The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Siebundzwanzig-komma-ein: Extras Neun und Zehn
Kapitel Neun: Fotomöglichkeit
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Aboard the Kiev, it was a relatively normal day. 'Relative' was the key word there, as a normal day aboard the Russian school ship almost always included some kind of chaos, whether it be from drunk Russians doing any number of quirky things or some kind of spectacular failure in the structure of some building or an exemplary display of what not to do when piloting a vehicle, which may or may not have been caused by drunk Russians. If it wasn't anyone drowned in vodka, then otherwise the cause was most likely a bear looking to entertain itself.
Today's instance of chaos came in the form of someone without any clothes on driving by a restaurant with a Jerry-rigged contraption that could only be described as a motorized bath tub. The front half of a motorcycle frame was taken and attached to the front of an empty bath tub, which had a hastily-rigged double-axle setup supporting it off the ground. The wheels of those two axles had an overly excessive amount of negative camber as a result of the Jerry-rigged installation being not of the best quality. It was powered by a simple air-cooled V-twin two-stroke engine and had a basic single-speed chain drive transmission delivering power to the more forward of the two axles.
Sasha, Nudelmann, Nonna, and Katyusha all paid the motorized bath tub no mind as they walked inside the restaurant. After all, stuff like that happened a lot aboard the Kiev. The restaurant they walked into was a relatively small establishment called 'Perestroika.' It was similar in layout to a bar, with the side the door and windows were on lined with booths and a full-length bar counter opposite.
The four Russians soon seated themselves at a booth, with Katyusha and Sasha taking the side closest to the window, Nonna beside Katyusha, and Nudelmann across from her beside Sasha.
Within several seconds of being seated, they all noticed a young blonde waitress walk towards them with a polite and friendly smile. "Dobro pozhalovat' v Perestroiku!" she welcomed them all to the restaurant. "Vy budete chto-nibud' pit'?"
"Ya budu vodku," Nudelmann responded to the offer for drinks without hesitation.
"Bud'te dobry, prinesite vodki," Nonna requested vodka as well.
"Vodki mne!" Katyusha also requested as she sat up to try and make herself taller, though only succeeding in bringing more attention to her.
Sasha remained quiet, as he was distracted sketching out a new idea for something he could build on a napkin. This time, the creation looked awfully similar to a cross between a car and a wingsuit, with the driver laying flat and their limbs extending to all four wheels. The car itself was extremely low-slung, giving the resemblance to a wingsuit gliding only inches off the ground. The body was similar to a skeleton, though it was designed to have actively adjusting panels for aerodynamic benefits, as well as to flex with the suspension itself, giving an even greater resemblance to a wingsuit. Even more intriguing was the detailed specification for a laser propulsion system behind the driver, or rather more accurately, between their legs, which provided power via thrust generated from laser pulses.
The blonde Russian engineer finally snapped out of it when Nudelmann nudged him. "Khm, chego tebe?" he went dumbly, demonstrating his lack of awareness very well. He looked around at everyone else, including the young blonde waitress, and finally seemed to remember that they were ordering drinks earlier as his eyebrows rose. "Akh, mne togo zhe." He then returned to his napkin sketches, continuing to refine everything as he saw fit. His behavior didn't suggest he had even bothered stopping his sketching in the first place.
The young blonde waitress slowly blinked at Sasha's behavior before shaking her head and putting back on her inviting smile. "Khorosho, ya skoro vse prinesu," she notified that their drinks would be there soon. "Pochemu by vam ne posmotret' nashe menyu tem vremenem? Potom ya primu vash zakaz!" She left them after suggesting they take a look at the menu and that she would be back soon to take their orders.
Nudelmann shot a look saying 'really?' to Sasha, and then he smacked him when he didn't even bother to look up from his resumed sketching.
"Ow!" the blonde Russian engineer lurched forward from the hit. He quickly recovered and looked down at his sketching, which had a streak through it. He then turned on the black-haired Russian sharpshooter, looking mad about his sketches being ruined. "Hey, I spent a lot of time on this!"
"All of forty-five seconds he spent on that one…" Nonna muttered as she and Katyusha watched the boys bicker from across. The smaller of the two girls snickered at her remark, while the taller girl simply opened up her menu and browsed. "So, what do you see that you like, Katyusha?"
The diminutive Russian hastily opened up her own menu to scour for something she liked. Finally, she found it. "Okroshka!" she claimed.
Nonna nodded in acknowledgment. "Okay, so you'll be ordering the neutral variety, right?" she hazarded a guess, thinking about what would be best for the diminutive Russian.
"Don't treat me like a child!" Katyusha snapped back, clearly unsatisfied with the basic okroshka dish. "I want the spicy variety!"
Nonna raised an eyebrow, as if questioning if Katyusha was sure. "With the white okroshka kvass?" she offered, making it clear that she didn't expect the smaller of them to say yes.
"With the white okroshka kvass!" Katyusha boldly confirmed, still feeling as if she was being challenged.
With an acquiescing sigh, Nonna turned back to pick out her own selection from the menu. "Alright, if you're sure…" she forewarned.
Nudelmann and Sasha caught wind of the conversation the girls had and halted their bickering. Nudelmann leaned close to Sasha and muttered, "This should be good."
Sasha huffed in amusement, knowing that seeing Katyusha try to eat the more hardcore okroshka would be very, very, very entertaining.
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The four of them all ordered, and as Katyusha demanded, she got her hardcore spicy okroshka several minutes later. After seeing it, however, she looked about ready to gag.
The cold soup's sheer spiciness could be felt even without consuming it, as Katyusha could feel her eyes water when she brought up the first spoon. "Okh ty zh yo," she muttered upon realizing just how hardcore Perestroika's spicy-variety okroshka was.
But Katyusha wasn't one to back down, and with great effort, she slowly brought up her spoon to take the first serving of the soup.
Simultaneously, Nonna was bringing her phone up to take a picture of the moment. Nudelmann was doing the same, only he was holding the phone in portrait mode as opposed to Nonna in landscape mode and subtly bringing it above the table. Sasha simply watched out of the corner of his eye, momentarily pausing his sketching.
As if sensing she was the center of attention again, Katyusha abruptly stopped lifting up the spoon and turned on Nonna. The tall IS-2 gunner quickly turned away simultaneously to evade suspicion. Across from her, Nudelmann brought up his phone and made himself appear to be checking something on it, erasing suspicion from him also. Finally, Sasha looked down again and resumed his sketching, also escaping suspicion.
But Katyusha knew something was off with all of them and stared at them all for a bit longer before returning back to her task of taking her first spoonful of the okroshka. She decided to quickly do it this time, to hopefully escape any attempts at embarrassing photos as well as to just get it over with more quickly.
In the meantime, Sasha discreetly nudged Nudelmann and caught Nonna's eye. He subtly pointed to his left eye, which was noticeably different in having a black iris color versus his naturally blue right eye, and the two other Russians both quickly caught on. Nonna sharply nodded in acknowledgment and Nudelmann gave the blonde Russian a thumbs-up underneath the table.
Katyusha quickly gulped down the spoonful of okroshka, and immediately felt the spiciness in the vegetables used for it, as well as the sourness of the white okroshka kvass. The combined effect made her face turn red as it scrunched up.
Watching her, Sasha decided that now was the time to do what the other two Russians wanted to do as well: take a photo of Katyusha's hilarious expression. So when the diminutive Russian's face turned red and scrunched up, the Russian engineer's left eye flashed.
Katyusha immediately looked to Sasha, the flash catching her off guard and arousing her suspicions. But the Russian engineer had a perfectly neutral face as he continued sketching on his napkin, leaving the diminutive Russian with little to back her suspicions of him, and so she turned away back to her okroshka, dismissing the flash as just a figment of her imagination.
Simultaneously, Nonna and Nudlemann's phones both vibrated with an incoming message from Sasha. Both pulled up their phones to check. The message was the picture of Katyusha the Russian engineer had just taken with his eye-camera. The two sharpshooters had to exercise an extreme amount of restraint to keep from bursting out into laughter from how hilarious Katyusha's expression was in the photo.
Both of the black-haired Russians made mental notes to praise Sasha for his covert camera. With that wonderfully-disguised gadget, they could now capture precious Katyusha moments without the risk of her finding out and foiling their attempts.
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Part of Projekt Jägermeistern.
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The author doesn't claim to own "Girls und Panzer" or any other references made. "Girls und Panzer" belongs to Actas. Any references made belong to their respective owners.
Feel free to ask any questions if you have them. Please note, however, that questions asked without being signed in will not be answered. The author would prefer to address questions outside of the story, and leaving questions while signed in provides that ability.
Special thanks to ChillingComrade for his Russian expertise.