onemorebounty | Recent Entries

*The Nexus has some amazing beaches. Places where sea and shore alike meet wonder. Today, she meets her usual running companion in the shade of a cluster of irregular, iridescent, stones with an oil-on-water rainbow sheen. As the sun and wind dance off of them, they echo with faint, otherworldly tones. Finishing her stretches, the Hunter takes a moment to check the time.*

If he's coming, he'll be here soon. We're almost at the time I gave him.

((Edited with regard to Ver's art issues.))

*Samus has been enjoying her role as Verity's teacher--it has been a pleasant way to connect with someone, and gratifying to watch the prickly New Yorker's progress. The Hunter's reserved pride is almost paternal (although given what she knows of her friend and pupil, she takes care not to let that aspect of it show). Equally gratifying is the way Verity keeps rising to the challenges presented.*

*Samus intends to see that her pupil keeps rising, which means that from time to time the challenges must rise, as well. To that end, Samus has been busy for the past few days--subjectively, at least. Time is fluid in the Nexus, and she has some experience in exploiting that fact. When the last strut is in place, the last bolt tightened, the last join checked and triple-checked, she messages Verity via PINpoint.*

[Thought we'd work out somewhere new today. Coordinates attached. Matt's welcome, too, if he's coming. Looking forward to it, the weather is nice.]

*It's... possible that Samus is a fairly bad person.*

*Samus could respect quality and skill, even when they were being used against her. Although her current hunt had taken an unfortunate turn, she was nonetheless impressed by the havoc the raiders had wrought on her ship.*

*In the past month, a half-dozen ships had gone missing in the Vuralis system; two had managed to get out garbled distress signals before they went quiet. The missing ships had several details in common: all traveled by jump drive, all were flying similar routes between the same two jump points, and all six had well-maintained navigational arrays integrated with their sensors and central computers, yet whatever had taken them came as a surprise to all. It was a puzzle, so Samus found the next ship due to fly that route and persuaded him to take another, while she flew the original path with a duplicate of the freighter's transponder.*

*The attack had come when she was passing near a small gas giant and its large, ice-and-rock moon (the pair nearly a quarter-orbit out of position, according to Wikistronomy, which suggested someone had been playing with the edit history to hide a base). Out of nowhere, a pulsed particle beam had splashed over her shields--by the power output, it was from either a heavy corvette mounted with something at the very upper end of what it could power and drag, or the main gun of a light capital ship of some kind. Her own gunship was over-engineered to the point of conceivably holding its own against capital ships, so the shields held, but she suspected that even the freighter she'd replaced wouldn't have been holed in one shot.*

*What made the attack impressive was the effect it had had on her ship--her HUD had immediately scrambled into gibberish, her navigational array assuring her that she was moving simultaneously in three different directions while simultaneously rolling both left and right. The particle beam, she realized, had been very carefully pulsed to transmit a message, one her primary sensors had picked up from the resonance of her shields and transmitted to navigation, which was connected to her tactical display. If she had been like most people, integrating all ship systems through a central computer, the virus would have had everything. As it was, she would have to take the HUD and navcom both off-line until she could scrub them out, which left her to navigate by sight alone.*

*Or not alone. The enemy would be expecting her to be blind and helpless, but Samus hadn't allowed herself helplessness in a very long time. She just had to be clever, had to leverage the assets left to her to the utmost. Navcom and tactical were gone, but she had a secondary sensor array and the means to tie it into her ship's audio. Formation-fliers often used the trick to "hear" other ships moving in their blind spaces without shifting their attention to a tactical display. Prodding the system to life, Samus frowned. Quiet.*

*Too quiet. Of course--a cloaked ship wouldn't register, and the ship must have been cloaked to get the drop on every target so far. She turned up the sensors' gain, filling her ship's cabin with a sound like an endless, eternal sigh, or a choir holding a note: the background noise of the universe. She let her eyes slowly close, her body relax, as she identified each part of the whole, scrutinized it, dismissed it. The background hiss from stars in the distance? No. The strong note of the system's primary star, light-hours away? No. The nearby gas giant, echoing the primary mutedly, its dull note soured to dissonance by the constituents of its atmosphere? No.*

*Ah, but the moon. The silica-heavy rock and methane ice rang like a bell under the primary's light, reflecting it clear and bright and close--and there, buried in its midst, was the faint scratch where the cloaking device didn't quite blend with its electromagnetic background perfectly. She'd found them. Grinning fiercely, she gunned the engines, swinging around to engage her startled prey.*

*When she saw the impending signs, Samus had warned Verity that this day was coming. She knew it was going to be necessary. She had made her preparations, trusting Verity to do the same, but now it was time. This day might prove the greatest test their friendship had yet faced. Now, with everything in place, she could justify putting it off no longer. Looking around the Nexus plaza where she had landed her ship, gathered a breath, and dialed Verity's PINpoint.*

It's me. Ready to go shopping?

That which does not kill me is out of chances.

*Samus' days in the Nexus had entered a pleasant routine. Lessons with Steve as a warm-up followed by her run-and-talk with Verity leave her more awake and refreshed than a cup of burnt stimulants, and yield greater satisfaction as well. The few times Verity's adoptive brother Clint joined them, she was gratified to make an impression on the Avenging Archer, and looks forward to a similar experience today.*

*Ah, today. She waits by the vaguely face-shaped outcrop of rock on the beach where she typically meets Verity, her bag resting on an outcropping. Verity's close friend (more? She isn't sure) Matt will be joining them today, the martial artist who is less blind than he pretends. She closes her eyes, savoring the warmth of the non-sunlight and the anticipation of the coming exercises--which isn't to say that she's wholly unaware of her surroundings.*

Outnumbered? Constantly.
Outgunned? Occasionally.
Outclassed? Never.

Make a choice.
See it through.

*Samus had texted Verity and Steve with directions. This wouldn't quite be one of Verity's usual training sessions, so the setting had to be adjusted accordingly. Instead of the usual mountain road, the Hunter had found a suitable classroom: chairs, tables, good light, a projector, and few distractions. She had brought a duffel's worth of possible teaching aids, left on a table against the side wall. All that remained was to wait for her students to arrive.*

*After her meeting with Dr. Hill, and a brief visit to one of her safe-houses, Samus sends a text to Verity.*

Are you busy? I need to ask a favor, and your insight would be appreciated.

*Two weeks can pass surprisingly quickly with a project (and the malleable relationship with time that access to the Nexus makes possible). Samus had acquired a large storage container and assorted life-support equipment, and set about installing the one in the other, before burying the whole affair deep beneath the surface of an airless planetoid in an unpopulated system in some random universe. It wasn't the first such bunker she had built or installed somewhere, but it was the first time she had intended one for demonstration purposes.*

*She had partitioned the container's interior into two rooms, one a small booth overlooking the other, which takes up the bulk of the container's interior. It may be noted that shipping containers for interstellar freight come in some fairly large sizes. The booth has been extensively rad-shielded and outfitted with some basic computers and interfaces, while the larger area has been stocked with the implements for a series of experiments: emitters for various wavelengths, movable screens with a radio-florescent coating, and armatures for holding objects in place. Passage between the booth and the larger room is managed by a wire staircase along what might be considered the back wall of the container. Rad-shielded containers tucked under the booth house a miscellany of other supplies, essentially anything Samus could imagine needing for any further experiments along the lines of the initial set--including her idea of an "extensive" first aid kit.*

*With everything as ready as she can think to make it, she PINpoints back to the Nexus, lingering in the forum to wait for some sign of Stratos.*

CHARACTER NAME: Samus Aran
CHARACTER SERIES: Metroid (Prime trilogy is canon for this Samus, Other M is not.)

[OOC]
This is the permissions list for OOC (out of character), activity.
Answer the following questions with "yes" or "no", as well as additional information if desired.

Backtagging: Yes.
Threadhopping: By all means.
Fourthwalling: Samus isn't thrilled by people who know more than they should, but she's come to terms with it.
Offensive subjects (elaborate): Not interested in smut, torture, prefer to fade-to-black moments of intimacy.

[IC]
This is the permissions list for IC (in-character), activity.
Answer the following questions with "yes" or "no", as well as additional information if desired. With IC permissions, it's a good idea to elaborate on what other players can expect from your character if they choose to do any of the following:

Hugging this character: Samus doesn't appreciate unwelcome touching, especially from strangers. It is a significant mark of affection when she starts getting tactile with someone, and even then she doesn't jump straight to hugs.
Kissing this character: Don't. If you know Samus well enough to be absolutely certain she'd appreciate a kiss, you might be right, but if there is any doubt at all, exercise the better part of valor.
Flirting with this character: Yes. That said, Samus is as likely to prick the ego of a flirt as to respond in kind.
Fighting with this character: Yes.
Injuring this character (include limits and severity): Take the gloves off. Samus comes from an era that can repair injuries short of brain damage, so that's the line. No brain damage.
Killing this character: No.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: She doesn't like it, and will react badly if she realizes her mind has been read. She isn't able to tell on her own if there's someone else in her mind, and her only defense is the conscious maintenance of a layer of surface thoughts designed to be shocking and uncomfortable to potential psychic peeps.

Warnings: If it comes to a fight, Samus believes in winning before most moral or ethical considerations. She'll strike first, fight dirty, bring in disproportionate force, and walk away with a clean conscience. Because she's used to a high degree of injury being fully recuperable, she tends not to pull her punches.

If I tag you and you'd rather not deal with me, just let me know OOC and I'll leave you alone.

Get your own copy of the IC/OOC Permissions meme!

*On the fringe of the forum district of the Nexus, a small sidewalk cafe abuts the green space, its sign a cup of coffee whose steam twines through the strings of a harp that also seems to have caught several stars. The service is brisk, but it's almost always possible to find a table. There are even times, like now, when it's fairly quiet. Samus claims a chair and invites Verity to do the same.*