pugbutter

The Kennel (all ages welcome, all genders welcome, please bring treats)

Oh, hey. Didn't see you there.

The name's Pug. I might also be a pug. You don't know, but more importantly, you can't prove anything.

No fancy BBCodes today. Just the bidness.

About Me:

➣ Honestly way too old to still be playing make-believe on the internet. (Yeah it's >21. Ugh.)
➣ Male
➣ Eastern Standard Time
➣ Grammatically I write at the Advanced level. I mean, I use a lot of semicolons and em-dashes. This automatically entitles me to walk around with a cane and a feathered pimp hat and call other writers "plebeians," right?
➣ Post length fluctuates according to what the scene needs. My current record sits at 4,708 words in a single post, but maaaaaaybe don't expect that level of gumption all the time ...
➣ I write character-driven narratives, and am always aiming to keep you invested, interested, and on your toes.
➣ I can do forum, PM, or Discord RP; up to you.
➣ Statistically speaking, you will quit the RP before I do. I VERY RARELY ghost or leave partners in the dark (and there are reasons when I do, not that I'm worried about you at all, cutie). 99 out of 100 times, I'll reply eventually, either in the RP continuing the story or in OOC explaining what the hold-up is. Thank you for your patience.
➣ Yeah it, uh, takes me a while to post sometimes. I'm sorry in advance.
➣ Romance is neat. Smut is lame. Fade-to-black please.
➣ I will play any gender pairing you want, but romance paths are only available in MxF pairings (with some setting-specific exceptions not detailed here pls inquire within if needed).
➣ Things I will play with you:

⤷ Fantasy

⤷ Dark Fantasy
⤷ Low Fantasy
⤷ New Weird (à la Planescape: Torment and Perdido Street Station)
⤷ Gaslamp / "Steampunk"

⤷ Gothic Fiction

⤷ Vampire: the Masquerade, and vampires in general as long as they're evil as fuck

⤷ Science Fiction

⤷ Cyberpunk
⤷ Space Opera
⤷ Mecha
⤷ Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse/Survival Horror

⤷ Noir
⤷ Slice-of-Life

⤷ Delinquents! Banchō, sukeban, bōsōzoku ... if it's got pompadours and teenaged attitude, I am ALL IN.

⤷ Gambling
⤷ Your ideas! If you have them, please pitch them.
⤷ Synthesizing any combination of the above in unique and compelling ways

➣ Things I will not play with you:

⤷ Superheroes
⤷ Urban Fantasy
⤷ Isekai
⤷ Sports
⤷ Canon characters from that thing you like. OCs only.

➣ I will answer questions in the thread, but to seek out a prospective partnership you must please PM me.

About You, the Perfect Writing Partner:

➣ Your writing operates at the Advanced level for plotting, character creation and development, and all the actually important stuff in an RP; your spelling, grammar, and post length at least sit at, say, the mid-Casual level. I can read your post and understand what you're saying because it doesn't look like a nuclear launch code.
➣ You create a character who is flawed, blemished, scarred, and above all, deeply human and interesting. This character has chemistry with mine.
➣ You're active, engaged, and motivated in plotting out the story with me, not content to let me do all the leg-work. You have a VISION, and by God you're going to make sure somebody (me, I mean me) fucking sees it.
➣ You will refuse to quit the RP before me out of sheer spite.
➣ You will include the word "Fugeddaboutit" somewhere in your solicitation. Not to prove you read the thread, but to let me know that you're a sweet Italian nonna from Brooklyn, preferably named Gabriella, and you make a mean marinaaaaaar'. 🤌

Anyway, without further ado, here's a few example plot hooks, which you're free to pursue wholesale, to tinker and tweak, or to ignore altogether as you propose your own ideas in genres I like:

Sample Plots

Roles are not set in stone so feel free to ask to switch with me. I definitely try to make sure both characters carry equal weight and agency in a 1x1 story, so hopefully both roles feel equally important and are only subject to personal preference.

Cyberpunk

When life is cheap, secrets are king.

In the distant future, competition between corporations can be quite fierce, with private contractors being hired to infiltrate rival companies, steal their tech, destroy their research, and even stage elaborate "accidents" for nosy employees who stumble too close to the truth. The solution? Psychological security engineers, also called "patchers." They are experts at what they do: screening new company hires for any hint of disobedience, nonconformity to company goals, ... or ulterior motives. And Armagear boasts some of the best talent in the industry. Like {YC}, whose record for sniffing out spies is unmatched.

Unfortunately, not every employee in the interviewing room is as enthusiastic about protecting trade secrets. Take, for example, {MC}. One would think that {YC}'s work ethic and professionalism would have rubbed off on him when they were partnered up, and yet ...

{MC} has known he was bound for the food line for weeks now, but he thought he would be fired for smuggling a flask of whisky in his coffee cup, not ... this. They're claiming he tried to take copyrighted tech with him as he walked out the door, and even that he was embezzling u-creds into an offshore account. {MC} was already paranoid, but this confirms it: he's been framed. But by whom? Why?

Unfortunately, as (what he can only assume to be) a plainclothes Armagear hit-squad kicks down his door, {MC} has no time to figure it out, and only one place where he can think to go in search of safety: to the apartment of the only person who ever listened to him in this godforsaken city. To {YC}'s apartment. Maybe she'll listen again. Maybe she can use what remains of her reputation, her connections, after her partner "went rogue," to help clear his name and find out what's really going on behind the silvered high-rise windows of New Morocco.

Dark Fantasy / Post-Apocalypse

Two partners-in-crime sit in their respective cells, awaiting the day of their execution. But one morning, when they are finally to swing from the gallows, a woman arrives at the jail asking to speak to them. The catchpoles happily drag them before her and the first they see of her is her sumptuous clothing, crafted of only the finest silk and goatskin. Either she bribed her way in here, or she's an important local figure whose name alone lets her taunt and mock any prisoners she pleases, they quickly realize.

Of course, the two dead mean are not really listening until, after introducing herself, the good lady offers them their freedom, explaining that to earn it, they must only steal a treasure for her.

The catch: the treasure is somewhere on the continent of Skarnost. And they've both heard the rumors. (Alternatively: they've been there before, are all the more broken for it, and hoped to never have to go back.) Worse, none of the other agents the lady has sent on this mission have returned. The criminals protest at this, explaining that it's not much of a "choice" when both options guide them to the grave all the same, but that is their choice nonetheless: board a ship to Skarnost, brave her creatures and hellscapes, and die off in a broken wilderness somewhere. Or die at the end of a rope in the city square.

To sweeten the deal, the lady offers one last boon, should they return with her prize: a sword, which she unwraps from a silk shawl and draws from its scabbard. Then, in a single swing, she cleaves it through both the chain between {YC's} shackles and the table beneath it. The sword can cut through anything, she says; do this for her, and not only will she free {us} from these cells. She will see to it that no cell can ever hold {us} again.

Mutated and hungry wildlife. Hostile environs. Superstitious and wary people, kissed by madness and by dark magics, the residue of a devastating war. The hatred of even the earth itself as it tries to vomit them up and spit them out. The two rogues must survive all of these and more on their journey deep into the heart of darkness.

Sci Fi 1

An elite hacker, safecrack, and demolitions expert. A parasitic brain-worm who puppeteers the metatemporal and thermokinetic energies of the universe as easily as the host bodies she "borrows," sensing the future and stopping bullets in midair. Alone, just two more lumps of space-scum; together, the most infamous bank robbers in the galaxy. The type of criminals whose capture would make an up-and-coming detective's career.

When a small job goes horribly wrong, the pair know they're running on borrowed time. Retirement seems less and less likely by the day, but if they want the house and the garden and the small tea shop they've dreamed of, then they gotta make off with one last score. A score big enough to get them to the edge of the system, where they can finally build the quiet, boring life they've always wanted. A score the CPPB would never expect: the Oceanus Bank & Trust on Taicho V.

Big. Reliable. Guarded by every alarm, sensor, and autoturret straight out of a technofreak's fever dreams, not to mention the augmented and psychochemically conditioned security guards. They say no one but the tellers has seen inside the vault; that it's completely impregnable. Of course, that's because the "Ganymede Ghosts" have never taken a crack at it. After all, how can any vault be called "impregnable" until it's withstood the very best the criminal underbelly can throw at it?

Fail and they'll be legends. Succeed, and they'll be rich beyond their wildest imaginings. A "howcatchem" about two partners scheming the heist of a lifetime, and the psychic detective hot on their trail.

Sci Fi 2 / Space Opera / Desertpunk

Far away in the peripheries of the galaxy, a single planet revolves a red dwarf star. Both of these celestial bodies were named for the wives of emperors, but only one of these names has survived: the star's name, Tashlultum. The planet has another name now. Once a fecund site for culture and science, a single solar flare, thought to be impossible for such a cold, dying star, was enough to burn all traces of civilization from its surface. Now the Resplendency of Man calls it Borsipa, after the hill which served as plinth and foundation to the Tower of Babel; a broken monument to the hubris of their predecessors.

But life has quietly endured on Borsipa. Like maggots her people crawl among the hollowed-out husks of scuttled battle-cruisers, unaware that the bursts of light they see in the night sky are in fact the bombs of a war from before they were born, like a fire which refuses to snuff out. Likewise, the imperials, using Borsipa as a ship graveyard, ejecting all their garbage and debris into her atmosphere to be burned, are mostly unaware that some of their "gifts" survive reentry, and make it to the planet's surface, where they are salvaged and stripped and scrapped by the people below, sustaining themselves among the rust, the rubble, the litter of an empire which has tried to forget them.

I say "tried," of course, because men like Bertram Rubinsky refuse to fall quietly into the same obscurity as the rest of his race. Though he insists that he is not their king, and, in fact, that they have no king at all down there (including Emperor Otho II, blessed be His name), the propaganda he pumps out from his junk fort has worked miracles in rallying the Borsippans to his cause. If he continues, he will set a dangerous precedent to other systems: that they too can reject the resplendency of His Majesty unchallenged, that they too can claim their phony, hypocritical independence, that they too can reap the rewards of His kingdom without first paying their dues ... But the order has finally come down from the palace. It's time to end that.

We'll be dropping you off a few klicks outside of a settlement called Bartertown, with the necessary disguises, air tanks, and a pouch of the local currency for good measure. Ingratiate yourself to the locals. Get close to Rubinsky. Capture him alive if you can—we would like to interrogate him, and make sure he's operating alone—but do not jeopardize your main mission: you must put an end to his high treason, and his subversion of the Emperor's order. If that means sticking a neurodart in his neck, so be it. Oh, and the isolation, the paranoia, and the local drugs have probably driven Rubinsky insane, so expect to have to fight, sneak, or bluff your way past heavy security, and some boobytraps for good measure.

I don't need to tell you how important your success will be to the war effort. Good luck. And Glory to the Emperor.

Slice of Life

As far back as she can remember, the girls of 3-A have been making {YC}'s life a living hell. Gumming her hair; thumbtacking her seat; using her as a gofer, a slave, and even an ashtray; {YC} is sure she's experienced every torture imaginable at the hands of these affluent and popular bullies. However, the day has finally arrived. After the graduation ceremony, {YC} gets to open her acceptance letter, and find out which high school she will attend for the next three years, away from her tyrants and all the bystanders who only watched as they preyed on those weaker than them. Everyone who hurt {YC} directly, and everyone who looked on and let it happen, all of them will be at different schools soon. Finally. Finally, after three long years, she's free.

All there is to do now is tear open the envelope, squint through her eyelashes, and reveal that she has been sent to ... Tsuruya Technical High School?!

It has to be a mistake. It just has to be. Technical schools are for dropouts and small-time hangure in the making, not girls like her, good and quiet and respectful. Sure, her grades dropped a little, but {YC} couldn't concentrate in those conditions; she feared for her life out there! What had she done to deserve this cruel knife twisting in her gut, anyway? Three long years she'd bided, only to be thrown naked into a den of wolves? They couldn't just do this to her!

---

---

April 1^st. A day of cherry blossoms, fresh bloom, and entrance ceremonies. A day of beginnings. {MC}, like many others in the audience, ignores the scrunched faces and hissing whispers of the teachers in the back row and lights a cigarette. It's good not to be a bottom-feeding first-year anymore; he's back, and bigger and stronger and all healed up from last year's brawls. But {MC} cannot rest on his laurels yet; there is simply too much to do. To accomplish. At least if he hasn't given up on his dream. The Three Kings of Tsuruya certainly won't let their guards down; he can't either.

Only one year left. If he wants to be a legend, then he has until the end of his second year to dethrone one of the Three Kings, and take his place. The title has only ever belonged to third-years ... until now. {MC} will be the first underclassman to ever join the ranks of the three strongest fighters in Tsuruya, and for good measure he'll hold on to it all throughout his senior year, too, just to further cement the saga. All he has to do is get even stronger, even faster, even more dauntless.

These two teenagers, as opposite as they come, have no idea of the fateful meeting which is about to happen under the schoolyard mulberry tree ...

and some pairings too (also non-exhaustive)

Cyberpunk / Science Fiction

Corporate Security / Corporate Security: two partners in the same department
Corporate Security / Saboteur or Hacker (The latter seducing the former as an "in"?)
Criminal Kingpin / Street Urchin
Cyberterrorist / Amateur Hacker
Hitman / Handler (or a two-man hitman team?)
Post-Apocalyptic: Survivor / Survivor (living in the woods together, just trying to make it, similar to It Comes at Night?)
Post-Apocalyptic: Tourist / Guide
Post-Apocalyptic: Anthropologist (or some other scientist) / Bodyguard for Hire

Fantasy

Emperor / Slave
Slave / Slave (fighting together as gladiators in the Coliseum? Possibly planning to escape together?)
Deserters-turned-bandits
Inquisitors persecuting dangerous magic and its users
Magic practitioners in hiding, trying to escape the inquisition

Vampire: the Masquerade

Low Clan / High Clan
Sire / Childe
Coteriemates
Gargoyle Underground Railroad? (a free Gargoyle working with either Anarchs or Sabbat to help another one escape her Tremere masters)
Some kind of forbidden, doomed romance: a Brujah who loves a Ventrue, a Tremere who loves a Banu Haqim, etc.
Honestly this one needs its own thread. The setting is too versatile.

Slice of Life

Delinquents / Friendly Rivalry [from the same gang/school]
Delinquents / Not-so-Friendly Rivalry [from different gangs/schools]
Delinquent / Bullied Classmate (learning how to stand up for him/herself)
Banchō / Sukeban (either the leaders of enemy gangs, or a power-couple who lead their gang together. OR BOTH?!?! 😱)
A couple of bums/hobos/panhandlers, just trying to make it to California.
Bartender / Regular

Okay, that's it. Hoping to hear from you soon.

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

It was supposed to be an easy op: close in on the enemy, suppress them until they were all bunched together, and then pincer them from behind. An ageless tactic, deployed as far back as Hannibal and Scipio, if not even further, when men bashed each other's heads in with rocks and sharpened sticks. Of course the plan was supposed to go wrong, like any plan, but it should have been the new girl wandering too deep into a nest of the enemy; needing an evac with some pinning fire after they'd trusted her behind the line. Not like this. Not like this. An enemy scouter had forced Gan to make a choice. And now that he'd made it, now that he'd inadvertently sent the signal screaming up into the air, he'd endangered all of his friends. The Commander and the rest of her team were attacking headlong, waiting for an encirclement which would come too late. The new girl was stranded somewhere between the two teams, out in the snow, running a serious risk of being caught once the enemies starting moving.

And here sat Gan and Strauss. They both knew they couldn't keep standing there doing nothing, but how should they decide which one to rush in to help? Could the heaviest armor at the Commander's disposal withstand an envelopment long enough for the boys to pull Rose Synapse out of there? Or could Rose stay hidden and keep herself safe while the boys reinforced the line? Gan didn't know. He didn't know, and he was running out of time.

A few hundred meters to the north, the scrapped remains of a small scouter-mech smoldered and steamed, its back turned to them, still glowing where a tungsten dart had sheared a hole in its torso at Mach 2. The longer the seconds ticked along, the antsier Gan was about the other besiegers hurrying over to check the noise and confirm the status of their missing friend. But right now, his and Chlotho's location was the only one still accounted for on their own battle map; here there was still a chance (albeit a slim one) of being bailed out, but only if they stayed where their buddies knew where to find them. Three would be safer than two, and besides, the new girl knew better than anyone where to find Gan in the chaos. He had to stay the course. He had to trust that his intuition would pay off, and guide the new girl back to him before the enemy.

Of course, it was doing nothing for their nerves ...

________________________	"——would've been ruined ANYWAY if we got spotted by a mech that got away."
	"But how do ya know he spotted us?! We coulda let him slip by!"
	"YOU'RE 26 METERS TALL. How did he NOT spot you?!"
	"Oh, so it's MY fault, is it?!"
	"No?! It's just how it happened!"
	"And what 'happens' next, buddy? We just sit here until the same thing happens to us, right? Until we're snuck up on from behind and roasted, right?!"
	"You know damn well we can't move without Synapse."
	"I don't like it. How do you know she didn't regroup with Voldova and the rest?"
	"I don't."
	"You d——WE COULD BE SITTING HERE FOR NOTHING?!"
	"I don't know what to tell you, Strauss. We're operating on limited information here. We have to make a choice. And I've chosen to wait for—"
	"Synapse."
	"Yes, for Synapse, exactly. Wait. What?"
	"There she is; over there!"

Anthropomorphized by its pilot, the towering Phalanx pointed an autocannon arm to the northwest. The smaller, squatter Basilisk twisted on its hip actuator to follow where it pointed.

What Are You Listening To?

The Alphabet Game : Metal Bands Version

Vampire the Masquerade - but make it horrific and twice as sinful with me [F for M, 21+]

Did you find someone for this? Like everyone else post-2004 I cut my teeth on Bloodlines, but I've also been playing the tabletop (V5 with Errata rules) for about two years now, so I'm always thirsting for some more hot Kindred action.

Two questions:

1. You use male pronouns while referring to your partner's character. Since, with the exception of Humanity 9+ (which a soon-to-be Sabbat character won't have LMAO), the Kiss and the Blood Bond both completely overshadow anything which could be called a "sex life," rendering gender all but redundant romantically, is a female character fine or is this part non-negotiable? (Won't necessarily do this; just exploring options)

2. How strongly is your canon differing from the actual canon? Cuz even though LA has a Prince in Vannevar Thomas, and the Camarilla presence there is holding on, the city has been an Anarch Free State ever since 2012, when Theo Bell betrayed the Convention of Prague and took out a bunch of high-profile Ventrue. They're really the ones to beat for control of the city, at least in the official lore.

I've got, I think, pretty flavorful ideas for both a female Brujah and a male Nosferatu if this is still open.

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

---

	"... What are you slagheaps waiting for? It was a false alarm. Get back in position."

---

Wordlessly they steered themselves away from the center, these steel giants shambling through the space-snow. Most of them, anyway. They aimed their backs to the others and their guns to the opaque, soupy expanse beyond, sweeping, searching. With a fifth hurrying to sidle in beside them, it did indeed resemble better a testudo, or a wagon-fort; but still, with only five pairs of eyes watching the storm, and the angles of the five mechs still jutting and crowding up against the others, not a one of them could falter in their vigilance. Not when death could come from anywhere.

Clashing up against this vigilance, however, was the rookie. Not only did she have to watch the others to know what they were doing, and ape them to match; she was struggling to even walk in her new machine. Ketherin held her breath, lest it escaped as words too volatile and cruel for someone so fresh to the ranks, and forced her focus elsewhere. She just had to learn their ways, Ketherin convinced herself. The layout inside her cockpit must've strayed too far from those scanned into the simulations. Or maybe it was just first-day nerves. The girl belonged to a fireteam now, after all; a second family, one which she didn't choose and couldn't escape. Not until her tour was up. Five strangers with whom, if they hated each other's guts, she was trapped for the next three years. Of course she wanted to like them, and for them to like her back. Like Ana before Synapse, and Gan before Ana, this bright-eyed newcomer was watching their every move, and soaking up their every way, while trying not to lean too close and trample any toes in the process. She didn't know how to behave around them yet; she was overthinking it, and stumbling over her own two feet as she practically forgot how to walk.

It had been like this with Ana, too: every little thing she did crawled under Ketherin's skin. She never quite seemed to be taking it all seriously. Everything that left her mouth was a happy-go-lucky movie cliché. And that pose she did in photographs, ugh ... that is, until Yrma pulled Ketherin aside and explained it to her. Explained it in a way which made sense.

"You got any kids back home, Lieutenant-Commander?" she said.

"No," Ketherin answered plainly.

"Do me a favor and pretend."

"Alright? ..."

"You and your husband have just come home from a nice dinner, and find your little girl all tangled up in your pearls, and slathered in your lipstick. She's even put a blade to her hair and given it a good lop. Would you be angry?"

"Naturally."

"Angry to the point of punishment?"

"Probably."

Yrma had already crossed her arms and gloated in some show of triumph, though by Ketherin's reckoning she hadn't even reached any sort of punchline yet.

"Why?" she prodded.

"Quit screwing with me. It's obvious why."

But Yrma persisted. "Why, then?"

So Ketherin deigned to explain herself: "Because I was trying to have a calm, relaxing evening with my husband. Now I've got a mess to clean."

"Ah, right," Yrma chuckled, as if she really had forgotten something so obvious, "that's right. The kid has ruined your evening now, hasn't she. On purpose?"

Ketherin didn't want to admit that she had never delved particularly deeply into the psychology of children. She had to walk herself through all the likelihoods: of a child holding a grudge at least for hours, maybe days. Of the child's ability to bide, to scheme, and to execute. "Hmm. Probably not."

"But you're still punishing her?"

"For God's sake, is there a point to this Socratic bullshit or not?!"

Yrma chuckled again. "Alright. The point, then ... " Ana attracted her gaze from across the room. She was speaking to Caledon, recently promoted to Commander and team leader. From the way she dug the toe of her boot into the carpet, and hid her hands behind her back, and swayed bashfully on the ball of her foot, she was enjoying his company quite a lot. "Scyto" was harder to read; he made everyone feel welcome aboard his team, even when it wasn't his to lead. Even when he was troubled, as Ketherin was now troubled, he made sure it never sloughed off onto anyone else.

"You know, all this time you've talked about how it all made you feel. The mess you'd have to clean," Yrma explained. "But not once did you stop to consider the child's feelings in this story. Did you?"

"Of course I did," the new Lieutenant-Commander refuted. "I thought of how it would hurt her——hurt us both——for me to have to discipline her."

"But not one second before that. Not why she did it, because the mess seemed so senseless to you, you never stopped to wonder about the feelings which provoked it."

Ketherin had been poised to refute this. All of it. Not anymore.

"Not even dogs chew the furniture for no reason, ma'am," Yrma continued. "They do it because they're lonely, neglected, pent-up. Because they'd rather be playing with you, and the wooden leg of a table is the effigy of your absence. So tell me what you think. Really. Why would a little girl want to wear your jewels, your makeup, your hairstyle?"

Yrma didn't need Ketherin's answer; she could see that she'd got it. So the former had only one last thing to say to bring it all together. She paired it with a clap on the back, which then slid off Ketherin's shoulder as the elder pilot began sauntering back to the rest of the group.

"I know I'm not the CO around here, and I definitely wasn't much of a mother to anyone who called me one. But if you'll humor one more question, consider what it is that you're punishing right now," she said, throwing the youngest and newest member of the team a second furtive glance. "Is Ana Calypsi ditzy, clumsy, and dumb? Or is she nervous because she's eager to get along with her new team, and prove to you she's worth her scrap?

"That's it. Thanks."

The next footstep told Ketherin that Yrma really had said the last of her piece. She considered giving her the last word—letting the silence hang dramatically over the old woman's thesis—but ... no, she couldn't just let it go unsaid. Not after how she had just been, in a way, rescued. "Yrma."

Yrma stopped, but didn't turn.

"You were a wonderful mother. I'm sure of it."

Ketherin could sense Yrma's smile, bittersweet and forlorn, but not see it. "Thanks, but you're wrong," she replied. "A good mother would've been there for them."

Ketherin glanced over at the second screen in her comms array—Yrma's screen—flickering near strips of duct tape scrawled over with her tail number, callsign, and a few of her machine's specs, all of these old and worn and peeling. The old woman had no chance of noticing the Commander's contemplative and nostalgic glance while sorting herself into the circle; scouring her rearviews and lining up with the mechs beside her and so on.

The new girl's screen, left of Yrma's, was the only one sticky with fresh tape and fresh pen. They were, after all, the only creds in the fireteam which Ketherin didn't know by heart.

"Lt. SYNAPSE, ROSE."
"Model: Talarius RSS9 (Recon, Scout, Skirmisher, Mk9) 'Fire Ant.'"
"Tail #: 3ZE"

---

	"So, Zulu-Echo, how did it look out there?"	________________________
________________________	"HEY! Who just bumped me?!"
	(Oops.) "Um, it was smooth enough of a journey. Didn't even get caught! ... Oh! You won't believe what I saw, though: I saw a Quickdraw! Assault configuration! It was ancient!"
	(Patience ...) "Glad to hear it. How many?"
	"Only one. And it being so old and all, it didn't have hip actuators or anything. It definitely didn't notice me!"
	"In total, Zulu-Echo. How many are we up against? I say again: how many bandits in theater? Over."
	"Oh! Um, I don't know. Since I was being safe and taking a longer, safer circ route, I didn't keep track of anything like that. Sorry. Uh, over."
	"..."
	"Well, it doesn't change anything. Listen up. We're going hammer-and-anvil on these sons of bitches."
	"Right!" (Oh god we're going to be fighting soon aren't we oh god.)
	"Once Gan takes a shot and downs a tango, one of two things will happen. Either they'll group up and sally out to intercept him, or they'll circle around and try to take cover behind the base. Either way, our two groups pinch down hard and hit 'em from behind."
	"So we don't know who's the hammer and who's the anvil, huh ..."
	"Something like that."
	"Will the groups remain this ... asymmetrical? I don't like Gan being alone out there if they're gunning for him."

---

A good point. Gan had weak armor, slow actuators, and an arsenal comprising long-range weapons almost exclusively. On top of that, most of the weight on the Basilisk was either a giant battery for fueling all those rail and laser systems, or a reactor engine for shoving all that mass around. If he got spotted, and was caught in unawares by more than a light-class patrol or two, he'd be sitting inside little more than a bomb waiting to blow.

But who to send in the Fire Ant's stead? The Phalanx had enough frontal armor to let Chlotho stand up to attack, but its armaments put it in much the same dilemma as the Basilisk: it wanted to weaken armor and pick off pilots from a distance, not get outmaneuvered up close. Ana's Hellion had impressive armor for the speeds she could achieve, but her configuration was meant for unloading a single huge payload quickly and relentlessly before backing off again to re-arm. She would thrive in a brief burst of violence, but languish under attrition. That only left the Hunchback, a versatile and deadly mech, but most of its short-range weapons were lasers, which were both less effective out in this weather, and quick to overheat leaving Yrma unguarded while her coolant flushed and her longer-range weapons sat haplessly quiet and cold.

It wasn't ideal——the 'Team worked best in formation, covering each other member's weaknesses——but Ketherin had a choice to make, and she made it. She called out the reinforcement's callsign while she made adjustments on the map.

---

	"Alpha-Tango."	________________________
________________________	"Goddammit."
	"You'll convoy with One-Seven-Juliet and provide him with covering fire. Zulu-Echo will reconnoiter before linking back up with our Alpha group."
	"Yes, ma'am."
	"At the very least you need to tag stationary targets for the Basilisk's Gauss cannons. But I'd like a way to track them while they're mobile, too. Any ideas?"
	"How about sticky bombs? Hollow out the casings and put tracking devices inside them."
	"Good idea. Anyone here have sticky bombs?"
	"No, but the miners would. They use 'em to blow rock in the ceilings of their tunnels."
	"Then can we make contact with the base without blowing through the walls?"
	"Maybe?"
	"Not good enough. Alright; forget it. You just find an immobile target for Gan, deliver the metadata to him, then RV with us here. And you, Chlotho."
	"Yeah, yeah. I'm mobile."
	"You two can fire-at-will. That goes for weapons and jammers. The rest of you, I want acoustics up at all times. We move once he takes the shot."
	"On it, ma'am."
	"I'll go fill him in, then. Out."

---

They made a breach in the formation, and watched him as he went. Glaring, as the Phalanx trudged southward, was the thinness of its rear armor, especially in the torso. That weakness had plagued Chlotho before, as he was eager to rush ahead into danger and was thus prone to overextend himself. His easily-flanked mech really belonged in the hands of a calmer, cooler pilot, but ... he could also make a shot when it really mattered, just like Ganymedes. And it was too late to talk Chlotho out of trading it in, anyway; now he was nostalgic for the thing. Ketherin only hoped she hadn't just sent her two best shots into a desperate last stand, stranded kilometers away from the rest of the team.

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

Rose heard them before she saw them, shambling into RADAR range well before the range at which she could squint through her smoked aluminum glass and gawk at the team manually. And she must have noticed them before they did her, as their conversation continued with no real regard for her presence; unless, of course, everyone in this squadron was as rude as that Gan guy ... The terrain was becoming pebbly and uneven and low, her mech swaying as its leg actuators adapted to new deformities in the moon rock.

---

________________________	"Okay, Chlotho. Your turn."
	"I gotta go with phở on this one. No question."
	"I've heard of that. It's Vietnamese, right?"
	"Yeah, but you don't know until you've had it. It's ambrosia."
	"Well? Spit it out already."
	"So it's this murky, beefy broth, right? So hot it's almost boiling. Sometimes it's spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and all sorts of stuff. Cilantro, mint, and chilies are negotiable. Onions and glass noodles aren't. And beef. So much beef you could choke. Total harmony."
	"Whoa! That sounds scary good!"
	"Right? At your typical noodle shop they'll be serving flank, brisket, maybe eye round. Shaving it so thin it's like paper. But if you're lucky——or you know where to go——you can get it loaded up with juicy chunks of tendon, oxtail, even tripe and tongue."
	"Aaaaaand you ruined it. Bleck."
	"What about you, Commander? What's your favorite hot soup for braving the frozen wastes of Triton? ... Commander?"
	"Huh? Oh. I dunno. I like tomato."
	"That's our girl. Something finally leaves her mouth which ain't an order, and it's the most boring thing to ever come from a bowl."
	"Hey! ...... Okay, maybe the one from a can. B-But I think my dad makes a really good one!"
	"How's that?"
	"Well, he'd start by roasting the tomatoes and some onions in a pan, to give them some char."
	!
	"And since that would cook out some of the acidity, then he'd deglaze with a little vinegar, usually red wine or balsamic ..."
	!!!
	"As for the spices, I haven't figured it out 100%, but I know it involves cumin seeds, caraway seeds, some paprika ... all dry-toasted and then——"
	"Hey, chief. Maybe you should cut it out before ya kill 'er."
	"... Ana?"
	[incoherent drooling]
	"Heh heh ... Yeah, MREs and DFAC cookin' don't really cut it when your heart hurts for homemade, do they ..."
	"That's for sure. I'd go on a massacre for a plate of my old man's stroganov right about n——"
	"BOGEY ON MY TEN."
	"What?!"
	"Strauss, you sister-fucker, you better not've jinxed us just now."
	"Shut up, I didn't."
	"And you're not kidding this time, right?..."
	"NO!!"

---

In stark contrast to the Quickdraw which (through no intent of its own) had stomped past Rose out on the plain, the fireteam's A3-37 Phalanx didn't need to take even a single step to zero right in on her figurative forehead. With a scalpel's precision, hip pivot and shoulder pivots collaborated to aim two enormous autocannons dead-on at her center of mass. Supposedly they were for long-range aerial shootdowns, but who was to say they wouldn't tear through a Fire Ant at point-blank?

The others, despite their banter, practically leapt to Strauss's callout in their deadly earnestness. They emerged from their defensive testudo formation. A (relatively) small, agile Fessler-Bagwell "Hellion" was first to appear from behind Strauss's Phalanx, quickly leveling its own arm-mounted guns and missile racks; and so did a weightier, slower AV-84 Hunchback, hobbling forward much in the manner of its namesake, or of an armored tortoise, dragging along under its iron cowl.

But in the center of this formation—its impenetrable iron core—stood the true titan. The thickness of her armor was measured not in inches but in feet, her withers towering over their heads. As for her four cannons, after a certain point there was no point to counting, but comparing the bore of the barrels to the size of the cockpit at a glance, Rosie could estimate that the shells came at least up to a girl's knees when laid lengthways on the ground. Maybe her waist.

Of course Rose had always read about the Armageddon-class mechs, like the Horn of Gabriel, the Apotheosis, the Oubliette, and of course, the MkII Sword of Damocles. But those ... those things had to be at least 900mm in caliber!

Was that mech truly a weapons system, or an artillery fort on legs?!

---

________________________	"Unidentified pilot, this is R-TAX Three-Zero-Fiver-Fiver-Three with the 5th Airborne. You are ordered to jack out of your 'mech, call out your serial number, and——" a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
	"... oh."
	"It's Rosie!"

---

Somehow, even the mechs themselves looked slightly bashful as they all lowered their barrels in unison.

---

________________________	"Nice going, bud." a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
	"Gimme a break. I only said she was a bogey, not a bandit."
	"Great. Now I'm hungry AND wound up."

---

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

(coming soon)

🎖 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 🎖 (feat. @sassy1085)

Another evasive three-sixty, and another sweep of the dark chaos of the storm, enveloping everything past a bubble of maybe forty meters. The presence of another—a supposed ally—had soothed Gan's nerves by now, but still he stuck to protocol. To routine. To muscle-memory, chiseled into his brain by drills and regimens. Because drilling kept his mind, or at least his eye, off the rookie, who he could swear he had just caught in his peripherals with one leg stuck out, arms flailing, as her metal behemoth threatened to slip out from underneath her and make a new crater in the hill they had mounted. Before he could ask the question (sparing himself from having to hear the answer), Gan slipped into an angle opposite hers, and a position slightly behind her, so that now they had eyes on the whole sector.

---

	"Fireteam 9, Fireteam 9. I’ve just arrived at RV Beta." ___________________________________________________________________________	________________________

---

He spoke with clarity, confidence, and purpose, despite anticipating (and receiving) no answer from his comrades; only a quiet, crackling protest from the radio.

---

	"... Standing by ..." ___________________________________________________________________________	________________________

---

And now, to embrace the inevitable: after witnessing her temperament firsthand back on the Artaxerxes, Gan could only expect something truly asinine to leave his new partner's mouth. Another joke. More elbow-to-ribcage wisecracking from a girl they didn't know, and who had done nothing yet to earn that trust or respect. And yet who put on like they were already best buddies, like she was already a member of their live-and-die troupe. At this rate, Gan was wondering whether she'd get herself killed first or merely court-martialed. And how many of them she'd take down with her, too. And the last thing they'd hear on their radios as they went up in flames? That goddamned singsong voice, parroting their orders back at them with a halfhearted "roger that" or "got it" tacked to the end.

Just what the hell had Commander Streymoy seen in her when he gave her file the green stamp? And——Melger! What, had he not noticed any of the red flags while he was vetting this chick?! Or did he just ignore them and push her through anyway? Gan swore up to heaven and down to hell: if he was about to die because all the blood was in "Druid's" dick instead of his brain on recruitment day ... but before he could finish cursing his enigmatic handler and comms officer, Gan heard a sound which managed to surprise him even then, with all that pessimism pissing hot into his liver. Even as he thought he'd learned to expect the worst from this girl. A familiar blinking chime let him know that a new unit had just joined the channel. Either she had just turned on her radio, or she was ... Gan didn't know. Surfing for some fucking tunes before she remembered she had a job to do.

He swallowed a mouthful of spit, and with it, a mouthful of words best left unsaid. For now. For now, the seemingly ironically named "Hothead" returned to his usual cold, biting disposition, cloaking himself in its mysteries.

---

________________________	"Ah! This is Mowgli! To Hothead! I have also arrived! But, um ... since you're going to be with me, I guess you know that ... um, over."
	"... I haven't learned your name yet. What do they call you back home?"	________________________
	"Me? My name? (Yes! They want to get to know me better!) M-My name is Rose. Rose Synapse. (Okay, play it cool for now. You can tell them about your figurine collection later.) And ... and you?"
	"... Ganymedes. Gan."
	"Cool! I mean, yeah, okay ... Well, Gan, I hope we make a great team."
	"In the spirit of ... that ... maybe you'll start by briefing me on what else that Talarius can do. Because in all this atmospheric interference, those wrist-lasers won't do us a damn lick of good."
	"Well, I hear that this mech can go really fast. Dodge any attack that the enemy throws at it. I think it suits me really well, don't you? ... And, and I think it can punch things too? It DOES have hands ..."
	"..."
	"..."
	"..."
	"... *cough*"
	"... What about alt comms? Any wire-guided launch systems? TacSat?"
	"Oh, oh! It has an anti-missile system!"
	"*sigh* ... (Thanks, Commander. Thanks a lot.)"
	"... I'm, uh, still figuring this mech out. Sorry."
	"Just ... just gimme a second."

---

He reached, slowly and deliberately, for the neurojack in his neck, plucking it. Underneath and all around him, his mech autopiloted itself into a stabilized idling position. Next he twisted the volume dial to the left until there was a click; a knife-like silence killed the radio, static and all, and the video feed contracted into a pinprick in the center of a now-dead screen. For a moment of his choosing, Gan was alone. He breathed. He opened up a side-console and reached in. First to break, shattered against the far wall and cascading from it in a shower of jagged glass, was an ashtray. Then a box of 12-gauge shells, now clinking against the floor and rolling into the corners. Gan tried to wrestle a cyclic out from its mount, and he punched the battle map screen until the pain pierced his gloves, tingling in his knuckles. He recoiled, and gripped the trembling hand. The straps of his seat hugged him too tightly to let him get up and walk off his rage, so he tore at them, too, and his helmet, and everything else that restrained him to this chair-shaped coffin and this cockpit-sized grave. But by the time he was free, Gan didn't want to go anywhere; what he saw was too vivid, too paralyzing. It was Scyto's face. In turns it curled and blackened as it went up in flames; it crumpled between jaws of buckled steel, and bled under the gentle kiss of broken glass; his beautiful, boyish eyes popped in the vacuum of space; he choked in the technicolor gases of Jupiter, of a nebula. Gan had to shove this face away by replacing it with others. The crow's-feet and the crinkle in Yrma's nose as she laughed. Ana pouting as Strauss teased her, always like children when they were together. Even the moody, stoic, quietly strong Ketherin Voldova, who watched her brood from afar. Which of them was Rose Synapse going to kill with her naivety?

But worst of all was not knowing who to blame. Who to be angry at. Was it Rose's fault, or was it Streymoy's and Melger's, who let her in? Or was it Gan's fault? Out in the corridors, in the mess hall, he could have chastised her for the wrinkles in her flight suit and the bangs hanging down into her eyes. He could've gotten her assigned to swab duty while the rest of them completed the mission. Hell, he could've challenged her to a sim match and learned all of this sooner! But he'd been too busy moping and being aloof, and now here they were. Trapped on this backwater moon with too little atmosphere and too many questions. With a teammate who was barely learning how to walk, never mind how to lessen the impact of a missile with a well-timed shoulder roll, or slice the pie on an unsecured corner.

These same questions already haunted the five teammates who remained from that first fateful day. Questions they all held close to them but dared not ask. Who could have done something differently that day. Whose fault it really was. They weren't ready for the answer. Not really.

No. No, not now. The others needed him to pull his shit together. Because he could shoulder-roll and slice the pie and more when it mattered. The others needed him to keep it together long enough to secure the hostages, save the base, and get back to the ship for beers and billiards. Anger and grief be damned, Gan had a job to do.

So he ripped open an MRE and wiped his face down with the provided towelette. He steadied his breathing. He centered his thoughts. He strapped himself back down into his chair, his helmet. He jacked back into the Basilisk. And he breathed one more time, shakily, before steeling his countenance and twisting the dial on the radio, reviving the whole array.

---

	"Okay. You're the liaison between points Alpha and Beta. That much is clear. But I don’t think the Commander meant for you to be so defenseless en route."	________________________
________________________	"Uh huh. Hey, you were out for a second there. Did something go wrong?"
	"Worry about yourself, because here's your next task. If you meet any charlies on your way to the others, abandon your orders and COME BACK. You'll bait them right to me. My particle cannon is out-of-action, too, but these twin coilguns use good old-fashioned projectiles. They'll put the fear of God into anything that could be chasing you."
	"... Alright. Cool."
	"And I'll take the fall if it comes to that. So don't worry about how the Commander will react and just trust what I'm telling you."
	"Leave the court-martial to you. Good plan."
	"Do you always repeat what people say to you?"
	"Not always. It helps me remember things, though. If someone asks me to get, uh ... tomatoes, for example, from the store, I'd repeat what they say. That way I can play it back in my head once I'm at the store. You know?"
	"So you forget easily, do you, Ms. Synapse?"
	"Not always! It's just really helpf——eep!"
	"Let me be more pointed: once you've walked back to Voldova and the others, are you gonna forget ME out here?"
	"N-n-nuh-no, sir! Of course not!"
	"Don't call me 'sir.' We're equals; at least according to our papers. As for you not going through your flight check; the chummy way that you talk; practically stumbling and tripping in your mech ... I'm starting to get a clearer picture. You've never piloted one before. Have you?"
	"... No."
	"So you don't have a military record. Or if you do, you were an ass in a chair."
	"... I don't have one."

---

No use losing it again. You're already stuck out here.

The only thing left to do was to fucking do it.

---

	"I'll keep this to myself for now. At least until we're out of this shit-mess. Until then, I've got only one question: if I get into trouble, are you writing me off and turning tail? Or is there a germ of soldiery somewhere in that civvie heart of yours?"	________________________
________________________	"I'm not abandoning you. Or anyone."
	"..."
	"Okay. Let's say I believe you. Which way are you heading now?"
	"North-northeast, about thirty degrees."
	"The map isn't set to true north, but I get your meaning. Alright. Starboard-side it is. And if you won't get caught, and won't lose your nerve, tagging a few charlies on the way wouldn't hurt our chances any. They're probably closer to the wall."
	"Fine. If the opportunity presents itself."
	"Good enough. But seriously; not even a LAN cable for short-band?"
	"What does 'LAN' mean?"
	"...... Never mind. Get moving."

---

Those questions and doubts were buried deep now. The soldier had taken over. Gan overrode a few map parameters and gave himself waypoint permissions. As he guided his steel lizard to the northernmost side of the hill's crest, overlooking and guarding a crater-pocked plain, he drew a thirty-degree line, starting at the hill's base (the bottom of a sheer rock face) and spanning far into the distance, well past the supposed latitude of the quarry. If Rose couldn't follow a straight line, then ... well, then he didn't know how else to try and help her.

He reached over for the opened MRE, a Scandinavian medley of crackers, pâtés, and jams, and began assembling himself a spread. It'd be a while until Rose could run into trouble, and even longer until she made contact with Alpha team. If she made contact. The sniper's most familiar foe had struck again. The waiting game had begun.

---

	"Oh. and if it turns out you alerted the enemy by walking past the base with your broadcaster turned on, I'll kill you myself. Out."	________________________

---