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The Choices We Make.

© Tsumi Moogle '23

Characters © Themselves.

The van turned again, making him sway slightly in his seat, his backpack squeezed between his legs as he counted quietly, and tapped his fingers about the well-creased card in his hands. 7 left turns. 5 right. The map of the city traced behind his sienna-shaded eyes, as he considered where they were.

Oh, local geography wasn't overly difficult, there always had to be -somewhere- the other folks of society existed in, and outside the city was so rarely an option.

His face was warm for his breath within the black-fabric hood he'd willingly let them put over him. A precaution. Well, yeah, no shit there. But no cuffs or hand-binds, that was an odd choice.

Not like he was about to leap and lunge and try to veer them off course. The jackal in the driver's seat, however careless, was still a sizable slab of presumably well-paid minion. Even when he'd sidled up by the buck one drizzly day, jacket, hoodie and jeans, and appraising him far too thoughtfully to be someone looking to bum a cigarette, he'd reeked of it.

'If things aren't working out, consider giving us a call. Preferably before the end of the week.' the deep voice had rumbled low as he slid a card into the buck's pocket as he'd continued on, as if he'd been summarily dismissed.

The card, a simple white length of cardboard bore a phone-number, and on the back, a single, light-blue line.

He'd never considered the notion of villains recruiting. A burner number, simple foot-traffic, there was a simple ease to the idea. A cunning, preying on specific folks.

Apparently he was a specific folk.

Almost reaching out to discard it, the rabbit had paused, considering on the low-key dig at his father by holding onto such a thing. Maybe it could come in handy. Thumbing over the number, he'd eased it back into his pocket, continuing on.

Jahi's mild nibbling of uncertainty perched just ahead of his latent, and nigh characterised smoulder. His nigh casual anger that existed from his early morning rise under a stern stare, to the quiet and empty evenings alone at home.

The youthful buck's jaw set with a grimace and he shook his head, only to realize he'd lost track of a couple of turns.

...It didn't matter. They were firm enough in the warehouse district that he had a solid idea of the path.

The van eventually eased to a halt. The driver's door opened, and then his own. He could picture the large jackal standing over him, eying his catch.

'Hands.' came the familiar deeper voice. Of all the times to cuff him, now? Fumbling his backpack up onto a shoulder, he offered his hands over, finding one of the canine's large ones instead guiding him by them from the car. 'Mind your head.'

The night air was cool, rather comparatively compared to the central heating of the van. Wicked with deeper chill, the Jackal guided the buck forward. Behind them, the van beeped. Time-worn asphalt turned gravel crunched under his sneakers as the buck faintly smirked. Definitely warehouse district. This place had to be like villain suburbia.

'..Mind your manners when he's talking to you.' The Jackal rumbled as he lead the buck through a door. The faint sound of a couple of bodies shifting. Guards. 'And welcome on in.'

The slow squeak of a heavy metal door thudding shut behind them made Jahi wince softly, before his hood was plucked free.

It took the rabbit a moment to blink his eyes at the aged and slightly flickering lighting in the hallway, ears twitching to the odd drip of water through pipes in long-need of repair. Concrete flooring cracked, and leading on towards a sloped floorway headed down, and the steady roll of slow wafts of mist as relatively warm met rather bitingly cold.

The rabbit took a moment to glance back towards the heavy steel door, before he took a breath and stepped on towards the lowering temperature.

He could have imagined a number of things. Of towering, crystalline structures in dazzling light shows, and drifting, fluttering snow. Of dark-set grungey vibes with rich LED lighting strobing through long rows of frost and ice, and lines of tightly dressed minions rowed neatly, if menacingly.

But he couldn't have imagined the simple length of the desk in the large room. Oh there was the odd layer of frost here or there, but it seemed almost organic, rather than intended or artistic. Raised walkways to different rooms having the odd figure wandering between them in thicker, mismatched winter clothing, carrying a folder here, or a weighty box there.

Jahi's arms lifted despite himself as they stopped in that room, as if to show he wasn't carrying. The jackal murmuring to another canine who eyed the rabbit for a moment before hurrying off to a room towards the back. The chill in that place was beyond a crisp winter morning.

'Dress warm.' had been the advice on the phone with the pick-up address. His hoodie was certainly not warm enough, he found, as his soft puffs of breath clouded before him.

'Derek.' came a firm voice from the room the canine had hurried into, rich, if with a cold flatness to it. 'Fetch your guest something to wear. There are quite enough statues as it is.' It swung open again, this time to reveal a tall and toned figure in a slightly ripped leather vest, a shirt, and some similarly, less-than-artfully torn pants. The fur white like snow, streaked with inky black stripes that shimmered with an almost aurora-like sheen of blue. His eyes like two shards of glacial ice.

Permafrost regarded the buck with a casual grace.

The rabbit held cautiously still as the rather renowned villain looked him over; His tall ears; the deep black of his hair; and the almost artistic clash of reddish brown, greys, and the tan-white fur that surrounded his eyes.

Jahi blinked with some shock, a little more than surprised to meet the head-honcho so quickly, and perhaps more so to the state of him. He nearly jumped with a thick weight draped on his shoulders. A large, puffy coat that the jackal was pulling the hood of up, over his ears.

'Better.' The tibbit nodded with a small frown. 'And to what do I owe the curious honour of your presence, Mister..?'

The buck once more glanced towards the back of the tall Jackal who had already proceeded to handle some other task, curious if this were some manner of joke.

'Your card?' Jahi squeaked out, before clearing his throat, tugging the many-times folded and unfolded cardboard from his pocket.

'My..?' Permafrost's tail flicked softly as he warded the confusion away in lieu of budded annoyance. Jahi felt the drop of temperature in the room, even as his body had started to warm up in the well insulated coat. The Tibbit tapped a finger on the desk before him, and quirked his head.

The buck's feet moved slowly, before he set the card on the table. The feline before him like a furnace in reverse. The air was cold, but it all radiated from the tibbit before him. It was hard not to blink, to breathe.

'..I would not stand close for too long.' the villain rumbled as he lifted the card, and stared at it. A silent incredulity spread over his features. 'And you got this from-'

'That big Jackal guy that brought me in.' Jahi knew he was throwing the canine under the bus. But apparently, the Jackal had organized it to be hurtling at high speeds towards themself already.

The temperature dropped again, as the tibbit uttered a low growl. A noise that somehow rolled through the ground, creating a small shudder.

'It really is so very hard to get good help these days.' The villain's growl was fixed on the jackal who's ears had perked and his hurried form turned with hands lifted. 'You'd think some people had never heard of a Newspaper before.'

The aurora of cold rolled out from the feline, frost crawling with growing haste, rising into spikes and barbs of ice lancing up across the concrete towards the jackal.

'...You guys hire from the Newspaper?' Jahi's earnest curiousity escaped his lips before he could help himself.

The villain's eyes, now lit with a bright glow, fixed on him, for a moment making the buck's fur stand on end. Permafrost's snarl straightened into a modicum of calm as he regarded the card again.

'Rather hard to put advertisements on the TV.' The villain said simply. 'Need money Fast? Quick jobs, no skill required. At least he had the brain-cell to use a burner phone.'

'Wouldn't do to have a secretary fielding those kind of calls, huh?' Jahi felt himself having taken a step onto very thin ice, by speaking out, even in jest. Perhaps especially so. The unreadable face held him for a moment longer than was comfortable, before the faintest smirk cracked at the corner of the Tibbit's lips.

'They'd be up in arms about the air conditioner, every moment of every day.' the feline retorted, earning a bigger grin in kind. 'My prior question is still pending though. To whom am I venting my staffing issues to, hm?'

This time, Jahi knew he wouldn't side-step it.

'Jahi.' he said simply. The villain's eyebrow raised.

'Just Jahi.' A moment too late, the buck realized his eyes had shifted. And Permafrost was watching close. 'Not just Jahi.'

He hadn't considered the idea of being able to sweat in such temperatures. Even if he was certain some manner of warmth had returned. or it simply wasn't soo ass-clenchingly cold now the villain wasn't about to murder someone.

'...Jahi Hunter.' the buck admitted, swallowing softly as the feline watched him.

Piece by piece, he could see the parts slide into place.

'Certainly not Teio's.' The tibbit frowned. Ouch. 'Nor those twins on TV.' How did he..? 'Which leaves... though I thought his child was El-'

'-Jahi-.' The name pushed more forcefully from the Rabbit's lips than he could help himself. A small twinge of anger, this time cowed at least by the presence of his host.

'...Jahi.' the villain nodded slowly, seeming to take the buck in properly. 'DEREK.'

'Sir!' yelped the jackal from a doorway that he had tried to slink past, unmistakably trembling.

'Not only do you manage to fumble the basic notion of recruitment, but the one soul you escort back is the lone child of one of the city's most zealous, and irrefutably dogged Upper-level COPS?!' The frost about the villain's feet surged and cracked the concrete about him.

'I didn't know! He looked like the sort you said to-' The jackal yelled in sudden fright, throwing himself back as a sudden surge of ice tore from the air and crashed into the wall, raining heavy, gelid chunks over him.

The sight was almost cartoonish enough for Jahi to snrk, before a definitively un-toonish lance of ice grew in a second in the villain's hand, poised to skewer his underling as he strode forward.

'Woah! woahwoahwoah! I'm not a plant! I came here by myself!' Jahi yelped, hurrying in front of the villain. He erk!'d at the spear tip poised quite suddenly against his throat, as Permafrost's eyes turned to him again. The villain's snarl taking longer to subside.

No. twitching down. Fighting down. The glow in those eyes ebbed slowly as he stared at the rabbit.

'You have 10 seconds to get out.' He growled at the minion, before turning with a small tilt of his head towards Jahi. He walked back to the room he'd been summoned from as the jackal struggled to scramble his way out from the frosty rubble, limping up the ramp.

It took a moment to realize he'd been invited somewhere private, and Jahi swallowed as he cautiously followed.

It was a bedroom of sorts. Slightly eclectic, with only small creature comforts. An almost ironic blanket on the wrought-iron bed frame, the odd trinket here or there maybe from heists, some files on a desk, and what appeared to be a crystalline flower in a jar.

Permafrost had turned, settling down on one of the desk chairs.

'...You came here, yourself. ...Why?' the simple confusion in the villain's voice, shocked ..concerned?

Uninvited, Jahi stood, mulling over the villain's response. Over his own, bubbling over it with a twitch of his ear and tail-spade.

'The scowl is rather unbecoming.' the Tibbit offered mildly, leaning in his chair as he watched the young buck like a hawk.

'..Yeah, I tend to wear it a lot when I think about him. My father.' Jahi finally puffed, folding his arms with some issue from the thick jacket.

'That is not an uncommon sentiment from those in my line of work, you may surprised to hear.' Permafrost's claws lightly tapped over the table-top, tracing the odd line of ice here or there.

'I guess so. You don't have to live with him though.' Jahi muttered.

The tibbit's head inclined softly with a slow raise of his eyebrow.

'Is that so? Violent man? Knocks you around?'

Jahi blinked and frowned at the assumption.

'What..? No. Of course not-'

'Ahh. Alcoholic from stress, then. Verbal assaults and belittlement.' Permafrost nodded slowly in assured understanding.

'No, no, I mean, if I really fuck up, he might growl at me.'

'Of course. Kicks your disappointing self out of his home to stalk the streets, alone then.' The villain goaded almost dryly.

'..No to the first, but, I mean, he's never fucking there.'

'Busy man like him, no, I imagine he's fucking not.' the tibbit rested his chin on his fist, looking the buck over. Jahi shifted beneath the gaze, bristling slightly at the casual toss of his own tone back at him, if not his words.

'Always busy. It's always something else. Always has been something else. It's always going to be something fucking else. No idea why he even bothered to have me.' The scowl returned with a smouldering ember to the kindling that was the villain's nudging.

'Perhaps he needed something to protect. Something important.' the villain offered with a wry shrug.

'He's got a real funny way of fucking showing it!' the buck growled, not even cowing when the villain slowly got to his feet.

Standing tall, and regarding the buck, Permafrost took a step towards his guest, an odd menace in his eyes as he slowly backed the smaller form up.

'What power did you awaken to?' Permafrost asked in a low voice. The pits of his eyes slowly illuminating again.

'..What?' Jahi frowned, tensing as he found his back press up against the door behind him.

'Super speed? projection?' The tibbit's hand pushed out, slamming against the door beside the buck's head, making Jahi tense, but not yelp, even if his knees trembled as he heard the crackle of frost crawling over the metal. 'Oh, tell me it's pyrokinesis.'

'I don't have- ..I haven't awakened.' Jahi admitted with a heavy swallow as the villain's searing gaze leered before him.

'Then yes. You could say your father has a very funny way of showing how important you are to him.' the villain frowned.

'I'm going to let you in on a little bit of politics we play in town, Jahi. I want you to pay very close attention, and then keep it well in mind afterwards.

We, that is villains and vigilantes tend to have a rather.. unique, and personal stance with awakened. With heroes, in particular.

We don't make it personal. No family. Kids? Absolutely off limits.'

Jahi blinked, frowning at the information. It was his turn to ask why.

'Because there is a line, little buck. That if crossed, would invite something akin to small-scale war. Imagine someone like me, if I had no restraints. If I simply wanted to -hurt-. Or Dominion, who could sway the entire city if he tried, or had a real desire to. Or Aftershock.'

Jahi could see the news pieces, the localised incidents and damage that could and had been done in such moments.

'There it is.' nodded the villain as he saw the comprehension. 'As for the police? the RADS? We don't share the same sentiment. Free and open market.' The villain's hand gripped at Jahi's jacketfront, lifting him without issue off his feet, and several feet up. 'And you, angry, burdened, heart-shattered little you, walked straight into the central operations, of a rather renowned, dangerous, wanted criminal.'

Jahi's sneakers thumped at the door as he grasped at the hand holding him aloft. His heart pounding, teeth grit. Those burning eyes bored into him, the promise of a thousand years of bitter, unbearable winter lancing his bare frame, licking at the sides of Permafrost's face in slow waves of that blue aura.

Until his feet found the ground again, and the hand rigidly released his jacket.

'Had you ended up inside the base of any other soul in this city on my side of the law, you would either be dead right now, or wish that you were.' Permafrost frowned, as he regarded Jahi's confused, and terrified face.

'Your father, with his standing, with every enemy he's made in this city, has protected you. You've never been face to face with what he deals with, until perhaps tonight. You haven't awoken, meaning he has shielded you, perhaps without you knowing, from facing a pain so great that your entire world shifts. That everything that you are, breaks, and knits back together in jumbles that you may never recognize as you.

Perhaps he knows that the deeper he digs to protect you, the harder he has to work to do so.'

Words fought at Jahi's throat as a small measure of something that made the anger burn all the worse, and yet more sour now, his face scrunched, before he shook his head and stared up at the villain.

'So... So why aren't you taking advantage then?' Was he really goading -Permafrost-? The villain certainly seemed to be considering the latter.

'Because you're a kid, Jahi. A stupid, angry kid looking to make a stupid, angry mistake. You can take it from me, this isn't the glamorous life you probably imagined it to be. The way you were eying the outfit suggested half as much.' The villain gave a knowing, and unphased grin.

'But more importantly, no one's paying me to.' He shrugged casually as the rabbit blinked. 'There's no bounty out on your head tonight. You'd just be extra heat that nobody's looking for right now.'

Jahi jumped as the door behind him was knocked at.

'...Sir? We have more guests.' came a muted voice.

'Related to our first one, yes?' the tibbit's eyes looked towards Jahi.

'You could say that, sir.'

'...I'd put money on there being a tracking chip in your bag somewhere, Jahi.' the villain pursed his lips softly.

'Man, Derek is -really- bad at his job, isn't he?' the rabbit asked with a small swallow.

'Stories for days.' nodded the villain with a small roll of his eyes. 'Alright. Let's get this over with, then. If you'd care to lead the way.' The tibbit gestured to the door, and turning, Jahi carefully opened it, walking ahead of the tall frame. Up the slope towards the warmer air of the evening above.

As the heavy metal door to the warehouse swung open noisily, Jahi tensed to the blaring sight of a number of spotlights on vehicles surrounding the premises, several weapons trained on them.

'...That would be your father over there, I think.' the villain rumbled softly. 'Hold your breath for about.. ten seconds as we head over, if you would. I'll need to put on a show.'

Jahi glanced back at the villain, who simply grabbed the collar of his jacket and nudged him forward with a pointed nod to one truck in particular.

If not for the remarkably tall, angular outline of a German-sheppherd, Jahi might have missed the cue.

He stepped out ahead of the villain, and took a breath to hold, a moment before the temperature plummeted. A long, deep, dry hiss of Permafrost's powers crackled along the broken asphalt in dangerous spikes, and pillars, and the steady crawl of a massive, crystaline creature to one side. A polar-bear near to the size of a truck snarling silently as it crawled from the frosted earth, as though it had always been there, glaring and baring foot-long fangs at one side of the cavalcade of trucks. Several weapons swung towards it.

'Safe now.' the villain whispered softly, letting Jahi gasp at the frigid air.

The villain's pace continued unharried, bringing the truck in question into view, and the outline of the GSD to fill in with shape and colour of one of Jahi's father's partners. He was holding a very large flame-thrower.

Beside him, a very terse looking tan-furred rabbit, tall and broadly built had a simple, but nasty looking magnum leveled with the villain's head. Jahi could see the tiny glint of Potentia-laced shells in the chamber.

Coming to a stop, some feet from the police, Permafrost extended his arm slightly, walking the young buck forward.

'I believe this belongs to you.' Permafrost rumbled with an air of disdain, before his eyes passed over to the large canine's face. 'Lobo.' A small smirk tugged at the tibbit's face.

'..Joseph.' rumbled the canine in turn with a tilt of acknowledgement, and a modest grimace.

'I really rather should send a bill to the city for my relocation costs.' sighed the villain with an idle shake of his head, returning his fixed gaze to the taller rabbit's, Devlin Hunter's face.

'You're more than welcome to relocate to the vault.' the officer narrowed his eyes. 'The boy.' he urged. Of the folks there, only Jahi, Lobo, and Permafrost heard the hidden plea.

'I'll thank you to keep him from snooping around my stomping grounds in future.' The tibbit gave Jahi a gentle nudge, releasing the back of his coat.

Stumbling, the buck straightened and hurried over to his father, who slid an arm about him in a fierce hug, even if his eyes never left the villain's.

'..H-hey, Permafrost?' the small buck murmured, glancing back to his 'captor' A number of eyes turned to him. '...Your coat?' he plucked at the thick coat, already overwarm in the evening air. The Tibbit smirked.

'..Keep it. Winter tends to get quite cold.' the villain rumbled, before turning back towards his lair. Devlin's hand eased from Jahi's shoulder to brace his magnum again, staring after the tibbit.

The air lay heavy with potential, a small roll of fog creeping from the ground, as the massive polar bear maintained its patrol between the numerous weapons, and its summoner, every second dragging out. It would take a single word. A single shot.

For the entire world to shift.

'...Dad.' Jahi murmured in a small voice, staring up at the older buck who looked back to him, and paused at the intensity of the gaze, and the slow shake of his son's head. 'Can we go home?'

Devlin's eyes turned back to the villain, who had come to a stop, his head turned just slightly, paying curious attention.

Slowly, he holstered his weapon, nodding to Lobo, who rumbled into a small receiver.

'Stand down.'

The weapons withdrew, even if the officers didn't.

'Consider this a 12 hour head-start, Tahlia.' Devlin called with distate after the villain who continued walking again.

Jahi stared at the retreating back, noticing the small smile on the villain's face before Permafrost's head turned back to his base, closing the heavy metal door behind him.

--Fin.