genessia | Operation 34

[Skyhouse Suite 102]

[Gale had been in a bit of a rut in recent months, what with working another term as Guardian and all. It hadn't necessarily been a bad thing. It meant he was out and about more, and actually doing good instead of sitting around in his clubs and getting the locals plastered out of their minds. Today seemed off though. He couldn't shake some awful feeling he had. Faye hadn't shown up today. Her not showing up for deputy work wasn't right. Something had to be up.

When he found a break in work, he returned home to the Skyhouse. Maybe she wasn't feeling well. He knocked on her room door, waiting a few moments in between, but received no answer. Against his better judgment he stepped in the room, only to find it empty, with the flowers and box of candy he snuck into her room sitting untouched on the dresser. That awful feeling he had only worsened, spinning on his heel and leaving the room as he pulled out his device. He scrolled through the contacts, now looking frantically for her name. His hand began to tremble as he began to mumble "No" over and over.

His device slid out of his hand and clattered to the floor, grasping his head with his hands as he stared wide eyed at the device.]

It. It can't. No. No, no, no!

[Gale dropped to his knees, letting out an anguished scream.]

[Video]

[Gale had been staring at his phone for a good solid ten minutes. This didn't feel real. He didn't want it to be real. His hand shook as he slowly turned the video on. He was aiming for audio only, but he got video by accident, so to hell with it. He was slumped on the floor as he gave a blank, empty stare to the screen as he gave slow, shaky breaths. Then he quietly spoke.]

Faye is gone.

[His voice was strained. He didn't want to say it, because that all but confirmed it. He inhaled sharply before he gave a dry, pained laugh which completely betrayed the unreadable expression on his face.]

I guess this means Nova will be lookin' another deputy again, huh? Because why the hell wouldn't this happen?

[He gave another strained laugh. This really was his luck, wasn't it? There was nothing to do but laugh, right? Right?]

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Five seconds? I still had that much time?

[At least he tried to make a joke. He glanced towards the wall before shaking his head, pushing himself away from the door.]

I hope you've got some shit strong enough to fuck up cybernetics, otherwise I'm not even gonna get a buzz. The asshole that gave me this shit was too good at his job.

I don't fuckin' know.

[Dante in the meantime is just being Dante. He motions to the bottles next.]

How hard is it for you to get drunk? Your liver cyberized or something?

Hard enough that I don't know if I can get drunk anymore.

[He wanders over and leans against Dante's desk, taking a glance over the bottles.]

Nailed it. My organs and skeleton were all enhanced to be able to keep up with the cybernetics. Hell, no idea if I've even got any of my original organs or not. I was essentially a mutilated, shambling corpse once I got pulled out of the burnin' wreckage of my aircraft.

[He instinctively places a hand over the grey skin on his cheek before he loosely shrugs.]

But you ain't gonna want me here for "Sad Backstory 101" I'm sure.

Edited 2019-03-02 03:26 (UTC)

[Hearing all this, Dante takes the sake bottle and opens it, holding it to Gale's nose. The smell would probably b the strongest smelling booze he'd ever smelled.]

If this doesn't knock you on your ass then we're doing something wrong.

[As for the rest, he just shrugs.]

You're talking to a guy who was on a revenge quest for the better part of two decades after watching his mother get ripped apart by demons. I passed "Sad Backstory 101" a while ago. I'm currently attending "Sad Backstory 301." Whatever you want to share, hit me with. Nothing is off limits.

[He eyes up the bottle again before taking a whiff of it. Sure, it smelled strong, but he's worked with all kinds of strong smelling alcohols.]

Well, let's hope that it does. I need it right now.

[He scoffed quietly, turning his gaze away to stare at a wall. If there was one thing Gale hated doing, it was opening up and talking about himself, but maybe if there was someone still here that would have an idea of what it was like, it was most likely Dante.]

Have you ever found yourself in a place where everything precious to you just gets ripped away eventually? To the point that it's just a cold, harsh fact and an inevitability in your life?

[He narrowed his eyes.]

That's all my goddamn life is. At home it started with my parents gettin' themselves killed. Then my sisters, who believe I'm dead when in reality I'm a weapon to their greatest enemy. Then I show up here, and have a second chance at having a half-decent life, but all over again, people I come to give a damn about disappear. Faye, Weiss, Sonico, Angelo, more than I care to even remember at this point are gone.

Given how goddamn unstable I am, I don't know how I haven't snapped yet. [He pauses briefly.] You're likely one of the only people who could stop me if that happened.

[Dante listens as he pours a very small amount of oni sake for the two of them.]

Yeah. I absolutely get that. Spent most of my life on the run from demons hunting down the last remnants of my old man's blood. But yeah... I definitely get that. Part of the trick of not snapping, though? Stop giving a fuck about what happens "if".

Don't think about the future, just concentrate on living one moment at a time.

[He hands the small sake dish to Gale.] And in this moment, we're drinking.

Stop giving a fuck, huh.

[He said it with a quiet scoff.]

Before that's how I was always content to live my life. I never used to care about the "if". At home I was just a weapon, so I made it a point to get in the face of my "godly overlords" and if I died eventually, then I died. I didn't care about anything but the moment.

[In the back of his mind, he still wondered if he was better off just being a weapon rather than an individual person. And in a way, he could quietly appreciate that Dante did understand to some extent, even if Gale wasn't sure if Dante fully understood the extent of what he meant by mentioning his risk of fully mentally snapping. He would choose to push the thought away, quietly laughing as he took the sake dish.]

This place's been makin' me soft.

[He raised the dish in a silent toast before downing the sake in one go... and immediately regretting that decision. Once the drink was down, he let out a few heavy coughs.]

Holy shit, [He coughed again.] That's a burn I haven't felt in nearly a fuckin' decade.

There's a difference between not giving a fuck and living in the moment.

[He shrugs, baby steps.]

It's been making you human my dude. In my line of work, I come across a bunch of living weapons. I've got a whole armory of 'em. But here's the thing, being a weapon kinda sucks ass. Just ask my old man.

[He jerks a thumb at the massive fleshy blade hanging on the wall behind him.]

And yeah, being human sucks at times too, but it's worth it. We can't appreciate the good without contrasting it to the bad. I wouldn't be able to enjoy just taking a nap with a good song in the background if I didn't know what it was like to live on the street, scrounging for food and wondering if today was the day the demons would find and kill me.

That's the thing about humans though. Live deals 'em a bad hand all the goddamn time, and yet, they place full houses in spite of it.

[Dante is unsure if his pep talk is going to do any good, but it's worth a shot at least.]

Oni sake, straight from Old Hell. Strong enough to kill a normal person, but for us at least we can get buzzed.

[Dante mirrors the toast before downing his sake.]

[At the very least, Gale seems to be listening carefully to what Dante was saying. Even if he still looks about as well as someone who was run over by a bus a few times. He turns his gaze toward the floor, setting the dish down beside him.]

I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't question on numerous occasions if I can even be considered human anymore.

[He places a hand over his throat. That gray skin and its accompanying markings remind him every day of what he is. Sure, he makes it seem like he doesn't care, but he's asked that question a multitude of times. If nothing else, that burn in his throat and chest was reminding him he was alive.]

It's kinda ironic. I question if I'm nothin' more than a science experiment for a genocidal mission, then when shit like this happens, I ask myself why the "Good Doctor" didn't get rid of my emotions while he fucked with my body.

[His thoughts were as fragmented as what he actually said aloud. What he said seemed like he was just saying them to get them out there, so he didn't have to keep sitting on them.]

I have a bad tendency to remind myself that I should be dead.

[He rests his head on the shoulder to look at Dante.]

That's the shit I keep on hand for ya at Hangar Queen? Damn. Maybe I will end up drunk by the end of this. Hope you won't mind me borrowin' your couch.

I've been walking that line my whole life, and I've seen both sides of the coin. Trust me. You're human.

[Dante pours the two of them another drink as he talks.]

Whatever the reasons, it doesn't really matter. Whether it was an oversight on his part or deliberate, the point of the matter is that you still have that humanity. Fuck the guy that did that.

[He nods.]

It is, but I'd recommend going light on it. And yeah, couch is always open dude.

Operation 34 | [Video]

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