originally posted in:The New Dojo
[b]Ko Rudo Mountains // Midnight // Meghan[/b]
Meghan’s car rolled along the long stretch of highway between Dojoville and a small village in the Ko-Rudo mountain range at midnight. Normally she didn’t like to drive anywhere at that time of the evening, although she was just getting back from a friend’s house outside the city and didn’t want to overstay her welcome too long. The road ahead was empty, so she trailed her bright orange eyes off of the road in front of her and started to look out the windows at the snowy countryside that surrounded her. Nothing back home was like it, with all of the slopes and hills that were covered with an elegant sheet of white that she could only dream of seeing when waking up every morning. She sighed with a want to just stare at it forever, to get lost in the mix of twinkling stars above and snow below, although she was quickly brought out of her wanting gaze when she heard a rather loud noise in front of her.
Several meters ahead of the woman was a roadblock. Six or seven cars were all lined up in two rows in front of her, with one blocking a small pathway offroad that had been cut out of the railing on the side of the road she had found herself on. Figures moved about in her headlights, each one dressed up in a bright blue jacket and with some form of rifle or pistol on their gloved hands and armour lining their forearms. One walked over to Meg’s car and scratched gently at the armoured ski mask on his face, staring her down with eyes hidden away behind a pair of orange ski goggles.
Meg wasn’t currently armed to the teeth - The blue-skinned woman was wearing a red dress that had ended just below her thigh, and the only form of weaponry that she kept in her car at the moment was her fists, which were already sparking with blue energy and her intention to fight her way out of this. The man approached and rapped on the window to her left lightly, which slid down as she dully looked out to him.
“What,” she asked him.
“Gotta pay a toll if you want to get past,” the man responded, his voice maintaining a tone of calmness, like this was routine for him.
“And if I don’t pay?” Meghan defiantly asked, although it was more of a statement than a question.
“Then my and my friends here will have to use the car as payment, while we pass you around,” the man aggressively responded. Meghan didn’t say anything to him though. She leaned forwards slightly and gave a quaint grin, then opened her door just enough for her to slip out. She had left her heels in the car and put her bare foot on the ground, which made her cringe slightly, though she kept the feeling suppressed. The man had lowered his gun and looked to her with a curious gaze.
Meghan moved beside him and whispered into his ear, though he would soon feel a cold barrel press against the back of his head. Meghan reached down into his sidearm holster and pulled out the pistol he held, although as his friends each raised their gun to her, Meg slid herself behind him. Now he was a bargaining chip, and Meg kept the gun extended, standing sideways for extra style points.
The soldiers looked confusedly to one another and asked each other what to do, though Meghan couldn’t quite hear them since she was fairly far off. Getting quite bored of the men, Meghan had slipped the rifle to the side of his head. She squeezed down on the trigger and a bullet zipped out of one end, flying through the cold air with a grace matched only by that of her form, which barely moved from recoil. The bullet found its mark in one of the cars used to block the road off, and it embedded itself into the gasoline tank, which started to spray liquids like a hose. Some of the others had been coated in it, and a second shot to the car would send a few sparks of hot metal into the gasoline. It, like three of the bandits, had been set alight before they could find a good spot to shoot without killing their friend.
Meg hit the back of the man’s head with her pistol and grabbed his gun as he collapsed, before she moved back to the spot behind her truck in all of the confusion and chaos. When the other five bullets of her pistol were expended taking on people that had tried to push up on her, she tossed it to the side and held the rifle in either hand. She checked the gun’s magazine - Fifteen rounds, it looked to be a marksman’s rifle from the make of it.
Someone rounded a corner to meet Meghan with a gun raised to her, although she kept herself low and shoved the stock of her gun into the bottom of his jaw and shot him in the shoulder twice. Someone came from behind her then, but she found herself putting a bullet into his lower chest. Three more came; Meg only aimed at one of them, but she was being stared down by all of the soldiers.
“You have three injured people, and about three people staring me down. Either you drop your guns and help your friends, or they get hypothermia and die,” Meghan stated, her confidence overwhelming. Truly she didn’t remember exactly how many people were there, but she had a guess and hoped she was right. The bandits looked to be mulling it over in their heads, but they soon found themselves looking to the guy in the middle.
“How do I know you won’t shoot me as soon as I lower my gun?” The bandit asked. He had the clear advantage and knew he could just shoot her now, but he knew that if he shot her, then Meg would clench her fist and both of them would go.
“I could ask the same thing. I’ll get in my truck, and one of your guys will move that car. Cross me, and I’ll run your friend over when I’m dead,” Meghan said with a grin as she looked to the man. Death wasn’t an important thing for her - She was a Guardian after all, and death was meaningless to her - but she wanted to get out of here without killing anyone. It took the bandits a moment of hesitation, but eventually they motioned to the car in the dirt road and had one of the three move it. Meg climbed into her car with a sly smirk and the rifle, which she put in the passenger seat next to a pistol from one of the men. When the car moved her muffler blew smoke onto the face of a soldier, and she was on her way out of the bandit roadblock.
((Open!))
English
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[i]A few miles away, and she'd find a familiar hitchhiker.[/i] [i]The Titan woman from the earlier night had soon left the mountain's peak, trudging throughout the cold after meditating alone for a certain time. She was used to this sort of cold, without her precious heating Light: she had intentionally rested upon Felwinter Peak's mountainous ridges in such conditions, she could handle it.[/i] [i]When Meghan's car would find itself near Thebes, the female Titan would look back, her tattered blue Mark matching the shaded Holdfast plating that she bore, a pelt from a wolf hanging from the left shoulder while she bore the mane of something like a bear or something of the sort. Her hair was shaven bald on the left side and tied into a bun from the right, while brilliant emerald eyes looked back at the car. Thebes was on the side of the road, so she wouldn't be ran over.[/i] [i]She would then raise her hand, hoping to catch the driver's attention so that she could get a quick ride. Her Ghost's transmitting had been malfunctioning ever since her arrival: Thebes could not establish a proper link to her Sparrow, nor her ship, forcing her to manually move everywhere that she went.[/i]
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[i]Meghan took a look over to the hitchhiker and remembered the familiar face of Thebes, who she pulled the truck over for. She hadn't even owned the car, really, just borrowed it from a friend in order to arrive in something that wasn't a pearlescent pink and silver Sparrow, so she understood the struggle of having to find alternative means of transport. The side door opened for Thebes and Meg stopped the car. "Heyo." [/i]
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"...No way." [i]Thebes would look at Meghan, before she would then proceed to enter the borrowed truck. She would lean back in her seat, brushing off the residue of frost and snow before those bright neon green eyes would then turn to Meghan.[/i] "I didn't take you to be the mountain type.. you're able to walk again, I hope?"
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[i]"Yeah, but it took me some time to recover. Made the first half of that party a drag," Meghan joked, turning the radio on. She set some low volume classic rock to play - The best thing she could get during a car ride this long. "How're you feeling after, you know?" [/i]
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"Worn out, really. I've had a lot of parties, but that one was.. Interesting." [i]Thebes smiled a little, her pearly white teeth breaking through her grin a little as she would shrug. "Worn out" was honestly an understatement for what went down.[/i] "I had a good time, though. Went from drinking to.. holy shit."
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[i]"I believe the things said make it more of a '-blam!- yeah!' than a holy shit." [/i]
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"Ha. Definitely more "fuсk yeah", more than anything." [i]Thebes would recall one of the.. moments.[/i] "Amazing, honestly. Made me think about a lot more.. well, interactions. Did you get my number, by the way?"
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[i]"Yeah, I think I did. Slip of paper I keep in between my bóobs with some other names and numbers. Gotta make do with that as a phonebook." [/i]
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"Heh, I'd be down for more parties. Hell.. we need some Strikes on this hole. Some Fallen to beat down. Maybe I'll hold a Strike on a special place, just with you? ...by the way, you wouldn't know where to pick up some prosthetic arms and strength augmentations, would you? That Dojo place's an option. But I've got enough Glimmer to turn you and I into tanks if needed."
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[i]"I have legitimately no clue where to get any prosthetics. Why, is your Ghost turning you into an amputee?" [/i]
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"Nope. I'm turning myself into an amputee, had some creative thoughts about some arms. Pack some more power."
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[i]"What are they? Because if it's your hands getting some power, I kinda want to prepare myself more." [/i]
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"Obviously some strength augmentations. At some point, I'll have to modify my actual arms for enhanced muscles, and soon spinal cord if I'm really packing heat. I'm talking about combining Sunstrike with a punch that busts through rows of assholes in a punch.. Not on you, babe. Additionally, some leg enhancements would be even better. Turn Catapult into a literal catapult. More on the arms, though.. I could look into electric discharges too, like a constant Arc punch, except I can turn it off when needed. Adamantium or ceramite plated knuckles? Totally worth it, too. Though I need something that doesn't ruin our pleasure. Maybe a layer of synthetic skin.. I dunno."
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[i]"I have literally no clue how any of that works, but I know a guy who might." Meghan's mind drifted off to a certain Warlock, one who had been obsessed with understanding Exos from the Golden Age. She recalled Polaris knew a good bit, but would a devoted follower of Toland the Shattered help Thebes? She could only hope, and it was a fair shot. He was no roboticist, but perhaps he knew one. "A member of my old Fireteam isn't too far from Khalosh right now. Maybe we could head over to him and get some help?" [/i]
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"Sounds like he could help us out for a bit." [i]Thebes muttered to herself, as she would then study her palm, opening and closing the fist before she would then clench it tightly.[/i] "Yeah, sure. Let's go pay a visit."
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[i]"Alright. It's a few hours away, so feel free to get some sleep while we drive. We'd also need to take a boat across the sea." [/i]
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"Mm. Alright.." [i]Thebes wasn't the type to carry on conversations for hours, evident as she fell into silence. She would close her eyes then, shuffling about in her seat before descending into something of a dreary sleep.[/i]
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[i]Meg, in the meantime, had driven the two of them to Ollimand and Khalosh within a few hours. [/i]
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[i]Whenever Thebes would wake up, she would mutter something about "World domination in the works" and "possible recruits: I don't fuсkin' know", before her eyes would safety drift open. Ahead of Meghan and Thebes was Khalosh - after the taking of it by the Tribune, and the retaking of it by the Trayven, it was hardly in a civic situation, outside if the attempts at rebuilding the towers and walls. Purple flags with rearing golden lions flew from the skies, as Thebes sighed and moaned a little to herself.[/i] "So two armies - no, like five - had a fuсking brawl here? Jesus."
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[i]"Yeah. And now the rat bástards claimed it for themselves - I swear, I'd burn these flags." [/i]
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"It's too damn typical, of entitled assholes. Maybe one day, we'll look at a new Khalosh. A free one, damnit, not controlled by foreign freaks or corrupt assholes who are too busy fuсkling their five-star whоres instead of caring for their citizens."
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[i]"Yeah. Then the citizens can -blam!- five-star whôres like me," Meg jokingly responded. [/i]
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"You know I would, babe." [i]Thebes smiled at the dirty joke, leaning back in her seat.[/i] "Makes me think about another little.. augmentation, though now thinking about it, it wouldn't really be a little aug. I'll have to check how much Glimmer I've got."
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[i]"What's the augment?" [/i]
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"It's a surprise. [i]Definitely[/i] a surprise."