Ash Catch-All

[burningrescue]

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week 0; day 0

[burningrescue]

[Catch Galo hanging around the billiard room. It looks like he's trying to figure out how to play pool? But he hasn't realized the cues are involved yet, so he's just sort of bowling the balls across the table.]

[voidbreaker]

[ ash just walks on in. stops in the door.

looks around like he's looking for a cosmic joke, and then just leans in the doorway. y'know what, you do you galo, he's just gonna watch and see how long it takes him to figure out the cues have a purpose and aren't just for show. ]

[burningrescue]

[It might take a while? Knocking some balls into the pockets this way, and then laughing.]

I'm amazing at this game! It's so easy!

[voidbreaker]

[ you’re doing amazing sweetie ]

It’s not a bad way to pass the time. You’re playing a interesting variation of it though.

[burningrescue]

How do you mean?

[Holding two balls, one in each hand, closing his eyes, and rolling them at random. He can't believe this is how you're supposed to play.]

[voidbreaker]

[ Be prepared to have your mind blown, Galo. Ash just walks over to one of the cues, picks it up and aims a shot at one of the balls on the table. He's not aiming to pocket any of them, and it just ricochets into the side of the table. ]

You're not using half the equipment to play the game right.

[burningrescue]

Whoa!

[Watching him, giving him a thumbs up.]

But see, I don't need the extra help. I'm a good enough roller to do it by hand.

[Still, he picks up the pool cue and does some kind of fancy baton twirl move with it.]

[voidbreaker]

It’s not extra help. [ he swings the cue up onto his shoulders and props his arms over it. this is nice. this is familiar, if kinda lighter than he’s used to. ]

It’s how you play. [ he nods at... what galo’s doing. ] That’s just bowling with smaller equipment.

[burningrescue]

Hmm. Okay. So it's like -

[Taking the cue and jabbing one of the balls with it, hard.]

week 0; post-trial

[burningrescue]

[He's sulky after the trial - or really, after the girls disappear. He's hanging around back near the lounge, like he's looking for rats to appear again.]

[voidbreaker]

[ places ash does not want to go: the lounge. sadly, it’s one of the places stocking alcohol and he could really do with something after literally everything that has just happened.

He’s ignoring tall, blue and sulky though. His focus is definitely on fishing something with a bit of a burn to it out of the liquor cabinet first and foremost. ]

[burningrescue]

[Sighing, glancing at Ash as he comes through. He yelled at Ash during the trial, but he isn't really angry at Ash. Only at his attitude.]

We didn't kill any of you.

[voidbreaker]

[ there's a clinking sound as he sets a glass down on the side, followed by the snapping sound of him closing the cabinet. ]

What, are you wanting a pat on the back and a thank you?

[ he's like 45% anger, 45% attitude, 10% marshmallow. ]

[burningrescue]

No. I'd only expect a thank you if we'd saved her.

[Honestly, he just wants to clear the air here - if there's something to fight about, they should have it out now.]

[voidbreaker]

We needed more than twenty minutes to do that.

[ he's not exactly happy that someone's gotta die here either. he pours a drink and takes a sip of it i'm amazed no one has called the dumb teen out on his drinking but it's probably the least of anyone's issues rn ]

... [ fffffff ] Drink?

[burningrescue]

Uh. Sure.

[He doesn't give a shit if teens drink, frankly. But he's also not much of a drinker himself, so he's a little unsure.]

[voidbreaker]

[ he gives him a long stare for a moment, before pouring out like a finger's worth of whiskey into another glass and sets it down in front of galo. ?enjoy. ]

Talk's cheap. If you can make it happen, then it's worth listening to.

week 3; tuesday afternoon

[burningrescue]

[Galo can be found in the game room, practicing his S*per Sm*sh Siblings.]

[voidbreaker]

[ guess who has never seen S*per Sm*sh Siblings. or really paid much attention to the video games section of the games room. and is gonna lean right over the back of whatever galo is sitting on to squint at it in confusion. ]

The heck is this?

[burningrescue]

You haven't played this? I'll show you -

[But before he can, getting interrupted by a memory:

Galo is at the base of a massive skyscraper, the tallest building in a city of skyscrapers. The building is the seat of power for Governor Foresight. Security is tight, but Galo is allowed in - the security recognizes him as Promepolis’ young hero, points to the medal he’s wearing pinned to his chest.

Galo sits in the lobby of the building and waits, his mood dark. A man enters, flanked by his assistant, and Galo tells him they need to talk.

The Governor’s office is at the top of the building, looking out over the city far below. Galo lays his medal down on the Governor’s desk.

“You want to return it?” he asks.

“Lio has escaped,” Galo says. “I met him in a mountain cave. He says he escaped from prison.”

The Governor assures Galo that there’s still no need to return the medal he was awarded for Lio’s capture.

“Medals are made to be awarded to and by people who deserve them,” Galo pronounces. “Neither of us are worthy.”

The Governor’s expression hardly changes, but some surprise seems to register as he asks Galo what he means.

“Gov! Is it true that you’re doing human experiments on the Burnish?” Galo is shouting, angry, but when Kray responds with only silence, he flinches, pained and heartbroken. “You’re my hero. You saved me, started the Foresight Foundation, and founded this amazing city. But you’re doing such a horrible thing?”

“Horrible?” Kray asks, still not reacting.

“The Burnish are humans,” Galo says, thinking now of Burnish he’s met, and of Lio, too. “They get hungry, they get sad if they lose a friend. Of course it’s bad if they start fires, but you can just arrest them for that! You can’t kill them for no reason!”

There’s a long silence, before the Governor moves. “I see. Follow me.”

He leads Galo down the elevator, below the building, into a massive underground facility, and there he explains everything to Galo. The magma in the earth’s core has been burning out of control. Within a matter of months, it will overheat, and the planet will be destroyed. The Governor is planning to take an expedition of 10,000 people on a ship to another habitable planet, abandoning the earth. But the only hope for this plan is warp technology, which is powered by the Burnish.

The Governor takes Galo to an underground lab, where he shows an experiment in progress. A young Burnish man, who Galo recognizes as a pizza guy in town, is placed in a machine called a Prometech pod, and spun until he screams and begins to burn. The machine allows some scientists to warp across the room. Kray is pleased - the test was finally a success. The Prometech pods will work. But Galo watches horrified, seeing the pizza guy’s fingers turn to ash. The machine is burning away his life force.

“That’s horrible,” Galo says to himself, but Kray corrects him.

“It’s a valued sacrifice for the survival of mankind. We can’t build the warp engine without the Burnish.”

“There must be some other way,” insists Galo. “If we stop the magma, we won’t need to go to another planet.”

“I’ve considered that, but we can’t stop it with our current technology. Migration’s our best bet.”

“So, you sacrifice the Burnish for that?” Galo is staring at the ground.

“Exactly. Do you understand now?”

“Yeah, I do,” he concedes, still not looking up at him. “But I can’t accept it.”

“Then what will you go,” the Governor asks, for once curious.

Galo clenches his fists, and looks up again with determination in his eyes. “I’ll extinguish earth’s magma!”

Kray smiles, suddenly. It’s the first genuine smile on his face this entire time. “I knew you’d say that,” he laughs, disdainfully, and his security guard presses his gun against Galo’s back. “We’re short of time. Can’t have an idiot making a fuss.”

Galo is staring at him now, in shock ever since he felt the gun. “Why, Gov?” he asks, his voice breaking.

Anger flashes across Kray’s face, and he slams his prosthetic fist into Galo’s stomach, knocking him off his feet with the force of the blow. “Don’t call me Gov.” He stares down at Galo with open hatred. “I’ve always hated it. You’ve always been an eyesore to me!”

The security guards lift Galo off the ground and drag him away.]

[voidbreaker]

[ Siz, you're so committed and powerful and I genuinely salute you.

That's a lot of memory all at once, and honestly? It's kinda overwhelming all at once out of nowhere. But there's not a lot to do other than watch the memory play out, and see the truths playing out and the shock and the weight of what was being revealed, and the betrayal at the end of it all --

It's all a bit confusing. But he recognises some of the names being thrown around, and didn't Galo mention something about imprisonment way back when all of this started? Either way, some pieces fall into place, bit by bit, until Ash blinks and he's back in the games room, with the sound of the video game cheerily playing in the background. ]

...

No wonder you're so intent on avoiding unnecessary loss of life.

[burningrescue]

[He frowns, still a little shaken to be suddenly thrown back into such a nasty memory.]

I've always been intent on that. I'm a rescuer.

[voidbreaker]

Yeah. But that’s a lot of lives on the line.

[ ... ] It hammers it home a bit.

[burningrescue]

Yeah. Well . . . [He makes kind of a face, like he's processing that.] When I got mad at people, early on, because they kept saying we had to do whatever it took to save as many people as possible. . . That kind of thinking only made me think of the Gov and his crazy plan. But I know no one here is that cruel.

[voidbreaker]

... I mean. Nah. No one here's planning on something that extreme. But we do have that kind of crap going on lowkey, so--

[ He'd keep going, but in the same way the scene changed when it was showing Galo's memory, it shifts again. And, well--

There's fear, and pain and confusion that lasts for a good few minutes as awareness slowly filters back into Ash's mind. There's panic too, slowly creeping up from his stomach, and it's overwhelming, making it hard to breathe.

There's a smell as well - smokey, and ashy. Like something's been burning. A lot of things have been burning. It's overwhelming, a mix of burnt wood and -- something else. Sweet, like decay and overwhelming like burnt... something else. Ash starts to scrabble to his feet, through broken wood and shattered pieces of what was once a home. From the first person point of view Galo's seeing, Ash's hands look much smaller than they are normally. They're child's hands, not the older ones he has now.

Wherever Ash was had been beautiful ones. Surrounded by trees, and beautiful views of nature. Small and quaint stone buildings, in an equally small and quaint village. Or... it was, at some point.



It doen't look that way anymore. ]