trans_9 | "Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

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"Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

The Maingate Hotel was pretty extravagant, and an entire section of it had been eked out for the crew's use during their stay. They had several suites, three communal areas, a conference room, their own kitchen with a chef on call if they required her.

They were all teleported from the main teleport pad of the hotel into the conference room, which was a large enough room to be able to hold a group their size and had plenty of chairs arranged in a circular pattern so they could mostly all face each other or whoever was in the middle of the room.

Everyone had to settle down so they were all able to talk, and the meeting itself would have to be carefully controlled so they wouldn't all talk over each other. But they were up for the task, right?

[ooc: Guardian Setup, General Mingling, Clone Checkup, Newbie Briefing, General Briefing, More Mingling, Back to the Meeting, and The Idea Guy sections are open. Backup characters introduced to the plot can join in the mingling subthreads if they want. The opening of new subthreads will be announced here and the ooc. Please read the linked OOC post for a plot timeline.]

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"Actually, in this case, it's the Command staff that has the decision." The Overlord was in a better mood now that he'd succeeded in irritating his apprentice. Turnabout was fair play, after all. "I don't know how much of that whole conversation on the comms you read, but I did that in about as many words. Gonna keep doing it, too, for all the good it'll do. You know that."

"Well then they ought to keep in perspective everything that could happen if we act on impulse rather than actual, you know, brains. By the way, you're an ass."

The urge to kick the book abated, she shook her head. "I was keeping an eye, of course. It's kinda funny seeing YOU trying to talk sense into people. I'm just looking forward to the time where we can finally kick some ass. All of this talking is starting to piss me off."

"I spend most of my damn time on this ship trying to talk sense into people." Not one second of which he would've wasted if he had his damn body back. "It's amazing how it only seems to work on adolescent girls. More of you all should be in charge."

Come to think of it... WERE any of them in charge in any way, shape, or form? He couldn't think of any!

"If we were in charge, they would probably still try to tie our hands behind our backs," Hit girl replied. "Kids in charge make the captain nervous, remember? That probably goes double for the type of adolescent girls you hang around with. Lash the evil scientist, Ruffnut the crazed viking and me, the certifiable hero."

She grinned. "Though I dunno, if we were running on YOUR orders, we probably would have won this war by now. Fucking diplomacy."

"Except we have no control over the ship," Zetta said. "You'd think that'd be the first priority. It's sure handicapping us here. Even if we razed the planet to the ground and stole every last ounce of their tech, we still have to deal with the damn people who DO control the ship."

"Well I don't know how we're going to do that, do we?" Hit Girl said. "I mean, its not like the people still onboard were twiddling their thumbs for two years, they must have tried. Do we even know how DOES control the ship?"

"If I recall right, when the GIA guys showed up and passed out weapons, we ended up getting some codes that made things a little better for us," the book mused. He'd only been paying half attention at best to that mess. "And the Neuropathy department is working on getting the happy nice personality of Stacy in total charge, that's why we're not getting violations for brawling any more."

"So where does that leave us then?" Hit Girl asked, who had similarly not been paying much attention to what people were doing when it came to controlling the ship. "Are we one step closer to getting Stacy to play nice and let us do what we want, or are we still shit outta luck most of the time?"

"One step, sure, but it's a pretty long haul, and this has a good chance of setting it all back," Zetta said. "Of course, you saw how that went. People are fine with the crew getting hosed so long as the random clone jerks are free and happy."

Hit Girl shrugged. "Welcome to the truth: humans can be sentimental idiots." She knew she had her guilty points there too, but right now the only thing she was pissed off about by the government in this situation was being manipulated and lied to.

"Which leaves us where?"

"At the mercy of the Do-Good Group and hoping I'm wrong about the backlash." Though the book new better than to hope for something other than the worst.

"Well even if you're right, its not like you'll be alone," Hit Girl said, playing with her butterfly knife. "Like we'd let you deal with those assholes by yourself."

"That's been my plan from the beginning. Win over enough people so that when the battle lines are finally drawn, I've got people on my side willing to stand up."

It probably said something about Zetta that he believed the battle lines would, someday, be drawn. Even after months and a lot of mellowing, he took for granted the notion that someday, his evil and outspoken nature would meet with efforts to silence him.

"You've been planning this since the beginning I bet," Hit Girl said, saying it matter of fact, as if it were a plan that obviously anyone paying attention would have realized.

"You know, I'm going to take back what I said earlier, even if it was just shits and giggles. Azula and Lord Zedd are too busy being petty and idiotic to sit and wait for the minions to come to them while making your own. But its probably no big surprise if I'm aligning myself with anyone, it'll be someone bad ass enough to go through this shit until the end."

"It's like I said, we're so past good and evil all that crap doesn't matter. This isn't heroes and villains and glorious fights to the end. This is about freaking saving the cosmos so we all have a PLACE to do that crap.

"And I'm gonna make sure that happens." The book stared straight ahead, as if seeing ahead to the final conflict.

"Yeah, exactly. In my world I was a hero, chaotic neutral if you wanna be technical, but as far as I'm concerned, common sense about saving the universe and all."

She nodded. "Yeah, is it sad that the only person I'm sure that can put our best interests at heart is a demon overlord?"

"Not at all," Zetta said. "That just shows you can put two and two together, namely that getting the cosmos back gets my Netherworld and my body back as well. There's no damn incentive to turn from that path."

"Yeah well, I also want something better for myself too: kinda wanna know there's more to this world than bullshit heroics and luck. If it comes down to getting you together or saving some people who might die later, I think the decision is pretty clear."

"...What, you mean in general, more to 'everything' than heroics and luck?" Did they just stumbled into the realms of philosophy all of a sudden?

"I mean it'd be nice to have things less simplified than good and bad and right and wrong, I guess. You'd think, with all this tech and powers, we could be better than this. I dunno: it just seems stupid this is even being argued."

"People don't understand the old rules don't apply." The Overlord almost sounded sad about the fact. Certainly the situation was irritating, frustrating, and infuriating! "No help for it, though. If there were a way to enlighten them, I'd do it."

"Good, I'll depend on you for that, oh powerful Councilor," Hit Girl said, giving him a wink. "In the meantime, if you need a crack team to take care of business, that's what you have me and Ruffnut for, and afro chick if she's willing."

"Lash isn't too happy about this whole mess. I guess there was some cloning going on on her world, it has her upset that they sampled us and stuff." It didn't bother Zetta, especially since he was a book and a demon, but he allowed that maybe mere humans (with CO powers) might be displeased.

Hit Girl narrowed her eyes. She hadn't thought of that at all: what would she do if they made a clone of her, and there was a Mindy Macready walking around this planet?

"Dude, I would fuck the government up on principal for that," she answered honestly. "You ask a bitch first if you can clone them. I don't like the idea of doppleganger of me on some random planet. Bad for my rep."

"Even if having a clone-you helps us win the war faster?" he asked. "What happens after THAT we can worry about when we get there."

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