A Grey-Haired Boy

Search and Recover P4:Danger Zone

The village of Silver Ridge had been a relatively nice, friendly place. Even with all the knightly attire and crap, it was a welcoming area to be in and the Inn had been surprisingly comfortable to sleep in. Of course, the two sibling pairs each had their rooms, while Diana had gotten her own. Thankful for that little respite, the Sergeant stepped out and walked over to grab something from the nearby vending machine, humming a tune as she walked outside.

She caught sight of Vic and Paul engaged in a game of dice at a nearby table, while Vicky and Paula simply chatted away the day while waiting for her. She chuckled, then scratched her chin and popped open her can of instant coffee, taking a sip from it and approaching the Warhound. She'd need to grab her gear from the room before they left, but it felt prudent enough to look over the truck to make sure it was still fine.

She turned around, wanting to talk to Vic and Paul, but soon noticed a figure clad in dark-green forest camouflage gear with short red hair looking at them play their game. The two men laughed for a moment, while the red-haired, blue-eyed cutie sat there with her hands behind her back, then both paused and looked up to see her. With one eye covered by some of her hair, she smiled at them.

"SAILA?!" both men jumped to their feet. The redhead, who everyone now noticed was dirty and had feature-disrupting face-paint on, beamed at them. She also had a big backpack with her RK-62 assault rifle that had been heavily modified to include a hand guard with actual piccatini rails, on which a flashlight/laser module had been mounted on the right rail, while a foregrip resided on the bottom. A Trijicon ACOG sight stood on the rail mount on top of the rifle's modified dust cover, which was well-secured to ensure Zeroing remained constant. She also had a silencer on it.

Dusting off her Jaegers patch, she put her hands on her hips and smiled at the two men, while Paula and Vicky both ran forward to meet the girl, both smiling. Saila beamed at them, too, the three girls hugging it out while Paul and Vic looked to one-another, concerned. She looked at them next, then walked up and hugged them both tightly after aligning her brainwaves with theirs. The boys could almost hear the psychic "I missed you guys." in that weirdly kindhearted voice of hers.

"How long have you been watching us, Sai...?" Vic seemed almost dumbfound as he watched the redhead staring at them put down her backpack, which contained a whole mess kit inside, plus what seemed to be quite a few containers full of a stew. Elk or deer, he assumed, going by what Saila was used to hunting in the outdoors, apparently thanks to one of her training buddies. She tugged at Paul's arm.

"... Fifteen minutes sitting quietly right next to us and neither we, nor Paula or Vicky noticed you," Paul blinked, to which the girl nodded, still beaming and happy. He whispered, "You're kidding," while the others stared, slightly dumbfound. Diana and the boys looked to the girls, both of whom seemed a slight bit embarrassed by the revelation of their security lapse.

"Heh," Vicky rubbed the back of her neck, awkward, as she explained, "Yeah, I and Paula were engrossed in a conversation, too..." to which the Hungarian woman let out a deep sigh, cradling her own FAMAS rifle now. They probably should head out soon to the next village, see if they could find that TIGR, maybe even its occupants if it could be helped, ask them to join the growing PMC, seeing as they were fighting terrorists those eight years ago.

Vic thought for a moment about his sister's excuse, shrugged and replied, "Fair, but seriously, you two had clear line of sight to us," while looking over to a giggling Saila, the girl's laugh unusually audible. It was the same voice she 'spoke' with when she tugged at their arms, sent messages into their minds. How she did that was never explained by any form of science beside a cursory brain MRI from a young age telling that she was just, to quote their usual 2020s lingo, 'built different'.