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Post by Licht on Aug 12, 2016 15:36:50 GMT -5
((The following is an interaction that has already happened and a continuation of the events in Ruined City))
Licht sighed in the morning breeze as he leaned over the railiing of the high balcony. On the horizon far beyond the boundaries of Cathedral's far walls, the sky was still dyed colors of the rising sun. He took in the city already loud and busy below him. Cathedral was really just quarters after quarters of dwellings built onto this, the central tower that comprised Zynth-Co's headquarters, however most of their labs and structures were underground now.
The medical division was very high up on the tower, and out here on the balcony near the visitor's section he could get an impressive view. He had liked to come up here just for that before... he had never had anyone he actually cared about in the infirmary to visit.
"Yes Rada, I'm well aware." He murmurred, looking up from the cityscape to gaze out at the horizon. In open spaces like this, he could almost feel free.
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Post by Stonelark on Aug 12, 2016 15:39:05 GMT -5
Maya hid behind one corner as a doctor and nurse passed by, then quickly and silently padded down the hallway in soft slippers to the balcony furthest from her room. After being stuck in here for almost 2 days trying to convince the doctors that she was fine, she really needed some fresh air. It was only a simple, run of the mill concussion and she was already over it. Never mind that the metal that impaled her was a bit rusted and she'd gotten a minor infection from it. A twinge of pain caused her to wince and rub her right shoulder where said metal spear struck. Memories flooded her mind in pieces. She needed to talk to Licht to find out if what she remembered really happened or not. Lacking a voice, her sole means of protection for the last 15 years, struck a cord of fear in her. It was only for a few minutes but the fact that someone existed that could take it away frightened her.
She reached the balcony without incident and breathed a sigh of relief, shivering a bit in the light dress she wore over her medical gown. It was tied loosely at the waist with a silky black ribbon. Being injured was no reason to not be fashionable. A bright smile graced her face when she saw a familiar blonde boy by the railing. Maya approached, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pressing her cheek against his hair. "Hey there. What are you doing here sweetie? I thought you were cleared." As she leaned on Licht, her loose red hair fell down against him.
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Post by Licht on Aug 12, 2016 15:39:12 GMT -5
Licht startled, not hearing anyone approach, and then laughed when he recognized who it was. He didn't move and let her lean against him, though his first instinct with most anyone else would have been to jump away. There were just some things, such as getting cut down by a murderous phychopath, that made you invariably closer to another person.
"Hi." He reached up and patted her arm lightly in way of greeting. For a moment they just stood there in the sunrise together not talking before he went on. "I was. Just shrapnel and bruising really. They had me patched up and out of here to report the same day. I just finally got away and came back to check..."
"Faldr... captain... They won't even let anyone in the room with him. They're saying it's something like a trauma induced coma, but with the regenerative technology they have they should have been able to repair most of the physical damage by now..."
He turned his head to stare at her. "What about you? I was sure you'd be out by now or I'd have come to see you too. Is it your head?" He looked worried.
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Post by Stonelark on Aug 12, 2016 15:39:30 GMT -5
Maya sighed dramatically, "It was only a minor concussion, not like I haven't had one before. I think I should know by now how it feels to have one, as well as when it's healed." She rolled her eyes. "The doctors insist on keeping me here 'for observation'" She emphasized with air quotes and sarcasm. She moved away from Licht a bit to lean on the railing heavily as if exhausted, staring out at the horizon. Another twinge in her shoulder told her it was probably time for more pain medication and antibiotics, but she really didn't want to go back to the stuffy little prison that they designated as her room.
"They tried to get my report the first day I was here...yesterday?...but the doctors told them to shove off and interrogate me another day. I've been staving off boredom by trying to write out reports. I only clearly remember what happened before that crazy bitch impaled me. After that is a bit jumbled. You...you were...glowing. Or I could have been hallucinating." She paused and looked over at Licht seriously. Maya decided to just be completely blunt. She said with some hesitation, "What happened out there, Licht? You turned off my core. I didn't even think that was possible. And you were able to use my...my powers. How?" Her voice wavered with anxiety as she spoke.
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Post by Licht on Aug 12, 2016 15:39:35 GMT -5
Licht sighed and ruffled his hair. He had hoped to avoid this. And he shouldn't anyway. The information was need to know. But Maya and the captain deserved to know. And as the captain was still out and it didn't look like he'd be waking up anytime soon, he'd better get to talking.
"I wasn't lying when I said I couldn't fight. I can't. Not really. Not on my own. My power is over Light." He waved his hand absently for demonstration and a shower of colorful sparkles formed out of the morning sunlight and drifted downward over the balcony before dissipating. "I can manipulate it, sort of bend it to reflect patterns that I want.. though its easier in places like this, where there's direct light, than dark places like that city..." His voice trailed off and for a minute he was back there in those darkened streets. He shivered.
"And I wasn't lying when I said I don't have a core. I don't. They call me a natural born Technist, try and say that my whole body functions as my core or something. It's supposed to be some very rare phenomenon that Zynth-co's been working towards or something. It's why I'm like their pet project right now." He sighed in frustration and leaned out over the banister looking down at the city.
"And about the core... you're right. It shouldn't be possible. Core's aren't capable of just being shut down. And yet somehow... I can. It takes a lot more effort than just bending it, but I can sort of condense the light too, make things out of it. When I hit another Kymere core with that condensed light, it's like it's able to flip it off or something. Or it's more like I transfer that core's functionality into my own core for the time being or something. Except that my core doesn't actually exist like others, so there's no way to hook it up to machines or measure it or really determine exactly what's happening. I don't understand how it works myself. Even the higher ups in the core research don't have an explanation, or if they do, they're not sharing."
He turned to look at Maya again. "It's not like I chose it. It's not like we really have any control over what our cores turn out to do. I didn't imagine having to use it in combat... it's why I..." he trailed off again and his mind was elsewhere. "I never thought I would be forced to. I never thought I would be fighting other Technists."
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Post by Stonelark on Aug 12, 2016 15:39:44 GMT -5
Although startled at first, Maya smiled at the light show Licht performed. A memory returned from the ruins; a bolt of light that he shot through her body, but did no harm. But at the mention of the city she cringed at the look on his face and how his whole body seemed to tense and shake. As he talked, he seemed more and more not there, like he was disappearing into the memories. Whether they were memories of the city or something different she couldn't tell. She knew how it was to be a pet project, although in her case it was completely voluntary. Being at the mercies of Zynth-co changed a person. The things Maya had done, all in the name of Zynth-co and Cathedral. She never cared much for the city and if it weren't for her core. Well, she didn't really know. It had never come to that. Seeing the boy in front of her that she had shared such a horrific experience with made her feel protective. This took her by surprise and her eyes widened in alarm at the though. Her? Protective? What was this? No, surely it must be her possessive nature taking over again. She could be violently possessive, but that didn't explain the need to wrap him up in a cloak of warmth and never let him be hurt again. She shook her head again to be rid of any such ideas. No one has any less right than she to be protective over anyone, not after all she'd done.
Maya shook herself from these thoughts and wrapped both arms around the boys shoulders and pressed her temple to his. Her face twisted in pain from her contorting her shoulder in a way that she shouldn't but she ignored it. It wasn't as important as comforting Licht. "I'm so sorry that you had to experience what you did, even more that I was nearly useless for the duration. I couldn't keep our captain from the mercies of that psycho and I had to face someone that completely countered my own abilities. You shouldn't have had to fight, not if you didn't want to. You were driven to it by our own lack of knowledge and abilities." She had her own suspicions that her superiors had more knowledge about the situation than they shared and she, Faldr, and Licht nearly paid the price for it.
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Post by Licht on Aug 12, 2016 15:39:47 GMT -5
Licht didn't realize it, but their thoughts were nearly on the same track. The very fact that one of those they had fought completely neutralized Faldr's abilities while another had been able to counter Maya's... it had to just be some coincidence. The only alternative was this was some elaborate setup to force him to activate his powers. But... that couldn't be, right? He had volunteered to go on this mission of his own will, just to get out. It couldn't be.
At first he didn't even notice that Maya was hugging him he was so lost in his thoughts. He briefly considered pulling away but didn't. Of the people he was sure he could trust in Cathedral right now, one was in a coma. There was no harm in hugging the other. Although strangely her chest seemed flatter than he would have expected.
"No. It's alright. I wasn't expecting it, and that was naive of me. It helped me realize that I can use my powers if I need to. I won't use them to harm, but I will use them to protect what's important to me." He pulled back to look into her face and noticed her pain. "Your shoulder? Just a concussion, nothing to worry about, huh?" He made a face at her.
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Post by Stonelark on Aug 12, 2016 15:40:00 GMT -5
She laughed at the look on his face and patted his cheek. "The concussion is just fine, gone. The stab wound though..." Maya sat down on a nearby chair and smiled tiredly at the boy. "I suppose I'm not quite one hundred percent. That spear...they think it was rusted. And the infection has been quite debilitating. I'm on good meds for it but they still want to keep an eye on me. I've been dying to get out of here though." She glared at the building disgustedly.
"I hate hospitals. Reminds me too much of..." she trailed off, memories returning of the experiments and labs and killing her father and her mother crying out for Rook. She might have to be him for a bit to deal with all the goings-on as of late. He was stronger than her, he killed their father, saved them. Actually, wasn't it that very situation that created Maya in the first place? She sighed, setting an elbow on the table and laying her head on it, staring past him at the rising sun. "I haven't even been to see Faldr. I've been asking about him, but no one will tell me anything." Her voice sounded a little far away, distracted. She began to hum a soothing aria to help ease her own mind.
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Post by Licht on Aug 12, 2016 15:40:05 GMT -5
Licht's concern grew in a different direction as she first described her wound, but her unfinished words disturbed him more. She was one of the ones that had been experimented on so much then, like so many others. He almost couldn't stand thinking of it. Had he really chosen the lesser of the two evils?
"Captain's strong. He'll pull out of this when he's ready to. In the mean time...." He stared out at the horizon. Somewhere out there Joka and her crew were still out there... doing what? Moving to a new hiding place? Waiting for the inevitable assault by Cathedral? Preparing to counterattack? "That woman... the purple haired one... what do you think...." he wasn't sure how to even voice his thoughts about the situation. "What do you think will happen to her?"
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Post by Stonelark on Aug 12, 2016 15:40:15 GMT -5
Maya growled lowly at the mention of Joka, unknowingly emitting a tone to cause fear in those around her. Anger bubbled at the surface thinking about what that woman did to the captain and Maya and the fear it caused Licht. "I understand people are the way they are because of their pasts. I'll even be the first to admit that I'm fucked up. But there is no excuse for the things she did to cadets Eris and Baret. The way they died...the way she tortured Faldr...it's horrible even for someone like me." She stared off into the distance, not seeing anything physically, but in her mind's eye was burned those images. "Someone like her deserves to be either put down like a rabid animal or quarantined like a disease. There was no remorse in her, no purpose other than to cause pain. She enjoyed every minute of it, even shooting through her own comrade."
Maya remembered doing some pretty horrific things: killing, torturing for information, all in the name of Cathedral. But it was to protect her own skin. To be able to do the things she wanted instead of being a slave to Cathedral. 'But am I not already a slave to them? Isn't everyone a slave to Cathedral's bidding? No matter if we tell ourselves we're not in their grasp, we still are. It makes us feel better, safer, to believe that we control our own lives.' Maya grew depressed at this line of thought.
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Post by Licht on Aug 12, 2016 15:40:19 GMT -5
Licht winced as Maya growled. He would have to get used to her slight involuntary core reactions if he was going to be around her.
"Is there really anyone anymore who is in control of their own lives? Not us with Cathedral, not..." he paused and bit his lip. "Anyone, I suppose."
"With the world like it is, we have to band together to survive. Naturally there are going to be those who are going to take advantage of that. It's how people work. It's how it's always been."
"Have you ever studied the records?" He asked suddenly "About how things used to be? The things called governments and militaries... it seems like people have always been repressed in some way. Just now, with the way things are... this is where we've come to. We have to find our own freedom I guess."
He was cut off by a knocking. He turned quickly and grimaced when he saw the officer. "Licht Sieger, your presence is required for a report to the chairmen." He gave no reaction that he had heard anything Licht had said, or even any emotion whatsoever. It wasn't their job to care, after all.
Licht sighed and ruffled his hair in frustration. "Oh goody. More meetings. Thanks Maya. For talking... for everything." He hugged her lightly and skipped off after the stern looking officer. He looked briefly confused by a series of doctors scramblng around looking for something until he put two and two together. He waved his hand back in the direction of Maya, bending the sunlight around her. Someone would have to look really closely to see her standing there now. "Take care of yourself," he mouthed as he turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
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Post by Stonelark on Aug 12, 2016 15:40:31 GMT -5
Maya huffed at his statement. "...Even if it means submitting to their whims to get high enough to have some semblance of freedom..." Like I had to do. She tensed up at the knocking and hunched over where she was sitting. Normally she didn't do anything that would make her seem less ladylike but she didn't particularly care right now. The thought of being back in the clutches of the doctors was not very enticing. Licht's hug startled her but she clutched him closer for a moment and kissed his cheek. "Good luck, sweetie." A sad smile crossed her lips as he bounced off. He was a breath of fresh air in this place.
She might have to take his advice and look into the records. No one has full access to the records. Everything is monitored and they always question why you're studying what you are. And you are always looked upon with suspicion when you say it's just curiosity. Therefore she would have to do it covertly, and likely erase any evidence of what she was really looking at. She sat there for a bit longer, just looking out over the city and thinking about what she and Licht spoke about. As the thoughts processed, Maya fell deeper and deeper into melancholy. She decided to just go and hide in her safe place.
Her body shuddered momentarily and eyes blinked several times and looked around. Rook was slightly confused as to how he got out here. It took awhile but he reviewed all the memories Maya showed him. He sighed. Poor girl. "You're safe now. I'll take care of everything." He said aloud to the cool morning air. He felt her gratitude and gave a sincere smile. Time to face the doctors. He stood up and scowled down at his clothing. Couldn't she wear something more gender neutral. He tugged at the lace on the dress and then went to find his room. He really wanted to change.
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