Blanking the Slate

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #900 on:** December 29, 2018, 12:39:55 AM

Awe was finishing the dough for the ginger snaps when Emilena walked in. "No, I thought I'd get the dough for the gingersnaps ready first." Awe placed the ready dough in the fridge to cool. "And now since t's done I'll call my contact." Awe pulled out his phone and dialed a number speaking in German when he got through.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #901 on:** December 30, 2018, 04:09:58 PM

Emilena tried to eavesdrop on Awe's call while she prepped the kitchen for cooking, but she didnt speak German and couldn't glean much from his inflections or tone.

Once a pot of water was boiling and the kitchen was prepared for pasta, she started making the garlic bread and tomato sauce, planning to leave the pasta itself to Tony.

------------

Flora stopped dancing with a tired oof. " That's probably...enough footage, right?" she gasped, wiping her forehead. "So what now? Are we gonna edit it into a video and post it online? I know the password to my official YouTube channel."

Nick22 · **Reply #902 on:** January 01, 2019, 02:16:02 PM

hmm we'll need to edit it yeah"marita shrugged ' how long does that normally take? i've never done a music video before, so this will be all new to me." She said, as marie came up to them, having finished filmingg her dancing parts. ' Well, once the editting is done we can seee how we did. I imagine you work with extras regularly." Marie said.
_
Zula pulled up in front of a brownstone apartment building, that looked like t dated from the late 1800s. the building stones were weathered and mossy in areas. ' Zula popped the vans rear hatch, revealing, bins of tennis balls and rackets. ' Just carry as much as you can.' the lioness said to Bianca, who soon joined her. Bianca opted to carry the balls which were bright green in color and smelled like they were fresh out of the can. " those balls havent been used yet. They will be, with my next training lesson." Zula said.My room is the second floor Room 210. its slightly towards the center right as you get off the stairs."
-

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #903 on:** January 02, 2019, 07:59:19 PM

"Nigel always insisted postproduction take less than a month," Flora shrugged. "Not that I ever touched any of that. We always hired freelance video editors cause they worked for pennies."

She opened the laptop and searched for video editing software. "Is this thing an Apple? I remember using iMovie once when I was young, it was braindead easy."

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #904 on:** January 04, 2019, 01:21:56 AM

Awe's tone had gotten a bit more excited to give a word. Awe hung the phone up and put it in his pocket. "Sure hope you guys know how to use military style sucba gear." Awe commented to Emilena. "Cause I got us a ride. took some convincing but i got it done." Awe sat down on the couch. "It'll be a bit cramped since it's an older submarine though."

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #905 on:** January 04, 2019, 02:51:13 AM

Emilena grinned from ear to ear. "Hell yes." She'd eventually put the pasta on herself; it wasn't that fancy dish Tony had mentioned (at least, she assumed there was more to it than assorted pasta shapes with tomato sauce and parmesan) but there were at least enough of these so everyone get their fill. "These should be done in about 15 minutes. I'm gonna start prepping the sauce. Ginger snaps are looking good, by the way."

------------------------------

Flora found the video editing software and opened it. "All right, let's... hey, what's up?" she muttered angrily as the program refused to accept the footage. A quick google search revealed that this software didn't accept .flv2s. "Oh for the love of..." The comment section suggested a free converter, so she converted the footage to .mp7 since it was the only available format that Marita's video editing software accepted. "There we go. Hmmm..." The footage now had a watermark along the bottom. Flora zoomed the footage in so that lower chunk of the video was missing. "It's a bit blurry now, but I mean, who wants to see our legs anyway, right?" she joked.

She watched through the professionally-done half of the music video sent by Bailey's film studio. "Hmm, our new footage doesn't sync up super well," she admitted. "But we might be able to hide that with an establishing shot." By now it was too dark to go outside and record one, plus Tony probably didn't want his exterior in a music video for the world to see, so Flora found a site with Royalty-free stock videos and purchased a time lapse featuring the outside of a mansion. "OK, now let's add some text that says 'The Next Day..." she murmured out loud...

She slowly got lost in the act of video-editing, working with what she had to sync it together with what Bailey provided. Almost twenty minutes passed before she sat up. "Okay, so Bailey's footage of the concert is unchanged," she reported to Marita and Marie. "And after that, this transition implies it's the next day, I meet you girls at this mansion, and then we dance, and...uh, we didn't have enough dancing footage so I looped it a few times, and stuck the song on top of it..."

Together they watched the new video, which hard cut to black the second the song ended. "I think that looks good!" Flora smiled, setting the project to render.

"Hey," Emilena stuck her head in the room and made Flora jump. "Dinner's served in a few minutes. Head to the dining room if you want pasta."

"We'll be there!" Flora grabbed the newly-rendered video and uploaded it to her official YouTube channel, ignoring the thousands of unread notifications. "Hope people like it. I've never edited my own music video before. This was fun!" She beamed at them. "Especially because I got to do it with you two!"

---------------------------------

Emilena, meanwhile, had sleuthed out Soren and Axel to give them the same spiel she'd given Flora.

"Yeah, I'm not really hungry," Axel admitted, taking another swig from a bottle.

"Too bad, come anyway," Emilena's eyes flashed in irritation. "Awe and I put a lot of work into this goddamn food, you're going to at least stare at it. Plus we all need to talk battle strategy, Awe's got us a way into the underwater lab but we need to nail down specifics."

Axel grumbled as the vixen left. "You coming to dinner?" he asked Soren, hoisting himself out of his seat with a grunt.

Serris · **Reply #906 on:** January 04, 2019, 04:59:20 PM

Anne had found her location. It was a somewhat decrepit looking electronics store with assorted computers and other electronic goods that were not months, but years out of date. That and most of the companies were no longer in business. In fact, she even recognized one of the items: a wearable radio eavesdropper similar to her horn but it relied on a wire coil hidden inside a shirt and a small bone conduction speaker disguised as a bandage.

There was a Tegu sitting on a blanket a few feet away. The reptile's clothing looked to be rather scraggly and they were selling what looked like some bootleg pills. She ignored the reptile and stepped into the shop, which was dimly lit and kind of scraggly looking. A sad looking plant sat in the corner of the shop.

"You see anything you like?" a Chinese man asked, his heavy accent betraying his recent arrival.

Anne nodded. "I'm actually looking for the latest Screaming Wire album." Screaming Wire was a Hong Kong based industrial rock band that was quite popular with the rougher parts of society. Of course, being a store that sold only electronics, it did not sell albums of any sort.

"In back. Follow." Anne followed the man through a door with a tattered and outdated calendar that was clearly a free gift from some company that went under quite a while back.

------------------------------

Soren's stomach growled and he looked at his empty glass. "Yeah, I haven't eaten a good meal in a while," he said as he got up and followed Axel.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #907 on:** January 04, 2019, 05:29:10 PM

Emilena cursed as she scalded herself on a large heat tray while moving the massive pot of pasta into the dining room. "Dinner!" she shouted, dinging a little kitchen bell for added effect.

She set down the parmesan shaker next to the massive platter of garlic bread right as Axel entered the room. "Whoa," he commented. "We expecting company, or are a half-dozen people really supposed to eat all this?"

"I only know how to cook in restaurant portions," Emilena admitted. "And who knows, maybe Awe's a heavy eater. By the way, he's made ginger snaps for after dinner so save some room."

"Well, I don't want dinner, so can I have them right now?" Axel folded his arms. Emilena defiantly served him a large plate of assorted pasta shapes with a ramekin of sauce.

Nick22 · **Reply #908 on:** January 07, 2019, 01:12:44 AM

Marita stole a peek at the notification, most of which were connected to responses by Floras fans discussing her ' absence' " the official line is that you are busy working o your next music video" Marita said to Flora " technically, you are, but I dont think any of this fotage will actually get into the final Video. "
-
Let just get something to eat' Marie as she entered the dining room, and took a whiff of the massive pile of garlic bread ' Geez! Thats a TON of garlic bread! give me.. i dont know , about 10 pieces of that. OH1 and i'll try of the pasta too. Do we have any Parmesan to put on it?' she asked.

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #909 on:** January 07, 2019, 04:48:05 AM

"Eat dinner first, you're gonna need the energy. I find it best to go on a mission with a full stomach." Awe said before eating some of the pasta he'd put on his plate.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #910 on:** January 07, 2019, 09:54:14 AM

Right, the mission debrief. Now that Awe had reminded her, and everyone was in the same room, Emilena broke the ice on explaining their situation. “Awe has managed to secure us a submarine and diving gear, so we’re probably going to be infiltrating the base from the water if possible. Speaking of which, Axel?”

Axel busted out his phone. “Yeah, I had a couple ideas, but only one that works with going in like Red October. So, a submerged lab needs to vent heat, cause the water around it is basically serving as a permanent insulator. This is normally done through massive dedicated vents. For a lab this size, we’d be able to fit in them no problem.”

Flora passed Marie the parmesean and began dipping her garlic bread in tomato sauce. “Where does the heating vent lead to?” she asked mid-munching.

“Probably the filtration room. But we wouldn’t be going that far.” Axel brought up a schematic of an underwater lab. “This map isn’t Brennan specifically, but they’d need to follow the same rules of architecture. Heating vents are treasure troves for microbes and algae, so they’re always connected to maintenance hatches for cleaners or repairmen to get into them. We find one of those, we’re in.”

“Okay, so what special equipment will we need other than the submarine and scuba suits?” Emilena asked.

“An acetylene torch to burn any grates out of our way.” Axel racked his brain. “And I guess, like, weapons. You know, the usual.” He looked around. “Any other questions? Opinions?”

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #911 on:** January 08, 2019, 10:28:23 PM

"We'll need to keep quiet. Most security at places like this is heavy. Having broken into many myself." Awe noted. "Suppressed weapons and melee weapons, but we should also be ready just encase we loose surprise."

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #912 on:** January 08, 2019, 10:41:12 PM

Emilena nodded and glanced at the clock. "It's 5pm right now. Ideally, we'd leave under the cover of night." She glanced at Awe. "Where will the sub be, and how soon will it be ready for us to head out? If we could disembark at 3am, that'd give everyone 8 hours to sleep before the mission." Not that anyone had to rest if they didn't want to, but Emilena was feeling plenty tired; she hadn't had a full 8 hours of sleep since Buller ambushed her yesterday morning. I can't believe that was only 48 hours ago...

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #913 on:** January 10, 2019, 10:09:46 PM

"It'll meet us just off the coast at 2am." Awe replied. "Won't be a comfy ride. Oh and be ready for the smell. It's an old diesel electric submarine."

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #914 on:** January 15, 2019, 03:26:48 AM

(OOC: Timeskipping to 1:30am, half an hour before the submarine heist. Feel free to post what your character did during the 8-hour break if you want, but it feels like the RP ground to a halt at dinner)

Emilena’s first sensation was the feeling of weightlessness, of being surrounded by a comforting warm gel. She couldn’t move, but as she’d just been born, this didn’t bother her all too much. Her world was small but safe, letting her slowly learn how to move and stretch while exploring her existence with absolute security.

Her second sensation was the sound of murky voices infiltrating her slumber. “I don’t know about this, Rhaegson. We could just store the DNA sample and test it once we’ve rebuilt in Seryet. It’d be safer.”

“Oh come on, it’s a piece of fuckin’ hair!” The second voice was snide and commanding. “You gonna carry it in a baggie for three months? No. I wanna know who was so goddamn important that those freaks smashed their way in here and turned this place into Pelvanida* just to clone 'em.”

She was growing bigger. Her hands and legs were taking shape, hair was growing on her scalp. Light started penetrating her eyelids, and the cloning pod started feeling constricting rather than cozy.

Before long it was done. The pod drained itself of the viscous green goo and the door hissed open, and she took her first stumbling steps into the world.

“Wait,” gasped the first voice. “That’s...that’s the woman Lupis has been chasing! Does he know about this?”

“Feel free to ask him,” the other answered dismissively, “we’re standing in a puddle of his brains right now.”

She groaned as she opened her eyes and saw her surroundings for the first time. She was standing in a heavily damaged laboratory. Bloodstains, bullet holes and burn marks pocked the walls, and the floor was coated in a mess of various bodily fluids. A larger man in a labcoat was staring at her in fascination. The smaller man, in a crisp business suit, wore a look more akin to disgust. “She’s nobody I was expecting…” The smaller man narrowed his eyes. “What the hell were they playing at?”

“We’ll study it,” the larger man assured. “See if we can find out what Lupis was so interested in.”

“Nah, we don’t got time for this right now.” The smaller man drew a silenced pistol. “We’re in the middle of a big move and there’s too many eyeballs from the feds.” He cocked it and poked the barrel into her chest. “We’ll clone another one in Seryet.”

Something in the man’s tone, and the barrel stabbing painfully into her ribcage, warned her she was in danger. In a panic, she whacked the gun with her hand as it went off. The larger man screamed as the bullet ricocheted off the cloning pod and embedded into his leg. “Fuck! Goddammit!” he cursed, glaring at Rhaegson with watery eyes.

Rhaegson was more interested in the cloning pod. “Well, I’ll be,” he chuckled. “You bitch, you made me shoot the DNA receptacle.” She’d stumbled backwards into the pod, and was staring at him in terror. “Guess we’re stuck with you.” He put his pistol away. “Okay, wash her up and maybe knock her out until we’ve got her in Seryet.”

“You shot me!” the larger man snapped angrily.

Rhaegson rolled his eyes. “Then fucking get some Neosporin and then do it. Jesus.” He hit a button and the cloning pod resealed, locking her inside. “She’ll be here when you get back.”

She heard their steps walking away. A soft light shone from the ceiling of the pod, letting her see her reflection in the metal; a brown-eyed, dark-skinned human.

“Oh, shoot,” her reflection suddenly said. “Sorry Echo, you weren’t supposed to see into my memories. Don’t worry, I’ll fix this before you go to sleep again.”

Emilena awoke in a cold sweat.

After several minutes digesting everything she'd just seen, she sighed and sank deeper into her pillow. Goddammit, I thought I was done with Lily butting into my dreams... Once her heartrate had settled down, she climbed wearily out of bed and staggered down the hall to splash her face in the bathroom.

(*referencing an incident in 2008 where gunmen assaulted and murdered most of the staff in an American research facility)

-----------------------

Flora was sleeping on a couch in the living room, having drunken herself to sleep on liquor from Tony's bar. Hiccuping drowsily as her 1:30am alarm went off, she rolled over and abruptly crashed to the floor with a resigned groan.

Blinking blearily, she remained strewn across the floor as her brain pieced together the plan they had decided on last night. Sleep for 8 hours, then drive 30 minutes to the coast and meet the submarine... she yawned. "Fifty credits says someone sleeps in and makes us late..." she bet the couch leg.

Five minutes later her alarm went off again, reawakening her with a jolt. As she swiped snooze, she noticed her own name flashing across the News app notification.

Andy Margolis, Clickpop reporter
Fans of DJ Xyler just received their first cryptic clue as to what happened to the missing icon. At 5:21pm last night, Xyler's YouTube channel unexpectedly uploaded a new music video, though its bizarre production quality has left critics baffled and fans worried for her safety.
The video starts out normal enough, with standard Skyler Blake production quality, but by the second half has descended into a nonsensical hodge-podge of camcorder and security footage. Xyler herself appears dancing with several other women who have not been identified. Columbia Records has since taken the video down and has not commented on why or how it was published in the first place.
So, was it a promotional stunt gone wrong? A half-finished project accidentally made public? Or is DJ Xyler being held hostage and this was part of some sort of ransom notice? In any case, at least we can finally put to rest any theories of Xyler having died in the assassination attempt at Topical Amphitheater.

"Wow, geez. Everyone's a fuckin' critic..." she muttered, dragging herself towards the bar. "Well I thought it was a good video..."

After taking an Amaretto shot in a futile attempt to wake herself up, she limped like a zombie towards the bathroom to relieve herself.

Nick22 · **Reply #915 on:** January 16, 2019, 01:55:43 AM

Marita storred as the alarm went off, and she looked around at the fold out cot she had been given. Marie groaned as she stirred next to her ' And i had such a nice dream. i was at this fine arts school, where i was drawing old buildings to put on postcards ' Marie groaned. ' You, do artwork? Thats more of rose's thing.' Marita said as she stretched , feeling her toes and claws crackle as she did so. ' I miss her terribly. Its been weeks now and no word at all, and.. Marie, I think she;s dead. " Until we find her body somewhere you cant give up hope entirely' Marie said as marita pulled out her computer, which had a clip of the 'video' they had made with Flora, and the comments were running about 100-to 1 in favor of ' this video stinks' " so much for our promising careers in music." Marita said with a sigh. ' what do you expect from a cell phone? its not going to have the same production value as a professionally directed and edited video. '[ Marie said as she changed into a fresh outfit.
_
Bianca stirred from her sleep and blearily looked over at a clock that hung on the wall which read 1:40. the Tv had been left on, She had been watching.. well she didnt really remember, show News program. Now there were a trio of people discussing a music video of some kind. the quality of the video was not great.. it was grainy, and blurry,. "it looks like someone went to the " Blaiir Witch " school of camera holding ; Bianca yawned " Either that or its a home movie or some kind.' The roomba that had been guardiong her and the flat, moved back and forth on the ground, beeping every so often as it bumpred into a tennis racket that had fallen on the floor. Bianca decided to see if there was anything in the pantry to eat. she had just crashed on the coach after finishing moving Zulas stuff intoi her room. 'that had been several hours ago, apparently, and now she was hungry. tthe light in the kitchen flicered slightly, the bulb probably needed to be replaced, but that cost creds, and Zula didnt have much in the way of extra creds. Nor, as it turns out, did she have much in the way of food. there was a half container of milk, some thick baloney slices and and a jar of grape jam in the fridge, a quarter loaf of white soft bread and some crackers in the pantry, and a large case of Diet coke in a small space between the fridge and pantry. ' baloney.. and Jam sandwiches" Bianca sighed as she took out the scant food that was available to her.. As She was sliding bologna between 2 slices, Zula entered from the front door carrying bags of food ' Sorry i'm late. Jiang had a augment repair that went 3 times as long as we thought it would. had to remove the part, find out its burnt together, and spent out 6 hours slowly separating them, so we can get a replacement part made ' Zula sighed. ' also forgive me but i borrowed that gold creds card of yours, I spent about 500 creds, to get all this food. ' I'd been living on bread and jam for the last couple weeks. I'll pay you back once Jiang pays me next. Which will be.. lets see .. Friday. Should be a decent sized amount too, what with the double shift tonight." Zula said as she pulled out , milk, cereal granola bars, peanut butter and several other food products. " its ok, you're giving me a place to crash, so we're even' Bianca said, as she took out a box of fruit snacks from the bag.

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #916 on:** January 16, 2019, 02:45:56 AM

Awe had spent the majority of the time in the gym. One of his augments allowed him to keep going for longer. Awe wiped the sweat from his brow from the workout. Awe left the gym and got a tall glass of water from the kitchen.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #917 on:** January 25, 2019, 05:41:36 AM

"Hey!" Emilena complained when Flora opened the door to the restroom. "I'm in the shower! You had to have heard the water running."

"I did, but I got to piss really bad." Flora raised the toilet seat. "Why didn't you lock the door?"

"Last time I was in a Stracci mansion, they auto-locked." Emilena focused intently on the far corner of the shower while waiting impatiently for Flora to finish and leave. "Do you know if everyone else is awake yet?"

"I saw the mercenary in the kitchen. Don't know about the others." Flora flushed and washed her hands.

"Ugh. We were supposed to leave at 1:30, that was two minutes ago," Emilena sighed. "Hopefully Awe's contact isn't on a tight schedule."

Flora started washing her hair in the sink. "You know, you still owe me a conversation. We made that deal, way back in the day."

"I'm more than prepared to honor it, just there's hardly been a chance." Emilena grumbled as her shower turned lukewarm due to Flora stealing the hot water. "But if you really want it to happen while I'm cornered in the shower, sure."

"Well, to be honest, back in the day I was going to ask you for help cutting and running from this whole ordeal." Flora rifled through the drawers, locating a hair dryer. "But now that I've found true love, I'm invested. I want to be a part of Marita and Marie's adventure. I want to keep them safe."

"I honestly don't care." Emilena pursed her lips as she heard Flora testing the hair dryer. "Umm, is there any chance that could wait until I'm gone?"

"I know you don't like Marita and Marie," Flora answered, ensuring the hair dryer was plugged securely into the wall. "You've always said such hateful things about them. So I'm giving you one warning. Don't ever say another rude thing about my girlfriends again."

"'Girlfriends'?" Emilena scoffed. "Look, I've known them a lot longer than you, and I'm not going to tiptoe around them just for your sake. Sorry."

"Oh yeah?" Flora abruptly pulled Emilena's curtain open and brandished the hair drier menacingly. "What if I tell you," she threatened as the vixen recoiled in surprise, "that if you don't promise, I'll throw this in there with you and--"

Emilena punched her square in the throat. Flora's eyes went wide and she gurgled in surprise as Emilena followed up with a karate chop to the forehead that sent the folf's head smacking against the mirror. Emilena maintained her startled combat stance even as Flora slid to the floor, out cold.

-------------------------------

Sixty seconds later, Emilena was dressed, dried, and opening the door to Marie's and Marita's room. "We need to talk," she said simply, dropping the unconscious folf on their bed. "What is the whole story on this girl? How did she get involved with us in the first place, and why does she suddenly love you so much she tried to kill me in the shower just for insulting you?"

Nick22 · **Reply #918 on:** January 27, 2019, 11:44:00 PM

"Our job was to keep an eye on her. We're getting paid a lot of money to do so. As for why she suddenly has a major crush on us, well we couldnt tell you" Marie said " Some sort of love potion, or something, I dont know. Until a few weeks ago or so she couldnt really stand us. So her change is a complete 180. '
So she threatened you for you not really caring for us, and you knocked her out?" Marita said " Truthfully I cant find any fault with you defending yourself, she was completely over the line' She sighed. " she's lucky you only knocked her out. You could have killed her."

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #919 on:** January 28, 2019, 12:55:21 AM

"So you didn't drug her or anything?" Emilena furrowed her brow. "Hmm. Well, we're about to break into a high-tech laboratory, maybe we'll get the chance to run some tests on her."

She glanced at the door. "I need to check on everyone else so we aren't too late to meet Awe's contact. When Flora wakes up, can you talk to her and dissuade her from doing something like that again? I don't want to leave her behind, but I also don't want to get backstabbed while 200 feet underwater."

(OOC: I've written an epilogue for this RP since it seems to have breathed its last. Of course, if we ever revive it, I'm more than happy to de-canonize this and we can continue the story as usual, but I don't want the story to forever end unfinished.)