2022-05-10 - Who Are We To Argue?

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Left a box of chocolates with your name on with the nurses. Centre pieces are whiskey. They won't let me in to hand it over to you in person since I'm not a close relative and there's an investigation in progress and whatnot. (Or maybe that nurse is just an ass, whatever). Heard you got yourself curbstomped pretty hard?

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Word gets around fast in this town, huh? My hero. I'd forgotten how bad hospital food could be. Yeah, I did a dumb thing for a good reason and... well, paying the price, I guess. You heard they were attempting to kidnap some kids?

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : I got a friend or two at the GHPD, yeah. Not enough to get into stuff that's hermetically shut down from the public but enough to know that whatever happened -- well, there's guys in custody, one of them seems to have gone full-on psychotic, and the people who ended up giving statements are all people like us. I can do the math. You going to be okay?

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Eventually, yeah. I'm starting a new scar collection: sword wound, bullet hole... the rest is just blunt force trauma, but lots of it. Not going to lie, the painkillers are making me a bit loopy. You know that a couple of them were like us too?

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : No one mentioned that part. Might be that the ones who were are still in the ICU too, or in the morgue. Pity our powers don't let us talk to the dead unless the dead themselves want a conversation, there are a few questions I'd like to ask.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : It's also a pity none of these healers can remove scars. I feel like... I'd keep a few but I've kind of lost interest in taking my shirt off on the beach, yes.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : You and me both. Lots of questions. I wish I'd been able to remember more. I went down pretty quick, unfortunately. Humiliating, really.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Yeah, my chest is never going to be the same. I don't mind a war wound, but... there's a point at which it just, no. Sends the wrong message. I'm not usually a fighter.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Shit happens. Won't make you feel better, I know. I'm a glass cannon kind of guy -- and I know it. Flick my nose, I'm down. Neuropathy's a bitch. And they always go for the tall guy first because they think he's most of a threat.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Whoever called the cops was smart, though. At least there's a couple of guys in custody. Might get us some answers. Sorry, I don't mean to sound all cynical, it's just... I get so bloody angry when perfectly innocent people get used as punching bags. Makes me feel like, if people are going to get hurt, at least give us something solid we can use in turn.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : To be fair, I kind of made myself the target. My own damn fault, but I didn't know who else was around, and I wanted to cause a scene to try and attract attention.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Yeah, me too. The whole thing was so fucked up. Was it only, like, last week that I was talking to you about being vigilant, watching out for shit like this? Well. This is what happens. Doesn't mean I'll stop. But there damn well better be some answers, or something.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Well, here's what I got so far, from talking to the nice officer who's guarding the hallway outside. They have a guy in custody who's gone full-on psychotic. Screams about snakes. They expect him to snap out of it eventually -- apparently it's a trauma response. They also got a guy who's a known local small time crook -- the kind of guy you'd hire to smash a few windows in the shop of someone who 'forgot' to pay their 'insurance', that kind of fella. They got some bodies. The kids don't remember anything -- but they tested true for rophanyl so, when they say they passed out at a rave, they're likely telling the truth.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Did you notice what's missing? I did. You weren't only fighting two people, were you?

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : ... no, there were like eight of them.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Man in a suit with a top hat. Foreign man. Two really... I don't know, androgynous people. The ones who weren't just small-time thugs.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : How far off the mark am I going to be if I suggest that some of them didn't look like locals, except by locals I don't mean Gray Harbor but Earth?

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Not far off the mark at all.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : And they were the ones that were like us.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : A while back I was in an incident -- the Mothman affair, at the lumber mill. There were a couple of blokes there -- hired goons, they told us as much. One of them looked like a mad scientist -- lab coat, goggles, you know the trope. Fought with a crossbow. The other looked like the puppet master from Pinnochio -- verbatim, like, carbon copy.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Someone's hiring goons who are trying to fit in, but taking inspiration from all the wrong places, sounds like.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Or not trying at all, maybe.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Makes it look like they're picking appearances out from a catalogue of movie history but they don't know which ones are appropriate, yes.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : I think we should perhaps add that to the list of things to look out for: Lost Hollywood goons. Bad news.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Fucking Haggleford.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : I mean, it fits the profile. Abducting people and all.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Yeah, I think you're right. I guess that's one piece of information we have now. The trouble is... we can't be everywhere at once. I was there by chance. I haven't spoken to anyone else, I don't even know who they are, really, but... I have to assume they were as well.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Yeah, but we can try to spread the word. Lost Hollywood trope? Expect bad news.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. It's something.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : So's those five kids not ending up in a pool of lost souls somewhere on the other side. Don't forget that. You took one hell of a beating, mate, but you won.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : That too. And I mean... I'd do it again, probably. White knight crusader, that's me.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Us, mate.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : And honestly? I'm not even close to ashamed of it. This place -- this town -- shit's gone on here for nearly two hundred years because they managed to teach everyone to duck and pray it's not them this time and keep quiet.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Us. Glad I won't be alone on my white charger, wading into ridiculous situations.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Yeah. I'm not ok with that you know? Not if it means protecting myself at the expense of others.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : Yeah, no. Anyone who feels that way -- do us a favour, get on that Greyhound, go somewhere else, live happily ever after. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to deal with this stuff. But if you're going to be here -- do your part. Whatever that part is, there's a lot more to it than charging in on a white horse.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Yeah. Whether it's healing, or hunting down information, or anything else. It all helps. No one can do everything, and no one should feel like they need to stand alone.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : I'm reminded of that old movie where someone says, the greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing people he doesn't exist. It kind of applies here. The greatest trick the Veil played on us was convincing us that we're all alone in this, and that if we just keep our heads down and don't talk about it, maybe it'll go a little easier on us. I mean, honestly, some of the entities in there seem to be reading aloud from the domestic abuse handbook.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : That... is a very good way of putting it. It's interesting to me. I think the western world mindset kind of contributes to it too: me first. So I bet this Veil of yours is playing in to that too.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : That's the main reason I'm so interested in what people like you and Jules think. I can't free myself from a western mindset: I'm the embodiment of a white, male, cishet, privileged academic. But the thin spot was here before the Baxters and the Addingtons and all the crap they did. Sometimes I wonder if it treats us the way it does at least in part because that western mindset has spent two thousand years trying to eradicate and control anything spiritual?

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : It wouldn't surprise me. My culture is so much more focused on the community. Whānau, extended family, is basically the cornerstone of everything. Finding the balance between that mindset and a western one, when you're part of both worlds, can be a bit of a mindfuck. I'd definitely say the weakness is being exploited, here.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : I'm not surprised to hear it. I feel like -- I am one of the first generations in my family to not be a leader of some kind. I don't have a battle to fight back home. So I went here and found one instead.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : And what a battle it is, eh?

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : I'm invested, now. I have to stay to stop Haggleford. My ma is convinced I'm going to end up dead in a ditch, now, but... I'm staying.

(TXT to Mikaere) Ravn : He does have the kind of face that makes you feel like the universe will thank you for punching it.

(TXT to Ravn) Mikaere : Who are we to disappoint the universe?!