trainingwings | Now for something completely different

[Action]

[There you are, in the Battle Dome. Trying to mind your own business and do a good day's worth of training. But this guy's too bored to let you do so in peace. As you train, he will sneer and smirk through the observation deck, as if aware of some fatal flaw in your training regimen that is invisible to you. Every time you look up to him, he's answering your latest move with a scoff or a small laugh. Sometimes even an indifferent shrug. And after your big show stopper? A yawn.

Whether you try to approach him or not, Jade Curtiss casually saunters over towards you when you're finally throwing in the towel. He prods his glasses up his nose before assessing you in person, showing every possible visible sign in his face that he is disappointed with your performance.

But he speaks in a casual, almost sing-song manner.]

My, my. Done already? And here I thought this facility was supposed to be used for challenges!

[Voice]

[Jade sits up in bed, impatiently poking at his journal while wearing just his signature bathrobe. It's been a week already since he came here - and since his peers from his world had to endure his tests to prove they were not replicas. Or in some cases, prove they were the same replicas he knew.]

This is Colonel Jade, Third Division, Malkuth Imperial Forces. I've been here a week now, but some matters are still pressing on my mind.

So! Tell me, Luceti. How would you rate the quality of the local hot springs?

Player Name: Gore
Are you new? Nnnope
Character Name: Colonel Jade Curtiss
Character Fandom: Tales of the Abyss

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She quite expected the coldness. Jade grew up to be a very calculative man and it's not the first time he's shown suspicion towards her. She obediently stops in her tracks, nodding. There isn't anything she can think to say, though, so she'll wait for him to ask the questions.]

[She listened to him. That in itself was a good first sign... but he knew that it could always be the replica luring him into a false sense of security. Playing some sick new game with him. And the fact that she was open and inviting to him to begin with - it was unsettling to Jade and the guilt he bore. Knowing by now that Luceti took people from different times, he could only believe that she must have come from before her death. That was the only truth he could accept.

He has to think of some way to test her. To tell the "real" Gelda from the replica. Which one this place had chosen to bring back from the dead. He looked her over sharply, as if hoping to see some telltale sign through such analysis, but failing to identify any clear signs. Aside from how relatively soft and notably not hostile the Professor appeared to be. But as he thought earlier, that could be a trap.]

It is imperative that you tell me... Professor... everything you remember. Regarding the last time you can recall us meeting at Keterburg... and anything that know to have transpired afterwards.

[If she is real, he gathers she may have learned much of his further exploits here in Luceti. But that brought him back to wondering why she would even bother approaching him if she was real and she knew.

Such a touching reunion.]

The last time we met in Keterburg... [She mulls over those words a bit longer, but she knows perfectly well what he means. That one moment in time where it all went awry and a cascade reaction of bad decisions began.]

We were in my house. You attempted to use the seventh fonon to heal an injured monster, but were unable to control it. [Everything happened so fast at that point, not even Gelda's sure she understands what exactly transpired in those last few seconds. She vaguely remembers holding a lantern when she entered the room, but she must've dropped it in the mayhem that ensued and-] ...There was an explosion of fire.

[But even that is not exactly what Jade asked, is it? Anything that she knows to have transpired afterwards...]

I have been here in Luceti for several years now. In that time, I've learned enough about what happened after my death. I heard about it from Saphir, Nephry and even from yourself. Fomicry, that is.

[He cringes inwardly as he hears it all. She really does know everything. Jade feels something sharp resembling pain. But even more than what she knows... Jade is disturbed by the way she recounts it. So calmly, without any... any judgement.

He's afraid of what that might mean. It's very rare for Jade's face to display visible panic, but it is.]

You know. You know everything. I don't understand, Professor.

[He takes a step back and slips into a battle stance. In his mind, this is more sensible than facing the alternative theory.]

If the real Professor remembered that and knew all about- about the abomination I helped to found... [He's trying to keep his cool. Trying so hard. But his face may be cracking slightly.] How could she stomach to even look at me?

[She just shakes her head, looking mildly saddened. She's not disappointed in Jade's past, she's disappointed in his words.]

It's because you were not to blame, Jade. You always had difficulty understanding the meaning of death and even life itself, and I was the one who failed to teach you how to accept it. [She moves her hands into her pockets, her gaze on the floor.]

You weren't the first to think that humans could have the power reserved only for gods, nor will you be the last. What's important is that you learn from your mistakes and come to terms with how flawed humans truly are.

[He stares her down, trying his best to ensure his red eyes blaze without softening.]

I was the one who couldn't see. I was the one who killed you. You can't just excuse that. You can't.

[He always imagined having to get on his knees, to beg for the professor's forgiveness, sparing her every humility that he refused to show even a trace of for others. But to seemingly receive it without any such effort... it creates such a strange mix of feelings within him. It's difficult to accept that it can be so easy. And it makes him feel all the worse about the kind life that he extinguished, soon to replace with pure malice.]

I did do my best to move on and to better myself... as you had presumably intended to better me. And then to better others in turn, to do what I can to fix the messes of flawed humans. [He adjusts his glasses quietly.] But I never forgot. And... Now that you're here, it all seems so irrelevant. It's all just excuses.