I.N.F.L.U.X. [ I C ]

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OOC

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There was a slight breeze northbound as Lieutenant Mark Richards of the Second Ranger Battalion took a deep breath, "Ready gents?" he muttered; his voice barely audible over the local voice communications line. There was a series of green lights on the Lieutenant's Heads Up Display. The Lieutenant scanned the horizon. "Six crawlers, two chargers." the Lieutenant bit his lip. The soldiers of the Second Ranger Battalion had been thrown to this god forsaken planet without any knowledge or Intelligence gathering, so the troops began resorting to calling the creatures they had been facing different names. The Lieutenant felt a bit of worry befall him, he and his squad hadn't heard from The Bastion for almost 24 hours now, the squad was running low on food and ammunition, among other essentials that would keep the unit combat efficient; with no real exfiltration plan in sight.

The Lieutenant hummed, "On my mark, I want this clean." turning towards the twelve men in his squad, who all nodded in unison.

The squad advanced across the urban cityscape, emerging from their camouflaged positions, rifles shouldered and fixed in front of them. A series of hand signals and gentle shoulder taps kept the unit moving across the city street in a neat, cohesive fashion. Lieutenant Richards found himself a neat foxhole nearly fifteen feet from his position, and pressed his rifle against the nearby debris formation. "Infareds, Mark your targets, wait for my go."

Suddenly, twelve, luminescent, red lasers shined in the daylight, each laser crossing one another and fixating on one of the undead monsters that were standing in the middle of the street, clueless to their position.

"One, ready."

"Two, ready."

"Three, I've got eyes."

This process quickly worked it's way down the chain of command.

"This is lead, get it done."

In a neat and organized fashion, a barrage of gunfire emerged from multiple positions in the urban cityscape, quickly each round had found their marks, and each of the targets that had a laser pinned against them dropped dead immediately. Without celebration, the Lieutenant waved his hand, signaling for the squad to regroup. The Lieutenant and his squad were tired, but he was glad that they weren't getting sloppy. The Lieutenant needed to think of something. Some way to get his squad out of this hell-hole, or at least get some support. Little did he know, his squad were among the very few survivors left on this planet. His squad needed a plan, and needed one fast. The Lieutenant gave it some thought, and decided the best course of action was to search for the origin of the planetary distress signal, while dangerous, it may be the only way to get in contact with either The Bastion or link up with other elements of their unit, which were tasked with reaching the same objective. If his comrades were out there, they would be searching for the same objective.

"Five meter spread. Jacobs, Elena, you two have rear security, Blue Element, your eyes are forward. Keep it clean, keep it professional."

The Ranger Squad pressed forward down the street in an even, organized Vee formation, pushing towards their objective in the aggressive fashion typical of a well-trained Ranger unit.

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Graves woke up to the sound of heavy knocking on his door. The Praetorian rolled around in his bed, checking how many hours he had been asleep for on his wrist watch. Before the Praetorian could roll himself out of his own bed, there was a second knock on his door, "Damnit Graves, get your ass out here! We've got briefing in ten minutes." The voice was muffled, but Graves didn't even need to think about who it was. Graves knew full well that there was only one person in the entire galaxy that would have the audacity to knock on his own door. The Praetorian picked himself up and out of his bed, throwing on his service uniform in the most dreary and unenthusiastic manner possible. The Praetorian sighed, pressing the airlock release on his room.

Haven began shouting a string of excessive profanities, closing her eyes in anger as she raised her foot parallel to the door, kicking outwards with the most aggressive kick she could muster. Before her foot could connect with the door, however, the door slid open, revealing her Commanding Officer. Haven opened her eyes, her foot buried in gut of her Commanding Officer. Graves, not even flinching, yawned, "Do you always kick your superior officers or are you just excited to see me?"

Haven grunted, lowering her foot from Graves. "You asshole, if I didn't wake you up, you would have been late for briefing. Again." Haven crossed her arms. "You need to make a good impression today, you're taking command of an entire squad of Praetorians, for Emperor's sake."

"Joy," Graves yawned once more.

Haven bit her lip, "You know, for one of the Empire's finest, you really are a goddamn piece of work."

"Right," Graves yawned again. "Just give me a quick run down of the files you've got on these new squadmates of ours while we head to briefing,"

"What? You mean you seriously didn't even take a look at the files?" Haven buried her face into the palm of her hand.

Graves rubbed his eyes. "I used to get paid to kill people, not read books, love."

Haven sighed, "Alright, I'll give you a crash course, but we really need to leave now or we'll be late."

The two Praetorians left the room and began heading towards the briefing room, Haven opened up the profiles of the seven Praetorians they were slated to work with, and began educating her Commanding Officer on the individual members of the squad. Graves pretended to be interested on the way there, but truth be told he already knew each of these Praetorians very well, just by their aliases. As soon as Haven mentioned a name, he was able to link them to some of their very outstanding achievements. Graves understood that he was working with a very talented and respected group of Praetorians, which cleared some reservations that he had previously. When Graves and Haven entered the briefing room a few minutes later, they found that the room was completely empty.

"Not a very punctual bunch, are they?" Graves grinned. "I might like these guys afterall."

Haven rolled her eyes, "We're five minutes early, they'll probably be here in a few."

Brick walked at a slow, lumbering pace down the hallway. His feet hit the ground with audible thumps due to his large stature. The military fatigues were barely able to fit his huge body as well. The simple recruits he passed easily got out of his way. He liked the fear in their eyes. It gave him satisfaction. His blood was beginning to boil. It had been too long since he had killed. He needed it. Sure, he was allowed to exercise as much as he liked, but that wasn't the same as feeling a skull crush beneath your boot. But it was finally almost time. He would get his satisfaction.

He couldn't admit it, but he missed Omega. He was his partner. His death-partner. Omega enjoyed the killing as much as Brick did. Brick barely got to see him anymore after the first few missions he did. The eggheads just gave him drugs that made him feel sluggish and slow. They were lowering his dose for this mission.

He walked into the briefing room. Two people stood there, a man and a woman who he assumed were his superior officers.

The man was tall and intimidating. Not as intimidating as Brick, of course, but he still looked like a threat. Omega would've immediately told Brick if he was dangerous or not. The man was a praetorian, like the woman. First generation, Brick assumed. If Brick wasn't drugged up he would kill 'em all either way.

The woman was different, she looked to have a sly intelligence. But other than that she was smaller than he was and wouldn't be much of a threat to him.

Brick grunted and maneuvered his way to the corner of the room, leaning up against the wall with an eye on the two.

"Brick. Reporten' fore duty. Hope ya'll will make it quick. Ah'm up fer' some killin'." Brick said with a sneer, he hoped this wouldn't take too long.

Quote:

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"Not a very punctual bunch, are they?"

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"I assure you sir I am never late for an assignment" Raiden thought to himself as he observed all the others in the room. He had been waiting just outside the conference room for the Commanding Officer to enter. Around the corner, rather. Outside of their view, but he could certainly hear them. His stealth was perhaps a little too good naturally. As soon as Graves entered the conference room, Raiden was immediately behind him "Sir, Second Generation Praetorian, Codenamed Raiden, reporting for duty Sir." Raiden had been given all the relevant files on his team, the mission directives, and a bit more information. As he gave his designation and report, he slid around into their view, placing Graves between him and the door. Always one for awareness, he heard another entering the conference room just before Brick busted into the room with his heavily accented announcement.

"Watch out for this one, he could be a mission... liability" Azzy whispered into Raiden's earpiece. The praetorian leaned out slightly from Graves to make eye contact with Brick as the new praetorian moved into the room. Suddenly, Raiden did a standing backflip, placing himself in the corner opposite Brick, assuming the exact same cocky posture, with his arms crossed and both eyes on the door.

"Was that really necessary?" His AI inquired

"Of course." Raiden whispered back and waited for his C.O.'s response.

Atlas had a casual, quick stride as he cruised down the hallway, sidestepping anyone he happened to come across as he made his way down towards the briefing room. He avoided any attention, the looks and quiet chatter amongst some of the people indicating a massive brute had already passed and his mere passing had spooked a fair amount of people who had laid eyes on him. Shame he didn't have any means to look up what Praetorians were on the mission before hand, they hadn't handed out any real information, but it sounded like at least one of them was a monstrous fellow.

He let his thoughts drift as he approached the briefing room, putting together what he knew so far. Experimental ship, or at least one he had never seen before, plus the addition of Praetorians, which was rarely a good sign for whatever planet was their destination, meant things were going to be rather interesting, to say the least. But he had arrived at the briefing room, and walked on in without any announcement or attempts to stand out.

Three men, and a woman were already here. The first guy that got his attention was the massive fellow, probably the same linked to the various amounts of chatter in the hallways approaching the briefing room. Another guy was in the middle of doing a back flip over to the large fellow for, as far as Atlas was concerned, no good bloody reason what so ever. But, to each their own, he wouldn't make a comment about it at all. This left the woman, who had an intelligent look about her and the other man, who certainly had that intimidating look about him, but in a far more dangerous way then the large fellow did.

Having showed up after the current folks, he missed any introductions, but offered an easy salute while reporting in. "Atlas, reporting for active duty." He kept a distance from the flippy guy and mass of muscle, might as well leave them room for whatever gymnastics or other such shenanigans would be engaged in.

"Crap!" Only moments before had Seraph looked at the clock and noticed that it was only eight minutes until the meeting was going to start. She quickly jumped out of bed with a quickness of a cat and started to dress in a simple tan t-shirt and navy blue cargo-like pants that she was issued. Truth be told, she enjoyed the uniform given to her outside of the ECLIPSE battle suit though she felt much safer inside the battle gear naturally. The woman cracked her neck a bit and sighed, putting on combat boots and tying the laces tightly, frustrated that she had gotten up so late.

Iadia had put herself into sleep mode last night after Seraph insured the A.I. that she wouldn't be late for the briefing, which was true, but she was cutting it very close. Iadia was a prototype A.I. - a computerized chip that had been implanted into the Praetorian's brain and when she went into sleep mode, it was often the quickly growing speed of Seraph's neurons that activated the A.I. As the woman grabbed her personal items such as her I.D. card and pressed the door for the airlock to open, a digital female-like voice echoed in her mind, 'don't be late.'

'Smart-ass,' Seraph thought back to the A.I. as she smirked to herself. Even if she had felt alone almost all the time and knew very well that she had no family, no friends, and certainly no lovers to speak of - at least she was thankful for the A.I.'s company, to keep her sane and mentally healthy or at least not unstable. Seraph jogged through the hallway, weaving by people and hardly paying attention to all the whispers and chatter that they gave off. She was used to it and had expected as much when about nine Praetorians were sent to one ship on one mission - she hadn't even really heard of so many of them gathering before this.

As the fifth one to show, she nearly burst through the doors to see half of the unit already here and took a quick look, instantly raising her brow. 'Why are those two just.. like.. staring each other down? Am I going to have to contend with an overdose of testosterone here?' she thought, knowing Iadia would pick up on her thoughts. She smiled slightly, feeling a little embarrassed about bursting into the room like she had and quietly went off to the side - though she avoided the corner out of principle, not wanting to exactly get into whatever those two were doing. However, she wasn't so far off as to not report in properly. "Sir, Seraph reporting as ordered." She wasn't sure what sort of reporting instructions this particular officer wanted to indulge, but using the basic professional version was always safe.

Finally after her reporting in, Iadia decided to chime in, 'you may have to. I know you though. Just be yourself and stay confident. Let others do what they do.' Iadia was right, or at least Seraph often thought so. The A.I. had been with her for years and helped her learn life-lessons that she may have otherwise missed out on. Even if Iadia hated seeing the woman be so alone, it knew so very well that you couldn't change a person and there was no truth in friends if you weren't yourself. Instead, the A.I. just did it's best to keep Seraph motivated, focused, stable, and in high spirits.

I remind you that you do have a briefing in 30 minutes Tharon. I’d suggest you start preparing.

Tharon opened a single eye, if a bit lazily, at the faint buzz that alerted him to the new notification. He raised his left hand and from it, out appeared a small window, Sakky’s method of communicating with him when out of the Eclipse armor. It flashed to catch his attention as he read the message and he yawned a bit after he finished. Slowly he stretched out his stance and let his meditation finally come to an end. Looking at himself, certainly his clothes were a bit too casual for meeting with a superior, a white exercise shirt and cargo pants. Then again he was meeting Graves, not some stuck up officer so Thoran figured he’d be fine. Even if he wasn’t at most he’d get into maybe a bit of trouble, might get hit a few times, nothing big.

With a light tap on the window, a keyboard made of light, sprung out onto the air. Got it. Thanks for the reminder. he typed in blazingly fast, his hands having gotten used to operating and manipulating the portable computer over the years.

As always.

Thoran frowned a bit at that, though not really concerned, but Sakky’s personality seemed to have developed sarcasm some time ago. With a small shrug though, he closed the window and let his hand drop to his side before shuffling out of his quarters. The hallways were already busy as staff and crew were already hard at work. The occasional person gave him a slight nod, wave or greeting, all of which he returned, making his way slowly over to where the briefing was supposedly meant to be held. It’d be interesting to see who was in his new squad; though he prayed there weren’t any Second Generation Praetorian, fat chance of that. While he himself was one, he’d seen how others of his kind worked in squads and it could be described in word, badly.

His thoughts kept him occupied for the slow walk he made through the ship’s winding corridors. Eventually the number of people around him grew less and less, a sure sign he was heading in the right directions. There were many jobs to be done on the ship, but very few involved being near the briefing rooms. The scene he was greeted with was an odd one though. Two stoic faced guards stood at attention at the room’s entrance, and from what he could hear through the thick steel door it seemed he was hardly the first. He cracked his neck as the metal door opened with a hiss and gave a small little casual wave, unbefitting of a military address.

"Ello, ello. I'd be Thoran." Now he waited for someone to bite his ear off, smack him silly or a combination/variation of both. He made sure to step out of the room's doorway first though, letting anybody who was running along behind him free entry. He didn't know why, but he had a strange feeling that in some place, some time it had been a big problem.

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Graves' eyes lulled back and forth between the corners of the conference room when one of the Praetorians walked into the room. It was obvious by his large, imposing stature that he was none other than Brick. "Clearly compensating for something." The old veteran mumbled before he felt a swift kick to his leg. The leader of Archangel squad looked down at his subordinate, who clearly heard what he had said and was giving him a nasty look. "I meant that in a good way, of course." Graves added. "Sure you did," Haven remarked, crossing her arms in the most unamused fashion. Before Graves could greet Brick, the Praetorian suddenly noticed a figure perform a back flip in front of him. "Great, so my team so far consists of a giant rhinoceros and a chimpanze-" Before the officer could finish his sentence, he felt another swift kick to his leg.

"Hello, gentlemen!" Haven began coyly. "You must be Brick and... Raiden. It's a pleasure to meet the both of you!" Graves was mumbling something along the lines of 'Stupid bitch' in the background, but before he could say anything he felt the heel of a boot crush his right foot. Graves held himself back from dancing around the room in pain, squinting as he tried his best not to look like an idiot in front of his subordinates. It wasn't long after another figure entered the room. Graves instantly shot the man a look. Graves was thinking up of some witty remark to say to the new Praetorian, but figured to keep his mouth shut when Haven shot him another look. "Hello, Atlas." Haven remarked, it was obvious Atlas was keeping his distance from the other two, she couldn't really blame him.

As soon as Atlas was out of the way, the two Praetorians watched as the other female of the unit, Seraph, entered the room along with Thoran. The both of them reported in, before migrating to the other side of the room opposite of the rhinoceros and the chimpanzee. "See, I didn't even need to read the files," Graves began with a giant grin, "Those people are the normal, highly-trained, sophisticated, multi-billion credit killing machines." Graves started, pointing in Atlas, Thoran and Seraph's general direction. "and those two are the batshit crazy, multi-billion credit-," Graves instantly shut his mouth when Haven shot him a death stare.

"Shut... The... F*** UP!!!!!!!" Haven shouted at the top of her lungs into the old man's ear. Suddenly all of the clamor in the room fell completely silent, and all eyes were on Haven.

Graves snickered, turning away from Haven, "I think they heard that one."

"....Shit."

Rook had taken extra care to wake up in time for the briefing, even leaving himself some fallback room in case something happens. So when he was nervously going through the corridors of The Genesis, desperately trying to find the right way, Rook could at least find comfort in the thought that he knew himself enough. It was rather amazing how he could get lost in the first place, seeing as the ship was built in a rather straightforward fashion - it was a military vessel after all. It didn't help that all the people he came across gave him curious glances, whether because of his ordeal or the fact that he was a Praetorian, he wasn't sure. Great work on your first day, idiot... he thought when he was going back from another dead end. If only LEE was there to guide me.

After swallowing what little pride he had left and asking for directions, Rook eventually reached his destination. You're the Emperor's elite, you can do this. He paused for a second and checked the time. Still a minute left. There was no sound coming from the briefing room, was there nobody inside? He reached for the handle and paused for a second time, taking a deep breath before opening the door and stepping inside. Indeed the room was already full and Rook let out a quiet "Oh!" as if it came as a surprise. Everyone's gaze was fixed on a young woman across the room, next to their commanding officer - the only person he could recognize. Without paying much attention to everything else, Rook reported in:
"Hello, sir... everyone... Rook reporting in."

The silence was excruciating when Rook took a spot just beside the door. He surely didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself as he quietly leaned on the wall, eyes jumping around the room from one person to another.

Thoran didn’t even bother to hide the massive smile that lit up his face at their commander’s words. “This is going to just be a bundle of fun isn’t it,” he remarked to no one in particular, as he turned to give his fellow ‘normal’ comrades a quick glance. To the ‘batshit’ insane, he simply gave a small head tilt as if he was examining them. Are you trying to start a fight Thoran? Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t. He certainly wouldn’t have had any reserves against finding out how he stacked amongst the pecking order of this squad.

A loud yell pierced his thoughts though and Thoran let another large smile slip onto his expression. He whistled, but said nothing else for if Grave’s reaction to the young lady weren’t enough, Thoran had heard certain rumors that floated between the soldiers amidst the barracks and mess. At least you aren’t suicidal. Thoran grumbled a bit and shook his head. He’d really need to sit down and have a talk with Sakky about her habit of comments when he was unable to respond…

His attention was peeled from Haven and her little outburst at the hiss of the door. He turned to take a glance at the newcomer and smiled at the shaky introduction he gave. Looked pretty young, about his own age, so he was almost certainly a Second Gen. He'd seen three First Gens, if one included Graves, so that brought their total to six Second Gens. “So would you consider yourself normal, or of the more ‘batsh*t’ insane variety?” he asked Rook casually to break the silence, though he was careful to self-censor the word that had so highly offended Haven.

Dusty wandered the halls of the Genesis for quite some time. As Dusty moved towards the bay he listened in to the crew members. Apparently the a new garrison was arriving today. Dusty actually wanted to watch how this garrison worked. As soon as Dusty hit the bay, an officer was yelling commands. Followed by foot steps that were in synch. It was clear that this garrison was filled with veterans. But why they were here was beyond Dusty. Its not everyday that a garrison arrives on a ship. So there had to be a reason. Dusty looked on as the officers did their maintenance work on the garrison. Making sure they were perfect in formation. Dusty remembered the days that came along when he first joined a special operations. He remembered the training, how much he was counted on out of all the others on the field. He payed no mind to some of the crew members that pointed at him. “You do know you have a meeting right?” Dusty wasn't surprised that Karina would speak up like that. He was used to it after all.

“Whats your point?”

“You should probably get moving. You got five minutes to get there.” Dusty nodded and started to make his way to the briefing room.

“I would appreciate if you tell me who I am dealing with.”

“You mean-”

“No I did not read the files. I have an AI that can put it into more simple terms.”

“Right.” As Dusty moved through the halls to get to the briefing room, Karina began to tell him files on his new teammates. Of course Karina got the more updated files so Dusty would know about his teammates well. When he found out his about his squad leader, which was the last file, Dusty was a little confused on the situation.

“So we have an ex-mercenary as squad leader. This should be interesting.” Dusty entered the briefing room. Of course saluting was out of respect. He did so but said nothing. Dusty figured that everyone should know who he is if they read the files or if they got information from their AI, just like he did. “Well, this should be an interesting squad. Especially since there is a number of Second Generations here. Can't wait to see how they operate.”

“Whatever you do, just play nice.”

“No promises.”