[Some people around here have issues taking orders from some punk teenager with angry eyebrows who knew.
But woah okay he knows those people. He's seen Greed around a few times, but he knows Ed a lot better.]
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
you know Ed? he's with Naga, you can see if he needs the help.
[Naga's pretty tiny and understaffed, Orange isn't a big unit in the first place. It's fine with him, he won't much begrudge her working with someone she knows and trusts right now, as long as they're getting to the bottom of this. Though:]
[Ah, that kind of asshole. Annoying, but not their biggest problem right now. There's a pause of a minute or so while he weighs what options they have as well as he is able.]
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
can you find room 006?
[Easier than tracking each other down in the crowded chaos of the clusterfuck in the ship.]
track 006 down, let me know if you can't find it. I'll be outside.
[And good on his word, he's waiting there when she finds it. Leaning on the hull of the ship near the door and frowning intently down at the growing walls of urgent text on his blackglass. Looking for all the world like some skinny teenaged punk kid were it not for the grim set to his mouth, the serious expression on his face. Still, maybe not exactly what one would expect, if they were on the lookout for a team leader.]
[To her credit she really doesn't take long to find Eren, though Lan Fan only actually appears once she's about twenty feet away from him. There aren't exactly a whole lot of other people around, and he is waiting outside the correct room, so...]
[She's probably just as odd a sight as Eren is himself, all in black except for that damned mask and her arm. It's hard to tell her expression, of course, but all of her body language is stiff formality and alertness as she approaches him and bows in greeting.] You are Eren Jaeger?
[That's indeed sort of weird. (Red got all the ninjas before.) When she approaches, he lifts his head to frown over at her instead of down at the grim information they're being passed. But he relaxes into something less severe and just shy of baffled when she bows.]
Yeah. Lan Fan, right?
[He probably basically butchers the pronunciation of her name. He'll ask about the mask in a second.]
[Her wince is mostly hidden, but she does grimace a little before replying.] I am Lan Fan, yes. You had orders for me?
[She's...trying, really. She's more used to taking orders from Ling or Fu, whom she was intimately familiar with, than some stranger she had never met before in her life. She's not quite sure how she's supposed to interact with her superiors here, especially with how many of the recruits seem to toss respect for them to the wayside (at least to her eyes).]
[Sorry, Lan Fan, he speaks postapocalpytic maybe-German and all he had to go off was the text, his accent's gonna be horrific. For all he's familiar with the chain of command, he doesn't expect Lan Fan to trust him or respect the CDC's ranks as a matter of course. He wouldn't. But she's here, and they need the help, and that's something.]
Yeah. Parker's still trying to track down whatever did this. Jean sent over a list of people who've gone missing. [He gestures with his blackglass, as if to punctuate it.]
[She listens quietly and nods, perfectly in agreement--except about the size of the ship, but maybe she'd just managed to go in circles somehow.]
Where should we begin our search? [The common quarters can probably be left for now--if they were here, they would have been found already. But she doesn't know what areas of the ship are more commonly traveled just yet, nevermind what some of the areas are even for.]
[The Neheda is big. It had seemed impossibly huge, the first few days he'd been on it. But after enough time cooped up inside...it starts to feel a whole lot smaller pretty fast. And he's the stubborn type. There are only so many places people can be.
As if in answer to her question, he tips his head down the hall and starts walking. Back the way he'd been when she'd contacted him.]
You can track people with these things if you know their ID, but they keep coming up as out of range.
[So, the old fashioned way. And, after a minute's worth of walking through the hall, he tips his head at her. ]
[Lan Fan follows him normally for now, rather than sneaking--she's discovered that most others here feel more comfortable when they can see the ally they're traveling with. She nods as Eren explains--that's certainly useful, but the issue of range is interesting.] Do you know how far this device can sense others?
[The second part throws her a little and she frowns in confusion. She's not wearing anything odd, is she?] What thing?
[Yeah seeing who he's talking to would be good??? Ninjas. He frowns down at the readout before stowing his blackglass away entirely to free his hands.]
A couple kilometers? Usually. Wouldn't be the first time things screwed up around here.
[There'd been that EMP pulse on Ajna that had knocked everything out, crashed the shuttle, screwed the translation software... The alternative, of course, is to accept that the readout is right and they're somehow gone, but he's not ready to do that.]
That. [He taps one of his own cheekbones. Her mask. It's weird?] Doesn't it get in the way?
[To him, it looks quite a bit like it has to obstruct her field of vision. And that's pretty important to a soldier where he's from.]
[but if she's hiding she can attack people betterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr]
So it is possible something else is interfering with the device's senses. [Troubling, but they will simply have to deal with it if that is the case.]
[Lan Fan sighs quietly--ugh, again with the kabuki hate.] I always wear this mask when I am on duty. It is designed so as to not interfere much, and my sense of the souls of others makes up for where it does.
[No one ever called Eren a bastion of cultural sensitivity. His frown pulls deeper when he tries to imagine it—there's no way it doesn't get in the way of her peripheral vision, but maybe—and then she says something that pulls him entirely short.]
Your ki, your life energy. I and others of my family line can feel what we call the Veins of the Dragon, which holds the souls of all living things. My own sense of it does not extend as far as you said that device can, but I have always been precise.
[There's a bit of pride in that statement--Fu had certainly had a farther range that she, but she had always had a knack for pinpointing those out of her sight.]
[uhH. He understands...some small percent of all that. Some very very small percent. And it's written clear on his face, in the slow way he repeats it, as if to be sure he'd getting it right.]
You're saying you can sense where people are? [And she wears the mask because...?] What d'you need something like that for?
[She nods, giving him a look like it should be obvious. All she's doing is knowing where any living being is in her immediate surroundings, gosh, what's so weird about that?] And animals, but humans give off a stronger signature. All of the emperor's heirs and their personal guards are trained in the use of this.
[He repeats that, too. Because there isn't enough of humanity left where he came from for more than one country, let alone an empire. But heirs and guards...he can make a guess.]
Yes, though an emperor rules many lands, whereas a king only rules one. The emperor of Xing holds all the clans in unison, so that the wars previously waged between them would never again return.
[How would he know what a king was, but not an emperor? She thought such concepts would be commonplace.]
[Commonplace for you, maybe. (And probably for most others, tbh, but some worlds are more disparate than others.) He gives her a curious look as they pace the halls.]
They fought wars against each other?
[It's not...impossible to imagine. Not in the least, actually. And he's heard that sort of thing before. It's still sort of strange. Frustrating, even.]
[She frowns a moment, shaking her head.] It was many, many years ago that the first Emperor united the clans under one rule, but legends say that his armies fought like demons, such that no clan could stand against him. It was with this force that he brought all together, and upheld his laws until the last resistance faded.
[It's a very simplified version of very complicated events, but Lan Fan isn't much of a history buff. It's close enough for someone that probably won't ever see her world in the first place.]
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FROM: lanfan@cdc.org
Edward Elric and Greed. I have been trying to find Greed, but I have not had much luck yet.
FROM: lanfan@cdc.org
If you have others in need of a partner, I can work with them as well.
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But woah okay he knows those people. He's seen Greed around a few times, but he knows Ed a lot better.]
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
you know Ed? he's with Naga, you can see if he needs the help.
[Naga's pretty tiny and understaffed, Orange isn't a big unit in the first place. It's fine with him, he won't much begrudge her working with someone she knows and trusts right now, as long as they're getting to the bottom of this. Though:]
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
Greed's with Green. You can't find him?
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He has not told me where he is, but I know he is on the ship.
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he's kind of an asshole
[No one asked you, Eren. That said, he'd sort of helped Eren not get himself killed during the shai genocide while he'd been injured.]
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
let me know if you can't get a hold of him soon
[They've got too many missing persons reports coming in already.]
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FROM: lanfan@cdc.org
I have spoken with him. He is just being stubborn about telling me his location.
FROM: lanfan@cdc.org
I believe at this point I may need to find a different partner.
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FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
can you find room 006?
[Easier than tracking each other down in the crowded chaos of the clusterfuck in the ship.]
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Yes. My own room is 3.
FROM: lanfan@cdc.org
The ship is large, but I can find my way back there.
> action?
FROM: jaeger.eren@cdc.org
track 006 down, let me know if you can't find it. I'll be outside.
[And good on his word, he's waiting there when she finds it. Leaning on the hull of the ship near the door and frowning intently down at the growing walls of urgent text on his blackglass. Looking for all the world like some skinny teenaged punk kid were it not for the grim set to his mouth, the serious expression on his face. Still, maybe not exactly what one would expect, if they were on the lookout for a team leader.]
> action!
[She's probably just as odd a sight as Eren is himself, all in black except for that damned mask and her arm. It's hard to tell her expression, of course, but all of her body language is stiff formality and alertness as she approaches him and bows in greeting.] You are Eren Jaeger?
!!!
Yeah. Lan Fan, right?
[He probably basically butchers the pronunciation of her name. He'll ask about the mask in a second.]
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[She's...trying, really. She's more used to taking orders from Ling or Fu, whom she was intimately familiar with, than some stranger she had never met before in her life. She's not quite sure how she's supposed to interact with her superiors here, especially with how many of the recruits seem to toss respect for them to the wayside (at least to her eyes).]
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Yeah. Parker's still trying to track down whatever did this. Jean sent over a list of people who've gone missing. [He gestures with his blackglass, as if to punctuate it.]
It's not that big a ship.
[They're gonna track them down.]
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Where should we begin our search? [The common quarters can probably be left for now--if they were here, they would have been found already. But she doesn't know what areas of the ship are more commonly traveled just yet, nevermind what some of the areas are even for.]
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As if in answer to her question, he tips his head down the hall and starts walking. Back the way he'd been when she'd contacted him.]
You can track people with these things if you know their ID, but they keep coming up as out of range.
[So, the old fashioned way. And, after a minute's worth of walking through the hall, he tips his head at her. ]
You gonna take that thing off?
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[The second part throws her a little and she frowns in confusion. She's not wearing anything odd, is she?] What thing?
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A couple kilometers? Usually. Wouldn't be the first time things screwed up around here.
[There'd been that EMP pulse on Ajna that had knocked everything out, crashed the shuttle, screwed the translation software... The alternative, of course, is to accept that the readout is right and they're somehow gone, but he's not ready to do that.]
That. [He taps one of his own cheekbones. Her mask. It's weird?] Doesn't it get in the way?
[To him, it looks quite a bit like it has to obstruct her field of vision. And that's pretty important to a soldier where he's from.]
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So it is possible something else is interfering with the device's senses. [Troubling, but they will simply have to deal with it if that is the case.]
[Lan Fan sighs quietly--ugh, again with the kabuki hate.] I always wear this mask when I am on duty. It is designed so as to not interfere much, and my sense of the souls of others makes up for where it does.
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What d'you mean "sense of the souls?"
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[There's a bit of pride in that statement--Fu had certainly had a farther range that she, but she had always had a knack for pinpointing those out of her sight.]
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[uhH. He understands...some small percent of all that. Some very very small percent. And it's written clear on his face, in the slow way he repeats it, as if to be sure he'd getting it right.]
You're saying you can sense where people are? [And she wears the mask because...?] What d'you need something like that for?
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[He repeats that, too. Because there isn't enough of humanity left where he came from for more than one country, let alone an empire. But heirs and guards...he can make a guess.]
Like a king?
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[How would he know what a king was, but not an emperor? She thought such concepts would be commonplace.]
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They fought wars against each other?
[It's not...impossible to imagine. Not in the least, actually. And he's heard that sort of thing before. It's still sort of strange. Frustrating, even.]
How'd he get them to stop?
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[It's a very simplified version of very complicated events, but Lan Fan isn't much of a history buff. It's close enough for someone that probably won't ever see her world in the first place.]
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