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

Zeta shaked her head. "Nah doesn't seem like that goo idea. Just let him drag the bodies of dead cops here. I be he will have enough troubles explaining why they are dead. I highly doubt this action was official." She said and leaned against the wall. "Hey Wanker-boy don't forget you dead friends here. Better get them in freezer. And I sure hope they were all crooked cause if Ardent will tell some of them weren't I am going to find you and cut something. Are we clear?" She added.

Blink. Blink.

Somewhere in the medical bay of the ISC Big Bird, a mountainous figure shifted on an overburdened gurney, undressed from the waist up and with a large pink scar, starburst-shaped, over his right bicep. Gold-black hair, now grown out slightly since its last attention, fringed out around a brick-like face, with a large chin that could accommodate a large freighter with landing space to spare. Cold blue eyes flickered behind heavy eyelids, suddenly becoming sharply attentive as the owner came to.

Vincent O'Malley, ID-Sol and "muscle" for the crew of the ISC Phoenix, rolled off of the gurney and onto his feet, testing the floor to make sure it wouldn't roll out from under him. It didn't; but Vincent had noticed the familiar thrum of a STL drive somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship. They were mobile. The mercenary took the time to pull on the clothes that had been folded on the counter of the sparse, dark medical center - a simple t-shirt, jeans, his combat boots, ballistics vest and duster - and made his way towards the bridge, where he noticed they were circling a mule. Vincent tapped one large, brick-esque hand on the back of John's pilot's chair.

"What have I missed?" He grumbled.

"Ah, I know what to do with 'em." Enzo stood from his seat, straightening his tie. The vagabond got close to the officer and drew his NSP.

"Let's stun-modes 'em in the balls until he gives us alls his money and any nice informations. Gives 'em a chance to gets a taste o' his own medicine an' whatnots. Besides; we never got paid for our job on Dawn Station, an' I gots to have money to spends on meats an' booze."

John shrugged to the hulking Vincent, "Quite a bit. We're on the tail end of some sort of situation, judging from the comm chatter, I'd say we're almost wrapped up."

John then blinked for a moment, he hadn't heard Vincent's voice in ages, "Vincent! You're conscious!" He stood up and gave the man a high five, "Don't worry, your chaingun has been in the hands of a careful owner."
Sebastian, who was sitting in the gunner's seat put his right thumb up and made it whirr.

-

Luca held his hands up defensively and looked to the others, "Guys, guys, I'll agree that Beau was 'with' the bad guys, but he isn't nearly as bad as Ardent."
Beau looked over to Luca quizzically, to which, Luca continued: "Beau, I'm afraid they're right, you might have to stick back and clean up a bit. We have a telly on our main ship, you can watch the game there if you want."

Beau scratched his chin, "You do bring up a fair point. You know, you aren't as bad as you were made out to be from Ardent."
"How so?"
"Well, he described you as an 'arse raping space pirate with fake sideburns and a crew of scurvy dogs', which from what I've seen is almost entirely wrong."
Luca appeared to blow a fuse at 'fake sideburns', the rest was only partially true, but he didn't care.

"Alright guys, you have full reign to utterly humiliate Ardent. Maid outfit, flagpole roping, awkward situation putting-in and general make-him-maybe-atone-for-his-misdeeds behaviour is authorised! That includes you too, Beau!"
Beau let out an unenthused, "Hurrah, I get to wrap the boss up in duct tape."

"Furthermore, I want you guys to treat Beau with some respect. He didn't know that he was going to be involved in this! Think about Beau Jr. and Mrs. Beau!"
"I'm single," He frowned.

Luca blinked, his argument to share the pity of the common Goon starting to look holey, "Either way, he never exactly sat down this morning with a wad of plans and said: 'I'm going to ruin the day of the ISC Phoenix crew!' while twirling a moustache and wearing a tophat! Ardent did that!"
"I ate a frozen dinner for breakfast and left the apartment a few minutes early and got to work on time."

"And Enzo, we did get paid from our flight at Origin. The modifications for the Crimson Kestrel and the ship itself were our payment."

-

Some time passed, and Ardent eventually roused from his injury, and it didn't take long for everyone else to notice and start putting him to work cleaning up Enzo's ship.

Needless to say, the maid outfit was a nice touch, Beau seemed to agree once he saw Ardent wearing it. Either way, everyone was very quick to make Ardent scrub extra hard to get those bloodstains out of the walls and floor and cloth. The semi-unconscious bodies of the policemen were escorted back to the main ship too.

The doctors were both terrified and laughing their arses off when they saw Ardent walk in with an unconscious armoured policeman in a fireman's carry while wearing a maid's outfit and smelling of cleaning chemicals.

The process of cleaning Enzo's Lady of the Night took at least a couple of hours, Beau eventually finished his lot and asked the Crew: "So, wanna watch the game together?"

Luca smiled and said: "Well, a deal's a deal, Beau. What game?" He then took a glare to the other crew members to tell them, silently, to back the hell off with threats. Instead, he gave a nod towards Ardent, who was on his hands and knees in uniform scrubbing the skirting boards (or the equivalent) of Enzo's pilot cabin.

"Airbike racing. I have a bet on the Origin Industries team back home."
"I think Mr. Smith has a bet on Origin too."

In the end, the Patrician simply shrugged and let the matter drop. Luca was true enough, he supposed, but that didn't absolve Beau of the fact that he continued to play along like an obedient pup. Uriel managed to free his mind of it somehow.

Aboard familiar territory, the Elysian did not join in in the "festivities." Something else had his attention. "Vincent. You're up." The surprise in his voice made up for the lack of surprise in his expression. "How are you feeling?"

Gallant said:

"Nothing, anymore," she said, delicately settling her hand on the curve of her hip, "How about you?"

Click to expand...

Smith remained wordless.

But that didn't mean he didn't make a slight scowl as he realized what had went down. It was here, right here, that Smith realized the number of people that could make him falter on the job now numbered two; that fact was now official and fully, consciously registered in his mind. Specifically because the thing was naked. Of course a naked effigy and idealization of the perfect woman's bodily form used to house a mass produced killing machine would be able to elicit emotion from almost anyone. Not to mention it attacked the medical crew. It was just that...right now, it struck a cord inside Smith. Yes, this chord, or chords, all intertwined, bound together, had been struck several times since joining the Phoenix. And yet all he did was scowl.

He'd gone from Absolute Terror, to Seething Hate, Denial, and now...he wasn't even sure himself. He was tired. Just tired. So he just stood off, leaning against a wall and ignoring Naoko's speech.

Behind his black tinted glasses, he could have been staring at her, or even sleeping.

Robert thudded down the corridor in his armor. Finally walking down towards the medical bay. "Smith? You still on here?" he called out again before popping his head into the bay. He blinked twice, trying to make sense of the scene in front of him. Failing at understanding, he turned to the closest source of logic. "What the hell, Smith, is going on?" he asked in a calm voice.

As the medical personnel picked themselves up and made themselves useful tending to their injured crew, Naoko joined Smith and Robert, modestly crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned against a wall, offering a boyish leg-hike instead of a full-on view of her pelvic area.

Nonchalantly she said, "He doesn't really know, yo, so asking him won't help much. If you think it's really important, I just interrogated these people."

Then, Naoko glanced up at Smith. On whim she smiled at him, and elbowed him in the side lightly, just to throw him a little off balance.

"Can we talk later?"

Robert shrugged resignedly. "Sure, that works with me Naoko." he sighed. He didn't really care much about the medical personnel. Just seemed unnecessary to him. He turned and walked out of the room. "C'mon you two. I think the Boss is about ready to pack up and leave." he called over his shoulder. He gave a little laugh as he walked by the throughly miserable looking Ardent in the maid outfit. "I'm betting either Boss or Zeta thought of that." he chuckled as he walked back to the Big Bird. He walked into the cockpit to find Vincent, up and around. He grinned as he slipped off the helmet. "Vincent! How are ya feeling man?" he smiled brightly as he came up behind Vincent.

Vincent turned slowly and ponderously towards Uriel and his comrade Robert, his face remaining neutral. Not that his face ever really changed expressions, but still. He managed to afford a shrug of both massive shoulders; with the wounded arm slightly lower than the untouched one.

"I've had worse," he grunted, crossing his arms over his wide torso. "What about you guys?" He looked at the feed from the Big Bird's link to everyone's helmet-cams and began a playback of the events he'd missed while he was unconscious. "Seems like I missed quite a firefight," he said, a pang of regret and - possibly - jealousy entering his voice.

Robert shrugged as Vincent looked at the cameras. "It was a bit short, but fun enough I suppose." he said nonchalantly. He held his helmet under one arm.

His stomach churned and roiled as his eyes kept on Naoko from behind his dark spectacles. Which was to be expected; he was watching something small and disgustingly beautiful fake something called modesty. Normally, these things wouldn't even bother exercising that, as the lack of modesty in addition to unnatural beauty made sure everyone who looked their way knew what they were.

To Smith, the ears were either an afterthought, for people who were idiots, or for those who were incredibly drunk. It was like overkill in some sense really; the sheer perfection and glow the skin gave off was by itself something that was unnatural. Something that always drew his attention to Neko and Yamataians, after which, he'd meticulously figure out which of the two a body was. All of this, all of a Neko, was based off of the real thing he thought. And it made him sick to see a portrayal of women so...abused and misused.

The way Smith acted, it was as though Robert and Naoko weren't even there. Robert was ignored because the Origin Rep was so fixated on the Neko, and Naoko was seemingly ignored due to the sheer vehemence of his feelings. He acted this way because he was starting to go numb despite the shitstorm he felt inside. At the touch of her skin against his clothing, Smith automatically turned to leave the ship. A person with a sharp eye could barely catch his hand brushing off the spot where she brushed against him, as though it were dirtied.

Soon enough, he was back to Luca Pavone's side, and reporting. "The ship appears all clear Mr. Pavone." Smith spoke up with a calm, carefully meted speech. A hint of smooth malice could be heard however. "Miss Aihara has wounded several of the medics, but has procured the codes necessary to access the ship in its entirety." Smith paused for a moment before continuing at his pace. "It is A0-3F-B2-2B-63-91."

It came to Naoko's mind almost like an afterthought, but it did come.

Luca frowned upon hearing that Naoko had gone out of her way to attack something that quite frankly wasn't a threat and didn't want to be involved.
"Tell her I want to speak with her. If you don't, I will," He gave Smith a cold look, "I dread to think what she can do when she's 'in the zone'."

Something then occurred to Luca. He hadn't seen her at all. He swallowed a lump in his throat upon realising this.

-

Luca gave Enzo a nod once Ardent had finally finished his end of the job, and the ship was sparkling clean and the locks were taken off of it, giving Enzo his freedom and his Lady of the night back, with a nice new-ship smell.

"Enzo, I'm happy to say that your ship is yours at last. Ardent, come with me," Luca had lifted him to his feet and started walking him out of Enzo's ship and into the Big Bird, "Now, Ardent, do you remember Sebastian Pavone?"
Ardent's face went white.
"That's great, I'm sure you two have so much catching up to do!" He smiled before hollering, "Hey, Old Man, I got a present for you!"

Sebastian stood up from his seat and cracked the knuckles in his cybernetic right hand (and by extension, the rest of arm), he decided to mimick Luca's devil-may-care attitude to this and said, "Oh yes, its been forty long years, we have so much to talk about!"

Luca tossed Ardent over to Sebastian and said: "Don't kill him, I'm sending him to the relevant authorities afterwards."
He then walked back to his quarters and removed this armour, hanging it up and making what maintenance he could to it. He then walked to the bathroom, removed his singlet, pants and underpants and stood under the shower for a little, the warm water relaxing his muscles and the soap removing the smells of sweat and blood. He spent a couple of minutes shapooing his hair, including his memetic facial hair.

Upon reflection of the afternoon's events, it reminded him of a certain event which, while not world changing, was pretty funny to the Captain. Four would-be thieves attempted to rob a van in Nepleslia. Unfortunately for the thieves, the van turned out to be holding some people who could be called precursors to the IPG on a recon training mission.

What was left of the thieves would've comfortably fit in a lunch box. After finishing the shower, drying off and getting into some tracksuit pants and another white singlet, he headed back to see how Sebastian and Ardent were doing. Sebastian had tied him to a chair and appeared to have broken Ardent's arm in six places.

"Ouch," Luca said as Ardent's arm wiggled like a jelly snake, "Why?" He inquired.
"One break for every step he took to betray me," Sebastian mumbled as he stayed his hand and walked away with his son, "I've let my vengeance out, yet I still feel unsatisfied. The vicious cycle has run its course, since Cain is gone too."
"Dad, none of this would've fallen into your lap without me."
"That's what I mean. I didn't want you to inherit my previous mistakes."

"If its any consolation, I think we've gotten those lose ends tied up securely," Luca chuckled as he gave his dad a pat on the back, "Unless there's someone else I should know about." Sebastian shook his head.
"I think we can finally live like a family again, Son."

Beau was in the 'lounge' of the Big Bird sitting down with Melissa, who was giving him an earbashing about Delsaurian Culture and ways to make the Airbike matches more unsafe for her enjoyment. Beau just smiled and nodded as he watched the airbike match. He had a beer in one of his hands and gave a nod to Luca as he walked by.

"Oh, Vincent," Luca said as he left his father with his thoughts, "Have you heard? We got ourselves a new ship." He gave a nod to John.
"Right, its a doozy," He said as he gave Vincent a visual of the Crimson Kestrel.

"Isn't it awesome?" Luca said, giving Vincent a nudge before leaving off and sitting down next to Beau.

"So, Beau, hopefully the rest of your day will go without incident," He said, "If there's any other way to make us call this even, you can tell me."
He shrugged and took a sip of his beer, sighing heavily, "I might've been a pawn in Ardent's game, but you grabbed the board and broke his arm with it, a lot. Just leave me alone once I leave, and I'll try my best to stay out of your way. Deal?"

Naoko, left alone with the medics and the bodies, gave a faint but audible sigh of what could be loosely described as job satisfaction. Then she left the police cruiser without a second glance back, recovered her clothing from Enzo's recaptured ship, and made her way, with the rest of the crew, back onto the Crimson Kestrel, where she patiently waited for Luca to finish his shower, before utilizing the shower herself, taking care to ensure that Luca neither saw her enter, or leave.

She washed off the blood that had spattered from the cut she had inflicted on the one medic, and patently rubbed the soreness out of the foot she'd slammed into the other. While she did these things in silence, she considered her new position. On the one hand she had gained a powerful tool in her pursuit of vengance. On the other hand, it was in retrospect difficult to utilize. The only edge that Naoko had over most Nepleslian-based computer systems was the sheer velocity of her mental processing power. What she was proposing to do - what she was thinking of doing - would fry her brain and make her, at best, into a babbling lunatic, and at worst into a pain-enraged maniac. Naoko had seen sisters go berserk before and it had not been particularly pretty. She shut the water off, wiped the majority of wetness off of her body, and left the bathroom. Then she stood in Luca's empty room and towled off her hair.

Her move had been subtle; Naoko owned few clothings and personal gear. The Styrling armor, which was mostly form-fitting anyway, she had cast onto the end of the bed with her guns before showering. Her normal clothing hung in the closet and took up relatively little space. Since the armor was still clean - Naoko did not sweat, and it had seen no real use - and was not terribly uncomfortable, Naoko wore it, holstering a single pistol on the small of her back and tying her hair into a long, loose ponytail. It was too damp to braid, and she was in a violent enough mood that the armor didn't feel out of place. The rush of combat left a fairly warm afterglow that she didn't want to lose just yet and there was something about being covered from the neck down in something snug that appealed to her wilder side.

Well, one of the wilder sides, anyway.

"A0-3F-B2-2B-63-91" she repeated, out loud to the ceiling, citing from a memory so detailed that calling it photographic would have been an understatement. But it was useless just to say it, and she did not feel like trying the encyrption code in any civilian equipment just yet. Who knew what sort of safeguards the IPG would place on their equipment? Instead, she carefully gathered up the bulk of her firearms and stashed them away in a footlocker at the bottom of Luca's closet, and left the room just as she had entered it.

Pondering her next few moves in this chessgame, Naoko went searching for Smith.

"I might've been a pawn in Ardent's game, but you grabbed the board and broke his arm with it, a lot. Just leave me alone once I leave, and I'll try my best to stay out of your way. Deal?"

Click to expand...

"No deal."

A puff of smoke entered the room, following it Enzo Bortelli. His coat hung down around his usual clothes, the business suit now nowhere to be seen. His jaw was set firmly as hard boot-steps marked his approach. Steadily he lifted his revolver to Beau's and and pulled the hammer back. As his last step brought him closest the soon-to-be-former Nepleslian officer he pulled the trigger.

Click. Nothing happened.

One moment of silence later, Enzo was on the floor, tears of laughter falling from his eyes. Through the guffaws, he barely managed to make words. "Ahaha- Yous guys... Ho, Yous shouldsa... Ha, Wow!"

More laughter.

"I mades the dramatics entrance and everything!"

More laughter.

"Oh, this was great!"

More laughter.

WHen everything ended Zeta was still angry. SHe did not know why, possibly because of how Luca took the situation lightly. First few minutey when all was done, when medics on the cop-ship were putting themseleves together, when Ardent was being put into maid-dress and when that Beau was walking by like nothing happened. During those times Zeta was just walking buy not knowing what to do or what really happened. Her mind was not sure how to put all what just happened together. Are they safe now? Was that all just Ardent's scheme? Who payed Ardent?

Zeta walked into Kitchen where surprised Crany was, she tossed helmet of her Impulse on the table not caring about anything and started look around. After minute of looking she stumbled upon the bottle of Gin, which was good enough. "I'll pay you for that later," she said to Crane and stormed off while opening the bottle.

First few steps were just what she needed. She did not want to though now, she knew that alcohol will make her stupid and unable to wathc over captain but she did not care. Captain knew better how to take of himself anyway. Not like he needed her.

She was walking on all connected ships sipping Gin and muttering obsceneties and swearing. Every time she met Ardent while he was cleaning up she delivered a swift kick upon his arse and another flor of very non-nice words.

WHen bottle was half-empty she ended up in Big Birds vehicle bay. She shed her Impulse armour there finally when it was loosing power. Bottle was almost empty by this time and Zeta was feeling wuite down. ANd without proper reason which made her even more angry. At herself. She stood up and walked to the wall. She looked on it for few seconds before giving it proper punch with her mechanical arm. Very loud bang could be heard as she hit it. She saw small dent on the wall made by cybernetics. But it did not help, she was still angry. She neede to vent more. One more time. BANG One more time. BANG And more time.

Soon Zeta was trying to catch her breath. There was quite a dent in front of her but it sill was not satysfying for her. She just walked aways and sit in one of cars in the bay and continued drinking alone.

"It's fairly impressive," Vincent said noncommittally, giving a slight shrug. "I've been on a lot of vessels, captain, this is just another notch in the belt to me." He looked his captain in the face and did his best to affect an apologetic face - it didn't work; mainly because Vincent didn't do facial expressions. "I'm sure it would be quite a nice vessel to anyone else, sir."

And then Enzo entered the room. The ID-Sol could already tell that the thief was holding a pistol and prepared himself to move if things started to get violent. Enzo steadily approached the rookie he hadn't noticed before, and raised the gun to his head. Vincent already had one hand out and was about to close it in a vise-grip when Enzo revealed his trick - the gun was empty. He crumpled to the floor, laughing, leaving Vincent with one arm out, hand open.

The mercenary knelt and hauled Enzo, one handed, to his feet. He didn't say anything, just locked his eyes on Enzo's and gave him a look that said "do that again and I will break every bone in your arm in eight different places and use the splinters to pick dinner out of my teeth", then let him go.

Robert watched the whole scene in mild amusement as Enzo entered, revealed his trick, and Vincent put Enzo in his place. "I'm going to go put my armor back in the bay. Don't kill each other while I'm gone, eh?" he clapped Vincent on the back, and nudged Enzo as softly as he could in a playful manner and a big, toothy smile streched the scars around his mouth.

As he got to the Vehicle bay, he heard a couple thumps. "What the hell?" he muttered before stealthily crossing the bay to the source of the sound. He saw Zeta sit down with a bottle in hand. He straightened up from his crouch, and strolled on over to the bodyguard. "Got something on your mind?" he asked as he sat down next to her.

Mr. Smith was the Phoenix's resident Origin-Tech expert, whether he liked it or not. Not that it was a bad thing, not at all. Right now, he had all the peace, quiet and alone time he could possibly want. It was a particularly good thing, as his darkened skin was now starting to painfully peel off. It wasn't quite like it would have been from a sunburn either; anything plus antimatter always equaled worse. Tanned skin came off of Matthew's hands and face like snakeskin, exposing angry red flesh underneath. If there was scarring, it wasn't going to be any real trouble; a little medication, and it would go away. Maybe even a touch of hard to get medical nano. But the pain. He'd remember this.

For now though? Smith did his best to push it out of his mind by keeping himself busy. Three Impulse Power Armors in need of maintenance, the most pressing damage done by Smith himself. As he agonizingly moved his fingers to go over the suits, he mused over their usage by the Phoenix crew. Each time he or his little brother and sisters had seen them on the news, they were wearing one of those Lorath suits at the most. The majority of the time he recalled seeing Luca and Co, the thing that stood out the most was...well, their faces. Plainclothes usually didn't cover that up.

He firmly grasped one of the helmets; it was just layers of alloy, ballistic plate, a bit of electronic hardware and a typical lens made out of transparent metal. A faceless helmet. Was this what all people were going to see when it came to Luca Pavone and Crew now? A truly faceless visage flickered through Smith's vision - a hint of pastel purplish blue. No, the Impulse helmets had more character than those things they used. There was even a few scratches to the paint from pistol rounds. He faintly smiled as the green alloy and gold looked up at him from his aching hands. If this was going to be Luca's new face, well, Smith couldn't complain, could he? It was Origin's face being shown too after all.

Matthew's smile disappeared as quickly as it arrived; his time alone was quickly drawing to a close with it nearing. What did it want with him anyways? Smith brushed that question away; those things didn't exactly make sense anyways, so there was no real point in guessing. He knew he'd find out soon enough. All Smith had to do was brace himself for this short storm coming his way, briefly eyeballing the leather holsters and Origin jacket laying on the worktable. It wouldn't be able to see the weapons so easily with the jacket in the way if it came to that.

If it really came to that...Smith wasn't even sure what to feel anymore at this point. Did part of him want it to come to that? Maybe. Perhaps another piece of him didn't want it to come to that? Of course. 'Still, if it comes to that, there's no better way of checking to see if I know my stuff this way, right?' The green power armored gauntlet worn over Smith's hand clenched tightly as the elbow servo faintly whirred.

"Coppers didn't oil her up..." he muttered. The servo popped out like an ammo magazine and received its due before being slapped back home.

Enzo was in earshot of Matt as he left made his way back to The Lady of The Night from the commons area. A quick survey of the cargo area revealed that the bay of the Crimson Kestrel was getting very crowded. The poor reaction to his antics had ruined Enzo's cheerful mood, and now the criminal was left to return to his ship with his tail between his legs, avoiding what he saw as a crew of no-fun sauerkrauts not wanting to fuck with the new prisoner.

"Gubment don't likes spendin' money on oil, Smithy." He commented mid-stride. Enzo didn't even wait for a response, instead pressing on towards the docking port where the Lady was lying in wait for him. Then, something occurred to him and he stopped walking. He turned slowly to face Smith again, eying the power armor. "Hey, Smithy."

A smoke filled beat. "When yous done with thats, you wanna drags your fried ass overs to the Lady and helps me run a diagnostic? There's beers in its for yous if you do."

Again, not waiting for a response, he pressed on towards the docking port. Now, he was passing by Zeta. Boy, did she look pissed. The cargo bay was full of pissed off people trying to separate themselves from the rest of the crew, it seemed. Enzo looked over the ORV she was in and the dent in the wall. He caught sight of the gin, the fuming glare. A peculiar feeling came over him. It wasn't sympathy. Hardly would it be that, to come from Enzo. It was more of a curious empathy.

Enzo leaned against the car and started to count the supports in the ceiling.

"Say, Zeta." He began softly, hoping to work up to something that'd make her smile, "I gots in trouble a little whiles ago. I puts a revolver ups to Beau's heads and pulleds the triggers with an empty chamber, just to scares the shit outta him. Sure sounds funny, huh?"