Gisk

Discontinued

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WILLIAM BISHOP █ act one: way down we go p. johnson's ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

"Nah," he said to Freya, "I'll come with you." They walked to the bar together, and Billy had just pulled out his card to give to the bartender when Hanna spoke to him and Freya, "Well, well, if it isn't my favorite mistress of all time. We're having seconds—or thirds, I don't know—all around, so dig in here, get whatever you guys want, on me." "Hey!" Billy chided in mock anger, holding his card up, "That's my drunken bar move!" He favored her with a wink to assure her it was in jest, and ordered a white Russian, with an extra espresso shot. On reflection, he also asked for a shot of tequila, which he downed professionally when it arrived. He posed with her for her photo snapping spree, and asked her to tag him. It would honestly give them both a boost in social media visibility. Then the topic turned to the time capsule. "I genuinely can't remember," he spoke in an unusual undertone, "But I might have put a bong in there." ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

Unbeknownst to the pirates, the pilot of the Schwalbe responded over the Gjallarhorn line.

"Major! My suit is entangled in a line, but I don't think it's been damaged badly. One hostile has had the sensor array knocked out, but four are still active. I haven't seen the ship they launched from, but I believe it's close."

As if on que, a larger Ahab reaction began to rapidly increase. It had been on the sensors before, but blended in with all the junk out in the debris zone.

~~~

Meanwhile, Holly was exploring the controls and displays in her new mobile suit. Her Stolas. Martin had called it a Gundam, what did he know about it? And how? Or was he lying? It seemed farfetched, what he had told the Gjallarhorn officer. And now Holly realized. Only the Gjallarhorn officer and the two "Gundams" had heard that. They had a channel that the Witch couldn't hear.

~~~

As the Mercurial Witch approached through a corridor in the debris, the captain floated above her chair on the bridge.

"I'm not interested in Gjallarhorn interference. All weapons open fire."

Mick hesitated before relaying the command, "And... Familiar Squad?"

"Let them scurry. Rats are cheap."

The forward facing guns swiveled into position, and began to fill the void with shells.

Immediately, the ship that Holly and Martin had entered rocked with impact. Inside, Holly instinctively lifted Stolas's legs, so that the mobile suit floated independently of the wildly shaking ship. She didn't know what Martin was playing at, but she thought quickly and keyed the comm frequency that Familiar Squad used, relaying odd of the Big Boi's LCS.

"Thom, Kurt, Fox," in her haste and confusion, she forgot to use their callsigns, "Take shelter in this ship, bring the hostage in too. If the enemy tries to follow, they'll have to take the same entrance. So we'll be sheltered from friendly fire, and have the advantage in close quarters."

She had to make it reasonable, but what she really wanted was for them to enter the ship with the rest of the gundams.

She swapped channel to the one only Stolas and Ipos were using.

"I don't wanna work for Old Hilde either," the last space rat who had used that nickname for the Captain was given to the Bosun, Holly never saw them again, "But what the hell are you thinking? We can't fight the Witch with five mobile suits, no matter how fancy. If we turn them over we might get to pilot them though..." There was a note of panicked pleading in her voice. Things were going sideways fast, and she was looking for a way out.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

"Wait, did you get him?" Holly questioned over the comm as she heard some of the chatter coming from Fox. Her displays were down for good, it seemed, and she couldn't see any of what was happening. Her mapping was still partially functional, based on the last known images, but the Ahab wave ovelay seemed to still be operating in real time. Using this, Holly turned the Big Boi so that its back was to the fancy Graze, and hit the control to open her cockpit.

She heard the wirring of servos as the armor plates moved out of the way, then the hatch in front of her opened forth. She could see now that her sidelong tumble had been stopped by grabbing the edge of the hole in the old wrecked ship's hull. What she saw inside stopped her dead. "Uh, stand by, my system isn't working right..."

The rent in the bulkhead opened to the ship's hangar bay, and there were five mobile suits lined up. Each was unique, and Holly did not recognize any of them. She disconnected her AV and the harness that kept her secured in her seat, then kicked off from the cockpit and drifted into the bay.

It was dark, and she realized the only reason she could see is that there was a computer terminal that was still active after all this time. She drifted over and looked at the screen. It was cracked down the middle, and the only word she could make out was "Wake," which seemed to be part of a button or prompt. She reached a gloved hand out, her breath caught in her throat, and pressed it.

~~~

On the bridge of the Mercurial Witch, Brun was watching with a satisfied smile as her rats tangled the interloper up.

Her reverie was interupted by a bleeping from the console, and Mick spoke up.

"Uh... there's new Ahab waves... I don't even know where they came from! They're right on top of Familiar One, but I don't see anything..."

"Could it be an error? Maybe one of the old reactors shifted when the feral one flew through the debris."

"It's possible..." he sounded like he doubted it, "I don't recognzie the signatures, so it would make sense if they're from older reactors."

~~~

Holly gasped as new light came on in the vast dimness. Five pairs of eyes suddenly flared to life, glaring down at her. As one, their armor shifted, silent in the vacuum, revealing the opening cockpit hatches in their chests. It seemed incredible that any part of them could still work, but Holly chose the friendliest looking one, and kicked off the floor towards it. She pulled herself past the armor plating and into the cockpit. It was light up brightly from all the displays and controls. Unlike the computer terminal out in the hangar, nothing could get to these electronics to damage them.

The cockpit looked remarkably similar to what she was used to. The seat was cushier, but she noticed the Alaya Vijnana interface embedded in it. The controls were also comparable, though without the scratches, scuffs, burns, and other little marks from long, hard use.

Without thinking nearly as much as she should have, Holly plugged the interface in. She made a choked groaning sound as the man-machine interface connected, her body convulsing wildly in the plush seat. The feedback was worse even than her Rodi. As her body relaxed, she gasped out the word "Stolas..."

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

"What?" Holly barked shrilly as Martyn tried to give orders. The odds seemed stacked in their favor, and she wasn't worried, but if he kept taking charge like this he was going to sow confusion in their own ranks.

"Fine, but Ku- er, Familiar Three. Break off, destroy that boosters pod," she tapped her display, her hand moving nimbly so that it only left the controls for a bare moment. "That's prolly how he got out here all by his lonesome. Don't let him leave with it."

Fox, crazy as his namesake, was already following Martyn's orders, and dove into the weeds, breaking their contact briefly. Holly wasn't super concerned. He usually followed the spirit of his orders more than anything, and wasn't one to be micromanaged in the first place.

As they moved in, the fancy yellow Graze kicked off the lip of the hold in the wreck's hull, and boosted backwards. It moved in a serpentine pattern, dodging the bulk of bullets sprayed haphazardly in its direction, all the while clinging close to the decrepit Gjallarhorn ship. It raised a gun(it looked like an updated version of the 120 that her Graze piloting comrades used), and sprayed back as it retreated astern of the great wreck.

The Big Boi moved in with the rest of the pirates. Holly just barely got the idea that the Schwalbe's creepy sensor orb was focused on her when it corrected its wild fire. She finally heard the shots(silent in the void until they hit you), but she could only laugh. At this range, most of their ballistic weapons were little more a nuisance.

Holly set her LCS comm to an open channel and taunted. "You're all alone out here, rich boy! Come quiet and we might - Agh!"

There was a distinct popping sound, reverberating through the mobile suit from somewhere above the cockpit, and all of her visual feed went blank. Her comrades on the outside, however, could see as a very lucky(or perhaps incredibly skillful) shot pierced the head of Big Boi in the crack where the nanolaminate had been chipped away.

Holly was knocked off course, and felt herself hit something big(the side of the old ship, she realized). She tumbled along it briefly, but managed to catch onto part of it with her mobile suit's arm, a move that would be impossible without the spacial awareness granted by the AVS.

She cursed violent, but tested to ensure her comms were still up.

"Forget me, go get him. Martyn, I guess you're im charge after all."

Discontinued

Just checking in, still here, ready to go.

Starfighter Squadron RP (Original Setting, non-Fandom)

I may be interested, but I have a lot to read first.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

Holly floated to her extended cockpit and pulled herself into her seat, fighting the inertia of her kick off the floor. As the cockpit retracted and closed around her, she strapped herself in and plugged the Alaya-Vijnana interface in with practiced motions. The interface engaged, and her hands convulsed in her lap, her already-bleeding nose giving a particularly strong gush. She wiped it savagely with the back of her hand.

The "Big Boi," as she called her Rodi, was lowered to the catapult deck first, and Holly grabbed her normal suit helmet off the floor and put it on. After everything was checked, she announced into the comm feed:

"Holly, Familiar One, Man Rodi, taking off."

~~~

Captain Brun drifted into the bridge, where the Witch's command and control staff was already gathered. Carrot was standing dutifully by the Captain's seat(the only one that looked reasonably comfortable), and only glanced briefly before announcing "Captain on the deck!"

Brun took her seat and looked over the monitors. There wasn't a lot to see yet, so she glanced at the cockpit feeds in the five sortying mobile suits. "Blood on that one's face. Did it take such a bad hit out there?"

Carrot answered at once, "No, ma'am. Her suit sustained some damage, but she was uninjured when she checked it. I suspect the Bosun bloodied her nose for her."

The Captain sighed, "If he's not more careful with his playthings, he'll break them. And then how will he entertain himself?" As she spoke, her hand reached out and absently stroked Carrot's hair. The girl bore this stoically.

~~~

Holly gritted her teeth against the force of the catapult, even with her inertial control working overtime. As her Rodi’s speed leveled out, she glanced around at her displays. There wasn’t a lot to see in the visual scans yet. The Debris zone was full of detritus from destroyed ships, pulled together by the unnatural gravity of abandoned Ahab reactors. If you didn’t know to look for it, the Mercurial Witch didn’t look all that different from some of the larger chunks. There were a few other full ships just sitting out here, but this was so deep in the Zone that trying to recover one was simply infeasible.

Local area mapping was almost worse. Radar was useless, so the mapping was based on a conglomeration of visual data, with Ahab waves layered on top. This is what she was scanning, after a quick look to confirm that her squad was following on.

“I’ve sent the wave signature to your mobile suits,” Mick’s voice came over the LCS comm. “But it’s moving into an area with particularly high wave density, so keep sharp. And try not to break the LCS line.”

“Don’t stretch your leashes, rats,” the captain’s voice cut in, “Remember where you have to return.”

Holly murmured with her microphone off, “Yeah yeah,” before opening the channel and speaking aloud, “Yes, cap’n.”

Holly spotted the wave in her mapping, but it was in an area that even her visual data was failing to generate. The Big Boi’s thrusters propelled it forward into the cloud of debris, putting on reverse thrust to slow it down as it approached a particularly large chunk of armor plating. She maneuvered around it, and stared into her displays, eyes wide and pupils flitting back and forth.

“There,” she said, “Sending visual, do you see? Looks like a Graze, but… fancy?”

There was a ship here, a proper battle ship of old. Holly could just make out the emblem of Gjallarhorn in faded and scuffed paint. The size of the ship, and particularly the Ahab reactor inside, had attracted a great many smaller ships and other space garbage. Two things stood out, however: the first was a set of boosters resting gently against the hull. It was obviously much newer, and looked like it was meant to attach to a mobile suit. This explained how a suit had gotten all the way out here, and the suit itself was the second thing. It was painted yellow, and had more flourishes in its armor than any of the ones on board a Jolly Rog ship.

“That’s a Schwalbe Graze!” Mick said, in some amount of surprise. “Those are rare as hell.”

“And probably working for Gjallarhorn,” the captain cut across in some alarm, “Do not let it escape to report back!”

Though the body was facing a rent in the hull of the Gjallarhorn ship, the head was turned, and the shroud around its sensor orb was retracted as it stared directly at Holly’s mobile suit.

Discontinued

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WILLIAM BISHOP █ act one: way down we go Hilton on Route 1 ▸ p. johnson's ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

The classic blue car zoomed down the highway, making an unexpectedly quiet sound as it went. Not the explosive roar of the internal combustion, but the quiet whir of the electric motor. The inside was a good deal louder, the speakers blaring out a Black Sabbath tune, and the driver singing along in good spirits. Billy had set out for Delton four whole days ago; he wanted to drive his own car, so flying wasn’t going to be an option, and he had to make it a road trip. It was a weird, lonely time for him, but he made the best of it. His band’s manager had plotted the course for him, to include charging stations for his car and nice hotels to stop at. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, her job, but Kathy was accommodating as always, and Billy had sent her flowers(using a service, but she didn’t need to know he hadn’t picked them himself). He spent the nights drinking in hotel bars or nearby clubs, schmoozing with fans(and not a few drunk strangers who didn’t know him from Adam), and then in the morning he would grab a huge iced coffee and an unhealthy breakfast sandwich and hit the road without a look back. He passed the Welcome to Delton sign with a weird and unexpected thrill, hands gripping the steering wheel convulsively. Why the nerves? Because his parents lived in town, he thought. Or, they probably still did. Billy didn’t care to see them, and was a little worried he might run into them. It’s not like you’re obligated to talk to them if they turn up, he reasoned. Tell them you've sucked a few dicks and they’ll back away slowly. He laughed at how he imagined the looks on their faces, but deep down he knew he would say no such thing. He would be polite and make his excuses, then go get high. Not long later, he had pulled into a hotel just outside of Delton, and was waiting on the receptionist to confirm his reservation, looking at his phone and checking the Facebook thread. It was the first time he had done so since setting out from Seattle, but there was a delightful image of a mysterious drink, with the legend “Be here or be square.” Billy smirked and commented below, ”be here or be squeer?”, before putting his phone away and apologizing to the receptionist who was waiting on him now. Taking the key card with a smile, he made his way to his room and changed for the event. First he shaved, brushed his teeth, and fussed with his hair. Next, he put on a pink V-neck, black skinny jeans, and a gray cable knit cardigan. On his feet were black Doc Marten boots with yellow laces, vintage from back when they were made in England. He put his round lensed sunglasses in his shirt by the earpiece. He stopped on his way out to look at himself in the mirror by the door of his room. Was he nervous? Yeah. What if they thought he was lame? A sellout? It was weird to go back and see these people when he didn’t know if they’d read something stupid about him in a magazine. He took a breath and wrenched his eyes away from analyzing every imperfection in his hair. Well, he’d made up his mind anyway. Hell, he didn’t drive all the way to Delton to not watch his former high school get demolished. ~~~ Billy pushed the door to PJ’s open and walked in. He grinned around at the reunion that had assembled before him as he pulled his sunglasses back off. Freya - he recognized her immediately - was still standing by the door when he walked through. ”Hey, Freya! What’s going on?” he put an arm around her shoulder and stood with her as they looked at everyone else who had congregated, ”Conner? I thought for sure you’d be fat, but you look great! Actually,” he added, on reflection as he looked around at them, ”You all look pretty damn good! We drinking yet?” ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

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I think I'm probably gonna go ahead and post after all, though it might not be until tonight.

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Open question to any and all characters: would anyone have joined Billy in heckling at school baseball games etc?

I don't think he would keep doing it if no one joined in, but he definitely did at least once.