torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH AKIHIKO]

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[RL WITH AKIHIKO]

Ianto sat at his computer down in his personal room in the archives--the bowels of the Hub, the closest thing to a domain that Ianto figured he would ever get. He sat back and pinched his nose, frowning against the headache that the fog was causing him. It seemed to be ever-present no matter what he did, and that annoyed him as he tried to work around it. They had to be on top of things--mistakes cost a person dearly in a job such as Torchwood. Ianto had full intentions of going through the archives with Akihiko looking for weapons that might prove useful in fighting against the Shadows regardless of whatever ridiculous headache he had. He stood from the computer to go down to the correct archive section and get ready to let Akihiko in before going through the archives they had with him. For a second, his headache got really intense, and he started to bring a hand to his forehead. And then he changed.

"That's better," Ianto said. And yet it wasn't Ianto. This Ianto had casual clothes, a silver chain around his neck with a Welsh dragon on it, and a five o'clock shadow--like a Ianto that had lived on the streets for a while. But he undeniably looked exactly like the other man.

It seemed that the room changed with him, and in fact the whole archives changed. No longer were they Ianto's archives at all, instead changed to look like a room in an abandoned warehouse, much like the one that they had tried to rescue the whale alien from what seemed like ages ago. It was a place that was very familiar to Ianto; he'd spent many a day as a misguided youth hiding from his life and his responsibilities in this building, in this large open room. He moved to sit on a crate by the wall, grabbing a dirty magazine from the floor and casually flipping through it.

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"Ooh, tall words," Ianto said, smiling and sitting back on his crate, putting the magazine away. "Aren't we going to talk first? Isn't that what we do, talk? I mope about things to you like a ponce, you try and make me see the better side of things, blah, blah. Yeah?"

"You and I both know that that won't work this time," Akihiko said, raising his gloved fists a little.

"Besides, aren't you going to tell me that you're what Ianto really is, deep inside?" He gestured around. "This weird warehouse? That tough act? That's who Ianto is inside?"

"Tough act, you say? It's no act, cariad. This is who I am. This," he said, motioning around the room, "is where I grew up. Home away from bloody home, this dump. Better than being at my real house. Bet I didn't tell you about that, though. About my Da, what a joke," he spat.

Caught off guard, Akihiko blinked. "What about your father?" he asked. He hadn't really asked Ianto about his family, and suddenly he felt that oversight keenly. He had thought that this shadow had something to do with Ianto's feelings of powerlessness, but was there more to it than that?

"He was as big a joke as I am," Ianto answered. "Worked in bloody Debenhams, of all the damned places. A bloody low-class department store. And he had the gall to call me a failure, when all he amounted to was selling suits to people who could barely afford them as it was."

"But he was right, look where I ended up. A flipping janitor, in the basement of a place that I can't even tell anyone about if I wanted to."

Akihiko's jaw dropped. He'd always pictured Ianto as coming from a well-to-do family - well, not like Mitsuru, but not low class. Not with his love of expensive suits and fine coffee.

But it didn't matter, did it?

"So what if your family was poor?" Akihiko returned, knowing it would probably make the shadow angry. "I grew up in an orphanage. My boyfriend is homeless. And I can't tell anyone what I did while I was in highschool, either. Or what I do for a living. No one but the people who are involved with me - who are my friends. That doesn't make you a joke!"

"You don't understand!" Ianto yelled, childishly, yet the walls of the warehouse seemed to shake with it. "You," he spat. "You grew up in an orphanage, you couldn't tell people about SEES, but you fought monsters, you did. Your boyfriend may be homeless, but that's his own choice--he could just as easily live with you or your friends. Even here, you're still on the front lines, fighting against evil. You were bloody invited in with open arms." He laughed bitterly, standing up from his crate.

"Cer i'r diawl!" he fumed. "I fought for this job, long and hard! And where did I end up? The janitor, the tea boy, the boss's bloody rent boy for Christ's sake! Nothing to my name but a disappointed family and a man that will eventually move on and forget me! No!"

((Welsh = "go to hell"))

Edited 2010-01-18 22:55 (UTC)

Akihiko tried not to let the words sting, knowing that Ianto would feel awful for them later. He looked up at Ianto, fists clenched. "I know it all sounds awful," he said with determination. "Well, if you're so mad at me for being so privileged, why don't you show me how mad you are? Why don't you fight me, Ianto, if you dare."

"I don't dare!" he shouted, crossing his arms across his chest. "What point is there when I know that you're set on winning? And I know you will. You taught me how to fight, you know my capability level. Do you really want to kick a man when he's down?"

"Why are you even here?" Ianto growled at Akihiko. "What sort of a kick do you get out of it all? Why don't you just run off and do whatever it is that you all do out in the field and leave me here to rot like normal. It'd be easier and I'm sure you'd enjoy it more anyway."

((Sorry that this has been all over the place. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with the Shadow at first, but I think I've got it now! :Pb))

Akihiko cursed inwardly. He knew what needed to be done - he had to get Ianto's shadow to lose control, reveal its inner self, so he could kick its ass and try to find the real Ianto so he could accept it. But this shadow was pretty stubborn.

"I'm here because you're my friend," he snapped. "Because I want to help you, Ianto. I want to free you from these feelings, that you're not as good as the rest of us, because you are!"

He gestured sharply with one hand, taking a step towards him. "I'd never kick you when you're down. But I'll beat the crap out of your shadow if it means you'll see sense!"

((No worries, playing shadows is a lot harder than I would have suspected))

"But I'm not!" Ianto snapped right back at him, taking a step closer to Akihiko and clenching his fists beside him. "I'm not as good as the rest of you are! You're always lying to me, you all are. You just want to make me feel better about myself." His words sounded childish and the more he spoke, he began to look a bit more childish as well.

"Because you just don't get it! This is me seeing sense! I might hide behind the fancy suits, but this is me on the inside! A failure! I can't even keep the people I love to stick around, I'm so unimportant. Lisa would have left me when she saw sense. Jack had no problems doing it. And neither will you, not when I've made you see the truth of it all!" The Shadow looked to be steeling himself for the next move.

"You're wrong," Akihiko said angrily. "I don't lie about stuff like that! Why would I? Why would I lie to make you feel better if I don't care about you and I think I'm so much better than you are?"

He drew his evoker and placed it against his temple. "If you're going to make me see the truth, you'd better hurry up. Because I'm not going anywhere."

He fired, and Caesar rose majestically into the air, slashing with its sword towards Ianto's shadow.

Ianto's shadow let out a vicious growl, and hunched forward, contracting its back, before abruptly arching it and shifting forms. He grew a couple feet, transforming into what looked like the shadow form of a large humanoid goblin, complete with ill-fitting clothes and long scraggly hair.

The shadow narrowly dodged Caesar's sword, and seconds after, another form appeared, far closer to Akihiko himself. It was smaller than the younger man, and looked very similar to him, or similar to what he looked like when he was a child right after he lost his parents and his sister. It was a plentyn newid, a changeling child version of Akihiko, and raising its head to look Akihiko directly in the eyes, it cast a Marin Karin to protect itself and its master.

Akihiko swore when he saw Ianto not only transform into his shadow, but call a second shadow to help it. And that shadow looked just like Akihiko - what the hell?

He felt the spell hit him and he wobbled for a moment, fighting it off. Shit, charm was a killer if you were alone. Perhaps it was that realization that helped him to throw off its effect rather than submitting to the shadow's will and winding up killed.

Gritting his teeth, he called on Caesar again. "Maziodyne," he gritted out, calling down powerful arcs of lighting that hit both shadows.

Both the shadow and the second shadow grimaced at the lightning spell, though the smaller second suffered more from the blast than Ianto's shadow itself did. "Oh, no you don't!" it growled, and the smaller, Akihiko shaped shadow surged forward, again casting a Marin Karin against Akihiko. The Akihiko shadow was weakened by the lightning spell, but the charm spell still packed a punch. As it was, Ianto's shadow was not opposed to playing dirty, so long as in the end it got what it wanted, which was acceptance.

Akihiko groaned as the damn spell washed over him a second time. He stumbled a little, feeling the foreign sensations wash over him. Why fight? These were his friends, after all. Ianto was his friend, so why was he fighting?

He lowered the Evoker and holstered it, a smile plastering itself across his face. "Hey guys."

((He'll recover next round, no worries xD Just thought it would be fun))

The shadow smiled back at Akihiko, while the shadow Akihiko just sat back and awaited further orders. Without directions to follow, it was just a puppet.

"Hey there," the shadow replied. It knew it had one advantage over Akihiko and it wanted to make use of it before it was too late. "We're friends, right?" it asked. Akihiko nodded, his eyes still glazed by the charm.

"Well then," the shadow said, chancing a step closer to Akihiko. "Since we're good friends, you don't need that, do you?" it asked, pointing at the ring on Akihiko's finger, the only thing keeping him from a sure victory over the younger man.

((I was hoping you would, so that I could get a chance to do this. :P))

Edited 2010-02-02 14:36 (UTC)

Akihiko stumbled a little closer to the shadow, smiling dreamily. Oh yeah, of course they were friends. If a friend wanted a protective ring, then of course he'd give it to them.

He brought his hands up and started to turn the ring, starting to pull it off.

But wait...something felt a little odd about it.

He frowned, blinked, shook his head. "I need this ring," he said. "It's special."

The shadow nodded and shadow child Akihiko stepped closer still to the real Akihiko. He put out his hand in preparation to accept the ring when the shadow finally got Akihiko to hand it over.

"And you'll have it," the shadow said. "I'll keep it for you. We wouldn't want to lose it when we go upstairs to confront the captain. He's going to take some more persuading to be friends with us, after all."

The spell was going to wear off soon, and the shadow was starting to get desperate. This was its only chance and it was quickly coming to an end. It stepped up level with the fake Akihiko, towering over the two of them. "Just Hand it over, Akihiko, it'll all be fine."

Akihiko's fingers turned the ring over and over, rotating it around his finger.

Then he looked up at the shadow. "No, I don't think so," he said.

And he drew back and punched the shadow right in the solar plexus as hard as he could.

The shadow reeled back, before letting out a growl. This wasn't how the fight was supposed to go. Akihiko was supposed to hand over the ring, then the shadow was supposed to have been able to easily beat him down.

"You'll regret that!" it yelled. The health of both itself and the shadow child was failing, but it was in its nature to fight back. With a snarl, little shadow Akihiko threw himself at the real Akihiko, fists flying as sure as Akihiko's own would.

Akihiko threw himself back, trying to block the blows. A few landed, but he didn't take too much damage before firing his Evoker again and blasting the main shadow with a powerful bolt of lightning.

He knew that Ianto's shadow was the target. And if he knew shadows, he knew that if he killed the duplicate, he'd only see it summon a fresh one. He had to concentrate on the main target and try to ignore the weaker one.

The shadow staggered back, its energy severely depleted from the attack. Having Ianto's knowledge, the shadow knew Akihiko'd had experience battling shadows before. To say that it wasn't pleased with Akihiko not attacking the decoy but going straight for it was an understatement. It was furious, it was losing, but damn did it really, really want to get even.

Leaving the little Akihiko shadow to stand back and watch, the shadow clapped its hands to its chest and blow a strong ice spell at Akihiko. True, Akihiko still had the ring on, so the attack wouldn't be as devastating an attack as it would have liked, but as long as the spell hit its target, it would at least do some damage.

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[RL WITH AKIHIKO]

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