middleofsomewhere | So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

Time to leave!

There is not much of the city left, but the park is holding together as those anchoring help those who are not voidtreckers through back to where they belong. Monsters continue to attack and a little further out there is a battle of hearts and minds being fought with the mass of colours and chaos.

Eventually, after the bulk of citizens had been evacuated everyone with SCA's on would hear Jin-Roh's voice after a few frantic beeps, as Chiff aligned everyone's SCA's. "We are almost done here, if you are with anyone not tethered to a voidcraft get them to the evacuation point, as quickly as possible."

Anan pulls out of the anchoring point to call out to any defenders in the park. "Come on! Anyone who isn't a voidtrecker! It's time to go."

Luckily those off fighting the entity headed the message and made their way to the park as Jin Roh spoke again.

"Everyone else get ready. When we call it you need to leave. If you don't have your SCA on then get to someone who does."

As the last people rushed to the park Anan calls out again, through her SCA and outloud to the park. "You need to unanchor, before you can evacuate. Everyone be ready."

She goes in again though, because there are some last people, those from the large battle, getting through as another message was called.

"Almost there. Be ready. On my command..."

Anan unanchored again. "Quick everyone unanchor."

"NOW" Jin Roh's voice came through strong on their SCA's. Hopefully those with SCA's would grab those without.

There is some outside help as well, the train pulls anyone who is unconscious or still under the entity's control, forcibly evacuating them. This includes Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and Zagreus.

Luggage Carriage

There has been a mass evacuation before and that was crazy enough but since then the population of the train has almost doubled and now it is an extremely tight squeeze as everyone crashes into the luggage carriage at the same time.

The train jerks and rolls as they enter into the void at breakneck speed and again as they seem to slow, rather than speeding off though the void.

There's a crackling from their SCA's. "Voidtreckers? Voidtreckers come in!" Anan's voice. "Please tell me you made it..."

There's only a few moments of signal and soon they are flying though the void again, away from the strange non-world, the entity sealed for now. To new adventures, but first hopefully some time to recover from all that has happened.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nodding, Devero heaves himself back up to his feet. "Not that I have the strength to give you one," he says with a brief laugh. "I feel like a noodle. An overcooked noodle, now."

So yeah, he's going to shuffle on out of the sauna as Otoha's suggested. He's definitely flushed and woozy from his extended steaming.

"Come on, let's sit you down with your feet in the pool to cool off." It's still a warm pool, but it's not a sauna.

"Were you anchoring or fighting?"

Devero nods, and then has to grab at Otoha's arm when the motion makes him a little dizzy. He's more stable when he gets to the pool, at least, able to lower himself under his own power and sit on the edge.

"Both," he says with a groan.

"Dev." His voice is gentle, but there's a note of exasperation to it. "... Can't do everything yourself." He sits down next to his friend and sighs.

"Haven't you all been trying to teach me that kind of shit?"

Devero shoots Otoha a shocked look, and then sputters with laughter. "Do as I say, then, not as I do," he quips, but then he sobers. "I couldn't-- stay in that river too long. I had to get out and do something else."

"Yeah, I... understand that. I'm not too gentle with people, so I went to fight. And then the fight turned to talking, so I switched to getting people out as fast as I could." Talking? Fuck that. Not with the enemy. Not with something that'd tried to kill them before.

"...Talking?" He basically hasn't heard much about the direct confrontation with the entity-- his fighting had been confined to evacuating civilians and defending the park-- so he's looking askance now. "What?"

"One of the ancient China people -" He hasn't learned their names and at this point is too embarrassed to ask - "started playing music and trying to reason with it. That was around the time that I checked out."

Devero looks down at his feet in the water with a frown. He's pretty damn conflicted about that. His personal ethics, his training, and the weight of his whole-ass society are telling him that that was the correct way to go about dealing with it; as far as he's concerned, you should always try to de-escalate a conflict before anything else.

But the part of him that's been so badly hurt by the rainbow asshole's actions would rather that his fellow Voidtreckers had just kicked its ass.

Instead of trying to engage with that complicated shit, he diverts the subject. "Well, considering how many people needed to be evacuated, it's probably for the best you helped with that."

"Yeah. There were enough people defending in the fight that it was... okay." He still doesn't feel great about it, still wants to slice and dice the stupid rainbow into its component colors, but he can't do anything about it now.

"I got out of it with some light bruising - got someone to heal me up since Ryo is in no shape to do anything but sleep. And I've got... a decision to make." This probably isn't the best conversation topic right now, but...

"Lightning disappeared again. If she stays gone I'm... going to take over for Red Team. I promised her I'd look after it."

Devero cocks his head curiously when Otoha mentions a decision needing made; when he continues that Lightning's missing, his brow furrows. "Again?" he repeats softly. "Fuck." He may not have gotten to know Lightning personally, but he knows what a driving force she was in organizing Red Team.

He nods. "Good," he says approvingly. "Is that the decision you need to make? You seem pretty certain."

"I... guess. I mean." He makes an uncertain noise. "I don't know how to lead shit. I'm gonna fumble my way through this 'cause I promised, but if someone with actual leadership skills wants to take charge I'm willing to hand it over. I just..."

He sighs and stares into the water. "... Used to being used. Not used to someone guiding me rather than using me. Don't want to fuck up and hurt people." He lifts his left hand and absentmindedly brushes it over the small burn marks on his right arm. "... He's the only leader I knew for nearly all of my life."

Though he's not looking directly at Otoha, perceptive and sensitive Devero does not miss the motion of Otoha's hand. And perceptive and sensitive Devero knows exactly what those marks are, even if his have all been healed away by his world's advanced medicine.

"You're not him," Devero says softly, "and you won't lead like him. You know how he hurt you, which means you know what not to do, yeah? That's a pretty good place to start."

"I don't think I'm going to hurt people like this." He doesn't even smoke, but he knows that's not the point. "I just... I'm not the sort of person to be power-hungry. I'm not the kind of person who thinks of other people as tools. ... But it doesn't help that I don't really have examples of good leadership."

He drops his hand and bows his head. "I mean, I'm the only person my yurine is in charge of and she doesn't understand how humans think. ... I don't either, but more than her. I just... if I start going the wrong way, you'll push me back, right?" He can trust Devero. He wouldn't hurt Devero unless it was really serious.

"You had Lightning," he points out gently. "Roland, Eva, all of the team leaders still here, you can learn from them. You don't have to figure this out alone."

Otoha's request catches Devero by surprise, and his eyes are wide and vulnerable before his expression goes serious. He hadn't been including himself among the 'not alone' grouping he'd just listed-- what does he know about leading? ~~Devero.~~ But keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't start going too hard on his teammates? That, Devero knows he's qualified for.

"Of course," he says with a grave nod. "I can do that for you."

Edited 2021-08-10 05:48 (UTC)

"Yeah, I... I guess maybe I should talk to them when I can..." Talking is... hard. But the red team's stereotype might work well for him there - they're not known as the best in terms of communicating. Not as a team, at least.

"You're... I trust you. You've got a normal sense of empathy and decency from what I can tell. ... Kinda screwed up measure I've got, but still. ... You're a good person."

Devero reaches out and grips Otoha's forearm in a brief squeeze. "Thank you," he says, sincerely touched by his friend's words-- and faith in him. "I-- I won't let you down." That's a pretty big commitment he's making, to keep an eye on how Otoha leads a team that isn't his, but he'll do his damndest to honor it now that he has.

"I know you won't. I mean... it'll probably be obvious if I'm doing something stupid. You know I'm not good at subtle." Other than his poker face, he's really not that kind of guy.

So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

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cw: allusions to abuse

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