ISC Big Bird
It was time to head planetside. The crew that was contained inside the Vampire Class cruiser was strapped in and ready to head down into the cleanly atmosphere of Yamatai. It was so clean you could extract oxygen samples and sell them just so certain people could say they've breathed the air. Such jarring schemes were frequent for those who desired Yamatai, becoming expatriates of other countries just to head somewhere where the grass was greener.
However, a handful of the crew from the Phoenix were Yamataian expatriates themselves - or even expatriates of humanity and civilisation, caught up in an eternal struggle against the universe itself. Luca used to be a citizen before outrageous fortune was thrust upon him and out of a comfortable shell. In his venture, he'd conscripted the assistance of John - his next door neighbour, Allison, a former Yamataian Star Army engineer and roboticist, Jimothi Trakk, former Yamataian Star Army medic and one of the longest-serving members of the Phoenix save for Luca or John. There were a few other former citizens who'd joined the Phoenix, and were they still citizens of their native countries, or did they transcend politics by becoming something else entirely?
That was what Luca was pondering as the Big Bird left the hangar of the Crimson Kestrel and descended into Yamatai's atmosphere towards a spaceport in Kyoto. John could see a space reserved for his ship. A voice crackled into John's headset as he was getting his landing vector. "Do understand that despite celebrity status, we will have to conduct a cursory search for illegal materials." They couldn't have people think that with enough power and influence, you could evade the law. Yui was the Law, and nobody was above her.
"Alright guys, just a warning that they're gonna get fingery with you once you're in the terminal." John Morris relayed over intercom.
"Ohh, is Yamatai just 'protecting' its interests for the Queen Bee?" Echelon shot back with some venom. Allison rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Look on the bright side, you don't have to pay for it," the redhead told her robot-in-synthskin companion. "Just act normal, we've got nothing to hide."
"Enzo's touching down separately to offload his gear, and he'll probably give us what won't pass a finger search."
"That explains why there was a M1NDY..." Echelon said, briefly lapsing into her native tongue and looking at Tani.
The ship landed on the pad and the back of it opened up, the ramp dropping down to the floor. Luca was the first person to step out, dressed as well as he could be, with his weapons prominently displayed on his sides. A HHG and an ODM Raygun and only some spare magazines or clips - not enough to wage a war. The Grapple Stunner was also attached to his arm.
He could see directions towards the terminal and started heading towards them and the other members of the crew followed him. Inside, the Terminal was designed with a lot of glass in it, to bring as much natural light into the large, open structure as possible and minimise the use of artifical lights. It was a beautiful sight to be sure, and Luca could see the heads of other passengers going about to different ferries and different gates to go to different planets. Their business was theirs.
And Luca was now standing in a queue. Echelon and Allison were directly behind him, followed by everyone else. "Just security..." he repeated, rolling his eyes as he saw pat downs and full body scans. Very rarely would someone be pulled aside. Eventually it was Luca's turn, and in an adjacent queue, he could see an interesting sight unfold.
In the other queue was a gartagen, shrouded in a cloak that covered almost all of his skin, and would have concealed his face had the hood been pulled over his head. It was black with white highlighting, dark maroon stripes along the arms. Metal plating was attached to the arms, legs, and chest, it was an outfit for battle.
The wearer looked around anxiously. The space was bright and big. Bright meant light, light meant he could be seen. Big meant empty, and empty meant nowhere to hide. Matters were made worse with some people... touching him. They probably didn't like the amount of weapons on him.
Luca himself was also being asked to display arms. He pulled the unloaded HHG and Raygun from his belt, demonstrated proper gun safety by checking if they were loaded first before passing them to the officer (they weren't), and then passing him the magazines. She then pointed to the device on his arm. The Grapple Stunner. "We're going to have to take it off."
That thing had become like a symbiotic attachment to him. He sighed and reluctantly put his left hand under his right arm, pulled the release and slid the object off. "It's valuable. There's only one like it..." he said as the weapons inspector tried to examine it. It was sending shocks through her fingers just by handling it improperly.
The gartagen, however was catching his attention, dividing it as he watched the Nekovalkyrja mishandle the Grapple Stunner, and the increasingly large amount of weapons confiscated from this particular Gartagen.
He was annoyed, he didn't like not having his weapons. He had already unsheathed the Sheshka, and his bow, handing them over for inspection. While the inspector was busy working on how to extend the bow, the gartagen had removed the blades from the undersides of his gauntlet, and slid them into a hidden compartment made for them. It would take an expert eye to find the trigger to pop them out again. They had seized his quiver, full of various arrows, thankfully the designated poison arrows had not been coated with their appropiate substances.
"Sir," the Nekovalkyrja inspector told the Gartagen. "What is the meaning of all of these bladed weapons? You have enough to outfit a detachment here," she asked, apparently insensitive of the customs.
He looked directly at her, "I am a member of the Clan of Blades, this is our custom, and our lifestyle. It is what we are trained for, and what we live for. You insult me to suggest that I should have less. A Blade Master should never stop acquiring weapons."
A look of concern crossed the Nekovalkyrja's features, and she looked at the impressive pile of weaponry - hand made, all engraved, each was a work of art in itself. Luca was looking at it too and he scratched his chin. The woman handling the Grapple Stunner appeared to shock herself when she put her palm over the electrodes on the knuckles and formed a circuit. "Ow!" she yelped. "What is this?"
"Valuable." He replied before he looked at the pile of weapons and back at the Gartagen. "Hey!" Luca called out to the Gartagen and the security officer the next queue over as he removed his jacket for his security officer to inspect - underestimating how heavy it was when she held it. "He's with me."
The Gartagen turned, eyes narrowing at Luca. Who is this, daring to claim my company? He paused for a second, and nodded. Perhaps he seeks business. The Gartagen refused to remove his cloak when the officer asked for it. "Unless you wish to see my bare body, I suggest you do not remove my wear. I also do not want to be held responsible if you hurt your hand."
Luca's callout had caused a stir from some of the members of the queue behind him. Underneath his jacket, he was wearing a segmented breastplate with a mesh of durandium beneath it. His arms were bare for the audience behind him to see. Scars were highly, highly uncommon on a Yamataian body - something had to keep them there.
"I'm afraid we will have to. We can provide you with privacy if you so desire," the officer told Soruk.
"You'll have to take that off too, Mr. Pavone," Luca's security officer told him. "And the boots, and the pants, and your belt..." though, his officer sounded a little more salicious and sultry.
"really." Luca blinked at her. "So be it." A pair of screens fell from the roof and concealed the two men and their security officers, and the massing piles of gear that were starting to occur. Queues were being diverted further back to ease congestion. Luca removed his breastplate as ordered, then his belt, and he heard the security officer yelp as she saw all of the scared cuts and punctures all over him, eventually being completely naked in front of her.
"Wh...what the hell happened to you?" the woman's voice could be heard over the privacy barriers, Soruk could hear her.
"Life, the universe and everything."
The gartagen frowned slightly, "If it must be done, then it shall be."
He started by working on the clasps on the front of his chest, opening the front of the cloak, revealing an inner cloak, that bulged with a metal plate inside. He unbuckled his belt, and set it carefully down, pouches filled with metal balls that were bombs, but they appeared to be marbles. He unclasped the cross-sheathe from his back, setting it down next to the belt. Next came the quiver, which he had to unclasp from the cloak, and put it down with the rest. He could finally remove the outer cloak, and work on the inner cloak, which had the metal plating woven between the fabric layers.
He first slid his gauntlets off, setting them next to each other, and worked on unbuckling everything. After a minute, he let the inner cloak fall to the ground with an audible *THUMP*. He was left with nothing but his scars, clan tattooes, scars crisscrossing everywhere, primarily blade wounds. He gestured to his gear, and then himself, "So it is."
"Ara ara~," the security officer cooed as she began inspecting the gear meticulously, and then determined that, even if this Gartagen were to attempt to fight Yui or despoil the Garden of the Empress, he would not get far after the military might of Yamatai quashed him. At least that's what she believed. "You're free to go once you get dressed, and I can assist," she said, disregarding how long it took for him to disrobe. "Did you know that we've opened peace talks with Gartaga?"
Similarly, the officer in Luca's booth had finished inspecting everything on his person, horrified and boggling at each puncture and cut. "Don't you start anything, you scarred man. How have you managed to survive so much anyway?"
"With that armour, of course." Luca told the officer, still buck naked before he grabbed his heart-patterned boxers and slid them back on. "Do you know how long it'll take me to put all that back on?"
"Not as long if you have assistance~"
"Oh you tease."
The Gartagen nodded at the officer, "I did. You may assist me if you so desire. It will take me awhile to put all this on again by myself."
He started, dressing in the opposite order that he had undressed in. The Nekovalkyrja was passing him his equipment in the order she'd removed it from his person and helping him further by helping tighten straps. Occasionally, the gartagen would feel a finger or two get a little close for comfort, but that was just an inevitability.
"Now, that's just misconduct there." Luca replied as he found that the Neko 'assisting' him was hindering more than helping, "I pay people to do this to me normally," He was trying to clip his belt and its harnesses and straps back on, but she kept on making them slip out. "and you're an amateur too." That made her stop and she let him dress himself.
Eventually, the two were fully clothed and armed again. The privacy curtains lifted, and they were free to go. Allison and Echelon were next in the queue and they were content with being scanned and searched together.
The Gartagen rolled his shoulders, and tugged on a shoulder strap. He continued forward, casting an occasional glance at the man who had claimed his company. With a few quick and silent movements of the hand, the blades were released from the compartments, and slid back into their rightful place. The lethal place.
"So," Luca was walking closer to the Gartagen, eventually leading him towards a cafe. His distinctive purple jacket would serve as a marker for the rest of his crew once they passed checkpoint. "A gartagen with 'enough blades to outfit a detachment.' She was woefully mistaken, she's thinking- just slash, or stab with them, like you would if you were trained in the army,"
An odd way to open the conversation, but Luca's soldiering instincts had kicked in as he pulled a chair out for the mysterious Gartagen, and sat down on the opposite end of the round table. "I have the feeling you know more than just a haymaking slash and stab."
The Gartagen stood, ignoring the man's previous statements, "Who are you, and what do you want?" He liked to keep things straight forward, and if the man wanted to talk, he had best identified himself.
"Captain Luca Pavone." he said plainly. Looking at some of the advertisements in the background bore a likeliness of him that looked nothing like the man before the gartagen. "Mercenary, Badass, living legend. Though, I guess word of it's not in Gartaga yet." The advertisements seemed to be selling something completely unreal, something unlike the man before him. Silly things like energy drinks, a cartoon and action figures.
The reality that inspired them cut much deeper.
Soruk nodded, and sat in the chair that had been offered to him. He placed his gauntlet on the table, face up. The gauntlet itself was engraved with swirling lines, but the focus point was the crest of his clan. A shield crossed by swords, and that cross being bi-sected by another sword.
"Names for Names, that's only fair. Blade Master Sheshren Aisaras Soruk. Master of Shadows. Silent Walker. Darkness Dweller." He replied.
Luca put his gauntletted right hand down on the table near Soruk's, and put his two pistols down. One for scratching the backs of Nekovalkyrja, the other for destroying them. "Loudest, most obvious, master of not knowing when to quit." He then chuckled.
Soruk flexed his wrist, and a blade flashed out, stopping inches from Luca's hand. "Silent, Hidden. I believe you are opposite of me."
Luca balled his hand into a fist and Soruk could see lightning dancing across the electrodes on his knuckles. The blue bolts licked the metal blade occasionally. "Seems that way."
Allison and Echelon eventually met the two and sat down at a table nearby. "Hey Luca, who's the... blade Gartagen? A friend?" Echelon sat down too, pouting at being patted.
Another movement and the top of the gauntlet pushed up about an inch, revealing a spear point. It was attached to a reel of nano-wire. Soruk glanced at the two new arrivals, "Soruk." They waved back in greeting.
"Allison, engineer," the redheaded woman replied. She got through quicker thanks to previous Yamataian Star Army ties.
"Echelon... uh, totally harmless person." The Robot-in-synthskin clothing said bitterly before receiving a jab in the ribs from Allison.
Luca would see the spear point disappear into the gauntlet again, and the blade disappear, retreating to safety. Soruk looked at him, "I'll see what you have to say."
"I'm just going to wait for the other members of my team to get past the checkpoints," Luca said, "then I'll fill you in on the details."
"I have time to spare. Now or then makes no difference to me." was the reply.
The security officers were tough, but firm. So long as you didn't have restricted military technology or smoking paraphernelia on you, they'd let you through after a cursory inspection. They'd done so many in their lives that it'd become routine. However, when dealing with the wonderfully strange and varied folks of the ISC Phoenix crew, things were bound to get interesting.
John and Melissa were the next to come through. Melissa had some trouble justifying why a high powered hunting rifle was to come along, but she handwaved it as she was going big-game hunting near Ralt, called in to keep a population down. It seemed believeable and her licenses were still valid.
For the others, it was in their hands and their mouths to get through.
