Scene #8161: TWINE: Exercise at Gibraltar

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James Bond	Gibraltar British Overseas Territory Iberian Peninsula In the dead of night, the black patrol boat helmed by Alec Trevelyan waits. The distant lights of a densely populated town are easily made out, reaching you from across an expanse of inky blackness, beneath a starless, overcast sky. Alec is the same age as Bond, but he looks hardly a day over 25, with short black tousled hair and a face better suited to a moody musician or delinquent than a world-class assassin. The kind of man magazines might call a 'heartthrob,' if people like him were ever spoken of. The drone of an air transport quite ubiqitous in the West steadily grows quieter. Perhaps five minutes ago, the training exercise began--a joint operation between the RAF and the secret service. MI6 agents, visible as faint specks, finish their descent, landing on the outskirts of the town which flanks the imposing Rock of Gibraltar. The newest candidate of the Die Another Day program is somewhere in that squad of seven. Luckily, Alec is able to provide a photograph. Bond studies it, glances towards the coast and furrows his brow. "How did you get this?" Alec grins. "Well, the private sector isn't quite as fantastical as working for the Commonwealth, I'm sure--but I have my ways." "You'll have to tell me about it sometime," says Bond with rare warmth. The plan is simple--Alec will take the boat to the western shore, where you'll all essentially follow in the wake of the MI6 team. Their training exercise involves infiltrating an RAF installation at the western edge of the city. They'll be on radio silence, so as long as each member is dealt with out of sight and earshot of the rest, isolating the newest candidate should be simple. Contact with the RAF should be avoided if possible--but Alec has supplied dark fatigues, knit caps, commando sweaters and paintball guns for the easy out of deniably being part of the exercise under immediate, quick-glance scrutiny. The first part of the infiltration is probably the simplest--the insertion point. 'Coast' here can often mean cliff--and that's precisely where Alec parks the boat, in the shade of a rather steep wall of rock. The rumble of a patrolling military jeep can be heard approaching as one scales higher.
Kale Hearthward	Kale examines the provided fatigues, and asks some questions about what specifically the MI6 agents are likely wearing. Between making some alterations to what's provided and dipping into his own hammerspaced wardrobe for a few pieces, he's able to get something together that'll stand up to more than just quick glance scrutiny. With the Paladins-issue 'instant baseline human' glamour applied, and a few little alterations to his stance and accent to be authentically british, he fits in even more. Getting up the cliff is a little harder without risking Kale's jetboots making noise, but fortunately he can fall back on his wind magic instead. Ultra-localized updrafts push him and anyone else who needs assistance upwards, like riding up on a slightly awkward elevator made out of air.
Ishirou	Ishirou had to figure out what he was going to do, he couldn't take POD with him...on the other hand... So Ishirou transforms, with POD giving him the black tactical gear with the visor on his head that is vaguely 'POD' shaped. He then puts on the gear provided by Trevelyan. So it looks like a young man in a slightly oversized outfit with a visor. And a beret. Ishirou is nearly beaming at this, using his own ability to fly upwards to land on the ground. You can occasionally hear him humming some secret agent song from the TV he's heard. Yes, it's the mission impossible theme.
Hellwarming Trio	"Come on, it'll be cool! It'll be just like those videos with the dudes spinning around and shooting stuff real fast." "I dunno. Sneaking around, doing all this... Sneaky stuff? We could probably just blow everything else up and pull them out of it when they're trying to get out." "But that's not cool enough. Besides, we gotta do this all quiet like for Teacher, too. Mmrgh... Master, back me up here!" Despite Utsuho's apparent skepticism, both she and Rin are dressed in the provided fatigues and sweaters while the latter struggles with getting the cap on over her extra set of ears. Rin's certainly looking excited about the mission, although it takes a few tries (and possible guidance from someone else) to actually hold her paintball gun the right way. On the other side of the boat, Satori already has her whole outfit on as she shoulders her paintball gun. She gives Rin a firm nod at her pleading, looking deadly serious despite vibrating faintly with excitement. "Copy that, Agent R. Let's bag our man and get out before they know we were even here." Getting up the side of the cliff is easy enough, at least, with the three able to just cheat it by flying. They're sticking close to the wall, though, keeping pace with their companions for the time being. Hearing the jeep further up, Satori takes point, then makes vague hand gestures that might be readable as a 'hold position' while she listens for the driver's thoughts. With any luck, she'll be able to figure out when it's safe to get up there by the time she can't hear those thoughts any longer.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry, after considerable hemming and hawing and visible discomfort, has finally decided not to don the fatigues. She's here in her usual outdoorsy-casual clothes instead, wand strapped to her back. An awkwardly apologetic smile shows how she feels about that. (She does take the paintball gun, though.) The cliff face ahead of them is surprisingly little obstacle for her, even without her flight: she's uncertain at first, but athletic and coordinated enough to pretty quickly adjust. She stops twice: once to look back over her shoulder and offer anyone who's struggling a hand up, and another time when that jeep rumbles past overhead. While she waits for it to pass, Strawberry grips a fingerhold on the cliff with one hand and reaches behind her back to touch her wand with the other. Switching it on, she dimly suspects, might blow their cover inherently. But after the Project's adjustments, she doesn't need to to expand her awareness. Invisible, ethereal ghosts peel off of her body and fan out across Gibraltar. They flit past the Jeep to search out the MI6 team from above- with a particular interest in any who might be separated from their group. <J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "I know what butch is...just..." <J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "I wouldn't use that to describe Strawberry?" <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "Well, it's sort of-" <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess can't safely handwobble while climbing the cliff, but she makes a handwobble-reminiscent noise with her mouth. <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "Maybe not?" In the meantime, Strawberry glances down at her own outfit, feeling a bit self-conscious. "I guess... I don't really know what I count as?"
Lilian Rook	"I appreciate Agent Trevelyan's careful forethought and generous, assistance, but . . ." Under the cover of darkness, over the hum of the engine and the steady bumping of the PT craft on the waves, Lilian examines a pair of black fatigues like the corpse of an unfortunate animal she knows unpleasantly well that she is the only one old enough to be disposing of. "I think I might actually just kill them if they caught me skulking around in this getup." she says, putting the article down and immaculately folding it into neater shape than it arrived. She offers Alec himself the ghost of a rueful smile by way of apology. "Please excuse the arrogance of a spoiled young lady who has never worked a day in her life." she says. As of late, Lilian gets her own turn in the stitched chain of transformation sequences. Swarming embers of black and gold light coalesce into a steel-grey second skin and harden over it in layers of shining onyx band and plate and glimpse-of-gold articulate joins. A soft, pulsing glow flows through the radial patterns expanding from the heart, and the bladeform pendant rises up from it, so that Lilian can grasp the hilt and draw forth Night Mist from a thin-air scabbard of inky smoke. Jet black antler crowns her golden lily where her hair falls down, altogether far from the stealthiest impression. And yet, so fine are those plates that the clatter of her movements is like the soft ticking of a precision watch. Her footfalls are soft and near-weightless. The glint and glow of her regalia mutes itself from a short distance, and her silhouette melts into the night. She gently swings her sword back over her shoulder, wher it anchors itself across her spine by ghostly force, and gently runs her fingertips down her arm. She smiles, thinly, at the paintball markers, given a second glance. Strawberry reminds her of the last time she'd used one. Despite all the other burdens attached to that day, she had enjoyed it, in the end. Lilian makes a mental note to do it again. Soon. Sortieng out into the night by air, crossing town on an imperceptible wake of blackness-on-blackness, Lilian aims herself straight for the center wedge of the Mi6 drop, using her radio as she goes; the upgraded model she doesn't have to touch. "Seven of them? Presuming Miss Satori's full attention is utilized wrangling her familiars, that leaves two for me and one for each of you, with our golden boy the odd one out for Bond. How does that sound?" Of course, she doesn't have the instrumentation to track the agents from the air, so she's relying on raw precognition, half-tranced in transit, to keep tabs on where she can intercept two of them in a relatively close location. 'I guess... I don't really know what I count as?' "Hmmmm . . . I think I'd struggle to even really call you a tomboy." Lilian muses. "It's hard to judge your day appearance, working through it as you are. But if I were to go by what Strawberry Princess is, I think she most certainly has a true girl's heart. A sporty one, perhaps." She continues as if the previous and following were the same topic. "Can you maintain visual on all of them at once? Under these conditions, you're by far our best recon asset."
James Bond	Alec seems to have taken Lilian's comments in good fun, even commenting that it's no wonder she managed to get Bond to join up. Bond helps tuck Rin's ears under the knit cap--then stands behind her and adjusts her grip on the paintball gun. "This end forward. If you need to shoot, cheek first, then shoulder. Don't lower your head to do it." Bond goes from scaling the cliff competently to almost rappelling upwards, thanks to Kale's updrafts. Headlights illuminate the path above, and a jeep trundles past. Bond pauses in time with Satori's signal, relaying it downwards. The driver, she can tell, is part of the RAF side of the exercise, and is rather excited to 'stick it to the suits.' He's out of reading distance before long, and the coast is relatively clear. "That kind of thing isn't really talked about in the circles I kept," Bond says to Strawberry, pulling himself onto the road and standing up, "I wish I had the vocabulary to pose something you'd like. However you like to call it, you'll make some other girl very happy, someday." Dusting himself off, he nods to her wand, only dimly aware that she'd used it for something. "Visual confirmation?" he asks hopefully. She has it. Invisible eidolons spread out over the peninsula, soaring over darkened roads bedecked with hardy greenery and giving way to the sea. Seven figures, in dark clothes very much like the disguises Alec handed out. If she deigns to have them fly close enough, she can pick out the 'golden boy'--wo appear to be sticking together, not far from the group's current position, using the brush that clings to the cliffward side of the road to conceal themselves when patrols approach. The other five are spread out, likely blown slightly off course by the wind. They form a loose star pattern from west to east, the nearest point stuck on the beach and climbing upwards, with the furthest lying in wait for the others. That's the one. Lilian confers the plan over the radio, and Bond nods. "Perfect," he radios back. "I'll split off and go after him. Once you've all handled the rest of the squad, regroup with me. Maybe extra voices will help." "Ishirou, get a tacnet going with a map relay. Get positioning from Strawberry and designate the candidate as 007," Bond utters with a smirk. "Then count down the rest." So named: 007 - Bond will handle this one. He's the furthest east, the closest one to reaching the RAF installation. Currently waiting for the rest of his squad. 006 - Next nearest. Currently rappelling down a cliff wall, must have come in too high on his approach. Out of earshot of 007, but in visual range of 005. 005 - Stuck waiting in the brush along the road for a parked jeep and two chatting soldiers to leave. The soldiers don't notice him, but the way they're facing keeps him from being able to leave until they do. He has visual on 006. 004 - Has 'taken out' two RAF soldiers with his paintball gun. He's making his way to the others, while the soldiers are heading the opposite direction in 'hands up' stance to infiltrate they're 'dead.' 003 - Trailing behind 004. He has visual on his teammate, but is a good distance behind, letting the curve of the road hide him from oncoming soldiers. The soldiers 004 subdued will likely block his visual briefly when they cross paths. 002 and 001 - Creeping through heavy brush just a minute or two away. They likely avoided the same patrolling jeep that 005 is currently pinned by.
Kale Hearthward	> 006 - Next nearest. Currently rappelling down a cliff wall, must have come in too high on his approach. Out of earshot of 007, but in visual range of 005. Kale gets into motion. There's an opportunity here. Step one is precasting a defensive spell. It's the same category of wind magic that allows for incoming bullets to just narrowly miss Kale, though with a bit of a larger trigger and a larger 'payload' weaved into the spell. He doesn't quite fire it off yet, keeping the spell in its swirling ball of air form. Step two is precasting a weak pressure bomb, which is easy enough to do, even with his other hand holding onto the defensive spell. Defensive spell in the right hand, offensive spell in the left hand. Don't mix them up, Kale. Step three, fly in. Throw the pressure bomb on the far side of 005, such that his attention will be drawn away from 006, at least for a moment. Step four through six: fly in as quickly as you can, slice the rapple, and tag 006 with the defensive spell, all at roughly the same time. He'll fall and should have a rough landing, but the defensive spell means he shouldn't be dead. Step seven: Pantomime rappeling down, pretending you're 006 for any 005's that may still be watching. Step eight: If 006 is actually still conscious when you reach the ground, deal with him. Time to see if the plan works...
Ishirou	Ishirou gets to the top and rests easily. Things are already moving around him so he starts activating his Tacnet and starts sending acceptance codes to others. If they don't have the technology it just appears to be a magical connection that shows the same thing. He gets information from Strawberry's eidolons, which lets him coordinate better across the field. He also brings up a scanner, scanning the area to clear it of anything that might be unseen or unaccounted for. Once that happens he starts indicating the targets. Bond has two, the main target and 007. Kale is going for 006. Strawberry is going for 003. Lilian, who is going to break his legs, is going for 002 and 001. Satori and her idiot animals are heading for 004. 005 seems to be in the best place for him, and Kale was going to give him a distraction. So he does that, moving quietly as he can to get into position, using his mastery of the Tacnet to plot his course, and then settles in nearby 005. The pressure bomb, the moment it goes off to get 005's attention, has Ishirou move to get a good angle but make sure he's out of sight of the others before he sends out the magical signal. The attempt to biohack his biological systems moves quickly, aiming to first try and paralyze him, and then try to gain control of his mind. First, make sure to remove this part, and two just to have something just in case something else goes wrong.
Strawberry Princess	"... I think she most certainly has a true girl's heart. A sporty one, perhaps." "'Sporty'... yeah. Thanks, Lilian. I think 'sporty' sounds nice," Strawberry says, pulling herself up another couple feet. A slightly embarrassed smile crosses her face. Then she turns to looking thoughtful. "I almost could have worn it. It's... the cap. The cap is why I couldn't. You get it, right?" A pause. It seems like she might grunt in exertion, but she doesn't. Kamar-Taj built up good habits. "Yeah. If I can find all of them, I can follow them. The number... it doesn't really matter." Strawberry pulls herself up onto the cliff-top, dusting off the knees of her jeans and double-checking her paintball gun. She nods at Bond's question about visual confirmation- she's already texting that information to Ishirou. "... you'll make some other girl very happy, someday." She stops in the middle of her phone-typing, seeming more surprised by the swerve into romance than by Bond's gaydar. "Oh. Uh. Haha, maybe- maybe someday." Strawberry smiles in a way that makes her scar wrinkle. "I've got... there's a lot to be sorted out first. That's all. You know? And the person I used to- well, it's complicated. But thank you." A beat passes. She flicks the phone shut. Weightlessly: "You'll make Alec really happy, too." ---- Maneuvering into position in some bushes near 003's path isn't hard for Strawberry: she's the one with the eyes on everybody, after all. But she spends a lot of time waiting: the RAF guys have to pass him, and then they have to keep moving long enough to be out of easy earshot. She leans against the nearby tree in a crouch for what feels like minutes until they are. By that time, 003 is a few hundred feet down the trail. But that's okay. Strawberry doesn't need to sweat a shot like that. The paintball hits him right between the shoulder blades. When he turns around to see who got him, Strawberry waves him over. She refuses to move from her bush-shrouded spot, ostensibly for tactical reasons. Really, it's so he won't see she's not in RAF garb until she's close enough to pull the actual gun on him. "Really sorry about this," she says with a hapless what-can-you-do expression. She motions him over, with the barrel of her handgun, towards a cliffside ledge where they're less likely to be seen (or heard) by those passing by. "I just- need a few minutes of your time, okay?" She'd never actually pull the trigger, but he doesn't need to know that.
Hellwarming Trio	"Oh, like the... Regular guns! Awesome. But if I hold it that high, it's..." Recalling her last experience with guns, Rin needs a moment to fight off the confusion in her mind from what she's hearing versus what she had seen that time. She knows Bond's the expert, though, so she'll have to save looking cool with a gun for when she actually knows how to use it a little more than not at all. "There's nothing to worry about from these two, Agent L. They know when to focus once they've worked past their..." Satori doesn't even finish that sentence, just vaguely gesturing at the two animal youkai before taking aim with her paintball gun in the distance. She's not looking at anything specific, but it does make her feel a little bit cooler. With the numbers being assigned and by process of elimination, then, Satori pulls Utsuho and Rin over to look over Ishirou's map data. "That leaves us with... 004." She goes silent as she pores over the data, getting curious looks from the other two youkai followed by light shrugs. It takes a little longer than either of them are comfortable with, but they're finally allowed to move again once Satori comes up with THE PLAN. THE PLAN: Stalking 004, then breaking off once Satori actually hears the thoughts of the 'dead' RAF soldiers coming closer. It shouldn't be too hard to avoid detection from them, at least, once there's a fair bit of distance between them and 004 (and 003 by extension), but the trickier part is getting to 004 without drawing 003's attention. They trail far behind with Rin taking the lead (thanks to knowing how to sneak around better), always keeping their target and their target's follower and their target's follower's Strawberry Princess in their sights while inching along, only muttering quietly to each other every now and then to make sure that everyone knows what they're doing. After a good minute or so after Strawberry works on separating 003 from 004, they finally make their move. Rin's the first to go, sprinting ahead as fast as she can right past 004's position. It's a ploy to try and get 004 to expose themselves or slow down long enough for Utsuho and Satori to catch up. Ideally, that'll give them the opportunity to go for the most nonlethal of takedowns: Hitting them really hard in the back of the head with Utsuho's massive sturdy stick and then dogpiling them.
Lilian Rook	'It's... the cap. The cap is why I couldn't. You get it, right?' "I put too much effort into growing, maintaining, and styling this hair to cover it up in something that ugly." Lilian snorts back over the radio, perfectly snotty, and yet somehow perfectly sympathetic at the same time. "Between you and I, though, I really think I could wear this forever. I could never bring myself to cover it up like that." Arriving directly overhead, Lilian mentally marks her targets and silently thanks the former 007 for his diligence in choosing a time for this mission where what appears to be seven Elites of some calibre are all focused on a difficult objective already. She murmurs "I'm surprised they're operating in teams of two. That's common sense, but Bond had given me the idea their kind was a little too prideful for that." thoughtfully over the radio, and then banks and pitches to smoothy cut in from above, reversing the angle of her body with a weightless twirl as she approaches ground, and hitting brush feet first with as quiet a rustle as she can manage. Even in armour, she does still weigh significantly less than any of the agents will. Waiting for a few seconds, crouched on four points against the ground, Lilian checks to see if her marks have noticed her first, before saying, "Double oh one and two are the currently glued together quite snugly. It'll be tougher to separate them than the others. That means they're mine, of course." and beginning to move up. A brief conferral with Bond tells her that getting the drop and incapacitating them with metallic ribbon like back in the PMC conflict likely won't go the way she plans; the concept tension doesn't quite work the same in a moment that never happens, and all it'll take is for their instincts to kick in to create slack during the decisive moment it matters. And so Lilian says "Apologies then; I may have to get a little rough with them." just as she settles at the minimum distance she cautiously thinks she can keep from them before an agent trained to Bond's calibre will notice her pursuit, and mutters "Let's hope they're good English boys who really did get a life and bin that knife." In the exact instant the two agents' roving view cones overlap, Lilian surges forward, and the foliage doesn't so much as whisper against her. Her form overflows its silhouette and becomes a streaking black phantom, painting dark mist and light trails of para-red eyes across the short distance left to lunge. She has to snap back into reality the instant before she makes contact, but by then she has a metalloid-clad leaping knee strike inches away from connecting with the back of 002's skull, and her action queued to extend her legs to kick off his back as he falls forward and launch herself to 001 in the same moment. Forced to use a low velocity air tackle by tyranny of Newton and her non-lethal objective, she aims herself to catch the other agent's throat on the inside of one arm, or if he ducks, the inside of a thigh via a timely pivot, and knock him down under the brush before they're spotted.
James Bond	"That's the idea," says James to Strawberry with a slight smile. He then accepts Ishirou's tacnet request. A map of the area appears on his watch, as an early-model wireframe in green and black. Red blips with labels for each agent call out their respective positions. He's gone a moment later, bolting down the road to catch up. KALE - 006 "What the hell was that?" The pressure bomb not only gets the attention of the agent in the brush, but has the soldiers running over to the guardrail to ogle the inky water below in confusion. The hidden agent pops both of them with his paintball gun, which elicits grousing about cheating. Either way, the three of them are presently tied up arguing with each other. By the time 005 manages to get his eyes back on his partner (past the pair of sullen hands-up soldiers returning to base), he sees Kale's convincing act instead, concluding that nothing's wrong. ISHIROU - 005 But of course, something is wrong. Ishirou has to work a little harder than on your average human--it seems like there's some kind of resistance training that his subconscious is putting to use. Nevertheless, it's no match for Ishirou. 005 finds himself unable to move, then very shortly unable to even remember the events of the past few seconds. HELLIONS - 004 The trio finds this agent at a sprint, evidently concerned with the explosion from Kale's bomb and willing to forego the conceit of the exercise out of concern that something's gone wrong. He stops abruptly at the sight of Rin, wheeling around to ask what happened--before Utsuho's arm crashes into the back of his head. Despite operating on pure adrenaline, there's only so much someone can do when taken completely by surprise. Dogpiled, he's out before 003 can catch up. STRAWBERRY - 003 The agent goes slack with visible annoyance, once he's tagged. He's young--younger than she is. This is probably the first time he's had a gun pointed at him; training conflicts with instincts emboldened by the lack of practical experience. He's trying to put on a brave face, as he's marched over to the ledge. "I won't talk. If you're going to kill me, let me turn around so I don't have to see it." LILIAN - 001 & 002 002 is out from the moment Lilian makes contact. To his credit, 001 does indeed slip past her attempted hold. For his skill, however, he is still caught by Lilian's pivot, brought down before the searchlight of an RAF helicopter can shine upon the three of them. While the chopper passes cluelessly overhead, 001 tenaciously attempts to resist her. It seems the knives were indeed binned for this operation, as he resorts to clumsily trying to club her temple with the butt of his paintball gun. From his disadvantageous position, however, he can't even swing at full strength, much less reach her, and a few ill-advised punches to metalloid midsection pass by before he, too, is out.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry's face pulls into a slightly queasy grimace when she realizes how young the agent is. It deepens when he asks to turn around before being killed. "I don't need you to talk," she says. "And I'm not- nobody's going to get killed. Okay?" She motions with the gun for him to sit down. She does the same a moment later, only making a cursory attempt at keeping it pointed at him. Her feet dangle over the edge. She can't bear to look right at him, so she looks out at the ocean instead. "What's your name?" Strawberry pauses, then shakes her head lamely. "No, sorry. I'm not supposed to tell you mine, so you don't have to tell me yours." The waves crash against the rocks far below. That noise fills the silence for a while. "I don't... get enough quiet moments, like this," she finally says, quiet and hoarse. "To just- appreciate things. To be. You know? I guess you wouldn't get many either. The training you do- it doesn't leave much room for that, does it? ... I've seen the ocean at night lots of times. But I never noticed it was so pretty."
Hellwarming Trio	"We totally could've gone louder than that." "How was I supposed to know Kale was gonna make somethin' blow up?" "He did mention creating an opportunity." With 004 subdued, Satori takes a moment to praise her pets with lights pats on the ahead before gesturing at the agent's limbs. Utsuho hoists him up by the legs while Satori and Rin get his arms, carrying him over towards a bush to safely nestle him under before reconvening to figure out their next course of action. Kale's distraction is (probably) a pretty decent indicator of how things are going on his end along with the arguing in the distance. Ishirou called out his target's paralysis, so that doesn't register as a danger sign for Satori. Strawberry's still talking calmly about her target, and she's heard enough from Utsuho and Rin not to worry more than that. Lilian is Lilian, and Satori's not going to second guess her pets' assessment of her, either. That leaves Bond. With his stated lack of experience in the type of conversation that none of the trio have had, either, they wind up opting to head his way! Rin still takes the lead for them, of course, keeping her eyes peeled for approaching patrols and good paths to follow through all the trees, and Satori's helping to keep Utsuho's wings from hitting too many branches on the way to join Bond at confronting the current subject of the project.
Kale Hearthward	Kale pantomimes finishing his rapple down, and then goes to get the 006 target securely tied up, followed by doing whatever assistance is needed to help Ishirou deal with 005. ... And then, a thought occurs. The RAF will still be expecting an attack... He gets into motion. He's not terribly stealthy, but he can cheat a bit - his defensive spells can make what would be dead-on paintball hits look like near misses, and while being seen flying would give away the game he can make short hops when nobody is looking, to reposition himself. Time to go keep up appearances, that the training exercise is still going on. At least for a little bit longer.
James Bond	STRAWBERRY - 003 - "TANNER" "Okay," says the agent. That's calmed the flight response somewhat, but now an uncomfortable silence has settled over him. It isn't hard to imagine what he might be thinking--'if no one dies, then why have you got that gun?' "It doesn't," says the agent. "But whenever I try just being, everything catches up with me. I took this job because it was something to keep my mind on." That probably sounds familiar. He watches the water with a frown. "It is pretty, at least." He pauses. "You can call me Tanner." BOND - 007 Before long, Bond finds his replacement. The tacnet shows his position--it seems that '007' got impatient waiting for his teammates, and advanced further up. Bond's blip on the map creeps closer. A young man of nineteen, if Dr. Seabrook is to be believed, scales a chain-link fence as an annoyed, paintballed gate guard walks back to base with hands up. The young man gets halfway up the gate before a sharp click and the shock of impact draw a sigh. A splotch of blue paint mars the back of his commando sweater as he releases his hold on the fence. "Got a minute?" asks Bond casually. The young man shrugs. "If you've got a light." "Sure." Bond procures a lighter from his pocket, stepping closer. The young man's choice of cigarettes gives Bond pause. "Lucky Strikes..." "What about them?" "Just a coincidence. That's my favorite." "Good for you," says the young man, taking a pull. "I don't see a rank insignia. So you're not RAF. And I know you weren't on the C-130 with me. If you're a communist you're not a very sneaky one." Bond chuckles. "If I were a communist I'd be using something a little stronger than paintballs." "So what do you want?" The young man looks Bond up and down. "I used to work for MI6. I was the best. What I want is for you to listen to what I have to say... and to what my friends have to say. They'll be along shortly," says Bond, reaching for a cigarette of his own. "So you're a defector." "We'll get to what I am when it's necessary. I want to talk about what you are. Let me guess," says Bond, glancing towards the gate to make sure no one's coming. "Orphan. Aged out of the orphanage. Did well enough in school, save some serious problems with authority. Scouted by a recruiter at work one day after you graduated." "Am I supposed to be impressed? There's a lady on the telly that does what you do but charges by the minute." Bond's expression hardens. "Fine," he says. "You had to take 'medicine' for most of your life. The other children might have seen the same doctor, but none of them ever left her office with needle marks. Her name was Dr. Sandra Westcott," he adds, including the detail Seabrook had given during his interrogation. "And no matter how many times you asked why you needed the medicine, she never gave you an answer you could look up in a book." That seems to have hit the mark. The young man takes a step back warily. Just in time for Satori, Rin and Utsuho to arrive. Kale's illusory chicanery manages to draw guards away from the privileged conversation. Looking past the young man at the base beyond, and the scrambling of soldiers eager to impress away from his current position, Bond makes a note to get something nice for Kale and his SO soon.
Ishirou	Ishirou takes a moment to make sure to implant a false memory...which was just the man being unlucky and being spotted when a gust of wind knocked something nearby over. Now he's going to walk himself out because he's surrendered. He DOES however fight the urge to sift through his mind for anything that might be learned about his time in MI6, but decides it's not worth the effort. Eyes on the prize Ishirou. He walks over toward where James and the new guy were talking, pulling the hat off. He raises a hand, waving towards him and James. "Hey, I'm with him," pointing at James, "I was also with him when he discovered what happened.." he pauses, "Well, you don't need a person able to cold read you, if someone's tried to cut your life's path already." "Try to set up everything just right, get you into their secret organization. Use you up until they need you to die for your country, never telling you the truth about what they did to make a disposable, deniable asset. Not...exactly what you thought you were getting recruited to do, huh? Well, if you don't believe me..." he pauses. Handing over a USB/current media in this world, so that he can see the data for himself. Everything there is referenced, as well as the information Ishirou got from the doctor's head. "Sorry to let you find out this way, but...he wanted you to know the truth so that you could choose for yourself."
Hellwarming Trio	"He's talkin' with someone. You think that guy's got a piece?" "He would've pulled it out by now." "Unless he thinks he could take Teach." "He's lost his chance. It'd be too risky now." The three youkai are still chattering amongst themselves as they approach Bond and '007', Satori putting on her best 'stern detective' face as she continues trying to alleviate Rin's and Utsuho's concerns about 007 still having some kind of hidden gun up his sleeve or otherwise. They quiet down once they're close enough to see clearly, though, with Utsuho and Rin flanking Satori on each side. "He's right, you know. More right than you could ever imagine." "Yeah, Teach knows his stuff. I mean, he's... Like. Triple your age?" "Double. Wait. Triple?" "Girls, please. Sir." Satori interrupts the two before they can get even further off with their tangent, nodding at Ishirou when he hands over the weird device that she can easily assume has answers on it. "We've come to save you from dying pointlessly for this organization. It might sound unbelievable, but he-" She gestures at Bond with her free hand while adjusting her grip on her paintball gun. "-believed enough in trying to convince you that... Ehm. We are here here now." Just in case, Satori also goes for an unrelated tangent (while probing his mind for confirmation): "Do you have a gun on you? Not that it would help against us, or even my ability to read your mind, but please tell the truth for their peace of mind." Utsuho and Rin are still staring at 007 rather intensely. They're still wary, although they do keep their paintball guns (and control rod) pointed away from him the whole time.
Strawberry Princess	"It's nice to meet you, Tanner." There's too much feeling in her voice for it to be a mere formality. The uncomfortable silence weighs on her, too; she knows exactly why. But for the moment, she tries to ignore it. Her left leg kicks restlessly, heel bumping against the rock of the cliff. "You can call me..." She struggles for a moment. 'Strawberry' would be too identifying. But using any of the other, crushingly mundane names she's gone by would feel like a betrayal. "Emily. Okay?" It's made up. Nobody will ever hear it but him. And that makes it safe. Her expression shifts towards melancholy when he talks about that feeling. "Yeah," she says. "I- used to be that way, too. When I was closer to your age." "It's... okay, to do that. Until you can get to a place of healing, and start taking 'everything' apart. But- the longer you look away from it, the more 'everything' piles up. So you just... have to ask yourself. Is what you're doing going to bring you to a place of healing, someday? Can you imagine that ahead of you. You know?" She falls back into uncomfortable silence. The waves crash against the rocks. Something hits a critical mass, eventually. Strawberry pops the magazine out of her gun, lets it drop into the ocean, and racks the slide to eject the chambered round. It's harmless, now. "Sorry. I couldn't stand doing that. But- can you stay with me anyway, Tanner? Just a few minutes longer. Please."
James Bond	STRAWBERRY - "TANNER" Tanner listens to Strawberry--'Emily'--in silence, nodding his head as she explains. The young agent startles when she ejects the magazine. "I can't," he finally says. "Not... staying with you. No one's ever asked me to do that," he admits. He can't say the second half hanging in the air, but she's old enough to intuit that he'll stay. "I mean... I can't... see that far ahead of me. My da held on for as long as he could, but we never talked about..." He beats a fist into the ground beside him in frustration. "I remember when I wasn't so angry and confused," he says softly. "I know that I'm more than this. Do you know what I mean?" he asks, shakily, managing to look at her. "What did you do? When you were my age."
James Bond	BOND / ISHIROU / HELLIONS - '007' "'Make' an asset? What the hell are you talking about?" The young man squints in confusion. 'Current media' here would assuredly be a floppy disk. Or a few of them. Not the most efficient means of storage, but it has its uses. With the internet in its infancy, it'd probably be decently difficult for anything this young man looked up to be traced back to him. He takes the disks from Ishirou hesitantly, stuffing them into his pocket. "No," the young man answers Satori. His expression seems conflicted. He's telling the truth, although she has to dig harder for him than she did with the soldiers. It almost seems like he wishes he had one. Especially after the mind reading comment. "Everything that happened to you, happened to me," explains Bond. "If you want to know what the future holds, you're looking at it. I gave most of my life to the service. I've got nothing to show for it but a trail of bodies. 'Our way of life' didn't get better for people like them," he says, gesturing absently to the city in the distance. "Our 'enemies' didn't slink off into the night. 'Our values' haven't risen triumphantly above the pack." "So you're a failure," the young man spits. Bond shakes his head. "No, I did exactly what I was supposed to do. Except dying, I suppose," he says with a nod to Satori. "This isn't a line of work where lives are saved. It's a line of work where life--the life of an ideology--is preserved artificially. At the end of the day, I did the same work as the man on the other side of the world. And do you know what?" The young man regards Bond with a sullen leer, arms crossed, flicking his spent cigarette away. "It means even less than it usually does, because it was all based on a lie in the first place. Believe me or don't--but even that's more of a choice than I ever got."
James Bond	Bond turns his back on the young man, facing his colleagues. "I think we're done here. Thank you for helping me." He touches his earpiece. Before he can say 'let's make our way back,' the young man behind him interrupts. "I never did get your name." "You're not going to," answers Bond. "We never met." "Well, if my having a choice is so important you'd risk getting done up for treason, maybe you'd care to know mine," says the young man. Bond sighs. "Make it quick." "It's Bond. James Bond. I'll think about what you said." Bond--the elder--feels his veins turn to ice. There is a noticeable tense in his muscles. Did they give him a codename? Or is he my replacement in every sense...? I need to go home. Alec is waiting at a different point along the coast for exfiltration.
Ishirou	"Well, I know a thing or two about being that kind of solider...though in my case it was more literal than figurative," he says to the new guy before taking a breath. "It was important to my friend here that you know the facts before you commit to anything. So..." A pause. That name, the same name as... Ishirou looks between each James, looking utterly shocked at what just was revealed. That can't be a coincidence. That has to have been... He takes a moment, to scan the various genetic markers of the younger bond. Fingerprints, ect. He starts to walk away after James. Okay, maybe he was wrong. Lilian isn't frightening, it's the kind of woman who would do this to anyone. Does she believe in anything? Or is... He realizes that he better start running now.
Hellwarming Trio	Satori looks just a little bit more satisfied with herself at the younger man's reaction to the mind reading thing. It takes Rin nudging her to not push that button too hard, and a few more moments of just listening to Bond's conversation with him for her (and Utsuho, for some reason) to settle down. She gives the animal youkai a brief look when Bond mentions lives not being saved in his line of work, and they shrug at her in return. When Bond signals that it's time to go, meanwhile, they each nod at him before turning to the young man again. Before they can get a word in, though, he gives his name, and they all give each other confused looks before turning to the Bond they know. There's plenty of questions to be asked after all of this, but this isn't the right place. Instead, they leave the younger Bond with their own parting words. "In the end, it's up to you if you believe us or not." "You're gonna want to believe us. Y'know. If you know what's good for you." "Geez, threatenin' much? Not that they're wrong, bro. Your call, but you better not complain if you bite it stayin' here and see us again back home." And with that, the trio scurry off to join up with Alec for their escape.
Strawberry Princess	"Thanks. Really, thank you." Strawberry lays down the empty gun on the rock between them. She leans back on one hand, looks up at the starry sky, and massages the back of her neck with the other. Her eyes shut. "When your dad... oh. I'm so sorry. It was sort of like that. For me and my mom." It takes her a minute to form an answer to his question. "I was fighting to save the world. Me and my friends. You know? Maybe like you. And I felt... so alive. So alive, I kind of didn't notice it was emptying me out, too." "And then my friends died, one at a time. Or they couldn't take it. And I..." She brushes her fingers along that awful, awful scar. It doesn't seem conscious. "One day I couldn't do the work anymore. And I was so empty, and 'everything' had piled up so much, that I just..." She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth. The breath fogs the cool night air. When she looks over at Tanner, her eyes are watering and her smile is pained. "... I got a second chance. That's why I'm still here. But I wish I'd- built myself up. Connections, hobbies, community. Instead of burning myself out for the world, like they were happy to let me. You know? Then... maybe I'd have been strong enough to take it. When 'everything' caught up with me." The call comes over the radio. Strawberry reaches up for her earpiece, but she hesitates, looking at Tanner out of the corner of her eye. "Thanks, James," she says. "I'm going to make my own exfil, though. Go ahead." The wand still has a full five minutes. That's enough to reach a Warpgate easily. Then she leans back against the rock, resting her hands on her knees, and smiles shakily at the agent-in-training. "You can go now. Or you can stay. As long as you like. ... Or we could go together. If that's what you want."
James Bond	"Yeah," says Tanner hoarsely. "I do know. I think..." He looks out over the dark water. His eyes are watering, too, his fingers drawing in little handfuls of stony detritus. "I think I'd like that," he says. "If we could go together." "I think," Tanner haltingly continues, "I think maybe, before I go any further with this... maybe I ought to try some of that. Finding it for myself, or building it... something." Tanner lifts his paint-stained sweater up and over, shedding it in favor of the white tee below. He places his paintball gun on the sweater. "Whatever else you were here to do, Emily... thank you for talking with me."