Hunted|Haunted - Chapter 14 - This is avant-garde, you piece of shit audience

Ultimately, the fight between Tove and Cogs had commenced without the use of a sledgehammer, despite the fact that Cogs found one. The use for the sledgehammer, however, was found promptly.

— Dude, I remembered where the leftover paint cans are stashed. Wanna play some baseball?
— Why not… — Cogs sighed, lifting the hammer in the air. Then remembered something, because he added. — It would probably attract attention, though.
— No worries, no one goes over here anyways. It’s "cursed land".
— And in reality?
— In reality, it’s just me. — She chuckled. — Been causing havoc around these parts since 1974.

Cogs let out a laugh, then nodded.

— Let's get to it, then.

And so the cans started flying.

— What’s the deal with you folks? Like, with you two following those two and all. Y’all don’t seem like the haunting type
— I have a younger brother. He's too dumb of ass for his own good, so I decided to keep an eye on him. — Cogs huffed as he sent a can flying with a hit of a hammer. — After that decision, can't say who's more stupid, me or him. He basically decided I’m his hallucination and ignored me for two years, and I still decided to stay!
— Damn, brother, you have the patience of a saint. I started breaking shit on day three.

The next can exploded, sending dark green goo everywhere. Must have been enamel.

— Wait, so, are veezies and woozies normal for him or sommen, that he just accepted that? I got a sister working in a madhouse, so if you're thinking he could benefit from a room with padded walls, I can make that happen.

Cogs laughed too much to hear anything past “veezies and woozies”. But still shook his head after what Tove said caught up with him.

— Nah. Blud wouldn’t trust a dentist, let alone a psychiatrist… Can’t say I blame him for that, but he does be stupid sometimes, despite being a bloody genius.

Tove snorted.

— I mean, my sis' job is stopping dumb geniuses like him from escaping, but yeah, I get what you’re saying

— He’s also wanted as that one fuck everyone wants to give.— Who isn’t these days?

— Dunno, some people aren’t. — Cogs shrugged, then added a bit more seriously. — But he’s wanted for terrorism, so there’s that. Doubt he’ll benefit from public healthcare.

— Damn, what’d he done? I burnt a courthouse once, but even that wasn’t it.

— Same thing I wound up dead for, but better, cause he’s still alive. — Cogs chuckled, but there was a sad undertone to it – a bit of regret and nostalgia. — Almost blew up Carvington’s town hall, with the mayor inside of it.

— So, how’d a motherfucker like him ended up with a shva as eeny as that one?

— The kid? He saved him from being roughhoused by some boogies. He has a thing for protecting kids.

— Aww, a rescue kitten! But really, aren’t shva’s like bears? If you see a kid, momma’s around the corner kind of thing?

— This one ran away from home, apparently. — Cogs shrugged once again. Then, once again, caught up with Tove’s words, because he raised a hand in a gesture “stop”. — Also hold the fuck up. You burnt down the courthouse? Where? How?
— Oh, Hilthe, it’s gonna get messy… Shva mommas are vicious.

Tove sent another can flying somewhere far beyond the reach of the street lights.

 

— Eh, it’s not that interesting, it was a while ago. They tried to jail one of our buddies for a thing he didn’t do, and blablabla all dogs are illiterate bastards, why woooould he be there at that time, long story short there pretty much was no trial. So we burnt the courthouse. If they had evidence, they’d jail him anyway, but uh-oh, for some reason, they didn’t. I would’ve burned down the WPD too, but that thing is all bricks. So yeah, pretty much it.
— Aren’t courthouses usually, you know…
— Well-guarded? Yeah. I just happen to know a lot about wood and stuff on it. Lacquer burns pretty well, yano?
— No, I mean, aren’t they usually bricks and concrete?
— Not on the inside.

Cogs hummed thoughtfully at that.

— So you burnt it from the inside? Nice. — His voice suggested that he liked the idea pretty much. And his voice was everything to go by to gauge his mood, since his face was hidden with a mask, fashioned from an LED display. — As for the dead witch guy – he’s apparently helping this kid, Toma, find his dad. Calls himself Coyote, looks like he was run over by a lawnmower with a gun turret attached. Talk about being weird…

Tove squinted in suspicion.

— Pardonne me thy question, but… dog dude looks hella related to the kid. You sure he isn't the dad?
— Nuh-uh, not in the slightest. — Cogs shook his head. — Nex, though, seems confident that these are two different guys.
— He also was sure he didn't see you, so I'd get a second opinion.
— Yeah, I know… He’s also on drugs like half the time, so go figure if he’s right or left.
…
— We just left a child with a junkie?
— There could always be worse company than junkies… but yeah, seems like we did.
…
— Eh, they were by Kims’ side, probably will be fine. Oh, look, this one's gold
— Neato. — Glowing circles on Cogs’s LED mask changed their shapes back to crosses. Then to question marks. — Why’d they need gold paint here, of all places, though?
— Oh, that's probably one of ours.

Tove threw one can in the air, hit it with her trusty bat, and proceeded to fall apart laughing

— Who the hell brought whipped cream here? Damn, it's probably old too…
— Some of your guys forgot it here? — Cogs let out a laugh.
It took her quite some time to pull herself together, but eventually Tove was more or less vertical.
— I dunno, only the tunnel is our territory, the rest is someone else's. But yeah, returning to that, dog dude is weird as all fuck. Like, I'm not asking who he is, I've seen plenty of ghosts, and dead witches usually were in some deep occult crap, but I'm not sure he's dead.
— He looks like he’s dead, so why?
— Check this out. — Tove threw a straight punch at Cogs, which made him wiggle a little. But just as Cogs was about to ask “what was that for”, Tove continued. — Feels funny, right? But not painful. That dude was straight up fighting for his life there. Said I “broke his ribs” too. And not the scared kind of “broke his ribs”.
— So, he's not just a different kind of ghost. — Cogs sounded surprised.— He's a whole other package, huh?
— I’d place my bets on a demon, those usually stick to witches like fresh cement, but I mean, he hadn’t tried to eat me yet. — Tove shone a smile so wide, it made you think whether her cheeks were slashed through. — Wanna play special forces and make him spill the beans?
— … You’re just looking for an opportunity to beat him again?
— Maaaybeeee. — She spun around, striking sparks from the ground. — But I’d reaaally like to find out how he “died”. I mean, the greater picture. The amount of holes on his chest and back doesn’t match, but man, those holes are big enough for a mouse, don’t’cha think they should go through? And what uniform even is that? No name, no flags. And what kind of soldier is even allowed to have a braid that long?

A sudden thought made her tail wag, and the street light flicker.

— Do you think he died with guns on him? That would be so cool!
— It would be, but he's as gunless as it gets. — Cogs shrugged, thinking.— I remember, he and Nex talked about some kind of cult mumbo-jumbo. Apparently, this guy was someone pretty special in there and lived long enough to fight in World War Two.

The baseball party eventually ran out of cans to smash and went around the block looking for more, leaving a colourful mess behind.

— What’s your trick?
— “Trick?”
— The thing you do because of how you died. Like, the drunks can make people nearby more drunk, the drowned leave puddles everywhere, that sort of thing. Once met a dude who died trying to fight an elk, could drive animals crazy. And people, too. I very much understand that elk, dude was one hell of an arse.
— Huh. Can't say I figured it out yet. I think either making people more violent, or making tech work better, but who knows? — Cogs huffed in slight displeasure. Then added, raising a finger. — Gained an ability to talk to machine spirits, though.
— Wait, those are actually a thing? Cool. Always thought our machine bench Betsy was treated like that just cause. I mean, every tool has a name in that place, except for nails and such, yano? Yeah, but Betsy would only work properly if people were polite. Then again, that thing is older than I am, so I just thought it didn’t always work.
— How old..?
— Ehh… Whenever the Industrial Revolution was. About that. She used to run off steam, but we tinkered with it, and now it runs off diesel. Do trains have spirits?
— …Well, tech-mages say they do. I'm not very into Mechanoism myself, but so far, every little piece of tech I encountered in these two years has had a machine spirit. So I suppose trains have that too. The question would be how complex it is. Nex has a computer, and with that thing you can have whole conversations – if you have some spare time to wait for it to think.
— Damn… So the trains DO be upset when they see me.

Tove picked up a lone brick and proceeded to pulverise it by sending it into the nearest wall. And another one. And another… The next one missed the wall, landing somewhere near the tracks.

— Oh, isn’t that your dumbass screeching?
— I don’t hear anything.
— Nah, I’m betting, it’s your dumbass.

Nex was in various shades of shock, trying to gather seaweed and urchins back into a container of some sort, remnants of a brick lying nearby. Cogs took the situation in and made a face – his mask’s glowing LED cross-eyes changed from question marks to shocked circles.

— Aw shit… — He leaned a bit closer to Tove, asking her a bit quieter. — You didn’t hit the kid, didja?
— Nah, I definitely hit metal. — Tove, however, had zero volume filter.
— I JUST got him to turn back, dammit!

Cogs had some decency to look a bit guilty. Maybe. Hard to tell beneath the mask with the LED display. But his mood was a lot better now than before, because he decided to talk to Nex, shrugging.

— Welp, at least he’s physically unharmed…ish.
— So you think he’s alright?! Really?! — Nex was just about to lose it, angrily gesturing towards what was supposed to be Toma. — You think I’m fucking qualified as a parent?! Or even a remotely responsible person?! Didn’t you supposedly have five brothers and three sisters?!
— Didn’t you supposedly lead a gang of street kids when you were Toma’s age? — Cogs’s mask’s eye-crosses made an “eyes rolled” emoji.
— Oh, shut up the lot of you, I raised 9 children. — Tove scooped the mess into a container, ripped the flannel off Kims, who, albeit very disappointed, did not look all that surprised, and covered the container with it. — It's like three in the morning, give the kid some peace. And peas, but that’s later.
— I assume Tove is around. Are you going with them? — Kims said in the general direction of where he thought Tove was.
— Of course I do, look at them! How can I trust them to know how to take care of eeny shva?!
— Ok, seriously, what the actual fuck does eeny shva mean?
— I guess it’s something between “tiny baby” and “walking disaster”. — Cogs, who actually listened to the conversation, shrugged once more. Then added. — To be fair, which we are, only one person here probably knows how to take care of the kid. And that person is named after an animal.
— It's “Tiny, cute baby witch”. Most of us here aren’t exactly familiar with modern Redar, and, well, it's not exactly suitable for baby-talk. So, did Tove answer, or is she off to causing havoc? — Kims crossed his arms.

Nex groaned something illegible, after he realised that he’s the only person delirious enough to talk to ghosts. He looked at the ceiling in search of answers, then nodded, sounding tired as all hell combined.

— Yeah. Unless there’s a way to stop her, she’s going with us. — He looked back at Kims and added dryly. — I hope it’s for the better, but eh. Who knows. Not me definitely.