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Closing his eyes, more often then not, always lead him to the skinless blood-soaked nightmares unfettered by the active mind's lens. Despite the sensationalism in the news, it wasn't whenever the officials found bodies in someone's crawlspace nor found out that the three star cult hit of a restaurant was shut down when someone finally squealed about having seen a roach behind the counter. Instead, it was something more yet somehow less specific.
Mighty's tired eyes looked into the bowl of ramen in front of him. Chicken, egg, seaweed slices, and everything else befitting of something some buffoon would pay precious multi-party scrip for when the need for multiple grams of sodium would come up like a bad habit. Doctors were always quick to talk about how excess sodium intake was an insidious killer while they took their time puffing away at their nicotine rich tobacco rods out of sight like anyone else in a position of authority with even the slightest amount of room to talk down on someone else. There was always a grain of truth to whatever they said, even if it dripped with personal touches that reminded him that no living being alive could even hold a candle to his dedication to "objectivity".
Objectivity, an obsession rooted in the kind of purity only someone so terminally damaged from dedicating himself to the guided path could even believe was ever worth pursuing. The visor on his face, as fitting as it was, was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He chose to keep it on. The Script, an old meme of a thought, was more important than anything. The path of The Script was to be adhered to at all times, even if it sometimes left him sick and angry as always. A thought entered his mind suddenly: How much burning hot ramen broth could he force himself to down before it would damage him enough to warrant playing out a scenario of scaring his 'friends' and 'family' into carrying him off to see someone for it? Today was less of a good day than usual. He simply opted to take in a small scoop of broth before gently blowing on it. The intrusive thoughts were bested once more.
Savory, with little notes from the soy sauce here and there. The broken man behind the counter who manned the kitchen, far away from his daughter who stood at the counter and attended to front side duties, true to the rumors, was a master at his craft, tainted by experience and intrinsic knowledge in just the right (and dare he suggest familiar) ways. Part of Mighty was sure that if he asked the man past a certain point, he could potentially get the exact unit proportions of broth, soy sauce, and added powder seasonings as needed to attempt recreating the bowl's contents, but it would have been just like teaching Shirobon how to wield a proper fire bomb. All the instruction in the world meant nothing without a sufficient amount of experience and finding out how it 'all clicked'.
A quick glance towards a clock on the wall indicated that he had just north of half an hour left to enjoy his bowl. The girl knew damned well she couldn't begin to force him out of the ramen house. All she knew what to do around him was smile and look upon him with such pathetic fawning admiration; It wasn't like a human knew anything about the proper secrets involved in not just understanding how to create bombs, but how to fine-tune them from being crude unwieldy suicide toys into the most viciously destructive devices made to scar the minds of any witnesses present if death wasn't the objective. He merely gave her a gentle, if tired, smile before sipping more broth. The noodles were gradually becoming safer to eat without constant artificial breezing on his part.
"Mighty?" the girl asked. Why did she do this now? "Is it true? You're really having to use kid gloves on Mujoe? Birdy says you've been holding back."
Of course the girl heard some freshly talked shit from Birdy and of course she had questions that barely begun to touch upon purity, specifically doctrinal purity. Only so much was to be used at one time; There was no reason to go above and beyond if all it did was betray the magic of The Script alongside consuming more resources than needed. A small uncomfortable chuckle betrayed him while he eyes shut, preparing a statement like a parent explaining to their child what the 'wrestling' they may have been witness to was while the other parent was away on business. "I suppose I can't help that Mujoe doesn't require too many of my capabilities... but our mission is to prevent the theft of and assist in recovering the only known items of their kind in the universe!"
"Sounds like Mujoe can't be that bad if you're hardly breaking a sweat with Birdy present," Shout stated. Mighty simply nodded. What else was there to say? "Sometimes, I wonder if something more permanent can be done to scare him off so he'll stop bothering us as much."
Another chuckle escaped Mighty before he decided to enjoy the noodles more heartily, now that the risk of damaging the nerves of whatever passed for a tongue in his mouth had been reduced to nil. Sure, he could just splatter the man into paste, but trouble was ready to pounce him the minute he went against The Script. Heroes don't murk villains so blatantly. Villains and Heroes both were people with lives, no matter how pathetic. Even pathetic middle aged alcoholics had friends and family. Even the pathetic alcoholic's boss was on enough talking terms with his own employer that all hell would break loose the minute he decided today was the day he was about to physically demonstrate graduating from surviving day-by-day to outright living and even thriving with a vulgar display of power. None of what would happen next was worth the sick and perverse joy of giving into the inner impulsive brain spiders just this once.
Of course, every so often, the hellish brain spiders made themselves known whenever the missions dragged on too long; So much so that if Birdy were just a bit more observant and Bomberman biology was more willing to betray his efforts, Mighty could have been talked to about visible veins bulging in places. The blood fountain resulting from a bomb beyond necessary to conclude a mission was always a fun thought and it made no attempt to stay hidden in the spider pit. Naturally, he snorted just loud enough at the thought to have potentially caught Shout's attention. Thankfully, she wrote it off as a random sound that didn't come from the Jetters' breadwinner. There was no way the bomberman they fielded was a monster who secretly giggled about the idea of blowing people apart whenever it got too quiet and the stress mounted for a long enough stretch.
Downing the ramen after it was merely 'very warm' instead of hot enough to damage tissue was a quick enough task, as was having enough bills on hand to provide the teenage girl a tip; It was the moral thing to do in this place. Service staff made their money through tips, especially when employers weren't required to provide more than table scraps... or in the case of a family business, the money all just going towards business operations with creature comforts second at most. Mighty was a good boy. He was a hero. Heroes obeyed the law and did the right thing, after all. They didn't salivate from wanting to blow people apart when the day goes on long enough, nor did they think about slamming their head hard enough to-
"Yo, Mighty," a voice chimed in from behind. Friendly and devoted to respecting his every take, it's Birdy and he just took the seat next to him. "It's been a good nine months since you joined. You sure you don't wanna visit your family? We just got done with a mission and-"
"Birdy, after I pay for my bowl of noodles, let's just head back to headquarters and get some rest. It's been a very long day." A quick, throat chopping answer. Birdy, like the teenage girl nearby, was quick to simply nod and continue letting Mighty dictate how the evening would go. Some part of Mighty knew he could go even further than this if he wanted, but there was no need. Birdy, for all his faults, wasn't Mujoe; A few words were all he needed, not a slightly over-tuned nerve tingler of a burning fire bomb. After he left a tip partially under the bowl and paid for his bowl proper, he left the ramen house with Birdy.
Besides, there was nothing to talk to his grandmother nor Shirobon about that they and he himself didn't already know. Certainly not anything he was ready to go on about yet.
Visceral joy was felt as he sunk his gloved fingers into the skin of the bomberman right ahead of him. All of this was pointless like all other ventures into the training tower, but something about this felt just a touch more special. Some of them even had blond goatees and slicked back hair, reminding him more than generously of his day-to-day hamster wheel of a position among the Jetters. A pained yet artificial cry escaped it before Mighty felt his hand tear the being's arm off.
Years of cruel training and abusive regime expansion over the course of his teen years did this to him, preparing him with a level of dedication and discipline no living beyond ought to pursue during supposed peace time. The sound of skin tearing and bones popping out of joints, music to his little bomberman senses, was capped off with his enemy's cry spiking in pitch before suddenly ceasing. The body before him went limp and motionless before fading from sight. That little shit didn't have a boss nor a boss's friend to worry about getting Mighty in trouble over. He damned sure didn't have any witnesses nearby to remind him that the goal was to recover the only known dildo or whatever of its kind in the universe, not to give into the black widow thoughts whose venom filled his overworked and stressed mind with sick joys and pleasures.
One thought in particular came to mind upon seeing a single bomberman standing alone, quivering in place after having seen his friend be brutally dismembered by a hero. Hurt him. Rip him apart the way you wish you could hurt someone outside of here. Kill him. Blow him to shit. Every set of words that could infer such simple directions flowed through his mind and his every blood vein, granting such control and such powerful flow through every cell in his body. A blossoming violence-gasm, unmitigated in its hateful, shit-heeled rebellious nature. A violent, desperate cry for control and understanding in the only language it knew: Physically visceral contempt.
God, everything about this was every bit of what people kept telling him what sex was like. Control. Understanding. Freedom. Freedom from norms. Freedom from expectations of stupid brain damaged old men whose passions carry them forward on desires decades past their expiration date. Passion. God-fucking-dammit, Mighty wanted more as he lumbered towards the quivering weakling before him. Little shit. Worthless little shit. He wasn't anyone he cared about.
The deafening scream was the musical finale to this depraved dream of joy and happiness. The sensation in his eyes demanded attention. As was with all loving sensations of warmth and pleasure under the buckling weight of a dreamlike state keeping the door held shut against the increasingly mounting forces of reality, his eyes began to open.
He was once more on the bunk he knew well enough after nine months. The sound of snoozing below, together with the nearby clock reading 2:19 reminded him that self indulgent nonsense, despite how conflicted and weird he felt about it now, could still be entertained for just a bit longer. He huffed before turning over with closed eyes, trying to recapture some vague semblance of control before the eventual return of Adhering To The Script as it were.
If only stress dreams weren't so capricious in their arrival and departure. Mighty soon found himself in another sequence, more grounded in day-to-day activity and thoughts of home than the self-indulgent brain-blowing mindless fantasizing sensation. This night was going to be almost as long as the mornings and afternoon frequently ended up.