2023-12-14: The Cowardly Brave
- Cast: Lina Lombardi, Shozo (as Yapool)
- Where: Division Train
- Date: U.C. 0097 12 14
- Summary: Yapool's tour of the Division Train continues as he shows Lina the price of kindness. Taunted with the only thing she's ever wanted, the specter of doubt enters her mind. Why is she here?
- Content Warnings: Death, desecration of a corpse
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina pressed at the front of her uniform as she walked through the train back to her quarters. She hadn't been expecting to spend as much time on the Paradiso as she had, but it was nice to have some time with Sonia.
"Hopefully we can get back to Earth before Christmas so I can get her something...It'd be nice to at least get enough time before Epiphany." The nice thing about Christmas in Italy is that it didn't stop until about a week into January, and she was sure that Elsa would keep the tree up even longer than that to make sure she could see it.
She wondered how quickly it would take to fully purify the remaining Guard and have them be ready for the battle against Genesic, glancing out of an observation window to the space where Jupiter used to be. "Well, at the rate we're going, it'll be easy even if they're not ready, heh. Everything's comin' up Lombardi!" She chuckles to herself as she reaches her room, opening the door.
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
As Lina approached her room, there was a flicker in the lights overhead, as the car of the train began to rumble and darken. A loud VWM-VWM-VWM sound echoed through the car as a portal in space opened into some sort of primordial chaos, a man in a normal suit stumbling out, visibly panting.
"Figlio di puttana, what the- Command, respond! I've evaded the creature, but I'm not sure where I-"
He noticed Lina standing there and visibly flinches, taking a single step towards her before taking two backwards.
"...Is... Is that you, Hotshot?" he half-whispered in a painfully familiar voice, fumbling for his helmet.
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina freezes. She doesn't even blink.
That voice. The voice she'd been waiting the better part of a decade to hear. It couldn't be him, right here in front of her. It defied probability! That was his suit, it was his voice, it was...
"...Papa?" Her voice wavers and cracks, hesitant.
She'd been waiting for this day for years. So why did it not feel like she thought it would?
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
The man rips off his helmet and throws it to the side, Feliciano Lombardi looking at his daughter for the first time in forever. His voice breaks softly, tears forming in his eyes.
"H-how..." Realization hits a moment later, as his sentimental expression turns to one of horror.
"Merda, you can't- *I* can't-" he reaches down to grab his helmet.
"Command, I'm orbiting *Jupiter* now, that thing chased me across the damn solar system! I-"
A massive tentacle shoots out of the still-open portal, wrapping around Feliciano's torso and squeezing the air out of his lungs. He looks up at Lina, eyes now full of terror.
"Run, Hotshot," he wheezes before he is YANKED back into the portal.
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
"PAPA, NO!" Lina screams, her anguish scratching at her throat as she lunges to grab for her father's hand, falling to her knees as his body is yanked away from her.
She grabs for her comms, desperately trying to get in contact with anyone else on the train. "This is Lombardi! We have an issue! Something has breached the train! Can anyone read me? Over!"
How the hell did her father end up here at Jupiter...was he being chased for 6 years by...something?
Her breath hitches in her throat.
Six years? He looked exactly the same as the last day she saw him back in Rome. How would he still be alive? Had he been chased across time?
Her mind races a million miles a minute as she backs away from the portal, reaching for her gun to point into it.
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Lina's back met the firm press of a hand against it as she took a step back, and the man in the hat grinned down at Lina before wordlessly SHOVING her into the portal, waving at her cheerily as the hole in space closed, the last sight of the real world the man's monstrous smile.
The other side of the portal was an absolute nightmare of dizzying technicolor and choking, sulfurous mist. Unsettlingly, there was no visible ground, the entire world around her being uniform in shape and shade, and yet she stood there, on solid ground. Breathing hurt, and yet she *could* breathe.
Perhaps most worryingly, creatures, formless and massive, writhed just beyond the mist, screams and bellows echoing through the impossible space.
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
"Yapoo--" She can't finish her scornful curse of the being's name before being shoved through. Adrenaline races through her veins as her stomach ties in knots. She turns around, feeling for the portal she just went through. She needs to go back, she has to go back. Her breath is ragged, passing through gritted teeth as she tries her hardest to ignore the surroundings, trying to close her eyes, trying to block her ears.
The faces and voices of the damned surround her.
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate..."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
"Not very *brave* of you, Lina~" Yapool's voice purrs through the echoing madness. "I'll be honest, I expected you to *chase* your father -- that's why I went to the trouble of stealing him from you in the first place. And yet, here you are, closer than you've been in 6 years, and you *ran away*."
Feliciano's scream rang out through the din of chaos.
"Guess I don't need to keep him alive anymore if you don't care. Maybe Sonia will get more of a rise out of you."
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
"You son of a bitch! That's not my Papa! I knew it from the second I saw you! You're playing some kind of Goddamn devil's trick on me!"
It can't be. She turns to where she heard the scream. It can't be.
But dammit, she has to know.
She sprints. She runs on nothing through the chaos, focusing on nothing but what's in front of her. "You touch a hair on Sonia's head and I'll personally rip yours off!"
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Lina runs past a twisted wreck in scraped green and gold, the cockpit window crushed but the cockpit itself intact.
"What a curious trick to play -- I spend the time tearing your father's tin can out of the skies over the Dodecanese, the greasy old fox spends *days* evading my Choju, and right when he finds you, you don't believe in him? What a *terrible* daughter you are. Hear that, Feliciano? You're not her real papa! Guess losing over half a decade will do that to you," Yapool's voice sing-songs through the gloom.
"Figlio di puttana, leave her alone! Lina, you have to find a way out of here, it's full of- GAAAAH!" A loud *snapping* sound rings out through the swirling nightmare.
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
She stops momentarily to inspect the wreck.
The Lombardi Custom.
It was her father's mech.
She gave the window a frustrated pound with her fist before continuing on.
"If you don't get his name out of your mouth, I'll cut your tongue out to make room for it! Pezzo di merda! Verme!" She continues to curse the voice out in Italian as she runs, the scenery not moving around her to signify any progress.
"Papa! Papa! Pap-" SNAP "-ah."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
A loud THUD as something is dropped onto the ground, and a few moments later Yapool walks out of the mist, spinning Feliciano's helmet on his fingertip.
"Mmm, now *that* was nice. I don't get enough expressions like that at the end -- he was *really* more worried about *you* than he was his own impending situation -- and the last thing he heard from you was that you thought he was a *fake*. Truly wonderful." He laughs, and laughs, before tossing the helmet to Lina. "You really are the least of everyone on that train, aren't you? Least courage, least skill, least talent... I'm almost frustrated how quickly I'm getting *bored* of you, Lina. At least Liam had the decency to try and keep himself from breaking for two decades..."
A shuffling zombie in obscuring rags shuffles out of the mist towards Lina, holding a chair that it slowly places down.
"Sit, Lina. Let's see if you can at least be worth a conversation."
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina's eyes burn as tears begin to stream down her cheeks. She unconsciously grabs her father's helmet and stares into the visor at her own pitiful reflection.
She was doing so good, too.
"You think I give a shit if you're bored of me or not? Get bored! Leave me be!" She tosses the helmet to the ground, bouncing and rolling at her feet. "Felix Lombardi was a million times the father you'll ever be, Yapool." She firmly grabs the chair, pulling it towards her and sitting down.
"You wanna talk? We can fucking talk. Then I can fucking kill you after."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Yapool laughs as he stands over Lina, having closed the distance while she was staring into the helmet -- which bounces past his foot as it is thrown away.
"Oh, I assure you I am an *excellent* father -- Blame the other one for the boy's... independence. Now..." He lifts the brim of his hat, letting Lina finally take a look into his eyes -- horrifying, swirling rainbows -- horribly familiar ones.
They look like *Impact rings*.
"Why, oh why, should I let you leave this place? Or *live*, for that matter?" He snaps his fingers, and the mist begins to dissipate, revealing *endless* creatures straight out of a child's nightmare, piled on top of one another, all around them- she's STANDING on one of them.
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina grips at the chair as she glares into those accursed eyes. As the creatures form around her, she remembers what her mother told her about the monsters under her bed.
If you don't mind them, they can't hurt you.
Her eyes dart away from Yapool's, avoiding lingering on one place for too long as she crosses her legs.
"Because if you really wanted me to be dead, you'd have killed me already. Forget what you just said? Apparently I'm beginning to get boring. So why keep me around this long?"
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
Yapool says nothing for a moment... then shrugs.
"Fair enough." He snaps his fingers, and a massive, lime green creature reminiscent of a walking moth grabs Lina from below, yanking her into the air and HURLING her, sending her flying through teeth and claws and fur, narrowly missing a fatal end before Yapool catches her by the back of her neck.
"You act like you have some kind of leverage over me, or that I can't actually *do* anything to you. Would you like me to show you how *wrong* you are?" He lets his gloved hand *squeeze* her neck from behind, and a bloom of pain greets Lina.
"I suppose all I'm doing right *now* is working off some anger for your treatment of the boy, but I *am* a man of simple pleasures." He sighs and drops Lina back onto the chair.
"I just didn't think you'd be so *spineless*, to be honest. What are you *doing* on that train, Lina?"
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina cries out and flails as she's hurled through the air, grunting as Yapool grabs her by the scruff. She hisses through her teeth as his hand squeezes, trying to keep her composure through the pain.
"Because I showed Shozo kindness? He certainly needs it."
She releases her breath as he lets her go into the chair. "I'm on that train to defeat Genesic and Triple Zero. I'm protecting humanity's future! And I'd say we're doing a pretty damn good job of it so far!"
Lucine Azul (Azul) has paged Lina Lombardi and Shozo with, ' mind if I watch'
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
"The boy needs to stop pretending he's a human and do what he's told," Yapool spits, his tone suddenly a bit clipped as the smile drops off his face for a moment. He quickly regains it, however, and sighs.
"You say "we" as though you're actually contributing to anything. I'd call you a fake brave, but there's so little brave about you that I'd rather just call you a real coward." He chuckles to himself at his little joke.
"All you're doing here on Jupiter is denying humanity a quick death -- which I appreciate, don't get me wrong. It's *boring* to take dead worlds, after all. Let's see... I have a date with Shishioh coming up fairly soon, I can't spend *too* much time here... But yeah, Lina, tell me. What makes you worth calling part of this team? You're a mediocre pilot, a *shockingly* dense Newtype, and you don't even have the temerity to try and save your father when he's right in front of you."
Lucine Azul teleports in.
POT: Lucine Azul is now set observer.
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina sits, and seethes, and listens to the bastard repeat every single thought she's had about herself back at her. Why should she be considered a Brave? It was all true. She was merely a tourist living the life of a person happier than she'd ever be. She'd probably be better off holing herself back up in Moralia killing for the highest bidder.
Don't say that, Lina.
And why shouldn't I?
Because he wants you to give up. Just like T0 wanted the Ruin Apostles to give up.
She lowers her head into her hands, letting a ragged, shuddering sigh escape her lips as she attempted to mentally talk her anxiety down. Her body trembles slighty, her skin goes clammy, she feels like she's about to throw up.
Breathe.
It hurts.
Breathe.
Her shoulders gently rise up and down as she takes a deep breath...and exhales.
"I belong here. I know in my heart that I do. I've never belonged anywhere more."
<Pose Tracker> Shozo has posed.
"You don't belong anywhere. I guess you might as well be here -- you can't effect change *more* somewhere else, unless you start putting down politicians," Yapool says airily, chuckling.
"You're going to fail everyone you care about eventually -- it's in your nature to overextend as you desperately try to prove to a bunch of people who don't care about you that you're worth keeping around. Actually..." He taps his shoulder, grinning again.
"Why DON'T I let you live? You'll make things *harder* for the people who actually matter while they try to keep you alive." He snaps his fingers, and a portal appears under Lina's feet, sending her clattering back onto the floor of the train.
"I'd rather not waste time with you now that I think about it. Ah well, say bye-bye, daddy~" From the other side of the portal, Yapool lifts up the corpse of Felix Lombardi, snapped neck lolling as he forces the corpse's arm to "wave".
<Pose Tracker> Lina Lombardi has posed.
Lina doesn't respond. Yapool doesn't deserve her words anymore. She looks back at the portal, desperately trying not to look at her father's body but also desperately trying not to look away. She gives Yapool a murderous glare, pulling herself up and passing into her quarters.
As the door closes behind her, she leans against it, slowly sliding down to sit on the floor.
A second passes.
She sobs.