(open) back to ordinary

[sparsity]

Who: mikazuki augus (sparsity) & various & you!
What: october plot - open prompts, closed starters.
When: various days in october.
Where: olympia & thesa.
Warning(s): violence, probably murder.

I. YOU'VE GROWN OUT OF US

[ All things considered, the events leading up to Olympia's current state are familiar in the way the lay of a skeleton is familiar, flesh stripped from bone, the impression of something once whole. Bare joints exposed, a working order, if not quite... right. Explosions rocking a populated area, terrified people, dubious claims opening up a chasm of blame for anyone free to explore. It leaves too much to people he doesn't trust. Too much like the colonies he saw falsely accused.

Years ago and yet fresh again, for all the subtleties he doesn't understand about it. All he knows is that people are ready to fight.

Mikazuki isn't really the vigilante sort, though he's moving through the streets of Olympia like he is, eyes trained and alert as he glances down alleyways he passes, storefronts and establishments a little too dark. He's most familiar with the marketplace, as much as he's a familiar face there too. All its corners have been thrown with smoke, illness, and shadow. Electricity is in the air, the same sort after the announcement. Mikazuki tastes it as he rounds the bars he knows, looking no where near old enough to enter one and now not marked by Ashti's stone or uniform to signify he's patrolling them, instead dressed in somber neutrals.

His pace only slows when he comes across one of the posters strewn about the city, wide things pasted sideways to the front of a building. Broad daylight, people around, hunters, accomplices. None of that matters. Only the face on it matters, a boy no older than himself, blocky angles and friendly eyes.

Reaching up, he scrapes his nails across its topmost edge and tears it off, crumpling the pieces in his palms. To anyone within earshot that may have stopped in light of his display, he passes a glance to. ]

What?

[ Polite, as always. ]

II. AND YOU'VE BEEN DYING TO GO

[ Every so often, the liveliness of Olympia drives Mikazuki to space. Not because of the noise, but because the conflict this time isn't his noise. It's not Tekkadan, not their conflict, save for those here with him now in the crossfire again. That's the only loyalty he owes, the only allegiance he has. Except this one thing.

Show us we can trust you.

Those words shadow his footsteps as he makes his way through Thesa and into the hangar, the chilly smell of alloy and fuel stinging pleasantly in his nose. He knows his way by heart now, just like he knows his way by heart through the stasis units on Alria to the one he visits day after day. It's quiet up here, compared to the surface below. There's an odd shuttle that takes off or docks in a whir of hydraulics, the natural shift and boom of metal, even at rest. But it's not any of the mass produced training machines that he's focused on as his footsteps thud across the catwalk lining the hangar perimeter, secured in front of the mobile suits. No, it's farther down that he focuses on, where the makes of suits starts to shift. Eventually, he slows next to a hulking white machine, crowned and clawed in gold. ]

Sleeping like usual. [ With no one else around him, he's actually addressing the suit. Hands in pockets, his gaze travels up and up, settling on its clean, quiet face plate. Repaired from that moment he was brought, breathing, to Thesa. ] I wonder what you'd want to do about this, too.

[ ...if there was any doubt that he's legitimately talking to a robot. ]

(ooc. closed starters below, if you'd like something specific feel free to hit me up here, rivalry, or axia#4656!)

Comments

[sparsity]

[ His name halts him on instinct as he slips his thumb on the safety and lifts the edges of his jacket, reaching behind him to tuck the gun into his waistband. Flicking a glance aside, every look and motion measured against the decision that becomes his definition, he nods. ]

It's all I have.

[ But the inflection is enough, evocative of when he, they, had had nothing much more. It's enough. ]

[cariad]

[Takaki would have phrased it better, but Yamagi's concern is all blunt words and sharp edges.]

No, it's not.

[He dislodges his utility belt enough to swing it to one hand while he crosses the small distance between them. He's more agile than most, but not deft enough to toss a heavy pouch, pregnant with ammunition.]

I borrowed a few extra rounds--They're not going to be missed back at the center. But if worse comes to worst, use a smoke bomb. There should be two in there.

[He can't be the one putting himself in the line of fire, as much as he'd want to under different circumstances. Someone has to take care of those inside.]

Come back alive.

[Please.]

[sparsity]

[ Squaring and giving Yamagi his full attention, his brows rise a little as his entire belt comes off, the contents of it clinking and shifting with the movement. One arm rises to accept it — his right, the nuance and smooth angles restored as if they'd never been lost. He doesn't think twice about it, never did. ]

Borrowed... [ A quick tug of a smile appears at the edges of his mouth, thin enough to miss, but deep enough to be real. ] Just like all those times before, huh.

[ That ammunition weighs heavy in his palm when the belt changes hands. Always allowing him to fight, even back then. Malnourished kids with sticky fingers slipping through corridors, not going after coins or small treasures but bullets and bread.

It really does feel like they've returned to what they used to know. Only Yamagi's heavier voice sometimes reminds him of where they are.

And what he has to do to keep them from treading down the path that took it away. ]

[cariad]

Nothing they're going to miss.

[It's a bold claim to make and an entirely implausible one. Should anything be noticed, they're going after the refugees first. It's a risk Yamagi's prepared to take for his person.

He feels safe where he is, after all.]

It's all I have for now, so be careful. I'm already losing my mind over Shino so don't make me worry over you, as well.

...Now I know how the old man feels all the time.

[sparsity]

[ If Mikazuki had any inclination to consider the implausible in the first place, he might have been able to appreciate how flippant Yamagi is about it. Without further ado, he shifts to buckle the belt around himself and make sure it's secure beneath the hem of his jacket, ammo within reach. ]

Don't do that, your mind is important.

[ More than his is, anyway. Maybe he can subscribe to some flippancy now and again too, brief as it is. ]

It'll be different this time. [ If for nothing else, then right now, for Shino. ] I'll make sure.

[cariad]

[It's different. That much is true.

Things need to be different this time around. There's no Orga to pin their weaknesses on, to huddle behind, to defer their judgments to. He has to remind himself that Mikazuki's not Orga, either--Even if he's the one with the gun.

They're not children anymore.]

But if you ever need any help, don't-- Don't do this all alone, alright?

[sparsity]

[ Not being Orga doesn't mean that the inclusions his thoughts and wishes have left in Mikazuki aren't glaringly apparent, sometimes. That had started the day he died. If anything, the urge to protect those things, what was left in the aftermath of the impossible, shines stronger than ever. ]

Right now I need you to take care of everyone here.

[ A lot to ask of him, with Shino's safety so precarious. But he has to ask for it, so he can do this with a clear mind. ]

[cariad]

['Shino' hangs heavily between them, unspoken. Eugene, he's selfishly depended on, himself, for as long as he could make himself. As for the rest of Mikazuki's new tribe, familiar to him mostly by face and name, it's not something Yamagi's unwilling to do.]

You can leave that to me.

[He's not that nervous, terrified child anymore. He hopes.]

Between me and Eugene, they won't have much to worry about.

[sparsity]

[ With a nod, there's no indication of a shift in his demeanor either way. Whether or not he would have asked Yamagi to bear that responsibility fives years earlier doesn't change the fact that his trust in him is wrought of the same stuff. Still strong, untwisted and never brittle, no matter what time has passed.

Or not, in his case. Time had never done much for him with regards to acceptance. ]

Thanks.

[ He's never been good at being inspirational in the way Orga was. Words and charisma were never tucked against him to harness.

But with that confirmation, he doesn't have to do this alone. ]