(( I guess so, but after I do this you might need to edit your last post before that one. :p

I'm gonna edit in my next "post" right here when I get done, I'm halfway through already. Stay tuned to this channel. ))]

***

(( And here it is. ))

"Sounds like the LAPD's coming in to investigate. We'd better get out of here."

His words almost sound distant as she listens, and so do his footsteps as he turns on his heels and heads for the car. She stands staring for a while longer though, into the space where the man once was, her eyes growing watery. "Yeah..." she finally whispers.

She turns to head for the car, her voice shaky as she rubs the back of her arm across her eyes, trying to dry them off. "Let's go..."

Her door opens and one foot steps in, but she pauses and thinks just as Wolf begins to start it. "Wait."

"What?"

Facing back at the bodies with her foot still in, she says, "We have to take them."

She doesn't pause to consider his reaction, or even listen to him, instead jogging straight over to the woman and stooping down. As she begins to scoop her up into her arms, she looks up to Wolf and says, "Help me!"

She then lifts and carries her over to the car, eyes focused on nothing but the woman's face and the backseat, where she places her body across the seat, not giving a thought to the blood. Then, she goes back over to the other two bodies and makes to pick up one of them and carry him back, to place him in the car, too.

OOC: Ok, move this around...rearranging...got it.

BIC: Wolf didn't give too much thought of the idea of blood on the carseat...although he wondered why they couldn't have just put the bodies in the trunk.

It's not a freakin VW Beetle...it HAS a trunk he thought. However, he diecided damaging the upholstrey was immaterial at this point. He walked over to the last assassin's body, picked him up, and added him to the small pile in the back of the car.

You died fighting to support a lie...but you will not be denied a proper burial for that mistake. he thought as he closed the door.

***

The drive back to base was unnervingly quiet. Wolf felt he had to say something...he just didn't know what. Finally he thought of something to say.

"It must not have been easy...to fight your own students like that, especially knowing what you know now about Mastermind." he said. "It's one thing to see your own comrades or former comrades die...it's quite another to see them die by your own hand. Such a thing has only happened to me once, about 3 years ago...and I often wondered if there was another way. Anyway, I really hope we can find a way to end this war quickly...so maybe this endless cycle of deception and death can end."

Memo to self: Stop talking... he thought after his mind finally caught up with his words. He didn't read his own memo and kept talking. However he thought it was best if he changed subjects.

"I noticed there was a connection between you and the black assassin. Personally, it's not my place to know what has occured between you two, and it's not my place to judge that either. After all, it was a different time. If you want to let me in on it, then fine. If not, that's fine too. I'm not going to make assumptions about anything, because I know which side you're on anyway, and I'm glad its the same side as us."

The Trans-Am pulled into the underground parking garage at the Base.

"Yeah..." she whispers, head looking sideways out of the car.

It barely registers when they park, and she absent-mindedly lifts her head off her hand and opens the door, getting out to take the bodies inside. Not much time had passed since they'd left the tower, but she could tell their nanites were soon to turn on again. Reaching over into the backseat, she places her hand up against the woman's face, brushing back some blonde hair from her face first. Her eyes meet the woman's, and she gazes into them for a few seconds before closing her own eyes and taking a breath. Connecting with her nanites to hers, she concentrates for a moment and steadies her breathing, beginning to interface with them and send the shutdown codes to the nanites' processors.

From Wolf's point of view, it must look like she's trying to give her a silent eulogy or something.

Wolf walked away from the solemn farewell Scrya was giving to her dead students.

Let her grieve, she needs to be alone, he told himself. As he headed out of the garage, Lieutenant Commander Sharpe of Team Beta approached him.

"Is everything all right, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Uh...yeah I'm fine," Wolf said skeptically before he noticed there was blood on his trenchcoat. "This blood isn't mine. We ran into a couple of assassins during the mission."

"I see...I'm assuming you got them all, sir."

"Not quite. 3 of the 4 that attacked us are dead. The other one escaped. There's another thing. We took the bodies with us. Apparently Scrya didn't want the LAPD to manhandle them...that, and they happened to be former students of hers. She's going to need help taking the bodies to the morgue. I'm pretty sure she wants to give them a proper burial, and I'm going to oblige her on that. Those assassins died for a false cause...they shouldn't have to suffer in the hereafter for that."

Sharpe nodded "All right, I'll get some men on it."

Wolf grinned a bit. "Good. And one more thing, tell the corpsman not to do an autopsy."

"Will do, sir."

"Ma'am?"

Scrya looks up from her work with a start; she hasn't been paying attention to anything else. "Huh?"

"We can have somebody take the bodies to the morgue, if you're done...?"

She looks away from Sharpe, and back to the bodies, her hand still touching the face of one of the men. So many memories she had with him -- with all of them -- are now gone. With a sigh she removes her hand from him and steps back, never once taking her eyes off his as she feels his augmentations shutting off completely. "In a minute..."

Sharpe glances between her and the bodies for a moment, then starts walking backwards. "All right..."

Once she feels he's out of easy earshot, she puts her hands together and holds them up to her face, bowing her head and shutting her eyes for a silent prayer, of sorts.

Our spirits trained together, and grew as one... together in life, and together in death... goodbye, my brothers, and sister.

She slowly releases her hands after being silent for a while longer, and takes one last look at them before heading back over towards Sharpe. As she passes him though, she stops to put her hand on his shoulder. In a soft voice she tells him, eyes looking past him at the floor, "I'm going to give you a list when you're done with them... pass it on to Knight... he'll know what to do with it."

"Yes, ma'am..."

With that done, she heads off into the base, silent and placid.

OOC: While I wait for the raven to answer Kaitlin's earlier question...I must keep the RP moving...sorta.

BIC: Wolf went to his quarters and inserted the memory key he got from Toshiro into his laptop. opening up the main file he was immediately presented with a list of contents that were all in Japanese Kanji. Although he could read some of it, and new it was the operations reports of Hanzou's JSDF Cyber Counterterror Task Force (CCTF), it had been almost 2 years since he had tried to read Japanese untranslated. So he hit a key, and all the text translated into English.

Now my good friend, let's see what it was that got you killed, he thought as he began to scroll through all the operations listings. Finally he came to the last entry, dated March 19, 2024. He opened the file, and was presented with an after action report from Hideki Hanzou.

"While out on patrol, one of our PT boats spotted an odd set of structures on Torishima Island. Since the boat picked up a lot of interference, we assumed it might be something of cyber nature, so we investigated the island that night. What we found there defies explination. It was a base. A massive, newly built base. There were numerous defenses and hangars, as well as at least 4 large satellite dishes, but here's where it gets really strange. The base was empty, completely devoid of all life. Nominal power was on, and it seemed to be doing something, but we have no clue what. My original thought was that it was a JRA base, but there's no way they could have built something like this without us knowing. Maybe the intel boys are doing something with this...a little bit of national security business or something. Then again, maybe it's another one of Mastermind's failed experiments. Either way I can't blow it up yet; I'll have to remember to ask Toshiro about this place."

Included with the report were maps and photos. Wolf looked at them, and grinned/frowned at the same time.

This could definetely be the place...but what if it's not? I guess I'll have to wait for Kaitlin and Monk to come back in order to confirm this.

OOC: For the record, there is a Torishima Island in Japan. It's quite remote too.

(( BUM BUM BUMMMM ))

Scrya makes her way silently down the many hallways, turning the many corners and riding the elevator up to her room. Thankfully, nobody's around to see her, or if they are, they don't pay her any mind. She's very thankful for that, yes.

Except when she finally gets to her room and lies on her bed, nothing seems to be able to help. It seems like hours pass as she just lies there, but in fact only a few minutes do, as she runs through just a few things in her mind.

Finally, she decides to do something else.

Getting up with a start, she makes her way back across the base, towards the medical wing.

"Just tell me where we are going."

Raven's right eye glowed yellow and series of skematics, blue prints, temperature, contour, and normal maps apeared next to satelite photos.

"Torishima Island, Japan"

Kaitlin downloaded all the location data on Torishima and Mastermind's facility there into her PDAP.

"Thanks," she said to the raven "You probably should get going and find some way to trap Mastermind within the Torishima base. Whatever you do though, be discreet. Mastermind may not know you exist, but I doubt he'll appreciate a random AI moving about his facilities."