He's in a good mood today, and it's enough of a difference that it unsettles Echo, who's running mission control for him while the regular admins get used to the new influx of ARKS in the system.
Seriously, what did you do yesterday? It must have been some stress relief,she asks him again during one of the routine missions to clear the area around the VR station. Zeno buries his weapon in the head of the nearest dead Naberius native and pauses, taking stock of the situation. He'd taken the job solo instead of with a team, so it's taking him a little longer than normal to clear the area.
"Why are you so curious?" He asks in return, pulling his weapon free. He pulls a rag out of his storage space and turns the photon emitter off, wiping the black metal clean. "Seriously, I just had a good day yesterday. Went out, relaxed – actually finished cleaning my apartment, surprise surprise," Zeno laughs.
You. Cleaned your apartment. You. Zeno snorts at her tone of surprise, flicks the photon emitter back on as he sheaths it. (He'd forgotten to do that once and it'd nearly killed him, so now he just… made sure it was on all the time.) He circled around the VR building, and once he was sure that it was clear of natives, allowed himself a breather. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or worried, Echo's admission makes him shake his head. To be fair, he didn't seem like a neat freak not even to his friends – of which he had pitiably few now that the rumors of his chance for the fourth seat had spread – but they were a military institution, and he reminds her of such.
"C'mon Echo, be serious here," He cracks open a water bottle and takes a sip. "You and I both know that cleanliness is still an important thing. I just never got out of the habit." He doesn't say the thoughts in his head, but a huff on the other line lets him know the message has been received.
Stop thinking it you jerk, Echo says reproachfully over the line, and he grins.
"Thinking about what?" He asks innocently, not saying the words aloud but just waiting to see if she would.
… I deserved that, she concedes reluctantly after a moment of silence. I probably really deserved that. Zeno chuckles at her tone, before sobering and glancing towards the skyline.
"So, when is my relief coming by?" Zeno finishes his water up, sending the empty container back into his storage space. He wouldn't mind if he stays out all day – but he wants to check on Kazue, see how she's doing. He's never really been a proper mentor before, but something nags at him that he probably should be for Kazue. He hears the whir of technology on Echo's end and hears her talking to someone.
Not for a few hours. They're putting the newbies to work looking into the Code D now that their one day to get settled in is over, and everyone's being paired up with a newer recruit, so they can get the work done faster. Zeno's tongue clicks off the roof of his mouth, and he stands, wistfully wishing he'd thought about inviting Kazue and her partner. Well, too late for that now he supposes.
"Good thing I packed lunch," he says cheerfully. A snort from Echo lets him know that she doesn't think the rations he kept on him were in any way a lunch. "I'm going to ignore that," Zeno tells her, and she's huffily silent, his lips curving into a smile as he walks past the walls of the VR station, pacing carefully around the station and making sure no Natives were trying to chew on the wires or some other idiocy. (He could recall being a student and having to move Agnis eggs because a flock had settled near the vents once for the heat they gave off. He'd felt kind of sorry for them up until they tried to add to his collection of injuries.) There's nothing there, so he continues, waiting for Echo to give him an update if she caught something on the station's cameras that needed taking care of. It doesn't take long for him to become bored again, idly running through some practice while he has nothing else to do. Minding the VR station was easy cash sure, but he normally didn't do it solo – it was too boring of a job most of the time to do alone.
Unless it was raining. Then every native and their mother wanted to be out of the rain and flocked to this place for a warm and dry place to stay. But it was mostly sunny, and the VR station wasn't currently in use – to his knowledge – and so he had to put up with whatever little he could get in the way of entertainment. That meant waiting, and he hated just sitting around, doing nothing while he tried to figure out how to keep himself busy. Training with the same movements repeatedly held very little appeal when he didn't have someone to spot his work and make sure he wasn't screwing up royally. All the same, it's something to do while he waits, so he does so, blade swirling through the air in a steady pattern, humming idly to himself. There's silence for a while, and Zeno simply continues to practice, ears open for even the slightest hint of a disturbance.
It doesn't take long for one to find him.
Echo barely precedes the yelling, and Zeno's already moving towards the source of the noise by the time she can fill him in.
Darkers. A lot of them, but just barely skating under the Code D. Your two troublemakers are involved. Apparently, they found a noncombatant on Naberius and they're being chased.Echo's tone is dry, and Zeno huffs to himself. At least they wouldn't be boring, he thinks to himself, watching the pair burst through the clearing, Afin carrying a white and red figure in his arms. Kazue bursts into the scene less than a second later, her weapon of choice flickering weakly as she tried to summon the energy to power anything she could to protect them. It doesn't take long for them to see him, relief on their faces.
"Get behind me, both of you," Zeno doesn't bother with the niceties, taking command even as he glances around, looking for any sign of the supposed 'older' ARKS member that was supposed to be chaperoning them. "Where's the ARKS member who you're working with?" He asks, changing out his usual blade for his best – the brilliant gleam of Lambada Arestice's golden edges and blue metal casting a bright beam of its reflection on the ground.
"Dead." Kazue doesn't look too perturbed by it, but the subtle shaking of her fingers around her weapon give away her true feelings as she obeys his order. He hears a soft rustle as Afin puts the girl down behind him, and the familiar sound of his weapon being primed to fire. He can hear the metal click and jitter in his hands, and Zeno can't help but feel sorry for them. Even though he'd been much younger when he'd been forced to watch someone die, it never got any easier.
"Tch. Sorry to hear." He doesn't really have much else to say – dozens of ARKS died every day, many of whom Zeno didn't know. He didn't have the time to mourn them all, and he knew his response probably sounded callous. He doesn't say anything else, instead scanning the treeline for the mysterious Darkers that had forced them to flee. The earth trembled beneath their feet, and Zeno only had that as warning before he's forced to block immediately, sword quivering at the force of one massive foreleg as it impacts his weapon. He gives a surprised grunt from the effort required, levering his weapon up just a bit before Afin fires, hitting the sensitive joint of the Darker and making it recoil in pain.
"Really?" He says, once he realizes exactly what had attacked him. "Really? I leave you two alone for one mission," he complains. Despite their nerves, Kazue snickers. The sound is nearly hysterical, and Afin nearly follows her in incoherent giggling, but thankfully Zeno refocuses on the Darker in question. He's faced them before, and it wouldn't be the toughest fight he'd been in, but he could do without having to protect both of his kind-of students from this bullshit. Even so, he heaves a sigh. "Don't worry. I could use a bit of back-up, but don't do anything to make it pay more attention to you than it has to, do you hear me?" They've sobered up – hysteria refocused into serious attentiveness, and he appreciates that they're learning. He hefts his weapon up, feels it crackle in his hands. He hadn't had a weapon break on him in the field for a while, but the large Darker had hit the metal hard. Enough to really put a dent into its durability.
…Shit.
Zeno! Kazue and Afin, listen up! Echo's voice is a blessing, and she doesn't bother with the status check, thank the Pantheon. It's a large Insectoid Darker known as the Dark Ragne – they're an incubating infection that takes over a smaller bug native to the Ruins and absorbs latent photons until they're large enough to start eating other Darkers. Zeno pulls a face at the description, ducks underneath it to see if he can find a mutagen core anywhere under the massive underbelly. It tries to swipe for him and ends up with a pincer on fire courtesy of Kazue. He can't acknowledge her without her being under (heh) fire, so he keeps his mouth shut instead, keeps moving and annoying the beast. Because it keeps growing, the exoskeleton that covers it needs to come off after a while. Intel suggests that the forelegs are easier to break – they're loadbearing, so it'll knock it flat onto its' stomach for a few minutes. The core should be protected by armor on its' back, but Kazue should be able to burn straight through. She's silent again, and Zeno taps his comm unit twice – if only so she would know he had acknowledged her. Be careful. Dark Ragne can infect ARKS members. Zeno doesn't reply – no flippant joke or otherwise.
Normally, he has a team. A full group of people who knew what the fuck they were doing, but he's only got two rookies and an unconscious civilian on his hands and this was not what he expected of an elementary VR base protection detail. A large blast of fire surprises him – it engulfs the leg nearest him at speed, and he grins when he sees Kazue, who gives him a thumbs up. Gunfire slams into weak points, but mercifully stops before he is close enough to get hit – ARKS weapons are basically impossible to kill another ARKS member with, but Zeno knew firsthand how much the gunshots would hurt – and Zeno manages to pull deep into his reserves and make use of his preferred technique, bringing the weapon to bear.
Stun Concido is an oddball Photon Art. Among Hunters, it was generally considered a bit of a joke Art – there's dozens of others that have better tricks – knocking enemies skyward into the air, covering distances in a blink, the list went on. Really, he could understand their disapproval of it. It only dazed a single target – two if you were a lucky motherfucker – but it wasn't going to kill any of them unless you put more power than was worth it. However, Zeno didn't have the luxury of learning these things the way most Hunters did. He had to work for his mileage on every Art, and he'd never have their ease with close-range battles. (his fingers itch for his darling rifle, even now, years later). He'd found however, that for him, it worked like a dream on some very specific uses.
Shattering the weakened exoskeleton was just one such example. It shatters under the force, the black cracking open like an egg under the force. He has to dodge away to avoid being crushed, but it's too dazed to do anything but attempt to regenerate the armor, a task made harder by the fact that Afin was already hammering piercing bullets into the other one, which would double the time it would lay there, forcing it to regenerate slower. Kazue is already burning away the protective shell around the pulsing red core, weakening and cracking it open with an occasional hard thwack with her staff to damage already weakened edges. She skips back once he's nearby, and he uses Stun Concido again to clear the outer shell and expose the heart of the parasite to the air. He spins the blade once to gather excess Photons, giving it an almost mournful look. He'd liked this weapon. Despite that, he slams it home, pushes all his power into the already damaged sword and allows it to shatter in the core without any fuss. It falls apart, and with its' power nexus shattered, the Dark Ragne can only feebly twitch in its' death throes. Zeno feels the corpse under him grow unsteady, and he mutters a silent apology to Kazue even as he grabs her arm and literally throws the girl off the beast. She gives the most undignified yelp that in any other situation he might have found funny, but he ends up clapping a hand over his mouth instead as the parasite disperses into a cloud of black particles, free-falling through the air briefly before landing hard on his feet.
His eyes water with the effort of not breathing the corrupted Photons into his lungs, knowing that it would only make him sick. He staggers part of the way out of the cloud before Kazue hauls him the rest of the way, understanding written all over her face as the black smoke trails into the air. He heaves a grateful breath once he's out of the immediate area, and she's rubbing his back sympathetically, eyes soft.
"Are you okay? I've got some Sol Atomizers if you need one," she says softly, offers him the pills without hesitation. He smiles up at her, shakes his head. The sentiment is sweet, but unneeded – he hadn't breathed any of the infection in.
"I'm good for now, but thanks Kazue. I wouldn't say no to some water though," he laughs, but it's weak. Afin trots over, a bottle of water in his hands, and Zeno flashes him a grateful smile, accepts it. Afin gives him a smile in return, before hurrying back over to the girl. Now that they're out of danger, Zeno hauls himself up shakily, walking over to where Afin was fussing over the civilian with concern.
"Echo?" He presses a finger against his comm unit and waits for her to reply. "I've got a civvie here – how fast can you get an evac for these three?"
How about an evac for all four of you? Echo says to him, and he can imagine her exasperation. You do know that I can see your vitals, and you're in no shape to keep patrolling. I know you've got a mission, but I think, given the circumstances, they'll be alright in allowing you early leave. I'm looking for someone who's willing to take over the mission a little early. Zeno huffs slightly but accepts her word for it.
"I could handle it," He complains, but huffs slightly to himself. He could go for a nice… relaxing… nap. Now that he's thinking about it, he really is tired, but he keeps the exhaustion at bay and off his face for the rookies. No use making them feel guilty.
It's not about handling it Zeno. Echo's voice is crisp, and he hears the comm unit flicker so that they were on a private line. That civilian… Headquarters is a little worried about her. There shouldn't have been any civvies on the planet at all, and the fact that one appeared during a Darker attack is making some of the higher ups jittery. They want you to do an analysis on her signature. Zeno eyes the unconscious girl – she's barely out of her teens, Zeno can barely imagine her being dangerous, but then again, he'd been thirteen when –
The phantom feeling of a rifle in his hands and the eagerness of his youth makes him swallow nervously. Fuck. He shakes his head slightly to himself, vows to investigate it. It's rare that he's been required to analyze someone, and he strides over, gives both rookies a once over.
"I'll carry her," his tone brooks no argument, and both rookies are too tired to argue when Zeno kneels and carefully lifts her into his arms, surprised by how light she felt. She must not eat much, he thinks, carefully folding the girl over his shoulder so that he could keep an eye on both Kazue and Afin. "You're both going in for a med-check. Not negotiable," he adds when both look ready to argue, Kazue half-standing from her slumped position on the ground. "We all need to go for a med-check, myself included. I may not have breathed any of the Darker infection in, but I'd rather not get sick because I didn't check and you two are still new – if you have even a slightly adverse reaction now is the only time we'll be able to really log it – you were far enough away back during your first mission, but this time you both were up close." They don't look pleased, but nod in reluctant agreement. "Thank you. You two can watch me suffer as they jab me with murder needles." Kazue makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like a laugh, and Afin is deliberately not looking at him. "It's not funny," he whines, and their smiles grow bigger. "Do you have any idea how many times I've taken this test? I have scars from them. So. Many. Scars." Zeno complains, drawing muffled snickering as they do so. He continues to complain until the Telepipe that was in the front of the VR facility lit up for them. "Rookies first," he says with a grin, and they both disappear through trustingly. Zeno pauses, before murmuring a quick apology to the girl and pulling out of storage one of his emergency analysis packets.
They were a part of every ranking ARKS' kit, but he'd never had to use it in the decade and change he'd been working for the fleet. He fumbles through it for a moment, but gently lays the biomesh against the back of her neck, waiting until it dissolved and merged with her skin to move. He'd hand the girl off directly to Philia – the Head Medic would remove it and send the report along to whoever in the Council of Six deemed it worthy of their time to handle. Grimly, he hopes that the Central Research Department didn't pick up on it – they were shady enough as it stood that he would definitely feel guilty for painting a target on her back.
He steps through, only to see both Kazue and Afin looking thoroughly worried for them both, and Casara eyeing him with vague interest.
Well shit.
"So I'm taking over for you, is that right?" Casara's tone is light, but despite the blue tint of his glasses concealing his gaze, Zeno knows from experience that the information specialist is dissecting every inch of him. "It's only for a few hours, but I must say – your life wasn't nearly so interesting before." It's meant lightheartedly, and he realizes it's an invitation. Kazue and Afin are tense and nervous – they don't understand the politics, but they do understand the almost terrifying weight of having one of the Six interested in their little mission gone wrong. Offering a method of levity is almost merciful, coming from Casara.
"I remember when my life was peaceful," he agrees dryly, carefully settling the civilian on the bench. Casara's eyebrow raises, and the adult chuckles slightly.
"Oh really? When was that?" He asks, and he watches how deliberately Casara rolls back on his heels, head tilting to a side as Kazue and Afin seem to relax.
"Two days ago," He deadpans, and Kazue straightens indignantly, only for Afin – the warier of the two – to elbow her silently. Casara only graces them with an amused sort of smile, before the information specialist claps him on the shoulder.
"I'll take your word for it," Casara says with a low hum in his voice, though he steps forward – close enough to only be heard by him. "Make sure only Philia's around when you go with the civilian girl," he advises quietly. "She's an honorable sort – nothing will happen to that girl if Philia has first dibs." Zeno can't help but relax at the affirmation of his own intuition – if Casara agreed, no matter how minor, then the girl would be fine. "Now, I believe I heard something about murderous needles?" He's flipped his tune back to the mild, almost cheerful air, and Zeno scowls at him playfully. It's startling how well Casara plays the rookies, and he promises to himself to work with Kazue and Afin on that at least. Though he was doing the same to throw them off, it was kind of startling how much they could be manipulated. "I'll head out now so the Campship can move and bring you all home." He focuses on the rookies then, and they straighten. "Congratulations on making it back safely. Forgive me if I say that I hope the rest of your week isn't so interesting." He disappears through the portal after that, and Zeno heaves a silent sigh of relief.