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

Suku fiddled with the tray of hot-wings she had gotten with her ration. Spicy things weren't exactly her thing, but she could never pass up a batch of succulent hot wings. Back on Kennewes, hot-wings were a favorite quick-food for most people, and a finger-food for any entertaining event. It was a classy, delicious treat, and when she sunk her teeth into the first one, a chill ran up her spine in delight as she savored the chicken meat and it's peppery, orange glaze. Then, she stuck the hole leg piece in her mouth, and then subsequently pulled it out, relieving the bone of meat entirely.

"Mmmm!" Suku hummed happily as she chewed, orange buffalo sauce staining around her mouth. She sampled another, removing the meat off the bone in similar fashion, escaping into her own world, one that consisted of the ration in front of her. Fian's announcement drew her out for a moment, but when hearing that it was going to take 'awhile', she quickly went back in. Carina had taken to talking to Sam, so while she ate, she let her eyes and head swivel around to see who was around the room. That's when she caught sight of Ran Rui. "Mmmm." grunted the Medical Officer, as she pulled another cleaned bone out of her mouth.

"Sam, watch Carina for me." ordered Suku, as she turned and stood up, walking towards the entrance of the cafeteria. No doubt Ran wouldn't be able to notice the woman if he hadn't tried not to. She approached him with a purpose, sticking her thumb in her mouth to suck off the buffalo sauce, and then every other finger in sequence.

"Ran!" she called out to him with a smile, waving the freshly cleaned hand at him. Her lips parted again to allow her tongue to trace around the edges of her mouth, cleaning it off the delicious orange goodness she left behind to come and talk to him. She opened her arms wide as she got close, intending to the hug the man. "It's been forever, how's it been?"

"...uh." Sam watched Suku stand and go towards the man standing in the doorway; when she had nearly reached him and opened her arms, the crossdressing marine quickly averted her eyes. She picked Carina up and pulled her into her lap, facing away from the door, then covered the girl's eyes with one hand. "Don't look, kid, it's better that way."

Alexandra stopped paying attention to chief and looked at Suku. She was moving towards the chief with her arms spread to hug him. "Oh man I think this won't end well Sam," she finally said ans took another swig of whiskey. After working with Suku whole week she was just hoping that medical officer won't make anything that could make her throw up what she ate of the roll. And even though Alex had her hand in another human being up to her elbows, she was sure Suku could do something that would make even her vomit.

The sound of an all-too familiar voice suddenly interrupted Ran's stream of consciousness. The familiarity with it's tone and pitch was forged in fire, specifically having his body chopped up and modified by the nurse. Just like there are procedures for cutting fuel lines in the event of a helicopter crash, several pre-disaster procedures ripped through Ran's mind in such great speed, that if there were any neurologists on the scene, they would swell with excitement upon confirming that when subjected to extreme stress, the brain was still very capable of processing multiple things in a short amount of time, even in this age of advanced technology.

Suku's paces were counted and a rough estimate of how long it took for her to walk from point A to point B (where Ran was) was figured out quickly in the Chief's brain in order to get a grasp on at least her walking speed. The Chief's spatial awareness increased, and each random Marine that either walked in, came in the way of the two of them, or stood near the Chief became an acceptable environmental hazard with which the Chief could possibly delay the advance of this whirling ball of rage that some impossibly irresponsible brasshole at the top gave a knife and training in the workings of the Nepleslian body to.

All in all the only thing that would have been better than his body spontaneously exploding at that moment would be the ship just spontaneously exploding and taking all it's cargo with it.

The Chief realized however, that all his thoughts mean shit all now that Suku was within -her- own striking distance. Like a man wishing to show know fear to a charging, blind buffalo, Ran held his ground.

"Hi, things have been good. And you?"

Anselm sighed when Alex left, glanced at Henry and his work for a moment, and then noticed the friendly routine Suku put on to close the distance with Chief Rui. "This should be interesting..." Anselm looked at Henry again and placed a hand on the top of his newspaper, tugging it down and crinkling the paper slightly, "Suku just found the Chief."

His tone was not excited, but merely informative, as if it were something on the battlefield to note with one's own eyes.

"Oh it's been great!" said Suku, wrapping Ran up in a friendly embrace. She pulled him tight in the hug, squeezing him like he was some long lost friend that had fare-welled in her childhood. "I really can't complain past all of the patients I've been accumulating as of late." She leaned back, lighting up her pearly whites in a smile. Despite what anyone saw of it, she seemed genuinely happy to see him. It seemed especially evident as she pinched his cheek and tugged on the skin.

"It's good to see you didn't take the receiving end of too many hits." she said, the smell of hot wings rolling off her breath. "I guess that means we can slip that cybernetic leg right on! Isn't that right?" Suddenly the grin began to get a little too wide. "We'll just have to schedule a little check-up when we arrive at wherever we're going. I won't mind!"

Anselm stifled a guffaw when he saw Suku's smile get wide enough to classify as 'textbook nightmare fuel'.

"Ran's going to need someone to hold his arms down for about an hour," he muttered to his table companions.

Carina was about to take a bite of the last fry when she was suddenly picked up, and everything went dark. Before she could question this, Sam's voice uttered something about not looking. Of course this made her want to look all the more. The little girl ducked her head a little as she caught a glimpse of Suku hugging Ran. Her mouth fell open a bit as she also noticed the Chief was looking pretty awkward.

"Momma's huggin' big shnozz!" exclaimed the child before her vision went dark again. "He's gonna' be in troooooouuuubbbblllleeeee~"

The Chief was not too fond of contact in the first place. The Chief had a problem being in cramped spaces, of all things, and it would usually manifest in him backing into the corner of a room and putting as much space between him and his oppressors. It didn't help that the person who was hugging him was Suku, and he was pretty sure that she had been the one that sawed his leg off.

The Chief then heard the words "schedule" and "checkup" used in the same sentence by her, and that was his cue to reach out and punch some random passing Marine in the nose. "Ohshithowclumsyofmewouldyoulookatthat" The Chief said, prying Suku away from him, and presenting her with the Marine whose nose he just broke. "Guessyougottatakecareofthisguyohwellwecantalklateraboutheappointmentnicetoseeyouagain."

At that, Ran made a beeline for the Master Chief.

Oh. Oh ho. Ran Rui only thought he was fast. He was built like a bull and could barrel through a group of unsuspecting marines sober, but he was no agile man-eater like Suku. She clawed at his back frantically as he tried to escape, one wild hand anchoring his collar. In his mad rush, he began to drag the Matsobuki woman, as she tried to get her footing. The poor marine that had gotten his nose broken was being left to his own devices as Ran tore his way towards Vel Steyr, with Suku hooked on his collar.

"Re-Remember, Rui!" she said in her erratic tone as she tried to hang on, before pulling her body up and digging her nails into his neck to hold herself up for a second. She managed pull herself just enough on the man to get her mouth to his ear. "It's mandatory." were the poisoned words whispered so darkly into his ear, before the Doctor dropped herself, landing on the floor ungracefully.

She gave a huff before walking over to the Marine with the broken nose, to tend to him.

Alex was looking at the scene playing out before her eyes. When Ran punched another unnaware marine she just shaked her head and stood up, while Chief tried to escape and Suku started pursuing him. In very peculiar way.

Alex walked to the marine, sitting on the ground with hands in front oh his wound. "Let me have a look," orange woman said when she kneeled by the marine. By that time Suku was already done and joined them there.

Alexandra examined poor marine. "Just a broken nose Doc." She said, she then caught man's nape and carefully grasped men nose. "Don't move mate," she then said and fixed poor man's nose. "Hop in the medi-tent later and I will put some bandaid on it later. Now run or toilett to get soem paper towels for the bleeding." She then pat-patted him on the head. "You got you nose broken and fixed, now are big boy already. I would give you a sweet, but I have none with me at the moment."

Sean paused in his chewing to watch the "argument" going on between Suku and Ran, though he did wince a bit at Ran punching the poor marine to try and distract her, a gamble he could not fault the Chief for. After all, though he couldn't hear what the medical officer was telling him, she probably had a good reason for acting all sweet, and he doubted it was friendly. He decided he didn't want to watch much past there though, and turned back to his table, looking at Anselm. "So. How're you doing, since you're counseling other people?"

"People?" Anselm asked cryptically, "nah, person, the kid's an individual, Mason, remember that; otherwise fine, 'm supposed to be getting off at Francia to train some unit under NAM's payroll, something about autonomous special forces."

He looked down at the remains of his soup, "Y'know, I don't get why the old guys like Chief Rui and The Fearless Leader are so... afraid?... of the Doc; she's quite nice... but then, eh- what do I know, I just like her style."

The albino shrugged and scooped the last bits of the congealing broth down his gullet and left the table to dispose of his tableware.

"By the Maker, behave yourselves!" The Master Chief yelled, aghast. "Suku, we are short on manpower as it is. Chief, don't make me order Sam here to shoot you." Fian was very much over THAT episode to casually refer to it, he now had bigger concerns and mistakes to be worried about.

"By the way, congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, you are now both the most famous and infamous squad in the whole of the SMoDIN." The projector screen behind the Master Chief lit up to display four titles.


"We are famous for succeeding all four of our missions dispite the odds. On Golding we have managed to single handedly drive off the attack on the Station, we have managed to recapture the Emden in the face of the Mishhu fleet, we have helped to delay a full scale invasion and save a few thousand of our own guys on Rok'Veru and finally performed an emergency multi-lightyear jump to protect the very heart of Nepleslia from the enemy. It certainly wouldn't have been possible if it were anyone but the lot of you, and as your Master Chief, I am tremendously proud to have led such fine men and women."

Suppresing the urge to tear up, he then brought his right hand up to eyebrow level to accord a well deserved honor. "I salute you."

Anselm snerked audibly at the commendations for valor and duty before realizing his disdain had reached such a volume. The ex-marine studied the table in front of him intently, hoping he wouldn't be identified and have to explain what certain elements of leadership stewarding the Acadia's dislocated marines thought of his unit's performance on Nepleslia. The albino clenched his cybernetic hand into a fist and imagined Wazu's windpipe was in his grip. He wouldn't grace that man with his title of Admiral even if it meant IPG interrogation followed by a summary execution.

Henry scratched his chin. He never gave much thought to the fact that the combined feats and foibles of the NSS Acadia crewmen had meant that they'd become the benchmark for Nepleslian Army Badassery.

Not a bad achievement, Henry mused. Only now had it become apparent that he'd participated in something much grander and important than he thought. He only ever thought about what was at hand anyway, and only ever thought he was just doing his job. Defending and reclaiming ships from Mishhu, delaying a full scale invasion, defending and evacuating Rok'Veru - and then topped with defending the Senate from getting destroyed.

Not a bad achievement at all, A smile crept across his lips as he took a sip of brandy and saluted, "Amen," He breathed.

Alex helped hurt marine on his feet when Master Chief started with his speech. It made her feel proud. Although she was only present in two of these situations. Also on Funky City they didn't do that much in her eyes. THey didn't even reach senate after all. That was all the work of the rookies. But she still felt prideful. At least on Rok'Veru they did a hell of a job.

When Fian raised his hand to salute she could not help but to return the salute. She never felt so proud in her life. Also maybe all those deaths weren't entirely meaningless.

"That was just once, sir!" Sam wailed, her hands dropping onto Carina's sides, the girl still in her lap. She quieted afterwards, looking at the screen - though she hadn't been on Acadia for long before she was reassigned, she still felt a sense of pride for her own and her squadmates' accomplishments. She brought a hand up and solemnly saluted the Master Chief, unable to stop a tear or two from making her eyes glisten.

Carina managed to wiggle out of Sam's lap as soon as her hands left the girl's eyes. With the MC's mention of Golding, she'd gotten up on to the seat and had pulled at one of the lower eyelids of her hazel eyes while sticking her tongue out at the man before taking a seat again. All he had done was scare her half to death and cause her to have a small concussion after all!

The child snorted once before she set about finishing her can of soda.

I wonder if there's another medic

The Chief had frozen in place for a while after hearing the voice of Suku -way too close- to his ear, along with the presence of nails being dug into his back and neck. Sensing that Suku was walking away, by the lack of anger present in the air in his immediate vicinity, the Chief simply sat down and pulled out a flask, momentarily sipping it, and then rolling his eyes slightly as the Chief berated the two of them, as if to say "SHE STARTED IT"

The list of accomplishments was lost on him, however. None of it mattered, since they'd be asked to do a lot more of these type of missions, and familiarity breeds boredom. What bothered him a little was that the Master Chief did seem to get a little bit emotional, which caused him to look around and wince at the other Marines who were joining in.

At the salute, the Chief simply raised his flask a little bit and continued drinking from it, to try and forget about the fact that he'd need a replacement leg.