Day 29: Chapel

[deathbymidget]

Hiei didn't give a damn about religious services, meditation, or pretending to be social. The always sudden waking after night put him in a bad mood, this one particularly so. Even with Kurikara licking him like some perverted moron, the warmth the dragon provided was welcome in Hiei's bed, and missing when he woke, giving the surrounding air a

Comments

[sugarsweetblood]

Rhode rolled her tired eyes over to the one that had started speaking to her. She assumed he was speaking to her; there didn't seem to be anyone else he was addressing, and he'd made reference to her mutterings as well. The comment had been a passing shot, but it was nice to have some agreement for a change. Xellos had never flat out agreed with her about human destruction, but there was no question where this one's opinions stood. He'd even said "agreement" before making his comment.

Why was that familiar?

Her head hurt too much to pick out what made his odd speech familiar, so she let it go for a moment. If it was important, she'd remember once she didn't feel so bad.

"Yeah," she managed, agreeing with his agreeing with herself. She also agreed with his statement about them being easy to kill, though it depressed her further. "S'not fair... making me one..." What she wouldn't give to have a bit more command of her sentences, if they could even be called that. How weak was she not to be able to form full sentences?!

They would pay for this, all of them. She'd kill every last human responsible for this place and laugh while she did so.

[arc_wrench]

"Statement: I can thoroughly commiserate, mea--" Wait, no. Maybe that wasn't technically correct in this case.

"...Query: What were you before finding yourself a squishy human meatbag?" HK hoped this was a fellow droid. Too many meatbags here really were what they appeared to be. "Statement: I was an HK-47 model assassin droid, prior to my capture and forced acquisition of this disgusting body."

[sugarsweetblood]

His speech was really familiar. She now knew it was probably important that she remember why that was. Her brain still refused to process though. It was having a hard enough time following the bigger words to find some meaning.

"Noah," she answered once she realized what he was asking: what were you before here. Strange way of putting such a simple question, but he apparently had a strong hatred of humans to be calling them "meatbags". She would have gone for bloodbags herself, but to each their own.

He probably wouldn't understand what a Noah was, but that left them even for the moment. "Whassa dro-eed?"

[arc_wrench]

HK sighed, slightly disappointed. He had no idea what that was. "Statement: I do not know what a 'Noah' is." And the meatbag was going to be confused by any definition of 'droid' that he gave... Oh well. It would at least provide a small amount of entertainment.

"Definition: A droid is an intelligent mechanical being, far more capable and durable than any meatbag." He watched to see how long it would take the meatbag's thought process to get a handle on all those words with so many syllables in them.

[sugarsweetblood]

Good. Only Noah were supposed to know what Noah were, and the Earl, and Akuma, which were exactly what this guy was explaining with his definition of a dro-eed. Well, except for the "intelligent" remark, but she guessed they could be considered that so far as being able to speak and think went. Level ones couldn't do any of that, but the higher levels possessed some level of intellect. Still, they were pretty stupid in her book. Underlings usually were.

Skipping over his first statement, she grabbed his dro-eed definition and ran with it. "Got those. We call 'em... Akuma," she yawned unintentionally, "They're minions. 'N take orders..."

Though he was blurry, Rhode was pretty certain he had a human shape. He said he was a dro-eed, but maybe they could take on human skins just like Akuma. She supposed that different places called things different names.

"Dro-eed" sounded stupid.

[arc_wrench]

"Objection: I am insulted by the insinuation that I am merely a drone. I am far more intelligent than any meatbag, and more than capable of creating mass slaughter of my own free will." Honestly! Whatever a 'Noah' was, they needed to have some sense knocked into them. Thinking they were better than droids.

[sugarsweetblood]

His anger went ignored; Rhode herself was angry enough not to care for his offense. "Whassa drone?" Well, he hadn't specified that there were levels of... whatever he was... which is what he seemed to be indicating.

Drone sounded more like an Akuma, were that the case.

Then he said something that seemed to override whatever drousiness she was still feeling. Enough of an override to make her grin devilishly, "Slaughter's fun."

And enough to manage complete sentences, it seemed.

[arc_wrench]

"Definition: Menial labor droids programmed to perform non-intelligent tasks such as salvage, mining and sanitation." HK started contemplating taking out one of the scalpels he had hidden in his clothing. "Simplification: A very stupid metal thing that does very boring jobs." There. Would the meatbag be able to get all of that, now?

...The meatbag couldn't be faulted for priorities, though. "Agreement: Of course it is."

[sugarsweetblood]

Bah, this guy was confusing. He said some fun things though.

"Akuma dun do that," she persisted. Even with his definition, the only thing that made his drones like Akuma were that they were unintelligent. "They kill. Dun hafta be told. But th' Earl makes 'em, so they obey us."

He wanted simple, she'd give him simple.

"Like pets," she decided, finally landing on a good term. "We're better at killing though. S'fun." And really, the Akuma were just the Earl's side project, they weren't actually needed. The Noah were good enough to purge the world themselves. Akuma just came in handy for mass killings that weren't worth her family's time to deal with.

[arc_wrench]

"Query: Earl?" HK did have a list of more names than a meatbag could ever remember, devoted to possible assassination targets. He might be able to recognize at least the name from his files, if this meatbag was even from the same dimension as he was. That did tend to complicate things.

"Statement: Well, I am most certainly no meatbag's pet." Except possibly the Master's, and he hoped that he would never be referred to by that term. "I am completely above that level, or any meatbag's capabilities."

[sugarsweetblood]

The Millennium Earl simplified... not an easy thing to do. Even thinking of the fun things she could do once the Earl came to get her didn't get her mind to think of any simplified explanation for him. Was there a simple explanation for the Millennium Earl?

Doubtful.

"Yup, the Earl," she settled on, not giving anything away. She wasn't really allowed to give anything away, so that was as good as he'd get.

"You mi'ht not be, but Akuma are. Not fo' meatbags... Noah," she corrected. She still assumed that he was using the meatbag title for humans, and she certainly wasn't one of those inferior weaklings.

[arc_wrench]

HK decided it wasn't worth following that line of inquiry. Correcting the meatbag as to their status was more important. "Negatory: Unless Noah happen to be inorganic like droids, then they are meatbags. The term encompasses all organic life forms, although humans are the most prolific among them."

Really, why did meatbags have such difficulty understanding this? They were membrane-bound, watery sacks of meat. Thus, meatbags. It really was so simple.

[sugarsweetblood]

"I dun hafta explain Noah t' you..." she finally told him. She doubted he'd understand even if she did; he was so dense. He did have some things right, but he also had some things wrong, and some things she didn't even understand! What use was there in correcting him then? She wasn't really in the condition to correct him anyway.

However much she may have wanted to.

Really, he was calling humans meatbags, and she was anything but. Well, except for when she was taunting Allen Walker. Then she could be human. Otherwise she was no more human that a dro-eed, if this person was even one of those.

Still, he talked really weird. Now, where had she heard that before? She knew it at least sounded familiar, so where...? Oh!

"You're th' one who likes eye-gougin'! From th' boards!" she exclaimed, still a bit weakly. She knew it had been important! Some weird person had been writing like he was talking on the boards. He had sounded fun.

[arc_wrench]

So this was the one he had been talking to? HK was not so impressed at the moment. "Affirmative: Yes, I am. And it is entertaining. They squish quite pleasingly. And it causes meatbags of all species so much pain."

[sugarsweetblood]

"Mmmm, they do!"

Whoever he was, he was arrogant and still spoke really weird, but if he liked killing and stuff, then he couldn't be all bad. She had no doubt he was from another kind of world than her own - such disrespect for a Noah when he was pretty much calling himself an Akuma was unheard of - so she'd let him slide with a lot of comments just based on ignorance.

Maybe he'd make her miss Lord Tamaki.

"You like callin' things meatbags, huh?" she asked. That last comment had indicated that he didn't just use the term for humans.

[arc_wrench]

"Affirmative: While it later became an imperative in my coding, it was only as a result of my own repeated use of the term. In addition, the distress it caused in the original 'meatbag' to constantly be referred to as such was most amusing." Malak had been such a wonderful test subject. Not only had he cemented HK's love for the epithet, but he also gave HK a legitimate reason to test his strategies in combating Force sensitives.

It was a pity he'd never actually been allowed to kill Malak back then. That disgusting traitor to the Master! If he could be killed a second time, I'd make good on my promise of removing his entrails!