Toby
As Giles declared himself in favour of a bathroom break and food, Toby nodded and the pair made their way over to the truck stop together, with Toby passing the ball between himself and Giles as they did. One quick bathroom stop later, and the pair were sitting at a Chinese fast food outlet, Toby biting into his food with relish. Eager to keep the conversation flowing, however, Toby decided to pose a question to Giles as the pair ate. “So… are you a waffles kind of guy, or a pancakes one?”
Tonya
As Dante expressed confusion over Angel, or rather, Adriel, not being Giles’ sister, Ashley stepped in to explain. “We found out that Angel, sorry, Adriel, wasn’t Giles’ sister at all, but Raypool had picked someone similar to her with the specific purpose of sowing the seeds of confusion. We’ve actually found the real Nicole, she managed to break out, and she freed Killian when she escaped. She’s back at the base.”
As Ashley finished, Kasumi cut across: “And I’ll thank you to not bad mouth Ash, given that she’s helped you two to remain under the radar these past three months”. Well now you’ve done it. Ash’s tone was unsurprised at the outburst. She’d expected their status to be revealed eventually, just not quite as soon. Still what was done was done. Ashley, sensing the tension in the room, tried to move things along.
“Before you go anywhere Dante, I’d like to take the whole group back to Hel-, the main Resistance base.” Ashley caught herself in the middle of the sentence, knowing that, even though the name wasn’t hers that Dante would mock her no end if he found out the name of the base. Tonya stepped towards Ashley as the woman produced a photograph and studied it.
“Seems simple enough”, the Asian girl stated before vanishing momentarily, returning a second or so later. “Right, I’m not a shuttle service, so I’ll only do this this once.” Brusquely, she took Ashley and Kasumi’s hands, before vanishing with them, only to return to take Killian, Trixie and Liu, before reappearing. “I told them we’d be a few minutes, Kasumi’s working on a plan so that you don’t get yourself killed.” Tonya stopped for a second, and laid her arms around Dante’s chest, pinning his sides with a hug. “You need to stop. You’re stressing yourself over all of this, and I get it, I’m stressed too being here, especially with that jerk Carlo running half of the Resistance. You’re letting it get to you though, and you’re acting irrationally again. We can’t keep doing this Dante, running headfirst into things with our guns up and assuming that it’ll all turn out fine when the dust settles. I did it and it got me brainwashed, you did it and look at the bloody world now! I know that we’re here to get Angel, but charging into the middle of a DSRP public announcement is worse than foolhardy, that’s downright suicidal. I don’t care what you say, I’m not taking you to Nevada. Just… let’s stop, get the data, and plan this out, okay? We’ve got the world’s most powerful computer on our side now, let’s use that asset. That’s what this mission was about, wasn’t it? Come on Dante, work with me here. I don’t want things to go wrong again.” As Tonya stumbled to the end of her rushed, impassioned plea, she felt hot tears pricking at her eyes. She was fed up of losing people, and she refused to lose Dante. But right now, the merc seemed more bent on self-destruction than ever. Squeezing her arms tighter around him, Tonya waited for Dante’s response, and prayed that her actions weren’t about to blow up in her face.
Trixie
For just a few moments, everything in Trixie’s life felt… good. The sensation of her hand against Liu’s, a void was filled there that she hadn’t even realised existed until the skin contact had first begun. But suddenly, as soon as it started, the contact was wrenched away, as Liu muttered an apology, unable to commit to the contact. Trixie attempted to contain her disappointment, knowing that this wasn’t the moment to cause a scene, especially since Liu had already moved on. Things progressed, and Trixie mostly just took part, her emotions dulled after the spurning from Liu. Then, suddenly, she was taking Tonya’s hand, and the pair were standing in a brightly lit tunnel, with Kasumi, Ashley, and Killian there alongside Liu and Trixie. Tonya gave a quick apology and vanished. Once the girl was gone, Ashley sighed. “I take it then that Ash is still in there?” Kasumi nodded in response to the question.
“She’s been there since the day before the incident, it was just supposed to be an experiment, but it ended up becoming rather more permanent than either of us intended”.
Ashley nodded, “Well, give her my regards. Also, I’ve got some ideas on how to deal with the DSRP mission, so if you could work on just getting Dante and Tonya not killed, I’d appreciate it”.
The response was almost instantaneous “I’ve already narrowed it down to three options, one of which I have marked out as the likely most favourable. I’ll forward the details to your phone now, and explain it to Dante when he and Tonya get here”.
Ashley pulled out her phone, grinning slightly, before frowning. “Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. When we found Nicole, she’s got a power suppression bracelet attached to her wrist. We know it’s not dangerous, and it’s not emitting a tracker signal, but other than that we’ve not been able to make head or tail of it, and we don’t want to try anything in case of unexpected consequences. Given your abilities, do you think you could take a look?”
Kasumi cocked her head for a second, before nodding again. “I’m sure we can work something out yeah. Before that though, it might be worth waiting for Tonya and Dante. I’ve got a feeling that those two might be having a serious chat…”