Players:
Summary: Kalindi discusses with Star her own feelings on the Hunters.
Date: July 14, 2020.
Log Title: Turncoat
Rating: PG.
The Future - NYC
The Metropolitan area, New York City, a city that once stood for diversity, freedom and liberty, a city that was once the largest city in America and home to the United Nations now stands for something else. New York City was the first city to get attacked after the Sentinel attack on Xavier's. Most of its residents have fled the area leaving many neighborhoods empty, shops forgotten about and the streets deserted. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled, electricity is only in select areas. Sentinels patrol the streets of New York like clockwork making it almost impossible for any mutant to be safe. The United Nations building has been taken over as a base for those against mutants, for those trying to destroy the race of those born with the X-Gene.
Another late evening expedition to get away from the depressing miasima within the tunnels has Star slipping through the ruins of New York. The air is hot and still, the empath dressed in a rather tattered tank top that might once have been some bright color but is now a dull colorless gray-brown and a pair of jeans that have definately seen better days. Her knees are left almost bare from the holes in the denim and they appear to be a little too large for the petite woman, held up by a length of rope that acts as a belt. There's a large battered backpack on her back that hangs as though it's got a few things within but isn't yet full. Cautiously, Star makes her way over a pile of rubble into the interior of a bombed out apartment building, probably thinking that she'll be able to find either food, something useful, or a toy for her small daughter.
She moves as silently as she can, wincing with each small noise she makes, but never stopping. She's only safe while moving; if she stops, then a Sentinel is more likely to find her and she'd leave Emory without either parent. She never stops sniffing he air, hoping that if another living being approaches then she'll catch some small whiff of their emotions and be able to duck into hiding quickly enough to escape detection.
A gold disc flies through the evening sky, only a glimmer betraying its presence. The Huntress (or at least on paper Huntress) Kalindi rides on the disc, peering down towards the ground. She does not want to risk her own life, not now. She also wears a backpack around her shoulder, clear when she begins her landing. She pulls a GPS from around her neck, the one she uses to keep track of her own location for teleportation purposes. She had spotted Star earlier and had started tailing her from the skies, keeping distance. Her emotions are clear as she lands. The woman is torn and distressed, though it does not show on her hard expression. "It is stupid," she says loudly enough for Star to hear, "to be alone at times like these." The disc she was riding on earlier wraps around her in a fine armour.
It takes a moment before the wind brings the other woman's pheromones to Star's very specialized senses, but by then it's too late to try to take cover. Instead, the empath flenches and turns to face the distressed Huntress, wariness evident in her eyes though she manages to keep her own emotions in check for the moment. A hint of the sorrow and anger she'd been allowing free reign to still lingers in the air, though it's muted and not likely enough to affect another at the moment, "And who says I'm alone?" She never was a good liar.
"Maybe you are accompanied by someone invisible. I do not know these things." Kalindi looks Star over for a few moments and she notes, "I have never seen you before in this city. Nobody comes here. Have you been flushed out? You are a mutant?" She leans against the wall instead of taking any kind of hostile actions. "Please do not lie to me." This last is said as a request, "I do not tell lies and I do not appreciate it when others do."
Star sighs and lifts her chin a little, giving Kalindi a vaguely defiant look, "Alright… So I'm alone. I needed a moment to myself." Even if it means the end of her, at least her daughter is safe. Or as safe as she can make her in the world they live in, anyway. She gives the other a level look, "Not flushed out. More like driven away by what your lot did to our home a few days ago. I can't handle that much sadness on top of everything else." The question about whether or not she's a mutant doesn't get a responce, though she does offer another admission, "And I've never been very good at lying, anyway, so I suppose we're on the same page there." Not being able to lie has made having a willful, curious little girl an experience, though.
"I will not do you harm during this encounter. This I promise you. I am not here to fight… I have been looking for one of you people. Someone who will not kill me on seeing me," says Kalindi. She takes a sitting position, though is just seems as though she is sitting on nothing at all. "And you are a mutant if you were in the tunnels, no? It does not matter. Mutants. Humans. What is the difference anyways?" She crosses her arms and eyes Star for a few moments and shrugs, "This war is a terrible thing that I do not understand. I regret my decisions, but they were made as they were."
Now Star is really cautious, "Well, I'm not generally a fighter, so I think we'll complement each other quite well at the moment." Though she'll fight to the death if it means the safety of someone she cares for. The Redeemer folds her arms over her chest and just watches the other woman for the time being, "I am, though I'm no threat to you people." Her eyes close for a moment and a small, almost amused smile plays at the corners of her mouth, "And there's no difference that I've ever seen. We're all just people trying to survive, after all." She nods at Kalindi's assesment of the war and studies the gold clad woman for a while, "Yes, it is. I was a kindergarten teacher when this whole thing started. I never have been a fighter." She's learned quite a bit in the last five years, though.
"I led what you Earthworld people called a cult. It was very nice, but I do not think it was a cult. I think anyone who called it that was kind of dumb," says Kalindi. She can't really offer any kind of heartwarming past for herself. She's always been kind of terrible. She chews on her knuckle for a few moments, as if trying to pull something stuck in her flesh out and shrugs, "You people. I admire you. At the beginning, I did not think it would be like it is now. I thought there would be registrations, yes, that seems a little strange but harmless. But these camps and now, orders to take dead or alive. It is distressing. I wanted to make it to the top. I want to be the one in control of it, and things would be better than /this/." She shakes her head and sighs shortly, a tinge of annoyance coming from her at that thought, "I cannot lie, so do not be afraid of me. If we are attacked, I will even protect you. Is that fine? Will that put you at ease? You are making me nervous with your looks."
Hm… A cult leader, huh? Well, compaired to what's happened in the last few years, that's not as bad as what the Huntress could have been. "And I did register. I'm just a simple empath, but my husband's a telepath." Star's voice hardens for a moment, "That monster took him as a Hound and let me and my unborn child be turned over to the camps." She never made it there, since she doesn't have an M tattooed on her face, but that's where she was headed, "I can only imagine that the world would be a better place if Kelly weren't president." Even if it means a world run by a self proclaimed cult leader. She sighs and nods, "I can try. It's hard to forget what side you're on, though." She does pull in the negativity and do her best to project calm, though; more to ease her own nerves than those of the other, "And I apologise. I came out here to get away from negativity and be able to wallow in my own emotions and here I go pushing them on you." With that admission, she takes a seat on a large piece of rubble, still constantly sniffing for another's presance.
"See, that is what I intended. To take over, but things, they got worse. Kelly. Oh, he is an evil man. And you will not hear me, of all people, call others evil very often," says Kalindi. She shrugs and says, "You see, I agree with you people in the tunnels, you deserve to live your stupid little lives making vegetables or teaching infants or selling plants or whatever it is you people did. Your child… you say you had an unborn child? She is born now, yes? If she is still alive, I hope that she gets a chance to work at a fast food restaurant while paying her way through school or something awful like that." The woman adorned in gold waves her hands around, getting off point a bit, "I want a chance at my stupid little life, too. By the time Kelly is done with this place, it will be ruins and dust, and I will be the sovereign of solitude. I want to help. I want to join the Rebellion."
Star there's a small smile at the mention of her daughter and she nods, "Yes, she's alive." Her eyes turn blue at the thought of the little girl, hopefully sleeping, back in the tunnels waiting for her to return, a small cloud of love coming from the empath before she can put a lid on the emotion, "She told me the other day that she wants to be Captain America when she grows up." She gives herself a little shake to try to dismiss the only family she has left from her mind for the moment and returns her attenton to the other woman, "And you should have it. Everyone deserves the right to their chosen life as long as it doesn't threaten the life of another." She's become a theoretical pacifist since the war started; at heart she doesn't like fighting, but she's willing to do so if it means that she can protect her loved ones.
The desire to defect and join the fight against the government, however, comes as a surprise and the petite woman blinks several times before she speaks, "You want to join us?" Wow, "I'll have to let our leaders know. I can't just bring a Hunter back to base with me without any warning." She pauses for a moment, "Can you meet me back here tomorrow night? I should be able to get someone to come with me and hear you out." Just a week ago, she might have brought Kalindi back with her without a second thought, but the attack on the place she's called home for so very long has her feeling very cautious.
"I respect your caution," says the sorceress, sighing lightly. "Your Rebellion, I do not know if they want a person like me, but… the government has broken my contract. I cannot betray contracts just like I cannot lie. It is annoying that you people do it, because in my perfect world, everything said would be believable. But one of my superiors attempted my life while the tunnels were being attacked. That was my opportunity." Kalindi smiles slightly, almost warmly (though that expression seems foreign on her face) and says, "Your child wanted to be Captain America? That is very good. It broke my heart to be there, on that stage, protector of our president… when he ended Steve Rogers' life. In exchange for being a Hunter, I obtained my citizenship papers, I had always wanted those papers, but when America died…" Her words are genuine, if her emotional state tells anything about it. "It broke my heart, too."
Her expression hardens a bit again, back to the expression of the battle weary Huntress. "The sight of me, I think, will make your people sick to the stomach. I can be here again, yes, so long as I live."
Star's expression hardens at the mention of the attack on the tunnels and she nods, "I've never broken a contract in my life." She may occationally attempt a lie, but it's not without good cause and it's rarely believable in any case, "It's as much for your safety as it is ours. If they somehow believed I'd been tricked into bringing you, then I don't think your life would be worth very much." Especially if she were recognized as being one of the ones to attack the base. She nods and sighs, a small wave of sorrow coming from her at the memory of the sacrifice Seve Rogers made, "There was never a braver man." And at least they managed to rescue some of the rebels slated to be exicuted. She offers a small smile to the other woman at the truth she can smell in those words and nods, though she remains silent.
The empath nods and stands, "I should probably get back, then, so that I can make the arrangements. I'll return here around this time tomorrow either with word of where to meet us, or someone else to talk to you." She pauses a moment, "And as long as you're willing to do what's nessisary to bring peace and preserve life, I don't see why anyone else should have a problem with it." This coming from the woman who hopes to one day rescue her husband from Ahab's control and reunite her family.
"I want nothing more than peace. And what is the point of my own goals if I do not preserve life? I am meant to be a leader, but that is impossible in these times," says Kalindi, nodding her head at Star. She looks at her GPS unit and marks this spot, "I will return here, and I will gladly speak to anyone you bring to me." With those words, and a few mumbles incantations, she fades away in one of her magical teleports.
