Digital World

Arctic Ocean
March 17, 2565 4:00 P.M.

The transport helicopter swayed to the right from the icy Arctic winds but soon stabilized itself. The helicopter contained Sword and it's members within it's cargo hold. Their destination was a secret military base in Greenland, a secluded base that was designed to carry on missions without outside interference whether physically, from the internet, or communication systems. The seal door to the cockpit opened with a crank and a large old man entered the cargo hold, at the same time Dante stood up taking initiative as he saluted his superior. The major nod and Dante relaxed as the door sealed it self behind him, he took a quick examination of the special assault force in front of him before speaking.

"You have been briefed on the mission that was bestowed on you and you know exactly why you're the ones...only ones to be sent to execute this mission," His naturally commandingly loud voice carried out easily through the whole vehicle even through the "I hate to admit it but you are the best of the best in your field of expertise, so you have the highest chance of success and O along with many other soldiers have accepted that."

He walked around the cargo room examining each soldier as he walked past them "Gears will be light, equipment will be light, and you will be geared up for electrical adaptation within the system, communication, and Shield aid," He stopped at a nearby window and stared out of it, looking out into the cold dark blue ocean "that place is like no other, everything you've learned and seen in this world will have no significant aid in that damn world...I'd advise each and everyone of yah to forget everything you've learned about your past enemies."

He was now looking back at the soldiers each one deep into their eyes as if speaking to their soul "Or else you'll become nothing more but a systematic file that has no hope in ever coming back home," and just like that he stepped towards the sealed door which now opened for him "time for your jump" he said as the hatch began opening inch by inch.

Dante turned towards his squad once the major reentered the cockpit "Okay squad this is it, due to S.S. Base's seclusion the only way to get into it is permitted parachuting and that is exactly what we're going to do" he walked over to the walls of the cargo hold as he explained the situation for the first time. Snatching parachutes from the walls he threw each crew a parachute "In eta one minute we will be jumping off this helicopter and into the drop off point, landing outside the half mile radius drop off point will result in your death from SR Turrets that are scattered within the ice field" he continued as he placed on his parachute and began backing up to the now open hatch.

He stood at the very edge of the hatch "So make that drop," he ordered as if it was the only option they had "we're here! Go, go, go!" barking the commands he motioned each soldier to jump off.

Marcx placed the parachute on his back, waiting for his turn to jump. "Yep, nobody said this was going to be an easy road... And I probably don't have any choice but to jump." Marcx grabbed the straps tightly, looking at the open hatch, then looking at every member of the team. "I still don't see why they just can't land the helicopter on a landing platform. Ofcourse not, why do that. We should make everyone jump in order to get here, just great..." Marcx could swear his legs were shaking, but when he looked down they didn't seem to shake one bit. checking everything a second time, they'd probably check it before he took the jump, but you can never be 100% sure about things.

Standing at the edge, Marcx took a rather clumsy dive. "I have a feeling this isn't the last surprise they have in store for us." Now being in mid-air, Marcx thoughts became filled with what would happen if he failed to succesfully land on the drop off piont, he now was sure not only his legs were shaking but his entire body. Now there is only one thing to do, deploying the parachute. "Please... Let this go right..." When he was at the right altitude Marcx deployed the parachute. Looking at the parachute for a little while, Marcx could finally relax a little. "Ok... That went better then expected. Now to steer the parachute in the right direction, and everything should be fine..."

Hanging in mid-air for a little while, Marcx found his way with the parachute. "This wind isn't making it easy, but I think I am getting there." Looking down to find the drop off point. A little while later Marcx safely lands on the marked spot, falling on the ground and the parachute dropping on him.
"... Did. Did I make it?" Marcx pulling off the parachute slowly getting up. "I-I guess I made it." He then stood and waited for more instructions.

Adrian Chandler slipped on the parachute, peering over the edge. She narrowed her eyes, as the wind buffeted her slender body, threatening to throw the mechanic into the airy expanse. "Well..." she fingered the straps. "I did help make these. I suppose that makes them reliable." She fixed her cap securely on her head, before deciding it was too dangerous and took it off, tucking it in a side pocket. Her short hair whipped around her face, too short to be tucked behind an ear, but long enough that it would bother her.

"I need bobby pins," she muttered, as she stepped calmly off into the air.

Oh shit, the mechanic swore silently as she plummeted through the air. The wind ripped any sound away from her, so even if she had wanted to scream, it would not have worked. She jerked sharply as her parachute flared to life, floating gently down. She landed in the landing spot, running a few feet as the momentum from the drop down carried her forward. The parachute settled next to Adrian, collapsing in a giant white balloon. She unstrapped herself from the bag, turning to look at the others that had already landed.

Nodding as she took them in, Adrian reached for her cap, fixing it securely against her head. She shivered - maybe it had not been the best idea to go parachuting in a T-shirt....

Reinku was generally bored while listening to the old man speak. It wasn't that Reinku didn't believe what the man was saying, nor was it that he didn't think it was important. It was just that this was probably the 67th time he had heard the exact same speech reiterated over and over again. Every mission he did for whatever organization he was working for or hired, gave the same damn warning. Seriously, where did they get this bollocks? From the internet? "Brave old guy vague speech about dangerous mission.org?"

Reinku chuckled lightly at this amusing thought. What wasn't amusing was when Reinku heard the man say "Parachute out this door, it'
s the only way." Reinku nearly melted right in his seat. Sure he was quite the athletic guy who had been on numerous types of missions, stealth ones being his favorite. Never had he ever in his life, sky dived out of a bloomin plane. Though when the time came for it to be Reinku's turn, he calmly collected his mixed bag of emotions and steadied himself. "Oh boy. Thank you so much for this opportunity, Sir. I've always wanted to plummet to my death at inhuman speeds. Well, guess this is my exit. I'll catch you later sir. Ta-ta!"

The last part of his sly comment was muffed by the air ripping from his lungs by the sheer intensity of the wind hitting his body straight on. Maybe it wasn't such a grand idea to run out the exit with a double flip dive into the air. "BLOODY HELL!" Reinku said, still recovering from the shock of hitting the air in such a short time. It was quite different to go from casually standing on some sort of substance, to gracefully plummeting to your death, darting though the clouds. Quick an invigorating feeling, indeed. Once you got over the whole "OMGFUCKINGODI'MGOINGTODIEWITHOUTEVERFINDINGREALLOVE!" part, it's not so bad.

About 20 minutes after, Reinku was nearing the ground. He smiled and thanked the Great Time Lords in Space that he would feel the earth under his feet soon. Though, Reinku was getting real grand at this sky diving jig. He did a few back flips and front flips out of glee and finished the rest with a beautiful nose dive through thousands of feet. Reinku got into upright position and tugged his parachute a bit harder than required. This gig was a blast and all, but Reinku was all too anxious to be back on somewhat familiar ground, or at least, ground. The parachute bloomed out from his pack and he buoyantly glided his way down to the landing facility.

"Boy! Wasn't that one hell of a blooming ride?!" He yelled, still absolutely high off the 30 minute adrenaline rush.

He stared as one of the team members, a blond male with spiky hair and a weird looking earing, shaped in what Derr supposed was a sword, jumped from the open hatch. Derr looked down at the pack in his own hands uncertainly. It was a standard issued type used by the air forces, made from plasmically enforced Bynema coated with resins and sealed between two layers of polyethylene film and laces from titanium threads, making it as strong and resistant as a bullet restraining vest, but which also meant there were a number of ways of manufacturing a better and more secure parachute. So why did he have to use this one? And why did he have to jump at all? What was the purpose of this exercise if it was obvious that not everyone in this group was a trained soldier? Bonding? Surely not. What ever the case, he wasn't convinced that this was the only way to get to the starting point, but for now, as he had no way of checking, he decided to ignore his desire for knowledge and resign to investigating it later.

As he was a naturally paranoid guy, he took a quick look at the captain's parachute, making sure it was the same, then scanned his for anything that seemed out of place or shouldn't be there. Zey vill not brink us all zee vay here just to get rid of us, for vee are too faluable, but I cannot exclude zee possibility zey vant somesink ozer zan zee appointed. He looked curiously around him only to see everyone else already getting ready. "Zis is ridiculous. Zey cannot expect me to jump..." He muttered to himself, but started strapping on the parachute. He would gain nothing from delaying the inevitable. And besides, as much as he complained, he had gotten himself into this; there was no point in regretting it now. He tched, and as he worked on tying it around his leg, he noted that it fit his body perfectly, which made him wonder if they were custom made. And if they were, where had they gotten his measurements from...

When the last safety clicked in place, he saw a young woman, a girl more like it, stand by the door, considering something, then guard her hat in a pocket and jump as effortlessly as if she did that for a living, even though he knew she didn't. He chuckled. Perhaps zis trip vill not be a total vaste after all. She seems quite interestink, zis young one. Though he himself wasn't particularly old, he surely felt that way most of the time.

He removed his glasses, stood up, and keeping one arm firmly on the steel bar embedded into the wall, made his way toward the hatch and looked down. And wished he hadn't. The ground looked awfully far away. The amusing thought to him though, was that he knew all the laws and theories about a falling object and could explain them at detail anytime, but actual jumping from thousands of feet had never been on his to-do list. One just shouldn't make a scientist sky-dive... He double checked everything once again and yelled, "Zis sucks!" Then threw himself from the opening before he could think of more ways of why he shouldn't.

Air rushed past him as his body plummeted straight down, though unfortunately, not the way he had hoped. He spun this way and that, doing involuntary flips in the air, his body falling uncontrollably, making him lose the little orientation he had. He needed to get the hand of this and fast, for he did after all, have only so many feet before he ran out of track. He bent his limbs, hugging them to his torso to decrease the spinning and spent almost a full twenty seconds finding the pattern to it, then spread his arms and legs wide at the precise moment he was looking toward the ground. It hurt and for a moment he thought his shoulders were going to bent the other way, but he gritted his teeth and maintained the position, correcting his course with his body, until he was sure it was the right time to open the parachute. And when he did, it unfolded over him immediately, for a second giving the sensation it was pulling him upward, and the fall slowed down to less than eight miles per hour, which compared to the previous a hundred and fifteen, was a bliss. He was further relieved to find that handling a canopy was much the same in reality as it was in theory. Not before long, he neared the landing site.

He landed hard on the concrete surface and his weak legs buckled under him. He groaned in pain and frustration as his head hit the floor with a final thump, but quickly reached into his pocket and withdrew a metal cylinder the size of a small pen. Still lying on the floor, he rolled up his coat and shirt's sleeve and positioned one end of the cylinder against the bare skin of his forearm and pressed the other with his thumb. But a second later, he threw the thing away and took a few deep breaths before calming down and undoing the straps, letting the pack fall from his back. He stood up shakily and rubbed the back of his head. "Ow, ow, ow." He complained, then suddenly a smile spread on his face. "Someday, someone, somevere is goink to pay for zis."

Justice stared out the open hatch, face impassive as ever. Everyone else seemed rather excited, perhaps even drunk on adrenaline, but the medic looked anything but interested in what was happening. In fact she might have been bored despite the radiating emotions of the others on board. As one jump led to another, she continued to watch with a keen eye. Their forms, their control over themselves, it was all important in such an exercise. Being frightened was probably the worst thing you could possibly do at the moment of the jump. It raised the blood pressure and risked the probability of shock or falling unconscious. Preferably, she would rather be awake when she plummeted down to the landing site. But that was just her. Maybe the dipshit who went before her thought it would be alright. A little smirk lifted the corners of her lips as he jumped, yelling in his silly accent.

"Guess I'm next," she murmured to herself and began the tedious task of strapping on the parachute. The things had never felt safe enough in her opinion, like the straps could rip off if you twisted in the wrong direction. "Idiot adrenaline junkies," she grunted and stood. But she wasn't one to talk. Truthfully, she'd done this upon several occasions for her own enjoyment. It was stupid, yes, but fun. And fun always seemed to win out on the insanity chart. The blonde teetered over to the hatch and glanced out below where several parachutes were opened and others had already landed. "Amen," was the last word she uttered before she thrust herself into the air.

The initial blast of the air had to be the worst part of the jump. It was in that moment that most terror or insecurity struck; the realization that if your chute didn't open, you'd literally become a pancake. Justice, however, had grown acustomed to the stomach-flopping experience and shot down through the air in the apropriate position. Through the jump, that impassive look on her face continued to remain as if glued despite the blasts. As she pulled the string and the chute opened, she focused on relaxing and keeping her breakfast up instead of serving it to those below her. The blonde steered her way carefully to a safe landing area before landing. She allowed her knees to unbuckle and landed in a low crouch so that the jolt of hitting the ground spread throughout her body instead of her hips and back. Once her parachute settled down to the ground, she unclipped the pack and stretched to her feet. "Now that was entertainment," she said with the first smile since they'd boarded the plane.

Bonnibelle Dryden watched as everyone else plummeted down towards the ground, some screaming on their way out. The blond girl before her seemed the calmest as she jumped out of the helicopter. Bonnie wondered how she could be so calm. The girl was jumping out of a helicopter for God's sake! She shooke her head and wondered breifly if she could just take control of the helicopter and fly it down there herself. Of course, she'd have to wrangle the controls out of the pilot's hands and that wasn't exactly on her to-do list. She sighed and strapped on her parachute, struggling as she got tangled in the maze of straps and buckles. After she had finally gotten herself put together, Bonnie looked down out of the helicopter and gulped. That was a long way down and if her parachute failed she would be as dead as a doornail. She scrunchted her eyes closed and jumped, yelling something in Gaelic to the effect of 'Good God, I'm going to die'.

To be honest, Bonnie's ride down was in no way exhilarating, invigorating, or in any way fun. She was scared shitless. Bonnie forced her eyes open and saw the ground coming at her at an alarming rate. Bonnie forced her eyes shut again and focused on the wind rushing by. She reached for the string to deploy her parachute and couldn't find it. Her eyes srpund open as she groped for her string. She found it shorty after and her panic subsided. The parachute deployed and Bonnie gently floated down, liking this much better than plummeting down to the ground. Bonnie sighed in relief as she hit the ground, glad to be attachted to something solid.

"Ah'amno doing that ever again," Bonnie said, exhasperated, as she shrugged off her bag. She rubbed at her eyes and looked over at the rest of the people who had landed, trying to figure out who was who. They were were motely bunch of people, from all over the world. To back she was the only Scot, that would've helped make this whole thing seem a little less surreal. "So, why did we jump out of the plane?"