Mea Culpa

His face is the picture of pleased as he makes the final pass of spraypaint across the stencil he's made... a series of arrows around a building that lead to a breaker. He knows for a fact that this building and what extends below it are connected to wires that still breathe life into uneven and rare chunks of the city.

Tristan is leaving instructions. Instructions against the will of his superiors... he is meddling with data. For the greater good, he tells himself, to help the resourceful by adding more resources.

This was the last part to his instructions, the words that proclaimed the breaker still working, and with such a clean sweep he'd be heading back to base very soon...

Morgan watches coldly as Tristan finishes the last touches of his handiwork. He makes no move to mask his presence; he'd done so when he'd noticed the other man sneaking off yet again, but there would no point in doing so now. The concrete is cold against the side of his crossed arm, but he leans a while longer, waiting for Tristan to turn. Unmoving, simply watching, and waiting. Closes his eyes, keeping his face expressionless.

Morgan is furious.

This can't go on, he decides. It wasn't the first occurrence, but he swears it will not happen again. This level of insubordination was unforgivable, and could not be tolerated. His voice, pitched low, carries clearly through the still air.

"How disappointing, Tristan."

Tristan does not jump, when Morgan speaks; he's hardly surprised after all that he himself has done. He raises his hand to his face, taking off his bizarre mask in order to see Morgan face-to-face.

Disappointment//Relative... An idea of the past laced with respect and slowly melting away like cotton candy slinks over to Morgan, followed by an image of a shield with a cross. Then, he clarifies the abstract terms into sentences: Be disappointed if you must, you are not alone in this and I, for one, feel I am doing right for once.

He straightens his back and stands tall as he possibly can, his full six-and-a-half feet braced with the skeletal symmetry of military origins. He'd face this with dignity, at the very least.

Morgan slowly straightens from his position. His expression is hard, his mind made up. They'd both known an end had been in sight, and now it was here, sudden and expected at the same time, with no time for compromises or goodbyes. Dimly Morgan realizes, apart from fury, his chief emotion is regret.

"We've had this conversation before," he says softly. "It would be pointless to repeat what has been said."

In an abstract part of his mind Morgan briefly wonders how things had come to what he knows will be a regretful end. He'd liked Tristan. It's not until he thinks this that he realizes it's true.

It does not change his resolve, however. He'd followed Tristan with one purpose and one alone, and he meant to achieve it. And yet Morgan can't help but at least try to throw the other man the last lifeline he could afford to give.

"You would not erase those marks if I ordered you to, would you?" Morgan asks. Voice quiet, eyes fixed on Tristan's own.

(Say you would, Morgan almost wants to pleads with the other man. For your own sake.)

The silent man had expected this to happen, here they were clashing and there would be no end to it; or, rather, the end would not be lovely in the least. He recognizes the tones in Morgan's voice, sees the bodylanguage of a second chance and...

The idea that the marks will remain is set in stone as it's transferred, a metaphore that should get the meaning across. His face is slightly apologetic., though it remains as serene and determined as ever. He's appreciative of the line, but he must decline.

He would not compromise his new resolve for anything, not even for... this. Whatever it is.

Was.

We've made our decsions. And we'll face the consequences. His stance becomes more lax, springy, not agressive in the least but ready, bracing.

He had not really expected the other man to do otherwise. Strangers they had been when they'd first met and strangers they are still in many, many ways (Morgan had seen to that his own careful way), but the difference in the fundamental makings of their very selves is clear. Tristan simply cannot bring hiimself to stay; Morgan can. Hence the parting of the ways.

His eyes rove around their surroundings. Mapping the area and noting each advantage and disadvantage, all the while advancing in Tristan's direction. As he does he pulls out from his pocket a sort of pocket-watch, broken now and perfectly useless for telling the time but ideal for creating sparks if he pushed it open a certain way.

He would not take out the lighter unless driven to.

"You made a mistake coming here." he states. Not just this meeting this day, but from the beginning.

Quite suddenly, hoping to catch Tristan by at least some measure of surprise, Morgan scrapes the watch, hard, the blunt fastenings coming together and clicking past each other with a force that sends several sparks springing from the point of contact. Simultaneously he directs the paths of oxygen, sends them streaking in Tristan's direction.

More specifically, in the direction of the very flammable contents of the spraycan, intent on destroying the spraypaint markings via possible explosion. Possible because Morgan doesn't know if such a small can would be able to cause such an explosion that would send the wall with the paint marks crashing down, but he will find out for himself.

I had no choice in it.


That is his only reply before lobbing the can towards Morgan and away from himself, letting the aerosol can explode in a stream of shrapnel between them. He only barely vaults away from the chemical fire, directing his own psychic wind to blow the blast away from himself.

The sounds of a Latin hymn build up, distantly, the chanting of monks that are Tristan's only memory speak, rhythmically, echoing through both his own mind and that of his opponent. when the blaze clears he is hanging from the metal spikes driven into a telephone pole, spikes that were probably a ladder for maintinence men at one time.

He returns his mask to his face, and the chants increase in mental volume.

Morgan himself ducks and whirls sharply away from the debris, brow furrowing in concentration, mouth tightening in a grim slash across his face as he strikes the very foundations under the wall with the compromising marks. First things first, after all.

Once that is taken care of Morgan look backs to his quarry, trying to see through the slight dust that arose from his exertions. The chanting is ringing through what seems like both his mind and ears, the worst sort of distraction battering at his nerves, and he knows that if this goes on long enough the hymns would be chanting themselves into his very dreams.

He grits his teeth and allows himself to give nothing away, but stares stonily up at Tristan, eyeing the familiar mask. A brief flare of irritation courses through him at the memory of Tristan’s words, strikes a chord in his gut for a reason that Morgan won’t bother to fathom out. “There is always a choice,” he says tightly.

He raises the watch, strikes with a viciousness that startles himself, and blue flames blossom from the bottom of the telephone pole. Braces himself for whatever the other man might do.

Brick does not burn, but wet paint does. The masked face turns to Morgan a second before the mute man springs from the burning pole to escape the flames and subsequent electrical discharge and damage.

The stained glass window breaks and Tristan pushes something through the air.

Without memory, following blindly.
Without memory.
Privelage, without privelage.

Perhaps, at one time, there was a choice, but the idea is far back on the timeline Tristan presents to Morgan, far distant from the shimmer-shatter-shards of the point where all memory ceases...

And even if there was a choice, the other people here have none.

And if there is always a choice...

A whirlwind of colored glass-dust whips up, not mentally but in reality as Tristan releases deadly powder from his sleeve into the airflow he controls. He makes ready to launch the prism at Morgan.

I am making mine now.