|| b.i.r.d.s of a feather__

[rikelusdeverell]

Rikelus threw his arms up into the air as he was shoved aside that familiar smirk cutting across his cold expressions, “So not only do you thieve my coat, but you charge me for your expenses? Sounds fantastic to me.” He snickered chuckling softly before covering his mouth politely and sending another snide remark her way, “I suppose you’ll have me listening to old fuddy duddy music all the way there too Eh?” Ya’know not many people start out as high up in the company as you may think. I’m one of those cases in which I’ve always been at the top whereas some people are like chefs behind the scenes. Where you work your way up serving meals until your wrists rot away.

Meh, either way, ShinRa’s a pretty good deal. Everyone in Midgar lives by reputation; but at ShinRa your just a number which is good in some aspects. Anyone who lives above the plate automatically earns a title, whereas others are made for those who live in the slums. Most people in the slums are stereotyped. They’re not all low-pay workers going in for twelve and fifteen hour days always dealing with a load of shit. They’re not sniveling masses, they’e innovators who don’t live in the slums and the sectors because they have to. They live in the slums because they can, and they’re good at it, and nobody else can live there.

Rikelus quirked an eyebrow at her shedding off clothes so haphazardly and raised an index finger to her mouth stretched that smug grin out further over-exaggerating it. “You’d like to think so; but I wouldn’t mind keeping my stomach in my midsection instead of having you move it to my throat via almost certain death.” Normally he chuckled in the face of death; but a woman behind the wheel always worried him. Even if it were Maji, and he knew she could handle herself quite well with machinery it was just that he didn’t like taking unnecessary chances. Whereas, she of course would leap over cliffs, and bungee jump for recreation with the worst of materials. Living on the edge was definitely one of her strong points, she was like a single gil coin tattering on the edge of a glass table. He just wished he never had to watch it fall.

Rikelus reached into his pocket pulling out a set of wire frame aviators in which the right lens was busted from his scuffle earlier with the computer terminal. His face became frowning and disappointed, and his eyes somewhat glassy as his lips parted slowly, “Hrmmmmmmmmphhh..” Upon feeling distraught about his favorite pair of eyewear being ruined he looked at her with a sad puppy dog look and lifted the sunglasses in respite shutting his eyes before putting them on and forcing a smile, “I’m ready when you are.”

[acidgypsy]

Her rangy shape swayed from side to side as she shifted her weight to test the suspension and tire pressure, eyebrows furrowed in thought with a mental checklist to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and that it worked properly.
Her long legs sturdily propping the bike upright, Maji motioned a coy 'come here, you' with her curled forefinger, beckoning the hapless SOLDIER, and winked.

"Aw. Don't be like that. You know you love me anyways even with my recklessness. At least I'm more entertaining than your Shinra buddies, right?"

Her face shifted into a mirror of Rikelus' own sad puppy eyes, somewhat betrayed by a twitch in the left side of her mouth as she sought to hold down a snicker at his aggrieved expression. So his glasses broke? Big deal. Made him look like a gigantic bug anyways. They could go buy other ones that would be more flattering for his facial structure.

Her sun-kissed shoulders flexed smoothly with a long stretch that settled her wrists on the handlebars, an expressive shudder that ran the legnth of her body with each rapid flex and release of complex musclature harbored in her body. With her hooded green eyes that flickered with the torch of youthful energy and the easy but supressed raw power in her limbs, Alharad resembled a large jungle cat after a comfortable nap in her humid jungle lair. In fact, the whole world was her turf as far as she was concerned.

Miss Alharad kept her lounging pose, blinking lazily at the warm radiance of the sun basking her already tanned skin. Her tattoo sleekly twisting and sliding with her movements, it seemed almost like the snarling Snow Lions on her shoulder, spine, and softly curved yet toned belly pounced and gambolled by their own willpower. In this clear light, the sun illuminated the complex design further: revealing the delicate balance of bronze, copper, sepia, and gold filigree tracing a map over the willowy mercenary's figure.

Almost as an afterthought, she removed her fedora and stuffed that into the side compartment with the rest of her gear as well. The sun wasn't blazingly hot, so it might impede her field of view and require a hand to hold it down on her cranium when they hit the triple digits on the speedometer. Coats and other shiz might come and go, but she never ever intended to lose her hat.

"Well if you're done griping about everything, get on and we'll go. Maybe I'll let you drive after a little while if you're good. Just....no more smacking people with the pretty bodywork if you please. Or I'll break your face."

Strange, how delicately she put that, with her temple resting on her raised shoulder. Narrowing her eyes behind her sunglasses to avoid being poked in the eye by a peculiarly stubborn fliliment of hair blown about by the wind, Maji stifled a yawn with a gloved hand. They'd better move quick before she decided to get lazy and take a nap.

[/size]

[rikelusdeverell]

Rikelus his throat before rubbing his bare hands together frowning slightly, “You’ve got me there I suppose.” A wry laugh escaped his dry features before he also boarded the bike and wrapped his arms around her waist trailing off into deep thought.

Rikelus was wondering where exactly was “The leak?” This was serious business, and not some meaningless question. A leak is a bad thing, especially within our organization. For ShinRa..the element of surprise is almost everything to us. That’s why things had nearly gone bad in a couple of choice missions after the rebuilding..The fact that they knew about SOLDIER was also unnerving. I didn’t mention that to Maji, that quite possibly the people who put a hit out on her had something to do with digging into the Soldier program. SOLDIERS are treated with a type of Mako therapy, among other things to make them stronger. I think it’s creepy, myself, and I’m not your average SOLDIER but there’s a lot of bigger controversy about who may be behind the leak than what the general public perceives. The general public hasn’t a clue what’s really going on for obvious reasons of course the details are kept very secret. It’s not the sort of thing you want Joe Nobody mucking around with. For reasons left unsaid, I think that the man who put the bounty on Maj, knows both me and her personally at some point..

But the leak is just a theory too at that point. Were playing on a hunch, or I’d like to think so anyway. Even now compared to back then it’s pretty hard to get things done at ShinRa with all the advisors. General Heidegger’s gone, so is Yolanda Scarlet. The only person hanging around and he works independently is Reeve Tuetsi, and occasionally Buford Palmer comes in and coordinates the launching of new space tests. Upon reaching a card reader near the outside of the interstate, I watched as Maji pulled the badge out and scanned it giving us access to the ShinRa Expressway. Upon driving down the ShinRa Expressway you notice that the interstate built simply to the large facility was just for ShinRa use only. I felt her hammer down upon the accelerator and the rumbling increased, as she switched gears. I think I was slightly getting use to the motorcycle.

Upon reaching the front gate to ShinRa, the ID badge was scanned again and we were physically looked over by ten armed SOLDIERS who decided to make a snide comment as we were entering. I caught the comment under his breath. “Look who the hard-ass Commodore who’d ever thought he would bring back dames. Usually he’d be eating second class soldiers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Rikelus smirked and before Maji cranked up the bike too much he spoke, “By the way--Soldier report to me at 17:00.” Upon parking the motorcycle, I removed the sunglasses taking a second look at Maji before I cracked a smile tossing them into the garbage shrugging my shoulders. Upon entering the elevator which seemed like a one mile walk from their present position he clicked the number forty nine. The doors slid shut and slowly they started going up on what else was seemingly a while. DING!

The door slid open on the forty nineth floor, which looked to be an apartment block with twenty dozen rooms all different sizes and quality. This block looked like it was for Turks, and high ranking Soldiers. Rikelus walked heading towards the end of the hallway with Maji, that grin still splashed across his smug expressions. He put his hand on a fingerprint reader on the door and the door unlocked before clicking open revealing a rather spacey apartment that could fit six or seven Soldiers.

The place looked fairly standard for a general and with an unfamiliar split level floor layout. Who’d honestly have a partial lab next to a kitchen, and a living room, bedroom and bathroom all rolled into one tiny section. The biggest room seemed to be a library filled with hundreds of books ranging from almost tattered into nothingness to looking like they just came from the store. The fireplace was lit dimly via ShinRa natural gas that they make when refining Mako. The entire place was furnished in modern styling with impressionists paintings adorning the once open spaces on the walls.

He glanced over at her watching her eyes light up like a chesire cat as she ran her hand across a cherry oak book case, and the binders of several graphic novels. I of course turned down the hall off to the right and wandered back to the bedroom opening a closet and tugging off what was left off my uniform tossing it into a pile of other uniforms that were either ripped or ruined. I sat down on the bed and kicked off my shoes before laying back and stretching for a moment. Upon hearing footsteps in the other room nearing my position, I leaped out of bed like a cat landing squarely on my feet and dug my hand through a nearby closet pulling out a jet black T-shirt slipping it on. Rikelus Deverell made his way past the kitchen into the lab pulling out the samples and putting them in a device which analyzed them before taking small bits and pieces from each and putting them all together in a refining liquid before spinning and a countdown timer from thirty minutes started ticking off.

Forget what I said about Maji wandering around she was far from being bored. Or at least doing the most boring things on the planet rather.. She was glancing over a book I had left out, thumbing through the outline of a thick incomprehensible prose from a scientist over theories on Jenova cells. Graphs, charts and diagrams littered the book seemingly not making any sense whatsoever. I put an arm on the thick heavy oak door frame leaning against it glancing into her deep jade eyes. I watched as they moved across the page, her lips forming half words as she read to herself. A few strands of ginger had made their way behind the back of her ear, slipping forward onto her pleasant complexion. A strand loosely fell across her eyes and I had been waiting for that. It was her trademark move…just one of her little gestures drives me up the wall sometimes. “I never picked you to be interested in the reading material..”

"Are you enjoying yourself so far Maj? or is there anything i can get you?" Rikelus added as that smug grin cut across his expressions once more, his features were sharp and Over exaggerated in the light reflecting off from the fire in the dimly light room.

[acidgypsy]

Her eyebrows furrowed in that characteristic puzzled expression, she distractedly shook her head to Rikelus' query and resumed absorbing the immensely complex theories and diagrams spanning the dog-eared pages. The scientific logs, experiments, calculations, hypothesis'... all seeming so simple to the point of uselessness at first glance, had a hidden sea of knowledge.
However, Maji didn't particularly enjoy the feeling of drowning in such a sea, and snapped the book shut with a sharp report, massaging her temple and closing her eyes with a long exhalation. Perhaps she could try understanding the biology contained in the tome at a later date when her head wasn't chattering away inanely with stupid and often random observations. Think of a hybrid of Schizophrenia and A.D.D and you might be close to how she was feeling.

"To tell the truth, I'm not entirely comfortable here. The Shinra Company and I have had some past....disagreements. Most of them violent. I think I broke a Turk's nose once last month. So as you can imagine, it feels a lot like going into a lion's den with nothing but knickers and a wooden sword... and the lion isn't just hungry and mean, but it's got a bazooka and trip mines and a whole other stash of unpleasant weapons of mass destruction."

The book slid easily back on the shelf where she had found it prior to the wide fan of raven and ginger hair as she twirled lightly on the ball of her foot to face the SOLDIER across the room.

"'Nuff of my complaining, though. But seeing as I'm chronically bored to tears, and this is your...er...house/apartment/hobo box/whatever, it's your job to keep me busy."

Quietly padding across the carpeted floor (She had left her boots politely at the door), Majidah ducked under his arm and rested the majority of her side against Deverell's. Not necessarily in preparaion of 'cuddling' as such, seeing as how she was hopelessly clumsy in that matter, but more so to just make him uncomfortable and generally make a nuisance of herself. As usual.

Her small stud piercings in the lobe of her ear pressed on the hollow of the side of her jaw, leaning her head on the arm draped over her shoulder. In comparison, he had a higher body temperature than she did, so a pleasant wash of warmth leached across her own skin wherever his side pressed against hers.

"I don't suppose I could entice you into a rematch for sparring, could I? We got interrupted last time."

After a pause, she added in a sly undertone,

"Or at least set me up with one of those cheeky blighters at the gate. Someone's going to get their butt kicked today. Might as well be the asshats that need a brushing down to remember to respect their officers."

Yanking off her gloves and tucking the cuffs just inside the rim of her pants, she ran her tongue over her fingertips and ran her hands through her windswept locks; restyling it into what she liked to think was a more wild and roguish appearance.
To tell the truth, losing repeatedly to the older and proabably more experienced Rikelus had frustrated her to no end. The possibility of getting an easy handful of victories to brag about was a boost to her ego-- hence the rise in obnoxious comments and mischievous/devilish plots for chaos to play on anyone and everyone in reach.

Well, if the Shinra kids didn't know she was here yet, they would pretty damn quick. Nothing quite matched the localized damage that Maji could when teetering on the brink of boredom.

[/size]

[rikelusdeverell]

[ on the laptop for 10 days, no spell check, no MS word i'll keep pumping out posts tho ^_~ <3 ]

Soldiers have hearts too don't they...i once thought that we lacked the capacity to be loved or show affection for anything other than death---she proved me wrong, time and time again.

His grin widened as she spoke her peace a slight wry chuckle escaped his parting lips followed by a sigh, "Turks deserve such cruel fates especially a firey red headed rod wielding Turk. Although i would've never considered this place a lion's den. Of course the bazooka part is somewhat accurate. Everyone here has got there fingers on hairpin triggers you see with what all has been going on. You ARE with the great Rikelus Deverell by the way.”

He mused before she cut him off and mentioned about his job and what he was here to do. He blinked before his amicable facial features changed to quizically for a moment, “Sparring eh? What am i to do if you hurt me in my condo?” He let the question drop as if it were a ShinRa SOLDIER edition claymore mine.

“Hrmmmmm...we’ll see..whose going to get their butt kicked..” Rikelus canted his head to the side strands of chaoticly spiked azure blue hair seemed a lighter almost grayish color in the awkward lightning of his library. A mat was strategicly placed near an open area near a fireplace, and with a quick twist he wrapped his arms around her leaning back to suplex her onto the soft mushy matt. It wouldn’t necessarily be a hard impact; but, it would be an impact that was slightly suprising. He could feel the warmth on her skin rising as they neared the fireplace.

A book, had been carelessly knocked off a nearby table within their scuffle and the pages flipped open revealing a sort of journal entry that Rikelus had been scribing in daily whenever he had chances.

“The lost heart,
Wanders always finding it’s way alone
Hindered by the sins of our father
The insationable longing,
Which bore the soul,
Leaves me with fragile dreams,
Until i met her--
There was passion and beaty chizzled into her eyes
Upon ancient dreams that bore her soul
i sit and wait as a new dream unfolds
We rise to new heights,
We shiver, and gasp
as a new dream unfolds, and is finally realized
No longer will i brandish broken wings
Nor shattered pride, while the dead lay dying.
No longer will I remain one angry, wounded
old defiant old SOLDIER
Who lost the war
Without firing a single shot.”

[acidgypsy]

(( Meh. Spell check's overrated anyways. I dun like using it. x3))

Maji hit the mat hard, losing her breath from te impact. But no sooner had she recovered that same breath when a book fell off the table and landed open on her face; sliding down to her chest as she sat bolt upright, bristling with indignation. An accusing forefinger juttted out at Rikelus as she recovered her equilibrium from the unexpected assault.

"Hey! I didn't say 'start' yet... That was just cruel."

However, she somewhat belatedly directed her attention to the book nestling in her chest, hooking it with her thumb to read the entry. But that didn't mean she was done with Mr. Deverell. Oh no. Maji kept up her muttering under her breath even as her eyes slid across the flawless paper and the flourishing calligraphy of his entry.

"In fact, when I get up, You're sorry butt's going to be--"

Her voice cut off.

"Until I met her--
There was passion and beauty chisled into her eyes
Upon ancient dreams that bore her soul..."

Was he talking about...her?
A very pronounced blush rose on her cheeks, unsuccessfully stifled by the self-concious Majidah while she gently closed the diary and returned it to the table. But so greatly startled was she that Maji completely forgot about her 'I'm going to pound you into the dirt like a railway spike' routine and spent the next few seconds looking anywhere but where Rikelus was sprawled on the ground.

However, just about the point where the stretch would seem like she was offended, she twisted her body into a strange adaptation of a handspring; scribing a arc through the air before landing again, straddling Rikelus' stomach. However, just to make sure he didn't try flipping her again, she kept his arms pinned under her knees and leaned firmly against his collar with her forearms.

The blush was still there, but she gave no sign of realizing it.
Bending at the waist to bring her face closer to his, instead of her usual tough as nails comments, the sentence that unraveled from her lips seemed so delicate in comparison. Maji's stubbornness dictated her actions here where perhaps a wiser woman would wait to get herself under control before asking the very same question.

"Is that...really the way you feel...?"

[/size]

[rikelusdeverell]

"The purpose behind the Journal Program in SOLDIER is to keep one from going crazy while keeping a mental log of stability or instability of one's emotions and wellbeing. Each entry must be thoughtful and precise to how you are feeling, and each entry must havea minimum of a page and a half each week."

"That's how it starts anyway, and it eventually eats at you until you write all the time and your emotions become overpowering to your rationality becuase of freedom of expression...It'd be a cliche' if I said that you didn't know what it was like to be frightened and alone fearing for your life because you do. We are hindred by the sins of those before us, and are innately born with an insationable longing for another soul. We're incomplete shells without someone else there to help us break free from our bonds." His face seemed somewhat stern before his lips parted and a slight sigh escaped his lips and he continued with his eyes locked onto her visage as if she were a target and he was a cruise missile closing in on it.

"Maji, most people make little or no decisions that concern the lives of others daily, we make more than most people do in their entire lifetime within a twenty four hour span. Most people live their everyday lives with an attidue of oh well it doesn't matter. I know we've both failed somewhere in our lives and we never planned for it ot be that way. WE can't truly be who we are, or ideally what we want to be. Life isn't some trivial game where we can hit the reset button through... WE just lack the internal strength to do so, but you started cracking away at this shell i had built up around myself for so long. I'm too weak to break away from the chains that bind me without you and i know that now."

A smug grin drifted across his face and he chuckled softly as his words floated up to the ginger haired woman who had him pinned down and defenseless. The more he talked, the more he could feel her grip slip into nothing but a soft touch. With each and every sentence that he uttered, he could almost see the hurt in her eyes building from years of burrowing everything deep down and covering it in violence and bounties.

Rikelus paused for a second to let it all sink in before he spoke, "Yes, that's the way i feel Maji, i never wanted to be a Hero or some great mythical living legend of a SOLDIER infront of you. --I just wanted to be seen by you."

Of course she'd probably find out later that he slept all night at the desk as if he was keeping watch for another reason. It wasn't because he was keeping watch, or doing some type of paperwork. In truth he was dealing with assassins, and dispatching bounty hunters on their trail until wee hours in the morning and keeping the information to himself. Eventually he chose to come to ShinRa due to the neturality cause meaning that bounties are off limits if they are within certain boundries.

[acidgypsy]

Maji realized she had been holding her breath throughout his speech, and let it out in one long, shivering exhalation; staring down at the extraordinary SOLDIER with the mop of soft blue hair.
Too tell the truth... she was at a loss what to say or think. Majidah Alharad, the original 'lady of fortune', was struck speechless for the third time in her whole lifespan. she wanted so say something witty, but nothing came to mind... like grasping at smoke but coming up with nothing.

"Rikelus...I..."

Her vision went blurry as she shut her mouth and cast about for a more eloquent method to express her feelings in a sentence-- holding back a confused tear or two.
Why was she crying? This made no sense. There was no plan... no rhyme or reason or tried-and-true method to deal with this. She was loathe to learn anything about this drama crap, but here it was. Staring her in the face with a shotgun rammed against her ribs.

Numbly realizing she was still pinning him down, she released her grip on his arms and instead placed her palms on his chest to prop herself up. Everything form the steady pulse of his heart through his shirt to the soft wash of heat from the fireplace across her back seemed so unreal. Like the feeling you get of a twilight zone before you pass out for various reasons.

So was this what it was like to...love?

With that jolting realization, the heavy, chafing plates of armor isolating her from him for her own safety cracked wide open and left her feeling extremely vulnerable. Not to mention a sensation like having just been smacked in the head with a frying pan the size of a table. But strangely enough she didn't much care.

Maji drew in a quvering breath, held it, and exhaled long and slow to get her nerves under control; bangs fluttering with her breath. She firmed her resolve and tucked her bangs behind an ear.

A tingle worked its way up her spine as she renewed her grip on Rikelus to keep him still before leaning forwards until their lips were inches apart.
To hell with neutrality. In fact, to hell with everything from reason and logic to her insistance of staying apart from everyone else. They'd all go down the drain the moment she spoke.

"Mr. Deverell, I know better than most that under that strutting peacock feather suit of yours you're still an insufferable goof at times. But above all, you were there for me. Now I'm no poet, and that's obvious, but fortunately for you I have no intention of beating around the bush with fancy words arranged on a page and conveniently left out to read."

The painstakingly arranged bundle of hair behind her ear came free again (Unsurprisingly), brushing across his cheek as she leaned closer yet.

"Perhaps I was afraid of this from the very beginning... but I'm not afraid anymore. You, Rikelus, are my significant other. There's no doubt of that."

Translation?
Yeah. That's about as close to "I -heart- you" as she was going to get.
The following liplock made the one bpreceding it seem like a quick sisterly peck and nothing more. This one was intense; tasting of unshed tears still cleverly hiding behind her eyelids, which were now shut.

[/size]

[rikelusdeverell]

Deep within the depths of earth, the Lifestream swirled on in an endless cycle of death and rebirth; everything was one and one was everything. The life of an individual was as if finite as a grain of sand when compared to the amount of life of the planet and everything that lived upon it. When looking at it through a certain perspective it makes you know that you're not even a pinprick on the universe, and perhaps it was better that way.

IT was better for everything to exist within a constant state of harmony, as well as the trivialities of man to be kept separate from the lifestream. A single being defied the workings of the lifestream and created an instability within the balance. Out of this instability came Rikelus Deverell you could say, he sat apart from all the others because deep down inside, he was no different from the silver maned monster that dare summon meteor to annihilate all living life.

He had spent an eternity it seemed forever without a loving heart to be next to until now. He felt as though Soldiers weren't deserving of love until later in life. Rikelus Deverell exhaled slowly as his eyes shut shut tightly and he remained in liplock with her for several seconds until he broke the embrace. Upon pulling back from the embrace he lightly left a lofty kiss on the side of her check brushing long silky locks of ginger hair out of his face.

His heart rate started to slow down, and he was reluctant to breathe at first thinking that he might bust; but slowly he let it out before adding to her, "Fear is what protects us from the unknown, that's completely normal Majidah. I hate to dissapoint you but underneath this strutting swagger of mine is something dark, and hungry. I don't mean to splurge and rant about my inequalities; but you've got to be careful Maj. I avoided people at first because of my inner demons, and their hunger.."

He looked up at her quirking an eyebrow before he chuckled softly as she reached a hand out to smear the sad expressions from his face and Rikelus smiled, "Yeah, i'll just shut up now..." : x

Wash away all my iniquity

And cleanse me from my darkened past...

For I know my transgressions,

And my sin is always before me.

I've always done what i thought was right...

And that was my problem...

I've done many evils within your sight Minerva...

Surely i was sinful at birth..

Surely i'll make up for my inequalities..

[acidgypsy]

"Any beast can be tamed. We just need to figure out how."

She purred, contentedly nuzzling his jawline. She felt... energized. Strange how another person could induce euphoria like this; the last time she'd felt like this ended in tragedy, as he well knew.
Tilting her head to the side, she murmured softly in his ear:

"And by the way, you lost the sparring match. I held you down for longer than ten seconds. HAH!"

Her triumphant cry accompanied a hasty bounce away from him with a quick roll-n'-pounce to her feet, where she cleared a generous amount of space between them both. Maji hadn't really realized she had won until well after the bonding process, and was quick to snatch certain victory when it presented itself.
Smugly running her thumb over her bottom lip, the willowy bounty hunter seated herself on the low cream-hued couch snugly nestled in a niche in the wall.

That worked out nicely...but did that mean they were a...er...'couple' now? She honestly didn't want to ask lest it be awkwardly recieved. So instead of asking, she satisfied herself with savoring her easy win; stretched out comfortably on her side on the ivory cushions, one elbow propped up and her wrist relaxed in such a fashion that her fingertips brushed her lips.

"Weren't you expecting one of the SOLDIER's at the gate to report to you around about now?"

She asked, still sporting a smirk.

"I admit, I'm curious to see how a Shinra officer would handle a subordinate that stepped out of line."

[/size]

[rikelusdeverell]

Rikelus Deverell looked at a nearby clock which seemed like just an ordinary piece of quartz with two hands in a retro analog fashion. Everything was digital now; but Rikelus Deverell had alot of items from the old world in his room which signified that he had taste and savored those days. The piece of quartz pulsed different lights every minute as they ticked by and they were all signified by different colors and hues.

He quirked a brow before responding as the color turned from hues of blue to green finally, "I think he's had enough, it's been half an hour." Commodore Deverell noticed a strange look upon her features they seemed perplexed by what he had said. He went over to his door opening it up, and the soldier was doing up downs, and finally stood saluating at attention.

Rikelus turned around posing one last question, "SOLDIER do you know the exact lattitude of the president's office in Junon?" The SOLDIER paused for a moment before shaking his head and Rikelus raised his voice, "Go find the answer and don't come back until you do.." The SOLDIER saluted him before saying, "Yes Sir Commodore Sir!" with those words being said he made a hasty exit towards the end of the hallway before Deverell changed his mind.

Rikelus quirked an eyebrow at Maji before picking up a stray book that had fallen from the bookshelf during their tussel. Loveless was the name of it, he mused for a moment before replying to her, "Too bad he won't know for days there is no president's office in junon." He heard her laugh gingerly in his dry response and a smug smile slid across his face. He thumbed through the book before speaking, "You ever see the play Loveless Maj'?" He awaited her response before he chuckled softly and continued, "Ya'know i saw it ten years ago and remember it as if it were yesterday. Back then the slums weren't as dangerous with monsters as they are now in Midgar. Things were alot nicer, even ShinRa if you can believe that." He heard a resonating beep comming from a piece of equipment in his makeshift lab.

His crimson red eyes cut towards the labratory and Mr.. Deverell took off towards the labratory checking the readings which printed out on the computer. His jaw dropped as he lifted a vial sitting it underneath a high powered electron microscope zooming in, "This can't be..." He shook his head in disbelief before finally filling Maji in on the details, "The cells are mutating, into something else and reacting to my pressence." It's as if i were calling out to them, they moved towards my movements and a warm feeling was in my hands. Is that what it felt like--what power..this is. I jerked my hand back furrowing both eyebrows heavily before checking the readouts once again and continued to look puzzled for a momennt before he sat them aside. It was a warm fuzzy feeling, that i secretly liked deep down; but it wasn't right. It wasn't my place to play God with what was going on. The darker side of me was calling out to the jenova cells, and i think that may be the reasonf or the monster activity lately. Perhaps something deep down inside me was acting like a beacon for them. I wasn't really sure; but one thing i was sure of was Maji. She had always been the constant within my large amount of variables.

I bit my lip on the inside for a second thinking in reveleation for a moment before i glanced over at Maji and spoke, "You want to go grab something to eat with me?" He awaited a rudeass remark from her before he responded, "Oh and the great Rikelus Deverell doesn't get food taken up to his room often." I don't keep normal hours, and that's ok. I can't imagine getting sleep or at least fifty hours of sleep a week. You adapt when you travel all the time, and jump from time zone to time zone to time zone, sometimes covering three continents in the space of a few days. It gets impossible to run by the world time no matter how many digital watches you have or hours of sleep. You reside within a constant state of jet lag, so for that reason high ranking Soldiers run our own clocks, we sleep when we want to, eat when we need to, week, it gets to be impossible to run on world time. It would be like existing in a constant state of jet lag. We run on our own personal clocks, which are only kind of in tune with Shinra time. We sleep when we need to; we eat when we need to and even people who try to kill you sort of work with your schedule so your not worried all the time due to the powerful empire that ShinRa has, along with allies in the WRO.

[acidgypsy]

Maji sighed in disappointment, more 'oozing' off the couch rather than getting to her feet. Yes. She was that lazy.

"Bummer. But for the...uh..."

A shapely eyebrow arched as she repeated his title with the 'quotation mark' finger movements and a quirk of her lips that was starting to curl into a smirk.

"...Great Rikelus Deverell', I'll suffer to be stared at by the troops despite my better judgement. They can't help it after all... with a femme fatale such as myself in the vacinity."

She struck a pose for a second, two fingers pressed to her lips and the other hand splayed over her hip.

Grasping his hand in hers, she pulled him along to the elevator (Grabbing her hat, forearm plates, and shades on the way out; she didn't trust Shinra workers as far as she could throw one). Soon enough the elevator lights slid down to the G for Ground Floor, chiming over Maji's head as the door slid smoothly open with a soft hiss of hydraulic pistons at work.
At this point she released his hand-- it wouldn't do for an officer to be seen mucking about with a ne'er-do-well mercenary. 'Specially a scruffy female like herself.

Not that it really mattered. I mean... it's Shinra for Pete's sake. She wasn't about to be one of those prim and proper ladies of the office that were tighter than a picklejar. Seriously, have you seen them walk? Maji could swear they squeaked when they walked. Uptight to the max.

Her vacant stare snapped off as she shook her head abruptly from side to side to dispel her train of thought.

"Right. So the mess hall is...?"

Damn. This place was absoflippinlutely huge to the point of ridiculousness. No wandering around without a map for her, that's for sure. All she needed to memorize was how to get to the mess hall, the garage (For her bike. Duh.), and the training grounds if they had one. The merc was secretly wanting to face off against this 'red-headed Turk with the EMR' that Rikelus was talking about.

Er...not that she wanted to break another nose or anything. Nope.

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[rikelusdeverell]

Rikelus smirked mirthfully at her sarcastic outburst before he nodded with his eyebrows seemingly in a puzzled/quirked position for a moment before he pivoted turning down a long hallway. Upon heading down the long hallway, they opened double doors before being immersed in a massive cafeteria. A couple of Soldiers were finishing up on meals, while others talked. Upon seeing Rikelus those who were finished began clearing out of the mess hall and saluated him while heading the opposite direction.

To his left was a buffet of sea food imported damn nearly from every fishing port this side of Cosmo Canyon. Of course they had prepared foods, a salad bar, and quite possibly every fried item available including fried macaroni. The ShinRa mess hall was quite the artery-clogging-eat-what-you-want kind of place.

Rikelus nodded to her before speaking, "Get whatever you want." His crimson red gaze shuffled towards fresh adamantatite tortouise imported in from the beaches of Wutai. A smile shot across his expressions before he developed a medium sized plate of different types of seafood covered in different sauces.

Eventually they made their way towards the corner of the mess hall which was reserved for senior officers and a helluva lot nicer than the other parts which were just horribly old makeshift gray lunchtables. One of the good things about being part of Soldier was the long periods of inactivity between missions, during which we’re free to train, enjoy the company of other Soldiers or departments while basically doing whatever the hell we want. Ya'know were the guys with the big guns. I spent some of my free time shopping; but mostly on books or improvements for my room.. Although it wasn’t really shopping as I spent very little money, mostly using gift certificates given to me by the company..

Another thing I discovered is at my young tenure was that outside of the company, most SOLDIERS don’t really have all that many friends. Certainly, within a company of ten thousand employees, it’s not to say we’re all socially dysfunctional, and so fucked up we lack the skills only to kill, reload, eat, sleep, and reproduce. Most soldiers just don't function as well with people who aren’t ShinRa. We don’t even do well with people who aren’t military.

So I guess that’s why most of the friends I made alot of friends outside of the deapartment and outside of ShinRa on my journyes. I lifted a packet of prewrapped cultuary unfolding it before using my fork in the proper manner to begin chowing down.

"Not bad for facists' eh?" I posed a comment to her grinning showing pearly white teeth before taking another bite of talipa before trying some of the imported tuortise from Wutai which had a bit of a twang to it; but, wasn't half bad at all. "Any questions so far?"

[acidgypsy]

Maji blinked, pausing in her neat divvying up of the lovely Red Snapper on a bed of rice with lemon sauce she snatched from the salads table. She had a knack for classy cuisine it seemed, even when given somewhat lacking materials to work with; improvising ingredients rather than just accepting whatever it was the cook dropped on a platter and served up. Picky? Yep. You'd better believe it.

"Huh? Questions? Nope. Not really. Should I be asking something?"

To tell the truth, she was a little fatigued, both mentally and physically... a nice nap on the couch when they got back would be nice.

Reflectively nibbling on a morsel of fish suspended in midair on her fork, she gazed out across the hall of SOLDIERs; normally bright green eyes glassy. The past few days had gotten her wound up too tight to relax even when she knew she was safe... or at least safe-er than usual. Some of the people that wandered by had a suspiciousl knack of showing up in the same room as she did while still attempting to be inconspicuous.

Majidah rubbed her eyes with the first knuckle of her right hand, blinked a few times, and took a long drink of cold water from the plastic cup-- hoping the icy wash sliding down her throat would help to wake her even a little bit.

"Oh, I thought of a question... how's the research going? Of course I haven't the foggiest what you're doing, but that's perfectly alright."

She smiled, sleepily resting her cheek on the palm of a hand.
Hmm... maybe it was the over-tiredness talking, but Rikelus had realy pretty eyes. And the hair too. How on Gaia did he manage to get it to stay that color? Couldn't be natural. Or if it was, that was cool too...
What about the scars she had seen earlier whe he was wandering around shirtless? Not that was unattractive. Far from it, actually. Must've been a nasty fght to get battle trophies like that.
Idly studying Deverell over the table (and quite unaware of how disconcerting this must be for him), she asked again:

"And a second question; how long are we staying in Shinra? Just curious."

[/size]

[rikelusdeverell]

“It’s going rather peculiar as of late. You see, Jenova cells were part of ShinRa’s treatment for those who went into the SOLDIER program, or for those were less fortunate and became test subjects for Professor Hojo.” Rikelus paused canting his gaze down at what was left on his plate a minute before he took another bite with his fork held properly in between is index and middle finger.

“They had believed Jenova to be an ancient, or in other words, one of the first people native to this planet who were basically hunters and gatherers who could communicate with the lifestream. Upon further investigation of old records discovered by Professor Gast, had had a couple of mistranslations. Jenova was actually a calamity that fell from the sky many years ago, and infected the people of this planet killing them off leaving only the humans who had been warring with the ancient people for quite some time. Eventually they sealed Jenova away until we dug *her* up again a couple of years back.”

His crimson red eyes drifted downwards towards the glass of carbonated water, that he lifted rather precariously infront of his face before taking a sip and shaking it around, “You see how the bubbles always go to the top of the glass? That’s how Jenova cells work, they are activated by an outside force or stimulus, and what’s called reunion happens. It’s a calling, that makes them or the person travel sometimes even great distances in order to become one again. Unfortunatley, there’s been a mutation here lately causing the reunion, which has called several monsters containing jenova cells into the area, along with old SOLDIERs. The problem is that, they’re mutating into something else, because no two people are injected with jenova cells in the same procedure at least they weren’t when I was a small boy. This procedure sometimes resulted in deteoriation or brought several individuals into the mouth of madness after they came to the realization of what they truly are.”

“In other words Maj..I didn’t choose this life that I live..we have no control over it..This life chose me.” The fact that he said we wasn't in reference to her, which was the odd key speaking point that he dropped upon her. He infact dropped upon her a key fact that he's not the only one heavily influencing the Jenova cells across the globe, as well as affected by the consequences of ShinRa and others.

Rikelus Deverell lowered his fork permanently pushing his plate aside before taking another sip of his beverage and sat it aside as well, “You see what I’ve been finding lately that worries me, is the cells of all the monsters that have been mutating and causing disturbances are calling out to me..instead of Jenova.”

Upon another brief pause he lifted a napkin to his face and cleaned it off before balling it up and throwing it at Maji a wide grin sliding across his once serious expressions, “How long are we staying? Well that’s up to you, along with other factors…” He felt that she had a right to know about the Jenova project, as did everyone else. They had committed heinous sins about humanity and the people of the planet without their consent. ShinRa paid for the sins of the father in full although Rikelus Deverell and a key load of other people seemingly had to deal with issues still. Geostigma was another issue that was looming around in the air, which was an unexplained event still.