Lavani Crane

"God dammit, Hunter!"

Background
ACCESSING A.R.E.S. INITIATIVE DATABASE... SEARCH: "Lavani Crane" SHOWING 10 OUT OF 162 RESULTS RUN: PRIMEINTERVIEW.AVI EXECUTE = Y LOADING...

//The file starts, showing a young, fresh-face Vani sitting down from the waist up, hands folded against the tabletop before her. The date in the corner is some ten years before the current date. There is a disembodied voice that clearly belongs to the interviewer, who is the first to speak and never shown; the camera doesn't move through out the entirety of the interview, the focus staying entirely on Vani.//

State your name, rank, and hometown for the record.

"Uh, well... Loretta King. Initiate, I guess? And Albany."

''Very good. From now on you'll go by a new identity; Agent Lavani Crane. Your new home town is Scottsdale, Arizona. You will--''

"Whoa, whoooooa, what the actual hell?"  "Are you serious with this? Lavani? Is that even a real name? And Scottsdale? You show me one black woman that's ever said Scottsdale is her hometown and I will eat my hat."

Let the record show Agent Crane is not wearing a hat.

"I-- of course the record's gonna show I'm not wearing a hat, there's a camera right there--"

Let the record show Agent Crane is gesturing towards the camera.

"...Seriously?"  "Wow. And here I thought this was going to be more, I don't know, James Bond-y than this."

Let the record show that Agent Crane is not satisfied with the Ian Fleming levels of the organization--

"Oh for God's sake!" //Vani grits her teeth and swats at the camera. The footage cuts to pure static for several seconds before refocusing, this time with Vani sitting back in her chair, hands now bound together by a zip tie, an agitated look on her face.//

Are we settled down now, Agent Crane?

//A muffled huff of agreement comes from Vani, who flexes her fingers and sighs.//

''Very good. So, back to the questions at hand... How did you find out about the A.R.E.S. initiative?''

"Well the flyer in the library was very persuasive..."

Let the record show that Agent Crane is a smart ass.

"Fine, fine, I was attending a protest rally for--"

Not one of those uppity, close-minded, anti-human-robotic-relations rallies, I should hope?

"I-- what? No. Why would that--"

''Nothing! Nothing, nooooothing at aaaaall... please, go on.''

"Riiiight. Uh, anyhow, I'm at the protest, and this Upper East-side, rich socialite comes sauntering out of Saks Fifth Avenue decked head to toe in fur, and, you know, I decided to chuck some paint at her--"

Was that stuffed-shirt harpy of a woman Toni Bonner?

"Hmm? Uh, yeah, but I never said that words 'harpy of a woman'--"

''Oh you will, you will. Ahem. What I meant to say was of course not, uh, strike that statement from the record. Please, go on.''

 "So, paint can in hand, I'm ready to douse the woman, and she straight up pulls a freaking 9mm out of her bag, like, no sweat, there is was, just locked and ready to go, and this bi-- er, this woman has the gall to point the thing at me and tell me she triple dog dared me to go through with it. Like, who the hell does she think she is? A gun? Right on the street, in front of everybody, no one says a damn thing, but if she thought she was going to splatter my brains all over Fifth Avenue she was in for a surprise. So I'm standing there and--"

And your moxie won her over, right right, got it.

"If you already know what happened why the hell are we doing this interview?"

''Well I wanted to try out my new robo-video-recorder. Look! It has night vision! //The scene shifts, everything is suddenly bathed in a dim green light. The look on Vani's face could kill.// Haha! Neeeeat!''

"Are we done here?"

''Sure, sure, I'm bored anyhow. You're hired. You're getting partnered up with... Agent Hunter, it looks like. So... have fun with that...''

"What, that's it? Just like that?"

You did just ask me if we were done here...

"Well-- well yeah, but that seems so... lackluster for an interview to join a secret organization--"

''Lemme level with you, Agent Crane. We needed a diversity hire and you fill in at least two blanks. You don't happen to be a lesbian, do you? Cause that'd take care of a third...''

"OH FOR GOD'S SAKE."

VIDEO FILE HAS ENDED. PLAY AGAIN? ENTER: N

Continuing Adventures
'' To be added. ''

Death
'' To be added. ''

Personality
Calm, confident, courageous, and calculating; Lavani Crane is all of these things. Or, at least, she can be when the job calls for it. Funny, charming, ditzy, smart, any adjective one can think of can be applied to Agent Crane under any number of different circumstances. She is a professional, adaptable and fearless, the ultimate black suit...

She is also, unfortunately, Irving Hunter's partner.

Or maybe "handler" would be a more apt description. All the grace and poise Vani possesses, all the patience and professionalism are constantly put to the test by her fellow field agent. The mind-blowing capacity for the man to be either utterly inept or impossibly skilled at what he does at given moment is constant source of irritation for Vani, who spends half her time on missions playing babysitter to her loose cannon of a partner. They haven't died yet, clearly, but Agent Crane isn't counting out the possibility just yet.

Maybe there wouldn't be quite as much animosity and simmering rage towards Hunter if Vani hadn't broken rule number one with him. That is, she stuck her metaphorical dick in crazy, and as anyone who has can attest, crazy has a habit of sticking to you. Regrets? She's had a few, and if you as her to rattle them off, there's no contest as to what would be highlighted in big bold letters at the top.

But distance Vani from Hunter and there's still a dedicated Agent who will go to great length to make sure the Masses still believe the Truth. She's often one of the first Operatives to volunteer for any mission that involves covering up the Tradition's handiwork, and although many of her outings with her partner his numerous snags along the way, they've yet to truly, irreversibly fail any task they've been assigned. 'Irreversibly' is the keyword there; there are plenty of missions that have gone up in smoke, but one way or another, Toni manages to orchestrate a quick fix.

It isn't clear when this symbiotic relationship with her partner became an all-consuming part of her life, but it is what it is, and what it is is a horrible, out-of-control monster. Her first thought when she wakes up and the last one before she goes to bed is Irving Freaking Hunter, despite her best attempts to make it anything else. A.R.E.S. is her life, she eats sleeps and breathes it, unable to leave work behind when she heads home for the day, most likely because nine times out of ten, it follows after her like a love-sick puppy in some shape or form. The day may come when Vani is able to go five seconds without Hunter, Bonner, or A.R.E.S. as a whole isn't mucking up her life, but that day is not today.

Appearance
'' To be added. ''

Spheres

 * Correspondence: 3
 * Mind: 3
 * Forces: 3
 * Entropy: 1

Avatar
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Relations

 * N/A

Quotes

 * "To be added."