Agent Washington (completelysane) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-06-21 15:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, agent washington, yue katou |
Who: Wash and Katou
What: Katou's first assignment after returning to work
When: Early June
Where: Outside of Blizzard HQ
Ratings/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete!
As far as ‘you skipped work for months so you could get high instead’ punishments went, going to check out a portal that had spewed out orcs the month before wasn’t terrible. Though getting to Irvine, and then Blizzard HQ was kind of a pain in the ass.
At least he had Wash with him. This would be a boring ass job if he’d had to come alone. Besides, Wash would probably be better around here anyway. Katou’d brought Shiranui, his katana, with him, just in case they needed it (orc spewing portal, probably better to be safe than sorry), and while he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d explain it away if questioned, he figured that someone hanging around with an old Japanese katana at a video game HQ wasn’t something completely unheard of.
He slowed his car as the approached the HQ, and started at the portal. There was no green light emitting from it, but the two hooded weirdos and the snake sure seemed distinctive. “You think that’s it?” he asked.
Wash leaned over to peer a the portal through the windshield. He’d only been able to catch a glimpse of it when it had been spewing orcs and the like. Wash had seen a lot of weird stuff over the last several years. Portals weren’t exactly new. There had been a rash of them opening up all over the county a couple of years prior. However, all of those had been closed again by the time the event had stopped. This was the first portal that had decided to stick around for any length of time. Seeing it up close -- as though at any moment it would decide to reactivate and send another wave of orcs and monsters through -- sent a cold shiver down Wash’s spine.
There was also something unsettlingly familier about it as well. As though Wash had seen something like it somewhere before. Not in his Dreams, that much he was certain. Where else he could have seen it he wasn’t sure, however, his memory during a certain time frame, both in the Dream world and in the waking wasn’t the most reliable, so he would have to deal with the unsettling de ja vu for now.
“Yeah,” he muttered in response to his younger partner. He removed his side arm from the duffle bag at his feet. He checked it before tucking it away into a holster under his arm and pulled on a sweatshirt to cover it. “This is it. C’mone let’s get a closer look.”
Katou climbed out of the car and strapped his sword to his back before making his way over to the portal, extending his senses as he did so. Sensing auras was tricky sometimes - it was easier when there were strong emotions or someone was emitting a shitton of evil - but if he really exerted himself sometimes he could pick up on smaller things. But he couldn’t feel anything coming from the portal. Then again, if it was a pathway to another world, who said he’d be able to feel from this end anyway.
“Kinda overkill, don’tcha think?” he asked airily, stopping an arm length away from it. “Like, if the two dudes with swords didn’t already scream ‘hey, bad shit comes out of this’ the snake sure sells it.” Tentatively, he reached out with his real arm to touch the stone. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but what he got was the feel of cold stone under his fingers, so that was a bit of a let down.
Aura sensing, magical portals, sensing whether nor not something was evil. All of that fell decidedly outside Wash’s wheelhouse. It didn’t matter how many video games or comic books he read. He understood his entire reason for being there was to provide a Nerd Cover should the two of them get caught poking around by one of Blizzard’s employees (a cover that Wash more than likely wouldn’t have to work too hard to portray), or in the alternative, to shoot anything that came out of the portal should it decide to become active again. And honestly? That was all perfectly fine with Wash. After the Angel Sanctuary Debacle he was just thankful to be out in the field again and, more importantly, that Katou had asked him to come along. It wasn’t as though he was the only video game nerd living in Orange County.
While Katou approached the imposing structure, Wash kept a vigilant eye out. He noted that there weren’t many security cameras on this side of the building. Hell, if he didn’t know better, he would have thought the portal had purposefully chosen this location due to the lack of security surveillance. He didn’t like that idea. Nope. Not one bit.
His attention was drawn back to the portal itself when Katou spoke and winced slightly when the younger man reached out to touch it. He was reminded of Tucker accidentally activating the Temple of Arms just by approaching it with his sword.
“Something tells me subtlety isn’t exactly what they were going for here,” he said as he approached. He reached out and gently pushed Katou’s hand down from touching the stone. “Might not want to go around trying to mind-meld with it though.” He cast another weary look around them. “Does it seem odd to you?” He went on carefully. “That there’s no company security out here? Provided that they bought the whole cock-n-bull story we fed the County about what this thing was, you’d think they’d want to protect their ‘investment’.” He crooked his fingers in the air to simulate quotation marks. “Then again…” A third glance. “Looks like the only weirdos this thing has attracted are the two of us.”
Katou frowned, glancing around them. He hadn’t thought about that at all, but now that Wash mentioned it, it was kind of weird. “It’s been here for a little bit,” he said slowly. “Maybe all the gawkers already came and went and they figured it was a waste of resources to guard it.” Then, he grinned impishly. “Or maybe,” he said, in a slightly creepy voice, the kind that someone would use to tell a ghost story, “everyone who comes near it is sucked right through.”
Of course, they were still standing there, so that seemed unlikely.
Wash leveled an deadpanned look Katou’s way. “Don’t joke about shit like that,” he said. “With our luck, it’ll actually happen.” He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced towards the portal. “The only thing that makes sense is that whatever magic or whatever that keeps the general population of Orange County from really seeing the events for what they are and loosing their collective shit has already erased this from their memories. Which is...unsettling to say the least.” He let out a breath, “what is it the boss wants us to do exactly?”
“At least that would be interesting,” Katou muttered. He rubbed the side of his head, messing up his hair as he glanced at the portal. “Just to come check it out. See if I could sense anything from it, or figure out if it was still active or whatever,” he said. Really, it was a job he could have done alone, but he’d wanted Wash’s company. “I guess all that’s left is for me to jump through it and see what happens,” he said, glancing at Wash from the corner of his eye. It wasn’t something he really wanted to do, but he should probably do a thorough job on his first assignment back at the Agency.
Wash stared at him. “Are you serious?” He asked, grey eyes wide. “You want to go through that thing? Dude, fucking orcs were coming out of it. I guarantee you that’s what you’re going to find on the other side. A whole fucking horde of them and we are not prepared for that.” Because like hell Wash was going to let his friend go alone.
His eyes glanced over Shiranui strapped to Katou’s back and then Katou’s arm. Maybe the younger man was prepared to take on a bunch of orcs, but Wash sure as hell wasn’t. All he had was his sidearm. He at least needed his armor and battle rifle if they were planning on taking a little trip to another dimension.
“Or maybe I’ll hop through and all I’ll see is the backside of this thing,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely certain of that possibility. He wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea for Wash to come along. For one, someone was going to need to tell Natasha that the portal was still active if Katou disappeared. For another, Wash hadn’t brought his dream armour with him. “Maybe we can like… tie a rope around me? And if I end up on the other side you can just pull me back. I don’t really wanna fight an army of green dudes.”
“Or,” Wash suggested. “We report back to Natasha and tell her what we’ve found so far and let her decide whether or not she wants to send someone through.” He had his arms folded over his chest. “I don’t want to be the one to have to explain to Kanan why you suddenly disappeared.” Again. “He and I are just barely on speaking terms again and losing you isn’t gonna help that.” He sighed and unfolded his arms to run a hand through his hair, “and honestly...you disappearing isn’t something I really wanna go through again either. So, either we both go through together, or we both go back to Natasha. Your call.”
Katou was unexpectedly touched by Wash’s statement, and it showed in his face. It was easy to forget that, for all his fuck-ups recently, people still apparently cared, even if he couldn’t really understand why. He chewed on his lower lip, looked over at the portal, and then back at Wash. He really wasn’t prepared for this kind of thing. If Katou got into trouble, he could always try to shapeshift into one of the orcs. He wasn’t completely sure if he could mimic a body type so entirely different than his own, but he could disguise himself as a small orc at least. Not only was Wash not armed properly, he didn’t even have that escape strategy. And it didn’t seem like Katou would be able to talk him out going with him.
It seemed more likely like nothing at all would happen if Katou jumped through. But he couldn’t really risk that. He gave a resigned sigh. “We’ll talk to the bosslady,” he said after a moment.
Wash caught the look on Katou’s face and he couldn’t help but grin. The both of them had taken hard and fast falls earlier in the year. Wash knew what it was like to think no one cared. He knew how Katou felt better than most. He also knew how Katou tended to process the “good things” people may have said or felt about him. He gave the younger man a teasing sort of nudge with his elbow. “Don’t let it go to your head, Kat,” he said. “You’re the closest thing I got to a younger brother. I need you around to be an asshole to.”
He looked back at the portal before stuffing his hands in his pockets. “If Natasha wants an inspection of the otherside, I’m sure she’ll send us right back with orders to do so and with the proper back-up to make sure we come back.”
Katou flushed and rubbed the bottom of his nose with his index finger. It was weird enough hearing that Kanan considered him family, even if he considered Kanan the same. But somehow he’d managed to get a while little clan going on.
“Yeah, alright,” Katou said. “Guess our work is down. Wanna go somewhere and-” grab a drink, he almost said, but he switched tracks mid-sentence “grab some ice cream or something.”
Wash caught the shift in Katou’s thought, though just barely, and laughed a little. “Yeah, sure,” he said with a shrug. “Ice cream sounds pretty good.” He got an evil trollish look on his face. “We can take pictures of a couple of sundaes and text them to my sister to look at while she’s stuck in the office doing paperwork.”
Katou grinned in return, the smirk on his face mirroring Wash’s. “Deal,” he said, offering a fist for a fist bump. “She’s going to hate us.”