Fish Club
By Ombligo
Tiny slivers of blue hair alighted on the dirty and cracked edge of a wash
basin that water had not entertained in years. The graceful descent of these
azure fragments was interrupted periodically by a slow but painfully steady
dribble of red emanating from the forehead of their owner. Ryu's hand slowly
guided a small dagger over a section of his scalp with all the precision
and skill befitting his dragon heritage. The cold metal might have been ragged
enough to cut him, but he couldn't tell this close to the open wound. Prepping
the area for the stitches was always the worst part.
"Why the hell do I do this every damn night?" Low mumbles escaped from his
mouth, lips wrung with concentration. He honestly didn't know why, but he
honestly felt that he had to. There was something primal, basic, something
human about the ritual he embarked upon every night with strangers and men
he hardly knew. And that sense of pride couldn't be ignored either. Pride
in something he had started that had become a counter-culture staple all
over the alliance.
He chuckled to himself at the depths of depravity (and drunkenness) that
it had all begun in. He woke up in a strange world, not even clothing protecting
him from the elements, and only a business card lying next to him to offer
any reconciliation. "Fou-Lou, Empire Soap Company" it had said. He remembered
the confused payphone call, and he barely recalled the bar binge afterwards
with his mysterious new friend, but he would never forget the rest of the
night at the lake behind the bar.
"Stop, stop, wait up a minute." Fou-Lou turned to Ryu with his newly trademarked
mischievous grin. "I've got an idea. You ever been in a fish fight?"
Ryu looked confused for a moment, let a cooperative smile slide across his
face, and warily replied, "I guess so, I used to catch some fairly monstrous
fish back in grade school."
"But you've never been in a real fish fight before. It's okay though, I haven't
either. But really, how much can you know about yourself if you've never
been in a fish fight?" Fou-Lou reached into his jacket and produced a small
but trustworthy rod, a simple reel accenting the time-worn bamboo textures.
"Take this. I want you to cast that as hard as you can."
"What?" Ryu looked at Fou-Lou in disbelief. "Dude, I'm not gonna do that,
what are you talking about?"
"Come on, just do it man, cast it as hard as you can, do it quick before
I lose my nerve." The silver-haired endless started to bounce up and down
on the balls of his feet and shake out the cramps in his limbs like a boxer
entering the ring.
"Okay man, but remember you asked for this..." Ryu stepped back a few paces
and stared straight into the eyes of the God-Emporer. "This is so stupid,"
he thought, tightening his grip on the bamboo shaft. "He asked for it, so
oh well." He leaned back with the pole, had one fleeting thought of
reconsideration, and then sliced through the air in the direction of Fou-Lou,
sending a lure inches from his head into the lake behind him. The spinner
lure had barely graced the placid calm of the water when he felt a bite.
"I think you got something!" Fou-Lou was already perched on the bank of the
shore, peering excitedly into the darkness settled over the body of water.
The splashing of the fish near the surface suddenly abided as it leaped out
of the water, soaring through the air and then landing in a ripple of its
own wake. "Oh my God! You hooked it in the ear!"
"Well where was I supposed to hook it?!"
"No no, it's okay, just let me get something real quick..." His words trailed
off as he dashed at Ryu, a deluxe rod appearing from seemingly nowhere. Ryu
was startled and distracted with his catch, and had no time to think before
he felt a baby frog whiz by his face and into the lake opposite his.
"Whoa! This is crazy! I can't believe I've never been in a fish fight before!"
The blue-haired boy's words came in short bursts in between the heavy panting
accompanying his frantic tugs on the rod. "We should definitely do this again
sometime..."
The rest of that night was just a blur to Ryu, but the memory of when Fish
Club was still that small was something he hoped didn't get lost in everything
that had happened.
Reality came drifting in as a misplaced needle. "Ow!" A small stream of blood
appeared on Ryu's scalp. "I always drift off into reminiscing when I have
to do this..." Only a few more loops stood between him and completing the
arduous task of 9 stitches on the forehead. "Finally. Too bad they'll be
ripped out tomorrow night most likely."
The dragon-to-be put down his tools of the trade and leaned forward to put
both hands on the edge of the basin, staring straight into the jagged reflection
of himself in the cracked and antiquated mirror. Dried blood crumbled from
his worn fingertips as he ran them over the top of the porcelain, finding
small patches of smoothness spotting the cracked texture of the aged material.
"Another day, another night." Ryu turned and left the sink, stepping over
random figures and trinkets as he slowly and meticulously made his way across
the dilapidated house to his "bedroom" upstairs, consciously tuning out the
sounds of Fou-Lou and Mami that were resonating from the floor above. "This
is my parents all over again." One solitary particle of maddeningly tiny
plaster shook from the ceiling and floated down to landed on the fresh stitches.
"At least she never hangs around in the morning. She's so weird too, why
in the world does she always want to talk to me? It's not my fault Fou-Lou
is a hit-an-run operation, why the hell is she always pissed at me?"
Uncertainties and anger all danced in his head as Ryu's blue-covered crown
settled in it's pillow of old laundry. "Why does he bring her over any...
ways..." Sleep.
***
"Forget you, forget Mami, forget Fish Club!" Ryu screamed at Fou-Lou from
the passenger seat of their generic and utterly forgettable boat. Their fish-head
"troops" were in the back seat, as stoic and unfazed as ever as worlds collided
in the front seat.
"Feeling a little out of the loop, Ryu?"
"Fish Club is ours Fou-Lou, we started it together, remember?" Ryu was sick
and tired of finding out what was happening as it was happening. They had
just come from a near-castrating incident with the Winaln police chief and
Ryu felt like the last guy picked for dodgeball. Now they were speeding away
on a stolen boat to across the lake, and that night's Fish Club.
Fou-Lou looked totally unconcerned and distant as he lavished upon Ryu his
total detachment. "Forget us man, there is no us." He took his hands off
the rudder to gesture his point better with a thumb and a glowing finger
pointed at each of them. "We do not exist. I don't know what notions you
have about life or friendship or whatever, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter, so let it go!" Fou-Lou's hands never came back to the steering wheel.
"Just let it go." He reclined back in the driver's seat with a formulatingly
sly almost-smirk on his face, and peered ahead in the drizzle that beat down
on the lake they were currently speeding through at 30 knots.
Ryu started to look a little worried, and looked back for support from his
fish-heads only to be greeted with 3 calm and uniquely anonymous faces. He
looked ahead to see how far off the lighthouse was just in time to see the
luminescent beam from the tower sweep through his world. "Hey, we're coming
up pretty fast on the light house Fou, lemme steer for a sec..." He reached
over for the rudder handle and Fou-Lou promptly swatted his hand away.
"No man, look at you! You're like a little jellyfish with no spine!" Dejected
and wet in the ubiquitous drizzle that ate all the light reflecting off of
his face, he really did look like one as he reached for the handle again.
"No! Just let that which does not matter truly slide, just let it go! LET
GO!"
"Fine." Ryu's only retort in a mind full of replies. "Fine." He reclined
back in the passenger seat as the light house parted a curtain of drizzle
and rushed towards them. He looked over as they were flying through the air
together and thought he saw himself among the fish-heads before the jagged
rocks below interjected. Sleep.
***
Ryu could feel the rage boiling just below the surface, seething right underneath
the skin on his face, but not beneath the bone of his skull; enough to make
his face radiate heat and anger. He was tired of Fou-Lou's crap, he was tired
of Mami, tired of the injuries from the boat wreck, and tired of Fish Club.
Yet here he was, line hooked on an Angelfish some dreary Saturday night in
Anytown. Various chants and masculine spurts of encouragement phased around
his head, the 30 or so 30 or so-aged men screaming out their affirmations
as if it would make the fish fight that much more brutal and fulfilling.
But he didn't hear them, he only felt them, knew they were there. It was
just him and Angelfish. When the fish finally landed at his feet, he didn't
smile, only stood and glowed in the cold heat of his suddenly meaningless
victory. Meaningless to him. His companions were all shouting for him to
hit it, to punch the fish. Their odd custom of random brutality was what
sealed all fish fights now, and his mob called him out for it. Ryu obliged.
He got on his knees atop Angelfish and landed one solid punch right across
the left gill and his subjects screamed with approval. He started to stand,
but looked back at Angelfish, coughing for water and oxygen, unable to move,
breathtaking in it's gracefulness even now. Another blow pierced the cool
lake air and landed on the marine victim. Roars of worship for their founder.
How brutal, how primal it was of him to keep hitting Angelfish. Ryu left
then, left his body and his sanity and floated into sort of a dream state,
where the only constant was the primordial beating of some far off drums.
All of his anger flowed into one small spot on the ground underneath him,
and for a moment he was free, elucidated, illuminated. The drums came closer,
closer and faster, until they were right in front of him, coming from his
channeled ball of anger. Then he was back, and Ryu's drums were the sounds
of his own fists, knuckles breaking on the bloodied and torn remains of Angel
face. His pupils did not roar. They stared in shock as wave after wave of
Ryu's blows pummeled through the fish and into the ground, a breaking knuckle
every few blows the only compliment to the dull thuds before them. Ryu stood
up with an effort, and turned to look at his people. Something mingled in
their eyes: fear, respect, the unkown. Maybe all of those. Maybe they were
all related. He shrugged his way out of the sweaty and dank crowd, leaving
Angelfish on the ground and walking by Fou-Lou, who was calmly leaning against
a pier pillar away from the crowd.
"What's with you?" Fou-Lou offered, in a way only he could that implied he
didn't desperately need a reply.
"I felt like destroying something beautiful." Ryu's only retort in a mind
full of replies.
***
"Is Fou-Lou my bad dream? Or am I Fou-Lou's?"
-Ombligo
-Ombligo33@hotmail.com
Breath of Fire and all related characters are the property and trademarks
of CAPCOM
Fight Club is the property of 20th Century Fox