Nimbus

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

Callie had seen a lot in the hours before her return to Task Force Obsidian in Phnom Penh. Heard a lot. Faced down a lot.

She’d always trusted her gut, especially when it came to Charter – well, she had since she first summoned Charter, anyway. She’d had to rely on it a lot as she portalled across the city. And relying on it quite so much seemed to have… Enhanced something of it.

And so, when Callie suddenly became viscerally aware that she, and she alone, was about to be splashed with a liquid that she would very much prefer not to be splashed with, she did not question it. Instead, she suppressed her urge to stiffen or to make any movements out of the ordinary at all. And then waited.

Waited.

Before pushing back and out of her chair, leaping up and falling into a ready stance just soon enough to avoid…

The still-fizzing pop that Nil had just thrown onto her food.

Callie sagged. “God, Nil, please don’t scare a girl like that. I’m tired as is.” She plastered the half-smile onto her face again, then reached over to ruffle her hair. “Old gang’s all here, though. That’s nice. You getting on okay?”

@Chiro @Gerlando

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

Henri

La Trinidad de Manila Academy

Henri was mostly focused on eating, though occasionally he looked around him. It was then that another fellow appeared at the table. A soldier himself.

"You and me both, pal." Henri replied and shook Oskar's hand,"I'm not much of a conversationalist myself, either. Henri, Henri Janssens."

While they were both military men, this didn't feel like the time of going for ranks. Besides, Arms-Masters here were relatively casual outside of battle.

"So, what do you think of the Philippines?" Henri asked, hoping to ease the mood. "Personally, the sights are beautiful, but this heat really gets to me."

@Chiro

“It’s the humidity.” A figure in army fatigues practically fell into the seat beside Oskar, pallid face and messy blonde hair quickly following and a bowl of arroz caldo thunking onto the table in front of her. “Wish I’d spent more time in the South-West as a kid, I’d have been used to it already, but as is… Didn’t take too long to acclimatise.”

She spared a glance towards Henri, wan smile crossing her face below her half-lidded eyes. “Not going by rank, then, Sergeant? And give the guy a break, he’s barely arrived.” She plunged her spoon into the dish, then turned towards the newcomer, extending a hand to shake. “Caroline, Lidmann, but please just call me ‘Callie’. ‘Caroline’’s what the brass and my mum should call me, and, ideally, not another soul.”

“Speaking of…” Callie lifted the spoon, now heaped with rice broth and chicken, and pointed it at Henri vaguely accusatorially before withdrawing it to beside her mouth. “We’ve barely talked since Lingayen. What brings a Belgian with a Greek NA from an EU spec ops unit to the other side of the world?” she asked – followed by practically inhaling the mouthful and shivering with pleasure, then going for another. “Mmmph… God, that’s good. Anyway – spill.”

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

Callie laughed. She couldn’t help it. The strategic situation was dire, their force had been decapitated, gutted and half-replaced, and this was where the briefing ended up?

Just like the Cadets… God.

It was exactly what was needed.

(Well, perhaps for everyone but Nil. Again – she really ought to follow up with her.)

“We can do better on insertion than helis and chutes – I’ll go over it with you and the team later,” she told Charles, a gleam in her eye, before addressing the room as a whole. “With Command’s permission, I’ll be joining the anti-naval operation in a reconnaissance and tactical mobility capacity. I’ve performed the role before under those circumstances and the open sea accentuates just about all of my capabilities, where tunnel fighting would minimise their impact.”

Oh, and nothing else, Caroline?

The gleam faded; that whisper had sounded alarmingly like him. She did her best to push it out of her mind… Even as her vision ran over the Director, even as his offer wormed its way through her thoughts.

Don’t pretend. First the portal and the sword, then the minister… What if you mess up again and someone actually dies? No, better a nice, safe delaying action… You’re terrified, girl.

A shiver down the back of her neck.

Wouldn’t be so terrified with a bit more power.

Not yours, of course. Can’t go wrong that way.

Callie screwed her eyes shut, just for a moment, smile still plastered to her face. It is more tactically sound. Besides – grow by stretching yourself, not grafting things on, she assured herself… The words sounding hollow in her mind.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

Callie sat, eyes subtly wide and posture frozen but otherwise not reacting – seemingly stunned by the revelation.

Of course, her mind had not slowed to a stop. Quite the opposite, in fact; at some point in the last few seconds it had accelerated to several hundred kilometres an hour, filled with a combination of horror, political calculus, the most bizarre sense of half-déjà vu and, perhaps most importantly, rapid tugging on a certain thread in her mind.

Ineffectually.

Of all the times for Spindle to be busy, why in God’s name –

---

Yes, I am sending this to the top. Now. Yes, now, now. No, Jerry, I don’t know how she keeps stumbling onto this, evidently ASEAN’s just the tiniest bit hotter than we thought!

---

– does it have to be now? Damn it… Stay impassive, then – can’t know the scope of this. With some effort, Callie forced the spiral of questions that had suddenly arisen about the nature of the world to the back of her mind. That could be processed later; for now, she had a job to do.

Got to know that this would destroy him too – either fanatical or his sense of… Vengeance? Doesn’t seem right. Trying to put right what went wrong seems closer, if Turing saw his mistake as regrettable…

For a moment, the thought: And, well… Is it? Sure, the first thing’s an abomination and the second might also kill us depending on how you look at the metaphysics, but… We’re so focused on limiting AMs’ impact in the theatre – if they just weren’t there…

It grated. For a moment, she felt and suppressed the urge to summon Charter to her hand. And even besides that… Naïveté. Some other power would have filled the void – no idea what that might look like, how things would transpire…

Not even death, the realisation coursed through Callie with cold certainty. In all likelihood, she simply wouldn’t have been born at all.

In any case, even a best-case scenario would involve fundamental risks to global stability, and that could not be allowed.

Yet… There was the question of how this all interacted with the war they were fighting now. Which she would mention, once Charles had his curiosity salved.

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

Callie Lidmann

Name: Caroline ‘Callie’ Lidmann

Appearance:

Age: 22
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual, as far as she is able to tell.
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 63 kg

Nationality: Half-English, half-unknown

Noble Arm Name & Appearance:



‘Charter’
(naval officer’s spyglass)

Noble Arm Rank:

Noble Arm Type, Element, and Range: Support-Ranged/Space/Long-range

Noble Arm Abilities:
Leaguespanner: Wielding Charter allows Callie to realign the fabric of the universe to join one space to another, effectively creating a two-way portal in any shape that she desires. She may only create one such connection at a time and may only do so between places that she is able to see. Seemingly as an inherent safeguard, this portal cannot form inside or otherwise ‘cut’ sentient beings or other Noble Arms, though it can do so for non-sentient life and non-living things. Whenever she does so, Callie must fix both ends of the portal in space in relation to another object; she frequently uses the ground, the Earth as a whole or some part or all of her body for this purpose, though she cannot use any part of another sentient being or Noble Arm.
Creating a connection takes a small amount of energy and time that both scale with the portal’s size and the distance that it bridges; the amount of energy continuously consumed from Callie until she releases it also increases with the portal’s area (see hider).

Charter Calculations

Where Callie’s stamina is represented as 500 of an arbitrary unit…

Portal Creation Time (seconds) = Portal Area^2 (square metres) x Distance Bridged (km)
Stamina Cost upon Portal Creation = Portal Area^2 (square metres) x Distance Bridged (km) + Distance Bridged (km) x 0.1 + 10
Stamina Cost while Portal remains (per second) = Portal Area^2 (square metres) + 1

While Callie can push herself beyond this limit, she risks unconsciousness or death by doing so.

Sight Unbounded: Charter is far more capable than a spyglass of its apparent age or, indeed, any spyglass at all has any right to be: it has the ability to project Callie’s vision, allowing her to bypass non-solid objects. Solid objects inhibit the projection of her vision in this way, while liquids slow the projection depending on its density rather than it being instantaneous.
Commander’s Aim: While looking through Charter and wielding a projectile weapon or in contact with a person who is, Callie can will the spyglass to direct her gaze to the point where the projectile, as the weapon is currently aimed, will land. When she does so, she gains an instinctive sense of this point.
Guidance: Whether a precognitive subpower of Charter itself, a quirk of her hyperactive mind or a combination of both, Callie often finds herself drawn to details that are or will be important for herself and/or her allies when looking through Charter, even if she doesn’t know how they are or will be important yet. This helps Callie both when she is scouting or infiltrating a location or when she’s picking out a target in the chaos of a fight.
Forewarning: Being hunted by Cambodian soldiers in Phnom Penh has seen Callie’s foresight expand, taking on a reactive edge. She now often gains awareness of threats to her and/or her allies several seconds before they come to fruition, including an understanding of their general nature (e.g. ‘angry person with assault rifle’ or ‘cruise missile’).

Misc. Abilities:
Determined Adaptability: Callie’s open-mindedness and sheer drive allow her to take on problems and learn new skills more capably than most, throwing sufficient energy and ingenuity at difficulties and mental blocks that others would give up on solving.
Trained Operative: With some Arms-tailored military training under her belt, Callie has had the chance to experiment with her Arm in battlefield conditions. As such, she is thoroughly familiar with her Arm’s basic capabilities and has even come up with a few unconventional ‘tricks’ with them, as well as appreciating the basics of tactics and operational warfare. She has also been given a more rapid coaching in the art of covert operations, allowing her to hold her own in a number of tight spots even without her Arm.

Personality: Callie is characterised by drive above all else; she launches herself towards her own and others’ success and even when ‘relaxing’ is constantly looking to find growth in everything she does. Unlike many of this archetype, however, she doesn’t naturally chafe against authority to any great extent, only that with which she disagrees for other reasons; she instead demands that she be accomplishing something in every waking moment, set by others or, if they do not, by herself. This makes her an invaluable asset to any team – focused, unfailingly energetic and downright inspiring, a champion for her allies and a constant harrier against their enemies – but can also come across as brashness, insensitivity and arrogance. She is, needless to say, a little polarising.

Likes: Achieving goals (especially by creatively efficient means), feeling capable, learning, helping others, using her Noble Arm, dogs and cats, Ribena

Dislikes: Helplessness (especially not being able to help others), duplicity among friends and teammates, indecisiveness, overbearing nationalism, excessive reliance on others

Fears: Being powerless, causing harm to those she cares about, becoming an emotionless killer

Bio

Callie Lidmann was born in the UK and lived there for four years or so. That she knows. In truth, her mother has always been cagey about the first few years of her life and, indeed, about Callie’s father, who Callie herself only knows by scattered half-memories. She didn’t especially care, to start with; her mum, Mary, has always been as good a parent as possible to her, as has her aunt Sandra, with whom the two live.

Good intentions or no, Mary’s actions rendered Callie somewhat poorly formed at first. The two only settled down with Sandra six or seven years after arriving in the USA; before then the two lived hand-to-mouth and constantly on the move. Mary took jobs and found schooling for Callie wherever she could but always became more and more alert, cautious, nervous over the months they stayed in a single place and then swept the two away again, as if running from something. By the time they came to live with Sandra, the damage had been done; Callie, despite a natural keenness of mind and a relative affability that let her just about coast through schoolwork and friendships, was behind on more or less every academic metric and had a lack of motivation to match. If, after all, her teachers and schoolmates changed so regularly, any effort she put into making a good impression or form connections would just go to waste. Why make the effort?

That changed a few months after Callie’s thirteenth birthday. Taking a stroll past a lake just outside the town that had – surprisingly to her – been her home for a good length of time now, her ear caught an odd series of sounds accompanied by what resembled an alarmed voice in the distance. Turning to look, she saw a woman thrashing at the water, small rowboat upturned and floating away over the rippling surface. In that instant, Callie reached out to help – and found that there was nothing she could do. For the first time, she fully regretted her indifference; she regretted not having had the presence of mind when walking here before to memorise where any of the lifebuoys were, dotted around the lakeside; she regretted having let learning to swim go by the wayside somewhere in her various relocations; she regretted being sufficiently apathetic as to not bring a phone with her or, indeed, to know what this lake in particular was called so she could guide an emergency responder to it; and she regretted not paying attention to the assembly given by a lifeguard on one day in one particular school whose name she couldn’t remember, that she might have properly known what to do in the first place.

For the first time in her life, Callie wished she might have done things differently.

She wished she could do something now.

And, from within her, something answered.

A brilliant flash of light in her palm, materialising into solid form. Moments later, a pulse in the air beside her; shimmering, marine light on the grass, followed by a deluge that knocked her off her feet and dropped one sopping wet ex-drownee onto the ground beside her. She had tried – and the world had made clear to her that that would make an impact.

How far could she go?

From that point on, Callie’s every action was infused with energy. Between the story being picked up by the local newspaper, the touch of renown that she gained in the community as a result and her generally more pleasant demeanour, she started to make some proper friends (and, of course, some enemies among those whose carefully constructed cliques were disrupted); astute enough to realise that a lot of these relationships were superficial but sufficiently determined and free-thinking enough to decide to forge them into actual bonds, Callie began building a network that not only further propelled her emotional rise but also brought those others with her towards fulfilment, her joyful and determined demeanour infectious. Simultaneously, realising that the key to her future and her growth laid in her new Noble Arm, she began practising with it on her own and doing research and joining several Arms fora online to start investigating its powers.

Eventually that research led her to the US’ Arms Master Cadets programme, in which Callie saw an opportunity to finally use her newfound power for good. Mary saw something else; Callie would often catch sight of her mother watching her out of the corner of her eyes, wringing her hands, muttering, every tic and negative signal of body language multiplied a thousand-fold. Sandra’s stabilising influence helped; Callie, on the other hand, could not decide whether her presence was causing her mother more pain than she would by leaving, even as her past, so long unquestioned, began to bubble in the back of her mind. With her new impetus driving her on, however, doing nothing simply wasn’t an option and, though she had picked up in school, it was clear that academics would be a path of far, far greater resistance given her track record. Her aunt in her corner and covering for her mother’s concerns, Callie eventually signed up for the programme, packed her bags and made her way onwards.

From there, everything accelerated. Entirely separate from the regular JROTC programme, auxiliary to a normal education, the AMC’s work is simply to take young Arms Masters and turn them into soldiers – to explore and actualise the martial potential of each cadet and especially their Arm’s powers and then integrate them as seamlessly as possible into their armed forces, all while securing their loyalty. For Callie, it achieved one of those three very effectively! With experienced Arms Masters and experts in their study helping her and dedicated testing facilities and events to experiment within at her full potential and full of sharpness and conviction, she became a skilled, diligent and distinguished warrior. Once again, her energy was infectious and she quickly made close friends amongst the other young Arms Masters on the programme (not so hard – being the person to near-instantly evacuate you to your team’s medic in a training exercise tends to endear you to them).

As for the other two… As she went on through the programme, Callie began to realise that she was being pushed in a certain direction: that of special and covert operations, reconnaissance, assassination. On a purely strategic and tactical level, she could understand that – information gathering, rapid movement and precision striking power were her Arm’s specialities – but she also wasn’t naïve. Even the brief period of research she’d done before she entered the AMC had told her what the country she and her mother had come to was capable of; while she’d put that to the back of her mind at the time it increasingly weighed on her thoughts as she approached the end of her training, something only reinforced by the patriotic tendencies of her fellows and their superiors.

The war in South-East Asia offered a way out. While the US has so far refused to commit to a full military response to Chinese aggression, for fear of escalation to unrestricted conflict between their Arms Masters with a level of accompanying global devastation unseen since WW2, they were willing to send materiel, military advisors and training and, off the table, covert military support. As a capable fighter who had not yet seen action and so was not identifiable by the enemy, Callie was in an ideal position to take advantage – and she knew it, seizing what she felt was an opportunity to use her training and skills to do something fairly unambiguously good. And so, after intensive training in Filipino and in the Philippines’ culture and geography and picking up some new skills over a period of six months, Caroline Lidmann, officially an unaffiliated Arms Master volunteering with the Philippine Army from abroad, headed for her new posting.

Current Goal: Support the Philippine resistance to Chinese invasion without revealing her true role.

Military or Civilian Rank: As a participant in covert operations, Callie has technically been transferred out of the US Armed Forces to become likely the youngest member of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, though the rapid development of the ASEAN War and the lack of need for much of the usual process (parachute training, for instance, was considered basically irrelevant for her) has left some holes in her preparation for the latter.

Character Theme: “No reason to stop now, not when I can finally do some good in the world. Just try to hold me back!”

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

Caroline Lidmann did not fidget. Fidgeting was something of her younger days – too scattered and dulled to have direction. For her contemporary self, her duty, her utility, was too great for wasted focus or energy.

Even as she sat and waited, leant forward on the back of the chair ahead of her for Myron to arrive, her mind was at work. Until now, she and Henri… They had been, to a certain extent, exceptions and caveats. NATO could not afford – so the thinking must have gone – to show its hand to its fullest, to risk turning a ‘regional’ conflict into a full-blown global war between massive and interlinked economies with the full might of their military-industrial complexes and Arms Masters unleashed. Thus: herself, supposedly an unaffiliated foreign volunteer who just happened to be from the US, told to keep her powers in check for now. Thus: Henri, officially present not as military aid but in an anti-AM peacekeeping role. It was only people like Nil, from the Asian sphere itself, who were here because of explicit military backing – no matter how mysterious or misplaced.

(Callie made particular note of that thought. She hadn’t done as good a job at checking on the poor girl as she might have wanted, even if… If there were good excuses for that, on her end.)

But now? Across the room from her, just entering through the door: a US soldier, transferred to Task Force Obsidian. She’d been given Spindle’s mental brief on Warrant Officer Rangel, of course, in her hours of lucidity as she recovered from burning quite so much energy portalling across Phnom Pneh. Her being sent halfway across the world wasn’t a sign of commitment, not truly – given her disposition, it might even be the opposite – but in light of the statements of the newly emboldened President it was certainly climbing to the next rung on the ladder of escalation.

Callie fixed a smile on her face, offered a friendly wave. It would be good, Myron had told her when he’d found her drinking in the peace of the grounds in the early hours of the morning, for her to be visible and present early. She was, unambiguously, one of the most veteran of the Task Force now and, regardless of the circumstances in which it had begun, had survived against the odds and even played a major role in turning what might have been a disaster in the Cambodian capital into at least a strictly tactical non-defeat. Seeing her there, eager, unbowed, would be a boon for morale.

After all, others were not – so roiled the thoughts, forcibly held at arm’s length in the recesses of her mind.

Noel. A young man finding his feet. Thrust into responsibility with little warning by circumstances beyond his control, yet far surer of himself now than he had been even a few months ago. Captured. Callie recalled his spark, his confidence, and the growth it had seen. He could be something special… Would he be, now?

And… Qingshe. Lei Qingshe. Callie remembered her all too well – the fire opal eyes, the hair of spun jade… She had seemed undeniable, one who had carved herself from stone that she might hold back the onrushing tide of the world. And now…

No. She’s not. The part of her mind forming her crush – and oh, how easy it was to admit to herself now, in hindsight – was insistent. Not just because of bias, as a brief internal examination clarified – because that seeming wasn’t wrong. Everything she had been told, had seen, had heard about the woman called Lei Qingshe said that she shouldn’t just die like that.

Nonetheless… Gone.

How easy would it be for similar fates to befall those now taking their seats in the auditorium?

Too easy.

Can’t let it. Must protect them.

Could she?

Arrowheads falling from a palm. A lazy grin. Her rifle’s crack.

She clutched the back of the seat. Caroline Lidmann did not fidget.

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War, Second Thread

((Plot-relevant Collab between @Nimbus and @Windstormugly, our surprise guest!))

Callie watched with a restrained keenness as the various officials, diplomats, and functionaries filed their way out of the room, herself close behind. There was tension in the air, so obvious that she could almost see the wires stretching, but everyone seemed to have behaved themselves properly - in public view, at least.

Meanwhile, the parts of her mind not focused on vigilance wandered. No other reason to suggest it than to drive that wedge… But does China really think they’ll convince anyone in NATO that the ASEAN coalition’s mistreating - yeah, they could probably convince a very large number of NATO civilians that they’re mistreating prisoners. Her lips twitched ever so slightly towards the shadow of a wry grimace.

Another glance across the corridor that they’d now reached; the diplomats were beginning to split apart into their various delegations. Callie considered. She had no reason to report to the US’ contingent - her hierarchy and lines of communication were separate from theirs, even if it wouldn’t surprise her if there were CIA operatives embedded in their group - but, on the other hand, it would probably seem out of character for her ‘eager volunteer’ persona to actively avoid an opportunity to talk to some of her countrymen.

That could come later. For now, Spindle wanted her actually talking to the other delegations…

Callie eyed one of the windows.

It’d look suspicious if I just jumped down their throats immediately, wouldn’t it?

No sooner had she processed this than Callie found herself sliding away, headed for the nearest women’s toilets according to the building plans that she’d memorised prior to her arrival. Pulling open the door and flitting through the disjointed entranceway to a room furnished with brightly polished tiles, she gave the place a quick scan. Nobody, seemingly, had arrived before her.

Bunching up the pleating of her skirt in one hand and manifesting Charter with the other, Callie turned her gaze to the windows of this room and the sky beyond them. A quick, tiny portal looking over her destination; nothing there, either. Then, with a slight bend of the knees and her arms held to her sides, she made a practised hop.

Uncomfortably warm and humid air rushed up to meet her, then solid concrete a few feet after that. Loosing her grasp on the conjoined space, Callie fell into a crouch behind the lip of the roof that she’d made her perch. A brief check of the case she’d stowed there showed that her rifle remained untouched.

Slightly more satisfied, she adjusted her posture, brought Charter to her eye and poked her head out above the parapet. More personnel here than there were… Looks like typical RCA mechanised infantry. One antiquarian visible; sticking close to his officer, unsure of himself. She, however…

A slight adjustment of the spyglass’ magnification to pick out the precise width of the barrel of the company captain’s rifle - one clearly meant more for shooting tanks rather than troops. With that weaponry? Steelkiller for sure. Callie suppressed a shiver - she’d never been entirely comfortable with that idea, ever since she was introduced to it in the Cadets. Arms Masters’ potential battlefield dominance practically guaranteed people specially equipped to counter them, of course, but the implications of soldiers and others trained to eliminate not just a class of combatant but a class of person...

(Part of the unease, of course, was in reaction to the part of herself that had noted the heavy anti-materiel rifle and merely considered again whether the loss in manoeuvrability would be a fair trade for that extra punch.)

Overall, though… Callie glanced across, focused and stepped a few hundred feet off to the other side of the building. If this is a trap, they’re being smart about not showing their hand. Nothing that a concerted AM attack couldn’t break but this is enough to delay them, get the delegations out. A final once-over of the Cambodian soldiers’ equipment, vehicles and general attitude revealed little beyond a host concerned with safety and keeping up appearances.

Still, better to report that than nothing. Keeping Charter on her eye as she finished her checks, Callie tapped at her neatly hidden earpiece. “Command, completed a visual scan of the perimeter. No sign of…”

Her voice trailed off. Through her spyglass, her gaze had settled on something. Something inside the building.

“Hold a moment, sir,” Callie intoned, forming almost by reflex another tiny portal to peer into the inside of the corridor on the other side of the building from the one she’d left.

She found a scene of destruction. A trail led from one of the supply closets through the plan corridor, as if someone had misunderstood the idea of cleaning. The dust and debris told of someone having left a collapsed building. An ajar door to a workroom was broken open, the handle trashed with a heavy blow.

Up on the roof, Callie tensed. “Command, found evidence of intrusion or sabotage in -” she consulted again her mental map of the building - “Corridor 2, southern end. Getting a closer look.”

Another portal later, she was inside, taking up position against the wall, rifle held close as she snapped Charter into position on its rail. Yet another let her inspect the room from her position of safety; she shrugged off the twinge of more of her energy being drawn away. Inside, the dust ended abruptly in a laser straight cut across the room, as if someone had slashed it in two and left a micrometre thick indent across the floor, walls, and ceiling, the mark of an arrowhead at each corner.

Callie froze.

This is a trap.

I know who set it.

Oh, dear God.

Callie felt her heart start to hammer against her chest, heard the building roar of blood in her ears; her brain began to run into overdrive, mind spinning off in a hundred directions, possibilities, all of the ways that the next few minutes might go if, in fact, he was -

Focus.

Taking a moment to suck in a breath, Callie swung through the battered doorway, Charter raised to her eye in parallel with her rifle, its line of sight raking the half-broken space. There were traces of something in the corners, nothing that she could see but instead a familiar frisson, that rushing of energy across the skin… Whatever Kenrick had done was still active - she knew from her own experience.

Normally that would have given her pause. This time, though, there was something to one side of the room, hidden from her view from the corridor: a pile of standard issue Cambodian army jacket and pants, a stain of dried reddish brown on the collar…

Little thought crossed her mind as she stepped forward - and appeared elsewhere with a jolt. Stumbling out of an alcove, Callie caught herself, seeing the corridor where the delegations were still splitting off. The dignitaries closest to her went quiet, as if they had maybe said something they shouldn’t have in company, and gave her a forced smile.

That’s not at all how you react to a woman in formalwear armed with a high-powered assault rifle and attached NA appearing from nowhere. Way too calm.

They’re his.

That meant that if they were going to attack her, they probably would have already, and so she chanced a flick of her eyes in the other direction. There, further down the corridor, they caught on a NATO dignitary walking away towards a bend in the passageway, making some idle comment on the decoration of a vase of flowers… The last thing she saw before he passed out of sight was an arrowhead, twirling between his fingers.

An arrowhead that, somewhere buried deep in her memory, she recognised.

Hands trembling, Callie strode after him, albeit keeping eyes on the ‘dignitaries’ behind her. She passed another group stood by the vase, apparently so absorbed in their conversation that they hadn’t noticed a single thing - More likely actual dignitaries, either that or very good actors - and turned the corner, only to see the arrowhead clattering to the floor a dozen or so metres in the empty space ahead of her.

Taking a few steps, Callie pressed her back against the wall, steadied herself, then flicked her earpiece to send again. “Command,” she murmured, “urgent situation - hostiles in the building. At least NATO’s delegation compromised; likely assault or kidnap of security in Room 2 dash 3, with two possible accomplices disguised as VIPs in Corridor 1. In pursuit of suspected leader…”

Her hand clenched around her rifle’s grip.

“...believed to be Kenrick of the Hammer of Masters. Threat unknown beyond that - suggesting we go to evac.”

Callie took another breath. She almost brought her hand back to her ear - and then decided against it. They’re going to want to hear whatever happens - even if I wanted to hear whatever it is they have to say next… For the record, Spindle, you never said they shouldn’t know he’s my dad. Almost certainly do anyway, if ‘Translator’’s been doing his job right…

She gave herself no more time to think that through before taking another glance left and right, then pushing on, steeling her nerves -

- and then, again, she was somewhere else - a small room, identifiable by the temporary sign on an inner door as being set aside for the talks’ Cambodian hosts, specifically one ‘Phuong Keo’. The back of Callie’s mind registered all of this in a few moments.

The majority of it was concerned with an individual - likely Phuong’s secretary - still sitting behind their desk. This would not be unusual, but for the thing holding them upright and also keeping them from reaching something beneath the desk: an antique arrow through the chest, nailing them and the chair to the wall.

“Plea…se, he…lp. He, he, the min…ister.” they managed, before finally falling back. Callie reached forward as if to catch them, then to feel for air passing their lips. None did.

With that, quiet fell across the office - but not silence. A shiver ran through her as she caught a soft, repeated melody… The sound of someone humming an old nursery rhyme, one that her mother used to sing for her.

And, for the first time, a cold fury stirred in her veins.

Callie span, then pushed through the inner door, rifle levelled. There, she was greeted not by a Cambodian minister - the chair behind the desk assigned to him was unoccupied with the exception of a single arrowhead, matched by another embedded in each corner of the room.

Instead, beside the desk, back facing her, there stood the man in the uniform of a NATO dignitary, an ornate laminated bow across his shoulder.

“Welcome Callie, having fun at the conference?” Kenrick, former Malik of the Hammer of Masters, her father, said. He turned towards her; a flick of his wrist to release the pressure of the bowstring and the bow - the Arm - rolled down and into his hand like a coiled belt.

“Oh, sure.” Callie’s voice sounded wrong - not just her pan-American accent grating against Kenrick’s muddled European, but unfamiliar to her own ear - tense, forced. “Lovely hospitality here - everyone’s been so welcoming. I hope you’ve found the same?”

“Hah, welcoming? To you and yours? I think we can be a bit more candid, don't you?” he said smiling before continuing. “I meant the surveillance, mapping out the area, marking threats and planning escape routes and retaliation strikes. Is that fun for you?” he said with thinly veiled anticipation.

“Speak for yourself - I’d be oh so keen to know how you found all that, too,” Callie rejoined. Buy time, just need to buy time, let the others get into position - hopefully get as many out as they can. “It’s not so bad, is it? I mean, you have the joy of running into so many interesting people for the first time.” Was that a growl?

Kenrick smiled at her first answer and started walking around in the office, picking up things and putting them down again, seemingly unconcerned with Callie still having the rifle out. “It’s what I was raised to do, you don’t think about how you put your feet down on uneven ground.” He stopped at her last comment, his face tightening strangely.

“That depends, some would say the meeting long overdue the sweetest regret… How much things have changed, how little they now need your protection.” He trailed off, head tilted slightly to one side like he was listening to something. “Incompetents. I heard you met your side's supposed opposition already, what's your impression?” Kenrick asked with a tired look in his eyes.

“Oh, arrogant, unrepentant and far less in control than they assume. Think it’s a pattern.” It was the strangest feeling - dual surges of fury at the suggestion of his protection, as if he hadn’t been the one that she’d been running from all her life without even knowing it, and pride in his recognition of her capability and strength, comingling into something dreadful and fiery. Callie heard her blood surging, felt her muscles becoming twitchy with adrenaline…

Something’s happened to his team. They’re in a position of weakness, a quiet voice in the back of her mind observed. Push him now.

Kenrick had been nodding along to her words, a small shake of his head when she went quiet and was just about to say something when she interrupted him.

“Anyway, love to stay and chat but I’m not here to see you.” A cathartic thrill ran through her at the lie. “Was hoping to catch Minister Phuong - some finer points of the negotiations I wanted to pick his brain on. Don’t suppose you’d happen to know where he’d be?” Callie asked, reaching for her power and holding it at the ready, even as she readjusted her sweat-slicked hold on her rifle, keeping it trained on its target. Her finger pressed against the trigger. “And maybe don’t move while you’re answering. Easier for both of us.”

@Lewascan2@Gerlando@Nimbus@QJT@Amidatelion@Digmata@Chiro@Creative Chaos@DammitVictor

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War, Second Thread

Callie’s brow creased just a touch, eyes passing between the two remaining hostile Arms Masters as she slid towards Nil’s other shoulder. At her side, her hand barely twitched over her leather micro-bag and the pistol crammed within.

Once again, a subset of thoughts flickered to the fact that, tactically speaking, she should be outside on the same roof that she’d stashed her (new) rifle, watching proceedings through a window with Charter. She was critical to any evacuation; putting her in the diplomatic party, and thereby at ground zero of any attack, represented a similarly critical risk. But, of course, Spindle wanted her in the room to listen in on proceedings – and in the side rooms during the breaks, to subtly press the US’ agenda if the opportunity to chat with any of the diplomats arose.

Another part of her echoed the other element of Spindle’s briefing – a piece of knowledge that gnawed at her mind and urged her towards that same position of relative security and circumspection, one that she had mentioned to nobody else not least because she had no good excuse for knowing it…

Thus, here she was: fatigues exchanged for an off-white sleeveless dress (chosen to blend into the building’s internal and external surfaces) that hugged her svelte torso before flowing outward into a mid-length skirt, heavily pleated to maximise mobility, and her hair held up in elaborate yet compact waves rather than by its usual utilitarian tie.

The rest of her mind pushed those thoughts away (barring one stream hoping that the gauzy capelet over her shoulder was doing its job and had disguised her muscles tensing from the hand twitch) as Callie studied the Zodiac’s exemplar and his aide. Casual arrogance from someone who’s known power without inhibition for near his whole life – his hanger-on’s body language and expression, though… Couldn’t be less confident if they tried. Rule through fear isn’t rare but it doesn’t inspire loyalty or security. The prospect was intriguing – a clear objective, if a conditional and secondary one. If things were to go awry here and Callie was able to – well, ‘capture’ or ‘free’, the distinction would only become clear later – this person, they might have useful information for the fighting that would come after.

Low, steely voices behind her; Callie’s attention multiplied. One of them she absolutely recognised, branded in her mind from just a few days ago. The other… One ‘Koichi’, she thought – a rookie but one apparently committed enough to the Force to intervene on behalf of its objectives. For now, against her instinct to act, she would let him; Cristina was more likely to respond constructively to critique from one of her peers than to a ‘veteran’ throwing her seniority around. If she didn’t… Well, at that point she would jump in.

Not that she could entirely blame Cristina for being distracted by a familial connection. Spindle’s knowledge still burned at her, threatening to spread to the parts of her brain that she had partitioned it away from and consume it with possibilities.

Kenrick – her father, who she remembered only through the fog of two decades of forgetting – was here. And for all her mental powers, despite the hundreds upon hundreds of scenarios and approaches she had touched on in her imagination of the moment, Callie had no idea what she might do if she were to encounter him – or, worse, if he were to encounter her.

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War, Second Thread

Callie Lidmann

Name: Caroline ‘Callie’ Lidmann

Appearance:

Age: 22
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual, as far as she is able to tell.
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 63 kg

Nationality: Half-English, half-unknown

Noble Arm Name & Appearance:



‘Charter’
(naval officer’s spyglass)

Noble Arm Rank:

Noble Arm Type, Element, and Range: Support-Ranged/Space/Long-range

Noble Arm Abilities:
Leaguespanner: Wielding Charter allows Callie to realign the fabric of the universe to join one space to another, effectively creating a two-way portal in any shape that she desires. She may only create one such connection at a time and may only do so between places that she is able to see. Seemingly as an inherent safeguard, this portal cannot form inside or otherwise ‘cut’ sentient beings or other Noble Arms, though it can do so for non-sentient life and non-living things. Whenever she does so, Callie must fix both ends of the portal in space in relation to another object; she frequently uses the ground, the Earth as a whole or some part or all of her body for this purpose, though she cannot use any part of another sentient being or Noble Arm.
Creating a connection takes a small amount of energy and time that both scale with the portal’s size and the distance that it bridges; the amount of energy continuously consumed from Callie until she releases it also increases with the portal’s area (see hider).

Charter Calculations

Where Callie’s stamina is represented as 500 of an arbitrary unit…

Portal Creation Time (seconds) = Portal Area^2 (square metres) x Distance Bridged (km)
Stamina Cost upon Portal Creation = Portal Area^2 (square metres) x Distance Bridged (km) + Distance Bridged (km) x 0.1 + 10
Stamina Cost while Portal remains (per second) = Portal Area^2 (square metres) + 1

While Callie can push herself beyond this limit, she risks unconsciousness or death by doing so.

Sight Unbounded: Charter is far more capable than a spyglass of its apparent age or, indeed, any spyglass at all has any right to be: it has the ability to project Callie’s vision, allowing her to bypass non-solid objects. Solid objects inhibit the projection of her vision in this way, while liquids slow the projection depending on its density rather than it being instantaneous.
Commander’s Aim: While looking through Charter and wielding a projectile weapon or in contact with a person who is, Callie can will the spyglass to direct her gaze to the point where the projectile, as the weapon is currently aimed, will land. When she does so, she gains an instinctive sense of this point.
Guidance: Whether a precognitive subpower of Charter itself, a quirk of her hyperactive mind or a combination of both, Callie often finds herself drawn to details that are or will be important for herself and/or her allies when looking through Charter, even if she doesn’t know how they are or will be important yet. This helps Callie both when she is scouting or infiltrating a location or when she’s picking out a target in the chaos of a fight.

Misc. Abilities:
Determined Adaptability: Callie’s open-mindedness and sheer drive allow her to take on problems and learn new skills more capably than most, throwing sufficient energy and ingenuity at difficulties and mental blocks that others would give up on solving.
Trained Operative: With some Arms-tailored military training under her belt, Callie has had the chance to experiment with her Arm in battlefield conditions. As such, she is thoroughly familiar with her Arm’s basic capabilities and has even come up with a few unconventional ‘tricks’ with them, as well as appreciating the basics of tactics and operational warfare. She has also been given a more rapid coaching in the art of covert operations, allowing her to hold her own in a number of tight spots even without her Arm.

Personality: Callie is characterised by drive above all else; she launches herself towards her own and others’ success and even when ‘relaxing’ is constantly looking to find growth in everything she does. Unlike many of this archetype, however, she doesn’t naturally chafe against authority to any great extent, only that with which she disagrees for other reasons; she instead demands that she be accomplishing something in every waking moment, set by others or, if they do not, by herself. This makes her an invaluable asset to any team – focused, unfailingly energetic and downright inspiring, a champion for her allies and a constant harrier against their enemies – but can also come across as brashness, insensitivity and arrogance. She is, needless to say, a little polarising.

Likes: Achieving goals (especially by creatively efficient means), feeling capable, learning, helping others, using her Noble Arm, dogs and cats, Ribena

Dislikes: Helplessness (especially not being able to help others), duplicity among friends and teammates, indecisiveness, overbearing nationalism, excessive reliance on others

Fears: Being powerless, causing harm to those she cares about, becoming an emotionless killer

Bio

Callie Lidmann was born in the UK and lived there for four years or so. That she knows. In truth, her mother has always been cagey about the first few years of her life and, indeed, about Callie’s father, who Callie herself only knows by scattered half-memories. She didn’t especially care, to start with; her mum, Mary, has always been as good a parent as possible to her, as has her aunt Sandra, with whom the two live.

Good intentions or no, Mary’s actions rendered Callie somewhat poorly formed at first. The two only settled down with Sandra six or seven years after arriving in the USA; before then the two lived hand-to-mouth and constantly on the move. Mary took jobs and found schooling for Callie wherever she could but always became more and more alert, cautious, nervous over the months they stayed in a single place and then swept the two away again, as if running from something. By the time they came to live with Sandra, the damage had been done; Callie, despite a natural keenness of mind and a relative affability that let her just about coast through schoolwork and friendships, was behind on more or less every academic metric and had a lack of motivation to match. If, after all, her teachers and schoolmates changed so regularly, any effort she put into making a good impression or form connections would just go to waste. Why make the effort?

That changed a few months after Callie’s thirteenth birthday. Taking a stroll past a lake just outside the town that had – surprisingly to her – been her home for a good length of time now, her ear caught an odd series of sounds accompanied by what resembled an alarmed voice in the distance. Turning to look, she saw a woman thrashing at the water, small rowboat upturned and floating away over the rippling surface. In that instant, Callie reached out to help – and found that there was nothing she could do. For the first time, she fully regretted her indifference; she regretted not having had the presence of mind when walking here before to memorise where any of the lifebuoys were, dotted around the lakeside; she regretted having let learning to swim go by the wayside somewhere in her various relocations; she regretted being sufficiently apathetic as to not bring a phone with her or, indeed, to know what this lake in particular was called so she could guide an emergency responder to it; and she regretted not paying attention to the assembly given by a lifeguard on one day in one particular school whose name she couldn’t remember, that she might have properly known what to do in the first place.

For the first time in her life, Callie wished she might have done things differently.

She wished she could do something now.

And, from within her, something answered.

A brilliant flash of light in her palm, materialising into solid form. Moments later, a pulse in the air beside her; shimmering, marine light on the grass, followed by a deluge that knocked her off her feet and dropped one sopping wet ex-drownee onto the ground beside her. She had tried – and the world had made clear to her that that would make an impact.

How far could she go?

From that point on, Callie’s every action was infused with energy. Between the story being picked up by the local newspaper, the touch of renown that she gained in the community as a result and her generally more pleasant demeanour, she started to make some proper friends (and, of course, some enemies among those whose carefully constructed cliques were disrupted); astute enough to realise that a lot of these relationships were superficial but sufficiently determined and free-thinking enough to decide to forge them into actual bonds, Callie began building a network that not only further propelled her emotional rise but also brought those others with her towards fulfilment, her joyful and determined demeanour infectious. Simultaneously, realising that the key to her future and her growth laid in her new Noble Arm, she began practising with it on her own and doing research and joining several Arms fora online to start investigating its powers.

Eventually that research led her to the US’ Arms Master Cadets programme, in which Callie saw an opportunity to finally use her newfound power for good. Mary saw something else; Callie would often catch sight of her mother watching her out of the corner of her eyes, wringing her hands, muttering, every tic and negative signal of body language multiplied a thousand-fold. Sandra’s stabilising influence helped; Callie, on the other hand, could not decide whether her presence was causing her mother more pain than she would by leaving, even as her past, so long unquestioned, began to bubble in the back of her mind. With her new impetus driving her on, however, doing nothing simply wasn’t an option and, though she had picked up in school, it was clear that academics would be a path of far, far greater resistance given her track record. Her aunt in her corner and covering for her mother’s concerns, Callie eventually signed up for the programme, packed her bags and made her way onwards.

From there, everything accelerated. Entirely separate from the regular JROTC programme, auxiliary to a normal education, the AMC’s work is simply to take young Arms Masters and turn them into soldiers – to explore and actualise the martial potential of each cadet and especially their Arm’s powers and then integrate them as seamlessly as possible into their armed forces, all while securing their loyalty. For Callie, it achieved one of those three very effectively! With experienced Arms Masters and experts in their study helping her and dedicated testing facilities and events to experiment within at her full potential and full of sharpness and conviction, she became a skilled, diligent and distinguished warrior. Once again, her energy was infectious and she quickly made close friends amongst the other young Arms Masters on the programme (not so hard – being the person to near-instantly evacuate you to your team’s medic in a training exercise tends to endear you to them).

As for the other two… As she went on through the programme, Callie began to realise that she was being pushed in a certain direction: that of special and covert operations, reconnaissance, assassination. On a purely strategic and tactical level, she could understand that – information gathering, rapid movement and precision striking power were her Arm’s specialities – but she also wasn’t naïve. Even the brief period of research she’d done before she entered the AMC had told her what the country she and her mother had come to was capable of; while she’d put that to the back of her mind at the time it increasingly weighed on her thoughts as she approached the end of her training, something only reinforced by the patriotic tendencies of her fellows and their superiors.

The war in South-East Asia offered a way out. While the US has so far refused to commit to a full military response to Chinese aggression, for fear of escalation to unrestricted conflict between their Arms Masters with a level of accompanying global devastation unseen since WW2, they were willing to send materiel, military advisors and training and, off the table, covert military support. As a capable fighter who had not yet seen action and so was not identifiable by the enemy, Callie was in an ideal position to take advantage – and she knew it, seizing what she felt was an opportunity to use her training and skills to do something fairly unambiguously good. And so, after intensive training in Filipino and in the Philippines’ culture and geography and picking up some new skills over a period of six months, Caroline Lidmann, officially an unaffiliated Arms Master volunteering with the Philippine Army from abroad, headed for her new posting.

Current Goal: Support the Philippine resistance to Chinese invasion without revealing her true role.

Military or Civilian Rank: As a participant in covert operations, Callie has technically been transferred out of the US Armed Forces to become likely the youngest member of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, though the rapid development of the ASEAN War and the lack of need for much of the usual process (parachute training, for instance, was considered basically irrelevant for her) has left some holes in her preparation for the latter.

Character Theme: “No reason to stop now, not when I can finally do some good in the world. Just try to hold me back!”

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War [Moved to New Thread]

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