RP: NSS Acadia [Post Mission 1]: Shore Leave

Viktor, slightly confused at the sudden turn of events, looked Suku up and down, wondering just what about her struck fear in the hearts of these men. "Excuse me, ma'am, who might you be?" He made sure to exhale his smoke in a direction away from those around him bearing higher ranks which left him standing at a three-fourths angle in reference to Suku, like he was some sort of reclusive mystery-man from a dime novel.

Suku saw Anselm salute at her, causing her to arch a brow at him. She just stared for a moment trying to discern who he was. Deciding to ignore him, she turned her head back to Fian with a crooked smile, and found his stammering cute. Except, she noticed he was moving away and slipping around Adrian, who hadn't seem to notice her, yet.

"Oh shit? Wow, Adrian, no wonder you never get laid, you can't think of a better 'hello' than that?" Suku put her hands on her hips, her brow furrowing at the man in front of her. She stepped towards him leaned forward, and looked at Fian.

"And where do you think you're going?" Suku arched a brow at Fian her smile returning. Though, it didn't last long as Viktor asked who he was. She looked over at him with a rather aggravated glare.

"None of your god damn business, Shady." The woman said with dislike, turning back to Fian, her grin returning.

Viktor laughed quietly to himself and took a couple steps away from Suku who happened to be the epicenter of building tension in the area. With five more steps between them, he felt free to smoke as he wished while he watched the developing scene with interest and mild amusement. Try to be respectful and she got snappy. She definitely lost respect in Viktor's book, but that obviously didn't matter to her either.

Echo made his way over to the shadowed area beneath a building and sighed, feeling completely left out. He was used to this feeling, however, and generally accepted it as his place in life. Yet, it felt different now since he almost felt that he fit in, for that fleeting glimpse of time on the shuttle. It was almost painful.

Still, the soldier turned to one of his hobbies. He lowered his head, sat cross-legged, and began to hum lowly to bring himself into a state of subconciousness. Hopefully his rash attempt at meditation would work, even though the city was crowded and bustling with people. An even more hopeful add-on would be gaining a spark of attention from his comrades, assuming they decided to leave before he succeeded or failed at this attempt.

Having been pushed away from Fian by the arrival of two people he didn't know at all, he looked around. He found Echo sitting alone. Tired? Probably not. Viktor stepped up to Echo's right and pressed his back to the wall. "Doing alright there?" he asked, loud enough to be heard over the humming and through his mental fog.

"Shit Harrison, I lost a goddamn arm and shit. I'm not scared of some woman." Ran turned to the side and lit another cigarette, breathing in a good amount of smoke and letting it leak slowly out of his nostrils. Looking toward where Harrison was talking about, the Chief immediately ejected all smoke from his nostrils.

"Oh, her."

Any current thoughts regarding the medic showing up were quickly cast aside, as the arrival of a shuttle full of new recruits had shown up, carrying DeCane on it. "Nice for you to join us, Staff Sergeant. They decide to keep the rookies together by shuttling you over with the new recruits?" Ran bit the filter of his cigarette a bit hard as Suku mouthed off to Viktor.

"She's our Medic, Marine. She's just still sore that a lot of our boys back on the Alliance still have her pretty panties tucked away in their bunks." He said to the retreating Viktor, which also prompted him to take a few cautionary steps back from the Medic, while smoking on his cigarette to appear nonchalant.

Amelia gave her another strange look as if not really sure what to make of Phaedra. Then again, she didn't seem to be drawing the similarities between the two women. She returned her gaze forward and stepped inside.

The building was empty in almost every sense of the word except for a man standing in the corner. He looked to be in his mid-30's, despite his grayish hair. His brown eye was lost in the rather dim lighting of the room. His other eye emitted a faint violet glow, which turned brighter as he seemed to notice Amelia.

He stepped over a fresh corpse that lay at his feet as he approached her, stopping upon seeing Phaedra.

Amelia replied quickly, "She's not a liability. Do not worry. I trust you have what I asked for, Zahren?" The man returned his attention to Amelia and smirked slightly. "I trust you have what we require of you, miss Weynolt?" She rolled her eyes a little and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small official looking datapad. It had the logo of the SMoDIN on it's back. "Show me that you have them first." Zahren procured a small bottle with a decent amount of red pills on the inside. "But of course. Your assistance is valuable enough to keep you around. Medicine is a minor cost for it..."

Phaedra peeked inside the dark room, her cybernetic implant showing the room as a multitude of heat signatures. The rather shady man seemed to give pause at Phaedra's presence; so she politely stayed outside of the shanty, allowing Amelia and the other man to finish their business. She dropped her equipment duffel and set down her weapon case, leaning it against the worn outer wall. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms, soaking in the decrepid surroundings.

This was hardly what she had expected for her first deployment, but she reminded herself to be patient; the time to prove herself would come soon. Phaedra flexed her left hand, slowly opening and closing the metal fingers. Some had asked why she did not cover her arm in synthetic skin. Her answer was simple; so she would not forget her failure, or her comrades that she allowed to die.

The events surrounding the "accident," were still unclear to Phaedra; the intense physical and emotional scarring coupled with the interrogation still made most of the details fuzzy. The intel operative made it seem like nothing at all had happened.

"That's the part I still find hard to believe...I was supposed to be dead," she thought.

Phaedra at least had her theories as to what really happened.

"What better way to test out a new weapon then to use it on your own people...Or something bad really did happen, and the IPG doesn't want to admit it."

Phaedra was brought back out of her thoughts by Amelia's voice.

Echo didn't break his blankness of expression, nor did he open his eyes. He simply nodded and spoke. "Yeah, I'm alright. I just...am not mixed in with the unit yet. I don't have anyone to tag along with, and I really don't even have anyone to talk to. I'm used to it though, so it's no big deal...being an ID-Sol and all, no one likes to talk to me..."

Viktor smirked. "That's some emo bullshit right there. Like anyone gives a fuck if you're ID-SOL." He took a slow drag on his cigarette before continuing. "I'm fresh to the team too, but playing the situation like that is not going to help anyone. If you need someone to tag along with, join me. A little soldier camaraderie is good for the soul."

Echo opened an eye and scanned over Viktor briefly, trying to make sure he was serious without showing it. "Alright, have it your way then. I'll follow you." The soldier stood and glanced over Viktor once more, smiling a little. "What are you up to anyways?"

The exchange went fairly quickly. They both walked out once they got what they wanted. As Amelia stepped out next to Phaedra she had one of the red pills already in hand. She popped it in and swallowed without any drink and let out a sigh afterwords. The other man stepped out shortly after, still holding the datapad. He glanced back at her with his glowing eye and smirked slightly. "I wonder what your superiors would say if they knew you had this?"

She returned with a very hateful scowl, "I wonder what my superiors would say if they knew what you were doing with it." To this he replied with a short laugh. "Fair enough." He walked off in a different direction, paying no heed to the glare that was trying to burn a hole through the back of his head.

Amelia gave a short, annoyed sigh and turned to Phaedra. "Anyhow, I apologize for dragging you out here... It was something that needed to be done quickly." Her expression had mellowed out some, as if resigning herself to the fact that she was doing something she didn't want to out of necessity.

"Well, I was going to keep the Chief company, but it looks like he's got a bit of a crowd now, so... nothing, really. I already swung by a local gun smithy and found myself some personal protection, so I can't really think of anything else I need." He reached into his back pocket for a cigarette and discovered the package to be empty. To make sure, he brought the package to eye level and studied it with a slight furrowing of the brows, indicating dislike. He sighed and crushed his dead cigarette beneath one boot.

"I lied. I need cigarettes."

"Nah, you didn't lie." Echo said, with a mischievous grin. "You need cigarettes just about as much as you need a bullet in your head, but whatever suits you."

Echo resigned himself to following Viktor, he saw nothing better to do and at least this guy seemed to like him. Hell, it could even be fun.

"No...it's fine," said Phaedra, somewhat shocked at how relaxed Amelia seemed currently. She as a result felt some of the tension ease between herself and her new crewmate. She smiled slightly when Amelia apologized, but her smile faded quickly when Phaedra realized she had been clenching her left hand into a fist. She quickily dropped her arms and attempted to act like nothing had happened.

"I...uh....think I needed that walk to take the edge off and gather my thoughts. I won't deny the fact that I was intimidated by the rest of the crew; being the new gal and all. But after having instructors demand constant perfection for the five years since my creation, it is nice to try something different. I am definitely ready to prove what I can do, but I guess I should enjoy this while it lasts."

Phaedra slung the weapon case over her left shoulder and grabbed her duffel with her right hand.

"So...uh...Amelia" said Phaedra, motioning with her head. "Should we meet up with the others?"

aaaaaaaaaaaaand Lilly followed Trey.


Lilly followed Trey into the upper ward like a lost puppy. She wasn't quite sure why this section of the city required special clearance to enter, but then again, she had never been to Roger Wilco. Or Funky City. Or just about anywhere in the galaxy. She looked around with a vaguely detached look on her face, her eyes seemingly focused on something far beyond the buildings she stared at. She felt so out of place. Walking along with nothing but the sound of the city made her feel a bit nervous. "So, um, Mister Trey, uh..." she searched for something to say to the back of his head, ('...so I herd u liek Mudkipz')"...." She still couldn't think of anything to say, dropping the beginnings of a coherent thought off into an uncomfortable silence. "I'm sorry, nevermind. I'm not very good at small talk. I suppose you could say I never got out much....." She ended the statement with a wry look on her face. You couldn't be a very good conversationalist when the only experiences of your life had been of an unpleasant variety.

Anselm held the salute "Did she do that on purpose?" the Master Chief and one of his old friends, Anselm presumed, both seemed to be surprised and scared of this woman who had the nerve to let him stand there like a buffoon with his hand stuck to his head "They said this conditioning would wear off... I wonder if arching an eyebrow counts?" The albino tested his muscles to see if he could move them willfully again "nope, it doesn't... I'm going to have to get back at this Navy girl, that's what regular people do, right? pull pranks on supperiors? yeah, I think so... just you wait, Navy-girl, I'll have my revenge!"

Viktor shrugged at the commonplace verbal assault of his habit. "Well I'm getting some, regardless of how much you like it." As Echo stood, Viktor began to walk at a leisurely pace. He wasn't in a rush, especially seeing as how they'd probably be cutting leave short anyways. "What's your grudge with smokers, anyways?" He asked now that they were on the move. "Don't take me wrong, I get it: they'll fuck up my throat and lungs and probably kill me. Is it more than that, or just that?"

"No real grudge, bro. I'm just messing with you. As long as you don't do that shit around me, I won't bother you about it at all, besides some snarky comments and insults." Echo said, following Viktor. "Also, don't steal money from me to buy that shit. A friend of mine...well, I use the term friend lightly, did that once...he's missing his trachea for a different reason than most smokers."

Trey looked at the strange woman, admitting "I'm not all that good at small talk either." He grinned at her, finally waving down a cab, and getting in, holding the door open for the woman. "It's probably just my personality, though," he continued, "what's your excuse?"