HALO 183: The Not Remotely Gritty Reboot

[Purple Eagle]

[A bunch of Mimics] ATTENTION!

At some point in time a few portals have opened. Non should have been noticed by anyone, but maybe there is a way to tract them afterwards. Those portals have done something bad. They send a bunch of Mimics into the base which replace some of the current objects in the base.

The mimics have replaced the following:
A shower stall, which seems to not work well now.
The bread box which now appears allways empty.
A random treasure chest.
And a few more which players can decide on their own.

Mimics are rather dumb and act on instinct trying to consume their prey. They got a hunger for furry things or stuff animals.

[A bunch of Mimics] - Kitchen

Mirai's in the lab with his girlfriend Zither, having just eaten breakfast while chatting. She's focused right now on fixing the clunk in her steam engine, and he decides to leave her be while focusing on his own work on upgrading his favourite drone with some scrap circuitry he salvaged the day before.

All of his sudden his pet/friend pikachu, Cessily, scampers up to him. She refused to wake up early, and now she's hungry! "I'm going to feed Cess, Zii." Mirai says to his focused girlfriend, planting a peck on her cheek as he passes her by on the way to the kitchen.

Once they arrive, Cessily climbs up to the counter and inspects an empty bread box, not knowing it's a mimic in disguise!

[Earl of Purple]

Bunch of Mimics- Kitchen

Zither's cheek tastes of oil and engine-grease, as she's unconsciously scratched her nose whilst working on the engine. It's mostly dismantled, and all the cogs and wheels have been put aside. She's examined each because she thinks one of the teeth has broken on a cog, so she's trying to find which cog so she can replace it. "Okay, dear. Try to stop him touching anything, will you? He enjoys watching it move, but it conducts electricity and he keeps shocking me when I'm working on it. Not deliberately, I'm sure, but it's distracting." Also painful.

[UncleWolf]

"Just swimming." Kin says with a bit of a grin, before nodding, stretching slightly, and popping her neck. "I can always come back in a bit!" She pulls herself out of the pool, one shimmering, glistening loop at a time, before 'standing' fully, and nodding her head off towards one of the doors.
"Do you wanna just go straight to I can show you the room, or an impromptu tour of the base first?" Kin asks, assuming Anja will follow, as she heads into the locker room and towels down pretty quickly, before pulling on her clothes she had tucked away in a locker.

Haunted Pool

"Oh! Oh! I want the tour!" Anja insists, floating on up behind Kin to hang off of her shoulders from behind. She doesn't pay any mind as Kin gets dressed, but it isn't as if the Lamia could shoo her away anyway considering she was mostly intangible. "So is this your actual home or do you just come by like a summer place?"

[Lord Magtok]

Entrance Hall

There's a terrified gasp at the shuttlepod bay, like a drowning man desperate for air he'd been denied only moments before by the sea's cruel waves, a gasp which is just as swiftly, shamefully silenced and repressed. Gods, do the peasants really use those things to get around? It was so cramped and awful in there! Every minute, he felt like the shuttlepod was just going to collapse and he was going to die instantly, crushed by cold, unforgiving depths of the ocean. Gods, Magtok really needs to get his entire telewarp network configured again. He can't afford to die in a freak public transportation accident, not when he's so close to restoring the MagCave to its former glory! He is just too amazing and important to die, we cannot allow it!

"...hello? HALO?" Magtok calls out, trying to push past his embarassing claustrophobic episode and remember why he came to this godsforsaken sea base in the first place. It was to investigate this shiny new, Felandria-led HALO, I think. That's right, VIGIL and GLoG's leadership have gone largely unchanged over the years, aside from that one little demon incident at the old Watchtower. HALO has never been quite so static, however, and our own tenure as its leader proves that. Anyway, HALO went dark for a while, and now Felandria is in charge, even though she's never been a part of the HALO power structure before, to the best of the cyborg's knowledge. That kind of change means things might be different now, people might be less suspicious of him. He can try to talk to HALO, find out what they're up to, see how it meshes or conflicts with his own plans, and not have to worry about being shoved back into that awful deathtrap again! I mean, just because Intersection and VIGIL hate him doesn't mean HALO has to, right? If he can make friends with the right people in the right places now, he won't have to worry so much about the Ithuriels and Wenomirs of the world meddling in his rise to power later!

...That's the plan, anyway. There's more than a few ways it could go horribly wrong, and we'll have to watch out for those. Magtok puts on his most winning-est, charming smile, as he considers whether to decorate his next diabolical throne with skulls, torches, or skull-torches. I'm leaning towards little scented candles inside the hollowed-out skulls, personally, but I can see how others might think that's a little too much. A nice art deco skyscraper in Carousel Court would be nice too, though of course we'd have to evict a few rainbow horses and bulldoze some filthy stables first. A necessary sacrifice in the name of progress.

[Felandria]

[Felandria's Room]

Rein meows. He promises. You can tell because he looked Felandria straight in the eyes when he did it with the most adorable eyes he has. Kitty eyes.
Meow.

Oh no.

The eyes.

He did the eyes.

Even at full, sober mental capacity, Felandria would have some difficulty resisting the eyes.

She looks at Rein, sighs deeply, and opens the door.

What’s the harm, anyway, it’s not like there’s not a force field out there......

Oh no!

- - - Updated - - -

[Shuttle Bay - Door 3] ((Because I want a tag ))

That is kind of unexpected, but it works fine. Mimics are no Objects so a Magic missile targets them just fine. The barrage hits the mimic which responds with an ear pitching deathcry. The mimic will then fall forward as he seperates himself from the door it was mimicing, leaving only a slightly burnt body.

Mr C seems to have noticed the wand and turned to Felandria and the nurse, walking away from the barrage of explosive magic. Sunglasses appear on his face. This all appears to happen in slowmotion just to show of a "cool guys don't look at explosions"- expression.

"How do we find other Mimics?" and to himself he wonders if anyone heared the scream.

I wish I knew.

That’s kinda the mimic’s whole deal.

Nurse, do you have any suggestions?

- - - Updated - - -

Entrance Hall

There's a terrified gasp at the shuttlepod bay, like a drowning man desperate for air he'd been denied only moments before by the sea's cruel waves, a gasp which is just as swiftly, shamefully silenced and repressed. Gods, do the peasants really use those things to get around? It was so cramped and awful in there! Every minute, he felt like the shuttlepod was just going to collapse and he was going to die instantly, crushed by cold, unforgiving depths of the ocean. Gods, Magtok really needs to get his entire telewarp network configured again. He can't afford to die in a freak public transportation accident, not when he's so close to restoring the MagCave to its former glory! He is just too amazing and important to die, we cannot allow it!

"...hello? HALO?" Magtok calls out, trying to push past his embarassing claustrophobic episode and remember why he came to this godsforsaken sea base in the first place. It was to investigate this shiny new, Felandria-led HALO, I think. That's right, VIGIL and GLoG's leadership have gone largely unchanged over the years, aside from that one little demon incident at the old Watchtower. HALO has never been quite so static, however, and our own tenure as its leader proves that. Anyway, HALO went dark for a while, and now Felandria is in charge, even though she's never been a part of the HALO power structure before, to the best of the cyborg's knowledge. That kind of change means things might be different now, people might be less suspicious of him. He can try to talk to HALO, find out what they're up to, see how it meshes or conflicts with his own plans, and not have to worry about being shoved back into that awful deathtrap again! I mean, just because Intersection and VIGIL hate him doesn't mean HALO has to, right? If he can make friends with the right people in the right places now, he won't have to worry so much about the Ithuriels and Wenomirs of the world meddling in his rise to power later!

...That's the plan, anyway. There's more than a few ways it could go horribly wrong, and we'll have to watch out for those. Magtok puts on his most winning-est, charming smile, as he considers whether to decorate his next diabolical throne with skulls, torches, or skull-torches. I'm leaning towards little scented candles inside the hollowed-out skulls, personally, but I can see how others might think that's a little too much. A nice art deco skyscraper in Carousel Court would be nice too, though of course we'd have to evict a few rainbow horses and bulldoze some filthy stables first. A necessary sacrifice in the name of progress.

A normal Felandria, since this is a different time than when the infection is happening, is hanging tinsel for the upcoming Thanksmas celebration.

And then she sees Magtok!

Yay Magtok!

Fel goes over to greet her old friend.

Welcome to HALO!

I glad to see you, and also hoping you’re not here to try and kill Rein.

[Reinholdt]

[Felandria's Room]

Reinholdt sticks his head out the door. When no forcefield blocks his path, he meows once and scurries away rather quickly, running around the first corner and disappearing.

[Lord Magtok]

Entrance Hall

"The cat's here," Magtok says, his tone caught somewhere between a question and hollow contempt. Of course the cat would still haunt this place. He immediately turns around, stepping towards the shuttlepod he came in on a moment ago. He doesn't any farther than that, remembering how much he hates those pods, and how awful a second trip would surely be, especially so soon after the first. No, we'll have to find some other way out, maybe borrow one of those Ring Teleporters mentioned in the OP. We're not sticking around here any longer than strictly necessary, though. No organization that would harbor the cat is worth even one extra minute of our time.

"I knew this was a bad idea. Fel, how do I get out of here if I don't want to take one of the shuttlepods again? I just remembered I left the oven on, and I can't call someone else to deal with it because my phone's reception is trash at the bottom of the ocean," the cyborg lies. He doesn't even have a phone. All his calls go directly through his head. Handheld consumer electronics are for peasants.

[Zefir]

[A bunch of Mimics] - Kitchen

Mirai's in the lab with his girlfriend Zither, having just eaten breakfast while chatting. She's focused right now on fixing the clunk in her steam engine, and he decides to leave her be while focusing on his own work on upgrading his favourite drone with some scrap circuitry he salvaged the day before.

All of his sudden his pet/friend pikachu, Cessily, scampers up to him. She refused to wake up early, and now she's hungry! "I'm going to feed Cess, Zii." Mirai says to his focused girlfriend, planting a peck on her cheek as he passes her by on the way to the kitchen.

Once they arrive, Cessily climbs up to the counter and inspects an empty bread box, not knowing it's a mimic in disguise!

Bunch of Mimics- Kitchen

Zither's cheek tastes of oil and engine-grease, as she's unconsciously scratched her nose whilst working on the engine. It's mostly dismantled, and all the cogs and wheels have been put aside. She's examined each because she thinks one of the teeth has broken on a cog, so she's trying to find which cog so she can replace it. "Okay, dear. Try to stop him touching anything, will you? He enjoys watching it move, but it conducts electricity and he keeps shocking me when I'm working on it. Not deliberately, I'm sure, but it's distracting." Also painful.

[A bunch of Mimics] - Kitchen

Mimics are pationed. They wait until it's to late. The mimic will wait until Cessily is so close he won't escape. At worst that happens when the electro mice put's his hand or maybe his head into the breadbox for closer look. The mimic will bite into his prey, thougth he won't be easily bite of an arm, but he got many sharp theeth so they will hurt VERY much.

I wish I knew.

That’s kinda the mimic’s whole deal.

Nurse, do you have any suggestions?

- - - Updated - - -

[Shuttle Bay - Door 3]

"Something comes up." he says and might interrupt the healer.
"We could either find out how they got in and use that to track back others OR, we lay out a bait for them."

[Felandria]

Entrance Hall

"The cat's here," Magtok says, his tone caught somewhere between a question and hollow contempt. Of course the cat would still haunt this place. He immediately turns around, stepping towards the shuttlepod he came in on a moment ago. He doesn't any farther than that, remembering how much he hates those pods, and how awful a second trip would surely be, especially so soon after the first. No, we'll have to find some other way out, maybe borrow one of those Ring Teleporters mentioned in the OP. We're not sticking around here any longer than strictly necessary, though. No organization that would harbor the cat is worth even one extra minute of our time.

"I knew this was a bad idea. Fel, how do I get out of here if I don't want to take one of the shuttlepods again? I just remembered I left the oven on, and I can't call someone else to deal with it because my phone's reception is trash at the bottom of the ocean," the cyborg lies. He doesn't even have a phone. All his calls go directly through his head. Handheld consumer electronics are for peasants.

Felandria gives Magtok a look, the kind of look your mom gives you when you express doubt about what is being served for dinner even though she made it last month and you loved it.

Oh, there’s no need for that, Magtok.

You know you’re welcome here, I’ve even set aside a room for you should you decide to rejoin.

But that’s for later, come with me, we’re gonna raid the kitchen,

[Mee]

Haunted Pool

"Oh! Oh! I want the tour!" Anja insists, floating on up behind Kin to hang off of her shoulders from behind. She doesn't pay any mind as Kin gets dressed, but it isn't as if the Lamia could shoo her away anyway considering she was mostly intangible. "So is this your actual home or do you just come by like a summer place?"

Haunted Pool -> Haunted Kitchen!

"Of course, tour it is!

I live here now, I think. Hasn't been officially squared away; but I'm sure it's fiiiiine." Kin converses as she makes her snakey-way down to at least the kitchen. "So far, these are the super exciting hallways" She says, not sarcastically at all, just jovially, making otherwise plain and boring hallways fun! "And then this is the kitchen!" She says, when they arrive in the most important room of all! The kitchen!
It's large, full of supplies, and just about as many ovens/cutlery/fridges/really just about anything one could need! "And this is where most of the interactions I've seen around here go on! It's very important!"
As well as, of course, showing around things so she at least knows where stuff is!
. . .
Though Anja doesn't probably need food.
Kin maybe should have thought of that.

I wish I knew.

That’s kinda the mimic’s whole deal.

Nurse, do you have any suggestions?

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm we could put large boxes around. Propped up on a stick. With a rope coming from the stick. We put some floof in the box, and wait for the mimics to fall for it, and then trap 'em in the box!"

[Lord Magtok]

Entrance Hall

Felandria gives Magtok a look, the kind of look your mom gives you when you express doubt about what is being served for dinner even though she made it last month and you loved it.

Oh, there’s no need for that, Magtok.

You know you’re welcome here, I’ve even set aside a room for you should you decide to rejoin.

But that’s for later, come with me, we’re gonna raid the kitchen,

"I'm not sleeping here. Even if I still had clones to spare, I'd never make it that easy for him to slit my throat," Magtok scoffs, shaking his head as he reluctantly acquiesces and follows Felandria towards the kitchen. This obviously isn't an argument he's going to win, so he should just grit his teeth and get the rest of this clownshow over with. Just stick with it for as long as it takes to find a less terrifying way to get home than those godforsaken pods.

[Reinholdt]

[Eastside Apartments]

"Delv." The goblin provides, crossing his arms.

"Perhaps we'll see you tomorrow." Korrina says as he goes to leave. "Safe travels."

As Rein walks away from the apartment, he'll hear a shriek followed by laughter. Those two don't waste any time do they?

[The Fourth Tower]

They certainly don't.

Reinholdt makes his way back to HALO and then heads to the where the Fourth Tower was putting up tapestry when he left. The goal is simply to find Onyeka and update her. And then go get a nap. That was more exhausting than he thought it would be. Or at least, mildly exasperating.

[UncleWolf]

Haunted Pool -> Haunted Kitchen!

"Of course, tour it is!

I live here now, I think. Hasn't been officially squared away; but I'm sure it's fiiiiine." Kin converses as she makes her snakey-way down to at least the kitchen. "So far, these are the super exciting hallways" She says, not sarcastically at all, just jovially, making otherwise plain and boring hallways fun! "And then this is the kitchen!" She says, when they arrive in the most important room of all! The kitchen!
It's large, full of supplies, and just about as many ovens/cutlery/fridges/really just about anything one could need! "And this is where most of the interactions I've seen around here go on! It's very important!"
As well as, of course, showing around things so she at least knows where stuff is!
. . .
Though Anja doesn't probably need food.
Kin maybe should have thought of that.

Haunted Kitchen

Sure, the hallways might be boring to most people but Anja happily took it all in while hanging off of Kin's shoulders and humming. When they get to the kitchen, she lets go and drifts around. Whens he finds the appliance cabinets, she grins and floats into it. Moments later a tea pot floats out, glowing. "Look! I'm a Pokemon!" She says with a giggle, causing the porcelain to clink a bit as she talks. A ghostly tendril slips out of the top, grabs the handle, and pours the rest of the ghost out into her usual form. Despite the moment of humor, she's more than ready to continue the tour.

[5a Violista]

Holly the Half-Elf^TM is...not doing much, actually.

She's wandering the halls, trying to come up with an excuse to avoid going back to Riverside.

She reaches out to open one of the doors, when...

Ouch!

Part of her left hand's glove is missing. A mimic bit it.

Confused, she stares at her glove, and then...there's nothing there. Weird. Just the door.
She walks away from that spot, trying to figure out what happened.

[billtodamax]

Not an MRI

Yeah. Rein's pretty far gone but Fel was ok last time I checked in with her. Of course, she's apparently a god, so I'm a bit worried about what that might entail if the disease progresses too far. Nigel says, leading the way first into the kitchen where he begins putting the finishing touches on a couple bowls of nachos. Either of you hungry? He asks. Looks like he could probably make some spare nachos. The chili smells pretty good.

[5a Violista]

[Not an MRI]

"All I've had for the past several hours is hospital food," Juliana says, complaining. Sure, it wasn't bad but it also wasn't what she chose. "And a d..."

She's about to say something else that she's eaten but then remembers that she promised to tell the truth. Does that promise still stand? she wonders.

"And maybe we could grab something for the kitty-cat, too." Julie grabs the bedsheet again and wraps it around herself.

[Felandria]

Entrance Hall



"I'm not sleeping here. Even if I still had clones to spare, I'd never make it that easy for him to slit my throat," Magtok scoffs, shaking his head as he reluctantly acquiesces and follows Felandria towards the kitchen. This obviously isn't an argument he's going to win, so he should just grit his teeth and get the rest of this clownshow over with. Just stick with it for as long as it takes to find a less terrifying way to get home than those godforsaken pods.

Magtok, you can rest assured that Rein would not murder you here.

He’s smart enough to know what I would do if he did, for one thing.

And for another, he is trying to be a good kitty, so the least you can do is be a good cyborg and let me make you a nice sandwich.

[Lord Magtok]

Entrance Hall => Nice Sandwiches

"The cat has done worse things than murder with far stronger, more observant people than you watching over him. He's done these things while also claiming to be a good kitty. You can believe what you want, you can disregard my warning just like everyone else does, but you can't convince me to trust him. I tried that once, didn't work," Magtok insists, even though he's already moving forward towards the kitchen. I guess he's already decided that's one fight he can't win.

[Mee]

Haunted Kitchen

Sure, the hallways might be boring to most people but Anja happily took it all in while hanging off of Kin's shoulders and humming. When they get to the kitchen, she lets go and drifts around. Whens he finds the appliance cabinets, she grins and floats into it. Moments later a tea pot floats out, glowing. "Look! I'm a Pokemon!" She says with a giggle, causing the porcelain to clink a bit as she talks. A ghostly tendril slips out of the top, grabs the handle, and pours the rest of the ghost out into her usual form. Despite the moment of humor, she's more than ready to continue the tour.

Haunted Kitchen

Kin watches the ghost's antics with a smile, and then laughs a genuine, hearty laugh at the Pokemon Pot.
Gosh, Anja's adorable.
"And full of fun culture references! Fun!" With another nod, Kin continues the tour! They visit the various places, like the training area, the gun range, the bedrooms, the pool (mostly due to just passing by it to get to the rooms, more than deliberately going back), the Other Kitchen, the TV room, and all the other fun rooms HALO's got. If Anja wants to stop anywhere along the way for more, Kin makes sure she knows she is welcome to, and they could poke about there for a bit!

[Morty]

[Not an MRI]

"Oh dear, yes. Acting like a stereotypical god could be problematic," Dorota says. Especially given what she's heard about Zeus, but that'd be rather impolite to say. "I suppose I could eat something."

[Felandria]

Entrance Hall => Nice Sandwiches

"The cat has done worse things than murder with far stronger, more observant people than you watching over him. He's done these things while also claiming to be a good kitty. You can believe what you want, you can disregard my warning just like everyone else does, but you can't convince me to trust him. I tried that once, didn't work," Magtok insists, even though he's already moving forward towards the kitchen. I guess he's already decided that's one fight he can't win.

Sandwich Time

Once they enter the kitchen, Fel roots around and pulls out various ingredients for sandwiches.

Yes, look, I get it, Magtok and Reinholdt have this big epic history, but as has been made clear, he’s not the same Reinholdt, and you’ve cloned yourself a bunch, so how can we even say that you and he have never actually done anything to one another?

Fel pulls out two hoagie rolls and slices them open, then adds layers of sliced chicken, pepperoni, roast beef, turkey, salami, Swiss, and mayo.

Then her secret ingredient, a layer of sour cream and onion potato chips.

She slides one of the sandwiches to Magtok.

Besides, I think you might be underestimating me.

Which honestly hurts a little, I still remember what you said to me at dinner that one night, you called me a beautiful engine of destruction.

[Reinholdt]

[Sandwich Time]

"You may be beautiful, but destruction never is." Oh hey, a voice comes from atop the refrigerator. Why it's Reinholdt in breadbox cat form, staring down at the two who just entered. Just what Magtok wanted no doubt.

"Speaking of, I'd step away from him Felandria. He has a bomb."

[Lord Magtok]

Sandwich Time

"See? He's already lying to you. I don't even own a bomb," Magtok shakes his head, before grabbing hold of his sandwich and taking a bite. His eyes never leave the top of the refrigerator once, though. The moment the cat made his presence known, our cyborg completely stopped blinking and hasn't looked away from Reinholdt since. It's honestly a little unsettling.

"...okay, I do technically own a bomb. One bomb. It's not with me right now, it's at home, and it's a time bomb set to go off if don't reset the timer once a day." He calls it an 'alarm clock,' and it'll wipe out the entire mountain he lives under if he forgets to reset the bomb even once. He could always just disable it completely, sure, but keeping yourself motivated is essential to meeting your goals and making dreams into reality. Dreams like living in a world entirely devoid of pink-eyed talking cats.

[Shadowcaller]

Just try to think them quietly! Nigel calls into the machine. You're doing great! He adds, not really paying attention to what Jasmine's saying as he pours over the data coming out of the machine. Looks like it's working at least. With this scan he's going to try and contrast the changes the disease is making on Josephine's mind and body with the changes being made to Rein, to try and find any commonalities between them and hopefully via that to figure out how the disease was made and how it might be cured.

Good, good. Nigel says. Intersection is hopefully doing a sting operation on whatever agents New Inside has monitoring this right now. Don't want to compromise them. Hopefully they'll just be able to get me their research notes so that this feels a little bit less like poking around blindly in the dark.

[Nigel's Research]

Nigel will find the same phenomena as before. Tiny conceptual particles that seem to echo a "role" that the infected are supposed to play.

They do seem to share more than just form however. Despite that they are echoing very different roles to Josephine and Reinholdt, the idea that they're conveying to their host has exactly the same "pulse".
If one imagined the mematic particles infecting them both as two different cheerleader squads in the same tiny sport stadium they would both be chanting to their host at exactly the same time, making it impossible to hear either of them.

Similarly, there doesn't seem to be any difference at all between each individual particle and it's more than just clones, since at least clones can act independently of one another. No, these particles all act exactly the same. The only difference being what kind of role they're conveying to their host and even then they act very much like the particles of other hosts, as if they all were the part of the same being.

[Gullara]

[The Fourth Tower]

They certainly don't.

Reinholdt makes his way back to HALO and then heads to the where the Fourth Tower was putting up tapestry when he left. The goal is simply to find Onyeka and update her. And then go get a nap. That was more exhausting than he thought it would be. Or at least, mildly exasperating.

[The Fourth Tower]

Rein will arrive back at the entrance room to find the tapestry hung, along with the rest of the room appearing to be set up. There are other tapestries on the walls and a large rug fills the middle of the room. The rug has a pattern like a large summoning circle on it.

There's not sign of Onyeka immediately, but he has options. To the left and back of the room there's a closed door and he can hear muffled voices behind it. Also to the left but toward the from of the room is another door left open. He can't see if anyone is inside from this angle.

[Felandria]

Sandwich Time

Felandria will put some slices of deli meat on a plate and place it in front of Reinholdt.

Then she turns to Magtok.

I mean, as long as you only plan to use the bomb on your own place, I don’t see too much harm.

In any case, how is the sandwich?

[Reinholdt]

The Fourth Tower

Rein is tempted to head straight to the back and maybe 'overhear' something juicy, but figures he'll check the open door first so he doesn't disturb anyone if he doesn't have to. So heads over that way to take a peek inside.

Sandwich Time

"Did I say Magtok has a bomb? I'm sorry, I misspoke." Reinholdt yawns and stretches, dragging it out before he hops down and glares at the cyborg.

"I meant to say Magtok is a bomb. A ticking bomb of pure selfishness. Any kindness he shows is either from guilt over his last explosion or a manipulation as he sets up his next one. Drawing people into a false sense of security so they will let him recklessly act out when he gets bored. Which he does every time, without hesitation and without heed to those around him who suffer from the fallout. Oh sure, he'll feel bad about it after. He'll make amends and fight the good fight when the world's at stake, but always, always for himself. His own sake so that one day, he can do it all again. He's not reformed, he's just... waiting. Waiting until he pulls the trigger and it all blows up again."

Rein turns, lifting his tail rather higher than necessary, sauntering towards the door at a crawl. "I for one don't want to be around when that happens. I can't stop it from happening. You can't stop it from happening. All you can do is get out of the way." He glances back at Felandria. "Reconsider getting away while you can."

[Gullara]

[The Fourth Tower]

In the room he'll find Onyeka! She's sitting at a desk, her clipboard in front of her. She has her elbow on the desk and chin planted in her hand. Her eyes are closed and her breathing soft. Oops, sleeping on the job. It's a good thing Vax is the very lenient type, right? Right?

[Lord Magtok]

Sandwich Time

"It's not enough to steal my stuff, now you're stealing my arguments? How many times have I said you're a-" Magtok stops abruptly, glancing down at his sandwich. He's run simulations of this argument dozens upon dozens of times in his head, and it keeps coming up with the same lousy result, the same humiliating realization. He has been telling everyone that Reinholdt is just one bad day away from getting up to apocalyptic mischief again, and yet it's been how many years since Astir now? It's been about an entire decade now, hasn't it? Ten years, and the worst things Reinholdt's done are stealing some cloning tech, sleeping with a girlfriend he was already looking for an excuse to leave, mooching off of some good organizations, and stubbornly refusing to just drop dead and make life easier for our cyborg. What have we been up to for all of this time? How much time and energy was wasted trying to keep AMEN afloat? Who organized an assassination attempt against Remnant's commanding officer? Who insisted upon keeping an entire army of Magbots as slave labor, using the excuse of 'they're just brainless robots who don't have feelings' while simultaneously programming them with simulated emotions just for kicks and giggles? Who has used all kinds of lies, half-truths, and manipulation to keep going like that indefinitely?

Reinholdt is, and let's not mince words here, a rotten little bastard, but if being obnoxious was enough to merit this kind of obsession, there would've been a lot more people under Magtok's watchful eye back in the day. I mean, Calublufiok was never treated with this level of antipathy and bile, for gods' sake. Who are we helping by clinging so desperately to this grudge anyway? It's not going to bring her back, you know.

"...Christ. ****ing hell, I am too old to be having these dramatic revelations about my life now. Cat, would it count for anything if I said you're right, I'm actively trying to deal with it by pointing my destructive tendencies at socially acceptable targets, and I'm going to walk out the door and not bother you here ever again as soon as Felandria tells me how the teleporters work?" Well, maybe not ever again. We still need to find out if HALO has the space and resources to accommodate a massive number of frightened, disheveled refugees, and also tell Fel what we think of her sandwich. There might not be time for either of those things today.

[Felandria]

Sandwich Time

Magtok looks sad.

There is clearly only one solution for this.

Felandria gives Magtok a hug.

Look, and this goes for both of you.

Things have happened.

Things will always happen.

What matters is how one deals with these things that happen.

And making sure not to make things happen to other people that might cause them to make things happen.

I care, sincerely and completely, for both of you.

And I can assure you, Magtok, that I have no intention of allowing you to combust.

You are my friend.

And if there’s anything you need from me, all you have to do is ask.

Except the location of the teleporters yet.

Now, want some more chips?