PatientBean
Mao Mao
Retired
Cyberlad
Qia
Half Pint
Festive
mickilennial
AndyC
SepAlso quite a difference between banter and writing a post.
Also true.
Hound55 Member
Create-A-Hero RPG GM, Blue Bringer of BWAHAHA!
STATUS: A Perpetual Motion Engine of Anxiety and Self-Loathing 2 yrs ago
Status
Recent Statuses
2 yrs ago
Current
A Perpetual Motion Engine of Anxiety and Self-Loathing
Bio
So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head 'round the door, and mentions there's a little sweets shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweets shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopowner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.
Most Recent Posts
Also true.
Is it sad that the most active this thread has been in over a month is after the RP has been declared dead? That probably says something.
Ehhhhhh... not necessarily.
Bottlenecked in an event situation where people were waiting on advancement. Doesn't necessarily mean a lack of interest, just a lot of standing, watching and waiting. RL gets involved.
Something to learn from, sure. But not necessarily anything as negative as a lack of interest.
<Snipped quote by Lord Wraith>
I've seen worse.
Pick myself a VP that galvanises me against assassination...
@Hound55 I'd be happy to co-GM something if you need a co-GM.
I reckon I'll be alright. Just figuring stuff out now.
<Snipped quote by Sep>
You say that like it's a bad thing. I still have the Skype chat logs from a dozen years ago; current versions of the members of this community are an improvement over past models.
I'm still buggy. They're just different bugs.
Except for the original bugs I couldn't figure out, which I now call "features".
<Snipped quote by Bounce>
Getting married and starting a new job really didn't work for RP time either.
Gross, are we all adults now?
I'm old. Chronologically. As in orbits around the sun.
I wouldn't describe myself as "mature" or "adult"...
Sadly, the demands of parenthood just keep getting the better of me.
I was hopeful I could carve out just one day a week to write, but maybe by the time the next one rolls around.
Moving house (finally been able to buy a place!) next week, give it a couple of weeks and if nothing else has started, I might see if I can get something rolling.
The silence was so deep it had its own personality.
Sullen and cold, depressive and obstinate. An unyielding, intimidating silence that stared into each of them and dared them to break it.
Big Steve was stretched across a lounge. Banjo was staring at a door with a furrowed brow from a chair, as he had been for a few minutes. Alex was watching him nervously from another chair.
The fourth bedroom.
Banjo was trying to play out a conversation in his head.
But how can you plan out a conversation with someone you haven't spoken to in years?
And it's not like it had been much of a fruitful dialogue at that, on that occasion.
The answer was he couldn't. No matter how much thought he put in, he had no idea what direction this was going to go. He was going in blind, which wasn't something he liked, but there was nothing he could do to change that at this point.
With a sigh, he got to his feet.
"I wouldn't..."
"All things bein' equal, I wouldn't either."
"Should you really..?"
"What's the alternative? Someone's gotta. It's not fair otherwise."
All four in the dormitory were headed for the Foundation. In Alex’s case, after many excited conversations with his family. Thrilled to go to the home of the Force.
Banjo and Big Steve were far more conflicted, and remained reticent to not bring their exuberant roommate down. Banjo had his experience from the Trials and what he'd heard from people who attended, and Big Steve was just generally more skeptical by his very nature. If they were at all right, he’d find out soon enough anyway.
"What'd you say her name was again?" He asked Zimmerman as he put his hand on her door handle. It was fittingly cold.
"Shanna. Shoshanna Tannin. But I don't know that you should..."
Banjo turned the handle and cringed as the door swung open, giving an uneasy toothy grin. Red light escaped the room, and he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Harper walked just outside the main dormitory hall, her hands clenched tight at her sides. The campus lay silent, the unnerving hush amplified by the school’s looming closure. In truth, the quiet came as no surprise; most students had already packed up or left, leaving the grounds nearly deserted. Still, the emptiness gnawed at her, underscoring the sense of finality she hadn’t wanted to face.
“We’re almost there,” her guide murmured, their tone gentle but distant, as though they, too, felt the awkwardness of this moment. Harper nodded, managing only a stiff acknowledgment. Her thoughts were still tangled from her last moments with Haven, and she didn’t have the energy to form words of gratitude for someone she barely knew. She hadn’t planned for any of this—not the argument, not the fallout, not the heartfelt goodbye that felt like a final one.
And definitely not this uncomfortable visit to Banjo’s.
The cool metal of Banjo’s door handle met her fingers as they came to a stop, her knuckles whitening as she hesitated. The fabric over her eyes may have hidden her blindness from others, but it couldn’t conceal the vulnerability she felt. Standing here, on the threshold of someone’s personal space, felt like stepping off a cliff without knowing what was below. Harper waited, hoping for some unseen signal to propel her forward, something to tell her this wasn’t a mistake. The signal came in the form of her guide clearing their throat, the sound more of a polite nudge than anything else. “Here we are,” they said, their voice low, as though the quiet had seeped into their words too.
“Thanks,” Harper whispered, barely above a breath, her voice betraying the uncertainty she fought to keep down. She heard their footsteps retreat down the hall, fading into the distance until the oppressive silence swallowed them whole. Alone again.
For a moment, she just stood there, her hand still resting on the door handle, frozen. The weight of the past few days—no, the past few hours—hung heavy over her, and it seemed to press harder the longer she stayed in place. She hadn’t been to Banjo’s place before, hadn’t even really spoken to him outside of team-related matters. Now she was here, asking for his help, and the strangeness of it all tugged at her, making her second-guess everything.
The thought of turning around flared briefly, the urge to retreat to her room, shut the door, and lock herself away almost overpowering. But there was no safety net waiting for her this time. She’d already said what she’d needed to say to Haven, and Aurora… Harper didn’t want to think about Aurora’s disappointment right now.
And, worst of all, there was Katja.
As she’d listened to Katja’s words, Harper had felt a pang of sympathy she wasn’t sure she wanted to acknowledge. Katja’s confession was raw, each word tinged with bitterness, a taste Harper knew all too well from her own moments after the trials. The anger, the shame, the crushing sense of responsibility for her team’s suffering… it all felt painfully familiar, wounds that were still healing on her own heart. But what had struck Harper most wasn’t just the hurt in Katja’s voice; it was the way so many seemed ready to cast her as the scapegoat for every downfall, from PRCU’s closing to the chaos at the dance. Deep down, Harper agreed with Katja on one thing: she shouldn’t have to carry the burden of blame for every broken piece of their world.
And yet, another truth lingered there, and Harper couldn’t shake it. Katja might not deserve all the blame, but her choices hadn’t been without cost. They’d left their own scars on the team, ones that didn’t fade easily. Harper struggled to reconcile the good intentions Katja had spoken of with the reality of her actions, the unintended damage that had rippled through each of them in ways they were still coming to grips with. Katja’s remorse seemed genuine, but Harper found herself wondering if Katja truly grasped the depth of what her silence had cost them all, how it had chipped away at their trust, making it that much harder to feel safe around each other.
Swallowing hard, Harper raised her fist and knocked softly on the door, her pulse quickening in the seconds that stretched out unbearably. The pause after felt endless, as if time itself had slowed just to mock her. Finally, the door creaked open, and though Harper couldn’t see Banjo standing there, she could feel his presence. The air between them coagulated with an awkward tension that made her skin prickle. Or maybe that was just her—projecting her unease onto him. She swallowed again, the words catching in her throat before she forced them out.
“You… offered to help,” she said, the words slipping out almost reluctantly. “So… I’m here…for help.”
“Uhh… He’s busy with…”
An interior bedroom door opened and Banjo stepped out along with a flare of escaping red light, he tilted his head with wide eyes, and sighed deeply at the difficulty of what he’d just endured, before raising his head and seeing who Zimmerman was addressing at their front door.
“Yeah… Yeah, I did at that. Guess let’s get this show on the road, eh?” He first addressed their guest at the entrance.
He walked past the large man who lay prostrate on the couch, occasionally turning pages on a comic that was spread across the floor.
“Yeah, don’t– ever– go in there…”
“I told you…” The larger man mumbled, not looking up from the floor’s reading material.
“Still needed doin’...”
Zimmerman pointed to Harper standing at the door, as if he hadn’t already noticed, as he crossed the living quarters and brushed past her on the way out the door.
“Y’know ya didn’t have to knock. Could have just yelled out in the hallway or elevator for us.” He said, turning back and realizing that Harper still hadn’t moved on from the door. “Ya comin’ or do I have to carry ya?”
“Um…no thanks,” Harper replied, cringing slightly at the thought. She took a cautious step away from Banjo’s door, then another, each movement hesitant as she aligned herself to the direction of his voice. Her fingers brushed against the fabric covering her eyes, adjusting it almost compulsively, as though the motion might steady her nerves. The silence around them felt thick, amplifying every sound—the shuffle of their footsteps, the faint rustle of clothing—each small noise becoming magnified in the emptiness of the hall. She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, then closed it again.
After a few more paces, she finally managed, “Your…roommates seemed like a lively bunch.” Harper felt the clumsiness in her words almost immediately. She cleared her throat, trying to shake off the self-consciousness that clung to her. “I, uh, didn’t expect you’d have to wrangle a whole crew just to make sure I don’t walk into a wall.”
There was a pause, and Harper felt her face grow warm. She realized too late that her attempt at humour might have sounded more like self-deprecation, a clumsy attempt to downplay her own discomfort.
“Bundle of nerves in that place right now. The one who opened the door’s a comics nut and he’s thrilled to be goin’ to the Foundation, because of the Force. The other you saw, is… a lot more wary but doesn’t have a whole lot of choice… and the– well... A whole lot of raw nerves goin’ round at the moment.”
He waited for her to catch up.
“Prob’ly not much different from everyone in general at the moment, anyhow, I guess. Nervous people makin’ big decisions earlier than they’d have liked.”
His own thoughts on the matter were irrelevant to polite conversation, to whatever extent he was capable of making polite conversation.
He had no idea of Harper’s plans and thoughts on the matter at hand, and cared even less. An offer extended both out of guilt and for the projection of guilt - as teammates drilled down on Katja, and one another, where he would be the one willing to extend help.
He was actually surprised the offer was being accepted in the first place. Especially considering it was put forward to Baxter of all people. But now that it was, he wasn’t going to have his bluff called. She was probably just relishing in the opportunity to bark orders, boss him around and tell him whatever he’s doing is wrong, he figured, remembering the force of nature hyperconfident life guard who brought her own bullhorn to proceedings.
Harper let out a small, shaky laugh, feeling the weight of her own present and past decisions settle more heavily on her shoulders with each step. Choosing to become a diagnostic radiologist had felt like a solid path forward-a decision she’d made long before arriving here. It had been a way to stay in control, to make sense of the strange illness that had plagued her in childhood. She’d always assumed it was behind her since the manifestation of her abilities, a thing of the past never to haunt her again. But now….
She glanced in Banjo’s direction, suddenly grateful that he didn’t pry, didn’t push her to explain herself. Somehow, that made walking beside him easier. It helped to make the moment feel less strange, less loaded. And for the first time since the dance, she felt as if she could lean on someone who wasn’t her family, even if- or especially since- that someone was a near stranger.
“You know…” Harper began, then paused, the words catching unexpectedly in her throat. She wasn’t why she’d started or where she’d planned to go with it. But Calliope’s name hovered just behind her lips, a bit of doubt holding it back. Still, that tug, the need to say something was there. Anything to release a bit of what had been building up inside.
“The thing I wanted to say before the whole…thing with Katja was that…you guys kind of became my family. My home. And I think as long as a person has that, they will be ok.” Her voice wavered again upon realizing how much she wanted that to be true- for herself, for her team, for everyone who’d been hurt by recent events. “ I went to her too, sort of like this. Just…not really knowing why, but needing to feel like things made sense. Or that they’d make sense again eventually.” She trailed off, her eyes lowering despite not being able to guide her as they always had either way.
“So, when I say I appreciate this…I mean it.
He felt the rage slowly fill him once again. The anger for himself he’d had since the Trials, and he realised just how easy it would have been to just pour it all over her. A person he had little time, nor energy for, and sighed deeply as he grabbed her door handle.
“I went without family for two decades. It took five years for someone to talk me into seeing any kind of benefit to it.”
“And it came from someone who’s own experiences of family, frankly sounded like a bloody nightmare.”
“Didn’t need it then. Don’t need it now.”
He wasn’t her. Never was. For better or worse.
“And if you keep sentiment like that to y’self, I won't be obligated to ignore it. Now c’mon. We got somethin’ to do.”
After all, he had little doubt if roles were reversed, she’d have been looking to put Daedalus in a grave.
He couldn’t do that, for better or worse.
Sullen and cold, depressive and obstinate. An unyielding, intimidating silence that stared into each of them and dared them to break it.
Big Steve was stretched across a lounge. Banjo was staring at a door with a furrowed brow from a chair, as he had been for a few minutes. Alex was watching him nervously from another chair.
The fourth bedroom.
Banjo was trying to play out a conversation in his head.
But how can you plan out a conversation with someone you haven't spoken to in years?
And it's not like it had been much of a fruitful dialogue at that, on that occasion.
The answer was he couldn't. No matter how much thought he put in, he had no idea what direction this was going to go. He was going in blind, which wasn't something he liked, but there was nothing he could do to change that at this point.
With a sigh, he got to his feet.
"I wouldn't..."
"All things bein' equal, I wouldn't either."
"Should you really..?"
"What's the alternative? Someone's gotta. It's not fair otherwise."
All four in the dormitory were headed for the Foundation. In Alex’s case, after many excited conversations with his family. Thrilled to go to the home of the Force.
Banjo and Big Steve were far more conflicted, and remained reticent to not bring their exuberant roommate down. Banjo had his experience from the Trials and what he'd heard from people who attended, and Big Steve was just generally more skeptical by his very nature. If they were at all right, he’d find out soon enough anyway.
"What'd you say her name was again?" He asked Zimmerman as he put his hand on her door handle. It was fittingly cold.
"Shanna. Shoshanna Tannin. But I don't know that you should..."
Banjo turned the handle and cringed as the door swung open, giving an uneasy toothy grin. Red light escaped the room, and he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Interaction(s): Harper Baxter (@Qia), NPC roommates
Harper walked just outside the main dormitory hall, her hands clenched tight at her sides. The campus lay silent, the unnerving hush amplified by the school’s looming closure. In truth, the quiet came as no surprise; most students had already packed up or left, leaving the grounds nearly deserted. Still, the emptiness gnawed at her, underscoring the sense of finality she hadn’t wanted to face.
“We’re almost there,” her guide murmured, their tone gentle but distant, as though they, too, felt the awkwardness of this moment. Harper nodded, managing only a stiff acknowledgment. Her thoughts were still tangled from her last moments with Haven, and she didn’t have the energy to form words of gratitude for someone she barely knew. She hadn’t planned for any of this—not the argument, not the fallout, not the heartfelt goodbye that felt like a final one.
And definitely not this uncomfortable visit to Banjo’s.
The cool metal of Banjo’s door handle met her fingers as they came to a stop, her knuckles whitening as she hesitated. The fabric over her eyes may have hidden her blindness from others, but it couldn’t conceal the vulnerability she felt. Standing here, on the threshold of someone’s personal space, felt like stepping off a cliff without knowing what was below. Harper waited, hoping for some unseen signal to propel her forward, something to tell her this wasn’t a mistake. The signal came in the form of her guide clearing their throat, the sound more of a polite nudge than anything else. “Here we are,” they said, their voice low, as though the quiet had seeped into their words too.
“Thanks,” Harper whispered, barely above a breath, her voice betraying the uncertainty she fought to keep down. She heard their footsteps retreat down the hall, fading into the distance until the oppressive silence swallowed them whole. Alone again.
For a moment, she just stood there, her hand still resting on the door handle, frozen. The weight of the past few days—no, the past few hours—hung heavy over her, and it seemed to press harder the longer she stayed in place. She hadn’t been to Banjo’s place before, hadn’t even really spoken to him outside of team-related matters. Now she was here, asking for his help, and the strangeness of it all tugged at her, making her second-guess everything.
The thought of turning around flared briefly, the urge to retreat to her room, shut the door, and lock herself away almost overpowering. But there was no safety net waiting for her this time. She’d already said what she’d needed to say to Haven, and Aurora… Harper didn’t want to think about Aurora’s disappointment right now.
And, worst of all, there was Katja.
As she’d listened to Katja’s words, Harper had felt a pang of sympathy she wasn’t sure she wanted to acknowledge. Katja’s confession was raw, each word tinged with bitterness, a taste Harper knew all too well from her own moments after the trials. The anger, the shame, the crushing sense of responsibility for her team’s suffering… it all felt painfully familiar, wounds that were still healing on her own heart. But what had struck Harper most wasn’t just the hurt in Katja’s voice; it was the way so many seemed ready to cast her as the scapegoat for every downfall, from PRCU’s closing to the chaos at the dance. Deep down, Harper agreed with Katja on one thing: she shouldn’t have to carry the burden of blame for every broken piece of their world.
And yet, another truth lingered there, and Harper couldn’t shake it. Katja might not deserve all the blame, but her choices hadn’t been without cost. They’d left their own scars on the team, ones that didn’t fade easily. Harper struggled to reconcile the good intentions Katja had spoken of with the reality of her actions, the unintended damage that had rippled through each of them in ways they were still coming to grips with. Katja’s remorse seemed genuine, but Harper found herself wondering if Katja truly grasped the depth of what her silence had cost them all, how it had chipped away at their trust, making it that much harder to feel safe around each other.
Swallowing hard, Harper raised her fist and knocked softly on the door, her pulse quickening in the seconds that stretched out unbearably. The pause after felt endless, as if time itself had slowed just to mock her. Finally, the door creaked open, and though Harper couldn’t see Banjo standing there, she could feel his presence. The air between them coagulated with an awkward tension that made her skin prickle. Or maybe that was just her—projecting her unease onto him. She swallowed again, the words catching in her throat before she forced them out.
“You… offered to help,” she said, the words slipping out almost reluctantly. “So… I’m here…for help.”
“Uhh… He’s busy with…”
An interior bedroom door opened and Banjo stepped out along with a flare of escaping red light, he tilted his head with wide eyes, and sighed deeply at the difficulty of what he’d just endured, before raising his head and seeing who Zimmerman was addressing at their front door.
“Yeah… Yeah, I did at that. Guess let’s get this show on the road, eh?” He first addressed their guest at the entrance.
He walked past the large man who lay prostrate on the couch, occasionally turning pages on a comic that was spread across the floor.
“Yeah, don’t– ever– go in there…”
“I told you…” The larger man mumbled, not looking up from the floor’s reading material.
“Still needed doin’...”
Zimmerman pointed to Harper standing at the door, as if he hadn’t already noticed, as he crossed the living quarters and brushed past her on the way out the door.
“Y’know ya didn’t have to knock. Could have just yelled out in the hallway or elevator for us.” He said, turning back and realizing that Harper still hadn’t moved on from the door. “Ya comin’ or do I have to carry ya?”
“Um…no thanks,” Harper replied, cringing slightly at the thought. She took a cautious step away from Banjo’s door, then another, each movement hesitant as she aligned herself to the direction of his voice. Her fingers brushed against the fabric covering her eyes, adjusting it almost compulsively, as though the motion might steady her nerves. The silence around them felt thick, amplifying every sound—the shuffle of their footsteps, the faint rustle of clothing—each small noise becoming magnified in the emptiness of the hall. She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, then closed it again.
After a few more paces, she finally managed, “Your…roommates seemed like a lively bunch.” Harper felt the clumsiness in her words almost immediately. She cleared her throat, trying to shake off the self-consciousness that clung to her. “I, uh, didn’t expect you’d have to wrangle a whole crew just to make sure I don’t walk into a wall.”
There was a pause, and Harper felt her face grow warm. She realized too late that her attempt at humour might have sounded more like self-deprecation, a clumsy attempt to downplay her own discomfort.
“Bundle of nerves in that place right now. The one who opened the door’s a comics nut and he’s thrilled to be goin’ to the Foundation, because of the Force. The other you saw, is… a lot more wary but doesn’t have a whole lot of choice… and the– well... A whole lot of raw nerves goin’ round at the moment.”
He waited for her to catch up.
“Prob’ly not much different from everyone in general at the moment, anyhow, I guess. Nervous people makin’ big decisions earlier than they’d have liked.”
His own thoughts on the matter were irrelevant to polite conversation, to whatever extent he was capable of making polite conversation.
He had no idea of Harper’s plans and thoughts on the matter at hand, and cared even less. An offer extended both out of guilt and for the projection of guilt - as teammates drilled down on Katja, and one another, where he would be the one willing to extend help.
He was actually surprised the offer was being accepted in the first place. Especially considering it was put forward to Baxter of all people. But now that it was, he wasn’t going to have his bluff called. She was probably just relishing in the opportunity to bark orders, boss him around and tell him whatever he’s doing is wrong, he figured, remembering the force of nature hyperconfident life guard who brought her own bullhorn to proceedings.
Harper let out a small, shaky laugh, feeling the weight of her own present and past decisions settle more heavily on her shoulders with each step. Choosing to become a diagnostic radiologist had felt like a solid path forward-a decision she’d made long before arriving here. It had been a way to stay in control, to make sense of the strange illness that had plagued her in childhood. She’d always assumed it was behind her since the manifestation of her abilities, a thing of the past never to haunt her again. But now….
She glanced in Banjo’s direction, suddenly grateful that he didn’t pry, didn’t push her to explain herself. Somehow, that made walking beside him easier. It helped to make the moment feel less strange, less loaded. And for the first time since the dance, she felt as if she could lean on someone who wasn’t her family, even if- or especially since- that someone was a near stranger.
It reminded her of Calliope.
“You know…” Harper began, then paused, the words catching unexpectedly in her throat. She wasn’t why she’d started or where she’d planned to go with it. But Calliope’s name hovered just behind her lips, a bit of doubt holding it back. Still, that tug, the need to say something was there. Anything to release a bit of what had been building up inside.
“The thing I wanted to say before the whole…thing with Katja was that…you guys kind of became my family. My home. And I think as long as a person has that, they will be ok.” Her voice wavered again upon realizing how much she wanted that to be true- for herself, for her team, for everyone who’d been hurt by recent events. “ I went to her too, sort of like this. Just…not really knowing why, but needing to feel like things made sense. Or that they’d make sense again eventually.” She trailed off, her eyes lowering despite not being able to guide her as they always had either way.
“So, when I say I appreciate this…I mean it.
He felt the rage slowly fill him once again. The anger for himself he’d had since the Trials, and he realised just how easy it would have been to just pour it all over her. A person he had little time, nor energy for, and sighed deeply as he grabbed her door handle.
“She cried for him, you know? Her lover, her last breath, barely a whimper by the end as Father took the last of her life,”
“I went without family for two decades. It took five years for someone to talk me into seeing any kind of benefit to it.”
“And it came from someone who’s own experiences of family, frankly sounded like a bloody nightmare.”
“Didn’t need it then. Don’t need it now.”
He wasn’t her. Never was. For better or worse.
“And if you keep sentiment like that to y’self, I won't be obligated to ignore it. Now c’mon. We got somethin’ to do.”
After all, he had little doubt if roles were reversed, she’d have been looking to put Daedalus in a grave.
He couldn’t do that, for better or worse.
The real villain was the communication gap all along.
Meta.
Meta.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"I won't attend your funeral, Olly."
"Well, I'd hope bloody not... It's likely the place he'd go scopin' for next on his list..." 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.
"If you want justice you can get..." He hesitated. Sensing someone else approaching.
"Why not start with her?" Rory's eyes expression and intonation darkened.
"Come to finish the job, Kruger?"
Banjo took another deep pull of his beer, not knowing where this was going.
"Been out high fiving your Orcinus pals? Or were you busy leaving flowers for Hyperion?"
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.
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?
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.
"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."
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.
"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!"
His emotions palpable. An impotent rage.
"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."
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.
"Not even Amma."
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.
Best of bloody luck with that... He thought, taking another pull.
“Shut the fuck up Tyler,” Baxter hissed. “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.”
Banjo related to the sentiment. He felt similarly when Calli's name was getting thrown around.
“I am not defending you,” she attempted to voice to Katja, before firing back at Rory, “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.”
“Don’t talk about the dead like you fucking know.”
"Hmm... Probably just Baxter's own hangup with death." He mused to himself. "Close to right though, up til the finish. Or close enough."
”Stop!” 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. ”Why would any villain need to send their swords to cut us down? We do it to each other.” 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. ”Splintered, broken, separated.”
Sundered, He couldn't make sense of it.
“What good is it to hate each other now?” she asked; her voice hollow and cold. Unlike her. Unlike Cleo. Warmth all but gone. She stared around at the eyes that looked back. “You create the Hell that chews you up.”
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.
”I don’t... I’m sorry… 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.
“All right. Angry sad’s okay, but that sharing isn’t caring.” 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. “Can I miss your home too? Mine are full of ghosts now.” The third member of Eclipse helped him to his feet by the arm, and followed Cleo down the beach.
“Harper, you have absolutely no right to speak to Rory like that. Not even a little bit.” Now Raw looked to hold court. “You’re completely wrong.”
“Because if Katja did care about us, and I mean truly cared, she wouldn’t have sided with a goddamn terrorist.”
That much didn't ring true to him. Clunky conclusion.
“During the Trials, I was warned that one of us was still loyal to Hyperion and was responsible for trapping us inside,” 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. “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.”
She took another beat to stabilize and deliver a sharp line to the much larger woman.
“Do you even understand what you’ve done?”
“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?”
Raw looked down at Baxter, her friend, ensuring that her words would reach her loud and clear.
“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.”
She once again returned her focus to Katja.
“People like her tried to take everything from me, again.”
“You think you’re doing what’s right,”
“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.” Aurora’s gaze burned into Katja, her tone cold, final.
“And by then, it’ll be too late.”
Banjo staggered to his feet from the soft sand, and picked up the heavier of the two cartons.
"Far as I can see it..."
He pulled another beer clear and opened it.
"Katja, I failed you."
"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..."
"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."
"But then that's because we came from completely different places. Had completely different experiences."
He slapped the sides of the carton whilst he swayed and spoke.
"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." Faces and memories from countless schools flashed before his mind's eye.
"You never had that. And they were responsible for the worst day of your life, when you had everythin' taken from you."
He paused. He didn't need to say it. She knew what he was thinking.
That now, on that, perhaps he could relate.
"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."
"If ya can't empathise with that at this point, Katie, I don't know what the fuck else to say."
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 FOR them, in her own motivations.
The road to He-- well, yeah. Good intentions and all of that.
"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."
It would've been. It had to have been. It's what he preyed on most with his efforts to amass more numbers.
"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."
"So yeah. I failed ya, Katja. Try not to act special. There's a lot of that goin' around with me right now."
"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."
And with that he started to trudge down the beach towards his horse, before turning to talk back over his shoulder.
"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."
"Afterall... I never bloody unpacked in the first place."
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.
Location: The A.R.C., Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean - Present
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________"I won't attend your funeral, Olly."
"Well, I'd hope bloody not... It's likely the place he'd go scopin' for next on his list..." 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.
"If you want justice you can get..." He hesitated. Sensing someone else approaching.
"Why not start with her?" Rory's eyes expression and intonation darkened.
"Come to finish the job, Kruger?"
Banjo took another deep pull of his beer, not knowing where this was going.
"Been out high fiving your Orcinus pals? Or were you busy leaving flowers for Hyperion?"
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.
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?
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.
"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."
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.
"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!"
His emotions palpable. An impotent rage.
"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."
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.
"Not even Amma."
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.
Best of bloody luck with that... He thought, taking another pull.
“Shut the fuck up Tyler,” Baxter hissed. “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.”
Banjo related to the sentiment. He felt similarly when Calli's name was getting thrown around.
“I am not defending you,” she attempted to voice to Katja, before firing back at Rory, “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.”
“Don’t talk about the dead like you fucking know.”
"Hmm... Probably just Baxter's own hangup with death." He mused to himself. "Close to right though, up til the finish. Or close enough."
”Stop!” 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. ”Why would any villain need to send their swords to cut us down? We do it to each other.” 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. ”Splintered, broken, separated.”
Sundered, He couldn't make sense of it.
“What good is it to hate each other now?” she asked; her voice hollow and cold. Unlike her. Unlike Cleo. Warmth all but gone. She stared around at the eyes that looked back. “You create the Hell that chews you up.”
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.
”I don’t... I’m sorry… 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.
“All right. Angry sad’s okay, but that sharing isn’t caring.” 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. “Can I miss your home too? Mine are full of ghosts now.” The third member of Eclipse helped him to his feet by the arm, and followed Cleo down the beach.
“Harper, you have absolutely no right to speak to Rory like that. Not even a little bit.” Now Raw looked to hold court. “You’re completely wrong.”
“Because if Katja did care about us, and I mean truly cared, she wouldn’t have sided with a goddamn terrorist.”
That much didn't ring true to him. Clunky conclusion.
“During the Trials, I was warned that one of us was still loyal to Hyperion and was responsible for trapping us inside,” 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. “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.”
She took another beat to stabilize and deliver a sharp line to the much larger woman.
“Do you even understand what you’ve done?”
“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?”
Raw looked down at Baxter, her friend, ensuring that her words would reach her loud and clear.
“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.”
She once again returned her focus to Katja.
“People like her tried to take everything from me, again.”
“You think you’re doing what’s right,”
“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.” Aurora’s gaze burned into Katja, her tone cold, final.
“And by then, it’ll be too late.”
Banjo staggered to his feet from the soft sand, and picked up the heavier of the two cartons.
"Far as I can see it..."
He pulled another beer clear and opened it.
"Katja, I failed you."
"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..."
"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."
"But then that's because we came from completely different places. Had completely different experiences."
He slapped the sides of the carton whilst he swayed and spoke.
"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." Faces and memories from countless schools flashed before his mind's eye.
"You never had that. And they were responsible for the worst day of your life, when you had everythin' taken from you."
He paused. He didn't need to say it. She knew what he was thinking.
That now, on that, perhaps he could relate.
"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."
"If ya can't empathise with that at this point, Katie, I don't know what the fuck else to say."
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 FOR them, in her own motivations.
The road to He-- well, yeah. Good intentions and all of that.
"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."
It would've been. It had to have been. It's what he preyed on most with his efforts to amass more numbers.
"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."
"So yeah. I failed ya, Katja. Try not to act special. There's a lot of that goin' around with me right now."
"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."
And with that he started to trudge down the beach towards his horse, before turning to talk back over his shoulder.
"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."
"Afterall... I never bloody unpacked in the first place."
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.
© 2007-2024