(( Taji stuff written with Wilson, Atomos stuff written with Salt. ))
"So." Larion continued. Mind if I come in?" he asked, Atomos giving him a wary look before nodding, letting him in to talk in private. He took a seat, seemingly taking a moment to prepare himself. "I'm not going to speak for the captain here. Much of what she's done was wrong, either from the start or in hindsight. I can...understand some of it, starting out. But not for continuing to keep things from you. And from the rest of us." he said.
Jennifer was still visibly irritated, and as she listened for the moment, she found it hard not to say something out of anger at first, but afterward she finally spoke up. "You really think she had a good reason to begin with? Look at how things went, this cover-up nonsense. How the world went to hell and it wasn't even remotely prepared for it." she said, a particular bitterness apparent in her tone of voice.
Larion nodded at that. "Hence why I said, in hindsight." he said, before giving a sigh. His expression had soured, notable less stoic as he looked down, and his next response was a bit more quiet. "It's hard to imagine it anymore, isn't it? Things being normal back then, before all this happened. Before zero day. Let alone what life would be like now, if all this had been prevented. Stopped before it even started, or at least soon enough things could go back to normal. Am I right, or is it just me?"
Atomos shuffled the photos piled on her desk and moved them into neat piles separating Polaroids, small 3x5s, and numerous portrait shots. From where he stood, Larion could barely make out the faces on them. Family photos, vacation photos, selfies, landscapes. Windows into the world of yesterday, memories pilfered and saved by the ranger.
"It's not hard to imagine. If it is, it's only because of all the time we spent in the vault..." She said, then gestured vaguely towards the foyer and the cafeteria, "all that out there... That's the new normal. Those people out there. Mutated and unmutated, farming like medieval peasants and working together. Can you really say it's not normal? I mean, people living life? This is the new normal. Captains motives though... I don't care for them. My father said that there is a mentality in government and especially the military that believes in covering up before anything else, even if it's far too late and covering up would just harm them."
She offered Larion a handful of cake. The chef had brought it by the day before, a luxury of milk and eggs and butter lavished upon the centers favorite hunter.
"I don't like being lied to Larion. I don't like languishing in a concrete tomb for seven years while strange things happen to my body. When you mix them together though... Do you even know what a relief it would have been to know the truth?" She stopped and thought about it, "No, actually it wouldn't have been. I wouldn't have understood what the report Captain tried to give me meant back then like I do now..."
Larion gave a little sigh at that, looking away a bit. "I suppose it makes sense, this is...normal. But it's not what we envisioned back in the day. All this death, things like God's Army, the shit going on back west...intel is out president died alongside SPD-X, and they're the reason this place isn't a fungal hellhole." he said.
"And you're right. There's a mentality that does more harm than good. But there's always a reason for why it starts, sometimes a good one. A year into it, she should've come clean. But back when we thought maybe, just maybe, we could stop all this from happening...this wouldn't have been the new normal." he said. "You didn't have to listen to scientists musing on inhumane experiments as though their subjects...no, victims were nothing but animals. Imagine the worst excesses you saw in God's Army during your time in Abaddon, and now imagine a world were mutants and augs are just a handful of victims of circumstance, and not a part of the populace, an unavoidable fact of life." he said, before rather bluntly continuing.
"They would've treated you like nothing but an animal, a scientific curiosity. Something to dissect. No sane officer wants to be to blame for someone under their command suffering that sort of fate. Now imagine having that hanging over your head, and tell me you could say it to their face that no matter what happens, all that sense of normalcy we spent the past decade before zero day hoping for will be just out of their reach. If all this went just a bit differently, she'd have to tell you that your family and friends are living comfortably and you'd never be allowed to see them again. Could you do that to someone?" he asked.
Jennifer was shocked by this, trying at first to respond, before looking away. "No. But that doesn't excuse not telling me after all this..." she said, and Larion nodded. "You're right. It doesn't. I only agree with why she started this deception and bullshit, not why it continued..."
"I'm only arguing against continuing the lies." Atomos said, spicing the statement with a pinch of bitterness, "I can't afford to care about why it started in the first place... She could have at least let the others in on it..."
Larion pinched his nose and screwed his eyes up before releasing the expression and saying, rather tersely, "They were never afraid of you Jennifer, knowing what was going on with you wouldn't have made them change their opinions because you already had their support. You aren't the only marine who survived down there. You spent all that time trying to distance yourself because you assumed we were afraid, just... Stop. Not every tribulation in the vault was a result of Catalina's not telling you about all this. Thinking like that is... It's... It's terribly self indulgent!"
Jennifer's tail curled around the base of her chair nervously and dropped her head. He was right, of course. Maybe she was being unfair to the Captain, taking all the stress of her trip and releasing all in a single direction for a selfish reason. What did it really matter that she'd been changed and it had been covered up now? Years later, and she'd lived life until finding out perfectly fine. She'd lived her life after the accident in the vault under a thickly veiled layer of fear, willfully unaware that there were people who would hold her up. With the realization, both glorious and terrible in it's ramifications, made Jennifer felt something slip. Somewhere deep in her soul, Cheena felt it too. The last chains of Astor's curse turning to rust and slipping away.
There was a long silent pause in which the only sounds were those of people going about their lives like they did every day and the low buzz of the centers budget ventilation system. Then, Jenny began to cry.
Larion didn't say anything at first, letting her reflect on this stroke of realization, but he remained there, calm and not showing any anger on his face despite the preceding outburst. He let her for a moment before speaking up. "We're here for you. All of us. Even me." he said calmly, before perking up a bit. She'd offered him a slice of cake, and in their argument he initially left the plate sitting at the table, finally deciding to try it now that things had calmed down a bit.
Solomon had been following behind, off to one side to screen for any undead still in the woods, when Liam had set upon the first bunch they encountered. Hearing the gunfire and and pop of magical flames, he activated his mask and shouldered the wraithslayer.
He had, on occasion the past couple of months, attempted hunting using his mask. Compared to how it was without the mask, it was in many ways a breathtaking experience. He could sense his way through every obstacle, picking up on life in all directions, even right behind him. But at the same time it carried challenges of its own. The mask's sight limited his vision to about 50 meters at most, and on occasion he lost quarry due to a lesson his brother taught him, years ago: the first step to crossbow hunting starts well outside of crossbow range.
The undead won't flee if they notice you first, however. And as he worked his way through the treeline, he spotted a couple of stragglers among the underbrush. Another thing that came to his mind was that he hadn't loosed a bolt at the undead in quite some time. Only really during the early days, before they found out that the undead weren't all that fazed by a single crossbow bolt.
The sound was barely noticeable, far quieter than the snap of a crossbow, modern or replica. Nor did he feel the vibrations from the movement of the prod, as it remained perfectly still. But what drew his attention was the brilliant bolt of green light, lancing out from the weapon and piercing right through the shambling figure that stumbled out into the open. It staggered, lurching forward from a wound that ripped a fist-sized hole through it, an expanding plume of green flames stripping bark from the tree behind it.
It didn't stop of course, nor did the horribly-decayed undead following alongside it, but he found the energy flowing into the weapon to be quite a lot faster than reloading his usual weapon of choice, and the follow-up shot blew the lead undead's head clean from its shoulders.
For the second, he circled around, pushing past to keep up with the others and ensure he'd see if any other undead were in the way, to continue screening the woods for the others, and a point-blank shot from the wraithslayer blew the second zombie's left leg out from under it, reducing it to crawling after him. Enough that he decided to leave it there and catch up with the others.
When he broke out into the clearing behind them he lowered the weapon and gave a wave, deactivating the mask and removing it. He'd swept his masked gaze over the lot and found only a slightly-familar presence, that of Alexei. The mask alone wasn't enough to betray Salazar's true nature. "Sure everyone's alright? I brought medical supplies if needed." he answered, before looking back. "Nothing else in this part of the woods at least, except for one of the older undead that'll crawl along eventually. Not a threat now at least."
Hector, meanwhile, had pushed ahead past The Hall after checking with Helen. He'd yet to tell her about his reunion with Roxanne, having more pressing matters to deal with. He figured that Liam and the others were able to deal with the sounds they heard elsewhere, so instead he went with pushing deeper into the woods to catch any other undead before they reached the bridge or The Hall.
And find them he did, running into at first a couple stragglers that had been following the distant sound, decaying undead that were more easily dealt with. It wasn't long before he was humming a tune as he backpedaled, driving the undead to stagger themselves and get caught up on underbrush, the better to cut them down one by one. It wasn't his usual tune he was humming, something else entirely, Latin rather than the only Middle High German he knew.
"Sancte Deus, sancte fortis..." As his blade opened the ribcage of some vaguely-humanoid monster, skin dried and grown over with spare bony plates, another creature lunged at him from the underbrush, another of the undead seemingly adapted to moving on all fours like an animal. It knocked him off-balance, skidding and clambering to try and snatch at the kite shield that it slammed into, only for the knight to roll with it, sending them both to the ground. As he jabbed at the feral undead with his sword, something caught him by the shoulder, a bony limb stretching with the tension of unnatural muscles, yanking back with enough force that he was pulled back up and dragged towards another abomination. It had spindly long arms, hunched over with its other limb cocked back in a way that would be quite reminiscent of Mica's peculiar ability, had he ever witnessed her use it.
It pulled him in, only to be met with a hard slam from his shield, but that alone wasn't enough to break its grip, the knight instead using it as leverage to keep it at bay, as the creature fumbled with trying to bite into the hardened plate armor. He hacked at it, carving open deep wounds before his blade caught the arm that had ensnared him, sending a twitching, thrashing limb splaying out as all that tension in the muscles were released by its severance.
He was in the middle of stabbing at the creature, pushing it away when the creature that pounced him earlier struck him again, sending him stumbling into the now one-armed undead and bowling it over. Claws and fangs frantically scrabbled at steel, until Hector regained his footing and tensed up. Augmented muscles drove him backwards, step by step until he slammed right into a treetrunk, causing the creature clinging to his back to give a hiss and loosen its grip. In an instant Hector pulled away, turning on his heel and going from a high guard to powerful slash that opened the creature up from shoulder to hip.
It wasn't long afterward that he turned to finish off the grappler zombie that lunged its other limb out to snare him, letting it skid off his shield to close in and lop the other arms off, followed by cleaving its head open. Suddenly, he gave a pained shout as a bolt of lightning arced around him, mostly flowing through the armor and all around him, yet still paining him at every spot where metal was near the skin. The cause was a stumbling figure, decaying flesh exposing old bionics, a few spots revealing bare wires and an old power cell. He lunged at the creature, shrugging off the pain and closing in, shouting in pain and anger as he felt the jolt from his blade cleaving its neck open. At first it didn't even topple over, even with the head little hanging by a few wires and a strip of flesh, before faltering bionics went slack, the zombie going limp before him.
By now he was working his way closer to the edge of the treeline, checking for more signs of stragglers in the woods, but so far he saw little else. It was as he neared the treeline however, that he saw something up ahead. There was a figure there, kneeling over a mangled undead body. Much like the one he encountered earlier, the creature had been heavily augmented, seemingly put down at some point during the fighting then dragged off by the stranger. The kneeling figure was clearly heavily augmented, to the point where the artificial skin covering what little was exposed gave it an almost robot appearance. The uniform was old, tattered and seemed to be a mish-mash of Army and Marine equipment, a peculiar combination that was uniquely suspicious. The faded shoulder patch and badge affixed underneath confirmed it.
The patch bore the emblem of some sort of boat and a solar symbol, with the Roman numerals VII. The silver badge meanwhile was something he hadn't seen in a long time, not since they took on the lab Apophis had taken over. The other thing that stood out was its left hand, a frayed, tangled mess of dried flesh, artificial bones, and wires, most of which were hooked up to the slain augmented zombie. As soon as it noticed the knight it whirled around, raising a pistol linked to its right arm with a thin cable, and the sharp crack of laser fire resounded.
The heat was painful, conducting through the whole of his cuirass, though the laser pistol alone wasn't adequate to damage the temper of the steel, nor to do him much harm. His eyes stung a bit already, even though he wasn't looking down at where he'd been struck at that moment. He raised his shield out of reflex, another laser beam striking it and stripping the paint from the strange ivory surface.
He rushed at the strange cybernetic zombie, another shot narrowly missing his head in an attempt to shoot past the shield, demonstrating a peculiar intelligence to the creature, before it swayed and sidestepped the slash he opened up with. In the exchange, though his shield forced its pistol hand aside to keep himself out of its line of fire, its other limb lashed out at him, wires and cables seeming to writhe and move of their own accord, directed by whatever bionics controlled them.
He'd only narrowly moved to avoid getting prodding cables in the eyeslits of his helm, instead feeling a jolt of pain as they arced and sparked across the steel, and raked at his neck in an attempt to jab at any exposed spot. In turn he stabbed at it, piercing through the tattered uniform, meeting minimal resistance from artificial skin covering desiccated flesh, only to feel another shock as he pierced something that sent the creature convulsing. A quick snap kick drove its leg out from under it, only for sparking wires to snake around his neck and drag him down as well.
The two scrabbled and struggled for a moment, Hector soon enough pinning it down and cracking its left arm with a hard slam with the edge of his shield, managing to free himself from its grasp. He practically jumped to his feet, frantically stomping it in a nearly berserk fury, its neck giving a crunch as his armored boot came down, again and again until the twitching augmented zombie ceased moving. He knelt, making certain it was so thoroughly damaged that it'd fail to get back up, before yanking the small silver emblem from its sleeve.
As he limped back down the road towards the farm, he'd sheathed his sword and slung the shield over his back by its guige strap, helm removed as he examined his injures. His neck was bleeding from several scratches, stopping briefly to take particular care of the shallow marks and electrical burns. With the adrenaline fading, the aches of all those shocks and strikes were now readily apparent, taking particular care of what injuries he could before returning to the farm, tossing an empty bottle back into his medical pouch, once half-full of some antiseptic concoction Helen had cooked up.
Pastor John Luke was there to greet them, giving a nod to Bigby as he approached. “Got a couple visitors here to stay a while, led by a friend of Taji’s.” he remarked, and the pastor nodded. “I see. And the troublemakers Heather mentioned?” Maya simply smirked a bit. “Bunch of gopniki he had trouble with, it seems. They won’t cause any further problems.” John simply hmmed a bit, giving a polite nod to Nashio as he stepped out of the van.
Nashio nodded back as he opened the cube van, assisting several women out along with a man dressed in formal wear stepped down from inside. The girls were dressed in classy dresses, either bright neon club dresses, or something cutesy with one of the mutants, a mothgirl, Among the group was a woman with augmented legs, rather clearly designed to mimic a human appearance yet with overt joints, just enough artificial structure to not look like an unsettling imitation.
The pastor gave the group of hostesses an odd look, before looking back at Nashio. “A friend of Tajima? Well, it’s nice to meet you. How about we head inside?” Nashio nodded, “‘Course. Lets go.” He said, and the two went inside the church to have a talk.
Meanwhile back at Heather’s place, she was already further tending to Taji’s injuries, promptly giving him a kiss. “Promise me you won’t get into trouble like that again...” she said, sighing a bit. “Or at least won’t tell me to run off while you take on a dozen armed men alone.” Tajima was surprised at the kiss, but at her second comment, Taji gave a small, pained chuckle. “No promises, can't have you getting hurt… besides, I think Nashio wants a ‘talk’ later.” He joked, patting Heather's head.
Heather grumbled a bit at that, giving him a firm poke in the side, confident enough that his ribs had been bruised but not broken. “He’s going to have to wait then, not much of a ‘talk’ when one of you is all bruised up already.” she pointed out. Taji winced a bit at that, “I’ve had fights with worse wounds, I’ll be fine. Who knows, it might be an actual talk…” He said, sighing as he reclined back on the chair he was sitting in.
Heather grumbled a bit at that, only for there to be a knock on the door. Jacob shouted from outside the door, “Hello?! Tajima?! I got something for you! Heard you like baseball!” He continued, knocking again. Heather followed Taji as he went over to answer the door, seeing Jacob there smiling wide. “What’d you have in mind?” Jacob clapped his hands together, “I fixed up an old pitching machine, aaaand your pirate friend mentioned that you two used to go to a batting cage together.” The man in the wheelchair explained, gesturing wheeling backwards and gesturing towards the old park, with a baseball field.
Tajima hmmed a bit at that, glancing back over Heather, before nodding. “It’s been awhile, but I wouldn’t mind it. Has Aurelia been...you know, following him? Or stalking around here?” he asked, and Jacob shrugged. “Lady with the tits and the wings, an’ the blonde hair, right?” he asked, before chuckling. “Saw her chatting up the pirate fellow previously, don’t think she’s the baseball type though.” he said, before giving a sly grin.
“Think you’ve got yourself a little love triangle going on soon, with your one-eyed pal around now.” At that, Heather promptly facepalmed. “Given she was only there to help with those goons because she was stalking Taji, I think we have that part covered already...”
Nashio gave a wave as Tajima walked up, handing the trench-bat to Taji as he fussed with a remote. “[Oy, Just like old times, right?]” Nashi said in his native tongue, Tajima gave a nod. “[Yeah…]” He said, accepting the bat as Nashio turned on the pitching machine. A baseball was launched and it was sent flying. The pair was silent as they relaxed for a moment, and Taji simply batted. Nashio let out a sigh,
“[Tajima.]”
“‘Uh?”
“[Where were you?]”
“...”
“[Tajima.]”
“[I had a ‘job’. Zero day struck as it went down.]
“[Why didn’t you look for me?]”
“[I don’t- I don’t know.]”
Nashio glared hard as Tajima swung, another ball launched and Taji prepped to swing. Just as he was going to let it rip, Nashi barked at his friend. “[Horseshit!]” He shouted as he caught the baseball mid-air. The two stared hard at each other, as Taji let the bat hit the ground. “[I… didn’t want to see you dead if you got overwhelmed…]” Tajima admitted, as he dropped the club. He walked slowly into the field, as Nashio turned the pitching machine off. “[What’s the hold-up? The price of desertion is death, right? But kicking my ass is probably the next best thing.]” Tajima asked, Nashio let out a grunt at that. “[Well, we’re not gonna pull any punches then?]” He asked, and Taji smirked, “[Wouldn’t want it any other way.]”
As the two squared off, a few others watched from the sidelines, a bit wary of this. Donavan had been there, about to use the pitching machine as a good way to test some recent repairs to his augmentations. “Oh hell. You can’t be serious, Ta-aji...” he said, wincing at the momentary distortion in his voice. Aurelia meanwhile winced some. “Today, after what they just went through? You can’t be ser-” She was interrupted by Nashio unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it aside, Tajima following suit. “Nevermind. Let’s see where this goes...”
Nashio ran at Taji, cracking him across the jaw. He stumbled backwards, spitting the blood out of his mouth and going for a wide kick which Nashi slid under with a wide grin. With a twirl, he was back on his feet and going for another haymaker. Tajima caught the fist and stared hard at the eyepatched man in front of him as he swung his fist square in Nashio’s face. The Mad Oni stumbled backwards, into the fence behind the homebase. The Phoenix pinned him against the fence and punched him hard in the ribs, then cracked him twice across the jaw. Nashi held his arms up, raising a leg to kick Taji in the chest, which caused his ribs to flare up in pain.
Aurelia watched with an unnerving amusement, while Donny shook his head a bit. There weren’t any others there at the moment, but the cyborg suspected things would go south rapidly if one of the Shepard’s Wolves saw them up to this. “For fucks sa-ake, of *BZZT* the...” he grumbled, nudging Aurelia aside to step forward. “Come on, break it u-” He managed to get as far as setting a hand on Nashio’s shoulder after he’d driven Taji back, only for the Mad Oni to deftly slip out of his grasp and yank him off-balance, sending him toppling to the ground. “Come now, let an old friend have his fun...” Nashio said with a smirk, while Tajima looked down at Donny, seeing him stumbling back up, unharmed but now glaring daggers at the both of them. “I’ll be fine, Donny.”
As Donny backed off, the two tried to catch their breath. Nashio popped his neck as the two went back to it, circling each other like wolves. Nashi ran forward, going for a feinting kick, which Taji fell for and Nashio twirled the opposite direction, cracking him across the jaw with a roundhouse. The Phoenix fell to the ground, away from the fence as he felt something in his nose pop. Tajima let out a frustrated scream as he jumped to his feet, running at Nashio and jumping at him. He grabbed the Oni by his shoulders and brought his forehead to his opponent’s.
Heather had been heading over to check on Taji belatedly when she heard the scream, rushing in only to find, to her shock, the two of them trading blows and grappling with each other, shirtless at that. “What the...are you fucking kidding me!?” she said, facepalming at that, right up until Taji shifted and tensed up noticeably, sending Nashio stumbling backwards and nearly bowling him over. “I...oh.” Aurelia simply gave a fanged smile as she saw that. “Let them have their fun. I was going to step in if things got too heated. Donny tried, didn’t go so well.” she said, and Heather looked away a bit. “...you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” At that, Aurelia simply snickering at that.
The two were getting tuckered out, the two wheezed before Nashio ran at Taji again. He grabbed him by his shoulder and punched him square in the ribs, then cracking him across the jaw. Tajima stumbled backwards, falling to his hands and knees, spitting out blood. The phoenix couldn’t rise again, wheezing and coughing. Nashio stared hard at him, “[What? That all ya’ got?! Are you already fuckin’ done?!]” The oni screamed at him, as he ran at him with another scream, prepping to punch him square in the face. He stopped mere inches away from his friends face, “I can’t ruin that face of yours…” Nashio joked, collapsing next to him.
At this, Heather rushed over to Tajima, kneeling beside him and checking on him, rather clearly flustered. “Taji, damnit...are you alright?” she asked. Likewise Aurelia knelt beside Nashio and helped him sit up. “Easy. Guess you won since he fell over first, huh?” she teased. Taji nodded, “I’m alright, Heather. Don’t worry…” He said as Heather fussed over him, “Seems like you enjoyed it, though…” Tajima teased as Nashio looked up at Aurelia. “I’d say he won, he got a few good licks in, I think he dislocated my nose…” He grumbled, popping his nose back into place.
Nashio and Tajima limped back to Heather’s house to get patched up, with Heather and Aurelia in their company. Their brawl beat the spite out of Nashio, and Tajima was happy to have a good spar with his best friend again. Heather fussed over the two’s bruises and scrapes berated the two for getting into a brawl in the first place.