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postedbygaslight · 7 years ago

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You’ll Be the One to Turn - Part 20: The Tinkerer

I swear, all of this is for a reason.

As a quick refresher, you might want to go back to Chapter 10, because this chapter finishes the conversation General Hux had with the bounty hunter, Vyada Nil. You might also want to reread Chapter 13, where Kylo and Hux had a particularly tense encounter.

“Name your price.”

“The pretender’s lightsaber.”

Hux’s lips drew into a tight, thin smile.

“Done.”

“You’re awfully confident,” Nil said with an air of disinterest. “How do you intend to deliver?”

“Ren is a madman,” Hux said, lowering his voice even though, since he’d ordered Peavey and the troops into the transport, he and the hunter were the only people in the entire hangar. “Raging at shadows. Secluded. He rarely leaves his chambers.”

“But you need methods to neutralize his abilities.”

Hux grit his teeth and clicked his tongue.

“Sorcery and mummer’s slight,” he seethed. “But it’s damned effective, I’ll give him that.”

“Point a hundred blasters at him. He can’t block them all.”

“Very funny. Ren may be mad, but he’s not a fool. He won’t walk into an ambush unless he’s blinded by another concern.”

“The girl,” Nil asserted without hesitation.

“Yes. The girl.”

“Who is she to him?”

“She’s a nobody. A skittering sand rat Ren took a liking to before she opened up his face. Now he’s obsessed with vengeance, and insists he’s honor bound to deal with her himself.”

Nil regarded him with what Hux initially took for amusement, but her tone when she spoke was hard and knife-edged.

“And who are you to deny him his prize?”

Hux’s response was immediate.

“An opportunist.”

The corner of Nil’s mouth twitched into a slight smirk.

“What do you need from me?”

“The Jedi girl. Arrange for her to crawl out from whatever warren she’s been hiding in, and I’ll make sure Ren is there to stake his claim.”

“Draw her in as bait, then kill them both, is that it?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

The hunter’s eyes narrowed a moment.

“No.”

“That’s— I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting that answer.”

“It is as I’ve said. You are a liar and a coward. And a thief. And so you must be cunning.”

“You walk a very narrow line, hunter.”

“And you haven’t said all, General.”

“No. I haven’t,” Hux said, his tone sharpening. Contracting the hunter was an awful risk, but one Hux was more than willing to accept provided certain assurances. “If I deliver Ren to you, and you fail, I need some measure of surety.”

Nil didn’t react with umbrage, as Hux expected. She instead adopted the same cool, disaffected posture as she had since she’d finished her demonstration.

“Do you expect me to fail?”

“I expect you to perform as you’ve advertised,” Hux answered, almost lashing back at the towering figure. “But I also know Ren to be a formidable man. If you fail, he will come for me. And I will not die roasted on the end of a plasma spit or on my knees gasping for breath because a bounty hunter with a lightsaber couldn’t deliver on her boasts.”

Nil didn’t react. She stared down at him with those black, depthless eyes, and for a few seconds, Hux began to feel a slow crawl of terror coil in his throat. He didn’t think the hunter would be so bold or suicidal to try anything, but, at the same time, there was something about this woman that unnerved him to his foundations. Maybe that’s why he was so sure she could succeed.

The hunter stepped in closer, and Hux flinched. Nil spoke in an insistent, knowing tone that communicated experience. She projected cold efficiency. Hux knew a killer when he saw one, and this one was clothed in all the trappings of death. And more than that, she was driven by some bristling urgency that Hux couldn’t fully comprehend.

“Shield your thoughts. Project strong emotions. Fear. Hate. Anger. He is wed to the darkness and will sense these first. It will conceal your intentions.”

Nil paused, and unclipped a silver disc with rounded edges from a hidden firing chamber in her arm guard. She handed it to Hux.

“This will deprive him of his senses. But only for a moment,” she continued, and then slid one of her long, gloved fingers behind her ear, producing a small bluish device that emitted a constant, barely perceptible hum. “Place this behind one of your ears before you activate it. The rest is your doing.”

Hux took the hunter’s tools and pocketed them.

“You can collect your payment from his corpse. After it’s done, vanish.”

“Then we have a contract.”

“So we do,” Hux said, stepping away from Nil. He watched her as she returned to her ship, still wary, and didn’t return to the transport until she and her vessel were safely out of sight.

***

The hours after Hux discovered Ren in his personal suite, hovering over his private terminal, had been among the most panicked and unsettled of his life. He’d stood in the middle of the room for long minutes following Ren’s departure, blood still slamming through his limbs and neck as his heart refused to calm. But once he’d escaped his own spellbound paralysis, he’d found that he could scarcely keep from moving.

It wasn’t difficult to follow the track Ren had cut through the terminal’s security. The extent to which the Supreme Leader had discovered plans Hux had counted on remaining unnoticed gave the general cause to fear Ren might return at any moment to retract his earlier mercy. So, Hux set himself to the task of destroying what could be destroyed, hiding what could be hidden, and sorting through what remained.

Ren’s intrusion had forced Hux to make decisions that should have been weeks in the offing. The emitter stations. The command centers. The hybrid beam arrays. The new stormtrooper protocols. At least Ren hadn’t discovered the dossiers Hux had collected in his search for a suitable hunter. And that was another thing. He had left himself dependent upon this hunter for his next move. Without the Jedi girl as bait, he knew he’d never be able to spur Ren to the kind of mistake he’d need for his opening. Unless—

He thumbed the disc in his pocket.

He could do it. Place the right soldiers in the corridor leading to Ren’s chambers. Contrive some reason to require an audience. Use the hunter’s sonic tool. And put an end to this ludicrous farce for good. Sitting at his terminal, Hux tugged idly at the slip cord in the sleeve of his jacket. Just one flick of the wrist, a moment’s courage, and the First Order would have a new destiny.

He remembered the hunter’s words. Shield your thoughts. Project strong emotions. It will conceal your intentions. Ren inspired enough fear and hatred in him that he wasn’t concerned about suffering a deficit of either. But his intentions were so tied to those emotions that he somehow knew, at a fundamental level, that the Supreme Leader would anticipate the attack. No. Hux knew he would have to exercise some patience.

Ren only had a partial understanding of what Hux had set in motion over the previous months. At most, Ren knew that Hux had been requisitioning large kyber crystals. He likely knew that a massive kyber heart had been located and was on board. It was possible that he’d seen the early proposals for new Starkiller Bases. But, what Hux was sure of was that Ren had not seen beyond those initial proposals.

Ren had been right that Hux had ambitions beyond a Star Destroyer fleet and a standing army. But he’d been wrong about the shape of those ambitions. Hux didn’t want a new Starkiller. He wanted something far more durable.

It had been the dream of the ancient Sith to construct and wield a spacefaring mobile command center equipped with a weapon capable of destroying a planet. That dream had been realized by Emperor Palpatine, and had twice been dashed by a combination of rebel bravery, acts of treason, and the Emperor’s own hubris. Supreme Leader Snoke had thought he’d solved Palpatine’s primary error by designing a weapon that was both substantially better fortified than a mere space station, and produced a beam of kyber plasma that created its own hyperspace channels as it traveled. A fearsome, impressive machine that had been developed at no small cost.

That Starkiller Base ever existed at all was all the evidence Hux needed that miracles could be realized through force of will alone. The planet that became Starkiller had been selected for its size and the presence of a powerful magnetic dynamo in its core. The core had been penetrated and fitted with a kyber array that made the Death Star’s reactor sequence look like a handheld blaster. That kyber array, augmented by the powerful magnetic field, had allowed the planet itself to enter hyperspace, and nothing had ever compared, he thought, to the sensation of standing on solid ground, watching as the sky lensed away into warps of starlight and void-black.

But for all of its technological prowess, the destruction of Starkiller had been ten minutes’ work: the product of the twin defects of design overreach and poor planning. When the planet had been destroyed, no one wept, for no one truly lived there. And the weapon itself required such a massive amount of power storage that any small interruption in the energy diffusion would prove fatal. And, of course, that’s just what happened.

Armitage Hux envisioned a galaxy ruled by the simple application of fear. Fear could be allayed by prediction. Fear could be assuaged by acceptance of the inevitable. But fear could not be overcome if the object of that fear could strike without warning. Now that such a weapon was within his grasp, Hux had no intention of stopping short.

Kylo Ren was a living anachronism, Hux thought, bitterly. An ascetic zealot willing to allow his conquest to wither in its nascency over a slight to his personal pride. A cruel child whose tantrums threatened the endeavor to which Hux had devoted his life. A man with no direction or conviction other than devotion to a religion whose adherents were all either dead or cloistered in madhouses. He had to die.

The hours passed in silence. The general moved the pieces on his chessboard. Hux traced the metal edge of the monomolecular dagger inside the lining of his sleeve. And he stared intently into the empty spaces of his quarters, transfixed by phantasms of empire.

***

Hux didn’t sleep that night. The morning cycle arrived to find him still at his terminal. At some point during the night, he’d unholstered his sidearm, and had it sitting on the desk in front of him. So, when the holo-projector began pinging its shrill alarm at him, he’d trained the weapon on it and almost fired.

He shook his head hard and put the gun back in its holster, clicking on the projector as he did.

“Good morning, General.”

“Captain, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your communications brief.”

“Yes, of course, sir, but the Star Destroyer Volition has reported following up on the intelligence you forwarded.”

“What intelligence?”

“About the Resistance depot on Taris. Captain Eskat said you transmitted the data several hours ago.”

Hux grasped for a coherent thought. His brain was addled from paranoia and lack of sleep.

“From what channel?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“The transmission, you dolt. From what channel was I meant to have sent it?”

“I—“ Peavey called to a communications officer outside of the projection range. “Check that transmission source. Any moment now, sir.”

What was Ren’s game? Had he sent the transmission remotely using Hux’s terminal codes? Had he set it to automatically transmit, and it had just slipped Hux’s attention during the night? The general kept at it, considering every option, barely noticing that his hand, resting on the desk, shook with a violent tremor.

“Here we are, General,” Peavey said brightly. “Emergency channel 927. Classified protocol. Clearance code: Opportunity.”

Hux snapped up, and whipped around to face the projection.

“Set course to Taris. And ready the division.”

“Of course, sir. And the Volition?”

“Tell her to hold until we arrive. Inform Captain Eskat the Supreme Leader will want to handle this personally.”

“Yes, General. Shall I alert Supreme Leader Ren?”

“No,” Hux said, grinning wide, “I’ll handle this myself.”

#reylo #reylo fanfic #kylo ren #armitage hux #starkiller base #death star #kyber crystals

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berrodarmstrong · 7 years ago

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The First as a Fist.

Autgar Bloode: "You look good."

Berrod Armstrong got to his feet and nodded. "Likewise. You ready, then?" Autgar Bloode gave his teacher a proper bow once he stood up. "I am. Bit nervous with you in full uniform. But, suppose it's just another chance to rock your socks off."

Berrod Armstrong spoke no more. The moment Autgar declared 'I am', he vanished from atop his perch with a sharp parting of the water before him. In an instant he had closed the distance, and bore a shoulder toward the other's solar plexus in an attempt at a tackle.

Autgar Bloode had already been working to reinforce his body with aether and he jumped up before snapping his hands down as he took a defensive stance. As his arms slammed into his side and Berry neared with the tackle aether suddenly slammed down onto the pair not only to halt Berry but it seemed Autgar also couldn't move under his own aetheric pressure. Berrod had asked to see his improvements with the ability. Stopping the both of them in their tracks seemed a good way to do that.

Berrod Armstrong lurched to a stop and frowned. It was like being locked in stone. The man 's face showed a moment of approval...then aether began to flare from him. Doubling, tripling, then quadrupling as the monk accessed his chakras. Sluggishly he raised a fist as if to give a friendly bump to Autgar -- but an immense volume of aether flowed from his body into his knuckles. The air about it howled in warning.

Autgar Bloode smiled at first before it turned into a snarl at the increasing levels of enegery. And then he moved.. That shouldn't be happening. He face two options, attempt to hold him back or drop the pressure and move to dodge but also give Berrod back his speed. He stared at the ever approaching fist and groaned mentally. Even if he did build up defenses to dodge that there's no way he'd able able to a second time. He grumbled before suddenly the preasure was gone and he dropped to sweep at Berrod's feet, but he didn't seek to trip the man, rather he reinforced the leg as he sought to seek a shin splintering kick into the man's leg. He followed it up with an aether soaked fist, no stone, no levin, simply a hard as hell fist seeking to slam into Berrod's abs before twisting it and attempting to launch the fellow monk into the air.

Berrod Armstrong 's fist shot over Autgar's head as the other Highlander dropped. The motion in itself seemed innocuous, but a chunk of rock in the distance was reduced to gravel. The kick connected, but it was as stone hitting stone. Similarly, the aether augmented fist slammed into solid reinforcement, though it did disturb the monk some. When Berrod went flying, he aimed both his palms in Autgar's direction the discharge a devastating field of bright blue aether the man's way.

Autgar Bloode groaned as he watched the man's hands take form and ready aether. He quickly dove into the water and across the stream a ways away from the incoming aether blast. A hand quickly slammed into the stone pillar before reiiping a chunk free and sending it soaring towards the airborne monk. Then he began gathering aether in him as two gates flared to life and he slammed not one but both fists into the ground as rock, sand, stone, water, and levin aspected aether shot towards the other monks landing zone. But the drenched levin was a nice touch, or so he thought.

When the bright blue cleared, Berrod was nowhere to be seen, and so Autgar's attack tore through the ground, but naught else. Water erupted from his right, then parted violently as the speeding monk made a straight path toward the other. Berrod slid in with a knee aimed for Autgar's flank.

Autgar Bloode blinked as there was no sign of Berrod. That was never good, he was fast and durable. A dangerous combination. He flinched as he heard the sudden torrent from behind him but rather than take the time to turn and inspect, he bounced onto the stone pillar before springbaorded into the skies to avoid the blow. His hams slapped against his core before he threw both hands towards the ground and hopefully the oncoming monk before aether blasted from his palms and slammed agains all that was below.

Berrod Armstrong followed up by leaping upward -- right into the oncoming blast. He frowned -- then yet another seat of power flared to life, totalling six. The circlet on his brow glowed a sharp gold, and he shoved a fist upward to punch the oncoming blast in a concussive collision. Though he was forced to cancel his leap, he remained unharmed and very ready, with his fists flaring and humming with power. "Good," He assessed. "Continue."

Autgar Bloode watched berrod with the same facisnation as ever. But he stopped upon feeling the sixth and stared at the man before the blows met. He was sent higher into the air before he slammed back down into the water and watched Berrod. He sniffed. "Six huh.. not holding back any anymore are you?" He eyed the other monk before he turned to the pillar. He hands were driven into the stone before aether surged in his body and suddenly the pillar was thrown directly towards Berry like a battering ram. Autgar was swift to follow the stone before aether grew denser in his hands as he delivered a combo of jabs into the base of the stone and a seeking dragon kick to propel that thing right at Berry. Autgar followed in the wake of the fancy stone diversion before his skin danced with Levin - he disappeared from sight before popping up behind Berrod and rearing back an elbow. He attempted to slam it into Berrod's side with a disruptive blast of aether. Mythril peak, a move Berry oversaw.

Berrod Armstrong drew a blazing fist back and swung it to absolutely obliterate the pillar. There was nothing left of it, not even dust. He prepared for an assault to follow, but he had wrongfully anticipated it from the front. As it was, the elbow managed to hit him sharply. The monk staggered as the flow in his fists was disrupted and guttered as he grunted from the impact. It was an opening, if nothing else.

Autgar Bloode let out a slow breath as he recalled a memory and both his shadow chrakras flared to life, filling him with a power he pressed through the first light to weild. No elemtents took to his form, only pure aether. He snapped a harsh left and right hook into the back of Berrod's skull before he dashed to the side and flipped upward and whipped a rough roundhouse kick into the front of Berrod's face. At first he thought that was enough but he'd likely never have an opportunity like this again. He brought back his right fist as aether surged into it before he shotgunned the fist forward to slam into Berrod's abs. Seeking to leave a very fitting bruise much like he had given to Autgar so long ago. Except now Autgar had it as a tattoo.

Berrod Armstrong staggered as both initial hits connected; then went flying backward from the fist to his stomach. He slammed hard against the ruined stairs, and was promptly obscured by a cloud of raised dust. Another sharp increase in power registered from within as six rose to seven. Two points of brilliance shone from within the dust -- aether at his fists again. "You lost focus for a moment there. What was that about?" The dust pulled inward, then dispersed to reveal the monk standing there, bruised but very much ready to continue.

Autgar Bloode stared at Berrod as he recognized the seventh.. That was new. But he should've known better. When he spoke he chuckled. "For a second I had worried I'd end up injuring you. But then I remember just how good you are. But I'm glad to see you're ready to go. Congrats on your seventh by the way. Don't suppose you've got an eighth in there?" He rolled his neck and shoulder as he watched the man. This was about to be a very impressive ass whoppin'.

Berrod Armstrong shook his head slowly. "That's not the seventh. I don't think I'll ever open the seventh." He tapped his hip with a fist. "It's the first." The man took a deep breath and exhaled. "If you want another, that's on your own head." As simple as that he indulged the request, and an eighth seat added to the lot. The air around him began to distort, and the water rippled from his form. "...gonna be tired after this," He grumbled. "Here I come." The man was replaced with a blasting column of water-as he charged. This time he swung his fists in a flurry -- though each swing sent force akin to a garlean train. There was little accuracy, but the space was soon filled with the explosive, concussive strikes.

Autgar Bloode again fought his first instinct, defense was not the way to fight someone with more power. Berrod would rip right through his stone reinforcements so he went about channeling the levin again before memory and instinct had a fight, and memory took over. Autgar had only done this once before and it wasn't something he thought he could do so early but he went about dancing under and around the blows. Wind rushed around him as he flew from blow to blow and inbetween them. He dove behind Berry and splashed into the water before skidding to a stop as he glanced down at himself. "Huh." he snapped up to Berry before plunging both hands into the water as levin danced along his arms, sending arcs of levin through the whole waterbed.

Berrod Armstrong 's flurry dug nasty divots into the ground before him -- he barely had time to turn around before the levin came to envelop him. The monk flashed and strobed -- but there was no yell, no spasming. He simply stood there and took the lightning for his own. It ran from the water, up his legs, through his fists, along his torso -- even along the feather in his circlet. "Ah. Bad move. You were doin' well though. Never give me lightnin'. It's my domain." Once more water parted before him as he closed the distance...and a ninth and final seat poured more power into him. The series of spinning kicks he executed were rapid blurs, and not necessarily meant to hit the man. The last slash of his leg, however, saw a small, pressurized sphere of air that violently detonated into a wind-funnel through which lightning tore down to the ground.

Autgar Bloode let out a defeated sigh. "Can't be perfect all the time." He grumbled as he watched the man deliver his flurry of kicks. He went about reinforcing his body for the impending defeating blow. He withstood the initial wind tunnel before chunks of stone were free form his person and then the lightining tore down. His form convulsed before dropping forward into the seperated body of water. The rocking pressure, the dangerous blow, it was all too much for lil Autgar. He was all tuckered out.

Berrod Armstrong , as usual was blown clear by his own attack. Wind picked him up and pelted him to an undignified drag on his belly through the dirt. He grunted somewhat miserably, then pushed up on his arms. "You awright there?"

Autgar Bloode didn't move for a few long seconds before his head burst through from the stream as he coughed up the water that had attempted to fill his lungs when it all came splashing back onto him. He groaned and crawled towards the shore before running a hand over his decimated clothing. Everything torn asunder. he groaned again before turning towards Berry. "So what happened to you only have six open. I counted way more than that!"

Berrod Armstrong carefully pushed himself into a seated position. He was covered in mud, silt -- and a bit of blood from when he'd been slammed into the stairs. "Six light," He admitted, "I've had three shadows open for a while now. I just never used 'em. Was taboo. But...now that the sects are workin' together, that taboo ain't a thing no more."

Autgar Bloode grumbled as he lifted up and stared at Berrod with a frown before it flipped itself up into a challenging smile. "So I've got even more to go before I can fight you at an even footing huh.. But you used all you had right.. I finally got what I wanted." He coughed a bit of blood up onto the sand before slumping it down. Why did he want this again.. He glanced up to Berry. "You were impressive as always. Still fills me with all them childhood feelings of wonder." He shook his head. "You're more dangerous now. Not restricted by taboos."

Berrod Armstrong was silent for a moment, and ran his thumb along the edge of his jaw. "Dangerous enough, I hope. You did well. You've gotten strong. I'm impressed! You're on the right track."

Autgar Bloode chuckled. "I still have more to work on. Been working on that throwing your punches thing you used. Adding range to a punch, come on that' just gonna be great. Or a kick, that'd be badass." he sighed. "I'm glad you say so. Praise always warms. Especially my bleeding internals." He rolled onto his back as the second light did what it did best. "Right track is the best track."

Berrod Armstrong got to his feet and approached, only to sit next to the man. A dusty hand settled onto Autgar's lower abdomen as Berrod began to sing in a low, rumbling hum. Aether flowed from his throat to his hand -- and from his hand it was offered freely to the other Highlander.

Autgar Bloode blinked up to the siging before he chuckled and took a small sip of the offered aether as the buising that sat along his chest lightened. He smiled over at Berry. "Beautiful mantra. Haven't seen you do that yet."

Berrod Armstrong continued for a little while longer, then he stopped and lifted his hand off. "I usually use it for healers, but this counts too. I'll teach it to you sometime -- but first, I'll dedicate some time to teaching you the tornado kick. That'll be our next lesson. Or next series of lessons, maybe. It takes a while to get right."

Autgar Bloode blinked as he glanced to Berry. "You wanna teach me your technique? I'm honored but.. you think I'm ready for that? It's a wind move too.. I'm still learning all of that. Can't even use it all that well." He snapped over at Berry. "Did use it just now though, for the second time, and no crystals this time.. last time I used that as when me and Ronsen got attacked. What'd you think? Mirrored it from you."

Berrod Armstrong: "Even with one chakra open a monk can use the tornado kick. The kick's effectiveness depends on how many chakras are unleashed when it's done. It requires is speed and a of of accuracy...with a spark of wind." He glanced aside at the other man and smiled briefly. "It was good. I like that you learn from seeing and doing."

Autgar Bloode: "Seeing and doing is the only way to actually practice anything.. You can read and listen all you want. but practice has to come in eventually. I do the do." he glanced back to Berry and nodded. "If you think I'm ready then I would be honored to learn."

Berrod Armstrong: "We can start with the howling fist too, since you said you wanted range. In fact, let's do that. The howling fist, and then the tornado kick. The howling fist you can probably master quickly. It takes years to perfect the tornado kick. Even I haven't, yet."

Autgar Bloode: "I know the howling fist. Used it against you just earlier. I use it all the time. It's an excellent skill. But I meant how you actually threw a punch and it slammed into the rock behind us."

Berrod Armstrong: "Oh that? That isn't a technique, heh. That's...just power, I suppose. I don't mean for that to happen. I should probably work on not letting it happen."

Autgar Bloode: "Why? It could be a technique. Don't focus on locking it up, let's refine it into something real and useable."

Berrod Armstrong: "Restraint before refinement. I can't craft anything out of a wild release. Control before construction."

Autgar Bloode: "Then there you go. That's not locking it up."

Berrod Armstrong: "Mn. That just leaves the matter of teaching you the tornado kick -- though there's a lot of little lessons leading up to that so it'll be a fulfilling experience. We'll work it out. Can you stand?"

Autgar Bloode: "Can I, yes. Do I want to.. Not so sure on that one." He groaned. "I look forward to the lessons. The more the merrier.. now do me a favor and help me get on my feet."

Berrod Armstrong nodded. "Sure." He shifted his seat into a stoop, and moved his arms and shoulders to provide some hoisting support.

Autgar Bloode was helped hoisted up into a seating position as he grumbled. "Oh there's the soreness.." He rubbed at his abs. "You did good today. Very traditional. With your outfit and everything too. A real Fist beat my ass today. Best loss ever."

Berrod Armstrong: "It's the least I could do. You're more than earned it, I think -- though, you took your beatin' better than I took mine. Then again, you're a more graceful fella than I am." He pushed his stoop up from a squat and continued to help the other up. "I'm gonna work to become a master so that no one'll dispute us."

Autgar Bloode: "I know. I'm right behind you on that path." he was helped up and he smiled at the man. "I appreciate it. And I'm not more graceful than you, just endure a lot. Your domain is wild and free. Mine is strong and studry." he stomped at the ground. "Master Berrod Armstrong.. has a good ring to it."

Berrod Armstrong looked just a little horrified at that. "Urgh. Sounds jus' like Master. I guess I'm doomed to end up like him, in ways. But I knew that was gonna happen from young! I'll certainly pay regards to Master Bloode when the time comes."

Autgar Bloode: "Well, gotta get to Fist Bloode first-" he stopped and sputtered into a snicker before he clasped a hand over his mouth and mumbled. "Fisht Bloode." He resumed his immature laughing.

Berrod Armstrong rubbed at his face, which only succeeded in getting more dirt on it. Despite his sigh, there was a wry smile on his face. "I'm not supposed to laugh at stupid stuff like that when in temple attire. Brother Bloode," He managed, "Though, hoss. They're there an' waitin', for whenever you're ready. We could use more good blood."

Berrod Armstrong snorted. "Bloode. Heh. Heh heh."

Autgar Bloode chuckled. He nodded along as he stopped his snickering. "You're right, you're right, serious time.. But.. I appreciate that. I really do. But.. I can't. I know it's odd and kind of weak but, not until Ronsen blesses it. I mean no disrespect to the new teachers and the new school. I love that things are changing but, I also want the approval from those versed in the old ways."

Berrod Armstrong blinked as if he'd been slapped, but showed no more than that. "I can respect that."

Autgar Bloode: "I'll be honest. The moment I heard I could go to the Temple and sign up now I really wanted to. But I didn't I wanted you and him to think it was time. I wanted to earn it." He nodded along before smiling at Berrod. "I look forward to being brothers again. Though, yellow isn't my color."

Berrod Armstrong sighed and looked down at the attire. "Isn't mine either, but I won't change it. Hopin' to earn my Tantra soon enough, anyroad." He smoothed out the mud-stained, wet fabric. "An' I like to think we're already brothers. Jus' need to make it official."

Autgar Bloode: "Oh we are brothers. In several ways. But Brothers in the Temple is next. Then we'll be Masters together. And we'll get to choose our paths together. Closed Fist or weapon. We've got alot more on the road." he rubbed at one of the mudstains. "You may have already changed some of the color. But you can clean it up. Goodluck on earning your Tantra. I'm gonna earn my cyclas first."

Berrod Armstrong: "Sounds good t'me. C'mon, I'll walk you back to the city. Least I can do."

Autgar Bloode: "Well I appreciate that. I'll drop down at the new place and get some sleep."

Berrod Armstrong: "Hah! You earned it. I might to the same, though I need to make some rounds first."

Autgar Bloode: "Yeah you got folks to check on."