2024-09-20: Role Model

• Cutscene: Role Model
• Cast: Rey Za Burrel, Lunamaria Hawke, Rau Le Creuset (??), A Boy In a Gundam, A Girl In a Shuttle
• Where: The Minerva
• Date: September 01, 0099
• Summary: It's easy to overlook Rey Za Burrel, after all, he rarely talks about himself and everyone else has their own problems, but that doesn't mean he goes unnoticed.

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On the deck of the Minerva, the sounds of gunfire only temporarily scattered the gulls. They always came back, the allure of scavenged treats was always a possibility, even on this gleaming metallic deck.

"How badly did Shinn put his foot in it this time?" Lunamaria asked, as she reloaded the clip of her training pistol, the target ahead showing a shot grouping that left her unsatisfied ahead, the silhouette of an androgynous person within firing rings.

"He was out of line." Rey said, as he fired off five shots in quick succession, at the target- but on the sixth? The outline... changed before his eyes. Wordlessly, he hesitated, his finger still on the trigger.

And then the final shot rang out.

"Whoa! I've never seen you miss the target entirely." Lunamaria marveled in the aftermath, as Rey stared stoically downrange, before putting his pistol down on the table, and taking off his ear protection and goggles.

"May I ask you to handle the cleanup?" Rey told Lunamaria, as she made a noise of complaint, "Ehhhh? This wasn't even a full session! I may be behind but I haven't lost yet-"

She looked, incredulously at a closing door on the deck, as Rey vanished back into the ship. "Maybe what happened with Shinn really got to him today..."

-=-=-

A Gundam's hand stretches towards a shuttle, and he smiles, as he raises his own's rifle.

Let them have hope. Until the last possible moment.

A trigger is pressed, and even from a distance, he can see the girl's face, hair bound up in a red pony tail, blue eyes with droplets of water. A gleaming green bolt penetrating the shuttle she's within, as it ruptures, detonating right beside the Gundam.

Then snatch it away. To pass judgment upon the arrogance of man's infinite ambition.

The boy cries, screaming into the void, a singular name.

That is what it means to be...

Rey sat up abruptly as both of his hands cupped his face, feeling the cold sweat upon his brow, as he felt the pain wrack him, he quickly snatched a bottle on the table, roughly twisting the cap, as he downed more pills than was proper, slamming it down in a way that scattered them, he fell down in bed, as the wracking pains took him.

"I'm... Rey Za..."

He bit down, as he held himself, shivering in his bunk, unable to complete that sentence.