Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Give me a half-hour to pack and I'll be ready," Kurtis replied. "I can catch up on scientific knowledge on the way there."

True to his word, he was indeed ready to go in twenty-seven minutes.

((Hehe, I am so damn clever xp ))

Sergeant Thomas Salem, 27 years old and a top-class sniper for the US military and currently patrolling the North end of a classified military outpost Omega III. Standing at about 5’ 10” and weighing 157 lbs without his gear, and wearing digital camouflage. His face was painted black, his features virtually disappearing into the night, only his cold, steel blue eyes standing out in the darkness. His short, buzzed-cut hair shined with moist sweat as he peered through the scope of his rifle towards a nearby hill, “North side clear, moving on-” he stopped speaking abruptly before continuing, “Scratch that, single figure spotted at the top of the hill, not one of ours, maybe 75 yards, an easy shot, permission to fire.”

A static sound buzzed in his ear, “Permission granted.” said the voice of an older man.
Salem grinned, “Taking the sho-” there was a slight whoosh of air and Salem fell silent before falling limp.

“Salem! Report, is the target down? What’s your status?” the older voice was yelling into the ear of the silent soldier, “God dammit! Someone get down there and check out what the Hell’s going on!”

Soon, a group of three soldiers cautiously approached Salem’s prone body. One of the soldiers nudged his body with the muzzle of his gun. Nothing. The soldier flipped Salem over to discover an arrow protruding from his left eye socket.
“What the Hell?” said the soldier, backing up from the rest of the group. His hand reached down and groped for his walkie-talkie, it was nowhere to be found. Before he could say anything more of the matter, a shadow came behind him and pulled him away, the only sound a faint gasp of surprise from the soldier.

The others turned to find nothing, “Where’d he go?” wondered a soldier with short, red hair, “I don’t know, keep your guard.” said the other soldier, a tall, black man growing a beard.

They went back-to-back, leaving a small space between them. Again, the shadow came, this time grabbing the black man from the side, covering his mouth, pulling him away and bending him backwards. A slight, metallic sound emitted when the shadow stabbed a knife into the chest of the man, killing him and disappearing a moment later, letting the body fall to the ground.

The red-haired man turned and swore, “How the ********?!” he said, panic started to rise, he bent down to check out his fallen comrade and grunted, “God…” he muttered, standing up. A pebble fell from the nearby rooftop, bouncing off of his shoulder. He looked up, his M16 trained on the rooftop.

After a moment, he lowered the gun and sighed, “Must be nothi-” he cut himself off with a short yelp of surprise as the body of his missing soldier fell from the roof, knocking the red-haired soldier to the ground, staring up to the sky. A silhouette, the shadow, peered over the rooftop, what appeared to be a bow was in his hands. The soldier managed to open his mouth before an arrow shot through the dead body into his throat. A slight rush of air escaped from the soldier’s deflating lungs before he fell silent.

A static sound came from one of the soldier’s walkie-talkie, “Rios? Miller? Report, dammit!” it was the older man from before. An alarm wailed in the compound, red lights flashing and soldiers rushing outside. Among them were sounds of confusion.
Several came over to discover the dead bodies, “Holy s**t.” mumbled one apparently a higher-ranking soldier than the others, “Search the area, we’ve got hostiles in the area.” He ordered, bending down to inspect the bodies. He took the arrow and tried to remove it unsuccessfully, “Who the hell did this?” he asked himself.

The click of a button sounded out and the man instantly stood. An explosion destroyed most the opposite half of the compound, sending debris and bodies flying and causing a fire.

The remaining soldiers were now heading in the direction of the explosions, with the exception of the man who heard the button being press. He walked into the darkness and came to a halt.

Inches from his forehead was the tip of an arrow, “s**t…” he said. An instant later, he was on the ground, not dead, no arrow in his head, but unconscious.
An arrow quickly followed the soldiers heading for the explosion, penetrating the rear soldier’s neck as he turned along with another soldier’s back that was directly in front of him.

The other soldiers turned and changed their direction to the site where the first deaths occurred.

The shadow appeared in front of them before disappearing. A few soldiers sent scattered bursts of fire but hit nothing. The soldier in the rear of the group stopped in his tracks, blood began to spew from his throat and he fell to the ground. The remaining four soldiers turned and they all immediately joined backs and cautiously kept an eye out for the shadow, nothing.

The sound of rushing air came and one more soldier fell dead, an arrow decorating his forehead. Three remaining. A few seconds later, a small object bounced in the middle of the three, it came from the opposite side of the gunshot, “Grenade!” yelled a green-eyed woman as she dove away. The others repeated her actions, one diving on the grenade in an attempt to muffle the explosion.

The grenade went off, shredding the man’s chest and sending the other flying into a wall. The woman managed to remain unharmed from the grenade. The man that hit the wall began to stand, only to be pinned to the wall by an arrow. The woman got to her feet and spotted the shadow. She raised her gun to fire but stopped. She slowly looked down, a knife was in her chest. She dropped the gun, and then she dropped.

Several minutes later, the high-ranking soldier awoke and stumbled to where the woman had fallen and knelt down. The knife was gone, along with every arrow and every body other than the woman’s. He stood, the shadow flashed to his right. He let out a small gasp and turned to the shadow. A shuffle, the shadow was now behind him. He turned again, nothing. To his left! Nothing.

A whistle came from behind him and the soldier turned to see the shadow rushing at him, a knife gripped in his right hand. The soldier raised his gun to fire, but the shadow knock the gun up using both hands, sending the shot astray, the shadow followed this up with a knee to the soldiers stomach and then the butt of the shadow’s knife to the soldier’s spine.
The soldier was sent stumbling forward but managed to keep his balance.

He turned to face the shadow, the shadow had eyes, it seemed, a killer’s eyes. The soldier drew his sidearm, a 9MM pistol, and leveled it at the shadow as it stood. He pulled the trigger, a faint click, but no bullet. A devilish grin spread across the shadow’s face as he drew close to the soldier.

“Dammit!” swore the soldier, throwing his gun aside and charging at the shadow. The shadow side-stepped and threw a vicious uppercut at the man’s jaw, sending his head upwards. Before the soldier’s head stopped moving, the shadow’s leg was up and around the back of his neck, pulling him downwards. The instant the shadow’s foot hit the ground, its other leg shot up, sending a knee to the man’s gut once again, this time flipping the man over the shadow’s leg and sending him to the floor on his back.

As this all happened, the shadow reversed it’s grip on the knife and the instant the man hit the ground, the shadow was upon him, lodging the blade of the knife in between the soldier’s ribs. The soldier grunted and blood came from his lips, but he didn’t die.

For the first time, the soldier could almost clearly see the shadow’s face as it stood over him. The shadow wiped the knife clean and sheathed it. It now pulled out a handgun with a silencer attached. The shadow then pulled out a clip, the soldier’s clip, and loaded it into the gun before leveling it at the soldier.

“You b***h…” were the soldier’s last words before the shadow ended his life.

A static sound came in the shadow’s ear, “You did well, Xander, but did you have to make such a mess?” it was a woman’s voice.

The shadow, Xander, shook his head and grunted, as if that answered the question.

“You know, you could talk, we are paying your salary after all.”

Xander sighed, “You know, I could just kill you and take the money.” he said, mocking her. His voice was deep and grating.

The woman suddenly seem very uncomfortable, “Um, right, I’ll just shut up.” she let out a nervous laugh, “I’ll just let you know if there’s any change in plans.”

Xander cracked his neck as he stood among the aftermath of his work, “Where to next?” he asked her.

Connor led the way into the hangar where he held a short conversation with the dockmaster. They were directed to a sleek, futuristic car that was just getting down being refueled. Connor headed for the driver's seat.
"Let's get going," he said. "We're off to get some info."

((Consider it skipped.))

Connor stopped the car and opened his door. "And that's the reason that it was so easy to track down that elusive particle."
He shaded his eyes as the sun glared down. "We're waiting for someone," he said in answer to Kurtis' unasked question.

Professional mercenary Tiki Xero was on his way to a meeting with a friend when he got a call on his private phone. That meant trouble.
With a sigh, he pulled it out. "Tiki Xero here," he said shortly. He listened for about five minutes. "Sounds fine to me. The money will be wired to my account, yeah?" Pause. "OK. I'm near there anyways. Consider it done."
Hanging up, he slid the phone into his pocket. Putting his hands on the back of his head as he walked casually down an abandoned road. Alone, it might have seemed desolate and lonely, but the colorful and charismatic Tiki didn't seem to notice.
He turned around and went back to his car. Glancing at his watch, he groaned. "I'm gonna be late," he said. "Damn." He floored the car, screeching out of his spot and flying up the road.
He made it in time to see the flames as they were just dying down. "Oh?" he said in mild interest. "What have we here?" He got out and began to walk towards the fire. He planned to investigate the cause and all that.

"He's going to be late," Connor said with a soft laugh as they stood by his future car.

Connor nodded. They made idle chitchat (albeit of a very high-level scientific nature) while they waited for Connor's friend.

Gray smiled politely. "No thank you. Please, sit down." He gestured at her chair. This might be her place, but his force of personality sort of took over.
"I trust you know the true dealings that your father was a part of?" he asked after she sat down.

The young man stepped back a little, raising his hands. "I'm sorry! Look, I'm just a foot soldier around here. I won't even be accompanying you on this mission! Save your questions for Commander St. Cyrill, please!"

Tiki strode through the gate, his hands thrust into his pockets, as he yawned widely. "Let's see what we can find," he said.
He began to pick around, but there seemed no evidence of anything within the wreckage. "Well, it was definitely intentional," he said to himself as he rubbed his fingers along the soot. Soot this dark was caused by a chemical reaction.
He looked around. "Anything else?" He had a habit of talking to his environment, whether or not it answered.