Vigilante Protectors [Runaway/Revenant]

At the bar, Revenant sat, mulling things over in the absence of others. While the area retained its usual appearance, the room was more murky and dark than usual, thick shadows promising hidden knowledge lining the edges of the room...
He put it down to the strange properties of this place. He still hadn't figured out what caused these shifts.

Faceless men, their life severed as they fell like a puppet with cut strings. He hadn't seen it, but he could trust the truth of what he was told.
Someone was out that, bringing terror onto people in the light of day. Someone here had to know about it.

A shame nobody was here yet, then.

The night was cold and full of whispers. Silent memories that seemed to play back in Tamsin's mind. The night she awakened, the night she learned about Giddy, and the night she and her friends wrecked the ever loving shit out of one of the Jest's base of operations. It was a lot to handle for one so young, though she wore it like a mantle over her shoulders, accepted the weight of it because it was the path she'd chosen. If it weighed her down a little bit, that was fine. She was tall for her age anyway.

But her curiosity was expanding, now that her place in the night realms of Endymion was more concrete. That curiosity brought her here, to the Platinum Playhouse. It wasn't like walking through the doors was the same as signing up. She could leave any time. But she had to know...couldn't hide from the truths Isaac might be hiding from her. Maybe he didn't even know them himself.

She stepped forward. The warehouse didn't look impressive. But here it was. She pushed the doors open and entered a dimly lit bar scene that was almost completely devoid of anyone inside it.

It was..bizarre, seeing a medieval looking knight at the bar, but then, Terrorist guises could be anything, couldn't they? Tamsin had only just donned her own just before entering this place, just in case. Now she was glad she did. She took a few steps forward, looked around. "Somehow I was expecting more platinum." Tamsin remarked. It sounded like something funny Archie or Doc would say, and she was secretly proud of the joke, so she added onto it, "And more toys, too. What a let-down."

An eyebrow raised invisibly as he heard someone enter, remarking on the scenery. They were obviously new, and he'd been hoping for one of the more senior of the establishment's number, but no matter. He had something to attend to.
"Believe me say you would have likely seen just that were I not in the room. This space changes with its entrants, and I've yet to figure out how." The knight turns around to face the short figure that had just entered. "Nonetheless. Welcome to the Playhouse. Hopefully your introduction to this world was not too fraught."

Tamsin looked around dubiously. It changes? The good sir knight just wanted to be in a dark, swanky bar alone? Well...to each their own, she supposed. It wasn't like she could judge. She wondered absently as she took a few more steps into the room, what magic caused it to change. Still...She supposed he couldn't answer either. So much about the night time affairs of Endymion were mysteries, after all.

She was walking in, looking around as he welcomed her to the playhouse. She nodded, looking off towards the doors that led towards the training rooms as she replied offhanded, "I fought a giant bag of potatoes that threw a buzz-saw at me." as if it were the most natural thing in the world. At this point, it was pretty low on the list of things that worried her. "That was a long time ago though. Or it feels like it was." She turned back toward the knight at the bar, moving toward it. There were all kinds of bottles lined up inside the bar...she wondered if she could have some? Was it real? She took a few steps closer, put a foot tenuously beyond the line into the area behind the bar before crossing, and looking up and down at the colorful bottles that were immaculately organized in rows. Whoever kept up this place really cared about it, she thought. "There was this bandit person who gave me a box with a map in it. I heard about your leader getting kidnapped, and I thought it might be about time I came by to check this place out. Did everyone bolt? You're the only one here." She observed, looking back to him. "I'm Runaway, by the way." She introduced herself, and offered a small gloved hand to the knight.

He doesn't try to suppress the small chuckle at the description, the reverberation of metal tinging the sound. "That sounds better than mine, truth be told. The creature I met was eating a corpse before me before it turned its attention to me."

He rolled his eyes as yet another new entrant began to eye up the bottles, but quickly found his mood sour again as Gabe's fate was called to attention. He shook the hand as it was offered, a little more sullen than before. "Revenant. And...no. We remain. Some took it harder than others, though." He shakes his head. "He may not know mine, but I knew his face in my life. And I am not eager to see how much he is changed for the...'rehabilitation', of the Cadets." The word was spat with a vile distaste. "I dread to think what his mind shall suffer. Hopefully, we might undo the damage in time."

Tamsin was looking over the bottles again, having turned away from the knight. She stopped, and listened to the words. "Rehabilitation?" She asked, no curiosity was hidden in the way she said the word. She was honestly curious. She hadn't heard about what happened to captured PTs. She figured noone knew, and so didn't ask. But this...

The next sound out of Revenant's mouth was a snarl.
"Brainwashing. Plain and simple. The mind like putty in their hands. Believe it don't, but it's the fate of any PT they seize, regardless of if they have even considered doing anything. Shotaro is not the first, and the one person I know to have escaped its effects was so changed as to start planning to slaughter his way to a world of demons."

"It's something I cannot abide."

Tamsin was visibly shaken, though she took it better than most who heard about it. She took a moment to process, before turning her head to look at Cecil. "I had no idea." She said truthfully. There were implications here. Did Isaac know about it? Did he care? No-- She couldn't let herself go down that train of thought. Instead, she'd focus on the task at hand. "Is that the only reason you fight the government? because they brainwash people? If you just slept in bed at night, they'd have no one to brainwash." she remarked pointedly, digging for more information. She'd already learned stuff she didn't know. This was important.

A hard look would go Tamsin's way. "But by all means, they would. Anyone caught fresh from their awakening. The poor souls that get caught up in it all without a clue what they have entered. Many, many people, likely including their mere detractors should they be brazen of their thoughts. I think their willingness to do these things alone would be enough. But, no, that is not all."

"The District Leader for Suzie Q, so I'm told, was responsible for a spree of cannibalism. The one for Vista Square had control of the flow of information in this city, suppressing information dissenting their agenda and making the reporters of their employ disappear to be found later in a vegetative haze - if at all - should they focus on undesirable topics...or even know her face. And for ordinary public leaders, they have a disturbing propensity to throw fire and lightning from their hands, warp the world about them, and take on monstrous forms when pressed." He pauses.
"I was there for the defeat of Superbia, the leader of Vista Square. A demon bearing angelic visage exited her body once she was rendered unconscious, telling us we ought be thankful for their tyranny. That we were defying the 'Order' of the city."

"The woman was unchanged when she awoke after that mockery of an angel was blasted into oblivion. But with the demon she hosted gone and slain, the powers she once wielded were void as well. It was undoubtedly that that gave her the strength she displayed. And for someone in her position to have been of such nature...this was either the 'blessing' of the queen, or something unnoticed by her. Equally disturbing."

Tamsin recoiled a step when the gaze of the Knight bored into her, and he began to deliver his tales. Cannibalism? Vegitative hases? turning into angelic demons? It gave her goosebumps, but the worst part was that she wasn't sure if it was worst than what was happening on the streets themselves.

Tamsin's arms dropped to her sides, as she took it in. "Cannibals have always existed. Politicians have always abused their power to do crazy things. Do they need to be punished? Yes, they do. But do you think you can go and play the executioner? Do you have the guts to kill them. If they got their powers from the Queen, She'll just give it back to them, or give the power to someone else, and then they will abuse the power too. It's what power does to people." Tamsin was surprised by the conviction in her own words. "But what happens when you tear the government down? What replaces it? I dunno, but I'm pretty sure the government is the only thing responsible for Endymion even existing in the first place."

She folded her arms and sighed. "I'm not telling you not to fight, that's not my place. But there are other things that go bump in the night aside from the people appointed by the government. Things that could be lurking right outside your house. I'm just saying, don't get so blinded by the enemies you're chasing that you lose sight of the things hunting you in the dark." She shuddered. "Friendly advice."

The response he got surprised him. Not that this newcomer would shoot back, but the sheer zeal of it. She had her own convinctions, it seemed. "I don't believe I need reminders of what is in the dark. Not when they already seem content to send their faceless puppets into the day to cause terror."

> Faceless puppets

The color drained from Tamsin's face, and, if Cecil had been able to see her mouth beneath the bandana that hid it, it would be agape. Her brow knitted uncomfortably around her goggles and she leaned forward. "Faceless people? Were they smiling? It was during the day you said? Where did it happen?"

...that got a response.

"The Vagabond Inn. My information is secondhand, so I cannot say if they smiled...but before the incident, a broadcast of clowns and frogs claimed the screens. Inside the rooms after, two faceless men attempted to choke a man to death, uncaring even as they were stabbed. They were a terrorist themselves, and able to fight them off in the end...but the faceless people still fell dead when others came. A, sudden lifeless collapse without any touch."

"Police were on the scene by the time of the deaths. The victim of the faceless is currently in their custody."

His head tilted - one of a few more visible displays of curiosity. "I take it this may be...familiar, to you?"

"It is." Tamsin replied stoically, standing back to her full height on the other side of the bar. She placed a hand on the counter to steady herself, looking suddenly very small. "Was he one of yours? Sorry. In all honesty, it's probably best you don't get involved. And if this happens again...I dunno, I'll be around. Leave the clowns to us." for one so young, her voice sounded...hollowed out, like an echo in an empty train car. She turned back to the shelf of booze, feeling numb, and remembering once Rampage had asked them all to have drinks. Tamsin nabbed a bottle of champagne from the shelf...it was in a particularly pretty bottle. "I'm taking this. Services rendered." she said in a voice more confident than she felt, and made her way around the bar, heading to leave.

Not only did she know of them, they were prevalent, and she was part of a group dealing with them. And if her reaction said anything, operations in broad daylight were a new event. One that took a toll on them.
She said to leave it to her, but he didn't think he could leave it alone so easily.

He sighed as she took the bottle. Larsinney wouldn't be happy. "May I at least have a name for these people that see fit to invite death so easily?"