No Gods, Nor Masters

Eerie Awareness

Itami and Torres's HITMAN-3 began their rollout early in the morning. Reinforced by one Abrams from Misfit, namely 1-3, the UN force composed of Japanese and American troops moved down the beaten path near the Gate. Two SDF transports, an LAV with a fifty cal on top, an MTRV, also armed with a fifty, and an AAV rode down the path toward their intended search area and the meet-up point they needed to find.

Itami rode in the middle vehicle with a chunk of his team, followed by the other Mitsubishi transport and their Komatsu LAV, while the M1A1 Abrams Misfit 1-3 led from the front. The MTRV followed close behind the Komatsu, while the AAV brought up the rear, with the troops riding on top of it instead of in the back. Itami could see their rear elements and he could also see Torres riding shotgun in the MTRV.

"This is like a road trip exercise," Itami noted, leaning his Howa Type-64 BR on his shoulder, safety on. Gazing ahead at the rear of the tank, he hummed and leaned himself back into his chair, stating, "Feels like the early training days during one of the Exercises, where most we did was just get in position and prep to 'fight' the enemy, whoever they were..."

"Sounds like fun, Lieutenant," Smirked Kurata, a Sergeant in the corps, "Still... Man, you'd think we'd see some interesting things this trip. All it's been so far is just combat, combat, combat..."

"Interesting like what, Sergeant? We haven't really been here that long. This is our first outing from around Alnus..." Itami inquired, much to the chagrin of the rest of those sat in the back of the vehicle. Kurata had to keep his eyes on the road, being the driver of the transport, but it was clear he was still trying to speak to Itami. He seemed to be taking a moment to think about what to say, though.

"Y'know..." He shrugged, "This is a Fantasy world like we see in a lot of Doujins. You'd expect to see at least a catgirl or something nearby..."

"Pff," Itami chuckled, "You're telling me. Most I've seen so far are orcs and a bunch of guys in medieval equipment..."

As Itami and Kurata began their chat about things that they wanted to see, Torres listened in, a grin on his face as he waited to tell the two they were transmitting on convoy com. He rubbed his eyes, then murmured to himself, "I swear to god, this man finds kindred souls in the weirdest fucking places..." before looking to his teammates as they started snickering in the back. He said, "Yeah, yeah, laugh it the fuck up. Not like Taylor isn't a weeb."

"El-Tee, I was about to snap back, but I think I may get my own ass court martialed if I do," The Squad's automatic rifleman replied. He was manning the fifty on top of the MTRV. Torres and the others laughed at the reply, before their medic murmured something, a smile on her face as she chowed down on an MRE. Torres missed the old banter with the squad.

He looked at himself, then said, "Fucking again..." as he noticed the mix-match uniform, "Anyone worried about the fact they gave us the old woodland kit from the Gulf War?"

"Nah," The driver replied, then added calmly, "Least it ain't the fuckin' MOPP suits my dad had to run with, sir. All due respect, I'm a hint glad that these bastards can't exactly produce chemical weapons..." as they rolled past a berm that led down to a small river. Right as he was, since that would've been somewhat reminiscent of the Iraq War, the US was wondering just how much of a fuss they were gonna have with the Imps. The place was medieval after all, for fuck's sake.

He hummed as Itami and Kurata got to some of the weirder parts of their convo, before lifting up his radio's microphone and calling out, "HITMAN-3-1, your radio's broadcasting across the Convoy..." before hearing the two men scramble, one of them swearing in Japanese, and switch the vehicle's radio to press-to-talk. He rolled his eyes, chuckled, then added, "Anyone got any good tunes with'em? I left my mix at FOB."