driftfleet | (no subject)

[She smiles.] I'm your CO. It's my job to look after you. One more good thing to get used to.

Meet me in the kitchen when you're done.

[She leaves him to his shower and heads to the kitchen after a brief pause to get dressed, where she manages to make them both something sufficiently hot-chocolate-like enough. She has strict written instructions so it tastes pretty okay.]

Thank you. [She was definitely more personable compared to the Lotus. Minus the brief strict bit.] I'll see you there.

[The shower is uneventful after that aside from wondering if he could remove the mark somehow. He gets sufficiently clean and dressed before venturing over to the kitchen. She's there as expected but he's drawn to look around. There's two drinks and the coloration reminds him of mud.]

What exactly is that?

It's like hot chocolate but not quite. Since I don't think we have real chocolate anywhere. [But its one of the few things she can make that's actually pretty good, so lucky you? She nudges the second mug toward him.]

Feeling a little better after the shower?

I've never had chocolate so I wouldn't be capable of judging it's closeness. [He studies the drink before finally relenting and pulling it towards him. The warmth was nice for sure. He'll wait to taste it for now.] Thank you.

It was nice. I ugh will probably be better after sleep as you said but working on the better part.

Well, hopefully you like how it tastes, then. [Probably best if you can't compare it with the real thing.]

Sleep cures a lot of ills. I'd send you off to your bunk now, but I think in the end, you'd probably sleep better if you've told me what you can so you know me and the captain are working on things with all available intel.

[Thats enough encouragement. Besides he doubts that Wrath would hand him something that wouldn't be alright. So he takes a small sip, failing at hiding his surprise.] It's probably the best thing I've tasted. Thank you. Very sweet and like nothing I've had before.

There's a lot to talk about when it comes to him. [He settles down to sit, looking down at the drink.] He is like me. Utilizing a warframe in order to channel his powers effectively while also having access to more abilities in one frame than I do. He's similarly skilled in combat.

I...he never ceases to hunt. The only way to stop him is to beat him when he comes and hope he doesn't prove to be the victor. He almost did so on the ship after the moon.

Yay! I'm just glad you like sweet things. Some people don't.

[She listens intently to the first pieces of information. One point immediately leaps to the fore as the most salient, however.]

You said he uses a warframe like you. But you don't have one of those here. So does he? [Because from what little Tenno said about it before, that would be Really Bad.]

[It's nice but he isn't here to discuss the drink. Let alone any sort of consumable in general.]

It's a heavily modified version. An excalibur class but with a conglomerate of abilities. I didn't really see if he had access to it. However he looks stripped as much as I had been so maybe luck favors us.

However neither of us require a frame to do what we're trained to do. It helps but not a necessity.

[She nods thoughtfully.]

But it's also a big difference, say, between me going after you with my muscles fully tuned and my back fixed as opposed to like right now when I'm slow and civvie weak and have a fucked up back. So that's helpful.

Other than combat expertise--cause we're gonna save the dick waving about that for later--what can he do without his warframe?

[He blinks. That wasn't wrong per se but...well yea definitely not wrong.] Essentially yes.

He's rather capable when it comes to secruity systems, being able to create an effective lockdown in an area. Communications systems as well because he always finds a way to worm into them. Anything to cut off support to his target.

Well, that's better than the alternative.

Hm. So number one is figuring out effective security. Because it's better if he can't get onto the ship unannounced at all. I don't want anyone coming onto my ship without being authorized, really.

We've got a comms officer now, Kurt. I'm not sure what the augment does, but it's something to investigate.

Could he get over here without using a shuttle, you think? [Like, is he immune to vacuum without the warframe? That's a scary thought.]

He's gonna have a hell of a time cutting off your support, with a whole crew around you. I don't want you going anywhere by yourself, though, in that case. Or without some kind of failsafe commlink so you can call for help if it comes to that.

I would think that we could figure something out in order to stop him in his tracks or at least from meddling too hard with our systems. It doesn't last long but every second counts. So maybe monitoring shuttles?

That would be certainly useful. But no he needs a shuttle. Frames requiring a way to move in space. I don't see any archwings so shuttle is the only way.

[That certainly earns a frown down at his mug.] I don't require a babysitter.

Okay, monitoring is do-able. Vision can probably come up with some methods to discourage unannounced visitors. It's not like someone can just like... throw a rock through the window and then let themselves in. The choke point is the airlocks, in that case. Makes it a lot easier to deal with.

[Squint.] I know you're a strong, independent guy who don't need nobody, but don't be dumb. Your greatest tactical advantage right now is that you are part of a crew unlike... Mr. Obsessive McAssClown. You have other people to care about you and watch your back, and we have plenty of reasons to do that other than your cute smile.

Now, I know that you are smart enough to not think ego is more important than strategy.

So at least the ship would easily managed for unwanted guests. I ugh...that close call I had back home with him, Ordis got jammed or worse so he was able to slink in without me noticing. [To be fair he was busy at the time making sure Sentients didn't murder him.] The only issue would be elsewhere.

I'm trying not to be and I apologies if I am. However I don't need to be guarded. The commlink would do just fine without having to bother anyone else.

[One of his main worries now was making sure the rest of the crew remained unharmed in this conflict. It was his problem. Unnecessary injuries would only make things worse.

Also cute smile? What?]

Ordis tends to be at my side if not fulfilling his duty so that's someone if anyone to watch me. He's not as combat skilled but he's had my back before. [And his full trust.]

Yeah, I think we can control the ship okay. That's the biggest one, since I want you to be able to sleep.

[She sighs. Tenno, stop being such a boy.]

You're really looking at this the wrong way. This isn't about babysitting you or guarding you or restricting your movements or treating you as a less competent soldier than you are. Because we both know you are competent... to a point. Everyone has that point, and it just takes one bad second, one little bit of shit luck, and you're fucked, and your unit's fucked. I got thrown out of a window. You ran afoul of this asshole.

So you can go with just the commlink. You don't have to appease me by dragging Ordis around. But I need you to get it through your head that your health and safety are not an inconvenience or a bother to anyone. Just like the health and safety of any member of this crew is valuable, so is yours.

Sleep, at least some form of it regularly, would be greatly appreciated.

[How is he supposed to explain that he doesn't trust these people despite so far? Probably should try to not say that blatantly since he was already in enough trouble.]

Wrath, I'm trying to understand what you want to do for me. However I've clashed against this monster more than once in my woken state and he doesn't have Hunhow in order to exploit a weakness. I simply don't want to drag others into harm that is meant for me.

[He sighs.] Alright. I'll keep that in mind. You have my word.

I don't know what a Hunhow is.

[She considers how to try to put this.] You said he's after you because he doesn't think you're worthy of living by his standards. That's on him, not on you.

As far as I'm concerned then, this is not a 'harm that's meant for you.' Because that would mean your commanders acknowledged that this assclown had some kind of claim on you, which we don't. [She feels confident speaking for Vision on this one.]

So I'm addressing this like I would for any member of my crew if some psycho developed a raging hateboner for them.

I think I wasn't specific enough before. I don't want the non-combatants on the crew like Castle or Ordis playing meat shield. But you have combat capable people around you, and we all have an interest in the integrity of our ship, and in keeping you in one piece because you are part of this ship.

Does that make sense?

He was a Sentient. One that earned the name of destroyer so he was an opponent I didn't want to have aiding the Stalker.

[There was no way he was going to avoid the main issue further.] The reason he judges me so harshly is because the Tenno...we killed the Orokin. It was during a celebration to ring in the end of war and we were with the council then there was so much blood and bodies... He was the sole frame that didn't partake in the massacre. He watched it happen.

So yes it is meant for me. Even though I wouldn't describe it as a hateboner.

No one is being a meat shield for me. However fighting alongside someone would be nice if and when he decides to collect on his warnings to me.

That's... a weird way of using sentient. Different term, I guess.

[She is silent for a long moment, mulling this over. So Tenno had participated in a genocide. That... well, not something he would admit to right away, she imagines. But she's not going to leap to immediate judgment, because she thought her ability to judge character wasn't that fucked up.]

Why did you do it?

It's what they wished to be called.

[That silence doesn't bode very well after having released that out into the open. He hadn't expected for it to be welcomed of course but the way she simply sits there makes him shift uncomfortably and glance between her and the mug. More so the mug at this rate.

Then there's the question. Why...how can he answer that? Regret pulses through him and he very well would rather have excused himself or rest instead.]

I don't know. I hated them. We all did for what they did to us and Margulis but there was no desire to kill them.

I remember there were drums and then suddenly everything turned into a nightmare. There were sentients and infestation everywhere and when I came to... [Everyone was dead and that had already been said.]

You don't need to protect a monster such as myself.

[She absorbs this intently... up until she gets to the bit when he calls himself a monster, at which point she rolls her eyes.]

Oh, shut up.

[Then she makes a little negating gesture, sitting back as she thinks. Not the most tactful thing to say, but she believes in truth, not tact.

But it's the way he talks about it--no desire to kill them. There were drums and everything turned into a nightmare. I came to. There's more to it than a cold desire to kill an entire race, that much is obvious.

And it makes her think... makes her think. Makes her try to remember.]

I had another partner before Maine, you know. Years ago. His name was Octavian. He was Envy, I was Wrath. And we were best friends with Hiro, who was Avarice.

And then one day, they both went away. And I didn't really think about it, because I thought I remembered Hiro getting married, and Octavian just wanting some quiet time to himself. But Hiro vanished, and Octavian... Octavian blew his own head off.

I know Hiro called me, before he vanished. I remember Octavian having a gun, even though I also remember that I couldn't have been there, because it never happened.

And then one day, a couple months ago--so this was years after Envy and Avarice were gone--there was this transmission on the network. Old footage. Civilians getting rounded up. Taken to the burnt-out area by District 1, only in the footage it was still regular buildings. Executed. Buried in secret. Erased. By people in the same armor and uniforms that I wore every day. And I recognized all of these things even though I still don't remember them. I could recognize which one was Octavian, and which one was Hiro, and which one was me.

Even though no one remembers this and it never happened. Except it all did.

[She cocks her head.]

Being a monster is really complicated sometimes, I guess.

[Well that's one way to react and he promptly shuts his mouth, watching her with a slow raising brow. Especially at the accompanying gesture which isn't very helpful in keying him in on what she wants him to do.

However he respectfully listens to her, frowning at some of the details because they sound almost sound similar to his own experiences. How there was no evidence of what happened until he started digging things up after having woken from the second dream in order to make sense of things. To try and remember what had happened.]

I was made to forget too. I don't know if to hide the truth to protect me or have deniability in the end.

[He finishes off what's left of his drink.] I guess yea. Just a pair of monsters that makes us.

They always say it's for your own good. Guess it's a nice story to tell yourself, right?

[She sighs, swirling the contents of her still half-full mug.]

I think smarter people than me could say a lot about being a monster or not. Like Vision. He's super smart, he knows about things like that.

Because there are a lot of hard questions that I can't answer. If we can't remember, are we the same people who did those things? If we can't remember, how do we know if we did them willingly or not? Does it matter if we did? Just because you didn't mean to shoot someone doesn't mean they're any less dead. But am I--are we--the person holding the gun, or the gun?

I don't know. It's above my pay grade, this kind of shit. There isn't any answer that feels right. All we've got is who we are now and what we can do now. We're soldiers. So we do our jobs, and we do them well.

[That sounds like what the Lotus had offered him. How it had been for his own. So he nods and slowly turns the mug on the counter.]

I suppose.

I would prefer if the rest of the crew didn't know about this for now. The Stalker is an obvious threat and the information regarding him can be shared with no qualms but what I told otherwise... Can that be between us? [He trusts her enough with that.]

...I want to say that we're different. Memories tend to make a person and if we forgot those and focus on others, wouldn't that create another version of us? I hated the Orokin and what they did to me and the others but I wouldn't want to doom an entire empire. You don't seem like someone who'd want to kill civilians.

Maybe it's best that we don't dwell over this. But yes we're soldiers. If anything, we'll protect this crew and those we care for.

The rest of the crew doesn't need to know. It's your story, not mine. Only... I think you should tell the captain. Or I can, if you don't feel comfortable doing it. He's not going to tell anyone else, but he should be aware of the full situation. [And he'll probably have smart things to say about it.]

Soldiers serve. So yeah. I... can't even figure out why I would do something like that. Just like you wouldn't want to commit genocide. So I guess we are different people now.

[Protecting people. That's a solid goal. That's what she always comes back to. Soldiers serve, and they're good at it.]

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UH OH THE FRYSQUINT IS RETURNING

Wrath pls

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