[PRP] Artifacts 101 (Lucky, Gale, Rep, Mark, Carl)

[Molten Tigrex]

"It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a regular theory!"

Lucky always managed to procure a handful of esoteric papers on whatever Ouroboros theory he had that week just in time to show Gale - though most of the time it was a red runic procurement here, and a grey coated 'hunter' sighting there, leading to wild speculation about why and how and what horrible thing Charlotte was planning.

"What if she gets her hands on another - you know - Legacy?" There were very few other hunters with the experience and clearance to talk freely about all this classified information with - Gale was unfortunately one of those few, and a bit more approachable than the others. "I just think we should work together on this. You're the expert on artifacts, right? Are the Legacies artifacts? What is an artifact, anyway?"

He began to seriously consider his own question before realizing it might give Gale a chance to escape.

"Look, the point is, weird dangerous magical objects are not my specialty. They're your specialty. And if Charlotte has them, that makes her our problem. Collectively." He gestured to the pair of them.  

[kuropeco]

Gale, who had so far remained silent for the majority of Lucky's continued conversation on Ouroboros, now gave him a look of suspicion that clearly indicated he was not entirely sure whether this was just another case of Lucky being Lucky, or if he was trying to wheedle something out of him.

More than likely, the former, rather than the latter. Gale's frown deepened.

"I specialize more in artifact retrieval, but you're not entirely wrong. If Charlotte does have something questionable, then at some point, we do need to act."

He made an annoyed sound, folding his arms across his chest.

"I'm not...well, I'd say the Legacies are artifacts, but I'd also say that they are their own brand of artifact entirely separate from the artifacts that say, you and I are familiar with."

molten tigrex

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

While the two were arguing, there was just a kid that looked, once again, like someone had cloned Gale and Mimsy together (or they just had kids themselves in the future to travel back to the past) just piling folder after folder on Mark's desk in the office, just quietly listening to them argue.

It was uncertain at what point he had arrived but he was very kindly also wearing Gale's trainee coat, or what looked like a cleaner version of it.

molten tigrex

kuropeco

 

[Molten Tigrex]

"Questionable doesn't even begin to cover it. We have no defenses for this. Zero. And she knows that, because she already tested them." And also pushed him out of a helicopter that same night, but that wasn't important right now. "She has the capability to take out an entire city - which she also did - and we don't even know what she gets out of doing it. Although, remind me to check if her eyes have turned green next time we see her --"

Lucky was scribbling that note to himself on the back of a photograph in the file, a hospital overgrown with thorny green vines.

"Close enough!" Lucky seemed to be immune to Gale's skepticism. "Look at it this way, we're retrieving an artifact from Charlotte so we can prevent-"

Lucky finally noticed someone else in the Death office over Gale's shoulder, and immediately stopped talking. There was something very disconcerting about their appearance that he couldn't quite put his finger on. It might have been how similar they looked to Gale, if Gale decided to wear glasses and take his hairstyling cues from their infamous boss.

"Wow, what did Mark break to get that much paperwork?" Lucky asked aloud, with a hesitant laugh.

Lucky immediately leaned toward Gale to whisper. "How long have you had a clone? Or a twin brother? Or - uh - Caelius isn't actually your dad........ right?"

kuropeco

SORRY NOT SORRY

zoobey

 

[kuropeco]

"She's certainly a piece of work," Gale muttered, because that was an understatement when it came to Charlotte - and Lucky's obsession with said Charlotte. "If her eyes have turned green, then we have a much bigger problem, I will admit. And you're stretching, y'know, but you're not wrong in the idea of getting an artifact back..."

Gale trailed off, eyes narrowing. He'd walked past the office, and now slowly backtracked, because there was someone there, in Mark's office, looking -

He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, then shut it once more. Finally he said, voice slightly strangled,

"Is that my coat?"

Which was followed by, somewhat belated,

"Caelius, is not my - " Gale hastily stepped into the office. "Er, hello there - what's your name?"

molten tigrex

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

The kid looked behind him and then back at Gale before realizing. "Oh, me, I'm um, I'm Carl?" Apparently his name was a question. "Have you seen Mark? He's got my- my bag and he said he'd give it back after I did some work for him."

Meanwhile, Lucky's phone would buzz, because speaking of the devil indeed seem to make it - her - listen.

Text from Sam

Hi Lucky

Text from Sam

And Gale

Text from Sam

I have a present

It took about three minutes for the next message, and when it did arrive, it was just a picture of a very familiar blue and gold scythe weapon wrapped in red chains and suspended in some sort of cylinder.

kuropeco

molten tigrex

 

[Molten Tigrex]

"Carl." Lucky repeated in a monotone, shifting the folder under one arm. He looked the kid over again, suspiciously. "Wow. Well. I haven't seen Mark today, but if you find him, let him know I said there actually is such a thing as science going too far, and that he and Dwight found it."

Lucky readjusted his glasses with one hand and then dug around in his pocket for his phone. "If someone's going to go through that much trouble just to prank us with a golem, the least they could do is work on the name."

Text To Mark

nice try

Text To Mark

could you two pick someone a little less scary to copy in miniature as a golem next time though

Text To Mark

wait don't tell dwight i said that

Text To Mark

i don't want to give him any ammunition

"Hah, is it?" He glanced up from texting as Gale went in to inspect the golem's outfit. His phone buzzed three times in succession before he had a chance to look at it again. Whatever text he was expecting, this clearly wasn't it, because about five seconds of screen-reading later he suddenly swore loudly right behind Gale and dropped the phone at the same time.

"G-Gale...?" He scrambled to pick it back up again, still stuttering at Gale. "Hey, Gale, uh - I think - I think, uh -"

His attempts to pick the phone up while panicking ended up knocking int farther into the office. It buzzed again before Lucky could finally catch up to it. 'Carl' got a good glimpse of a scythe in red chains on the screen before Lucky finally snatched the phone from the floor.

Lucky held the phone close and took a long look at the photo. He made a few more silent attempts to form words, then took a deep breath before turning the phone screen to his fellow death hunter. "Gale I really think you need to see this."

kuropeco

zoobey

 

[kuropeco]

Gale put Carl and Mark together inside of his head and came out with a vortex of confusion and the warping of space time and wasn't entirely sure where or what he was when he came out of that little deduction.

"Where did you get that coat?" he asked instead, which wasn't actually what he'd been planning on asking, but since the kid looked like a strange mix of himself and possibly Lucky - strange, strange, very strange - he was still trying to figure out where one plus one equals two had gone.

He almost didn't hear Lucky's sharp inhalation, or muffled obscenity, Gale still staring incredulously at the kid - Carl. It wasn't until Lucky was right back in front of him, something thrust into his face, that Gale's eyes focused on something other than his mini-me.

"What are you - " he started to say, and then stopped. The momentary confusion in his eyes melted away into something harder, Gale's lips pressing together as he lifted a hand to take Lucky's phone away from him, scrolling back up to see the rest of the messages.

"What is going on? How did she get - here - " Gale shoved the phone at Lucky. "Text her back. Ask her what she wants."

zoobey

molten tigrex

 

[Zoobey]

Text from Mark

don't

Text from Mark

touch

Text from Mark

anything

Those quotes were directly addressed to Lucky, with one more belated one one that just said:

Text from Mark

OMW

"You dropped your phone," the trainee said very obviously, not really picking up on anything special over the image. He seemed more confused as to why the two were having minor freakouts over it. Gale's sudden question caught him off-guard too. "Mark gave it to me, he said I should wear it. Should I not-"

- "Just wear the coat," puffed the Death Assistant from the doorway, heavily out of breath. He sighed as he saw that it was Lucky and Gale with the not-Gale clone. "Please tell me you guys didn't do anything weird. No you know what, I really don't want to know. Look Carl, can you, can you sit over there-" He pointed at the Death lead's rather empty looking desk at the far end of the room.

A little reluctantly, the trainee did, and just sat there awkwardly before folding his hands slightly and just waiting there as patiently as possible, feet dangling off the chair.

"Okay," Mark said as soon as he closed the door behind him, "who does that look like?" He pointed directly at Carl. "No, wait, let me answer for you, and it involves Rep, a bunch of dangerous artifacts, and touching things." When that leaded no answers they got a blunt, "We're pretending your boss is on mission because he's standing right there like that." Mark pointed to Carl. Carl tilted his head to one side, confused, and then pointed at himself again as if in question. "Apparently Rep exploded his weapon too."

Molten Tigrex

kuropeco

 

[Molten Tigrex]

"How did she know we were both here - Gale, uh, do you think she killed him? Can she - can she do that? But that was his scythe, not a tablet, so maybe he isn't dead - yet --" Lucky still hadn't quite made the connection between the photo and the creepily Caelius-like teenager yet. All the picture looked like to him was an omen of disaster that would make what happened to Delta seem like a minor inconvenience - as much as he loathed Caelius on a personal level, the photographic evidence he was disarmed (or worse) meant Charlotte had finally, forcefully gained the upper hand against all of Deus. "Okay, okay, I'll ask, uh --"

He fired off a few texts to 'Sam' in rapid succession.

Text from Lucky

what do you want?

Text from Lucky

that's gale's question, my question is are you still accepting membership renewals

Text from Lucky

that was a joke

Text from Lucky

in case that wasn't clear

Text from Lucky

(but seriously are you)

His phone immediately buzzed again, and this time he finally dreaded looking. "Oh - er, Mark says not to touch anything --"

Right as the death assistant burst through the door. Lucky just stood there looking utterly bewildered through Mark's entire explanation, still holding the phone in his hands.

"Wait, he's - that's - is that permanent?" Lucky was staring at Carl like he was an animal in a zoo. He tried and failed once again to reconcile the Caelius-Carl connection. It was hard to imagine Caelius having a childhood. He'd seen weirder things - but not many.

"Um, Mark, let's say that, hypothetically, his weapon was not blown up by Rep," Lucky hesitantly ventured, looking at his phone again, "but also, hypothetically, that maybe, um, Charlotte got it?"

He paused again. "How bad would that be? Hypothetically."

kuropeco

zoobey

SORRY

 

[kuropeco]

The idea of Caelius dead....

Well, Gale couldn't say he was terribly distraught over the idea, but he still would have preferred the Death Leader alive. Mostly.

"If it's still a scythe, he's probably still alive," said Gale, eyes narrowed at the screen. "Especially considering - well, I'm not sure I want Charlotte or Sam or whoever it is to be the one to have taken him out, it all seems a little too convenient. And a giant bloody disaster if she has."

Mark's appearance had Gale squinting at him, then at Carl, then back at Mark, and then once more at Carl. His mouth slowly opened.

"You cannot be serious - that's - that's Caelius? Then what - "

His eyes darted to Lucky's phone again.

"What's going on? What is happening? Mark, kindly explain this - "

molten tigrex

zoobey

 

[Zoobey]

"I already explained it," Mark yelled a little too loudly, immediately grabbing a hold of Lucky's phone, which really wasn't that much of a deviant from normal behaviour. He flipped through about three texts involving weird Lucky/Sam/Charlotte sexting before stopping, and nearly dropping the phone entirely-

And then immediately forwarding that text with that exact image of a certain lead's weapon to Rep.

Baneful

Text from Lucky:

Please tell me you didn't do this...

FWD: 000123523_1.png

Baneful

Text from Lucky:

Look we're in the office can you just come and explain everything again

"Lucky, can you just keep your pants out of this mess for one hot second?" the Death assistant passed the phone back, but not before catching 'Sam's most recent text.

Text from Sam

Sure, with a payment wink

Mark was holding up a red flashlight to various parts of the room now, flickering it back and forth while talking. He went wall-to-wall, quite thoroughly, as if looking for something. "Hypothetically, any form of them having any leverage against us is really bad, considering that we just waged war against them and they're looking for any excuse to literally replace our brains with tree fodder so we can join their freaking zombie army." He paused, sucking in a few precious breaths. "At least we have most of the Grail pieces now, so it's not like they could oh, I dunno, take over the island or anything."

Tired of scanning for any hidden cameras of any kind, Mark handed the flashlight to Gale. "Here Gale, you check the rest of the room for cameras. And you, Lucky, no sexting." Tall words coming from Mr. Sexter Master himself.

It was then that Lucky got another text that read:

Text from Sam

Let's negotiate. Weapon for the Grail fragments.

kuropeco

molten tigrex

 

[Baneful]

Rep looked at his phone with concern at receiving a text which went full blown panic at what the text actually contained. "Holy s**t." he said. The only good thing about any of it was that it meant that Circe was intact, wherever she was.

Why Lucky had a picture of it was a whole other ******** thing, probably involving his girlfriend issues.

He didn't want to go to the office. He really didn't. He thought about locking the door and pretending he'd missed the text, but he owed Circe a favour and it was thanks to her he was even alive.

So leaden footed he made his way to the office and slouched grimly in the doorway.

"Sup." he said. He looked more than a little tired and ill.

 

[kuropeco]

"Stop talking about sexting," Gale said through gritted teeth, and then grabbed Mark's arm to drag the phone down to eye level, squinting at the screen. Lucky was given a glare worthy of Caelius, one that clearly said something along the lines of stop texting stupid things in the same tone he'd just used on Mark.

The flashlight was inadvertently swung around to shine on Rep as he arrived, Gale hastily dropping it to his side, gaze narrowed somewhat.

"We can't trade the grail fragments for Caelius's scythe," he said, already starting to move around the room, shining the beam of the light around - ceiling, desk, Carl himself, then back on the ceiling again. "Anyone have any suggestions that don't involve stupidity?"

baneful

zoobey

molten tigrex

 

[Molten Tigrex]

"I'm not sexting --" Lucky refuted as he finally got his phone back, clearly focused on the the important things here first. He gave Gale a corresponding look of betrayal. "She wants to negotiate... and trade the weapon for... the grail fragments... oh."

"Uh, hey Rep." He looked up again in time for another person to join their little unofficial death meeting. A pensive pause. "Wait, why is Rep here too?"

"I don't know. Uh. Whatever the fragments are, if keeping them away from her stops her from zombifying the island, we can't trade them." Lucky was still looking at his phone, lost in thought. "If we traded them for the scythe back, there's still no guarantee we can restore Caelius back to - well, normal's kind of a strong word here but - you know, even assuming it did fix him, we'd also basically be putting a deadly weapon in the hands of someone who intends to kill us all with it."

For a few moments it looked like he wanted to say more, but couldn't. Or shouldn't. He approached the idea hesitantly, though he was guilty enough for suggesting it that he couldn't look at Gale as he did. "Gale's specialization is retrieving things..."

zoobey

kuropeco

SRRY GALE

baneful

WELCOME TO THE PARTY