[It hadn't been a distant thing. The rumble had been here, under their feet.]
I think there might be other stampedes to come, but this was local. This was just a quake.
[He glances up at the mountains, wondering if there's something going on up there, if they're needing to brace for a volcano. Garrus has no idea. He's not an expert when it comes to life on planets.]
[He's there not too much later, an armload of branches under his arm. Some of them are dryer, some of them are green and recently cut. Like Garrus had said, he doesn't care about the neraki's trees.]
[ He pauses, listening to what Garrus says and then following where he looks over to. But he does relax, some, his shoulders noticeably falling. ]
Okay... I guess we're just going to be sitting around and waiting for the next thing to happen. [ He nearly goes to rub at his arms, but stops himself to just touching the untouched skin, and then lowering them back down to hide sides. ]
There's plenty to do. Gathering sticks for making fires or crossbow bolts, uh. I was gonna suggest felling trees, but that could make you more of a target for the natives. Don't do that.
[There's a beat.]
If you know Green, does that mean you have a... I forget what they're called. Companion animal fighter thing?
Uh-- yeah. A pokémon, right? [ He's going to guess that's what they mean. ] He's in his pokéball right now. He was moving around a lot, so I wanted him to get some rest.
[She shoves him a little with her arm, gently, and steps back a bit. She reaches up to rub her eyes, then... and remembers at the last second she shouldn't be touching them. Tutting, screwing up her face as the trickle of tears tickles her skin, she drops her hand.
And then she gapes at Garrus. Well done, Vakarian. You've silenced Tali.] Keelah, I didn't.
[No, she totally did. She can kind of believe it, and her face darkens in a flush.] I don't deserve to live that down.
[And there are still tears shining on her face and she's sniffling every now and then like a child... but she's managing to smile through it, a little. Life goes on. It will go on.] I'm kind of... glad to hear that. It's good to know that I'm still... still me after everything.
[The sentence ends on a slightly upward lilt, a request for some kind of affirmation, though she's not sure if she wants confirmation or just some kind of understanding.] Normandy impressions and all.
[ Dog? He's quick to correct that. ] No, he isn't an arcanine. He's a charizard.
[ There's only a small pause, since he knows he's going to have to explain. ]
He's still a fire type, but he's a flying type too. He's... he looks like a dragon, or so everyone says. [ Enough for him to remember, anyway. ] Do...you know what a dragon is?
[His mandibles flare out a little when she starts smiling and flushing. The blow is still there, but it's softened.]
It only happened a few days before I got here, but I think it's burned into my mind for the rest of time. Just like Wrex, Grunt, and Zaeed taking shots at the bar. Firing shots, not drinking them.
[A beat.]
Grunt's another krogan, as you could probably guess. Zaeed's a human merc. Took some time to grow on me, but he's not bad. And don't worry. Grunt got more drunk than you did.
Your world has two sorts of fire breathing pokemon running around it? And yeah, I know what a dragon is.
[Okay, maybe Red's got to have some survival skills despite his size. Anyone who makes it on a world that has multiple things like that isn't as vulnerable as the earlier fall indicated.]
Yeah...? [ His people? He doesn't quite understand that, and it makes him wonder for a moment before he decides to go on. ] But there's more than just two fire types; that's just the two me and Green have here.
He's probably got more somewhere, but... since I dropped down the first time, I only had Charizard with me. All my gear was missing too.
[ He's squinting here briefly, because Garrus is asking him to put a number on something so big. ]
I don't know. There's all kinds in the wild. [ Mm. He's tilting his head, he's trying to think. ] You've got charmanders, growlithes... I've seen a lot of growlithes and vulpixes, actually. There's pontya too... and then you've got the flareons that eevees evolve into if you give them a fire stone.
[ Wow, you're really making him go through his pokédex--and don't think he's stopped just yet, he's bringing up a hand and tapping it with his forefinger. ]
Oh, and then... there's magmars. They're not too popular in the wild, but they're another fire type pokémon. [ He stops with his hands. ] And then you've got Charizard's line. They're all fire types.
We've got other types of pokémon too. They're not all just fire types.
[That's multiple types of things running around setting fire all over their world. Garrus has seriously underestimated the survival abilities Green and now Red bring to the table, clearly. And there's not just things that can set thing on fire, either.]
Had no idea there were that many pokemon. You coordinate and train multiples, then? At once? Because you said 'only' Charizard.
[And it clearly takes a lot of focus and work, as Green hadn't been sure about additional training for things to do alongside the pokemon.]
[They go up against these things without abilities? Come to think about it, he never did ask how Green wound up working with Arcanine. He's kinda impressed.]
It is going fine. [He had refocused the anger of the previous day into the current project, but had not refocused the current hangover into anything productive so he's working away with a tight squint under his heavy brow and wishing for all the world for a pair of sunglasses.]
[But the world is a horrible, cruel place and has never liked Niko Bellic, and so the he can't tell the light to fuck off.]
Got some people willing to help. Corvo is probably pretty good for it.
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