Scene #8922: Favors and Apologies

Owner	Pose
Kale Hearthward	PHONE: Phoning Hibiki Tachibana, Kale Hearthward says, "Tachibana. Can we talk?" --- There's any amount of 'neutral ground' available for meetings, both remarkable places as well as unremarkable ones. For every sacred meeting ground, carefully demarcated demilitarized zone, heavily guarded nightclub owned by a mercantile third party, or otherworldly time and space out of space and time... there's a few dozen back rooms in restaurants, quiet corners in food courts, or otherwise generic places where two people can meet while mutually abandoning authority and home field advantage. Warpgate Corridor 35DB, essentially an airport terminal but for warpgates, is such a place. Nobody here has even heard of Kale or Hibiki or Petra, or Quicknest or the Gale Empire, or often even knows of the Paladins or Watch except by name. Kale has a table in a back corner of a coffee shop here, well insulated from the foot traffic (even if, as previously mentioned, nobody knows or cares). There's counter ordering, if Hibiki wants to grab something before sitting down. "I need some help," Kale says, jumping straight into the topic du jour. "With Petra."
Hibiki Tachibana	Well, it's not like she'd just say no to Kale coming to her specifically. Even if she's not sure immediately what for, making her way into the aforementioned Warpgate Corridor 35DB - somewhere she's sure never heard of and probably will never be coming back here after, which puts her on pretty even ground with everyone else coming and going. It's a little nice, in its own way, to do this somewhere that there's not even the slightest chance she'll be recognized as anything but another passerby. So when she rolls in, an over-the-counter iced coffee in hand and looking mildly dissheveled as usual, Hibiki settles into the seat opposite of Kale and leans back while eying him up. When's the last time they had a one-on-one talk? Was it ever? She can't remember. Although she doesn't seem terribly surprised by the subject he jumps into. Her brow furrows. "...With Petra," she repeats, shifting her weight in her chair. "Is this about the whole deal with Quicknest?"
Kale Hearthward	"Yeah." Kale, for his part, doesn't look terribly well either. The usual amount of alertness that Hibiki has seen him with before is clearly lacking. He has, at least, changed out the thick concert-technician headphones he's been seen with recently, and is instead sporting lower profile earbuds that are only faintly visible through his headfeathers. "Do you need- I mean, are you read up on the situation?" "A couple of Paladins - Ru Li, Futaba, and myself, are going to try to wrest control from her. We could..." Kale pauses. There's still a bit of pride here, even if he's already at the point where he's evidently asking for help. "... use some assistance. Just to make sure. I think we've got this, otherwise, but just to make sure, you understand." "I'm willing to discuss trading favors, if that's what it'll take." There. That makes it feel more like a bargain, instead of begging.
Hibiki Tachibana	It's true; Hibiki is used to seeing Paladins operative Kale Hearthward at his prime, not the state he's in now. She's not entirely ignorant as to why, of course. The look on her face as he asks how much she knows conveys enough understanding that she probably has an idea of how much he's been going through it lately. She does keep up with the radio and reports, even if she doesn't come off like the kind of person who would. Kale Hearthward says, "The Gale Empire's been working for the good of the whole continent! They wouldn't just..." Yeah, she was listening that day too. "...Read up enough. First I've heard of you getting together a squad for this, though." And she's listening now, her expression growing marginally more complicated as he goes on. She hasn't touched her coffee despite, you know, buying it. After he's done, she's quiet for several seconds. "You don't gotta try and butter me up with deals, so don't worry about that." Hibiki finally pipes up, rubbing at the back of her neck awkwardly. "I know I'm some big super-terrorist now, but I'm not at the point where I'll make you do secret backroom deals to get my help." Yet. That's probably her way of trying to bring some levity into the situation. It doesn't really work, given her expression doesn't change much. "...It's not like I've been happy with what's going on at Quicknest either." She looks like she's going to add onto that, then closes her mouth, shakes her head, and looks at Kale again. "Is it just you and those two? And probably Ishirou too, I'd guess? What made you come to me instead of more of the Paladins? You normally wouldn't."
Kale Hearthward	Kale hesitates again. This time, it's due to him needing to get his thoughts in order, instead of needing to suppress his pride. The easy part first. "Me, Ishirou, Ru Li Cheng, Futaba. Us four locked in. Maybe Princess Strawberry if she's available, she's busy with a lot of other things these days. Lilian and Tamamo, though, are... complicated." "... It'd be really nice if Lilian could just... snap her fingers and make the problem go away. Like, literally snap her fingers, and Petra would listen. But that's not going to happen. For... reasons." Kale feels, before he even finishes that paragraph, that this isn't going to be a sufficient explanation. He doesn't know if he has a sufficient explanation, but he's going to try, even if it's going to be half conjecture. "I think... Lilian can only do that so often before Petra would be hard to control, though. So far Petra hasn't killed anyone, though she's done a lot of damage, so it hasn't risen to that level yet." "... Honestly you can ask Lilian." Kale also sort of banks on Hibiki not actually doing that. "I'm... also asking Proudpick and Sundew, but they're going to have conditions. I think Petra would literally kill Proudpick without a second thought, and I don't think we can babysit him with everything else going on." "I'm going to ask Bercilak, also. He's at least going to hear me out tomorrow." Kale pauses. "As to why you specifically... I know you. I've known you for a while, even if we haven't really... talked. I saw how you were doing while we were trying to help Niko and the WorldMachine. Whatever your affiliation, you do good work." "And also, I..." Kale trails off, and glances to the side. "Have maybe not been entirely... unaggressive, towards people outside my faction. I don't think the amount of people who'd at least hear me out is all-encompassing."
Hibiki Tachibana	"She probably could," Hibiki admits on the subject of Lilian stopping things, finally bringing her drink up to her lips for the first time. Her eyes are on an empty spot of the table surface while she takes a long sip, and they don't leave it when the paper cup is sat back down. "...But then she'd be solving everyone's problems again. And the less she has to, the better." There's a heavy sigh after, and another rub at the back of her neck. "Things with me and Petra are... pretty complicated." Hibiki says, understatement of the century, while they exist in the weird sort-of-but-not-really frenemies state they currently do. "But I at least know I'm not the biggest fan of the whole supervillain arc she's had going on." Stealing a Chaos Emerald and crashing an orbital refugee habitat wasn't great. Quicknest's residents getting made into power sources isn't great either. Eggman in general isn't great, even if he's been good to Petra and Angela, and she doesn't only think that because of the whole cage thing at Petra's birthday party. Just thinking about it all makes her run a hand through her hair in exasperation. Luckily for Kale, at least she probably won't be asking Lilian. Hibiki gives a nod at the list of others Kale brings up - and also to the fact Aidan would probably fucking die - before pausing to listen. By the time his eyes are shifted off to the side, Hibiki is basically doing the same in the opposite direction. "Well, as long as we're glossing over the time you pitched killing me to Petra..." She does not, actually, seem like she's really that torn up about it. "...Yeah, I guess we have known each other for longer than either of us would think. We don't see eye to eye on everything, but I know you still try... want to try to put your heart in the right place." Beat. "If I was upset about you being bad at it, I'd be a hypocrite." Her attention goes back to him. "...Okay. If there's anything I can do to help, I will. I probably should've tried to get things in order from the Watch side of things months ago, but no point worrying about could've-been's now. But I do got one question." "Assuming you do stop Petra and free Quicknest... you have any idea what's going to end up happening with the Gale Empire after that?"
Kale Hearthward	> "Well, as long as we're glossing over the time you pitched killing me to Petra..." Oof. "... No, okay, let's not gloss over that." "It was a shitty thing to say and I didn't really mean it." "I apologize." > "If I was upset about you being bad at it, I'd be a hypocrite." Also oof. > "I probably should've tried to get things in order from the Watch side of things months ago, but no point worrying about could've-been's now." "You need to either get Aidan in order, or burn him as an asset. There aren't any inbetweens." "He wants to do good, but he has no idea how to act on it, or - how to do so in a way that isn't putting his own interests and pride first. He has his support crew, which I expect enable him a bit too much instead of providing a reality check." Kale's crew bring him down, as jesters do to a king, and he's kind of sour grapes about that. "As far as I'm aware..." He's very aware, because he's picking this up from both Aidan and Hibiki's minds now. "He hasn't pursued help from his Watch comrades. He's only now pursuing training, and that was after I told him he really needed to do so. Grier is one more incident away from putting a bullet in his head, isn't she?" The Gale Empire is brought up. Kale takes a breath. "I am making one last attempt to resolve this with some degree of diplomacy." "After that, they don't get any special treatment, no more or less consideration than any other slave-owning warmongering nation would from the Commonwealth." Kale glances to the side. "One last attempt before that, though."
Hibiki Tachibana	It was a shitty thing to say and I didn't really mean it. I apologize. Hibiki seems mildly uncomfortable about someone saying sorry for extremely understandable reasons, because she's just sort of like that. "I... forgive you." It took her all her willpower to not just say 'it's fine'. "Really. ...I haven't exactly been a model person or anything a lot of the time." Also oof. It's okay, Kale. She got herself in the backblast of that one too. You need to either get Aidan in order, or burn him as an asset. Grier is one more incident away from putting a bullet in his head, isn't she? "Yeah," she exhales out as a reply to both of these, in the same approximate vibe as Kale is about to have regarding the Empire. "Can't leave things alone, or they'll only get worse. I'm gonna have to try and use him asking for training as an in to help him get his crap together." She brings her cup back up and takes a lengthy gulp of coffee that's probably still kind of hot. "...He's buried himself real deep, and I'm kinda getting sick to my stomach watching him go deeper. Once Quicknest is outta the way, I'm hoping he can start going up instead of down." One last attempt before that, though. "Mmn..." Hibiki makes a sound of affirmation, looking thoughtful after. "...I haven't forgotten, even if it was a pretty long time ago now. When I spoke with the Emperor, on his airship. How he heard me out, talking about Camembert Way and why things had to be the way they are." She takes another long sip of her drink." Unless he's changed a lot since then, he wasn't completely unreasonable. Thought he was doing legitimate good for the long run. He just-- felt like he was pushed to doing things as forcefully as he was... because he was desperate to protect his people. Worried the worst would happen, because of the disadvantage the Empire was in compared to the Multiverse. I think that fear controlled a lot of what he did." At some point during that, her eyes fell down onto the table again. They linger there for a minute before she glances up to Kale again. "You mentioned trading favors? ...Then however things end up going, I want in on it. And if it comes down to fighting him and the Empire, I'll help with that too. Call it not wanting to see the crap between Aidan and Eggman ruin everything on your world."
Kale Hearthward	"Oh, that's right..." "... My medic, Hazelthistle, was there too. She mentioned to me that she remembered you, after the first time she saw you outside my world." Kale pauses. "And... you get it, I think." "The emperor - before becoming Gale II, his name was Augustus. When I wasn't on missions, my rotation included being on bodyguard detail for the heirs, and I ended up getting to know him there. He was always a lot more interested in technology and gadgets than anything else. Including ruling." "And so when he became emperor all of a sudden... I don't know if he was really up for the job. He cares, but he does stuff like this." Kale glances down at his own drink, long since empty. "You'll be in on it. And - more than that. For helping to figure out what comes next if..." Kale pokes at his empty cup. "I know I'm being unreasonably optimistic. But - if we can get everyone back from Petra, and get some sense into Augustus..." "... maybe, I don't know. We can get things back not just to where we were before, but better. Like this is finally a catalyst for change. To make it the Empire I knew, not just the Empire that I thought I knew." "... Probably still hopeless. But still important to try." "Thank you, Hibiki."
Hibiki Tachibana	While Kale speaks, Hibiki finishes off her own coffee. It's empty by the about the same time he's done, where she sets it aside before glancing back to him. Despite her usual tired-looking demeanor - and his - she gives him one of those tiny and muted smiles. "I think... it only really becomes hopeless after everyone has given up hoping. As long as you're still up for trying to make it happen, there's always a chance. I'm the last person you should take advice from, but I think it's worth holding onto that optimism." Her expression drifts back to neutral, where she takes a small breath in, then out. "...Still won't be easy. Real good chance there'll still have to be a whole lot of fighting before Augustus does any real listening. You know what they say about getting worse before it gets better. But I'll do whatever I can. ...It'd be nice to see you get to go back to a home you can be proud of." "You're welcome. And... thanks to you too, Kale. I'm glad you asked me."