Scene #1288: Out Shooting

Owner	Pose
Ryu	The full moon shines over a warm clearing with an old fence cutting through it. There's a modern sedan parked a short distance away, a boring looking vehicle that stands out against the natural world. Several cans and bottles, perhaps two dozen of them, are arranged across the fence at various points. Fireflies flit around them, the lingering scent of their long gone contents attracting the confused insects while they dance around in the very clear moonlight. Ryu is seated on as stump, waiting to see if Teepo is even gonna show up. He wasn't sure how to do this, so he figured he'd use one of the skills they both have to make a game out of their socializing. The young blue-haired man picks at grass, quietly picking it apart with an aimless monotony. His sword belt has been removed, the scabbard leaning against the tree stump to his right.
Teepo	Ryu needn't have worried. In the distance, he can soon hear the sound of a motorcycle. And sure enough, a rather cheap-branded motorcycle-- not one form their world, though-- comes into view. The bike bears a rider, of course, and that rider has purple hair. It's Teepo, that's for sure. The hair and eyes are instantly enough to recognize him by. Because he's being a typically rebellious young man and doing something dangerous-- not wearing a helmet. Teepo brings the motorcycle next to the sedan and shuts the motor off, dismounts, and puts the kickstand down. Heading over to where Ryu is, he offers a grin and a wave. "Hey, Ryan. Didn't think you'd really want to hang out. I didn't think I was exactly your favorite person right now." He's referring, of course, to the Syn City fiasco.
Ryu	"About that..." Ryan begins, looking up at Teepo quizzically. "You didn't strike that man down in cold blood, did you? I understand he was a crime lord, don't get me wrong," he holds up one of his hands with the fingers outspread, and then drops it back down to fiddle with the grass. He gives a second of pause before he continues, "I never did get the full story for that, not really. How did you find that artifact? The one that changed you? And why'd you kill that guy? I assumed it was 'cause he got into a fight with you, but I'd prefer you cleared up any doubts." He had that small smile on his face, that sad look that seemed to hide anything approaching a genuine emotion from anyone he was looking at. It was a dull smile, not warm but not hostile either.
Teepo	Teepo frowns. "Of course not!" he declares. "I'm not a murderer. That was him getting his just desserts. I did the world a favor. Probably the whole Multiverse." Wow, he thinks a lot of himself, doesn't he? Then he tilts his head. "You want the whole story?" He sits down in the grass next to the stump Ryu's sitting on. "Well, let's see... where to start on that one..." A sigh, and he leans back on his elbows. "You gotta know not all the guys in the squad were as upstanding as you," he begins. "Dunno if you remember him-- you know Ganix Kolen? He was a buddy of mine. He enlisted instead of getting drafted. And he was also into some shady stuff out there at Syn City." "Before he left, he told me he was going to Syn City, and that he'd have enough money to retire when he got back." Finally looking at Ryu, "...Bet I don't have to tell ya what happened to 'im. You're a smart guy. I bet you can guess."
Ryu	Ryan looked over at Teepo, his smile fading as the other dragon began to explain. He looked at Teepo, and he wanted to see something that would help him understand his own state. So far, though... The blue-haired young man looked up at the hair color the other orphan had, noting that it hadn't changed at all. It was a brief glance. He answered the question as if by reflex, "He lost all of his money and ended up drunk in a ditch somewhere, crying about his luck." It was a pretty cynical view of it, but it was also the most common outcome for that. "Or better: He got in debt to the crime families in there," he says, pointing at Teepo in an expressive way -- not indicating him, more just making a motion with his hand -- with one of those grass blades. He furrowed his brow, waiting for Teepo to continue the story. He was confused on how another idiot who thought they were more lucky than everyone else was related to this.
Teepo	"Nope," Teepo replies. "He came back. In a box." Frown. "Wasn't pretty. Fortunately I managed to get in contact with one of his other buddies, and he told me what happened. Drust Berg happened. Ganix had the artifact. He thought he was gonna sell it at the market for money and be rich. Drust had him killed, and was planning to pick up the artifact the day of that big mess there at Syn City." "That's why I left my post that day-- I found out he was on the way to Syn City. Couldn't let him get his hands on it. You know what kinda bastard Drust woulda been if he'd gotten his hands on that thing?" Teepo shakes his head. "So I solved the problem. Permanently. Like I said, Drust can't hurt anybody else." That last statement is said with a flat, unrepentant delivery. But Ryu might notice a tiiiiny waver in his voice.
Ryu	Ryu watched the other young man, blinking slowly. The idea of that soldier getting killed didn't affect him in the slightest. It was just what happened when people did things they knew were potentially lethal. He frowned, though, when he heard it was Drust... and that the soldier had somehow gotten ahold of the artifact. And that it didn't change the man, but somehow it worked on Teepo. It was then that something that was said mostly as a joke rang through his head. He shrugged it off just like before, but it felt like too much of a coincidence. He didn't have to worry about Teepo abusing it. Even if he could say something like that, Ryu could see the flicker of weakness, that small sign that it didn't sit right somehow. Whether he enjoyed it or it hurt his soul remains to be seen, either way he wasn't expecting this to get worse. "That was a stupid thing to do," he told Teepo, flatly, "You could've been killed." He got up to a stand and considered the cans and bottles he had lined up. "But you did stop something even worse from happening. You stopped a monstrous man from getting real power." After this, he drew his handgun, and pointed it at one of the bottles, carefully adjusting his stance and his aim. If there was one thing he was good at, it was shooting. "How'd you hear about what the artifact does?" he wondered, having read between the lines in the story.
Teepo	When Ryu stands, so does Teepo. "Didn't really matter," he notes, in response to possibly getting killed. "The alternative was rotting away as a reluctant soldier in Wyndia, and dying whenever the higherups got tired of me and sent me somewhere they knew I wouldn't survive." With a sidelong glance to Ryu, "I hope you know none of those fancy officers wanted either of us there." As for how he heard about what the artifact did? "I heard what happened to you," he admitted. "You went after one, touched it, and boom-- dragon. I figured if I could get hold of one, I could change my lot. I had a lotta nothin' in front of me where a future was concerned. You gotta have power to change your fate, because if you don't, the people who ARE stronger will boss you around."
Ryu	"Hmm..." Ryu snaps off a shot with that handgun, shattering the bottle with a spray of fire. He smiles and raises his brows and lowers the weapon, stepping aside. He gestures with one gloved hand to the arrangement. "That Wyndian officer was a piece of work. 'He's your problem now,' that's what he said when he turned tail and ran. I think I might be officially dead in the Wyndian records at this point." He shifts his weight from foot to foot. "There's always someone stronger. For all you know, the real demons have been waiting for people like us to pop up, and the only thing slowing them down is the Multiverse," he says, pointing at Teepo with a serious and bright-eyed look on his face. "You don't need to be a dragon to change your fate, anyways. Plenty of people do it all the time with just a whole lot of blood and sweat." He frowned at a thought he just had. "Someone told me once that all it takes to change a bad situation is a few people rising up to fix it, no matter how hard it is. I want to think that we could change around how people think of dragons, but... Do we even know where this power came from? If someone can just be turned into a dragon, does that mean all the stories were made up?" He shakes his head. "Our fates changed, but I'm not sure they improved."
Teepo	"Good shot," Teepo compliments as the bottle explodes. He steps up next to Ryu when the bottles are gestured at, and pulls his pistol. He's a pretty good shot, too. As for the guard? "Doesn't surprise me," he says, almost nonchalantly. "Most of 'em I knew were there to put in their time and go home. Wyndia's probably screwed if they need loyal, fierce soldiers to defend it." Teepo tilts his head at Ryu's serious look. He tilts his head down so that his eyes have to aim up a bit. It gives the look something of a heavy-eyebrow look that accomplishes a '...really?' expression. "Look at it this way-- if there ARE real demons, don't you think it's better to be stronger to fight 'em? Unless you LIKE the idea of getting flattened." He aims at a can set up on the fence. "Besides. You know me. D'you really think I coulda made anything of myself in Wyndia? No way. And what options did I really have? I'd have never gotten beyond where I was. Not like that." Bang! A now-frozen can goes flying. "Isn't it obvious?" Teepo observes. "Propoganda has its uses. What's the easiest way to keep people with power from using it if you can't take it away? Make so many people hate the ones with power that they'll never find allies. Because one person CAN'T change the world alone. Even I know that."
Ryu	Ryu couldn't really muster up a counter-argument, despite thinking on it. "That country is awful," he mumbles, as he stares out toward the frozen can. He tries to get a look at where it landed from where he's standing by going on his tip-toes, a token effort at best. "Hmm," he sounded out approvingly at Teepo's shot. His handgun is raised to point at one of the cans. "You either ruin their name, or you kill them." He knits his brow. "Maybe we aren't the first dragons to pop up since those ancient times. Maybe we're just the first ones to get away with our lives, thanks to the Multiverse." He fires off a round, sending a can flying into the brush. "Hypothetically, if ... if I tried to find out where dragons actually come from, would you come with me?" he wondered, looking at Teepo with an uncertain gaze. "Because if someone engineered the fall of the old dragons, that means they wouldn't want us finding out the truth either."
Teepo	"Mhm." Teepo's response to Ryu's observation of Wyndia being awful. It's a simple agreement. Doesn't need to be clearer. He does, however, grin at Ryu's shot. "Half of power is other people believing you have it. What's a legend? It's belief. If there weren't legends that dragons were evil, they wouldn't be so feared. If the legends were in reverse, then we'd have people claiming you were some kind of god or something." The can goes flying, and Teepo grins. "You got better. I think you hit that dead-center." However, he is... suspiciously silent for a long moment when Ryu mentions going to find the origin of the dragons. Long enough to obliterate a bottle on the fence with a pistol shot. Broken glass in ice looks really pretty... Then he finally speaks up. "Well. It's gonna be dangerous either way. If they're NOT true, whoever did it is gonna do everything in their power to kill you. And if they ARE true, you'll probably end up letting 'em outta their cages if there are any left. Y'know that, right?" Teepo thinks. He doesn't want it to look too desperate, or seem like he wants to know too. He does, he just doesn't want to let on that he does. So instead... he sighs. "Honestly? You'll probably need me along." His tone here is half-amused as he notes, "Somebody has to teach you not to be a wuss about using your power." Then he grins. He's teasing Ryu a little, yes. But he's also serious.
Ryu	Ryu gives a great big frown at Teepo. It's just the biggest frown, that kind of frown like he's just about to hit him. Teasing him about the dragon thing is probably not what he wanted to hear from Teepo at all. In fact, it made him visibly angry. Letting out a sigh, he turns to fire at two more bottles, shattering them into shards of molten glass. It's a good thing the area around here isn't very flammable! "I've met a lot of other dragons," he says, "Other people. And they all say that I should accept it. But I don't want to. I never yearned for something like this. Some part of me was perfectly fine with the way I was..." he trails off. His jaw clenches, and the handgun is held up. His anger boils in his eyes. An anger that Teepo has rarely ever seen... all the orphans had their dysfunctions, and for Ryu, it was always his temper. A temper that makes his draconic eyes glow like those of a demon. Tension fills the air around Ryan. His words show the inner conflict, when combined with his behavior here. He doesn't know whether he should accept it or not, and he's really struggling. "I don't like the idea of being forced into situations where I would need that much strength," he says, slowly bringing himself back from a potential outburst. "That's why... I need people to help me on the way to find answers."
Teepo	For once Teepo shows that he's not a complete idiot. When he notes Ryu getting upset? He shuts up. Ryu's been a dragon longer. Stands to reason that, even though Ryu seems like he doesn't use his power as much, that Ryu's stronger than Teepo is. And Teepo is very much not eager to find out first hand which of them is stronger. So Teepo keeps quiet, listening to Ryu speak. He's not ignoring it. Far from it. But it's not until Ryu visibly calms down that Teepo actually chances to speak. "Well..." Teepo hedges. "If it wasn't you, somebody else woulda got it. And then they'd have had to deal with the same thing, right? Since you're the selfless type, look at it that way. You saved some other poor sap from the same fate. And then you also saved the people that person would have hurt or killed because they eventually lost control of it." Teepo does give a bit of a frown at Ryu at the last, though. "Whether you wanted it or not, you're stuck with it now. So you might as well make the best of it." A pause, though, and he gives a thoughtful 'hm'. "Completely serious thought, Ryan." His voice is lacking in its usual brashness here. "I know you want to get as many people involved as possible-- spread the weight over as many load-bearing points as possible, right? That way everybody's individual burden is less." A shake of his head. "But the more people you involve in it, the bigger the chance you'll have to choose between using your power to defend them, or NOT using it and hoping you can get 'em out of it without it. I hope you don't ever have to choose. But if you do have to and the worst happens because you didn't... you'll always wonder if you could have done more if you had."
Ryu	Ryan blinks a couple times in surprise as he hears the words 'you are the selfless one,' his weapon lowering. His gaze focused on the other dragon critically... not in a negative manner, but more observant of him. His jaw clenches on the points that the 'younger' dragon brings up. They aren't that far apart in strength at all, human or dragon, but he'd not find that out soon. He does not seem to feel better about the notion that he took the bullet for some hypothetical other. He shakes his head slowly in silent disagreement with it, and turns his golden eyes back toward the cans and bottles that still stood, surrounded by the dancing fireflies. That last part, though, makes him bristle. Fear shocks through him and his mouth droops into a frown, despite how much he tries to hide it. He stubbornly shrugs off the mental image of that kind of failure, but it's going to leave a brand-like scar on his mind for the foreseeable future. "A small party, then," he remarks, "People we can trust, people that won't get themselves into deep trouble." "We can take a plane ride right to Dragoneir itself. That old ruin should have some answers. Until we can scrounge up the resources, though, we keep this to ourselves. We want to keep the circle that knows about what we're trying to do as small as possible. Information has a way of spreading like a wild fire, after all."
Teepo	While Ryu thinks, Teepo takes a few shots at the bottles and cans lined up still. He knows better than to drop a logic bomb like that and then keep poking. Let the waters settle for a bit. Besides, shooting things that aren't going to shoot back is therapeutic. He looks back to Ryu when he starts speaking though. Small party? "Good idea," he agrees. Though when Dragoneir is mentioned, Teepo makes a face. "Bleh. Figures answers would be in a place where literally EVERYTHING is trying to kill you." Shrug. "Oh well." But he also agrees, "Yeah, the fewer people know about it, the less chance someone's going to try and stop us, too." Pause. "Did you end up with one of those big factions?" he inquires. "They're supposed to be pretty tight groups. If you did, picking a few from there would probably be the best idea."
Ryu	"I ended up in the Union. Signed up as an ally to avoid the military hierarchy thing because I was damn tired of that," Ryan tells Teepo, more casually now that he isn't feeling like cracking the other former soldier upside the head with that very heavy-looking handgun. A handgun that he's holstered now just to observe Teepo's marksmanship. He looks impressed with it, though he isn't great at complimenting it. "Generous folks ended up giving me a place to stay. Some kind of... scientific group called the Izzet." He snaps his fingers, quite a feat when he's wearing gloves, and points at Teepo, "You should meet the Guildmaster and her siblings, if you haven't already. They'd love to have another dragon around, they might like your approach to it better than mine."
Teepo	"Oh I DEFINITELY get that," Teepo agrees, in reference to being tired of the military. "Gotta say, I don't miss that military crap." Teepo has no discipline, so this may not come as too much of a shock, right? "Izzit? Ezzit? What's that? Science group?" The fingersnap gets him to look, and he blinks. Though his brows raise when Ryu mentions there being more dragons. "A dragon GUILD? That sounds like the perfect place to end up. I hope they can teach you a little." Though he does have one more question. "...Is the Guildmaster cute?" Ryu did say she was female, right?
Ryu	Ryu had never thought about whether the Guildmaster is cute or not. He just looked at Teepo with a blank stare, completely unsure how to answer that question at all. Or maybe he's just abstaining from answering. He is staring at Teepo particularly intently.
Teepo	Teepo notices the look, and turns his hands palm-up, in a 'what did I do?' sort of not-quite shrug. "What? What are you looking at me like that for? You said she was a girl, right? Perfectly valid question, then." His tone is unbothered by the prospective weirdness of his question. Besides, he doesn't know the Guildmaster. And he hasn't really seen any other dragons besides himself and Ryu.
Ryu	Ryu blinks at Teepo slowly, not really giving him an answer to the question at all. The blank look is soon replaced by the dull smile again. And then he winds up lazily, and tries to give Teepo a little playful punch in the shoulder, because he thinks it's funny, in his very mild way. He's just... not going to answer that question at all. "Her sister is a ninja and really scary, so you might have trouble there." Well, he's not just discarding the idea.
Teepo	Teepo doesn't bother to dodge it, just chuckles. And he doesn't insist on an answer, either. He could have been kidding about all that. Maybe he was trying to make Ryu feel better, who knows? Teepo's weird like that sometimes. Though he blinks at the mention of a 'scary ninja sister'. "Everybody has crazy relatives I guess. Right?" Smirk. He could be referring to someone Ryu knows....