Breaking Point

[Void Emissary]

IC: Hassan

 

"So, Gwen, how did you get around to working on Mechs? You seem to have quite the knack for it," Hassan said, changing the subject.

 

IC:

 

"Spent most of my life 'round machines. Pops used to say I used a motherboard for a pacifier when I was a kid," she said, shrugging. "I was a kid, thought the Walkers were the coolest thing since I'd discovered such a thing as a food court, and I didn't have much of another idea what I was gonna do with my life. Signed up as an engineer here and the rest's history."

 

-Void

[Atton Rand]

IC: "You seen any action?" Maya asked, leaning against the wall as she listened to Gwen.

[The UltimoScorp]

IC Maigo:

 

A grumbled response and an attempted juke to the left caused an over balance in the machine, sending it toppling. Only timely action on Maigo's part kept the Huckebein from falling flat on its face.

 

Her own was burning red however as she hurriedly apologized and attempted to right the Walker.

[NorikSigma]

 

IC: Hassan

 

"So, Gwen, how did you get around to working on Mechs? You seem to have quite the knack for it," Hassan said, changing the subject.

 

IC:

 

"Spent most of my life 'round machines. Pops used to say I used a motherboard for a pacifier when I was a kid," she said, shrugging. "I was a kid, thought the Walkers were the coolest thing since I'd discovered such a thing as a food court, and I didn't have much of another idea what I was gonna do with my life. Signed up as an engineer here and the rest's history."

 

-Void

 

 

IC: Hassan

 

"Food courts are pretty cool. Great place to sample the wide palate of human cuisine!"

 

Hassan finished his kebab and threw the skewering stick into the bin.

[sunflower]

​IC: ​Marcus

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Luna watched as the Raptor pulled away from the offending missiles, gaining distance on them well enough to completely avoid them. Not that she had expected them to actually impact; warheads had much more success with proximity detonation than actual direct hits when it came to aircraft. Even so, it did give her and idea.

 

The big problem was finding enough time to go through with it, which she had a feeling was going to become increasingly difficult the longer she kept this up. Her complaints over being double teamed were pushed aside as her Walker's sensors warned of the Raptor looping back around, undoubtedly to go for another strafing run. Luna was, unfortunately, running out of buildings to take cover behind and/or in, especially considering the fact that the Gallia definitely wasn't the best at standing still and weathering a storm period.

 

Certain death was flying through the air above, ready to deliver neatly packaged bursts of doom at a staggering level of rounds per second, able to attack from nearly any angle should she stay out in the open. On the ground nearby was an unknown, but equally dangerous given what Luna had witnessed during her previous attack, foe who was without a doubt drawing a bead on her position.

 

She really didn't want to make a decision between the two, but the fact that the much more familar machine started firing down on her as she circled around the building forced the issue. Not for the first time during the tournament, training kicked in and decided for her, in spite of what deliberations had been going through her head. The boosters on the Gallia flared, pushing the mech the remaining distance around the building; and out of the line of fire of the Munequita. Well, not that she hadn't been planning on taking that route anyway, and she rounded the corner prepared.

 

Both of the experimental Warrior's arms were pointed forward towards her new opponent, which she only got a split second view of before the underslung cannons mounted on them fired. Twin bursts of blinding, white-hot liquid exploded out from the weapons, though it wasn't an attack, not really. The two Walkers were too far away for the cannons to be an effective weapon, though the incendary ammo worked perfectly well as a makeshift visual screen, a blinding one at that; the ammunition hanging in the air just long enough to mask her maneuvers for the time being, and throw off any immediate targeting for the time being.

 

All it took was a squeeze of the trigger, and another barrage of missiles fired; two a piece, their designated targets unchanged from their previous attack. A pair immedaitely arced upward to intercept the Raptor above, while the others shot through the wall of flames and smoke towards the Warrior down the street.

[Void Emissary]

IC:

 

Gwen's stick followed suit momentarily.

 

"I'll say," she said to Hassan, wiping the kebab grease off on her palms as her gaze kept falling back to the arrival, the woman leaning against the wall with a chicken skewer in one hand. "Let me tell you the story of my first experience with breakfast pizza sometime. Better story than any action I've ever seen, I'll tell ya. Has a ... well, has a better ending for sure."

 

-Void

[NorikSigma]

IC: Hassan

 

"Breakfast Pizza sounds amazing, to be sure."

 

Hassan crossed over to the sink to start washing up the plates.

 

"How do you find life here so far? Other than the recent attack, of course."

[Krayzikk]

IC:

Without vulcans and with her primary thrusters damaged, missiles were a real pain.

 

The incoming pair shot through the fire and smoke, splitting on their way towards Ronin, but the sight gave her an idea. Bracing for impact, she focused on offense instead of defense; the thermite and smoke helped to mask the details of Luna's maneuvers, yes, but it failed to mask her position. She had already prepared her targeting, and not being able to see her target clearly didn't mean she couldn't tell where the Gallia was. The bright light was painful, but far from intolerable; she'd have spots in her vision for a few moments once she looked away, but Ayane could deal with that.

 

More importantly knowing that the thermite came from Gallia, and knowing the direction she was headed, allowed her to adjust her planned shot just a little and send a high-caliber round rocketing towards Gallia's center mass. The thermite had been a surprise for only a second; her shot still went on its way mere seconds after Luna abandoned cover. She would have preferred to hit the shoulder as planned, but this would have to do. It helped that the thermite was a double edged sword; Luna wouldn't see what was coming. She followed with a burst from her rifle, a good long one to send a thick enough hail to make up for a lack of precision.

 

Then, however, she had to deal with the missiles. Impact warnings blared in her cockpit as they impacted with her shield, though one of the submissiles struck her right shoulder and one passed harmlessly over the left. Damage to the Ronin was minor, but her shield... Didn't really qualify anymore. Permitting Ayane her chance to strike at an unsuspecting Gallia had been its last gasp. The metal was twisted and warped, and the forearm behind it was showing some superficial damage. It wouldn't block any more explosives. Maybe a few bullets, but not many.

 

She needed a new shield.

 

Fortunately, she decided with a grin, her previous opponent had provided one. Withdrawing a short distance to the wreckage of The Boom she rammed her katana through its torso, using the 'handle' on her new shield to pull it up to hang limply in front of her. The Boom hung limply like a gruesome doll, one half of its bisected cranial unit ripping free of the few wires still holding it on and clanking against the pavement. As insane as it seemed... A quick glance confirmed the plan's merit. The Ronin was completely protected by the mass of its fallen opponent, while the leverage its 'handle' provided let her still fire around it,

 

Then she advanced. The thrusters she had left fired at maximum capacity, carrying her forward while the Naginata ejected its previous shell and slid a new one into the chamber. She wasn't making swift progress, but she was definitely getting there; and with a whole Walker between her and her foe, she didn't need to fear attacks for a while.

 

Ayane's grin couldn't be wider.

[shadow pridak money gang]

IC:

 

At least someone was having fun. Nadia White, unlike her girlfriend, had finally stopped joyriding and was beginning to look at this entire tournament with a more critical eye - and, sure enough, it was sapping the fun out of the whole shebang completely.

 

Sure, it was just a way to cut loose a little after a long week of training maneuvers. Yeah, a lot of people were testing upgrades or new Walkers entirely, still working out their kinks and figuring out how they'd survive in the real world. Was winning fun? ###### to the yeah it was - and she couldn't pick a better cohort for this victory if she tried. She and Ayane had been tag teaming in simulator combat since her teens, and even with two years and a brand new Walker separating their last competition together, their chemistry in the field still proved remarkable. But even with all the prodigious talent and experience of the two former Far East Brigade pilots...even with the tech divide of Munequita and the complete inexperience of some pilots...even with the promise of that absolutely insane School of the East victory sex...

 

This was too easy. 

 

A year previously, Patrick McKinley had found a way to force Munequita to ground in a way Fairuza had only dreamed of. It was more than just appealing to her recklessness and fighting spirit the way the Test Team pilot thought, though; it was a mix of head games and piloting skill, making the skies such a dangerous place to be that even the vaunted Raptor had to go to ground if it wanted to survive. She felt none of that fear now, not even the slightest little voice in the back of her head telling her to get the ###### out of the skies. She felt pure, undiluted confidence. These skies were hers, and there wasn't a force in this entire simulation that could force her down. How would they ever push back the Union when the only place their ships came from were the skies? What would happen to these idiots if there were no Raptors to keep the skies clear?

 

She would need to wrap this fight up on the double.

 

And then Sergeant Nadia White would need to give everyone a crash course in how to own the skies.

 

Munequita was well above the fight currently taking place between Gallia and Ronin, so the dinky little micromissiles that the Ex-IV tried shooting at the Raptor were about as ineffective as they'd been against Ayane's Warrior, and the micromissiles split and exploded well beneath her. The flash of thermite that had blinded Ronin similarly proved to be nothing more than an irritating glint on the ground below for the Raptor pilot, though it was mostly rendered moot by the secondary interference caused by Gallia's micromissiles anyway. Nadia waited for it to disappear...only for a faint smile to turn the tide on her waxing grumpiness.

 

I love that psycho nip with all my heart.

 

As Luna Marcus was left to deal with the one two Walkers advancing on her position and tanking all damage, and Munequita kept fading in and out of sight underneath the layers of sunlight, noise, and light pollution, two missiles - Lauren's two remaining Sidewinders - soared down from on high towards Gallia's unarmored left shoulder, aiming to squarely hit the missile pod placed there.

 

-Tyler

Edited October 12, 2016 by Pip Bernadotte

[sunflower]

IC: Marcus
 
There was no time to stop and regroup, no time to recuperate or work through a drawn out strategy. That was fine, Luna preferred working on the fly to overthinking things... which she had realized more than once might not be the healthiest habit for her to have. No time to think, not when there were two giant machines bearing down on her. All reaction now.
 
Mostly.
 
Her hasty distraction had worked exactly as she had liked; though what she had liked was more aptly described as the lesser of two evils. The ornate Walker had been ready for her, no surprise there, and fired off a round from that shoulder-mounted rifle almost as soon as she rounded the corner, also expected. With the visual screen between them, targeting was going to be a whole other issue for the Warrior, though the pilot had certainly seen which direction the experimental Walker had been moving, and it wouldn't be difficult to make a good prediction as to where it would take her. So, Luna did her best to be unpredictable, even before the twin sets of missiles left their housings, she activated the Gallia's boosters, causing it to shift direction to hug the side of the building as it moved. Even so, the round still connected, slicing through the side armor just above the hip of the EX-IV, cracking the plate and breaking off a section as the armor-piercing round past clean through. The shot had been glancing enough to have only gone through armor, at least as far as Luna could determine it hadn't hit any mechanics, though she had no intention of stopping to check.
 
Quite the opposite. Her change in position made her catch the front end of the sustained burst from the rifle, though the majority of the shots flew by the side. Three hit the relatively well protected front of the torso, chipping the armor, while two more shattered against the thinner armor on her machine's raised arm. Luna sprinted through the slowly dissipating smoke and flames of her makeshift distraction at max speed, closing in on the other Warrior's position at full tilt; all thrusters firing. The distance was shortened considerably, as her opponent had been kind enough to do the same, after, that is, thrusting their sword into the blown-out shell of the Walker with the caved-in cranial unit from before. By the time it had raised the corpse with a two-handed heave to form a metallic meatshield, Luna had just about closed the distance between them.
 
She'd dealt with shields before, and this one, however unconventionally disturbing, wasn't any different. The dead machine's sheer mass would make it difficult to maneuver, and would certainly slow down the already damaged Warrior even further, Luna realized. For the moment, she still had the advantage of agility and speed, and fully intended to make the most of it. The Walker shield presented a barrier, one that could be broken down over time, but Luna definitely didn't have the time to do so. Instead, she opted to go around it, or more specifically, above it.
 
Boosters shifted their thrust vectors, and the Gallia's next stride kicked off of the ground, turning the sprint into a leap. The long jump sent Luna careening up and over her opponent, and offered an unobstructed line of sight. Which she took full advantage of, completely letting loose with the Gallia's banks of missiles.
 
Three-five-eight-fourteen-twenty shot out of their housings in rapid succession as Luna maneuvered the Gallia as best she could to keep the Ronin in view; the majority simply shot down towards the Walker's center of mass, though a fair number directed themselves to target the massive shoulder-mounted rifle. Luna had no chance to see how effective her attack actually was, as it took a fair bit of effort on her part to land her wild jump on the other side, the result of which was hardly graceful in any warped sense of the word, though it got the job done enough to keep her facing the general direction of the Warrior. She just really hoped no one had been paying too much attention to that.
 
Motion caught her attention, from behind her target, and it took Luna a split second to recognize the smoke trails from two missiles coming at her. She felt a pang in her stomach and felt her face flush, the moment accentuated by an irregular heratbeat. They had already closed half the distance between their source in the sky and her position, depite the Gallia's berserk speed, and they traveled half of that again in the time it took her to confirm them as very, very hostile and fire off countermeasures. Five missiles, nearly the last of what she had left, fire off into the sky in an evasive pattern, blooming out and splitting like some pyrotechnic flower before closing back in on the offending warheads. The closer of the two was dispatched as the micromissiles intercepted and detonated right up on it; tearing it to shrapnel. She was nowhere near as lucky with the second, as the barrage only succeeded in damaging, not destroying, the Sidewinder. Though crippled, the missile had plenty of energy to continue on its relative trajectory, exploding a mere ten meters off of its intended target.
 
The blast showered Luna with debris, shrapnel digging into the right side of her machine's armor, and would've completely knocked it down if it weren't for the fact that she had been attempting to move away from it. All the same, it shoved her into the side of the building.
 
Shaken, yet still determined, Luna focused her attention back on the opponent closest to her, raising her rifle into firing position as she regained her bearings.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

OOC: I couldn't sleep.

 

IC:

 

Watching the battle, a thought gnawed at her. Other pilots had gone down, yes, but they had fought hard. Others had failed, sure, but not so abjectly. They had lost their fights, but none of those fights had been so one-sided, so pathetic, as Fairuza's.

 

And this would be the first time any of her comrades saw her - in action, or at all. This flailing disaster was the first - and, she thought, maybe only - impression she had made. This was how they would know her.

 

She felt sick.

 

Forcing a smile, forcing some of the cheerful bravado back into her voice, she punched the comm one last time.

 

"I'll buy drinks for the two of you later, right now I need to..." she faltered, her voice breaking. No excuse would be good enough. Nothing would make them forget, make them like her. "I'm sorry. I need to leave. Good luck."

 

Deactivating the simulator, she closed her eyes as the pod unsealed, then slowly unfolded herself as she climbed out. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she didn't even look at Týr as she began to walk away, forgetting all practical matters in the panicked certainty that a single poor performance in the simulators had permanently disgraced her in the eyes of her comrades.

 

OOC: If this is bad writing, let me know. I'm really not sure about it myself, and am quite willing to scrap the post if one of you tells me it's awful. In retrospect, I somewhat overstated her confidence in her profile, but behavior like this is, I think, absolutely in keeping with what I predicted in the section on weaknesses.

[Krayzikk]

 

Well that was helpful of her.

 

Ayane had only been advancing for a few moments before she saw that the Gallia had been thinking the same thing, approaching at a breakneck pace. At this distance, with a clear look at the Walker for the first time, she could see that it wasn’t just a customized Warrior. The changes were too extensive for that. It looked less like the utilitarian military machines she was used to, and more like the supercars she grew up seeing at Japanese auto shows. The sleek curves reminded her of a Mitsuoka concept vehicle or a Nissan GT-R, the sort of thing you might see as a display of technology to come. The matte, unpainted material reminded her of a prototype, something that deserved to be on display as a testament to Federation innovation.

 

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to smash it.  After all, it was just a simulation.

 

As the Gallia lunged Ayane responded reflexively, yanking up on the hilt of her katana and dragging The Boom up with it until the inoperable Walker hung over the Ronin’s head supported by the blade’s tsuba. Not a second too soon, either; missiles hailed down one after another onto her improvised like meteors, twenty swarm rockets subdividing into sixty submunitions in the short distance between source and target. Sixty explosives raining down, blanketing the target area with smoke and shrapnel. Even within the armored walls of her cockpit the sound was loud, like sixty thunderclaps in the mother of all storms going off above her head almost at once. She didn’t know what the result was going to be; it was happening so quickly that she wouldn’t know until it was over. Either her simulation was over, or her defense worked. There was no in between. The Ronin crouched a little as the force on her ‘shield’ intensified, bracing the Ronin to better deal with both its weight and the pressure of the assault.

 

When, as the thunder of Biblical proportions ended, her sensor feeds were still active she had her answer. She couldn’t see much, not yet, through the immense smokescreen that had her at its epicenter. Sixty explosions above her head and around her feet had sent up plumes of dust, smoke, and debris; stone, concrete, metal, shrapnel all swirled in a cloud of thick choking smoke. She couldn’t see out, and she knew no one could see in. But her sensors told her plenty. Impact warnings went off around the shoulders and lower legs, registering shrapnel or nearby explosions. The Naginata unit registered potential damage, though nothing that impeded its functionality just yet. The Ronin, in short, had survived.

 

If The Boom was real and its pilot were inside, he would not have. The barrage had ravaged the poor Walker, its armor torn asunder and scattered about the Ronin’s feet, and its left arm lay ruined on the ground  before her. The Warrior’s left shoulder had been damaged in Ayane’s first assault, and the joint couldn’t hold up to the destructive forces loosed upon it. The right shin dangled by a few thick cables and the tenuous grasp of its ruined servo motor, and its cranial unit was just gone. Nothing identifiable remained. The Boom’s upper torso was a burnt out husk where the explosions had wreaked havoc through the breach her blade had created, and the Walker’s front had been stripped of armor save for its last two stubborn limbs. Its husk, for it could no longer even be called a Warrior’s corpse, glowed molten and smoked with the smell of cooked electronics. What few pieces could still be identified were scorched and scarred, a unit beyond salvage.

 

Not that the Ronin would win any beauty contests. The old girl’s functions were intact, but she wasn’t unscathed. Some of the shrapnel and explosive force made it through the tear in The Boom’s torso, cutting down and across Ronin’s cranial unit. Half its kabuto had been torn off, the shrapnel continuing down to scar half of its ‘face’. The green lens covering one of its ‘eyes’ had shattered, revealing a red glow behind. Submunitions had made their way through the space The Boom’s left shoulder had occupied to strike at the Ronin’s, leaving its pauldron pitted and scorched. Functionality wasn’t impaired, it was one of the thickest points of armor on the machine, but the top few layers of armor had been ripped away. Missiles that had been just a little off the mark had instead detonated around her feet, lapping at its lower legs with thermal and concussive forces while peppering them with shrapnel and debris. The mangled remains of her shield still clung to her left arm, only just recognizable. The Boom’s right shoulder had held, thankfully, protecting the Naginata assembly from the worst of the damage. It had received its share of debris from above, the shoulder protecting it was far from unscathed, but it was intact. For now. There was a very real risk that the mild damage it had taken would render it inoperable after the exertion of a few more shots.

 

But the Warrior still stood. Ayane processed all of the damage in the span of an instant and reached a simple conclusion; it was time to attack.

 

She couldn’t flee, not even if she wanted to. She didn’t have the thrust to escape quickly enough. Ronin would be torn to pieces before she found cover. Besides, Luna had so politely closed to range for her. Ayane couldn’t pass up such an open invitation, now could she?

 

This decision made in an instant, several things happened at once. Ronin’s coiled legs pushed off violently like a batter, and the Walker swung its katana in much the same manner. The ragdoll-like husk impaled upon it slid off, hurled forcefully out of the smoke and towards the Gallia’s center mass. Forced up against the side of the building as she was, and distracted as she was by the Sidewinder Ayane heard explode, she wasn’t likely to see it coming. Nor evade.

 

So as Luna brought her rifle back up, she found the husk of The Boom filling her field of vision at a rapid rate.

 

The same motion brought Ronin’s left forearm into position, guarding its body with what remained of her shield. It wouldn’t hold up long, but it hadn’t taken any more damage. It would still be enough to stop a few rounds, and that was all she needed. Her katana was poised to slice, up near her shoulder, and her rifle was tucked in close to the body. The Far East Brigade pilot, now prepared, fired her thrusters.

 

All of them.

 

Luna had caused severe damage to her primary forward thrusters, but they weren’t all destroyed; some were just damaged. Not enough to provide their usual continuous thrust. But they could hold on long enough for a single burst. And the Gallia? The Gallia’s own maneuver had put it practically within spitting distance. A burst was all she needed.

 

The Ronin rocketed forward, pushed for just a few moments to almost its usual speed, following closely in the wake of The Boom’s husk. It was Ayane’s turn to erupt from the smokescreen, now,

. Her former meatshield served her one last time to obscure the Ronin’s approach from view, soak up potential incoming fire, and if she was lucky, knock the Gallia off balance.

 

Small explosions resounded from the Ronin’s back, alerts warning Ayane that pushing the thrusters that were already damaged had ruined them completely, but it didn’t matter. She was in range. She fired a burst from her rifle during her lunge and prepared to slash at Gallia’s center mass once she covered those last couple meters.

 

The Japanese women let out what could only be called a kiai over the comms during her unconventional blitzkrieg, the sequence fast enough to catch even experienced pilots off guard. She hoped, distracted by the Raptor above, she would catch Luna the same.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Peele

[Constructelf]

IC: Lé Thanh Khiêm

"... What the ."

 

Did that lady just throw the remains of his Walker with her Walker?

 

Collecting himself, he attempted to find away to talk to the remaining contestants over the comms.

 

"I'm not sure if anybody can hear me, but if you can what model of motors is the Ronin using for its joints? Because it just... Threw half a Walker at another Walker."

[sunflower]

IC: Marcus
 
"Son of a-"
 
Luna's complaints were cut off sharply by the combined cacophony of concrete buckling, hardened metal slicing through armor, and two giant machine colliding. To say the least, the last thing she expected to see come flying out of the debris and smoke was the charred, blown-apart corpse of the meatshield Walker. It had caught her off guard, and there was absolutely no way that the Gallia was going to be able to move out of the way fast enough. Too close, and cut off from two angles, Luna went for the only remaining course of action. She had brought up her Walker's other arm, fired up the thrusters to full, and braced against the ground.
 
And she met the flying Walker head on; impaling both blades into the ruined machine's torso nearly up to her own's knuckles and stopping it dead. Both sets of boosters had flared up to counteract the force, and yet it still pushed her back a fair number of meters, driving through the pavement. She shifted the bulk of the machine just enough to catch a glimpse of a battered, not-so-ornate-anymore Walker charge out through the smoke. Alright.
 
Luna pushed the Gallia forward to meet it head on, catching a barrage of rifle fire on the torso, now it was her turn to take advantage of a convenient shield. The Warrior was moving to close the distance quickly, and Luna could certainly oblige. Her Walker's thrusters fired again, closing the last few meters even quicker. Rather than keep her distance, Luna almost made to shoulder-check the oncoming machine, shoving aside the shattered hulk of a Walker up and to her left, the slash cutting through the torso of it rather than her own, the motion causing it to slide off of her blades.
 
Now right up on her opponent, she twisted to her right, out of the firing arc of the Warrior's assault rifle while ducking low to weave inside its guard while it was still recovering from the sword strike. The same side arm came up and around towards the side of her opponent's torso, though not for a strike with the glowing heat blade positioned on it, instead firing off a point-blank shot from the underslung incendiary cannon, straight into the center of mass. She kept her own Warrior's left arm up and close to defend against possible counter-blows.
 
Faintly, as her ears were still ringing from the near-miss missile explosion, she could've sworn she heard someone yell over the comm. She had a pretty good idea where it might've originated from.

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

Well now this was interesting.

 

Ayane's gambit had worked just as planned, but she hadn't expected her opponent to turn the trick around on her to handle the strike from her katana. Not that there was much left of the poor Boom, that last strike had all but bisected the remains, but the last minute ploy served to save the Gallia. She even turned that desperation move into an opening to boot. 

 

Pretty impressive. 

 

There was nothing she was going to be able to do about the incendiary cannon. The Gallia had created an opening in her defenses when Ayane over-extended, and nothing would get her out of the way in time. Rather than fight the inevitable, however, she looked a step further ahead; the torso was the most armored part of a Walker, and Ronin's was virtually undamaged. She could take the hit, and use the chance. It was time to create an opening of her own. While Gallia's right arm moved in, the Ronin pivoted on its left foot and stepped in with its right.

 

Ayane couldn't completely evade the thermite, but she could mitigate it. More importantly melee was her territory, and in the Ronin's state she couldn't afford to let the other Warrior escape to a longer range. It was all or nothing. She heard the warnings as the incendiary munitions licked across the Warrior's side but she ignored them to focus on her maneuver. Before the offending arm could be withdrawn caught its elbow between Ronin's bicep and its torso, leaving Gallia's right forearm (and by extnsion incendiary cannon) stuck protruding harmlessly past the Japanese Warrior's back. Its left foot took a half step forward, blocking her foe from moving any further to the other Warrior's right and fired her maneuvering thrusters at full power to cancel out Gallia's momentum as best she could. Her foe's carbine was similarly trapped, ensuring no risk of bullets being pumped into her at close range. That only left one blade and one cannon, those of the left arm, that Gallia could strike with. In such close quarters, however, she wouldn't be able to build up much momentum for her blade. The cannon, too, was more likely to damage them both than harm just the Ronin.

 

Same went for her remaining missiles, too. With both Warriors all but chest to chest her swarm rockets might take out Ronin out, but would probably take the newer Warrior down too.

 

Not that Ayane was going to give her the chance. The maneuver hadn't just been for defense, though her foe probably wouldn't notice until too late; the movements, combined with a little lean forward at the waist, had brought the Naginata's to rest its barrel against the very top of what would have been the slightly-shorter Gallia's sternum. The weapon was angled down almost forty five degree. A clean shot down through the upper torso, down into the reactor, and potentially back out the lower back.

 

She squeezed the trigger without hesitation, sending the round lancing out less than a second after she had caught the Gallia's arm. To be sure she rammed her rifle's barrel into the Gallia's side, holding the trigger down to pump round after round into the spot she had damaged earlier with the Naginata. Ayane wasn't entirely sure she'd manage to take down the Gallia, though she was pretty sure she had a good chance, but she was finished anyway.

 

If Ayane couldn't take her down, she'd at least keep her still long enough for Lauren to blow both Warriors to kingdom come.

[sunflower]

IC: Marcus
 
Luna saw the opposing Walker's arm drop down to trap that of her own, and the flash of thrusters firing in an attempt to mitigate her forward momentum. It was, at that point, too late to alter her combination, as she had already sent the Gallia's left knee shooting up at an angle into the Warrior's torso, utilizing the leverage offered by the enclosed arm to attempt to make up for the lost forward force. Even so, the strike landed with considerably less power than Luna would've hoped for, though it was enough to shove the scarred mech upright, and throw off the aim of its shoulder-mounted rifle.
 
Slightly, the crack of the projectile firing was almost simultaneous with the ear-splitting sound of armor and mechanics being sheared off, as the hypersonic slug tore through the surface of the Gallia's left stabilizing wing. Given Luna's current band of luck, that was probably pretty important for something. She did her best not to think about it, and was already maneuvering before the aerodynamic surface was completely detached from her Walker. She twisted her machine to the outside, the forward boosters on its left side igniting to whip it around the convenient fulcrum that was provided between the other Warrior's arm and torso. To augment the motion, she swung her Walker's still raised leg around to plant it firmly towards the back, stepping to the side with the right to block her opponent's legs. A barrage of fire from the rifle flew past where she had been, as the maneuver put them side-by-side. As the Gallia's left leg landed, the rightward solid fuel thrusters on its back and shoulder flared up, the opposing forces causing the experimental Warrior's torso to rotate in tandem with the mechanics underneath the armor, and would result in the Gallia violently pulling the other Walker over its own lowered center of mass via the trapped arm, which Luna had latched onto her opponent with across its back.
 
Her opponent immobilizing her Walker's limb had only secured the throw even more, and the extended right leg would make any attempt to against it be met with damage to her opponent's Walker's own, if not outright destruction to the lower joints given the sheer amount of combined force being generated.
 
Still, just to be sure, Luna brought the Gallia's left heat blade around to meet the Walker's center of mass head-on.

[25K Now!]

IC Maigo:

 

A grumbled response and an attempted juke to the left caused an over balance in the machine, sending it toppling. Only timely action on Maigo's part kept the Huckebein from falling flat on its face.

 

Her own was burning red however as she hurriedly apologized and attempted to right the Walker.

IC: October M. Brightbridge

 

"Perambulate with care, Private Koizumi."

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2016 by 25K When?

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

IC:

 

While the Faroese pilot would later regret leaving the sim pod just as the show was getting really good, she was unaware of that for the moment, and more concerned with trying to manage something productive in a day that had started off rather worse than she'd expected. Her original plan had been to retreat to a quiet place and blow five or so hours on working out a strategy for taking out a Raptor, but, as she walked away from the pod, she reasoned that in her current state, still frustrated and panicky over the defeat, the odds of success were low enough to make it a waste.

 

Instead, she turned her attention to two pilots she saw conversing by machines that, like her own Týr, were far enough off from any standard model as to mark the pilots as members of the base's Test Team. Granted, as she looked up at her own machine and remembered how easily the Munequita had taken her down, she had a suspicion that she wouldn't be permitted to be a part of that for long, but attempting to avoid the consequences of failure would only compound disgrace, not alleviate it.

 

Taking a breath to steady herself, she walked toward Lockheed and Armbruster, mentally preparing an explanation for her failure as she went.

[Krayzikk]

IC:

"She's in good company, then."

Aaaaaaand she's right there.

 

Despite the variety of new faces that were popping up around the base, Benjamin had made an effort to at least get a rough description of his new colleague. He had made even more of an effort to get a glimpse of her Walker, and a quick glance toward it confirmed its cockpit was open. Add in the pilot suit the approaching giant wore and it was pretty clear she was the new member of Test Team. 

 

"Hey," The German waved, making an effort to switch from thinking about Walkers to thinking about people. "Fairuza, right? Mind handing me that big power connector right there? I don't want the boss to do it, after the Baconator I think he jinxes anything I work on."

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

OOC: Haha whoops I'd been thinking of the sims as using a separate piece of equipment from the walker itself - like, a little mock-up of a cockpit hooked directly into the main computer network. Not a huge difference either way, but definitely changes my mental image of things.

 

IC:

 

Practical matters, yes, thank you.

 

Fairuza would never have claimed to be the best mechanic on the team, but as her colleague was good enough to lay things out neatly and the part in question wasn't exactly obscure, locating it was no problem.

 

"Yes, it's Fairuza," she replied as she hefted the power connector, noting that it was a little heavier than expected. Looking over the Vernichten, she took a step closer, holding the part out to the German. "And you're Benjamin, yes? Has there been some problem with your walker?"

[25K Now!]

IC: Christoph Lockheed

 

"The Baconator would never have succeeded."

 

Christoph sipped at his plastic cup of water, eyes glancing towards Fairuza. To be more specific, they glanced upwards, as the newest member of the Test Team was more or less half a metre taller than him. Had he not read over the personnel files earlier, he would've been quite surprised by the height, but even so, the knowledge didn't compare to seeing it in person.

 

"Lance Corporal Nyhåb," he said in greeting. "Pleasure to be working with you."

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Benjamin Armbruster, yep," The German confirmed, taking the power connector as gracefully as possible. Given the swiftness with which it was placed on a table and the barely veiled relief on his face, it wasn't very graceful. "Just a sec."

 

Ben crouched, gripping the connector with both hands and lifting with his knees. It was working out for him much better than his earlier more casual grip, and he carried it over to the table next to his Walker without too much difficulty. He set it down next to the connector he had taken out of the machine, then turned around to address the Faroese woman again.

 

"Sorry. Nope, nothing's wrong with her. Well, that isn't usually. Vernichten's had a few little systems that weren't exactly up to Federation safety regs for a while. Not a problem when she's just doing test work, but when I'm actually gonna have to fight in her? Well, then that eight percent chance the backup power systems for the left arm overloads explosively if it gets more than seventy percent its rated voltage is a bigger issue." He patted the new connector, then gestured at the open maintenance hatch in the Walker behind him. "Had to Macgyver a few things when the techs couldn't spare certain parts. It all works, but it's a little unorthodox. Patching it up before the next fight."

"And the Baconator would have worked perfectly, boss." He added, shooting his CO a look. "Besides, no one got hurt. Being banned from testing it again was an overreaction."

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

IC:

 

"Likewise, Squad Captain Lockheed. And, uh... any relation to, you know, the aerospace engineering firm?"

 

Judging by their reactions so far, either they hadn't seen what happened in the sim, or she wasn't about to lose her position over an admittedly cringe-inducing defeat in a simulation. Somewhat more pressing, either way, were the references to some prior incident with...

 

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is - or was - the Baconator?"

[25K Now!]

IC: Christopher Lockheed

 

"Merely the same surname as the founders," offered the Australian man casually in response. "Nothing more."

 

He gazed over towards the Vernichten's frame, green eyes narrowing slightly upon hearing the words of his subordinate. There was something that he needed to ask.

 

"Was there any effect on the power connection with the rifle?"

 

The specialised rifle, was, after all, the primary weapon of Benjamin's Walker, and any modifications to the machine's power conduits that could affect its operation were particularly important to note. He had no doubt in the mechanical abilities of the younger man, but unorthodox fixes to the Vernichten were, as their name suggested, unorthodox in how they operated.

 

"As for your query, Lance Corporal, the Baconator was ..."

 

He searched for the right word.

 

"... an experience."

[Silvan Haven]

Kasper Harken

 

IC: "More like a nightmare, sir." Came a young man's voice from the open cockpit of a nearby Walker. Judging from the shiny new paintjob and the lack of battle damage it was a new machine. Although like everything else in the Test Team hanger it appeared to have a variety of nonstandard weapons and systems.

 

Kasper quickly clambered down the ladder set against his machine and made his way over to the small group. Upon reaching them he held out his hand towards the newest member of the group and spoke.

 

"Specialist Kasper Harken. I was supposed to join you in the tournament but it seems that a fair chunk of the software in my machine was corrupted while we were slapping on the jammers. Including part of the section that allows it to perform sim functions. Sorry about taking so long to fix it, it looked like you could have used the help."

[Krayzikk]

IC:

"No, boss, but that is where most of the jury-rigging is. Just a second." The German hopped up onto the table he had set the connector on and pulled himself from there up onto a catwalk suspended next to Vernichten's torso, casually continuing to converse with the other members of Test Team below while he did. "The Baconator, Miss Fairuza, was a great system. I'm not really allowed to talk about it anymore. I think they're worried I'll start tinkering with a Mk. II."

"Anyway," Having reached the catwalk Benjamin stood and casually rapped his knuckles against the Warrior's chassis, directing his gaze to the Test Team below. "You already know this, boss, but I'll explain it for the new girl. Vernichten's DMR runs on a coilgun. Or Gauss gun, if you'd prefer. There's a battery in its frame that charges from the Vernichten's power core. Normally it just runs like a normal DMR. Semi-automatic, longer range than an assault rifle, better rate of fire than a sniper rifle."

 

"But if I connect this," He grabbed the large cable connected to the Warrior's back and shook it slightly. "To a socket on the rifle, it draws power from the reactor directly to power the rifle up for a more potent shot. Downside, lower rate of fire and she can't move. Lot like the Gunners. And, you know, the spot on her back where someone could have an easier time breaching the core."

 

"Problem was, that's a lot more power than Warriors are specced to handle. The Lockheed has some of the same engineering issues. Parts from Gunners are rated for it, but there weren't any that could be spared. So I reinforced that old connector," He pointed at the parts on the table below.  "And used some clever trickery to convince the computer to run the maximum permitted power through the primary systems, plus a little more, and the remainder through secondary systems. Works, but a little unorthodox. Now that we've got the spare parts, though, I can actually do it right."

 

"Vernichten's got a bunch of little quirks like that. Now that I've got the material and a pressing desire not to die because of a malfunction, I'm working on fixing them."

 

"Hey, Kasper. You done living in the sim pod yet?"

[Silvan Haven]

Kasper Harken

 

IC: "I wish." Kasper groaned back. "Still having trouble getting the Take Two to move like I want it to. Driving has never been my strong point."

[shadow pridak money gang]

IC:

 

Nadia heard her own irritated growl echo inside her simulated cockpit as she realized Ayane Inoue's gambit. 

 

In ninety-eight out of a hundred fights, this would be no contest. Ayane was the more experienced, more naturally talented pilot, in a Walker she was more familiar with, capable of overpowering Gallia at close-range or long-range. But the tale of the tape didn't always mean everything, and somehow, Marcus had fought her way out of the corner Ayane backed her way into and had locked Ronin into a dead heat with Gallia. Most of her longer-range weapons had been rendered useless by Gallia's attempts at mech boxing, and the Ex IV had the advantage of being quicker than Aya's old Warrior. Add to that the crippled thrusters that were looking more and more obvious on Ronin by the minute, and it was clear which way the fight was going.

 

Ayane knew it, too. Which is why she had trapped Gallia in its tracks and presented her girlfriend in the skies a clear shot with her four remaining missiles. Four AMRAAMs, coupled with the destruction of Ronin, would be more than enough to take out what remained of Luna's fragile Warrior. The sims were realistic enough to ensure that both mechs were taken out of commission.

 

Which is what Lauren found so intensely up. Asking her to fire upon her own girlfriend.

 

Goddamn it, Aya...this isn't cool.

 

Her growl transformed into a sigh as the sound tapered off in her throat. Then, putting all her reservations aside, Munequita locked onto its target - the space where Ronin stored its reactor - and opened fire, releasing all four of her AMRAAMs.

 

And I'm going to tell you that in a minute.

 

-Tyler

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

There was barely time for Ayane to process the Gallia's attack, not once she picked up on the AMRAAMs headed her way. She had no idea how her opponent had escaped, she would need to review the footage closely later to try and understand it, but her girlfriend had made the right call. In the Ronin's present state the odds that she could take the Ex IV down were quite low.

 

So ignoring the warning alarms, she tightened her grip on the other Warrior and let the few seconds tick down until, after a split second of the cacophonous sound of breaking metal, her feeds went black.

 

Applause, both simulated and real, filled the hangar as the screens used to display the tournament switched to the results; the Munequita at the top, with the Gallia and Ronin tied for second. Noah, a huge grin plastered on her face, picked her microphone back up and pointed at the rankings.

 

"Results are in, folks! Sure goes longer without McKinley, doesn't it? Congratulations to our winners! Sergeant White performed excellently, and Lance Corporals Marcus and Inoue did as well. Certainly some of the most innovative maneuvers I've seen in a long time." The Major flashed a wry grin, eyes briefly flicking towards the Ronin. "Didn't see a mutual kill in the cards."

 

"Bragging rights to all of you, and those rumored rewards too. I'm sure the R&D boys will be in touch soon. Just a reminder, the sim pods will be around for the foreseeable future so don't be shy to use them. That's all, Major Noah out."

 

In her corner of the hangar, Ayane was carefully descending from the Ronin and attempting to fix her hair. Even without some of the feedback that came with a real fight, she still managed to make her hair into a mess. It was rather irritating. The mundane act helped calm her, too, helped her heart slow down and her breaths become more even.

 

She needed to be calm when Lauren came over. She wasn't going to be happy.

[shadow pridak money gang]

IC:

 

"You suck."

 

Nadia Lorena White, true to expectations, was stalking over to Ayane with a pouty scowl. Her hair was still a mess and there was a faint sheen of sweat on her brow, but she seemed not to notice her own disheveled state - or that of the Japanese Warrior pilot. She stopped at a range that could safely be called dueling distance, and her unique expression grew more pronounced.

 

"Don't ever ask me to do that again. That's not cool."

 

Cape Kennedy, Florida

 

 

 

 

IC:

 

"Guten Abend, Major!"

 

Her entrance had been heralded by the twinkling of little bells when the door opened, so Gypsy Alexandros entered the little knick knack store without the element of surprise. Aside from Gypsy and the German speaker, the place was completely dead. That may have been a surprise normally - it was, after all, a Friday night in a major tourist city - but Cape Kennedy, and Earth itself, was barely a week removed from a major Ark Union incursion. If Gypsy could spend an entire day sunbathing nude with no one there to wolf whistle at her, it shouldn't be too surprising that some little tourist trap only a few miles out from the Space Center was unoccupied.

 

What was surprising is that her target had found the time to sneak away from her post - and that she had decided to go gift shopping instead of instantly seeking out her Major.

 

Possessed as she was with attention deficits and flights of fancy, there weren't many people alive with a more encyclopedic knowledge of ships, ship weaponry, and ship-to-ship combat than Luft Starbuck - and there were even fewer who were as highly devoted to Major Alexandros. It was the combination of her skill, her loyalty, and her endearing personality that had caused Gypsy to name her captain of the Union attack fleet's flagship, Insurrection. Though Starbuck would be the first to insist that her command was nominal, the truth was that Gypsy was happier coordinating the Union's planetary Arsenal Walkers and leaving Insurrection command to someone she could trust. Having a flagship would be cool and all, but she needed someone capable of making that flagship do the impossible. In that, as with most things, Luft Starbuck was Gypsy's go-to girl.

 

Unfortunately...

 

"Look what I found!"

 

rattle rattle rattle

 

Starbuck really had a problem with attention deficit.

 

"Wow. Cool. I haven't seen one of those in a while," Gypsy said with a patient smile. Starbuck beamed back and set her barrel of monkeys - shaped like a space shuttle! - down on the cashier's counter, clearly eager to make the souvenir her very own. The masked major sidled up to the counter and plucked a pair of bright red sunglasses, frame garnished with little Florida oranges, from a rack to rest beside the toy. The cashier rang them both up in short order and wished them a pleasant night ("gute Nacht!"), though it was anyone's guess whether that was due to Gypsy's bizarre get-up or Starbuck's more...exuberant attitude.

 

They certainly made an odd pair, Gypsy reflected as they moved - Gypsy walking leisurely, thumbs hooking the bottom piece of her bikini, Starbuck skipping happily and flying her spaceship in circles ahead of them - down the street towards the Federation base that Insurrection was currently occupying. Both women were of a similar height and weight, with the same platinum blonde hair and easy smiles. Neither quite looked like they belonged in the military, and were it not for Gypsy's mask and the Union coat she had slung over her shoulder with one hand, they could have even passed for girls in spring break; one was barefoot, wearing only a bikini, the other in boy shorts and an "<=== I'm with Char" t-shirt. Beautiful, brash, and flashy, but underestimated for all those qualities and more. Gypsy preferred it that way; somehow, though, she doubted Starbuck even cared.

 

That was okay. She didn't need to care.

 

"Why monkeys?"

 

Gypsy, broken out of her thoughts, slowly turned her head to her right to face Luft.

 

"...Why monkeys?"

 

"I don't know, why?" Starbuck asked. She had stopped flying her 'ship' and was now staring down at it curiously, bright blue eyes glaring a hole through the Kennedy Space Center logo. "Do they put monkeys in spaceships?"

 

Amadeus Jackson jumped, unbidden, into her head.

 

"They used to," Gypsy replied, craning her head up to stare into the sunset. "In the twentieth century. They would put dogs and monkeys into capsules and shoot them into space to see how they fared." Suddenly the rationale for the question clicked in her head. "That thing you bought is supposed to be a barrel. A barrel of monkeys, Starbuck. That's probably just the tourism board's idea of a joke."

 

Starbuck looked at her purchase with new eyes.

 

"I've never seen one of these at New Berlin," she said, starting to fly her spaceship around again now that she'd received a satisfactory answer. "How old are they?"

 

"Pretty old," Gypsy said noncommitally. "There was an old man who used to sell cheap toys like that when I was growing up."

 

Starbuck looked at her quizzically. It wasn't often that Gypsy mentioned growing up at all. As far as Insurrection's captain was concerned, Gypsy Alexandros had sprung forth, fully formed and completely tanned, from the aether of space at the ripe age of twenty six, and had never given anyone a reason to question it. For some reason, the idea of Gypsy's childhood felt...vaguely uncomfortable.

 

She cleared her throat and began flying her ship around again.

 

"Hey, you know what we should do after we win the war?"

 

"Hm?" Gypsy still sounded distracted.

 

"We should take the Olympic and put a whooole bunch of animals in it, and shoot them off into space so that we can build a zoo on New Berlin. I've always wanted to visit a zoo, and--"

 

Starbuck jumped; Gypsy's head had shot over to face Luft, and behind the one-two combination of mask and sunglasses, the major's stare was inscrutable.

 

"Gypsy?"

 

A second went by.

 

"D-Did I say something wrong?" Starbuck asked, slightly uneasy.

 

"Huh?" Gypsy snapped out of her reverie and stared down at her bare feet, blazing a trail alongside Starbuck's on the sandy beach road. "No, it's just..."

 

She trailed off, and then her face split into a wide smile. Quick as a viper, one arm shot out and wrapped itself around Luft's neck in a loose, one-armed choke of a hug. The major reached up and ruffled her subordinate's blonde hair lightly, leaving one side kinky and untamed.

 

"Come on." Gypsy's smile widened, and she raised one long, tanned arm to the military base that loomed closer by the second. "We've got a briefing to get to."

 

Starbuck blinked in confusion for a second.

 

"...Okay!"

 

And her face sprouted a smile of its own, as bright and wide as her hero's.

 

 

-Tyler

[25K Now!]

IC: Christoph Lockheed

 

Routing the excess power through the secondary systems was - Christoph mentally paused in order to find the right term - incredibly risky, yet quite unfortunately perfectly in character for his subordinate, whose tendency to partake in unorthodox and/or dangerous experimentation had been responsible for many a night spent writing up damage/spending reports for his superiors. So it was a relief to know that Ben would be making more mundane repairs before sortieing. The safety of his teammates was important. As well as his desire to avoid the bureaucratic mess that would follow. Thanks to their association with Research and Development, the Test Team were at times tarred with the same brush.

 

Admittedly, while both his team and the weapons developers whose creations they tested were highly eccentric at times, he wasn't sure if they could be described as being that bad.

 

Or at least, as bad as some claimed.

 

"What issues are you facing, Harken?" asked the Test Team Captain, glancing towards Kasper. He was curious as to how one of the former users of one of R&D's stranger creations was faring in a Walker.

[Atton Rand]

IC: Maya stepped out of the kitchen and wandered through the adjacent corridor. Once in a while, a fellow soldier passed, making eye contact for a few seconds before continuing. She lit another cigarette as she moved. She was dressed only in a plain t-shirt and comoflauge pants, with only her messy ponytail to distinguish her from the other soldiers she watched pass her in the corridors. 

 

She was moving toward one of the hangars now. She stopped as she approached. It was a different hangar from the one she had used to store her mech, but it looked like there was suddenly a large number of people. A few screens displayed the results of some kind of competition. 

 

"Of course," the young soldier grumbled to herself. "They never told me anything."

 

She removed her cigarette and flicked it aside as she started to walk into the hangar.

[Krayzikk]

IC:

"Technically I didn't ask you to do it." Ayane supplied helpfully, closing the remaining gap and idly taking the time to fix the Sergeant's hair. A brush here, a flattening there and the movements flowed in time with her speech. "It was my plan, though. You successfully picked up on it."

"I do not intend to do it again. In a real fight, retreat would be an option. Here it was not. You did quite well."

 

IC:

 

"He keeps trying to run in the cockpit." Ben offered as a suggestion, casually tearing out a piece of wiring and throwing it over his shoulder into a bin on the floor. "We should have found an old FAW-16 to stick him in. No walking involved. Stand still, anything moves, blow it up. Simple."

 

"Heyyy, boss, speaking of. What do you think the odds are they've got some Gunner cannons laying around? The missile pods got me thinking, maybe I could make a backpack out of them. Attach it on the back and eject it when I'm done. Only problem is power." A pause. "I keep running into surge issues on the simulations. Warriors don't like providing that much power."

 

"Actually, scratch that. That's a bad idea. Having a Warrior stand still that long is a bad idea."

[Atton Rand]

IC: Maya looked around as she stepped into the crowded hangar. If someone had bothered to tell her there was a tournament going on, it would have saved the last few dull hours.

 

OOC: Maya Logan is open for interaction.

[The UltimoScorp]

IC Alex:

 

I blew out a breath. No point in sitting around in a sim pod all day. I clambered out, landing for the most part nearly on the ground, and began to wander once more. The tourney, if you could call it that, had been a nice distraction. More of a free for all in my opinion, but it didn't really matter in the long run.

[Atton Rand]

 

IC: Maya wandered through the crowded bangar. She lit another cigarette as she looked around. She From the other direction, she saw a thin man with dirty blonde hair who appeared to have just come from

one of the pods.

 

OOC: That was supposed to be Alex. It seemed to make sense that she would see a few PCs here.

[Constructelf]

IC: Lé Thanh Khiêm

With it over, Khiêm exited the sim pod, somewhat miffed about the futility of this exercise.

 

I now know that I am not worth ###### in a fight on my own. Just as I thought. Also, I need a new paint job.

 

Ignoring the others around him, Khiêm sat down and pulled out a pen and pad, catching up on some inventory calculations.

Edited November 1, 2016 by Constructman

[NorikSigma]

IC: Natalie

 

Clambering out of the pod, the pilot made her way away from the crowd of onlookers gaping at the display screens. The rush of emotions that had so overwhelmed her was over, and the cold void that was left was strangely comforting.

 

She took a position away from the crowd, spotting a thin young man exiing one of the pods. His pod number corresponded with that of the screen that displayed the downed Miss Direction.

 

So this is the pilot...

 

She walked over, waiting for him to fully extract himself from the pod.

 

"Good match," she said simply, giving a small smile and offering her hand for a shake.

[shadow pridak money gang]

IC:

 

"You're a smartass."

 

The pout increased, but Lauren didn't back away from Ayane as the Lance Corporal began grooming the Sergeant. Nor did she continue the argument when she spoke again:

 

"I need to harass the Test Team."

 

-Tyler

[Atton Rand]

 

IC: Maya watched as the thin man in front of her was approached by someone else. They seemed to be congratulating each other.

 

Maya slowly approached them, feeling a mix of different emotions. She wasn't exactly the most sociable type, but this whole transfer had been disorienting enough.

 

"What's going on? Is something happening in here? Nobody tells me anything."