Neo-Chapter One/Operation: BINDING LIBERTY

Stopping at the entrance to the abandoned city, the woman driving the hovercar turned to the man next to her, who sat there without making a noise.

"We are here, Reaver."

Nodding once, the man she spoke to opened the passenger door and stepped out, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun's setting rays. Not moving from her spot, the woman tossed the man a cellphone-like device. He caught it without even looking.

"Do you remember what you have to do, Reaver?" the woman asked, leaning towards the man slightly to see him better.

"My mission is to infiltrate the Renegade hideout located in the area acting as a lost rogue Isotope. I must not allow my mission to be discovered, and from here on out I will go by the name and serial number Jett-2213." the man recited to the woman, his white hair flowing in the mild September breeze.

"Good. I will head back and inform the brass of your deployment. Good luck, Rea-... Jett-2213." the woman stated as she started the hovercar once more, readying to depart.

"Keep your luck to yourself... Alice." Jett growled at the woman before closing the door, not allowing her to shout at her for using her true name. In 0ccult Division missions, every operative went by their codename. His was Reaver. Hers was Banshee. However, saying her true name was a way to let Jett distance himself from her, since the knowledge that he could out her at any time would certainly put a gap between them.

Not showing any emotion on his face, Jett began to walk into the abandoned city of Normal; alert, focused, and deadly.

Normal.

As if there were anything normal about this city.

It irritated Kirie that there weren't any animals around. That wasn't normal. No voices chattering in her head. No friendly chirps, barks, or calls. No scents either. The nature isotope wrinkled her nose at the smell--or rather, lack of it--as she looked around the abandoned city.

The roads were cracked in many places; as were the sidewalks. Dusty cars sat in parking spaces collecting dust. Surprisingly, the buildings were nearly perfect, aside from some broken windows here and there. Why it was abandoned, Kirie didn't know, or care, for that matter.

The others had chosen it as their hideout, and she hadn't gotten much say in it. For some reason, they thought the rainforest was out of the question. Lame-os.

Squeak and Zek clung to her hair and chattered softly to her, while Whitestorm and Runningwind trailed behind. They were the only animals in this whole city.

Yeah, normal.

Kirie angrily kicked at an empty can; launching it perfectly into a recycling bin ten feet away.

Jett observed everything around him. Everything. From the broken windows to the trash on the ground, looking for any distrubances that could indicate any living beings in the area. As he paced slowly, he caught a glimpse of an object flying through the air, landing into a recycling bin. Crouching down slightly, Jett quickly approuched the bin, keeping himself behind a small stone wall that was a street barrier. Stopping before the wall ended, Jett took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and remembered his training.

"I-I come in peace!" Jett shouted suddenly, appearing quickly into the view of whoever kicked the can with both his arms up.

Kirie let out a yelp of alarm at the unexpected voice. Bloody hell, the city was supposed to be deserted! Regaining control of her hearbeat, Kirie saw who it was. A teenager, and a scared one by the looks of him.

"Relax, I'm not gonna hurt you." Kirie said gently. After a second of thought, she added on, "They won't hurt you either. They're with me." Whitestorm gave a friendly bark and a wag of his tail, and Runningwind clip-clopped forward until his head rested over her shoulder.

One big happy family.

"My name is Kirie. Who are you?" A gentle smile accompanied her words.

Good. A young man. Had it been a squad of rogues, Jett might've been forced to eliminate them.

"O-Okay..." Jett stuttered after the girl regarded the two animals with her. A girl walking aroung around with a wolf, horse, and.. some sort of monkey thing? She might as well have Isotope branded on her forehead.

And she referred to herself as Kirie. No serial number. No last name. In other words, Renegade.

"M-My name? My name i-is... Jett. Jett-2213." The white-haired man almost whimpered as he looked around nervously. In reality, he was checking to see if she was truly alone.

"You're not a Helli0n Isotope, are you? Please, don't send me back. I just want to live for myself!" Jett added in, moving his hands so that they were in front of him in a pleading position. One of his targets had once said that to him when he found him. That particular Isotope was now in Helli0n prison, awaiting recycling.

Kirie felt her heart twist in empathy, "Don't worry, Jett. We're not with Helli0n. We're kinda on our own here." She gave him a reassuring smile; one that said he could trust her, "And of course we won't send you back to Helli0n! They're not the nicest group of people and--hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself."

Being out in the jungle for a year meant that Kirie had a habit of running her mouth. She should probably slow down and ask the kid what he was doing out here.

Doing exactly that, she asked, "So were you looking for us out here? Or were you just passing through? Because either way, you can stay with us for awhile if you want."

She hoped Jett would decide to stay. They had seen footage of Helli0n rounding up isotopes who had desserted, and it was never a good sight. it was supposed to be a message to those who were still out there. Jett looked like he needed all the protection and safety he could get.

Act defenseless, get your enemy's pity and sympathy, and they will opened more doors for you than a stolen key. That was the phrase Jett was taught as a child.

Now, time to act grateful.

"R-Really? Thank you!"

Donning a wide, goofy grin, Jett ran up to the young woman with a gleeful jump in his step, as if an angel had just landed before him with food and aid. Taking her hand quickly, Jett shook it like crazy, the grin still on his face.

"I will never forget this! You are a lifesaver! I owe you my life!"

Jett had some experience acting as a grateful idiot.

Kirie was surprised by Jett's exuberance, but she didn't know what he had been through, so she brushed it off with a laugh. Squeak, however, was not amused. Jett's eager handshake sent the mouse tumbling from his perch, and the nature isotope barely caught the furry creature in time.

"Come on, I'll show you to our base." Kirie grinned as she turned and started walking in the direction of the setting sun, "This is Squeak, by the way. Zek is the marmoset on my right shoulder, Whitestorm is the wolf, and that leaves Runningwind the horse. If you haven't already guessed, I can talk with animals, but that's not all. I can control almost all things nature."

She placed the mouse back on her shoulder and asked, "So what can you do?"

As the young woman named Kirie introduced him to her animals, Jett noted each one of their names and her ability. A nature manipulator... she may be a hassle later, but nothing he couldn't handle.

And then the typical question came up. His power.

"I'm nothing special. I can just see in infared." Jett lied, pointing to his eyes to emphasize his point. Infared vision was simple, useless, and unable to be proven or disproven. Jett knew that it was better to keep his true abilities a secret.

"Helli0n wanted me to help them track down enemies at night, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't stay with them..." Jett added on, allowing his voice to drift off.

"Anyways, how many else are with you?" Jett asked innocently, walking behind Kirie and her companions.

Kirie nodded at his power. Actually pretty decent, at it would come in use if they ever wanted to move at night (which was more frequent than one thought). At his last question, she ran her hand along Runningwind's back absent-mindedly as she gathered all the names in her mind.

"Well, there's Sam and Miri, then Eric and Polly. Nathanael and Keiko are with us too, and so is Audrey. There's more of us, but people are kinda in and out, so I couldn't tell you everyone who comes by the base. The people I mentioned are the ones who are here when I left for my walk a few minutes ago."

It wasn't exactly a walk. It was a way for Kirie to vent her frustration to the empty city. She didn't like being here. It reminded her too much of England in the EAM. No nature, and everyone was always breathing down each other's necks from the proximity. Honestly, it was a whole bloody city; everyone should have their own quadrant, but they were constantly running into each other.

But, that was beside the point.

Kirie approached a building called "The Holiday Inn". Their 'super secret renegade isotope hideout' was nothing but a hotel. It worked though. Rooms were in plenty supply, so were bathrooms. They had a kitchen, a basement for weapons, and it had a conference room that let them plan out their next plan of action in comfort.

"And here we are." Kirie pulled out a keycard from her pocket and inserted it into the electronic reader beside the door; opening the sliding glass immediately, "We'll introduce you to everyone and get you set up with a room and food as soon as we can!"

Seven other people. Nothing he couldn't handle.

Once they reached the hotel, Jett noted every window and door he could see as they walked closer to it. Once they reached the doors, the white-haired man eyed the keycard Kirie used, and assumed that it was an employee pass.

"Again, thank you. You cannot imagine how thankful I am." Jett sighed in relief, his false words true in more than one sense.

"Can't wait to meet everyone!" Jett continued.

Mentally, he prepared himself.

OOC: ya'll ready for this?! you know me. i can't miss up an opportunity to be awesome.



A crackling voice sounded over the intercoms. "We have a visitor. I repeat we have a visitor." A tall, blonde, smirking young man sat behind the greeting desk, feet propped up on top of the computer monitor. He swung his feet to the ground and took the opportunity to hop over the counter and stride over to Kirie and the stranger.

"You know the drill Kirie. New guy sees Polly or she'll flip." He cast an apologetic smile to the white haired kid.

And as sudden as the blink of an eye there were two of him. "Who's the new guy Eric?"

"I dunno yet. Just met him."

"You takin' him to see Polly? You know she won't be happy if she finds out somebody new is here and she didn't meet them."

"Of course I am! What do I look like? Stupid?"

"Maybe a little."

"What was that?"

One boy stuck his tongue out at the other and was promptly tackled into a couch where a WWE cage fight soon ensued.

A dark young woman appeared in a doorway like smoke, smiling so faintly it was difficult to determine whether or not it was even there. "Twins," she breathed shyly. "Sam and Eric. You'll get used to them. I'm Miri." And with that said she retreated back into her pitch black room and solitude.

Nathanael; in the midst of teaching his little brother the awesomeness of cartwheels, cartwheeled into the room, "A visitor? Where?!" He stopped, and once the spinning world became still again, the Australian bachelor eagerly bounded forward, "Hiya! My name is Nathanael, and this is~"

Keiko wobbled into the room; quite honestly looking like he was drunk. It probably didn't help that he was laughing hysterically...and that he was only nine but looked like he was seven, "N-Nate, where'd you go?"

Nathanael swooped in and picked up the little isotope before saying cheerily, "This is Keiko. He's like a little brother to me, so don't mess with him too much." He ruffled the tawney hair and scratched behind his ears, and a distinct purring noise came from the shape-shifter's throat.

A day of cartwheels and new people. Could this day get any better?

Two. Three. Five. That left two renegades unaccounted for. Contemplating whether or not to make his move now, Jett decided to stay put. Best to know where all of the renegades often went to pick them off one by one.

"I-I hope so!" Jett replied to the girl who called herself Miri, scratching the back of his head as he regarded the two fighting twins. Twins... that was rare among Isotopes. Perhaps the embroy split when they were being created... no, now what not that time for that. By what the twins Sam and Eric said, it seemed that the Isotope they called Polly was the one in charge of this branch of Renegades. Jett had to keep an eye out for her.

Had Jett been a normal person, he would have jump back in surprise when both Nathanael and Keiko cartwheeled into the lobby. Acting as a normal person, he did so anyway.

The man named Nathanael seemed too happy for his own good. Did he not know what kind of position he was in? Did any of them? They were being chased by Helli0n, surviving in a forgotten hotel, and they were gleeful?

Jett didn't understand.

"Hi, my name is J-Jett. Jett-2213." the white-haired man recited to the seemingly-australian man, offering a hand to shake.

With an air of boredom, Audrey half-heartedly flipped the page of her book. She was honestly surprised the thing hadn't crumbled in her hand when she had pulled it from the shelf. Books were strange things. People back then didn't have the technology to put them into a holo-reader or anything, but (though Audrey hated that she sounded like Kirie by thinking it) books were a huge waste of natural resources.

But, maybe old times were what they needed. This book of war strategies was so old, maybe Helli0n would be taken by surprise if they were used against them.

As for the newcomer downstairs, Audrey ignored the whole thing. Her visions, becoming clearer and more accurate by the day, had told her repeatedly for the last week that he would be coming. She just neglected to mention it to the rest of the isotope gang since she didn't want them badgering her relentlessly for every last detail.

It was then; sitting in her bedroom on the seventh floor in her typical skin tight, black gothic clothes, Audrey recieved another vision.

Only this time, it was horror filled.

A long, feminine scream filled with excruciating agony. A manly cry of anguish. Two of the same voices overlapping in a frightened way. A scornful laugh at all of the pain.

And Jett was in the middle of it; smiling.

Audrey gasped wildly as her vision cleared. Her flowered walls now surrounded her, and she still sat on her soft black comfortor and sheets. Not wasting another second, the prophetic isotope sprang from her bed and tore down the hallway before thundering down seven flights of stairs (the elevator seemed too slow at the moment).

Bursting into the lobby, Audrey drew in the scene; the smiles at the new isotope, and Nathanael reaching his hand out to shake the one offered.

"Get away from him." Audrey growled dangerously. Things with her and Nathanael may not be in the best situation, and even though she was still pissed with him, she would protect him until her last damn breath.

If the others were looking at her with surprise, she ignored them. Audrey's dangerous black eyes were trying to burn a hole through the newcomer; silently conveying the message that she saw right through him, and she was going to end him.

The twins ended their rough housing abruptly. "Hey, what's the deal Audrey?" Eric asked with mild annoyance.

"Are you okay?" Sam continued. He knew how she could get with her visions. They could make her so paranoid. Sometimes, though, she would interpret things wrong, so you had to take everything she said with a grain of salt.

Even when it seemed like he was discovered, Jett did not break character.

"U-Ummm... what is she talking about?" Jett said timidly to Nathanael as he took a step away from the dark-clad woman, retracting his hand in the process.

In the 0ccult Division, one was trained to keep a cool head throughout any situation, even if their mission was in jeporady. There was always a chance to remedy a situation.

But how did she guess about him? Was it her ability? Was she a psychic? Paranoid? Observing the woman, Jett did not let his act slip once.

Nathanael, like Sam and Eric, knew that Audrey's visions weren't always what she made them out to be. She sometimes seemed to interpret them in her own way, and was convinced that her way was the way it was going to happen. However, there were also times when they happened just as the goth had seen it, so Nathanael didn't brush it off as easily as the telekinetic duo.

"Jett," He said in a formally introductive way, "This is Audrey. Sheila, this is Jett, and he just walked in. Shouldn't you maybe introduce yourself within your proximity of niceness?" Nathanael's voice was playful, but it also held a faint note of a reprimand. Really, she could scare the poor bloke, and they needed to protect any isotope they could find.

The annoyance, the skepticism, the joking mannor.

Audrey shook her head vigorously, "No, you guys don't understand. This guy...he's...he's bad news. For all of us." She looked around the room and tried to make sense of the voices from her vision. The scream could've belonged to any of the female isotopes--Audrey included. The overlapping voices of the same...Sam and Eric. Their voices sounded so much alike, it had to be them. The cry of anguish? Once again, it could be any of the males.

And the laughter? It had to have been Jett. Laughing at the pain he was causing to the renegades. To Nathanael.

Yeah, the dude was a pain in the ass half the time, and a quarter of the time him and Audrey weren't talking because of the events that followed their escape from Helli0n/Jvstice. But for that last quarter of the time?

She really cared for him.

It was her duty to protect them, "You have to believe me. He's bad news." Audrey repeated looking to the others with her eyes asking them to trust her.

So the woman was Audrey. That left only their leader for Jett to meet.

It appeared that the other Isotopes held a sense of distrust towards the woman named Audrey's words, as if she had cried wolf before. That either meant that she was a frequent liar, or that her power had something to do with predictions.

"Ummm..... I-I know that H-Helli0n was on my tail, but I'm not dangerous! Honest! I can only see in Infared!" Jett exclaimed, keeping his pleading eyes on Audrey. Couldn't let her compromise the mission. He had to complete it.

While Eric was still dismissing Audrey's outburst, Sam hopped over the couch and joined the small group. Pulling Audrey aside, he whispered his absolute quietest, hoping that Jett's power didn't incorporate hearing. "Listen, we're taking him to Polly right now to be interrogated. You know she'll figure something out about this guy. Even if she doesn't get the truth, she'll get a hunch. If she doesn't like him, we'll get rid of him, okay?" He smiled hopefully at the goth.

"Sam, please," Audrey whispered back; matching his near inaudible volume, "I know my visions aren't always 100%. Hell, I've known that since the day I was created. But the majority of the content will come to pass." After a quick pause, she conceeded, "Jett may not be the one who's going to cause all the bad things, I'll admit that, but he's going to be the reason for it. He's going to open the floodgates for what's coming."

She managed to keep the begging/pleading tone out of her voice, and held firm the serious note. They had to believe her. Wipe his memory, escort him out of the city, or throw him out on his ass; Jett had to go if they wanted to avoid what the goth saw.

"Even if he is evil, we can't get rid of him before he's interrogated. What if he goes back to Helli0n and tells them where we are? We need to figure it out first. He thinks he's watching us, but we're watching him, right?" With a grin of conspiracy he turned to Kirie. "Come on, let's take him to Polly."

Audrey felt unhappy, but since Sam's logic was...well, logical, she nodded, "Alright, fine. We'll do it your way." And because she didn't want to sound like she was completely giving up, she added, "But I don't like it one bit."

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Kirie clapped her hands brightly in an attempt to cover up the hushed conversation, "So Jett! Let's get you introduced to Polly! She just loves meeting new isotopes whenever they pass through! Eric, where is she now?" The nature isotope questioned towards the twin not occupied in conversation.