Plank Sinatra

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

"Oh, shit...what haven't I been on?" Lauren asked rhetorically. The grifter lifted up her nose to the crisp evening breeze in thought. "There was a while where it felt like I was running the planet for a while, between Atlas and Mistral. Always drinking something new and fancy off stolen car money. But that wasn't really real. I never actually owned a car, like, bought one with my own money before. I spent it all on a hotel, or a place to stay for a while, or drinks."

She bit down on her lip.

"Weirdest thing I've ever had to drink was seawater," she explained. "The first time my dumb ass got to Mistral, it got there by stealing a little charter boat. For four days, all I lived off of was beef jerky, High Life, and marlin I caught with my bare hands. Marlin. You know what a marlin is, Cap?"

"Babe...marlin are actually pretty comm--"

"I thought that gross motherfucker was a baby swordfish," Lauren continued, barreling right over the objections of her team leader. "Black people don't trust that open water shit, babe. It was a whole new world. So anyway, after I got tired of three days of drinking shitty beer, I decided to drink from the seawater. I thought it was gonna be safe, since it comes from Mother Gaia and all, but noooo-oooooo-ooooooo. Hell, no. I was sick until I got to Mistral. I even had to crack open the ship's supply of bottled water--" and here, the interruption this time came from Ben's surprised sputtering "--well, I didn't wanna open it! Because Pops always said the Atlesians were fugazi as fuck for selling us something as vitally important as water. Said there was all sorts of chemicals in the water they sold, and you know what? They were right! That's probably what turned me gay!"

...

The Huntress' cute mouth scrunched up in a thoughtful pout, then relaxed with a sigh.

"Nah, that ain't what turned me gay."

Ben wasn't say anything. He must have been waiting for her to finish her story. That's my Cap!

As they settled into line (holy shit, what a line!) at Junior's, Lauren was still talking about her past experiences in the other kingdoms.

"They do shit kinda funny in those parts of Mistral. One time I was at a club and this cute bartender, total fucking honey, tells me that on Thursdays her special is sex on the beach. And I'm thinking, fuck yeah, I want some sex on the beach. Turns out it's just a cocktail. But I didn't grow up in Zephyr, I grew up in some shithole neighborhood in--" and here a sports car tore down the street adjacent to Ben and Lauren's sidewalk jaunt, drowning out her next few words "--so I grew up kinda stupid about those fancy cocktails and shit. Specially when you're sixteen or seventeen."

She shrugged and checked the (glacial) moving progress of the line at the club before she turned back to Ben.

"Specially 'cause one time, in Atlas, I drank this crazy ass rich dude gin and chased it with this cheap-ass bottle of Simply Lemonade, and I ended up waking up inside a mechanical bull with all my clothes on. So I guess I must have been hiding from the Bratva or something. And I guess it worked, because the Bratva didn't find me, and I was too hungover to find a way out until, like, nearly dinner time. It was pretty hype!"

...

Suddenly, and a bit manically, a bit of the energy ebbed away from Lauren Negasi.

"I don't know how many stories like that I'm gonna get to tell about my time here. All they teach at Beacon is reinforcement of my Advanced Hatred for the White Devil degree."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

for real

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Ben's kryptonite is-

actually, it's his team

that's basically it

dude would have decapitated a manticore if his sword was longer

@Krayzikk

his team can't make his sword much longer

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

<Snipped quote by Crimmy>

Sangue's twenty? Why is she still in her first year of high school?

@Prince of Seraphs

Have you missed everything re: Sangue's backstory in the IC and Character tabs so far, or have you just ignored it? For someone raised outside all four kingdoms - and most of civilization in general - for her whole life, it's perfectly plausible.

I don't even need to tackle the age thing 'cause everyone else did it above me.

UC: Rise of the forgotten

"S'ils tombent, nos jeunes héros - la terre en pr--"

"Frenchman, if you have nothing better to do, some aid would be appreciated."

Oho! My second favorite sentence!

"Those Balls could be more useful doing something instead of just hanging there."

OHO! My favorite sentence!

Floating not too far away from the corpse of another Zaku variant, Dallas finally allowed his singing to taper down into a whisper, and then cease entirely. The mobile suit pilot that had just requisitioned his help sounded positively scornful, and what's more, she seemed completely tone deaf to the possible innuendo laced into her own words. He couldn't even pretend to hear the faintest hint of fun in her voice. Something made him doubt it had ever been there in her life.

The thought was exciting enough to make him grin.

There was nothing in the world that made him happier than satisfying an aloof woman.

"Sure."

There. Nice and to the point. He didn't have to give her a headache.

"But when this is over, and you're alive because of me, I'm gonna want your name, doll."

But he wanted to.

Nonetheless, Dallas released his Balls, both pods maneuvering deftly through the asteroid field and scanning for the Zaku in question.

New Earth 2050 [EDEN] [Apply Inside!]

I didn't get a chance to say anything while the interest check was up, but a friend of mine and I (roll call @Krayzikk) are definitely interested in this. We should have CSes up before the first post goes up tomorrow!

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Krayzikk

Lauren looked over to Ben incredulously for a second, as if gauging whether or not he was serious. Something about her team captain's attitude must have tipped her off, because her grin returned in short order, accompanied by a fierce pride. Bastille's resident con girl whooped loudly and cracked her knuckles in one stretching motion.

"That's the spirit, Cap!" she exclaimed. "I and I be two of soul! I mean, I knew that from the jump, but goddamn, every now and then you just jog my memory and it's like unnnnnf. Let's go to fuckin' Junior's!"

She was really living the dream here. Cap could whine and complain about her temperament, her noise level, and the definition of consent all he wanted; Lauren knew the truth, though, and the truth was that her team captain was endlessly devoted to her. Even if Lauren needed to square up on some butch dyke who thought that the carjacker was just a pretty face, and even if she couldn't handle it, Cap would be there with two ye olde gats and 300% Aura. She knew he would.

It had been a really long time since she'd had a best friend. Especially one who would grab her ass.

(Pervy Ben Lloyd, whose bishie mind is completely in the gutter, whines about having his ass grabbed - but does it to win fights! Grimy!)

"So what do you normally drink, anyway, Cap? I mean, you came from like, some dusty shithole cornfield, right? They weren't exactly popping bottles every Thursday or anything, yeah?"

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Write

How did they set up a second team so fast?

What had started as a somewhat suspect but ultimately harmless encounter at a piano had quickly transformed the teenage soldier's head into a hornet's nest of instincts and teachings. Jer had known being social was part of his cover, and was doing his best to compensate, but keeping conversation up without the constant guidance of one of his more affable teammates was proving difficult. Already, his regular personality was starting to bleed through.

Maybe if the idiots back there knew how to prepare seafood, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize it.

What a mess. Everywhere he looked, Jericho seemed to find another set of eyes on him. Towards the back of the room, he had caught sight of some bedraggled little dweeb (Has he really permed only one single strand of hair? He must be a psychopath.) making eyes at the piano bench and mouthing something under his breath. He disappeared as quickly as he had come, and his wardrobe was so completely unremarkable that an untrained eye would likely have a hard time finding the small fry until he was standing right under you, with a gun to your stomach and that stupid hair tickling the bottom of your chin.

And that was to say nothing of the perimeter guard at the pool, staring wide-eyed through a large glass window that comprised one of the lounge's walls. Newsflash, lady - people aren't submarines. You can't raise periscope and expect someone not to notice. She had only raised the top half of her head from the pool to observe them, but this cruise ship had more lights and song blaring through one portion of the vessel or another than Heaven itself. No one outside was going unnoticed. Is this what espionage training outside of Atlas does to people?

As a child, Jericho had been forcibly coerced into watching Rocky and Bullwinkle every night until he went to sleep counting squirrels. He'd already had his sights on Bastion Academy, training four and five days a week to make the cut into the elite combat school by the winter cut-off date. For a kid like that, there was no greater inspiration to a budding Atlesian specialist than the two Bratva-accented spies that always had to go home to East Atlas explaining why two grown agents had been foiled by a motor-mouthed squirrel and a retarded moose. And this group - or rather, if his suspicions were correct, this full-blown hit squad - reminded him an awful lot of those cartoon characters.

Especially Bianca Badenov over here.

If only I could kill moose and squirrel and young devil!

As much as he wanted to underestimate the dreamy young woman beside him, doing so would be a quick ticket to an early grave, even for a Gold Stripe like Jericho. This entire encounter had the same saccharine vibe that Jer recognized from all of Speer's jury-rigged blind dates, and something about this girl - be it the sudden arrival, the air of sophistication, or the classic manic angel dream girl demeanor - seemed a bit too on the nose. She could be a classic swallow who had watched too many Bond movies. Or she could just be a dreamy girl who had been manipulated into talking to him by the tails.

...Or she could just be an idiot who thought Jer Piper was a total dime that they could forcibly defrost after a few lattes and cuddle seshes. There were plenty of those in Atlas, and Jer - not being a card-carrying member of the secret society of letting girls down easy - had learned the hard way that a girl's skill with a knife was not always contingent on their skill as an assassin.

If Bianca wanted to shank him in the side, this piano bench would be her dream spot - and without a team member there to laugh at him, or at least hold the bourbon Team HJNS kept around as local anesthetic, he had no intention of being disemboweled by a vengeful teenage girl again.

He would have to extract himself.

You're a waiter. You're Jericho the waiter. You have her order. She's got both hands on the piano. Be polite, take it easy, and get up when you can.

...

"--is is new for me."

The waiter blinked. She'd been talking.

"I grew up around girls," Jer replied, looking down at the piano and watching the effortless dance of Bianca's long fingers along the keys. "I'd probably be six feet under if I wasn't at least okay with them. You play that thing pretty well."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@NarayanK i love you

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Prince of Seraphs - Okay, how about this.

Girl throwing ball is Lugu. Girl receiving ball is you.



#rekt

@harinezumikouken

You're really lucky none of Sangue's teammates are around her right now. They'd probably make a Saturday morning out of lynching Shiro.