etraya | 01. un: hound

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01. un: hound - [Voice]

[He was still learning this whole earpiece device, so excuse him for it turning on and there sound like someone was fiddling with the setting. Where was his far more technologically inclined smart kid to help him? Ah well, he did realize it was on sooner than later thankfully.]

Uh... sorry? [Chagrin tone.] I was curious about an idea, since I still consider myself fairly new to this situation. Here's hoping you all with entertain me here:

What does a sense of community mean or feel like to you?

[A beat of a pause.]

Is it friends and family? Is it gathering places and camaraderie? How about a sense of people uniting for a specific purpose in mind? Everyone here has their own agendas and their own interests, and, with no overt crime present at the moment, it's curious to me how we could build a sense of community around these parts.

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Probably. I'm sensing you're being a bit testy today. Are you alright?

[Well, he's learned Connor's got some mission that could be putting everyone here in danger. And Vincent just confirmed there's no way to get his memories of what his guardians from back home look like. Plus basically everything with the train, having to kill more people and send those kids off to god-knows-where without any guarantee the ones in the Dregs and Sprawls won't get a better life. Not to mention having to tell Harold that he's basically catatonic without his choker, something he didn't want to tell anyone in Etraya, and that conversation with Jayce that went completely south (he's pretty sure the guy hates him now).

Getting out of bed is becoming harder, again.]

I'm always in a bad mood. That's nothing new.

No, this is different. Where are you? I'm coming over.

[There wasn't a option for 'no' here.]

You don't need to.

[God, this is a futile effort but he's going to try anyways.]

I want to. Where are you?

[Vander was already grabbing his coat and heading out of his apartment. Good luck trying to stop him, kiddo.]

[Siiigh.

He'll give him an apartment number. Different than the one he was living in before the train mission. It's better to just get this over with quickly.]

[Oh good. Vander showed up knocking on the door within five minutes of receiving the number. They were both in the apartment complex after all, and he didn't take him long to walk down the stairs to Accelerator's level and find the room in question.

He waited for the kid to answer rather than just barging in as he otherwise might with other people. Besides, Accelerator knew to expect him.]

[Accelerator, having been waiting around irritably, opens the door pretty quick and moves aside so Vander can come in. He's scowling.]

You didn't need to come over.

[The interior of the bedroom - a 2 bed place rather than Accelerator's one 1 bed - is pretty plain. It's clean, aside from one or two horse toys on the coffee table in the living room. Perched on a branch that's been attached to the wall is one small, sleepy-looking owl who blinks lazily at them.]

I told you: I wanted to.

[He was not above the repeat correction as he stepped into the place, and he was struck immediately that this abode was larger in size than his. It wasn't difficult to determine the reason was that there was a second bedroom here.

Accelerator had a roommate, hmm? He looked around, walking around the living area, noting the figurines.]

Those belong to your roommate, I suppose?

[Closing the door behind Vander, he heads over to the couch in the living room and slumps down onto it, letting go of his crutch.]

She's eleven and likes horses. [He shrugs, absently rubbing his right forearm.] I don't see the appeal.

[Vander walked over to look at the little horses, nodding his head at the explanation. He had come to know that Accelerator was protective of young kids, so this made sense. He had no idea this place dragged in young kids, but it also made sense. Children had a lot of potential.]

It's what she likes. All we need to do is support her in that. [He stood and looked over at Accelerator.] What's gotten you all twirled up? You're not normally that snappy with me.

[That's true. Even if he doesn't get it he'll absolutely support Laura with her horsegirl dreams.

He reaches for a half-finished can of coffee, then sits back on the couch and sips it. At that question, he pointedly looks way.]

I told you, I'm always in a bad mood. This isn't any different than normal for me.

[That's bullshit, he knows it is. But talking about his feelings isn't something he enjoys doing.]

[He folded his hands behind his back, clasping one wrist with the other hand as he observed Accelerator. He didn't take a seat but continued to cast his gaze around the room as if he might have missed something on the first assessment. He had not, but it allowed him to observe the kid a bit more subtly.]

Not like this. You know there's something going, and if I'm not the person you want to talk about it with, that's fine. I'm offering you a listening ear regardless.

[He isn't sure he wants to talk to anyone, honestly. That isn't something he does. Back home the most he ever got were adults poking and prodding at him. Which was sometimes for his own wellbeing - Yomikawa and his doctor would lecture him even if he was resistant to opening up - but it's only been here in Etraya where he's really gotten people who want him to talk. It's uncomfortable and he's debating whether he should just kick Vander out.]

.....

[That would be cruel. Vander's only trying to help.

Outside of Laura's stuff and the owl is bare of any real signs that the place is being made a home. The reasons for that are twofold: the two of them only just moved in, and Accelerator has never been one to own a lot of personal belongings. He has a laptop, a gun, and borrows a few books from the library. That's it. He spends a lot of his time sleeping, so he's never felt any desire for much stuff.

The apartment is at least clean. He's lived on his own for long enough that he knows basic day-to-day tasks like dishes and the laundry, so he can handle that and make sure Laura learns.

He sighs.]

... Do you think things are actually going to work out for everyone aboard the train? [From his doubtful tone he clearly doesn't. It isn't even really all that important to him since they're probably never going to see those people again; their circumstances just have him thinking about his own city.]

[He could talk, could needle and prod, could even appeal to reason. He was perceptive enough to know when things in a conversation or an attitude happened to be different from usual, especially on an individual that he had met more than once. Sometimes it wasn't even having a talk so much as being present for someone else that could put them at ease.

After all, whatever was actually bothering Accelerator may not be something to kid wanted to talk to an adult about. They hadn't spent that much time together, and their conversations had made it very clear that Accelerator's interactions with adults was neutral at best and horrible at worst.

He looked at the kid, considering the question. He shrugged his shoulders, mostly because he couldn't say for certain.] Who knows. Time will tell, but we may never know either. [He waited, expecting this was such a tiny fragment of what was actually on the kid's mind.]

[Accelerator snorts.] I don't see why we'd ever find out. Aurora's network barely worked out there, chances are wherever they end up is gonna be too far away to communicate.

[He had gotten firsthand experience with that. It wasn't a fun time.

He takes another sip of his coffee, glaring at nothing in particular, resting one foot up on the coffee table. His leg fidgets restlessly as he keeps on talking, not really caring if he starts to ramble.]

The only way things could change for them would be if someone at the top stepped up and forced it to happen, but no one living permanently on the train did. The Elites were happy to stay Elite, and after the rioting, all they're going to do is double down on holding onto what they have

[If they were outside he'd spit onto the ground, because he's rude like that.]

It's bullshit. Nothing is going to change.

Most likely, yeah.

[Vander agreed with the sentiment that the communication network lacked the ability to allow them to check. They had been sent on the mission to disrupt and see for themselves what it was to live a life on that train, but their changes were so limited.

Yet, he had lived in a world of hardship where microcosm existed and small actions from people in terms of pushing for change did matter. It was fatalist to think that they had accomplished nothing with their efforts, and he had no doubt it would weigh on empathetic people who normally wanted to change for the better.]

No. [He let the word linger in a brief silence.] Top-down changes don't work in that kind of oppression. It requires a communal effort from the most oppressed to those less oppressed. A single spark can create a flame and a flame can spread to a wildfire. If we showed any of them that things could be better and provided them the strength and will to strive for those changes amid their own ranks, it was worth it.

[He set a hand on his hip and stared at the floor.] Hope is the most flammable accelerant in a group of hopeless people.

[A communal effort. God, if Academy City had that - if the rot wasn't so deeply ingrained that it existed at every level - then maybe it would have improved decades ago. But it doesn't and hasn't, so kids like himself got to grow up under horrible circumstances.]

That's not how it works back home.

[Back home the kids have started rioting for change, but it's a futile effort. As long as corrupt shitheads like the Directors exist then there's nothing the students can do, even if they try to organize. The only reason change has started is because he's enforcing it, and he's the one with a finger on the city's nuclear options.

(And even then he's still deeply unpopular with the majority of the population.)

He glances over at Vander.]

Is that how it works where you're from?

[Vander was certain that it did work that way, but the methods and strategy were ineffective so far. With enough people, with enough rioting, with enough push, the top was forced to either capitulate or subjugate harder. Usually it was the latter.]

Maybe your home doesn't have enough people to the cause to demand change. Or the tactics aren't putting pressure on the right places.

[He shrugged his shoulders at the question, crossing his arms over his chest. Sometimes he hated it when Silco was right, even if a small amount.]

Sort of. The top needed to fear what they would lose if things continued as they were. Of course, they were always afraid of us as much as they disparaged and used us. Hope gave people something else to think about, to wish for and that's dangerous.

[Accelerator is skeptical. If thousands of superpowered kids can't make meaningful change, then he doubts there's any way change can be made from the bottom up. Besides, it shouldn't on the kids to improve things, it should be the people at the top like himself.]

Hope's idealistic. [He's not an idealist. He's seen miracles happen, met powerless people who've helped others through sheer force of will, but he isn't an idealist. He frowns.] And fear makes people dig their heels in. You didn't have to deal with that?

It is, but if we don't have it, well, what's the point? [He'd lost his way for a time, only acknowledging too late that his own small actions were not fast enough for the hope of another generation. He had paid the ultimate price. He hadn't even had the opportunity to water burial his kids.]

I grew up in the shadow of constant fear. [And Vander had once decided to do something about it once he was big enough and realized the way of the world. With Silco at his side, they could have changed their world, had been doing so. For a time, they had been hope and fear combined.] Eventually fear makes people bold because they have nothing else to lose but their lives. Then they whisper, they organize, they fight back out of fear which turns to anger.

[... He can't answer that, he isn't sure how to, so he focuses on the rest of what Vander says. And hey, he knows what it's like growing up like that. He may not have grown up dirt poor in the mines, but the Special Esper Institute was still terrifying in its own way.

He can't say fear ever made him bold. If anything, it made him shut down. Still makes him shut down. He doubts that fear can make him do much, even if it also makes him angry.

Either way, this is reminding him of a conversation he had a little while ago. While he doesn't stalk the network like some people, he did notice Silco and Vander bickering. He isn't really sure what their relationship is aside from 'intense,' but Silco had talked a bit about fear as well. Namely....]

Let me guess, once that fear is turned into anger you use it to gain power, right? And once you've got power you can turn that fear around on the people who were keeping you down, keep them just wary enough that they let you go?

[That's what Silco had said his plan had been, anyways.]

[He noted that Accelerator didn't have commentary on his hope portion, which was sent a small ripple of sadness for the kid. Had he lived a short lifetime of fear with nothing to hope for? Probably. The kid was a realist, yes, but it seemed a defense mechanism, a shut down where embracing what was rather than what could be was the only sensible choice.

He was thinking of how to comfort Accelerator, how to show that there were different paths and even this place may provide different opportunities. Could it build confidence? Maybe. Would it matter? They might never actually know.

Yet, his thoughts froze at the familiar rhetoric. It was like hearing words slide from his ex-friend's lips but with a different tongue and face. He stared at Accelerator, and his body language tightened subtly across his large shoulders. Silco had gotten to the kid, had he? Not a surprise.

Without intending, his expression closed to guarded, and he made the effort to hide that fact by lifting a hand to stroke his fingers over his moustache.]

Those aren't your words. [A fact, nothing more, nothing less.] Fear isn't the only way to push for change, but fine, I'll play. Some time ago yes, that was the kind of rhetoric that seemed a viable solution.

[Accelerator is still working through a hell of a lot. His own well being has taken a back seat to his new responsibilities, and even before that when conversations veered towards personal and emotional he did what he could to avoid them. He's never considered himself introspective (despite massive evidence to the contrary), but being the head of an entire society means he needs to start considering norms, ethics, and all that nonsense beyond just learning it for school.

Which means other perspectives. He might not want to participate in any form of community, but it's on him to make sure his runs smoothly. What a pain in the ass.

He's staring back at Vander, lifting his can of coffee up to take another sip, noting the shift in his posture. Okay, not surprising given the bickering on the network; he has to wonder about all of that. That, and the fact that while he's seen Vander be violent, he isn't totally sure he's seen him be angry.]

It isn't anymore?

[He doesn't argue about that not being his words. It's true, he's only repeating what Silco had said to him because, like most thing adults have said to him in Etraya, he's taking his viewpoint into consideration.]

[It made sense to him that Silco would target the younger parts of this place; there was something impressionable about them regardless of the powers, their worlds and experiences. Many could be lulled into the rhetoric with enough time and patience; Janna knew he had been vulnerable at Accelerator's age.

However, he hadn't come here to investigate about the kid's moodiness to instead have to confront the venomous words of Silco's world view. The sooner that they were able to move off of this topic, the better for them both as far as he was concerned. There were many aspects of his past that he had accepted, and it seemed being in Etraya forced him to plenty of new introspection.]

No, it isn't. Fear is usually the easiest method to achieve quick results. As you've made clear you and yours have experienced. If there was a different way, even if it took longer to achieve it, would you not consider it?

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