Love and Hate

It was morning when Marvin and the five troopers came back from roaming the forest and working the Demon System on their end. They seemed to be much more coherent and had a spark to their eyes now that they had something to focus on.

It was just in time too, as jeeps were being gathered out in front and the Overlord's group along with Jasmine was starting to head out.

The ghouls followed them through the jungle.

Right before they reached the hanging bridge at the foot of Myson Mountains, Luis tapped into Blake's consciousness.

"Hey. Bro. How close are you to the Holy City?"

"We're at the hanging bridge."

"Okay so you're super close. Listen. The Overlord is going to be heading into the Holy City. Don't follow him in there."

"Wait." Blake frowned. "Aren't you and the nuns and monk there right now?"

"No way. The Holy City isn't really an occupied area. It's the ruins of a huge temple complex with almost a hundred temples that used to exist there over a thousand years ago."

"So where are you now?"

"The nuns and monk are at one of the nearby hotels. Nobody goes around there at night because it's a UNESCO protected site."

He sniffed with disdain.

"Unfortunately, the warlocks don't have any qualms about wandering around there and setting up bonfires and such for their dancing amusement."

"Why shouldn't I go with them? I need to keep an eye on Jasmine to make sure she's okay." Blake muttered.

"Man. There's a very strong warlock who is there right now. His name is Tong Li. He's blind, but he can most definitely see you. If you and your boys go near him, he will turn you into feed stock for his kept demons."

"Fine. We'll stay outside of the Holy City site."

Blake was not afraid of the warlock but he had five ghouls plus Marvin to worry about. For some strange reason, he felt responsible for their well-being. The idea of them turning into food for the demons was abhorrent to him.

After Luis disengaged with him, Blake went looking for Marvin. The six ghouls were hovering above the tree line on the other side of the hanging vine foot bridge waiting for the group of travelers to make their slow way across the raging river.

As he got closer, he could hear them singing and clapping their hands. It was Marvin, showing off his gravelly jazz and blues voice to the group. He sounded like a professional singer.

"Hey listen up Blake!" Marvin called out with excitement.

"We got here a drummer without any drums," he pointed to Bob who was banging a perfect rhythm using his hands and his knees.

"That one is a guitar player except we got no guitar." He pointed to Ralph next to the drummer.

"And this guy," he indicated at Johnny, "is a piano player." His face fell. "Except we got no piano."

"We got no bass player either." Ralph spoke up.

"Yeah we do." Marvin guffawed. "Blakey-boy here is top of the line, first rate bass player."

Ralph perked up.

"Oh man. We could have a band right here if we had actual instruments!"

"Blake, show them yours." Marvin grinned, his yellow teeth looking quite a bit less yellow than before. In fact, he was starting to look less funky as he regained some of his humanity by simply interacting with the five army men.

Blake reached into his bag and pulled out his Ovation.

"Oh sweet!" Ralph whistled. "Where did you get this gorgeous beauty?"

"I grabbed her before I left LA."

"It's a female bass?" Will gasped. "I didn't know instruments could have a gender."

"Not only does she have a gender," Blake smiled and gently stroked the Ovation's lime green body. "She's also got a name. Her name is Margarita."

"Sweet." Will nodded, impressed. "Can we hear how Margarita sounds like?"

In response, Blake began to thump out a riff that he had been working on a few days before he died. Then he began walking the bass around, playing it as if he was still with his jazz band and Jazzie was still fronting them onstage.

It was a joy to be able to just stop the world for awhile and lose himself in his music. He had almost forgotten how amazing it was to create beautiful music.

As he played, he looked up.

All the ghouls had tears in their eyes. It had been such a long time that they had been able to hear any kind of decent music.

Blake grimaced. Although bass was his first instrument, he also knew how to play guitar and mandolin. The kind of music these guys were pining for would have been easier to pull of with those instruments.

"I wish you could hear Jasmine sing. She's got a beautiful voice." Blake sighed. "Maybe we can find some instruments for you guys…" he trailed off as Marvin shook his head.

"They can't pick up any instruments dude. You're the only poltergeist in the group."

"Maybe I can show you how to pick up stuff." Blake suggested hopefully.

Marvin gave him a desultory look.

"Man, you know how long I've been trying to do some poltergeisty stuff? Decades. Literally decades!" He reached out and batted at a tree branch. His hand went right through it.

Blake stared at Marvin. He reached out and snapped the branch off the tree. As the men all gazed on with astonishment, Blake turned and handed it over to Bob who reached out and took the branch.

"I can try to teach you men how to do this. Start with a pebble or a stick. If you still cannot do it, I may be able to snag an instrument for you guys."

Marvin shook his head.

"Man, they don't have a lot of green energy to be wasting it trying to pick up rocks and sticks."

"Then use red energy, Marvin."

"Red energy? What's that?"

Blake blinked. Was this guy serious?

"You've been killing people all this time and you don't know what red energy is? For each person you kill, you're supposed to get ten red energy points."

Marvin shook his head.

"Man, while I was under the Overlord's control, I was a killer for hire. He took all the red points that I earned. I ain't got even one."

Blake sighed. Reaching into his red energy bar, he threw five red points at each of them.

"There you go. Start with these. To use them, you have to tap deep into your positive energy." He turned to the men.

"Think about your music. How much you loved to play your instruments. And then pick up a pebble under your foot." He pointed to the river pebbles that were all around them.

The men raised their eyebrows. They had long known that there was nothing in this world they could touch, but Blake had just broken a branch off the tree.

Reaching down, they began an earnest effort to pick up a pebble. Grunting and groaning, they tried and tried. Nobody was able to do something that Blake had so easily done.

He sighed

"Think about your wife, your girlfriend, your mom." He tried again.

BAM!

Two guys swatted a pebble and it went bouncing into the river.

Will and Sergeant Tom gasped. They were the ones who had actually been able to touch the stones.

"Wife or girlfriend?"

"Mom." They both answered.

Seeing their success, the men kept trying until they were at least able to bat a stone or nudge it to some level.

Marvin scratched his jaw and heaved a sigh. He had been trying alongside the men as well but hadn't had any luck so far.

"Think of your wife, Marvin." Blake suggested.

"I'm not married." Marvin gave him a pained look.

"Then think about your girlfriend or mom."

"Man, ain't no girl wanna be with me. And it's not gonna work with my mom either."

"You don't love her?"

Marvin's glared at Blake.

"No man. I hated her! She beat the tar out of me every day until I finally ran away from home. The day she died, I didn't even bother to come back for the funeral."

"Then use that hate and slap that stone." Blake pointed to the stone in front of Marvin.

With growl of hatred, Marvin slapped at the stone.

It went skipping into the river.

As Marvin pulled back his hand, rubbing at where it made impact, his eyes grew incredulous.

"So that's how you do it."

Blake chuckled.

"See. You can do it too, but keep in mind, since you're using all the negative energies, like hate and anger, you're going to be using up your green power."

Marvin's eyes narrowed.

"All I got is green. I'm out from under Anh Hai but until I kill someone, I won't be getting any red energy soon." He looked at the five red energy points Blake gave him.

"I can't even use these five points you gave me. Know why?" He laughed. "I don't love nobody and nobody loves me."