Flandre walked down the hall of the installation, secure in her invisibility, and breathed deeply. Bloodshed and violence. Things that she adored, thrilled in witnessing and participating in. She had missed this example by some time - minutes, certainly, but much less than an hour. Not that she blamed Alma for that; indeed, she should have expected it, or at least considered the possibility. And her poor friend had been so unhappy about disrupting the plan … and, possibly, over not being able to come safeguard the little vampire. Still, Flandre had enjoyed the torturous teleportation to the planet, and especially the disemboweling of one of the native critters, at which point she had crawled inside it and used it as a sort of mobile armor as she flew to the installation. It hadn't smelled particularly worse on the inside, of course, but that was her. She giggled quietly at the memory as she strolled through the facility.
There really were quite a few bodies - mostly armored soldiers, wearing the 'renegade's' colors, but there were a few of workers and other civilians who had been gunned down as well. And, of course, no small number of automated defenses had been wrecked by the invading force. She had seen only a few of their bodies on the way in. So sad, when friends couldn't trust friends; worse, when supposed friends trusted pastless strangers who couldn't even put together a decent plot. She huffed and stopped at a row of damaged monitors, then picked up a sizable shard of one screen and carried it along with her as she hurried to catch up with the attackers before it was too late. She flew past the wreckage of the combat walkers, deliberately not thinking about the strangeness of their presence - at least internal defenses made sense, but how were these machines supposed to have gotten in? She hit herself on the head to drive away the intruding thought and focused on pleasant things, like worlds on fire, rivers of blood, days of absolute darkness, and absolutely no rain whatsoever.
"… both know exactly what it is that you're here to terminate. Get on with it." She grinned as she rose higher into the air and readied the jagged piece of glass. As if she'd planned it!
"Say goodnight, Stukov." The would-be victim rolled his eyes.
"To hell with y-!" The makeshift blade flew from Flandre's arm at precisely the right moment, driving into the assassin's back and throwing off his aim. The Vice Admiral stumbled back, and Flan hurtled forward, tossing aside a medic who had been approaching the fallen Lieutenant. That worthy, she picked up and hurled into a wall, stunning the soldiers behind her. Then she returned to visibility and leaned forward, smiling at the Vice Admiral.
"Hi~!" She blinked at his shocked expression and straightened up, then looked down at herself. "Oh, right - covered in gore. That upsets you people, doesn't it? And if any of you start shooting, you're all going to die, so don't do it!" She glared at the soldiers until they started looking around in confusion. Her mouth twisted unhappily - on the one hand, they were listening; on the other, they really shouldn't be. Oh well.
"Who … what … what are you doing here?" She turned back to the man she had just saved and smiled again.
"I'm Flandre Scarlet, and I'm here to save you! I want you to join my crew!" He blinked at her and she grinned widely. She could tell what he was thinking. "Because you're Russian, of course! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find likeable people with cool Russian accents who are actually good at their jobs? People like you are harder to find than good things to say about Yukari!" She gave him a pleading look, even though she knew it would fail. It was still enjoyable watching the conflicting emotions on his face … and then he sighed and stood up, shaking his head.
"I am sorry, but no. I have my duty and I will not let you take me from it." Flandre sighed as well and shrugged.
"Well, to be honest, I didn't really expect you to agree. But there are two reasons I came here, apart from saving you. … Three things, actually. I had to drop something off, and there are two things I want to pick up. You can help me with one of those, of course, which is one of the reasons I saved you." The Vice Admiral looked at her suspiciously.
"And that would be …?"
"A battleship." She giggled at the blank expression she received. "See, we have a spaceship, and it's amazing and cool and all that, but it's a little small, and Sakuya's not here to make insides bigger than outsides, and I'm still planning on getting more friends! So I need a bigger ship, and, well … I'd like one in red, if you can manage it. You can manage it, can't you, Stukov?" She pouted at him for a few more seconds, then shrugged and glanced at the spatter on the wall that marked where she'd thrown the assassin. "Anyway, I'm going to go get a puppy, so you go call your Admiral friend and have him get to work on that ship, okay?" Alarms began sounding.
"Self-destruct sequence initiated." She sighed again.
"Oh, those silly not-exactly-Terran-not-exactly-Zerg-not-exactly-anything-you've-heard-of-yet-things - when will they learn? Your men better not kill any of the puppies before I look at them, got it!?" She flashed a grin at the now-completely-bewildered Vice Admiral before flying deeper into the facility, smashing through a locked door with ease. She had so many puppies to choose from, but only a few minutes to pick one! Maybe she could get away with two, or even three …?
On the bridge of the UED flagship Aleksander, Admiral DuGalle stared at the blue-coated man who sprawled happily in the command chair.
"But he's not a real person! He's imaginary, made-up!" The stranger threw up his hands and smiled.
"And yet here I am - Porthos the Pirate, well-known rapscallion, owner of an axe given by the Czarina of Tokyo and a sash given by the Queen of America! And if I am imaginary, what does that make you, hm?" The Admiral's mouth worked silently and he shook his head.
