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(open) back to ordinary
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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!)
no subject
When you can, yeah.. [ He feels the need to reiterate that part. Duo is, after all, the one who constantly talks about running and hiding and never telling a lie - the never part, by now, was a foregone thing, he knew he couldn't possibly have made it through a war without lying and running and everything else, but here he is, kind of the lone survivor yet again. It's getting old, if he's honest, the cycle of it, but all he could do is ride the ride for what it was and move through it from there.
No way in hell he's giving up, anyways. ]
Mmn.. well.. maybe that used to kinda be my job. Hell, might still be it depending on how this place shapes up.. [ But there's that shit eating grin that makes it seem like he might be lying, too, rocking back on his heels as he crosses his arms over his chest, looking pensive. He wants to wish them luck, but wonders if that sounds ... wrong. Wishing someone luck protecting someone they clearly think of as more like family or a close friend seems shitty to do. ]
Still, he should stay safe. Not much else to do other than try, right?
no subject
Anyone else probably would have been cowed into a reaction by Duo's admittance, but Mikazuki's demeanor stays smooth and cool, almost as if he's not all that surprised. Darma's reach was an inscrutable thing. ]
We do what we can. [ Gjallarhorn had painted the colonies as terrorists by goading them into attacking with fake, planted weapons. Terrorism itself is subjective. ] If it's by bringing that kind of thing with us somewhere new, then...
[ Who's to really say? Or judge. ]
Shino must have thought something similar.
[ And he was a way more talkative person than Mikazuki. ]
no subject
[ Duo's deceptions have ben meticulously built from childhood - pretending to be some unknowing kid, pretending that he's just some skinny loud mouthed kid instead of .. well, a bit of a honed killer and infiltrator. It wasn't something he enjoyed, necessarily, but it had saved him from probably getting pig stuck in an alley on L2 at some point in his life, so it was worth pursuing a little longer. He was good at fighting, even if he didn't enjoy it all that much thanks to the frequency at which he's experienced it, lately, but...
Maybe he sees that, somehow, in Mikazuki too. Birds of a feather, blah blah blah... ]
Well, I can't say I'd be proud of bringing that along, really. Especially not by such damn amateurs. [ Is that disgust in his tone? More than a little. ]
You'd know better than me.. I only talked to him once. Still... I'm sure most of the people they pulled in were just trying to help people they thought of as harmless. Real shitty way to pay people back, but.. [ He shrugs, silently saying 'that's the way it goes', basically. ]
no subject
[ Life being what it was on Mars, Mikazuki had the choice to become strong to live by whatever means necessary, or accept that death or worse would come for him. It's why he has hands callused by the grips of firearms and a spine wreathed with metal. It's why he's here, decision laid on top of decision with no dark corners for regret to reside in. ]
Shino can tell you a lot like that. [ It's how he is. Mikazuki's tone takes on something a little more weary in that single statement, like the exhaustion that plays alongside familiarity for a family member. ] That's the difference between us. Someone said this to me...
No one wants to fight a battle they know they'll win.
[ So placing blame on who's convenient is the better option. ]
no subject
Offer lock picking classes or something? ]
He wear on you a little with that? [ That little, jibing smirk tells it all, but as usual it's a harmless little quip and Duo's back to checking the crowd around them, for a moment. His typical safety sweep and not a lot more. ]
Hm. That's a tough one... Because, in all actuality there is some guy who will see something easy to take, lunge for it, and act like they just completed a fucking triathlon or something. Then there's the people that want to really work and strive for something and kick everyone's ass on the way up to get there to say that they tried and fought for what they have or what they're doing.. [ Duo shrugs thin shoulders. If he's honest - ]
I've been both of those guys, at different times in life.
no subject
Fighting wasn't like that for us. It didn't matter if we could say things like that about it in the end. Only that it took us where we wanted to go.
[ Maybe it's the literal only thing Mikazuki knows how to do, but there's no fanfare in it, no glory to blow smoke all over.
By standing here, it's pretty evident. It didn't get them much of anywhere familiar. ]
no subject
Yeah. Same for me, but it was basically languish in a shit pile or get out, so...
You do what you can do as a kid that no one takes seriously. [ Somehow he'd gotten the sense that they'd come from similar backgrounds... maybe it was the certain way they held themselves, maybe it was just... that they knew. There was a sense of a street kid to another one, even if they weren't strictly from the streets. Shino had told him enough to understand that, at the very least, he and the larger man were from the same circumstances.
Mika gave him the same vibe, and he feels pretty safe in assuming even with his little cryptic hints. ]
Don't think this is a place I necessarily wanted to end up in, really, but I've ended up in worse places so I can't bitch too much. It's not a prison where you're stuck in a cell at least.
[ Though the little snort he gives after seems to indicate he still counts it at least slightly like a prison. ]
no subject
[ Even if it meant endless killing and fighting, carving tooth and nail to get there just so he didn't have to anymore. But no one took children seriously, Duo's right. It had been that way from the start, even when Mikazuki was aware that the fastest way "home" was just dealing with that, being used when they were convenient, and then finding out too late what a mistake it was. Despite that, the comment seems to make him feel more at ease, like an animal offered a creature comfort, for whatever it was worth. ]
I wouldn't have ended up anywhere if it wasn't for being brought here. [ He wonders if he really knows what death feels like. ] But...
[ A pause to look down at the crumpled paper in his palm. ]
I think my place to belong came with me.
[ And he's not above biting the hand that feeds to protect it. ]
no subject
Well, where i belong is where I came from, so, there's no escaping from it forever for me. [ He feels it most intensely when he's in a group of people with influence - that inherent distrust of anything that glitters and speaks in formalities or wears a military uniform. A gut, visceral need to tear away and say that none of them know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to common people, all of it. Duo knows it's not an entirely kosher reaction to people who could genuinely want to help, but the reaction is just so damn ingrained -
And, well. It makes it harder to contain that L2 drawl and any other sign that he was one of those people. ]
What do you mean, wouldn't have ended up anywhere? [ He feels as though that's an innocent enough question, as he's never run in to someone dead before, but then again - well if he was now on some alien planet he supposed anything was possible. ]
You man Shino alone or are there like... more of you guys? [ Duo's met more of the group, but.. doesn't know that just yet. ]
no subject
He'd play loyal for as long as it did him any good in keeping Orga safe, but Orga wouldn't want this for Shino. For any of them. He'd abandoned Ashti's uniform and stone as soon as the news broke and the streets erupted. Looking over the expanse of faces as a cursory thing, his fingers flex. ]
There are more. Some lived through the fighting, others got brought back. Like me.
[ Answers the question about being nowhere, at least. ]
no subject
Ah. That's heavy.
[ So he'd died. That much he can grasp. He'd been lucky to come away rather unscathed a lot of the time - other than a capture or two and Trowa destroying Deathscythe. Most of those wounds, however, had been psychological instead of physical, and if nothing else Duo has proven time and time again to be capable of shaking things off, stuffing them down, and carrying on with life. Not the best for his mental health in the future, probably, but for now it worked.
He fiddles with his braid, a subconscious motion, before maybe attempting to lighten the mood a little. ]
I'd say there's nothing like a second chance but I don't how how much of a second chance this place really is. Haven't quite sussed out all the politics of this joint but it seems...
[ Duo laughs lowly, scratching at the base of his braid. ] .. Well, just as damn convoluted as home.
no subject
Living again is enough to make sure things turn out different this time.
[ An offhanded motion of his shoulders, too full of their natural tension to really count as a shrug. ]
Even though some things are the same.
[ Like this situation. He agrees with Duo that way though, for better or worse. ]
no subject
[ Duo has, thorough force of will, grown a little numb to the mention of death, even to himself. Sure, he'd been upset when he'd heard that Heero had self destructed, but the 'death' had only been so upsetting because .. well... Heero had done it himself instead of being taken out in battle. It's an odd thing, the difference in his mind between dying fighting and dying at your own hand is great enough to make a difference. Maybe it's an honor thing, maybe it's a ... personal attachment he isn't willing to admit. ]
Well hell, I think that would be anyone's goal. I know two guys who pretty much came back from near death with the same thought in mind. [ There's a little laugh, there. Not that he's ever had a second chance from death, but he knows people who have, and that kind of mentality always seems the same. His stomach gives a low rumble, and with the thought of food in mind Duo tips his head, as if to excuse himself. ]
Look, I'm the type'a guy that runs his mouth but my stomach's about to go on revolt if I don't rustle somethin' up so... I'll see you around?
[ Not that he's waiting long, hands in his pockets and making a slow, backward retreat so that he can keep Mika in his eye line. ]