So, I have ideas, and need a place to keep them. As recording the conversations of my imaginary...
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7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
So, I have ideas, and need a place to keep them. As recording the conversations of my imaginary friends (writing) gets old after a while, here will lie all the half-assed stuff I'm going to make that doesn't need it's own thread.
Please feel free to comment and critique anything I post here, but beware- I will discuss your comments so I know why you're saying what you say.
Have fun, anyone who comes in here. Be warned, I read and watch a LOT of stuff.
Index
NERVous Breakdown: This. This. It so perfectly captures the spirit of XCOM, mad scientists dreaming up "bipity-bobity-boo physics, bullshit engineers pulling mega projects based on said physics out of their ass, only to be used by high school dropouts in power armor, and commanded by by a fucking high school music teacher. Bravo. Bravo.
Please feel free to comment and critique anything I post here, but beware- I will discuss your comments so I know why you're saying what you say.
Have fun, anyone who comes in here. Be warned, I read and watch a LOT of stuff.
Index
NERVous Breakdown: This. This. It so perfectly captures the spirit of XCOM, mad scientists dreaming up "bipity-bobity-boo physics, bullshit engineers pulling mega projects based on said physics out of their ass, only to be used by high school dropouts in power armor, and commanded by by a fucking high school music teacher. Bravo. Bravo.
Last edited:
NERVous Breakdown pt. 1; Inferno
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
NERVous Breakdown. XCOM/AaT(NGE)
(A/N: The first time I watched Neon Genesis Evolution, I flipped my shit. A lot. I have a fairly high bullshit tolerance I like to think, but my tolerance only goes so far. So when I found Advice and Trust, it redeemed the series to me in a big way. Strypgia's work thus gets a nod in the crossover title because it pulled the pants off of the anime's head, and I pull directly from that alter-cannon when it kicks in.)
"So long as the stars are in the sky, trust in our watch." A young man said, watching his older commander carefully. "Translated into the Latin, 'Dum sidera caeli confidunt in vigilia' so that the men can still holler their battle cries."
The Commander smiled, and shook his head. "I hope battle cries are a non-issue, Badford. They deserve a rest and a pension now. So do we, come to think of it. One alien invasion is enough for a lifetime, thank you."
Laughing, Bradford just rolled his shoulders and patted his old station in the command center fondly. "They'll never shut us down all the way. They might re-socialize the ground pounders, get Shen to up and retire, return us back to our home bases, but God forbid they try and extinguish the charter."
"You're not talking about the incident in Brussels?" The Commander asked, rolling his eyes to high heaven. "I really, really hope you're not talking about the incident in Brussels. I only want to shoot out a Muton's eye with a plasma pistol once in my life, thank you very much."
Bradford laughed now. "No, I was thinking of prying Vahlen out of her lab."
Both men chuckled, and the Commander pulled open his chair's secret alcohol slot and two tumblers. Pouring the near-black whiskey, he handed one glass to Bradford. "Cheers, my friend. To the best things in life- a peaceful day, an interesting night, and a fine house off Subic Bay!"
----
Three Years Later
----
Looking at the TV screen, Bradford winced audibly. The area displayed was ruined, trashed beyond all belief. One end of the battlefield had held a monsterus, alien machine capable of wrecking untold destruction at the drop of a hat.
On the other end was an Angel.
"Rewind the tape." Bradford asked the Operative slowly. "I'm thinking someone thought we went to sleep."
The Operative laughed, and brought his right hand to the center of his sweater, right over the Seal. There was only one Seal, as far as he was concerned, and one Motto.
"Vigilo Confiedo, Sir."
-----
Subic Bay, Sunset.
-----
Inside the rather well-appointed cabana, a man snored in his chair, safe in knowing that he had done his duty. In the kitchen, his housekeeper worked on putting together a simple dinner, while her boss took the traditional siesta before going back to the closest thing to work he ever did anymore- organizing the local musical program down in the ex-American high school. It relaxed him, and helped keep the old meddler busy in his retirement.
As the housekeeper finished up on the rich gumbo the man liked, a phone went off. Going over to pick it up, she noticed something. This wasn't the house's old-fashioned rotary phone that the man loved to sit next to and talk with his old friends from the war on, discussing sports and science and the misadventures of their former brood. No, this phone was different. Black, with a gold-checkered inlay, the old athsteitcs of the bakelite corded phone combined with new technology, and a seal on the back. Picking it up, she answered cheerfully.
"Hola, Casa del musica principal de escuela de George Dewey. Quien es?"
On the other end of the phone, a great mumbling and juttering occurred, with several cries of "Ok, who speaks Spanish?" "Ow, my nose!" and "Why isn't Bradford doing this himself?!" before a calm-ish voice got on the line.
"Hola. Me llamo est… Lieutenant Sabre… yo nessicta habla con Commander."
The housekeeper screwed up her face and frowned. That man sounded distinctly like an American. The man who owned the house normally used Spanish- he was certainly more fluent in it than she in English- but she did know a bit.
"Yes, Lieutenant Savre, we have no…no commander here. Only music teacher."
Again, there was a muffled roaring and confusion by the other end of the line. Finally, a different young man answered the line. He, at least, spoke Spanish well enough to communicate. Aparently, they needed to speak to the owner of the house as soon as possible. Sighing dramatically, the housekeeper went to get the owner, only to realize he was already there. As he took the phone, the housekeeper watched him listen carefully, the years slowly falling of his face. He might have come here to rest and relax, but he also grew older and calmed down.
When the phone call was done, the Commander rolled his shoulders and sighed.
"Consuela," he said in his soft, round Spanish, "Pack my bags please, and make up a box dinner. I'm afraid I've been returned to duty."
Nodding, the housekeeper went off. The Commander had long ago left a list of instructions in case he got reactivated, and it was time to get to work. As she watched the man leave in the odd plane that came down in the back yard, she sighed faintly. There was no rest for good men in this world, and her happy musician was unfortunate proof.
----
Inside the Skyranger, the Commander looked at the videoconference screen in front of him. This was a familiar feeling, harking back to the beginning of the Long War.
"Hello, Commander." The slightly-digitalized voice said, tone neutral as always. "In light of the newest extraterretial incursion, this council of nations has reactivated the XCOM project. You have been chosen again to lead Humanity's first, last, and only line of defense. As before, your actions have a truly massive weight for the future of this planet. The council of nations was impressed and has resoundly applauded your actions in the Long War, and has as such elected you to serve as our sword and shield again."
The teleconference shifted now, to an unfamiliar logo of another organization- NERVE?
"Because of the unusual and extremely potent nature of the enemy, an outside group has been brought into the XCOM project for the duration of the emergency- NERV, a group that has made great leaps into the related fields of these aliens. Given the EXALT incidents, you will be in complete control of all operational assets, with the NERV units directly integrated into the existing chain of command."
Finishing, the man from the Council looked up.
"Good luck, Commander."
(A/N: The first time I watched Neon Genesis Evolution, I flipped my shit. A lot. I have a fairly high bullshit tolerance I like to think, but my tolerance only goes so far. So when I found Advice and Trust, it redeemed the series to me in a big way. Strypgia's work thus gets a nod in the crossover title because it pulled the pants off of the anime's head, and I pull directly from that alter-cannon when it kicks in.)
"So long as the stars are in the sky, trust in our watch." A young man said, watching his older commander carefully. "Translated into the Latin, 'Dum sidera caeli confidunt in vigilia' so that the men can still holler their battle cries."
The Commander smiled, and shook his head. "I hope battle cries are a non-issue, Badford. They deserve a rest and a pension now. So do we, come to think of it. One alien invasion is enough for a lifetime, thank you."
Laughing, Bradford just rolled his shoulders and patted his old station in the command center fondly. "They'll never shut us down all the way. They might re-socialize the ground pounders, get Shen to up and retire, return us back to our home bases, but God forbid they try and extinguish the charter."
"You're not talking about the incident in Brussels?" The Commander asked, rolling his eyes to high heaven. "I really, really hope you're not talking about the incident in Brussels. I only want to shoot out a Muton's eye with a plasma pistol once in my life, thank you very much."
Bradford laughed now. "No, I was thinking of prying Vahlen out of her lab."
Both men chuckled, and the Commander pulled open his chair's secret alcohol slot and two tumblers. Pouring the near-black whiskey, he handed one glass to Bradford. "Cheers, my friend. To the best things in life- a peaceful day, an interesting night, and a fine house off Subic Bay!"
----
Three Years Later
----
Looking at the TV screen, Bradford winced audibly. The area displayed was ruined, trashed beyond all belief. One end of the battlefield had held a monsterus, alien machine capable of wrecking untold destruction at the drop of a hat.
On the other end was an Angel.
"Rewind the tape." Bradford asked the Operative slowly. "I'm thinking someone thought we went to sleep."
The Operative laughed, and brought his right hand to the center of his sweater, right over the Seal. There was only one Seal, as far as he was concerned, and one Motto.
"Vigilo Confiedo, Sir."
-----
Subic Bay, Sunset.
-----
Inside the rather well-appointed cabana, a man snored in his chair, safe in knowing that he had done his duty. In the kitchen, his housekeeper worked on putting together a simple dinner, while her boss took the traditional siesta before going back to the closest thing to work he ever did anymore- organizing the local musical program down in the ex-American high school. It relaxed him, and helped keep the old meddler busy in his retirement.
As the housekeeper finished up on the rich gumbo the man liked, a phone went off. Going over to pick it up, she noticed something. This wasn't the house's old-fashioned rotary phone that the man loved to sit next to and talk with his old friends from the war on, discussing sports and science and the misadventures of their former brood. No, this phone was different. Black, with a gold-checkered inlay, the old athsteitcs of the bakelite corded phone combined with new technology, and a seal on the back. Picking it up, she answered cheerfully.
"Hola, Casa del musica principal de escuela de George Dewey. Quien es?"
On the other end of the phone, a great mumbling and juttering occurred, with several cries of "Ok, who speaks Spanish?" "Ow, my nose!" and "Why isn't Bradford doing this himself?!" before a calm-ish voice got on the line.
"Hola. Me llamo est… Lieutenant Sabre… yo nessicta habla con Commander."
The housekeeper screwed up her face and frowned. That man sounded distinctly like an American. The man who owned the house normally used Spanish- he was certainly more fluent in it than she in English- but she did know a bit.
"Yes, Lieutenant Savre, we have no…no commander here. Only music teacher."
Again, there was a muffled roaring and confusion by the other end of the line. Finally, a different young man answered the line. He, at least, spoke Spanish well enough to communicate. Aparently, they needed to speak to the owner of the house as soon as possible. Sighing dramatically, the housekeeper went to get the owner, only to realize he was already there. As he took the phone, the housekeeper watched him listen carefully, the years slowly falling of his face. He might have come here to rest and relax, but he also grew older and calmed down.
When the phone call was done, the Commander rolled his shoulders and sighed.
"Consuela," he said in his soft, round Spanish, "Pack my bags please, and make up a box dinner. I'm afraid I've been returned to duty."
Nodding, the housekeeper went off. The Commander had long ago left a list of instructions in case he got reactivated, and it was time to get to work. As she watched the man leave in the odd plane that came down in the back yard, she sighed faintly. There was no rest for good men in this world, and her happy musician was unfortunate proof.
----
Inside the Skyranger, the Commander looked at the videoconference screen in front of him. This was a familiar feeling, harking back to the beginning of the Long War.
"Hello, Commander." The slightly-digitalized voice said, tone neutral as always. "In light of the newest extraterretial incursion, this council of nations has reactivated the XCOM project. You have been chosen again to lead Humanity's first, last, and only line of defense. As before, your actions have a truly massive weight for the future of this planet. The council of nations was impressed and has resoundly applauded your actions in the Long War, and has as such elected you to serve as our sword and shield again."
The teleconference shifted now, to an unfamiliar logo of another organization- NERVE?
"Because of the unusual and extremely potent nature of the enemy, an outside group has been brought into the XCOM project for the duration of the emergency- NERV, a group that has made great leaps into the related fields of these aliens. Given the EXALT incidents, you will be in complete control of all operational assets, with the NERV units directly integrated into the existing chain of command."
Finishing, the man from the Council looked up.
"Good luck, Commander."
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Plot Bunny: Hallowed Ghosts
In times of great stress and faith, an organization develops a guiding spirit, a portmanteau of the beliefs and hopes that lead them. When this personification of the order is created, it can draw in the honored dead and spirits of the fallen to allow those with tasks they left uncompleted in life. Capable of great feats, the spirits willingly forsake the afterlife in order to become part of the personification, sharing their knowledge knowing that as long as the organization exists their collective spirit will as well.
In times of great stress and faith, an organization develops a guiding spirit, a portmanteau of the beliefs and hopes that lead them. When this personification of the order is created, it can draw in the honored dead and spirits of the fallen to allow those with tasks they left uncompleted in life. Capable of great feats, the spirits willingly forsake the afterlife in order to become part of the personification, sharing their knowledge knowing that as long as the organization exists their collective spirit will as well.
NERVous Breakdown 2; The Lost and the Damned
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Looking out over the approaching Angel, the Commander frowned slightly. The new base, called the Geoscape by NERV, lacked all the comforts of home or even XCOM SEA base. No reasonably comfy chairs, no copies of the Seal everywhere, no bustling piles of orderlies, no coffee…
"So, our one giant fighting robot with a pilot is down, yes?" The Commander asked the sub-commander of what was formerly NERVE, now his direct Chief of Discovery. The title for Dr. Kozo Fuytsuki was more ornamental than anything- he still served as a general-purpose right hand man for all matters of Angelic bullshitery and what the NERVE guys could do. Gendo Ikari, the original boss of the Geoscape, had been moved over into the project to mass-produce the EVA units. Until Bradford could get brought up to speed, the good Doctor was stuck providing running commentary on the operations.
"That would be correct, sir. We still have Unit Oh-One, but Ayanami is currently recovering from combat."
Muttering to himself, the Commander tried to look through his options. Conventional warheads had proved useless attacking the first Angel, the one prototype robot and pilot were still out of commission from the second Angel, and the "reserve pilot" that was in what little of Gendo's files they had managed to "aquire" in the handover was still en route.
The choice was unpalpable, but the Commander made it anyway. "Sorte the Ares flight, full plasma load. Flight orders are to preform carousel rounds while Paladin flight charge their Fusion Lances. We're only going to get one good shot at this- we need to land one decisive strike."
To his forward right in the command center, the TACO nodded and started talking to XCOM SEA where the Firestorm flights were based. "ETA one minute thirty for Ares, two even for Paladin sir. Quote from Paladin Actual, 'you want fries with this?' end quote."
The Commander grinned. "Thank you, Tactical Air Controller. Tell the guys that the recovery teams are on standby and promise to only use the pink fire foam."
"Awfuly confident of your men, Commander." The doctor said, tilting his head. "Nothing short of an EVA or multiple dozens of nukes has ever destroyed an Angel."
"Well, say hello to multiple dozen nukes worth of ordy, then." A new man said as he entered the command center. "Field Commander Nyugen reporting, sir- the ground compliment has the particle cannons set up and ready to roll, and Vahlen's Special is emplaced."
"Vahlen's Special?" The Commander asked acerbicly, raising an eyebrow.
"Big, angry maser that has an accelerator coil on the nose and a plasma-pulse element on the rear. It uses bipity-bopity-boo physics to work like a particle accelerator, except it takes up about a fifth of the energy of a particle accelerator that size because of some shady math and a huge diamond. Before you ask more questions, remember I never graduated high school."
Shaking his head, the Commander sighed. "And what are the odds of us punching through with all our combined firepower before and after we start lancing that bastard?"
"Bad. Before lance strikes, three in ten odds given a good salvo. After lance strikes and during, four in ten."
Nodding, The Commander looked at Kozo flatly. "Your people better have that pilot inbound hot and fast. It's going to be hell until he gets going.
---
On the ground, things were bad. The regular troops had been hitting the Angel with all that they had in their arsenal, but the attacks did nothing. Each shot bouncing off the damnable force field, counterbattery fire lancing back to destroy men and machine with brutal precision.
Amidst the chaos three hundred yards back, the XCOM soldiers worked at a breakneck pace to set up the field generators and power lines that would feed their mighty particle cannons. Each one weighed as much as ten men, their apertures smoking lightly from the force they emitted with nothing less than an iota of their full power. Waiting, the crews listened for the order to begin the bombardment and unleash their fury. Each crew had experience, either serving as anti-air in the Long War swatting down follow up bombers or a siege troops to dig EXALT out of their hundreds and thousands of hiding holes.
When the order came, they fired as one, each blue shaft of light striking like a thunderbolt- more so, as the mere thunderbolt had no force, only electricity. Each cannon accelerated less than a breath's worth of helium and water to speeds best measured at speeds best measured at large fractions of c, and then let that beam of destruction loose on a target.
As the brilliant beams struck home, the Angel was almost pushed back, each one hitting home on its defensive fields. For a brief moment, as the glow of the Chernekov radiation faded away, the Angel stood still.
That short moment ended when the Angel counterattacked, throwing a lance of light and rage into a particle cannon nest, destroying the gun and crew in an instant. Swearing and cursing, the remainder resumed fire until the Vahlen's Special let rip.
Where her little siblings could crack stone and shatter reinforced concrete, Valhen's Special had originally been designed to build new bases- which meant punching a four hundred foot long shaft down into bedrock. This titanic power, one that had been built to rend the earth asunder, fired now, blinding anyone looking with bare eyes as Openhiemer's Light flew out in a deathly blue glow. As the Angel pressed back, focusing on resisting the titanic force that was striking it like the fist of an angry God, it could not return fire.
Then the Firestorms came in. Plasma shot riddled the thing mercilessly, pasting itself across the energy that protected the beast with, while the follow-up Fusion Lance strikes opened up the glory of the sun near it. Fire burned it, radiation cooked it, and debris cut its field. Yet, it still held on to life, taking one step at a time to move closer to the Geoscape. One step, two steps. It had one purpose- get to the doors, and cleave it's way through. To risk returning fire was to risk letting a shot through, and it could not allow that damage to harm it. In as much as it could think, the Angel had a plan. Get to the hatch. Get to the hatch, and wait. With its death, perhaps the destruction of the obstacle would let the next angel through. It itself did not need to succeed, but rather pave the way so that the next would be able to go further.
----
"Losses so far?" The Commander asked, face impassive.
"One particle cannon, one power station. Nine dead, forty casualties." The TAGO said, face thin. "Power grid's got one hour left of life left in it before we start need to field-meld in additional lines and nodes. Six guns are starting to experience overheating, and that thing keeps moving."
"Noted. Kuzo, you know this building's computer network best- how soon until our replacement pilot gets here?"
A few clicks later, and on a secondary monitor a picture of Shinji and Misato appeared, the boy nervously flicking through a document. Across the room, the mood of the XCOM operatives dropped like a stone. That was a kid in there. Stepping up to Kuzo, the snarling ex-operative that happened to be second only to the Commander himself on the ground almost went for his sidearm.
"Care to explain why in the hell you've got a kid in the car, Doctor?" Nyugen hissed, looking for all the world to see like a readied cobra. "Never knew you slobs needed a child to do a pilots job."
"Field Commander Nyugen, stand down." The Commander said quietly, watching his subordinate. "I'll handle this soon enough."
Even with the warning, the angry Laotian wouldn't back down until the Commander stood up.
"I need to see our new EVA pilot. Dr. Kuzo, I'm afraid you'll need to accompany me to get there. Hilltopper, you're in command while I'm away."
The mention of his nickname brought Nyugen out of his bullish rage, and brought him up short. "Aye, Sir. I have the command."
AN1: XCOM is big and powerful. So are Angels.
AN2: A lot of good militaries don't like child soldiers because they tend to go nuts. Guess where XCOM pulls 3/4ths of its troops from?
AN3: Field Commander "Hilltopper" Nyugen's not passing high school is a small joke amongst his friends because he had to quit school in Laos to go back to mine farming. His little story is one of the things I like recycling, so expect to see it posted later.
"So, our one giant fighting robot with a pilot is down, yes?" The Commander asked the sub-commander of what was formerly NERVE, now his direct Chief of Discovery. The title for Dr. Kozo Fuytsuki was more ornamental than anything- he still served as a general-purpose right hand man for all matters of Angelic bullshitery and what the NERVE guys could do. Gendo Ikari, the original boss of the Geoscape, had been moved over into the project to mass-produce the EVA units. Until Bradford could get brought up to speed, the good Doctor was stuck providing running commentary on the operations.
"That would be correct, sir. We still have Unit Oh-One, but Ayanami is currently recovering from combat."
Muttering to himself, the Commander tried to look through his options. Conventional warheads had proved useless attacking the first Angel, the one prototype robot and pilot were still out of commission from the second Angel, and the "reserve pilot" that was in what little of Gendo's files they had managed to "aquire" in the handover was still en route.
The choice was unpalpable, but the Commander made it anyway. "Sorte the Ares flight, full plasma load. Flight orders are to preform carousel rounds while Paladin flight charge their Fusion Lances. We're only going to get one good shot at this- we need to land one decisive strike."
To his forward right in the command center, the TACO nodded and started talking to XCOM SEA where the Firestorm flights were based. "ETA one minute thirty for Ares, two even for Paladin sir. Quote from Paladin Actual, 'you want fries with this?' end quote."
The Commander grinned. "Thank you, Tactical Air Controller. Tell the guys that the recovery teams are on standby and promise to only use the pink fire foam."
"Awfuly confident of your men, Commander." The doctor said, tilting his head. "Nothing short of an EVA or multiple dozens of nukes has ever destroyed an Angel."
"Well, say hello to multiple dozen nukes worth of ordy, then." A new man said as he entered the command center. "Field Commander Nyugen reporting, sir- the ground compliment has the particle cannons set up and ready to roll, and Vahlen's Special is emplaced."
"Vahlen's Special?" The Commander asked acerbicly, raising an eyebrow.
"Big, angry maser that has an accelerator coil on the nose and a plasma-pulse element on the rear. It uses bipity-bopity-boo physics to work like a particle accelerator, except it takes up about a fifth of the energy of a particle accelerator that size because of some shady math and a huge diamond. Before you ask more questions, remember I never graduated high school."
Shaking his head, the Commander sighed. "And what are the odds of us punching through with all our combined firepower before and after we start lancing that bastard?"
"Bad. Before lance strikes, three in ten odds given a good salvo. After lance strikes and during, four in ten."
Nodding, The Commander looked at Kozo flatly. "Your people better have that pilot inbound hot and fast. It's going to be hell until he gets going.
---
On the ground, things were bad. The regular troops had been hitting the Angel with all that they had in their arsenal, but the attacks did nothing. Each shot bouncing off the damnable force field, counterbattery fire lancing back to destroy men and machine with brutal precision.
Amidst the chaos three hundred yards back, the XCOM soldiers worked at a breakneck pace to set up the field generators and power lines that would feed their mighty particle cannons. Each one weighed as much as ten men, their apertures smoking lightly from the force they emitted with nothing less than an iota of their full power. Waiting, the crews listened for the order to begin the bombardment and unleash their fury. Each crew had experience, either serving as anti-air in the Long War swatting down follow up bombers or a siege troops to dig EXALT out of their hundreds and thousands of hiding holes.
When the order came, they fired as one, each blue shaft of light striking like a thunderbolt- more so, as the mere thunderbolt had no force, only electricity. Each cannon accelerated less than a breath's worth of helium and water to speeds best measured at speeds best measured at large fractions of c, and then let that beam of destruction loose on a target.
As the brilliant beams struck home, the Angel was almost pushed back, each one hitting home on its defensive fields. For a brief moment, as the glow of the Chernekov radiation faded away, the Angel stood still.
That short moment ended when the Angel counterattacked, throwing a lance of light and rage into a particle cannon nest, destroying the gun and crew in an instant. Swearing and cursing, the remainder resumed fire until the Vahlen's Special let rip.
Where her little siblings could crack stone and shatter reinforced concrete, Valhen's Special had originally been designed to build new bases- which meant punching a four hundred foot long shaft down into bedrock. This titanic power, one that had been built to rend the earth asunder, fired now, blinding anyone looking with bare eyes as Openhiemer's Light flew out in a deathly blue glow. As the Angel pressed back, focusing on resisting the titanic force that was striking it like the fist of an angry God, it could not return fire.
Then the Firestorms came in. Plasma shot riddled the thing mercilessly, pasting itself across the energy that protected the beast with, while the follow-up Fusion Lance strikes opened up the glory of the sun near it. Fire burned it, radiation cooked it, and debris cut its field. Yet, it still held on to life, taking one step at a time to move closer to the Geoscape. One step, two steps. It had one purpose- get to the doors, and cleave it's way through. To risk returning fire was to risk letting a shot through, and it could not allow that damage to harm it. In as much as it could think, the Angel had a plan. Get to the hatch. Get to the hatch, and wait. With its death, perhaps the destruction of the obstacle would let the next angel through. It itself did not need to succeed, but rather pave the way so that the next would be able to go further.
----
"Losses so far?" The Commander asked, face impassive.
"One particle cannon, one power station. Nine dead, forty casualties." The TAGO said, face thin. "Power grid's got one hour left of life left in it before we start need to field-meld in additional lines and nodes. Six guns are starting to experience overheating, and that thing keeps moving."
"Noted. Kuzo, you know this building's computer network best- how soon until our replacement pilot gets here?"
A few clicks later, and on a secondary monitor a picture of Shinji and Misato appeared, the boy nervously flicking through a document. Across the room, the mood of the XCOM operatives dropped like a stone. That was a kid in there. Stepping up to Kuzo, the snarling ex-operative that happened to be second only to the Commander himself on the ground almost went for his sidearm.
"Care to explain why in the hell you've got a kid in the car, Doctor?" Nyugen hissed, looking for all the world to see like a readied cobra. "Never knew you slobs needed a child to do a pilots job."
"Field Commander Nyugen, stand down." The Commander said quietly, watching his subordinate. "I'll handle this soon enough."
Even with the warning, the angry Laotian wouldn't back down until the Commander stood up.
"I need to see our new EVA pilot. Dr. Kuzo, I'm afraid you'll need to accompany me to get there. Hilltopper, you're in command while I'm away."
The mention of his nickname brought Nyugen out of his bullish rage, and brought him up short. "Aye, Sir. I have the command."
AN1: XCOM is big and powerful. So are Angels.
AN2: A lot of good militaries don't like child soldiers because they tend to go nuts. Guess where XCOM pulls 3/4ths of its troops from?
AN3: Field Commander "Hilltopper" Nyugen's not passing high school is a small joke amongst his friends because he had to quit school in Laos to go back to mine farming. His little story is one of the things I like recycling, so expect to see it posted later.
XCOM Personas Dramatis
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Because I shamelessly recycle characters not like I can get them out of my head anyhow here is the list of Dramatis Personae and brief backstories.
The Commander: A West Point graduate, he was tapped early in his career by a Special Forces major, which soon got him into messes far above his nominal pay grade. For him, the Long War started in '93 when he and a group of Mujahdeen he was serving as a technical advisor for stumbled into an Alien Abduction. After fighting his way out with the majority of his forces intact, he was nominated to serve as the Commander of the XCOM project until a more suitable (read, politically palpable) candidate was found. By the time such a person appeared, though, the Commander had successfully handled multiple Terror Missions, and found the locations of four Alien Bases. Now firmly entrenched in his position, the Commander of XCOM held the post until the end of the Long War.
Chief Engineer Dr. Shen: Before his position with XCOM, Shen had been a longtime proponent of advanced mechanization, earning doctorates in robotics construction and modular program design from the University of Linz and the Technical Institute of Hong Kong, along with a master's in advanced manufacturing. With a day job at Fanuc and a night job of producing autonomous software, Shen was tapped for XCOM when his work on the SHIV prototypes on testing at DARPA was found to be universal- every model present used licensed versions of his patented threat identification system.
Chief Researcher Dr. Vahlen: Before joining XCOM, Dr. Vahlen was a professor at the University of Linz and a groundbreaking researcher in nondisciplinary science- a polite way of saying she could tie three researchers together and get the results out of them that compared favorably to a group four times their size. Holding four doctorates- psychology, molecular physics, advanced robotics, and microbiology respectively- she powered through advanced work, but rarely got herself published or academically acknowledged for her work. Undettered, she joined the XCOM project in it's infancy to serve as a general researcher, but found herself promoted to the formost position after her more senior companions broke security and preformed unsafe testing on alien artifacts resulting in massive bodily harm and rampant destruction to the labs.
Central Officer Bradford: TBA
Lily Shen: TBA
Field Commander "Hilltopper" Nyugen: TBA
TACO: Tactical Air Controller, the person responsable that airborne assets don't accidently shoot the ground pounders or start the party early.
TAGO: Tactical Ground Officer, the person responsable for micromanaging the infantry and mechanized assets so they don't trip on their logistical tails or power lines.
Major Henderson: TBA
Master Gunnery Sergeant "Grandmaster" Melaneski : TBA
Lance Corporal Vessening: TBA
The Commander: A West Point graduate, he was tapped early in his career by a Special Forces major, which soon got him into messes far above his nominal pay grade. For him, the Long War started in '93 when he and a group of Mujahdeen he was serving as a technical advisor for stumbled into an Alien Abduction. After fighting his way out with the majority of his forces intact, he was nominated to serve as the Commander of the XCOM project until a more suitable (read, politically palpable) candidate was found. By the time such a person appeared, though, the Commander had successfully handled multiple Terror Missions, and found the locations of four Alien Bases. Now firmly entrenched in his position, the Commander of XCOM held the post until the end of the Long War.
Chief Engineer Dr. Shen: Before his position with XCOM, Shen had been a longtime proponent of advanced mechanization, earning doctorates in robotics construction and modular program design from the University of Linz and the Technical Institute of Hong Kong, along with a master's in advanced manufacturing. With a day job at Fanuc and a night job of producing autonomous software, Shen was tapped for XCOM when his work on the SHIV prototypes on testing at DARPA was found to be universal- every model present used licensed versions of his patented threat identification system.
Chief Researcher Dr. Vahlen: Before joining XCOM, Dr. Vahlen was a professor at the University of Linz and a groundbreaking researcher in nondisciplinary science- a polite way of saying she could tie three researchers together and get the results out of them that compared favorably to a group four times their size. Holding four doctorates- psychology, molecular physics, advanced robotics, and microbiology respectively- she powered through advanced work, but rarely got herself published or academically acknowledged for her work. Undettered, she joined the XCOM project in it's infancy to serve as a general researcher, but found herself promoted to the formost position after her more senior companions broke security and preformed unsafe testing on alien artifacts resulting in massive bodily harm and rampant destruction to the labs.
Central Officer Bradford: TBA
Lily Shen: TBA
Field Commander "Hilltopper" Nyugen: TBA
TACO: Tactical Air Controller, the person responsable that airborne assets don't accidently shoot the ground pounders or start the party early.
TAGO: Tactical Ground Officer, the person responsable for micromanaging the infantry and mechanized assets so they don't trip on their logistical tails or power lines.
Major Henderson: TBA
Master Gunnery Sergeant "Grandmaster" Melaneski : TBA
Lance Corporal Vessening: TBA
Last edited:
NERVous Breakdown pt. 3; The Circle of Innocents
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Travelling down to the EVA bay, the Commander looked over at his compatriots. War might have made strange bedfellows, but the people that he had been just put in charge of looked like jackals for the most part. They were proud, had something to prove. Whether to rage against the dying of the light or welcome the end with more than a whisper, it still irked him. This attitude was dangerous, something he had tried to pound out of his men at every opportunity. It would take some time to do here, and it needed doing. This desire to achieve was good in a limited sense; too much would bring down an empire.
On arrival at the EVA bay, things progressed rapidly. The poor boy- Shinji Ikari, son of the former commanding officer here- was dressed in the piloting suit, sweating bullets as he looked up into the rafters where his war machine was waiting. The Commander frowned, and ran his hand through his hair. War was his oldest companion, and yet looking at the boy who was the only one who could wield the avatar of power before him, he sighed. This would haunt him, he knew. Too many things did- Mexico City, the Newfoundland Expedition, the EXALT base in Berne, his ex-wife- but this? This would stain his soul.
"Son." he said, solemnly looking at Shinji. "I'm not comfortable with this. I'm a soldier, not some mad scientist or demon gaijin from a comic or manga. But I will be honest with you- my men have died today. More still are wounded. I need help to keep them alive- your help. Your machine's help."
Shinji nodded, stiff. The poor boy moved like a doll, held by sticks and strings.
"I'm not going to lie- this will be painful. War always is. That said though, your job is going to be simple. All you need to do is get up there, and your suit's AT field will cancel out the Angel's. When that happens, all you need to do is hit the deck as our overwhelming firepower rips it to shreds. Worst case, it hits you once or twice. Ok, son?"
Shinji nodded again. Lips tight, the Commander growled a simple order.
"Say if you accept or not, son. A mutter isn't your word any more than a handshake a contact. I've never marched a drafted soldier into hell, and I'll die before I start."
Shinji nodded, and swallowed nervously. "I will do it. I will pilot the EVA."
The Commander nodded, and patted the boy on the shoulder. "Then welcome to XCOM. I'm sorry you joined this way, but we will never regret you. Follow the directions of the launch crew, and once you're there keep your radio on. We'll do everything we can to help you, so just stand strong."
For the last time that day, Shinji nodded and tried to salute. "Y-y-yes, Sir."
Shaking his head, The Commander returned the salute crisply. It was the least he could do.
----
As the EVA prepared to be launched to the surface, Shinji tried to pull himself together. He had to stand up- that was all he had to do. Stand, and hold his ground. Just stand there, and take a hit. He'd done that before- just let the strike come in, and land on him. It would hurt- the blows always did. Really, when didn't things hurt? His Uncle's words, his classmates' stares, his father's abandonment, they all hurt.
Really, what was one more blow?
As the rack touched the sky and put him on the Earth, Shinji tried to maneuver, his inexpert hands skittering across the controls in the bath of LCL he was suspended in. Stumbling and slipping, Shinji advanced on the Angel, trying to bring himself to bear.
"This is TAGO to EVA-01, come in EVA-01, over."
Come in? What did that mean?
"Ah, Shinji? That's your name, right? I'm the TAGO- I'm gonna make sure you don't step on one of our guys, ok? Say yes if you here me."
This, this Shinji could understand. He was here to help, not hurt! "Yes, this is Shinji, I hear you."
"Great!" the TAGO said, a smile in his voice. "Listen, you see the Angel off there, slightly to your left?"
"Yeah?"
"Walk towards it, ok? There's apparently a weapon delivery system in some fake buildings for you, and between you and it is an… ok, a Progressive Spear. I'm gonna trigger the building, you grab the spear, and if the Angel notices you then hold the pigsticker in front of you and we'll nail it once it hits your AT field. Or you can stick it- ohshit."
As the TAGO swore quietly, the Angel turned to face Shinji and screamed. Pumping it's legs, it charged him like a freight train. Shinji barely had enough time to turn slightly when it hit him, their AT fields entangling and canceling each other out. Trying to focus, the boy-pilot tried to bring his fist up, but the whip of the Angel swatted it out of the way while the other went for the EVA's head.
"Shinji, DUCK!" the TAGO yelled, and Shinji followed the order gracelessly as the blow sent him back. As the drilling cannon named after the lead researcher of XCOM fired, the Angel tried to project an AT field. Underneath its gaze, Shinji growled and pushed back, fighting against the AT field that the Angel was trying to project. As the highly-weakened AT field appeared away from the EVA and Angel, though, the heavy artillery swatted it aside like a fly. The angel had exited its realm, and was now thoroughly at the gunner's mercy. Heavy spikes of blue light pierced it, the gunners tearing strips from their foe. All the while, Shinji just had to hold on.
Then the Angel toppled and fell right on the EVA.
----
Looking out from the headquarters area, the Commander held his head and sighed. Pinned under the corpse of the Angel, Shinji was waggling his limbs and trying to push up against the ground to get out, occasionally flailing. Picking up the horn, the Commander keyed his address all option.
"All XCOM troops, good work today."
Another short toggle on the Big Board, and the Commander made sure his chuckle was done before the next thing he had to say. "Shinji, good work there. Stay put, ok? We've got recovery vehicles inbound to haul the Angel carcass off, and they'll help you stand up. Are you doing ok?"
Shinji thought for a moment, and rubbed the back of his head. That fall had hurt, and the Angel was none too comfortable a blanket. "I think I'm fine, sir."
"Alright, son. Just hold tight- we'll be there."
On arrival at the EVA bay, things progressed rapidly. The poor boy- Shinji Ikari, son of the former commanding officer here- was dressed in the piloting suit, sweating bullets as he looked up into the rafters where his war machine was waiting. The Commander frowned, and ran his hand through his hair. War was his oldest companion, and yet looking at the boy who was the only one who could wield the avatar of power before him, he sighed. This would haunt him, he knew. Too many things did- Mexico City, the Newfoundland Expedition, the EXALT base in Berne, his ex-wife- but this? This would stain his soul.
"Son." he said, solemnly looking at Shinji. "I'm not comfortable with this. I'm a soldier, not some mad scientist or demon gaijin from a comic or manga. But I will be honest with you- my men have died today. More still are wounded. I need help to keep them alive- your help. Your machine's help."
Shinji nodded, stiff. The poor boy moved like a doll, held by sticks and strings.
"I'm not going to lie- this will be painful. War always is. That said though, your job is going to be simple. All you need to do is get up there, and your suit's AT field will cancel out the Angel's. When that happens, all you need to do is hit the deck as our overwhelming firepower rips it to shreds. Worst case, it hits you once or twice. Ok, son?"
Shinji nodded again. Lips tight, the Commander growled a simple order.
"Say if you accept or not, son. A mutter isn't your word any more than a handshake a contact. I've never marched a drafted soldier into hell, and I'll die before I start."
Shinji nodded, and swallowed nervously. "I will do it. I will pilot the EVA."
The Commander nodded, and patted the boy on the shoulder. "Then welcome to XCOM. I'm sorry you joined this way, but we will never regret you. Follow the directions of the launch crew, and once you're there keep your radio on. We'll do everything we can to help you, so just stand strong."
For the last time that day, Shinji nodded and tried to salute. "Y-y-yes, Sir."
Shaking his head, The Commander returned the salute crisply. It was the least he could do.
----
As the EVA prepared to be launched to the surface, Shinji tried to pull himself together. He had to stand up- that was all he had to do. Stand, and hold his ground. Just stand there, and take a hit. He'd done that before- just let the strike come in, and land on him. It would hurt- the blows always did. Really, when didn't things hurt? His Uncle's words, his classmates' stares, his father's abandonment, they all hurt.
Really, what was one more blow?
As the rack touched the sky and put him on the Earth, Shinji tried to maneuver, his inexpert hands skittering across the controls in the bath of LCL he was suspended in. Stumbling and slipping, Shinji advanced on the Angel, trying to bring himself to bear.
"This is TAGO to EVA-01, come in EVA-01, over."
Come in? What did that mean?
"Ah, Shinji? That's your name, right? I'm the TAGO- I'm gonna make sure you don't step on one of our guys, ok? Say yes if you here me."
This, this Shinji could understand. He was here to help, not hurt! "Yes, this is Shinji, I hear you."
"Great!" the TAGO said, a smile in his voice. "Listen, you see the Angel off there, slightly to your left?"
"Yeah?"
"Walk towards it, ok? There's apparently a weapon delivery system in some fake buildings for you, and between you and it is an… ok, a Progressive Spear. I'm gonna trigger the building, you grab the spear, and if the Angel notices you then hold the pigsticker in front of you and we'll nail it once it hits your AT field. Or you can stick it- ohshit."
As the TAGO swore quietly, the Angel turned to face Shinji and screamed. Pumping it's legs, it charged him like a freight train. Shinji barely had enough time to turn slightly when it hit him, their AT fields entangling and canceling each other out. Trying to focus, the boy-pilot tried to bring his fist up, but the whip of the Angel swatted it out of the way while the other went for the EVA's head.
"Shinji, DUCK!" the TAGO yelled, and Shinji followed the order gracelessly as the blow sent him back. As the drilling cannon named after the lead researcher of XCOM fired, the Angel tried to project an AT field. Underneath its gaze, Shinji growled and pushed back, fighting against the AT field that the Angel was trying to project. As the highly-weakened AT field appeared away from the EVA and Angel, though, the heavy artillery swatted it aside like a fly. The angel had exited its realm, and was now thoroughly at the gunner's mercy. Heavy spikes of blue light pierced it, the gunners tearing strips from their foe. All the while, Shinji just had to hold on.
Then the Angel toppled and fell right on the EVA.
----
Looking out from the headquarters area, the Commander held his head and sighed. Pinned under the corpse of the Angel, Shinji was waggling his limbs and trying to push up against the ground to get out, occasionally flailing. Picking up the horn, the Commander keyed his address all option.
"All XCOM troops, good work today."
Another short toggle on the Big Board, and the Commander made sure his chuckle was done before the next thing he had to say. "Shinji, good work there. Stay put, ok? We've got recovery vehicles inbound to haul the Angel carcass off, and they'll help you stand up. Are you doing ok?"
Shinji thought for a moment, and rubbed the back of his head. That fall had hurt, and the Angel was none too comfortable a blanket. "I think I'm fine, sir."
"Alright, son. Just hold tight- we'll be there."
Lone Courier 6
Devilish Fool
- Location
- United States of Quests
... i never knew I wanted an xcom and eva cross over till now...Watching thread now
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Like I mentioned up in the meathead- Evangelion is about division, while XCOM is about unity. The contrast makes them interesting to play off of each other.
NERVous Breakdown pt. 4; The Ruined Slope 'twixt Battering Wind
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Looking out over the rosters of NERV staff that had been absorbed into the new XCOM base, The Commander sighed and looked down at the lowly Captain in front of him.
"So, Captain Misato, I've read your forms, and I'd like to talk to you about the request to move Ensign Ikari to a surface apartment with you. I'll warn you, I'm tempted to dismiss this out of hand- having our pilots in unsecured quarters seems like an accident waiting for a place to happen, and I can't agree with him attending high school here very well either. Response time saves lives, and he's the only thing we've got aside from a very dubious prototype and pilot I have no biometrics on to stop another Angel attack."
Nodding stiffly, Misato replied. This new commander might have been a hard-ass in the office, but he'd managed to get Shinji in the EVA yesterday without bulling him over to do it.
"Well, sir," she began, putting her thoughts in order for this hat-trick of diplomacy "The first thing I'd like to mention is that a solid home environment has been a constant in the NERV program to develop our pilots before now. If you've looked at the files for the Second Child-"
A single raised eyebrow met this. "Excuse me?" the Commander politely asked. "Second Child? I'm afraid we don't have one of those on our files."
"Asuka Soryu, the other proven EVA pilot? She's currently stationed in NERV Berlin, pilots EVA unit 0-2, currently age fourteen, flaming red hair?"
Putting his head in his hand, the Commander made an assenting noise. "Ok, duly noted. Gonna have to bring her here at some point and upgrade the EVA, which means either an airlift or asking the Ruskies if we can use the Trans-Siberian, which means…" the Commander said, muttering off as he started scrawling on a memo pad in Dari.
Clearing her throat, Miato continued. "As I was saying, a fairly stable household environment has reliably proven to help keep the EVA pilots stable and increase their proficiency at using their weapons systems."
Looking up, the Commander muttered a few words of gibberish, briefly shook his head, and went back to Japanese. "Apoligies, ma'am; a gift of languages can bite you in the back easily. As I meant to say, I'm not against Ensign Ikari living with you as a guardian, per say. What concerns me is the location- your apartment is too far away, and we need to be able to sorte an EVA unit within five minutes of positive confirmed contact. Even with maximum parallel work, your cage crews need the pilot mounted in the machine to do several parts of the launch procedure and the current maximum speed to get from your current apartment to the launch pad is seven minutes."
Weighing her options, Misato flipped through the property listings in her head. As much as she liked her apartment, this was what most textbooks (as written by lance corporals) called an opportunity.
"A compromise, then." She said cautiously. "There happens to be several empty apartment buildings in the area- if I could move into one, then would that help?"
Nodding, the Commander smiled. "I do believe that can help. Seeing as you're on my payroll now, I'll call up some of the bluehats to pull the move off."
"What?"
"Bluehats- in more polite terms, rookie aspirants. They serve as general tech staff and our skilled labor pool. Your address is in the system, so I'll have Bradford call you with the new address. On a more serious note, though, I have a question."
Misato shrugged, happy her biggest concern was handled. "Yes, Commander?"
"As you accidentally pointed out with your remarks on the Second Child, I have no idea what NERV has, who they have, and where they've got it all stashed. I've got my adjunct working on it double time, but with as much materiel I've got to handle I need him to do his real job and not dig through records. So, I want you to have a new job instead of trying to be a one-person battle leader. I need a second adjunct, one who's specialized in handling all these new, shiny, poison-covered toys my boys are slavering over."
Thinking about it, Misato tried to find a way to refuse. On one hand, if she formally acquiesced to joining XCOM instead of getting subsumed in the merge then she'd be in a tricky spot to dig through NERV. On the other, though, it would offer her a very strong wall at her back: something told her that an intruder to the camaraderie and spirit of this odd organization would be unwelcome at best and encounter an accident at worst.
Considering how much she knew about Second Impact, and more importantly what stopped Second Impact from turning the global climate into a horrendous mess, Misato was willing to take the chance.
"Deal." She said, shaking the Commander's hand.
----
Down below in a spare medical alcove, Shinji tried to get himself up, looking into the unfamiliar ceiling like it held the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
"Morning, sleepyhead." A joking voice came from next to him, and Shinji's head slowly came to bear. His first thought was that the person talking to him had to be some sort of guard- who else wore body armor and left a rifle leaning on the wall?
"What time is it?" Shinji asked the stranger, slowly sitting up.
"Quarter to ten, buddy. You've been out like a light all day."
"Oh. My apologies."
The guard laughed, and stuck out his hand. "Not a problem, kid. You got a name, other than Giant Robot Driver?"
Nodding, the afformentioned Giant Robot Driver replied. "Shinji Ikari."
The guard just chuckled, and stuck out a hand. "Lance Corpral Jay Vessening, at your service. Quite literally- I'm your current adjunct."
"Excuse me, but I don't know what that means." Shinji said, backpedaling instinctively.
"I'm your go-to guy, translator, driver, paper pusher, and general flunky at large. More importantly, my job is to stick to you like glue so that way you don't get lost."
"Oh." Was all Shinji could squeak out. Vessening just chuckled.
"Relax, Ensign. Just think of me as the little fairy that reminds you to tie your shoes in the morning and sign your pay stubs. Which reminds me, we need to get you over to Payroll and Logistics today so that you get payed and get your uniforms."
"I get payed? And get uniforms? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense!"
Vessening just put his head in his hands and sighed. "Ok, let me start from the top. When you said 'yes' to playing slap-n-tickle with Godzilla in a religious paintjob, you joined XCOM, full stop. Right?"
"Yes…"
"Well, as an organization, XCOM has a responsibility to make sure you can do your job- read, go stick your neck on the line and keep the bigass shields down- so as such they give you money so you can eat and a little card so that you can get through doors. I've been told it's easier than expecting officers to know how doorknobs work, but eh. They also give you clothes so you look snazzy and don't run around naked or anything, plus an apartment. That said, I'm pretty sure you're moving in with someone- Ensigns, even giant robot ensigns, don't get their own apartments."
Realing for a grasp on anything resembling logic in the exposition he heard, Shinji just muttered an ok.
"Good to hear you're up to speed, m'boy!" Vessening said smiling, ignoring the confusion present. "Now, let's get to work!"
AN: Yeah, worldbuilding. Sue me. Vessening is fun to write, though. Hope he helps get Shinji a spinal implant before he meets Vahlen or Lilly.
"So, Captain Misato, I've read your forms, and I'd like to talk to you about the request to move Ensign Ikari to a surface apartment with you. I'll warn you, I'm tempted to dismiss this out of hand- having our pilots in unsecured quarters seems like an accident waiting for a place to happen, and I can't agree with him attending high school here very well either. Response time saves lives, and he's the only thing we've got aside from a very dubious prototype and pilot I have no biometrics on to stop another Angel attack."
Nodding stiffly, Misato replied. This new commander might have been a hard-ass in the office, but he'd managed to get Shinji in the EVA yesterday without bulling him over to do it.
"Well, sir," she began, putting her thoughts in order for this hat-trick of diplomacy "The first thing I'd like to mention is that a solid home environment has been a constant in the NERV program to develop our pilots before now. If you've looked at the files for the Second Child-"
A single raised eyebrow met this. "Excuse me?" the Commander politely asked. "Second Child? I'm afraid we don't have one of those on our files."
"Asuka Soryu, the other proven EVA pilot? She's currently stationed in NERV Berlin, pilots EVA unit 0-2, currently age fourteen, flaming red hair?"
Putting his head in his hand, the Commander made an assenting noise. "Ok, duly noted. Gonna have to bring her here at some point and upgrade the EVA, which means either an airlift or asking the Ruskies if we can use the Trans-Siberian, which means…" the Commander said, muttering off as he started scrawling on a memo pad in Dari.
Clearing her throat, Miato continued. "As I was saying, a fairly stable household environment has reliably proven to help keep the EVA pilots stable and increase their proficiency at using their weapons systems."
Looking up, the Commander muttered a few words of gibberish, briefly shook his head, and went back to Japanese. "Apoligies, ma'am; a gift of languages can bite you in the back easily. As I meant to say, I'm not against Ensign Ikari living with you as a guardian, per say. What concerns me is the location- your apartment is too far away, and we need to be able to sorte an EVA unit within five minutes of positive confirmed contact. Even with maximum parallel work, your cage crews need the pilot mounted in the machine to do several parts of the launch procedure and the current maximum speed to get from your current apartment to the launch pad is seven minutes."
Weighing her options, Misato flipped through the property listings in her head. As much as she liked her apartment, this was what most textbooks (as written by lance corporals) called an opportunity.
"A compromise, then." She said cautiously. "There happens to be several empty apartment buildings in the area- if I could move into one, then would that help?"
Nodding, the Commander smiled. "I do believe that can help. Seeing as you're on my payroll now, I'll call up some of the bluehats to pull the move off."
"What?"
"Bluehats- in more polite terms, rookie aspirants. They serve as general tech staff and our skilled labor pool. Your address is in the system, so I'll have Bradford call you with the new address. On a more serious note, though, I have a question."
Misato shrugged, happy her biggest concern was handled. "Yes, Commander?"
"As you accidentally pointed out with your remarks on the Second Child, I have no idea what NERV has, who they have, and where they've got it all stashed. I've got my adjunct working on it double time, but with as much materiel I've got to handle I need him to do his real job and not dig through records. So, I want you to have a new job instead of trying to be a one-person battle leader. I need a second adjunct, one who's specialized in handling all these new, shiny, poison-covered toys my boys are slavering over."
Thinking about it, Misato tried to find a way to refuse. On one hand, if she formally acquiesced to joining XCOM instead of getting subsumed in the merge then she'd be in a tricky spot to dig through NERV. On the other, though, it would offer her a very strong wall at her back: something told her that an intruder to the camaraderie and spirit of this odd organization would be unwelcome at best and encounter an accident at worst.
Considering how much she knew about Second Impact, and more importantly what stopped Second Impact from turning the global climate into a horrendous mess, Misato was willing to take the chance.
"Deal." She said, shaking the Commander's hand.
----
Down below in a spare medical alcove, Shinji tried to get himself up, looking into the unfamiliar ceiling like it held the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
"Morning, sleepyhead." A joking voice came from next to him, and Shinji's head slowly came to bear. His first thought was that the person talking to him had to be some sort of guard- who else wore body armor and left a rifle leaning on the wall?
"What time is it?" Shinji asked the stranger, slowly sitting up.
"Quarter to ten, buddy. You've been out like a light all day."
"Oh. My apologies."
The guard laughed, and stuck out his hand. "Not a problem, kid. You got a name, other than Giant Robot Driver?"
Nodding, the afformentioned Giant Robot Driver replied. "Shinji Ikari."
The guard just chuckled, and stuck out a hand. "Lance Corpral Jay Vessening, at your service. Quite literally- I'm your current adjunct."
"Excuse me, but I don't know what that means." Shinji said, backpedaling instinctively.
"I'm your go-to guy, translator, driver, paper pusher, and general flunky at large. More importantly, my job is to stick to you like glue so that way you don't get lost."
"Oh." Was all Shinji could squeak out. Vessening just chuckled.
"Relax, Ensign. Just think of me as the little fairy that reminds you to tie your shoes in the morning and sign your pay stubs. Which reminds me, we need to get you over to Payroll and Logistics today so that you get payed and get your uniforms."
"I get payed? And get uniforms? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense!"
Vessening just put his head in his hands and sighed. "Ok, let me start from the top. When you said 'yes' to playing slap-n-tickle with Godzilla in a religious paintjob, you joined XCOM, full stop. Right?"
"Yes…"
"Well, as an organization, XCOM has a responsibility to make sure you can do your job- read, go stick your neck on the line and keep the bigass shields down- so as such they give you money so you can eat and a little card so that you can get through doors. I've been told it's easier than expecting officers to know how doorknobs work, but eh. They also give you clothes so you look snazzy and don't run around naked or anything, plus an apartment. That said, I'm pretty sure you're moving in with someone- Ensigns, even giant robot ensigns, don't get their own apartments."
Realing for a grasp on anything resembling logic in the exposition he heard, Shinji just muttered an ok.
"Good to hear you're up to speed, m'boy!" Vessening said smiling, ignoring the confusion present. "Now, let's get to work!"
AN: Yeah, worldbuilding. Sue me. Vessening is fun to write, though. Hope he helps get Shinji a spinal implant before he meets Vahlen or Lilly.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
I think part of it is in Vessesning, personally. He's more than capable of making conversational roadkill out of Shinji, but he tries not to as a way of respect. As for Shinji himself... Well, let it just be said I speak very good Waffle, which means Shinji now has more ways to get the same idea across.
Minusmagnus
Open Lurker
*Snort*
*Pff* This will either have a hilarious payoff or tragic consequenses later down the line.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Yeah, that's a thing. Misato isn't new to playing games of high-velocity bullshit. That said, though, they're not going to be in a practically empty building anymore, for better or worse.
NERVous Breakdown pt. 5; Frozen Rains
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Looking around the Quartermaster's Store, Shinji gulped loudly. It wasn't all his fault- seeing literally thousands of IKEA-brand shelving units with milk crates full of everything from power packs to uniforms to a few that looked like they had grenades in them.
"Sir, please stop ogling the motion sensors." Vessening sighed, gently steering his underaged charge towards a fitting room with a frowning quartermaster there with a cloth tape to take his measurements. "Those aren't grenades, and quite frankly you can't requisition them after the shower incidents back at Benzia."
Shinji failed to respond meaningfully as he was briskly measured and outfitted, until he was forced to catch one of the heavy uniform coats that he'd wear until he could get a full set of duty clothes.
"Well, try the thing on, make sure it fits." The quartermaster grumped, before getting out a large caddy of patches. "Hey, Vessening, you think they're going to qual that Angel-thing as a big, bigger, or biggest fish?"
"Definitely biggest fish. Don't forget to add on Superheavy Mechanized and Superheavy Weapons operator patches."
"Seriously? This kid's going to have more field strips than he has chest!"
Vessening laughed, which made Shinji blush. "Nah, you'll get some room back. Seeing as he's an Operator-Only, he doesn't need a Rifle Qual or Infantry Qual patches. Don't think he'll need any of the quals except Pistol, really."
"Stop shitting me. You think they're going to let this much of an asset go with only pistol quals?"
"He's an Ensign." Vessening replied archly. "With an aid-de-camp."
"Oh."
"And to make matters worse, I have some forms signed by Central himself that specifically outline the kid's schedule at the Offizirsschule. Kid's getting a fast track, make no mistake."
"Excuse me?" Shinji asked planatively from underneath the double-breasted uniform coat "How do I put this on?"
Holding his head in his hands, Vessening just breathed in and out before helping his hapeless boss.
-----
Sitting in his office, Central Officer Bradley was having a very bad day. Between having to parse Japanese footnotes on a number of "critical personal" files also written in very formal kanji, officialese-laden phone calls from his staff to the tune of "how the fuck did NERV not implode in a pile of antilogic" and a note from the Commander that said "gib EVA driver good shite b4 angstsplosion" he was kind of stressed.
Then the desk phone started ringing. The desk phone was very specific- it meant one of three departments was calling. One, the Combined Base Management Services, was bad.
Two, Combined Interceptor Command, was worse.
"Bradford, we've got a situation." The Commander said as Central picked up the phone. "You know the prototype that was out of action last fight? Yeah, well, when the pilot got out of the hospital she came to us for checkup. Since she wasn't on file, the doc on duty did a physical too, and she walked out about eight hours ago. Problem was, the bloodwork just came in."
"And I have to find her." Bradford groused.
"She, quite literally, has more anti-psychotics and suppressive drugs in her system than a captured Berserker. She is also exactly half of our current defense lynchpin. I need her tracked down, booked into a lab, and getting checked to see if someone either screwed the pooch on her meds, is getting doped to the gills for some reason, legit needs that much medication, whatever. This is currently the biggest item on our plate next to designing the Block One upgrades to the EVAs, and more importantly also falls right up your ally."
"Sir, you realize this is going to slow everything else down, right? I can't-"
The Commander growled a little. "Bradford, you know and I know the only reason you're pouring through personal files is because we're still translating and sorting the damn things. I want you, half a squad in MP gear, and a full platoon in full battle rattle to find this 'Rei Ayanami' and get her into an XCOM medical facility ASAP."
Bradford grimaced. This was bad- the only time when a half squad of MPs backed by legit infantry was normally needed when a Master Gunns had gone off the deep end and gone on a serious bender off-base. The last one had resulted in calling a Skyranger to pick the guy up from a dive in Cairo.
Bradford still didn't know how he'd managed to party his way there from a bar in the Gold Coast in less than seventy-two hours.
"Well… shit…" Bradford said eloquently.
"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. You want a doctrine?"
"Shoot, boss."
"You can probably talk her in there easily enough, so go slow and normal. Appeal to reason- the doctor notes she as somewhere between catatonic and robotic. Might want to bring a SHIV wrangler to help on the MP team. The local computer network is still giving us more shit than Microsoft 8, so I can't get you much info."
"Alright, then." Bradford said, standing up and grabbing his coat. "Gimme ten minutes and we'll be at it."
"Shoot me the designation code for your techie and I'll drop updates to him. Anything else?"
"Nope."
"Good. Call me back when you get her in a lab so I can send down her minder. Adios."
"Auf wiedershein"
----
Walking to her apartment home from school, Rei had a lot of thoughts on her mind. Between the chaos and confusion at the base, plus some of her injuries, she was feeling concerned. Commander Ikari was gone, Doctor Ritsuko had given her twice as much medicine "in case you can't make your next refill date" and there had been so many people flooding the normally empty halls and yelling in foreign languages…
Not good signs. Not good signs at all.
"Madre de dios, tan favelas son que aqui…"
"No! El es no menor los Sectoids en favelas. Rio de Janiero es todo scheisse."
Stopping, Rei listened to the conversation in bad Spanish. She didn't understand it, mind, but she could theoretically pick up some hints from their body language and tone.
"Excuse me, Miss Ayanami?"
Of course, that was presuming she had enough time to focus and separate the vagaries of the language from the underlying intent. It appeared she did not.
"Yes?" Rei said, turning to face the speaker. Slightly tanned, he wasn't terribly imposing until she noticed the holster on his hip and what looked like a shoulder rig in his jacket.
"If I might introduce myself?"
"Of course."
"I would be Central Officer Bradford, and when you came in earlier today for your post-release checkup there were significant disparities with your biochemistry and medical records. We'd like you to come in for some… double checking so that we have a good medical file."
Rei almost squinted, now definitely confused. "Could you not talk to Doctor Ritsuko?"
Bradford sighed, and rubbed his head. "No, we haven't found her yet. Things are still a little bit of a mess after the command swaps, I'm afraid."
"Oh."
"Yes, that seems to be the order of the day. So, can you come with us?"
"Alright."
-----
Back at the Geofront, the Commander was trying to think happy thoughts. Thoughts about cats, and small children, and girls young enough to be his daughters running around in cat ears and plenty of clothing frolicking through the daisies, and young women that were certainly above the age of consent frolicking another meadow over wearing significantly less but still with cat ears.
Unfortunately, the person sitting between his Chief Researcher and his Chief Engineer was in no way a happy thought. She could be considered rather monstrous, as a matter of fact, considering the circumstances of her birth.
"So, let me get this straight." The Commander said quietly, holding his head in his hands. "Back in Linz, before the war you two got up to a, quote, 'biomechanical experiment' unquote."
"Yes." Vahlen and Shen said in eerie synchronization.
"Nine months after said experiment, you placed the 'second phase' of the experiment in a series of legal dodges keeping her on university grounds for the next eight years."
"Yes."
"After which you managed to get said experiment into the Alpha Site."
"Yes."
"Where the experiment resided for the duration of the Long War."
"Yes."
The Commander breathed in, and then breathed out.
"After this, you brought said experiment here."
"Yes."
"I have one question."
"Yes?"
At this point, The Commander took all his frustration, sheathed his knife hand, and got ready to start yelling.
"HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DID YOU TWO HAVE A DAUGHTER, IN MY BASE, FOR THE ENTIRE ALIEN INVASION? WE HAVE SOLDIERS FROM EVERY COUNTRY ON THIS GLOBE WORTH THE NAME, WE HAVE THE FINEST TECHNITIONS IN THE WORLD, AND TOP TIER SECURITY. HOW? WHY? MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT IS SHE DOING STILL ON MY BASE, STILL GETTING INTO PLACES I DO NOT WANT A CHILD, STILL DRINKING- AND DON'T THINK I DIDN'T NOTICE THE DRINKING- AT THE CANTINA, AND STILL SLEEPING IN A MELD TANK? I AM TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD AGAIN HERE, AND WHOOP! MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU BRING ME A DAUGHTER. HUZZAH. I DON'T EVEN HAVE TECHNICAL AUTHORITY OVER HER BECAUSE SHE'S NOT A MEMBER OF MY ORGANIZATION."
As Vahlen and Shen took a step back, The Commander stopped to take a breath.
"After the shit I've been handling this week, you have delivered the straw that broke the poor camel's back. You have five minutes before I throw in the hat for today and start relaxing, so please convince me not to wake up tomorrow and put out want ads for a few new chiefs.
Vahlen started, face very pale. She hadn't seen the Commander this stressed since… oh, just before Brussels.
"To begin, Lily here was part of a sanctioned experiment in artificial wombs and non-traditional human reproduction. For her entire time at the University of Linz, she was properly watched, raised, and treated. More importantly, we have documentation to that effect."
Now it was Shen's turn to narrate. "We were working together as partners in a robotics competition, which is how I got brought into it. I designed the mechanical parts, the tissue harness, and provided half the genetic material for Lilly. I also hold the title of her legal guardian. She originally moved into XCOM Echo because of the terror bombing at Linz. I was panicking, and I had a friend in the Skyranger pilots. She came to Alpha Site shortly after."
"Once we got her home, certain logistical difficulties became apparent." Vahlen said listlessly. "For starters, food and sleeping. We tried several different solutions, but eventually Colonel Mackay decided to help us and he lodged her in a spare bedroom near the Officer School. The secret slowly dripped out from there. It was about six months after she arrived that she started eating in the mess, and another three before she got a spot in the barracks. She kept herself very well handled, acted responsibly, and attended most of the lectures at the officer's school."
The Commander just rubbed his eyebrow and went into his desk for the tequila. After pulling out a bottle of sake, he just sighed and got a glass.
"You wanna share?" the teenage girl in front of him asked, smiling. "Haven't had sake yet."
Raising an eyebrow, the Commander shook his head "no."
"Please? C'mon, after all the MELD those two gave me that was 'unrecoverable' because it already had been attuned, I got a good, solid, regenerating liver and six kidneys worth of filtration."
Coughing, Vahlen put her hand on Lily's shoulder. "She's referring to her Loki's Organ. Once we allocate MELD to a soldier, we need to run it through someone with a Loki's Organ to de-attunate it. Most of the Meld used in just about everything we use it for isn't permanently consumed, it's just keyed to that one thing until we run it through Lilly or one of our… six? Six other techs with the Loki's organ."
"And it makes me stupid tough." Lily added, chortling. "Until Mom pulls it out, it serves as a backup system for all my everythings."
Looking at Lily, the Commander thought for a moment. A looooong moment. It might have been the sake talking, but he had An Idea.
"Uh-oh…" Lily said. "I know that look. Mom, Dad, this isn't going to be like the time I tried sneaking into the armory, right?"
At this point, the Commander chuckled. When most people chuckle, it was a sign of happiness.
When The Commander chuckled, it was a sign that doom was neigh.
"Lily Shen." The Commander said, pulling out a class and a very small pile of paperwork. "How would you like to learn more about those very big robots we've got in those launch hangers?"
As the girl's eyes lit up, The Commander poured her some sake.
"All you need to do is sign there, and you'll be part of XCOM. Officer school, fast track, the works. Only catch is you have to help us make those big 'bots fight harder."
Lily's signature was on the paperwork before any of the rest could blink.
"Shen. Vahlen." The Commander said, smiling still. "This is the best option I have, aside from throwing you all out in the cold. Care to finish the bargin?"
Reluctantly, both signed as well.
"Good! Lily, I'll be making sure to introduce you to the rest of your peers later. Until then, why don't you pick up your kit with Mom and Dad?"
As the three exited the office, the Commander waited until the door was closed and slumped in his chair.
"Dear God, I hope this is the last time I need to do that." He panted, the energy flowing out. "At least she's not fighting. At least she's not fighting."
As he called a near-forgotten deity, another stone was added to his soul.
"Sir, please stop ogling the motion sensors." Vessening sighed, gently steering his underaged charge towards a fitting room with a frowning quartermaster there with a cloth tape to take his measurements. "Those aren't grenades, and quite frankly you can't requisition them after the shower incidents back at Benzia."
Shinji failed to respond meaningfully as he was briskly measured and outfitted, until he was forced to catch one of the heavy uniform coats that he'd wear until he could get a full set of duty clothes.
"Well, try the thing on, make sure it fits." The quartermaster grumped, before getting out a large caddy of patches. "Hey, Vessening, you think they're going to qual that Angel-thing as a big, bigger, or biggest fish?"
"Definitely biggest fish. Don't forget to add on Superheavy Mechanized and Superheavy Weapons operator patches."
"Seriously? This kid's going to have more field strips than he has chest!"
Vessening laughed, which made Shinji blush. "Nah, you'll get some room back. Seeing as he's an Operator-Only, he doesn't need a Rifle Qual or Infantry Qual patches. Don't think he'll need any of the quals except Pistol, really."
"Stop shitting me. You think they're going to let this much of an asset go with only pistol quals?"
"He's an Ensign." Vessening replied archly. "With an aid-de-camp."
"Oh."
"And to make matters worse, I have some forms signed by Central himself that specifically outline the kid's schedule at the Offizirsschule. Kid's getting a fast track, make no mistake."
"Excuse me?" Shinji asked planatively from underneath the double-breasted uniform coat "How do I put this on?"
Holding his head in his hands, Vessening just breathed in and out before helping his hapeless boss.
-----
Sitting in his office, Central Officer Bradley was having a very bad day. Between having to parse Japanese footnotes on a number of "critical personal" files also written in very formal kanji, officialese-laden phone calls from his staff to the tune of "how the fuck did NERV not implode in a pile of antilogic" and a note from the Commander that said "gib EVA driver good shite b4 angstsplosion" he was kind of stressed.
Then the desk phone started ringing. The desk phone was very specific- it meant one of three departments was calling. One, the Combined Base Management Services, was bad.
Two, Combined Interceptor Command, was worse.
"Bradford, we've got a situation." The Commander said as Central picked up the phone. "You know the prototype that was out of action last fight? Yeah, well, when the pilot got out of the hospital she came to us for checkup. Since she wasn't on file, the doc on duty did a physical too, and she walked out about eight hours ago. Problem was, the bloodwork just came in."
"And I have to find her." Bradford groused.
"She, quite literally, has more anti-psychotics and suppressive drugs in her system than a captured Berserker. She is also exactly half of our current defense lynchpin. I need her tracked down, booked into a lab, and getting checked to see if someone either screwed the pooch on her meds, is getting doped to the gills for some reason, legit needs that much medication, whatever. This is currently the biggest item on our plate next to designing the Block One upgrades to the EVAs, and more importantly also falls right up your ally."
"Sir, you realize this is going to slow everything else down, right? I can't-"
The Commander growled a little. "Bradford, you know and I know the only reason you're pouring through personal files is because we're still translating and sorting the damn things. I want you, half a squad in MP gear, and a full platoon in full battle rattle to find this 'Rei Ayanami' and get her into an XCOM medical facility ASAP."
Bradford grimaced. This was bad- the only time when a half squad of MPs backed by legit infantry was normally needed when a Master Gunns had gone off the deep end and gone on a serious bender off-base. The last one had resulted in calling a Skyranger to pick the guy up from a dive in Cairo.
Bradford still didn't know how he'd managed to party his way there from a bar in the Gold Coast in less than seventy-two hours.
"Well… shit…" Bradford said eloquently.
"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. You want a doctrine?"
"Shoot, boss."
"You can probably talk her in there easily enough, so go slow and normal. Appeal to reason- the doctor notes she as somewhere between catatonic and robotic. Might want to bring a SHIV wrangler to help on the MP team. The local computer network is still giving us more shit than Microsoft 8, so I can't get you much info."
"Alright, then." Bradford said, standing up and grabbing his coat. "Gimme ten minutes and we'll be at it."
"Shoot me the designation code for your techie and I'll drop updates to him. Anything else?"
"Nope."
"Good. Call me back when you get her in a lab so I can send down her minder. Adios."
"Auf wiedershein"
----
Walking to her apartment home from school, Rei had a lot of thoughts on her mind. Between the chaos and confusion at the base, plus some of her injuries, she was feeling concerned. Commander Ikari was gone, Doctor Ritsuko had given her twice as much medicine "in case you can't make your next refill date" and there had been so many people flooding the normally empty halls and yelling in foreign languages…
Not good signs. Not good signs at all.
"Madre de dios, tan favelas son que aqui…"
"No! El es no menor los Sectoids en favelas. Rio de Janiero es todo scheisse."
Stopping, Rei listened to the conversation in bad Spanish. She didn't understand it, mind, but she could theoretically pick up some hints from their body language and tone.
"Excuse me, Miss Ayanami?"
Of course, that was presuming she had enough time to focus and separate the vagaries of the language from the underlying intent. It appeared she did not.
"Yes?" Rei said, turning to face the speaker. Slightly tanned, he wasn't terribly imposing until she noticed the holster on his hip and what looked like a shoulder rig in his jacket.
"If I might introduce myself?"
"Of course."
"I would be Central Officer Bradford, and when you came in earlier today for your post-release checkup there were significant disparities with your biochemistry and medical records. We'd like you to come in for some… double checking so that we have a good medical file."
Rei almost squinted, now definitely confused. "Could you not talk to Doctor Ritsuko?"
Bradford sighed, and rubbed his head. "No, we haven't found her yet. Things are still a little bit of a mess after the command swaps, I'm afraid."
"Oh."
"Yes, that seems to be the order of the day. So, can you come with us?"
"Alright."
-----
Back at the Geofront, the Commander was trying to think happy thoughts. Thoughts about cats, and small children, and girls young enough to be his daughters running around in cat ears and plenty of clothing frolicking through the daisies, and young women that were certainly above the age of consent frolicking another meadow over wearing significantly less but still with cat ears.
Unfortunately, the person sitting between his Chief Researcher and his Chief Engineer was in no way a happy thought. She could be considered rather monstrous, as a matter of fact, considering the circumstances of her birth.
"So, let me get this straight." The Commander said quietly, holding his head in his hands. "Back in Linz, before the war you two got up to a, quote, 'biomechanical experiment' unquote."
"Yes." Vahlen and Shen said in eerie synchronization.
"Nine months after said experiment, you placed the 'second phase' of the experiment in a series of legal dodges keeping her on university grounds for the next eight years."
"Yes."
"After which you managed to get said experiment into the Alpha Site."
"Yes."
"Where the experiment resided for the duration of the Long War."
"Yes."
The Commander breathed in, and then breathed out.
"After this, you brought said experiment here."
"Yes."
"I have one question."
"Yes?"
At this point, The Commander took all his frustration, sheathed his knife hand, and got ready to start yelling.
"HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DID YOU TWO HAVE A DAUGHTER, IN MY BASE, FOR THE ENTIRE ALIEN INVASION? WE HAVE SOLDIERS FROM EVERY COUNTRY ON THIS GLOBE WORTH THE NAME, WE HAVE THE FINEST TECHNITIONS IN THE WORLD, AND TOP TIER SECURITY. HOW? WHY? MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT IS SHE DOING STILL ON MY BASE, STILL GETTING INTO PLACES I DO NOT WANT A CHILD, STILL DRINKING- AND DON'T THINK I DIDN'T NOTICE THE DRINKING- AT THE CANTINA, AND STILL SLEEPING IN A MELD TANK? I AM TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD AGAIN HERE, AND WHOOP! MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU BRING ME A DAUGHTER. HUZZAH. I DON'T EVEN HAVE TECHNICAL AUTHORITY OVER HER BECAUSE SHE'S NOT A MEMBER OF MY ORGANIZATION."
As Vahlen and Shen took a step back, The Commander stopped to take a breath.
"After the shit I've been handling this week, you have delivered the straw that broke the poor camel's back. You have five minutes before I throw in the hat for today and start relaxing, so please convince me not to wake up tomorrow and put out want ads for a few new chiefs.
Vahlen started, face very pale. She hadn't seen the Commander this stressed since… oh, just before Brussels.
"To begin, Lily here was part of a sanctioned experiment in artificial wombs and non-traditional human reproduction. For her entire time at the University of Linz, she was properly watched, raised, and treated. More importantly, we have documentation to that effect."
Now it was Shen's turn to narrate. "We were working together as partners in a robotics competition, which is how I got brought into it. I designed the mechanical parts, the tissue harness, and provided half the genetic material for Lilly. I also hold the title of her legal guardian. She originally moved into XCOM Echo because of the terror bombing at Linz. I was panicking, and I had a friend in the Skyranger pilots. She came to Alpha Site shortly after."
"Once we got her home, certain logistical difficulties became apparent." Vahlen said listlessly. "For starters, food and sleeping. We tried several different solutions, but eventually Colonel Mackay decided to help us and he lodged her in a spare bedroom near the Officer School. The secret slowly dripped out from there. It was about six months after she arrived that she started eating in the mess, and another three before she got a spot in the barracks. She kept herself very well handled, acted responsibly, and attended most of the lectures at the officer's school."
The Commander just rubbed his eyebrow and went into his desk for the tequila. After pulling out a bottle of sake, he just sighed and got a glass.
"You wanna share?" the teenage girl in front of him asked, smiling. "Haven't had sake yet."
Raising an eyebrow, the Commander shook his head "no."
"Please? C'mon, after all the MELD those two gave me that was 'unrecoverable' because it already had been attuned, I got a good, solid, regenerating liver and six kidneys worth of filtration."
Coughing, Vahlen put her hand on Lily's shoulder. "She's referring to her Loki's Organ. Once we allocate MELD to a soldier, we need to run it through someone with a Loki's Organ to de-attunate it. Most of the Meld used in just about everything we use it for isn't permanently consumed, it's just keyed to that one thing until we run it through Lilly or one of our… six? Six other techs with the Loki's organ."
"And it makes me stupid tough." Lily added, chortling. "Until Mom pulls it out, it serves as a backup system for all my everythings."
Looking at Lily, the Commander thought for a moment. A looooong moment. It might have been the sake talking, but he had An Idea.
"Uh-oh…" Lily said. "I know that look. Mom, Dad, this isn't going to be like the time I tried sneaking into the armory, right?"
At this point, the Commander chuckled. When most people chuckle, it was a sign of happiness.
When The Commander chuckled, it was a sign that doom was neigh.
"Lily Shen." The Commander said, pulling out a class and a very small pile of paperwork. "How would you like to learn more about those very big robots we've got in those launch hangers?"
As the girl's eyes lit up, The Commander poured her some sake.
"All you need to do is sign there, and you'll be part of XCOM. Officer school, fast track, the works. Only catch is you have to help us make those big 'bots fight harder."
Lily's signature was on the paperwork before any of the rest could blink.
"Shen. Vahlen." The Commander said, smiling still. "This is the best option I have, aside from throwing you all out in the cold. Care to finish the bargin?"
Reluctantly, both signed as well.
"Good! Lily, I'll be making sure to introduce you to the rest of your peers later. Until then, why don't you pick up your kit with Mom and Dad?"
As the three exited the office, the Commander waited until the door was closed and slumped in his chair.
"Dear God, I hope this is the last time I need to do that." He panted, the energy flowing out. "At least she's not fighting. At least she's not fighting."
As he called a near-forgotten deity, another stone was added to his soul.
A New Heartbeat
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Stupid little thing I'd like to hold onto, but this is what I imagine the resting heartbeat of someone with the Second Heart genemod sounding like. From the way it loos to me in the art, the Secondary Heart is always on, and adds another dual chamber system to the heart.
Ok, quick-n-dirty on how the heart works- you've got two two-chamber pumps running 24/7 from before you're born till the day you die. One of these pumps is really simple- it takes unoxyngated blood and runs it to the lungs and down to the heart. The other one is equally simple- it takes this oxygenated blood, rams it around the body, and takes the de-oxygenated blood and sends it back to Pump #1.
As a logical extension of this, the Secondary Heart serves as a pump #3 that normally works as a pump that shoots to the main arteries of the torso and the neck arteries while the old pump #2 does the arteries that handle the extremities- however, the third pump can kick in to cover for either of the two existing pumps if they give out. As an additional bonus, it also can make emergency patches to the arteries via MELD-enhanced patch jobs.
Oh, and the video? Because of the new hearts having three chambers, they go lub-dub-thrub instead of lub-dub, and 80bpm is a normal resting heartbeat.
Last edited:
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Let's chalk it up to the Commander still in Full Overwork mode plus the whole family-personal naming order in Japan versus the European personal-family order. The guy's tired enough to accidentally slip into Dari, so he's going to make a few boo-boos.
NERVous Breakdown pt. 6; A Joust Without Lances
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Flopping down in his bed, Shinji panted quietly. He had been run to the bone by dozens of appointments, hurried hither and thither and yond by Vessening and a small herd of other enlisted that made him feel powerless. A whole week of getting pushed to the edge of exhaustion from doctor's apointments, unusual classes and lessons, and the mother of all weapons tests. Hell, he didn't know why carrying a sidearm all the time was so critical, but the pistol exams and three-hour long chunks of time spent slamming out iron-jacketed tungsten rods into a paper target had left his arms and shoulders dead as a doornail.
Outside the door to Shinji's room in the oddly large apartment Misato had, Vessening sighed quietly and resisted the urge to draw out a coffin nail and test out his bronchial filters. He had been putting the boy through his paces, yes, but the kid had so much to learn, to know, to do. Frowning to himself, the tired Lance Corporal thought about what he had learned from his good friends at Echo Site and their interactions with the so-called "Second Child" and the truly epic clusterfuck going on there.
As a communicator started beedling on his belt, Vessening pulled on his headset and called in.
"Hello?"
A loud warbling sound, much like a plasma rifle warming up combined with the sounds of a Cyberdisc getting discus-chucked by a very sneaky MEC trooper solidified itself into a stream of half-drunk patois that crammed together German, Spanish, English, and Russian while retaining the aggravating irregularities of all of them spewed out the phone.
Vessening promptly went slack as his world tried to end itself.
"You're kidding."
Now the patois shifted into overdrive, sheer rage sobering the speaker as he clearly explained using four languages of profanity that yes, XCOM Echo was getting ready to transfer over EVA-02 to the NERV main site and almost every Interceptor on the planet was getting transferred to XCOM Delta Site in the Philippines ASAP because they were moving something called an "Item of Intrest" to the Geofront soon.
"Thanks, Mac. I'll get you a few beers next time I'm in Linz."
The patois resumed drunkness, and slowly petered out as the call ended. Sweating bullets, Vessening quietly pocketed his communicator and opened the door to look at the sleeping Shinji. Tiptoeing like only an experienced prankster could, he slipped in and started crossing out items on Shinji's schedule for the next week. The kid could afford to slow down now that it was apparent he didn't need to play a stiff game of hurry up and wait.
----
Down in the pits of the Geofront, near the border of Terminal Dogma, a very large group of people were doing something very stupid.
"Ok boys, we're going to be working overtime to get this shit set up!" Lily called out, signaling some of the party forward. "We need the Doric columns up by the entrance, the bigass fire center left, and the pipe of MELD on center right! Pew teams, make sure they are straight, parralell to each other, and are at right angles to the altar! Throne goes in the door before the Altar, so Altar group, DON'T GO IN FIRST AGAIN! Choir stands are on the right, put the organ on the left! And whatever you do, make sure-"
"That Mom doesn't find out?" Vahlen said, tapping her foot at the back of the line with one eyebrow into her slowly graying hairline.
"fuck." Went Lily, looking around for some cover.
"Too late- you're due in the medical center Romeo in five minutes so we can get those EVA pilots shot up with their MELD. After that, I'm giving you to Captain Suan-Hwei so he can let you formally run your quals. After that…"
"oh Commander no help me."
"You get to do something very special." Vahlen said, smiling a dangerous smile. "Taxes."
Before anyone knew it, Lily was gone, making her way to an elevator trying to get away from the sheer insanity that was the German tax code. Vahlen remained, just chuckling as she walked to her own way back to the surface. Little did her daughter realize that XCOM soldiers didn't actually pay taxes due to some very impressive trickery on the Commander's part.
Oh, that really was a lovely night in Brussels… she thought, before getting ready to spin up the Modular Gene Lab they'd built for this. The plan was simple- Shiji and Rei were both scheduled to get a fairly simple set of modifications consisting of Secondary Hearts and Adaptive Bone Marrow. If everything was going according to plan in Europe, the Second Child would be getting the same. The only major bug here would be in the decanting- if Shinji and Rei were decanted wrong, then they might go into shock. Vahlen might not have been a medical doctor by trade, but she had picked up a lot of experience in patient care and trauma medicine back during the bad days, when the doctors weren't and every scrap of funding was dumped straight into beans and bullets and fresh bodies.
"So, you're the new scientist then." An unfamiliar voice said from across the elevator, turning to be a woman in a labcoat vaguely similar to Vahlen's.
"That would be correct. Doctor Marie Vahlen, Head Reasercher of XCOM. And you would be?"
"Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Computer Director of NERV."
Vahlen smiled for a moment, before making a snap decision.
"Tell me, Doctor Akagi, have you ever seen someone with two hearts?"
"No."
"Would you like to?"
---
Half an hour later, Dr. Akagi was holding onto a trash can queasily, watching the masterful hands of an XCOM surgeon stitch up Rei's chest as on the other table Shinji got his ribs carefully replaced.
"I apologize about the smell!" Vahlen called out cheerfully through her microphone headset from inside the operating room. "I assure you, normally you don't smell the formaldehyde! More importantly, this operation? Complete success! I never expected two people to have such similar MELD atunation unless they were related!"
In the viewing room, Lily sighed and put her head in her hands, the sweatpants and bra she wore not at all concealing the ports in the small of her back connecting to her Loki's organ. Picking up the viewing box mike, she grumbled halfheartedly at her mother.
"Mom, what do you use to sanitize my ports? The same ports that are not five feet away from Doctor Upchuck?"
As the nurses sniggered, Vahlen hit her head with the palm of her off hand. "Oh."
"Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, Doc. Most of the time I have to hang around to give out another dose. Second hearts are expensive."
As Ritsuko tried to hold it all in, she waved her hand in what she hoped was a friendly manner. Lily just snorted, and stood up to pull on a shirt and leave. As she departed, Vahlen walked in.
"So, now that you know what I do for a living, let me ask you: what is this LCL?"
---
lub dub thrub.
lub dub thrub
lub dub thrub
As six hearts beat in time across three bodies, a rather aggrieved Commander tried to get things working in his office. Papers everywhere, phone missing, computer smashed…
"Damn, that was good sake…" he muttered, picking up a loose pile of paper that was dripping alcohol and dumping it into his wastebin. Sure, office drinking probably wasn't the best move, but in his defense he'd had to put a stop to three Chapels of Commanderism last night. Stopping people from trying to make you a god via large applications of prayer, MELD, and psionics was worthy of a little drinking.
As the ever-reliable corded phone screwed into his desk started ringing, the Commander dived on it, nearly skewering himself on a chunk of glass.
"Commander's office. Himself speaking."
"Commander, can you come down to the EVA bays? I've got a Block point-five upgrade mapped out, and the demo version installed on Unit oh-naught." Shen's calm resolve said, bypassing the words of the trusted engineer.
"Sure! Just let me call up the janitor staff to unscrew my office."
Hanging up, the Commander pulled out his spare phone and activated it so that he could stay into contact with the rest of the base and booked it down to the EVA chambers. New weapons were one of those fun things that always put a pep in his step and a cheer in his heart.
Arriving in the EVA bay, the Commander grumbled quietly as the elevator opened up to a wall of off-duty soldiers who wanted to see the equipment in question get to work. Grumbling slightly, he tapped the shoulder of a Warden-armored soldier, and raised an eyebrow.
"EVERYBODY, MAKE A FUCKING HOLE! COMMANDER'S HERE!"
"Thank you." The Commander said, passing through the narrow partition in the ranks. Looking at the utter mass of equipment dangling off of EVA-00, he smiled. This, this was good. Once he got up to the control platform (because none of the XCOM techs liked the Brenbow Box and it was chock-full of important crap that had the operators that were still NERV for all intents and purposes) he pulled on a headset and looked over at Shen.
"So, what we got?" the Commander asked, looking at the giant Alice vest the mech was wearing.
"Well, first things first," Shen said, "we revamped the power system. Dual power plug ports in case the umbilical gets jammed, built-in backup converter to suit voltage, AC/DC converter for the external batteries, the works. Next up, external Elerium battery packs. Running just off the external battery net, we managed to cram in a twenty-minute window of full combat power, plus the five-minute internal buffer. If the EVA goes into stasis, we're looking at a ninety-six hour recovery window before other mechanisms in the life support system start to go haywire. The full Block One updates are going to include a new internal battery system, advanced servomotors, reinforced framing, and actual internal armor worth a damn."
"I take it there's nowhere to go but up?" The Commander quipped, looking into the mass of electronics that was the EVA.
"These things are practically organic, and they've got abilities and components that we quite frankly have no fucking idea how they work. The LCL system makes no sense, but everything we've found about it lists it as crtical, and most of my boys swear the thing practically breathes in standby mode. Good news is, though, we've almost finished the upgrade harness for Unit oh-one an Unit oh-two's is getting laid out in Bravo Site right now."
"WEA-PONS WEA-PONS WEA-PONS WEA-PONS" the crowd behind them shouted. Rolling his eyes, the Commander made a "quiet down" gesture and looked over to Shen. "Shall we give them a show?"
"Sure thing, boss. Projector teams, fire up the big screen! Armory trucks, get the ordy pallets to Tower Three! Unit oh-naught bridge team, ready to get this show started?"
"We're ready to go, and the Pilot is in the control plug. Can you send the Commander up to the Holoscape?"
Sighing quietly, the Commander tried to grin. "No rest for the wicked, Shen."
"Indeed, Sir."
----
Sitting inside the Entry Plug of Unit 00, Rei breathed in and out, listening to her new heartbeat.
lub-dub-thrub.
lub-dub-thrub
lub-dub-thrub
In a way, it was oddly soothing even though it was vastly different than what she had spent the last five years listening to.
"Unit zero-zero, this is TAGO. Range is hot, over."
Pulling in a deep breath of the LCL, Rei nodded before speaking. "Unit zero-zero to Tago, range is hot, ready to begin weapons test. Over."
"Very good. Start us off with the Plasma Pistol."
Rei nodded, and pulled out the "pistol" that bore a passing resemblance to a toy. Fliking her thumb both in person and on the machine, she took the safety off and took a bearing on the large sheet-metal target she was to aim for.
"Firing" she said, and pulled the trigger. In one smooth motion, a head of plasma formed in the barrel, and burst forth with a thin contrail behind it. As it splashed into the target, a hole was burned clean through- about… three meters wide, if Rei's guess was right.
"Good shot, zero-zero. Next up's the gauss carbine. Remember to ride the recoil carefully- we don't want a tungsten slug landing in Beijing."
This time, when Rei nodded the Evangilion followed suit. Holstering the plasma pistol, she instead drew the Gauss Carbine. Again, three layers of safeties disengaged, the weapon powering up. Drawing it on another target, she pulled the trigger for three slugs to fly out.
Unfortunately, the Gauss Carbine was not a standard EVA rifle, and kicked like an electronic mule. The first shot landed on the target, while the second clipped the top and the third was a clean miss that put a crater on the mountainous backstop.
"Whelp." Went the TAGO, scrolling through his checklist. "Looks like Hilltopper wins the pool. Anyway, next weapon- the Minvosky Cannon. Zero-zero, I know this might sound bad, but don't miss this shot, ok? The Minvosky Cannon is a lot more energetic than the carbine."
Trading the weapons over, Rei shrugged and brought her newest, most dangerous weapon on target. The Minvosky Cannon, a combination of Fusion Lance and particle accelerator, had been originally been a fever-dream weapon of a lab assistant's to serve as anti-battleship ack-ack. The science behind it was sound, though, if too big to load on a Firestorm and too expensive to employ en masse.
As the Minvosky Cannon came to bear in Rei's arms, she felt the vibrations from its unstable core in the motion of the LCL in the control plug. This weapon… this weapon was powerful. Bringing it up to bear, she sited it in on the target, breathing in and out. This could not miss.
When her fingers depressed the firing studs and the EVA pulled the trigger, her world went white. A fusion core had been opened straight down the raceway designed to send a sitting drop of water so fast that the oxygen and hydrogen were sheered apart. Now, with hydrogen plasma and free electrons entering, they left in a viscous rage. One atom now hit with the force of a hundred, and a hundred as a hundred thousand. The air was immolated, saturated by the rage of the weapon for an instant, and then the thunder roared, clapped, and roared again. What had been six feet of reinforced concrete as a target twenty feet wide and tall was now a ghost of a memory, a shadow burned into what part of the hill remained. Scattered physical remains were everywhere, the atomized and ruined parts and particles softly floating down like volcanic ash while a small wildfire burned.
----
Inside the Geofront, not a jaw was up. Recovering his senses first, the Commander made spoken what everyone else was thinking.
"Well, fuck. We built a good gun."
Moments later, Vahlen came up to the deck and tapped on the Commander's shoulder.
"Commander? We may want to do a study on the area, see what we can see as to side effects of the Minvosky cannon. Also, that forest fire."
"Yes, forest fire." The Commander said, shaking his head. "Listen, science. Do science, do science good. I'm going to find Shen and… uh… discuss doctrine. Yeah. Doctrine."
Vahlen put her head in her hands. "So you two are going to the bar and bask in the free drinks for building the biggest gun, then?"
"Doctrine with input from the senior enlisted? Excellent idea, Marie! You can come along when you're done!"
Shaking her head, Doctor Vahlen just sighed. "Alright, I'll think about it, Commander. Have fun."
With a sigh, the Chief Researcher headed down from the Geoscape to go give her staff the rest of the day off. Like hell anything would get done, just like all the other times she'd help build the last Biggest Bestest Gun-ish Gun.
Next time, Vahlen though, I'll just let them see the scale model version so their poor brains don't melt again. Boys…
Outside the door to Shinji's room in the oddly large apartment Misato had, Vessening sighed quietly and resisted the urge to draw out a coffin nail and test out his bronchial filters. He had been putting the boy through his paces, yes, but the kid had so much to learn, to know, to do. Frowning to himself, the tired Lance Corporal thought about what he had learned from his good friends at Echo Site and their interactions with the so-called "Second Child" and the truly epic clusterfuck going on there.
As a communicator started beedling on his belt, Vessening pulled on his headset and called in.
"Hello?"
A loud warbling sound, much like a plasma rifle warming up combined with the sounds of a Cyberdisc getting discus-chucked by a very sneaky MEC trooper solidified itself into a stream of half-drunk patois that crammed together German, Spanish, English, and Russian while retaining the aggravating irregularities of all of them spewed out the phone.
Vessening promptly went slack as his world tried to end itself.
"You're kidding."
Now the patois shifted into overdrive, sheer rage sobering the speaker as he clearly explained using four languages of profanity that yes, XCOM Echo was getting ready to transfer over EVA-02 to the NERV main site and almost every Interceptor on the planet was getting transferred to XCOM Delta Site in the Philippines ASAP because they were moving something called an "Item of Intrest" to the Geofront soon.
"Thanks, Mac. I'll get you a few beers next time I'm in Linz."
The patois resumed drunkness, and slowly petered out as the call ended. Sweating bullets, Vessening quietly pocketed his communicator and opened the door to look at the sleeping Shinji. Tiptoeing like only an experienced prankster could, he slipped in and started crossing out items on Shinji's schedule for the next week. The kid could afford to slow down now that it was apparent he didn't need to play a stiff game of hurry up and wait.
----
Down in the pits of the Geofront, near the border of Terminal Dogma, a very large group of people were doing something very stupid.
"Ok boys, we're going to be working overtime to get this shit set up!" Lily called out, signaling some of the party forward. "We need the Doric columns up by the entrance, the bigass fire center left, and the pipe of MELD on center right! Pew teams, make sure they are straight, parralell to each other, and are at right angles to the altar! Throne goes in the door before the Altar, so Altar group, DON'T GO IN FIRST AGAIN! Choir stands are on the right, put the organ on the left! And whatever you do, make sure-"
"That Mom doesn't find out?" Vahlen said, tapping her foot at the back of the line with one eyebrow into her slowly graying hairline.
"fuck." Went Lily, looking around for some cover.
"Too late- you're due in the medical center Romeo in five minutes so we can get those EVA pilots shot up with their MELD. After that, I'm giving you to Captain Suan-Hwei so he can let you formally run your quals. After that…"
"oh Commander no help me."
"You get to do something very special." Vahlen said, smiling a dangerous smile. "Taxes."
Before anyone knew it, Lily was gone, making her way to an elevator trying to get away from the sheer insanity that was the German tax code. Vahlen remained, just chuckling as she walked to her own way back to the surface. Little did her daughter realize that XCOM soldiers didn't actually pay taxes due to some very impressive trickery on the Commander's part.
Oh, that really was a lovely night in Brussels… she thought, before getting ready to spin up the Modular Gene Lab they'd built for this. The plan was simple- Shiji and Rei were both scheduled to get a fairly simple set of modifications consisting of Secondary Hearts and Adaptive Bone Marrow. If everything was going according to plan in Europe, the Second Child would be getting the same. The only major bug here would be in the decanting- if Shinji and Rei were decanted wrong, then they might go into shock. Vahlen might not have been a medical doctor by trade, but she had picked up a lot of experience in patient care and trauma medicine back during the bad days, when the doctors weren't and every scrap of funding was dumped straight into beans and bullets and fresh bodies.
"So, you're the new scientist then." An unfamiliar voice said from across the elevator, turning to be a woman in a labcoat vaguely similar to Vahlen's.
"That would be correct. Doctor Marie Vahlen, Head Reasercher of XCOM. And you would be?"
"Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Computer Director of NERV."
Vahlen smiled for a moment, before making a snap decision.
"Tell me, Doctor Akagi, have you ever seen someone with two hearts?"
"No."
"Would you like to?"
---
Half an hour later, Dr. Akagi was holding onto a trash can queasily, watching the masterful hands of an XCOM surgeon stitch up Rei's chest as on the other table Shinji got his ribs carefully replaced.
"I apologize about the smell!" Vahlen called out cheerfully through her microphone headset from inside the operating room. "I assure you, normally you don't smell the formaldehyde! More importantly, this operation? Complete success! I never expected two people to have such similar MELD atunation unless they were related!"
In the viewing room, Lily sighed and put her head in her hands, the sweatpants and bra she wore not at all concealing the ports in the small of her back connecting to her Loki's organ. Picking up the viewing box mike, she grumbled halfheartedly at her mother.
"Mom, what do you use to sanitize my ports? The same ports that are not five feet away from Doctor Upchuck?"
As the nurses sniggered, Vahlen hit her head with the palm of her off hand. "Oh."
"Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, Doc. Most of the time I have to hang around to give out another dose. Second hearts are expensive."
As Ritsuko tried to hold it all in, she waved her hand in what she hoped was a friendly manner. Lily just snorted, and stood up to pull on a shirt and leave. As she departed, Vahlen walked in.
"So, now that you know what I do for a living, let me ask you: what is this LCL?"
---
lub dub thrub.
lub dub thrub
lub dub thrub
As six hearts beat in time across three bodies, a rather aggrieved Commander tried to get things working in his office. Papers everywhere, phone missing, computer smashed…
"Damn, that was good sake…" he muttered, picking up a loose pile of paper that was dripping alcohol and dumping it into his wastebin. Sure, office drinking probably wasn't the best move, but in his defense he'd had to put a stop to three Chapels of Commanderism last night. Stopping people from trying to make you a god via large applications of prayer, MELD, and psionics was worthy of a little drinking.
As the ever-reliable corded phone screwed into his desk started ringing, the Commander dived on it, nearly skewering himself on a chunk of glass.
"Commander's office. Himself speaking."
"Commander, can you come down to the EVA bays? I've got a Block point-five upgrade mapped out, and the demo version installed on Unit oh-naught." Shen's calm resolve said, bypassing the words of the trusted engineer.
"Sure! Just let me call up the janitor staff to unscrew my office."
Hanging up, the Commander pulled out his spare phone and activated it so that he could stay into contact with the rest of the base and booked it down to the EVA chambers. New weapons were one of those fun things that always put a pep in his step and a cheer in his heart.
Arriving in the EVA bay, the Commander grumbled quietly as the elevator opened up to a wall of off-duty soldiers who wanted to see the equipment in question get to work. Grumbling slightly, he tapped the shoulder of a Warden-armored soldier, and raised an eyebrow.
"EVERYBODY, MAKE A FUCKING HOLE! COMMANDER'S HERE!"
"Thank you." The Commander said, passing through the narrow partition in the ranks. Looking at the utter mass of equipment dangling off of EVA-00, he smiled. This, this was good. Once he got up to the control platform (because none of the XCOM techs liked the Brenbow Box and it was chock-full of important crap that had the operators that were still NERV for all intents and purposes) he pulled on a headset and looked over at Shen.
"So, what we got?" the Commander asked, looking at the giant Alice vest the mech was wearing.
"Well, first things first," Shen said, "we revamped the power system. Dual power plug ports in case the umbilical gets jammed, built-in backup converter to suit voltage, AC/DC converter for the external batteries, the works. Next up, external Elerium battery packs. Running just off the external battery net, we managed to cram in a twenty-minute window of full combat power, plus the five-minute internal buffer. If the EVA goes into stasis, we're looking at a ninety-six hour recovery window before other mechanisms in the life support system start to go haywire. The full Block One updates are going to include a new internal battery system, advanced servomotors, reinforced framing, and actual internal armor worth a damn."
"I take it there's nowhere to go but up?" The Commander quipped, looking into the mass of electronics that was the EVA.
"These things are practically organic, and they've got abilities and components that we quite frankly have no fucking idea how they work. The LCL system makes no sense, but everything we've found about it lists it as crtical, and most of my boys swear the thing practically breathes in standby mode. Good news is, though, we've almost finished the upgrade harness for Unit oh-one an Unit oh-two's is getting laid out in Bravo Site right now."
"WEA-PONS WEA-PONS WEA-PONS WEA-PONS" the crowd behind them shouted. Rolling his eyes, the Commander made a "quiet down" gesture and looked over to Shen. "Shall we give them a show?"
"Sure thing, boss. Projector teams, fire up the big screen! Armory trucks, get the ordy pallets to Tower Three! Unit oh-naught bridge team, ready to get this show started?"
"We're ready to go, and the Pilot is in the control plug. Can you send the Commander up to the Holoscape?"
Sighing quietly, the Commander tried to grin. "No rest for the wicked, Shen."
"Indeed, Sir."
----
Sitting inside the Entry Plug of Unit 00, Rei breathed in and out, listening to her new heartbeat.
lub-dub-thrub.
lub-dub-thrub
lub-dub-thrub
In a way, it was oddly soothing even though it was vastly different than what she had spent the last five years listening to.
"Unit zero-zero, this is TAGO. Range is hot, over."
Pulling in a deep breath of the LCL, Rei nodded before speaking. "Unit zero-zero to Tago, range is hot, ready to begin weapons test. Over."
"Very good. Start us off with the Plasma Pistol."
Rei nodded, and pulled out the "pistol" that bore a passing resemblance to a toy. Fliking her thumb both in person and on the machine, she took the safety off and took a bearing on the large sheet-metal target she was to aim for.
"Firing" she said, and pulled the trigger. In one smooth motion, a head of plasma formed in the barrel, and burst forth with a thin contrail behind it. As it splashed into the target, a hole was burned clean through- about… three meters wide, if Rei's guess was right.
"Good shot, zero-zero. Next up's the gauss carbine. Remember to ride the recoil carefully- we don't want a tungsten slug landing in Beijing."
This time, when Rei nodded the Evangilion followed suit. Holstering the plasma pistol, she instead drew the Gauss Carbine. Again, three layers of safeties disengaged, the weapon powering up. Drawing it on another target, she pulled the trigger for three slugs to fly out.
Unfortunately, the Gauss Carbine was not a standard EVA rifle, and kicked like an electronic mule. The first shot landed on the target, while the second clipped the top and the third was a clean miss that put a crater on the mountainous backstop.
"Whelp." Went the TAGO, scrolling through his checklist. "Looks like Hilltopper wins the pool. Anyway, next weapon- the Minvosky Cannon. Zero-zero, I know this might sound bad, but don't miss this shot, ok? The Minvosky Cannon is a lot more energetic than the carbine."
Trading the weapons over, Rei shrugged and brought her newest, most dangerous weapon on target. The Minvosky Cannon, a combination of Fusion Lance and particle accelerator, had been originally been a fever-dream weapon of a lab assistant's to serve as anti-battleship ack-ack. The science behind it was sound, though, if too big to load on a Firestorm and too expensive to employ en masse.
As the Minvosky Cannon came to bear in Rei's arms, she felt the vibrations from its unstable core in the motion of the LCL in the control plug. This weapon… this weapon was powerful. Bringing it up to bear, she sited it in on the target, breathing in and out. This could not miss.
When her fingers depressed the firing studs and the EVA pulled the trigger, her world went white. A fusion core had been opened straight down the raceway designed to send a sitting drop of water so fast that the oxygen and hydrogen were sheered apart. Now, with hydrogen plasma and free electrons entering, they left in a viscous rage. One atom now hit with the force of a hundred, and a hundred as a hundred thousand. The air was immolated, saturated by the rage of the weapon for an instant, and then the thunder roared, clapped, and roared again. What had been six feet of reinforced concrete as a target twenty feet wide and tall was now a ghost of a memory, a shadow burned into what part of the hill remained. Scattered physical remains were everywhere, the atomized and ruined parts and particles softly floating down like volcanic ash while a small wildfire burned.
----
Inside the Geofront, not a jaw was up. Recovering his senses first, the Commander made spoken what everyone else was thinking.
"Well, fuck. We built a good gun."
Moments later, Vahlen came up to the deck and tapped on the Commander's shoulder.
"Commander? We may want to do a study on the area, see what we can see as to side effects of the Minvosky cannon. Also, that forest fire."
"Yes, forest fire." The Commander said, shaking his head. "Listen, science. Do science, do science good. I'm going to find Shen and… uh… discuss doctrine. Yeah. Doctrine."
Vahlen put her head in her hands. "So you two are going to the bar and bask in the free drinks for building the biggest gun, then?"
"Doctrine with input from the senior enlisted? Excellent idea, Marie! You can come along when you're done!"
Shaking her head, Doctor Vahlen just sighed. "Alright, I'll think about it, Commander. Have fun."
With a sigh, the Chief Researcher headed down from the Geoscape to go give her staff the rest of the day off. Like hell anything would get done, just like all the other times she'd help build the last Biggest Bestest Gun-ish Gun.
Next time, Vahlen though, I'll just let them see the scale model version so their poor brains don't melt again. Boys…
Minusmagnus
Open Lurker
Well, that went into crackfic territory pretty quickly. Maybe Lily being a literal Science Baby of Doom should have been a hint.
Not that it's a bad thing, mind you. It's just that I didn't think it was where this was going.
Also, who okay'd getting Shinji a second heart? Does the commander get full rights for doing that stuff to his soldiers?
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Well, all XCOM fic is to some extent crackfic. It's the nature of the beast that some of the more cartoony aspect of the games (ex- Laser Rifles) slip into other works. That, combined with the literally meme-worthy amounts of TACTICAL GENIUS he's got makes it so that he's effectively a saint for most religions that do that sort of thing and the globe-spanning operations that the group pulls off.
As for the whole second heart gig, when Shinji joined XCOM, he didn't join XCOM per say. What happened was he joined NERV (which was already co-signed by Gendo) and then got his contract processed which automatically chucked him into XCOM due to the merger. Once he was in XCOM, one of the little clauses is that combat troops, including weapons system operators like Shinji, can be requested to take MELD upgrades. Shinji didn't say no, so whoop! he ended up under the knife and got a Second Heart and Adaptive Bone Marrow modifications. The same process happened to Asuka, with the slight caveat that there'd be no scar tissue to mar her looks. Once she learned that the Adaptive Bone Marrow helped prevent and heal scarring along with most physical injuries, she practically camped out in the operating room.
The operation itself, for all the potential to go catastrophically wrong, is rather simple.
Step one is to anesthetize the patient and get them prepped for the op with life supprt gear. This isn't too terribly long, thankfully.
Step two is to drill insertation ports to the femurs and shoulderblades and insert the first ABM treatments.
Step three is to cut the ribcage free at the spine and brestbone, and remove it. After this is done, each rib and the breastbone gets the ABM treatments.
Step four is to take the pre-cloned and manufactured Second Heart, temporarily stop the Main Heart, and quickly duct it in to the artorial network.
Step five is to test the new heart and old heart working together, and do any last-minute plumbing repairs.
Step six is to re-insert the ribcage one rib at a time, and use MELD-calc to re-seal the bone around the cut points.
Step seven is to un-fillet the patient, make sure their skin is lined up right, and finally make sure their everything works before dunking them in a tank of MELD-9 solution (or now that they're at the Geofront, LCL) for a few hours as a controlled environment and to patch up any skin damage that results from being gutted like a fish.
Step two is to drill insertation ports to the femurs and shoulderblades and insert the first ABM treatments.
Step three is to cut the ribcage free at the spine and brestbone, and remove it. After this is done, each rib and the breastbone gets the ABM treatments.
Step four is to take the pre-cloned and manufactured Second Heart, temporarily stop the Main Heart, and quickly duct it in to the artorial network.
Step five is to test the new heart and old heart working together, and do any last-minute plumbing repairs.
Step six is to re-insert the ribcage one rib at a time, and use MELD-calc to re-seal the bone around the cut points.
Step seven is to un-fillet the patient, make sure their skin is lined up right, and finally make sure their everything works before dunking them in a tank of MELD-9 solution (or now that they're at the Geofront, LCL) for a few hours as a controlled environment and to patch up any skin damage that results from being gutted like a fish.
NERVous Breakdown pt. 7; A Savage Frustration and Mire
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Sighing quietly, Misato started back to her apartment. It had been a nice, calm day. Wake up, breakfast, sort personal files, go to lunch, forward important files to Bradford, field a call on a particularly muckled file that had something wrong happen to it, download another batch of files for tomorrow, go home.
"Stupid no-good arsenlichers throwing me out of my stinking meld tank like a bunch of damned exortionists…"
In front of the door to her apartment, Misato noticed a slim girl in a uniform jacket muttering angrily and kicking an empty coffee can. Before she could approach, her phone gave a little beedle-leedle-leedle and the good Captain picked up.
"Hello?"
"Ah, Captain Katsuragi, it's Central Officer Bradford. Listen, we've run into a little snag with one of our younger members, and we were wondering if she could bunk with you for a while."
Misato blinked, and thought for a moment. "Ah, why me? Sir?"
"Because she's been sleeping in a meld tank and the scientists are getting kind of titschy about someone living in their labs. Also, you have one minor, are scheduled for another, and we finally got NERV Berlin to fork over the Third Child whatchamacallit and her giant-ass war machine."
"Oh."
"Yes, quite. On the plus side, Lily's part of the EVA cage crews as an equipment troubleshooter and weapons designer, so I can't possibly see how this could go wrong."
"But what about-"
"Two single children plus puberty under one roof? Yeah, ask Lily about it sometime. Her mother had as interesting idea of sex ed, ok? She's not going to try anything with Shinji, and if he tries anything with her then we'll need to make him a replacement set of nuts."
"Ok then."
"That reminds me- we're upping your living stipend too. Good luck!"
As the phone clicked off, Misato shrugged and opened up her apartment.
"Hey… you Captain Katsuragi?" Lily called, hopping off where she'd been crouching on her laundry bag.
"Yes?"
"Good! That means this is my new ruck, then!"
As she let the teenager pass her inside, Misato just dropped her briefcase and went to the fridge for a beer. This was going to be one of those days…
Why was there a giant diagram covering the table?
"Hey… uh, ma'am?"
Oh, that was Lily, and her giant pile of drafting tools sitting down at the table. Ok, nothing serious. Thinking about it for a minute, Misato smiled and ruffled the girl's short black hair. "You can call me Misato when you're here. Hell, Shinji does."
"Oh, cool. Anyway, I think I scared the other guy here when I was looking for a room. Poor sot needs to get a speaker instead of earphones, or he'll never hear someone coming."
"How bad?"
"Erm… pretty bad. Anyway, I'm gonna set my room up now." Lily said, disapeering. Misato just sighed, until she saw Shinji trying to sneak out with his cello to practice. Shaking her head, she just let him go. He was a good boy- he'd come back when he was done.
----
Sulking his way through the Geofront, Shinji tried to stick to back passages and side routes as he looked for a good practice room. He had to keep his skills sharp, and he knew, much like he knew that he was miserable at fighting Angels, that his cello skills were one of the few things he could say he was good at.
Once he'd wormed his way into the depths of the Geofront, Shinji realized he was well and truly lost. Oh well- it wasn't as if Vessening or someone else wouldn't be able to find him in a pinch. At least he'd found a practice room, what looked like an old dojo. Shrugging, Shiji just set up the folding stool from where he'd strapped it to the top of his case and breathed in and out. It was time to set himself to the music.
The first sonorous notes out of his cello were long, rich and eightfold. It was actually the base line to Patchabell's Cannon in D, but Shinji wasn't here to send himself to sleep. Right now, he was using it to tune. Once he got warmed up, he shook out his wrist and got to it. First off, go for the basics- Tchavolisky's Symphony #6 in B minor, Opus 74. Nice and slow, but not diving too low or high. It really did sound better with the winds section there, but oh well. Next, something harder- Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra might not have been a classic composer par excellence, but in Shinji's humble opinion their re-writing of Carol of the Bells was well worth it. Draw back, dive down the neck as the pitch climbed, stretch the hand wide for the flying chords, saw the downbeat in one go, take the bow to its hilt… and fade off, to the next piece. Next up, something smoother; a section from Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. Almost throwing his bow against his arm, Shinji started plucking away, the first clarinet playing tag with the piano and him for the melody. He was the only one there, in that lonely dojo, just playing away. Bow, sfortzande, bow more, pluck, strum, sfortzande again, and back to bowing.
Time to calm down now, though. Something happy, a little bit more of that classic lift and less of the pitter-patter that made the song of New York so popular even after the tsunamis. A sister city to Venice indeed, now! Swan Lake Overture would do nicely, and Shinji started the piece without blinking.
As he pulled and pushed on the cello, Shinji tried to let his mind wander. This wasn't hard music, nor was it complicated. It was just a warmup set, something to keep the long callouses on his hands and notched cuts in his fingers there. Still, looking out, he took in the warm paper walls of the dojo, along with the well-worn mats and the two glowing orbs in the shadows. He wasn't quite sure what most of it was for, but he could guess well enough. Still, enough was enough. Time for a challenge. Le Sacre du Printeps- the most difficult non-solo Shinji had ever worked to memorize. Born of a Russian ballet composer and given life rarely, it was a primal piece that chilled and shocked. Rite of Spring, no. Rather, a reminder of mortality as life awakens and captures the old inside it to make way for the new. A ballerina dancing to her death on stage, the beat growing fainter and fainter as she slows, dragging her feet, and stops. The theatre claps, and the company comes on stage, the musicians in the pit rising and falling. Shinji remembered that performance, the female lead carried off the stage by her partner because of her feet being blooded and legs frail.
The clapping though, wasn't just in his memory. It was here, now, coming from just below the glowing orbs that blinked and began to rise. No, not orbs- eyes.
"A very good performance, Ensign." The voice said, female. It had this soft lilt to the Japanese, clipping some of the consonants and stretching the vowels. "May I ask where you learned?"
"The… the Conservatory at Nagasaki, miss." Shinji replied, standing up and bowing quickly. "I'm- I'm sorry if you were using this dojo!"
The voice grew closer, the faint light Shinji had played in illuminating a tall woman with faint silver hair. A slight smile was on her features, and if it wasn't for the insignia on the right breast of her well-worn gi he'd have hardly known she was part of the owners of this building.
"Oh, I was just meditating." She said calmly, moving closer to Shinji. "It was nice to hear a young master play his part. Still, it is certainly a trip to get down here- would you like to come up with me?"
At this, Shinji almost panicked. If he said yes, if he said no, ergah!
Looking at Shinji, the woman just smiled and ruffled his hair. "I'll take that as a yes, little one. You can pack up while I get changed."
As Shinji flailed away packing, he tried to figure out who this woman was. It was confusing, and he had panicked like a child facing a bear! He might not have been the most stout-hearted person on base, but still-
"Ready?" she asked, and Shinji bolted to attention and nodded. He was very ready. Extra ready! Super ready!
How the fuck did this woman get him like that?!
"Good!" she said, chuckling. Following her out, Shinji frantically tried to figure out where they were going. Either way, he was following her.
----
Bradford might not have been a big believer in fate, but he was a believer in letting his seniormost enlisted relaxing when they needed to. Oh, the Staff Sergeants and related could work just as long and hard as he could, but there were some soldiers on whom his august rank as second in command sat very lightly on. As two tech sergeants spewed coffee on monitors and a third passed out in his seat, he was suddenly reminded as to why he was a mere director, setting the stage for other players to advance and retract their pats.
Because she had emerged. Mexico City, Brussels, Ho Chi Minh, Newfoundland, Linz, Barrow-on-Thames, Novgorod, Shanghai, Brussels IV, Little Rock, Rio de Janiero, Transvaal, the Siege of Nice… she was there. Every time, she was there. That voice, like a mother's lullaby; those hands, as if she was a surgeon; her mind, bending an Ethereal to her will and leaving it broken in the sands.
The Command Master Sergeant Valarie Melanseki, strongest remaining Psion, inheritor of the title of Grandmaster of the Psions, had come out once again.
Looking around his nice, sane-ish bridge, Bradford breathed in. Then he breathed out. Then he breathe in again.
"FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
----
Several dozen meters away, The Commander started out of bed and scrambled for his radio and plasma pistol before realizing that the scream was just Bradford's realization that several of the staff most likely to cause chaos hadn't been farmed out to Somewhere Right The Fuck Else. Trying to get back to sleep, he almost made it when he realized that given the duration it was probably the Grandmaster Psion.
The same person who had "accidentally" helped start a cult in his name by kicking in a psionic trinket she made that counted as an "Official Commanderly Artifact"
Rolling over, the Commander just grumbled and got ready to clean himself up and face the day. It couldn't be that bad, right?
---
In the apartment block where Misato stayed, the roar of Frustrated Senior Officer echoed, caught by the refidgerator and projected through every empty alcohol container in the house. Hissing as a line went skew, Lily just sighed and thought about what must be happening in the Geofront. That sound… definitely a Psion waking up. Looks like it was time to think about barring the door to the labs again.
---
Several thousand miles away in a Boeing Skylifter EVA transport, Kaji winced and rubbed his head as his headset went nuts with what could only be described as Mad Russian Cackling. It seemed something had amused the pilots, and they were Very Happy about what had happened. Shortly later, he heard them switch the channel over to what could only be described as All My Plans Are Explosively Foiled. He was very familiar with the sound, having made it himself after college and Misato a few times.
"Kaji, what on earth is that?" his charge asked over her radio link, sounding rather grumpy. He couldn't blame her- being hung up in a sea of LCL had to get just damn old after a while.
"I think our flight crew our happy." He replied, streaching out on the small spare seat in the command center. "How you doing?"
"If I don't get an honor guard when we arrive, I may get tempted to see if I can land right on the Geofront. This stinks, its cold, and my hair is going to be ruined!"
Kaiji sighed. Same old Asuka.
"Stupid no-good arsenlichers throwing me out of my stinking meld tank like a bunch of damned exortionists…"
In front of the door to her apartment, Misato noticed a slim girl in a uniform jacket muttering angrily and kicking an empty coffee can. Before she could approach, her phone gave a little beedle-leedle-leedle and the good Captain picked up.
"Hello?"
"Ah, Captain Katsuragi, it's Central Officer Bradford. Listen, we've run into a little snag with one of our younger members, and we were wondering if she could bunk with you for a while."
Misato blinked, and thought for a moment. "Ah, why me? Sir?"
"Because she's been sleeping in a meld tank and the scientists are getting kind of titschy about someone living in their labs. Also, you have one minor, are scheduled for another, and we finally got NERV Berlin to fork over the Third Child whatchamacallit and her giant-ass war machine."
"Oh."
"Yes, quite. On the plus side, Lily's part of the EVA cage crews as an equipment troubleshooter and weapons designer, so I can't possibly see how this could go wrong."
"But what about-"
"Two single children plus puberty under one roof? Yeah, ask Lily about it sometime. Her mother had as interesting idea of sex ed, ok? She's not going to try anything with Shinji, and if he tries anything with her then we'll need to make him a replacement set of nuts."
"Ok then."
"That reminds me- we're upping your living stipend too. Good luck!"
As the phone clicked off, Misato shrugged and opened up her apartment.
"Hey… you Captain Katsuragi?" Lily called, hopping off where she'd been crouching on her laundry bag.
"Yes?"
"Good! That means this is my new ruck, then!"
As she let the teenager pass her inside, Misato just dropped her briefcase and went to the fridge for a beer. This was going to be one of those days…
Why was there a giant diagram covering the table?
"Hey… uh, ma'am?"
Oh, that was Lily, and her giant pile of drafting tools sitting down at the table. Ok, nothing serious. Thinking about it for a minute, Misato smiled and ruffled the girl's short black hair. "You can call me Misato when you're here. Hell, Shinji does."
"Oh, cool. Anyway, I think I scared the other guy here when I was looking for a room. Poor sot needs to get a speaker instead of earphones, or he'll never hear someone coming."
"How bad?"
"Erm… pretty bad. Anyway, I'm gonna set my room up now." Lily said, disapeering. Misato just sighed, until she saw Shinji trying to sneak out with his cello to practice. Shaking her head, she just let him go. He was a good boy- he'd come back when he was done.
----
Sulking his way through the Geofront, Shinji tried to stick to back passages and side routes as he looked for a good practice room. He had to keep his skills sharp, and he knew, much like he knew that he was miserable at fighting Angels, that his cello skills were one of the few things he could say he was good at.
Once he'd wormed his way into the depths of the Geofront, Shinji realized he was well and truly lost. Oh well- it wasn't as if Vessening or someone else wouldn't be able to find him in a pinch. At least he'd found a practice room, what looked like an old dojo. Shrugging, Shiji just set up the folding stool from where he'd strapped it to the top of his case and breathed in and out. It was time to set himself to the music.
The first sonorous notes out of his cello were long, rich and eightfold. It was actually the base line to Patchabell's Cannon in D, but Shinji wasn't here to send himself to sleep. Right now, he was using it to tune. Once he got warmed up, he shook out his wrist and got to it. First off, go for the basics- Tchavolisky's Symphony #6 in B minor, Opus 74. Nice and slow, but not diving too low or high. It really did sound better with the winds section there, but oh well. Next, something harder- Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra might not have been a classic composer par excellence, but in Shinji's humble opinion their re-writing of Carol of the Bells was well worth it. Draw back, dive down the neck as the pitch climbed, stretch the hand wide for the flying chords, saw the downbeat in one go, take the bow to its hilt… and fade off, to the next piece. Next up, something smoother; a section from Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. Almost throwing his bow against his arm, Shinji started plucking away, the first clarinet playing tag with the piano and him for the melody. He was the only one there, in that lonely dojo, just playing away. Bow, sfortzande, bow more, pluck, strum, sfortzande again, and back to bowing.
Time to calm down now, though. Something happy, a little bit more of that classic lift and less of the pitter-patter that made the song of New York so popular even after the tsunamis. A sister city to Venice indeed, now! Swan Lake Overture would do nicely, and Shinji started the piece without blinking.
As he pulled and pushed on the cello, Shinji tried to let his mind wander. This wasn't hard music, nor was it complicated. It was just a warmup set, something to keep the long callouses on his hands and notched cuts in his fingers there. Still, looking out, he took in the warm paper walls of the dojo, along with the well-worn mats and the two glowing orbs in the shadows. He wasn't quite sure what most of it was for, but he could guess well enough. Still, enough was enough. Time for a challenge. Le Sacre du Printeps- the most difficult non-solo Shinji had ever worked to memorize. Born of a Russian ballet composer and given life rarely, it was a primal piece that chilled and shocked. Rite of Spring, no. Rather, a reminder of mortality as life awakens and captures the old inside it to make way for the new. A ballerina dancing to her death on stage, the beat growing fainter and fainter as she slows, dragging her feet, and stops. The theatre claps, and the company comes on stage, the musicians in the pit rising and falling. Shinji remembered that performance, the female lead carried off the stage by her partner because of her feet being blooded and legs frail.
The clapping though, wasn't just in his memory. It was here, now, coming from just below the glowing orbs that blinked and began to rise. No, not orbs- eyes.
"A very good performance, Ensign." The voice said, female. It had this soft lilt to the Japanese, clipping some of the consonants and stretching the vowels. "May I ask where you learned?"
"The… the Conservatory at Nagasaki, miss." Shinji replied, standing up and bowing quickly. "I'm- I'm sorry if you were using this dojo!"
The voice grew closer, the faint light Shinji had played in illuminating a tall woman with faint silver hair. A slight smile was on her features, and if it wasn't for the insignia on the right breast of her well-worn gi he'd have hardly known she was part of the owners of this building.
"Oh, I was just meditating." She said calmly, moving closer to Shinji. "It was nice to hear a young master play his part. Still, it is certainly a trip to get down here- would you like to come up with me?"
At this, Shinji almost panicked. If he said yes, if he said no, ergah!
Looking at Shinji, the woman just smiled and ruffled his hair. "I'll take that as a yes, little one. You can pack up while I get changed."
As Shinji flailed away packing, he tried to figure out who this woman was. It was confusing, and he had panicked like a child facing a bear! He might not have been the most stout-hearted person on base, but still-
"Ready?" she asked, and Shinji bolted to attention and nodded. He was very ready. Extra ready! Super ready!
How the fuck did this woman get him like that?!
"Good!" she said, chuckling. Following her out, Shinji frantically tried to figure out where they were going. Either way, he was following her.
----
Bradford might not have been a big believer in fate, but he was a believer in letting his seniormost enlisted relaxing when they needed to. Oh, the Staff Sergeants and related could work just as long and hard as he could, but there were some soldiers on whom his august rank as second in command sat very lightly on. As two tech sergeants spewed coffee on monitors and a third passed out in his seat, he was suddenly reminded as to why he was a mere director, setting the stage for other players to advance and retract their pats.
Because she had emerged. Mexico City, Brussels, Ho Chi Minh, Newfoundland, Linz, Barrow-on-Thames, Novgorod, Shanghai, Brussels IV, Little Rock, Rio de Janiero, Transvaal, the Siege of Nice… she was there. Every time, she was there. That voice, like a mother's lullaby; those hands, as if she was a surgeon; her mind, bending an Ethereal to her will and leaving it broken in the sands.
The Command Master Sergeant Valarie Melanseki, strongest remaining Psion, inheritor of the title of Grandmaster of the Psions, had come out once again.
Looking around his nice, sane-ish bridge, Bradford breathed in. Then he breathed out. Then he breathe in again.
"FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
----
Several dozen meters away, The Commander started out of bed and scrambled for his radio and plasma pistol before realizing that the scream was just Bradford's realization that several of the staff most likely to cause chaos hadn't been farmed out to Somewhere Right The Fuck Else. Trying to get back to sleep, he almost made it when he realized that given the duration it was probably the Grandmaster Psion.
The same person who had "accidentally" helped start a cult in his name by kicking in a psionic trinket she made that counted as an "Official Commanderly Artifact"
Rolling over, the Commander just grumbled and got ready to clean himself up and face the day. It couldn't be that bad, right?
---
In the apartment block where Misato stayed, the roar of Frustrated Senior Officer echoed, caught by the refidgerator and projected through every empty alcohol container in the house. Hissing as a line went skew, Lily just sighed and thought about what must be happening in the Geofront. That sound… definitely a Psion waking up. Looks like it was time to think about barring the door to the labs again.
---
Several thousand miles away in a Boeing Skylifter EVA transport, Kaji winced and rubbed his head as his headset went nuts with what could only be described as Mad Russian Cackling. It seemed something had amused the pilots, and they were Very Happy about what had happened. Shortly later, he heard them switch the channel over to what could only be described as All My Plans Are Explosively Foiled. He was very familiar with the sound, having made it himself after college and Misato a few times.
"Kaji, what on earth is that?" his charge asked over her radio link, sounding rather grumpy. He couldn't blame her- being hung up in a sea of LCL had to get just damn old after a while.
"I think our flight crew our happy." He replied, streaching out on the small spare seat in the command center. "How you doing?"
"If I don't get an honor guard when we arrive, I may get tempted to see if I can land right on the Geofront. This stinks, its cold, and my hair is going to be ruined!"
Kaiji sighed. Same old Asuka.
Somewhere Over The Plumes I
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
(This is my first time writing a light novel self insert, so please be gentle!)
"Lef'! Lef'! Lef' Righ' Lef'!"
You know those really good ideas you can get, where you agree to do something selfless and noble and all that shit?
"Comp'ny… HALT!"
Yeah. Don't get those good ideas at the bar six rounds in, especially when you're a student at the Alsenhavre School of Applied Thaumaturgy. After hearing my good buddy's draft number came up, he was begging and pleading for someone, anyone, to voulenteer into his place. To be fair, this wasn't a bad deal if you were down on your luck and needed three square meals a day for three to five years.
The fact I was actually quite comfortable sliding my way through Thaumaturgy School on decent-ish grades and my Marks on literally every zero-tier piece of magery in the book never really crossed my mind until I woke up on a parade field with a splitting hangover and a set of bars on my shoulder that marked me as an Armor Commander, responsible for commanding a Type 24 Mark Three "Linebreaker" tank.
As I had made sure to learn very quickly, an Armor Commander, especially an Ensign Armor Commander, was not all too different from the enlisted men in the tank he commanded. For starters, we were all trapped in that metallic monolith together, and it showed during maneuvers. Four gunners, two loaders, driver, radioman, two engineers, and I were the crew of one of these finicky titans, and it showed as we bickered and grumbled. Still, it was a warm sort of adoptive family as I learned the ins and outs of commanding twenty tons of Blackrock Iron and Steel. Between our four-inch howitzer, two autocannons, one-inch quick firing gun, and Mobile Shield, we represented a staggering amount of fire support and destruction for our full formation, the Eighth Division. No matter what the Dukes Feraxii developed, we would still be relevant with our unique ability to mount the truly massive Mobile Shield to protect our segment of the line against bombardment by the enemies' Grand Artillery batteries.
So now resigned and acclimated to my new life in the Army, the next shock in my life was rather unpleasant. After all, the last one was my own damn fault!
---
With the exposition aside, when you see a green flash of light coming from a Linebreaker you normally want to kiss the ground and fast. I'd seen what happened when our Mobile Shield started coming under dummy bombardment, and green flashes meant the bronze componens were under a lot of stress and we would have to drop the shield long enough to pop the kinematic disks out, swap the bearings and couplers, reinsert the disks, and drop the engine out long enough to restart the shield. The alternative was having the whole thing blow up on us and a sound chewing out by the quartermasters and mechanics because unlatching the half-inch armor plate over the ass end of a Linebreaker was an absolute bitch.
So, having become fairly used to my Linebreaker's ability to throw a stunning conniption fit, I disregarded the fact I had nearly sixty pounds of ruck on my back and dived for the ground.
Right where the green flashes were coming from.
I now suddenly understood why the old farts who taught Officer School for Barely Officers used the description of outside context problems they did: most armies hit an Outside Context Problem with an abrupt stop, much like a sentence meeting with a period.
---
Coming to was never a fun experience in my humble opinion. It didn't matter if you were three sheets to the wind last night, just got slammed in the noggin by your Armored because it ate a Practice Round during a practice bombardment, or your loaders were playing catch with a four-inch training shell and your head intersected with the parabola of twenty-four pound chunk of metal and inert filling.
So, when I woke up after my imporomptu naptime, the first thing I did was a basic environment check. Green grass, air-tasting air, pink-headed girl tapping her foot angrily, slight breeze, buncha students in robes…
Waitaminute. Green grass.
GREEN GRASS.
"Oh, fuck." I muttered. Grass wasn't supposed to be green! Grass was supposed to be black, or blue, or in a really high Ruina area maybe an alluring shade of violet. Green grass meant only one thing- I was outside the Hinterlands.
Now, quick geography lesson. There was the Kingdom of Blackrock. Awesome place, very free, constitutional monarchy, nice cities, blah blah blah. Then there were the Hinterlands, everything where Ruina held sway and not Vis, the two fundamental types of magic as derived from the Breaking of Materia. Technically Blackrock was a kingdom of the Hinterlands, but that's not important. Then there was everything outside the Hinterlands, categorized by being really fucking weird because Vis was the dominant force which lead to weird shit like blue skies, green grass, and people without the Marks.
The problem was, the Kingdom of Blackrock was kinda-sorta technically almost always at war with just about everyone in the not-Hinterlands because they were giant douchebags and I may have slept through history class. Religion probably had something to do with it, economics had to do with another one because we outbid them in some godforsaken swamp, and the third big place had a hateboner for Ruina and were bugfuck nuts.
So I'm smack dab in the middle of enemy territory, sans Armored, with most of my kit which isn't very much, my good uniform and a few crappy ones, my lucky set of apartment keys, and eighty rounds for my duty pistol that works better as a hammer for when the turret gear jams.
Well. This fucking sucks. Time to improvise.
---
Louise was having a very bad day. Not that there were too many good days outside academic and theory classes, but still. One failure, two failure, and on try number three?
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Counting the echoes, Louise sighed. Eight echoes, which meant that once again she'd destroyed an untowardly huge chunk of yard. Hoo boy, this one was gonna take a few days to fill. Wonder if the Earth proffessors would press-gang the students into helping them move the dirt over the walls again?
"Ah, fach." She heard come of the smoke. Odd, none of her explosions ever made noise before.
As the smoke cleared, though, she got a good look at the results. For one, no crater. For two, there was… was that even a person? Louise had to think about it for a moment, before deciding that the massive thing on it's back was a bag. That was a man. Okay? It wasn't a crater at least. Admittedly, it would probably be a good idea to do something before the shock wore off her classmates.
---
Standing up, I dropped my ruck and gulped. Yeah, that was a girl walking towards me. That was a girl walking towards me with a wand. I knew about wands- they were a focus for Ruina, usually for the more delicate, twitchy jobs I handled by making the magical working bigger then slamming Reductors into so that it didn't blow up the whole doohickey it was making.
My proffessor of Magical Thaumaturgy hated my technique most of the time, but did state I probably had a good future career in tool building. Considering the fact I got a B on every project he handed out, I called it good.
"Louise, finir le travail!" a voice called out. Couldn't understand it for beans, but it did prompt the girl to move closer to me. She was obviously nervous, and so was I. Spurred on by the older gentleman's words, though, she came up to me and- holy shit she was short. I was about six-six, and this chick barely came up to my breastbone! Not even the fluffy pink hair got near my third button on my coat!
Looking me in the eye, the little one glared and tapped her foot again, before grabbing the lapel of my coat and pulling down. Still off bonus because, y'know, got knocked out, I came down fairly gracelessly.
Then she kissed me, and everything started hurting. My last coherent thoughts were a very conscience the fuck? before I passed out.
---
Three guesses as to who gets what theme.
"Lef'! Lef'! Lef' Righ' Lef'!"
You know those really good ideas you can get, where you agree to do something selfless and noble and all that shit?
"Comp'ny… HALT!"
Yeah. Don't get those good ideas at the bar six rounds in, especially when you're a student at the Alsenhavre School of Applied Thaumaturgy. After hearing my good buddy's draft number came up, he was begging and pleading for someone, anyone, to voulenteer into his place. To be fair, this wasn't a bad deal if you were down on your luck and needed three square meals a day for three to five years.
The fact I was actually quite comfortable sliding my way through Thaumaturgy School on decent-ish grades and my Marks on literally every zero-tier piece of magery in the book never really crossed my mind until I woke up on a parade field with a splitting hangover and a set of bars on my shoulder that marked me as an Armor Commander, responsible for commanding a Type 24 Mark Three "Linebreaker" tank.
As I had made sure to learn very quickly, an Armor Commander, especially an Ensign Armor Commander, was not all too different from the enlisted men in the tank he commanded. For starters, we were all trapped in that metallic monolith together, and it showed during maneuvers. Four gunners, two loaders, driver, radioman, two engineers, and I were the crew of one of these finicky titans, and it showed as we bickered and grumbled. Still, it was a warm sort of adoptive family as I learned the ins and outs of commanding twenty tons of Blackrock Iron and Steel. Between our four-inch howitzer, two autocannons, one-inch quick firing gun, and Mobile Shield, we represented a staggering amount of fire support and destruction for our full formation, the Eighth Division. No matter what the Dukes Feraxii developed, we would still be relevant with our unique ability to mount the truly massive Mobile Shield to protect our segment of the line against bombardment by the enemies' Grand Artillery batteries.
So now resigned and acclimated to my new life in the Army, the next shock in my life was rather unpleasant. After all, the last one was my own damn fault!
---
With the exposition aside, when you see a green flash of light coming from a Linebreaker you normally want to kiss the ground and fast. I'd seen what happened when our Mobile Shield started coming under dummy bombardment, and green flashes meant the bronze componens were under a lot of stress and we would have to drop the shield long enough to pop the kinematic disks out, swap the bearings and couplers, reinsert the disks, and drop the engine out long enough to restart the shield. The alternative was having the whole thing blow up on us and a sound chewing out by the quartermasters and mechanics because unlatching the half-inch armor plate over the ass end of a Linebreaker was an absolute bitch.
So, having become fairly used to my Linebreaker's ability to throw a stunning conniption fit, I disregarded the fact I had nearly sixty pounds of ruck on my back and dived for the ground.
Right where the green flashes were coming from.
I now suddenly understood why the old farts who taught Officer School for Barely Officers used the description of outside context problems they did: most armies hit an Outside Context Problem with an abrupt stop, much like a sentence meeting with a period.
---
Coming to was never a fun experience in my humble opinion. It didn't matter if you were three sheets to the wind last night, just got slammed in the noggin by your Armored because it ate a Practice Round during a practice bombardment, or your loaders were playing catch with a four-inch training shell and your head intersected with the parabola of twenty-four pound chunk of metal and inert filling.
So, when I woke up after my imporomptu naptime, the first thing I did was a basic environment check. Green grass, air-tasting air, pink-headed girl tapping her foot angrily, slight breeze, buncha students in robes…
Waitaminute. Green grass.
GREEN GRASS.
"Oh, fuck." I muttered. Grass wasn't supposed to be green! Grass was supposed to be black, or blue, or in a really high Ruina area maybe an alluring shade of violet. Green grass meant only one thing- I was outside the Hinterlands.
Now, quick geography lesson. There was the Kingdom of Blackrock. Awesome place, very free, constitutional monarchy, nice cities, blah blah blah. Then there were the Hinterlands, everything where Ruina held sway and not Vis, the two fundamental types of magic as derived from the Breaking of Materia. Technically Blackrock was a kingdom of the Hinterlands, but that's not important. Then there was everything outside the Hinterlands, categorized by being really fucking weird because Vis was the dominant force which lead to weird shit like blue skies, green grass, and people without the Marks.
The problem was, the Kingdom of Blackrock was kinda-sorta technically almost always at war with just about everyone in the not-Hinterlands because they were giant douchebags and I may have slept through history class. Religion probably had something to do with it, economics had to do with another one because we outbid them in some godforsaken swamp, and the third big place had a hateboner for Ruina and were bugfuck nuts.
So I'm smack dab in the middle of enemy territory, sans Armored, with most of my kit which isn't very much, my good uniform and a few crappy ones, my lucky set of apartment keys, and eighty rounds for my duty pistol that works better as a hammer for when the turret gear jams.
Well. This fucking sucks. Time to improvise.
---
Louise was having a very bad day. Not that there were too many good days outside academic and theory classes, but still. One failure, two failure, and on try number three?
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Counting the echoes, Louise sighed. Eight echoes, which meant that once again she'd destroyed an untowardly huge chunk of yard. Hoo boy, this one was gonna take a few days to fill. Wonder if the Earth proffessors would press-gang the students into helping them move the dirt over the walls again?
"Ah, fach." She heard come of the smoke. Odd, none of her explosions ever made noise before.
As the smoke cleared, though, she got a good look at the results. For one, no crater. For two, there was… was that even a person? Louise had to think about it for a moment, before deciding that the massive thing on it's back was a bag. That was a man. Okay? It wasn't a crater at least. Admittedly, it would probably be a good idea to do something before the shock wore off her classmates.
---
Standing up, I dropped my ruck and gulped. Yeah, that was a girl walking towards me. That was a girl walking towards me with a wand. I knew about wands- they were a focus for Ruina, usually for the more delicate, twitchy jobs I handled by making the magical working bigger then slamming Reductors into so that it didn't blow up the whole doohickey it was making.
My proffessor of Magical Thaumaturgy hated my technique most of the time, but did state I probably had a good future career in tool building. Considering the fact I got a B on every project he handed out, I called it good.
"Louise, finir le travail!" a voice called out. Couldn't understand it for beans, but it did prompt the girl to move closer to me. She was obviously nervous, and so was I. Spurred on by the older gentleman's words, though, she came up to me and- holy shit she was short. I was about six-six, and this chick barely came up to my breastbone! Not even the fluffy pink hair got near my third button on my coat!
Looking me in the eye, the little one glared and tapped her foot again, before grabbing the lapel of my coat and pulling down. Still off bonus because, y'know, got knocked out, I came down fairly gracelessly.
Then she kissed me, and everything started hurting. My last coherent thoughts were a very conscience the fuck? before I passed out.
---
Three guesses as to who gets what theme.
A horrible, horrible idea.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Walking home from school, I sighed quietly. Another day done, another day to go. Life was bleak and bland, the winter snows only reinforcing the enforced monotony of the scene.
"Hey. You there."
Turning, I looked for the voice carefully. When I saw her, my jaw dropped. Slight, dressed in a pale kimono, her red eyes peered into mine with a fiery determination. Moving closer, I got a closer look at the silver on white embroidery, she smiled slightly.
"Hello, Alder." she said, laughing. "I've been looking for you."
Alright, sanity check. Girl with white hair and red eyes and white kimono, who knows my name, who I've never met, nor has any reasonable reason to be here. Not exactly a good sign.
"Hello." I replied, nodding at her in a semi-formal nod. First rule of handling crazy; never show your back to live examples of the crazy.
"Ah? You're not as relecant as the other Alders were." the girl said, before laughing a little while covering her mouth with a hand. "But where are my manners? Please, Alder, call me Nagisa."
Wait. White hair. Red eyes. Feminine. Knew things with no way of learning them. Given name Nagisa. Other name probably Kawarou.
This was a trap in *all the ways*.
"Come, come! Alder, listen to me, this is a happy day! We could even say it's the first day of the rest of your life!"
Yep. Critical trap threshold passed, goodnight Irene, time to bail on this shit-
Um. My feet were stuck. This is a problem. Also, Nagisa was walking closer, and she- no, *he* was smiling at me as he stroked my cheek seductively.
"Tell me, Alder, have you ever seen something so hopeful and pitiful you are torn between weeping for the potential lost, and at the same time enraged at how stupid it all is?"
Fuck. Alright, running is right out, so time for me to up and handle the crazy like a man. Remember- they can hear you lie.
"No, Nagisa, I can't say I have."
"No matter, Alder." he said, shaking his head. "It's just... I've found myself in service to the Winter Queen, and she's sent me on a mission. I must travel the worlds, improving those under her domain and saving what resources I can from those that are crumbling and not of her power. It is a trying task, although I am glad you are here."
I nodded, trying to move closer. One step forward was all I managed, but progress was progress.
"So I found you, Alder." he said, smiling. "This world is one of the few self-sustaining points within the Winter Queen's protectorate, so I can claim you and yours for this project! It'll be grand, and even better there's an easy path of worlds to walk to where we need to be going?"
"Which is?" I asked, glancing at my watch.
"We are going to a little subdivision of Japan, my good friend. You still call it Japan, right?"
"Yes."
"Good! Now, I chose you for a simple reason- I need a hunter and slaughterer. After all, a zombie infestation is no small issue!"
"Zombies you say?" I asked, interest perked. "What drives them?"
"Black magic from a diseased wood." was the simple response. "I understand you might be a little... disbelieving of me, shall we say."
I nodded. "Incredible claims do require incredible evidence, Nagisa."
Nagisa just nodded, stepping in close and reaching up to give me a kiss on the cheek. "Then I'll provide. Then I'll provide."
---
The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache and the need to shoot my alarm clock. Growling, I sat up in bed, going over to turn off the alarm and more importantly go make a pot of coffee. Once that was done, my next objective was a shower. Hygiene was important, and right after hygiene was coffee.
Post-shower, as I poured my cup of coffee, I wondered what Nagisa's extraordinary evidence was going to be. Shrugging it off, I went to my bedroom to get dressed. Once my pants were on, though, (and about when I forgot where my coffee cup was) I took a moment to notice something in the mirror. Specifically, I now had gray hair and apparently lost something like forty pounds overnight.
"Goddamnit, Nagisa." I muttered, raking my hand through the slate-gray mane that now apparently went down to my shoulders when still wet. Knowing my luck, it would make an anime-esque spike mess when it dried. Worse, though, was apparently Nagisa turning all my excess body fat into muscle. Before, I had been a hundred and five kilos of guts, muscle, and fat, in about that order as far as percent of body mass. Now I was a hundred and five kilos of muscle, guts, and bones with a side order of shiny red jewel on a choker I couldn't take off.
Note to Self- When the Crazy may or may not be smart enough to pick a name with connotations to people of culture, *they may be capable of some of the same bullshit as the source name*.
Alright Alder, time for another cup of coffee and some thinking. First up, the mission as given by Nagisa, who has been promoted from Crazy to Horrifying Thing. So far, it looked like the plan was go forth and slaughter zombies on some foreign world in their version of Japan. Now, presuming this Japan was at all similar to the Japan of my world, this meant there would be three main issues. One, the issue of guns, alias melee weapons are for suckers and the desperate. Fortunately, I lived in America and had some 'friends' who'd be happy to issue/loan me a chunk of their collections, especially Jim. Hell, if I spun it right, I could probably get Jim to come and bring the whole damn armory. Issue two, language barrier. Here's where the joys of living in Oakland County came in- just grab the majority of the weebs in Japanese class, tell 'em we were going to Japan, do the magic sparkly thing I was reasonably sure was attached to the red gem at my throat, and give them their complimentary Mosins before a-jaunting we would go. Third issue, manpower and transportation. I could, theoretically, do this on my own. Theory and practice were two different beasts, though.
Way back before the Great War, the English hired a very smart man named Lanchester to help them math out how battles would go. He came up with two items of import- the Linear Law of Warfare and the Exponential Law of Warfare. The linear one was simple- given two equal strength forces of equal tech and skill, the one with more bodies would win and have left over the number of bodies more then they had over the other guy to begin with. In other words, pit kids with spears versus zombies, zombies win because there's a fuckload of zombies. However, the exponential law, alias the square law, said it was not the number of guns that mattered in gun warfare, but the *square* of the number of guns, which meant one gun was worth one bullet while three guns was worth *nine* bullets.
Considering the fact that the zombies wouldn't have firearms, this was the crux of the plan I was slowly sketching out. I needed shooters, translators, and quartermasters. Once I had my force assembled with their gear and what I was mentally thinking of as the Lend-Lease gear assembled, we'd roll hot through the gate, get to the objective, and then grab everyone we could with whatever transportation we could, and get them to a safe-ish place we could fortify the shit out of until Nagisa came in to play cavalry and evacuate us.
Good thing today was Saturday. I had a lot of phone calls to make.
---
Looking around the bar, I smiled slightly. Out of something like three hundred phone calls I'd made, I'd say two-thirds of them showed up with their buddies. Muldoon's was packed to the rafters, and at my table the big four of my plan were seated.
Jim had been the first one to arrive, and the most important one for this adventure. A seventy year old Doctor of Mechanical Engineering, he had "retired" after a teaching and gunsmithing career that ended him up with patents in five countries and pensions with everyone from Fabrique National to Holland and Holland. Nowadays he ran a custom gun shop and did the dealer's circuit, trading his custom pieces in exchange for mountains of absolute shit 'in order to get it out of circulation' to quote the man. Said mountains of guns were the base of our Lend-Lease stockpile, along with the million-odd rounds he kept in caches around the state in his hunting lodges. I'd tapped him for this adventure for another reason, though- he was practically a grandfather to me, and I knew I could trust him with this.
Alejandro was next. An angel child hailing from Pontiac, he was an amazing driver and part-time long haul trucker. More importantly, he knew a huge mess of homeless veterans and other groups I could tap to get people who knew things. Quartermasters, shooters, drivers- all of them would be filtering through him, our designated personal man. The only downside was these weren't exactly quality people he was finding- most of them were out of work for a reason, and that was drugs, alcohol, or some other issue that made them a little dysfunctional. Fortunately, I could handle a little dysfunctional, and if I couldn't then I knew where to start making cuts on my hiring list.
Moldova coughed, grinning at me. The lanky immigrant daughter of a pair of Russians fresh off the plane, she had been a nurse, daughter of nurses, granddaughter of nurses, quite probably stretching back to when some idiot Czar of Russia fell off his horse hunting bear and called for the local peasants to aid him. Either way, I had decided early on we needed a medical staff, and she knew enough depressed pre-med and med school students who were running out of cash to dragoon into this joyous enterprise. Currently, since I was looking at about a two-company ToE for my direct forces plus a lot of support units, I had decided a medical section was a must.
Caleb sipped his lager, looking around the table awkwardly. A translation group was needed, and that meant dragooning every weeaboo I could find into the issue. Since I wasn't going to go around nerd-wrangling, though, I had to instead go find their Chief, and get the whole tribe that way. To be fair to him, though, it was okay to be nervous- especially when sitting at a table with a man who remembered the Civil Rights movement personally, a potential gangster, someone who's parents had fled the mob, and another person who'd had an anime transformation all his own.
"Alright, let's get this meeting started." I said, throwing around a stack of briefs on the issue. By "brief" I meant a cover sheet, my planned ToE, everyone's role, and the general plan of action. It was enough to take notes on. "First up, everyone's roughly clear on the plan here?"
"Go in, kill zombies in Japan." Jim said, sipping a tall Corona. "I bring the guns and probably a few apprentices."
"Go in, rescue a few busloads of people who don't know what the hell's happening, shepard them out a portal." Alejandro emoted, shrugging. "I bring the technical specialists, and probably a few trucks and trailers to haul everything in."
"Go in, keep everyone from dying." Moldova grunted. "I bring the medics."
"Go in, snap the Prime Directive over our knee, and try not to let everyone die horribly." Caleb said, finishing off his drink. "I bring translators and hopefully find us our local info."
"Glad that's straight." I chuckled. "Now, we've got roughly five hundred people ready to go, and three-quarters of them are bringing their own trucks and guns. We're gonna need about three weeks of food, so..."
"Call it two semis for food." Alejandro stepped in, smiling. "I'll get ten so we can use prefab kitchens and a shop for the Doctor."
Moldova raised an eyebrow. "Which doctor?"
"Both doctors."
I grinned. "So, ten semis, plus what looks like three-fifty trucks, plus another forty trucks and trailers for incidentals and fast supplies... can we get a bus on short notice?"
"No, but I can look into a dozen vans." opined Alejandro.
"Good. We need a noncombatant transport. Speaking of, Caleb, how many translators you got us?"
"Forty five so far, but the call's still going around. What's our meetup?"
"I've got a field rented. We meet up there, get everything settled the night before, and roll hot in though the Gate next day."
"Alright..."
---
As everyone was walking out of the bar, I heaved a sigh of relief, right up until I felt a dainty hand entwine with mine.
"You heard everything, Nagisa." I said, groaning quietly.
"Yes. Might I say it so far seems to be an excellent plan?"
"Well, glad to know my supernatural patron approves. Do you have the data you're gonna need to make this work?"
"Yes. You actually picked a good place for this thing, by the way. I didn't expect my gift to give you demagoguery, though."
I shrugged. "I didn't either."
Nagisa laughed. "Well, that's that. You've got a week to finish your preparations, so good luck."
Notes: This is pretty much me fucking around with the traditional Light Novel plot of ROB does a thing, with the caveat that ROB has to work though an intermediary for one and for two it also serves as a bit of a fixfic for a couple of settings I dislike but see with potential.
"Hey. You there."
Turning, I looked for the voice carefully. When I saw her, my jaw dropped. Slight, dressed in a pale kimono, her red eyes peered into mine with a fiery determination. Moving closer, I got a closer look at the silver on white embroidery, she smiled slightly.
"Hello, Alder." she said, laughing. "I've been looking for you."
Alright, sanity check. Girl with white hair and red eyes and white kimono, who knows my name, who I've never met, nor has any reasonable reason to be here. Not exactly a good sign.
"Hello." I replied, nodding at her in a semi-formal nod. First rule of handling crazy; never show your back to live examples of the crazy.
"Ah? You're not as relecant as the other Alders were." the girl said, before laughing a little while covering her mouth with a hand. "But where are my manners? Please, Alder, call me Nagisa."
Wait. White hair. Red eyes. Feminine. Knew things with no way of learning them. Given name Nagisa. Other name probably Kawarou.
This was a trap in *all the ways*.
"Come, come! Alder, listen to me, this is a happy day! We could even say it's the first day of the rest of your life!"
Yep. Critical trap threshold passed, goodnight Irene, time to bail on this shit-
Um. My feet were stuck. This is a problem. Also, Nagisa was walking closer, and she- no, *he* was smiling at me as he stroked my cheek seductively.
"Tell me, Alder, have you ever seen something so hopeful and pitiful you are torn between weeping for the potential lost, and at the same time enraged at how stupid it all is?"
Fuck. Alright, running is right out, so time for me to up and handle the crazy like a man. Remember- they can hear you lie.
"No, Nagisa, I can't say I have."
"No matter, Alder." he said, shaking his head. "It's just... I've found myself in service to the Winter Queen, and she's sent me on a mission. I must travel the worlds, improving those under her domain and saving what resources I can from those that are crumbling and not of her power. It is a trying task, although I am glad you are here."
I nodded, trying to move closer. One step forward was all I managed, but progress was progress.
"So I found you, Alder." he said, smiling. "This world is one of the few self-sustaining points within the Winter Queen's protectorate, so I can claim you and yours for this project! It'll be grand, and even better there's an easy path of worlds to walk to where we need to be going?"
"Which is?" I asked, glancing at my watch.
"We are going to a little subdivision of Japan, my good friend. You still call it Japan, right?"
"Yes."
"Good! Now, I chose you for a simple reason- I need a hunter and slaughterer. After all, a zombie infestation is no small issue!"
"Zombies you say?" I asked, interest perked. "What drives them?"
"Black magic from a diseased wood." was the simple response. "I understand you might be a little... disbelieving of me, shall we say."
I nodded. "Incredible claims do require incredible evidence, Nagisa."
Nagisa just nodded, stepping in close and reaching up to give me a kiss on the cheek. "Then I'll provide. Then I'll provide."
---
The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache and the need to shoot my alarm clock. Growling, I sat up in bed, going over to turn off the alarm and more importantly go make a pot of coffee. Once that was done, my next objective was a shower. Hygiene was important, and right after hygiene was coffee.
Post-shower, as I poured my cup of coffee, I wondered what Nagisa's extraordinary evidence was going to be. Shrugging it off, I went to my bedroom to get dressed. Once my pants were on, though, (and about when I forgot where my coffee cup was) I took a moment to notice something in the mirror. Specifically, I now had gray hair and apparently lost something like forty pounds overnight.
"Goddamnit, Nagisa." I muttered, raking my hand through the slate-gray mane that now apparently went down to my shoulders when still wet. Knowing my luck, it would make an anime-esque spike mess when it dried. Worse, though, was apparently Nagisa turning all my excess body fat into muscle. Before, I had been a hundred and five kilos of guts, muscle, and fat, in about that order as far as percent of body mass. Now I was a hundred and five kilos of muscle, guts, and bones with a side order of shiny red jewel on a choker I couldn't take off.
Note to Self- When the Crazy may or may not be smart enough to pick a name with connotations to people of culture, *they may be capable of some of the same bullshit as the source name*.
Alright Alder, time for another cup of coffee and some thinking. First up, the mission as given by Nagisa, who has been promoted from Crazy to Horrifying Thing. So far, it looked like the plan was go forth and slaughter zombies on some foreign world in their version of Japan. Now, presuming this Japan was at all similar to the Japan of my world, this meant there would be three main issues. One, the issue of guns, alias melee weapons are for suckers and the desperate. Fortunately, I lived in America and had some 'friends' who'd be happy to issue/loan me a chunk of their collections, especially Jim. Hell, if I spun it right, I could probably get Jim to come and bring the whole damn armory. Issue two, language barrier. Here's where the joys of living in Oakland County came in- just grab the majority of the weebs in Japanese class, tell 'em we were going to Japan, do the magic sparkly thing I was reasonably sure was attached to the red gem at my throat, and give them their complimentary Mosins before a-jaunting we would go. Third issue, manpower and transportation. I could, theoretically, do this on my own. Theory and practice were two different beasts, though.
Way back before the Great War, the English hired a very smart man named Lanchester to help them math out how battles would go. He came up with two items of import- the Linear Law of Warfare and the Exponential Law of Warfare. The linear one was simple- given two equal strength forces of equal tech and skill, the one with more bodies would win and have left over the number of bodies more then they had over the other guy to begin with. In other words, pit kids with spears versus zombies, zombies win because there's a fuckload of zombies. However, the exponential law, alias the square law, said it was not the number of guns that mattered in gun warfare, but the *square* of the number of guns, which meant one gun was worth one bullet while three guns was worth *nine* bullets.
Considering the fact that the zombies wouldn't have firearms, this was the crux of the plan I was slowly sketching out. I needed shooters, translators, and quartermasters. Once I had my force assembled with their gear and what I was mentally thinking of as the Lend-Lease gear assembled, we'd roll hot through the gate, get to the objective, and then grab everyone we could with whatever transportation we could, and get them to a safe-ish place we could fortify the shit out of until Nagisa came in to play cavalry and evacuate us.
Good thing today was Saturday. I had a lot of phone calls to make.
---
Looking around the bar, I smiled slightly. Out of something like three hundred phone calls I'd made, I'd say two-thirds of them showed up with their buddies. Muldoon's was packed to the rafters, and at my table the big four of my plan were seated.
Jim had been the first one to arrive, and the most important one for this adventure. A seventy year old Doctor of Mechanical Engineering, he had "retired" after a teaching and gunsmithing career that ended him up with patents in five countries and pensions with everyone from Fabrique National to Holland and Holland. Nowadays he ran a custom gun shop and did the dealer's circuit, trading his custom pieces in exchange for mountains of absolute shit 'in order to get it out of circulation' to quote the man. Said mountains of guns were the base of our Lend-Lease stockpile, along with the million-odd rounds he kept in caches around the state in his hunting lodges. I'd tapped him for this adventure for another reason, though- he was practically a grandfather to me, and I knew I could trust him with this.
Alejandro was next. An angel child hailing from Pontiac, he was an amazing driver and part-time long haul trucker. More importantly, he knew a huge mess of homeless veterans and other groups I could tap to get people who knew things. Quartermasters, shooters, drivers- all of them would be filtering through him, our designated personal man. The only downside was these weren't exactly quality people he was finding- most of them were out of work for a reason, and that was drugs, alcohol, or some other issue that made them a little dysfunctional. Fortunately, I could handle a little dysfunctional, and if I couldn't then I knew where to start making cuts on my hiring list.
Moldova coughed, grinning at me. The lanky immigrant daughter of a pair of Russians fresh off the plane, she had been a nurse, daughter of nurses, granddaughter of nurses, quite probably stretching back to when some idiot Czar of Russia fell off his horse hunting bear and called for the local peasants to aid him. Either way, I had decided early on we needed a medical staff, and she knew enough depressed pre-med and med school students who were running out of cash to dragoon into this joyous enterprise. Currently, since I was looking at about a two-company ToE for my direct forces plus a lot of support units, I had decided a medical section was a must.
Caleb sipped his lager, looking around the table awkwardly. A translation group was needed, and that meant dragooning every weeaboo I could find into the issue. Since I wasn't going to go around nerd-wrangling, though, I had to instead go find their Chief, and get the whole tribe that way. To be fair to him, though, it was okay to be nervous- especially when sitting at a table with a man who remembered the Civil Rights movement personally, a potential gangster, someone who's parents had fled the mob, and another person who'd had an anime transformation all his own.
"Alright, let's get this meeting started." I said, throwing around a stack of briefs on the issue. By "brief" I meant a cover sheet, my planned ToE, everyone's role, and the general plan of action. It was enough to take notes on. "First up, everyone's roughly clear on the plan here?"
"Go in, kill zombies in Japan." Jim said, sipping a tall Corona. "I bring the guns and probably a few apprentices."
"Go in, rescue a few busloads of people who don't know what the hell's happening, shepard them out a portal." Alejandro emoted, shrugging. "I bring the technical specialists, and probably a few trucks and trailers to haul everything in."
"Go in, keep everyone from dying." Moldova grunted. "I bring the medics."
"Go in, snap the Prime Directive over our knee, and try not to let everyone die horribly." Caleb said, finishing off his drink. "I bring translators and hopefully find us our local info."
"Glad that's straight." I chuckled. "Now, we've got roughly five hundred people ready to go, and three-quarters of them are bringing their own trucks and guns. We're gonna need about three weeks of food, so..."
"Call it two semis for food." Alejandro stepped in, smiling. "I'll get ten so we can use prefab kitchens and a shop for the Doctor."
Moldova raised an eyebrow. "Which doctor?"
"Both doctors."
I grinned. "So, ten semis, plus what looks like three-fifty trucks, plus another forty trucks and trailers for incidentals and fast supplies... can we get a bus on short notice?"
"No, but I can look into a dozen vans." opined Alejandro.
"Good. We need a noncombatant transport. Speaking of, Caleb, how many translators you got us?"
"Forty five so far, but the call's still going around. What's our meetup?"
"I've got a field rented. We meet up there, get everything settled the night before, and roll hot in though the Gate next day."
"Alright..."
---
As everyone was walking out of the bar, I heaved a sigh of relief, right up until I felt a dainty hand entwine with mine.
"You heard everything, Nagisa." I said, groaning quietly.
"Yes. Might I say it so far seems to be an excellent plan?"
"Well, glad to know my supernatural patron approves. Do you have the data you're gonna need to make this work?"
"Yes. You actually picked a good place for this thing, by the way. I didn't expect my gift to give you demagoguery, though."
I shrugged. "I didn't either."
Nagisa laughed. "Well, that's that. You've got a week to finish your preparations, so good luck."
Notes: This is pretty much me fucking around with the traditional Light Novel plot of ROB does a thing, with the caveat that ROB has to work though an intermediary for one and for two it also serves as a bit of a fixfic for a couple of settings I dislike but see with potential.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Alright, follow-up on the above. It's pretty much a crossover SI, with a major focus on interventionism, and specifically the fact that interventionism is hard. Alder, the protag and SI, actually doesn't have much in the way of powers and talents. What he has is a stable of people who he can tap for the job at hand, enough brains to make sure they can do their jobs, and basically run the strategic and operational levels of his operations. The list of semi-planned crossovers is as such
1- High School of the Dead (current)
2- Worm
3- (Gun)Swords and Sorcery
(Not sure what order the next for will go in)
4- ZnT/Familiar of Zero
5- Safehold (Yes I know Weber Cancer is bad mmmkay?)
6- Autumn Republic
1- High School of the Dead (current)
2- Worm
3- (Gun)Swords and Sorcery
(Not sure what order the next for will go in)
4- ZnT/Familiar of Zero
5- Safehold (Yes I know Weber Cancer is bad mmmkay?)
6- Autumn Republic
Wards and Wardens 1.1
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Looking around my room, I sighed to myself. Piles of paint cans stared back at me, and a selection of brushes and sprayers next to them had been drying. A few tied-together broomsticks made up my costume rack, and next to them sat my mask. I was a cape in the Brockton blight, and I was about to make the stupidest decision of my life. When you weren't a heavyweight, there weren't a lot of options open. I could have joined the Merchants, but the most I'd touch for drugs was the occasional joint passed around the club. The Empire? I mean, I was white enough, but I didn't want to get slaved to a cause I couldn't believe in. Besides, odds were I'd be playing bitch-boy for Krieg or something, and that could go piss off. Anyone who believed in the whole Nazi bullshit was obviously either a pedophile or worse, hiding their real reason they were buying into race hate when they had an IQ north of room temperature. There were worse options, too- like Kaiser being some genetics freakshow who'd try and get me to fuck Rune and make him some super-powered babies or some shit. That was off the table, no sir. The ABB might take me, if I kowtowed to Lung, but I wasn't no idiot. A weak Tinker like me was disposable in the grand scheme of things, and I'd probably get sacrificed to the PRT to break the Dragon out if he ever got caught.
That left one major option- joining the Wards. Considering my 'home' was neck deep in Merchant turf, I'd be throwing myself on their generosity. Two dead parents didn't give me a lot of options, though, and at this point I was tired of dumpster diving for my daily bread. I'd at least figured out my powers, though, and a costume too. I was proud of the costume, honestly, even if it had been why I was dumpster diving for the last two weeks. I'd been working on it every day, and checking it out I smiled. The last layers had finished curing, so it was time to throw that thing on and head out.
First things first, the undersuit. Stripping down to my birthday suit, I pulled on the athletic cup, long johns, and heavyweight socks that made up the bottom half. All of it had been treated to breathe better and wick water, and I'd worn it quite a bit while building the rest- it didn't matter what I did, I couldn't get swamp balls in this. A very important trait of work clothes, that! Next up was the undershirt and my 'gorget', which was honestly just a baklava I'd sprayed over twice- once to make it breathe, and once to make it cut-proof. Once that was all on, I grabbed the dark denim shirt and pants that would make up the next layer. These were where I focused most of my protective work, and I could say with confidence they might be bulletproof. They were certainly cut and stab resistant to what I could do with 'em, at least. Once that was done, and belt #1 was in to hold them together, I went to get my boots. An old pair of Army boots I'd worked over with nearly a dozen coats of work, they were non-slip on a soaped floor, warm and comfy, stab-proof, cut-proof, crush-proof, water-proof, and a couple of other -proofs that I'd worked in and discovered as interactions of different layers of protection. After the boots came the greaves and sabatons- and it had been a fun few days figuring out what everything was called so it wasn't just boot-things- which were one of the few pieces of sheet metal in the entire ensemble. Sprayed to be lighter, non-reflective, and tough as hell, they were a key part of my plan to stay mobile. I couldn't stand and slug it out, not being a brute, so I had to be ready and able to leave a fight. Keeping my legs safe was part of that. Above them came my chaps, black ripstock nylon and one of the few parts I'd actually had to steal. With them came belt #2, and then my vest. Unlike my shirt, the vest's job was a little more specific- it was to protect my protective layer from any sprays or oils I used in a fight, since a destructive effect between a 'cut stopping' coat and a 'speed increasing' coat was all too likely. It was also stainproof. On top of this all came my jacket, and then my mask. The jacket was beautifully decorated by myself, of course, in a fringed biker style stained night-black with blue and green feather patterns and pocket decals made by me. The right sleeve was roses and thorns in vibrant greens and crimson reds, while the left sleeve was bones tossed through the waves. The back pannel was my namesake, a raven in silver and gold with wings spread, with azure wings meeting in a star at the center of it's breast.
My mask was the last, and most important, part. Halfway between a plague doctor's beak and a Carnival mask, I'd used liberal amounts of tinfoil with a stiffener coating to make feathers to disguise the salet helmet underneath and underbody layer I'd built to hide my mouth and face. Head trauma was for suckers. Thus hidden, I started putting on belts #3-6, all of which were getting loaded with paint cans and aerosols. If I was willing to go all out at this very second, I could cover Brockton Central Park in half an inch of paint, and all of it would have deleterious effects. Frictionless surfaces, abrasive surfaces, repulsive surfaces, I didn't particularly care- I could change the environment at a whim.
The problem was, I had to get out of Shantytown. Since I was about as sneaky as someone moving a piano, I couldn't just stealth my way around like some kind of urban ninja. No, I needed to think outside the cardboard box. I needed to improvise, adapt, and work smarter, not harder.
Which was why I was behind the Wal-mart, using a little nitric acid to cut through the steel bands that held together a pallet of waste cardboard. Once my prize was free, I sprayed out a quick outline on the parking lot, and got to work. Via the power of my working brain, I had a Stick Together coating, and a Waterproof coating. Therefore, I had the ability to construct a waterproof container if I had some material to use as a solid layer to apply the coatings to. After that, what was a boat except a waterproof container with me in it?
Well, a waterproof container that wouldn't kill me. Throwing the cardboard around, I opened up my can of stick-together, and started brushing it on all my components liberally. Once the hull was assembled, I flipped it over and started smearing on the waterproofing. Soon enough, my work was done! One cardboard canoe, ready to roll!
In retrospect, not the most tinker-y of inventions, but I didn't care. Taking it over to the 'public beach' that was mostly beer bottle tabs and heroin needles, I threw it into the ocean and jumped in. Pulling myself in, I started yelling as it folded shut into an envelope, getting me soaked. Right, structure. Boats needed structure. Going up to a public trash can, I took the bag out and dumped it on the beach, before pulling out a can of stiffener coating. Letting the wind hold it straight, I quickly got my support structure built, and soon enough the Cardboard Boat (mk2) was ready to go, with me even having a paddle made from litter and glue.
I'd gotten about halfway to the Rig when someone deigned to come out and meet me. Standing on thin air, a Grecian-themed hero looked down at me, shield and spear at his back. Triumph, obviously, looking like a classic hero while I looked like an Alcatraz escape attempt.
"Hello." I said, grumbling as a wavelet washed over the gunnel of my boat. "Fancy seeing you here. Got a rope?"
"No." Triumph said, looking at me like I was a bit of an oddball. I couldn't blame him, though. "Any particular reason you're in the Rig's waters?"
"Because I'm trying to get to the Rig." I grumbled. "Gotta go there to sign up for the Wards, right?"
"You're trying to become a Ward?"
"Could I get out here in a shitty cardboard boat otherwise?" I asked, waving at my failboat angrily. "I'm a Tinker. I build shit."
Triumph shrugged. "I'll ask them to send a boat for you? That thing looks miserable."
"Yeah. No shit." I groaned, waving my cardboard-and-two-liter bottle paddle in the air dejectedly. "Please ask them to hurry? I can keep the cardboard from soaking through, but I can still sink the old fashioned way."
Triumph nodded exaggeratedly, before he moved off. I just doggedly resumed paddling over. The Bay was cold and salty, but my costume was doing just fine at keeping it from chilling me. That head-to-toe underlayer really helped, even if I was worried the brine would mess with some of my other coatings. A matinence shot wouldn't be too hard to arrange, though. It took about ten minutes before that rescue boat came out to get me, though, and I sighed. It was full of troopers with containment foam guns, and a particularly grumpy one was there leading them. As they pulled up aside me, one of them looked over.
"You alright, kid?"
"Never better." I replied sarcastically. "Throw me a rope!"
A rope was thrown, and pretty soon I was sitting in the rescue boat. Apparently, since my cardboard canoe was 'claimed to be tinkertech' it had to get dragged aboard too, filling the bottom of the boat with water. It didn't take long to get to the rig, though, and pretty soon I was sitting in a conference room, huddled around a cup of shitty office coffee waiting for my 'heroic' paperwork detail. It came to me eventually in the arms of a pair of troopers flanking a lawyer, who started putting documents on the table carefully.
"Soooo, this is where I sign my life away?" I asked idly, rolling my neck. "I don't get to at least see my lawyer?"
"Technically speaking, I am your lawyer." the lawyer said in the most parasitic of voices. "Juliane DeMarcos. And you?"
"Rabe." I replied, sighing. "Spelled romeo, alpha, bravo, echo."
Yeah, my cape name wasn't exactly the most original. If it was any more bland, the Empire would come knocking for me to recruit, but it was something of my family and fuck 'em if they tried to take that from me. Before anyone asked, it was pronounced ray-bee, not rahb.
"I meant your civil name, not your cape name." DeMarcos asked, looking at me. "I need it for some of this paperwork."
I shrugged. "Respectfully? No. I'd like to talk to one of the heroes first."
"Really?"
"I'm working for them, so yes." I said. "I'm not some idiot who became a cape last night, and frankly I need some garuntees before I'm willing to admit to a lot of things."
DeMarcos sighed. "Are you admitting to criminal acts in front of a public notary?"
"Do I look like an idiot?"
One of the troopers chuckled a little.
"Strike that." I said. "I'm not admitting to any crimes, but I will say I need certain guarantees before I can make my ties with the Protectorate ironclad."
"Miss Militia is on base at present." DeMarcos said, looking over some of my forms. "Would she work?"
"Certainly." I replied, stretching my hands and undoing the topmost layers of bandoliers of paint I had. I was carrying something like twenty pounds of paint on those- they got heavy! It wasn't long until Miss Militia showed up, and I had to stand up to move over to her and shake her hand. She was, as far as I was concerned, my new boss.
"Welcome to the Protectorate East-Northeast. You were interested in joining the Wards?" she asked, and I nodded.
"Absolutely. My name is Rabe, and I'm a Tinker with a specialization in coatings and coating manufacture. Before I join up, though, I have some questions, mostly regarding my costume and my tools."
Miss Militia blinked a little, and made a very practiced- and overlarge- nod. "Ask away."
"First problem- costume." I said, stretching an arm out. "I've got a good amount of time and money invested in my current equipment, and I don't want it to get thrown out. Since there's nothing overtly threatening in it, I was hoping I could keep it, or at least get a month or two for transitioning it over."
"Most Tinkers do their own suits, so I doubt they'll have a problem unless you start putting problematic imagery in it." Miss Militia responded. "Do you really need all that equipment, though? That has to be at least twenty kilos of paint you brought with you."
"I brought literally everything I had." I said, shrugging. "The Merchants had caught wind of my hideout, and I have no interest in getting a needle of heroin shoved up my arm. Second issue, though, is my past. I had associations with the Merchants, and I don't want that coloring my time here. More importantly, I no longer have legal guardianship."
"As in your parents are deceased?"
"As in we're all deceased." I said, shrugging. "Highway accident- a tanker rolled and burned. I made a shelter, rode it out. My parents didn't make it, but I was declared legally dead anyway. I need that fixed."
Miss Millitia laughed. "Okay, that's certainly the most interesting Ward backstory I've heard for a while, but we can fix that. A lot of wards of the state choose to come to us if they get powers. We can fix that paperwork issue right up."
I smiled. Two conditions down, one to go. "Last thing, probably a small one. I live here now."
"Excuse me?"
"I live here now." I clarified. "I'm gonna be on call to you guys whether I like it or not, so y'all might as well spot me a bed, and I'm not living in some converted crack house with a foster family."
"We have a Ward's Quarters, but having someone live there full-time would be a bit unusual." the heroine murmered, cupping her chin. "Even if Vista has to be bodily reminded she does have parents… hmmm."
"I'll take a couch. Doesn't even have to be just my couch."
"What do you think, DeMarcos? Can we spare this young man a couch?" Miss Militia asked rhetorically, before being met by a grin from the lawyer. "Y'know what, I think we can do better than a couch. C'mon, we're gonna go visit the Wards."
I blinked under my mask. "Really?"
"Just sign here first." Miss Militia said, grinning. With a sigh, I opened my jacket to pull out a long-nosed fountain pen, which I slipped a cartridge into and pressurized before signing both my cape and real names to the document. Once I was done, we were off. It was a while before we got to the base of the oil rig, and Militia signaled the bridge team to fire up the rainbow road.
"We have to go all the way back to shore?" I asked, looking at the upcoming transport vehicle rolling up to meet us. "Really?"
"Wards don't come out here very often, unless you're Kid Win and Armsmaster needs to look something over."
Shrugging, I moved up to the transport and waited for someone to open the APC door. One of the troopers got it for me, earning a muttered 'thanks' as I got into the back end and looked around for a seatbelt. Naturally, there weren't any. Shrugging, I just braced myself in the back corner and watched as my heroic guide got in, settling in for the ride like an old pro. Somehow, as we went down an energy projection bridge, the ride still rocked and rolled like a bottomed-out boomerwagon trying to flail it's way down Archer's Street when it was loaded with nearly a ton of cocaine and two strippers doing a routine on the roof.
Like I said- I had connections in the Merchants. I saw some shit. I drove some shit. And most importantly, I knew that the fastest way to avoid the serious shit was to do some little shit. One of the informal guiding lights of the gang was that you paid unto the gang: either you delt and paid it up to your supplier, you used and fed into your dealer, or you ran jobs for the dealers and suppliers. I'd made most of my real money as a driver, working for 'Pondhopper' who did distribution for most of the heroin dealers in the boarder zone with the ABB. Even before I became a Tinker, I could keep a bargain-basement police scanner working, and that was enough of an edge to keep the shitty green skag delivery truck out of sight and out of mind.
Jolted out of my reminiscing of the good times before Pondhopper got shot for taking a piss in a koi pond, we arrived at the PRT headquarters. Getting out after Miss Militia, I looked around at the barred-up office building. Looked official, didn't it? Glaring at the obvious work, I habitually started digging around in my jacket for a cig. I'd have preferred a joint, but I was going to be a Ward. Probably wouldn't get to negotiate so well if I walked in smelling like a hookah lounge. Cigarette smoke was far more explainable. Getting it to the slot in my mask for it, I saw one of the troopers shoot me a look, before I got a knowing smirk and them stealing the cig. I just aimed the beak of my mask dead at him, holding very still.
The problem was, it was very much a game of you-know-I-know. He knew that smoking inside was prohibited. I knew I needed a smoke. He knew I knew smoking was prohibited inside the building, and that I was underage. I was becoming a Ward, of course I was underage. Therefore, he was acting in my best interests, and I couldn't do anything about it, because I knew that he knew it was in my best interests.
"Rabe, are you coming?" Miss Millitia asked from one of the entry points. I nodded at the trooper. The trooper nodded at me. We had reached an understanding, before I went to join Miss Militia over at the entrance. Pretty soon, we were inside, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. This was going to be home now. The walls might have been wall-colored and the ceiling tiles the depressing off-white that all government buildings shared, but hey! The roof didn't leak. Probably. Pretty soon, we were in another conference room, and my hands started tapping on the table anxiously. Militia just looked mildly serene, before checking a pale green pocketwatch, with faint black Arabic scribbled over the back.
"We've got a few minutes before Director Rennick gets here." Miss Militia said lightly, putting her watch away before tapping the table with her fingers. "Looking forward to meeting your new teammates?"
"Sure?" I replied, shrugging. "I told you, this is just to get three meals a day and a bed. Unless you want me running specialty paint for some idiots to huff, I don't have many other options."
"You really have no enthusiasm, do you." she said, sighing. "They're going to talk to you about that."
Pulling out a deck of cards, I shuffled it silently, before dealing out a field of Solitaire. "Tinker urges ain't exactly nice to us. There were more than a few days I just up and forgot to eat. Give me a few days of good food, and I'll be right as rain. Speaking of, what are the rules for Tinkers? I know I'm not gonna get to give this dump a style, but someone's gonna want something at some point. I ain't not inclined to agree, but I don't want no trouble over it either."
Miss Militia nodded, pulling out a phone and digging through it for a minute. "I'll let Armsmaster know you're interested in the rules regarding tinkertech. He'll be happy someone's finally not going to build things that are obviously about getting around that."
Laughing, I slapped the table at the absurdity of that statement. "You think I was born yesterday? Nah, I just want to know when someone's gonna flip their stack over it. I finna get to build something good, I don' want some stick in the mud to up an yank it off me."
Before Miss Militia could answer, the door opened to admit a young girl in green, with blonde hair and a shallow smile. Behind her was a random overweight woman, DeMarcos, and a man in towering blue armor. Probably Armsmaster? I hadn't seen him in person before, so I was gonna guess Armsmaster.
"Good afternoon." I said, raising a hand cordially while cleaning up my speech. I'd been slipping around Miss Millitia, and while it was nice not to need to mind my finna's and been's, this was too important for that.
"Good afternoon, Rabe." the suit said, sitting down at the head of the table. "I am Director Piggot, and I'd like to say a few things about your paperwork."
I shrugged. The girl in green settled down next to Miss Militia, while DeMarcos came down next to me and Armsmaster just stood by the door like an absolute tool. "What about it?"
"You mentioned that you would naturally be a ward of the state?"
"Well, yeah." I said, shrugging. "Parents are dead, cousin's are in Europe, and Grandpa's in prison. I just don't want to get stuck in a group home."
Piggot's grin started showing far too many teeth. "Perfect. Since the PRT can be an organization that can take legal guardianship, we'll get those balls rolling soon. Until then, DeMarcos will be your legal representitive, unless there's an issue with that."
I stared carefully. This seemed like a trap. "Not right now, no. Am I stuck like this until I'm eighteen, or…"
"We can change legal guardianship if we need to." Piggot said, sorting out a mess. "Now, having taken your requests into consideration, I'd like you to sign this."
I looked at the heroes in the room carefully. "And y'all will have my back, right?"
One earnest nod, and one affirmative gesture met me. Breathing in, I sighed, before I signed on the dotted line. I'd sold my life to the Wards- let's hope they treated it well.
That left one major option- joining the Wards. Considering my 'home' was neck deep in Merchant turf, I'd be throwing myself on their generosity. Two dead parents didn't give me a lot of options, though, and at this point I was tired of dumpster diving for my daily bread. I'd at least figured out my powers, though, and a costume too. I was proud of the costume, honestly, even if it had been why I was dumpster diving for the last two weeks. I'd been working on it every day, and checking it out I smiled. The last layers had finished curing, so it was time to throw that thing on and head out.
First things first, the undersuit. Stripping down to my birthday suit, I pulled on the athletic cup, long johns, and heavyweight socks that made up the bottom half. All of it had been treated to breathe better and wick water, and I'd worn it quite a bit while building the rest- it didn't matter what I did, I couldn't get swamp balls in this. A very important trait of work clothes, that! Next up was the undershirt and my 'gorget', which was honestly just a baklava I'd sprayed over twice- once to make it breathe, and once to make it cut-proof. Once that was all on, I grabbed the dark denim shirt and pants that would make up the next layer. These were where I focused most of my protective work, and I could say with confidence they might be bulletproof. They were certainly cut and stab resistant to what I could do with 'em, at least. Once that was done, and belt #1 was in to hold them together, I went to get my boots. An old pair of Army boots I'd worked over with nearly a dozen coats of work, they were non-slip on a soaped floor, warm and comfy, stab-proof, cut-proof, crush-proof, water-proof, and a couple of other -proofs that I'd worked in and discovered as interactions of different layers of protection. After the boots came the greaves and sabatons- and it had been a fun few days figuring out what everything was called so it wasn't just boot-things- which were one of the few pieces of sheet metal in the entire ensemble. Sprayed to be lighter, non-reflective, and tough as hell, they were a key part of my plan to stay mobile. I couldn't stand and slug it out, not being a brute, so I had to be ready and able to leave a fight. Keeping my legs safe was part of that. Above them came my chaps, black ripstock nylon and one of the few parts I'd actually had to steal. With them came belt #2, and then my vest. Unlike my shirt, the vest's job was a little more specific- it was to protect my protective layer from any sprays or oils I used in a fight, since a destructive effect between a 'cut stopping' coat and a 'speed increasing' coat was all too likely. It was also stainproof. On top of this all came my jacket, and then my mask. The jacket was beautifully decorated by myself, of course, in a fringed biker style stained night-black with blue and green feather patterns and pocket decals made by me. The right sleeve was roses and thorns in vibrant greens and crimson reds, while the left sleeve was bones tossed through the waves. The back pannel was my namesake, a raven in silver and gold with wings spread, with azure wings meeting in a star at the center of it's breast.
My mask was the last, and most important, part. Halfway between a plague doctor's beak and a Carnival mask, I'd used liberal amounts of tinfoil with a stiffener coating to make feathers to disguise the salet helmet underneath and underbody layer I'd built to hide my mouth and face. Head trauma was for suckers. Thus hidden, I started putting on belts #3-6, all of which were getting loaded with paint cans and aerosols. If I was willing to go all out at this very second, I could cover Brockton Central Park in half an inch of paint, and all of it would have deleterious effects. Frictionless surfaces, abrasive surfaces, repulsive surfaces, I didn't particularly care- I could change the environment at a whim.
The problem was, I had to get out of Shantytown. Since I was about as sneaky as someone moving a piano, I couldn't just stealth my way around like some kind of urban ninja. No, I needed to think outside the cardboard box. I needed to improvise, adapt, and work smarter, not harder.
Which was why I was behind the Wal-mart, using a little nitric acid to cut through the steel bands that held together a pallet of waste cardboard. Once my prize was free, I sprayed out a quick outline on the parking lot, and got to work. Via the power of my working brain, I had a Stick Together coating, and a Waterproof coating. Therefore, I had the ability to construct a waterproof container if I had some material to use as a solid layer to apply the coatings to. After that, what was a boat except a waterproof container with me in it?
Well, a waterproof container that wouldn't kill me. Throwing the cardboard around, I opened up my can of stick-together, and started brushing it on all my components liberally. Once the hull was assembled, I flipped it over and started smearing on the waterproofing. Soon enough, my work was done! One cardboard canoe, ready to roll!
In retrospect, not the most tinker-y of inventions, but I didn't care. Taking it over to the 'public beach' that was mostly beer bottle tabs and heroin needles, I threw it into the ocean and jumped in. Pulling myself in, I started yelling as it folded shut into an envelope, getting me soaked. Right, structure. Boats needed structure. Going up to a public trash can, I took the bag out and dumped it on the beach, before pulling out a can of stiffener coating. Letting the wind hold it straight, I quickly got my support structure built, and soon enough the Cardboard Boat (mk2) was ready to go, with me even having a paddle made from litter and glue.
I'd gotten about halfway to the Rig when someone deigned to come out and meet me. Standing on thin air, a Grecian-themed hero looked down at me, shield and spear at his back. Triumph, obviously, looking like a classic hero while I looked like an Alcatraz escape attempt.
"Hello." I said, grumbling as a wavelet washed over the gunnel of my boat. "Fancy seeing you here. Got a rope?"
"No." Triumph said, looking at me like I was a bit of an oddball. I couldn't blame him, though. "Any particular reason you're in the Rig's waters?"
"Because I'm trying to get to the Rig." I grumbled. "Gotta go there to sign up for the Wards, right?"
"You're trying to become a Ward?"
"Could I get out here in a shitty cardboard boat otherwise?" I asked, waving at my failboat angrily. "I'm a Tinker. I build shit."
Triumph shrugged. "I'll ask them to send a boat for you? That thing looks miserable."
"Yeah. No shit." I groaned, waving my cardboard-and-two-liter bottle paddle in the air dejectedly. "Please ask them to hurry? I can keep the cardboard from soaking through, but I can still sink the old fashioned way."
Triumph nodded exaggeratedly, before he moved off. I just doggedly resumed paddling over. The Bay was cold and salty, but my costume was doing just fine at keeping it from chilling me. That head-to-toe underlayer really helped, even if I was worried the brine would mess with some of my other coatings. A matinence shot wouldn't be too hard to arrange, though. It took about ten minutes before that rescue boat came out to get me, though, and I sighed. It was full of troopers with containment foam guns, and a particularly grumpy one was there leading them. As they pulled up aside me, one of them looked over.
"You alright, kid?"
"Never better." I replied sarcastically. "Throw me a rope!"
A rope was thrown, and pretty soon I was sitting in the rescue boat. Apparently, since my cardboard canoe was 'claimed to be tinkertech' it had to get dragged aboard too, filling the bottom of the boat with water. It didn't take long to get to the rig, though, and pretty soon I was sitting in a conference room, huddled around a cup of shitty office coffee waiting for my 'heroic' paperwork detail. It came to me eventually in the arms of a pair of troopers flanking a lawyer, who started putting documents on the table carefully.
"Soooo, this is where I sign my life away?" I asked idly, rolling my neck. "I don't get to at least see my lawyer?"
"Technically speaking, I am your lawyer." the lawyer said in the most parasitic of voices. "Juliane DeMarcos. And you?"
"Rabe." I replied, sighing. "Spelled romeo, alpha, bravo, echo."
Yeah, my cape name wasn't exactly the most original. If it was any more bland, the Empire would come knocking for me to recruit, but it was something of my family and fuck 'em if they tried to take that from me. Before anyone asked, it was pronounced ray-bee, not rahb.
"I meant your civil name, not your cape name." DeMarcos asked, looking at me. "I need it for some of this paperwork."
I shrugged. "Respectfully? No. I'd like to talk to one of the heroes first."
"Really?"
"I'm working for them, so yes." I said. "I'm not some idiot who became a cape last night, and frankly I need some garuntees before I'm willing to admit to a lot of things."
DeMarcos sighed. "Are you admitting to criminal acts in front of a public notary?"
"Do I look like an idiot?"
One of the troopers chuckled a little.
"Strike that." I said. "I'm not admitting to any crimes, but I will say I need certain guarantees before I can make my ties with the Protectorate ironclad."
"Miss Militia is on base at present." DeMarcos said, looking over some of my forms. "Would she work?"
"Certainly." I replied, stretching my hands and undoing the topmost layers of bandoliers of paint I had. I was carrying something like twenty pounds of paint on those- they got heavy! It wasn't long until Miss Militia showed up, and I had to stand up to move over to her and shake her hand. She was, as far as I was concerned, my new boss.
"Welcome to the Protectorate East-Northeast. You were interested in joining the Wards?" she asked, and I nodded.
"Absolutely. My name is Rabe, and I'm a Tinker with a specialization in coatings and coating manufacture. Before I join up, though, I have some questions, mostly regarding my costume and my tools."
Miss Militia blinked a little, and made a very practiced- and overlarge- nod. "Ask away."
"First problem- costume." I said, stretching an arm out. "I've got a good amount of time and money invested in my current equipment, and I don't want it to get thrown out. Since there's nothing overtly threatening in it, I was hoping I could keep it, or at least get a month or two for transitioning it over."
"Most Tinkers do their own suits, so I doubt they'll have a problem unless you start putting problematic imagery in it." Miss Militia responded. "Do you really need all that equipment, though? That has to be at least twenty kilos of paint you brought with you."
"I brought literally everything I had." I said, shrugging. "The Merchants had caught wind of my hideout, and I have no interest in getting a needle of heroin shoved up my arm. Second issue, though, is my past. I had associations with the Merchants, and I don't want that coloring my time here. More importantly, I no longer have legal guardianship."
"As in your parents are deceased?"
"As in we're all deceased." I said, shrugging. "Highway accident- a tanker rolled and burned. I made a shelter, rode it out. My parents didn't make it, but I was declared legally dead anyway. I need that fixed."
Miss Millitia laughed. "Okay, that's certainly the most interesting Ward backstory I've heard for a while, but we can fix that. A lot of wards of the state choose to come to us if they get powers. We can fix that paperwork issue right up."
I smiled. Two conditions down, one to go. "Last thing, probably a small one. I live here now."
"Excuse me?"
"I live here now." I clarified. "I'm gonna be on call to you guys whether I like it or not, so y'all might as well spot me a bed, and I'm not living in some converted crack house with a foster family."
"We have a Ward's Quarters, but having someone live there full-time would be a bit unusual." the heroine murmered, cupping her chin. "Even if Vista has to be bodily reminded she does have parents… hmmm."
"I'll take a couch. Doesn't even have to be just my couch."
"What do you think, DeMarcos? Can we spare this young man a couch?" Miss Militia asked rhetorically, before being met by a grin from the lawyer. "Y'know what, I think we can do better than a couch. C'mon, we're gonna go visit the Wards."
I blinked under my mask. "Really?"
"Just sign here first." Miss Militia said, grinning. With a sigh, I opened my jacket to pull out a long-nosed fountain pen, which I slipped a cartridge into and pressurized before signing both my cape and real names to the document. Once I was done, we were off. It was a while before we got to the base of the oil rig, and Militia signaled the bridge team to fire up the rainbow road.
"We have to go all the way back to shore?" I asked, looking at the upcoming transport vehicle rolling up to meet us. "Really?"
"Wards don't come out here very often, unless you're Kid Win and Armsmaster needs to look something over."
Shrugging, I moved up to the transport and waited for someone to open the APC door. One of the troopers got it for me, earning a muttered 'thanks' as I got into the back end and looked around for a seatbelt. Naturally, there weren't any. Shrugging, I just braced myself in the back corner and watched as my heroic guide got in, settling in for the ride like an old pro. Somehow, as we went down an energy projection bridge, the ride still rocked and rolled like a bottomed-out boomerwagon trying to flail it's way down Archer's Street when it was loaded with nearly a ton of cocaine and two strippers doing a routine on the roof.
Like I said- I had connections in the Merchants. I saw some shit. I drove some shit. And most importantly, I knew that the fastest way to avoid the serious shit was to do some little shit. One of the informal guiding lights of the gang was that you paid unto the gang: either you delt and paid it up to your supplier, you used and fed into your dealer, or you ran jobs for the dealers and suppliers. I'd made most of my real money as a driver, working for 'Pondhopper' who did distribution for most of the heroin dealers in the boarder zone with the ABB. Even before I became a Tinker, I could keep a bargain-basement police scanner working, and that was enough of an edge to keep the shitty green skag delivery truck out of sight and out of mind.
Jolted out of my reminiscing of the good times before Pondhopper got shot for taking a piss in a koi pond, we arrived at the PRT headquarters. Getting out after Miss Militia, I looked around at the barred-up office building. Looked official, didn't it? Glaring at the obvious work, I habitually started digging around in my jacket for a cig. I'd have preferred a joint, but I was going to be a Ward. Probably wouldn't get to negotiate so well if I walked in smelling like a hookah lounge. Cigarette smoke was far more explainable. Getting it to the slot in my mask for it, I saw one of the troopers shoot me a look, before I got a knowing smirk and them stealing the cig. I just aimed the beak of my mask dead at him, holding very still.
The problem was, it was very much a game of you-know-I-know. He knew that smoking inside was prohibited. I knew I needed a smoke. He knew I knew smoking was prohibited inside the building, and that I was underage. I was becoming a Ward, of course I was underage. Therefore, he was acting in my best interests, and I couldn't do anything about it, because I knew that he knew it was in my best interests.
"Rabe, are you coming?" Miss Millitia asked from one of the entry points. I nodded at the trooper. The trooper nodded at me. We had reached an understanding, before I went to join Miss Militia over at the entrance. Pretty soon, we were inside, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. This was going to be home now. The walls might have been wall-colored and the ceiling tiles the depressing off-white that all government buildings shared, but hey! The roof didn't leak. Probably. Pretty soon, we were in another conference room, and my hands started tapping on the table anxiously. Militia just looked mildly serene, before checking a pale green pocketwatch, with faint black Arabic scribbled over the back.
"We've got a few minutes before Director Rennick gets here." Miss Militia said lightly, putting her watch away before tapping the table with her fingers. "Looking forward to meeting your new teammates?"
"Sure?" I replied, shrugging. "I told you, this is just to get three meals a day and a bed. Unless you want me running specialty paint for some idiots to huff, I don't have many other options."
"You really have no enthusiasm, do you." she said, sighing. "They're going to talk to you about that."
Pulling out a deck of cards, I shuffled it silently, before dealing out a field of Solitaire. "Tinker urges ain't exactly nice to us. There were more than a few days I just up and forgot to eat. Give me a few days of good food, and I'll be right as rain. Speaking of, what are the rules for Tinkers? I know I'm not gonna get to give this dump a style, but someone's gonna want something at some point. I ain't not inclined to agree, but I don't want no trouble over it either."
Miss Militia nodded, pulling out a phone and digging through it for a minute. "I'll let Armsmaster know you're interested in the rules regarding tinkertech. He'll be happy someone's finally not going to build things that are obviously about getting around that."
Laughing, I slapped the table at the absurdity of that statement. "You think I was born yesterday? Nah, I just want to know when someone's gonna flip their stack over it. I finna get to build something good, I don' want some stick in the mud to up an yank it off me."
Before Miss Militia could answer, the door opened to admit a young girl in green, with blonde hair and a shallow smile. Behind her was a random overweight woman, DeMarcos, and a man in towering blue armor. Probably Armsmaster? I hadn't seen him in person before, so I was gonna guess Armsmaster.
"Good afternoon." I said, raising a hand cordially while cleaning up my speech. I'd been slipping around Miss Millitia, and while it was nice not to need to mind my finna's and been's, this was too important for that.
"Good afternoon, Rabe." the suit said, sitting down at the head of the table. "I am Director Piggot, and I'd like to say a few things about your paperwork."
I shrugged. The girl in green settled down next to Miss Militia, while DeMarcos came down next to me and Armsmaster just stood by the door like an absolute tool. "What about it?"
"You mentioned that you would naturally be a ward of the state?"
"Well, yeah." I said, shrugging. "Parents are dead, cousin's are in Europe, and Grandpa's in prison. I just don't want to get stuck in a group home."
Piggot's grin started showing far too many teeth. "Perfect. Since the PRT can be an organization that can take legal guardianship, we'll get those balls rolling soon. Until then, DeMarcos will be your legal representitive, unless there's an issue with that."
I stared carefully. This seemed like a trap. "Not right now, no. Am I stuck like this until I'm eighteen, or…"
"We can change legal guardianship if we need to." Piggot said, sorting out a mess. "Now, having taken your requests into consideration, I'd like you to sign this."
I looked at the heroes in the room carefully. "And y'all will have my back, right?"
One earnest nod, and one affirmative gesture met me. Breathing in, I sighed, before I signed on the dotted line. I'd sold my life to the Wards- let's hope they treated it well.