Earth

Sitting on a bed in the Barracks Gabriel tapped his cane in a slow rhythm along with his heartbeat. He was breathing slow and deep trying to put himself into the trance to see what would happen next. "One, two, three," He counted with his breathing. His unseeing eyes observing more that most would imagine. He was falling deeper into the trance. The farseeing vision would come soon. He could feel the power pulling his mind away from the present and into the future.

Pain erupted behind Gabriel's eyes as an image of the unnatural creatures true form blasted through his mind. It was too much, his mind couldn't comprehend it's shape, its geometry. It was a swirling mass of nothing, and everything. It devoured all; absorbing life into its being where that life became one with the creature. It was angry at being held at bay for so long, but it was close now, it was hungry, and it knew he was watching. The creature began to pull at him, to try and absorb him from the future. The laws of time bending to it's will.

"Let me go!" Gabriel shouted as he pulled out his knife and shoved it deep into his thigh. The sudden pain completely broke him out of the trance. "Shit," He murmured as the pain in his leg throbbed. His new teammates were going to be here any minuet, and he couldn't let them see him with a knife in his leg. "Ada. I need some help in here!" he called out.

Everything should look nice and tidy for the new arrivals. Ada had a very slight grin on her face as she swept the floor of their bare home. Well, if you could truly call it that. Honestly it was more of a hideout and a planning center for attacks but she liked to think of it as a home. A home was normal, it was nice, it was where you made a life and where you were surrounded with loved ones. So she would sweep and organize and make this place as welcoming as possible for the new arrivals.

As she stood back and admired her work a familiar voice broke through the silence of the barracks. In most people their immediate reaction would be to jump at the sound, startled by the sudden noise or alarmed by a friend's apparent need but Ada reacted to Gabriel's call by immediately running to him. It was her job, more like her life, to respond to the call of those in need.

She limped as quickly as she could down the hallways until she reached the sleeping quarters where she'd heard his voice. "Gabriel?!" Her alarm was quickly resigned to confusion after she'd slammed through the doors. She quickly glanced around the room and her friend appeared to be alone...with a knife in his leg. An eyebrow arched its way up almost to her hairline as she stared at him. "How did uh..." She stopped her question mid-sentence by waving her arms, not sure she even wanted to know the answer. "Never mind, just hold still." Kneeling down with a bit of difficulty from her already lame leg, she took hold of the knife handle and braced Gabriel before tearing the weapon from his muscle. "Sorry!" Ada apologized for the pain she knew her friend was going through and quickly placed her hands on the laceration. One, deep inhale in and the wound began to close. Her brows knit together in pain and concentration as a scar began to, what others would describe as, magically appear on her leg in the exact location as Gabriel's wound. It stretched out in length until finally she pulled her hand away and his skin was as clear as it had ever been, besides the blood that had been spilt already of course. "There you are, good as new." She gave him a smile, hiding the still stinging pain as she rose slowly from the floor and brushed off her jeans. "So when are the new arrivals getting here Gabriel?"

Jeremy wandered down the halls, looking for the Center, separate from the other one he met the rest of his team yesterday. He walks towards the end of the hall and looks at the map there.

"So the Center is to... the left?"

"Let me go!"

Jeremy frowns. "I think that's... Gabriel? I wonder what's wrong."

"Ada. I need some help in here!"

"Ah, damn it. I probably should get in there quick."

Focusing, Jeremy concentrated on his body, seeing the atoms drift apart. Slowly, if anyone were watching they would have seen him turn more and more ghost like as he starts to fade. He then runs through the walls towards the source of the voice he heard. The sensation of running through solid objects was only mildly tingling and he quickly entered a room where there were multiple beds around. On one of the beds he saw the Fate active, Gabriel and the False Prophet Ada. She was just getting up from what Jeremy guessed was healing him, judging from the fact that Gabriel's trousers had a hole in his thigh area and blood still fresh, and that a knife was on the bed next to him.

"So when are the new arrivals getting here Gabriel?" Ada said.

"One of the new arrivalsis right here." Jeremy said as he started to become solid again. He was slightly breathless from the use of his power.

"Broom; handle similar to quarterstaff and possibly able to be made into glaive-guisarme if combined with kitchen knife and paring knife." Jake thought idly, slowly making his way through the seemingly empty house. "Where are the other people? I can tell there was someone here just a bit ahead of me but where did they end up?" Jake muttered quietly, glancing around the empty room ahead of him. He thought he saw some sort of flicker of motion going through a wall not far from him, but he dismissed it as a trick of his already overtaxed mind. "They're probably somewhere nearby. Can't have gotten far, not in this sort of environment. At least, I assume they couldn't have." Jake thought again, picking up his pace a bit to check the rest of the house.

Jake's ears perked up a bit, having heard a snippet of conversation coming from a nearby room. "Aha! There we go. Knew I was right." He nodded a bit as he padded over to the door where the noise came from. "One of the new arrivals is right here." One of the people inside said, the one Jake hazily recalled being named Jeremy. Jake grimaced slightly in spite of himself as he sidled into the room and leaned against the wall nearest to the door. "That style of knife on the bed, it's well designed, yeah? It has more weight on the handle, so the blade can be whipped around pretty well in a fight as long as you keep it sharpened. Wouldn't use it for throwing, though." Jake interjected conversationally, pointing towards Gabriel's knife on the bed. "Let's see, that's probably Gabriel and that lady. The healing one. Ada, maybe? Yeah, I think that's Ada. That sounds about right." Jake thought, glancing between everyone else in the room before settling onto the wall and into his usual activity of staring into space.

Gabriel gasped in pain as the knife was pulled out of his thigh.

"Sorry" Ada said in response to his pain.

After the healing was finished Gabriel relaxed a bit. "No it's fine. I'm sorry that your having to heal this. The new arrivals should be here so- now actually." Gabriel finished in a whisper as the Fade came through the wall. "Oh and here comes another one." Gabriel stated as he turned his head in the direction of the mirrorshade entering the room.

"That style of knife on the bed, it's well designed, yeah? It has more weight on the handle, so the blade can be whipped around pretty well in a fight as long as you keep it sharpened. Wouldn't use it for throwing, though." Jake said

"Yeah I generally just try to shoot things before I need to use this," Gabriel said with a grin. "Ok so now that everyone's here lets get introductions out of the way. I'm Gabriel I'll be guiding us to our objective. Assassinating Okubo Tokugawa. If you are having second thoughts then leave now. If not then introduce yourselves and make sure you have all you need. Were leaving at sundown for Memphis."

The moment the question was out of Ada's mouth, a man appeared in the room announcing his arrival. She would admit that she jumped ever so slightly in surprise at his sudden appearance and prompt timing. "Oh, goodness, well hello there." Before she could introduce herself another man walked calmly into the room and it seemed, if memory served, that the team was all here now. Gracious, she was hoping she'd be able to get into some more proper attire before they came but oh well.

Ada fiddled with the hem of her old, white button up and eyed her tattered jeans as Gabriel brusquely introduced himself and gave a run down of their mission. He was always very brisk, ever since she'd met him he'd been that way. Her hazel eye's looked up, taking in everyone's individual bodies. That's what they all looked to be to her, just walking hunks of muscle, bone, ligaments and so forth. There were no real discerning features, of course everyone's body was different but to her but looks truly didn't matter. She knew one man was a Fade, the other a Mirrorshade and that was what was most important right now. That is what would bring them success in their mission; their powers.

She took a deep breath before introducing herself, making sure to keep it brief for Gabriel's sake. "My name is Ada, I'm a False Prophet so if you ever find yourself in need of mending or feeling under the weather then please don't hesitate to come to me." Ending the short statement with a small grin she looked back down at the ground and proceeded to fuss with her shirt.

Jeremy listened as Gabriel then Ada introduced themselves. He saw Ada looking over them. False prophets he knew were both healers and injury givers. Having met a few healers as a refugee, he knew that she probably didn't see them as them. More likely as their insides. He looks around at them. Then he speaks.

"I am Jeremy, a Fade. If you need something dead faster than you can say ouch, you should probably come to me. Quieter than shooting them."

Jeremy walks over to his bed, he knows its his by the tag at the foot of the bed. Sitting on top of it, he takes out his knife and cleans it and then sharpens it. Sheathing it, he takes out his prized TT-33 Tokarev and disassembles it and cleans it. He listens to what the rest of the team is saying, or not saying.

Jake coughed into his fist nervously, glancing around the room before he decided that yes, he probably did need to introduce himself to the other people. "I'm, uh, Jake. I'm a Mirrorshade. If your gun is broken give it to me. If you need a weapon just let me know and I'll whip something up. That's who I am and what I do." He muttered, fidgeting slightly. Talking was never one of Jake's strong suits, even before he couldn't stop blabbering on about what various objects or weapons do around him. He watched Jeremy walk to his bed and sit down, silently observing him sharpen his knife and field-strip his gun. "7.62 caliber pistol, Russian make, no safety. Not a lot of delicate parts to the weapon, either. Could use a nice coat of gun oil but otherwise is in great shape." Jake thought, his mind buzzing angrily with irrelevant statistics and facts.

"So, you know where Tokugawa is, then? I'd rather not rush in to something without a good idea of what we'll be up against. Makes it harder to prepare for what I need to do. With the, uh, guns and so on." Jake coughed again awkwardly, still fidgeting and glancing around the room at the other members of the team. He grimaced again, still massively uncomfortable in the face of having to speak.

Gabriel sat quietly as the others introduced themselves. Ada and Jake acting rather nervous. Though Jeremy seemed to be a bit more sociable. Gabriel sighed inwardly at the thought of how their little group must look. A blind man, and Chinese kid, a man wearing reflective sunglasses at all hours of the day and a marked up girl. They weren't going to be able to travel around unnoticed.

As Jake presented the question about Tokugawas whereabouts Gabriel nodded. Might as well get the details out of the way now so that he wouldn't have to tell them while they were getting shot at. "We have it on good information that Tokugawa has set up to have a big awards ceremony for the hero's of the front lines. A week from now Okubo Tokugawa will be in Little Rock Arkansas presenting awards to some of their greatest red guard warriors. He's not stupid enough to come straight to the border front line, but he's damn ballsy to get even this close. When we arrive there Tokugawa will be surrounded by at least 100 red guards, and God knows how many non-active troops. Despite that this is our best shot at that son of a bitch. If we can kill him, then we can win this war. I don't know how we're going to do it, I cant see that".

Gabriel paused for a second after this statement as the image of the creature blocking his farseeing made feel sick. with a grunt to clear his throat the fate continues. "I have seen that we need to go on this mission to win this war though. Were here in Jackson and Memphis is about an hours drive if we floor it. After that though we have to make it from Memphis to Little Rock on foot. All the roads are patrolled by the Japanese and they aren't very friendly to people just driving around their territory. The only way we can make it through all that territory is sneaking through." With a sigh Gabriel stood up and felt for the pack on his bed. "So in short yeah your going to have plenty of time to make stuff that goes boom."

Finding the pack Gabriel began tapping his way out of the room. He had burned through a good deal of power just escaping that creature in his vision. He would have to be a regular blind man for a while. At least until he was rested enough to use his power. "I'll be packing the Jeep. I hope one of you knows how to drive fast." With that Gabriel left the barracks.

Ada listened to both Jeremy and Jake’s brief introductions as she tried to wipe off her bloodied hand and shirt. She was always covered in some sort of blood or gore. Goodness what these two must think of her. With a sigh she resigned herself to being filthy and finally stopped her endless fidgeting with her shirt.

So, Jeremy was a Fade and Jake a Mirrorshade. It was easy enough to remember but Ada wondered just how long she’d have to remember. She and Gabriel had gone through so many other recruits in their previous missions together. They’d both seen so many lives lost and only the two of them had been left until now. Ada was always worried about the well being of others, it was just part of her nature she supposed, and as Gabriel detailed their upcoming mission her worry only grew.

She chewed on her bottom lip nervously, just imagining the upcoming fight. When Gabriel stood she silently slid his pack closer to him so he could find it and then watched as he slowly made his way out of the room.

“Well, it was a pleasure to meet the both of you. I, uh, I believe I’m going to help Gabriel load the car if you need me.”

Bowing her head slightly to them in a farewell, Ada quickly left the room and tailed after Gabriel. Once she was in the bay, she paused, watching him fumble his way through loading the car for a moment before approaching.

“You know Gabriel; if you need help you just need to ask for it.”

She lifted a bags and boxes of supplies into and onto the Jeep silently until she couldn’t hold her words any longer.

“A hundred red guards, really? Do you honestly think we’re going to make it out of this alive or even get close enough to Tokugawa?”

Ada’s voice was soft as she spoke and continued to help load supplies. She took a deep breath and sighed before continuing.

“I’ve followed you this entire time because you’re my friend and I trust your visions but Gabriel, you’ve got to tell me what is going on. You’re keeping something from us, I know you are.”

Jeremy watched a Gabriel and Ada exited the Barracks. Soon after, he reassembles his Tokarev and stands up. He goes to his locker and looks inside, seeing the preassigned equipment that they gave, albeit grudgingly to Jeremy after he requested them after the meeting. There was a small backpack and inside were five empty magazines for his Tokarev, a small plastic bag with a tie for it and some rations. Adding that to the three that he has now means that he has eight magazines for his Tokarev in total. He quickly takes a glance at Jake.

"I'm going to the shooting range. Do you want to come?"

Jeremy then leaves without bothering to look if Jake took him up on his offer. After a minute or two of walking the halls and following the signs, he reaches the range.

It is a relatively large roofed area within the complex which is the team's current base. It has a high ceiling and a large open space, akin to more of a warehouse than an actual firing range. The open space however, allows the user to fire their weapons without ear protection if they didn't want to. But Jeremy puts on ear plugs anyway.He proceeds to set up a single wood target and gets into his stance as he draws his weapon out of his holster. His feet are spread about shoulder length from each other, with his right hand holding the pistol and his left over his right. He aims at the targets head, visualizing it to be a Imperial soldier. He fires three shots, all hitting within three centimeters of each other, centered around the center of the target's head. He aims lower and fires four shots , again all hitting near center mass within four centimeters of each other. He then takes a more free stance, one handed and facing to the side. He fires his last shot, this time missing, only nicking the side of the target.

He takes out the earplugs and ejects the magazine, catching it and placing the gun on the table. He walks to the ammunition cabinet and looks around before taking a box of 7.62x25mm Tokarev rounds and loads the magazines, leaving him with 8 fully loaded magazines. He then fills up the plastic bag with enough rounds to last another 8 magazines. He places the items back in his bag and looks around the range again, holstering his Tokarev as he did so.

Jake nodded silently, shadowing Jeremy as he wandered the halls looking for the shooting range. "This guy seems to know what he's doing. More than I do, anyway." Jake mused, following in Jeremy's footsteps all the way to the shooting range. He hung back once they entered, trying to stay out of the way and be as inconspicuous as possible. Failing at that to a rather unfortunate degree, he resigned himself to looking around the room near him for something to do before stumbling on what appeared to be the remains of a hand crossbow with what seemed to be messed up internal components. Jake sighed gratefully at the distraction and reached down into his boot, flipping his knife open and getting to work disassembling the unfortunate weapon in his hands. Once the shots from Jeremy's gun died down and Jake felt himself sufficiently absorbed in his useless little task, he relaxed a bit. "The Pope outlawed these once upon a time, you know. Along with the standard slings and bows. There's a fair amount of debate over who invented the damn things as well. Standard crossbows, not hand ones. Those are narrowed down to somewhere either in or around China, I'm fairly certain." Jake droned monotonously, deftly laying out the internal mechanisms of the crossbow around himself.

Jake prodded a few parts of the crossbow with his knife, narrowing down the problematic components to a handful of parts and ultimately down to a single lever that had a tiny bend in the center. Jake nodded and rose to his feet, bustling over to the ammunition cabinet to rummage around inside for something to replace the bent lever. After a few minutes of rustling and a few irritated grunts, Jake pulled out a nondescript metal rod and flipped it round in his hand a few times. Seemingly satisfied with the size and shape of it, Jake returned to his pile of parts and set about replacing and reassembling the crossbow. Once the former pile of parts resumed it's normal form of a functional crossbow, Jake sat back against the wall and took a cigarette out of his pack. Popping it into his mouth and lighting it with a match, Jake took a few puffs and settled against the wall, staring into space once again. "I probably shouldn't have just burnt all that so carelessly. Might have needed that later and then where would I be? Stuck somewhere with the knowledge that there is now a perfectly functional hand crossbow sitting in a shooting range in Jackson. Wonderful." Jake thought somewhat bitterly, his eyes gradually unfocusing behind his sunglasses.

Gabriel sighed inwardly and fumbled with another box as her heard Ada's familiar foot steps. He wasn't burning any power, but her knew her well enough to know that she was going to ask questions. Questions that he couldn't answer.

“You know Gabriel; if you need help you just need to ask for it.” Ada said

"Why would I need help," Gabriel said grinning as he turned toward Adas direction. Knocking over a tool box in the process. "Maybe because God has a sense of Irony," he muttered to himself as he squatted down and started feeling for the tools. Burning the slightest bit of his power Gabriel managed to quickly locate the tools and deftly placed them in the box.


“A hundred red guards, really? Do you honestly think we’re going to make it out of this alive or even get close enough to Tokugawa?”

Ada’s voice was soft as she spoke and continued to help load supplies. She took a deep breath and sighed before continuing.

“I’ve followed you this entire time because you’re my friend and I trust your visions but Gabriel, you’ve got to tell me what is going on. You’re keeping something from us, I know you are.”

Gabriel stood silently with the tool box in his hands as Ada finished. After a second Gabriel pushed the tool box over the Ada. "Load this up for me will you. I'd rather not spill it again." After another hesitation Gabriel sighed and sat on the nearest box he could feel. "I can't tell you everything Ada. I would if I could; please believe me on that, but I can't. Not for this mission to succeed. There's something else out there Ada...something worse than Tokugawa. It's not here yet but it's coming, and it's-," Gabriel stopped mid-sentence not wanting to finish. He clinched his jaw a few times before continuing. "It's hungry."

Shaking his head Gabriel quickly changed gears. "That doesn't matter now. I don't know if we will manage to kill Tokugawa. Hopefully when the time comes I'll have a vision to tell me what we need to do. For now all I know is that we have to go on this mission. We have to try. We may not stop Tokugawa, but us going on this mission helps stop that thing. That monster. Please," Gabriel said softly,"please trust me. This is important."

Ada listened to Gabriel silently as she finished loading the Jeep. She absorbed what he said and knew him well enough that if he couldn't tell her, then it was for her own good no matter how frustrating it may be. She nodded her understanding despite the fact that he couldn't see her.

"I've always trusted you haven't I? It won't change now. Just, just don't take on too much by yourself okay? I can see how much these visions have been getting to you."

Moving past him she bent and pecked a motherly kiss to his head.

"I'll go find the new recruits and bring them so we can go."

She walked further from him and called back before leaving the large garage completely.

"It's like that saying, the blind leading the blind. Kinda funny, yea?"

Before going on a search for the new additions to the team, Ada stopped by her bunk and changed her bloodied shirt. It was the exact same style as her other one, not much variation in war times, but at least this one was clean. Now, where were those two? She walked the halls for a bit before hearing the all too familiar crack of gun fire. Ah, the firing range.

Limping her way there she opened the door to the large range and was pleased to see both of them here.

"The Jeep is loaded so we're ready to leave, just follow me."

Before Ada came in, Jeremy looked over at the hand crossbow that Jake fixed. He looks back up at him.

"Why don't you take that thing along? I doubt anyone's going to miss it. Anyways, you could probably make some bolts for it in the field. Could be useful to have a more silent weapon, considering I can only reach so far."

He heard the door open, scraping against the floor and he turned around, to see Ada standing there.

"The Jeep is loaded so we're ready to leave, just follow me."

"Alright. I'll be just a moment."

He goes over to the crossbow and picks it up, stashing it in his backpack. Though he hadn't trained with a crossbow before, he was pretty confident he could hit at least something if he saw how much drop the bolt had at range. He then goes back over to about a meter in front of Ada.

"Lead on."

Jake shrugged and began standing up. "I suppose I could make some bolts for it, if I had the materials handy. You do know how to use one of those, right? It shouldn't be difficult, seeing how they were made so a person could be trained to serve in a military without needing extensive bow training." Jake muttered, waving at Jeremy with the hand holding his cigarette. "Alright, so I guess the thing is coming with us. Might come in handy, if I can get the stuff to make bolts for it. That'd be... feathers, wooden rods, and some sort of tip. Metal, maybe? Guess I'm gonna learn 'bout fletching. Yay." Jake thought wryly, taking another long drag off his cigarette and staring into space. His reverie was interrupted by Ada popping her head in to announce their departure, and Jake nodded silently.

He wandered behind Jeremy and idly flipped his knife closed, dropping it in it's place inside his boot. "A hundred red guards. I can't even see taking on one of them successfully and now I have to help kill at least 100 of them. As well as Tokugawa. This should be... interesting." Jake continued thinking, reaching up to scratch his nose with his free hand. The cigarette still burned quietly in his other hand but probably not for much longer, as it was just about down to the filter. He had a feeling that smokes were gonna be harder to come by than they already were in war time, what with having to sneak into enemy territory and kill the leader of the Imperium, and he was already kicking himself for not getting an extra pack for the mission ahead of him.

Gabriel snorted his quietly at Ada's parting comment. "Yeah kinda like the blind leading the blind."

As Ada left Gabriel stood and tapped his way to the passenger side of the jeep. He briefly thought about taking the wheel just to see if anyone would comment on it, but decided that him running a vehicle off the road just for a joke wasn't practical. He could navigate with his power, but navigating at top speed was a bit trickier.

As the others arrived Gabriel stuck his head out the window and addressed them. "Jeremy can you drive? You and Ada are the only ones of us without some kind of visual impairment going on due to your powers. Jake has to keep the shades on otherwise hes gonna get distracted trying to figure out ways to make things go boom. Personally that isn't too comforting of a thought. No offense Jake," Gabriel said pointing his head in Jake's direction, "If not then I'm sure Ada can manage, but I would rather have her ready to focus on healing if we run into a stray patrol on our way to Memphis. It's unlikely unless they have pushed through, but our last update about the Memphis line was a few days ago. God knows what has happened in that time. If all of you are ready to go then load up and head on out. This is the last call if you wanna leave."

Jeremy looked at Gabriel and started to nod his head before catching himself out on it.

That was stupid and disrespectful.
"Uh, yeah. I'll guess I'll drive."

He then opens the driver side door and throws in his bag before climbing up.

"I'll drive as fast as I can, without crashing us but I'll have to be more careful when we reach Memphis. Want to not attract more attention than we already are, you know? Just to be careful."

And with that he starts up the jeep.