Scene #9462: They Do What At The Eucharist?

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Petra is never someone who it's easy to find when you want to, in District 12. Her vast array of esoteric motives means that usually, she'll just show up in the middle of something you're doing, invite herself along, and then vanish; whether that means as an antagonist or an ally to the Watch. It's a big District, after all, and any two specific people in it might never come across each other in their lives, even with the White Nights and Dark Days throwing it into chaos. Just as Berislav is wrapping up a sermon preaching to the Backstreets, as the (fairly small) crowd disperses, the sound of his voice fading away gives room for another sound to enter the air. Music, screechy and haunting, with percussive notes of wet crunching, filters through the alleyways in his direction. It's not subtle; practically broadcasted, like someone obnoxiously practicing a drum solo in the apartment above yours, only to blush and go 'aw shucks, did you hear that? Was it good?' when you knock on their door. As Berislav ventures through the narrow and cluttered streets, just as the smell of iron hits his nose, the music abruptly cuts off with shouts of surprise. There's a few seconds of scuffling, not even long enough that he could interrupt it if he ran inside, and then a series of thumps, and silence. Inside a garage, there's a concrete floor sticky with blood. A handful of disfigured corpses are strewn around, average people of the Backstreets who have been transformed into gruesome musical instruments, nervous tissue stretched upwards like harp cords, a frankly ridiculous rib cage xylophone still inside someone's chest, and so on. There's also, less 'average', the perpetrators, in various tacky animal masks and club-fashion, collapsed on the ground from their recent execution. Petra is there, clutching a severed arm from a woman in a cat mask to her chest while morphmetal slides its way back into the bottle on her hip. Eyes wide and pupils dilated, she's staring at the arm with an expression so intense in a peculiar emotion that it's making her entire body shiver, and hyped up on some kind of neurochemical flood, she whips her head up to see Berislav open the door inside. Simultaneously, the morphmetal blossoms into tentacles again, most of them defensively shielding her while a handful, with a mind of their own, plunge into the cat-woman's corpse. Startled and backing away out of visible fear, Petra blurts out immediately, "I-I didn't do it! E-er-- I-- there was-- you're not with a-anyone else, right?" After a moment, she wordlessly points to another one of the civilians on the ground, without even looking in their direction. As if she can sense it, that one, with their forearm cut open for the tendons to form violin strings, is still alive, but unconscious. Blood dribbles out of the arm Petra's holding to stain her shirt, but she doesn't seem to be bothered.
Father Berislav	"I'd like to end today's sermon with a reading from Peter," Berislav says to the small congregation. There's no soapbox--his experience speaking before a crowd carries his voice far enough. "'Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.'" His green stole and its gold trim faintly shine in the sunlight. "One day," he says, looking up from his Bible, "The powers that be--a Wing, a Finger, both, all--may feel threatened by the love that you show for one another. They may realize that the grip of fear they once had no longer holds you as tightly. But by that time, you'll have realized how tenous that hold was. Practice love now, so that when that day comes, you'll be comfortable in the armor of righteousness." "...Thus ends the sermon. With all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord, saying, 'Lord, have mercy.' For the peace of the City, for the welfare of the Holy Church of God, for your neighbors and your families, and the unity of all peoples, let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy." A familiar face or two in the small gathering might have been at enough street sermons to know to echo that last part. "The grace of of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen." --- With the last of the straggling congregation offered cordial goodbyes and well wishes, Berislav lifts the stole to store it away, only to let it fall to his shoulders at the sound of... "Music?" --- The nose of Berislav's revolver points dead ahead at Petra, only to lower when he realizes who it is. "I know," he says. "You told someone in need that when you were finished, this city would be unrecognizable. I believed you then and still do." He follows her gaze, releasing his grip on the heavy revolver. It falls into an orange void, his back turned to it as he moves to assist who he still can. "I'm alone. Thank you for stopping them and saving who you could. This makes me so sad and angry to see," he says, kneeling beside the injured, unconscious victim. His now empty hand presses forward through an orange tear like the last, and exits with a bulky grey case in hand. It looks like it was built to survive battlefield conditions, hard and unyielding in its construction. It opens with a soft hiss. He starts with a small pair of shears, taking a sample and dropping it into a vial full of grey, cloudy liquid. It begins to fizz, react and turn red. "This... race to the bottom, that goes on every day. People with even an ounce of power, rushing to spend it on eating and terrorizing people with less." He cuts the tendons at their base, loads the red fluid into some kind of aerosolized autoinjector gun and sprays the mixture onto the cut muscle. It begins reknitting itself, every spray of the mixture spurring it on until there's none left. "They call me the Mad Father. But look at what they do--what they do, and celebrate in doing. How easily they can ignore the screams." He ejects the spent fluid, puts the autoinjector away and retrieves a glossy grey tube of some kind of paste. When he squeezes it out onto the wound, the paste dissolves into the unconscious victim's wound. "Wearing these ridiculous masks like this wanton murder, this butchery, is a social event. I heard them scream when you found them," he says, now marking points on the edge of the wound with some kind of applicator, turning a switch and firing self-tightening stitches to close it up. "It's despicable, how they think their humanity can be worn and shed as easily as those masks." Swabbing some kind of disinfectant next and bandaging after, he sighs sharply. "There we are."
Petra Soroka	"I'm alone." "Oh thank god." Maybe recklessly, Berislav saying so has Petra believe him instantly. She sags against the wall, panting unnaturally, and closes her eyes. "I've thought about putting up a surveillance net just to be sure I won't bump into you guys, but that'd probably make me more of a target, and... well, I don't think it'd work." Petra doesn't do anything to help or interfere with Berislav's healing of the unconscious civilian, but it doesn't seem like that choice is driven by any particular moral imperative. Instead, even reassured that Berislav is alone, she keeps herself to the far side of the room, away from the 'instruments' and the musicians alike, with just the bloody arm for company. Slid down to rest her back against the wall, there's still lingering tension in Petra's entire body like a rubber band waiting to snap. "But look at what they do--what they do, and celebrate in doing." "Mmmf?" Petra's noise of acknowledgement-for-being-called-on is muffled by something in her mouth, and when she lifts her face up to look where Berislav's working, she's got the same guilty expression as a dog that just got caught swallowing a rotisserie chicken. Blood is smeared all around the lower half of her face, as far as up over her nose, mixed with drool tinged pink that drips off her chin in gory trails. She swallows, shakily swiping her sleeve across her face to ineffectually wipe the blood away. "I-it's... you know the Pianist?" A kind of ridiculous question, since there's only one pianist it could possibly refer to, and everyone knows it. "These guys got 'inspired' by it. To do all this. Y'know, millions-- ten thousands?-- of years, h-humans have been banging rocks to make music, but this City...." "And the Pianist... you know how that came around. Me and Rita." Petra seems to suddenly notice the arm, bitten-chunk and all, in her hands, and hastily flings it out of her own reach. It thwaps against the far wall, and she curls up to wrap her arm around her knees like a straightjacket. "So I'd better do something. You know?" "It's despicable, how they think their humanity can be worn and shed as easily as those masks." "Masks..." Petra murmurs, a little bleary. "I've been dealing with a lot of masks lately. Everything people do, it's always a little 'more' when a mask or a uniform's involved. These guys, the Smiling Faces, the Udjat, even the Claws and Arbiters."
Father Berislav	When Berislav finishes his work, his own hands are stained with blood. The marks on Petra's face don't bother him--or, if they do, it isn't in the same way that the grotesque musical instruments do. "I was afraid this was related to that," he says, packing away his medical kit and storing it in that other-space. He retrieves from the same place a handkerchief, wiping his hands clean with it, then rises and offers it to Petra. "For as long as people have made music, they've also made bargains, or tried to," he says. "All of that terror, so quickly, and no easy answers from the City's institutions. And why would there be? Wings, Arbiters, Claws--those people don't answer questions, they ask them." He frowns, looking over the room at the slain killers. "So some people imagine that the source of fear can be bargained with or appeased. After all, so many were already trying to do that with the established powers in the City. 'If there's another Pianist, I'll make them think I'm like them,' or something like that. That's what they're thinking, even if they won't admit it or don't realize it." "It's best if you avoid Liza," he says, changing conversational tracks with a little sigh. "Not just in person, but in action. I have to agree with your assessment of the security net idea. I think she'd see that as a provocation, and I also think that other actors in the City who want us gone would find you too tempting a target." He gently gestures to the bodies of the victims with a sweep of his hand. "I'd like to call in some people to clean this up. I don't want our survivor to wake up in the midst of all this, and my friends can get the bodies someplace where Odette and I can undo the worst and start notifying families. May I?"
Petra Soroka	"That's what they're thinking, even if they won't admit it or don't realize it." Petra accepts the handkerchief and wipes her face off, turning away surreptitiously as if she thinks Berislav's mistaken in why he gave her the cloth and she needs to use it quickly before he realizes. "Yeah. Everyone in this fucking City is thinking, like... 'how do I get as far from the bottom as possible'. Maybe the Pianist will come around again, but as long as there's a hundred thousand people more killable than you, then you'll outrun it. One step ahead of the fucking devouring void." "And it gets worse too, even. That bargaining, like..." Petra's gaze angles upwards, looking at an empty spot on the ceiling, narrowed as if she's glaring at something no one else can see. "If people got it into their heads that they could be the next Pianist, then they'd all start running for their turn at the orphan-crushing machine. If for whatever fucking reason your metric for success is the number of bodies you can get beneath you, like these guys, or the Wings, then there's nothing better." She shakes her head. "Whatever. There's no point in bitching about it. I can't even be like, 'why?' when looking at guys like these-- they were the Musicians of Bremen, by the way-- because it's just so... average." "It's best if you avoid Liza," Petra scoffs, dryly amused. "Yeah, I mean, don't gotta tell me twice. I've been avoiding her since she tried to assassinate me last time, which...." She trails off with a sigh. Rather than ruminating any further on the political state of the City or the malicious actors who want her or the Watch gone, Petra slides back to the comfortably unhappy lens of personal relationships. "God. Maybe the time in my life that I've felt least negatively about the Watch, including when I was with you guys, and now I'm practically public enemy number one. Whatever." "I'd like to call in some people to clean this up." "I-I--" Petra's stomach rumbles loud enough to be audible, and she twitches with a suppressed dry heave. Tightening her arms around her knees to hold herself in place, she wrenches her head into a nod. "Y-yes, please. That's good for... them. Yeah." Her willpower flakes away over a matter of seconds, shivering until she blurts out, "C-can I keep one?"
Father Berislav	Berislav procures a burner cell phone, an old flip model, and dials a number. "Hello. Yes. ...Yes, but it's quite bad compared to the usual." He frowns, explaining his answer further to the other party. "There's a level of deliberate cruelty involved. One survivor. The rest need to be moved somewhere clean and cold. Yes, I'm aware. It doesn't need to be very long. Just long enough for us to--I'm sorry could you excuse me just one moment?" He raises a brow towards Petra. "'Keep one?'" he asks, one hand cupped over the cell phone's receiver. "Why?" His eyes drift towards the arm. And the bite mark. "Ah, I see. I'm not sure how you did it, but I can only come to one conclusion, given the tentacles a moment ago." "You don't always need to experience someone's burden literally to understand it, Petra," he gently chides. "One of the killers. Leave the victims be." Berislav returns to the phone conversation. "I'm sorry about that. How long did you say? ...Yes, alright. I'll be here." "They'll be here in fifteen minutes," he says. Eager to change the subject, he brooches her earlier thoughts on the Watch. "We're not a monolith. That's one of our strengths. It's how we can have people like me and Liza, but also like Odette. Hibiki and I don't agree at all on certain things, but I'm still grateful to have her help when we do align, and I'd rather our organization exist like this than as something more accountable to well-meaning but ultimately obstructive ideology. Liza may not like you, but I've only ever wanted you to find yourself, and you have, and continue to, every day. I love you, and I'm proud of you, Petra."
Petra Soroka	"'Keep one?'" Petra averts her gaze, somewhere between ashamed and nauseated. She can't bring herself to answer, letting the viscera speak for her, until Berislav hangs up to make the space private again. Petra gasps and swallows queasily, dipping her head to the side to heave without spitting anything up. "I-I didn't mean to. It's not-- not like that. I don't even care if I-- if I understand her, anymore. I just..." She shakes her head and puts a hand to her mouth, breathing raspily through her fingers. "I-I didn't have a choice. I of all people-- all people who are still alive, at least-- I know how scary it is to be up against Rita and Liza. I had to take every option available. Didn't think it'd come along with...." Sullenly unhappy, Petra hangs her head to complain, energy draining away the longer she goes. "... I didn't even know... how strong she was, at all, before the war. I barely knew anything at all about her. And then a week of that, like... formed an impression, you know? It feels like that's all I know for certain about her, anymore." "We're not a monolith." "I know. Like, I get the whole... concept behind it." Feeling like she's been given permission at this point, Petra starts inching her way over to where she threw the arm, looking at Berislav out of the corner of her eyes. Like a cat creeping slowly around as if this makes it invisible, Petra eases her way along the wall, freezing up when Berislav looks at her, until she can get the precious cooling severed limb back. "... If anything, I've kind of been thinking of the Concord the same way. At least, to... align them when I can, for my own goals, and not fuss whenever they're disagreeing. Maybe one day you'll actually be proud of me, haha." Petra buries her teeth into the arm's bicep, tearing away a mouthful of flesh with surprising ease. A little teary-eyed, muffled through having her mouth full, "Probbly not now, thfough." "I love you, and I'm proud of you, Petra." "Oh-," Petra chokes, swallows, then gags, all in sequence. Drenched in cold sweat, she shifts forwards abruptly onto her knees and vomits out the red stringy mess that she just forced down her throat. Wiping her mouth, only to curl up and go right back to gnawing on the arm, Petra takes a second to catch her breath both emotionally and physically. "W-well, I... I mean, I guess it seems kind of silly to say at this exact moment, but I think I've done a pretty good job of 'finding myself' at this point. You know? I actually know... pretty well, who I am and what I want, and what I'll do to get it. And I mean, as shocking as it is, some of those things are even morally good, ahaha. Who would've guessed? Not that anyone even really cares."
Father Berislav	"I care," says Berislav, stepping over viscera to kneel and consolingly pat Petra's back, in the same way that one would for someone hung over or nauseous for less grisly reasons. "I don't think you realize how much." "You have everything I ever wanted you to find, and you find more of it every day. You go out and find it, yourself. Friends, and coworkers, people you love and who love you. You've found something to fight for. People to fight for." "When I see you working towards the best version of yourself, in spite of everything around you, in spite of this City, in spite of all the ugliness in it and outside it, it's another reminder that there is a reason for me to do what I'm doing. It's another thing for me to keep close to my heart, when I see how readily people throw away the grace that God gave them." "That's why Rita is strong," he says. "Because she held onto that grace, no matter how hard the gardeners of sin tried to pry it away from her. And because she had those things, too. Community. Love." Berislav gives her a steadying pat on the back. "You can keep the handkerchief," he advises. "Do you want something for the nausea?"
Petra Soroka	"Friends, and coworkers, people you love and who love you." "Evil, left me, hate me, dead." Petra sounds off in order, counting off on her fingers. Seized by a moment of morbid fixation, she starts counting off on the corpse's fingers too, grimacing and stopping fiddling when their stiffness resists her movement. She sighs, soothed by physical contact whether she wants to be or not. "But... yeah. I mean, I'm doing my best. But like, even when I'm trying to do my best for the City, I'm like... I look at that guy, and I'm..." She gestures at the corpse with its rib cage split open, viscera turned into harp strings. "Like, I don't know, I just don't really feel like I can care that much. I've seen a billion meat instruments, you know? That guy, if he'd had the chance, there's good odds that he'd be the one fuckin', do-si-do-ing around the corpse altar. So I guess when I say 'morally good', I'm kind of... stretching, a bit. At least Rita thinks so." "I care about the City for, you know, the people I care about in it. For Angela, Yuri, Argalia, Justin, Random, Johnny and Robin, Ceri, Tennant... Cinder, obviously. And because the people I care about care about it. But Lilian keeps getting mad at me for everything I do, and Rita... doesn't think anything I do after the war matters, so-- not that she even... counts in that category anymore. I don't think I'm even being led wrong by that framework, but it barely seems like it gets me anywhere." Shaking her head, Petra puffs out air, dropping back against the wall in exhaustion. She looks towards the door that Berislav came through. "Fifteen minutes... still, like, a few left, right?" The way Petra curls up and prepares herself to work through her feelings is really radically different from how it used to be when she'd monologue to Berislav. The intervening nearly three years, longer for her, have left their mark primarily in the form of exhausted clarity, philosophical carefulness and thoughtfulness even when she's doubting herself. Even surrounded by the dismembered body parts of a Syndicate and their victims, this is the least serial-killery she's seemed. "I mean, for a long time, I kind of hated the idea of community and love. You know. And then I wanted it, and then I had it, and then I improved from it, and now I... feel like, probably, I've lost it again. There some stuff that helps, but in the end, like... I feel like I'm just sort of fumbling at glass barriers and shadows on the wall, you know? So I'm running blind, while the people who do have those things criticize me for not having enough 'grace', and the people who don't hate me for... trying, I guess." "I don't know. That's no excuse. Just gotta keep doing what I'm doing." Petra takes out a carton of cigarettes, sliding one-- a fake candy cigarette, this time-- out and putting it in her mouth to gnaw on. "And the nausea's just because my stomach really, really hates what I'm doing for it. Don't think anything'll help. Er-- please don't tell anyone I'm... you know."
Father Berislav	"Maybe some of them would have sinned," he agrees with a nod and a sad frown. "Maybe they were saints. Liza gives people their five minutes," says Berislav, following Petra's gaze to the victim made into a harp. "I give them their chance to renounce evil. These Musicians and people like them only think about what they can take, when it comes to other people." "I recognize that you still want to make things better for the City as a whole, average and exceptional alike, because that also makes things better for the people you care about. And," he says, with a small smile, "I appreciate your honesty when it comes to your motivations for that." He pauses, then checks the digital clock on the screen of his little flip phone. "Six minutes," he confirms with a little nod. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone." "Oh," he says, procuring a small grey blister pack containing one pill. "If you're still having the nausea tonight, when you go to bed, take this. It blocks the signals your stomach sends to your brain that cause it. I need to be out there to meet them and to... prepare them." He frowns. "I'm very proud of you for persevering. Give Angela and Roland my regards, alright?"