View source for 2023-06-23: Breath in the Cold World

*'''Cutscene: Breath in the Cold World'''
*'''Cast:''' [[Character :: Leina Ashta]] as Puru-1, [[Character :: Akane Shinjo]], [[Character :: Alberto Vist]]
*'''Where: Cape Canaveral, Earth''' 
*'''Date: 2023-06-23''' 
*'''Summary''': ''Alberto Vist is offered a way out.  Puru-1 is offered one final chance to resolve this on her own terms.''
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[[Category:Cutscenes]]
[[Category:Phase 1, Turn 3]]

"So there's no way to disable it unless we bring in experts from the main office?  You're sure of this?" The man on the other end of the line issued an affirmative, before Alberto Vist rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No, no.  I'll put in the request myself.  Actually you had a vacation coming up didn't you?  Take some extra time off for a job well done." 

Ending the call, Alberto sighs as he leaned back in his chair, "The blasted NT-D is too difficult to work with casually." Rubbing a hand across his face, it ended up over his mouth as he mumbled, "A few extra layers of encryption.  It'll have to be enough." Pivoting his chair around, he began to type out a quick e-mail to his technicians.

Perhaps it was a whim, but after he sent it, Alberto checked the spam filters on his e-mail. Usually his executive assistants set them, because as an Anaheim Executive, he'd get so much spam e-mail otherwise. However, nestled snuggly in his spam was an e-mail from someone he wanted to read. Clicking the link, he let his antivirus and malware programs do what they were supposed to, entering in the password he was sent until a message popped up.


Hey Alberto,

Sending you a link to a text file on Dropbin with a password is pretty lazy, but like. lmao if you think I care who else sees this one

i was never THAT crappy a person. it was an act, and while it was to fool everyone on the ship, for YOU it had a kinda

different

purpose

than the rest of them.

did you like it? did you have a good time watching me go from sweet kid to horny sociopath because of the environment on the garuda? did you think that whipped?

did it feel good to see dr. murasame go 'yeah you cheerfully talking about how you don't care about getting reconditioned and planning to use our reconditioning tools to get some action from alouette is a sign we're meeting our objectives with you'?

did you have fun seeing me proudly announce that i was gonna make my girlfriend kill someone for you guys? haha, remember the time i said that and it made leina throw up probably 500 kcal of food and only get allocated 300 back?

was it cool to watch your aunt roll with all of that? ENCOURAGE it? act like all that attitude needed was a little spit and polish to become someone making the kind of world she wants?

just saying. like. you got options champ.

kaiju live and die to be defeated.

but you can choose to take the L on your terms.

-- Akane Shinjo


Reading it over, he sighed and with a tap clicked over to security footage of Puru-1 restrained to a chair. Not that she needed the restraints right now, she was firmly under. Looking at her vacant eyes, he simply murmured, "I'm not the man you think I am, Shinjo." He stated, using her last name as if to put further distance between them. His eyes falling to his hand, as he rubbed his fingers together.

"There's no escape from this curse for me."

'''...---...'''

"I still don't understand why I'm on standby /here/." Puru-1 stood in his office, with the pilot suit of the Banshee Norn on, the helmet held in a single hand, Alberto stood facing her, in front of her desk. "I want to talk to Mrs. Vist-Carbine and to Dr. Murasame, so we can figure out how best to move forward." Alberto smiled faintly, and tells her, "That's the last thing you need to do right now, Leina." 

Giving him a suspicious look, she finally asked, "And just why would that be the case?" Alberto took a few steps away, looking out the window, "Because Aunt Martha has asked me to have you killed on sight. And Dr. Murasame? We haven't the foggiest where he is right now. If he saw you, undoubtedly he'd abscond with you to some secluded lab, and you'd never see the light of day again."

Puru-1 had the good grace to look briefly surprised, before she answered, "I don't believe you. Mrs. Vist-Carbine and I had a deal-! And-" A hand raked across her forehead, through her short bangs, as she suddenly sounded, disturbed, "-why do I feel like we've had this conversation before?" Alberto shook his head, and sighed, "Because I've gone to a great deal of effort to try and deprogram you, Leina, but the fact of the matter is that I'm not on Dr. Murasame's level. I've tried to at least make it so you're more 'aware' of your state, but my success has been very limited. Ever since I found you I've been having to issue you- commands, so that you wouldn't do anything rash."

"You're lying!" She shouted back reflexively, "You're just like all the rest-! It's a bluff! A bluff we came up with together! I'm not- CONDITIONED!" She yelled the word, like it was some curse, and Alberto finally turned to face her again. "I know I can't get you to believe it, just like the others couldn't. So let me tell you this instead, Aunt Martha is moving forward with her plan to resolve the box. She's sending a trio of battleships, including the General Revvil, to annihilate the Three Ship's Alliance as well as the Key to the Box, and Princess Mineva Lao Zabi all at once."

Stunned at first, "She... what!?" It rapidly shifts to anger, "We had a deal!" Alberto sighed again, and patiently shook his head, "No, Leina, she had leverage. And now that leverage is gone, or taken away from her." He didn't even allow her time to respond, "Do you still want to save him? Her? All of them?" That interrupted her thought process, as her bewildered anger become clarity in an instant, "More than anything." 

Alberto took a deep breath, then gestured towards the window, towards the launch tower with shuttle, and booster rockets. "I've arranged transportation for you and the Banshee Norn to space. Once there, it'll all be on you. The Federation forces may have orders to execute you if you appear, so be careful. ... Go. Save them." Leina turned, but then looked over her shoulder at him, "I know saving them is the last thing on your mind. It's all about your damn box." 

Alberto found himself flustered and mildly ashamed at the accusation, but he couldn't deny it, "It is true that you- destroying the Unicorn would benefit us at this point, even if it is not the ideal resolution. But- I suppose that, preserving the life of young Mister Links..." He then corrects himself, "... Banagher, would not necessarily be at cross purposes with that."

Alberto took a moment to ruminate, remembering that conversation.  He'd tried for so long to consider the boy's face like a mugshot, because he didn't want to face him, the boy who reached out to him as a brother. "He told me he was looking for possibility for everyone within the box." Crossing his hands behind his back, he slowly crossed the room, looking out the window, "I don't know if such a thing exists. Certainly my father never showed signs of such... idealism, when I was younger." Silence stretched out, until, he murmured mostly to himself, "We walk the path of blood within this family. Such things always felt out of place." Taking his hand from the small of his back, he stared at one of them, fingers rubbing together as if to remove the blood stains, "It was an accident..." He says quietly, before second guessing that, "... no, I suppose it wasn't at that."

Puru-1 said nothing, face tugging in something that felt like, pity, before she turned and left the room.

'''...---...'''

'''BGM Start - Unti-L -''' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG1HV7uIeXg

Strapped in at an awkward angle within the cockpit, Puru-1 heard noises at the moment of takeoff, like some great mechanical beast were awakening, before she felt the explosion of the rocket payload igniting, as she rumbled and shook and she picked up speed before the kick as the shuttle's booster slammed her taut against her seat. A BANG as the rescue system was jettisoned, then another as the boosters begin to separate, and another when the faring came off.

More light began to flood the cockpit, but she knew it wasn't over at the BANG of the second stage of separation, and the G-Force suddenly becoming far more tolerable. She knew academically it wasn't over, as the next stage of boosters sent her higher, and faster, pressed mutely against her seat by the force of gravity. It's pull was strong, it took a lot to overcome it, especially for a girl who had forgotten her dreams. It wanted to keep her there, clinging to that pale blue sphere. About eight and a half minutes into launch, there was just, give.  The ancient Space Shuttle they'd kept from the days of the AEUG finally reached its destination.

The weightlessness of Zero-G offered little comfort, the cargo bay doors opened, and the Banshee Norn floated out with only the tiniest, most imperceptible bursts of its thrusters. A secondary pod opened, the hatch offering her the Beam Magnum with it's newest armaments, the revolving launcher. Enough ammunition for a half dozen missions loaded into the backpack of the Armed Armor XC.

Holstering it on her back, she looked down on the beauty of the Earth, and found she felt only hollow looking at it. The beauty and wonder and majesty of humanity's cradle was lost upon her, because she could only think of how many people looked at it and still made decisions that denied billions the right to life, to happiness, to a better future.  Briefly she wonders if Judau thought the same, before he left on that ship for the Energy Fleet.

Taking a deep breath, she focused on the ephemeral touch of those disembodied fingers, clinging to her. That pervasive sense of wrongness, every twisted feeling and sensation she had, Puru-1 allowed herself to accept them all, even if she was lacking the submission that Dr. Murasame once tried to instill within her. The contradiction of letting her cling to her, while shoving everyone else away. Her own desire to cling to others, knowing that to reach out to them, was only to cause them harm.

Was it courtesy? Whim? Or entirely involuntary? A call to arms or a cry for help?  She had no idea, only that it brought a certain clarity to the toxicity that was her touch, her existence.

'''<span style="color:#800080">An end to this, once and for all.</span>'''

In Celtic folklore, Banshees were fey women that predicted the death of family members, their keening wail a warning. How contrarian one she must be, to prophesize such, and yet try to avert an inevitable, ignominious fate at the hands of a cruel system.

'''<span style="color:#800080">You won't get away this time, Banagher.</span>'''

Thrusters flare, sending her further and further away from the pull of Earth's gravity as azure contrails blaze her way through her navigation of the dark.

'''<span style="color:#800080">I'll tear the Unicorn apart, and prove to you the lie that is Possibility.</span>'''

'''OOC Note:''' Anyone with a connection to Leina Ashta or Elpeo Puru with an Awakening of 1 or higher will feel her coming towards the 3SA fleet, this warning comes simultaneously with the middle of the scene Insurrection. The higher your awakening the more likely you are to feel her message and location with greater clarity.