Categories > Anime/Manga > FLCL > FLCL: La Tarot de la Morte
Chapter Two
Where does the truth end and the lie begin? Most of the original cast returns as Mabase is once again turned into a nightmarish wonderland of violence, lies, and of course plenty of furi kuri.
?Blocked
A body is just a body. The human body is composed largely of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Muscles, bone, connective tissue, membrane, skin, everything forged from the same parts. The very same building blocks that create the majority of the world that we live in. Its like Lego blocks on a cosmic scale. We can take the body apart, break it down into the very things that make it, end up with a hundred and fifty pounds of chemistry set supplies. Analyze, categorize, science a person down to nothing but a bag of chemicals. We answer all the questions we learn in school, and there we have it, just a lot of complex equations on a piece of paper. And that's where we stop, because go any farther and we have to answer an even more pesky question-what, exactly, have we just scienced into oblivion? Life? There's the catch, that little four-letter word. You can build a body if you try hard enough, jolt it with electricity and maybe even manage to get the heart to pump, the lungs to suck in air, to create all of the outward signs of a living being, but lacking something fundamental. That lump of flesh isn't living anymore than your high school chemistry supplies are. There is just something else, something that we can't quite put our collective finger on, that makes the fundamental difference and creates something that is alive. Most people eventually come to the conclusion that its not anything real at all, that this spark of life is a hallucination created by the need to feel that we are more than we appear to be. Some people, however, know better.
One such person is currently straddling the handlebars of a slightly worse-for-wear dark yellow Vespa. Its very early morning and she's been sitting here all night, but she is wide-awake. Her eyes reflect the headlights of a passing vehicle, flashing supernatural green embers like the eyes of a coyote. She draws back into the protection of the trees, knowing she can't be seen from the road but still to cautious to risk it. Then she's immobile again, sitting perfectly still with the cold patience of a predator waiting for a sign. It comes soon enough, just as the first of the double suns casts pink watercolor into the dark sky. A fluttering somewhere on the edge of her consciousness, like a shadow passing just outside her range of sight. The shadow is immediately followed by light, this the kind you can see with your eyes, a single headlight blazing down the highway going way faster than should.
She moves out of instinct. The Vespa bucks wildly beneath her hips as it takes the rough hillside, gathering speed, when the wheels hit the pavement she pitches her body forward as if she's riding a racehorse. The taillights of the vehicle have disappeared around a corner but that's really not much of a problem, she might not be able to keep up with the thing but she sure as hell can keep close enough to know where its going. And there's not much chance of her losing it, it's to early yet for the street to be crowded.
The Technicolor of grab and go joint signs give way to subdued hues and shapely curves of first more expensive restaurants and then they're in the business district. Show windows are dark except for the occasional flicker of interior lights that were at one time meant to give would-be burglars the impression that there was still someone working inside but long ago became just a habitual waste of energy. Then those fade away into ritzy apartments and, in turn, to the cheaper housing of those not lucky enough to pull in a seven-figure income. Urban sprawl slowly creeps into the landscape, a gray mass of parked land vehicles and overturned waste bins lit not by soft full-spectrum streetlights but by harsh yellow lamp standards that cast piles of flickering shadows into the gutter. The apartments become more and more ratty until at last they fade grudgingly into one-story houses surrounded by chain-link fences and the abandoned shells of vehicles who's owners had possibly breathed their last in tandem with the coughing motor. Even these eventually become more and more scarce, replaced by fences that surround nothing at all but vast tracts of pavement, which Mother Nature is doing her best to reposes. Broken down heavy machinery begins to appear, one or two at first then by the dozens like the picked-apart remains of a vast heard of migrating dinosaurs that, struck by a drought, simply fell where they stood.
Close. She can sense her target moving around. She stops, tilting her head back and forth, her eyes narrowed, trying to pinpoint its location. There, toward that industrial district. She's off again, through warehouses and factories that have long been defunct. Almost there, excitement floods the deep place between the curve of her hips, she can do it this time if she's fast enough.
Around the corner of a building on which the "Cygnet Shipping" logo sign hangs from one rusted hinge and the road opens into a wide area still shaded from the morning sun. At one point this ungraceful blacktop stage would probably have been alive with industrial machines that pirouetted and dodged around each other in the eternal dance of efficiency. Now, though, the stagehands have gone home and all that is left is an abandoned set consisting of scattered shipping containers and one forlorn street sweeper crouching in a corner like a patient janitor waiting for the last patron to leave before he cleans the stage and turns out the lights.
She stops to survey the situation. The containers are huge, she guesses around 20 feet high and forty on the long side, and for the most part in pretty good shape aside from rust stains and chipped paint. They look like they were just left wherever there was room, she can't see any conscious attempt to arrange them and its obvious that whoever left them here had no intention of retrieving them. She can't see much past the first row, after that other containers block the view.
She feels the tug again and makes her decision. She revs the engine and shoots into the nearest opening, trying for as straight of a shot as she can get through the maze of boxes. She's pushing the safe speed, zigzagging through them like a fox darting through a hedge after a rabbit. There, after that blue one she can see open pavement.
She swings around the last curve with a feeling of triumph that is almost painfully short-lived. There's nothing here but an opening shaped like a solid horseshoe, the curve blocked off by the shipping containers that butt up against an abandoned warehouse on the flat side. There are wide scratches in the blacktop where it looks like the containers were pushed out of the way to form this makeshift courtyard. The warehouse is in slightly better shape than some of the others, the tinted windows are mostly intact and the two large garage doors on this side are closed.
What's going on? Her target couldn't have gotten out the other side, the path she took to get in here is the only one she can see that is actually open, all the other containers are pushed up so close that they are practically rammed into each other. What is this?
A trap. She senses it a moment too late, and her dodge is off. Something hits her like a sledgehammer, luckily whatever it is strikes her armor and not a soft part of her body but she's still thrown forward. She pitches over the seat of the Vespa, knocking it over and landing in a tumble of limbs, wheels, and handlebars. The guitar strapped to the back of the vehicle tumbles out of the soft case and skids away into the shadows.
She rolls over quickly, standing, forcing her body to recover. There's no point in going after the weapon, it's as good as gone. She looks up in the direction the hit came from and gets a jolt of cold in her stomach. Forms have appeared on top of the maze of containers, stunning black against a rising sun. A clatter sends an explosion of adrenaline through to her fingertips as the garage doors are pulled open.
She draws herself inward, ignoring the imminent threat to her life, pushing energy downward through her body, condensing it. Bright red light floods her mind, light that pulses and writhes, radiating from that same point between her hips. Selfish and carnal, it threatens to overtake her, forcing the breath out of her until she's gasping. The world fades at the edges, washed out by the light. Almost there...almost...the muscles just below her ribs roll inward, her entire body slowly tensing until....
"None of that now, love." She freezes, her eyes popping open.
She knows that voice. It comes from everywhere and nowhere at once, echoes even in places where there is nothing for sound waves to bounce from. It somehow gives the impression of both ruthless lawlessness and boundless compassion, all-powerful but helpless. If she had grown up on Earth she would have said it is the voice of the archetypal Robin Hood.
She turns around slowly, knowing what her eyes must tell her but not believing it until she sees him.
He has no weapon in sight and isn't standing so much as lounging there, as though he has every right to be in the middle of an abandoned industrial district surrounded by law enforcement officers and in the center of a very elaborate trap. And the devil of it is that he does seem to be right at home there, just a pedestrian casually passing through on his morning constitutional who stops to chat with an old friend at the paper stand, Hi, how ya doing, nice weather we're having today isn't it.
"I have a proposition for you." He says mildly, shifting his weight onto his right foot as he examines the back of one hand with casual indifference. "One I think you might find rather attractive."
One such person is currently straddling the handlebars of a slightly worse-for-wear dark yellow Vespa. Its very early morning and she's been sitting here all night, but she is wide-awake. Her eyes reflect the headlights of a passing vehicle, flashing supernatural green embers like the eyes of a coyote. She draws back into the protection of the trees, knowing she can't be seen from the road but still to cautious to risk it. Then she's immobile again, sitting perfectly still with the cold patience of a predator waiting for a sign. It comes soon enough, just as the first of the double suns casts pink watercolor into the dark sky. A fluttering somewhere on the edge of her consciousness, like a shadow passing just outside her range of sight. The shadow is immediately followed by light, this the kind you can see with your eyes, a single headlight blazing down the highway going way faster than should.
She moves out of instinct. The Vespa bucks wildly beneath her hips as it takes the rough hillside, gathering speed, when the wheels hit the pavement she pitches her body forward as if she's riding a racehorse. The taillights of the vehicle have disappeared around a corner but that's really not much of a problem, she might not be able to keep up with the thing but she sure as hell can keep close enough to know where its going. And there's not much chance of her losing it, it's to early yet for the street to be crowded.
The Technicolor of grab and go joint signs give way to subdued hues and shapely curves of first more expensive restaurants and then they're in the business district. Show windows are dark except for the occasional flicker of interior lights that were at one time meant to give would-be burglars the impression that there was still someone working inside but long ago became just a habitual waste of energy. Then those fade away into ritzy apartments and, in turn, to the cheaper housing of those not lucky enough to pull in a seven-figure income. Urban sprawl slowly creeps into the landscape, a gray mass of parked land vehicles and overturned waste bins lit not by soft full-spectrum streetlights but by harsh yellow lamp standards that cast piles of flickering shadows into the gutter. The apartments become more and more ratty until at last they fade grudgingly into one-story houses surrounded by chain-link fences and the abandoned shells of vehicles who's owners had possibly breathed their last in tandem with the coughing motor. Even these eventually become more and more scarce, replaced by fences that surround nothing at all but vast tracts of pavement, which Mother Nature is doing her best to reposes. Broken down heavy machinery begins to appear, one or two at first then by the dozens like the picked-apart remains of a vast heard of migrating dinosaurs that, struck by a drought, simply fell where they stood.
Close. She can sense her target moving around. She stops, tilting her head back and forth, her eyes narrowed, trying to pinpoint its location. There, toward that industrial district. She's off again, through warehouses and factories that have long been defunct. Almost there, excitement floods the deep place between the curve of her hips, she can do it this time if she's fast enough.
Around the corner of a building on which the "Cygnet Shipping" logo sign hangs from one rusted hinge and the road opens into a wide area still shaded from the morning sun. At one point this ungraceful blacktop stage would probably have been alive with industrial machines that pirouetted and dodged around each other in the eternal dance of efficiency. Now, though, the stagehands have gone home and all that is left is an abandoned set consisting of scattered shipping containers and one forlorn street sweeper crouching in a corner like a patient janitor waiting for the last patron to leave before he cleans the stage and turns out the lights.
She stops to survey the situation. The containers are huge, she guesses around 20 feet high and forty on the long side, and for the most part in pretty good shape aside from rust stains and chipped paint. They look like they were just left wherever there was room, she can't see any conscious attempt to arrange them and its obvious that whoever left them here had no intention of retrieving them. She can't see much past the first row, after that other containers block the view.
She feels the tug again and makes her decision. She revs the engine and shoots into the nearest opening, trying for as straight of a shot as she can get through the maze of boxes. She's pushing the safe speed, zigzagging through them like a fox darting through a hedge after a rabbit. There, after that blue one she can see open pavement.
She swings around the last curve with a feeling of triumph that is almost painfully short-lived. There's nothing here but an opening shaped like a solid horseshoe, the curve blocked off by the shipping containers that butt up against an abandoned warehouse on the flat side. There are wide scratches in the blacktop where it looks like the containers were pushed out of the way to form this makeshift courtyard. The warehouse is in slightly better shape than some of the others, the tinted windows are mostly intact and the two large garage doors on this side are closed.
What's going on? Her target couldn't have gotten out the other side, the path she took to get in here is the only one she can see that is actually open, all the other containers are pushed up so close that they are practically rammed into each other. What is this?
A trap. She senses it a moment too late, and her dodge is off. Something hits her like a sledgehammer, luckily whatever it is strikes her armor and not a soft part of her body but she's still thrown forward. She pitches over the seat of the Vespa, knocking it over and landing in a tumble of limbs, wheels, and handlebars. The guitar strapped to the back of the vehicle tumbles out of the soft case and skids away into the shadows.
She rolls over quickly, standing, forcing her body to recover. There's no point in going after the weapon, it's as good as gone. She looks up in the direction the hit came from and gets a jolt of cold in her stomach. Forms have appeared on top of the maze of containers, stunning black against a rising sun. A clatter sends an explosion of adrenaline through to her fingertips as the garage doors are pulled open.
She draws herself inward, ignoring the imminent threat to her life, pushing energy downward through her body, condensing it. Bright red light floods her mind, light that pulses and writhes, radiating from that same point between her hips. Selfish and carnal, it threatens to overtake her, forcing the breath out of her until she's gasping. The world fades at the edges, washed out by the light. Almost there...almost...the muscles just below her ribs roll inward, her entire body slowly tensing until....
"None of that now, love." She freezes, her eyes popping open.
She knows that voice. It comes from everywhere and nowhere at once, echoes even in places where there is nothing for sound waves to bounce from. It somehow gives the impression of both ruthless lawlessness and boundless compassion, all-powerful but helpless. If she had grown up on Earth she would have said it is the voice of the archetypal Robin Hood.
She turns around slowly, knowing what her eyes must tell her but not believing it until she sees him.
He has no weapon in sight and isn't standing so much as lounging there, as though he has every right to be in the middle of an abandoned industrial district surrounded by law enforcement officers and in the center of a very elaborate trap. And the devil of it is that he does seem to be right at home there, just a pedestrian casually passing through on his morning constitutional who stops to chat with an old friend at the paper stand, Hi, how ya doing, nice weather we're having today isn't it.
"I have a proposition for you." He says mildly, shifting his weight onto his right foot as he examines the back of one hand with casual indifference. "One I think you might find rather attractive."
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