Mosa Belkan's Story

The Captain glances at Abigail, and nods. "At ease.", he gruffly mutters, his finger having stopped tapping the table, he grabs his mug and takes a sip as Raxis entered. Taking his sweet time, the Captain did not immediately reply until he finished drinking and puts his mug back at the table. "Morning....night....doesn't matter. I'm an old fart.", he says, before rubbing his eyes, responding to Raxis' informality with his own lax tone.

One by one, the other crew members enter. Engineers, janitors, soldiers...though mostly soldiers, it seems. A hulking alligator-like man stands out in particular, folding his muscular arms and sitting next to a simply-dressed woman in black, who seems to be gazing vacantly while setting up her odd analog watch.

A redheaded girl with an air of inexperience sits down, her hands clasped and her gaze forward. Nearby, a blonde man in white sits as he puts a rose inside his suit pocket.

While the UEGS Marco Polo was given Government License to operate in Stratevaria, it is technically not a government unit....at least, not completely. Many of the members on board are freelancers and mercenaries, hence the lack of a dress code and the general air of informality, particularly amongst the younger members.

Jannelo comes soon, his steely eyes and tall build standing out in particular, and he stands next to the Captain with his arms folded.

The Captain pulls down his hat, and straightens his posture.

"Thank you, Durandal, no music for now. That will be all...I need some peace and quiet.", Drake mumbles.

Time passes, and spotting the last crewman, James, take a seat, Drake clasps his hands and begins his speech.

"Well. Here we are, boys and girls. Stratevaria. 50 billion light years away from earth....so don't expect to see your mommy or daddy anytime soon."

He takes a deep breath, and presses a button on the briefing table, to bring up a holographic map....an empty map, with only the Marco Polo on the lower right corner.

"We've got lots of space to cover, and lots of shit to do....so let's get one thing straight."

He looks at everyone in the room, and continues,

"Some of you ain't gonna like each other. Hell, some of you might have even tried to kill one another. But it doesn't matter. Whether you were born in earth, mars, or jupiter....whether you be a normal, a GMP, a cyborg....you're part of the crew now. You're gonna need each other, so I expect you to work together."

The Captain fixes his hat, then stands up, pacing around the table.

"Also, I ain't gonna lie. This trip's most likely going to be boring. And if everything goes well, it will be. You joined the Marco Polo not to fight, but to explore. If you wanted to simply shoot people, you would've stayed on eath. Least that's what I'm hoping. Kids these days don't seem to read the fine print....", the Captain grouchily mumbles.

He finally stops pacing.

"In any case...my first point stands. Get to know each other. Mingle, talk,.... and try not to kill each other." judging by his annoyed tone, seems like that last pard happens quite a lot....

"You'll get plenty of chances to do that once you head to the mess hall. That'll be all.", the Captain then looks at Darkstar, who nods.

Darkstar walks from his wall, and begins his drill sergeant nasty routine once more, cracking his knuckles.

"ALRIGHT, LIGHTWORLDERS! You may not be seein' a lotta action out here in Stratevaria, but you'll still need to keep yourself FIT and HEALTHY! So here's today's schedule!"

"Head down to the mess hall, and eat your damn breakfast in 20 minutes! You'll have time to relax for an hour, LET THAT FOOD DIGEST, then we're going to meet at the training room, and you're going to SHOW ME WHAT YOU'VE GOT!! I've seen your profiles, but words means NOTHING if your actions can't prove them! NEXT, familiarize yourself with the layout of the ship --- talk, read, whatever.... while we sort you people out, place you in your units, give you your schedules."

Darkstar puts his hands behind his back, and looks around, at everybody, with those steely eyes of him.

"You better give me an impressive show, boys and girls, cause I'm here to keep an eye on you, NOT babysit. Now, MOVE!"

In no time, the mess hall becomes quite populated. So many faces....faces they'll be seeing everyday from now on.

Sparda's food is quite enjoyable, and he cooks a wide variety of dishes they could choose from, though he seems to have a habit of pouring too much sauce, or salt, or pepper....

Amongst the many people pouring in, is one of the largest and widest crew member, the blue giant, Mosa Belkan. With a permanent crocodillian smile on his face, he looks around for a suitable table to sit in, and his attention is drawn towards Abigail and Erik.

"YO!", Mosa bellows out a mere second after Erik asked Abigail, and sits down in front of them, his weight very audibly causing the chair to squeak. "Great morning, da?", a rough and gruff, heavily russian-accented voice greets them. Casually, he picks an oversized chicken leg from his tray and devours it like a beast.

On the other corner, a woman in black looks around for a fitting table. The golden antique watch on her wrist stands out quite a bit compared to her all-black ensemble. She notices James sitting alone on his table, and casually, without a hint of doubt or reservation, she plops down next to him, a mischievous smile plastered on her calm face.

In the crowd, a red-haired young woman nervously looks around, holding a tray filled with cereal and fruits. From the way she looks around, constantly and unsurely, it's pretty obvious that she's a rookie. This is even probably her first time with a semi-military group.

Abigail quietly ate her food alone as she watched more and more people file in from the meeting. She had to admit there were a wide variety of people on board, but she did take notice of the dominating soldier types, which made her a little concerned. She was about to take another bite of bread when she noticed a tall, well-built man sit next to her. He definitely has been through a lot in his lifetime. She could see it in his face, yet he still looked very young. The man was wolfing down his food like no one was watching. She sat there for a moment watching him from the corner of her eye. Just when she thought he wasn't going to acknowledge her, she took a bite out of her bread but is caught off guard when he speaks up. Mouth full, Abigail just looked at him with her usual expression. She finally swallowed and cleared her throat a bit.

But, before she could respond, a massive humanoid crocodile called out to them, and sat himself down. His massive stature caused the whole table to shake and Abigail's glass of water to spill onto the table. Luckily, she had most of it already so the resulting mess wasn't as big as it could've been. She looked at Mosa at first incredulously. She's heard about all kinds of genetic modifications to humans that have been going on recently but she's never yet seen anything so excessive but yet, so stable. After a moment, her expression soured once she noticed her spilled water. "Yes. A lovely morning." She responded to the beast sitting across from her. Abigail turned to Erik, the man sitting next to her. "Well considering how we've been asleep for ages, I'm just about as hungry as you are so I'm not exactly at liberty to share my food." With that, she takes another bite.

----

Raxis turned to Gelon. He didn't really liked being called his old name, Dago. But Gelon admitted to be being a fan of his work, so he kept his grin plastered as he looked down at Gelon. "Ahahahah, or maybe he does spy on the showers. Not like he'd be a pervert, ahah." He teased. "An admirer, are you? I got very few of those back when I was a man of flesh and blood... and even less so now." Raxis's grin widened and his eyes closed for a moment. "If you truly respect me, I suggest you call me Raxis. I've abandoned my biological being, including my name. I'd rather not be reminded." His eyes opened again. "I'm sure you could do that, right Gelon?

The blue gator-like man seems more beast than man, with both his horrid table manners and noiy devouring. He has somehow made the act of eating a chicken leg seem like a bloody massacre; the bones crushed by his jaws and fangs, bits of the flesh strewn across the bowl like splattered blood, and fleshy chicken juice dripping down his chin, some of which he noisly slurps. It takes him a moment to finally notice the glass he spilled when he sat down, and he turns to Abigail, facing her with his crocodillian grin. "Sorry bout that. Mosa replace laterrrrr." One wonders..is this an intimidation tactic, or is he just naturally this savage?

Mosa then pulls out a large and juicy burger, and begins worfing it down, while making small talk. "So!!", spewing bread crumbs over his bowl as he talks with his mouth full. "Where you two from?", he asks, before continuing his munching.


------


The woman in black looks between James and Preston, and doesn't lose her smile. "You looked lonely...I figured you could use some company."

She chuckles lightheartedly, and twirls a fork in her hand, before poking a piece of watermelon with it. "...but It's always nice to see me being proven wrong.", she glances briefly to Preston, before putting the watermelon piece into her mouth.

"Name's Clockwork.", she said simply and directly, in an unaggressive tone.

Abigail watched as Erik left the table. She kind of wanted him to stay because now she's alone at a table with a giant blue crocodile man. Abigail awkwardly turned to look at the beast, telling his name was Mosa, was now wolfing down a burger like nothing. "Uuuh" she started, then corrected her look and posture to be more formal. "I'm Abigail Rainn, I lived my childhood on Earth but spent most of my life on Mars at the military academy." She didn't feel like divulging anything else. But since the idea was to mingle...

"So what's your deal? How did you become so....you?" She asked with a slight hint of curiosity.

----

Raxis cackled. "Really? I wonder just how much you know..." He was thoroughly amused by his new fan. He figured he should milk this for as long as he could. "Eye cybernetics? Ahhahah Thats reeeeallly easy. You'll just have to SEE for yourself. Ahhah! When you get it right you'll truly be a SIGHT for SORE EYES." Raxis cackled again, even louder this time. He knew those were shitty puns, but he mainly laughs to unnerve other crew members walking by. He looked at Gelon. "Should a human like you get food?"

Mosa nods vigorously as he listens to Abigail's story, munching on his burger all the while. "Mars, eh? Hehehehe, Mosa has HEARD of Mars!!...Hehehe..wouldn't you, uh.." Mosa pauses as gulps down a large piece of the burger. "...Wouldn't you get an eyesore from all that red? I know I would!", Mosa says, grinning.

Mosa chuckles, putting down his burger to grab a glass of water. "Simple, really! Mosa grew up in a test tube! An itty bitty test tube. It was all blue and gooey. Then I got biiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggg.", Mosa then gulps down his glass of water, and wipes his mouth with the back of his left hand. The only thing that'll make him more messy right now is if he burps....

"Da wanted a son, but he was...eh, inadequate.", Mosa says, chuckling heavily.

"So he resorted to SCIENCE!....And here I ammmmm.", a guttural noise finishing his explanation.

Mosa leans back, tilting his head and glancing to the ceiling. "Never did explain why he wanted a 'gator, though. Always curious about that part."

Abigail did her best to keep her stoic look, trying not to look at Mosa talk and eat at the same time with disgust. "Oh, so you were always like that...ok. And you get used to the red after about a year, I'd say." Abigail didn't know what else to say, she didn't want to anger or offend with any more questions. At least, not on the first day. Abigail looked at the time. 15 minutes had gone by and it felt like nothing. She figured she should head to the combat room a little early, if nothing else to scope out the room. Abigail quietly sat up from hr seat and looked at Mosa. "I'm going to head to the combat room now, so I'm sure I'll see you then." She picked up her food tray and put it in the neat pile to be cleaned. "Unless you come along, that is..."

----

Raxis rolled his screen eyes. "Yes yes I know Durandal's watching. See? You've even upset the ship's AI. Questioning it's intelligence like that, pssh." He teased. Raxis looked at one of the console's with the familiar green, eye-looking logos. Raxis grinned devilishly. "And its a good thing I've got nothing to hide from an all-seeing AI. Ahahhaah except for maybe in here." Raxis tapped his head with his claw, making a few clanking sounds. "Welp. I'm off to show the crew why I'm even on board, ahahahha!" With that Raxis turned and started walking to the combat room. "Later Gelon~"

"ALRIGHT!"

An hour has passed as everyone, including the medic Katherine and the armsmith Nyles is summoned to the training room. Jannelo marches in front of the entire crew, with his hands behind his back, putting on his drill sergeant persona once again.

"You had your fill, you had your rest....now it's time for ACTION!"

Jannelo stops marching, and points towards the combat grounds.

"I'm sure most of you've seen this set up before...and if you haven't...WELL!"

The target shooting boards pops out of the rails, with red dots all over its body and head. It moves left and right, or forward and back, depending on the rails.

"Shoot, hit, or blow up the damn things! I wanna see how good your arms are."

Jannelo folds his arms.

"Your score will be based on your speed, accuracy, and efficiency!"

And then he cocks his head.

"Durandal, START RECORDING!"

Clockwork sneaks a peek at Abigail, Raxis, and Gelon's demonstrations, with a mischievous, but blank smile. She then turns towards her targets, and cocks her shotgun. At the same time, her black, dome-like visor envelopes her face, and a bright yellow burst explodes from her large, retro-futuristic jetpack.

She became a black and yellow blur as she shoots her target, one by one with not very precise accuracy, but perfect timing - One. Two. Three, no problem. With her shotgun, she needn't worry about her aim too much, and as she finishes, her jetpack deactivates, and she rolls on the ground before stopping stylishly.

She continues to observe the others as they show off. Mostly out of curiosity, like a cat....but partially also out of wariness. Like a cat.

---

A towering, blue and grey power armored Mosa walks towards his spot, the pistons on his elbows and behind his knees making audible mechanical noises, alongside his heavy footsteps. On his face-concealing helmet, a sky blue visor gleams.

"Hyehyehyehyehyeh....", Mosa chuckles, and pulls out a light machine gun, and he wallks as he fires from his hips. While not the most accurate or precise of shooters, Mosa barely recoils as he fires the heavy weapon on full auto, shredding the targets like butter. Unlike the others, he takes his time, but goes very thoroughly, resulting in his podium looking like the sight of a massacre.

As smoke and ashes rises from his fallen targets, Mosa notices a final target board remaining, and he charges at full speed, his steps very heavy and audible, before pulling a combat sword from his hip and breaking it in half; using the sword's weight and blunt edge to crush instead of cut.

Ozma Howitzer and Deunan Knight trains nearby; Ozma showing off his gun-kata skills which are quick, and stylish, if inefficient. Meanwhile, Deunan is quick on her feet, but isn't very good at her aim, and her score is, in Durandal's database, the lowest so far.


-----

Jannelo folds his arms and nods, looking over everyone, then claps twice.

"ALRIGHT! Good job everyone, but we're not done yet. I've seen you all fight one by one....but now is time to see how well you play as a team."

Jannelo gestures them to line up, and looks over the assembled soldiers, eyes briefly glancing to Erik, but mostly focused on the entire group.

Standing straight, Jannelo holds up two fingers. "TWO TEAMS; TWO COMMANDERS!....Any volunteers?"

Jannelo looks at Erik and nods. "Gunnarson, red team. Choose your squad!"

So far, the lineup is....

1). Abigail,
2). Raxis,
3). james,
4). Preston,
5). Gelon,
6). Clockwork,
7). Mosa,
8). Deunan,
9). Ozma,
10). and possibly Nyles, if he chooses to join.


Jannelo then turns around. "Alright! Who's gonna lead blue team?"

At the same time, he glances to a nearby camera, and orders, "Durandal, prepare the simulated battlefield; Urban warzone!"

The target shooting boards are retracted back into the rails. In their spot, barriers, metal covers, and walls of various height and thickness appears. A pair of turrets also appear; one in the red zone, the other in the blue.

Jannelo's face remains stone cold at Abigail's remark. "Funny.", he says, in complete deadpan.

He then looks at the remaining crew members ---Abigail, Preston, Mosa, Ozma, and Deunan..

He looks back at Abigail. "You."

"You lead the blue team."

He then folds his arms and sits on a stool.

Ozma looks surprised --and seemingly a bit angry, as he crushes his rose. Mosa, on the other hand, looks quite eager, cracking his knuckles before putting his helmet. Deunan nods to Abigail encouragingly, nervousness very visible in her face.

Abigail let out a small gasp. "Me? Lead? .....Fantastic." You could almost see the sarcasm. She turned to look at her team as they gathered around their blue turret. She eyed them one by one, thinking for a bit. "Alright, I'll start right off the bat that I'm no leader but thats not to say we can't win this."

She takes a deep breath. "Right, so, I noticed that Erik snagged members that can get us from medium to long-range, and maybe even close range. They've got all their bases covered. The turret is the biggest concern. I'm going to need one of you to take it out." Abigail looks at Mosa. "You could throw one of the metal covers at it, we have more than enough to spare. We'll also need someone to operate the our turret. So whoever thinks they have the best aim, go for it." Abigail flexes her robotic arm's claws. "I can create force-fields that are extremely resilient, bullet fire isn't much of a problem for me, so you all can get closer to your targets, since I know most of you favour melee combat. But I'll need to focus in order to keep them up so I need you to keep anyone off my tail." She sighs. "If things go south, I trust your judgement to do what is necessary. Big rule. Do NOT let them gang up on you. Work in duos if you have to. I'll hang back behind cover, shifting position every so often so I can focus. I'm open to suggestions."

Preston watched as his brother left for the Red Team. It was somewhat funny to him, since they had always worked together. But he really thought nothing of it, since it was just a training exercise. As he was turning to head back to the remaining crew, he heard his name, among others, being called out by Darkstar. He walked over to the group and listened as the blue leader was finally chosen.

He looked over to Abigail as Darkstar assigned her as their leader, keeping quiet as she addressed the group. He glanced around at his teammates, checking each of their expressions, to which he found Ozma's the most amusing, as it was both sad and funny. He then refocused as Abigail went over the battle plan, nodding lightly in agreement to ideas he agreed with. When she asked for suggestions, he glanced around and raised his hand. "It sounds pretty solid. As you said, work together and use good judgement. Fighting isn't by-the-book. It's unpredictable, so adapt to the changes accordingly." He took a quick glance back at Red Team. "Remember, no one fights alone."

Mosa,holding his helmet under his right arm,nods vigorously. "NO problem!",with a boisterous, sure, but not overconfident tone. He seems quite happy with his team,though something about him....perhaps it's that predatory glare...? Makes it seem like he's just glad to finally find a chance to shoot something.

Ozma nods to Abigail's words."You think quickly and carefully. Let's just hope Miss Fortune is on our side today." He seems to be very eager to criticize her, yet could find no fault in her plan....for now.

He then gives Preston a doubtful look."No one fights alone..but nobody could use anybody as a crutch either",he thinks to himself.

Deunan stands straight and salutes Abigail eagerly."Y-yes ma'am!" Doubt and lack of confidence in her mind, but out of the three, she seems to be the most eager to work together.

The alarm blares, signing the beginning of combat. Mosa puts on his helmet and reloads his light machinegun. "HAHAHA! Showtime!!!", before scrambling over, with Ozma behind him.

Deunan reloads her pistol, then turns to Preston."S-sir!" She must've noticed he is unarmed, and keeping a calm face, she offers him her pistol. "I have a spare!"

Preston took a step back, startled by the unannounced alarm. He watched as Red Team got into formation, while Mosa and Ozama took off into the action, leaving the rest of the Blue Team to catch up. As he searched around for a weapon, he heard Deunan call to him. He turned to her just as she finished reloading a pistol and handed it to him. He took the pistol in his hand, quickly giving it an inspection. Seeing as it was fully loaded and the safety off, he flashed her a quick smile and nodded. "Thank you kindly, Deunan. Let's do this."

The alarm goes off like a bomb and there's no more time for chit chat. Raxis gets up just like James and Erik knows they might have a tactical advantage there.

"Raxis, James, status report, what are we looking at here, how are they deploying?"

At it's most basic level combat was not terribly complicated. You deployed explosives to deal with vehicles, snipers to eliminate key targets, but at the end of the day, you always needed infantry for the messy jobs. The basics were simple but the finer shades of nuance that truly made someone a combat genius were oh so hard to master. As one such man had said "No plan survives contact with the enemy".

He saw Ozama and Mosa come barreling down range and decided to drive them into the traps. He leaned out of cover pouring fire at them in short bursts of 3-5 rounds each. As soon as he'd fired off a couple he ran from his cover to his fall back location back beyond the second set of traps, hailing the rest of the team on the radio as he did. "Hard Contact! Hard Contact! I've got two Uglies coming down on my position." Bullets screeched around him as he zigged zagged and finally threw himself headlong to get to cover rolling up on his knees as he did so. As soon as he was in cover he armed a grenade in his underslung launcher and sent it sailing to detonate just between the pair of fighters coming down at him and the center of their side of the field. Let them think he was trying to drive them away from the turret. In truth he hoped it would be a trap either way, if they avoided the turret they ran into the traps trying to flank, if they went for the turret he would try and trap them in a merciless crossfire. But if they took that turret then this could turn into a bloodbath as they'd get caught "between the Devil and the deep blue sea" as the expression went.

Deunan was quiet for a bit, seemingly surprised by Preston's positive and respectful response. But the sounds of Mosa and Ozma moving brings her back to reality, and she nods."Yes!!",before looking ahead, reloading another pistol, and immediately running towards cover.

Ozma's quick reflexes allowed him to spot Erik as he comes out of his cover, and even though he knows Abigail provided them with the barriers, their lack of experience working together instinctively drove him to dive behind Mosa. Erik's bullets bounces off Abigail's barrier, each hit causing a ripple that both reveals and weakens the barriers. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!", Mosa yells out boisterously, running over in his heavy power armor. Unfortunately, in his confidence, Mosa failed to notice the traps Gelon and Clockwork placed.

Magnificent explosions erupt underneath his feet; Gelon's foam traps causing the already heavy and unwieldy Mosa to become stuck. "GARRRRGH-", but before he can even finish roaring out his frustations, CLockwork's chain mines blows up and damages Mosa's armor, causing several pieces to fall off. If he wasn't over seven foot tall and covered in ridiculously heavy armor plating, he'd be dead --or permanently stuck-- for real. He stumbles out of the foam trap, and starts firing his light machine gun wildly; very inaccurate and careless, but his gun is big enough and his range wide enough, that the bullets still threaten to hit anyone in sight.

Ozma, meanwhile, managed to avoid the traps, and strafes forward, firing his twin submachineguns at both Gelon and Erik in a zig-zag pattern. This actually exposes him to a great deal of damage, but he is so quick and relentless in his movements, that you'd have to be a real good shot to actually hit him.

Clockwork remains behind cover, holding onto her shotgun and waiting for an opportune moment.

Deunan, meanwhile, has made her way on one of the walls on the edge of the arena, and with her handgun, she begins observing the battlefield....when she comes across the sight of Raxis. She remembers Abigail still on the turret, and crouching down, with a communicator, she contacts Abigail, whispering. "Ma'am! I see the cyborg bird of prey! Would you like me to act as distraction while you take aim and gun him down?"