OPERATION SEXY MARIO: CONCLUSION

[initiates]

Date & Time: Sept 19th
Location: The UE Holding Compound, and surrounding area.
Characters: Anyone being rescued, doing the rescuing, or doing the distracting.
Summary: There have been some slackers freeloading off the UE for the past couple weeks or so, so let's go drag them home.
Warnings: Likely violence! Let a mod know if we should update this.

Those meant for distraction and those meant for rescue alike are both loaded onto the same stolen highspeed train. It's a great distance to cover, but the train manages in just under two hours, and deposits both groups three miles from the Holding Compound — a desolate and cold area, with rocky, uneven ground, small but jagged hills well-scattered and covered in scraggly trees — and there they part ways.

The diversion is sent away north, to draw United Earth attention and aggression upward, further into the continent, while the rescue team takes a much slower and quieter route to approach the Compound from the south, closest to Exsilium. The rescue team's orders are to wait a full half hour, to be sure that all forces who can be drawn out of the Compound to meet the sudden onslaught from the north will have already left.

The diversion team won't have an easy job of it. The soldiers are heavily armed, and trained to fight to the death before they surrender. They're grouped in organized squadrons, about 20 in each, and seem to outnumber Transports by three to one. Scattered throughout these soldiers are the Masked, the UE's special forces. These soldiers strike with a deadly precision, enhanced speed and strength, and highly advanced weaponry. Also, oddly enough, they seem to have a few smaller members among them, standing about 4 feet tall, and wielding strange powers… Those familiar with the powers of their kidnapped friends may see distinct similarities.

The Compound itself, when the rescue team makes their way in, will be very quiet. All prisoners had been forced into locked rooms (together or separately — whatever was most convenient) before the soldiers had left to face the encroaching threat. There are still personnel left to man the base, of course, and a few of them are armed soldiers — but for the most part it's scientists and researchers. Careful, though. Even scientists and researchers are perfectly capable of sounding the alarm to bring back the armed threats.

Once everyone is out of the Compound, the train will begin running a return trip. It will be kept as long as possible, while the distraction teams sneak back from the battlefield in small groups, but it can't wait forever. Those on the battlefield for the longest, the hardest hitters or the most dedicated fighters, might just have to find another way home. So… any Transports with relocation abilities feel like lending a hand?

Comments

[affectate]

Ah, that's right, you certainly are a friendly person, Mr Kano! It's nothing! I was simply surprised to hear that you considered us friends already, rather than there being any strangeness in your words!

[It bothers her a little more than just that though. Of the Dan members she's met so far, Kano is most like the group she led. Feeling comfortable around him is easy and she almost forgets he actually found his place under [with] Kido. In that more positively oriented group.

That's why almost is the keyword. He's a comfort to talk to but she'll never really forget he's just barely too good for her; she doesn't really deserve his friendship either. So he gets lumped in with Kido and Shin anyway.

It's just awkward.]

[duplicitoussight]

[He gives a quiet laugh.] Well, I like talking to you! You've got an interesting air to you so... why not, right? There's no harm in it.

[Never mind the fact that he doesn't deserve his friends right now. They'll take him back and say they understand--but even if he wants that, he knows that his presence would make them uneasy for a while.]

[affectate]

"Interesting?" Ah, I suppose that is a term that you could use... Yes! You do possess that same interesting air, Kano. Would you like to be friends?

[She's asking for too much just implying he's like her. And he's still better, it's not like hammering that comparison in will bring him down to her level and she wouldn't wish that on him anyway (for a change).

She's just talking, really. She doesn't expect anything at all.]

[duplicitoussight]

Aren't we friends already?

[Not true friends, certainly not, since this incident proves that he isn't safe around them. He never was, not since he began lying and hiding right before their very eyes. But at the very least, it's nice to have someone to talk to and to be normal with, even if they're inherently abnormal.]

[affectate]

[No. No, they're not. Not really. If she needs to use a word to get it all down pat, they're more like positive acquaintances, right? They're not friends. "Friend" is a convenient word to use to intimidate, or to distinguish from the hated masses. Sometimes it's legitimate.

If she thinks of it that way it's more comfortable. But she's not really sure what's going on here.

All the same, if she can cheer this hated person up a little, it'd be nice. Even if he's too good to be one of hers. That's the approach she'll take to handling this person -- disregard any attempts he makes but don't actually stop making her own. So she mimics his smile a little. It's supposed to be comforting, but instead it just looks sort of. Deeply wrong.]

-- Ah, you're right, Mr Kano! My thoughts had been so preoccupied with other subjects that I'd simply forgotten... yes, of course! You and I are friends. I did, after all, make myself available if you wished to speak, which I do believe constitutes some friendly gesture? You're a very kind person, after all!

[And then she totally drops that subject and shifts gears again. She figures he'd appreciate the gesture.]

What sorts of things do you like?

[duplicitoussight]

[The way she approaches friendship is so strange. Like it's a series of steps and etiquette to take instead of something spontaneous and just. There. He'd be lying if he said it didn't feel strange and artificial, her approach. Everything about her is beginning to bleed through that way, and he's beginning to wonder if, in the end, she's just a really bad liar with people.]

It should be obvious for a guy like me! Cute girls, ah, sometimes pictures, too, good food... I'm a very simple sort of person.

[affectate]

[Because her parents never hugged her, you should know all about that yo

But she gives a quick nod and a slightly less unsettling smile.]

Ah, what sorts of girls do you prefer? And what foods do you like?

[duplicitoussight]

[that shit ain't right]

Well, well, sweets are best for both! A sweet girl and a sweet meal makes any guy happy!

[affectate]

Is that so? I am a girl, so I'm afraid that I'm dreadfully unfamiliar with the sorts of things that boys enjoy.

But while sweets are certainly enjoyable, it won't do to subsist on them entirely! ... Although I do enjoy them... do you like macarons, Mr Kano?

[duplicitoussight]

Macaroons, huh? I've tried them before. Ah, are they your favorite?

[affectate]

Father once brought a box home to me after a trip to France! -- But, ah, no, my favourite sweets would be... well, I do enjoy financiers and madeleines, and apple strudel, and --

[And she's just going to keep listing off sweets until he interrupts or tells her to stop, it's awful.

[duplicitoussight]

[oh my god he didn't even know that half this shit existed

he needs to eat them all]

--uwah, you sound like a pretty rich person!

[affectate]

My family is somewhat well to do... I was allowed to leave my home only recently, and as a result I was often brought many different foods, as a child! Because I am disliked, Uncle Lawrence and Uncle Edward -- both far more able-bodied than myself and less restricted than Father, would travel and send gifts to our home in order to appease him.

[duplicitoussight]

Is that so... hey, hey, did you go to school or did you have a tutor? Did your uncles teach you?

[affectate]

School... ah, I was tutored for some time, before finding individuals that were both able and willing to teach me became difficult, and then learned I through self-study -- currently, however, I am a university student!

[duplicitoussight]

I thought so, I thought so. You talk a bunch with very proper language, just like one.

[affectate]

Like... one...? Is there something strange about the way that I speak?

[duplicitoussight]

Ah, you haven't noticed? You talk with a pretty refined manner! Just like a lady!

[affectate]

-- Oh, I see! It certainly is true that I did not notice... I only speak in the manner that I've been told.

[A pause of a second or two.]

But something more casual's better for Kano, right? It's less words, even when the point is the same.

[duplicitoussight]

I don't mind how you talk at all~ It's just easier for me not to worry about those sorts of things.

[affectate]

As long as Kano understands me, how easily he does it doesn't really matter. The way you talk stands out a lot too, you know.

[duplicitoussight]

Eh, does it? And I thought I was fitting in really nice!

[affectate]

It does, it does! No one here talks the way Kano does! It makes you very unique ☆

[duplicitoussight]

I'm touched to hear that! Ah, but what if I took on Elaine's way of speaking?! How would that go, you think?

[affectate]

Well, Kano would be trading his uniqueness for mine, right? That's interesting, how interesting! An even trade gives us a chance to fool everyone!