Yuhuan didn't say anything for a long moment. He just stood there, one hand still loosely braced on the back of Mori's wheelchair, staring at the tall, unfamiliar face grinning down at him like he was waiting for the punchline of a joke nobody had told yet.
⠀
"...Armor," Yuhuan repeated, slowly. "The Bashnya knight."
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"That's the one!"
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"You don't look like a knight."
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"Never claimed to be one, pard'ner. 'Claimed to be Armor. That's just a name people gave me." Vijemo tipped his imaginary hat again, apparently fond enough of the gesture to keep doing it. "Vijemo, if you're feelin' formal. Vijemo Alanís, if you're feelin' real formal."
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Saoirse, who had been staring up at him, unblinking, tilted her head so far sideways it looked like it might come unscrewed.
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"...You're the scary armor man."
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"Was the scary armor man. Retired from scary, mostly. Kept the armor for special occasions."
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"You don't SOUND scary!!"
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"I don't much feel like bein' scary right now either, so we're square." Vijemo crouched down slightly, meeting her at eye level with an easy, unbothered grin. "And who might you be, little lady?"
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"SAOIRSE!" She thrust both puppets forward, nearly clipping him in the chin. "And this is Stuffy, and this is Arnold!"
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"...Charmed." Stuffy's flat monotone did nothing to slow Saoirse down.
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"HOWDY TO YOU, FRIEND!" Arnold bellowed back, delighted.
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It was Roby's voice that cut through the reunion next, hollering from clear across the lobby before he'd even fully sat up on his cot.
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"HEY! ...HEY, HOLD UP—is that ARMOR?! Without the armor?! YOOOO!!!"
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"Was wonderin' when you'd notice," Vijemo called back, waving.
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Roby swung his legs off the cot before the nearest medic could stop him, ignoring her protests entirely as he half-jogged, half-limped across the lobby, dragging his own IV stand along behind him like a reluctant dance partner.
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"You've been walkin' around lookin' like a haunted tin can this ENTIRE time, and this is what's under there?!" Roby circled him once, taking in the poncho, the boots, the silver revolver sitting low on his hip, engravings catching the light. "You look like you rode outta some old western flick! What happened to bein' six-and-a-half feet of terrifyin' murder metal?!"
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"That was the job. This is me." Vijemo shrugged, unbothered. "Different hats for different days, hermano."
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"You gotta be kiddin' me." Roby leaned in toward the revolver, squinting at the engravings. "Is that thing loaded?"
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"Always."
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"Can I hold it?"
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"No."
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"Worth a shot."
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Haddler arrived a beat later, considerably more composed than Roby but no less interested, red eyes tracking straight to the revolver's grip with the particular hunger of a man who collected pretty, dangerous things as a hobby.
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"That's beautiful craftsmanship," Haddler said, genuinely admiring. "Mind if I—"
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"Also no."
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"...I didn't even get to finish the question..."
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"Ya didn't need to. Everybody wants to hold the gun. Answer's always no." Vijemo said it warmly enough that it didn't sting, patting the revolver like an old friend who'd heard the same request a thousand times and never once tired of denying it.
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It was Jianhuan who hadn't said anything at all.
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He stood a short distance off, arms crossed, something unreadable behind his usual half-lidded smirk as he studied the man his team had spent weeks fighting alongside, bleeding alongside, without ever once seeing this face attached to the name.
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"...You've been Armor since the day I met you," Jianhuan said finally, quiet enough that the rest of the noise around them nearly swallowed it. "It's been so long. I've fought beside you all this time, and I never once knew what you looked like."
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"Nature of the job." Vijemo's easy grin didn't waver, but something behind his eyes softened, like he understood exactly what was actually being asked. "Wasn't about not trustin' you, Jian—"
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"Do not call me Jian."
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"—Just... some things I wasn't ready to let out from behind that helmet. Not even for people I trusted."
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"And now you are?"
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"Now I found somethin' worth bein' ready for." Vijemo glanced back at Mori, still parked in his wheelchair, watching the whole exchange with a small, tired smile. "Figured that earned takin' the mask off for good."
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Jianhuan held his gaze a moment longer, then let out a short, unimpressed breath that didn't quite manage to hide the relief underneath it.
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"Well. At least you clean up decent. I was half expecting a face only a mother could love."
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"My mother loved this face plenty, thank you very much."
⠀
Leopold hung back near the edge of the group, quieter than the rest, his eyes drifting, more than once, toward Saoirse, still standing close beside Mori's chair with both puppets clutched to her chest. Something in his jaw tightened each time he looked, and each time he made himself look away before anyone could catch him at it.
⠀
Pallas was the last to approach, unhurried, badge already tucked back into his coat where it usually lived. He studied Vijemo for a long moment, the same clinical, weighing look he gave most new pieces of information, before something in his expression settled into quiet acknowledgment.
⠀
"So the Gunsmith Office," Pallas said. "...That's an old emblem. I didn't think they still took in strays."
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"Don't let 'em hear you call it that. They're touchy about the word 'strays.'" Vijemo extended a hand. "Vijemo. Glad to see ya without the helmet blocking most of yer face!"
⠀
Pallas shook it, brief and even. "I imagine we'll be seeing a great deal more of each other, given the circumstances."
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"Looks that way, partner."
⠀
The Quantum Serpent, still coiled loose and drowsy around Yuhuan's wrist, cracked one faceted eye open at the new voice, regarding Vijemo with the flat, unimpressed patience of something that had seen considerably stranger things in the last several weeks and simply couldn't be bothered to be surprised anymore.
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"The armored one," she said. "Wonderful. I do hope this facility has a cap on secret identities..."
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"She seems talkative now." Vijemo said.
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"She is," Yuhuan confirmed, tired. "She'll talk constantly, if given the opportunity."
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"I'm right here, you know," the serpent said, and went back to sleep.
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For a moment, the whole lobby seemed to settle into something almost peaceful, cots and wheelchairs and IV stands arranged in their crooked, makeshift circle, the entire surviving cast of Adjunct-13 gathered in one battered, exhausted knot for the first time since the freight lift doors had closed behind two separate groups a lifetime of loops ago.
⠀
Saoirse broke the quiet first, predictably, hopping up onto the foot of Mori's wheelchair despite Yuhuan's immediate protest.
⠀
"So wait, wait, wait." She pointed both puppets at Vijemo in rapid succession. "If you're Mori's old buddy, and Mori's OUR buddy, does that make you OUR buddy too?! Like, automatically?! Is that how buddies work?!"
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"Reckon it does," Vijemo said, grinning.
⠀
"AWESOME!" Arnold bellowed. "WE GOT A COWBOY NOW!"
⠀
"...We didn't vote on this," Stuffy muttered. "Nobody asked Stuffy's opinion on acquiring a cowboy..."
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"Stuffy, hush, we're RICH in cowboys now!!"
⠀
Roby, still crouched by the revolver despite having been told no twice already, glanced up with something halfway between admiration and betrayal. "So lemme get this straight... We spent a month and a half down in that hellhole, nearly really died, like, six different ways, and the whole time, Mr. Scary Armor Man was secretly a cowboy who used to be Mori's dead best friend?"
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"Wasn't dead," Vijemo corrected, mild. "Just... never told anybody I was still alive."
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"That's somehow WORSE!"
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"Life's funny like that, hermano."
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Mori, still parked in the middle of all of it, wheelchair hemmed in on every side by the people who'd carried him through the worst month and a half of his life, found himself laughing before he even realized he'd started, the sound catching somewhere between exhaustion and something a great deal warmer.
⠀
Whatever came next, whatever the Eyes actually were, however many of them were still scattered across the Ring waiting to be found, none of it felt quite as heavy sitting here, surrounded by all of it at once.
⠀
For now, that was enough.