Logs:Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal
Dramatis Personae Akihiro, Dusk, Isra
In Absentia Erik	2023-02-17 "If you want it removed. We can find a way."
Location <BOM> Beachfront - Ascension Island
Largely rocky and desolate, the majority of the waterfront on this small island is an unwelcoming place. Craggy and forbidding, lined with jagged black rocks, the coast here can take a fair bit of scrambling to navigate. Here and there, though, the coastline levels out to narrow sweeps of pebbly beaches littered with shells and seaweed carried in on the frigid tide. Occasional old trunks of fallen trees dot the narrow beach, victims of the storms that frequently plague the island. One small stretch of the western shore holds a small dock, a few boats usually moored there. Tucked off the mainland coast in Jamaica Bay, the buildings and lights of the city can be seen far across the water. It's already not warm, but down by the water the ocean breeze makes the evening chill nip even harder. The cold in the air doesn't seem to bother Dusk all that much -- he's perched on a wide slab of rock, looking like some very modern interpretation of a gargoyle in thick-waled black corduroys and a lined canvas jacket over a red-banded black wrap shirt, Vans sneakers, his huge wings half-mantled behind him. He has a slim purplish vape in one hand, a grinder sitting on the rock beside him, and is currently simply frowning at the pipe with a small twitch of the large claws at the ends of his wings. He is examining the lidded end of the vape with a deep and uncertain frown. Akihiro looks to be mostly just wandering the beach, dressed in a simple grey cardigan over a black shirt, denim jeans, and a pair of Sperry's boat shoes. Upon spotting Dusk he casually makes his way over, tossing his right hand up in greeting. "Technology giving you issues?" he asks, glancing down at the vaporizer. A somewhat less modern gargoyle is picking her way down toward the water, her steps nearly silent, the faint crunch of gravel under her neatly wrapped feet swallowed by the wind and water. Isra's been a rare sight around the island these past few months, her visits few and brief. Tonight she's swathed in an elegant royal purple ruana wrap that drapes over her folded wings just so, the many-layered folds of her himation underneath stark white against her stony gray skin, unadorned as has been her habit of late. Her eyes also puzzle over the object in Dusk's hand as she comes level to the two men, though a quick glance at the other paraphernalia seem to obviate any immediate curiosity she had about it. One of her wings starts starts to unfurl, a reflex reach for Dusk that she aborts and redirects into a twitch of greeting, uncharacteristically casual for her. "I've -- never actually used one of these before," Dusk admits very sheepishly, holding up the vape on the palm of his hand. "It was starting to feel a little anachronistic, keeping our networks up and running here and still hand-rolling all my joints like a medieval fucking peasant. Kinda worried I'll break something if I try opening the wrong --" He stutters briefly into quiet as Isra approaches, eyes lowering as his wings pull in a little closer. "Sup?" comes echoed in sign, an upward flick of his middle finger against his chest. "Oh, the bottom on that one opens, and the button to control everything is on the top. Just press it until it comes on, then hold the button until the mode selector comes on. Probably gonna want to go with three of the petals on front lighting up, vibrates when it's ready for you to hit it." Akihiro explains, probably a little too quickly. "I honestly only know that because there's this smoke shop I stop in on the way to Riverdale every so often, Mr. Puff I think it is." He finally glances over at Isra and wiggles his fingers in greeting. "Hey there." Isra inclines her head slightly to Akihiro's wave. Dusk's greeting may be rhetorical, but her eyes flick automatically up from his hand to the evening sky. "Venus," she enunciates, indicating a bright light low on the horizon. Then only a few degrees above it. "Jupiter." After this she lapses back into sign, though given the overlap with common-use gestures, it's pretty easy to piece together without any knowledge of ASL: 'Weed goes in the bottom.' It's a bit harder for the non-signing to interpret when she adds, 'Khalida has one.' Dusk's lips press together, and it's probably a good deal more concentration than seems necessary as he flicks the cap open and gently tamps some bud from his grinder into the pipe. It's only once it is closed again that he eases. "-- Cool." He presses the button, cupping the vape loosely in his hand was it warms up. "... mmm. That one won't let me inside. Thankfully the internet doesn't care much about wings." His eyes skate upward, studying the sky overhead. One thumbclaw shifts, pointing towards a bright speck higher up, nearby Orion. "What's that one, then?" “I really need to learn how to sign.” Akihiro mostly says to himself. He takes a step back and pulls a tube from the inside pocket of his cardigan, unscrews it, and produces a pre-rolled blunt from inside. His eyes turn up to the stars as well, placing the cigar between his lips and lighting it up. “I hope I live long enough to see space, assuming we don’t fuck that up somehow too. Wonder if they have freaks like us out there somewhere.” "It's useful," Isra tells Akihiro simply. Her eyes linger on Dusk's hands, until his question. She tips her head back to study the reddish light in the sky as she resettles her wings under her wrap. "Mars," her spoken reply comes a split second after her fingerspelled one. Finally, she pulls her tablet from the bag at her side and taps something out on its screen. "I'm sure," the tablet says, in a pleasantly neutral voice, "there are freaks out there somewhere. Or could be." Dusk grimaces, his wings pulling tight against his shoulders. "Definitely already know there are freaks out there in other worlds. Whether they're up there or not --" One wing lifts in a shrug. "I kind of hope we don't keep going up there, though. I know you haven't been on this earth long," he's saying wryly to Akihiro, "probably why you're still holding out hope for the Star Trek space future while Musk's already got his plan all drawn up the Moon is a Harsh Mistress one." “Most of the sci-fi I watched was much less optimistic. Knowing how people are I’m sure there’d be a first contact war.” Akihiro takes a long drag from his blunt, the smell of wax almost stronger than the smell of the bud. “I wonder if the other versions of myself have metal skeletons too.” He holds out the blunt, offering it to whoever would take it, “I hope not. This shit hurts and I’m pretty sure it’s poison, I know for a fact I don’t heal as quickly as I used to.” A low, rumbling growl slips from Isra at the mention of Elon Musk. "That man," her AAC says, "would steal the stars if he could." Her eyes lift to the twinkling red pinpoint she'd identified as Mars and she signs, one-handed, 'Already trying to steal that.' She shakes her head at Akihiro's offer, her nostrils flaring with mild distaste. It's her own voice that speaks now, though with little more inflection than the simulated one, "Do you want to take out the metal." Dusk waves away the offer of joint with a casual flick of wing, looking down to check the indicator on his own pipe. Isra's question makes his brows hike way up. He looks over at Akihiro with an intent curiosity -- some stray thought while he is contemplating this question twists his expression briefly into a grimace. He lifts his pipe, takes a testing puff. "S'pose if you survived it going in, you could survive it coming back out." “I’m not sure.” Akihiro admits, taking another long drag and holding it for several seconds as he thinks about it. “Maybe when I don’t need it anymore. Assuming they can even take it out.” He clenches his fist and his claws burst out from between his knuckles. “Honestly only barely survived it. As far as I know only Logan and myself survived the full graft.” Isra watches the claws tear through Akihiro's skin with only a reflexive flinch, her expression impassive. It takes a longer serious of taps and swipes on her tablet this time before it says, "You keep it for the cause. Even though it hurts and poisons you." Her stylus pauses on the screen, and she looks over at him directly and speaks with her own voice, "When won't you not need it anymore?" "Bruh." Dusk's eyebrows stay up, here. "That's dumb as shit, I hope you know that. Cause needs you alive and healthy way more than we need a minuscule extra bit of firepower. If that's taking years off your ridiculously long life for -- what? So you can hit harder? Pretty sure we are never gonna be short on the ability to stab shit, but there's only one of you." “That’s fair.” Akihiro shrugs and drops down into a squat, his attention going to the metal sticking out of his fists. “Sure we gots of ways around and into things, but it’s always nice to have something up our sleeves. Can cut almost anything with these, and we do get into situations where I’d run the risk of getting my head blown off, been pretty careful to not find out if I can regenerate from that.” He let’s his claws sink back in and brings the blunt up to his lips, filling his lungs with the smoke. “So if I lose a few decades or a century off my life for the cause? That’s fine. It’s not like I’m a leader, hell, Erik didn’t even see me as valuable enough to fill me in on the Liberty Island mission but he brought Mortimer.” He scoffs and shakes his head, “I can’t really blame him for that though. Figure I do what I can, teach the kids where I can, and help make sure this and the next generation are ready to make sure we don’t end up like that other earth.” Isra tips her head at Dusk in agreement. "Your sword can cut things, too," her tablet says. "We need to fight. It is your decision how to fight. We do need people to fight and even die for the cause, but we also need people to live for it." She turns to him again, switching back to her own voice, slow and even, "In the long run we will need teachers more than leaders. Or something up our sleeves." "Bruh," Dusk says again, and this time it's with a note of concern, his brows furrowing deep. "That could be a fucking century more of fighting for the cause or passing down knowledge to the next generations -- we're prettty short on elders as a community as it is." The flick of his wing toward Isra is an acknowledgment or an agreement. "I feel like your experience is only going to be more valuable with age. Anyone can fucking stab a bitch. Do you have any idea what you're worth? Not your claws but -- you? It's more than some fucking adamantium I can tell you that." “Huh.” Akihiro retracts his claws, “Guess I haven’t thought about it. Pretty much my entire life has been a string of fights. Honor, territory, a big stretch of fights I can’t even remember after I got the adamantium, and now for the Brotherhood. Only recently got into gardening and repairs. Honestly though I’m not sure we actually can, short of tearing my limbs off or having Erik rip it out. With the former I’d still have a skull covered in it, but I imagine that’d still be better for me than the full skeleton.” Isra nods as Dusk speaks--too many times, but catches herself and lapses back into stillness. She tries to add something aloud, then puts the stylus to her tablet again, instead. "There are healers. There are tele porters. There are people with powers I cannot even imagine. If you want it removed. We can find a way." The noise coming from her chest sounds halfway between a growl and a purr. Possibly most people would not find it a particularly encouraging sound, but her tail is swaying slow and relaxed, her ears pricked up with interest, as close to smiling as she gets without a deliberate effort. "How long's it take you to regrow a limb? Limbs," Dusk says this with a small shivering ripple through his wings and a brief swipe of tongue across his fangs, the soft purring growl in his chest an inadvertent echo of Isra's, "come off pretty easy." “Fifteen, twenty seconds? Give or take.” Akihiro says. “But that would only get us so far.” He knocks the cherry off his blunt and drops it back in the tube. “I’ll definitely have to think about it though. I’m sure a few more months couldn’t be worse for me than these last five decades.”