RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 9] Enzo's Lady of the Night

"Ya know what, birdback? You oughtta be a lawyer." Enzo seemed to ignore the critical nature of the comments, instead pushing towards their logical nature, "You gots the puttin' twos together for it."

With a sort of sly smile, he spoke in a far-too-innocent voice as he quietly addressed the criticism, seemingly only a statement to himself: "Not likes I'm sayin' I did accuse yous of makin' grand statements. Jus' sayin' it's cute you thinks there's a such thing as honor and all."

Enzo was trying to push the line between annoying mildly the Elysian right next to him, and making so many workplace-friendliness violations that Luca was going to beat him within an inch of his life with a vomit-filled helmet when they next met.

Enzo knew that this ship wasn't right for him, and he liked it that way.

The only sign of surprise Smith gave, was a quick double blink. By the looks of things, the Phoenix and its crew was a powder keg ready to explode at any moment, triggered by a stray spark, or perhaps even a cough. 'Didn't we start out talking about crooked cops, and then honor? How the F*ck did it end up like this?' He didn't want to be on bad terms with Anybody aboard the Phoenix; it was just bad for business, and bad for lifetime expectancy.

"Mr. Hisshana." He spoke calmly, sternly. "I can't speak for the others, but as for myself, the topic of discussion for me was solely on the concept of 'honor'. Not you, your people, or your past."

"After all, I am most certainly not in the position to judge, and hope you have not taken offense at my own personal point of view." Smith turned back to the console in front of him and busied himself with the incoming transmissions.

Uriel was back to his usual solemn expression meaning he had calmed. Mr. Bortelli had retreated from the matter and Mr. Smith had curled over backwards despite the utter lack of necessity for such a weak gesture. He ignored the latter entirely.

"I was a lawyer for a time, Mr. Bortelli. I was also a historian, a philosopher, a teacher, and a navigator for a time. I've been putting two's together for ages. As for the matter of honor... It was wrong to try and transition into this language. The word honor does not aptly describe it and I won't say it again to be sure. The proper term is Kleos, and while it is not corporeal or physically manifest, Mr. Bortelli, it does exist. All your doings are known, if by no other being than God."

There; now to see what Naoko's retort would be.

Enzo nodded along with Uriel's comments. They made sense to him, considering the two were complete opposites and said list was made up precisely of the only things Enzo had never been. Excepting perhaps the occasion on which he'd pretended to be a lawyer.

Then came the comment about God. Enzo's up-till-now slight smile turned over at the statement. There was this God fellow coming up so often amongst the people he encountered. Enzo set back to cleaning his nails with the knife, although they were more than perfect by this point.

"Yeah, well if he's seen everything that happens to me, an' everything I done." Enzo started, making apparent his dystheistic nature, "I hope he's enjoying the show."

Luca's frown only got bigger and bigger as the argument about honour escalated, and he started to notice something about the Film Noir-costume-department refugee. He was smirking. If film logic was to apply here (which it might have), people on your team aren't supposed to smirk like a smug bugger when an argument breaks out.

"Guys," Luca asked to everyone involved in the argument, tense, "Shut the hell up about whose honour went where, or I'll have Dad give you all a lecture about honour with his fists that might not even apply to Uriel."
Speaking of Pavone Senior, he was given Zeta's photo of the detective on duty.

"Hmm, he's quite a looker, and I do know him," Sebastian replied to Zeta, "As a rat-bastard," His voice was now very icy, and he started to retaliate over the open channel, "Didn't I leave you for dead on Delsauria after you sold me out and made me lose my arm - Blake Argent?"

Blake grinned as one of the police officers next to him held up a fatboy, "Indeed, Sebastian, you're looking well."
He didn't have time to finish the sentence when Luca had given him a very mean right hook, knocking his hat off of his head. However, the police officer with the Fatboy took advantage of the situation once Blake had hit the floor, and fired a shot at the Captain, hitting him in the chest and knocking him backwards.

His armour was able to absorb the lethal damage, but it was still a mighty bruise, sending him to the floor.
Blake had looked over to the now fallen Captain, and reached for the HHG he kept on his side, which he was able to take - were it not for Luca grabbing his wrist and crunching it down.

However, he still had a fatboy pointed at him, and he could hear the heavy, armoured footsteps of more crooked officers trying to get in via the cargo bay.
"I hate Delsaurian standoffs," Luca groaned, rolling his eyes and motioning to the rest, "Keep Argent alive. Enzo and Dad need a word with him!"

"Everyone else is fair game! Try not to kill them too much, because I don't think we can justify a dozen counts of self defence/manslaughter against policemen!"

The policemen that were on their way weren't screwing about, since they were outfitted in Impulse power armours. The most obvious things on they'd be using were Fatboys, and it wasn't known at this point whether they were set to stun or kill.

However, they had neglected to investigate the other shuttle that was attached to the Mule, along with their own ship, that is, the one with Smith, Enzo and Uriel holed up inside. (For the sake of ease, try not to think about how a Mule, a Geshrinari light freighter and a Jilanth were connected to each other!)

Inside the ISC Phoenix shuttle, they spotted a weapons cabinet which had a trio of Fatboys at the ready.
It looked like Sebastian's time-consuming attention to logistics details had paid off at last, giving the stragglers of the away team something to fight with with an assault from behind - however dishonourable it might be.

”… … …” went the intercom.

Naoko casually lifted her feet off of the apple barrel, and placed them purposefully on the floor. Then, she bounced on her feet for a couple of hops, as the energy pulse gunfire broke the silence with its sharpness. The smell of burning ozone was one that Naoko knew well. It mixed, like a dry vermouth, in the heady smell of fermenting apples.

It actually made her giddy. Oh, what joy.

If the police hadn’t known she was there – which was hopefully very unlikely, since she had never been right in front of their noses and Nepleslians rarely looked further – it meant she had a very valuable advantage. And they were distracted shooting at the rest of the crew, which was tragic, but Naoko didn’t worry about them – the Phoenix crew were all stone-cold diehards and wouldn’t be taken by mere ambush and surprise alone. The police, on the other hand…

Naoko removed her SMaR and tossed it onto the shelf with a negligent clatter, then began to deftly unstrap the holsters from her thighs.

There would be more police on the shuttle, but that didn’t mean taking the ship would be overtly difficult if she used her head. Conventional warfare, after all, was beneath Naoko; the Elysian could spout honor all he wanted, but it was that blind devotion to a straight-up fight that had lost his race not only the war, but their entire empire. The only ‘unfair’ fight was the one you lost.

Naoko unzipped her bodysuit and, all alone in the gloom, she squirmed out of it – boots, armor panels, absolutely everything. In a few brief moments, she stood entirely naked in the pantry, pulling her last foot out.

Naoko didn’t even bother putting any of it up, she just kicked it into a corner with the idle flick of a bare ankle. The ankle was very abruptly gone. A sort of ripple in reality replaced it – like light refracting off of a crystal. For a brief moment, light bent and danced, playing across the perfect body as if it were sunbeams across the pearled skin of an ephemeral goddess. And then, there was next to nothing left; nothing, except a small, circular band which was briefly concealed by Naoko’s hand as she pulled it from the end of her long braid, and rematerialized a moment later on the floor with the discarded armored bodysuit.

It wasn’t perfect, Naoko knew; anyone intelligent enough to be watching would still catch her heat signature. Then, she would be unarmed, and naked against a bunch of armored goons with energy weapons, and that would quite certainly be the end of her illustrious career as a free person in a free world. A rather abrupt, bloody, violent end at that. And Uriel's God only knew what the crew would do if they discovered her using skin-camo. At least Smith had forgotten about it, and it made Naoko wonder just how much people on the outside knew about Nekovalkyrja.

But, back to business.

Naoko vaulted to the ceiling, landing on her feet in a crouch as up became down. Hand over hand, Naoko crawled forward to the top of the doorframe, and then eased it open carefully, sparing a brief glance into the hallway beyond and the firefight raging there.

No need to risk stray shots; she would wait until they all gained cover, or the police were subdued, before moving.

"Whelp," quoth the freebooter, "Looks like we gots some fucks to dust."

Enzo grunted and stood. He flipped his knife back into itself and made for the door, reaching for his Tiger's Tears. He tore off his breathing mask and made a quick hop into the escape-pod tube, sliding down the rest of the way into the hatch below. In the Engineering section, he could see the officers coming up from the cargo bay below, where they'd docked their own ship.

"I see yous guys are wearin' armors. That's cute." Enzo quipped, pointing his Tigers Tears down, held in both hands to spare his wrist for once. "But, you know. Fucks yous armor, an' shit."

And then, six shots escaped from the high-powered revolver to the armored foes below, each one in quick succession headed right for someone's head.

Just as I thought, Zeta thought and took out her peashooter sliding mag of normal ammo into her hand and exchanging it with sabot rounds. Now she had gun that can penetrate PAs. She nodded at herself and holsetered her weapon again.

She then ran into the hall with her Fatboy ready. Her assualt pack would give her quite strong shields and she was ready to use them to the fullest. SHe saw Luca on the groudn with Mr. Noir next to him and policeman with Fatboy. Other crooked cops were behind the first. They were Impulses as she had and were armed with fatboy. "Bloody hell!" She shouted her favourite two words and engaged her thrusters. As she flew towards the cops she fired full bursts from her Fatboy to keep them busy and attract attention. But when she got just about two meters from them she discarded her gun shouting "Wesley full thrusters!" Rushing into the cops shoulder first like giant bowling ball.

Uriel's silent prayers had been answered, and the lowest of low were now at the top of his List of Smiting. If he'd been within earshot of Luca, he would have answered with a confident, "Sir." Instead, he was silent as he grabbed a fatboy, a chubby fatboy, and followed after Enzo. He had his Tiger's Tears in his left and the fatboy in his right and a determined expression tinged by the slightest upward curl of his lips; he was looking forward to this.

The Patrician tucked his wings as he made the drop. He emptied his own revolver, each round chasing one of Vincenzo's. "At the very least, Mr. Bortelli," Uriel said in a strangely calm voice, "I think we can agree to put these men in their rightful place."

Hell.

Robert, at his place by Luca's side, had his Fatboy up and firing, first couple of shots at the cop that shot Luca on kill setting, then switching to stun after Luca issued his warning not to kill too many. "You ok Boss?" he asked inbetween shots.

The truth was, Smith wasn't the best diplomat around. In fact, he was absolutely lousy at it. What he was good at however, was haggling prices, hustling wares, those kinds of things. The very fact that he needed Her back then to bail him out of trouble was sheer, irrefutable evidence of this. And Smith was all too aware of this shortcoming of his. Like most other circumstances, the situation either ignited and exploded or cooled down, regardless of his input, horribly feeble as it were.

This case with the internal struggle and feuding between Phoenix members was another firm, stark reminder of that; everything would have been fine anyways, regardless of what he spoke. 'And judging by Uriel's lack of comment, I have jumped the gun...again.' As he silently stewed in his bitterness, something else came along and caught his full attention. The fighting had started. As Smith calmly rose from his seat, Enzo had already snatched up a weapon and left.

There wasn't much else for Smith to do but to follow. He sighed, and grabbed a Fatboy from the nearby locker. In the faint recesses of his mind, something merely stated a fact, grim in its tone. 'She would have loved this gun.'

Smith walked at a brisk pace, his auto-tint glasses turning jet black as he did so; he could still see fine, and the HUD, linked to the ship, pointed out exactly where the crooked cops were. Unlike Enzo though, he didn't make a beeline at all, and circled off to the side. Knowing the ship as well as any good owner would, he found himself flanking a pair of Impulse Armors from above and to the side, Enzo somewhat opposite of him.

Crouching down behind cover, Matthew pulled a single magazine holding only two rounds out of a tactical holster around his ankle, and swapped it for the full magazine in his 17mm. As soon as Enzo fired off his rounds and ducked behind cover again, Smith smoothly, quickly lined up a target. Knowing full well what he was doing was very, very stupid, he pulled the trigger.

The Origin Representative's exposed flesh was awarded with a nice tan as he was thrown back into cover by the antimatter explosion, the exotic material reacting with both armor and atmosphere in a destructive show of physics. As he lay strewn on the floor, glasses askew, one could clearly see a tan-line on his face the shape of his spectacles. His ears rung.

*****

"Do you hear that ringing?" She asked him sweetly.

"Hear what now?" Smith asked the Neko. She giggled.

"Its the sound of your hearing cells dying!"

*****

Smith picked himself back up, adjusted his glasses, and brushed his suit off.

Luca nodded to Robert and took a moment to look at himself before determining, "I'm fine! Keep shooting them!"

The problem with Impulse Armours with Fatboys versus Impulse Armours with Fatboys was that Fatboys were designed for dealing with unarmoured targets, so shots seemed to be absorbed or diffused by the Durandium Alloy and Nerimium. Zeta's full-body slam attack had sent one officer backwards into the wall and another getting bowled over by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the electricity flied through the air, Luca took a glance at Argent and asked, "So, what DID my dear old dad do to get his arm chopped off?"
"I was offered something I couldn't refuse," Argent shrugged nonchalantly, causing Luca to groan.
"Haven't heard -that- one before," The captain grumbled, "Let me guess, women, wine, song, riches and all that gobshite?"
Argent shrugged, "You could say so."
"You know," Luca commented as a shot from a Fatboy whizzed inches overhead, "You're a lot more straightforward than the rest of the people Dad and I have had to deal with. That's admirable."

The best way this battle could be tipped from one side to the other was with the element of surprise, which The Phoenix Crew appeared to have spades of, with one very angry conman, an avenging Angel and a sales representative bringing up the rear.

Enzo's revolver, whilst not as powerful as the other weapons, was compensating for its weakness in accuracy, severely disorienting six of the Impulse armoured policemen with shots to the head. While it didn't kill them, it did give the team a moment of opportunity to seize. However - Uriel's hot-on-heels shooting after Enzo seemed to make the window of opportunity widen.

Smith was next up in line to let Origin's wares do the talking. The funny thing about the Peashooter was, it was designed for armour against armour - and it did its job a little too well. The shot had hit an officer in the torso, turning most of his armour into slag and ruining the internal systems, therefore immobilising him. If the other cops weren't dazed by the previous assault, they would've turned around.

"So what are you going to do about the dead officers?" Argent asked, smirking, "Cases with dead cops do not go cold."
"What about crooked cops? They don't get the same treatment."
"All of us are crooked!" Argent grinned, "A free doughnut here, protection money there, free whores over there. Nobody cares! Most of the time when someone wants protection, they hire a private company to do it! Nobody trusts us cops. Nobody goes to us. Everyone takes it into their own hands, just like you!"

The doughnut comment made Luca wonder about the 'slippery slope' problem. Was the road to policeman hell really paved with free doughnuts, eventually ending in hookers and blow?
Now probably wasn't the time to argue. This guy was crooked, and smug about it. Since Luca no longer had someone pointing a fatboy at him, he felt it prudent to pull out his HHG and put it under Argent's chin to make him shut up.

"Haven't you heard? All good things come to an end, even the free doughnuts," Luca underlined.

There were six - no, five police officers still standing. They'd been dazed by the surprise attack from Enzo and Uriel, giving Naoko an opportunity to act with relative impunity - wherever she was.

No sooner had the fighting come to a lull, than Naoko was crawling out into the passageway, the only sign of her passing a few brief ripples that looked, vaguely, as if there were heat vapors near the ceiling. There was hardly any outline of her form; you'd have to squint. Still, Naoko had to move slowly to maintain a coherant picture, and she moved careful and steady. Soon she was directly over the five police armors.

She looked up - which was down - and wondered if she couldn't do a little bit of grandstanding. No question, she could floor one of those armors if she took it by surprise. But how big was that police ship, and how many police were aboard? Naoko had no reservations about killing anyone in her way, but she couldn't afford to reveal herself just yet. Naoko was not about to intervene on a battle that was already under control.

Besides; the second group of Phoenix members, who had achieved a sort of cross-fire with the first, would make things difficult. She could see Smith among them, and Naoko wasn't entirely sure that, if a Nekovalkyrja suddenly appeared from the ether, he wouldn't get a little trigger happy. It wasn't something that Naoko wanted to put money on, and certainly not something she was going to risk her life and limbs for - she'd gone to a lot of trouble to restore herself to her full height.

Anyway, beyond the second group was the police cruiser, which was her interest. Keeping herself nearly flat on the ceiling, Naoko inched forward. Inches became feet. Feet became yards.

And soon she was above the second group of Phoenix crewmembers.

Slowly coming to her knees, then to the balls of her feet, Naoko's vaulted from the ceiling towards the floor. As soon as she touched it with the palm of her hand, Naoko's up was once again her down, and she was on the same plain as everybody else, a couple of feet behind Smith and Enzo and Uriel, crouched to reduce her profile.

Such quick movement would cause an odd visual affect, a sort of lag, but of the three of them, Naoko guessed only Uriel would attribute signifigance to it - and he probably would be more concerned with the battle in front of him.

A little faster than before, keeping her head down to ward against any stray shots, Naoko resumed her purpose.

Robert grinned as he saw his shots were having little effect. He slung the rifle quickly and activated his close combat Kaiser blades. He lept at the closest officer and slashed the Fatboy away with one arm, while the other arm came right up to the seam in the armour's neck. "Give it up. You're dead." he said in a deadly serious tone.

There was a muffled 'hmph' from Enzo upon observation of the effects of his supposedly 'high-power' revolver on the armored targets.

"Fine then, assholes." He stated, "I gots a few more tricks up my sleeves."

A few seconds of fishing around in his suit top later would present him with the EMP-P1A he'd bought for Neko hunting back on Drift. The same crooked smile that he wore when telling his favorite lies scrawled across his face as he ducked out from cover again. This time, he emptied the entire battery and clip on Railgun Mode, heading for shredding the enemies who daned to still stand before him.

Zeta slammed hard into the cops ending up rolling over one of the cops. She need to get her surrounding right after hard landing. Luckily the armour protected her from any broken bones or anythingy. It probably did not do too much to those two she got too, but at least she surprised them and unlike her they weren't expecting hard landing.

Zetarolled over and stood on her knees so she could attack guy she bowled over. Poor man was on his back lying quite confusely. But Zeta was not planing on giving him any time to gather his though and started punched him as hard as she could in the face of his helmet with her charged knucles to keep him busy, while she raised her left hand and extended three neriminium blades called Bagh Nakh and quickly tried to stabb man in the less protected throat.

Zeta's Bagh Nakh (Lit. Translated: Tiger Claws) were just the right tool to end her target's life. Enzo's hand-portable railgun, whilst small, was nothing to laugh about as he left loose the fury of his weapon, taking down four officers, with one left. However, in response, he was struck in the chest with a bolt of Fatboy blast, shocking and stunning the rogue.

Shortly after that cop fired the shot at Enzo, he was promptly disarmed and threatened at knifepoint. He said: "No more! No more! Take Argent and do whatever you damn well please, but leave me be!" He had his hands in the air, and no other weapons apparent.

Argent couldn't help but try and bark at the officer for disobeying orders, but Luca just pushed the barrel of his HHG under his mouth with a bit more force to make him shut up, so it came out muffled.

"Then go, and tell them that Ardent had this coming," Luca replied to the officer as he got onto his feet and kept a vise-like grip on Ardent, "Also, lay off the free doughnuts, they'll make you like Ardent."

This evoked a quizzical response from the officer, but the previous statement was still clear as could be. His radio came to life and blurted:
"What happened, are the targets neutralised?"

He then looked about and answered back into his radio: "Yes," He lied, taking advantage of the fact that you couldn't see one's face or his circumstances in a radio, "All targets neutralised, some casualties on our side though. Lets get the hell outta here."

"Roger, Beau. The med team is on their way to get the bodies," To most of the people assembled, it would've occurred to them that the dead officers had Brain Spiders, the Nepleslian equivalent of a Soul Transfer.

Beau, the officer looked to the others, and didn't reply to his radio: "Shit. They want the bodies of us, and you, probably," He then looked around at the people assembled, "What are we going to do?"

Luca scratched his chin, "They're only doing their job and have nothing to do with us. We can't kill them," He then looked to the others, short of an idea for the moment, "Suggestions?"

-

Meanwhile, Naoko had managed to get into the interior of the police vessel, she could hear the med team talking over what to do first as they got their supplies in order. She could not hear any clicking or smell any chemicals indicating weaponry or armour was being readied.

"How many body bags should we bring?" One of them, an older male asked.
"I estimate about nine." Said a female voice.
"Eleven," Piped up a younger voice, "You always have more than you need for shootouts like this."

"Stibbons!" The female voice said, "Shootouts like this are usually one sided. I heard a lot of combat in thirty seconds - if that!" She could be heard slamming her hand against a table or something, "We only need nine bags. End of story."
"Ashleigh, calm yourself," Said the older male, "Nine bags it is. Can it, Stibbons."
Stibbons swore aloud, clearly annoyed while Ashleigh replied succinctly, "Understood, Boss."

"Alright, let's move. Two trolleys, we'll have two going out at a time."

"They's lookin' for Enzo Bortelli an' Luca Pavone, yeah?" Enzo had found his way over to Luca over the tiny pile of corpses in the ship. He seemed to be unaffected by the blast he'd received to the chest, probably due to the adrenaline flowing though his veins. He'd be hurting later, though. "Well, I say we gives 'em Enzo an' Luca. I gots some clothes in my closet, what say we disfigure a corpse or two an' dress 'em up?"

Enzo illustrated his point by picking by the arms up one of the officers who'd lost his face, and tugging the impulse armor away to reveal a uniform.

"Without this thing on him, this guy could be anybody." Said the vagabond, "After that, we just hide in one of my hidey-holes in the cargo bay downstairs. Those morons will never know the difference."

Enzo seemed quite proud of himself for the idea, even looking to Argent for praise with raised eyebrows. "Theres some in-genuine-itty if there's ever been any, eh boys? They wants corpses an' we gots corpses."

Zeta stood up adn waved her hand fasty. Blood flew of the mono-blades and fell in drops on the ground. Man under her feet was gurgling and died in matter of second. "Sorry mate, you just had bad luck."

She then turned around and walked to Luca nad others. There was still blood dripping from tip of each blade. "Yo folks." She said and pointed to cowardly policeman. "Let's have this bastard say that we overloaded reactors just as fightin started. That it was precaution we had and that they have to run very fast. No time to pick bodies and such. Then as they fly away we will take all these Impulse-armours, overload their inner units and dump them into space. As they explode we will depower Lady of the night so they won't see it on their scanners. It will look like Lady Exploded. Could that be done Smithy?" She asked and looked at Smith.

Naoko crouched near their doorway in what would otherwise have been plain view, feeling very keenly the cleanliness of the floor. Barefoot, and with her palms pressed against the tiles in mockery of a dog's sitting position, she would have certainly noticed any grime buildup. Hell, Enzo's ship might as well have blackened her palms - not that anyone would notice with them pressed against the ground. If it had become too bad, she would have had to wipe it off. It was one of those minor tells that she was trained to look for when observing for holographic stealth.

As it was, she edged through the open portal in absolute silence and into the medical room where she immediately headed for cover behind a rolling medical table. She didn't necessarily need cover, but standing out in the middle of a room - or sneaking through a combat where she could be observed from multiple directions at once - made stealth far too complicated and unreliable.

They were medical personnel. She didn't have to see their coats or hear their conversation to know that. They were probably the only people left aboard the ship.

In response, Naoko flexed her right hand - the knuckle still gave her fourth finger an oddly disjointed appearance. The hemosynthetic nanomachines went to work on it, even as Naoko flexed, and soon she had the manual dexterity to comfortably hold a nearby scalpel. The little silver thing twinkled a bit in the lighting, just a glint, flickering in and out of sight as it passed in front of, and behind, the hand that held it.

She turned it over, and over, and over between her fingers, contemplating just what to do with the Nepleslian medics.

Attack, of course.

Flick, went the scalpel just as soon as one of the doctors had come near enough to the rolling trolly to be an easy target. Naoko didn't check to see if she'd delt a lethal blow, because almost in that same instant Naoko was over the table, light and distorted images of the world around her outlining her form like a glass window pane that had been flexed into the shape of a roughly humanoid female as she covered the negligable distance to the next medic.

A slight spin, a brief manipulation of gravity, and Naoko had thrown an arial heel kick capable of damaging metal girders - it was overkill for the woman who she'd aimed it at. Carrying the momentum out with a spin that was nothing short of acrobatic, Naoko bounced off of the floor by her palms and landed with her feet on the opposite wall with a collective mass that defied logic. It left a dint in the bulkhead, if only a shallow one.

Her stealth was gone, now; all that was left was a pale, beautiful nekovalkyrja, crouching on the wall with her back arched, looking straight up at an upside-down world with a grin that would have made the cheshire cat look dour and her dark brown hair a gently moving corona around her perfect, shamelessly naked form.

There could have been porn of it. Really good porn.

"Konnichiwa, otooto-kun," she said to the young man who remained, "You had better tend to your partners before you go to collect your other friends. I can wait. Afterwards I have a few questions, but if you don't hurry, you could need eleven bags after all, ne?"