Dragon Chronicles:Gods of War, and Times of Peace OPEN

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

"Mocking? I don't sound mocking do I?" Longshot started to laugh.
"SAIC... oh! You've still to actually MEET SAIC, haven't you Delia?" He smirked. "SAIC, come say hello."
There was a buzzing sound, then a quick flash of light next to Longshot, and then there was a hologram standing there. It was purple, completely, with the eyes being a slightly brighter purple. The hologram was female, it was also slightly see-through, along with what seemed like tiny, tiny, tiny 1s and 0s running along.
The hologram giggled. "Hello Delia, I'm SAIC."  

[Stelle Cadenti]

Delia looked at the hologram. "Oh, hello, sorry about that, I was just, joking..." She trailed off and looked down at her feet. She scratched the back of her head a bit. Delia looked back up to Longshot after a moment, and at the food behind him.

"Maybe we could have a little more of a meet and greet later, right now I don't know how much longer my stomach will hold out.' She chuckled a little bit, and as if on queu, her stomach growled.  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

SAIC giggled, and Longshot grinned. "Yeah, alright. Let's get some food."
"Oh, you might want to grab it to go." SAIC straightend up. " Alpha - 00 is on-board." Longshot's face went blank.
"Grab your food and let's move..." He walked over to the counter. "Ration pack: energy for me." The man handed him a small, round box and nodded. "Grab a ration pack Delia, they're easy to eat on the go."  

[Stelle Cadenti]

Delia grabbed the ration pack as suggested by Longshot and followed him away from the counter. She guessed that it was Reaper that was on-board, and that meant that it was time for her to complete the next test.

"I have to do the next test now, don't I?" She set her face so that no emotion was showing, not a hard thing for her to do since she often struggled with getting the black side to show any at all.  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

"Yeah..." Longshot nodded. "Alpha-00... the leader of the Shadow Corp's Alpha Division is Reaper. Toku is Beta-00, I'm Delta-00, Angel is Echo-00..." He sighed, walking rather quickly. "Thought you'd better know that before we leave." He cracked open the ration, pulling out some kind of fruit bar and started eating. "I don't know what you'll be doing, because I don't even know what operations are being planned. Everything going on right now is top secret. I may be a Founder, but only Reaper, Toku and Louise have access to the really top secret stuff." He sighed, pointing into a room. "Right, this is us... go get a seat, I'll go find Reaper." With that, he walked off, grumbling something about not getting a good meal.  

[Stelle Cadenti]

Delia took a seat in the room and opened her ration pack. She pulled out the same thing Longshot had in his and ate it quickly. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really food either. After growing up in a large, Italian family, good food had been important to Delia since she was very young. She didn't complain thoug, the ration bar was one of the better things she's eaten since being on her own.

Delia couldn't help but pace the room while she waited. Of course it had to be top secret, of course she couldn't know what they wanted her to do. She tried to keep thoughts of what the test would be, but of course she couldn't.  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

Jack walked into the room, signalling to the two men following him to stay at the door. Longshot walked in just behind him, along with Drake, Louise and two others.
They all sat down, Longshot sitting next to Delia with a smile, as Jack closed the door, walking up to the front. "SAIC, mission briefing 1523-SS please."
"Of course Reaper, on main display now."
The screen behind Reaper flickered into life, showing a rather dull image of some dull looking planet. "Right then... Mission briefing 1523-SS is now running. This operation will be codenamed 'Black Dawn'." Longshot raised an eyebrow at this. "Yes, this mission will be involving the SC Black Dawn, hence the name."
Longshot nodded at this. "This is Delia's test, right?"
"Indeed. This mission is a Priority 0 mission." Jack said slowly, Longshot's eyes going wide.
"Priority... 0?"
"This is a prelude to a larger operation in the sector. Hence, the Shadow Corp has been assigned to this specific task." He tapped a button on his ACU, and the picture on the screen changed to a man.
He looked evil. He actually LOOKED evil. His face at least, the rest of him look plain. "Longshot... Delia, this is your target."
"Wait... what?! Her test is an assassination!? That's a little extreme Jack, this is already going to be difficult enough since it's a pri-"
"This is NOT UP FOR DEBATE Sergio." Jack shot him down, his eyes revealing just how serious he was.  

[Stelle Cadenti]

Since it's a what? Delia almost wanted to yell. Reaper had cut off Longshot and she desperately wanted to know why he was objecting to this mission. Not that it wasn't an objectionable mission to begin with, but for the Shadow Corp this didn't come as too much of a shock to Delia. THte fact that they wanted her to do the mission came as a shock, it was a bit of a step up from escaping a jail cell and running from the police.

"You want me to assasiniate someone?" She asked incredulously. Her first thought at that idea was 'but I've never killed anyone before,' which was soon followed by a much more apt thought. 'But I've never shot a gun or used a weapon before.' "Isn't this something you'd trust to someone with, well, more experience? Not that I won't accept it, but, you're really serious?"  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You asked for skill, you got skill." He faced away from the group, while Longshot sat with his head down, cursing. "Killing someone isn't hard. You just put them in your sights and pull the trigger, or push that blade forward."
Longshot grunted, looking up. "The hard part is living with it."
"Not when you know that by pulling that trigger, you just saved thousands, millions, billions more." Jack turned around again. "Onto business." He tapped a button again, and a new slide came up. It was a 2D image of the world, including three moons, and some empty space. "The Black Dawn will Stealth Burst into the edge of the system..." A small ship appeared on the edge of the screen. "From there, a shuttle piloted by Angel will launch, with Delia and Longshot onboard." Longshot looked up.
Ok, that's good... might not be so hard for her. Longshot thought to himself, nodding slightly.
"The shuttle will descend into the atmosphere, and land here." A new slide, showing a city. A small dot appeared at the edge of it. "After that, Angel will retreat to outside the city, while Delia and Longshot move to an abandoned housing complex. Once there, they will ascend to the roof, and take up sniping positions."
A new slide, this time from the point of the view of the two snipers. It traveled all the way from the roof, to a road, quite a bit away.
"Your target travels this road everyday, twice a day. Take him down ASAP. Delia will have to fire the shot, not you Sergio."  

[Stelle Cadenti]

Delia shut her mouth and concentrated on the instructions. It seemed straightforward, take down the target. No running in circles on your hands while balancing spinning china plates on your toes, the Shadow Corp obviously required very different skills than the norm. Delia knew she could do it, she had to be able to. All she had to do was pull a trigger, simple. Her hands tightened their grip on the edge of her seat.

Delia looked up at Reaper, a crooked smile on her face that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Well, what are we waiting here for then?"  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

Longshot sighed. "What's the hard bit?"
"Reach the location without being spotted."
"Oh... god." Longshot sighed.
"Are you CRAZY?" A man stood up, short blonde hair flying around a bit. "That's a god damn FORTRESS WORLD. We should bombard the place and be done with it."
"That's why the Black Dawn is going." Jack smiled. "We NEED a confirmed kill on this."
"Then why not stage a diversionary assault?" A woman spoke up.
"He'd run Angel. He'd run."
The man sighed, sitting down. "Then don't send a bloody FNG!"
"Richard!" Angel slapped his shoulder. "I don't know WHY you use that word."
"What? Nothing wrong with it." He growled, turning away with a scowl.  

[Stelle Cadenti]

((Oh god, I just choked on my brownie reading that. Bloody hell))

Hard part. There's always one.

"I suppose we can't just stick to the rooftops and alleys this time, can we?" Delia said, her dark sarcasm evident. She unclasped her hands from the chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "Just how heavily fortified is this place? I mean, it can't be impossible to get into. What about doing it at nighttime, a cover of darkness would help." She suggested to Reaper and the rest of the people in the room.  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

Reaper sighed. "This world... half of it is in light for 6 months, the other in darkness. These guys keep to the light."
Richard groaned. "By fortress world, we mean FORTRESS WORLD. This is a main staging post for all of the Remnant's activities into the sector." He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. "We could always assault another world..."
"No. We don't have the resources." Jack said plainly. "We drop them in, and they do the job. Then Angel gets them out."


(( Why? Did I write something funny/bad? O___o ))  

[Stelle Cadenti]

((No, you're just making me have to do something that does seem very nearly impossible... Fortress World... ))

"Oh, I see." Was all Delia managed to say. It was going to be very heavily fortified then. Delia tried to ignore the pessimism of the man she heard someone call Richard to focus on coming up with something. They could pull a classic movie move and wait until the gaurds switched shifts to make their move. They could just rely on good ole' stealth, but who knew how good that would turn out.

"You said he'd run if we made a diversion, but that would have to be a pretty big one, right? What if we make a diversion big enough to get a route free of gaurds, but small enough to not attract any more attention? What if we do something like, oh, a little bit of arson?"  

[Fujiwara Kazunari]

Reaper raised an eyebrow. "Actually Commander..." SAIC spoke up, her holographic self appearing. "There have been reports of raiders hitting the planet... perhaps make a false run?"
"Hmm... that might work. We have Angel, in a disguised ship do a bombing run, allowing our two assassins here to get to the hotel." He nodded, talking to himself. "Alright, that's the plan. Drop them in, do a bombing... And take him down. Shadow Corp, To Arms!"
"Aye aye!" Was the resounding shout, everyone leaving the room but Longshot and Delia.
"So.... ready for this?" Longshot smiled, glancing at Delia. "And unless we're out on operation, or in the presence of non Shadow Corp members, you can call me Sergio, or Serg.