Match of the Millennium

Description: The Ikari warriors gather their resources, their allies, and their spirit deep in the South American jungles. With their orders from Colonel Jones, Leona briefs Lita and Hayley on the vague outlines of their overwatch purpose for the King of Fighters tournament.

[LEONA]
Ikari Base Command Center, 0600 hours. A holographic projection displays numerous images of past KoF locations and participants, several file photos and 3D representations of Lightning Spangles and other persons of interest. A few scrolling notes on the position of other Ikari in the upcoming mission. Several notes yet on future investigation and position plans. The lights are low, the room quiet but for the hum of the machinery to keep the projections running.

Standing near the cluster of imagery is Leona Heidern. She wears her uniform attire, her hair tied back tightly, she looks over the projections with her hands behind her back. Her at ease posture is at odds with her stern face. Serious consideration as the silent soldier readies herself for the call to arms intended for Lita Luwanda and Hayley Bretherton.

Leona pulls up a small controller in hand. She clicks and the images shift to play a silent version of the interview that started the whole of this operation. While Leona puts her thoughts together, she occasionally looks back behind her, awaiting the arrival of her Ikari Warriors.

[LITA]
Lita didn't really have a lot of time since she had returned from rural China with Hayley to get settled in. She had gone to her bunk, washed up and then came the summons to the Command Center along with the assurance that a summons will be sent for Hayley as well.

As Lita walks in, she has to fight back a yawn since jet lag is a pain to deal with. However, when she sees Leona, military training makes it easier to fight off the fatigue as she snaps into a salute.

"Lieutenant." Pronounced as Leftenant.

[HAYLEY]
Lacking the military discipline of Lita, Hayley slept on the flight. (It likely did not help her stamina that she'd just finished training before lunch back in China.)

Having taken some time to clean up, Hayley has tied back that messy mop of hair that Lita found her sporting. At the very least, she's managed to get it up out of her eyes and in control in the back using what looks to be a martial artist's red belt. She's since traded the Chinese martial arts uniform for a tank top, pocketed vest, and some taekwondo pants.

When Lita salutes, she straightens up at attention as well. "Ma'am." Hayley says, nodding to Leona.

[LEONA]
Leona nods to Lita and Hayley in turn. She inclines her head and a ghost of a smile comes to her face when she sees Hayley. It's good to see the girl has grown since the time within the barracks and after her experience in the hands of Shadaloo. Now here in the darkened room, Leona clicks the controller to once more bring up the collection of images from King of Fighters tournaments past.

"Welcome," she says, keeping her hands behind her back to hide the steady and continuous worrying she is doing. "I will keep this short," she says, mostly for her own benefit.

"King of Fighters has a noted history of drawing conflict, Colonel Jones requests we enter as a team in order to determine threats and to neutralize danger," she explains, "Last tournament, Justice and Gears. I was there. Intel suggests Lieutenant Luwanda was involved in a past tournament. Input?" she rattles off quickly, speaking low and quiet, but running through the important points as swiftly as possible.

[LITA]
While looking at the images, Lita sees things familiar to her partially because of after action reports, partially because she was involved in them. One picture of Lita is her wielding a yoyo against Haru. Another is Lita performing a cricket styled swing with her sword to send a load of kunai flying at Athena.

As Leona gives the breakdown of the mission. Lita nods at the objectives and the rationale behind them. Her past experience is brought up.

"Interpol had decided to assemble a team to get involved in the tournament on the suspicion that something would possibly happen during this tournament. That particular tournament involved getting data for Combots that would utilize the fighting data of various fighters. Unfortunately my team wasn't able to do much in the way of investigation on that."

Lita's lips form into a frown. That tournament in spite of her team's high placement in it was not one of her fondest memories.

"Daniel Little, the team captain, had to face efforts being sabotaged by the member of our team he was compelled to take on by the chief. That member was Sergei Dragunov. Daniel Little's former intern from when he was doing private investigation, Brandon Malone, work was more instrumental in bringing the situation to light due to a perfect storm of an early elimination from the tournament, and having a team member that the organizer had an interest in their development."

She pauses to let that sink in before glancing over to the pictures of the gears. Her eyes zero in on a picture of a Gear in a wedding dress wielding a sword that looks like a scaled up ornate cake knife.

"I wasn't on a team in particular last tournament but joined the Ikari around the time they were involved with the Gear situation. My involvement isn't what I would call pivotal but I do agree we should get involved as a team."

[HAYLEY]
Hayley rubs the side of her neck as the briefing continues, but her attention stays the course better than her nerves do. Her eyes move from screen to screen as new image appear, lingering briefly on each as she tries to assess and evaluate each new face and fighter. She blinks at an image of Raiden in Japan and looks away briefly.

"I don't really have anything to contribute about that. Sorry. I do know a little bit about Lightning Spangles, but that's about it."

[LEONA]
"Thank you," Leona acknowledges Lita with a nod. She clicks a button on her controller and the images stop changing to show the World Warrior, Chun-Li. "Interpol leads me to this point. This is Chun-Li, she will be our rendezvous. She is an ally of the Ikari. She is nice." Leona explains quickly and curtly the connection to Interpol.

Another click and the screen shows NOL soldiers and their Imperator. "Novus Orbis Librarium has bounties on us," Leona states, "We are not to directly involve ourselves with them. Maintain distance. Use the tournament to cover yourselves."

Leona looks at the images, she looks around for a clock to gauge time on. She finds no solace there. "Any questions?" she offers with a stern look to the only other people in the room.

Question or not, Leona still finds the need to quickly recap. "Join tournament, meet with Chun-Li, fight, investigate threats, avoid NOL operatives."

[LITA]
When Leona mentions Chun-Li and her affiliation with Interpol, Lita fights back her urge to cringe. It only shows itself in a slight twitch. She otherwise keeps the appearance f composure.

"I never really had much of a problem with the rank and file members of Interpol. Just their chief. He thought of me and by proxy the members of Delta Red as a bunch of knob-ends. And I thought of him as an irresponsible arse who let his grudge against Little get in the way of putting his operatives in a position to succeed as well as too determined to bury his head in the sand on matters involving the supernatural."

She takes a deep breath.

"I'll work with her and I won't hold her superior officer against her."

[HAYLEY]
Hayley stays mum as the mission briefing occurs. She chews her lip lightly as superiors and rank file members are discussed. During her brief stay here, she saw a bit of how the Ikari Warriors operate, but the occasional nervous shuffle seems to indicate that Hayley is still a bit out of her element.

Her eyes widen a little when Chun-Li comes up, her focus lingering on those screens. Familiarity, perhaps?

[LEONA]
Leona nods toward Lita once again. "Thank you." She doesn't have much to comment on her complaints. She's never met anyone else in Interpol. And after her meeting with Chun-Li, she doesn't think there's much reason to concern herself or anyone on the team with Interpol hierarchy. She was only happy to have someone around that could feasibly handle disaster.

"This will conclude the briefing. We're going into the unknown, there's little intel. But we are Ikari Warriors and we shall fight where people need us." Leona pressing the button on her controller and turns off the hologram. And in doing so, plunges the room into darkness without house lights coming up.

A sigh in the dark. "Apologies. Please go rest. We will leave at dawn."

Log created on 10:44:46 05/31/2019 by Leona, and last modified on 13:04:04 05/31/2019.