Goro Akechi (Shadow Weapon AU) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gorobo) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
personavelvetroomdr2024-04-05 09:00 pm
gorobo) wrote in personavelvetroomdr2024-04-05 09:00 pm
A strange invitation
[OOC: Locked to the users tagged in the post!]
Raven's message had been... curious, to say the least.
Falcon's still not sure what to make of it; he clearly hurt Raven quite a lot, and nearly killed him- a child- over bad-mouthing Shido. Not that he could help it, but still...
Perhaps he wants to pledge his eternal loyalty to Shido-san this time! We did show what a great man Shido-san was, after all!
... Right. Not likely.
Really now, he'd rather get this over with as quickle as possible. He doesn't even know why this couldn't have been done over text, but he's already agreed to meet up in Shibuya. Not that he could really refuse; no schedule means no excuse means no reason to politely decline. Any info he gains could be useful for Shido-san!
The trains here are strange, and before he knows it, he's arrived in Shibuya station, stepping out alongside a sea of cognitions, carefully avoiding bumping into one; a habit he's gotten quite good at, since he is a little... more sturdy than the average human. He allows himself to follow them as they go out to the streets, before he finds a quieter corner to himself. His scanners don't pick up sight of Raven quite yet- maybe the boy has yet to arrive.
With his ever-polite smile painted on his face, he leans against the outer wall of the station entrance. Raven probably won't be long- or maybe he set up Falcon, and is making him wait for nothing. Not undeserved, really- but that's a rather mean-spirited reading of the situation. He knows himself, he's not the type to do that, even if Raven is... a child. He doesn't think he'd do that, didn't seem the type either.
For now, all he can do is wait, so he does. He has nothing to lose from doing so, after all.
Raven's message had been... curious, to say the least.
Falcon's still not sure what to make of it; he clearly hurt Raven quite a lot, and nearly killed him- a child- over bad-mouthing Shido. Not that he could help it, but still...
Perhaps he wants to pledge his eternal loyalty to Shido-san this time! We did show what a great man Shido-san was, after all!
... Right. Not likely.
Really now, he'd rather get this over with as quickle as possible. He doesn't even know why this couldn't have been done over text, but he's already agreed to meet up in Shibuya. Not that he could really refuse; no schedule means no excuse means no reason to politely decline. Any info he gains could be useful for Shido-san!
The trains here are strange, and before he knows it, he's arrived in Shibuya station, stepping out alongside a sea of cognitions, carefully avoiding bumping into one; a habit he's gotten quite good at, since he is a little... more sturdy than the average human. He allows himself to follow them as they go out to the streets, before he finds a quieter corner to himself. His scanners don't pick up sight of Raven quite yet- maybe the boy has yet to arrive.
With his ever-polite smile painted on his face, he leans against the outer wall of the station entrance. Raven probably won't be long- or maybe he set up Falcon, and is making him wait for nothing. Not undeserved, really- but that's a rather mean-spirited reading of the situation. He knows himself, he's not the type to do that, even if Raven is... a child. He doesn't think he'd do that, didn't seem the type either.
For now, all he can do is wait, so he does. He has nothing to lose from doing so, after all.
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As such, Crow turns to the recovering robot. "...Raven is sorry, by the way. I don't believe any of us wished to harm you in such a way, and I think a majority of us can understand the cruel sting of betrayal. We acted out of... I'm not certain if 'necessity' is a fair way to put it, but we knew that a straightforward approach would have ended in failure."
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"Is Raven okay? I mean I know he isn't, but is he physically unhurt?"
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And so, like Ren, he directs his attention to Falcon, waiting for his next move.
oh yeah. he's having a panic attack babes
"Straightforward approach?" he replies to Crow's words, mind still catching up. "Your plan?" he asks Phoenix, "what are you...?"
Wait. Metaverse. This is the Metaverse. His scanners confirm it. Why are they in the Metaverse? His brows furrow, putting some extra processing power behind recovering his memory files to speed up the process-
-oh.
Flashes of a fight, of not being in control, of- of- someone (Futaba, it had to be Futaba) crawling into his systems, pushing itself inside of him, forcing files in, changing him from the inside out-
In less than a second, he's gone from lying prone to hastily flipping backwards and away from the group, putting distance between himself and them, eyes wide open and systems running at top speed. They hacked him. They tricked him. Raven- Raven didn't want to talk to him, not at all, how fucking stupid can he be? They fucking hacked him, and he doesn't know what exactly they did- and-
And-
What is... why isn't he...
Why doesn't his body...?
He's... not... immediately shooting at them?
"What the fuck," he says, out loud. There is no filter. There is no polite tone. There is nothing buzzing angrily in his mind.
Cautiously, he lifts his hand up, staring at it. The caps on his fingers are in place. His battle protocols aren't running- not quite yet. He's ready to put them to action with less than a thought but they're not- they're not being forced-
He- he feels like he should be happy. Elated, even, and in a way, he is, a shock of static electricity sending a shiver up his spine. He blinks. Opens and closes his hand. He's not in disguise.
But- but-
Instead, horror pools in his soul, head lifting towards the group again, his stance shifting into something more... defensive. Almost scared, though everything in his expression denies it. A scan reveals a foreign file in his systems, next to Shido's bug. He can't interact with it. He can't- can't do anything to it, it sits there, running in the background, the phantom sensation of tendrils pushing around in his mind-
"What did you do to me," he hisses, because even if this doesn't seem to be doing anything harmful now-
He remembers the first time Shido's goons booted him up, alright. He won't be fooled.
"What the fuck did you put into me?! Answer me now!"
His fingers flex, not quite uncapping the protective covers yet, but ready to do so at a moment's notice. Everything inside him is on high alert, HUD displaying the strengths and weaknesses of everyone before him, just in case- but is that to be trusted? What if they fundementally fucked him up, what if they made him into their little butlerbot, what if-
"Don't look at me like that," he snarls, "tell me what the fuck you did!"
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"Took away Shido's restraints. That's all, and you have my word on that. Right, Futaba? Look- all of us know what Masayoshi Shido is like. Really like, not what he shows to the media. Half of us know, personally, what it's like to be under his thumb. One of us died at his hand. Every single person here came here to help you get away from that."
"I am... truly sorry it went down like this. Based on how you reacted when the subject of the Metaverse came up, and Shido, and everything else- there wasn't a way I could think of to get your consent for this. It was the best of a lot of shitty options."
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He doesn't draw a weapon or summon Veles; nothing has quite called for it, and the situation is fraught enough without him escalating it. But his hand tightens on his holstered gun, and unlike Phoenix, who seems to be trying out an apologetic angle, he watches Falcon in grim silence.
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"You have an internal log of everything. You can check against what I say. Then I need to run a few tests to make sure you are running properly."
She couldn't exactly do what she did best for people to relax. That wasn't possible for a robot. She didn't know if he could feel.
"I implemented a file, one that treated Shido's like malware, isolating it and everything it controlled. Then deleting it. The new file now provides you with a detailed explanation of what someone does to you, an option to over ride it yourself, which means we can't do this again. That means Shido can't either."
The next step was something Ren really wouldn't like. So she took a breath. "Falcon, I need you to use your persona and attack me, but don't kill me. Then switch and do the same. The other test is smaller and just a simple say 'fuck shido.'" Then she smiled widely, not like someone who just asked to be attacked.
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If Futaba had said that ten seconds sooner, it would've all been over; the lingering effects of Call of Chaos would've had Ren calling Veles down to destroy Falcon before he could touch her. He's more in his right mind now, better able to process, but even so, he's not fucking happy.
"Nee-san, does it have to be you?" he says in a halfhearted attempt at an undertone. "You're exhausted. I can take a couple hits." He wants to say, Don't you fucking dare; if you have to attack someone, attack me. But he has a bad feeling that the test isn't whether Falcon can attack one of them but whether he can attack Futaba, specifically.
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Ergo, he would be the ideal target. In fact, he eyes Falcon wryly. "Perhaps it would even help you blow off some steam, given the circumstances."
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dead mom mention, also continuing to panic
He quickly runs a scan of the file again, pulling open folders, files, and... it checks out, what she's saying. There's a new log, and when he looks inside,there's a brief rundown on what was done to him. What changed, what got deleted, what got added.
It sounds like she's telling the truth.
He doesn't trust it for even a second.
What's in this for them? For any of them? They lied to him before- why wouldn't they now? They ambushed him. Lured him into a trap to, what, get rid of Shido's bug and nothing else? He doesn't even know them that well- he thought he and Phoenix might have had some sort of alliance, sure, but what does any of that mean in a fleeting world like this?
His head feels full. His limbs feel heavy. They fucking hacked him. Nobody roots around in his brain without some ulterior motive. The Kirijo Group did. Shido's goons did. Isshiki did.
Who's to say they didn't plant that log? That it's a distraction? A fake-out? They have pretty words, and yes, Shido's bug seems to be gone, but at what cost? What's the catch? And there is a catch. He fucking knows there is. There always is.
"Attack you?" he laughs hollowly, his fingers twitching as he grows more and more anxious. His Plume of Dusk feels like it might explode, buzzing in his throat-
He's not going to let them just- just do whatever the fuck they want to him. He's not. He doesn't know why she wants him to attack her, but it can't be good, no matter what she claims. He's not- he's not staying here to find out what she has in store for him.
"Robin," he hisses, and the Persona appears behind him. He raises his hand towards Futaba, as if going to attack her, but then-
"Trafuri."
With a wisp of magic, Robin surrounds Falcon with a blue light, and suddenly, he's gone. Not far, of course- Robin just teleported him out of their sight, landing on top of one of the buildings surrounding Kaneshiro's Palace. Despite himself, his arms are shaking, fans spinning audibly.
"Estoma," he whispers, and once again, Robin's magic surrounds him, cloaking him in magical camouflage.
With all that done, he slides down against the edge of the wall, hidden behind an airco unit, out of immediate sight and invisible to scanners ans sensors, his legs failing him. He can't- he can't fucking think, his mind zeroing in on the new file again and again and filling him with dread, horror, anger. All his scanners are active, Loki humming in the back of his mind as he keeps track of the group. Robin brushes against him inside his soul, sending out waves of comforting energy, but it just disappears in the haze of dread, of fury.
No matter what he does, the new file won't delete. He can't isolate it. It's just there, just like Shido's bug. No matter what they claim, it feels wrong and intrusive.
He misses his mom. So fucking much.
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Not that he expects everyone to be on board. The important thing now is that it's over.
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Renée frowned, still staring at the space where he'd been just moments ago. "I don't understand. I thought he'd be... happy?"
"It doesn't work like that. He's pretty rightfully pissed that we ambushed him like this, and the subject of Shido's always been a complicated one. All we can do is give him space. He's Goro Akechi, you think he's gonna pick up what we're trying to tell him the first time through?"
In spite of everything that had gone wrong today, she smiled. "I suppose that's true. Bull-headedness does run in the breed."
The Goetia snorted, but turned to the others. "While we're at it. Crow, you okay? You were carrying that battle, pretty much on your back. This whole operation was... kind of a clusterfuck. But everyone walked away and we accomplished our goal against a superior enemy with... a lot of shit we did not come prepped for. Who the hell made Call of Chaos a goddamn AoE, I call bullshit."
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He does a little stretch, grateful that Salvation spared him any lingering pain from Ren's thrashing. "If anything, I fully anticipate that my boyfriend is going to drag me up to our room for the rest of the night."
Read what you will into that.
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Yeah they got it somewhat taken care of. He ran off scared, and now alone. She tapped her foot in a bit of nerves and annoyance. The call of chaos was still affecting her. Probably from the prolonged use with him.
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"Cool. Glad no one died. If that's it, I'm gonna leave." It makes him itch to think about staying here with a group of people who witnessed him under the effect of... it must have been Call of Chaos, though actually being hit with it was way worse than he expected. He could handle Futaba's presence, though in all honesty he's rather just be alone. But the others... no. Especially Crow. God. He's doing a good job of disguising it, but he hasn't looked at Crow once since the battle ended, except to favor him with the same glare he was giving everyone else.
Instead of just walking off or kicking them all out of the Metaverse with his phone, however, he gives Futaba another appraising glance. No matter what he claims, if she's not ready to go, he won't just leave her here by herself.
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