knightsoflegend | CHAPTER TWO ♔ a sigh escapes from heaven and worlds end

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CHAPTER TWO ♔ a sigh escapes from heaven and worlds end

♬ The Dream Within - Lara Fabian

WHO || Rafael Giovanni, Burt Becksworth, Isabella Alessandro, Finnick Odair, Myrilandel de Tanos, Buffy Summers, Spike, Elena Gilbert, Dawn Summers, Desmond Descant, Jeanne Gar, Kat Samcelot, Mark Sandazhard, Violet Fiore, Sterling Archer
WHAT || CHAPTER TWO: Following the traumatic and tragic events of Finnick and Rafael's concert, our heroes are taken to be interrogated at the police station
WHERE || Concert Hall > Chicago Police Department, Chicago, IL
WHEN || July 3rd, 2013 [ forward dated]
HOW || Actionspam

Nothing is okay.

What was meant to be the Knights' triumphant collaborative effort to cut off Chad Becksworth's bid for total control of NOVA Records, allowing them to follow the trail elsewhere, has descended into chaos. Rafael's songs triggered some kind of reaction in Jade that allowed her to regain her lost memories, only to have their reunion cut tragically short by the actions of a hitman who took her hostage on stage, demanding her necklace. While Myri and Violet attempted to convince him that the necklace did not lie with her, Jade signaled to Rafael that she meant to utilize the distraction to break free - but things went out of control and Rafael's bullets struck Jade instead. The Knights felled the hitman, as the world watched, and Rafael begged a distraught and enraged Des to end his life. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure that only Buffy & Spike could see assisted Myrilandel in healing Jade enough to hang on for a little time more...

Time for people to say goodbye.

In the meantime, the police have arrived, arresting Rafael, Archer, and Des (or attempting to), and preparing Jade to be taken to the hospital. Everyone else is being ordered to head outside to be taken down to the station for questioning. It's a hectic scene, but people can finally snatch a few moments amid the chaos to try to make sense of what just happened...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ wait a sec, exorcist head turn towards buffy ] I would like to know what she thinks she knows about it. [ GDI RAFAEL SHE IS GOING TO SHISHKABOB YOUR ORGANS ]

[ finnick hears archer whisper to spike (listen 13) and becomes disproportionately offended, because on his (relatively short) list of things that make him pissed as all get out is prostitute jokes. it's actually what brought him so close to dumage, ok. he stares at him with a 20 total intimidate check this time so i guess he looks like he's about to leap across the room and homer simpson strangle him......... ]

[Vi's been sitting quietly on the floor with her eyes shut playing with a daisy, shut up, Finnick knots. But her hand shoots in the air when Isabella questions what Buffy might know.]

Is it that he kills people on the regular for the resistance? Because that only looks heroic from one side.

[And when Raf told her he was fighting for the resistance she extrapolated murder. When in Rome...]

[ buffy's voice gets instinctively sharp in response to isabella, because man she just radiates bitch and it's hard not to rise to the occasion. ]

What I think is that your well-disguised [ /sarcasm ] distaste for me and everyone here obviously doesn't mean that much to him, because Rafael told me everything.

[ whoops she rose. she looks to violet. ]

Can you guys please just ... just trust me on this. We need to make sure they drop this before they investigate too far into him.

[ wow gar looks like someone just smacked her across the face. she looks in disbelief from buffy to vi to isa... ] I think perhaps we'd best hear the facts entirely for ourselves. Not all of us have been privy to some things, it seems.

I think I'd rather know what it is I'm covering up. [He takes a step in towards Buffy. He could ask Isabella too, but Buffy's the one he knows.] Come on, Buffy. We're a bit past the time for secret-keeping. [Diplomacy 10 which from Spike is freaking through the roof.]

[ the good samaritan - the pierces ]

I need you to understand. It wasn't my place to tell you. And until now, it wasn't even relevant. Not really. [ buffy looks anguished as she gazes around at her teammates, because it really hits her from the look on gar's face and the plea in spike's voice how she's betrayed them; how she's chosen rafael over them. she swallows thickly, looking down and seeming to fade into somewhere else as she reflects on what he'd told her.

and not really is all she can say to qualify that, because the truth is that he mentioned it because it was relevant. it was an option, and she'd made the executive decision to keep dimitris sandaris alive without any of their input because she'd been more invested in saving rafael's soul, in not using him.

it seemed laughable, in retrospect, that she'd worried so much about the knights using him when he'd turned around and done the same for a chance to bring jade back. ]

Violet's right - sort of.

Rafael isn't just an activist with the Resistance. He works with a secret sub-sect called the Italian Shadow Militia to assassinate the more dangerous anti-Shadowkind figures.

He's been working with them for years, since before he ever met Jade. I don't know how many ... [ she swallows the words, blinking and looking back up at them. ] But, enough that we should be worried about how deep the Chicago Police are digging.

Edited 2013-07-02 04:59 (UTC)

So he's a good guy, but he's still killing people.

[She presses her lips together.]

Juries don't tend to care much about shades of grey.

[ mark looks between buffy and elena with some incredulity ]

Since when is an assassin a good guy? Did I miss a chapter in the hero book?

[Spike raises his eyebrows in surprise, though he supposes he isn't entirely against Rafael's method of dealing with their enemies.]

So, he's not the soulful goody two-shoes he looks like.

[He gives Buffy a small nod, in thanks, for sharing. He can't even bring himself to be too angry. It's still Rafael he's pissed at. This wasn't Buffy's secret to share, but it sure was Rafael's, and if he had another whole secret organisation to bring in, he bloody well could have.]

That anonymous tip. Think it could have been related to it?

[Oh Mark, Violet is really going to be sad when you don't like her anymore after this but...]

Some people need to be killed. Rafael did what other people couldn't, so they wouldn't have to, to protect them. It might not be pretty, or nice, or good. But it makes him no less heroic. What he did... saved people.

[ spider's web - katie melua

gar looks as if she can't decide how to feel or what to say, but she shakes her head ]

The attack on his home... the weapons they kept there, we should have---

Is this... is this why Iscariot has an interest in him? [ she looks to buffy ] How long have you known about this?

November. Since Anderson ... [ she swallows thickly. ] He was there last night for Rafael, again. I thought he might be, but ... Rafael killed a member of Iscariot; he's not going to give up until one of them is dead.

Please. Whatever he did before, whatever you think of him now, we have to help him. He's been fighting for us all year. He's on our side.

Hey, I'm over here with Violet on Team Kills-the-Bad-Guys-Sounds-Good-To-Me. He's still got my vote to stay on the island.

[ she looks at isabella ] But what's that mean for you and Hiro?

[ isabella has been glaring daggers at buffy but actually seems to... stop when most of the room seems okay with the revelation. ] It is something of a long story, but I would tell it, if you would hear. I think you should know everything, as I know it. All you have heard - some of you - is Rafael's side of what happened with Jade, and there is more to it than he would ever say. You need to understand some things about him, that most of you have not seemed to grasp.

[Des has been remarkably quiet through all this. Most people are pretty well aware he's consistently on team "kill what needs killing."]

Well, it's hear it.

[Once Isa had joined the rest of the group, Myri returned to her seat beside Finnick. Feeling a bit more herself, she slipped a hand onto his knee. It was a small comfort, but in times like these, she wanted to offer all she could. It wasn't long before information and hypotheticals came flying from all sides, but it was Buffy's revelation that grabbed her attention. It made sense to her that Rafael might confide in her, and after hearing the truth of it, it only made sense that his combat skills were not a happenstance. She wasn't fond of the idea, but knew that it didn't matter what her personal thoughts were on the matter. He was still their friend and in need of their help.]

I think we will all be better off if we stop keeping secrets from one another.

[Her voice was soft, tired, hurt. It seemed that everyone was holding something back from the others.]

[Archer has a few thoughts to throw in about killing bad guys, and why it's a great thing - but Finnick is still glaring at him, so he'll just sip his Bloody Mary, and wait for something to happen.]

[ remain nameless - Florence + the machine ]

My part in this begins some ten years ago. I had returned to Italy from Madrid, where I had been living with my mother since my parents divorce when I was very young. When I was 13, she had passed away - cancer claimed her - and I moved to Napoli, to be with my father. But over the next three years, the face of the city changed drastically. Violent riots broke out between groups of Shadowkind attempting to move in, and anti-shadow vigilante groups in the city.

It was not something we concerned ourselves with much, at first, as we were human, and did not see it as our problem. Until a riot, ten years ago, in which our building caught fire from the apartment next door, which was housing shadow tenants. My father did not escape, but I was rescued, right before the building collapsed. I can still see his face as he plunged through the smoke, and found me curled beneath a table, weeping and coughing from the fumes. He looked exactly as he does now -he has not changed at all in the ten years that have passed. [ it's hard to miss the wistful note in her voice -or the clear awe of hero worship, although it seems tainted with something bitterer as well ]

Rafael had already been a member of some shadow resistance movement, it seemed, for several years at that point, since the death of his own father for being a vocal proponent of building a temple to Corellon in the city of Venice. But this had been the first time he had ever been armed and sent into a violent conflict to rescue protesters and innocents. But the times had turned to blood and fire, and it had to be met measure for measure. Rafael saw I had nowhere to go -I had my parents money, certainly, and plenty of it at that, and Rafael had very little of his own -only what he made from singing at clubs. He took me in, and together we survived. We had plenty of money to live on, and Rafael protected me, taught me much about the world that I had been blind to. He also urged me to protect myself, and so I began fencing lessons, every day, with the finest instructors. Rafael himself had become quite celebrated for his exploits in the napoli riot, and he was offered a special position in the Italian shadow militia. He accepted, reluctantly. He was learning more and more to live by the sword, you might say.

Italia said that after his dad died he started sticking up for the Shadowkind at school, picking fights -- that's how the resistance found him. [She shrugs idly.] Seems like a natural progression to me.

[ Isabella frowns ]

Perhaps. The militia specialized in the sort of work he had done during the riot - fast response to attacks on Shadowkind, sent to protect those who could not protect themselves. But to do this, Rafael underwent intensive training in combat, teaching him how to react, how to stay cool when all around him was chaos.

It hardened him, in many ways, forged his anger into something sharper. Sometimes it would almost frighten me, how much rage simmered before the surface, the more he saw. He made little time for those outside his circle - no other friends, no time for love.

Until the day she entered our lives.

[ the news about isabella is all new, and buffy listens with interest. it's no wonder she's taken it upon herself to be so protective (overly so, she still maintains) of rafael. but as it approaches a more familiar area of the story, her expression darkens. she remembers this bit all too well, and it still stings. ]

Jade.

[ it's not a question so much as direct clarification. when jade entered their lives. ]

[without a word, des gets up and walks to the other side of the room, keeping his back turned so no one can see the grief on his face. He's been strong for awhile now. it's only a matter of time before he breaks.]

[ so she dances - josh groban

isabella's expression becomes grim, and it is clear as she speaks that is almost as difficult for her to speak of this as it is for some of them to hear it. ]

Si. Jade.

Rafael met her in Sienna - he saw her dancing in a show and was immediately smitten, the way only foolish young men can become with someone they have never even spoken to. He followed her home, asked her to come work for Angelo, who had allowed Rafael to become a regular at his club by this time. Rafael has never been short on charm, and he got her to agree. She came to dance there, and the moment he heard her sing, he wanted to work as partners: sing together. It was difficult to blame him for being drawn into her. She was beautiful, of course, but there was something else. A fire about her, that was unforgettable.

Jade had no stable home of her own, it seemed, and soon she came to share ours. It was not long before she shared Rafael's bed, as well. At first, I was appalled, that any woman would dare to think she deserved him, or that any could actually turn his head.

But... any fool could see just how happy they made each other, and I was young, and naive, and believed then that that was all that love was: two people, who could bring each other more joy than anything else in the world ever could. [ the cynicism in her tone as she speaks of that belief is easily identifiable ] How wrong I would find that I had been.

Jade latched quickly onto the ideals we fought for - it was hard not to, with the passion with which Rafael argued our cause. But things took a dark turn, when an old political enemy of the Resistance brought forth a bill intended to drive dark elves out of the borders of Italy: identified them as 'naturally evil' beings, and even threatened the creation of 'internment camps' for those who would not be displaced. It was almost impossible to believe that it could ever pass, but the man who supported it was very... charismatic, and had far reaching influence. Nor was he above bribes and blackmail to get others on his side.

Jade had a strain of dark elf heritage, from her father, and so you can imagine how Rafael took the news. His friends in the Militia saw this, and used his passion to press him into a role he would never have considered before: they asked him to take the life of the politician, before the bill could go too far. To use fear of the people, and the Resistance, to crush it, by showing how far we were willing to go.

[This is sounding progressively more and more like the start of either world wars... an assassination and "internment camps"? Vi can see why they would want to use force to stop it before it could become law.

But it bothers her, how someone could manipulate Raf's love for Jade in order to convince him to do it and the grating on her already frayed emotions makes her seek out comfort from the flowers in the room, her mind letting them bloom until she can smell them, slightly cloying in the enclosed space. But it comforts her, so she doesn't care.]

Did he do it?

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