Day 75: Morning, Farwell

[ninelivesonce]

Who: Taura, Sechs
Where: Section #4, Courthouse
Summary: Taura wakes up in Farwell and goes looking for for answers -- and finds a friend.



Taura's pillow was covered in dust. She came awake all of a sudden, as she almost always did, but she didn't move. This wasn't the Institute. She'd really done it. She'd made a leap of faith onto the teleport pad...or a leap of desperation, but was there really a difference? She could give up, or she could keep moving.

Right now, though, she was keeping perfectly still. There was a breeze in the air, dusty concrete underneath her, and sun on her face. No voices. She opened her eyes, and climbed to her feet. She was in a town not unlike the one near the Institute, if it weren't rebuilt as if by magic each time the zombies destroyed it. Not the same town, of course, but similar. Still on the same world, if she had to guess. She walked down the center of the street, peering in broken windows, until she saw a single, fresh, intact footprint. Someone had turned here. The building she stood in front of had been imposing, once; now it was impotent. But even if she was just following a scavenger or someone looking for shelter, she was following someone.

She slipped through the front door as inconspicuously as six and a half feet of heavily armed genetically engineered soldier could.

Comments

[sixth_attack]

If Taura continued following those tracks farther into the building, sure enough she would find the source of them just a few feet ahead of her. Slumped over a pair of crutches was Sechs, panting and cursing as he struggled to take another step forward. "Ugh...! Damnit! Gotta keep... Urk! Moving...!" he hissed to himself, too focused on recovering his ability to walk to notice the new arrival behind him.

Earlier that day, some of the rebels in charge of the medic bay insisted that he remain on his cot or at least use a wheelchair to move around. But Sechs wouldn't have any of that! He just couldn't keep still! He had lost entire limbs in the past and that never slowed him down! He had to get walking again, no matter how painful each step would be for him.

So as soon as it was light out and he was left to his own devices, Sechs forced himself to his feet, using the wheelchair only to find a pair of crutches as means of support. From there he began his tenacious (albeit a tad unforgiving) recovery.

Bandaged up and sweating like a work horse, Sechs had so far made a small lap from his cot to outside of the Courthouse, which was quite the achievement for him considering the damage he sustained in his spine. Now he was making his way back to his bed, the pain throughout his legs and spine was draining what was left of his energy. He needed a quick break before he could make another lap around the place. Just one short nap and he would be back on his feet again. With this determined exercise routine of his, Sechs was sure he would be walking without crutches by the end of the day!

He had just a few more steps to go, but he began having troubles commanding his left leg to move forward. This slight delay in his recovery didn't settle well with the impatient warrior.

"SHIT!" Exhausted and grouchy from pain, Sechs gave himself the best encouragement he could muster. "Move already!! CRAP! A fucking Deckman could crawl faster--!!"

[ninelivesonce]

She might have been trying to stay unnoticed, but the owner of the voice echoing down the halls wasn't. And she recognized that voice, or at least thought she did. It could be a trap -- but she'd followed a leap of faith this far, and refusing to take a few more steps would be worse folly. Still, she slipped into the shadow and crept up until she could see Sechs, wrestling with a pair of the awful manual crutches that were the best thing this place seemed to offer.

"Sechs!" She stepped out of the shadows, and waved. "Over here -- er, I'll come over there." She jogged over to him. The last time she'd seen him, he was uninjured, and she couldn't help but ask. "What happened?"

[sixth_attack]

After some straining and grumbled cursing, Sechs' left leg finally took the next step. Every ligament in his legs felt so sluggish and distant, while the muscles in his upper torso and arms were working overtime just to keep himself upright against the crutches. This whole natural recovery business really sucked...

And what could possibly make the situation suck even more was the voice calling out his name from behind. Crap! One of the rebels have caught him out of bed! Sechs warily ducked his head. They weren't going to force him to lay down for the rest of the day for this, were they...?

But the voice sounded familiar, and not from someone he knew outside of the institute. Sechs turned his head around to find the impressive figure of Taura approaching him. Immediately his defensive expression turned into a wide grin. "Taura!"

Secretly appreciating not having to take extra steps away from his goal resting place, Sechs remained where he stood as Taura approached him. Despite his gladness of seeing a fellow prisoner, he was a bit confused over how she even got to Farwell in the first place. Marc hadn't mentioned her being part of the rebel population yet. Did she die like he did or had she found another way to the city?

For now he would answer Taura's question before asking his own. "I died and ended up here," he replied, somewhat proudly despite how strange it must have sounded. "I ended one of Landel's sick games and got to live to tell about it!" Sechs' boasting was short lived though, as he was reminded of his condition by a short muscle spasm in his back. "Although, it wasn't without any cost," he grunted, gesturing to the bandage wrapped around his lower torso. "Let's just say the people here thought I would never be able to walk again, but I'll show 'em!"

"How about you? How did you get here?" he then asked with a curious tilt of his head, "Did ya take the hard way like I did too? Or was it through those new teleporters the rebels set up?"

[ninelivesonce]

Taura's grin fell when Sechs said he'd died. Like Goku. Just like Goku, unless Landel had another fatal game in the basement. And her expression only got more concerned as he went on. She wasn't used to being the one trying to be reassuring. Terrifying, yes. Reassuring, no. "We're harder to kill than that, yeah?" she asked, her brows knit and her voice more questioning than she'd meant. Damnit. "I took the easy way here. Marc came on the radio and said he was alive and out here, and I thought it might be you."

She'd also thought it might be Goku, or that she could find the boy here, but saying that might be a little rude. "Where are we?" What's going on? Was this a terrible mistake? She was glad to see Sechs alive, if not well, but it was beginning to sink in that she had absolutely no idea what was really going on here.

[sixth_attack]

Sechs caught the questioning tone in Taura's remark, reminding him of just how thin the line between dying and surviving in Landel's game was. "Yeah..." he replied with a grim nod, "If we weren't, Landel would've gotten his way with us a long time ago..."

It was good to hear that Taura didn't go through the same agonizing process to reach Farwell as he did. The mentioning of Marc's announcement brought a smile to his lips as well. "Yeah, I asked him to mention that I was ok. I didn't want to leave my pals high and dry over what happened to me..." If Taura got the message, maybe Aigis and Soushi got it too?

"Speaking of which... Do you know if Aigis is ok?" Sechs asked with a concerned frown. "She and another guy named Soushi were there when I... Well, y'know..." Shrugging away another flashback of his death, Sechs added, "I can't be sure if they got Marc's message and I can't reach them myself yet. I wanna make sure they're ok and stuff..."

By then Sechs' arms were really starting to complain, he needed to sit down soon before his muscles gave way. Shifting his grip on the crutches, Sechs wearily began hobbling his way towards his cot. Despite his exhaustion, he managed to answer Taura's question. "This is the city of Farwell. Used to be pretty populated but now it's the main base for Marc and the rebels," he explained between each strained step. "They're all working here to help get everyone out of the institute. So far they've thrown some monkey wrenches into Landel's little machine, stopping the SC stuff and setting up teleporters. They're really starting to make progress from this place."

Reflecting on his surroundings, Sechs let out a small chuckle. "Heh. This city kinda reminds me of my hometown, only with fewer scrap heaps and no cyborgs..." Even with all the ache he was going through, a reminder of his homeworld still managed to cheer him up a little. Such a similar environment gave his hope a much needed boost. He was so close to getting home...

"Anyways, I just got here last night, so that's all I know so far," Sechs grunted, now with only a few more steps ahead to reach his goal resting spot. "Marc could tell you more. He was the one who briefed me about what was going on when I woke up here."

[ninelivesonce]

Taura shook her head. "I haven't seen Aigis in a few days, and I don't know a Soushi." She didn't want to leave it at that, though, when Sechs looked so upset. "There were lots of people running around last night, though, so I'm sure they'll pass the message on." Assuming, of course, that Aigis and Soushi were still there to get it, but she didn't need to make him more upset. One of them had to have been the one to strike the killing blow, even if the death hadn't been permanent, and Taura hoped it hadn't been Aigis. Not that she wished that on someone she hadn't met, but she knew Aigis would take it to heart.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Sechs changed the topic.

"My home was different. Lots of decay, but all on the inside, you know?" Glamour (or at least heavy weaponry, well-polished) on the surface -- if you looked weak, you were advertising vulnerability. No, that wasn't it. The heart of Jackson's Whole wasn't rotten, it had been surgically excised altogether. By its own hand. Taura didn't like to think of it as home, but her genetically engineered pedigree made it kind of obvious. At least Sechs looked happy to be reminded of his home.

"D'you know where to find him? Marc, I mean?" She'd gone looking for him before, with Leela, but they hadn't had more than a vague direction and misplaced determination; that only worked in fairytales and children's stories. No one would write a story like this; there were too many loose ends. Besides, Sechs didn't look like he was up for her dragging him all around town. "Or can you tell me what's going on?"

[sixth_attack]

Sechs' shoulders briefly slumped with disappointment at Taura's answer, but he didn't let that stifle his ambition to recover. "Whether they got the message or not, I'm gonna give it to them myself as soon as possible! Even if I have to go back to the institute in these damn crutches!" he exclaimed, giving one of the crutches a hard knock against the floor.

The Replica couldn't help but smirk at Taura's description, instantly recognizing the similarities between their origins. "Heh, that sounds a lot like the city above my hometown!" Sechs said, recounting the floating city of Tiphares. "All nice and shiny on the outside with the whole Utopian vibe to it. But when I was last there, the whole population was having this big bloody meltdown over brain chips..."

By then, Sechs had finally reached his cot. "Damnit, my back!" He turned on the spot and carefully lowered himself down on the bed with a loud grunt. "Whew, that's better..." Pushing the crutches beneath the cot for later use (and to hide them from disapproving caretakers), Sechs gingerly rubbed at his sore legs and back. "Marc should be here somewhere," he replied, stretching his legs out with another pained wheeze. "This courthouse is the Headquarters for the rebels, so he'd be doing most of the work and planning here."

Pulling his legs up onto one end of the cot, Sechs carefully laid his back down with a gruff sigh. "I'd help ya find him, but I gotta rest here for a bit. You can go ahead and look for him if you want. He shouldn't be too hard to find if he's still here."

[damned_rebel]

Marc had received quite the rude awakening this morning when one of the other rebels had rushed into his room to tell him that their injured Landel's patient had disappeared from his cot.

That shouldn't have even been possible, considering how badly injured Sechs was, but those patients had tenaciousness in excess. Marc had no choice but to jump out of bed and go on a search for the wayward patient.

Not that he really liked to think of them as patients. That was what Landel called them, but in actuality, they were just people.

The search turned up nothing, but when Marc made it back to the courthouse and moved past the infirmary area, he heard some voices coming from there. Had Sechs really managed to sneak out and make his way back without anyone realizing? Man, oh man...

Marc stepped inside, hearing Sechs' last sentence of he shouldn't be too hard to find if he'll still here. That was when he spotted yet another unfamiliar face, this one belonging to a very imposing woman. Another patient? It had to be, seeing how he'd mentioned the teleportation device over the radio last night. Still, he stopped up short, looking between the two of them.

"Uhh, looking for me? And you," Marc said with a pointed look in Sechs' direction, "why did you get out of bed?"

[ninelivesonce]

Brain chips? That wasn't a new one for Taura -- every pilot had one, and there were some weirder ones out there. Though she wasn't sure she believed that Barrayar's head of security really had one that could record everything. But what House Bharaputra did in wetware, others were trying in hardware, so it wasn't that surprising.

In fact, it was a lot like Landel's "research". Maybe that's why they'd both been chosen for this extremely dubious honor. She wasn't sure if she wanted an answer to that at all, though. Was it worse if it was random, or if she'd been chosen?

"He was helping me, um, find you?" Not the smoothest explanation, but she didn't want Sechs in trouble. She'd have done -- and had done -- the same after an injury. Get up, get moving, see what her body could do.

"You've been a hard man to track down," she added, trying to move the topic back to something relevant. She sat down on the cot across from Sechs and rested her elbows on her knees, hunching herself down a bit so she wouldn't tower over Marc if he sat down, too. "What are we doing out here?"

[sixth_attack]

Just as Sechs was about to relax his sore muscles, he suddenly sat back up with a start at the sound of Marc's reproachful voice. Like a child caught red handed in some mischief, Sechs felt his face warm up to embarrassing levels. Whoops...! Busted...!

"Wh-Why? You can't expect me to just sit around all day waiting for my legs to get better!" Sechs stammered, crossing his arms and pursing his lips out into a childish pout. "I'm getting back on my feet in time to kick Landel's ass, that's why! Nothing can keep me down for long!"

Thankfully, Taura's intervention on Sechs' behalf allowed him to relax somewhat. "Uh, yeah! What she said!" he hastily echoed Taura, "I was helping her find ya too! So there!"

Letting Taura and Marc exchange their questions and answers, Sechs quieted down and laid back on his bed. Hopefully the change in conversation would spare him from being sentenced to his cot for the rest of the day. Keeping his arms stubbornly crossed over his chest, Sechs waited for the pain to ease out of his muscles as he listened to the others talk. Despite how eager Sechs was to return to his exercise regimen, he knew that any new information from Marc was worthwhile to stop and take note of...

[damned_rebel]

Marc rolled his eyes at the explanation, along with the attitude that went with it. He realized that being bedridden wasn't much fun. He'd run around with an injury for a while, though, and that hadn't been fun either. If Sechs wasn't careful, he'd end up doing more harm than good.

"Sometimes rest is the only thing that you can rely on if you want to heal," he pointed out. In the end, though, he couldn't tell Sechs what to do. That wasn't what this place was about. He wasn't going to be like Landel.

He realized he'd more or less fallen off the grid for a while there, and Marc couldn't say much in his defense. Even so, he thought he should explain, and so he took a seat on one of the empty cots, facing the woman specifically.

"I know that," he admitted. "I had to book it out here to meet up with the rest of the rebel forces, and we've had some trouble making reliable radio transmissions that reach you guys in the institute." He was relieved last night's had worked the way it was supposed to. "I guess you already know who I am, but what's your name?"

[ninelivesonce]

Taura wasn't sure whether to defend Sechs or sit on him to keep him in bed. She could do both at once, but Marc was still talking, and Sechs wasn't running -- more like hobbling, really -- off right this moment, so she just listened.

"Taura." Most people had multiple names, but one was enough for her. "We got your broadcast last night, and the transporter worked." There were so many questions she wanted to ask, all at once. Goku? Were there other revived friends out here? Who were the rebels, and what were they rebelling against? It seemed unlikely she'd pick Landel over any alternative, but it didn't mean she was blindly going to trust Marc. "How many of you are there? And where's here?"

[sixth_attack]

Sechs braced himself for the inevitable lecture from Marc, keeping his arms crossed and his lips pursed. He knew Marc was right, but the whole business of waiting for an organic body to heal itself was too long for a battle android who was more used to instantaneous robotic repairs and replacements. Besides, the idea of laying around when things could be done against Landel was unbearable to think of for the antsy warrior!

"Well, I'm resting now," Sechs gruffly sighed. "So don't worry your pretty little head off 'bout me! Alright?" Sechs made sure to omit just how long he would be resting, he still had his crutches hidden beneath his cot after all...

Meanwhile, he kept his gaze between Marc and Taura, allowing them to do the talking as he rested and listened.

[damned_rebel]

Marc just shrugged at Sechs. He wasn't going to argue the point with him that much, because he refused to force any of these patients to do anything. In the end, their choices were their own here, and that also meant dealing with the consquences of their actions.

Hopefully Sechs would heal despite his bad decisions, though.

"Nice to meet you, Taura," Marc said first and foremost. It was her turn to ask questions, and so he shifted in his seat to face her. "I'm glad to hear that all worked. Took a lot of tinkering to get it right." Now they could make consistent broadcasts if they wanted, but they also had to exert caution, since the more they made, the higher the chance that Landel would catch on.

"There's somewhere between twenty and thirty of us scattered across the city, although half of us are here in the courthouse. Here is Farwell, it's one of the cities that was destroyed by the attacks." Did they even know about that? Marc could hardly keep track of how much Landel left them in the dark.

[ninelivesonce]

Twenty or thirty. Not very many people, though against how many she didn't know. No idea on resources, weaponry, or exactly what in the hell they were trying to do, besides fight. Not that she wasn't up for a fight.

"Attacks?" Aguilar had been a General, and there'd been some mention of a war, but none of the details had ever trickled down. Taura shook her head. "Does it matter?" It was a straight-out question, not a cynical observation. She really didn't know. "What can I--we do to help?" Sechs wouldn't be doing much fighting until he healed, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to include him in her plans.

[sixth_attack]

Just when Sechs could feel his tired muscles about to loosen up and relax, the next thing he heard between Marc and Taura caused him to sit back up with a start. "Attacks?" he exclaimed before flopping back down on his cot with a pained growl. "Y'mean all that crap the military has to justify for what the institute did to us?"

Not wanting to disturb his muscles any more than necessary, Sechs kept flat on his cot and turned his gaze to Marc. "When I had that talk with General Berg, he mentioned the institute was a project for defense against some threat to their future," he said, frowning in thought as he recalled that past conversation with the general. "But the ol' bastard wouldn't tell me what it was that made them resort to such lows with Landel! Whatever it is, Berg sure made it sound pretty serious..." he added with an uneasy grimace.

"So what the hell is going on in this world then?" he brusquely asked, eager to finally hear a straight answer for once. "Just how and why did we end up becoming Landel's playthings while Aguilar's army took part in it like it was just normal procedure?"

The more he questioned, the more agitated Sechs became; all those agonizing weeks of being kept in the dark were finally being vented out of his system. "I've been wondering those questions ever since I first woke up in that damn place and I'm pretty tired of getting guesses and hints for answers!" Sechs growled. He wasn't angry at Marc, but he sure hoped this would be the last time he would have to ask those vexing questions. "I know Landel does it for shits and giggles, but there's gotta be more to all this!" he gruffly added.

He then gave a nod to his ally. "Yeah, what she said! What can we do?" he echoed Taura. "It was pretty much impossible to really fight back Landel before, but now we've got a chance! ...Right?"

[damned_rebel]

It was a whole lot to take in and respond to all at once, though he couldn't blame Sechs for being upset. They'd been led blindly through all of this, tortured and used without much of an explanation given in return. Just hints of things, and that wasn't really enough when your life was on the line.

Marc glanced down at his lap, where he hands were clasped, letting Sechs finish before he said anything.

"Well, Berg didn't lie to you," he said. "There was a war. Not a civil war, but people from another world showed up here in their ships and attacked us. We were able to fight them off, but countless cities were left just like this one, and the amount of deaths..."

Well, they'd never been given a concrete number, maybe because it was too high to even know with any certainty.

"The Landel's project was started in the event that we were attacked again -- y'know, if they came back for a second round. They wanted soldiers, but their logic was that there wasn't enough of us to pull from here, so they had to borrow people from other worlds."

Marc sighed deeply, lifted his head and then shook it back and forth. "Seems like it would have been much easier to just ask, but you must know how the military can be. Landel himself was needed to keep all of you under control, since the rest of us can't really stand up to the kind of power that some of you have."

And there it was, as clear of an explanation as he could muster. "I'm sure we can use you here on the outside, to fight," he added. "Things are gonna get bad pretty soon, so we'll need to be ready." Taura would, at least. Marc wasn't sure how much Sechs could do with his injuries, but they could keep him safe until this all played out.

[ninelivesonce]

As Marc explained, Taura's face went white. Not with fear; she wasn't afraid of fear. Anger. "He could have hired us," she hissed. "Power and all." Of course, harnessing the Dendarii was like wormhole-jumping with a concussed pilot; usually exceptionally successful, but with the potential for equally spectacular disasters.

Actually, that was a lot like what Landel had ended up with. Only with more of the stick and less of the carrot. "So you didn't say who we're fighting," she added, getting her voice back under control. "Landel? Aguilar's military? Or the people from another world?"

Either way, they were clearly in a siege mentality. That meant it was the best and the worst time for an all-or-nothing throw of the dice. Those plans were a stupid idea if you had backup. Which they didn't.

The only backup they'd ever get was if Landel decided to kidnap and torture more innocents to get them.

So that made it an excellent plan, provided one wasn't keen on surviving it.

[sixth_attack]

While Taura's face paled from her restrained outrage, Sechs' face had gone red with unruly rage. "You kidding me?!" Now Sechs was too restless to lay down, he forced himself to sit upright and gave Marc a measured glare. "Ask for help or hire help! I don't care! You can't go kidnapping and torturing people until they help! That's just stacking more shit on top of shit! That sort of karma will come back to bite ya in the ass!"

With all that fury vented through his outburst, Sechs quietened down with a pained wheeze. Panting, Sechs took a moment to process what Marc had said. No doubt that revelation infuriated him, but at the same time it relieved him of all the burning questions he had pondered over for so long. Finally. It was making sense now...

The more he thought about it, the more Sechs' perspective towards the military shifted. He still didn't trust Aguilar but he was beginning to see just why he and Berg were the way they were about the institute. Sechs himself was once an agent of Tiphare's G.I.B, so he knew just how heartless and controlling militant authorities could be. Sechs' hatred for Landel didn't budge either, but it was the invaders from the other world that was receiving the most of his anger. If those people hadn't started their war, then Landel's institute would not have been set up in the first place...

...Then he and everyone else would have been able to continue their lives back in their homeworlds undisturbed.

"Damnit...!" he sighed. "Things must've gotten pretty desperate if the people here had to resort to all this..." Sechs tiredly growled with a shake of his head.

Taura's question gave Sechs a deep sense of unease. First they had Landel and the military to worry about. Now there was this third party in the whole scheme of things! And by the sounds of it, they were the ones who started this mess and were far more powerful than Landel and Aguilar put together!

"Yeah... Who are we fighting?" Sechs questioned with a pained grimace. "Just when I thought we only had Landel and Aguilar to deal with, now we've got these assholes from another world to complicate things!"

Now the whole prospect of stopping Landel and getting back home in one piece was beginning to look way less straightforward than Sechs had hoped...

[damned_rebel]

Marc didn't blame them for being angry, for being furious. That was the whole reason that he was here, because he hadn't been willing to stand by and let the military and Martin Landel get away with this kind of thing. If he was this upset about it, he could barely even imagine how they felt as the victims of this whole mess.

"I know. You're right, everyone got really desperate. We thought this whole world might be wiped clean the next time an attack came, but this rebel group was started because we didn't see this as the right solution. This is our fight, not yours, and it's wrong to make you participate against your will."

He was on their side and he had been from the start. He only wished he'd been able to convey more of this sooner, but he'd had to be so careful with how much he said over his broadcasts. Now that they were outside of Landel's jurisdiction, he could finally be open about everything.

When they asked about who the real enemy was, Marc shook his head. "That's the thing, this is all preemptive. We don't know that they'll be coming back to attack us again, but on the off chance that they do, they wanted to be prepared. What I want to do is shut down Landel and get you all out of here before anything happens."

And with Landel's destroyed, then the patients could make their own decision on whether they wanted to return to their homes or stay here and fight, though after everything that had happened, he couldn't imagine why any of them would be willing to help.

[ninelivesonce]

"There aren't very many of us left." If he wanted an army, he should have started sooner. "But I'll do what I can." She didn't speak for Sechs; he was angry at all of them, and it was up to him to help or to go it alone.

Her anger was for the waste of lives -- so many, and all they'd done was run around in Landel's prison being experimented on. It was the story of her life, before the Dendarii. Design a perfect weapon (or at least attempt to; Taura didn't claim they'd succeeded in perfection, but she didn't think she'd turned out too shabby after all), and then have no idea what to do with it.

"Aim me. I don't know enough to know where to start." It was giving Marc a lot of power over her, and a lot of trust. It was also the fastest way to know where she stood with him; he'd do what she asked, or he'd betray her. Either way, her next step would be clear.

[sixth_attack]

While Taura seemed pretty clear on the role she was willing to take on in the rebel's struggle, Sechs wasn't so sure. "I wanna stop Landel too," he said. "But if we do that, what happens then? What if it turns out to be all for nothing?"

For the past few weeks of captivity, all Sechs wanted was to kill Landel and return home. End of story. But things had gotten complicated since his kidnapping. He made friends he didn't think he ever would need and he learned that being able to fight wasn't the only quality needed to become a true warrior. While he may have been beaten down many times in the institute, Sechs had grown up faster than he ever did during his past two years back home. He now knew that having friends to care about wasn't a weakness, nor could battle be truly won by simply defeating the other opponent. Things were much different now.

"If those intergalactic jackasses or whatever you call 'em come back, what if another 'Landel's Institute' pops up and the whole damned cycle starts all over again?" Sechs questioned, frowning as he felt a slight headache coming on from all this pondering. "Hell, what if those invaders go after other worlds than just this one?"

Damn...! This whole being able to go to other worlds sure opened up a huge can of multiverse wormholes!

"I'm gonna help ya with Landel, don't get me wrong on that! But... I wanna go home too..." Sechs sighed. He knew by now that the Z.O.T Tournament back in his homeworld was long done, so what was the point of rushing back home then? And if Alita was trapped in this world as well...

"If I find Alita and she decides to stay here and fight, then I'll do the same," he said. "But if she'd rather go home..." Sechs trailed off. He could never say no to a battle with those responsible for his suffering, but to lose his chance at fighting his Original for a second time? He tiredly shook his head with a gruff sigh. This was giving him a headache! "I dunno... I'll figure it out later."

"Right now, I wanna know what we can do against Landel, tonight," Sechs declared, eager to help as soon as possible. "What do ya need from us? I'm not sitting around on my ass all night again!"

[damned_rebel]

Maybe there weren't many of them left at this point now that Landel was catching on to what they had planned, but people had their powers back out here. It gave them some kind of chance, if forces came from the outside.

Taura agreed to help without much need for convincing, surprisingly enough. Maybe she was a soldier where she came from, and so this was more second nature than anything. Considering her height and her build, Marc wouldn't be surprised by that at all.

Sechs was the one with more questions, though he also made it clear that he wanted to help. Marc rubbed at the back of his neck, thinking it all over.

"Well, if we killed Landel, there can never be another Landel's Institute. He's the one with the powers to bring you all here, and to limit your abilities. If he's gone, then the military will be cut off from other worlds." That was why they couldn't just capture Landel. They needed to put him down. It might not be pleasant, but it was necessary.

"You can decide what you want to do when the time comes. As for getting you back home, whoever's still at the institute's gonna have to work on that one.

"We all need to keep our eyes out for the military getting involved. They're probably going to pick up on what's happening here pretty soon, so I wouldn't be surprised if the tanks start rolling in." Marc eyed Sechs, brow furrowed in concern. "Not really sure you're in good enough shape for that kind of fighting, though."

[ninelivesonce]

"What about people who were already sent home?" She'd made promises on credit, promises to find a way to save people going home to nothing but an empty coffin, credit that was running out fast. Time to call it due.

"If we get in there, couldn't we recruit? By asking, I mean."

[sixth_attack]

Somewhat satisfied with Marc's answers for now, Sechs nodded with a gruff huff. He still couldn't relax, not when Marc was mentioning possible tanks to fight against. Just thinking about such a battle made his craving for action unbearable to ignore!

Yet such drool-inducing daydreaming was cut short by Marc's chiding. "Wah?!" Sechs bristled from the rebel leader's admonishing glance. "Oh c'mon! I'm going back to that institute tonight, you hear me?!" he growled. "Even if I have to get there on a pair of crutches--!"

Sechs' outburst triggered another painful spasm in his back, forcing him to lay back down on his cot. A moment of begrudged reconsidering after, and Sechs gave out a disgruntled sigh. "Look, if you guys can help me heal up as much as possible for tonight, then I'll stay put and rest," he grumbled, looking up at Marc with a discontented pout. "How does that sound? You won't have to worry about me hurting myself and I'll do what I can to help out later."

Keeping flat on his back, Sechs turned his gaze back up to the ceiling, his brows furrowed with worry. "I wanna at least get some people I know outta that damn place before its too late!"

In Sechs' opinion, whether by recruitment or simply asking, anyone trapped in that institute had to get out of there now.

[damned_rebel]

Sent home? Marc didn't think anyone had actually been sent home. "Anyone who's left the institute is either brainwashed or... dead," he said, not all that fond of being the bearer of bad news. But he wasn't going to lie to them either.

"The brainwashing should wear off as soon as Landel is dead, since he's the one who's the source of it."

If they wanted to head back into that place, then Marc wasn't going to stop them, but he hoped that they knew it wasn't going to be an easy task. It was a long walk, and they'd lose any power they had as soon as they were under Landel's influence again.

"You can definitely give it a try. And yeah, we'll fix you up as best we can, and hopefully it'll be good enough," he told Sechs, sighing heavily. He didn't know how much they could really do for him, but there were a few medics that could work on him today.