[RFC] [Sports] The Port Phobos Invitational

[Cobalt Greywalker]

RE: Gina/Lebia/Fate et al...

I'll put my hands up and say Lebia's comments were OTT, and a bit knee-jerkey. All I can blame is the fact the character was in control.

And please bare in mind that just because I can see Lebia doing it doesn't mean she would. Imagine it being replaced by an (at least trying to be) polite
email detailing what Lebia feels about Gina's actions and what she thinks the consequences could have been. Just for informations sake, I would have had
Lebia pulling back and calming down as well as trying to fix the impression of reprisals incoming (Yes, I had guessed Fate would deal with things privately.
But Fate's a member of the Underspace, and Ben's already made the comment about looking after one's own.)

I appolgise to the collective for taking things down this way, and hereby back away from this branch.

[Duane Peters]

There were four of us when we ran into the party of Warsies. The distinctive 'click-hiss' of the lead Stormtrooper preceded his demand for our
surrender. "It's your four against our twenty. You can't take us. Surrender now and you can wait in our lounge while we finish this fight.
We'll even comp the drinks."

Never tell us the odds.

The statuesque redhead at my right dropped the object she had in her hand and slowly raised both hands over her head, and smiled a slow, sensual smile. The
Navy khakis she wore stretched over her impressive chest as she did so; then she kicked the object she had dropped and rolled it unerringly across the floor to
*thump* against the Stormie's boot. He glanced down and just had time to think "A coconut...?" before
the coconut cream grenade went off and blinded the entire front rank. She and Mikey dived right, June and I dived left. June ended up against the bulkhead, and
hauled out the BlastMaster goop gun I'd just finished the night before. Screaming neon and chrome, the four-foot gun with the .5 meter aperture coughed
once, and an expanding mass of green goo blasted three of them back against the wall and stuck them there. Mikey had hauled out his multi-cannon and started
blasting away with goober rounds as well; Willie was sniping from behind his bulk with a bamboo Nerf cannon to keep their heads down.

I smiled a small, evil smile and pulled out my own weapon. Several of the troopers pointed and laughed, since I could only get two fingers on the grip. Bad
move. The Noisy Cricket silly-string gun coughed once. I slid backwards across the floor, but I was expecting the recoil, so the five of them were down,
entangled in the eight-foot sphere of silly string. By the time I slid to a stop and stood up, the rest of the troopers were down, gooped to the walls, the
floor, and in one interesting case I couldn't account for, the ceiling.

"Slight problem," June said, as she slammed another magazine home. "We can't get through the end of this hallway now." I sighed and
rezzed up my "Welcome to Phobos" map from my cell phone. Darnit, we'd never get to their flag station at this rate...

[Black Aeronaut]

Cobalt, it's cool. I didn't think that you were trying to be an ass. I felt that it was, like you said, Lebia just being in control at the time.

[robkelk]

(OOC: Did we all forget about this because of my new farm? We can't have that...)

Jake and Kagome were busy providing supression fire from a doorway marked "Stan's Quality Danegoods" while Kohran keyed in the door's combination. It was amazing how many people overlooked an obvious weapons cache, but the improperly-properly-spelled sign seemed to be sufficient camoflague.

Finally, Kohran announced, "It's done." The door opened, and the three Stellvians dashed into the room inside...

...only to discover a large number of opened, empty boxes. "Blast! Somebody else got here first." Kagome locked the door closed behind them. "At least we have a few seconds to get our feet back under us. Is there anything useful left?"

Jake held up two nerf tommy-guns. "There's ten drums of ammo for these."

"Good. Have you found anything, Kohran?"

"Oooooooooooh, yes... yes! Yes!" She was bent over, half-inside a large packing crate. "And the crate of ludicrous-string grenades is still here! Unopened!"

Jake and Kagome looked at each other, and grinned. "You going to need some help, ma'am?" Jake asked.

"Thanks. Would you load the grenade launcher while I load the nerf guns?"

Kagome nodded. "You two work on that. I'm going to risk contacting Noah."

---

My wristcomm beeped. "Noah here."

"Sir, it's Kagome. Kohran, Jake, and I are inside the cache. Somebody else got here first, but Kohran's toy is intact."

"Good. Leda and I are following up on a lead Lebia sent us, so we're going quiet for at least five minutes."

"Understood. Mishima out."

I turned to Leda. "What's the target's status?"

She looked up from the mirror she was holding around the corner. "She's trying to raise someone on her wristcomm. I think she's starting to panic."

"Most if not all of her team has been eliminated already. Let's put the poor girl out of her misery."

Leda smiled, and passed me a grenade. "Here you go."

"A type 17 goop grenade?"

She nodded, and tapped her pocket. "And I have the dissolver right here."

Which, once applied, would leave the target free... and naked. "You're too good to me, Leda."

"I know. But this is on one condition, Noah: you can look, but you can't touch."

"That sounds more than fair." I gave her a quick kiss, then walked around the corner. Our target was still panicking, and still alone. Just before I threw the grenade at her, I said in my best Jokey-Smurf imitation, "I've got a present for you, Ms. Mikuru..."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Lebia finally had everything set (minus her 15 minute raging at Gina before calming down and sending her a detailed trying-to-be-polite email) and now had to
warn her allies.

Using the oft-forgotten text messaging feature that was standard in all makes of wristcomms/comwatches from the first, she sent the warning. Not that they
would directly be affected, she was far too skilled for that.

Eddie finished his analysis of positions, observations, and signals intelligence, and gave her the targets. Then, with the data-scape equivalent of evil grins,
struck.

In a precisely calculated pattern throughout Phobos' comms and data systems, beings suddenly got hit by 'l'Experience Sonique', created by a
bored Leonard da Quirm one day based on the descriptions from the Undocumented Features fanfiction series. (Benjamin Hutchins, on receiving a copy from
Leonard, reportedly had screamed in terror and hid under the bed. He later lamented the fact he had deleted his copy, to prevent his curiosity getting the
better of him.)

When the track had finished 5 minutes 23 seconds later, less than 10% of the original combatants were still in the game and Lebia and Eddie owned Phobos'
computer systems outright.

"Guess we don't have to use the rest of the album then?" Lebia asked Eddie wryly.

"Nope." Eddie agreed. "May have a Con resolution banning us from using it again though."

"True. We'll just have to use it on those trying to stop us using it." Lebia gave the electronic equivalent of a shrug. "It'd make an
excellent riot control device though."

"Ain't that the truth."

[robkelk]

I walked into the Stallion's airlock, and promptly fell over.

When I regained consciousness, A.C. was setting my broken arm. "What in the name of the Great Bird of the Galaxy happened to you, Noah? You were covered with bits of every non-leathal grenade filler Greenpeace and I have ever seen, and a few that even we couldn't identify. And some of those nerf bullets were crazy-glued on to your skin."

"A.C., I learned four things in the half-hour before I blacked out in your airlock... How long was I out, anyway?"

"Ten minutes. What did you learn, and what does it have to do with what I asked?"

"What it has to do with what you asked will be obvious. What I learned... First, the artists working on the You Know What You Doing H-doujinshi have no idea what Mikuru Asahina really looks like; she looks even better than those drawings. Second, that's her natural hair colour."

"You used a type 17 on her." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. Third, Mikuru is damned sexy when she's wearing nothing but my jacket."

"I remember you told me you weren't a Heinleinian, Noah."

"Doesn't mean I can't look at other women. Fourth, and most importantly, Mikuru's fan club is awfully possessive of her."

A.C. whistled. "I'm surprised you got away from them with only one broken bone. Where are Leda and Yayoi?"

"Yayoi was eliminated almost an hour ago; the last I saw, she and her girlfriend were headed for the 'Blade. Leda should have hooked up with Jake, Kohran and Kagome by now. Can I have a beer?"

"Not until the painkillers I gave you wear off."

"I was afraid you were going to say that..."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Black Aeronaut]

Cobalt: Dayyymmmnn... Gina ain't gonna be happy about that. She was still keeping tabs on everything through the network. Now she's gonna want to go through the Bullet Boy Express and get Ruri and Zephram's help in getting back into the system and getting back at Eddy and Lebia. ^_^

[robkelk]

OOC: Since we're getting close to the endgame, I suggest a roll call on who's left in the game for the benefit of us folks that have more than one project on the go. "Team Stellvia" is down to Kohran, Leda, Jake, and Kagome, all of whom have just re-armed (Kohran most of all - her toy isn't an Ohbu, but it's close). If I've kept track correctly, the SOS-Dan are down to just Itsuki. And the battle's spread to cyberspace...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Cobalt Greywalker]

BA: The reason Lebia took a 15 min break (I, and thus Lebia, have bee planning this since my second post) in her work is that she knew enough that she wanted
to be calm and not influence her's and Eddie's choice of targets (the calming down thread was a background process in Lebia's consiousness, another
reason it took the electronic equivilent of a geological epoch to run). In fact, Lebia CUT GINA OUT of the comms network. Not because it'd show no hard
feelings, but because Gina'd take advantage of the distraction.

Yes, that's right. The two of them SET UP most of those who'd take advantage of a sudden distraction of the enemy so that they WOULD.

[Black Aeronaut]

AH! Okay then. Just didn't seem all that clear at the time - wasn't registering Lebia+Gina=Allies. ^_^;;

In that case, she will grin ever so evilly and say something like, "Oh, Boooooyyyyyssss! We got a golden opportunity for some major ass-whoopin'
coming."

For the record, Benjamin, Gina, about about 20 Jess's are still in play and are currently in the company of Chris Marsden and his group (what remains of
them), and The Jason (it remains to be seen is he's gonna join up for the fun). Current plans point at making an End Run on the US Marine's Flag Base
before retiring ini one way or another.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

It's more along the lines of Lebia+Gina=Temporary Allies, where Lebia (and Eddie as the second of the two mentioned in my previous post) gives a lot of
people an advantage and Gina (being someone receiving this gift) getting to open a major can of whoop-ass. Alliances always work if everybody benefits.

Team wise, Kasumi and the Tachikoma Mushashi are...somewhere. Probably doing traditional things like assasinating group C.O.s and scaring the begeezus out of
people. Lebia (in Landmate) and the Tachikoma Loki are safely out of the way whist Lebia keeps hold of the Datanets for her long-term allies and the Phobos
admins. Eddie's also...somewhere, but he's plotting the dowfall of the two largest groups left (Warsies and Trekkies I believe).

Oh, and Rob? Noah got the last of the SOS-Dan. Utena lucked her way through to Itsuki and lucked her way out, but didn't survive much longer.

[Foxboy]

A feral grin passed across Tom's face. This whole exercise had been the most fun she'd had since That Asshole had thrown her old self into that doohickey. True, the ground fighting from Tango Shoes had brought back some good memories, but it had also brought back some of the bad ones that went with it. PTSD was a bitch and a half to get over.

She shook her head to clear it and got back to her city fighting experience. Port Phobos had it all over Kandahar and Sadr City for the ease of movement a typical civilian could think of. But where it really shone was the access tunnels. Despite her... pneumatic build and thanks to the ridiculous flexibility most catgirl victims wound up with, Tom was able to wriggle through crawlspaces, shimmy up Jeffries' tubes and generally get into places folks would not expect a centerfold-grade woman to get to.

She looked down on the platoon of Leathernecks below her, walking fat and happy. It was obvious many of them had been fresh from Boot Camp when the Stingray lifted, because they were in Textbook formation. She smiled and uncapped her fat red washable marker. Time to make sure the rookies lived up to the Corps' reputation.

"Oo-rah!" she whispered. She might not be welcome back in the States right now, but, "retired" or not, she was still a Marine.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[robkelk]

"All right! Now we're cooking with steam!" Kohran marched the battlemover she was wearing out of the weapons cache, providing cover for the rest of her team.

Then a siren sounded behind them. "You! In the mecha! Pull over!"

"What's a police officer doing here?" wondered Kohran.

Jake shrugged. "Better not to piss her off." They stepped to the side of the corridor and waited.

A tall, slim, attractive woman walked up to the party. "Do you have an operator's licence for that power suit?"

"I didn't know she needed one," Jake commented. "And it's a battlemover, not a power suit."

The officer glared at him. "This is Mars. All operators of mecha, battlemovers, or other power suits must pass the basic competency test administered at Cydonia Marsbase Sara. The licence they issue is the only proof of completion we recognize. So..." she turned back to Kohran. "Do you have that licence?"

"How do we know you're actually a police officer?" asked Kagome.

"Here's my badge." She flipped open her wallet. "Chief Inspector Natsuko Aki, Helium Police Department."

"'Helium'?" Jake asked. "Doesn't that mean you don't have any authority here?"

Inspector Aki turned quickly, shot three times, and grinned. Suction-cup darts stuck to Kagome, Jake, and Leda's foreheads. "You're right. But you're also out of the game. Suckers."

Kohran put one hand on Natsume's shoulder and squeezed - not enough to injure the policewoman, but it was obvious that the young Mad could have crippled her opponent. The suit hummed for a moment, then she asked, "Now, do I put my other hand around your neck and pretend to squeeze, or do you admit you're out too... big sister?"

Aki looked shocked. "What?"

"Noah told Yoriko and me about you and Agatha, the day we woke up. The day after the two of you woke up. I always wanted to meet both of you, but whenever I had free time, you were nowhere to be found."

"I'm the chief inspector of a big-city police department. I'm a busy woman."

"And I'm a senior member of an important faction; you could have justified taking the time to meet me."

Natsuko glared at Kohran. "Fine. I was avoiding you."

"Why?"

"That should be obvious. And every minute you spend talking to me is a minute the other teams have to bring heavy weapons up against you. Didn't Scott-san teach you better tactics than that?"

Kohran thought for a moment. "All right... but I do want to get to know you. As a person, not a name out of our father's past."

"You're calling him 'father'?" Natsuko shook her head in disbelief. "Go on, get out of my sight already..."

After Kohran left, Jake turned to Natsuko. "What was all that about?"

"Ask Scott-san, or Hasegawa." They couldn't miss the scorn she put into saying Sora's name. "I have nothing more to say about this." And she walked off towards the entertainment district.

"Why did she attack us?" Kagome wondered. "It made no tactical sense at all."

Leda frowned. "Because we're Noah's friends. I think she's jealous of us... C'mon, let's go back to the Stallion; Noah's going to want to know about Ms. Aki, and it would be rude to tell him over a commwatch."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Black Aeronaut]

Foxboy, you having Tom join up with the Marines or making an Endrun on them?

[Foxboy]

End-run. I'm trying to set up Tom to DESERVE her ranking on the Cyber's top 9 list. The marker is her "nerf" KA-Bar. Also, she's a bit bitter that [In my drafts for "Whys and Wherefors? Never Mind"] The US Gov't refused her and her wife re-entry as "contraband material" due to her catgirling. Granted this was at the height of the kerfluffle over the Grovers Corners launch, but still...
Regardless, Tom is playing the "'crusty gunnery sergeant' versus the 'new recruit pukes' in a training exercise" schtick here. There's definitely gonna be a round of drinks on Tom [take that how you will] when this is over. It's a combination of showing off and getting these guys ready to face the future of warfare 'Daneside.
And that reminds me... fennish military decorations [Purple Heart, Victoria Cross, etc.] need to be discussed in a Wiki Page thread.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[firvulag]

The group of FESWAT at the corner table in Callahan's had grown somewhat as more eliminated members trickled, or were carried in. Auger had just finished
recounting his team's escape from a group of Hunter class Heavy Gear when a waitress arrived at the table and plunked down a fresh pitcher.

"compliments of tall, dark and edgier than thou over there," she said, pointing to an un-helmeted man in silver and bronze tactical dreadnought
armour.

F and Auger grinned and raised their glasses in salute. The Space Marine smiled and returned the gesture before turning back to his conversation.

"What was that about, Furry?"

The two glanced at each other and F held out his glass. Auger sighed and started pouring. F waited until the glass was full, "Well, before we got split
up our groups ran into him in one of the lower level corridors." He paused as Auger began to snicker. "Alright, I ran into him. Literally.
You'd be surprised how quiet someone in that much armour can be."

"Anyway, I've got both my hands full, that dinky little airsoft thing in one, sword in the other, and he doesn't give me any time to draw
something heavy enough to deal with his armour. He's got a nerf-bolter in one hand and boffer chain sword in the other and I've barely got time to
roll to my feet and parry as he charges at me."

Pausing to take a sip of his drink, F grimaced at the memory. "And let me tell you, you don't want to parry a chain weapon if you can help it. Damn
near ripped the sword out of my hand. So I'm back pedalling frantically, dodging swipes from his sword, when Grey and this joker," he indicated Auger
with a tilt of his head, "make into the corridor behind him. Can't imagine what took them so long."

Auger shrugged unapologetically, and F resumed speaking. "I figure I've got to keep his attention so they can do something, so I start talking. I
say to him 'It may look like I'm in trouble, but I'm an Engineer, I know how to handle this.' And he just gives me this look, right through
his helmet and says, 'Oh, and how is that?'. My reply, of course, is 'More gun.', which is when Grey opens up with that Bullgut of hers. He
takes all six rockets full in the back and is stuck standing there, wrapped in tangler string."

A new voice broke in while the rest of the table was snickering. "Last we saw of him we'd found a hand trolley and wheeled him over to a recovery
point," said Abigail as she pulled up a chair. "'Though, isn't the Bullgut more of a rocket launcher Furry?"

"Yes," said F, "but the principle still stands." He gave Abigail a once over. "I take it the alliance with the pirates and ninja is
over?"

She shuddered and reached for a glass. "Yeah, they both stabbed me in the back, the idiots," she said before taking a long drink. "You'd
have thought they'd have noticed I was about to throw a foamer grenade, or at least moved away from me before trying to finish each other off."

"I was wondering why your armour was so clean," Auger said. "It's all shiny and squeaky like a new recruits." He leaned too far back
to dodge a retaliatory swipe and tumbled from his chair. The rest of the table broke up as Abigail and F hauled him up off the floor.

--

"Who's the freak in the tights?"

"Haven't been in Gotham long, have you kid?"

--Batman Beyond

[Black Aeronaut]

Foxboy: WOW!!! This is gonna get messy and FAST!

Right now, Benjamin, Gina, the remaining Jess's, Chris Marsden and what's left of his crew, and The Jason are on the freakin' way to do the same
damn thing!

[robkelk]

I'm trying to set up Tom to DESERVE her ranking on the Cyber's top 9 list.

Then I assume she'd have no trouble taking out the remaining (heavily armed but untrained) Stellvian in this shindig... (hint)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ECSNorway]

After much discussion with my coauthors on this one...

Chris grinned and shook Dodge's hand. "A great fight, Captain, but you do know what happens next."



"Of course! We retire to the party lounge, and you go to see if you can fight through my rearguard and booby-traps to get to our flag-base."



"Well," Chris mused, "There is that. But there's also the question of us 'torturing' the disarm codes out of you. I have a whole box of chinese finger puzzles, and a few jaffa cakes..." He watched the Navy man's face carefully, and grinned at the expression he saw. "Or I could go right to the chocolate-chip anchovie cookies."



"You wouldn't. Chocolate and anchovies? That's... that's inhuman! Beyond the pale!" Indeed, even Ben and Gina seemed a bit dismayed, and several Jess were covering their mouths and stepping back from the scene.



Chris grinned widely and held up a bag of fish-shaped chocolate-chip cookies, waving them under Dodge's nose. "Now, now, Captain..." He chuckled. Then pushed Dodge back into the crowd of Marines. "G'wan, get out of here. We'll get in the old-fashioned way."



The Marines, rather disappointed that the hot blondes had been only holograms, shuffled discontentedly out the exit, to make their way eventually back to the bar. Despite the solemnity of defeat, they quickly started chatting and joking among themselves. They might be out of the game, but the celebration was only beginning. And besides, they'd get their revenge next year.



Chris, then, turned back to his allies-of-the-moment with that same wide grin. "We do make a good team, hmm? Glad to have you along." After a brief pause, though, he added, "Way too much of an imbalance on the Eva pilots, though. Feeling lost in the sea of Rei, Ms. Langley?" He chuckled slightly, fiddled with his watch for a moment, and then...

"Henge no jutsu!" And he changed.



And it was a perfect Asuka Sohryu-Langley, dressed in a red yukata with gold lining, whose arm Amy O'Connell took with her right, just as she took Rei's in her left - Rei's own uniform having been replaced by a matching yukata in blue and white - and the three bestowed a perfectly innocent 'schoolgirl chums' look on Ben, Gina, and the Jess's. "Cheers!" they called in unison, and as Lufy's troops fell into position around them.



"Perv," Gina hmphed, half-affectionately, and leaned back as Chris reached out to tousle her hair as they passed. So far she'd kept him from finding out why she avoided it, and she meant to keep it up.



"Perv?" Chris smiled and lowered her hand, letting the other Asuka lookalike retreat. "Maybe, maybe, little sister. But if that was all I wanted, I'd henge into Ami Mizuno, get some black silk ribbon, and head down to medical..."



"You're the one who was using pornographic holos to distract the Marines," snapped Gina, just as a rather young-looking figure with a decided resemblance to the aforementioned blonde holograms - indeed, it appeared identical - appeared in the doorway.



"Nope! Those were mine!" she crowed, gaining the instant attention of all in the room. "Worked pretty well, too, huh?" The fact that she was riding on what appeared to be a hovering cloud just added to the sheer surreality of the scene.



Then, not noticing Ben's face reddening, she asked, "Got any of those jaffa cakes left?"



And just as one of Lufy's troopers (//Optio// Graham Miller, a former miner who'd opted to follow the Eagles at the start of the Boskone War, after losing several friends to slavers and pirates) was about to hand over the box of the British sweets, Fate handed the group a sign that All Was Not Going To Be Quite So Easy.



"SHIT!" cried out Ben as his Shell-Bullet arm suddenly went wild, bucking and thrashing as Benjamin tried desperately to get the thing clipped to cargo strap around his waist.



The Rockhounds group backed off, quickly, being familiar with the odd quirks of Ben's particular problem. The leaders, also being familiar with it, waited to see what they could do to help.



(The kid, on the other hand, chowed down on a jaffa cake, then asked Graham for the bag of cookies.)



"Here!" cried out Gina as she went to help him with the writhing armored arm, muttering Teutonic imprecations as she did so. As chances to do so appeared, Jess, Amy, Jess, Chris, Jess, Rei, and Jess also piled in. Eventually, the arm did get pinned down and restrained, but only after several people got bruised and Benjamin had been pinned down to the ground.



"Sometimes," said Benjamin as he got up wearily, "I think this thing is more trouble than it's worth." No one dared to disagree with him.

As the blonde nibbled, tasting the new cookie, she snickered softly and slowly morphed into a blond-haired boy with whisker marks on his face. The Roughriders had already figured out who they were dealing with, but it wasn't until now that the Rockhounds team began to grasp it.

Chris, Amy, and Rei directed a uniform glare of their own at the boy. "You, young man," Amy snapped out, the command voice coming easily to the former Air Force officer. "You have two choices."



"What's that?" he asked around a mouthful of cookie.



"You can come with us... or we can lock you in the vegetable locker."

The kid laughed. "Come with you? Guess I could. Though you wouldn't want to lock me in with the vegetables, anyway. I'd just turn them into minions..." The kid's form morphed again...still a boy, maybe ten or so, but dark-haired now...with a monkey's tail. He gave the others a big grin. "Hey guys. Having fun yet? Don't get too close, please...I got hit with a Kawaii grenade a while back. I've taken a few measures to hinder the effects, but if you're female you might want to stay back."
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Well, Rob's given his OK for this bit of inspiration. We'll return to our regularly scheduled craziness shortly, once I figure out how Eddie's going to do it...

---

A.C. observed Noah's semi-depressed rant with a disappointed scowl, watching as the rest of the Stellvians tried to calm him down. Finally she gave a long sigh and interrupted.

"Oh for Big Blue's sake Noah, shut up and calm down."

Noah made to retort, but a glare from A.C. made him pause, which A.C. took advantage of.

"Regardless of everything else, YOU aren't going ANYWHERE until your arm finishes healing. Which will be at least two hours."

"But-"

"Lebia has a lock on her, and she isn't scheduled to go back to Helium until tomorrow. Besides, now I know they're up and about I have to make the offer to upgrade them to current spec. If I can find Agatha, which will be tricky."

"You're assuming they're still together." Takami looked up from the computer console logged into the Hacker Underspace's private network (which was watching Fate reverse-engineer Gina's virus). "When I hacked the passenger lists of the ships from Helium, I didn't see anyone named 'Agatha' on the shuttle Natsuko came up on. Or any blondes the right age, either."

"Did she come up on some other shuttle?"

Takami shrugged. "Who knows? Half the late-teenage or early-twenties blonde Sparks out there call themselves Agatha."

"You think they split up when they ran away from home? I guessed that, given their personalities. Thanks for checking anyway. I'm hoping that Natsuko is still in contact with her given that, of the two of them, Agatha was most likely to figure out their maintenance needs. Otherwise it's the hard way. Getting them to trust me is the tricky part." The cyberneticist gave a half amused, half despairing snort. "Why is it," she asked rhetorically, "that every intelligence I have a hand in bringing into the world is more human than I am?" Shaking off the reflective mood, A.C. straightened up and stalked the few steps over to Noah to poke him in the chest with a well-manicured finger. "Now, I STILL have some work to do. If you're good, and I mean //very good//..." The green-eyed woman purred in that way that raised the temperature of anyone in earshot. Although Noah wasn't having an easy time of it as A.C. was leaning in JUST the right way to give him an enticing look at her cleavage. "I may let you escort me to my chat with her. But," She added as she leaned back and idly tossed her hair back with a sweep of a hand, "that will take some time."

"At least two hours?" Leda asked wryly.

"Smart AND beautiful." A.C. smiled seductively at the senshi. "You really are too good to Noah. If you ever get tired of this big lug, you know where to find me."

"I may be a Senshi, but I'm straight."

"That's a shame." A.C. gave Leda a friendly wink. "Ladies." The raven-haired cyborg walked out with eye-catching seductive grace.

"Boy, Noah." Greenpeace said brightly. "That last time I saw A.C. go that seductive was when she was questioning some Criminal Guild mooks. Of course she likes you, which is why you're not needing a change of underwear from her bad side."

"I nearly need a change of underwear from her //good// side, if you get my meaning."

"Oh?" Leda grinned as she took Noah's available hand. "Is there a room around here where the two of us can be alone and unobserved?"

"Not for another two hours," A.C. insisted, from the hallway.

"It'll be too late then," Noah and Leda muttered in unison.

Their watches double beeped, indicating a new text message. In eerie synchronicity they looked at their watches, blushed, looked at each other, blushed harder, then turned to look out the Galley door with something like terrified awe.

The Forge residents didn't point out how close they were to an intercom station, which turned off.

[Foxboy]

Tom grumbled to herself. "Damn pukes were taken out by their libidoes." Their Gunny was going to hear about it at the debriefing. Aunt SAMantha might
have a looser dress code than Uncle Sam but the core of her CORPS was shaping up to have the kind of reputation her inspiration had dirtside. It was like the
old saying about Ginger Rogers: she did everything Fred Astaire did, backwards, in high heels and a dress. Admittedly, Tom hated wearing the Sammies'
"formal" uniform but she loved the way Allison looked in it.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Now that her targets of choice were out, all she was left with were ...

She grinned when she saw the battlemover. She was going to get to use the stuff she cadged from the ninja wannabes. The thing was loud, clanking, and seemed to
be looking for similar targets. Just like a 'Dane tank, and she KNEW how to handle tanks. She watched from the tunnels for a while, to get an idea of the
field of vision of her target. Satisfied, she dashed from cover point to cover point as the head of the suit swiveled around, staying out of the pilot's
line of sight.

She pulled a "post-it" from the pad and slapped it on the back of the suit's knee, tearing a corner and priming the expansion foam "limpet
mine explosive note." A manic grin split her face as she dashed to a safe distance and more concealment.

"God, I love satchel charges!"
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Black Aeronaut]

Foxboy: Wha? Tom took down the Marine base already!?

[Foxboy]

The Marines got taken out by the "Harem no Justsu," IIRC.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Feinan]

Actually, there are two sets of Marines. There was the party taken out by the Rockhounds and the Roughriders, with an assist from the Jason's holographic
porn show, and then there's the Marine base, which the combined group is getting ready to go after.

[ECSNorway]

Yeah. Also, they could have kept back a larger defensive unit than, say, the Rockhounds. Tom could've gotten their other scout group instead of the
base-defense team.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.