And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill...

[thrillofthekill]

[[OOC: Party thread of awesome, guys! This operates on the same scale as all of our party threads in the past. For those of you don't remember or weren't here. See the following threads. Those of you who have archangels waiting in the wings can fill free to tag in and chat amongst your fellows. Those of you have kids already in the basement can

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[of_rageandruin]

Romana is just now getting back to the hotel, after... well, killing a young, unimportant demon, but a demon nevertheless. She can sense the gathering of people downstairs while still in the upstairs lobby, and that's... fairly unexpected. Still, the general energy she's getting from them suggests "archangels", more than anything, and that's encouraging. It raises some questions, but there's very little chance it's a bad thing.

The elevator hums softly as it descends, and then the doors slide open, revealing the First among Firsts standing there, brown and white wings already out and half-spread. She's really not prone to dramatic entrances. Sometimes these things just happen.

[thrillofthekill]

A little bit of a hush falls over a few of the group. Mitsuki excuses herself from a conversation she's having with another angel and tugs Vince's sleeve, gesticulating in a very subtle way to get his attention.

Vince notices Romana and the angel he was playfully roughhousing with slowly backs away in a 'okay, man, do what you gotta do' gesture. He takes a deep breath and adjusts his tie a little. Chin high, no tail between his legs. He was not hiding from her, dammit. Chicago is cursed when it comes to archangels. Apparently whatever strange thing happened to keep Romana away while Calisto was exploding affected him too.

Mitsuki follows him over without being asked and he's very thankful for it if only so she can provide a better explanation of the specs of what happened than he can. He's so bad at that stuff.

"Well," Vincent says, once he's in front of her. "I'm finally back. Transportation into Chicago is a bitch."

It's a good thing Mitsuki is tiny. No one generally notices when she rolls her eyes.

[of_rageandruin]

Romana eyes Vincent silently for a moment, sifting through the thoughts at the surface of his mind. She'd be more bothered if he were slinking back to her with his tail between his legs, because then she'd be worried about what else he did that she's not aware of. As it is, she just watches him for a moment, eyes slightly narrowed, like a cat considering pouncing, and trying to decide whether it's worth the energy.

"It's generally considered polite to leave notice when you leave town. You could have called to let me know you were delayed." Instead of dropping out of contact altogether and... yes, it looked pretty much like running and hiding from a certain perspective.

[thrillofthekill]

It did. It really did, and goddamn it, he knows that, and he can't even form a coherent excuse for why he didn't, because it mostly involves the insanity that went into rounding up all these kids, and...

He suddenly blurts out, "Tokyo exploded."

....Well, that was part of it anyway. Although as far as excuses for not calling or writing go, it's not the best one.

[of_rageandruin]

That actually gives Romana pause, and actually stops to give Vincent a somewhat surprised look for a fraction of a second. "Tokyo... exploded," she repeats slowly, just to be sure she got that right.

She pauses for a moment longer, and then says, "I hope there was some reason for it, and your presence alone didn't trigger it." Though you never know with Vincent, sometimes.

[thrillofthekill]

Mitsuki gawks for a moment in a 'he really did just say that' kind of way when Romana repeats his words back to him and then literally facepalms. "Not the whole city," she murmurs, unconsciously, in Japanese. She realizes she slipped and repeats it in English, even though it's pretty much irrelevant considering even if Romana couldn't speak Japanese, she would have sussed out what she said

[of_rageandruin]

Romana lets out a breath, slowly, giving the very clear impression that she is remaining calm by sheer force of will. She can't really blame him for what happened, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to break something. Nothing he won't recover from quickly, but...

"Don't do it again." And then she glances past him to the group he brought with them. More than half of them untrained, none of them at all the type of soldier Romana is used to working with. "I'm sorry to say this, Vincent, but I think you may be losing your touch at recruitment." It's an idle comment, not a serious criticism - that's as much indication that you're forgiven as you're going to get, Vincent.

[armedandangelic]

Vincent doesn't drop his gaze, merely nods. "Understood." And he visibly winces when she comments on his... Very sad, sorry army, and struggles to find the words to respond to that.

"That's my fault, ma'am," Mitsuki speaks up before he can, standing just a bit on her tiptoes to be noticed, and thus rescuing Vincent from having to say anymore words. God knows the man can't carry on a conversation with a potted plant when he's nervous. "All his team's in South America taking down a Neqa'el overlord there, but I found a couple of them that narrowly missed the fighting. And while most of them don't look like much, some of them are gifted and the rest can be whipped into shape, especially under your noble leadership."

Vincent just barely avoids rolling his eyes. Mitsuki doesn't talk to anyone like that, least of all her superiors, but, hey, she's apparently putting out a fire and if she was anything less than sincere, Romana would know.

[of_rageandruin]

Romana glances to Mitsuki finally - she's tiny for an archangel, but Romana's well aware that Mitsuki's twice as competent as most of her own angels, and she actually graces her with a slight smile of welcome. "Understood. I appreciate the effort." However... interesting the results.

"Mitsuki, I'll speak to you later. Vincent? I'd like to speak to you in the meeting room now, if you don't have anything better to do...?"

[thrillofthekill]

Mitsuki gives a little salute and saunters off to start bullying the new recruits into looking a little more like an army. There's talent there- she's seen it. It'll just take a bit to bring it out. A few hunting missions might be in the works.

Vincent watches her go for a second before turning back to Romana and nodding. "Of course. Anything. Need to get briefed on what I missed anyway, don't I? On top of everything else."

He's not entirely sure what that 'everything else' entails, but it's best to cover his bases. There could be more at stake here than simply missing a few things because he was in Tokyo. After all, when Romana fell off the radar for awhile, Calisto imploded all over the city. A lot can happen when an archangel leaves Chicago.