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Through the looking glass [bendytimed to some time when s!@% isn't getting real]
Welcome to Nanda Parbat, the hidden city. Squirreled away in the mountains of Tibet, an ancient temple preserving spiritual teachings that would otherwise have been lost centuries ago, takes refuge from the world under a wing of cliff face and blizzard. There are flowers here that grow nowhere else on Earth, flowers that can only grow here. Few know of its existence, fewer still of its location.
Batman could find it for you.
Of course, when your canvas is the sensoriums, the only place that he need look for it is inside his own head. A little paradoxically, the very purpose of Nanda Parbat is to aid those who traverse the depths of the mind. Of the soul, if you're the type who believes in that sort of thing.
One wall of the great stone temple fortress is built into the mountainside itself, and into the wall, passages to the many ice caverns - nature's halls of mirrors - within the rock. One of these caverns harbours a demon, black as the enshrouding darkness of the mountain tunnels, black as pitch. He's not expecting company.
Bruce doesn't remember when he had extinguished the sole candle that lit his passage into the cavern or what how his visage had seemed when refracted through the misty looking glasses of ice that covers the innermost chamber, but neither are important.
Who's curious enough to find out what is?
Batman could find it for you.
Of course, when your canvas is the sensoriums, the only place that he need look for it is inside his own head. A little paradoxically, the very purpose of Nanda Parbat is to aid those who traverse the depths of the mind. Of the soul, if you're the type who believes in that sort of thing.
One wall of the great stone temple fortress is built into the mountainside itself, and into the wall, passages to the many ice caverns - nature's halls of mirrors - within the rock. One of these caverns harbours a demon, black as the enshrouding darkness of the mountain tunnels, black as pitch. He's not expecting company.
Bruce doesn't remember when he had extinguished the sole candle that lit his passage into the cavern or what how his visage had seemed when refracted through the misty looking glasses of ice that covers the innermost chamber, but neither are important.
Who's curious enough to find out what is?
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"I wasn't aware that I counted as a professional."
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"My mistake. Is there anything else you want?"
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"No," there wasn't anything she could tell him was honestly more pressing that making certain he was alive. Motoko had lost two lieutenants on this ship. Three is enough for dead partners. Let us have at least one who refuses to be taken unawares.
She sighed audibly and externally, which was as good as admitting she wanted to stay, "I should leave you to your meditations."
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"I think they've been sufficiently disrupted for me to continue. Tell me about the mission."
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"We went in blind, but gained a few hostages. Planted the charges and left. Standby processors came online in tandem, and those will keep the system running, regardless, but it's incapable of memory-modification, considering the damage," It left out a few key details, and really, all of the combat, but it had been brief and well-handled. Not worth mentioning, "I lost my second. She took him early, and there was no recovery possible."
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"I'm sorry."
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After a millisecond of thought, she knelt, legs folding under her with a grace he could not have seen, and chose deliberately to take him literally, "You wouldn't have been on that squad, regardless. It isn't your fault."
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The response is terse but not aggravated, "Because I was considered and didn't pass muster or because you didn't think to consider me at all?"
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"You don't follow orders well," she replied. If he chose to take offense, let him- it was true, and kindness wasn't exactly the Major's MO, "In a group that size, response needs to be immediate. If it had been reduced to a two-man op, I'd have considered you, but ultimately gone with Aran."
Killing GLaDOs had required firepower and the ability to ignore its pleading for life. Self-preservation was a part of even the most basic android personalities; it didn't make them alive.
"For what it's worth, I have no complaints about your skillset."
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"Can I ask you something?" he pipes up again after a few moments of silence, "You don't follow orders so well yourself. Just Kennedy's. Why him?"
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Had they been here so long, already? Motoko killed the process that abortively simulated the nostalgic precursor to homesickness, and the feeling vanished instantly. She did not need that.
"In my business you're either skilled at finding the decent commanders, or you die under the subpar ones," her voice continued unblemished- she hadn't hesitated, "He's decent. Given our position, Kennedy is the best option available. His main problem, until recently, has been that he hadn't the power to go over anyone's head."
Of course, having the Major following your orders gives a great deal of power- which was why she'd signed on with him, to begin with. Motoko had wanted to see what he made of himself, when the entire command structure wasn't standing on his neck.
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"Are you sure that it was just power that he was lacking, and not the balls to ignore such an illusion?"
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"What year was it, before you arrived here?"
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She explained, quietly, "In my experience, Bureaucracies are built to facilitate ease of use by the most powerful, not the most deserving. No one can claim the vote was tampered with."
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Yes, he's paranoid. That doesn't mean they're not out to get him.
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"How much thought have you put into this?"
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"More than anyone else."
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Bureaucratic oversight or otherwise, there would be very little to stop Leon Kennedy from being killed outright in a mutiny.
"Know something I don't?"
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"The facts are only as valuable as the conclusions drawn from them," he murmurs in response, "I err on the side of caution, that's all."
GDit, Matt. Why are we using different tense. B|
"How humanitarian," now she was just needling at him. Some things are easier to say, in the dark, for whatever reason, "Why?"
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