of “charming” and begins to lick her lips, Darius almost loses his mind. His face turns from a slight crimson to a full on red embarrassed face as she would be able to see that he was pretty out of place now without the suit to help him out. Once again not being used to anything that she is doing at the moment, guess you could call it a weakness of his. Getting caught in a lost trance, he quickly snaps out of it when she brings up Wade again. Just like before, loving his brother but hating when he overshadows him; the embarrassed face of his slowly turns back to his serious all business kind of face. Bringing him out of the little trance she put him in.-“hmph.”- is all he says before slowly turns back around to walk towards one of the tables with tools and some other weapon designs on them. When she asks if she can wear the suit, he says to her with his back turned against her-“You can’t. It only turns on when I am inside of it. If you tried to step inside, it would only lock you in place like a Venus Fly Trap. But by all means…go ahead and try. Just don’t expect me to let you out anytime soon.”-His tone becoming less nervous and more emotionless as a whole as his mind quickly goes back to work. In a way, her mentioning Wade and his vast strength helped get his mind back on track. Darius would never admit to Wade that being considered the weaker and less-cool of the two makes him jealous. Darius may have the brains, but because of being in Wade’s shadow; he never feels like he gets to shine after so many years. That is why he feels confident in the Nano Suit. Because for once in their lives, Darius can be the more popular if not stronger of the two of them.-

Myrrh: Heather notices that Darius flushes a lot, embarrassed. She smiles and when he seems to get angry upon brining up Wade’s name, she arches her brow and tilts her head. When he tells Heather she can wear the suit, she grins and looks over to him. Heather skips over to him, standing behind Darius; she reaches over and wraps her arms around his shoulders. (~(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4T3tMkjRig )~) She sings “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and snickers, keeping him from his work. “I don’t think you’d leave me in there long. In fact, I’m going to prove that theory.” She slipped her hands away, nearing the suit again. She hugged the suit and somehow managed to wiggle in, it doing exactly as Darius told her it would. It locked her in place, making her unable to move. She didn’t make a sound, feeling paralyzed. She closed her eyes and hummed the song in her head, waiting. She couldn’t see or feel anything, hearing only her own heartbeart. “Thmp,thmp.” It wasn’t so bad.

-When he begins to get down into his work, he hears the sound of the suit opening up and allowing Heather to enter into the suit. He comes to smirk a bit as he slowly shakes his head left and right while saying to himself-“Can’t say I didn’t warn her.”- When entering the suit, the HUD (Heads up display would begin to activate; but like it would for Darius. Showing up red letters in the center of the helmet where Heather would be looking as it begins to read out-“Intruder! Intruder! Intruder!....Self preservation systems online in…10..”-And as it begins to countdown it becomes loud from a speaker as it is heard by Darius.-“9….8….”- With the countdown, a special defense mechanism begins to load up inside of the suit. Bright blue electrical surges begin to come to view as it looks like the suit is about to fry Heather on the inside. Knowing the defense mechanism is active, Darius slowly turns behind him wondering if Heather is going to try and get him to let her out. Having a look of concern on his face, he wants to let her out but wants to show her where her confidence would get her. If it had been anyone else trying to get into the suit, he wouldn’t care if it fried them into ash. But seeing as this girl is just curious, and rather nice in her own weird way; Darius becomes conflicted with letting his suit do what it does best; kill.-“7…..6….5….”- Darius yells out to her-“Just ask me to open it and I will let you out! No need to be that prideful that you will risk your own life!”- If she still wanted to try and push Darius and not say anything, the countdown would continues-“4….3…..”-Darius begins to feel a little pinch in his stomach as something in him wants to let her go. Remembering what Wade said to him back on the rooftop about not needing to kill everyone who comes past them; Darius turns away trying to force the words out of his mind.-“2……1……”- the lights inside of the suit would look like lightning now as they are just about to strike down on her body like an electric chair inside of the suit! But just as they are about to strike her down, the electrical pulses would slowly die down; giving off the sound similar to how a jet plane sounds when it powers down from flight. The suit would push her body out like if vomiting it out of its body. With that happening, she would see Darius standing next to the suit looking down at her. Giving her an expression of confusion yet anger like if saving her was that hard of a choice. He then extends his left arm out to her to help her back to her feet.-“Don’t say I never did anything nice to you…Should have just let the suit fry your stubborn ass….”-

The Nature of Science
Myrrh: Heather was not scared at all. Rather cocky and confident. When she tumbled out of the suit, she chuckled. She looked at the expression on Darius’ face and smiled, taking his hand in her own. Instead of pulling herself up, she dragged Darius down to the floor beside her. She looked over to him and breathed deeply, before turning her head back to the ceiling. “I think you should have blueprints and drawings on the ceiling. So then when you want to lie down, you can look at your work.” She inhaled, stretching her arms and legs out; curling her toes. She smiled at nothing, imagining the ceiling had rotted away and that a jungle had formed. The suit, well it was a real venus fly trap in her head, green with thin, long teeth. Wild flowers and vines curled up the walls and wrapped themselves around the mechanics. “Imagine this like I am.” Heather waved her hands in the air, focusing. “There’s no roof. It’s replaced by the night sky, fireflies buzzing around with their bright behinds. You can see the stars, twinkling. Your suit, well it’s a literal venus fly trap. And your warehouse is a jungle. It’s magical. Imagine that, okay?” She sighed happily and closed her eyes, feeling the floor. “I’m calm, you’re calm. You can’t possibly be mad at me. I did what I was born to do.” Heather turned her head to look at Darius. “I don’t think your suit could even begin to describe me. You haven’t the slightest clue who I am, Darius.” She spoke quietly, dragging out his name. You couldn’t hear her breaths anymore, but you could see her chest rising and falling. “For once in your life, stop and appreciate the little things.” Heather’s voice faded out, becoming quiet and obsolete. She rolled over and hugged her knees to her chest, burying her face on her knees.

-As he is pulled down to lay next to her, he lands on the floor with a hard *Thud* sound before he rests his back on the floor to look up at the ceiling with her. When she talks about having blueprints and stuff on the ceiling to look at when he just wants to lay down, he laughs a bit while making the comment of-“Yeah, if I ever found a moment to just lay down and look at the ceiling.”- She goes quiet for a few seconds as Darius slowly turns his head a bit to allow his brown eyes to look at her. She looks lost in her own thoughts and seeing him hanging out with a girl that looks as she does, it brings Darius to smile a bit. Even if she was here to see Wade, he is kind of happy at the outcome that unfolded for him.-“Imagine this like I am”- she says before going on to practically paint a picture for Darius that involves jungles and living venus fly traps along with a romantic sky view with the stars and the moon staring down at the two of them. He nods his head to her as he does indeed picture the image she describes. But his comes out to be a little different than her own. Instead of a jungle of trees and plants; he pictures a world surrounding the two of them with nothing but advanced technology. The trees look like living lifeforms of sentient technology while robotic animals leap through the tall metallic grass. Something rather odd to picture, but that is who Darius is. As she begins to speak to Darius, he turns his head just enough so his eyes can stare into hers while she turns to face him. Heather talks about how his suit could not begin to know anything about her outside of the black and white; it can’t show Darius who she truly is. Which is true, even Darius knows that. His suit can only give him the information that the files give him. For all he knows, what he thinks he may know could very well be wrong. After she is done talking, he slowly turns his body to be laying on the left side of his body. Using his left arm to prop his head up a bit around his neck he looks at her with his shiny brown eyes while beginning to say-“I never said I ‘knew’ you Heather…to be honest…my brain usually is able to pick up on what kind a person is within seconds of meeting them…but you’ve managed to annoy me, piss me off and make me want to strangle you in about the five minutes we’ve known each other…but at the same time…You’ve made me want to get to know you, hang out with you…and….”-His face then begins to turn red at the thought of what he was going to say next. Letting his more shy side take over now; bringing him to stop in his tracks at what he was going to say. Laying back down onto his back, he laughs a bit to himself while looking back up at the ‘stars’ they both imagined.-“Just forget it…Enjoy the little things right?...So maybe I shouldn’t ruin this moment by talking…”- His eyes then stare out towards the ceiling as if the two of them were under a romantic moonlight view with nothing but each other to think about.-

Myrrh: “I appreciate your kind words.” Heather nodded, mocking Darius. He stuttered. But Heather wasn’t stupid. She knew Darius was shy and thought she was pretty. Easy to tell. No guy just sputters and trips over their words for no reason. But, regardless of what he wanted to say, Heather was content in her state of imagination. Maybe Grease Boy wasn’t for her; maybe that man with the long shaggy beard hair and huge muscles was only a trusty friend. Maybe, if you looked in the far corner of the portrait, you could see a much smaller boy with a sword in his hand, welding it. His eyes sparkled with joy and pride, and he had the prettiest smile. This boy was the son of the local welder. Like father like son, you could say. In that story she once read, the main focus was on Grease Boy. But always there, in the background, was this lesser known prodigy. He had many things to learn, though. Heather took Darius’ hand and squeezed it, pointing to a corner in the ceiling. “That’s where the stars dance. The balls of light made of dust and spacial matter. And underneath, the animals of the wild sing songs in unison while the trees protect them from all the harm in the world. Their branches sway, and they are loose in the sense that they are alive. Do you understand?” Heather cringed and looked over to Darius, unable to explain the beauty of nature to him- yet.

The Start of Something New
-(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3RfgraVrc8) When Heather reaches down to grab a hold of his hand, squeezing it with hers, he in turn looks up at the corner of the ceiling that she had pointed out to him. And as she described every bit of the image to him, he began to picture it himself. He pictures two bright white stars swirling around one another, spinning in unison with one another in one fluid motion. He then watches as the two white stars in the sky come together and form one bright star that outshines all other stars in the sky. The animals around them begin to play a sweet tune of the jungle kingdom that she had created for the two of them with their connection of imagination. Though his imagination seems more technology and hers more mother nature, the two came to blend together. Where she lays, her side of the warehouse takes the image of the jungles with the animals and stars above her. And on his side, the land of technology and sentient life takes form. But in the middle spot between the two of them; something begins to happen. Wires begin to slowly peer out from his imagination that begin to wrap around the roots of plants from her nature world. Together the two completely different words seem to connect, as if they are enjoying one another. Not realizing his own imagination is connecting with hers, Darius comes to smile while looking up at the bright star that was born from two others. Darius takes that as a sign of symbolism and slowly turns back around to face Heather once more. He smiles a bit to her now as the reflection of that star in the corner of the room comes to shine through her eyes; increasing her beauty that much more. With their hands still held, he slowly tries to pull their bodies closer together as he says-“Yeah…I…I think I understand it, a little…”- If she allowed it, their bodies would begin to slowly move closer to one another as their imagination worlds continue to try and connect.-

Myrrh: (~(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NNwE2rvB9k )~) Heather scrunches her nose and pushes her body against Darius. As they inch closer, their worlds fuse. The wires connect to the flower stems, the robotic trees lean against the oak and their leaves brush softly. “Schk, schk.” It’s quiet, save for the humming that Heather produces. When Heather looks above her, she sees the stars, turning into men with spears, chasing cattle. The cattle run and throw their horned heads back, muzzles open in despair. And then, “BANG.” The spear slashes through their leather skin, as they fall to the ground in agony. The cloth-covered men dance around their food. (~(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8inJtTG_DuU )~) And with that, the history of the world flashes before her eyes. The invention of the telephone, the first woman to vote, all of the exciting things that made the world like it is today. And then she sees her, alongside Darius; made of stardust, just like they are. As the two of them lay together, somehow, the parts of their bodies work together and pump their blood. They fight off infections and replicate DNA without altering it. That, that’s cool. And the star versions of them, they’re smiling down at Heather. Heather grins and closes her eyes. She says, “It’s a start, Darius. You’ll see.”