Down several floors below the Nautilus’s many-windowed Skywalk, in the dark, stifling recesses of the maintenance chambers, was a white-haired, muscular young woman, hard at work repairing the right elbow joint of her custom-built metal armor. She was just wrapping up an especially arduous sparring session with Ito yesterday when the plate fell off, revealing a damaged couter. Not having enough time to repair it before being rushed aboard the Nautilus, Wren had to wait until long after the welcoming briefings to begin.

[color=008080]“There,”[/color] she said to herself, satisfied. She raised her welding helmet, admiring her handiwork. The couter shined with renewed vigor as she bent and straightened it in her gloved hands; she attached it back onto the rest of her armor and began to suit up, knowing that their mission would soon begin.

Exiting the maintenance area, she climbed many steel steps up to the main floor and strode down the carpeted dormitory hallways. Wren had been so busy preparing her armor and materials that she had yet to even see her room.

Preoccupied, she had only barely heard the fleeting whispers just behind her.

“Is that her? The [i]Blue Fire?[/i]” murmured one lanky, freshly-buzzcut soldier to his buddy.

“Yeah, I think so,” the other replied softly. “Liam told me she broke his shin at the graduation ceremony because he called her ‘butch’.”

“Sure, but Liam’s a dumbass,” the first one said, and his friend nodded admittingly.

Wren turned her head and stared straight at them, causing them both to start. Her Engulfer spirit eagerly presented itself; it lit up Wren’s normally golden eyes, turning each one into a blinding orange flame. The two soldiers squinted and shielded their eyes, both of them managing a quick salute and a “[i]Sorry![/i]” before running off in the opposite direction. She smirked to herself and continued walking.

She had only just made it to her dorm room and sat on the thin, dusty mattress when the emergency alarms went off with a deafening blare. In moments, Selene popped her long-haired, heavily-scarfed self in, informing her to meet up in the hangar at their assigned dropship.

[color=008080]“Finally!”[/color] Wren shouted, fist-pumping the air. In one swift movement, she leapt up, grabbed her baton, and violently swung open the dormitory door, crushing the metal handle as she did so. She practically sprinted down the open, sun-drenched Skywalk, the shadows of the window partitions recurrently veiling her in darkness.  Looking to her left, she watched the accessory fleets soar downward in calculated formations toward the surface of Astral. This made her even more excited for the inevitable combat, and she grinned enthusiastically, foolishly, a child who has yet to know true war.

As she approached the hangar entrance, she saw from afar the grizzled Sergeant posted outside their dropship; Wren, bitterly, recognized him as an acquaintance of General Artemis, whom she openly despises. The Sergeant seemed to be in a rather irritable mood, or at least more irritable than normal; Wren flashed him a curt salute and a scowl before dropping herself in the dropship. He evidently recognized her as well and was about to yell something, a vein throbbing prominently on his temple, but she slammed the ship’s hatch in his face. She smirked, satisfied, and was immediately exposed to Aurelia’s bratty, insufferable shouts echoing inside the cramped aircraft. She peeked around the corner to see Selene being assaulted with Aurelia’s complaints.

[color=008080]”Well, well – looks like the princess has already arrived at her fated kingdom,”[/color] Wren said scathingly, the sarcasm dripping all over the floor as she approached the two of them. She mimed delicately placing a tiara on Aurelia’s head with a derisive laugh.