Log - Rey & Inferno in the Capital Who: Rey and Inferno What: Rey has a problem and Inferno is going to help solve it When: Thursday 20 August Where: The Capital, Theatre District Warnings: Comic-book violence, language
Rey had been in town to visit a friend from her university days and dinner had run late. She'd parked in the theatre district to be sure the lot didn't close before they finished, and now she was hiking back from the far end of the Theatre District when she realised she was being watched. The street had mostly emptied out; the shows were over and the theatregoers had dispersed.
Rey wasn't exactly alone but she was probably vulnerable. She glanced round to see if there was anything she could use as a weapon if she needed it. Perhaps a little late, she recalled Ren and the theatre professor, and all the connections between the University's theatre program and the district.
Perhaps parking here had been a bad idea after all. If she was going to be a target, she ought to consider spending less time in the heart of the enemy's territory.
Inferno’s mission for the evening had already been completed. After personally dismantling some new fuckhead who thought he could step into Katagawa’s shoes and take over the dead man’s role, a new lead had been found and it brought her ever closer to decimating the entire organization. The vigilante kept fucking ripping them apart and somehow, somewhere there was always more. It was maddening on some levels. How did more people want to be so deeply twistedly disgusting? It made her insides feel like a growling, venomous and vitriolic beast that needed to be satisfied. Destruction would help… But she’d already finished that task for the night.
The want to dismember and maim was still there. It would have to wait until her next target. That might be a while though, it wasn’t smart to string such brutal take-downs so close together. It was a good thing that the cops never seemed to care much about ‘the crooks killing each other’ and fuck were these assholes certainly the bad guys.
Thoughts circled her head as the motorcycle sharply leaned to take a corner, almost dumping the bike but not quite, as something suddenly--
Something wasn’t right.
Inferno’s grip lessened on the bike’s throttle allowing the engine to die down a bit and the bike to glide as it slowed but continued to roll down the street. There were too many signals here. Signals she could feel and hear but not see. It was like people were trying to hide but… Didn’t realize their phones and electronics still made them stand out. The technology they carried still made them loud.
The street looked dead in front of her but it didn’t feel dead. Inferno could feel the movement of phones in pockets, some other device - a weapon? - that hummed with energy and technology, and…. And…. Something else.
But what?
Another corner was sharply taken as the bike continued to slow, no new gas being fed into the engine from the loose grip at the throttle and-
….. Rey…….?
The person walking down the street was still some ways always so maybe it wasn’t - the helmet zoomed in and - yeah, okay… What the hell was Rey doing in this part of town at this time of night? It didn’t look like anyone else was around but fuck did it sure feel like something was there with the low hum of technology that no one else would ever hear.
This wasn’t about to end well at all.
The bike came round the corner off the side street onto the main drag. Rey could almost feel the focus of the attention on her. She reached for a shovel that was stuck into the dirt of a small pothole repair project along the edge of the road. With the Force, she gave a pull and the shovel-head dropped off with a ringing noise as it hit the concrete sidewalk.
Before her, two people emerged from the shadows of the side door of one of the theaters. She could sense others behind her, and still others across the street. All nondescript, none particularly inclined to excite notice, unless you were looking for them and they had already been looking for you.
The shovel handle wasn't ideal but Rey had always been better with a staff than a blade anyhow. She shifted into a defensive stance, prepared to put her back against the wall if she needed to. Or to run, or to leap onto something to get out of their way, if they could be shaken off in that manner.
That was when they moved to close in: two from the front, two from behind Rey, and the two on the far side of the road. The ones before her arrived first. One met the business end of the improvised staff with the handle still attached and flew back with a grunt. The second tried to get inside Rey's guard but found Rey had already pulled the handle back. She used it to block an unarmed strike and sweep her attacker's legs out from under them with a booted foot.
There was Rey and mysterious people emerging from shadows and Inferno had been right as the fight broke out and more shadowy attackers were advancing: This was trouble.
It was a good thing Inferno lived for trouble. The bike engine would rev loudly, attempting to draw attention and to hasten the speed at which Inferno flew down the stretch of road way and she’d shift back, pressing the weight of her body down into the foot holsters of the motorcycle to stand upright on the bike before leaping off of the bike, flinging it as best she could towards the two across the street - it would slow them down if nothing else - while propelling her own body towards the two advancing behind Rey with a roared growl that boomed through the helmet’s speakers at a volume that was clearly digitally assisted. It would draw attention to Inferno and might possibly cause some people to look out onto the street as well if anyone lived around the area, but either way? Getting these fuckers off Rey? That was the goal right now as her brain was already tracing the digital feeds for video and audio recordings and altering them all to mask the conflict her and Rey were about to have. If it was cameras or something else.
The leap from the motorcycle ended with one slipping out of Inferno’s range of grasp while the other was pulled into a full on head-locked take down. The man’s body was flipped over Inferno’s own body, his back hitting the pavement hard and Inferno was already pushing up to her feet and towards the second person who had been trying to sneak up on Rey.
Another booming growl and a fluid movement retrieved the shock batons from their holsters, extending the devices and activating them to a full electrical crackle.
“COME ON!” Inferno boomed at the one she now clearly had the attention of through the voice digitizer as the electrified batons sparked and hissed in the night air. It was also an attempt - passively - to let Rey know she wasn’t fighting these assholes alone, and for these fuckheads to know they weren’t taking on some helpless girl walking down a street all alone.
Rey caught the bike's arrival and was ready to protect herself from whoever that was, too, until the rider threw the cycle at the two Snakes--they were Snakes, clearly, they moved like them--coming from across the street. Rey shoved the bike straight into the pair of them with the Force, hard, and one of them went down with a noise that suggested they wouldn't rise easily again.
She ought to be sorry, but she wasn't.
The rider and her batons were between Rey and the Snakes approaching from behind. Rey clocked her second opponent with the metal shovel handle right in the head, which made a satisfying crunch as the Snake collapsed.
Snake number two from the pair that was crossing the road had made it around the bike and was drawing batons of their own, and the first Snake that Rey had dropped was trying to rise. She wanted to say something to her would-be saviour but she was a little busy. Something else caught her attention as she took another swing at the Snake halfway to their feet in front of Rey. "Ware the roof," she warned, as another pair leapt from above to half-climb, half-fall down the tall Majestic sign.
The extended force on the bike push? It wasn’t completely caught but it wasn’t completely missed either. Something about how the bike had collided hadn’t seemed quite right - physics and all that - but Inferno didn’t have the time to question it or even think about it more than making note to review the damage to the bike later.
With a target immediately in front of her there were more important things at hand. The left baton swung cross body while the right baton tried to catch the enemy if it dodged right on a downward swing but both swings would miss causing Inferno to growl through the helmet’s speakers and drive forward towards the enemy as it fell back. It was then the call out was heard and charging forward a quick scoop down was made to retrieve a large bowie knife from the side of Inferno’s boot and sent it - at as full strength as she could muster, which was pretty damn hard - flying through the air. If she’d timed it right and aimed it right it should have planted firmly into one of the new arrivals chests. If she hadn’t? Maybe she’d pull it out of the building it was likely to be stuck in later.
For now? This dodgy asshole in front of her needed to go down and now. The inside of the helmet flashed to life, light almost seeming to brim from cracks in the thing, as datalines ran across her eyes and all tech the asshole carried - HOW THE FUCK DID HE KEEP DODGING HER SWINGS!? SHE SHOULD BE FASTER THAN HIM?! - would begin to explode. A phone, a watch, anything and everything with a battery she lit it the fuck up. A series of small pops would be heard as the person screamed from the heat and acid and finally Inferno got a baton upside their head causing them to crumple to the ground before whirling around to check what was next.
“Watch it!” Was yelled out towards Rey as Inferno wasn’t sure she could close the gap in time but sprinting as fast as she could regardless. The fucker had been trying to lead her away, to make it so that Inferno chased this asshole and the rest could gang up on Rey. Inferno was damned if she was letting the fucking happen though and that was obvious as she sprinted back towards the main space of the fray.
But Rey already was watching it, and moving, and faster than Inferno had expected. She finished with the Snake she'd knocked down initially and moved out into the street to dodge the pair leaping off the Majestic sign. The knife throw had been excellent but Rey had felt one of them knock it aside with the Force.
It was three against one, or against two, counting the biker, who was doing a great job for someone without Force training and who was also about to rejoin Rey as quickly as they could. "Got it," she called back, and met the batons of the Snake who'd crossed the street to get her with her makeshift staff. There was a moment of corps-a-corps that was clearly meant to hold Rey in place while--yes, there was the knife in the air; Rey released the staff and knocked the blade out of the air with her hand and the Force in a gesture that was clearly a reflex--the staff clattered to the tarmac.
Only for a moment. Someone tried to grab it; Rey jerked it from their hand with the Force and it flew to her.
There was a lot that could be overlooked. How much easier the car engine had come out when they’d fixed Rey’s car together months before, the weird extra momentum on the bike, how her knife hadn’t hit the intended target, but what couldn’t be overlooked was how a fucking shovel handle flew back into Rey’s hand as Inferno charged forward, flipping the left baton to a downward position while the right remained held upright.
The distance was cleared in seconds as Inferno was fast and a jump into the air with a hard swing of a sparking electrified baton downwards forced one of the mooks back out of the circling dance that had been started with Rey and allowed Inferno to slip in, up beside the other woman close enough to stand side-by-side but also still out of reach of each other.
“Friends of yours?” Came gruffly with sass through the voice digitizer as Inferno’s stance lowered, hunkering down to prepare for a brawl as the batons remained held between attack and defense.
"School rivals," Rey answered, a bit of wry humour in her voice. If she recognised who was under the helmet, she wasn't saying anything. The Snake that Inferno had hit started to rise; Rey shoved them back with the Force and they hit a trash bin on the side of the street with a thud. They did not rise again.
To the remaining pair, she said, "Last chance. Go crawling back to your master in failure, with bruises and breaks or without them."
There was a chortle from inside the helmet, brief in nature and gone as quickly as it rose, before the leather of gloves squeaked as Inferno’s grip tightened on the batons. A low, animal-like, rumbling, throaty growl projected through the helmet’s speakers at the Snakes before them.
“She’s nicer than I am.” Inferno growled. “The batons are the nicest thing I pack.” A surge of energy flowed through them causing electricity to leap around the extended metal shafts.
However, it would appear that the combination of threats would not deter the two remaining as they glanced between each other and both fell back into combative stances. Inferno’s laugh echoed through the helmet’s speakers as she dashed forward, clearly aiming at one so that Rey - as she’d shown she was quite capable at this point - could take the other fucker down.
While there were powerful warriors among the Snakes, these last two were not among them. Rey quickly disposed of hers, knocking them to the ground and hitting them with the shovel haft: this time more kindly, with the wooden end. By the time she turned round, Inferno had disposed of the last of the Snakes.
"My car's in the garage," she told her saviour. "Stupid. I thought it would be open late because of the show. I should have known better."
It was way easier to out pace and over power the last one. A few hits would be landed against her armored motorcycle jacket that elicited a wicked barked laugh. The fight would end as the shock baton cracked against the Snake’s skull loud enough to easily be heard and his body unceremoniously hit the pavement a second after.
There was a grunt at the information provided and Dante’s eyes narrowed under the helmet.
“What the fuck was that?” Was the question asked, the voice digitizer still active as the electricity of the batons died away and Inferno ducked down beginning to check the goons pockets for any clues or leads they may carry.
"They're the Snakes. That's what we always called them, anyway. Their order has a long name but think of them as ninjas. They can use--call it what you will, but they're basically souped up martial artists with a touch of power of their own. Just enough to make them faster and stronger and able to go down the sign--" Rey gestured at the Majestic's vintage marquee "--without killing themselves.
"I don't expect them to have any ID on them; I need to make sure my car hasn't been tampered with and we both need to get out of here. Eventually the Capital Police will show up." The last sentence carried more urgency than the rest of Rey's explanation. Overall she seemed remarkably calm for someone who'd just had a squad of ninjas attempt to grab her.
The whole thing left the hair on Inferno’s skin standing on end, well, if it could stand on end underneath all the wraps and pressure bandages and gear. She knew Spider had powered people amongst her ranks, had gone toe-to-toe with a few already, but an idea of an order made entirely of folks like that? That was a whole other can of worms. Admittedly, the more Inferno dug into Spider and the organization the more she was finding they all had… quirks. But… They were focused on crime not on... On collecting people with powers into one group.
A low displeased grunt would echo out from the helmet’s speakers as Inferno ditched the unconscious goons and moved up beside Rey.
“Let’s get you to your car.” Came the low digitized rumble of words and Inferno was gesturing for Rey to lead the way. She’d come back for the motorcycle later and worst case scenario she kept it off the books enough that it’d never be traced back to her anyway if she had to ditch it too.
"It's in the garage," which Rey said with her characteristically British emphasis, sounding more Scottish than usual. Most of the time her accent wasn't that noticeable, but the stress of a ninja attack seemed to be letting it out. "If the bike isn't working, we can throw it in the back. Then all we'll have to worry about is any video." It was something like amazing that nobody had come along, or might have been if Rey hadn't understood the nature of the ambush. Anyone who came too close had found themselves under a suggestion to do something else for the next little while.
Rey led the way into the aforementioned garage, which was an older structure a half block down from the theatre whose guts had been rebuilt with modern concrete infrastructure. She'd parked on the ground floor, and dropped to her knees to roll down and peek underneath to make sure there were no additions on the undercarriage. "Looks clear," she told Inferno.
Another low grunt was all Inferno would respond with at the information of the car being in the garage and her motorcycle fitting in the trunk, they’d scale that fish when they got to it. A snapping together of boots quickly adjusted the trajectory of her walking. Long, swift strides were taken to speed them to their final location next to the car and while Rey was dropping down to check underneath there was another displeased sounding grunt as Inferno heavily put a hand down on the car with enough force to engage the shocks. A few seconds would pass as she checked through the systems before the hand was pulled back and the car would rock back to its original position with struts and support systems fully extended once more after the weight had been removed.
“It’s clear.” A beat as Inferno turned to face Rey. “All the videos and your car. Get out of here. I’ll handle my bike.” With that Inferno would step back, crossing her arms and letting toes tap impatiently.
“I’ll take off once you’re clear.” Because if some fuckwits wanted to play Inferno would be god damn happy to.
Rey nodded, satisfied but not surprised that the cameras were handled, and apparently unsurprised at the gesture with the car. "I didn't think they had time to do anything to the car even if they knew which one it was. Get in, we'll get the bike, and we can go home." She didn't sound like she would brook much in the way of argument. "I owe you one. It's the least I can do."
Dante’s eyes narrowed underneath the helmet's visor. ‘We can go home’? There was something there. Something said without being said and… A hand was placed on the roof of the car and the mechanical pieces were felt for inside the door before the locks popped open. It was harder with older cars, had to feel for the mechanical pieces and how they moved a bit more, but it was still possible. Just like the backhoe she’d used to -- That was a story for a different time.
There was another grunt and the hand was pulled away from the car before she’d walk around it, pull open the passenger door, and drop into the seat - causing the entire car to sink with the weight of her roughly 300lbs of self and gear - before pulling the door closed and waiting for Rey to get inside as well.
Rey slid into the driver's seat and started the car; she was a careful but fast driver. While she didn't seem to be doing anything supernatural to the car, she was definitely on high alert. The Civic came to the empty garage exit and the bar lifted with a slight gesture from Rey's fingers. A few moments later and they rolled up to the motorcycle. "You need help?" Rey asked, as the rear hatch made the heavy clunking noise that accompanied its opening.
Why was she doing this? Dante didn’t know. It… This wasn’t safe. Though it was hardly herself she was worried about. Inferno had a lot of enemies and getting Rey associated with them would be bad news for the other woman. Inferno would have to make sure every video and camera feed was scrubbed. Her brain had been ticking through the motions since before everything had begun but now it was double, triple checking the cleaned and edited feeds, assuring the new footage of them coming out of the garage and grabbing the bike would never be seen by a living soul as well. Inferno knew how to remain in the shadows, it was a skill she’d mastered by now.
“No.” The answer was abrupt and Inferno was rolling her body out of the car as soon as feet could hit the ground. A glance sideways down the streets revealed no one around and with that cleared the motorcycle was hefted up and onto a shoulder before being carried back to the car and slid into the trunk the best she could. A wheel would probably stick out some but that was hardly an issue.
It would take only a minute before Inferno was pulling open the passenger door and dropping back into the car again with two fingers pointing forward, signaling Rey to drive.
“Go.” And with the single word Inferno’s brain switched into double duty, clearing the camera feeds of anything that could hurt either of them all the way out of The Capital and changing all the signal lights to allow the safe and quick passage out of The Capital. The only hint of Inferno changing the signal lights would be a light tapping of her own fingers against her own thigh as soon as a light came into view. That gave enough time to yellow the intersection lights before turning them red and green the light they needed to go through. Police scanners would be searched for chatter and so far there were no murmurs there as well.
Rey shifted the bike slightly and rolled down the hatch window to be sure the car was shut properly and the bike wasn't going to roll out. She knew the constraints of the Civic's cargo section very well. Normally she would be more careful with the bike, but she'd already used it as a blunt weapon, so a little more jostling wasn't going to hurt it.
The not-at-all coincidental changes in the lights to let them get out on the road to Repose elicited no comment. Rey was too busy watching the road and making sure there were no pursuers. Only after they were beyond the city limits of the Capital did she relax even slightly.
"Thanks for the rescue. I didn't expect it but I do appreciate it." Rey glanced in Inferno's direction and smiled, showing less of the brightness that usually characterised her expression and more tension. "You seemed all right from the way you were moving, but if anything is hurting or out of whack, I'll take a look at it when we get back to town."
Inferno’s brain split, tracing cameras and lights and police radios and editing as they went, while also attempting to try to pick up any unusual signals. Was there any data that read encrypted that didn’t make sense? Was there one data line in a signal that wasn’t changing? Were any signals repeating that shouldn’t be? No. Thankfully the answers were all no. Nothing seemed off digitally and for that they could relax.
“Mm.” Was the response to Rey’s thanks. Considering everything that was going on Inferno wasn’t quite sure Rey should really be thanking her yet. The thought that Rey might know it was Dante underneath the suit hadn’t quite occurred yet - she had lifts in her shoes, the suit was padded in a way that made her look bigger, no skin was shown, the voice digitizer sounded nothing like her own voice, she covered her scent before going out - and while something felt off, Dante hadn’t quite calculated that’s where Rey was yet.
“I’m fine.” Dante had trained herself to speak in short, direct statements while running as Inferno. It was a habit that had taken a long time to ingrain into herself and it wasn’t about to be broken now. Admittedly, there were some mild aches but those weren’t from those pricks, they had come from earlier in the night. Finally, outside of Repose with lights starting to fall away from the side of the highway as they got further from the city would Inferno finally speak.
“What the fuck was that? You explained but I’m gonna need more than ‘suped up ninja assholes who like to come fuck with me’.” It was gruff, perhaps even a tough aggressive in tone, but seriously, what the fuck?
"There's a little more going on here than I can explain in the car, but the short version is that the universe is sort of like duct tape. There's a light side and a Dark side. The Dark side is powered by anger, rage, all the negative feelings. It's not that you can never be righteously angry, but if you draw all your energy from rage, there's a danger in it. Especially if you're channeling the kind of power I work with. Or that they do.
"And that lot was going to drag me off to their boss, or their boss's boss--I don't know all the details of their organisation--and that was going to be very unpleasant for me. They might try to kill me, might try to use me as a bargaining chip, which wouldn't work with any of the people they might use me against and I know it--" which sounded like Rey had had that discussion with someone "--or any number of complicated other things. But even if I died, I'd live on in the Force. Is that a good start?"
“It’s certainly a fucking start.” The words were a cross between growled and floored. Was she angry? Yeah, sure, why the fuck not? Why the hell wouldn’t someone be fucking angry when they found out their fucking friend was being fucking hunted?! However, Rey was also the last fucking person Dante would have expected in any sort of shit like this. The other woman was always so… Nice… And apologetic. And empathetic and sympathetic and…
What. The. Fuck.
Where the fuck didn they even go from here?
“What’s next?”
"We go home, I check you over, we sleep our bruises off, and tomorrow I talk to a number of people, including the friends I met for dinner--who aren't involved, but I need to make sure they're okay--and--let's call him my cousin--and honestly I improve my training regimen because that should have been easier." Rey huffed out a sigh. "--I knew about the theatre professor, we'd talked about it, and I didn't even make the connection to the Majestic. I'm an idiot.
"Oh, and your bike. I help you with the bike. I assume you've got somewhere to put it other than the shop. Obviously this is like the other business and I won't talk about it. But I don't want to leave you in the lurch on the repairs, and it doesn't seem like you could keep the bike a secret if you had it in the shop." It wasn't a question, and Rey didn't trail the words up at the end in the way that would have made it one. It was just laying out the facts in evidence.
“Nothing wrong.” Was given in response to Inferno being checked over. There was no need to pull her helmet off for this and quite frankly anyone putting their hands on Inferno’s suit? That just seemed like a recipe for disaster. Nothing was set to go off but there were a lot of zippers and pouches and other hidden items that no one but Inferno needed to know about.
“Bike’s fine.” The words were immediate in response to Rey helping her with the bike but as soon as the shop was mentioned there was a… Shift in mood and Inferno’s head snapped so that Dante could lay both eyes on Rey underneath the helmet’s visor and through the wrap around internal display.
“What?” Disbelief was really all there was.
Rey was driving and couldn't safely take her eyes from the road. Her voice was gentle. "The Force is--think of it as an energy field that all living things generate and are part of. We're luminous, my friend, not just matter." The smile was evident both on her face, even in the low light of the car, and in her voice. More seriously, she continued, "But having said that--a person with certain types of injuries, or with significant prosthetics--can be recognisable to me in the Force.
"I respect your privacy but I wouldn't feel right about not telling you this under the circumstances," Rey finished.
Eyes narrowed under the helmet visor as Inferno’s brain switched through all the scanning capabilities of the helmet. Heat vision. No differences than normal. Night vision. Once again nothing. A quick rerouting of her own biometric scanner was attempted to be used to scan Rey but it wasn’t very successful as the software had never been written that way but even what was gotten didn’t seem that much different than any other human she’d ever met.
How could-
Rey was explaining and it…
Well, that was fucking unnerving. There was a long pause, a significant delay before any words would come.
“Greeeeeeaaaaat.” There was a heavy huff of an exhalation. “Because being able to read me in a fucking suit is exactly what I need.” The words were frustrated but not inherently at Rey. Mostly at realizing there was this whole new fucking threat - that maybe Spider had been using the whole time and that’s why she was always just two steps behind or maybe she wasn’t - to fucking worry about.
"There aren't a lot of us out there. Not with the strength and training I have. You know one of them and that person wouldn't violate your privacy either. On the other side--there will be some, but I wouldn't count on the ones we dealt with tonight knowing so much," Rey hastened to reassure Inferno. "It's not good but it could be a lot worse.
"We should sleep on it before we make any decisions about what to do next. And I will need to consult with--you know--because this could affect him too. Not about your involvement. About the Snakes and the theatre."
Eyes narrowed under the helmet again at the idea that there was more than one person that she already knew that could have some real fucking serious knowledge about her without her fucking consent. It wasn’t safe for people to know things like this about her and it was starting to fucking sound like she’d just walked into something that wasn’t safe for her either. There was a low displeased sound at the ‘it’s not good but it could be a lot worse’.
Him was a clue though. Even if Rey wasn’t trying to drop any.
“Do I need to be aware of a new threat for me?” Because if helping stop some mook got her on someone’s hit list, that was important to know.
"Beyond what you saw tonight? No. I mean, I can't predict what I don't know, but I do know that much. And if the Snakes are hiring out ... we'll find that out." Rey huffed out a sigh. "We'll do what's needful. I'm going to get such a lecture about this. Stupid. I was stupid. I let my guard down for one night and of course someone comes after me. This is how Luke ended up out the arse end of beyond with no friends and no life of his own, for all the good it did him.
"I'm not going to run away from this. I'll stay, and not just because I've dragged you into my own troubles accidentally. I will help you, too, and not just because I owe you. Because you're my friend."
There was a long, pensive hum in response to Rey’s assessment of the situation of the Snakes and who worked for them.
“Why were you out tonight?” The question was direct, pointed. If Rey had clearly known there was a threat, yes, this was stupid, however… Though the mention of Luke - that was the uncle, wasn’t it? Rey had mentioned the before hadn’t she? Dante was fairly certain she had - and that was an interesting new piece to this whole fucked up puzzle.
“You didn’t drag me into anything, I took a flying leap into trouble. Not new.” Which was really just the facts of the situation and her tone - even through the digitizer - would reflect that. “You’re better off staying out of mine, not a fight you need to be in.” There was a huff. “But if you need help, if this is you and a couple people against a fucking group? I’ll make sure we even out the sides.” Because if Rey was in danger? If people Rey loved were in danger? Inferno would help.
Simply because that was what Inferno was created to do. The vow of ‘never again from a decade before ringing through her head, never again would good people face that wrath of those with villainous intent when they had done nothing wrong, not as long as Inferno was around.
"If your enemies are working with the Snakes, it is my problem." Rey was matter-of-fact about that. "Tonight, I was just--I wanted to do what normal people do. Have dinner with friends from uni." She laughed, only a little bitter. "So much for that. I forgot that the theatre district was probably dangerous and parked my car there. That was the stupid thing."
Was Spider working with the Snakes? For that, only time would tell.
“Probably.” Inferno made sure to pointedly pull the word out from the things that Rey had said prior. “You just confirmed the threat and increased your intel pool. Now recon will be easy and no one else will enter the area the same without proper support.” It was a fast assessment of a shitty situation but learning and moving forward was what had kept her alive this long, there was no reason to fuck that up now.
“And you deserve normal.” The seriousness of the tone was dying down a little into something a bit more sympathetic, which felt odd still being in Inferno’s suit. “We all do. Helps remind us we’re human and not fucking automatons.” Because living? Entrenching yourself in things you loved with people you adored was what made life worthwhile, it was what made elbowing and growling through the sludge and garbage of the world bearable too.
Rey thought about that for a long moment, not so long that the silence was meaningful, and finally said, "You're right. I don't want to do what Luke did. Even if it means I have to fight. I'd rather have friends." A beat, and she added, "Thank you for being one."