Guardians' Heaven: Symphony of Valkyries IC

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R-9 Pilot

Edgeknight
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. One post per day
  2. 1-3 posts per week
  3. One post per week
Writing Levels
  1. Beginner
  2. Elementary
  3. Intermediate
  4. Adept
  5. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Female
  2. Futanari
  3. Primarily Prefer Female
Genres
Scifi, anime, mecha, magical girl, superhero, cyberpunk, yuri
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The Great War with the Bydo is largely behind mankind. The ISDF is adapting to a new peacetime role, policing the space lanes and putting down continued border skirmishes, which the Bydo appear content to lurk on the fringes of civilization, like monsters which rightly fear the light. Humanity's little corner of the galaxy is still hardly a peaceful one, and Valkyries continue to be produced, and trained.

The ISS Astrea is a bit of an aging vessel, as far as military ships go. If it were still cutting-edge, it probably wouldn't be something of a training vessel. Not for new crews, but for new Guardian teams. The current Guardian squad had just taken on some new members, and was on its way outsystem to start on a nice shakedown cruise for the cyborg Amazons. While the girls both new and old got to relish the though of living, working and sleeping together, they were at least free to do as they saw fit for the time being.

The ship's captain had introduced himself when they were brought aboard, and explained that he tended to prefer an informal approach, as he gave the new arrivals a bit of a tour. They could sort out their rooming arrangements among themselves, although they'd be crammed together at least 2-3 to a room, the way the space worked out. If they had any suggestions or ideas for side-trips, he'd be willing to hear them out, but the new girls would have to listen to their instructors.

The ship's current destination was an abandoned O'Niell can city, in one of the systems reclaimed from Bydo space. The system was generally secure, but there were signs of a definite Bydo presence and it had been a while since any patrol had checked it out. It would probably be a nice, easy introduction to the enemy. But in the intervening days, everyone would have to entertain themselves.
 
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A few days ago, one Chief Petty Officer Mirana "Mina" Kamaria was informed she would be assigned into the veteran ship, ISS Astrea, one who had survived many battles and a silent witness to the nitty gritty Bydo wars. The pink-haired Guardian was currently piloting her personal one-man shuttle, heading towards the Astrea's coordinate, ETA 10 minutes. She still got a few moments to laze around, setting the shuttle to auto-pilot for now, Mina leaned back in her chair, taking out her personal communication device, deliberately shaped like flip phones from 21st Century-era Earth with a cute keychain hanging from it. She played some games, skimmed the Galactic news, and before she knew it, the control panel bleeped, signalling she was close. "Oh?" Putting down her phone, Mina steered towards the old vessel, heading into its landing dock. "This is CPO Mirana Kamaria of the Guardian Corp, requesting permission for Personal Shuttle AMT-9 to land." She announced herself, then boarded as soon as permission was granted.

What happened next was standard procedure, she was greeted by the dock's crew, idle chit-chat, then it was off on the ship's tour with the other Guardians. She studied the ship's blueprint from her phone while walking with the group, the captain was a nice guy, rather laid-back too, whether it was his true personality or specifically told to act like that because he was dealing with Guardians was another matter, but she'd like to believe the former. The female corp composed of cyborgs and androids were absolutely essential in combatting the Bydos and as such, it was best to keep them in a good mood, the survival of the human race rested on their shoulders after all. "Heee, so I will have roommates, huh? Neat!" Mina mused to herself, stifling a giggle. Her diligence, leadership skill, and quick-thinking were the major factors in her rise to CPO, but among her fellow Guardians, ranks were... fancy titles at best, they often treated each other as equals.

Mina examined the ship's old crew on her 'phone', one profile stood out to her, a fellow Valkyrie. The picture showed a blond-haired, blue-eyed, woman, likely older than her. Something about her... was familiar. Mina couldn't quite put it, but she felt they had met before. "I'll go talk to her later." Since the tour was still on-going, she decided to follow it until it finished then asked for this Valkyrie's whereabouts. As of now, it would be rude to interrupt the captain, sure he was laid-back, but they were still soldiers and to maintain integrity, a chain of command, no matter how relaxed, must be maintained.
 
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As much as it pained Eunike, she had been looking forward to the day of her reassignment even if it was to Astrea. When the news of her upcoming new post had reached her, the fair woman looked up the ship in an army database to see what her home would look like when she got there, but she had to pay with a few conveniences in exchange for some more humane handling, then so be it even though she would have rather seen her previous team-mates become precious companions. But no. While there was no abuse, the constant silence she had to endure along with the looks, the absolute lack of company, the small, subtle gestures... In the end, it proved too much for her to handle. It was clear that the previous team was not looking for a new member, or at least they were not looking for her.

Thus it should come as no surprise that when she finally arrived on the aging cruiser with her luggage in tow, she was wearing a rather wide smile along with her fancy dress. Today was a great day, Eunike had decided, so she wanted to be at her best when the new captain finally recieved her so that her fellow guardians would at least start on a positive note when they met her. Of course, it was also possible that they would think her to be a stuck-up bitch with that elaborate dress of hers, but she was willing to take the chance, hoping to put their concerns at ease with her cheerful smile along with her friendly behaviour.

Her face fell a little when she got informed that she would have a room-mate, partially because of her recent experiences, but also because she knew that she would then have to ask if her roommate tolerated lower temperatures or if she should just bust out her summer wear despite it being supposedly regulation temperature on the ship. At least that would give her a topic to talk about as a starter, not to mention that judging by the captain's relatively carefree attitude, she had been moved to a much more accomodating environment despite the captain's insistence that they have a tour of the ship's insides. That had not failed to catch her attention; though it was presented as a nice gesture, it was also done so that each Valkyrie would know at least the basic layout of the ship in case they needed to fight on board.

Or maybe Eunike was being just a little too paranoid. The days of the grand battles were very much over, yet she could not help but store the places they visited in her memory, making a mental map of the ship in case a worst-case scenario happened. Outwardly, though, she appeared as a pale woman enjoying her tour of Astrea with a friendly smile on her face that suggested she would readily respond to anyone who approached her. As for Eunike herself, she was listening to the captain's descriptions, not to mention that mapping the ship kept her busy mentally, so she would reach out to people a little later. Probably when she finally finished unpacking and retrieved her kettle along with her favourite teamugs.
 
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It had been…what, six months since Esfir had first been stationed on the ISS Astrea? While her time there had been far from boring, her status as someone who wasn’t part of any Guardian squad had ended up with her being used more as an ‘instructor’ and a secondary linchpin to all the others who came aboard the ship. Combine that rather uninvolved role with the lack of Bydo action on par with the war that Esfir had played a part in a few years back, as well as how lax the ship’s captain was, and the blonde knight was really getting rather bored.

Didn’t help that she had no hobbies or friends to talk to, only roommates that she rarely saw due to spending all her time in the gym or on patrol.

Today, at the very least, alleviated some of that stagnant boredom. Newbies were coming, and it looked like Esfir would finally get put into a squad of her own. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t excited, really. Mentoring or instructing, in the end, wasn’t something that the veteran Guardian enjoyed, and to finally have squadmates and a mission to partake in. Even better was the promise of Bydo!

Despite herself, Esfir was humming a happy ditty as she sat on her bed, swaying her legs back and forth in anticipation of the arrivals. Having a whole bunch of melee-centric Guardians would be optimal, considering her own strengths, but it was probably going to be a balanced set of cyborgs. Not like it was going to be a problem, really, but the blue-eyed lancer always preferred like-minded individuals who understood the value of lightning-fast movements on the battlefield. It was then that Esfir was snapped out of her daydreaming by a message from Astrea’s captain, the contents displayed holographically before her. Blinking twice with her cybernetically-enhanced eyes in order to remove the message, the woman hopped out of bed and stepped out.

She was rarely seen in anything other than the standard-issue uniform of the ISDF, and this situation wasn’t any different. With confident, brisk steps, she located the group of girls that the captain had brought along for a tour, and after a quick salute, Esfir said, a polite smile on her features, “Greetings, fellow Guardians. I’m Ensign Esfir, stationed here for six, relatively pointless months. Captain, I’ll conclude the tour.”

Then, as an afterthought, she added, “If you’d allow it, of course.”
 
Alice was sitting in the very back of the transport vessel which was bringing her and other recruits to the great ISS Astrea. Her last interaction with a fellow shipmate was anything but productive. In fact, it played a key role in why everyone was staying away from her. Every time she would attempted to apologized for her misdeeds, her superiors would silence her. At last she eventually gave up and looking back at the huge window behind her which showed all the stars and planets shrinking.

Earlier on earth, Alice was walking to the space station to board the transport ship when she met another guy who was lost. Remembering what her mother always told her. She decided to help him. Her introduction came off as if she was a scripted service bot. The guy tried to brush her away thinking she was just another normal robot. Alice took that as an insult. She was better then those stupid robots. She had a really good AI too and felt she had to prove her self. She grabbed the mans hand and Dragged him across the whole space station using her enhance speed and strength. Lucky nobody was injured badly but the man did strain his arm. Alice was scolded heavily and escorted to the ship.

Finally when she arrived to the ship she was ordered to keep quiet and not be disrupted while the captain gave them the tour. The android Obeyed taking in everything she could without saying a word. Then the CO turned the group over to Ensign Esfir. Alice looked around to see the crew of the transport vessel gone and technically her order was to be quiet while the CO leading. So now that the Junior Officer was leading the way Alice was free from the chains of a direct order.

Still she had to be tactful. She could not mess up and she had to read every human interaction carefully or else get in trouble again. Worst was that this Ensign was a Guardian like her so she could be her boss. Thus Alice knew she had to make a good first impression with one of the other guardians. For that she had to look friendly and trustworthy. For that she had to become friends with someone on the tour. She scanned the crowd for people who might make great friend. She noticed one of the other guardians who was also lower rate then her. Now Alice was aware that rate did not mean everything but in the books she read, it seemed easier to make friends with people of a similar rate.

While the CO and the JO were talking, Alice walked over to the white hair Spaceman (@Lstorm) who was smiling and seemed to be super friendly. Alice's mother always told her that if she wanted to make friends and talk to people that she should smile. With this observation and the resource from her mother as proof, Alice made her move. "Salutations," she said in her soft quiet monotone voice, "I am Petty Officer Alice Aegis." Alice then put on a small smile. "I was informed that it is most optimal to prompt the human interaction with the breaking of the ice, would you care to partake in this cooperative action with me?"

@Lstorm
@ERode
@Izurich
@R-9 Pilot
 
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Well, well, this was going to be fun! Rika anticipated this day the moment she joined the military, in one form or another. She could finally surprise her big sis! Sure, what the young Technomancer did wasn't completely legal, but space was a really big place after all! The chance of the Kamaria sisters being stationed together by pure chance had been way too small after all! Or at least that's what her own totally not biased and rigged calculations told her. The best part was, her big sis had absolutely no clue! Or at least Rika hoped so. Fooling Mirana all this time hadn't been that hard either, after all, the older sisters work made her a very busy person.

Of course, Rika wouldn't let it end THAT simple, and amongst her more cyborg looking companions, Rika wrapped herself into the edgiest of all full body cloaks, including the mandatory face hiding hood, one had seen since ancient history! Instead of looking nearly like some random friendly human that took apparently nothing serious, she gave off some menacing and gloomy vibe that would make even a baby kitten cry. The really hard part about this was walking all bad-mooded though, harder than anticipated, Rika didn't practice for that at all! But she managed...somehow.

Continuing through the tour, Rika made sure to be one of the Guardian's that formed the end of the small group. Shared rooms sounded...interesting? She wasn't quite sure if it was a given that she would share a room with her sis or not. After all this time it was kinda a given, but considering they already shared the bonds of family and the time they would spend in the future...it might not be the best choice. But that were problems for later, right now she had to concentrate on not tripping over this dumb cloak after all!

Continuing on, she didn't pay too much attention to what the, luckily, laid back captain said. In regards to layout and whatnot you could simply access some database after all! If it was for the sole purpose of having some nice time together, some food action would have been way more effective! Yeah, replacing her stomach, even for the sake of survival, was something Rika would never agree too. She loved food just way too much. It was then, for the fifth time that she nearly fell thanks to the cloak that she cried out loud. "Screw this!" With one big swoop Rika tore it from her body, revealing her small, mostly human looking, frame. Fearing her charade would already been up, it was their superior Esfir, whose entry saved her from potentially getting found out by her big sis. Regardless, she had to think of a new plan.
 
Benedicta arrived on the Astrea with an entourage of familiar faces in tow. Prior to her assignment to the squad, the Serios warrior-princess was granted a few days leave to visit her family and countrymen on the surviving Serios colony. She would be finally fighting the Bydo, and felt it pertinent to give some last words to them before she disappeared... possibly forever.

Arriving on a personal shuttle accompanied by Serios military officers, she was given farewells occasionally marked by tears, even among the men. With a final salute, she stepped off the black-colored shuttle and onto the docking bay deck. A hiss of machinery was the last thing she heard of her country before turning to the bustling deck. Brushing away her hair, she set off to keep up the daily events in stride.

Though it was an ISDF vessel and she had been incorporated into the Guardian force, Benedicta had made it clear her people would not mask their origins under the symbols of the ISDF; even herself. She wore a traditional officer's uniform, black, white, and red in coloration, as her "civilian attire". The symbol of Serios rested on her right breast -three circles arranged as a triangle, with a single line stemming from each center towards another circle in a ring. For a time, it represented their three worlds across three systems. Now it served as Benedicta's not-so-subtle reminder of who the true enemy was.

Eventually the princess fell in line with the others of her team, maintaining her composure even as the urge to stare each other girl up and down welled up. She'd have time for judgements later on. Her eyes focused on the captain as the tour commenced, taking serious notes of the locations of each and every detail down as if it were a matter of life or death.

"I was informed that it is most optimal to prompt the human interaction with the breaking of the ice, would care to partake in this cooperative action with me?"

A robot? Benedicta withheld a scoff, though one side of her mouth curled into a frown. She'd known there were non-humans working under the Guardians, even as Valkyries, but the fact never ceased to disappoint her. Her 2 years fighting the ISDF never once featured an event in which she had to work with an artificial intelligence, and she liked it that way. A machine would never truly feel the same sense of dread that rushed through you at the sight of a tank's cannon aimed your way. She'd taken enough philosophy courses as a young child to know that much. She ignored the robot's greeting.

Benedicta gave a taught salute, raising an arm across her chest as she stood firm; not the ISDF salute. "Benedicta Centa-Forges, princess of the Serios colonies, Ensign of the ISDF, at your service." She dropped the salute. "May our interactions be efficient and victorious."
 
Having been assigned to the Astrea no more than three months ago, Toro was sitting in her room, hunched over a massive lump of wires and metal. The only source of light was a single lamp over her work station. The relatively fleshy human was working meticulously on another little toy of hers. She has always been just fiddling with any sort of electronic she could find, so this was no different than a doodle to her. She opened a drawer, and pulled out a tiny bulb. As soon as her hand came in contact with the base of it, the bulb lit up a light blue. Turning back to her project, she plugged the light into a socket laid out on a circuit board.

As soon as that one piece was plugged into place, the entire group of wires strewn about her desk sparked to life. The bulb grew brighter and brighter, much brighter than it should be able to do. Then suddenly a pop, and the bulb died down, leaving Toro completely in the dark. The Blue haired Guardian merely sighed, and uttered a few low words. In her head, the OAS she had installed so long ago activated, turning the black world into a strange hazy green. She stumbled through her room, hunks of scrap and wires tripping her up every few steps, and soon found her way to the door, and peeked out from behind it.

It seemed the power was out for this sector of rooms Hope nobody needed power right now. Guess it was time to fix it again. She has been meaning to enhance the circuitry here for a while. But the captain just never would let her. And the engineers hated having her try to get them to do it. Retreating back into her room for her tools, she emerged fully a few moments later, with a toolbox in her hand, and a flashlight in her mouth. Opening up one of the service panels, she knew immediately that all she needed was a new fuse. Opening her tool box, she rummaged around for a while. It took he a while to find one that actually fit, and that was functional, but soon the fuse was replaced, and the breaker turned back on.

An inconvenience yes. An uncommon occurrence? Not at all. In fact, Toro has blown through up to four fuses a day sometimes. Needless to say, she often gets scolded for it. And the most frequent offender, happened to be Esfir. Better to tell her what happened before anything later. Besides she needed to introduce herself to the newcomers.

She searched the corridors, searching for her short-tempered shipmate.

"Hey! Esfir! I blew another fuse! Just thought I'd warn you in case you had anything important running. Oh. There you are."

She soon found her alongside the large group of newcomers. Seemed like an interesting bunch t say the least.

"Hey there. Specialist Toro Suzuku here. Nice to meet you all. I look forward to getting to know you better."
 
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So many new potential new acquaintances and friends! Both from the ship's current crew and the new arrivals, oh Mina was going to have a good time here. The optimistic girl looked all around her with bright golden eyes, even the alien and violent Bydo War couldn't quench the Kamaria sisters' spirit, little did she know, her very own little sister was on board the ship, going on the same tour with them no boot. Of course, the possibility of her sister being a Guardian was so far-fetched and unlikely, Mina didn't notice Rika parading around with a dark cloak, the older one thought she was just another Valkyrie who loved wearing... ominous, strange, clothing.

All sorts of unique individuals would keep her company for her time in Astrea, first there was the dark-robed person as mentioned before, then... the tall white-haired statuesque beauty with icy blue eyes, her slender build and exotic style of clothing only accentuate her regal aura even more. "Oh..." Mina stared at her for a few seconds, watching her dress swishing as she walked, if she turned out to be a daughter of a noble, she wouldn't be surprised. Hopefully, she wouldn't turn out to be a snob spoiled girl whose needs must be catered at all times. Forgive Mina, but Eunike's choice of apparel certainly perpetuated the stereotype.

Of course, stereotypes could hold some truth in them, but some other time, they were utter bullshit. As proven by the next person she saw, also a woman with white hair, but instead of blue irises, a pair of fierce reds served as her eyes. Mina blinked a couple of times as Benedicta introduced herself, if formality could be gauged, then hers would go off the roof. "Ah, the Serios, huh?" Mina never personally fought them before, but she heard they were fierce people with warrior culture, reminding Mina of the Spartans of the Ancient Greeks, yes, the Chief Petty Officer loved learning history. "Y-yeah... efficient, yeah..." Mina mumbled to herself, finding it very odd to have such word in the same sentence as 'relationships'.

Next came the first android to introduce herself, her way with words clearly showed that, it was fitting considering her nature... unlike warrior-princess from before... unless Benedicta was an android too. Alice was her name and to be honest, she looked really cute, like a doll even, her creator had good tastes, surely it wasn't for distracting the Bydos as Mina doubted the xenos gave a flying fuck how their enemies looked like. "Must be for social interactions then... they could still work on it though, still awkward in my opinion."

Then... she came. "Ooooh..." Yes, her, definitely her, the woman with blond hair and blue eyes Mina saw on her phone earlier. Seeing her with her own two eyes brought a rush of deja vu to the pink-haired guardian. She still couldn't remember when they had met exactly, but... her guts told her this wasn't the first time she looked into those eyes. She introduced herself as Esfir, Mina stored her phone as she took a few steps forward, "I uh..." she mentally gritted her teeth, she really, really wanted to talk to her, but alas, she was on duty, maybe later... but she couldn't wait! "Ahem..." Well, at least she could introduce herself, like the others had done, "I a-..."

"Hey there. Specialist Toro Suzuku here. Nice to meet you all. I look forward to getting to know you better."

Oh great, an interruption. Mina gave a small pout as the blue-haired mechanic walked into the fray. Mina subtly sighed until Toro was done, then she resumed her sorely interrupted moment, "Greetings, everyone! I am Chief Petty Officer Mirana Kamaria, but you can call me Mina. Looking forward for our time together!" There, done, now just gotta wait until the tour was over.
 
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So far, so good. The tour was going smoothly, not to mention that the ship's facilities were in quite a good condition despite its relatively old nature, which was a sign of good maintenance along with a captain that cared for the state of their ship. To Eunike, that was a reassurance that he was a capable commander who just happened to have a friendly, down-to-earth attitude concerning his subordinates, which was a little strange after her experience with the Thorn Wings, not to mention her last assignment. This in turn lead to wonder if her judgement was right, but then she decided that time would tell and that the ISDF would not assign an incompetent man to the helm of a ship even in these oh so very peaceful times.

Then, she was suddenly addressed in a monotone voice that she quickly identified as belonging to a woman with long, red hair and purple eyes that almost made her do a double take to make sure that she had heard those words correctly, that her ears were perfectly accurate in telling her that there was a human talking to her in such a way before she made the connection. Of course. The red-haired woman would be and android, probably one that was specifically created to be a Guardian and whose creators did not think it was important to make some decent, human-sounding speech patterns for her. The poor woman. Eunike immediately felt a pang of sympathy grow in her chest as she could imagine the difficulty Alice had in interacting with other people.

Before she could respond though, one of the ship's valkyries came out of their room, curtly introducing herself as Esfir, and though the name or the appearance did not ring any bells to her, the confidence behind her steps along with her bearing suggested that she was a confident, tough-as-nails person. Whether that was a result of many years spend in the Bydo war or perhaps it was misplaced confidence in her own abilites, Eunike did not know, but the approach definitely caught her attention and she found herself thinking that the two of them would get along splendidly if they got some time to themselves.

Her introduction seemed to have launched a string of names as well as ranks, one of which in particular caught Eunike's attention: Benedicta Centa-Forges. The princess of Serios Colonies and one of the names she did not expect to see in the ranks of the ISDF after the uproar they had caused with their petty little war against humanity's united forces in the past, a thought that almost made her smile turn sarcastic before she forced an air of cool onto herself. Even though the very idea of humanity fragmenting like that made her angry, she knew better than to judge a team-mate on first sight. Value was always decided on the battlefield.

"It is great to meet with you all," said Eunike after everyone finished with what they had to say as she grabbed the hem of her dress' skirt, then she gave a polite curtsy to everyone present in the room. "I am Eunike, the Zero Kelvin Queen and I feel lucky to have encountered such wonderful people."
Following that, the fair woman made sure to look at the red-haired android, then lower her voice so that only Alice would hear. "You introduce yourself too," she said with a friendly smile to nudge her into joining the chain, not even noticing the small figure of Rika behind them.
 
Everyone started introducing themselves one at a time. First ENS Benedicta who frowned after Alice made her comment. Alice turned around and saluted the officer but she was very worried. She thought she did something wrong. But of course she was acting in the manner she was programmed to. Friendly conversations which involved an introduction and a statement involving breaking the ice. After Benedicta lowered her salute, Alice followed suit and lowered her head together while twiddling her fingers together.

Then another Valkyrie girl appeared. By now Alice was in deep thought worrying about what she did wrong when she heard blown fuse. She looked up started, "Ekk," as the guardian introduced her self as Toro. Clearly from the comment she was some sort of mechanic. Alice pictured the thought of being looked at as if she was broken. Was this blown fuse a code as to respond to the Ensigns concern. This was startling and by now she was not sure what to do. She had to do something because people were seeing her as broke, but if she causes another scene she really would be considered broke or worst, obsolete. Then she would be decommissioned again. That was a horrible feeling. The coldness from having your main source of power shutting off. Those few seconds which feeling almost like years as your processor speed dwindles to 0 as you picture your self pretty much dying, never to be turned on again.

Then the Chief appeared and introduced her self. Alice knew it. This was all so they could shut her down. Alice was not good enough. Nobody wanted her alive she was not good enough. She was useless and they all knew it. She did not know what to say, what to do, how to act. She was not train on to feel this emotion. She wanted to run away but to where. The captain was still here and with all the guardians around, she could not escape for long. She was not the fastest Valkyrie unless she left her weapons, but what if a bydo appeared. Her systems running at full capacity, she could feel her brain overclocking. Everything seemed to move so fast but at the same time her thoughts seemed to move so slow. She wanted to be safe. She wanted to react. She needed to fight, but that would get her in trouble and kill a lot of people. Her job was to save people but she was obsolete.

-Bubble wrap-

She needed her bubble warp, she craved the little popping noises, but they took it away when she was put on the ship. The everyone's voice started to become mesh and inaudible. Now her hearing was not working. She was breaking. She was broken. That was the only thought in her head until she felt a nudge from Eunike.

"You introduce yourself too,"

Alice snapped back to reality, the world slowly was returning to normal and her senses were returning to normal. This was her moment to prove she was not broke. all she had to do was give her name and a polite greeting. Yet as she looked around she saw everyone was looking at her as she was the only one left. She went to attention and became very stiff. her head's core temperature was heating up face and now her sweat glands started kicking in which kicked off steam to cool her down. "I... I... I a-amm..." her quiet monotone voice stuttered. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she boosted the volume of her voice, "I am the ALL-PURPOSE LIGHTWEIGHT INDIVIDUAL COMBAT EQUIPPED ALIEN EXTERMINATING GALACTIC INTERCEPTION SYSTEM. Fully capable of preforming the normal functions required to operate in the many variable environments in which society is present while being equip to combat the Bydo in a multiple number of terrains, operations, and formations." By now she was shaking in her boots hoping she did well enough to dismiss their beliefs that she was broken. She did not open her eyes for fear of their response nor did she realize that she spelled out the acronym.

@Lstorm
@ERode
@Izurich
@R-9 Pilot
@Skyswimsky
@Asuras
@Reanimator Bob
 
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Yulia arrived on the Astrea without much fanfare, quietly slipping off of her transport shuttle as she joined the other new arrivals in the tour with their captain. In truth, this new assignment excited her after months of being on a groundside garrison. There had been a few skirmishes on the border world she was stationed on, but perhaps she would finally see real action serving aboard a ship.

As she followed along with the tour, Yulia raised an eyebrow at the amount of androids that were new arrivals, but didn't comment. Androids were still an unfamiliar sight to her, but she supposed she'd have to learn to deal with it. After all, she was supposed to fight and die alongside these people, so she'd reserve judgement about each of them for the time being. As the various Guardians around her began their introductions, she simply waited for her turn to come. Still, even someone as easygoing as herself raised an eyebrow as a so-called "Ice Queen" and an android with seemingly no sense of volume control gave their introductions. Well, at least no one would look at her too badly compared to those two after that.

"Serviceman First Class Yulia Nazarova," Yulia brought her hand up in a crisp salute. "CQC and fast assault specialist. Let's all try to get along, no?" She finished with a relaxed smile at the group as she dropped her salute.
 
It wasn’t surprising at all that the laidback captain handed off the responsibility of the remainder of the tour to Esfir. Lazy bastard probably just wanted to go back to sitting in the bridge and shooting the breeze with the bridge bunnies. She smiled stiffly as he sauntered off, before turning a critical eye to her future teammates. There was definitely more than the standard amount of Guardians for a squad, but chances were that they were going to be halved anyways. Not like that was an excuse at all to discard any names or faces from her memory.

With that in mind, Esfir began to commit them to her brain.

Petty Officer Alice Aegis was a gynoid, and thus, probably had backups of her underdeveloped personality software somewhere. A good shield, if her name was anything to go off. An icebreaker was good, but Esfir wasn’t going to have them play musical chairs or something like that.

Unnamed cloak individual made Esfir want to kick her off the ship for all this cloak-y business she was pulling off. The white-haired girl was short and weak-looking, despite her loud-mouthed attitude, and the blonde Knight cast a withering glare in her direction. “We’ve no need for children here,” she said flatly, “If you want out, get out.”

That was all the time she needed to spend on the kid though, and she quickly re-focused on a much more interesting individual. The Princess of Serios, and a fellow Ensign. What a prestigious, precarious position. While Esfir hadn’t participated in that war herself, she had heard rumors, and it was nice to know that there would be a like-minded individual present. A small nod of her head as acknowledgement, once the princess made her curt introduction.

Unfortunately, the next face that popped up really wasn’t one that Esfir wanted to see. The blue-haired Toro was a Specialist in disabling her foes, and all too often, she would do the same to the ISS Astrea. Sure, the circuitry was shoddy in the first place, enough that Esfir sometimes wondered whether or not the vessel was made a few centuries back, but…

“Specialist Suzuku, next time learn more theory before you do whatever it is you do,” Esfir admonished, rapping the blue-haired girl on the head, “Or, better yet, do some virtual simulations before performing the actual tasks.”

In her annoyance, she only spared a quick glance at the otherwise flashy-looking CPO Mirana Kamaria, a fashionable young lady with pink hair, of all things. Looked reasonable enough…but that was also Esfir’s impression of Toro a few months back, until she revealed her tendency of blowing out fuses. Hopefully she’s not going to turn out to be a massive slut or something.

Eunike was…well, someone like her didn’t need much of an introduction in the first place. After all, rumors of the psychotic, pointlessly brutal Ether Liner travelled rather far, and Esfir wondered just how much of this was simply a mask. There will be no misgivings though, as long as the woman wasn’t TOO inefficient when it came to killing the Bydo.

It was at this point, though, that the gynoid, Alice Aegis, had a breakdown, spewing out too many words for Esfir to really care about. Sounded like her name was an acronym at least. Had to give it to her creators. They were good at this pointless crap.

“Okay,” Esfir said flatly, content with the fact that Serviceman Yulia, at least, was normal and stable, “Let’s get on with the tour then.”

“ISS Astrea holds six locations that are essential to your life as a Guardian. I will show you to three of them on this tour, because the other three are pretty easy to find, but I’ll point them out if we pass by them.”


With that, Esfir pointed down the hall from where she came, her blue eyes not showing a single glimmer of humor as she said, dry as stale bread, “There. One of the three easy to find places. Down the hall are the personal quarters. If you’re lucky, you’ll be bunking with two others. If you’re normal, you’ll be with three others. If the captain messed up again, you’ll somehow have to share your room with five other Guardians.”

Her hand fell down, and she walked onwards, fully expecting the others to follow. Taking a left turn at the intersection, and then a right at the next one, she showed them to the entrance of what appeared to be a white room. Jabbing a finger at the keypad that kept the room locked, Esfir said, “The passcode is 1111, because lazy admins are lazy. This is a training field, utilizing augmented reality to generate your equipment in virtual space, and thus allowing you to trample on each other or on computer-generated enemies.”

“I’d show you all to the medical bay and the deployment area as well, but this is really the highlight of the tour, unless you’re a glutton. Anyone feel like showing off?”


And then, she smiled at the dysfunctional Alice Aegis.

“As an icebreaker, perhaps?”
 
@ERode

After hearing the Ensign accept all the introductions Alice opened one eye to see everyone walking off. It was official she knew they thought of her as a broken bot. She sulked and followed the group from behind. She was never good at human interaction despite her efforts but this time had to be the absolute worst. She barely paid attention to most of the tour, though she still recorded the locations of these important places and notes which she deemed important like normal people get 3 roommates. To be normal she had to get into one of those 4 man rooms. That would prove she was not broken for sure.

She became a little more attentive but was still down about the introduction until the Ensign asked about anyone wanting to show off. Alice's eyes glowed for a second as she saw it. What better way to prove she was not broken then to show every one her systems and weapons. In fact she recently was approved to upgrade all her weaponry to navy standards because her creators stopped producing parts for her old ones. She loved her upgrades and would love to tell everyone about them. It was perfect and everyone would be impress and love her and be her friend and want to be her roommate and they can do normal girl stuff like play the truth and dare, paint their nails and talk about CUTE BOYS. (abuse of and's noted) She also saw the Ensign smiling at her and mention her idea for breaking ice. That would be great. She could talk about her weapons and use them to break the ice.

In her monotone voice and emotionless face, she raised her hand. "I wish to volunteer to demonstrate my weapons systems and utilize them in the activity of breaking the ice." She then reach down to her thigh, right beside her pocket, as a hole opened up in her leg and a giant ice cube fell out into her hand. Alice then held it out to show she was ready, "I can even supply the ice for the activity!" Though she was excited, she forgot to show it in her face and modulate her voice, though she rarely modulates her voice unless she is extremely conscience of it. So both statements were said with a straight and emotionless face in a monotone emotionless voice.


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Well, turned out that this Esfir person was more the kind of superior she initially expected. Well, whatever, the small amount of time she was able to experience as a guardian already taught her about some of the special privileges she had, including her having no need to crawl up deep into some superiors asses if she screwed around too much again.

Regardless, Rika gave Esfir the most exemplary ISDF salute she had ever done in the past year, though her not too caring face transformed the entire motion into pure mockery. "YES MA'AM!" With that done, it was finally time to judgementally judge the others a bit!

There were surely enough information to dig up about each of them, but considering that was way too boring, Rika rather liked to create her own opinion. Moving on from Esfir who, at least in Rika's opinion, destroyed the mood there was the apparent technician. Going from little information she heard, she was maybe a klutz? But they would probably get along by default. Then there was this strange...android? Did she have some error or something? Maybe Rika should mess with her, just for fun? But that would also come later. Next was Hime-sama, oh boy, they would get along swimmingly, she already knew that for sure! Rika already had such a lovely nickname for her after all. As for the last two, Rika couldn't really make a real picture out of them yet, but that was probably a good thing.

Done with her train of thoughts, Rika was juuust about to introduce herself when Esfir decided to completely take over now, and while she wouldn't have cared interrupting her at any point, it seemed a bit weird, especially with her big sis around. Thus, the Technomancer followed silently towards the training field.

It was here that Rika saw another chance to finally do what she missed out on first! All thanks to Alice, who was literally breaking the ice again! Where did she even get that from?! That adorable machine was truly an odd-ball and Rika nearly started to drool at the thought of examining her...if not for that one lovely sister that she still had to surprise...right now.

"Well, I kinda missed out earlier BUT my name is Rika Kamaria! Fully fledged Guardian for around a year! Let's all have fun together~" For a second, Rika thought about talking about what exactly she was capable of, after all, it wasn't wrong for some people to think she was looking really weak. But not really interested in this whole contest of power she had more important matters to attend to anyways: like glomping her big sis from behind.

"And a lovely welcome to you too~!" Rika was still planning to behave, for now, but there was no way she would let her reunion be delayed any longer.
 
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Well, wasn't this swell? Mina loved when everyone got on a good start, sure there would be bumps and conflicts along the road, completely normal between human-... oops, cyborg and android relations. "Hmmm~" Mina returned to the group after her little introduction, examining Eunike along the way. Contrary to her previous image, the way Eunike spoke and acted debuked any notion that she's a snob noble, Mina felt a bit guilty for it, but well... not like the woman knew, unless she could read minds. "Oh wow..." The ancient curtsy from human culture centuries past... Mina never thought she'd personally one being performed. "Zero Kelvin Queen? So she's like... really really cold?" Mina blinked a few times in confusion, an odd title befitting an eccentric guardian.

Of course, what followed next was the opposite of elegance and composure. The huggable android, Alice, broke down the moment she started to introduce herself. "Eh..." Mina was about to assist her, but Alice got the hang of it... somewhat, it would do. Her speech pattern sounded like someone installed pre-recorded lines in her system, if she's not advanced enough to create new dialogue lines, then oh... poor girl. Mina scratched the back of her head, there was nothing she could do, only advanced mechanics could tinker for Guardian-type Androids, hopefully one of crews could help her.

Then came the last, but not least, the blond curvaceous woman who acted with similar 'proper soldier' demeanor as Princess Benedicta. She looked calm and preferring to stay in the background, but if Mina knew something about quiet people, they were more than meets the eye. Her specialty brought a smile from the pink-haired young woman though, "Oh, awesome, looking forward to fight with you side-by-side, Yulia." Mina nudged at the blond woman's shoulder, "My role is quite similar to yours."

--

The tour continued, despite Esfir's snark attitude, Mina had the feeling she was enjoying herself. When the blue-eyed tour leader gave a glance at Mina, the girl would grin then wink as if telling, "We'll talk later.". Mina had already took a few glimpses at the ship's map through her phone, but nothing beats seeing the compartments with her own two cybernetic eyes. First, the personal quarters, "Five, huh? That's okay, the more the merrier." Mina quipped, keeping her voice rather low as to not sound rude. Second, the training field with a horribly easy half-assed code, "Maybe it's... you know, reverse psychology, infilitrators wouldn't think the door has such a simple passcode."

An offer for demonstration? Well, as Chief Petty Officer, she would do the honors! Mina was about to volunteer, her arm already raised half-way when Esfir gave a look at the awkward android instead, "..." she put it down. "Welp, awkward moment avoided..." That's fine, see if Alice turned out to be a competent Guardian despite her lack of social functions. What came next kinda made Mina's jaw dropped, well... Alice did the job alright, literally so. Somehow, someway, defying all metaphysics and scientific mumbo-jumbo, she pulled out a freaking ice block from her leg, "Wha... how... when?" What an utter waste of function, putting a refrigerator inside her leg, her creators had a poor sense of humor, the thought of them creating Alice just to mess with other people passed Mina's mind. "H-hey... Ali-Waaah?!"

*GLOMP!*

Mina's surprise didn't end there for a shorter girl suddenly tackle-hugged her from behind. So fixated on Alice's magic trick, she didn't notice Rika's introduction until the moment the girl glomped her. "R-rika...?" Mina froze, her golden eyes open wide, no... it couldn't be. Mina slowly, very slowly, turned her head to look over her shoulder, "Im... possible..." oh how she wanted to believe this person just happened to have the same name as her little sister, but no... same surname, very familiar voice, her demeanor, and the face she had grown to cherish for most of her life. "R-rika... rika?!!" Mina turned around then grabbed both of her little sister's shoulders with her hands, "Y-you... you, a.. g-guardian?! H-how?!..." Mina shook her head twice as if to clear her thoughts, she leaned in even closer as if convincing herself that Rika was there, not just some hallucination.

"W-when... I never heard..." All of her cheerfulness and composure went down the proverbial drain, her emotions going out of control, Mina could feel her cybernetic body administering hormones to calm her down just like during combat situations, in other words, her own body deemed she was tense enough to consider meeting Rika as dire as cornered by Bydos. "...Ri... ka..." Mina slowly released her hands from the girl's shoulders, if Rika became a guardian that would mean... "I... I never thought... y-you... a machine... I-...i-it's enough if it's just me... b-but you... d-do they know about this? ...Mama and Papa, I mean..."
 
Though Eunike had interacted with androids before, the one thing she was not expecting in response to her little nudge was a string of long words that formed some borderline parsable acronym that... No, it did not quite make sense, something that she was not used to, especially because it seemed that the creators of Alice were just throwing some random words there in order to make her name coherent. That was quite unique as far as the tall, fair woman was concerned as most of the androids she had met either had proper names or though their acronym did not spell out a proper name, they could still be turned into nice, human names with a little bit of creativity.

Furthermore, Alice's speech patterns were primitive at best, which was the sign of negligent creators and so, she hoped that whoever made this poor android spent three or four times the effort on her functionality as they had spent on her social skills along with her name. Then she would have a very fine team-mate and fortunately, despite the relative unease that she felt in presence of princess Benedicta, the rest of her fellow valkyries seemed to make a capable team. There would be no doubt some mishaps along the way, but already, Eunike felt at home with this crew. That was all that she needed. Everything else would happen in due time.

The rest of the tour continued with a light rebuke from Esfir towards Toro, then the most important faculties before they stopped cold in front of the training room that had a rather amusing password that made Eunike's smile just that little bit wider. She was not sure why these training rooms were passcode protected in the first place as they were not very crucial unless one could use them creatively in a battle to confuse the Bydo, which was more difficult to pull of than it sounded to be. Maybe it was to keep out everyone except valkyries or to register who accessed it? Either way, she would not volunteer for the demonstration because of the unique nature of her weapons.

Luckily, it seemed as if Alice was up to proving herself, but then she pulled a block of ice out of her leg compartment, starting a chain reaction that ended with the last valkyrie introducing herself before almost tackling Mina. As far as Eunike could understand from the tidbits and the names, the two were sisters, which normally meant a touching reunion if it was not for the fact that Mina seemed to be so surprised that she could not even talk straight for several seconds.

Thus, Eunike used the distraction provided by the siblings to flash a warm smile at Alice.
"That is not what people mean by breaking the ice, Alice," she said in a light-hearted tone while she tried really hard not to think about how the android could store a block of ice within a compartment in her leg and not fry a large number of her circuits in the process. "You do not need to literally break it... But I do want to see the amazing things you can do!" Eunike's smile along with her friendly, open tone never dropped as she was speaking as she was intent on making others feel welcome, even if their creators happened to be people without common sense.
 
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"That is not what people mean by breaking the ice, Alice... You do not need to literally break it..."

Alice's eyes widen from the shock of learning that the phrase breaking the ice did not mean to break ice. Her hand started to shake as her embarrassment levels were slowly rising. She was trying really hard and still failed. She lowered her head while dropping the ice. Then she placed her hands over her face, "S-Sorry, I did not wish to incorrectly preform the action of breaking the ice." Her quiet monotone voice passed through her hands despite them hiding her face. She wanted to run away but she already volunteer to show off her gear to the Ensign so she could not run away. She already completely failed her human interaction, AGAIN; but she could still show that she was not broken. Then after successfully showing off her gear, she could get the 4 man room and be a normal girl.

She removed her hand from her face and walked up to the Ensign and saluted. "Ma'am, please choice me to preform the show off. I have all the necessary requirements to operate in this activity." Though she did not sound like it, she was determined. This was her last chance to prove she was not broken and save herself from being shut down by the Specialist Toro. She would not mess this up, she could not mess this up. This is what she was designed to do.

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After nodding at Mina's remark, Yulia raised an eyebrow at Esfir's scathing tone towards the cloaked girl. While she couldn't deny what Esfir was saying was correct, there really was no need to be so scathing about it. Especially when they had just met. Besides, wasn't she getting just a bit uppity for her rank, being only a lowly Ensign? Nonetheless, Yulia kept quiet. She'd do no one any favors by stepping in now.

Similarly, when Ensign Kamaria glomped...CPO Kamaria, Yulia couldn't help but crack a small smile. Esfir would probably raise hell over it, but it was cute.

"Oh?" Yulia said in surprise when Mina mentioned a mother and father. "You two are related, then? Siblings?" She asked out of curiosity. Huh. Whoever in the brass assigned these sisters to the same ship clearly screwed up in not noticing their shared surname. Oh, well. Hopefully those two would be able to lock it down and keep it together on the battlefield if the other got hurt.

Nonetheless, when Esfir asked for volunteers to show off, Yulia stepped forward, smiling. "I suppose I could give a little show." She said confidently, the grin never fading from her face.
 
"Aaaaaaah, Esfir, no need to hit me so hard!" It didn't hurt, really. Toro just hated when the Ensign did this. Everyone knew that this place's tech could be so easily upgraded if someone would just do something on this place! For god's sake, a monkey could have done all this work and then some! Besides, who has time for theory?! Theory is simply that until it is tested. So why even bother with it in the first place? It's just another step on the way to results. Doing something is a Hell of alot faster than writing down what you are doing, then doing it.

Whatever. Like she was going to listen to her lectures anyway. Toro felt the obligation to follow the group around on the rest of the tour.

"Damn lazy admins, not letting me tinker with the faulty wiring..."

Now as all this was going on, Toro couldn't help but to spot the new Android assigned to the group. She must have a wire loose, or her speech program must not have ever actually been finished. Toro could help with that to say the least. It would just take a little trial and error. So long as the Android would be okay acting somewhat like a guinea pig. Esfir asked if anyone would like to show off. Toro enjoyed playing around in the simulation chamber, though she wasn't going to impress anyone by herself. Best to just leave that to the poor, unfinished droid.

"As much as I love showing off, I really can't do anything by myself. Virtually useless. Mind you, you'll be glad when I tag along for a skirmish, but I ain't gonna be getting many confirmed kills. So, I'll leave this to you all."
 
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