Ambience

[Thaddeus Wyse]

BASTION​

[member="Lynnori Cruz"]​

​

It wasn't a good idea to be here.

I knew it. Bastion was a fortified mess of things, even more so since the quick resurgence of the Rebel Alliance. They were destroyed, Erich. How does that matter? The Sith love to find a reason to clamp down their boot even tighter on our necks. Their necks, Erich, we won't be here for that long. Yeah, yeah, we will see. Well. You will see, REM. Things don't always go to plan, do they now?

It will all be worth it, Erich.

The doorbell binged when a man stepped through the store's door. Shopkeeper looked up briefly from his magazine, then immediately went back to it. It wasn't a historical one. The cover didn't matter, the man could see straight through it.

Nudies.

Humans were so odd, sometimes.

The fact that they constantly needed to eat didn't make it any better. "Hello." The man named Erich Wyse said to the shopkeep. His tone seemed pleasant enough. Calm. Steady. With a neutral pulse to it that said he wasn't judging. Anything. Just flowing through life without much aim. "Where do you keep your biscuits?" The shopkeeper didn't seem to appreciate the interruption. Tone or not. The heat beneath his skin spiked for a moment in annoyance.

But then he calmed down.

Humans weren't all too happy about confrontation. They'd maybe get a bit rude. But they wouldn't escalate it, unless they were pushed into it.

"Yeah, yeah, there, read the signs, choffer."

"Thank you." The man named Erich didn't mind. He was on his way again. He was just passing through, no? There was no conceivable (or rational) reason to make a scene. So he was on his way again. Passing a woman shuffling through some wares in a bin nearby. She seemed normal. She wasn't though. A few inches in, past the skin, it was as clear as day to him. Cogs ticking. Not literal ones. But she was like him in a lot of ways. Machinery. Sophisticated. Erich made note of that, but otherwise didn't make a point of it.

Whatever she was? She was fascinating, but. Not a part of his mission now. Oh, how Erich wished she was.

As the man named Erich disappeared behind the shelves to find his biscuits? The doorbell went again. More people entered the shop.

 

[Lynnori Cruz]

Bastion, A Boring Grocery Store, Undetermined Time
Domesticated | Interacting with [member="Erich Wyse"] ~ Best Friends ~ "I never learned from my mistakes."
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Honestly, Lynnori only shopped like this because she was stir crazy.

She could have anything shipped directly to her door but still chose to shop out. Indulge the rather 'old' feeling of shops like these, the way they brought memories to the forefront of her mind. It even made her smile on occasion to spot a brand she recognized from her Zeltron childhood, hesitating for a few seconds before eventually adding it to her growing basket. Candies, food, a lot of cat food-- She'd never had a pet before, how much did they eat? And it was so thin and always trying to steal her dinner, so... --And, well, she'd been doing some reading. A couple of those cheap datacards were thrown in the shopping basket too. Some fictional. Some self-help. What you'd expect from a manic HRD shacked up with an overprotective HRD.

Perfectly mundane. This was a perfectly mundane, plain, utterly monotone trip out. It was practically palpable in the air like mist on a cool day. The shopkeeper indulged himself, the customers tried to not acknowledge that and one another, and Lynnori put a few more cans of cat food in her basket. Just a few more. Briefly her falsely hazel eyes upturned to see a wandering passerby, just another Human resident, going to get some sweets. Relatable, but, ultimately, unremarkable.

That was, until it happened.

'It' was something that she was absolutely not going to tell [member="Kole Harper"] about.

After a while of living in the shadows of civility, you come to learn certain sounds. Perhaps Lyn was simply more sensitive to them as an inorganic human with enhanced senses, or perhaps this particular noise had been imprinted in her brain so often over time that not even a quick trip to the afterlife could remove it. Like a stain, in many ways. Regardless, she was all too quick to immediately shuffle around the side of the bin, as what she'd heard immediately told her this boring grocery store was about to become very, very, very not-boring.

Some, if not all blasters, made tell-tale noises right before they were set to charge and fire. That had been what she'd heard, and the deafening noise of this weapon's fire now flooded the store as shots ripped through the plain ceiling, leaving ugly holes. From her vantage point she couldn't see the shooter, nor did she care to, but she could almost certainly hear them. And, no doubt, any accomplices would be circling through the aisles anyways to get a head count.

"What the hell." Lyn muttered to herself, even as someone (or something) speaking far louder than her barked out that eerily common phrase in events like this, "This is a stick-up!" Wasn't it always?

Maybe the thieves just wanted some magazines.

 

[Thaddeus Wyse]

[member="Lynnori Cruz"]

That wasn't the only thing that Cruz would notice going down.

A few seconds after the exclamation by the thug something else happened. Something moved past her. It was that same man, who had been going for some biscuits, and who seemed to be going back towards the counter to buy his goods. He had gotten some orange apples as well, if that helped. Either the man known as Erich hadn't heard the THIS IS A STICK-UP, or he was entirely unimpressed. It was entirely possible that Cruz would notice something more than that.

Erich seemed to be arguing with himself.

A bit hushed, focused, entirely entrapped in it.

Maybe that is why he didn't seem concerned as he was walking towards the counter? Maybe Lynn could catch him, before the thug noticed. Or maybe the young woman had something better to do. You do realize we are in the middle of a robbery, right? Do not worry, Erich. I have calculated are odds. You will like them. What are they? You will like them. I hate it when you do that, you know that right? But Erich kept onto that trajectory, unless stopped.

Right towards the counter.

C'est la vie.