Jack turned to Lotus when they got back. "I guess I won't be meeting Niles after all." He shrugged. "Do you want to spend the evening together?" He hastened to add, "And by that I meant dinner and drinking and whatever sounds good. I was not asking to bed you." He gave her a chuckle. "Do you have someone to make you the armor from the skin you took from the demons?"

He then went shopping and took a crate to his quarters with glee.

        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

The next day he was assembled along with everyone else, for the moment in his human guise. His own armor was barely scratched from the previous day's fighting and he had that repaired. He eyed the 3 "newcomers" of the LT's with a wary but practiced eye.

When informed of the request for a true name or blood, his lip curled up a bit beneath his demon-ram helment. After asking what specifically it was for, he agreed to it on the stipulation that he hand it over when it was time to use and he watch it be used. He didn't want his blood just being held by the powerful mage for no reason. And he didn't really want his true name out and about for the moment. Everyone knew him as Jack Runner and he was okay with that.

Jack will "mount" up along with everyone else, staying in human form and traveling with the others for the moment.

Boris had nothing to spend his money on the night before, and meets up with the rest of the team in the morning before setting out, looking pretty much the same he did before. He stays quiet as usual, and listens.

 For the trip back 'Masque is fairly subdued, spending a fair portion of his time-in-flight fingering the wicked gash that scuffs the outer surface of his armour and indicates how close he came to having a runesword driven clean through his torso while fencing with the four-armed demon. Come touchdown he's hesitant to shake Karno's hand until the topic of reports comes up, whereupon he hands over a frank, murderously damning report on the topic of cannibal demons, mass murder and lax comm' discpiline complete with audio-visual records where appropriate.

 After that well - he spends most of the evening sitting in a rented booth in a fairly crowded bar opposite the massive armoured form of Disharmony, locked pretty much eye to visor as digital conversation streams back and forth between the two huge 'borgs along a thumb-thick foptic cable, the contents of which are nobodies business but theirs (apparently), returning to duty the next morning somehow managing to seem disconcerted and somewhat more relaxed all at the same time - not that that affects his willingness to clasp Photio's hand and throw three arms about him for a friendly, life-imperilling hug as the mage makes to depart.

 Similarly he ambles over to Lotus for a warm "Am glad to see you are looking better. Was not doing much better against demon bastard than you were when Boris there was shooting him off me." and throws a good-natured "Still dabbling in black arts Mephisto? I thought someone would have carried off your soul by now!" when the mage nods to him, his tones very much more comradely than he ever thought he'd have directed at a demon-summoner a month or two before.

 Thasha now... Thasha gets a big damn' laugh and is slapped heartily on the back by the oversized tiger, his enthusiasm approved of even if it is slightly appalling to the veteran Russian. "I would be being delighted, da! I would be recommending you pick one longarm though - is taking all computer support I am having in head to be managing two and even then I am mostly doing only because I am firing very big bullets, youbet!" he responds, going on to add "You were doing well in fighting yesterday - mostly kept head, picked targets, didn't get shot. All good signs!" as he finally throws off the last vestiges of his odd mood and just revels in the life-affirming nature of being back in contact with an incredibly dangerous woman(ish) whose company he still can't decide if he enjoys or is terrified of.

 Similarly to Jack, 'Masque has some fairly serious reservations about the whole magic thing and it's quite a while before he produces a tiny glass vial containing a small amount of the straw-coloured solution that serves what scraps are left of Nikolai Kruchenko as blood and offers it under the same conditions as the dragon.

In war, especially war in a world of monsters, magic, and mayhem, there were two types of combatants: Squishy and not. In Joseph 'Smoke' Perkins's case, he is most definatly NOT squishy. Most heavy cyborgs prefer some form of humanity, some symbol of the meat they used to be - even if its nothing more than maintaining a face. Even a metal face. Or a fleshy tiger skin, in SOME people's case.

Perkins looks to have been stripped of everything not related to bringing chaos and explosions to the battlefield, his 'face' a gaunt minimalistic version of the human head that didn't even bother with cheeks. Or teeth, for that matter, just a flat ridge where the metal jaw bone opens. Dull red optics flicker across the gathered group as he thumps across the ground, a miniscule bit of paper gripped as an afterthought between the rubber soles of his metal fingers. For the most part, one would think he's got nothing to do with the magical resistance that Tolkeen is putting up, but someone's gone and welded a private's marks on one oversized shoulder.

The nickname becomes obvious, of course; He's got a massive cigar crushed between the ridges of his metal 'mouth', jaw clamping and rolling it while cigar smoke leaks out from around his face. "Which one of yer is Nuitari?" He grumbles, like a rusty metal can reverberating. Pausing in his heavy stomp, which lets the various weapons and hanging ammo chains swing to a halt.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:37, Wed 18 Apr 2012.

   Standing with Jack, Lotus was a little amused that a creature such as this dragon would be interested in socializing with a human.  She chuckled at the allusion towards bedding her and she was admittedly curious but Jack wasn't exactly her type.  "Drinks sound ideal.  Maybe I'll help you find someone to bed.  How old are you anyway?  Let's take care of armour repairs first and get that shit out of the way."

OOC - Lotus talked about harvesting the skull of Renszath for a new helmet but sadly he fled and she took nothing.  So she has no plans to make new armour.

   Before splitting from the group, Lotus gave Photios a handshake and thanked him for saving her leg and restoring her to health.  She was still replaying the incident over in her mind and to be walking again so soon after was slightly surreal.  She went off with Jack to try and relax with someone who understood the code of the mystic knights.

   Before relaxing, Lotus will drop her armour off for repair and then visit the Tolkeen stables in hopes of finding something she hasn't seen since her training.  She marches past the horses until she finds the exotic mounts and zeroes in on the gryphon pens.  They had a few at the temple where she was trained and she spent months with one gryphon in particular.  Gryphons are highly intelligent creatures and their loyalty to their master is the equal of a knight to her order.  With Jack at her side, she spends a while trying to find the best one before forking over several hundred thousand credits for the animal and some armour to help protect her.

   In the morning, outside the barracks, Lotus can be seen standing next to her new mount.  Her armour cleaned and repaired, she also has a new quiver of arrows upon her back.  When Nuitari broaches the subject of true names, she decides she will agree to share her name on the condition that Nuitari shares his own.  As a mercenary she expects compensation for her efforts and she promises the lieutenant in no uncertain terms that she will ensure he is well compensated should her name be misused.

   "That would be me." The lieutenant responds to the private, his face appearing friendly and casual for an officer.

   In regards to Lotus' request to exchange true names, Nuitari smirks and agrees, giving his name to her in a whisper to the ear.

The glowing optics shift a moment until they focus on the man standing up in the front - with the three something or others. Perkins shifts his jaw for a moment, a few grains of his cigar trickling down and out of his exposed metal jaw. Internal air pumps whine as the 'cherry' glows for a moment, and the smoke is allowed to escape by drifting up and around his 'skull' before he nods and thumps his way over, before holding out the small paper. "Lieutenant Nuitari, Pluto Company's third?" He doesn't wait for a real answer.

Instead, he does his best to present a proper salute, curled metal fist over powercore. "Private Perkins, El Tee. Heard some skull heads decided they wanted to piss on the ground I was born on." There is a slow, rumbling grating; It might take a moment to realize it was that metal jaw, slowly working back and forth, tiny sparks struck up from the 'teeth' ridge scraping.

"I gave my resignation to my old company in Kingsdale, and rode here as fast as I could to sign in. Brought my own guns and everything." There's a grin in the grating mechanized voice, though that dead metal face couldn't express it.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:14, Thu 19 Apr 2012.

   Nuitari returns the salute respectfully before explaining his opinion of the act. "I understand the tradition, and you'll see me saluting at ceremonies, but I really prefer to save it for when we aren't on a mission - which is about to get underway.  Are you on foot?"
   Nuitari takes the papers handed to him by the heavy borg and glances at the sheet for barely a second before looking back up at the borg.  A diabolist with speed reading is truly a force to be reckoned with.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:47, Thu 19 Apr 2012.

The curled fist drops back to his side, as the monster metal man dips his head once in acknowledgement. "Understood, El Tee." He rumbles, with the mechanized voice crackling slightly somewhere behind the glowing cigar. Probably placed in the back of the 'throat', for ease of recognizing who's talking.

Then there's something odd; A undulating, metal thumping sound. It might take it a moment to realize its laughter. "Yeah. I can pretty much keep up with whatever you're using, be it in the air or on the ground. Mobile platform and all that." A massive hand comes up and, with a curious delicacy, carefully pinches the cigar out from between his clamped 'mouth' to tap off the ash somewhere to the side.

Glowing metal eyes shift aside to the three monsters again, but - well - it was Tolkeen. It was something he'd gotten used to seeing when he was a kid and a snot nosed punk. He hadn't seen it in a long time over in Kingsdale, where going heavy metal - like him - was the word of the day.

"Mind catching me up? Looks like I'm getting to the party late." He pauses, realizing he just asked an LT to catch up a Private, and corrects himself. ".. Got someone you can assign to catch me up? Or a dossier?"

   "Speak to Mephisto - " Nuitari nods towards the shifter. "He can catch you up."

Comartin similarly turned his Guardsman over for repairs along with Drano and followed the man to the bar as well. "Fucking McCloud... I was gonna punch him in the mouth and see if they would demote me." After that he keeps his mouth shut. Figuratively speaking anyway. He obviously has to open it to accept the copious amount of whiskey that leads to his moderate case of alcohol poisoning and unconscious form lying on the floor of the bar. The next morning he is slightly late to the briefing, unwashed, unshaven and generally looking like hammered dogshit but he is there.

Mephisto nods in return to Nuitari, and then looks over at Smoke and nods to him as well.

With a whine of servos, the heavy machine man turns to look towards Mephisto, before giving a nod back to Nuitari. "Sir." He states, as a way of farewell, before his thumping steps and whirring servos take him towards the Shifter. Chains of ammo and various other wrist-thick piping swinging slowly in the gait of his walk.

"Looks like hell of a party." He begins, without premise. Clamping that cigar between the flat planes of his mouth again, a whirring mechanism in back drawing enough air to cherry the tip again. "Mind telling me where to punch my dance card in?"

OOC: My apologies.


Jack grinned at Lotus. "Aww, but maybe I'm savin' myself for the right Knight?" He reared back and wasn't sure whether to be offended or not. "How old am I? How are old are you? What kind of question is that?" He walked with her to the armor shop and gun shop, then to go get gryphon apparently. He smirked at that. She liked to fly as well, but ON a creature? Dangerous. He helped as best he could in picking out the right ride.

He did not make any moves on her that night, but he did joke with her and flirt a lot. And drank quite a bit. But then, he was larger than he looked.


He grinned. "Hey, LT. Like your new playmates. Are we all ridin' on the skiff again or separatin' out?"

Mephisto watches Smoke Perkins march over to him after checking in with the LT. He replies "Dance card?" He raises an eyebrow, unsure of what Smoke is referring to.

In reply to Mephisto (msg #779)

If Perkins still possessed the lips to smirk, one would imagine him doing so. As it is, the large metal skull stares mutely at Mephisto for a moment, before glowing optics seem to narrow.

"Alright. What's the situation so far, sonny boy, and what's the next step for the troupe? Gotta know where to fall into."

The cherry on the cigar glow heedlessly once more, illuminating the skull's dark undercarriage as Perkins "puffs away".

Mephisto was feeling nicer the last couple days, and since this new borg didn't know all the kids on the playground just yet, he let the sonny boy comment slide.

"The situation so far? Well in the 2 years since this war started, Tolkeen has lost territory. We have all been together for a month so far, well some of us anyway. We lost a lot of guys... We just finished hunting down a group of traitors trying to defect to the CS... We also just picked up that psychic merc over there, his name is Heinrich... You aren't the only new guy here. Now, we are preparing to move out, together to some Juyong Outpost south east of here. Just waiting on the other sparkle-bot, the juicer and the retarded psi-stalker to show up."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:33, Thu 19 Apr 2012.

Heinrich can't help but chuckle slightly at Mephisto's comments about a sparkle-bot. A clear shot at the borg for the sonny boy comment, at least in his mind.

That metal jaw works back and forth again, causing the harsh scraping sound, cigar fibers dribbling downward in faintly aromic shower as the 'borg listens to the results of two years of war against his homeland. Those glowing optics dim even further in thought, Perkins distracted enough to let the 'sparkle bot' comment ride. He then reaches up to pinch the mushed base of that cigar, pulling it out as he rumbles.

"Lost territory? Against a bunch of jumped up skull heads with less magic potential than my left metal pinke? That ain't the Tolkeen I remember..." If he could frown, he'd be doing that right now. "Hell, that won't do." He clamps back down on the cigar, drawing the aromic smoke deeper into his chasis with the faint whine of a mechanized lung system before grumbling to address both Mephisto -and- Heinrich now.

"Alright. So where's the fall-in line for Chuckles and me? I assume we're moving out soon?"

Drano, like Comartin is quite disheveled except he is still holding an empty bottle of booze in his left hand. Oddly when reporting in to Lt Nutari his salute is not sloppy, but yet almost mechanical in nature.

Na-Wa arrives riding atop his Silonor, aptly named named Silonar.

When the new not yet replaced or dead boss man wants Na-Wa's name, Na-Wa has to think about it for a moment before Whon-Ecke told him he should tell the new boss man his name was Na-Wa of Doe Shu tribe. "New boss man I am Na-Wa of Doe Shu tribe..." this, pulling his rune sword out of its sheath "...is Whon-Ecke."

After a pause Na-Wa also introduces his mount. "Oh and this is Silonar, he's a very mean Silonar." Those who take notice though quickly realize that the Silonar is really a juvenile T-Rex. How the dimwitted Psi-stalker has managed to not get eaten by his mount yet is a mystery.
This message was last updated by the player at 14:46, Thu 19 Apr 2012.

In reply to Smoke Perkins (msg #783):

"You're standing in the line... we just sort of stand in a group until the officers tell us to walk in one direction. We run things like pre-school in this unit. There we go, almost on queue the other sparkle bot and the retarded psi-stalker are here. Good morning Na-wa eat any good books lately?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:54, Thu 19 Apr 2012.

Keth runs into the room, knowing he had been running late. He nods to Nuitari, and looks around to see who is still on the team, and checks out the new 'borg.

Nuitari returns the nod to Keth and calls out "That's everyone, let's move. We are joining up with the company outside the city gates, follow my lead people." Nuitari stands at the pilot's controls of his hover skiff, along with his 3 companions, down the streets of Tolkeen, and out the massive gates back into the fray.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:39, Thu 19 Apr 2012.

Heinrich hops aboard the skiff and rides out.