hadriel | 003✖; (voice)

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003✖; (voice)

[Judging by the sound of her voice and the clunking of glass in the background, Rey has been drinking. Alone, no less. When that happens, she has a habit to get melancholy, and even more so now. Thanks, Sorrow.]

"So, let's get this straight.

"The goal in all of this, assuming that we have one to start with, is to bring all of these dead gods back to life so that they can work their asses to finally use that Door that brought us all here in the first place... to take us back to our own worlds. That is the mission, right?"

[Pause. Another clink of glass as she takes a shot. By then it's obvious that there's something off about the way she speaks. Devoid of the monotone and the robot exterior that she so often maintains in the presence of others. Now it's just too much work.]

"Not that it's supposed to be a bad thing. Am sure that some of you come from lovely worlds with minimal problems and actual lives to return to and whole prospects ahead of you. But where does that leave some of us?

"You know, the ones that don't have lives. People who are dead, or have nothing to go back to but a piece of metal rammed through your chest but you're not dead even though you'd probably be better off that way anyway because of your track record for only making things worse no matter how much good you try to do and..."

[...And Rey is digressing. That is also not something she wanted to actually say.

[In fact, none of these things she actually wanted to say.

[Realizing this, she cuts the feed with a muttered "fuck, never mind" at the end.]

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[He can see that; as in, he can see that people would think that, by how they act when they wreck havoc without a direct need. But that doesn't mean that he understands.]

But if the life of someone else is in their hands, wouldn't it be nicer to keep it?

You cannot do much with a corpse, but you can make someone who is in your power do what you want and to a degree become who you want them to be.

No matter how much "nicer" it would seem, some people just take more pleasure in destroying life than controlling it.

[And some of Rey's old selves just happened to be among those people.]

[It makes no sense, but then, some people just are that kind of silly. Luckily, it's a kind of silliness that can be dealt with very easily under normal circumstances. Either you do what seems to have been done with Rey, at least partly - put such tendencies to good use -, or you make them understand that they will be found out and bad things will happen to them if they act on their silliness. If they still act out, you can still execute them. The problem is that a lot of times stronger people don't care to deal with it, and that is when the real issue starts and they take it out on weaker people without stopping.]

Did you kill those people without or against orders?

A bit of both, honestly.

[She scoffs despite herself.]

It's funny. One of the few versions of my old selves that wanted to hurt people the least ended up with the highest body count of all of us... them. All because of an act of foolish rebellion.

[Because she had gone against her orders, more people suffered than those by the blood-thirsty war mongers Rey had once been.]

[Rebellion is never good. Even if you are rebelling for a good cause, it will only mean a lot of dead people and probably starvation after, and nothing will change except for things becoming worse for a while, if you are unlucky.]

Why did you rebel?

[In Rey's case, rebelling did mean a lot of dead people. It's something neither she nor her past self is proud of, that much she can recall.]

Didn't see any other option. It was better than giving them what they wanted.

[Could you be any more vague?]

[He doubts that, but there are a select few things that might justify rebellions. Usually, though, they just break out over issues that have been going on for decades or over a century, even - more a case of a good inducement rolling around than the reason being new.]

What did they want?

Something dangerous. A weapon that no one had any business having.

[So Rey took it upon herself to make a choice, at the cost of her own life and the lives of thousands. Even if the end result was catastrophic, she is certain that it could've been much worse.]

[Back home, he would have considered that statement silly. No weapon could be that kind of dangerous. Even a catapult loaded with bodies carrying pestilence could not have justified rebellion.

But then he came to the Drabwurld, and to the Tranquility, and now he can imagine weapons that could be destructive on a much larger scale and kill many more at once.]

Why did you need to rebel for them to not get it?

Because, that weapon was a person. Someone who was scared, didn't want to die. But it was inevitable. Made sure that she went quick, painless. Figured it was better this way than to leave her to be used.

Too bad it didn't make a damned bit of difference.

[These weren't the actions of the Rey that she is now, but she sure does feel like it is. The guilt she carries is as much hers as it is her past self's.]

How can a person be a weapon that dangerous?

[For all he can tell, Rey made a good decision there - sometimes what you have to do is neither what you want to do nor what you feel is right to do.]

We were both created in a similar way, except she was an incubator for a massively destructive energy.

When she died, that energy transferred. Was not able to contain it the same way she did.

[And thus the Rey she was back then went boom, and the Rey now remembers every little detail of the unpleasant experience.]

What happened then?

[Not being able to contain something usually mean that something terrible happens, and she's alluded to as much, but he would like to know the details of it.]

It exploded.

[If she had it her way and it wouldn't have just led to more questions, Rey would have just left it at that. As it is, she can't help but feel that she needs to say these things to someone. Anyone. Doesn't matter who. Muscovy just happens to be asking the questions.]

Killed almost an entire civilian population. Others were wounded, sick, homeless, dying.

Was falling apart after. Could barely keep the body parts from falling off. Being killed was a mercy.

[One that she, as far as she is concerned, did not deserve. Because she is wicked.]

Edited 2016-08-05 04:07 (UTC)

So one town instead of many towns died.

[He has to wonder about that last bit, though.

Because he knows that it doesn't mean that things have ended for Rey. But still, she calls it being killed - dying. That's not what it is to him, never was. The closest that he has come is passing out for a while.

He knows that she gets new bodies, somehow, but he never wondered with enough force to ask how exactly that works.]

How did you get your new body?

A "town" that was full of people, of which millions were affected. A place that had once been home.

[Well, in a way. Her memories of Stone had been born on the streets of that city, and Rey herself had been created a mile under it. It's the closest thing she ever had to a home before Chicago, and now that is gone, too.

[She blinks at his question, wondering if her "other self" had ever told him about her past vessels. Doesn't sound like it, though.]

Have had many bodies. Am just data -- or a consciousness, however you want to look at it -- inside a husk. Can be transferred into other bodies like this one.

Yes. But it could have been much more. [A million means nothing to him. It's a fantasy number, far exceeding anything that he has a frame of reference for. The number of drops in the ocean, maybe.]

[He nods slowly.]

But only if there are bodies that the data can be transferred into. Like Gregory.

[Which was why they could have made him have an accident back on the planet had he shown up and he would have been dead for good.

...Why, he realized, that should still be possible. He hasn't seen empty bodies, and as long as bodies can't be emptied out... He might be thinking of Nick here.]

[Rey rubs her face, not sure if Muscovy is grasping the gravity of what she's telling him. Probably not, judging by his response.]

It could've been much less had a more calculative action been taken.

[What action, she doesn't know. Stone wasn't known for thinking before acting. She was a brash personality, towards the end.

[All of that gets pushed into the back of her mind, however, with Muscovy's next response. Rey drops her hand from her head, head snapping towards him and eyes widening slightly. It takes every inch of self-restraint not to shake the kid right then and demand information.]

The hell do you know about Gregory?

That he would have a terrible accident if he showed up here.

[They never told Rey about that, back on the planet. But they had it all set up, or at least planned out - multiple options, even. After the ship fell off the cliff, it had ceased to be a topic of deliberation, because someone new coming would have been close to impossible. But here in Hadriel, the concern is renewed, and Muscovy has looked into it. It's harder now that he has to think of ways in which he alone would be able to engineer it, and... well, the lack of acidic rivers is really troublesome here. They were useful for accidents, or covering them up.

He's not expecting Rey to get in on it; he's not even sure if it is a good idea to tell her. But it is the first thing that comes to his mind, and it has been weighing heavily enough on him to also find it's way onto his lips, even though it doesn't sound likehe's just blurting something out.]

[The fact that she -- the other Rey -- had apparently told him enough for the kid to come to that conclusion is pretty telling. Rey -- the one here and now -- isn't so sure what to make of that, or of the fact that somehow Muscovy feels protective enough that he would take such measured actions against someone who had put her through nearly a century's worth of hell.

[It's strange to think about. Normally she doesn't talk about that stuff at all, let alone share it with a child. Then again, it isn't like she's encountered many children to have an estimate on what she would or wouldn't tell them.

[Her mouth twists into an uncomfortable grimace.]

What else?

[This is a very personal, very private detail that Rey tends to keep guarded from most people. She has a hard time believing that that is the full extent to Muscovy's knowledge on the subject.]

[It's been months, and he had tucked the information away in a far out corner of his mind for a few of them because it wasn't needed anymore.

But he had memorized it very thoroughly before that, so it was not as hard as it could have been to pull it up again.]

What he looks like; that he was the one who usually had you killed in your former lives; that he's synthetic and thus could come back under the wrong circumstances. [He pauses, tilts his head as he ponders if he should add the obvious thought that comes with that in Hadriel and then decides that there is no reason to not mention it, because Rey is probably thinking it anyway and he should better show that he will be careful there.] So if he came here, Nick would have to be protected, too. [So his body can't be stolen. And if... well. You kill rabid dogs.]

[That's a lot of information. That is a lot of personal information, some of which Rey hasn't had the chance to even share with Nick yet. The subject of Gregory is something of a complicated one for Rey, given everything he had put her through and yet she still can't bring herself to hold any animosity towards the synthetic man.

[Not that it matters now, since he's dead. Hopefully for good this time, though she wouldn't find herself surprised if he ended up crawling his way through the woodworks once again.]

Don't think he'd ever go so far as to steal another's body. He is... or was too full of himself for that sort of thing.

[Resting her chin in the palm of her hand, her eyes fall to the tabletop as she mutters:] IV, on the other hand... She's the type that'd love to take someone else's skin out for a spin.

[IV is a sick puppy, and Rey's actually seen her do that sort of thing.]

Anyway, Gregory isn't a concern. He can't toy with me anymore.

[He would still be careful. Just that someone hasn't tried a thing before doesn't mean that they wouldn't if they were in a pinch, and it did sound like Gregory would have the ability to do so...]

...Who is IV?

[He's never heard that name before, but the way Rey mentions this person, it seems like very necessary information to have.]

And people come to places like this from the past of others. So someone who is dead in your time could come from a past time of your world and still be alive. My lady aunt came from a time when her whole family had been dead for a very long time, and yet some of them were in the place where I was before, too.

[Rey doesn't doubt that Gregory would try something if he was still alive, or brought to this place in the same manner as she. He is cunning enough to not only have manipulated the entire government cabinet for decades, but assumed total control over it in the end, and even continued to posthumously tug their strings after his supposed "assassination".

[She also knows Gregory's motives now more than ever, and understands why he did those things he did.]

Someone who Gregory was afraid of.

[And, in a way, Rey herself as well, but hell if she is going to admit that fear of hers.]

Am aware of that. Just saying, am not able to be controlled by him now like he could before, so it's not an issue even if he were to show up. [She scoffs.] Honestly, he'd be doing a service if he did come back somehow, just to blow his head off again. That would be satisfying.

[Of course, that had been just one of his vessels, so it didn't kill him at the time. But damn if it wouldn't scratch a serious itch.]

[His expression brightens up at her second statement.]

So you are stronger than him now, no matter what time he would come from, yes?

[That are REALLY good news. They make this whole worry of his a lot less substantial - if she'll be fine even if that guy doesn't suffer an accident immediately.]

Edited 2016-08-30 20:27 (UTC)

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Too bad that this is before his encounter with Bucky

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