Old News

[Tabs]

Jan 27th

Tabs knew he’d been feeling off for a few days now. But since he was busy and eagerly helping his allies, he forced himself to ignore it. Earlier in the week, changes were noticeable in the alien being. He seemed to have gotten skinnier. Slowly, his color was fading. All his color; as if he’d been washed over with grey paint. Tabs didn’t immediately seem affected by the changes, but they were visible for a while.

Though he was excellent at lying to himself, eventually it came to a breaking point. The four-faced creature was not feeling well. As he was scrabbling down the marble floors, suddenly his pace slowed to nearly a limp, his back slouched and his heads hung. Tabs stopped himself, swayed slightly under his own weight and, just as it looked like he was about to keel over, he stumbled over to a wall and leaned his lower arm against it. He panted.

Tabs knew what was going on. He still had another master to please; the Producer. And all his hard work for the Legion led him to neglect the duties of his original owner. Tabs needed to have eyes on his writing or else he would wither away. And he’d been putting off publishing anything for weeks; trying to perfect his plans.

Taking a deep breath in, a loud wheeze sounded from his lungs, as if he had pneumonia. A clump of hair fell from his wrist. Suddenly, Tabs brought his hand back and looked at the grey skin that’d been exposed. There was no stopping it now; he was in panic mode.

[Claude Frollo]

Frollo needed to speak to Tabs. What he was planning, he needed a media approach and he had heard that Taps was the 'Voice to the people.' he/she/it would be the thing to talk to. He walked into the room the TV faced person was in only to see was in some sort of issue himself. "Ahem, Am I interrupting something?" Frollo said looking at Taps while petting the kitten in his coat pocket.

[Tabs]

Tabs had managed to at least get his breathing even, though it was still noisy and rapid. He could totally calm himself down if he had to. Yes. It looked like he was about to lift his claw toward his upper arm but stopped short, genuinely afraid he might break his own skin. This was the doing of the Producer; his master’s curse. Always needed new material. He hated it. He hated it.

The creature hadn’t noticed Frollo’s approach, though he was too drained to startle when he did. He remained leaning against the wall, his ankles shivering slightly. The big black tail behind the creature slowly turned its toothy bulb in the direction of the human. Tabs’s eyes screwed shut as his fangs took on something between a sneer and a smile.

“Nooo,” the creature answered sarcastically.

Bleary red eyes opened, betraying a sort of desperateness.

“What do you want?”

[Claude Frollo]

While Frollo could do without the Blatant sarcasm he could see that this situation that this....thing was going through would hinder his plan and unnecessarily cause discord between them. So Frollo forgave Taps. It was what any good Catholic would do.

Frollo looked at the creature and cleared his throat. "What I want can wait for now, First... Let me help you. Otherwise you will be in no condition to do anything. I offer you this. I can heal what ails you. All I need is your cooperation. Then we can talk about what I need from you. What say you?"

Frollo needed more practice using this ability and Taps was most obviously hurt. 2 birds with one book as it were.
Though the thought of why he had not gone to see Edgar did cross his mind, he did not ask. He was a Freaky Surgeon after all. How many other injured Blackbloods avoid Edgar until they are in such a state? Frollo thought he would need to address that soon but this took precedence at this moment and time.

The Kitten (Whom's Name is Sir Pawington II)  Looked out of  Frollo's pocket, took one look at Taps, then retreated back into Frollo's pocket mewing softly.    

[Tabs]

“No.”

That was irrefutably a command. It sounded entirely unlike Tabs’s usual engaging, expertly dictated voice it may have been difficult to believe it actually came from him. As if to emphasize this, though it was likely out of his control, all four of his screens flashed to static for a blink of an eye. The tail’s teeth ground against each-other.

Apparently, that bit of assertiveness was expended and his back slouched. Four green trademark smiles made their return, though they seemed different as well; not fake so much as just very tired. He lifted a hand to turn his wrist.

“Just tell me what you want,” the voice was now vaguely whispery, “It will help me far better.”

[Claude Frollo]

"Very well." Frollo stared at the TV faced... Thing for a bit, then continued on.

"I am to understand that you are the media as it were here. And I need your 'expertise' in a matter." Frollo walked closer to Tabs. "I want to assist to change the peoples thoughts of my lady. However I wanted to do in a subtle way. That is what you are doing, yes?"

"I need you to work another angle along the nationalist side that you are running. A more... Religious one.

[Tabs]

Weak as he was at the time, Tabs had collected himself and now knew his plan to remedy himself. Tabs could subsist on attention alone. It was only when his work lacked an audience that his energy would drain. It didn’t matter if the response to his craft was good or bad; the result was the same. Merely discussing his job would suffice and this is where Tabs was finding use in the former judge. It was because of this that he was willing to be more ambiguously worded with his response than he might otherwise.

“Wouldn’t our secular members find that isolating?” Tabs prompted.

Tabs wouldn’t say he thought the idea, even as vague as it was to him now, might be problematic. This was mostly because he wanted to string this along as far as he could; he’d regain more strength that way. Then he’d be able to continue to work as normal, hopefully without anyone noticing his energy drop.

[Claude Frollo]

"I would expect so." Frollo said with his hand on his chin. "Most, if not all of the miscreants in this army were targeted by this mindset. But that's what makes it so powerful." Frollo turned away form Tabs, looking outside a near by window. " Unifcation is what we will need in this army, Nationalism can only go so far... If we want the Legion to be more corcrete, we need something everyone in the world can relate to, not just one area. We need the common people's trust. and this is the best way of getting it. Not only that but we will also have solid leadership line and more stable army. 2 birds one stone. There will be those that complain, but we will need to ensure them that this is for their best interests..." Frollo looks back at Tabs. "That is when you come in."  

[Tabs]

While Tabs was without a doubt exhausted, he gave Frollo the benefit of his full attention, in spite of the exertion it was obviously costing him. This was a means to an end, but on the outside, it seemed genuine. Tabs was still in the process of figuring out how he could get his attention fix from the Overseer. As for taking his ideas into account, that wasn’t the creature’s prime concern.

What didn’t help was that Tabs got the impression Frollo understood little about how Tabs worked. Of course, this was perhaps his own fault, since Tabs was spending most of his time observing the ranks and strategizing rather than acting. Tabs had every intention of unifying the Legion; that was the crux of his pitch to even become propagandist. But he would not bicker with someone who outranked him; not until he actually knew what he wanted.

“Grand plans for something you have yet to truly explain to me,” Tabs said.

He wasn’t meaning to be rude; Tabs had been doing this for thousands of years and wasn’t keen on vague ideas.