The Second Kind [Valentine/Lyza]

Knock knock.

Lyza looked up from her hunched over position on the side of her bed and towards her door. A visitor? At a respectable hour of the day? Who the fu- No, why the fuck? Someone here to remind her they were going to be doing construction next week? She already knew that, they had knocked on her door, called her, left letters in her junk-mail stuffed mailbox, and now they were here again? That couldn't be right. They weren't that retarded were they?

That entire train of thought cut itself off completely as Lyza blinked twice and remembered that she was still deadass tired from having woken up... two, three hours ago? Only now did she actually decide to get up and get some caffeine. Another one of her near-lethal cups of coffee to help her stay awake and actually do some chores so her apartment wasn't a shithole. Unfortunately though, whoever was at her door seemed to have other ideas.

Lyza was already dressed in the same attire she had been since a few hours before she had went to bed. A tank top and shorts. Simple, like the way all things should be. How she managed to find the strength to stand up, however, wasn't quite that. The sheer willpower it took for her to get up in the morning was unbelievable, so intense, so frustratingly difficult to muster up that-

She was already at her door by the time she even got halfway through that thought. Valentine would simply see the door creak open just a tad, enough for Lyza to peer through the sliver and at the man standing there. If he was quick enough, he could see her wince from being exposed to the light of the outdoors. "I don't want your pamphlets, nor do I want to buy whatever you're selling." Her tone of voice was less than thrilled, to put it lightly. Comically lightly.

The moment that this man mentioned ideals Lyza almost immediately had to cut herself off from saying something along the lines of 'I don't want your ideals you Jehovah's Witness lookin' ass'. Honestly, with that smile on his face that was so obscure in its intent this man might as well have been that. But she stopped herself regardless and kept listening, only growing more and more mentally exhausted as he kept speaking.

"Lux Orior?" she pondered softly to herself. "You want me in Lux Orior?" It sounded so inane, felt that way too. She had spent so little time in the Vanguard and now here they were asking for her to be in their little clusterfuck coaliton too? A part of her wanted to shut the door on this stranger and just go back to bed, and to an extent she actually did try. Lyza actively started to push the door closed, only to open it once she started to wonder if she should be empathetic, only to try and shut the door for real and have it simply refuse to close. Even with her fairly inhuman strength, it just simply wouldn't shut all the way. It wasn't that she was trying to slam it shut either, just that she put more and more pressure behind it as she realized there was something stopping it from shutting, only to eventually stop as she realized there was no point.

"..."

Lyza wasn't too terribly sure what to do, but after almost a full minute of silence and her half-glaring at the man at her door, she finally just caved and opened it fully. "If you're just going to stop me from closing the door then fine, come in. We can talk about this over some drinks." she said amidst a deep sigh. It didn't matter if it was the morning, she was going to need at least a little something to get her through this conversation.

Lyza's apartment was a decently sized studio apartment that was surprisingly well furnished and well kept despite how lazy she was. This guy didn't know, though. Yet. "Make yourself comfortable. If you want something to drink tell me while I'm still standing." Lyza speaking with a hand waving over to her dining table as she was already rummaging in her fridge for alcohol.

Lyza fished a can of hard cider out of her fridge which seemed to be full of the stuff and almost nothing else. Afterwards she retrieved a glass and filled it up with water before sitting down across the table from Valentine and sliding him his drink. "What's your name again?" Lyza asked as she cracked open her drink and downed half the can in literally three seconds. The chill hit her throat hard and she shivered in response. Now she was just waiting for the alcohol to hit her brain...

Truth be told Lyza was extremely suspicious when she heard that Lux Orior of all things wanted her to get involved. "What makes you even think I'm a good candidate? I was in the Vanguard for a month at most. Your files on me can't be too detailed." The woman was slouched in her chair, one arm over the back as she gently swirled the can around for her own amusement.

"Of all the people you could be recruiting, you choose to come to me? You're that desperate, huh?" That's what Lyza suspected this was, at the very least. An act of desperation, Lux Orior needing more fodder for the slaughter or something like that. "You wanna talk about ideals, tell me what ideals led you to be here, asking someone like me to fight."

Her lack of documentation, huh? "Well, that lack of documentation was because I was extremely active during my time at the Vanguard. I ended up doing a whole lot of undocumented work because I never bothered referring to my superiors, I just kind of did it. They'd find something done or a problem solved out of nowhere and had no idea who did it. Sure it caused a lot of problems with the record keeping but I was in a particularly... motivated headspace at the time."

Lyza took another swig of cider and set her can aside for the moment as she took the damn to mentally curse Valentine's damned smile. That plus his lack of any real spiritual presence painted this picture of mystery that made Lyza worry. About what, she didnt know. Just being in the presence of this strange stranger was starting to make her a little suspicious, but again, she didn't know about what.

"Those days are long gone though. I can't remember the last time I felt the actual need to get up out of bed in a timely manner, let alone fight of all things. You can try and persuade me, you definitely seem like the guy who'd try, but it's going to take a lot to get me off my ass and onto a fuckin' battlefield of all places." Lyza said flatly, right before finishing the last of her drink. It had been maybe two or three minutes and it was already gone, emptied and tossed effortlessly over her shoulder and right into the trash can.

Lyza sighed to herself and shook her head. She knew why Valentine was here, why he thought to be impressed with her achievements, but he didn't know the full story and she wasn't exactly keen on explaining her entire life's history either. "Just stifle your expectations for me, will you? I'm not nearly worth as much as you think I might be." Her tone was still flat, but sounded a tad more tired all of a sudden, like she was almost disappointed to be letting this guy down.

And then of course he had to bring up her own motivation, or rather, indirectly inquire about it. How was she to truly introduce herself to this man, then? Tell him that dying meant nothing to her? That getting out of bed at all wasn't on her list of things to do half the time? In his eyes he was being persuasive, but to Lyza he was just reinforcing her shitty life decisions.

"It's not that I don't see a need to fight." Lyza started her response cautiously and was clearly putting a lot of thought into what to say next, as indicated by her half glazed stare down at the table. "You... It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I get it. People are probably gonna die, it's just... I don't exactly care for myself much. I won't get much stronger out there, so I don't know what you really expect me to do at this point. On top of that, all of the main faces in this war are infinitely stronger than the rest of the planet's population, you know that. Just look at that motherfucker who blew up Washington D.C. and the White House. I don't even know if it was the entire city or just a chunk of it, but regardless I can't do much if those fighting in the war can do shit like that. News didn't really say."

Already Lyza wanted another drink, but her limbs felt too heavy with apathy and lethargy to really fulfill her desire. Perhaps when she saw Valentine out she would remedy that. "Give me another reason to join Lux Orior and maybe I will, but so far you're being pretty unconvincing."