2021-01-10: A Reunion... Of A Sort

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<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

The Thames is bustling with activity; under threat from some manner of colossal Wels, the usually rowdy crew are having to do things they hate doing, like going to bed on time and being able to see straight enough to hit a target further out than their arms.

Mind you a number of them are getting plastered anyway, because these are, after all MEN. OF. THE SEA.

Still, there's much to do on the Thames right now, helping with Gear maintenance, running messages, slapping the occasional odd kidnapper into the sea....a lot to do, for a person of good intent and means.

"BARKEEP! Hit me with another! I'm startin' to remember my ex! AHAHAHA!"

Or, you can be this guy.

He's probably tall, though he's sitting so hard to be sure there; his skin is tan and rough and leathery from long exposure to the sun. His hair is a kind of ageless gray, but the rest of him looks like he got run over by a tractor.

Literally, because there's a massive X-shaped scar on his face. He covers his neck completely via a bright red bandana, under which the lower portion of a bolo tie can just be seen, accompanied by a blue button-down shirt. On his shoulders, the kind of big, long jacket favored by Wasteland Drifters, with ample room for hiding all sorts of weaponry and whatnot.

He is currently the loudest person at the bar, which is impressive, considering the Thames. 

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    It's taken longer than anticipated -- Citan's Gear is nothing if not a confusing mess of engineering under the hood, especially when it comes to bits and pieces it apparently wasn't quite built to expect to integrate -- but the spell drive's installation is complete. Next, most likely, will follow some field test or another, almost certainly involving the further investigation of the giant Wels Gomihone.

    He's been pulled into this, too; between owing a favor to the Captain of the Thames and it being in their general best interest to ensure such a creature does not continue on its rampage, well.

    "It is quieter than usual in here," the doctor remarks to the other two as they enter into the Thames' mess hall. He turns towards them. "...I have yet to hear of any new developments with the status of that Wels, but I assume they are also hunting it down. A creature like that will only continue to grow. Doubtless they wish to eradicate it before it can do any real harm."

    Or, well, it's mostly quieter than usual in here. Citan glances to one side but continues this line of conversation.

    "What is the status of your Gears? It may be wise to investigate ourselves before long." 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly is here because she wants to plan and because she also wants to drink beer. It tastes good to her. Whether this is due to some cosmic and cthonic association between beer and the eternal feminine principle, the archetype of the alewife, OR just because it's pretty good and gets you buzzed but not destroyed: is a mystery.

But she has none yet. She answers Citan. "Well, there's been some degradation in Vierge... but it's mostly been the flight systems. The electromagnetic lubricant Hammer managed to source from somewhere has made up for any loss from the scavenged replacement joints... it really is a shame that... oh, I hate to think about everything that poor machine has been through."

It's strange to be sympathetic...

But Vierge has done well. At least so far.

"I don't think I've seen THAT fellow before," Elly remarks after a particularly fruiteous bellow from the bar, but to Elly, right now, that man is just some jerk.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong hasn't slapped a kidnapper into the sea yet but who knows? There's always an opportunity for a strong Abelbodied man to throw someone off a boat should the need arise. Perhaps today is that day. He can't really be sure.

Fei follows after Citan as he says that it's quieter than usual. He hears someone shout BARKEEP and laugh, IN ALL CAPS, and he says, to Citan, "Well," with a faint embarrassed blush. "I don't know if I'd use the word quieter."

Fei rubs at his neck. "I usually let Hammer worry about Weltall. Last I checked, Hammer says it's all up to speed and won't fall apart midflight or anything but he says I should try piloting it around a bit more since apparently using the Gear helps preserve its condition."

He looks towards the old man and adds, "With a scar like that, he's probably a tough guy. Maybe we should steer clear in case he's in a fight-picking mood." 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Citan probably sees the way his eyes glide in Citan's own direction. He's more alert than he looks, gaze cutting across all three travelers with an immediate assessment, before he grabs his new beer, slams the entire thing back like his face were a garbage can, wipes his lips on his jacket sleeve, and then....stands.

And looks right at the trio, and gets a look of absolute focus as he stumbles in their direction, his face a mask of concentration.

And then he yells, "Well SON OF A BITCH!" and lunges toward Citan!!

And...throws his arm around his...shoulder...?

"Hyuuga GOD DAMN Ricdeau!" he bellows, and cackles a laugh. "How the HELL are ya ya god damn spook!? Ain't seen you in a dog's age!" 

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    He lets Fei's remark stand for a good ten seconds before shaking his head. "I stand corrected, Fei," he remarks. "That is good, regarding Weltall, that is. ...Interesting." He cocks his head to one side as Fei explains what Hammer has worked out about the machine. "It is a rather mysterious Gear. Perhaps in a sense its internal components are like muscles in the body: it requires continuous use in order to maintain itself. ...Ancient Gears and ARMs are capable of quite surprising things. I would not be taken aback if it were so!"

    To Elly, he nods, listening as she explains the predicament with Vierge. "Hmm... I see. Perhaps I might take a look at some point? With Hammer's assistance I am certain there may be one thing or another we might do to 'bridge the gap' as it were. At the very least we may be able to replace some of the salvaged parts. ...Though there is little we can do about the flight systems, I am afraid," he sighs, shaking his head.

    And that is about as far as that line of conversation gets before It Happens.

    The voice had been familiar. In a sense, perhaps he should have been suspecting, even before it happens. But that glance tells him little -- the man has a different face after all -- and before he really has the opportunity to investigate the matter further, well. A shout rings out.

    The man lunges right at him, and Citan turns towards him, left hand rising to...

    Well, to drop back at his side as the man slings an arm over his shoulder. Have Elly and Fei ever seen Citan Uzuki, normally fairly unflappable, look completely, utterly astonished? Because that's happening.

    "...Jesiah?" he finally says, as if he were unable to quite believe it. But no. There's no other explanation for this, even if his face no longer matches. "Is that you?"

    If nothing else the doctor is good at composing himself, because the next thing he says, as if he didn't have an apparent drunk invading his personal space, is, "I encountered your son the other day. He appears to be well." 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly nods along with what Citan says. "Advanced machinery like Gears usually benefits from occasional use... and it means - if the time does come, you won't risk having the skills be rusty!" And then she blinks at Citan several times, before saying, "-- Of course!" There was perhaps a second's hesitation, but Citan might well classify that as ingrained conditioning regarding security. After all, Vierge is kind of...

STOLEN.

BUT THEN

Someone comes inwards. Elly blinks again but more quickly as this fellow approaches Citan. In a few fleeting moments, Elly puts factors together.

First: This man has been here and making an ass of himself with great vigor and enthusiasm.

Second: He has identified Citan as a name which sort of vaguely doesn't make sense and isn't even kind of his actual name. Doc? Elly would have let this slide. Citan mangled or mispronounced? Fair enough. Big Oozy, the Love Machine of East Aveh? Absolutely fair. But this? This is clearly, at best, a case of mistaken identity... BUT...

THIRD: This man has a rugged build and is moving with a casual ease and comfort which COULD be coincidental BUT COMBINE ALL OF THEM TOGETHER and Elly straightens up and glances at Fei quickly for a moment, a silent communication shared with a flick of the eyes and a single hair-bobbing nod of the head. At this point Elly moves sharply towards the other side of Jessie--

"I think you have the wrong person, sir," Elly says, slightly too loud, even as she lowers her center of gravity a bit with a flex of the legs and reaches out as if to take Jesse by the upper arm -

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Oh shit, Fei thinks. We've been noticed.

Fei catches Elly's look and he gives her a small nod before approaching Jessie's side--the opposite side of Jessie, aiming to take him by his OTHER arm. "I think you maybe had too much to drink--you might want to sit--"

He hears Citan say something.

'Jesiah?'

Fei looks back to Doc andd sees a completely alien expression on his face. Fei looks confused just to see it, like he's not sure why it's there. Has Citan never been accosted by a drunk before? It's possible. Citan certainly feels like someone who has never been accosted by a drunk before.

"Ahh----!" Fei begins as his eyes slowly widen to the point that they are bulging out of his head. 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

The rugged man laughs heartily. "In the flesh! Hell, I didn't know you'd slipped off the ol' mountain--"

Elly grabs for his arm, and he suddenly....stops. And that grin drops off his face for just a few seconds. "......that accent," he mutters, sounding stone cold sober.

"Hyuga, you gettin' sloppy on me?"

He turns toward Elly, a sillier grin back in place. "Well, well, miss, ya think so? Well, see, it's just..." He pulls his hand off of Citan, slipping just a few steps back. And then, like lightning, he surges and whips a long-barreled pistol -- actually, no, a short rifle, a carbine of some manufacture -- out of his coat, which he trains on Elly with one hand in an easy motion, his face cold.

"...I have no words for a dog of Solaris."

The gun goes off with a BANG!!! that fills the whole room, but the aim was disrupted by a sudden slam of Elly's palm into his wrist; Jessie's eyes widen and his lips curl, the gun clattering away, an unexpected new hole in someone's mug. The men of the Thames look mostly bemused. "Ol' man Jessie's got his blood up, this time," someone mutters.

He does. The next few moments are a blur.

He clenches his freed-up hand and swings hard for Elly, missing her ear by millimeters.

He thrusts forward with a harsh kick - it looks like there's no finesse at all, but Citan knows it for one of the less poetic Jugend CQC maneuvers - which Elly is able to catch.

But she attempts to use the extended limb and force to hurl Jesiah aside....which fails, completely. A surge of ether subtly rushes from him, sealing him to the earth as surely as if he were nailed down.

He grins, nasty, then rips his leg free and drives it like a jackhammer into her chest.

"Jugend," he says, as he plants his foot again. "That looked like form 13. Your timing's not bad, I guess." 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly moves with a swift, and almost shining, economy. There is little thought: training has its say instead. Having committed to this there is nothing to do, and having gotten the gun off balance she has hope. But this man has depths, and there's a moment of despair before she sees a kick coming too fast to weave away from--

So she doesn't; she hops up, and she takes the kick, and there's a loud CRUNCH.

Elly topples through the hair, landing after a half-tumble in a hand stand, on top of a recently bussed table. Her head snaps up towards Jessie, an instant before gravity takes its toll on her hair and her clothing; so, she dismounts backwards, moving slowly, not letting her eyes fall off of Jessie.

"Crikey!" says the koala-headed beastman she was adjacent to. He picks up his tray and gets the hell away from this.

"... I'm not with them," Elly states, voice chilly.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    You don't get to Citan's age, with his background, by being easily rattled (or at least, staying there long). Still, there is a momentary hesitation on his part, as if he weren't quite certain--

    And then Elly grabs for Jessie's arm. The reaction from the man is instantaneous.

    "Jesiah, wait," Citan starts, as that arm is slung off his shoulder.

    But there is a reason that the man once led the Elements and was once slated to head up Gebler.

    "Stop! She is not with them!" He grabs for the man's shoulder as if to try to pull him back; he's only seconds too slow to stop that kick from connecting.

    But perhaps he can stop it from progressing further. "Jesiah, she has left their ranks." A pause, then far more quietly. "...As you had." 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei's always weak to cutscene bullets. He's not good at stopping them from going off or enduring them. He stalls as the gunshot goes off because gunshots are damn loud--and because it ddn't actually hit Elly. But the fight doesn't end there and soon Fei is moving again. Elly taking a hit and bowling over means Fei is about to act. Citan might, for a moment, worry about how THE GUY INSIDE OF FEI is going to react but there is no transformation or outward burst of chi at the level that would indicate the other guy is about to come out. More worryingly is that his eyes don't have that dangerous look in his eyes, it's a peaceful restful gaze of someone who understands that something is about to happen and nothing will deter its course and has simply accepted it.

Fei places his hand on Jesiah's chest.

There is a sound like a THUNDERCLAP as a burst of power erupts out of Fei's hand--a flash of light--not a chi BLAST per say, more like the crack of thunder as Jessie is sent flying back a few yards away from Elly and Doc.

"Sir, this is a Thames Mess Hall," Fei says. "And we're no friends of Solaris. And Solaris are no friends of ours."

He pauses a moment and asks, "But are you alright? Do you need uh--"

Right, Doc knows this guy. Fei instantly becomes a moeblob again.

"There's a doctor in the house so we're all okay right?" 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Jesiah's blood is up far enough that when Fei steps up, he still hasn't, quite, processed the multiple people telling him he's got the story wrong.

Again, that ether anchoring him to the ground. He should be able to resist an attempt to knock him off his feet, even chi-empowered. He's out of practice, perhaps, but someone strong enough to be an Element doesn't lapse easily.

One second later he is sprawled out over a table staring at a ceiling fan and trying to figure out what in hell just happened. "...that one was new," he grunts, and starts to lever himself up. Sitting on the table, one elbow on his knee, he looks from Fei, to Citan, and then finally to Elly. "Yeah?" he grunts to Citan. He's still thinking, but he's not moving, at least.

Then the doors blow in. You might expect it's the captain, intervening, but instead, a rather smaller figure bursts in, his own long coat - blue instead of brown, billowing out behind him. This one, all know.

"Father!" Billy Lee Black snaps, taking in the scene. "I should've known only you would start this much trouble!"

Primera scampers past, ignoring all context of the situation to hop up on a chair, and then onto the table, on her knees, next to Jesiah.

Jessie looks to her, before his blustering son. "She was nice to ya, you say?" Jessie says to Prim, and the heat fades. "Well. Sorry about then, then."

He shoves himself off the table, shepherding Primera off as well. He has manners! Sometimes! He dips his head in something like an apology. "Name's Jesiah Black. You can call me Jessie. Please, the boy using Jesiah is bad enough."

Billy steps up alongside him, glowering. "You should be on your knees on the floor when you apologize for a stunt like that."

"Boy, you may be a priest but I know you know not to get on your knees on the Thames."

Billy makes a horrified squawk and turns away, blushing. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly stays tense on her position. If Jesiah comes for her he has to get through the table, and perhaps she will have ample time to blow him up with Ether. She watches, save for a brief glance towards Citan, and she breathes in when Fei is moving and then -

- it's wrong -

Something's confused -

"Fei, don't -" she begins to say, but Fei is doing it too. Elly begins to clamber back over the table, smoothing out her dress front as she steps down even as she commits a severe hygiene error by tracking her dirty boots over the table surface. She moves towards him, and then

SLAM!

Elly looks to Billy.

To Jesiah.

Back to Billy.

Back to Jesiah.

Two more cycles of this, and Elly has discerned the resemblance, and she says in reply, "Alright.... 'Jessie'. I apologize for..."

Elly trails off, and her face gradually turns shades to match her face as she raises a hand to cover her mouth and look away.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    The doctor glances Elly's way, on those mere heartbeat moments that pass before Fei intervenes. Perhaps there is still time to settle this more peacibly.
    Until there suddenly isn't.

    Elly isn't the only one. There is a moment of concern there if Citan's reaction--

    "Fei!"

    --is to be any judge. But there is no emergence of the Other One; instead in the aftermath, Jessie, from his prone position across the table, considers the situation he has just been (quite literally) landed in. He must not be seriously hurt, though, for the doctor merely regards him for a moment (without making a move towards where he lies) before affirming:

    "Indeed."

    In comes Billy, fresh on the scene of chaos caused by his sire, and Primera as well. In silence Citan watches as Primera climbs up onto the table, and...

    Ultimately shakes his head at it all. "Just like old times, I see..." he remarks, which may say something about their respective time together. "You have not changed much, Jesiah."

    Which is followed by Billy saying that his father ought to apologize. Citan raises an eyebrow at Jessie's response. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Are we okay?" with the tone off someone who is kind of embarrassed that he just hit someone, particularly now that he's being chastized by both Elly and Doc. His shoulders shoot up as they do, and the blush only comes on more fiercely. Fei looks like he wants to collapse in on himself like a turtle in his shell. "I'm really sorry I just sort of reacted--"

Billy runs in and he starts shouting. There is some discussion. Fei puts a finger to his mouth and looks completely confused for the bulk of it--so far that you can practically see the question marks hovering over his head.

"So when you said Father... He wasn't also a part of the priesthood? He looked like a cowboy so I assumed--"

He takes another look between everyone and is the last person to realize.

"...Ahhh..!!!" His eyes widen. "Billy! I'm so sorry! I didn't know he was your dad!" 

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Billy scoffs in frustration at Fei's apology. "You've no need to apologize. He deserves that and worse!"

"You didn't even see what he did," Jessie mutters, rubbing at his chest with the face of a man who isn't used to being that kind of surprised.

"You're conscious, so I have all the evidence I require!"

Jessie rolls his eyes and lets it drop. He does wave off Elly's own apology. "Nah, that was all me. Sorry. Ya live the kind of life I have, you learn to shoot first."

He looks down as Prim tugs on his sleeve. No words are exchanged, but he looks up with one hand scratching at the back of his head. "Prim says you've been takin' care of my boy, too. Seems I owe you my thanks. How's about I buy y'all a round. 'Bout all I'm good for." He chuckles.

Billy, for his part, has been over on the side taking deep breaths. The last comment from Jessie earns a muttered, "ah, he admits it," before Billy speaks a bit more conversationally, "And, yes, as Fei has deduced...this is my father, Jesiah. We..." ... the two trade a glare, though Billy's is the more heated. "...it's complicated," he finishes with a mutter. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei suddenly feels an intense kinship with Billy Lee Black that he can't quite explain.

*** SOCIAL LINK UP! *** 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly is mostly blushing from like four different factors. She looks at the deck.

> Elly van Houten will now die






                of embarrassment

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