World Tree MUSH

    The airdrop was in the middle of the night, when it was darkest. There wasn't any time to teach these people how to HALO jump, meaning they arrived via helicopter. Task Force 141's leader, Captain John Price, is first off the transport. Gaz and Soap were dropped by a second chopper, getting into position up ahead for sniper support purposes.

    "Kamarov's people are up ahead. We link up with them, Gaz and Soap are already with their recon forces." The bushy bearded and rosy cheeked Captain says as he and Ghost sweep the landing zone.

    "Where's Kamarov?" Ghost asks after a tense silence.

    The answer comes in the form of horrifying bush mutants with AK-105s emerging from the thickets. Wait, no, these are Spetsnaz guys.

    "Kamarov sends his regards, captain." One of the Russians says. "Konni's already well dug in. They've held the village for months now. We'll need to move fast and hit hard."

    Price nods curtly as he glances at Ghost and the assembled squad of weirdos joining them. "Won't be an issue. You'll guide us in."

    The Spetsnaz officer nods back, though the gesture is difficult with the ghillie suit and NVGs he has on. "What about them?"

    Price grins underneath his NODs, "No worries, mate. They're with us."

    Up the hill and towards the remains of what looks like a schoolhouse, the Ridgeline is covered in special operations guys, including Soap and Gaz. It seems the bush plague hit them too, because they're indecipherable with all the brush on their kit.

    Paramilitary forces with a red insignia are all over the village down bellow, including the townhouse. Whatever happened to the villagers wasn't pretty, judging by the trucks with tarps draped over their beds. Is that a FOOT in there?

    They have artillery and surface-to-air missiles, making it more than a little difficult for helicopters to simply flatten the place.

    "Let's make this quick, I want that informant back alive." Price says tensely, scanning the horizon before advancing across the ridge with Ghost.

    "You'll have him, have faith." The commander says, leading them towards a burnt out, bombed to hell townhouse and towards another hill.

    0THEN00 HOURS AGO

"Explain Russia to me," says Itana el-Zayl.

    --------

    0NOW00 HOURS ANOW

Itana's got a gun. It is an M27 and she's wrapped the barrel in one of her shawls. She took some time ahead of this to figure out how to use it - though she's kept her bow with her - and hopped out of the helicopter with an intent scowl. She'd offered to jump but settled for hopping.

As much as technology doesn't necessarily jive with her, she recognizes enough to know who the enemies are - knows more than enough to know what it looks like when the bloodthirsty haphazardly stack the dead up for inglorious disposal. Keeping low, Itana gives Ghost a quick glance, then begins to move along with a minimum of sound. She didn't pick out heavy armour, just her usual drapings and an ammo belt. Moving in all that tactical gear would be too loud and too slow.

She has what she needs. Namely, weapons and an interest in using them.

"I have one question," she says with a glance back to the skull-masked man. "What are the odds they just kill this man once they realize we are going to overrun them?"

    Earlier: "Itana." comes the sharper tone of Illumiel's voice, she steps up, and offers a set of platinum tags to the nomad. "Lady Mau wished you to have these, for your aid during the fight with the Demon Lord." She sets them down nearby, then turns to leave. "I must now away. Sir Ghost requested my presence for another quest."

    Present:

    Illumiel shifts in her seat, adjusting her armour, and the weapon belt she's taken to wearing, including the crowbar, a couple of lengths of pipe, an Actual Sword, and a couple of fire pokers. When the helicoptor touches down to let them out, she hops off the seat, landing lightly in the dark and instantly snapping her gleaming blue eyes up to the Spetsnaz soldiers before they break concealment, a hand already drawing one of her 'weapons' before it's revealed that these are friendlies.

    "Thou hast His Avenging Angel wist thee this eve. Hold no fear." she says, then falls into step.

    One of those weirdos that came with Ghost happens to be a catgirl.
    An armored catgirl with one too many swords, who slept for most of the helicopter ride. It makes for good nap time, but when it comes time to disembark, Mau cracks open an eye. Hopping from the chopper and keeping her head low because she doesn't want to test the supposed six feet of clearance with her lanky 5'6" height, the catgirl rubs at an eye and yawns mightily.
    "Hey Itana. You get that thing I sent you?"
    She doesn't need NODs though as her slit-pupil eyes rapidly adjust to the darkness, bathing her world in shades of whites, greys, and blacks.
    'Where's Kamarov?' Ghost asks.
    "The bushes are alive." Mau points out in a lackadaisical tone as the Spetsnaz guys appear.
    "Man so like I get this is some real cloak and dagger skullduggery work we're about to do, but I gotta ask. Do all worlds have clandestine murder men who dress like bushes?"
    Anyway.
    On to the townhouse, Mau moves low and she moves quiet.

    Yup, just another night of stalking people. Out of boredom. No reason at all for Marceline to be following any one of these folks about, sticking to shadows, keeping small and quiet and oft totally invisible.

    Of course, those intuitive types with extra sensory ability might have known something was up! An oppressive, unholy presence. The canny might have felt eyes on their back making the hairs on the backs of their necks stand up! Regardless, though she's being as stealthy a creep as she can manage, eventually after the ghillie dudes make themselves known she opts to draw a little nearer. THESE guys probably wouldn't have been so lucky if they'd turned out hostile. Alas, they're here to help.

    Finally, though, at the townhouse the only tell before the Vampire Queen just appears out of thin air, is a piece of rubble tumbling from one of the few upright pieces of structure remaining.

    "Sup, nerds? What's with the wookie bros?"

    The house is already terrifying enough as it falls apart from fresh fire. What the hell did that anyways?

    "GAH BLYAT!" One of the allied spetsnaz says, panicking as he lets off three shots from his AK at Marceline. In fairness, it's center mass.

    <Nice grouping, Andriy.> ONe of his fellows sasses quietly.

    Price and the Spetsnaz leader look confused as they stare at Marceline, just stopping short of also lighting her up. "Who the bloody hell-" Price's head turns to Ghost.

    Ghost...shrugs. "I know this one. She does that sometimes." He says dryly. "'ello, Marcy. Surprised you're 'ere."

    They advance through the house as they get greeted with enemy fire. Konni mercs open fire on them from the high ground, where power lines are set up uphill. Price, Ghost, and the good(ish) russkies rush to cover and return fire.

    Itana's question is still in the back of Ghost's mind. If he was in the situation of protecting a hostage like this, he'd probably cut his losses as the defenses fall, and cut bait while he withdrew to fight another day.

    This could easily be a trap.

    The Konni troops are numerous, with near-comparable equipment to the special ops, and they lay down suppressing fire with heavy machine guns after tossing smoke grenades to cover their advance.

    They probably weren't expecting an angel-goose, a guerrilla Archer, an isekai'd cat girl heroine, and a vampire to join the fray.

    0THEN00 HOURS AGO

With a small blush, Itana takes the offered tags from the tiny angel. "Thank you for bringing them to me... I will have to thank her." She purses her lips as Illumiel begins to head off.

"...Wait," she calls after her. "I will come with you."

    --------

    0NOW00 HOURS ANOW

"Yes," Itana answers with a look to the side, eyes catching Mao a moment. "I... meant to thank you." She restrains what she really wants to do, which is scritch Mau behind the ears. Perhaps the urge comes from the part of her that also wants to be a catgirl. It is a small part, but a part nevertheless.

"And being a bush is a fine and noble art."

There are a lot of men, with a lot of equipment. On paper Itana shouldn't amount to much, but it is precisely the difference in methodology that makes her so dangerous: She *doesn't* do what a trained special ops agent would do, yet what she does is calculated, practical and works anyway. She keeps quiet enough to completely evade notice, darts in through a window, hits the ground, rolls and smashes the butt of her rifle into a paramilitary man's leg, then whips it around and puts a few bullets into him as he's staggering. In the split-second it takes one of the others to try and round on her, she's shoving the first man into the furniture and rolling herself against the wall, pumping several more shots into the second man. The recoil carries her a little ways because she's not used to it, but she moves with it. The instinct comes easily to her. She knows how to move in ways someone like Ghost might not.

    Bullets.

    It's always bullets.

    Illumiel unleashes some more of her Authority, allowing glowing gold-white wings to spread from her back. "Itana, stay back with the others... I will break their line." She takes a step, breaks into a sprint and then flaps her wings to lift into the air. "BEHOLD HIS AVENGING ANGEL YE WRETCHED, YE WICKED, YE LOST. LOOK UPON THY DOOM. AND BE AFRAID!" she announces as she lifts up above the group and makes herself as big a target as she can, hopefully drawing some fire off the spec-ops, spetsnaz and her other allies... she then throws her weapon at the heavy weapon operator, drawing another that she imbues with Blessed Flame, becoming a beacon of Divine Wrath.

>> SUMMARY[Illumiel] >> Y'know what?! BE AFRAID!

    Three shots go off.
    In an instant Mau has drawn her blades, longsword in her main hand and short blade in her offhand only to pause.
    "Oh. Hey Marcy, how's tricks?" She asks, casual as can be as she greets the Ooo horrorterror like an old friend.
    "Good." She says when Itana says she received The Thing. "I'm glad. And thankful." She says. "Those dogtags make you an official adventurer on my world. And Platinum rank will get you any job you could possibly want." She adds while putting a pair of earbuds into her feline ears. Ears that go un-scritched. Just as smoke gets popped.
    "Ah."
    There are bad guys to deal with.
    "Oh. Guys." Mau considers, taking a hold of her swords again.
    Well. If stealth is out the window... Mau starts rushing the gunmen through the smoke, as casual as someone who is confident in their sword skills enough to bring a blade to a gun fight.
    Twirling and swerving, dodging, rolling, tumbling and weaving through gunfire, the catgirl draws nearer to the Konni mercs while Illumiel makes herself a target and...
    "Nanananana... Makin' muh way downtown... Walkin' fast. Faces past... And I'm homeboun'~. been-diddlin-dinn- mnuhmuhdibh..."
    She uh...
    "Nununununuh... And I need you~... Nununununuh... And I miss you~. And now I wonderrrrr..."
    She fucking goes to town as soon as she's in sword range, long blade flashing, short blade dancing in her hand as she cleaves through guy after guy.
    "If I could fall... Into the sky~. D'you think time would pass me by... Cuz you'd know I'd walk a thousan' miles if I could just see you~. Tonight~."
    She is not a good singer.

    Marcy provokes an immediate response! One of the night vision spetz-bros puts a controlled burst into her chest with surprising speed. "Dang, man. You're lucky I don't just pull people's spines out for that anymore. Really, though, I just got this shirt. Heeeeey, Mau." She does a playful little fingerwaggle wave, then picks up one of the crumpled bullets as her body just sort of casually rejects the injury and she flicks the hot projectile away. Other impacts accompany that and, oh.

    "Hey, a firefight. I remember when these still happened! Wish I didn't! You all just scrimming against these dweebs for funsies or you actually doing something worth? Oop, they're doin it."

    Like gravity just doesn't exist, she whirls away from her perch and spreads great big demonic bat-wings from her back, beating the air with them as a show of 'hey, I can do this BE AFRAID shit too'!

    "Oh my Glob, shoot the one that's singing! Just once is fine! Wherever!" She piles atop a bounding pair of advancing mercs and while kneeling on one, she grabs the other by the front of the plate carrier. "No, seriously, do you WANT that to be the last thing you hear?!" She looks past the duo, yelling out at Mau, "Clear your throat, use your diaphragm! Whatever that is! Project!"

    Yes, thank you. We need halfassed singing lessons.

    That spetsnaz is pretty lucky, yes. But his luck runs out as he peeks his head out at the wrong time and gets a sniper round through the dome for his trouble.

    Price and Ghost take notice of Itana's maneuvers and begin laying down fire to cover her. She's unorthodox and very much untrained by modern standards, but she's a natural when it comes to purposeful savagery. The Merc she engages first pulls a knife and tries to stab Itana, only for his kneecap to get smashed and his armor is dented by bullets. The other merc manages to accidentally finish off his comrade in the crossfire, before Itana kills him with a split-second shot through his mask.

    There's a reason why Ghost likes her so much.

    Mau's singing and fighting definitely catches the Konni mercs off-guard and the machine gunner tries to walk the bullets towards Mau. These guys didn't expect swords that's for sure, as Mau cuts down mercenary after mercenary. The sight is downright terrifying, especially since Mau is like a graceful huntress in this darkness.

    Illumiel's wrath is divine and terrifying, especially for most of these Russian Orthodox leaning men. The heavy machine gunner gets speared through the chest with that thrown projectile while his comrades try to open fire on Illumiel, but with Marceline present these guys are in for it.

    Marceline just shrugging off hot lead has everyone wondering what the hell she is. Some kind of demon vampire thing? Even though she hasn't exactly attacked, she still has a detrimental effect on the mercs as their position is overrun.

Itana does her piece and then lets Illumiel get in front of her. Far be it from her to argue with the more violent of the angels who've adopted her. She does, however, have time to pause and stare at Mau for a few seconds. She blinks once, then twice.

    . o o ( This fucking cat. )

Gunmen go down left and right, silliness or no - and soon enough, a side door bursts open far too close for Itana. As another militiaman comes hurtling out at her, Itana does the only thing she can think of.

She throws her gun at him and clobbers him square in the face with it. The stumble gives her time to flash her bow out from over her shoulder, dart in and snag the bowstring around the man's neck, flip behind him and /pull./ There is the ugly sound of bone cracking.

Itana lets the man go, twirling her bow back into a ready position, then looking over to Ghost. "How far?" she asks as she draws an arrow and readies it.

>> GAME >> Illumiel spends an Edge for: Attack Buff @ Mau

    Illumiel draws attention. Good, that gives the others openings. She tucks her wings in, and dives down onto the machinegun nest. She slashes through the weapon with her empowered firepoker, before stepping off and darting forward inhumanly fast to bullrush down the coming replacement crew. The tiny girl shoulder barges one of the militiamen with enough force she knocks him airborne, then backhand sweeps her weapon across his buddy's knees, severing the limbs at the join with the flameing brand.

    His screams are cut short, as the sharp point stabs through his throat, cauterizing his voice, and silencing him forever. "Under His judgement I render thee." she growls, as she leaves the brand there, and draw a new one.. the crowbar while imbuing it too with the Flame.

    When Mau gets close enough, the angel drops down to rest a hand, soft and delicate, on the warrior's shoulder, falling into the movements like she were little more than a cape or other accessory. "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." she intones, causing the paired blades in the Hero's grip to etch with Holy Sigils, becoming wreathed in Blessed Flame also.

    Mau hacks down Konni mercs with contemptuous ease, her sacred blade cutting through body armor like warm butter.
    But then. That machinegun is a problem. The gunner walks the bullets towards Mau and her singing stops.
    Suddenly there's a far more seriously look on her face as rounds start spitting at her she snaps her sword up into a defensive stance.
    The resounding ringing clang and clatter of bullets on steel sounds off as Mau's reflexes kick in and she starts deflecting round after round after round. She can't exactly move while she's so focused on defense like this, pinned as she rapidly bats aside bullet after bullet, she grits her teeth as she digs her boots into the ground.
    It's a losing battle though and soon enough bullets are spanging off her breastplate, denting it in places while she protects her vitals with her sword-- until Illumiel alights behind her and sets that hand on her shoulder.
    Mau stops flagging.
    In that instant as her swords light up with holy symbology, Mau starts trudging forward as she swats bullets aside, murder in her gleaming blue eyes while she approaches the machinegunner.
    And then... Mau projects. By God does she project
    "NO YOU KNOW I'D WALK A THOUSAND MILES IF I COULD JUST ~SEE~ YOUUUUUUUUU!" she practically yowls as she uh.
    Hey those guys are gonna need all the tsar's horses and all of his men to put them together again just to be identified.

    Mostly, Marceline is harassing and menacing! Two mercs are deprived of mobility and dignity as she sits atop one and heaves the plate carrier from the other. Those straps are tough; dude's going to be nursing broken ribs after a jolt like that. His buddy laying prone on the ground simply gets his rifle kicked away. No need for that bad biz, not here! She'd be just as dangerous to friendlies with the thing anyhow.

    "If you two dilweeds keep down- No, seriously, look what that idiot with the terrible singing voice is doing to your boys. Yeah. Her? The other spooky one with the megaphone voice? See all that? Damn, dudes. Wait, can you even understand me?" Ugh. Maybe the message is clear anyway, though she doesn't really have any skin in their respective games of life. They can squander or save whatever they have left however they want. Not her problem! She lifts off and scans around, still not clear on what the objective is or if she should be doing something else but ripping on bad singing and saving randos from certain death.

    "There's still plenty of dudes out there. Lotta juice." Is she referring to blood or loot?! What an awful thing to call either thing, really.

    The Konni merc Itana interrogates weakly levels a hand towards a house at the end of the village. The OTHER end of the village, that's been under attack this whole time.

    Oop.

    "Capt'n, El-Tee, Bravo 7-1, may wanna hurry. Kamarov's intel guy says they're gonna waste Nikolai." Soap reports over comms. "We're thinnin' the herd but there's a LOT of these bawbags between you and him."

    "We'll manage it, Soap. Bravo 0-7 out." Ghost says calmly while advancing.

    Price and Ghost make their way to the cable towers before hooking up. The Spetsnaz will stick around but right now the squad has to hurry their asses up. There's a massive farmhouse teeming with Konni. Rappelling downwards, Price and Ghost take advantage of the chaotic scene of Russkie on Mostly-Russkie violence.

    "Don't bother with Konni. Nikolai's our priority!" Price orders over radio.

    The house at the end of the village is gonna be the main target, as Price and Ghost stack up.

    Gaz and Soap emerge from the brush, having managed to stealth their way through. Gaz rounds the other end of the house and cuts the power, while Soap covers from outside.

    With night-vision and suppressed rifles, clearing through the house is gonna be quick and quiet as konni mercs stumbling in the dark for their NODs, at least until they reach the second floor. A heavily armored breacher with a massive auto shotgun blows one of the doors down shouting obscenities as Price and Ghost duck behind whatever cover they can find.

Itana's eyes again drift towards Mau. She lets out a slow sigh.

That's about when one of the mercenaries gestures to the other side of the village entirely. Itana just looks at the man, then over at Ghost. Her eyelids lower pointedly. The 'are you kidding me' does not need to be vocalized. It hovers in the air like a brewing thunderbolt that never truly comes.

Out they all go. Itana, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment, opts for jumping up onto the roof of one of the houses. She settles for bounding from rooftop to rooftop, simply leaping over most of the potential fights along the way. Soon enough, she's squatting on the house's rooftop, bow and arrow in hand as she peeks just over the edge of the roof to take stock of where the walls are set up.

She can hear Ghost and the gang banging on the door inside. With care, Itana notches an arrow, then drops to her belly and begins to creep /forward./ Her upper body begins to droop under the pull of gravity.

She allows it. The strategy becomes clear when one of the shuttered windows is pulled open from the outside.

An upside-down Itana hangs there and fires an arrow through it. It hits with a sonic boom that blows the fixtures off the walls and shatters wooden furniture, saying nothing of any bodies that might get too close.

    Her task complete, the Angel leaves Mau to her blender impression. She instead makes her way with the others toward where their target is held. She follows in after Ghost and Price. The breacher with the autoshotgun would come face to face with a... tiny, blonde... child... in a white dress and silver breastplate, weilding a crowbar burning with golden flames.

    Unless he immediately opens up, that crowbar will start opening him like a very stubborn crate, beginnig with smashing the shotgun into slag.

    Illumiel's offensive would be cut very shot if he manages to get a shot off though, buckshot at point blank would be very bad for the Angel's health.

    Flicking blood from her long sword, Mau pauses to look at her short sword. It's... Dented and battered and bent from its duty of deflecting bullets. With a sigh she tosses it aside and...
    Pulls a new short sword.
    The team is moving though and the catgirl follows.
    No more singing, but she is whistling and humming to herself as she follows the others.
    It is as Illumiel takes her crowbar to the shotgunner and Itana's arrow does bad things to very bad men in the house that Mau casually enters by-
    Leap-smashing into another window.
    However, as she is a dumbass cat there's a loud THUD as she gets in and a shrill yowl in the darkness.
    Gunfire follows.
    Then silence...
    Then Mau's voice: "I'm okay!"

>> SUMMARY[Mau] >> Catte functioning as intended.

    Mostly reduced to tagging along, she's at least picked up on the patch most of these dudes are wearing. Vampire senses are handy! Even in the dark, it's easy to spot the tasty red- Er, the red and the skull emblem. Yeah.

    She flows into yet another window like a wisp of smoke, though in her corner of the house there's plenty of blind, panicked gunfire and shouting. Right in time with Mau's shrieking.

    Then, several piercing wails keening through the place as the walls of the room crack and push outward-

    Then, completely alone, Marceline pushes the door leading into the interior of the house out of it's warped frame where it promptly falls to the floor.

    "Nobody go in there."

    Ghost and Price clutch at their ears, glad they at least have ear protection. But that sonic arrow blowing up in an enclosed space turns most of the Konni mercs deaf, especially the big guy with the shotgun. His plate carrier gets ripped open by Illumiel's crowbar, and the angel disarms him by smashing the autoshotty to pieces. He grabs a knife off his belt and tries to swipe at Illumiel, cursing a blue streak in Russian.

    Most of the mercs inside are deafened and stagger drunkenly as Mau yeets into the window and begins cutting down guys.

    The door Marcy pushes is where Nikolai is being held, and he's both dazed and confused as he struggles in his bonds while mumbling weakly in Russian.

    Price rushes over to the informant, cutting his bonds. "It's me, Nik, it's John. You're alright, mate." He reassures stoically while Nikolai gets his bearings.

    "Sounds like World Wars Three Through Five, Captain." Nikolai says, grabbing a dropped AK and checking it as Ghost takes note of what Marceline's holding. "We better get scarce while we can. Marcy, you comin' with us or gonna find your own ride outta here?"

    They find the guy.
    After Marcy finishes up. Whoof...
    Mau soon enters and sidesteps over the remnants of what used to be a guy as she follows Marceline into the room with Nikolai as Price frees him.
    "This our man?" She asks while...
    She's eyeing the chair Nikolai was bound to.
    While everyone reconvenes and gets back together and rallies, Mau...
    Reaches over with one finger...
    And tips the chair over.
    It clatters to the floor loudly.
    Mau looks up.
    "... What?"

>> SUMMARY[Mau] >> Feature not bug.

So much for the mercenaries. Itana's ears are ringing, of course, so she settles for hanging upside down for a little while and letting her hearing equalize. This proves to be a bad idea as the blood starts to pool in her head. With a wince, she grabs the window frame and pulls herself inside, settling to a seat on the sill.

The rescue is made. Itana lets Ghost handle it. She doesn't know the man, after all.

Soon enough, her hearing begins to return. She draws a breath--

    *clatter*

Itana slowly turns her gaze to exactly who you expect. Stares at her for several seconds. ...Sighs.

    . o O ( This fucking cat. )

    "Hnh. What time's it?" Doesn't even occur to her to go after the guy tied to the chair. What, she skipped the briefing! She's just here being a menace.

    "If you got something I can pull on over what I got, I'll ride. Beats bumming around here waiting to see who comes to collect all these deads."

    She glances back at Mau as the chair goes toppling over and snorts. "At least you ain't doing that in my house."

    She does rat about a bit on the way out, salvaging non-soiled bits and balaclavas in case the ride out involves any undue exposure to the sun. "Dang, these gloves even got tough bits for bopping fools." She pulls them on, stepping over the corpse that no longer really needs em. "Try to see who can get to room temp first, fellas. See ya never!"

    Illumiel's weapon gets knocked free as the big man desperately counter attacks. She gets slashed a few times, then heaves back with a punch into the solar plexus, her FIST burning with that Blessed Flame as she lets loose a roar.

    There's enough force behind that punch to send the guy flying through the opposite wall.

>> SUMMARY[Illumiel] >> ONE PUNCH ANGEL.

    The poor merc gets thrown through the wall. He's dead on the spot. <Nice one. Got good distance.> SOap quips as Gaz narrowly avoids getting flattened by two hundred and a half pounds of mercenary PLUS forty more pounds of gear.

    Price is currently questioning that same fact as he watches Mau knock a chair over for no reason. He glances at Ghost, who shrugs a shoulder. "She does that." is all Ghost says.

    Gaz is beginning to wonder why Ghost keeps inviting his weird new friends as he secures the outside perimeter. "We'd better bug out while we have time, people." He says. "Calling for extract as we speak."

    The helicopter doesn't take long to get there as PRice and Ghost lead Nikolai outside, the Russian informant adjusting to the sudden change in how bright things are. They still got time until daybreak at least. "You got here just in time. Thought I was going to have a Columbian necktie by sunrise."

    "There's still time for that, mate." Ghost quips.

    "Have the Americans started their invasion yet?"

    Price shakes his head, "Not yet. Doesn't start for a few more days."

    Nikolai scoffs. "They're making a mistake. Al-Asad won't surrender, at least he won't let himself be taken alive."

    "That's what he wants to make people think at least." Ghost points out, boarding the heli. "But we'll see. Once we get approval, we're joining the hunt."

    Nikolai chuckles while he and Price follow the skull-faced soldier aboard, Gaz and Soap following suit, eager to get out of their ghillie suits when they're outta the field. "Since when did you boys need 'approval'?" Nikolai points out.

    Soap grins. "Got ya there, El-Tee."