"Staring's not going to help, you know." Layon muttered as he stepped into the small hangar.
Brad sat hunched on a bench, looking at the Shadow Fox. His chin rested on his folded hands, his elbows just above his knees. The mercenary briefly cut his eyes at the larger man, but said nothing.
Layon checked through several readouts, then dropped onto a bench himself and started working at a small computer.
"Where's the Organoid." He said after a few minutes.
"Dunno."
"That doesn't bother you?"
"No."
More silence.
Layon side-eyed Brad occasionally, but the sullen man didn't move or do much.
"So." Layon said. "Does the Shadow Fox talk to you?"
He'd asked this question before, under far more dire circumstances. Brad hadn't answered then, and didn't seem to want to answer now either.
The longhaired man didn't even look at Layon. "You wanted me dead."
There was no point in mincing words. Layon shrugged. "Yeah. But I'm used to not getting what I want."
Brad just went quiet for a while.
Then glanced.
"Why'd you try to warn the base?"
Layon didn't answer for enough of a span that Brad thought he was being ignored. He didn't care enough to repeat himself.
The larger man eventually grumbled. "I like some people being alive."
In spite of himself, Brad smirked a little. "Don't you hate Steve or something?"
Layon balled a fist but refrained from slamming it on the table. He inhaled steeply instead.
"I don't want Toros dead. Plus Oscar's kid lives there too. And Leena's brother."
Did he care about Jaime or Leon? Not particularly. They had significant worth to people he did care about, however.
Brad's expression dulled, and silence fell again.
In the quiet, the man's entire body ached with the cold memory of how close he'd come to outright murdering Leon. And though he desperately hated the thought, he couldn't get away from it.
The thing was, One didn't really tell lies. One didn't really even manipulate much. It simply stoked the embers of existing negativity, eking out flames then letting them rage uncontrollably. The fuel didn't matter to it.
Brad had never told a soul, not even Naomi, but he'd been furious when Leon left the Blitz Team. He'd never let his ire show - because he knew it was ridiculous, and knew exactly why Leon left. He couldn't blame the man for wanting to. That didn't erase Brad's silent resentment towards the young Toros… or Bit, which One seized and dragged bloodily to the surface, to terrifying effect.
Silence.
He had to get out of his head.
Brad shook his head and put his face in his hands, sighing through his teeth. "You're fucked up, man."
Assuming he was being spoken to, Layon belted a laugh from where he sat. "Says the Fury guy."
Brad glanced irritably, then just continued to stare up at the Shadow Fox.
He was still quietly burning, wasn't he.
And by that flame, the Fox had been burned.
Naomi sat in the comfortably-warm study, reading a book about Zoid armaments she'd pulled from the shelf. Her eyes rose to follow Brad as he slipped into the room. The man looked grim.
"Hey." Naomi said quietly.
Brad's gaze flicked her way, and his demeanor softened immediately. He smiled a little, but an upset crease remained between his brows.
"Hey." He meandered to the couch the woman was on and crouched beside her. "You doing all right?"
"Yeah." She wasn't. "How's the Shadow Fox?"
Brad just shook his head, a non-answer. She saw the deep upset in his eyes, but let it be.
After a pause, she took a breath to speak again, but Brad didn't let her start.
"Do you want to go home?" He asked.
Naomi's face made her answer clear, but wariness tempered her response. "Do we know what kind of timeline we're looking at for the Fox?"
"No." Curt. Sharp.
"Is it going to be okay?"
Brad looked away, and his expression hardened. "I don't know. Do you want to go home?" He repeated, firmly.
"Brad…"
"I don't want to talk about it. Home or not?"
A sigh. The man's stubbornness was one of his far less endearing qualities.
Naomi studied his face from the side, watching the man's throat work as he steadfastly avoided eye contact. She reached and stroked his cheek, then ran her fingers through the side of his tangled hair.
Brad closed his eyes with a sigh. "You never should've come out here."
The woman's voice was deadpan. "You'd probably be dead if I hadn't."
Though the idea of being dead wasn't terribly palatable, the idea of Vega also being dead made it somewhat more entertaining. Brad breathed a humorless chuckle. "Might be for the best."
"Don't say that." Calm vanished. Naomi seized a fistful of Brad's shirt and pulled him close with a scowl. "Do you know what I went through when you were gone? Thinking every day you were just going to turn up dead? And that'd be it?"
Naomi's intensity caught him off guard. Brad just blinked at her.
"Fucking idiot." She pushed him away before emotion got the best of her. "People care about you, you know."
Brad looked aside, chagrined.
He wasn't left to dwell long. Brad felt Ambient arriving before the Organoid suddenly did, showing up in a blaze of red and standing in the couple's periphery.
Naomi visibly tensed, fixing her stare on the beast. But at Brad's glance, Ambient relayed a wordless desire to be unobtrusive.
"He's fine."
"I really wish you'd just make the damn thing leave. For good."
"He's nice to have around."
"For what?" Naomi's eyes narrowed. "How many more people do we need it to eat, Brad?"
Brad smirked, then leaned and gently bit Naomi's shoulder and collarbone. "Never know."
The massive dissonance of enjoying the tease while being angry that Brad seemed indifferent to destroying the Fuma Team was... unique. She pushed him away. "We killed people."
Brad made a non-committal noise, and leaned in again to kiss the woman's neck and jawline. "Eh. Think of it as made the world a slightly better place."
Naomi started to push Brad away again, but didn't. Once again, she couldn't disagree… but she kept getting stuck on that moment she'd pulled the trigger and watched a man simply drop as a result. She knew it was wrong, but that success had exhilarated her like any other.
She didn't like that.
She didn't like that it made her question what was and wasn't wrong.
Brad kept smothering her with gentle affections, consuming her attention. Much preferable to the turmoil in her mind. She wanted to respond in kind, but Ambient's background leer was disquieting. The creature's tongue flashed out, like a hungry animal's.
Brad rubbed against Naomi, teasing, playful, and wanting a distraction. Naomi wanted one too, but…
"For fuck's sake, make it leave." She snapped.
"He's fine," Brad said again, as if that solved the problem.
It didn't. Naomi grabbed a fistful of Brad's shirt again, shaking him lightly. "Do you give a shit what I think or not?"
The man's lips thinned. After a moment, he inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Ambient. Go."
~Laaaad. At least let me watch. Ah'll be-~
I swear to god if you piss her off...
~You and yeh'r dick need'ta grow a spine! Getting pushed aroo'nd by a female? Unbelievable.~
GO.
Ambient rolled its optics and vanished.
"Oh." Stoller said, and the silence afterwards consumed the room.
He'd known - with no lack of schadenfreude - that Backdraft had fallen into disarray after the fiasco surrounding the Royal Cup. And he knew that although the majority of the org had escaped the ZBC and ZBGF, things had still somehow gotten worse. He'd known a few details, but as he realized now: none of the salient ones.
Sara's blunt recital of events over the past several months didn't leave much to the imagination. Stoller had seen the stone Fury as he'd neared the base earlier, but the grueling reality of its presence cast its now-permanent silence in a different light.
Vega as well. Stoller had yet to see his supposed Organoid, but Sara's terse descriptions left the man equal parts curious and disturbed. Nothing had seemed different about the child, to him.
Sara shook her head and looked aside, at length. It was a rare sight, the woman showing any shred of actual upset.
"I still don't know what to do." She said quietly. "He seems fine, but..."
"Well. I doubt Alteil knew the extent of this." Stoller said.
"He didn't." Polta muttered. "But he didn't expect Vega to survive, either."
Sara's eyes locked onto Polta, instantly cold again.
She'd not held the man's adherence to authority against him, nor his personal feelings. After Polta had begun working with her instead, he'd been perfectly open with her about Alteil's intentions.
Not out of any loyalty or disloyalty - but simply because he didn't agree with Alteil's distaste for Vega. Alteil had let his hatred of Sara overshadow what Vega really represented to the org: a blueprint for its future.
Polta uncomfortably dropped his gaze, avoiding Sara's. He'd wanted Alteil to come around. Certainly, the blood was far too bad between Sara and Alteil themselves, but couldn't the man have set his anger aside for the good of the Organization?
The hostile silence dragged on awkwardly.
"Sorry about Alteil." Stoller finally offered.
Polta made an angry, dismissive gesture and leaned back with a scowl. "That damn red Organoid is still running around out there somewhere, too."
Sara nodded, and looked again at Stoller. "And with the Liger Zero's, that's three. Who knows if there's more."
Stoller sighed. "Sara. This isn't good. They're staring this place down because of the Berserk Fury. I do think they're worried about Toros."
"They shouldn't be." Sara watched Stoller's face closely. "Are they in touch with anyone from the Committee?"
The older man gave a deliberate, hesitant nod. Then added: "Not everyone disagreed with you, Sara."
"But too many did. Idiots."
The sound began as a minor distraction, then couldn't be ignored. Pops, crunches, and an unfamiliar metallic shearing.
Layon stood to investigate and found the noises betrayed Ambient's location in the small garage hangar. The red Organoid sat tucked atop a wide steel shelf, face buried in the crate of magnite scraps that Layon had previously shown it.
The man just watched Ambient eat for several minutes, until it finally lifted its head and looked down at him.
~What?~
"I'm just watching."
Ambient swallowed its mouthful and stared.
"What? I'm a man of science. You're an Organoid."
~Yeh're a human is what you are. Fuck off and donnae get any ideas.~ Ambient brandished its tailblades in warning.
Layon wouldn't dare, seeing as the Organoid seemed roughly able to perceive what he was thinking about. Perhaps that's why they'd always been so difficult to study. And perhaps that's why-
~Did ah' not say t'fuck off?~
"You're eating all of my magnite." Layon half-whined, well aware he couldn't do much about it.
Ambient grunted dismissively and resumed. But it paused after a few moments, throat working a bit.
~Here, 'man of science.' Study what uh'll fuckin' do t'yeh if yeh ever become less useful.~
The Organoid arched its neck and leaned over the edge of the shelf. Its jaws parted widely, and after a few unpleasant sounds, Ambient regurgitated a slimy mass onto the floor. A football-sized wad of hair mixed with shredded clumps of dark fabric.
Ambient shook off and resumed eating.
Layon took a disgusted step back, then a fascinated step forward. But he blanched, recognizing quickly what he was looking at: human remains.
He broke into nervous laughter. "Oh, good. Great. Yeah. Sure. You things eat people?!"
Ambient lifted its head just enough to derisively wink at the man.
He found Brad standing in the base's main corridor without a shirt, smoking idly. Layon approached, irreverently picked the cigarette out of Brad's loose grip, and crushed it out on the floor.
"Hey, asshole." He said, because apparently that was a greeting now. "The Organoid eats people?"
Brad blinked, gazed at the floor, then put his hands in his pockets. After a moment he glanced up at Layon.
"Maybe."
Brad's tone disturbed Layon greatly.
"This is my base," Layon said, voice shaking slightly. "Mine . You hear me?"
Brad just stared for several icy seconds. Then shrugged.
"I don't care about your stupid base. Just want you to help the Fox."
"What are you even doing out here?! It's winter! These are the goddamn Mackarays!"
The mercenary considered silence. He considered ignoring the larger man. He considered a lot of things.
"I had problems to solve." Brad finally said. The mercenary's demeanor and unflinching eye-contact made clear what kind of problems were solved, and how.
Lines in Layon's face and neck went taut, and his throat worked uneasily.
Brad seemed amused by Layon's discomfort. "Hey. You were working for Backdraft for a little while, yeah? Presumably not anymore, though?" The lanky man smiled, but the cold expression held no kindness. "Right?"
Layon liked keeping his options open. It was Backdraft's resources that he'd originally been after: he emptily recalled discussing projects with Alteil. But Backdraft seemed to have been truly thrown into disarray, as was apparent during Layon's second stint at the Mackaray Base. Now with their being severely resource-strained, Backdraft was no longer of much use to him. And given the base's subsequent abandonment, Layon wasn't even sure how to contact the org anymore.
Or if he even wanted to. Or if he should.
"...right," Layon replied in a measured tone.
Brad nodded and leaned back against the wall.
"Then I guess you're not a problem."