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 Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:52 pm
Des grimaced, shaking his head, "That is truly sad. Why would you throw your life away? While trying to find your mother is a noble goal, it shouldn't be the only thing in your life. A belief in nothing acheives exactly that -- nothing. Perhaps you should figure out what you truly value first before you decide to off yourself. I think your mom would want to go on, whether you believe it or not. There's no limit as to what you chose to achieve, you have to decide what your going to do.
"Me? I dream of a world where it doesn't matter the color of your skin, boy or girl, young or old, or normal or different. The more people lose their prejudices, a better world this will be. And no, I'm not saying that you should have the same goal as I do. Just that you believe in something and let it inspire you."
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 11:10 pm
Apex snorted. "What else is there for me? My master isn't exactly the kindest soul on the planet; he's ruthless, cruel, and manipulative. I haven't seen my mother in two decades and I have no other family to speak of, since I know nothing about my father or my mother's family. I have no loved ones, no friends-- nothing to believe in. I don't..."
He sighed and slumped against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.
"I have nothing else in my life, except finding my mother." he said. "I'm not cut out to be a hero like you-- I've got too much blood on my hands, and I don't hold the same beliefs as you. I'm not the sort of guy that puts himself in harm's way to protect innocents..."
He paused again, thinking back to his Marine training... and he gave another sad chuckle.
"You know... as a Marine, you're taught that there are things you just don't do. I served in Iraq, you know, around seven years back. There were insurgents around, but it wasn't like how it was over in Afghanistan... mostly. This one village my platoon was patrolling, there were some insurgents who had already gone through as we pulled up."
He looked up to Des, his eyes distant, his voice hollow, but he briefly motioned for the older speedster to cover the younger one's ears: "When you look at a mosque and you see it on fire, and you see bodies of men, women and kids strewn about, all burned to a crisp just because they didn't agree with the insurgents' view of Islam... when you're already a guy that doesn't believe in God to begin with like me, seeing that will just kill your faith in humanity. The sort of thing you were taught not to do, it's happened and you're looking right at it. If I wasn't ruined before that moment... I was ruined then."
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 11:16 pm
On that cue, Jaquelyn turned around and looked at her sister. She knew Victoria has heard about this kind of thing, but maybe waiting in the Danger Room was a better idea. She connected that idea through the expression in her face, and they advanced for the room. Victoria watched the man until he was out of sight.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:01 pm
 Nightshade thoughtfully looked at Apex for a few long seconds before responding, "It was in Korea for me.... I remember it being a cold and snowy November night in 1950. All we were worried about was trying to keep warm, and thinking what we were going to do when we all got back home. Little did we know was that the Chinese crossed the North Korean border to attack us.
"Chinese fireteams snuck within grenade range, and began to pommel us. They just hit us in wave after wave after wave.... Our regiment kept firing and the bodies kept piling up. It was like we were fighting off every Chinese soldier right through our camp...in both machinegun fire and hand-to-hand combat."Des stopped speaking for a moment before he continued, "The attack went on through the entire night. I was practically using their bodies like sandbags. I ended up running out of ammo.. twice, and then started picking up their machine guns and using their ammo. I saw a lot of my buddies go down and I grabbed four of them drug them to my 'mini fort.'
"I don't remember even getting hit.... I was too busy shooting Chinese and saving the guys with me -- I ended up saving fifteen guys by the time morning came around. I swear, I never thought I was going to see that morning. It was like seeing a sea of dead soldiers in front of me and around me. After the attacks were done that morning, I started to try to patch up the guys that were with me... until a corpman came up to patch me up. Appearantly, I was hit eleven times."
They pulled us out of there, when they realized how many Chinese were still advancing in other areas. Out of the guys I personally pulled out, six made it. They shipped me back to Japan to fix me up, and they gave me a Bronze Star. All I did was to stay alive and pull guys out of the way. That's all it was..."
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:13 pm
Apex blinked.
"You're how old?" he asked Nightshade. "Korean War... Even Deathstroke wasn't old enough to get in that war. He was in Vietnam..."
Then Apex shook his head. "My master left the Army after he got fed up with them. He said something along the lines of, they had forgotten their morals. Well s**t... It's said you never leave the Marine Corps. 'No such thing as an ex-Marine'. But look at me... What would Drill Instructor Fitch say to me now?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:19 pm
"How old am I? Depends on how you're counting. I lived a full life, died of what I thought was cancer, and that 'cancer' brought me back. I was buried in '93, and recently I woke up in my coffin. I panicked trying to get out, and suddenly I ported around my own grave. That was a real interesting night," Nightshade shrugged at Apex.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:24 pm
"I'd be shocked, but you know as well as I what kind of world we live in," Apex replied, before looking down and sighing.
"I'm 25. And with the augmentations I've got, I barely age myself. I'm going to be in my prime-- beyond it, actually-- for quite some time."
Then he stood up slowly, looking Des in the eye.
"From one soldier to another... Where do I go from here?" he asked.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 9:39 pm
Des returned Apex's stare, "We all have our crosses to bear, Apex. Ultimately, the choice is your's. We've both spilled blood to survive. I chose to help those who needed it -- as a doctor and Nightshade. I still fight for those values that were instilled in us. It's part of me, and I'd say it's still a part of you. You had just forgotten until now."
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:31 pm
Garth walked into the war room up to some computers where the transmission was received from the bat cave. He pulled up some files and sat down. He turned to Kesshou and smiled a little.
"Glad to see that you're willing to help. Um... are you good with computers? Because if so you should pull up to this other screen and help sort through some of this stuff. Find things that we can use to better find and stop IO and stonewall."
He looked through some of the info first pulling up what was written about all of them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kurt took the two flash girls into the training room while the two other dudes were talking. he didn't want them to be bothered with their talk and they might as well get started. Despite still training himself he was rather familiar with the training room already.
"Alright, ve vill train togezher, I will just start an easy training ground for you girls to run around and work on... you girls have any particular idea about how you vant to go about training?"
he asked politely away from Des and Apex.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:35 pm
Kesshou looked at the computer and smiled. "I learned this from an old friend of mine."
She placed her hand on the console and images started flashing across the screen as her eyes darted around.
After a while new folders were being created and files sorted into their respectful slots.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:49 pm
"Look here... The summers..."
He opened the file and found a bunch of info on them. He pulled up major scientists for IO the summers being a few of them.
"Hey."
As he scrolled down he found a picture of the two of them with an 18 year old apprentice and a 7 year old girl who bore a very large resemblance with Kai. They appeared happy together and he looked at Kesshou.
"Not sure if you met Red Cardinal, Kai, but it looks like her huh... Says they work in a place somewhere in the Nevada desert right now. Working on something called Gen 13..."
He put the image to the side and pulled up stuff on Gen 13 reading through what the purpose of it all really was. He leaned forward leaning forward resting his chin on the palm that was propped against the edge of the keyboard. He looked as though he became immersed with reading what was now up on the screen.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:13 pm
"Umm... Garth?" Kesshou tilted her head and blinked.
"I have all the data right here" she pointed to her head "if you want a summary."
She watched Garth, immersed and enthralled with the words on the screen. She walked to stand over him and leaned forward. Kesshou wrapped her arms around Garth's neck as she pretended to look at the screen with him.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:38 pm
"How could you go through all that info so fast? I'm still reading up on some of the info here..."
When she wrapped her arms around him a stopped and blushed his green skin turning a little warmer colored. He smiled and reached his hand up and put it on her arm.
"I just want to make sure we don't miss anything critical... and if that picture was of Kai, she might actually know more about IO then she lets on. Maybe we should call to the cave and see if everyone's okay even though it's been a day since I've heard from her, although there's this message to Oracle... still want to make sure they are still safe. Knowing them they were probably out in Gotham or still are."
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Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:15 am
Kesshou looked at him and smiled a toothy grin. "I'm just epic like that."
She looked at his hand and murred at at him lovingly.
His next words made her stop and think. She had come across Kai before, never actually personally met her but she's seen the girl.
She then started looking over the information about IO and her knowledge about family.
"What if, saying the girl really is Kai, or Red Cardinal,... Then what if, her family... Say... Erased her memory?... For her safety?" Her words were slow and staggered. She was uncertain that the girl would even be the Red Cardinal they knew and some loved.
The possibility of her being another RC? Sure. The multiverse is wide and Earths numerous. The fact of multiples of the same people, herself included, proved this fact.
She nuzzled Garth's cheek and purred loudly in his ear after digesting her own thoughts. "Or... It could be the Multiverse." She looked to him. "What if it's another of Kai, from another world?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 9:06 am
FG intended to repeat what she had said to Nightshade, this time to Nightcrawler.
"I was wondering if I could work on some surfaces with less friction...? And Impulse with quicker stops and turns."
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