Cyber Wars 2.0 Chapter 1: Just when you thought it was safe to log back on...

[MC43]

Monk sat on the ground in his personal room, consisting of a sitting mat and two candles, one at either side of him. There was nothing else in the room. No windows, and the only escape was the door that was behind him, shut to block all the light from the hallway. This was his escape from the world, his sanctury from everything.

Monk felt himself sink deep into his meditation, letting go of all of his stress and problems from the previous days, but even in this calm state, he could not reach total inner peace. While seperated from the world, he could still feel the pull of the world around.

He began to sink deeper still, deeper into calm. He felt his body grow heavy with each passing second, his head weighing down on his shoulders, his arms slumping down on his folded legs, each of them pushing down on his thighs.

Sinking still further, it wasn't long until he felt nothing. There was no weight in his body, there was no candle light, there was no room, there was no world around him. He sat in darkness. And he was happy.

This was where he would stay for the remainder of the time, but he felt himself falling deeper now. He remained still on the outside, but deep down, deep in his mind, he was screaming from the fall. One of his fears was falling and not being able to see the ground, and here he was, falling in the pitches of black, and no end in sight. He continued falling...

and falling...

and falling...

and then... everything stopped.

---

Opening his eyes slowly, he found himself lying on the ground of a white room. "I'm... here again?"

"I'm surprised she said something..."

Monk sat up and looked towards the raspy voice behind him. "Myth!?"

"She wasn't supposed to say anything. That wasn't the best thing to do."

"We don't keep secrets from each other..."

"I know that, and I'm proud of you for not telling mine."

"She is upset with me because of it."

"Do you know what would have happened if she knew. Her assumptions would be correct, and then she would set her sights on you."

"On me!? Why me?"

"Maybe you wasn't the right word... maybe I should have said... us."

"Us?" Monk took a moment to contemplate what he said. "Because..."

"...of our... 'history'." Myth crossed his arms. "Her and I are not excatly on good terms, as you well know."

"Why have you called me here?"

"In due time Monk. In due time..."

[batgirl]

Jade, in her RW office and doing some light computer work, raised an eyebrow at the knock on her door. I'm not expecting anyone... "Come in," she said, not breaking from her work. Two smartly dressed men entered. "Jade Lafleur, we're from the Cyber Force Central Office. We've come to ask you to rejoin Cyber Force Alpha and lead them again. We are prepared to give you a rank increase to Major General."

"You've got to be kidding right?" Jade rose from her seat. "My contract with the army was terminated. I'm no longer bound to work for you."

"Mrs. Lafleur, CF needs your leadership. You will have shared command with Major General MacKenzie."

"Wait, you convinced Jason to go back? You don't need me, he is a far better commander than I am."

"On the contrary, your hacking abilities will be invaluable to us."

"Same old story, different people singing it boys. I got the same yarn from Kriesh 7 years ago. My answer is no. Thanks for the offer, but I'm done fighting. Now, I'll show you out." As Jade walked out behind her desk and up to the two soldiers, one of them slapped a pair of handcuffs on her and grabbed her arm. "We were instructed to being you in by any means necessary."

Jade looked at the handcuffs and then at the soldiers. "You sure you want to do it this way? Ok then, sorry for what I'm about to do." In a flash, Jade's head connected with the first soldier's nose, breaking it and spurting blood all over her carpet. The man stumbled back and was brought down by a roundhous kick. Jade turned to the second soldier and snapped the handcuffs with ease. He looked at her, then the fallen soldier and...ran. Out the door that Jason had just opened. Jade helped the now semi-conscious first soldier up and shoved him out the door. Jade looked at Jason, "apparently they didn't do their homework." She then looked at her office, "someone owes me a carpet." Finally, her gaze rested on Jason once again. "I hope you're not here to recruit me too. I'd rather not fight you and cause some major structural damage to the embassy."

[Squishy Cheeks]

ooc: obviously they never heard of diplomatic immunity.

[Wolf99x]

Jason didn't say anything at first, he just merely chopped at the half-concious soldier's neck, knocking him out."Well, that's what they want me to do, but I think we both know I'm not going to do that." he said.

"So what brings you to the geat white north then?" Jade asked

"Well, I was coming here to warn you that the Army was going to want you back and they were trying to use me to do it, but it appears that they jumped the gun," he said with a grin. "However, I do need your help in a non-military way."

Jade cocked her head to the side almost as if in thought, but immediately said, "Name it."

"Okay. I need a bit of help in convincing the intelligence director that Cyber Eden is not harboring any terrorists on purpose, nor using it as a staging base. I'm not asking you to spy, I'm just asking you to use whatever channels you have to get the place's name cleared."

"I'll do what I can, but I can't promise much. The American goverment doesn't take us too seriously up here."

"True," he shrugged. "But they'll take me seriously; and if they don't, I'll have to be more convincing." he pointed to the downed soldiers. "Case in point."

"Speaking of them," Jade motioned for Jason to sit down, "what did they offer you to go back and lead CF?"

"They didn't offer me much," he said taking a seat. "Just a promotion to Major General and full command of both US teams, plus a chance to form an elite team for the duration of this incident. But, that's not why I decided to accept. They didn't even tell me this until after I said yes."

"Then why did you say yes?I was under the impression you were done with fighting."

"So was I. But if Mastermind is back...I have to make sure he stays dead. I lost too much to him the first time. I can't afford to sit back and wonder if it's him or not."

"But are you willing to risk all that again?"

he thought for a second. "If I don't do anything, then I'm risking it anyway."

"I guess you're right. I don't know if I want to go back though."

"I didn't come here to tell you to make a choice. You didn't like being in the army anyway, so I don't hold it against you. Besides, you're doing what you can anyway."

"Yea, but I have a feeling Monk will want to go."

Jason rolled his eyes slightly. "Yeah, there is a chance of that. Eh, just assert your matrimonial authority over him if he tries. I doubt he'd go into battle without you near him."

"You'd be surprised." Jade lowered her head. "He's hiding something from me. He knew about the attacks before I told him."

"Hmm...the last time he had odd omnipetence like that...was when Myth was sharing his mind. But...nah. Can't be, I thought he delted himself."

"That's what I thought. I dunno, I have a bad feeling about this. I don't want to go fight, but it's almost like I'm obligated to."

Jason shook his head "None of us are obligated to do anything. I'm doing this because I have friends who died who I need to make sure get avenged."

Jade sighed. "Just be careful, for me and for Kaitlin."

Jason nodded. "I will, believe me."

"Why couldn't he just stay dead?" Jade asked almost rhetorically.

"Well, other than the fact that he's an asshole? No real clue. But this time i'm going to make sure his coding gets stripped apart 1 by 0 and scattered across the cyber world."

"Maybe we'll finally be rid of him. If you need anything, like say a rescue if you're pinned down inside a cave on the top of some snowed in mountain."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I'll know who to call." He stood up to leave. "I'll go drop off those two guards with the guys at the gate, get them charged with violating diplomatic immunity."

"Sounds good to me. Keep in touch."

"I will," with that, Jason left the office and headed out, dragging the two downed guards. For extra effect, he decided to take the stairs down.

[Squishy Cheeks]

Crow's phone rang. It was a peculiar ring like the cawing of a bird. Crow shuddered and answered it.

"Crow here."

The message was short.

"I'll be there immediately."

it was then that a challenge broke out infront of him. A young program challenged an elderly paypal program to a duel after the program charged the young hoodlum with trying to hack his cash box.

Crow looked at the elderly paypal program, it was outdated in need of an upgrade. The young hoodlum would win for sure. The young program had the smugness of youth that just screamed guilty to crow.

"I will champion the shopkeep." Crow said handing off his hat and coat to the shopkeep"

"And who are you grandpa?" the program said in a derogatory tone. "I'm a top of the line Edenite AI, you look like three year old outdated garbage. You're probably immagining retiring to meatspace."

"Are you going to talk or are we going to do this." Crow cracked his knucles. "Hit it." A drumming beat started playing and Crow slid along the floor with sytle and grace. His moves were seemless and showed organic design and the benefit of practice. He sneered as he pointed to his opponent.

Not to be shown up by an "Old man" the young AI popped and locked in cliches that were popular among the inexperienced youth.

"Is that all you've got." Crow said. "get ready to be schooled." Crow pulled out the stops and moved in a flurry of moves that could be called pop locking in only the most basic terms. Crow was beyond such simple maneuvers. His last move kicked his coat and hat out of the shop keeps hands seemlessly he caught the hat and coat and put them on without breaking his rhythem he popped his coat and turned his back on his opponent.

The young AI seethed in anger but knew it couldn't match the AI. He pulled a knife and rushed the cop. Crow didn't even turn he just pushed his revolver out from underneath his arm and fired. Freezing the AI.

"Attacking a police officer is crime punishible by deletion. You're lucky I'm feeling generous." Crow put the "statue in his car and dropped him off to be processed with a copy of his report. He then drove to the palace for the emergency meeting

"I hope i'm not late."

[Wolf99x]

OOC: And now to bring things together...I think.

BIC: After getting back to Fort Dalek, Jason got to work on looking at the 100 or so dossiers of all Cyber Force personnell worldwide.

He quickly decided to bring Wraith back under his command. That was an obvious decision. He emailed his former XO, complete with instructions to bring "anyone you think we may need."

Flipping through the other dossiers, he selected the most promising soldiers who had the best breakup of skills.

At the end, he had selected three more. Private Rhiya Peng from CF Asia, Private Razma from CF Australia, Master Sergeant Ryan O'Neil of CF North America, and Sergeant First Class Lyon Burke, also from CF North America. All were practically rookies compared to Wraith, Jason, and Kaitlin, but they had all shown promise or exceptional ability, such as Peng's Ravenwing form, for example.

He sent posting emails to the soldiers, telling them of their transfer and arranging transport to Fort Dalek at the best possible convienience.

OOC: Okay if there's anyone else here who signed up and didn't pitch in yet who still wants to do this, you can come in now, I'll just edit accordingly.

<checks RP's IV> I'll be damned if this thing is going to die out on my watch.

[Zephie]

(( Ah, just what I needed. ))

Wraith finished giving a summary report on the assasination, and his team had gone over the evidence from the attacks in detail, over a span of two hours.

So what to do after that?

Why, take a break.

Wraith was in his office at that time of night, at around the time Wolf was sorting out his list, late in the afternoon. A cup of coffee in one hand and a padd in the other, he had a leisurely -- uh, list, of correlations from the attacks, linking certain inconsistencies with each other. They hadn't been able to completely figure them out, but he somehow felt that if he stared at the list long enough, something would suddenly make sense.

He paid little attention to the beeper when it went off, signalling an incoming message. Setting the coffee down after a sip, he reached over and tapped the accept button, still reading the padd, and finally set it down as the message appeared. He skimmed the contents therein quickly, and sat back to consider, but one last glance at the padd revealed all that he'd been hoping for.

Sitting up and snatching it again, he pressed a couple buttons and scrolled the list, and in an instant it made sense. He'd found what they'd been looking for.

Setting that aside though, he began to write a response to his former commander.

General,

Good to hear from you. I've always been bad at writing letters, so I'll have to be blunt: I would be honored to accept this job, but I feel I can be of better use to you here -- at least, for the time being. Shahdee and Devin are here with me, and I believe I've found the key to this whole Mastermind incident.

I'm sending our findings to you now.

Attached was a quick, quick summary of his discovery, and how the incidences added up. If he was right, he may have found a back door to this operation, and a starting point.

[Inbred Chocobo]

Razma quickly reread the email he had just opened up. After the day's attack, the guys back at the office told him he done enough for today and got him to relax for a bit. After picking up a few things he decided to check his email.

He gathered his things, and called up the main office of his particular group. He told them about the email, and then forwarded it to them. Then the next thing Razma knew, was that he had a ticket for a plane that would leave in an hour to a town close by Fort Dalek. There he should find a ride waiting for him to take him to the fort.

Razma was exceptionally excited. Anyone should be excited when they are about to join up with a team that originally stopped MM. He started to pack what few things he thought he would need.

[lazy man]

Ryan was rather bored after he'd gotten back from the Cyber World. He hadn't really done much because he was pinned down, and couldn't do much to help the people around him. He was cooling down over a cup of coffee and some food so he wouldn't get mad over something so trivial.

All over the mess hall there was talk of one of the new generals in the Cyber Force. Some were saying he was part of the original Cyber Force. How people got a hold of new stuff like this was beyond Ryan, but it happened, and that would always happen.

"I hate gossip..." he thought randomly as he walked back to his room.

Upon entering, he quickly checked his email, and was surprised to see one by someone he didn't know. The name was from someone named... Major General Jason McKenzie? That was the guy the people in the mess hall were talking about...

Ryan blinked for a second after he was finished reading. How in the hell had he done that? He knew he was a good shot, but to be part of an elite team of soldiers? He was on a shock team before he was here, but this was a whole lot bigger than that.

Shaking off the shock, Ryan quickly sent a reply saying he accepted. Like he would decline? Geez, he didn't even know how to react other than being slack jawed right now.

[MC43]

Myth paced around the room, after a long akward silence. Monk broke the silence, "We have been here for what seems like hours, and you have not said a word!"

"I'm thinking!" Myth replied to him quite sternly. "Jade puts a lot of trust in you."

"Yeah. That's why she said yes," came the blunt reply from Monk. The two had a staredown, the fourth since Monk was called, then it was broken by Myth's pacing, finding something worth of interest on the floor in front of him. "M... Maybe if you told me what you were thinking... I could..."

"I'm thinking of the next move."

"The next move? Do you mean of Mastermind?"

"No... of your friends. I wish I knew what they were going to do. If I wasn't stuck here in your brain, I could find out, but right now, all I have are assumptions."

"Well... what is the first?"

"They are gonna play it low. They are going to play it out as if Mastermind isn't alive."

"That would be a bad thing! We have to get something together to fight against him once again!"

"No! We need to wait for the right moment to strike, and that's what I'm worried about. Plan B. They are going to form a strike team to fight against him."

"Perfect!" Monk clentched a fist. "That's what we need!"

"No! That's not what we need! That's the LAST thing we need!"

"How do I know you aren't working for Mastermind, and simply trying to play me for a fool."

"If I was working for Mastermind, I would have taken over your body while you slept and killed off everyone who could be a threat." Monk thought for a moment, then nodded. "No. We still need to play the shadows. I'm going to assume they are going with plan B. If this is true, you must not join. In fact, you must do everything to stop it from forming."

"But... if Mastermind is alive, he needs to be delt with! You know that as well as I do!"

"He needs to be delt with, at the proper time, with the proper equipment! YOU know that as well as I do." Monk tilted his head once more. "Good. We are on the same page, right? You are not to join the team. I don't care if they offer you money..."

"I have no such connections with material things..."

"Women..."

"I have Jade."

"Rank..."

"I don't have one now."

"Anything!"

"I'm not going to join!"

Myth took a breath. "Good. Not now anyway. We need information, and we need to do it while Mastermind isn't worrying about us. If he knows we exist, he's going to put tight security on everything. As long as we remain in the shadows, we'll be able to put out this fire before it gets too hot."

"Myth..." He looked over to Monk, "Are you... working for Mastermind?" The question was asked softly, hesitantly.

"No. I am not. Trust me. We will fight him, but we just can't run in with guns ablazin'! If he knows there is a new force to fight against him, he is going to move before we can get a chance to counter. We can keep everything under lock and key all we want, but for every lock, there is a locksmith that can break it. If not, then the lock can be leaked... there are too many ways that things could go wrong. Just... you have to believe me." Myth's eyes quivered, as eye contact was made for the fifth time.

"I... believe you. I will do my best to stop a team from forming, if there is such a thing to happen. But..."

"There will be a time. I will tell you when."

Monk wanted to say more, but he could feel himself start to float. "No!" He cried out, reaching for the ground. "There is still so much I need to know!"

"Later! Our time is up! Remember: stop any team from forming by any means needed, and do not tell ANYONE I'm alive. NO ONE!"

Monk fought to get his feet back on the ground, but he was being pulled up faster than he could comprehend. It wasn't long until his eyes shot open, and he was sitting in his meditation room once more, looking at the bare walls around him, left only with the thoughts of the previous conversation.