CONVOY

[greatcleavage]

who: Everyone who wanted to come on the expedition Roy is arranging!
what: A community is failing. We're going to save them. ROLL OUT.
when: 4/10-4/12 (or thereabouts)
where: The Quarantine to the ravine and back again
warnings: ?



((OOC: No tag orders, they just keep threads from getting done. Feel free to NPC monsters or run with your own ideas! Also, sorry for how late this was, it was a bad week.))

Comments

Mingles and Travels

[greatcleavage]

[Top-levels for mingling go here!]

[unmakeme]

Natasha turns up early, already suited up and ready to go. Roy never got back to her with details, but she doesn't judge him for it. Not really. Probably busy. That's one thing she can understand. This place lends itself to a very specific kind of chaos. So she just turns up early and figures she'll feel things out before they get on the road. She's not sure if she's supposed to drive, is confident she can handle it if she is, but would still like to familiarize herself with the trucks and the route ahead of time.

She's kept tabs on who else responded to his request for help. Those who did so publicly, in any case. She hopes the onion shows up. She even kind of hopes that Scott shows up. Something familiar can't hurt. Or maybe it can. Over-thinking is not a productive use of her time. A productive use of her time, right now, is checking her charge levels and that she's carrying as much ammunition as possible without compromising her movement.

[smokedout]

He'd been expecting to be the first one here, but what do you know... there was someone more invested in looking prepared than him. Which is fine by him, he has some company while he waits for others to show up.

"Don't believe we've met." His voice is monotone, but by how close he's chosen to stand and something about the way he offers his pack of cigarettes after lighting one with a snap of his fingers, he might be flirting. Who knows, really. "You a friend of Greenhilt's?"

[unmakeme]

"Never met the man." Natasha's voice doesn't have much more inflection. She mirrors, and this is a fairly straight forward mission they're going on, she's preparing to be professional. She waves one hand in the air in front of her, dismissing the pack of cigarettes. "No thanks."

She turns and lowers the hood of the truck. She's gotten a decent look, and she's confident that it's familiar enough that she could do a quick field repair of any of the hoses, or cannibalize one truck to fix the other if something goes more catastrophically wrong."And you? Do you know him well?" Natasha already knows that Dodger doesn't know Roy from their conversation on the network, but she's not used to giving up information she doesn't have to.

[smokedout]

He shrugs, smoothly returning the pack to his pocket and leaning against the truck when she closes it up, "I'm sort of a new face. For the moment, it's safe to assume I don't know anyone."

Having been displaced from his usual easy stream of information, he feels a bit rusty with the role of a common mercenary. But he's not about to try and hide what he is, as long as he can keep himself out of jail one way or another.

"But I figure if whatever reward we get for this isn't big enough I can probably find someone willing to buy a live specimen or two of whatever sad fucks we're supposed to be helping out here... so why not tag along." He's kind of joking... how serious he is about any of the fucked up things he says tends to depend on the reactions he gets from saying them.

[greatcleavage]

"I owe you an apology and I need your help," was how Roy greeted her, one hand rubbing his forehead as he approached. "The apology is for not getting the information to you in a timely fashion, and the help I need is figuring out how I can do that on these devices."

All things considered, Roy felt he had been navigating a complicated device that he couldn't distinguish from incredibly complex magic with reasonable aplomb -- but when they'd told him to just forward the files on, that was where he got completely lost.

[unmakeme]

The speed with which both ideas are presented to her makes her chuckle. She holds up her hand in the universal gesture to wait just a moment, then turns her back to him and powers down her suit entirely on the internal control panel before zipping back up and turning ot face him once more. This way she won't risk frying his phone. "All right, let's see what you're working with," she says, hand outstretched.

[greatcleavage]

The device he passed over was merely a smartphone, no different or fancier than any other model in the city. The failure lay entirely with Roy, and he knew it.

"I've been trying to treat it simply like a magical device for communication," he said, trying his best to keep his patience with himself, "but I've realized that devices like these are far more -- versatile?" Was that the word he wanted? "Than magical items, which are made for a given purpose and have no flex or leeway outside of that purpose. The options are somewhat overwhelming."

[toolatetochangethename]

Scott had every intention to show up early, but, well, yeah. He's Ant Man. And he needs coffee before he's functional. So here he is, 20 minutes late but with a fresh...uh, whatever this place calls Starbucks.

But hey, he's given the suit a good once-over, at least, so he's ready to go and do this thing!

"Hey, gonna be cool fighting on the same side, huh?" And not, you know, having that whole 'am I a jerk if I punch a girl if she's a trained assassin' debate again.

[unmakeme]

"Sure," she deadpans at him. "Cool."

Scott is presenting her with a very unique opportunity, and Natasha is spooling it out carefully. He wants her approval. Well, he wants approval full stop, but he's taking particular care going after hers. Which means, as long as he's still striving for it, she's got him with very minimal effort. He might even want her to like him. She knows about his life, his past. She knows he's not exactly mister popularity.

"You're taking this seriously, I hope. There are people who need our help. This isn't a joke."

[oniondaughter]

As if summoned by Natasha's thought, the onion appears in all her plate mail-clad glory. She's even given her armor a bit of a polish, and sharpened her sword in preparation of the mission.

She arrives just a few minutes before the agreed upon arrival time. Suiting up takes a while, and she's not exactly the swiftest person around in this armor, but she made a real effort not to be late to this. It wouldn't do to make a poor first impression, after all - not when she's the sole representative of the Knights of Catarina!

"Oh, hello there! Natasha, was it?" She asks, her tone relatively cheerful and friendly. "You signed up for the mission as well?"

[unmakeme]

"I did, yes. I was wondering if you'd come." Her pale grey jumpsuit is gone, the gold of the Bites sprayed over in black. It's a water based covering, so it may end up coming off at some point during the mission, but she wants to be certain of her modification before she glazes it. This is as good a time to battle test them as any.

She eyes the armour, eyes the door of the truck. She's never worn plate before, and it seems even more cumbersome in full daylight. "Are you... going to be able to get in the truck?" It seems like she'll clear the doorway, only just, but actually mounting the little steps up into the cab is an entirely different matter.

Re: Mingles and Travels

[mysophobic]

Well Shigeru is a bit more quiet than everyone else but that's just due to the fact he can't speak. He is also bad at socializing but he'll manage through this as they're all working as a team together.

Though he'll start to see the others show after a time. He hasn't really met any of them and this is probably a good way to get to know others here so he'll start off with whoever he happens to be closest to at the time. He'll give a friendly wave and smile as he types up something on his phone for them to read.

"Hello it's nice to meet you! I don't think we've met before, I'm Shigeru Miyata. I'll be helping with healing and fighting on the side. I brought some extra medical supplies as well, so don't be afraid to ask if you need something!

[smokedout]

Dodger had noticed the man being quiet, but it doesn't take him long to notice pauses where even a shy person would pipe up. It barely surprises him when the man starts typing instead, and communicating that way.

He disappears with a pop near Shigeru, a flash of sparks floating past him and somewhere along the way the phone disappears from his hand. Dodger appears next to him, reading through the message with a lazy expression before handing it back. He's pretty sure Shigeru had intended to 'speak' to someone else, but he's got Shigeru's attention now and that's what matters.

"Can you hear?"

[mysophobic]

Everything Dodger does happens so fast that Shigeru can't properly react until he's handing his phone back to him. Shigeru's face goes pale white while watching him touch it however. There's a look of dismay on his features the longer Dodger handles his phone. Shigeru might flinch away when his phone is offered back to him. It's probably obvious, from the white gloves on his hands, that he's not exactly the most normal of people. It's even more noticeable when he takes out a sanitizing wipe and takes his phone back that way.

Sorry Dodger he isn't going to respond until his phone is clean, which takes a couple of seconds to do, mostly because his ocd is pretty bad still. But he does know they other is waiting for a reply and that gets him to snap back slightly to respond.

Sorry! Yes I...can hear! [ Though now he looks totally awkward and embarrassed at his display before the other man. ]

[greatcleavage]

Huh. Roy had not considered this use for these devices, and now that he'd been awakened to it he actually found himself respecting them somewhat more. Far more efficient than a journal or a chalkboard or something like that.

"Roy Greenhilt," he said, offering a hand. "We communicated."

[mysophobic]

Ah. Well he doesn't take the offered hand in fact he might flinch slightly when its offered. He might pause for a second before giving the other a sheepish, if awkward smile back. He's sorry if he's rude but there's reason?!

Sorry! I'm not really good with that sort of thing.

Hand shaking he means. Instead he'll just type something else up to try and not make it as awkward.

It's very nice to meet you! I hope we can get through this without too much trouble.

Random Encounter

[greatcleavage]

[The trip couldn't be perfectly painless, of course. The land outside the Quarantine is wild and untamed, full of creatures of all shapes and sizes -- and some of them are hungry.]

[As evening darkens the trees and undergrowth around them, faint lights like flickering fire occasionally illuminate the forest. Never in the same place twice, always hanging far enough back that investigating would put an unacceptable distance between the curious person and the trucks they ought to be protecting.]

[In fact, those lights are fire-wolves, canines with molten teeth and fiery breath -- and the two over there are only drawing attention while the rest of the pack circles around, only announcing their presence when they lunge out of the brush in attack.]

Random Encounter (I am back from family crisis time!)

[toolatetochangethename]

"Hey, guys?" Someone had to go out to take a piss, but only made it so far, just beyond the perimeter of their campfire. "I don't wanna sound cliche or anything, but I think we got trouble."

[oniondaughter]

The first reply Scott gets comes in the form of metal shifting against metal, as Sieglinde sits up from her resting position in order to get a better look at what he was shouting about.

And that's when she noticed the two glowing lights, approaching her ally.

"I see them." She says, drawing her sword and lifting herself to her feet as swiftly as she can. It isn't a quiet affair, but it's faster than one might expect as the heavily armored knight approaches him from behind-

- or attempts to, at least. She only gets about halfway there before one of the flanking wolves dives out of the bushes and tackles her, its fiery breath charring the front of her freshly-polished armor as it knocks her onto her side.

"Wha-GOOD HEAVENS! What is this thing?!"

[toolatetochangethename]

Stealth: apparently not on the agenda for the day. But hey, he's not complaining--if it's normal wild animals, noise should scare 'em off.

Right?

A.....pparently not, as one of the things lunges in a line behind him, dashing toward the armored, uh, armor, there. Okay, this is cool. He can do this. It's clobberin' ti--oh wait, wrong catchphrase.

"Something that's gonna regret some poor life choices!" Okay, that's a sucky catchphrase, too, but give him a break. It's time to shrink down and become an ant-sized punching machine! Take THAT, wolf thing!

Arrival

[greatcleavage]

[About a mile out from the projected location of the small community they seek, Roy calls a halt, the better to address the gathered expedition members.]

We don't know what's been happening to them or what we can expect, so I'd like to just request we all keep weapons sheathed and stay utterly non-confrontational until it's absolutely clear we have no other choice. This includes in the face of weapons being drawn at us.

If anyone's not comfortable with risking injury through deliberately lowering your defenses like that, you're totally welcome to stay in the trucks or out of the way without any judgment whatsover. It is dangerous and not terribly rational, so I'm not going to insist anyone other than myself holds to it.

[oniondaughter]

Well...

[There's a slight hesitance in Sieglinde's voice at first, but it leaves as quickly as it had appeared.]

...I won't doff my armor, but I see no harm in attempting such diplomacy. I'd rather not be mistaken as slavers or kidnappers, and a peaceful approach can only help deter that.

[greatcleavage]

Whoa, whoa, no one's saying take off the armor! [No getting crazy here, Sieglinde. Roy is at least as big an advocate of wearing it as she is (even if his is not QUITE so appearance-defining.] I'm sure they'll understand we had to take sensible precautions in transit and stepping into an unknown situation. If not, that will raise some very valuable questions anyway.

[smokedout]

Iunno about you, I'm all for making the girl strip.

[He's laughing quietly at his own joke, but it's clear enough from his tone he's not entirely kidding. It's been clear enough through the trip that he's not big on being 'non-confrontational', but someone's going to have to specifically ask him to stay with the trucks. And then make sure he actually listens.]