Empyrea

[SiberDrac]

Chris threw a glare at Carpenter. "When you have sex with my mother, then you can call me 'kid.'" Yeah, and if he has sex with Al's mother, I'll slit his f***ing throat, Jesse added. Apparently, Carpenter's cool-factor did not outweigh Jesse's loyalty to the trio's shared mother. "It's a simple boolean. Yes; no. If; then." Her voice was sharp; she had been interrupted from a study.

Chris... he is stronger than I am... Alex warned timidly. Chris just sniffed. "I apologize if that's rude." ...thanks... I guess.

She continued only after hearing Martin speak, and the arguments and cross-questioning involved. Now this was news indeed. "Generals? So you had an army before they came in? Sounds like a thin argument. You knew someone was coming, or you were planning to expand. There's no other reason to have an army," she asked of Carpenter, her gray eyes having shifted to his with no hesitation.  

[NativeForeigner]

Carpenter was at a loss for words, he felt anger rising and his glare hardened. The girl squeeze Carpenter's neck tightly, not wanting him to start yelling again. Carpenter closed his eyes and calmed himself.

"Those doors lead to other areas in our world. And do you really think we're all designed for combat? Have you seen Mick? Or Mary? We had no plans to lead an assault, where would we lead it to? We have no idea where you bastards came from and we've been living peacefully side-by-side with their world for years. Though no one there would know any better.

We had an army to protect ourselves. In a place with so many instabilities, portals, and our connection with Corona, there's no telling who or what will come from where and when. And we know very little about the world where all these Guests you keep inviting come from, for all we know, they could amass an army and invade us through the manor, you all saw how easy it was for them to get through to our world."

Carpenter steadied his eyes with Chris', "Where would we expand, honestly? If you spent a little more time in our world, you would find there is very little to expand to."  

[Jokerman-EXE]

"Then," Martin interjected, "you expected people to be coming to your land anyway? You said yourself that you were aware that people and beings could come and go at any time. This, then, implies that you would have to have been expecting this circumstance: that you would come to face with some disease. Did you plan to ostracize them as you do us?"

He shook his head. "Your story does not add up, sir. You were either prepared to attack, or waiting for an excuse to defend such that you would destroy whoever came into the area. You're either a predator or a monster."

Henry could barely keep from laughing aloud. Intrigue like this was the pinnacle of entertainment to him.  

[NativeForeigner]

"Do you really think we expected what you brought with you? An army, not only larger than ours, but filled with sick, inhuman freaks? And a disease that wiped out most of our army and our people? Then you just brought every one of us that got sick over to your side once they lost their mind.

Maybe if you had actually come looking for help, we would have helped you. But instead, you came and you were hostile. What were we to do? We didn't kill everyone from Corona that came here, in fact, some even decided to stay, others decided to go home. We weren't hostile towards them because they didn't come here and start destroying everyone."  

[Isa-sama]

Ton'yell remained quiet all throughout the argument. Yes, Chris did get what she want, but she never had to face Ton'yell in an argument before. This wasn't something that Ton'yell could bully her way to getting what she wanted - however, a young child asking questions would go a lot further than she could. So she would glean what she could from all the information given.

Both had armies. Workmen because they were worried about others coming in. MADmen because they didn't know what they were facing. Well this was something that Ton'yell could both contemplate and appreciate.

The Workmen having an army was no surprise. After all, they wanted to keep their people safe. And they knew that there were people who could come into their world. Why not try to keep as safe as possible? Heh. Almost reminds me of home. She didn't grow up in the nicest of neighborhoods, so she could understand the need to prepare for the worst in order to keep peace and safety. Now if only I'd been prepared in college against men... That was the last time she kept her guard down.

As for the MADmen, it did make sense for them to have some soldiers. After all, they were entering new territory and had no idea what to expect. But to use the sick people as an army? Wouldn't that just infect more people? Especially the natives? The MADmen only made themselves more enemies, which seemed pretty stupid in Ton'yell's mind. Especially if they lacked scientists - wouldn't it be better to keep the scientists safe?

In the end, they were both at fault. One for bringing a disease and assuming hostility from the Workmen. The other for taking the disease as a sign of war and raising defenses. Both assumed the worst in each other, which basically led to this whole mess. But why would they listen to reason when they could just beat each other up? People tend to be swayed more by emotion than anything else.

So Ton'yell now stated her opinion. "You're both at fault. You both have to share the blame for all this tragedy. I suggest you put aside your hatred and fix this problem. Otherwise, we'll all die. After we fix this disease, then we can return to hating and blaming each other for our grievances, all right?" The issue was not who to blame - the real issue was how to cure the disease; something that it seemed most people forgot.  

[Elesariin]

The girl just sat there silently, her arms folded tightly around Carpenter's neck, looking like a much younger child holding on to a parent or older sibling for comfort and/or safety. She was biting her lip, and looked as though she could start crying at any moment. Everything was just so... tense... "I want Mary," she murmured. She did, too. She didn't like the idea of Carpenter and Shepard not being strong enough. What did that even mean? Of course they were strong enough! They always protected her and looked out for her...

Then, quiet suddenly, almost as though she'd physically heard something, her eyes snapped over to look at Henry. The expression in them was caught between consideration and curiosity; her shift in focus seemed to have completely gotten rid of her fear... at least for the time being.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Shepard was fairly growling to himself throughout the exchange.

Martin was going to press the advantage, but read the situation correctly: doing so would alienate Ton'yell and, probably, the rest of the potential recruits. So, he would allow the conversation to flow and take over again if needed.

Henry looked at the girl evenly, a slight smirk lighting his face from behind the sandwich. He did not appear hostile or even dangerous, simply...malevolent, almost. He watched the proceedings with an amusement that bordered on evil, somehow.  

[Elesariin]

The girl cocked her head very slightly to the side, apparently not unnerved or even surprised by the somewhat eerie smile. Those unnatural, bottle-green eyes were fixed on his face, and the expression in them was reminiscent of a child looking at a particularly interesting bug.  

[thegoodsamaritan]

<>

Jasper had stayed silent throughout the entire argument between the Workmen and the MADmen, and, quite frankly, he agreed with Ton'yell completely. The both of them are blithering idiots, he thought angrily. Although, the Workmen seemed to be at a disadvantage in this situation, what with the strange disease infecting their ranks. And plus, there was still the whole "turning Santa into Freddy-freaking-Kreuger", for God's sake. However he sliced it, though, it all added up to one thing.

"The way I see it," Jasper spoke up suddenly, "Miss Jordan is correct. It is this disease that is the true enemy." He glared slightly as he took looks at both groups. "You two have been fighting the wrong thing this whole time. If we find the cure to this infection, we can undo whatever wrongs have been perceived between the two of you. And therefore, we can stop all of this fighting, right?"

He took another sweeping glance. "I say we find whatever's killing you both, cure it, and, if you're still raw about anything, go back to killing each other later."  

[NativeForeigner]

Carpenter sighed and faced Ton'yell, "You know that won't work, kid, the moment we try to work with them, they'll stab us in the back. They're savages."

"Hey now!" Maria interjected, "You'd sooner kill us than help us!"

"You know that's not true, maybe if you hadn't come in and started attacking us unprovoked, we'd be more willing to help. But we can't trust you, we've tried, and that ended up with even more dead. If you haven't noticed, the MADmen are working with the disease. Remember those crazies you fought in the manor? Their work. They're using the disease. I'm almost positive the cure they're supposedly looking for is just an excuse for them to go romping around in other people's lands. They're using the disease, they don't want to cure it, they want to evolve it."

He turned his eyes to the girl and gently shushed her, "Mary's not here right now, Dawn, don't worry, we'll take you to see her as soon as we're done here." he assured her. He turned his head with hers and stared curiously at Henry.  

[Elesariin]

The girl--or Dawn, apparently-- blinked. "Huh? ... Oh. Okay," she replied distractedly. She paused for a long minute, then frowned slightly. "I don't like him," she said bluntly, indicating Henry. Then she blinked again, and looked at Carpenter curiously. "Why would they turn people into crazies? I mean, if they want help from guests, it seems kind of silly to make people who would attack them on sight, doesn't it?"  

[NativeForeigner]

Carpenter chuckled softly, "They're MADmen for a reason, aren't they?" he told Dawn before addressing the others, "If you want, you can go ahead and try to make peace with their "army", they'll rip you to shreds before you utter any words of peace. You notice how they seemed stronger, numb to pain, how their blood was brown? Well imagine that, multiply it a few times, and add monstrous deformities. And they're just as mindless. That's the brunt of their army."  

[Venom3001]

Andreas blinked. "Hold the ******** up," he interrupted. "You. Top hat twins. The MADmen weaponized a disease so would have a vanguard in your search for a cure for said disease? No qualifiers, just answer me - yes, or no."  

[Isa-sama]

Ton'yell appreciated Jasper's similar opinion. However, once hearing Carpenter speak, she resisted the urge to smack her forehead. Oh. Right. I forget that they're too emotional. They can't forget their paranoia of each other - though they have good reason for it. Still, this was rather stupid. It's all a matter of the disease, and working together they could cure it. But no. Instead, they STILL point the finger at each other not trusting that they'd be safe.

I'm going to get a headache by the time this is over. She listened to the little girl state her dislike of someone. She looked over at Henry and could see why the apparent dislike. The man looked rather sinister.

And damn it all, the bug was crawling up her pants again. She looked down to see it, making it freeze in place. "You're not leaving me alone, are you?" she muttered. I refuse to swat at an acidic bug. I've no idea when it'll turn its anger on me if I keep doing so. She looked away; while she was a little tense, she did nothing to prevent the bug from climbing. The bug now (happily?) crawled all the way to her right shoulder and perched itself there.

She heard Carpenter speak about the MADmen's army. She knew they were stupid to try and use the infected as part of the army, but to make up the majority of it? Forget stupid, that was cruel. Especially when they should have known that they'd be infecting others...what were they trying to do, create MORE infected to research? Panic made people do stupid things, but this was just horrible.  

[NativeForeigner]

Maria shook her head, "Nonono!" she said curtly. Her lipped twitched as she tried to resist saying more.
She couldn't do it.

"We didn't weaponize the disease, it weaponized itself." she said, adding a qualifier despite Andreas' request not to, "We just decided to utilize it since very little of our army was left uninfected."