trans_9 | Pods, Heat, and the Hawk's Eye [Open]

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Pods, Heat, and the Hawk's Eye [Open]

Ankh's first concern was gathering information about this place; the hawk candroid was already flying around where it would and he'd follow it to anything useful later. His next concern then, was returning to the pod caverns. It would be easier to do after all the new crew members had settled, and so he had to wait, no matter how pissed off it made him.

Still, now he got the chance to return. The air was still horrible; he still felt like he was going to choke or explode and he still didn't know why he was so bothered by it, he had spent a year in a human body already, damnit! And that just made him angrier which made him more frustrated which just reminded him how frikkin' hot in here it was. Wearing the damn suit sure didn't help. Nevermind, he'd be sick about it later.

Right now, Ankh was perched on the spiral walkway, staring down at the cavern of pods. He seemed to be staring off into space, but he was actually just concentrating very hard; he had set to work who knows how long ago, using his Hawk vision to scan the pods for any sign of a certain handful of individuals.

They had to be here. There's no way he and that stupid cat'd be around and they wouldn't. They were too dumb to get themselves killed just like that. Not like that.

Yet there was no sign of them. Was his Hawk vision failing him? It never had before. Everything was red, but there was....static. He was used to seeing static, but not with Hawk vision, and not like that. And he certainly shouldn't have had Greeed vision right now.

This was ridiculous. His Greeed arm had long since encased the human arm out of mounting frustration, and he was tightening his fist so hard that he probably would've bruised something by now if it wasn't for the arm. He gave a yell; Nothing. Ankh turned away from the pods and violently whipped his arm forward to point and shoot a blaze of fire at the ground. He didn't care if this place was alive, or if he'd get in trouble, he had been searching for hours and come up dry.

And after his minor fit he was just standing there, breathing heavily, glaring at nothing in particular, and remembering how sick this stupid ship made him.

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Ankh jerked his head when he saw the flutter of bright colors. For a minute he just sort of...stared at the bird. That was a bird, right?

A bird that was...insulting him. Not, exactly what he wanted nor expected when he came here. He started calming down just by the sheer confusion of that-is-a-bird-and-it-is-insulting-him. "What...the hell..?!"

The bird looked smugly at him from atop the pod (yes, that look definitely had a sort of smug avian component to it). "I'm the great wunderkind!"

This last was said in a female voice. Lash's voice, but maybe Ankh wouldn't know to recognize that.

"Wunderkind...?" What the heck was a wunderkind? And why was the bird suddenly speaking in a female voice?

After a moment of staring in bewilderment, Ankh had switched to glaring slightly at the bird. "Huh. Get out of here, you freak," and he attempted to wave the bird away with his right hand.

What? How dare Ankh try to swat Alan away like he was some common pigeon or something. The parrot swooped down from his perch, and promptly pecked at Ankh's head.

"H-Hey!!" Geez, this bird's pecking kind of actually hurt. "What do you want, you stupid bird?!" Regardless Ankh shook his head and attempted to swat the bird away some more before it tried cracking his skull like a walnut.

"Alan?" Around the same time, Zouichi came into view from behind a row of pods. At the sound of his voice, the bird flapped upward, landing neatly on his shoulder.

"Oh... hello. I didn't think there was anyone in here."

Ankh didn't register the newcomer until he realized the bird was no longer bothering him, and was now flying over to them. He blinked for a minute in confusion.

"...It's fine," He finally relented warily, eyeing the guy before turning his attention back to the pods. "What do you want?"

He's still watching you, bird.

Alan was watching Ankh right back. ~~Shun the nonbeliever~~

Zouichi started to say something, then stopped. Waaait a second. Half a head of curly hair?

"...are you Ankh?"

~~Gonna be a heretic forever~~

Ankh blinked and turned his attention right back to Zouichi. "Huh?" Now he was looking even more confused than before. How did this guy know his name?

"Yeah...how do you know that?" He'd certainly never seen this guy before, as far as he could remember at least. Did this ship have some kind of file on him already? That was a rather disturbing thought.

"I ran into an acquaintance of yours earlier, I believe. Cazali." Zouichi studied Ankh with some curiosity. So he'd been right. If Ankh was the same kind of being as Cazali, however, he didn't look it... for now.

"He seemed a little upset at you."

Ankh groaned at the sound of Cazali's name; this was already the second person he'd met on this stupid ship that had already talked to Caz too and the last thing he wanted to hear.

He tightened the fist of his Greeed arm and scoffed. "Cazali? Upset? That's a good one." Haha Cazali feeling human emotions, he's never gonna let him live this down. "Whatever. I wouldn't even go so far as to consider him an acquaintance."

Zouichi glanced at Ankh's arm, but didn't remark upon it. Sure, it was weird. But so was Cazali's nonhuman form. "He mentioned you're holding some possessions of his... a number of medals, to be specific. In which case he'd be a little more than an 'acquaintance'. Is this true?"

Edited 2011-10-11 19:24 (UTC)

"Medals?" Wait a minute, how had Cazali known he had the medals? Ankh himself hadn't even known he had those medals until he discovered them in his locker.

Ankh's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he looked away a bit, though he soon brought his attention back to Zouichi. "Yeah, I've got them. Did he send you to get them back?"

"No... but imagine he'd like them back all the same." So far, Ankh hadn't been acting particularly hostile. Hmm.

Ankh let out a half-hearted laugh, looking down and shuffling his feet a bit before returning to a serious expression. Looks like he honestly found that thought entertaining in a "Sure he would, but I'm not going to hand them over. I'm not stupid."

"And why would it be stupid to return them to Cazali?" It was an honest question.

Ankh stalled for a minute before responding to choose his words carefully. The last time he had told someone he was at a disadvantage, Eiji had lorded it over his head and used it to his advantage. If Cazali was going around telling people about him, he couldn't let people be privy to that so easily.

"The Core Medals are the source of our powers; if he gets more of his medals, he powers up. We've all stolen from each other before, and given that I've worked against him, I don't think he'd just let bygones be bygones."

"So you're saying he'll attack you if you return his medals to him? That wouldn't exactly be a smart move, considering the rules of the ship." And while Cazali was... well, suspicious and flippant, he didn't seem particularly dumb.

Actually, he seemed a lot like Ankh. Calculating.

"None of us particularly cared about the rules," Ankh said rather flippantly, pacing around a bit as he spoke. "Not that we've done anything exactly illegal," as far as he knew at least, though it was all definitely morally questionable, "but we didn't really care about putting others in harm's way."

Ankh stopped and not took a seat on the ground, looking at Zouichi. He didn't want to show it, but all this searching and the atmosphere in here was really wearing him out, not to mention just uncomfortable. "And it's easy to get away with it if no one knows what you're up to."

Man, did these guys all skip the part where the ship is always watching you forever and ever, or what?

"I see," he said in a neutral tone. He'd gotten a measure of who Ankh was from the way he behaved, and he wasn't on any official business for now. But if Ankh thought no one had any idea what he and Cazali might be 'up to', well...

"I'll leave you to yourself, then." He started to turn away, then paused. "By the way, my name is Zouichi. I'm from the Security Division. Try not to damage the pods too much; the Violation system is supposedly suspended, but that doesn't mean the ship won't enact countermeasures if it determines you're endangering anyone inside."

The tone got an eyebrow quirk from Ankh, but he chose not to comment on it. When he heard about the violation system though, he gave a small chuckle. "Hey, just because I know how doesn't mean I want to. Cazali's the one that you want to look out for."

He balanced his Greed arm on a bent up knee and stared a little before answering, jerking his head at Zouichi. "Security, huh?" Second one so far! "I'll keep that in mind."

It was actually a fair warning. The last woman they'd subjected to Punishment had never really recovered... but if Ankh wanted to laugh about it, that was his prerogative.

With a brief nod, he left the Caverns.

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Pods, Heat, and the Hawk's Eye [Open]

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