paixaorpg | Masks [Active]

Entry tags:

Masks [Active]

Character(s): Urd, Hei
Content: Exchanging information.
Setting: Urd's relief shop, New Hope
Time: Week 34, night
Warnings: None.

The problem with masks, Urd reflected, was that you became the mask if you hid behind it long enough. A man who cultivated a persona as carefully as Hei was a man with something to hide. Where did Li end and Hei begin? What did he do or see that lead him to cling to that persona even now, dimensions away from where he came from? Could he be an ally or was he just a ticking time bomb of dissonant personalities waiting to clash?

She waited in the shop she had created to aid the other visitors after the mayor had effectively exiled them from the town's shops. It had been used before for covert meetings -- when it came to security against prying eyes, she prided herself in having the best. As she floated in the middle of the shop, one leg crossed over the other, she watched the shop window and tried to ignore the slowly burning need for vengeance that was growing inside her.

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Choosing at will to offer his assistance and share his experiences of working for the Syndicate organization had not been an easy decision for Hei to make. Considering to skip out had crossed his mind, but according to what few options he had as of now it would be reckless and foolish to do so. It would be hard, telling her everything he knew, but he refused to dwell or worry too much about it. He trusted his own instincts to see how this meeting would turn out--hopefully in both their favor.

He walked the streets and followed the map to Urd's shop, in a disguise to blend in with the drones that lived in Paixao. For Yin, he reminded himself. Pretty much everything he had done so far was for the sake of reuniting with his friend, and this meeting would be one more thing.

His lengthy dark bangs and the tan barret cap shaded his eyes as he kept going, moving almost as slow as the pedestrians that passed him. He knew he would be arriving a little late.

Once the front of New Hope came within the contractor's line of sight, he noticed the feminine silhouette in a window, floating. Hei felt his body go stiff for a moment. He would definitely have to be on guard from here on out, for he might be walking into a trap. A contractor, possibly. A Syndicate member. Supposedly, if this were an ambush then he would be ready to counterattack Urd's abilities once she started to use them.

Suppressing his wariness behind a stoic expression, he stepped up to the door and knocked twice.

The door opened by itself with a quiet chime. Urd's low, sultry voice carried from further in. "Come in."

The shop was much the same as the others in the city, Victorian in architecture, though more worn and shabby than some of the nicer establishments no longer available to visitors like them. Faded, yellowed wallpaper lined the walls behind shelves and displays of various items one would need in this strange new world -- clothes, furniture, weapons, first aid items. And in the center, a simple table and two chairs...and not a cash register in sight.

Urd turned her head to take in the sight of Hei in all his stoicism. His eyes seemed flat and emotionless to her, his posture revealing only a trace of tension. Mortals were generally easy to read, but not this one. She smiled, her own dark purple eyes revealing nothing as well.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

The door opening on its own and the way Urd spoke certainly didn't lessen his suspicions. From what he witnessed, the ability Urd used to float and open the door had to be telekinesis. Hei felt his stomach tighten a little. Having to fight a telekinetic contractor again would prove to be irritating, for they often attempted to harm him by moving him into walls or down on the ground. They'd toss flying objects at him too.

She probably wasn't from the Syndicate, maybe from another covert government agency. She could be following someone else's orders. Or she could be pretending not to know anything.

Hei listened and observed to find out whether or not Urd knew his Messier Code number, the star that used to be his sister's before she fused herself to him. Syndicate members would have have his code number and description by now, from the remaining founders that the Public Security police division hadn't arrested.

Hei removed the barret and held it by his side. He moved past Urd to keep a short distance between them, and didn't really look around the shop. He just turned around and faced her once he was inside, knowing better than to turn his back on someone he didn't know. Leaving himself open to search for anyone waiting to ambush would be a mistake.

"I had to give myself some time to confirm my decision." He sounded serious and calm when speaking to Urd.

He made no sudden movements as he continued. "My own primary objective is to locate my friend, who goes by the name of Yin. Kirsi is a name I chose as an attempt to protect her true identity, just as I use an alias to cover up mine." He avoided to mention that Kirsi was her old name, before she became a doll.

"Every choice I make here, I do it for Yin so I could locate her before the Syndicate would. She's the only other member left of my unit. The others are dead."

"Your friend isn't here," she replied bluntly, though there was a note of gentleness in her voice as she watched for his reaction. "It seems as if you're still not understanding your situation. You should know by now that we're not in your world, Hei. Your syndicate, whatever life you had before you arrived here -- it doesn't matter anymore."

Urd shifted in the air, floating towards him with the casual air of someone strolling without a care in the world. "Now what will you do, now that the game board you're used to has been tossed out completely? You're free. Are you relieved? Or do you know how to be anything other than what you've been for so long?"

When Urd floated, there was not a trace of blue glow or her eyes shining red when using her powers. No, she didn't utter BK-201 either.

"I've realized this isn't any place on Earth," Hei told her. The tension in his voice revealed that he wasn't a very patient type of person. His dark blue eyes narrowed. "The power used to create Heartless and make someone's memories appear real extends beyond the variety of unnatural powers I'm familiar to."

As a flame of anger went on the rise inside of Hei, he quelled it and maintained self control. He couldn't let the way Urd worded things get to him. He refused to accept it all. It would mean giving up on his comrade as well as the promise he made to her. As long as there was still life left in him, he wouldn't.

Hei wasn't sure if what she said about there being no Syndicate was the truth. But then he had to consider; would they have let people as corrupt and dangerous as Organization Thirteen continue their schemes to experiment and terrorize everyone they've captured? From those he spoke to from before, it had been going on for at least a while now, way before his arrival. Wouldn't they have made sure no one knew about the Nobodies as well as people such as Hei himself? Or did they not care about that?

There was something he needed to be sure about, something that no one outside the underground government system knew about. After he had paused to contemplate, he stated, "If your memories, or the memories of anyone you know haven't been tampered with, then there wouldn't be any sign of contractors imprisoned here apart from myself... Like you, I am different from ordinary humans. I have powers they wouldn't be able to possess."

"Nothing stays a secret here for long," she answered, turning to set her feet lightly on the ground. Her back to him, she ran her hand absently over the shelving as she walked, looking back at him over her shoulder. "Even the things you think will stay locked inside your heart forever." There was the barest hint of something other than her usual elegance in her voice, a dark edge to her words. "So you may as well stop clinging to your old ways, your old thoughts. Be upfront with everything you are and they won't be able to use it against you."

She moved behind a shelf and out of his immediate line of vision. "I'm not an extraordinary human, by the way. I'm not human at all. In fact, there are less humans than...others, here. What can you do that's so inhuman?"

Hei's eyes followed her as she moved. "Organization Thirteen would use someone's secrets against them... Just as you said from before, they take delight when playing with another's emotions."

Hei had faked emotions as his alias long enough to almost make it an art form. The Nobodies weren't to be underestimated, however. He wasn't intending to hold anything back when it came to them.

Letting everyone know about him being a contractor was a different matter entirely. More often than not, he used Li Shengshun for his safety, and the safety of innocents around him. As long as he was in control while doing what had to be done, casualties were always reduced to a strict minimum.

Hei moved to sit at the table. He retrieved a knife out of the front pocket of his brown slacks and held it on the table's surface, edge down. It was a throwing knife, standard in size and split almost all the way down the middle, rounding off towards the dark handle. His body started to glow blue, his body heat slightly increasing. His eyes shined like a pair of red stars as electricity began to dance around the blade of his knife. Thin currents of blue lightning crackled and hummed around the steel as he kept his mind in focus long enough for Urd to see.

He kept a steady control over his sister's most basic ability, keeping the power just on the knife so it wouldn't spark out of control and set anything on fire. "I can also alter matter at atomic levels. A vague power to change particles."

Well, that was impressive. Leaning against the shelving unit, Urd watched with interest as he displayed his power. She hadn't met a human who could do such a thing, not even here in Paixao where all the rules she was used to changed. Given how little she knew about him and coldness of his personality, the power in his possession was as much of a threat as it was an asset.

"Hmmm..." she murmured, moving away towards the center table. She sat at the chair behind it, facing Hei as she reached under it and took out a rather large bottle of sake and two cups. "You weren't kidding. How does a human come by so much power? What did you have to sacrifice to get it?"

The electricity dissipated in a harmless sputtering spark by the time Urd approached the table. The light bluish glow coming from his skin went away. The red shine to his eyes dimmed back to their normal color.

Hei let the knife lay sideways on the table close to the bottle and cups. He didn't exactly want to put the weapon away right this second when the metal was still warm to the touch.

In hearing her honest inquiry, he knew this was going to take some time to answer. "It's complicated to explain... Are you familiar with the Gates, back on Earth? The colossal unnatural phenomena of the two gateways in Japan and South America have caused hundreds of humans to change once they appeared. Not only through gaining their powers, but in the way they think and act too."

When Hei told Urd he knew he wasn't on Earth anymore, it wasn't hard to miss the fact that Urd seemed at least somewhat familiar as to where he came from. Was she from his world as well, or did she pick up information about it from others who might have come from it?

Urd was familiar with a variety of gates, but she knew the ones Hei spoke of were not any of the ones she knew. Were these gates man-made or divine? As she poured sake into the cups, she frowned slightly. "I'm not certain we come from the same version of Earth. Well, I don't come from Earth at all, of course. I'm from Heaven. But the Earth I visited had nothing like that."

She nudged a cup his way and picked up her own, swinging back the alcohol like a practiced pro before giving him a scrutinizing look. "Do you still have any connection to those Gates? How did they change the way you think? To what purpose was any of this?"

That made him pause, completely. Another version of Earth?

Just when Urd's first breath-taking statement hadn't seemed complicated enough, what came even more baffling to Hei was that she claimed to have come from someplace he wasn't certain that existed.

Ever since that night those Gates appeared causing the sky and his sister to change, his own faith in God had been lost long ago. He didn't know if there was one anymore, let alone whether or not He cared for what humanity had come to. But he was certain there was a Hell. There were dreams that still haunted him from time to time, so he must have experienced something close to the actual thing.

There was no mistaking the bewilderment he showed, and he didn't think about hiding this emotion.

Hei didn't touch his cup. Instead, he silently waited for Urd to back up and elaborate. What she asked had been heard, but that was going to have to take a backseat right now.

She poured out more sake into her cup but paused for a moment as she lifted her gaze, catching his expression. Urd smiled in slight amusement -- this was the most emotion she'd seen on his face since he arrived. Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, she sat back in her chair and lifted her cup to her lips. After a drink, she spoke.

"So you want more information from me before you continue? I'm a goddess. Urd, Second Class Goddess, Limited License. Norn of the Past. I come from a higher plane than yours -- the 10th, to be precise. We gods govern and maintain realities and bring about the proper balance to all things. Specially, I manage Yggdrasil, the holy computer that regulates everything. But we have other departments as well...my sister worked at the Goddess Relief Office, which grants wishes to mortals lucky enough to be chosen."

Hei deadpanned at Urd's amusement as he listened and started to picture this concept of Heaven as an office building of sorts, his lost faith unaffected. Some of the details went over his constantly rationalizing head as he couldn't make sense out of them. The general concept he understood.

He left his own bitter feelings and opinions toward God and Heaven out of this next question. "And do the humans below on the Earth you know recognize you?"

The whole thing about there being different worlds and different Earths was a lot to take in, but he wasn't going to ponder on what he couldn't understand for too long.

Urd waved a dismissive hand. "Ugh, no way. If a god stays too long in the 3rd dimension, our mere presence imbalances things. Usually..." She sighed and looked down into her cup, a faint, wry smile curving her lips. "My sister managed to break the mold, though. That was bad enough, but somehow things worked out for them. Then I got trapped here...I shouldn't even be here at all, much less trapped."

She lifted her gaze to his, setting her cup down on the table between them with a quiet thunk. "Now there's been a fair exchange, so let's get back to you, shall we? My earlier questions?"

Edited 2011-08-31 23:10 (UTC)

Most of her reply didn’t sense to him, but a further explanation on that could wait.

To take Urd through a crash course about the way it has been on his Earth he wanted to be over and done with. Briefing her in was necessary, so she would understand something about his background.

Hei willingly pushed past the uneasiness that washed over him. "These powers weren't originally mine to begin with. My sister gained the ability to generate electric shocks not long after the Gates first appeared. I don't know how she discovered it or the other one, why the Gates had that effect to change her personality, or how she fused herself to me. She fused herself in to save my life, some years after my sister and I first joined the Syndicate.

"Bai used to be this cold, rational person when we were first doing their bidding. She acted solely on the instinct to survive. Her sense of right and wrong had altered as she killed other people without any sense of guilt.” His eyes lowered to glance at the cup on the table. “But then she changed… because she noticed how I’ve stayed close by to protect her. And her actions caused me to be the only contractor without a price…” He paused before his words softened. “Maybe not like the typical remuneration in which a contractor must perform a certain action in exchange for using their powers.”

Before he could let those past memories of Bai take hold, he chose to explain what had caused Bai to do what she did, fitting in the answers to Urd’s questions in the process. "At the South America I used to know; Bai, myself, and other contractors were sent to locate an artifact inside Heaven's Gate. Bai, along with an old friend of ours, had discovered what their intentions were--to destroy all contractors, as well as the human dolls that are also in connection to the Gates. I believe contractors and dolls are linked to them due to the faint radiation we give off when it using our abilities. It matches the same type of energy that exists in distorted reality around them."

The bitter pain for what Bai and Amber had done without telling him was felt again as he continued, his eyes still averted from Urd's. From here on out he was boldly stepping into different territory, sharing some of the memories behind the occasional stress of being unable to get a good night’s rest. "To stop the Syndicate from succeeding, they used the artifact to seal away Heaven's Gate, the incident as a result of the Meteor Shard amplifying her power in order to pull it off... Most of the continent and everyone in it had disappeared immediately after that. So few of us survived. Bai, who's still alive in me, aware of what's going on now. Amber, who had gathered some contractors to fight with her against the Syndicate for the next five years. And one other contractor, before she was killed sometime after I had met up with her again."

She'd expected more reluctance on his part, more dancing around and giving half-answers. Not this stream of information. But then, Hei didn't seem the sort to play games and certainly wasn't a man who did anything in half-measures. So Urd listened intently, feeling a vague sense of dread as more facts came to light.

What were these humans even doing with so much power? There was no surprise that so much as lost, that the price was so huge. The Syndicate and the contractors, fighting and killing and shaking the balance of reality...it unsettled her deeply. This was the very thing she was supposed to prevent. But how could she, when she was trapped here? By the end of Hei's story, she folded her arms and sat back in her chair.

"So the betrayal you suffered is what motivates you now? The presence of your sister inside you reminding you of the price she paid?"

His earlier explanation about what had happened took a lot of willpower and patience. He's never had to talk about Bai and Heaven's War in front of someone he didn't know well. Although it had to be done. On instinct, he didn't think she would use that information for some selfish reason, or tell anyone about his pain. How could she, when she had stated to him of her role to bring balance to different worlds? How he couldn't understand on, but her doing such a thing wouldn't fit...

When Urd said betrayal, the bitter reality of the event that occurred during the end of Heaven's War slammed into him once more. Bai and Amber had both betrayed him, acted behind his back and not say a word to him about what they both discovered.

The questions as to why they hadn't said anything, Hei knew that Bai heard them. She had been there all along with him all these years, and he couldn't see that. Amber had been right; he did blame her for what happened.

"Not exactly," Hei admitted, making eye contact. "But her presence is a reminder of what I've sacrificed..."

"So you aren't willing to accept that it was all for nothing." Urd leaned forward on the table, arms folded on the surface as she met his flat gaze with her own dark, probing eyes. "That after everything that's happened to you and all that you've lost, you'd end up trapped here indefinitely, with no purpose and no one to protect."

She tilted her head, the fall of her silver hair obscuring half her face. "Or something like that?"

When Urd leaned forward, he hadn't moved. You're wrong. I haven't lost everything.

"I saved everyone in Japan, the one that I know. Yin is back there, still alive. I made a promise to protect her, and I refuse to give up on her."

A fierce determination showed through his eyes. "Understand that I'll do what has be done to find the way out of here. With Bai's help, and using all I've been trained to do."

From this point, Hei believed he shared plenty about himself. It had been painful, but he knew there was no other way to build up to state what his intentions were. "You know my true identity, along with events many do not know about. Let's keep this on an only need to know basis towards the rest, to avoid casualties or injuries to those who don't deserve it. Anyone who hasn't been part of any government or some form of higher power who knew the truth about me in my world had died if their memories of me hadn't already been erased. And not always by my hand."

Even if he wasn't part of the Syndicate anymore, he kept his alias for the safety of others. The innocent in his opinion were better off not knowing about the violence contractors were capable of doing. Regular, ordinary people would be quick to feel afraid and defend themselves against the likes of him.

She was silent for a moment, her unwavering gaze taking him in. He really was a humorless, cold and, as far as she could tell, somewhat narcissistic man. He still didn't seem to realize how much the game had changed, how the individual importance of all of them lessened when under these domes. But the conversation had run its course, so Urd leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, eyes closed.

"Alright. And now its your turn again. You wanted to know about the Organization, the documents...the traitor?"

A quiet relief was felt when she complied for this to move onto what he had come here for. He would have been reluctant, even irritated, to respond to any other questions relating specifically to his past.

Hei let the brief tension he felt about that pass as he replied. "I know some information about the Organization already; they being responsible for keeping us here. This, the Heartless, and what it is they're trying to do."

He knew what was more interesting, and it had been embedded into the months of training he and Bai had endured before Heaven's War even started--learning more about the enemy.

"The Nobody who betrayed them..." He paused, and considered to confirm on something towards the street-smart individual he met the day he first found himself in this city. "They're all Nobodies, correct? The meerkat I met hadn't said anything on anyone else."

"If what they tell us can be believed, yes." Urd opened one eye, watching him carefully as she spoke. "But all the information we have comes from them to begin with, so you have to be careful to take their words with a grain of salt. A man like you must have some keen instinct, right?" She smiled, leaning forward on the table, arms on the surface under her chest.

"What is objective fact is that there is some infighting among the members. Apparently Marluxia's goals don't align with the Superior's."

Hei mentally filed away the name as he kept his attention undivided. "I wouldn't take any betrayer lightly. It's only common sense to take caution." For the entire time he's been present within the city, he's followed his instincts. Instead of thinking too much on what defied logic and the laws of nature, instinct served as his guide. Letting all the nonsense get to him was something he refused to do.

He sat up straight as he asked, "What objectives does Marluxia have to cause conflict? Who is this Superior?"

Edited 2011-09-22 22:17 (UTC)

"I don't know what he wants," she was forced to admit to his first question, her smile fading. "But I think its safe to assume it isn't out of any love for us. Maybe it's a personal vendetta, though with their lack of a heart, that seems unlikely..."

Urd fell into silence, eyes lowered to the table in front of them, her gaze a hundred miles away. "The Superior...his name is Xemnas. He's the de facto leader of the Organization. And the most powerful." Her jaw tightened as she closed her eyes, recalling the battle and imprisonment he'd put her through as easily as if it'd happened only hours ago. Electrical sparks crackled around her as her anger flared. "The rest of existence are only pawns to him, tools to use for his personal gain. He uses your memories and emotions against you, twists your own strengths into weaknesses..."

She trailed off.

Hei's eyes lowered and narrowed while processing everything, from the information itself to the way Urd felt when she spoke of these two Nobodies. He remembered what she stated she was, and a bit of her background. He didn't need to look at her to know that she had met the both of them. The sound of her voice had been enough at first, but the sparking electricity coming from her eyes made him re-establish eye contact.

There's no mistaking it; what we're going through is a twisted game to them, us being here. This is their game, and we are their playthings... Hei's hands under the table clenched into fists. They really don't have hearts.

The Syndicate may have devoted themselves to ridding the world of powerful killers to conserve ancient old humanity through means of genocide--but Organization Thirteen seemed to only care about themselves, brimming with confidence over their overwhelming power, devious to an extreme towards everyone else to an extreme.

Now, in knowing a little more detail, he felt not just an intense hatred. The muscles in his throat tightened as his voice thickened in disgust.

"Those who are corrupt with power take it in stride and luxury to do as they please... Their means of achieving their goals through tormenting us is madness." His face started to twitch with anger. "In my opinion, they are a long way off from getting their hearts back." Through his voice and the cold intensity his eyes portrayed, it was evident that he would not hold back on taking any action against them. The Nobodies would receive no mercy from him. None.

But he still didn't know enough on what to do to hurt the bastards. In knowing this, he paused and closed his eyes. He quietly took a deep breath...and then felt it was time to get on with what else he felt he should know about. "The documents. What are they?"

Urd smiled grimly at his reaction, breaking free from her own dark thoughts to watch him with interest. "That's right. Make no mistake, their desire for hearts is not so they themselves can feel again. This is no ploy for redemption. All of it is to fuel and abuse the power they've been working so hard to get."

She leaned back, the smile fading. "Pages of what seemed to have been a larger report were found by various people over their time spent here. Through them we learned this world is called Castle Oblivion and each dimension is a 'floor.' We learned that Paixao was untouched by the Darkness that seems to pervade other worlds, though even they seemed not to understand why." She sighed, closing her eyes.

"They were fragmented, at best. Whole sections missing...to say nothing of reports that might have been found but not shared. The best conclusion to come to, however, is that someone wanted us to get this information."

Hei grimly nodded. All his speculations about the Organization of last week had not strayed from the truth.

Untouched... Something didn't seem to fit with him. There was no emotion to his tone as he voiced out his train of logical thought, to try and make some sense of this. "The Nobodies have the capability to make living creatures made of darkness. This world isn't connected to these other worlds, certainly not mine. The Heartless are a different kind of darkness I strive to understand... Their numbers attacking everyone is something to be concerned about."

He listened intently to Urd's elaboration on the reports, and was quick to think of a possible suspect on who that someone might be. "Marluxia. Do you suppose that he may be the one handing out these reports?

"I was already told that this entire place is within a castle, from a young man over the journals named Riku. And that there are floors in which you are transformed into something else--and you stay that way until you leave."

"I only have a hunch that it's Marluxia, but...it's a strong hunch. For whatever reason, he seeks to actively work against his own leader and sharing information we'd otherwise have no way of knowing seems to be his best bet." Urd stood up from the desk, making a casually graceful path to the window to look out on the dark street. "As for the transformations, they don't seem to affect every person. It's not a constant or reliable thing."

She turned partly, face in profile and half-hidden by shadow as she looked back at him. "Did you have a form of Darkness in your world?"

Hei filed away again while feeling a silent hope that Riku got out of the one floor with his ally all right, all their gear in tact.

As for the theory of Marluxia handing out the reports, it made some sort of sense. Urd's hunch had its merits. "He could be planning a ruse to overthrow Xemnas, by using numbers of us at his disposal." Part of him wanted nothing to do with this Nobody's arrogance, but it would do some good to keep track of his movements.

After feeling that massive wave of silent rage and disgust wash over him, he felt he, too, had to stand. "Only the more typical, normal kind of darkness," Hei responded to her question. "What comes during the night, as well as darkness that spurns in some people's hearts."

"It's the hearts that matter most, Hei." A small, sad smile curved her lips as she watched the silent streets. "In this world as much as any other. So don't let it overtake yours. I'd hate to have assume some responsibility for you too." Urd sighed and moved away from the window, stepping towards him.

"I suppose we'll end our talk for now. At least until we find more information."

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Masks [Active]

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Guess what? Hei's just met Skuld on Six Words. :3

Woo! More AMG muns!

^^ I'm familiar with that Skuld too, from another game way back when...

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