middleofsomewhere | The Will to Fight: Conclusion

The Will to Fight: Conclusion

The battles rage loud and ferocious at the gates of the city and off in the ruined wastelands of Erda, and on the walls a struggle of a different kind occurs. The team who stayed behind at the towers are small but determined as they move stoically across the walls to right the stones that have become misaligned, even as their friends battle not too far away.

The city begins to hum. It's a quiet hum, not loud enough to be heard out where the others are fighting but it vibrates even through stone. The recovering monks assure them that it is done, the wards are back up and no demon will be able to enter the city.

Eventually the battle is won, all three battles. The demons fought back and killed, a major blow to their gate system that will keep them back for hopefully a long time. Those waiting in the caverns return to the city and by the time they get there the illusions are gone. Everyone can see the world for what it really is.

But despite the ruins of their world the people are relieved, the adrenaline of the fight coursing through their veins and the mood is one of hope. They will build again, their people will survive.

All Voidtreckers please return to the Voidtrecker Express. Departure will be in a few hours

It has landed not too far from the city, cloaked to make it unnoticeable to the citizens, for all the good that does. No one has been particularly subtle this last week. People can begin regrouping, packing up the camp and getting any wounded not already healed to the train.

However roughly half an hour later another message appears on their SCA.

Passenger Persephone has requested we remain on system System #86525656412355 for an additional day to further assist the people of Erda. The Voidtrecker Express will depart on the morning of Day Fifteen of the month of Kazoo.

The train remains where it is, so the voidtreckers can use its facilities. There is definitely a lot that can be done to assist those of this world and the citizens will welcome any helping hands.

After an extra day they finally depart, returning to the void once more.

(OOC Note: Once the wards are up any characters who are demonic in nature will not be able to enter the city either!)

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[To say that that chicken had been giving Siebren trouble would be an understatement. It kept wedging itself in tight spots and hiding under debris - positions where he couldn't simply take hold of its gravity and manipulate it without risk of injury. Do chickens survive broken bones? How fragile are they? He has no idea and does not want to risk causing more damage than has already been done.]

[So Yondu shooing it into the coop is a relief, and Siebren shuts the door with no small amount of satisfaction. Finally. Done.]

Oh yes. The time of my life. That bird's attitude is, if you will forgive the pun, absolutely foul.

[No, he is not above that.]

[He joins Yondu at the railing but politely waves away the beer. Maybe at the end of the day, but there is far too much to do now for that. (Sorry, Yondu, he's one of those academic types.)]

The laws of physics are unforgiving and, at times, exhausting.

[Using his powers takes it out of him.]

How are you faring? Were you involved in the chaos yesterday?

[He just mean chuckles at the pun, somehow it carries through the translation and he's entertained. Not that he does many himself, he's not going to knock a man who has a talent with jokes that can set people off like a doorbell does a dog.]

I can imagine. I think I see a vein poppin' about that chicken alone. [He teases, opening the beer himself. This stuff isn't really strong enough to make him drunk or anything so it's just something familiar to drink.]

Yeah, I was out there. Worked well with a couple of people but... just ended up missin' my team. Didn't have the same... I dunno the word for it. Somethin'. Dynamic? Maybe.

[Or maybe that was just the weight of having been stuck in his own head for a while. He tips his head with the next drink, looking up the height of Siebren.]

Used to have a big guy on our team. Had at least a foot on you, even. A Jovian named 'Charlie-27', made for that heavy gravity life. He was a good guy. Probably still is, hadn't seen 'im in a real long time.

[Yondu should hear him pun in Dutch. He is incorrigible.]

We were attacked by demons disguised as chickens while trying to realign keystones. I remain unconvinced that that particular chicken is not one of them.

[He knows it's not - that the illusion has dropped - but the joke is worth it.]

[He listens as Yondu speaks - he recognizes that tone of voice, that cadence. He's nostalgic, pensive, and he wants to talk, and Siebren will not deny him a listening ear.]

In my experience, it takes time to find a rhythm with any given group of people. We are all instruments learning to play in a symphony; the tune may be different, depending on who is present, but the music is always worth it.

...provided you do not go out of your way to make yours an off-key recorder played in the middle of the night.

[He can't help it. That had been a terrible experience, true, but witnessing someone weaponize What's New, Pussycat had still been a thing of beauty.]

Have you been apart from your team for long? Before arriving here, I mean.

[Can't help it, he laughs at that too. Even if Madoka had been similarly scared by a chicken, the idea of Siebren and Kaiba being beset by them is amazing. But he shakes it off at the musical comparison.]

My people whistle to talk, so... music in my mind is a discussion as much as a symphony. [But right, the reminder of Jack brings another little bit of a grin to his face. He takes a drink of beer, not just to wet that whistle but to draw up some courage.]

So uh... It's been... To be honest, it's been about two and a half decades. Been a while. An' while I did like bein' a captain, it weren't quite like those special occasions. I got out there an' I just found myself missin' it. A lot. An' I was wonderin' if you'd fight with me sometime.

...Not like, beatin' me up, I mean with me. Beside me. All teamed up like.

[Boy. He is botching the hell out of that. You know what good team members do? Communicate. You know what he just did? Not that to any efficiency. But to his credit, he's never actually asked that before. He was recruited last time.]

I just had a pretty good time with ya on that little Jack thing an' I know it was short but I kinda felt like... [He motions between them.]

[He smiles a bit at the laughter; the joke is at his expense, but purposefully so, and the laughter is worth it.]

[He goes quiet again, listening, and startles a bit at the request, looking at Yondu with surprise written on his face. The expression fades a bit at the clarification, and he settles a bit. It seems he has some thinking of his own to do.]

To be completely honest, I rather dislike violence, and would prefer not to engage. However, should the situation call for it...

[He smiles and mirrors Yondu's gesture.]

Ah, well... if it's not your sorta party, I'm not that kinda guy. [Well, aside from Peter. But that was a different situation.] I try not to be anyway... [He has all the awkwardness of someone who just asked someone out to a restaurant they dislike. But he's doing his best to recover from the social trip.]

Right, if the situation calls for it.

[Close enough! Another big swig of his beer.] Hey, get the coop door for me in a little bit. I see a couple of strays over yonder.

[Give him like, ten seconds to feel less like an idiot. He'll harass chickens back home and make it productive.]

[...and here he'd thought he was agreeing to that proposal. Was he not clear enough?]

[Before he can manage a better response, Yondu is off.]

At least let me hold your beer.

[Chicken chasing is enough to handle without trying to balance an open container.]

[Oh! Right. He comes back with it, then with the fangy shark grin of a man who knows a universal constant and is able to abandon the awkwardness with a real chuckle says-] Hold my beer!

[And once he's passed that off he trots off to shoo a couple of hens back, flapping his coat to look big a couple of times. Somehow in a way that's more scary than giant Siebren, 'cause they do come running in his direction.]

[He's still grinning some by the time he gets back 'cause this whole scenario is like a stupid joke, ready to retrieve the beverage. He climbs up a nearby railing to sit (after shaking it to be sure it would support him). Which puts him almost at eye-level with Siebren.] I could use both sides of my coat. Ya increased my performance by fifty percent!

[Chickens, when they do fear, fear predators. Siebren cannot pass as one; Yondu, on the other hand, is doing a bang-up job. He makes certain the coop door is open, and when the chickens duck inside to get away from the terrifying flappy coat, he shuts them in. He's smiling by the time Yondu returns, and he hands over the beer.]

By numbers alone, that is the single greatest feat of engineering I have ever accomplished.

Thank you for your help with the chickens.

[Yondu catches his heels on a slat because his feet are nowhere near the ground, and with the length of his coat hanging off the back he looks more like a bird perched there than his usual shark aesthetic.]

So you do engineerin'? I knew you was Orange team but I didn't know if you was magic Orange team or tech Orange team or research Orange team.

[Some of those overlap.]

Ya ever worked on a jump engine? Or do y'all got to lightspeed engines yet?

I am research Orange team, though I suppose I also count as technology by default.

[On account of understanding how the toaster works, evidently.]

I am not an engineer myself by trade; I am an astrophysicist, and my world has not developed that level of space travel as of yet. There were...recent setbacks.

Are you an engineer yourself, or is that not a role a captain fulfills?

Well, I uh... I grew up somethin' called a 'Battle Slave'? Kree Empire keeps cannon fodder to go on the front lines. But if you're kind of a rare race like me, I fetched a good price when I was a youngin' apparently, you get dolled up to be special cannon fodder.

[He gestures to the fin on his head and shrugs, honestly not seeming too offended or particularly burdened by it. It's his fin now. To hell with the Kree!] Ya also get used to fixin' your own combat equipment 'cause you're low priority. Means your vehicles too. So by the time I worked my way up as a Ravager you could throw me in front of an engine an' I could yell, 'the hell did y'all do to this?' an' set it right.

[But there's something sort of sad about that, though. A Terran astrophysicist who might never have gotten the chance to get up near as possible to a star.]

How far you ever been out to space?

[That is...horrifying, actually. Siebren has some practice in keeping a straight face, at least, and manages as much.]

So you are an engineer by necessity, then.

[That's about all he feels capable of commenting on pertaining to that particular story.]

I have, though only as far as the moon - Earth's moon, that is. Around 400,000 kilometers.

Well, I didn't say I didn't enjoy it. I've rigged some machines into bein' good for other work. Turn a loader into a team transport. That kinda thing. Sometimes you pick up somethin' you have to an' it becomes yours.

[Though after that shortened answer, he absently finishes off his beer and sets the bottle on top of one of the poles, wondering if he said too much.] Sorry, uh... I dunno, I get used to people knowin'. Most people at home'd know. [He almost gestures to the scars on the side of his face as explanation, the punishment scars in their pattern that makes no sense to be from fighting, and then decides Siebren probably wouldn't want to think about where those actually came from.]

[So instead, he reaches into his holster.]

Well, I'll show ya somethin' from a little further than the moon. My homeworld's got a metal alloy that can only be formed there. Responds to vibrations in such a way we can guide it after targets. Hunters use it all the time, but I'm rigged up to make it go exactly where I want it to go so long as I talk to it right.

[He holds it out towards Siebren to see.]

'Scalled 'Yaka' in Centauri. My whole arrow shell is coated in it. [And he lets it go midair with a wavering whistle, letting it float loosely in the air with a red trail.]

It is alright. [He waves the apology away easily.] We all have parts of our lives that others might find troubling. [It is both an admission that he has his own and a sidestep of the issue entirely.]

[He watches, interested, as Yondu removes a single arrow from his holster. He's ready to ask a question, when Yondu whistles and the arrow floats on its own. His eyes go wide, and a moment later his expression breaks into sheer delight.]

Incredible!

[He watches the arrow as it floats, inspecting it from what angles he can manage (though he doesn't step in front of it - he is excited, not foolish).]

And this is a natural property of the metal?

[Yondu plucks the arrow from the air and holds it out to him.]

Yup. We call it the 'livin' metal'. Go ahead. Hold it. It reacts to sound, any sound. We say it listens.

[And when he whistles again, it vibrates gently. And it moves, but in the way one looking at a series of straight lines sees them move if they stare too long, or the way a bed sinks too deep a moment before sleep. It's subtle about it, perhaps a trick of the nerves or actually real. It even does it when someone speaks near it.]

Centaurians tip their normal arrows with it. [His is absolutely abnormal.] Wear ornaments of it. For some reason it only turned up there. Hard to redo in a lab. No one knows why.

[He doesn't want to pry too much. Not out of lack of concern, but he doesn't want to run him off. He knows how he feels when someone gets too close to the underbelly of his thoughts, and you never know who has a knife. He's terrified of that shit, all the time.]

Y'know uh... You ever wanna talk about it, I'm the last guy to judge. A bunch of my business was up on wanted posters for ever'body to see, so I'd keep it.

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The Will to Fight: Conclusion

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