I don't think we should rush it either. I see this in stages. I see the home office as the start of something bigger. The MMC has been developing things on Mars. We've made reference to Doom because they could be up to something far more illegal than 'They killed to make a profit'. Niko and Han could enter the main office to find evidence, find implications of more going on than just the assassination. Han would find out certainly WHO killed tha RAMI spaceship, setting him further into things, but evidence of secret facilities and illegal experiments, the CEO being nowhere to be found, assets moved so the office is no more than a front could also happen. Hell, the CEO could be working with an advanced alien scout sent ahead and in secret by your Big Bad. Dragonball villains are often sneaky like that.
I wouldn't go with a GT reference, personally. It's your show, though.
The transport hummed quietly in the background as it took them over the walls and the safer half of the city to their destination. 'Next stop, the quarantine zone.' The announcement filled him with an unknown sort of dread, though he was aware of some of what caused it. He had been in the zone, and let me tell you, first-timers, it wasn't pleasant. Sure as hell wasn't a great thing to first wake up to, either. You always remember your first encounter with them. Mavericks... Standing there, staring with a vacant smile and a twinkle of madness in your eye... Crimson Nova - Crim, Crimson, Nova, or even just The Maverick Virus - had developed from a supposedly powerful but unstable Force Metal, causing those upgraded with it to tweak out of control, losing both mind and soul. Well...nobody's been able to prove the soul, but you get the idea. It's just an expression the humans say.
He himself was not human. Sitting among these people was a fox-like machine, or pseudo-machine, or however you want to put it. Reploid technology was a complicated science. Someone once told him that Reploid was short for Replicated Humanoid, much the way Pseudoroid denoted a Pseudo Reploid, or a Reploid-like being that was different than the humanoid types. Case in point: Swift Fox. He wasn't a human like Shanna or Richter the Reploid, but a humanoid fox-like Pseudoroid. Unlike most Pseudoroids, though, he had a few differences. For instance, someone likely designated Gauss Atlas for her - Yes, that's a she - upon creation. Swift had a designation. You could see it written on his chest, but...that wasn't a name. He wasn't named, on creation because his model - the Nu-Fox versatile soldier - was not a single machine, you see. They were an army built in a factory, the place where he first awoke. Swift designated himself, after it'd been established that he wasn't a Maverick and he had individuality, a Bio-Metal core, unlike every other Nu-Fox.
Nobody knew how they could possibly work without one. It was a mystery to this day.
Anyway, Swift tried to settle what had to be his equivalent of the nerves. He gave the medic a glance of understanding at her own anxieties, knowing that while she was mainly there to support them from the back, he and the others here would have to fight the madness out there. He sympathized, though, because it was definitely shocking to even witness it, to know that 'That thing was once a sane and happy, now violent and crazy'. He'd never get use to it, unlike 'I work for the money' Duster, nearby. Oh right! They were introducing themselves! Probably better to be familiar with one another. The vulpinoid spoke up next, raising his hand as sort of a greeting.
"It's actually my first mission too, though unfortunately...I've been here before."
He had kind of a youthful voice about him, maybe not what others would expect. Then again, he technically was younger than everyone here.
"My name is Swift Fox, and I woke up not far from the walls, originally, just on the wrong side."
He lowered his hand and his gaze, glaring more at the floor now.
"I've seen what Crimson Nova does to Reploids, what it reduces them to. I don't care about the credits. I just want to see this end."
@Balthazar007 One second. I thought I saw a thing which counted the winnings and Niko didn't have any. If that's wrong, I'll just edit that.
EDIT: I couldn't find the line that mentioned the actual winnings right now, so I'm just going with what you said, and now there's an extra paragraph dedicated to Niko being surprised at how wrong he was.
The flight was considerably more pleasant than the fight that preceded it...as well as the meeting with Mirai that followed it.
Having someone who could - given the right prompting - help you to get almost immediately out of the country without pulling any official powers was extremely good, no doubts. Indispenceable, one might say. Not to say that any of this would be habit-forming. All of this was less 'calling in a favor' and more 'asking a favor which would be necessary to repay later', and he would gladly pay whatever it took for this, just so long as it wasn't straightforward money, as he didn't win any and his army pay wasn't going to bury him in luxuries for the rest of his life. Even still, it was a calm and restful flight, and West City soon held their arrival, where a simple cab, booking of somewhere modest to stay, and dropping in at Capsule Corp was to follow.
They hadn't even gotten to see Mirai upon their first showing at the main HQ. She was off-duty, and would be in at the evening, as per usual. They would have to leave the phone there, sent to her inbox to work on. No problem. If you could trust anybody, it was Capsule Corp, and if you could trust anyone IN Capsule Corp, it was the ever-dedicated and ever-diligent types who worked the late shifts. With time on their hands, Niko had decided to make good on his promise of Capsule shopping while there, so it didn't look like he came all this way just to mooch off of the company. He would be dipping a bit into his reserves here, but a Capsule Car and basic storage units were a good investment for your personal needs. It's certainly handle his luggage if he needed to vacate the hotel in a hurry.
Of course, it was then that Niko got a good look at his account and literally went "Agh!" with a double-take. There were a few more zeroes there than he remembered! He was left standing there, basically in WTF Mode, when he looked to the note attached to the transaction history, reading "You forgot this when you checked out. All of our competitors who make it to the Final 16 receive payment for their efforts, and it only goes up, the further you make it. See you next time!" with a smiley at the end of it. Niko was left dumbfounded, but a nervous smile crept along his face, followed by laughter and "I am such an idiot, sometimes.".
It was only later in the evening when the call came to return to Capsule Corp HQ. Niko had spent the time doing various things to distract himself from the matter at hand, as it naturally bothered him a great deal. All except checking to make sure his brother was alright, via phone. The answer was that he was both stable and looked after, so all was well on that front. Sadly, this is the part where things take a definite bad turn, as Mirai had met them in-person now with the results...and what she'd uncovered led to some rather nasty accusations, levied not only at the Martian Mining Corp...but also Wu Han. He was, after all, one of the Wuye-ying, himself. The fact that she found out herself, with no prompting at all to look into it, very well underlined Mirai's performance. However, she was under a misapprehension that was best left cleared.
"He's not going to kill me."
Niko turned to face Han enough so that both he and Mirai were in his field of view.
"If he were going to do it, the most sound opportunity would be when we were attacked by half a dozen men from his organization. Seven men against one me, miles away from where I'd last been seen? That would've been ideal, and if it were a matter of who gets credit to the kill, I imagine the boss' son wouldn't have trouble making the claim, anyway."
Now, he looked back at Mirai to give her a reassuring smile.
"He's on our side. It's a matter of honor for him. He only puts down disreputable targets. And thank you... I know it's not evidence, but up until now, it's only been supicions and worries. Now, I know, and now I can really start to put on the pressure. These people have gone too far, both here and in space, and it's about time they were put in their place."
I'm giving full credit to the artist, Phoax, for this character. Just look at the animation they made! Awesomesauce.
Serial Number: NU-FOX-2GV
Name: Swift Fox
Codename/Nickname: Because of some issues he has with self-identity, Swift prefers to just be called by name.
Race: Pseudoroid
Gender: Male/He
Appearance:
Swift is a humanoid-fox varient Pseudoroid made for agility and quick movement while delivering energy barrages onto the enemy. He has somewhat the look of being mass-produced, and that is part of the problem in his life...because he was. You don't generally see a mouth on the guy, even though you can hear him talking clearly. The reason for this is that he prevents easy damage to his face by sealing it up seamlessly with the same Bio-Metal effect that forms the guns in his hands or alters other parts of his body for combat.
Personality:
Right off the bat, the main thing has to be that Swift has issues with his own identity. He is unique, and yet not so unique. He's distinctly identifiable among others, but that's because there use to be so many of him, or rather Pseudoroids of his type. It's a little complicated for him, having everybody know something about him except he himself. Oh, he understands his history, or rather the history of his 'kind', but he wasn't created with any memory of it, any prior programming. He is his own being, from start to finish. It's just that the legacy is a problem.
In spite of that, or maybe because of it, Swift is a fairly-decent get-along guy. He tries to be helpful to others so that they can see past...well...the past, and just accept that he is who he is, not what others were. The general distrust of Pseudoroids hits him, sometimes, and every time someone calls him Nu-Metal or just Fox, he can't help but feel sour and frustrated. He wants to be known and remembered than something better than the serial number on his chest, more dignified and better understood with-
DESTROY THE MODEL-I.
Sorry, what? Lost my train of thought. Anyway, Swift is dedicated to fight against the Crimson Nova Mavericks. Apart from wishing for the safety of others, he figures that his service will be recognized and that he will be seen as the outlyer from those that people seem to hate.
Weaponry/Abilities:
Hand Blasters - Both hands can reshape themselves into stable plasma-type blasters. Thus far, they have no element or special effect. They are quick rapid-fire weapons that Swift is fairly-adept in utilizing. (He's currently trying to upgrade them to fire a charge beam.)
Utility Tail - Sometimes referred to as the Swiss Army Tail, the fifth appendage of this Pseudoroid creates tools as needed in his day-to-day life or when on a mission. He has used it for repairs and modification, temporarily powering machines, cutting through solid objects with a plasma torch, or even acting as the Jaws of Life.
Scissor Wings - One of the more surprising things about Swift was that he emerged into the world with a pair of wings. This is extremely non-standard for his 'kind', as none of them were ever built with anything like this in mind. When closed, they just look like something cosmetically unique to him. Opened, however, they are compact flight engines and guiding fins.
Enhanced Sensory Suite - For tracking, marksmanship, and general awareness of threats and other hazards, he and the rest of the Nu-Fox line are equipped with hyper-sensitive auditory scanners, low-light and thermographic vision-enabled optics, and chemical analysis module. Basically, eyes, ears, and nose work extremely well.
Model-K - Swift runs on a Bio-Metal never seen before, the Model-K. It was identified only through intense analysis as 'Adaptive-Form Bio-Metal Model-K' and refused to give any specs whatsoever. However, examination of Swift himself indicates that because he is an unknown varient from the Nu-Fox type of Pseudoroid and that he seems to be self-altering to a point, it has been theorized that the Bio-Metal inside of him has been quietly upgrading his form and capabilities.
Biography: Where was he before? What was he doing prior to now? Well...
Silence... The distant sounds of the outside world barely reached the abandoned stretches of the factory. Then...without warning...activity. Computers sprang to life as new power flowed through their systems, and the assembly line began to move once more. Instructions to the long-dormant machines were clear: One unit to be created, non-standard type, with the equipment on the list. The task was completed in no time, the unit now resting at the end of the conveyor belt it had been formed upon, and then...once more...silence. Everything deactivated, and fell still.
Status Checks....COMPLETE.
-ACTIVATE-
What...?
-ACTIVATE-
Error Detected. Re-Checking Systems.
RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS: DESTROY THE MODEL-I.
What's going on?
Error Located At Mind-Brain Interface. Cannot Correct Error.
-ACTIVATE-
No, stop! Leave me alone!
Blue eyes short open, slightly-luminous to the surroundings as the figure jumped to his feet, shouting "Who's there?!", but receiving no answer. He was alone. Looking himself over, he appeared to be intact, and a status screen indicated this fact, but also flashed a brief warning message: Contact Lost. He had no idea what that was about. Contact from who? What were they talking about? Also...who was he? Where was he? And what was that on the grou-
"Oh, crap...! It's dead..."
A quick look around revealed that ALOT were dead, and they all looked very similar. They were metallic fox machines, gun-metal gray machines that looked agile, dangerous, and...destroyed. Someone had blasted them, all of them, and rendered most of this factory area inoperative. Then...how did he get here? A survivor of the battle? Whose side was he on? The closest machine had a serial number on the chest - Nu-Fox-115 - right above the blaster bolt that must've gone through its chest. He looked down and...his eyes widened.
"I'm one of them..."
Well...sort of. Where they were a metallic gray, he was a darkish orange color. Also, he was completely unharmed, even pristine, and they were all very ruined from combat. He searched for answers, and eventually found an intact computer. There was no power, but he found that he could give it a charge with his tail to bring it back to life again. Doing so gave him access, and what he found was this...
'Due to the ever-increasing resource demands for untainted Bio-Metal and Force-Metal in the world, the Nu-Fox line of Pseudoroid is a new type of mechanism utilizing a revolutionary new method of power distribution for the soldier of tomorrow.'
...and some technical specifications on what he could do, which included these nifty hand blasters and utility tail. However, none of this explained what happened here, why he was here, or what these odd fins on his back were. None of the others had them. He had to get out of here, find some more information. Unfortunately, when he did so, he found...oh boy...some pretty dangerous-looking - and dangerously unstable - figures in the vicinity. They attacked! He fought and ran, pretty much at once, putting some distance between him and them, but no matter where he went, there were more of these lunatics running around. Had he been brought into a world already destroyed and eating itself? He had to get out of here! There had to be somewhere he could go, somewhere safe! He was almost surrounded on a building when suddenly, the fins on his back opened up and...what the hell? He was flying?!
I don't care! I'll take it!
He flew out of there at top speed, frantically searching for some indicator of where he could go. He saw what looked like a better part of town and went for it, just gunning it for the shinier, cleaner buildings and not paying much attention to anything else. ...that was how he got shot down. They hit him in the wing and he took a dive, rolling hard to a stop on a road down below, beyond a wall between the better half and the worst half of Aegis 09. At first, he thought the crazy ones got him, but these looked more like organized fighters. Organized fighters pointing guns at him...
"Say your prayers, Maverick!"
"No, wait! I'm not a Maverick! I'm alright!"
"Yeah, right! A Nu-Fox flying out of the quarantine on stolen jets is 'alright'."
"Please, I haven't done anything! I just woke up a few hours ago!"
This brought on alot of confusion, as he seemed to be acting normal enough, if frantically worried for his own survival. They took him into custody, and it was in a cell that it was explained to him - by someone a bit more in charge - that the reason he was being thought of as an obvious Maverick was not only due ti the Crimson Nova plague...but also due to the incident at Nu-Tech Industries, creator of the Nu-Fox Pseudoroid. They were made to be a swift attack force against all threats to the city and potentially be used to protect any population or important site.
"We don't know how they worked, exactly, because - unlike you, it seems - the Nu-Fox Pseudoroids didn't have a Bio-Metal device in any of them. You're different, surprisingly."
Very different, in fact, because when Crimson Nova struck, 100% of the Nu-Fox units went rogue, went Maverick, and they would've overrun the city if the factory they were produced at hadn't been raided and everything destroyed. So, that was it. His legacy was that he was the black sheep of a 'family' of wild foxes that tried to kill every being in the city, possibly spreading to new cities. People were going to think he was one of those things, unless...
"They were made as a special attack force, to protect the city?"
"Swift attack force. And yeah, that was their purpose."
"Sign me up, then. I'll fight. That's how I'll prove myself."
"Alright, I think I can get someone to agree to that. Ya got a name for the file there, guy?"
Kinda' some odd things 'bout the crew, as of late. It looked like they were a bit shaken up by the last little engagement. Laurey obviously wasn't in the best of moods, but then the last thing Nero had to compare that to was her complaining of a headache and needing the doc. Speaking of which, Doc Millard was actually alright, but apparently he was posing as military today and his grizzled appearance was suppose to lend to that. And hey, who knows? With him on a completely different team than Ariel, he might actually get a smoke in! This plan of Tarak's called for nearly everybody on the ship, since...well...the Circle of Hell was a bit big. Even Amy was part of this, though...she wasn't looking too well.
Definitely not liking the whole 'We put the crew through a military shakedown mission' thing.
It wasn't hard to imagine the chief morale officer and general counselor of the ship being put off by how things were handled, and how they were almost unphased by the fighting. Several of them - Navi included - might've even been better off, afterwards. Nero actually overheard some of Dr. Millard's personal notes recorded about that, while in the vents. Oh, you think you always have privacy, but Nero can not only move fast through the vents, but the Shadow Step also meant you couldn't even detect him doing it. He had not, per se, been snooping on anybody. Yet. Still, if he had done...and he'd gotten the drift that Amy was worried that they might not be more than killing machines...it's actually kind of funny that she didn't find Nero literally playing with the flamethrower. It takes all kinds of things, but he got clear enjoyment out of that. Much like how Fin seemed to like shapeshifting, this time being made to look older...which was a shock.
"WHOA! Son of a bitch!"
Seriously flinched at that. It wasn't like becoming a cat. That was normal...ish. This? This was just...unnatural, somehow. He still looked human, but...you know...the unfamiliar on the familiar. Kind of a problem. And speaking of that, Nero suddenly thought of something. If Phi, Amy, and Ariel were going to be their saboteurs to make sure nobody got off any communicaes about the situation at hand...well...why not use that? A little bit after the time Avelyn and Ariel started giving Amy - Lotta As here, amirite? - some help, Nero would head on over to have a word.
"Say uhh, Ariel. Ya mind keeping an ear to my comm channel while on the mission? My stealth works better in the dark, and if I need it, I'd like to be able to call 'Lights out' on certain rooms and corridors, alright? Make things alot easier."
It was a rather quick fight for Nero, but ultimately satisfying, and when he straightened up, he saw that he didn't have anyone else to really deal with, as the others had managed to take down their own targets, some better than others. Navi's was perhaps a bit high in the drama, but whatever. She could handle her own thing the way she wanted to, long as it got done. Abaddon had crushed one of their spines, and Tarak had liberally applied the chunky salsa rule to another. All in good fun, which reminded him...it was time to get a trophy.
What? No, it's not what you think. Good god, no!
You see, what happened here was that the dead man, Tobias, had left behind a completely-intact plasma flamethrower, and Nero decided to relieve him of that device. After all, he wasn't using it anymore. By the time the newcomers to the scene had arrived, the dagger-wielder was already trying it on, grinning as he inspected it with his mask flipped up. He looked over at the men that just arrived, but saw that they weren't pointing guns. In fact, they were saying that he and the other marines - plus Abaddon - were free to fuck off in the dropships they came in.
"Alright, sure. I'm keeping this."
Yyyup, and no one will ever know - 'till later, perhaps - that they were handing over that madman's weapon to...well...another crazy person. Well...it's not THAT BAD. Nero actually cared what he hit, didn't want to explode, and certainly dodged better. This was more of a thing to mess with than actually keep for battle, anyway. Not unless it was going to serve alot better than his assassin-y ways. So, right along with the others, he'd take a dropship outta here, all a'grins with his new toy.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THE PRESENT!
During the time between their little battle and the Xuanzang's arrival at Plenty, Nero had indeed kept himself amused with Tobias' flamethrower. Well, now it was Nero's flamethrower, but anyway... Once he'd gotten his Omni-Tool to scan the machine - "Hey, tell me how this thing fucking works." - the young daggermeister was furnished with an instruction manual downloaded online, which...he only read the operating parts and the warnings for so he didn't overload it before he got any enjoyment out of the machine. As a result, he would be finding objects to hit with a gout of flame in the cargo hold, just for laughs. Someone would've happened upon this eventually, and he'd muse "I wonder if the Rau've ever feel bad about potatoes. Ah well.". FWOOSH...
This was how he spent his free time, which actually wasn't much, considering they'd bullshitted the Ascendancy into believing the lot of them were still on commission. Once he and the others were called in for a meeting, it appeared that they'd made it to Plenty, that they'd flown over a load of crop-laden countryside, and that they were hovering over a bigass prison ship that'd thrown itself at the ground...and didn't miss. Nobody ever told them the Knack, it seems. Ah well, no biggie. Whether the ship was ever gonna fly again wasn't his concern. They just had to go extract an AI, or whatever harddrive he was on, or however that worked. Tarak was in charge, overall, but they were going down in teams, and using Fin's portals to make it easier. Nero was here in his usual gear, listening to how they expected it to go down, with Avelyn expecting to blackout all the comms in the place and move in with intimidation. He liked that, but apparently Tarak did not.
"Ehh, spoilsport..."
Tarak wanted to keep up the fib that they were all still cool with the Ascendancy. Heh, that was gonna be a hard sell, especially with the fact that Nero has never been cool with those idiots. In any case, he started dividing them into teams, with Nero himself put alongside Sam and Iris. Ah, so he was stickin' with the sibs, eh? Well, as long as there wasn't any candy on board, Iris would have her head in the game, at least. This was actually a good idea, making them - along with Ash, Flame, and Navi - the infiltration doing the no-thrills search-and-retrieve, because Nero did NOT want to be talking to any Ascendancy assholes in there. He'd shoot his mouth off at the wrong time, and then probably tear their own off. All this was well and good, but Nero turned to Samuel and Iris with an additional bit of info.
"Once we get in there, expect me to be pretty much silent and out of sight. I'll be getting the drop on anything in our way."
Because that was how Nero operated when he was being serious. Was this the silent assassin that Elaine had been talking about? Perhaps. Or maybe she really thought that he was quiet all the time. Truth is, though, it was about his stealth power and training, which would keep an eye on those two throughout the mission.
@Balthazar007 Well, the phone is being cracked by a Capsule Corp employee when they get to the home office. Apart from information on the phone leading to the implication that the Martian Mining Corporation put the hit on Niko, and further info that there is something not directly spoken of going on with Mars, the fact is that anyone of the Brief family could get the word to the right people, "Hey, you know that runner-up from the military that we were looking for? Guess who just walked in our front door...".
Owlriel
MegaraFoxfire
Martian
Melancholy
