Magna City Shining Congress – Side Halls

[Butterfree]

Oh. Jean started at Garnet's broad smile and tried to smile back, a little unnerved although she wasn't sure why. She was definitely not much like Mia, then.

She looked around. The steaming bricks looked brittle, and Garnet was building whatever she was building indoors. That didn't make a lot of sense. "Um... keep everyone safe from what?" she asked.

 

[canisaries]

The Decidueye hardly acknowledged Andre, not taking her eyes off her doppelganger as they grappled together. Motes of light and darkness floated around them both, shimmering, reflecting, making each look like the other as they passed through one's line of sight.

"I am not dead," she hissed, beak parting in a silent screech. "Yet I am dead – the part of me which is Miwacha has been bleeding for months and years. No. Nothing is alright."

Miwacha... That was Tawenna's tribe, to which she belonged. She had left them behind to join the Covenant, then?

It looked like Andre had read the situation correctly. A conflict between native heritage and a position in a settler organization. Andre just wished he actually knew more about this topic instead of just what he'd learned in history class and gleaned from online discourse.

"Has something put your tribe and the Covenant at odds?" he asked. Better to start simple.

The Aipom turned to look at Ben with heavy eyes, glazed over with a dark-silver sheen.

"Heyyyy, buddy. Huh. We don't know each other." There was a long pause, as the tail-hand reached out. Grasping. "We aren't buddies, I guess. Anyway, no, not really. I'm thinking about offing myself, actually."

There was a weird smile on Roscoe's face.

"Sorry about the shitty first impression. With any luck, it won't matter."

"Oh. Oh, goodness..." Ben mumbled to himself. He really hadn't ever met someone who wanted to... oh, goodness.

Ben cleared his throat. He'd heard it from somewhere that the most important thing in these situations was to listen. "Well, what makes you feel that way?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Um... keep everyone safe from what?"

Garnet's face looked reverent, like something out of a church's stained glass windows.

"Everyone else."

"Has something put your tribe and the Covenant at odds?"

Tawenna spat a short, sharp laugh.

"The Covenant are the flight feathers in the wings of the Commonwealth," she declared. "I have tried to further their goals along paths that sidestep my people, but they will inevitably be swallowed like all the rest. Soon, everyone on this continent will look and talk very much like you."

She and her Blacklight apparition swung and shot at each other, aura-infused feathers shattering against stone and shattering glass.

"Well, what makes you feel that way?"

Roscoe tilted his head, and put out his paws in an exaggerated shrug.

"Look, I don't know what the fuck I'm doin' here, man. I'm so far outta my depth I'm walkin' on a lakebed, waitin' to drown. Nothin' I can say or do is ever gonna matter, and I'm killin' myself nice and slow already with all my vices. Who wants to read the rest of my story? – it'll just be one hell of a depressin' epilogue to a long, bad joke. Want a smoke?"

He took a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and held it out to Ben.

 

[Butterfree]

Garnet's face looked reverent, like something out of a church's stained glass windows.

"Everyone else."

"Oh." Jean looked around at the other, agitated Covenant members around them. "Who's the everyone else? Why are they dangerous?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

Leaf flinched as the wind buffeted her face. Dammit. It'd seemed like they were getting somewhere. If not feeling like he was doing enough freaked him out, then why wouldn't he...? Hm.

"Look, uh... Cecil?" she tried, meeting his panicked gaze without flinching. "What do you want to do? Really. Even if it's not... fundraising or fighting or whatever. I don't... I don't know everything everyone does here, but there's nothing wrong with just wanting to spend time with people." That was kinda what Mr. Dunsmuir had said, right? "If you're lost, even if it's just because you're feeling alone, why wouldn't the others want to help lift you up?"

She glanced at Angel for confirmation, just in time to feel the weight leave her back and an orange blur disappear through a door off the hall.

"Look me in the eye and tell me your party has no beef with me after I ordered them fired on at Sunrest."

"Put your god damn sister down!"

It came out like a bark as Blue skidded into the room, claws scrabbling for traction on the tile before he finally steadied himself right behind the "lucario". One second the guy's about to take a bullet for her, the next he's manhandling her? Lillian looked okay, probably, hopefully, but still. What the actual fuck.

"No shit nobody's happy with the guy who was gonna fuckin' broadside them! I wasn't even there and I wanna tear you a new one for it!" He squared up, all two-feet-four-inches of Definitely Really Big Mean Dog Definitely, momentarily forgetting this dude could turn him into a rug with one finger because his stupid little tantrum was that much more annoying oh my god. "But all the guys you actually shot at keep sayin' you're ready to destroy what you've been doin' all these years, how they only shipped out here in the first place to help you. It ain't about kissing and making up, it's about fixing... whatever the hell is wrong with this place. And your answer's just to dig your heels in deeper? What, did you forget?"