Life On An Island (Arzenal)

[RagnaMail]

December, AD 2880
New Taipei City
Arzenal (formerly Taiwan)​

"Let's see.. Flour, butter, a can of bug spray, and a new blanket. I think I got everything." The young woman walked down the sidewalk of a street in the somewhat bustling city street of the capital city of the former island of Taiwan. As she got to a crosswalk intersection, a chilly breeze whirred past going from west to east along the intersecting road. She clutched her cheap-looking satchel's shoulder strap as she instinctively turned away from the sudden gust of wind. Her eyes closed mostly as her free hand held down the front of her uniform's miniskirt; a half-hearted attempt to retain some modesty here in Arzenal but old habits died hard.

Emmaraldi Ro Brittania felt the chill breath of winter subside and she gingery turned to face towards where she'd been heading. The hand that had held down her prisoner's attire reached up and brushed her long-ish dark brown hair out of her face so as to not obscure her vision. The whole outfit was mainly white, with bared midriff accented by wine-red panels and black straps. The aforementioned miniskirt and a pair of boots with thigh-high socks completed the ensemble and marked her. As she crossed the street and glanced at the other people with a quick flick of her eyes that purposely avoided the face it struck her for the billionth time that everyone else in sight was in the same semi-embarrassing outfit. A light sigh escaped her lips as she continued down two more blocks before reaching her destination.

Such was the life of a 'citizen' of Arzenal. "Prisoner's more like it," she bitterly muttered to herself as she made to enter the building. Her training over the years of growing up here made her pause at the threshold and per into the dimmer interior; more specifically the blindspot she knew was a few steps in and to her left. Turning her back towards the wall to her right she cautiously began stepping sideways to the point where she would be able to lean and peek to get the jump on any interloper awaiting her for dark purposes. Thankfully the ambush spot seemed empty today. Maybe things were looking up. Moving along and up the stairwell - because if you were in less than a full crew elevators were prime places to get ambushed for robberies or far worse - Emmaraldi came up to a particular door and stopped before it. She leaned forward and inspected the various tells she'd placed on spots around and on the door. It seemed she was in the clear here as well.

She unlocked and opened the door, giving it a firm push open and giving it a few seconds as she listened for intruders who had somehow gotten in anyways. Nothing presented itself, so she finally entered and inspected her surroundings. It was a small single-occupancy apartment that was actually in good repair. Closing the door behind her and making sure to lock it firmly, Emmaraldi's khaki-hued eyes ran over her belongings as she set the satchel down on her small dining table. It wasn't much - a small hotplate, a counter-top toaster oven, a refrigerator that was more than a mini-fridge but less than a full-size one, and her bed that had a simple floral pattern on the cotton sheets - but it was home and it was as secure as she could make it without it being a concrete pillbox she welded herself into each night.

Her eyes glanced down at the letter that she'd been waiting for since she had put in for the pilot program of Arzenal. Her heart fluttered and wavered as she gently ran her fingers across the blandly printed text of her orders to report to the military base for suit fitting and final certification to be assigned a Para-Mail. Was she ready for this? No. Was she going to do it? Yes. Her erstwhile blood family would probably laugh at her for her current state. She could still hear the wild accusations and still-raw lies that had been spewed at her during that sham of a trial. Her face blushed with embarrassment and not a little bit of impotent rage as she remembered the cold look the Emperor - her own grandfather! - had given her as he passed his self-congratulatory judgement and cast her into this den of thieves and killers. What even had really happened to her father; who had preceded her own fate? She didn't even know.

She considered for the umpteenth time about sending a letter to her mother to ask, but she somehow knew that the woman had gotten the message from the leader of the Brittania family to sever ties. Emmaraldi couldn't blame her. To see father and daughter struck down without even a full breath each would scare the resistance out of any sane person. Self preservation would have long ago kicked in for the woman who'd birthed her, and not being in contact would serve to keep her safe. There was no use in lamenting what was gone and never to be. This was her reality. A girl whose only crime was having a heartbeat that offended some pompous jackass on a distant throne had no business on an island like this, yet here she was.

In the end, Emmaraldi could take a sad little comfort that each beat of that heart was a little laugh at the man who cast her towards a seeming death. But as she turned back to her satchel her thoughts drifted back to the orders on the table. This was a chance to do something all her own! She refused to let that man ruin it for her when he wasn't even in the same hemisphere as her.

 

[RagnaMail]

The next day​

Bright and early, Emmaraldi showed up at the checkpoint to enter the base proper. Presenting both her ID card and her written orders, she was ushered through and sent towards a hangar a little off from the others. Clad in a clean version of the uniform she'd worn in varying sizes for almost a decade now the disgraced Britannian princess walked with her head high and once at the hangar in question presented her documents again to gain entry to the building itself. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim lighting currently on in the space. Her khaki-brown eyes alighted on the contents of the hangar and felt her heart sink.

Most of the slender half-bike-half-giant-robot frames were in varying states of disrepair or outright breakage. Each had it's marked off section of the hangar floor, and with growing trepidation Emmaraldi strode towards the back of the building to her designated floorspace. What greeted her was an odd sight.

It was a pristine white Para-Mail. Well, perhaps pristine wasn't the right word as it was covered in a clear layer of dust and edged in grime from field service here and there. On the head part which basically overlooked the pilot's motorcycle-like seat was an unusual sight even on a Para-Mail. Where there was often a plain and smooth headplate rested a burnished golden angel-like figurehead that seemed to stare off into the void between combats. There was something about this work of mechanical design that seemed.. artful. She lightly stepped into the marked-off area assigned to the machine and quietly reached towards the front hull that would form the chest in Destroyer Mode. Right before she would have brushed her fingers across the alloy hull a tapping foot sounded behind her.

Half-cursing she whirled defensively and was partly into a fighting stance before she realized who was now before her.



The male figure stood there silently, a couple more foot taps echoing through the quiet interior before the helmeted figure gently folded his hands together at where his lap would be were he sitting down. Emmaraldi's form relaxed the rest of the way as she fully understood who this was.

"Hello, Visorface. What brings you here?" She was polite to this man. He was considered to be the leader of Arzenal's merchants and suppliers, and no one who badmouthed him survived long on the prison island. The figure craned his neck this way and that, and the young woman was sure she heard the pop of a joint at the half-hearted stretch. Once that was done, Visorface reached behind his back and pulled forth a shrink-wrapped bundle. He held it out silently towards her and she stepped over to take it gingerly from his grasp. She already knew what it was by the sheer lack of material presented.

This is really happening, she thought to herself as she almost slipped back into her childhood ways and curtseyed; only to catch herself and give a slight bow instead. "Thank you for the delivery." The helmet nodded deeply as he returned the bow and turned to leave, delivery now complete. She watched him go, and noted that once he'd started to move the air smelled somewhat strongly of the man's favored jasmine. Her gaze returned to the machine she'd been about to touch as she clutched her 'flight suit' tightly to her chest. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest like it was trying to shatter her ribs from the inside. Emmaraldi swallowed down the nausea she was half-imagining herself to be having at her approaching chapter of life.

It would have been so easy for someone to walk up on her, again. Visorface was probably the best-case scenario since he was merely a studious and diligent purveyor of goods and services for the population of Arzenal; prisoner and Overseer alike. But she might not be able to take it if someone else did a similar stunt as she stared at her metallic mount.

 

[Lukas]

Her next interruption was anything but stealthy. A soft whistling that slowly grew louder, only stopping once the newcomer had walked up to the edge of the area marked out for the Para-Mail. This woman was clearly an overseer - for one, the jumpsuit she was wearing actually fully covered her body. And for a second, there was a telescopic baton on her toolbelt. Black carbon contrasted against a set of metal wrenches and screwdrivers, a weapon designed for punishment casually slipped in among tools meant to keep the pilots alive.

"Congratulations. Not everyone has it in them to make it all the way, but I guess you know that by now."

Grace's tone was oddly clipped, but the compliment seemed genuine. The mechanic's eyes flicked between her and the machine with careful precision before she smiled. Giving a little nod but still refusing to cross the line into the space occupied by what was now her para-mail. Waiting for an invitation, perhaps? Or just well aware of the dangers of violating a prisoner's personal space.

"Some of the older fighters claim you can see someone's potential as a pilot by how they first react to their machine. I think they're just trying to scare the newcomers, but the justifications people come up with afterwards make it into an interesting thought experiment."

Her smile grew a little sharper, the mechanic looking Emmaraldi right in the eyes. Betraying nothing of her own secrets, but trying to get a proper measure of someone she'd heard a great deal about.

"Are they going to look back and claim this was the first step on your path to glory, or dissect every moment to find warning signs that should have been caught?"

 

[RagnaMail]

Spoiler: Gently in the background...

Emmaraldi looked to the newcomer walking up with a polite neutral expression. It was a curious expression; neither scowl nor beaming smile, instead a carefully-crafted look of casual interest and focus towards the person addressing her. The look would probably be a familiar one to any member of Arzenal's population that survived more than three days. It was the one you gave someone when you wanted to show they had your attention but were not looking at them too intently. A common thing in prisons throughout history to be sure.

She calmly waited for Grace to say her piece, not wanting to interrupt the moment of philosophising. It would possibly be interrupted by the near-instinctual flick of her own khaki-hued brown eyes. The full clothing in a military area? The baton almost on display as another symbolic tool in her array? Most likely an Overseer. The Hounds didn't really come out of their area too much, as far as she knew.

Once Grace finished speaking, Emmaraldi let her voice out in a measured conversational tone. Her Britannian accent was brutally obvious, but the exact placement was somewhat vague even for a fellow Britannian. Emmaraldi's cadence was a mental training technique she thought up for herself to hide any traces of her Imperial upbringing leaking out in her speech patterns.

"Thank you, miss. I would like to hope that I'll be a success story, though I'm sure you've heard that line before until you're sick of it. It's simply something I decided to try for on a half-mad whim and here I am. There's something about this one... I can see the potential. It might be beyond me, but you'll never know until you try; right?"

Her arms clutched the shrink-wrapped flight suit a little closer to her bosom; her stance almost half-wanting to take a step back towards the dingy-white machine at her back for some measure of reassurance. Her body language would be pretty clear that she was nervous; not because she was talking to an Overseer but because she understood the enormity of what she'd gotten herself into. The sorties against the DRAGONs and the BETA were of middling success so far but not for lack of trying. They were simply formidable opponents and one of the few advantages Arzenal had was the number of bodies to throw at the problem.

"The worst that can happen is that I die, right?" The sentence came out with a bit of a self-mocking tone; her lips twisting up at the corners just a tad as she gave a nervous smile at the thought as though she understood the cruel joke at her own expense but was putting on a braver and more Devil-may-care expression than she currently felt.

 

[Lukas]

"Worst would be taking others down with you. There's no shame in dying on the battlefield."

Grace started circling the Vilkiss, giving the pilot her space and changing her focus for the moment. Even frowning, trying to place some half-forgotten fact about the Para-mail Emmaraldi had chosen. It was distinct enough that she was sure she'd seen it before, but if she had she'd have remembered it with how distinct it was. The logic kept circling until it started to give her a headache, and Grace chose to end the train of thought by forcing herself to talk about the other aspects that stood out.

"It's the machines that are important. I can't see any special weapons on yours yet... but the ornament makes it stick out. People are going to notice what you're doing out there - Good or bad."

All in all her tone suggested she approved, rapping a knuckle on the metal and going silent as the sound rang out through the hangar. Something about it made Grace smile again, stepping back from the Vilkiss to give the pilot her space beore continuing.

"I think you're right. There's potential here. Try to focus on keeping alive in your first sortie, and use that attention to draw fire away from the more compenent squad members. Every shot fired at you helps keep the pressure off them, and they'll do more damage than you would if the situation was reversed. Training on shooting back can come later if you survive."

It was clear she was trying to be supportive, but there was something odd about the advice she gave. Clinical, detached, and completely divorced from any sort of conventional morality. Trying to recommend Emmaraldi play the role of a bullet sponge with complete sincerity like there was nothing wrong with the idea.

 

[RagnaMail]

"Well, to be fair I literally just got assigned the other day. This is my first time in the hangar," Emmaraldi said as she slightly lifted the shrink-wrapped flight suit from her chest an inch or two in emphasis before lowering it back. Her khaki eyes watched as Grace strode around the Villkiss and once she was on the opposite side Emmaraldi gave in to a prisoner's instincts and snatched a quick glance through the rest of the hangar. So far, no one else seemed to be disturbing them but there were plenty of partial machines to hide behind if you were quick and didn't mind trying to close distance. Not ideal but it was better than it could have been.

Her head lowered a little bit as she contemplated how to take Grace's advice; be it as an insult or with a grain of salt. In the end, she chose to retain a grace to it as she responded to the implication that she should be a bullet sponge for others. She wasn't here simply to die. There were a thousand other ways to do that on this island, and dozens of times over as many people who'd be delighted to help her off this mortal coil. After all, she just had to stand on a street corner somewhere and shout out that she was a Britannia by blood in order to get someone to beat her to death; just as an example.

"I truly thank you for the advice. I don't know about being bait for the enemy, though. From what I hear the BETA don't care and just go for who's closest, while the DRAGONs seem to prioritize the bigger threats first. It's not like I'm expecting to be useless but one has to set realistic expectations in the beginning; right?"

She actually stepped towards the Villkiss, getting somewhat closer to Grace in the process. It was clear she was more focused on the machine than the Overseer at this point. Emmaraldi glanced up and down the length of the machine before taking a deep breath and freeing her left hand from holding her flight suit in order to reach up and help her mount the seat. It took her a few moments to settle in without the second hand to steady herself further on the control grips. Whatever she'd been expecting to happen was momentary and apparently not forthcoming at the moment as she leaned forward on the motorcycle-style seat and faced forward.

The fallen princess' expression was somewhere between thoughtful and dreading, with just a heartbeat's flicker of sadness that the machine hadn't immediately given up it's secrets to her. But still this was a chance. This was an opportunity. She couldn't afford to waste it. The longer she sat on the seat the more her body seemed to meld with it, as even one-handed she was clearly coming quickly to grips with how the machine would move and react. She wasn't so crass as to pretend to fly it - especially not with an audience - but that itch of something in the back of her mind that had driven her here in the first place was back.

Emmaraldi nodded to herself as she sat fully upright on the seat and looked at Grace from her newfound perch. "I don't know how to explain this.. But this feels right. It's not excitement or such; I don't think? Just.." She looked back at the currently inert controls as she patted the bit of seat between her upright body and the front end of the seat itself with a gentle touch from her left hand. "It just feels like I'm supposed to be here. Is it a bad thing that I'm terrified but at the same time almost looking forward to this?"

 

[Lukas]

Grace's gaze seemed locked on Emmaraldi, the woman not even flinching when she was approached. The only sign of weakness came when the other woman's back was turned, and she followed up with her own quick scan of the area. There was something mechanical to her approach, the movement rehearsed to look almost casual but all the more odd for it. One hand straying down to her baton, but immediately withdrawing when the area seemed clear.

"We're still not sure how smart the BETA really are. But DRAGONs are known to go for the bigger threats and have confirmed pattern recognition. They'll see a unique para-mail and assume it's an ace."

Something about Emmaraldi's attitude seemed to amuse her, a smile starting to form as she watched the woman settle into her new para-mail. It quickly shifted from amusement to approval as she saw the woman settle in, leaving her space and remaining quiet until she was addressed again. For now she was happy to play the role of spectator. Watching the first act of a tragedy.. or perhaps something more upbeat.

"Not at all. It's how you respond to the fear that matters. It's not something that can truly be determined until you've really been on the field - so far you seem promising enough. Oh, and... good luck out there."

Grace seemed happy to leave it at that, turning away from the now-pilot with a small shrug after giving it a last once-over. She was satisfied with how this conversation had gone, and in her mind she'd done at least some good for Emmaraldi's chances on the battlefield. Someone to possibly keep an eye on, if she didn't just get shot down the first time she went out.

 

[RagnaMail]

"Thank you." In the quiet of the hangar the words seemed to echo quietly before fading against the sound dampening of the sheer volume of the place. As Grace turned away, her khaki eyes tracked the Overseer for a moment more before she turned back to the controls of the Villkiss. She reached forward to the main panel and turned the large oblong red knob to the right. The main screen lit up and started going through it's boot sequence before entering a general status screen displaying various things about the machine's status.

Normally she'd have turned the knob the other way to fully start up the Mail, but she wasn't plugged in via her flight suit so the actual operations mode wouldn't kick in for her. This was a ground-based diagnostic mode that presented itself. Leaning forward slightly again, she gripped the left control stick-grip and thumbed one of the selectors on its surface to scroll through options and various more detailed status screens. The small reactor was ready to ramp itself up once the ignition sequence was properly started, and the fuel status... Emmaraldi stared at the fuel gauge as it stared back at her. The system had no significant amount of propellant in it; effectively ensuring the machine was grounded. There was just enough in the depths of the thrusters' guts to keep the system from seizing up but even if she were to light the fires so to speak it would be at best a mouse fart worth of flame at best.

She'd known this, but as a prisoner there was a small hope that she would have the opportunity to try an escape. As she stared for a heartbeat longer before backing out of the fuel display and running other system checks to ensure flight worthiness. It all seemed to be in order. Grace would have easily heard the button presses and clicks and tiny beeps from the Villkiss in response to her silent queries; had she deigned to stay within earshot.

No. Escape was one of the last things on her mind. There was nothing awaiting her outside the borders as a free woman, and even less than that as an escapee from the prison nation. Her family was presumably dead or in hiding. The Britannia bloodline was linked to her only by genetic markers now. They were not dead to her, but she knew that the Emperor would be annoyed she didn't have the common decency to perish in this place. Even now, she was thinking of if she should be a jerk and hint to her continued existence or continue her silent running.

Maybe she'd talk to Visorface about a customization to Villkiss' weaponry if she survived a few sorties. Few in the world would understand her vaguely envisioned emblem, but those who knew it's true meaning would be instantly enraged. Emmaraldi had to be strong enough to fend them off.

"To Hell with Britannia," she murmured in a sudden and quiet growl at the thought; her left hand going white-knuckled on the control-grip in her own frustration before she recoovered herself and reached up to turn off Villkiss to await a sortie.