FourtyTwo

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Outro to Hawaii

Soundtrack: Ian Brown- F.E.A.R (UNKLE Remix)

With a wrap up in the studio, the group were back in New Hilo, surrounded by crowds of people, in the Fan Zone within an elevated platform.

"Well, what a race we have had, and well, Hawaii has shaken up the leaderboard once again. We're so grateful to be here, and wow, what a passionate group of fans. Hawaii, would you like to lead us out?" Aurora asked the audience behind her in the Basque Park, to an overwhelming yell in the evening Fan Zone, a smile forming on her face as the scene cut to the outro film.

And so, the outro movie to Hawaii played. The slow mo-shots of ships pulsing past the waterfall, one by one, the smack between Han and Jenny, the fight between Florence and Bea, the frustration of Paul visible on his face as he went inside, a split-screen of Jen going through the same, but most of all, Dorian cheering, smiling with trophy in one hand, yellow and grey suited European flag-draped, enjoying the hurrah that was this circuit. And what a way to do it.

A final drone shot, of the volcano, the night, and the sound of nightlife, as with it, the Delta Hyper and Formula AG excursion to Hawaii came to a close.

---

DIGITAL /// INTERFACE //// ANODE

Soundtrack: KOAN Sound- Red Shift

"Start Sequence." The voice is monotone. Robotic. Intentionally.

A grain — microscopic, almost alive — floats in the center of frame. Then, a low-frequency resonance, the sound of containment fields activating. Titanium and lead panels snap together around it in perfect sequence — like origami folding in on itself, boosted by the light thrum of a unit that kept it aloft, with slowly, bits combining.

An Anti-Gravity Generator.

The “black box” glows emerald and violet. A single grain spins faster, and faster — the anti-gravity bubble blooms outward, shimmering like oil on water.

"Connection established. Anode, active."

In the white and grey digital void that feels almost like a digital render of a garage rather than a real world frame, parts started flying in. Exhausts, the engines, latching into position, chassis, carbon black and halo-like gold and silver, particles of paint decorating the ship in the specialist livery of Nordic Call's "Singapore Lion" livery, a black livery with gold and streaky pink metallic semi-conductor like lines across it (paying homage to the original) in the paint flecking into place, bit by bit, piece by piece. The aero, the underfloor and secondary vent ports, the glass and frame of the cockpit.

"Systems, ready."

All coming together, slowly but surely. The camera moves inside, revealing the hollow silhouette of a pilot forming. The pilot, inside in almost an MRI-scan like hollow of muscle, flesh, metal, synapses, nerves, bone, all slowly emerging in place in layer after layer, emerging and going out to undersuit, pilot gear, and the visored, harnessed, sitting, waiting, anticipating, view.

"Interface, ready."

The ship's whine heightening in pitch.

The pilot's visor lights up — golden reflection catching the digital void. The ship’s canopy seals. A soft mechanical inhale. The white void collapses into black.

"Pilot, ready?" The voice is still, without life, the hollow voice slightly feminine, but almost uncannily like it was machine playing human. Almost like the voice in a pilot's head that the ship would come out with, some pilots customising theirs, but played out loud as if it was a character of it's own. The ship's vox, if you will. The voice of the ship holding a pilot in, and trusting every decision and helping commit it to reality.

Black swallows the white void as the engines spool, about to dart forward......

And the ships emerges from it, roaring in a way that it literally set the world into colour.

And the scream increases, Singapore in full view, following the ship through, a clever drone shot. A cut back of the camera, revealing the gigantic Singapore Flyer wheel, with Marina Bay behind it, the main start-straight, and a tracking drone shot, the sound of screaming cutting through chicanes and then re-engaging, pivoting to the skyline of Singapore.

"Welcome to Marina Bay."

---

Thursday 1st September, 2094
Merlion Ultra, Marina Bay, Singapore
1700 SGT

ZONE

Soundtrack: Mist- Smart Systems

With the technical marvel that was the intro out of the way, the scene cut to a sim, well, now a chair, no controls visible, this being akin to a home setup. No controllers. Just a small box that acted as a node that connected to the wider cloud-based network of quantum-based supercomputers, in the cloud, able to render something far beyond the recognition of any home-based device. Instead, it was a simple chair, not far off that of a pilot's seat, with a view over the sunset in Marina Bay. A minimalist, Chinese-themed room with a panoramic view of the dusk sky of Singapore outside of it. Marina Bay Sands

The Lion City had its famous hotels, but around it, a swathe of 90, 100 storey tall buildings dominated the scene, the historical pieces surviving, but this. A city that was like New Hilo, but unlike the more insular, co-operative, sustainability dominant form of eco-capitalism that the Basque population had fostered, Singapore seemed as always, a pot of everything. Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Thai, even the old English influences dominated everything, from skyscraper ads to the core tech and financial institutions that made this home. If Hawaii was a node, a marker of a new economy, Singapore was the crowning jewel of about everything else. The centre of the world, not an outpost. A hybrid chimaera of globalism, built in control, not in chaos, the pointed, serrated edge of hyper-capital and the world of tomorrow. Tokyo seemed outrageously built up and dense and felt almost out of body compared to the density of Singapore- yet the latter for its people, green yet safe, efficient, incredibly so. A place where technology didn't overwhelm, the greenery didn't shade, and people seemed to be, broadly, given security and inclusion. A humanitarian sort of cyberpunk, if you will. Prosthetics may have been more common in Tokyo than here, but if you were looking for the melting pot, it was here.

This was an anti-Hilo, capital poured out the windows but made sure to keep every inch clean and every service at beck and will, in a lavish, unrestrained excess rather than a slow, sybiosis with nature. It was a heaven if you could find it, public transit and connections instant, everything immaculately clean from automation, education, health, everything, to an nth degree. The same atmosphere at New Hilo, albeit with the density, that came with entertainment, nightlife, cuisine and an ability to feel welcome, rather than detached. A place you could find yourself in and not feel a foreigner. It was optimised for the world to come to it, where it felt like instead of parking itself in a few years ago in cutting edge sustainability technology, this was the furthest, farthest step humanity took into a brave future that felt interconnected, technologically advanced, and where anything was possible.

But that came with something else. A surveillance state. A feeling of having your entire personal freedom stripped. You could do anything here, any morality, any vice, all of it, but it felt like doing it nude. Singapore didn't feel like anywhere any of the pilots came from.

It felt like Disneyland with the Death Penalty.

If Hilo felt like a party, a model for a future still being moulded in locality, Singapore had decided to open to the world, and lock the gates high. It was always there, that punkish, brackish underworld, but it wasn't as edgy as Tokyo, or as illegal as New Lagos, or Sao Paolo or Buenos Aires. It wasn't the tradition of London or Paris, it felt strangely transient in being almost a little like it tried to hard to be cool. Functional, yes, absolutely, but....the glass was too polished.

From the window of the the 104 storey skyscraper overlooking the track and the other towers, as well as the bay itself, with its iconic ferris wheel still in place, Rosie was back on screen, in place of Aurora.

"Inspired by the recent update to AG2024, the official racing game of Formula AG, we thought we'd introduce our pilots to a new mode updated in the game that our pilots themselves might be familiar with. Whilst you may be able to make the game anything you can dream of, quite literally, we thought we'd introduce a curated mode, inspired by Amy Stirling and her two-time winning success." Rosie added, walking past the sim, hands on hips, excitable smile, always.

"This is Zone Mode. A challenge for how fast a pilot can be, in absolute terms. Not our traditional format, but....as you'll see, a new frontier."

The render around Rosie collapsed, as it seemed like the skyscrapers and walls around fell, revealing a digital, AR-enabled world.



The only visuals being grey-looking ships, that were the outlines of existing models, and what looked like the outline of strange, swirling in the air, physical almost but more like glyphs or digital outlines, particles blowing around.

"Zone is curated as an ultimate test to make you feel the speed and risks at the top of Formula AG. And to do that, we take you beyond the track into a cutting edge, training tool used by some pilots as part of reflex training. Ships start at low speeds, and advance through speed class after class, sector by sector, speeds steadily increasing. Getting to the point past any AG ships, and no human being could handle." As if to demonstrate it, a ship roared past, blowing what looked like particles out of the way in digital mesh. A world in white, grey and neon strip-like white walls for ships to stay within.

"Constant throttle, and only air brakes to get through corners. To account for that speed, this digital world is stripped bare to create virtually zero latency. No distractions. Just....lots and lots of speed. Best enjoyed with your Neural Link, as our pilots will show you!" Rosie chirped, as she looked through the circuit, walking around, the only piece of human in this digital reality.

"They call it a synapse builder, with pilot modifications and neural links being put to their test, building bonds between a pilot's lightening fast reactions until they can react superhumanly fast- making slow speeds to most seem perfectly normal to our pilots. Think of it like a reaction training machine, only a little more practical! It's a test that Layla Al-Nadir has described as one of the most addictive in training, is now available to you. How far will you go?" Rosie asked, smirk on face.

Exhaling hard, the world peeled back into the studio in Singapore, as Kais, Bea, Paul, Nora, Astrid and Jen all appeared, back in the skyscraper, all in front of the simulator, with a few holographic monitors for the others to watch, and a comfy chair for the others to get into, get plugged in, and dive into a virtual racing game's training mode.

"Hi all! So, who's up first?

Jen eagerly threw her hand up, between climbing sessions, being an addict to this in testing.
"Me please! Oh man, I love this." She cackled, walking across, passed the cable by Rosie and given the chance to sit down.

"It is good fun this. But you're all watching so I can't promise I will do so good!" Jen replied, chuckling, the start up engaging, as immediately, she lept into Zone.

It was strange, but Augmented, artificial reality meant that with a neural implant, you could see through the monitors the version of Jen engaging with the ship, climbing in and sealing it shut, same as anything real. Third person of course, was optional, any good video game got that, but Jen liked first. It felt about the same as the real thing. It was half a klick off their simulators, given how vivid, realistic and close they'd gotten nowadays.

"Any bets on who will go...wow, that is impressive from Jen there!"

The ship roared, the circuit far more undulating, but flowing- like an adapted Istanbul AGP circuit, but with some completely un-real sections in it with drops that would kill a ship normally, but here, seemed harmless.

Being in Zone revealed a lot. If you looked at an EEG, you could literally see the points of synapses linking together through corners, bonding the pilot to the ship. This was not a formal version of it, not like what the teams used to build synapses as part of pilot mod implementation, from the surgery table out to the simulators, more a gamified version. But, they had a little chance to prove how superhuman they were. The rare moment where an actual pilot could be a record holder, based on their literal wetware.

It kept going. To say that Zone 10 was a normal AG ship, Zone 20 about twice that, somehow, Jen managed to get to 24- the screen mostly a blur to anyone mortal. Before her ship smacked the neon side of the track, and spat her back awake, jolting her upright as her innate feeling of inertia stopped, levelling out.

"Damn! Okay, not as good as it is in the factory, but I have all eyes on me!" Jen chuckled, stepping out of the seat, letting the next person have a go, cleaning the cable, ready for the next user.

It was about to be competitive, but as it turns out, the rating was directly influenced by however high the pilots had their "pilot mods" set. This of course, meant that Kais seemed a little unnaturally good....and Astrid less so.

This was less of an interview, more perhaps a test.

---

Thursday 1st September, 2094
Annapurna Restaurant, Tsai Wen Tower, Singapore
1900 SGT

Curry Night

Inside the Tsai Wen Tower, Amy took her seat at the head of the table, cutlery being dished out in the exclusive, high end restaurant, right by the bay three storeys up, hyper-exclusive yachts outside alongside seemingly floating, ultra-modern blocks rooted deep in the earth. Annapurna was a fusion restaurant, serving mostly Indian, Malay and Nepali dishes, and the expense for most pilots, even on their salary would be absolutely eye-watering. They weren't paid like old F1 drivers were, so a double-Michelin star having restaurant in a skyscraper, AVs on a pad outside ready to whisk pilots to their hotels and accommodation. NOVA and Nordic Call couldn't make this, having commitments elsewhere tonight.

Amy had already paid.

Sitting down, she already looked across, the digital ordering forms collected, as the conversation went from playful catchup, to more realistic shit-talking.

"Feeling the pinch?" Harrison jibed, as Amy tsk'd shaking her head.

"Not quite. But, looks like we have more to keep our spots, yeah? You're looking behind you. Me too!" Amy chuckled, giving Jen a gentle jab, Jen chuckling, shrugging, not really able to add anything more to it as Cassie finished with a popadom.

"Sure, so a three way race for the title. And yet, no certain edge. I'm just looking at Carrera and Valkyrie."

"Keeping you busy?" Ava asked, as Cassie shook her head, arms crossed.

"Well, you annoyed me with ELS last time. I'll give it more next time." Cassie replied, Dorian chuckling, nearly coughing up the prawn cracker her had.

"Don't write off another ship here!" Dorian chuckled, as Cassie's face turned to immediate thunder, like a teenager had gotten a strop, Dorian shaking his head, sipping down more of the incredibly vintage, 2021 Alsace that was a perfect pair for the fish-based stew he'd opted for. They all kept quiet, as the dishes came out, plates of gourmet food that were far, far, far above that of their usual dietary pick.

"Anyway. Question to you all. Everyone's neural link playing up, or you all fine?" Amy asked, as the vibe seemed to change, almost as if the voices dropped to silence. No answers.

"I had some issues back in the last couple races. Worrying, to be honest. They think they got a fix. But I thought you know, nothing of it first either, so maybe, it was something you lot had too. Maybe the ELS or something else just tripped it on something? Anyone?" Amy seemed a little standoffish. This was weird. Why was she asking that?

Kais and maybe Bea would know why.

Dorian shook his head, the elder stateman of the group having nothing to add.
"Mine is fine. You going through withdrawals in the sub-frontal region? That can...." Dorian started, sitting up. "They fixed that last year though. Did you not go for it?" Dorian asked, as Amy didn't hide confusion.

"We have our own bespoke. Wouldn't have done anything." Amy replied, as Dorian shrugged, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Can't help you there then. I'm fine. We had a new one fitted and it's fit as a fiddle. Even in my old age." Dorian looked across as Hamid chuckled, brushing it off.

"Future is now though, old man. Whooped your ass at padel, habibi." The Moroccan added, chuckling, as he made a gesture with his hand, the dress code of smart casual coming through to him as an outlandish Moroccan designer shirt in traditional Berber form with jeans. Quite a combo.

"Anyone could whoop his ass at padel. But Amy could probably fucking see the future with hers. Until her changes. Right, Amy?" Ava chirped, outspoken, the more athletic of all of them looking across.

"Maybe. It's a bit of a difficult one. Just asking, because I hope none of you have got it."

"Oh god, you been spreading the clap?" Wedge commented, to a gaggle of laughter, the conversation changing altogether when everyone else had a plate of food served, and it was too awkward to return.

"Still kick your ass on circuit though, Hamid. Clap or not." Dorian sassily commented, as Hamid was silenced by a naan bread.

Across the room, Ava sat quietly next to Bea, glancing across to Kais. Not knowing about her own team-mate. They hadn't talked in a while. But she hoped he would find her. There was more to discuss, since last time. More she personally wanted too. The deal from the team sat in the back of her head.

And no doubt, Bea was a little horrified. Amy was scared. Barely able to show it, hiding it well, but Bea would see through that. Paul probably had no idea, as Dorian nudged him on the shoulder, leaning in.
"Talk later."

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller)

Day 1: 17:35:01
The World's End Pub
Village of Pristupin, Libor Province
Republic of Polavia

Getting Wrecked

Enough shit was flying around, that at this point, if the team were trying to forget the events of the last few months, they were receiving an indirect catchup.

Between Borys taking the breacher as a human shield, taking a piece off the board pretty fast, Keodis followed up rather nicely with a hurl of a beanbag at the witch holding up Rowan. Who herself was nifty enough to throw acid at her M4-come-staff wielding witch (inevitably making her scream as it burned the side of her face and arm) the follow up of weakened lightening catching fire on Harry's combat shirt. That said, it went out quick enough when it mostly landed and was spreading to another drunk, setting a Polavian farmer who was so shitfaced that he was basically a walking fire hazard, alight.

And still fighting.

A man was on fire punching someone in the face, and if you didn't find that funny, there was no hope really, was there?

It was a fistfight. Hands thrown, blunt objects and glass lobbed, and the entire team were getting battered. Not irreversibly so, some due to booze having more "health" than usual, others just having craft that solidified that. They were all trying not to die, trying not to get pinned, and it looked like something more from Kingsman than it did a thriller. Messy, unorganised, hellish. But no less funny to see a dude spread fire to his other pissed up friends, truly revealing that drunk Polavians were so much more of a threat than any special forces team could expect.

Resisting the urge to double tap Harry, Felix instead tried to make a way for the exit. The Holding Witch had other ideas, though, now caught up in the fight and holding back from opening fire on civilians. If she could at least land something on him, that would be best- and what luck would have it....he appeared to be moving right towards her!

The Holding Witch tried to swing for Felix given she could make a reverse tackle, but he went through her, ghosting past, as the witch was then set upon by another two alcoholics esteemed members of Polavian rural society, and getting a solid right hook. Felix on the other hand was throwing himself out of the window that Borys had made a hole in, his Copy Cat doing a perfect job of throwing the last operative off the scent.

Pistol raised, Felix kept pistol pointed back towards the window, knowing with distance, there was now an ability to make sure anyone following would at least get .45 ACP over their head, before it entered skull.
"Get back, you fucking morons! Davai, davai!" Felix yelled, backing away, looking around, keeping cover and letting Keodis get set up, checking his vodka bottle first, then the M249 to cover Felix's move. More fighting could be inside, the voice of English cutting through.

Harry yelled out, realising the situation was fubar, as they got cornered in a bit of the bar, holding comms on his rig, aware that they'd beyond fucked this raid up, knocking down another drunkard, firing rounds into air, creating breathing room as a few of the drunks backed off on gunfire. "Team, extract hot via glyphs, we'll regroup at OP Violet!" It was retreat.

And like that, extraction glyphs hot, no Felix in tow because well, between him, the team and getting Felix, were now a plethora of drunk villagers. Half his team being disarmed, and very little hope they'd be able to win a fistfight without causing an international incident, they were leaving. Killing everyone in the bar was not on their order list, Harry was at least professional enough to say that.

So, Extraction Glyph time it was. The glyphs were ideally their way get the hell out once they had Felix in hand, out of the bar, but it would dump them back at their observation post a few miles away, where a helicopter would have to be told to cancel their pickup. They weren't far from the fight, but back to square one. Teleportation was only so good in range with a glyph like that, especially with an anticipated "passenger". It wasn't worth even asking how it worked, once again, being another mystery left to another day.

Felix could see the smoke from it pop, and realised that it was a sign the team of special forces wizards that had descended upon them- had decided they'd missed their mark. Getting killed was stupid over this, versus coming back to fight. They could have kept chasing relentlessly, but the mission was compromised. Sensible really. He looked to Keodis and Borys, the two having taken the window route. Voluntarily, and involuntarily, inversely.

"Holy shit, that was intense. Harry was always an asshole at the bar on shore leave. And it's five o'clock somewhere Keodis....they're off in a hurry. I think I'll lay off the sauce for now. Suit yourselves if it helps you make sense of this insanity." Felix commented, laughing, looking to Oksana, Keodis and Borys, glad they'd survived this. Oksana had followed him out, keeping herself out of trouble, not seeing any situation she was going to be able to help out in this close. Apart from rip shit into Felix.

"It's not five o'clock, it's 5:38, actually!" Oksana dryly remarked, getting no laughs from that one as she kicked the man who tried to go for Keodis in the side, knocking the wind out of him before he could get up. "Okay, my babushka, she can keep us out of the way. Felix, we'll talk later about why a DSR team is after you. But they'll be back, and alone, we're at risk. We need to go there, and lay low for now. If we get seperated....it's two kilometre west, follow the dirt road, a tiny little hut with a yellow tile roof." She added, as Felix nodded, just in case the team were split up.

With the DSR team seemingly giving up, Felix knew their window was short as hell given the threat had now shifted. The barfight was significant enough to no doubt raise suspicions and police would be here sooner rather than later. Even if the Polavian Police were not as terrifying as their former Security Apparatus predecessors, it was time to make a swift exit.

"We need to get armed if they do come back. And get moving. Wait, where's Rowan gone?" Felix asked, as they realised the two groups had split up. Rowan had made a move for her car, and Felix realised the two groups had split. Divided by drunkards now as the bar fight spilled out.
"I'll find out!"

----

Running out, Oksana ran after Rowan, seeing the raiding team poof in clouds of burst smoke, exhaling hard, brushing off the debris and dirt from her ink-covered arms. She looked to Rowan in the distance, who was running for a Mercedes-Benz E-Class, an estate car that by this point had gotten a slight smattering of mud and dirt. Oksana bolted, closing the distance, the rest of the team making tracks away, down the road, the other way.

Oksana ran up, tapping the bonnet, sliding across it from where it was parked in the street.
"My babushka....my grandmother, she can hide us, we're going to be hunted if we don't leave now! Let's grab the rest!" The sound of police sirens could already be heard, the pub calling it in as the brawl continued inside like something from an old cartoon. More swearing, as another drunk got thrown outside. Had they not realised that the raid was done?

"Shotgun!" She yelled, opening the passenger door, conveniently, where there was also, the Mossberg just sitting there hidden between the seat and the door. With it, Rowan had the chance to floor it, but they were getting split by a crowd of drunk pub goers....unless they were chased back.

---

Felix and the crew ran through the muddy street, the sound of the fight continuing behind them. But a handful had followed them through. And weren't stopping. More sirens could be heard. They had to get these idiots away. They couldn't keep running, the enemy was powered with potatoes and vodka, and pure anger. All of which meant they weren't escaping. Drunk energy was making them run as fast as the team were, and right now, much as Felix wanted to shoot, turning around, he realised they had probably cleared enough ground, and could hear the engine of Rowan's car incoming, to make it count when it mattered.

"Hang on. I have this lot." It was crowd control time.

And with it, the man put pistol down, the ginger-haired soldier suddenly shifting, turning, and what seemed like a blur, the ginger-haired, olive-hoodie wearing operator suddenly manifesting out of reality. And back into something else. A party trick.

From two feet, to four, the plate-carrier wearing lion trotted along, eyeing up immediately the man who was still bleeding from the head now, who was now holding a machete of some kind and running after the team in a jog. Where on earth did he get that?

And the machete-holding, pisshead, may have realised that even if him and his friends were angry enough, he had brought a knife to a lion fight. The others were likely thinking of shooting, fighting, or something else altogether.

Felix stood his ground and made a decision there. In front of the team, pointed at others, he roared. A guttural, frothy sound. Even when drunk, even as rural as some of these idiots were, likely thinking they could take on a bear, a lion? Well, it was out of place. Out of area. And one that with the weight behind it, of pure, hellbent frustration, made it clear that this was a man who wanted to eat. A thump of the mud, and he stood regal, poised, growling. About to charge, eyes locked.

"Blyat! Run!"

Another roar, and Felix watched as they turned and ran, before looking back at Keodis and Borys. He had an underlying hum to him, a gutteral, almost bloody sound in his throat. A fully grown armoured African Lion was quite the sight, and now, perhaps the two understood the reputation if they hadn't seen it in person. He was sizable enough to brush his mane past both, before shifting back, the operative glancing down the street as Oksana and Rowan arrived as the others ran away, deciding their decisions were better to go back inside and continue boozing.
"I think we're done. I'm starved. Or I'm going to start finding out what Polavian tastes like if this fucking country throws more drunk people at us. That was the worst bar fight I think I've ever been in. You both holding up?" Felix casually added, boots squelching into mud, and putting out a hand to the Mercedes that skidded to a halt, the team making tracks to get in, and get the hell out.

---

Day 1: 18:01:42...
Oksana's Babuskha's House (Oksana's Grandmother)
Somewhere outside the village of Pristupin, Libor Province
Republic of Polavia

Blood Alcohol Levels: Questionable

Get Breaded

The music on the radio was of course, Polavian in quality.

Soundtrack: Kino - Gruppa Krovi

Felix had diverted halfway en-route, the team just exhaling for now- getting dropped off halfway and heading into the woods, heading to a dead-drop he'd left, recovering a weapons crate buried in the forest. The rest of the team had been driven through the muddy tracks by Rowan, guided by Oksana, who tried to keep her feet on the mats of the Mercedes, which may have once upon a time been a posh car, but was now the chosen car of any two-bit gangster in Polavian countryside. So it fit the bill, because it was generic enough to blend in, while giving some performance at least.

Keodis also had a chance to stop by his range- which was en route- and grab his supplies. It looked like he couldn't get his armour, not yet at least, so he had the rest of his tools, whatever he could muster. Borys had much of his scavenged gear too, however he could get them, for the time being. The final stop, with sirens in the village visible, was the Polavian's grandmother's little hut in the woods.

The team all clambered out, the small hut quaint little farmhouse exactly as Oksana described, like something almost a little too stereotypical. A rural Polavian farm, with less in the way of fields, more in the way of pine forests that were now growing out over fallow strips between them.

So, when the team faced it down, the lion emerging from the bushes might have thrown some of them. He'd run a bit faster here that way, than, in his human form, but it wasn't any less intimidating. Carrying all he could on that form was also quite efficient too. A lion covered with his rifle, ammo, and all the other supplies that came with a modern mercenary's setup. The cabin had been useful. But this? This was his backup.

The lion groaned, the sound being that of hunger.

"Ah, crap. Not now." Oksana noted, looking to the rest, as Oksana's grandmother opened the door, the 80-something year old woman waving.

"Sanka, you were out so late! And who are your new friends?" Oksana looked up, the outside light illuminating all four of them....including a lion. For her, she'd lived such a life under the regime, at this point, she had given up even questioning why in the actual shit there was a lion. She'd seen enough repression that if she was going to be eaten by the lion, she'd probably just die of laughter there and then.

It was like Oksana's grandmother didn't even question it, as the lion slobbered like some dog, looking up, Oksana groaning.

"Fucking hell. Can you be normal and not starve? There is food in it if you do." Oksana whispered to him, as the lion half grunted, the blur almost like a piece of reality stopped existing for half a second and then it did where the lion was, a person seemed to appear.

"Dammit, that hurts. You have no idea how much it's shitty when I'm starved in that form. And this one." Felix replied quiet, as if his other form had kicked him out, and back to normality he was, as Oksana stepped forwards, dusting her feet off in the mud-trap brush at the base of the steps.

"Some other mercenaries. They're all friendly. Borys is Polavian, so you can..."

"Ah, he is so hungry that he is becoming a lion, he needs more food! And the short one too! All of you do!" She replied in perfect Polavian, as Oksana groaned, Felix chuckling (without realising Borys would have understood that joke), not even understanding any of it, but knowing they were absolutely, definitely being looked after here.

"Come on in! I have food already, it's been there for ages! You need to tell me when you bring friends, I would have prepared even more!" Oksana's grandmother replied, the elderly lady tiny, with glasses that looked like headlight bulbs, a wooden cane, and hair that had been grey since her 40s. Her grand-daughter coming home to spend time with her was of course, adorable, and well, not quite what the team would expect in "shit hit the fan, find a place to lay low".

She wasn't exactly taking no for an answer, and her poor English was no barrier to the team getting food, despite the fact they'd just been hunted by drunk locals and special forces wizards.

So, they all headed in, cleaning their shoes before they went in, and the scene cut wide to the house, the hours ticking forwards.

For a team being hunted, this was a strange stop to make. Not one they could easily just walk out of either now they were being fed whether they liked it or not.

---

Later....

Day 1: 21:21:42
Babuskha's House (Oksana's Grandmother)
Somewhere outside the village of Pristupin, Libor Province
Republic of Polavia

Bellies: Full

Walking back out, the entire team groaned, even Felix, walking into the rainy dusk, the sun clear of the horizon and trees in the distance.
"How the hell did she make that much food? There's like, not enough pantry?" The Libolian asked, as if her getting his wish from earlier. He left a ton of it in a foil-wrapped parcel, for.....later.

Most cultures understood the common joke of going to grandparents and getting a full feed. But in Polavia, like a certain kind of culture it felt brought in by, that meant being fed kilo after kilo by grandparents. They wouldn't care how tall or short you were, how fat or thin you were, they would say you needed more food and they would for some reason, have it already on a stove so you couldn't just turn it down.

And no, you couldn't just say it was enough. That wasn't a craft, that was just how it went. The team could barely move, and if Felix even wanted to sort his other half's problem out, current him was five kilos heavier to care.

"Ey! I told you we would get a feed." Roxie replied, herself, feeling like nothing beat her food. Especially after a few shots of vodka, a proper feed was like methadone to a heroin addict. They all walked outside, the chat at dinner about how things were going, how they'd met, but more than anything, a bit of silence. They were sobering up far too early, and the team were together now, at least, outside of the chaotic start they'd gotten in the rural setting.

Flicking the halogen light on, the old aluminium-roofed barn had been an old, small cowshed, hay scattered where the old dairy cows had once sat, and a couple of tables for gunsmithing and iterating on their gear dragged all over the place. A place for the team to set up shop, with whatever they'd been carrying, whatever they'd scavenged, gotten from nearby. Space was limited inside the farmhouse, so Oksana and her grandmother had pulled out whatever quilts, hay, and gas heating that they could to keep them warm inside this makeshift FOB. She was currently carrying a massive stainless steel looking tank, with a tap at the bottom of it, and a pile of ceramic mugs.

"So, as I translated, our antics made it on local news. Fifteen injured, and rumours that at the centre of it, they're hunting not just one, but four foreign crafters. Police are already closing the gap. We can't go back in that way. And every road out is blocked with checkpoints, looking for foreigners now. So it's not great. And before anyone even asks, I do not trust the police. I have my reasons." Oksana translated what they'd watched earlier, but thought to repeat it, as she honed in on Big Cat Actual.

"Why are they are they after you, Felix? I can't read your mind. But I will tell whichever version of you decides to lie." The Polavian asked, as she slid into an overshirt given it was getting colder, picking up her PP-19, slapping a magazine inside, silencer attached, as she adjusted her setup. Better to have a gun now. She didn't want to sit here waiting, not with everything else going on.

"Of course I don't have any chance of telling fibs. They want me because I'm an officer, and they want higher ups in the company arrested. And, you'll never believe this, they never took me to account on what I did to that horse in the DSR. Why they went that full force, who knows. They seemed like they wanted something else too. Any of you lot up to no good?" Felix replied, setting down his equipment at a table, sighing. He knew the answer. It was yes, just in varying manners. He didn't, of course, know that Rowan had come close to toppling a terrifying nerve agent programme in Kalan, Keodis upsetting the applecart in Medil, and Borys? Throw a dart at any post-it with a sin on it, and he had done it.

"And why the hell did you throw a bottle at a local as our best chance? See that one through, because now that went from a raid, to an entire village getting into a fistfight?" Felix barbed, Oksana now on the defensive, flabbergasted.

"Oh, no worries Felix, thank me later for saving your ass. I did what was needed in that situation. So go fuck yourself after feeding you, getting you here, everything." She sighed, just exhausted to argue now. "There's nothing from me that a DSR team would want. Unless special forces want to revoke a visa with extreme prejudice." Oksana barbed back, Felix looking up as he threw down his plate carrier, sliding mags inside.

"They would have picked you up as well in that raid. Realised we're all linked, like it or not. Come back for seconds given half of Reactor is on a Deck of 52.....and that's now added to their board. We fight together or we die alone now. We'll need that. Rowan had a point about us all being here in the same place. Shit as it is. It's what we have." The Libolian reminded Oksana as she turned, as Felix loaded a magazine into the 417, the shortened battle rifle set up the way he liked it, and set it on the bench with the rest of his kit. Full tacticool. A sigh from the Polavian.

"Fine." Oksana didn't like the fact he was right. Nor the fact that it didn't change the facts of their situation. "I don't want us to stay here, hiding isn't going to help. But we can't take the roads. We need a plan." Oksana retorted.

"Have you got a map?" Felix asked, as Oksana pointed to the tourist map in the corner on another bench.

As if by demand, Felix was pacing over and peeling it out, pinning it onto the wall with a hammer and nail, unfurling it. "This'll do." He stepped back, a nearby marker pen making this all rather handy. He scrawled their location, triangulating it in.

"I love a good map. Okay. I'll have a think. So far, Keodis lost his armour because he sold it, we're all wanted now, and the DSR somehow want something to do with me, and maybe, soon you lot too. We need new papers, definitely. And I have a feeling we need to make that choice, tonight." Felix replied, Oksana sliding in a mug beneath the big Samovar tank, pouring out mint-looking tea, and shoving a few cups onto the table.

"Solid Friday. This shit's made out of nettles from the forest. Cure for insanity." Oksana quipped, sipping tea, the team getting a moment of reprieve, a moment to set themselves up, and get ready for what was to come.

"I have a handful of ideas on how we come back here. We're gonna need a shitload of glyphs. But I think we need to get out. Get a train. And get ourselves some answers." Felix noted, scribbling in the team on some nearby markers. Time to run this like an op.

"Rowan, think you might be able to batch up some glyph ink? We might need a fair chunk of it. I have something in mind. Your car and big cauldron might be stuck here, but....I think that DSR team reminded me, those extraction glyphs are some absolute bullshit that we need way, way more of. And some breaching ones to come with. Borys, think you can help her?" Felix asked, looking across, letting the chemical warfare witch get her setup. "Please. I know you're in no right to trust me after all that. But let's give ourselves a fighting chance, shall we?" Felix moved to the next, seeing the larger Medilan come through, no doubt feeling the hurt from the fight.

"Keodis, grab yourself some grenades. My supply is yours. You'll make more work with them. The M249 might not last long, so we might need to work out alternatives. Can you lend Oksana a hand with loading up our ammo?" The female Polavian grimaced, looking at Keodis, sighing.

"Fine. He can help." She replied, putting cup down, sliding one to him.

"Sorry about the comment earlier. I am...blunt. Just, it's a pain in the ass. You moved, didn't die, so it's all good. And, I enjoyed your pranks because it pissed people like Felix off." Oksana giggled to Keodis, sliding across a mag of Borys's, with bullets in a box and magazine to follow, setting up her own little station too.

The team were all together now, all gearing up, and it was an early morning rollout, so NVGs would be needed, as well as their limited array of kit as tactical wizards, witches and arcane specialists.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP) (COMPLETED)

Finale: Queen's Rest

Glen Brittle, Isle of Skye, Scotland

1500 Hours Local

Raven Squad

Soundtrack: Maribou State- Varkala

Driving into Glen Brittle, the tiny, thin road led to a small parking area, where the various vehicles pulled in. Some hire, but one Land Rover Defender, hired by Adam, carrying himself, Tahlia and her father, stopped and left the cars behind. It was a twenty minute walk, up the stream, where tourists were, walking past people that were alive, able to keep visiting this beautiful, stunning location. A heap of waterfalls in crystalline waters in a perfect, postcard-like Scottish glen. Tourists who had no idea how close they'd come to the end of the world. Walking past them, Adam felt strange. Normal, actual, civilian people, who had zero idea of why so many of them were coming up here.

But right where Skye said, at that rock, the tiny track was stamped out with footsteps ahead of them. And walking up it, through the squelchy, boggy ground where boots caught mud, the tiny granite-strewn stream led into the braid that she'd described, up a small valley, and inevitably, to where Adam knew Skye had intended for them to go.

---

The drizzle had fizzled out in the small clearing, the stones dripping with water.

Oliver Black Astrid Norheim, Howard Davis, Andrew and Tahlia Harris, Domenico Tornatore, Xander Clarke, Antoine Forestier and Svetlana Forestier, Ross Henderson, Carl Cardinal, then Imran Malik, as Oracle himself, joining all of Raven Squad, who had come along after Sam's invite. Sophie, Javi, Raph, Vincent too. Perhaps it felt irresponsible to have them in one place, given IST might pick this up, but then again, few times it felt like something leaked through IST and nobody watched. There were many others who may have heard the name, and were stomping bad guys while the team were here, for a quiet, contemplative moment. A heavy who was in the team recently, a legendary Norwegian infiltrator, a Mohican sniper that set himself apart on his tracking ability, a sniper with his daughter that had been in Raven's service, a hacker who had been the pain in Skye's life yet a lovable rogue, an infiltrator and her giantess lover, much like a certain two, then two original operatives from a time bygone that defined the sorts of armours that mediums wore, and well, Raven's technical liaison with the forces that be.

Quite the crowd, on top of Ebrima, Eloise, Sam, Freya, Jamie, Ban, who had their bits to say. Their parts of memory.

It felt like a strange remembrance. A name etched into a rock, at the base of a tiny stone circle in a Scottish glen. The snow sprinkled in gentle, thin strips of the mountaintops of the Black Cullin, rain beginning to stop. The short Nepali, dressed in a black fleece and trousers, stepped forward, hair kept short, beard shaven completely.

Purna added commentary, leaving a knife in the ground, her old forged-steel, wooden framed scout knife.
"Skye was a legend. What can I say. Led by example. And remained selfless....put her own self ahead of others. In spite of recent events, she held herself together our team together, doing what was required, and leading us where she had to. She had high standards, but for her, she knew it was because she could make us even better. I always thought I wasn't a team player. But she proved me wrong. And I am grateful for it." Purna commented, walking back, looking to Eloise, and across to Ebrima.

Athena followed, after Eloise, setting down a plate from her exoskeleton next to the blade, setting it into rock, burying it into the soil, before stepping back, the usually excitable giantess in a black woollen overcoat, gloves and loose trousers that felt more operator than funeral attire, but, still reflected the mood.
"I suppose we didn't work personally together much. But she was.....the sort of person nobody wanted to tangle with, yet compassionate to those that mattered. There's a lot of stories about Skye Lyons. The sort of thing that operators like us think are myths. Who could believe this amount of mystery about a person. I didn't. Turns out there was even more. But she held onto her humanity even tighter even after it all. And despite that she cared, she had a funny way of doing it but....she meant well by her team. By the people she served. And in every way, until the very end, I saw her lead us through hell, and back. I was in your ear too much, Skye. But you were good. And made me realise what mattered, wasn't noise, but meaning. Thank you." Athena left the plate in ground, walking back and glancing to Eloise, wrapping her arm around her shorter partner, the Kiwi sniper coming across, a different tact.

Tahlia stepped in, and strangely, didn't seem to look at anyone else. She looked at the rock, holding back tears.
"You told me I'd be back in the game, didn't ya? Told me I could fight, despite the bloody legs. I argued with you so fucking much. About supplies. Organisation, coming back rough. But you kept doing it. So many times I wish I hadn't, over....well, who you were. And what you were. But....I think you made me better for it. And ended up being right in the end. When I said I couldn't be of help, you told me I could. And I guess that you left for me to do. Thanks, boss." She smiled, talking as if she was talking to the small slate rock, rather than at anyone in particular.

Adam looked on, the last to talk, once everyone else had said their peace. The relationship was different. She knew Ban had feelings for her, but her and Skye had been a piece once upon a time. It had ended, amicably, but sometimes, it felt like he saw in a different angle to her.

"She was the best of us. Unstoppable. Stubborn to a fault. Never faltered in her pursuit of the greater good. It didn't work between us. We were different people. I guess I was too disciplinarian, too....focussed on order. She focused on the opposite. But it worked. She let the operators that worked under her be who they needed to be. Fight how they fought best, and made sure they were the best versions of themselves, more than her own self. And it made her the team leader that I couldn't dream of matching. She was willing to put everything on the line. Put everything to the wall, get her hands dirty, but remember the reasons it mattered. She would help those who needed it, punish those who deserved it, and even after it all, move forwards past something nobody could have carried. Rose posed an existential threat to everyone....and Skye, despite everything, despite everything we learned, did everything she could knowing we'd stop her, and didn't let anyone else stop her. And so we did. Rest well, Lyons. Gone, but never forgotten."

The scene felt quiet, as everyone took it in for a second, appreciating the scene.

The question was asked by Sam, about who was back in the team, and as some of the other Raven team members left mementoes at the rudimentary marker, there was a moment of silence. Some had left, having paid their respects privately earlier, some stayed to watch on, taking it all in.

Purna put his hand up, a smile.
"Always keen for another posting, Sam. Especially if Eloise is in." He stepped forwards, Athena following. "If she's in, then so am I guess. Adam?"
"Fine." The Pole replied, almost frustrated, but well, he'd missed this from his short period of retirement.
"Band's nearly back together then." Tahlia commented, looking to Sam.
"I'll give you all as much shit as I gave Skye, don't worry. We have lots to do. Find a new base. Get back to work. And go do it all again." The sniper had perhaps not been a primary team member, not at first but she had to admit, her break at home was starting to tire.....and she had half a feeling the others might have felt that too.

On that frame, for the team as they slowly left, one by one, the rain now completely gone, and with it, the team, together at the end, back to business, felt like it played out. The outlines drawn, the colour dropping away, and the music ending. A wedding to attend in Moscow, a team to reform, more revenge beyond for some of the team, and some hatchets buried for others. In the end, Raven Squad had been there to stop the end of the world. But there was plenty of world to go back to saving now, and their bravery, courage, and sacrifice gave the world a chance at a better future.

---

Soundtrack: Biffy Clyro- Mountains (Acoustic)

The two looked down, the older man, and a younger woman next to him, putting earbuds down, the mic in the undergrowth picking up all of the long chats that had happened. Out of the way, but looking on from afar, maybe a tiny spot of two hikers far above it all, they wouldn't have seemed off the beaten track that the ridgeline received from time to time.

Sitting on the edge of the ridge in the Black Cullin, they were far enough away. Far enough to see the specks down below, in the stone circle, one by one, disappearing as they walked away.

"I'm glad the the mic picked that up. What do you think, Isla?" The older man said, adjusting the recording, knowing this had been a bit cheeky of them. Intruding, surveillant, watching from afar. But there was no way they were getting in contact with the team. Too many complications. So Oracle had sent them here.

"She sounded like the best of people. A sister I never met. I couldn't believe it when you said about it....a special forces soldier? I thought just teaching kids on a rope course in Grizedale was bloody mad enough!" Isla replied, the voice Cumbrian, not quite Scots, but not English either. Her face like Skye's, with certain difference. Brown hair, green eyes. It wasn't her, but strangely, it seemed to be close enough that it could have been. Wearing a blue raincoat, hood wrapped up, it seemed like a strange place to have such a sentimental chat, on such a ridgeline.

"Me too. I had a feeling it was what they were doing but.....wow. She was the second strand from your brain scan and sample. When you hurt your leg, then that trip to Porton Down....it all happened too quick for me to say anything to them. Rose was a few years before that, who....well, I was informed died in other circumstances."

Isla sighed, looking down, through the binoculars, taking each of them in. There were some characters alright. An albino, a short, South-East Asian woman, a silver-haired operative, then the gigantic redhead and her equally gigantic partner, a bald looking Slavic man, and a South-Asian, short looking fellow. How on earth did this all come together for her? What sort of an operation was this? Isla had a few comments to make, still frazzled from everything the last twelve hours had dumped on her.

"Yeah, the details are fuzzy of our trip there, but I remember it, just about. Heroes, by David Bowie was playing. Good song. But how did it work? Sounds like....well, it got messy." Isla asked, perhaps a little aware of this, but wanting to finally get details out of her father.

"We came up with it as a project to try and give people a chance at living in other bodies, for spaceflight, terminally ill children, the possibilities were pretty extensive. The concept of a body that you could have as a platform for a mind transfer. And when mum was struggling with IVF, the miscarriage...I made the wrong deal thinking I could do good with what I knew. I was....so fucking stupid. Genetic modification, and what that came with. But I was desperate, and well, the concept of having a child mattered so much to Clara, and....it was an opportunity I couldn't say no to. A fit and healthy baby girl. You, that was how you were born, Isla. The whole thing made me forget they'd come back for something that no matter how non-intrusive....was a part of you. I was naiive. Despite however many years I had, I didn't listen." That made the older man, who looked like he was in his 60s, was the vague grey that Skye would have remembered as being Ian Lyons. Although, of course, now this seemed a little confusing. His English accent was perhaps more like Rose's even if he had lived his latter years in Scotland.

The geneticist was the last of the three supposed surrogates involved in creating Rose, and with it, as it turns out, Skye. A truth Rose had gotten half-right, it sounded like.

Isla sat silently, listening to rest of it, before chirping in.

"I don't get it still. How did it even happen? Sorry, this makes no sense...it seems really convoluted, so try me again?"

"I suppose, the reason you're so fit, healthy, all of it, is because of the genetic markers in your blood. After the IVF, you were basically best genetic odds you could have, especially since mum didn't...well, after all the issues. That genetic marker extended into both Rose and Skye. And tied me to the project. That ends with both and Rose and Skye." Ian added, her daughter starting to get somewhere now.

"Right. So how did you get out of it?"

"I told Zhao and Simmonds, I'd want a promise they'd never come back, not after the second time. I got an assurance from the Sikh man down there. Told me that was it. And he never told her, and I'd never know anything more. She was distinct from you, through genetic editing. Different face, but I'm told, she had your spirit, and it sounds like she did. And....Rose had a node on her neck, Skye, she had something inside her brain stem, something undetectable, that meant she went from body to body. So she was....made....born a redhead, with blue eyes. Distinct, given she more or less had consciousness backed by a server. Another man handled the genetics. And another the process of transfer. Henry, and George. I guess I worked on the humanity inside, the consciousness. Tried to make sure if she was going to be intact, she would take after the best person in my life. Do the right thing and all. Then walk away." Ian started, stopping to catch his breath, thinking of what to say next.

"And she was you, Isla. I suppose I called her Skye because it reminded me of the trips we took here. A daughter that I never asked for. But one that was all you. A twin you wouldn't have seen. But one that at least remembered what being human was like. I couldn't ever let them try anything different." He started, sighing, a lifetime of regret. "I'm so sorry." Ian simply uttered, as Isla took a moment to take it in, trying to find words. He was saying far too much, feeling far too much weight. Dumping it all on her.

She just couldn't quite believe any of this, staring silently, letting this all set in.

"That is complicated...insane. Genuinely, what the fuck...." Isla sighed, not even accepting it yet. Not even fully getting this. Her entire life was being tipped upside down. It had been from the moment she was sat down by him six hours ago about it.

"You know, when...he mentioned it, I thought we make that visit. Together. I appreciate you coming. Hauling me up this mountain." The old man said, Isla looking on, still speechless, but trying to dig words out.

"Well....I guess I didn't trust you going alone. Not up here, dad. It explains a lot, much as....well, you did it out of love. The right reasons....but you treated people like things! Fucking hell...." She exclaimed, the morality of it all now beginning to sink. The whole picture now forming.

"And...seeing this many people. Wow. Was any of it real to her? Did she at least live something of a life? Or was she just a play thing?!" Isla almost cracked, her mood being like this for the last few hours. Between hate, and understanding. Ian was a more timid man than most, he wasn't a soldier, he was a researcher, a geneticist, but to his daughter, he was the spawn of hell when she turned that look to him, thinking on it.

"Well, she......she had your memories. Up until about twelve. Then to about sixteen, none. It's a programme the CIA had in the 90s, adjacent to MK Ultra. Implanted memories.....which I didn't want to hear more about it because I couldn't face it. Then Skye did what she did. Got pulled into that life by subconscious. And....you heard what you heard. I wanted to see it one last time, find out the same question you just asked. If she lived. I suppose curiosity got the better of me......I guess I wanted closure when Imran called. All bodies, all servers, cleaned. And it sounds like she did a lot of good. Even if everything in me wished I'd have told them to go away." Ian commented, exhaling hard. "I did it with a hope they'd use it right. I was young and stupid. But....maybe I wasn't."

"Maybe. Are there any more like her?" Isla's words cut now, almost as if she wanted him to fess any last words out. Ian wasn't holding back either.

"Not that I know of. Not without me overseeing it. George was good, but he couldn't do anything that stuck. And Henry, well, he's just a geneticist. I barely forgive myself. Yeah. No more of it, I'm told. Skye was....I remember her now. She was like you. So much like you. But after it, I never could tell myself it was the right thing. I ran away from her. From my responsibility, because I knew what they'd put her through. Once we wrote the first paper, it was do or die." Ian added, exhaling hard, arm wrapped up against Isla. "We played God." Ian added, looking on, genuinely remorseful, just wondering how the fuck any of this made sense.

The words stayed hollow, as no matter how many times they'd talked, Isla couldn't make her mind up. Whether her dad was a monster, an evil piece of shit that created a genetically modified human being in her, to create two clones for an unknown entity that seemed to have the ability to die and be born again, versus the alternative. That he did it to give his wife a chance at children. A chance to have a healthy daughter. A Faustian bargain. But one that for a moment, Isla realised didn't matter. She was here. Alive, breathing, and living a normal life in Buttermere. And she wasn't in Skye's shoes. She wasn't dead. She was alive, and free, able to go back to it all. She had so much hate, burning deep through her, in her confusion. But another part tugged to the side. Realised that was futile.

"I know you didn't have a choice, but...I forgive you for it. It couldn't have been easy." She could only utter, looking on, at the small crowd in the glen below. Maybe she deep down still had plenty left.

"She lived a full life. Rose sounded like a mess. But, if Skye did what she did....it sounds like she helped a lot of people. Did a lot of good. Maybe the morals were wrong. But, maybe for all of it, she did good. That is something. You hid all of it from me for years, I mean I wanted to tell you that it couldn't be more fucked. I wish I hadn't heard it but.....wow. I didn't realise what she meant. She's the sister I didn't have. And helped save everyone from whatever that was that Rose wanted to do." Isla said, almost muttering, still unable to get this through her head.

She was no doubt as sharp as Skye was, but perhaps, without the same impacts that Skye had been imprinted upon herself, had lived a normal life. Isla couldn't have been more different. Fearless, maybe adventurous, but nothing, nothing at all on Skye. She was civilian, normal, and had a boyfriend at home she wanted to go catch up with, and....realise she could never tell him any of this. Or even go back to normality. Was there any normality left?

"She did. Their story will never be told. But, I think she might live on a bit. In us." Ian added, smiling, Isla nodding, a grin back, as the wind howled a bit more.

"Agreed. I think she might live on a bit longer." The third voice came through, chuckling in light relief, walking down the granite rock, cutting through the wind.

Both of them looked on, turning pale. The realisation hitting a little quick that she'd been sitting in hiding, hearing it all.

"What, frightened you've seen a ghost?" The Scots voice chirped, turning into a cunning smile. The Tartan-wearing trench coat on, hair tucked into a bun, standing on the next bit of ridge up from them, walking on down in her tan-coloured boots, the redhead glad she got to sit in on this. And well, even get the jump on these two.

Walking across, sitting by her sister, well, sort of herself, and her surrogate father, looking down at the circle, then back across.

"It's probably best this way. They said I was impaled by a grappling hook in space! Seriously? I mean, come on. If I keep fucking dying like that, I am going to go as batshit insane as Rose did." Skye added, adjusting her cuffs a little, Ian and Isla not having any words to give. It was like seeing everything they just described, manifest itself. Skye was enjoying this whole thing a little too much, but still, reminiscing on the whole journey.

"I will really fucking miss them. But it's probably best this way. No loose ends. Clean break. Keeps things simple, and well, breaks the cycle. And Sam, she'll do a good job, aye, I think so. We have a bit of catching up to do in the meantime. I mean....as horrid as what Ian did, you're still dad. And Isla, you're definitely a sibling." Skye thought about it all. The journey to now.

The drinking in Kaitiaki, the walks with Sam and mentoring her, the funny banter with Freya, smoking enemies with Ban, the endless bullshit from Xander, the manic energy of Athena, Jamie's quiet tribal zen, Ebrima's almost telepathic link to her in fighting and helping him find a path forwards, and then Eloise, who brought silence and violence into perfect harmony, and from what she had deduced, killed her sister. Which, in these circumstances, Skye was rather pleased about.

From the mission in Kazakhstan with a dawn raid, to leaping off a building in Singapore at a high-formal night party. The raid on the Chilean observatory riding on a helium suit's rear, evacuating the New Zealand base, through to Nagoya, and linking up with Ban, finding out the truth about Rose. The mission to save the world, raiding an airship, an oil rig, and a Greenlandic mine, in a massive joint assault. And then Reunion. What a bang that was. She didn't know anything after that, but she read the file on her past self. And waking up in a bag in an abandoned storage unit in Swindon, well, it truly had turned out to be the strangest, weirdest of things. An opposite, a switch to reality. All memories. Well, bar the last bit.

The realisation was hitting she'd never see them again. By design, she knew that it was the worst part of being a squad lead. She had to accept any of them but her could have died, but she had to watch her own death. For a greater good, because reappearing would open all cans of worms. Her curse was living. But it was living, knowing perhaps in death, there was something new. And if anyone could figure that out now, Skye knew she had as good a third chance at life as anyone. No tracking, no contact, no servers. Just this.

Maybe someone at the bottom of the mountain, if they really squinted, might pick her out. They'd have to look hard. Because otherwise, Skye knew she'd watched her own death, her own funeral, and come to the end of her line, metaphorically speaking.

Ian finally let the words out as Skye kept quiet on those thoughts, quietly contemplative.

"How?"

She gave a final look that came with years of this, almost a cheek to her, as if this was her staring into the curtain call. Of what next? She wasn't sure. She had a ticket out of the life she had lived. All authorities more or less thought the scheme she had been in, died with her and Rose. Eventually, the rock would weather, and the team would move on, and she'd stop being looked for. And she'd live a normal a life as she could. Like her sister.

But maybe she did have a simpler answer for Ian, who she took in for a second, and her sister, one that well, even she couldn't have seen coming. It made her feel less human, less valuable. But Isla's eyes somehow reaffirmed that for a moment, perhaps, all of this had been worth it. From a place of bad, could come some good.

Looking almost into the void, at the reader, Skye smirked, one last final look, thinking about nearly how long it had been. And yet, how perhaps, simple it all boiled down to why she was here.

Staring into the late afternoon sun, on the snowy granite, the sun beginning to set into the sea past the brown-burnt hills, the wind on her cheeks, the feeling of freedom back.

It was as if she looked through it all, all the memories, all the history, all of the time spent, the hours, the days, weeks, months, years in these chases, with one last Scots tone, no less than anyone would expect.

"Well, I'm a bit too stubborn to die, aren't I?"

The End

Soundtrack: George FitzGerald - Setting Sun

Credits

Credits

To the excellent, wonderful, players of Raven Squad, thank you so much!

Without you, none of this would be possible, and your time, commitment and engagement with this strange, oddball, but madcap idea has been a joy to write with yourselves. I cannot fault you in how fun you've made this, and well, I can only hope we'll write more in the future!

-FourtyTwo (KSW)

@LadyAmber
@BigPapaBelial
@Starlance
@Rhona W

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Sunday August 20th
Moa Tempesta Circuit, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1800 HST

Bloom

Amy Stirling

The sigh came back as Amy looked at the board, the points tally shifting once more, the Brit taking it in. Thinking over her choices. And how Harrison, while stunting the gap, was still a threat to her championship. One that she felt wasn't quite as in the bag as it had been last year. Even if it was just him, it felt like Nora, nay, even Kais, might be chasing her down too. She couldn't let go of any results here, not anymore.

"How you feeling?" The voice was from behind, as she looked across to Peter, Amy pulling the wire out of her neck, no longer wanting to be tethered while in chat.

"Good, good thanks." She replied, as Peter cut to the chase quickly, sliding across the data interface in front of him.

"I'm no expert, Amy....but what is that?"

"Neural logs. They're the usual." Amy replied, as Peter scrolled to the right, peeling up the spikes, popping out from the tablet and Peter peeling close.

"They're definitely not." Peter's response was almost dry, comic even, in how borderline stupid it would have sounded out of context. Cutting from that to the studio was a decision, to say the least.

Sitting in the interview room, the ambience was hard to take, as Amy sat on the sofa, hearing that question come through.

"What was it like, finding out that you had some issues with your neural link?" Aurora asked, as Amy, looking more somber than usual, sat up, shaking her head.

"It's tricky. I suppose, it was starting to explain things for me. I didn't see it coming, it explained why I was a bit out of it. But it happens. I suppose it's what comes with being pushed hard. I guess my wetware just didn't decide to agree for a few races. Glad we caught it when we did." Amy commented, the feeling being, that was hiding a whole heap of truth that hadn't been shown.

---

Florence Mason

Florence sighed, looking at the data on her tablet, Sally looking across at the dejected looking, former champion's glare.

"Well, proof that I'm right?" Florence asked, nodding as Sally took a seat on the soft chair across from her.
"Proof you were. You'd have been rinsed. Fair play for holding her up as much as you could. It wasn't our track to be. But, you put up a fight. And we're still there or therabouts for points. A better year hasn't been done in a while." Sally had kind words to say, but Florence knew that maybe just not making the most of Paul's awful day, or Hamid's surge forward, had come to bite.

"Maybe. Felt like a risk, and I didn't make it stick enough." Florence sighed, putting tablet down again. "So yeah. Lessons learned. More juice." Florence asked, Sally realising that Florence, despite everything, maturity, changes, still had that unrelenting hunger to push into points. Sally wasn't used to that from either of her pilots. That she almost had respect for. But concern beneath it too.

---

Factory Settings

In the HQs of each team, before the episode was out, a bit was shown on how logistics behind the scenes worked. From the moment the ships left the paddock, loaded up on cargo planes and various larger anti-gravity carriers, they were inspected, meticulously, checked and assessed in great, if not extraordinary detail. A process that came with plenty of engineering wetwork, despite all the automation, it meant a human was still engaged in the process at detail.

Aurora sat with a view overlooking the Pampas outside, the Buenos Aires factory making for a nice backdrop for this particular visit.

She was with Leon Alonso, and with Bea Ward, who were on the sofa, that of Carrera's choosing.

"Thank you for inviting me around to your factory! So, you took me around and showed us what your culture is like earlier. What would you say it is about Carrera Condor, going from a smaller, backmarker team into top of the midfield feels like? Has it changed, or do you still feel like underdogs, despite what feels like expectations changing surrounding the team at each round?"

----------

Meanwhile, Aurora had also made her way into the Valkyrie HQ, with the background of historic Valkyrie ships of years gone by as she sat in the main atrium. A brief montage inside, of the white-rooms, manufacturing prototypes, parts, components, and all the juicy engineering porn that made anti-gravity racing what it was, before cutting back to the interview.

"Alexander, Paul, thanks for the invite! I was recently at the Carrera Condor factory, who appear to be fast growing to be challenging you, alongside the historic Zygon and Al-Saqr teams. What are your thoughts on how you're being pursued, and how do you plan to react to make sure you keep up the heat on the top three in the constructors this season? Are you looking to continue snatching wins when you can at circuits that suit you, or do you think it'll be a different approach needed for the rest of the season?" The question went to both, knowing it was a tricky one, but no less getting to the point in the dynamics of the season.

----------------

A last stop on Aurora's globe-trotting behind-the-scenes tour was in Abu Dhabi, the Al-Saqr HQ making an appearance, Aurora touring the simulator and cutting-edge AI facility, albeit being shown absolutely nothing of a certain area....

And on the couch, the sea lapped quiet in the inland water, the sun hung low in the horizon past the mangroves.

"Omar, Kais, thank you for hosting me on the island, quite the scene outside! With performance behind you hotting up, are you hoping for a late season lunge into more points, trying to outpace your rivals at all costs? Is it sustainable, or do you think you've found a happy medium?"

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller)

Day 1: 17:30:05
The World's End Pub
Village of Pristupin, Libor Province
Republic of Polavia

Shots Fired

Oksana being carried turned her face into a near growl, as she was thrown to the side and Borys started giving Felix shit, letting go. She didn't intervene, no answer out of him was satisfactory. Felix didn't much appreciate it either, but he was just more blunt.

"Go fuck yourself, Borys. Aren't I just lucky you're too shitfaced for me to find out if you taste better than a horse. Bastard." Felix wryly smirked, knowing he could contain himself, but after a couple of shots, he was significantly looser. He slid a shot to him, in the international sign of "I didn't like what you did, but I'd drink with you anyway".

The sight of Keodis's chair snapping as if on cue added to that, a bit of peak comedy to make this already messy shitshow get even more complex. The massive man on the floor, Felix offered a hand, sighing, passing his glass to the fallen man, who had been spectating. A giant of a man, who carried a load of armour and went in and where a lion wasn't working out to do surgical work, he would be employed to liberally pepper the area in question in UXO. If pyromaniacs were addicted to setting stuff on fire, he was fairly sure Keodis was addicted to explosions. His craft just pushed that a little further along.

"You were saying?" Felix chuckled, pulling him up, Oksana even chirping in.

"Yes, Keodis was good. And I saved him, yes. He kicked in doors, blew up lots of shit, detonated a lot of people. You know, I saw you die lots. Worst one was that mortar round. I couldn't see that out of my dreams in week. All that armour, he was like...." Oksana put her hands up, before making an explosion noise, talking at both the team and Keodis.

The arrival of Rowan, who sidestepped the mess seemed to make things a little more orderly. Felix had good memories of Rowan. A wild witch, but no less professional, competent, versed. Cerebral, she was a clever one, but no less versatile. With the shots in their hands, a collective clink, even from Oksana, who kept a scowling face, Rowan's reaction making it clear what most thought after clearing the shot.

"Yeah....it sorta gives me a hint that it is like paint thinner, you know?" Felix commented on that point, Oksana shotting the rest of hers.

"Everything in the regime has two uses...be careful, Rowan, molotov doesn't just need a cauldron to make, just some personal sacrifice" She giggled in her accented self, now getting more rat-arsed herself, allowing this luxury.

Felix heard what Rowan had to say, knowing it was an obvious question, but the answer was maybe more simple, coming back to it about how he got here.

"Got nowhere to go because despite the investigation suggesting command knew I should have been fed, I still fucking 'ate a horse, didn't I? And I had more than enough years behind me to justify that being at least a written warning, not this. So here we are. I guess the village is the first one off the road on the way from Kralovec to Novy Jork, so we all made similar choices. Has cheap accommodation, and it's far enough inland that it keeps us out of the way. Chance is a fine thing....every village must be full of Reactor mercs in northern Polavia looking for a drink and maybe a way back. Guess we're filling the void by having money to burn, and bars to fill. Like on the Liboli border all over again." Felix replied, looking around to the others, hearing their responses.

Screwed, fucked over, and generally, with nowhere to turn. This had been, by most likely, the place they'd wanted to go. Out of Kralovec, not so deep in the woods they'd barely speak the language, but also, on a bus route. Public transport was crap in Polavia, but the buses, as carbon monoxide making as they were, got people where they needed to on the muddy tracks.

Midway through Keodis's reasons, the Polavian Watcher-Witch bolted upright.

"Shit!" Oksana seemed to snap out of nothing, and yanked the bottle the group were pouring shots from, throwing it as hard as she could away, with an almost olympic-level discus throw of spinny vodka bottle in flight.

And then throwing herself over the bar.

When a seer does that, you immediately have to think it's not ending well.

Before Felix even had a chance to yell, suddenly watched everything started getting blurry. The bottle was in mid flight, soaring towards a particularly bald, particularly bankrupt looking drunk man at a big table full of big drunk men. And then it....

////////////////////////////////////////////////////-/-/-//-----------------------------------------/////////////////////

Stopped. Everything did. The barman pouring an amber gold pint. The television on the far screen displaying smoke and pyro on a football game in the capital. The light flickered, as every single pint drunk, shouting match, yelling across the bar, went dead, pitch, silent. Spit in midair. It felt cool as fuck if you glanced for a second, but the crafters would realise, they could move, nobody else could.

Beads at the entry door brushed aside, the black outlines rushing in filled the void, unaffected by time coming to a halt. Time had frozen, one smaller witch at the back looking like her hands were out, eyes out, holding the bubble out to stop time itself inside the entire bar. Filling the room like a sort of vapour, affecting everyone....bar the team. The barman in surprise as to what was going on. The drunk locals on the further side of the bar watching the bottle smash into the biggest man at the table's male pattern baldness having head, the glass still splintering.

The team moving forwards were fast, and no flashbangs were needed when they had a Holding Witch on their side. She'd frozen time, well, apart from anyone with a craft in the room. Handy when you needed to deal with a sensitive situation like this one.

"Special Forces, hands where I can see them, get on your knees!" Felix heard in DSR-accented English, as the main man ran forward, Felix just laughing at this point with how done he was with this bullshit. Five operators total. They pointed guns at every single one of the party, Felix receiving a stock to the stomach when he didn't stop laughing at how shit his luck had truly been, standing aside from the team.

Felix had also had a few shots in him, so that felt like it put him into misery once more, the vodka burning on the way up and making it hurt. Sobering fast, but making him want to be sick. But it sucked more that he was on the end of a fucking DSR raid. He'd gone up in the world.

At this point, the team might have realised, maybe started thinking that they weren't giving off main character energy. Felix absolutely wasn't.

"WIZ-TAC, this is Battlemage Actual, we've got HVT confirmed. Moving to arrest. We'll be twenty mikes to primary extraction." Felix, while on the ground looking around at the others, realising that while guns were pointed, the main one standing over him was bearded and bald. And he recognised him. WIZ-TAC, the DSR's Arcane Special Forces team, certainly had hired someone back he hadn't expected.

"Turn and I'll fucking have fun shooting you in the head, kitty cat. Hands where I can see them! Everyone else, hands high or we'll open fire!" The bearded operative called, bald, the G3A3 in arms showing this was not an operative packing little heat, but an esteemed professional.

"Harry? Fuck me. You guys really wasting taxpayer money on this bullshit?" Felix recognised him. That was a Reactor merc too. And now he was in WIZ-TAC again? Motherfucker. Felix felt one of the other operators put zip ties into his hands, presented forwards, knowing well, this was par for the course now.

"Shut it, Lyons! We will waste taxpayer's money on whatever the fuck command says, so on your feet!" The voice of the bald, bearded operative, came back, the crystalline substance on his robe indicating some sort of talent with crystals, that not entirely coming to Felix in this immediate moment. Even if how surprised he was of all people...it was Hazza fucking Lerwick? The crystals started to bond in his zip ties. That was concerning.

"No, like, I genuinely didn't think it would be you. Come on. How'd you do it, blood magic, using the others to make me drink....shit, or even getting them as help? Don't fucking kill them. I'll go easy." Felix sighed, realising that he could turn right now and eat him, the feeling was coiling inside him after all. Just take him. And hope the others had an idea. But then again, that might kill everyone. Not a great call. Man, he fucking wished he had a bit of Oksana's sight here....

The rest of the team had guns in their face too. Rowan being faced down by a thin, dark-haired operator with an M4A1 with the staff in it with a large ruby-like crystal in the end suspended by a light-wood like amber, a SOF helmet with full green MARPAT and a whole plume of flowers across her arm looking like some energy magic was up her sleeve. Keodis with a bulkier looking, dark-skinned dude with an M249 that appeared to look like he had something else up his sleeve beyond many gym sessions. And Borys was simply facing down a balaclava-wearing, red-eyed, robe wearing, MP5-carrying operator that looked like a stereotypical SAS breacher mixed with a warlock, looking like he could summon something. The witch at the back seemed to be the lightest armed, with a sleeveless robe, with a MPX across her bandolier, hands out, holding the bubble like she was blowing it out.

"Just you, your actions. The honeypot worked." Harry seemed almost proud of himself, as Felix sighed. The house was far too cheap for a reason. It wasn't a vial of blood, not even a sample of something else. Felix replied in turn, taking a good look at his captor.

"You're so unprofessional. Fucking doing it in broad daylight, you that brave?" Felix vocalised- Wwy wouldn't Harry just shut the fuck up on his victory lap? There was a rustle, the bubble holding for now, as the team were having guns kept close to them, making them think twice about reacting. They were probably realising they weren't here for them, but for Felix.

Oksana clambered around behind the bar, knowing this was critical. What she'd done had been stupid, but then again, a raid was in nobody's interest. Even if it was just Felix they were after, actions were in motion she could see going badly, even with the horrid interference from that fucking witch's holding bubble, freezing time itself. And she was a fucking idiot for this, because all she saw was chaos theory in front of her. If she did this, it was going to go poorly. But she was enough vodka shots down to ignore concequences, and well, realise that the part of her that wanted this, made this clear, was that her drinking session was interrupted.

She didn't give a fuck if it was DSR Special Forces, she had already started the chain reaction of consequences that would end badly for everyone once the team took Felix away. If they took him, they were getting their asses beat by the far end of the bar.

So, Oksana was ready to face it. After she'd sorted a few things from her position out of the way. Standing from behind the bar, hands up, guns turning to her standing up, and knowing she had all eyes when they hadn't accounted for the lithe Polavian, she opened her mouth.

"He's an asshole. But would you mind? We were just drinking. So...." She dryly commented, PB hidden tucked into her combat pants, on her back.

Suddenly, the witch at the back started to look like she convulsed.

"Idi Nahui!" Oksana yelled, in perfect, prim, Polavian, well and truly, a "Go Fuck Yourself" delivered in a manner that felt almost too cinematic.

The entire bubble of time burst.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////-/-/-//-----------------------------------------/////////////////////

And before anyone could do anything, the rest of the scream could be heard as the slow-motion events that the entire team had seen happen, now unfolded with the vodka bottle in contact.

"BLYAT!"

The voice screamed at the far end of the bar. Blood pissed across the wall, glass exploding, vodka soaking.

And as if by almost a convulsion, the special forces team raiding the bar had a bigger problem to deal with. A load of drunk Polavian workers who were having their drinking session, the bald man the bottle hit, who in this instance, looked so drunk with his square glasses on that he seemed like he was lumbering across with blood pouring out of him as if it gave him a warpath. The rest of his friends were sharing his aura. That wasn't magic, that was just Polavian drinking power.

"Debil, don't fucking ruin a good thing!" Oksana yelled out to the raiding team, the spray of rounds from one of the operators smacking wood as she dived already harmlessly out of way, the barman yelling out as well, getting into cover as Oksana chuckled, already picking bottles from the fridge. Not for consumption. She had ideas beyond her sight, but her being drunk and able to see the future could see she wouldn't die if she did it right, and that the team would have time to react.

"Shit, grab the asset and let's go!" Another voice yelled, as Felix barged into "Harry" from his knees to stun him even with a gun in point blank, running the other way that Oksana did as she threw herself over the bar and the others had their chance to get free, who smacked a vodka bottle into Harry's head, throwing the remaining bit at another operative who didn't realise that dealing with a seer came with her being able to see what moves in the future stopped her from being killed.

"Smashing!" Felix yelled back, looking to the onrushing stampede of the other side of the bar wanting to pick a fight with everyone. Including the mercenaries. He peeled the zip tie open on a shard of glass behind the bar, looking at the scene before him. The crystals made it harder, he'd been lucky they hadn't hardened yet, but that felt like enough of a pain in the ass with the warm water and pure aggression he'd needed to channel to get them off while the team got to work.

It was hard to tell what was real and what was fake- none of this made sense, so the only thing in a Polavian bar fight was maybe to try and not die. There was a mess of bodies, more Polavians who were sober even joining in, but most, were absolutely more drunk than even Borys. And that was saying something. They were mostly teethless, stupid, and worse, angry they were interrupted.

Killing the special forces team was probably a bad idea. But running for now was a good one, at least disabling or knocking them out, as Oksana was kicked by the man that had Keodis covered from a stray leg, knocked hard into the floor in a moment her vision couldn't see due to the good old, being drunk and in the midst of the worst chaos theory she had experienced in a while, Felix running hard at him yet being interrupted by bleeding, drunk bald guy who came in flying with what was almost a drunk rugby tackle?

Pushing him aside, Keodis's assailant was then pushed over, as he sprayed rounds but immediately had his LMG picked from him, before he got a kick in and shoved the men away, going for Keodis once more, and it looked like with a staff he carried on the side of his rucksack, he was able to influence and move objects. Telekinesis of some kind? It looked like it, though the stool he was dragging needed to pick up momentum before it smacked two of the men charging after him, before he had an open angle.

The entire bar was in conflict, most of the special forces team disarmed...well, until, a massive bolt of reddish energy suddenly rupturing a wall from the M4-carrying witch with an elemental staff in her barrel and two innocent bar goers turned into mush, as that soldier had her M4 ripped out of hands and punched in the face by another drunk publican and was immediately set upon by at least three drunk bar goers.

"We need to leave, right now!" Oksana yelled out, knowing that the situation had totally broken into shit. Where they were going? Oksana wasn't quite sure. She had a hand on her bag, and pulled it up into her shoulder, Felix barely clambering up and the two hoping that Keodis, Rowan and Borys had sorted themselves out.

"Where we going?"

"I have an idea!"

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller)

@Arminwraith

Accepted, with a couple of tweaks PM'd, but good to go in chars and then you can jump into the IC.

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller)

A man getting thrown through a window, into the muddy, rainy outside.

A shit-load of gunfire, and the sound of a lion?

A forest. A deep, dark forest. The feeling of fear. Tension. Worry.

A missile launch, and some mountains in the background.

A lot of panic, building paranoia, tension.

Freezing, horrid, cold.

The klaxons from her past, the Border Guards yelling on the tannoy.

Future, past?

Then why was there a red-haired woman in an exoskeleton running through a concrete bunker?

x--x-x-x--x-----------------------------------------------------------------------------x---x--

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex

Act One: Regroup

Part One: Last Orders at World's End

Day 1: 17:21:02
The World's End Pub
Village of Pristupin, Libor Province
Republic of Polavia

Oksana felt the poke on her back, as her eyes stopped clouding, the dark-haired Polavian facing off against the taller, bearded, ginger-brown....wizard of some kind? A short hat in hand, curly hair, plate carrier on, FNX in a tan holster at his side with a fancy looking Osprey wand-like silencer sticking by its side, with a rucksack yet no rifle. A techy green hoodie with olive cargo pants, he looked ready for war, if only he had a rifle or staff. Was he at the bar expecting to get into a gunfight? Then again, so was she, and if he wanted to kill her, he'd know she'd have seen it coming, even if she'd been taken by suprirse. After all, Oksana didn't keep kit far away, but wasn't wearing her plate carrier, but had her rucksack with her green ghillie and PB sticking out of it, her own sniper back at Babushka's. She knew how these things usually went when you were trying to stay mobile. The man broke the tension first, Oksana realising she might recognise him, as he faced her in the chair. And she wasn't the woman in her sight right at the end. That was....like another world, or something else?

"Mind if I get a lig.....hey, I think I recognise you. Oksana Czasowa, right?"

Oksana grimaced, before that underhanded glare turned into a dry, sarcastic smirk. Felix would have seen a white and blue-vest wearing, adidas jogging bottoms having short-dark haired seer with bread and pickles in front of her, a phone with a picture of her last deployment in Medil with her fireteam on her wallpaper. A rucksack to her side, a silenced barrel and knife sticking out of the top of it, and on an ashtray, a recently finished cigarette.

"You're the one that ate a horse. So much for staying undercover." Oksana barbed back, as she watched like a hawk, letting him soak that fully in as she glanced around, as she drew the lighter, passing it to Felix, letting him light his cigarette, not even needing to really acknowledge his need or want, just doing as asked. As she knew any smoker would appreciate.



Rural Polavia. It was an old, wooden-framed pub, the kind that looked like it had probably been renovated maybe twenty years ago, but been here in position for at least a couple hundred-ish years. The wood was clean, all pine, like the trees that swarmed outside in the dark, dense forest that most of the Libor Province had to offer, outside of backwaters like this. A handful of foreign beers if you were lucky, but it was almost all local stuff, probably one of the few products Polavia made exceptionally well. A bit of drizzle poured down outside in the late afternoon, the spring meaning it was still cold outside, but the snow was just about cleared. Mostly locals had found their way in, already drinking, slotting shots, and getting wasted after working on local farms, or in local lumber mills throughout the day.

An argument had broken out on the other side, and it absolutely reeked of cigarettes, that Felix was now contributing to. He had kicked smoking a while ago, but Polavia, the cheap cost of it, and all of this, had made him come back. The music could be heard blaring from someone's shitty, tinny phone speaker across the bar. It was a stereotype.

The houses outside were grim, varying from noveau riche that had worked in the DSR as migrant labour, to just outright wooden shacks that looked like they'd been there for a hundred years, and had zero conditioning applied to them to make them nice. Roofs that looked like they were all about to fall off, it was not a nice sight, as was the departing bus outside that came into the village dropping off workers and picking up depression.



Not a place with a card reader for payment, not that any redundant Reactor merc had a credit card to use given the state of their runaway. Felix had his paycheck withdrawn as soon as he could, as did Oksana, used still here as Dollars and Polavian Crowns seemed sometimes interchangeable. And varying in preference.

"So much for it. I'm trying to be better. So you can give me shit for it, but still, at least you're the first person who has here. And you speak my language." Felix replied after that long break from recoiling in Oksana's earlier comment, taking a seat on a barstool, breathing out, Oksana putting her glass on the rocks down, looking across.

"What do you want?" Oksana cut to the chase.

"To not sit here on my ass alone? And given the fact you're drinking a double of vodka on the rocks, I think you're in the same boat. I fucking need one." Felix replied, assertive, frankly done with his day so far. Of mostly splitting wood and sitting in bleak, miserable silence in a hut. And dealing with not having a solid meal since Kralovec.

Oksana chortled, before turning back to a deadpan look back at him.

"Suka, I am here alone, and want to be drinking, alone. Because my entire fucking life has been dismantled. I escaped this fucking country seven years ago, my DSR visa has been ripped up, I'm wanted in at least two different countries, and worse, I'm now back where I started with nothing. Not even my fucking cat. Which has probably now been thrown into a cattery because I haven't paid my fucking minder. I can se my fucking future and it looks grim. So yeah. Fuck you. I want to be alone." Oksana finished up the shot, tapping the table, yelling at the bartender, who promptly poured another. "I'll get you a shot."

"Can't you, I dunno, fucking see, being a seer, that's a terrible way of looking at it?" Felix reasoned, as Oksana blew her hair up with her hmpf.

"And you turn into a fucking lion! Makes no difference to why we're sitting here, waiting for shit to happen?" Oksana poked back, sighing, almost groaning.

"Same fucking boat. Wife, kid. Shit. Yeah." Felix mentioned, as Oksana sighed, vodka in hands, and another slid across to him. Felix hadn't quite expected that. But then again, Oksana had a strange way of showing any affection, as she offered the shot to him, and clinked, before shotting.

"Zdrowie. Cheers to that. What is your name? I can't remember it from the newspaper article." Oksana replied, eyeing him up and down, the blue-and-white stripy vest revealing all her ink across her arms and a little on her back and neck, revealing an operative that if she could, would ink the rest of her body sooner rather than later. A punk, in Polavian old-school gear.

"Felix Lyons. Sabre Detachment in Reactor. Team Lead. Did some lifting. The stories are true, we were the emergency service for the sticky ones. For better, and worse." The shapeshifter replied, Oksana nodding in return, asking the barman to come back and pour the two again, as Felix finished his.

"Sword Detachment. Designated Marksman. Sniper. Saw some shit too. You guys weren't in Medil when it all went down, were you?" Oksana asked, as Felix's ears twinged.

"No....I was off a few months ago. Due to....yeah, that thing."

Oksana chuckled, Felix taking the shots and giving her one.

"Yes. That thing." The response was blunt from her, as Oksana pointed out something as Felix shotted again. "Eat bread, idiot. You're gonna fall off your chair when you stand if you don't." Oksana remarked, as Felix took note, the smart-arse Polavian opting to sip hers first, before breathing out.

"This is fucking disgusting. That isn't Polavian Standard. Is that homebrew?" It was sinking into Felix that this booze was some seriously worse shit given the second shot hadn't even improved after the first cleaned his palate, the voice at the end of the bar replying to his off-hand comment.

"Srebro Vodka! Is best in all of Libor Province!" The barman yelled in English, as Felix put hand to face, sighing.

"Fuck it is." He said to himself, keeping it quiet so Oksana could hear, looking at her again, knowing the beer was probably no better, at least, in his taste. "You local to here?"

"Sort of. Babushka has a house here. She let me crash while I work things out. Got nowhere else to go." Oksana replied, sighing, another pair of shots getting poured, but not getting drunk. "How'd you get here?"

"Took a Faceblin ad for a holiday home up in the forest, got the bus. Toilets are outside. Costs literally a handful of dollars a night. I'll take it. Chance is a funny thing." Felix replied, as Oksana nodded.

"Villa Aparat? I mean, yeah, it's a shithole. But hey. Could be worse. You could have no toilet at all. Hole in floor. Shit in the street. They believe magic is why the cisterns work." Oksana's smile cracked, as Felix realised she was perhaps reminiscing on how nice she had in the DSR, versus here.

"You got comfortable in the West. Out there with your ability to see things coming. I respect it. Hell of a Craft." Felix noted, keeping it short, Oksana quick to reply.

"No, not comfortable at all. Babushka still shits in street." Oksana added, turning around. "And it has problems. But in all the possible futures you could have been a cunt, I suppose you're not going to be. I will try also to be less miserable because it doesn't look like it works well for me drinking alone. But....no choices in front of us mean the vodka bottle will not empty itself." She added, chewing down some seeds and bread between shots, and a pickle.

"Noted. That some Polavian proverb?"

"It's mine."

"Fair. I mean, right now, only thing I can think of is counterfeit papers. But I'm waiting mostly. For things to calm down." Felix noted, as Oksana shrugged.

"Aren't we all." Oksana replied, interrupting what she was about to ask when she craned her neck to the door. "Who are they?" Oksana asked, watching a couple more trickle in. More mercs. It was obvious they were, because they looked a lot cleaner, and definitely, worn from not a day's work, but from travel.

"How the fuck is every merc in Polavia in this bar? Okay, that's Rowan Morgana, and that's....wait, I thought he was...." Felix stopped as Oksana put hand against his ribs and got out of her seat, seeing the person following her.

"BORYS, KURWA! YOU DWARF MIDGET PRICK, YOU OWE ME A HUNDRED CROWNS, YOU CHEAP BASTARD!" Oksana stood up and yelled in Polavian, faster than Felix would have even anticipated, as she walked across, and despite his superior strength, towered over the dwarf. Everyone in the bar was so fucking wasted, or lacking in care that even this scene didn't really get much as another bar fight was already wrapping up at the end of the bar, the sound of some guy losing teeth setting the scene to the three walking inside now. The group coming in closed up quick to Oksana and Felix, despite Borys no doubt wanting to move away.

"Did you fucking forget that I might be able to see this coming?" Oksana asked in Polavian, as Felix looked to Rowan, rolling his eyes, looking on, watching as Rowan probably was in as much confusion as he was. And thinking Oksana was about to kill him, their first impression being an angry Polavian woman covered in tattoos next to Felix, who some might have known vaguely as the guy who ate a horse at a parade. He introduced himself to Rowan, knowing she was the first of the bunch he definitely knew. Best to acknowledge that at least while Oksana was planning some non-domestic violence on the other ex-Reactor Polavian, so Felix made an introduction.

"I think they may know each other, I can't recognise the language. You did a lot of chemical warfare related stuff in Reactor, it's....Rowan, right?"

"BASTARD!" Oksana dragged him across back to where they sat in English by his fucking ear, tapping her hand on the table, yelling in Polavian at the barman, between Felix and Rowan.

"He's fucking paying my tab! Aren't you, BORYS? Taking advantage of a fucking Albani!" She switched back to English for full effect, as Felix sighed, struggling to believe this.

"I'm not complaining if my round is covered. Shit. I thought I saw the bottom of the barrel." Felix replied, chuckling. As Oksana argued with Borys, as Felix put his unused shot across to Rowan, Keodis and Ish.

"Welcome to Polavia. I think this is how things work." Felix added, as he put his hand up, requesting two more shots for whoever didn't get one, sighing. They were so clearly Reactor, it hurt, and in this moment, Felix realised it was probably a better idea to keep away from the locals if Oksana was about to batter someone. Two was coincidence, why were they all here? It must have been becuase it looked like the first village after Kralovec that seemed off the beaten track. But then again, a lot of Reactor had swarmed into Polavia recently, given the company's fortunes. So it made sense some were travelling, or some were stopping here. It was just strange that Felix recognised them as the other crafters in the PMC, or at least, the ones that weren't in some tank being pumped full of modified mana.

"Vodka shot? That is Oksana, and I'm Felix." Felix almost exasperated, hoping alcohol would remove his sanity of the situation. Oksana scowled, giving a wave with her spare hand, Borys's ear in her other.

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller)

@LadyAmber

One of my favourite characters you've made, and some very serious Checkov's guns here to play with in some bits. Rowan's got a charm to her, and I imagine she'll have plenty to brew for the team! Accepted, post in Chars :)

@Starlance

The most unhinged shit I've ever seen. I'm hurting with laughter, go post in characters before I have a hernia, it's a Tactical fucking Blyat Wizard, you fucking lunatic XD

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller)

Shapeshifting Breacher Captain- Felix "Top Cat" Lyons - WIP!

Tag Shapeshifting Breacher Captain

Name: Felix "Top Cat" Lyons

Age: 37

Gender: Male

Nationality: D.S.R-Born Libolian

Craft:

Shapeshifting.

Specifically, being able to shift to African Lion (Panthera leo).

TLDR: Felix will rip out throats, maul, and generally make an absolute mess out of anyone he goes into, as well as be able to more or less run faster than most people can. Quite handy in close quarters, or otherwise any situation you could feasibly say a lion would be helpful.

A breacher either needs to see into the future or just fuck things up way worse than anyone else can- he chooses the latter. If you can get a camera in the room, open the door and let Felix run in, and he will go through bone like butter because he knows what claws and teeth can do to necks. Even if he doesn’t kill everyone, a lion’s roar is enough to make most people run, if not shit themselves- a fully grown, kevlar-wearing lion is pretty fucking wild.

Oh yeah, because Felix managed- and this is somehow unknown to even the most Arcane academics out there- to keep his tactical rig on while in his alternate form, basically keeping the same protection that he would as a human. Great for fire support too, because it means he can go from point to point quickly and carry mags, grenades and cover in a pinch.

Felix as such is a great team player, because if you know he’s coming and follow him into the breach, you can shock and awe a team much harder than anyone else. The Flashbang and Felix combo has made him infamous in Reactor as the “man-eating merc” because once you hear him and have gone blind, you’re basically dead and in a way that you would wish bullets would replace. There are images on LiveLeak that would make most men puke, because it makes the Druid Mafia’s defenestrations look like a Christmas Play. (He could not be less of a cannibal if he tried outside of work- he’s trying to be Pescatarian from his guilt and knows he’s always looked at funny during dinner).

Conveniently enough, bullets and injuries unlike some other shapeshifters don’t carry from form to form- and as a lion, it would take a lot more to kill him than most of the team, making it a no brainer when on a breach, or when in a very intense bit of combat to soak up damage in one form, rather than the other. This is very convenient and acts as a second life for him- he’s taken bullets that could have killed him in a firefight, changed to a lion and then mauled the people that tried to kill him, before limping back to a Reactor Field Hospital and switching back, getting bullets peeled out of him when in a sterile environment. He can control it much better too- he can recognise foe from friend, after a significant amount of work, and he has overcome most, yet not all, of the morality issues that come with living in a lion’s mind for minutes, sometimes hours at a time. He can't talk as a lion, but he fully understands conversation.

Lastly, the abilities of a lion still carry a little in his human form- he's sometimes had weird teeth still from his other form, tufts of hair he didn't expect, but almost constantly- a sharpened sense of smell and high-pitch hearing that carries from his other form. Ironic that his surname matches….

However, being able to switch to a massive cat does come with drawbacks- significant ones that make such an overwhelming force of bullshit a bit more tenable. Felix cannot easily turn into a lion without being hungry. He can’t do it easy on a full stomach, he has to visualise quite hard anyway to do it, so full up it’s worse- to a point where it will give him bad migraines. He will therefore be sluggish naturally, if he is opting to keep his lion self available. Fully fed, Felix the Lion is a slower, more lumbering beast that is more just sleepy cat than angry merc, great for terror, crappier in fights. Hunger is his trigger: the more ravenous he is the cleaner and longer the shift. The more extreme the shift (longer, further from his human self), the harder the rebound — after a long shift Felix sleeps like the stationary prop of a freight train for hours and emits an alarming amount of mane hair, unless he makes a serious feed (ie he has to rip and tear as many people as he can). To prevent this, it requires a counter of a small mountain of caffeine, both in ProPlus and questionably coloured energy drinks that mean Felix is extremely up and down. This means he'll. Felix does though, on occasion, find a way to stay as a lion longer when needed without the drawbacks, but this takes a lot of energy, a good mood, and coffee.

The only other problem with shapeshifting- he can’t just be a lion and NOT have something to eat. This makes him way fucking scarier than he needs to be to his own side. He will need to feed that hunger somehow. Find something chunky with protein, and throw it at him, or he will start licking, and at that point, he isn't in control anymore when his hunger is screaming at him to consume anything, because shifting back is messy at that point as it's inverted to how he would change into that form- he needs to be "full" as a lion to switch, and even he doesn't understand why it needs to be that complicated. Even if you get past that- with him switching back to human, he will also have to deal with the legacy of the fact he’s just eaten people. This is sometimes a bit sickening, and if he has eaten…..look, he is getting picky over organs, gall bladders make his human self feel a bit poorly, so he is still figuring out what bits you can munch without consequence.

Lastly, as if shapeshifting wasn’t already clunky enough- lions have a shorter lifespan than humans do, so he tries to avoid it because at 37, he wants to enjoy middle age more. Lion years go by faster, so even if he could control that power- he doesn’t want to sit in that side too long.

Vessels Carried

Felix carries a series of vessels from his travels as a merc, optimised for the activities of a pointman and purely maximising chaos above all else. He relies on improvisation with the potent but small toolset he has- rather than being a specialist, Felix focuses on opening doors, and minds (literal and figurative).

Fibreoptic Wire (Copy Cat): An illusionist’s gift, Felix keeps a fibreoptic wire as his ultimate party trick. He can look into rooms with the fibre wire, so he has visibility- but he also, it has the ability to make him create a copy that will run dead straight, through any wall he targets. He’ll send an illusion of himself into a room directly towards enemy, but once bullets hit, that person, or the lion, disappears as it's a dumb illusion- a ghost, if you will. This means he can come in through another door, or take a flank. This has some very, very hilarious capabilities- and while his “mirror” doesn’t have the ability to hurt or do any actual harm, given the vessel’s fairly weak, it is diabolical when combined with a flashbang, smoke, or a flank....

Holy Hand (Flashbang) Grenades: A relic stolen off a dead Chapel Priest, a limited supply of flashbangs made by a caster clearly into illumination and transubstantiation makes some absolutely disgusting, war-criminal, filthy flashbangs. It will literally switch hostiles around when it goes off, not just blinding them but actually rendering them where their friends were in position on the other side of the door to truly mindfuck hostiles. Used sparingly, and combined with a Copy Cat and his signature talent, this is truly, truly bullshit and a reason why Felix usually gets doors open. He needs to ration this supply however- as being down to his last four, he doesn't want to lose this.

Gold-rimmed Signet Ring: A tiny sliver of a feline tooth set under glass. A memory of the other side.

If given to someone else....well, nobody's actually asked him…..would it turn you inside out, or just give you really good hearing and smell? He reckons the latter.

Channels Carried

Due to his craft’s very specific nature, Felix doesn’t carry any channels- he sticks to regular firearms.

He might load some cheeky enchanted shotgun shells for really fucking up doors, nothing beats breach glyphs on shotgun shells, after all…

Appearance:

Human Form:



(Think Domhall Gleeson above, albeit significantly rougher, and more worn).

Felix is 6”3, being rather tall. As the upper-middle class chap he is, he has a fair bronzed face, weathered from being outside in the heat from a lifetime of soldiering and being a man for adventure. Long, curly dark red / brown hair, a glorious light coloured stubble, and a scar that usually gets compliments from idiots across the left of his brow to his ear, which came from being hit by an IED on the Liboli-Kalan border.

He is found normally with a 5.11 Tactical TacTec plate carrier, a green buff, and tan cargo pants that look ready for Safari more than Salewa. He wears an olive tech-wool hoodie, adjusting his top more often than not for the climate and conditions- going from that to an overcoat. He doesn’t blend in at all at the bar, and is about as stick-outty as probably his other form would be in Polavia. He wears a grey-coloured wizard's hat that is relatively folded over at this point, acting more as a cover for his hair. A pair of very dusty brown boots, what looks like a gazelle's horns on his groinplate, and a few enfused-looking chemlights on his rig follow fitting.

Lion Form:

What does he look like as a lion? Really, you had to ask?

He's a lion? African Lion? Massive teeth, massive claws, about 200 kilos and seven foot of golden-maned big cat that roars loud as fuck? Have you never been to a zoo?



Okay, fine. One ear nicked, a diagonal scar across the muzzle that seems to have stayed from previous work. His eyes retain a sort of human cunning because he isn’t just some animal in there, he can hear you and understand you perfectly fine, and he’ll just growl back. Also, Felix hasn't fully figured it out why, but most of his tactical gear transposes. As a result, he ends up with a tactical rig around his back and sides, weapons sitting there, weirdly on safety of all things. It chafes around his (read, lion’s) neck when he runs, but he isn’t complaining because it’s saved his ass on a few occasions.

Tactical Lion then.

Can a lion fire a HK417? Drunk Reactor mercs have tried, and it turns out paws cannot hold a battle rifle that easy. Can you ride a lion into battle if you were dumb enough to do so? No comment.

Bio:

Born in the DSR to the Libolian Ambassador, Felix was the third son to a father that was a workaholic and a mother in high society, and expected to join in that- getting privately educated and then sent to an elite university. Yet was always passed over, despite good grades, despite it all- he wasn't the favourite, his brothers were. He wasn’t even second choice, he was worse.

So he didn’t really bother with that high society. He went through Officer Training in the Libolian Defense Forces, and led people in warfare. He was a career soldier. Married into decent money, had the seaside house, had it all. That was his way of doing it- he liked adventure, getting outside, and well, the playboy lffestyle.

But the money dried up as lifestyles altered, and he had a kid. The job sucked him in, looking for meaning, looking to live up to his siblings, and well, at the dinner table, gave him something to talk about. It was status, but it was the kind that left him without time for what mattered. He learned that lesson hard.

His wife, Clara, divorced him and took his daughter, Lyra, in the custody battle, and Felix then got divorced by the Defence Forces at the end of his term when they were planning to downsize, the pension paying off most of his divorce settlments. He had more fight in him. He joined Reactor. Probably to escape them all. Nothing but anger, because he really had nothing to lose.

That’s where shit went a bit fucky. Looking for redemption and a paycheck that blew his last one away, all he found was rage bubbled when he got hit by an IED.

While working in Kalan as a Senior Contractor, his team were hit in ambush where he woke to his squad getting killed, and him thrown out of the truck by pure luck. He unlocked the lion when he was left to die, and seeing Chapel militia start executing people, he could only let his anger, his violence over how much hate he had for his life choices bubble in one way in a fit of revenge- like up to that moment, everything manifested itself as his life had crumbled before him to start ripping and tearing it apart. It’s weird that a Lyons became a Lion….was it a memory, something else triggering? It’s hard to say, but for a man to want to tear people apart as a trigger for a Craft that wasn’t directly associated, that was extremely rare. Something must have flipped. And he went wild.

He mauled, and partly ate five people in one sitting. Reports suggest he went on a two week rage bender on the disputed Liboli-Kalan border, and killed plenty more over the next 14 days without coming back to his humanity, and was riddled with bullet holes when a lion sanctuary discovered him in the Libolian Desert, across the border.

Felix wasn’t exactly a bloodthirsty guy up until this point, but killing twenty five people is a hell of a way of blowing off post-divorce steam and reacting to watching your squad mates get executed in cold blood. In that moment, Felix had gotten a taste of control, of being an alpha that got the job done no matter the rules. He'd always been third best. Now he was able to do as he pleased. Fairly.....toxic I guess?

Felix woke up in an big cat animal centre with an ocean of tranquilizer in him and scared the living shit out of the local staff when a wounded Reactor merc re-appeared- and from there, a legend was born (once he had a lot of shrapnel pulled from him, of which lines him with many of the scars in his abdomen and arms). This is the Aimo Koivonen (if you know, you know) moment of Felix’s career that remarkably made him who he is now. If an operative of his standard was a nice addition to Reactor’s team, now he was a bona-fide.

Reactor, of course, promoted him for his quick-thinking, and put him on an intense course of training to control his new Craft. He’s no Wizard, Witch, his craft turned out to just be finding that animal deep inside him. And making sure that it wouldn’t just maul friendlies. His Officer training made him an apt leader, with a heightened sense for threats, danger, and how to react, not like a seer but like someone who knew how to get it done under fire. He managed his teams and kept them out of harm's way, perhaps selling himself to the job too hard.

A Team Leader, Felix was sent in on the jobs with a QRF that got the job done. Flash and Felix became code for “send in guys with mops”. There’s regular CQB, then there’s taking a tamed beast to the job. And Felix got good at it. Really talented. He paid his share of his divorce, and was looking for more than visitation rights, but a chance to raise Lyra with his upcoming handsome pension payments. He'd retire and spend time with her, go part time, be a proper dad to a nine year old. Things were again, looking really up. This whole lion business had really worked out well so fa….

He ate a parade horse in an impulse at a state event while on close protection duties to the DSR’s Prime Minister at a security conference.

That forced him on involuntary leave for three months, and then redundancy came because Reactor did not want that mess on their already fucked up press pack. To be fair, him getting conveniently sacked happened when the rest of the redundancies hit and they couldn’t justify keeping him on the payroll, even despite his success rate and excellent service record. Questions were asked by the DSR about why on earth he ate a horse. Media got a hold of it and hounded his family. He couldn't really stay, because the company just couldn't afford to explain to its insurers quite the reason a lion is a terrible idea to leave hungry on guard duties.

That and previous actions by Reactor, including multiple censored pictures made Felix a fairly high value target in the scheme of things, when it came to Reactor's massive illegal portfolio.

Shaving his beard, Felix went undetected and snuck into Polavia via Kralovec, and headed south, into the countryside, to a village he couldn’t pronounce, into a rickety hut in the woods, planning his next move.

Felix has little left to lose right now, maybe another contract, maybe just a passport, or something else. He never had a cause, outside of making money, but family would be one he would go back to if he could at least sort....what this mess of his got him to.

Personality:

Divorce and the fall from grace changed Felix from family man into just having bottomless amounts of mixed emotions. A valiant, pomp man with something to prove has devolved into someone trying to keep it together, even though the lion inside him that he thought would fix it all has managed to fuck it all up anyway.

Deep down, Felix hates the animal doing bad things on his behalf and is trying to tell himself he’s more than the craft he absorbed- it saved him, but manifested into something that through Reactor, is made to just be a weapon of terror. But it’s also satisfying. And kinda fun.

He’s mostly surly, occasionally sentimental, and loyal. He might be motivated by money, but he protects, and knows that through his service, he'll get whoever he's with through what they need to. He might have made mistakes, that much is clear, but there's someone there who's clearly repentant and wants to try and control what he is- rather than that toxicity he had when he was younger, he's maturing to what a craft means. The rage is easy to give into- and he already knows what he needs to do to be better to his ex-wife and daughter, he just needs to get there. While control has come about more and more, being angry and being hungry, some could say, hangry, would make him switch.

He’s a dapper shot with a battle rifle that everyone rolls their eye at, and seems to be a born mercenary, if anything, becoming a shapeshifter making him even more of a bastard than usual- but he’s out of place, out of time, and out of his fucking mind wondering how he’s ever going to go back to his seaside house in Liboli, his estranged daughter with a wife he divorced ten years ago now. How the hell do you go back to that when you’re stranded that far from home?

Weaponry (including Channels):

Primary: Heckler and Koch HK417 Carbine (7.62x51mm)

A DSR Special Forces weapon of choice, the HK417 is a bit too posh by most Polavian standards, with it sticking out line a sore thumb. He'll be lucky to get more ammo for it, but, for now, he has enough magazines, none of which are magical in any way (bar the magic of steel-cored bullets).
-EOTech Holographic
-Laser Sight
-Silencer
-Underbarrel Masterkey 870 Shotgun (loaded with Breach Glyph 12 gauge rounds)

Secondary: FN FNX.45- Osprey Silencer, LLM Module.

(Note: in lion form he prefers claws & bite; the weapons are for when he’s human and needs to shoot. Obviously. As a lion, he's usually carrying the weaponry on his side, so he becomes a mobile carrier for the team of his firearms.)

Other gear/weapons/equipment:

-GPS Unit
-Garwan Smart Watch (acts as a convenient check for feed, heart rate, and condition- which is extremely helpful for shapeshifting)
-IFAK First Aid Kit
-Flashbangs (many) and Holy Flashbangs (few)
-Glyph Spray-Paint (2x Cans)
-Liboli Blend Coffee (2x Instant Cans, 1x Thermos)
-A tin of Snus
-Bone Knife (a souvenir from Kalan)

Other useful information:

He does not mind being petted. As a lion. There’s a running gag that while he sees red while in his alternate form, he seems to also be a lot more….cat? Nobody understands this at all- if fed, he’s incredibly tame to a point where if he can’t lead and is sleepy, is unreasonably wholesome. (Do not pet him in human form. He will definitely kill you.)

Felix's voice is that of an almost colonial-like British officer, from his upbringing in the DSR and Liboli leaving him with that kind of inflection.

Likes

-Rock, 80s Music
-Dark Beer
-Adventure and Outdoorsmanship
-GPS Markers and Mapping
-Other Felidae Familiy
-The sweet, sweet taste of catnip

Dislikes

-Horse Meat
-Overcomplicated Paperwork
-High Pitched Noises
-Canines
-Being Hungry as a Person
-Being Hungry as a Lion

---

Druid Sniper Seer- Oksana "Roxie/Roxy" Czasowa-Dylatowa - WIP!

Tag: Druid Sniper Seer

Name: Oksana "Roxy/Roxie" Czasowa-Dylatowa

Age: 31

Gender: Female

Nationality: Polavian

Craft: Seer-Like Chronomancy.

They call her the Watcher-Witch.

From an old Polavian Folk Tale, the shady woman who can tell you what your future is from the deepest darkest Albani magic. Just the really, really immediate one. (And I mean, technically, not really a Witch. Not properly. Like, a Chronomancer isn't properly a witch, but...okay, fine, the tattoos, the black hair, fine).

Able to see four seconds into the future, Roxie has an incredibly capable vision, coming from one missed bullet that mattered everything to her. Watching the bullet come back as if it was on a string, Roxie realised it wasn't even fired yet. She had only thought it, dreamt it. Another trigger pull, for real, and it ended up, dead centre, where she wanted it to be. If she'd have missed, she would have missed her only chance at freedom.

So, Roxie can perceive a sliver of immediate future events: the instant a rifle muzzle will flash, the footstep that will land on a trap, the arc of a thrown grenade. That makes her an unnervingly precise sniper and an excellent overwatch scout — she can call a shot before a target moves or yell “that door opens” before it does. As a result, she doesn't miss when she's in control, if she wants to take out a target, they’re already dead. And control, that she does well. Roxie is lethal, and the fact she's a sniper means that she has bullshit ringing out of her veins when it comes to killing people from far-away. Even in a breach, she's insanely useful- she can tell you what's on the other side, and how likely it is you'll die if you push in wrong, or need to adjust. Four seconds is a lifetime, and the branching possibilities that she can see are near endless, because she can basically see it all play out.

It means flanking her is also risky. She will know you’re coming, and trying to get the jump on her is incredibly hard if she’s focussed. When not though, it’s always a good gag to get the jump on someone who can see every option you have. Roxie in combat is not as say, wild as a very unhinged chronomancer able to look like she just turns into a blur in front of you (critics of this would say that’s more a superhero talent of a “speedster”, but I mean, semantics!), because a seer is more about seeing what's coming- but she’s got decades of combat experience on her peers because she knows where to position herself, how to start a fight, and how to win in the moment to moment when she knows the right option, and you haven’t even swung a knife, reacting faster than you.

However, the foresight is unreliable, and comes with issues. Her visions come in bursts: sometimes exactly four seconds; sometimes a hair more, sometimes a useless image of something in four hours before splitting back to reality. Her dreams are still wild, a common issue for seers- she can see months into the future, sometimes in hazy, fuzzy futures- and her dreams will sucker others around her who are mana-enabled, because her mind is basically vivid. Under stress (loud explosions, stimulants, adrenaline), her foresight can flicker wildly — either lengthening into disorienting sequences or shrinking to near-zero- she calls this “Chaos Theory”. In life-or-death, it’s pretty obvious when the possibilities reduce to a handful what’s her best pick, though it’s not always spot on. This means that in a straight fight if you get her cornered with enough force, you’ll be able to stop her, if you remove all choices from the board.

This makes her really crap in heightened, direct combat- she cannot focus on what comes next because chaos creates too many visions for her, unless she’s in cover, or away from being suppressed and or shot at, unless she really, really pays attention under order. Previously, this action would make her black out, now, it makes her just get nasty migranes, meaning she can still fight when needed and extrapolate futures in a rougher sense. Also, seeing her team-mates die, over and over again in bad calls (that don’t materialise due to her actions, or radio callouts) has left her incredibly sarcastic- which then plays out to an extreme in what can only be called a sort of chronal disassociation. Without temperance of looking into the future (ie, constantly looking at what her visions are showing them), she isn’t much good for extended periods in the dead centre of combat. At an extreme, her foresight may devolve into useless or harmful visions that make nothing possible- this terrified her the first time it happened because it was like being stripped of her Craft entirely and is akin to schizophrenia. Oddly enough, it’s treatable by mana and microdosing on ketamine, which she tries to carry when she knows the team avoids checkpoints. “K-Hole Roxie” is absolutely the funniest thing you’ve ever seen, and while it’s only happened once, Reactor never forgot- but the tranquiliser somehow manages to restore her vision back to what it normally does again, at the cost of temporarily making her absolutely fucking useless.

In short, her seering/chronomancy makes her excellent for controlled environments and precision shots, with a bullshit second to only a few chronomancers, but needing moderation and care to keep her out of harm's way. She’s still a few years into it, so there’s good chance with more training, practice and focus, she could probably get more out of her craft, and probably iron out the kinks.

Vessels Carried

Oksana pinches a few druid-related tools to help her be a sniper- who knew, keeping friends on that side of hte family was helpful indeed. She is a bit too old-school for technology and under the old People’s Republic of Polavia, relies more on improvising.

Druid-stitched Ghillie: A full ghillie suit obtained from a druid contact. It is sympathetic to local flora — when Roxie plants herself, the suit sprouts moss, leaves, and bracken to match the terrain, granting superior concealment. This includes even in urban areas, where she can manifest herself into a pile of leaves, or a pile of turf. Handy, because while it isn't some insane cloaking device, it is basically a way for her to hide. Not so great in snow or composite areas, as it just tufts up, but she just usually heaps snow or stitches white into it.

Rope Vine: Roxie keeps a small vine by her hip, seemingly a memento, but is another tool that she has for movement in the vertical sense. Being able to throw it at surfaces, Roxie fucking hates how spiky it is, ripping her gloves to bits, but it will basically keep growing as far as she needs, like a shit spiky Beanstalk that needs a wall to work. More of a utility, but creates a bio-degradable port-a-ladder that doesn’t arouse suspicion in getting into hard-to-reach spots.

Spotting Device. Not much at the moment, but it seems rather bonded to her despite her never using it given her abilities. If given to someone else, there’s likely a chance they see what being able to see through doors is like.

Channels Carried

See Weapons- 1x PB that is her "wand".

Appearance:



Oksana is 5”8, wiry, a built-for-distance posture. Her face is fair, with short-cropped black / chestnut hair with an undercut, a pale scar beside the left eye (from an old wind-blown ricochet), her grey/green eyes sometimes cloud white when she’s seering into the future. She's pretty, provided you're into Slavic women.

In combat, she prefers her scuffed sage ghillie that always smells faintly of wet moss- the ghillie can be cinched into a weird looking hipsterish cloak for urban ops, and often carries a short pointy sage cap, with tactical glasses attached to her hat. Under the ghillie, she wears an sage combat shirt, which overlays a navy/white sleeved Telnyashka vest beneath it, paired to sage green trousers, and a very dusty looking ANA M1 plate carrier. Though is she known to switch that out entirely for a black woolen overcoat and black witch hat if she needs a lower profile or in an urban platform. She wears tactical boots, but just in case you weren't sure if you were dealing with a Chronomancer- she keeps a few little things on her as a reminder. A green Druid-infused tactical knife sits on her side, as do a whole pile of vines that have grown involuntarily from her Rope Vine and got tangled in her ghillie, all cut but now just stuck to her gear. Her tactical pack, a sage green pack contains the remainders of her bits and pieces.

Oksana’s rebel nature means she is covered in tattoos. Weirdly, she really, really likes butterflies. That’s totally not concerning for a seer, but there’s a massive winged one across her back, coloured in blue and yellow, a whole streak of them running across her stomach and side. A vine across her nape that runs through her chest, and metamorphizes into roses on her right shoulder, running through to a poly tetra-hedron design that basically extends to her wrist. She wants another sleeve for her left, but hasn’t yet seen anything she likes in the ink, bar a mushroom on her left arm that pokes out of her vest.

History

Polavian born, Oksana grew up in Kralovec, and from day one, knew survival was key. Living in an oppressive regime, she fell in line, but always felt a little bit torn apart due to her familial situation. Her father being in a Druid Albani family, she was torn between that and the traditional Polavian identity of her mother- then when her father ran away when she was barely 8 to raid ships in the Jodassa Strait, and likely due to being persecuted. They had no money to live, and with things in the Regime getting worse, Oksana grew up knowing queues for food, electricity cuts, brutal repression, state surveillance, and more often than not, indoctrination on anti-communist activities including those of the arcane community.

Conscription usually excluded women, but a Mana Test revealed traces of the substance in her blood. (Worth a mention that the test is an exceptionally poor way of telling if someone could unlock into a Craft or not, and was often seen by Polavian dissidents as a way of the Security Apparatus forcing more people to meet recruitment targets, including underage and female soldiers). That forced her in, in replacement of her older sister, Catherine, in a one-in, one out system. Oksana, given her remaining family were loyal to the state got the comfy position of working in the Border Security Guards, a fitting position she got from Catherine working as bureaucrat for the Central Committee. Strings were pulled, and for a few years, Oksana did nothing but enforcing the repression she grew up watching. Well, then her sister was then disappeared and Oksana’s own career took a hit from the reputation that Catherine had for “capitalist morality crimes”.

A funny look turned to interviews. Interviews turned to suspension. Next was prison, if Oksana stayed at home when the PSA knocked. Oksana realised there wasn’t any chance surviving it. They were the kind of interviews that made her flee the border, knowing the consequences were dire if she got caught. She had to live- and well, the West looked like a hell of a choice. She took her SVD, and made sure to keep her aim on the two guards, like her, that were in her way. Running across No-Man’s Land, she was shot upon, and realised she wasn’t going to make it unless she acted.

And then she felt something stop her. A realization she’d miss and the alarms would trip.

That bullet that was sent in reply couldn’t miss.

It simply wasn’t allowed to, not after everything. Maybe luck was on her side in that moment, to stop her getting gunned down by her former colleagues.

She realised she hadn’t fired. She’d visualised it, but snapped back in to seeing it all again, and with adjusted windage, time went back to normal.

The raw emotion itself forced itself into her, making sure that guard had a bullet fly through his skull, the chaos rose, and she could run across the dying embers of a Cold War border. She promptly passed out, and was recovered by a border guard on the Samiyan side.

And nobody wanted to hear the story- she was a refugee, and there was nothing that could be done to free her sister. There was nothing anyone could do. She was a refugee, hopeless, but with a talent that got her a sponsored visa in the DSR via Reactor PLC. They realised that a former Polavian Border Guard, with Mana in her veins, suddenly was a very handy asset to have. They helped her train, hone, and focus her instinct. And then, become a proper sniper without needing to mulligan every time.

Reactor gave her a chance to hide in the insanity of professional violence, and found the kind of people who didn’t ask “why” much, the pay being about ten times that of her previous employment, and enough for her to save up for her own flat in cosmopolitan Rushwater. Working in Reactor meant she didn’t have to constantly look for Security Apparatus looking to hunt her down for how much she embarrassed the regime.

The craft made her invaluable and hated in equal measure- shit in combat, but if you had her on overwatch, you got every order right. The Scarlet Revolution meant that the regime might have died in Polavia a few years ago, but quite literally, Oksana didn’t see any future at home, and more money on the horizon with Reactor.

The Druid Mafia kept her furnished with a few vessels in exchange for a few side-hustles, because Roxie doesn’t miss, quite literally, even when what she wanted was intel on a certain someone. The kind that doesn’t come with playing with drugs and trying to see the future. Her father turned out to be dead from a DSR raid two years prior- and she felt nothing given how many lives she’d already taken to get to that, and every possible future she saw having him never come back. It turns out, seeing the future means you can’t really change the past. Family stays blackened.

Roxie was never good enough for seniority given her attitude, but was posted in sniper teams, often providing overwatch to the rest of Reactor’s capability in theatre alone. She didn’t need a spotter. She could range everything herself because she’d already tried to see what the bullet would do, or she pissed off her spotter enough to leave her alone.

Redundancy was a shock then. She expected to stay, and with it, her DSR Sponsored Visa expired- meaning she was effectively going to be kicked out of the country, as well as wanted for questioning in the Medil crisis, in which she was an actor on Reactor’s side defending FOBs and other infrastructure.

Once again, due to a different state actor wanting to put her in prison, she ran before she was captured or brought into court.

Since Reactor’s collapse she’s oscillated between bitter humour and the stark horror of her homeland completely changing- now back in Polavia, at a local bar to where her Babushka lives in the countryside, Oksana is not pleased. “Ah shit, here we go again” is what plays in her mind. But aware the other Reactor mercs coming in probably would appreciate a local face and she knows a couple. It’s good the old regime is dead, but she knows that remainders of the Security Apparatus still likely harbour grudges against her killing Colonel Klebetznikov with a recast bullet, that border guard she killed it turns out, being her old boss’s boss who was the only person going easy on any of the staff.

Sometimes, you end up being able to look into the past and see your future is pretty fucking grim.

Bio:

Roxie is laconic, precise, and sardonic. She calls her forecasts “suggestions” and delights in undercutting dramatic moments with brutally dry commentary.

Ruthlessly practical, and prone to telling people their most embarrassing possible near future with deadpan casualness, Oksana is as blunt as a Slavic woman as you’re going to get. She’s professional, often distant, but quietly cares for the tiny moments — she’ll make the team tea, she’ll do more than her share of chores, almost as if she’s pissed off she had to do it, but ultimately, she really does care. Behind a glare and what looks like a constant grimace, she is actually fine with things. Do not ask her to smile. She is already happy enough. (The picture displays a rare picture of her in Reactor archives).

She smokes, drinks, and generally, is harder than most men from the West may think a woman of her size is due to growing up in Polavian squalor, food shortages, and having to become a fugitive from a homeland that is now awkwardly the way it is. She will know how to fix a car, how to jury rig an IED, she’s just got that can-do attitude to improvise, but this makes her poor around high-tech equipment, preferring analogue to digital. She is a dirtbag, one of the guys, but unafraid of also looking after her feminine side and has a face that while sculpted by war, is still fair and pretty to the men in her life. Oksana can be fun, but her version of fun is very crazy.

Oksana’s isolation in combat has made her even more jaded than most, but in a firefight, she’s a good team-mate when called upon. She will be blunt, but given she’s already seen you die, it’s because she’s just focusing on the job at hand. She’ll spot, fight and cooperate well with everyone. And of course, when vodka is in her system? Well, the visions disappear for a bit, and she might actually be able to open her walls.

Weaponry (including Channels):

OTs-03 SVU- Not really being a witch, she changed a staff for a bullpup, shortened Polavian-produced designated marksman rifle that is typically, not magical. A grey puzzlewood suppressed, sniper/marksman platform, Oksana makes this rifle work and then some- even though it doesn't have the wooden furniture that feels cosy in a Mosin-Nagant. Still firing bullets, Oksana can rotate between non-lethal knockout rounds built by her Druid contact to drop enemies with a knockout poison (similar to that of her PB), or switch to regular FMJ to smack enemies with a 7.62x54 rimless round (optionally subsonic).

PP-19-01 Vityaz: An alternative for urban ops with a compact, tactile Polavian-made SMG, Roxie prefers a lighter, 9x19mm platform in the instance she has to choose “chaos theory” rather than focus, hanging back and calling enemies and taking them out where she can. Equipped with a PKA-S holographic sight, a stubby silencer, a foregrip and a foldable stock, the SMG isn’t magical in any way at all, just a tool when she’s up close and either needs to spray, or put rounds into targets.

PB Makarov (backup): A quiet sniper’s best friend, and Roxie’s de-facto "wand", though again, she'll tell you- she is not really a witch! Enchanted with more Druid magic, the elongated silencer has been replaced by a darkwood, sound-suppressor wand that upon user contact, will send non-lethal knockout poison out of the wand’s ending, making it even more bullshit than a normal silenced pistol, albeit with the issue that it won’t work through heavy armour and requires her own mana to interface with it.

Yes, that makes it a Magical Makarov.

(Alternative- by special request)

VKS (primary channel). A bastard of an anti-material rifle with a custom, Puzzlewood-grade silencer that basically seems to remove all sound, this is the ultimate weapon of a silent, scout sniper that wants to delete even the most heavily armoured enemies without giving up Roxie’s position- so this is peak bullshit. It just beams people when she uses it- and uses a custom-milled 12.7mm subsonic bullet made by an incredibly drunk Druid in North-Eastern Polvia that silently tears people apart, as counter-intuitive as that sounds. As such, the rifle gets far less use than her typical tools and is employed on the most difficult of ops given bullets cost more than a month’s salary to make, but if she has it in hand, you’re having an extremely bad day.

Other gear/weapons/equipment:

-Rangefinder binoculars with cracked glass (she collects broken optics)
-GPS Unit
-Omegski Diver Watch
-IFAK First Aid Kit
-Smoke Grenades
-Portable ghillie repair kit (moss clippers, threads).
-Pocket sketchbook full of quick diagrams — she draws future snapshots (sometimes helpful, sometimes surreal).
-Flask of strong Polavian Mint herbal tea (she calls it focus tonic, it honestly just tastes like tea).
-Many packets of Marlborough Golds. She smokes a little bit more than she should, an unhealthy habit that even her foresight tells her isn’t good for health.
-Packets of Seasame Seeds
-Enchanted Druid Knife

Other useful information:

She collects matchboxes from places she’s been- not sure why she does this, but perhaps it’s from a lifetime of travelling and smoking cigarettes.

Likes

-Heavy Metal
-Sketching
-Polavian Standard Vodka
-Brutal Honesty
-Mint Tea
-Cats
-Collecting Mushrooms

Dislikes

-Medilian Hospitality
-The entirety of the former Polavian Security Apparatus
-Indirect Conversation
-Dogs
-Being in a K-Hole
-Constantly being asked "oh can you tell me my future?" "No, Vlad, this has been told to you enough times, I'm not a fortune teller, I'm a fucking seer!"

Tactical Breach Wizards: Fireteam Hex (Military, Modern, Fantasy, Action-Thriller) INTEREST CHECK

roleplayerguild.com/posts/5625753

OOC has been created! My characters will be on there tonight. I don't think mine fit the typical bill of this RP, so I would say don't worry about it too much as a guide- but, it gives a feeling of what is in and out.