Endai

[trainwrecked]

Characters: Bucky Barnes (MCU) (trainwrecked), Garrett Hawke (iwannabeadragon), and Kaine (unobtainableredemption)
Date: Early April, over by April 16ish.
Location: The island of the Endai
Situation: Various.
Warnings/Rating: Discussion and possible execution of an assassination. Probably also at the very least language.

ooc: Information about the setup can be found here. A few thread starters are inside, but more situations can be tagged in with, as wished.

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Initial Recon

[trainwrecked]

Eva had provided them with information, but none of the three men were the sort to leap into action without gathering some intel themselves. Well, Bucky might have been, once upon a time, but no longer. Spending time in the company of a very, very good spy had given him an appreciation for all the data he could get his hands on.

So that's what they started with. Learning what the island was like, and, whenever possible, why.

[iwannabeadragon]

Hawke didn't like this new body. It was strange to see his reflection and have an unknown voice looking back at him There wasn't much choice in the matter though. It was either this or immediately draw everyone's attention the moment they set foot on the island.

At the moment Hawke wanted to get the lay of the land so to speak. He needed to fit in and there was precious time to do so. More than that, there was a name that had interested him before they arrived here.: Jaitet. She sounded like Hawke's kind of troublemaker and he knew a thing or two about causing trouble.

It didn't take much to get the attention he wanted. A few outspoken words here, a few public outcries there, and he started turning some heads. The irony that he was just copying Anders for much of what he was doing wasn't lost on him. Crazy as he friend could be, he knew a thing or two about getting a revolution started.

For the third time that day Hawke fled the police. It had been years since Hawke had been on the opposite side of the law. The chase felt a little exciting to be honest. Out of the corner of his eye he caught someone gesture to him from an alley and dart away. No time to think, Hawke just took the opportunity. He turned and threw himself down the alley he had seen the Endai go. The police nearly tripped over themselves to keep pace with him.

Seconds after they followed after him into the alley. Clubs swung from the shadows, smashing into their skulls and knocking them senseless. Hawke watched it all from only a few yards away. With the guards taken care of, his rescuers approached him. Hawke noticed that they weren't loosing their grips on their weapons. His hands slid to his own, just in case.

"You're going to get yourself in trouble the way you prattle on like that," one snapped.

"Don't have any sense at all do you?" His partner followed.

Hawke merely shrugged. "Subtlety has never been a forte of mine."

"Tell me about," the first one grumbled. "Come with us. If you mean what you say we know someone who wants to meet you."

"Well I always enjoy making new friends," Hawke replied with a smirk.

The two men led Hawke through the alleyways. He got the distinct feeling they were taking the long way around, as if they were trying to lose a tail. A paranoid bunch it seemed but Hawke couldn't blame them after all they been through. Eventually they arrived at what looked like some kind of workshop. When he entered he saw things that would make the qunari jealous and the dwarves blush. He'd never seen weapons like these before.

Leaning over a desk was a woman. Hawke had a feeling he knew who it was too. She looked away from her desk towards him and eyed him suspiciously. Hawke gave her a roguish smile. She lifted an eyebrow in response. "So I hear you've been causing some trouble out there."

"I've been known to do that now and again," Hawke said.

"My name's Jaitet. We should talk."

Hawke's grin grew a little wider. "That would be lovely."

[unobtainableredemption]

Upon arriving at the island, Kaine immediately felt justified in all of the trouble he went through to take back temporarily borrow the Scarlet Spider costume. There was no way at 6’4” he was ever going to blend in with these people, and there was no way in hell he was going to be remade by magic, even the temporary, purely cosmetic sort. He was the living, breathing byproduct of mad science and had the added bonus of having some sort of living spider god or monster or whatever inside of his head. No, he was not going to throw magic into the mix.

So that left the Scarlet Spider costume’s stealth function, his personal brand of getting around undetected. He’d hadn’t been caught in stealth mode yet (he vaguely remembered Parker mentioning something about special lenses being needed to see it), and he doubted this would be any different, even with these people’s reported strong magical abilities.

His first order of business saw him swinging around the city, his preferred mode of transportation, to get a lay of the land and see if he could spot anything interesting. Should anything go south, they’d need to know the best way out of there, because now that they were no longer on the safety of the turtle (which, frankly, was a weird thought—the turtle being the safe place), they were on their own, and it was up to them to get back. He made several trips around, trying to familiarize himself with as many of the streets as possible.

As he landed on one of the taller roofs when his arms started screaming from the strain of being up in the air for so long, Kaine was drawn to the sound of someone giving what sounded to be, judging by the reactions of the crowd, a rousing speech. He inched closer towards the noise, taking caution even though he knew he was still invisible to the world around him, until he could make out what was being said.

“—The President only has power because we have given it to him. It is important for both us and him to remember that he is only as powerful as we allow him to be.”

Kaine crawled down the side of the building for a better look at the speaker. There, in the center of a group of young Endai, stood a rather disheveled, older Endai male wearing tattered robes that reminded the clone of a cross between Jesus and a hobo (and he was sure his priest would be thrilled to hear him make that comparison). He noticed that the guy didn’t wear his ears tied in a bow like the others.

“Damn it, now I have that stupid song stuck in my head again,” he muttered, grateful that no one seemed to notice a voice coming from thin air. He cursed “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” again, only this time he made sure to do it in his head.

One of the angrier young kedan cried out “Well then what should we do about it?!”

“That isn’t for me to say, Torris. Need I remind you that I am not actually speaking out against our president, nor calling any of you to any kind of action? I am merely speaking in terms of the laws of our land.”
Kaine wondered if tiny hobo Jesus down there was some sort of diplomat or something, because that was some expert sidestepping there. From the way he was looking around as he said it, he was clearly shrewd to boot.

“But Ke Divan--!” yelled another in the crowd. So tiny hobo Jesus had a name. Good to know.

“But nothing. You kids asked for a lesson in political law, and that is what I am giving you today. Nothing more.”

He’d heard enough. Evastelei’s intel was on the money, a number of these people were seriously unhappy with their president, and Kaine now had a name of one of the major dissenters. Or at least someone who appeared to be a major dissenter. That had to be a start. Now to get back to the meeting point and figure out what to—

Angry shouting erupted from the crow below, and Kaine turned around just in time to see about a half dozen policemen show up to surround the crowd, their hands glowing in what he could only imagine was their equivalent of flashing a gun.

“On suspicion of creating public unrest, you lot are coming with us.”

What to do? On the one hand, Kaine knew he could easily take out 6 guys, magic powers or no. Especially since he had the element of surprise… but that was the problem. If he got the drop on them, it was over. He would all but announce his arrival on the island, and god knows how well the people would take it. Sure, the people who looked ready to fight the cops as it was would have his back, but was he really ready to sacrifice Peter and May’s safety against the asshole they were all apparently summoned for to save some rabbit people he didn’t even know? Because frankly that was the only reason he was even there. To hopefully gather some people who could help keep the kids safe when the big battle everyone kept talking about finally came… because God knew he wouldn’t be able to protect them on his own.

“That won’t be necessary, officers,” said Ke Divan. “I cause the unrest, I shall go quietly.” He looked to the kids surrounding him. “And everyone else will go home. Isn’t that right?”

The young Endai looked torn. It was clear from their body language they were raring for a fight, but the expressions on their faces also made it clear they wanted to listen to what Ke Divan had said. Finally, the crowd relaxed, and several nodded. The policemen’s hands stopped glowing.

“You know the routine by now,” said one of the police officers.

Ke Divan walked towards the officers like he had done it a hundred times—and who knows, he probably did, given the way talking out of turn seemed to be against the law here—and followed the six back towards what Kaine knew from his many swingovers was the palace as the crowd hesitantly dispersed.

Kaine followed from the rooftops as the six started walking towards the palace. Three streets in, the six became four as two left to patrol elsewhere, and then the following street the four became two. Again, the clone debated getting the drop on the guards and saving tiny hobo Jesus.

“And then what?” He thought. “Bring him with me? Yeah, that’d go over great. I can add kidnapping to my interdimensional rap sheet.”

But the idea wouldn’t go away. In fact, it only seemed to get stronger the closer they got to the palace walls. Though he would never admit it, the conflict gnawed at him. He should be doing something. Even if he wasn’t a hero, that damn thought wouldn’t leave his mind… and then he tripped over beautiful, beautiful inspiration. This roof was getting work done. A couple of “accidental” drops of debris from the construction later, the two guards were passed out and sporting nasty bumps on their heads as Ke Divan looked around, bewildered.

Kaine landed on the ground beside one of the guards, as he wasn’t sure if he had actually hit her hard enough to knock her out, and upon seeing he had, said against his better judgment: “Too easy.”

Ke Divan’s eyes went wide. “What…? Who’s there?!”

Shit. Kaine leaped up to the roof of the opposite building and took off as Ke Divan cried “wait!” after him. What the hell was he thinking?! Don’t worry, he kept thinking to himself, the guy isn’t exactly going to go running to the cops about what happened. Besides, maybe it was totally possible for the Endai to have some sort of invisibility spell, and hobo Jesus will think it was one of his friends who saved him.

And maybe the Endai should have created buildings closer together. Kaine was so focused on mentally berating himself he ran out of roofs to run across. With no Spider Sense to warn him he had just leapt off his last roof before the palace (which was just far enough away for him to be unable to grab a hold of, even with his enhanced agility), he simply started plummeting to the ground, barely having enough time to spin a web to cushion his blow. His fast acting may have saved him from breaking anything, but it didn’t stop him from seeing stars.

“Fuck this place,” Kaine groaned, clutching his head with one hand as he checked for broken bones with the other. “I hate it already.”

A high-pitched gasp caused the clone to look up with a start. There, almost right in front of him, was a small Endai girl dressed in rags and looking like she was in strong need of a bath. And she was staring straight at him. He looked down at himself and saw the spider insignia on his chest. Shit. In his panic to make sure he didn’t puncture a lung or something, he had lost the concentration needed to keep him invisible.

“Hey, uh, I’m a figment of your imagination.”

The look on the girl’s face said it all. She wasn’t buying that.

“Uh… I’m a ghost?”

Not flying.

“Some sort of urban legend?”

Nope.

Well, at least she wasn’t screaming. It was only once the initial panic died down did he notice she had a sign next to her, and an overturned hat. He didn’t need to be able to read the sign to know what it said.

“How about this. I go grab you lunch—it is still lunch, right?—and you forget you ever saw me.”

The girl’s eyes lit up. Okay, now he was getting somewhere. One stolen lunch later, he was confident he had bought her silence (er… well, in the “don’t sign anything” sense, he supposed, as it seemed the girl was mute), and Kaine was swinging back to the rendezvous point to meet up with Barnes and Hawke. Hopefully they had also learned something useful.

[trainwrecked]

Bucky opted for the most obvious option. As in, the most visible one. He made sure he let the people who met him know that he was hardly a dignitary - he wasn't used to luxury or ceremony - but he was going to comply with as much of their expectations as he could. If nothing else, they needed to know what lies a visiting important person would be told.

And, if nothing else, he had come to rely, somewhat, on the abilities he had acquired over the last year and a half. He would be able to charm people - thanks to Favrielle and Inara - and, also, slip their observation of him, when he needed - thanks to Rikki and Natasha. He wouldn't have considered himself the proper choice for this kind of role? But there wasn't another, and he did think it necessary.

Of course, he wasn't exactly what the Endai expected. He attended the events they organized for him (bless Steve for talking to him about all the books he'd read, because the story-telling sessions would have been very one-sided without all he'd remembered from his friend) asked them for time to sightsee around the city on his own. He was positive he had people tracking his movements - or somebody was extremely naive, but with executions happening in the streets, he doubted that explanation - but that didn't bother him. He took in the traces of unrest, but didn't push further than those assigned to attend to him were willing to give, in asking about that.

It was during the latest walk that he came across the girl. She gave him a curious look, but didn't say anything, other than reach out her hand, palm out and cupped, in a universal begging gesture. It twisted his heart, a little, thinking of Steve having been so close to doing that, once or twice.

He stopped, and sat with her. Yes, he gave her coin, but he also tried to find out where she was from, whether she had a place to sleep, anybody at all, caring for her. She didn't speak, but her gestures were clear enough, about her parents having been arrested and executed.

He stayed with her for a good while, and promised to return the next day, with fresh clothes and more food. And, in the middle of it all, he talked with her - told her that, between the two of them, he believed her parents were right. (He was taking a risk. But he couldn't just leave her fend for herself alone, in her mind.) He told her about things he'd 'heard' - about blood magic worked by people serving Malicant (not naming him, of course), about unrest, about the great turtles and the one that survived, and about Malicant trying to get him...

The dinner he was treated to that night was just as lavish as the meals before that, but he couldn't get the little beggar, orphaned girl out of his mind. This island... there was something wrong with it. And he needed to know what, and why.

Even though, considering the focus on the excesses of power application, he had a certain guess on the latter.