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“And that’s why Cindy is no longer allowed to come up with ideas to make poker more fun,” Leonard finished with a sigh, he’d seen plenty of disturbing things ever since he’d first become a Beyonder, but the last game of cards the Red Gloves had played was definitely going to haunt him for a long time.
Klein let out a laugh as Leonard finished his story, it wasn’t the hoarse one he tended to give while using his Gerhman Sparrow persona, but a real one that Leonard remembered from back when they'd been Nighthawks together. It was probably thanks to the fact that both he and Miss Justice already knew what his true personality was like, but Klein had stopped hiding behind a mask so much around them.
Of course, as far as Leonard knew he was still the only one who knew Klein’s real face and full name, but that was understandable since it was a safety precaution. Gerhman Sparrow had made plenty of enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to harm the Morettis if a connection was made between them and the adventurer.
"The Tingen Nighthawks weren't ever that chaotic, right?" Klein questioned. They'd certainly had their oddballs, like Captain Dunn with his horrible memory, or Old Neil with his tendency to use ritual magic for mundane things; but overall they'd been pretty normal, at least for Beyonders. Of course, he'd only been a member for all of two months, so it was possible he'd missed things.
Leonard shook his head, "No, they were pretty sane. Well, as sane is possible in our line of work." Anybody who dealt with the things they did on a regular basis inevitably went a little bit crazy; it was just more noticeable in some people. "I don't know what it is about people who join the Red Gloves, but they tend to be extra weird. It drives me crazy sometimes."
Klein fixed him with a look that seemed to say, 'you're a hypocrite'. "You're the weirdest one out of them all." He accused, causing Leonard to let out an offended gasp.
"I am not!" He protested, and thanks to 'Mr. Fool' having lessened the obscuring effect of the grey fog, Klein could clearly see the affronted expression on his face. Just like Leonard could see the doubtful one on Klein's.
"Yeah, sure you're not." Klein agreed in a rather condescending tone.
Leonard glared at him. "And just what makes me so strange?" He demanded.
Klein held up a hand and began counting things off on his fingers. "You're hosting an angel from the Error Pathway; you're part of a secret organization, which I might add, you're also in charge of investigating; you somersault through people's windows in dreams other than knocking on the door like is proper Nighthawk procedure; you…"
"Okay, okay, I get it. You've made your point." Leonard interrupted, raising his hands in surrender. He could admit that he had quite a few unusual things about him, though he didn't know that he'd go so far as calling himself weird. Though he had gotten disbelieving and concerned looks from his comrades sometimes when he'd mentioned past experiences, some maybe Klein was onto something.
A slightly smug expression appeared on Klein's face, leaving Leonard with a strong desire to take him down a peg or two.
"You're pretty weird yourself," he pointed out, however much to his disappointment Klein didn’t react to his provocation and simply nodded in agreement.
“I know.” Klein held no delusions that he was normal; even if you discounted the strangest things about him, like the fact that he was originally from before the first epoch or that he was pretending to be a God, he still was living a rather absurd life. He’d been a beyonder for less than two years and had already reached Sequence 3; he’d managed to come back from the dead not once, but twice, not that anyone but himself and Amon knew about the second time; he had several different personas he maintained; he regularly killed high level beyonders. None of those things were normal.
“Hmm.” Leonard recovered quickly from his disappointment about Klein's lack of reaction and sighed. "Come to think of it, everyone in the Tarot Club is pretty strange."
A thoughtful expression appeared on Klein's face. "That's true.” The members that had been gathered into the club all had their own quirks.
“Miss Judgment is probably the most normal out of all of us, the only really strange thing about her as far as I can tell, is how short she is.” Leonard commented, apparently having decided this was a topic he wanted to continue. It wasn't something that most people knew, let alone would suspect, but Leonard could be quite the gossiper.
“You should try calling her short to her face,” Klein dared.
And Leonard had to fight the childish urge to stick out his tongue. He had a feeling Klein was just trying to cause him trouble. “Miss Justice seems to be pretty normal as well,” he continued, having decided the best course was to ignore Klein. “Of course, the ease with which she can spend money still makes her rather odd."
Leonard still hadn't figured out Miss Justice's identity in real life, but that was mostly due to a lack of trying, if he really wanted to he was fairly certain it wouldn't be that hard. It was already obvious that she was a Backlund noble, one who was most likely doted on by her parents, as indicated by the amount of money she was able to easily spend; that combined with her blonde hair and green eyes, as well as the fact that he knew she worshipped the Evernight Goddess, would make her relatively easy to track down if he really wanted to.
He wouldn't do that though, during their trip into Grosselle's Travel's she’d purposely disguised herself, making it clear she didn't want to be identified. As a fellow member of the Tarot Club, unless she did something that would endanger Klein, himself, or any of the other members, he would respect that wish.
"Mr. Hanged Man is rather strange as well, he seems to have a lot of information that only a member of the Church of the Lord of Storms would have, but he also seems to be involved with pirates." Leonard had heard rumors from other Red Gloves, that the Church of the Lord of Storms sometimes sent members out to act as pirates and gather information, and the more he interacted with Mr. Hanged Man, the more he believed those rumors to be true. "Not to mention his relationship with Mr. Sun, half the time I feel like I'm watching a parent teaching their child."
Leonard wondered if Mr. Hanged Man even realized the way he was acting, the man gave information to all of the group pretty freely, but it felt like there was extra patience and concern involved when it came to their youngest member.
"He also has a terrible singing voice," Klein commented, earning a confused look from Leonard, who wondered just how he knew that. Klein didn’t bother to elaborate though and began thoughtfully tapping a finger against his lips as he considered the strange points of the other members. “Little Sun is very young but has managed to reach a high sequence very quickly, though of course that can be attributed to both the help of the Tarot Club and the situation in the Forsaken Land of the Gods, but it's still something that would be considered unusual by most people."
"He's rather naive too." Leonard pointed out; it honestly surprised him a little bit how naive the kid could be at times; he didn't really consider himself much of a schemer, at least not compared to Mr. Hanged Man, but there were some questions Mr. Sun asked that he thought the answers to were quite obvious. He would have thought someone who'd grown up in a place like the Forsaken Lands of the Gods, would have had to have learned to be a little more world wise.
Klein grimaced, "He's actually a lot better than he used to be."
Leonard raised an eyebrow at that, how much more naive had Mr. Sun been? Truth be told he wasn't sure he really wanted to know, so he didn't ask for details. Instead he frowned. "This is more on you guys, but why do you call him Little Sun? There's nothing little about him!"
The expression on Klein's face didn't speak highly of his opinion towards the Nighthawk's intelligence at that moment. "He's the youngest," the demigod simply stated.
Leonard's mouth opened and then closed again as he realized he had no rebuttal to give. He quickly changed the subject. "Miss Magician is rather...hmm, how to describe it? I get the feeling she comes up with ridiculous theories and thoughts in her head, and then overthinks them." He wouldn't go so far as to claim she was scatterbrained, she appeared to be a pretty smart person after all, but it seemed like she sometimes got lost in her own thoughts.
"That might just be a trait writers have,” Klein hypothesised, and Leonard took a mental note of Miss Magician’s occupation. Although he wasn’t actually putting the effort into investigating the Tarot Club that the church believed him to be, as a Nighthawk he couldn’t help but collect any information about other beyonders that he happened to hear. He wouldn't do anything with it unless they became a threat, but he still took note and saved it in his head.
"Emlyn is well, kind of an idiot." Leonard didn’t bother using the sanguine's code name, both he and Klein knew his real identity, so what was the point.
Klein grimaced slightly at how frankly Leonard had addressed the vampire's intelligence, but he didn't disagree, because it wasn't entirely wrong. Emlyn was by no means the smartest member they had, though he had managed to become more clever thanks to the advice of others. His pride was still his greatest weakness however, and it provided an easy way to manipulate him.
Of course, Emlyn's failings when it came to intelligence wasn't what Klein would consider the strangest thing about him. "I'd say his doll collection is much odder than his lack of intelligence."
Leonard blinked, tilting his head slightly to the side as he stared at Klein with a confused expression. "His what?"
"Doll collection," Klein repeated. "He's got a room filled with life-size ones I'm fairly certain that prior to joining the Tarot Club, they're what he spent most of his money on."
"....I…..see." Leonard had previously considered Emlyn to be a rather entertaining person, but now he couldn't help but feeling a little creeped out by him. He knew everyone had their own hobbies, but there was just something very disturbing to him about the idea of a room of life sized dolls. Leonard couldn't hold back from shuddering slightly at the thought of it. "There aren't any other members with weird hobbies like that, are there?" He asked, not sure if he really wanted to know the answer.
Klein had to think a moment before responding, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the table as he did so. “No, I don’t think so.” He didn’t know everyone’s hobbies, so he couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he was fairly certain none of the rest of them were into anything weird. “Madame Hermit has a subordinate with weird interests though, but she doesn’t seem to have been infected.” He had to bite his tongue to keep from adding ‘yet’ to the end of his sentence, given some of the things Frank Lee managed to create, he wouldn’t put it past him to find a way to make his insanity contagious.
Leonard eyed Klein with a wary gaze, “What kind of weird interests?” He didn’t think a trait of one of Madame Hermit’s underlings was likely to affect him in any way, but it didn’t hurt to gather information.
“He’s interested in experimental crossbreeding.”
Leonard frowned, admittedly that wasn’t a common hobby but there wasn't anything overly creepy about it. Seeing his confusion, Klein continued, “He was kicked out of the Church of the Earth Mother because his experiments crossed the line.”
Leonard’s mouth opened slightly in surprise, though no sound came out, he had a feeling he probably would be happier not knowing what kind of experiments the man had done to get kicked out. “Is he a danger?”
“If left unattended he could be,.” Klein admitted, “However Madame Hermit keeps a close eye on him and you can sway him from any overly dangerous ideas by distracting him with other things.”
Leonard didn’t feel entirely convinced that that was the best choice in how to deal with things, but there also wasn’t anything he could really do about it. He’d just have to trust that if something bad were to happen, Klein and Madame Hermit would deal with it. “I pity Madame Hermit for having such a difficult subordinate.”
Klein shot him a glance, a mischievous smile on his lips. “I bet people say the same thing in regards to your bosses.”
“Ah, back to making fun of me I see.” Leonard commented with a roll of his eyes, he knew Klein was joking, so he didn’t mind. He did find it a bit hypocritical of Klein to accuse him of being difficult though, when it was him that would stress Captain Dunn out by constantly finding trouble.
Klein laughed, the sound of it echoing through the hall. “You make it too easy.”