The Wheels Are In Motion

The Wheels Are In Motion
Date of Scene:	09 January 2013
Location:	Mirage Tower
Synopsis:	Garland calls Shego and Makenshi in to join the Alexandria/Burmecian War...on opposing sides, for his benefit. But to what ends?
Cast of Characters:	Garland, Makenshi, Shego

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Garland has posed:
Mirage Tower. It spirals into the sky in the Dalmascan Desert, one of the largest structures in the whole of the World of Ruin. It casts its massive shadow across a huge portion of the desert, like a great sundial, endlessly ticking away the minutes and the hours until the end of the universe itself. Where its shadow falls, no monsters spawn, no monsters stray; travellers rarely, if ever, broach the edges of that shadow, and those who do understand immediately that in that shadow lurks the will of a deeper darkness than any Rabanastre has to offer, the will of something Old and Terrible that lives in that tower.

At the top of this spiralling stone edifice is a room. It is sealed off from the outside; the only way in is through the Corridor of Shadows, at invitation from its dark master. Currently, such an invitation spreads out through the Darkness, etching its way through the shadows to two very specific individuals. The master of this castle has put out an invitation through the black magicks he wields.

His name is Garland, Champion of Darkness, the Ironclad Nightmare. He sits, now, upon the throne of Mirage Tower, the great stone edifice supporting his massive iron form without a problem. Even seated, he is tall, unbelievably tall; he projects an air of imperiousness, of competence, of ferocious power without end, barely contained within that impenetrable iron form. Great clawed iron gauntlets are steepled before his helm, as he leans forward, waiting to see if his invitation will be accepted.

Shego has posed:
THEN:
Shego was not doing so good in the aftermath of her... uh... encounter with one Ron Stoppable. In her hotel room in Traverse Town, she was washing her face for the umpteenth time, trying to get the last traces of the chemical weapon that the plucky young hero had used on her face out. Her skin, normally as pale as moonlight, was an angry red along one half of her face, and she whimpers a bit as she touches it gingerly. "Gonna /kill/..." she growls to herself, when she notices a little stirring in the shadow of her room.

It was if the shadow itself was parting, parts of the shade detaching from the rest to form words upon the wall of her bathroom, Shego staring at this impassively. "So... you little heartless guys, gonna pop out and attack now? Two minutes from now? No? Just waiting?"

Oh, wait. A message. Shego squints at this, with her remaining good eye. "Hmmmn."

NOW:
Dressed in her supervillainous outfit (her favorite one! A harlequin design of black and green), Shego had a wary look on her eyes as she approaches the very obviously Evil Castle, a little smile dancing up onto her lips. She /liked/ it. That smile remains on her lips as she is escorted through the castle, her green eyes flickering to and fro, taking in the decor as she goes along, until she reaches the throne room proper. Ooookay. She quirks a brow. "You're a /big/ one."

Makenshi has posed:
/ Somehere else in another world sits an equally terrifying, if not equally massive, structure. The floating fortress of Gaudium hovers like a ill omen in an endless sky, its ridged rocky surface menacing the very air about it with obsidian spikes the size of small mountains. Within these dark and foreboding halls is another room, very similar to the one in which Garland nows sits, though perhaps grander and more spacious.

Towering pillars of dark stone hold the roof aloft more than thirty feet above and their smooth crafted surfaces are decorated with intricate carvings. The back of this grand hall is entirely consumed by a mural of epic proportions, statues of demons, angels, serpents, and all manner of foul creatures, woven together into a golden archway that reaches almost completely to the ceiling.

Centered above this arch, the centerpiece of the decoration appears to be a fiendish creature of some demonic origin. Lounging within the massive bovine horns of this statue, Makenshi is propped up with his eyes closed, listening quietly to the sound of silence within the expansive halls. The other Lords had not been back for some time, their 'special talents' put to use where needed or offered whether it was wanted or not.

When the soft flutter of familiar wings disturbs the air, it is easy for him to take notice and he turns his warm gaze upon Crux as she draws near. "Kukuruyu." A carefully sealed envelope is held out towards him with both hands and he peers at it for a moment before tearing it open and glancing at the contents. This day just kept getting more interesting.

"Thank you. I will go alone. Please keep watch." The White Cloud slips down from his perch easily and steps into the shadows behind one of the pillars, vanishing as quick as the thought necessary to call upon this power.

The letter works its dark magics, guiding him through the dimensional passageways between worlds like a homing beacon to the place of meeting. Quietly, the swordsman pops into existence here, once more emerging from the shadows as his stern gaze sweeps the room for the source of that familiar presence.

Garland has posed:
Garland /is/ big. He stands, letting his cape roll off him, rising to his full, towering height as Makenshi and Shego make their way in. He does not need to ask if they are who he sent for; that is the sort of thing incompetents do, people uncertain of their own ability. No, Garland knows they received his message, or they would not be here, would not know the way to reach the Tower's upper levels, would not know that he sent for them. They are not random adventurers.

"So I am," Garland replies, his voice tinged with a dark amusement as he lowers his head towards Shego. As the corridor left over by Makenshi fades, Garland nods at the other man, then turns around, facing his throne. "Welcome to Mirage Tower. Your reputations...precede you."

Garland begins to pace, slow and certain. There's a predatory aspect to his walk, like a shark circling his prey; it is not at all helped by the fact that his motions are completely, utterly silent, despite the massive plate mail he wears, an unsettling wrongness to his presence, like he doesn't quite belong in the world at large. "You are Shego, expert mercenary and assassin. You are Makenshi the White Cloud, who faced off against the man known as Kaze-" here Garland's voice dips into unrelenting hatred, hatred so deep and so dark compared to the careful control in the rest of his voice, a sudden valley of rage in the smooth rolling plains of his self-mastery, "-during one of the Kingdom of Baron's assaults."

"I will not waste your time with idle chatter. I am Garland, and I have need of you both."

Shego has posed:
There was a certain... interplay to this conversation for her. Spooky messages leading to a spooky castle, and an equally spooky, very large man in a throne room. Shego had utter confidence in herself, but she was still keeping an eye out for the exits - eyes flickering up towards the windows and the rest when she thought his attention was elsewhere.

When the swordsman appears, Shego glances to him, sizing him up, and casting her eyes from him to Garland to try to ken the relationship between the two. Leaning towards him, she whispers, "You get a creepy message too, or you live here?" she says, making a brisk little gesture to indicate the room at large.

But oop. Garland was speaking, so Shego straightens up again, folding her arms together as she follows him with her eyes, quirking a brow as the mention of Kaze brings such loathing into the voice of the man. Unfolding her arm, she drops her eyes to examine her nails. "Right to business. I like that," she says. "With me, it's pretty easy. I need money; and if I get money - jewels, precious metal, you know. Whatever you guys use to buy stuff out here in the forbidden zone, and lots of it, I can help you with whatever it is you need. Sound good?"

Makenshi has posed:
The youthful swordsman in white does not waste his time examining the surroundings for things as simple as decorations and furniture are of no interest to him. As soon as his eyes come across the gargantuan metal-clad man they stop, narrowing slightly into a stern gaze at the figure of nightmare and steel. He knows what Garland is in that very moment, his suspicions confirmed beyond all possible doubt. That feeling of dread, the palpable aura of hatred, and the way he seems to draw all hope and joy into him very being. It is a subtle thing, not at all like the overwhelming force of destruction that devoured his home nor the fathomless pressure upon his mind that filled the depths of Gaudium; but still the same.

Makenshi's head tilts sideways to regard the woman as she speaks to him but he dismisses her almost immediately from his mind, eyes sliding shut casually in response to her question. Stepping forward slightly, he bows to Garland formally, a hand going to his waist as his torso tilts forward. He gives no conditions or terms like Shego, merely silent respect.

Garland has posed:
Garland nods at Shego's demands. Simple enough - Munny was easy to acquire, jewels easier still. She was the known portion of this equation, the understood quantity. She was the one who was easy to...not control, but /predict/, the one who was an accessible quantity. Yes, Shego was still a dangerous element, but...danger could be minimized with facts, predictions. It was the irony of the Champion of Chaos that he was a master of predicting order. "You may name your price."

Just as Makenshi knows what Garland is, so too does Garland know what Makenshi is - perhaps not as directly and inherently as Makenshi knows Garland's true name, but as innately, he recognizes Makenshi as a threat, just as he recognized Kaze. The screaming, the screaming to end his life, to break him no matter the cost, to fire a NUKE directly into Makenshi's brain and watch him die, is all too fierce; however, Garland struggles down his instincts. He has need of this man.

"I will pay whatever you like. This job is far too important to trust to my apprentice; or rather, these jobs."

"Are you familiar with the war between Alexandria and their neighbors? A recent...weapons merchant...has given the Alexandrian forces some trouble, gifting powerful dark magicks to the Burmecians people. The Baronites need assistance - and so to that, I wish to entrust you, Shego. Cause chaos. Cause havoc. Strike at the heart of them, inflame the wounds of the Cleyrans and the Burmecians, whip them into a fury against Alexandria and Baron that cannot be denied."

Garland shifts his helmet to look at Makenshi. "As for you, Makenshi...the Cleyrans will need aid, or they will be crushed by the weight of Alexandria and its allies. I want you to strike at the Alexandrians in the name of Burmecian freedom. Become a symbol for them to rally behind - a force of justice that they can appreciate. When Kaze appears, decry him as a demon, and break him like the dog that he is."

"Do you both...understand?" It's a loaded question. Is he asking that they understand what it is he wants of them? Or is he asking if they understand the larger implications of sending two extremely fearsome mercenaries to fight for opposite sides on the same paycheck?

Shego has posed:
Shego had an utterly disappointed look on her features as Makenshi essentially ignores her, and when he bows? Oh, that starts a rolling of her eyes, Shego folding her arms over her front again. "Yeah. I'm gonna take that as you live here, Cloudy," she says, giving him another odd little look, before her attention shifts back to Garland.

/Especially/ when he says that she can name her price. "Niiice."

Yeah, Shego was really easy to predict, and really easy to get along with whatever evil scheme you were concocting. Where she didn't work so well was on the whole mewling evil sidekick thing. Shego casts a glance at Makenshi, smirking. Or the... respect thing.

"Sure sure, I get it. You're doing the whole evil genius play two sides against the other, and come out on top at the end, thing," Shego says, pausing to unfold her arms and kinda wave her hands disarmingly. "Not that there's anything /wrong/ with that. So, uh. You want me to keep this guy?" she jerks a thumb over towards Makenshi, "...in more or less one piece, or is he part of the deal?" she asks.

Garland has posed:
"I could not care less if you two kill each other or not," Garland replies idly. "That is between the two of you."

Yeah Makenshi probably doesn't live here.

Makenshi has posed:
Unlimited. There were very few people outside the court of the Earl who knew that name but one did not need a name to know primal fear and hatred such as existed between the two men in this room. It was an inherent facet of their existences that they be opposed to one another. Perhaps one of the great ironies of the universe was that they also needed each other to accomplish their goals, both silently plotting and scheming behind the masks of iron and mithril.

The proposition laid out before them was a simple one, at least in concept. The devil, as always, was in the details. Naturally, he understood what was truly at stake here. Oh, certainly there would be some of what Shego expected; gaining control of each faction provided more options for the future. But options for what exactly?

The thought chilled Makenshi but his face remained stoic and implacable as he straightened up, continuing to ignore the woman. His arms crossed lightly over his chest as he contemplated silently for a few moments. When he spoke, the mask over his face muffled the voice, changing the tone so that it seemed he was speaking from out of a deep well.

"As you wish."

Garland has posed:
Unlimited. The name does not need to be known indeed - Garland feels it in every part of his black and twisted heart, the shaking tremor of primal fear that only Kaze has ever made him feel before. He does not need to hear that name to know that they are the same, he does not need to feel the name to know that they are the same, Unlimited wellsprings of absolute power. Makenshi is truly a dangerous one; Garland would offer Shego later a bonus to keep her eye on the other man, though there would likely be no way to kill him alone. Garland could already tell that if Kaze could withstand the kind of punishing force that was put upon him during their battle, so could Makenshi. Shego may be a fearsome assassin, but Garland had a...a feeling about Makenshi's durability, that it was something...supernatural.

Still, no reason to let the hired help know such yet. Garland waves his hand dismissively. "Then you may name your prices. I have no need for coins or jewels, but have accumulated enough over the years." He doesn't say how, but something about the place certainly seems like the 'accumulated by killing adventurers foolish enough to enter his lair' sort of method, rather than the 'honest hard work' method. "You are dismissed. You do not need to report back to me, nor tell those you aid who you are aiding them on behalf of. I would prefer thus...but it does not matter if you tell them or not."

Shego has posed:
Shego just grins wider, pushing one fist into the open palm of her other, turning her eyes to regard Makenshi coolly. The whole... interplay between the two men? Totally lost on her. She seemed to be judging something in her mind, waiting in anticipation as he rose, almost looking disappointed again...

He said 'As you wish'.

Shego's expression falls. "I was /so/ thinking you were going to say 'It shall be done'. 'As you wish' just kinda sounds... I don't know," Shego says, kinda waggling her hand in a so-so manner. "Soft, you know?" she says. Although her eyes flicker back towards Garland when he says what he does, Shego giving him a peppy little salute. "Let's consider it a contract sort of thing. You send a chest stock full of jewels and gold a month? I'll keep bothering Team White Cloud. When the gold runs out, so do I. Fair? Fair."

Unless Garland stopped her, she would turn on her heel, starting to walk back the way she came, lifting up a hand to kinda waggle it in a farewell. "And I can keep a secret too. I'm good at that. Don't worry about a thing, chief."

Makenshi has posed:
Makenshi finally spares a glance for his 'partner' in this venture, his light green eyes cold as ice when they settle upon her. There is no malice or contempt to find within, merely a distant lack of interest. However, he still has nothing to say to her. There was nothing meaningful to add.

Once Shego turned to leave, the swordsman turned back to Garland. "I will require only enough for expenses." He didn't bother to offer any reassurances that he would keep this a secret for he had none to give. Should the opportunity to use that information come to pass, he would do so.

With the terms settled and the details laid out, he also took his leave, giving a final bow to Garland before stepping into the shadows of the same pillar that brought him here. Though the ultimate purpse behind a man such as Garland was always clear to him, this meeting had served to provide one crucial fact that he did not have before.

There was still time.

Garland has posed:
Garland taps his hand on his throne as they leave. He does not halt them, nor slow them; he simply sits back down, thinking carefully. He would arrange for them to be paid, of course - Garland had the resources of all of Terra at his command, and all of Lufein as well. Money was no object to him, not for good help.

The wheels are now in motion.