tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

Characters: ALL!
Date: December 8, 2015 (with some starters for the following weeks)
Location: Keeliai, the Midnight Hotel, others
Situation: The Foreigners have awakened.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

They've been in the Dreaming for so long that when they wake up their bodies feel more like automatons, alien and ill-fitting. They haven’t atrophied, thanks to Milyn, but they’re stiff and a little bedsore, and the solidity of the Life Plane is jarring. Here, the surroundings don’t move on a whim. Here the world is more stable, almost harsh and unyielding in spite of the homey surrounds.

It’s been a year, says the clock on the mantle and on the second floor. Says Milyn, too, when she’s able to stop hugging them long enough to speak.

Nothing much has changed in the Midnight Hotel. There are dishes out of place, objects belonging to either Milyn or Eva in evidence, the diorama exactly where it had been but now brightly-painted thanks to Milyn's boredom. Milyn and Eva took a room each, in the time the Foreigners were sleeping, though neither used them much.

Eva’s upstairs, Milyn will tell anyone who asks. In her room.

Eva hasn't left that room in three days. She hasn't spoken in three days, either, or walked, or moved, or breathed. Her effects are neatly arranged around her bed, and the sheet has been pulled up. There is heavy incense in the room and Milyn has managed to preserve the body enough to remove the risk of too much mess (and other things). In a way, that makes it worse: as though Eva is sleeping. It’s difficult to tell whether Milyn is in denial or whether spending three days with no one to talk to other than sleeping Foreigners and a corpse has had its influence.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Tony chuckles.] "Whatever it was" sounds about right. The wildlife around here is... probably not what you're used to. It's mostly harmless, though. It's the people you have to watch out for.

[He shakes Arno's hand.] Tony Stark. Nice to meet you, Arno. Come on, I'll show you the Hotel.

[He starts walking, making conversation as they go.] So, where are you from?

Ah, the people. This is just like home! I'll be wary.

[It's a bright note to cover up everything else, smacking only the smallest bit of desperation.]

Strange animals falling in love with me is brand new territory, mind you, not everything in France is out for chasing lovers every chance they get.

Tony, then. I wish that we were meeting under other circumstances, but we take what we can get, no?

[He's following along, squinting blearily from time to time as he attempts to mark the way, a little tempted to launch into using his enhanced vision to remember things and people for later.]

Lately, I've been in Paris, though I grew up in Versailles.

If you're polite, they'll usually leave you alone, they just give you dirty looks and overcharge you for everything.

[Tony watches Arno out of the corner of his eye, making sure he doesn't drunkenly stumble and faceplant into the gutter or something. Raine will give him a Look if he brings a new arrival back to the hotel with a concussion.]

So, France, huh? What year? We've got another French guy here, Enj, he's from the eighteen... thirties, I think. I'm from New York, Earth, early twenty-first century.

Ah, well, that's quite the courtesy they do us here.

[Arno is taking a moment to be really pleased that he's so good with his hands, and making stealthy exists and entrances, along with the showier sort.]

Sounds a bit like my old Pharoh partners, there, although Victor and Hugo are so slow it usually doesn't matter very much if they can't manage to catch up to me. How are these ...kedan? when it comes to running?

[Arno certainly appreciates that help, and finds himself swaying a little while he tries to sidestep around a puddle that he's very narrowly avoided.]

Eurgh. Remind me not to drown my sorrows when even the universe decides it's time to let me go.

[At the mentions of the dates, he's raising an eyebrow. Oh, certainly, Arno might have lived to the date mentioned there, but Tony's own time period is almost shocking. Granted, Arno's trying to play that off a little as something else entirely.]

The twenty first century? Then you can tell me something else. What comes of the Great French Republic and our Revolution? 1793 has put me rather in the midst of that, and it might be nice to know whether or not we've won.

Well... They're shapeshifters. You probably don't want to get into a sprinting race with somebody who can suddenly make their legs twice as long. [So play nice, Arno. If Tony can manage it, I'm sure you can.

Tony snickers quietly at Arno's distress.] Noted. I guess I won't introduce you to the Waterbender, then. [Thanks to Extremis, Tony could drink Arno under the table and the guy would never know what hit him. But that would be mean. Funny, yes, but mean.]

If you want details on French history, you should talk to Enj. He's big on all that revolution stuff. But France is a democracy in my time, if that's all you want to know. So is a lot of the rest of the world. Except China. And Latveria. [Actually he doesn't know what Latveria is, now that Doom is gone.]

Well, damn, there goes my chance at picking pockets, I expect.

[That said, he's rather more fascinated than not.]

Shape shifters. But that seems to be a thing of... [Obscure rituals, perhaps, but even before that, a few ideas come to mind.] Of stories of the fantastic, not reality.

[Well, it would depend on the circumstances. There are times, Arno will admit, when all he wants is someone who can carry him home after too much drinking, but in terms of things like contests, no, not a good idea.]

Water...Bender? [He's raising an eyebrow here, but then forgetting that in the wake of the other information.]

That bears looking into, then, yes. Democracies...Republics. Then France, by some miracle, managed to get through. And so many more. I don't know what I was expecting but. There's a relief. Perhaps the temp...Perhaps those who would oppose free thought and will have mostly been laid to rest.

I don't know. The twenty first century isn't exactly perfect. People just found new things to fight about. [Tony shrugs. Not to rain on your parade, Arno, but a little bit more democracy didn't quite turn the world into a free thought utopia.]

And, uh, I should warn you: those shapeshifters? There's a lot of stuff like that in this place. The shapeshifters are the locals, but there's a people like us, too - they call us foreigners. We're... Some of us are from Earth, just from different time periods, like you and me and Enj. And some foreigners are from Earth, but alternate versions, basically. Usually it's different because there's some kind of magic. And then there's foreigners who are from completely different planets or universes. All of us got pulled here, to this universe, to help the kedan fight a war.

Long story short? Don't take anything for granted, and don't assume anything's impossible. You spend your first couple weeks here thinking there's no way you could be surprised by anything else, and then finding something new to be surprised by.

Well, perfection would get boring, wouldn't it? And we are only humans. [So long as the templars haven't won, or haven't won for good, he can handle that sort of disappointment.] What WOULD we do if we weren't fighting?

[That's getting a long start and blink as far as explanations go. And then Tony mentions something else and he is pausing.]

Magic...could you give me a moment to check something?

[It's not magic that Arno does, exactly, but he does want to make sure of something, and turns for a moment, focusing on a kedan across the street while he makes use of his abilities here. His expression becomes more intent and serious as he stares across the street, a moment, watching said kedan carefully. When the world around him becomes grey in his mind's eye, Arno gets a better look at the kedan's yellow aura.]

Good. Not a problem yet. [He's muttering to himself before turning back to Tony.]

Well, that must have looked odd. It's not exactly magic but I can see things if I concentrate. I'd hoped it stuck around after all this. So, many universes, and this place does strange things, that's the gist of it?

[Tony doesn't even blink. Whatever Arno just did ranks so low on his Weird-O-Meter that it barely registers.]

Whatever magic you had back home sticks around, usually. What does that let you see? [Do you see dead people, Arno?] But yeah, that's the gist of it. Multiverse, weird people, weird magic, weird tech that looks like magic, aliens, a talking skeleton, humanoid turtles... You learn to just roll with it.

[Honestly, Arno's mostly concerned he looks...well, insane when he tunes into it. As long as it passes, though.]

Well it is not EXACTLY magic. It...well is complicated, I suppose. But it allows me to see if anyone is coming around a corner or through a building, perhaps. AND I can usually tell if someone is going to create a problem later.

Skeletons and humaniod turtles. [He repeats that one, starring a little.]

ON a turtle. Oh this is going to get interesting.

[Tony shrugs.] Okay. Whatever you want to call it. [That definitely sounds like it would fall under Tony's definition of magic, but he's not too fussed anymore about what people call all their weird powers.] Sounds pretty cool, anyway.

[He looks thoughtful for a moment as he considers the implications of Arno's magic trick.] So, when you say people who are going to "create a problem" - does it show you the future, or... people's intent, I guess? Can you tell when somebody has it out for you?

Or, there's the chance it feels too ordinary to me to be called that. But no one's exactly running around shooting fire out of their hands or anything at home either.

[Arno returns the shrug, then blinks.]

Cool? I take it in something other than temperature?

[Sorry, Tony. You kind of brought that question on yourself.]

Intent, and in relation to me and my own safety. I couldn't tell you if anyone was looking to attack...say anyone over there.

[Arno jerks his head toward a group of a few kedan up ahead.]

But yes, if any of them were particularly hostile towards me personally...I could definitely tell.

[Oh, whoops. Modern slang, right.] Uh, yeah, it means... something's really great, or interesting. That power? That's definitely cool. And I hate to say it, but it might come in handy a lot around here.

Did you learn it, or were you born with it?

[If it can be learned, it would be a good thing for more of the foreigners to pick up. Tony knows that there are some cases where people can pick up magic that's not from their world (like how anybody can use Anton's sigils), and it would be a big asset if Murder-O-Vision was one of those cases.]

Are there a lot of cool things here then?

[Arno tries out the word, not giving it any particular new inflection, just adding it to his vocabulary. As for the question...]

That gets a little complicated, but the short answer is both. I had the ability, but I didn't know I did, or how to use it. Eagle Vision is a gift. But, and this is one of those really BIG buts, there are other ways to see what might be going on in someone's head. Those are things anyone can train in, but it takes a lot of skill to make that work. Still, it can be useful.

There are, [Tony says with a smile.] It's not all bad. There's enough to make the stay worthwhile. [It's not home, but Tony isn't eager to ditch Keeliai the first chance he gets, anymore. There's a lot that he'll hate to leave behind - and a lot of people he'll really miss.]

How do you know if you have it? And there are other ways to do it? [Well, heck, if anybody can be a mind-reader, why isn't everyone? ...Actually that sounds kind of horrifying, now that he's thinking about it.]

Good enough. I shouldn't be away from Paris right now, But I wasn't exactly spending much time there as it was... I could use a break, selfish as that is. It seems like a nice enough place to get my head on straight.

[He's maudlin and hungover. Arno's allowed to admit to wanting that much, he should think. And then he's turning back to the question instead. It's easier than thinking about leaving Elise at the height of insanity and a LOT easier than thinking about any possibile redemption he could maybe even HOPE to find in Paris. Maudlin makes him think about Bellec, and he snorts, considering, in a way, that the other assassin did contribute to Arno's understanding of his gifts a little.]

I never knew it wasn't something normal." Arno admits, "Honestly, it all felt pretty natural up until I ended up in the Bastille with the first assassin that I actually knew. Turns out, Bellec had tried to get arrested, often, so he could make sense of some hidden marks other assassins put there. I could see them pretty easily, didn't know they weren't something that others saw...

It got a little interesting, there. I'd GUESS to know, you'd need the potential, if I knew how anybody tried to work that out.

I don't know about that... ["Nice enough place to get your head on straight" would not have been Tony's first choice for Keeliai's tourism tagline, since its niceness is frequently questionable and it's full of enough surprises to send anyone's head spinning.] But if you're worried about what you're supposed to be doing back home, this is the place to be. Time stops in your universe when you get pulled here. When you go back, you go back to the same instant that you left.

[Then Tony chuckles, and says,] Okay, wait, how many assassins do you know? Is there a big French assassins club or something?

[Oh, Tony. You have no idea.]

[To be fair, Arno's just watched the execution of the king, had to kill a lot of people, and been betrayed a few times. Keeliai's...well, comparatively speaking, a better alternative to somewhere you can at least try to deal with your myriad issues. That said he also hasn't been here long enough to have many surprises to roll with, so there's that, too.]

Time stops entirely? [That actually has Arno sighing with...well he's not sure yet.]

I DID leave a lot of shit behind me. [Which is followed by a snort at Tony's question.]

Chief among those, the Paris branch of our big assassin's... Well, we're more like a cult with world wide influence than a club by NOW.

A global cult of assassins? [What.] Ooookay. Maybe we're not from the same version of Earth after all.

[Wouldn't SHIELD know about something like that? He's pretty sure SHIELD would know about something like that. He would have heard of it by now if that was a thing in his world, right?]

Whoa, hold on— so— are you an assassin? [He said "we." Is he a part of this cult?]

A global cult of assassins. Though...I doubt for any un-initiated that you might have heard much. [There is a nod of confirmation, there. Though probably a major player WOULD know sooner or later.]

We have our enemies and we keep our secrets.

[There is the question then, and Arno has to laugh at the way that's asked. Does Tony suddenly think he's going to kill him if he confirms it?]

I am, actually, yes. But I usually don't strike unless I've been told to do it.

[Arno laughs, but Tony doesn't find the admission very funny. Almost immediately, his friendly curiosity is replaced by chilly suspicion.]

You kill people? Assassinate them?

[It's one thing to kill people who are an immediate threat to innocent lives, when you've run out of options and they can't be subdued any other way. It's another thing entirely to hunt people down and murder them in cold blood.]

[That's a fair reaction, really. Arno isn't surprised that Tony's a bit suspicious just now. It makes sense, from a logical perspective.]

I do and have. There are men out there deserving of death. A few women too.

[THAT admission is a bit harder for him to admit to. It's not that she was not deserving, and you don't become a full assassin unless you're willing to do the things that are hard for you too, but still. It's a hard and probably awkward situation.

He doesn't need to explain himself to anyone, Arno thinks, but there is something about this that he doesn't want to foul up so soon. His expression turns serious as he looks to Tony.]

I... think I should give you a better explanation than that. [He's stopping, where it looks like things are quieter, then leaning on the side of a building that looks nearly deserted this time of day.]

Being an Assassin is one thing. Killing in cold blood for no reason is another. When we strike, we strike those who could not be reached in any other way. A grain agent who insisted that her couriers lose some of their wheat, so that less bread could be made and the price be driven up, when the people were already starving on what they could barely afford, murderers, those who would not be punished in the system because they know how to play it and win

[It still doesn't sound great, and he knows it, but it's not so bad as it comes out at first.]

Our moves are more deliberate than it must sound. Our Mentor and a Council give the orders. First, we investigate, then we analyze what we've found, and they decide on our course of action. Well, we are supposed to wait.

[He looks, and sounds, rather chagrined as he admits to this last part, indicating, well, it's probably obvious.]

If a death can be prevented, then other ways to solve the problem are found. Death IS the last resort that's used. Killing may be wrong, but when someone presents the larger threat, we do...well...

[Arno's pausing, actually swallowing a moment before he continues that.]

We do what we need to. That's all.

[His thoughts turn to Bellec, and his eyes go dark for a moment, remembering their last fight and all that came next. Certainly not a high point in either of their careers, he would imagine.]

And we do have our enemies, who work against not only us, but the principles that we...that many people hold dearly in this world. I don't think the Templars are going to stop until they've taken over the country, maybe the world.

They aren't all bad, Templars. But a good number of them are in some godforsaken noble's pocket and they know it and don't care. Whatever influence and power they can gain, they take. We do the same, when we can, but I would say that personal freedom and the ability to not be indoctrinated like sheep into a world that a few select of their members take care to give the orders in are worth it when you weigh our pros and cons.

[He shrugs a little here, hood falling forward over his head as he does so. ]

They harm guilty and innocent alike, when it comes to the Templars. We stay our blades from innocent flesh. It's not...it was not all so dark and criminal as it must sound. If I have a soul, I've probably sold it, back when I signed up. But the brotherhood...it gave me a great bargain for that soul is what it did.

The point is, I guess, we're not all what we seem. No one actually is.

[Tony stops when Arno does, and listens with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.] Was all of this in secret? Did any of these people know you were coming for them? You weren't hired or elected, were you? [They sound more like accusations than questions.]

You can't just make up your own rules and enforce them yourself, that's... [um... kind of... exactly what Tony does, actually...] I mean, if somebody's running around the city blowing stuff up, they need to be stopped, but you can't murder people for... graft and tax evasion. [~~Otherwise you'd have to assassinate the entire United States legislature, ha ha!~~

Tony is becoming increasingly agitated. His gut is telling him that what Arno is describing is wrong, but all his justifications are uncomfortably similar to the reasons Tony became Iron Man.

Sometimes there are situations that regular law enforcement can't handle, that require extraordinary intervention. Sometimes the system doesn't work. But when Tony intervenes, he's saving Stane and dozens of Stark International employees from Blizzard, or keeping Whiplash from killing his friends and their families, or stopping Mr. Fix or the Living Laser from leveling the whole city. Clear threats putting people in immediate danger. Arno's talking about... murdering unsuspecting petty criminals. That's different. That's nothing like what Tony does.]

We're supposed to do what the system can't when things get really bad, [Tony insists, not even noticing the 'we' slip out,] not replace it completely - by assassinating people.

[This is possibly the first time in his life, Arno's talked to someone outside of the order, well, someone who is not Elise about the brotherhood and what being a part of it means. He couldn't have dared that in Paris, not that he would have wanted to. It's different now, obviously, but those first accusations do have him bristling a little as it is.]

Specifically myself, and specifically the time and place, certainly no. [The answer to that first question comes easily enough, at that. ]

But no one tied up in Templar business, either those in the order or those who work for them, is so naive as to think they'll not be caught up with eventually. And no Assassin dares to think that he's above being fed an aconite cocktail along with his wine if he lets his guard down for too long, so that...works two ways.

[Well. Arno likes to think that he, personally, is above such things, but Mirabeau, even Mirabeau fell prey to poison, albeit not given to him by a Templar. It's a chilling thought, and a reminder that even the brightest can be taken by surprise. He's...keeping it in mind, or trying to, these days.]

I was recruited in the Bastille and inducted into the brotherhood after its fall, actually. The man died, and the assassin was born.

[So far, Arno's been speaking of the brotherhood and its role with a certain sense of assurance, but there is more pride in his words now, and a reassurance creeping into his posture. Thinking of that moment keeps him centered, even when he thinks of how it all turned out.]

It's funny, but you sound so much like the last lecture our council gave me, oddly enough. Throw in something about my personal vendetta being against the values of the brotherhood and...

[Arno shrugs, not certain how to go on, straightaway.]

Well. They hold a few standards I haven't measured up to yet, and you have pointed out most of them. Congratulations, are in order, I assume.

[The smile Tony gets is far from sincere, along with the little bow that Arno tosses in there, though they don't actually last, and there's a moment, just one, where he looks almost tired by this act.]

We live in contradictions, and I won't deny it. Sometimes we make mistakes, but, on the other side, we're talking about Templar world domination. Each sacrifice, all of the blood I've spilt...if it keeps that from coming, and might save a few people from dealing with corruption in the first place, not to mentioning punishing the guilty, well, that's worth it.

In a Just world, maybe not. [He'll cop to at least that much, the idea that in a better world, one without templar and assassin struggles, things could be different, but that is something he has never really known.]

But it isn't a just world. It is France. [And therein lies the difference.]

[...Wow, okay, this is a lot to take in. Tony's anger is being slightly swamped by his confusion and total lack of context.]

Who are these Templars? How are they trying to take over the world? Why? [And then there was that thing about assassination targets being 'tied up in Templar business'...] Is this seriously just two competing secret societies trying to kill each other off?

[The face Tony's making is falling somewhere between baffled, skeptical, and judgmental. WTF, Arno. WTF.]

[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

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going for the gold in Denial and Rationalization

Re: going for the gold in Denial and Rationalization

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