psychoshenanigans | GRATIA // PSL

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GRATIA // PSL

So, here's what Irahl knows.

He's alone in a dark, cold cave. He has most, if not all, of his gear. No one is guarding his location. As he heads away from the spot where he came to consciousness, no one tries to stop him, and no one gets in his way. The few people he finds down there seem human, and not about to approach the nearly-seven-foot man that comes stalking out of the lower tunnels. Honestly, everyone here seems a surprised and a little astonished about his... Entire scene.

There is a way up. It's a maze of twisting corridors and confusing passageways, half of which feel too small for him. It's bigger and bigger groups of people, some of which scatter like schools of fish, and some of which have to be pushed through to get anywhere. It's climbing up into streets lit with dingy lights, graffiti-covered hallways, warehouses, weird holes in stone walls that may or may not be windows. It's alarm bells, it's people yelling at each other down the street. It's just an absurd number of stairs. A couple of people make an attempt to stop him somewhere, and it goes poorly for them.

Elsewhere, events are being set in motion where Irahl cannot see. But he's on his way out.

Eventually, more people try to stop him. At the end of another long stretch of Underground city, a group of official-looking folks are putting a real effort into blocking off the obvious exit, and some of them have weapons.

Down a side alley, into another tunnel, and then the space opens up into a... Plaza, of some sort? The floor is made of stone. The buildings surrounding it are made of stone and are hard to distinguish from one another. At at least the ceiling (also made of stone) is a lot higher than before. Cavernous. There's some kind of sculpture in the middle of it, some impressive feat of geometric stonework that gives the illusion of defying gravity despite weighing literal tons.

This is where someone finally catches him. Sounds have been echoing unhelpfully down every passageway, making it hard to tell if people are coming or going - but this series of quick footsteps comes from an upward direction before someone hits the ground about five feet in front of Irahl.

His clothes are different. His hair is better-kept. Maybe if the situation wasn't quite so tense, there'd be time to see the ways in which his face is different, the way his eyes don't have quite as vicious and sharp a gleam as they used to. But whatever Irahl can take in of him, there is Robin, having hopped down from a rooftop to put himself between him and the exit again.

"...Holy shit."

Kind of weird that he looks absolutely shocked to see the person in front of him, though.

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Vincent waits patiently for Irahl to line up his shot. He's picking up that there's a particular kind of silence that goes with the guy concentrating on whatever's on the other end of his scope. It's a little different than the silence of being hard at work on an engine, or Irahl's concerned silence, or his companionable silence... Which is a differentiation Robin would probably be absolutely stunned to hear about, were he here.

"...The other thing is I was thinkin' there's lots of monster-huntin' downstairs, too." He picks up where he'd left off as if there hadn't just been a big gap while his friend murdered some targets, "I dunno if swingin' a giant sword around in a forest full of trees is exactly a great idea if we're tryin' not to piss them off... I know the stuff below's more my speed, but you'd have to be pretty clever to get 'em somewhere a sniper'd be effective. An' I don't think the size'd make it worth it."

There are pros and cons to both. Each of them would be more effective in the other environment. He leans back on his arms, shrugging a little.

"But I guess you could always just use a pistol or somethin'. You weren't bad with those crazy fuck-off big knives of yours, either."

"Yeah."

The detached and subtle cues in Irahl's voice are vague, but easier to differentiate than his silences, so if Vincent can pick apart what he means when he doesn't say anything, he'll be able to pick up the slight notes of both disappointment and resignation. He's not happy these things are all true, but he accepts them.

"Got my arcana weapons at least. Don't compare to a sword that cuts through cars, but they'll get the job done."

One more deep, mechanical clatter as he drags the bolt back, expelling the spent casing, and he peers through the scope. Assessing his last shot, he mulls over whether this has been a job well done or if one more is required to round out the day.

Vincent feels bad that the work he has to offer isn't really what Irahl would like to be doing... But he has another thought that makes him feel a little better.

"Hey, my brother's gonna put you through the wringer whenever you're at the Capitol. Maybe by the time you're back you'll be happy to be takin' lazy potshots at some monsters."

At the back of the group, the grubby guy taking apart the binoculars (one chamber is now in three pieces, and he's currently holding up the triangular prism in the clean side of a scrap of cloth he's also procured from somewhere in his pockets) speaks up with his scratchy voice.

"Arcana? Means what?"

Irahl is partially distracted by the effort needed to try and imagine what it would be like to look forward to an easy job. It's hard to picture. But, because he's a little distracted, he makes the mistake of actually looking away from his scope so he can glance back at the scavenger when he speaks up.

He immediately frowns. The fact that the binoculars had been taken apart isn't exactly a surprise, but maybe he hadn't imagined what that would actually entail until he sees it. Maybe he's surprised at how many separate pieces there are already. Maybe he hadn't thought about the fact that each piece is both damageable and pocket-sized.

"Arcana. Technology that interfaces with magic and destroys it. If you lose anything or get dirt in there, I'm going to skin you," he says with all the same vaguely-inconvenienced tone.

There are a lot of people for whom the concept of magic-destroying technology would be concerning. And it's not these two. Vincent isn't opposed to magic, exactly, but he's been hired to take down a rogue mage or two and wouldn't have hated having something that supposedly fucks up their whole scene at the time.

Kneecap is a little more familiar with the concept and his face lights up with another grin when he recognizes what Irahl is talking about.

"Cool down, tall-stack. You're a long shot, I'm a scavenger. No dirt without permission, promise. Guy up 'round the bend knows a lot about mage-tech, but I've seen some of the schematics. Slick stuff."

Kneecap can also put multiple thoughts together into one string of conversation.

"An' you're gonna put it back together exactly the way that it was before, right?" Vincent asks, not understanding most of that but catching onto the one thing Kneecap didn't quite clarify.

"...Yeah," Kneecap shrugs, a little, caught, "Copy."

"Uh-huh."

Irahl is quietly pleased that Vincent caught that point, as it would have likely slipped right past him otherwise. And then he would have had to skin a scavenger.

As it currently stands, Irahl is being exceedingly kind. He chooses not to point out the amount of dirt and grime ambiently all over this kid, nor the fact that the term 'scavenger' only implies a skill in ripping things apart. He even nods back toward the track with a question just for him--being that he's the only audience member with eyes here.

"Too bad you took that thing apart. Was going to ask if you had any requests. Got one last round in the mag."

Kneecap would say that he's being exceedingly kind himself. He hasn't even jumped on Irahl or touched any of his stuff without permission! With all these quasi-complaints being sent his direction, he even has the decency to start putting the prism-shaped piece back in its chamber.

The question comes as a little bit of a surprise to him, though.

"Oh?" Looking out, squinting at the targets, you can practically see the gears turning in his head before he finally laughs and points up, "One of the lads blew up an obliterator. Months ago. Stuck in the ceiling ever since."

If Irahl follows his pointing, there is a target-sized piece of metal lodged in the rough stone ceiling of this chamber far above the other targets, where it was presumably flung with the force of some kind of explosion.

Irahl's face is hidden behind his mask and visor, but there's a quiet huff that seems pretty amused. Half of it is because of the irony that he finds in imagining blowing up something called an 'obliterator,' and the other half is over how much he needs to crane his neck to see the mangled piece of scrap embedded in the ceiling.

It's dark up there. It's a bad angle.

He loves it. He only regrets that Vincent won't be able to really appreciate what he's about to attempt to do.

That working silence settles in around him again, so the tiny electronic keen that follows him pressing a button on his visor is very audible. As is the actions of disengaging the stands on the rifle and attaching its sling instead. But, instead of him hefting the weapon up to hang on his back as he normally would at this stage, he braces himself up solidly on one knee and slowly levers the massive rifle up as if it's meant to be used as an-arm weapon.

This is where the 'one-of-a-kind' and 'retrofitted' labels of his rifle come in, because it has been tailored to include shouldering as an option, and it's the only Enclave like it, because the largest rifles normally considered suitable for shoulder firing are about one third the size of this monster.

A loop in the sling connected to the rifle is fitted around his upper arm, creating a solid triangle of strength between his shoulder, his elbow, and the rifle, keeping it braced as he carefully hoists this absolutely improbable weapon against his shoulder. It looks heavy. Six and a half feet of rifle is gradually raised as Irahl focuses on what he's doing, concentrating on keeping everything balanced and steady until he's finally aiming high enough to bring his target into his sights. And then he has to hold all of that balanced weight perfectly still long enough to hone his aim.

This is a very exciting show for Kneecap. He wasn't sure if the "long shot" would actually have the nerve to try it, but that's what separates the professionals from the dabblers. He sets down the binoculars on the small pile of its own pieces (careful not to get dirt on the inside) and then scrabbles over to half-tackle Vincent from behind.

There's an "oof" from the larger man as he bends forward, but Kneecap is half the reason he's not bothered by being pushed and shoved and sent in various directions anymore. Kneecap hangs off of Vincent's back like some kind of baby monkey.

"Vincent!," Kneecap whispers loudly, "What you can't see is a forty-five degree angle shot towards the ceiling with a bolt-action long-shot rifle. Triangular stabilization! Expert mode at work!"

"Yeah," says Vincent calmly, straightening back up, "Sounds like him. Pipe down, would ya'?"

Irahl probably doesn't have the time to look back and catch the fond look on Vincent's face as he said 'sounds like him'.

Without the shield of music he usually has playing in his ears, it's very difficult to block out the distracting conversation happening beside him. Only the fact that he's exerting a lot of effort into keeping his rifle balanced prevents him from flinching or tensing up as he half-expects to be bumped into, with all the scurrying and scrabbling going on around him.

He's feeling the pressure to do this right, though. Normally, taking a couple of shots to zero in on a difficult target isn't unusual with sniping, but he's only got one round left in the magazine. He doesn't want to disappoint his audience--especially now that the audience includes Vincent by proxy.

So, once he reaches that placid point at the bottom of a breath, he pulls his aim up by a couple more millimeters right before he pulls the trigger.

There's a much wider margin of error like this, no matter how steady his arms are. Even without breathing, there's still his own heartbeat and the imperfections of a semi-mortal body to contend with. So, he aims a little high. He might hit the target dead-on, but if he doesn't, he'll hit the ceiling right around it.

Either way, that piece of scrap is coming down.

Sure enough, the shot rings out--recoil knocking Irahl's shoulder back much less than it seems like it should--with the sound of gravel and a chunk of metal hitting the ground following shortly thereafter.

Regardless of whether or not he hit his target dead-on, the fact of the matter is that if said target had been a human or a monster or some other creature, they would most definitely be dead now. Irahl is rewarded for his excellent stable shooting with a whoop and excited clapping from Kneecap, which is quickly joined by some additional good-natured applause from Vincent.

"...He got it, right?" the larger man mutters.

"Yeah!" Kneecap confirms, laughing, "New record!"

And then Kneecap suddenly detaches, because he realizes he can leave this scene and go scampering over to examine the piece of rubble that's fallen to the ground. Once again, Vincent and Irahl are suddenly left alone for a moment.

"Now that's impressive," Vincent adds, "Can't see, but I know how fuckin' heavy that thing is."

There's a grunt from Irahl that doubles as both a sound of acknowledgement and a reaction to lowering the weighty rifle to the ground again.

"Applause is a new one," he comments as a roundabout way of receiving the praise, while he ejects the mag and begins other peripheral busywork to partially pack up his whole operation here.

"Hopefully your brother will agree... in spirit, anyway. Doesn't seem like the type to have applauded anything in his life."

Hey, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't just a little proud of Irahl for accepting the praise at all. It's certainly not Vincent's first impulse. It's not a comparison he lingers on for very long, though, because he's presented instead with the opportunity to make fun of his brother.

"Could see him managing one of those polite claps, like at a dinner party," Vincent muses, leaning back on his arms again while Irahl starts packing up, "But his face'd be exactly the same way through. Just--"

And then for a second he makes the face and does the clap he's talking about, mimicking his brother's stern, neutral expression with an unsettling likeness. But then it disappears and it's back to Vincent, with his easier smile and very informal posture.

"But nah, I think he'll be impressed. He's a gun guy."

It's a shame that Vincent can't see the way that Irahl's eyebrows rise above his visor as he witnesses his friend magically transform into his soon-to-be-boss. Even discovering the fact that Vincent is capable of accurately mimicking someone else's demeanor strikes him as more surprising than he would have expected.

His outward reaction comes several seconds too late, so it doesn't line up correctly with the last thing that Vincent had just said.

"...Eerie."

Vincent looks... Confused by the odd way that lined up, yes. Brows furrowing as he tries to follow the line of logic here.

"...That he's a gun guy?"

But then he gets it, clarity dawning a split-second after he said the dumb thing first (of course).

"Oh," he chuckles a little, pointing at himself, "My face? Do I still got it?"

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GRATIA // PSL

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