Midna-Phobia Member

Despite the fact that she had personal issues with the plan, logically South couldn’t fault it at this point. So she was forced to agree to it and nodded in agreement. “Sounds solid to me.” North agreed with a nod as he and South turned towards the sim entrance, exchanging a high-five as they passed through. South was nervous, but she decided then and there that she’d at least try to fake it during the mission. Despite everything, the approval of her fellow recruits was important to her so if she had to pretend to not be overwhelmed then she would if nothing else to save face and not embarrass North. Inside the back of the large ship she looked around in awe. It was probably the first time she’d been in one of these, since she’d never been part of a field mission on the actual field before and due to the special nature of her skills she was usually moved just on her own. Beside her North bumped against her gently and she looked up at him and smiled despite herself and the fact that she had a helmet on and he wouldn’t be able to see her. “I’ll be watching you.” He assured her, keeping his voice down.

South glanced over at Penn and then nibbled at her lip slightly before looking over to Cal and then up to North, who was already looking at her and nodded slightly. She was never sure how he seemed to know what she was thinking, but it was always when it mattered the most so she decided to speak up. “We um…” As the words came out of her mouth and she drew attention to herself she stammered for a moment, before calming herself again. “We already know Penn has the ability to be great, I mean he’s already on the top. So why not give someone else a chance to show off what they can do?” She looked around, but it was impossible for her to gauge what everyone was thinking with helmets on. “Someone like Cal for example? He already put forth a good team structure earlier… he’s got a lot to gain if he gets the chance I think…” She didn’t really want to be difficult or cause arguments or seem like she was favouring Cal… which she kind of was. But she wasn’t intending too. Wash would also have been another choice for someone who had something to gain from a few chances to prove himself, but he hadn't been screwed over during the testing like Cal had.

Not entirely sure where Eisenhorn has gone but I'm not letting the RP die so I'll post in a little bit.

South sat back happily as the others spoke about the mission, though she did blanch a little when Carolina asked for a hard mission. She turned to see North entering as Carolina continued, splitting them up into teams and a worried look came over the girl’s face. Having sat back slightly South was fairly sure it went mostly overlooked save for her brother, who came over quickly to comfort her, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking her straight in the eyes. “Don’t worry, it’s just a sim. Nothing in it can actually hurt you. Besides, I’ll be there and I won’t let anything happen to you okay?” South nodded slightly, looking over to the others. “It’s just… what if they realise I’m awful at this?” She asked nervously. What if they didn’t want to be associated with her once they realised she’d never killed anyone before and was afraid to shoot people. “Just remember; these aren’t real people. So you won’t be hurting or kill anyone. If anything this is the best way to get you used to the idea of shooting people, and I promised you’ll only have to do it to defend yourself okay? You’ve got amazing aim, you’ll be fine if you just hold your nerve.” South once again nodded and North smiled at her encouragingly before he turned his attention to Carolina. “Hey Cal, making your moves early; putting yourself on the girl’s team hu?” He laughed, using the nickname South had mentioned earlier. Personally he liked it. “If you try to make any moves on my sister we’re gonna have a problem.” Despite the threatening words the tone in his voice and the smile on his face showed he was only joking. However there was this slight look in his eyes that hinted towards that fact that beyond the joke there was an element of seriousness to it, brotherly protective instincts. “Remember I’ll be watching you.” He then turned and began leading South over to the equipment table, helping her get geared up and checking to make sure everything was in working order. “We’re about ready when everyone else is.” He called out after a few minutes as he and South walked into the sim briefing.

Number 1 sounds good to me

North nodded slightly every now and then, everyone was putting forth good points. “I’m a sharp shooter.” He offered slightly, not wanting to go into too much detail for fear he’d sound like boasting. South said something, but still enough food in her mouth that it came out in an undistinguishable mumble, causing him to shake his head slightly. Now boasting about his sister’s abilities he had no problems with. “I believe what my sister is trying to say, is that she specialises in ‘information technology’ you want your computer to go faster or, you know, need top secret government information, she’s your girl.” “It’s probably one of the reasons she was chosen for the program. She’d gotten into a bit of trouble with the UNFC for access classified information a few years back and they were thinking about sending her to prison, but then realised they could use her talents for more productive things.” He smiled at her as she glared at him, clearly not overly happy that he was telling everyone about her past whilst keeping his own more of a secret. “Well you shouldn’t stuff your face so much. Eat all you want but don’t be a pig about it.” South then turned around and punched him. “Hey! No fair I don’t have my amour on yet!” North protested. South then finally managed to swallow. “Well you shouldn’t make fun of me when I’m in amour and you’re not.” She replied smugly. Rubbing his arm North simply laughed again. “Yeah, I suppose so. Well, I’m going to go get dressed and then take Iowa up on his offer to join him in the training room. You better be there.” He said pointing at South and giving her a look. “See the rest of you later.” The man waved slightly as he got up and headed off towards his quarters.

North walked with the other agents towards the Mess Hall. “Don’t worry, he assured Iowa. She’ll still be going by the time we get there. Arriving at the hall he saw his sister sitting down with Carolina, a heaped plate in front of her. He chuckled to himself as they walked over and he sat beside her, eyeing the plate curiously. “Little light on breakfast today?” South simply scoffed. “Please, this is seconds.” She informed him as she began digging into the food. North just shook his head slightly. “Seriously how aren’t you fat?” South looked at him with a mouth full of food and seemed like she was about to make a rebuttal however she stopped as she saw the new pair sit down at their table with them and she just smiled in greeting. “So you two much must be Washington and Alaska… nice to finally out faces to the names, so to speak. Dakota, South.” She offered the brief introduction before digging into her food again. North simply looked to her and then to the other pair of siblings and shrugged slightly. He didn’t feel like going around boasting his sister constantly hacked into the databases and probably knew a lot of things about people she shouldn’t. Still, he’d never seen her use that information against someone, or even bring it up for that matter. She just liked knowing a lot, from what she told him and tended to remember way too much in his opinion. “So… apparently the next couple of days are a ‘recovery period’, so we’re more or less free to do what we want, but training is ‘recommended’.” He said, leaning over and reading some information from South's data pad.

Stopping as she almost ran into Carolina as she came out of her room South looked to him and smiled beneath her helmet. “Sounds fine.” She agreed as they began moving. “No doubt you’ve found a bug or two in your room as well. I didn’t say anything to North. Not that it matters either way.” She shrugged slightly. “Debugged or not they’ll be able to hear you. I’ve learned they’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.” The very thought made her shudder slightly. “So we’ll have to keep this brief. But the bottom line is I think I know why you scored as low as you did. We both know you should have been higher up. Stage three wasn’t about the mission, the fact that everyone failed is a testament to that.” “So the only thing I can come up with is that they were testing our reaction to failure. They’re testing more than just our combat skills. They’re testing our minds too… our mental stability for something. I’m not sure yet. And we both know they rigged your test. I think they’re worried about you; you were pretty indiscrete about your suspicions the other day. They’re sabotaging you.” The girl was worried she was going to just draw more attention to them but she hoped the temporary glitch she’d placed in the security system would give them enough time to talk. No doubt they already knew it was there and were working at fixing it. “My advice is play it dumb for now. Go along with them, keep your suspicions to yourself or only express them in ways they can’t tap, paper or something like that. “I’ve been hacking into their systems every now and then… I think they’re aware I do it, because they keep changing, getting harder. But no one’s said anything to me yet. Which makes me think they’re testing me too and makes me wonder how they’re testing others in other ways. Look… I don’t know when we’ll be able to talk openly like this again.” She looked down at her data pad; they didn’t have much time left. “Just try not to attract too much more attention to yourself and… be careful.”

South made her way back to the room and quickly changed into the suit worn under the amour and then pulled that on over the top. However she decided to try and beat the masses to the mess hall and grab herself some breakfast. Not surprisingly there was barely anyone here. It was still fairly early, so some were still sleeping. She suspected that many others were still back at the briefing room or out training after receiving less than desired results. She wasn’t stressed about it and had no doubt some would view her as ‘taking it easy’ or being lazy, assuming she decided she didn’t need to work hard because she was already near the top. That wasn’t the case in the least, but South knew that’s what people would think. In truth she’d be acting the same whether she’d come first or fiftieth. And right now she was hungry. So she was going to eat. As she did she pulled out her data pad, noticing the board ratings had also been sent to it, with her name very clearly outlined, her number displayed in large font on the left hand side. She recognised every name on that list, having hacked into the system before arriving and having a sneak peek at the files before arriving, briefly of course. Who had time to look over all of them in detail with the little free time they were given? ** North nodded happily in greeting to the new to, happy to at least put amour colour to their names for now. “North Dakota, but you can just call me North.” And then turned back to Carolina. “Hungry.” He replied with a small chuckle. “Anyone care to join me for breakfast? I have no doubt South’s there since she isn’t back right now. I swear I’ve never seen a girl so small eat so much.” He shook his head slightly. She was probably lucky she’d never been sent out on long missions before. The rations would probably drive her crazy. She’d probably go AWOL and start hunting local fauna. If the higher-ups wanted to get an interesting response out of South, deprivation of food was the way to do it.

South looked over as Penn started laughing at her and she simply smiled back, giggling herself in response. “Well excuse me if I wear pyjamas… are you guys seriously telling you stay in the amour gear all the time?” She rolled her eyes and scoffed, looking over to North. Now she thought about it she didn’t see him change out of the amour overalls much, they were designed to be comfortable and very durable and she could see why some agents didn’t change out of theirs. The battle-readiness of it all probably appealed to some. Now she thought about it beside his helmet South couldn’t remember seeing Carolina out of his amour at all. Maybe there was some kind of message she’d missed. North held up his hands slightly at the request. “I can help you with shooting… that’s about it.” That and he wasn’t an idiot, he knew full well Carolina could overwhelm him in a hand to hand or close range fight, especially in this stage of rage the guy was a little scary honestly. North had enough resolve to get things done when lives weren’t at risk but he was a little too kind hearted to ever get that angry over something like the score on a board. Then again he was also right near the top; if he had been lower down he wondered if that would have changed anything. “But look at this way; you’re above the half way mark.” It was a very weak attempt to make him feel better and did earn him a few glares from agents who couldn’t make that claim. Turning as she heard Penn talking South walked over to the pairs, looking up at the taller agents. “He’s right.” She said quietly. “We both know your skills should have placed you higher up. Something’s up…” The girl trailed off for a moment before smiling again as if she just found something very amusing, however her words were hushed and grave. “You and I should meet later Cal,” Apparently South’s newest attempt at a nickname for Carolina. “Have a little meeting of the minds so to speak.” She then laughed slightly, smiling at the other agents again. “Yeah… I should probably go get changed out of my pyjamas… I’ll see you guys later yeah?” She gave Carolina a very serious look before she moved out of the room, lost amongst the taller agents and amour.