(no subject)

[shippingmath]

Who: Dirk Strider
When: middle of the day
Where: The park
Style: Starting with brackets, but your choice!
Status: Open!
Summary: Events back in his world have left Dirk with a lot on his mind. The best way to deal with that is obviously to beat up something, right?

[It's been almost two weeks since Dirk returned to Vatheon, and it hasn't been the best, to say the least. What's worse is that there hasn't even been a curse to make it shitty. The only problem is him. Because most of it's his fault, really. It's his fault things are still awkward between him and Roxy, it's his fault there are still problems with Jake, it's his fault that Jane's feeling awkward. Somehow. The house has been completely full of awkward, and he's really getting tired of it.

That's why he takes one of his prototype robots out to the park, in theory to test its reactions, but somewhere along the line 'testing' turned into
'beating the shit out of,' until finally it went down in a dented, sparking heap.

As soon as it stops working, Dirk prods it with a shoe, scowling down at the wreck he's reduced his bot to.]

Fucking... stupid piece of shit...

Comments

[dashingloyalty]

[Rainbow Dash loves the park. It's not as roomy as the forest area, but she's camped out here quite a few times in the past just for how comfortable it is. She's surprised to see Dirk here, though, especially with a completely decimated robot.]

Hey, Dirk!

[She flies over to him and hovers at a comfortable height for the both of them. No need to hurt the guy's neck just to talk to her.]

Whatcha doin'?

[shippingmath]

Hey, Dash.

[Dirk kicks the robot again, enough to make the head clang a bit.]

Testing out this thing, theoretically.

[dashingloyalty]

Uhh...testing it on how to take a royal beating? 'Cause it kinda looks like it failed that one.

[She's very concerned, here, Dirk.]

[prissykid]

[Hey, Dirk, have this dude appear out of nowhere. Joshua's just leaning against a tree.]

An odd place to take a robot to.

[shippingmath]

[Wow, way to steal his 'sudden appearance' thing. He glances up from the robot's remains and shrugs.]

Garage didn't have enough space to fight it properly, and the island's shitty for this right now.

[prissykid]

[Teleporting is way better than flashstepping, yo.]

And from the looks of things, it has failed that particular test. Perhaps you should've gone a little easier on the poor thing.

[ohshellno]

[Meenah is just going to stare in barely contained excitement as he does that. She plays the part of a tough bitch most of the time but it breaks whenever she's faced with something that excites her.]

Booyah! You shore showed that robo-beach! [Flashing all of her teeth in a grin] You should do that again.

[shippingmath]

Yeah, let me just pull out my spare robot.

[Sarcastic. So sarcastic. And he's putting away his sword now.]

[ohshellno]

[She looks expectantly for a moment before realising that was sarcasm and pretending she wasn't expecting anything anyway.

She shrugs and folds her arms over her chest a little defensively.]

If you didn't have another one why'd you break the first one? Where'd you even get it from?

[aim_exorable]

You need a better robot.

[Sorry, is that a helpful statement coming from the guy staring impassively after appearing out of apparently nowhere?]

[shippingmath]

I assume the pulped remains of this one made it obvious.

[Time to ignore Darkleer in favor of poking at the remains of his decimated bot. For once in his life he's not actually looking to troll and otherwise encourage Darkleer's grudge.]

[aim_exorable]

Fairly much so.

[That is probably a first, and also something Darkleer might casually ignore. Trolls gotta troll okay?]

I hope it's purpose wasn't to be destroyed so completely, although at least it would accomplish it.

[replicatedcourage]

[Sola was just on his way back from giving his birthday gift to Zelda when he spied a shiny through some trees in the park and decided to investigate. Lo and behold, it's the battered remains of Dirk's robot.]

Dirk, Um... are you okay?

[shippingmath]

Yo, Sola.

[Dirk looked up when Sola came through the park toward him, but now he turns back to the robot he'd just wrecked.]

Sure. Need to do a lot of work on this one before it's a proper threat.

[replicatedcourage]

Is that one of the robots friends you make for protection?

[At least, Jade said he made them for protection and companionship.]

How come you beat him so bad?

[wavesofjade]

[This is new. The Dolorosa watches the boy taking his apparent frustrations out on the machine for a short while before it's reduced to little more than a twisted chunk of metal. She's not seen Dirk in person since he was much smaller, when she found him lost up on the island, but she recognises him immediately.

When he speaks she steps forwards, head tilted curiously. She didn't spend sweeps nurturing Signless to maturity to not be able see when a youngster is troubled. Not that Dirk doesn't make it evident even without that experience.]

Is.. something wrong?

[Obvious question, and she almost winces at it, but the situation begged an opening.]

[shippingmath]

[Dirk looks up, sword still in hand, but he puts it away quickly enough when he sees who it is. His expression, at least, manages to be calm, though it might not be convincing, with the wreckage still at his feet.]

Porrim, right? This thing's just not working as well as it should have.

[Denying his problems. Denying them forever.]

[wavesofjade]

[The name makes her hesitate, and the brief flash of surprise is obvious before she recalls that was the name she'd given him.]

Yes.. that is correct.

[Her attention drifts to the machine again and she moves close, crouching down beside it.]

What did you wish it to do?

[stayb100ponyboy]

[Whelp, that sure is a decimated robot right there. Equius keeps at a reasonable distance, but he's kind of boggling at how thoroughly Dirk trashed that thing.]

Would you like another one? I have a few spares.

[shippingmath]

[Beating up something else sounds incredibly appealing, but after a moment Dirk just shakes his head.]

I was just testing this one out.

[stayb100ponyboy]

[Equius comes closer and prods the robot husk with the toe of one metal shoe.]

Looks like this one failed.

[kringlefuck]

Good show, Strider!

<sub>[ And here is Jake, hanging out in the park here. He's been up in a tree, again, for some time now, merely observing Dirk as he beats the shit-- uhm-- tests out one of his robots.

He swings, hanging from the tree branch by the crook in his knees. Again, he has sort of been avoiding Dirk. Not precisely avoiding him, but he's been giving him a lot of space.

And somewhere in the back of his head he is dreading this interaction.
He wears a pleasant smile nonetheless. ]</sub>

I'm concerned.
Are you quite alright? We haven't chit chatted in awhile.

_{[ Oh boy. ]}

[shippingmath]

[Oh.

Shit. He didn't exactly want Jake to see this, but there's no changing it, now. And he has been wanting to talk to Jake, the opportunity just... never came up. Because for all that Jake was avoiding him, Dirk didn't exactly seek him out, himself. He'd wanted some time to cool off.

And now he's had it, and they need to talk. Before they end up ignoring each other for months again.]

So Roxy and I spent a couple months in the game when we disappeared. We're ahead of you on the timeline.

There's some things we talked about there.

[stridercentric]

[While Bro isn't too familiar with the exact sort of inner turmoil that Dirk's experiencing, he is familiar with inner turmoil in general. He can tell the difference between normal sparring and aiming to destroy. Of course, what with Dirk being his alternate self, the difference is even easier to spot.

He's not one to pry into Dirk's business, though. He's not one to really pry into anyone's business. All he can do is be a bro in hopes it'll help people cope with said business.

So he keeps his distance and watches. Once the beatdown is over and he's sure Dirk's gotten all that frustration out, he approaches. Lil Cal is slung over his shoulders like a backpack, just like he was on the day Bro first arrived.]

[shippingmath]

[Of course the difference is probably obvious to Bro. It's why Dirk does his best to go blank when he finally becomes aware that Bro is here, and approaching. Can't let another version of himself pick up on some flaw to tear into, after all, he's been doing it enough himself.

He just... ends up looking at Lil Cal. He wishes he had his version of it. Having Cal would make a whole lot of shit better. And of course Dirk doesn't have him, because Bro does.]

Hey.