[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've done a few more supply runs.
[SPEAKER_02]: The various levels of success.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's on top of all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it feels like we're kind of spinning our wheels.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know we should be making bigger moves here, but we've been listening to hell enough and put things around and getting small amounts of supplies here and there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know what's gonna trigger this event.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'd be fun if we were doing the training with weapons set to stun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to make sure everyone is ready and can handle themselves in battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Considering we've had a couple of other probably smaller encounters with the enemy or just problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think let's say Helena and Daxden are doing a repair right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: that can explain where they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're doing a repair.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Rams, you definitely have been at your little not little, but you've been at your temple.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ram needs to make sure you're up to speed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, I have been alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not alone, but I've been in isolation with a smaller community for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't necessarily needed to put myself into a fight in that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just like, you'll have... Yes, Ram.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I toss you like a baton.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I toss you a baton.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, You said do we retrain?
[SPEAKER_02]: We train.
[SPEAKER_02]: Captain Anderson are working on the ship.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are docked for the moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's perfect time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I didn't have much else planned.
[SPEAKER_00]: That should be amenable.
[SPEAKER_00]: take the baton and I test the way I haven't held like an instrument of violence in a hot minute but I did join this crew to experience that the first time so it is not something that has gone away completely it is something that I have kind of buried and tried to push under prayer and like you know I beg of the the blue stella and the names that I hold in the stories that I keep to not bring me back to violence but I know violence may find me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give a small prayer and stand out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have some of the tattoos or it's like the red that does not go away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ram is always ready for violence, always alert, always prepared, ready to defend, at least, and has been very bluntly trying to get you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is really the first chance we've gotten.
[SPEAKER_02]: because we are the ship is not in orbit anywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we're on a planet probably just some like rocky stony planet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm picturing somewhere like slightly remote and isolated where we can take some time to do the repairs to the ship, but there's probably some civilization.
[SPEAKER_01]: At least close enough away to things break really bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can go get help but also things break bad there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We could leave before it reaches us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think it's lots of just gray slate stones around us, and the sky is blue, but it's like two blue, like almost two darker blue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that extend to like the sunlight?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does everything have a blue tint?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if the plan that we're on with where we are in the way that the planet rotates around the sun?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just constantly in that same state of almost like before the sun comes up or before it goes down that dark blue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, constantly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a tidal locked planet, so the sun never actually rises where we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just been a city.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've just been the same spot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is probably not happened held by with anyone's mental state.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, yeah, and I'll just stuck here forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can hear Helena and Axton clinking on the far side of the ship as we pass out to go outside to train.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here there is the most anger in their heart takes the first turn to the leading question that your partner will answer is your sparring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, am I who has the most anger in her?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do we need to rock paper so much?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that that key?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if we should rock, like, when we think about, you know, what brought us back, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: How were we before Helen found us?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Ram was just, like, in, in states, it's just going through the motions, just, in hiding, couldn't really leave, couldn't really do anything, didn't have the resources to do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: was just going through the farming cycle and thought Helena was dead and knew you indexed and were the only ones left, but you two went your separate ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just very angry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think for Yohan, Ram always struck me as like, uh, I never quite understood the loyalty, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we all kind of went our separate ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I was, was I the first person recruited to remember like the order?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the first person was fraction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was so loud in the film.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was in first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hellen the same ram per last because she was working on the gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I think it's interesting that despite everything, ram was still like the last person recruited because Hellen has the most like internalized, whatever's going on about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know if I, I think I would have anger for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it would be more so the idea of kind of looking to Ram is being the check and balance, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You had the experience, you were the one who was supposed to be who thought us all naive and you still let like hell and I do all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, good point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I did let her do all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did let her drag us into that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, yeah, I should have, ooh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I might be the angriest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might be angry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: by Johan does have their reason for being angry as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feel so much anger into our backstory.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're definitely outside the ship and we're in just on like a flat stone surface.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the batons can be held as batons, but they can be extended into quarterstaffs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we're just holding them as batons.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm just watching you, because as you said, you have held a weapon in a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm watching you just like kind of feel the weight of it and stretch and do some practice swings and it's just kind of quiet and we circle each other, tense and silent.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I say to break the silence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Johan, you know, feeling the weight, feeling the half-to-bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: trying to figure out whether it would be tons or staff or kind of the most important at the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like the balance of a staff, but it was more helpful when there was a group.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stick to the batons and I kind of point them out, hands out stretched and flip them in my hands to get a feel for their weight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find it interesting that you chose me first, at least to practice one-on-one, not that I would be upset about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the word?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was always similarly disappointed in you as I was in hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I figured this would be a good time to bear that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of flipped the baton, and cock one eyebrow at you, and I say this appointed.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted you to be prepared for what is going to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been sitting in temple, and you need to stand up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
[SPEAKER_00]: and just in trying to focus, Johan's not a talker in fights, not necessarily, they much prefer to talk with like, a non-weapon weapon in hand, like a tea, like some tea or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to have to actually physically fight is a little taxing, but Johan is
[SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, they still took care of themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they swing forward with the batons in an attempt to kind of like just carry all the weight forward into the momentum of one strike trying to get to the broader side of your like chest and shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I block you with one hand holding one baton.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just like one to stop them both.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I catch them both and stop them very easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think to follow that up, I take a step backwards and remember that I am dealing with someone who has more heights and more reach and more strength than me, so I can't just sit there and overpower this, I have to actually fight smart, which is good, like I'm getting back into the rhythm of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to ask my leading question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I expose a dark secret of yours and threaten to tell the world what do I reveal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ram definitely worked for Mr. Veil for Helen's father for a long while before she was assigned to Helena.
[SPEAKER_02]: She may be definitely did some dirty work for Mr. Veil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably killed some people defending him when he unlike Helena who is
[SPEAKER_02]: Helena, she is, you know, a crime lord's daughter, but she was much more, it was much more of an adventure, it was much more of a wild time with her versus Mr. Veil, who was obviously like a criminal and rammed offended him with the same chance that he defended, that she defended Helena.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that because for all the the iron you gave us for being like adventure-seeking naive people, you did the same thing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But you did it with like, oh, I don't want to fight for a crime Lord anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to fight for somebody who's cool and fun and like not doesn't have this baggage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did Ray, I'm also helped make some of those bodies disappear in a way no one else could.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, definitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: She definitely knows how to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, just her, her culture celebrates loyalty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like known for strength and defense.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she did that for a known criminal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll throw in some cultural baggage on my end too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one of the most important things for my religious order is to carry the name of somebody who passed and tell their story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And somebody who makes bodies disappear so that their bodies are never found and they can never be mourned properly through my order.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a real taboo against that idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think Johann, even when younger, even in the earlier part of our being on the crew,
[SPEAKER_02]: probably was smart enough to put two and two together, that if Ram had worked, if Ram was Helen's bodyguard, she would have had to have been assigned by Mr. Bale.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and that you were much too competent to like leave things behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as we continue this firing, it is not an even match at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am very clearly on the back foot 90% of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: and when I'm finally 8th breath, I just go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So does this make you feel better about the people you disappeared, about how you ran away from your responsibilities just like we did?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't enjoy a high horse.
[SPEAKER_00]: I particularly despise them.
[SPEAKER_02]: That catches me completely off guard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Considering I came into this with what I thought were good intentions to actually train you and help you get back your footing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I let go of that first thing you said about me disappointed this, I step back and I say bring up the past, you want to dishonor Ram, you think I think I'm better than you, that's because I am and I need you, I have been holding back this whole time, I hate you so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go flying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tumble and overhead.
[SPEAKER_00]: My robes are a mass.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in disarray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wipe a little bit of blood from my mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, ah, there it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's ram, not ram holding back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I seem to be getting like a delight from teasing like Edgar out of you because you haunts a bit of a freak weirdo.
[SPEAKER_00]: And likes to make people be upset at them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Johan secretly likes getting their ass kicked by- Not even getting their ass kicked, just like, watching people turn based on words that they use.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ass kicking is like neither here nor there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is mostly, could be a plus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's specifically the watching somebody, like, get just the touch more upset.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just watching the screws turn on somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Ram is always so buttoned up and so serious.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hit you with that strength and it throws you in over in, but I don't push the attack.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just standing looking down at you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just say, you have grown so little.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have grown so little and you stand there and say you're disappointed in me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had the expected more from you, Johan.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are so unwilling.
[SPEAKER_02]: to go back to your orders.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you ran back to hide, could you really give your heart to the order?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oof.
[SPEAKER_02]: You say you're disappointed in me, yet here we both are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring myself up slowly, and that definitely stings, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is
[SPEAKER_00]: the reason for the self-naxile, the reason for the tattoos that were supposed to absolve me of this, they didn't, they just reminded me that we messed up even further than we thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that just deflate me to an extent, I kind of, I do despise when you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are moments where I think I did it wrong, where I think that no amount of time
[SPEAKER_00]: working on behalf of the blue Stella will actually absolve me of my mistakes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of my foolish little need for adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about that nightly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I consider it, I turn it in my brain, I wrap it up in all sorts of stories, but underneath it all is just that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That I feel like I've failed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, I'm rusty with these.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't expecting to need them.
[SPEAKER_02]: you are right, and I also hate to win you are right as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I should have done more to stop this, and I gesture to the radish shift and this barren planet, the situation we're in and the weight of that I even just
[SPEAKER_02]: Helena to stop how everything played out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just kind of sigh and I say I've laid all every night as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: How things could have been different.
[SPEAKER_02]: Should have been so maybe this is when we make things different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think as a fun way to end cap it, I'm tempted to resort to physical violence, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm reaching my hand out in peace, like to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to have it be this moment of, I meet your eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your hand is out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're a train fighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see my grip tighten on my baton.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I look to your eyes to see if you like, encourage it or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you push me or do you allow me to see, like, that, like, no, this is a genuine gesture.
[SPEAKER_02]: As serious and strong,
[SPEAKER_02]: straightforward as Ram is this is a serious gesture she is being sincere as little as she tries to show her emotions and her vulnerabilities to all of you she's being serious and sincere okay then I grab hold of your hands voice myself up and I bring up my baton and fling it to the ground next to me
[SPEAKER_01]: the character who revealed the most to use as the closing question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I feel like that was me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like Ram's being horrible here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did a lot of spec ramps to be vulnerable through that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's either part of why I push is like, Oh, either this will make Ram angry and I'll be able to finish this training faster or I'll find out something and I can use that later.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to find out that like, Oh, no, Ram is going to be vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, Oh, I just thought what I wanted.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, you know, I want to go with I keep my guard up and pretend I'm unaffected and I want to tell you how I do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: because I pull you up and we had that moment and then I say still foolish and I just flip you like it doesn't hurt you because I know how to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could not have wrestling through me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just wrestling through you and I'm like, do not let your guard down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had been like two seconds away from saying something very like, open about myself and now I'm suddenly upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just like, you know, you're still on the ground, staring up at Graham.
[SPEAKER_00]: How would you do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were having a thing like a moment of solid dirt, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I set up and I look up and I can kind of tell that there was something genuine there,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I sit back up and pull myself up and dust off my ropes a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to know you're not all stoic and professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always appreciate when I know that I can twist my coworkers just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good to know that you have not lost all of your skill and I kick up the baton back to you into your hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I catch it because we're learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as the two of you continue sparring and I will let you choose the black card or the white card.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one gives us an extra card, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I'm going to pick the card, the regular card and just you can pick the escalate card if you want to escalate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, regular.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to pick the blue deck.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so white and then just goes with the black.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes!
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so, what is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I keep it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so for the escalate one, on a black, I remember the past and itself, and me, what do you remember what do you see?
[SPEAKER_02]: I see as with this much older, much hardened, angrier, Johann, I think I remember the past.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember our old ship.
[SPEAKER_02]: and our old crew and our old ship that had that was larger and had an actual sparring ring.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember the younger, more innocent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I even foolish even then, Yohan, but so willing to help and so excited to be there and ram much more gently training Yohan
[SPEAKER_02]: feeling softened by that and feeling compassion for all these people who'd signed up with Helena because I didn't know what was going to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel I feel that again now.
[SPEAKER_01]: For you, Han, Loyalty is regained.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you keep the card you briefly describe what this regained
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely as Ram is remembering that moment, the scene is kind of, it fades out of that old ship and that old bright combat ring back to this deep blue planet where we continue to spar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and my regain loyalty, it looks like a new belief that Ram despite the, like the horrors of the past that Ram
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe Ram is trying to set up a high horse anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think whoever still here is here to try to make things right And I don't think that Ram is somebody who's actually going to make things horrible or worse on purpose Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: That was so much sweeter than us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I was, I had never as a bummer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was falling especially to have to break and then to pull keep one of you from killing the other, but oh, that was good.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, if there's one you like, but there's this, there's a tone to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not a big fan of we can adjust the tone we can adjust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, some of these are like, are like big gay fight yearning and I'm like, not the vibe that you hunt for is a function.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of these are a little little thirsty sword lesbian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these are thirsty sword lesbian.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, some crews that might absolutely be the vibe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's the vibe of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, there's there's there's there's too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's too much beef in this crew.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much beef.