Re: The Chrome Catgirl [Open]
"To be honest, the reason is kinda foggy. It was six years ago."
"I never wanted to be in this Army in the first place. I was rigged by my employer, who had ties with the Army, my employer threw me into something I wasn't ready for,"
He took another chopsticks full of rice into his mouth and chewed on it. "I just left because I felt like I wasn't able to contribute if my efforts were undermined." The YSS Goban was where Luca got his distrust of all things SAINT.
Ira leaned forward, eyes eyes darting down at the food Luca was eating, he leaned his chin down onto the ball of his hand and nodded at Luca's response to his query. "So what is the difference now?" He said asking again. "I mean all of the ships, technology and talent of the empire, and the things you have done? I am not challenging your choice...I am just intrigued by it. The logic of it."
"Difference now, well. I take the jobs I want to take, I fight what I want to fight on my terms and its not rehearsed like a stage play." Luca said evenly. "It's like the SMX and Yamataians were staging each fight and throwing them at the same time."
"I know exactly how you feel." Ira said cheerfully. "I feel like the Empire needs the NMX, SMX...what ever.. In order to survive. With out the squids keeping the population terrified of them, the Ruling house would have no reason to exist and the people could just opt to simply govern themselves."
"There is one benefit of staying
here though - I don't have to worry about a bounty hunter trying to shoot me while I eat lunch. I only have to worry about jealous government agents!" He then chuckled. He liked being able to fight the bounty hunters.
"Or unless SAINT has an interest in you. They can walk in here with their fancy Nekobody's and just cart you off for a questions and answer session."
"I'd like to see them try." Luca grinned, teeth more like fangs.
The catastrophic aftermath Delsauria incident was very well documented by news media, bloggers and intelligence agencies alike. The one constant in it was that Luca did that damage. He was definitely there, and shell casings with his fingerprints on them were found. His bodycount of NMX was still unconfirmed.
"So would I." Ramirez said smiling brightly. Delsauria was a bit before his time in the Empire...that or he was likely fighting for his own life at the time it occured. He could argue that a group of Neko would have a shot, but then again he'd seen how horribly inept the Yamataians were on the ground in comparison to their full might in space.
"It would be a good laugh. But it must be something else. The freedom do what what you choose. Damn the consequences. But the question I have....why? Why not settle down. Or even...try for more. People would likely listen to you if you stepped up."
"I can't settle down or go higher. I crave battle. Once you get your first taste of it that you like, you just can't get it out of your system. I'd go out of my mind without a fight." Luca took a swig of drink and frowned. "Sad, really."
"Also, weird things just happen to me," he took another swig of drink, eyes rolling as he recalled all the stranger things in his career. The stuff you couldn't make up, "you know the feeling? The other day I was approached by aliens who invited me for tea." The definition of 'alien' was a bit of a stretch, given the diversity in the Kikyo sector, but there was always something else out there.
"Exactly. There is always something else. The question is, what is next for the Legendary Luca Pavone? The war is grinding down, the other nations seem content to bicker and fuss over paper work. During the war you probably had some eventful job oppertunities, but now...it may be getting harder and harder. I mean you can say you do it strictly for the fight...."
"I did have a
a couple of
interesting jobs during the war..." Luca nodded as he started to recall the finer points of both. Both well documented. The one on Tami was not a success, nor was it a failure - he did end up setting some of the atmosphere on fire during his escape.
Drift was different. It started as an invitation from the Governor, and former friend of his from the Goban. It went balls up. He ended up evacuating the small space station and getting a majority of its inhabitants safely evacuated, Jiyuuians, Freespacers and Nepleslians were thankful for his actions. "...I wouldn't do those again though. Squids smell like... squid."
Ira remained silent. His smile had vanished as he listened on to Luca's anecdotes. Luca would see the olive skinned man's eyes seemingly peircing into him. Ira looked utterly focused and serious, as if debating on what words he should choose to use. It gave him some what of a heroic quality, but then he did choose his next words.
"You lost somebody. Not to the SMX...that is a different kind of hurt." Ira stabbed two fingers up at his eyes. "I can see it there. Its a lingering pain...hard to spot...but. Your time away from the military was not easy time." He said with a little more weight behind his words. The small talk had ended, and the real Ira Ramirez decided to appear before Luca for the first time since he had sat down infront of him.
Luca raised an eyebrow at Ira, and instead got some salad onto a piece of beef sashimi, and ate it, still eyeing Ira now that his tone had changed. However, his silence still said something about the man and his brush with loss. He tapped his chopsticks against his plate as though he signalled for Ira to continue trying to pick a simple man's motives apart.
There was no simple man before him. Men tried to be simple, or yearned for it. But things were always more complex, even if they did not wish to admit it. In this case Ira sensed Luca did not want the complexities.
"I am sorry." was Ira's response. Simple, but a complex follow up.
Ira flagged the cocktail waitress down and ordered another follow up beverage for his consumption. "I am amazed...you make it all seem so simple. Taking the jobs, the crew..owning your own ship. Back to the simple life...but did it really get simpler?"
"What if you could do it all over again?"
"Why? What happens happens. If I can't deal with it, then so be it. Makes things interesting and forces me to be creative. Neko get to jump back to the tank and stuff their organs back inside themselves when they screw up. I don't have that luxury."
"Hmm...perhaps. But just because things are the way they are does not mean we can't try for a better tomorrow. Of course...I have seen people think like that and where it usually puts them."
"They weren't thinking hard enough." Luca said after he finished off his drink. "Now, I have a question for you, Mr. Ramirez." He cleared his throat. "What makes me so bloody interesting anyway? It's like I got drunk six years ago and never got sober again until Delsauria, and I'm wondering what I did all those years, and everyone seems to know what happened except for me."
Maybe that explained the fan mail, and the occasional paternity notice that he bought off.
Ira smirked at the question. "Well it would be about you." He said softly, more to him self.
"We are on a planet...that is carefully engineered. The bodys, minds, plants air...everything on this world is a fabrication...except.." He then glanced over his shoulder to the Geshrin woman's intimidatingly inviting ass.
"Just perfection. All about control." Ira gestured to the Cocktail Waitress and her tight perfectly shaped body. "It was pleasing to the eye. Too pleasing actually. There was no glaring flaws, nothing that really made her special. On this world everything is designed to BE interesting, making it all un interesting."
"Then I come here and I see you. The jacket, the side burns, the pained glimmer in your eyes. So I said to my self, here is a fellow with something worth saying that is not TEHEHEHEHEHEHE OH RAMIREZ SHOI!"
His sudden out burst warrented a few looks of suprise from the Bar's patrons. Ira chuckled and tossed his hands up. "See what I mean?"
"You have done things most people have not. Hell you have felt things most of the people on this world have not EVER felt. Just like me. So here I am talking to a person who has felt some of the same things I have felt."
"Ohh Ramirez Shoi take me now with your rugged manliness and tragic backstory~" Luca cooed with a wide grin on his face, mimicking the sentiments of the other people he met just to see the reaction on Ramirez' face.
Ira leaned back and feigned a sheepish smile and looked away like a school girl. "Oh, stahp." He said gently flicking his hand down in satire of a dandyman.
Luca pushed his cheeks together and crossed his eyes. "Ohh I bet you fight all tha waaars and get all the giiirls~" His right eye didn't look any better for it, nor did the wounds go away, but he was definitely trying not to laugh at his own jokes.
And then he put his hands away, chuckling and smiling. That was one thing Ira didn't see yet, a genuine smile, even if it was at the expense of Yamatai's perfection. "Perfection's for losers." He raised his empty glass. "To imperfection. Keeping things interesting since before YE00!"
"Cheers." Ira said lifting his glass and the kicking it back. "Some times...the house of cards needs to be pushed over."