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 Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 10:11 pm
He stood outside the office door wondering if this was really the smartest thing to do right at the current moment.
Answer: it probably wasn't, but there was a part of Gale, a less intelligent part, that was irrationally curious. The more intelligent side of him should have squelched any and all curiosity regarding That Time, especially considering that all possible outcomes of doing what he was about to do would mostly likely result in one of the following:
a) Insults.
b) Maiming.
c) Death.
(Gale sincerely hoped the latter wouldn't occur, at least not right off the bat.)
Still, if there were warning signs, Gale ignored them, or rather, he put them off for the time being. He did have to wonder why he was still in the division he was in, if the biggest part of the division was directly linked to a certain person; but at the same time, the other divisions, although with less dangerous leaders (sort of), weren't quite the right fit for him.
Which meant he was stuck with what he had.
Gale sighed, lifted his hand, and knocked.zoobey have a terrible tag idk what this is
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Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 10:50 pm
A sharp thin dagger, the receiving end, stuck right out the door Gale was knocking, missing his forehead by just a few milimeters. It would remain there until possibly eternity, or whenever Gale and Otto had cleaning duties again.
"The door," said the person who had just thrown a dagger right through a solid oak door, "is ******** open."
Actually, technically, the dagger had wedged the door firmly closed.
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:06 am
Gale stared at the thin, razor point of the dagger and wondered why his life had seemed so very short when it had suddenly flashed before his eyes.
(Or maybe that was just his height that was short and not the life.)
Gingerly, Gale reached out a hand, easing the door back open again with a suspicious look at the person inside the room as though he expected another weapon to come flying in his direction. Which, when it didn't, Gale still kept his stance angled somewhat towards the doorway, in case he needed to make a hasty exit.
"Good afternoon, sir," he said politely. "I was just...er...checking in."
Inside of his head Jinhai was laughing.
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:23 pm
The Death lead stood up. This was usually a good sign, because it probably meant he was paying attention. It probably meant he was paying too much attention.
A second later, he had his weapon summoned, and by weapon, it literally was a very familiar glowing weapon that resembled an oversized farming implement and a second after that, before Gale could get another word in about how good the day was, because clearly, it was not, the wall pretty much got demolished as both Gale and wall debris went flying the other direction. A second later after that and there was a portal summoned, as Gale went flying right through the wall, into the portal, with the debris, where a giant Insanity Titan (or maybe some sort of monstrous equivalent) was waiting for the hapless Death Hunter as it rose up and snapped Gale up in one bite and then Gale died the end-
- Was what would have happened if Caelius wasn't busy trying to figure out why the ******** a certain person who had entered a certain number clearly pinpointing himself as a culprit in a certain organization that clearly had nothing to do with them would be so blatantly walking around as if nothing happened, also their name started with Jer and ended with ry. He just neatly folded said person's personality profile (just the first page of twenty) in half, and then half again, and then tore it into tiny pieces, depositing into a convenient garbage can Mark had finally bought in an attempt to bring some form of peace offering.
At this point he finally noticed Gale. And just sort of stared impassively. "And."
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 6:55 pm
There was a long moment in which nothing whatsoever happened and Gale just stood there staring at Caelius staring at a file before the Death Lead tore it up into little pieces that looked remarkably like the pieces of bagel that he had shredded during The-Meeting-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
"And," sad Gale, "I was just...following up on the Sensitivity Training."
Trying to figure out if I'm going to die right here and now because Caelius kills me or if we're just going to pretend none of what happened ever happened, either of which I'm pretty sure I'm okay with.
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 11:13 pm
"I see." said the Death lead, taking a moment to flip over page two of twenty pages involving the Jerry Saga. He didn't exactly look placid by any means of the imagination. There was a very long pause, and then spoke very slowly and carefully. "You seem to enjoy this, following people, making promises and pulling off what little you can handle, which is highly unremarkable for someone in a specialization. Your value as a Hunter is so worthless, it doesn't actually matter whether you live or ******** die. The only thing I personally regret from the Sensitivity Training is expending time on you, and that is not a singular occurrence. Every single ******** lecture, every single assigned mission leads to the same result, or should I say, lack thereof. Tell me Gale, are you here to talk to me about something actually pertaining to your rank and status, or are you going to continue on wasting my ******** time."
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Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 9:52 pm
If he'd been a smarter person, like the illustrious Death Assistant Mark, he would have cowered away beneath the disgusted words, dripping with sarcasm and disdain, would have shied away, gone back to his duties, and forgotten all about this particular blight.
But unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) for Gale, he was not Mark, he was Gale Gentry, Death Hunter, and that was good enough for him.
Even if it was apparently not good enough for Caelius.
He waited patiently until the tirade of insults was finished, and then he spoke, Gale's voice as level as he could make it. "I am here to talk about my rank and status at Deus Ex Machina. All of that, all of what you said, might be true, you're right. But sir, you're also very wrong."
He stepped closer to the desk, placing both hands palm-down on the wooden surface, knowing that this might possibly get him twenty to life hogtied at the bottom of the ocean. But he stood his ground, Gale's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at his Division Leader.
"I am not worthless," he said flatly, distinctively, every ounce of strength poured into the two words at the end of the sentence. "Maybe to you I am, because you always see people as little more than pawns on a chessboard, or maybe even less than that, maybe you just see us as the dust mites that gather on the chess board, but I've already proven myself over and over again, not just to you, but to everyone else on this bloody island."
Gale lifted his hands away from the desk, not wanting to press his luck too much, and stood straight. "I've done more in the past two years than half of the older hunters on this island, and you can tell me that I'm worthless and that I'm bloody awful, but the truth is that I am capable and I am the rank I am because of the accomplishments that I've made, whether you see them as accomplishments or not."
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Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:36 pm
He was on page four of twenty on the saga of The Most Perplexing Hunter On The Island when Gale finished his little outburst.
He didn't bother looking up, and there was a lapse of silence that was almost as long as the outburst. Another page was shuffled. "Then talk about your rank and status."
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Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:07 pm
Gale took Caelius' lack of a reaction as a better sign than if he'd run him through with his scythe. He stared down at his leader with a suspicious look, cleared his throat, and said carefully, "My rank and my status are good enough to be treated with the respect that I deserve - something that you clearly have no sense of."
Okay, so the last part wasn't that carefully, and may or may not have slipped out unintentionally, Gale clamping his mouth shut determinedly right after. After a moment, he said, in a slightly quieter tone of voice, "I would simply like more opportunities to demonstrate my abilities as a full hunter - and the youngest one as of yet, I might add."
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Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:16 am
This time he got to page eight before the Death lead just gave up and calmly tore the whole thing in half and then into many tiny pieces, like spiders but tinier. He pulled open a drawer and took Gale's file out, leafing through a few pages before pulling out a page. It was Gale's specialization approval.
Very deliberately and slowly he tore that in half too, and then again, and then one more time, discarding the contents. The folder was closed.
"This is exactly the respect you deserve." The Death lead spoke slowly in that low acerbic tone he always used, a little sharper, just on the verge of self restraint, "Shall I set examples of why." He pulled the first two sheets of paper off a small, neat pile off his desk and read them. "Completion of assigned Famine Sahara hive topography. Completion of classification of class seven Insanity variants. Completion of full recovery of Amazon base twenty-two."
Eye contact was kept with Gale. "These are Hunters below you in rank who deserve your specialization. These are Hunters who work with tangible results and do not expect that every single action they take should be reciprocated in <******** asspats. These are Hunters who do not spend their time flaunting age and rank, or question my judgement."
There was a longer pause as Caelius sat back down and very tediously busied himself, because if he did not, it was very likely that Gale would not survive the ordeal. "Your specialization will be taken from you, until, as you put it, you demonstrate your abilities as a full Hunter. I want you to think very carefully on what we do as a divison because your rank and your status as it stands are made of ******** lies you tell yourself to perpetuate your stagnation. All I see is someone who follows my commands only when I am standing right in front of them and I am pretty sure this is not a specialized trait."
"Doing one job repeatedly doesn't make you deserving. Doing several jobs repeatedly doesnt make you a deserving. Working until the very second you die doesn't make you deserving. If you want to be reinforced like a ******** child for your each and every action then you are in the wrong division. I give full Death Hunters minimal scheduling between mandatory missions because the very purpose of this division is to lead from observation. Smaller missions are assigned as long term projects for them to personally follow up until every single option has been exhausted and if I have to chase someone for something so menial and give them a ******** asspat each and every time, payment will be taken for my wasted time until they are replaced with someone more functional."
"Now. Payment for my time." He leaned forward. "Your current rank as a full Hunter, your weapon, your relationships, do you know why they remain."
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Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:11 pm
Anger pulsed through Gale, hot and thick and burning through his veins like lava. Inside of his head Jinhai made soft soothing sounds, attempting to reassure him, but it did little to calm the rage beginning to boil. This was exactly the reason that he normally kept his mouth shut, exactly the reason why trying to reason with Caelius was so ridiculously, laughably ludicrous. A foolish idea, a childish notion; like trying to reason philosophy with a two year old and expecting it to make sense.
"I have never once flaunted my rank or my bloody age," snapped Gale, abandoning all pretense of attempting to stay calm. "In fact, I've been one of the only people who haven't shoved their rank in everybody else's faces, unlike some people - but you wouldn't see that, would you, because you've never once seen the good that people do, you only see their mistakes."
Your specialization will be taken from you.
He'd been demoted. He'd never been demoted before, had never thought he would, and the words hit him like his own bullets, sharp and cruel in a tone of voice that indicated he cared less whether the person in front of him was dead of alive.
Still, however, Gale stood his ground, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The word relationships made his skin crawl, especially coming from Caelius' mouth, but Gale just leveled a look at him anyway, carefully controlled.
"Because I've earned them," said Gale flatly, "though I doubt you think the same."
<< Careful. >> Jinhai warned quietly. << Please, Gale, be careful; think before you speak. He could and he would kill you in an instant, you know that. >>
I know that.
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 12:58 am
"Exactly." He ignored the initial outburst, "Because you earned them. They were given to you. And because you own something that isn't yours, they can and will be taken from you."
He stood up, rather suddenly, and things were looking less like an encounter with a division lead and more an encounter with a certain Death lead. "Let me clarify one more time-"
- And then Gale found a facefull of desk, his arm splayed against the table, other pressed painfully behind him. "If you continue to speak out of turn, if you continue to show even an ounce of disrespect I will take everything you were given and break it. Your possessions, your ties are your weakness I could remove anything so easily and you are absolutely powerless because as long as you earn things granted by this island, granted by me, you are giving in to the same weakness."
A very familiar Runic weapon, blade flat, pressed down against Gale's formerly injured hand, the outstretched one. It crackled with an equally familiar electric hum, a warning. "I don't ******** care what you say about your ******** rank to others, but you will consider your words very carefully carefully with me. What will it be this time. Your arm again." The flat of the blade trailed to his neck. "Or your spine. I could leave you paralyzed or blind and it would take less than a second." The pressure disappeared. "Or I could let you experience firsthand what it is like to have something, someone, thoroughly broken in front of you. I haven't even started, this is only reinforcement, not violence, not even the cusp of mindless torture. As long as everything you value exists, it will eventually become involved and if I have to waste any more of my time, I will waste my time very thoroughly and precisely."
Gale was released but the Death lead continued standing. "Contrary to popular belief, I don't enjoy watching Hunters repeatedly act like ******** invalids. Hunters should be useful and used as part of the system. I have already stated my requirements, that you submit tangible ******** results pending re-promotion as part of the system. Now." He sat back down. "Are you going to give me results or does the idea of watching what you earned get taken from you seem that much more like an opportunity."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 7:22 pm
Gale opened his mouth and then promptly shut it again because there was no way he had just heard what he'd thought he'd heard. Words that almost sounded encouraging, words that almost sounded as though they could be Caelius actually agreeing with him. In all of the years that Gale had been on Deus, he had never once heard Caelius actually agree with him unless it was saying something along the lines of you're useless and pathetic and replaceable.
Unfortunately for Gale, he didn't have much time to contemplate this absurdity because in the next second, any and all possible positive outcomes of the situation were immediately shot to hell.
The desk was cold, and Gale did not appreciate having his face slammed against it, nor did he appreciate the fact that his arm was bent in such a position that it sent ripples of pain shooting up and down his spine. He gave a little gasp of surprise, wriggling to try and twist free, but Caelius was not the Death Division Leader for nothing.
The anger that had momentarily been put on the back burner now returned in full force. Gale grit his teeth together, Jinhai making soft sounds in his head. "Respect is given, not taken," he said, which wasn't really a snipe, more just a fact he was attempting to state.
Something cold touched the back of his hand and Gale jerked, a terrible surge of fear mingling with the anger. He knew the sound of that weapon, knew the feel of it, and he remembered all-too-clearly the agony of having it sink into his hand, electric waves pulsing above his fingers. It moved to his neck and then disappeared and Gale let out a breath that he did not remember holding. He straightened, his chest heaving for air, and faced Caelius, his hands curled around the edge of the desk so tightly that his knuckles were white beneath his gloves.
"I am useful," he said, and his voice came out a little hoarser than he'd intended. Gale bit back any snarky replies he'd wanted to make because the fear of having anyone he cared about broken in front of him was enough to make him swallow what little pride he had left.
"I am," Gale repeated, in a slightly quieter voice, though still firm. "And if that's what it takes, then yes, I will give you results."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:42 pm
He left the dagger on the desk in clear sight. "One more thing." Caelius didn't wait for Gale to give a yes or no. "You will never come even close to where I stand. Don't ******** assume for a second that we are somehow equal. I don't need respect, I only need fear and one is much easier to accomplish than the other. Considering your minimal efforts, both will yield the same results."
"Now. You are dismissed. I expect a thorough report by next week."
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 6:58 pm
The answer to that - "That's what you think" - hovered on the tip of Gale's tongue; a retort longing to be thrown back into Caelius' face. But then he looked at the dagger again and he snapped his jaw shut, grinding his teeth together in irritation.
"Yes," he said, as he turned to leave, and there was maybe just the briefest hint of sarcasm in his voice as he added, "Sir."
He stopped by the door, his hand on the knob, and without turning around, Gale said quietly, " 'Fear" is a highly subjective term, by the way."
Then he slipped out the door and was gone just in case the Death Lead decided to use that dagger after all.
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