beyond the pale {cryowake mission 01}

[rook]

commander abraham

Soldiers, this is your mission brief. I am aware that this is your first venture into the field, but let me be clear, there is no excuse nor margin for error out there. Treat every situation as if your own life depends on it - it may just.

>> THE MISSION

Before we can carry out a consistent guerrilla attack on the Capitol and hit them where it hurts, we first need to establish a reliable base of operations between the boundary and the Capitol's supply lines. There is a good thicket of trees half a mile from the main railway network that has good visual cover and enough area to store supplies.

We identified this small forest as our primary target for setting up a base, however when Elliot visited last there about six months ago, there was a wild muttation within the trees. It was too big for her to fight on her own, so we withdrew, abandoning the sector and making note to revisit in the future. This is where you come in, A-Team. Remove the bogey from the area and secure it as a safe rendezvous point for future operations.

This will be a good opportunity to use the mechsuits in the open for the first time without alerting the Capitol to our presence. Discretion is of the highest priority, whilst there will be no patrols this far out, you still run the risk of being spotted by any passing trains if you are not in the cover of the forest.

However, we do not expect there to be any trains running in the next few days. A large supply was delivered from this network a few hours ago, so it's very unlikely there will be any issue on that front. It is good practice to stay vigilant, and be aware that this could be an issue on future missions.

Once you have removed the muttation, radio back and await further instructions.

>> THE LOGISTICS

Storm has loaded the three mechsuits into the back of the truck. This will be driven to the district boundary, where a friend of ours from Thirteen will authorise passage to the outside. Storm will park the truck at the usual drop-off point, about a half mile outside the boundary, where we used to offload Elliot's suit - it is a small cave carved into a mountain. This is where you will "wake up" in your suits. Exit the cave and head for the coordinates on your display to start your mission.

You will see on your head up display the condition of you and your fellow operative's suits, as well as your current synch rate and vitals.

If the mission goes successfully, return to the drop-off point for Storm to re-collect the mechsuits. Go offline and you will wake up in your cryotanks here in the warehouse.

>> THE TEAM



A-Team will take this one. Everyone will get their time to shine eventually, but we need to start somewhere.

A1, Kipling, your exceptional sync-rate was no surprise. Under your leadership, we are confident of a successful outcome to this venture. We must stress Scarlet how important it is to keep things simple and professional. Take no unnecessary risks and use your superior judgement. You are in charge, we trust you to make the right calls.

A2, Hargrave, your sub-par test results were disappointing, but we know what you can do in a fight. We are relying on you to be the firepower here, give that Mutt hell, but show restraint when needed too - we will be watching and listening to everything. Do as Kipling commands and show us why we brought you on-board.

A3, Carrow, we know how long you have been waiting for this, so now show us what you can do, we want to see a good display from you. Apply what you have learned and do Panem proud. Communicate as a team and apply yourself as you did in training and you will shine today, we are certain of that.

>> CLOSING REMARKS

That's it. You're all set. The mechs are on their way to the boundary now. Change into your submersion swimsuits and head over to the cryotanks to be submerged and synched with the suits.

Good luck, soldiers.

--

(ooc: mission #1 starts here! For your first posts, please write out your operative heading to the tanks, submerging, then waking up in control of the mechsuits, before heading to the coordinates. My next post will have further instructions for you. In the meantime, the engine link is here for aesthetic but also to show you all have 40hp - any questions about lore/details just message me!)

[✨]

↳ STORM SARMIENTO

"I didn't sign up to be a babysitter."

She chews on her cheek as she concentrates, wrist tilting back and forth as she loosens a bolt on the bottom of the truck with a wrench.

"All of them are adults," her superior had remarked. "They're all capable of looking after themselves."

"Coulda fooled me," she responded, bored already, sliding from one side of the truck to the other on her mechanics creeper. As she spoke, she didn't once look up from her work.

"I'll drive the truck and fix the suits if they get damaged," she agreed, "but if anything goes haywire I'm not responsible for those kids."

"You're not responsible," the superior repeated. "You just need to drive the suits to the boundary, pass through, unload and wait for them to finish. Don't even have to leave the comfort of the driver's seat."

Only now did she cease her work with a final twist of the wrench and a grunt, sliding out from underneath the machine with a frown. Storm's face was slicked with oil drops and grease, her mouth tasted like steel. "Tell me again how this is better than rotting in the DC? Because in the DC they didn't put me in charge of anyone or anything."

Her superior smiled and turned away - "Because in the DC, the DC are in charge of you. Here, you're at least in charge of yourself."

The woman considered this for a moment, brushing a strand of hair back from her eyes with a gloved finger and huffed. "Fine," she conceded. "But if one of them starts crying there's no law in Panem that prevents slapping a little bitch!"

A laugh, and the footsteps retreated.

Now Storm stood ajar from the group, back leaning against the truck door parked in the bay, looking at their baby faces with their shining eyes. Barely a flush in their cheeks, barely a line etched from age in their foreheads. They might as well be kids, no idea what they're getting into. She bet none of them had outrun Keeper bullets, watching their friends and families drop like flies around them. Bet none of them had been dragged by their hair and thrown into a cell after a routine torture session for information. Bet none of them knew half of what she had seen in her undisclosed number of years in this hell country. Children, all of them - and if they died playing stupid games in their silly little suits, so be it.

But Carrow, eh. She had a soft spot for the scrappy girl, talking to her machines like they were her friends. Not that she'd let that slip, but she found it endearing. For all the girl's rebellion and the near-narcissistic need to stand out in the crowd - much of which reminded Storm of a younger version of herself - it was Carrow's company that she despised the least. At least the girl knew how to switch a drill part and how not to fry her eyebrows off with a blowtorch. 

And truth was, deep down, that floating body of Elliot gave her the fuckin' creeps. She'd seen a lot of dead bodies in her hay-day, but none just... suspended like that, dead. Yet not. No way did she want another one of those lying around here. Not on her conscience. Not by the fault of her.

Besides, Carrow was handy when she wasn't being a little shit. It'd be a loss to the 'shop to lose that skillset.

Boss finished his speech and Storm pushed herself off from the truck, swinging the door open and hoisting herself into the driver's seat. From the window, already rolled down, she leaned out and grinned wildly at the three kids stood beside her.

"See you on the other side, infantes."

With a laugh, she shifted the gearstick and drove off.

[ coding by griffin ]

[ᴥ]

a l e s s a n d r o   h a r g r a v e

And yet he has the audacity for ambition.

It's pathetic, considering how often he's fallen short. Humorless, he laughs at himself - hatred having nowhere to escape and so it slips between his teeth as he grinds them into blunted edge. He received no comfort in the face of his failure - not that he would have accepted any. He's well aware of the place he's carved out for himself among his teammates - muscle memory and brutal intention. He's not a savant or a leader, he's a soldier made for sacrifice.

Sandro marches toward death, or the tank that he imagines her to look like, and he can't claim bravery. Maybe he regrets signing up for all of this, maybe he should have considered that bored impulsivity is easy to mistake for patriotism. Nonetheless he is here and there is no turning back. Sandro escaped his father's fate in favor of a prison of his own making.

Just as lonely, though. Just as lonely.

"Good luck," His voice is rough with neglect, almost sheepish as he keeps his eyes trained on the tank in front of him. This part is not his strong suit, meeting gazes and returning smiles. Figuring out the answer someone is searching for when they ask him a question and all the little gestures they'll want him to perform alongside it.

Sandro doesn't know what Kipling and Carrow will do out there, he certainly doesn't trust them to watch his back. Nonetheless, he prepares to die for them. He's good at following orders and that one seems simple enough. "We don't know what's out there and I don't know if we can take it but-" He plays with the collar of his submersion suit in an attempt to keep it from strangling him, "good luck. Both of you."

Best leave the heroic speech for Kipling and the amusing yet inappropriately timed quip to Carrow. Sandro isn't in the habit of speaking when there's nothing worth saying.

Instead, he dives into the oblivion and lets it take him away.

There's nothing special about entering the tank but that might be the anxiety that kept his eyes squeezed shut for most of the process. He bit his tongue to taste blood, something to remind him he's human as he loses all sense of his limbs and breaths thought. This is what got him the last time, the loss of control the way he feels so insignificantly human and larger than life all at once.

His mind fights a war against the machine he's becoming.

He tastes blood on the back of it's throat.

It seems Sandro is the first to come to consciousness, shifting from foot to foot and wincing at the sound of metal hissing and gears shifting. They've - at the very least - arrived at their destination safely. Thanks no thanks to Storm and her flippant attitude. He harbors no fondness for those that seem as... unreliable as she.

But like any good soldier he stands straight at attention.

And he waits for the order to be brave, he'll never manage it otherwise.

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

s c a r l e t .

"don't go there
'cause you'll never return
i know you think of me
when you think of her."

More than anything else, he's been waiting for this day. Idle thoughts that started months ago have turned into reality and Scarlet has never felt more certain about anything. He feels confident in his path, stood there in front of the stasis tanks with the rest of Team A. It's been shaky getting to know them over the past few months, his teammates both seem to carry scars as deep as his own and are just as guarded about them.

Still, he's grown fond of both Hargrave and Carrow and was able to understand within the first couple of weeks why the Commander saddled him with them. Though they aren't quite there yet, sometimes during training he can see where their skillsets weave into each other. They hit this sweet spot of synchronization that feels like they've been working together for years rather than a handful of days.

And so he trusts them.

Not because there's no other choice because there always is, he just does. Raised by rebel parents, he's had to rely on his instincts about people time and time again and he's rarely been wrong in his decisions about them. When he is, it's always been worth the risk. So Hargrave, with more guards up than Two's Detention Centre and Carrow, with a tongue like flame are two people that he's tied himself to whether they like it or not.

Idealistic, stubborn, words his father has always used against him as flaws but Scarlet bears both traits with pride.

Storm gets moving first with her usual sunny disposition and the team is left to begin their sync. Hargrave is the first to say something this time, which is a feat with Carrow on the team.

"We've got this," he nods at Hargrave to acknowledge his words and then Carrow in turn. "We'll be fine, it's a simple in and out, we've trained for this moment." Scar pulls the zip of his submersion suit up tight and opens the door of his tank. "And I know I've only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you two can do," he smiles, "So let's show them why we're Team A, yeah?"

Scarlet slips beneath then, eyes shutting automatically against the rush of stasis fluid against his face. It all happens quickly from there, chaotic in a way that the synchronization test never was. There's a moment where he loses all sense of self, colours flash in front of his eyes and then he's standing in a vast, featureless expanse. He reaches out, disoriented, raising his stump in front of him–

and there's his hand at the end of his arm.

Then he's hurtling forwards into darkness, brain coming to terms with the transfer of its data. Scar crumbles away, pieces of him unwinding, he leaves them behind as his mind settles into the nest of heavy machinery once again.

The system finishes booting up and the walls of a cave come into view through a night vision setting. Hargrave is already moving about, his mech shifting slowly from foot to foot as his synchronization process completes. Scarlet moves his head and the gears in his neck whir softly as it swivels from side to side.

There's light ahead of them coming from what can only be the cave exit. Even as Scarlet takes a shaky first step, Carrow's suit is coming to life on his left. All three of them made it through the transfer process then, the first piece of the mission is already a success.

"Hargrave, Carrow, synchronization status?" Scar asks. His voice sounds like it's coming through a distorter all while sounding clear as a bell in his head at the same time, the result is disorienting in itself. His sync-rate display at the top of the screen is a clean, bright green. He's well within accepted range.

He raises his hands to his view field, curling both metal palms into fists. It's been a long time since he had two working limbs. Still, there's faint muscle memory to the action, his brain tries to fill in the gaps but there's an absence of feeling. He has no knowledge of what metal against metal should even feel like, his brain scrambles to find a similarity but there's nothing to compare to.

His numbers dip into a darker green for a brief moment and Scar drops that line of thinking.

"Carrow you're running point, Hargrave you're West to my East. I've got your back, you've got mine, we've both got Carrow's," he commands, "Fan out when we get out there but stay within a five hundred metre radius of each other and keep an eye on your scanners for the muttation. Call red alert at the first sign of trouble, I don't want to see anyone try to be a hero. We get through this as a team. Got all that?"

He waits a moment for confirmation and then begins to pilot his suit towards the mouth of the cave.

"Good, move out."

[🌱 kaitlin.]

I've been trying to be better about biting my tongue.

It usually ends up with me feeling nauseous, and a little bit angry, but Scarlet seems like he's starting to maybe think about liking me more and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need that one to like me in order for him to respect me. Unfortunately, really, considering looking at him makes me feel like I'm going to end up with the same back problems that come from having a stick railed up your ass, but I'm hoping my natural inclination towards being a tenacious, if exhausting, little brat who knows what she wants will help me out on that front.

I burst into the warehouse where Storm is working with the same sort of exuberance as always though, both doors to the room bursting open. I'm earlier than we said to meet, and Storm is still on the floor when I walk into the garage where she's going to leave with the suits from. I don't think about it much before I grab for the toolbox she's wheeling back and forth towards and interject myself into whatever it is she's working on, handing her the wrench she needs. There's a tyranny to the perfectionism that I subscribe to, a hopeless and wrathful thing that I've never really been able to make sense of. It asserts dominance with dogmatism, feels like hands wrapped around my throat that I don't actually have any control over.

Storm's in worst form tonight, which is my favorite face of hers, all crass callousness and making sure my old supervisor knows she isn't responsible for a bunch of idiot's with no combat experience. I grin, then press my lips together to try and smother it. She's going on about how she's in it for the easy out, as she always does, and I want to scoff at her usual bullshit but Kipling and Hargrave showed up at some point or another when I wasn't paying attention to the door and like I said, Kipling seems to think I need to work on biting my tongue. I'm super tired of listening to him and Baines chastise me about the importance of listening. I have to hand it to them though, I've never been more aware of exactly how easily distracted I am from the things that aren't my main focus.

Kipling does a pretty good job playing at what I guess a leader ought to look like, tries to encourage the things that I'm good at, channel my energy into the things he needs me to pay attention to. Too bad for him I've never much been good at caring about other people's agendas.

I've been in this game for my own gain since the beginning.

I hop into the back of the truck to help Storm do a final sweep of the machines riggings, check to make sure they're all secured and not going to go rattling around once she has to start driving out through the rough forest terrain. Last thing we need is for an errant tree trunk to send a machine careening to its metallic death.

I give Penny a little pat pat on her chest.

"See you soon, girl."

Tuck her in, hop down off the back. My boots make a satisfying thud when I drop to the ground, rubbing my hands clean of any lingering garage grease with a spare microfiber cloth stolen from Storm's toolbox. I toss it over my shoulder before crossing my arms over my chest.The boys and I watch Storm drive off with our metal bodies and I feel like there's something I'm supposed to say, but I don't know what the right words are.

Swallowing, foot tapping against the ground, "oh hush up, Hargrave," I start, bravado thicker than my nerves. My legs are bouncing, and I find myself doing little jumping motions in place as I steady myself for submersion. This is what I've been waiting for. Why am I so nervous? "We don't need luck."

Well, I don't. And he's got me on his team, ergo he doesn't either. I don't think he waited to hear me be a cunt though before he got in his tank, and that's really for the better.

I watch as they both sink in and have to ignore the flick of resentment I feel towards them. I wanted to be the first one in the tank—it turns sharp, cruel, a thumbnail pressed into my pointer finger. Hargrave and has fail of a sync-rate, what right did he have to be in there ahead of me?

I grit my teeth, and step into my own tank.

My subconscious washes over my conscious mind in waves, written out behind my eyes like computer code, wires connected to my brain until I feel less like a girl and more like a collection of spare parts. I go through the meditation the same way I've been practicing, finding my thoughts in 1's and 0's, infinite and finite and indescribable to anyone who would refuse the privilege of experiencing it. When I open my eyes, what matters isn't my body safe in a tank breathing oxygen from a tube, but the here and now. The changeable things of tomorrow. Every unbearably unchangeable thing from yesterday, it disappears into the ether.

There'll be time yet for that later.

I open my eyes, but—no, I'm only seeing through Penny's eyes. "Status report, Carrow online," I say and quick as I can I take stock of my head up display.

"Synch's at 85%," I think, and I say, still something I'm getting used to, having my voice in my head and my team mates there a the same time, but also not. "In the green."

It could be better, you know. I could see Kiplings 99% at drop, near perfect, as perfect as I've been trying to be for weeks now. My own evasive 15% feels like it's mocking me, and I watch Penny degrade to 84% as I have the thought. I instinctively want to shake it away, but it just drops the sync another percent as Protype Penny isn't exactly designed for such a movement.

Kipling does his leader thing, and if Penny could roll her eyes, she would, but I do it in my head for her before following his orders without question.

"No soft touches getting the best of us today, boys."

I push Penny thicker into the trees, scanner whirring loudly in my head, checking for the creature we're here to dispatch.

FELICITY
CARROW

[rook]

commander abraham

So far so good, A-Team. We have your location on radar and we are tracking your coordinates. I'm with Baines on comms for this, listen closely for intel, and we'll provide support where we can but trust your instincts - You might be submerged in sensory deprivation tanks ten feet from me, but your consciousness is being bled into that of the mech suits. You'll see, hear, and feel a near exact simuation of what it would be to be out there, so trust these artificial senses as if they were your own.

Don't forget to check your heads up displays for your sync levels, suit condition, and your teammates vitals. Remember, if your suit becomes too damages or your sync rate drops too low, you will desyncronise and wake up back in the lab. We cannot afford for these suits to fall into Capitol hands, if even one becomes too damaged we will have to retreat before planning a recovery operation - those are expensive and risky. I don't need to impress upon you the sensitivity of our work.

You're approaching the thicket of trees now. You'll note it's a perfect location for a base of operations here in the wilds, the trees provide ideal cover and protection from the elements. Once you clear the bogey, we will be a-okay to establish ourselves here.

--

(ooc: we are proceeding this thread with a unique combat simulator based on situation and sync rate rolls. The idea here is for me to bow out and you three to write out the fight with creative freedom, bound only by the outcome rolled below. You'll be able to godmod the mutt, so long as the outcome below is reached. Hopefully this is a fun experience and we can use this method going forwards if people enjoy it!

The mutt is a giant panda, incredibly aggressive and enhanced with large claws and strength. It won't be an easy takedown, but working as team will be key. Enjoy amigos!)



Does the Mutt ambush the team, or do they catch it off guard and get an advantage?

[1 = Mutt, 2 = Team, 3 = Neither]

WlD2kl4En21-3
[Team]



Is A-Team successful in dispatching the Mutt?

[1 = No, 2-4 = Yes but bad damage to the location, 5-10 = Success]

1-10
[Advantage +2]
[Success]



How does A1 Scarlet Kipling fair?

[1-2 = Desynced, 3-4 = Badly Damaged, 5-6 = Light Damage, 7-9 Minor Damage, 10 = Perfect Condition]

[Sync rate bonus +4]
1-10
[Perfect condition]



How does A2 Alessandro Hargrave fair?

[1-2 = Desynced, 3-4 = Badly Damaged, 5-6 = Light Damage, 7-9 Minor Damage, 10 = Perfect Condition]

[Sync rate bonus -2]
1-10
[Light damage]



How does A3 Felicity Carrow fair?

[1-2 = Desynced, 3-4 = Badly Damaged, 5-6 = Light Damage, 7-9 Minor Damage, 10 = Perfect Condition]

[Sync rate bonus +2]
1-10
[Light damage]



Who gets the kill?

[1-5 = Scarlet, 6 = Alessandro, 7-10 = Felicity]

1-10
[Scarlet]

1-3·1-10·1-10·1-10·1-10·1-10