[color=darkgoldenrod][sup]________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/COLOR][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/B0qe6B0.jpeg[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=darkgoldenrod][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]The A.R.C., Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean - Present[/I] [I][/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=darkgoldenrod][b]Human #5.018:[/b][/COLOR] [I][url=https://open.spotify.com/track/23te6WdmE536w4pnaz5iqw?si=gaCnmbWaSdSYNG1r2KpMsA]Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again? (No way! Get Fucked! Fuck Off!")[/url][/I][/right][/sup][/indent][COLOR=darkgoldenrod][SUP][sub]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sub][/SUP][/COLOR][indent][sub][color=darkgoldenrod][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]Blackjack and Eclipse[/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=darkgoldenrod][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [color=white][I][url=https://open.spotify.com/track/0eMcjg6Y5sVpoo1TbR6g42?si=yFvbw3BAQS2bPKG-g9AFtQ]Ship of Fools[/url][/I][/color][/right][/SUP][/indent] [color=darkgray] [color=04cf3a]"I won't attend your funeral, Olly."[/color] [i]"Well, I'd hope bloody not... It's likely the place he'd go scopin' for next on his list..."[/i] Banjo furrowed his brow, wondering if he'd really be dumb enough to walk into something like that with Haven in light of everything, or if he was just using it as rhetoric. [color=04cf3a]"If you want justice you can get..."[/color] He hesitated. Sensing someone else approaching. [color=04cf3a]"Why not start with her?"[/color] Rory's eyes expression and intonation darkened. [color=04cf3a]"Come to finish the job, Kruger?"[/color] Banjo took another deep pull of his beer, not knowing where this was going. [color=04cf3a]"Been out high fiving your Orcinus pals? Or were you busy leaving flowers for Hyperion?"[/color] Banjo started to run through what could have possibly brought this on. Where they found Haven. The same way Hyperion found his way onto the campus... Katja knew where it was. But that wasn't exactly a lot to go by. And in all honesty, it wasn't the kind of connection he could expect Rory to form all on his own, unless... Banjo remembered the aftermath. Jim came down hard and demanded to see him after. Debrief. [i]So you've been Jim-Bob's bold little detective sergeant, eh, Tyler? And when exactly were you plannin' on tellin' any of us about this?[/i] As much as he knew he wouldn't be trusted, nor would want anything to do with the faculty and their machinations, he burned and bristled slightly that it was Rory - of all people! - who was given this task. As if he wouldn't have been far better suited. He drowned those thoughts with another deep gulp. [color=04cf3a]"A few days ago, I just wanted answers. I wanted to know what they could have promised you that would have made it so easy to turn on us. How you could have possibly chosen the janitor over your own team. Or if you thought leading us to where Haven was kidnapped would make up for nearly getting her killed the first time. If you thought playing the hero then would make up for what Harper, Gil, and Calliope went through. Or if you even fucking cared."[/color] He bristled again at the use of Calliope to be a bludgeon, when she wasn't here to speak for herself. Then darkened even more at the reminder that she wasn't here to speak for herself, and where she may well be... Another deep gulp. The fog couldn't come fast enough. Everything was too clear. [color=04cf3a]"But you know what... I don't care about answers anymore, Kat. Or excuses. I can't stop you or hurt you. I can't do anything!"[/color] His emotions palpable. An impotent rage. [color=04cf3a]"The only justice, Kruger, is that you're alone. Hyperion and his children are dead and gone. There's no more Pacific Royal, no more Blackjack. You've burned everything to the ground. No one loves you."[/color] In that impotent rage he was throwing whatever he could to hurt. It's all he wanted to do at this point, Banjo thought to himself. He's not even saying anything at this point, its just all pain. [color=04cf3a]"Not even Amma."[/color] Fuck. The guilt rose in Banjo, as he rememebered pushing Gil over in her direction, the conversations shared between each of them regarding her. The support he'd lent both of them in pursuing her, despite still having never discussed what exactly happened with Katja after he pushed her on. Cleo was trying to interject, getting drowned out by the barbed words, probably not aware that this was almost part and parcel of how they tended to operate. alright, maybe not to this extreme. But Blackjack had never done thinngs in halves or less than dramatically. [i]Best of bloody luck with that...[/i] He thought, taking another pull. [color=#8a9a5b][i]“Shut the fuck up Tyler,”[/i][/color] Baxter hissed. [color=#8a9a5b][i]“You don’t get to speak for her just because you’re hurt. You don’t get to throw Amma’s name around like you know what she felt.”[/i][/color] Banjo related to the sentiment. He felt similarly when Calli's name was getting thrown around. [color=#8a9a5b][i]“I am not defending you,”[/i][/color] she attempted to voice to Katja, before firing back at Rory, [color=#8a9a5b][i]“But you don’t get to say no one loved her. And you sure as hell don’t get to act like she didn’t care.”[/i][/color] [color=#8a9a5b][i]“Don’t talk about the dead like you fucking know.”[/i][/color] [i]"Hmm... Probably just Baxter's own hangup with death."[/i] He mused to himself. [i]"Close to right though, up til the finish. Or close enough."[/i] [color=#94b9ff]”Stop!”[/color] Cleo yelled out then, unable to take any more, a strange aura changed to an ominous shade around her. Banjo wasn't familiar enough with her or her power to make sense of it. [color=#94b9ff]”Why would any villain need to send their swords to cut us down? We do it to each other.”[/color] Cleo dug her fingers her head, which did little to lend to her stability right now with Banjo, but did raise his sympathies beyond just 'this person is unfamiliar with how this team works'. He wanted to stop things just to prevent more pain. [color=#94b9ff]”Splintered, broken, separated.”[/color] [color=#94b9ff][i]Sundered,[/i][/color] He couldn't make sense of it. [color=#94b9ff]“What good is it to hate each other now?”[/color] she asked; her voice hollow and cold. Unlike her. Unlike Cleo. Warmth all but gone. She stared around at the eyes that looked back. [color=#94b9ff]“You create the [i][b]Hell[/b][/i] that chews you up.”[/color] The choice ofword stung him like a hornet. She took a breath and closed her eyes before issuing an apology to the group, who had clearly hurt her. [color=#94b9ff]”I don’t... I’m sorry…[/color] Cleo uttered, grabbing her belongings in a confused scramble before making tracks in the sand, her skin pulsing with the faint glow that began evaporating away. [color=a86f32]“All right. Angry sad’s okay, but that sharing isn’t caring.”[/color] She was immediately joined in kind by another of her team. Logan or-- nope. Lucas. More than a few beers deep, but it was Lucas. [color=a86f32]“Can I miss your home too? Mine are full of ghosts now.”[/color] The third member of Eclipse helped him to his feet by the arm, and followed Cleo down the beach. [color=#8ecdb7]“Harper, you have absolutely no right to speak to Rory like that. Not even a little bit.”[/color] Now Raw looked to hold court. [color=#8ecdb7]“You’re completely wrong.”[/color] [color=#8ecdb7]“Because if Katja did care about us, and I mean truly cared, she wouldn’t have sided with a goddamn terrorist.”[/color] That much didn't ring true to him. Clunky conclusion. [color=#8ecdb7]“During the Trials, I was warned that one of us was still loyal to Hyperion and was responsible for trapping us inside,”[/color] So much anger. Banjo considered what he was seeing and her own empassioned response and chalked it up to betrayal being another type of abandonment. [color=#8ecdb7]“I didn’t want to believe it, thought it was a trick of the simulation, but now, I know that it was true, and it was you.”[/color] She took another beat to stabilize and deliver a sharp line to the much larger woman. [color=#8ecdb7]“Do you even understand what you’ve done?”[/color] [color=#8ecdb7]“You betrayed us, Katja, and for what? Some warped vision of the future that was sold to you? Do you even understand the lives you’ve put at risk? The people you’ve hurt? The people you’ve killed?”[/color] Raw looked down at Baxter, her friend, ensuring that her words would reach her loud and clear. [color=#8ecdb7]“I’m insulted that you think she cares about us, Harper. You weren’t here when Hyperion attacked, you don’t know what it was like.”[/color] She once again returned her focus to Katja. [color=#8ecdb7]“People like her tried to take everything from me, again.”[/color] [color=#8ecdb7]“You think you’re doing what’s right,”[/color] [color=#8ecdb7]“You think you’re on the ‘right side,’ don’t you? But one day, you’re going to look back and see the destruction you’ve caused, the lives you’ve ruined.”[/color] Aurora’s gaze burned into Katja, her tone cold, final. [color=#8ecdb7]“And by then, it’ll be too late.”[/color] Banjo staggered to his feet from the soft sand, and picked up the heavier of the two cartons. [color=darkgoldenrod]"Far as I can see it..."[/color] He pulled another beer clear and opened it. [color=darkgoldenrod]"Katja, I failed you."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"Before I came to this island, I'd never even heard the term 'mundane'. 'Mundy' was just a day of the week, back where I'm from..."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"I actually... wasn't exactly sure I heard you right the first time I ever heard you use it. Because I'd never caught the context for it before."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"But then that's because we came from completely different places. Had completely different experiences."[/color] He slapped the sides of the carton whilst he swayed and spoke. [color=darkgoldenrod]"I grew up almost entirely around regular humans. Bouncin' around my entire country. I've been threatened by them, had some try to sell me out, had some try to throw me to the wolves... but I've also had them befriend me. Much as anyone has befriended me, I guess... And even save me."[/color] Faces and memories from countless schools flashed before his mind's eye. [color=darkgoldenrod]"You never had that. And they were responsible for the worst day of your life, when you had everythin' taken from you."[/color] He paused. He didn't need to say it. She knew what he was thinking. That now, on that, perhaps he could relate. [color=darkgoldenrod]"And I knew that. And that's why I failed you. Because I never cared enough, when I knew my friend felt this way... to tell you how I knew the way you see things with them was wrong. They're not monolithic, Katie. No more than we are. They're just... people. Bumblefuckin' their way through life. And the humans you dealt with, well they were just a bunch of scared people who got riled up and turned lynch mob by extremists, and set loose on the innocent."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"If ya can't empathise with that at this point, Katie, I don't know what the fuck else to say."[/color] He turned to Aurora. For her talk on 'right sides' and betrayal of team, having put his finger on where it didn't seem to ring true. Afterall, he suspected that in Katja's own head, she was doing all of this [b]FOR[/b] them, in her own motivations. The road to He-- well, yeah. Good intentions and all of that. [color=darkgoldenrod]"That's the thing, 'Raw. You can't treat this like it was an intellectual decision, because it wouldn't have been. It's an emotional one."[/color] It would've been. It had to have been. It's what he preyed on most with his efforts to amass more numbers. [color=darkgoldenrod]"And one I never did anythin' about. I'm pretty sure I probably wasn't the only one. But fuck it, I'm only responsible for the shit I do."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"So yeah. I failed ya, Katja. Try not to act special. There's a lot of that goin' around with me right now."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"And whilst I've never had any problem with stirrin' the pot. It all seems pretty pointless that anyone I do that with right now can just cut and run tomorrow anyway. So bugger playin' 'stacks on' with the rest of ya. Guess I prefer a captive audience. I don't intend to spend the last few hours in the place that I've spent more time than anywhere else in my life with this tedious bullshit. Miss me with that."[/color] And with that he started to trudge down the beach towards his horse, before turning to talk back over his shoulder. [color=darkgoldenrod]"Oh, and Baxter! Can't be fuckin' easy packin' in your state, if you need any help gettin' your shit sorted, whatever your decision. Feel free to knock. Same bloody House bloc anyway, not like I won't have the time."[/color] [color=darkgoldenrod]"Afterall... I never bloody unpacked in the first place."[/color] Seeing the direction he was headed for his horse, and the Eclipse trio were aligned he decided to jog on after them and say something. Afterall, Zimmerman would throw a hissy fit if he had the chance to mention him to Cleo and didn't. [/color]