eastbound | un: eclipse

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un: eclipse | video

[ Marcos shows his face on screen for the first time in what feels like a long time. The last couple months have been hard on everyone, and he's no exception. There's a small white dragon settled beside him, trying to get into the frame, that he pushes back. He knows he shouldn't have it, but it still follows him around like a puppy. It hurts his heart to think that it doesn't know it's dead.

Not what this is about. ]

Hey there. [ He clears his throat. ] Listen, we need to talk. It's... been a rough few weeks. It was hard enough keeping track of everyone when we were separated between the two cities, but now. Now I think it might be time to take stock of survivors. Maybe make a list of who we've lost and who we need to look out for.

[ He remembers all the skeletons in the tower. They didn't seem like an illusion to him. ]

Kaneki is missing. Has been for a while. I wasn't worried until I found something he wouldn't have left behind if he had any choice in the matter. Luckily I got to it first. [ Which is why — ] I might need a hand with a beating heart in a box. I don't know if it has any other power, but the Merchant called it leverage, and I don't think I'm the right person to keep it safe. If anyone wants to take a look I'll send you my location.

[ The dragon makes a noise, and he rubs its head to keep it quiet. Sometimes he feels helpless, but it's important to remind himself of what he says next. ]

I know why most of you wanted to stay, to help these people, but be careful out there. Remember you're not alone.

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That good too. Merchant do this? [Kahl's heard a little about the Merchant, but he's never seen them. He finds that strange.]

[Marcos, then. Easy for him to pronounce. It almost sounds Grineer. That's good. He always feels bad when he struggles to pronounce the names of some of his brothers.]

Hah. Kahl's mind not got much in it. But. Marcos know how to make place secure? Kahl can help this too.

That's what I've heard. Him and his network. [ Marcos has never met him either. Probably a good thing, because he doesn't know if he and Lorna should get in a room together if they're going to continue working with him.

He actually gets a genuine smile out of Marcos for his joke. Which is really a feat, considering how bleak everything has been looking. ]

I can't guarantee it'd be totally secure until we get someone who knows what they're doing with magic, but if we found a place I've got a few ways I'd go about it. [ He at least knows what to look for. ] You probably do too. From the army, right?

[Kahl nods, his augments making a note in Grineer text, so he won't forget: Get names from Merchant. Marcos sounds like he might not want to, and with the Merchant acting distant, he can understand why. Maybe he could instead. It would be worth finding out what this Merchant was like, anyway.

In the meantime, it's pretty obvious Marcos doesn't recognize Grineer. It's still strange to think about, but Kahl's getting better at dealing with it. It's not their fault. It means their alternate universe doesn't have Grineer. Probably never had Orokin or Worms either. Better places to be.]

Kahl Grineer army. Grineer all clones. Kahl come out of tube knowing army. Not many other thing. [Other armies were made of people who'd been children once. They saw lots of stuff before they became soldiers. Grineer didn't. He wasn't sure what he felt about that anymore.] Kahl not army anymore. Kahl fight for brothers now.

[ He's never heard of the Grineer army, but he paints a disturbing picture in only a few words. The implications keep him from answering for a moment as that sinks in. He really hopes he managed to get out of that situation before coming here.

The way he seems to see them all as brothers pulls at his chest. It clearly means a lot to him to help. ]

We're lucky to have you on our side. [ And he means that sincerely. ] I wish fighting wasn't part of this, but it looks like we're going to have to hold out a while longer.

Undead steal to make army. Try to make slaves. Kahl stay here. Stop undead. [He didn't know how, but fighting didn't always need you to know everything. Sometimes you just did what you could, in the little piece of the fight you could do.] Undead steal Kahl. Will not steal brothers. [He's here for as long as it takes. And if he can get home, good. If not, his brothers can live on Earth with the Tenno, where nobody can hurt them again.

Until then, he has new brothers. Ones he's slowly learning to understand.]

Marcos from Earth? [Most humans here seem to be.]

[ His explanation hits a little too close to home. That same deep resentment in him that knows that there's a part of the population that sees no problem with turning mutants into weapons. Because they think of them as less than human and don't believe the same rights apply to them.

He swallows his anger down, but it's clear on his face that he understands where Kahl is coming from. ]

Yeah, I'm from Earth. [ That means he's from someplace else. Funny how used to that he's getting. ] We have plenty of our own issues, but the undead aren't one of them.

[Just like he thought. There's lots of Earth people here. Maybe the undead could reach it easily.] Kahl's brothers on other Earth. Alternate universe. No undead there either. Safe place. Hidden. [They'd be okay there. They knew how to take care of themselves. And the Tenno was there to protect them.]

Marcos have brothers on Earth?

I did. [ As much as he'd like to think John found his way back there, they all jumped through Clarice's portal. He doesn't know what happened to him any more than he knows about Kaneki. ]

...Hidden from the undead?

[He's not sure what that means. Maybe they're waiting back where Marcos comes from. Maybe they're dead. Maybe some of both.] Have brothers here?

[He shakes his head.] No. Narmer. Marcos' Earth not have. [Kahl can guess that much.] Kahl break Narmer. Free brothers. This place no different.

[ He's lost a lot of the people he had grown closer to, but no one could replace John. And they don't have to. He knows he's still alive, somewhere out there. He can't say the same of too many of his other friends. ]

I don't know that there's anyone left who'd call me that here.

[ He smiles a little, because it isn't something he takes lightly. Lately he hasn't tried to get close to anyone, and he's leaned on Lorna more than he should.

He doesn't know Narmer either. ]

You freed them? Soldiers like you?

Kahl will. [That was obvious to him by now.]

Anyone Narmer take is Kahl's brother. No one deserve slave veil. [The veil had kept him from thinking things were bad as he helped put veils on others, or when the Worms let them starve and rot. Once he got free, there was no question. He'd get everyone out. Everyone.]

Anyone undead take, Kahl's brother too. [He didn't say it that often yet, because he didn't always know how a person would be. But with events stacking up the way they have in this city, it was clear enough now, these undead-stolen people are his brothers too.]

[ That's a big commitment from someone he hasn't met before, but he can see his sincerity. It isn't hard to tell that he's been through a lot in his life and he doesn't want anyone else to have to experience what he did. ]

You're right. In a way, we're all in this together. [ He doesn't have to ask if recent events haven't made this more personal to him, but he has to wonder if he's taking on too much himself. ] Anyone looking after you?

Mm. Solaris sing, all lift together. That true here too. [Solaris sang it much prettier than he could.]

Kahl have new smart brothers here. Clara and Doctor. [He'd met them in the first day, with the Unwinding. It had been good to find nice people here.]

What Marcos do before this place? [It sounded like Marcos wasn't a soldier, and Kahl didn't know much beyond the army.]

[ He gives him a little relieved smile to hear that he's managed to make connections here. With the way everyone is spread out and divided, it's not so easy to reach them.

As for what he did... ]

Back home I helped run a resistance group. We took in people like me, and tried to fight against their persecution. It fell apart, and we were just talking about rebuilding when I came here.

[ That's really putting a rosy spin on it. It isn't easy to start over from nothing, especially not a second time, and their only major success involved taking down other mutants. ]

I have a daughter. We wanted more for her.

[Kahl's silent for a moment, trying to get his words right.]

Kahl not know other Earth. But Kahl see Marcos building here, in bad new place. [Protecting important things. Reaching out to organize. That counted as building.] Kahl know Marcos can do again.

[Kahl had to do the same once, back on his Earth. Narmer killed the people Kahl cared about. He'd built a new family. They killed Narmer back. That made them a target, one that had to stay sneaky. One that had to build careful.]

People like Marcos, not magic? [Marcos had said he couldn't do magic, like that was what made him the same as Kahl.]

[ He clears his throat when he's hit with a tinge of emotion, but that's what happens when he mentions his daughter. She was less than a year old when he left, and he'd barely started to get to know her.

It's nice of Kahl to believe in him, just because he wants to. Marcos isn't so confident in his track record, but he'd like to help make sure that the group doesn't fracture the way it did back home. ]

We're called mutants. People born with an X-gene. We aren't magic, but we're born with certain abilities. Some of us look different, and some are like me and can pass for human.

Where I come from, mutant rights are under fire. They think we're too dangerous to be left alone. We've still got a long way to go.

Ohh. Marcos Eximus. [He thinks he understands.] Grineer have too. Come out tube different. Make fire, cold, toxic, all kinds of stuff. [Maybe there were gene molds for it, maybe it was random. He didn't actually know.]

Grineer like Eximus. Make good squad brothers. [Some could be jerks about their special genes. But if you were ever deployed near an Arctic, you formed up on them. Their shields could save a whole platoon.]

Kahl think mutant can win. But. [Grineer history tells him how that can go wrong.] Not let anyone be Queen, like Grineer. Queens go bad.

[ Eximus? He hasn't heard the term, but it's very possible that they had mutants where he's from too. He even smiles a bit when he doesn't seem to be afraid of them or offended by their mere existence. ]

I agree with you there. [ The Inner Circle was only the latest mutants to decide peace wasn't an option. Unfortunately, they had significantly more funding and going up against them... they had too many losses. ]

It's complicated. Changing someone's beliefs isn't easy, and we're a long way from learning to peacefully coexist. [ He used to be more optimistic, but he's seen too much to think it'll happen even in his lifetime. ] Maybe someday.

At least that's not as much of a problem here, for all the others we have.

Good. Not make mistake like Grineer. [He was glad that Queens in other places didn't seem to live forever, like the Grineer ones did. But Captains didn't live forever, and they still used people just as bad. Everyone had to be careful to not let that happen.

Because once they got power, it was hard to get people to stop following them.] Kahl know. But, people can change. Kahl see it. See very old, very powerful, very bad thoughts. Still get better, if want. [He wasn't good at describing it. And he wasn't going to try. Blue Girl had learned. She deserved to be known as somebody who helped make things better.]

Kahl glad to have Eximus here. Eximus brother, even better.

[ His terms are different, and Marcos isn't getting the full story, but it's surprisingly easy to follow what Kahl is saying. Even if some of it is hard to hear for a different reason. He'd been a driving force to keeping the Mutant Underground going, but their resources were practically non-existent and it got a lot harder to be idealistic.

Changing the mind of one person at a time might not be enough. But it's something. He and Lorna haven't seen eye to eye before, and she managed to come back when he thought he'd lost her. It's possible. ]

You're right. It's rare but it happens. We can only take it a day at a time.

Thank you. I'll do what I can, but we're stronger together. Once everything calms down, maybe we can compare stories and see just how much they intersect.

Mmhm. Many small wins make big ones. Hard work. But good to do. [That was how he saw it all. This place was a big setback for Kahl. Something new to fight, when Narmer was still back home. When the Queens still tricked his brothers into following them. But he'd fight here. Help how he could. Stay as long as it took. And it would be worth it, to keep his family safe.

So he smiles, the expression made lopsided by the scars that pull at his face.] Kahl like telling stories with brothers. Marcos always welcome.

[ He smiles back, tired but sincere. As bleak as it's been the past few weeks, it's nice to find someone who is still optimistic. Especially after what he's hinted at going through. It's what he needed. ]

I hope we get a chance.

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un: eclipse | video

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