thecapitol | Choose to Fight for a World Beyond

Who| Laia Martinez and you
What| There's a new arrival in the detainment center. She's not impressed.
Where| Detainment center cafeteria and training areas
When| After the D10/D11 battles
Warnings/Notes| None, will add if necessary

Cafeteria

Laia does not regret her choice of reaction upon waking up on a steel cot and being escorted somewhere by soldiers. Submitting to the guards, sizing up the location's layout and her captor's capabilities, and then taking the first chance to knock them all out and flee had gotten her a black eye and a pair of plastic wrist cuffs, true. But she had made her decision with the information available to her, and going forward, she wouldn't make the same mistake twice. This wasn't the Gurhal system, these weren't the Illuminus, and her position as president meant nothing. It was all bullshit (and she had loudly declared as much), but it was new bullshit. Different than the mess that she was now, apparently, very far away from.

It still wasn't enough information to properly operate on, though. The truth that comes from the mouths of administrators and the actual truth are worlds apart, in her experience. So she had settled herself in the cafeteria with a mug of tea and a plastic baggie full of ice, intent on flagging someone down and grilling them for on-the-ground details. But there were video screens showing the most hideous things... she has found herself drawn into a Greatest Hits recap of the Hunger Games, and can't quite manage to tear her eyes away. Laia knows death when she sees it, and she is damn sure that these scenes of carnage are not carefully-done special effects. But that would mean.... what would that mean?

Having viewed someone's particularly gruesome end, framed with dramatic music and entirely too flippant narration, she can't stay silent any longer. "Hey!" She calls out to someone at the edge of her vision, but doesn't look their way. "Hey, you, is this..." Up goes a hand, turning vaguely around, as though she might pluck the right words out of the air. "...what the hell is this?"

Training Facilities

If they've brought her here to fight, Laia intends on doing the job properly. And since it seems they're not allowing her any of her actual equipment, she's just going to have to get used to going without. Without a line shield, she'll have to be more alert and agile. Without a nano-transformer, she'll have to content herself to limited weapons and no on-the-fly healing. And something else feels off, too, but she can't quite put her finger on what...

But she puts it out of mind. She puts just about everything out of mind, in all honesty, for she's focusing her frustration and irritation and confusion on the punching bag before her. Fists fly, elbows are thrown, middle and high kicks impact noisily, and on she goes, pushing past any aching or tiredness. Those last few months behind a desk and a microphone had put her off her game, and like hell she was going to stay off her game if what these strangers had in store for her was true.

Later, she's at the weapon rack, considering what to give a try... and looking no small amount confused, too. She pulls a sword free, and is thrown off by the weight and balance of it. "...it's solid? Tch, that's primitive, isn't it?" For all that they'd managed to haul her here, just what kind of rinky-dink low-tech operation were they running?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Huh?" Nitou was carrying off a sad, sad little Salisbury steak he's coated in as much mayonnaise as he could scrape together, but he could take a few moments to answer that sort of question. Not like he's seen this person before. "Ohhhhh," he says as he makes a face, "one of those stupid Games recap specials they like doing."

Laia tears her eyes away from the screen long enough to take in Nitou's face, and then Nitou's dinner. She's not sure that she approves of either of them, but neither of those are the point right now, so she'll hold off on offering any criticism. "I know it's 'Games' of some sort, they keep calling it that!" She turns back to the screen and makes a jabbing gesture towards it with her free hand, while readjusting the ice pack she's holding over her bruised and purpling eye. "Why the hell do they think this is... this is entertainment?"

To be fair, Nitou doesn't even approve of that dinner. It is an awful dinner. Not even mayonnaise has much of a chance of saving that rubbery steak. "Yeah, they do. That's how they run things here. Grab a bunch of strangers from different worlds, make 'em fight to the death, bring 'em all back, and repeat the process." He's far too used to this.

Laia's expression is all unimpressed scowl and building outrage, right up to the point that Nitou talks about bringing them all back. Her eyes go wide and her face twists into something deeply uncomfortably. "They what? Bring them back from the dead?!" There are some things that are just impossible. Or if not impossible, deeply unsettling and wrong. That's one of them, right there.

"Yeah." He would like to tell her about what he's seen where that is concerned, but stops himself. He doesn't know her. Gotta put a pin in taht one. "You go in there, you die, you wake up again good as new." He makes a face. "Seriously, I've died a few times. It sucks. Can't recommend it."

"A few times?!" She has gone from shock to anger, and only a considerable exertion of willpower has kept her from leaping from her seat and trying to shake the guy. Because either he's a liar, or there is some serious shit going on in this place. Neither is good. "So what the hell are they doing, hauling in more people, when they can apparently just bring people back from the dead!?"

Finally, Nitou can't take it anymore. He lowers his voice. "Oh, man, it gets worse. I heard it from a guy who heard it from another guy who heard it from some chick who knows some janitor guy, but they save the bodies." He nods, satisfied that at least he's covered his own ass quite well as far as investigating that body dump. "And then you come back with a brand new one. Dunno what that's all about, but it's messed up. Don't know why they do it."

Caught up in the drama of the moment, Laia leans in closer to Nitou, her own voice lowering to the same conspiratorial level. "...seriously? So they're cloning? That is messed up. And illegal." Where she's from, anyway, but no time to specify that...

She catches herself getting way too close to a guy that's setting off her 'possible scoundrel' alarms, though, and jolts back a good foot, keeping a wary eye on him. "...so who're you, anyway?"

"Well, they make the laws so I don't think they'd think it was illegal, but it is super messed up." He blinks when she jolts back from him, and he grins. "I'm Kousuke Nitou, the Ancient Wizard!" He's very proud of that title, okay. "Who are you?"

"Well it's illegal where I'm from!" She's so indignant that she briefly neglects to keep her voice down. A cough, an anxious glance to the side, and she's back to a more conversational level, appropriate for the nice safe bit of distance between them. He's a... wizard. An ancient wizard. That is shifty as heck.

"Laia Martinez, president of the GUARDIANS security force." This is the first time that she has bothered to throw her title around. It seems appropriate, when you're sitting next to some yahoo that claims he's an Ancient Wizard.

"It's probably illegal most other places, too!" Nitou isn't all that good at volume control to begin with, especially not when the other person isn't keeping their voice down, either.

"Oh...I haven't heard of that." Nitou cocks his head to one side. "...are you some kinda cop?" Should he maybe be worried about the president of some security force?

Naaaaaah.

Laia looks absolutely taken aback at the flippancy of his answer. The face she makes hurts, but damn it, she has to make it in response to that. "Calling a Guardian 'some kind of cop' is like calling a De Ragan 'some kind of little lizard'!"

Maybe he should be worried. She's turning kind of red.

"...if I knew what a De Ragan was, then...sorry?" Nope, Nitou has no idea what he's even done quite so wrong and is both blinking in surprise and maybe scooting away just a little. "You know, I think they've got blood pressure pills here, probably."

Now she actually is red. Red has been reached. Red is go.

"You don't even know what a...! It's huge and has wings and jaws and... and okay, screw you, someone get me a napkin and a pen, I am showing you what a De Ragan is, you... you... wizard!"

"Hold on, give me a second." Look, with yelling like that, it shouldn't be a surprise that somehow, some way, Nitou manages to procure just that. (Besides, it gets him away from the scary red lady...) "There you go, knock yourself out."

"Hmmph!" Without so much as a thank you, Laia snatches the pen, lays the napkin out, and gets to sketching. The end result of the sketch is a dragon, more or less. Big jaws, wings on the back, four legs, tail with spikes, little puff of fire breath...

"That is a De Ragan! Honestly, if they don't have those where you're from, it's probably better for it."

"Oh, a dragon!" There's a pause. "Haruto doesn't let it out, but we've got that back home, yeah." Oh, he misses his friend. Made himself sad there.

Choose to Fight for a World Beyond

Cafeteria

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