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[hider=Sison Auditorium, Municipality of Lingayen - 9/30/2022, 14:35 UTC+8]
In one corner of the Sison Auditorium, adjacent to the makeshift medical bay, an area had been partitioned off, within which a familiar bubbling ooze ebbed in a small pool. In the center of that, Qingshe continued as she had for the majority of the past few days. As far as she was aware, bar none, she was the most powerful healing-capable Arms Master in the city right now, and she was planning on holding onto that reputation. A triage had been set up, and into it flowed a seemingly endless number of patients at nearly all hours. The line stretched far out of the base, as soldiers and civilians alike availed themselves of her service.

The Snake didn't really find herself inconvenienced by petty needs like "sleep" these days and so had continued her task diligently long into each night and right into the following mornings. A round the clock rotation of Philippine soldiers kept watch over the proceedings, maintaining order and ensuring no-one desperate or impatient stepped out of line... or in the thankfully fewer cases, took up a fairly racist response the moment Qingshe's Chinese descent became apparent. Not that Qingshe was inclined to take offense if they wanted to avoid being benefitted by her treatment. She wasn't paid enough to care about those that bit the hand that fed them. Though, to be sure, she didn't delude herself into thinking these soldiers weren't also there to ensure she didn't pull any "funny business". Not that they could stop her if she did, but she respected the thought behind it and wasn't inclined to justify that remaining note of wariness, even in spite of what she'd done for them so far.

The devastation of Lingayen was... something disheartening and impressive to behold in equal measure, she idly mused, as with she slowly dipped the lower body of another poor soul into her shadow. Ah, perhaps "misfortunate" was a better way to word it?

Either way, the squirming soldier was missing his legs from the knee-down, courtesy of Tian Fei's molten flow. He was just one of the unlucky few close enough to get "clipped" by the calamity before someone else could pull him out, and the experience had left him with two cauterized, blackened stumps of useless meat. In another sense, he was pretty lucky too. He'd been evacuated alive where many of his comrades had not, and he was here now, with her, one of the few equipped to rectify this injustice.

Just as she had for so many before.

Her patient had already stopped squirming in unease and lingering aching pain, as she cut off all sensation below the waist, the soldier looking somewhat bug-eyed while she worked. DNA was a fascinating thing really. Even a single molecule of it was enough to have the literal blueprint of its origin within the palm of your hand. DNA was functionally a USB-drive that was simply so insanely compressed, it was difficult to read. For all too long humanity had lacked so severely methods of reading that drive. Even today, they ultimately lacked in the grand majority, even with her own contributions to advancing the cause of science... But even so, in those cases that success was achieved? Wonders and horrors were abundant; she knew so most viscerally.

[i]She started with a spot of amputation. Ruined flesh was scoured away unseen and unfelt beneath the buzzing ooze, as she peeled away the impeding scar tissue and exposed raw muscle and melted bone. The ruined flesh was examined, judged and disconnected, boiling off to be subsumed.[/i]

For her, DNA was an open book. Once you got down to it, once you converted strips of DNA structures into raw data... it was as easy to decipher as reading text off a screen. But even for her, making use of that level of hyper-compressed data "file" wasn't trivial. Every living creature was ultimately different. Each had their little quirks, their imperfections and occasional lotteries. Just because she "understood" a single human didn't mean she fundamentally "understood" them all, even in spite of having deciphered the "ideal" blueprint of humanity. When it came to manipulating flesh, for all that she had something of a cheat code, it wasn't as trivial as a whim to do so. To do so carelessly was to invite disaster, for the human body could be a truly finicky thing, willing to go to war with itself over utter rubbish.

[i]She already had his "blueprint". She'd had it hours ago, a drop of blood donated to her to begin analysis hours prior, just like each patient she could afford to. Given her multitasking capacity, it saved a radical bulk of time, allowing her to perform the analysis for future patients long before she needed to see to their wounds in person. Of course, the most critical cases, she would take immediately, but where she could, she preferred to pace things.

So it was that now, having already reached a point of the analysis where she could outright clone a new meat-suit of this soldier, she was able to begin simply generating replacement parts for him now to be integrated, like servicing any form of hardware one might be inclined to name.[/i]

That was why things like allergies existed. That was why cancer existed. That was why the body would reject perfectly good organ transplants and blood transfusions, just because a single line of "code" was out of alignment. That was why human DNA was so petulant that -moral or religious considerations aside- if one had no choice but to propagate the species with too close a relative, they invited disaster. Frankly, she posited, that was why humanity was growing so increasingly prone to genetic disorders, because when you really thought about it, on a grand scale, over millions of years, humanity was still inbreeding as a whole in some form. The species was naturally degrading in endurance, strength and lifespan. Noble Arms had thrown a wrench in the works, but... they were far from natural and didn't address the root issue: humans didn't live as long. Not because they killed each-other, but simply because they were built to fail. Humanity was flawed as a species, not culturally or spiritually, but on a fundamental biological level, and all too few seemed to realize that.

[i]She took note of several scorched pits that had made it into the pubis bone and swiftly decided that the patient's entire mobility structure was in need of overhaul. Her amiable expression remained unchanged, as she silently peeled away the entire pelvic structure and began replacing everything involved and below. Bones with refurbished red bone marrow sprouted from the abyss and linked into ligaments, before being swiftly sheathed in muscle and nerves. The man's rather crippled reproductive organs were refurbished, as a film of skin layers was soon laid down. And then, because she was feeling nice, she rebuilt the tattered remains of his pants into a replica of the military grade garb she'd already scanned on many a fellow.[/i]

Her smile widened a touch, a hint of smug satisfaction warming her heart, as she began to reconnect the man's nerves and raise him from the ooze. The soldier gasped and twitched, as feeling was restored to a body wiped clean of agony. Qingshe knew that though he'd not be able to tangibly perceive it yet, his lower body was a refined thing of borderline perfection, honed to a wire's edge and more resilient to losing that edge in the long run. If all went well for him down the line, she expected this soldier would age into the sort of old man that could still in his 90's kick the ass of someone the age he was right now... as long as he used his legs. She knew it was a petty little enjoyment, but she would never get tired of sneaking little "improvements" into wherever she was allowed to operate on her patients. Acknowledgement was far from necessary. She would be gratified knowing that for every person she healed, that was just another small contribution to the refurbishment of humanity's tattered genetics.

[color=39b54a]"Feeling better, Private~?"[/color] she grinned and waved off his thanks, ushered him towards his comrades, who swept in to help haul the man to his new feet and get him over to another mundane medic for an additional health inspection. Turning towards the next in line, this one a civilian with an arm in a sling, she grinned in as nonthreatening a manner as she could resist and curled her fingers beckoningly, chuckling at their widening eyes. [color=39b54a]"[i]Next[/i]~!"[/color]

With a hesitance that seemed to be growing more sparse the longer her healing vigil persisted, her next patient approached, and Qingshe could honestly say she looked forward to stoking that little spark of hope within them as she had so many before.

And in her head, another chip landed upon a scale currently towering above its mirror, a tremulous thing practically glued to the ground.

She idly wondered if her altruism would ever outweigh the necessities required to grow her into the person that could accomplish them.
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[b]Audience Hall, Sison Auditorium, Municipality of Lingayen - 10/11/2022, 6:04 UTC+8[/b]

Fiddling with a personally cut diamond, just a portion of her spoils from looting the remains of Tian Fei's temper tantrum, Qingshe observed the ongoing briefing while lounged leisurely upon a seating of her own making in the auditorium's audience hall, plush green cushions and armrests a sight for sore eyes among a sea of clinical, mass-produced seating options. Her shadow, from which the seat protruded, ebbed around the hem of her dress that still brushed the floor.

The newly-promoted First Lieutenant was clearly agitated, and the reason wasn't too hard to guess, even if the results were a bit irksome. Once the battle had concluded, many of the volunteer Arms Masters had drifted away, some helping with the rebuilding efforts and others merely taking a share of the obsidian and diamond mined from the volcano and making good on their escape while they could. Still others had probably been merely recalled by their respective governments, now that the worst of the crisis for their ally of interest was passed. And still others... Well, that was something only Alan Turing probably knew.

For her own part, Qingshe would admit to a touch of idle curiosity about Alan Turing. Personally, she didn't believe he was the first Arms Master... just the first one publicly [i]recorded[/i]. That was all, nothing special. That his abilities apparently allowed him to maintain his life well after a century was interesting... but ultimately nothing unique either. After all, she could do that too in her own way, and frankly? She wasn't in a rush. '[i]Slow and steady wins the race[/i]' as they say. She had plenty of time to cross paths with the enigma again in the future, and she wasn't missing much by turning down the opportunity now. Besides, "PR" was more important. Going after him might mean neglecting her healing efforts, and she was better off cultivating social capital at this stage.

Which is all to say that she was certain Noel didn't exactly share those sentiments, mortal as his own lifespan was and having apparently failed to accomplish the directive of his superiors. Honestly though... what were they hoping to achieve with vague instructions like that? Negotiate? Negotiate [i]what[/i], exactly? With what leverage? No-one really understood what Alan Turing's motivations were in this day and age. He was a mystery they couldn't hope to approach with a perfect offer from the word "go". Honestly, it was an unreasonable request to negotiate with him, and Qingshe certainly wouldn't have blamed a subordinate of her own for doing nothing. And she didn't think Noel really needed to be so worked up about this right now.

Especially when that emotionally compromised state wasn't exactly making him put her affiliation in the best light.

Honestly, how was she supposed to react to him just blaring her allegiance to all and sundry. Wasn't that supposed to be relatively need-to-know? At the least, she'd have preferred to not broadcast it pointlessly, especially when he was broadly referring to the QRS as a bunch of "cosplayers"... She smirked. What a... [i]novel[/i] and undiplomatic way to refer to someone you were ostensibly supposed to be putting in a positive enough light to go rescue. Did he forget she -their representative- was here? Clearly not. He'd just made a show of spotlighting her role. She wondered what Jin Li's reaction would be to the descriptors being used here in her report.

She was sure it would be mildly amusing... and Zhao's even more so.

Still, she held her tongue, as the briefing continued apace, quietly panning her slitted gaze across the room's occupants on occasion, trying to get a sense of the general reaction to this plan. Overall, it seemed... fairly tepid so far, which was better than some other reactions she could name. She doubted most anyone here was in any particular hurry to help even more strangers, and ones who weren't even getting advertised well at that... Hell, even she wasn't exempt from apathy. In a sense, she couldn't say she particularly [i]cared[/i] about the QRS as an entity or their established goals... but they paid the bills, provided her legitimacy -of a sort- and were frankly better than the current Chinese administration by leaps and bounds... Not that the latter was much of a high bar to clear these days.

[quote=@Letter Bee]
"Anyway, the Philippine Government of National Salvation and Indonesia are joining forces to relieve the blockade and siege of Mischief Reef," Noel said,
[/quote]

[color=39b54a][i]Mother of Einstein,[/i][/color] she still cringed -if only internally- whenever she heard someone use that name. She didn't know who was responsible for coining it off the top of her head, but she did know that if she'd had any say at the time, she'd probably have had them shot... or something. What an embarrassment. It was a wonder anyone took the Philippines seriously on a national scale these days with an arrogant name like that. Frankly speaking, in hindsight, she'd take being referred to as a "cosplayer" over being thought to have her head so far up her ass she could smell her own self-righteousness. Though... she supposed there [i]was[/i] something to being underestimated. Unfortunately, she didn't think whoever was responsible for that abomination was thinking that far ahead, even if the possibility existed that their ridiculous name contributed to China not quite taking them seriously enough to successfully invade.

...But she was letting old, petty irritants run away from her. Shaking her head, Qingshe refocused on the actual strategic portion of the meeting. It seemed to be mostly bog-standard stuff, but... several potential issues were beginning to glare out at her.

Dropping her diamond into the small puddle of ebbing shadow at her feet in a soundless passage, Qingshe hummed and finally deigned to address the matters of tactics and the future. Since the floor was now apparently being opened to questions, she cleared her throat with a little hum and stood from her chair. Smiling winningly, she wiggled her fingers and spoke up, [color=39b54a]"If there are to be questions raised, I have several interests of concern, First Lieutenant."[/color] Her right hand curled into a fist before protruding a false-clawed pointer finger.

[color=39b54a]"Firstly, of Lotus Squadron. While their performance has been nothing less than exemplary, should we not expect them to recieve any additional air support? If I recall rightly, the Chinese aircraft carrier made it out safely, and they could quite feasibly have restocked with the right motivation and resources."[/color] Her head tilted inquisitively, tucking her left arm under her chest to prop her right elbow atop her cupped left hand. [color=39b54a]"Unless you mean to tell me we shall only experience conflict within Ren Zhao's barrier, I wouldn't discount the idea of the enemy attacking us long before we can reach that oasis. After all, why allow us to turtle up harder when they can just cut us off at the pass?"[/color]

A false-clawed middle finger rose to join the pointer. [color=39b54a]"Secondly, I am hoping to hear that we have some form of backup plan in case the use of this... 'Charter' is non-viable. Naval combat these days tends to occur at rather unfriendly distances, ones outright beyond the curve of the earth at times, so are you certain Miss Lidmann will be able to handle the strain of such engagements?"[/color] She cocked a single brow. [color=39b54a]"If I don't miss my guess, we'd already have to be in the warship equivalent of knife-fighting range for boarding actions to become practical in such a manner. And on top of that..."[/color] A small measure of her perpetual amiability was exchanged for a note of displeasure. [color=39b54a]"We already know the Chinese can and have engaged in information warfare successfully against your forces... when they were in a far healthier state to ward off spies at that. I do not think it outside the realm of possibility that Miss Lindmann could be a priority target eliminated before we get to use her."[/color]

Her piece said, Qingshe retook her seat before adding, [color=39b54a]"I suppose in summation, my concern is that this plan puts too many eggs in too few baskets."[/color] She didn't yet voice it directly, but indeed, she internally considered the idea of relying heavily on this new "Task Force Obsidian" in itself to be one of these overstuffed baskets, even in the face of potential Arms Master opposition.