ya gotta wanna be a battering ram

[headandhand]

WHO: The entire dang city.
WHAT: Dualis Days, a week-long summer celebration.
WHERE: Central Square Park and the rest of the city.
WHEN: June 17-23.
WARNINGS: Terrorist violence, likely some blood and injuries. Please warn in individual threads!

June 17; Central Square Park.

Every year for as far back as anyone can remember, the start of summer is heralded by the week-long festival known as Dualis Days. This celebration officially kicks off at midday in the middle of Central Square Park with a commencement speech by the current mayor. This year marks Marcelina Dubanowski's third term as mayor of Dualis; she is an average-sized, middle-aged human-presenting woman with blonde hair styled in a short bob and a plastic, toothy smile that never seems to turn entirely off.

"Welcome, one and all!" she begins, with the practiced cadence of someone who is quite comfortable with public speaking. She invites all citizens, new and old, to spend the next week indulging in festivities in all districts of the city and getting to know their neighbors a little better. This is a joyous time of celebration, and the crowd responds with enthusiastic applause as the mayor finishes her speech and introduces this year's parade marshall, Peshtigo Tengfei.

Tengfei blows a whistle six times to signal the start of the parade - and this is where the celebration goes sideways.

A loud explosion tears through the air, and it's followed by panicked screams and the sharp screech of microphone feedback. A bomb has gone off at the platform where the mayor was standing, collapsing the wood and tearing it to splinters and dust. Chaos erupts in the gathered crowd, and as the people shift in all directions to get clear of any possible additional bombs, a loud siren cuts through the cacophony, calling attention to the sudden crackle of video feed present on all television screens throughout the city, including those set up in the park to broadcast the mayor's speech for those standing far from the stage. The picture is plain, a black background and bold white block letters filling the screen:

WAKE UP
WAKE UP
DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES

The final image is an anatomical graphic of a human heart, displayed for about three seconds, and then the feed goes black again.

Confused murmurs sweep through the crowd as citizens resume tending to the injured and evacuating the area until official first responders arrive.

June 17-23; aftermath around the city.

Dualis Days continues as scheduled, though Mayor Dubanowski is unable to enjoy the festival, as she is spending the week in the hospital recovering from her injuries. A team of Iterations guard her door - no visitors allowed - but the news media frequently report updates on her condition. Nothing to worry about, folks! Return to your celebrations, and don't mind the increased visible presence of the Hand as Iterations are stationed every few blocks throughout the city. It's only for your protection, after all.

Comments

[cadiastands]

She has a double-headed eagle insignia on one breast of her khaki tunic. It's very dystopian-future-does-Prussia, so military would a safe bet.

For her part, Mira doesn't even pretend not to be looking her new acquaintance over from head to toe, not that she gets much beyond the fact that any weapon he might be carrying is very well concealed. And he's a civilian. Surrounded by civilians.

She raises an eyebrow at Nida 'choosing' to call his planet something, then stiffens at 'sorceresses,' her expression hardening. He looks untainted, and any sorcerer still sane enough for this conversation wouldn't go about casually mentioning the fact. "Then you had a fortunate escape, it seems," she says, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Second Lieutenant Miranda Nero, 203rd Cadian regiment. We have no dragons, but other worlds do."

[skyward_eyes]

“Other worlds works. Still nets me points,” Nida shrugs off.

Frankly, Nida might be pleased to know he’d been taken for civilian. No bigger compliment to a mercenary who was supposed to be good at spying. Better yet, nothing better for a guy who has already chosen to retire from that at the cushy age of twenty-one. Civilian is the goal and if he isn’t radiating trained soldier after the last few days he is glad.

“Fortunate escape, Lieutenant? On the Sorceress front? Hyne above are you ever right. Worst months of my life. Quite handy with a gun, I see. Gotta admit, I’m massively impressed. I know one sniper and he would have had trouble matching that performance.”

Unless he wanted to impress a lady. Then Irvine would likely bring the A game.

[cadiastands]

Mira relaxes after Nida reveals that he shares her opinion on magic, or at least when she thinks that's what he's doing. She's good at a lot of things, but detecting subterfuge doesn't rank among them. Teasing out subtler threats is the Inquisition's business--she's trained to fight the visible, heavily armed kind.

"He can't be a very good sniper." Everyone likes a compliment, but Mira's expression shades over into the skeptical one of a person who suspects she's being damned with faint praise. At that range, any Cadian old enough to see over the counter of the booth ought to be able to hit a few moving targets. "Let me guess, PDF?" She pauses, then makes allowances for Nida's obvious civilian-ness. "Planetary Defense Force?"

Mira sounds uncannily like a manager who's just been confused for a part-time cashier. PDFs don't have the best reputation--they're almost always the soldiers who weren't good enough to levy for the Imperial Guard.

[skyward_eyes]

“Not by a long shot. Former SeeD. Which will mean nothing at all to you I expect, if you bounce around planets.”

But he is okay with that. Most people don’t take ‘mercenary’ too well. Or child soldiers. He has gotten used to that fact and edits his discussions of things to compensate. And he takes no offense to her evaluation of Irvine. Instead he shrugs and looks toward another game. He really needs to win his guy a prize.

“Military society for you?”

[cadiastands]

Child soldiers would be the one thing she would take well.

"I'm Cadian," Mira says, puzzled, like that should explain everything. She follows Nida's gaze to see what's drawing his attention, just in case it proves to be dangerous to something besides her composure.

[skyward_eyes]

“Which means nothing. Sorry,” Nida rolls his shoulders in that way that says he is truly lost. “Is it associated with Earth? A lot of people I meet from other places seem associated with that Earth place, past or future.”

He’d meant to visit, but it didn’t seem likely now. And still his eyes dart around, looking for something. Sadly the games don’t really suit his skill set. Not that his wandering eyes are meant to put the woman on the defensive. By every metric he knows they should have a good two days before things happen.

[cadiastands]

Where the hell is this Hyne system that Nida's never heard of Cadia?

"It's part of the Imperium, so you could say it's 'associated' with Earth, yes," Mira says, incredulous. Accustomed to a galaxy of millions of inhabited worlds, she hasn't made the logical leap of considering she might be in another universe entirely.

[skyward_eyes]

“Strange. Billy hadn’t mentioned an Imperium,” Nida muses. Perhaps that falls into the whole ‘different dimensions’ thing. “Well, anyway, I’m not familiar with Earth. No one on my planet has even gotten further than our moon. Which is covered in monsters. Which is a thing.”

Yeah, no games, so he turns his attention fully to the soldier woman. Really, he’s intrigued. Her military sounds so... strange. Seems like Galbadia, which makes him leery. They messed up a lot with their aggression.

“How but is this Imperium?”

[cadiastands]

"Millions of systems. I doubt anyone but the Emperor Himself knows the exact number." If Nida's from a lost world, everything he's saying makes much more sense. It also makes Mira more inclined to be helpful. "'Earth' is an old name for Terra, if that helps at all," she offers. "I wouldn't expect anyone to be using it outside of poetry or the occasional oath."

I apologize for him. Someone spent seven months telling him Star Wars as a bedtime story

[skyward_eyes]

Oh my is she about to get a shock then. Because the ‘poetic’ name is the one he’s always known.

“My boyfriend is from Earth,” Nida shrugs. “New York specifically. We were supposed to be going back, but life throws curveball.”

Still, the rest for what she said has his eyes lighting up in intrigue. This.. this sounds like stories Billy has told him, and that is exciting. Emperors and united star systems and soldiers and space magic!

“You’re like Star Wars!”

welp

[cadiastands]

What.

"There's war among the stars, yes," Mira says, taken aback by Nida's sudden excitement and clueless as to what caused it. "The Imperium is beset by enemies."

If any copies of Star Wars survived the Age of Strife, the Inquisition has certainly declared them heretical and locked them away to rot somewhere.

Re: welp

[skyward_eyes]

No he will get to space soon. Because he hasn’t heard enough about space from Picard and Crusher. And he wants her take too. Hyne he is never going to get back to his people today. Oh well. He can find Seifer later.

“Please, please tell me you don’t have light sabers. They are so stupid sounding. More if you have fucking lightsaber double sided poles!”

[cadiastands]

"It's not a sword pattern I've ever heard of," Mira says with a blink. She approves of strong opinions about weapons, but opinions that strong about weapons you've never personally seen strikes her as a bit excessive. "But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist somewhere."

[skyward_eyes]

“It shouldn’t. Hyne above, it would be even easier for a training polearms user to cut something off. Like their own damn head. Granted I wouldn’t mind using one to take a dragon apart because fuck those but...”

Right. People don’t need to know about his loathing of dragons. So he clears his throat some and considered her. Back on topic.

“My world only has the starts of space travel down. An orbital station, trying I to orbit, but never going anywhere. Would you be okay with telling me some? Nothing whatever your intel branch would get angry about and be like. Just tell me what it’s like to be out there. I like too gather space stories.”

[cadiastands]

Nida's just asked for the equivalent of stories about riding in a World War II troopship to go storm the beaches at D-Day. Mira squints at him, wondering about his sanity, then sighs. "I suppose it can't hurt, but let's at least find a bench."

[skyward_eyes]

A bench? Well he can definitely provide that for them. Closes his eyes for a second and considers before pointing off to the left.

“Two hundred paces that way, turn right after the popcorn stand. Or behind us, five hundred paces by a blue and gray striped stand with ring toss. Or if you want a table we take a right here, three stalls, left, then fifty paces.”

Situational awareness? Check. And maybe he has wandered here a lot today. Or both. Both is good.

[cadiastands]

That is some superb mental mapping, and combined with Nida's thoughts on swords, Mira's reconsidering her evaluation of him as a civilian. Either way, she doesn't want to keep standing there in the middle of the street holding a child's toy while they chat about logistics. Since it's the closest, she sets off for the table.

"What do you find so appealing about space travel?" she asks over her shoulder.

[skyward_eyes]

Once they get to the table Nida takes a seat, after adjusting it to give himself decent sight lines without verily compromising gets. Professional paranoia to be quite honest, and one habit he just can’t shake. Well, one of many.

“Honestly, it’s a silly little thing left over from my childhood. An expansion above and beyond a longing to fly. It’s about freedom. Somewhere out there,” his hand gestures to the sky far beyond them as if to encompass space itself, “there had to be a better place than the closest thing I had to home. Add in a little bit of me as a kid, stretched out on the roof of our cabin, looking up at the stars through gaps in the trees as my dad taught me the constellations. A connection to the family I don’t have anymore. Forgot that part for so long. But I always loved the stats and the skies.”

[cadiastands]

Mira had not been expecting that much openness from a near stranger, and she cocks her head, expression softening slightly.

"And since your world had no spaceflight, you couldn't know what was out there," she says. That makes sense. "There's no escape in the stars, Nomura. War is everywhere."

[skyward_eyes]

“Yeah. I know,” Nida sighs, shaking his head. His world has been through enough of it. He doesn’t expect to find peace anymore. Just to carve out a piece for himself and those he loves and protect that much.

“I’ve given up hope for the cosmos.” It is a pragmatic statement, and his expression is briefly dark. Then he moves on.

“But I am still interested.”

[cadiastands]

"Well..." Mira drums her fingers on the table, putting her thoughts together. What to tell someone who knows nothing at all about the subject? "The only way to travel between star systems in a human lifetime is through the Warp, the realm of daemons. Without the light of the Astronomican on Terra to navigate by, ships would become hopelessly lost. The Imperium would disintegrate."

[skyward_eyes]

“Interesting,” Nida muses as he listens. That completely doesn't agree with how Billy explains it and how Picard’s ship did. Interesting indeed.

“And a daemon? What would that be?”

[cadiastands]

"Creatures in service to the Dark Gods," Mira says. "Monsters."

She's neither superstitious nor easily rattled, so she doesn't make the sign of the Aquila when she starts talking about Chaos, but it's still not a pleasant topic.

[skyward_eyes]

Oh. Well Nida relaxes at that, quite bored at the idea.

“I was really hoping there would be something new out there. I am tired of monsters.”

He has been fighting monsters since he was young. The idea of more of them in space squashes his desire to know more.

[cadiastands]

"They can't break through to the material world under most circumstances," Mira assures him. "Only if someone opens a gateway."