AKA Nixer
Lily – Conference Room (Squad 1)
“Then you could be Stalwart,” Lily suggested, looking up at Marky and meeting him in the eyes. “Strong, loyal, hardworking. Still means about the same, but... you wouldn't have to be a saint to live up to that...”
This... I'd really want to end well. It'd be worse for him... if Saint was allowed to live, and stay imprisoned... I know that death is... something you'd start to want...
Lily didn't let herself say this out loud.
“Don't let this crush you, Marcus. Stay strong. This is exactly what he wants. And I know you can be better than him. Leagues above.”
And at the end of the day, no matter what happens... it's the end of an era for either side now.
bork
Squad 1, Gloria
"Marky, hm?"
He did bear a strange resemblance to the Saint. Well, being a clone would certainly explain that.
"I suppose it would be strange if none of you had a way to refer to me. Very well - call me Gloria. I know we aren't meeting in the best of circumstances but... Well, it is what it is."
It had been hardly any time since she joined the Saint Foundation, and already tensions were high. Already she was being faced with a difficult choice.
"If nothing else works, and the Saint proves to be a threat to safety and order... I suppose we can't discount any options available to us. But it won't be a decision I make lightly."
Her golden eyes betrayed little emotion, making it difficult to read her right now.
Edited by HilarityEnsues on Nov 24th 2019 at 8:05:57 AM
Foundation HQ, Conference Room
Suddenly the door slammed open. Interceptor came marching through, with Reinbach tailing behind. He was carrying some sort of large hand cannon, though as for its' purpose, it was still too early to tell. Interceptor scanned the room before addressing the squads, his hard eyes strangely distant. As though whatever was going on was something he didn't want to believe. And yet, it was as if there was more to it.
"So." He cleared his throat, his weary voice quickly becoming filled with stern resolve. "I don't think I have to tell you why you're here. As far as the public's concerned, the Saint murdered a criminal on national television and warned the entire populace that if anyone tries anything of the sort, they would be next. I shouldn't have to tell you what this means. Or what it would mean if he really was the Saint."
He closed his eyes, taking a moment to compose himself before opening them once more. Suddenly they were hard and steely, as if any doubts had been thoroughly cleared. "That said, as I'm sure some of you have already guessed, this Saint is not the genuine article."
At that, Reinbach chimed in. "Truth to be told, we've had our doubts ever since he first appeared. Most of you good little boys and frauleins are no doubt too young to remember, but this is not the first imposter we've had on our doorsteps. Back in the '70s, we barely fended off an invasion from another universe. One that was a total opposite of ours. Almost as if it were a mirror image. Complete with their own Saint. As such, when this new Saint showed up on our doorsteps, you couldn't blame us for being skeptical. Not that we had any proof."
Suddenly he grinned, as if he were finally getting to the juicy bits. "But as of today, we do. And in hindsight, it shouldn't have been so surprising. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the rash of multidimensional incidents we've been having over the last several months. They were so frequent that it seemed a bit odd to be coincidence. So of course, it wasn't. I've been comparing the readings from each incursion, and they all appear to come from the same source. Once I managed to confirm it, I matched it up with the Saint's bio-readings from his recent medical tests on a hunch. It was a perfect match."
Interceptor stepped forward, his voice filled with just the slightest touch of controlled rage. "What we are dealing with here is an infiltrator from another dimension who crossed over into ours and is possibly trying to undermine our society from within. The problem is we still don't know what he's after. Nor do we know anything about where he's from. Which is where you come in."
"Obviously we must confront the Saint and discover the truth, but we cannot expect him to simply give us what we want. As such, we must be prepared to deal with him if necessary." Reinbach hoisted his cannon, aiming it at Squad 2 as though they were in his crosshairs. "Thankfully, we still have this. This work of art was made to deal with that other imposter back in the day. It's capable of temporarily limiting the Saint's powers. If things do go south, it still won't be easy, but at least he should be easier to manage. Assuming you can land a shot."
Interceptor turned to Squad 2, though he tried to keep his gaze on the others as well. "Squad 2 will deal with the Saint. Saintlad will also accompany you for obvious reasons. Your goal is to confront the Saint and get anything you can out of him, but don't resort to force unless pushed. Even with Reinbach's weapon, our Saint was still one of the strongest heroes on the planet. The others will accompany Reinbach to the lab. Using his interdimensional gateway, he'll try and send you to the source of the incursions. Once there, your goal will be to find out who was causing them and why, as well as why they sent their Saint to our universe. And then make it back in one piece."
He took a deep breath, or at least made the attempt. "Let me say one more thing. The Saint, the real Saint, was my friend. Maybe one of the only ones I've ever had. I'm not one to get close to people or open up, but somehow, he managed to get through. So whoever's taken his place and made a mockery of everything he stood for? I want them to pay. Dearly so."
By this point he had clenched his fist, but he soon let it unfurl. "But I also know that's not what he would've wanted. What he would've wanted is to do this by the book. So that's what we're going to do. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
Iridium Wonders - Conference Room
"Okay..." Mahvash put two fingers to her forehead. Well, between Iona and Rienbach—that's exactly what she expected and neither of them were her responsibility. She herself had paid Saint's supposed revival little attention.
"You would have us count on a device," She started slowly and gently. "from a prior attack that said attackers may have analyzed back then? And may exist in the mirror verse anyway with a counter?" That didn't make it useless, but it paid to be aware of that.
"How does it work?" She folded her arms behind her back, at ease. Saint would still be there in the morning. "You have the time to give us information on the tools we'll be using. Especially, if our device can do more damage to Marcus than Saint."
Mahvash would leave conduct of the mission to a discussion among her squad where it belonged. And Marky. A day was hardly enough to integrate one person onto a squad, and this time it was five minutes. Interesting. Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Cole - Squad 3
And so the fate of The Saint went to Squad 2. While Cole understood the point of their lecture, at the same time he kind of felt he was getting patronized to...kind of. He crossed his arms - he'd not even been here when The Saint was alive at all, and honestly he didn't totally agree with the way the guy was being basically deified.
"He's The Saint, we have to observe a certain protocol", "We have to mind the way The Saint would want things done!"
That kind of perspective naturally led to this kind of rampant abuse.
Honestly, Cole never felt as much connection or devotion to this guy's image as everybody else seemed to.
"...Got it boss." Cole stated. He wasn't much keen on just sitting back while Squad 2 did their thing. Breathing for a moment, Cole spoke again, "And...just to put this out there, I'm not saying I'll do this as my first option, but if the choice is between Saint instituting tyranny and me taking the shot, and there's no other options, I'm gonna take the shot."
Marky - Squad 1
Marky started by shaking his head, and pointing out the name used for him, "Alright sir, but first of all, I'm not going by that name any more. I'm going by Stalwart now." He leaned over to Lily and whispered, "...Thanks pretty lady." And then promptly said, "I'll do as much as I can to bring him down. The Saint has to be stopped before...before things go much further."
He looked at Squad 2 and figured he would now need to work to get involved with Squad 2. Squad Unity was gonna have to be a priority. If he was gonna be on for lack of a better term the war path, then he was gonna need a group of friends at his back.
And that meant getting to know them and working with them as best he could.
Edited by NickTheSwing on Nov 25th 2019 at 8:26:38 AM
Conference Room - Iona
"Seems I chose a bad time to turn my back on the Elements."
As the briefing went on, ponderous thoughts drifted through the former mage's mind. So her hypothesis had been correct, but they were still no clearer on what motive this Saint might have. As the briefing concluded, she spoke up.
"Surely he's at least committed the crime of identity theft? He's been passing himself off as our Saint. And if this is how he's dealt with Leon, I doubt he's any better in his universe."
As for how to deal with the imposter, the team seemed rather divided. Cole seemed the most likely to fight fire with fire, as it were, and she couldn't blame him. Nariko seemed hesitant, and the others seemed to want to do this by the book. She was caught. On the one hand, Cole's method seemed the most likely to have little problems down the line...if they were quiet about it. A few months ago, she might have agreed wholeheartedly, but she was torn now. The mall incident had made her loathe to resort to lethality in methods. And Marky seemed to be having an existential crisis.
"I find myself agreeing with Cole here. If he wants to create a more bloodthirsty culture of heroes, we really shouldn't let him run amok. Say we capture him. How do we contain him? What if he escapes? He's not our Saint. We need to stop thinking of him as such. Naturally, we can't fall into his trap. But say...if we kept quiet about the whole mission. The world never finds out. We publicly announce that the returned Saint was an alternate universe imposter, he goes missing, people assume he's fled to his home universe."
She bit her lip, the unease setting in as folded her arms and stared off to the side.
"I'm not comfortable with that course of action, for the record. But we're dealing with someone who has the powers of the Saint and just murdered someone, even if they were a villain, without hesitation. What hope do we, a bunch of rookies with only a few years under our belts, have trying to hold back against him, even weakened? We've dealt with large scale threats before, but nothing on Saint's level."
She bowed her head, casting her face into the shadow of her hair.
"Once we play our hand, we know he won't be as merciful as we think. I don't know about you all, but I've lost enough of the things and people in my life. So...whatever you all decide to do, I'll help as best I can, even if it's from here at HQ. I'm not cut out for field work anymore, but I want to try to be a hero still. As repentance."
Surrounded by weirdoes
Squad 1
Sam just crossed his arms in thought. This was a delicate situation left on the hands of a warehouse full of explosives next to a forest fire. One change in the wind and they are doomed.
But there was something else to see.
"So, is there anything compromised in the systems?" He asked, just to know "Or anything missing?" Having given the faker months with more or less unlimited access to their things, more than a few things end up bothering him.
Man, days like these really make me want to dive into my ice cream stash for a few hours, or weeks
"Nice to see you ready to do things on your own terms, Mark" He said "Just make it count"
Squad 2
Ryuu had been on a weird trance with everything that's happened, but that's normal on him, but this one was specially tough. In all honesty, he just didn't know what to do, and what he feels about all of this.
But, they had to end this as quickly and quietly as possible.
"Hey, Martin" He said, softly "Feel like being the Paragon?"
Wake me up at your own risk.
Meeting Room-Martin
Martin looked at Ryuu for a moment and gave a small nod, standing up and looking over everyone in the room. "If I could have everyones attention for the moment," his voice was just high enough to reach over other conversations to draw attention to him. "Most everyone here knows me, most of us went to school and college together, maybe on different teams but still. So I want to state something in no uncertain terms." he took a breath and tapped into his reserves of energy to push away the sleep from his body. "We can't win by trying to kill Saint for two reasons. The first is practical, the Saint has had people try to kill him for most of his extended life, people who would take the entire foundation to face. When it comes to fighting for his life there isn't any single person in the world more experienced in facing and beating the odds then him. Any single one of us would lose against him, and going in with that mindset that we need to land a single fatal blow will result in someone else getting hit." a group against an individual type of fight against anyone with experience became a battle of trying not to hit your friends. And against the Saint the odds of friendly fire rose.
"The second is an issue of what it means to be a hero right here and now. He kills someone so we kill him. Tit for tat, eye for eye, you all know the score on that and don't need me to go on about it for the millionth time. Heroes have to take the harder road, work within laws to bring down threats. And when those threats are someone who talks and walks like the worlds greatest hero that means we need to rise higher to the occasion. Our actions from here on out decide what it means to be a hero in the modern era, because we are the examples that the Saint can't be anymore." he looked over the people in the room and smiled. "I would trust each of you here with my life, we're going to win this."
Squad 1, Gloria
“I agree with both of you,” Gloria said to the Interceptor and Martin. “Killing the Saint is not an option. I do, however, also fully agree with her.”
She nodded to Iona.
“Once it becomes clear that we’re standing in the way of the Saint’s plans, there’s no guarantee that he won’t declare us to be evildoers and come after us next. We’d be fighting in a city where men, women and children are in mortal peril. We’ll need some sort of contingency plan for that.”
Meeting Room-Martin
"The Saint likely already sees us as threats given that he bothered to spend time among us until this point, its likely he might even believe there are those of us sympathetic to his cause that he would have tried to absorb into his cause if he found the opportunity," he looked around to the people in the room and shook his head. "I don't think anyone here really believes in his form of justice or would work against the rest of us."
Martin paused for a moment and took a breath. "But I have to make a statement that might not make many people here too happy. Fighting in the city is the best move for us until proven otherwise. Well a fallback plan would be good its obvious that the Saint believes he is doing the right thing and is trying to push his ideals onto the world to make it easier for whatever the next step of his plan in. If we fight him in the city he will be forced to hold back and be put on a back foot to avoid civilians or extensive damage. In other words he would be forced to put on a show of beating us. Even if it adds a five percent boost to our chances its more then we had before."
Squad 1, Gloria
“That’s going on the assumption that this fake Saint will restrain himself if his back is against the wall,” Gloria replied to Martin, looking uncertain. “I have no doubt you all know the Saint very well, but this is not that man. There’s no telling what sorts of actions he’ll be willing to take to protect his ideal of ‘Justice’. Not until he is put into that position.”
She looks very pensive for a moment.
“But it might not be an unreasonable assumption. Not because I think his morals will prevent him from harming innocents, but because his pride might. Though that too is an assumption...”
She shakes her head.
“Frankly Martin, I’m unsure either way if this is a good idea. But I will have faith in whatever course of action is ultimately chosen. That’s... all I can really do right now.”
AKA Nixer
Holiday – Conference Room (Squad 2)
“Normally I'd object to keeping the fight in the city, but in this case I can see your gamble,” Holiday commented—blinking out of her state of quiet information-absorption and moving up alongside Martin with a short nod. “It's a risk. A big one. So I'll be contacting Team Dynamo in its whole. Every ACP in our ranks, as well as Mother and Father. If needed, we can focus on selective quarantines. Even in the cases where civilians are exposed, they won't truly be. We may lose units, but God knows they can be rebuilt. For the average citizen, it's much more difficult...”
She paused for a moment, before turning her head back around to Mahvash with a sudden thought.
“To clarify, I meant that literally. About my disposability. Though I appreciate your actions in snapping me out of my blind panic, I'll assure you that I have no problems with my self-esteem. I'm merely at a place where I can decide when I'm a repairable machine and when I'm a sapient being. The only reason I started to lose focus was because I felt responsible.”
Hmm. That's a point. Perhaps I'm a rule-follower more than a leader. Note to self: let Mahvash take charge from now on. I'll need more practice on the field before I start issuing commands to the group I care most about.
bork
Cole - Squad 3
Cole listened to what Gloria and Martin were saying, and spoke up when the topic turned to how it was supposedly impossible to kill The Saint, or even that it should not be done. He shook his head, "I am not so concerned with coming off like we're better examples or ahead on moral principles in comparison to The Saint. That's an automatic to me given we're fighting a fascist. If we take the "we go high, they go low", every single time Un-Saint is just gonna go "okay, I'll go lower and lower and lower". That's how they operate. I'm not saying we go right for the kill. But I am saying we can't be averse to trying for it if things go south enough."
Cole crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, "I'll admit I'm leaning into my personal experience with how I'm reacting to this. But let me tell you something that happened from my world. Just...to say why I feel so strongly." Clearing his throat, Cole began his story;
"...we at Clan Asher came upon a town without anyone in it, and when I went to read the place's history psionically, I saw that Alpha-Leunis had rode in at the head of his army. He wanted to sort out who was strong and who was weak in the town. So he forced everyone in the place to dig a gigantic hole in the ground just outside town, and made the people there take up whatever passed for arms that they could acquire. There, in that gigantic hole, Alpha-Leunis presided over bloodsport. Everyone who refused to participate was killed on the spot for "lack of fortitude". Once the old, the infirm, the weak, the pacifistic, the excessively young, and the mentally incapable were all scattered tortured and slain, Alpha-Leunis made his new conscripts fill in the hole and bury their friends and family out there in a mass grave. And then he went on his wretched way."
Cole visibly looked shaken reciting the story, and said in an even tone, "And I brought him low. D-Do you think, Martin, that I did so by peacefully bringing him in for a trial by his peers? By jailing him? No. I punched off Alpha-Leunis' fucking head and exploded his body cell by cell. So...please."
He took a moment to cool himself off, "Don't let things get that bad. If it means you gotta do something morally questionable, do it - don't let The Saint put people through shit like that."
Squad 1, Gloria
Gloria had to pause for a moment to take in Cole's story. It was certainly horrific, but was this really comparable to what they were up against?
"If the false Saint is a cruel warlord like the one you've described, then I could certainly see the merit in using lethal force. But is that really what we're dealing with here? He has a misguided sense of right and wrong, but he's not a war criminal or a dictator as far as we know."
"Though if what Martin says is true, we physically won't be able to kill him anyways. In which case, holding back is a luxury we may not be able to afford. In fact, blows backed with our full killing intent may be necessary just to harm him in the first place."
She sighed.
"It's all a bit strange to think about, really. Perhaps this is why angels do not typically meddle in this profession."
Where am I? What's going on?
Rebecca - Squad 3
Ever since yesterday, Rebecca had been eerily quiet, lost in her own mind. It wasn't something she could unsee, her childhood idol snapping a man's neck like that. Even the knowledge that it wasn't the genuine article did nothing to quell the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Martin was stepping up to the plate, taking charge, living up to his name. She was compared to Martin a lot, even though the two didn't talk to each other much. Indeed, in ideology, in dreams, and even in heroes she and Martin were almost the same. But there was one major difference between her and Martin. He was far stronger.
Martin was well on his way to becoming the next Saint, when Rebecca had known from the beginning she wasn't up to snuff for the role. Martin was planning and leading the charge, even though he clearly hadn't slept a wink, while she had done barely anything but sleep and was still struggling to cope. Martin was a Paragon, strong and stalwart, and she was nothing but pollution, meaningless destruction.
Rebecca was glad she was on the away team. She'd never been strong enough to approach the Saint when she thought he was the real deal, and she doubted she could be strong enough now, knowing the truth.
Iris - Squad 2
What startled Iris the most about this whole ordeal was... how little she cared. A man was dead, but he wasn't one of her people. They'd been betrayed, but the betrayer was outside of her family. And so she felt... almost nothing.
Was she really so desensitized? Or was it more than that? She'd seen horrors that would drive most men mad, and had come to accept them as normal. And then she had become one of those horrors herself. Had she lost some humanity in the process?
With that said, Iris listened intently as they planned. It was her squad that was going out there, and she would protect them to the end, no matter who they were up against.
Surrounded by weirdoes
Squad 1
"Good heavens is this going poorly" Sam muttered with a sigh and resting his face on his hand "Seriously, fake or not, the name of the Saint carries a lot of weight, and the eyes of the world are on us, this goes wrong, and we just end up either emboldening every other authoritarian bastard waiting for a chance or just turn everyone else against us with little to no chance to reverse it, so please, no stupid, reckless things, can we?" A bad feeling started forming on his gut. But what else is new?
At least, I don't have to deal with everyone trying to emulate me, nor will I ever have to He thought And they better not pick now to go off the handle and put people in risk
Squad 2
"Hey" Ryuu said out loud, trying to defuse things "Let's try to calm down, and get this right, things are pretty difficult already without us getting so riled up" He tried to remain calm. He didn't know what to do, but this situation was too delicate to try and use his instinct.
"Your call, guys"
Edited by Blueace on Nov 26th 2019 at 5:51:05 PM
Wake me up at your own risk.
Meeting Room-Martin
"Regardless of any arguments, its our job to get things taken care of from here," Martin stood up and looked toward his squad and Marky, giving a small nod to them. "This fight comes down to us, so we should discuss this by ourselves," he paused for a moment in thought. "Also, we are facing the Saint so this is your chance to join one of the other squads for this mission if you don't think you're ready for that. It will be the hardest fight of our careers to bring him in if he says no and like a few of us have said there isn't a hard guarantee that we walk out of this one if things go south."
He wasn't going to offer false promises or try and lighten the situation, there was a small chance they made it out of this fight with only broken bones and a few unconscious members. More likely they would take him down through pure attrition after he had finished beating most of them black and blue.
Once whoever had decided to follow had he turned back toward his squad. "I trust Mahvash to devise a plan beforehand, but there is one thing I want to add. I will be taking direct point against him, along with Stalwart if you are up for it," he gave a nod to Marky. "We have the best chance of holding his attention for more then a minute to let you guys have a shot. And if it comes down to being able to knock him out and I'm in the way, I want you to take the shot even if I end up hurt."
AKA Nixer
Holiday – Conference Room (Squad 2)
“...I will also be willing to fight on the front lines if necessary,” Holiday commented after brief deliberation upon listening to Martin's ultimatum. “As I've stated multiple times, I can be rebuilt, plus I'll have my creator in the field to help draw me out if needed. However, if you think it more prudent I direct the rest of the ACPs and primarily focus on civilian evacuation then I will also consider that. Or both, even. I have the durability at least to withstand a direct hit or two, and may be able to provide use as a further nuisance to him. Three are better than two, although...”
This was difficult to her, so she elected to project her HUD out onto the floor in front of her to display a slightly fuzzy map to better illustrate her point.
“Since shelters are distributed evenly, I could risk letting the ACPs go by their lonesome in evacuation. However, it'll still be a loss. So ultimately, it's a matter of priority. Would you rather have one less in the front lines, or one less taking care of innocent bystanders? I won't condemn either answer—I wouldn't ask otherwise.”
Lily – Conference Room (Squad 1)
“I... wouldn't last against The Saint...” Lily admitted, “...so I'll stick with my Squad, I think. I'd be better helping stop it from the source than trying to fight one of the strongest heroes in the world...”
Metaphorically speaking. Pretty sure there are stronger. Somewhere.
“You ready, Sam?” she added in a more private tone, looking over at him with a somewhat tense smile. “This might actually go seriously wrong, so... just give it your all, okay? I care about you. That and... well, we actually need to talk about that so... don't die on me if you can help it, okay?”
Not that I'd be sitting around to watch that either.
Edited by Enirboreh on Nov 26th 2019 at 3:23:36 PM
bork
Squad 1, Gloria
"I'll stay with my squad, then. I don't know the Saint's capabilities or how he fights, so I would be at an immediate disadvantage in combat against him."
She turns to her other squadmates.
"I'm not sure what dangers we'll face or unpleasant truths we'll uncover in this venture, but I'll be there to protect you all with everything I have. That is a promise. So, let's show those invaders that they can't just do as they please."
Conference Room - Iona
"Does this really have to come down to us? Can nobody else handle this? This is the Saint we're talking about."
Iona bit the corner of her lip, crossing her arms.
"Do you think we can really stand a sliver of a chance against him? I know it's not my place to talk since I'll be here at HQ, but I still worry. Sure, we're more experienced when it comes to dealing with villains than your average fresh recruits, but like it's been said, we're dealing not only with someone with decades more, but who regularly dealt with some of the most notorious villains of history."
A tightness welled up behind her eyes, forcing them shut.
"If only I hadn't..."
No, stop thinking like that. You turned your back on it for a reason.
A few trembling moments of silence, and a slow breath out, eyes fixed on everyone gathered.
"Just be careful. I'd rather be calling for a medic than a mortician, and preferably neither at all. The same goes for the Squads going to the alternate universe."
Her eyes closed again.
???
"Somebody's getting withdrawal symptoms isn't she? Ready to come crawling back and embrace the truth? You've already opened up again just a little bit."
There was a brief blinding light, the real world growing muted. Iona's mind screamed and strained, the light fading as quickly as it came and back to normal reality of closed eyelids.
Surrounded by weirdoes
Squad 1
Sam paused for a second, and smiled softly at Lily, feeling a strong urge to just take her into his arms, but this was not the place for it.
"Same to you" He said, quietly "Don't worry, I won't die so easily, so let's see the end of this"
"I'll just go check things on the other side" He said out loud, calmly "We don't know how this'll go, so I'll stay with my team"
Squad 2
Ryuu just shrugged.
"Being a hero kind of means ending up with the odds flipped on you" He admitted "So we just have to figure it out"
"I am in" He said.
Wake me up at your own risk.
Squad 2-Martin
He looked to Holiday and shook his head. "We need you fighting with us, not as a frontline but fire and medical support for either Marky or me, whichever one of us goes down first. You might be able to be repaired but that doesn't change the fact that Saint would be able to tear through you but will have a bit harder of a time with either of us." Martin was confident he could take at least a few blows from Saint, through that might have been a tad overconfident. He was riding high in terms of percentage right now, low eighty's being held by the fact he hadn't rested and was able to store bits and pieces of his power as needed. "Besides that you have the widest range of support options of anyone in the group, constant harassment might allow either of us to get the hits in that are needed."
Martin smiled and walked over to Ryuu, offering his fist for a bump. "Wouldn't be the first time the odds weren't in our favor and we won the day."
Edited by Kingxana0 on Nov 27th 2019 at 4:56:33 AM
An Ordinary Oddball
Cain (2)
"I'll gladly go to fight him, or delay him, whichever is the case," said Cain, twirling his bone knife in his hands. "Whatever attacks he manages to land on me will just get bounced back at him. I doubt that he's immune to his own strength. Even if I die, he'll be weakened enough for you all to take him down. That's my hope."
"He didn't have the excuse of a maddening heavenly virus forcing his hand. He doesn't even have the flimsy excuse of 'needing to kill to live.' It was by his own choice, his own hand, that he killed someone. I realize how hypocritical it must sound, coming from someone like me, but by and large I believe he should be stopped, however we decide to do it," he continued, leaning back in his chair. "The fate of the world may as well rest on what we decide to do from here. And to think I decided to join you all as a vacation..."
Wilma (3)
Wilma had a distinctly shell-shocked look on her face as she sat at the table. She had a letter from her family in her hands, and she was fretting the edges with her hands.
"I don't think we should fight him all at once, even if we feel like we really need to—and I know we'll all feel like that sometime in the coming future," she said, at length. "By God, we should all be able to get our licks in, that's all very well and good, but we shouldn't try to fight him all at once."
"It's hard to put my thoughts into words—that's been the case lately—but all of us attacking not-our-Saint at the same time? It sets my teeth on edge. It raises my hackles," she explained. "He's the hero of his own story. The more we outnumber him, the weaker we are, and the stronger he gets. It's a fundamental rule that stories follow."
"Whatever we decide to do, please take that into account. We can't fight back properly if we're all hurt in the same fight. Send a few or one person to fight at a time," Wilma advised. "They'll fight harder if they feel alone and have their backs against a wall. I'll go first if you all have doubts."
"But promise me. Never, ever, send all of us at once. It will only end in disaster," the girl said, sitting up straight and looking everyone in the eyes. "When two stories—two sets of 'heroes'—collide, strange things are bound to happen."
It was rare to see Wilma this serious.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 27th 2019 at 7:18:39 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
Breath of the Sun
Squad 1 - Conference Room - Nariko
Nariko supposed it made sense for Squad 2 to deal with the impostor Saint, especially with Marky's help. Martin was, like Marcus, some kind of Saint-lite, so between him and Marky they (one hoped) wouldn't have too many problems.
Cole's story was horrifying. But she also had to agree that the impostor hadn't done anything quite that horrible. Well, he hadn't yet. Hopefully they'd stop him before he was able to perpetrate any atrocity of that level. Perhaps they'd find something in his world of origin that could help take him down.
"I don't know if I'm faster than the Saint," Nariko said, "But even if I was, I doubt I could harm him. So I guess it's for the best that I'm on the expedition team."
She walked over and placed a hand on Marky's shoulder. "Be safe, alright big guy? We'll help you take this fake down when we get back." She smiled. "Assuming you haven't beaten him by then."
Nariko turned back towards the senior heroes. "Reinbach, can you tell us anything at all about this other world, beyond the fact that they have a Saint? Or are we going in blind?" She paused, realizing something. "Also, did you get the chance to finish repairing my blades?"
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?
Cole - Squad 3
Cole nodded along to what Nariko was saying - the ninja had unquestionably suffered a lot in the recent days. The Saint's betrayal, her mother's kidnapping, the fact that Burner got away with everything... Fact was she was talking smart here from his perspective.
"Yeah..." Cole said looking at the outside through the window. He could see a million ways this could all go wrong. There was even the fact Ignis was still out there, and whatever he might have to say about this. "I'm not unfamiliar with those kinds of missions. More than a few times in my world we had to make sure a Warlord simply didn't wake up in the morning. And let's face it. That's what The Saint is angling to be. Just another petty, spiteful Warlord who won't take any challenges to his regime."
Breathing, he finished with, "So stop putting him on any sort of pedestal. He's nobody important to us now."
Marky - Squad 1
Damn...
Everybody was just as if not more fired up than he was, and Marky had to go outside and see that this man, this killer, was someone basically wearing his face in a sort of way. Fact was, one way or another he was gonna have to address the elephant in the room. The fact that he was here, calling himself Saint Lad, after all that happened. The name was itself now blackened.
It was identified with this attitude, this positioning of himself as a sort of grand arbiter.
"I'm...I'm not Saint Lad any more. If you gotta call me something in the field, call me Ultra Lad. Or...or just Marky, or Marcus. Don't—-Don't connect me to the Saint any more. That man is dead to me."