"Y'know, people need to understand the meanin' of the word 'Calm!'"

Gippal stood, flamingo-like, in his room at Machine Faction HQ.  He was delivering a passionate speech -totally riled -  to his own reflection.  His reasoning was, hey, you can't complain ABOUT idiots TO idiots.

"Yeah, I've come to the simple conclusion that people're a liiiiiiiittle too stupid for their own goddamn good," he said tersely, shaking his head. He glanced up at himself in the mirror.  "OK, so I've never been too great at the whole calm thing, but I've got it pretty much figured out now!  I mean, hell, three years ago I was calm an' mellow for MONTHS." He puffed out his sweatered chest. "Hah!"

His own reflection would not buy it. Talk about sad.  Gippal deflated, and he gingerly poked where a certain scar lay.

"...'course, I was recoverin' from a gunshot wound, but, uh... Ugh! That isn't the point!" Standing on two feet, he slammed his hands on the nightstand in frusteration.  "The POINT.. is that eeeevery time some huge bad-ass thing with WAY too many appendages threatens Spira and then gets killed by a buncha schoolgirls," he paused for effect, "no one's ever freakin' happy! Give 'em a few months.. boom!" He gestured an 'explosion', the ties on his gloves flapping against his little wardrobe.    "New Yevon versus Youth League! Guado versus Ronso! Idiots versus... uh, bigger idiots." Yes, that sounded right.  "And now?"


He had meant to bang his fist and lean his head against the wall in frustration, but he was so pissed off the signal must have gotten scrambled on the way to his brain.  Cursing quietly in Al Bhed as he shook the pain out of his skull, he did something he rarely did -and when he did, it was always interesting: brood.

OK, 'fume' works better here. When one broods, one reflects on something and sulks.  Gippal would think about something and then get worked up.  He was furious at humanity in general, here.  

Everything had been going fine between the Youth League and New Yevon... at least, for a while.  Then someone requested Baralai return the treasure spheres that Trema had stolen.  Baralai had apologized, saying he didn't know where they were -but the people were refusing to believe him.  They changed their request to a demand.

"Someone might decide to use Praetor-Boy for target practice," Gippal muttered, adjusting the patch over his eye. 

The news wasn't widely spread, but intolerance against the Yevonites was once again sparking.  As an Al Bhed, Gippal normally wouldn't have given a squatter monkey's ass, but Baralai was an old buddy.

And no one messed with The Gip's buddies.

He admitted quietly to himself that Lady Yuna could sort it out. But she was out snogging with her new hubby, and she shouldn't be bothered.  Of course, he was secretly glad of this... If she wound up fixing another one of his goddamn problems he was gonna scream.

Putting a finger to his lips, Gippal considered his options for as long as three seconds.  He slung his massive weapon onto his back, pocketed a few belongings, and spoke briefly to the mobile com hovering above him.

"Stigma, E's rayteh' uid! Leyu!"

The door slammed behind him, and the Machine Faction leader sauntered out of his HQ to either help out his friend or cause some serious disaster.

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*Stigma, I'm headin' out! Ciao!