burningrescue | Ayabe Catchall

[When Ayabe looks closer, he can see that it's basically a crayon drawing. But it looks vaguely like a crayon version of this.]

I have to get this right! So Peach doesn't miss any of the details.

What... is this? A toy you want her to find for you?

[ Without a scale,that's what is looks like. Maybe Galo was carrying a figurine in his pocket before he came here and he asked Peach to find it for him. ]

A toy! Tch!

[He makes an offended sound, though there's no venom behind it.]

No way! This is my matoi tech! It's a special firefighting robot Lucia made just for me! It's inspired by the fire fighters of an ancient far eastern island and embodies their spirit while also making use of the latest technology!

[ Still looks like a toy robot. But apparently it's bigger and the mecha's used to fight fires, which would probably protect more than a simple uniform would. ]

And Peach is going to build you one? To scale?

Yep. To fight monsters with. See -

[But before he can go on a long ramble about this, a memory appears.]

[ Today we both learn about Burnish racism.

There's the gun and the child and then he blacked out— and honestly Ayabe didn't think it could get any worse than that but it does. ]

-—You! That was the gov? Kray?

[ HUMAN EXPERIMENTS, GALO ]

[He nods, looking down at the ground, his expression dark. Being hit with that memory again isn't too painful - he's been playing it back often enough in his own mind. But it's hard to see the horror fresh with someone else.]

Yeah. Lio was telling the truth. Gov Kray. . .the Foresight Foundation. He did all of that to those people.

What kind of governor does that?! Has he been fired?

[ human experiments, jfc, even if Ayabe doesn't have a face to put the name with, Gov Kray is now his Master Blue alias, all the experiments here are about in line with each other ]

Uh. He can't really be fired? It's his city.

[Don't be fooled, this is not a democracy.]

Anyway, people don't know. I didn't know, either, until I saw for myself. And then when I confronted him, he admitted to all of it. But when I told him I wouldn't go along with it, he had me tossed in jail.

If he's doing something like that, he doesn't get a city.

[ He doesn't deserve it, fuck him. ]

Is that why you were in jail right before you came here? To be silenced? Did you get a lawyer and a trial?

[Shaking his head.]

No. I mean, I think he was just going to have me executed? They were saying something about me trying to kill him, which I didn't even do. . .

...Your governor sucks, Galo.

[ But he doesn't need telling twice about that fact. ]

Was that when you and Lio first met? He said something about that being the last time he saw you, I think.

[He sighs, like he's swallowing something he wants to say. He kind of. . .does need telling twice.]

The Governor's done a lot of good things for a lot of people. That's why it was hard to believe. I'm not excusing him, I just. . . Something must've gone really wrong with him somewhere. Because he wasn't. . .

[He shakes his head, realizing despite his protests he is defending him, and that feels awful right now.]

We first met earlier. This was after he broke out of prison - our first meeting was when I caught him and sent him there. But when we fought at first, it's because he thought I was still supporting the Gov. He didn't know about what happened after this.

[ ...Galo was like that with Lio before too, wanting to believe the best in the person while at the same time unable to excuse their actions. ]

What happened after... him sending you to jail, you mean?

I was there for about a week. The day before I came here, I had a visitor. Heris - she works for him, but her sister is a friend on mine. I talked to her a bit, tried to get her to see how messed up it was, but no luck. She told me she'd only visited because I was going to be executed that day.

That's about it, except right before I showed up here, an earthquake cracked the wall. I could see outside. I could see Lio - he was going to burn down the city.

What? Why? I thought he said he doesn't kill?

[ With an entire city, there's going to be some risk of death, and leaving escape routes doesn't cut it if people can't get to them. ]

[He doesn't want to throw Lio under the bus here, either.]

. . .I didn't know until this week, but something really horrible happened while I was in prison. Kray found the Burnish settlement and captured everybody. And Lio was trapped in this awful place, too. I don't think he really wanted to hurt anybody but Gov Kray. But everybody gets desperate sometimes, yeah?

When I saw what happened, I understood his feelings. So I'll just need to stop him from doing it and find another way.

If he wanted to hurt Kray, there are so many other ways than to get an entire city involved...

[ Possible methods involve a sniper rifle. One shot to the head while leaving everybody else uninvolved. There are plenty of other options for Ayabe to tell Galo to pass on to Lio, but before he can and before I forget to give Galo a memory in return, he can see this one, it starts with something heavy slamming into the back of his head like a freight truck, but the extent of Ayabe's experience with betrayal is just this...

A high school boy with a very normal life. But the takeaway message is, people in power cannot be trusted. ]

[Yeah. He kind of smiles at the memory a little - it is pretty normal, but then again, Galo's life seemed normal to him, too.]

What a jerk.

Ugh...

[ This is what a normal memory is supposed to look like. Normal high school memories where the worst thing that could happen are pop quizzes you're wholly unprepared for. ]

Yeah.

[ Yeah, he is, Ayabe doesn't argue that. ]

That was the student council president... I can't believe that when we first got here, I thought he was the "Blue" behind this mess.

Ayabe Catchall

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