Scene #9248: A complicated scene about Trideag

Owner	Pose
Riku Asakura	PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Riku Asakura rings and when it picks up, "...Hey, I'm calling to ask about joining Trideag, is there a place where we can meet up so we can talk?" PHONE: Lilian Rook transmits a whole lot of dead air, followed by "You're serious?" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Riku Asakura says, "Yeah. I am. I want to help The City." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "After all of that?" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Riku Asakura says, "Maybe because of all of that. I don't want there to be another Black Silence if I can help it." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, ". . ." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Come down to the HQ." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Riku Asakura says, "Alright." True to his word, Riku Asakura arrives at Trideag HQ as instructed. He walks there from the local warp gate and arrives at the gate. He waits to be let in, assuming the people at the front are expecting him. He goes where instructed. Today, though, it's a more somber look on his face. He's not the ball of sunshine he normally is, because he knows how serious this request is. He's here to ask about joining Trideag, especially after fighting against the city's interest in the week-long war that happened. It isn't easy to come to someone you fought with and ask to join them in making The City a better place, especially when you fought against it. At the time, he didn't see things as they were. He thought he was helping save the lives of people who didn't have a choice. Now... Well, now things are different, especially after the Black Silence. He's dressed normally, jean jacket with an orange shirt underneath it, wearing a pair of jeans with tennis shoes on. He's not sure how this will go, but Lilian appears willing to at least hear him out. When he finally gets to her he bows and then speaks softly. "Thanks for at least hearing me out. I know... things are complicated with what happened..."
Lilian Rook	It's not business as usual even at Trídéag Headquarters. The collapse of L Corp wasn't something that Lilian strictly planned for, but placing it in District 12 was deliberate. The adjacent blocks are some of the only places in the Backstreets with the lights still on, and so it's all Fixers on deck for the forseeable future keeping the perimeter and managing the influx of people seeking shelter and protection. Generator technology has always been something that Lilian's connections have been perfectly good at providing, since even before RIFTS Earth, and the Dragon's Garden. No doubt the operation here is going to sprawl once there are simply more hands for it, given the relatively deserted wasteland of the nearby neighbourhoods that were closest and most able to easily move, and the stark difference between the windows that have lights and laundry next to their shattered and darkened equivalent only a few blocks away. The three by three square swarms with people, many camped out on the streets (some of the only ones that the Sweepers can't reach) while waiting processing into the gradually refurbished high rise apartments. He isn't about to stand out. Security around the gate is redoubled after the Black Silence, but it's essentially for peace of mind; nobody else Lilian has the luxury of posting there could stop him, and there aren't any other threats around. He only has to give his name at the front desk before he's waved through in absolute confidence, told that 'the Director is expecting you', and had the Fixer elevator doors opened for him. There's a room for meetings like these. Interviews have a proper process. But Riku was there for something no one is supposed to know about right now, and Lilian doesn't want to delicately talk her way around it. He's sped by remote to the twelfth floor, let out into the upper training facilities while they aren't in use. Just over sixty people have access to it, and all of them are either out on the street, in the Multiverse, or resting, making it effectively a very private meeting room, with no cameras. Everyone but Lilian. Hair tied back, still in her athletic wear, carrying a wooden sword, towel and water bottle folded on a bench, it's clear that she was in the middle of something, and simply declined to pack it away and get dressed just for Riku's benefit. She doesn't actually look his way when he arrives, electing to remain focused on warmup swings instead. It's obvious that, even healed by Tamamo, her arms aren't really in any condition for this, and yet . . . "You don't know the half of it." comes hand in hand with "I appreciate your concern." as though they were related. She takes two swings between them, each too fast to visually track, followed by slow and stiff resets. "I know you have the ability to be a Fixer. I'm not going to assess you after a week of feeling out your abilities." Sharp cracks of air, three in a row, rhythmic as a metronome. "You'd be a solid hire. You have room for improvement, but that's better than someone weak and set in their ways." Four more. She adds one between each sentence. "So forget that." "Tell me how hiring you is going to prevent another Black Silence."
Riku Asakura	Riku swallows when Lilian gets right to the heart of the matter. He takes a breath and swallows it down. It's hard to align his thoughts perfectly for this matter, and hard to think of just how he'd prevent another Black Silence. "I meant another victim of what's happening like him. You know my abilities, any you already acknowledge I would be a good hire so..." "I would be dedicated to making sure another incident like that wouldn't happen. I would push myself to my best to make sure another Pianist wouldn't take someone special away from someone else. I want to look into what's happening and why these things are happening in the city and protect the people from those who would use their powers to hurt others." He scratches the back of his neck and lets his arms fall. "More to the point, there doesn't appear to be anyone in this city who wants to save it more than you and Trideag. I want to put my faith and power to good use to make sure that another heart-wrenching story doesn't have to unfold..." he says before finally... "I also want to correct any harm I've done. I don't know if what is happening is because of or despite what happened at L-corp. I feel though as I have some responsibility for it and want to prevent another story like his."
Lilian Rook	"I know what you meant." Riku doesn't get to trail off. The verbal ellipses are cut short by a swing of her sword and the words that follow them. "The fact that even the Black Silence, a famous Colour-Grade Fixer, can become a victim of this City, should tell you more than enough about what's happening this world. I believe that your good intentions coupled with self-sacrifice and a little elbow grease are good enough to protect your home. I'm asking about this one. This place where the heroes never win." The metronome rhythm of swings ploughs on without pause. The sharp crack of a descending blade, blunt and smooth, the short pause of arrested sinew, absorbing the momentum of the blow, the whoosh of the weapon flicking back into stance again, and a regular bookend pause, burning with rehabilitative effort. The high-low alternating pitch of the air on each movement lends it a nearly hypnotic kind of tic-tock cadence. "You'd be dedicated. You'd push yourself. You want to. You want. Do you think nobody else is pushing? You can't get anywhere in the City with just dedication and want, Asakura. Those are goals. Your personal aspirations. I'm asking you what I have to gain from involving even one more Multiversal variable in this mess." 'I also want to correct any harm I've done.' "You can't." Crack. "Nothing you can do will ever equal the lifetimes of sacrifice that we threw away." Whoosh. "What you and the others took from the City is incalculable. We'll never know how much." Crack. "So I hope you didn't go into this thinking that you could simply make it up to everyone after." Whoosh. "Tell me what you can do to make this right that I can't get from a Fixer who has to live here." Crack.
Riku Asakura	'I'm asking you what I have to gain from involving even one more Multiversal variable in this mess.' "I... don't think you gain anything other than another multiversal. I'm sorry, but I don't think you gain anything from me joining personally. I'm sorry." he says wincing from having to admit that to her, and having to admit that this was probably more for him than it was for her or anyone else. 'Tell me what you can do to make this right that I can't get from a Fixer who has to live here.' "There isn't anything that I have that a Fixer from here would give you. That's... hard to admit. I want to try and do better by this city but you're right, there isn't any reason why you should hire me over someone else who lives here." "What happens at home is different than here, I understand that. I know it's true. But... even still I want to help. I want to give this city something that a place like my city has. Hope. I don't know if I can be that beacon after everything that's happened, but I can't simply look away from this city either." "I'll do whatever it takes, even if that means having to work outside of the Trideag. But... I rather work with you than potentially against you again. I can't fix what I've denied to this city, but I can at least try. Every day until something better happens for the people here. It's selfish, but I can't turn my eyes away from a city like this that lives without hope."
Lilian Rook	'I'm sorry, but I don't think you gain anything from me joining personally. I'm sorry.' Whoosh. 'There isn't anything that I have that a Fixer from here would give you. That's... hard to admit.' Crack. 'I want to try and do better by this city but you're right, there isn't any reason why you should hire me over someone else who lives here.' Whoosh. 'I don't know if I can be that beacon after everything that's happened, but I can't simply look away from this city either.' Crack. 'I'll do whatever it takes, even if that means having to work outside of the Trideag.' "No you won't." Whoosh. Lilian's wooden sword freezes at the apex of its swing. Gradually, her muscles untense, and the practice blade lowers to her side. She gestures to the folded towel, and it drifts over to her of her own accord, falling into the hand that presses it to her face, mopping up sweat before it can soak her bangs. "Because you don't even know what to do. Don't you? That's why you're here. You're looking at the scope of what's gone wrong, coming up blank, and you've come to me, hat in hand, to ask for how you can try and make this right." "That's what this is about. You have power, but you don't know anything; not where to aim it, nor how to use it." She moves down to her neck, and stops after her collarbone. There's no knowing how long her set was, but Riku was at least there for a hundred. Placing the tip of the practice blade against the floor, Lilian starts limbering up for a new one. "Sorry but 'the maturity to recognize one's own weakness' isn't good enough either. Did you think I'd be happy just to hear someone admit it?" "Well . . . I suppose I am, actually." Lilian says, pausing briefly while holding an arm stretch. "But not enough." She switches shoulders. "What you're doing is asking me to do the work for you; the work of thinking, planning, choosing; grasping the big picture, making hard decisions that you feel you aren't ready for; and to pay you for the privilege. I don't fault your willingness, but I'm not asking for it; that's something I expect before someone walks through those doors." She pauses, just long enough to heft the wooden sword over her shoulder, and look back at Riku from the side. "I can put you to use better than anyone else. You'll be far more effective at helping people under my command than as an independent agent. So if you really do care at all about that; effectively helping people; then tell me what you, personally, can and will do, to make this City any better."
Riku Asakura	'You're looking at the scope of what's gone wrong, coming up blank, and you've come to me, hat in hand, to ask for how you can try and make this right.' "It's true, this is something beyond the scope of the problems back home. Where things are a bit more straightforward, where there are just giant monsters that either need to be destroyed or can be healed back to being less threatening." 'So if you really do care at all about that; effectively helping people; then tell me what you, personally, can and will do, to make this City any better.' It wasn't an easy question to answer. Especially with everything she just said, taking him apart bit by bit. Well, not taking him apart, but revealing what he wanted and what she would be doing during all of this. It wasn't an equal trade, it's true. He takes a breath and thinks for a moment. Not immediately going to answer, but to think about his answer calmly. "What I can do..." he starts, thinking out loud. "Is to not stand around and gape with my mouth open every time something happens. I take it seriously as a personal motto that 'standing around doing nothing doesn't accomplish anything.' I might not know every time what to do, but I won't sit around waiting for someone to hold my hand either." "I will protect these people as if they were my own people. Stretch myself as far as I can to protect them, and offer them protection even if it means using my body to do so... and it will often mean using my body to do so."
Lilian Rook	'I take it seriously as a personal motto that 'standing around doing nothing doesn't accomplish anything.' I might not know every time what to do, but I won't sit around waiting for someone to hold my hand either.' "Now you sound like you're threatening to be a liability if I don't take you on." Lilian says. It's unclear if she meant it as a joke. It could be. But she also says that kind of thing seriously, too. Maybe it doesn't matter. "This Association was formed because there are people like that out there. The sort who see what's happening in the City, and can't sit still long enough to reason anything out." "Shaynore comes to mind." she says, turning back away to focus. "The Association exists to permit Elite coexistence with the City's structure; offering the rightful place within its order that they crave in exchange for being subject to pressure that checks their worst and most disruptive impulses. The Head didn't offer me this position because they like me, and I didn't take it out of naïvete either. We both know that the natural impulse upon seeing the City, for anyone who hasn't been rotted by its grand experiment since birth, is to recoil in horror, then lash out against it." ' Stretch myself as far as I can to protect them, and offer them protection even if it means using my body to do so...' Lilian hesitates just before the next swing. Her waster twitches, drifts a few degrees out of alignment, then halts again. Her expression goes misty in recollection. 'You can perceive me?' ". . . Show up at noon two days from now for your medical examination and fitting. You'll have your card sent to you by the end of the week, and your Grade when the Hana Association processes it. You'll report to all of the mandatory training sessions; same as everyone else. Your training group is Solace, Finn, Dart, Cadrasteia, Hearthward. You'll work under Ceri with the civil defense group first and all other inquiries second. Every single thing that Xion or Tokiwa says to you is law. Seeing as you're a fellow Paladin, I'll be twice as fastidious about everything I let you have, to compensate for any possibility of nepotism. And . . ." Crack. Whoosh. "At any moment, if you become too much of a liability to me, I'll use the leverage I already have to hurl you under the wheels and make you public enemy number one of the entire City in a heartbeat. If there is even the slight possibility that you might be a danger to my goals here, you'll regret ever asking me to work here. Understood?"
Riku Asakura	Despite the good news, he doesn't break out into a smile or start celebrating. This is a sobering moment for him, one where he realizes that he's stepped into another world where the laws rightfully suck and the only way to fix them is within the system. So he nods, quickly to what she says. 'If there is even the slight possibility that you might be a danger to my goals here, you'll regret ever asking me to work here. Understood?' "Yes ma'am," he says solemnly, but he can't quite keep the eagerness out of his voice. "I won't let it come to that, I promise. Thank you for the chance to prove myself to you and help The City out the best that I can," he says to her happy to have the chance. He bows again and turns to leave.