Logs:Making Fate

Making Fate
Dramatis Personae Akihiro, Destiny, Ion
In Absentia Erik, B	2024-02-25 "First time is always the longest."
Location <BOM> Chapel - Jenner Ruins - ???
The sign on the door reads "Interfaith Chapel", but all of the books in the library corner are Christian scriptures or inspirational nonfiction. The only religious iconography on the walls is a single plain cross creatively mounted one of the securely barred windows letting in wan daylight that somehow only makes the place look more dismal. The table in front of it might have once been adorned with an altar cloth, this being one of the nicer labs in its time, but at least its ugly scratched veneer has been cleaned and its wobble fixed. The chairs have been righted and set in neat rows to face the unimpressive pulpit, the broken ones removed along with the corpses that had been wandering around since having presumably crawled in here for divine succor during their horrific death throes. Some of the stains on the cracked linoleum floor will probably never come out. There's a pale morning glow struggling its way through the dingy old reinforced window. It doesn't do much for the cheer in here, but someone has clearly tried to spruce the chapel up some -- there are fresh flowers up by the pulpit, a set of flickering frankincense-scented candles by the door that are trying their best to lend a properly Catholic air to the place. How much of the Brotherhood has yet availed themselves of Some Religion is questionable, but just at the moment there's singing coming from inside. "-- let us build the city of God; may our tears be turned into dancing --" Deep and rich in Ion's rumbling bass, the lively tune is perhaps the most cheerful thing going on in the otherwise sad chapel at the moment. He's even kind of dressed for church, in that this pair of jeans is clean and undamaged and his work shirt is buttoned up. The door opens quiet and closes quiet, too, a slight Chinese woman slipping through in between to hover for a moment at the back of the room, head slightly canted to one side, before drifting to the farthest row of chairs. Destiny may or may not be here to Get Religion, but she is dressed nicely, in a single button black blazer over a blue satin vest and white mandarin shirt -- none of which would look particularly masculine tailored to her admittedly minimal curves, but the black yoked maxi skirt that swishes around her black heeled boots with each silent is decidedly feminine. She does not join in Ion's singing, but does not interrupt it, either, her expression not quite a smile though it looks distantly pleased. Maybe. It might just be a trick of the flickering light. Akihiro approaches much less quietly, his usually soft footfalls being replaced by the more militant sound of boots slapping against the ground, despite this he slows on approach to the sanctuary, gently opening the door and slipping inside. He's pulled his hair up into a tight ponytail, careful to keep all the stray hairs from falling into his face, and his casual clothes have been replaced by tactical black pants with a matching t-shirt tucked inside and a plate carrier over top, and he's visibly armed with a sword sheathed on his left side and a matte black 1911 holstered on his right. Ion doesn't stop singing until the psalm is done, head bowed and hands clasped. He's looking up after this, with a bright smile rendered still brighter by the uneasy crackle of sparks that dances around him. "Ey-o you all come for a song? Got room for everyone. Better with a guitar to it but --" He's holding up his hook-hand, waggling it with no evident reduction of cheer at the acknowledgment that his guitar-playing days are over. Destiny tilts her head again, listening to the heavy steps even before Akihiro has entered. When he does this shifts smoothly into an incline of her head by way of greeting. "Are you going to war, Brother?" she asks, once the song is over, though she's not looking at his weapons or his armor, does not seem to quite be looking at him at all so much as past him. She turns to Ion when he speaks. "You have a lovely voice. Ion, isn't it?" Maybe the question is rhetorical. "We can find an instrument to suit your hand. Or a hand to suit your instrument." "We're already at war, Sister." Akihiro replies simply, one hand falling to the pommel of his blade, simultaniously upnodding Ion. "Seems I forgot that in my rush to play house." His attention fully turns to Ion now, "Get me some sheet music and I'll do my best to play along next Sunday, at least until your hand grows back. First time is always the longest." "Think we been at war," Ion is acknowledging almost in time with Akihiro, the slant of his smile slipping a little rueful. "Yeah! I hear you Mystique's mystery wife, huh? Know everything? See everything?" He doesn't seem to find any irony here. He's looking down at the metal hook, the pronged tips opening and closing (with a brighter shiver of lightning between the two ends). "Ahhh, this one do me fine, I -- huh? First time wh--" Now he's looking over at Akihiro, confused for just a second before he barks out a laugh. "Shit, bro, you know how to teach me that trick I'll be damn grateful. Till then I guess I be seeing you here next Sunday." "At war, yes." This doesn't sound like either a platitude or pedantry. Destiny says it in a tone of deep contemplation, without any particular emphasis on any particular word. "As are all our kind, but few are ready to fight it as we are. " Her fingertips trace one of the joins below the grip of her cane. "Destiny. That is my name, and I don't know everything," is apparently the only part of Ion's assessment she's denying. "But I know where we will find new brethren, far across land and sea. Ones who will soon have less to lose by going to war. Have you heard of a place called Genosha?" “Not much if I’m being honest.” Akihiro sucks on his teeth and shifts his weight onto his right leg. “Sounds like I’m going to need a briefing and a few boxes of roofing screws though.” "Destiny, that's right, got all our fate up in there." Ion is tapping the curve of his hook indicatively against his temple. His brows knit in thought. "Genosha? Thats way the fuck away, yeah? Middle of the ocean? We going on a field trip? Long-ass way to recruit." "The situation there is deteriorating for our people. A time will come when they have need of us as we have need of them." The tilt of Destiny's head is barely noticeable. "Until then, we must recover our strength. We must discover how HAMMER found Ascension Island." She only straightens a little, but the effect on her tiny frame is dramatic. "And we must take the war to them." “If I had to guess, probably me trying to download the newest episode of Hikaru Kimi e.” Akihiro tries to deflect, but it’s obvious from the set of his jaw and the tightening grip on his blade that he’s internally seething. “I need to blow off some steam, and frankly I don’t care if it’s ending the Swords or starting another revolution. Once we finish the humanitarian work we can deal with HAMMER, unless you foresee them being a problem again before then.” The tips of Ion's hook click restlessly together. There's a sharp suck of his cheek against his teeth. "Shit, you think they ain't still gonna be looking for us? They gonna be hunting us till they all dead, we all dead, or they got Erik's damn body to parade on the evening news." There's a deep pain that's twisted at his face, his shoulders tightening hard and his voice a lower rumble. "Don't fucking like it but we all know there one person out there knowed our security inside-out and carrying a grudge a mile high." "I commend your eagerness, Hanayama-san." Destiny's tone is extremely even. When she "looks" at Akihiro this time, her eyes actually track to his face, but with no change in the focus of too-wide pupils the effect is surprisingly unnerving. "But we must be extremely cautious operating in this country until we have identified and eliminated our security breach." At Ion's unhappy conjecture there's a keen interest in the shift of her still unfocused eyes. "You speak of B Holland. I know this is painful for you, but you know her very well, and we will need that knowledge to take her down." “Even if she didn’t outright give us up, she stopped shielding our location, and I doubt the timing was a coincidence. If they’d known sooner they’d of struck sooner.” Akihiro nods at Destiny, catches himself, and looks away as his face begins shading red. “I have a feeling I’m going to end up there one way or another. As you know Sister, fate is a funny thing. You can try to dodge and defy it all you want but in the end you’ll get pulled where you’re meant to be.” "I thought I know her," Ion replies, his head shaking. "Thought I know a lot of things. Shit, you die for just a couple months the entire damn world go upside down." His teeth bare after this, though, a bright and almost savage grin. "You believe in fate, bruh? Every fucking day we still breathing in this shit-ass world we defying fate. Fate's what we make it."