Welcome to Gaia! ::

Richard's eyes narrowed at the zombie and he grudgingly holstered his handgun, though he remained standing. "Don't blame me if he eats you..." He grumbled beneath his breath. If the kid wasn't a zombie, then Richard would be glad he's alive. But that had yet to be proven, and until then, Richard would be cautious.

Casually, Richard placed the chair he had been sitting on between himself and Uso.

It's evil, kill it!

No.

Kill it now! Before it kills you!

Eamon said stand down.

So? He's just going to get you killed, like those other tw- one and a half.

That wasn't his fault, not entirely.

Why do you listen to him?

He's our leader, there's gotta be a reason for it.

Why should you trust him?

Well I can't trust myself, now can I?

You can trust me~.

Go away.

Just kill it. It's so easy... just point and shoot...

Shut up.

KILLITKILLSHUTITUPKILLSHUTUPITSHUTUPKILLITSHUTKILLITUPSHUTUPSHUTUPKILLITKILLITKILLITKILLIT!

"SHUT UP!" Richard growled, likely drawing attention to himself. His eyes darted across the room, quickly scanning anyone's face in his field of vision before averting them to the floor. He cleared his throat. "Excuse me." He said quietly while folding his hands behind his back. Richard straightened his posture and brought his focus to Uso, awaiting the explanation and acting as though his outburst hadn't happened.

Rachel had been sitting primly waiting. She smiled a half sneer when Damien started talking. Finally someone with some sense. It was good to know someone was taking this seriously. She had to remind herself that the team did not know each other well enough to know just how ******** up that whole situation had been but still. A death was a death and . . . What's this?

She tilted her head to the door and took a second to recognize the dead boy she'd only briefly seen. Bender's reaction confirmed it though. This was the dead boy that had been with Niko. Not so dead now. And then Eamon ordered guns down. How the hell did he get to be an officer like this?

"GUARDS!" the woman screamed in a shrill shriek that reverberated through the floor and probably caused a bit of pain to the eardrums of those in the room. It was important to have a good strong scream when one could not defend oneself, especially in this line of work. For all she knew, not being able to see auras, this kid was a demon posing as the boy. It was unlikely he was possesed given that there was no record of demon possession of an Illuminated before. But there was a first time for everything and she had no way of knowing for sure.

Nathaniel stood up slowly from his chair as Uso walked in. He positioned himself a few feet in front of Rachel, "But what if it is a zombie?" he muttered as Richard told himself to shut up, digging into his pocket, avoiding those bullets he hadn't taken to the armory quite yet and going for the penny he had shown Richard instead. He would kill Uso all over again if he was pushed to it. As long as the dead boy stayed away from Dr. Miles, Nathaniel would refrain. Nathaniel winced as Rachel screeched at them. He pressed his palm to his right ear and blinked a few times. Ow. Why would she scream if Nathaniel was right there? He would protect her, there was no reason to panic. The thin man stared at Uso, his head cocked to one side, "I watched you die. Stabbed through the gut by the knight thing." he said seriously. As far as Nathaniel was concerned, this boy was dead. He had been dead for over an hour. He would remain dead.

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at Jake, waiting for the demon to reveal itself, or for the boy to start eating people. Those were the only plausible explanations for whatever the ******** was going on. Unless... Nathaniel pointed an accusatory finger at Jake, "You're working with it! You're it's spy, aren't you? That's why it pretended to kill you. Thought you could fool us." the man grinned, very smug and completely delusional, "Where is it hiding?" he shouted, aiming his weaponized penny at Uso's head with one hand and forming a Baby Boom spell with his other.

Damien, as one of two non-Illuminated with actual authority in the room, attempted to share a worried glance with Doctor Rachel, who would of course be the one doing what would no doubt be a very exciting psychiatric evaluation. He then glanced even more worriedly at the volatile magic in Nathaniel's hands. He did hope Rachel could talk him down from that before something bad happened. He was rather fond of this conference room.

A bald man in a lab coat with an electronic tablet stepped, seemingly quite preoccupied, around the guards.

"First autopsy is done. The resulAHHHHHHHH!"

Damien flinched at the man's reaction. It was understandable, though. "Thank you, now, back your other autopsy, shoo," he ordered, sending the more-than-slightly shaken lab technician away. "Doctor Miles, that would be perfectly acceptable. Please do keep us posted on that." Four of the guards broke off and escorted Jake and Rachel with them. 'Well, that was... a thing. That was definitely a thing," he concluded. "Now, doing our best not to think too hard about that, Uso's apparent return does nothing to mitigate that he and Nikoli Bedier got bloody killed in the first place. Frankly, you're all damned lucky that thing wasn't a demon, or worse, something more powerful than one, or you'd all be in its metaphorical belly right now. I cannot imagine what possessed you to engage the thing head-on rather than extract your endangered teammates. We 'ad to put Cress Farrar, one of our most useful enchanters, in a bloody cryo tank until we can transfer an 'ealer to repair the effects of 'is untended 'ead wound."

It seemed to have degenerated from "debriefing" to "lecture" somewhere along the way.

"I... what the bloody 'ell was that? That 'ole mission!" he concluded. He coughed, got his accent under control, and tried again. "That whole mission was a colossal cockup. What... I just... what the hell?"

Leon, never having seen Damien this inarticulate for any reason, kept his concealment running so someone else would answer. He did that a lot these days.

Of course they thought he was crazy, of course- but he wasn't done. When they tried to usher him out of the room, Uso shrugged them off and rushed back in. "You want me to prove it?" He smirked. "Because I could. Just need a volunteer..." Yeah, Jake knew that killing a SOUL agent would get him in even MORE trouble, but it would also verify his claims once the person came back- assuming they were good enough to handle it. Well, he was willing to take the gamble. And if that didn't work, he could always die again. He certainly had the ability to kill himself if need be. Now there's a thought. Killing myself to prove a point. Never thought I'd even THINK it, and now it's like... like saying 'I should go get some ice cream.' So simple, so easy. So weird.

But there was also one more way, and one that didn't involve dying. The Demoncraft. If they could give him enough time to examine the Acrid Soul, he could prove his story by revealing a new ability. They knew what he could do, and knew he'd never killed a demon (until now), so the only logical explanation after showing off a Demoncraft would be to listen to him.

Before anyone could actually volunteer or decide Uso needed subduing, he relented. "Actually, nevermind." He held his palms outward, displaying his resignation. "I've got a better idea. Me and the lady are gonna go have our chat," he winked to his fellow males, "And then I'll come back with my proof." He faced the guards. "Lead on, gentlemen. I'll play nice."

Rachel had paused at the door for Uso's little outburst and caught Eamon's retort enough to stay for the end of it. She gave the field officer a smug smile and shook her head. "Yes, Mr. O'Byrne. If what the boy is saying is true then this is a fundamental shift in the paradigm. His having come back does have major ramifications even if his story is utter delusion; however, just because you perceive him to be the same does not necessarily mean that he in fact is. The boy has already admitted a lack of knowledge of basic SOUL protocol and we do not know the full extent of what demons are capable of. Given he was killed by something we have yet to encounter I believe caution is the best approach in this scenario and we need to first prove that what barged into this room today was in fact the formerly deceased Mr. Uso and not something else.

"Once that has been reasonably established a full psychiatric evaluation will be made and his statements cataloged and closely examined. Which, I must tell you, is not the job of a field officer. It is the job of a Throne. Once our analysis is complete you and your team will be briefed on what we decide you need to know.

"You have been with SOUL long enough to know the bureaucracy, Mr. O'Byrne. Your authority ends on the field. Now stop trying to tell others how to do their job when you should be explaining why you didn't do yours. And do try not to make any more a fool of yourself than you already have," The doctor finished snidely and turned with a flick of her hair to stomp out after the guard detail escorting Uso away.

The middle-aged ex-gangster just listened as they were berated. Why they were berated, he could quite grasp. The team was new, "deployed" was hardly a fitting term for what had happened, and by all accounts, the fact that any had come back alive without having anyone to coordinate them on the field was miraculous. However, it was not Strings' place to correct anyone, and it seemed as though everything was prepared to work itself out, regardless.

He winced at the sound of Rachel's scream, then froze his gaze on Uso as the boy walked in, from nowhere. This young man had come back from the dead, and any of them were concerned about emergency protocols? Strings' first instinct was just to kill him. Good things didn't happen when it came to this job - only bad things disguised as good things, and mediocre things that were relatively good. He watched Jake get escorted out, and one could almost watch him age another few years as the boy laughed maniacally. He turned his head down to the table, his fingers touching where his arms lay in front of him. Blue Phantoms. Black Phantoms. Obviously, what they had been fighting had been a Black one, by Jake's account, which meant it was a human that had chosen a path of destruction. If what the boy was saying was true - and the fact that he hadn't begun killing them the moment he arrived seemed a good indication - then there was, indeed, a shift, and one that needed to be properly taken into account.

"He," he rumbled out, finally irritated by the continued calling of "thing" and "it" in reference to the Phantom. "Not 'it.' 'He.'" Given this new idea, he realized exactly how human the Phantom had been, as opposed to the way a demon would have acted. No demon would have shown the amount of real surprise and anticipation this one had when Strings had toppled the fire escape, nor would have given up once killing two Illuminated, nor retreated after already engaging Uso. That spoke of something reacting like a human being, and employing human tactics. It was senseless to treat this new enemy like something other than a human. Strings was still not convinced Uso wouldn't be charging into the room in the next few minutes, blood-stained and rabid, but with the information on the table, he knew he needed to be open to change, or die. "Apologies for interrupting."