In the town of Nantes, a woman sat overlooking the lake that cut the town in half. The lonesome woman had short black hair, sharp features, fair skin, and dark yet piercing blue eyes. She was remarkable in her early 30s. She wore a dark red and black bandage dress with dark crimson lipstick to complement it. She could become a supermodel if she ever decided to drop her current line of work.
Sipping her coffee while having a casual smoke on the balcony of the La Guinguette it bothered her that she was the only one in the restaurant. Jade realised that it was for the best that she and her team booked the place so only they could be served, and to have private conversations. She smiled that she had to return to her home country once more ever since she was taken by the Order to fight their eternal war to preserve humanity. Jade never regretted her decision leaving her old life as an engineer to that as an Operator of the Butterfly Legion.
After a puff of her cigarette, she couldn’t help but smile to herself as she remembered a time when she was a little girl she would run around with her friends at the basin of the river, chuckling and cheerfully screaming as they chased each other and played tag. A fond memory of a world she left behind for one with new yet filled with unimaginable horrors. But despite what the job offered, it gave her a new sense of purpose, one that provided meaning to her life.
Before she could react, a man walked up to her from behind and kissed her on the cheek. Jade flinched and chuckled before the man with a briefcase sat down across from her with a grin. ‘Marcus! You should know better than to sneak up on a woman.’ Jade said to him.
Marcus, a burly young man 5 years Jade’s junior with dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail gave her a shrug. ‘Someone has to give you a surprise kiss now and then.’
‘Hopeless kiwi.’ Jade rolled her eyes as she took a sip of her coffee. ‘But I don’t suspect you came here to be romantic with me on my coffee break. What’s the news from Heresy?’
‘Darling! Why can’t a man just love you for who you are?’ Marcus smugly replied. ‘But yes, you are right. I came because of the mission.’
‘And?’
Marcus smiled at Jade, ‘and I am sorry for interrupting your break. But alas, we can’t always get what we all want.’
‘Well, a woman can dream.’ Jade leaned back on her chair, ‘so tell me, what do they want to share?’
Marcus pulled out a document from his briefcase and passed it to Jade. ‘They just gave us theories about the monster we will be dealing with, the map of the area we will be operating in, and oh, let’s not forget about our new toys.’
Upon looking through the papers, all Jade raised a brow about the new wrist attachments for their Icarus-Exoskeleton, part of the first series of exo-suits. What the papers showed was a series of wrist mounted gun attachments. So far, there was only a 40-round 9mm drum magazine pistol or a 12-round drum magazine 28-gauge shotgun attachments for the right and left wrist. While they provided some offensive capabilities for their exo-suits, she recognised that the technology was still in its infancy and the weapons provided to her and her unit would be at best tested prototypes and at worst she and her unit would be trialling the new weapon systems. Despite their calibre, Jade couldn’t help but smile to herself at how the design documents claimed that the 9mm version of the wrist gun would have the same impact potential as any battle rifle. Even though the barrel was ridiculously short, even for pistol standards.
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‘So, what do you think?’ Marcus asked.
‘This is something that would come from ProTech,’ she commented. ‘I dunno, I’m not a big fan.’ Jade admitted before she showed him the blueprints of the weapons. ‘I don’t see why they are necessary. They are essentially making us remove the tools that come with exo-suits. Not only that, but I doubt the effectiveness of shooting a round from your wrist. Even with the suit, I bet it would hurt.’
‘Hurt? I doubt it.’ Marcus took the blueprints from Jade’s hands. ‘Besides, don’t be a cynic. This is some good tech right here.’
‘Maybe for you, but to me I’ll stick with the power tools.’
Marcus looked at Jade in bewilderment. ‘You can’t be serious!? There is no way you would not wear what is essentially a jetpack and not have wrist guns on you.’
‘That is precisely what I am saying.’ Jade retorted. ‘Besides, what if one of the guys or you had a tree fall on you? I would have the chainsaw ready to cut you free.’
‘I doubt a chainsaw could do anything to break the stone.’ Marcus replied.
With a smirk, Jade formed her left hand into a fist. ‘That is what the gauntlet hammer is for.’
‘Jesus, you really want to bring that hunk of junk, do you?’
Jade gave Marcus a confident nod. ‘I won’t call it junk. Yes, it is heavy, sluggish, and yes it does make me tilt to one side during flight. But beyond that, it is a good piece of kit. Saved me, you, and some of the other guys a few too many times, and I have a feeling it will save us again in the future.’
While Marcus was annoyed that Jade had made her decision to use what were considered being construction tools rather than weapons. He found it would be best if he just let her do her own thing besides trying to convince her to use the latest weaponry. ‘Doubt it, this seems like a simple operation. We saw what it looked like; I doubt we will have any issues.’
Jade shook her head, ‘I don’t want to jinx it, nor do I want to underestimate what we might be going against. Last I checked, there are only theories on how to properly kill it. For all I know, we are going in blind.’
‘Blind, maybe, but we are also the Order’s most successful unit within the Legion. I have faith that we will all succeed and who knows, maybe we will go to Paris afterwards to celebrate.’ Marcus smirked slyly, ‘I can even reward you for your service. I bet you and I can even show the world why it is called the city of love.’
Jade chuckled at Marcus’ corny joke. After putting out her cigarette, she stood up and kissed Marcus on the forehead, leaving him a large red kiss mark. ‘You are too optimistic for your own good. You should still prepare for the worst-case scenario even if the mission looks simple.’
Marcus shrugged before he stood up to follow Jade out of the restaurant with their arms interlocked. Excited to spend some time together before they would have to don their suits to fight a monster they deemed a threat.