jaegeracademy | [ open ] Welcome to Chile, Cadets.

Entry tags:

[ open ] Welcome to Chile, Cadets.

Characters: ALL.
Location: Valparaíso Shatterdome, Chile.
Date/Time: February 15th-28th.
Summary: The first shipment of recruits into the new Jaeger Academy program arrive. Some are staggered throughout the month, but they all have the same basic greeting. Here you are, there's where you sleep, here's what you wear, get going.
Additional Notes: See here for additional information. For information on the current weather, check out this link.

The Shatterdome didn't look futuristic, swatches of metal and concrete transforming a portion of the harbor into five enormous bays. Nevermind that only two were currently in use. The stark greys stand out against the colorful face of the city, a hulking monolith that's been carved into the face of the city that had once upon a century been termed the Jewel of the Pacific.

Note: Players are welcome to start their own interactions outside of the three main prompted scenarios. Go wild!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"Seriously?" That was pretty surprising. He'd expect there would be a clear answer on that, it was the sort of question he expected to produce a laugh. That pilots were partners, with a bond glorified in the same way people talked about True Friendship or True Love, it was hard to imagine asking pilots who'd already found that to go looking for another partner.

Sounded awkward, too. Still... "It's hard to imagine but..." Pilots did die. Fairly frequently, actually. "I guess it wouldn't be a bad thing... if they could drift with more than one person?"

The question pulls Kou back from his thoughts a little, and makes him blink. Oh. He wasn't doing a good job of setting his concerns aside. That could be a problem. He needed to reign it in.

Kou shook his head, willed the smile back onto his face. Not quite as bright, but there. Close enough. "Yes. I guess I got homesick for a moment. It's farther than I've been alone before."

That's not stunning conversational skill, no, but it is a response. Kou will take it. He laughs cheerfully. "There was a snow delay at Narita. Mmm, the sunlight feels nice. To think that somewhere so peaceful was built to respond for combat."

"There's been some discussion of that." Yancy responds again. Wait and see, kid.

Man, so much hush-hush.

"Huh," Yuri says thoughtfully. Well, it wasn't an outright no, and he thought he'd heard something about the younger Becket bother doing informal spars in the kwoon combat room. Any chance to fight someone with that much experience, there was no way Yuri was going to pass it up. "If you are, I'll be sure to be a diligent student, sir." That was just a little cheeky--mostly because he was sincere, at its heart.

She tosses her bag up the top bunk. There's nothing fragile or particularly important in there anyway. She climbs up the ladder slowly, relishing her last day in properly pressed clothing. Sweat drenched as they may be, they're hers.

She sits on the edge of the bunk, swinging her boot-clad feet by the ledge. (Let's take a moment of our time to pity the fool who may or may not be on the bottom bunk.)

She will watch everyone who enters the barracks from this spot. Maybe she'll call them out using a nickname based on their most prominent feature.

"It's not a very good Shatterdome if you expect us to die in it on the first day," Franziska says, a bit too loud to be a whisper. It may sound haughty, and that's because she is. She's also a bit nervous. She did not come here in the middle of nowhere, betrayed by her genetic predisposition to sweat from every pore on her body, to die on her first day.

"Good to hear." Yancy answers, also sincere. He's looking forward to getting to have more of a hand in these things when it works around his schedule. It pays to stay on your toes.

After a text to her mum to say she's down to landline calls only and please could you print some photos of the whanau and snail mail them, Ngaio unpacks her hygiene things and hands over her suitcase, carry on bag, and the floppy hat she'd been carrying and fanning herself with. She's pouting furiously as she claims a bed and starts packing her Academy issue gear away, but despite the frown, her packing is neat and military, thanks to her time in Air Cadets.

Still, she waits until their senior officers are out of the room before she whines, "This is balls! My photos are on my phone - they let us keep our crap at Woodbourne."

Yaichirou is just as glassy-eyed and lost as the other recruits, but he knows that this isn't a mistake. It's what needs to be done and so he'll do it. He's a bit murky on the details of how he'll survive the academy, but one day at a time sounds like a good way to start.

When he ducks under the tree he's thinking more about the shade than about Yancy. He hardly even notices the pilot, actually. He's too busy trying to make a mental map of the shatterdome so that he doesn't look like an idiot tomorrow morning. The tour had been thorough enough but it's hard to remember anything right now; he was already exhausted from the long trip, and he's sure that if it gets any hotter his brain would melt out of his ears. He leans back against the tree, eyes scanning the courtyard. The mess hall would be over there, he didn't think they'd visited that area yet, and over there would be...

It's at this point that he finally sees Yancy and realizes he's wandered within spitting distance of a celebrity. Despite the rush of panic, he manages not to immediately skitter away like a grade schooler caught in the staff lounge. He may be a fresh recruit but he still has some dignity.

"I apologize, sir. I didn't mean to intrude."

"It's a figure of speech." Of dismissal or suspension or getting sent back. Though Leila can't deny that there's some form of truth in those words. With the always-ongoing Jaeger maintenance and repair, people running around, transport vehicles coming in and out and the various activities in the Shatterdome, it's a hazardous place nearly for everyone, most especially them who know so little about its inner workings. So it's more or less a warning to keep all of them in their place. As if the commanding tone isn't more than enough to do that.

After giving her name and age to the person she assumes will be their divisional officer (or whatever the PPDC equivalent of that rank is), she offers a slight smile to the girl who spoke out. "To some extent, at least."

"Yaichirou Shimogamo. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The whole response, from the introduction to the stiff handshake, was more like a robotic response than an actual greeting. He had no military experience, but someone had trained him well.

"I'm a little surprised that they would make you repeat the Academy if you've already been through all that."

Leila's using her day to break in her new boots, mostly out of the horrid experience she had back at Dartmouth. Starting out her first week of training again with blisters and sore toes isn't high up on her list of things-to-achieve while in the Academy. And while she knows there's an easier way to break them in, she prefers the old-fashioned way: through wearing and walking. One day isn't going to be enough for that however and she reminds herself to do the rest later after dinner.

After walking a few rounds around the Shatterdome, following the route of the tour earlier, Leila picks out an open spot close to the port to pause and retie her laces. The boots are a little heavier than she remembers them to be but that's to be expected; it's been a while since she's worn a pair and walked in them. She taps one toe after the other against the concrete, wincing as she's already feeling her feet hurting despite the thick socks.

"Right then. It should be cooler outside with the breeze coming from the sea," she mutters under her breath before she starts sprinting towards one of the outdoor training areas and easily avoiding people in her way.

Well — most people, at least.

The answer was... Well. The guy must've been taught one certain way to introduce himself, Mike decided, and that was it. No thought, just blurt. That might come in handy through all this. But at the question, he shrugged. "Yeah, it's because of the few years I took off. With how fast everything moves around all the K-science and jaeger developments, my few years might as well be a decade or so. Not to mention," he went on, "that I couldn't find anybody in Alaska that I was compatible with."

"Probably not," Yuri said, though he gave Luke an arch look. "But would you want more than one person knowing everything that goes on inside your head? Especially if one of those people was a stranger."

Andrea stood in her formal uniform, speaking with several of Hydra Corinthian's mechanics while going over the details of her last check-up. The twitches that had registered earlier in the week had calmed down, but it still worried Andrea. While no mechanic on her own, she could understand most of the jargon her mechanics used, enough to get the gist of what they'd checked over, what systems had been run through, fluid levels, heat levels, monitoring of radiation shielding effectiveness, and more on the unending list of maintenance.

Letting them head off for dinner, she took several steps back from Hydra Corinthian's foot. Not that it helped. At her sheer size, there wasn't any possible way to take in all of her from this kind of ground perspective. Andrea's head craned back, looking up at the sheer mass of her Jaeger.

"Sorry to leave you standing, girl." Jacqueline had expressed much the same on their last phone-call. It was going to be a long year until they were back in piloting condition. Little to do but endure it all.

"'Til then," Yuri says, figuring he's about at his limit of 'sir-ing' for one conversation, especially a voluntary one. "I don't want to hold you up." Not that Yancy looked in a hurry. "Permission to be dismissed?"

The slight questioning tone was more because he really didn't remember when he was supposed to ask. Did it count when he was the one who started the conversation?

While everyone else milled around base, getting the lay of the land, Yuri had one specific mission. As soon as the cadets had been cut lose, he'd headed back to the barracks to change into PT clothes, then made for his best guess as to wear they'd be holding the PT sessions. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't hard to find; the base's design wasn't dissimilar to Alaska.

A lot of his fellow cadets would probably think he was nuts for voluntarily going for a run--they'd be forced into doing it plenty, in the days to come--but a nice, relaxing run, probably the last he'd get without instructors hollering and blowing whistles at him, sounded like just the thing to him, especially after being cooped up so long on the plane and in the bus. Should he be getting social with his fellow cadets instead? Probably, but they'd all get a lot closer than anybody wanted in the next few months, living and training together. Might as well shoot for peace and quiet while he could get it.

He did, however, make for an odd sight moving through base, or later, as the lone figure stretching at the start line of the track, or even later, trudging back to the barracks covered in sweat.

Luke finds himself a little surprised at Yuri's response. He honestly hadn't considered it. "It's not that I want to share that much or not, but... I don't think I can really afford to worry about that?"

Anyway, so much of his life had already been dragged out in front of the public. The idea of someone knowing what he really felt and really was like was almost... a relief. At least then if they hated him it would be him. "If I could actually be compatible with two people that'd be really lucky."

Turning over personal effects

Eren doesn't expect to take very long with this part of processing. He's got little to sort out of his belongings, little to turn over in the first place. But there is the old fashioned key hung on the cord around his neck. And he pauses despite himself after pulling it over and off his head. Takes a moment to study it, as if committing the dings and scratches in the surface to memory, mouth drawn into a tight and tense line.

The last thing he has left of home, (of him,) and not entirely in a good way. The door that it opens had no doubt been destroyed with the rest of Oakland. Along with whatever had even been kept down there. It doesn't matter, does it? But he's held onto it all this time anyway.

He exhales sharply through his nose, as if to vent his frustration, or his irritation, or his anxiety, then wraps the cord around the key and hands it over with the rest of his things. He doesn't need it anymore.

Under 18 Barracks

They'd mostly made their way on their own for the past seven years. For a long time, Eren had been too angry and too proud to accept much in the way of charity or government aid, but the cooler heads of his companions had prevailed long enough to keep their heads down and to keep them warm and fed until they were old enough to earn their own keep. So in some ways, it's good to know they won't have to think about where their next meal is coming from here. And that they're going to earn every one in the defense of humanity.

So the sparseness of the accommodations is a small price to pay. (He'd sleep on the floor of the damn hangar if it meant getting a shot at being a Ranger.) After setting his bag down on the floor, he drops down against the bottom to try it out— and he does it with enough of his usual measure of reckless energy to rattle the frame. It shakes audibly, but holds fast. For now, this is home. They made it.

It's taking a while to get everything sorted out, but that's to be expected. Eren's standing a little restlessly to the side, hands in pockets to keep them still as he watches the others check in. Even before he'd had cause to dedicate himself to becoming a Ranger, he'd always imagined traveling the world, of seeing new and exotic places. Ever since he was a kid. So being here in Chile is a dream come true in more than one way. They're not here to sightsee, though, and he's not going to lose sight of that. No way.

He seems to shake himself out of something when he realizes he's being addressed. Tears his wide eyes away from the scenery and the proceedings to study the cadet next to him.

"I guess. It's pretty hot," humid, more like, which is probably worse. Spoiled by mild California weather all his life, Eren's never had to deal with very harsh winters. Or very harsh summers, for that matter. He tips his head toward Kou curiously.

"Where are you from?"

At the end of their first day, the cadets are treated to their first of many mess hall meals. And even if the fare itself probably isn't anything special, the atmosphere, at least, seems to be promising. A tense sort of energy in the air that comes with being at the start of something huge and new. It's a good chance to sit back and take in everything that's happened. And everything that's going to come.

At least, it is where one Eren Jaeger is concerned. He spends most of his time bent over his tray and talking animatedly to a twiggy blond or a pretty girl, or both. Or neither, in the spaces between the comings and goings where he happens to end up alone for a while. Either way, there's an empty space at the table across from him. More than enough room for someone else to sit, if they wanted. No sense eating alone, right?

((A/N:Dinner party? If you're cool with threadcrashing by Armin and/or Mikasa (or drag in a guest of your own?) we can get us a group thread going for get-to-know-yous. Feel free to hit me with a note or a pm/pp if you want to sort out posting order or something, but I'm fine with playing fast and loose as we go. And of course, I'm down for nice easy one on one, too. Just hit me with a preference if you tag in.))

As painfully earnest as he is about becoming a good solider, there is absolutely nothing 'properly pressed' about this guy right now. Messy haired and casually clothed and carrying with him the general air of dishevelment that comes with being a sixteen year old boy with more restless energy than social graces. The swinging boots and their sweat-drenched and starched owner catch at his attention from the corner of his eye, and he frowns upward at her on her perch. Since she's yet to address him directly, he beats her to the punch. And he proceeds to state the obvious.

"Aren't you hot in all that?"

Technically, the kid's already dismissed himself. But Yancy isn't going to call him out on it. He's got to know that anyway, if he's already been around the block once. Let the DS's work the kid over. Maybe they'll even teach him how to salute. Forgetting that could definitely get him in trouble with the wrong guy.

At any rate, there wasn't any incentive to hold a cadet captive for no good reason, so Yancy nodded. "Dismissed, cadet."

Yep, this kid's a green one. No salute or anything, must be fresh off the bus. He has that look to him. Yancy glances up at the branches of the tree, basking in the dappled light. Shade is a desirable commodity somewhere as hot and miserable as this place. He's not going to kick the kid out of it. In fact, he'd been hoping one might wander closer. Conversation within the upper ranks isn't all that engaging most days. But the new blood is always full of life and energy.

"It's a big tree. Take a breather, cadet."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 3 of 18

[ open ] Welcome to Chile, Cadets.

Re: BARRACKS | TURNING OVER PERSONAL ITEMS

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Under 18 Barracks

no subject

no subject

18+

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: BARRACKS | TURNING OVER PERSONAL ITEMS

Jaeger Bay

no subject

Re: FREEDOM? | OPEN TO ALL THE SHATTERDOME

Re: BARRACKS | TURNING OVER PERSONAL ITEMS

no subject

no subject

Mess Hall | you know you want to chat over dinner come on guys

no subject

no subject

no subject