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

[Echo]

Echo pondered everything for a moment, then sighed heavily. He desired to feel the same feelings he was sure all of his colleuges had experienced, at least once before. His Super-Y chromosome was probably coming to life in a big way within him, but no one really knew all the complications of such a clone yet.

"Sounds like fun, I'll watch." Echo said, only half meaning that while his mind wandered. "This could be interesting..."

 

[Koenig808]

Ran looked a bit uncomfortable at Suku's icy glare, but in the end, there was nothing she could really do to harm him in the long run.

"Yeah. We'd better get going." Ran whispered to Adrian, pulled out two cigarettes from his pocket and lit them, starting what would become a new level of his addiction.

The Chief had been feeling a bit tense lately, what with just being interrogated by the IPG and just dumped out somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

"So, sir. DeCane and I are going to hit the bars. You might want to take the Petty Officer shopping for some replacement panties." And at that, the Chief immediately took off for the nearest bar.

 

[Dragonnova]

Phaedra was speechless. She glanced at Amelia and quickly shut her mouth when she realized it was gaping.

"I have never heard something so...so..." She attempted to find the right word, "...so...serene!" But Phaedra admitted that words failed to convey her amazement at what she had just experienced.

"Will they perform another?" asked Phaedra, who was unusually animated. Then she realized how excited she was and forcibly calmed herself. She exhaled and returned to her normal composure.

"Do you come here often, Amelia? I'm sorry if I've overreacted; it's just that I've never heard something so amazing before."



(Major props for picking the Mummers' Dance by Loreena McKennitt, one of my favorite songs! )

Amelia's smile was unusually gentle for a change. "There are ways to find peace, even amongst our chaotic universe. 'Serene' is something we try for, not just for our audience, but ourselves as well." The two singers were sitting on the ground a short ways away from where they had danced, wearing a very content expression. Sure, some of this might scream 'hippie' to a few people, but it was hard to speak ill of people who looked so... peaceful. They were happy and content, which was more than a lot of people in this city could say.

When asked if they were going to do another, Amelia glanced at the short woman who had greeted them, who chuckled slightly. "The musicians need a break, my dear. They were unfortunately the only ones who showed up tonight." She smiled at Phaedra, "I'm glad you like it. Have you ever considered singing? Anyone can train their voice to do this." Of course, some had more natural talent at it than others, but people could with enough effort.

The woman's smile grew slightly wider, "Amelia, dear. Why don't you sing a little bit while we wait? It's been so long since we've heard your voice." Amelia looked slightly suprised and a bit embarrassed. "Oh.. um.. it's been kind of a long time..." The woman wouldn't hear her half-baked excuses, however. She handed Amelia a cup of water and urged her to stand. "That's all the more reason you should practice again!" Amelia tried to protest again, but she realized she wasn't going to get out of it.

Swallowing her shyness (and the water), she stepped over to where the girls had sung before. She was blushing a little as she cleared her throat, but it faded once she began humming the first few notes. Before long she began to sing a different song, but it was still in the same style. She was slightly out of practice, and it was noticable, but she more than made up for it with a voice that most singers would die for. This might be a rather big suprise to anyone who has been around her for any length of time, as she usually speaks in an unfriendly tone. It was an incredible contrast to say the least. What most didn't know of course was that she used to do this as a job. She would sing at various places, (usually the more quiet bars and such.) earning money depending on how much business she brought in. (This was of course rather arbitrary from the owner, but she didn't care back then.$)

((I'm not going to start getting link-happy. Choose a Celtic song you like and imagine she's singing that.))

 

[cyborgakadjmoose]

Phaedra furrowed her brow when the short woman asked her if she had ever considered singing. She was facinated by the musical talents of the others, but it never occurred to her that she should try it. Maybe she would try it at some point, but not now; she was too in awe of the performers.

It was rather surprising when, at the insistance of the short woman, Amelia rose from her seat and stood by the other singers. She soon began to sing along with another melodic Celtic tune.

Phaedra sat quietly and closed her eyes. For the first time in quite awhile, the bad memories did not come back to haunt her. She simply immersed her mind in the smooth melodies brought about by the instruments and Amelia's voice. The barely noticable smile returned to her lips. Her mind was completely at ease, she was content to stay here as long as it lasted.

And before she knew it, it was over. Phaedra found herself softly clapping along with the rest of audience. She was surprised at feeling so comfortable in such a place; a place where everyone shared a common bond through music.

"Thank you for sharing this," said Phaedra after Amelia returned to her seat.

 

[Cy83r K0rp53]

Ran's declaration seemed to rile Suku, she threw a discomforting glare in the mans direction. The way she began to shake seemed to signify that she was going to go off and stab the man, but for some reason, Anselm caught her eye. He just stood there, saluting, as if waiting for something.

"What the shit are you waitin' for? A god damn commendation? Put your hand down, I not your fuckin' boss." Suku said angrily, putting an angry line on a man that didn't deserve it. With that, she turned back to Fian, ignoring Adrian's disappearance completely. Somehow, her face returned to a warming smile as she stepped a little closer to the Master Chief.

Anselm grinned like an idiot, happy to bring his cramped arm down "YES, SIR!"

"You sure about that? The last time I remember you boys going drinking, you all tore up the strip club you went to, left two ID-SOLs on their back, one on fire, and the police out looking for anyone just wearing the 'color' green. Y'know, I think Chiaki still has that burnt one's jacket with him." Suku giggled, putting a hand on the man's chest. "You sure you want to go through all that again? I mean, I'm pretty sure you could find something better to do."

Blatantly ignoring the last part of Suku's proposal, the albino felt like a little mayhem and reckless behavior, and perhaps a chance to pull a prank on the naval officer for ignoring him. "General chaos and disorderly conduct sounds good to me, sirs; when can we start?"

The marine really hoped he'd get on Suku's nerves with that last comment like he had so many sergeants back in basic and armor training, drawing ire was practically his hobby. He put on a stupid grin for the navy girl, just in case she had any doubts that he was intentionally imposing on her personal time with the Master Chief. Anselm suspected that Fian had no intention of being alone with the woman anyways, so any brownie points that fell his way would make this venture all the more worth the boot that would have to be surgically removed from his face after tonight's escapades.

 

[MoonMan]

The cab pulled up to the front of Rico's own home. The driver, a lady with a chip-on-her-shoulder-until-she-ate-it turned to look at both of the passengers in the back. To her, Rico seemed to be a rather attractive young man, and Carina was what looked like his little sister. "Well, Handsome." The cabby pulled out her cigar, and winked at young man, her fattish cheeks curling back into a smile. "This it?"

Rico peered out of the dirty cab window, faced with the familiar front of his childhood home. The sergeant allowed himself to smile nostalgically for a moment before being reminded of the reason he was here in the first place; a quick look to his left was all it took.

Carina was sitting on the old, dank and somewhat dirty seat, feet dangling, all smiles it seemed. She too looked out of a dirty cab window, unable to clearly see as her's was more or less more dirty then her father's. But all the same, she was quite simply happy to be sitting here with him, wondering just what they were going to do what, with him having leave now... Oh all the fun things they could do! Go to parks, the movies, maybe a nice place to eat...oh my yes, she smiled brightly as she looked up at, and into her father's eyes as if cute incarnate sat not even four inches from him.

Rico forced himself to smile awkwardly back at his newly-acquired daughter before turning to the cabbie in the front seat. “Yeah sugar, this is my stop,” he said shortly as he handed her his DA card out of his pocket, opening the door and setting his feet onto the moist sidewalk pavement while she transferred the payments. As he stretched his legs and arms, he began wondering just how he was going to explain this to his folks…it took him this long to realize that he really didn’t have a plan after “bring the girl to Ma’s house”. Part of him knew Callista would be absolutely enthralled by Carina…after all, Rico had to admit that she was plenty cute for a kid. The other half worried profusely about how Esma and her ‘asshole husband’ would disapprove, and in turn convey their disapproval to Callista. His sister was always the type to rat Rico out on everything he did.

Carina watched the small exchange, even giving the cabbie a small friendly wave and smile as she scooted along the seat and exited the same door as Rico. Her feet hit pavement with a small 'plop' of her shoes, the gravely cement crunching slightly as she moved. The little girl looked about, curious as to where they were... Since well, she didn't recall much of her life on Nepleslia, after all, she had been quite young, and still was for that matter. Shaking her little head, she echoed Rico's stretch, throwing her arms up, a little grunt of effort at stretching the stiff muscles escaped her lips before they swung down to her sides again. "Papi...where are we?" The question was likely one Rico would have anticipated of course since well before they'd even arrived.

The Cabbie smiled warmly back at the little girl, cigar in her mouth. After that, she rolled up the windows and drove back towards her route.

"We, short stuff," Rico said with a heavy, contented sigh as he opened his arms to the squarish, unremarkable building squelched between homes almost exactly alike. "...are at Pop's house. Or Gramma's, if you wanna get all technical an' shit. I'm sure Gramma'll be just screamin' happy to see ya..." the suave Sergeant said in a low voice. Truth be told, he was still in the process of how exactly he was going to break to news to Callista. Rico pondered on it, smiling in spite of himself as he reached out for the door handle to his childhood home...

...and found it to be locked. He froze for a moment, smile still on his face as he fully realized that the door had not opened. His smile slowly melted away into confusion as he looked down at the handle. 'Did I...turn it the wrong way?' Rico jiggled the handle left and right, but it remained firmly locked. The Nepleslian quickly began to become strangely cross at the door, cursing under his breath before banging harshly against the wooden frame. "HEY! SINCE WHEN DID WE LOCK THIS THING?!" Rico bellowed...only to receive no answer, other than a few stray dogs barking off in the distance.

 

[Soresu]

Carina kept close to her father as they neared the door that seemed to loom over the two. She however let out a small squeal at the word "Gramma", so...she had a grandmother? Oh joy! The thought danced about her noggin. Maybe she had more relatives...Oh it would be so nice to have a big family... She wore a contented smile at the prospect of meeting her grandmother, and then going with her father...but that all changed as her father became rather annoyed with the door, yelling and banging on it.

The small girl puffed up at this, and soon joined him, kicking the door furiously, as if it would help matters before she plopped to the ground, her bag at her side, and began to rub her be-shoed foot.

 

[Kokuten]

Suku's expression changed considerably as a Ran mentioned replacement panties. She turned to give the man a reason to run, but it seemed he already had, which only made Suku angrier. Once again, Anselm caught her attention.

"Hey, you, shit head. What ship are you on?" Suku asked the P3C with a bit of poison in her voice.

 

[Cy83r K0rp53]

Anselm gave her a quizzical look, as if she'd said something not quite sane "Sir... we're not on a ship-" the marine feigned realization and widened his eyes in mock understanding "oh, why the NSS Acadia, Sir, sorry I misunderstood; you wouldn't happen to be serving aboard her too?"

He emphasized the word serving as if he were correcting a child, except this was an angry naval officer with more testosterone than an ID-SOL; it was another obvious, and dangerous, fact that this naval officer happened to be a woman (Gods, help the service if they ever managed to make a female ID-SOL), so Anselm managed to veil his needling as a lack of common sense, hoping to push Suku's buttons enough to piss her off, but not enough to [legally] warrant her beating him to a pulp (or throwing the proverbial book at the albino).

 

[Kokuten]

"Oh! Why yes! Yes I would!" Suku responded in an equally mocking tone, her face turning a shade of bloody red. "And you know what?" She asked in an even higher note, grabbing him by the neck, pressing her thumb against his throat and pulling him a little closer to her level.

"Shut the fuck up, and mind your own god damn business." Suku growled as she drew the Hypolathe from her lower belt and pointed it at his neck.

 

[Cy83r K0rp53]

Anselm barely glanced at the woman's hand "too easy" and grinned when she ground the medical weapon against his throat "Is that an order, sir?" his vision swam a bit, but the grin stayed "or a special request?"

 

[Kokuten]

Suku's anger wasn't going to hold back any more, she jabbed the man in side of the neck with the Hypolathe. Anselm would feel a small amount of the injection enter into his system, but wouldn't feel any immediate effects. She stepped back and holstered the medical item.

"Okay, so in about twenty seconds, you're going to fall on the floor, shake, twitter and shit yourself for a few minutes. At least, that's what ten milligrams of Velserine usually does to a person." Suku shrugged, a smug grin on her face.

 

[Cy83r K0rp53]

Anselm's eyes widened in actual surprise as he staggered back catching his breath "you didn't, that's... fuckin' cra- Hnnk" His one good eye rolled back into his head; the cybernetic, interpreting his seizure as noise, remained still as the marine collapsed on the street and started writhing against his will for the next minute and a half.

 

[Kokuten]

Suku pulled up the Hypolathe to any other lingering Marines.

"Any of you other assholes feel like being a dipshit? Be my guess, I'll turn the dosage up to 50 and let you dicks shit yourself for two hours. Any takers? No? Good." Suku growled, "Don't fuck with me."

Finally, she stuffed Hypolathe in it's holster again. Then turned to face Fian, if he was still there, her anger almost melting away.

"Now... Where were we?" The M.O. smiled devilously.

 

[Fian]

Except Fian was not there, one could have expected that he made it to the other side of the plaza in the brief moments Suku wasn't looking based on the speeds he exhibited in his PA. But, being the realist as he is, only managed to scoot over to the other side of the shuttle (And out of sight!) once he realized there was no need to intervene before things got intravenous. Hopefully that woman would be too preoccupied with the Albino to look for him here.

So long, Anselm. Your sacrifice will not be in vain.

 

[Blackbird Lore]

Seeing all this happen from a short distance away, Viktor halted mid-step and looked at his colleague. "Echo, I've changed my mind," he said, making sure he was quiet enough to not be heard by Suku. "That person is crazy. Period. You can go right ahead and make a fool of yourself, but I refuse. A quick chuckle is not worth a succeeding two hours of shitting my pants."

 

[TeslaTornado]

"Whoa!" Harrison had stood in subdued horror as his former medic injected Anselm with the Velserine solution. He immediately moved to the Albino's position and attempted to, with Herculean effort, pin the ID-Sol's limbs down.

That went as well as it would be expected, with a cybernetically-enhanced Nepleslian nearing 40 attempting to pin down a massive ID-Sol in the middle of a drug-induced seizure. Harrison was launched off of the ID-Sol's flailing limbs with the speed and force of a boulder launched from a catapault to bounce off the street a good seven feet away.

"Oww..." He grumbled as he stood back to his feet. "Okay, Suku, that was way out of line." The old merc said, his arms at his side and ready to pull the HHGs just beneath them, just in case- for self defense purposes.

 

[Kokuten]

With Fian being gone, Suku's anger escalated, and she felt like pulling her hair out. She turned, placing her face into her palm, her body visibly shaking.

"Okay, Suku, that was way out of line."

Her hand lowered for a moment, looking at Harrison.

"Oh? Tell me, how many of you are going to mess with me in the future now? Hm?" Suku furrowed her brow at the man. "Not many of you I bet. I'd like it to call it a lesson. I was trying to have a conversation with Vel Steyr, dipshit here interrupted that conversation. So, what happens when I kindly tell him to FUCK OFF? He doesn't, so I unkindly tell him to fuck off." The woman glared angry before looking at the rest of them.

"You want to know why all these 'vets' don't want to be around me too long? Because they know I'm a crazy bitch, and I know I'm a crazy bitch, and now you fuckers know I'm a crazy bitch." Suku looks at her data pad, and then looks at Anselm. "He's got another ten seconds."

 

[TeslaTornado]

Harrison looked grimly from his floored position up at Suku. Bitch really is crazy, he thought to himself as he stood and brushed himself off. I'm just glad Ran beat such a hasty retreat.

Without noting the numerous scrapes and bruises on his person, both from Anselm's unintentional attacks and his brief flight across the plaza, Harrison rejoined the group of Marines he had flown in with, noting Fian, Trey and Viktor had dissappeared as well. Thusly, he was left pretty much alone with a struggling ID-Sol and a psychotic medic with a never-ending supply of poisons and other nasties potentially harmful medical supplies.

 

[cyborgakadjmoose]

Phaedra deftly stepped out of the shuttle, still lugging her equipment bag and hefting her weapon case on her shoulder. Although she now saw the foolishness of carrying them around everywhere, especially while on leave, she did not want them to be misplaced.

"A good soldier takes proper care of personal wargear," thought Phaedra, a maxim that was repeated often during her training.

Although both of them had agreed they should soon meet with the rest of the crew, Amelia had decided to stay at the house for a bit longer. Phaedra politely dismissed herself and returned to the recruitment center, catching a shuttle to arrive at Roger Wilco.

She traversed the long causeway from the shuttle to the small plaza just outside the Upper Wards. There were a fair amount of marines still conregating about, and Phaedra scanned the scattered groups for someone she recognized. Amid some bizarre commotion centered around a woman in a navy uniform, Phaedra spotted some familiar faces. There were few people she had actually met, but recognizing some faces was better than nothing. She decided against heading towards the group in the center, as it consisted mostly of a vulgar shouting match. Off to one side she spotted two marines conversing while watching the events unfolding in the center of the plaza.

As she drew closer to the marines she noticed that one was rather tall and lean and casually smoking the narcotic commonly known as a "Cancer Stick." The other man was dark-skinned and possessed the massive form of an ID-SOL, easily a foot taller than the other man. She recognized them from earlier, but Phaedra had not introduced herself.

The tramp of combat boots heralded her arrival, and she stopped next to the two marines.

"Okay...less formal this time," thought Phaedra with a mental kick.

"Hi. I'm Phaedra" she said with a small nod and her lips curving up into a slight smile.

(Just so no one misses this, yes...she just walked up to Viktor and Echo.)