Chapter 21 - A Harbinger of Good Times
BakaSmurf
My journey has been one of remarkable floundering
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Chapter 21 - A Harbinger of Good Times
===
The day had passed, and Joe hadn't been directly contacted by the construction company sent in to build up the Outpost. It made sense, he, ultimately, was a military officer, not a… building planner? Real estate agent? He didn't know what people that planned out settlements were called, but he wasn't one of them. He wasn't entirely sure who was handling all of that, but they sure seemed to be handling it, given how active the Outpost currently was.
Frameworks were being set up, already established frameworks were being built upon, property lines he supposed they were called, were being established. Trucks drove to-and-fro, shitloads of Mass-Produced Nikkes were going about helping build shit… Neon and Anis had also tried to convince Joe to let them crash on his couch while work was being done on the barracks, but he quickly shot that notion the fuck down.
Not because he didn't necessarily want them around, but because he had initially agreed to let them claim the couches, and they had both immediately proved themselves to be disrespectful pigs that started making a mess which Joe wasn't about to tolerate. Thus, he was quickly left alone again, finishing writing up the report on the power station operation so they could actually get paid for it.
Rapidly, that was done too. And thus… the rookie Commander had nothing to do, finding himself just sitting in his office chair, blankly staring ahead.
There he remained, for several, long minutes.
Eventually, Joe felt some sort of pressure building in the back of his head, almost like a low keening, suddenly becoming intensely aware of Marian's firearm out of the corner of his vision. With a start, he all but leapt from his seat, taking a deep, bracing breath and withdrawing his ridiculous gold-plated phone from his pocket, and looked it over. There was surely, something he could do to pass the time-
A knock at his door gave him something to focus on, and so he immediately called out, with perhaps a bit too much eagerness while depositing his phone back into his pocket, "Yes, come in!"
Though there was a momentary pause, the door opened to reveal Rapi, stepping in with a tablet in hand. "Commander," she started with business-like dryness. "I finished writing up the report on our mission to the power station," she moved to present the device to him. "You may review it if you wish. I was as concise and thorough as-" She paused, blinking at the perplexed look on his face. "...Is there something wrong?"
"I already did the report for the operation," Joe remarked, a little bushwhacked, given the unexpectedness of the gesture.
At that declaration, Rapi herself looked more than a little taken aback. Actually blinking more than a little owlishly at the assertion. "I… see," the little strawberry blonde said, withdrawing the tablet as she did so. "I… apologize for the impropriety-"
"Wha-" once again, Joe was left dumbstruck by the behaviour of these Nikkes. "There's nothing to apologize for, Rapi. I just wasn't expecting you to… go and do my job for me. Unprompted at that…" Reaching up, Joe rubbed at the back of his neck, regarding the little blonde and the tablet she held. "I mean, you girls do enough work as it is. I kind of expected that you'd be relaxing right now like Anis and Neon are… trying to," he left out the part about how he had to kick them out of his room - though it was really more of an apartment - for being disruptive shits. After a moment he shrugged, holding out his hand. "Here, let me see your report anyways. It might actually be better than mine, given your experience over me."
"...Yes, Commander," she handed the tablet to him, and continued speaking. "I am simply used to being made to write after-mission reports by my previous Commanders. I assumed it would be much the same now."
Taking a deep breath, Joe closed his eyes and made an effort to dispel the anger that tried to bubble up at that statement. "Real winners, your previous Commanders," he dryly declared.
Rapi averted her eyes, an unreadable expression playing across her doll-like features before she replied, "According to the Military Academy, at least…" her tone was all-business, but Joe could sense the resentment wafting off of her.
The rookie Commander couldn't help but let out a mild snort at that. Dry as a bone, this girl. Though sometimes that was in itself a treat. "Well, at any rate, I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not going to make any of you do work that I'm supposed to be doing as the squad's Commander…" he paused. "I might ask if you could give me some pointers, though. Your report is a lot better than mine." That tracked, given how fastidious Rapi seemed to be.
Giving the much taller man a ponderous look, she parted her lips to reply, but their conversation was cut off by the door to the quarters opening back up. "Commander?" Neon started. "Um, don't want to, uh, cause any concern or like, rock the boat or anything, but-"
"Neon," Joe cut her off before she kept rambling. "Out with it," already, he felt worn the fuck down by whatever news the bespectacled Nikke was about to relay to them.
"...Syuen is here," the little silver-haired Nikke declared as though she were announcing a death.
While Rapi looked like she'd just had all the weight of the world put upon her shoulders, Joe just dumbly blinked once. "Who?" He asked.
"She's the CEO of Missilis," Rapi elucidated.
At once, Joe felt all of the weight Rapi did as well. "...Okay. She's in the front, downstairs?"
"Yes," Neon answered plainly.
"Okay, I'll be right there," Joe asserted, withdrawing his phone once again. "Just going to make a quick call first…"
Stepping into the entrance hall of the building, a deeply uncomfortable and mortified Anis looked unspeakably relieved when Joe, Neon, and Rapi all emerged to find-
"Oh, look at who decided to show up, after making me stand here in this shit-stinking sty of a hole for so long too," a young woman, small, so damned small and slight that it would be easy to mistake her for a teenager at a glance, piped up the moment Joe stepped into the foyer of the Command Centre. "I'd say that you have a lot of nerve, but, in fairness, I suppose that most would let such wild, back-to-back successes go to their head, huh?"
Ravenette with a lilac streak streaming down her forehead, two long ribbons the same shade of violet tied in her bobbed hair. The young woman was dressed in whites and various shades of purple, a loose hoodie and a miniskirt wrapped around her waist. Most notably, she had purple tattoos on her right thigh, blocky in design, though Joe didn't recognize them regardless.
"You know who I am," the young woman declared, a hand haughtily set on her hip. Sharp amethyst eyes glowered up at the significantly taller man, gazing down her nose at him regardless of their extreme height disparity.
Flanking her were two other women. Another ravenette, tall, strikingly curvaceous, a stunning mature beauty with two-toned hair, the inner layer a faint shade of purple to match her deep violet eyes. She loosely wore a large white trench coat, draped off of her fair shoulders, which revealed… Well, bondage gear. The trench coat was the only 'normal' thing about her attire. All black leather, straps and chains decorated her downright obscene figure. What caught Joe's eye, aside from the obvious aspect of her form, was the chained collar she wore.
On Syuen's opposite wing, was a girl only slightly taller than the CEO - though Joe would swear that there was more meat in his girl's thighs than there was in Syuen's entire body. Long, pink hair worn mostly loose, with a pair of twintails tied with red ribbons accompanying the cute rosy locks. She wore a loose dress shirt with a red necktie and high-waisted black shorts which only further emphasized how very bottom-heavy she was. Out of the corner of one's eye, she'd have looked like a young woman with a penchant for calling attention to her natural cuteness in how she presented herself - then one noticed the many telling studded leather belts adorning her strikingly tight shorts. A harness was worn across her chest, and she was carrying a dark, braided whip one could tell was high-quality even at a glance.
Joe wasn't one to make snap judgments about people all that often - but frankly, the S&M energy practically radiating from the two, likely Nikkes, was about as subtle as getting punched in the face. The little pink-haired cutie most certainly held the tall, dark, and gorgeous one's leash. Which was, uh. Well, more power to them, he supposed. Though there was something much more important to focus on at the moment.
"Syuen, CEO of Missilis," Joe answered matter-of-factually.
"Well at least you have some degree of basic awareness of your betters, I suppose," the smug little CEO remarked condescendingly. "Well, let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? You're going to go up to the surface with these two Nikkes, and you're going to find something important for me. I-"
"I must have misheard something, would you care to repeat yourself for me, Syuen?"
The authoritative voice that interjected, seemingly from the aether, caused the little ravenette's teeth to audibly snap shut. Her eyes widening, her eyes whipped about the room, searching for the source of the demand-
"Again, Syuen," Ingrid spoke up once more, voice projecting from Joe's general direction. "It almost seemed as though you were giving a Command to an Elysion-sponsored Commander, without going through me first, as per the agreement between the Big Three on the matters of corporate-sponsored Commanders and Squads-"
"Where the Hell-!?" Syuen looked downright bamboozled, nostrils flaring in indignation. "What is this, some sort of practical joke!? Cut the crap, asshole!" She threateningly pointed at Joe, taking a few aggressive steps towards him, "keep trying to be cute and I'll have you strung up and-!"
"Commander Pholus," Ingrid's voice interrupted Syuen again, this time, Joe withdrew his phone from his breast pocket - having been left on the line on speaker mode, as per Ingrid's instructions after he called her about Syuen's intrusion back in his quarters. "Please pass the phone to CEO Syuen. It seems she and I need to have a little talk about the fact it very nearly seemed as though she was threatening one of my personally sponsored Commanders."
Without missing a beat, completely flat-faced, Joe motioned to hand the gold-plated phone to Syuen, who looked equal parts dumbstruck and furious at the development. If looks could kill, Joe would be a pink mist right then.
Several long moments passed in an awkward silence. Gradually, with no small amount of barely-restrained fury, Syuen reached out, took a hold of the phone, and held it up to her ear, but not before turning the speaker off first. "Ingrid-"
The following spectacle sure was something to behold. Though Ingrid's voice was indistinct, her natural lack of an indoor voice, combined with genuine anger and indignation, made it very easy to tell when she was cursing out Syuen for crossing some sort of line Joe wasn't privy to.
Syuen, needless to say, made it a lot easier to tell when she was cussing right back, snarling and gnashing her teeth like an animal might. The… well, to be absolutely frank, the bratty little twerp had quite the mouth on her. Anis looked positively aghast at the language Sueyn used in her shouting match with Ingrid, Neon looked utterly perplexed and lost, likely not understanding half of what Syuen was even saying in the first place. Rapi, meanwhile, was utterly impassive as she dutifully remained at Joe's side.
Notably, the term 'Matis' was uttered/shouted/growled out by Syuen more than once, not that Joe knew what that was in reference to...
All the while, the two probable Nikkes flanking Syuen - whose back remained firmly turned to them - gave Joe a thoroughly appraising look. The little pinkette let out a silent giggle, shooting the taller ravenette an amused look, and in reply, the BDSM lady just as silently shushed her in a downright matronly manner, a leather-wrapped finger gently pressing against her own plump lips, even as she continued to silently appraise Joe and company out of the corner of her eye.
The Commander wasn't sure what to make of that, and so chose to simply ignore it.
The intensity of the two CEO's arguments gradually died down, and after a good minute of Syuen audibly grinding her teeth together, she lowered the phone, disconnected the call, and proceeded to whip the damned thing back at Joe.
To which, Rapi effortlessly snapped her hand out and caught it, intercepting the flung smart device as though it were a lazily tossed softball. For his part, Joe had been so not expecting her to just pitch his damned phone back at him, that he simply didn't seem to react to it at all, so stunned was he.
"I'm going to hash out some details on this plan with your mommy," Syuen derisively remarked, sneering at Joe as though he were a particularly unpleasant roach. "And she'll contact you with information on the plan going forward once we're done discussing our arrangements and deals going forth. Until then," she all but growled at him, spinning on her heel and stomping off like a child that didn't get her way, the two girls flanking her taking but a moment to give the Commander and gathered Nikkes one final appraising look before immediately setting off after her - the taller, leather-bound woman fluttering her fingers Joe's way in an acknowledging farewell gesture, eliciting another silent giggle from the pinkette.
A few moments after they heard the front door to the building shut with a reverberating metallic clang, Anis tore the beret from her head and proceeded to scream into it like a pillow.
"Well, that's probably a bad sign…" Neon mused aloud.
"Golly gee, you fucking think!?" Anis shouted, stomping her heeled foot with a downright startling report - a gentle reminder of the significant weight and power behind a Nikke's limbs - giving Neon a thoroughly mortified look. "That was Syuen! The CEO of Missilis! The meanest, most cruel and corrupt company in the Ark! And we just pissed her off! What the Hell do you think is gonna come of this!?"
"Nothing that Ingrid can't handle," Rapi interjected plainly, motioning to return Joe's phone to him, to which he reclaimed it without any fanfare beyond a quiet 'thank you.' "It's like she said: there are rules to how the Big Three interact with each other, and each other's assets. Syuen will try to throw her weight around, but Mustang is more likely to take Ingrid's side on this matter. She overstepped her boundaries, and whatever it is she was planning won't happen without consulting and coming to an agreement with Ingrid first."
Anis, in reply, snorted with a heavy roll of her eyes. "Oh yeah, it's gonna be all sunshine and daisies from here on out! Nothing to worry about, no siree Bob! Totally looking forward to how we're not all suddenly going to be recalled to the Ark to be decommissioned-"
"Anis," Joe decided to cut off her doomer ranting before she started. "Enough."
The blonde, at that, threw her hands up in the air as though everyone else was being difficult and stomped off.
Neon, for her part, looked more than a little spooked, and without saying much, just sort of ambled off, leaving just Joe and Rapi standing in the entrance hall of the Command Centre. The taller brunet's face buried in his hands as he took in this newfound complication.
Clearly noticing Joe's rapidly mounting stress… "...Orders, Commander?" Rapi asked with little to no inflection.
It took the blue-clad man a few moments to collect himself, eventually replying with a voice that gave the impression he hadn't slept properly in a week. "Just… brace for whatever comes next, I guess," he weakly suggested as he began practically dragging himself back to the elevator to his personal quarters.
Watching him go, Rapi, with as much enthusiasm and empathy as ever, simply replied, "Yes, Commander." Before setting off on her own to prepare for whatever problem Syuen was about to drop on their heads.
Chapter 21 - A Harbinger of Good Times
===
The day had passed, and Joe hadn't been directly contacted by the construction company sent in to build up the Outpost. It made sense, he, ultimately, was a military officer, not a… building planner? Real estate agent? He didn't know what people that planned out settlements were called, but he wasn't one of them. He wasn't entirely sure who was handling all of that, but they sure seemed to be handling it, given how active the Outpost currently was.
Frameworks were being set up, already established frameworks were being built upon, property lines he supposed they were called, were being established. Trucks drove to-and-fro, shitloads of Mass-Produced Nikkes were going about helping build shit… Neon and Anis had also tried to convince Joe to let them crash on his couch while work was being done on the barracks, but he quickly shot that notion the fuck down.
Not because he didn't necessarily want them around, but because he had initially agreed to let them claim the couches, and they had both immediately proved themselves to be disrespectful pigs that started making a mess which Joe wasn't about to tolerate. Thus, he was quickly left alone again, finishing writing up the report on the power station operation so they could actually get paid for it.
Rapidly, that was done too. And thus… the rookie Commander had nothing to do, finding himself just sitting in his office chair, blankly staring ahead.
There he remained, for several, long minutes.
Eventually, Joe felt some sort of pressure building in the back of his head, almost like a low keening, suddenly becoming intensely aware of Marian's firearm out of the corner of his vision. With a start, he all but leapt from his seat, taking a deep, bracing breath and withdrawing his ridiculous gold-plated phone from his pocket, and looked it over. There was surely, something he could do to pass the time-
A knock at his door gave him something to focus on, and so he immediately called out, with perhaps a bit too much eagerness while depositing his phone back into his pocket, "Yes, come in!"
Though there was a momentary pause, the door opened to reveal Rapi, stepping in with a tablet in hand. "Commander," she started with business-like dryness. "I finished writing up the report on our mission to the power station," she moved to present the device to him. "You may review it if you wish. I was as concise and thorough as-" She paused, blinking at the perplexed look on his face. "...Is there something wrong?"
"I already did the report for the operation," Joe remarked, a little bushwhacked, given the unexpectedness of the gesture.
At that declaration, Rapi herself looked more than a little taken aback. Actually blinking more than a little owlishly at the assertion. "I… see," the little strawberry blonde said, withdrawing the tablet as she did so. "I… apologize for the impropriety-"
"Wha-" once again, Joe was left dumbstruck by the behaviour of these Nikkes. "There's nothing to apologize for, Rapi. I just wasn't expecting you to… go and do my job for me. Unprompted at that…" Reaching up, Joe rubbed at the back of his neck, regarding the little blonde and the tablet she held. "I mean, you girls do enough work as it is. I kind of expected that you'd be relaxing right now like Anis and Neon are… trying to," he left out the part about how he had to kick them out of his room - though it was really more of an apartment - for being disruptive shits. After a moment he shrugged, holding out his hand. "Here, let me see your report anyways. It might actually be better than mine, given your experience over me."
"...Yes, Commander," she handed the tablet to him, and continued speaking. "I am simply used to being made to write after-mission reports by my previous Commanders. I assumed it would be much the same now."
Taking a deep breath, Joe closed his eyes and made an effort to dispel the anger that tried to bubble up at that statement. "Real winners, your previous Commanders," he dryly declared.
Rapi averted her eyes, an unreadable expression playing across her doll-like features before she replied, "According to the Military Academy, at least…" her tone was all-business, but Joe could sense the resentment wafting off of her.
The rookie Commander couldn't help but let out a mild snort at that. Dry as a bone, this girl. Though sometimes that was in itself a treat. "Well, at any rate, I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not going to make any of you do work that I'm supposed to be doing as the squad's Commander…" he paused. "I might ask if you could give me some pointers, though. Your report is a lot better than mine." That tracked, given how fastidious Rapi seemed to be.
Giving the much taller man a ponderous look, she parted her lips to reply, but their conversation was cut off by the door to the quarters opening back up. "Commander?" Neon started. "Um, don't want to, uh, cause any concern or like, rock the boat or anything, but-"
"Neon," Joe cut her off before she kept rambling. "Out with it," already, he felt worn the fuck down by whatever news the bespectacled Nikke was about to relay to them.
"...Syuen is here," the little silver-haired Nikke declared as though she were announcing a death.
While Rapi looked like she'd just had all the weight of the world put upon her shoulders, Joe just dumbly blinked once. "Who?" He asked.
"She's the CEO of Missilis," Rapi elucidated.
At once, Joe felt all of the weight Rapi did as well. "...Okay. She's in the front, downstairs?"
"Yes," Neon answered plainly.
"Okay, I'll be right there," Joe asserted, withdrawing his phone once again. "Just going to make a quick call first…"
Stepping into the entrance hall of the building, a deeply uncomfortable and mortified Anis looked unspeakably relieved when Joe, Neon, and Rapi all emerged to find-
"Oh, look at who decided to show up, after making me stand here in this shit-stinking sty of a hole for so long too," a young woman, small, so damned small and slight that it would be easy to mistake her for a teenager at a glance, piped up the moment Joe stepped into the foyer of the Command Centre. "I'd say that you have a lot of nerve, but, in fairness, I suppose that most would let such wild, back-to-back successes go to their head, huh?"
Ravenette with a lilac streak streaming down her forehead, two long ribbons the same shade of violet tied in her bobbed hair. The young woman was dressed in whites and various shades of purple, a loose hoodie and a miniskirt wrapped around her waist. Most notably, she had purple tattoos on her right thigh, blocky in design, though Joe didn't recognize them regardless.
"You know who I am," the young woman declared, a hand haughtily set on her hip. Sharp amethyst eyes glowered up at the significantly taller man, gazing down her nose at him regardless of their extreme height disparity.
Flanking her were two other women. Another ravenette, tall, strikingly curvaceous, a stunning mature beauty with two-toned hair, the inner layer a faint shade of purple to match her deep violet eyes. She loosely wore a large white trench coat, draped off of her fair shoulders, which revealed… Well, bondage gear. The trench coat was the only 'normal' thing about her attire. All black leather, straps and chains decorated her downright obscene figure. What caught Joe's eye, aside from the obvious aspect of her form, was the chained collar she wore.
On Syuen's opposite wing, was a girl only slightly taller than the CEO - though Joe would swear that there was more meat in his girl's thighs than there was in Syuen's entire body. Long, pink hair worn mostly loose, with a pair of twintails tied with red ribbons accompanying the cute rosy locks. She wore a loose dress shirt with a red necktie and high-waisted black shorts which only further emphasized how very bottom-heavy she was. Out of the corner of one's eye, she'd have looked like a young woman with a penchant for calling attention to her natural cuteness in how she presented herself - then one noticed the many telling studded leather belts adorning her strikingly tight shorts. A harness was worn across her chest, and she was carrying a dark, braided whip one could tell was high-quality even at a glance.
Joe wasn't one to make snap judgments about people all that often - but frankly, the S&M energy practically radiating from the two, likely Nikkes, was about as subtle as getting punched in the face. The little pink-haired cutie most certainly held the tall, dark, and gorgeous one's leash. Which was, uh. Well, more power to them, he supposed. Though there was something much more important to focus on at the moment.
"Syuen, CEO of Missilis," Joe answered matter-of-factually.
"Well at least you have some degree of basic awareness of your betters, I suppose," the smug little CEO remarked condescendingly. "Well, let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? You're going to go up to the surface with these two Nikkes, and you're going to find something important for me. I-"
"I must have misheard something, would you care to repeat yourself for me, Syuen?"
The authoritative voice that interjected, seemingly from the aether, caused the little ravenette's teeth to audibly snap shut. Her eyes widening, her eyes whipped about the room, searching for the source of the demand-
"Again, Syuen," Ingrid spoke up once more, voice projecting from Joe's general direction. "It almost seemed as though you were giving a Command to an Elysion-sponsored Commander, without going through me first, as per the agreement between the Big Three on the matters of corporate-sponsored Commanders and Squads-"
"Where the Hell-!?" Syuen looked downright bamboozled, nostrils flaring in indignation. "What is this, some sort of practical joke!? Cut the crap, asshole!" She threateningly pointed at Joe, taking a few aggressive steps towards him, "keep trying to be cute and I'll have you strung up and-!"
"Commander Pholus," Ingrid's voice interrupted Syuen again, this time, Joe withdrew his phone from his breast pocket - having been left on the line on speaker mode, as per Ingrid's instructions after he called her about Syuen's intrusion back in his quarters. "Please pass the phone to CEO Syuen. It seems she and I need to have a little talk about the fact it very nearly seemed as though she was threatening one of my personally sponsored Commanders."
Without missing a beat, completely flat-faced, Joe motioned to hand the gold-plated phone to Syuen, who looked equal parts dumbstruck and furious at the development. If looks could kill, Joe would be a pink mist right then.
Several long moments passed in an awkward silence. Gradually, with no small amount of barely-restrained fury, Syuen reached out, took a hold of the phone, and held it up to her ear, but not before turning the speaker off first. "Ingrid-"
The following spectacle sure was something to behold. Though Ingrid's voice was indistinct, her natural lack of an indoor voice, combined with genuine anger and indignation, made it very easy to tell when she was cursing out Syuen for crossing some sort of line Joe wasn't privy to.
Syuen, needless to say, made it a lot easier to tell when she was cussing right back, snarling and gnashing her teeth like an animal might. The… well, to be absolutely frank, the bratty little twerp had quite the mouth on her. Anis looked positively aghast at the language Sueyn used in her shouting match with Ingrid, Neon looked utterly perplexed and lost, likely not understanding half of what Syuen was even saying in the first place. Rapi, meanwhile, was utterly impassive as she dutifully remained at Joe's side.
Notably, the term 'Matis' was uttered/shouted/growled out by Syuen more than once, not that Joe knew what that was in reference to...
All the while, the two probable Nikkes flanking Syuen - whose back remained firmly turned to them - gave Joe a thoroughly appraising look. The little pinkette let out a silent giggle, shooting the taller ravenette an amused look, and in reply, the BDSM lady just as silently shushed her in a downright matronly manner, a leather-wrapped finger gently pressing against her own plump lips, even as she continued to silently appraise Joe and company out of the corner of her eye.
The Commander wasn't sure what to make of that, and so chose to simply ignore it.
The intensity of the two CEO's arguments gradually died down, and after a good minute of Syuen audibly grinding her teeth together, she lowered the phone, disconnected the call, and proceeded to whip the damned thing back at Joe.
To which, Rapi effortlessly snapped her hand out and caught it, intercepting the flung smart device as though it were a lazily tossed softball. For his part, Joe had been so not expecting her to just pitch his damned phone back at him, that he simply didn't seem to react to it at all, so stunned was he.
"I'm going to hash out some details on this plan with your mommy," Syuen derisively remarked, sneering at Joe as though he were a particularly unpleasant roach. "And she'll contact you with information on the plan going forward once we're done discussing our arrangements and deals going forth. Until then," she all but growled at him, spinning on her heel and stomping off like a child that didn't get her way, the two girls flanking her taking but a moment to give the Commander and gathered Nikkes one final appraising look before immediately setting off after her - the taller, leather-bound woman fluttering her fingers Joe's way in an acknowledging farewell gesture, eliciting another silent giggle from the pinkette.
A few moments after they heard the front door to the building shut with a reverberating metallic clang, Anis tore the beret from her head and proceeded to scream into it like a pillow.
"Well, that's probably a bad sign…" Neon mused aloud.
"Golly gee, you fucking think!?" Anis shouted, stomping her heeled foot with a downright startling report - a gentle reminder of the significant weight and power behind a Nikke's limbs - giving Neon a thoroughly mortified look. "That was Syuen! The CEO of Missilis! The meanest, most cruel and corrupt company in the Ark! And we just pissed her off! What the Hell do you think is gonna come of this!?"
"Nothing that Ingrid can't handle," Rapi interjected plainly, motioning to return Joe's phone to him, to which he reclaimed it without any fanfare beyond a quiet 'thank you.' "It's like she said: there are rules to how the Big Three interact with each other, and each other's assets. Syuen will try to throw her weight around, but Mustang is more likely to take Ingrid's side on this matter. She overstepped her boundaries, and whatever it is she was planning won't happen without consulting and coming to an agreement with Ingrid first."
Anis, in reply, snorted with a heavy roll of her eyes. "Oh yeah, it's gonna be all sunshine and daisies from here on out! Nothing to worry about, no siree Bob! Totally looking forward to how we're not all suddenly going to be recalled to the Ark to be decommissioned-"
"Anis," Joe decided to cut off her doomer ranting before she started. "Enough."
The blonde, at that, threw her hands up in the air as though everyone else was being difficult and stomped off.
Neon, for her part, looked more than a little spooked, and without saying much, just sort of ambled off, leaving just Joe and Rapi standing in the entrance hall of the Command Centre. The taller brunet's face buried in his hands as he took in this newfound complication.
Clearly noticing Joe's rapidly mounting stress… "...Orders, Commander?" Rapi asked with little to no inflection.
It took the blue-clad man a few moments to collect himself, eventually replying with a voice that gave the impression he hadn't slept properly in a week. "Just… brace for whatever comes next, I guess," he weakly suggested as he began practically dragging himself back to the elevator to his personal quarters.
Watching him go, Rapi, with as much enthusiasm and empathy as ever, simply replied, "Yes, Commander." Before setting off on her own to prepare for whatever problem Syuen was about to drop on their heads.
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