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 Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:13 pm
With Prissy having been informed of things, Chase was working through his list of people he chose to reach out to. The list was obvious, the first people he would turn to would be those that had served with him or under him that he still trusted.
Priscilla, Suri, Regan, and potentially Otto. If he could find her, then Alkaid.
He had yet to decide if he would request that the pack's mauvians join them, but considering that their senshi were likely to say yes, he couldn't see them saying no. Trey was one that he was still deliberating. Things had not been the smoothest between them, with the team, with his issues and Chase had chosen to wait to decide if he would be extending an offer to join.
It would wait, until he finished speaking with the others. With a team of eternals and generals behind him, his confidence held strong and if he slipped...Zircon and Dia would be able to step up and reign him in. In theory.
Suri...
She'd find herself receiving a text message requesting her presence in his office, if she failed to respond or chose to ignore it, she'd receive and email that was less politely worded with the threat that she wouldn't like what might happen if he had to come down and retrieve her.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:56 pm
Suri spent most of her civilian hours in the basement of Argent Industries, working with engineers and interns to develop cutting edge visual presentation technology. After hours, she used much of the same equipment to look into the nature of more supernatural waves, the light that came off of starseeds, their auras. She posited that if she could find a way to quantifiably read these signals, then the applications would be unlimited--they could set trackers at every major waypoint in the city, triangulate movements, learn about order patrol patterns. If the waves could be imitated, then perhaps they could even be reversed, which opened up an interesting and exciting can of worms.
Worst case scenario, she was back to the drawing board. But if her math was right, she could end the war.
A decent amount of shmoozing and a charitable donation had earned her the right to play with DCU's newest spectrophotometer, on loan for the week so she could play with it before making a decision on whether or not they would need one for her personal lab. She'd cleared out any social obligations, all of her meetings--the only date she was going on was between her and this light reader, and she was eager to get to number crunching.
And then, she received a notification on her phone, a small request that wasn't really a request. Chase Black was not the sort of man to be kept waiting, and there wasn't any amount of hemming and hawing she could do to change that. With a sigh, she gave her date a rain check and threw on her cardigan, making her way to the elevator to take the smooth ride from the bottom to the top.
Suri acknowledged the secretary with only a passing glance--she assumed that if she was to report immediately, that she wouldn't be interrupting any of his other responsibilities by just stopping by.
"You're lucky I hadn't started calibrations yet," Suri called out, closing the door softly behind her as she entered his office. "My phone would have been off for hours." There was a time when she'd wanted something like this for herself--open space, a room with a view--but she'd come to like the space she was given. It was quiet and peaceful, barring the occasional interruption.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:31 pm
His back was to the door, stock of pink visible just over the back of his chair. One leg was crossed over the other, ankle resting atop the knee of the other, and his hands were laced with his elbows seated upon the arm rests. Whiskey gold looked out the window and it took a minute, even after Suri spoke up for him to turn around.
"Lock the door," he instructed, then absent mindedly added, "please." Suri earned a caliber of respect more than his girlfriend. For one, the woman actually worked for him and worked beside him. Giving orders was second nature to him now, despite the fact that they were more equals than they'd been before.
"Sit," Chase said, gesturing at the pair of chairs that sat across from him.
Once settled, he plucked the tablet pen from the inside of his suit jacket and opened it. The display lit up with images of a city that might have looked familiar, but was potentially new. Europe was large enough and though Suri had done work with the branch across the seas but that didn't mean that she worked in Witzend.
"I assume you remember that Laurelite hails from Europe," he started, messing with the images on display until one of a half-destroyed building was the focus. "Recently a sister operation in Witzend, England has become compromised."
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:40 pm
Suri raised an eyebrow at the order, but it was a tone she knew to kneel to all the same. She reached behind her for the lock, and with a tidy click she turned it shut, then took her place at the chair before him. Knitting her hands together to keep them from shaking, she crossed her ankles under her, right over left, and kept her gaze steady as he showed her the images. Not Destiny City, or any part that she knew of it.
"I recall," she answered tentatively, not quite following his line of thinking. Her gaze narrowed, looking at the half-crumbled ruins of a building, and she pursed her lips when she heard the name Witzend, England. "I worked on a project with a captain out of Witzend, the last time I was in Milan," she added, the gears turning behind her eyes. Chase would not bring her all the way up here to gossip. What was he getting at?
"Compromised as in...a senshi presence?" Suri frowned. The last she'd heard, there was no senshi presence in Europe. Any guardian cat found alive was dealt with accordingly, and with no mautech available to the population no senshi could awaken. But even a single mauvian could wreak havoc on a well-run operation, given enough time to gather resources--and she doubted that any European officer had seen the sort of combat Destiny City was known for.
"Laurelite can't exactly leave her post here to address the issue," she retorted, leaning forward to inspect the photo more closely. "It's difficult enough to hold the line here." Her eyes flickered up to Chase, and she paused, wanting to pick his brain but still trying to think of the right question to ask.
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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:17 am
Chase was not a man who was very emotive but there was a thin press of his lips that indicated the worst when matched with the slightest crinkle in his brow. "Yes," he replied, "the whole operation has been compromised by a senshi attack."
Multiple attacks, if he'd read the reports right.
"It would be unreasonable to assume that she would," he agreed, a slow exhale before he turned the tablet back towards him and closed it, returning it to pen form. "She has tasked me with the job, for her." He had no intention of divulging the intimacies of their conversation, they weren't relevant to the mission it's self as far as he was concerned, but there was a special privilege, he felt, being asked to undertake a mission by the queen herself.
Edges of his mouth ticked upwards when he looked at her. "I'm assembling a team."
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Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:40 pm
Suri's eyes flickered at the way Chase said 'whole operation'--her lips twitched, too, but down where Chase's always went up. But she didn't react at all when he told her that he'd been assigned the job, her expression frozen while she processed this information, thought through what she was going to say next. If Chase was leaving again, then...what? Would the pack fall apart again? Was he bringing her here to tell her that she was no longer needed, that he was selecting a new second-in-command and putting her out to pasture?
She could not be replaced, Suri told herself, before her pulse could climb any higher. Things were different. She'd carved out a new role for herself--led her own team, small as it was.
Still, there was no hiding the nervous twitch in her hands, and Suri didn't bother pretending like Chase couldn't read her like a book. She met his gaze with hers, even if it was apprehensive, and somehow managed not to cower while her mind concocted a thousand ways she'd be ruined by this news.
"Are you asking me to go or stay?" Her lips pursed, and she did her best to keep her posture tall, her chin up. It was pointless to play guessing games with herself when he was right there to ask.
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Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:51 pm
The weight of his gaze was a heavy thing, Chase taking in every little twitch and shift of Suri's body language. When he tried to think of the number of years they'd known each other, he found himself blanking. Nearly his whole length of service, more intimately over recent years than before but there'd been little of his life as Metallia's solider that Suri, or her counterpart Zircon, did not color.
Even when they'd been separated he had haunted him. Not quite a ghost, but not a shadow either.
"I expect you to accompany me."
Expectations and orders. High standards and reprimand when expectations weren't met. That was how he led and while Chase bent, tailored the way he handled each of his subordinates, he always presented himself the ace.
"I understand that you have things you are working on here, but I would prefer to have the pack with me. All of them."
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Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 7:58 pm
Suri couldn't tell if she was unnerved or relieved by his verdict, but she exhaled all the same. For all that she'd known him, for years and years, she didn't speak the language of his whiskey eyes, couldn't suss out a hidden meaning if there was one. They'd been warmer, once upon a time in a warehouse, but now they were just chilled and hungry. She wondered what he saw in the way she wore war, if he was proud or disappointed.
"I'll make arrangements--there's nothing I'm doing here that can't be continued elsewhere," she yielded, folding her hands in her lap. Her research would be slowed, without her facility and staff at her disposal, but she could make it work. And though she wouldn't tell Chase, not here at least, she'd had a run-in with a certain ghost of her past recently that made her more amenable to leaving the country for a few days. Weeks would be even more ideal.
"When do we need to be prepared to leave?" Suri bowed her head. Chase made it so easy to kneel.
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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:16 pm
While there was no joy in his expression, his mouth continued to tilt up to wear the smirk that Suri was undoubtedly familiar with. She might have even seen a sliver of who he used to be, before he wore the weight of his power on his shoulders and the control in his spine.
"You have a week or two," he replied, almost sounding pleased at her responses. "I am still choosing officers to accompany us, if you have recommendations, I will take them under advisement."
He knew of Suri's own fledging flock and she worked with others that he had not. While he questioned her judgement, as she surely questioned his, he also trusted it...to a degree.
"If you have any special accommodations you need, you have three days to get them to me." He clucked his tongue. "The sooner all affairs are sorted the better, we don't want to let the senshi get too comfortable with their false reclamation."
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Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:18 pm
Suri thought, nodded her head, but didn't deign to lift her gaze. "If there's room on your roster, I'd like to take one of my lieutenants," she posited, after careful consideration. "I'll need Miss Powers to stay and tend to Maverick, but I have a new member on my roster who needs some personal attention to learn his manners." She said it in a way that did not invite commentary regarding her own history with discipline as a subordinate, because she had been a different case than either of the recruits she'd picked up. Sinoite was a pain and a bother, but at least he was turning in his quotas with a little less lip for her generous lease on his life. Aventurine, however, had a potential that could either be squandered or molded, and Zircon wanted to seize the opportunity before bad habits could settle in.
Different methods for different lieutenants. This was all starting to feel needlessly complicated.
"I understand," she replied, taking the opportunity to stand but waiting on his express permission before turning for the door. "If you'll send me the briefing information you're at liberty to share, I'll think of what we'll need." A list of the deceased parties, she thought to herself, but didn't say out loud. Suri was sure whatever the outcome would be revealed in time.
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Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 10:24 am
"Send me his information," Chase replied, already going back to reviewing files. If Suri wished to bring one of hers, he was unlikely to deny her. She was, after all, the only one still beneath his wing to have subordinates.
Besides, he wanted her to see how difficult being in charge could be.
"You'll receive necessary information soon," came his answer. When he looked back at her, his brows raised. "If I need you for something, I'll call."
And just like that, Suri had been dismissed.
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