Alexander - Thalia
Location: Near Eden (18 -> 22)
Skills: Stealth, Survival, Shield, Sharp Weapons, Navigation
Finding Thalia was easier than he had expected, seeing her waving at him to get his attention. That was one T down, another T to go. Alexander, now back in his boots, made his way quickly up to group up with Thalia as she began the briefing. The Blues going off like that was only a halfway surprise to him, something that was concerning but not directly endangering to their task. The fact that Thana thought they weren't alone however, was. Alexander couldn't hear anything at first, but then he could swear he made out the faint sounds of movement in the trees. The vet pulled out his 9mm to check it, holstering it again as he grabbed his axe. Compared to Thalia, he felt brutish with an axe compared to the silent machete.
For a moment he wondered if she thought so too when asking if he was any good not being seen, possibly refering back to his little musical-incident. But the moment passed, and he thought of it as a serious question. With a self-dissapointed look and the universal sign of "No", Alexander silently shook his head. He had been the one being silently stalked by Charlie, not the other way around. He still couldn't see any hostiles, but kept looking for the smallest sign to point them out. An enemy that would meet the end of his axe if unfortunate enough, which was silent 'enough'.
A grim look took hold of Thalia. Not the sort of look that she had given Alexander earlier in the day; that had been more rooted in annoyance. This was more of a contemplative, tactical assessment of their situation based on what she knew of his capabilities, her own, and what they had on hand. Guns were right out. Last resort, and in a retreat. Their cover hadn't been blown yet, and if she had anything to say about it, it wouldn't be. Whomever this person or persons were, they had to be silenced before she and Alexander made their move. Sneaking around wasn't the best option.
"Alright, I need to handle this quiet." she said at barely a whisper.
"Then we gotta to find that Navy chick." It was a truth, or at least it was the plan. Hopefully nothing bad had happened to Thana. It was likely that she wasn't discovered yet, otherwise there would be a bigger Edenite presence out this way, she figured. But she'd better have a damn good reason for abandoning her group behind enemy lines like this.
"Hey, when I go out a ways, could you throw something small into the water? Out that way?" Thalia pointed out into the lake, up the bank near where she heard the noise. If this guy wasn't distracted by the cannon fire, she wanted any attention directed away from her position.
Splitting up the party was not something Alexander wished to repeat, but he guessed he understood Thalia's way of thinking. If she could be the quiet one and do her business in silence, he should be far away as not to give away her position. Hopefully this time they wouldn't be all by themselves like on the golf course, because he was not sure if pushing their luck like that would pay off more than once. Then again, taking out that Edenite seemed easier than crossing the snowy golf course then.
"She can't be too far. She needs us." was Alexander's silent reply to Thalia, hoping he was right. And then she came up with a simple plan. Simple, but one would be surprised on how many times a simple plan worked. Alexander looked around his feet, finding a stone just a little smaller than his palm and picking it up, feeling its sharp and rough edges against his skin. Looking back up at Thalia, he gave a determined look and a signal of his thumb and index finger connected.
"Affirmative." "Yeah..." breathed Thalia. She gave a quick scan of the ground around her, noting where the snow was present and where it was not, likewise for leaf litter. It was an easy thing to lose track of and one of the surest ways of getting herself noticed. Slowly at first, she began a zig-zag path over toward the sounds of rustling footfalls, quickly building speed as she continued. It didn't take long until she stood in a midpoint between Alexander and the source of the noise. It was a single man, probably out walking the perimeter when the TANK fired off a round and got everyone's attention. He was alone. Armed, but alone. And to echo Thalia's luck recently, he was standing on the other side of a mass of fallen, exposed leaves. The second she set foot to approach, she would be spotted. All she could do now was get as close as possible undetected and wait for the situation to change. This would be soon, or they would have to make their own opportunity.
Thalia's newly acquired Beretta would be counterproductive right then, so she tucked it back away. She moved her cutlass-bladed machete over to her dominant hand and tensed to move quickly from behind her cover. She could barely see Alexander at this point, but she could see him. Hopefully, the older man could see her, too. Thalia motioned with to him, signalling that she was ready.
With Thalia gone like the wind, making her way towards that special Edenite like a silent leafe blowing away, Alexander was struggling to keep her in sight. She was stealthy, he had to give her that, like a camouflaged sniper crawling his way into position to pull of the perfect shot in a few days time. Regardless of past events, he was glad to have her on his side. He fumbled with the rock on his hand, as if getting to know it as a friend that would save his life someday, waiting for a signal. Too early or too late, and Thalia's cover would be blown faster than a F-4 Phantom dropping something bad on Charlie.
For a second the vet thought he had lost her, narrowing his eyes in attempt to localize her again when she darted back into sight. She gave him the signal. Alexander clutched his rock tightly, stretching his good arm way back before thrusting it forward, throwing the rock as best he could, like chucking frags inthe jungle. It hurt a little actually, most likely from the cold still not giving up on him, but it worked. He hoped it would, as the rock finally hit its mark with a satisfying sound.
The nanosecond that the sound of the rock hitting water reached Thalia's ears, she was off at a sprint. There was more ground to cover than she preferred, given the circumstances. Between the distance and the minefield of crunchy things underfoot, she didn't bother to hope for a cleanly undetected approach. This was all about nailing the poor bastard before he could alert others to their presence. In seeming slow motion, the Edenite's head whipped back around, eyes locking with Thalia as she pounded out the last few steps toward him. Her blade lanced toward his ribcage with the slightest, stabbing arc, using the shield as a steadying counterbalance to the force of her strike. The point made connection and sank into the man, but with great resistance - it was as if he were were armored beneath his plain-looking jacket. He had begun to yell something, a potential bellow cut short at an exhalation of a loud "H" sound as if he were about to call attention to his location with a "Hey!" or scream "Help!" before the machete bit into him.
His wound was not mortal, sadly. It was painful, but he was still in the game as he proved by grabbing Thalia's arm and raising his gun. Before the barrel aligned with her, Thalia gave a quick jab with her shield arm, bashing the side of the man's face with the steel rim. The machete stayed lightly embedded in the Edenite's side, pulling away from her grasp as he stumbled back, closer to the water. The last thing that she wanted was for there to be too much distance, especially where a gun was concerned. Thalia pressed forward, slamming him in the head again and dropping the bastard to the ground. With one hand on the side and one on the handle, the half Latina shieldmaiden lived up to her title by bringing the rim of the shield down over and over, bashing a distorted, bloody canyon into the downed man's cranium.
Alexander couldn't see much of Thalia's handywork. In fact, he couldn't see anything of the fight between her and the Edenite guard standing between them and their lady in Blue. He could hear something, but that was drowned by the sounds of the TANK keeping up its fire like any good tanker would. For a moment he was afraid that she had stretched her luck far too thin and gotten herself into a situation she couldnt un-fuck herself out of. He even began to move slowly towards her location, when he finally saw signs of life; Thalia. Alexander moved up to her just in time to see the mess she had left behind, and he couldn't help but feel equally impressed as he felt disturbed. He had seen shit before, and this was on par with some of the higher level ones. But the job was done, and that was what mattered. Alexander looked up from the body and to Thalia, giving her a look of approval, albit a silent one.
Thalia would have loved to roll the guy for his possessions. Ammunition was getting a little harder to come by and whatever protective gear the guy was wearing could be easily refitted, but she didn't have the time. If Alexander wanted something on the quick, great. Her mind was elsewhere. Thana was still ahead of them, doing God-knows-what for her own reasons. Besides, if they actually pulled this off, there might be a less urgent opportunity to claim spoils. No, they had to get going. Thalia reclaimed her blade and worked her way to the edge of the treeline, trying like hell to figure out which way Thana would have gone. There was a small copse of trees just ahead of them. Not quite to large as to hunker down in, but enough for cover if they stayed behind it. Past that was a clearing that, true to its name, looked clear. The main event with the tank seemed to be drawing everyone's attention, and Thalia saw no reason not to take advantage of this.
"Come on, way's open." Keeping low, Thalia darted across the narrower opening from the treeline to the small copse of trees near a paved road. The way was, as Thalia described, very open. The larger part of the dash was ahead of them, however. Past the trees one could glimpse movement. They seemed fixated on the low machine sounds of the tank, peppered by gunshots. They could make it through, though a direct path meant going over a rise. The indirect path would take a little more time, but so long as eyes were on the huge piece of WWII surplus machinery causing havoc nearby they could travel it with speed.
"Yah, ok... We're going to stay low and make a run for it. Behind that rise there... and curve over to that recess in the treeline right over..." She pointed out a spot almost directly across the clear area in front of them,
"...there. Got it, Mugsy?" He was a trooper for an old guy, in her estimation, keeping up like this.
"Aaaand, go." There was little reason to scavenge to the body right then and there; if he had ammunition on him, it probably wouldn't fit in their weapons. If it did, who was to say it would work? And if it did, they didn't have time either way to stop then. They had to keep moving. Spending time scavenging was time not spent on getting their asses moving into position. So Alexander followed Thalia's iniative and kept on moving behind her through the treeline and to the edge of it. Before them was an open ground requiring some good ol' fashion running, which the vet was starting to get very tired of by now. But now he wasn't alone, and that did make it seem a little more possible than the golf course.
Alexander listened keenly to Thalia's plan for them to get across, and neither could nor would point out any flaws in it. There simply wasn't time to think. In the heat of battle, the only one to think was the NCO. The rest simply followed orders, and right now Alex was the grunt. When Thalia asked him if he got it, he nodded and looked at their made-out route.
"Got it, Angel. Ready when you are." Alexander whispered back, waiting for her signal...and running like he had never done before. He followed her as best he could in her own footsteps, in case any alternative route could and would make him slip again. This was really going to hurt tomorrow.
The run reminded Thalia of the one that took her across the golf course. Probably not the smartest move ever, but this time there was backup and a huge distraction in play. It was the best way to cover the distance to the most likely staging point for Thana, if she was indeed still in this. Though it seemed like a half hour out in the open, in reality it was just a few seconds of sprinting across grass and snow. When she made it into the arms of the treeline, she did her best to regulate her breathing, despite her shivering and exertion. Going little deeper into the trees, the she caught sight of a welcome sight.
"Hey, Navy." she said in a clear but quiet voice. It was Thana.
"What's the plan from here?"He was kidding. It was already starting to hurt. If the vet had felt the stinging pain in his side at the golf course, he was feeling bayonets instead of pins and needles now. Even as he desperately wanted to stop and catch his breath, he pushed on with a grunt's determination; not to achive victory or glory for his country, but to make sure the top brass didn't have the chance to piss on one later on for failing. Not getting shot was an added bonus, making it a damn good motivation, even for Alexander. He kept on running a little ways behind Thalia, following her into the treeline when they luckily caught up with their lady in Blue. Alexander didn't open conversation like Angel, instead focusing on not breathing loud enough to drown out the TANK.
