Johannes Volkner bid farewell to the concepts of nonviolence and success. Still shaking, he looked around through the dissipated fog. The man in the bomb suit and his Spirit were long gone, it seemed, but everyone else was still here. Yoshinaka had taken the liberty, it seemed, of moving most of the people who weren't combat-ready at the time out to one of the few intact dwellings in the area. Somehow, everyone had survived the encounter, and Johannes put his focus on two people in particular. He walked towards Jill, as he let go of the command array's mana supply, worry building for how she might have seen his harsh actions. He'd hurt her, even if she wasn't really herself in that moment. She briefly snarled, but soon enough just looked confused, as she slowly clambered to her feet.
"Johannes, why does my body hurt? I was on the ground, too. Did I have an episode?" She cocked her head to one side, watching him expectantly for his answer. If he was going to tell her that he knew the truth of her identity, now would be the time to do it, and yet... Wasn't that an awful idea? Starting drama with his own Spirit when they had a metaphorical sword of Damocles hanging over their heads was just stupid.
He gave her a smile and a light nod. "You had a bit of an episode, and there was an enemy here, but you did well helping fight her off. Jill, if you hadn't been there, we might've lost people." He couldn't help but sigh, and look over to the redhead, who was finally starting to stir. Her eyes widened with alarm when she saw her cut arm, and she looked at him accusatorily, but didn't say anything. His rash actions had spread even more fires, it seemed. Turning fully to her, he spoke up. "I'm sorry about your arm. I needed magical energy to stop Boudica, and I couldn't ask for permission in that moment. I could try to help you with healing it, if you'd like?"
She shrugged, perhaps less angry than he'd assumed, and wrapped the wound with a bandage she had at the ready, among a small bag of what seemed to be other medical supplies. "Not an issue. Medicine-man, in training that is. Aylin." Frankly, that only raised more questions in his head than it answered. She called herself a medicine-man, like the doctors of the native American people, but she was clearly of a wildly different ethnicity, between her white skin and red hair. If she was a Spirit, everything seemed to match up wrong, between the lack of a Caller, and the ethnicity that didn't match her supposed background, and the prosthetic arm made of brass, a metal those indigenous people had never worked, as far as he was aware. And yet, the actual answer was easy enough to estimate. What if she wasn't a Spirit, or a Caller, but a vessel for a Spirit? It was traditional to use clay vessels formed after humanity in the Kabbalistic variation of the spirit calling process, but alchemists often used a body of salt or treated metal, and still other magical foundations could use other materials as well.
So, what stopped an unscrupulous scientist with a need for resources from using human flesh? "Aylin. You and the other young man, you're not quite Spirits, are you?" She simply narrowed her eyes, not directly answering Johannes's question. "His name is Martin. If you're going to talk with us, use his name." He coughed lightly. "Right then, you and Martin. You're not quite Spirits, but rather you're human vessels for those Spirits, right? Did you... Choose, to become this way?"
She looked at him, silently, for several hard seconds when he forced the issue. "This is our life. We were always going to be vessels, so don't prod any further." Johannes felt a shiver run down his spine at the implications, but didn't say anything. Right, so she was Aylin, and the apologetic looking spearman who had helped out was Martin. Then, out of their supposed merry crew, this left only two others - The knight with the wolf's tail and the woman who had kept throwing a scarf over her own head. Thankfully, out of the corner of his eye, he could see that they had at least started to get her up and about. He began to move towards them, when the knight crossed the distance between them in a flash, too fast for him to process. They were standing in front of him, surprisingly short enough that even in their armor, they had to crane their head up slightly to look him in the eye.
In the same slightly-feminine voice they'd admonished Jill with previously, they simply spoke to him, rather than attacking like he expected, as he flinched away from them. "I. Would prefer it if you don't make any, mm... Undue noise, around Miss Takahashi. She can be, mm... Sensitive, to loud noise. Especially when men are concerned. Please be more quiet, we can hear you regardless." Johannes wanted to ask about it, but it was better not to pry. Rather, he gently whispered, under his breath. "Like this, then? Er, what is your name? If it's better not for men to approach Miss Takahashi, I'll need to speak with you instead."
The knight watched for several seconds, before speaking. "I am Sir Melion. It is fine if you... Mm, have not personally heard of me. My tale is somewhat unknown." And... Yeah, he had no idea. He vaguely recalled seeing the name once in British myths, but he couldn't tell what for, when, or why. He simply nodded once. "Right. Johannes Volkner. And the Spirit I've been working with, the girl over there, she's Jill." Glancing over as he tried to introduce them both, he could see that Jill had started to evacuate survivors of Boudica's attack and tend to them, pulling out various tools he didn't even realize she'd stashed away. Right, at minimum he should help with the recovery efforts. "Melion, could you please take Miss Takahashi and keep an eye out in case Boudica or her allies come back? Things will be quite loud here for a while, as we try to fix everything up."
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He got a silent nod in return, before the wolf knight disappeared over to Miss Takahashi's side once more, the two discussing at a volume he couldn't even hear, before gently lifting her up and carrying her away in an instant. With that, Johannes turned to the rest, and saw that Wilhelm had stepped up in coordinating everyone. Tadakatsu and Yoshinaka were evacuating and ferrying survivors around, Jill was set on healing duty, and Aylin was boiling water and sprinkling in what seemed to be some form of herbal medicine. Even Martin and Pádraig were gathering up broken pieces of the destroyed houses to help clear the way and use for further firewood. Everyone had quickly come together into a cohesive whole and found what they could do to help out. And then, there was Johannes. He got lucky, briefly, and now he found himself directionless as pretty much the only one who wasn't being helpful.
Why was he even here? He'd nearly died less than thirty seconds in, the Spirit he linked to was blatantly mentally ill, which no doubt linked back to him in some way, and now he couldn't even be helpful with as little energy as his body and spirit had left. At this rate, he was going to become dead weight for the rest, and Jill was going to become nothing but a liability in swift order. He didn't have the remaining magical energy to heal people up, nor to make the water boil any quicker than a regular fire. He moved to start moving firewood at least, with Martin and Pádraig, but found himself quickly outmatched. Even some of the smaller pieces that were only large enough to be a bit helpful, ultimately were still quite heavy, especially as tired as he was. Soon enough, Wilhelm had walked over, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Jojo, you don't need to push yourself. It's okay to take a break."
Looking past the sudden physical contact, and bizarre nickname, Johannes looked at Wilhelm and it was hard to feel anything but jealousy and a little spite. He hadn't read his file yet, he would do that after they made it out of this Distortion, if they ever did. And yet, he knew a few things about Wilhelm's father. He was deeply involved with the project behind Heliopolis, and besides his legendary status, was known for an immense body and several physiomagical aberrancies. Differing from just regular magical aberrancies, they took the form of when magical energy pooled in the body and changed its development, usually for the better. Almost every mage had one or two, in the form of increased thought speed and blood circulation, but Johannes had a third, his Flash of Inspiration as he called it. Juno Seth was known to have ways to effectively 'force' new physiomagical aberrancies, and had no less than five by the time of his public retirement.
As if proving Johannes's envious thought process, when he didn't respond, Wilhelm simply shrugged and moved over, picking up a massive beam of wood that had to weigh at least eighty kilos with one hand. Even for what he'd expected, wasn't this too much? He casually hefted it over one shoulder and walked to place it in the wood pile, leaving Johannes in a mix of emotion. Awe, envy, spite, insignificance. Pádraig was clearly stronger than him, and seemed to have been forging a powerful magical sword by the sheer feeling of being in its presence. Takahashi had that bizarre knight who seemed to be possibly the strongest out of their gathered Spirits. Wilhelm, evidently, had the most absurdly powerful family backing and natural talents out of all of them. What did he have? What could he even contribute? It felt childish, to think of his own lacking strengths, and it only added to the pressure of that whirlpool of emotions as he tried desperately to understand. He didn't belong among these people, much less with such a high and prestigious ranking. He had a good magical energy pool, he had some little tricks, and so what? That was all that he had to contribute, and it was meaningless. Any mage could learn runes with a bit of focused study, and there were plenty of ways to augment the amount of magical energy someone had available. He certainly wasn't anyone special, and least of all when compared to those gathered.
He let out a deep breath, and closed his eyes. There was no reason to sit there and pity himself. If he had time to cry about how unfair things were, he had time to at least try and regain some of his magical energy. Deep breaths and sitting down to try and give his body time to adjust would be his weapons. After about five minutes of this, he could feel that he had at least some magical energy left to spare, and got up to be ready to use it. Yet, when he opened his eyes, there was a man in yellow and grey clothing patiently overseeing the care of the wounded. Atop his head was a slim, grey hat, and he seemed to be giving orders to the civilians of this colonist landing point without any real question. Johannes decided to walk towards him, speaking lightly. "Excuse me, Sir, are you the leader of this town? I'm sorry we couldn't do more to give aid--"
"Nonsense! You have done all that you could. I heard from my citizens that your men fended off an invader, a savage using flame and smoke to attack us all. Truly, this is proof that they act against God, and need to repent or die, wouldn't you agree? And yet, even after fending them off, your men have tended to my wounded, and managed to still provide aid in dousing fires and cleaning the area."
He wanted to interrupt the man, as they were very much not 'his' men. If anything, Wilhelm was clearly the de-facto leader of the expedition by this point. Still, he walked forward and extended a hand. "Johannes Volkner, Sir, it's good to meet you. As for their act against God, I think it might be hard to tell. They used a Spirit, rather than acting themselves in the attack." The man knowingly nodded, outstretching one hand with a wild and capricious look in his eyes.
"I know, I know. A pleasure to meet you, Volkner. I am the sole leader of the expedition, gentleman of Spain, and General of Hispaniola... You may know me as the great Juan Ponce de León!"
