William Liam Tinmall
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'Custody, this sure won't cause any problems with people like Valrin... Great Scott, why was everything so difficoult'
The ship looked brand new, its shining white infrastructure is only broken up by the yellow/black lines of caution tape and the red letters designating each individual bay.
Liam found the familiarity comforting, as if even if he was universes away from his home, he could count on sensible ship design to help him see that things could go better.
The giant cathedral spaceship infested by demons was hopefully going to stay an outlier, because he was probably going to need the Null just to traverse the entire length of them if they ever needed to be stationed there.
Making use of the retractible catwalks, he finally exited his creation since... well, since he launched from his old Archangel-class ship.
He tried to suppress a sob as he draped his labcoat around his small frame, the one that he always brought as a reminder of what he truly was under the test pilot suit.
He even kept the name badge, from before the bureaucratic mess that hastly assigned him a military rank so that he could pilot.
It was the one that told the truth after all...
When he reached the ground, Liam noticed that the other pilots had dismounted as well, standing near their machines, which was fair.
He knew nothing about how the Cerans' handled their MS, so he told the personnel around his bay to not touch the Null for now, citing special procedures that had to be done under his supervision, which wasn't even that far from the truth, before moving towards what he assumed to be Valrin and Daniel.
Of course, he was the shorted of the trio, with Valrin being a full head taller than him, but that had to be expected, as Liam was never the tallest man.
"So you are Mr. Haldentum and Mr. Sorenson? I'm Liam so.... uhm... I guess we are here now?"
Great, first impression out of an MS and he was already fumbling to find words, this was an horrible idea.
Daniel turned towards Liam, who was...somewhat shorter than he imagined. Also seemed to be kind of awkward, unused to the perils of social interaction. He couldn't really care that much, he's seen worse. Liam will probably learn to get used to it. Maybe.
"Yes, that's me, Daniel Sorenson," he said. "We are, indeed, here in this ship. It's...serviceable, I guess." Admittedly, Daniel might need to work on his small talk a bit more.
The sight of the Questor Lord in the flesh heartened the crew, reliving some of their trepidation and uncertainty as they began to fall in line to be examined and briefed by the Sunrider's security detail and medical staff. However, two members of the group subtly broke away to greet their saviors, and rather fittingly, it was the Junior Officer; accompanied by one of the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers that were the first to approach the foot of Ignus and awaited the descent of its noble Knight. Upon seeing them up close with his own eyes, the term Junior best described the highest-ranking survivor of the Mercury's Alacrity; alarmingly fresh-faced, with a degree of youthful, boyish charm that shone even past all the grime, dried blood, and stress that marred his fair features.
But his countenance, not to mention the very nature of his posting unsurprisingly tells not of some spire-born noble who was sent to a prestigious Academy solely to get connections and clout, but a true and dedicated servant of the Emperor who held no illusions to the weight of his own life over that of others. Fitting of his station, he stood at attention before the Questor as he descended from his Knight, waiting to be spoken to before speaking now that things can be afford to be formal.
The Stormtrooper with him on the other hand was a much more familiar and normal sight, as the middle-aged Scion, a man with an eyepatch-like augmetic eye whose face was a mosaic of scars and burns, each one telling of either a successful mission or ignominious failure, looked relaxed, exhausted even as he lumbered behind the young officer before coming to a stop right next to him, almost the complete opposite of the officer's attempts at protocol and formality with his laid-back posture.
However, Valrin could easily tell from certain subtle, familiar tics of movement from the Scion that his placidity was hardly that of an old soldier and that his posture wasn't entirely because he was tired, rather... It was closer to a swagger, the kind an alpha predator carries with it, almost exactly that of a resting Carnodon; a presence that oozed quiet menace of a regal sort and one that was ready to explode into action within milliseconds the moment a threat foolishly presents itself. Craning his head to get a look at Valrin in the flesh, the scion strokes his chin in contemplation before his lips ever so slightly curl up... It seems he likes the Questor's first impression.
So not only did they allow children as Knight Scions, they also mandated a uniform that was to be generous a cross between underarmor and the common garb of a Joygirl who owed money due the next morning. I highly doubted her physical ability to match a Death Cultist, let alone a Callidus, to make such a reduction in protection be made up for in agility and extreme endurance other similar suits are intended for.@The Ancient Purple @Sigismund
Soon enough the Sunrider's complement returned to their mothership without incident, with the first of them to dismount being Asaga. Needless to say, her appearance perfectly matched her voice and personality: The cheerful pilot excitedly waved "hello" to the outworlders from atop a catwalk while her red hair, held up as a pair of very childish twintails fluttered in the ship's recycled wind. But it wasn't just her seeming youthfulness that made her quite the center of attention to the Sunrider's guests, as her pilot suit in the same color as her mech, was rather... Form-fitting. Sure it wasn't anything new to any of the three younger pilots as it greatly resembled the standard-issue fortified pilot suit but was seemingly less armored and reinforced or looked like one of the more experimental and higher-tech kinds seen in use with prototype VARGs respectively. Quite the odd example of convergent evolution in play.
To Valrin and the Mercury's crew on the other hand; the Asaga's form-fitting "flight suit" seemed more for titillation's sake than for protection. Such a scandalous "uniform", in the minds of the Emperor's faithful; seemed more at home in a pleasure cult with a bizarre fixation for military motifs or a death cult temple that regards the female form as valid a weapon as either blade or poison. For that matter, the suit didn't look like it could accommodate a helmet even!
The blue Mech's pilot was the next to dismount, almost glad that her wingman was drawing all the eyes away from her as she made her way down the scaffolding. Like Asaga, she quite literally looked the way she sounded: A dainty, demure young woman with short but neatly kept bluish-violet hair held with a simple pink headband. The only thing that prevented her from being the complete opposite of Asaga was that she wore the exact same type of Pilot suit, except in blue.
With the other two now in plain sight it seemed that Vicious was the next in line to present himself before the crowd... Yet after some time, his machine's cockpit hatch still hasn't folded open. Perhaps he was having some trouble with his machine?
At least the crew of the Inquisitorial team still seemed to have competence. This military seemed to need some discipline and guidance, best to shed down and talk to them.
"Knight Scions, I will leave you here now to go talk to the leaders of the Inquisitorial team that have represented themselves down below. I have a burning hole in my skull that used to be a headache, and talking to barley pubescent children in fetish gear in an open hangar I believe would exasperate that further rather than dealing with the realities of inter-dimensional transportation across time."
With that said, I turned and started down the ladder to talk to the two members of the crew who stood down on the platform below.
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