SCRA Recruitment Centre

[Balanar]

Silence - as much could be expected.
The fans thrummed quietly as they had for hours.
The man across the room shifted nervously for the fifteenth time in the last hour.
Hearbeat in your ears, as it had been as long as you had been in this purgatory - forever, memory indicated. The past was a haze, occluded by the oppressive nothingness here that left one alone with his self.
Then, a break in it.
A steady clack of boots on an unseen hallway.
Coming closer. Stop, with a click. The swoosh of a cloak, or coat.
A foot moved.

The door suddenly opened in front the small old man, who glanced up at the sudden noise.
A comparably aged man stepped into the room, heading straight for the applicant, ignoring the others sitting around. He was old, yes, but his body was still lean and hard, and his preservation belied a life of hard military service and other difficult times, like he was tempered iron - and looked just as cold as well. He wore a long grey coat of the Coalition, trimmed with an odd blue that was not familiar. He had a tall, thin face, almost caricatured in appearance. A narrow pair of glasses perched atop his nose, disrupting the sharp glare of his eyes with their thin lenses as he looked down dryly at the shrivelled husk of man that sat before him, looking up at him.

He crossed his arms across his chest for a moment, and then looked down to adjust his glasses with one hand, that he promptly locked back in place.

"I will not ask you your name, as it is entirely unimportant, and I already know it... and your age is more evident than you would think." He bent down a little bit, closer to the man. His mouth was almost entirely expressionless, with just a hint of exasperation on it. "These simple questions do not matter. What matters is the single question I have for you now. What makes you so special that you would seek to join the Coalition?"

The old man looked up at the officer slowly, more due to his frailty than as a dramatic device. The man before him was strong, probably spry, and was certainly more than his equal in physical prowess. If he could not make his case here, the old man realized, he would be shot and his body disposed of. And yet, he felt compelled to try. His will, perhaps, was the only thing even remotely strong about him. He chuckled, dry and rasping.

"I do not seek to join your glorious Coalition, sir." At a sharp frown from the man before him, he continued. "I do not ask anything of you but employment. You see, I have grown rather bored in my old age, and can no longer act as my former employer's retainer. As he has no use for my particular set of skills, I could not in good conscience remain on his payroll and take up space." Dusting off his battered glasses, the old man continued.

"I do not wish to be known as a Coalition member by you or any unaffiliated party. My only desire from your organization is something to do. Think of me as a hired gun, who will not fly your ships nor even consider your ideals. I do not desire any payment, rather I seek something to do to pass the time." The old man was overcome with coughing, briefly, and leaned back in his seat after it had subsided.

"It's not a bad proposal, I think, for you gentlemen. Rather than sacrificing your own promising young men and women, why not send me in to the fray? At the very least, all that will come of it is my own ship being destroyed, and my life being lost instead of that of one of your men."

---

~ Characters ~

Balanar the Nightstalker - Artemis Marquise - Kane no Tsubasa - Maximilian Immelmann - Hipparchus, the Cartographer

[Corsair]

Pekkala moved swiftly forward. She turned and locked eyes with Vicenta. "Thank you for sparing my life. I will do as you say and return here." She touched her neck, feeling for any cuts. Satisfied that she wasn't dead or dying, she spun on her heel and left the room, then the building, and eventually the planet.

She was escorted back her her family's temporary asteroid home, where she gave them the news. They began to observe and collect information in preparation for Anastazia's return.

---

[Sprolf]

The old officer seemed to think for a moment, his eyes and glasses almost appearing to increase in distance from each other as his thoughts worked themselves out behind his undeflectable gaze. He glanced downward for a moment, nodded, and then looked back up, letting his arms drop to his sides, resting them casually inside his greatcoat's pockets. He glanced at the old man again, nodded a little bit, and then his gaze dropped somewhat, to the near the other man's belt.

"What's that you're drinking, there?" he asked with genuine interest, gesturing toward the hip flask.

---

[Corsair]

Anastazia was sitting at the table with her family, discussing the matter. The Unioners. The Bundschuh. The LWB. The Hessians. Chatting in slow Russian, over what their correlations were. Then, Anastazia's brain clicked.

"They're all the dispossessed workers of Rheinland. Common people who have been wronged by their government." There was much sighing around the table and 'why didn't I think of that?' And they decided to wait a while before coming back to the SCRA with their recent.. Revalation. But they would return. Soon.

---

[Balanar]

At the officer's entreaty, the old man reached down in to his boot. Unknown to the officer, a second, identical flask was hidden there. In one, of course, was the medicine the old man had taken earlier. It was the second, however, which the old man retrieved now. "This?" he asked of the officer, unscrewing the top of the flask. "It's a rather nifty liquid, he said, and I think it better expressed in rhyme." Slowly, then, the old man tilted the flask of liquid over, spilling it on to the floor. As it poored, a devilish glint came in to his eyes, and he spoke.

"Though I know I should be wary,
still I venture someplace scary,
ghostly haunting I turn loose,
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, BEETLEJUICE!"

At this, the liquid seemed to take form. From the floor rose a nasty, ill-kempt dwarf of a man. He wore strange clothing and boasted shocking dental work, in addition to having a rather shocking head of hair. This newcomer turned to the old man, who had leapt to his feet.

"Beetlejuice, destroy this facility! Kill them all, in the name of our lord King Arthur!" It is perhaps unfortunate that Merlin's miscalculation was so grave. Beetlejuice did not care for having been bottled up like a genie for so many centuries by a crazed old fool, and now sought vengeance. He socked Merlin in the face, destroying his fragile bone structure and killing him instantly, and ran immediately to the nearest airlock by way of escape.

(Poor old codger probably should have just tried his luck with a fire spell.)

---

~ Characters ~

Balanar the Nightstalker - Artemis Marquise - Kane no Tsubasa - Maximilian Immelmann - Hipparchus, the Cartographer

[ShadowWolf77563]

A young man, in golden leather walks into the recruiting offices, The faint slant of his eyes gives him a Kusarian Appearance, But his Black eyes show mixed heritage. He holds a walking stick as he steps up to the main recruitment desk. He gives a brief smile and requests a meeting with a Recruiting officer.

"My name is Kensai Hitoru, I am here to see one of the Commissars about Joining the Coalition."

After a brief rebuttle, he sits down and Sighs to himself. Many things continue to go on about him, blood being scrubbed from a desk in one room. Another foul smell emits from another.

"I think this is going to be quite the interesting day." He allows himself a good sweep of the room, from the posters on the wall to the guards standing Strongly, eyes drilled ahead of them.

"This is a good place." He sets his feet up on the small table in the Waiting lounge, fiddling with the strap on the walking stick.

---

"Eh Dra Ypcahca Uv Tynghacc, Mekrd Bnajyemc." CLICKY!!!!!!!!!!
In the Absense of Darkness, Light Prevails.

[Sprolf]

The Lieutenant Medvedov sighed and raised a wearied eyebrow as he saw the man dribble out the liquid on the floor, mumbling some vaguely Vogonic poem. He was about to say something when the old man then shouted something in a singsong delirious way, waving his arms about like a mad octopus... and then promptly proceeded to slip on the liquid he'd just poured out on the floor for reasons unknown.

The lieutenant neatly sidestepped the swift toppling of the towering example of senility, looking down at the fallen form in disgust. He'd fallen flat on his face, breaking his fragile bone structure with a sound that could be described as not unlike an overripe melon being dropped from a step ladder onto slightly trodden on linoleum. The ancient man continued mumbling to himself in a pained, delirious, and obviously hallucinatory way. His words couldn't be heard past the puddle of blood and flesh on the floor, nor would they likely have been intelligible if they hadn't been so obscured.

Medvedov looked around, his sharp eyes cutting across the room. Everyone was purposely busy doing other things at the moment, most conveniently looking in the opposite direction.


He glanced back down at the mumbling figure, who had started to flail about weakly, his face still rather fixed to the floor where it had impacted. He shrugged, pulling out his .5 calibre revolver. He squeezed the trigger, slowly, deliberately.

The bullet made a sickening sound similar to the aforementioned melon-like splat as it blasted the rear of the old man's head wide open. A splatter of blood instantly splashed across the floor, the wall, and Medvedov's coat.


He frowned a little bit as he looked down at his coat, but frowned more as he saw the body - evidently not quite a corpse - keep wiggling. He pulled the trigger again, blowing more of the head off, and splattering more dark blood across the otherwise clean room.

The body stopped moving now, and the lieutenant turned away, opening the door he'd come from... but, he hesitated, and looked back. With the gun still in his hand, he squeezed the trigger again, and again.... and again, and again, in very rapid succession; the powerful rounds ripping the body to almost literal shreds on the floor. The weapon clicked once, and then he placed it back in its holster.


He left the room, a serene expression of exasperation and fatigue across his narrow face.
He didn't even get paid for this.

---

[pieguy259]

Vicenta came out and stopped as she saw the applicant with his feet up.

"You have your feet on my coffee table," she said coldly.

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[ShadowWolf77563]

He looked up at the Fairly imposing woman, obviously Furious. In polite response to her comment, he lifted his feet from the table and offered a brief smile.

"Apologies Ma'am. With the, interesting destruction laying about the office. I mean, Amongst the ashes, blood stains," He looks over her shoulder at the Old man being blown to pieces by a Interesting Sadistic officer ," I never expected my feet to be the offense."

"May I ask whom you are?" He glances at insignias on the uniform and smiled again. "Ah! A high ranking Officer. Is it to you I'll be speaking of Joining this Revolution?"

He stood and bowed his head slightly in respect for the officer, and awaited a response. He rested his walking stick down on the ground, and leaned his weight on it slightly.

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"Eh Dra Ypcahca Uv Tynghacc, Mekrd Bnajyemc." CLICKY!!!!!!!!!!
In the Absense of Darkness, Light Prevails.

[pieguy259]

"Not in that ridiculous outfit you won't. This is the Coalition, not the circus." She glowered at his golden leather clothing.

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