The Reality Vortex: Red Reputations

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“No deal, currently.” Lucifer said. “Unless you’re itching for one.” He chuckled a bit. “I have no intention on interfering with the will of the others. Everyone is free to make their own decisions, provided that they asked all the right questions and get as much information out.”

Placing the utensils on the plate to indicate that he was finished, Lucifer wiped his mouth with a small towel. “Unless you are asking on my thoughts between the troublemakers, I cannot say. It is up to them to mend these strong feelings, aside from encouraging them to talk it out as adults. But considering the state of affairs, its no doubt it’ll be worse.”

Lucifer chuckled again as his shoulders bounces up and down. “And I cannot say for this Bage nor Diamond King. I haven’t encounter anything like that during my travels. I don’t think my disciple is aware of that as well. I might ask him whenever he returns. Besides, I find it a sport to watch things unfold. It showcase character, good and bad. And honesty is best policy.”

Narrowing his eyes. “And you? I figure that you’re the one that seemingly put yourself above them in terms of behaviors. How about you show them a thing or two, unless you, too, are hindered by something. But then again, that would contradict that attitude of yours, and put you along with them in terms of apathy and reckless disregard for others.”

The caretaker pinched Lucifer, indicting that it was bedtime. “Already?”

Lucifer turns to Brachi once more. “Regardless of my own actions, perhaps, you should think of yours. You are the “wonderful” Brachi aren’t you? And you proclaimed that this friend of yours is the nicest one in your universe. How about to put that as a test to mend things between Spina and Gogeta. Unless you cannot and refused too—which is fine. But that’ll awfully goes against that positive ego you build yourself. You don’t need to answer it though. Dwell on it instead.”

Caretaker bowed once more, before taking Lucifer upstairs and prepare for the night.
 
Gogeta’s eyes stared Bernkastel down intensely throughout her response. The intense stare gave way to nothing: it was clear the man was judging every word that came from her mouth. His agitation grew at Bernkastel’s lack of support in his goal, the twisted words from Vegetto Black starting to be given sense in his mind. He scoffed lightly, glancing to the side.

“Tsk, I knew it. Let us fight...let us rough each other up. As long as both still serve you in the end...then you get what you want.”

The narrowed eyes remained firm in the darkness, his face nearly hidden. However, from the small bit of light that trailed in from the window helped illuminate the small trail of water trickling down the side of Gogeta’s face. Despite the image, his dual voice was firm.

“You were supposed to be my friend...but he was right all along. You don’t care about me...and I-“

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]The pure hatred and rage grew in the fusion’s voice, the ominous pressure of his energy rising.[/font]

“I let another...weakling...control me!”

The glint of water disappeared, signifying the pain of Gogeta’s imagined betrayal had passed. Only anger and hatred remained; the swirling of energy around his body in a dangerous pressure accentuating the near shouting he broke down into with a fierce, wide eyed glare at Bernkastel.

“You just wanted another dog to do everything for you!! You don’t care if I die as long as he lives, is that it?!?”
 
Brachi listened to what Lucifer said. Instead of lashing out or getting defensive, she instead started to think about it deeply.

"Is there something wrong?" Bara then asked.

"Given the strained relationships between some of us, it would be challenging, but not impossible to try to mend these relationships. After all, how are we supposed to work together when the slightest issue can cause us to be at each other's throats in an instant? Where's even the logic in that?" Brachi replied.

"The real question is how would you even begin to do so?" Jize asked, "You haven't been exactly quite associating with the rest completely, have you? Your dedication to your training and all is commended, especially considering what has happened, but regarding your social skills, especially concerning the people whom are not from your universe in this occasion, that has been quite neglected. Now I understand that Gogeta is only a recent addition, just like myself, but can you really understand people like Spina?" 

Brachi remained silent, looking a bit ashamed at that.

"Never mind explaining this; I fully understand your reasoning behind it all, but you can now see this is coming to bite you at this time. You still have the opportunity to fix this and try to be a bit more, shall we say, associative, you just need to find the right way to do so, either by yourself or with Bara's help," Jize said, "you are most definitely willing to follow things by the book and try to mend things, but from the current state, it feels like you're doing this more for yourself and Bara and leaving the others in second place. You should try and treat them as if they were from your universe. Spina and Gogeta may be tough nuts to crack, but they should be the key to keeping this team intact and prevent things from making things worse than they already are. Because the way I see it, Spina and Gogeta's actions will demolish your already fragile attempts if this isn't remedied in time."
 
Bernkastel stared in confusion, stuttering out an initial response. "Eh? No, I just thought that... um... let me rephrase..."

Shrinking down into the bed more and more as Gogeta's anger began to rise, Bern held her arms towards her torso protectively as she began to cough uncomfortably from feeling the fusion's rise in energy pressure.

"What... are you saying... who told you that?! I don't want anyone to serve me, I AM your friend! I'm your buddy, remember?" She choked out in a distressed voice. "I don't want anyone to d...die! Y-you're the one who wants me to try to be nicer, and I do plenty of things a 'buddy' is supposed to be doing..." Bernkastel's eyes went wide and her face grew hot, completely blindsided about where these accusations had come from. "I care, I do, really, I pinky swear."

It doesn't matter how hard I try; in the end, nobody thinks I'm any different, Bernkastel thought in frustration, sure that the disparaging things others had said about her in front of Gogeta tainted his views of her.

"You're just recklessly trying to do something that's impossible, and it'll get you killed! I'm trying to talk you out of it because otherwise, you'd be doing nothing but getting yourself in trouble. What you want to do is an extreme solution to meaningless squabbling; nothing good will come of that! Call it whatever you want, but I'm trying to do what's best for you here... for everyone's sake. Why can't anyone see that?"
 
Cross says "The annoying thing is fools like Gogeta need to be killed, beaten down, or a "good fight"."
 
Gogeta’s eyebrows twitched in frustration, yet despite the clear struggle to let go of his perceived rage at Bernkastel, his expression did slowly begin to soften at her promise to be his friend. However, despite all of the gains made to disarming the situation, a single word ignited the fury of the dormant beast in its entirety.

“Meaningless?!”

Gogeta’s eyes bulged to the brim and in a thunderous eruption of energy. He clenched his fists in pure, primal rage in shouting at the top of his lungs.

“This is everything to me!! I am the supreme Saiyan: no one has ever beaten me!! I was born to be best; to surpass everyone!! Yet I’ve had to suffer loss after loss to him; my destiny...thrown to the wayside!!”

His scowl trained visciously on Bernkastel, the skin on his scrunched forehead strangely morphing. Following a few inches off from his widow’s peak, a singular set of black lines began to slowly form down in a gradual build to connect into a “V”.

“He has stolen my honor...and his debts...must be paid!”

Gogeta groaned audibly, a surge of pink light erupting outwards in every direction as destructive wind continued to billow outward. He gripped tightly on his head, and just as quickly as the destructive force had begun, the entire room grew still. The fusion fell to the floor in writhing agony, grunting and squirming in his convulsions. Small strands of black and pink lightning crackled around him momentarily, but soon, the pressure died down as Gogeta slowly regained control over his breathing.
 
Bernkastel's eyes widened as she covered her ears from Gogeta's violent shouting. Even though the words themselves were about Spina, the fusion's intense glare made her shut her eyes and cover her arms with her head fearing that he would lash out at her. "L-Let's just calm down--"

The eruption of wind pushed Bernkastel off the bed's edge before she looked up to see Gogeta grasp his head in pain. The appearance of the strange forehead mark baffled her, but she became distraught at his pained movements. "Wha-what's wrong?! Did you hurt yourself? Please, calm down!"

Once he fell limp, she crawled over to the fusion's limp body and tried to shake him awake. "Gogeta? Hey... wake up..." He was still breathing, but since she couldn't move him alone, she pulled the bedsheets off and covered him, not knowing what else to do. Bern hurried to the door and locked it even though she was sure everyone had heard the shouting at some point. 

"What the hell was that just now?...." she breathed in utter shock, surrounding herself in a blanket and sitting in front of their door to stand watch as long as she could stay awake. There's no way I can let him be in the same room as Spina now... what am I going to do....? Bern put her head between her knees in defeat.
 
As the day slowly turned to night, the apartment grew dark as Avalon finished washing the last of the dishes. He seemed annoyed that no one cleaned their plates but ate like pigs.

"Sheesh... you can't even breath around here without getting yelled at," Avalon mumbled to himself. "They seem to only care about themselves or have favorites in this group. These guys want all the help they can get to fix their name up but they sure as hell make it hard for anyone to do so. I'm starting to see why Cuki left. Good on her... Tho', I think calling anyone in this group a 'friend' is a dumb move." Avalon slowly turned to Zenta who was staring directly at him. Although he could not see his face, he could feel the hard gaze the beast gave him, it feeling like he had a ton of weight pressing against his shoulder. "Ermm! I mean--"

Zenta lifted his hand up to stop the man from fumbling his words. "I recommend that we rest after the events of today. We will continue hypothesizing about this Diamond King tomorrow when Detective Bage comes back."

"I.. I'm sorry. I shouldn't talk about Cuki like that. I don't know her reasons..." Avalon's ears lowered.

"It is quite alright, although her reasons were similar to the one you see now." The Beast turned to face the balcony then to the general direction of the room where Bernkastel and Gogeta stayed. "Things have changed very little between the Breakers and I doubt they will change at all in the next coming of events. Such a shame..."

"Well, if you ask me, they need a reality check. Justice will always find a way to bite them back somehow."

"Perhaps so, but for now, we must focus on the task of finding the children and fixing our name." Zenta nodded to Avalon while turning his back to the ninja. "Please remember to see the situation through the frame of the bigger picture. These are people you do not want to anger."

Avalon watched Zenta disappear into the darkness of the hallway without making a single sound. The man stood in the kitchen thinking about what the beast said and how the others reacted to everything around them. With a heavy sigh escaping his lips, Avalon made his way to the sofa and laid down on it, feeling upset and confused at how the Breakers handle their situations. He lowered his head on the small couch pillow and found himself drift off into sleep.

Zenta silently walked the halls before slowly coming to a stop in front of Lucifer's room. He faced the door for a long time before slowly raising a hand to knock on the door.

[The Next Day arrives]​

As per every morning, the crows began their loud and annoying cries before smashing and pecking at the windows. However, their cries and cawing seemed to drift farther into the distance, as if they were flying away.​
 
As the night continues, Spina returned back to his room in the apartment complex, riddled with scratch marks all over his body and torn clothes. He’s seemingly a lot calmer now after he blew off steam from his frustration of various things that had occurred for the last couple of days.

Noticing that most of them either went to bed or off doing something else, Spina walked over to his bed. In his room, there was barely anything in there, aside from the bed, a tv, a window and utter silence. He stared at the ground for a few more minutes before turning on the television to catch up with the latest development on the news by the RNN. 

Spina watched the content on the TV, he’d flipped through the channels as he realized that he couldn’t continue it live in feign ignorance. Perhaps looking into the various different elements can help him understand this world better, this new information better, and give him a better insight on things.

“I led a team worse than this…” Spina mumbled to himself as he frown, and his eyes became intense. “This... this is nothing.” It wasn’t too long before Spina fell sleep for the rest of the night.



Morning came, and the Vortex Crows once again did their ritual shrieking. Oddly, they seems to be more of them than usual, but nevertheless, they never late when dawn arrives. As the sun rays hit Spina’s face, the old Saiyan slowly opened his eyes. “Morning already… way too damn short.”

His vision clears, and suddenly, Spina’s eyes locked onto caretaker’s eyes, as the latter was on top of him this time around. From initial confusion to straight panic, Spina pushes the caretaker off of him as he jumped forward. “W-what the hell are you doing!? How the heck you did get in my room again!?”

The caretaker didn’t offer any reaction after she was pushed off. She simply stood up, although she move her hand over her mouth and chuckled.

Spina raised a brow, looking down at himself and realized that he was naked. His face turned bright red from embarrassment, the old Saiyan grabbed the caretaker and toss her out of his room. “Stay out!” before slamming the door.

Moments later, Spina exited the room, still a hyper from what had transpired earlier. “I need to remove the door so she can’t get in.” He noticed Lucifer in the kitchen while walking down the stairs. “Hey, what’s the hell is up with your caretaker? She snuck into my room again.”

“Hmm, no idea.” Lucifer said, drinking a cup of tea. He smile at the taste of the drink. “Perhaps there’s something about you that she wants to see.”

Spina cringed at the statement, his face instantly becoming red. “Huh!? Only freaks do that kind of thing! All that… disgusting things… who on earth would want to see that!?”

“Why are you so mad? She’s had an interest of people’s energy and likes to see their aura flourish. You and the other Breakers do it all the time, so what its so different for her?” Lucifer raised a brow in confusion.

“…. Uh, nothing. Just tell her to stop coming in my room.” Spina said after Lucifer was referring to something else rather than what he thought. "Alright, let me call the others before Detective Bage comes--" Multiple sudden bangs on the door was heard on the main door. There was no voices, but each bang became much more apparent than before. 

Spina turned around, raising a brow at who is at their door this early in the morning.

“Is that Bage?” Lucifer asked.

“No…” Spina said. “This is—” Spina narrowed his eyes.

The door was kicked away with such force that it nearly shattered into multiple pieces. Entering the main area, Detective Goku had appeared. Without hesitation, he walked in. "You fuck up, Breakers." The tone of his voice was powerful, serious and firing off warnings of his next course of actions. You fucked up.
 
Bernkastel awoke with a startle from the sounds of the door downstairs being destroyed, frantically glancing around. "Huh? What?" Realizing she had woken up in a seated position, she kicked off the blanket with a sense of urgency. She did not remember falling asleep.

"Dudes, I think someone broke in!" Berserk called from her room, loudly playing metal music as she jumped down the stairs. "Quick! I'll man the battle stations!"

"A break-in?" Bernkastel then heard the sound of Detective Goku's voice and she immediately re-checked the lock, evidently not prepared that he would be visiting so soon. "Hold on, I gotta... I gotta bide some time!" Obviously having not planned for any confrontation with the man, Bern scurried about their room like a chicken without a head. "M-maybe he's not here to destroy us, Gogeta! Let's not do anything hasty okay? Just act natural!"

She stopped and slowly turned towards the spot of the floor where she had left him, praying to whatever could hear her that he'd stayed put the whole night.

"Gogeta...?"

====
Berserk came down furiously swinging a discarded broomstick, still in pajamas due to sensing an intruder.

"You done goofed stepping in here, so show yourself like a man!" She stopped at the main area seeing Goku standing there, holding the broom in front of herself. "Uh..." Berserk squinted, clearly no idea who he was. "Who're you s'posed to be? Grandpa, is that yer cousin or something?"
 
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