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the-world-annealing · 1 year

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A spoiler-free review of Barbie (2023)

This is like the third post about Barbie I've started writing and then abandoned but y'know, let's just bang this thing out and be done with it.

After its trippy opening, Barbie (2023) starts us off in Barbieland: a fantasy world inhabited by an endless parade of well-dressed attractive working women, who are all Barbie, because Barbie can be anything and do anything. Our protagonist, 'stereotypical Barbie', one day wakes to the terror of Things Not Being Perfect All the Time, and is told she must travel to the real world in order to stop her life being ruined.

Traveling along her is Ken, who is by far the best character in the entire movie. Core to his arc is the fact that he's an accessory, an 'and Ken', without traits or competences of his own, and that his identity does not extend beyond being Barbie's boyfriend. As one character puts it: "Nobody cares about Ken", and in fact you could argue that Ken's main goal is learning to care about himself. There's some genuinely solid character work here, Ryan Gosling is obviously an amazing actor, and he's got by far the best musical number in the entire movie (you'll know it when you see it).

But enough about the barebones plot details: let's talk about the movie on a more abstract level.

Barbie as a comedy The movie rarely hesitates when presented with the opportunity for a gag; its metaphysics rarely remain consistent, reasonable questions get dismissed with a quip, and in one egregious example Ken betrays his final chance to explain his core arc so he can instead set up a gag about horses. That is, in itself, not something bad; movies are allowed to prioritize humor over story, comedies especially.

And credit where credit is due, Barbie is a good comedy. The jokes are funny, the pacing is slightly rushed but never uncomfortably so, the soundtrack is amazing, the Barbieland sets explode with color. There's a lot of references to Barbie products in here, but I never felt like I was watching a two-hour ad. The movie is by far at its best when it embraces its own zaniness, and for the most part it does just that.

But Barbie wants to be more than the Summer Blockbuster (pink edition) of 2023, it wants to... well, actually, let's take a brief digression to analyze some of the themes you could reasonably want to say Barbie is trying to explore.

Barbie as things that aren't a comedy There's a strain of discourse, long preceding this movie but invigorated by its announcement, where one side will say "Barbie is sexist and the face of patriarchal standards" and the other side will say "Actually Barbie is canonically an astronaut and a senator and a racecar driver, which is breaking gender roles, and thus feminist, because women can do anything".

The movie multi-track drifts these opinions for its entire length, and ends up concluding something like "Barbie represents a sort of idealized female figure, and having such a figure to project your hopes and dreams and fears on can be legitimately useful. At the same time, nobody can actually live up to those standards, so just be yourself and voice your frustrations with patriarchal standards when you encounter them". We'll get back to this in a second.

Another reading of the movie is as a sort of opposite-world mirror, one that assigns typically-female roles to the male characters and in doing so, invites its viewers to think about the way women in movies get typically treated. I'm not sure how I feel about this: I think a common failure mode for Subversive movies is to end up preaching to the choir, and I'm unsure how much of Barbie's target audience needs to hear 'when directors add a two-dimensional female love interest to a movie, this is bad'. Someone I discussed it with half-jokingly suggested that those messages are aimed at 'boyfriends who got dragged into the movie'; perhaps they are.

Now, note that Barbie, both in marketing and in the movie itself, is making a big deal out of saying something about Women and Sexism and Social Standards: its ability to credibly say something about those issues thus depends on its ability to represent these subjects accurately. And unfortunately, that's where it goes wrong.

Patriarchy Without spoiling too much, suffice to say that the real world is far from the benevolent female-centric utopia that is Barbieland. The second act explores the contrast between Barbieland and the real world; the third ends with Barbie defeating the patriarchy.

Or, rather, some weird alien mind virus that everyone constantly calls 'the patriarchy'. Barbie's patriarchy (supposedly the same one we ourselves have) is utterly individualistic: sexist ideas are introduced, men and women both instantly adopt sexist attitudes, and boom, patriarchal society where former confident career women are now submissive housewives in miniskirts. It's impressive in how utterly dismissive it is of the idea that an issue could be structural.

For instance, under patriarchy, a man will put on The Godfather and mansplain it to you. Or your male employees will judge you both for being 'too soft' and 'a hardass'. Or a man will say 'you look prettier without glasses'. Or a man may see you struggling with photoshop and mansplain it to you. As you might've guessed by now, Barbie's portrayal of crushing patriarchal norms is limited to a very particular subset; the sort of interpersonal frustrations likely to get encountered by a thirty-something managerial-class woman and her social circle. Which to be clear isn't something you shouldn't get bothered by, but it speaks to the sort of myopia that is regrettably common in certain feminist schools of thought.

A very recurrent shape that the movie's patriarchy takes is when men receive undeserved power and attention, and it's unsurprising to see the movie's own solution come down to 'elevating female voices, maybe getting a few more female CEOs'. It's just a disappointingly basic take on sexism and how to address it, and it sours everything that the movie has to say about its chosen subject matter.

How it could have been better In a way that ironically mirrors the movie's central moral, Barbie (2023) suffers from needing to be everything at once: feminist parable, zany comedy, and surrealist art film. So it might be surprising that my proposed fix is to accentuate yet another genre: horror.

In all the movie's talk of Barbie being a sexist ideal or a tool for self-actualization or a symbol of female omnicompetence, it (deliberately?) forgets that she is a product first and foremost, and her identity and skillset is defined by a marketing department as much as it is defined by innocently hopeful six-year-olds. The idea is raised once, subtly, during a speech that isn't sure whether it wants to be a serious argument or a long-winded joke.

So to fix the movie, play up the dissonance between being a person with thoughts and hopes and fears and being an utterly artificial construct! Emphasize the contrast between "Barbie can be anything and do anything" and "Barbie can only do those things that a board of designers approved", and the terror of being Barbie in that scenario, of believing the first but discovering the second!

And there's a lot of directions you can go from there; you can have Barbie meet women who aren't marketable professionals, and learn something meaningful about the broad definition of womanhood from them, you can involve Barbieland's barbies as enthusiastic participants in the system who are more than willing to expel protagonist-Barbie once she stops fitting their mold (something loosely hinted at in the actual movie), you can introduce all sorts of human villains who want to manipulate the concept of womanhood for their own gain, whatever you want, as long as you somehow, somewhere, acknowledge that barbie's wardrobe is 90% pink (that barbie has a sizeable wardrobe) for reasons other than the Innate Feminine Need to wear that particular color.

You still get to keep the feminist angle, but instead of centering the frustrations of middle class female professionals it now focuses on the fundamentally artificial nature of gender roles: I shouldn't have to say why that makes for a more compelling core theme!

(and if your response is something like "Okay, I get where you're coming from but mainstream femininity catches so much undeserved flak that we need a movie bold enough to come to its defense." I will simply note that we seem to have different priorities on that matter)

The movie could have been this: it got so close around the midpoint! But it backs off, because it wants to tell a story about women controlled by men, not people controlled by systems. Unfortunately in doing so it becomes a much less interesting movie, and one hampered in its ability to make meaningful points in favor of feminism.

#barbie #barbie movie #barbie 2023 #barbie review #discourse #metadiscourse

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batneko · 7 years

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OPM MiB AU, chapter 7.1

Probably about half the chapter? word count: 5079

[previous]

After breakfast Genos went back to his apartment downstairs, and Saitama stayed in the cafeteria, nursing the free bad coffee and thinking. There was definitely something wrong with Genos, more than just being mad at Saitama for kissing him (or for taking it back). He'd been making progress in leaps and bounds ever since he got his new body, but the last week he'd been a wreck. He could barely carry on a conversation, and Saitama'd had to keep track of their day's schedule on his own for the first time.

That, if nothing else, made Saitama realize how much he was taking Genos for granted. Having him there, relying on him every day, using him as an emotional buffer. Saitama was happy how things had been... but Genos wasn't. He -- as was pretty clear by how bitter he was about New Year's -- wanted more.

So did Saitama, for that matter, but he'd been prepared to squash it down and masturbate a lot more as compensation. Even though Mumen thought Genos had feelings for him, even though Saitama thought so too, he hadn't taken those into account when he decided to say nothing.

And now Genos was miserable and Saitama couldn't comfort him because he was the reason for the misery.

At least, that was what Saitama thought until Tatsumaki dropped into Genos' vacated seat and asked, "How's he holding up?"

Saitama hadn't told anyone what happened between them, and although it wouldn't surprise him if Tatsumaki guessed, he didn't think New Year's was what she was talking about. "What?"

"Genos. Since, y'know, today's the day?"

Saitama felt his brow wrinkle. "What day?"

"The day... that..." She took a slug of coffee. "No one told you."

"Told me what?"

"Genos knows, right? He must. He was all pissed off the other day."

"Tatsumaki tell me what's going on."

She sighed. "Look, it's not like there was a big announcement. The only reason word got around is that all the local Borosians are gossiping, so we had to be ready to head shit off."

Saitama said nothing, glaring at her with every ounce of of rage in his body. The blood drained from her face.

"The guys who chased Genos when he was escaping, the ones we all fought that night. Their government came back for them, insisted we turn them over for prosecution back in their own courts."

"But they won't be prosecuted, right?" Saitama heard his voice come out in a growl. "The government doesn't admit it, but they're behind all of it. Those guys tried to kill Genos, tried to kill me, and they'll go home to- to pay cuts at worst."

"Probably," Tatsumaki admitted. "We don't have proof, but... Genos was just the most blatant case. Usually the Borosians abduct runaways or kids who snuck off to makeout point or whatever. Secluded areas. I dunno why they ended up killing everybody in Genos's town. Something must have gone really wrong and they panicked, but they'll never tell us, so... Who knows?"

"That doesn't make it better. The fact that they were willing to kill a couple hundred people just to cover their tracks is almost worse."

Tatsumaki waved a hand. "Preaching to the choir here, chromedome."

"Yeah..." Saitama rubbed his forehead, watching Tatsumaki start in on her yogurt.

"You're terrifying when you're mad, did you know that?" she said conversationally.

"I am?"

"When you were looking at me a second ago, because I didn't get to the point fast enough. I've never seen you look like that before."

Saitama shrugged. "If it's about Genos, it's important."

"You should really do something about how in love with him you are. You guys can't stay partners and be this obvious."

"I'll deal with that after I tell him I love him."

"You haven't even told him?" Tatsumaki exclaimed. "You know he probably thinks you like me, right?"

Saitama blinked. "What."

"He saw you kiss me on New Year's!"

"That was your idea!"

"He didn't know that! And you brought me flowers!"

"Yeah, 'cause you covered for me, and..." Saitama trailed off as the order of events sunk through his skull. "Oh god, he probably does think I like you."

"God you're dumb. Why does he even like you?"

Saitama chugged the rest of his lukewarm coffee and stood up. "I gotta go."

"Yeah, obviously."

Saitama hadn't been to Genos' apartment as often as Genos had been to his. Personally Saitama thought the agency-issued one was nicer. Bigger, cleaner, better wifi. But it was underground, and no matter how bright the walls or carpet it couldn't help feeling like a cave.

Genos didn't answer when Saitama knocked. Or when he announced himself, or when he declared his intention to come in, permission or not.

Once inside it only took Saitama a second to tell his fears were justified. The apartment was spotless, practically sanitized, even compared to Genos' usual neatness. The bedding was freshly washed, Genos' clothes were folded and organized, and his weighted blanket and stuffed sheep had been spot-cleaned and placed carefully on the table, along with a stack of DVDs. Saitama looked, hoping he was wrong, and found the movie cases had all been labeled with who owned them. One even had the date it was due back at the store.

Saitama had seen enough suicides as a beat cop to know the signs. This was the apartment of someone who wasn't intending to come home.

He started by texting Garou, who replied "on it" and nothing further. When he wouldn't give any more information, Saitama started asking for the blond guy he'd seen Genos talking to a few times. Ion or Iain or something.

People were antsy. Saitama didn't know why he hadn't seen it before. Maybe he'd been preoccupied with his own problems, or Genos, something a good cop would never let get in the way of his job. It took a couple tries before he found someone who knew who Ion was, and then Saitama ran into a wall.

"Chrome-kun." Silver was waiting by the elevators, arms crossed behind his back. "You're awfully busy for your day off."

"Uh..."

"Let's walk."

He sighed. "Do I have a choice?"

"Yes. But I don't think you'd like it."

Saitama followed him out onto the street, and they started strolling in the direction of Saitama's apartment.

"Do you remember what I told you, after you turned down my job offer that first night?"

"Yeah. You said last time you tried to mind wipe me I was stunned long enough for you to sneak off."

Silver shook his head. "I said you could have been the best of us. And I still believe that, Saitama-kun. You're smart, you're tough, you don't fold under pressure. And you truly care about the people under your protection."

"Including Genos," Saitama said.

"We both know it's more complicated than that with him." When Saitama didn't deny it, Silver sighed. "Do you suspect he's going to do something stupid?"

"I think... maybe. Yeah."

"I can't help you this time. If Genos is trying to attack prisoners that we are honorbound to keep safe, he's going against everything our agency stands for."

Saitama ran a hand over his head, trying to figure out the right sequence of words that would get him some answers. "I'm not disagreeing, but isn't it more important to protect our own than the people who were complicit in kidnapping, torturing, and murdering our own?"

"Do you think Genos needs protection?"

"From the Borosians? Yeah. He's strong but they almost got him last time, if I hadn't been there."

"What about protection from himself?"

Saitama dug his nails into his scalp. "I don't know. Right now... maybe. Maybe."

They were at the corner of Saitama's apartment building now, and Silver stopped. "I can't help you, Saitama-kun. But," he added, before Saitama could protest, "it's common knowledge at the agency that the prisoner transfer is taking place where they landed here originally."

"Where they- North of the city?"

"Yes. They're due in about half an hour."

Saitama tried to smile. "You're real bad at this whole not-helping thing, you know?"

"I have no idea what you mean." Silver turned crossed the street toward the office. "See you and Genos on Monday, Saitama-kun."

Knowing where Genos was (probably) going and being able to get there were two different things. The bus took an hour, Saitama didn't have a car, Garou didn't have a license. Badd had a truck but Saitama didn't have his number, and Garou wasn't answering texts.

With few other options, Saitama started walking toward the bus stop. He had a smart phone now, but it belonged to the agency. They could track his activity, and using one of those ride apps to go to a very serious prisoner transfer would be suspicious.

What was Genos planning? Did he have one at all? An assassination attempt wouldn't get very far with all the agency personnel around, and Saitama knew no matter how badly he wanted revenge, Genos wouldn't hurt anyone who didn't have it coming. He hadn't even killed any of those security guys chasing him the night he escaped. The only fatality was Saitama's doing, and he tried not to think about it too much.

As a cop Saitama had been responsible for three deaths, and they still haunted him. Each one had been to protect others, not himself, but still... His number was up to four now. He didn't want to raise it any higher.

If he hadn't joined the agency, where would he be now? He wouldn't have been able to protect Genos, but the agency would have treated him fairly, he believed that now. Maybe things would have been simpler? Maybe he could have told Genos how he felt already...

Saitama knew the walk from home to the station so well he could do it in his sleep. And now, lost in thought, he'd found his feet had taken him there unbidden, skipping two bus stops to get this far. It wasn't like Saitama could come back if everything at the agency went south, if Genos ended up in jail, or space jail, or worse... Saitama quit this job, out of the blue, citing mental health. They wouldn't take him back.

But this was still home, in a way. This was a place he'd been a part of a family, and-

Mumen. Saitama couldn't requisition a car, but Mumen could. With his driving and the early hour they could be there within half an hour. Sure he'd have to come up with an excuse, but it wouldn't be the first time.

Without texting first, Saitama called him. Mumen answered on the third ring.

"Hi. Saitama?"

"Yeah. Are you still stuck in Records?"

"For another week," he heard Mumen sigh. "What's up? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Well. Yeah but I need your help. And I can't tell you why and you might get in a lot of trouble."

There was only a second of hesitation before Mumen said, "Okay should I go claim a family emergency, or..."

Saitama smiled to himself. "No, actually, because you're gonna need a car."

Mumen was as good as his word; he didn't ask a thing until they were on the road, and even then it was only where they were going.

The silence got to Saitama though, and after about ten minutes he asked, "So what excuse did you give?"

"I didn't," Mumen said. His voice was curt, blunt, and he kept his eyes glued to the road. "No one asked. I'll come up with something later if I have to."

"Geez. That's not really good security, is it?"

"You're an expert on security now?" Mumen asked. He didn't raise his voice, but there was none of the usual warmth. "You've been working there three months?"

"I didn't mean-" Being reprimanded by Mumen felt like a parent telling you they were disappointed in you. "Thank you. For doing this."

Mumen shrugged one shoulder. "I'd do anything for you Saitama. You know that."

"I know..." This was a conversation they'd had before, but usually when Saitama was having one of his gray days.

He got recruited to the agency because he didn't have nearby family to keep secrets from... but not all family was blood.

"Have you figured out that security thing was a lie yet?"

"I suspected." Some of the tension drained from Mumen's shoulders. "You didn't give a lot of details. And a security company wouldn't hire a teenager, even one with military experience like Genos."

"Yeah... That's not entirely true either."

Mumen sighed. "At least tell me it's not illegal?"

"What I'm doing or what we're doing right now?"

"Either. Both."

"Both no, fully within the law." Saitama clenched his fists on his knees. "Some of the people that- that hurt Genos. They're here. And Genos is MIA. I'm worried he's doing something stupid."

"Oh." Mumen relaxed fully. "Well you could have said that much from the start!"

"It gets weirder the more I have to explain, trust me."

The traffic thinned out the farther north they got, and once they hit the trees Saitama started looking around for where Silver parked last time. It had been the middle of the night, he wasn't sure he could spot it, but he wasn't looking long before they both saw a car pulled over and two people talking. Once they saw a police car, one of them waved.

Mumen, ever dutiful, pulled over behind them and hopped out. "Everything okay?"

"Yes," the man said. "Well, I think so."

"A kid jumped out into the road!" the woman exclaimed. "Taro almost hit him!"

"I didn't- Look he was walking backwards right in front of me, I didn't have time to stop! And anyway, another guy pulled him away."

"Kid?" Mumen repeated. "How old? What did he look like?"

"I don't know, blond? A teenager or a young guy."

Mumen glanced back at Saitama, who nodded. "Where?"

They drove back the short distance the couple had described, the same stretch of road Mumen and Saitama had just covered without seeing anything, and slowed down looking for signs of life.

"There!" Saitama exclaimed, louder than he meant to. "I see red, clothes maybe."

Mumen found a wide bit of curb to leave the car in relative safety, and they double-timed back to the flash of red among the green and brown. A shape made itself out, red and blue and black, with a shock of hair so fair it was almost white. As Saitama pushed through the branches and confirmed what he'd suspected for the last few feet, Garou jerked his head up.

"Oh no." He was tied to a telephone pole, and his clothes and hair were roughed up and covered in dirt. Garou turned his head to one side, but Saitama had already seen the streaks of green where his makeup had been wiped off. "Don't- Saitama stop him, don't let him see."

Saitama glanced at Mumen, right on his heels, brow furrowed in confusion. "It's a little late for that."

"Dammit! This isn't my fault!"

"I know. I know it's not." Saitama glanced at the knot in the back of the yellow safety ropes, and decided to take the short route and rip it apart with his hands. "Did you try to fight him?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." As soon as he was free, Garou reached up and tentatively surveyed the damage to his face. Along with the patch by his eye, there was another spot by his mouth where the thick makeup had been almost peeled off.

"He really did a number on you."

"He tricked me! He pretended to walk into traffic! What was I supposed to do?" Garou rubbed his face, revealing more pale green skin, and his eyes narrowed as they focused on Mumen. "Did you fill him in already?"

"Not exactly." Saitama glanced back at Mumen, who hadn't moved since he got a look at Garou's face. "I don't know if I have time to- How long since Genos left you here?"

"Just a few minutes. I heard a ship land right after, but nothing took off yet."

"Okay. Let's move." Saitama looked at Mumen again, still immobile. "I'll explain everything later, I promise. Just roll with it for now?"

Mumen took a shaky breath. "It's... fine. I just didn't expect Reptoids of all conspiracies to be real."

"I'm a mammal, dammit!" Garou exclaimed. He ran his hands through his hair to try and shape it back into points, but it didn't quite hide the ivory stubs of his horns. "Let's go, this way."

Garou led them through the trees, tromping over bushes and slush. It was a good thing it hadn't snowed in a while or they never would have been able to take this shortcut. As soon as they passed the telephone pole Saitama noticed a weird sort of inaudible hum in the air, like the sound of a TV being left on.

"We probably set off some alarms," Saitama said. "Mumen, you should go back."

"Not without you," Mumen said firmly. "Or at least, not without Garou."

It might have been Saitama's imagination, but he thought the bit of Garou's cheek that was uncovered flushed a darker shade of green.

Garou led them through the trees, tromping over bushes and slush. It was a good thing it hadn't snowed in a while or they never would have been able to take this shortcut.

"So," Garou hissed over his shoulder, "just like, for my sanity. Officer Saitama, you're in love with Genos, right?"

Saitama almost tripped over a tree root. "Is it that obvious? You're the third person to figure it out."

"Well stop checking him out in public then."

"I don't try to."

Garou nodded. "See that's how I know it's real and not just physical. You can't stop yourself."

"You sound awfully sure of this stuff for a guy with a crush on somebody who thinks he's a kid. And a lizard."

Garou stopped so abruptly that Saitama almost ran into him. Mumen did run into Saitama, and kept a steadying hand on his back. "First of all, eat a dick. Second, there they are."

He pointed ahead, and they could see two shiny black objects the size of grain silos, and a lot of black suits standing around.

"Okay. Well. Shit. I don't have a plan." Saitama poked Garou's arm. "Do you have any idea what Genos is actually going to do?"

"He had a bag." Garou pressed his lips together. "I thought he was just gonna try and kill them, but he had a bag. Doesn't he have guns in his arms?"

"Yeah." Saitama pressed his fingers hard against his eyelids, allowing the pain to focus him. "Okay. Okay. So he either packed a bomb or food and I don't like either answer."

"You gotta tell him you love him," Garou said, and Saitama looked at him, hoping his face expressed how little that made sense. "No, look, I get revenge. It's not for anybody but you, right? Revenge is selfish. You gotta give him something personal or he won't give it up."

"Dammit, you might be right."

"Of course I'm right!" Garou exclaimed, loud enough that Saitama saw a few of the suits start to turn.

If they checked the security systems they'd see they had at least four intruders. They'd probably seen already, but were securing the site instead of wasting time trying to track them down.

"Okay, okay," Saitama said, making a shoving motion back toward the cruiser. "I've just gotta find Genos and talk him out of this. I'm the only one who needs to get busted."

"We're not leaving you," Mumen said, Garou nodding along with him.

Before Saitama could try arguing, a weird sound like a huge piece of fabric being ripped sent the trees -- and Garou -- shuddering.

"They're taking off," he said, and they all looked in time to see one of the black craft lift off the ground, then shimmer into what looked like heat haze.

"Invisibility cloak, cool," Saitama said absently. "Wait, dammit, do you think Genos is on that thing?"

"If that was his plan? Yeah. Or he already got caught, but I think they'd have delayed the launch." Garou pointed again. "There's another ship that looks prepped. Maybe he isn't on the other one?"

"Another ship. Okay, that's- I can work with that." Saitama straightened up and squared his shoulders. "Go back to the car."

"Not a chance," Garou said, at the same time Mumen said, "Absolutely not."

"I might not be coming back," Saitama said. "And if I don't, someone has to tell my sister I'm sorry." He looked at Garou. "And someone has to take care of Mumen while he does it. Or, you know, forever."

Garou grabbed Mumen's hand.

"What are you going to do?" Mumen asked.

Saitama looked back at the black suits standing guard. At the head of green hair nearly level with a patch of shrubs. "Something really stupid."

Getting on board the ship was almost disappointing in how simple it was. Genos moved from tree to tree while watching the agents on guard make polite greetings with Borosian diplomats. There were a few boxes dropped off, and then the prisoners were carefully herded from one ship to the other.

And then, while everyone was paying attention to the main entrance, Genos climbed a tree and slipped into the airlock at the other end.

The fore airlocks were usually used to load the landing ships while in space, but it would be foolish to have an entrance that only worked in one environment. Genos had to break the door to get in... but he could survive in a vacuum for longer than even the enhanced security forces.

It didn't end up being necessary. Genos waited a few minutes for the crew to prepare for launch, then activated the inner lock and found an empty room to hide until it was too late.

It was already too late for Genos. It didn't matter how sick he felt, or how this plan would inevitably end in his death. It was too late, and he tucked himself in a corner and hugged his bag of supplies to his chest throughout the takeoff.

Five minutes to escape Earth's gravity. Ten minutes to join with the mothership. Fifteen to wait for the second ship. And another ten to be sure the hanger was empty.

He'd spent so long like this; sitting in readiness for combat to begin, transit from his cell to a battle and back again. Hurry up and wait, Saitama called it. It was almost comforting in its familiarity.

When his sensors no longer detected anyone on the lander, Genos broke out the same way he'd come in and saw the equally familiar sight of a mothership's hanger. Dozens of landers identical to this one in neat rows. A complete squadron of strikers, designed for short-distance space combat, all of them looking fresh off the assembly line. Given that the Borosians had been prioritizing ground combat for as long as Genos had been serving, he would be surprised if the things were fueled up. He wouldn't be surprised if they weren't even functional. They were for show, for the off chance the Earthlings insisted on accompanying the prisoners this far.

What wasn't for show was the far aft end of the hanger, furthest from the launching bay. Here the rows were still neat, but they couldn't help but look disorganized. After all, when you had a personal cruiser from Io next to a M'Cabe ambulance next to a Poseidon emergency pod, what you were left with was a jumble. Every mothership Genos had ever been on - which wasn't many, granted - had a collection of captured ships like this. It was how he'd managed to escape, four months ago. The crew forgot that M'Cabe speeders had internal power sources, but Genos didn't. Genos didn't.

That was the reason it didn't survive Genos' rough landing, of course. The ambulance would have a safer engine. Of the ships here now, only the Poseidon emergency pod would be ready to go at any moment, and Genos couldn't read enough Poseidon to pilot it.

Not that he was planning on leaving.

He could detect the mother's crew through the walls and floor, hundreds of them on a ship this big. Could he kill them all? It would have to be quick, and guerrilla style, and he couldn't falter even for a moment. With any luck they wouldn't be prepared for him, they wouldn't have the right weapons to hurt him.

Genos took a breath, and palmed the release for the door.

It was really sad how easy it had been to sneak on the ship. Saitama would almost suspect nobody actually cared whether anything bad happened to the Borosian prisoners...

Tatsumaki accepted a vague promise of a favor as a bribe, and used her powers to pop open the back - or rather, top - entrance of the ship. While she drew the attention of the other agents by making a show of wishing good riddance to the entire Borosian contingent, Saitama scrambled up the disguise casing of another ship and jumped inside. Then he shut the door firmly and hoped this wasn't going to get him killed.

As soon as they took off, buyer's remorse set in. Saitama was in a spaceship going god knows where and all he had as far as a plan was "find Genos and get him to chill." The acceleration of takeoff wasn't too bad, but it got uncomfortably hot after a couple minutes, and surprisingly cold a little bit after, and Saitama didn't dare look out the little window in the door. He'd never been bothered by heights... but he'd never left the planet before.

The trip didn't take long. About fifteen minutes according to his phone. He was only half an hour behind the other ship, and surely he couldn't do that much damage in thirty minutes (at least, so Saitama kept telling himself, despite the destruction he'd seen Genos cause on the firing range).

Once the proper gravity came back and various engine and machinery sounds stopped, Saitama took a cautious look outside. All he saw was a wall in some kind of purpley-gray metal, which Saitama took as a good sign.

He kicked the door off, the sound of it confirming the floor was metal too. When all that clatter wasn't greeted with shouting or shots, Saitama jumped down to join it.

He was in a huge room, big as a sports stadium, or even bigger, full of more shiny black tubes and little pointy ones that looked like origami. Far at the opposite end was a bunch of shapes in different colors and, more importantly, scorch marks on the floor. Genos had definitely gone that way.

Saitama thanked whoever was listening that he had good enough eyesight to see them this far away and sprinted down the center runway. The marks were small but scattered in a wide arc, as if they'd originated from one spot. Say, a doorway.

A few of the small (by comparison) ships had been hit too. Saitama glanced at a couple of them, unable to recognize anything other than windshields on most of them, but one caught his eye. Shimmery white, vaguely egg-shaped, with big doors on either side labeled with emergency signs. It looked familiar, and Saitama couldn't put his finger on it, until he noticed the same blue "calming" lights from Garou's secret hideout. They still made Saitama itch.

If that was a Poseidon ship, were all these mismatched ones stolen? How many enemies did the Borosians have?

Saitama pushed the thought out of his head and followed the ballistics of the scorch marks to a bit of wall that looked different than the rest. There wasn't any obvious way to open it, so Saitama simply kicked it out the same way he had with the airlock.

There was more evidence of fighting here, more scorching, and dents in the walls where the paint had flaked away. The floor was covered in soft rubber, which had melted here and there. Saitama was pretty sure he saw a handprint that looked the right size to be Genos.

Now he could hear shouting in the same language he'd heard that night back in October, not to mention whenever Genos had a flashback. Saitama followed the voices, until he almost tripped over a figure.

It was one of the Borosians. More importantly, it was a Borosian Saitama knew. The same cyborg goat legs (one of which was torn off at the backward knee) and purple skin with oddly geometric lines on the cheeks. If Saitama hadn't been sure, the fact that he took one look at Saitama and said something with the cadence of a swear would have confirmed it. This was the same Borosian Saitama knocked out and stole the laser gun from that night.

"So they let you go straight off," Saitama said.

The Borosian just glared at him, clutching his ruined thigh.

"I know you speak Japanese, you told me to stop that night, remember?"

The Borosian narrowed his eyes. Two of them, though Saitama didn't know if they were real or cybernetic. "What you want. Help the weapon?"

"No. I'm here to stop him."

The Borosian made a clicking sound that reminded Saitama of a scoff.

"Really! I'm his friend and I don't want him to get hurt. Or hurt anybody else."

The Borosian gestured at his leg. "Late."

"Yeah I noticed that." Saitama looked down the hall. He could see a couple more fallen soldiers, but all of them were sitting up and tending to wounds or damage. Genos had incapacitated them and moved on, he hadn't killed anyone. "Listen do you guys have like, a PA system?"

The Borosian stared at him blankly.

"Um, like a radio? Like something where I can broadcast my voice to wherever Genos is."

"You want talk to it?"

Saitama scowled, and saw the Borosian go pale. "Him. I want to talk to him."

"Him. Yes. I help you." He waved a hand at Saitama, who took it and helped him to his feet. Well, foot. "No tricks?" the Borosian said suspiciously.

"That's my line."

[next]

#one punch man #saigenos #genosai #opm au #saitama x genos #mib au #batfics

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