Well, then, let's get started on this somewhat belated post! Hopefully some of you readers have still been attentively hanging around, waiting for this one. It's still not terribly spectacular yet...I may have tried to push the plot a little too fast, resulting in a need to slow down and develop characters a bit more strongly.
Plot Summary
Katsuo and Paige talked mechanical stuff, and Janice had a weird dream and a brief chat with Commander Rowan.
Katsuo: Mechanic Stuff
Katsuo scoffed. "Nothing is ever free. I don't like this place at all. These people are just..." He stopped. He still didn't know if Paige was all gung-ho as Eric about killing gods. "Nevermind..." He continued his meaningless tune-up.
"Just what?" she asked, looking at him. "Why don't you like this place? We're safe here and we get everything we ask for...as far as I'm concerned, I never have to leave."
Katsuo and Paige hadn't had a whole lot of civil conversation, so it was decided to give them a chance to be a bit nicer to one another. This scene was set at some indeterminate point in the three-week gap between story arcs, presumably shortly after the whole group headed to Katsuo's house, finding nothing. Side note, they'd headed to his house shortly after the fight with the creatures that emerged from the Living City, because of what Katsuo's brother had mentioned.
Well, that didn't leave him in a good place, personally, because the next most logical place for his father to be was kidnapped into the Heavens...and that didn't sit right. When Paige popped in, he was rather irritated at the intrusion. She soon showed concern for him, so the guy started opening up a bit. Then he began discussing the situation of the Godblind with Paige, and made clear his hesitation on following them. Now that they were in the Free City, things weren't safe for them any longer. The gods would attack them if they struck out, and the people in the Free City were showing a considerable lack of restraint. It was something that gave him a lot of pause...
Paige: Bright and Shiny
Paige climbed into her mech's hand and was lifted into the cockpit where she switched on her portable radio and got down to work. "Oh, there's a box for you in my satchel..." she called down to him before turning back to the various wires and screws.
He wondered what could possibly be in the box that he would be interested in. Katsuo pulled it out of the satchel. He smirked a little as he discovered its contents.
Paige continued on working. She hoped her peace offering had worked. She had originally picked out the Twinkies for herself, but she figured they could only help the situation.
Paige, ever the cheery mechanic (though with a noticeable lack of standard mechanical skill) came by Katsuo's place to get some help with mech repair. She and Katuso had not been on very good terms earlier, and she'd decided to smooth things over with him, especially considering that they'll likely be having to fight alongside one another for some time. So she offered him some consolation on the fact that he'd failed to find his father, when they all went looking. That seemed to catch Katsuo off-guard somewhat. He wasn't expecting someone to show him charity like that.
She also talked about her own views on the Free City. She wasn't as concerned as Katsuo; after all, the Free City seemed to be taking care of all of them well enough. As far as Paige was concerned, there wasn't much of a reason to be fighting up there on the surface. That said, she also apologized to Katsuo, for the way she had previously acted towards him, and they went on repairing up their machines.
Janice: Crazy as Ever
Her breathing came out in ragged gasps. Her chest felt restricted. She felt contained. She glared ahead of her. Stupid wall. Stupid PLACE. She couldn't stay here much longer. Her hands shaking, she reached into her jacket to get her knife. She stared at it, thinking. No. This wasn't enough anymore. She put it away, and stormed out of her room, startling some people passing by.
She stopped and looked at them, a slow and icy grin curving up her face, "Why good day to you." Her voice was low and threatening. And then she ran down the hall, toward where the mecha armor was kept.
"Oy, Sunlight, we're goin' out!"
==What? Are you sure-==
"WE'RE GOIN' OUT."
Oh, Janice, the one character with whom I feel completely justified in giving an extra dose of weirdness to. Yet again, this scene involved her having one of her crazy dreams. This time, the dream...tapped right onto the end of the previous scene. So, er, if you didn't catch that, the scene with Katsuo and Paige was actually being witnessed by Janice's dream. She herself...felt...strangely embedded into the matter of the Free City, except that there was part of her calling it "Cancer". In fact, the longer that the dream went on, the more evident it became that there was another consciousness batting around with her. Her total consciousness drifted around the Free City, seeing various people, a room with bodies being committed to burial by the Godblind, and then--she woke up.
It was revealed that this dream had been recurring for some time. Janice punched the wall, yelled at it, and then went out to go find Sunlight, to blow off some steam with a walk up top. This dream, this was stranger, weirder, even for Janice. At about that time, she caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes flickering into and out of existence on one of the Free City's walls, and the murmured word "Cancer". That sent her into another frenzy, and then (to compound matters), Rowan showed up.
Rowan was cold and brief as usual, despite Janice's rebellious tones. She merely told Janice, firmly, to be at the pre-mission briefing. Janice went about her merry way, although she did inquire from Sunlight as to exactly when the briefing was to be.
Next Time Around
I'm not 100% sure how things will develop next, but most likely they will involve a bit more character anchoring, before the briefing, which is turning out to be a bit of a pivot point, as it should be.
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