Description: Motorhead (1980). When Naerose discovers a secret room that reveals a well stocked ninja armory, Elle sees an opportunity. With her latest contacts in Mad Gear in place, Elle prepares for what very well may be an act of piracy against the elusive Ryuohara ninjas.
There were book bandits and then there were tomb raiders. Today Naerose was totally Lara Croft and it was awesome! She even dresses the part, I mean sort of. Instead of wearing her usual red dress, or the tropical vacation red ensemble with the grass skirt, she is wearing something totally different. Today she has on a red tank top, red shorts and a pair of water pistols tucked in a red belt around her waist. Though any chance to recognize this cosplay is probably instantly ruined by her token witch hat, shades and her broom. All of that, however, was completely meaningless.
While Naerose had been in her little crime sprees, having already grabbed samples from the storage room, and the library, she also stumbled on something while pulling on all of the books because she saw it in a scooby doo episode. Now normally if she told Elle, 'Hey, I saw this on Scooby Doo and just had to try it myself,' it would of likely resulted in a *smack*, but it would seem fate smiled on the bizarre today. Instead of making a mess of books, Naerose actually stumbles on something, a secret door. She was just in the process of having dragged Elle out of her room in the middle of the night with an exclamation of,
"You totally gotta see this, it's soo cool." Yeah. . like a giddy child, when we come on our heroine.
A moment later and here they are, the super sekret Dojo, and Naerose cosplayinng as Lara Croft is just giddy with excitement.
To be honest, Elle finds Naerose's announcement of having found a secret room to be less preposterous than it seems. After all, these are Ninja. If Naerose told her that there's a giant robotic frog hiding in the bowels of the ship. Nevertheless, there's a part of her that will always find Naerose's actions to be dubious. Her space case nature doesn't do anything for her credibility.
Nevertheless, follow her she does. There is much surprised blinking as her manipulations of the bookcase reveal the aformentioned 'sekrit dojo', and Elle immediately stops a few feet after stepping in.
"How much of this place have you looked around in?" Knowing the ninja, there could be dangerous deathtraps, animals, or even monsters for all she knows. Granted, it's probably more on the lines of 'robots'. Almost out of reflex, she pulls a weighted throwing fletchette from her belt, and chucks it at the middle of the floor before Naerose can answer.
"Well.. ahh.." The witch starts looking around and scratching her head, "I mean, I've played with stuff, a lot.. It's like, one of those karate kid places right? It has those weapons and stuff and .. stuff.." She looks around, having apparently messed with some of it, but not really understood any of it. She leans on a wall and shrugs a little more.
"I mean, there doesn't seem to be much to it, you know? This room seems to be the most straight forward of the entire boat, probably because it was hidden, but see I bet they didn't think any fighters would actually look in the library, except Arika, but other than her, I don't think anyone else even looked at the books. Well I'm not a meathead." The witch says nodding a few times and then reaches into said hat, pulls out a camera and starts to take pictures of everything.
" This is gonna make such a great exclusive story someday."
"Arika?" Doesn't ring a bell immediately for Elle. Then again, Elle's not really keeping up to date with her fighter lore as much as she is making space for the issues at hand. When her toss does nothing and upon Naerose's statements, Elle walks into the room, looking around and inspecting the weapons.
"Have you been picking up on the stuff that I told you to?" The metal mercenary asks as she picks up a polearm, hefting it about and testing it's weight. This is the real thing, obviously, and perfectly engineered, much like most of this ninja clan's weaponry.
"Because this place gives me a good idea."
"Yeah, well most of it, lessee, I got the stuff from the crates, I got the books and I'll probably go and do more borrowing from the hull," the witch says and then adjusts her shades while leaning on her broom before fixing her hat and going on with what she was saying, you know, reports and stuff. She pulls a notebook out of her hat and starts to read off of it,
"Books were on tactical stuff, martial arts and some of it was hand written, like, by hand, and chicken scratch. Anyway lesse, no author listed in the hand written stuff and when I did a search on my cell phone about it, they didn't have an ISB.. something number. Lesse, there was a porn magazine and a gamepro with the issue on the latest Saturday Night Fight game, err. . I might of put that there, and something on war economics... Havn't been able to analyze the cargo yet from what I stole, personally I think Marise would do better with that, she does better with boring stuff, anyway, I didn't see any ipods in there, but that doesn't mean there arn't any." She closes her journal, tucks it away into her hat and replaces the hat on her head.
"So whats the plan?"
Elle considers for a moment. "Here's the deal," she says, lifting a meteor hammer from the wall and twirling it experimentally. "You know who Katana is? Mad Gear gang leader that terrorized Metro City a few years back? Well, I had a run in with him before I got on the boat."
"Turns out he's looking for work. All this time since Haggar tossed him out on his ass, he's been looking for a hitch to tie his trailer to. And I think I have a perfect use for him now."
The weapon is hung back up on the wall. "C'mon. The walls have ears around here. Let's go back up to the top deck." She leads Naerose silently there, heading to a less conspicuous place after making sure the coast is clear outside the bookshelf.
It's there where she expounds on the plan in low whispers. "I'm going to have Mad Gear jump this boat. Under the chaos, I want you to make sure that cargo leaves during the attack. Anything you can manage to help Mad Gear get their hands on will be delivered to our old warehoise. Katana will get his cut from that, but Marise needs to look at this stuff ASAP."
"I'll give him a call. You need to lead them to that dojo we were just in, make sure they're armed, and then let 'em get loose. Just make sure the proper things leave the boat."
The witch follows, looking to love a good intrigue. When they are on the deck, she hunches and make it look very obvious that they are planning something. Though given it is a fighting tournament and all the organizers probably knew in advance the members of Blackjack, it wouldn't likely be taken for what it is. . a plan to clean out the entire boat. This works well for Naerose whose shades instantly turn into $$ signs as she listens to the plan.
"Oh hey, I can work with this," she says then covers her mouth and continues, this time in a whisper,
"So there is this fella, I forgot his name, but he has a cool mohawk, I think he's british or something, anyway, he wants to take stuff too, except he won't be able to get it off the boat, I'll make him help get it to the Pissed off gear people, then since they're on our side, all the loot will end up in our warehouse for a discounted rate of heavy lifting. . Free!" The witch claps her hands together at the 'great' plan she just came up with.
"I'm totally ready" she says.
Elle's brow furrows. Who on the boat matches that description? She runs through the list of combatants that showed up on the participant's list. "You mean that has-been wrestler? I'll leave that up to you," Elle says, her tone growing a little dubious. "Just be careful who you work with around here. Vyle's so scummy, not even Mad Gear or USPL has hired him, and they're scraping the barrel right now."
Elle's eyes focus on Naerose's. As always, they're dead, clear of warmth of emotion. "Be careful with whom you make deals with, and who you doublecross on this boat. Don't let it come back to bite you on the butt, expeically when you can't come and go off this crate as you please. Because it if comes back to you faster than I can plan for, I may not be able to back you up if shit flies."
Elle produces her cell phone, and types a few things in. "I've sent you Yamazaki's number. He's working for us. I don't want you to call him unless you're completely up shit's creek. He's costing me a small fortune, but he'll pretty much maul anyone on your say so."
Elle then straightens up. "But you've been doing good work so far. Very good work. I'll get on making sure the Crackpot knows where we are, and who to contact. That person being you."
Quite possibly the singular most responsibility Elle . . or anyone else in the entire universe has ever piled on Naerose at this point. She of course, doesn't recognize this momentous occasion for what it is and instead merely nods. Yep, this is how things were, how they should be. She would make the call when all the cards were in alignment and get some phat loot, maybe even an ipod and while all that was going down, Marise would be stuck with more research to do. Served her right for being so mean all the time and not sharing her umbrella when it was raining in thailand. Come to think of it, she only ever used it on sunny days. Weird.
"Got it, don't call this Yamazaki unless I need to.." His name sounds like bread, "I wonder if he's related to those japanese bread makers, " if Naerose knew one thing well, it might just be what is food, "And make the call when everything is ready to load, mad gear come and.. erm, wait hold on, you want me to lay low for this right? Since I gotta stay on the boat and don't want security knowing I'm you know, stealing everything?"
"Let me put it like this," the mercenary exposits. "Everyone thinks you're an idiot. Sometimes /I/ think you're an idiot. With me so far?" She loops her thumbs in her belt in a relaxed position. "Nobody but me expects you to be able to even tie your shoes in the morning. So even if you /do/ go on stealing petty crap, nobody will ever epxect it's you telling Mad Gear what to do when they come to empty this boat."
"So if you want to lay low... that actually might seem more suspicious than you actually going around taking crap, you know what I mean? Just keep up your behavior. Do whatever it is you do naturally, and I'll handle the rest."
Elle starts to step away. "Just make sure to be there when the call comes in, and do precisel what I just told you to do. Make sure Crackpot finds the cache, have him raid it, and then make sure everything gets unloaded. You got all that?"
"Hai!" Naerose says way to bubbly for her own good or Elle's for that matter. "How'd you like my Japanese, I've been studying, lets see, I know, Hai, I know.. " she trails off. If Elle's words had any impact on her, the ones about people thinking she's an idiot, then she doesn't show it.
"Okay, I'm all set." The witch says and then takes this moment to glance at a glorious night off of the ship. Not as glorious as the food. You know, for being on the same boat, she sure didn't see much of Elle. The rocker mercenary must not spent much time at the bar. Which was exactly where Naerose was going, there were some free beer nuts with her name on them.
Log created on 20:26:10 09/03/2007 by Elle, and last modified on 23:18:51 09/06/2007.