Home is where the heart is... [OPEN, catch-all for August]

[deusrexmachina]

Characters: Rex Salazar (deusrexmachina) and OPEN
Date: Starting mid-heatwave to the end of the month, open as a CATCH-ALL for various scenarios and dates.
Location: Potentially various areas across the turtle, any/all sectors including Rex's sub-unit living space of ME-1A.
Situation: Various, see below.
Warnings/Rating: None? Will edit if necessary.
Additional Notation: If you're interested in setting a scene up, feel free to contact me via plurk @ Straya and we'll get something rolling! Starters will be put in place for those I've already chatted with beforehand. Also while I am going on hiatus for part of the month, I'll still be looking to backtag here and there while I'm away from home.

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Typically, Rex was an upbeat, optimistic individual. He wasn't the sort to get knocked down easily and even if life took a shot at him, sulking for long periods of time just wasn't his thing.

Life on Tu Vishan was making it progressively more difficult to keep his spirits up, however. Ever since the bombing had occurred, followed by the palace raid, Rex had been a little more on edge. A little more cautious. A little less prone to being his usual reckless, trouble-making self. Some might count this an improvement, perhaps a sign that he was maturing and learning to be more responsible, but there was so much about recent events and even Tu Vishan itself that didn't sit right with the teenager. He was bothered, sometimes more than he cared to outright admit.

Rex had his moments of homesickness. He missed his family and friends. His job. His room at Headquarters. He even missed the alerts that would go off in the early AM hours that would drag him from bed and signal the start of urgent missions. Those were somehow preferable over simply waking up on his own and leaving bed, only to find himself gazing up sullenly at the lantern that contained his soul. The object that shackled him to the living land mass. He resented it, that thing that held him there and made sure he never wandered too far off for too long. Nothing had ever held him back like that at home. He'd been able to make his own choices. Run if he wanted, stay if he liked.

The discovery he made alongside Bakura and Raine in the prison under the palace wasn't helping his mood much, either, especially after Armin had translated the writing on the walls via the photos Rex took. The kedan captives had been experimented on, tortured in the name of science or magic or both for who knew what. Everything about that left a hollow feeling in the pit of Rex's stomach. He knew what it was like to be tortured, to be someone else's science experiment, to watch his own be modified and treated like objects that could be sold as property.

Yet it wasn't like he had much choice other than to press onward. There was a war to be won and even if Rex was frustrated by how he'd been drafted to the cause, it was still a cause worth fighting for. He'd just have to rely on his usual coping methods as necessary and remind himself that as soon as all this was over and they'd won, he could go home again.

Comments

For Korra

[deusrexmachina]

It wasn't long after his discussion regarding the kedan prisoners with Bakura and Raine that Rex decided it might be a good idea to let someone else in on what they knew. Of course, it wasn't just the experiments performed on the prisoners that had Rex concerned... While he'd learned to deal with Bakura, he certainly didn't trust the guy entirely. The information that had been posted to the network on him wasn't something Rex could dismiss as nothing and forget about.

So he decided to turn to the person he trusted above all others in Keeliai - Korra. She'd been around long enough that perhaps she knew a few things about Bakura that Rex did not and could give him a little advice on how to further handle the guy.

"Korra?" Rex called as he headed down the stairs from his room, hoping his suitemate was home. "If you're here, I need to talk to you about something..."

Urgh, man it was hot. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Rex leaned against the wall, waiting for an answer. He was down to wearing just his shirt and a pair of shorts, determined to stay as comfortable as possible as long as the heat continued to be an issue. That didn't do much for all the psychic turtle hatchling noise that interrupted his thoughts here and there, however...

[alphatar]

Large jug in one hand and delivered food in the other, Korra's head poked out form the entryway's doorframe. It was no surprise to who was calling her name now that Jin-Hao only had two residents, and she was one of them.

"Hey, what's up. I ordered some kedanese take out." She held up the bag of steaming food as she stepped to the base of the stairs, still in her pajamas and tank top. As adaptable as Korra was, she'd take the opportunity to wear something more comfortable in the heat. Especially now that there wasn't as many pairs of eyes to worry about.

"I ordered extra in case you wanted some." If he didn't, that just meant more for her. And possibly Naga.

[deusrexmachina]

It wasn't really much of a surprise to see Korra doing what she could to stay comfortable in the heat, just as Rex was doing, himself. Given how well they knew one another and their living situation, his gaze also didn't linger on her quite like it did back when he was still relatively new to the city. Though that wasn't to say he didn't still notice certain things about Korra... Rather it was more than he'd settled and put their friendship ahead of his tendency to flirt.

"Yeah, I'll definitely take you up on that," he said with a smile as he pushed away from the wall and began to head for the kitchen where they could sit down to eat. It was always nice to be thought of, especially when it came to food. Rex was almost always hungry and having been around him quite a bit, Korra knew that better than just about anyone else.

"We can talk while we eat. I had a few questions about some stuff and since you've been here a lot longer than me, I figured maybe you could shed some light on a certain situation I've kinda gotten myself into."

[alphatar]

Pleased to have someone to eat with, Korra smiled and followed after Rex towards the kitchen. Since Korra had been on the turtle meals were always best shared with someone else, a habit she picked up from Jim and it had been suffering since his returning home. Rex had been a breath of fresh air in the suffocating emptiness the had occupied the space where her friends had been, and she valued his friendship.

...that didn't make it any easier to pretend to not notice that he was dressed just as casually as she was due to the heat. Once sitting, she doled out the boxes and chop sticks. There was enough to feed, well, a polar bear dog and she flashed a weak, pathetic smile with an 'aheh.' before finally got to the drinks.

"What's the situation?" She was already lifting her heavily ladened chopsticks to her mouth when she stopped to look up at him. "I can help." It came out reflexively, she was protective of her friends and ready to handle a problem heavy handedly.

Thought it came to her a second later than he came to her for help already by wanting to talk to her and she hastily stuffed her mouth full to stop from blurting out other stupid things.

[deusrexmachina]

Rex took a seat at the table, the weight on his shoulders regarding the subject he wanted to discuss momentarily lessened as he took a plate of food. As a very social individual, Rex preferred to be in the company of others much of the time, whether it was while eating or training or just goofing off. Rarely did he do anything solo unless he felt he needed the time to really think on something. And more often than he cared to admit, he did find himself thinking back to certain regular activities at home, their absence in his life leaving a bit of a hole that was difficult to fill. One such routine activity he missed a lot was being able to sit down and have meals with his family and friends.

Before answering Korra's question, Rex took a few seconds to dig into the food in front of him. He wanted to savor the moment, just let things be as they were prior to getting into the less than pleasant topic he needed to bring up.

"Hmm, well... Remember that raid on the palace a little while back?" he finally asked after washing that first mouthful of food down with a sip from his drink. "It's about that. Well, partially about that. I haven't really discussed this with a lot of people because there's been some stuff to sort out."

He paused to take another bite before continuing, thankfully remembering to swallow before speaking. "I managed to get through the barrier with two other people and we ended up in the prison underneath the palace."

[alphatar]

Korra nodded, the palace raid had it's ups and downs and she didn't have the result she wanted: tearing down the barrier, but she never asked how it went on Rex's end. She had assumed the same with him since it was still standing. But now with this information, she felt a little better about it. Mabe he was able to get through because of what she and the others were able to do.

"I didn't think the barrier would crack, that's amazing." She eagerly slurped up her noodles as she went to open a box of rice. "Did something happen down there?" Her eyes moved over to him, the healer in her scanning for any visible marks or scars that might have been inflicted from,

whatever might be in the palace now that Malicant's taken it over.

[deusrexmachina]

"I had some help getting inside, but once I got that far, here's a pro-tip: the barrier breaks a lot easier if you hit it from the interior," Rex replied, a little too busy gathering up some food with his chopsticks to notice Korra's checking glance over him. "I busted a hole in it from the inside out and that was how all three of us got through."

As he spoke, Rex was intentionally avoiding the use of names or anything that might identify his accomplices on the whole. He'd get to their identities in a minute or two. In the meantime, he figured it was more important to explain the situation.

"As for anything happening... We did get in a fight with some brainwashed guards that lasted all of thirty seconds. Not that big of a deal, really. The more important part is that the prison was empty and we found writing on some of the cell walls. Warning graffiti." He paused to look up at her again. "Some of it was written in blood."

[alphatar]

Breaking the barrier from the inside out. There was something Korra could latch onto, the barrier had been a nuisance on her mind since that day, and she nibbled on the end of her chopsticks before reaching over to nab up a sauce covered strip of meat. And here she thought it'd just be her and Naga gobbling up some food after a long day, instead Rex had some important information she'd never even think to ask about.

She paused and her eyes moved slowly. Blood. "What did it say?" While she was curious about who the others were, what the message said and who put there was more important.

[deusrexmachina]

Rex allowed the information to sink in for half a minute while he worked through another couple mouthfuls of food, at the same time taking his cell phone from his pocket and turning it on with his free hand. Once the screen was lit, he pulled up the photo gallery and accessed one of the relevant images - the first picture he'd taken of one of the interior cell walls, covered in blood graffiti. Setting the device on the table, he turned it and slid it closer to Korra so she could see it.

"I took a bunch of photos with my phone and held onto them, since none of us who were there could read kedanese. Then a little while back, I ran into a guy named Armin who could read it. It's also probably worth mentioning that he was at the raid, too, and he also got inside somehow. Found his way to the library, but he said there wasn't much there. It looked like someone held a book bonfire in the middle of it.

"Anyway, I showed him the photos and he said the writing translated to stuff like..." A brief pause while he dredged the words up out of memory, his eyes narrowing a fraction."'They're coming' and 'We're losing numbers.' Given what was used to put up some of those warnings and that the whole place was devoid of life, that's not surprising. What adds a whole new level of wrong to this, though, is that one set of words translated to, 'The experiments are becoming unbearable'."

While enough time had passed that the initial impact of the words had worn off a bit, Rex's expression still hardened considerably as he talked his way through everything, his tone becoming noticeably more serious. The mention of experiments, testing that had no doubt been tortuous and taken life, struck a chord with him. Something he didn't bother to hide.

[alphatar]

No stranger to cell phones and holographic projectors, Korra set her chopsticks in her food and licked off her fingers before picking up the phone to get a better look. Kedanese wasn’t something she knew, and the only person who knew the language that she knew of was Sabriel.

“I really need to learn this. If I can do English and pick up Spanish, then I should be able to do this.” Said absent mindedly as she tried to place the translation to the symbols in the picture. Why they felt the need to relay that message at the cost of their literal life blood was beyond Korra, but it’s important.

She stayed on the last picture, trying to figure out just what kind of experiments they meant. And if those were done before or after Malicant took the castle. There had to be a way to determine how long the blood had been there, and Korra had an idea for it.

Though she didn’t miss the way Rex explained it; hard not to when he was usually loose with most things like she was. Her blues eyes moved from the phone in her hand to Rex. “If you’re up to it, we can try to get back inside and I can scan it with my ring. It might be able to get more information, at the very least I can send it to Aya so she can look into it.” Her offer’s tentative, and she didn’t take her eyes off him while she waited for his answer.

If there’s one thing Korra’s learned the hard way, it’s not to push the friends she had here too hard.