Our story binds us like right and wrong | September Catchall

[lasergrenades]

Characters: Pepper Potts, Devin Parker, and you!
Date: Throughout September
Location: Sky Sector, KPD Headquarters, Healers Guild, and around Keeliai
Situation: Pepper is living life mostly as usual, and Devin is getting over some denial about being stuck here.
Warnings/Rating: None yet, will add as needed.


A. [Pepper] KPD | Throughout September | Open

There is, thankfully, less to do at work this month. It's still pretty warm, but not stifling like the first part of August. The heat seems to be keeping crime down, for the most part, and Pepper is glad to be a little less busy. She works more days than nights this month, patrolling in street clothes more often than not. When she is in armor, it's on those few times when she has night shifts.

B. [Pepper] Jade Dojo | Mid-September | Bakura

The first time Pepper sparred against Bakura, it did not go exactly as planned. She'd let the issue go, probably for longer than she should have, because there was a) nothing she could do at the time, and b) things had seemed quiet on the dark, scary shadow demon front. Neither of those things were the case any longer, and Pepper isn't content to sit back and let this unfold without trying to do something.

"It's been almost two years since I hit you," Pepper said quietly, brushing her thumb along Bakura's jaw where she'd struck him. "We never talked about why I did that."

C. [Devin] Water Sector | Early September | Open

Being naturally a few degrees cooler than the average human, the heat doesn't both Devin as much as it might some people. He continues his 'hobby' of learning the city, mapping and memorizing the streets. He's in Water Sector most of the first half of this month because he can find an easy place to cool off if he wants to. It's an interesting area. His irritability is still on display from last month, though the cause of it remains uncertain.

D. [Devin] Sky Sector | Late September | Open

Devin spends more time in Sky Sector the second half of the month, familiarizing himself with the gardens and occasionally asking about the old palace when anyone will answer. He also spends a little time looking at the Foreigner housing; it's been almost six months since he arrived here, and while he'd much prefer to return to his home world, he's saved up enough to transition out of the Hotel soon. Klaus may have grown more polite, but the vampire is aware he's still an object of consternation.

E. [Devin] Healers Guild | Early September | Kylo

Every two weeks or so, Devin appears at the Healers Guild to meet his vampiric needs under medical supervision, as he's requested. He doesn't allow anyone to be in the same room with him when he actually consumes the blood, however.

By now he's at least a passably familiar face in the Guild, and most of the regular staff and volunteers have learned that bothering him immediately after he's finished is an unwise idea. There's something faintly wild at the edges of him, something less restrained as he starts to stalk his way to the exit, hoping to find a quiet place to be alone.

OOC: Let me know if you want anything specific or feel free to put up your own starter!

Comments

[lasergrenades]

Pepper wondered if things got couched in the terms of being a 'game' because it was easier. It seemed irreverent, and maybe that was the point.

"Objectively, he's--" She cut off the insult before it escaped, breathing out slowly. She could see the logic, even if it made her furious. "Okay. Yeah." She stopped again, fists tightening. "God, that's why he waited so long, too, isn't it?"

Zorc had let Bakura suffer without the ghosts for most of a year before this new bargain was struck. The difference in Bakura had been like night and day. Quietly: "What did he want? If-- if you can tell me. And if you're willing to."

[denyamenti]

Bakura doesn't need to verbally confirm that she was right about Zorc's timing. It had been clever in that Zorc hadn't merely withheld the ghosts from the thief, but made it appear as though they were gone completely. Timed with his return to Keeliai, it hadn't been any wonder that Bakura had naturally believed that it had been his loss that had destroyed them.

Nor had it been any wonder that he might have accepted any bargain to have them returned after so long of being bereft of them and thinking it had been his fault. Like he'd said, it was what he would have done himself.

"Look around... what does anything evil want?" he returned lightly. "You'll have to use your imagination for that part. I did agree to the deal, after all. Just assume it's something you'd probably hit me again over."

[lasergrenades]

That was an odd way to structure his response, and Pepper tilted her head slightly. Something about it bore paying more attention to, and perhaps the entire conversation.

She glanced around the room, eyes briefly settling on Diabound. That wasn't what he was after this time, or he probably could have taken it. He'd already taken the ghosts once. The room? No, more general. The dojo - also no. Further - Keeliai. Maybe the whole planet. Anything evil wanted to win, wanted to stay, wanted to spread. Why 'anything' evil, not 'he'? What had evil wanted here before? Malicant had plagued this world, and this city, and--

Everything is leverage. Not just her, or their friends, or everyone, but everything. Malicant had been trying to gain a foothold here, on the Life plane so that it could spread everywhere. She had missed those horrors, but judging by the way she looked back at Bakura, she hadn't forgotten the stories or the vision.

Why didn't he just tell her? It wasn't as though Zorc didn't know about the deal already himself, and Bakura knew how angry it would make Pepper, so what was the point in dancing around it? Zorc could listen in, could 'watch', but-- couldn't read his mind. Couldn't read hers. She hadn't actually asked about that. That's how the game works. Present tense, not past. They were still playing.

The anger he'd probably expect was there in the curve of her shoulders, jaw tightening as she reached for her connection with Vee.

"I don't ever want to hit you again," she said stiffly.

Though I apparently may be tasked for that, Vee chimed in, testing if this was an option.

"Is there a... deadline?" Zorc hadn't been content to remain quiet, after all.

[denyamenti]

It was there in the slant of his head, the way his expression had stayed easy throughout the whole conversation, silently checking to see if she'd put the clues together. Vee's mental input seemed to imply that she had.

I'm sure you're simply heartbroken about that, he returned to the ka, though with less of an edge than he might have once said it with. He hadn't forgotten their conversation without Pepper around.

"It is as you said... things haven't been as quiet, lately."

[lasergrenades]

The option is less thrilling than you might think. We have rather more important matters to consider, it seems.

Pepper stood and paced a few feet away, needing to move, needing to do something other than sit there and fume.

"Were you planning on telling me? Because when I said I was on your side of the war, I meant it. I already knew that you'd 'bartered' something when I said you were enough, and I meant that. Everything is leverage, but not everything is helpless," she ground out, her voice shaking. "Not around here."

[denyamenti]

"I remember what you said," Bakura answered with a flash of irritability. "And no, I wasn't planning on telling you unless you became involved in this mess some other way, and thus needed to know. This isn't about power or who is helpless--" The word flicks out like a striking snake. "Do you think I am helpless? Diabound? My ghosts? Yes, you could be used against me, but they have been before and my loyalty is to them."

[lasergrenades]

Pepper's nails dug into her palms. "I know they come first," she shot back. "I've always known that they come first. But I'm already involved in this mess, Bakura, because I'm involved with you. You, and Diabound, and your ghosts. I will fight for all of you, and no, none of you are helpless, but I don't want to find out that there was something I could have been with you for and wasn't only after it's killed you. Again. You are incredibly strong, all of you, but you also aren't alone. You don't have to fight alone, even if you made a deal by yourself. Just because I'm angry doesn't mean I don't understand, and it doesn't mean I won't fight just as hard to keep you all safe."

[denyamenti]

"You don't understand," he scowled. "You say it, but you wouldn't be able to turn a blind eye to everything, depending on what I need to do. You are not grasping the scale of this, Pepper. What if tomorrow Zorc says the Memory Gate can be recreated, and offers half my ghosts passage if I thin out the herd of Foreigners in the city. What then? Or if I get to save one person for every one I have to destroy. Are you still at my side then?"

It's rhetorical, but it does serve to highlight the method of Zorc's influence; how the demon chooses to exert power and pressure. Diabound has given up the pretense of sleep, watching both of them.

"You wouldn't because that is not you, and I accept that as much as you accept that it is me. But don't act like I am only looking out for myself by not involving you."

[lasergrenades]

Obviously, she wouldn't stand idly by while he killed people. We have other ideas. Zorc is not the only option to save them, she wanted to scream, but that she couldn't speak aloud.

Rhetorical or not, the questions stung, cut at something deep that made her hands shake and her heart beat uncomfortably fast against her chest. Finding herself in opposition to Bakura was the kind of thing that gave her nightmares. It wasn't supposed to become reality. Trying to protect her from that-- if she was going to end up fighting him, that protection would be pointless anyway.

"You are not who or what I am most furious with here," Pepper retorted, trying to be careful not to say too much. "You've done some really selfish things in your life but you've done them for the right reasons, with the worst choices. I can't pretend to know what it's like to be ripped apart for the only family you have in the world, but I do know I could go that far, and if I did I would not stop. I could burn the world. I could do it better than Gene ever did. I wouldn't now, but I could do stupid, dangerous, terrible things if I was pushed far enough. I know that for a fact.

"So you weren't going to tell me - fine. I didn't ask, either. I am at your side right now - will you even let me try to help?"

[denyamenti]

Bakura wondered if he'd unconsciously known that Pepper might be capable of such things well before he understood them, or Pepper herself had known them. Perhaps that was why he had never bothered to redirect her curiosity about his past elsewhere.

He gestured vaguely. "What parts do you want to help with? The spying, or the stealing?"

[lasergrenades]

Well, that was better than a flat-out 'no', but Pepper wasn't immediately sure how to answer. She'd rather help with finding a solution that involved neither of those things and that freed Bakura from his most recent obligation, which he must have known.

"I guess that depends a little on what needs stealing or who's getting spied on," she replied, trying to keep her mind from racing away with possibilities.

[denyamenti]

She may end up having preferred the flat no, when she learns precisely what task he's trying to accomplish at the demon's behest.

"I need research that was done on the Planes by people here... Foreigners and not."

[lasergrenades]

Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell.

"Research," she echoed. That sounded a lot less threatening than she was anticipating, but where Zorc was concerned, there was no way it was something innocuous. "O-kay... Okay. Well, if I can break into a corporate headquarters, not much around here should be a big challenge. And I'm good at observing people." They had similar skills, pointed in opposite directions. "So... Okay. Give me a task."

Not 'tell me what I'm looking for', or 'explain exactly what you're after'. She was just grateful he was letting her in at all, and there had to be ways she could help him and defy Zorc at the same time. If he had more people on his side of things, he had more options. She could move in ways he couldn't.