Quote:

Metal Men
By Chewy Walrus



"Icky!"

Ozzy Baxter shook the young man's shoulders, evidently finally pulling him out his stupor.

"Wha..?" Icarus seemed... drowsy. Intoxicated. Numb.

"I've been knocking at your door for almost a full half-hour, man," Ozzy said, sitting down on the bed beside Icarus. "What have you been doing in here?"

Icarus shook his head as tears welled up in his eyes. Slowly, deliberately, he pointed toward the mirror sitting opposite the bed. Turning towards it, Ozzy looked... and saw, staring back at him, a man he recognized as himself, but completely covered in some kind of metallic ore. Next to that figure in the mirror sat a disheartened young man. His once long, luxurious head of sleek blonde hair now cropped almost to nothing around his head. His smooth skin now covered in wires, chips, blinking lights, and all manner of technologies. As that figure gazed too, back at Ozzy through the looking glass, the ex-boxer could see that one of his eyes was now a piercing red laser, gazing out.

"Who's gonna wanna fuck me now?!" the pilot groaned to himself. "I'm more machine now than man!"

"...twisted and evil..." Ozzy muttered under his breath, unable to pass up such a brilliant set-up.

"Oh, sure," Icky said, rising from his seat and beginning to pace the room. "Laugh it up! Make jokes at Mr. Roboto's expense! But you don't know, man... you don't know... having everything you ever knew, taken away from you, like that!" Sidewinder snapped to emphasize his point. "...that's, just... the worst feeling in the world."

Ozzy paused, the chinking sound of metal on metal as he ran his hand over his face, preparing for the next words out of his mouth.

"Icarus," Baxter said, completely calmly, "fuck you."

Icarus shot Ozzy a hardened glare. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Ozzy said. "Fuck you. Of course everything you've ever known has been taken away from you - because the only thing you've ever known is yourself! And when the time comes for you to be tried... for you to be tested... all you can do is crumple like a coward? Bullshit."

Ozzy rose from the bed, making his way toward where Icky was standing. "Back in my fighting days, there came a point where the realization sinks in - I'm washed up and there's nothing I can do about it. Every boxer wants a final chance... but I never took mine. By the time that realization sank in for me, I was in debt up to my eyebrows and had seven different mobs chasing me down to collect.

"Did you know there was a Hungarian mob?" Ozzy asked. "'Cuz I never did...

"I never took my shot, kid. In fact, it wasn't until Nuriko of the La Perdita branch pulled me outta that gunk that I even realized that life was giving me a chance again, asking nothing in return. Screw karma, man... 'cuz I didn't have any good karma coming to me after some of the crap I went through... but I got another chance.

"And that kinda puts things in perspective, y'know?"

Icarus' head hung in front of him as Ozzy finished. Slowly, the pilot brought his head up and nodded, looking Ozzy in the eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about, man?"

Ozzy sighed heavily. "These... these... things!" Baxter said, motioning toward the cybernetics covering his comrade. "You're looking at them all wrong, man. Maybe... instead of focusing on the external Icarus... it's time you got in touch with the Icarus inside, y'know? Maybe then you'll discover what it is you're supposed to do with these things.

"Life has given you a second chance, Icarus. Don't blow it by thinking about yourself..."

With that, Ozzy turned, walking out of the room. As he reached the door, he stopped in his tracks at the sound of his name being uttered with a slight Russian accent.

"Yeah?" he responded, looking over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Icarus asked.

Baxter shrugged. "Don't know. Thought I'd find Edmund... Adem... Lyly... Vic... see what's getting done, y'know?"

Icarus paused, opening his mouth several times, as though wanting to speak, but not able to. His hands fidgeted a bit in front of him like a hyperactive child who had just been told to stand still. Finally, the words came.

"C-can I come with you?" Icarus asked, sounding more meek than he had probably ever been in his life. "I... don't think I should be alone right now."

Ozzy smiled. "Sure thing," he said, holding out his arm, wrapping it around the younger man's shoulders as they exited the room. "Let's go see how the other's are doing..."