Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	The colossal mech is visible long before Petra is. A skyscraper turned on its side, an entire city block of skyscrapers, grey steel arranged in pure cubic efficiency, without a deck or window to be seen. The dreadnought is supported by a thousand squat legs in constant motion, their plodding pace carving a scar of bare dirt in the savannah that winds out of view, tracking its path all the way back into the hills in the distance.     The mechanical behemoth is host to a metallic ecosystem of its own; spider-like robots crawl across its surface, drones whir in the air around it, bipedal and quadrupedal mechs walk around its base--occasional squads of them detaching and marching off somewhere else. Looking at the mechs more closely, the design philosophy consistent between all of them is strongly reminiscent of the Kana: windowless, shining metal, blocky bodies--hulls, rather, they're not really bodies--and squat legs. Careful examination will show that there aren't any exact matches to the Ekanamsha's design visible in the groups outside, however.     Except, of course, for the one you're looking for. The Kana is a mile away from the carrier mech, tucked under a rocky overhang like a guilty child, hiding from the rare drone that wanders out this far from its nest. It pilot is waiting outside for everyone's arrivals, leaning on a bowed mechanical leg and spinning an unlit cigarette in her hand.     Petra has her signature bomber jacket and boots still, but underneath, she's wearing a baggy flight jumpsuit, without any flair on its desaturated green polyester. Her hair is pinned back behind her pilot goggles, which rest on top of her head while she idly watches the sun approach the horizon across the savannah. It's clearly a disguise, and the pile of assorted outfits dropped carelessly on top of the Kana is a silent offer to join her.     As people begin to arrive, Petra pushes herself upright, and then freezes, barely suppressing a whimper as blood rushes back into her feet.     "Um. Ahem. Everyone." She's obviously not used to having to be the one to give these kinds of briefings, and she stammers. "So. You probably saw the thing. The carrier mech. That's the Mankind's Titanomachy Anew, or just the Titanomachia, it's like a sort of mobile military base, for mechs and their pilots. It's, ah, where I got this from, in case that wasn't obvious." Petra slaps a hand on the side of the Kana with a faltering smile, her body language seeming to communicate that her sentence was either a joke or an apology, when it didn't really come across as either.
Petra Soroka	"Umm, so what's important to know.... They've got this whole thing about decontamination. Every entrance into the Titanomachia has an unmanned chamber to wash the vehicle down in, and none of them ever expose themselves to the planet outside, like they're aliens. They're just people, though." Petra rambles a few sentences, then stops, squeezing her eyes shut.     "Okay. Wait. So that's relevant, because of infiltration, but also because they've got these super good life support systems built into every manned mech, because they think they'll die if they don't or something. What I'm thinking is, we get in there, we go into the repair hangar, grab a few mechs, then dip and disassemble them later. Sounds good?" That question doesn't sound as rhetorical as it should, when she's looking around with her shaky grey eyes.     Petra's trying to seem confident, though, pulling her posture upright whenever it sags. She climbs over a rock to point at the Titanomachia, pointing at two ports on it.     "So. Down there, near the back on the underside, there's an elevator platform to let the walkers in and out. Go up through there, get through decontamination, and then it's directly into the hangar. That's probably what I'll do, given that I have that." She probably means the Kana, though she doesn't think to clarify that with a word or gesture.     "Alternatively, the small ports that the drones come out of also lead to the hangar, and they're unmanned. They're, you know, a hundred feet off the ground, but you're all competent people, so maybe some of you would prefer that."
Redshift Operators	The gruff looking fellow who showed up earlier peers out over the lip of the overhang again. The giant is holding him up as he does. "So you're *sure* this has gotta stay pure stealth. Because, that's halfway to being a station, and stealth-ops almost never go right. A low-impact smash and grab is way better."     The cyborg meditating next to Petra shakes her head. "Note its nature as part of her history. There is more to all this than that. Girls like her never have a good relationship with returning to some part of their history." She unsheaths her sword, checking its edge unnecessarily. "All because of the curse, of course."     "I don't know what that means." The astronaut nearby says. They stare, then, to the gruff fellow who's thudding down onto the ground after being hoisted by the giant.     "Alright, we're gonna send just White Dwarf in there, on account of I'm not doing that stealth shit. WD, hit them through the drone ports, I don't want you getting melted by decontamination on that other door. Neutron, pop the hatches for WD and anyone else going along. RG, give her the fastball."     The giant is already hoisting the cyborg, and seemingly he plans to launch her with so much strength that she arcs directly to the ports. She adjusts his aim with some mysterious process, probing the future for potential good and bad outcomes. "Somewhat higher. A little more. Now just a little left. Now keep waiting..." She says, as the fastball is prepared.
Liza Grier	Liza takes one look at the pile of potential 'disguises' and sighs. "Stealing medical equipment from the working class now? Really?" she says, staring at Petra with as dull and blandly lifeless a look as one can get with eyes that are exactly the colour of the blood running through them. "No, you're probably not that shitty. You know more about them, don't you? I've never heard of these guys, but someone like you has to be convinced they're pretty bad before they're comfortable taking from them. That's how you are."     Liza leans against the Kana as if it's hers, too. Actually, she leans against it as if she showed up in it, and Petra is being slightly annoying and tryhard by touching it as if she's pretending it's hers. Even though it is hers. "Mmmmh. Grudge to settle? You took the mech from them before. You run away from here?" she muses, tapping her chin and staring into the sky. Liza rocks her head side to side a couple of times, then looks Petra's way with a finger snap and an accusing point. "Oh. God it. They're germophobes, right? So they probably thought you were going to give them all . . ." She glances at Remee. "You know. And they either chased you out, or you ran away because they're scumbags, right?"     "Yeah, okay. I won't ask anymore." says Liza, one-sidedly deciding on a headcanon. She grabs whatever looks like a maintenance tech suit off the roof, starts trudging towards the back of the Kana, and dipassionately pulling up her top as she goes. As is often the case, it is impossible to tell whether she is flashing abs and faded bullet scars at Petra on purpose, or because she just lives like this.
Rita Ma	Rita is in slightly horrified awe from the start. "You stole from that, Ms. Petra? Just by yourself, without a mech to start with?" She eyes the scrappy overalls-clad pilot with a tinge of newfound admiration.      She turns one of the baggy jumpsuits over in her hands, memorizing its details (and its lack thereof), but doesn't actually put it on. Instead she finds a rock to lean against and stares out at the Titanomachia, still transfixed. "I don't see any machines like yours out there. Was yours special, Ms. Petra?" Rita seems to like that idea.      "Scared of the outside, even though it won't hurt them... that's a really sad way to live. I'd think people who could build something that amazing would be smarter than that, right?" A disappointed little sigh escapes her.      On the walk over, Rita briefly looks at Liza's abs, and then very abruptly looks away, rubbing her arm and smiling distantly.      "Oh! Um, Ms. Grier. I can help you up to that drone port up there, if you want?" She points at the aperture a hundred feet up in the air. "I mean... you could probably do it on your own, but I can save you the gear, right?"      Her tone's delicately hopeful.
Remee Halcyon	Remee's opted to just catch a ride here with Petra, since they might have left for here from the same point. "Hey, I'm vaccinated," she protests to Liza, taking a stab at understanding what she's talking about. "I could bite someone a thousand times and they'd be still human - well I mean, after a thousand bites they'd be dead, but... wouldn't contract lycanthropy, is my point..." She gets distracted by Liza walking away, and then shakes her head to clear it. "Anyway... so just need to... get in via one of those two entrances?" She goes to get out her rifle. "I'm going to see if I can't catch one of those drones. Could you give me a quick rundown on them? Whatever you know?" After that, she disappears, stalking off to go hunting. "Don't wait up." Some time later, she might be visible in the background, clinging to the side of a netted drone as it returns to base.
KNK	"Twin" might be too much, but one could say that there are a pair of sisterly ninja here, instead. Violet gives a smile and a little wave in the middle of Petra's obvious nervousness, and Rose says, "Huh. For once, it's an op made just for me. Can see why you'd put the call out. Decontamination rooms and high, unmanned ports? Easy. I could carry you in, too. Or someone else needing a lift."     She glances to the side, toward Liza, "'Working class'? Didn't she say it was a military base?"     "Hmmm, getting in should be easy, but getting out, I wonder... what'll happen."
Karlan Nobles	"A familiar sight, is it not?" "The shape is a little... Sideways, but sort of. Why, though?" Joining Petra in that overhang, huddled away from the view of those wandering drones are a pair of white-haired and white-tailed weirdos in matching sandy brown cloaks with wide-brimmed hats to help keep the sun out of their faces and add just that little bit extra cover so they aren't spotted before anything even happens. Pramanix, the shorter of the two, flashes Petra a subtle thumbs-up in passing to try and encourage her through this tough time while getting changed into one of those provided worker disguises. SilverAsh, the taller one, does his part to offset that reassurance by staring directly at Petra while listening to her rundown, making particularly sure to maintain eye contact the entire time. Tenzin, the eagle on his shoulder, maintains eye contact the entire time as well, and not in that politely pleasant way. It's a bird. It stares at her in that piercing bird kind of way. "I'm guessing they have a good reason to be afraid of dying just through exposure, then." "A bad first encounter with the unknown, perhaps. Whatever the case may be, that does explain the need for secrecy here." The pair both watch as Petra gestures towards the Titanomachia, with Pramanix squinting slightly to try and get a better look at the entrance ports being pointed out. SilverAsh doesn't bother, instead gesturing towards the ports and letting Tenzin fly off to scope out the area around those ports ahead of them. With any luck, the eagle will return with its findings for SilverAsh to translate into usable info! Not that he actually mentions that he's planning on doing any of that. It just looks like he sent his pet bird away. "We'll go for those ports on the underside. Dropping out of them to escape would be easier than the reverse, especially if we've got plenty of cargo to bring with us." Pramanix, meanwhile, gives her own plan for entering well in advance. When she sees the giant preparing to throw the cyborg, though, her eyes widen in excitement as she just kinda starts sliding over to (not very) subtly signal that she wants uppy, too. SilverAsh looks just a little more tense at noticing that and shakes his head slowly while looking right at the giant.
KNK	Once everyone's moving out, Rose disappears first, and Violet follows soon after. The disappearing act is quite and thorough, invisibly keeping to terrain over the path that won't leave footprints deep enough to pick up on distant cameras, even if someone knew where to look. Things are a little more difficult once they reach a spot under the Titanomachia, but only a little.     First, Violet takes a small jump. Second, Rose catches her heel, and pushes up in the same moment moment as Violet making a much stronger leap. Third, thrusters deploy from Violet's calves and lower back, blasting air in dusty eddies to gain greater height. Fourth, and most dangerously, Violet fires her magnetic grappling line, nearly all of which is necessarily past the effects of her cloaking field, and pins the end to the side of the port they're looking for.     At this stage, Rose and Violet form an assist point, with Rose ready to toss someone up to meet Violet in the air. Afterward, the line appears to quickly shorten as Violet zips up it, and slides herself inside.     Rose doesn't follow her, instead splitting off to piggyback on whatever's taking the main entrance. Given that she's spaceworthy, despite how she looks, she's not worried about a decontamination procedure. At most, it'll gunk her clothing, and she'll have to ditch for a new outfit.
Liza Grier	"She said 'it's like a sort of'." Liza replies to Rose from behind the mech. Her own shirt is thrown over the top, separate of the pile. "Which, coming from her, means that's mostly bullshit. Besides. Look at it." A bare arm points out from over the roof while Liza can be heard wrestling with buckles. "And look at it. What do you think it has all those scouts for. It's obviously harvesting resources, right? Unsound design for force projection."     She returns in improbably brief order, now dressed in the correct drab suit, looks at Remee, and smiles sort of pityingly. She pats her shoulder on the way past, and says, "Don't worry. They couldn't tell by looking at you." and moves on without explaining anything.     Then Liza stops by Rita, and looks down in visible, faint surprise. "If you really want to." she says, putting her hand on the wrong one of Rita's shoulders. "But just so you know, I know how to do stealth. I used to do enough of it. I just don't really like it."
Rita Ma	Rita beams sunnily, regaining the courage to look at Liza now that her eyes are smiled shut. "Thanks, Ms. Grier! Don't worry, I know. But it's one of those things I can help you with, right? So why shouldn't I?"      The ensuing surprise-scoop-into-princess-carry is accompanied by only a tiny habitual 'hup' of effort. "Besides," she says, now able to look down at Liza for once. "You don't take me to work often. So I have to make the most of it!"      Even carrying a whole other person, Rita's ascent up the Titanomachia is meteoric. Each of her quick little hops carries her twenty or thirty feet into the air; each time she lands already smoothly crouched for the next leap, kicking off the smallest footholds or- when she's able to just dig into the metal- seemingly nothing at all. They'll be at the drone port not far behind Rose and Violet, though a bit less sneakily.
Petra Soroka	Despite it having been months since the two interacted face-to-face, Petra still twists her face into a frown at Red Dwarf's presence. "I don't like our odds with singlehandedly trying to fight our way through a war machine with thousands of crew members and tens of thousands of weapons, no. That seems self-evident. There's like, three others, anyways." She mentioned that last part offhand, like it doesn't really matter.     Petra does seem to silently acquiesce to Liza's claim of the Kana, dropping her hand from its hull and shooting her a glare.     "What? What are you talking about? Where are you getting this from? I didn't run from them." Petra seems to italicize all three of the last words of that sentence individually, as if unsure of which interpretation was true, herself.     In the process of averting her entire face from Liza's undressing, Petra spots Rita, and the bright smile that briefly lit up her face as she began to greet her crumples into a confused pout when Rita looks at Liza.     "Ah--um. Well, I..." *had a mech*, she doesn't say, treasuring that newfound respect too much. "It's not that special. Or, it's not unique, I guess. There's a few like it."     Petra stares off into space briefly as Remee describes biting someone a thousand times, then snaps back to reality with an annoyed stare at the wolf. "You don't need to take her seriously, with stuff like that. We didn't even meet until after I had the Kana."     "As for information about the drones... they're unmanned, meant for scouting, since they don't ever send people out to do that. Most of them don't have any form of weaponry, and it'll be really obvious if they do. They're not usually fast, or maneuverable, because they have some kind of steady, lower power engine.
Petra Soroka	Petra looks back at the Kana, then over at the Titanomachia. "There's a guy in there who's part of the Watch, who typically organizes things so that the Kana gets in without issue. But I'd rather not call on that favor if I can help it, so I'll take that line into the port."     She follows the pair, and hops up into into the port, along with seemingly everyone but Rose and Pramanix.     Tenzin's scouting of the ports reveals that they're roughly three feet in diameter, just enough to fit the largest of the drones through, and both the exiting and entering ports have staggered rubber seals, presumably to minimize air transfer alongside the drones. A new batch exits and enters about every five minutes, giving a solid window for the infiltrators to crawl through. Or be thrown through, as is the case for some of them.     Inside the ports, it's a nonissue to push through the slit seals, cutting them where the rubber is stiffly uncooperative. A track in the base of the port would be where returning drones are grabbed and directed along a path, towards whatever their later destination might be.     The port opens up into a frigidly cold room, crisscrossed with metal tracks leading into various side tunnels. There's a heavy steel maintenance door, with a second door beyond it for even further airlocking, leading out of this room, as well as a thick glass panel that shows the hangar outside. The glass is slightly foggy, but the mechanics milling around in the hangar all appear to be some distance away.     Meanwhile, in the ground elevator. The walking mechs that filter in and out of the Titanomachia are considerably smaller than the Kana, when Rose gets up close to them. Their cockpits barely encompass a single person, their guns are all much less impressive than the Kana's huge cannon, and their construction is more scuffed and clearly older. It's no issue for Rose to hitch a ride on the metal platform when it lowers down to drop off a batch of bipedal mechs, given that the platform is hundreds of feet square and unoccupied by any human. It raises up into a staging area, awkwardly bare and empty with its recent cargo sent off. There's not a single mechanic, or mech, hanging around, and the walls are bare of equipment. The only way further is through a large garage door marked DECONTAMINATION, which is currently closed.
Remee Halcyon	In through the ports! Remee's glad she has her hunting knife on her this time. (Which is every time, because only a fool goes without a good knife.) And then into the cold. Remee is glad that she has a form that can grow a good winter coat quickly. And speaking of, it's that form (quadruped wolf) that she turns to, using it to stay low to the ground and slink through the maintenance room, going to head in towards the hangar, staying alert for anyone that might stumble upon her position.
Redshift Operators	The infiltrating so-called ninja doesn't have any *natural* stealth abilities, but her capacity for prediction is always immense. The drones moving around on their tracks offer plenty of opportunities, and, behind the rubber-sealed structures, she has plenty of time to run her false timelines. Phantom iterations shift about the structure in her mind, taking various paths to the steel maintenance door.     A certain tactical oversight next to Petra is curled up with a laptop now. "Maintenance door. Get everyone in at the same time, looks like it's meant to cycle. Gotta be the way to get those life support systems though, whether it's for the mechas or it's for the facility, it's *maintenance*."     If the cyborg ninja can predictively brute-force a stealthy path, she can guarantee her own passage. However, she can do little for the others.
Rita Ma	The port's cycling period requires- or allows, depending on one's point of view- Rita to hold onto Liza for a little longer. She supports her with one arm and one knee, surprisingly comfortably; her other hand and both feet are dug into the hull in some out-of-the-way niche, providing artificial toe- and fingerholds. There's no visible strain.      "Do you think this is worth getting drinks after, Ms. Grier?" she says cheerfully, after a minute's pause.      Slipping through the tube once it's open is easy enough. Dealing with the frigid room beyond is a little harder. Rita crosses her arms and shivers as she looks around, immediately regretting not wearing real clothes.      "Ms. Grier?" she says plaintively. She called in a warm jacket back on Petrichor, right? Asking for that specifically would be a little too much for Rita's heart to bear, but she can at least imply need.
Karlan Nobles	After SilverAsh relays Tenzin's info about the seals at the ports and the timing of the batches, it's time to go! Whether they get thrown or they have to take the slow route through the underside, Pramanix and SilverAsh both keep their heads down as they move along through the ports at a rather relaxed pace. The latter aids in the rubber-slicing efforts with quick swipes from his sword, but he makes sure to sheathe it every time so that he can get that unsheathing sound going on each time. He does eventually stop once the former gives him enough withering stares for doing that. When Pramanix gets the sword to give SilverAsh some time to rest, though, she ends up doing the sheathing unsheathing thing a bit herself. Upon being hit with that rush of cold air in the next room, they actually let out relaxed sighs and even stretch their arms out a bit to cool off after being stuck in the (relative) heat of the savannah for so long. They can only relax for so long, though, before having to get back to work and advancing further. Pramanix pauses at the glass panel to duck besides it, peering into the and staring at all the stuff and people in there before finally remembering to ask Petra something important: "Petra, dear? What do these life support... Things look like? Are they large and boxy, tube-y like oxygen tanks...?" She'll linger there a while longer to see if she can spot whatever Petra describes, then rejoins with SilverAsh to resume looking for an elevator into decontamination. She's pretty good about sticking to cover and maintaining a low profile, too!
KNK	Rose does some passive scanning on the way, snooping on electronic communication and checking for wireless access points. She's still going to stay invisible as long as cameras are pointed at her, but if she's not moving around too much, she can do that as long as the mission requires.     Maybe there's something in the network to get that next door open. If not, maybe it'll open for the mechs. That would be easier.     She's still not worried about getting decontaminated.     In the drone tunnels, Violet drops her cloaking when the party is near her, since that makes it much less likely for people to bump into her, and not much more likely for the group to be spotted.     "It's really chilly in here, isn't it?" For now, her temperature control is working, but she'd rather not stick around too long.     "Oh, Liza, are you hacking it? I was thinking..."     "Better she does. I'm busy down here."     "...right! Oh... I could force it open, though...? Hmm, I can wait patiently."     And so, Violet stands behind Liza, and thinks about her abs.
Liza Grier	"I'll take pretty much any excuse." Liza says, reaching inside the coveralls she has currently thrown on, and pulling out her folded shirt from before, perhaps planning to change back into it at an opportune time later. Wordlessly, she situates it on Rita's shoulders after getting through the seal, simultaneous with Rita even starting to ask. It's not thick, but it's still warm with residual body heat, and she doesn't expect to be here long. "But I like this one more than usual, so let's eat, too."     Liza, once inside, does something relatively unusual, and strolls through the drone management nexus unarmed. The bland, thoughtless purpose in her stride, the daydreaming-hurried look in her eyes, the slight tilt of someone used to carrying heavy things lopsidedly all day, the brazen lack of worry about her, and the convenient pathing that brings her close to no large windows or wide spaces with multiple approaches, does indeed betray the experience of someone who knows exactly how to move around a station unseen (at least until getting to the reactor), and usually chooses not to. Once she can get a look at someone inside, she quickly configures something on the wrist computer under her sleeve, and a wash of chameleonic pixels add appropriate tools and accessories to her clothing.     Her goal is, of course, the doors into the level above the hangar. Easy as breathing, she moves to produce a keycard for the door, then smoothly plugs a phone-sized crytographic sequencer into the electronics instead; well, really, she presses the flat over the door mechanism, and hammers buttons with her thumb, letting electromagnetic waves hit the good parts.     "It's not great." Liza replies to Violet, apparently taking the side of not being a huge fan of the cold, but looking like someone very used to it. "These headcases are obsessed with environmental integrity. There are probably alarms wired up to something like an external door malfunction or breach. The outside is the least forgiving place to be, on a station like this."     Once it's open, she takes just enough sweet time putting it away and straightening out her fake tools to allow Rita to slip over the threshold first. "Good girl." Liza says to Violet, for having waited patiently like she promised.
Rita Ma	"Oh! Thank you, Ms. Grier!!" Rita's gratitude is flavored with surprise when the oversized (on her) shirt goes around her shoulders, like somehow she didn't expect it even after implicitly asking.      That implicit tragedy is washed away by how she beams with an adorably sunny noise and snuggles down into the warm fabric a moment later, letting the sleeves overtake her hands and the collar overtake her neck. Then she gasps a little. "Going out to eat, too... you really are too good to me, Ms. Grier. Thanks for letting me help you up earlier! Otherwise I'd feel bad about it."      Rita slips through the doors, seeming a little cheered by the fact that she's being allowed to go first, and somehow transforms the shirt into one of those green jumpsuits as she does. The transition is blink-and-you-miss-it.      "Do you think you'll be able to pilot them, Ms. Violet? And Ms. Grier. I know you have the mauler, but I don't know how similar it is." She tilts her head from side to side, thinking as she walks. "In the worst case, we can cut the limbs off a smaller one, and I can throw it out the hangar. Right?"
KNK	Violet beams at Liza's praise. She's still visible, for now, but won't be once they run into humans or a checkpoint.     "I could pilot one, I think," she says to Rita, "but it'd be easier to let Rose do it. I've got some transmitters to slave things over to her, so she doesn't need to be 'here' here to do it."     '...and I can throw it out the hangar.'     "Oh, wow, really? You're awfully strong, Rita. Even though you're so small and cute."
Rita Ma	"Ah! Well-" Rita turns halfway around in surprise, suddenly self-conscious. She holds her hands in front of her chest, too-long sleeves flopping with the gesture- that property carried over to the jumpsuit, it seems like.      Shock fades to a little embarrassed grumble. "That's normal, isn't it? I mean- it's not too unusual. Lots of our coworkers are really strong, Ms. Violet. Like..."      Rita visibly dredges her brain for a few seconds. Hiromi? Wait, no, she's Concord. Kukuru? Also Concord. Cantio? Noooo-      "Hibiki! And Mr. Giant! And Ms. Grier, sort of! So it's normal," she insists. A moment later, her brain finally registers 'small and cute', and she turns embarrassed again, looking straight ahead to avert her face.      "But... thanks," she mumbles. "It makes me happy I can be cute anyway."
Petra Soroka	Remee's wolf-mode, White Dwarf's uncanny predictive use of drones as cover, and the others' more typical stealth abilities make sure that no coincidental glances through the window spot the group. Looking back out through that window, Pramanix sees a huge swathe of an even huger room spread out below, bustling with mechanics in coveralls, pilots in flight suits similar to the one Petra's wearing, others in more formal grey-blue military suits. She also sees dozens of mechs, carts with replacement parts pulled up besides many of them. <Tac-Watch> Petra Soroka says, "Ah, um. Well. They're part of the mech, and I haven't really taken any of them apart before? So... uh." <Tac-Watch> Petra Soroka says, "There's probably some loose systems but I was thinking we'd take whole mechs."     Petra is unhelpful. KNK or Liza, however, could probably identify the loose life support systems, being fairly hefty plastic encasements, full of tech and covered in bound up wires and tubes.     There's no cameras inside of the drone nexus, none on the door to examine whether Liza's really authorized to be opening it, and her hacking convinces the keycard slot that she is. The metal door hisses open, and the small quarantine room inside is, of course, barred by a similar door, but flashing lights of instructions remind the party that the door will open automatically in 30 seconds, please stand on the center strip and raise your arms above your head.     Petra, still in the drone port and realizing she's being left behind, kicks the lip of the tunnel and launches herself across the room, stepping on crisscrossing tracks to stay up in the air, above the view of the window. She lands on the ground with an inappropriately quiet clang, then joins the rest in filtering into the cleansing room.     This is, Petra explains under her breath, probably the lowest level of environmental security in the whole mech. A harsh purple light shines from every corner of the room, pricking uncomfortably at everyone's skin, and the air briefly sears in their lungs. There's no scans of air quality, checking for contaminants like Remee's fur, or authentications of their disguises, and exiting out the second door when it opens only reveals one camera, angled haphazardly to cover the door and metal bridge that everyone now finds themselves on.     The bridge is open to the rest of the hangar, with a door on the other side propped open to reveal a room strewn with mechanical pieces, and a drone strapped to a table, where a mechanic is currently prodding at it. Down a set of metal stairs is a large room of similar function, halfheartedly walled off from the hangar to obscure it, piled up with repair materials for the mecha. Numerous mechanics mill around this area, but digging through the shelves might uncover a stray life support kit.     Otherwise, with the team's mild efforts at disguising or hiding themselves, they can probably go check out the mechs themselves for a short time before anyone realizes they shouldn't be there.     Rose listens in on the communications. It seems, once inside the walls themselves, their radios aren't encrypted at all, but any idle grasping outside from inside returns bizarre results, like listening in on static in slow motion. She catches a lot of logistical chatter, detailing intended departure times for certain squads. Not only will this allow her to be prepared to jump through the decontamination doors when they open to accept a new set of walkers, but she could also piece together what mechs in the hangar won't be missed anytime soon.     Inside, Rose is immediately sprayed with scalding hot water, hoses in the wall blasting out jets at scouring pressures. The ultraviolet light glares down at her and her accompanying mechs, and room is flooded with stinging gas, cycling through this whole process twice.     Eventually, though, the doors open, and after a short hallway trip, Rose is in the hangar too.
Remee Halcyon	Decontamination is unpleasant, even at a low level. Remee's fur raises. There's some talk about how to get the mechs out. Remee... hasn't really driven one of them before. She's watched Petra drive hers, but didn't watch very intently. She didn't think there'd be a test on it! Maybe there'll be an instruction manual, or some simple controls? Or maybe she can blow a hole in a wall and just have the mech fall through it... ... One step at a time, though. There's a bridge - a bottleneck in their approach - and a camera covering it. One, awkwardly angled camera. "Got it..." There's a shimmer as she shifts back to person mode, and raises her rifle, and uses the scope to get a better look at the hardware connecting the camera to the wall. Shooting out the power or the camera itself might work, but it might also trigger an alarm or draw suspicion. Instead, there should be something that looks more like natural equipment failure... Remee screws a silencer on her rifle, and then sights down it again. Rivets, supports, bits of the camera's swiveling mechanisms that double as load-bearing pieces... The small bad wolf doesn't actually huff and puff, but she does steady her breathing as she aims... *fwip* If she's aimed it correctly, the camera's mount should give way, and it should be dangling or at least aiming downwards, no longer covering the bridge.
Redshift Operators	"Alright, don't try to do some actual sneaky shit here, there's cameras and too many people. Just let the stealth types do the stealth, we all know your definition of 'ninja'."     "My definition of ninja adheres to an important cultural tradition." A particular intruder briefly adjusts her respirator and mask in discomfort during the decontamination, but otherwise, she's through with no issues. The precognitive ninja leaps up, getting a foothold somewhere higher, and peers past the bridge out over the hangar. Planting both hands together, metal on flesh, she closes her eyes, her third optic shining bright... If one has sensitivity to the temporal or psychic, they might see dozens or hundreds of phantoms rush over the bridge, disregarding alarms.     In a thousand abandoned futures and unrealized timelines, White Dwarf rushes the spare parts, picking up a few and examining them closely before having to engage with any violent response. Each phantom future examines only a few parts before they're otherwise occupied, but brute forcing the situation's possibilities, she can find any life support systems, and relay that information to someone who can get there in a much more stealthy way. Rita, for example!     "There, <miss Lita>, I'll mark your objective on the feed. Extract it decisively and without delays." She mutters, before turning back to the hangar. The others will be extracting a mecha, and she'll need to catch that ride before it's gone...
Rita Ma	Security checkpoints, interrogations, and now decontamination chambers all elicit the same fear in Rita. However irrational, some part of her brain tells her that she will be found out as a contaminant.      She complies with the instructions, but anyone can see her hold her breath when she does it. The briefly-searing air makes her cough and wince, but at the end she looks relieved anyway.      "Thanks, Ms. Remee," she murmurs under her breath. Rita gives a friendly wave to the technician stooped over the table repairing a drone. There's no reason for her to be scared of them, right? She's dressed up right and everything! But as she passes, she eyes them carefully.      As she descends the stairs towards the storeroom, away from prying eyes- hopefully including those of her own party- her appearance shifts into a perfect imitation of the mechanic upstairs. "Thank you too, Ms. Dwarf," she whispers into her radio while checking her phone. Perfect.      Navigating between the shelves towards her marked quarry, she keeps a careful eye on the other technicians: they don't just carry everything back up those stairs, do they? That'd be really inconvenient with heavy objects. She shoulders the life support system (assuming it's of any reasonable size), pretending to struggle more with it than she actually does, and then looks for a more convenient way up to the hangar.      Namely, one that hopefully won't take her back past the very person she's imitating for this scheme.
Remee Halcyon	<Tac-Watch> [4] Remee Halcyon says, "You're welcome." <Tac-Watch> [4] Rita Ma says, "Mmmm! That was really cool!" Remee's practically glowing as she catches up to the rest of the group.
Karlan Nobles	Jackpot! Maybe. Pramanix doesn't know what any of those parts are, but she can guess that they're probably important for something and make a mental note to snatch them once she gets a chance to. SilverAsh, for his part, just focuses on not getting caught as he nudges her along to keep them both moving with the rest of the group. On the way... "There's nothing wrong with being strong and cute, Rita." "Exactly! Some people aren't lucky enough to be either, even." "They might only qualify on one side and not the other. Take myself and Pramanix, for example." "... He /used/ to be cute when he was younger." With Liza getting the door to the quarantine room opened, they slip in with time to spare. The decontamination process has them hissing slightly at the feeling, but they also seem to go through the motions of it as though they've done this sort of thing before. Without seeming to realize it, they both even give her light pats on the arm as if trying to reassure her once they notice that stop in her breathing. Moving along with their disguises still in place, the siblings hang back to let Remee take care of the camera before continuing onwards. Checking out the mechs themselves is incredibly tempting, but SilverAsh blends in as best he can (even with the white hair under his hat and his tail being shoved into that jumpsuit) while loitering around those parts to see if he can't identify some of those life support things in there for more efficient snatching. Pramanix absolutely lets herself get distracted by the mechs, especially if Rose points out the ones that would make good hijacking targets. She'll hang around, waiting for some kind of signal from the rest of her allies before trying to climb into one and playing it off like she's doing touch ups in the cockpit if she gets caught. That's what a pipe wrench is for!
KNK	The stinging gas doesn't bother Rose at all, and the ultraviolet is bit of a whatever, but the heat is a mild problem and the water pressure is past what she'd been prepared for. She presses up against the leg of a mecha to avoid being hit from every side, shifting around to keep herself as shielded as possible, but at the level of cleaning not intended to be human-survivable, she finds her clothing ruined and ragged and has to emergency-reboot her cloaking twice, flickering into view like a shadow in the steam.     "Ruined. That sucked." But no one can see her disheveled state so long as no one sees her at all. That's the way to go. No one wants to see what's under synth-skin, or how it tears like plastic when damaged, instead of reddening like the real thing.     Rose slips around the edges of the room, tracking for cameras and piggybacking any signals she can find. Rather than shutting them down, it's more immediately useful to use them to get a full view of the room. That'll help her spot where the objectives are, once she sorts down through the list to find the easiest three mecha to steal. Seeing who's around is also important.     Violet gets a live feed of anything Rose taps into, and is the one to actually watch where people are, while Rose focuses on the machines. In particular, she finds one tech working alone, which is not, pointedly, something you should do around ninjas.     Without hesitation, like she's done this thousands of times before, Violet slips in through the slightly open door, covers the mechanic's mouth with one hand, and jabs their neck with a needle not so much 'held in' her opposite hand as 'extending from her finger.' Sleep comes quickly, and the drug cocktail likewise ensures that short-term memory, the last few minutes or so, won't wind up as long-term memory.     She holds on only long enough to prevent a struggle-yell, then folds her victim up and looks around for a locker -- only changing her mind at the last moment and setting them down under a table, as if sleeping on the job.
Liza Grier	Liza follows along at a short distance behind Rita. Far enough to not looking like they're together, but close enough to suggest that they're headed to the same area for the same purpose. When she sees Remee's fancy shooting, and White Dwarf pointing Rita to the spare kit that's immediately available, Liza simply radios "Good. Come back this way." and then strolls into the room with the mechanic Rita has just started imitating.     "Hey. Sorry to interrupt you, but I need you to check this immediately." Liza says to the technician, not really waiting for them to process how she is saying it or in what language. She's pulling something from her toolbelt, with the semi-contrite expedience of an apprentice on the job, new enough to make mistakes, but experienced enough to know better.     "Does this smell like chloroform to you?"     Unless the mechanic is a consummate expert in split second self-defense, Rita is able to come right back along the corridor without any risk of being pegged as a doppelganger. "I wouldn't want to try throwing one of those if I don't have to." she says lazily into the radio, occupying the station and actually not really even faking the job of assessing the stripped drone for what its parts and make and damage can tell her. No hole in the schedule, and no duplicate faces. "I'm sure I can drive one easy. Tell me when you're out."
Petra Soroka	Remee takes aim and disables the camera, quietly enough that even without the echoing clatter and shouting of the hangar, it'd be hard to hear from that short distance away. But still, the mechanic raises up his head and--laughs loudly to himself, putting a finger to his ear. He seems to be listening to a podcast. He waves to Rita as she passes by, briefly matching her stare with one of indeterminate interest, scanning her. Before turning that look to the rest of the team, he's taken down by Violet, instinctive thrashing draining from his body within moments.     White Dwarf simulates a thousand futures, a large portion of which involve backflipping off the bridge into the makeshift warehouse below. She does find a life support system--two, actually. One heavily damaged, and the other, on the opposite end of the room, potentially being prepared to replace it. When Rita, in disguise, goes to pick it up, a large man with a curly beard claps her on the back.     "Ahaha, lifting something yourself for a change, Christos? A pretty girl like you shouldn't be straining yourself!" The man is gone as soon as he appeared, his momentum barely slowing as he rushes towards whatever work he's doing, but it suddenly becomes apparent that there isn't, actually, a single woman around, and the man Rita is impersonating is one of the few who isn't bulky and hairy in some way.     While there's a freight elevator to go between floors if necessary, the storage warehouse area that Rita is on is on the same floor as the hangar. Going up would allow her to escape through the drone port, but passing through the large gap in the walls of the warehouse puts her in the main hangar area, giving access to the same exit that the walkers take.     It's a reasonable assumption for Rose to make that quadrupedal mechs will be easier for novice pilots than bipedal mechs. Scanning the hangar through dozens of fractal viewpoints, and putting that together with her knowledge from the comms, Rose can pick out three suitable vehicles--if three are needed still, with the spare unit Rita's holding--currently unattended by mechanics. There's easily a hundred to choose from, an absurd amount of firepower, considering how many mechs were out in the field, too.     Rose also spots an Ekanamsha, tucked away into the corner. It's a little eerie, seeing how completely identical it is to Petra's mech. The Kana doesn't have a single decal, or scratch, or anything, to distinguish it from this Ekanamsha. It's not unattended, but does look more impressive than the rest of the mechs.
Petra Soroka	Back on the bridge, Petra puts a hand on her goggles, preparing to remove them after using them to shield her eyes in the chamber, then drops it, leaving them on. Her face is twisted into a permanent scowl, hands shoved in her pockets. She doesn't even acknowledge Remee's stunt, uncharacteristically for her, and stomps down the stairs with her shoulders drawn forwards, boots clanging on each step.     The noise is drowned out by the din of the hangar, but one person looks up at her anyways, a man wearing an orange visibility vest over his coveralls. He furrows his brow upon seeing Petra, and grabs her roughly by the upper arm, pulling her aside. Not to hide, they're both still in plain sight, just pulling her for seemingly no reason besides getting her away from the stairs. Petra doesn't resist, her mouth opening in silent objection, but the way her eyes widen at him shows that she clearly knows him.     "Miss Soroka. To what do I owe the pleasure of this *surprise* visit?" His voice is low and gruff, staring down at Petra.     "A-ah, Kyrikos, I, um, needed supplies for a Watcht--safehouse, that I could get from--"     The man, Kyrikos, pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Tell *me* when you're going to be doing these things, Soroka. Let *me* organize them. What, you've brought a pack of teens with guns inside of a hostile military base to steal some trinkets? I'll open the doors for you this time, but you have got to think these things through better."     Petra, clearly cowed, just nods her head, then with slightly widened, glistening eyes turned towards the floor, matches pace with the disguised Rita.
Remee Halcyon	A quadruped mech, one that doesn't require piloting knowledge to use? That'd be pretty great. Before any of that, though, Remee gets distracted when she sees Petra getting grabbed - and automatically goes that way, out of concern... and a little curiosity, when Petra doesn't seem that alarmed? Human features shift to wolf features - taking advantage of the better directional hearing they provide as Remee makes her way over towards Petra and her captor. What they hear is... interesting. As Petra leaves, Remee arrives (back in human mode again), approaching this Kyrikos, though waiting just a moment first to make sure Petra isn't watching her and is (by human standards) out of earshot. "... In her defense," she says. "We have ways of getting the doors open ourselves." A business card is produced, and offered. "Can we talk later, once we're in better circumstances, about Miss Soroka? If, even if you don't want to talk about anything else, I can put you at ease as to her current situation?"
Rita Ma	"A pretty girl like you shouldn't be straining yourself!"      Rita can't reply- no amount of camouflage wrappings can make her sound like anything other than an adorable girl- but she startles, and her heart races. Did they see through her, somehow? No, then they'd be raising an alarm. But then, why...?      Her blissful innocence to the ways of Guys means she eventually shrugs it off without an answer, and makes her way to the hangar. Silverash is close enough for her to whisper to him, at least, without letting anyone else hear how mismatched her voice is with the disguise:      "Thanks. I really appreciate that a lot. It's hard, sometimes, for me to feel cute. And it's hard for me to feel proud of being strong, too. Because I didn't really earn it, you know? But... I'll try to believe that, and feel good about it."      She only catches the vague shape of the conversation between Petra and Kyrikos, but it's enough to make her wince in sympathy. Handing off the life support system to Petra, Rita ducks into a side hallway away from prying eyes, sheds her ill-fitting disguise, and returns to match pace with Petra again, seemingly as a different person.      "This is sort of a painful place for you, isn't it, Ms. Petra? I think you're brave to come back when you need to." That's the most comfort she feels like she can offer.      Then it's a matter of waiting for everyone else's moves. Rita doesn't anticipate much difficulty in just bolting for it, once the more obvious mecha thefts are made, but she doesn't want to give away the game first.
Karlan Nobles	"Is it now? I suppose that's... Rather normal, actually." SilverAsh strokes his chin lightly while nodding lightly towards the man that had clapped Rita's shoulder in passing, eventually bending over to adjust his bootstraps (but actually it's just so whispering is a little easier). "Cuteness is relative, but my.... Pramanix has a better eye for that than I, and we rarely agree on things so readily. And if you would prefer not to be proud of something unearned, then..." He shrugs lightly. "Then be proud of what you've done with that strength instead. I did not earn my position today simply by being born a SilverAsh, after all." With the coast relatively clear (enough), it's time to get out while things still haven't gone to shit. While Pramanix clambers into one of those quadrupedal mechs, SilverAsh takes a bit longer to see if he can't find an extra life support unit to haul into that same mech before climbing in with her. He might need a hand with that, though, depending on just how heavy it is. Either way, though, they seem to be having a bit of trouble figuring out the controls at first, and not just because they're also distracted with what's going on with Petra on the bridge. There's a moment where SilverAsh is already considering getting ready to jump out just in case things go south, but he settles back down once Petra starts moving with Rita. "What do you think was that about?" "Who can say? Perhaps that was the mysterious father she had revealed the existence of." "I don't know about that... Did he look like a scientist to you?" As they mull over the identity of Kyrikos, they lie in wait in that machine, ready to move out once the signal is given to bail. Hopefully, they won't mess up with the controls too much with their only practice in piloting anything being a car.
KNK	Rose gives Petra a hard look that no one will, in fact, be able to catch, though her words over the tactical band go through. She seems only partially satisfied on learning that Petra was just talking to a Watch contact. Why didn't she contact him in the first place?     Rose is about to say more, but decides to leave well enough alone after interpreting that that's what White Dwarf just said.     "Sending you locations. Pick whichever you want."     With everything set, Violet sneaks over to the machine Pramanix and SilverAsh found, and just as sneakily slaps a transmitter relay into it. Now, if they have trouble piloting it, Rose can just take over for them. (She will not warn them she's doing so.)     Violet herself sneaks over to find another, though if someone else grabs a third, that won't be necessary.
Redshift Operators	Petra finds a woman striding alongside her -- a certain cyborg who can predict this moment as being one where Petra won't be drawing much attention. "I thought so. This is a cursed place, with a tragic history. It is a shame that the dark energies mean that you cannot return except at grand cost." What is she saying? The ninja makes solemn noises, so maybe she's trying to be comforting. "You will have your time for brooding contemplation, the only suitable recovery, soon. Make your way to the KNK selection."     And just as quick, she's gone. Not a stealthy ninja vanishing, but an agile evasion using simulated futures. The decontamination shouldn't cycle on the way *out*, so she only needs to evade attention by staying above sight until the hangar is open, and slip out in such a way that she can land on one of the allied mecha.
Liza Grier	Liza is barely even privy to the exchange, but is immediately aware of something pretty important. That being that Petra's disguises were absolutely worthless for a party of nearly all women, and she had failed to notice that important detail at all; Liza had only seen a few people on the way in, and thankfully, hadn't been hassled yet, so that's still recoverable.     It also makes her aware of something less important, in that these guys are apparently kind of losers. Which, she decides, probably makes sense why Petra felt comfortable about coming here.     No point trying to sneak downstairs. Even if someone assumes Liza is just really, really femme, the overalls can't entirely hide the actual shape of her physical body. She pings the local secure network for the exact coordinates of an empty mech, receives one from Rose, and then actually dials her teleporter for the first time today.     Nobody is really liable to notice the stark flash of ruby red teleporter light from a single out of the way room. Perhaps within a cockpit, but maybe not with drones and walkers swarming all around. Before she keys the engine, fumbles with the controls to pick out their similarities to the mechs she's used to, and contacts the others to form up on her so that they move out as a squad, she leaves a particular message via shortband for the contact Petra is talking to.     "I'm thirty-two, but thanks, that's flattering. You can see my frequency, right? I'm calling this personal code instead of her next time."
Petra Soroka	The moment Kyrikos turns away from Petra, he's striding towards a group of workers, calling out orders in his rough voice, as if making up lost momentum. Stopping that inertia takes effort, and he gives an irritated and impatient look to Remee.     "A Halcyon. I'd heard you were one of the newbies." He grunts. "I wouldn't worry too much about that girl. Her current situation is her own. I'd have to be a fool to turn down an invitation from a Halcyon, though, so we'll be in touch." He turns away, business card vanished into some pocket without Remee even noticing when he'd taken it.     "Acknowledged, Ms. Grier. Appreciate seeing at least one other professional here. Technical Sergeant Kyrikos Tsiaras, contact for all operations involving the Titanomachia."     Petra, walking alongside Rita, sags under the weight of the life support system, probably more than she needs to. "It's... it's not a painful place, I don't know why you'd think that. I'm a pilot. And a Watch operative. No matter what, I'm supposed to be in a place like this. I have to be."     Petra tries to raise a finger to her earpiece, and the life support unit slips out of her hands, bouncing onto her foot before she catches it. She opens comms with an unintentional squeal, then says, "Got it, Rose. Let's get out of here." Petra's cheeks are flushed red, and she keeps her eyes down while marching towards her borrowed mech.     The mechs are shockingly easy to pilot. With a little remote help from Rose to boot them all on and turn on pilot assist, they practically drive themselves. The computers make automatic adjustments to account for balance, so each movement of the lever only matters in the broad strokes of what direction, and what speed, the legs move. Screens provide an extensive view of the mech's surroundings, labeled with continually adjusting markers and highlights for aim assist and trajectory.     Even Pramanix and SilverAsh have little trouble steering their walker out the garage door, opened by courtesy of Kyrikos, onto the elevator, and back out, to reconvene with the Redshift Operators and the Kana.     A side effect of the computerized adjustments is that all three mechs move identically, with the same gait, but at least it's the most efficient way they could move.