[OPEN]

[gravemistake]

Who: Gabe Reyes (gravemistake) and special guest stars and YOU
What: Quests!!! And misc.
When: End of November/all of December
Where: quest-dependent
Warning(s): There’s at least one fistfight in here, otherwise tba

i. hinit to win it (olympia)

[Gabriel doesn’t spend much time in Olympia, if he’s ever there at all—for what it’s worth, he’s mostly given his allegiance to Wyver, as that’s where most of his personal connections are. He’s got less of those, these days, but he still favors one region over another, simply because it’s easier. Even with the train, he still doesn’t get over to Olympia much.

Sometimes, however, he has to pretend he has a job. He’s got to eat, after all, and this one seems easy enough, and detached from their formal guard enough. Reyes wouldn’t exactly say he’s a hunter, but sniffing something out and tracking it and doggedly pursuing it is most certainly part of his skill set, so all of this should be perfectly routine. The goal of this mission is a little more altruistic than he’d like, but money is money.

And the straightforwardness of the task has attracted others, unsurprisingly, to the point where Gabriel often finds himself accompanied by someone else in his search.]

We could make it a contest, if you want.

[You know, spice things up a bit.]

ii. mapquest (wherever you want to be)

[This one’s easy too—an easy way to make some money, at least—but it’s a little more safety-in-numbers than chasing down poisonous lizards. Despite Reyes’ general assertion that he can do most anything on his own, even he can admit that it might be advantageous to go with someone.

Doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a good traveling buddy. He spends a not insignificant amount of time fiddling with the app upon receiving it, until—]

Say cheese.

[That’s all the warning you get as Gabriel flashes his network device in your face—if you weren’t quick enough to get out of the frame, you’re immediately presented with the picture of yourself, in all its blurry or potentially embarassing glory. Gabriel, for his part, seems very pleased with himself.]

Oh, good. It works.

iii. out and about and around (not a quest, nadil)

[Reyes likes Nadril. Well, he doesn’t like that it’s cold, but given its general level of technology and the fact that its inhabitants are a third party with potentially interesting information on the Natha, he’s willing to give the region a pass on its weather.

When he’s in Nadril, he splits his time between the trading centers and the outer tower—in the former, keeping his ear to the ground for any interesting rumors or, you know, looking at guns. In the latter, he takes to exploring, pouring over the labs and the left-behind items of refugees as if he’s going to uncover a new piece of the puzzle. He hasn’t had much luck.

Either way, he’s sort of approach-at-your-own-risk. If he senses that he’s being watched, however (and he is pretty good at that), he’ll speak up.]

Need something?

iv. wildcard

[I will write you basically anything u want. Hit me up on plurk at whitticus or on disco at whitticus #8139.]

Comments

(closed to 76 and also super backdated)

[gravemistake]

[It's not hard to figure out. All three of them float in and out of the apartment, unable to shake their respective mission-oriented mindsets, but when he goes a few days without seeing her (when he's not trying to avoid her), he knows what's happened. It takes him a little longer to admit it to himself, but this isn't something that can be ignored.

Unsurprisingly, Jack comes to the same conclusion, so the two of them head up to the station because neither of them are going to accept it if they can't see it for themselves.

For a chamber with a seemingly innumerable number of pods, they find it fairly quickly. Once again, it surprises him how much it cuts right to the core of him. He's not a particularly empathic person, but he knows that Jack must feel even worse. Jack actually experienced losing her the first time--he can't imagine having to go through it twice.

Still, he's never been very good at this sort of thing, and he's still not sure where he stands with Jack.]

Guess that's it, huh?

[The Orbiters are gone. There's no one to really appeal to, not that appealing is his kind of thing.]

[personalwar]

[ Jack really wishes that this is something that he could have done alone. He already knows that Ana must have gone back into stasis. It had always been a possibility, the randomness of it making it impossible to brace for. She wouldn't ghost him this long if something wasn't wrong, and when she didn't answer his texts, well...

All the same, he would prefer to be alone when he confirms it. This is going to tear right through him. He can berate himself mentally all he wants, but regardless of how close he'd let himself get to Ana (closer than ever before), this would still would have hurt just as much, wouldn't it?

At least they'd had their chance. At least they'd had each other for a while. But now she's gone, and everything's cold again.

He stares through the glass at her sleeping face. It looks so much more peaceful than it ever did in her waking days, her wrinkles a little less severe as she's suspended in a sort of ignorant bliss. Except that Jack knows that Ana didn't want this, that everything he's seeing on her face is false, and he has to restrain himself from banging a fist against the glass. He already knows it's physically impossible to get the pods open.

He wants to yell. He wants to punch something. He wants to do anything other than deal with Gabriel Reyes. ]

That's all you have to say?

[ Jack tries to keep his tone even, but some of his anger at the situation still seeps into his voice. He continues to stare at the pod, not confident in his ability to keep his composure if he looks over at Reyes. ]

[gravemistake]

[Gabriel watches Jack, instead, finding it much easier to look at him than at Ana. If he keeps his eyes off the pod, he can at least fight down his emotions a little bit longer. Getting openly angry or upset isn't going to do him any good. It never does.

He'll save that for later, when he's alone.]

I mean, I'm ready to bust it open if you are.

[But surely someone has tried that before. There's a reason people are still in the pods, but he wonders how much it matters now that the Orbiters are gone.]

[personalwar]

[ Jack shakes his head violently, because he already knows that it won't work. He could put every ounce of his strength into it, and even with Reyes' help, he doubts that they'd even make a dent in these things. ]

Already tried it.

[ And so had others, people with supernatural abilities that blew theirs out of the water. Nothing worked.

His fists continue to tighten, the leather of his gloves squeaking under the strain, and he lets out a rough breath. Looking at Ana is only going to make him feel worse, and so he forces himself to turn away, but the prospect of walking away without her isn't much better.

He'll have to go back to the apartment that they shared alone, he'll figure out what to do with her stuff. He did this before and it's not any easier this time.

Gabriel had been there last time, too, but at least this time around he's got no reason to start pointing fingers. ]

This happened to you too, you know.

[ Because he doesn't care about keeping it a secret at this point, and he has no idea what else to say. Talking about how he feels certainly isn't an option. ]

[gravemistake]

[Gabriel grunts a little halfheartedly, because of course he already knew the answer to this. If people could bust into the pods, he imagines he'd see a lot more broken pods around, especially now that the Orbiters are gone.

Doesn't really stop him from wanting to try, but with Jack refusing to get in on it, there's not much he can really do aside from come back later and try by himself.

He doesn't exactly expect what Jack says next. Gabriel pauses for a long moment, staring Jack down.]

So, now that she's gone, you're gonna tell me the real truth?

[He doesn't like the idea that he was here before and doesn't remember it--just adds fuel to his conspiracy theories of the Natha tampering with their brains.

He really doesn't like that Jack has apparently withheld this extremely pertinent information from him until now. No wonder he treated him like an enemy when he woke up--the problem is he has no idea what his alternate self got up to.]

mapquest, around olympia because why not

[thedarkbond]

[It's been a while since Ren's encountered Reyes, but he has absolutely no problem going mapmaking even with people he barely knows, at least partially because he just wants to go and take pictures of things. It's fun, and might end up useful to him in future, and is already being useful to someone who's largely been pretty helpful to the refugees, so Ren's not really seeing any problems here.

He's also not seeing any problems with having a random photo taken of him, having somehow managed to get a v-sign up with the hand not holding his phone and an airy smile on before the camera flashes. Though he gives a bit of a doubtful hum when he actually sees the picture.] See, that could've been a lot better if you gave it time to focus...

[Even as he says that, Ren raises his own phone to take a picture right back, because why not.]

[gravemistake]

[Reyes, for his part, is a little more amenable to Ren now that they're not trudging through hip-deep snow. This is a low-stakes, easy task for easy money, and so he's relatively good-natured about it, for as much as that's worth when it comes to Gabriel. He seems entirely unapologetic about snapping the photo.]

It's a bad picture, that's the point.

[He doesn't take well to having a picture taken of him, in turn, he tries to swat Ren's camera away.]

Quit fooling around.

[Gabriel says, having just finished fooling around.]

[thedarkbond]

Really? What's the point of taking bad pictures, though... [Ren is choosing to be intentionally obtuse about this, because that's his usual manner of humour, even if he's the only person it's generally funny to considering it involves him looking genuinely obtuse about whatever's going on.

Ren shifts his camera to avoid the swat, though it means he ends up with a photo just as blurry as the one Gabriel took, and he pouts at him a little.] You're the one who started it, you know, you don't have to be rude.

[Apparently it's not rude enough for Ren to care for longer than literally as long as it takes him to say those words, though, because almost as soon as he does, there's a quiet sound of movement from behind Reyes, and Ren ducks his head to one side to see if he can spot it. It sounds like a small animal of some kind.]

Maybe the animals are getting scared off by your grumpy face, right?

[gravemistake]

[Reyes rolls his eyes, deciding that any further explanation of his camera-testing will just prolong the experience, something he's not very keen on doing. Besides, he has a feeling some of this is an act anyway--if not, they really are screwed.]

Being rude's the only thing I'm good at.

[He's joking, clearly, but Gabriel will go ahead and put on that aforementioned animal-scaring grumpy face for effect.]

Haven't figured that out yet?

not bad, hinit?

[prizeneck]

[Anything related to drug-dealing or medicine kind of pulled at his gut and wrenched it just a little bit, if he was honest with himself.
If he wasn't, he'd just simply say that having the chance of working for both sides of the coin made him able to figure things out for a bit - work ethics, all that jazz.

So he finds... well, a man that sensed not very physically different from the man who guided him to the kitchen when he woke up. Which was interesting in itself. A little younger, he guesses, though it's hard to tell for sure.

He can't really help narrowing his eyes a little at the challenge, mouth tugging to the side - the man obviously knew how to track and follow, but Mamoru was anything but confident on his own ability.] What, need the money that much?

[gravemistake]

Just a little bored.

[They're hunting lizards, for goodness' sake. The most they can do is make it more interesting. Gabriel can't quite decide if he should be staying very still, or trying to flush the animals out. The former way is dull, the latter way will probably get him poisoned.

At least by making it a contest, there will be some interesting stakes.]

Afraid you'll lose?

[prizeneck]

Heard that will kill you.

[He snorts, crouching and letting the system projected into his eyes do its job, taking in their surroundings a little better, lining up the surfaces and its dents.

They weren't given much information about the lizards, other than them being dangerous (which, honestly, suited Mamoru just fine), and useful. So he'd have to go with what he knew about reptiles to follow.]

Ain't got nothing to lose, so nothing to bet on.

[He looks around at the vegetation around them.] Do we know if they're carnivores or herbivores?

[gravemistake]

Hasn't yet.

[He sounds very proud of this, in fact, because he knows full well that wetwork agents like him don't necessarily live as long as he has. It's a blessing and a curse sometimes, even without the knowledge of what's waiting for him a little further down the timeline.

Not that he's fearing for his life right now. They're just lizards.]

I think they just spit poison at you. I'd guess the former.

[Maybe they dissolve their prey in the poison and slurp it up.]

Mapquest

[tellmehowthisfeels]

[She gives him such a Look. Then she looks at the picture and sighs so very heavily. Though honestly less for having her picture taken so suddenly and more because...]

The quality of that picture leaves something to be desired, Gabriel.

[To say the very least.]

So while the device works, one can question that of your skill in the area.

[gravemistake]

I never claimed to be a photographer.

[This was clearly a one part "see if it works", one part "bother Moira" maneuver. Satisfied, he puts the camera away for now.]

Might have to leave that part to you.

[She's always been more cultured.]

[tellmehowthisfeels]

That would probably be for the best.

[She may not be a photographer but she's sure she can do better than that.]

If you are done with your new hobby shall we depart? I would prefer not to stay out all day since I have something I need to return to.

[gravemistake]

Yeah, let's get moving.

[This will almost certainly be a lengthier mission than their lake dive, if only because it's going to involve a lot of hiking. Nothing to do but walk and take pictures, he supposes.

And talk, maybe.]

Hot date later?

nadril

[bellare]

[ frank has got his eye on those guns, too. they're nothing like what he's used to, but he knows his dad would've appreciated the craftmanship. it's automatic the way his fingers trace over the modified 1911 at his hip, hidden by his leather jacket, but not truly concealed. he's still not sure how he found the gun again before coming here, but he won't complain when it reminds him of his father going out like a hero up until the very end.

has he spaced out in memory, he wonders when the man's voice cuts through the fugue. he blinks heavily though his expression stays neutral as can be. ]

No. [ except... ] Unless you know something about these firearms.

[gravemistake]

[Gabriel is happy to see guns at all, given the level of weaponry on other parts of El Nysa. At the very least, Nadril is a good place to pick up ammo for his own guns, so as long as the market stands, he's got no reason to do something ridiculous, like learn how to use a sword. His shotguns, unlike Frank's gun, are not so similarly hidden.

This guy strikes him as someone similarly relieved to find real weaponry on this planet, so Gabriel folds his arms, leaning against one of the stalls.]

It's better than what you'll find in Olympia or Wyver.

[As in, he won't find anything of this nature in Olympia or Wyver.]

Ammo, too.

[bellare]

True.

[ oh, ammo... he's running low on that big time. ]

They don't have .45 ACP, do they?

[gravemistake]

They might. We can look around.

[And if they don't have something like that for sale here, he perhaps knows an individual who could make a suitable equivalent. From where Gabriel is standing, however, it's an interesting choice.]

Kind of old-fashioned, don't you think?

( hinit to win it )

[retrorsum]

( he'd been an incredibly curious fellow the last time that river had encountered him, someone that had certainly a lot of good knowledge and skills to him but there was something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on, perhaps something less trustworthy (or trusting).

which means that when she finds him again, seemingly after the same thing that she is river doesn't mind. it gives her an opportunity to suss him out some more, seeing him at work, and perhaps have a little fun )

Aren't you scared to lose?

Re: ( hinit to win it )

[gravemistake]

Me? No.

[Gabriel has already guessed that River is not quite a normal human, so perhaps he's suggested the competition with the intent of seeing what she's really capable of. He won't be very pressed if she catches more lizards than him--everything is just information to file away.]

First to ten wins? Or would you rather have a time limit.

[retrorsum]

First to ten. And then I can find out what you really want.

( whether she wins or loses. she's confident and considering this wasn't really a competition she was betting that there was something else to it.

besides, she was going to watch him just as much as he watched her )

[gravemistake]

All right.

[He offers her a mock salute, taking a few steps back as if to indicate that he's off to the races. No sense in acting cooperatively when he's gone and made this a competition. Less of a chance of sabotaging each other if they split up for now.]

I'll see you on the other side. Just holler when you're finished.