V for Victory! (IC)

[Tar Palantir]

Sparrow doesn't have time to reply to Silver Star before he dashes off, so she settles for giving him a solid thwack to the back of the head once she catches up to him (not enough to hurt him, but with enough super strength behind it to amply prove that she could if she wanted to). "I am not a delicate little flower that you leave behind where she's safe. I am your teammate, and the more durable of the two of us to boot. Pull that nonsense again, and I'll wrap that car around your head until you learn to use it properly. Or better yet, I'll make you ride in it while Elizabeth drives." Her tone is light, but there's just enough sting in it that Silver Star's not entirely certain she won't make good on her threat.

Leaving that hanging in the air, she turns to the others. "Melusine and I landed at the drop point together. I left her there to keep an eye out for our contact. I should be able to guide us back without difficulty." As she speaks, she surveys the job Jane did securing the soldiers, before popping the bumpers and tailgate off of their captured vehicle and wrapping each of them around a pair of Nazis, as casually as though she were wrapping leftovers up in tin foil. Doing a quick mental headcount, she adds, "Did anyone see where Marina ended up coming down?"

[Nintendogeek01]

Silver Star rubbed the back of his head, "That was unnesecary," he muttered, "And also, it's not about who is and who isn't the most durable. It's about whether I'm going to willingly let sometime take a risk that I know I can take. And the answer is no; it's not a question or insult to anyone's capabilities, it's who I am," he rebutted firmly, but not angrily.

"As for Marina, that is a good question," he responded as he cupped his hands around his ears, trying to listen for any sign of her.

Spoiler: OOC

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Perception: (1d20+10)[19]

[Ridai]

Between teleportation and super-strength and super-speed and such, Jane asks herself why she even bothers sometimes. The bent bumper does strike her as a tad excessive, though.

The little scene between Silver Star and Sparrow does prompt her to briefly peek out of the driver's cabin and adress Lily. "Hey now, cut him some slack. Good people are in short supply as is, don't sour the ones we do have."

As for Marina's position, a "No idea" is added, before getting the truck ready to drive. "Let's go and meet Chantal, we can look for Marina together."

[The_Snark]

Any satisfaction Melusine might have felt at the man's awe is drowned out by a sharp stab of irritation. Yes, he is impressed, once the initial shock has passed, and that's better than most. In a sense it's even flattering. It doesn't matter. It is a wrong reaction. He is seeing the wrong person.

But this is a familiar hurt. She contains herself. It takes only a moment to put anger behind her. "Only for now," she tells him. "Four of us missed the landing zone; they should be nearby but I don't know where. My companion went to search for them while I waited for you."

Right on cue, the radio crackles to life. She nods to herself in satisfaction, and turns it on to speak. "Melusine. J'ai trouvé notre intermédiare."

[Ridai]

After a brief moment, Melusine's radio is getting uppity again. "I'm sorry, what?" Jane's voice asks.

[Chivy]

"Sparrow!" Elizabeth squawked indignantly. It was well-known to her that some people paled at robust driving, but threatening somebody with her driving was insulting, even if it was some sort of joke. Not to mention hitting a teammate.
"That was not called for, on both counts."

After she had made it clear that she was not amused, she continued with putting weapons, ammunition, food and anything else she thought would be useful for the resistance into the Germans’ satchels.

"She said that she has met with our contact." Elizabeth answered Jane’s question before picking up her own radio and answering in the same language.
{"Excepting the Aquatic One, we are together. The Young One can lead us to you. Stay where you are."}
She then quickly translated it for those around her who didn’t speak French.

"Before we leave, could one of you get Jane’s parachute from the tree? No use in leaving a sign saying that people parachuted in here."
She then hobbled over to the truck’s cabin, then looked up at Jane sitting there. She gave her a sweet smile and said
"Don’t worry, I can still easily drive with my leg."

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I'm using {} to indicate non-english languages like we discussed in discord. In this case French.

[Nintendogeek01]

"Good, now we just need to find Marina," Silver Star smiled at the good news. When Jane made her request, Silver Star looked to the tree and nodded, "Sure, I'll get it," he said, using his legs to leap up to it and get it down.

[Ridai]

"Very nice! Just throw it in the back," Jane says to Silver Star. When Elizabeth comes over, Jane has a second or two to consider with the perfect disguise of actually just being bent over to check the passenger side. Elizabeth's driving is weapons-grade, and if people haven't heard the gunfire, well... On the other hand, she knows how much Elizabeth loves driving, she is a dear friend, and that smile makes it so damn hard to say no...

With an internal sigh, Jane scoots over to the passenger side, hoping the others and whatever entities may be watching them won't be too harsh with her for allowing this.

[Chivy]

"Capital." Elizabeth swung off her backpack and climbed into the truck's driver's seat. She put the backpack next to her and with some Tiller Girl-like kicks, slipped her right leg through it's strap, anchoring it in place. She'd made the mistake of allowing her bag stuffed with explosives to roam free while she drove, it.. hadn't exactly ended well for the truck she had been driving.
"Sparrow, if you could point the way, we shall meet up with Chantal." She called out to their youngest comrade.

Elizabeth then scooted down a bit to make sure she could reach the truck's pedals. It had clearly not been built with any regard for smaller drivers. At least she could see the road above the steering wheel, that wasn't always the case. She leaned out of the cabin to reach the door handle, then said "There is more than enough room in the back, but the road does look a bit bumpy, so you might want to hold on." before pulling the door closed.

The Semi-Divinity then turned over the engine, a look of (almost maniacal) glee appearing as she heard the sound of the engine.

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Someone once told me that on old-style cars using a clutch to stickshift was only needed if you minded grinding gears and shifted down occasionally. Now I'm not sure that's true, but i like the idea. Elizabeth's driving can be summarized in a few ways; as fast as she can get the vehicle to go. Grinding gears often while shifting up (she only uses the clutch to shift down) and using stationary objects to help her turn or slow down (glancing off of trees to make a turn). Brakes are for people who don't know how to drive, or when you've reached your destination.

[Tar Palantir]

Seeing her teammates reactions, Sparrow lets out a short sigh, and says, "I apologize for being short with you, Silvy. Believe me when I say that I know exactly how you feel. I just imagine you rushing on ahead into some trap or ambush or something and watching you get hurt, knowing that if it had been me I would have been fine. I'm going to have to bury more than my fair share of friends as is, I'm not eager to get started early." Her voice is mostly calm, with a bit of a sarcastic tinge thrown on top, but it's not the most convincing facade; it's easy to tell that she;s had these thoughts many times before. Her tone seems more genuine as she changes the subject, "Plus, it irks me a bit when people don't take me seriously just because I look like a scrawny little girl. Which is dumb, I could look like whatever I want, and I decided to look like this," she gestures to herself, "specifically so I wouldn't seem as threatening, so it's idiotic and hypocritical of me to complain when people underestimate me because of it."

Sparrow blanches slightly when she sees Jane slide over for Elizabeth. "You know, it would probably be faster for me to just carry you all in the car. I know our relative locations, but I'm not as familiar with the local roads." Come to think of it, that's probably true. Not that it's likely to matter, but at least I tried.

[Chivy]

Sparrow was right. And if Elizabeth really thought about it, driving a truck through the countryside with a bunch of restrained soldiers in the back with her probably trigger happy companions might not be the smartest thing while they were infiltrating. Exfiltrating was entirely another matter though.

Elizabeth sighed theatrically, then turned off the truck’s engine.
"You are right. It would be faster. Can you lift us as well as the guns and equipment we found for the Resistance?" there might have been a slight hint of hopefulness in the question.

She had been too pre-occupied with the truck to note what Sparrow had said, but it clicked in that moment.
"I could look like whatever I want, and I decided to look like this, specifically so I wouldn't seem as threatening,"
"Wait. What do you normally look like?" She asked.

[Ridai]

"Plus, it irks me a bit when people don't take me seriously just because I look like a scrawny little girl. Which is dumb, I could look like whatever I want, and I decided to look like this," she gestures to herself, "specifically so I wouldn't seem as threatening, so it's idiotic and hypocritical of me to complain when people underestimate me because of it."

Jane feels like she needs to intervene in some fashion, leaning out of the window. "Sparrow, no one here thinks you are some helpless little girl and it isn't idiotic to feel bad about people thinking lesser of you because of how you want to look. But the truth is also that complaining will not get you anywhere. All you can do is be the woman you want to be seen as, and everyone with a brain will get that eventually. There'll always be idiots, yeah, but not here, not among friends. Please, please, don't sour people who want to help you. They're great. They almost never happen to me, people just assume I'll be alright because I'm some ridiculous-looking construct that's bigger than Silver Star, but without the strength or toughness or powers, and they usually don't see me stumbling into bed almost every day covered in bruises, gunshot wounds, and soaked bandages."

Short pause.

"If you want to fly us there, that's also fine with me. I just want to get there."

[Red_Jenny]

Sub-Marina

The sneaky princess almost goes unnoticed by the peasants inside the farmhouse until the radio gives her away, causing them both to jump. The old man stares from the doorway at the remnants of the thing Marina killed and mutters an oath under his breath. Jeanette, for her part, seems deeply puzzled as to why someone she has taken to be a British secret agent is offering her an active radio.

"...Vous ne savez pas comment?"

After a moment, she takes the device, uncertainly looking it over. In what is obviously a best guess, she depresses the speaker button on the side and speaks in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

"Allo?"

The Four in the Truck

Once everyone is loaded into the truck and the truck is loaded onto Sparrow, they're off. If Elizabeth finds the pace a little sedate, the "flying" truck is at least novel. The road is easy enough to follow, and eventually winds its way, snakelike, out of the woods and out across the farmland, where it eventually leads to the paved road Lily had seen from the dropzone. From there, it's a relatively simple matter of retracing her steps, and soon the field where she left Melusine is in sight in the distance.

"Allo?" The team's radios crackle to life with an unfamiliar voice. Native French, and a young woman or girl, if such things can accurately be judged by one quiet word.

Melusine

Durant simply nods and grunts as Chantal lays out the situation, the familiarity of the circumstances overriding the snake-monster aspect for now. "Hm. It happens. We have lost many supplies simply because they drifted down in sight of the Germans. Some end up miles off course. I hope they are well. This is not an enemy I or my men are equipped to fight. Soldiers are one thing. The Huns stay to the main roads and their barracks. They are predictable. We must live in the woods, like bandits, but they do not come in after us. This coming of creatures of the night, though..." He remembers who he's talking to and chuckles, a sound with little humor behind it. "Perhaps it is different for you."

[Ridai]

A short beat of silence on Marina's end, followed by a slightly confused British "...Hello? Marina, are you nearby?"

[tonberrian]

Marina snatches the radio back and tentatively mimics Jeanette, depressing the speaker button. "Yes, I am here. That abyssal parachute dragged me into some sort of structure, and the peasants living here found me. I cannot understand them, but they seemed to be frightened of some sort of shadow-man that appeared to be hunting me, so I slayed it. It melted into ichor. Is that normal for vampires?"

"I do not know where I am, nor how to get where I am supposed to be, but perhaps... Jeanette? Could tell you."

Marina hopes that the darkness masks the color in her cheeks. Stupid surfacer technology that she didn't know how to use.

[Chivy]

Keeping one hand on the wheel, she was after all a safe driver, even if she wasn't exactly driving, Elizabeth fished her own radio out of her satchel.
"It is not wise to use names or discuss locations using a radio, our enemies could easily be listening." she spoke into the radio.

They needed to find where she was, without giving away to much for anybody listening, so after a few moments she came up with a plan.
"Can you make sure that you can see the sky? Look for lights and tell us when you can see them."
{"Could you help my friend find lights in the sky?"} she added in french for whoever was with Marina.

Elizabeth put down her radio, opened the door, still keeping one hand on the wheel, yelled down to Sparrow
"Sparow, could you turn us in a slow circle so Marina can see our headlights?"

[Tar Palantir]

Sparrow shouts back, "No problem!" before doing a lazy twirl in midair with the truck held overhead, like the world's most ludicrously buff ballet dancer. "How's that?"

[Red_Jenny]

"Oui!" The prospect of helping with some top-secret clandestine mission has Jeanette practically bouncing in eagerness, even if she's not sure what's going on. She grabs Marina by the hand and leads/drags her out into the farmyard. After a few moments scanning the horizon, they spot the lights in the distance, spinning like a lighthouse in the dark.

Spoiler: OOC

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The farm is about half a mile off from the landing zone (it's the second of the dim lights the flyers/jumpers have been seeing from the air), and so Marina is able to spot the spinning truck easily enough in the darkness.

[tonberrian]

"Thank you, Jeanette. Perhaps we might meet again someday, but for now I must go." Marina gives Jeanette a hug, then bounds through the night, leaping aboard the truck from below.

[Nintendogeek01]

"Yes this pace is much better," Silver Star comments as he stands up and looks out across the distance, "Wait... I think that's her coming in... now!"

[Ridai]

(Assuming there is some way to look into the back of the truck from the driver's cabin)

Jane feels the slight thunk as Marina arrives. These people have it so damn good. She looks over her shoulder ("Hello.") and says "About that shadow bugger: vampires don't usually die that way. Many turn to ash when they are actually destroyed, but I've never seen any vampire turn into liquid. Perhaps some sort of minion creature? Can you describe the thing and what happened? Any other unusual things about it?"

[tonberrian]

Marina shrugs. "I do not know your surface creatures. It appeared to be a man, made of shadow. It was solid enough to stab, though, so I did, twice. And then it melted."


"It seemed to be... smelling? Looking for me. I did not see any others, though."

Marina maneuvers flexibly along the truck inside somewhere.

[Nintendogeek01]

"Hmm... we should get back to Melusine, whatever these are we shouldn't leave her and our contact without backup," Silver Star says with concern.

[Tar Palantir]

Without further ado, Sparrow makes her way back to the drop site. After circling briefly, she sets down and shrugs the truck off of her shoulders and onto the ground. "And here we are. I hope that wasn't too rough on anyone?" She glances around, searching for the last member of their coterie and their resistance contact.

[Red_Jenny]

Everyone!

Melusine and Durant aren't far off, and the Resistance contact watches in astonishment as Sparrow drops from the sky with the truck in tow. "Mon Dieu..."

Recovering some composure, he approaches the newly landed group and offers a hand to all in turn. "Former First Lieutenant Lazare Durant, at your service. The radio operators said this was not a standard drop. I understand now." His English is thick and heavily accented, but fluent enough for all to understand. "I am glad. This situation is not like anything I have ever known."

"The Maquis operates in small groups. Become too large, and the Boche will send things that cannot be fought to deal with you. The cell from Melun were close by, however, and we had good ties. It was I who discovered what had become of them. My men and I operate from within the forest. I can take you, if you wish. It is safe, a good place to recover and plan from. I expect you will also want to investigate Melun. It is occupied, not a place where any of you could walk down the street openly. It would be best to go at night. I leave the choice to you."

His expression hardens into a sort of grim satisfaction as he looks in the back of the truck at the pitiful collection of Nazis. "Unless you are planning to take them back to England tonight, it would be better to simply kill them. We have no space or food for prisoners. The Huns will simply force them back into service if they are left alone. I have seen it before."

Spoiler: OOC

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Apologies for the delay and short post, real life hasn't calmed down yet. Should be better going forward.

[Ridai]

Jane shakes Durant's hand. "Preparing and planning for Melun sounds good," she answers, definitely preferring kind of knowing what she is getting into over just suddenly being in the middle of everything. "I hope I don't have to dress up as SS again." Twice is more than enough.

When the matter of the captured soldiers is brought up, Jane looks over to the truck with some nervousness, hands opening and closing. Killing is another thing she doesn't like about her life as a "heroine", even if her enemies might deserve it, and the deaths usually are glossed over, and there aren't really all that many consequences other than more villains coming after her. Which makes it even more gross in a way. But those were her usual adventures. This right here is war, and she is basically asked to execute helpless prisoners, which opens up all sorts of cans of worms, among them that when deaths were caused in the past, it usually was while people were very actively trying to kill her dead and maybe rend her soul or worse.

I hope you're happy, you bastard, Jane mentally growls into the imagined direction of the Spirit of Adventure! (which she'd love to strangle with a whip right now) as her brow furrows with clear dislike for the whole situation. If they don't kill them, they'll kill more people on some other day. If she kills them, she is killing helpless people in cold blood. If she allows them to be killed, it's basically the same thing. Great. Really bloody lovely day.

"If you are interested in my views on this matter: I'm not killing anyone of them and I'll punch everyone in the face who will try to. And save me the rhetoric, I already know it."

[The_Snark]

Melusine greets her companions with a brief nod to Sparrow - well done - and turns her attention to the distant road and the farmhouse, checking to make sure that the noise or the truck's headlights have not drawn attention. Until Lazare mentions prisoners, that is; then she tenses. Not because she disagrees. Quite the opposite - but she suspects at least one of the others will balk at the idea.

"And what do you propose we do with them?" she asks - softly, but it's the sort of softness that says tread carefully. "Let them go, to report what they have seen and take up arms again? This I will not do."

[Nintendogeek01]

"It's good to finally meet you lieutenant, I'm Silver Star," the super-hero greets Durant, offering his hand to shake, "And I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say your offer is most appreciated," he added in regards to the Melun base.

When the topic of what to do with the soldiers came up Silver Star grimaced; first he turned to Jane, "Jane, the struggle that Lieutenant Durant and his people are going through is not 'rhetoric.' They are at war with all the risk and danger to their livelihood and lives that entails," Silver Star says solemnly, "Having said that, I certainly don't have it in me to execute, nor even wish the execution, of men we have at our mercy," he adds. "Do we have any rope? Some of these trees look sturdy enough."

[tonberrian]

"And if we tie these men up, what then? Either they escape their bindings and report on us, or they die, and not nearly so cleanly as by execution.

Perhaps they know something of the shadow-man. We should ask them. But if they are of no use..."

[Ridai]

"What you all will be doing is to give me some time alone with those soldiers. Afterwards, they will go free and I will know what they know. And they won't ever take up a gun, without any new bruises and broken bones," Jane states, the giantess' face hard and very, very certain.