revivalproject | But This is Not Black and White

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But This is Not Black and White

WHO: Cal Kestis, BD-1 and you
WHERE: Sh'Ka
WHAT: Totally avoiding Certain People while trying to recenter himself
WHEN: Mid-July
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTE: Will match tag format/preference!

"I will find you, Cal Kestis."

While the sentiment in those words is nothing new, the real concern that haunts the young Jedi is the fact that the threat is new and most importantly, here on this planet. Worse yet, within a confined area of a planet that they really had no great means to travel to, much less any knowledge of any possible places beyond the two cities they currently have access to.

Cal had thought that being on the run would have been over for him. He'd finally come out of hiding, fearlessly faced the Empire and the Inquisitors it sent relentlessly after him and his friends. He'd infiltrated the Fortress Inquisitorious and somehow made it back out alive. Being able to stay alive after everything is always a positive outcome. Being brought back to Agra 10 was considerably a vacation in comparison.

Once again, he finds himself in a defensive mode. At least he has the Force to rely on, and the one who might seek him out does not, but Cal had learned early on to be wary of Albert Wesker. Those concerns had only been further underlined once he'd found himself in the man's dreamspace.

If nothing else, Sh'Ka proves to be at least much more bearable for the weather. Cal had had BD-1 shoot off a few messages to Tony, Jon and Echo to tell them where he'd be if they needed him, an abrupt enough message to leave without seeing them, but the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to them if Wesker was on the prowl. He decides to revisit the power plant where he'd last set up camp, back when he'd led a small team on the repair work for the power grid. If he's going to be here, he may as well make himself useful and see if he can pick up on what was being done about the water.

It's been easier to find focus here too, for some reason. Calmer. Quieter. When he's not working on the water treatment equipment or tracing water lines, he's up on the roof of the hotel, meditating. It's not an easy spot to get to but it's peaceful, and the view's pretty nice.

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A local problem had a better chance of being solved, since Tony still hadn't figured out how to get them out of here, though his determination to override that shame with the optimism was rapidly challenged. There was a name he was getting sick of. He took a breath, tongue between his teeth, only to hesitate with his brow furrowed, glaring intently at the cake like it bore some of the blame for Wesker's bullying. The track Tony eventually landed on was, "You remember, way back, one of the first things we talked about was responsibility, how having these abilities meant being able to keep people safe..." It wasn't entirely a question, not one that Tony was all that interested in an answer to. What clarity Cal had about the conversation wasn't material. "I didn't think it was a philosophical discussion then, you know, it was bound to have immediate, practical application. We never really landed on what that looked like. It's not a scale I'm familiar with. It's easy to make hard decisions when its a galaxy for one guy."

Cal didn't have to look at Tony to sense that fluctuation of sentiment. He turned his head to look out towards the rest of the rooftop again, neither nodding nor confirming recalling the conversation, but he waited, listening as Tony continued.

"That's why I came out here. I didn't want anyone else getting caught up in anything. But then I'm not sure who else might've been unfortunate enough to get stuck in that guy's head." He rolled his eyes, finally glancing over at Tony.

"Sorry I left without stopping by. The moment we were out of that tunnel, I didn't need the Force to sense how angry the guy was. I was avoiding him as well as I could, but I was starting to get too anxious just being in the city. I'm not so sure it was all him that was the source of it though, and that's troubling too." He shook his head again. "So I figured this was the best place to clear my head and my senses."

"You're not getting that anxiety out here?" Tony asked, and it might have been a genuine question but for the nagging distraction, a flicker of his focus back the way he had come. Maybe he should tell Peter to run a test. Before Cal could answer, though, he was already following up, "Have you had that before? Environmental, uh, alarm...pheromones?" He really didn't know how to describe it now that Peter had said it wasn't a 'danger' sense, though 'pheromones' might have been a little too specific.

"Not really? But it could be because there are less people here too. I know a lot weren't exactly...happy about the whole Calibrations thing." By his frown he didn't seem to be quite sold on the fact that it was just that. Temba was pretty spread out, after all.

Cal looked at Tony then. "Environmental...I don't know that I'd specify between whatever disturbances I might sense, but that could be a possibility. The Force doesn't exactly label what's what. I was hoping to get some clarification by finding somewhere less...muddy, so to speak."

His eyes turned in the direction of the mountain off in the distance.

Someone should have seen the return to that tunnel coming, and found a solution by now. Tony deposited the cake, bag and all, into Cal's lap with some impatience, like he had been waiting for Cal to take it. It was almost enough to distract him from the chink in Cal's theory, which would suggest that the worst of that anxiety would have been around the tunnel itself, before everyone dispersed and took it away with them. Tony frowned, looking unconvinced, but far from the expert on magical empathy.

He hadn't even meant to imply the natural environment, and it was with some surprise that he followed Cal's eye toward the rapidly raised mountain. That would make anyone anxious. Something was pushing the earth up, and it was going to get out eventually. "You mostly feel people, though, right? Sentient...thoughts," Tony tried to qualify. Maybe it was someone's anxiety that Cal was feeling, someone trapped.

Cal looked down at the poor cheesecake, feeling around the bag for a fork or something to dig in with. He wasn't sure how long it would last after a several hour train ride, and the current heat while not as bad as Temba was still lurking to try ruining it. No sense in wasting a good cheesecake, smashed or not.

"Not exclusively," Cal said. "The Force surrounds and encompasses all things. So if there's something big enough to offset things, it'll make an impression, cause a ripple." He poked at the cheesecake, easing a bit from the rest of the lopsided mass. "Some are better at certain areas than others though. I couldn't pinpoint too much other than some sort of tension, but it doesn't take the Force to figure that something's building up."

Proper meal etiquette was not part of Tony's consideration with the cake offering, so Cal would have to make do the same way Tony did as he leaned over to swipe another taste on his glove. "Okay. Well. Here's what I'm working with," he finally volunteered. "I know you're not the only one sensing...something, okay, a tension, we'll call it that. And you're not the only one who had an unsatisfactory encounter with Dr. Albert Wesker. Usually, I'd say both of those combined, that's cut and dry, the math is not complicated." There were others, though, who had their own run ins with Wesker, and did not have the same kind of sensitivities as Peter and Cal. It might have been worth checking with them, to see if they were experiencing some new anxiety. "Maybe he cast a spell on you. Some magic thing. Or maybe it's really offputting when the view suddenly grows a new mountain, that's not an every day occurrence, at the minimum the air pressure's got to be different."

He'd eaten under worse circumstances. And clearly he was shameless when it came to eating cheesecake as he popped a glob of it into his mouth. "Mmf. Okay that is so good right now."

Cal listened as Tony went on, continuing to pick at one side of the cheesecake. "I'm not?" That was news to him, or should it be, he wondered. He frowned a little but nodded, unsurprised that there were others that had drawn Wesker's ire.

"He out to kill anyone else?" he asked almost too absently, but maybe having one too many people out for his head had jaded him some.

"I'm not really an expert when it comes to mountain formations but I'm pretty sure they don't pop up within a couple of months without something pushing them up. We've been here... a while, but it's only recently we'd felt anything, and then suddenly there's that."

Direct threats like that weren't necessarily part of the pattern that Tony was hearing, making him raise his eyebrows, slow and expectant, giving Cal another more open study like he might see something that the Iron Man hadn't been able to sense. "That all he said?" he pressed, and didn't wait for an answer again before he was continuing, "Figure it'd take a lot more than that to run you out of town. My number's pretty low, honestly, easy to get me on that train, maybe that's why you seem so much stronger."

"He didn't say as much, but he didn't have to." Cal could sense the intent well enough as the dream abruptly ended. He probably wouldn't have been able to sleep any for the following days were it not for it being mandatory.

"I was more hoping maybe he'd cool off if I wasn't there to immediately remind him that he had something he wanted to settle with me," he sighed. "Aside from me just needing to step away from whatever tension was lingering. I could avoid him- it's not like he's difficult to sense coming, but I wasn't much in the mood to want to keep having to constantly look over my shoulder again."

"What--he didn't even say anything?" Tony had to clarify. "You could just...sense it?" At this, he sounded skeptical. Not at Cal's powers, those he couldn't claim to understand well enough to doubt. "You do that often, make a call before a fella's actually put a finger on the trigger?" Maybe he shouldn't sound so confrontational. He was a futurist, or supposed to be. Most of what he did was because something might happen tomorrow. There was a difference, he thought, in preparing for something, and in deciding something was true.

"No, just when my life's potentially on the line," Cal replied dryly. "And believe me, I've had way too much experience with that."

He held back another sigh, eyeing another dollop of cheesecake. "I mean, there is a possibility I'm wrong, but that's not something I want to risk by a confrontation and other people potentially caught up in collateral. The man's dangerous- you have to agree with me on that much."

Without his own brief encounter with Wesker that almost had his suit compromised, Tony wasn't sure he could have agreed, making him narrow his eyes and hesitate as his mouth opened. By that same evidence, he had to point out, "So are you." He gave an inquisitive lift of his eyebrows, wondering just how many people Cal thought were talking about him as a threat. "So am I," he added, with a flourish down his polished chest, and the RT there that could blast through a building. People were definitely talking about him. There must have been a point on that curve where the danger was worth reacting to, but Tony wasn't sure he wanted to define it. Quieter, he still ventured, "So, what do we do?"

That much, Cal conceded, nodding. It was true enough.

"...he probably could have killed me the first time we met," Cal admitted. "Tried to, actually. And that was just because he didn't believe me when I said we were brought here by aliens."

The intent then had been quite clear, and he'd only managed to surprise Wesker by avoiding what was meant to be a deadly blow then.

Cal shook his head. "That's what I've been trying to work out."

"And yet, here you are," Tony observed, dropping back on his hands languidly like that wasn't a challenge, toes bouncing restlessly. "You know, listen, here's what I'm struggling with: when Beck did try to kill me, left me for dead in that hole, there wasn't a whole lot of keen interest in dealing with it even then. The only real result is that someone else got hurt, and then he was gone, not our problem anymore, and I would bet you that no one else has thought too hard about it since then. I don't...I don't think it was because it was me, there are other...It's not something anyone wants to think about. It's dark. It's hard. So, in that scenario, the one where you are beholden to no one else, where it would be a relief for you to just make the call, what call is it that you really want to make?"

Cal blinked at that. The incident with Beck was practically years ago and technically the future from when Cal was from now. He could still remember the things he'd experienced in the years he'd been in Temba but it was still an odd whiplash when you were back at nineteen when you'd left at twenty-two.

He licked off his fingers as he dredged up those memories. The weird trial they'd attempted to have. The entire idea that someone had tried to kill Tony but thankfully hadn't succeeded. But that wasn't entirely the point. Cal rested his hand over his knee, sighing quietly.

"...I don't want to take anyone down if I don't have to. Especially here when we're all brought without our own say-so. It's not my call to make when it comes to someone's life. We're not on a battlefield, not in a war. We're not even on opposing sides."

That was evasive. Tony's fingers drummed impatiently, head tilted as he watched Cal, unable to wait for him to say something that would surprise Tony. "You made the call to run," he pointed out. "Serious enough for that. Maybe that's what the other kid does, too. Maybe one by one, we all make that call, until he has to follow us. Now we're back where we started."

"It wasn't meant to be a long-term solution," Cal said. "It never is anyway." He'd already tried that once, and it was sure no way to live. Five years living in hiding, right under the Empire's noses... Even if he hadn't meant to reveal himself, moving into a more active one rather than a defensive one had been freeing.

"I figure I'd have to confront him at some point, in which case I'll just have to see whether he's open to conversation or if he means to pick up where he left off."

"That's a lot of variables," Tony mused, like this could have possibly been an idle observation. "Not a fan, myself. You want something to work right, you have to keep them to a minimum. Set a specific course, solve the wind problem first, pick a day it's not going to rain, send your own car to pick up the hot blonde you're trying to impress. Make sure it's stocked with champagne so you know she'll be open to conversation."

"Give him a call, ask if he's up for a chat over dinner?" Cal smiled crookedly. "Public venue where he can't pull anything without further bringing attention to his questionable reputation."

Unless he just got too mad to care, but Wesker had been trying to keep his secrets and there really wasn't anywhere he could go if everyone became aware of them. He was already established as dangerous. After what Cal had heard from the man in that dreamspace, he had no doubt Wesker would kill everyone if he felt the need to, and that was what was frightening.

Just talking out their differences would have been a very nice solution. Hard to imagine, but nice nonetheless. Tony's fingers drummed again as he squinted thoughtfully across the rooftops, and muttered, "A party. Bring everyone together so they can let him know how he's hurting them. That's just--I've seen interventions like that work, I guess, it's a wake up call for some people. Assuming they're not intending to hurt anyone." Tony wasn't so optimistic about Wesker's intentions. "Maybe it is a date," he continued, not quite talking to Cal anymore. "Dinner. Someone he trusts. Relies on. In this place, there's got to be at least one person."

Edited 2023-07-27 00:55 (UTC)

Cal shook his head. Tony's further proposal was sounding less and less realistic. Wesker wasn't going to care that he was hurting people because that was exactly what he meant to do. Potentially 'ganging up' on him might provoke him to do worse.

He listened as Tony continued to put forth his thoughts, nibbling on more cheesecake. "He seems pretty intent on being self-sufficient," he observed. "Keeps his cards close to his chest."

That couldn't be entirely true. Surviving the heat alone in the abandoned city was a community effort. Irritable that he couldn't immediately see the exploitable gaps despite this, Tony grumbled and fidgeted before proposing, "Maybe we give him one. Someone he relies on. Inspire a change of heart." That was a risky position to put someone in if it didn't work.

By the look on Cal's face, he didn't really like the sound of that proposition either. "I'm not sure dragging in any more people into this is going to solve anything. Especially if it doesn't work out."

He laughed briefly as he considered. "Unless I somehow manage to convince him I won't do anything with what I've learned about him. But I wouldn't be surprised if ended up more suspicious about that."

"That's a pretty strong in," Tony was ready to agree. "'Trust me with this secret'. You're going to go one of two ways with people who have seen you at your worst, and you said it yourself, you haven't given him the chance yet to pick that direction. You left him at the altar."

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