TheWyrmOuroboros

Philippines, 2052. 2 Weeks Earlier. "Ang matugunan ay nakatakda para sa siyam na," said the solid, authoritative dwarf in Tagalog to the rest of his team of six; "The meet is set for nine."  He gave the new girl -- definitely a girl, not a woman -- a glance that carried a wealth of contempt and derision, not bothering to translate into Japanese or Spanish for her.  If she wanted to know what was being said, then she'd have to learn the language; it was obvious just from the lack of stains that her SecureTech jacket was a recent purchase, no matter how broken-in her katana hilt was.  What was even worse was the

Manila, 2052. "T minus five. Main ops on final approach. Support ops confirm. Over." The squashed-band transmission of the normally tonal Japanese sounded flat in her ear, the digital compression robbing the speaker on the other end of tell-tale tics and tone. She didn't need to hear the voice to know who it was, though; the commander's call-sign was appended on her HUD via the gear the mercenaries had loaned her and her associates. "So we can keep in contact," their quartermaster had said with ill-disguised scorn, contemptuous of the comparatively poorly-equipped 'special ops' group their mutual employer had saddled them with. All of the me