The best laid hopes vs. the best laid plans

[pulledplug]

[They'd been winning.  They'd been making Carina eat her snobby, condescending words one and all, and Lenore'd been poised to finish her off for good.  So why... why had he only been able to watch as Carina did... that thing...]

... An "I win" button.

[That's one way of describing it, sure.]

Great Roy, just really great way to totally freaking jinx EVERYTHING!

[As juvenile as it is, the Wagner kicks over a pile of existential and philosophy books he'd requested.  So much for being in the mood for making sense of his own predicament.]

She deserves better than all of this crap!  It's not fair that... that someone can just control a situation like that!  What was Lenore supposed to do, just sit on her hands and just never do anything ever friggin' again?!?

Comments

[actuallyselfish]

"Roy! What happened?" Dido shouts, walking over. to the Wagner. "All I heard was that the mission went south...can you fill me in?"

[pulledplug]

We got freaking robbed, that's what!

Carina was attacking the city with some huge superweapon of hers... but it wasn't even finished yet. And we managed to start to wear it down and Lenore...

Lenore was getting ready to finish it off. Heck, she'd even somehow summoned that flamebird power of hers that the Foundation wanted her to give up and I was like "yes! She's gonna do it! She's gonna shut them up and save the day with the one thing they wanted to be kept away from her!"

... And then Crazy Carina did... something! And Lenore froze up and then just got absorbed into the machine!

[actuallyselfish]

"...Damn." Dido curses. "I know how you feel, Roy: we try so hard to save the day, and then the bad guys just reveal some unfair power and spit on our work."

She rests a hand on Roy's robot leg. "And then we get back up, and we challenge them again. We keep throwing ourselves at those bastards until they run out of tricks!"

She pauses. "You're gonna be part in the Lenore rescue operation, right Roy?"

[pulledplug]

Heck yeah I'm not letting Crazy Carina get away with this.

And I don't care how many stupid tricks she'll try to bust out on us, I won't let any of 'em fly.

[actuallyselfish]

"Damn straight," Dido says with a nod.

[star_of_sad]

Roy...

[Setsuko enters the hangar - right in time to see books flying right next to her.]

Ah.

[pulledplug]

[The Wagner takes a step back. If it had a face it would've winced from nearly hitting Setsuko with the works of Kant, Decartes, and Socrates.]

...

Yeah...

That was just... freaking wrong. Unfair even!

[star_of_sad]

I know. I know, that's why I wanted to talk a little... if you're okay with it.

[Setsuko pretends that nothing happened while crouching down to pick one of the books up.]

[pulledplug]

... Yeah, I'm good for it. Just hold up a second...

[The books are all too small for Roy to easily pick up with the Wagner's fingers, but the tendrils are a different story. It wasn't the best of fast cleanups, but the books were at least being corralled together now into a pile.]

Right. That's better, I guess.

You were sayin'?

[star_of_sad]

I know how it's like.

I know how it's like when you face off against someone who controls... everything. And even if you think you had a plan, that you and your friends worked your hardest to overcome that control...

You still fail.