2022-11-14: Shackled Pasts, Uncertain Futures
- Cast: Rena Lancaster, Zoltan Akkanen
- Where: Side 3
- Date: U.C. 0096 11 14
- Summary: Zoltan and Rena talk about the past that binds them. Neither are willing to give ground on what comes in the future.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
A man stood silently over the park hill, gazing at the landscape below. The interior of Side 3 was still recovering from the attack a mere two days ago, the air thick with the sounds of sirens, of people, of the stirrings of the masses. Amuro Ray, here. The Shamblo, taken, and here. While he wasn't the best at recognizing political shockwaves, he wasn't an idiot. The murmurs of it all culminated in this failed clone popping open a drink (branded by some Zeon Museum Promotion) and taking a swig. Here, he could at least think a small bit.
Rejection.
The subconscious crackle of a lightly crushed can echoed out. Amuro Ray rejected his reason for being. Granted, the scars of the ground were only there in his memories now; The skeleton of his GUndam were hauled off, as had Full Frontal's. All that was there now were people. People scrabbling over the wounds, trying to make sense of what had come in as a maelstrom, wrecked so much, and phased out.
...The thoughts of the Unicorn barely scratched his mind. They were a target, yes. But what of it? They had their own insaity roiling inside them, what with the screams, and everyone, and that strange Gundam. A Gundam worth fighting...eventually.
A deep breath in, a deep breath out. Best to take another swig. What flavor, Zeon Cherry?
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena Lancaster hasn't been back to Side 3 in a long while.
But after what happened, she felt she owed it to the place she was born -- the place that she once called home. Besides, after what happened to Callisto, it was like a siren call: come, see, and maybe find something that could give an answer. She knows it won't happen that way; there aren't answers to be found here.
Still, she came, walking up the hill to get a view. She didn't sense Zoltan, at first, on the base of the hill. Still, it can't be a coincidence that his presence made her choose this hill to walk up.
She has a bottled water in her hand, branded "ZEON NATURAL SPRING WATER." Never recycled, allegedly (though the legal definition of recycle and spring may not be the standard definition).
She hesitates, as she sees him -- and feels him. A sense of rejection, strong enough that it hits her. But then she walks up -- pacing up behind herself. Rena sucks a breath in, but Zoltan can almost certainly feel her there.
Outside of a cockpit, she is shorter than him; a woman of average height, slim, with ash blue hair worn at chin-length, with a red streak dyed at the part. It looks like a shooting star. She hesitates, then some basic emotional impulse to always try to be nice takes hold. So she smiles.
"Hey."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
The familiar voice echoed out, Zoltan making no move to react. Why would there be a reason to move? It's Side 3. It's Zum City. Only idiots started fights here. Idiots that had a grander purpose in mind than him, idiots that were powered by something else. He turned around, the towering man gazing down at the pilot.
Even if this was the first time he saw Rena outside of the cockpit, the gaze of discontent was as if it weren't their first time meeting. Double-scarred eyes boring down with an oppressive aura, that mop of hair nearly covering on eye. He's in his uniform; Only proper that the remnants of decorum stay steady, even now.
"Yo. Here to watch the ants, are you?" There was bare animosity on his intonations, but nothing eliciting actual hatred. He sounded...a bit tired. The faintest indicator of eyebags as he sweeped an arm wide, gesturing towards the scars of battle. "There's nothing of Amuro Ray left. Everyone else picked up the pieces, obviously."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena is in uniform, as well. White pants, tan coat, and black shoulders. The bars on her uniform mark her as a lieutenant. She steps up closer to Zolta, looking up at him for a moment. She feels that faint impression of hostility -- but tempered by exhaustion.
"I wanted to see for myself. I wasn't nearby, when the battle happened," she says, glancing at his face for a moment. Bags under his eyes. "So you faced him." And she wasn't here to try to stop him. She regrets that; she can't quite hide the emotion from him. She swallows, but she can only guess what he felt.
That it wasn't what he wanted.
"What happened?" she asks. "When you faced him? Did you... find what you were hoping to, Zoltan?"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Lieutenant. Same as him. Granted, the uniform markings were obvious enough; Londo Bell. Every Sleeve person knew that. When in space, it was important to know who was who, what uniform represented who. And informally, what sort of experience they had when the melting pot of space had so many vague boundaries.
It took a moment for him to answer. That hardened jaw tensing up as he gazed towards the scars, towards the rapidly healing wounds of the fake, manufactured earth.
"I did. I faced off against Amuro Ray." The obvious. "Full Frontal was there, too." Easily verifiable. "And the Unicorn." No lies. "...The Shamblo on the other side didn't help." Not that he fought against it. "It was...something. He's been bolstered by whatever took control of him. He was still himself."
Amuro Ray was still himself. That was the conclusion he came up with after the battle. A man so tired, a man so trying to see what went wrong, and even if there was something else driving him...It was still Amuro Ray.
"He was still himself, and he said he was sorry." A deep breath in. "He rejected us." Completely. "The bastard basically came in, pushed us over, called us weak, and left us."
Frustration once more.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
The uniforms can say so much. They can hide so much, too; they could make Rena seem an Earthnoid, Zoltan seem like the usual recruit to a Neo-Zeon movement. The uniforms simplify the world, but not always in an honest way.
What Zoltan tells her matches the harried after action reports that she read. She still doesn't know the details of what happened, but she has the broad outline. Her eyes widen, though, when Zoltan says that he was still himself. It seems unfair, in a way -- that someone could want to destroy the world and all life in it, but still be themselves.
But Triple Zero isn't fair.
"That... that seems hard," she says. She looks down for a second. Before, she would have chided him; told him he should be his own person. Now, though, Rena has an understanding about herself. Something changed for her -- and maybe Zoltan can't feel what, but he can feel that it has. "...Why was he sorry? For being himself? Or... for taking all of you out like that?"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
The subtle shifts of emotion are, unfortunately, easy for Zoltan to pick up. One who's immersed in Cyber-Newtype training was trained in so many ways, so many fashions, so many things to piece together and to try to understand, again and again and again, that those minor details were so easy to scrape up.
Triple Zero. What a disaster of a thing to come onto Earth, even with everything around this miserable blue marble.
"That it was his fault for my existence." The worst part, the most striking part, the part that keeps vexing him: Amuro Ray was right.
Without Char, Zoltan would not be who he is.
Without Char, Zoltan would not have his purpose in life.
Without Char, Amuro Ray would merely be a pilot with some dumb luck and a footnote in Zoltan's own life.
A deep breath in.
A deep breath out.
"He's blaming himself for what he saw now." The exact reason why he yelled out his death sentence for the White Devil in the first place. "The exact thing I was arguing about came true." It's a cruel thing, fate. His argument was already true, but what now?
"...And you? You didn't strike me like the type to punch someone on the ground, Lena, but I thought you'd have some more words." A bit more...bile to spew, in other words.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"That's not right," Rena says.
She stays quiet for a moment -- tracing the logic out. She feels the logic in Zoltan's mind and understands it, then. Without Char, Zoltan wouldn't exist; without Char, Amuro Ray wouldn't have any connection. It's something she can understand, now: the unfairness of someone else's connection being impressed upon you.
"It's not right of him," she clarifies. "You're your own person. Zoltan Akkanen, not Char Aznable. He isn't the reason you exist. You are. I..." She hesitates. "I still don't agree that he has to die. But..."
Rena swallows. 'More words.' She should, and there's a sense of being defeated. "I learned some things about myself," she says. She looks at the scars on Zuum City. The ones made by the battle -- but the ones that run deeper. Ones that cut back to the One Year War; ones that cut deeper. Her hand bals into a fist by her side.
A part of her tells her to stop talking. This is stupid. She doesn't listen to that part.
"Lancaster isn't the name I was born with," she says, her voice quiet. "I was born Renalle Kan Zeitun. It's... in some of the personnel files. Most people in the Federation don't know. You probably heard of my mother. Rhella Kan Zeitun, one of Glemy Toto's Cyber-Newtype researchers." Her eyes meet his. "I thought... for the longest time that I was walking around, having escaped what she did to a whole lot of other people. She wreaked havoc on a lot of lives. And I had to -- have to -- make up for it."
She swallows. "But I learned she did more than I thought to me. So..." Her brown eyes close. "...I maybe understand part of what you're saying. It's cruel, when someone shapes your life, and it wasn't you that they were trying to shape. It's cruel and unfair."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Not right, she says. Of course it wasn't.
...Of course it wasn't. But it was what he had inside him. It was what he was imprinted on. Meant to do. Meant to push past. Even as a failure, there was a side that refused to give up. People declare him a failure and keep on using him? Yeah, and? He's still going to get to his goal, damn it.
"Of course I'm my own damn person..." The soft muttering of someone used to such drivel. He was himself. That's why he was here. He's chasing after this for himself.
"But?" The singular word in retaliation, an eyebrow raised as he braced himself. The instincts of a person spanned far and wide, and even then, this was only obvious. But. Such a heavy word.
And he listened. A grim, locked expression on his face, listening to the revelation at hand. Zeitun, huh? "See? Not all fun and games when you're the one in the pilot's seat of being pushed beyond what you are." He couldn't resist a wry smirk at that, asshole that he was.
Still. "Still, one of Glem's pet lapdogs? That's veering pretty close to being picked up for ransom and trying to get some files outta her. Lancaster's a good cover. Consider my seal of approval of it." A slouch back, the scarred man still radiating wariness. No sign of barefaced hostility, only the mannerisms of someone suspicious due to circumstances far, far beyond either of the two.
"If you're wondering where Callisto is, hell if I know. She's probably dealing with her own personal demons." ...Like him and Rena are. Callisto, huh? Didn't feel right, calling her on the other designation. Best to discard that line of thought.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"It's still worth saying," Rena says to him, with a glance sideways at him. But there is a little bit of kindness behind the insistence, too. It's not a joke, nor is it said lightly, but there is a little warmth in how she replies.
She looks back at him, watching -- feeling -- his reaction. Rena's eyes are downcast, after that, but she nods. "It's not," she agrees. "I don't like that feeling. Even though... I know it's different for you." She doesn't explain how; the truth is painful, and it's not one she wants to share. It isn't for protecting herself, but rather because saying the truths that Yuliana told her about aloud...
Maybe it would make them true.
"Thanks," she says. "It was my uncle and aunt's idea. I like the name, though. It's better than the one I was born with." She glances sideways -- and her eyes widen for a second. Then, Rena nods. "I'll... I'll find her. She's a friend. She was at the same colony I was, after I left here. Thanks for telling me, even if you don't know where she is."
She hesitates for a moment more, and looks back at the ruins. "...What are you going to do now?" she asks. "Are you still going to try to end Amuro Ray? After all that?"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"'Course it is." A bark back, but little more than that. Of course he was his own damn person. Of course. Why would he be here and not desperately trying to find Amuro Ray, if not for the fact that he was himself? It was a different conclusion to Char's own dogma, and all the trouble that caused.
"I'd hope it'd be. You don't look like the type to go through bein' a Cyber-Newtype. Dead, scarred, or worse." Full Frontal. "Though, that's obvious enough; People can't help themselves, can they?" Another upturn of the lips. He knew as much. Both from ideas and from his experiences.
A friend, huh. "I don't doubt the Federation on having the slightest bit of decency to say that much, at least." Battle lines were drawn, quartered, and split. It was the obvious reports of what obviously happened; No need to dance around that subject.
...Besides, it won't do anyone good if he couldn't get to his goal underhandedly.
"Yeah. I'm going to find him. I'm going to hunt him down." An instinctual chestpuff, a man with a conviction in mind. "If those bastards keep on saying shit, then I'll gladly leave them hanging with the record straight." Pure, unrelenting spite and bitterness.
The parts of Char that carried a grudge and the will to go through with it, no matter the cost. The parts that were smoldering under every carefully crafted speech that Casval gave, all for his own goals.
The drive.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Y...yeah," Rena says. "I'm not a Cyber-Newtype."
But there's something else there. Zoltan can feel it -- a willful hiding of the truth. The cruel irony of a Newtype, where when Rena tries to hide something, it makes it obvious that she is trying to hide it. There is shame at that, which he can feel too; a powerful impression if it, and it is joined by another sense. Words, almost, that repeat in his mind: 'I'm not obsolete. I'm not.'
She finds her hand balling into a fist. Tension, like a coil being wound tighter and tighter. Rena looks sideways at him -- and she doesn't defend the Federation. She doesn't have the heart to.
"You're..."
He isn't going to give up. Rena closes her eyes, then she sighs again. She can see that part of Char in him; the unrelenting drive. But, of course, Zoltan does it in his own way, she thinks. Or, maybe, she doesn't know who Char Aznable really was enough to say. "If you're going to try to kill him... I'm still going to try to stop you."
She turns to face him. "But it's not just for his sake," she says. "I think people have to move on from the past. But... I also want you to find what gives you what you're looking for without having to hurt someone."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
There is only the smallest of grins popping on Zoltan's lips, allowing the statement to hang in the air. His aura is one of smugness; He knows that statement is wrong. How? He does not know. Explain how he knows? The gut instinct that permates through Newtypes, this so-called next step in human evolution.
No, it is only obvious that Zoltan knows that the statement is wrong, though having that is enough to needle Rena's psyche with the innate sense of 'I know you're lying through your teeth'.
He's regained some of his former vigor. A rival of the past. A coalescing rival of the present, even if one hasn't come to blows. Yet. "I didn't think you'd say otherwise, Reeeena. Do I look like the type of person that'd expect someone to change so easily?"
A chug of his drink. At least it was still carbonated. "Everyone has to move on from the past. And if the people of the past are around to say that what they did resulted in even more hate, then that's an argument for precognition in general. We have to move on, don't we? For the sake of everyone. To forget and to leave the obselete behind, and bring in the new."
A sigh. A grumble. "So it's obvious that we have to let dead people lie, unless they're oh so motivated to keep trying what already failed."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
She catches that grin, of course. Rena looks at it for a second -- and she can tell that he knows. She is lying. They both know it. Her eyes narrow, but they break away. If she was stronger, maybe she could own it and say it. She can't, though, and it's something that holds her back.
She looks at him for a moment more. It will come to blows, sooner or later. She knows it -- he knows it, she thinks. But, they've already been in conflict, and have since the fateful day they encountered each over Torrington's ashes.
"You don't," Rena admits, with a sigh. She takes a sip of bottled water, too, and then lowers it back down. "But... sometimes, something's important to say, even if we both know it."
She is quiet for a second -- and then it's a twist in her heart. Could he have known? Did he sense how that word cuts deep for her?
"People aren't obsolete," she insists. It's not quite heated, but it's quick. "We're--they're too complicated to just become part of the past and be brushed away. It's not about repeating the past. It's about having the chance to grow past what people decided we are!"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
His finger dances along the rim of his bottle, teasing, joyful, playful. He knows. He definitely knows, and he's taking every advantage without bashing down those mental walls. "Touche. I don't think we'll have to wait long until our differences come onto the battlefield, but you know the obvious, and so do I."
"Amuro Ray must die." The rival echoing in the past.
Oh, his needling worked. In dividends, if he had to be pressured to elaborate. "Is it? You've heard the terms before. Washed up. Put away. Decrepit. Some hero should sit down even when they try to come back, put your knowledge to use rather than your body. Haven't you seen any athlete when they reach a decade in their field? 'Put yourself down, you've done enough'." He's grinning.
"Few people can reinvent themselves so easily."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena's hand balls tighter, until her fingernails are digging into her palm. She keeps herself from hissing at the pain, but it's a useful reminder to ground herself.
"I still can't accept that," she says. She looks up at him, then she shakes her head.
"I--I know that. But people deserve the chance to try," she says. "They can grow past it. Even if things have moved past a person, they're... they can still rise above that!"
Her voice is getting heated, now. She can't loom over him, so she looks up at him. She isn't quite shouting, but she isn't calmly talking. Something about what she says runs deep for her. Deeper than what he said. "Because a person's worth is more than what they were made to be!"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
He's smiling. He's genuinely smiling, unable to supress a chuckle of contentment over this gal. The outburst of emotion was palpable and obvious, the Sleeves Lieutenant giving an exaggerated shrug in response.
"Do you think he'll agree, after everything?" Yes. "Do you think that people can change themselves if they can't move on from their past?" No. "This is something I have to settle to move on, Rena. People may think they're worth more, but unless what's binding them to the past is gone, then I can't support that."
"He's binding me down, so he's gotta go. Simple."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I don't know if he will! But... he should be able to decide that for himself," Rena says. She hesitates, though.
Because it's more than that. She hesitates, before she takes a step closer to him, her hand over her heart. "And because he's not what's binding you to the past. It's the idea of him -- and Char -- and the whole history of the world that is," she says. "And killing him isn't going to free you of that. The future isn't something you run towards, Zoltan."
She shakes her head, looking up at him and his scarred eyes. "It's something you build."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"Hoh? What, you want to break him free of that and then ask him what he thinks, when he's already expressed regret? Do you want him to see more? Untainted, without anything behind him to cloud his view?"
A step forward. "The ideas run deep within everyone here, Rena. Can't you see? Everyone's counting on Full Frontal. Everyone's counting on what Char did. What Amuro did. And you're saying that we can just let go of that? Just like that, without anything in the past to bind us?"
"We can't build the future while the rotting foundation of the past takes us down with it. If Amuro dies and it isn't fixed, it only means something else is worse. Something more central to everything. And that'd be something I'll tackle if it comes to it."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"I... I don't think he should die when he's under the influence of Triple Zero," Rena says, with a shake of her head. "He has the right to see clearly. And to make up his mind, then. Others have come back from Triple Zero!"
She swallows, not flinching when he takes that step forward. Rena stares up at him, and then she nods. "I know the ideas run deep. We're still mired in the past," she says. "But I don't think sweeping away the past means that anything follows it, Zoltan. What happens if you keep finding something rotten that you have to destroy? Where does it stop?"
Rena shakes her head again. "What do you want to see in the future?"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
A click of the tongue as he stands his ground, his visage only clouding with the frustration of comparisons. Of compromises, continual 'We'll do this eventually', 'We'll see', on and on and on. There was no path forward but this. None at all.
"So that's what you think? He disappears, reappears with Triple Zero, everything will be fine and dandy after he comes back and sees what he's done? Don't give me that." Scorn. The idealism behind such a thing and what the assumption was only drove his resistance further.
"Everything's mired in the past, Rena. Look at this place. Look at the drinks. They revel in it, they love it, all for the sake of their precious feud. It's something here and now, but it's also something people want to go on. Do you think it can be fixed that easily? If the core needs to be destroyed, what else do you think I'll want to do?"
"I see a land with the past not fighting it at all, that's what."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"It's... he may not be fine, but it doesn't mean it has to end with him dying," Rena says. She hedges, though, because it's hard to know. She frowns up at him, even if her eyes break from his for a moment.
She does look around, though -- at the monuments, the drinks, the merchandise. The way that no one has left the war behind them. It's a war that happened when they were both infants, but still defines their lives as adults. She stares for a second, before she looks up. "It's... it's a thing we have to learn to move past," she says. "We've already tried destroying and killing to get there. I know people aren't moving onto it."
She hesitates. "But more death isn't going to inspire them. We need to find something that will. Something they can look towards, something they can build."
She frowns. "And we -- people like us -- should have a future we want to build, not just a past to break away from."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
The eyes of the failed clone cloud over, the man releasing a long, heavy sigh at the counterargument. She didn't understand, she didn't see. She's got similarities, but those who haven't seen, those who don't know... "...Let me know if you found something that'll shake these people's faith in the Federation and Zeon, Rena. Let me know, and then we'll see if it can surpass Axis Shock." The words dripped with scorn, with venom. It was a barefaced challenge.
"People will stick to what they love, what they know, and they won't move past. And even with such an event, they refuse to move past. Give me an answer for that."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Something that can surpass the Axis Shock. Rena repeats it in her mind, before she tries to answer him. Because, right now, she doesn't have an answer -- she doesn't know what could surpass the Axis Shock.
"...I don't have something that can," she says. But there's a moment's pause after that. "Yet. But I'll find something. And when I do, I'll tell you about it."
Part of Rena thinks this must be ridiculous -- that she is being stubborn, that a product of an obsolete program couldn't find such a thing. Another part of her wonders if she is trying to meet expectations placed on her. But it feels like the right thing to say.
"So you'll have to wait, Zoltan," she says. "Because... I'm not going anywhere. Obsolete or no."