"Malcolm, we decided to focus on you for today's discussion." The corpo heiress stated coldly.

"Um, that's pretty foreboding."

"Hmm." Ichi added unhelpfully.

Section 9, an elite mercenary crew in the making, were currently meeting in their latest base of operations. Sitting around a retangular steel table, their shrouded faces peered at one another in the dim lighting as they sat on surprisingly soft couches.

Hiromi calmly grunted into her hands as she shifted in her neomilitaristic black and white business suit, complete with a grey silk tie depicting her clan symbol.

Motoko Kunsanagi stared at Malcolm unblinkingly. Or at least he assumed Motoko wasn't blinking. Honestly he couldn't tell because of the reflective purple single-lens sunglasses she was currently wearing despite the darkness of the room. She was also wearing a bulky black trench coat for no discernible reason besides that it was reportedly "preen as hell". Eh, it's not like this was the weirdest thing he caught Motoko wearing so whatever.

Ichi was the most normal of the group but even he was wearing an uncharacteristic all black three-piece suit. Seriously, what was with the dress code today? Were they sneaking into a corpo convention later?

"It has come to our attention that you don't have an official role within the group. We're aiming to rectify that."

Malcolm let out a sigh of relief. For a second, he actually thought this would be something serious. "Guys, is it really such a big deal that I'm just an extra gunman?"

"Yes it is Malcolm!" Motoko stated passionately. "In every respectable merc crew, every member has a distinct role…and preferably a super cool alias like 'Blackhand' or 'Silverhand'. We're not at the 'badass hand related codename' phase yet, but we can definitely work on roles!"

Malcolm blinked and sighed. He knew by now that when Motoko set her heart on something you were better off at least letting her speak her piece so she won't pester you constantly for weeks on end.

"Anyway, we prepared a list of possible specialist classes." Motoko continued as she handed him a datapad with a short list written on it. He gazed at it skeptically and stared back at Motoko.

"Oh come on, please humor me!"

The young man rolled his eyes and looked at the list.

Sniper (how do you feel about getting a sniper satelite eye implant? Could be preen)
Bomb expert / Demoman (an explosive role to have hohoho)
Medtech (imagine being a battle medic and ghosting gonks with a cyber bonesaw)
Techie (I promise not to mock you if you build dick shaped sentry turrets)
Pyro (really useful for uncovering possible cloaked spies in our midst)
Heavy Weapons (Some might outsmart you but no one can outsmart bullet)
Cook (FYI girls love men that can cook just saying)
Musician (every crew needs a bard to maintain morale)
Swordsman (hopefully without a tragic background involving stairs)

Malcolm blinked and slowly looked at Motoko again and she smiled in eager expectation. "So, what do you think choom?"

He had to fight the sudden urge to light a cigarette because boy could he use a smoke right about now.

"It's…um...interesting…and pretty eccentric?"

"Believe it or not, we had to talk Motoko down a bit. Can you believe she wanted 'archer' as an option?" Ichi playfully interjected.

"Hey! An archer build could be useful in certain situations! Like when you're doing stealth and don't want your target to hear any gun blasts and modern arrows can often be collected post mission which saves on ammo costs!" Motoko quickly retorted while Hiromi softly patted her on the back in a somewhat patronizing way.

"Of course Toko', whatever you say…"

Motoko sighed and shook her head and suddenly looked more serious. She finally removed her shades and smiled gently at him and her face took his breath - Malcolm suddenly got the bizarre impression that Motoko looked almost…older. Like an actual fully grown woman suddenly entered the picture and slipped into Motoko's teenage skin for a split second. It would have been frightening if it wasn't so strangely comforting.

"Look Malcolm, obviously you don't have to do anything. You're our choom and you are part of our crew no matter what. One for all and all for one."

Malcolm blinked in surprise and Motoko continued speaking in a motherly tone. "Honestly, the main reason why I want you to specialize in something more specific is partially to force myself to give up a bit of the power I currently have in our group."

She closed her eyes but kept her warm smile. "You guys and my other chooms outside of Section 9 have been telling me that I've been taking on too much responsibility and I have to learn to delegate more. And honestly, I think they're right. You guys are awesome and totally capable of taking more of the spotlight without little old me hogging all the glory."

Motoko grasped her hands together and nodded in confidence. "The three of you are amazing at watching my back and I have complete confidence we could take the world by storm if we really wanted to and train hard enough. Years from now, I know we will become a crew so dangerous that even Adam Smasher would hesitate to take us on."

She let out a beaming smile and gave a thumbs up. "Believe it."

The rest of Section 9 gasped and started uncontrollably blushing. Malcolm desperately looked around to avoid eye contact because holy crap Motoko, you can't just spring sappy shit like that out of nowhere and actually mean it!

Hiromi was breathing hard and she looked like she was 5 seconds away from hugging the daylights out of their speaker and even Ichi was badly hiding a real smile behind a sudden round of false coughs.

The sheer mushiness of the scene was almost physically painful to bear. In truth, if Motoko were to suggest something deranged like a group hug at this moment Malcolm might genuinely scream.

Suddenly a nearby door was unlocked and light poured into the dark chamber. Oh thank goodness, an interruption. Section 9 froze. A hand reached out and flicked a switch.

The crew blinked as the activated light fixtures revealed them to be sitting around a standard living room table in a humble apartment block.

David Martinez gawked at the crew and they stared back at him in shock.

"Yo...um, bosslady, why the hell did you break into my apartment?"

Holy shit, Malcolm jumped in shock. He thought the apartment was a 1-day rental that Hiromi or Motoko rented out for the sheer fun of it, not an actual residence that someone was living in! No wonder the megablock neighbors gave them weird looks when they got in.

"Employer privilege. You should be honored that we appreciated the ambience of your home for our top secret meeting." Hiromi replied snootily and without a single ounce of shame.

The Arasaka Academy student quickly opened his mouth to release an angry retort but Hiromi didn't give him a chance.

"Also, your mother thinks I'm a good influence on you and gave me a copy of the door keys." Himori sang as she swung a key shard in her fingers.

David opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, before letting out a defeated huff. "You know what, I don't even care anymore. Just clean up when you're done and lock the door on your way out. Ma gets pissed if she sees trash on the floor."

"Thank you for your understanding, lowly intern."

"Thanks David, you're the best!" Motoko happily cheered back. David replied with a weak wave to both of them without bothering to look back and marched out of sight to the bathroom.

Awkward silence.

"Well chooms, I think we became closer as a team! How about we celebrate with a group hug?"

The list was initially meant to be a purely GiTS reference but Motoko got bored and started throwing in references to TF2 and One Piece. As a weeb and gamer, I'm guessing Vicky knows enough about the two franchises for the references to be in character.