Arrival - OTA

[hooliganstatus]

WHO: Aeon and youuuuuu
WHERE: Various Locations
WHAT: A rebel without a cause
WHEN: The first few days after everyone's return
WARNINGS: None yet! If you need to hit it up, her permissions & opt out are here.

A: Arrival - The Vanquish / The Hangar
Where Aeon wakes up is not her bed: it's hard, flat, and feels like a prison cot. She sits up and reaches for her gun instantly, looking around for any Breen soldiers, but all she sees are a few other bunks, empty but with signs of recent use. She can hear voices not far off. The construction of the place is nothing like anything she's seen in either Bregna or Monica, and she slides off the cot, her boot soles clacking lightly against the floor. After raiding the lockers and finding not much of interest, she slips through the halls, noting the tiny kitchen.

She presses the orange button on the drink dispenser and watches the orange drink come streaming out onto the catch-tray below.

"Hm."

Then she follows the sound of the voices. No one sounds angry or upset, but she can hear both women and men speaking. The hallway leads to a gangplank down into what is a somewhat large hangar, and a glance gives her the situation: six ships, counting the one she's on, all different, with quite a strange variety of people disembarking.

She walks up behind the nearest of them.

"Interesting place you all have here."

B: The Data Point
It doesn't take her long to find her way to the Fountain in the center of the city, almost as though something drew her there. At the sight of the glowing point, she smiles.

"Yoink," she says, reaching out to take it.

But the yoink does not happen. Instead, the Data Point unloads everything the other He Rows already know. Once it's done, Aeon totters backwards a little, and slowly smiles.

"That was fun."

If she finds anyone nearby, she'll raise her eyebrows invitingly. "Are there more of these?"

C: Exploring - The Plaza
Everyone and everything is new. Aeon is particularly perplexed by the patches of pink and purple glitter embedded in cracks in the ground. Maybe you encounter her crouched down and trying to pick it out of a crack, rubbing it between her gloved fingers before touching the tip of her tongue to it and making a face.

Once she realizes that wasn't a good move, she starts picking up pieces of broken and shattered data points, tucking anything that looks as though it might be useful into one of the pouches at her hip. She's not worried about cutting herself - the gloves are durable, and she's touched deadlier things with them.

Comments

C: Exploring

[demjiin]

The staccato sound of Kaz's cane precedes him actually being visible. He was on his way toward the greenhouse when he saw a woman apparently licking glitter? That in of itself was strange enough to pique his interest so he paused in walking to see what else she might be doing.

"Are you looking for something specific?"

He nodded to indicate the pieces she was gathering.

[hooliganstatus]

The sound of the cane makes Aeon pause for a moment before she goes back to what she was doing. She can hear the direction it comes from, and if whoever or whatever it is poses a threat, she can handle it when it comes closer.

When the voice speaks up, she looks up at him and smiles. "Yes," she says. "I'm looking for enough pieces to try and put this together. It might have something important to show us, don't you think? If someone bothered to break it."

[demjiin]

The idea of what a Datapoint was and how it downloaded straight into the brain was pretty distasteful to Kaz. He tried to avoid them as much as he could. At present, he showed no reaction though.

"How can you be sure someone shattered it? It's just as likely to be useless and broken."

When he spoke his voice sounded like he gargled with whiskey and broken glass every morning. Like an old man speaking from a teenager's mouth.

[hooliganstatus]

The dissonance between Kaz's voice and appearance only served to make Aeon more curious about him.

"If it were useless, they would've just thrown it away, not broken it," she said with impeccable spy logic. "Besides, even with enough pieces, maybe someone could figure out how they work."

[demjiin]

This probably wasn't a good time to point out that there wasn't much of a way to 'throw out' anything in Temba. She did have an interesting point about using the broken pieces to decipher how they worked.

"It look like it used to be a Datapoint."

Which, contrary to his preference, Kaz did know when he saw one.

[hooliganstatus]

"Is that what that's called?" She points to the functioning one by the fountain. "Because I had a feeling that these were the same thing. The pieces were the same. I wonder what these ones would have put in our heads..."

[demjiin]

Kaz nodded to indicate that was what the pointed-out Datapoint was called. He grimaced at the idea of what the datapoints might upload straight into their brains.

"Nothing good, I suspect. It's unlikely you will be able to have more than 1 in your brain at a time."

[hooliganstatus]

"That's too bad," she says, without any sadness in it. "I was hoping I could learn more about this place, but those strange pink people aren't here to tell me themselves."

She leans in a little, squinting, as if she's trying to look through his ear into his skull. "Which one is in your head?"

B

[heeeyadora]

Catra likes to stalk the Fountain, keeping tabs on new arrivals, and she finds this latest one curious. People generally didn't want another go after touching the first data point.

Her ears tilt, shrugging a shoulder, "Yeah, there's a bunch," she offers dismissively.

[hooliganstatus]

"Do they all show the same thing?"

She approaches Catra, smiling. She wonders if those ears are as soft as they look.

[heeeyadora]

Said ears twitch uncertainly at her approach, and she shakes her head.

"No, they all teach you something different, but after this one you can only have one of them in your head at a time." Which is dumb, but it's not like Catra wants to plant stuff, or build things or whatever anyway.

[hooliganstatus]

"Only one? How boring." Aeon nearly pouts, but there's still far too much to be curious about for her to be completely upset.

"Which one do you have in your head? Is that what makes your eyes different colors?"

[heeeyadora]

"Security, it's the one that lets you use the big guns..." Obvious choice, right?

"Hmm- uh-" She blinks in surprise at the follow up question, "No? I was just born like that, why would it change your eyes?"

[hooliganstatus]

"I wasn't sure if it changed anything on the outside," Aeon shrugs. "Big guns are good, though. Who do you shoot them at, bold one?"

[heeeyadora]

"There were these other aliens guys they had us fighting, and then these giant spiders, but lately...no one," she admits with a sort of pout, "We aren't allowed to shoot at each other."

[hooliganstatus]

"Well, that's just boring," Aeon said, blinking a bit. Her nose wrinkled at the thought. "Not even for target practice? What do you do for fun, then?"

Wildcard ~

[on_repeat]

[Continued from here]

There's no schedule to keep, no orders to uphold. Echo seems just as content continuing as they are. There also may have been a soft snort of amusement at her slipping in that 'echo,' his helmet lifting slightly as if to hold his head up high.

"We fight for the Republic," he says, "to restore peace and order to the galaxy." Pride is easy to distinguish in his words, but it's fleeting, returning to a milder version of his earlier nondescript tone. Comfortable enough in her company, but careful to say nothing more than that. "...Or I would be, if I was there and not here."

The helmet shifts again, a few degrees to the left. "What about you?"

the best type of card <3

[hooliganstatus]

"Peace is a good thing to fight for," she agrees. "I do a bit of that, myself. There's been a civil war going on in my city for generations: split between a government that lies incessantly to the people, and the rebels."

She winked at him. "So I fought for truth. And peace, too. But there's such a thing as too much order where the Breen government is concerned."

A

[no_applause]

There's a beautifully dressed woman pushing a hovering pram containing 2 sleepy newborns. She's looking around at the world for the first time. It breaks her heart to see any world suffering hardship, but she knows they can help.

At the voice behind her she turns and looks over her shoulder. A little confused, she smiles. "I was thinking much the same thing. I don't believe we've met. I'm Padme."

[hooliganstatus]

"I don't usually tell people what to believe, but you're right. We haven't." She returns the smile. "My name is Aeon Flux."

Curious, she walks up to the pram and gives it a little poke. It rocks very slightly to one side, and she leans over, eyes squinting at the tiny humans inside.

"Did you just grow these? They're very small."

[no_applause]

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Aeon. Have you just arrived?"

The tiny humans blink curiously up at the big human who just poked their ride. What's up? Padme's eyes widen ever so slightly. What a curious way to ask that question. Perhaps she's not human.

"They're my children, yes. They're about two weeks old."

[hooliganstatus]

"I have," she said with a little lilt in her voice that said it wasn't as much of an imposition as most would have considered it, just ... a pleasant surprise.

"They're very pretty." She leans down and boops one on the nose lightly. "I don't see very many babies. Not in Monica."

[no_applause]

What an odd person. But, hey, she's known weirder.

Luke giggles, reaching out and trying to grab the big stranger's fingers. Is it a game?

Padme smiles, watching the interaction. "Thank you. Monica... That's where you're from, I presume? I come from a planet called Naboo."

[hooliganstatus]

The planet's name makes her smile - it sounds about as ridiculous as half the names back home, so it's a little ... familiar in a way she wasn't expecting.

"It is, but Monica is just a region of the city-state. Everything else is uninhabitable."

She lets Luke grab her finger and watches his tiny digits around hers. "You can't keep it," she warns him.

[no_applause]

She nods, understanding. She's been to enough nearly uninhabitable planets in her time. "I'm glad that there's a region people to reside in."

The interaction makes her smile. Luke burbles happily and tries to pull the finger into his mouth.