Temperaments In Tempest

[Beans]

The silver-haired young woman had a good deal of things in life.
She had this room---not exactly a mansion, but there was a bed and a desk and a place to keep the small stack of CDs she would not part with.

She had her art---people would say it was good, but they didn't understand. There was always something wrong, and if they didn't see it then they were lying to sound nice. However, she'd learned to stop destroying things after making them.

She had... teammates. They could work her nerves into a screaming frenzy, but they weren't all that bad. One in particular was very good at getting her hackles raised, but she probably didn't intend to. Most of the time.
Or maybe she did.

The young woman tossed away the softworn, oversized shirt she'd slept in and pulled on a black t-shirt, grey khakis. A moment of consideration and she pulled on a grey sportcoat, plain and dull. She had her reasons, though she'd always lie and claim it was to have more pockets.

Sketchpad under her arm and pencils in an inside pocket of her jacket, she stepped out into the hall, brushing silvery hair from her rainy grey eyes.

Black Irukandji headed down to the common room; Miss Harker had mentioned there were things to talk about this morning.

((This is the same opening as the first time we tried this, yes.))

[Lady Serpentine]

Lupine helmet tucked under her arm, Alia heads out of her room, smiling a bit. They were finally going to be doing something, after all, and she was rather pleased to be out of the base. Not that it wasn't nice here - better than the alternative, certainly, and the rest of the team was alright, though she didn't know them very well - but it could get a bit dull in some ways.

Soon enough, she arrived in the common room, and dropped onto one of the couches, smiling a bit at the other person here.

"Hello, Iru."

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé entered the room, spiky black hair wet from her morning shower. She was wearing light gray sweats, and her neck was engulfed in a large towel she was using to scrub at her head. Though, perhaps it helped her to feel more hidden, as well.

She took a seat at the remaining couch, thinking about a time when all her teammates would pile onto the same one, like some sit-com promotional poster she had seen in town. That would be nice.

[Dorizzit]

The last of the four to arrive is Jenna. Ironically, she had been the first of any of them to rise in the morning; as soon as she had, she went to the facility's gym and worked out for several hours. Jenna rarely got much sleep. Years in dangerous areas had left her a light sleeper and unable to sleep longer than a few hours at a time. After going for a few hours, it became easy for her to lose track of time. She enters the room, still sweating from her exertion. When she had realized how late it was, she had not had the time left to shower.

After entering, Jenna vaults over the back of the nearest couch and lands in the seat. This happens to be the same couch as the one she knew only as "Green Chameleon."

[Beans]

Vesa blinks at Wolf's greeting.
Yes.
She finally sits down on the remaining empty couch.
Ms Harker has been waiting for them. She is an averagely-pretty woman in her mid-30s with average brown hair, average brown eyes, average Caucasian skin tone, and average height. If she were to step into a crowd, she would disappear.

Now that we're all here, ladies, let's move on to your first real mission.
Not a Cambium test, not a training exercise.

[Lady Serpentine]

Alia would have responded to Vesa, or possibly commented on the arrival of her other teammates, but Ms. Harker's statement drew her attention, and she grinned, paying little attention to the others.

"What sort of mission is it, then? Where do we go and what are we doing? Those are sort of important to know before we go out on it..."

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé lets out an involuntary peep as the Yellow Wolverine jumps onto her couch. They had seen one another at the gym this morning, but not really spoken to one another.

Ms Harker begins the meeting and Chloé tries her best to pay attention, but continuously glances at the girl next to her. She is smiling a little smile.

[Dorizzit]

Jenna glances across at Green Chameleon when the latter vocalizes her surprise. Thus far, Jenna had been rather unimpressed with her teammates; they hardly seemed like military material. She had barely noticed Chameleon's presence in the gym earlier. Jenna focuses on the briefing, noticing Chameleon's stares but pretending not to. She is glad that they are done with testing; she had adjusted to her suit quickly and had long grown bored with those exercises, and Jenna despises Cambium Mode; while its benefits are obvious, the lack of control is extremely unpleasant leaves her more vulnerable than she'd like.

[Beans]

You'll be retrieving this device.
She taps on the screen behind her; up comes an image of a black boxy object with a red sphere embedded in the top surface.
This is a Minoretski Device, a sort of specialized battery for certain... devices.
It's been tracked to a location here in New Mexico. There's a fairly high concentration of guard personnel, but they lack skill and experience.
She taps again; a map comes up with a diagram of a research compound.
You leave this afternoon.

[Lady Serpentine]

"So... Is there any sort of plan for going in? Or are we coming up with one ourselves?", Wolf asks, smiling a bit, and examining the diagram as closely as she can. "And will they have any way to jam our communications, or even feed us false data? Also, will we pick our own teams, be going in as one group, or get assigned a partner?"

[Dorizzit]

Jenna listens intently to the mission briefing, leaning forward so as to better focus on Ms. Harker's words. Experience had taught her that these were matters of life and death.

"Do we have any information on guard distribution? How about where the device is located?"

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé almost speaks up, but then everyone else starts asking the prudent questions and she sits back and blushes.

Asking what to do once she had the device was probably a stupid question anyway.

[Beans]

"You'll be working within a preset lineup as planned by myself.
As to guard distribution, our data is as follows." She displays some graphics.
"No chance of them interfering with your communications."

Another graphic comes up. "Now, we beleive the device is here."

[Dorizzit]

Jenna nods.

"Simple enough."

[NotScaryBats]

"Oui, I can do this thing," Chloé says quietly, agreeing with her couch-mate. She smiles weakly and gets up, assuming the briefing is over. If not stopped, she goes to get suited up and ready to go.

[Lady Serpentine]

Wolf frowns when Ms. Harker says she'll be assigning them, but her expression clears as the various things come up on the screen, and she nods when her teammates speak.

"Shouldn't be an issue," she agrees, hopping up off the couch, and, if Chloe wasn't stopped, going to get ready as well.

[Beans]

"Go eat and then get suited up." Ms. Harker leaves them to it; Vesa heads for the eating area to get some food before it's time to suit up.

[Dorizzit]

Jenna stands and goes for the eating area as well.

[Lady Serpentine]

Alia nodded, following the other two - Ms. Harker's instructions made sense; not remembering to eat before training had been bad enough, and Wolf had no interest in risking passing out on a mission.

Unless Chloe is already off getting suited up, that is; in that case, she heads after Chameleon, to let her know that they've got some time, and she should probably grab some food with them before they have to leave.

[NotScaryBats]

Blushing furiously, Chloé shuffles quickly over to the eating area and gets herself a small portion of food. Certainly by this point, everyone was staring at her, wondering how they could have the misfortune if being paired with such an unworthy ally. She kept her head down and gulped down her meal quickly and inelegantly.

But, she didn't leave first, this time. After eating, she quietly waited for someone else to take the heat and move out before following herself.

[Beans]

Vesa, leaving, passes Chameleon. She notices the way the French girl is eating and frowns.
"Careful there, Scales. You'll get hiccups. Not very stealthy with those."
She leaves, sketchpad under her arm; she sketched people while she ate. If Chloe follows, Vesa stops at her room first to put away her sketchpad.

[NotScaryBats]

Phew, the other pale girl -- the one with the difficult to say name -- was leaving first. Perhaps a bit too eagerly, she gets up and leaves the room after her.

What was that she said? Hiccups? Chloé was not sure what that meant, but she smiled and nodded anyway.

When the two are alone in the hallway, Chloé asks, "Vous... You are a drawer?"

[Beans]

"Hmm?" Vesa blinks. Oh, it's Chameleon asking things. "I suppose so, but the drawings are really never any good." She shrugs.

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé nods at the other girl, smiling. She was no good at drawing, either, so she understood completely.

When Vesa goes into her room to drop off her sketchbook, Chloé continues on to the area that the suits are kept. She begins to get herself ready.

[Lady Serpentine]

Alia is probably already in the room with the suits, just starting to get into hers, when Chloe enters; if so, she waves at the other girl, smiling, and apparently unconcerned with her lack of clothing.

"Hey, Chameleon. You doing okay? You looked kind of nervous back there..."

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé smiles unevenly at the other girl, "Oui, it is sometimes difficult to understand you all. It is so many different ways of saying the same thing." She looks confused a moment, replaying what she said in her head, then she nods.

Beginning with her towel, the French girl starts to undress and get into her skin tight suit.

[Lady Serpentine]

Alia nods, hooking the exoskeletal augmentations for her legs up, and zipping part way into her suit, before sliding her arms into the clawed sleeves/gloves.

"I know what you mean... That trips me up sometimes too," she agrees, fumbling behind herself to finish hooking up the exoskeleton. "You mind helping me out? The claws aren't really designed for fine work, and the hookups are in kind of an awkward position anyway..."

Assuming Chloe's answer is affirmative, Wolf smiles gratefully at her, and turns around so that the French girl can hook up the augmentations.

[Beans]

Vesa comes in, already pulling her shirt off before she's through the door.
She nods to the other two, undressing to put on her skintight base suit.

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé is not body shy, and agrees with a nod to help Alia with her armor. She is no expert though, and takes a few corrections for everything to be put together right.

Assuming she can be talked through it, she finishes with, "Oh, much more difficult than mine I think. But, maybe it suits you." then she continues to squeeze into her stealth suit, like a wetsuit.

[Lady Serpentine]

She probably can, yes, assuming she's reasonably dexterous.

"Probably is. But you're right; it does suit me," Alia replies, nodding back at Vesa when she enters. "The claws fit my skills pretty well, as do the leg augs."

[Dorizzit]

Last to enter the room is Jenna. She was the quickest eater of the group, but had disappeared somewhere between eating and suiting up. She offers no explanation for her tardiness, instead heading over to her suit's mounting. She quickly strips off her clothing and then begins suiting up. Jenna's basic suit is easy to get into, but the armored sections that cover it take much longer to attach and connect. Despite this, Jenna is extremely efficient and quickly begins to catch up to the others.

[Beans]

Vesa observes her companions' bare bodies with a detatched sort of interest, observing their peak physical conditions rather than the sexual aspects of thier appearance. She dons her featureless form-helmet, then her kama, overboots, bracers, and finally the wide bowl-like device bristling with sensacles and camera eyes she calls a bell.

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé doesn't want to show it, but as she finishes with her suit and looks around, she can't help but feel a bit jealous of the other girls' impressive-looking suits. She sits down on a bench and crosses her legs, idly testing her suit's capabilities by slowly activating all of its stealth and then deactivating it.

She is seen gradually fading into nothingness and then reappearing -- quite a sight for someone who has never seen it before -- but for the girls around her, undoubtedly unimpressive given all the test runs they'd done as a unit.

When she does reappear, Chloé begins to wait patiently for the other girls -- with their more intimidating, impressive suits -- to finish.

[Beans]

The Sensacles streaming from Vesa's bell come to life, swinging their camera eyes around at the other girls and flexing their manipulator digits.

She activates her hover unit, rising six inches from the floor. "Black Irukandji, hover unit online. Sensacle units online. Bell cameras online. A/V subprocessors online. Cognition is normal." She doesn't have to drone out the checklist, but she prefers to. However, she still pauses before her next item. "Cambium system online, non-activated."
She dislikes thinking about her Cambium system, the Melancholia Drive. It took the other three a while to find her and bring her back to base when the system's aftereffects kicked in while they did Cambium tests in the woods near the base; her irrational misery and instinct to hide took the team by surprise.

[Lady Serpentine]

Alia noted Iru's gaze with a bit of surprise, not having expected her to study them like that, though she didn't much care. She'd lost whatever self-consciousness she might have had early on, when she found that not only was there not even a mention of separate changing rooms, her suit was almost impossible to get into properly without help from one of the others; as long as it didn't interfere with the mission, Black could watch her get suited up as much as she liked, whether she was looking for something to draw (though in that case, a copy of the sketch would be nice; Iru might not think she was that good, and, for all Wolf knew, she might have been comparing herself to people that she wasn't in relation to, but from the glimpses she'd seen when the other girl was working, she was rather fond of her style), found her attractive, or was just assessing her condition.

In any case, the only thing left now was her helmet, which she quickly, though not hurriedly, pulled on, before starting to go through her own checklist; something that, like Iru, she preferred to do aloud, though in her case, there was a reason to as well, specifically that her suit was hooked into those of her teammates in various ways, so her checklist also related to all of them.

"Red Wolf, Black Irukandji locational sensors online. Green Chameleon locational sensors online. Yellow Mongoose locational sensors online. All accurate to .0023 meters. Black Irukandji Sensacle feed online. Black Irukandji Bell feed online. Green Chameleon Ghost feed online. All communication systems online, all routing systems online. Sound and image quality is within acceptable parameters," she said, smiling, though the only way to tell was that her mood was reflected in her voice. "Exoskeleton strength enhancers online. Helmet jaws online... Cambium system online, non-active."

[NotScaryBats]

Chloé nodded to herself. It looked like everyone was ready to move out.

She escused herself from the prep / changing room and made her way to the vehicle that would take them to their target. She wondered vaguely if it would be a helicopter or jet, a truck or what, this time.

[Beans]

Vesa looks at her teammates while heading out the door.
"I think we will be traveling by air."

[Lady Serpentine]

Alia nods, following Chloe and Vesa to the hangar.

"Good. I guess it'll be a short trip, too? I mean, otherwise I can't see why we'd have had to suit up here..."

[Beans]

The team is led into the cargo plane's main space; there are crates to sit on and not much else.
Going soon.