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Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 24, 2023 21:17:49 GMT
Tycho tilted his head back and laughed from the chest at Makoto's comment, testing the metaphor of "howling laughter" somewhat. He gestured to one of their table's presumably-adequate-amount-of-chairs as he set his drink back down, feeling the drinks start to get to him, and thus becoming all the less subtle for it.
"Out of place? Have you seen the rest of us?! C'mon, get over here, you're missing Eresh show affection!"
Snowhawk? Was that some kind of Mawkin petname? Eresh's body language and tone were giving Tycho plenty enough to guess on, and though he didn't know anything about the Chozo, to the point that he didn't understand that he was looking at one, there were only so many things he could imagine the ol' beak-to-cheek to mean. He shifted his attention to this "Snowhawk" and chuckled a little more, idly entertaining thoughts of ordering something to eat before he drank anything more...
"Introduced myself to you when you first sat down, over at the bar. Name's Tycho." So she was a bounty hunter herself, once upon a time? Whatever she was doing now, at least it showed how much room there was in this business to go "up"-- more than he'd ever thought possible, really. His hand disappeared under the table for a moment before pulling out a chip of his own, rolling the thing in his knuckles like a coin before passing it to Eliza.
"I, uh. Appreciate the honesty with all 'this.'" Waving his other hand in front of his face for a moment, more than likely referring to Aila's disguise. "You're a friend of Feathers, I'm gathering, so I'm not as worried as I would be... just kinda have my own reasons to not trust new faces, same as Lemon here. Like to know who I'm drinking with."
Eresh at this point was resting his beak atop the woman’s head when Tycho said that, and his luminescent eyes would crinkle in seemingly exasperated amusement.
“Yes, wolf man, I do have other expressions besides murderous intent- shocking I know.” he quipped as his eyes glanced at Makoto, giving her a quick nod as he looked down at “Aila”
“I believe we are being made fun of, what do you think?” He asked, his tone light and conversational.
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Jul 24, 2023 23:59:04 GMT
Eliza looked Tycho over slowly, then nodded as she accepted his chip and slid it into place on her pad. "Apologies, it must have slipped my mind. Eresh can be quite distractin' when he wishes," she explained. "Though in his defense, we've na seen each other in nigh on a year." Despite this jibe, she made not the slightest attempt to move away from the comforting warmth of the Mawkin's touch. "Eresh, ye were gannin ta tell yer friends how we met, aye?"
As Eliza fell silent to let Eresh tell the others of their (mis)adventures on Ylf'nya, she began drafting a second message for Tycho's eyes only, utilizing a second encryption key to this end.
[You ask who I actually am, but I cannot give you a complete answer, in part because some of it is classified, and in part because my story is quite long. My name is Eliza Lockheed. I tell you this in trust, as I am in fact the same that until recently was CEO of AMI. I am currently enlisted within the Terran Confederation Marine Corps, and work under the Department of Advanced Warfare. I must reiterate that this is not to be repeated elsewhere. Eresh trusts you, I can see, and you seem like a competent sort. I'm looking to make some trustworthy contacts that might be helpful in future assignments I am given, to be honest. People with sharp ears towards anything that might be needing the military to intervene, but not necessarily call in an entire battle group, if you understand my meaning. I'm not going to strong arm you, conscript you, or anything other than offer honest pay for honest work, if and only if it is called for, or you make a find and bring it to me. If I have to pay you out of personal accounts, then I will, if DAW tries to stiff you on a job, as well. That said, it's your call, and we still have drinks to enjoy.]
Satisfied with the message's contents, Eliza then sent it to Tycho's commpad, pulled his chip, and handed a second chip that held the decryption key on it back to the wolf man. "There ye are. Hopefully, that answers yer questions enough," she added before settling her attention on Makoto. "Huh. Na often we see someone yer age in here. Makoto, I presume?"
Post by Makoto Nijima on Jul 28, 2023 21:23:31 GMT
"Yes, but how do you know my name? I don't believe we've met before." The former Shujin Academy President replied, taking a seat at the table. She gave Eresh and his partner a small smile in acknowledgement, but this mysterious woman otherwise had her full attention. Makoto could sense something was different about her, like she wasn't a normal mercenary.
"It's good to see you all again. I was afraid we wouldn't make it back when we accepted that mission."
Eresh smiled as he continued his story. “So after six days and almost seventy dead Kromus later.. this little elven hellcat shows up. And after a quick introduction that nearly opened with her brains splattered all over the trees we decided to work together. A few dead Kromus, and a few explosions after that, we decided to work together on a number of other missions and well.. one thing lead to a few other things: deep personal demons, heart breaking revelation , mutual comfort in each other’s company, and soon enough we discovered that we really clicked.”
Nudging her with his Elbow, Eresh gave Makoto a glance. “I told her of you, and the others. We like to talk about our work- when its not classified intelligence anyway.”
Post by Eliza Silvermantle on Jul 28, 2023 21:40:19 GMT
"Which is frustratingly often," Eliza chimed in. "But I do appreciate ye lot helpin' ta keep this oversized emu more or less out of trouble. I'm convinced his life purpose is ta see if my hair will turn grey fram his antics."
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jul 28, 2023 23:41:48 GMT
Giving one chip and receiving two back was a little puzzling, until the Vlaka put the pieces together. He opted to slot them into the commpad as opposed to the ports in his neck-- openly he'd be reluctant to admit it was distrust, which is why he simply didn't say anything at all.
A decryption key. This lady meant business, clearly.
He looked up to Eliza for a moment and nodded, before leaning back and taking a backseat to the ongoing conversation... opening the new message he'd just received, slotting the second key in to let it decrypt... but not before severing the connection between the commpad and his implants, just in case.
The more he read, the more complex Tycho's feelings became. Naturally any changes in his expression were relatively subtle, even still. He nailed the guess of her being a corpo, former or not, but the Department of Advanced Warfare was a name he'd only heard maybe once or twice before... both not in the best of contexts, but that was coming from the IMC. Lemon nailed it too, it seemed. She was indeed a spook, even if she didn't seem to be there for her.
Instead, she had a job offer. Eresh must've had good things to say about them, or so Tycho assumed, which felt strangely gratifying? Sort of? There remained a part of Tycho's back-mind that doubted the bounty-hunter profession, worried it'd be largely a dead-end gig... but between something like this and his relatively new understanding of the ranking system, it was becoming very clear to him that being a bounty hunter would be just as much about open doors as doing good work. Not too different from the edgerunner life, only this time he wouldn't be a wanted criminal. Were it not for what he knew about the IMC's deliberate efforts to hide their activities from Confed, he'd be less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt- this was too good an opportunity to pass up, predispositions towards the powers-that-be aside. At least taking a job for a government was... new.
He cautiously re-linked the commpad to his implants as the device was stuffed back into a pocket, pretending to have his attention entirely on Eresh's story, while he sent a reply to Eliza hands-free.
[ This won't be the side of the law that I'm used to, for freelance work. I have my reasons for not trusting Confed, even if they come from the wrong places. You're a friend of Eresh, so I'm trusting you on that alone. I'm still only an Alpha hunter, but I'll see what I can do. Any weird shit happens out there in the sea, Kromus or not, you'll be the first to know. ]
"Keeping him out of trouble is one way to put it." He lifted his head for a moment as his attention focused back to the conversation, pulling the straw out of his drink and setting it aside. "Feathers here is a force of nature whenever the Kromus are the through-line, is what I'm hearing." He knew better than to openly ask if it was personal, knowing very well what the answer was after Tchernobog.
"What's their deal, anyway? Don't really know anything about them, they were kinda just a name on a report back in Frontier space... seems like they're a much bigger threat out here."
"If your hair was turning grey, I would think you'd notice a long time ago Snowhawk." Eresh countered, downing his drink before then ordering another. "Do you want your usual, Aila?" He asked as he glanced at the others. "Does anyone else want anything?" He asked, his tone light and converational. Eliza seemed to be on some DAW spook job from how she was handing out data drives around the table as if they were breath mints, so he decided to simply continue offering levity to the situation, to help keep everyone at least calm if not relaxed- as hard as it seemed to be for Lemon.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Aug 15, 2023 0:01:25 GMT
"Uhhh- hm. Yeah, just... get me another one of these. AMF."
An indicative little tap-tap of his claw against the glass as he looked up to Eresh, letting his previously-asked question hang. Tycho's attention slowly shifted to the middle distance for a moment or two as he settled a little more into his seat, before he looked Lemon's way. No words were spoken, but he offered a cautious thumbs up and a raised brow, as if to ask "hey, you good?"
Post by Lemon Jankins on Aug 15, 2023 10:27:58 GMT
Lemon hadn't moved much, only an occasional twitch of ear, tail, or eyes as she sat back staring at the Spook talking to everyone, observing. The message she'd received did nothing to help her mood as it only further confirmed that the spook was indeed very spooky. She didn't know much about DAW, just that it was Terran Black Budget stuff, and while she was human she wasn't gonna bet anything on the Terran government to give much of a damn about random frontier people with questionable genemods, hell their Men-In-Black were just as likely to want her on a vivisection table as her old "employers" back in the frontier.
The mention of gifts drew her attention, even More of a threat than anticipated, if this lady was also a braincase she'd need to stay on guard at every moment around her, She was very obviously older and more experienced. A few weeks of not existing would be in order, and she'd likely not be returning to this bar for several months, at least until she had more contingencies in place or figured out better uses for her unusual talents.
Tycho's eyebrow and thumbs up were met with a stare and several pointed looks at her commlink and the Federal Agent, no words were spoken but her body language practically screamed "on edge", the alcohol was rapidly wearing off and she was definitely gonna need the rest of this bottle late tonight. Glanced again at "Snowhawk" and then threw a short message at the wolfman's brain.
[Ahm takin tha scenic route home, an disappearin fer a few weeks]
She then laid some cash on the table, enough for her drinks and the waiter's tip, and stood up.
"Ah'll leave y'all to it."
She turned to go, she'd need to get her knives back but after that it'd be several hours of erratic wandering and mingling with the faceless crowds.
Eresh would give an absent nod as he would order the same thing for the canine man, his eyes glancing at Jankins every now and then during their various exchanges. The level of anxiety her body language suggested caused him to raise a brow and when she sat down her payment he then glanced at “Aila” and gave her a quick nudge.
“I’ll be out for a bit, keep my seat warm?”
And he would then stand and hold out a hand for Lemon. “On moment, I’ll walk you out.” He said cordially.. and he would follow the small woman. Quietly, he would then say “Before you go, I’d like to talk. It won’t take too long, I promise.”
She stopped and stepped off to the side just after retrieving her knives so as to not block the entrance, staring out into the crowd as she addressed the towering avian.
"Pitch yer piece, ah'm naw gun wait much longer, ma scalp's itching jus thinkin bout spooks an their tables."
She didn't have much to say, no trust for spooks, even ones that admitted to being spooky, only way she'd be accepting jobs from them was if there was several measures for making sure they didn't screw her over or worse. There's a reason spooks went hiring mercs, Disposable/Deniable Assets. You were either a cut-out, a puppet dancing on strings of blackmail, a target for more permanent recruitment, or all three.
“I will get to the point then. I can understand your hesitation in trusting what Aila- no, what Eliza must’ve told you. I most likely would be extremely suspicious of her intentions too, had I gone through what you have. That said, I believe your fear is being misplaced.”
He would step to the side to let a couple of hunters pass, before sighing softly. “She may work for the Department of Advanced Warfare, but when she says she means you no harm, she’s one of the few people in this galaxy that you can trust to be truthful. And I will be quite honest, it’s more than likely that she approached you specifically because I told her about you- rather than some underworld shadow man having some dark ulterior motive,” and he gave an apologetic head Bob before continuing.
“But I am almost certain she wants to hire your service because she believes in your potential. Again I may have painted you and the others in a more flattering light than what was needed- but I firmly think that your talents have a lot of promise: you could do some great things, with the proper support system in place.”
Post by Lemon Jankins on Aug 16, 2023 13:40:36 GMT
"Mmm, if ah dun catch no spooks chasin after me in tha next few weeks ah'll consider it, only support system ah trust these days is Emeraldine an Gin."
It'd also depend on the jobs offered, she'd be scrutinizing every one very thoroughly before considering acceptance. Governments were just another Megacorp in the end, only dealing in power and favours rather than hard money, and their shadowy groups couldn't be trusted farther than they could be thrown (which wasn't far at all where Lemon was concerned).
"You want to get in contact, use this proxy message service, ah'll be using burners for a while, but that account ain't tied to no commlink."
She scribbled the information on one of the napkins she liked to keep handy for cleaning blades and handed it to the Birdman before turning and stepping into the crowd. She had a bottle that needed drinking, and several hours of making sure there weren't any tails between her and said drinking.
Eresh would take the napkin and fold it up before placing it into a pocket before he then chirruped in acknowledgment. “Think about what I said, yes? If Eliza has an interest in you, it would be a good idea to at least consider her offer. As far as DAW operatives go, she’s possibly the very best one you could’ve encountered. I cannot go into specifics, but she has a good deal of empathy towards individuals like you.. she understands what it’s like to be on the run.”
She also was very goal driven and quite ruthless if needed be.. but he wouldn’t bring that up for now. So he would simply wave goodbye. “I’ll be in touch at some point. Try to get home safely, miss Jankins.” And he would walk back into the bar once they went their separate ways. Meandering back to the table, he would sit next to Eliza once again.