FourtyTwo

Formula: Anti-Gravity (An F1 Drive to Survive inspired, Slice of Life, Cyberpunkish/Solarpunkish RP)

That is awesome both of you! With the combined interest- I will set up an OOC tomorrow!

Formula: Anti-Gravity (An F1 Drive to Survive inspired, Slice of Life, Cyberpunkish/Solarpunkish RP)

@LadyAmber

Awesome to have you on board! A Team Principal role would suit probably well for the first one, the last one certainly too, the owner aspect could also play in but would be a tricky one to balance but I'm open to looking at!

@Ocio

Awesome! That sounds like a great idea- we can definitely do that.

Formula: Anti-Gravity (An F1 Drive to Survive inspired, Slice of Life, Cyberpunkish/Solarpunkish RP)

Formula: Anti Gravity

Ultimate Speed. Ultimate Competition. And a heartbeat between defeat and ultimate, savoured, victory.

This is Formula Anti Gravity.

Anti-gravity racing pushes humankind to its farthest, fastest, most elite limit in 2094's season. Bioenergy-fuelled ships that can exceed 500 kilometres per hour and turn like a blur, coupled to complex energy systems, and then, there's the pilots. Enhanced, hyper-reactive, and pushed to their physical limits, and then beyond through implants, synthetic hearts and neural links.

At home, billions watch the fastest, most exciting sport that feels more like watching a boxing fight than a hyper-fast racing series. This is a sport about attack, and if you lack the fight, you'll never see the fire.

Now we pull back the curtain to inside the world of anti-gravity pilots, their stories, their teams and their lives.

Step into the shoes of one of the brand new racers and their team principals, in their first season with an established team, and followed by a meta-documentary crew, filming, following and asking the questions we'd all like to know as they travel the globe and beyond. But only one question really remains.

How far will they go to stand on the top step?

---

So, who is interested in a futuristic, slice of life RP focussed around racing? There's more to follow, but the below can wet your appetite. Teams will also be set out- including a range of approaches and nations, with their own take on the future of racing.

Inspirations and World-Building

Hugely inspired by the Wipeout series, although real-life Formula One, other racing contexts, aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 as well as other solarpunk, science-fiction and other resources tap into this RP. This is an RP that isn't in need of readers to understand any of these - lore and world building will come in very strongly throughout, and any lovers of a futuristic, sci-fi RP with a slice of life chunk would love this RP!

---

(Significantly more world building to follow!)

A world in the late 21st century, this world is one that barely avoided all-out annihilation after natural disasters, climate change, war, famine and disease struck the planet.

And yet, humanity, like it always seems to, avoided disaster by the finest of margins.

Nuclear fusion, asteroid mining, and unparalleled peace in our time. In a moment of the brink, we stepped back as humanity dwindled down to four billion, and outcomes for humanity improved, exponentially. Lifetimes extended, disease and squalor stopped, and humanity rekindling symbiosis with the planet it tried to kill for centuries by restoring our destroyed ecological world. A near-solarpunk utopia, in which well-regulated nation states and blocks such as the European Union, the Mexican work together, rather than over what is left. Prosperity, fairness, kindness.

An end to history?

But of course, that's because people need something else.

Enter Formula Anti-Gravity, a racing series developed after advancements in anti-matter and quantum technology, predominantly by the technology magnate, Royston Pierce (OBE). Ships that could literally levitate off the ground, and when coupled to a biofuel-powered engine, accelerate to speeds almost unfathomable to modern racing drivers. Race circuits sinew on classical circuits, to cutting edge, hyper-futuristic circuits that include magnetic induction and even complex energy systems that allow for energy leeching and pilots to push their craft even faster.

AG, as it's otherwise known, allows for "Ships", which are confusingly crewed by a singular "Pilot", who would look something akin to a modern fighter pilot in full oxygen-breathing equipment and pilot suits allowing them to take inhumane G-forces. With grids of 20 pilots, they are backed by teams that are a mixture of private and public ventures, from entities such as the European Union, Federated United States and many more entities working with new and old countries that have risen and fallen. Ships come with energy shields that allow for impacts, but also for energy management in leaching and boosting, creating a complex dynamic that doesn't just reward the fastest racer, but the one who can work their strategy the best.

The pilots themselves are at the absolute limit- but will be set to quite literally, receive as much work as their ships do. Unlike modern F1, where just the ship receives upgrades- the pilots do too in parallel. Of course, regulations and rules exist to what level they can be modified, but pilots are pushed with implants, upgrades and parts that well, come with positives and costs. Balanced with marketing needs, well, you're not making an entire cyborg out of a pilot!

Oh, and one last thing. For all those who prefer to adjust strategy, the Team Principals are also in the background- not needing much in the way of any implants, but much more focussed on running the show. They decide what upgrades go on, who is hired, fired and kept around, but most of all, have to deliver results. They are feisty characters- and playing one means you better know how to run a racing team at the top level!

Of course, you didn't think it was all clean and perfect? Corporate interests still meddle with racing and world affairs. Eco-terrorism, and the remainder of the world's turbulent past are still present. There's plenty of fundamentals left to ask, between those who want to help push humanity's efforts of global environmental renewal, versus those who want to push humanity into something else altogether, into the stars. There are no easy answers, and there are plenty of shadows still left unaccounted for.

But you're just a pilot, with no say on the matter, right?

---

How will it work?

This RP is an ambitious idea. This RP doesn't actually have any racing (although callbacks and scenes will depict it), but will be run on a basis of a randomiser for races, and will run based on two-part responses to a GM and to the paddock. Working with a team of engineers, sponsors, media personalities, and most of all, other pilots, this is a slice of life RP that also combines interview and conversational elements in the futuristic, glamourous world of Formula AG. Welcome to the top step and a futuristic, top-level sport.

There will be curveballs, dilemmas and as the GM, I will be certain to give you the hardest challenge of them- a three-time winner with a winning streak they don't want to let go.

Posting is divided into two:

A) A question will be asked by an interviewer (the GM) which will come up for your character specifically to answer, and provide insight- this includes aspects related to your character's personality, history and results. This is a "monologue" almost- fleshing out your character!

B) Posts related to your character's personal life, set both off-paddock at the factory, and on-paddock at the circuit.

Character Sheet (WIP)

Name:
Alias: (anything else you are called)
Team: (What group do you belong to)
Gender:
Age:

Personality:

Backstory:

Racing DNA

Overview: (What sort of racer are you? All out speed driving like a glass cannon on corners, an energy systems fiend, or taking a balanced approach?)

Skills: (What else do you have in your wheelhouse? Engineering skills, data or analytics talent, or are you a fashionista, talented at other sports or hobbies that make you stick out?)

Special Trait: (What makes you special? What's your USP- a unique implant, or an extra-ordinary skill that sets you out from the field?)

Controversy :(What's your controversy that follows you around, no matter what you try and do about it? As one of the most scrutinised people in the world, was it an implant that isn't accepted, a thing you did in your younger years, or something else that gets people talking about you?)

MISC
Theme Song:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Other Information: (anything fun you wanna add)

Formula: Anti-Gravity (An F1 Drive to Survive inspired, Slice of Life, Cyberpunkish/Solarpunkish RP)

Formula: Anti Gravity

Ultimate Speed. Ultimate Competition. And a heartbeat between defeat and ultimate, savoured, victory.

This is Formula Anti Gravity.

Anti-gravity racing pushes humankind to its farthest, fastest, most elite limit in 2094's season. Bioenergy-fuelled ships that can exceed 500 kilometres per hour and turn like a blur, coupled to complex energy systems, and then, there's the pilots. Enhanced, hyper-reactive, and pushed to their physical limits, and then beyond through implants, synthetic hearts and neural links.

At home, billions watch the fastest, most exciting sport that feels more like watching a boxing fight than a hyper-fast racing series. This is a sport about attack, and if you lack the fight, you'll never see the fire.

Now we pull back the curtain to inside the world of anti-gravity pilots, their stories, their teams and their lives.

Step into the shoes of one of the brand new racers and their team principals, in their first season with an established team, and followed by a meta-documentary crew, filming, following and asking the questions we'd all like to know as they travel the globe and beyond. But only one question really remains.

How far will they go to stand on the top step?

---

So, who is interested in a futuristic, slice of life RP focussed around racing? There's more to follow, but the below can wet your appetite. Teams will also be set out- including a range of approaches and nations, with their own take on the future of racing.

Inspirations and World-Building

Hugely inspired by the Wipeout series, although real-life Formula One, other racing contexts, aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 as well as other solarpunk, science-fiction and other resources tap into this RP. This is an RP that isn't in need of readers to understand any of these - lore and world building will come in very strongly throughout, and any lovers of a futuristic, sci-fi RP with a slice of life chunk would love this RP!

---

(Significantly more world building to follow!)

A world in the late 21st century, this world is one that barely avoided all-out annihilation after natural disasters, climate change, war, famine and disease struck the planet.

And yet, humanity, like it always seems to, avoided disaster by the finest of margins.

Nuclear fusion, asteroid mining, and unparalleled peace in our time. In a moment of the brink, we stepped back as humanity dwindled down to four billion, and outcomes for humanity improved, exponentially. Lifetimes extended, disease and squalor stopped, and humanity rekindling symbiosis with the planet it tried to kill for centuries by restoring our destroyed ecological world. A near-solarpunk utopia, in which well-regulated nation states and blocks such as the European Union, the Mexican work together, rather than over what is left. Prosperity, fairness, kindness.

An end to history?

But of course, that's because people need something else.

Enter Formula Anti-Gravity, a racing series developed after advancements in anti-matter and quantum technology, predominantly by the technology magnate, Royston Pierce (OBE). Ships that could literally levitate off the ground, and when coupled to a biofuel-powered engine, accelerate to speeds almost unfathomable to modern racing drivers. Race circuits sinew on classical circuits, to cutting edge, hyper-futuristic circuits that include magnetic induction and even complex energy systems that allow for energy leeching and pilots to push their craft even faster.

AG, as it's otherwise known, allows for "Ships", which are confusingly crewed by a singular "Pilot", who would look something akin to a modern fighter pilot in full oxygen-breathing equipment and pilot suits allowing them to take inhumane G-forces. With grids of 20 pilots, they are backed by teams that are a mixture of private and public ventures, from entities such as the European Union, Federated United States and many more entities working with new and old countries that have risen and fallen. Ships come with energy shields that allow for impacts, but also for energy management in leaching and boosting, creating a complex dynamic that doesn't just reward the fastest racer, but the one who can work their strategy the best.

The pilots themselves are at the absolute limit- but will be set to quite literally, receive as much work as their ships do. Unlike modern F1, where just the ship receives upgrades- the pilots do too in parallel. Of course, regulations and rules exist to what level they can be modified, but pilots are pushed with implants, upgrades and parts that well, come with positives and costs. Balanced with marketing needs, well, you're not making an entire cyborg out of a pilot!

Oh, and one last thing. For all those who prefer to adjust strategy, the Team Principals are also in the background- not needing much in the way of any implants, but much more focussed on running the show. They decide what upgrades go on, who is hired, fired and kept around, but most of all, have to deliver results. They are feisty characters- and playing one means you better know how to run a racing team at the top level!

Of course, you didn't think it was all clean and perfect? Corporate interests still meddle with racing and world affairs. Eco-terrorism, and the remainder of the world's turbulent past are still present. There's plenty of fundamentals left to ask, between those who want to help push humanity's efforts of global environmental renewal, versus those who want to push humanity into something else altogether, into the stars. There are no easy answers, and there are plenty of shadows still left unaccounted for.

But you're just a pilot, with no say on the matter, right?

---

How will it work?

This RP is an ambitious idea. This RP doesn't actually have any racing (although callbacks and scenes will depict it), but will be run on a basis of a randomiser for races, and will run based on two-part responses to a GM and to the paddock. Working with a team of engineers, sponsors, media personalities, and most of all, other pilots, this is a slice of life RP that also combines interview and conversational elements in the futuristic, glamourous world of Formula AG. Welcome to the top step and a futuristic, top-level sport.

There will be curveballs, dilemmas and as the GM, I will be certain to give you the hardest challenge of them- a three-time winner with a winning streak they don't want to let go.

Posting is divided into two:

A) A question will be asked by an interviewer (the GM) which will come up for your character specifically to answer, and provide insight- this includes aspects related to your character's personality, history and results. This is a "monologue" almost- fleshing out your character!

B) Posts related to your character's personal life, set both off-paddock at the factory, and on-paddock at the circuit.

Character Sheet (WIP)

Name:
Alias: (anything else you are called)
Team: (What group do you belong to)
Gender:
Age:

Personality:

Backstory:

Racing DNA

Overview: (What sort of racer are you? All out speed driving like a glass cannon on corners, an energy systems fiend, or taking a balanced approach?)

Skills: (What else do you have in your wheelhouse? Engineering skills, data or analytics talent, or are you a fashionista, talented at other sports or hobbies that make you stick out?)

Special Trait: (What makes you special? What's your USP- a unique implant, or an extra-ordinary skill that sets you out from the field?)

Controversy :(What's your controversy that follows you around, no matter what you try and do about it? As one of the most scrutinised people in the world, was it an implant that isn't accepted, a thing you did in your younger years, or something else that gets people talking about you?)

MISC
Theme Song:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Other Information: (anything fun you wanna add)

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP)

Skybound! : The Setup

Fireteam Icarus

@LadyAmber

"We have this." Skye replied to Sam's comment, pulling out a vial, knowing the question would come.
"We found this in Nagoya, and scaled it up. The actual toxin itself is actually quite weak when in concentrate to react out, so some of this with concentration, and Sol Hestia dissipates quick. We just need to make sure it hits the tanks, and then it should be deactivated. Makes it harmless, basically kills off the chirality quickly and makes it react fully into a relatively weak drug. Of course, you spread that over a wide area.....bit harder." Skye elaborated, knowing that it was probably worth keeping in mind earlier on.
"Each one of you gets a couple of vials. Creates contingency....just in case shit really goes south." Skye added, the green-coloured stuff tiny, but enough to counteract. Not much of course. With that, Skye put her hands on the desk, the redhead leaning in. She had a lick of confidence on her, but there was still a line of concern that even for Skye was coming through more than maybe some of the team remembered. The stakes were high, and there was a feeling that this was personal for Skye.

She felt it in her heart, the biometrics were indeed something she could blast by, but had no uncertain doubt that Rose knew they were coming. It was inevitable, and the fight they would have would be intense. If done right, if the repeater was jammed first, then it would be very hard for Rose to pull herself back. She'd be forced into dilemmas, choices. She could only be in one place, right? Or at least, it would slow her down before she rolled it back. If they could at least turn it back to one version, that would be more than enough. But shit, this wasn't gonna be easy.

"Don't underestimate what we're up against. Me, Athena and Oliver will keep on the push, Sam, clean up traps and keep us rolling past any locks or doors, Purna, you have the exterior to provide a flank with your grapple and....well, you do you." Skye added, Purna chuckling, nodding with glee. She got him! Well, somewhat.

---

Iceberg Ahoy! : The Setup

Fireteam Viking

@Starlance

Tahlia heard Enri's comment and shrugged, surprised, yet not entirely unaware of the comment.

"Well, first time hearing that. Rolling with a set of highly dangerous mercs.....means you must have some skills with a computer. If it all works, it won't come to you firing bullets. Artemis have a lot of tech to play with that you can use to mess up their day. And somehow....I get the feeling you want to have a rummage, don't ya?" Her bushlander accent came out, to the point, unglossed but infering exactly what she had to.

"Jamie will clear the road forward. I'm sure he'll appreciate any help he can get. And there is the small matter of a fuckton of munitions that are gonna come in. I am sure someone of your calibre will enjoy the toys we have here." She bridged, her colourful prose still bringing a chuckle to the Kiwi, somehow in shock that they were along. But, she had the keys to that receiver, and well, how Rose's neural network had worked, from the very brief time inside that server in Nagoya.

---

The Planet Saver: The Setup

Fireteam Poseidon

The questions were diverse, but similar to Icarus's, dealing with the toxin was top of the list. Adam presented the same neutralising agent, and gave some better responses to Chuck's, and Ebrima's queries.

"We have reason to believe there's no way they can spread the toxin out to individual pontoons, without dissipating effect. They need it concentrate in a central point, before release. If they're doing it right, it's within a main store here, at the heart of the facility, on the third storey in a vat. Saves accidental exposure, given they don't want to accidentally just dump it in the sea and minimise the delivery of the payload. It would still kill millions, but nowhere near compared to being turned to spray." Adam started, bringing in the wider map.

"As soon as we dump the counteragent, we can get aerial support with relatively little risk. We need to save heavy fire from the central platform, so as not to destabilise it and kill us while we clear it. But we can eliminate armed boats and other assets on play, as well as the other supporting elements. It will give us a turning tide, as we expect enemy presence to be heavy once we get into the belly of the beast. Retreating is the only other option we have once the job is done- but any intel we find on the release mechanism and anything we can destroy, will make sure in case there's any more of it stored elsewhere cannot be deployed. So we will need to give as good as we get." Adam replied, knowing it wasn't ideal, himself he didn't like the idea of fire support- but then again, it would be hard to get in any other vein. More Special Forces troops, like SEALs or SBS would just clog the place and create more bodies in the way. A hidden hand from elsewhere would be good enough, and would at least level the vertical playing field a little.

Taking it in, he awaited any further questions, but expected that soon enough, they would be up and moving.

Skye Rosalind Lyons

Adam Stanislaw Kajtanowicz

Athena Anna Kanataario

Purna Chai Gurung

0300 Local Time

Armoury, Camp Hannula, Finland

All That Is Not Saved Will Be Lost

With Athena returning, she checked over her weaponry, finding places to holster it, the mouse-like Purna coming over and standing teeny by her titanic side, the two as opposite as they could ever be. If Athena, wrapped up in her tight armour, the kevlar suit almost flush to her assets and covering her from neck to toe seemed like she was perhaps even vaguely comparable to Purna's skintight gear in spite of the fact it must have still weighed a good 50kg on her, the fact it looked like the Nepali was half the height of her was a statement alone.

A strange pair, to say the least.

"You seriously need to take up my offer after all of this. I know you said you'd think about it....but seriously, you kicked some ass back in Marrakesh. Like a hidden hand." Athena said, looking down, Purna tsking, shrugging.

"I'm more of a one man band. Prefer the shadows. The quiet life, contract work. I'm here as a favour to a friend." Purna's response came back cold, considered even.

"Well, you deserve more. I know your story, Purna. You could help a lot of family with it. Stability isn't such a bad thing." Athena came back, this being a conversation that had clearly gone on somewhere before. Even if now was a bad time, Athena still had her business to do.

Purna shrugged, looking across to Skye, Adam, the others setting up weaponry, and then back up to her, craning his neck. The Nepali had a very blank look, almost as if by intent. If Athena's face was one of fame, Purna's was one of being a ghost, a shadow, another mere blend that could disappear into many different places. A Nepalese complexion helped with being a grey man in an awful lot of parts of the world, dark skinned enough for almost all of Asia, Africa, even South America. It made him dissolve, even more so than Skye did. So the offer was one to think on, but well, he knew how these things were.

"I could. But I do enough. See, Athena, I never think what it's like to be an elephant. A top dog. Ruling your jungle like you have no interruptions. You, your sister, your brother....unstoppable, always in public view. Yet I never want it. Do you ever think about the quiet life?" Purna queried, perhaps as if he was about to dig at something.

Athena snorted, chuckling.
"Nah....not really. Someone's gotta do it. And anyway, Freya won't admit it but she likes quiet. Jamie a lot more. I mean....a certain something like that, it opens doors you may not think about. Like being able to take things you like the look of." Athena hinted, Purna's face turning sour, as Athena shrugged, continuing.

"Worst kept secret here, for someone so good at them, I can tell. Look at him. He's telling Chuck about it. And you know what I think. I could just walk over there. You say you don't understand me. Power is power, Purna. Reason you haven't slit his throat is because you know you wouldn't survive it. He knows if I went over, I could snap him in two, or that knife ends up in Assam, tomorrow. I like taking what I want. Hard to say no to that way. Shocked you haven't already. That's why having a bit of a deal about you matters." Athena giggled, knowing if that wasn't a convincer, then maybe it was.

"He's earned it. Weirdly." Purna's voice coldly replied. She turned to face him, Purna's response eliciting an eyebrow raise.

"I mean....how many people do you think hate him here? Raphael's old team pulled him in. Enri, he might have left her to die, by accident, who knows. Me, he killed my friends. And Skye Lyons had to pick him out of a hat as the scariest merc that side of the Meridian. The stories aren't fake. Or he'd probably be someone we'd have to kill too. Took the chess piece off the board before we killed him...same goes for Chuck, same for a lot of people. Shit. I never like to think about odds, but one on one, in a cell, I'd never rule him out with you." Purna sighed, shrugging.

"But even I can't deny. There are the monsters you know, and the ones you don't. Guess it means we play the same game. Operatives like us, deal with the dirt, mud and grime of the world. So does Skye. In a position like yours....easy to take what you like without restraint when you get given it all. An entire firm. When you have nothing, you learn to respect the value of things. Even things that are priceless. It's not as simple as honour all the time. So....me and him, we have more in common than we'd admit. Perhaps I would do the same to him. Still might. And perhaps we all work together better because of it. At the end of it all, that's all that is left." Purna replied, Athena's face almost a scowl, as Purna sighed before she replied.

"I won't say no to contract work, because I know you need me. I can tell you always get what you want. A compromise after this is done. But only that. Then let's see." Purna replied, and with it, left Athena, leaving no words. For the woman that always got she wanted, that was not exactly everything.

"You really drive a hard bargain!" Athena replied, sighing, looking across at Oliver.

@Jamesyco

Walking over back towards him, where he was getting geared, the blonde giantess took in the isolated merc.
"You always talk to yourself?" Athena asked Oliver, going through all his bits, the wreck of his old suit replaced by a tactical arrangement of what they had now.
"Not bad at all." Athena commented, looking back across at the rest of the team, then back at Oliver.
"So, I have this insaaaaane idea right..... considering the world might end, we might all die, you know.....I would want to take you out somewhere after. Like, something really nice. And I know, it's not a girl's place to ask.....but, ah, fuck it." Athena's brain seemed to be on pivot, and no doubt, he was going to be a bit sidewinded by that.

But, perhaps Purna's words had rang true.

"A lot of guys probably struggle because they see this girl and think they can't handle her but.....but I wanted to tell you it's fine. And just that I was thinking about you a lot back in Marrakesh." Athena commented, knowing how insane it must have been coming from her. Yet, despite the endless thirst on the internet, on base, in a lot of places, she wanted to say it. And she saw it in him. Perhaps even the fact he WAS hard to get, made it all the more of a moment. His blank expression made Athena sigh.

"Look uhhh.....I know this is weird. I know I'm a bit much. But, just saying. Offer's there. And uhh.....I think you're kinda hot. Maybe it's the Viking in you? I don't know. But still. Sorry. I know, we have a job to do but if we're genuinely gonna die, I'm not doing it without telling you. Live in the moment and all that yeah?" Athena said, almost chirping at this point, because man, was

End of the world? Sure, but she was teasing away.

-

In the interim, Skye had a moment of quiet with Tahlia to share, checking the wingpack now attached to her back over, as well as the rifle, coiled onto her side, the tactical helmet on her head again, as well as the plate carrier and thermal suit now on. She was proud of Tahlia for getting back into business, perhaps making it seem more seamless than even last time. The legs were really doing their business for her, and Skye was proud. Even at the end of the world, it felt like something.

"You ready for this?" Skye asked, Tahlia's response perhaps sharpened back.

"Good as ever. You know, I don't get it....you survive all that shit, only to go straight back out? You know, you don't have to put yourself at risk....considering what she's done. All this. I know you'll never listen, and duty and that. But I guess...."

"You lead by example, Tahlia. You know that better than anyone. Same thing. I risked a lot for what this was."

"And when does it stop?"

"It stops when the bitch is dead." Skye commented, Purna walking over, chuckling too, in addition to Tahlia's response. Not exactly wrong!

"Nah, she never fucking stops. Too much Highlander in her!" Purna commented, looking to Skye, making the observation, chuckling as the topic changed.

"So, you got any idea where we'll see Rose? She has to be in one of the three places. Maybe not at once, but we're not all attacking simultaneously." Purna asked, Skye shrugging, looking to Tahlia, then back to the short, well-shaven Gurkha.

"You're talking to me as if I'm an expert on myself. I imagine she'll be there. Just be fucking careful, you two. I know you probably saw the notes. She really doesn't mess around." Skye retorted, adjusting her gloves, as well as her tactical helm, the one on which the oxygen system was currently cradled on top of.

"Point taken. Still doesn't make sense. With everything we know, it seems like science fiction. And to do it 30 years ago...." Purna commented, Skye running a finger along Purna's arm for a moment, looking at that.

"They said the same about that optical cloak. And Ban's arms. And Freya's coil. The cutting edge isn't on show." Skye chuckled, knowing Purna would get where she was coming from, as he finished up setting his own mags, Tahlia equipping much her own on her lightweight plate carrier.

"Fair point. Still can't believe we got to this. And how fucking insane she is.....I know why, but this took Artemis to another level. Not one I get." Tahlia replied, Purna shrugging.

"Morality is relative. You ever heard it argued that the world would be a better place with fewer people? There's 50 degree heatwaves at home, all sorts of crises in the world, and it's going to get worse. Doesn't mean you should end the world over it.....but a small tweak of character, more people are like Rose than we admit. Accept that we should all die, rather than do something about it. What is it they say. Easier to see the end of the world than the end of capital, and our economies?" Purna commented, Skye nodding.

"Aye, easily done to give up. But there's humanity in us. Sure, we could do more I suppose. Kill all the rich and first dagger's going through Freya's heart. But that doesn't achieve much. Just a lot of dirt and blood. Better to do something with it. Suppose destroying a geoengineering platform and a high altitude blimp's the only way we're gonna stop more, ey? Then maybe, we can put some pieces back together. Or at least, some smarter people than us might." Skye chuckled, her dry humour coming back, as Adam walked on over, looking across to Skye, a firm look in his eyes.

"Your team good to go, Skye?" Adam asked, the Scot nodding.

"Good as we'll be. Yours?" She replied, the Pole looking over his shoulder, his exo, silenced LMG and usual tools of the trade indicating so.

"Around the same. If this is it, I just.....I wanted to apologise. Bad time for it. But the last one we may have." Adam blustered, as Skye shrugged, looking on. He seemed confident, but anyone had to be to talk to Skye Lyons on her level.

"They were good times. Stop being so fucking awkward about it, Adam. Get on with it. It happened, and we'll have to remember that it did. Just don't fuck up, yeah?" Skye grinned, as Adam nodded, his demeanour cracking.

"You too." Adam put out a hand, and Skye shook it, a grin on both their faces, as they turned away, and with it, got last checks ready with their respective teams. With his helmet visor left open, Adam looked across to Ban, and his cutting edge augments, to Freya and Chuck, the two heavies providing them with some well needed muscle, to Ebrima, a member of the team that was proving themselves fast. He hoped it would be enough for where they were going. The look on Ban's face was one of exhaustion, and whilst he was an old member of the team, Skye had introduced Ban well enough that he was comfortable to work with him. Perhaps he was not so familiar with the sea, but he'd do enough. And on the platform, in the tight, claustrophobic spaces, he needed someone who could fight.

"We all good to go?"

@BigPapaBelial

---

Part Six: Iceberg Ahoy!

Solveig Theta Mine, Tasiusaq, southern Greenland

Fireteam Viking

0600 Local Time

The A400 was a packed place.

First stop? Viking needed a drop from the A400, and the crew sat in the rear of the plane were first out of the airborne Uber, via the
large, tactical hovercraft sitting there with a vehicular parachute pack attached to the roof, a 20 millimetre autocannon and a Trophy System to boot. An Infantry Fighting Vehicle, the likes of which they'd fought in Marrakesh, but way less armoured and way, way faster. Oh, and it could float.

In the meantime, Icarus had the front of the plane, staring on at the other nutters about to go raid Greenland, as the plane dived below 1,000 feet, banking hard, at the hands of one of Blue Sword's other pilots. Vincent would have been a bit more courteous, this pilot was going for it, no fucks given to the occupants, given the fact that the airspace was exceptionally hot out here.

With a stern look, Tahlia looked to Javi and Raph, plate carriers, rifles readied, a nod to the ghillied up Kiwi.
"She all ready to go? Just pull the payload chute, and then hit the throttle to Waypoint Alpha, dump me, then you guys crack on to Waypoint Bravo and you guys go to the top of the mine area and get to work." Her question was simple, Javi's energy, despite the fact he was now leading them into a warzone, was returning infectious.

"Fuck yes! This is insane! On it, Tarly, get yourselves strapped in." Javi reacted, yelling out loud as the door began to open. With it, he bundled open a door, looking to Enri, nodding her in, as did Raph, sitting inside, and finally, Tahlia and Jamie, the latter known to the Kiwi as the team's shield when they were out there. They weren't doing much of the fighting- they had a flank to hit. The Kiwi, significantly smaller looked up at Jamie, the chilled out heavy taking up a lot of room, squishing Tahlia a bit.
"Shit. You better have your seatbelt on. I already don't have two legs, don't want to lose an arm. Chur." Tahlia half joked, setting her rifle out in a way not poking at anything, as Javi clambered into the driver's seat and put his phone ready.

Voodoo People started blasting inside the thing, the bassline hooked. Fuck. He know how to have this set.

"Did it have to be this fucking loud!?" Tahlia yelled, having to over the plane and the soundtrack, but Javi wasn't having any of it. He was in his own trance, already flicking switches, and remotely dialling in the static line bag attached to the hovercraft.

And with it, the circular parachute hooked up and fired on command, the security cables holding the hovercraft into the A400 to stop it from twitching, and then suddenly, the hovercraft was sent flying out of the back as the cables released, engines on full crank, the skirt and the entire thing inflating up with the deafening noise, albeit not as deafening as the sound of this. The A400 banked hard, and what was visible was something that took Tahlia's breath away, in the faded red colour of sunrise in a Greenlandic fjord.

Welcome to combined arms, full scale hellfire. The crystalline white mountains, the dark blue water strewn and littered with icebergs, a gigantic calving glacier at the end of the fjord, green meadows interspersed with grey rock and more importantly, a gigantic mine that was getting torn to absolute shreds on one bank of the fjord with the combined weight of full scale amphibious warfare. The huge explosion from an intercepted Tomahawk was broken by another actually finding market and detonating a large silo, and the sight of F35s, drones and amphibious assault craft, from Hagglunds to LAV-25s, were visible already in the sea alongside more traditional landing craft, taking fire but giving it back. Even a couple of AH-1Z and Wildcats were visible, ducking and weaving between icebergs and firing off missiles and rockets, popping over and under the radar detection, as the A400 certainly was.

It was a modern day D-Day in the other end of the world, to stop an end of the world. To the sound of The Prodigy and Pendulum.

"Vamos!" Javi yelled out, as the hovercraft oscillated under the circular parachute now above it, and the sea was getting close.

"Just fucking drive! Enri, 20 mil weapons station on the roof is yours to play with, Jamie, open a door if you want to help!" Tahlia called, as the splashdown hit, and Javi disconnected the canopy with another flick, flooring it between icebergs on the sea, and headed directly for the flank, away from where the main fighting was, but straight towards Solveig Mine.

(Javi and Raph are shared NPCs!)

---

Athena Anna Kanataario

Purna Chai Gurung

Skye Rosalind Lyons

Part Six: Skybound!

Somewhere 30,000 feet above Newfoundland, Canada

Fireteam Icarus

0630 Local Time

Dumping Viking had felt like a little lifetime ago, but it wasn't far to go from southern Greenland and clambering hard back to 30,0000 feet from about 1,000.

Skye felt the oxygen flow and the suits' insulation kick in providing lots of heat, and gave a thumbs up to Sam, sitting across from her, as well as Oliver, looking to Purna, who seemed quietly zoned in. Wingpacks, parachutes and all that attached, and the the team were ready to fly. Skye stood up and headed across to Purna, checking him over, and he repeated the same, silently. There was a palpitation in the air, a certain cobalt feeling that came with this.

Quite unlike the first time she'd jumped out of this A400, about two days ago.

Instead, it was a strange sensation that this was truly, utterly wild, Skye feeling the carbon-fibre composite wings protrude from her back, like a cape of plastic. Athena stared on into the distance, her enthusiastic and bottomless, restless self even finding a moment of zen before she went into overdrive. That moment was then ruined.

Someone was playing something through comms.

Athena looked around. This wasn't her prank.

Oh. Skye.

Kickstart My Heart.

"Really?" Purna asked, Skye shrugging. She was shithousing, even at such a time. Not that Athena cared, a massive grin visible behind her tinted visor, a full face item with the HUD and visor element, and an attached oxygen support system pumping hard into her lungs. Skye always liked her rock. A little more now, that being augmented with the door rattling open as the pilot punched it again, the dark turning to white light.

The cold was something else, and it rattled the plane with the door open as that now began to turn, Skye looking to the rest, chuckling. No fjords, just nothing but white and pink sky.

"Thought I'd get you in the mood! Remember, pick up the HUD, follow markers, and we'll make our way onto target." Skye stated, the red still on, but her walking out onto the ramp, taking a good look at the view beyond.

The dawn sky lit up with a pink, but most interestingly of all, the clouds, instead of being far below considering they were more than high enough for oxygen, carried on up almost all of the way as part of the thundercloud. Their target was through the side of a large piece of a storm cell, towering away as a cumulonimbus cloud, the very distant landmass below of Newfoundland and its various islands, as well as of course, the town of Dildo, very small, very far below a set of massive clouds that covered it all with a thick blanket far, far below. Perspective still, but a certain kind of beauty.

With it, Skye stood on the edge of the ramp, waiting for the red to turn green, looking inside. Athena and Purna followed, the moment fairly magical considering it all. It could be perhaps the last dawn they'd see, perhaps humanity if they fucked up.

The redhead took it all in, looking at the others assembled here. Purna had little to say, not that he would, but even he was impressed behind it all. This was a piece of kit he'd always wanted to try, but whatever resources Raven had mustered, they must have pulled it out of nowhere. A tool like this in his hands, now that would be something lethal.

"Once we get there, find a latch point at the bottom of the blimp. We'll work bottom to top, floor by floor, clearing whoever we find. Best case, Athena steals the thing, worst case, we get out, same way we came in." Skye barked out through comms, over the soundtrack, before giving a wry chuckle, seeing green flicker on inside the plane.

Skye even at the end of it perhaps had learned a lot from Xan, Sam, Freya, her friends, and perhaps the whole experience that had hit. She was tired, burnt out, seen all sorts of insane shit and well, wanted to remain stoic but instead, she felt like she knew there was only one such team that could get this done.

"Alright then, on me!" Skye yelled, and with a triumphant roar, made the short leap off the end of the platform, snapped to the side and hit the jets, and instead of falling, or even gliding, burnt off to the side of the cloud and hit throttle, the jets kicking in and the initial scream turning to a dull whine, as the lift kicked in and suddenly, Skye could bank hard, feeling the G-forces kick but this....holy shit, this did not get old! The team were skybound, and had a blimp to go intercept and take on. Athena and Purna ran after, and with a seamless drop, followed on line.

"Fuck yeah!" Athena yelled out, audibly screaming in everyone's comms, as she followed

"That got you awake!" Skye replied, looking over her shoulder, Athena barrelling over after a little wobble, a grin on her face of absolute childish glee. Purna not having any to return, in complete awe, but Athena was chatty as ever.

"You're telling me!" She yelled back, Skye nodding without showing it, turning the team slightly to the left, the awesome sight of the edge of the cloud, and the blimp somewhere on the other side of it truly, utterly magnificent.

If it wasn't so serious, this would be one hell of a way to see the sky.

---

Part Six: The Planet Saver

10 Nautical Miles west of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain

Adam Stanislaw Kajtanowicz

Fireteam Poseidon

0700 Local Time

Meanwhile, outside of the A400's flight, the V38 Sioux, the jet-powered VTOL, the other prototype was now in the hands of Vincent Cisse, FFL pilot extraordinaire.

The ambiance was perhaps different in the VTOL, considering it all. Less rock or roaring rave, more Bonobo or Amon Tobin, a pulsating, yet understated ambiance. The job they had felt different. Maybe it wasn't killing the head of the hydra, but all its venom, all its poison, and the potential it had was here. This would be pivotal, in a way that felt dethatched, away, and much more a classic Raven op. A job that just needed doing, although the scale of the geoengineering scheme was going to be one hell of a thing to decimate.

The rain pelted yet was getting quieter by the moment, the clouds from sea spray and the Mid-Atlantic storm that was dying off still making the ride bumpy, but a good omen for hiding them coming in on the tails of that as it died off, bit by bit. It was leaving here, and headed south, as the team were.

Adam sat near Vincent, hearing the comms pluck up, the Senegalese having quite something to note.

"Boss man. Tell me. How do you find all of this....you know, I am still getting my head around Skye. All that crazy shit, non?"

"It's a job. I try not to think about it....lot of weight." Adam's reply was dry, not having the same level as Skye perhaps did, but well, appreciating Vincent. Who wanted a bit more.

"Well, mon dieu, please fucking make sure you stop this. Ma Senegal, it's close to here. If the rumours are true....merde, this is beyond bad."

"Make sure the fire support is good then. We'll let you know when it's clear to come through." Adam replied, Vincent nodding, looking over at Ebrima, further back.

"Ey, mec, you don't go being shit out there, eh? Africa depends on us. Whatever the French, Japanese, Israelis, whatever they say, that soil of ours dies too if you don't stop it." Vincent cackled, shrugging his shoulders as Adam looked probably as confused as Ebrima was. A crazy pilot, but a fucking good one.

Within a few minutes, he'd turned in hard, and altitude had been dumped with the stealth VTOL sinking it in. It was that time.

"Alright, rebreathers on everyone. The SDV sinks, we sink faster. Get after it, hold on, and then we power on to the platform." Adam added, looking across, the heavies setting up their own buoyancy aids, as he did himself, almost like an inflatable piece for when they needed to head back up. Ebrima and Ban would likely need the same. Due to the sealed helmet, Adam's rebreather connected to the CBRN system, as many of the others would have- and the suit being pretty much waterproof meant that it wouldn't fill up on the inside, or at least, it would piss out on the non-criticals.

As the VTOL's door opened, it sat so close to the sea that the waves almost crashed inside, Vincent expertly holding it on the margin. The dawn sat on the mostly clouded day creating an orange haze, with nothing but infinite ocean visible and the spray dying down. End of the storm. Somewhere 10 miles behind them lay the Spanish island of La Palma, but that was a long way back.
"Okay, go!" The comms yell was decisive, and well, their Senegalese man wanted them the fuck out.

Getting behind, Adam nodded to Freya and Chuck, and pushed on the SDV with a big concerted push. With it, the thing rolled along the floor, and off the ramp, skidding into the abyss and turbulent, almost violent black and blue sea, followed by Adam and team.

The water was cold, unrelentingly so, shoals of fish broken apart by the SDV and the VTOL's blasting of the ocean, but both faded away, as Adam took a hold of the side of the SDV, looking to the others.
"Ebrima, she's all yours. Works how the manual says it does. Prime VW Polo." Adam added through the increasingly garbled comms with a rare piece of wit, but pulled the hatch open for Ebrima, and clung onto the outside, as the others would. It would be a hell of a weight that it made ballast almost seem pointless, but well, one more thing to quickly adapt to. Adam was sure the driver of the team would be able to drive the underwater car, or at least would appreciate him working that one out. He was exacting, but well, he was getting to know them, trust them, even Ebrima's history was one that made more sense than before.

Perhaps it was less thunder, perhaps it was less shrieking through the sky, but this operation began with a gentle roll through the ocean waves to the offshore platform and underneath it, and the gigantic Amazon-warehouse sized oil rig slash biochemistry slash engineering platform that needed a fuckload of neurotoxin stopped.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP)

@Starlance

Skye shrugged, looking on at Ebrima, shaking her head. Enri had been fiery, and Skye had left no reply, the whirlwind of Ebrima's response and her walking the wrong way making her hold back a guffawing laugh. Whilst Skye was obviously not even as big as some of the others in the room, when you could take on certain enemies
"You put two and two together after meeting new people, you work out certain things. It's how I know you inside out...I don't sit there neglecting your file. You probably owe her an apology. And she'll probably figure out in time how I got there. People kept busy tend to move on, especially when we have a world to save and fuck all sleep to do it on." Skye simply retorted, knowing Ebrima probably would wisecrack to that, but her smirk seemed to give something. She didn't really have to say she knew him inside out. And well enough how to push his buttons.

That was the weird thing about Skye. Her intelligence may not have been perhaps that of an academics kind, like that of Freya, or perhaps of a progidical brilliance like Sam's, but it felt like it just tied in lots of unrelated strands into one coherent, strangely. Her work as an operative clearly mirrored that of Ebrima's, perhaps on the other side, but it made damn sure that she understood people when she had to. Forgot herself, and put it in a case when she had to.

@LadyAmber

Meanwhile, Sam approached Adam, and her question was a simple enough one to answer. Sam was clearly capable, and Adam had no issues letting her continue- even if he would have preferred a little more control- well, she knew armour more than he did and could make it work. The specs looked right too, from what he'd gandered at on his tablet.

"We have plenty. If you think it will work, do it. You have the resources of the free world. Enough to get her back here too apparently...." Adam retorted, aside from Skye, looking to Sam, then back over.

He had a history with her. One he wouldn't really want to go into right now, but it was complicated. Difficult even. The kind that stirred a lot of uncomfortable memories for him again, but well, that was down to their differences. In operations, style. For someone he thought he might have to put a bullet into, perhaps he was less comfortable with the fact that he was in charge of the other half of Raven, and it was her team really.

"There will likely be some specifics to follow. But, prepare us for what's to come. I am sure we will have one hell of a fight on our hands." Adam replied, a stoic and stern reply, but one that felt no less honest or dishonest about it all.

---

0215 Local Time

Skybound :The Setup

Fireteam Icarus

Skye, Athena, Sam, Oliver, Purna

The hasty wakeup had risen the team, and they were coming through in batches.

Olafur Arnalds- Loom

Skye had slowly gone through the motions, starting with a thermal shirt and tights, piece by piece, putting herself back together. The scar was visible across her side, a particularly prominent one among the many that now lined her skin. She rubbed her hand over her neck, feeling no lump, nothing there at all. A procured softshell followed, as did a black beanie hat, wrapped over her slowly growing burgandy curls. A wash of her face, cleaning her nails, and washing the general grime off her helped restore some humanity. Not exactly the most ladylike, but well, it would do. The blue-eyed Scot saw back into herself, hands on the sink, looking into what was there.

None of this had really sunk in. Not properly. She was always waiting for a job, always working. Driven by a feeling that it always sort of did good, did right. And with it, purpose came easy. How long had Rose shared a life with her? How long had she gone away? And what had she done? All of it, all of it came into focus. Nearly dying, she remembered the hazy bits of life. All the stuff of dad and mum, happy, good times. She was so manic when she was little, so inquisitive, fascinated with everything and ahead. She certainly scared her parents, but now, it was a glimmer. And even afterwards, they had forced their way through. After....well, what happened. They never seemed to change....perhaps Mum never knew? Never properly understood. It all didn't make sense. It all felt wrong. And yet, looking back, she knew she had something to do. She was a fighter. Like the lion on her back, she had so much more to roar and scream before the void came back. Nearly dying was her thing. And actually doing it was Rose's. Time to go do some more.

With it, she walked through the early morning of the dark outpost, a far cry from home. It felt a lot less like home, more like an escape. An outpost, a large wooden shack buried in a hill, the lights now brought on and the first briefing room available for Skye's team. Whilst rustic in most part, a large digital table, board and maps were all set, loaded with the data from Oracle. As promised.

Skye led the meeting, even in spite of getting here soon, she'd gotten acclimatised to what was on the table.

"Morning all. Right. Turns out our target.....it's an Airlander Class Twelve, a fucking blimp....of all things. An uprated design of something made for the American DOD almost a decade ago. And it's a priority target for us to hit, sitting 30,000ft over Dildo, Newfoundland. Yes. I laughed when I first heard it." Skye added, pulling up the blimp's location, and there it was.

"Now, we can't shoot it out of the sky. It contains the central server network to Rose's capabilities which could relocate if the central control isn't manually severed, and if what is known to have been delivered by drone, enough Sol Hestia aboard to spread over the eastern seaboard of America. I can't stress how important this is. We kill this, we're killing Rose, and any version of her able to come back again. Which kills, in theory, everything for good. And a major thorn in our side." Skye added, looking to it, then the team. They no doubt had questions of how they were going to get to a blimp, 30,000 feet over the coast of Newfoundland.

"In terms of equipment, we're going to have to go light, with wingpacks forcing that. And not the regular kind." Skye added, reaching down, pulling open a crate, one that she'd prepared earlier. The team may not have got that reference, maybe they had. And with it, there it was. A black delta-winged lump, with an oxygen helmet attached at the top, and simple yet sleek controls.

"This is a Corvid Wingpack, might not be too familiar to some of you. It's a retractable, carbon-fibre wing, with two hydrogen-ion fuelled jets. It's a tool I've used once, goes like fucking fire. Has zero radar signature, and goes about 300mph, and more importantly....comes with one of these. Pull on your right hand and it fires 100m, and latches to anything magnetic, or with manual control on a HUD, penetrates." Skye turned it over, next to the parachute on the back of the wingpack there being a stubby lump, with a large ratcheted grappling hook poking out of it.

"So, one of these for you, each. Including Oliver and Athena, there's some we procured on short notice for you two. No heavy armour on this op, so Athena, Oliver, you'll need thermal suits and your lighter tactical getups, no exos for me either so you two will be the muscle on this operation. Our plan is to drop from the A400, fly to the blimp, and push through resistance, whatever we find, and destroy the servers, neutralise any compound, and sever the link. No stealth. We just go in, and hit them as hard as we can, before they can really defend. My biometrics will get us through, as it did before. Then we get out, and leave." Skye added, looking around, the faces looking blank.

"One last thing. One target of interest is aboard. The name is Kim Soo-Yang, known hacker and all around bastard last known to be working for the North Korean regime that is currently posted to look after the platform. He will be in charge of the blimp's defences, and no doubt, will make it as hard as possible to get through. He may even have an exo, so if you come across him, be ready to put up a fight. That, and of course, expect her. She'll fight like possessed to stop us. And believe me, I know what she can do." Skye brought up the picture of the hacker, and the scar on his face made it clear. He bad. The other picture wasn't needed of a certain Rose Lyons.

"Any questions? It's a bit more than our usual." Skye added to the team, wanting to get this wrapped up as soon as possible. There was a lot of kitting on to do.

Athena giggled, as Skye picked her out out first.

"Athena." Skye said straight, as Athena giggled like a little child.

"You know the blimp's shaped like a gigantic butt? And that I definitely want to steal it for myself? And that it's over....fucking Dildo!" Athena cackled, laughing out loud, probably way more than she should.

"You realise we're literally up against it, trying to save the world? You know, once in a lifetime opportunity, no opportunities to fuck up....really?" Skye replied, as Athena giggled, looking to Oliver, then Sam and Purna in his silence, then back to Skye.

"Guys, I'm just hearing it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to steal a cool as fuck blimp! I'd have so many parties in that thing! And oh yeah, killing the other version of you my sister split in two, permanently, yadda yadda that. That too. Also helps I know these things because I made sure to buy the first one that went to market." Athena grinned, cockily, and well, Skye had no reply. She gave a long sigh, and shrugged, a little deflated. She was literally everything she'd heard. Not good.

"Anyone else?"

---

Briefing Room

0220 Local Time

Fireteam Viking

Icebergs Ahoy! - Setup

Jamie, Tahlia, Enri, Javi, Raphael

The levels of tension in the room were palpable, considering that on this op, there was the small matter of Enri and Raphael being in the room together. Let alone fighting together. The Kiwi leading the brief was wrapped up in a black t-shirt, and her tattoos now extended a fair chunk up her neck, almost to her chin. The same pattern of ink actually followed on her legs, whilst looking more like actual legs, having a painted pattern that she had added whilst the team were in Marrakesh and she was wearing them in. For a blonde, lightly olive-coloured sniper, she certainly still had her own look and the legs had been a revelation. Perhaps a weakness at least she wouldn't have to worry about like last time, nearly getting stuck in a bog with her titanium-adapted sticks. She looked to the crew assembled, in all their various stages of being awake, based on the paperwork she'd been given, and the table in front of her, akin to the other briefing room.

"Our op is different to the other two. It turns out there's a significant portion of Artemis troops at the Solveig Theta mine, a strip mine digging up various rare earth minerals on the shore of a beautiful glacier that has retreated back in southern Greenland. And critically, a repeater network reciever that connects to Rose's neural network, and therefore can trap her if we time this right. Now, assaulting the mine alone would be of course, a rather shit idea considering the amount of hostiles. But, we have some friends. As in, we have an entire NATO Assault Ship group, located within the area. A good 1,000 Dutch, American and British Marines are readied to help us plug this gap, with helicopters and assault vehicles of their own. And we have our little fight on the side." Tahlia pulled it in, the image of supporting forces visible.

"The plan is, they lead the assault with cruise missiles, an amphibious assault and clear the mine of hostiles, whilst we go for the transmitter itself, using a hovercraft. If we play this right, we'll make big enough a bang to make Rose believe we're hitting the place with everything we have. Of course, that will buy the other two teams an opening to get into their operations. But it'll also put a dent in Rose's, and by extension, Artemis's ability to broadcast herself out to anywhere else easily from the central server. Any quick reaction forces will be put out of operation, including any aircraft, helicopters or other equipment. And we cap off a significant element of Artemis forces there and then." Tahlia added, pulling in the map, revealing positions.

"Javi will drive in, and I'll post up on a nearby position to lay down sniper fire. Jamie, you are in front and centre. Raph and Enri will follow once they've carved a path through whatever resistance there is. And with it, we'll try and hijack that repeater for our purposes. Jam, rather than transmit. And no doubt, have to deal with a hell of a warzone. Then we get out when we're done. No point getting bogged down, we'll have a fight to finish and they'll be able to handle it once we soften things down. There's a lot of Artemis HVTs, too many to list, but expect some particularly scary enemies close to it. Prepare for a full on assault here." Tahlia added, pulling it out of the map, focussing on the area generally.

"Area is mostly green, but there's a lot of icebergs and snow left over from the spring melt. Anyone got any questions?"

---

Briefing Room

0230 Local Time

The Planet Saver: Setup

Fireteam Poseidon

Adam, Freya, Chuck, Ebrima, Ban, Vincent

The last team had arguably one of the most serious jobs to do.

Ferrovia Two was a geoengineering platform, a large, massive floating structure formerly made up of an oil rig that was now a high-tech, biochemical laboratory that floated in the sea, coupled with a gigantic, almost mystical-scale of pipework and smoke stacks. With a large glass front, it almost resembled a gigantic floating warehouse, filled with algae labs and various industrial equipment fronted and presented beautifully in an ultra-modern style. It worked on a hybrid of iron fertilisation, vapour generation and cloud seeding tech, in theory creating a perfect storm of algal blooms, cloud cover and temperature reduction across a series of turbines and stacks settled across the ocean around it. A fascinating piece of work, considering it all renewably powered by geothermal energy deep beneath the La Palma hotspot in the Mid-Atlantic.

Counter-intuitively, saving the world meant destroying all the Sol Hestia there, and shutting down Ferrovia Two before it could belch it out. After all, the particles that Ferrovia Two, when the winds were pointing the right way, would point at Europe and Northern Africa would spell disaster for billions...

No pressure then!

On the digital display, everything was visible, and quite a sight to see in terms of the layout of the facility, the location and the scale of it for all to see. A hell of a sight.

With it, Adam pulled it in, after the team had gotten a look. He wore his usual fatigues, and as usual, was dry as ever.

"Right. That's the details of Ferrovia Two. Now, we have a limited window. Winds are now blowing from the south, towards the Arctic, which won't be Rose's target. But as of tomorrow afternoon, it'll be towards mainland Europe, Africa and a significant series of population centres. This cannot be allowed to happen. We have a significant Artemis detail on deck, and serious SAM and other defences capable of holding a heavy fight. But we'll have some help."

"As for equipment, we're using rebreathers, and flotation equipment. Freya, you in particular will need the latter, and for the rest of us, the former will keep us alive. The VTOL can drop us close, but we'll need to use an SDV to get close, and then swim in. We cannot let any of the toxin go into any water source, or into any vapour at all. If not, we will be calling family to say goodbye, so that is priority to wipe first using the neutralising agent we have scaled up and available to send to the tanks. We clear deck by deck, and once all the toxin is neutralised, we sabotage any method the platform can use to operate in future. We'll try and stay quiet for as long as we can afford, but we'll need to go loud and we will be limited in support, so we need to fight like hell. That will require fire support and we have Vincent, who will have the VTOL on station once we take down the SAM sites to rain down Hellfires and 20mm rounds. We can't bring in any more forces until we can confirm we have the toxin secure. Then we can get reinforcements, but make no mistake, we are isolated." Adam started, and pulled through the next elements- the HVT here.

"Lastly. This is Luisa Vasquez, known Colombian mercenary. The stories are true, if you heard them, but she runs the security detail. Intel suggests she's got a souped up exo. And if we run across her, eliminate on sight." He added, pulling everything down.

"We cannot fuck up. If anyone has any problems, quarrels, issues with anyone, put some boxing gloves on and take five. Then come back and let's save a world."

---

Armoury

0300 Local Time

Another Night Out

The armourers and support had come in clutch. Fixing up Chuck, Athena and Jamie's armours had come in fast through the night, as had the other works needing to be complete, things were being put together. There were a LOT of people in the armoury. But then again, a team of about fifteen, up against thousands of paid mercenaries who were unaware of what they were able to be involved in at best and promised a lifeboat off at worst, were now in their way to saving the world from an omnicidal maniac that had Skye's face.

So there's a lot going on. Everyone in their own zone, and a lot of conversations, but mostly, focussing on getting the job done.

Viking:

For Viking, usual combat gear meant a plate carrier for Raphael and a IMI Tavor, not one he had been familiar with in a long time, whilst for Tahlia, that meant a dark, mossy-green ghillie and a specially selected FN Ballista, chambered in .338, Lapua Magnum. And a few special rounds. Always. A silencer, a modular stock and a lovely thermal optic, and well, the Kiwi was rather happy with her setup. An MP7 for any close encounters, and a Glock 17 joined that, as a few spares. Viking would be off to the A400, but with an assault hovercraft used as an assault tool, they'd be dropped first and into the midst of a warzone off the coast of Southern Greenland.

Icarus:

Athena had suited up in a tight, kevlar-lined padded suit that almost looked like a suit used in Kendo, minus the facemask, whilst Purna was back in his gear, the usual setup, with the wingpack attached. Athena picked out her twin MAC-10s, an AA-12 and a pair of MP412 REX pistols, just like her mother had once had, as traditions would have it. Skye on the other hand, couldn't use her exo was in a similar arrangement to Athena's, albeit a little lighter, a plate carrier, beanie and a full sleeved black shirt following on quickly. While nothing as comprehensive as Sam's advanced armour, but on short notice, utilised much of the same principles that Sam had proposed, Athena benefiting from that too. She checked her new railgun-based tool over, keeping it in a stream and low charge for the time being, as well as equipping her usual pistol and supplementary tools. Purna, lastly of all traded the MP5 for a higher-calibre SIG MPX, chambered in a .357 SIG round and a silencer, for some more creative action around the blimp, as well as trading the M14 for more mags.

Poseidon:

Adam set up his exo the same as before, Puma-coloured fatigues on and this time, equipping an EVOLSYS light machine gun over the MSBS arrangement he'd carried before. Similarly, the rebreathers attached to the exo, as did the floatation equipment. He had a check over Ebrima, going through his arrangement, and got set to go.

There's this air of intent, and whilst many of the team would have wanted a longer moment to react, this was the reality of it. There were consequences to failure here, and nobody but Raven could fix this. A lot of special forces teams could try and force an opening, but when the enemy had tech like they did, they wouldn't be able to last in one, let alone three of these missions. Discretion was key- much of the waking world wouldn't even find out that they came this close to the brink. Strange how these things worked.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP)

Raven's Rock, Camp Hannula, Pöyrisjärvi National Park, Finland

The Finnish Home Improvements Centre (or the Armoury)

2000 Local Time

Athena set her armour back down in the Heavies section of the Armoury, into the large hydraulically-assisted mount point, helmet off with the high-collar torso piece following, as did the legs, arms and remainder, pulling away. The armour had taken serious hits, and the coil itself needed a refurb- it had burnt everything out completely, to a point where connection points were black and ashen with how heavy the use had been. With a few clasps, the youngest sibling emerged and quickly dressed in a bright gold, branded t-shirt of #AthenaAwesome, cleavage still a little on show and black tights, revealing her pulsating forearms and her thighs tight to the look. Long blonde hair allowed to flow, she could feel the bruising starting to hurt from the BTR, and well, getting slapped by a fucking mech. The adrenaline had poured in her veins richly, considering how much her hearts could discharge, but man, it was shitty. She ran a finger along the line of the scar, and then up the bruising, chuckling. Looking to Freya, and Jamie, bringing himself out of his, she could only smile.

"Frey, you missed a really good one. Tons of explosions. And I got to put some voltage into your mutual friend." Athena giggled, walking over and hugging Freya again, burying her head in her shoulder, giving a prick with her fingers into her back, giggling, in response to that. She was a shit, at the best, and worst of times. Deep down though, she was really happy to have her back.

"And it is so good to have you back, sis. Honestly. I had to hold down the fort for guys leering at the females of our family. Do you know how hard that was?" Athena giggled with a sarcastic charm, as she looked to Jamie, very much the middle child.

"And he was good too. Blowing shit up as well. Anyway. " Athena added, chatting way, way too much again, as she looked around, seeing Chuck peel his armour off, bringing Duke with him to get showered. Jesus. That hunk of man was something. So was Oliver. Was it weird? Eh, probably, but her gaze caught for a while as she looked back.

"We should probably see how the others are doing."

---

Purna meanwhile, quietly pulled the tight suit off him, gently folding the Gryphon into a neat square, and plugged the energy cell on the suit's pack in, laying his MP5, Mk14 and USP out neat, unloaded, inspected, clean. A professional's mark, as he changed into a plaid shirt, a rather old-school thing for such a new-school infiltrator, and a pair of jeans, again, nothing fancy at all. He seemed to almost have the look of someone who dissolved into the background, but Purna liked that lots, as he also headed out of his section, to join the others, and the commotion building from where Skye had appeared after Adam and co had also put away their equipment. He'd dropped his exo, and was still in his fatigues, and still looking as serious as ever.

---

Skye Rosalind Lyons

Adam Stanislaw Kajtanowicz

Athena Anna Kanataario

Purna Chai Gurung

About Five Minutes Later

Superstar Ensemble Assemble!

The scene was a standoff one, Adam hand on rifle, Athena not really needing a gun when she had two large ones in her biceps. Skye saw Ban step out of her shadow, and Enri, scarred yet standing. A new one, given she had no idea, but Ebrima was almost eyeing her up in shock, and Enri rather in anger about it. Athena, Freya and Jamie back together again, many hugs shared, much banter given, and Athena just happy to have her by her side again, in one piece. Sam, Tahlia and Purna all there, and many, many people melding. Yet fuck, not another conflict.

Skye interrupted that, her casual, yet forever worn look coming back to it to Ebrima.

"The Atlas you mean? We chatted about something about stolen identity, funnily enough. Having new blood.....wait...." Skye replied, as suddenly, Duke lept up onto her, licking away, Athena chuckling and shaking her head, as did Tahlia.

"Aww, hello friend! I know, it has been a while! Good to see you too, and in one piece as well!" Skye smiled gleefully, the first time in a long time, as she wrapped her arms around Duke, hugging back, kissing him on the top of the head with the excitable dog woofing and hovering around, giving the Scot a rare reprieve. She looked to Chuck, and to Freya, the two towering over. Since when did Raven have five giants?
"Hiya Chuck. Appreciate the assist! And good to see you one piece too, Freya." Skye replied, then turning to Adam, shrugging her shoulders.

"Well. I suppose there's my tell. Same blood maybe, same heart as her, but...Duke knows me well at least." Skye giggled, ruffling his fur, standing back up and seeing Adam walk over, the look on his face of concern irrespective. Point taken, he knows who this is, but he still seemed pissed.

"Fine. The Skye I know has a weak spot for dogs. Good to have you alive. Though, can I ask what your plan is, Major? You realise how much shit we had to deal with because of your status?" Adam replied, staying stoic, a smile cracking yet getting straight to business. Wow, no thanks?

"Adam, it wasn't ideal, I'll admit. But needs must." Skye added, Athena eyeing up the infamous Skye Rosalind Lyons, almost unable to tell what she was. There was a little bit of a legend of course, within what she'd heard in Blue Sword.

The kind of woman that took down a giant, and this ghost that ran a team of misfits even more unhinged than her little operation. It all started to make sense. There's a rare moment where a woman almost a foot and a half shorter almost felt like more magnetised than even her own usual extraversion, all eyes on her body dragged by the Highlander's tone. Adam replied to that in turn.

"Well, you can't just go rogue when the world's hunting anything that has your face. Did Oracle get you up to speed?" Adam asked, Skye nodding in turn, the navy t-shirt wearing, jeans having redhead's hair a short plume, nowhere near what it used to be, but beginning to form up to what she was once.

"Aye. Rose is fucking omnicidal, far as I can tell, she's keen on just cleaning the slate and starting again, with fuck knows what to replace it. She's damaged to all hell, and she's just pulling the trigger before anyone realises what she's doing. We recovered Raven's old data. And another body of Rose's. And the constituent pieces that make up Sol Hestia. And a hacker, Enri, who just figured out just how deep Rose's neural networks go. Which, I assume you just learned about. So I hope it was worth it. Happy?" Skye replied, shrugging her head, knowing well, that was why she was here. Nothing like a serious peace offering to quell the bullshit.

"You were busy then. We had our doubts, but you proved us wrong. I was expecting to put a bullet in you." Adam's husky Polish accent carried, Skye replying in turn. If there was one person that seemed to be like an antidote to him, it would be the Scot. As capable as he was, he ran his team tight. Skye perhaps, less so.

"Yeah, well, you know me. Can't help it. Nearly fucking died for it though, so appreciate you not killing me at the last hurdle. Rose came after us, and.....there's things that happened. We got her though." Skye added, looking to Ban, then back to Adam, pulling her shirt up and revealing her newest scar, right below her tattoo on her back.

"Fuck." Adam commented, the wound a nasty one considering it had freshly healed, but well, Skye was made of stern stuff. It would take a lot more than that to kill her, Adam noted. From experience.

"Yeah. It happens. Looks like you lot took a beating too. And brought Viper, Scion and Valkyrie back into the fray. The all-stars. Jesus. I said it, didn't I, they'd bring some right crazies into the fray.....especially Athena, we really must be screwed!" Skye replied to the team, a smile forming, glad to be back with friends, although, the larger woman, well, one of two had another comment to make on that. Skye in turn nodded back to Freya, the regal-haired fellow redhead back to action, and back to this. Still, Athena had something to pipe up on.

"Skye Lyons. Shit, everything my sister said you were.....the mere mortal she can't shut up about. So, who's in charge? End of the world kinda problem we have here." Athena asked, Adam and Skye looking at each other, then back at her, the towering, almost olive-coloured blonde coming in between.

"Good question." Skye replied, looking back to Adam, a shrug respondent.

"Seems like we don't have time to figure that out. Oracle has the overall lead, at the end of the day. And we need two strike teams, and right now I suppose that means we're both leads. Both respond to Oracle. Though.....maybe we need to be a little more ordered, than last time?" Adam asked, a reminisce to times old that they worked together. In a different capacity than Raven, of course, but well, a time that still harkened back. The two clearly had something thicker than what was going on, not that either was entirely letting on.

"Jesus. Ordered? I think you need to remember what you came into. And good. I can work with that. We have a world to save, no point bickering." Skye replied, her Scots sarcasm back at things again, stoic and to the point no less.

"Fine. I suppose you owe me some introductions." Adam asked, as Skye nodded, looking to the other two, well, now only one considering Ban was being taken away.

"Ban Kingo, Enri Uemura. Former Raven, current hacker respectively. Both capable. Both help we need now." Skye replied, as Adam nodded.

"We need as much as we can get. Oracle said..."

"We have leads coming close and we expect to deploy within eight hours? And the fact that the central server for Rose is currently looking like it's nonsensical to find? Didn't need sleep anyway. World's going to fucking end, so hey. No pressure." Skye quipped, Adam a little more straight in her response.

"Yes, indeed. Good to have you back. In a weird way." Adam coolly replied, just unsure how to read her at all, but well, sticking professional rather than anything else.

"You too. Don't go being a twat now." Skye replied, Adam shaking his head, Skye knowing he wouldn't go further, being as professional as he was. Ban was being pulled away for medical help, a place that Oliver and Sam had already come from too. No doubt Sophie was beyond pissed, and annoyed at how many hurt team members she had to deal with. At least she wasn't the only doctor on site....

As Adam and Athena came out of the way, Tahlia ran in, and lept up to Skye, hugging her, holding her close and looking back.
"Don't you ever fucking do that again! You even had me worried!" Tahlia yelped, Skye chuckling, smiling and looking on at Sam, Oliver, Antti, and Purna behind.

"Good to see you again, Tarly. Thanks for holding things down. And nice new legs, by the way!" Skye replied, embracing the Kiwi as Tahlia smiled, a keen look on her face, as Purna pulled to the side, nodding on. Skye observed the new legs she appeared to have- rather than the titanium-carbon based pegs with adapters on the feet, they actually looked more like a leg, and had a greater range of motion on them. Freya's friend must have sorted her out, as it looked like Tahlia was actually walking with something that looked. Tahlia smiled back, but not before Purna managed to come through. To him, it was even a shock- though he hadn't worked with Skye in a while, it was clear there was also some other history. Skye Lyons had clearly inflected herself wide, but perhaps now they were coming back to that.

"Miss Lyons, long time no see. I still can't believe you're here. When I heard about the body, I thought you were.....yeah, I should have probably guessed." Purna started, although now he was beginning to put dots together. Bit by bit, at least- that Skye was even another body somewhere else, somehow was still hurting his head.

"Yeah, it was a good trick. You and Ebrima been playing fair?" Skye replied in turn, a look of surprise on Purna's face, but well, the fact he was a Gurkha and what she knew of Ebrima, well, it would have been an interesting scene to say the least. One she wished she saw for the first time, Ebrima nearby at least bringing the two into focus.

"Eh, it is, what it is. Acceptable." Purna dryly remarked looking to Ebrima, as Skye chuckled, looking around at the others, the fact there were so many people now probably a bit crowded.

Skye of all of them caught the eye of Sam. She seemed exhausted, broken too, but Skye found that energy to head over, and well, just simply hug.

"Good to see you again, Sam. I kept up my promise....somehow!" Skye added, this personal touch perhaps a little much, but well, considering the events recently, it was rather remarkable. From enemy number one to this, it was quite a turnaround, not even one Skye was sure she'd end up getting. Sam had done a hell of a job holding the team together after that, and silently, she knew Adam had reason to distrust. She was glad that hadn't been the case, and they were all still mostly in one piece.

"You did good. Really good. Glad you held your end of the bargain too! And....for what it's worth, not an easy thing at all considering what we're going through. Kameko by the way...I can see where you get it from." Skye chuckled, knowing what Sam had been through- likely as a result of Adam, Athena and Imran, and no doubt everything on top of that had driven the team to breaking point. Even so, the unbreakable spirit of the Scot had to keep going, as she gave a silent nod to Antti, who gave one back, no comments shared there at all. With that, Skye headed away from the groups of others, looking to Oliver, who just looked confused. Well, hopefully he would chill out a bit more now, considering the scene set. With that, Skye turned to him.

"I think that settles that situation. You look like shit, Oliver. But still alive and kicking. After taking a slug like that, not half bad." Skye added, looking up to the tall American, who had certainly taken a beating from the railgun in Marrakesh, but well, still stood and kept going. He probably wasn't all up to speed with the situation relating to Skye, but that was fine by her- all of this was a whirlwind, and not much of it made sense. Still, it felt like a whirlwind, as the team mingled, Skye

"Alright, team. Get yourselves rested, and our locations should come through in a few hours. Enri, you should join Raphael in the intel room. I know, he's Israeli, I know, he probably took down yours and Ebrima's team, but you should be aware that Raven's not exactly all about revenge, we're more the stop everyone getting neurotoxin in their brains kind of thing. I do know that you know each other, trust me, there's plenty more." Skye commented, most certainly the two of them in shock that she even knew that.

That was information that was no doubt suppressed, buried, even Enri would have been outright offended to see Skye know that, but well, she had her measures. Being a team lead came with reading files, and she didn't sit in her office doing nothing when it came to recruitment and people. A good spy stayed one step ahead, and knew when to talk about people. Skye was rather like that. Unconventional, but at the least, she knew when things needed to stay secret, and when maybe some honesty would do some good.

Still. Moving swiftly on!

"Anyway. Things to upgrade, repair, yourselves to fix, and a job to do. We have a lot of people to save and no time for paperwork."

---

After all that, the team got to that promptly.

Skye was reunited back with her exo, and this time around, a fine looking tool had been wrapped up in attachment next to it, with a note stuck on the barrel. Tahlia's writing on it.

"If you come back alive, you'll appreciate this! Hold button shy of trigger for capacitor charge, or just hold for burst."

Not bad. Skye had put this on her Christmas list for a while, in replacement of the MG3 as a bullet hose and the SIG as a precise tool, here it was, a prototype M31, an electromagnetic-coil driven battle rifle derived from a SIG-inspired design. A large battery pack under the trigger guard, and a custom-milled cartridge for a magazine in a bullpup configuration. Smiling, she checked the sighting, and shrug her head. Not bad, for a tool like this. She whistled, rotating the rifle around, and then looked over to the others, milling around, checking over their new equipment.

Tahlia was able to spend time with the team now. In the interim, the team could consult her, as well as anyone else regarding equipment, tooling and gear. This was probably the penultimate chance for the team to equip upgrades, and considering the missions ahead, the final form of each of the operatives was getting closer and closer.

The location of that server, and the deployment point for Sol Hestia was getting closer. But with Henry's confessions, Raven's old data, the intelligence gained in Marrakesh and Nagoya, as well as that of everything up to now, the feeling was one that even Skye felt the weight of. There was pressure, a deep-seated. And worse, the fact she'd brought Ban back into this hurt her inside. She hadn't really said it out loud, said what she felt. She had caused that, not Enri, and whilst it felt a little ambiguous, there was a chance Skye had just let her mask slip, for even a second, and given that away. Painted herself red and let the bulls charge, and Ban's father had been collateral. Rose in a way, was right. She pushed down those feelings. Adam, across the room much the same felt the weight of this command again. It was difficult to manage, especially someone like Athena who threw herself in the way of things as much as she did.

---

0200 Local Time

Short Slept

The phone buzzed by Skye's bed, as she groggily reached over, grabbing the device, putting ear to receiver. Barely any sleep in the last few days, and what little there was, was interrupted.
"Yello?"

"Oracle here. We have an update, three targets, urgently. Ferrovia Two, a recently developed geoengineering platform offshore in the western Azores, a data centre on board what appears to be a blimp over Newfoundland, and a receiver station at an rare earth minerals mine in southern Greenland. We need you deployed within an hour."

"Sorry....a blimp?"

"It's an unusual one, but we can't just shoot it out of the sky. We need to sever the link. And any Sol Hestia on board. We have possible ideas on how to get you there, but appreciate it won't be easy."

"A fucking blimp....and the other two targets are hard to hit. We got any help?"

"You name the resource you need. I've been told we practically have the entire free world's arsenal at our disposal. Adam is on Ferrovia, you're on the blimp, and I'll let you task who you need for the mine in Greenland. Insertion methods and intel are to follow within twenty minutes, our teams are around the clock."

"Now, when you put it like that....copy, Oracle. Keep me in the loop." Skye began thinking about the situation, and disconnected on his prompt. In particular, how to deploy the team, and how to make this work. It would be messy, but there was a lot of thinking to do. She'd come to the team when she was ready with a plan, but with that, Skye was up again, and with a big yawn, clambered out of bed and with it, knew Adam would have the same matter to manage.

For the data centre in the sky aboard the blimp, anyone deploying to that would likely need a more specialised loadout- the heavies would be ruled out of armour if they went, and the mediums even would have to forego exoskeletons they usually used. As for Ferrovia, the floating platform sat off the coast in the deep sea, an oil-platform like terminus, requiring the use respirators, SCUBA and other equipment. And as for Greenland, that would be a task of itself. Not one Raven would live down. Skye and Adam would allocate the team shortly, and it would be a matter of time before the full details come through.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP)

---

Purna Chai Gurung

Jemaa-el-Fnaa, Marrakesh, Morocco

1412 Local Time

Escape Route

@Starlance

The shooting that came down onto the convoy vehicles was quickly interrupted by the speed, aggression and antics of the unlikely dynamic duo, Purna clattering a magazine of subsonic 9mm rounds into a cluster of riflemen on the roof, blasting past and then clambered down.
"Keep up, old man!" Purna cheekily yelled back to Ebrima, gunning it through more rooftops, and with it, moving through.

"Contacts, up there!" He called back, ducking down, letting Ebrima clear out the ambush on his side, before moving over and clattering another one with a USP shot, well flicked through the man's skull as he kept in sprint over a metal roof. And with that, suddenly the square ran out, and a large garden opened up, at the edge of the market and dense housing.

With a deep breath, Purna stopped, standing alongside Ebrima, rifle in hand and examining the mess forward, exhaling hard and in position to at least intercept the vehicles, and jump in quickly.
"Not bad. You seem to rip things apart well." Purna commented, drawing the Mk14, readied up.
"Wilk, route is clear. I have a lot more Moroccan Army massing, few IFVs and light vehicles swarming the route towards the Airport. Have you got capacity to take us on board?

"Affirmative. We can't stop, you'll need to work to us. Out." Adam's response was a cold one, as Purna sighed, looking to Ebrima.

"Brilliant." Purna said, adjusting his grappling hook, hearing the trucks come through.

"He is an asshole at the best of times." With it, Purna vaulted over the next wall, and clambered down, running across the road and with a swing of his grapple, pulled it tight and over the next gap, throwing himself forward and landing on top of the forward truck, one of the Blue Sword gunners nearly picking him off in the process, if it wasn't for the fact that his IFF at least pinged back.

Another day, another way out.

---

Adam Stanislaw Kajtanowicz

Athena Anna Kanataario

Roads Outbound

The fight had been a tricky one to manage, as Adam bundled back into the other truck, the one not containing Blue Sword and then the remainder of their forces, speeding out of the square, bullets flying yet now the crossfire intensifying as nobody knew who was friend or foe. It was an anarchy, but at the least, they'd gotten out onto the road, and they were hustling back to base.

Athena had followed, and the injury on Tiny Nord was of concern. She had already gotten to him inside their truck, pulling his helmet off, and getting one of the medics.
"All Blue Sword contacts, withdraw and follow lead for Extract. Also....fuck me, you took a half-charged railgun to that thing!" Athena yelled out, in shock, rather impressed that said, looking his shoulder over, and pulling his head to look at hers.

"You'll be alright. Keep looking at me. Breathe." Athena replied, growing up a little in this moment, well, perhaps realising that there were others outside of her brother and sister that were like her, able to take on things like this. She was still in shock about what Sam had done, but for now, was focussing on Tiny Nord.

"Okay, bleeding's gonna be stopped, suit's contained most of it. Ribs are gonna hurt, and you'll get some painkillers in soon. We're done here. Easy." Athena replied, knowing for this moment, well, she had to at least take some responsibility here.
"Took one for the team, but don't worry, I shocked the hell out of him. Bzzzztt...." Athena kept on nattering, knowing Oliver probably didn't need to hear it, but well, the chat continued anyway.
"So he's probably toast. You'll fight on another day, but that plating and shield are going to need a refit, quick."

---

Adam saw Henry come awake in the other truck, where he sat with Sam and Jamie.

"Welcome back. Knockout gas hit hard. We had to take our precautions." Adam said, looking over at the older scientist, the look on his face of dazed confusion, and blur. With a look around, Henry coughed, leaning over, looking with a squint at Adam, the Pole keeping a distance, unaware if he was friend or foe at this point.

"You. You're Imran's men. Imran's people." Henry spluttered, in shock. Adam nodded, Henry in shock as he grabbed a hold, Adam aware he was a bit weak still, so no real threat, not yet.

"Did you stop it? Did you stop them?" Henry asked, panicked, coughing hard, Adam replying with a nod.

"We did. Whatever that compound is too." Adam replied, the look in Henry's face unchanging.

"Shit. You're them alright. Listen to me. This is nothing. This is a sample. They....it's a testbed. Fuck. She's gonna come. I keep forgetting that."

"How did you end up there? Took a holiday, just by chance end up in a compound full of Artemis soldiers and a ton of neurotoxin?" Adam replied, not wanting to let him go that easy.

"They have my family. I haven't got a choice...means they're good as dead too now, and I suppose we all may as well enjoy what's left. You've seen enough of her, surely?"

"That isn't an answer. We'll secure them. We can fight them." Adam's teeth gritted, Henry still in disbelief.

"You don't understand. This is already in motion."

"Then tell me how we can stop it. You're the main reason she's alive to begin with, so nobody better to ask. So talk, because there has to be a way.." Adam said, looking over at him, looking at the state he was in.

"You're not a captive....they looked after you." Adam said, his astute observation catching that, well, beyond the ragged state he was in.

Henry went to mumble, but before he could, Adam grabbed a hold. Easy to give in, but perhaps because he wanted the easy way out. An easier way out.

"You sold out, you piece of shit. Talk, or I'll fucking double down!" Adam yelled, his voice carrying. This wasn't always ethical. Not always pleasant. But on someone not like them, it worked.

"Shit....okay. Not much you can do when you know what she's capable of though.....right. The network needs a central server hub. She was smart enough to remove it from an original site. And put it God knows where. It works on the fact that Rose goes back to a central network each time she dies. Historically, we had failsafes that gave us oversight. Now she goes to virtually anywhere with a signal, and that has a body in prep. So she's probably hiding that very well, or else you'd actually be able to kill her."

"That isn't the point. The compound, the neurotoxin, she's gonna unleash it through a geoengineering scheme. Releasing it here would kill a few million. Releasing it in the sky suddenly would drop a few billion, mixed in with raincloud. She needed me to finish the sequencing. But she'll be close enough now. Close enough to wait on wind patterns."

"Where, when?"

"Fuck....no clue. But listen. I've seen that compound act. It's Sol Hestia, it's a two-part compound that works from her body."

"What?"

"She's.....Rose is effectively a bioreactor on feet, draw enough of the blood, synthesise it out, and you have a neurotoxin that kills human beings, and leaves fauna, flora, society, untouched. It's a Cold War weapon, an alternative to a neutron bomb the British developed in the 1980s. Clean, and doesn't stop until it breaks apart naturally. In a simple form it's a simple psychoactive drug that stops DNA from destroying itself upon replication, but brew the opposite, right chiral structure passively, with Rose's blood that contains the active component, and it becomes more lethal in parts per billion than anything else. Like Thalidomide, except way, way worse. It was a failsafe designed to making sure she wouldn't have any more mutations in her DNA upon replication. Yet it worked too well and she realised it before any of us did. A mistake." Henry whimpered, as he sighed.

"No cure exists. It's an off switch for a lot of humanity. A reset. Everyone, rich, poor, young, old, white, black, dead. Nothing left but nature to reclaim what is left unless you're in a sealed bunker or off-planet because it just destroys human DNA. The compound remains active for about two years, and with the right spread, ends up in every carried wind, bonding to water. Controlled, a potent weapon, but left unchecked, effectively a genocide tool. We created a monster. And whilst her motives to try and stem humanity are noble....like Artemis.....she isn't stemming, she's going to cut it off." Henry seemed genuinely cold, dethatched almost, in spite of it, but his passion came through.

"Well....you're the one who spawned her. So we'll just have to end her." Adam added, sighing, looking across, as he shrugged.

"Point taken. There should be a fairly clear signal to where her core server is, from any offshoot that she might have been dumped in. The geoengineering scheme, I can't tell if it's Ferrovia One, or something else. But she was turned into this. You need to understand, she doesn't play by the rules anymore. She'll stop at nothing. My family included." Henry replied, as Adam sighed, shrugging. The buzzing in his ear indicated Oracle was back on the line.

"Shit. Oracle, it's Wilk."

"Affirm, I caught that. Get him back, safely. We'll complete a full debrief." Oracle's reply was succinct, as Purna emerged through the gunner's hatch, sitting down next to Sam, who was certainly feeling the squeeze, metaphorically and quite literally.

Sitting down, Adam had a check over her, Jamie reloading his kit in the far end just in case, and the group of them on the way out. This had been messy, and he wasn't happy with Athena's approach. It could have killed Sam, Oliver, and maybe even Athena herself, but, she'd have some smart ass comment to come back at it. This was meant to be a simple snatch and grab. Not a fucking warzone.

Adam had a gander at the other two, knowing they probably weren't entirely sure what this all meant, but Adam was getting a feeling.
"We might be getting very busy. Looks like this got worse."

---

Somewhere in London, United Kingdom

1000 Local Time

A bomb for a body, a hammer for a head....

And there she is. The body of Rose Lyons, well, not quite, but as if by special delivery, she'd arrived in the bunker-like lab.

Oracle looked down at her, another scientist opposite, a clipboard in hand and results expedited.

"Fuck me. I still can't get over this." Imran felt like it still sank in. From the moment that it, the results were now firmly in and confirmed. Skye and Rose were intangibly linked, that was beyond confirmed now, and the genetic results were a perfect match. There's no denying it, whilst perhaps Skye had gained a few scars, scratches, cuts and changes to her skin from puberty and other facets, this was more or less the same person. Even the muscle seemed to be at the same sort of composition, the natural jumping off point for a thirty-year old Scottish redhead, with a bullet left inside her. Everything he knew of her had changed over the last few days, and to find out that mystery project had been her, well, he was beyond livid.

"Well.....she's rather unique. She's a biomechanical piece of work. She's absolutely Skye Lyons's identical copy. To the letter. Minus the tattoos, of course, and the other features you identified. This is Lynx. Every story you heard. The neural link, the plug is like nothing our computer scientists have seen. Same with her general physiology. It's like someone fabricated something out of thin air, and someone figured out how to perfect it. There is no file on it, outside of Henry, who clearly isn't the main architect for her." He added, as Imran looked around. The man opposite looked, a white-coat wearing technician, the Sikh in a certain kind of unhappiness about it. From the moment Lynx had turned up, he had been in denial, almost disbelief about it. But now, it was all coming out.

"And yet she's not Skye at all. Some sort of demented fucking thing." Imran commented, the scientist opposite nodding, his pale face perhaps in an equal state of shock.

"Well, we found traces of DNA strands fragmenting from her blood, typical of a clone. It's clear whatever copy this is, it's in a point of deterioration. Rose is probably living less in each body, considering the copy can't exactly be repeated perfectly without it falling apart over time. There's no fix to that, it's genetic drift. You can't just keep copying and copying without consequence. Unless you had the original, of course. Not that we are absolutely sure that's Skye either."

"Right." Imran added, shaking his head.

"I read about this. A project without a name. People in our department looked after Lynx like she was nothing. Fuck, maybe even I did at one point." Imran said, as he knew that callsign had come across his desk, when he'd been a spymaster here in MI6, and perhaps it all made sense. Skye after all, gave Lynx almost all of her deniability, and he never asked questions. Never needed to.

"Still shocks me. I guess we used her to kill our targets that we considered suicide missions. For Lynx, they were. She would die an awful lot for it yet on the paperwork, the operative always came back alive. Strange that now I never thought about it in hindsight. When it's someone else's case, you don't bother." Imran added, chuckling, almost talking to himself, turning her neck, looking down it, and at the oddly shaped lump that sat there.

"Aye, and a lot of those people in MI6 are now dead. Rose killed the lot of them, accidents, a couple murders, and yet outside of this, seemingly all disconnected and linked to foreign intelligence. If she wanted revenge, she almost made them all disappear. Apart from a few. Like she knew what she was doing, in a way, she's going beyond revenge now." The scientist replied, as he turned to Imran, this bit not making sense, and something he wanted to ask Raven Squad's defacto CO.

"Oracle, how did we get her body? The note, you saw it. It was like someone knew her. Wanted us to finish our work from the previous corpse we got." The scientist asked, as Imran sighed, shrugging.

"One version of Miss Lyons might be lying dead here, but Skye's rather resourceful. I guess I shouldn't have doubted."

"You mean, Skye Lyons is still alive? Well, the other one?"

"Not unless Rose got after her first."

Imran's phone rang, as he walked back out again, hearing a voice on the other end. As if with almost perfect, idiosyncratic timing, the voice of Skye Lyons came back in as Imran walked out. As if almost a reverse of the last time.

---

"Morning, did you receive the package?" Skye's chirpy Scots accent came through.

"Fuck me. You did well to get my number. And time it well. So either you killed Skye, and you're impersonating her, or you're actually her. Either way, it would have to be impressive what you did to get this to us."

"Well, I've got so much shit to give you for Marrakesh. And believe me, it wasn't easy."

"Well....I can't ask for an auth code."

"I suppose I'm as much Rose as she is me. I know about Sam's Shelby, her custom purple bike, and then I know about Freya's lovely scar on her shoulder from Chile, then same about Ebrima's exo being in need of tweaks but being a fancy bit of kit. Or Tahlia detonating a pyro in Colombia from her report, then me having to slit the throat of Rose whilst she was signal disconnected. And me pissing off Sophie by riding my bike when I had broken ribs. Then leaving it all behind over Tokyo and making a big scene. And let me guess your side. You have Adam, and from what I saw of the pictures, Athena fucking up stuff now? Honestly. I give you two days and you already half destroy a major city."

"Hah.....yeah, that would be you. She'd have to try pretty hard to be that sarcastic."

"Yeah, exactly. And you did put a kill order on me. Which is fair. But I'd like to trade. Rose's body is the first half. Data is the other one."

"How did you get it?"

"Don't ask. One of the team got it to me. You can probably guess, but the point is, proves my system works."

"Annoyingly. And if this was any other circumstance, you know I'd be hunting you pretty hard. But you make a good offer. What do you want?"

"I'll send you my co-ordinates, and I want back in. Only condition is, I need two more with me as help. Do we have a deal? "

"Done. They better not be problems. We have enough shit going on as is."

"They are."

With it, Skye looked over her shoulder, looking at Enri and Ban, and chuckled, sitting back in the seat of the old Buick.

"Fine. Get yourself to an airport. We'll make arrangements." With it, Skye hit the disconnect, and sighed.

There had been so much blood, so much loss for this, and every time Skye believed this would end, it went deeper. But now they had at least half a chance to fight back.

---

Camp Hannula, Pöyrisjärvi National Park, Finland

2000 Local Time

Interlude: Sisu

Home was a strange place to be, but it was not going to be a long trip back. The trucks had been rushed back, with the entire team in, and the point was to rearm, reequip, and get any critical work done to anyone that was hurt, before going out again.

They rattled through the now melted gravel of springtime, and with it, came to a skidding halt back at the base. The team unloaded, as did the supporting Blue Sword soldiers in the now gravelly, suddenly lush green landscape of Northern Finland.

Henry had been taken, and a full debrief was taken place. Raven's old data had also been gathered, and both securely taken, as was what they had learned in Marrakesh.

The situation was dire. A geoengineering scheme, and somewhere, a data server needed to be taken down. The team had to rearm, resupply and get ready again. Freya would be ready to go as well, and there was little time to sit around and wait. The fate of the world rested on Raven, and in the background, intel and other teams were humming away. They just had to execute, and get on with things.

As Adam headed towards the armoury, he pushed on the door and could only take half a moment's breath for the sight he could see. The Scottish woman who refused to die, who had died plenty of times before, just stood there with this wild grin on her face, next to Enri and Ban. Oracle had mentioned something about recovering Skye, but had no idea she was back this early. And fast. Was it Rose? Before he could even deduce that, he got his answer.

"God, you're still an uptight bastard. Evening to you all." Skye wittily commented, Adam's jaw just wide open. Athena and Purna followed in, as did Tahlia.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP)

@Damo021

No worries, PM when ready with your char idea!

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP)

Collab with @BigPapaBelial @FourtyTwo

Skye Rosalind Lyons

Ban Kingo

Kiyose City, Tokyo, Japan

0600 Local Time

The Ready Reckoner

The early dawn rose in the land of the rising sun, the streetlights fading in the dawn chorus of Tokyo’s many metropolitan areas, and the car was rolling around. Skye had fallen asleep on the journey, her body completely out of it after all that had happened, well, apart from the one trip to drop off her doppelganger, the chemical containment tubes sellotaped to her, and a trip to a black market to retrieve bootleg passports, documentation and everything else needed. It was the end of a hard mission, but one that would serve the team critically, even if right now, the pixie-like redhead was still in the crosshairs for many people.

Looking across the seat as the car came in towards the parlour, Skye looked to the other ex-Raven operative, the hardened and dutiful Ban Kingo. A man she didn’t believe she would ever work with again, let alone accept, but he was grateful beyond words for what he had done. Put himself back out there for not a stranger, but an old friend, and what an adventure it was.
“How are you holding up? Gonna say, this has been quite an adventure of ours. I have places to be. Up to you still, if you want to join me.” Skye said to him, the Scots redhead back to her usual accent, the sticker peeled off her voicebox, and back to her usual husky, seeded Highland accent, soft yet somehow, sharp like granite.

Ban sat with his chin cradled in one hand, a slight smile on his lips as they drove along. For all that he’s still bandaged up from the round he took during the lab strike. He nods, “I’m doing okay all things considered. How can one really prepare for a ghost from the past returning. That ghost then pulling them back into old habits. And then marching into hell like they’d never left it?” He chuckles softly “I’m doing good.” He looks at her directly eyes narrowing some, “I’m more worried about you. I’ll march into hell and back out again if you asked it. But you’ve been hit by setback after setback, backhand after backhand. That can’t have left you in a good place. How are you holding up?”

A tilt of his head, “As for continuing on. My little gambling den can run on it’s own for a little while, and I’m sure the Oyabun will allow me to take a leave of absence for a short bit. If you’ll still have me I’ll gladly follow on.” He slowly nods, “Just say the word my friend.”

Skye smiled back, a bit of optimism back in her heart from hearing it, even in spite of the fact that indeed, he was right. Setbacks like this were never good, the core team could have taken a much worse loss and Kaitaki had lost a lot of good support staff, people Skye had got to know and appreciate in the last few months. Still, nothing could be done now, and what mattered was going forwards. Even if it meant stopping a woman that seemingly couldn’t die and wanted to kill millions, if not more.
“That would be appreciated. I don’t know where it’ll lead. But I appreciate it nonetheless.” Skye smiled back, looking out of the window, traffic non-existent bar for traders and shop owners starting to set up for the day.
“I’m still going. But it’s all insane. I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone. What you saw, what went down…..the memory is really, really hazy. Rose, that woman that looks like me, she had a lot of really scary stuff to say when I saw her in New Zealand. When she turned up. And I don’t know how to read any of it. Never met an enemy I couldn’t kill, or stop, no matter how big. But someone who knows me better than I do….that one scares me.” Skye replied, sitting up, looking across, hands on knees, shrugging.

“Everything I understand about the world has turned to shit, and the only thing I can do is just keep killing people until there’s something left and there’s something. No team, just us and the hope we’re right. So yeah. Dandy.” Skye let a wry chuckle, the kind of dry humor a Scots would have, as she sighed, leaning back, knowing Ban would understand, well, at least read that even with the slight crack in Skye there, she wasn’t going to let it be filled with anything else but sarcasm. The car was starting to pull in close, and they would be getting out, and going back inside.

Ban straightened up, seeing that crack, really though a small crack in Skye’s mental and emotional armor was more like a massive breach. He nodded then reaches over and place a rough hand, run through with hidden augments, upon Skye’s nearest hand. Warm, gentle, but with restrained strength and violence, “You’re not alone. You’re current team, I’m sure they are ready to step up higher and forward further then they already are.” He chuckles softly, “And you’ve got men like me ready to move forward with you, in your shadow or at your side. So I’ll stay here at your side and as your shadow, ready to cut down the ones that need to be cut down my friend.”

He looked forward then braced as the car came to a slow rolling stop. The driver stepped out to open his door, and Ban quickly jogged around and opened Skye’s for her, offering his hand to help her out, “So you’ll have a sword ready to cut out the curse that is threatening you. I’ll stick by you. Until you’re ready to get rid of me.” He chuckles a little, and motions for the driver to get the door into the back areas of the pachinko parlour. “We can plan the rest here, we’ll be safe. And secure.”

Skye smiled back, chuckling and giving a nod, knowing he was right, but also, knowing the challenges they faced were going to not be insignificant. She’d brought him into the firing line, and internally, that swelled inside of her too. And the shadows they faced, well, they had plenty to do.
“Thanks, Ban. I’ll hope that’s sooner rather than later. But I think we’ve made more than a dent.” Skye replied, a smile back, as she followed the driver, and with it, headed into the back door of the pachinko parlour, walking inside and heading through. All quiet and dead, with just the light of the machines available, and it felt like the strangest of places to be planning things. The driver led them through the parlour itself, and headed towards the office, around a corner, they had Ban’s office to get back to.

They did, until as Skye turned the corner to go down the corridor that she’d barely been in two days earlier and there she was. With a shit eating grin.
“Miss me?” Skye went to draw but instead was smashed in the back of the head, with another man charging into the back of Ban, tasing away with a cattle-prod like implement, until he stood no longer.

—---------------------------------

Her vision was blurry, but then again, this was round two of getting knocked out, by that utter, utter despicable piece of shit. Fuck. She’d known. She had played her. Skye should have known better. The whole thing….the assistant recognised Ban, and had found him. With a groan, she limbered herself up against the post, hands tied to the frame of one of the machines, Ban across from the other. And with it, there stood Rose, rather casually dressed considering, with Ban’s sword in hand. A black t-shirt, jeans, and the hair that Skye had identical to her.

“This is rather fine. Exquisite even. The details on it. And the sharpness. I bet you could cut up anything with this. And I think I’ll keep it.” Rose said to Ban with the wry sharpness of her English accent watching him come to, shaking her head, brushing the side of the blade, as she heard the other two men she was with drag someone else into the room, alive, sober, and kicking. Skye lurched, screaming, realizing, understanding.

Ban woke slowly and quickly realized something had happened that really didn’t play well. The parlour had been quiet, too quiet, even at the time of day it was. Even late into the night and early into the morning there would be people at the pachinko stalls or in the back playing one of the illegal games. But that hadn’t hit him quite right away. Not until they’d turned the corner into the back area, then started towards his office. The doppelganger, the bakemono! The woman who looked like Skye! She was there that explained why no one was in the parlour! He’d braced then, about to leap, when someone caught him from behind. He’d rolled to his back and looked up at an Obu family footsoldier. She’d managed to get some help? From Obu!? He’d tried to lash his hand up, but it’s caught and he’s rolled over again. He’s just about getting his legs up under him when he feels something jab into his back. And then he knows nothing but electrical pain!

He’d woken up on his knees, beside Skye, looking up, “What…h…ahhh the bakemono.” He snarls then his eyes go wide, “Ota-san!” he barked, and then pulled, the braces keeping him still straining but not giving, “What are you doing with my father!” He snarled out.

“Fuck, you leave him out of it!” Skye yelled, as Hataro was dragged to Rose, the old man no match for tasers and the two mercenaries that Rose had brought with her. How the fuck was she here? They’d taken down their facility, yet she was here, as if on demand? What, had she fallen out of the sky too? Also, how the fuck had she found out? Through the rival Yakuza clan, through a mistake Skye had made, or Ban had made, or in fact, anything?

None of it mattered. Hataro was dragged in front of the two on Rose’s nod, and with it, Rose crouched down in front of Skye, not Ban, and looked dead in, a certain conviction behind her. She didn’t really care. It looked expressive in her body language, she was done. Completely so.

“I have to admit, I’m disappointed we couldn’t agree earlier. But, I suppose it made me realize your true colors. See, I had to lose a very nice piece on the chessboard to you. One of my favorites. But sometimes you have to take risks…then that means we’re rather mutual in that fact. As if we weren’t already. I had to make a choice between you and your friends about the trip I made, and I could not resist coming here. Maybe you just don’t realize where the points on the tracks that I come from point to, do you?” She tutted, Skye wanting to scream a thousand fucks, if it wasn’t for the fact that Rose could kill all of them, here and now, no problem.

“Listen. You want me dead, fine. But you’re gonna be wasting energy on them both and creating a trail. You know as well as I do we’re in the open now. That makes it harder for us to even fucking move anywhere. So a bloodtrail is the last thing you want. Think this through.” Skye replied, as Rose chuckled, shaking her head, with a single, soft, stroke.

“It is the only thing I want, Skye. You kill who you killed, did what you did. And then you get collateral involved….make a scene. It really could only be you, couldn’t it. You really are desperate. You think you can still win. Yet just like this fine sword, it’s rather double edged how that works.” And with it, drawing the blade from the sheath, looking into Skye’s gaze, gently turning it over, then walking back to Hataro.

Ban held his father’s eyes, “Ota-san? Father…” Hataro Kingo looked at his son with a smile, “It’s alright my son. It’s alright. Keep our honor.” Ban swallowed thickly, then bowed his head. When he raised it again his gaze bored into Rose, watching her, but speaking of violence and vengeance.

“No team, no support, nothing. It’s like the fact you think your friends are a strength, yet I only see one problem with that. Isn’t that right, Ban?” Rose said, turning her head to face him, the sight of Skye Lyons, duplicated, in a certain turn.

“It’s that this work never really leaves you behind.”

And with that look, Rose cleanly raised and swiped the katana through Hataro’s neck, half severing his head in a messy pool of blood, kicking him down right in front of Ban, in a bloody, messy heap. He was half decapitated, and the bloodstain into the carpet swelled like an apricot.

It was messy, and instant. Like a blur, and Rose appeared aside from it. She wasn’t looking at Ban. She was looking at Skye. As if to make it worse.

Ban made no sound other than his breath getting heavier. Then in the low deep voice of his, but in that rumbly Japanese, “Watashi no meiyo to kazoku ni chikatte, omae o korosu. Omae no kubi o hane, meiyo o ubai, soshite omae no shitai o gomi no yō ni tsuba de haki kakeru!” He hissed then in english, “I swear, I’ll kill you. On my honor, on my family name, on my blood. And when I take your head, I’ll spit on your corpse like the trash you are! And the only way you can stop that, is by killing me!” He strains again the brace behind him creaking but not giving.

“So….are we paying attention now?” Rose did not seem like some cartoonish, far away villain anymore. She seemed here, right now, and well, with her motive, her tone hardened, cold, and as if it was another day. Another time. She was angry. She couldn’t hide her emotions, but this was a means to an end. Even in response to Ban, who squirmed, she seemed almost removed.

Skye looked on in horror.

She had clearly hurt Rose, deeply, way, way more than she had ever anticipated by all that had happened, so this must have been the extreme- after all, the center was key to her, but well, this kind of response was beyond words. Yet she was the same flesh and blood as Skye, after all. Same capacity for violence. Same willingness to think, and get what she wanted.

“You fucking monster! Fuck, what did he do to you?” Skye yelled, tugging at the rope and the machine, neither budging as Rose pushed back, the blade resting directly on Skye’s heart, a mere centimeter away from hitting the organ as she stopped on the cold, sharpened metal already pulling the sinews of her shirt away. Ignoring Ban altogether, apart from a glance.

“I know I can’t torture you. But him? He’s not us. And I can make you feel what it’s like as I strip him away, piece by piece, and the rest of him, his clan and family. They trained us well, Skye. I could go through all of your fingers, all of your toes, legs, arms. But I don’t need to. Just his, if I want you to talk.” She said, looking to Ban.

Ban grins and chuckles, the show of his teeth like a caged animal, unbroken and still wild, “What more do you think you can do to me? What more can you take from me? My father is dead. And by now, the Amagi family will be gearing for war. You have nothing to make me fear you anymore!” He chuckled and looked down at his father, “He was all I had left in my blood family. And you can’t touch the Amagi.” He grinned, then looked at Skye and then it clicked, “No…”

“I just need to take what else matters in his life away, and the face that does it is yours...like the clan. You’ve just given me an excuse to not care anymore about consequences, like you don’t. This isn’t a war. This is the end.” Rose finished, as if to put a cherry on top.

Skye couldn’t think of the words. A team-mate was one thing to do this to. Silence, acceptance, just knowing she had to talk enough to get this through was one thing, but Rose was smart enough to know Skye knew that too. So she did the only thing Skye herself would ever end up with. You can’t hurt that which can’t be hurt. You just rip everything around them to cinders until they crack. The unbreakable cannot have a foundation to stand on. Hardened criminals, special forces soldiers, they collapsed when nothing was left. There were worse things, but even so, she was going to do it to her team-mate’s life, the one she’d pulled him away from, all to rip it apart in front. The silence was deafening, aside from Ban.

“Fuck…..what do you want then?” Skye replied, hesitant. Anything would do. Anything to buy time. Rose was confident, maybe overly so due to her disposition, but not stupid. Rose indulged nonetheless.

“See, Ban, look how she starts. All those bodies you left, all the security that went your way, and it takes just one dead Yakuza to open her up. Well.” Rose said openly, then walking back, crouching in front of Skye.

“I want to know where you put a specific version of me. And what your hacker knows. If you do that, I don’t kill the rest of his clan. I spare them, keep them alive. Not sure about what I do with you, but he gets to go back out of this. Alive. To be honest with you, I don’t really see the point in keeping you awake anymore, but I suppose you may as well save the people you love while you’re at it.” Rose started, knowing well, Skye would probably die before she gave that up, but hey, she’d already fucked up enough things for now. May as well make this one last like Rose had felt herself.

“Isn’t that what you do best? Or should you just die a bit pointlessly while you watch me rip everything he has left away? Is that how we should do this?” Rose said, as Skye looked to the rope, trying to look for spots, ways out, anything. She looked at Ban with a certain determination, a certain ire, hoping, praying he had some sort of plan. Rage was a hell of a tool in a situation like this. Skye could squirm, but the rope was tight as hell around her, every piece pinning her in despite what she was doing.

Ban looked at Skye harder than at Rose. And screamed, “Jigoku ni ochiro! Go to Hell!” Then kicked the limiters off his augments. The smell of burning flesh and burning cloth filled the room and he pulled. Arms straining, legs clenching, and first his left arm came free with a cracking of the brace behind him, pulling harder, his legs came free, then again his other arm coming free. And he shot forward, over his fathers body and directly at Rose, “Face me now then you bakemono! You monster! I’ll take your head with my bare hands!”

His hands held to his sides, classic samurai style Judo ready to use, even as he rocketed across the space between them, steps stamping into the floor as he rushed her.

Rose turned in a certain shock, watching as he charged, diving out of the way as Skye lunged forwards in her own brace, yanking into her doppelganger and at least sheering the blade against her right arm and the tether holding her with a painful turn, one of the mercs running over towards Ban, weapon raised.
“Fuck! Kill him!” Rose yelled, unprepared for his speed, but sword ready, unaware of what Skye had done in the heat of the moment, as she knew Ban would have to take on the guard, before well, bullets happened.It was a split second, barely anything else happening, as Skye used it to get herself out, the anarchy in front at least creating a mask.

Ban barely slowed, the guard who jumped in his way swung his tanto. And amazingly he caught it. Between his hands, and almost in slow motion flicked the blade out of his hand, caught it and slammed it into the very center of the guard's forehead, and well maybe over judged just how strong his unlimited augments are. As he catches the body, and performs a perfectly beautiful shoulder throw, that bounced the man off the ground twice before he hit a wall.

And then he’s after Rose again, “You won’t kill me with my own family sword!” And then seemed to vanish, going from upright one moment, to seemingly gone. It’s from Skye’s POV that he ducked so fast that he seemed to blur out of existence. And he slams his right shoulder into Rose…

At the knees! A snarled out “YA!” As he shoved his whole body into her knees trying to bowl her over with the sheer speed and his body weight, “Down here Bakemono!”

Rose could barely react, smashed into a machine as she felt the weight of his augments and his strength, kicking him off and slashing, catching his metal arm with a turn, but barely able to put weight behind it, as she kept the blade front and centre, looking at him dead in view, not falling for that one again, on her knees, using his weight to throw him back and away.
“Right here! And I’ll gut you with it!” Rose yelled back, snarling with anger herself, as Skye fumbled across, watching the fight unfold, blood pouring from her arm as she yelled. Rose was in a decent position considering, unless Ban wanted to skewer himself.

“Not so cocky now, are you!” Skye yelled back, Rose turning for a moment to see Skye come across, her gaze split for a second. She hoped it would be enough to distract, at the very least for him to make another run.

Ban doesn’t seem to be shaken any. He looks at his arm, where the flesh over it is still sizzling away. The smell of burned skin was still clear in the air, “Not bad. But do you think you can keep up bakemono? Do you hear that by the way? You aren’t a person. You’re a demon! A ghost! Something not real! You are nothing!” He moved then. And even as Rose lashed with the sword there’s a crack.

Rose looked in awe. Ban looked pleased. He caught the blade between his palms. He then smiled, “I don’t need to be cocky when I know what I need to do. So tell me…” He moved his right hand forward while bracing the blunt edge of the blade on the palm of his left hand, then pushed and flicked at the same time, the blade coming free and sticking up into the ceiling almost half way up the blade! “..Do you bleed?”

He hissed, “Now then.” And moved again. And only due to the speed granted by his amped up augments, the blow is near invisible. The impact is a harsh crack as his first impacts on the nerve bundle half way up Rose’s left arm. The next one is a snap in the same place, on her right arm.

The last of the three though he takes his time, he measures up, placing his right index finger on her sternum, “Have you ever heard of the One Inch Punch? How they say it’s a myth?” He grins then surges forward, and indeed slams his fist into her chest dead center, mythological One Inch Punch indeed as he forced his entire body weight into that point, driving her back nearly three feet.

Then he stops, having to finally breathe, “Don’t need to be cocky. Now who is really cocky here? Huh? Bakemono?”

Rose spat blood, coughing up as she looked up, thrown back yet still breathing, blood pouring, yet seemingly, not even caring. Most people would, but then again, without consequences, she wanted to keep squaring. Keep facing.
“Oh, you are good.” She replied, and with it, let him draw in, responding in turn with a perfected counter, her krav-maga taught method not as fast as Ban, but effective enough to draw him in, countering his kick and responding with her own, going for his manhood and swinging him in, punching hard as Skye kicked her off him, running across the room to one of the Tantos on the floor and bringing it to bear.

“Two versus one, fine!” Rose yelled back, as she diverted herself onto Skye, the Scot facing her down and yanking the knife back into hand, staring her down. It was a quick set of moves as Skye came in close, but Rose couldn’t keep her balance, not with Ban looming. She tried to dodge, but it came fast enough, Skye finding a crack in her punches and with it, bringing the knife into hand, shanking into her stomach twice, as Rose took the knife and with it, pushed back, pulling the knife out of her with a primal scream and pushing back. Screaming, Skye realized as suddenly, the knife fell into her side, Skye limping away as Rose did the same, a shared pool of blood between them into the floor.

There’s a moment where Skye clutched her side, the wound driven hard, but right below her lungs. It hurts her to breathe though, the blade sticking in as she looked across at Rose, gargling blood out of her mouth, a bloody smile on her face.
“I’ll keep coming…..and you can’t stop this. Can’t stop any of it. You, your stupid team….” Rose uttered, the pooling continuing as Skye felt the same, crawling across, pulling her up, getting weaker, and weaker from her own.
“This isn’t what he wanted. I know it isn’t. Please…..please, Rose. You have to stop.” Skye begged, even in her weakness, feeling Rose’s depleting life cackle back.
“We’re on the brink…no going back now. It’s not him that wants this. Never was...” With it, Rose took the knife in Skye’s side, and weakly, tried to push. Skye screamed, falling on top of her doppelganger’s arms, trying to stop it as best as she could, feeling Rose’s efforts weaken with her weight.

Ban grinned right back at her, “The fine arts of Karate, Jujutsu and Judo play well with me bakemono.” He slipped in, ducking in with the paired women. His hands lashing out, vying off the lashes of that tanto, trying to create an opening for Skye to get in. The crack of metal on metal, flesh on flesh. He’s leaning back out of the way of a dangerous cut when Skye gets in. And he slides back and out of the way as the pair meet. He can see and hear the slice of flesh.

And for a moment he’s paralyzed.

They’d both drawn blood. He looks at Skye the tanto at her side, buried well. The opening in Rose though is mortal, it’s clear. And he watches as they bleed. And then come together in this moment. He caught his breath then stepped in, reaching down, to try and pry them apart, without pulling the knife clear of Skye’s innards, “Skye, stop…enough. The Bakemono is dying. You can’t help that. But you can help yourself.” He pulls again trying to get them apart, “Do not give you life for the dead. Do not give your soul for hers.”

Skye exhaled hard, wrapping herself onto Ban, holding tight, as she felt feint, fuzzy, weird. She felt exposed, but then again, gently throbbing blood from her gut was not a way she planned for this morning to go.
“She’s got me fucking good, Ban. Really good. You know me well…..” She uttered, dragging herself against the wall, exhaling hard and painfully, looking into him.
“I’m sorry, Ban. I’m so fucking sorry…..she…..I don’t even know.” Skye mumbled, putting her hand against his, exhaling deeply, her heart panicking, her body in overload, looking over at one of the men that Ban had brutally managed to kill. And the first aid kit on his tactical rig.
“The bleed. Listen. It’s going to need a ton of clotting agent. It’ll piss a lot of blood. And we need to get out. Fast.” Skye garbled, her panicked embrace looking down at the wound.

Ban caught her and carefully leaned back looking at Rose, “The Bakemono is gone…for now it seems.” He helped her away then let her out of his grasp and followed her to the wall, he looked up and around, then went to the door, with a heave he gets it open and then comes back, with a medical pack, “Take it easy Skye-chan, you’re going to be okay. You’re in my hands. I won’t let you go without a fight.” He opened the pack and left it open beside her, “This is likely going to hurt. We’re going to have to get it out and get you fixed up. There’s no cauterizing pen in here. But it looks like there’s some clotting powder in here. Just hang on.”

And then Ban applied pressure, pulled the knife and quickly stuffed the open package of clotting gel into the wound after ripping it open with his teeth. He shut his eyes, trying to drown out his friend's scream of pain from the knife then from the rough insertion of the gel into the wound. He holds his hand against the wound as the gel works to slow and hopefully stop the bleeding, “Just hang tight my friend. Just hang on. You’ll still have time. Everyone gets that moment of downfall. Now comes your climb back up. I think this is it. You can start coming back up out of the murk.” He continued to work on her wound. During which his limiters kicked back in, and stopped burning his flesh and clothing. Leaving him near naked in the moment, not that he seemed to notice any as he tended to Skye.

Skye screamed, yelping and roaring, feeling the heat and pain start to burn as she felt all fuzzy and weird. The words didn’t make sense, as the smell of burning could be audibly heard, from the limbs of Ban’s arms and legs, fizzling away. She felt very vague, all manner of strangeness happening from the amount of blood she was losing out here. After a lucid moment where it started to fuzz in, Skye found the energy where she could, resting a bloody hand against his boiling arm.
“Thank you…..shit, thought I was a goner.” Skye mumbled, and with it, released her arms, exhaling hard, looking back at Rose, then back to Ban. What would normally have killed someone here, had somewhat kept Skye alive, yes, through a poor decision but it was clear that if she hadn't gotten involved, the odds were still questionable for Ban. If Rose was anything like what Skye could do, she wouldn’t have done down easy.

Looking into his eyes, Skye mustered the energy she had for now, wheezing a little.
“We need to go. We really need to go. Wash any blood you have off you, it…it tracks. Hers. Sorry. It’s all a bit dizzy.” Skye kept mumbling, knowing it didn’t make much sense, as she felt the burn of his skin against hers, amplified by her sensory overload.

Ban used the medical stapler in the kit to close up the wound for now, “Right we’ll tend to that here shortly. Just want to make sure you’re good to go. Don’t want it to come loose in the moment.” And taping some medical gauze over the wound he finishes up. By this point he’s slowing a little the adrenaline rush, and the sadness of losing his last blood family clearly is starting to get to him. Only when he’s sure she’s taken care of does he get her to her feet to make sure she can walk, “Let’s go find somewhere I can wash off then try and get out of here. We can go to the Amagi Estate, they’ll take us in. But I think we’re going to need to get out of Japan for a while. Think Raven will take you back in? Think they’ll take me back in?” He levers her up onto his hip and helps to get her out of their holding cell, “I…can grieve later. We need to get out of here.” He took a moment to reach up and pull his sword out of the ceiling, tucking it to his side.

And he limps out with her on his side. Her blood and flesh and bone and pain. His meat, and metal and pain and loss. A fine pair in the end perhaps.

Skye looked up, barely able to hold onto him, her vision blurred like she was drunk, considering the litre of blood or so she’d lost.
“No chance. We can’t go there. Tell them to get ready for war, Rose is just using anything as a means to an end. Including them. We cannae stay for that..fuck he was a good man.” Skye continued to blear her words, looking back at Hataro, then back to Ban, her arms around him in an embrace, tears pouring out, as she sighed hard.
“Enri. Enri can help us. There’s one more place we have to go. One more thing we have to do. It’ll put us back where we need to be. In Los Angeles, there’s another friend that can help.” Skye added, hearing the sound of another vehicle rolling.
“Ah, fuck…..yeah, let’s get out.” Skye added, knowing they had to get to a vehicle, or something.

Ban winces, getting them outside looking around, “Come on.” And pulls her over to a small Kei truck, tucked along the side of the street a short distance away, “Come on, in here.” He pops the door after a little jiggling and manual lock picking. “Try and pop the other side open so I don’t have to break the window.” And then once he’s inside, hot wires the truck, getting it started, “:ets get out of here, I’ll make a call to the Family once we’re in a safe house. This likely means the Amagi and the Obu are going to go to the Mattresses. There will be deaths. Not since the Yamaguchi War have the Yakuza fought in the streets.”

Skye did as she could, fumbling across, taking the shard of metal and jabbing it in, using the good old picking technique of just shoving the lock until it went, and that it did, pulling nicely and falling in. She immediately fell onto Ban’s lap, before righting herself.
“Fuck….”

He caught her then pulled out into the streets, “We’ll make for the airport. I know a guy. He has a plane, it should get us to Hawaii, then we can try and get to Los Angeles from there. Stay with me here Skye-chan. We only got out of one problem. We’ve got far far too many ahead of us. Let’s get out of here.” He pressed the gas, and headed into the growing fog of a Tokyo morning.