revivalproject | June-July and Calibrations

Entry tags:

June-July and Calibrations

WHO: Reeve Tuesti, OTA
WHERE: Arriving In Tunnel, Calibrations Waiting Room, Reeve’s Calibration Room
WHAT: The lead up to and time around Calibrations
WHEN: June 2nd to July 10th
WARNINGS: CW: Reeve’s Calibration room may contain references to kidnapping and confinement, including of children

Man and Cat OTA
When they arrive it’s near the end of the thirty-six hour period. There had been much to do for preparation, things to pack, and honestly, he wanted to see the storm as it brewed up. It wasn’t like he’d seen it the first time, having arrived just days after the last blew itself away. But that means the man arrives with quite a bundle in his arms. Packs and papers and the few kits and tools he’s gotten himself from the replicator.

And at his side, a foot and a half tall stuffed animal of a black and white, tuxedo-cat, its own arms wrapped around coiled up papers. Was it possible for a stuffed animal to look proud of itself? Perhaps it should, because it’s got a very smart looking, dark green cape tied around its neck and a whole load of responsibility, so why wouldn’t it be happy?

“Does anyone know how long these storms typically last?” Reeve asks of anyone who comes near. And Mini stops every few steps to readjust the papers. It’s a lot harder to carry things when you don’t have fingers.

Calibrations Waiting Room

here

Calibrations [CW: Referenced (nothing explicitly depicted) kidnapping and confinement, including of children]

It’s not a bedroom, it’s an office. A rather dark one at that, most of the light coming either from the scattering of monitors, some recessed lighting high above, or two lights pointed at the rather oversized Shinra corporate logo behind the desk. The desk itself is cluttered, covered with files and papers and reports. This is clearly the desk of someone far too busy with their life. Someone who isn’t fully organized.

On it there are a few things of notable interest, like architectural reports and diagrams, a few reports on small hinges with one bearing a sticky note of ‘but why would you want them’, and there’s even a box filled with several glowing green and blue orbs. Materia. Further along, in a corner, is a framed picture of a couple that look vaguely like Reeve, his parents no doubt, and Reeve as a boy, all of them smiling in front of what looks like a farm house. The computer monitors scroll through a number of images of Midgar in various stages of being built.

Of course most of that only matters if you didn’t sit in the very comfortable office chair. Hope you like boring board meetings.

Reeve himself lounges on one of the couches in the room, looking tired. Very tired. Like he wishes he could just sleep in peace. But, if engaged, he will indeed talk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Was this the office that Reeve had meant? Not that Cayde is immediately aware of who's headspace he's entered then. What fun are offices? He can't help but smile knowingly as he notes the paperwork that litters the desk. What a nightmare. He's just glad it's not his pile of paperwork to handle.

The logo is given a curious look. He recognizes the character style, but not enough to translate it. Was this some kind of Golden Age business?

What naturally catches his eye are the glowing orbs. Green and blue aren't as valuable as violet and gold if they were engrams, which, the Exo notes with some mild disappointment that they are not. But then again, if they're not engrams, then who knows what they're worth?

He picks up a blue one, because in his head he's still comparing them to engrams.

Well, it was hardly like Reeve required command or support materia. He had enough in the stones he already had, and he was more a black mage than a supportive one.

Reeve, lost in his book of memories, doesn't even look up. Doesn't think to stop Cayde. Which is why they're suddenly on a beach, far above their heads metal support structures of something built over the quaint village at Cayde's back. Before him a sandy beach and a small group of people sitting on it, in various states of dress. Some are in swimming clothes, some in casual things, and one that is clearly a younger Reeve sans facial hair, sitting in just short of business clothes. And the only reason it's just short is because the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, he's got no tie, and his coat rests on the sand beside him.

Some of the group are splashing around in the waves cast into shadows from the structure far above their heads. Young Reeve sits beside a man clearly a touch older than him, with dark hair and laughter on his lips and piercing green eyes. The man is holding out a box, small enough to hold something like the orb Cayde had touched. It's wrapped in silver paper with little cats playing across it with little glass balls that look like the one Cayde had picked up.

"What is this?" Young Reeve was asking, frowning as he looked at his companion.

"A graduation gift. Or new job gift. Everyone pitched in for it," the older man said, smiling and dropping it right into Reeve's lap.

And then there's an older Reeve standing at Cayde's side, watching with a sigh. The memory hasn't faded, it's just rolling along around them.

A beach- that's not something Cayde had expected. The most recent experience of such a place had been on Risa. Home was sorely lacking in such spots, not that many thought of taking a trip down to the beach for a swim.

The sigh beside him almost startles him, so caught up in watching the memory that he nearly fumbles the materia he holds. It had only struck him then as he watched the people seated there as to whose head he'd stumbled into. He turns and looks to Reeve then.

"You always have a thing for cats?"

"People associate me with them. But I grew up liking fairy tales about them, and we off course had barn cats to help keep the vermin away from Betty."

Their chocobo had been a very nervous lady, but she pulled a plow and that was what mattered. He gestures to the orb in Cayde's hand. "You're about to see that again."

And sure enough younger Reeve was opening the box now, working the paper off very nearly and folding it once it was free. The paper went into his pocket, earning a laugh from the man beside him, before he opened the white box and drew out a pale blue orb, matching the one in Cayde's hand.

"An All Materia? This must have cost..."

"We all chipped in," the older man promised. "Besides, maybe you'll find a way to apply its effects to filling out paperwork. All-Signature or something."

Younger Reeve chuckled. "Or just burning it all when it's stupid?"

"Or something like that," the man agreed, grinning. "I also hope it helps you remember us all."

That lead to a softening of Reeve's expression, his eyes going momentarily teary before he lunged forward and hugged his friend. The shocked noise from the other man drew attention and just about everyone else on the beach or the water piled out to go dog-pile Reeve, leading to enough laughter that the voices were hard to pick apart. And like that, the memory faded, leaving them back in Reeve's office.

"Betty?"

Cayde looks down at the glowing sphere in his hand, then back up as the memory continues to play out. "Ah, so this is materia," he says, rolling it between his fingers.

He chuckles as he watches everyone launch into a pile of hugs, although as the scene ends, he's reluctant to look around, as though maybe he'd miss something from the fading memory. Again he studies the orb in hand before he sets it carefully back with the others.

"Who were they? You all must've been close."

"We were classmates when I was studying," Reeve observes, moving to the desk and closing the box once Cayde replaced the materia within it. Not that he wanted to. It was... a compulsion in his mind. One avenue closed. Many others still open.

"I haven't seen any of them since a week after that. So close is a relative term."

From the way they'd all acted then, it could have fooled him. But maybe that's just how things are. In the moment. They'd all moved on. The thought's kind of sobering, but yet this moment's stayed with Reeve.

"So'd you figure out how to make it sign all the things? Or just resort to burning? Personally the latter seems more appealing, but I'd love something that'd get me through paperwork in record time."

Cayde steps away from the desk, glancing around at the monitors about the office. "When you said office, you weren't kidding," he muses, now that his attention's not focused on shiny orb things.

Oh, what an amusing thought.

"No, materia doesn't work like that. But I do admit, there were times when I was frustrated and set reports on fire when they weren't pleasing me."

He opens a cabinet in his desk and shows off the fire extinguisher close at hand to his waste basket.

"I might have done it quite a bit actually."

Office, yes. It really was a space, wasn't it?

"I will no doubt be working with something smaller once we're free of this place and I try to help us centralize our planning for restoring the city. Make things easier for long term completion of our goals and hopeful return hom."

"Man, if I could get away with burning reports..." Cayde sighs wistfully, shaking his head. He grins as he catches a glimpse of the fire extinguisher. At least Reeve was prepared.

"Well, there's plenty of places to choose from to set up shop. The trick will be to make it fancy." He wanders around the desk to oogle the chair, pulling it out to settle in. It looks cushy, which is more than he can say for his own workspace. He didn't even have a chair! How fair is that?

"Mostly I only burned those that were incomplete and needed fixed, or those that were already submitted in triplicate so I knew there were other versions," Reeve admits. He's not so stupid to think he should burn other things.

"It doesn't need to be fancy. Just functional. Function over form."

Cayde smirks over at him. "Aw, so you're still playing responsible. I'd just do it for the hell of it. If not to punctuate my disapproval of having paperwork to go through." Zavala wouldn't approve. Ikora wouldn't either, although she'd at least have expected it sooner or later.

"True, true. You know I'm makin' a bar, right? Definitely function over form right now- but it's got a nice view, if I do say so myself," he says as he plops himself down into the chair.

[OOC: First link is to a three minute video that you can look at or not, mostly sets up the board room and appearance of some of the individuals if you aren't familiar with FF7/remake.]

When had he never played reasonable? His office was what it was because there was little choice but for it to be that way. But a bar? Reeve winces a little.

"I attempt to not drink very often, but I wish you luck in your endeavor, and if you need a structural review of your potential location, you are well..."

Welcome doesn't really get out there, because, yes. The chair. Even the chair.

No sooner has Cayde touched it than they're not in Reeve's office. Instead they're standing near the door at the far end of the Shinra Executive Board room. And it's a very full meeting, every chair but one filled with people very many years from Reeve's past. But familiar enough for the Reeve at Cayde's side to look half disgusted. There's younger Palmer, still fat and with hair and in that horrid yellow suit. Heidegger in green has less of a paunch, no facial hair, and actually looked the military man he claimed to be. Scarlet... still looks like a woman trying to win a wealthy husband, with her revealingly cut dress, but there's less sag and plastic surgery to go with it. Another version of Reeve, perhaps a few years older than in the last memory, stands near the foot of the table, opposite President Shinra.

From there the table is even more filled, with an older man in a black suit from whom Reeve clearly takes some presentation cues from, from the manner the man kept his hair to the specific brand of his suit. There's another man, unremarkable and prim looking in a violet suit, at whose side sits a boy, maybe fourteen, with silver hair and in what is very clearly a military uniform, what with the armor over his shoulders. Near him was an undeniably creepy looking scientist. But really, the attention was all either on the man at the head of the table and the boy at his side that was clearly his son, or at the younger form of Reeve.

A very, very young Reeve who looked very, very nervous.

"Well this is going to be fun," the older Reeve at Cayde's side said, looking less than amused, almost radiating hostility actually.

Edited 2020-06-24 15:01 (UTC)

"Oh, we'll have non-alcoholic selections too. Coffee? Uh. Water? ...I haven't got a set menu yet," the Exo admits.

And then something's triggered, and even before it fully begins, Cayde laments.

"Oh my cotton socks, even the chair?! Can't a guy just sit?"

He's still after that, sitting and barely suppressing a groan as it looks like he's going to be stuck in a bored meeting. This is so not on his list of things he wants to do.

Getting stuck in meetings with Zavala is bad enough as it is. He lets his attention drift to the others present in the meeting, pausing as he looks at the silver-haired boy. Optics narrow. He's sure he's seen someone with similar hair and livery.

His attention lifts towards Reeve as the man speaks up beside him, and he straightens in the seat, looking towards the younger version of the man.

(OOC: Such lovely coworkers you have. Poor Reeve.)

Oh yes, that would be the same boy, just... younger. And yet to destroy everything.

"I don't like this memory. I was scared that day," Reeve admits, his voice soft as the scene continues to play out. "I thought they had caught me."

The younger Reeve shifts nervously from foot to foot, and the tension is overwhelming.

"Mister Tuesti, do you know why you were called here today?" President Shinra asked, and Reeve watches himself look at the floor nervously.

"No sir."

And the President is nodding to then-Reeve.

"Your work has been brought to my attention frequently, these last months, young Mister Tuesti. And I must say..."

The pause is weighty.

"I'm impressed."

The reactions on the younger Reeve's face are... multiple. Confusion. Pride. Relief. They all warred on his face and there were a few chuckles around the table, some mean spirited, others merely amused.

"Mister Tuesti, are you aware that the current head of your department is retiring for medical reasons?" President Shinra continued.

"Yes sir. He will be sorely missed. His work with..."

"You will be his replacement."

The culture of walking right over anything important Reeve had to say had apparently started quickly. And he's left staring in open shock, his mouth hanging open.

"They didn't even ask," Reeve sighs.

Had there ever been a time Cayde had been in such a position? Nowadays he'd play any sort of summons off, power through it with bravado, whether he'd done something (which was more often the case) or not.

"Caught you what?" he asks, although his eyes are fixed on the memory-version of Reeve even as he addresses the present one. Given those gathered at the table, he has to admit that it's a pretty intimidating situation.

"...I am not surprised." These people don't seem like the type that would ask. The ones at the table look full of themselves, the president had the demeanor of a person who was used to having his word followed to the letter, no questions asked.

He looks up at Reeve. "You all right?"

"My magic with Mini? They would have wanted to use it for their own ends. To make robots with minds of their own, but under their command. They would have tried to replicate what I can do for ill purposes."

He had been certain that day that his life was over.

"Sir, I'm not certain..." young-Reeve started to say, only to be cut off again.

"Are you suggesting that you do not want the position?" President Shinra asked, his eyes narrowed.

"No sir," Reeve says, stepping forward. "I'll take the position."

"Then sit. We've got real business to get to."

"Now, for the first order of business..."

Clearly the man is going to get plowed over, and the young man was thus going to experience his first board meeting. And with that they were back in Reeve's office. Luckily they are spared the rest of the meeting, thought the President does drone on for bit while the others present look at Reeve in disapproval or curiosity or not at all.

And then they're just back in the office. And Reeve shudders.

"The man with the glasses and lab coat? I've seen since that day what he does to his 'experiments'."

His optics narrow as he frowns at the thought. Even the creation of Exos was a controversial subject. There were rumors that they weren't entirely from volunteering subjects.

"I'm glad they didn't. I don't even know these people past what I've just seen right now but the term 'sleazeballs' comes to mind. So what exactly did you have to do with your promotion?" Aside from suffer through board meetings with that lot.

Cayde shakes his head, although even as the memory fades, he remains sitting in the chair. At least he can't trigger another thing by remaining in contact with it, right? Besides, it's still a nice chair. Awful memory, though.

"He did not look pleasant." He pause. "That other kid near him. Who was that?"

Reeve... chuckled.

"Everything. So very, very much. I managed more than I was ever ready to handle. Basically, I stopped sleeping very much. I don't know if I went to my apartment again very often after that."

And his love life had DIED.

"I had been merely third in line in charge of my department. I was promoted over someone else. They were not happy. And..."

Oh boy. The boy.

"Sephiroth. Of course the name would mean nothing to you. But he nearly ended my world twice."

Cayde grimaces. He knows all about sudden promotions and being married to work. Not that the circumstances of his becoming a Vanguard had been by any good means, and it was notoriously difficult to tie down any Hunters for the position.

"Huh." No, the name means nothing, but Cayde had seen whom he suspects an older version of said boy, at the end of Cloud's giant meat cleaver. For that memory he'd wondered what the guy had done, as he was convinced that someone like Cloud wouldn't run someone through with that much intent without good reason.

Being responsible for nearly ending the world probably suffices.

"Should I ask?"

"Huh is right. I dedicated myself to mitigating the damage they did to the people, without seeing the damage I did in response."

But that wasn't what the huh was about, was it? No, that was about Sephiroth. Reeve... sighs. And the computer monitors all around Cayde show the man older, as he was as the General. The man who destroyed the world.

"Giant magical meteor that was summoned to crash into the planet, hurting it enough that it would draw mako, the life-energy of the planet itself, to the surface in sufficient quanta for his alien-tainted self to consume, allowing him to control the planet, kill everything on it himself, and turn it into little more than a rock hurtling through space to carry him to another planet, crash into that, and start the cycle anew."

"Yuck. Damage control is the worst."

Cayde looks at the computer monitors, frowning thoughtfully. Yep. That'd be the guy. He pauses and turns his head towards Reeve again.

"Wait- he summoned a meteor? So it wasn't natural luck of the draw?" That just makes it so much worse. And yet the man kept going with this one-person destruction. "I'm guessing Shinra wasn't the best influence for him as a kid."

"No, Shinra was not a good environment to be created or raised in. He was an experiment, and... It's very complicated."

Not that it meant he forgave the man.

"He didn't even stay dead very well."

The Exo scowls. "Yeah, I know some guys like that." Although one in particular never fails to come to mind. If there's any name that can get him riled up, it's Taniks.

"So is he still a threat?"

"I think the last time my friend Cloud defeated him was truly the end of him."

But one can never be certain. He just... hoped.

The feeling's mutual, even if Cayde's only mostly heard about the horrors of Sephiroth. He has a feeling the memory he'd witnessed from Cloud hadn't been the last encounter. The timeline for whatever memories were scattered about in these spaces certainly isn't linear.

"Well, here's hoping. It's never any good having someone with that kinda mindset on the loose." Much worse, with the ability to go through with the things Reeve's said Sephiroth was capable of.

He finally pushes himself from the chair to stand, rolling his shoulders back.

June-July and Calibrations

sneaksneaksneak are you sick of me yet

nah he invited you

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