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 Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 2:31 pm
Rep watched Melvin the whole time, even if he kept himself and his expression hidden. For Rep anyone confiding anything in him was a privilege. All his life he'd been used to people refusing to tell him a single thing, either because to do so was unmanly or because they assumed he would be as callous with the feelings of other people as he was with his own or the people he pushed away.
It was strange to imagine Melvin as ever being young, a lot of the brashness and stupidity of youth was smoothed out in the other man, enthusiasm bubbled to the surface only fleetingly. He didn't seem like he made hurried choices any longer, maybe it tied back to this instant. Everything was relative, Rep had found through his own experiences, everything in your life could constantly loop back on itself to one moment, one point in time that summed up your greatest fears and challenges. For him it had been his mother, maybe for Melvin some of it was this, he'd certainly freaked out enough.
"So that was what set you off. I get it." he said quietly. "I guess seeing her again was a bit of a system shock."
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Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:57 pm
Melvin's head nodded as he agreed. It wasn't just a system shock. It was a complete meltdown with red warning lights included. "I was an idiot." He admitted. "I could have got caught." He risked all their lives with his little episode, not to mention the golems.
"I just.....thought she'd always be under those floors." He sat back up, placed a hand to cup his face as he breathed, his face hidden in the process.
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:50 am
"Naw, you were human, there's a difference sometimes. So what if you broke a golem? It'd come out of your pay, that's it. s**t happens." he shrugged, he wasn't quick to condemn people over moments of weakness.
<>
"So you found out she's not. Are you going to ignore it? Because I mean now she's somewhere you can finally solve that nightmare forever, she'll die like the rest of them. Gone like so much bad memory." He almost wished he could meet his mother again just for closure, sweet and final closure. "I'd say in terms like, of where you are now, it could be her turn to wish you'd never fallen in on her man."
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:18 pm
"If you didn't notice by looking around you, I'm not exactly a Sun. I wouldn't be much good killing her. She's also an adult, which means she has more fear than the kids we fight, and even I can't kill one of those." He was so weak. Even after his promotion, he tried going and taking on a student on his own and nearly died in the process. He didn't measure up.
"The only way to permanently get rid of her is to make her a weapon or destroy her core enough never to form again. I don't have that power. I'm not even a full hunter." He was just some lab worker who was trusted enough now just to get a tablet. He wasn't even at that level. Rep could probably do it, but not Melvin.
"I haven't won a single battle since coming here." He whispered. There just wasn't any way he could ever defeat her.
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:15 am
"No one said you had to do it alone. You are a hunter. Anything you do can be like, done in a group. You might no be a sun but a lot of your friends and s**t are. Also like, she might be an adult but that doesn't mean she's invincible either, anything that can be killed, we can do it, it just might no be easy and might take a bit of a run-up. But you are only as strong as your mates."
Rep gave the blonde man a slightly amused smirk. "Nor had I man. I didn't win a single battle till I was nearly a hunter and it was my job to fight. I was the Sun hunter who couldn't fight, and even when I did start winning I won too hard? And that was still considered a ********. Your job isn't even to fight, its to like, do Life things and you do them better than any other ******** I know." And unlike a lot of people he had first hand experience with said Life things after being trapped a minipet that time. "You could probably beat her one day without like, ever even needing to hit her, just out-tech her and win. I'm jealous like, Suns are limited by what our stupid human bodies can handle, Life's only limited by like what you guys can dream up on a budget, there's more room for s**t that way and it doesn't matter if a runic gadget gets broken, but if we get broken, we get put down."
He eyed the tablet. "Since when have you guys been getting personal ******** tablets by the way?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:43 am
"Research limits us, Rep. There is a lot that we have to figure ways around. Budget, materials, and what is even possible to do in regards to research and time frame. The tech alone that went into figuring out runic bandages is so overwhelming and took years upon years to figure out with entire teams working in various fields of research to make the foundation to even get to that point. I'm not about to pop out the killer super weapon of all time anyways. It's not my field."
He lowered his hands leaning back as he looked up at the ceiling. His face was still pale and there was still that sickness bubbling in his stomach. Nerves.
"I'm Life, and we work to keep people like you alive. I'm not about to risk my mates on something I just want to do." He still wanted her head. He wanted her to vanish from him and his world. Would he feel safer, better, if he knew she was gone forever? Was it worth that risk? His own personal doubts had him thinking that in the end, he'd wind up hurting someone because he wanted to target one person that wasn't even on their list of targets. The only benefit was for him, and he couldn't feel good putting other people's lives on the line for that. If he was going to do it, it had to be just him.
Now that the topic was moving on, he nodded. "Life had a meeting where we could purpose what field of research we wanted to do and get a budget. I got mine and a tablet." He would have been more giddy if it was brought up before talking about that woman, but it was hard to crack a smile now. Now his mind was thinking of death and risk. It wasn't so much a Sun thing as much as just a personal vendetta against a thing that ruined his life. He only wished he could take her out on his own.
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:35 am
"Always such a downer man. It's no a waste when it's something important. No everything is like, determined by how valuable it is in resources, some things matter for other reasons. If you want to go after her some day, I'm in, and I won't hear like, arguments about it. Let other people decide if they want to risk themselves, we are adults, we can make decisions."
Rep raised a brow at the tablet. "So you guys get ******** tablets and budgets. We don't get s**t. Well no, that's a lie, I got a rack of japanese schoolgirl outfits in like, all sizes. So I guess that's totally a fair trade off." He rolled his eyes, but couldn't bring himself to complain about Allan's very earnest generosity. "I guess I could have gotten nothing, so there's that."
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:57 am
"To be honest, I didn't even expect to get this. It's nice to get some equipment that I can call my own and works. I've been borrowing labs here and there when I can get them, and whatever minipet tanks that aren't claimed already, I'd have to take. I even had to move my own a few times because some other group decided that it was now their lab and had the paper to back it up. I've pretty much been scavenging for lab time and space. Now I can a set time that is my own in a lab, a budget, and a tablet to actually put it all in. I've just been hand writing all my notes and typing them when there is a free computer. I was saving to get my laptop runiced though. I probably still will. Can't play DVDs on this."
But he still liked the tablet VERY much.
Remebering what Rep said, he picked it up and lifted it, offering it to him. "Want to poke around with it? You like computers, right?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:18 am
"A fancy room of your own and all sorts of s**t. Not bad. All I'm doing is like, setting up an expedition to a shitty old arctic base thing to hunt yetis. You get to be in the warm with tech to use."
He didn't even respond right away as the tablet was offered to him, taking it before even speaking like a dog with a treat waved in front of its nose, without even thinking about it, reaching for his glasses and putting them on. He promptly started tapping away on it eagerly. "Aye. No kidding man. This is a nice ******** thing man." It was almost saddening how far technology seemed to have come even in the time they were on the island, a lot of his time on shore leave had been spent in PC shops ogling the specs availiable on desktops. Tablets seemed to have taken off too since their relative confinement on the island.
"s**t like this makes me sad man." he said distantly, still nimbly flicking through screens and menus, a jerky sporadic sort of edge to his actions apparent only when he was in the vicinity of a computer, a sort of controlled eagerness he couldn't keep hidden. "All these things I'm missing on this ******** island." It made him flighty and restless, the thought of the world moving on ahead, letting him get left behind. It made him want to quit. Made him want to go back to his room with his rig and catch up with the people he used to talk to. But that was impossible. "Holy s**t this thing has a processor with two cores and four threads. And what the ******** at that RAM. And its just a stupid handheld too." He exhaled in what could only be described as a petulant whine.
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 11:25 am
While Rep was transfixed with the tablet, Melvin was taking a few pictures. This lab had excellent light, he had to admit, and snapped a few pictures before putting his phone away. Melvin could only vaguely get the idea of what a core was, knew what RAM was, had no idea what the hell threads were. He just stared in that pretend-understanding way which clearly meant you didn't know a damn thing. "Tablets were just really starting out when I left college, so I hadn't ever touched one before. I bet my laptop and phone are considered ancient to most people now."
At the mention of being sad, Melvin could only frown in acknowledgement. "Yeah, missing a whole lot." Family being the biggest. His mind asked, every single day, what each one were up to, how they were handling, hoping they were having happy lives but also selfishly wishing they were miserable without him. He wanted to reach out, contact them in some way, to somehow get a morsel of that world back to savor.
"If you want to play with it when I'm not working with it, I think you'd probably be a person I could let d**k around with it and not worry it will wipe out all my files. Though, you did get a new computer after all. I'm sure that must be fun. I'm pretty eager to get my laptop runiced to see what I left on it before coming here." He had pictures of friends and family, music playlists, tv shows, and movies all kept on his harddrive. Even papers and homework from school. He wanted to look at it and taste some ghost taste of normalcy again.
"Hey.........you're not going to like, get people to fight that thing for me. I don't need other people knowing."
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Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:51 pm
Rep had no idea what Melvin was up to, too engrossed with examining the inner workings of the tablet's software with what could only be described as an expression of sheer kirakira. "I knooow. Everything is so old here. Outdated and ******** rusty, with the ******** uphill struggle it is to get s**t runiced." He touched the edge of the tablet with almost inappropriate gentleness. "You are really lucky man, this thing is probably outmoded on the outside but here its like a ******** rolls royce."
His expression lit up even further at the prospect of getting to mess around with it while Melvin wasn't using it. "Oh man I'll keep it in tip top shape and s**t, I'll like keep it defragged and everything. Can I let B0nez see it?"
His smile turned devious. "If I can get this Arctic thing going how I want, we'll have the means to get that b***h for you when and if you want to get her. But naw man, I'm not going to tell a soul. If you don't want anyone knowing, no one's going to."
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Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:05 pm
One hand rested on Melvin's neck, conciously aware of the mark more than ever and hoping that Rep agreeing not to speak a word also meant he was smart enough not to let anyone else make that connection about the mark on his neck as well. He had to wonder who else saw it, and suddenly felt a urge to wear big hoodies again like when he was a teenager. Something that not only covered his neck but head as well to the point he could submerge into it and fell safe.
While Rep poked about the tablet, he watched him and, to escape the topic he didn't want to dwell too much on since he still was unsure if he was being a coward, focused on Rep's work. "Arctic thing? I'm not familiar with Sun work other than in fights. What will you exactly be up to? You said Yetis?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:28 pm
"There's a base in the Arctic, abandoned, I want to take it back, get some people interested in it. Home away from home. s**t's so restrictive here and like, watched like big brother. Fixing up a base could be interesting maybe. I dunno. I just want something to do I guess, and yeti hunting is easiest with somewhere warm to come back to." He shrugged. "Polar bears too."
He watched Melvin touching the mark on his neck over the tablet and frowned. "You know, it looks pretty cool. It's like a scar man. I used to hate the state my shoulder is in too. It just always made me think of me ******** up and putting my squad in danger. Of being absolutely wrecked by a horseman b***h. But like, s**t happens, it shows that you fight, shows that you have a reason. The more you hide s**t, the more you make people think you have a reason to hide it."
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Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:02 pm
A sharp gaze was returned. "I didn't fight, Rep. I was 12. It's different than being attacked by a horsemen when you're an adult. When you're a hunter. When you're already established in this." He had no one. He had been defenseless and ignorant to this world, and had been forced into it, unwillingly, to suffer with a endless stream of questions and no one willing to entertain him with answers. No one wanted to fed into a crazy child's delusions.
He dropped his hand, done with sharing. "I haven't done extreme conditions. I haven't had much luck with my aim either. If it wasn't too much of a challenge, I'd be okay with helping you make your home away from home. I tend to like seeing snow more than a jungle on this island. it would be nice to have a place to have some distance too." To get away from other people and just enjoy the silence. Privacy was hard to come by here.
"Do you kill polar bears for pelts too? I'm not going to see a lot of skulls in jars again, am I?" If this base was going to be another taxidermy central like Rep's room, then Melvin wanted to know.
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Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:52 pm
"I'm not saying you should have fought back then. Kids can't fight. They can't. When I was a kid I did a lot of like. Crying. Just crying and feeling sorry for myself and helpless. But that's the difference between then and now, now you can do something about it. Or at least like, work to it." He shrugged, he wasn't out to lecture Melvin and felt like he somewhat was.
"As for the arctic, its no going to be like all fighting. I need like, an assessment of the damage and s**t, like if its even salvagable, and like there's some labs down there, I dunno if there's anything still running. Its only been out of comission a few months tops."
He did look guilty at the mention of the polar bears. "Well. This white fur is polar bear. And the jars are the best way to rot the flesh off okay. It's not why I'm going there though, just like, a perk."
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