2024.6.02: Boots Joins The People
| Boots joins The People | |
|---|---|
| Boots goes on a quest to earn a totem's patronage | |
| IC Date | June |
| IC Time | Afternoon |
| Players | Pancake Boots Keeku Stephen |
| Location | Eastern Europe |
| Spheres | Gaian Garou |
Boots was looking for Iris, for sure! He some how made his way to the ship, tapping on the door before entering. "Mercy's Messenger-Rhya?" He glances about, spotting both the Elder, Stephen and Keeku there. "Oh! Hey, sup folks?"
Keeku hmms, "I don't think I've met your son. Will it be a situation where I'm like ten years older and he's kicking my butt in his knowledge? Still, yes, I'd be interested in learning if you are willing to teach. That pretty much applies to everything and anything." His mind tries to follow the thought process of magic users and aliens. He looks like he is going to ask a follow up question, but thinks better of it and his mouth shuts. The interaction between Iris and Stephen just makes him smile, "Well, partially made of meat, partially made of spirit at any rate. I suppose one can't have innovation without the crazy scientist and crazier still voice of reason following along thwapping said scientist from time to time." He blushes, "Not that I'm calling either of you crazy, but well, we are on a flying umbral spaceship." Keeku looks up and waves to Boots too.
Iris nods sagely and points to Stephen while telling Keeku, "Yes, shake him down for all his knowledge. We'll split the difference! I mean I know spirit stuff, but I'm *much* better with everything out here and other realms, and he's definitely got the juice on the Earth-side spirit stuff." She rolls her eyes though and says, "It was ONE TIME! And no one even died!" to Stephen, grinning while defending her Very Bad Ideas. "Hey, Boots! Come on in, pull up a bean bag! Oh, no yeah, crazy's an apt description, although I prefer to think of it as realistically challenged."
Stephen gives Iris a reproachful look, amusement on his face, "The phrase 'well, we didnt die' seems to come up often with you, my esteemed elder." A snicker escapes the lupus' mouth as he shakes his head in amusement. He glances up and lifts a hand to wave a hello at Boots, before nodding at Keeku, "To be honest, if you find a good instructor for each, let me know? I am sure we can work out some sort of mutual educational trade here. We are all stronger if we share what we learned."
Boots does grab a seat nearby, nodding to everyone. "Like, that movie the Hangover 2? Where Chow says 'But did you die?'" The Gnawer grins. "What are we learnin' today, then?" He looks to all. "When you get time, Mercy's Messenger-Rhya, I am thinkin' The People is the way for me."
Keeku smirks, "Will be sure to hit both of you up. I'm here to learn all I can after all." When she says she is realistically challenged, Keeku snorts, "To be fair to Iris, when reality is whatever the hell you perceive it to be and actually changes based on your perceptions, I mean, what else can you call that but crazy? I mean Meros straight up changed into Changing Woman in front of my eyes. It's super trippy!" Looking back to Stephen, Keeku nods, "Trade it is!" Boots' comment about The People makes Keeku blink, "You want to become Dine, eh, Navajo, a part of my tribe? I mean, I'd be honored to have you and all, but I'd have to ask my Elders how that would work exactly?" Yup, totally just went over his head.
Iris gestures pointedly at Boots for his Hangover refference. IRIS IS CHOW, oh god. "Oh hey, great! Ummmmmmm, hm. Where's a good spot for thaaaat... Lemme think a sec, and then I think I can drop you off to go chat The People up today, if you want. Or tomorrow. Whenever, they ain't goin anywhere. "The totem," she tells Keeku, "Boots is looking for his patron in these interesting times."
Stephen bows his head at Keeku's agreement, but its Boots' talk about joining The People that has the lupus tilting his head in curiosity, FINALLY setting Iris' model of the planetary system down. The curious look is transferred to Iris, as he tries to figure out what he's talking about, without actually asking. Iris is always very good with explanations when pressed, so...When she DOES explain, a low 'ohhhhhh' escapes him, "I thought for a moment you were saying you were not part of the Nation and I was confused."
Boots chuckles. "Nah, The People kinda sprung up in the civil rights movement. They are a Totem of War." He explains. "Helpin' the oppressed people." He explains, sinking more into the beanbag. A nod to Iris. "Whenever you think is good, you know? You know the spirits far fuckin' better than I will." He grins.
Keeku facepalms, "The Totem! Got it. Don't mind me over here. That being said, yes, we call the Totem Dine obviously because, it is, well, The People and we are it. Sorry, I'm rambling." The young native leans further back into his beanbag and grows quiet in awkwardness.
"Ramble away!" Iris says, getting a little distracted by rummaging around in her Bigass Purse, "Knowledge is power, right? Share the power!" She also adds in a Tim Allen ugh ugh ugh, for MORE power. "You're gonna need a few things, just a second..." she doesn't find what she needs in her bag, and gets up so she can start digging around behind the bar.
Stephen chuckles and nods slowly at Boots, "Got it. Now I know of another choir I need to learn more about! So the day improves. When Reno was wanting to look into Totems, I had done a lot of research but never ran into them, so it just means I need to keep digging and take better notes!" He seems overly amused at Iris rummaging around in her bags, murmuring at her, "Sure its not in one of your big, giant crafting cabinets?"
Boots listens, looking to Iris as she digs about for whatever she is looking for. "I got time. No rush." A wry grin. "I want to do this right - and not piss them off, you know?"
Keeku smiles, "It sounds like you have some idea of what Dine is looking for, helping the oppressed you said? Perhaps a part of the chiminage could be proving yourself capable of finding and helping an oppressed group in some way maybe? With the state of the human world, there are plenty that are oppressed. I'd be happy in helping you with that if you needed it, but it may be something that needs to be carried out by you and yourself alone. Not sure."
Iris holds up a finger at Stephen with widening eyes and an intake of breath as though he'd just solved it...! "Wait, no, cause he has to eat this." Back to bar rummaging. She finds cherries for cocktails, and that works, so she does a little carving on their thin little skins with a little knife. "Weeeeeell... In about... Twenty minutes and a little witchcraft later, we'll find out what they think of you. C'mere, Boots, I need you to bleed on these a little bit, please. I'm gonna make a couple talens, so we need to prep the vessel. The blood of the oppressed atop the beautiful made unnatural seems pretty on brand."
Boots nods to Keeku. "Different names, same goal I am sure." He offers to the other man. "We all get weird when namin' our Totems, right?" He scoots over to where Iris is, offering out his hand. "Do I get a bandaid after?" He half-jokes.
Iris whips out a bandaid! Cause those would definitely exist under the bar. "Sponge Bob!" And then joyfully slices open Boots's finger a little bit. She's not trying to drain the poor guy or anything, she just needs a few drops over three cherries. "Keeku! My guy, get in the kitchen behind me and find some-" and here she lists off some herbs that are not at all defined in the books because WW is an asshole. "There should be a pestal and mortar on the counter in there as well, grab that too." And while he's doing that, she works on finding just the right rhythm to drum on the bar top with her hands. It takes a little work to get it right, but once she does, she zones out on that for a few.
Keeku grins to Boots and nods, "Weird indeed." He does as he is instructed and comes back with said ingredients and the pestal and mortar.
It takes a good ten minutes both for ingredient round ups as well as spirit summonings. One minute it's the group hanging out at the bar with some bad karaoke from spirits happening behind them, and the next minute, in a burst of random letters from random alphabets, a person appears. There's no way to identify who it is or where they're from, their features/nationality/gender/style completely change over and over and over again, being everyone and no one from everywhere and nowhere. Iris has herself a little conversation with this person in what sounds like garbled word salad with a lot of different gestures and movements thrown in. The Indian head wobble, the valley girl 'giiiiiiiirl' snap, things like that. She keeps gesturing at Boots and Keeku, and may be negotiating selling you guys for a lifetime's supply of cherries.
Boots watches, enthralled. Spirit stuff fascinates him, even if he's no good at it. He /does/ talk the talk with Spirits, but he's letting Iris lead this one. He simply keeps respectful as the negotiations go on.
Keeku also listens and hangs back, equally enthralled. The spirit looks untethered, and not necessarily in a good way. He eyes Boots as if asking, who the hell? Keeku may be a Ragabash, but he is a Spirit Nerd. While he understands what is being discussed, he'd also very much like a lifetime supply of cherries. Will those be shipped to him weekly or will he have to go pick them up himself?
The negotiating is actually rough, Iris needs to make a REALLY good case about why Boots shouldn't end up blown up because he didn't know the region's 'land mines here' warnings or something. Eventually though, she wins the battle of wills with the thing and it leans in to distribute itself amongst the bloody cherries on the bar top. "Holy shit." Iris pants, down a fair amount of mojo after that, "OKAY. That was a Linguistics spirit. I don't have good access to Ancestors, so your second best bet if you want to cheat and use the gift of Assimilation, go with a language spirit. Next step, totem goop, and steering the ship, then you go totem hunting and we follow along like tourists." she adds while starting to mix herbs, adding her own blood and spit to the mix. No one said witchcraft wasn't gross.
Boots is so confused! But also, he trusts Iris. He listens, looking as she makes a mix of whatever that might be. "All right, so we follow the trail - what do you need me to do? What can I do to help?" He asks.
Keeku would totally be here in the background because he's totally the type to tag along with anything spiritually related. Still, the Elder BSD Rited "RL" rears its ugly head and pulls him off-screen.
Iris hands cherries out to the three non-elder and/or non-homids, but she has the gift herself and just plain uses it. "Boots. This is important." she says while finishing mixing the goop and leading the way towards the bridge, "You're seeking The People. The *People*, okay. When you're down there, there's going to be distractions, things you like, things you *want* to do, but you need to remember your goal. You're not trying to win the war today, you're trying to help the people. The ones around you, the victims, the scared, and it doesn't matter who they are, okay? Sometimes your enemy is really just a *person*, and that person might be pretty fucked themselves and need you. You need to feel the heat people around you, not the heat from the flame of war. Meditate on that while you eat that talen and I steer us around, ask any last minute questions." In other words, you need your empathy to win this one.
Boots listens, looking to the talen as he follows her. "All right. Like... focus on fixing the problem. Ignore the distractions." He says, eating as instructed. Gross or not, it's part of the deal.
At least it's his own blood on the cherry! Iris works the rings of the armillary sphere to turn the boat and move it. A steering wheel just wont cut it when you have complete 360 movement. Clouds and birds move under the boat like a super weird inverted ocean. "Right. Like, it's a war totem, you're expected to get your hands dirty, but you're doing it for a different reason than the usual, you know, take out the bad guy type reason. You're a shield instead of a sword, albeit a super dangerous shield covered in pointy bits. If you gotta run in and smite some dudes in order to be a shield, great. Just don't forget the people. Um... what else... Oh, meat space, so obviously beware the veil, but I have a feeling you're going to have opportunities to change forms while you're working. Just be smart!" And she parks the ship down low, just above the cloud layer.
Boots nods, taking it all in - from the instructions, the suggestions and the weird steering contraption of the ship. It's a lot. "I will do my fuckin' best, you can believe that." He grins. "My other challenge was mostly kept in homid - so I get the sneaky and kind of mundane sorta stuff."
"Good good good." Iris mumbles, trying to steer and look through a downward facing telescope at the same time. Parallel parking from orbit gets tricky and takes a couple minutes, but she gets there. "Okay! Last step." she says, waving Boots to follow and hopping off the side of the ship. No gravity, so it's a leisurely float the short distance down to the clouds. "Lemme wipe this nasty sacred shit on your eyelids." She says of the spitty, bloody, herby goop she made. "This'll let you spot the signs you need to get to your totem and prove yourself. I cant tell you what to look for, you just gotta look around till something feels right. Follow the trail, do something amazing, badabing badaboom. And one more marking here so I can keep track of you..." she adds while producing a bird out of her friggin pocket so she can stamp its footprints on Boots' face. It's a lot of rites stacked on top of each other, but you do what you gotta do so the kids don't get killed. "And last step is literally stepping off the clouds. Don't freak out, okay? Just be calm and remember you're not gonna die."
Boots is very hesitant to step off the ship - zero G or not. But he does after a breath, floating awkwardly to where Iris is on the clouds. Goop on his eyelids, check. Standing on clouds, check. And now... a stamp from bird on his face. He is all marked up! Then he steps out of the clouds with a nod.
Weightlessness for the win! It does make stepping off the clouds a smidgin challenging though, however once so much as a toe slips past the bottom of the clouds, Gravity grabs a hold like an invisible horror movie monster and drags the poor Gnawer down. Aaaaand now he's free falling through the umbral sky. "Good luuuuuuuck!" Iris calls, waving at him through a little hole in the clouds while he falls. Eastern Europe is coming up fast, but the fall's gonna take a while. Long enough to enjoy the view and see multiple countries at once, tiny cities growing larger and such. Just remember you're not gonna die! Boots will stop falling very suddenly about a foot above the ground, hover for a second, then thud more or less painlessly where the umbral landscape is pretty shredded and blown apart, with quite a lot of dangerous spirits lurking around.
Well, fuck! Good thing he didn't just eat! He hollars, on the worlds most terrifying roller coaster! As he comes to a pretty short stop - he lets out a gasp of relief. Once his feet are on the ground, he looks so much better. The man glances about, peering for any signs of the totem. Danger is his middle name, after all.
Around Boots are the destroyed remains of steel-web buildings, the webby streets are shattered with craters, there's rubble all over the place, and the pattern spiders that would normally be crawling all over the place keeping things nice and maintained, they're just *gone*, totally evacuated. The usual fauna of the umbra has been displaced by War, Hate, Desperation, and Fear. There are lots and lots of places available to step sideways though, cause people ain't in the umbra!
In the physical world, it's largely the same, but normal looking. Destroyed buildings and roads, blasted cars and shops, rubble everywhere, some of it still on fire. There's the not so distant sound of artillery shelling in progress, placing Boots at the edge of an active war zone. As for signs, well most of them are broken, but they ARE readable. Normal signs though, nothing really strikes as 'totem sign' really. Not YET, anyways. Scout around though, he'll find it! Until he spots the letter I with two dots over it. Normally he wouldn't know this, but that letter is found in this country's language, not the invader's, despite their many similarities. The font it's spray-painted on a broken wall with makes it look like a raised fist, dirty yellow against chipped and faded blue.
Rebels? Down-trodden? All right - seems the right direction. He heads over towards that marking, shuffling along like he belongs. As he gets nearer, he looks for any sign of an entrance, or even a person outside keeping watch. How does he let them know he's part of the resistance?
The trail is there, and he's on it now, moving down a blasted, skinny little alley and following these half hidden marks. Boots's danger sense is tingling non stop, Spider Man probably feels this way some times when his spidey sense gets all over worked. While he's trying to think up exactly how to let the resistance know he's one of them, he's suddenly grabbed by someone before he can slip out the other end of the alley and maybe skitter across a street! At the same time someone is attempting to grab Boots, there's the rumble of a very heavy machine moving down the street, unseen and blocked by one of the buildings beside him.
Well, shit. His first instinct is to eviscerate whatever grabbed him. But he's not totally familiar with the area, and he has a premonition of danger when it's about. (OOC Danger Sense). He goes with the pull, the grab - turning to face whoever did this. "What the?" He whispers, emphatically.
The grabber yanks Boots backwards into the shadows just as a vehicle with readied gunners rumbles past the end of the alley. The grabber doesn't attempt to hurt Boots though, at first it's just a hold, keeping him firmly away from the alley, but they release right after so that Boots can whirl. It's a man, mid 30's looking, dirty and badly in need of a shave, wearing a tattered sweater and a rifle. "What the hell are you doing out here, son!" he whispers right back, "Get back in there, we have to move!" he tries to pull Boots into one of these buildings. He's not speaking English, but Boots can understand everything he says down to the slang, and can tell this guy is taking Boots for a local boy.
A nod to the man who potentially saved his life. "Got it." He says, quietly - not wanting to alert any other trouble that may be prowling the streets. "I'm here to help. This..." He motions back to where the vehicle had motored off, "This needs to end. We can't live like this." Boots mentions, playing the part and trying to blend in.
The man sighs tiredly while leading Boots inside, and whispers, "Tell me about it. But we'll sleep when we're dead, right?" he asks with a quiet chuckle, throwing a little gallows humor in there. Close by inside the building is a gaggle of folk. Maybe thirty people or so, huddled up in little groups. About half of them are just regular old people, men and women, children and elderly, all sorts. This type is mostly comforting each other and sharing the occasional thing with each other. The other half of the group have that Resistance look about them, a weapon ready to be whipped up and clothes more ragged than the others. This type are working on whatever plan they've got to evacuate the first group out of here, as you can hear while coming in. Go this way or that way, what if we went around here, that sort of murmuring.
Boots gives a tired smile to those in the shelter, trying to offer comfort as best he can. "Yeah, but I'd rather put them to sleep first." He mentions back to the man who'd saved him. "Is there a plan?" He asks, even as he nears those who are plotting and scheming.
The man looks Boots over, and seems to assess him positively. He isn't thrown by his rage even if he can sense the amount of violent passion in the young man. So he invites Boots into the group of fighters to show him the plan. We are here, a safe zone with friendly vehicles and defense is there, all we have to do is get from point A to point B without getting shot. "The problem is there's so many of us, but if we break into smaller groups, we pretty much guarantee people are going to get killed. We can scout ahead, but the second someone's spotted, we're going to draw every bit of attention right to us, and they're going to spot our herd. Basically, we're a little bit trapped and looking for a hail mary, so if you have any bright ideas, now's the time." There's an explosion outside, not close enough to have hit this building, but it sends dust drifting down and makes the regular folk yelp with fright.
Boots frowns at the people in trouble, growling a bit at the explosion that shakes the room. "Any way we could sneak by with a distraction?" He wonders, looking to the others. "Like, cause a ruckus elsewhere to draw them away, then get our people out to safety?"
He's able to discern a good spot for that to happen, but questions come on the heels of pointing it out. "Are you helping with the diversion, or with them?" with a gesture at the regular folk. "That could be risky, how many of us do you think should attend to the diversion?"
Boots looks at the spot, nodding. "I can distract. You all need to get the People out, and get them to safety. I'll reconnect with you once I am sure everythin' is clear." He explains, looking to the others. "You just let me know when you are all are ready to move, and I will piss in their cheerios."
The men look at each other, having a silent vote on things. They look Boots up and down as well, there's some wordless shrugs back and forth, and the eventual consensus seems to pretty much be 'sure, why the hell not'. "Okay, we'll need a signal to start moving, and it seems like you'll come up with something unmistakable. We will move down this road to here, and we'll give you ten minutes. If you're not back with us, well. You're a brave little fucker, that's for damned sure. What's your name?" A couple of the fighters go to rouse the regulars and let them know they'll be sneaking away soon. As for supplies, the best anyone can offer Boots is a single grenade. They're pretty much tapped and he'll have to work with what he finds at the site.
Boots grins. "My friends call me Boots. Cruz is my name, though." He offers over. He gives a few claps on the backs, trying to inspire confidence in the people. "You get everythin' you need, then go when you hear hell breakin' loose, yeah?"
The trapped folk make sure they have their few things in hand and ready to bolt at a moment's notice, and their protectors each go over their weapons to make sure they're clean, loaded, and ready to be used. The same guy that grabbed Boots earlier, "Ivan, good to meet you.", leads him back up to the alley and crouches down in the shadows to keep an eye and an ear out. "Don't have too much fun out there, eh?" he says with a wry bit of a smirk before Boots goes.
Boots stays low to the ground, the city is his hunting territory. He's silent as can be, moving through the streets to the noted point. Once there, he looks to the surroundings - looking for anything that could be used to draw out the enemy. Of course, he could shift to warform - but that might run them off.
Busted buildings, more rubble than you can shake a stick at (wood and stone), some cars that are wrecked but not exploded (intact gas tanks), lots of downed wires (electricity is off), one undamaged large propane tank half hanging out of a hole in a wall, and a lot of things one could find inside a house in the buildings, though more than likely at least a little damaged. There's not a TON of stuff, but there IS stuff. Fires, explosions, even weird traps, if you can come up with something creative to start (and maybe even end) a fight, then it'll probably be possible!
He saw First Blood. He saw Nobody. He saw Home Alone. Traps are going to be a thing. Collecting up what he can - he sets about creating a funnel to lead people into more problems. Cleaning products rigged to dump on people to potentially blind them or burn them. Water puddles with wires, for any potential sparking. Explosions of gas tanks and or propane tanks. Anything he can jury-rig, he sets about setting up.
With death alley created and knowing that the group is hanging tight back at the base and waiting for a big obvious signal, Boots is ready to rock. There's several patrols going through here on different streets, a sort of final sweep to make sure stuff's out of the way before pushing forwards to press the defenders of the city. They're right out in the open on vehicles, able to spot Boots and give chase, while also shooting at him. Cause they're dicks.
Dicks, indeed! He keeps dodging, trying to keep them filled with hope of following him back to the resistance. He screams bloody murder, clearly a normal human out of his depth! A few loops before they get to where he needs them - he wants all their buddies on alert too!
These assholes just plug right on in there after Boots like the twits they are. This is dumb, they shouldn't be quite so gullible, nor should they be trying to murder the absolute pants off some random local dude like this, but uh... Some people get a little weird in war after a while. When Boots unleashes his explosions and rubble and probably super flammable cleaning products, that's going to A) be REALLY effective, it might not kill everyone at once or anything but man oh man is it going to cause some chaos, B) be REALLY loud and let the resistance know to start moving the people along, and C) hurl Boots way the hell backwards in a dramaticly awesome yet kinda bruising way. He'll be fine, he can walk it off.
Look! He's an ambush predator tonight! Boots gets to where the schmucks are right where he wants them, turning to face them briefly. "Long live the People!" He roars out, kicking over the brick that is set to trigger all the traps. He looks positively gleeful as they start going off, fiery explosions - people getting doused in draino, then on fire... but it wasn't entirely to plan! He realized this, as the mix of the chemicals and the fire made for a more aggressive explosion, blasting him backwards off his feet to land in the rubble several yards back.
He might have been knocked out for a second or two, but there's still debris falling, flames erupting and dudes screaming as Boots gets his senses back. Someone, it's hard to tell who, rushes up to the downed Boots and shouts, "GET! UP!" while offering a hand down to him to help him up. And when Boots IS up on his feet again, that person is just gone. Were they ever there to begin with? There's bad-guy-backup coming in, and Boots has a maximum of ten minutes to reunite with the fleeing people before they press on without him.
He does what he can to stall those people, giving as much leeway to the escapees as he can. Once he needs to go, he bolts off with the Speed of the Messenger - calling on Hermes for a quick exit!
With that extra boost of speed, Boots is able to make a real clean get away, even confounding some incoming troops he passes by just moving so damned fast that they're not sure if they actually saw a dude or not. it allows him to get to the meeting point even about the same time the refugees are getting in. Ivan looks fucking *amazed* to see Boots so quickly, let alone in one piece. "Holy shit, you did it! We're almost there, but the people are afraid. They don't believe there's shelter ahead. I cant blame them, I haven't even seen it myself." He offers Boots some water from a canteen. "How do you make people brave enough to move when they're already collapsing?"
A smile to Ivan, and he looks around to the people. "Because we made it this far. /You/ all made it this far. You are strong, and they won't break you. You're fuckin' heroes - you protect your families, your friends - your culture." Boots explains, looking to the people who are tired and afraid. "You ain't far from the goal - just a few steps, and you'll be there. I know y'all can do it. I will be with you, protectin' you every step of the way."
This is the part of the movie where the music swells, the camera zooms in on Boots while he rallys the troops, panning across the tired, fear filled faces of the survivors. Some of them nod, others defiantly wipe away some tears that have fallen during their arduous flight for safety, fists clench and lips are stiffened. Boots's rage doesn't bother the fighters, but he does scare the citizens a little bit, but even so, he's right. This guy that is definitely a local, definitely one of them even if they've never met him before, he's *so* right. Ivan backs Boots up with a nod, "You heard the man, let's get the fuck out of here, heroes." Everyone is ready to follow these last few war torn blocks to what is, supposedly, safety. Once more unto the breach!
Boots gives a nod to Ivan, then to the others. "We got this. You got this." He grins, knowing they can make it. He gets in step with Ivan, trusting the man and his knowledge of the city. He's their leader, he's not one to pull attention from the man. He's there to support, to bolster - not get glory.
Crossing the finish line isn't easy, not with a group this big when half of them are scared to death and all of them are tired, weakened, and at their limits. They cant go in a straight line, it's dodging down one street and up another, running half the group and then the other to get across intersections, tense waits for vehicles to pass and eerily quiet moments that make your steps seem way, way too loud. But then, there it is. Up ahead is a flag, its colors surprisingly cheerful in all this grey desolation, even if it's small and dirty and thread bare around the edges. The good-guy FOB is tense and highly on guard, but... Like they're good guys, so they don't go opening fire at the first sight of moving things. Still, you're gonna wanna be REAL careful about your approach, given all the guns and what not. How do you proceed now that safety is in sight?
Boots moves forward with Ivan, keeping eyes out behind them - making sure the people there are safe, and still with them. His hands are at his sides, palms showing no weapons. "We got some tired people, lookin' for refuge and safety. They been through hell, and could use a rest and peace."
A lot of eyes and a lot of gun sights are on Boots when he makes himself known, but the lack of weapons helps. What helps even more is his language skills. The little nuances and accent that marks him as that local boy that basically immediately earned Ivan's trust. "Jesus Christ, get in here!" someone yells back, and there's some waves of soldiers' hands to signal Boots and by extension the whole group in. They don't drop their guard or anything, just in case it's all a ruse, but they're still rapidly on board with taking in what quickly turns out to be a butt load of people. "What the hell? Where the hell did you guys come from?" Someone went and got a Guy In Charge, that's who's asking that question.
Boots lets the people go in first, covering their entrance. Once they are all in, he follows and gives them hugs and fistbumps on his way to talk to the head honcho. "Ivan had these folks sheltered, but the shit was gettin' to hot. He planned a way to get them to you, and I helped. He's the shepherd, really. He fuckin' saved all these people."
While listening to Boots, the Guy In Charge looks a complex mixture of surprised, baffled, and relieved. He starts yelling orders hither and yon after Boots' summary. Food, water, medic, someone contact so and so, go get the transport trucks from wherever, we gotta get these people out of here, and so on. Demands for proper reports are made of Boots, Ivan, and other people but it's probably not gonna happen any time soon. This is good! The good news and good vibe spreads throughout, there's a lot of hugs, a lot of handshakes, and pats on the back for basically everyone, Boots included. In fact, Boots might notice that there's a lot of people here that don't look like they fit, exactly. They don't look like soldiers really, more guerilla fighters, which might make sense if they looked at all like they came from here, but they don't. Different nationalities aside, some of them aren't even dressed for the weather here. Over dressed or under dressed, styles that might fit in wherever they're from but not exactly here. No one else seems to notice their differences. Or their presences for that matter, but to be fair their attention is mostly on the new arrivals.
Everyone is welcomed, congratulated or hugged by Boots. Their nationality, creed or origins mean nothing to him - they are all here, and all deserving of safety and care.
"Mission accomplished!" comes Iris's voice. She's in her usual hippy get up, but she stole someone's helmet and now it's hers forever. "Do you feel the connection? Man, they sure do look happy." she comments on the soldiers and survivors. There are no guerilla fighters of other nationalities present anywhere, however the Gnawer may still... *feel* them somehow nearby. "Ready to go home?"
Boots looks around, then back to Iris. "I feel... like... better. That I did somethin' for folks who needed a boost." He admits, grinning. "Ready to go home, yeah. I got more stories to tell and shit." He snickers.
"I'll say you did!" Iris agrees, leading Boots off towards a place with some cover out of sight. Everyone thinks they just belong there, so it works out nicely. "Saved some people, helped some guys, killed the bad guys REALLY good, holy shit, AND gave these nice kids some much needed moral. I feel really certain you've got this all in the bag. It'll take a little bit for the bond to totally solidify, you'll just ease right into it."
He nods to the elder, walking with her. "Felt... good. And yeah, I think we'll work together just fine." He grins. "Just gotta keep an eye out for the folks getting smashed down, and get them back on their feet by removing the bad guys."
"And with your words," Iris says, looking around real quick before stepping sideways. She waits for Boots in the Umbra before continuing. "I heard your talk when people were feeling really tired and scared. That's a hell of a weapon, you wield it well when you've got passion in you." As for getting back to the boat, unless Boots can fly, she will literally have to carry him while using her wings fetish. She can, she's buff.
Nope, Boots cannot fly. He smirks. "Yeah, I meant what I said back there. They are survivors, they are the heroes. They are the ones who make the changes and get shit straightened out. I just help them get to that point."
"Uuuuugh, space is so faaaaaaar." Iris complains while flapping and carrying. But, once they ARE in space, the boat close by, Iris releases Boots to weightlessness, and heads back. "I'll drop us off at the usual spot so you can get home. Shower, though. You smell like burned propane farts and you have ritual goop on you." she advises.
