ataraxionlogs | Arriba, abajo;

Entry tags:

Arriba, abajo;

CHARACTERS: Mordecai, OPEN!
LOCATION: Space Babylon
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: Mordecai found the bar. Good luck getting him to leave, ever.
NOTES: Prose or action is fine, take your pick. Oh, and feel free to join existing threads or start a new one.

It was amazing how quickly time could pass. Already, Mordecai had been stuck on this damn ship for a week - a week too long, in his opinion, but there wasn't much to do about that. Most of his and Lilith's thoughts on how they might get out of here already had proven futile. Having spent as much time reading the comms as he had, though, that didn't really surprise him. There wasn't much that they'd thought of that hadn't already been tried.

He wasn't about to give up on at least finding out more about the workings of the place, though. There was a lot of information out there that the ship's other residents knew that wasn't written down in any obvious place - he'd learned that much already from Jaye and her descriptions of the ship's interior. He doubted those he really wanted information from - namely, the ship's Captain and Commander - would ever visit the bar and talk openly with the passengers while inebriated. That would be too good to be true. But getting to know a few more people could yield surprising results.

Well, that, and really, he just wanted a drink, so justifying it to himself didn't actually matter. Besides, he was curious about the place. He sent a quick text to Lilith, who he'd never known to turn down a night of social drinking, then headed on in to see who was there, and most importantly, what the regulars recommended he try.

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He grins at that reply. "Cerveza I can do. Lots of it here." He waves a bartender over and has a couple bottles sent their way to be placed between them for easy access. "Now, then. Dígame el cuento, ese."

Fair's fair and Vega's a fair man without needing to be reminded too much; just don't challenge him to a game of Skyllian Five.

He reaches a hand towards the bottle nearest to him and lifts it like it's feather-light, lifts an inch or two further in thanks and wastes no time savoring the taste. He drains half and barely fights the natural reaction to so many bubbles in such a short space of time. He's not winning any prizes for being a gentleman any time soon but he's got bigger things to work on. He recognizes the Spanish for what it is and that earns the guy the quirk of the corner of his lip before he begins to tell his story.

"There's three trials you gotta face before you get your ink. Starts on your seventeenth birthday," he starts and none of this is anywhere near true; when he was seventeen he enlisted - his dog tags, Alliance shirt and fatigues betray what he does for a living - but that's still nobody's business.

"Know what Klixen are?"

Yeah, this guy sure as hell does remind him of Brick. He never thought he'd miss the guy, but the resemblance and the mannerisms are uncanny enough to make him think maybe he does, after all.

He can tell the guy's used to telling tall tales. And if this was his world, he'd assume he was Lance, or ex-Lance maybe, except of course the uniform didn't quite match up. Still, he's seen enough soldiers on leave hanging around Moxxi's bar to recognize the type. He never really associated with them much, though, unless it was a slow night and he'd had enough alcohol to put up with their whole military bullshit long enough for a drinking game or two.

"Not a clue. Guess you better tell me," he says, then has a long drink from his bottle.

It's not like Vega lives for an audience but he likes it well enough when he finds it. Being a soldier means signing up to something bigger than just one guy with a hunting knife and a grenade and Vega's committed to that something bigger, but it doesn't mean he's not comfortable in the spotlight when he gets the opportunity. Don't blunt the knife was what Massani had said to him and it's not like he was gonna - all he's seen so far is humans and he's not exactly looking to get caught up in any fights. He just wants off this ship and back to the war, but maybe something Shepard taught him about not being reckless sank in afterall...

"Like creatures from hell," he says and takes a swig from the bottle his fingers are still wrapped around for effect - he hasn't gotten into any conversations with any of the people he's seen so far, and that's suited him just fine, but now that he's gotten started it's going to take more than a charging krogan to stop him. He sets the bottle back on the top of the bar and sucks in his breathe before he starts again.

"They look like giant crab-beetles and they breathe fire. First task's to kill a pair of those."

"An' I'm guessing they're bigger than a crab or a beetle, or there's not much of a challenge involved," he replied, amused. He's seen a lot of things that could be described as creatures from hell. A couple fire-breathing bugs doesn't sound like a big deal to him, but he could see them being trouble for the average person, sure.

"'ey, they're just the warm-up. It gets better," Vega volleys sounding ten kinds of put out over the comment. He's not really that bothered - Klixen are the least of anybody's worries lately but the Reapers are in a whole class of their own - but he squares up his shoulders and can't help but bristle. When he starts talking again his tone is a little more aggressively macho.

"You survive that lookin' better than a piece of burnt toast you get the next test."

"I take it it's a little worse than some fire-breathing bugs," he replied, sounding amused - because so far, a Klixen sounded about like a Spiderant, and killing one of those just wasn't something to be all that proud of, if you knew how to handle a gun and were over the age of eight.

"Yeah," Vega draws out the story again by taking another long drag from the bottle and drains the rest of the liquid. Gonna need another cerveza soon, ese.

"Then Rachni," he starts after pushing the empty bottle towards the far edge of the top of the bar and shrugs a gigantic shoulder. Maybe he's still telling a story and bragging about where the tattoo's from or maybe he might've been trying to gauge the man's reaction to the creature names he's dropping. Dreadlock, the guy he'd met in the elevator when he first woke up, said he wasn't in the same universe and he figures everybody knows about the Rachni - they're supposed to be extinct, even if Tuchanka said otherwise. Damn Reaper bastards...

"Not just the soldiers but the warriors... look like insects too except they've got these tentacles. Bigger than you can imagine. And they've got biotics too. Pair of those you gotta kill before you get the final task."

Good thing there's still a few bottles on the bar between them. He'd need another soon, himself.

Big tentacled bug monsters really weren't news to him either, and he doesn't look all that impressed. "You're gonna have to explain what 'biotics' are," he says, then downs the last of his bottle before reaching for another.

Vega takes the opportunity and reaches out to drag another bottle towards him. He can sink a fair few before it starts to make his edges less hard, but until then...

"Biotics? 's what happens if you got exposed to element zero before you're born. They can move shit without touching," he explains but he's really not doing it all that much justice. He's never been overly bothered with biotics - he certainly doesn't get his panties in a twist over 'em.

"So you gotta kill something that can haul your ass off the ground without even touching you," he faithfully informs his new drinking buddy and cracks the top off the bottle he's got a large hand wrapped around.

"Not too hard if you just hit it before it sees you coming." Though yes, he had to admit that something with telekinesis was trouble. He didn't know what element zero was, but he was imagining it as something similar to Eridium.

It was likely that the similarity between the two and their potential effects was complete coincidence, but it made him wonder, nonetheless. Nobody back home really knew how Sirens came to be, but up until a few years ago, nobody knew what Eridium was either, and now they realized how much of the stuff was around, buried under Pandora's crust. If the other planets were similar, which wouldn't surprise him, then maybe that had to do with what made someone born a Siren - but then again, there were so few of them that something so common probably wasn't the cause. It was a mystery, and not one he'd make much headway speculating about while drinking shitty space beer.

"I'm hopin' this final task of yours is a little more dangerous than killin' some alien bugs, amigo. So far, doesn't sound that bad. I coulda done that much before I got outta grade school."

Tough crowd. Vega thrusts his chin out defiantly and frowns, regards the guy for a second or two and finally takes another drag of his fresh beer. The suspicion that this guy came from somewhere like Tuchanka is hanging heavier in his mind now. It would explain the lack of reaction where he usually gets it.

"Last is a harvester," he finally says and doesn't elaborate this time. It's a change in tact that he leaves as a seed to blossom. He's told this story before and there's nothing remotely true about it. But maybe this time he's a little more experience with fighting harvesters. Memories of Thessia flit into his mind, the result a harder line between his eyebrows. He shifts impatiently, wants to get off this ship and back to Shepard, back to the Normandy and back to Earth.

Less war-torn, more besieged by competing weapons manufacturers and mining corporations and home to some remarkably hostile wildlife, but Vega wasn't too far off in his estimation when it came to the effects of Pandora on a person's psyche. Mordecai had traveled a lot in his time, seen a lot of places and killed a lot of people, but Pandora was easily the most dangerous planet of them all, and he'd not only survived his five years there, but profited pretty damn well from it. Vega's boasting was a curiosity and little more.

"I'm gonna assume you don't mean some oversized piece of farm equipment," he snorted in response. He had the feeling he was supposed to be impressed by that, but the guy hadn't quite gotten the picture yet that what was familiar to him was clearly not familiar to Mordecai.

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Arriba, abajo;

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