"Right you are, Cap'n!" Al strode over to and climbed up the side of the Duck, and swarmed intio the copilot's seat, yanked his flightsuit off of the pilot's set in the forward cockpit, and quickly slipped it on, no mean feat considering he was wearing standard miltary laceup boots. He then checked that the rear gun was loaded, and secured the passenger compartment's trapdoor, and then clambered around on the outside again, and into the pilot's seat, clipped on the radio transceiver, and began the startup process. Soon the electric startmotor was whining and the cylinders were coughing to life. He made sure the forward guns were loaded and cocked, and tested his ship's control surfaces.
"If nobody wants to ride shotgun, I'm ready to go," he radioed the others.
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"And just what do you think I should do about it, Shiro?" Merovingia, "Meri" for short, tartly addressed the Imperial Palace's maitre d'hotel, Matoka Shiro. "I have duties here, as you well know."
Madame Lee had just entered the club's managerial office to encounter the two discussing the recent events at the Tower. "But, you are also a very accomplished Assistant, Meri," Madame Lee praised the Eurasian girl. Perhaps you should be there, to welcome our guests, should they turn out to be friendly - or help take care of them in ... other ways ... if they are not." she smiled knowingly; she did not know for certain, just yet, what Meri did for them or the Aces, but she knew the rumors, and what Meri actually was. It was a bit hard to not figure that part out, once Meri had taken a rather secluded room in the club's basement, and several of the club's thorns in its side disappeared in mysterious circumstances - with the girl always on the fringe of the incidents; The club owed its very existence to Meri several times over, in fact, and Madame Lee always paid her debts.
"I am sure the Scarabs will welcome your presence. You do have your swords, do you not?"
Meri smiled grimly, but not without warmth for her superior; she tended to view her, in Meri's rather cold, immortal-ish kind of way, as a surrogate for her mother, who had died when Meri was very young. "I am never without them, Madame."
"Do be careful, dear one," Madame Lee said as she walked with Meri to the ladder to the roof.
"Always, Lee Sama," Meri bowed respectfully.
Moments later, she was atop the roof of the club, spreading her wings and stepping into a shadow - and then she was up in the air, emerging from behind a low-flying, shadowed cloud...