Raiders Renewed - MO - Prisoners

[Resonance]

Eden’s face relaxed, surprisingly. Her emotions were unreadable as she simply added in a relatively calm tone, “resulting to violence and war to achieve your goals and get what you want are the acts of those who have not risen above their childhood days when acting out got them a toy to pacify them - that they then quickly tire of, and so throw another tantrum. Violence should be your last resort, if it isn’t, what kind of leader are you? Just a child who can’t emotionally regulate. Supremacists have no future here, Demandred. You cannot begin to comprehend how lacking you are in any meaningful ability beyond violence. And that will be why you will be a mere footnote in history, not any kind of lasting icon of change. Quite sad, really.”


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[Resonance]

Eden’s face relaxed, surprisingly. Her emotions were unreadable as she simply added in a relatively calm tone, “resulting to violence and war to achieve your goals and get what you want are the acts of those who have not risen above their childhood days when acting out got them a toy to pacify them - that they then quickly tire of, and so throw another tantrum. Violence should be your last resort, if it isn’t, what kind of leader are you? Just a child who can’t emotionally regulate. Supremacists have no future here, Demandred. You cannot begin to comprehend how lacking you are in any meaningful ability beyond violence. And that will be why you will be a mere footnote in history, not any kind of lasting icon of change. Quite sad, really.”


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[Kyt]

Yuki sighed, speaking up for the first time. "He's never going to understand." She wanted to bite her words out, but she rolled some of the tension out of her shoulders and tried to keep her voice even. "Never understand that he pushed too far. That he scared and hurt even those he wanted to help. He only saw what he wanted to see. Him with the power, and others without. No matter who fell inbetween."

Her words were stated towards the others, but she kept her eyes locked on his the entire time.

[Aidan]

Aidan nodded slightly, agreeing with Damien and Yuki. He glanced at his sister, recognizing just how much Demandred had got under her skin, before looking back at the leader of Argus.

"I won't ignore what you were able to do," he said slowly. "Hate is a powerful motivation - but it's brittle. Your own people turned against you. The common people are horrified by what you did. In the grand scheme of things, you'll be looked at as just another wannabe dictator who failed because you didn't understand the people you claimed to be lifting up.

"You're right, society makes monsters, but it does it by teaching hate - by allowing it to spread. I don't believe people have that kind of thing in them by nature, otherwise you wouldn't have to work so hard to gather so many like-minded people together. Or be defeated by so few, who refused to buy into your message."

Aidan stepped back. He got what he wanted out of the meeting, he supposed - some closure, some recognition that Demandred wasn't going to change. And they still had one more prisoner to see.



Demandred closed his eyes for a moment, letting the words of the Raiders wash over him before opening his eyes once more. Even now, there was no spark of anger, or hate, or even self-righteousness. He was dead inside. He had been for a long time, and nothing he achieved seemed able to rekindle what he had lost.

"I was never the first warmonger," he mused, "and I won't be the last. Reductionism is the basis of moral superiority. Time will justify which of us was right. But I'm confident in who it will show was necessary."

[Uberwulf X]

"You're right on those: you won't be the last warmongers. But we won't be the last peacemakers, and I guess that's something for us to hold on to."

Damien lowered his head briefly: a small nod of some small respect.

"I genuinely wish you a calm rest of your life, Demandred. I'll use the rest of mine to be sure you're proven wrong about everything else."

He then nodded to Aidan, for he was ready to move on.

[Resonance]

Eden nodded after Damien spoke, “I am ready as well.” Demandred’s future, for all intents and purposes, ended here (unless he escaped), because there was nothing anyone could do to change his mind. Even if he got his way, he would never be happy. Demandred’s future originally troubled her… she had wondered if he’d be like Abyss. And so, she came to see if he had reached any level of clarity after defeat. Alas, no. And unlike Abyss, she saw no spell or speech that would change that. The other prisoners however… she found their plight far more troubling, and their futures full of potential.


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[Kyt]

Yuki just nodded, watching Demandred for as long as possible before they would start to move. She still didn't know what she had wanted out of the interaction.....but she definitely hadn't gotten it.

[Aidan]

Demandred studied the Raiders a moment longer before he turned away from them, hands clasped behind his back.

Aidan turned and moved to the door of the viewing chamber, exhaling slowly as their escort opened it and waited for the Raiders to step into the hall.

"Well, that was... something," he said to his friends. "This place makes me uncomfortable, but honestly, I can't think of a better place to put someone like him right now..."

[Uberwulf X]

Once they were in the hall, Damien pinched the bridge of his nose. "I originally wanted to ask him what he wanted from us, and give him the chance to answer something like 'for you to indeed prove me wrong, at least for now.'I was hoping so hard that he would just give me something to work with. I don't know, man."

He sighed, hands going into his pants pockets. "No accounting for megalomania or whatever, I guess. I feel bad that his Engine might have changed him so he can't even think of any alternatives to how he's thinking, but..." A shrug. "Playing with fire, y'know? And speaking of hot-but-crazy people, are you ready to hear Anastasia be unapologetic and praise her dad's work?"

[Resonance]

“Similarly, I came to see if there was even a tiny glimmer left of the person he was before he set out on this path, any sliver of an indication he can be rehabilitated… but it is not there. At least, not now.” Eden realised she was still holding Yuki’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She’d let go if she wanted, but also knew Ana was going to be stressful for the fox as well and would continue to be her support if she liked. “I anticipate the same from Anastasia.”


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[Uberwulf X]

((Reaction))

"Yeah, you're right. 'Not yet' is a better way to put it. Far be it for someone like me to say he isn't redeemable, but he needs some time to stew and let his mind settle. Even if Avatar's report said that people are permanently changed by it, I wonder if there's a way for him to overcome the madness a decade down the line."

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[Kyt]

Yuki definitely looked unsettled, worse than when they'd come in. "...." She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, join the others in conversation, but she just couldn't seem to process what, if anything, she wanted to say. Eden squeezed her hand, and she gave the girl a wan smile, returning the gesture before drawing her hand back. With her emotions and thoughts all over the place, she felt a bit too awkward keeping up the contact.

Her free hands toyed with a sleeve instead, picking at something as she tried to prepare herself for them seeing Anastasia. A different nightmare for her, but no less of one.

[Aidan]

The Raiders were led to a different part of the sub-level, one which featured normal cells with reinforced plexiglass walls facing the hall, allowing easy view of the inmates. The cells were all full, the metas within contained within dampener field and looking largely bored within their spartan environments. The last cell on the row belonged to Anastasia - and was unique in being fully furnished.

There was a curtain hung around the toilet for privacy, and an actual bed instead of a cot. There was a bookcase mounted along one wall, full of books that had to be mostly decorative, and a writing desk at the back of the small room, at which the inmate sat, currently writing in a notepad. Upon the Raiders arrival, she set her pen down and stood to turn and face them.

Anastasia had changed. Purged of the demon that she had contained within her during the final battle through Damien's inadvertent assistant, she looked eighteen - her true age - and along the sides of her face and the back of her hands were the faint lines of the arcane tattoos she had used to constrain the demon and heighten her power. Her prison-issued jumpsuit looked appropriately tailored, and she had the well-groomed look of someone on vacation rather than the haggard fatigue of a recently beaten prisoner.

And she smiled when she saw the Raiders.

"You kept me waiting," she said by way of greeting. "I had expected a visit far sooner than this."


Aidan hesitated at the sight of the cell and Anastasia, his brows knitting as he looked over to the stoic-faced guard accompanying them. "What the hell is this?"


"An expression of the purest form of power one can attain," Anastasia answered. "Money. I may be incarcerated, but I'm still the heir to one of the riches families in the Gold Coast. If there's one thing Nicolai Pryde taught me before he passed, it was to ensure my portfolio was suitably diverse."

[Uberwulf X]

"You wasted my promise of a date on meeting everyone else, why would I rush to see someone who was willing to cheat on me like that?"

Damien was surprised, but not nearly as surprised as Aidan was. To be sure, his response to Anastasia was given after his own brow knitting, but he ended his own with a very deep sigh. "I mean, I've seen stuff like this in cartoons and in some mobster movies."

He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing at the inmate. "Though, I didn't know you'd have immediate commissary privileges a week after you got in here, getting to use assets that somehow haven't been frozen. I bet I could sell half the stuff in here to rebuild Metzli's room and a mini-kitchen."

[Resonance]

Eden primarily looked around the well appointed cell instead of at Anastasia. It was very curious that her assets hadn’t been frozen… then again, the city had a great deal of other pressing matters to attend, and since she hadn’t yet been to trial, perhaps that was still on the to do list. Although…

She sighed a little. Thoughts for a different day. When she finally looked at Anastasia, she simply listened to the exchanges for now.


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