corrinesbell | 138. Turning [voice/action]

138. Turning [voice/action]

Hey.

I think...it's over. I mean I think- uh, I guess I hope everything's over. Or at least most of the bad stuff, anyway. It's never really over around here.

If anybody wants to fill me in on the stuff that went on in the village after the decoys went to their stations...or, uh...if you wanna be filled in, too. [She intends for that to sound ordinary, so ordinary, but to catch the attentions of the right people.] Anyway I wanna hear about whose houses are having trouble and stuff like that. I'll be back at work this afternoon. Assuming it's still in one piece, I haven't been up there.

[True to her word, and despite a couple of broken windows and some water damage, Sheena does indeed return to the Tea Shop after lunch and gets it ready for anybody who needs or wants to come in. She won't be there as long as usual - four hours, tops.

Surely people are curious enough to want to know - if only what it was like to be stuck in a submarine. She expects to be joined by an employee or two, too!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh that's right he's a pirate.

Eh. They're not all bad. She pauses to start writing before realizing she needs to say something back.]

I don't mind the water and waves and stuff. ...Was the draft that bad?

[The handwriting is shaky but readable: "I think it's good here. But we could go outside or something."]

... yes. They faced the General. And the environment was much harsher than what they usually face.

[Once he gets back the pen and notebook, it doesn't take long for a reply to be written back.

Outside, please.

I'm sorry, I don't trust the building for sensitive conversations. It's Malnosso built. It's likely bugged.

He's a paranoid pirate on a ninja scale you see.]

[A soft whistle. The General. Again.] Sounds worse than I was picturing.

[She gets up, nodding to him to take the front door. The implication is that she will meet him outside. Then she can henpeck him for thinking she didn't look all through the tea shop for recording devices.]

Sorry you can't stay.

Yeah. It was brutal.

[You will not find the bugs if they are shifted, he will point out.]

There's a lot of work to be done still. Unfortunately, a small break is all I can afford.

Thank you for the tea.

[He nods, and gets up, taking his sword, and sways slightly on the spot like he's so tired he can't think straight.

... and takes the teacup too so she will have a reason to chase after him.]

No problem.

[She saw that.

Retreating into the kitchen, she'll wait until she hears the bell again. When she does, Law will catch a muted "took my cup with him" and he has several seconds to get down the stairs before she catches him. With how slowly she's forced to move, and all.]

[Of course, it was purposeful. He sends back a muted 'whut?' as he escapes out the building to a short visible distance falling next to a copse of trees.

Where he will offer back the teacup with an apologetic look.]

Sorry about the grand theft teacup just now.

[Did we mention paranoid?]

D'you know how many of those things I have? Keep it if you want.

...Can we sit?

Aaa... thanks.

[Tucking the teacup away. Because he couldn't have enough teacups.]

Of course.

[Here's a conveniently placed fallen log.]

[Don't let anybody tell you she doesn't at least try to take care of herself. The way she sinks onto that log is pretty worn-out and heavy.]

...Who wants to go first?

I will.

[Sinking down himself. He's not as tired as he made it appear in the teashop, but he's still very worn.]

I know you know by now that Mister Bil woke up and died. I was with him the entire time during that. There were negotiations. Both for immediate and long term things.

One of the prices for our help was his help in stopping the droids. The immediate price. He said he could come up with a way to halt the original droids. The newer models would take longer.

He told us a little about the droids. The original model we're used to has been used by the Organization for a century. Based on the ratio of originals versus the new models used in the raid, he thinks the process to built the new model is a rather difficult one.

But we saw a lot more of those newer ones. [She didn't like it. Something about them ruffles her proverbial (and literal) feathers.] They kept working even when the power to the building shut down.

... internal power source?

[He looks disturbed. A damned army of those things.]

Maybe they sent more originals than the newer models to throw us off on their exact capabilities. Did you hear anything about them?

We saw them.

[If Law knew anything personal about her, he'd recognize the sudden and distant look in her eyes. Chances are he does not, though, and so the way she stares off at nothing isn't much of a clue at all.]

They...ugh, it was like...a factory? ...They've got brains, I think. [And her head falls forward into her hands.] Real ones. Like us. ...It looked like that anyway.

...

[Horror.

And it stirs a memory.

He knows what this IS.

Was faced with it in his world. An imperfect model.]

Pacifista.

They are making Pacifista. Or something very much like it.

I dunno what that means.

[But just about everything in her posture is defeated now. Of course she'd remembered that before. Telling someone about it is different.]

[Quietly and subdued:]

On my world, Pacifista are cyborgs. Made from the corpses of criminals and machinery combined. They are given appearances that are psychologically terrifying and imbued with others' powers. [Namely Kizaru's]

They are horrifying to face.

[Sounds like it. ...It sounds almost as bad as slowly turning over your soul to a sentient rock and then being trapped inside of it forever.]

We couldn't beat them.

No. Not today we could.

... there is always tomorrow. Everything has a weakness, and there is no telling what a new day will bring.

Yeah. I know all that stuff.

[One very long breath later and she sits up again, successfully not having some kind of visceral flashback for once.]

But they didn't get him. So it worked.

It worked. And it might bring better things for the village. One of the long term things asked for was better relations.

That might include an eventual crack at Shifting technology.

...Really?

[All kinds of emotions are at war in just one word. It's easier to keep looking at the ground.]

Better be careful. Some people'd just let all their ambition get away from them.

... yeah. Aside from the people involved, I'm not sure if that should be put to the village at large just yet. I know what kind of mixed response that's going to bring. Aside from the ambitions it will draw out.

And there's nothing set in stone.

[He stares at a tree. He does not like it himself. But. They have tried so much, and though it is distasteful, it is a valid option.]

But honestly, I can't think of another long term fallback for the village should escape attempts continue to fail. We honestly can't remain in the position we are. We're just reacting to things that come along, mainly. Not that it's easy to do anything but react.

That's what you do when you're somebody's experiment.

[If she could have, she probably would have spat somewhere in there. It was as mocking and cold as she is capable of being while this tired. Someone's a bit jaded, Law.]

"Escape" attempts are halfhearted anyway. The more effort we put into it, the more we get punished.

...

[They've practically crushed you, haven't they?

A snap assessment, but he feels there's truth there, even though the thought on second glance isn't accurate.

He knows that Sheena's among the oldest residents. There's another horror right there. If he hits four-five years... will he be as beaten down as she now looks. So it makes him pause as he searches exactly how to reply to that.]

Edited 2012-07-04 05:14 (UTC)

[She's very tired. (A recent string of head injuries and then this whole Bil and draft and decoy thing - beginning in April as it did - haven't helped matters at all.) In more ways than she can register she is tired, but especially in her mind. All the fighting and being kidnapped and "experimented on" which is really some kind of pet name for torture and humiliation and then meeting, learning to like and losing so many people, all the comings and goings, and yet she is herself stationary, in the same house she first woke up in on this forsaken starless world.

It wears you out. More than the journey to save Sylvarant and Tethe'alla ever could. At least there, they had progress. Something she thought they could actually achieve, shaky though it was.

Then one of Sheena's hands makes a fist and she scowls. Being shaky is no excuse. If she stops believing they're making progress, then they win. No way.]

I'm tired of being somebody's experiment.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject