Potenza

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Sasha sighed and sat back down. "Everybody would be guilty of that charge then..." It was best for her to shut up and just follow orders, even if she was still not 100% on keen on the entire ordeal behind this. So she did. Considering this was to be a "simple" mission, she only planned to bring along a handgun. She would rather sit back in a tower or something from afar with a long range weapon of some sort, but unfortunately, this was't a shoot first, ask questions later which she preferred. Besides, she then wouldn't be able to react until it was too late. She was a damn good shot, but not good enough to save a life if it flipped upside down suddenly.

Once they all arrived at the city, one would think it would be hard to find a single protester. Protesters varied in all major landmarks whether it was one person or a large march. However, since their "target" was a special sort, she tapped her chin. "Hmm...well if you want to send your message to the most amount of people, I would either say the entrance of the city or the main town square. However, the entrance of the city would sound strange since that means the main residents won't really get the message. So my best bet would be the main town square." She looked at the other two. "Unless there's a better place to send a message?"

 

At first Leon waited for the girl to continue to explain the things that she was talking about, but before she could get a word out someone else had approached her. A man and a woman to be exact. The man seemed to be the first one to speak and questioned the girl about the things that she was saying. Leon could infer that his reasons for questioning Mila were more than just simple curiosity, that was mainly because of some of the other things that he'd said while speaking with her.

Milia on the other hand had a less than desirable reaction to the questions. "Well then, quite the situation this turned out to be." He said to no one in particular, just stating how he felt about the current situation at hand. It could end in one of two ways from what he could tell and both of the ways didn't involve talking it out to tea and cookies. Either way he wasn't going to turn tail and run, that wasn't his style. Plus he was far to curious about the things that Mila had to say to just up and leave. SO what if it brought potential danger upon him, danger was something that he was used to.

 

Samuel followed closely behind Takeshi. He wasn't particularly keen on being in a team at all, but at least he could have a little fun while it lasted. As he got to Takeshi, he raced past him and around the corner, into the weapons storage. After a brief moment of scanning the shelves, he spotted his favourite Katana. Surely the academy wouldn't mind him borrowing it and taking it with him outside. After all, they were the ones that had assigned the mission. Satisfied, he hurried back to Takeshi. "So..what kinda weapons do you usually use? Could be good to get to know each other a little. Nothing detailed, just fighting style and stuff like that, to make sure we don't go and get ourselves killed by this crazy chick spreading rumours, right?" he asked, being sure to specify no details. He didn't want Takeshi to know a single thing about his past.


Arabella hadn't really spoken on their walk. She'd made sure to stop by the weapons storage and pick up her favourite sniper rifle, not that it would do her much good in a close quarters engagement. However, it made the girl feel a little safer having it on hand. Besides, there was always the chance she could spot her from a distance and keep her at one. "Hmm...well, Sasha, right?" Arabella asked, to clarify. She had heard the name floating around. Rumours said she was a crack shot, and seemed to prefer the longer range guns. Couldn't really trust rumours though. "She's right, town square's the place to go. If you were going to start trouble to send a simple message, entrance would be the worst place to go to. People entering and exiting would hear it, but the people living here wouldn't hear a thing. If she's in the town square, she'll be easier to see, so it works out better for us anyway. Makes her an easier target. We should check there first, and if she's not there we can think of something else" the sniper said, beginning to walk in the direction of the town square, being sure to keep close to her comrades. ​

 

After a few sentences of exchange, the trio of gunslingers had all decided to start walking over to the town square. As they walked towards the public area, they briefly passed a broken car, and seeing as they had no way to fix it, kept going on. That was a weird observation and she had no idea why she even made it in the first place. As they got closer to the town square, Lucia took out the flier that had their target's picture on it and then started scanning the crowd to see if any faces matched them.

While it was apparent that no one's face matched up, there was someone who seemed awfully suspicious. The reason her face didn't match up was because she was wearing a hood, after all. Keeping a calm and composed demeanor she looked to the other two and said, "let's go check out the girl with the red hoodie up, she seems awfully suspici-" she was stopped mid sentence by having her vision slightly shift to the hooded girl. What they ended up on, was none other than one of the most important people of the special forces.

There he was, Quinn. The man who part of her own fighting style was inspired by. An unarmed master among masters. Lucia continued to look around to see if there was anyone else of note there, but all she saw was what appeared to be a homeless looking girl with a fetish for technology- oh my god that must have been Quinn's assistant! Lucia had completely forgotten why they were even here in the first place, now lost in her own little daydreams.

 

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The trio eventually made their way into the town's main square. Looking around, there seemed to be a small commotion around a red hooded girl around the middle of the town square. "Hmm. Looks like someone beat us to them. Though I think it's best if we stayed at a distance. Having a bunch of people from the Academy might intimidate her, even if we do say we won't harm her. After all, she is the reason why we are all out here." She noticed Lucia not really paying attention which explained why she was staring at a particular person the entire time she was talking. She sighed and shook her shoulder. "Hey pay attention. We're on a mission here. There's a reason why he's out here as well. You can't let your idols deter your mission. Even if they are good...like REALLY good." Even Sasha had some respect for Quinn as well, but not as obsessive as Lucia.

 

Quinn listened to what she was saying. It was no surprise she didn't exactly trust him. However, what she said surprised him quite a bit. So...That was the rumor. "A slave trade? If that really is going on, it makes sense why they'd order a force wide search to find you and keep it from getting out. Listen, a claim like that, true or not, will get you in deep trouble. If what you're saying is true, then you can't just go around yelling it without something to back it up. Listen, i know you don't trust me, but if there really is a slave trade happening in the special forces, that can't be allowed to continue. But, i can't just take your word for it either. If you can manage to get some kind of proof that your claim is true, i'll do everything i can to help you." Quinn said to the girl, hoping she would at least believe that it wasn't some kind of trick to apprehend her. She probably knew as well as he did that if he tried to take her by force, he'd succeed. He was one of the best CQC specialists there were, and she was a teenage girl. A trained one, but the likelyhood was that he could win the fight without too much difficulty.

Looking over to the side, he saw a group of three people staring in their direction. One of them looked like she ought to have hearts floating above her head and be wearing merchandise with his face on it given her expression. Dear god...It was a fangirl. Looking at their persons, he found that each of them were carrying a weapon. Likely they were from the academy, maybe early special forces, and had come to arrest Mila under orders. "Look. I'll get you out of this once. After that, you're on your own. If you can find proof that your story is true, call here. it's my personal number." He said, handing her a card in hopes she wouldn't just immediately throw it away ten minutes from now. Even if she did, if she started another riot, he'd be there. Hopefully she was intelligent enough to realize that event if it wasn't him she came to with the evidence, she needed evidence nonetheless. Standing, Quinn gave an internal sigh. Fans...He always hated his job. A large part of it was because he hated attention. This was the worst part of that. He walked over to the trio. "You three. Are you from the academy?"

 

The sniper looked around as Sasha talked. Ahead was someone that had a slight resemblance to the fugitive, Mila. Only slight, and even that was from the small amount of features she could see. Body shape and a small amount of hair (which was a fairly distinctive colour) was really all she could see. What made it all the more likely though wasn't Mila herself, but the people around. Several people seemed almost wary of the girl, some looked outraged at her, and others seemed to be almost shunning her. While those reactions didn't guarantee the outlaw was there, they without a doubt indicated it wasn't just some random passerby there. Chances are it was the fugitive. There was no solid evidence to support it, but the longer they searched, the more danger people were in. She had to take the chance.

Then of course, there was Quinn. Arabella, like Lucia and Sasha, had the utmost respect for Quinn. The man was a walking legend, good at just about everything he did. Actually, good was an understatement. Normally, Arabella would have stopped to talk to him, even if she would be a nervous wreck during that conversation, but this was hardly a normal meeting. They'd been given orders to bring Mila in, to take her down, and she had no doubt that Quinn knew about that, so why was he here? More importantly, why had he simply walked away from the fugitive? Something didn't smell right.

Regardless of Quinn's intentions though, they still had a mission. Not only a mission, but a duty to protect everyone from the potentially dangerous Mila. Biting her lip, Arabella came to a swift decision. Kneeling down rather quickly, she brought the sniper rifle down to a comfortable height, and aimed the gun at Mila. Sorry Sasha, sometimes fear is the only way to get to someone effectively, she thought to herself. "Mila! My name is Arabella Oblea, I'm from the Academy that has put out orders for your arrest. Throw down any weapons you have with you, and come along quietly. I don't like pointless violence, and I'd rather not have a death on my hands. If you do as I've asked, I promise you that you won't be harmed at all. If not, then we'll find out just how good with this sniper I've gotten, see if I can't hit your skull from here" Arabella called out, making her intentions somewhat clear.

As she waited for a response, Arabella decided to address the other issue. Damn, it was a tough one though. Not taking her eyes off the scope on her sniper or Mila, Arabella took a deep breath, and then spoke. "Sir, you know this girl is an outlaw, so why did you, knowing how important it is she is taken care of, walk away from her? And what did you hand her?"​

 

Takeshi had remained fairly silent as Samuel walked passed him and towards into the weapon storage. He wasn't sure why he was in such a hurry to get to there, but it wasn't that big of a deal anyway. It had appeared that he came back with a katana. Was he expecting to get up close and personal during this mission or something? "Anything long range, preferably a sniper rifle." Takeshi answered as simply as possible. Unlike what he was inferring from his partner, he'd preferred not to waste time by having to resort to sword play or anything close range.

At first things seemed to blow over without to much trouble, least till some blond chick came out of nowhere and pointed a gun to the back of Milia's head. That little act of hers had left Leon in quite the predicament. While not a single bit of the current attention was aimed at him, the slightest thing could easily change that. For example, pretty sure just my standing there he could be assumed to be an accomplice of hers, which whether he was or not was up for debate and should he run that'd would definitely draw a lot suspicion towards him. Standing still or fleeing, neither option yielded good results so he just shrugged his shoulders and stood there.

 

This was bad. She evidently hadn't listened to what he'd said. He offered to help her get away, yet when it came down to it, she gave herself up. What she said was true. There had been an awful lot of disappearances, without recovery of the bodies. Mostly females, around her age. Now that the thought of a slave trade had come into his mind, he realized that supported the fact of there being one. The blonde trainee who had pointed a gun at Mila turned to question him about what he'd handed her. Dammit, she had a sharp eye. Well, she could suspect him all she wanted, if she tried to do anything about it, it would be his word against hers. So, there wasn't much risk of her telling someone. Still, he had to clear it up. "You follow orders to the letter, without question. You're a good soldier. I respect that." He began, seeming to praise her.

"But there's such a thing as being too loyal. Because the higher ups tell you something doesn't make it true. It's not always the public they're out to protect. I have an order for you. A simple one. When you bring her in, think about what she says. Use your own judgement, and see if you believe her or not." He finished, and began to walk away. "Robyn. We're done here. We'll see Mila later. I intend on talking to her." Honestly, he wasn't even sure if he believed her or not. If she did turn out to be right, then it would shatter everything they knew.

 

Arabella Oblea stood her ground, showing no doubt of any kind to those around. Inside, she was already questioning whether it was the right thing, but she kept telling herself that it wasn't just for the good of the public, but it was also to keep her brother safe, and that was all she needed. "I'm following the orders I was given, Robyn. If you want to find out why she's asking saying things like she is, then I suggest asking her for yourself when she is being questioned. You could probably ask the director, perhaps they know something" she said, attempting to pull the focus off of her. Arabella didn't feel particularly comfortable in that situation, not at all. "Thank you Sir, I try my best" she said in response to Quinn. The girl wasn't going to respond verbally to him telling her to think about what Mila said, nor was she going to give a response to the fugitive, but she would do as each asked. She would not judge Mila's words as those spoken by a criminal, but rather as though she was a complete stranger to her.

As Mila surrendered, she lowered her gun ever so slightly. It was more of relief and relaxing just the tiniest bit, not enough to really influence her shot, but enough to indicate that she wasn't as tense as she was. So the difficult part was done, now for the easy bit. "Sasha, Lucia, one of you call the special forces to come get her. I don't care which, just one of you please do it" Arabella said, not taking her eyes off of Mila.​

 

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It was a bit too tense for her. Even if Sasha had her share of moments like this. Her hand was always rested on her holistered gun, knowing she wouldn't draw it out. She wasn't 100% there with Arabella when she decided to pull the gun onto Milla. It was, in fact, something she expected the last thing she would do. Milla, unlike other protesters, didn't run or spit out random curses and sayings. She was calm. The the point where it just felt so off. Nevertheless, the operation was done. Milla was now apprehended by the Academy and the SF. She nodded at Arabella's words. "Right. I'll head over to the closest SF Station and grab someone over." Just as she was about to leave, she noticed the guy standing there, mostly ignored in the whole situation. "Oh Lucia? Mind if you keep an eye on him? I think he was with Milla the whole time." With a nod, Sasha made way towards the closest SF Station.

At the Station, Sasha looked around. Seems many of the SF forces were off duty. She just needed a man or two for the situation. She spotted a white haired man standing around, not seeming to do much at the moment. She ran up to him with a salute. "Sir! I was sent by Arabella for the situation at hand. Milla has been captured and they require an SF member or two to help them out for extraction."

 

Lucia had proven to be absolutely confused by just what was going on during this mission of theirs. She had met her long time idol and inspiration, Quinn, and that was awesome and then when he walked over and asked them if they were here from the school, she somewhat froze up, not being able to make any coherent thought. It was then that her senses were snapped back by Arabella pointing her rifle at the potential suspect. She was so confused as to who's lead to follow. Her teammate or her idol? What an absolute shit situation this was. As the exchange between the two and Quinn's assistant had gone on, Lucia just kept looking back and forth between the two rather confused, only for their sus to be the perp because she was a sec with a mo's that had a perf al.

As Milla had tried to make them question their government by asking them to think about people who mysteriously died like she apparently did. Lucia shrugged it off more so as people who had either actually died, or in Milla's case, had most likely deserted. After all, it was most likely easier on everyone to think of a loved one as dead than an enemy of both themselves and the state. However her train of thought was quickly derailed as Quinn had told the trio to at least listen to what Milla had to say. She quickly went to a salute and stuttered out a "ye-yes s-sir!" As he left, her nerves calmed back down and she went into a more lax state as Sasha had told her to go keep an eye on one of the people who was with Milla this entire time. Was he always there? How had he seemed to go by so unnoticed during the entire thing? Regardless she gave a thumbs up to Sasha before she left. "You got it."

Walking over to the boy, she was about to question the man, when suddenly she realized she had to keep her entire demeanor more professional. Stiffining up her posture and movements she continued to walk towards him until she ended up tripping over an apparently untied shoelace and fell flat on her face. "Owowowow." She rubbed her nose, which had a trickle of blood coming out of it, as she looked back up at the person she was supposed to keep an eye on. Her eyes widening, she shot up, stiffening her posture once more and readjusting her hat to its proper position. Clearing her throat she said, "yes um, civilian, sir, Mister man. You were witnessed with our suspect- er, criminal- er perpetrator. Yes, perpetrator. Do you want to- er, would you be willing to tell us- er, share what she discussed with you." Each time Lucia had stumbled over her words, she looked up only to look directly right back at their witness, trying to keep her totally well kept air of professionalism.

 

Hawk hadn't done much aside from kick bad and relax up until someone had approached him. He looked up to see someone saluting before him. "So they found and captured her already. That didn't take very long." It was clear from his manner of speaking that his was fairly laid back for a special force. Still it looked like that he was certainly was going to have to do something now. "You can stop saluting now and lead me to where Mila is."

It was something to see the girl who was going to interrogate him fall on her face. Maybe he would be able to talk his way out of this situation, not that he was really told all that much regarding the things Mila was saying. So he could easily try to BS up some answers like he was good at doing or he could tell the truth which was that she didn't tell him all that much. Question was, which option would let him have the most fun.

In the end he decided to go with BSing an excuse, despite that not being a part of the original options, as he cleared his throat before speaking. "Actually I don't remember the things that she said, so I don't know how much help I would be of." Leon made sure to speak in a tone that would make his words more believable. "You see I suffer from short term memory loss and with the stress of what was going on around me, I just forgot." The line had been cast and the bait was set. Now to see if she would take it or not.

 

As Lucia had questioned the male about his experiences with their convict, he seemed to not be able to remember anything as apparently he suffered from sort of short term memory issue. Well, that was a problem. Not just to her information gathering in general, but more so she couldn't imagine what it must be like to live in a world where you forget things that happened mere moments ago. She pitied this person and their difficult situation and said, "oh, I'm sorry to hear about your condition." She started to think about it, and realized that, as a witness, he was probably going to be taken in for questioning anyway, so it wasn't like she could leave him unattended regardless. She continued her questioning, clearing her throat once more and saying, "well then, Mr. Sir, civilian man, do you- er, would you be willing to share your name with me?" She briefly wondered if he could even remember his name, though, figured that short term retention problems and total amnesia were two completely different things.

 

Upon his arrival to the scene Hawk took note of various things. Aside from the one who came to get him, there were five other people there. Two of them were students, one was a special force, a random civilian and finally the target. For the most part things seemed to be under control, aside from the details that they needed him for. He was so close to taking a nap too, might as well get this over with while he's here. First he turned towards Mila.

"While I'm certain that you've already been asked and gave answer to this, do you think that you could tell me the things that you've been running around saying?" His tone of voice was calm if not laid back, not giving off a single hint of any negative intent which would possibly make it easier for Mila to talk to him. Trust was a different matter and not much of a concern for him right now.

"My name...Oh its Alistair." Leon was still going through his short term memory loss and what better way of continuing it then to give them a fake name. Though it did mean that he would have to remember that that was the name that he'd given them should they ever try to contact him, but who knows when that will be. When the other special force officer had arrived, Leon wasn't all that sure how things would go due to his apparent laid back nature. But a laid back officer was better than a strict as hell one.

 

Like many others Mila was pretty full of criticisms for someone who'd gotten caught. Meh, Hawk had stopped caring about that kind of thing out some time ago. "Well I'm pretty sure you were already questioned in this exact spot so its a little late for you to start caring isn't it." He may not have been the most serious person, but it didn't mean that he couldn't pick out fault or holes in what people said, he'd just have to you know, try. Before she'd decided to show off her skills involving one of her weapons, she'd mumbled something about a slave trade. When she'd handed him her dagger, he flipped it in the air so that when he caught it he would be holding the blade and tapped her on the forehead with her own weapon. "That sounds like it was your own fault for being careless and you just want to find someone else to blame, not that its any of my business."

The next thing that Hawk did was to sigh. Why couldn't see be this picky before he got here? Figures a woman would make more work for him that could've been easily been avoided. As she kicked the rest of her weapon forward she seemed fully determined to give him all of the grief of the situation, despite the other people being around her who where there a lot longer than she was. "I highly doubt that you could've escape, even if you could why wait for someone to arrive when that could've been your best chance, but again its not like that's any of my business. But if you really want a 'proper place' then I guess I'm obligated to take you to one." It was just one thing after another with all things. When this was over he definitely was going to take a nap.

 

Arabella had kept her rifle trained on Mila throughout the entire fiasco. She was almost disappointed with how Hawk was handling things. While he didn't seem inexperienced at all, he didn't strike her as the most professional person. When she had requested either Lucia or Sasha to fetch someone with authority, she had expected them to find someone that would do it right away, not start a conversation. This girl was a threat, wasn't she? So why wasn't she being treated as one? She should be loc-

Mila made a movement, kicking the dagger into the air rather quickly. The escapee was attacking, proving the rumours of her being a danger right!

It didn't even take Arabella a second to react. The girl pulled the trigger, firing the gun and causing a loud noise to be released. The crowd around reacted quickly, dispersing in a panic and run away in fear. Mila had anticipated the shot, however, and had ducked underneath. Arabella cursed under her breath, ashamed that the shot had been avoided in such a simple manner. "Damnit, damnit!" the girl whispered to nobody in particular, reloading swiftly.​

Once she had reloaded, the sniper took aim once more, determined to make the shot that time. However, Mila had done something that Arabella had not seen coming; she had given back the weapon. Keeping the finger on the trigger and the gun pointed at Mila, Arabella appeared to be unphased by her surrendering once more, but inside was a panic. She was questioning things, things she shouldn't be. She was questioning why this girl was a threat, why she had given herself up not once but twice, and most importantly, if she wasn't a threat like she claimed, why would the academy want her brought in so badly? In an attempt to recover, the girl opened her mouth to speak, saying "Quit talking and put her away already" just loudly enough that Hawk would hear.​