mdk

The Final Hazard

"Okay," he said, "play-time is over. Donny, Hierco, no more teasing each other, please. And you," he motioned to the ticking boy with the bolt aimed at his neck, "don't do anything foolish, okay?" He looked at the group, including the pavise knights. "Maybe it's time we all talk like civilized people, without any weapons raised at each other and without any more deaths. Everybody agree?"

@WiseDragonGirl

It was a good thing he said it, because Luca was about to blurt out an unthinking response to the male knight about how he had no idea who any of these people were, nobody knew what the hell was going on and what kind of outfit were they running here anyway... but that might have upset the calm, and he thought better of it once Andy spoke. But he didn't let down his suicide routine just yet.

He looked towards the male pavise knight, since he seemed -- for the moment at least -- the more reasonable of the two. "Who are you and what do you want from me?" He blinked. "I mean, from us." Then Luca's grip on the arrow tightened. Shit. Priority one. "I mean, you need to take us to an infirmary. Now. We have wounded, thanks to you." Luca was referring to a delusion he'd had moments earlier in which two of his fellow passengers were murdered right before his eyes. It didn't particularly matter that those two were, in (current?) reality, more or less fine -- they were on a strange celestial body and a visit to an infirmary should have been standard protocol anyway. Luca was simply in a mood to make demands.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

@Terminal Consider Luca's life effectively wagered.

The Final Hazard

Once Luca and and Ariett reached cover, the boy had a sudden moment of clarity. I'm the glim. He didn't know what a glim was, but he knew what it meant. "Wait here," he said.

He poked his head out in time to see Fortune and Amelie stricken with the metal. In his mind, based on his experience so far, he assumed they were going to die shortly -- of course, if he were thinking clearly, he would have recognized that Ariett was not at all dead even though she had also been stricken. But his confusion on the matter only served to give him extra motivation. I have to stop this now. I'm the glim. Be the glim.

They need me.

'They,' in this final thought, did not refer to his comrades. It referred to their assailants.

Luca broke cover and ran towards the pavise knights. One of their number had fallen, with an arrow in the visor. He ran at her corpse and slid into it, quickly locating among her armaments an arrow bearing the electroplating compound cylinder. He snatched it up and bolted to his feet.

"HEY!" he shouted, hoping to get everyone's attention -- which admittedly might have been difficult amidst the continuing battle. "HEY!!!"

He held the arrow an inch away from his own throat.

"Knock it off! Or the next one to die is your biometric pass!" Priority one is to protect human life. "I mean it!" He was almost certain that he really did mean it.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

Posted. If we live I think Luca can get everyone out of this.

The Final Hazard

With all hell breaking loose yet again, it was hard for Luca to process what the police-knights had said. He had a nagging feeling, growing stronger, that something very significant was just uttered -- something crucial. But he simply didn't have the brainpower to think it through yet. The thought was rattling around in his mind and it would make sense eventually -- the biometric pass -- but not yet.

For now, he was back in instinctual mode. Priority one is to protect human life -- even if it's your own. He was standing near another human, Ariett, and bullets were flying. He grabbed her and pulled her towards some semblance of cover. There wasn't much to speak of -- only the bombed-out Rolls-Royce -- but that would have to do. While they ran, that feeling of something important -- that glim is the biometric pass -- kept getting louder. He couldn't help but think he could figure it out, if everyone would just stop fighting for a second. Stop everyone fighting.... biometric pass..... No. There was no time to think. He put his head down and continued to tug and shove Ariett towards the wreckage.

Oi, politidorks, hit me up with some nuanced articles you've been reading lately.

He Will Not Divide Us heist

It's only peripherally political, but lordy lordy, it's pretty amazing.

The Final Hazard

<Snipped quote by mdk>
Ariett rolled over and latched onto Luca's arm, wincing as he helped pull her up. "Thanks." Upon seeing the remains of the remaining two 'thugs', she visibly sagged. "I'm fine, I think. A bit sore, I guess, but whatever damage the metal did it promptly sealed right back up." Her gaze lingered on the spear-laden bodies before turning her attention fully to the kid. "You took quite a few tumbles yourself, and you look none the worse for the wear—the advantages of youth, I guess?"

@Holmishire

Luca didn't even seem to notice the various bumps and scratches he had received until she said something about all that. He shrugged. "...You're teasing, right?" he chuckled. The chuckle grew a little more awkward when it became clear she hadn't been teasing. "That is, I mean.... uh....." he kicked at the ground. It should be so obvious that I'm a clockwork, he thought, struggling to think of a polite way to point that out. He came up dry. "Yeah.... youth......"

The Final Hazard

"Let's see if we can get to the university without any more deaths," he said with an almost cheerful sound in his voice and he looked at the others. "Anyone want to take bets on that?"

@WiseDragonGirl

Luca thought of a pithy rejoinder while he was standing up, but his proximity to Donny forced him to keep it mostly internal. There was a soft, mumbled beginning of a word, then a look of suddenly-dawned awareness and abject terror, and the words died in his throat with an awkward squeak. "Ixnay on the okesjay," he muttered, white-faced.

@Holmishire

He needed a distraction, and a metaphorical security blanket between himself and Donny, the newly-arrived-but-equally-violent knights.... all of it. He found all of that in Ariett. Things had slowed down enough that now for the first time her injury was really registering in his mind. Now he also remembered how she'd tried to slow him down during his bullish rush towards suicide-by-redhead, and looking at the metallic scar-pattern on her back, he realized why she'd cried out in pain. It was MY fault, he thought, and then he followed that up with a few self-depreciating internal comments about what an idiot he was. He offered her a hand to get up. "Are you okay?" he asked.

The Final Hazard

Ariett remains lying on the ground in the same position as before as she tries to avoid drawing attention to herself in these trying times.

@Holmishire

Luca, too, remained motionless.His mind was racing like Donny's, but he was thinking about all the wrong things -- I am in so much trouble, oh my god why is this happening to me, what did I do to deserve this, and so on. Thoughts of no utility to the group and no consequence to the scene playing out. The dangerous folks were scary, and Luca was scared, and that was about the size of it. He didn't move a millimeter.

The Final Hazard

Luca wasted no time in doing exactly as he was instructed. His sudden collision with Donny had not resulted in immediate death, and the gunman had even spoken -- coherently, no less -- without shooting anybody first. Luca was chalking all of these things up in the 'win' column, whether they had anything to do with his outburst or not.

He took no preparatory posture, nor did he announce himself to the authorities, nor demand any information from them. He didn't so much as glance up at the newly-arrived authority figures. He simply placed his hands in the appropriate position and lay perfectly, precisely motionless. Except for the ticking, he made no sound at all -- an observer might even wonder if he was breathing. He wasn't, at least, not in the traditional sense -- but then the only person near enough to notice would have been Donny. Probably. Some of the others certainly seemed perceptive, so who could say?