Dahlia Senari stares out the window in the shuttle bay of the warship Altamore. Looking down at the planet Terra she is so thankful that they have finally arrived. Affini forces had arrived at the human empire’s capital planet yesterday evening but there was still some resistance in the little sophonts. Free from her duties as chief security officer aboard the ship she has volunteered to lead a strike force to secure some kind of political prisoner camp hidden away on the surface. These humans are such wonderful creatures, why do they have to be so oppressive towards each other, so full of love and creativity yet they can't seem to stop hurting each other. This is not her first of these kinds of missions far from it, she's been on over a thousand at this point.

Most Affini can't stomach combat, watching cute little sophonts so terrified and ready to die can be hard on anyone but she's far more tolerant than most. Her appearance seems to naturally terrify them and that can be a great asset in making sophonts surrender on sight and even when they don't…they are a bit cute when they are scared out of their minds. She never wishes to cause any kind of harm to beings of course! Just seeing them at their most vulnerable inspires a certain thrill in her she has to admit, even if it makes her a bit of an oddity for her people. To this end she's trained to specialize in the pacification of violent sophonts; the faster she is, the less likely they are to make a silly decision that will get someone hurt.The scarier she is, the more likely she can frighten them into surrender.

Dirt, I shouldn't use so much of my time on self reflection, I really need to make more friends. Dahlia hears the doors open behind her and through the reflection of the window she can see one of the few friends she has. A 9' tall Affini covered in a garden of all sorts of colorful xenodrug plant life with a wreath of purple flowers framing her pretty teal face strides towards her with an impatient look.

“Be GENTLE this time, I know it can be hard not to scare them too badly but show a little restraint. I don't need to wipe more memories today,” the smaller Affini says with an exhausted tone, jabbing her vine into the back of Dahlia.

“Of course Vi, I know Vi, thank you for reminding me Vi.” A smirk breaks across Dahlia's face as she barely contains her laughter. She had known Violetta for nearly two blooms at this point and there really wasn't anyone in her life that was closer to her. The big, scary loner Affini and the small veterinarian made an unlikely pair, but they were inseparable as much as they annoyed each other.

A shudder of anger vibrates through Vi as she gives what could be mistaken as a pout up at Dahlia. “I'm serious, these humans scare so easily, I don't need you causing actual trauma to them and I know you don't want that either. The war has been hard on their psyches...” The anger transitions to sadness in Vi's expression at the thought of their recent domestication projects suffering.

Dahlia's smirk lowers to a small frown at the change of tone and turns towards her friend. “Okay frost, I know Vi. I'll just give them a little scare, show them it's useless to fight back and pacify all the violent ones nice and easy. I won't go too far on the theatrics. I can understand how attached you've gotten to humans since you've taken on your newest florets, they are quite lovely.” Dahlia gives a teasing poke at this to remind Vi of her new loves.

Vi smiles as her face changes to a deep purple at being reminded of her beautiful florets she had taken ownership of recently. “Humans are just such wonderful happy beings when they are given the proper support they need. I love them so much, those girls have been through so much…My core hurts knowing how awful their civilization has been to all of them. I wish we had arrived sooner.”

“We arrived as soon as we were meant to, I'm just glad we got here before they went through any total collapse of their society. They may have some damage we need to heal but we can save so many of the wonderful cuties!” Dahlia reassures her friend and wraps her arms around Vi in a quick hug.

Before Vi can push Dahlia off her a message is announced through the ship with a sweet cheerful AI voice. “Defense force Everguard, please gather and launch at shuttle bay B! Coordinates for objective have been uploaded to transport and ready to go!”

“Well that's my cue, I'm just going to go on ahead and get this over with. I'll be back with some new patients for you! Who knows, maybe after you get done checking up on them I can pay your florets a visit when you go home.” With a wink Dahlia lunges forward to her personal transport and clambers into the seat ready to launch.

“That sounds good! I mean it though, BE NICE DAHLIA!” Vi shouts and waves her friend off as Dahlia's ship ejects out of the warship and towards her objective.

Dhalia's personal transport vehicle cloaks as it soars through the sky towards her objective silently and in just a few minutes arrives above a secluded hanger in the forest. What a quaint little base they have! Dahlia ponders how to best handle this situation, she sends a pulse from her vehicle to get a read out of the layout of the inside of the building.

It looks like it's just a basic hanger with a series of cages on the wall to seemingly hold these political dissidents she was briefed about. If she sends a small controlled EMP to knock out their power she can get any defense forces they have to gather to secure the prisoners and she can drop in and take them all out. Yeah that sounds like a sound plan, let's go for it! Dahlia presses a button on her console sending another pulse from her ship shutting off the power of the base and speaks a teasing whisper through the comm system of the transport. “Yeah that will spook them for sure,” she giggles to herself. She leaps out of the craft and smashes through the ceiling of the structure.

Thankfully no Terrans were below her or else she would have had to clamber on to the walls to avoid hurting the soft little babies. Even if it came to that though nothing she couldn't handle. By the Everbloom, look at them! The darlings are so worried! After raising to her full height with a cheeky stretch one of the little ones who looks like their leader points his weapon at her and threatens her. She can barely contain her laughter at how cute they look but keeps her intimidating presence.

“Oh you will? Perhaps you should just submit cutie, we wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt would we?” she taunts before slapping the weapon out of his hand. “Oops.” Yeah that will make them mad – no one behind me so no risk of friendly fire. The humans start firing into Dahlia's body and as their faces twist into horror at the realization that their plasma rounds are not even shaking the expression from her face she wraps them up in vines and hits them with a healthy dose of Class-Z to make them go to sleep and drops them to the floor. Dirt, I should have padded the floor...oh well they are in full armor I'm sure they are fine, we can patch them up on the ship if not. She mutters her slight disappointment at how fast that ended as she decides to start securing the rest of the facility.

Dahlia's eyes glance up as she sees what she assumes is one of the prisoners looking up at her in what she can only imagine is horror. Oh roots, hopefully I didn't scare her too bad. “Oh! Hi there sweetie! You don't look mean like these ones were. Do you want me to get you out of that cage?” Dahlia's eyes scan over the human seeing signs of roughness, bruising on her wrists and bags under her eyes likely from lack of sleep. “I hope these other humans haven't been too cruel to you.” She frowns as she already knows the answer to that statement.

With consent from the trapped human, Dahlia easily rips the cage apart and frees the human. Frost, this one is actually really cute. With a closer look at her Dahlia can see her messy, long, brown hair clearly and get a good view at how soft the little human is with just a little bit of chubbiness spilling out over her pants as she stumbles up to her. As she looks up again Dahlia stares into her beautiful, pale eyes.

The human starts with a whimper, “T-thank you... and yeah they didn't give me any food or anything..fuckers.” Dahlia can't contain her smile at the tiny bit of defiant cursing from the adorable human. She's got spirit, she'll be just fine. Dahlia reassures the human and can't resist petting her brave little head finally introducing herself and asking for her name.

The human seems to just stare blankly up at Dahlia for a time turning slowly more red in the face. Dhalia's core feels with doubt: is this some sort of strange panic attack? Oh no did I come on too strong to this little one she must be terrified. “Are you okay sweetie? I'm sure what you saw must have been scary but don't worry you are perfectly safe now I won't let anything hurt you!”

The human blinks and reacts with a start before rushing out a hurried explanation ““UH I'm so sorry I blanked! I'm Amelia Bianchi ummm she/her. I'm so sorry I just blank when I see such incredibly beautiful women I guess!” ...Well that was unexpected, in all of Dahlia's many many years of doing these kinds of missions she's never had such a positive reaction to her arrival before, at least not one so vocal. Her? Beautiful? What? What a strange human this is, she can barely keep her body from being washed over entirely in red before responding.

“W-what? Incredibly beautiful? I can't say I've heard that one too often, usually you humans are terrified of me!” Dahlia can't help but let out an amused giggle at this adorable little sophont. This is becoming a very interesting day.

“Terrifying? What? Of course not! I mean…kinda but like that's part of what makes you so pretty, I-I mean never mind! I'm just going to shut up before I embarrass myself further…Thank you for saving me. I owe you so much for this.”...This human is VERY interesting. She LIKES that she is a bit frightening? Oh how unbelievably precious, this human owes her nothing, saving her was enough and her little confession has made her day. At least she knows that the red face was simply a blush she supposes.

After explaining to the human that she was going to take her back to the ship for some food and medical exam, she lifts her up into her vines and presses Amelia against them and allows her biorhythm to happily thrum in the little human’s ears. Dahlia thinks she might finally be able to make a new friend!