Nimbus

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]

-

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War, Second Thread

“Sure, sure.” Callie only had to half-feign the discomfort at Myron’s casual attitude to their captives’ fate. Should check in on them later – for the intel opportunity and for my own satisfaction. Can easily disguise the former as the latter. “Realities of war, huh? Glad you’re keeping an eye – never thought so much about it when I volunteered over here…”

Okay, so that was utterly unsubtle. Tone it down, Caroline.

Callie nodded to herself, as if contemplating. She’d changed out of her Philippine Army fatigues and replaced them with a loose-fitting t-shirt, a stylised map of the archipelago emblazoned on the back, and a pair of cargo shorts. The simple ensemble lent her an image befitting the (marginally) less brash end of the spectrum of American tourists – just as they were intended to, of course, in other situations. For now, they were light enough for the heat and humidity and sufficiently inconsequential that she didn’t mind them getting doused in seawater.

Given the borrowed surfboard she had tucked under her arm, this was not unlikely.

“I should go ahead and join them, rep TFO.” she said, gaze settled on the shallows. “See if we can get some camaraderie going.” Good – reinforce that naïveté and good-heartedness, make him think he doesn’t have any more layers to peel back.

Callie paused another moment. And now, baiting the hook… “And hey, Myron? One thing I might need… Put in a word for me with command, would you? She turned her head, warm grin spread across her face. “Wasn’t doing well before, I realise that now, and thank you for helping me get to that… But I’m good. I want to help – that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it? Just need their say-so!”

The last few words she spoke more loudly, calling them out as she turned, threw up a hand in farewell and strode towards the surf. Good, Callie thought, face falling back to its normal focused neutrality. Fingers crossed, he now thinks he can manipulate me with a desire to serve – should lower his guard if I played it right, maybe even get him to come to me with a problem or two – not that I don’t want to help people but – it’ll be fine. Fine.

How about I make this even more productive, huh?

---

---

Callie never lived near to the coast.

The US was a large place; one could be on the run for years (and that’s what it had been, she was sure now) and not pass within a hundred miles of the sea. Callie had, in fact, been to the beach but once, on a holiday that her aunt Sandra had insisted on taking after Charter manifested.

One would not, therefore, expect her to be a capable surfer. This would ignore two factors. Firstly, the young Caroline Lidmann had tried to surf on that holiday and, in brief, not exactly mastered it.

Secondly, this had followed shortly after the moment in her life that she became very, very determined.

Callie remembered those days well – remembered going out to the lake day after day, to the same lake where she had won that determination – and practising, on and on, often until the sun was beginning to blaze a bruised orange across its surface. To fall into those long-established patterns, to do something that demanded her focus but not her intellect – even if the vapour on her face was saltier than it was then and the air a searing heat rather than a cool midwestern morning, it still felt glorious.

Of course, another point of difference: actual waves, here.

Paddling out (during which she did actually give ‘Wei Rui’ a friendly wave and greeting) and then riding the crests back (including, as predicted, one dousing as she shook the rust from her old instincts), she’d slowly made her way up the beach, closer and closer to where her Charter-enhanced sight could make out a crowd in the middle distance containing some familiar individuals… Now she came to the final approach. Turning, she began the paddle back to shore, waiting, waiting… There – Callie felt the rising water below her and rose with it, standing with just the slight lean needed to let the wave carry her and the board forward.

For a long, long moment, she let herself exult in the feeling of effortless momentum. The rushing wind caressed her still-damp hair and blustered in ears already rushing with pumping blood and adrenaline; the spray of an ocean painted in deep azure whipped around her legs. Above, a shining, cloudless sky and sun cast her and her surrounds in glorious light, the waters glistening before her passage.

Callie grinned. Then she felt the momentum changing, slowing, closer to shore… Charter fell into her hand; she looked back with a practised focus, gaze piercing out to the seabed a ways beyond the coast even as she kept a part of her consciousness on the board beneath her…

And, with a familiar surge, even as the wave fell upon the sands, a new sheet of water rose under her, bearing her and the board aloft and following her above and over the shoreline! Callie let loose a bright, pealing laugh. Sure, she’d brought out this particular tool in her box to appeal to the aspiring Emperor’s theatrical side but that didn’t make it any less fun than it always was!

Of course, another part of her mind, still very cognisant of her other potential target dressed in her usual form-fitting garb that she had to fight to ignore, screamed at her that she was wet and unkempt and (in a flare-up that brought her back to the emotional awkwardness of middle school) definitely not at her most attractive.

Not that I should even be letting myself think like that in the first place! She’s dangerous – no, that is absolutely not a point in her favour – her loyalties are questionable, plus I was given explicit orders to –

To avoid anything that could be turned to her advantage. And look at me! I am damned capable myself and not so hard on the eyes either! She ignored the In my own way… added by a more tentative voice. I am worth the effort – and who’s to say that I’m the only one who can have their eye drawn? Who’s to say I can’t draw them? Who’s to say I can’t draw hers? I can take advantage of that, can’t I, if it’s in line with my goals?

Letting impulse get in the way of the mission…

Aligning impulse and the mission!

And so, fuelled by determination, adrenaline and more than a little wild abandon, Callie crouched to grab the board, leant back into something approaching a stall, loosed the energy maintaining the portal beneath it to cut off the rushing water and fell, graceful as a gymnast, even as she tucked the surfboard beneath her arm. She landed a few metres opposite the group, heralded by a prismatic cascade that scattered across the sand behind her, and transitioned seamlessly into an easy stride. “Well, this is a merry band!” she announced, flashing a truly brilliant smile at Qingshe before turning to the young man in blue. “And, if I’m not wrong, an illustrious one – your Imperial Majesty, it is an honour to…”

When Callie had taken the chance of glancing at them through Charter earlier, she had noted Sister Marta’s presence – a fresh recruit with an impressive humanitarian record and an equally impressive capacity for healing, from what she’d heard. That accounted for three of the four people she’d seen on approach. She’d recognised the other even at a distance – one ‘Cristina’, also a recruit, about whom she knew far less – but up until now, she hadn’t got a clear sense of her expression or body language. Now she did…

“…I have definitely interrupted something, haven’t I?”

Noble Arms - The ASEAN War, Second Thread

Callie flopped down on the bunk, something between a groan and a growl scraping through her teeth. A few seconds passed as she took in the empty space of the barracks room – utilitarian, walls bare except for a desk pushed into the corner and a few photos attached to the wall above it with half-peeling tape, presumably of the families of the soldiers who were once stationed here.

Before they were swamped by a tsunami and then the remainder shot or captured in the confusion, of course.

She remembered a man on the deck, twitching, seawater dribbling from his mouth.

Bile rose in Callie’s throat; she forced her mind away. She’d never been terribly good at meditation – keeping her thoughts clear always felt far near-impossible in comparison to just focusing them on something else. Unfortunately, the place they turned to was little better.

In reserve. God damn it!

Callie hadn’t strictly been absent for the duration of the battle at the Jinghong Dam but, in truth, she might as well have been – kept on one of the rearward boats, hidden, as a last card in TFO’s deck to turn the tide or, more likely, hunt down enemy VIPs as they tried to flee the scene… They hadn’t counted on their opponents having teleportation of their own; Huo Ren and his cohort had already vanished by the time that she was let loose and while evacing PoWs was unequivocally good and helpful…

Myron and his ‘emotional distress’ talk, it has to be… I performed well the previous mission – there was nothing else to recommend against me. Ignoring my getting portal-trapped, her thoughts very helpfully conceded – but I didn’t tell anyone about that, they would have had no way of knowing, surely, maybe barring Qingshe she was there would she have seen OH GOD NO –

She forced that train of thought from her mind, too. Took a breath. Okay, so maybe things are affecting you. That’s fine. That’s normal for a soldier, let alone one who just discovered that her father… She winced at the cascade of thoughts that resulted. So that you’ve got to deal with… One thing at once. You wanted to be sure of who he was – now you are. Are you going to confront Mum about it? She pursed her lips. Shook her head. It’d just worry her even more than she is already. I work this out on my own…

So. Do I want to go after him?

What she’d told Myron had been truth, after a fashion. Intellectually, she saw no need. It didn’t affect her that she happened to share DNA with someone possibly not dead on the other side of the globe; if he happened to cross onto her side of the globe, she’d want to know about him but there was still no need to know him.

Emotionally?

She hated it. The way that the Hammer lieutenant had talked spoke of knowledge of her capabilities; the way he instantly leapt on weakness in her use of them demonstrated it, beyond any kind of doubt she might have had. I’m trying to avoid notoriety… And now, quite possibly, there’s an indefinite number of people out there who know more or less what I can do and exactly how to counter it. Callie felt a shiver run up her spine, feeling exposed for the first time in years. And I can’t do anything about it. I have a job to do here. I…

She let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Right. Job. Do what I came here to do.

Callie sat up on the bunk, swinging her legs up and out to let them hang over the side. She felt for the thread in her mind. She tugged.

And then it tugged back. Callie stiffened, fists clenching, as she felt it slithering through her head. ‘Spindle’, as they were codenamed, could not take away memories – the CIA would hardly cripple their own operatives so – but they did access them, and accessing memories always leaves them altered. Callie ground her teeth. Even for one who could be as focused as she, she still didn’t notice anything changing… The absence unnerved her more than any perception of it ever might.

Time passed. Just how much was difficult to ascertain, in the quiet of that room, cast in the artificial white of the strip lights on the ceiling above.

Then: The model student as ever, aren’t you?

Callie relaxed her fists as the sensation ceased. Clenched them again. Relaxed. “Glad you think so,” she murmured, bitterness in her voice, eyes boring into the wall. Did you know? About Kenrick?

A few moments passed, no doubt as some file was searched or clearance was checked. Suspicions, nothing more. By the time they became firm, you were already deployed and distracting you would be counterproductive. If we knew there were likely to be Hammer-affiliated antiquarians in theatre, you’d have been first to know.

Callie nodded, gaze still on the wall. A satisfying enough answer… Assuming that they were telling her the truth.

Because lying risks your operational performance and we can’t have that. Hey, listen, she felt resonating in her mind even as panic flashed across it, don’t worry. You’re not going to defect because you had one intrusive thought. Believe me, I know what a would-be double agent’s thoughts feel like and yours aren’t those.

Callie forced herself to calm. You didn’t know they were here. That’s worrying.

You’re right. From what you saw, they had a good number of their elites on that ship, so it’s possible they’re minimally integrated into the actual command structure, but even then – you shouldn’t have been the first to know about them. I’ll pass it up the chain.

You think the higher-ups will send more operatives to the theatre?

As a telepath, ‘Spindle’ normally kept their thoughts disciplined; as a CIA telepath, it was compulsory. Thus Callie’s surprise when she practically felt them grimace on the other end. Guessing that’s a ‘No’, then.

How closely have you been following domestic politics, Augur?

Callie blinks. Trying to avoid it. Why?

Well, midterm polling’s been good for the President.

Oh, God.

Mmm. The Director’s trying to hold out but it looks like we’ll be facing down another ‘American Finance Initiative’ soon – maybe even worse. You’re staying where you are, don’t worry about that, but don’t expect backup any time soon.

Right. Right. Callie nodded – finally, a firm answer to comprehend, internalise and integrate! Directives?

Watch Myron. He –

Oh – yeah, so what was that all about? Why wasn’t the information on my mum falsified – I made it very clear that she needed to be kept out of all this!

Because there wasn’t enough time to audit the full capability of the Philippine army’s Antiquarian recruitment before you were inserted. It was –

Like hell! They needed anyone they could get – if you didn’t remember, Myron himself is a former terrorist!

Translator was a terrorist who was a known quantity to them. You weren’t. All it would have taken was an E- or D-rank diviner looking over your file and you could have lost your cover and any influence you might have had. This was the safest option. A pause. Your mother is safe, Augur. We have security protocols in place for her, just as we have them for the family of all our operatives.

Right. Right. I’m sorry. Callie sighed. Directives?

‘Spindel’’s thoughts were calm as ever. Monitor Translator. His influence is unclear – ensure that it is kept in check. Monitor Jester. Determine whether he is just a figurehead. If he isn’t, determine whether he can be trusted; if he can, we will authorise you to make contact. And monitor Cassandra. She’s too powerful an antiquarian and her loyalties too obscure to ignore her – just, given your memories, avoid any entanglements that could be turned to her –

“Yes!” Callie yelped, then jumped at the sudden sound of her own voice as it echoed in the room. Placing a hand on her forehead for calm, she performed a quick scan – the room was still empty. Yes. Understood. Thank you – directives received. Over and out.

Over and out, Augur.

Callie felt the subtle aperture in her mind close. She let her limbs go slack; her palms, barely supporting her weight, sunk into the mattress below.

Right. Well. Least now I know exactly what I’m meant to be doing.

She drummed her fingers. Then sat up.

Well, no rest for the righteous. We were meant to be relaxing, weren’t we? Hmm. Need to make myself visible.

Let’s see if anyone on this island can lend me a surfboard.

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

Flashback - Collab between @Letter Bee and @Nimbus

BRP Ramon Alcaraz - 10/11/2022, 20:20 UTC+8

Noel, Nico, and Indra were back on the ship, and so was Myron. The ASEAN Flotilla had taken a beating from the PLA Navy’s battle groups, but the diversion had worked and the supply ships were getting through to Mischief Reef. Now, they could all return to Lingayen for their next deployment… Once Myron had dealt with some unfinished business.

He had left Kaitlyn, Iker, Qingshe and that newcomer Rocha in the ships; they could meet later. Right now, he had a good deed to do, one more action to make up for a childhood and adolescence lost in atrocities.

Gritting his teeth, Myron glanced down the corridor behind him. Callie hadn’t been terribly subtle in shadowing him. He gestured for her to follow him to one of the side rooms of the ship.

He had already guessed what she had seen, what Sohrab had told her about. But as he walked towards the side room, the young man knew that he wanted to come clean, and so was prepared to do so if she asked for it.

And so the Intelligence Officer opened the door, went inside, and faced Callie, saying, “What do you want to know?”

“That easy to read, huh?” The smile on Caroline Lidmann’s face was anything but kind. The whites of her teeth and eyes caught the dregs of the light, the rest of her silhouette blending into the darkness as she passed through the doorway. Her tone of voice was little better, full of frost and steel that stood guard over her intent. “Maybe I should ask you. What do you think I’d want to know, Myron?” she asked, her echoing words punctuated by the clang of the door falling shut.

The light flickered on automatically to reveal her, leant against the wall, arms crossed.

“Yes,” Myron responded with steel of his own. “People in emotional distress are that, as I’ve known through long experience. So, Sohrab told you about your father; that confirmed my own suspicions.”

He frowned and said, “Noble Arms are not genetic, but they come from personality and that vaguely-defined thing called personal growth. And your Noble Arm’s resemblance to the one held by Public Enemy #1 in the War against the Hammer has been noted, although again, Sohrab confirmed it.”

Following up with a sigh, he continued, “And of course, you look like him in a way that is almost uncanny…”

Callie’s gaze tightened. “You don’t need to bother with the whys and wherefores, Myron. And maybe don’t tell a girl she’s in ‘emotional distress’, hmm? Not very polite.” A tiny adjustment of her arms, perhaps just enough to serve as a reminder of what they could be holding were her mood to fall further.

Myron nodded. “I’m sorry for that remark, then. So, where should we start?”

“From the beginning, maybe.” Callie shifted in her position against the wall. “You’re the one with the intel on this man. Brief me.”

The response was a nod, then a sigh, as Myron said, “Kendrick is the leader - or one of the leaders - of the Hammer of Masters, a notorious Arms Master Supremacist organization that hijacked the War on Terror by destroying several jihadist groups in Syria and taking all they had, before overrunning most of Syria, Iraq, and parts of Lebanon and Western Iran. He then proclaimed himself the ‘Malik’ - one of the Arabic words for King - of the ‘State of Masters’, and it took several years of fighting to bring him down. Even then, we could not have succeeded if he had not been so hated by the locals for being a foreigner and, well, irreligious, although his subordinates, particularly Anui-El, worshipped him.”

He paused and continued, “He had a wife, once. Or was it a lover? It was back in England, where he was born. Records were hazy, but he had connections to a group that claimed to be for ‘Equality’ between Arms Masters and non-Arms Masters but wound up being a front for the Hammer of Masters’ predecessors. Your mother - Mary, right? - was a part of that group, a Non-Arms Master member.”

Myron closed his mouth, then opened it again, perhaps noting the way that Callie’s expression shifted for the tiniest of moments to terror, then returned not to frost but to ice. He continued, nonetheless: “The Disablers sent a sizable number of volunteers to the Middle East, and I was one of them. I was sixteen, I think, and I spent the next few years cooperating with everyone from deranged jihadists to arms smugglers and drug cartels to hurt Arms Masters as much as I can, through poison, explosives, sniper rifles, and eventually, targeting their families. I wish the fact I was a kid myself was an excuse - but it isn’t.

“Eventually, the Malikate’s borders shrank to a city on the Syrian-Iraqi border, and I, on my eighteenth birthday, was ordered to infiltrate it as part of the final siege. I was captured and Kendrick, after showing disinterest in my fate, gave me to Anui-El for… I don’t want to talk about it.”

He looked at her and continued on, “Sorhab, Kendrick’s second in command, risked his life and threw away his position in order to save me. He broke into the dungeon and smuggled me out, and when I asked him why he threw away everything, he said, ‘Because I saw you, and you were beautiful’.”

Myron chuckled, and spoke, “Imagine that. I realized shortly afterward, when he left me, that the Hammer and the Disablers were mirror images of each other, fueled by hate. And I wanted no part of that anymore. That was when I grew as a person and grew my Noble Arm.”

He looked at her, then continued, “Anui-El, now dead, sought an heir for the Malik. There are other rumors that the Malik is still alive. If that’s the case… I’m done not trusting people; I’m done not trusting you. Besides, you’d prefer Qingshe over a deadbeat parent who abandoned you at a young age, right?”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Callie said, light laughter under her breath. Her prior mood, seemingly, was dispelled. “That’s good to know.” She leant back just a touch against the wall, arms unfurling to fall behind her back. “How’d you hear that name? ‘Mary’, I mean.”

Myron answered, “You have a dossier; I have security clearance to see the more benign parts, including your mother’s name. After that came several web searches. Either way, though, it’s not like my past is clean so why should I judge you for your own, which you can’t even control?”

Then he mused, “So, what do you plan to do with what you know now? I request that you spare Sohrab, but ‘The Malik’ and everyone else are free for you to deal with…”

Callie hummed, a quiet, warbling thing. “I don’t see how much it changes. I’m not in this for vengeance on a man I’ve never met, I’m in it because the cause here is worth fighting for. If him and his allies are fighting against that cause, then we’re fighting them. No need to complicate it beyond that… If you ever have anything on him or his subordinates, abilities, weaknesses, personal quirks that can be taken advantage of, let me know.” She flashed a smile. “Like to think I’m a pretty good student.”

Myron smiled back. “I think you are. So, it seems we both have things to do now?” he asked, not so subtly signalling an end to the meeting.

“Sure,” Callie answered, voice already a little faint as she reached the door, opened it, then half-stepped through. “Good talk.”

And in a moment, with brass flashing into her hand and space appearing where it hadn’t been previously, she was gone.