[EVENT] Stark Industries changeover

[forgediron]

Characters: Zanru, Xuiyu, others.
Date: 4 July 2015 (2016 in-game)
Location: The Courtyard of Public Opinion
Situation: Stark Industries is under new management. Zanru just doesn’t know about it yet.
Warnings/Rating: None so far. Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

The gathering began in drips and drabs. Most kedan weren’t warned that anything in particular was going to happen on this day, but those invested in Stark Industries knew to be there. Not all of them had money or shares, or any sort of political influence; but they’d heard from family or friends who did, and went anyway. To witness, or out of boredom.

By the time Zanru arrived there was a sizeable crowd and she clearly recognised a significant number of them. Most of them didn’t meet her gaze. Some of them did, matching her stare for stare and arm-cross for arm-cross. It was easy to recognise the majority of them as being related—dark skinned, short hair, callused fingers, the incidental burn scars. Metalworkers, nearly all of them.

No one said anything. No one relevant, anyway, though the crowd murmured around the edges.

Nothing happened until Xuiyu arrived, stumping along on her false leg, a foot shorter than nearly everyone else, grimy and sooty like she’d spent some time banging a hammer on a forge beforehand. And that was when Zanru’s face tightened.

“Who are you here for?” she asked.

“Not answering that.” Xuiyu heaved herself up to sit on one of the stone benches and reached into her jacket, and pulled out a scroll, and held it out. “This is the writ for you to stand down from CEO of Stark Industries. We’ll make it committee-based instead. We’ve all signed it.”

Zanru’s fingers clenched on her arms. “All of you.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Xuiyu tossed the scroll to the ground at Zanru’s feet. “You’re compromised, cousin. You’re compromised and you don’t even care. There are too many people relying on a stable powerbase to let you go on like this. I tried to tell you. You wouldn’t listen. So it’s come to this.”

“After everything I’ve been through—”

“Because of everything you’ve been through, you dolt,” Xuiyu snapped. “You want to go after Daseng? Fine. Go after Daseng. We’ll help where we can. But not at the cost of everything we’re trying to build, and not at the cost of everything we’ve ever been.”

“You mean brainwashed pawns of an emperor and convenient scapegoats for outsiders?” Zanru snarled.

“I mean hard and skilful workers who treat their employees with the respect they deserve,” said Xuiyu.

“I’ve never broken a contract!”

“If that’s what it took to kill Daseng, would you?” Zanru didn’t answer, and after a moment Xuiyu went on. “Focus on Daseng, cuz. Do what you need to do to stop him. Let us worry about the industry. If we can help, we will. Just don’t forget that we will. And don’t forget the Foreigners can help too.”

“The Foreigners.” Zanru laughed bitterly. “The Foreigners think they have a right to anything and everything just because they have the power to take it.”

Xuiyu shrugged. “Maybe. But if you were thinking smart you’d use that power to make things happen. Don’t fight the hammer, cuz.”

Zanru shook her head and bent to snatch up the scroll, and went to the bench. Xuiyu handed her a pen and Zanru scrawled her signature on the end of it, and flung both scroll and pen down on the stone. “If the Foreigners are Eshai’s hammer,” she said, “who’s wielding them now? Tell me that, cousin, and maybe I’ll believe you know how to use them without the cost of everything we can be.”

But she didn’t wait for a reply, and the crowd parted as she walked away.

Xuiyu rubbed her forehead with a grimy hand and then reached for the scroll and rolled it up, and stowed it back in her jacket. Then she sat there, her legs kicking, and stared out at the crowd until the whispering bystanders either wandered off or came to ask their questions.

[ooc: People can either ask Xuiyu for details or try to follow Zanru.]

Comments

Courtyard; OPEN

[denyamenti]

Bakura isn't about to hear about such an upheaval secondhand, and he's closed the dojo and headed to the Courtyard. (The last time there was a power shift that he'd been interested in, one dynasty had ended and another began, and both were wiped later from history). This would likely be a less society-rattling event, but he was no less intrigued by how it was playing out.

"Hmm..."

[inkulcation]

This sort of information is always better firsthand, hence why China is present despite the crowd. She listens attentively, watching the exchange with an eye to the nuances of the women involved, and only when Zanru has walked away does she slip up next to the familiar figure.

"Which would you follow?" she says, conversationally, like their last interaction did not nearly end disastrously for one or both of them.

[denyamenti]

"What makes you think either one of them is worth following?" Bakura asked, studiously keeping his gaze on the slowly dispersing crowd. "A petty power squabble that ultimately makes no changes in the city?"

[inkulcation]

China shakes her head. "Certainly neither of them is worth falling in line with." As if either of them would. "But for a clearer picture... Won't it? You can't tell me Zanru cares how many people she has to drag into her quest."

She looks the way Zanru had gone, then at Xuiyu. Reflectively: "Zanru will be more difficult to catch, and has more bitterness about her. That will color whatever she says. Xuiyu, however, has been justifying this decision to herself for weeks if not more, and any narrative she gives will paint her in a more positive light than she deserves."

[denyamenti]

If it was one thing Bakura disliked, it was someone who he simultaneously wanted little to do with, who had the same type of discernment when it came to people as he himself used. It was a very frustrating and yet enticing set of traits... but he'd answer a reply like that with just as much insight.

That was, after all, just part of the game.

"Zanru could have gone off half-cocked at any point if she was just charging in blind. The Metalworkers were no anchor holding her back. Whether she has people with her or not, she's not going to change whatever it is she's about to do. As for Xuiyu, this isn't a move of ambition. It's a formality. It's due process. Family head, second in command, janitor-- she doesn't care what the title says."

[inkulcation]

Frustrating and yet enticing. Better words to describe her were rarely spoken.

So far, Bakura hasn't said anything that outright disagrees with her own analysis. "It's still a betrayal," China points out, of Xuiyu. "Regardless of why. She's acted against her cousin." Family groups mean so much more to the kedan, after all. The amount of work Xuiyu must have had to do to make this okay in her mind is significant. "Zanru would neither seek nor accept help in any case, but the bridge is in a sad state, if not burned completely."

For all that, she's inclined to think Zanru will actually be the more honest of the two of them.

[denyamenti]

"I don't think so," he disagreed. "Betrayal is easy to justify, when you're properly motivated, even to someone you're close to."

[inkulcation]

"Hmm," China says, and taps one finger against her lips. It's a thoughtful gesture, true, but still full of the easy sensuality that marks most of her existence. This is true. But she doesn't quite agree, even so. "It still requires that... proper motivation. And as you pointed out, this isn't a move of ambition on Xuiyu's part. The reasons matter to her; I suspect the act itself matters to Zanru." Perhaps Zanru can justify Xuiyu's actions to herself, but China would guess there will be bitterness.

[denyamenti]

Bakura watches the motion, but he's aware enough that it doesn't have any appreciable effect; he wonders if he's gaining resistance, or if that's just wishful thinking.

"And what would you suspect that proper motivation to be?"

[inkulcation]

"Usually, love or money," she says off-handedly. She slants her gaze over to Bakura, finds herself equal measures pleased and disappointed that he doesn't seem to be noticing her in the same way as he has previously. "In this case, I would say that family prompted the betrayal of family. The better interests of the rest of Xuiyu's family group, if we count the Metalworkers as such, must trump her relationship to Zanru. Difficult, and easy."

/following Zanru, if possible?

[looksfine]

It would have been a lie to state that Aya was devastated by these recent developments. Given what she knew, and certain past conversations held, she wasn't even all that surprised.

However, despite some of her more personal feelings on a wide range of matters directly or indirectly involved...she was concerned.

"Perhaps the issue is that you have considered us to be something we are not." Her words were most certainly not going to go over well, not when Zanru was in this state, but they were words that Aya genuinely believed needed to be said. "You believed that we are wielded. That we can be used and discarded within little more concern then how it may affect you and your kind. After all this time...have you not considered alternate possibilities?"

o7

[forgediron]

"Fuck off," Zanru snarled without looking around, with barely a flinch or reaction to Aya's presence except for that expletive. She was a boiled mess and Aya wanted to pick a fucking fight?

Cool and logical-headed AI, Zanru's ass. If they had really wanted answers, a real AI wouldn't have seen the point in prodding Zanru when she was too angry to think straight. This was being fucking vindictive.

[looksfine]

"That would be biologically impossible, in my current form."

Similarly, Aya was unfazed by both the crass language--(she technically was military, after all. Space Cop)--and harsh tone. If anything, she had expected it to the point where a positive response would have earned more of a shock.

"I am not here to exacerbate the animosity between us. I am here to help, if you would be willing to accept it."

[forgediron]

"I don't want help from you," Zanru shouted over her shoulder. She even turned slightly, but didn't stop walking away. "You prance around like you're better than me just because you take things literally and have a world's wealth of knowledge in your head! You think I want help from someone who's always criticising every word I use, who thinks she should get special treatment just because she knows more?! You complain that we're not giving you due consideration but you've never shown you think we're anything more than primitive set dressing to be coddled! Fuck off, Aya!"

[looksfine]

She thought she had been prepared.

Her intention, regardless of Zanru's current state, had simply been to offer herself as a continued liaison towards company workings. To continue communications with someone who she had assumed would have still been willing to put pride aside for the sake of Stark Industries.

...prance around like you're better than me...

...always criticizing every word...

...thinks she should get special treatment...

...you think we're anything more than primitive set dressing to be coddled...

Her expression remained unchanged. Her gaze did not once avert. She didn't even so much as flinch. However, when Zanru was finished with her latest rant, Aya abruptly turned and proceeded to walk away in the opposite direction.

She would make no more attempts to contact the woman again.