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

Entry tags:

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

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--!]

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[Kuzuryuu's still in the Research district, looking over the pictures he took down in the basement and waiting for the metro rail. Suddenly, an incoming call obscures the pictures entirely, making that more than a little difficult.]

[Huh. Why is Peko calling him? They'd agreed beforehand to meet up back home after their tours to discuss what they learned...if she's out, why is she calling instead of just coming home? Did something happen? Something that requires him to meet her elsewhere? She has to be out of her tour if she's able to call him...]

It just ended. Don't get me started now, it was a fucking disaster. [Peko will likely be relieved to find that, aside from sounding extremely irritated, Kuzuryuu seems to be fine. He doesn't sound hurt or anything.] But we can talk about that once I get back to the apartments. I'm heading there now. Or do you want me to meet you somewhere else instead?

I see.

[Yeah, he definitely doesn't sound hurt, and she exhales a soft breath of relief. Especially with what happened to her, she'd been hoping that he'd pick up and be fine.

Though there's a few seconds' pause while she tries to figure out how to answer that. Hm. Hmm.]

I... am sorry, I do not think I will be able to meet you at the apartments today. I'm fine, but... the doctor here at the hospital wants me to stay overnight for observation.

What?!

[PEKO? IN THE HOSPITAL? PEKO??? HURT???????????]

What the hell happened!?

[Don't think for a second that he believes this "I'm fine" crap. If a doctor wants her to stay overnight and she's actually listening to said doctor, there's no way it's a minor injury.]

[No bocchan, don't yell. She has to hold her Cerevice away from her ear with a bit of a wince before she can answer.]

Our group was attacked by dragons... I think they are being overly cautious. It was just some stitches.

[But she is still staying there instead of leaving. She just... doesn't really want to tell him exactly how much blood she lost.]

[There's an ironic joke just waiting to be made here. Peko being attacked by dragons. Haha. HA.]

"Just" some stitches!? [Even though he would say the exact same thing in Peko's position, he can't help but freak out a little bit. Because Peko getting seriously injured like this is unheard of. It just doesn't happen.] That's-- I-- J-Just stay put, alright? I'll be there in a minute.

[And with that, he hangs up. Suffice it to say, he's no longer waiting for the metro rail but rather backtracking through the research district towards the hospital. Running, really. Possibly knocking poor innocent bystanders out of the way.]

N-no, you don't--

[A-alright, well, she knows better than to argue with him about something like this once his mind's made up, so she just sets her Cerevice down and shifts to try to make herself look a bit more presentable... meaning hide as many injuries as possible. There's not really a way to do that, though, considering her gown covers most of the critical wounds already. Maybe he'll only notice the bandages on her arm? She can hope, anyway.

More than anything, she's afraid he's going to think she's weak for getting herself injured like this... That's silly though, right? Right. Right...]

[It's very silly, that's definitely the last thing on his mind right now. The fact that Peko got herself injured enough to wind up in the hospital isn't a reflection of her own skill, but rather a testament to how strong the opposition was.]

[It was a fucking dragon.]

[Unsurprisingly it takes him a little more than just one minute to get to the hospital. And then more than just a minute to find her room because he had to stop and ask which one it was. Why didn't he think to ask Peko when he had her on the phone? Stupid...]

[Once he's located the room though, he doesn't bother knocking. He's too worried for that, so hopefully Peko's decent because he just throws the door open without warning.]

Peko!

[He rushes over to her bedside, looking her over and trying to assess just how bad the damage was. But it's...kind of hard to tell exactly what happened thanks to the hospital gown and Peko's cover up attempts. At least she doesn't look to be in too bad of shape?]

You... What happened exactly, what did it do to you?

[Oh my god, Kuzuryuu, how many people did you knock over to get here as fast as you did?! Peko's visibly shocked by him arriving quite so soon, though she did manage to cover her bandages as much as one might expect in the time allotted... which is to say, even a cursory examination would reveal that she's bunched the gown up a little high to try to pull it closer to her neck on her left side to fully cover her chest, and the arm, well, that's just not that important.]

Young mas-- [And she catches herself, sharply shaking her head.] F-fuyuhiko...

I-it... I am fine. During the fight, it moved suddenly enough to hit me with one of its clawed feet... the cuts were... rather deep, but they have already administered stitches. I am certain it will not take long to recover.

Edited 2015-07-04 02:29 (UTC)

[Only those stupid enough to get in his way! You forget how fast he can run when he needs to. Especially when Peko is concerned.]

[His gaze lingers momentarily on the bunched up part of her gown, and it's probably safe to say he figured out what she did there. But he doesn't say anything. Instead, he just breathes a sigh of relief and sinks down into the chair next to her bed.]

Fuck, when you said dragons attacked, I thought... [He thought he was going to find you in a lot worse condition than this.] I'm relieved...

[But he feels kind of bad that he wasn't there to do something...]

...I said it was fine, [she says, a little quietly. She's not quite looking at him, still a little tense in spite of herself. She should be happy that he's relieved to see her, but she's still here in the hospital... and as tough as she's trying to act, she really is still shaky from blood loss, which is why she didn't protest as much as she could have about them wanting to keep her overnight.]

I am... glad to see you are not hurt. I had thought...

[If her group had been hit as badly as it had, she'd been scared to imagine what could have happened to him.]

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.

[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.]

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.]

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.]

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...]

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'...?

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...

Edited 2015-07-04 04:08 (UTC)

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.]

[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?

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...]

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?]

I agree.

[To a point. She hums quietly, then has to add,] Though... we do not know that it has not. There's... still much we do not know, about the people here.

[Such as where are all the criminals?? And other not-so-nice people that are honestly easier for Peko to understand.]

...point.

[They don't know everything, after all. He just kind of assumed... he sighs, folding his arms over his chest.]

We'll figure it out sooner or later. This is the second time it's shown up in as many weeks, after all. Wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing it more after this.

In any case, you're just going to have to use your imagination I guess. Because obviously I can't show you shit now. It was kind of like...a mermaid, almost. Only one you'd expect to find at the bottom of the ocean instead of the pretty ones you hear about in stories. It had tentacles and razor sharp teeth...

Anyway, it suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the tube we'd all assumed was empty. It broke out but this Cerberus jackass in our group attacked it before it had a chance to do anything. It... [He looks vaguely uncomfortable again.] It tried to talk to us while it was dying. It kept making these sounds over and over that you could just tell were supposed to be words but...I don't think any of us understood what it was trying to say. Then it died and Mosley showed back up and escorted us out because of "needless manslaughter". He also mentioned slaughtering of innocents, but I'm not sure if that was in reference to us or another group.

Either way, the thing was sentient and, despite its appearance, I don't think it was going to hurt us...

Edited 2015-07-04 05:53 (UTC)

Cerberus?

[That's a name she's not familiar with... though granted, she doesn't pay as much attention to the network as maybe she should, what with two jobs and a myriad of other interests to occupy her time. Instead, she stays mostly quiet, though her expression only grows more severe the more he explains. That... sounds awful. Maybe it's just because she didn't see said horrifying mermaid-thing herself, but something getting killed right in front of Kuzuryuu like that...

They're no strangers to death, neither of them, but it doesn't mean she has to like it, when it happens. Her lips thin into a line as she shakes her head.]

That is... unfortunate. [Both that potential information had been lost, and something potentially innocent was killed. She exhales through her nose and tries to meet his eye again.] If Mosley returned not long after that... it seems it is not merely our lives that are considered unimportant. ["Our" referring to people who'd been brought out of the code, rather than the natives or the people who visit willingly. Considering that if the... thing's life had mattered, surely a warning would have made sense? But then again... even without Vincere, it is still CERES.]

I don't know if that's actually his name or not, the guy was...off. If you ever see a tall guy with black hair and a gold right eye and a green left one, don't waste your time with him.

[Richter is second only to Archer when it comes to least amount of time taken to make a bad first impression on Kuzuryuu. He won't complain if he never speaks to the guy again.]

I dunno if I'd say that. I mean...he was pretty annoyed about what happened. Not devastated or anything, but...I wouldn't go as far as to say he didn't think whatever it was wasn't important.

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