[R] Mission: Impossible (Khal/Toki/Janice/Vera)

[Molten Tigrex]

The email from Captain H

THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING:

WELCOME ABOARD 'YOU'RE SCREWED SIX WAYS TILL SUNDAY' AIRWAYS, FINAL DESTINATION THE GATES OF HELL. FLIGHT LEAVES FROM SHUFFLEPUCK CAFE SUNDAY NIGHT @ 9, TABLE IN BACK. DON'T HAVE THE TIME? MAKE TIME.

EXPECT SOME TURBULENCE.

OVER AND OUT.
-- CAPTAIN H

Or at least, that was what the email Toki Framont and Janice Fitzpatrick found waiting for them the other day. There were no follow-ups, no replies if they sought more information. Just a cryptic message from their 'captain'. If it was really a captain... a Negaverse captain... it was probably not a good idea to ignore it. Best to just check it out, right?

It was just about 9 o'clock and the Shufflepuck Cafe was surprisingly crowded. It was also surprisingly dark. Individual words were quickly lost in the currents of conversation throughout the room, a rumble that turned into white noise around any listener. Who would overhear them, nestled in the noisiest part of the room? There was such a thing as hiding in plain sight.

Khaldun was sitting farthest in the back, feet up on the table and chair leaning back precariously. He was dressed like he was planning to hold up a convenience store after he was done with his coffee, with his sweatshirt hood up indoors and one arm slung over the back of the chair. A textbook, a map, a spiral-bound notebook, and a beaten-up pen had been tossed on the table as though he'd arrived early to a study party. The teenager was watching the door for newcomers, just in case his authority had been questioned. Just in case two-thirds of his team blew off their captain's summons and dared not to show up... to a coffee shop. Well. He couldn't think of anywhere better on short notice, and he wasn't going to freeze his a** off in the Negaverse subspace if he could avoid it. This wasn't the look of a high-tech, well-oiled war machine. It was the look of a war machine someone was trying to build out of their garage in their spare time with the spare parts left over from the soap box derby.

As far as Khaldun was concerned, they were already screwed from the start.  

[Lilwolfpard]

After countless hours of thinking and staring at her macbook, Toki had finally gotten the gall enough to try and reply back to this email that she originally thought was Junk mail. The only thing that lead her to believe this might be real was A: Howd they get her ******** email. B: it said captain... and C: Who else did she know whom would make such a cheesy and smart a** email? The first captain she met sure seemed like he would... But this one might be different, because it was not signed 'Captain O."

Later she found her email to go unreplied to, this did piss her off slightly but she decided to take it out on someone else later. While every fiber in her body was unsure if this was real, or even a trap, she knew one thing for sure: She had to go. If this was really a summoning, she could not ignore it. Orders were orders.

So she asked her weekend job to let her off an hour early so she could have time to clean up before going to the cafe. What an interesting place for a meeting anyways... were they going to sip coffee and gossip about who killed what? Or was this going to be a tea party with little cakes....She was unsure but she decided to keep her guard up none the less.

She walked into the cafe looking almost lost... she had never been here so she decided to just wear whatever the hell she wanted. (which consisted of blue jeans a tank top and a grey coat over this) How was she supposed to tell the negaverse agents from the normal peons anyways? She sighed and rolled her eyes. Moving inside she decided to wait to order anything- to the employee's disapproval. She looked like she was waiting for someone as she leaned against a wall near the door frame. "Better not be a ******** hoax..." She mumbled under her breath as her pink eyes darted around attempting to pin point a individual. She hoped there wasnt some unspoken code word that said "yes im a ******** Lt", else wise she might never be found.  

[Molten Tigrex]

His eyes alighted on one of the newcomers, and he watched, waiting. Nealite had met everyone in the Negaverse before in civilian form as well as in uniform, so she'd given him some vague descriptions of Fayalite in civilian form, as Toki. That girl matched what he'd been told, kind of. Well, only one way to really find out. Khaldun deftly tore out a piece of paper from the notebook, scribbled something with the pen, and began to meticulously fold a paper airplane. It was an art form, and a convenient way to get a message across a room. He was certainly taking advantage of it when he sent the plane sailing to strike the girl right in the shoulder.

In smudged, barely legible handwriting across both wings were the words 'screwed six ways till sunday airways'. Unfolded, on the back, was a crude map pointing her from the door to the back of the room where the conversation was loudest and, much to Toki's dislike, the people were most concentrated. If she cared to look over to where she was being directed, Khaldun was staring pointedly. He was clearly not up to speed on how to blend in with the crowd. He was also, presumably, the annoying 'Captain H'... Hematite?  

[Lilwolfpard]

Tokis patience was growing thin as the seconds flew by- was this indeed a prank email? If so- she had more to worry about if some senshi or even some sheep found her out. Her anxiety started to manifest to a uncomfortable point, enough to when the small flying object hit it caused her to sidestep upon impact. Her neon pink eyes drifted to the small object and she caught the paper plane before it touched the ground.

"Screfed six wans till sumdays airways?" She whispered to herself- tilting the plane back and forth and squinting at it. If she had not received the email, she would not have known what the hell this was about. The chicken scratch handwriting was horrible, but from gut instinct she knew what the phrase meant. Unfolding the paper airplane ( could there be anything more complicated? i mean hell a simple 6 fold plane would have sufficed!) she also understood the map. The circle was where she was, the square was the building, so she guessed X marked the spot.

Lifting her gaze- she soon met the eyes of someone staring back at her. He did not seem to fit in with the crowd, plus the way he looked at her was almost as if he was daring her to not put 2+2 together. Thankfully, toki passed math class.

Her peripheral gaze shifted though, once she realized that she had to move from her little spot of solitude... and into the most congested, packed together, noisiest spot of humans in the whole complex. She groaned and out of instinct grabbed her arm with her free hand. The other hand clutched the paper airplane a little more tightly. Sucking in a gulp of air, she silently cursed her 'condition', and pushed forward into the swarms of people. One guy decided to bump up against her- which to his great dismay caused her to shove him aside with a scowl on her face. The further she went into the group, the more restless she grew. Once close enough, she eyed the objects on the table and the man sitting. "Captain."  

[cibarium]

While finding and recognizing the mysterious "Captain H" was a bit of a tribulation for Toki, for Janice it was as simple as peering towards the table in the back upon entering the cafe and donning an exasperated sneer upon seeing the pile of slimy dreadlocks that awaited her in between the throngs of people that sat and flowed around him like some sort of living moat. So it was Hematite; Khaldun Cilentani. Fantastic. Utterly fantastic. This was honestly the last person she ever wanted Vera exposed to, but it looked like there was no hope for that now.

After exchanging a let's just get this over with look with the pretty redhead trailing closely behind her she stalked her way slowly over to the table -- she was meticulous about getting there, careful to weave her way around the crowds in such a way that her companion's personal space wouldn't be harmed -- and she was there some seconds after Toki had started eyeing the table. Janice gave the other a sourly sympathetic glance before checking again to make sure Vera was still in good shape, and then turned her attention over to Khaldun.

"I'll have to hand it to you, Captain, before I thought you were a total meathead with no higher functioning capacity besides that which allowed you to string together a bad pickup line," she was saying, while letting a hand rest on the table. She was wearing her familiar sweater vest and piano tie, her hair draping around her face like a somber, unflattering angry curtain. "But at least you have some sense on how to arrange a meeting in a public place. This is Vera,"

And she somewhat begrudgingly brought their attention to her violet-eyed charge with a wave of a long hand, "who recently became my study partner in geology class. I'm helping her put together a small project on a mineral called vivianite, which has some properties to it that make it a lot more interesting than most other ones you'll find."  

[Ithiltari]

Vera looked entirely unamused as she followed behind Janice obediently. Of course, Vera always looked vaguely unamused at everything going on around her, so this was no large surprise for anyone who knew her (basically Janice). She had argued, half-heartedly, that she hadn't been included on the e-mail invitation/order, but the counter-argument had been rather persuasive. It boiled down to the fact that, for better or worse, Uranophane was Vivianite's commanding officer, and so Vera would go with Janice to meet her commanding officer.

Following in Janice's wake was easy enough - the other girl made absolutely sure that no one would ever ever get close enough to even slightly obstruct Vera's path. A slight tilt of her head indicated a desire to sit, and her companion obligingly pulled out one of the chair for her. Vera sat demurely at the table, crossing her ankles and looking at Toki and Khaldun with only faint interest in her eyes.  

[Molten Tigrex]

"Miz Framont," he replied, still staring at her while he twirled the pen between his fingers. It was still difficult to put together this appearance with the more recognizable one of Fayalite. He'd get it eventually. "Have a seat. I was going to say we're expecting company, but it's right behind you."

"Janice." Khaldun spoke her name with about the same enthusiasm as he had for swallowing glass. His expression was less a smile and more a thin line that, by complete chance, curved upward. "And here I mistakenly thought you found a way to break the three laws of robotics you're programmed with. Why don't you and your girlfriend have a seat, Mr. Fitzpatrick?"

"Vivianite, huh? I hope one of those properties is managing to hit things you throw it at. I'm doing a side project on Hematite for extra credit, myself. Look, this isn't a charity study group, Manice - if she doesn't 'get it' and fast, I'm not wasting my time tutoring her on anything. And that means your girlfriend'll get stuck with a different tutor." He glanced over at Vera with a slight squint, as though looking at her a different way would explain everything he didn't know about her. Also to check her out. Truth be told, he was not above hitting on her. But any friend of Janice's was liable to be just like her. And that wasn't worth the effort or the broken fingers tonight. Well, Janice's progressively more gender-confused appearance aside, this team had a good ratio of men to women. "Well, whatever special properties your friend's little project has, they've got nothing on what's on the final exam. Which is why I made sure you all dragged your asses here tonight."

"You've all been... assigned... to this study group by our... teacher. Indefinitely. Because you all don't know jack s**t about geology." Khaldun glanced around the table as he spoke, from Toki to Janice to Vera, somewhere between gloating and seeming as if this were all incredibly below him to bother with. "So let me lay down a ground rule: I don't give a s**t. I don't give a s**t about you, I don't give a s**t about your problems at home, I don't give a s**t about your problems with me. If you don't follow my directions at all times, you will fail this test, and if you fail this test, well, I don't expect to see you again. But I promise to throw a single flower on your grave before I flip off your headstone. Any questions?"

A finger was suddenly pointed in the direction of the brown-haired girl while Khaldun leaned back in his chair. "Toki. Why don't you open that textbook and read me a few facts on the mineral... Kunzite?"  

[Lilwolfpard]

Turning around she also noticed the two approaching individuals and nodded a greeting. Toki might have been slow on the uptake- but after pulling out one of the chairs and sitting, she caught on. It did help in fact that the book was there- and this discussion of minerals. She pin pointed the minerals in discussion, and from matched names to faces. She leaned back in her chair while she listened, trying to ignore the fact that they were surrounded by people. Noisy people. She did not like being in groups of people, not ones THIS large anyways. During the conversation about 'class projects' Toki managed to slip in a sentence about her extra credit assignment was the mineral Fayalite.

What she also seemed to home in on was the general dislike that their captain and Janice had. It could have even been that obvious to someone deaf watching the group. The tones they used against one another and even the body language screamed 'i do not ******** like you.' Even when the captain had addressed them saying he was their leader, Toki just listened. She would normally be more chatty but she dared not open her mouth and speak freely for the moment- she needed to gather her thoughts and zone out the lambs surrounding them... if she did not she would lose her temper, and that was not a really pretty sight.

She stirred and sat up once she was addressed and ordered to read from the school book. She was not sure if she was composed enough to speak at the moment. In this game of cat and mouse though, it was the mouse whom showed weakness whom was eaten. Kunzite? Was this another Lieutenant or even Captain they were expecting? Grasping the book she flipped it open until she found the correct page, a pink gem greeting her in the upper right corner.

" Kunzite is the pink to light purple gem variety of the mineral Spodumene. Spodumene is a common mineral, but only in a few select localities does it occur in transparent gem form. One gem form is the pink kunzite, and another gem form is the green hiddenite. Kunzite is a very attractive pink gem, but is notorious for its habit of color fading in strong light. Some deep pink stones have turned nearly colorless..." She continued on reading the book- how ******** boring can this book be? She was just glad that her voice stayed steady the whole time- and she did not add in random curses.
 

[cibarium]

Janice made a point to seat herself in between Vera and Khaldun: while this unfortunately meant she was within arm's length of their gaunt, dreadlocked captain, it was a pill worth swallowing to make sure he didn't get any of the wrong ideas about Vera. And while their Captain may have been a particular case with a justified history to it -- it seemed probable that Janice was going to act like this around anyone who so much as noticed that Vera was pretty. Which was a bit exasperating to think about, even if it was a nice barrier against potentially greater sources of annoyance.

Janice regarded Toki with her typical look of muted interest as she opened the textbook and read word-for-word the excerpt on kunzite, an eyebrow slowly rising up to brush against her bangs when she realized the fellow lieutenant literally was just blindly following along what was on the page.

"If I may," she softly interjected into a pausing point in the reading, "I think you might have missed the lecture the teacher gave that went over this topic." Leaning forward, she folded her arms over one another on the table, passing glances between Khaldun, Toki and Vera before continuing. "There were some implications that knowing the right things about kunzite can make or break the grade for the entire class. But the fading of its color is definitely something worth noting, I remember him mentioning that he used to have a piece in his collection that was ruined that way."  

[Ithiltari]

Vera managed to look surprised at Khaldun's obviously coded speech regarding tutors; he must not have been told about who she was. Which was interesting. But ultimately, unimportant - he'd find out soon enough, and with a mental shrug, the girl dismissed it. A certain (very small) part of her was looking forward towards the surprise, but it was a part of herself that Vera was used to ignoring. However, she'd managed to miss part of the conversation, and as such, was entirely lost when Khaldun requested a recitation on the mineral kunzite.

A frown crossed her face as Toki started reading from the book. Kunzite? She'd been warned - in rather colorful language - to stay away from someone bearing that name. The description had gotten more than a little confused; Charonite had rambled about 'him' while having laid out what sounded like a female, but Vera had just accepted it. Now, however...

"I was told," she said after Janice had spoken, "that trying to find kunzite was asbolutely something I should not do." That had been the interesting part. Charonite had gotten very serious, and had stopped swearing, in order to make that point to her. Vera's head titled only slightly to the side in question, which was, for her, simply a way to ask 'Well?' without actually saying anything.  

[Ithiltari]

((With mowse and lil's permission, this is to wrap the RP. XD; ))

Khaldun had spoken - at some length - their new orders, although in a very roundabout fashion. Honestly, there had to be a better way to have team meetings than out in public where anyone could hear them. Vera was thoroughly bored by the end of the meeting, as no one had been informed of her abilities or indeed, her existence, which had necessitated a bit of explanation on the 'properties' of Vivianite.

The most the girl was willing to say for hew erstwhile new team was that Khaldun had competent people serving under him. Alas, Vera cherished no illusions that he himself was competent. It was around when Janice had decided that mere words were insufficient for hammering her points home and had taken to standing and jabbing a finger at Khaldun that Vera intervened and asked if there was really anything else that they needed to discuss and if not, could they please go, people were likely to be suspicious of them.

Grudging permission granted, the pink-haired girl practically dragged her friend away, hoping that any future encounters would go better than this had.

They'd almost have to.