22.08.2020 2000 CEST, Antwerp, Belgium

Chadwick's was an American-themed sports bar located a short walk from both the Central station and also the headquarters of Lindgren Solutions. Rather ironically for the bar, it was currently showing an English Premier League game. West Ham were currently 2-0 up against Tottenham Hotspur in a game being broadcast from their home ground of the Olympic Stadium in London.

Sitting around a table a short distance from the toilets were a group of mercenaries celebrating their latest big score the traditional way - by an expensive meal and drinks on the company account.

Sitting among them was their accountant, who was going to have to explain all of this to General Worth once her inevitable hangover had concluded. A pretty brunette currently dressed in a red Manchester United jersey - it had not been a good day for them, being turned over 3-0 by Sunderland - was sipping a vodka and coke through a straw.

Right now, the topic was turning to the latest hit American television show...

"Seriously folks", Samantha Allington said, "There is no way that Erika is the mole. No way".

"What are you talking about?" Karl responded in heavily accented english.
"I don't bother watching any of that 'merican crap."
Kapteinløytnant Braende hadn't been with the company very long, having only recently been discharged from the Norwegian Armed Forces Special Operations Forces - damn economy! He'd not yet been on any missions since he'd joined about a month earlier.

In reply to Karl Braende (msg # 2):
Donnelly was slowly drinking the beer, he did not care much for alcohol, and had not paid much attention to the conversation as he did not care for the program they were talking about and had not watched it but for a few minutes.
But the new guys statement rubbed him the wrong way.

“You want ta tell this dumb Irishman what you mean about ‘merican crap?”

Patrick smiled when he said that, a sure indication he was not happy.

"Shit. I'm American and I don't watch that crap," Captain Eric Woods said leaning back in his seat scotch in hand. Not that you'd know he was a captain in anything by the way he acted. Slouching and informal but always watchful. When he'd come into the company a couple of months ago it'd surprised more than a few that he had real military experience. "Give me a good fight to watch over any of that."

In reply to Eric Woods (msg # 4):

“Ah it ain’t good shit but it is our shit Woods and he made a crack about US.” Patrick looked around the bar and wondered just how much he could count on this group. It was not a new question but here you had to add in the baggage some folks brought with em to a mixed bag like this.
He stood up knowing it might get some to think he was being aggressive but did not much care.
“Look, I don’t care what ideas you got about us dogs from the states but ye might think about us being on the same side now and not try ta start a problem before we get to were ever we will need to back each other up. You know you might want to consider who is holding a fifty looking over yer shoulder in say a week or so.”
With that he walked to the bar and asked the keep to make him some lemonaid.

Eric watched Patrick walk off with a bemused expression before looking at everyone else and asking, "Am I supposed to care about things like that? I don't remember the patriotism part of my contract."

It was clear in his voice that he didn't truly care. Patriotism was not a trait he possessed and it wasn't one he respected. It was just another bit of emotional leverage to be used against you. A conditioned response that made you predictable. Predictability was death in his world.

"It does appear he may be a problem in the future. Need to keep an eye on him just in case."
Patriotism was all well and good, but last time he checked, Lindgren was a Swedish company, based in Belgium and staffed by people from all over the world. Americans needed to stop being so sensitive and learn to be team players.

"So he does realize that all of that shit is based on British TV, most of it is even produced by the people who made the British versions, right?" Reaching up he tugged off the sandy brown ball cap that was always on before running his fingers through his hair and tucking the cap back down low over his eyes.

Lifting his beer he saluted Donnelly's back first with the beer then his middle finger. God how he hated most officers, and it didn't at all have anything to do with the fact that mouthing off to them had cost Adam every single promotion in his career, and nearly cost him his career a couple times if it wasn't for Eric's intervention. he would gladly work with Donnelly, didn't mean he had to like or respect the man.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:21, Tue 25 Aug 2015.

"There are no original ideas any more. Some bright TV executive comes up with a "new" idea just by looking at the archives, or asking their daddies what they used to watch when they where kiddies."
"And all that "reality" crap..." Karl turned a dark shade of red as he thought about it.
"Did you see that one where they put a camera in with those mercs in Angola last year? I don't think they were even in Africa let alone close to danger! Not one of them cammed up, weapons all looked brand new, even the opposition looked like they'd been bused in from Hackney or The Bronx, given an AK and told to look mean."

Sam smiled at that one.

"I actually know one of those mercs", she said, "Woman named Debbie Radcliffe. I will say that she's a legit merc. OK, a legit merc with a FHM cover to her name, but you'd definitely be happy with her in the same foxhole. Anyway..."

She reached for her mobile phone and pulled it out, unlocking the screen and doing some rapid fire typing.

"What I was talking about was Rabbit Four", she said, showing them a poster of a group of people in camo, some of them looking particularly attractive, "It may not exactly be the most realistic thing on the box, but I enjoy it... and so do 14 million others in the US alone. That's Erika Nielsen, the cool Swedish lady who may or may not be working for the Russians".

Erika didn't look very "Swedish"; her dark hair and brown skin spoke of Arab descent.

"Oh, the actress is genuinely Swedish, by the way. Parents were born in Egypt".

The door to the bar suddenly opened very noisy. As they turned to look, they saw a short mixed-race man with black curly hair and a baseball bat.

"Oh [expletive]", Allington said, "It's Chandler".

"Mathew Perry?" Karl asked in confusion. They'd been talking about television and now an actor from twenty years ago had walked in?

"They might have been real mercs but how real can their work be if cameras are following them?" Eric asked after taking another drink. "Now they are just actors pretending to do things they used to do for real."

When the man with the bat came in the broad shouldered man barely looked up until Sam identified him and he said, "Who's Chandler? And why is he an 'oh shit' appearance?"

"Er..." Sam replied, "He used to work for us, until we had to get rid of him... which was quite annoying".

What she didn't choose to mention is that she'd used to sleep with him.

Chandler walked over to the group, still holding the baseball bat in one hand as the barman reached under the bar to summon the politie.

As he did, he grabbed a full glass of beer from one of the nearby tables to the protests of one of the other drinkers. He reached the table and looked at the group.

"Evening, dog breath", he said to Allington, "I see these are all your mangy friends. Wonder which one of them will be sleeping with you tonight".

In reply to Samantha 'Sam' Allington (msg # 13):

"Say, Sam how about you introduce us to the idiot." Donnelly smiled and walked towards the new arrival stopping well out of range of the bat but close enough to move in if trouble started.

Karl was a big man, and not afraid of conflict, but he also knew that keeping attention off himself was the best way to survive hostilities - that or come down hard and fast on the opposition before they even knew you'd moved.
Unfortunately the second option wasn't really possible in the current situation. Karl was unarmed, and besides a bit of basic hand to hand training in his younger years, essentially a novice in that area. His philosophy had always been that the military gave you a weapon for a reason, so use it and use it well.
And that was why Karl remained seated, appearing to be as unthreatening as he could be, while internally preparing himself to act in support of his apparently better skilled co-workers should the need arise.

Standing up Adam rose to his full 6'4" and held out his hands in a calming gesture "Hey, hey guys come on. No need to get all riled up here, obviously Sam and small balls here have some interpersonal disputes to work out." He had been inactive for to long, and now he wanted to play.

"Walk off, fun boy, before I feed you that bat," Eric said finishing off his glass in one shot and giving Chandler a level look.

He was good with a gun - pistol or rifle. The military had seen to that but he'd been a Golden Gloves boxer long before that and the years hadn't dulled his love of hand to hand combat. Training in his free time. Sparring where and when he could. Occasionally using it to great effect with unruly prisoners or marks or even the odd Marine who thought he was ten feet tall and bullet proof.

One angry jackass in a bar? Just another statistic.

Chandler looked at Eric and smiled, a big grin showing a couple of missing teeth that suggested that he was no stranger to bar fights over the years.

"Chandler", Sam said, getting to her feet, "Go home, right now, before you do something you regret".

Chandler turned to her and took a quick sip of the beer.

"I already did something I regret", he said, "Sleeping with you. Well, let's get this started, folks".

He tossed the contents of the glass into Allington's face and threw the glass to one side, where it failed to shatter as it wasn't meant to.

"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough".

"You really are a special kind of stupid aren't you?" Karl commented from his still seated position, one hand held under the table out of sight.
"You walk into a bar known to be a local for professional soldiers with nothing but a baseball bat."
He shook his head disapprovingly.
"No wonder you were let go."
[Private to GM: Playing for time for police to show up and trying to appear like there's a pistol under the table. Total bluff on all counts.]

In reply to Karl Braende (msg # 19):

As Chandler looked towards Karl, Patrick took the intervening three steps accelerating towards him. The retired Officer was a lot more at home in a bar brawl then the Officers mess and had eased towards Chandler while the others were talking to him.
A baseball bat is no kind of weapon for a fight, hell a broomstick makes a lot better weapon in almost any ones hands.
 Chandler did the expected; he caught the movement of Patrick in the corner of his eye and turned to face him taking the inevitable back swing, the exact reason NOT to use it.

Patrick did not slow down, he partially raised his left hand to shoulder height to catch the arms of Chandler and with his full momentum and enough strength to put him backwards and down but with just enough taken off to not break his neck he hit the drunk with the palm of his right hand just below the chin in an upwards and forward move.

The results were as expected as well. Chandler went down the bat came forward only slightly and was stopped by Donnelly’s raised arm against Chandler’s upper arm and not the bat. Donnell stood his ground and waited for Chandler to move.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:53, Mon 07 Sept 2015.

Karl's words appeared to have an effect on Chandler, but only by slowing his reactions down slightly.

As Patrick moved, so did the bat, smashing into the Irishmans chest with a cracking thud and stopping him in his tracks. [Private to Patrick Donnelly: Take 5 points to your chest and loose your next action which would would have been as you posted. You've just taken a "scratch" wound - the next injury (even just one point) will put you into "Slight" which will temporarily drop your Initiative by 1 point]
[Private to General Seaworth: Karl failed an unskilled Persuasion roll with Formidable difficulty (drunk and already agro) unskilled raises that to Impossible.
Target 1/4 of Charisma rounded down to just 1. Rolled 3 so failed only by 2. If it had been only a Difficult or easier task it would have succeeded (perhaps if Chandler was sober he'd have seen sense...). As Karl only just failed, I've judged Chandlers initiative for this round only will be one less at 3 rather than his usual 4 - caused him to hesitate only.

Chandler: Veteran (Initiative 4, Attributes 7, skills 13, Unarmed damage 4, Bat: Range S, To hit mod -1, Damage 3+1D6)
As he's drunk we'll give the benefit of any doubt to the PCs in this case rounding in the PCs favour, etc
In this round Chandler had the reach over Patrick and hit by 6 (I subtracted on the die roller when I should have added - the bats modifier reduces the Asset, not the roll.
As Patrick got wounded, he doesn't get to complete his intended action.]

New round. Please post intended actions.
Note although there's not much to see publicly in this post, there's a LOT in PMs to those effected.

Seeing his words were ineffective, Karl sprang to his feet as quickly as his old bones would allow, fully intending to dive over the table and take Chandler down in a tackle.