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mickilennial
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Kaithe Dame
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Charley
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Aboard the Behemoth; Luan Fields
During the travel to their destination, when Hal wasn’t being his loquacious self, acting like a preadolescence child when interacting with Evangeline, or bursting into sudden musical numbers with the aforementioned young woman with heterochromia, Hal was quietly (a word that some might have thought was nowhere to be found in Henri’s dictionary) reading the news on an electronic tablet and/or listening to the radio, occasionally gently petting the head that leaned against him.
Information, in whatever form it may be or however insignificant it may seem at first glance, was valuable. Not that the news, both on the radio and in letters, had any particularly cheery story to tell the depressing world of Viera. Even the dispiriting news was more or less the same thing for a decade; the war had been going on much too long. What had the world come to when the most uplifting news was that Ondřej Ó Dubhshláine, a man known as one of the pioneers of Aeon technology, died at the ripe old age —something that has become a rarity in recent years. But of course there was more to the news: there was a rumor circulating that Ó Dubhshláine had been assassinated by SeeRs using biological warfare. The police, the government, and even the SeeRs have yet to make any public statement that would affirm or deny the rumor.
Hal chuckled bitterly then hummed, “Mmm-mmm! Do I smell politics? Wow! My favorite kind of BS! Can't start the day without people dying and the government being all secretive about it, now can we? I can tell today’s going to be another good day.”
Perhaps the day would have been a peaceful one had he not jinxed it.
When the wounded SOLDIERS came into view, Hal was one of the first to bolt out of the vehicle to aid the weakened fighters, but he was also the first to stop in his tracks just a few steps away from the door. Superego had inflated into massive proportions; it had become powerful enough to propel Hal towards the battlefield without a second thought. He wanted to get there as soon as possible; to be sure the situation didn’t get any worse. He would have been the first one to reach the three soldiers too, if ego hadn’t whispered into superego’s ear.
And then what?
The energy that shot through his body just moments ago, instantaneously started to deplete into nothingness —much like the crash after a sugar rush. Hal had to stop right there and then. He became a rock just standing in the way of the flow of SOLDIERs that rushed into battle; an unnecessary and potentially detrimental obstacle that could have meant the death of the three SOLDIERs out there. But Hal had to stop and he couldn’t take another step.
What happens after you go there? You won’t join the fight. You can’t fight. You are useless here, Henri. You know that. Yet, you jumped out without actually thinking about it… Again. Didn’t you learn from your mistakes? Are you really that stupid? Why did you go through college if you weren’t going to use your brain when it’s most needed?
“Henri, you can’t save everyone.”
Echoes of the past sent an unpleasant shiver down the man’s spine. Fear. Not from the prospect of fighting, getting hurt, or dying, but from what was most likely going to happen after the battle. Regret. If he fought, he was going to regret it.
Hal watched his teammates engage in battle with the giant birds. Both parties fought with what they all got. Of course they would; their lives depended on it. There was the option to run, but that would most likely not happen, much to Hal’s dismay. “They” were made that way. Only “their” makers were to blame for that. He even had time think about it and he still could not choose a side when it came down to these situations. His indecisiveness had cost him more than he knew or would like to admit. Henri was a coward: he was scared that his conscience could not take the idea of—…
“Henri, you can’t save everyone. Sometimes you have to… give something up. You have to lose something to win something bigger… If you don’t choose, someone else might… and in the worst case, you will loose everything.”
Hal closed his eyes shut, hard enough to make his eyebrows furrow. As he mentally deflated his superego as much as he could possibly will it to, the scientist bit his lip and dug his nails into the palm of his hands. Hal didn’t know how long it took him to that, but when he finally relaxed and opened his eyes, his expression was abnormally blank.
He was the only SOLDIER there to take a step away from the battlefield. He just stood there, observing… recording. If there was no chance of saving everyone, then he was getting something else out of this. “Their” deaths must not be wasted.
Team Autumn:
I have returned.
To update my situation, I'm back in school so my IC posts might be limited to the weekends (depends on study load).
Kain and Hal will get along famously :D
Edit: Oh, I was going to mention it when the day came, but I will be moving overseas within a couple days. I'm going to be inactive while I'm traveling, as to be expected, but I'm also not entirely sure how soon I'll have access to the internet at the new place (kind of why I'm posting as much as I can now). Just a heads up :)
Edit: It is time! And I'm not looking forward to the plane ride. Going to have to find a way to knock myself unconscious once I get on the plane XP
Edit: Oh, I was going to mention it when the day came, but I will be moving overseas within a couple days. I'm going to be inactive while I'm traveling, as to be expected, but I'm also not entirely sure how soon I'll have access to the internet at the new place (kind of why I'm posting as much as I can now). Just a heads up :)
Edit: It is time! And I'm not looking forward to the plane ride. Going to have to find a way to knock myself unconscious once I get on the plane XP
SOLIDER Base; Deployment Dock Number Four
Did Kain just threaten him? As in, was “And if you give me a nickname, I give you a caved in skull” an actual, serious, threat or was the titan joking and forgot to that he had facial muscles? So hard to tell with these military types. If it were the latter, however, he’d need to change his exercise menu: less push-ups and more smiling. The rest of Kain’s muscle-bound body had enough muscle mass as it is; they don’t need any more attention.
“Well it was going to be Fluffaluffagus, but now I’m starting to think I should’ve chosen Grinch. Seriously, did no one teach you manners? Is that how you talk to everyone? If someone brought you an extra glass of water that you didn’t ask for do you say ‘no thank you’ by saying ‘You bleeping bleep-bleep! I gonna pull out your spine for that! Grrr!’” Hal demonstrated how pathetic the basic bodybuilding poses looked on a man who just barely had enough muscle on him to qualify as an active SOLDIER. “Congratulations! You’ve successfully committed verbal assault! Tsk, tsk, soldier, tsk, tsk. You’ll only make more enemies with that kind of language.”
Rubbing his chin with the tips of his fingers like a villain from the old movies, Hal studied the mountain of flesh called Kain, and based on the bountiful wisdom he clearly possessed, decided to do exactly what Kain asked him —although not in the most polite fashion— not to do. “You know what? I would have called you by any name you wanted me to if you just asked nicely, but since you decided that threatening to crush my skull was the better choice, I’m going to call you Honeybun. Yeah. That’s right, Honeybun. And it’ll stay that way until you learn how to ask things from others politely, young man. In fact, every time you fail to do so, the nickname will become increasingly embarrassing and/or more suggestive to the point that rumors will start to spread about how... ‘close’ we’ve become.”
Hal placed his hands on his hips and let his chest puff out in petty triumph. An impish grin spread across his face, “I don’t have a single shred of dignity or pride left in me. I don’t even have to worry about how good or bad my reputation is, because, quite frankly, it’s a lost cause. But you… you still have all that. Hey, maybe even more! You might have a bright future ahead of you in this career! So what’s it going to be, Honeybun? Learn to ask nicely, or get used to the long list of pet names I’ll be calling you. Oh, and the weird looks people will be giving you every time I say them to you.”
SOLIDER Base; Deployment Dock Number Four
It has always been a hard sensation to describe to others. Not even his twin, who had been with him since conception, could truly understand this feeling. An odd sensation where “something” that is not of his own inundates him. It is sudden as it is fierce. All of the nerves in his body flared up like wildfire; every sense became so sharp that the word hypersensitive could not adequately describe the amount of sensory input that bombarded the brain with information. It was chaotic. The Commander could hear, see, smell, taste, and “touch” everything that no normal man could. Yet, there was clarity in the chaos. By the time the sensation melted away and he came to, he knew something was wrong… and, for once, it had nothing to do with Hal.
The Commander of the Sentinels was glaring at John even before he turned around to actually look at the newcomer’s face.
"Commander, I’ve been requested by President Rayne to join the group on this mission, just in case. I hope this is alright with you, sir. The President was quite impressed with my previous missions, and figured the group could use some experienced backup.”
Rene said nothing at first. He just continued to glare at the man in front of him. He had no evidence to support his suspicions: only his gut instinct. But his intuition has yet to fail him. Although he could not deny the fact that the chance of error increased depending on how he interpreted what his senses picked up. “No. I’m not ‘all right’ with it,” the giant finally said, “but it doesn’t matter how I feel about it, does it? You’re going anyways.” The tone in zher twin’s voice made Kimberly look at him, then quizzically at John.
Before an awkward silence had the chance to make the atmosphere really uncomfortable, Beatrice walked over to Hal and asked, “Hey, YOU, funny guy! Tell me a good joke?” out of the blue. Silence of the different variety descended upon the group.
This time it was Rene who put an end to the awkwardness. “Don’t you get it?” his giant hand placed itself on Hal’s back, “He IS the joke.”
“I think you skipped over the set-up.”
“I did? Oh, sorry, let me do it again.” Rene cleared his throat, “This man’s a SOLDIER.” Rene and Beatrice stared into each other’s eyes for a beat or so before Rene added, “You’ll have to look at Al, and I mean really look at Al, to get the joke. Cause he’s the punchline.”
Hal suddenly laughed out loud. “Oh, Ghost! You crack me up! Here’s a tip,” the scientist stuffed the Commander’s mouth with the last bit of dessert he had. “There. You got what you wanted. Now leave before you tarnish my already terrible reputation.”
Rene smirked a bit and started to walk out of the docks, bumping —oh so obviously on purpose— into John, before continuing to talk off without apologizing. “Good luck with the mission.” His voice dipped an octave, “You’ll need it.”
He could hear Kimberly in the distance calling out his name before and after zhe apologized to John for zher brother’s rudeness. He even heard zher food steps following him at one point, but he didn’t stop for zher: he had to follow John’s scent before it dulled completely.
It was hardly surprising that the scent led him to the President's Office so soon.
SOLIDER Base; Deployment Dock Number Four
‘Keep an eye on him.’ That was what Rene had signed on Hal’s back while they were bantering in front of Beatrice. Although the warning was appreciated, it was unnecessary: he recognized Rayne’s dog fairly early on. He even had a name to put to the face in front of him.
The average life expectancy of SOLDIERs was pretty short compared to the rest of the capital’s population —despite the various advantages that came with being a SOLDIER—, largely due to the ongoing war. SOLDIERs over the age of 35 were the minority, thus John Olsen (age 37) stuck out like a sore thumb whether he liked it or not. There are roughly two types of SOLDIERs who lived that long: the ones who would do anything and everything to survive and cowards —there was a third type too, but they were rare as unicorns: the ones forced to live on the basis that they were still useful in some significant manner to someone of importance. Not that that being ruthless or cowardly was a bad thing: a majority of the people under the government’s umbrella could be separated into similar categories: cowards who make others fight; the others who have no choice, but to fight to live; and the cowards who managed to avoid being chosen to be the other coward’s meat shield and sword... and did everything in their power to keep it that way. The world had a tendency of loosing the best of humanity too early, so ends up being dominated by what remained.
“Huh… Well then,” Hal said after the Faye twins left the docks, “we haven’t introduced ourselves have we?” He smiled at his two teammates, “As Funshine ingeniously deduced, my true name is ‘You Funny Guy,’ but people usually don’t believe me when I say that, so go ahead and remember me as Henri.”
He turned his head to look at John then realized something important: he didn’t think of a nickname for him. Then again, John wasn’t originally supposed to be part of the group, so Hal didn’t think he’d have to. Hal started to tilt his head back and forth in thought. He stared into the windows to John’s soul to search for something, but nothing that could really fit came to mind. This was going to be as hard as it was with James, maybe even harder. The longer he thought about it, the more his head started to hurt. Perhaps he should stop thinking, then? Best idea he had all day.
“Uh, you’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Olsen. I need more time to come up with a nickname for you.”
SOLIDER Base; Residential Quarters
Some people can look into another person’s eyes and tell what kind of individual said person is, but for those who lack such refined skills there is another, much easier, way to see what kind a person one is without directly interacting with them: look at their room.
Kimberly was standing in front of Hal’s room with the door open. Considering the amount of time the scientist’s protégés had, they did a good job: the pigsty had successfully transformed into a moderately dirty room with a lot of trash bags that were ready to be taken outside.
Dirty rooms, constant smiles both fake and real, the dark emotions that ran deeper than anyone could ever imagine. They were two different people, but they seemed to have more in common than the twins who were actually related to her.
Their mother smiled a lot, almost all the time, in fact. Even after their father’s death she kept smiling. That’s why everyone thought that she was okay. She was smiling all the time: that must mean she’s fine. She managed to take care of her children without any trouble and, more importantly, the twins were happy. ‘What a strong woman she is.’ ‘Nothing can crush her spirit.’ She tricked everyone, including the twins, and perhaps even herself. She was the greatest actress in the world, but her great and final act would not have been possible if any of her adoring fans had noticed the signs. All it needed to take for the whole act to crumble was for one person to see the one difference. The twin’s mother may have been good at keeping up appearances, but there was one room in the house that had drastically changed after her husband’s death: her room. Each day, it got dirtier and dirtier. She kept smiling, but she stopped caring about herself. No one can last long with such mentality. And she didn’t.
Something about Hal’s room, reminded Kimberly of zher mother’s. It was the kind of messy that felt more like self-mutilation. It is why zhe knew that simply cleaning his room, scolding him about it, would not change anything: trash would start to pile up once again. No matter how hard or how many times they reset everything, to start a new, he would never truly forget why his room got this bad. Or perhaps Kimberly was overthinking things: seeing stuff that wasn’t there and giving meaning to things that were meaningless.
Kimberly snapped out of the thought when zhe heard someone calling zher name. “What are you doing here?” Haziq asked the head doctor.
“I tried… and obviously failed… to catch my brother.”
Haziq stared at the doctor, suspicion colored his expression, but when zhe would not say anything more, he simply “accepted” zher explanation.
“Why are you here?” Kimberly asked.
“I came back to finish up what I can before I head back to my actual work.” Haziq smiled at Kimberly, “Do you know how many people seem think that my job is to baby sit Henri? It’s staggering, really. Believe it or not, we’re not getting paid for cleaning his room.”
“That might be true, but you wouldn’t be cleaning if you didn’t care, right?”
Haziq’s smile twitched ever so slightly before it weakened, “I suppose.”
Zhe noticed, but returned Haziq’s earlier generosity by not prying. Instead, zhe offered to help throw out the garbage; a request, which regained Haziq’s smile instantaneously.
The two walked into the room; Haziq, to continue cleaning, and Kimberly, to grab some filled trash bags. The doctor waltzed over to the first garbage bag in sight and smiled slightly when zhe saw it was full of paper; more specifically, paper with Hal’s writing all over it. They were torn into pieces, but zhe still recognized Hal’s neat handwriting and occasional hand drawn diagrams. Kimberly had read the man’s reports before and zhe had heard of the mixed reviews concerning them. The number one complaint from the elitists was that Hal’s papers were long winded with so much content that could have been cut out from the paper entirely. Interestingly, the content what could have been cut was what made Hal’s paper more popular among the casual reader. As far as Kimberly could tell, Hal’s scientific essays were always written for the average person. His paper became full of “unnecessary fluff,” because he wrote using simple words and when the use of a jargon could not be avoided, he would always take the time to explain what that terminology meant.
Aside from that, the papers were well organized and easy to read for what it was, even by the elitist’s standards. As one critic said it best, Hal wrote in a way that no reader would ever be left behind. Understandable when taking Hal’s upbringing into consideration and a thought that Kimberly shared wholeheartedly: everyone, regardless of their background or age, should have a chance at education. It was comforting to see that this had not changed.
“Kimberly.” The voice that called for zher attention was too flat to be Haziq’s, but when zhe did look away from the papers, he was the only one in the room. He smiled and redirected Kimberly to another pile of garbage bags, “I’d like you to take these out.”
Kimberly picked up the trash bags that Haziq wanted thrown away, but couldn’t wipe away the uncomfortable feeling that zhe just had. Zhe was too focused on the handwriting rather than the actual words to notice anything. Did zhe see something zhe wasn’t supposed to?
Uh, I guess Hal can jump in the bandwagon too if awkwardness is point? In fact, why don't we just have everyone hit on Kain as if he was made out of pure axe body spray to bring the awkwardness to the next level. Hellis will never have to worry about nobody hitting on Kain ever again XD
Edit: Oh, also
Edit: Oh, also
<Snipped quote by Kefka Palazzo>
I don't know what you listen to, but I'd reccomend listening to instrumentals and the sort. Trailer Music World I & Trailer Music World II has a lot of good instrumentals, in all sorts of ranges. Same with EpicHeavenMusic and Jennyni20 (Epic Rock / Epic Pop). And, finally, not instrumentals, but I LOVE Les Friction.
… *Looks at Wade Wilson*
JJ approves.
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