[Date: August 17, 2020. Time: 800 GMT.] [Since her recent appearance in the SAB training facilities, Saki has spent some time recently with Interpol participating in globabl mop-up operations after the recent success against vampires.] [She was called off that operation to provide tactical advice and combat assistance in an upcoming SAB mission which Interpol deams important.] [She's been told to meet Dame Eckerd and an associate at the entrance of an Underground stop in a warehouse district in London.] [Weather: Little remaining morning fog, seems like it's going to be a humid, if not too hot, day.] [Start] * Saki gets there the way she gets anywhere: Riding her bike to the place. She arrives in the warehouse district and looks around for the Underground stop. [Saki finds it quickly enough, there's Dame Eckerd there, and what appears to be a teenage girl, maybe fourteen, with brownish/greenish hair.] [About a block away.] * Saki rides up, then, parking her bike at the nearest convenient location. * Eckerd nods to acknowledge her, and as she gets closer, she notices that closer up the teenaged girl looks a bit different. ( She's actually a 40 year old man? ) * Girl seems to have gain purple-toned butterly wings and elfin features, still same size and clothes though. And Saki didn't notice them appear, just that they weren't there before. ( Mine was better :P ) * Saki parks her bike and walks up to meet them. She takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair as she goes. * Girl smiles at her approached and says in a moderately high voice. "Salutations mighty human warrior." She then whispers over to Eckerd. "She is human, right?" Close enough. * Eckerd nods. "Thank you for coming Ms. Morikawa." * Saki nods. "What's up?" The quick version is that our dimension has something like 'antibodies' against powerful extra-planars. When the power extra-planars are exerting here is large enough, it invests some of that power into a champion to protect itself. There's magic and ceremonies and secret societies involved, but that's not important. You following me so far? Yeah, 'cept why have ceremonies if the power puts itself in someone? * Eckerd smirks. "Largely to make people feel important even though they have little to do with the process. Hence the lack of importance." And ceremonies can be fun! * Saki shrugs. Trouble is, the powers are given at adolescence normally, but in a burst, the recipient doesn't have time to adjust. And while she, it's typically a she, is adjusting, she's bleeding energy and attracting any extra-planars from her part of the globe. Hnnn. Most will ignore her... but some will want to killlll her. That's where the fun starts! Right. I see where this is going. * Eckerd ignores the girl for the moment. "Good, here's the rest of the specifics. The process makes waves even before it starts, most reliable diviners have recently been picking up signals that say it'll happen in the next twenty four hours, here in London." * Saki nods. We'll have a group protecting her. Borring. Quiet you. To make the job easier for that group and to deal with some of the nastier elements among the extra-planars, we'll have a second decoy group, producing a fake signal. Aw, that's no fair, you make it sound like it's your plan. I came to you! And I thank you for that and you'll be well rewarded. * Saki smirks. * Girl hushes up. Something about Eckerd's tone. We're thinking to have the decoy group operate in an evacuated section of this warehouse district, and in some of the older, unused sewer and subway tunnels, obviously only the sturdiest ones. Right. Wouldn't want them collapsing on us. Since we have some time before the powers actually kick in, I thought it'd be wise to give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the area, find any pitfalls in the plan. * Saki nods. "Gotcha." And then later we kick ass! It'll be fun. Well, mostly I'll run around and try not to die, because being a beacon uses up my powers. * Eckerd looks vaguely apologetic. * Saki gives the girl a glance, and then back to Eckerd. "Don't tell me... She's the decoy?" * Eckerd nods, and keeps up the look. * Girl giggles. "Not like someone really sane would volunteer for this." * Saki sighs. "Yeah." * Saki shoves her hands in her pockets. "Well, at least it'll be interesting." She looks at the girl. "Try not to get killed." * Eckerd starts walking down the street. "If you'll come with me Ms. Morikawa I'll give you the brief tour. The buildings on the block are marked for demolition, but try to keep it to these warehouses, don't want to lose the whole district." * Girl smiles. "Sure! Try to kill lots of other things!" * Saki follows. "Don't stick me with any trigger-happy people, then." She put on a rather impressive display in our training room, or we wouldn't have accepted her offer. Hmm. * Eckerd sighs. "Given the crew we've got available, we're negotiating a large insurance policy for the rest." * Saki winces. She doesn't like the sound of that. * Eckerd nods at Saki's expression. "That's why we wanted you, and why you get the pretour. Once this block is largely down, you'll probably want to go underground." Got to leave a trail of destruction for the slower extra-planars. You're putting me in charge? [The block for the record, is quite non descript, warehouses, dumpsters, usual stuff. Pretty vacant, not even many gang tags.] We'll still be in radio contact, but we thought it was important to have a cool head on the ground. * Saki laughs. "And you picked me?" * Eckerd chuckles softly. "You may see my point when you meet the team." Crazies, everyone of them. You promised! Sadly, I bet I could guess. [You get around the block and back to the Underground stop.] At least it's a good place for a fight. * Eckerd nods and heads downstairs. "This station was meant to be renovated once the block was rebuilt, we'll shut down this section of the line, to keep civilians away. Every place is a good place to fight! Well, for at least one side probably. Nah. But this place is. * Girl sort of jump hovers down the stairs. "Guess so, wouldn't want to fight in space, not without a suit at least." Yeah. [Pretty sketchy looking subway station.] * Saki looks around. * Eckerd walks over to the tracks and inquires into her collar. "These off yet?" There's a quiet affirmative response from an earpiece. [Fair amount of tile and stone. Good amount of the tile is missing or in bad shape though.] * Eckerd lets herself down off the platform to the tracks. Girl jump hovers down. * Saki hops down. To the right will lead to populated subway stations, but that's some distance away and you'll have some off ramps. * Eckerd walks to the left. "This way is an older section of track, more stable, and can get you to the sewers, if you need to for some reason. I can fix the smell, unless you think it'd destroy the ambiance. In which case I'll just fix it for me. * Saki follows. "Hmm..." Session Time: Thu Feb 19 00:00:00 2004 [After a bit there's a grating on the right with a ladder underneath it. Eckerd takes out a telescoping crow bar and lifts it out of it's resting and then manages to get it open the rest of the way with a moderate show of strength. Nothing too impressive.] * Saki is neither impressed by Eckerd's strength nor the crowbar with the telescope on it. * Eckerd climbs down. "We can leave it open if you like, but I doubt any of you will have trouble with it." I could probably cover that up. I won't need to do it for me. ::she giggles:: Point. Oh, and we've also made sure that the maps to this area won't be publicly accessible that day, in case your extra-planars have computer backup or something. Good. [You walk around the sewer a bit. It's a sewer, it's a map in every single RPG, you know the deal. :P] ( I'll say. Can't go through an RPG without winding up in a sewer. Geez. ) That ends our tour, unless you have any questions. Who am I working with? Or hasn't that been decided yet? < Eckerd> Mr. Ashton and Mr. Ran who you've met, Mr. Petros who you've haven't.... We're also thinking of asking Ms. McLochlane. A new hire, she's spent some time in the training room of late, you may have met her. Not sure about that. Feel free to review the dossier and mission logs if you want to get a feel for any of them. Although this would be Ms. McLochlane's first mission with us. * Eckerd heads back to the ladder. "If memory serves, her specialty is fire arms, specifically an improbably named plasma cannon." Plasma cannon... Ah, that one. Sounds fun. I see what you meant, earlier. Property damage is going to be astronomical. * Eckerd nods as she climbs. "Probably try to get them underground as soon as you're sure that you're being followed. These are solid rock tunnels, and I don't think even this lot would try to cause a cave in. * Girl flies up. * Saki climbs up after, and nods. "Yeah.... Not exactly the kind of thing I'm used to, though." * Eckerd walks back out. "Interpol does seem to have a great deal of faith in you, and considering that you kept your head on the cruise ship, you shoud be fine here." * Saki follows her out. "I just do what I have to." * Girl flutters along, openly flying for now. "Well.. I'll take your orders, I'm mostly in this for the fun, but don't wanna make your job hard." * Eckerd climbs up on the platform without much trouble. But not impressively either. Ok. Don't get killed, don't fuck up, don't get in the way. * Saki uses her arm to swing herself up onto the platform. * Girl smiles. "Those are orders I can respect." * Eckerd walks out. * Saki heads out too. [End]