Chapter Three, C :: The Fallen

[Lawric]

Lawric's gaze was trained on Jun as she started to move away from the group. She seemed upset about something. It was apparent in her voice, and in the way she moved. Could it be because he didn't agree with her idea? He rolled his eyes away and sighed... This was ridiculous. She, being a SeeD, should not be so affected by his opinion. He didn't think she would be, anyway. He was in mission mode. He thought she was, too.

Well, regardless of whether or not his plan was better, if she went into this with her emotions all bent out of shape, she might just screw it up.

"Jun, wait," He grabbed Tien Nu away from Stardust and moved toward her quickly. "Hey," He placed his hand down on her shoulder to stop her. When she turned around, he thrust Tien Nu against her chest for her to take hold of. "You're a smart woman. Don't be brash. If you don't like the idea, don't try to force yourself to go along with it."

He turned to the others. "Let's just go with Diego's idea -- we'll find the room in the tower that they use to make broadcasts from and use it to make some kind of warning announcement before we blow anything up. Everyone okay with that?"

[waterlily43]

Jun stopped as she felt Lawric's hand on her shoulder, grabbing Tien Nu quickly to stop it from falling to the ground. She turned and waited for him to finish his speech before she spoke.

"You were mistaken. I did like your idea." In case you didn't pay attention to what I said earlier. "I just added suggestions to it. But as you said they were unnecessary, so I was implementing the plan to get us kickstarted instead of standing around debating about it, in which case we'll never get anything done." She paused. What he said made her realise how unprofessional she had been behaving.

/Someone must've missed her early morning dosage of pleasure stimulants. And she's taking out on the person who dared to criticise her. All behold Queen Crankiness./

\Salutations to the Queen.\

Jun exhaled a sigh.

"You don't have to worry. Despite what it may seem like I treat my tasks seriously as irrational as I'm acting right now. I'm all for Diego's idea. Make the Dotna hostage raise a bomb alert or something." Oh great, now you're starting to sound like a yesman. "Did any of you guys memorise that blueprint that Commander Almasy showed us? I think it would give us an idea where the control room was."

[stardust]

Stardust crossed her arms and watched Lawric stray from the topic to attend to Jun. Why Jun? Did something happen to her? There was something odd about how those two were acting.

"Chicken..." she grumbled and shook her head. The idea of a "lure" for diversion was the only thing that made her agree to Lawric's previous suggestion. And now, it seemed like he was straying from it? He really was annoying.

/Oh, you. Why don't YOU do it? Go ahead, be the bomb maniac./ Diwata retorted.

Lawric and Jun later on announced that they wanted to go with Deo's plan. It didn't really make much sense to her to make a bomb threat FROM the broadcast tower itself. If the Opps guy wouldn't stick with his stupid idea, then she would rather do it. Atleast this way, she wouldn't have to call it "Lawric's idea".

"Reality check, you two." Stardust barged in again, her tone was starting to show frustration. "You plan to raid the broadcast tower, hostage DoTNA, and make an announcement just like that? Even if you did, you think the police will believe us? Won't they investigate the broadcast tower even more? Not to mention, draw DoTNA's attention towards us if we even try to fake one of their dogs." Somehow, this debate was getting tiring. It was all the more annoying that everything had to be settled through unanimous voting.

"It's better to use a phone booth and report an anonymous bomb threat in the vicinity. Wait till everyone's evacuated, then lure the police away from the tower. Everything just have to look like a common civilian problem to avoid suspicion from the DoTNA residing in the tower and from then, the other group will raid the broadcast tower. That's it. I don't see what's so ridiculous about it!" Stardust spat. "If Lawric doesn't have the guts to do it, then I'll be the lure for crying out loud." She scowled. "I've had worse. Being surrounded by guns means nothing so don't even think of my welfare."

She placed her hands on her waist. "If you're opposed with something I just said then speak up now. This is all starting to get annoying." She was pretty hard to convince, and now that she said her piece she wouldn't plan on backing down.

[waterlily43]

"Alright." Jun placed a hand on her forehead. Her head was throbbing, no less for her own indecisiveness. It was like back to square one. Why was she so easily swayed today? Perhaps she was standing too close to the source of disturbance. She walked towards Stardust and stood next to her keeping a distance between Lawric and herself.

"This is going nowhere. Let's place a vote. Control room idea or annonymous phonecall? I vote Stardie's idea. I think she presents a valid point about alerting the Dotna to what we're up to. And Stardust, you have a long range attack, which is important if we have to take out Dotna at the Communications Tower without alerting them to us, so you can't be the lure. I'll volunteer myself for that as well as the phonecall. "

She turned to the others.

"Cast your last and final votes now."

[Lawric]

"Fuck it," Lawric spat. His glare was trained on Stardust. "There won't be a vote -- I'm doing it now."

And without one more moment of hesitation, without giving anyone a chance to speak out or stop him, he turned and strode away from them all in the direction of the nearest phone booth.

What a bitch. He thought, fuming as he walked. Yeah, this is ridiculous, but it's not my fucking fault. Jun was being wishy-washy as all hell. Jax seemed content to stand back and not say anything. Diego said his piece, but everyone basically ignored it. And Stardust... Her only idea was to knock over a fucking lamp post and scare people. The idea was so retarded he couldn't believe it came from the mouth of a SeeD. So far, he felt like he had been the only one to even contribute anything productive to this entire mission, and now he was the one getting ridiculed.

He pulled open the glass phone booth door and stepped inside, slamming it shut behind him. Bitch. He lifted the receiver and dialed 9-1-1. Then he put the receiver to his ear, and waited...

---

_{okie dokie Al!}

[stardust]

As usual, Stardust quietly watched Lawric storm off to the nearest phone booth to carry out "the plan". The plan that they didn't unanimously vote for. Either way, it was fine by her. They never really did have a unanimous decision in any of her Trinity mission. This was nothing out of the ordinary.

"You heard him," Stardust looked at Jun. She had a feeling Jun might oppose again. Maybe it was because she felt responsible letting a non-SeeD do the job---or something. "Let him do it then. Since, it's his plan." He looked at Jax and Deo. "Plus, I don't hear them complaining." And she certainly wasn't. As long as someone's going to do it, she could care less. Everyone was already at risk the moment they were signed into this mission. Worrying about each other's safety was utterly pointless.

"I took a good look of the blue-print back at the meeting. I think I'll still remember it once we start raiding the tower. Leave the floor plan to me." She told Jun, Jax, and Deo. "As for getting inside the broadcast building during the evacuation, I think it's better if we're already inside that building before the evacuation begins."

/Which reminds me....Are you going to cosplay as newscasters to get inside the building?/ Diwata giggled. /But naw, I don't think so, that'll take too much time, right? Lawric's already making the call afterall./

Stardust ignored her babbling GF. "What do you think?" she asked them.

[junkuroki]

"Stardust..." Jun said in a slightly hostile tone. "You need to control your mouth. Not everyone is as used to your abrasive mouth as Zacke or Blaze or I am." She sighed. She had forgotten that as well. When she first heard Stardust say 'Chicken' there wasn't much of a reaction due to this...numbness to Stardust's unique character trait. Plus she was still swaying between which plan to undertake. What the heck was wrong with her? It was easy to figure out why Lawric had looked so pissed.

She shook her head, tuning back in to what Stardust was saying.

"In any case, you're right. Everyone who isn't the lure should get inside the tower before evacuation starts. We can't have policemen spotting us going against the direction of the evacuation or even worse going into the tower. Maybe we can pretend to be personal assistants or something..." She glanced distractedly towards the phonebooth. She needed to talk to Lawric. She wasn't comfortable with him being the lure, especially when he was all riled up. But she could tell that 'Fuck it' wasn't just aimed at Stardust, it was aimed at her as well.

It made her afraid to approach him.

[Jax Ridean]

Jax watched with amusement as the verbal 'spat' unfolded between Stardust and Lawric. Finally, it ended up with Lawric claiming the responsibility as "human target no. 1" and frankly, if the guy wanted to stick his neck out there, fine. One less person to listen to. It seemed the others seem to share his sentiments, except for Jun, who's ashen expression made it look like she was about to burst into tears.

Stardust..." Jun bitterly responded. "You need to control your mouth. Not everyone is as used to your abrasive mouth as Zacke or Blaze or I am."
"
Whoa... Jax raised an eyebrow. Who knew little miss sunshine had such a backbone?

He perked up when she addressed the rest of them again. "Everyone who isn't the lure should get inside the tower before evacuation starts. We can't have policemen spotting us going against the direction of the evacuation or even worse going into the tower. Maybe we can pretend to be personal assistants or something..."

"Incognito huh?" he murmured to himself. It was cliche, the oldest trick in the book. But it could work. Nothing out of the ordinary about four young intrepid journalist, eager to get the story on the marvel of Dolletian telecommunications technology. There was just a pink-haired homicidal maniac who didn't quite fit the mold...

"I have a question though." he blurted outloud. "There's going to be a good number of civilians and low-level workers inside that place. And honestly, it's going to be a bitch to convince everyone to exit the building without blowing our cover. Unless...we have clearance from Leonhart to engage civilians....? Non-lethal, of course. " he added quickly. "Just stun them maybe." he added with a wayward smile.

[stardust]

Jax's suggestion was a little violent, but it wasn't like she was anti-violence.

/I couldn't agree more./

"If they left us no choice, I don't see why not." Stardust answered. "By casualty's definition, as long as noone's fatally wounded or dead, it should be all right." She cast a glance towards the crowdy broadcast building. "Don't tell me you're really serious about going incognito. Why can't we just go in, pretend to be ordinary citizens trying to sell infos, and hang out in the lobby?"

[Jax Ridean]

"Well this is what I was thinking." he cut in quickly. He really wanted to finish his train of thought. "We walk in, disguised or not, it doesn't really matter. The only benefit of being disguised is that maybe no one will be able to name us in the aftermath. If word gets out the SeeD bombs a public building, it'll lead to a smear campaign against Garden. But people are allowed in the broadcast tower all the time. Granted, they can't gain any access past the first two floors, but they're there. Anyways, once Lawric does his thing, he can draw the guards outside away with the evacuation drill. Then, we seal the entrance door. We do our thing. Now I gotta a silencer and and clips of stun bullets. BANG BANG. Everyone's down on the floor, we use an employee's ID or access card to gain clearance. Once this whole thing goes down, we drag bodies outside. Tower explodes--and yes, it doesn't look good for us to be dragging suspiciously dead bodies outisde, but considering the fact that we are bombing the tower at the same time, I think we can get away with this." He sighed. "But all this planning is wearing me out. Plus, you all know that you can never count on anything in realtime. We're all SeeDs right? Well..except for Mr. Lawric over there...We'll think on our feet."

[Lawric]

Lawric propped his elbow up against the steel phone box and leaned his weight into it as he held the phone to his ear, lamely listening as it rang... and rang... and rang...

He could see the group from where he was across the street, still congregated in that same spot they were in when he left them. From the looks of things, they were also still arguing about what to do. This is a fucking joke...

Diego and he literally could have taken this mission on their own. Ironic, given that they were the only two members of this team who weren't licensed mercenaries. But what were the rest of them doing? Standing around talking. Leonhart chooses his 'best' SeeD to work on this crucial mission, and this is the group he comes up with... Unbelievable. Sure, maybe they would kick ass in battle, but these people couldn't plan out a course of action for shit.

He looked away, too disgusted with his situation to really even want to ponder it further.

[Diego Stanton]

Deo returned to the team, munching on a couple of fried potstickers. Once he realized his idea was getting completely ignored he wandered off in search of some food. He wondered what the festival was for, but he didn't dare ask anybody for fear of recieving funny looks of suspicion.

Stardust and Jun were arguing still. It looked like Deo hadn't missed anything important. He saw Lawric standing across the street in a phonebooth with an, "i hate my life right now" face. Deo munched quietly. The good thing about being passive, he thought, was that he got to avoid all this arguing.

"Hey-" Deo interrupted Jax, "What's this festival celebrating anyway? Don't you think that's kind of an important element in all this?"

[Storyteller]

Lawric

After the phone rings a few more times you a click and finally some one picks up.

"Timber 9-1-1, what's your emergency?" a woman answers in a pleasant, calm tone her voice flowing easily through the phone.

[junkuroki]

Jun caught the look Lawric had chucked at their group. It was nothing short of intimidating. Even as a seasoned SeeD on the battlefield it was enough to make her quickly turn away and avoid staring at him for too long. The look of his face reminded her of how Stardust would screw up her face when she called someone an incompetent lowlive. Of course it was many times easier on the eye but it was bad enough to convince Jun that talking to him would be a bad idea, unless she wanted her head bitten off.

She turned her attention back to the debate between Stardust and Jax.

"Wait." She said. "We seemed to have forgotten something. Commander Almasy said that Dotna controls the Tower now, and that it's heavily guarded. I don't think we can just waltz in like that as civilian reporters or whatever. If what the Commander says about this being the coordination centre for stuff like the bombing of Garden is correct, I'm willing to bet my ass that all the people in there would be Dotnas. It is unlikely they would allow any random Joe to lounge around when there's so much sensitive information inside. Even access to the most miscellanous detail would be a potential risk for information leak and Dotnas, bastards as they are, are notorious for their attention to specifics like these." She paused for breath. "I don't want to waste time and energy on evacuating Dotnas, I don't think they really fit the bill of innocent casualties." She smirked.

She turned to Diego when he expressed interest about the festival.

"I dunno...but why is that so important?" She shrugged. "If you really have to know... just pretend to be a tourist and ask."

[Jax Ridean]

"Well in that case," Jax brightened up at Jun's comment about the not wasting 'energy' on evacuating Dotnas. "We have one part of the problem solved. And now...." he scratched his head, thoughtfully. "Ah! Stardust, let me take a look at those blueprints. Maybe we can find something useful.."