Plank Sinatra

The Zephyr Extinct

Gonna do my best to have a post up for this tonight!

Nova Lux: A Magical Girl Game

Stoked, I'll try and have a CS done in the next few days.

Nova Lux: A Magical Girl Game

This looks dope, if I have the time I'd love to be a part of it.

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

_{and the lord was sorry he had made humankind//and it grieved him to his heart}

<<We just don't know what Adam and Eve look like. They didn't, either, until they ate the apple.>> Gypsy Soul had weathered re-entry with a grace as alien as her aesthetic, and skimmed above the surface with her sensors deployed. The Praxis Clock package meant that she would be doing her best flying from above the ground team, with her sensor and communications packages commanding her full attention. Besides, she had spent years with this unit back in Sol, until they were extensions of each other - so close that it often felt like one was plucked from the other's ribs. Their bond was tight enough that Gypsy could feel the obvious intent behind every message: her Orbital was scared to touch the ground.

I wonder if you could sleep with the Adam or Eve here.

<<You may eat freely of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge you shall not, for in the day you eat of it you will die.>> She was staring at the heat sources Bedwyr had shared. Chaotic, like buckshot beneath the bleached soil. Some overlapping, some dispersed. Empty apartments and full apartments next door to each other. Like a hive. <<I wonder what it was they ate here. Be advised. Those probably aren't hot springs.>>

Gypsy Soul drew her CFL-M rifle, an archangel floating above the world at long range. The masked pilot's brow was furrowed behind her metallic face, its sheen brightened by a small lick of sweat. Her aim was tracing Odysseus' singular drone, the one exploring the unsettling heat.

//Engage communication suite? Y?N?//

No.

//Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do all that is just? Y?N?//

Gypsy rolled her eyes and frowned. In her forehead, a vein throbbed. Don't you start praying on me, too.

<<Solid copy, Odysseus.>>

The Zephyr Extinct

I R I S

"Huh?"

Iris, broken out of her anxious reverie, turned over her shoulder with a jump at the mention of her name. Beneath her mask, a wan, relieved grin came to her face as she saw Cedar behind her. Even in her current kneeling position, they were almost of a height; she had no iea if that was intimidating for Cedar or not, but it made her feel happy to know that someone wasn't looming over her no matter what stage of 'parked on my ass' she was currently occupying. That comfort and relief was coming in really handy at a time like this.

"Yyyeah, actually. Kinda." She pulled one hand from her pocket and raised a closed fist up in greeting - then opened it, spinning the ring she'd discovered on the corpse in a circle on her palm. She stopped its motion long enough for Cedar to be able to give it a thorough twice-over before pocketing it again. The last thing Iris wanted was either of them to wind up with this freaky piece of crap on their finger and wind up like this poor screwball. "And then there's this."

She scooted to the right, boots making soft, wet scraping noises against the muck and soil of the alleyway. Her moving her tall, muscular frame gave Cedar a good look at what she had been examining when he arrived. The corpse's forearm was milky and wizened looking, its flabby, dead flesh growing even paler than it had when Iris reached him. It made the light scarring of a tattoo - and its shape - all the more obvious. Iris giggled to herself, a little nervously.

"Maybeee he had a bad breakup," she suggested, her voice playful despite everything. "People get tats removed after those all the time."

...yyyyeah, those breakups...wiiith the theocratic death cults. They really getcha every time.

She kept staring at the healer's forearm, and the remaining imprint of a tree.

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

<Snipped quote by Hawthorne>

So, I'm going to be totally honest with you.

It was ten o'clock at night and I was powering through a huge migraine. That 100% was supposed to say "Odysseus" and I fucked up my Greek heroes for a second there. I'll fix that.

@Krayzikk

krayzikk's iliad director's cut where the wrong guy gets achilles' armor

The Zephyr Extinct

@Mokley hey, so Iris seems like she has a good chance of keeping the conversation flowing with Cedar here. I don't want to jump ahead of the line or anything, especially if there's a GM post coming, but in the event I can get a post done in the next day or two is there a chance I could get a vague idea of anything she finds in her search? Or should I just sit tight?

Meadow University

Dana watched Bastien's performance with a slightly pronounced pout, bottom lip jutting out in tandem with her sharp jaw as she was victim to Cassi's taunts. His full perfect lips were pursed together like he wanted hers to meet them, but considering the way he had just blown an easy lay-up of a boba date, she knew that taking him up on such a tease was akin to putting a kick me sign on her own back. So she locked her hands tightly by her sides and, as though she was going through a windshield, drew her already 5'10 frame up on her tiptoes and nudged her forehead against his lips instead. Forehead kisses were pure, and more than he deserved.

Then she had plopped back down, flat-footed, to watch the rest of the song. As much as Cassian liked to joke, she could tell it had moved him seeing his friend open himself up like that. Though she had no real love of doing the same - baring herself in front of people like that - she could appreciate the people who were capable of it, and she supposed she could get across emotions like anger and...determination...and...anger...

She grinned, a bit sheepishly.

But such displays just weren't in her nature. Karaoke was one of those rare activities she liked to do just for fun.

She was broken out of her reverie by another approach to the little gang. It was a girl, their age, who Dana was sure she must have seen on campus once or twice. She looked too singular to go unrecognized - pink hair, bright eyes, and a big grin, which grew brighter as the girl's confident approach continued. Confused, she looked over to Cassian to see if he had drawn over some artsy chick or something, but his eyes were still on Bastien's little Macross routine. And the girl's eyes...

Ohhh.

The girl's eyes were on her jacket. How very justice of her, to recognize such impeccable and brash taste. Proud of her style decision for the evening, Dana-chan pulled on the lapels of her jacket a bit; the Balmain spikes on her collar, shoulders and back all jingled like a full ring of keys. The girl's eyes never left the jacket, and Dana grinned confidently.

"Whassup?" Dana tried to say, although her tongue still tripped over the casual American greeting. "Like the jacket? Veeery powerful. Suit of armor against jackass like this."

She nudged her shoulder into Cassichin's solar plexus.

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

_{is no one going to mention//how loud the planet is screaming}

"You really think they know what's happening here?" she asked rhetorically, in response to Adam's musings.

The brass. It was funny, the things that military men sought in their superiors. She supposed that such a rigid environment, armored as it was in the simplicity of orders and higher callings, felt a bit like a theocracy. You served your life in service of gods, and then you got to die feeling meaningful. It wasn't such a bad gig. But Pandora's captain didn't seem like much of a god at all. Maybe when you gathered all the brass in one place they looked a little more divine. But to look at the captain, in his oversized coat and quaint officer's cap, he hardly had the presence of an oracle. He could have at least glowed a little or something.

"I guess, maybe," Gypsy Alexandros responded to herself, punctuating her ambivalence with a shrug. She swallowed and got a faint, savory aftertaste of chocolate from her food. One of the other pilots had broken ranks early to go check on the state of the hangar. It would probably be smart for her to do the same.

Her gaze fell back to the planet, spinning on the nearest screen, and though her mask was inscrutable the face of distaste she made underneath was anything but. The sight of the planet in its current state saddened her. Uneven browns and swathes of sepia had left the surface of Proxima Centauri b looking like an unleavened pizza crust - some parts crispy to the point of crackling, some parts still doughy and raw. Her mouth tightened again, and she took a deep breath to compose herself.

She would be fine by the time she reached the hangar.

---

"Heyyy, it's Ziggy Stardust!"

The potent combination of a cheerful greeting and an affectionately mocking nickname brought a wan smile to Gypsy's face. Her hands were in her pockets as she approached her Orbital and its support staff, but her head mechanic had stepped forward with an arm raised cheerfully over his tanned face, beaming like a sun beneath close-cropped blonde hair. Gypsy, with her begrudging little grin, drew a hand from her pocket and high fived the mechanic up top. Together, the two blondes stared up at the fey-looking Orbital they were charged with.

"How'dja sleep?" asked Nat Cole, as he wrapped both arms behind his head and looked the Atrox Fortuna up and down with a whistle. With his pierced midriff on full display, his bright tan, and an irreverent disposition, it was hard to imagine what such a gentle kid, lacking in decorum, was doing onboard an expedition like this. The answer, as with most things to do with the more secretive corporate presences onboard, could be taken at face value as 'cash.' Nat was the child of two Jawaid & Jawaid executives who had done much of the overclocking work on the Atrox Fortuna, closely in collaboration with Chiron Works. He had also been a misfit, suffering from anxiety, dysmorphia, and a host of other insecurities that required a lighter touch than throwing cash at psychiatry. Instead, his parents had thrown cash at the Atrox Fortuna, funding further improvements on Chiron Works' design as long as their problem child was taken on as a mechanical designer and tech. He had been working alongside Gypsy Alexandros for eighteen three years. In that time, Nat had transitioned and matured in ways that made him unrecognizable in ways beyond the physical. His gigawatt smile remained the same, though, and right now it was a spotlight, casting extra sheen upon the lush scarlets of the Orbital.

"Slept?" Gypsy asked. "Oh, yeah. 'Slept.' Did you?"

"Mhm." Nat hummed to himself. "You see the planet?"

"Looks like hell. But we knew it might."

"Mhm." Nat hummed to himself. "Well, you're in luck. 70% through pre-flight check, and Gypsy Soul seems ready to rock. She's even feeling a little talkative. I don't blame her. I had the weirdest dreams all the way--"

"Talkative."

"Mhm." Nat hummed to himself. "She won't shut up, actually. I'm glad you're here, she might calm down a little."

"What about combat?"

"Mmmmm." Nat stopped humming. "Well, she's definitely ready for that, too. 'Jawaid & Jawaid--"

"'--we'll work if we're paid,' Gypsy finished, wry smile on one end of her face.

Nat giggled and began to hum again. "I don't think they're after combat this soon, though. At least not from what we gathered back in Sol."

"You don't think? I do."

"Hmmm. I guess. But if they wanted to shoot up aliens you think they would have kept the Ozzies around. Although I guess two hundred and sixty four years is a long time to wait to shoot--"

"Oh. You meant them. Yeah, you're probably right."

"Yeah. What, did you mean them?"

"Mhm." Gypsy hummed, too. Her eyes were looking the Atrox Fortuna up and down. Nat giggled, a little nervously, and ran his fingers through the back of his golden hair.

"Well, try chatting first," the head mechanic advised, punching his pilot and surrogate sister on the shoulder affectionately. "We came all this way, it would really suck if she didn't get to talk."

'Now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel;
What hath God wrought?'
Pre-flight checks are now complete.
Anemoi-001 is now alive.

The two blondes turned to face each other. Their stares connected for a long, long second - a second that stretched into untold more.

"I guess that's my cue," Gypsy Alexandros said calmly, breaking the stare. She put her hand back into her jacket and walked towards her Orbital. The mechanic, brows furrowing a little in anticipation, stayed put as he watched her go.

The Zephyr Extinct

I R I S

Behind Iris' exquisite, angular mask, the big girl's face was its own mask of slack confusion. She stared numbly at the ring; inside her head, normalcy bias warred with her own intuition. She knew the symbol well, like most in Rig. The symbol was innocuous enough, even aesthetic in a plain way. A simple circle, with a small, strong dot to fill the void inside. In some ways it could be a metaphor for religion, or love, or even vice; its true meaning was an amalgamation of all three.

Amalgam.

Amalgam.

Her eyes clocked the horrific indigo tinge around the finger, where blood had been choked from the digit. Quickly, she slipped the ring off - although she was careful to drop it in her pocket instead of coming anywhere close to slipping it on. It felt like a weight in the pocket of her jacket, and her whole arm tingled with nerves as her mind came to grips with reality.

A thought struck her.

Chewing on her lip behind her mask, all trace of her cheer gone, Iris flipped the corpse's arms over, feeling the stiff cold flesh almost crack under her strength, to look for tattoos. She prayed all she would see was the curdled-milk color of the inside of a corpse's arms.