Months have passed, and it seems that Ghost has fairly adjusted to his new life as a Rhodes Islands' operator. With more time spent together, almost all the other operators have gotten along well with Ghost, thanks to his more open personality now than the one he had when he first came. He's also become a regular pick in dokutah's squad for whatever operations, as his capabilities were very flexible and expendable on the battlefield, making him suited for almost any role in any given situation.
And you could say he held true to his oath of protecting everyone, as almost on every operation he participated in had a 50% reduced injury rate among the total casualties in the operation. He was working really hard each and every day for his newfound friends and resolve. All in all, you could say he was having a good time at his new workplace, no, his new home.
But still, there was still something about him that almost everyone couldn't help but notice,
"Ah, Ghost! There it is, you're bleeding from your left arm again!" A perked up Hibiscus quickly rushes towards Ghost having noticing his series of daily bleedings yet again,
"Jeez, you keep on bleeding everyday, this is not normal!" Her brows furrows and cheeks puffs up, a clear disturbed expression presented itself on her face as she quickly uses her arts to heal him after yet another operation,
"I'm sorry to trouble you like this...I'm always in your and the other medics' care"
"I think you should try considering a deep heal, or at least some stitches for the wounds down there. They keep on getting reopened."
"I'll pass on that. They're fine as is..." Ghost replies, though accompanied with a small and weak smile. Something troubled him, and it was channeled through that small smile to Hibiscus. She knew not of what was burdening him, though she figured even she had enough tact to not pester him over it, remaining silent over the duration of the healing.
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"Heya, Ghost! care for another round of marital arts fighting?" A riled up FEater quickly called out to Ghost, noticing him as he walked past in front one of the many training room, in which FEater was busy punching and kicking away at a punching bag, training her kung fu skills. Her dripping sweat still trickling on her thighs a testament to how hard she's been training up till now.
"I'll pass this time. There's going to be an operation briefing 30 minutes from now. I wouldn't want to be exhausted by then, sorry." Ghost declined the offer, stopping momentarily in front of her to formally do so. His tone sounded very polite, which made FEater chuckled a little as she found it quite funny. To her, it felt like talking to a young polite boy but with the full blown body of an adult, and a generously well built one at that.
"Haha!....sure, sure, next time then. I'll remember this, kay?" She replied back with an amused grin, before she went ahead and resumed her own training. Ghost quickly nodded and waved a big hand to her, before he continued on his own way to the briefing room.
As he minded his own business walking through the long corridors of the landship, casually greeting any other operators that he passes on his way, a pair of hands all of a sudden slithered from behind him and swiftly cupped themselves over his eyes. The act was shortly ensued by the voice of a female saying,
"hehe....guess who?~"
But instead of answering, Ghost started to probe and feel around behind him until his hands reached the legs of the culprit. Having done so, he quickly grasped the underneath of what he could make out as the culprit's thighs, and abruptly started to count,
"1...2...3!"
"huh?"
He then quickly lifted the person up, proceeding to carry them on his back.
"he-hey! What are you doing?!" The person loudly gasped in surprise to his actions, her arms quickly clutching around his shoulders,
"We're going to be late to the briefing, Exusiai." it was a no-brainer really. Her voice gave it away from the start.
"Alright, alright. Now let me down, let's go-"
As Exusiai tried to ask him to put her down, Ghost all of a sudden took off and starting running as fast as he could with her on his back towards the main deck, where the briefing was supposed to take place. Exusiai was startled at first, but soon quickly enough began to enjoy the ride she was on.
"WoooOOoooHoooOoO, it's like I'm riding a horse!" The simple thrill started to make her shout in excitement. They zoomed around, all the other operators who they passed by could only stare and laugh at the two's rather dumb shenanigans. It's loud and quite obnoxious, but even still their energy together really was a great way to liven the day.
Meanwhile on the main deck, the dokutah and other operators were already present, only waiting for the pair to arrive.
"Ghost and Exusiai are sure taking their time, huh" Dobermann utters off handedly breakning the silence of just waiting for them.
"Speaking of them, they sure seem to get along well with each other, don't they?" Amiya then said,
"To be honest, if it weren't for her, we probably wouldn't even get to meet the Ghost we know now." Jessica cuts in with her own opinion,
"I can't believe that Ghost was the same person we met on Chernbog. He wouldn't even say more than one sentence when talking to someone before. When I came back after doing some business outside for Rhodes Island, I came back to see Ghost had become an almost completely different person...for better or for worse." Dobermann added more to herself, though her face became slightly, unenamored, to say the least.
As they were quite busily talking about the pair, sound of loud rapid footsteps could gradually be heard getting closer and closer to them, until when it reached its peak, a tall figure arrived in the room amongst them. All witnesses who laid eyes upon the figure looked with a slightly confused expression, as they quickly noticed the figure was the combination of Exusiai riding on top of Ghost.
"What are you two doing?" Dobermann asked the pair,
"I'm trying to become Nearl." Ghost replied
"Riding a horse!" Exusiai replied
".....Maybe it was for the worse...." Dobermann said in a disappointed tone, her face already planted firm in her palm.
"Okay, enough of that. Exusiai, get off him, we're starting the operation briefing now." Kal'tsit then stepped in front of everyone. With her arrival accompanied closely by the Dokutah behind her, the operation's briefing finally starts. Though Exusiai refused to get off and so they stayed like that throughout the entirety of the briefing.
"Whatever, you two. Moving on, after we've thoroughly reviewed and analyzed the intel we retrieved a few weeks back from the espionage operation, we've discovered that reunion has a new branch of members that joined them. We don't exactly know who they are or their origins, but supposedly among them is a person who, according to the documents, has agreed on conducting an unknown research for Reunion. Even we don't know all the exact details, as they even classified those in the intel." Kal'tsit starts off by explaining the information the bits of information they currently have.
"What are Reunion trying to make..?" Jessica voices out her concern, as well as her curiosity as to how the situation could worsen if reunion had bad intentions with their unknown research,
"We don't know....but we have enough on our hands to estimate the range of their plans. The allocations for the experiment itself is nothing to bat an eye to, it's a really big hefty sum. But, luckily enough, those documents contained the exact coordinates of where the research is taking place." Kal'sit added, as one of the many screens on the main deck transitions into a map, a cross of white lines pinpointing a location on the map of Terra along with a series of numbers indicating its coordinate.
"So this is where we come in, I suppose?" Dobermann cuts into the briefing with her own assumption,
"That's right. Under dokutah's lead, you all are to deploy, infiltrate, and based on the severity of the situation, either take the initiative and destroy the research at its root, or return with more intel regarding it." Kal'tsit then turned to face the dokutah,
"The safety of our operators are of utmost priority, dokutah. Be sure to keep that in mind when you have to make that call. We don't know what dangers those experiment's might bring."
"Sure, I will." Dokutah replied shortly, but enough for Kal'tsit's satisfaction. She turned her head and faced the other operators again,
"The departure for the mission is in an hour, make sure to pick out your squads carefully and get ready before then, dokutah. If there are no more questions regarding the operation, everyone is dismissed." Kal'tsit says before leaving the deck, like to go ahead and attend to her own work, leaving the other operators and dokutah.
And with the briefing ending, everyone adjourned and started walking to their own respective places as they prepared themselves for the operation to commence.
"I guess we should get moving tooOOOOO-" Ghost abruptly dropped Exusiai down from his shoulders as she was talking to him,
"Yeah, we really should." Ghost replied with a rather devious grin to his face as he looked at Exusiai. Still, he held his hand out and helped her up.
"That was mean." She pouted as she reluctantly took up his hand and helped herself up. The two then walked together to go and prepare themselves, as the both shared a common interest and weapon, guns.
As they walked, Exusiai asked a question to him,
"Hey, whatever happened to that notebook of yours?" As she asked that, her face changed a little, as if a little on edge. She was still worried if he still hadn't moved on from his past, and if this simple question would offend him. She still had to know. She needed to.
"...Don't make a face like that, it makes me feel like I'm being babied by you. Don't worry, I'm all fine now. I still keep the notebook, and I look back on it sometimes.... it kind of gives me strength, knowing I've already been through what I regard as the lowest point in my life." Ghost answers her with contrasting calm face, a gentle smile accompanying his lighthearted reply.
Listening to him answering as such, Exusiai couldn't help but smile at him. She was glad to see he's back to his normal self, smiling and joking around like he used to before, although now without his friends, at least now he has a lot of new friends to spend his time with.
"...I'm sure they're glad for you..."