2023-01-19: Again and Again

• Cast: Leina Ashta, Jona Basta
• Where: Jona's Apartment
• Date: U.C. 0097 01 19
• Summary: As Jona spends another night trying to escape into the stupor of alcoholism to escape his past, Leina knocks on his apartment door with news of the Phenex, and Rita...

Trigger warnings: Alcoholism, light self-harm, human experimentation (flashback)

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<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

It plays again in her head.

RITA! IT WAS A LIE, IT WAS ALL A LIE! TAKE ME INSTEAD, PLEASE--!

That glimpse of that young man tackled by Titans. A young woman looking back with a smile.

Again and again, it plays, as she takes the Linear Rail, her mind just elsewhere. Today she's dressed in a cream colored jumper, a pair of worn skinny jeans, and just as worn trainers.

It's the exact opposite of what she wore when she met with Michele. It's meant to present a certain type of vibe...

If I can ask one thing from you, please find Jona. He's hurting so terribly, and he's lost. I don't know what he needs. Maybe just someone to be kind to him.

...which showing up as just another suit might not.

Once she hit her stop, she shoulders her bag, and moves on down the Colony streets of Londenion, checking a slip of paper again.

Eventually she comes to an apartment complex, and climbs the steps, then double checks the number again.

Eventually she raps her hand against the door, waiting for a response. If she doesn't get one, she calls out, "Hello? My name is Leina Ashta - I know you don't know me, but I'm here on behalf of the Yumi Foundation."

And if that doesn't get his attention, she calls out, "...I'd like to talk to you about someone you know, named Rita Bernal."

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Ice crackles as Jona Basta looks down into his glass. Again, the motions repeat themselves, as he'd already lost track of the number. His third? Fourth? The story was always the same, as the husk of a Federation soldier drank, and drank, and drank some more. It's not like he had much interest in spending on other things, and alcohol...the sweet siren song of oblivion. It blocked out the pain. Drowned the old memories. Deafened the overload of a world beyond most, the feelings that haunted him no matter where he went or what he did.

Why didn't they take me instead?.

His grip tightened around the glass, as memories assailed him, the truth still unspoken. He looks up at the ceiling in his delirium, his mouth slurring around the words and his feelings. "Miracle Child my ass. What miracle? We just wanted to help..." How had it all come to this? Once upon a time they had just wanted to help people, the three of them. But no good deeds go unpunished, do they? Another sip. Faster. Faster into oblivion. Yet like any routine, his body had gotten used to drink. It took longer to fade away, to drop into blissful blackouts.

As he lifted the glass to his face, a knock at the door. A muffled statement. "-llo? My name is Leina Ashta-". Jona ignored the woman at the door.

Leave me alone.

But then, his eyes flashed open from their stupor upon the stranger's next line. "I'd like to talk to you about someone you know, named Rita Bernal." Impossible. How did she know that name? Jona weighed his options in his alcoholically induced haze. A trap? Possibly. But if there was a lead...if he could finally find her, catch up to her...He grunted, and slipped out of the chair, stumbling and falling, as the wine bottle crashed to the floor and shattered. Cheap grapes, liquified, fermented, spread their musk across barebones carpet as Jona crawled and then staggered back upright, a shard of glass wedged into his left pectoral muscle, as he answered the door, shirtless and bleeding.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Leina can certainly FEEL a presence inside, it's even more distinct than an Oldtype to her. It doesn't have any kind of familiarity to her though, save indirect.

There is a sense however of wanting to be left alone. That much she can feel.

And then suddenly she could hear someone inside at her invocation of Rita, moving. A shattering of glass. She winces, even as he moves to the doorway.

The smell is...intense, but there was her father, and there is Sayla on occasion - when she was deep enough it. She can handle that smell.

What she can't handle is.

"Hello, are you Jona-" Her eyes flick towards the glass wedged in his muscle, "-Oh my God! Are you okay?!"

She immediately checks him for other wounds and seeing none, takes off her jumper, surrounding it around the shard of glass and pressing down against his chest. Underneath is a T-shirt with a happy looking Haro on it with a bow on its rounded cranium, and the words 'Haro Girl'.

"Okay back inside." She orders, "Let's get you some care first. Do you have a first aid kit anywhere?"

A hand digs in her bag, as she tries to guide him somewhere to sit down, "Oh nevermind I think I brought one in my jump bag."

She pulls up the makeshift jumper from one side long enough to examine it before pressing it down again. "Probably will need stitches...I think I have the supplies for it..."

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

The haze begins to fade slightly, and Jona scowls. Just leave me be. Let me drown in this. I want to forget...yet even so, he could not. Not if there was even the slightest possibility of seeing her again. If nothing else, he had to atone. Atone for his sins, atone for his weakness, atone for letting Michele dance him around that fateful day. He looked down at Leina fumbling around for something in her handbag. Medical kit? Grunting, Jona tosses the jumper onto the shelf behind him. He wrapped his hand around the glass...and despite momentarily humoring the thought of wedging it in further, the soldier instead yanks it out cleanly, a spurt of blood hitting the wall next to Leina's face.

The pain was clarity. A lightning bolt that cut a path through his drunkenness, letting him think clearly, if but for a few moments. Jona almost put his hand on Leina's shoulder before realizing it was the bloodied one, cut from the glass. He instead uses his other arm, his grip tightening around the young woman's right shoulder. "Tell me...tell me how the hell you know that name." He pauses, turning his head slightly to the side as the drunken soldier heaves slightly, retching in self-loathing and bitterness. Wiping his mouth with his free hand, leaving a scarlet Glasgow smile on the left side of his mouth, Jona's eyes smolder. "Did *she* send you? Is Michele trying to force me back into that damn cockpit?"

Such anger. Such detest. Such regret. He would never forgive Michele for what she had done to the three of them. For betraying their friendship. For using him and Rita as her get out of jail card. Still...she had money. Resources. He didn't have a choice; Michele and Luio & Co. were his best and so far only option to get closer to Rita. To find out wherever she'd gone in the Phenex. A snarl echoed across the room as Jona kabedons the doorframe next to Leina's face.

"Tell me now, or leave me the hell alone."

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

As he tosses the Jumper away, she looks at him in alarm, "You have to apply pressure!" Even as he yanks the glass out, "Wait-!" It doesn't halt him at all.

She's half grabbed the kit when his bloodied hand settles onto her, staining her shirt. Then the other hand falls upon her right shoulder, grip tightening.

And she freezes.

She feels that myriad of emotions, that awful stew of self loathing and revulsion - sees that accidental Glasgow smile. There's so much she wants to do right now to reach out to the young man behind it...

"...If I answer, will you let go of me and let me bandage you up?" She asks, meeting his eyes with her own sea green ones. Despite freezing up moments ago, she shows no fear now. None at all.

"I know Michele, but I don't trust her, she's a liar...I'm with the Yumi Foundation. We help war orphans, but secretly we give assistance to Cyber Newtypes as well. Michele's story didn't add up, so I investigated it."

Leina gives him a long look, "My boyfriend pilots the Unicorn - it's the predecessor to the Phenex. That's why I don't trust her, there were too many holes in her story, about things I know about Psychoframes, Cyber Newtypes, About Augusta...I encountered the Phenex at the Denver Colony. And I heard things from it. Many people did." Leina echoes to him, "This life isn't all there is." As she gives him an example.

"So I did some digging, and found out who she is. Found out the things Michele omitted in her story. I even spoke to some people she knew at the Institute in the REA - the place she was transferred to from Augusta."

Now Leina dares to put a hand on his shoulder, "Jona. I'm here because I want to help her, and I want to help you - because I know that's what she'd want."

Then with a certain intensity she concludes, and asks, "...And now that that's answered. Would you /please/ let me tend to that wound?"

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

His eyes widen, then narrow at the mention of the Unicorn. More curses. More pain. More butchery in the name of humanity destroying what they don't know, what they fear. His chest throbs as blood continues to flow from his wound. He releases Leina, then moves over to his kitchennete shelf. Uncorking a bottle of tequila, Jona takes a swig of it before pouring some of it on his wound. He hisses audibly, but the pain is a welcome distraction from this new storm of thoughts and musings. This was not the normal. This was not his daily hell. It was different, and it was unsettling. He calls over to Leina from over his shoulder.

"I'm fine. The wound isn't that deep, so just take a seat and let me heat up one of my knives to cauterize it. Not like another scar is going to be anything new, although I'd wager you know that, miss Newtype." Loathing, envy, disgust. He knew. He may have just been a fascimile of the real thing, thanks to Augusta trying to desperately recreate his flesh to match Rita's powers, a cheap replica of true power beyond time and human understanding. Yet even so, the implants, the chemical treatments, the brainwashing...they had given him the barest sense. He could tell, just by looking at Leina. She was the real deal. So was it because of that? Was she able to live her life, free and unchained, walking her path?

Jona gritted his teeth as he took another swig of the tequila and hung his head over the stove. The burner was at max heat, and it wouldn't be too long before he could start heating up his standard issue combat knife. He continued to muse in the meanwhile. Surely she had encountered her fair share of trauma, discrimination, pain. Yet still...she was free because she was the real deal, right? He was a Cyber. Expendable, disposable, part of a legion of hundreds, thousands, just discarded after the war like so much refuse. If pain and sorrow were his only songs left to swing, then he'd rage into the abyss of space and deafened Mother Earth before he sputtered out like all the rest of his kind.

He calls out. "Tell me, then. Tell me about Denver. Tell me about the Phenex. Where is Rita? And what did she do?"

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Jona releases her, her hand slides away, and as he moves over to the kitchen, she follows at first - but only a few steps. Then just lets him say what he has to say.

There's a glower at him as he calls her 'Miss Newtype', as she bristles and offers her rebuke - "Don't tell me it's just /another scar/."

Miss Newtype rings so loudly in her ears, loudly enough that she hears the unspoken words, and at that she lifts up her shirt up slightly from the right side.

And shows him. The ugly scar on her abdomen, it looks like a gunshot wound- but the margins are uneven, it's ugly, the way it looks so gaping, it definitely got infected, and healed badly- "Burns can get infected really easily you know. It would be much better to you to accept a LITTLE CARE and let me stitch it up."

For a time she just stares at him, but then she lets the shirt fall, and takes a seat.

Rubbing her face with her hands, she takes a moment to recompose herself from her anger, "...She showed up. She was trying to draw attention to a long defunct facility for Cyber Newtypes and Psycoframes that exists there - don't tell Michele. Luio and Co. will eat it up as another method to seek 'immortality'."

Leina sorts through her memories, "She tore open the entrance to the Colony without any visible action. She sent a 'bird' to guide us at points...And in the end she stabilized a reactor with a light she wields."

Leina gives Jona a long look, "She's inside of it. I'm sure of it. And if you don't believe me, then let me tell you about something I saw."

This is a gamble, and she knows it, but - "Since you called me 'Miss Newtype' then there's no point hiding that I saw a vision. And that vision was of a young man with red hair calling out to 'Rita' and being tackled. Calling for them to take him instead. Then a blonde haired girl they were leading away, turned around and smiled at him as he struggled."

There's no anger in her voice now, no rebuke, only sadness from her now.

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Jona finally relents and turns the burner off, facing Leina as she shows him her scar. "Fine then. If it'll make you satisfied. Do your thing." He pulls up a chair in front of her and slumps into it, the wound on his chest no longer gushing, but bleeding at a steady, slow dribble. Drinking when he'd lost this much blood was probably a bad idea, but Jona didn't care in the slightest. Perhaps, at least, he'd blackout real well this time. No sensations. No cursed dreams. A blissful span of twelve or more hours where he was free in darkened oblivion, before waking up to atonement and pain.

He listens to Leina's recounting of Augusta, of Rita and the Phenex's actions. Again, the bird flies. Again, Rita soars beyond his reach.

Again and again and again and again. Even so...even if the fall breaks him over and over, even if he's doomed to repeat this charade until his death, he would not relent. It was his duty to find Rita again. No matter what.

His edge falters, however, when he hears Leina speak once more, of her vision. That day. That day where everything began to fall apart. Jona's breathing quickens, his hands start grasping the side of his chair, as he relives it.

No. No. Please no. NononononononononoNO

With no warning, the soldier launches himself out of his chair and and heads to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. Make it stop. Make it stop. MakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstopMakeitstop-

CRACK

When Jona opens his eyes again, the mirror is smashed in, his face reflected in myriad numerations, as hand joins his pectoral muscle in bloody brotherhood. He was here again. He was back. The tortured young man grips the side of the sink, breathing heavily, sweat sloughing off his body in great drops. Reaching into the cabinet that now hosted another seven years of bad luck on its fore, Jona withdrew some pills and popped them into his mouth, unlocking the bathroom and rushing for the sink. No alcohol this time. Water. Now.

Even as a concerned Leina watched him, Jona swallows the pills and water down greedily, then falls to his knees. He pants, speaking raggedly. "Never. NEVER. Make me remember that day again like that. Never see it and let me feel from you. I may be a broken copy, but I can still feel. And I would rather put a bullet through my head than remember that day like the moment I was there." His red hair a sweaty mop on his head, Jona looks over his shoulder, an increasingly vacant stare aimed at Leina.

"What do you want me to do, then?"

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Leina gets out the kit, she's preparing for what's to come, at first rubbing the wound with better disinfectant than brandy and a topical anesthetic.

She's taking out the sutures and hooked needle for stitching it when...

...in the middle of the recounting, he launches himself out of the chair. The sudden psychic onslaught makes Leina realizes her error. She runs to the door, discarding the kit and knocks on it- "Jona?!"

S M A S H

It's not long after he's rushing out, she gets the briefest glimmer of a Newtype warning which is all that prevents her from taking the door to the face.

As she then follows over to him, and there's urgency in his voice...there's concern, like she wants to take something to stop the bleeding in his hand right away.

She raises both her hands, and takes a step back at that vacant stare, "I apologize, I wasn't trying to-" Leina closes her eyes, "-I get it."

Leina remembers herself, picking up the oar, bleeding from her abdomen, brandishing it at the girl across from her...

...and for all of her malicious intent, accusing her of being a Cyber Newtype, and dangerous to her brother.

"...I get it." She says more quietly, as she feels the phantom sting of metal to her throat.

There's so much she wants to tell him, that she doesn't think he's broken.

"I want you to..." Leina says, as she swivels around a wooden chair, and sits down, "...let me stitch you up. Let me come talk to you on occasion. That's all. I have no other expectations."

Leina folds her hands in her lap, "I intend to go try and help Rita...however I can. Because that is what I do. I...was once a prisoner of Neo-Zeon. While there I met a Cyber Newtype named Elpeo. We fought, we argued...at one point she tried to kill me. But in the end we decided to become family together."

There's a pause as she takes a moment to recompose herself, this part is always difficult.

"I lost her - my little sister - while I was in a hospital bed, recovering."

A deep, shuddering breath, before she looks at Jona with renewed sorrow, "That's why I do what I do. That's why I want to help her. And that's why I want to help you. Other than that? I have no expectations."

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Echoes of pain. Jona might not feel as strongly as the bona fide model, but he was still a Cyber. He could feel Leina's sorrow, her regret, her grief. The barest sensations of them, perhaps, but even he could understand the difference between something as shallow as the disappointment from missing the last ice cream cone of the store, to genuine, unadulterated tears and regret. That was his gift, and it was his curse. A mind that would never again be his own. A mind that would never again understand quiet. Peace. The privacy and assured sanctity that no one would breach its walls and understand his deepest thoughts. His stare grew slightly more focused, as he fought back slightly against his suppressants. "I am...sorry you had to experience that." The words are halting. Slurred. Hard to form around his jaw and tongue.

"If you actually intend to help Rita...instead of using her as a scapegoat or guinea pig like...Michele, then I'll listen to what you have to say. I don't trust you, or the Federation, and you...know damn well...why." Speaking is becoming harder. His consciousness is flickering. Peace though. Peace comes. But not yet, He had to finish speaking. "I...am sorry...to hear about Neo...Zeon and what they did...to...you. But the Feds...they're just as evil...If Newtypes are meant to be...our...next step...in space...then I trust the Spacenoids...more than I ever trust paranoid...Earthers." He's struggling, at this point. The suppressants are kicking in, deafening the world to his senses, dulling his sensations, placing a damper on his Cyber Newtype abilities. Yet after that unwanted revisitation of his greatest failure, his greatest pain, there wasn't much else he could do to calm his hysteria.

"You...know...I feel like you...remind me of her...what she would be...if we'd grown up right...if we weren't...guinea pigs for the damn...Titans..." The light begins to fade from his eyes as artificially induced sleep comes crawling up his body, his nerves and muscles forcibly relaxing as the very last rebellious impulses to keep his eyes open begin to fade along with his sight.

Aaaaa...so this is why they call sleep...the younger brother of...Death.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

"...I do." Is all she says for now on Rita. Before saying quietly of the Federation, "And I know. I awakened at...a party in Dakar, while Neo-Zeon's Prisoner of War. Where soulless Federation aristocrats kissed Haman Karn's ring for scraps at the table. When Colony Drops happen, they exult.'Fewer mouths to feed.' is all they care about."

There's a thin smile as he cites what is basically exactly how she feels when it comes to Contolism, but she can see the struggle, the pills.

And there's alarm as she realizes what he just mixed those pills with...sadness in her eyes, as he notes she's like what Rita might have been...

...as the light fades from his eyes, the last sight he might see is Leina moving towards him.

-=-=-

Whenever he wakes up, whenever that might be...he'll find he's now on the couch, towels with dribbles of blood under him.

A blanket is covering him.

And the wounds in his hand and chest are reasonably stitched up.

And sitting in the chair beside the couch...is Leina.

Who is awake, and sat there watching his breathing the whole time to make certain she didn't need to call emergency services. On a tiny wobbly table, she has a pitcher of water, some Neo-Aspirin, and some bland crackers waiting so that it won't make him too much more nauseous.

"Hey. Welcome back." She gestures to the table, "I get the impression you'll need all of this."

...And after he wakes up more, he'll see that she cleaned up...basically his entire apartment!?

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Streams of sunlight. His eyes flicker open, followed by the rest of his senses. Pain. Dull, throbbing, aching. A welcome distraction from his maelstrom of thoughts and regrets, the daily torment. The couch. A blanket draped over him. Jona hears Leina greet him softly. He looks over, weary, his face a tapestry of haunting trauma. "Why?" Seeing nothing change, he murumurs again. "Why? Why did you stay here? I would have been fine...and even if not, it would've been what I deserved for being so weak, so powerless."

A lance of pain shoots through his head as he speaks, a hangover with the fury of a thousand-strong swarm of bees arcing throughout his forehand. Then dull discomfort. Thump, thump, thump. He spots the water and Neo-Aspirin, taking a fistful of the pills...probably triple the recommended dose, and chugging down the pitcher in one go with the medicine. Hunched over on the couch, it's only in the sunlight that his scars are so easily visisble.

Numerous jagged lines of poorly healed flesh and tissue whisper stories of unspeakable atrocities. Children carved up like slabs of meat, or frogs in a school science lab, being dissected and studied. Internal organs removed or prodded, or augmented with proto-tech, untested, unverified, unsafe. The biggest line runs down his back, from neck to curve, a small exposee to the numerous augmentations that were attached to his spine and nervous system, slotted in and out, in and out, like he was some fleshy car to be toyed with at Augusta, so that they could optimize his performance, reduce his response time, silence his protests.

Jona looks up and spots the apartment, cleaned, with trash bags by the door full of the broken remnants of last night, shards of mirror, and the general refuse of his studio apartment. Again he looks over to Leina. "Why?"

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Leina doesn't answer his question at first, only gesturing for the table again, and waiting on him - she winces when he takes too much Aspirin. "Those have a bleeding risk you know."

She points out, still not answering his question. As she sees the numerous scars, of the horrors inflicted upon him by Augusta.

Cyber Newtype programs she's told are more 'humane' now in the modern era, if such a thing can ever be intimated of Cyber Newtype programs. Jona experienced them when they were at their worst, in their infancy.

To some of the greatest war criminals of the Universal Century.

He looks around, he notices, he asks again.

"Because while I know you feel like you don't..."

Leina gives him the longest look, those sea green eyes showing off this distinct stubborness.

"...everyone deserves a little kindness. And you, Mister Basta? Jona? I feel you deserve a lot of it - and nothing you ever say or do will convince me otherwise."

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Jona is quiet for a long while. The storm within him rages still, and yet, it is somewhat calmer, as if he's in its eye for the briefest of repreives. All he says in reply to her comment about the Aspirin is, "I'm not lucky enough to die. Not that I'll let myself. Not until I've made things right." He can feel her discomfort regarding his scars, the stories they told of his pain, his terror, the untold sufferring and emotional weight of every surgery, every survival. Children died by the droves, if not from the surgeries, then from losing themselves completely from when their implants went too far, or their minds snapped from the pain of it all. Children braining themselves to death by smashing their skulls open against glass windows. Children ripping out their eyes and eardrums, overwhelmed and wanting to shut it all out. Children intentionally using livefire ammo during their exercises so they could put bullets through each others' brains, not out of malice, but to free each other from a hell they could see no other escape from.

"Suit yourself, Leina. All I care about is fulfilling my oath. I //will// set things right. First comes Rita. Then comes Michele. I am a dead man walking, but if you insist..."

Jona stares at Leina with a grimace, a hard-edged stare accompanying.

"You're more than welcome to see the last path this walking corpse has left for him."

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

It's the weight of so much guilt, and in a way Leina knows it too. How much of her life in the past eight years has been defined by the guilt of how she treated her little sister - before she never saw her again?

By her willingness to sacrifice the lives of Federation aristocrats for the sake of herself and her brother.

Despite how shocking it might be, seeing all those scars, how uncomfortable. Leina takes it all in. The horrors painted over the canvas of his body.

In the end, she doesn't refute what he says.

She knows there's nothing she can say that will convince him he has value, he has a life left to live.

Just as there's nothing he can say to convince her he doesn't, that he's a corpse.

Instead of responding to that-

She just reaches out a hand to him. "Then let's shake on it. I'll be your ally in trying to fulfill your oath to help Rita. So long as you don't mind me trying to revive a corpse on the way."

The hand hovers there. He can take it if he will.

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Jona stares ahead at the outstretched hand, juxtaposed against an empty, hollow heart, mired in corrupting regrets, emotions, and desperation. He can feel her regrets as well.

Raising his unbloodied hand, he stares at it, clenching and unclenching the limb, even as he continues to dissociate slightly. Meeting Leina's gaze, he slowly, gingerly accepts the handshake, though his grip is slack.

"Then try as you'd like." Breaking the handshake, Jona moves to his closet and proceeds to get dressed, first in his combat uniform, then pulling out his hanger ID. Looking back, he nods ever so slightly. "So."

"Where do we go from here?"

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Leina's handshake is firm, but not so firm as to cause him pain, she's careful.

She looks him in the eyes, perhaps catching how he's not all...there.

"I'll be sure to take you up on that."

As she sits back, and waits as he gets dressed, Leina looks his way, "Michele is recruiting help for her Phenex hunt, more and more people. Not just you. My inclination is to make certain that as many of her recruits as possible are people that would do the right thing when it came down to it."

This is dangerous telling him this, but right now, she trusts him.

"Not what Michele or Luio and Co. wants. To that end, I'll join the hunt myself, but to make certain she doesn't succeed."

Leina gives him a long look, this is the important part, if he wants to participate, then... she needs to encourage him...

"What I feel needs to be done, is that you need to figure out what Rita wants. Which is difficult as she... runs from pursuit. To that end, I think you'll need to catch up to her. If you do - I know she'll talk to you. You may feel otherwise - but with your connection to her? There's no way she won't."

Clasping her hands together, she leans forward a touch, "If you want to be a part of Michele's hunt, then that's one way to go - and might give you the most opportunities to catch up to her. But if you prefer not to deal with Michele - then there are other ways. You'd just need a fast mobile suit. I have my own sources, and I don't mind information to you on sightings before it ever gets to her."

There's a pause and a meaningful look.

"Whatever path you choose Jona - I promise, I'll still help you. So it's your decision."

<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.

Jona's mouth curls into a small grimace at the mention of Michele's name. "I abhor her, and what she's done to me and Rita. I'm not sure if I'll ever forgive her, but for now, I'll act as her damn hound." Looking at Leina hard, he continues. "I know there are other ways I could go hunt for the Phenex, and as much as I want to get away from her...I can't. I need to stay and keep an eye on her. If I leave, and Michele gets what she wants, harming Rita, harming others...I wouldn't be able to keep going."

Jona leans back. "So there you have it. I'm stuck here, and I don't doubt that Michele has new and horrible ways to keep me in line. It's not like either of us mattered to her." Closing his eyes, Jona grunted as he was visited by an unwanted memory. Their last few days before their debut as the Miracle Children, enjoying the botanical gardens. Futile, fragile, foolish. It was a lie. All of it. His eyes whipping back open, Jona slowly rises from the couch, and stumbles haphazardly around Leina towards the door. "Time won't wait for us. Let's go." A momentary pause. "And thank you. Sorry I can't just trust you...but I appreciate what you've done and offered so far. Please...don't make me regret saying that."

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Leina doesn't understand everything, not really, as to what's going on between Rita, Michele, and Jona. She understands that every step of the way - this is what Rita wanted. What Rita predicted.

If Jona knew that though, it would be no comfort, and it would be going against everything Rita asked of her.

"Then we won't let her harm her. We won't let her even touch her."

Leina gives him a rather intense look, "And if she does ANYTHING to try and keep you in line, you let me know...I can work against her, apply pressure to her in my own ways."

Leina rises to a standing position and shoulders his bag. Jona may see that the blood is off her Jumper now, though it's a touch bleached in one spot from the Hydrogen Peroxide.

"You don't have to apologize for not trusting me. I understand. It's all hard to believe isn't it?..Too good to be true?"

She smiles at him as she seems to try her best to comprehend his misgivings, "Especially for someone in your position. All it means is I'll have to keep proving myself until you can believe it... And, you're welcome. I appreciate in turn that you're willing to give me a chance."

A beat and-

"Let's go, she's waiting for us."