RP: Origin OIF Karakoram episode 1.1: A New Hunt

The twins looked at each other as Charles mentioned them helping, neither one of them had done much in terms of engineering before they usually just used the tech, but they didn’t have an issue with helping move stuff around. Of course this discussion happened between their eyes in the split second they locked before both girls‘ faces split into very smug grins. They watched him wander off and then turned to Tory.

”The changing rooms aren’t separate are they?” Anna asked the woman as the twins moved out of the office and sidled up to her, grins still very present. In the meantime, Bella had decided they needed to take immediate action and grabbed her sister by the collar and began dragging the second person that day. “Oh, bye then!” Anna called back as she disappeared down the hall.

Before long the terrible two had entered the changing rooms, in time to witness an exasperated Charles looking away embarrassed from the absolute musclewoman that was Chey. ”What’s wrong Charles, too scared to look with conviction?” Anna said, almost in an out of character way from what the pilots had seen of them so far. Bella on the other hand had already rushed over to Chey to marvel at her slightly exposed abs, crouching down to get a good look, even going as far as to poke her side softly.

Jennifer nodded to Tory. "Get it rigged up. Sooner the better. I still need to finalize a few more things here, before I get Scrapyard rigged up as well." She says, approving the request by the pair. She was still finalizing the rest of the new mecha's loadouts, and making sure they weren't about to drop into combat missing something.

"Yeah yeah I'll get changed in a minute~" Chey sighed as she kept browsing the internet on her laptop, somewhat lost in her own little world before she felt some fingers poking into the weirdly lean and athletic muscle of her midriff, causing a slight blush to spread over Cheylarus' pale, mousey features.

While she was no stranger to showing a bit of skin, having strangers touch it was another beast entirely, and so the metal-armed girl slid away from the imposing twin a little and realized her counterpart was also there - which lead to a blushing Chey retreating back to her locker with her laptop in tow, clearing her throat briefly as her laptop was stowed and the team's female Nep rummaged around in her locker.

"Bruh... guys it's just skin, get over it~" she murmured, retrieving her black and tan suit before quickly stepping into it, pulling the skin-tight thing that hid basically nothing up over her slender frame before reaching back into her locker to retrieve her helmet and a revolver - the sidearm being strapped to one hip in a holster as her helmet was held protectively across her abdomen, attempting to hide it from the curious twin as Chey continued to frown with a faint blush.

"So uh... Charles, where are you from?" she spoke, trying to move the topic of conversation away from herself.

As Charles was teased by the twins, he sighed in exasperation. "There's a difference between being too scared to look at another person who's barely dressed, and being polite enough to know not to do it." He began to untie the upper part of the pilot suit, and began to slip it on. "And apparently, neither of you two are mature enough to recognize that difference."

He zipped up the last portion of the suit, pulling it taut over his body, highlighting but not showing off too much of the young man's musculature. He turned back to Chey as he grabbed his helmet from the locker. "I'm from Nepleslia Prime, out in the Colonial Expanse. Joined the Navy pretty young, but it wasn't for me so I bought out of there once I could, and ended up here. What about you?" He asked in return.

Bella didn’t follow Chey as she retreated to her locker and was going to say something before she and her sister visibly winced when Charles began telling them off. They liked to think they were pretty mature most of the time but it seemed like they’d gone too far with this guy, apparently he acted a lot older than he was.

”Sorry...” came the mumbled reply from both girls as they trudged over to their lockers, all the energy had drained from the twins as they too proceeded to strip down and put away their clothes before moving on to the pilot suits. Neither one of them looked at the two still in the room as they went about their business, not another word was uttered between them. Anna and Bella weren’t quite sure if they should go to the bay or wait until recalling the conversation earlier about needing help with the gun.

Silent as the grave the pair stood up and prepared to leave, intent on finding Tory and helping her out with their mech.

Chey set her helmet aside and started fiddling with her hair as she listened to Charles, casting a confused glance over to the somber twins and wondering why they took that to heart as her blonde-tipped hair fell down to her hips, "Boiling hot uhhh~ Marine for a bit, landmine blew my arms off so I got out as a Corporal," the pale girl shrugged as she began haphazardly doing her hair up into a flat bun that'd fit under her helmet a bit better.

"Funky genetics so I had to go analogue rather than cybernetics, was a bit of a bitch to re-learn how to use a keyboard~" she chuckled a little while holding a lucky band between her teeth, swiftly plucking it out and using it on her hair as Chey's light brown eyes turned to the twins with a bit of a frown.

"Oi, what about you two?"

Anna and Bella turned briefly at the door to look back at Chey. “The circus.” They said with a blank expression before moving out into the hall and heading for their mech. While the occupants in the changing room might be confused or annoyed by the answer it was the full truth of their origins.

Still a little crestfallen the pair headed back to the bay and leant on the railing together.
“You think he doesn’t really want us around?”
“Seems like it, maybe we should just leave everyone alone instead.”
“Yeah, but it seems like it was just him.”
“Do you think he is annoyed at us then? For trying to hang out with him?”
“I dunno, men seem really weird.”

At this point they simply watched as the crew messed around with the mechs, looking over to the unit they’d be using in case that woman was nearby. They kinda were hoping that the big gun would be attached by now but it didn’t look like it’d happened just yet.

Charles looked towards Chey with a concerned expression. "I hope I didn't hurt their feelings." He said as he began to make his way to the mecha bay. As he exited the locker room, he began to make his way towards the area where the mechanics were working on the gun. Once at the gun, he began taking in the situation and finding ways to make himself useful, taking a break at one point to check on his own frame to make sure that it was ready before he returned to the task at hand.

Oracle had kept silent as the others eventually left the Locker room. She had left her Mecha for the time being while the crew finished the last minute adjustments and preparations for her suit to put on her pilot suit. She still felt a little bashful allowing others see her without clothing on. She had been raised as royalty and as such in her mind it was a privilege to see her in a state of undress, one these people were not yet ready for. With the others gone, she finally moved back to her locker and put away her outfit. She pulled at the suit with a small sigh, uncomfortable with her tight it was, and headed back out to the bays to get back to her Mecha.

As she walked and then floated through the area, she held her chin up a little as if any stares didn't bother her but the pale skin would show a faint blush across her cheeks, whether or not anyone was actually looking at her. She was quick though and sought refuge in the cockpit of her suit to hide.

Ready Deck
"Yes Ma'am!" Tory responded to Jennifer as she watched the trio of pilots run down the hall. The dirty blonde was thankful this wasn't a real military ship, as those three childlike individuals technically outranked her as 'officers' of a sort, but, luckily, that didn't matter. Taking a step out of the office with a wave at the technician lead, she keyed her comm and called up another tech. "Hey Sera, can you get a casing for a K1-3400 ready?" she asked, continuing "One of our units is going handheld and we've got about two-five mike to get it done!"

"No problem, I just finished servicing one of those guns so we've got a barrel ready, I'll get the rest of the team on it. You sure we only have 25 mike to get it ready?" a younger girl's voice responded, with the dull thudding and clunking of the background noise mixed with loud rock music that permeated the engineering bay coming across on the transmission as well.

"Yup, and you'll have at least one extra hand, Li'l Blondie's gonna come and give you another body for the task"
"Rog!"

Engineering deck
As the conversation came to a head, the woman whom had initiated it exited one of the lifts, arriving in the same bay and the same noise that her cohort had been responding from. "Alright! Casing, Go, I'll find the control assembly! Somebody get on transferring ammo to that M3!" Tory began, taking off the coat of her uniform and tossing it in her locker, revealing a grease-smudged t-shirt underneath. "I want this done, YESTERDAY!" and with the order her entire team of technicians was set into motion, a well-ordered team whom each knew exactly what they needed to do.

Mecha Bay One
As the twins exited, they would see quite a bit of activity taking place around the two standard-painted M3's, as loadouts and ammunition as well as other service needs were being taken care of, with larger doors lower down in the mecha bays leading to the Engineering deck, where Tory's crew, along with Charles, could be seen busily working. Nora was also present, busy chatting with the ground crew of her obnoxiously painted M3 while she floated about doing checks on the unit and its payload.

Mecha Bay Two
As Destiny hid inside her Mecha in embarrassment, the ground crew finished up their checks, moving on to work on the M4 now known as Nohman, getting it ready for its pilot as well. One of the techs gave the tall Lorath woman a thumbs up after banging on a piece of Xiaah's armor plating to get her attention. Before Destiny could respond, however, a vivid apparition appeared in the cockpit before her- What appeared to be a middle-aged Nepleslian woman, whom had neon blue hair and eyes, wearing a standard Origin uniform. Unlike the image that appeared before Malik, however, this one had legs.

"Ma'am, do you require any assistance?" the semi-transparent woman asked, giving the former Lorath queen now Masquerading as a contractor named Oracle a blank, almost wide-eyed stare.

Mecha Bay Two
"Xiaah" Cockpit

Oracle had been trying to relax in her cockpit to fight off some of the embarrassment of the outfit and was glad there would be less and less people around her with the techs moving off to the other suit near her. She had begun the motion of returning the thumbs up to the others as the image appeared in front of her, and the knee jerk reaction from the Lorath woman came in a left hook that had been aimed straight for the woman's face. Wide blue eyes were first set in anger before they quickly switched to embarrassment as she pulled her arm back after it passed through the image harmlessly.

"I-I apologize... You startled me." She let out a few heavy breaths for a second before she took one long breath to calm herself.

"Unless you can give me a less... form fitting outfit... No I believe I am fine. What are you called?" She asked with the tilt of her head.

The twins continued watching for a while, they saw Charles appear and scuttle around with the other mechanics, it seemed like he was still working on their mech despite getting mad at them before.

”Maybe he’s not super mad at us?”
”You might be right, he is still working on the rig after all even though he was mean.”
”Maybe it was just us before, being annoying to him.”

Anna and Bella looked at each other and sort of shrugged before pushing off from the railing and floating lazily around the bay towards their mech which they still hadn’t bothered naming yet. Truthfully they weren’t sure if they’d even make it to the next mission with the same frame, of course ideally that would be nice but they weren’t known for keeping all their gear intact.

Mecha Bay One

As the work on the cannon progressed, the work grew more dirty. Charles was, predictably, the one tasked with getting inside the smaller nooks and crannies of the weapon as only someone of his size could. The work was difficult, but the instructions of Tory and her crew ensured that the small Nepleslian accomplished the tasks set out before him. Eventually, the work was almost done, save for a few parts that were nowhere to be found in bay one. At the request of one of the mechanics, Charles began to make his way towards bay two to look for spares over there.

As he crossed through the dividing compartments between the two mecha bays, he was thankful that the gravity was left off in the intervening compartment, as it allowed him a smooth trip through as the doors opened to let him pass. Soon, he reached the large racks and containers of parts, taking a moment to search before finding what he had been sent to find; a set of adapters for the power couplings needed to allow the twins' mech power the cannon. Taking the two adapters under his left arm, he thanked his lucky stars again for the gravity being off, before preparing to make his way back over.

Then he noticed Destiny's, or as the crew knew her, Oracle's cockpit. The Lorath pilot had seemed somewhat out of it, and he decided that it might be a good idea to check on her. He kicked off of the floor of the bay, and floated up towards the cockpit of the loner's M5. "Hey Oracle," he began as he put out his right hand to stop his movement, and then to pull himself out in front of the cockpit, his grease and oil smeared face emerging around the lip of the cockpit first, "Everything okay?"

Mecha Bay Two
"I am called Kora, if you need my services", the blue apparition answered to Destiny, before Charles interrupted them. Just before the young blonde man made his way over, Kora disappeared silently, popping out of existence, minus the sound effects, leaving the ex-Lorath Queen alone with the Ex-Nepleslian fighter pilot. The ground crews, likewise, left the two alone as the began to speak, focusing instead on getting Malik's Frame as well as the spares ready for the upcoming battle.

Mecha Bay One
Anna and Bella were, suddenly, accosted by a pair of likewise Twin apparitions, one green, one blue, both with vibrant, piercing eyes and Origin Uniforms. "Good day, Misses" they greeted, simultaneously, with voices that were too similar to separate but different enough to tell there was more than one. "Perhaps you should speak to that person and ask why they felt it necessary to speak to you like that?" the green one asked. "Or maybe you should observe from a distance to be sure whether or not your suspicions are correct?" the blue one suggested.

Changing room One
As Cheylarus took her time in the changing room, a short woman with brown skin and almond shaped eyes and a crop of messy hair that came down to her ears, appeared through one of the doors. The jumpsuit she was wearing identified her as a technician, and she absentmindedly went rummaging about in one of the lockers, looking for something before seeming to notice the mousy, metal-armed woman. "Oh, Hey, almost didn't see you there. Name's Sera, one of the Techs, and you might be?" she asked, holding out a (Slightly grease-stained) hand for a handshake.

Bay One now with less Charles

Since the nepleslian man had left the twins wasted no time in finally getting to their cockpit only to have these two apparitions appear before them.

"Woah, that's super cool! You two must be the AI's right?" Anna asked as she looked over the green and blue specters and tried poking one a few times to see if it was a solid projection or not. "We have a pair of AI's where we usually work too, but they don't project like you two do, what're your names?" The first twin continued asking.

Meanwhile Bella had been thinking over the suggestions of the ghosts, On the one hand going and talking it over with him would allow both parties to come to an understanding about the situation, but on the other hand they could gain the upper hand and find out if he felt bad for them or not. The idea of him telling them off and calling them immature and then feeling bad about it was a very entertaining thought. "I like the blue one, it's got the right idea about our current... predicament." The second twin commented, thinking through how it would pan out, how they might wait for him to come and ask for forgiveness, or maybe he'd just never talk to them again.

"You sure we shouldn't go and talk to him? Discuss both sides of the story and come to a better understanding?" Anna asked with a serious expression as she looked back at her sister before her face slowly split into a smug grin. "Orrr, we wait him out."

The pair grinned at each other in the cockpit and looked out to see if he was coming back to finish the mech or if it was just the regular techs now.

Mecha Bay Two
"Xiaah" Cockpit

Oracle Blinked, about to respond to Kora and ask if it was a personalized assistant or not before Charles popped up. She blinked and after a moment or two narrowed her eyes at the smaller man. The faint blush she had calmed down came back to the surface as she recalled the day in the showers, the mistake she had made and just what he had seen. She gave him a small huff and crossed her arms, determined not to look weak before him for whatever reason her suddenly panicking mind could come up with.

"I am fine. Is there something you need of me?" Her tone was a bit rough and brusque as she looked to him. Her attempts at hiding the blush were rapidly failing as more and more of her face turned red, the flush even began to creep up her long tri-tipped ears.

Mecha Bay Two
"Xiaah" Cockpit

Charles let out a slight chuckle at the sight of the normally coolheaded Lorath being so flustered. He pointed towards the power couplings that were under his arm. "I was helping out with some work in the other bay, and they needed me to come fetch some parts." His expression grew a little more earnest as he spoke, "I noticed you were in here more or less on your own, aside from the mechanics. You've been very quiet ever since we got back to the Karakoram." He asked.

He released the power couplings, letting them float stationary nearby, and sat down on the edge of the cockpit door, facing out. " Is everything okay?" He asked, as he spun himself around to look at the Oracle.

Bay One

The Green apparition answered first with "I am called Kara," Followed by the blue ghost finishing "And I am Kora." They seemed to meld into one another for a brief moment, swirling their colors before separating, having exchanged places. "We are a single AI, not a pair, however. Two sides of a coin," the twin visions explained, simultaneously, almost staring into the twin girls' souls as they did so. Almost in a bemused manner, the AI projections followed the twins as they went into the dual cockpit of their Mecha, shrinking themselves to a convenient shoulder size as they did so, with Kara sitting on Anna's shoulder, and Kora sitting on Bella's. the pair seemed intent on simply listening in to the twins' conversation rather than participating, nodding along with what was said.

"You could try and find out his intentions during the battle," Kara suggested, "Or put him in a bind and see if he'll apologize," Kora thought out loud.

Bay Two
As Charles began talking with Destiny, but before they could get much of anywhere, a loud voice rang out from the entrance to the engineering bay. "Oi, Blondie!" came Tory's booming voice, "Ya gonna sit there talking sweet or are you going to bring that converter so we can finish loading the rifle?" she asked, half rhetorically, waving from the opening in the mecha bay's wall to make sure Charles saw her.

Bay Two
"Xiaah" Cockpit

Why couldn't she stand to look at him for more than a few seconds? So he had seen her nude... it was a mistake. Plenty had seen her in that state... though most of those had been servants and her husband, and the doctors that had saved her life probably. Yet every time she tried to keep her gaze on him, her eyes shifted off after only a few moments. "I am fine. I just... The last time we were here, when yo-" Oracle's eyes turned to the voice, just outside the view of her cockpit and she growled a little. She looked back to Charles after a second and leveled a scowl on him.

"You've kept your word right?" She asked him, alluding to the last conversation the two had the last time they were aboard the ship, in the locker room.

Bay Two
"Xiaah" Cockpit

While it was fairly clear that the larger Lorath woman was trying to be intimidating, the fact that she was blushing like a Yamataian schoolgirl undermined her efforts completely. Rather than being scared into submission by Destiny, Charles instead managed to stifle the chuckle that her demeanor prompted. He reached out with one arm, giving what he hoped was a reassuring pat on the head as he spoke. "Don't worry about it, your secret is safe with me." He offered a smile as he withdrew his hand, and then swung out of the cockpit, grabbing the power couplings before launching himself back towards bay one.

Bay One
As Charles reached the other mecha bay, he made his way over to the oversized rifle, and began the work of attaching one of the couplings to the gun. Once that was done, he and several other mechanics hoisted the gun into place near the Twins' mecha. The other coupling was attached to the palm of the mech, directly onto the normal power socket, so as to enable the large gun to be powered by the mecha when it was held.