[semi-open] did u hear the joke about the dragon

[perfectstrike]

Who: perfectstrike & anyone who might have cause to try to call Peko to check up on her after the CERESTour!
When: just after the CERESTour into the next day (ic: 1/26-1/27)
Where: CERES Hospital
What: Peko got herself injured during the CERESTour and is patently confused as to why people keep visiting her.
Rating/Warning: Warning for blood and talk about injuries, but nothing gorey or gruesome.

---

[Immediately following the tour, Mosley had kindly ushered group three to the hospital for their sustained injuries. Peko, having gotten herself hit with the sharp end of a not-so-virtual dragon's claw, had needed to be rushed to get several nasty-looking gashes cleaned and stitched, along with some smaller burns treated. Swords aren't much good against things that can fly and breathe fire, after all.

Some time later, she can be found in the wing tended to by human and humanoid doctors (no androids here, please), seated quietly in one of the beds with her eyes closed as if she's asleep. The heart rate monitor is beeping quietly and steadily, and there's an IV hooked to her right arm to replenish some of the fluid she'd lost from bleeding everywhere earlier. All in all, though, she looks fine! If the ripped and bloody sailor suit in the corner and the fresh white bandages covering her left bicep and peeking out from above the cut of her hospital gown over her chest are any indication. At least the gown is cute, with happy little robots printed in a pattern along the fabric. To promote organic healing, of course!

Before the Cerevice goes down, though, she'll be answering calls with voice and just generally trying to rest and recover in the hospital. She's fine, though, really--!]

Comments

[impheired]

Yeah, and how many times have I said that same thing even when that wasn't actually the case?

["I'm fine" can mean literally any severity of injury when you're yakuza. You could have a paper cut, you could be holding your own intestines, either way you're "fine, don't worry, I've been through worse."]

The only monsters we ran into were all dead. Well...all but one. And that one... [He grimaces thinking back on it. That poor monster...] That one turned out not to be a threat.

[perfectstrike]

[She gives him a bit of a patient look as if to imply that it's not the same thing coming from him, but... she can't really say anything. Because when it comes down to it, he's right. No matter how bad the injury was, she would have still told him it was fine. They're both stubborn like that, though for her, it's more out of a desire not to let him down, or not to appear incapable or weak in front of him than it is anything else.]

Is that... so? What happened?

[Would much rather talk about what happened with him than what happened with her tattered group.]

[unionjackoff]

They can be expensive. [he's not mocking, or lecturing, merely offering insight] And I don't know what Cerealia has to offer. The gun I have was brought with me from home. It's a Glock 17, and it's only reserved for the British Armed Forces.

[beaconed]

[ To place something so important of his in such a private place, Peko you beautiful bespectacled harlot!

But, wow. Boobs are... certainly a useful storage compartment, aren't they? As he stares probably a little longer than he should have, he wonders what the other girls in his life are hiding in theirs. This forbidden place of magical wonders. Is this really just curiosity about what girls are hiding inside them, though? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We'll never know. ]

I-I'm glad I can trust you!

[ ...Ooops. Realizing they're speaking again, he quickly writes more on their piece of paper that's gradually running out of writing space. ]

I'm glad I can trust you!

[ So unnecessary. ]

[perfectstrike]

Then I'll acquire one.

[She seems to have no qualms about stealing them... though she does show visible interest at that.]

The army...? Does that mean you are a soldier?

[impheired]

Not much, really. Mosley took us down to a "containment" facility. It was run down, full of a bunch of tubes with dead creatures inside them. Like the kind of shit you'd see in a bad sci-fi film. Wright found one that he thought was empty, but we found out later that it wasn't.

There was this...here, I took a picture, hold on I'll just show y-- [He sets the lightbulb he's randomly been holding this whole time down on Peko's bedside table so that he can reach into his pocket to pull out his Cerevice. No, Katar did not completely forget about the lightbulb, what are you talking about But before he can even get his hand into his pocket, the device in question starts ringing.] Who the hell...

[Hinata maybe? Or Gundam? Peko's here so it can't be her and he's not sure who else would be calling him out of the blue like this. Whoever it is, they can hold their damn horses because Peko is the most important.]

[Except, when he finally gets it out of his pocket, there's no number displayed on the screen to tell him who's calling, instead this shit happens.]

Wh-what the fuck!? [He wastes a good minute trying to turn it back on, but it's no use. It's dead, Jim.]

[unionjackoff]

[sometimes England just forgets who he's talking to. that's what happens when you're trying to keep a secret]

Oh... I... [he looks off to the side for a moment, seemingly nervous] S-sort of? [and then back to Peko] But it's not something I go around bragging about!

[perfectstrike]

[Don't be a pervert, Jaune... Peko actually scowls and clears her throat when she realizes he is looking a little longer than he should be. If he hadn't grabbed the notepad to repeat what he'd said, she definitely would have done her best to punch him, even in this state.]

How do you know Abe?

[Apparently this, she doesn't consider sensitive enough to write down? And now she doesn't really want to take her eyes off him to look at the paper while writing, either.]

[perfectstrike]

Oh?

["Containment," that sounds a lot more interesting (and more potentially dangerous) than the history lesson her group had been stuck with. She's shifting to sit a bit more upright with interest to see what it is he got a picture of, when suddenly, her Cerevice is ringing too.

Making the mistake of reaching to grab her own and answer it, she freezes, glancing quickly to Kuzuryuu just to confirm that he's seeing the same thing she is, then immediately setting the Cerevice down as soon as the message is over as if it had burned her. That was weird, she wants no part of it!! It's actually kind of chilling, and thanks to the heartrate monitor, it's not too difficult to tell that her heart is beating a little quicker with vague alarm.]

I-I don't know. I...

[No, wait, she needs to be strong for mother Kuzuryuu.]

It's not working?

[She has to pick her own back up again to mess with, as much as she'd rather not touch it right now. What the fuck, indeed.]

[impheired]

No! I can't get it to turn back on... You saw the same creepy ass shit as I did, right? That fucking robot from that dream or whatever...

[The one that killed LILITH...]

[perfectstrike]

[It's only reserved for the British Armed Forces, but he's only 'sort of' a soldier? And it's not something he brags about...

Maybe he's a secret agent!? Or some kind of government big wig. He doesn't look old enough to be a politician though, really, at least in Peko's somewhat-skewed estimation, so she's really at a loss. But as it doesn't seem to be something he wants to talk about, she won't push it.]

...I see. Forgive me for asking.

[beaconed]

[ But Peko... yesterday, his hands were practically on-- nevermind. How he knows Sousei? The happy-go-lucky delusional Jaune of a few months ago would say that Sousei is training him, but he's aware enough to know that isn't the case. There are a lot of other factors, though, such as Sousei saving his life, Pyrrha looking up to him...

Pyrrha... and now he deflates again, reminded of his failed mission to find out why she disappeared in the first place. ]

I've just known him ever since coming here. He's strong... and my partner liked to spar with him. She was really strong, too, and I wasn't, so they sparred. They sparred while I was trying to catch up to their level.

[ He's not as bitter as this might make him sound. Even though he felt excluded, he was happy that Pyrrha could train with somebody without holding back. He understands it's an important part of improving. ]

[perfectstrike]

I did, yes...

[She's really trying not to sound as disquieted as she is, but it's hard, especially seeing that face, as if it were looking at her...]

What do you think it meant by 'thanks'...?

[unionjackoff]

[he is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery...! or something]

No, it's... quite all right. I'm the one who brought it up initially. [he sighs, gaze dropping down at the floor now] Sometimes I still think what I was on earth matters. But now that I'm here, it's like I have a whole new identity.

[impheired]

I don't know but I don't like it. [That's...really suspicious.] Maybe this whole thing was just a ruse to get more information on us instead of the other way around?

Though I don't see why they would need to...surely they must already know everything about us already. I mean, they knew about...that organization.

[He tosses the now useless device onto the table next to the lightbulb.]

Dammit...

[perfectstrike]

[That was different! don't remind her, she'll get mad about it again.

THough oh, even with Peko's extraordinarily stunted social skills, she can tell something she said hit a sore spot with the way he deflates. She has no way of knowing what it is, though, and it tempers a bit of her own annoyance at being stared at.]

I see. And this partner of yours...? Did something happen?

[Considering he's using past tense, here.]

[perfectstrike]

[He's definitely a spy. Having a whole new identity....!!

.....wait.]

What... do you mean by that?

[And suddenly she looks a lot more uncomfortable than she had before, as if something about being different from "what he was on earth" is surprisingly important to her.]

[perfectstrike]

Nor I.

[She shakes her head, less to disagree with his assessment than in distaste and general unease. She even shivers a bit, though it's hard to say whether it's due to that uneasy feeling, or just because she's still rather cold thanks to the earlier blood loss.

Peko follows the path of the tossed Cerevice, again spotting the lightbulb. What the heck, bocchan...]

Could it be... [And she's speaking a little slowly here, as if trying to put some pieces together.] Perhaps it was accessing something else...? Maybe what we saw, on the tours...?

[But that doesn't make sense, since that would almost imply that the robot is separate from Mosley and the rest? And Peko's more inclined to disbelieve that.]

[beaconed]

She's the reason I went there... to that tour. She disappeared a few days prior to it, and I thought... well... we know how the tour turned out. In the end, I learned nothing of her disappearance, but I need those clues we found to mean something... or else my friends got hurt for nothing.

[ Yang, England... and even Peko, as he glances at her a little less intrusively this time. This can't all have been for nothing, he hopes. ]

[impheired]

[Don't ask, Mosley gave it to him and he hasn't had a chance to do anything with it...]

[Kuzuryuu raises a brow.]

Are you suggesting that...that robot is a third party unaffiliated with CERES or those of us they brought here?

[unionjackoff]

A while back I was told what I was on earth no longer mattered, that I had to make the best of what I was given here. [he raises his eyes again, looking upset at the thought] I didn't want to, at first, but more and more, now, I'm finding that sentiment to be true. I was brought to Cerealia, given a new job, and a new place to stay, and I am completely surrounded by new faces, new species. I'm not sure what to believe in anymore.

[such cynical thoughts from this man who looked content a few moments ago]

[perfectstrike]

...Mm.

[And she does understand, closing her eyes and resting back against her pillow a bit. If Kuzuryuu had gone missing... well, she certainly wouldn't have let Mosley take her to the hospital until she'd thoroughly checked every part of the building, or unless he'd knocked her out. Which... considering her injuries, would have been laughably easy, but... she can understand. In the weeks before Kuzuryuu arrived, she'd have done anything to find him.]

Of course it means something. [She's not even just saying it to try to make him feel better, she honestly believes it.] Even the smallest piece of evidence can be crucial to a trial. If we can pool our resources with the other groups... I am certain something will come of it.

[perfectstrike]

I am not certain.

[She meets his eye with a bit of a frown, leaning forward slightly.]

But... I do not think we can discount that as a possibility. Nor... can we assume it to be an ally.

[After all, from what Tenka had said, LILITH had been something of an ally. And this thing had seemingly killed her, so...]

[impheired]

It's definitely possible. But regardless of whether it's with CERES or some third party we've yet to discover, I sincerely doubt it's on our side. Surely if that were the case, it would have reached out to someone by now...

[LILITH did? So why not creepy ass robot?]

[perfectstrike]

It has to matter.

[It's a quick answer to... a question he hadn't really asked. He's not asking for her opinion, after all, but she leans forward a little, as if trying to search his face for a better answer. He's older than her, after all, so he must know something, right?]

It... cannot be that easy to start over. As if what you were before doesn't matter.

[If it were that easy, surely she'd be further along herself, working out what it is to not be a tool... it can't really be as simple as just deciding it, can it?]