Exile on Main Street

[Dracos]

"Yeah, it's a shitty average.  We'll have to do better.  How can any one person wipe out entire cities?  We've been doing that for decades Rez.   At least us Americans have.  He just happens not to need a tool.  Shade well...  he got himself killed didn't you say that?  You can't help a man trying to die."

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"People are supposed to need tools, Drac.  They're meant to be hard to get.  You aren't meant to wake up some day and . . . and . . . Ayame didn't try to die.  She sounded scared.  Holed up somewhere, waiting for the end,"  Rez's tone changes, "How the fuck can you people be so calm about this?  Seriously?!  I mean, it hardly seems to phase you, Drac, and Ginrai's been running around like nothing happened!"

[Dracos]

Dracos gets up, leaning against the wall.  "I've told you for years Rez, nothin' phases me.  I'm already insane, so what does a few tings here and there do?  Maybe someone just needs to be calm because it's there?  Maybe it's just because if I worried about things I couldn't change I'd go nuts?  Either way, it's how I am.  Hell, feel free to get angry at me for it if you need man.  But don't keep on like this spiraling into depression.  It don't go nowhere and you know it."

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Bjorn has been silent for some time, but now he speaks up, his expression still abstracted.  "I suspect, if you asked a doctor, he'd tell you I'm not dealing with this well.  I killed people, with my own hands, and frankly, anyone who tells you he can just shrug that off is either lying, or should be put down."

But now his gaze focusses on the world again, and hardens, and he looks Rez in the eyes.  "But I killed because they trapped me, and tried to experiment on me, as if I were no more than an animal below notice.  They tortured Ashnod, drove him mad, until he wanted to destroy them, no matter the cost to him or anyone else.

"They have no right, legal or moral, to do so.  And I have to do everything I can to stop them, or I won't be any better than them.  And that means I can't stop until it's over."

Bjorn's gaze does not waver.  "People died because I failed, because I didn't figure out what Ashnod was going to do soon enough.  Now I have to make up for that.  And that's all there is to it."

[Dracos]

Dracos glances at Bjorn, "Pardon my...bluntness.  I agree with your self analysis except for the last part, Bjorn.  Even if you had god's own sight and knew what Ashnod was going to do.  Why would it be your repsonsibility to stop him?  If you can think of a way...perhaps maybe.  But even had we beaten him unconscious and dragged him along, we would've only saved a man who's soul had taken one too many blows and then been denied his revenge."

Dracos shrugs, "Perhaps though I'm still too traditional a thinker."

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"Because there were a shitload of people both in the workshop who we didn't need to kill, and probably a fair few civilians got killed by that quake, too.  In case you forgot."

[Dracos]

"I didn't forget.  I just don't see the reason to claim entire responsibility upon our shoulders for not forseeing the full effects of Ashnod's vengeance.  What would you have done, Rez, had you known?  Tie him up?  Beat him unconscious?  Kill him?  Would you have pulled your bow and shot him directly to stop him from doing that?"

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"You don't kill for vengeance," Bjorn says, harshly.  "You avoid killing, whenever possible.  Ashnod's 'vengenace' caused people to die who had nothing at all do with it.  Or did you think that all that flaming wreckage and earthquake just happened to miss anyone who wasn't involved in the Workshop?

"Ashnod was wrong.  He had been driven mad, but that means he needed to be cured, not indulged.  His own daughter will grow up without parents, now, and he accomplished nothing.  If the Workshop could be stopped by what he did, then it would have been shut down simply by our escaping.

"What he did had no moral superiority to what the Workshop did.  If we were willing to kill them, why not Ashnod?

Bjorn stares blackly at the floor, and then slumps.  "Yes.  I would have killed him if I'd figured it out in time, and couldn't talk him out of it, and then my nightmares would have been twice as worse.  But I didn't, and so now I need, all the more, to make sure there are no more Ashnods, and no more Workshops to make people like him."

[Dracos]

"Fair enough, Bjorn.  But we didn't know.  And couldn't have.  It's done.  It's over with.  Now what remains is where we go from here.  Yes, it's more complicated then that perhaps, but that's what I see.  I see a lot of dead people."

Dracos sighs.  "We all think differently on these sorts of things.  If it's what you need to do, you need to do it.  I'll respect that well enough.  I do what I think's necessary to survive and to protect those I call friend.  Currently, I think we need to shape up and recover if we are going to survive.  We're being hunted by a group that is nothing short of ruthless.  Perhaps we can save everyone, and it's a worthy goal...but I'm going to be concentrating on saving us.  The Seventh Cabal must be destroyed...completely."

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"We played right into the hands of Pax Arcana, you know," Rez trails off.

[Dracos]

"Of course we did.  They are going, too.  Preferrably at the same time.  If we eliminate Seventh Cabal alone, we'll find ourselves with sniper bullets in th back of our necks.  If we eliminate Pax Arcana, Seventh Cabal only needs one lucky shot with the amount of force it's shown idle declaration to using.  I want to find out though who runs these two groups.  And remove them.  And allow the chaos from the two headless beasts destroy them both.  Either way though, I don't think we know enough.  We know few enemies and fewer friends.  There is information that doesn't match up and is missing.  We need to find this out."

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"You seem pretty fucking eager, don't you?  I want to see what Ezmereth and Victor have to say . . . but unless it's really good, you know what?  I think I just want to go to ground.  I'm a programmer, and I'm not fucking cut out for this.  I don't want vengeance, I just want to be left the fuck alone."

[Dracos]

Dracos shrugs, "I can't live like that.  I like setting up camp.  Staying in the same spot.  Until this shit is done, I can't go back to my own life.  If I can at all.  Eager?  Meh.  I just want it done with.  I'm violent by nature.  There's nothing I'd like more than to have every single member of both groups explode in a bloody mess and this whole thing relegated to a memory so I can go back to doing something well...fun with my life.  But I don't think wishing it is going to make them leave me alone."

Dracos

[Bjorn]

"You want to be left alone?" Bjorn asks, quietly.  "Like the people in San Francisco, yesterday?  Or Ayer's Rock?  Or the people who used to live in Moffet, back in 2004?

"If you think you can back out, Rez, look at your hand, and ask yourself why it's gold."

[Rezantis]

Rez looks at Bjorn.

"Fair call, except . . . why it's gold doesn't involve killing people unless I need to.  I'm meant to be a defender, not vengeance."