Quiet and Halwen quietly slid into the diner the pink-haired lad had recommended, parking themselves at a booth nearest the door. Quiet softly lowered Zef down into a seat, pushed him towards the dirty glass window and then settled in beside him, cornering him in the booth. He nodded at Halwen to sit opposite.
Quiet lounged back in his seat after it became obvious that Zef was beginning to rouse from the chemical substance he wafted underneath the criminal's nose. As Zef came to, Quiet found himself smiling. It wasn't a cruel smile, nor was it filled with cheer; instead, it seemed merely a formality, a gesture of temporary peace as the thief began to squirm.
"Hey hey hey, now, relax. You're alive, right? You woke up. That shows I'm not going to do anything unless you make me," Quiet said, softly, as a waitress walked over.
"Can I... get you guys anything?" She asked, eyeing the three outlaws with some suspicion. Still, she lived down here, so she was used to a level of rowdiness among the diner's clientele.
Quiet offered up that same, polite smile. "Three coffees, please. Thank you kindly."
As she slipped away, the psuedo-SOLDIER turned to Zef, his mako eyes glistening with a new intensity. "You know anything about AVALANCHE?"
Halwen buried his face his new cup of coffee and guzzled its hot contents nervously as Quiet started quizzing Zef Naaiers about AVALANCHE.
Could Quiet really be Shin-Ra after all? It didn't make any sense. He didn't seem like a company guy. He'd even used the F-word! There was a time, not long ago, when Halwen was in these very same alleyways, asking the very same question. And now he was a full-fledged freedom fighter. Besides, Halwen had a good feeling about him. His feelings were never wrong. He eyed Quiet thoughtfully over the rim of his coffee cup.
Never's a strong word. Rarely.
Halwen's curiosity overrode his caution, and his big mouth did the rest.
"Avalanche? Pfsh. This guy? He's whining about his mom. He's some two-bit thief, a fast talker. That's all."
Zef eyed the man for a moment, then the coffee that was placed down on the table in front of him. He was trapped in a booth, and he looked out the window into the slums with a look of yearning for a moment before finally taking the cup and having a sip.
“Your friend is right,” Zef responded, looking at the man with the mako infused eyes intently whilst still holding the cup halfway up to his lips, he then looked at the other noting his eyes as well. “I ain’t got nothing on Avalanche, you Shin-Ra goons are barking up the wrong tree,” he said.
In his mind he was now imagining it had all been a setup. Had they somehow known the kind of people he usually targeted in his robberies? Did they know about his bomb making business? He had gotten a voicemail before, but he thought it was a joke.
Quiet grinned. Either Zef was lying, or he didn't know any members of Avalanche. Either way, that could be useful.
The brawler glanced around to Halwen Breeve. A mischievous little smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth, before he turned back to address Zef. "If you think I'm Shin-Ra, you ain't as sharp as I thought," he chided, his voice low.
Cards-on-the-table time. Quiet wasn't subtle at the best of times; his disguises were often the bare minimum, and frankly he didn't much like hiding. He only did so out of necessity; the full weight of Shin-Ra would obliterate him. "You're lookin' at AVALANCHE. Or, at least, a little lost sheep from an older cell."
The gene-altered warrior pushed himself back into the booth, taking a sip of his coffee. He registered Halwen's reaction to his revelation, before continuing; "You're a pretty slick operator. I doubt you work by yourself. What say we come to some sort of agreement? You scratch my back..." he looked back to Halwen, that mischievous twinkle back in his eyes, "our back, we scratch yours?"
Quiet may well have been taking the wrong tact. Diplomacy wasn't his strong suit. Perhaps he should have continued to pretend to be Shin-Ra, intimidated some information or leverage out of the thief, but he wasn't very good at lying. If he did have to lie, it was better to do it through actions and silence.
The idea to have outside collaborators had occurred to Halwen before, in a sort of disconnected and dis-coherent fashion, but he'd never thought to really develop connections with the Wall Market underworld, such as it was. There was the Manji Group, could be trusted about as much as a rabid doorbull, and then there were the petty thieves and panhandlers, like Zef Naaiers here.
But maybe bringing them into the operation would be a good idea.
He glanced up at Quiet in surprise at his revelation. So, he was AVALANCHE, just like Halwen.
The pink-haired BARD decided he'd tell Quiet, once this business with Zef was all over. He needed allies against the Shin-Ra.
"Do we look like Shin-Ra to you?" Halwen asked Zef, folding his arms.
“You do!” Zef said. “You’ve got them freaky eyes.”
Zef started squirming a bit in the booth, his arms darting around the bar looking at the other patrons who were minding their own business. Seeing no means of escape he sighed and slunk back into the chair.
“You say you are Avalanche hmm?” Zef said in a hushed tone. “I don’t know nobody in Avalanche, but I got the good stuff!”
He raised up three fingers and silently counted them down... “Boom!” he said loudly. “Course you aren’t getting nothin’ if I don’t walk out of here in one piece.”
Quiet blinked, his 'freaky eyes' gleaming with a small amusement. He folds his arms. "I'm looking to put together my own brotherhood of fighters wishing to liberate the Planet from the clutches of Shin-Ra, and we're going to need to be supplied and informed. I have no desire to kill you, thief. I want you to be my ally."
As a gesture of acquiescence, the gene-altered warrior would slide out of his seat and stand, allowing Zef free passage to leave. "I will require some way to get a hold of you. And, of course, if you have been lying to me in an attempt to save your neck..." He tapped his frankly-ridiculous sword against the side of the table, idly. "I'm very good at finding people, even thieves."
He glanced at Halwen Breeve, still smiling. "Will you help me, too?"