[Right. Another month, another warden, all over again. Cloud had been getting used to this process, but after Corvo left...yeah, he's not feeling it right now.]
Not really.
[There's a part of him that's annoyed with himself for being such a recalcitrant dick, but this guy's not Corvo. Cloud had started thinking maybe he might ask Corvo to be his permanent warden - the only person he's ever had even a hint of that thought about - and then just like that, he was gone. And it still sucks.]
All right. [Great, he's gotten one of these ones. The inmates who don't give a shit and don't want anything. He was one of those inmates, once, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.] Well, I'm around if you need anything. And if you find yourself at loose ends, I've always got maintenance shit that needs doing.
[Maintenance...Cloud actually seems to perk up just slightly.]
You work in maintenance? ...actually, you know what, I'll take you up on that.
[Maintenance and repair sounds much better than whatever it is they're supposedly doing in the engine room. Cloud used to think it was possible they weren't actually doing anything other than busywork, but having seen the impact of messing with stuff on the Narrenschiff's Orlop Deck, he figures that's unlikely. Still, he would rather work at something he understands.]
Don't suppose you got any permanent positions open? I'm pretty handy. Customized my own bike back home, been repairing and rebuilding all kinds of shit ever since the city got mostly flattened by a meteor.
[Despite the casual language, there's clear sympathy - empathy, maybe - on Cloud's face and in his tone.]
Used to be military myself. And my planet was about two minutes from a meteor wiping out all life on it, and we're still rebuilding, so...I kinda get it.
Long story. Basically, the planet's own life energy was harnessed to cast a powerful protective spell that destroyed the meteor right before it touched down. But the biggest city in the world was ground zero, and just having that thing inside the atmosphere was destructive enough to crush most of what was left of it after everything else that happened.
[And they would never have needed to rely on Holy at all if Cloud hadn't let Sephiroth break him. But Rawne doesn't need any of those details.]
Was. In the aftermath, the Lifestream got corrupted by what remained and people started dying from a memetic psychic disease. Unpredictable and incurable. ...took me down, too.
[Not like anything else on the planet could by that point. Every actual SOLDIER was already gone.]
[He makes a quiet 'hm' sound as he tries to figure out the best way to explain.]
...Jenova. An alien life form, a kind of psychic parasite that infects whole species. Some asshole scientists used its DNA for human experimentation, which ended up exactly as horrific as you think. It can create copies or illusions of itself and its hosts, absorb and implant memories, turn people into mental clones by overriding their will...duplicates and perpetuates itself any way it can until it manipulates whole civilizations into killing each other.
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Not really.
[There's a part of him that's annoyed with himself for being such a recalcitrant dick, but this guy's not Corvo. Cloud had started thinking maybe he might ask Corvo to be his permanent warden - the only person he's ever had even a hint of that thought about - and then just like that, he was gone. And it still sucks.]
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You work in maintenance? ...actually, you know what, I'll take you up on that.
[Maintenance and repair sounds much better than whatever it is they're supposedly doing in the engine room. Cloud used to think it was possible they weren't actually doing anything other than busywork, but having seen the impact of messing with stuff on the Narrenschiff's Orlop Deck, he figures that's unlikely. Still, he would rather work at something he understands.]
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[And it's a job that has obvious results!]
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[It's sincere, not sarcastic.]
Don't suppose you got any permanent positions open? I'm pretty handy. Customized my own bike back home, been repairing and rebuilding all kinds of shit ever since the city got mostly flattened by a meteor.
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[A bike? He likes bikes.]
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[A pause.]
So...what's your deal?
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...Meant in general. What's your deal, like what's your story. But...what happened to your planet?
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[Despite the casual language, there's clear sympathy - empathy, maybe - on Cloud's face and in his tone.]
Used to be military myself. And my planet was about two minutes from a meteor wiping out all life on it, and we're still rebuilding, so...I kinda get it.
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[And they would never have needed to rely on Holy at all if Cloud hadn't let Sephiroth break him. But Rawne doesn't need any of those details.]
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[He's guessing a lot of people in that city aren't.]
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[Not like anything else on the planet could by that point. Every actual SOLDIER was already gone.]
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How is a disease memetic? Psychic, I understand, but memetic?
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So's the enemy blowing up your planet.
[He makes a quiet 'hm' sound as he tries to figure out the best way to explain.]
...Jenova. An alien life form, a kind of psychic parasite that infects whole species. Some asshole scientists used its DNA for human experimentation, which ended up exactly as horrific as you think. It can create copies or illusions of itself and its hosts, absorb and implant memories, turn people into mental clones by overriding their will...duplicates and perpetuates itself any way it can until it manipulates whole civilizations into killing each other.
We destroyed it, but...not completely.
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Yeah, we got shit like that back home. No one I know, but I've heard of people trying to buff soldiers by injecting them with all sorts of shit.
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[Sort of. Close enough.]
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Could've been better, could've been worse.
[Really, there aren't a whole lot of ways it could have been worse, but he's sure there's gotta be one somewhere.]
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...you need anything else from me?
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