[center][h2]Trump Card[/h2][/center]
[center][i]Themerlinhawk & Monochromatic Rainbow[/i][/center]
[center]Day 1, Morning[/center]
[center]Christian & Adela[/center]

Christian brought up his master list and selected a member with a file listed only as Revenant. “Senechal, Would you please alert this member and have her report up here for me? Have Archive put a lock on her file, create an Ops file and compile a personnel list for selection.” With that Christian stood and stretched. “Have Revenant report as soon as possible. I’ll be here. Pushing open the window of his office Christian climbed into the thick sill of the window to enjoy the spotty sunshine through the clouds of last night’s storm. “Oh and when you’re done have Archive send Raven the Op file so she knows what is going on.”

Adéla started slightly when the AI in the corner popped up, the hard light flickering to life with an electronic hum as the unit booted itself up after a long period of disuse. She made a mental note to use it more, the features of the S14V3 model were fascinating, R&D alone had taken nine years if she recalled correctly. Still in use today, with some slightly modernizations.

She was also aware of the letterplay that had gone into making that model number. Someone had clearly planned that. 

The AI waited patiently for her to acknowledge its presence, which she did, eventually. Grumbling as she pushed herself away from the computer, she walked over to the hologram, smacking her hand on the small panel near it, “Play message.”

Her personal AI wasn't the best at understanding human speech it seemed, and it needed to be given clear, and boring, instructions to function properly. No slang, no swearing, just speaking in a dull monotone that sounded like the speech-to-text machines of the previous centuries. She sighed, reclining against the wall as the AI began to speak, “Guild Master Christian Highfell is requesting your presence in his office. At your convenience.”  

“The fuck?” Adéla muttered in surprise as the AI delivered its message. The Guild Master was summoning… [i]her[/i]?

“Invalid command. Please restate your command.” The AI beeped at her, apparently it’d heard her muttered outburst. She’d have to fix that.

“Turn off.” Adéla snapped, striding briskly over to her equipment locker and stripping down, and just as briskly donning her armor. She also clipped her revolver to her waist, mainly a formality but she’d seen too many fiction plots start like this and devolve into a shootout, not that she was expecting that but… 

Within ten minutes she was fully armored, with identifying insignia, and marching out of her quarters, barking a quick order to the AI to lock the door behind her. 

Making her way to the elevators, she deftly avoided the streams of bodies that constantly flowed throughout the building, making her way against the current and towards the desired lift. She poked the button marked “Penthouse” and huffed in exasperation as the elevator began its ascent to the top, jolting her with the acceleration - someone had forgotten kinetic dampeners. Even though it was state of the art and traveled at speeds she’d really rather not think about, the trip still took a minute or so, and she pulled out her phone from its armored compartment under her arm and flicked through… whatever. The deceleration nearly shot the device out of her hand, and lifted her off the floor several centimeters.

She left the elevator grumbling about kinetic dampeners and made her way to Christian’s office, knocking as politely as she could on the door. “You wanted to see me?”

Christian looked up from his perch in the window and climbed down putting the deck of storms back in its case at his hip. “Yes I did. You’re ex Stygian Blade yes?” His hands flew across the projection above his desk and he snagged the list of on duty Knights as well as the transfer order to southgate prison. Turning them both so that Adéla could see what he had in front of him on the projection. 

“I have a blackout transfer order for someone from the Stygian Blade Guild. I want to know who the government of Angel’s landing would have covered up like this and I want to know why they would be transferred to a prison like Southgate.” Christian sat down and steepled his fingers as he watched Adéla for a reaction. “Oh and when you’ve figured out who it is, will they defect and do you think you can break them out of Southgate.”

“Archive pull the blueprints and 3D render of Southgate prison.” 

Adéla nodded, “That’s me.” 

Looking down at the transfer orders she pursed her lips, mulling it over. “Now I’m not a complete authority on this. They literally shot me in the back before I could find out too much, but I can reliably say that it’d be one of three people, two actually, since I shot one of them in the face a year ago.” 

She looked back up, “One is just a high level enforcer who got too big for his boots and managed to nearly bring a lot of things down and make off with enough money to buy a small fleet of private yachts. The other would be Ludelle Glowren, Elf and elemental cross, brilliant hacker, too much along the good side of the alignment chart to be allowed to roam free once she found out some of the nastier details of the Stygian Blade. I’d bet you that’s who they’re transferring.” 

Looking down at the blueprints and 3D rendering, she traced out several potential paths with her finger, a plan taking shape in her mind. Slowly a devious grin came to mind, “Oh yes I remember this. I pointed out this flaw in their security once actually, granted it wasn’t to anyone who would be in a position to fix it since I anticipated having to escape at some point, never thought I’d be breaking in.” She looked back up at Christian, “Yeah, I can break her out. And from what I know of her she’d be happy to help. I’ll do it on one condition, I get to kick in the doors.”

Christian smiled at that. “Good, then you’re going to need Megelis and you two will need to start picking people for your team.” Christian started typing on his hard light keyboard. “Archive give me all the active members exclude Masters and Mistresses other than Master of Blade, add a potentiality for an inclusion of the Master of Steel.” Christian looked up. “Hmmm, firepower. Include provisional Master of Arms credentials for Revenant allowing access to the armory.” Christian started typing again “Is there anything else you will need?” Archive constructed itself and produced a chunk of smooth rectangular glass writing the information to it via a series of different colored wires. “When you need access to the armory, Sentinel will assist you.”  

Adéla already had some impressive firepower of her own, the Mars IV and Mars XII pattern rail weapons were in fact top of the line premium - but there was top of the line premium, and [i]holy shit this isn’t even on the market yet[/i] and [i]Good gods I could build a tank with the equipment here![/i]

Somehow a plain old premium rail revolver just didn’t match up to what she knew lay in store for her in the armory. She grinned like a particularly devious child who’d just been given the key to the world’s most dangerous candy store, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “Oh, this’ll be cake now. And here I thought I’d be making do with the bare minimum.”

Christian looked up at her and gave her a long look. “Please, I have the heart of storms and the Ace of Storms. There is so much I’ve collected in my time that others can make better use of. Don’t forget Megelis. I think he’s down in the training grounds.” Christian went back to typing. Adéla had been dismissed.