Welcome to Gaia! ::

Siber raised a surreptitious eyebrow. "Hello... Man In Black Coat. I've been expecting you." He gave the man a sideways glance and popped a Reese's in his mouth. "Kind of." He chewed, still looking at the man. Swallowed. "Unless this is a Black Coat-con, in which case, I should not have been expecting you."
Siber asked Keldan.

"Man in Black Coat?" he replied. "Hmm. Better than being called an MIB, though. Tell me, do you think you'd have time for a short conversation?"

"I assure you, it won't take long," said a woman, who was now sitting on his other side with no explanation whatsoever as to how she'd gotten there.

Man, I could go for a Biscotti right now. I should ask one of my guys to get me coffee and a biscotti. I'm gonna shoot him right here if he doesn't stop invading my mind.

Wait, what?

Siber felt a little pressure on his side from the man's gun, the barrel of which was at Siber's side.

"Now now, no cheating, Karl," the man chided. "I'm surprised the jokes about my clothing weren't able to make you laugh, though. But let's go inside the café. I wasn't making up distractions and tests with the bit about Biscottis."

"I'll spare you the full-length," Paul told Agrotera wryly.

"He says it was a part of the fifth group of Hunter Acheron betrayed. After he went to join the Cabal, what family he had that he cared about and that cared about him started to hunt for him. Obviously not to kill him, but they didn't really fully understand what he'd gotten involved with. So they started talking to hunters, trying to find Robert. During their particular affairs, it came to Robert's attention what they were up to. Obviously out of care for their lives (and his own) he went out to try and find them, but only in time to find Acheron having them all destroyed. Even when another warlock identified the particular family members who were not Hunters, he had them killed. In an understandable rage, Robert attempted to kill Acheron. He was nowhere near successful, as older members of the Cabal interrupted before he could do the job.

"So... does that make us enemies from the start?" Paul queried. He, personally, had no quarrel with the woman in front of him, but then he had been shaped by his warlock. Maybe that was why he was slightly irritated by her somehow. That had to be it.

"Oh, cool. I'd like an iced caramel mocha. Thank you."
Siber wondered for a while how the café had gotten itself started so quickly after the huge upheaval only a few hours ago, but he decided that bars and cafés all over the city were probably jam-packed at the moment with people frightened out of their wits and reporters, respectively.
"So..." Siber started after a few moments, "I guess the cursory questions are 'Who are you?' and 'Why do you have a file on me?' Also... do you have good pictures of me? Sometimes I'm not all that photogenic and it's important to me that I look good in agency files."

Siber raised an eyebrow. "Ah-hah."
He began perusing the file. "Lessee... the wanton murder of half-a-dozen low-rank Hunters... the partial destruction of a news building... Now, see here, I did not destroy that building. It was going to collapse at the end of that battle anyway, and if anyone got killed, it still wasn't my fault. The severe psychological damage to scores of L. A. residents... Oh, and here? Plastering a street corner with my blood when I exploded? My choices were the aesthetic distribution of an overall crimson color or leaving a dead body to rot in the sun. Actually, I don't even see that as a choice.
"Turning part of a road into magma... disrupting the sewer system of a large section of L. A.... setting loose three low-level dæmons... What about the part where I saved a bunch of people from destruction by that other Warlock? Don't I get bonus points for that?"

"So... most importantly, you're telling me that there are twenty-five people as strong as Abaddon? And they conveniently would like it if the two greatest threats to my life and existence, barring you, of course, were suddenly disposed of?" Siber's manner became a little bit strained. He tapped the edge of the table with the fingers of both hands and folded his shoulders just barely inward, occasionally taking a nervous sip of coffee. He looked up at his questioners.
He awaited their answer to those questions and then said, "I have a proposal. What if... just, hypothetically..." He looked back down. "What if the rules have changed, legally, for the majority of those offenses?" Looking up into their eyes, he began making a case. "What if, now bare with me;" he looked down into his lap and took a sip. "What if I didn't destroy the building? It shouldn't even be on the record. And what if!" Again, he met their eyes, shifting in his seat, still speaking quietly. "What if the sewage and pavement were just collateral damage? And also maybe, just maybe, the first time I died, I was suffering from insanity brought about by any number of things? What if killing those Hunters was homicide, but not murder? I think of that as an accident, anyway, and you should, too, you know. Setting loose the dæmons? I mean, come on, they're perfectly sentient and not in the least inclined towards random destruction. They're too low-level for that." He glanced down and then up again quickly before leaning forward and smirking wryly.
"And what if I was planning on taking down ol' Abby ol' Donny ol' Johnny Helms-bore-me-to-death anyway? Did that factor in at all?"

((Okay, I think I understood that last post correctly. Maybe. If not, I guess, lemme know.))

"Ah-hah. So the big question here is whether you prevent me and others from taking advantage of a small window of opportunity to kill Helmsborough before he recharges or whether you let me do what it is you want me to do by my own volition. Now, I'm happy - really, I am - that you've decided that I'm worth pardoning for my alleged 'crimes.' And I think that I'm happy to know a little bit more about interdimensional politics. And I am intensely happy about this caramel mocha. But I guess what I don't get is the point. Is there something to this I'm not fully understanding?"