Hassan and Jim watched with slight muted awe as a combination of Faunus and standard humans welcomed them into the local pub with cheers. Another young woman was serving food and drinks, clad in a similar outfit to miss Ignatyeva, when Anna stopped her and spoke to her in Russian. The woman, a Faunus, replied with a smile and nod before showing the two boys to follow her to a table. Anna turned to face them and said, "I'll go let the Major know you're here. Until then, enjoy the food."
An accordion played as a trio of young women belted 'Kogda My Byli Na Voyne' happily, to the cheers and laughter of more of the staff. There was a sense of the culture of the Soviet-era VDV here. The camaraderie even between men and women showed the men and Diana that the spirit of the Union's fearless armed forces still lived somewhere, even if it was truly dead back home.
Sitting themselves down, the two Americans, now joined by the Romanian Sergeant, exchanged quick looks. Diana was first to say, "Well, might as well enjoy the dinner before we get to training these people," as she rifled through her uniform's pockets and pulled out some cigarettes. She hit the bottom of the carton and pulled out the first ciggy to pop up, slid it between her lips and lit it.
Jim replied, "This is kinda incredible to look at," as he examined the place. Various pieces of memorabillia hanged on the walls of the bar, including an ancient soviet flag bearing the markings of the VDV unit. Old Kalash rifles hanged on other parts, pictures of the troops deployed in Afghanistan and in East Germany in black and white and so, so much more that lined the cute little bodega that acted as the place's watering hole.
Even the counter itself had a display with two crossed old AK74s hanging above it, with the words 'Nobody but us!' written in both English and Russian above and below the display on ribbons. The staff, however, did not seem hostile when looking at the Americans or their Romanian ally. In fact, only the elderly members seemed to stare at them with some dislike, but mixed with alcohol and otherwise happy smiles.
The youth, meanwhile, seemed interested in seeing what, to them, must've been an 'old enemy' spoken about in tales, an enemy that their elders never got to face, but had been trained so much for. NATO, obviously, with the Amis being the chief 'bad guys' for the Soviets. Hassan even quipped, "They're staring at us like we're the Reaper with the Scythe, bro."
Jim snorted, "Hey, they're easy on the eyes..." before looking at Diana and asking, "How've you been, by the way, Sarge?"
"Been worse, been better," The woman replied, took a puff from the cigarette and sighed deeply, rubbing her face and asking, "You two been doing alright? I know the whole issue with the American retreat from Afghanistan wasn't all that good," only to pause. Had she said something dumb? Perhaps. Had she just brought up bad memories for the lads? Also, yes, probably.
"We're living..." Hass responded with half a mouth, suddenly looking down at the table. Both Jim and Diana winced, with the smoking woman wanting to say something to comfort him, but finding few words. She sighed and gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder instead, to which he nodded in thanks. Moments later, whatever their future thoughts would be were interrupted when the same barmaid that'd brought them to this table brought them food and drinks. Standard Russian fare of a platter full of meat, cheese and vegetables neatly arranged in rows and some Vodka, as well as three shot glasses.
Hass raised his hand when Diana offered to pour him a shot and shook his head. While he wasn't from the ye olde Middle Eastern Faith anymore, brother didn't drink more because he didn't enjoy the taste. Jim also refused the offer, to which the woman shrugged, uncapped the bottle and poured herself a shot while thanking the barmaid. She sighed and took a deep puff of her ciggy again, blowing the smoke out of her nose and stating, "Do you guys think we'll be able to train these people up?"
"Shouldn't be that bad, eh?" Jim chuckled, "The bastards already have training to use their AKs..."
"At least, we're not training ANA again," Hass joked rather darkly, smiling as he plucked up some of the ham on the platter, alongside cucumber pieces and some bread that came with the platter. He looked to Diana and asked, "I know your unit was also in Afghan, but in another AO. Did you guys have to train the Nat Army?"
"A little," She shrugged, "We mostly ran supplies between allied FOBs, though. Got our asses saved by a Polish Hind at one point which was a fucking spiritual experience... Made even the US Army platoon with us pop a stiffy," and she smirked. The boys laughed a little at that, with even Hass's eyes showing a glint of joy. Diana downed the shot of Vodka and set the bottle and glass aside, before digging into the various meats.
"Good to know Poles still know very good gear," An elderly, but deep and rough voice spoke, causing all three Misfits to turn about. A man with greying hair and a beard stood before them, clad in a very well-kept Afghanka and wearing a faded blue beret with the Soviet VDV's emblem emblazoned on its forehead stood at attention, with miss Ignatyeva right beside him. He scratched his beard as he watched Diana stand to her feet, then extended his hand and said, "Retired Major Aleksandr Volkov, of the VDV. Units don't matter today."
Diana nodded, then shook his head and said, "Pleasure to meet you, Major. I'm Sergeant Diana Dănilă, Romanian Armed Forces... You guys missed a lot," before motioning for them to take a seat with the group. Anya and him nodded.
"We know," The major replied, leaning forward, "We have a few people from around your time frame with us. Well, nearly. They appeared six years ago," and he motioned to some of the guys in actual desert camouflage pattern EMR. They raised their glasses in cheer and greeting, the AK100 series rifles beside them showing wear and tear on their bodies.
"So, that's where those guys wound up," Jim mumbled, giving a wave back to them. Hass did the same. Both turned back to face the Major, with Jim adding, "They're probably from the peace-keeping operations in Syria. Well, 'peace-keeping' is a strong word-" only to freeze as the Major lifted his hand and nodded, a slight look of disappointment on his face.
"They admitted to what was going on, huh," Diana murmured.
Anya nodded, "Da... Terrifyingly enough."
"At least they brought some good music with them," The Major joked dryly, then watched for reactions. He nodded upon seeing the joke had landed rather flat with everyone except for Anya, who giggled a little at her found family's joke, before he leaned his hands onto the table and said, "We did not bring you here to ask questions about our soldiers, nor to find out about the decay of our Motherland, however. We wished to talk about a training programme."
"Ah, of course," Diana nodded, before leaning forward and handing the man a Scroll tablet. She said to him, "In the meantime, I'm sure our Lieutenant communicated with you all our intent to maybe bring Vale back up to speed militarily. We also have positions open for that, just in case... You know, you want to serve the people whose territory you're currently in."
The man nodded and said, "Thank you. We will consider it," and it was now that Diana noticed how subdued his accent was. He looked over the files, mumbled something, thumbed to the next page and did so for the next few minutes, all while Jim simply stared at Anya as she ate and poured herself shots. She and Diana started drinking together, while Jim stared.
Hass himself sighed at the sight, shaking his head, then leaned his back into his chair. He scratched his cheek and noticed a few of the local women eyeing him. Mostly Tatars and peoples from the Kazakh areas. He gave an awkward wave to them, then turned back to the table and continued eating. Not the time to be 'window shopping' as the others said. He still was looking for someone. Two someones, in fact.
One was a friend. The other, he hoped, would be something more. Even if they'd gone their separate ways after Afghanistan. Moments later, however, the sound of violins and a guitar took his attention toward the stage. An upbeat, if melancholic tune played from the band of soldiers and youngsters, some of which Hass soon saw were wearing fairly rough copies of Strichtarn.
He looked over to the Major as the Oktoberklub version of 'Was Wollen Wir Trinken' was now being belted out by the patrons with rough Russian accents. The Major smiled at that and said to the boy, "We told them of the DDR and a few other things from our part of the Wall, Americanski. One of my boys who knows German taught them the song specifically for the tunes here."
"I see," Hass hummed, gently tapping his foot to the song of the drinkers. He watched Diana and Anya get more and more inebriated, laughing together while Diana smoked, then turned to face the major again, stating, "Hope the training regimen we've come up with is good for you all."
"Perfect, in fact," The Major nodded, then smirked, "You can start tomorrow. Today, you rest and eat. Send a message to your Lieutenant that you've arrived safely when we're done, of course."
"One of us is gonna have to take a bottle of this stuff to Pavel," Jim lifted the bottle with a smile. The Major let out a short laugh at that, then gave approval. Standing up ,he showed the others to enjoy their drinks and food in peace. Jim and Hassan looked to one-another again, then shrugged and got to eating while Diana and Anya proceeded to get more and more drunk.
When Hass had gone up to his room in the place's central 'Dacha'-style Villa, where they were being housed, he found a cozy, quaint, if slightly Spartan room. There were fresh changes of clothes, warm, freshly-pressed cotton sheets and the likes on the bed, a nice oak desk with a comfy chair, a window, a couple lamps and even a personal bathroom.
He took his gear off, removed his sweat-draped shirt and set it aside and entered the bathroom, finding a shower, normal toilet, big mirror, nice furniture, the whole shtick. He decided it was probably best to take a shower now, clean his clothes after at the local laundromat(Which was strangely American). He unholstered his pistol, set it on the marble counter next to the shower, easy to reach, then took his clothes off and entered the shower.
Katja was playing with a ball she'd found by random chance when she saw Vera enter the house, setting her gear aside. She greeted, "How're you holding up, Spetsnaz?" as she saw small marks poking out from underneath the woman's collar. Vera nodded, then walked over to her room to change into her standard, baggy clothes, presumably. The polak sighed deeply, then turned to staring at the ceiling again as she played with the ball.
She saw Vesna leave her room instead, then smirked. Noting the wagging, fluffy tail with a white tip and the black-tipped, blonde ears, Katja asked, "Hey, Ves. Ya think Vic's gonna like the upgrades?" causing her Russian friend to yelp and turn toward her, embarrassed. Kat stood up from the couch, twirling the baseball in her hand as she watched Ves clean stuff up. She put a hand on the girl's shoulder, noticing a light twitch, then said, "Hey. It's alright."
"Y-Yeah..." Vesna replied, then let out a quiet sigh of relief. She looked at Katja and replied with an awkward, "I hope he likes..." and soon, her tail wagged and ears twitched out of embarrassment. The girl smiled a little while Katja let out a short laugh, both of them trying to imagine poor Vic reacting to the sight of his would-be girlfriend with a tail and ears.
That caused Vesna's human ears to flush and Katja could swear she saw a little steam come out of her ears when she figured the thought they had in common. The Polak then patted the girl on the back, chuckling. She told her, "How do they actually feel, by the way? Like, having tails and ears probably can't be easy, considering now you gotta figure out ways to sit and sleep..."
"Oh, that was quite easy," Vesna smiled, tail wagging, "Sleeping on my side or my stomach was a little harder than I thought to get used to, but the situation turned out okay in the end," then she led Katja over to the coffee maker. The two poured themselves a cup each of black coffee, which they then sorta sweetened with milk and some artificial sweeteners.
Kat told her, "Huh. Good on you for adapting this quick," before eyeing Anja as the girl brought out her medical kit. She waved to them, basically telling them she was going to her 'side gig'. Working in a Valeian hospital, namely. One that was very close by that tended to any and everyone regardless of background. The two waved back at the redhead Finn, watching her leave, before Kat commented, "I swear, when we retire, she and Alex are gonna make their own clinic."
Vesna giggled at that, then blew into her coffee, mind wandering toward the old promise. She scratched her chest where her old necklace used to be, then sighed deeply and sipped from her coffee. Kat snorted and shook her head, then looked over to her Beryl and HK417. The fact she'd been allowed to bring two guns felt like a Chekov's move honestly, meaning one would be lost in favor of the other.
"Kurwa, it's been a while since we just got to sit and chat like this," The Polak with purple eyes observed, looking around as Ayesha and Lita finally emerged from their and Vesna's dorm with yawns. Zielinska jabbed a thumb toward the coffee, then offered, "It's been one hell of a run, trying to find you all in the clusterfuck. At least, so I heard from the others..."
Vesna looked over to Katja, then paused as she saw the faint traces of burn marks. She asked, "I am not sure if we've asked this before, Katja, but how did you pass?"
Kat winced, then sighed deeply and replied, "Nuclear blast hit Krakow," only to hear Ayesha choke and Lita nearly spit her coffee. The trio of women looked at her with wide eyes, with her stating, "Yeah, I know," as her voice grew lower, angrier, "I saw the fuck. I saw him. Briefcase nuke and everything. Before I even had the chance to draw my pistol... It was all white."
Ves put a hand on the girl's shoulder and nodded, "Who did it?"
Katja, who by now seemed ready to burst into a scream fest(She was, mostly due to the memories of that burning-hot flash coming back), instead breathed deeply in and out, then shook her head and spoke, voice low, tired, "Black League, going by the emblem..." and paused as she saw both Ayesha and Lita's faces turn just that faint bit angrier with furrowed brows and otherwise impassive expressions.
"This has been a whiplash of a conversation," Vera observed as she walked out in a baggy grey hoodie and pants. She walked over to them and told them, "How about we let it go for now and focus on the objectives of the day? I'm sure we have some jobs we need to deal with right now that don't involve all six of us being fucking pissed at a bunch of our former countrymen."
"Fair," Ves sighed deeply. The other three nodded as well, while Anja was still away at her job, obviously. She then pulled up her scroll and looked through their future jobs, noting, "We'll have escort duty for some local company men and women, a mission to protect a convoy heading through a pretty bad part of Vale's downtown, or food escort for a village in the Forever Falls."
"Village in the Falls," The others immediately said, with Vesna not even daring comment against it. She shrugged, figuring she was gonna trust her family's choice. Part of her mind remained stuck on hopefully finding Victor and the others, but any mission that took them around the bend gave them a better chance at finding their friends. Not to mention inquiries into the up-and-coming PMC were slowly turning up details.
... She had a feeling they'd have a few bigger things to deal with soon, though.
Vale Port
The thunderclap of shotguns, both semi-automatic and double-barrel, filled the air, muffling the click of heels and the hiss and flash of Aura powering through the enemy's gunshots. Shattering glass filled the ears of the shouting shooters as they called to each-other in their own foreign language, before the first of them had his throat slit clean open, staining the jacket he wore a dark shade of red.
His buddy swore, screamed in surprise as a brown-white-pink blur appeared ahead of him. The tip of a blade glinted in the recessed lights of the place, followed by the sickening swish of the blade puncturing the man's throat. A pair of riflemen in body armor pushed up, firing on the girl as she dodged out of the way, opening her parasol/blade combo with a smug grin and watching the rounds miss her entirely or shatter on it.
Of course, the shots drained her Aura, so she had to move fast. The rat bastards that had come in, trying to claim their territory, did not realize who the hell they were messing with. She surged forth again, retracting the blade at the tip of her weapon before striking the leading rifleman with the blunt, Aura-reinforced parasol. His teeth cracked and the nose snapped, causing him to groan in pain.
She smirked, swept the legs of the man next to him from underneath, engaged the blade in her parasol again and plunged it clean through the man's throat. May as well be surgical with her murders, she thought. Heh, not like these bandits were good for much more than a little hands-on combat practice.
Two more men pushed forward, followed by another four. All of them fired their weapons at her, but the rounds zipped past her, or clean through her mirrors. Yes, her Aura was draining, but these skive bastards would not lay a hand on her scrunkly old man. Dumping another mirror form and letting it shatter, she appeared from above the riflemen, one of them immediately sweeping his rifle up. Bullets hit past her, drilling holes into the corrugated metal roof and shattering glass.
Through the rain of shards, Neopolitan, Master Assassin, flew, puncturing the first man's helmet and the top of his head before disengaging the blade. Landing with a combat roll and stunning their newfound hostiles with her agility, the girl slammed the grip of her parasol into one man's groin, causing him to drop his weapon. She kicked the weapon up and grabbed it mid-flight, brandishing it with flourish at the next man ahead of her.
She put two rounds through him before the weapon, a rusty-looking piece of trash, jammed through a stovepipe, the bolt biting into a brass case that had failed to eject. She tossed it aside, kicked back and high, feeling bone crunch underneath the heel of her boot, then grabbed a fairly small pistol off of the floor and shot four more men in the head. If there was one thing Neo was good at ever since teaming up with her scrunkly boss, it was murder.
When the pistol ran dry, she used it as a projectile, throwing it up and slamming it with her parasol like it was a baseball. It hit a guy in the face, disorienting him and surprising his buddy enough for her to kill both of them with thrusts through the throat. Several more, heavier-caliber rounds soon hit her. Her aura flickered, a faint pink field wrapped around her body, before shattering.
One round nicked her cheek and another, her right thigh. She jumped into cover, suddenly breathing heavily and feeling the exertion, her blood dripping on the concrete. The men ahead, clad in heavy armors with titanium masks on their armored helmets, pushed forward, firing high-caliber belt-fed machine guns at her... Only to disappear in a cloud of smoke, ash and red mist as the whine of Melodic Cudgel filled her ears.
She looked back, eyes wide, then beamed as she saw him. With a black bowler hat with a red ribbon, ginger hair, emerald eyes and killer makeup, clad in a white and black suit that spoke of swagger and style and a grin and cane to die for, Roman Torchwick walked in, stating in a rather challenging and dashingly smug tone, "Oops. Seems my finger slipped. Darnedest things happen when you try and kill me..."
He walked into the place, a grin on his face as a few more Bandit corpses lay behind him, then asked, "Am I interrupting your fun, Neo?" as he saw her bleeding. She could almost see the anger boiling in his green eyes when she walked to him. She grinned, shrugged, then leaned against his shoulder in a slightly seductive way, staring at the boxes she'd taken cover behind. Roman nodded, stating, "Alright then. C'mon out, ya dumb girl."
A figure clad in a brown jacket and cargo pants stepped out, a golden pistol drawn and trained on the two of them. Her brown eyes peered down the sights of the pistol as she prepared to air both of them out. She spoke in a thick accent, "Your little friend is out of that magical bullshit, suka... One bullet's all it'll take," with an unearned level of confidence.
Roman snorted, then said, "Oh, please, kid..." as he approached the young woman. She shot several rounds from her pistol before Roman closed distance, slammed his cane into her hip and grabbed the pistol out of her hand, before pinning her down with his foot. He pointed Melodic Cudgel at her head and said, "You're not in control here," with that same level of smug as he'd waded in with.
"Wait, wait, wait!" The woman started with panic in her voice, hands waving wildly, her long black hair now flowing over the concrete, "I have business proposal! Had one from the get-go before you started shooting, all from my bosses!"
The two hardened criminals looked to one-another. Neo smiled and nodded, to which Roman laughed, then looked down at her and asked, "Well, why didn't you say so from the get-go?!" only to murmur, "Would've wasted way less ammo if you would've," and take his foot off her chest, offering his hand while still keeping his weapon pointed at her. No trust yet, huh?