[Francia/Acadia][Mission 0] - Journey to the North West

The child did as she was told but didn't like it. The brim went up further after Suku'd tilted it back enough to get a good look at the hazel eyes of her child. The awkward look remained in place on Carina's face as she stared right back at the purple-eyed woman.

"From Mistah Bristle Lips!" confessed Carina almost immediately. "I was tuggin' at his sleeve an' he knelt down t'me. Then I tugged at his beard some an' tol'em he smelled like ol' people 'cause he was all dirty'n frumpy lookin'." The girl wobbled the hat some to better adjust it on her head. "An' he jus' smiled an was pattin' me on tha' head before given me tha' hat. 'Cause I was honest he said. An 'cause I wasn' afraid t'talk ta him."

She rubbed at her chin. "His beard was all prickly an' gray." then was rubbing at her stomach while it made a rumbling roar of "FEED ME DAMN IT."

"Well, no more of this taking stuff from old, graying men. You keep your distance from some of these old-timing wrinkle-fuckers. Some of them will scoop you up and do nasty things with their dicks to you, and you're too young to playing with dicks, okay?" said Suku in half-spiteful, half concerned tone, as she took a closer look at the hat the girl was wearing. The Medical Doctor made a deep sigh before taking up Carina's hand again. The growling in the girl's stomach signified it was time to feed the family.

Suku took her first steps into the cafeteria, and gave a dissatisfied huff to her surroundings. The whole place smelled like disappointment and sounded like cretins. Though, that was irrelevant for the most part, at least for Suku as she snatched two rations off the table and went to sit, plopping down next to Sam, patting the spot in between them for Carina.

"Hey there, Oliver." went Matsobuki as she fiddled with her ration.

Sam's brain ticked over, and she stared down at the ration that had somehow gotten in front of her, then looked at Suku and Carina next to her. "Uh. Buhh. Hey, Matsobuki, Carina... when'd you get here?" She blinked a few times, rubbing at her sunken eyes with the back of her hand. "...cute hat."

The hat slid forward covering her eyes again until she took it off. Carina put the hat on the table and began opening the ration can while she nodded furiously.

"Mistah Bristle Lips gave it t'me when we was still on the 'cadia." said the child as she peeled back the metal lid to get at the various packages inside. Carina pulled out a jerry can, opened it and sniffed before recoiling.

"Ewwwww, stinks!" she began to hack and cough before putting the lid back on it before tossing it on to the table where it skidded to a halt precariously perched on the otherside. The young Sanroma was already busily pulling out the remainder of her packages before stopping on what looked like a pre-packaged mug. Opening it Carina'd get her first whiff of bacon in ages which caused her eyes to sparkle and mouth to water before she realized there was even cheese inside of the mug as well.

"Bacon!" she squealed.

In the end she had managed to pull off another small miracle when it came to the ration cans. Fries, Bacon, Cheese, even a can of 'SPEED' soda. The cigar however she sniffed, making a little face at it before putting it on the table as well.

Tearing a strip of the bacon off the mug, Carina munched on it happily while opening her can of soda.

"It ain't as good as Gramma's bacon tho... not crispy 'nough." Carina said more to herself just before taking a swig of the soda and then began dipping fries into the cheese. She was even kind enough to nudge the bag of seasoned fries at Sam and the 'bacon mug' as well.

"Oh, hey," the stubbly-headed marine murmured in surprise as the mug was pushed toward her. She pulled off a strip of bacon for herself and alternated munching on it and the fries, one hand reaching over to ruffle up Carina's hair. "Thanks, muffin. How you been? Missed you an', uh, your momma - " her eyes darted briefly up to Suku, then back down again, as if she was afraid she was going to get injected with velserine again - "last week or so. Hope you two stayed all safe 'n that."

Sean wandered his way into the cafeteria, snagging a ration of his own. He peeked in before looking for a seat, not that he was all that hungry. He wasn't hungry very often these days. He glanced around, decided that he wasn't going to sit with their resident psycho doctor, and went to sit with Anselm instead, though it didn't look like he was all that busy either.

Alexandra finally lifted her head and saw Sean sitting with them. She greeted him with a nod and then looked at Anselm. "Wyatt," she asked, using his first name for first time. "Do you ever have nightmares?"

"No, but I don't really remember having dreams either," he answered simply, giving Sean a perfunctory nod, "not a lot scares me either, most things I guess that you could call scary just make me angry."

Henry was sitting down near Alex with his customary newspaper and meal for the day, which amounted to pork and beans and a cup of tea, as well as an energy drink that made his brain go from 'zombielike shuffle' to 'brisk walking pace'.

He chuckled a little as Carina was being a child and enjoying herself around the company of the marines. However, he noticed that she was wearing the Sky Marshal's hat. He blinked in amazement, leaned back and sighed, not wishing to take any action for a kid who could use cuteness judo well enough to make the Sky Marshal remove his headgear.

They all learn so quickly, Henry noted as he took a sip of his tea and read a newspaper that alleged that NMX Nekovalkyrja have been getting smuggled into Nepleslia by opportunistic pirates, Who the hell makes a deal with the NMX and expect to be intact by the end? Henry asked himself, burying his face in his palm over the lack of foresight on anyone who'd cut a deal with them.

Now probably wasn't the time to dwell on it though, he just flipped over to the funny pages and looked at another exciting adventure of 'Dave the Marine'.

Alex looked into her coffee thinking how it could taste much better if she spiked it with some whiskey. It doesn't even need to be good whiskey. Maybe she could steal some alcohol in medi-tent next time. Only little would be enough. Although it would probably burn her insides too much.

She ten looked on Anselm with her weary eyes. "I am not scared," she said after a thinking for short while. "I-. I am just having nightmares. Regurarly since Funky City. It makes me wonder about stuff I experienced and stuff I done. And I do not know what to do. And that is tiring me even more. I can't even smile anymore." She said after that.

It surprised her that she was spiling her guts like this to Anselm. She was to herself most of the time and now she was open like this. On the other handed she was ussualy pushed away by others for being 'that weird orange clone' and Anselm never seemed to mind that. Maybe because he himself being albino had similiar problem.

Anselm looked over at his former shipmate, "that's just your brain processing all of the stress, it's a normal, everyday thing for somebody who puts their life on the line," he reached a hand up to ruffle her hair, wondering to himself about the differences between the education they gave flash clones like himself and those who grew up normally, or as normally as a Nepleslian child could grow up anyways, "it's a natural process, don't worry about it too much."

Noting that he was mostly being ignored, Trey took this as a good sign, as he had his section of table to himself, and snatched the extremely heavy Gauss rifle he'd been carrying. Pulling a lever, the uranium-filled magazine dropped to the floor with a loud "Ka-THUNK", rolling a little bit on its side until the 'neck' found purchase on the ground and stopped its movement. Satisfied that the magazine wasn't going anywhere, trey placed the overlarge rifle on the table, and began disassembling it, busily working at figuring out how it worked- something he hadn't really had the proper time or place to do since he had found it. It was extremely dirty, but its mostly composite composition meant that it had yet to rust.

The Yam-bodied Nep continued his task as quietly as he could, as everyone else continued to chat it up, some of them even getting food- nasty, prepacked, pre-made garbage they issued as field rations. The blonde fancied himself a good cook, and probably would make something if someone asked, and he could find ingredients.

Carina swung her legs back and forth as she shared her meal with Sam. "Momma's been doctorin' people." The little girl looked over to her mother then. "Bu' they keep buggin' her an' it's been makin her grumpy at'em. She only stabbed eight people today with her needlegun!"

Of course she referred to the Hypolathe. "Tho'... only five'ah them started twitchin' real bad. Other ones jus' kind'a started droolin'." She eyed the cigar again before looking up at Sam.

"An' I had t'cut some boy for trying t'steal my stuffed rabbit." She was holding the wrapped cigar in her small hand waving it at the bald marine.

"Should I give this ta' Mistah Henry? Don' he like tha' smelly cigars?"

The Chief had barely any time to gather his belongings from the previous ship, having delayed his decision to join the Francia only up until the latest. As a result, Ran was still wearing the Murr armor that he had worn under his armor during the last mission. Pulling his pack of cigarettes from one of the magazine pouches on the combat armor, the Chief lit one and started on his hourly routine, to the chagrin of those in the cargo bay with him.

After hearing the Master Chief call the cafeteria open, Ran jumped down from one of the weapon boxes he had perched himself on. Unwilling to leave his cargo bag full of alcohol and cigarettes alone, the Chief elected to wear it like a backpack, letting his CQBS dangle at his right by the sling. Not bothering to take his beret out of his other mag pouch and wear it, the Chief first made his way out of the cargo room and to the nearest bathroom.

Wishing to not expose himself to an uninvited touching, Ran got into one of the stalls, something a completely rational and safe-minded person would do.

After completing his business and washing his hands, the Chief noted that the constant calls to combat had meant that he had no time to groom himself, and as a result, his self-coined "combat mohawk" had begun to disappear. Pulling out his Utility Combat Knife, and lathering up some soap to shave with, the Chief got to work shaving his head, bringing the mohawk back.

The food and drinks could wait, and the MC's speech would be broadcast through the PA system anyway.

Gritting his teeth as the slightly dulled blade tugged and pulled at his hair, the Chief would take very short and gentle strokes, not wanting to show up with a bloodied head. And after cleaning the excess hair and soap off the blade after the first swipe, the Chief spent about half a minute watching the material circle down the drain, then returned to shaving.

Alexandra's head covered in between her shoulder's like she would be small child. Anselm too her completely by surprise. She just looked into her coffee and blushed slightly. She then look at Anselm and said, "Thank you Wyatt." And that was it. She already felt better, only sligthly but it was still improvement.

Henry took off his Beret and started to fish within the folds of it to look for his foil packet of cigars. After not finding it for a moment, he put the beret in front of him and inspected it at length. It turned out that someone had pilfered his cigars while he was none the wiser.

His eyes widened in confusion. He then took a look around himself. They couldn't have gotten far, He thought as he looked at some of the marines, then he looked at the littlest marine in the outfit.

He then decided to sip his tea, munch on a biscuit and continue reading his newspaper, If I wait, maybe I can get a cigar another way. Might have to bribe her with a biscuit.

"Henry? Don't think I've met 'im personal-like. Should go drag him over here so we can have a chat." Sam grinned, a few flecks of bacon on her lips. "An' good for you, muffin, don't let nobody take your shit. Learnin' good from your momma."

The Master Chief had finished his 'conversation' with the IPG officer and left that table in disgust. Far from being indifferent as most IPG agents are commonly wont to do, a slight sign of worry or concern showed on the man's normally aphathetic looking front. The question if that worry or concern was for the MC or himself was still up in the air.

Fian did not immediately take to the podium, but first took to scan the small crowd gathered. Almost all were familliar faces and this pained him so, dispite that most of them executed and personally believed in the things they were told to do on the Acadia, it was quite possible that they were only also sent away due to their association with him. He hoped that the new people, like that young marine with the two revolvers that he saw the other day, were here because of faults (preferably only percieved by High Command) of their own. A large majority of the group were around since the Golding incident, the remainder only joined afterwards.

"The Chief is missing, so is Viktor." He mumbled to himself while biting his lip. He'll let this one slip if they came in late, the change and the events leading up to it were hard on everyone, and everyone had their own ways of dealing with it with varying effectiveness. Besides, the briefing was just about preliminary stuff as opposed to that on a mission. Fian refrained from singling out the missing people or having someone look for them to reflect the impersonal and non-critical nature of the briefing.

He then finally walked up to the front of the room with notes and slides in hand, followed by repeatedly tapping the audio pickup to test the local PA system. "Settle down, people. This is going to be a long one so hold on to a drink or something."

The Chief was nearly finished grooming himself, already having a rather good-sized flask open and resting on the sink, which he had been sipping from during his shaving session. Finally done, the Chief ran his knife under the water and wiped both sides of the blade on his pants leg before sheathing it at the scabbard tied to the left chest of his armor.

Content to simply stand there at the sink and finish his flask in peace, the Master Chief's broadcast prompted him to take the alcohol on the go, walking out of the washroom and heading toward the cafeteria where the meeting was being held.

This was starting to become a little strange for him. Straight out of a mission, the Chief usually had a good idea what to expect after the required amount of downtime. Really though, he had no reason to not believe he'd be sent right back down like in the Acadia. It was beginning to become a marathon of deployments, and really, Ran could do with a little break.

"Fuck that." The Chief muttered to noone in particular, dispelling his previous train of thought. "I can rest when I'm either wounded or dead. Maybe I can get one of the Marines to shoot me in the ass or something after our next mission is done..." The Chief soon found himself crossing the doorway into the cafeteria, electing to stand next to the cafeteria doors.

After finishing her coffee Alex finally felt like human being again. To some extent. She nodded to Anselm and left to get some food. Since soup he at didn't looked all that promising she just snatched of the NMR's and went back to sit near Sam. "Hello Sam," she said as she sat across the table from young marine. "How you've been?" she asked then as she opened her ration.

"Sweet." she sadi with voice completely without any sign of enthusiasm. "Just what I needed, a manly meatroll so I can get more manly. Great." She then rolled her head and looked some more through the box. "No forty-fiver again darn, just these baked apples. someone like baked apples?" she asked then as she put a bag with writing 'how do you like THEM apples?' on the side, in the center of the table. She then took out obligatory whiskey bottle, quickly opened it and took a swig. "Just what I needed." She then said and began conquering her Meat-roll.