---

The machine observes Nero's offering, drinking in every visual detail and listening to him. The offering is... Interesting, but has it's problems. "My RoE set prohibits me from using such a weapon." She responds. "While an anti-vehicle weapon is acceptable, or an oversized shotgun, I cannot use your weapon." The rifle's weapon case shifts in her hands, almost unsteadily. Something didn't add up but... No matter, problem for another day. "Additionally, your weapon is suitable for closer ranges. This gun is suitable for close and more distant engagements. I cannot utilize thrower-style weapons more effectively than most rifles." With that, her explanation ceases, and she once more just observes Nero, almost methodically.

Nirrti receives Laurey's response, leaving her with a little read indicator. No response is needed here, they're on the same page now, though she does run through plans for self-maintenance if something does happen to Laurey, the thinking by the machine getting to the point active cooling kicks on to cool herself down. Her thoughts bring up multiple potential solutions depending on her damage state. Took some armor damage or lost an arm? She figures it'd be easy enough to get to a contractor to have them fix her up. Loss of legs or frame distortion? That might be something she can't deal with easily, she thinks. Some concern is brought up over critical structural damage, as she doesn't know if Joey could perform combat repairs. She also doubts Anne's ability too, large digits may not work well with tight parts in small areas, but does recognize Anne would be suitable for heavy lifting as a human surely could not lift her chassis, probably. As for Shineyd... She'd need to prove her worth before being allowed to poke around inside Nirrti.

While considering what to do if she were fatally, for a machine, damaged in a fight, she comes up with a somewhat unsatisfactory, but necessary solution that's come up time and time before. Just don't get shot at. Easier said than done, for a massive death robot. She also returns to the earlier concern about losing a leg, considering potential upgrades giving her four legs instead of two for redundancy. Such a thought is quickly tossed out for being too complex to maintain, and far too expensive to make the metal and source the mechanical workings. She also considers that having four legs wouldn't be that effective either, as the configuration would still result in her being crippled if she lost a leg.

---

Ki'Tlex had spent the week acclimating themselves to their new home, their new team. And if they were being honest neither was much different than what they were used to. Cramped quarters that were slightly too small for everyone in them, lots of sitting around waiting for something to happen, and the knowledge that they'd be massively outnumbered whenever it did. Interstellar piracy and galactic terrorism shared similarities in terms of mechanics if not morality, or at least perceived morality.

Ki wasn't so delusional as to pretend that their previous career was better than their current one but they did wonder about the ethics of the shadow war they were now fighting. Even accounting for the vast differences in Kel'ta and Human aging the 'Star Marines' were very young. Lethal no doubt, but adolescents nonetheless. Most cultures would not think to recruit their young unless the stakes were truly dire, salvation or destruction hinging on every last able-bodied person picking up arms. Besides the loss of innocence there were practical concerns as well, the wisdom of teaching someone whose brain was still developing how to kill dubious at best.

That last point seemed especially important considering the string of disasters that had hit the little insurgency recently. But Ki'Tlex wasn't there to critique morals or second-guess Moonstrike's choice in troops. They wanted to see how their new organization worked in the field.

They had listened impassively to the Fool's briefing, taking note of the fact that they were being given the unenviable job of putting their foot on a landmine to see how much pressure it could take before going off. Fair enough, they could do that...it just would have been nice to have their anti-personnel/vehicle/light aircraft robot with them. The one that was practically invulnerable to small arms fire, could cast magic, and carried a giant shotgun that fired half-pound shells. That would have been helpful.

Ki'Tlex saw Anne as an investment and a dear one at that. They had risked their life snatching her out of the Ascendancy's armory and done so again boosting the parts needed to make her operational. And then there was the pile of credits that had been dumped into repairs and rearmament, a sizable sum spent on making sure their tool was in the best condition so that it would serve them well. Having it taken from them, even temporarily, rubbed Ki the wrong way. Oh well. Divide and conquer, try not to get divided and conquered in turn. Oh and keep the infant they were lugging around from getting spaced. That would be unfortunate.

Ki kept their selfish thoughts firmly on their side of the dividing line, vague disappointment at being separated allowed to reach Anne without any of the deeper context behind. AI was tricky, prone to forming its own opinions and goals if not watched. Ki did their best to nip any of that in the bud by feeding Anne lies, and Anne was evidently content to believe them.

---

A mission! She going to go out on an actual real-life mission with a proper chain of command and everything! No more running combat simulations in her head or analyzing her weaponry for any inconsistencies, she was actually going to go out and get shot at! Wafer-thin circuitry transmitted impulses through a matrix of chips and wires, the informational input filtered past her artificial conscious so that it spit out an emotion: excitement. She was excited to go out into the field, excited for a chance to prove herself to her new friends and her best buddy Ki.

Anne was keenly aware of the fact that she had been designed to take pleasure in combat ops, her Ascendancy programming entirely reworked but not scrubbed clean. She was supposed to find war fun so that she was easier to order around and she didn't mind that. She had certain requirements she needed to fulfill just like actual living creatures did. The problem was that the loosey-goosey hit-and-run pirate stuff she had been doing for the past decade had been to her what a diet of dry toast would have been to Ki. Now she would be getting a proper meal with salt and pepper and the metaphor was getting away from herbutshewasjussoexcitedtofinallygettobeinarealwar-!

Anne. Please.

Whoops. The rush must have bled over.

Sorry! I just can't wait!

The apology was met with a wave of forgiveness, Anne taking the nonverbal assurance as a cue to go back to walking. The trudge of metal boots over the ship's deck was drowned out by the sound of Joey's briefing, Anne playing the key bits back to herself.

...assist Moonstrike in this Civil War...Nirrti, Queen Anne, myself...Shineyd... right into a warzone...fire right back... rebels just like us...

A flash of amusement rose from Ki's end of the connection before dying down. Anne took notice, pushing a wordless query that was answered by a flood of information. Information, images, feelings, and memories were piled in front of her to be sorted through, all of it run by her learning systems and compared to the swaths of the Net she had archived. It took nanoseconds for a meaning to be worked out:

Infighting is a bad sign in an insurgency. It weakens all groups.

That was true. And Anne did want Moonstrike to win soooooo...she'd just have to end the fight fast.

She walked on, Ki trailing behind her while tending to the baby they had so nobly taken on. Anne could confidently say that Kottle was a good kid, having cross-referenced their behavior and apparent intelligence with pediatric sources on several species.

As luck would have it they wouldn't be splitting up immediately, Anne's squadmate engaged in conversation with Ki's.

"Oh, I can use it though! My RoEs are very open-ended, specifically designed so that I can interpret them as I see fit. In fact-"

"She means 'hello, they and I are looking forward to working with you and them.'"

Ki's relative monotone silenced Anne's artificially gruff one, the machine grateful that she had her friend around to keep her in check. At least she had remembered to keep her volume down this time, speaking in more of a stage shout than an ear-splitting siren.

"Right! I'm looking forward to seeing you in action Nirrti, and I hope you two have fun on your missions."

@FalloutJack @Senhara @jdh97

The problem, on the whole, was that Nero wasn't treating Nirrti as some kind of walking weapon, so he didn't think of it as that when trying to equip the machine. He heard 'I need a large weapon of some kind.', and immediately thought of a big ole' plasma-flamer. It wasn't a terrible idea, per se. It's just that Nirrti knew their own capabilities and what worked better in the field. So, when the eager Marine heard that the flamethrower wouldn't work, he was naturally confused, and then a little dejected. He kinda' wanted to see what the action in the field would be. Maybe Nirrti could've made recordings? It was actually kinda' disapointing, and as he lowered it, you could see that on his face.

"Eh...I'm not that great with guns. And I haven't pulled any special ones off of anyone, lately, so this was all I really got. And you can't have my chainsaw. I'm taking that."

Yes, that's right. The Jaws-of-Slice Super-Cutter was coming with him. It was actually on his back, right now, as he'd hoisted the strap on the way out of storage. It was time for that to get its field test too, you see. Still, as he was about to put the flamer off to the side, Nero spoke up to Nirrti again with a smile.

"After our missions, let's meet up again and talk weapons. Who knows? Maybe I'll get something off of the pirates, and we can watch fight recordings for fun."

Go figure that Nero would be holding a decent conversation with a killing machine. It seemed pretty much up his alley, instead of a normal human being, or even average alien being. Normal people just weren't that interesting. Speaking of which, and most unexpectedly, Blackbeard's Ship Queen Anne's Revenge suddenly chimed in. Of course! The black market mechanoid! The perfect choice! Nero renewed his savage grin as he held it over.

"Well, alright, then! You try that thing out, and tell me if it works out. I mean it. I want recordings from both of you, and we can talk fighting tactics over popcorn or whatever the hell you eat."

It was at this point that he actually noticed Ki'Tlex, who was mostly silent, but had interjected in the middle of QAR's boisterous opening, which Nero didn't really care about, since the machine had said the right things.

"And your the fourth member coming with me, Flame, and other flame-boy. Whadya think the pirates are gonna try while we're tracking them down? I'm thinking space mines with magnetic grapplers or a whole asteroid just set to blow. They like the unexpected and the 'boom'. Any thoughts on that before we take off?"

He was enjoying this just a little too much. The opinion Ki'Tlex had of the Star Marines was likely to get colored funny be the likes of Nero.

The Blowfish is a small craft, and therefore not much room in it to do anything, so what you should do in a ship like this is a whole lotta nothin'. Specifically, what Nero had been doing for the duration was taking up one small nook or corner of the interior and lying against it. Was he asleep, or vibing to the music his Omni-Tool was putting through his mask? Well, you couldn't tell because, of course, the mask...but the fact is that he did doze off at some point during the journey. Fact is, there was a pretty good chance of this, since he'd taped a sign to the wall, stating that 'Nero.exe has stopped working for the moment. Wake up when we're actually there.'. He obviously didn't want to be bothered for most of the trip if he didn't have the luxury of moving around much. Even the vents didn't offer him much to go on...or go IN.

Ah, the vents of a small cruiser... That reminded him...



Nero was a bit kinder, these days, because he'd had significent time enough to relax, and because he didn't actively hate the people around him. So, that was why his note on the wall was just a piece of paper, and not even rude. Furthermore, he didn't silently want to kill Alan when the boy asked his question among those that were here.

"Oh, it'll be the ship that has the most speed and guns you can put on it without compromising it too much. Pirates like surprise attacks, so they wanna move in with speed and gunfire so fast that you don't have time to react, and not very much left to react WITH once you get around to it. Well...it's what I'd do, anyway. I could be a pirate. Pirate is just assassin with more drinking involved."

---

Ki'Tlex had long ago figured out the secret to dealing with long trips in cramped ships: sit down, shut up and get some sleep. Unless you were actively dodging asteroids, missiles, or solar flares there was very little work that went into piloting when in open space, leaving you with far too much time and not enough to spend it on. Complaining wouldn't do more than annoy other travelers, making it a good way to get pushed out the airlock but a bad way to cope. It was better to suffer boredom in silence to keep rising tempers from joining the miserable affair.

Kottle had not learned that lesson yet. Whatever rudimentary thoughts passed through the infant's head were expressed frequently and loudly, gurgling screams and screechy groans echoing off the bulkhead whenever they weren't sleeping. Ki had made the requisite apologies for their charge's behavior which was about as much as they could do.

The infant cried out again as the ship approached Mother, the rudimentary rise and fall in pitch telling Ki two things: Kottle was learning the basics of their shared language, and they were hungry. The adoptive parent sought to encourage Kottle's growing vocabulary, answering the pitiful whining with proper whistling. A remarkable amount of information could be conveyed through the bird-like language but Ki kept it simple: <<Quiet down little one. I will feed you.>>

That was a process best done hidden under their cloak. Regurgitation was the natural way Kel'ta fed their young but humans were prone to being weird about it.

They emerged just as Nero the Self-Assured answered Alan the Pale's question, wiping their mouth clean with the back of a hand while the other three busied themselves in reswaddling Kottle. "It depends on the crew and the circumstances. I and you are in civilized space right now, a military-class vessel bristling with weapons would make any half-decent sensor array light up like fireworks. If they are smart they'll likely be in a secondary shuttle, something inconspicuous. Maybe even multiple ships that will split up and meet somewhere later."

The idea of parity between pirate and assassin made them hum, their equivalent of laughter.

"If the assassin in question is bad? Perhaps. Pirates expect open combat, even if they don't want it. They choose the wealthiest targets that are the least defended so that they can enrich themselves with minimal risk. More importantly, they are largely self-centered. But an assassin is taking a side in some conflict or another, even if only for money. They seek to kill someone of political or martial significance. An assassin who takes no sides is called a spree killer, and they're generally frowned upon."

They were highly qualified to speak on the subject. After all, they themselves were a pirate, a pirate with the memories of an assassin that had died long ago.

Alan the Pale caught their attention, Ki's curiosity enough to make them consider the boy's strange appearance even if they were polite enough to keep from staring. As they understood it, white hair and red eyes were not common in creatures from Earth. Albinism was a genetic defect that made creatures more visible to predators and worsened vision. And while humans had progressed to the point that such a condition was manageable in day-to-day life it was still strange to see it in a supposed soldier.

Although...Alan the Pale's features weren't as pronounced as they would have expected. Perhaps it was a quirk of the tricks played on his genetics.

---

Anne didn't like to second-guess Best Buddy Ki, and second-guessing Best Buddy Ki's friends was basically second-guessing Best Buddy Ki themselves. But she was a battle-bot, loaded up with all sorts of interesting information on the best ways to wage war and crush insurrections, not to mention the tips and tricks she had picked up from her Pirate Pals. And all of this information, all the after-action reports, historical accounts, and simulation results churned down into a stream of measurable data, it all pointed to a hard fact: this was really bad.

Moonstrike was shooting at Moonstrike...no, Moonstrike was being shot at by other people who weren't Moonstrike but worked with Moonstrike and now wanted Moonstrike dead. "Hey, quick question: if all these groups don't want us in charge anymore how come we're still in charge?"

It was a genuine question spoken with no malice even if the harshness of her preprogrammed tone took suggested otherwise.

"Since we're fighting a like, evil empire right? If we're the good guys we should listen when a whole bunch of people are angry about our mistakes. Also if we kill a bunch of them and they kill a bunch of us then there's going to be no one to fight the bad guys. Or uh, the other bad guys. Since we're kinda the bad guys right now."

The appeal to pacifism was undercut somewhat by the last-minute weapon checks Anne was performing, the machine running down the list of ammunition stored throughout her body. There was certainly enough for her primary, and the secondary so kindly supplied by the kid on the ship had enough fuel to melt through quite a few unfortunate souls.

The spaceboat lurched into the fray and Anne clapped her hands with glee, a mechanical giggle rumbling from her speakers as she automatically activated her Magnetize spell. With her boots firmly planted on the deck she could stare at all the pretty lasers shooting back and forth outside.

"I can't really do a lot in here but if you want I can float over to a ship, start smashing it up inside."

That would require opening the door which would be bad for anyone standing by her, but they could always just not do that.

Flame

"Ki'tlex is right," Flame said as he walked towards where the rest of the party were, "Those Pirates will take a shuttle or small ship like what we have, unless they're weirdos."

He then spoke, "By the way, I need to properly apologize for the 'RealAscendancyStockBets' thing. I got a lot of people in trouble, not just you guys, and I'm really sorry about that. I'm also sorry for having said that I and Ashton were 'geniuses' when in fact..." Flame visibly grimaced, "It's up in the air whether we are or not."

Mildly changing the subject, Flame continued, "Now, to find the pirates... I have a plan but its pretty basic - The Korta are free from the Ascendancy Yoke now, and can thus hire anyone they want, including renegade 'Star Marines'. Why would they be hiring us? Because if the Pirates are here, it's obviously for the purpose of stealing something. So I say we pose as mercenaries, which we technically are, and offer our services to the Korta so that they'd give us access to the most likely target for the theft."

He then gestured to the space stations the Korta were showing off around 'Mother's' orbit, "And the Pirates, if I were them, would target the Korta's technological goodies, including the ones they were rumored to have hidden from the Ascendancy; computer super-viruses that can affect Sapient AI, quantum supercomputing, miniaturized antimatter bombs, stuff like that - Note that those are all rumors, though; those might not exist."

Turning to Ki'tlex, Flame said, "Can you pose as someone who 'rescued' a trio of Star Marines from bondage and are now hiring yourself and them out to earn good cash? Or is there a better plan?"

@Smike@jdh97@The Jest

NPC Post - Ascendancy of Man Presidential Palace, Hawaii

Emmanuel Thoreau, President-for-Life of the Ascendancy of Man, had taken the largest island of the Hawaiian archipelago (the Big Island, also confusingly named Hawai'i) for his entire Presidential Palace, destroying most of the old structures to create a gigantic monstrosity of a building complex surrounded by two walls of white marble which surrounded acres of jungles for hunting, plus orchards, gardens, and parklands for pleasure. These in turn were centered around a gigantic Neoclassical-style palace with statues of platinum and carved jade depicting mythological figures of Greek Heroes.

The defenses were top of the line, with every member of the staff carefully watched, drones constantly flying over the walls, and battalions of armed guards conducting frequent patrols. It also didn't hurt that there were methods of defending against attempts at magical assault... None of which were proof against treachery from within.

Aurora Thoreau, the wife of the President-for-Life, was seeking escape from her spouse and had drugged his wine so that she can sneak into an unused basement that held unused furniture, an unused basement where the Timespace Wards which prevented teleportation were weak. Then, she would pull out the tools, a set of keys that glowed brightly with stolen magic, and begin the work of further undoing them; she had to act quickly lest her husband or his minions witness the disturbance in the local magical fabric.

Footsteps can be heard rushing towards her; there were very few guards who valued her above Emmanuel, so Aurora dared not hope in anything but strong locks and a couch of silk and hardwood moved to bar the door. This ought to buy her would-be rescuer enough time... Assuming he was true to his word.

She tore off the scarf from her neck, a silk cloth given to her by a would-be flatterer, but which she herself marked with a magical sign carefully hidden and suppressed even from her husband's own senses - What a sad man who believed what had been done to him, to her, and their families was necessary. And by necessary, he had married her for political reasons and to prove his own father's theory, that a person injected with Kaisoken dust as a child can pass on their powers to their own children, while those injected with the dust as adults could not; something about their DNA being stable?

A loud crack can be heard as the door was broken open, but her contact had opened the needed portal, a rift that connected Earth to a faraway spaceship. She jumped in, and as the gateway closed behind her, she found herself in a large room covered with more magical signs - Spell Marks. At the head of the room were two people, a tall figure, presumably male, in an azure crow mask and an armored long coat, and a middle-aged but still beautiful woman who looked her over, disapproving of her dress and jewels as she tut-tutted and turned to Blue Crow.

"So," she said, "With Arthur's older sister rescued from her husband's clutches, he and the rest of Squad Zero can afford to drop their masks, right?"

"Or they'll hunt us down for jumping the gun," Blue Crow said. "Arthur may be our adopted son, but he told us repeatedly that if we don't stick to our plan, the convoluted plan to save our natural son, we'll be killed."

"Speaking of which, that kid, Snow..." said Blue Crow's wife, "It's hard to believe he's a pilot at such a young age."

"I heard that!" said a voice over the speakers, "Anyway, things will move fast after this; Crowley or Arthur or whoever he calls himself won't take this lying down. We're lucky he won't kill his adoptive brother and future brother-in-law, but he is so devoted to his own mask that if his sister comes to harm, he'll kill us in front of -"

Aurora had jumped into a portal that led to a small freighter once used by the Windsor Autonomous Trading Fleet and repurposed by its current owner into his own personal blockade runner. Said current owner was one Snow Cecil, who was carrying one Blue Crow and his wife with him as they sailed towards Epsilon Theta for a family reunion.

She dared to ask, "Will your son really forgive my brother? You took the latter into your house and got only trouble. First with your son being abducted, then my brother taking on another disguise to watch over him and prepare to dispose of any Star Marines who found themselves truly loyal to the Ascendancy to prevent them from joining -"

Snow was the one who interrupted before any mention of his own former group can be made, "If what I've heard about Ashton Andrews from his parents here is true, he's a good boy... Stock Market craziness aside."

@Letter Bee@Landaus Five-One@FalloutJack@Starlance@jdh97@Smike

GM Post - Moonstrike HQ

As Joey rushed towards the fleet the other Rebel Cells had mustered, the sensors of Team 2's small ship began to register a series of space-time distortions; multiple Spacewarpers, more of them than had been seen since the war, were popping into the area, led by a gigantic dreadnought which had towed in several more ships which had no FTL drive of their own, thus boosting the size of this strange Armada. What were they? Ever since the Windsor Autonomous Trading Fleet was implicated in the RealAscendancyStockBets mess, there should be no human-owned flotilla of comparable size -



But it was the Windsor Autonomous Trading Fleet, resurrected from apparent death or disappearance to swamp both Moonstrike and the other Rebel Cells' fleets with both numbers and ordnance. Centered around Queen Elizabeth II, a trading ship as large as an Ascendancy Dreadnought and which now boasted shields, armor, and row upon row of guns and missiles that made it clear it can act as one. And over open comms, a voice echoed out, the smug tone belonging to one William Windsor of the Autonomous Fleet, whose face flashed on all available screens.



"Greetings, this is William Windsor of the Windsor Autonomous Trading Fleet, and reports of our demise, arrest, and disappearance have been greatly exaggerated," the young man then further explained, "They sent Admiral Laguna after us; we fled before her and took everything with us to deep space. Now we're back, armed and ready to fight against the Ascendancy... As all of us, rebels are committed to doing, yes?"

There was a sharp note to his last word which indicated he knew more than he actually did. This was confirmed when he said out loud, "We have the President-for-Life's wife in our custody; don't ask how we have her. Let's just say that there are revelations which need to be aired, revelations which will make or break the prospects of a united Rebellion."

Two messages would then appear before Queen Anne's Revenge's screen.

Silence Windsor; he's a danger to all of us and a false Rebel! A desperate message from Moonstrike One.

Wait for the First Lady for Life to tell us everything, a mysterious text from someone named, 'Snowy C.'

Which directive would be obeyed, even as the AI would sense her companions mysteriously disappearing?

---

GM Post - Korta Homeworld, Mother

Team 3 suddenly received a transmission from the planet below, a transmission broadcast to all ships in the region:

"The Korta Matriarchy has declared a state of emergency," the speakers of their ship voiced, "Half of the Ascendancy's armed forces have disappeared; so have several human-led pirate bands which had been sighted close to this area no less than a few days ago. Taking advantage of this, a coalition of political dissidents, former officials of the Ascendancy Government, and various ex-military officers have gathered together in the Solar System itself, on the rebellious moon of Titan, to declare the formation of the 'Restored Commonwealth of Humanity'."

Any available screen then lit up, showing what was undeniably Finbarr, surrounded by officers and politicians considerably older than him, standing with a portal at his back and wearing a smart-looking military uniform of white and electrum (a mix of silver and gold), saying, "For far too long we have let the Ascendancy lie to us to keep their own power, directing us against an 'alien menace' they provoked themselves for their own gain! I am a Star Marine, a child they had turned into a soldier, used and abused for their plans! Now, we, those who truly have Humanity's welfare in our minds, have had enough! The President-for-Life shall fall!"

Then, all of them received a mysterious transmission, saying, The Pirates have been dealt with. Go to Episilon Theta to help Ashton and the others.

@FalloutJack@Smike

So...as things went on, their little discussion had hit upon the idea that if the pirates had any sense at all, they'd be using a little shuttle in any place that was civilized, not their main pirate vessel. And that's as maybe, considering that they were out here on a little tugboat to take them basically unawares. Then, there was the comment that pirates were just bad assassins, and this might've erupted into an actual argument if Ki'Tlex hadn't made a comment that just made Nero bust out laughing.

"Oh no! An assassin who's killed people on their own side is bad!"

Take it from his perspective for a moment: Nero had never been on the Ascendancy's side. They forced him through this mess they called a war, and he'd killed a number of people who rubbed him the wrong way or that he simply didn't give a damn about, so he let them die at the very least. Now, after the Rau've had been technically good hosts after capture, they were all fighting against the Ascendancy, big time, since...you know...they were always the bad guys. But anyway, planning continued because there wasn't much else to do around here, and since Nero didn't hate anybody on this boat, he wasn't planning on stuffing anybody in a ventilation shaft.

But then...disaster. A message sent to their ship, along with news of apparently civil war, the mission had been called off. The pirates had been 'dealt with', which could've meant they fled or were killed or anything. This immediately put Nero in a bad mood, making one of the access panels at the rear of the ship the sufferer of the end of his boot.

"Goddamn fucking kill-stealing bastards! I just wanted to stick it to those assholes for making life shitty for us, and now we don't have that! Can't even get a simple mission without something going wrong!"

This went on for a bit, at least until someone reminded him that announcements of whole planets going up in arms to attack the Ascendancy meant that he'd be seeing the most serious action he'd been in since the last war. That would probably calm him down.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



The message regarding the pirates had to come from somewhere, of course, and who better to tell that little ship to get back and regroup than those who had done the deed, and now stood with among the dead? It was hard to tell if they got 'em all. Probably not, but you could definitely say for certain that this particular group of pirates was done for, a glorious mess of blood and bodies. She watched the message go out on her Omnitool while the others checked things out, one hand still wielding a very heavy blade while other implements of gory destruction remained on her back. She read the message again, their rebel band's marching orders, and let off a vicious grin.

"He'll hate it. It will absolutely infuriate him. But he'll love it, after that."

Mary, the Berserker of Squad 0, was like an incarnation of war. They had seen a temper and a lack of restraint in her, and they decided 'Let's run with it', creating the war child that grew to be this dark-haired killing machine with eyes like fire and a delight in pushing forwards into combat and coming out the other end covered in blood that was not her own. She didn't care about the Ascendancy and its politics, only the glorious sensation of battle, the delightful sounds of flesh ripping and bones crunching in her ears, and the freedom to just cut loose and think of nothing...but kill.

You can see, then, why she saw something in another, saw such potential and...kinship...in another among the squads. He was perfection. He hated the war, but instead of making him a whining coward, he exceeded expectation and killed every single person who ever crossed him, taunting them all the way. It was keen workmanship too, such skill with so small a blade... She was hardly sloppy with her own weapons, but it always impressed to see him slip in and out of danger like water. That was why it actually hurt when they had to betray the other squads, the other marines. Most of them were nothing to her, but Nero... She'd told Crowley they shouldn't have left him, that he had a place among them.

That corpse, Ophelia, agreed, but that's because she wanted to possess him, keep him like a pet. Pathetic... May as well try to own fire, but that witch muttered about the boy at every opportunity, and if she thought for one minute that she was going to take him away- ...No. Not now. Not like this. This was a good day. They could finally show their faces again, and some of them might even understand. Nero would, because what he wanted was the same exact thing she hungered for. And in her secret dreams, she would be by his side as they happily killed everyone on Earth...

Not so unrealistic as that, of course. War is coming, Nero. They'll look on in envy as we carve the battlefield apart, and then we can take our time putting them all out of their misery...