< @WanderingJester > Veronica appeared, bringing back affirmative news that the harpoon had been acquired, as well as Bannoi's assurance that Kelley was free to work on his own. [Go ahead and emote installing your Harpoon to void riptide, and maybe stuff before that] < @Andraina > "I understand, and even admire her motivations, but there was no honor lost to her family, from what I heard. My father told me about that terrorist attack. My brother... He was a guard in the UTC when it happened and... he was killed by the man... just for being in the wrong place." After a pause he began again: "Her parents were entombed in the hall of heroes, weren't they? Along with the little sister that you've modeled yourself after." Killian shook his head and sighed. "My point is, I followed a path similar to Freya once, I still do, but I am not asking her to abandon it. Rather, I am asking her to embrace it and hold it close as she lives her life. She does not need to let it go, but she mustn't let this path consume her... There are people who would miss her, if she did." He looked away, blushing slightly. < @Shadhunter > [Not sure what to say, so I'll let you emote going somewhere else] As Bishop would leave the training room, he would notice someone following him. < @Xanxas > Yalei looked up, her face red and tear-streaked. "You really are hopeless, aren't you?" She said with a forced smile. "Your room is right across from mine." she pointed to a door right behind Kyras. She then looked back down and began to cry again. [I'm going to allow you to send a message requesting your upgrade to Bannoi if you want to continue with talking. Or you can do whatever you want.]
When Veronica returned, Kelley had just finished wrapping his hands with wrapping cloth. He looked at his SOUL, who seemed to have cheered up a bit since this morning, and moved to the punching bags. She had a smile on her face again, though this time from the nearest screen by the punching bag instead of a life size version of her. "Good morning Mr. Kelley, are you having a good workout so far?" Kelley began hitting the bag. As with everything else in his life, the blows as well as every muscle on his body precise and the techniques perfect. Perhaps the sight of Kelley's sweaty body cheered up Veronica, nonetheless she seemed more happy than before. Kelley gave a slight nod then ask, "When will the Mark 7 arrive?" The sound of punching was like someone beating a drum in the empty gym, reverberating against the walls and echoing back at them. "It's in Void Riptide's holding bay as we speak. Shall we go now?" Kelley finished his set with a knee to the midsection of the bag. It made a large indent into it but didn't move it at all from the place it hung from the ceiling. "After the excercise and recovery, so in a moment Veronica," He went and did his second set on the punching bag, with Veronica watching happily. After Kelley's third set, he stopped and had a thought. Looking at Veronica directly, he added, "Thank you Veronica." The SOUL instantly flushed a bright red, and looked away from Kelley, but he had already moved to the wooden Wing Chun dummy, hitting the post's limbs quickly and powerfully. After another half hour of sparring and cooldown exercises, Kelley grabbed one of the free towels off a nearby rack and towel himself off while walking to the synthesizer in the gym. It was for post workout refueling as well as to make food and drinks people who go to the gym just to watch other people work out. He was about to press a button when a protein shake appeared. The rider gave an appreciative nod at Veronica, who was still a bit embarrassed, downed the drink and went back to his room. After another shower and changing into his normal set of clothes, Kelley moved out towards his FRAME's holding bay. It was still relatively early, but more people were showing up in the hallways with the previous guards disappearing to go get some sleep. He arrived at the holding bay, and to his delight, it was empty. Either the Chief Mechanic had been bluffing about having his crew there or Kelley had shown up before anyone else did. Either way it suited the rider fine. He looked at the large container with his spare parts in it, then out the nearest view port. They were still planetside, so normally he would just switch off the artificial gravity in the holding bay whenever he does any maintenance on his FRAME for ease of access. However since this wasn't possible at the moment so he'll have to rely on Veronica to do the heavy lifting. The SOUL was already on it, taking control of one of the cranes nearby and using it to lift the harpoon attachment out of the container. It was by the exact measurements that Kelley had seen on the catalogue: a medium sized black square cylinder that almost look like a smaller missile launcher. Veronica lifted it up to the upper back of the Riptide, and Kelley grabbed a full tool belt as well as a line lift up to the FRAME's shoulder. From there he went to the space between the attachment and his FRAME, put on his goggles, and started working. It took two hours to complete the work of attaching the Harpoon attachment to the FRAME. In reality, the actual installation only took about 30 terran minutes. The rest of the time was Kelley's meticulous calibrations and getting his body adjusted to the new weight distribution as well as the targeting system on the attachment. In short he stood in the rider's position getting used to the new thing on the Riptide until it finally became second nature to him, and the rider felt the exact same moving the FRAME as it did before the installation. Satisfied, he walked out of the piloting chamber, and wiped some sweat off the top of his forehead.
< @WanderingJester > On the way out the door, Kelly was greeted by 5 large men. They seemed to be troopers, given by their uniforms. "Dat's the guy. Thinks he's so tough. He don't look so tough, too small." They walked towards him with menacing faces. One appeared to be circling about to get behind Kelley. "I'm tired of you riders. walkin' in here and acting like you own the place. We's the top dogs here, not you with your fancy toys." "Time to teach 'im a lesson, boss?" "You betcha'" With that the one behind Kelley grabbed him, pinning his arms. "What'cha gonna do without yo' fancy chainsaw huh?" Veronica, meanwhile would notice Morain down the hall. She eventually looked as if she were surprised and ready to stop them, but instead stood by. {Good morning, Veronica.} She transmitted with a smile. [Feel free to take them down]
Kelley rolled his eyes as the man from behind grabbed his arms. He really didn't have time for this. It was evident that these troopers were too stupid to even converse with, unlike some of their more intelligent counterparts, so Kelley didn't waste his breath. He snapped his head back, headbutting the man holding his arms. Lifting his knees to his head ad grabbing the trooper's, Kelley then threw them down so quickly that by the time they hit the ground, the forward momentum of the spin threw the trooper over his back and into the two thugs in directly front of him. The two from the side came at Kelley, only for the first one to be met by a jab that broke his nose while the other one's punch was parried and an elbow smashed into his jaw. Kelley followed up by grabbing the man's head and kneeing his face in. The other guy tried to aim a punch at Kelley's head, only to have his arm grabbed and his shoulder dislocated as Kelley forcefully twisted it into an unnatural position. By now the first three stupid men in front of him had gotten back on their feet. They moved forward, backing Kelley back into the holding bay. One of them grabbed a spare wrench on a nearby table and swung at Kelley. The rider moved into the man, first aiming a lightning fast punch to his throat then snapping the wrist with the wrench into two before kicking him into the table from before, knocking it over with the man on the other side. His friends came to help, only for one of them to take the wrench directly to the temple, knocking him out instantly. The last man tried a front kick, but it was evident from his sloppy technique that he had never learn any martial arts in his life. Kelley easily sidestepped the strike and sent a foot that shattered the man's kneecap and twisted his calf backwards on his leg disgustingly, finishing the fight. If Morain had some sort of scan on Kelley she would've been scared: his heartbeat never rose above his resting level. In the meantime as soon as Veronica saw Morain, she squealled an "EEK!" and disappeared, probably to inform security about what happened as well as activating the nearby security cameras to record the entire event.
< @WanderingJester > Morain walked up to Kelley, surveying the carnage about her with a calm face. "Impressive." She said simply "I can see why The Captain and Lieutenant Huri requested you. Not that these men were well trained to any degree. Obviously more bark than bite. Unlike me." She said with a smirk "I'm not saying I could beat you, but I could do better than these poor sods. How about it? You up for some sparring?"
OOC: as to the fight scene from before, if you want a live action version, look up The Raid movies. Kelley looked at the bodies around, uninterested. Then he went and picked up the digi-pad again, not really paying attention to Morain or looking at her. "No thanks. Did my sparring this morning." He pulled it out and turned it on, tapping at the screen and looking over the new data for the Riptide. He finally noticed Veronica's absence. "Veronica?" No response, he frowned as he flipped through the politics section of his new electronic copy UTC Daily he had received earlier in the morning. This wasn't like her.
< @WanderingJester > "How about this, then." She said as she grabbed for Kelley's hand, hoping to pull him down the hallway towards the lift. "I wanna show you my pride and joy. And don't worry about Veronica, I just think she doesn't like me." This was said in a flat tone. Morain's plea to Veronica, however, sounded much more emotional, as if she was on the verge of crying {Please, Veronica. I-I... I don't want to be like this to you. I just... want to know you better. You and Loran. Please...}
Kelley sighed, it was clear that this girl wasn't going to leave him alone until he at least indulge her in one of her requests. "Fine," he grumbled, still looking around for Veronica as he gets more or less dragged towards the lift. As they got into the elevator, he finally got a good look at her eyes. Huh, they're very green. Veronica, though she didn't reappear, shot back in an equally if not more teary voice. [No! You just want to steal Mr. Kelley from me! Well you can't, because he's mine. He's all mine!] at the last exclamation the power to the elevator suddenly cut off, trapping the occupants inside. Kelley looked up at the darken ceiling, and asked, "Veronica?" Still no response. He sighed again. What was going on with her?
< @WanderingJester > At Veronica's statement, Morain's façade fell apart. She dropped down to the floor and began to sob. She couldn't even bring herself to transmit to Veronica, only to speak and hope she was listening. "NO!... No... I don't... I don't want to steal him from you... You were here first, and I know that...but... but I just... I just want someone... someone who... likes me... I don't want to be alone anymore." She was able to say between sobs before just crying in anguish.
OOC: Sorry if my understanding of physics is crap and false, just making stuff up here to make a point. If Veronica heard Morain, she didn't show it. Well it wasn't that the SOUL was unsympathetic or any less emotional, it was just that she had disappeared once again, and now Kelley was quickly becoming very confused. Loren Kelley knew how to handle a thousand combat situations. He knew that when faced with a superior number of enemies the disadvantageous side should isolate each target and fight them one on one. He knew that the standard technique taught by the academy to capture or destroy a major enemy space station was to assault the hangers directly, though from his experience the better option in practice was cutting through one of larger gun emplacements then traveling down the large munitions corridors to the control stations. He even knew how to survive being in the first wave of an orbit to ground planetary assaults. The key of that was to allow the planet's gravity to rip into the FRAME in addition to its thrusters to push it past terminal velocity and make it too fast to target by the defense turrets instead of fighting gravity with the thrusters, then finally fire (or in Void Riptide's case stab) into the largest building available, allowing the recoil from the strike to slow the FRAME down enough allow it to land safely. What all of his hours in Void Riptide and in the physical and digital books, as well as the gym and other exercise facilities didn't teach Kelley was how to handle a situation where you're trapped in an elevator with a girl crying hysterically on the floor. So when he finished informing maintenance of their situation, and Morain collapse on the floor mumbling: "NO!... No... I don't... I don't want to steal him from you... You were here first, and I know that...but... but I just... I just want someone... someone who... likes me... I don't want to be alone anymore." It would be an understatement to say Kelley was confused. He stood there, unsure of what the hell was going on, then walked over and awkwardly patted Morain on the back, feeling very uncomfortable. "Um, Miss Dereso? (So he did remember her name!) What is wrong? Is something the matter?"
