ArchivedLogs:Nothing to Forgive

Nothing to Forgive
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Sebastian, Cage	2013-11-12 Three zombie hunters wind up in the same place for a chat. (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <NYC> Greenwich Village
A rather bohemian neighborhood and the East Coast birthplace of the Beat movement, Greenwich is the residential counterpart to its more punk east sibling. The Village has been a historical center for the important political movements-- landmarks such as the Stonewall Inn on Christopher street were here during the GLBT rights movement, and the Weather Underground had safehouses here during the radical anti-war movement as well. Historically a place for artists and hippies to flock, gentrification has driven up prices in the locale, causing Greenwich to now trend less bohemian and more yuppie, though the stereotype remains. Much of Greenwich is in ruins. The storefronts shattered, even the houses -- especially the more posh among them -- broken into; while some of the looting has been opportunistic greed, nabbing electronics, jewelry, cash, much of it has simply been survivalist -- ransacking kitchens, stealing warm-weather gear from bedrooms. There is at the moment a decently sized crowd of dead attracted by one such looting ongoing; it isn't looking /great/ for the pair of teenagers currently shoving whatever furniture they can /find/ up against the broken townhouse window they have just broken and climbed through. Up above, Sebastian looks as many do lately. New scars standing paler against his blue skin, his dark comfortable clothing chosen for warmth and practicality and lack of eye-catching colors to draw notice. He's been skimming rooftops, keeping a swift pace with his webslinging -- quiet and far above the city it's a pretty low-profile way to get around, and /he/ at least has no zombie tail. But he does stop, looking down with mild exasperation. His sharp teeth drag against his lip, and after a very long moment of deliberation he slings his way down towards the ground. Not quite /to/ the ground, stopping on the lowest story of a fire escape to yell. "HEY. Hey. Biters. Over here." Lucien actually doesn't sport any new scars, though much of him is covered up by dark leather jacket, dark hevy denim pants, heavy boots. He's been in a nearby townhouse across the street -- he might well look like a looter /himself/, quietly stepping out its front door with a duffel bag in hand and backpack on his back, uncomfortably jostling with a quiver of arrows slung across his body. He's very quiet, watching Sebastian's shouting with a grimace -- but at least the boy is /away/ from him, the turning zombies don't look his way at all. All the better to set his backpack down and take aim. Arrows make far less noise than guns. A quiet zip. Zip. Zip. And one zombie and then another in the pack start to drop. Apparently this street was too jammed up at the end with cars to get his Hummer through. But here comes Luke Cage /jogging/ with a bulky looking backpack on, breath puffing out in little clouds of steam. He's in his pea coat, heavy jeans and tan work boots. He's also got a black beanie on. When he draws close to the mass of zombies, he slows to a walk, taking in the scene. He nods to Lucien, lining up his shots, and then drops his backpack on the sidewalk, draws his knife and just walks into the mass of zombie clambering at the blocked up window. He stabs several in the back of the head before the others near him take notice and start scrabbling at him. His clothes take some abuse, but they can't do much more than that. He's just grunting, wrestling and stabbing, methodically, his mouth held in a grim line. Sebastian waits for the pack to start turning from the window towards his shouting; at the sight of Lucien and his bow he /grins/, fierce and savage. It's a ferocity that's echoed when he drops from the fire escape to the mess below, turning his attentions to the part of the pack still attracted by his noise rather than Cage's bulk. The crowbar at his back is a less /elegant/ weapon than Lucien's bow or even Cage's knife, but it does its job in swift /hard/ cracks that cave in skulls and leave the street around him flecked with grey and white. He /doesn't/ have Cage's immunity; the mouths that chomp at him largely find clothing but the clawing that gets through to his face leaves scratches. He doesn't seem to care. His crowbar flashes out with inhuman speed, smashing into skulls and then smashing again to be good and sure. "You know," he's calling this out to Lucien through his /teeth/, "you even make apocalypse look good." Lucien only answers this with a quiet huff. The /zombies/ certainly can't tell who Sebastian is talking to and he's not about to try and draw any attention his /way/. Strangely calm and methodical. Nock, draw, fire. Nock, draw, fire. Not all his shots drop targets, but most do. It's only once the combined efforts have thinned the pack down to mostly nothing that he hooks his bow over his back and draws a long knife instead -- mostly only for Just In Case, he leaves the remaining cleanup to Luke and Bastian as he instead makes his way among the downed bodies to retrieve arrows out of eyes and temples and the ground where they've been littered. He wipes them clean against the flowery blue dress of a woman on the ground. "There is an art to everything. Violence included." It's possible he isn't speaking of himself; he's watching the others thoughtfully. With a tearing sound, Luke's left pea coat sleeve finally gives way. The shoulder seam is about half split open, revealing the black sweater material underneath. He grunts his disapproval and nods at Sebastian as things are winding down. "Nice work, guy." He clears his throat as he wrestles another zombie to the ground and quiets it as gently as he can. "And look... I feel bad about how it went down the other day. Wish I could make it up to you somehow." He glances over and nods at Lucien's approach. "Nice shootin' Robin Hood- wait, do I know you from somewhere?" "The other day?" Sebastian looks utterly baffled at this, stopping for a moment to blink in confusion at Cage. This ends with an irritable hiss at one remaining of his pack of zombies, not quite /dead/ even with half his skull caved in, wriggling towards his feet to bite at his leg. He drops his hand almost casually to smash it, once-twice against the indentation already there with far less gentility than Cage. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't -- what?" For a brief moment his nose crinkles up at Lucien. "-- You two know each other?" And this is quickly followed by: "How's Desi?" Lucien grits his teeth as he tugs an arrow out of the skull of one body. Young girl. Early teens, perhaps. His lips compress as he wipes it clean on her fleecy soft hoodie, sticking it afterwards back in his quiver. "We have met," he allows, with a nod to Cage. "In another lifetime. Desiree is well. Still at the clinic. It seems one of the safest places to be. Have you seen your fathers?" "Ah shit, my bad again-" Luke stops himself to grab the ankle of a zombie scrabbling in Lucien's direction, and drags it easily back to himself, before sticking his blade through the back of its head. He continues, to Sebastian, "Musta been your brother. Forgot about that. All the same, I'm glad you're out here." He turns to Lucien. "You too, man. Yeah, I knew that face, but I can't recall the name, sor- Well. Yeah. Apologies." He extends his hand to Sebastian and Lucien in turn. "I'm Luke." "Ohh. You ran into Shane?" Sebastian's eyes suddenly light, his attention riveting on Cage with his crowbar-arm falling to his side. It drips half-congealed blood down onto the corpse beside him. "Was he okay? Was he --" At the sides of his neck his gills flutter quickly, and he swallows once hard to compose himself. He offers Lucien a small shy smile after this. "I didn't know you were a badass," he admits. "And I -- no. I haven't been home in a while." He eyes Cage's hand for a long uncertain moment before, hesitantly, reaching his own small and pretty blood-stained hand for a quick pump. "Sebastian." "Shane stopped by the clinic with supplies the other day. He seemed --" Lucien hesitates, dropping his eyes to scan the corpse-strewn ground around them before stepping neatly over a body to pluck up a last arrow, one that missed any target and is on the ground half-hidden by a grey-haired nearly faceless corpse. "Guns draw fresh attention. Silence is a large advantage. Reusable ammunition is a plus, as well." He wipes his hand against his jacket to take Cage's in his; his touch comes with a very subtle trickle of quiet calm that flutters light soothing fingers across the stress and worry he has found in /most/ minds these days. "My brother asked for your autograph. I am sure that happens to you with some frequency. -- Lucien." Luke's grim stress level notches up a note when Sebastian asks about Shane. "Well, he was about as ok as any of us right now. But he was pretty pissed at me. With good reason. I kinda crashed his hunt." He shakes the tiny blue hand, and thinks for a moment. "But that was... two days go? Yeah, Sunday. And he was whole. I wish I could tell you more." Luke nods at the wisdom of Lucien's weapon choice, and when they shake hands, some of the worst of the worry lining Luke's faces begins to relax marginally. His eyes widen when Lucien mentions his brother, and he snaps his fingers when he gets it. "Yeah yeah yeah... the kid in the chair, right? Nice to see you again, Lucien. How's he doing? Your brother, I mean." "Matt did have a kind of awesome Tron thing going on with his chair, it's hard to forget the lightcycle." Sebastian smiles, small and fleeting before it fades back into just tired. "He's sort of a badass, too," he says with a quiet note of pride. "He's been looking after Spence and Dai and Karrie I think because our dads --" His brow furrows deeply. "He's pissed a lot. I don't guess the last times we've run into you helped much." He tips his head back to look up at Lucien's face. "How's the um. I mean I guess you guys came out with a medicine but are you still working on a cure?" "He's dead." Lucien sounds bland with this, two calm dispassionate syllables. "You and Shane do seem nothing if not resilient. I wonder if those who have already lived through their own hells are better equipped to live through the /world's/." He glances up the street, and then down it, perpetually restless-wary though for the moment the street is quiet. He exhales heavily through his nose. "Right now I am working on retrieving supplies for the children. But yes. Work is still -- underway." Luke is smiling for a moment when Sebastian does, and is describing Matt, but it drops away again to his standard sad expression lately. He just nods, accepting the fact of their unfortunate encounters. No arguments. No defensiveness. "I know man. I wish... things could have been different. For so many reasons." His eyebrows shoot up when Sebastian mentions work on the cure, and then he has the mental gymnastics to do with the flat pronouncement of Matt's fate. He can't even say he's sorry. He just lowers his gaze for a moment, and listens to Lucien quietly. He's quiet for a moment even after Lucien finishes, before Luke speaks up. "Hey, so, you're with the people who made the treatment? Are you all ok for security? I mean, I'd be happy to help out. Just me," he glances at Sebastian without making eye contact. "Not... the whole company. No publicity." "I'm pretty sure he's up there in the core /of/ people who made the treatment," Sebastian says with a quick glance over at Lucien. He shrugs a shoulder at Lucien's conjecture. "Maybe." His eyes shift back towards Cage, lips pressing in thinly. "We are certainly used to a lot of terrible. At least this time for once it hasn't been /people/ flinging it at us. Though --" His black eyes are still focused on Cage when he continues, "-- People do see /awfully/ willing to jump on the first excuse to /be/ terrible." His gills flutter again, here, eyes lowering to the ground. For a moment his small smile returns. "... they have really good security." This has the same quiet note of pride in it. "Um, but if you guys are running low on food or anything -- I can make rounds. I think Shane might already have been." "Some people are always terrible." Lucien's gaze has shifted back to Sebastian at this. "It only comes /out/ when they think they can get away with it. The rest of life is a mask that can be dispensed with when nobody is watching." His hand lifts, fingertips pressing to the hollows of his eyes. "Mmm. I am involved with those efforts, yes. Our building is amazingly secure; it was /designed/ to withstand human assailants and zombies do not have near their creativity. And our security team --" Here he does allow a smile, very briefly over at Sebastian. "-- I watched your father over the weekend clear the door of upwards of a hundred zombies in one blow. It's possible the propensity for, ah, badassery runs in the family." His head shakes once after this. "I imagine the security team can always use an extra hand, but I am not in charge of those efforts. I only -- poke at brains. I suppose you might come down by the clinic and ask the woman who heads the team." Luke stoops, while Sebastian speaks, and cleans his knife on the clothes of a nearby corpse. His shoulders hunch, and he doesn't offer any argument to Sebastian's assessment. He stands again when Lucien describes the massive impact of their security. He raises both eyebrows, clearly impressed. "Wow... I... sort of doubt they'd need me, with that kind of firepower. I'll try to stop by, but if you would - just let them know they can call, if they need any heavy lifting done. I don't... wanna step on anyone's toes. I think I've done enough of that." Luke nods grimly and adds, "Well, I need to get started on ID-ing as many of these as I can before dark. I hope you'll forgive the... what I have to do." With that, he kneels down properly and starts patting down the bodies, one at a time, checking for IDs, wallets, purses, etc. Sebastian's lips twitch faintly downwards at Lucien's words, his gills fluttering again. He looks down at the bodies strewn around them, and clamps his teeth together. "-- They're not using that stuff anyway." He turns back to start a short ways down the street, head tipping as he listens to the quiet street. Glances towards the house that the teenagers disappeared into. His nose twitches, eyes scanning the windows. "You might want to come out of there," he informs the half-barricaded windows. "That house isn't empty." He wipes his crowbar down, too, hooking it back over his back. "Good luck," he tells the others, and with a sudden thwip-thwip-thwip he's swinging easily up towards the roofs again, half-flying through the Village to sling his way back north. Lucien's gaze turns towards the windows, too. His brows lift, but he doesn't move towards the house, just watching as the barricade starts to hastily be deconstructed from inside. "Even the most powerful need to sleep some time." He glances down towards Cage and the bodies impassively. "Certainly no harm to them," he agrees. "The dead have nothing to forgive." He turns, too, heading back to the front step of the opposite townhouse to pick his bags back up.