catchall horse dad

[exercisms]

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week 0; arrival

[exercisms]

[A little after the rush of arrival, in the evening, Mob can be found out in the forest, looking for something.]

Hello? Come on out!

[antaressnipe]

[Well.

Someone else is in the forest, and answers that call.

An entire centaur, in fact, who stirs himself out of his thoughts and slowly climbs to his feet, stretching out all four of his legs for a moment before trotting over]

Hello, can I help you?

[exercisms]

[He's. Weirdly not thrown by seeing a centaur come out of the woods.]

Oh, hello. Did you see a cat run by here?

[antaressnipe]

A cat...?

[The fact that he lingers on that question means it's a "no", he has seen no cat, though he's already glancing about their surroundings]

It will be dark soon, so if you wish to find it, we best broaden our search.

Is the cat yours?

[exercisms]

[Shaking his head.]

My dad's allergic to them. But it came out of my room. I think it was scared.

week 0; post trial

[antaressnipe]

[What an absolute mess.

Much as he'd prefer staying in the forest for the solitude, Chiron decides instead to take up residence on the first floor of the inn for a time, and he'll glance in Mob's direction when he sees him]

How are you faring?

[exercisms]

[He looks up from where he's been thinking, fixing him with his weirdly intense gaze and not answering the question.]

Isn't what happened strange?

[antaressnipe]

Many oddities happened today.

[... Tilting his head]

Is there a specific one you have in mind?

[exercisms]

[He looks at him like the answer is so obvious?]

That person killed Hajime and Pikachu. Why?

[antaressnipe]

... If he is to be believed, he thought the competitive aspect of being here was reason enough to kill.

[Spoken mildly of all things]

But I have not talked to him privately, and so can't completely verify the truth.

week 1; thursday

[exercisms]

[After the drama has settled down a little, coming to find him wherever he may be.]

Archer-san?

[antaressnipe]

[He is by the river, chillin! Bandaged as best he could do since there's technically no proper medical equipment to be found, but he's no longer a bloody mess. That will have to count for something]

Hello.

I assume you have questions?

[exercisms]

[Nodding.]

Are you okay?

[antaressnipe]

Yes. I was injured, but I have seen to them to the best of my ability. I'm certain with rest I will be fine.

[exercisms]

Good. Won-san said you had to fight monsters. . .

week 1; post-trial

[exercisms]

[After the trial, he can be found sitting on the bridge, sort of staring off into space, processing.]

[antaressnipe]

[Yes, well... that was certainly a lot to process, wasn't it?

Chiron will come up behind him, not making any attempt to hide how his hooves click against the bridge, until he's standing next to him]

... Are you alright?

[exercisms]

Archer-san.

[He looks up when he sees him, standing up.]

Mm. I'm worried, about Kano-san. I'm worried we won't be able to prevent something terrible from happening.

[antaressnipe]

-- And what will you do, if we are not able to protect him?

[...]

Because it is likely that something terrible will happen.

[exercisms]

What will I do?

[That's sort of a strange question that he has to think through.]

Well, the longer I've been here, the more I think there probably isn't anything to worry about, with that.

[Hm.]

I've already gotten angry two times, and nothing happened. So even if I get very angry, I think it will probably be okay.

week 3; post execution

[exercisms]

[We haven't PCed in like two weeks and here's the lore: he's been avoiding Chiron a little for the past few weeks. But he also doesn't like to see anyone sad, so he'll come look for him after execution.]

[antaressnipe]

[It's hilarious because Chiron is still blind, and because he has not sought out opportunities to talk with Mob either--

His head tilts

Because he doesn't quite recognize the footsteps]

Who is there?

[He could process of elimination it but probably best to cut to the chase instead]

[exercisms]

It's me, Archer-san. Shigeo.

[antaressnipe]

-- Oh.

[Sounding genuinely surprised]

Was there something you wanted of me?

week 4; sunday

[exercisms]

[Sometime a little after the conversation they're having with the other Rabbits, I'm dropping a memshare on him? God this is rude, dumping a long as memshare on you like this out of nowhere, but I'm doing it.

The tl;dr is it is an important memory of a time his teacher protected him from having to make a decision to kill people he wasn't ready for!

(Part #1 at 17:33 to 20:20

Context for this is that Mob, his brother Ritsu, a blonde kid named Hanazawa, and Reigen are in some kind of evil villain headquarters (Claw) being attacked by adults in supervillain costumes attacking children with hyper-powered shonen bullshit - gravity manipulation, swords, creating body duplicates, summoning evil spirits.

The teens are all ESPers and are fighting back. Don’t worry about why Hanazawa’s hair is like that. Mob most successful, able to dodge most of their attacks, but he isn’t participating in the fighting, just jumping in to help defend where he can. The other two kids are fighting, but Ritsu is getting beat up pretty bad and Hanazawa is struggling to hold his own, and gets his tall hair cut into a better hairstyle by an anime sword.

Reigen does not really seem to be doing anything, except insisting that they’re getting out of here, and constantly needing to be saved from peril by the kids. He claims that he’d be able to help if they were facing evil spirits, not seeming to realize there are evil spirits there, right in front of them, which Mob instantly exorcises.

Things start to get out of control, and the kids are losing the fight. Mob’s friends and Reigen are yelling two conflicting instructions.

Reigen: We’re getting out of here! Don’t bother with them, Mob!

Hanezawa: Kageyama-kun! Use all of your powers! Just blow these guys away!

Mob seems frozen by indecision. It’s fairly obvious why. Hanazawa is fighting as hard as he can, with all of his strength, and still getting beaten. But Mob knows his own powers are stronger than Hanazawa’s. He could help his friend. On the other hand, Reigen is telling him not to, and Reigen is his master, and he truly doesn’t want to have to fight anyone. But. . . there seems to be good reason to doubt that Reigen can really help like he claims.

Reigen: Stop! Don’t fight back! I’m an adult, so I’ll deal with them! Mob, there’s no need for you to stoop to their level!

Ritsu: Nii-san’s the only one who stands a chance anymore!

The gravity powered enemy has started attacking Ritsu, who is struggling not to be sucked into a black hole. This seems to make up Mob’s mind for him. He turns towards the person attacking Ritsu, beginning to glow with power as he watches Ritsu struggle and be hurt. There’s no one but him who can help Ritsu. There’s no one else.

Shigeo: Ritsu. . . you’re right, I have to defeat them.

Reigen: No! Stop! Don’t fight back, Mob!

Shigeo: (ignoring this now, just focused on the fight) Ritsu’s hurt. . .

Hanazawa: (still fighting back) We have to fight power with power! At this rate, we’re all going to die!

Reigen: We just need to run away!

Hanazawa: There’s no way for us to run while we’re dealing with their attacks! Use the powers you used back then!

Mob’s stress levels are ticking upwards at this point. He knows if he fights, if he really uses his powers that way, he’ll probably seriously hurt someone, if not kill them. But he also knows Hanazawa and Ritsu might be right. Despite what Reigen is saying, running away doesn’t seem possible right now. And if they don’t win this fight, they really might be killed. Hanazawa has seen his full powers, what they can do. If Hanazawa thinks that’s needed, then. . .

Reigen: Calm down! Don’t go head to head against someone with murderous intent, Mob!

But the gravity user, their leader, the strongest one has come back, and is threatening them again. So he can’t hold back, can he? If he holds back, if he doesn’t use all of his power now. . . Mob looks like he’s despairing over this decision, but it also looks as though he’s come to one.

Shigeo: Ritsu. . . Hanazawa-kun. . . Master Reigen. . . I can’t let them all die. . . I have no choice. . . but to fight with all I’ve got!

As his stress and anger grows, the softness in Mob begins to disappear, replaced with something colder and angrier, as he prepares to release all of his negative feelings against these terrible people who have hurt his brother and his friends.

Shigeo: If I can protect them. . . I don’t care what happens to my opponents.

Just as he’s about to hit full power and release those feelings, Reigen is suddenly there. He slaps his hands across his cheeks, holding his face so he can stare him down directly. This seems to break the spell that came over him and the stress, and gets him to listen.

Reigen: Don’t do it, Mob. You’re the one who’s going to suffer in the end. When things go south, it’s okay to run away!

Mob seems to calm down after hearing this. He feels strongly in this moment that whatever else, he can trust Reigen. And somewhere in his mind he makes a connection between the two conflicting ideas he’s been absorbing.

(Part #2 0:22 - 3:14 But obviously you can skip the intro)

At that moment, the sword guy appears behind them, powerful cursed sword in hand, and slices Reigen directly across the back. He falls to the ground. He’s dead! Oh no! Mob is just. . . looking at this sword man.

Shigeo: Honestly, I don’t want to hurt anyone. But if I don’t, we’re going to get killed. That’s the feeling I got. I realized that I have to do it in order to protect everyone. That’s the kind of situation we’re in right now.

And yet. . . Master told me that it was okay to run away. So. . .

Reigen stands up! Oh, he’s not dead. He’s fine. He’s actually completely unharmed. Because in that moment where Reigen told him it was okay to run away, Mob made a connection. On the one hand, Hanazawa and Ritsu have been telling him that the person with the most power also has the responsibility to fight, so it felt like because he had those powers, he didn't have any choice at all. But Reigen has been telling him to run away, and leave these problems to him, the adult.

So isn’t it okay if, just for now, he runs away by giving Reigen his powers?

Reigen clearly doesn’t seem to realize at first what’s happening, and just assumes that all of these adult ESPers have just been using tricks and illusions the whole time. He snaps the sword in half, calling it a toy, and destroys an evil spirit thinking it’s a guy in a suit, effortlessly brushes away all their attacks, and calls them frauds. It’s funny but it’s long and I’m not going to describe it all.

Basically, the adult ESPers are all emotionally devastated by not only being beaten by Reigen but also made fun of this badly, and he’s utterly dismissive of all of them and their attitudes that their power or their sad backstory justifies their acting like supervillains and beating up middle school children.]