No Life 'Til Leather

by NUmaker

Sometimes shit happens. Hey, it's not always your day, it's alright. One moment you're riding high, soaring above these mud-riddled plains with the king of mercs by your side, another, you're running far away from the crater he blew himself up in. You've really outdone yourself this time. W's dead, there's angel blood on your fingers and something itches to grow out of your skull.

4. And Justice for All

Everything comes at a price.

Freedom, the sense of having your hands untied, unbound by any parasitic force that tries to force you under its reign, that's one of those costly novelties. Food and shelter come at a close second. Something about the Sarkaz race lacking all three, something about the devils forever tumbling around Terra without a place to call home rings in your mind. Familiar? You were never an ace when it came to history, no. You barely even know how your own city came to be. Always had a knack for maths, though, haven't you? Tell me then, what comes of this equation;

You take a grumpy, uneducated, unwashed, groggy, highly mentally unstable girl with a slight superiority complex, and a strong affinity for ripping apart any moron who dares oppose her, and you add a meek, weak little gray cat who dared wake her from a feverish slumber. You mush them together, what do you get?

Well, you get what you pay for. You get a cacophony of metal clashing against metal, pans clinking against pans, quickly followed by a few yells and tearing of tarp. After that, come a few meaty thuds and finally, you get yourself a purple patch under your eye and a frown forced upon your face. In the makeshift kitchen, under the gray tarps, with all the gas stoves, the fires and ori-flames burning high, you find yourself standing by the side of that disgruntled fiend-girl who now happens to feel a little bit better than she did just a few moments ago. An ass-whooping really does brighten one's day, but ruins the other's.

So, as Andy stood there, staring down at both his bent-apart pans, the white-haired girl by his side whistled out a little tune, preparing her potato-slaying kit. A little peeler and the real W's knife.

"... Next time," She began voicing one of her incredibly wisdomful anecdotes. "... Next time, Lawdog, think twice with that holy brain of yours. Next time I'm splattering you over the snow, got it~?"

Andy did get it. He nodded and sighed, casting both metal instruments aside. Gone were his days of playing "W's" own alarm clock, she made sure of that. With a careful rub, he soothed the bruise on his face and murmured. "... Got it, yeah."

"Good~! Good, though I did kinda like…-" She perked up again, with a chuckle. Halfway through her word-vomit, she stopped and dropped both knives into the snow. "What the FUCK happened to you?"

Andy jerked his gaze away from the pitiful, bent metal and met her eyes. With a tug of an eyebrow, he signaled his genuine confusion. "What?"

"What? WHAT? Look at you!" The girl whistled away and scurried over. Andy took a step back, so she pressed on even closer. "This! Look! Oh, I haven't even noticed when beating the shit out of you…" Her hands shot forward and immediately latched onto his newly grown horns. Most thoughts had left his head by this point, as he was left staring at her with eyes wide open, unknowing whether the fiend wanted to finish him off or just touch those plaguing marks a little. "... Gods, look at this. Now you look like half a man, at least. How? How the hell did you…?"

"Can you let go?" Squirming in her grasp, he whimpered a little and took a step back. With genuine curiosity, "W" tilted her head.

"No? Never seen horns on a Lawie, much less a…" Her eyes went wide as the sight of his tail reaching mach ten in terms of wagging speed slipped past her gaze. "A tail, too? The hell did you do?"

"I fell, bite me." Andy retorted and pushed the girl away. With a slap to the wriggling worm by his back, he calmed the tail down and brushed a few strands of hair back, behind those blackened horns of his.

"Fell?" As if in a trance, she forgot to punch him back for shoving away. "Fell, where? Into a vat with horn and tail growing chemicals? I don't get it." The girl blinked like a chameleon, first the right eye, then the left.

"Wh-... No, I FELL, as in… As in, like a Sankta. A fallen Sankta, that's what I am now." He resigned to his fate with a sigh. The tail wrapped around his leg to offer some affectionate solace, but the boy shook it right off. "A fallen… Fallen, useless wench." A pitiful murmur to finish it off. W blinked again.

"... What?"

"What?" His eyebrows furrowed.

"The hell are you talking about? I mean, I agree with the last part, you are kinda useless, but what do you mean "fallen"? What's that mean?"

"You…" Now, he blinked. "You seriously don't know?"

"No? Does it have to do anything with your stupid Law?"

"Yeah?"

"Then how the hell do you expect me to know? Not everything revolves around you, Law-bootlickers. Hell, I'd rather voluntarily get tortured by some grade F's, than sit down and read the implications and rules of that moronic religion of yours." "W" spat on the ground and pointed at his halo. "That thing? T-... Oh, it's not shiny anymore. Good riddance, but still. That thing? That thing has never experienced what the Sarkaz race had gone through. Not anything remotely close."

"... Okay?" Andy took a small break from talking altogether. "... Do you STILL want to know what it means to fall?"

"Yeah, duh." Almost immediately, without a second thought, the girl scoffed back. "Obviously."

"..."

He wanted to roll his eyes. The mere thought of another face-battering from the fiend prevented him from doing so, as the two of them laid down their cooking utensils and sat down. Andy sprawled himself comfortably on top of some crate covered with a few thick layers of deep gray fabrics, while the fiend took a seat on the snow, crossing her cargo-clad legs and staring up at the boy like a lost puppy. He's never seen her this genuinely interested by anything he's ever had to say, so the sight brought along a few hesitant thoughts of a grander, more mischievous scheming on her part taking place. But as he started waffling and babbling about the White City and its inhabitants' customs, not even once did she interrupt. The camp itself had long sprung to life by this point. Most, if not all, devils who were left to tend to the settlement's structural balance while the elite strike team had left, were strolling around the tents, preparing to silently fulfill their grim duties. Men, women, anything in between, crawling around the snowy grounds like ants, heading for the armories, the rag-tag tailoring stations and watchposts. Some who passed by the open air field-kitchen, cigarette or a coffee mug in hand, shot glances towards the ex-angel boy, who sat atop his crate and explained diligently the loss of his radiance and innocence to the very same devil girl, who terrorized the camp with her presence each day. Like a curious animal, who got a bit too close to the warmth of a settler's campfire, she sat sheepishly on the cold snow and listened, her bright, orange eyes soaking in the words, letting them enter her mind's vast, empty void through one ear, then exit right out through the other. By the end of his grand tirade, Andy took a deep breath and prepared his finale.

"... So yeah." He summed up. "That's how a Sankta falls."

"Uh-huh." "W" nodded her head. Andy's little explanation went in depth into what the Law considered right and wrong, the thirteen rules and general knowledge that shouldn't ever have been bestowed upon any devil. She was now enlightened. A true transcendent being on her way into the light's warm embrace. "... So, if I got that right, you mean to tell me you're not only a traitor of the Sakraz race… But also your own, yeah?" The girl asked, the ascending hex gone in the blink of an eye. Andy frowned.

"... Not a "traitor", I just… Just had to do what I did." He muttered under his breath and turned away from her face. A steady smirk had already started tugging at her lips, which only made him want to punch her more.

"Oh, sure. "Had to do what you did", yeah." With a snortle, she stood from the ground and wiped the snow off her pants. "I mean, I can respect that. Killing Laterans for fun? Real nice, I gotta say. Maybe we do have SOME things in common, ah?"

"I didn't "kill them for fun!" Andy snarled back. "How dense are you?"

"Very. But only to liars and such. Telltales, hoaxers, con-idiots, fibbers… You get the gist." She flicked him one. Right between the eyes, it hurt a little. "Traitors, too. You start grandiose, backstab your own race, then what? Gonna do the same with us?"

"What do you mean "with us"? I've been here way longer than you."

"So? Doesn't mean you won't turn your slimy, little toys on us. Us. You know, the real deal." The girl paused. Against Andy's will, she tapped him on the horns, then grabbed the tail wrapped around his leg and tugged a little too hard. The wriggly worm perked up and clung to her touch. "... That's kinda cute."

"Can you… Okay, stop, first of all." No matter how hard he tried, the tail wouldn't budge. Growing in frustration, the boy tried focusing his entire will on the worm, like he would with a originium cartridge, only for the tail to cling to the girl's hand even tighter. "... How do you even control this thing?"

"Control? You're not controlling this?" She tilted her head, confused. "You can't control your own tail?"

"No? It's just flinging all over the place."

"..." Her smug expression dropped for a moment, as she examined her tail-wrapped hand close. "... Even your own tail prefers me over you, damn."

"Shut up." Andy muttered back and tugged forcefully on the slithery serpent. A shriek of silent pain crawled up his spine, then went back down again, somewhat reminiscent of the tiny, electric flicks the Law would send him. He gritted his teeth, as the tail finally let go of the girl's hand and wrapped itself around his leg. "... I'm supposed to just live with this thing now?"

"Yeah? Adds character. Makes you less vomit-inducing."

"Fuck you."

"Oh, tough words. Very scary. Surely doesn't make me want to gut you more. Surely." "W" scoffed and sat on the very edge of their makeshift kitchen worktop. "... But guess what? Can't or they'll kick me out. Why these people put so much trust in an angel, I do not know. Never will, probably. It does make some more sense, now that you're somewhat less of an eyesore, but still. Once a Sankta, always a Sankta, yeah?"

"Honestly, what is your problem?" Andy pulled the tail and tied it up like a rope, before shoving it somewhere down the abyss of his cargo reach-me-downs. "W" let out a quick chuckle and grabbed her potato-peeling tools off the ground. In one hand, the skin-carver, ready to tear apart anything placed between its sharp teeth, in the other, a little, brown ball of dirt, with a golden, mushy inside hidden underneath the layer of earth-armor.

"My problem? That you're still breathing. Better yet, breathing and speaking in my vicinity. Mostly that's it."

"So you just hate me for no reason?"

"Oh, no, no. Of course not. Hate you without a reason? Come on. " She cut with a snortle. "... Got plenty of reasons."

"Ugh…" He groaned in exasperation. "You're the worst. Out of this entire, whole camp, there's not a single ot-..."

"Okay, I'm the worst, got it. Done. You wanna keep yapping or actually be useful?" The smugness returned in full force, tugging at her lips to mold them into a cocky smirk. Upon hearing the boy's unflinching silence, she tossed the peeled potato into a cold, snow-ice bath by her feet and grabbed another one. "Thought so. Catch."

"..." Andy caught the dirt-bulb and let his gaze fall down to his hands. Once, tools of mass destruction fit for a rifle's grip. Now, though? What good even was he? Reduced to a potato peeler, thrown into the same category as this creature by his side. It was enough to make him frown. "Got a spare knife?"

"Spare? Sure, but I'm not giving you my stuff. Should be some in that pile." She threw back, already busy with skinning alive yet another poor golden-mush bulb, and pointed towards a few crates scattered in the open tent's corner. "... Actually, wait."

"...?" Reaching for the crate, Andy stopped dead in his tracks. "What?"

"I'll get it for you~." She chirped back, dropping her tools and plodding over. "... Okay? I'm trying to do you a favor. It's cluttered in there."

Kneeling side by side, the two exchanged glances. "... You sure?" Andy raised both eyebrows at her sudden eagerness to lend him her cold, pale hand.

"Mhm. Shush. Away, angel-boy. Go, start peeling with my knife, I'll find the other." The girl nodded back and gently shoved him away from the crate. At her sudden, handsy assault, the boy let out a little "hey!" of protest, but eventually listened. Scoffing and huffing by the worktop, his hands clenched tightly around the skin-carving steel. One by one, each stroke of muscle took off a significant amount of the dirt-crust that protected the insides, leaving the potatoes all bare and golden. Messy cutting led to a pile of disfigured bulbs forming at the wooden plank they used for their cooking needs, all eager to be thrown into a pot and boiled. Andy, however, had something different in mind than the premise of a warm dinner simmering over a smoldering fire. His thoughts were occupied by the implications of his current predicament.

He fell. Not much to add. Grown horns, grown a tail that he can't even really control. Speaking of, the bastard managed to untuck itself from his pants and roamed free across the crisp, North Kazdelian air. As if watching curiously, it curled by his side and decided to be his only, silent witness to the peeling process taking place. His thoughts were a complete mess, completely unable to focus properly on the task at hand, causing each bulb to be more uneven than the last. Sizable chunks of skin covered, yellow goodness were being thrown away, while the "peeled" potatoes kept shrinking in the tail's very "eyes." It tapped him on the arm.

"...?"

Andy's gaze shot downcast, near immediately latching onto the little, leathery culprit. Like an ace of spades, the tail's flaky tip "stared" back. What a strange freak of nature, he thought. Needles of frustration bit into his heart at the sight, cementing the idea of never being accepted into Sankta society ever again, all thanks to this little, black worm. And the horns, obviously.

He finished up cutting a potato, this one, probably his best work so far. More of a carved piece of art than anything fit for consumption, it took the shape of a winter tomtit by complete accident. Staring into the eye of his very own tail, the boy's mind became overridden with dark clouds of malicious intent, a silent murmur of an idea so vile and terrifying that it might've just proven to be the answer to his situation, even if just temporary. Without hesitation, he grabbed the tail and slammed it against the plank.

It wriggled anxiously, unaware of its owner's intentions. With eyes fully blank, void of reasoning, Andy slowly lowered his peeling knife down to the worm's middle part. The place to strike, as the base was too difficult to access. Half its length, though? Might be enough to force it into his pants, hide forever. Still, the price to pay for such a beauty treatment came rounded to about a heap of pain and a few glasses of blood. Given the lengthy process it'd take him to file off the horns as well… That'd take some time and effort. And pain to endure. With his knife hovering over the wriggling tail, Andy remembered a memory of him catching Ines late at night, carving her own horns into shape. Skipping over the threats and scolds she sent his way, he reckoned she'd help him with his, provided his pleas are sweet and cutesy enough. He'll manage.

Just pressing the very tip of the blade to the worm's surface sent him over the edge and filled with a deep sense of anxiety mixed with dread. Whenever he'd get hurt, the pain would come naturally, wash over him in the blink of an eye like an intruder - unexpected and unwelcome. This, however? Self-inflicted scars? This took a lot more than just enduring the aftermath. This took the courage to kickstart the process.

Andy closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and gently placed the sharp edge of his knife on top of the panicking "creature". Just one, swift move, he thought. One, gentle cut.

One gentle cut was still one cut too much. He noticed a little washcloth next to the cutting stand, just sitting there and catching snow. Moments later, it resided in between his teeth, clutched tightly by his chompers. Now or never, the time to cut.

Andy raised his knife above the tail. Wrinkles formed on his face and forehead, as his eyelids fell down, shutting his vision off. It was better not to look.

It was better to simply strike.

Cut and forget.

…

On three, Andy.

One,

Two,

Three.

Like the Law's striking might pouring down from the heavens high above, his righteous hand descended upon the icon of sin wriggling pathetically on the snow waste's worktop. Steel shone brightly in the midday sun, eager to deliver justice for all that were deserving of it - to rid the poor boy of this wretched beast that decided to latch onto his spine. Right as the sentence was about to be carried out, an unamused voice shot out from behind, popping the moment's magic bubble.

"... Hell are you doing? You cutting yourself? Never took you for a wrist-slitter, angel. Most of us do it late at night and in the solace of our tents, you know~?"

The fiend warbled from behind his back, her mocking voice saving the poor worm from decapitation. Squirming like a snake in heat, it slid down the plank, as Andy let go and turned towards the girl. A certain shine returned to his eyes, it cast away the dark thoughts clouding his judgment, making him see just how dumb the entire thing really was. "... I wasn't-... I wasn't cutting myself." He muttered.

"Uh-huh. Sure." Her eyelids melted and swam over her eyes, leaving her sight half-covered. "Got your knife. Catch. But don't look, just catch." She added after a moment and flinged him a rather round looking object.

"...?" Andy watched the dark, metallic ball take flight. Purely off instinct, his hands immediately reached out to grab it. It wasn't a knife, of course it wasn't. Couldn't be, not with her.

"Oh, ha-ha. Very funny." He threw her an unamused, sarcastic remark, as the object between his fingers revealed itself to be the familiar sight of a grenade. Pin still inside, safety lever untouched, it had no right of going off, thanks to the quirks of Lateran engineering and ori-fuses development. "Where'd you get this? That crate?"

"Mmm." She strolled over, carrying a few more in her arms. "Just remembered we hid these here, didn't want your hands all over my little stash."

"YOUR stash? Didn't W buy them?"

"W? I'm W, moron. And no-..."

"You're not W." Andy cut in and put the grenade atop the pile she was hugging.

"... And no, I didn't buy them, but just like your buddy's name, they're now mine." She continued, unphased. With a lovely smirk sprawled over her face, she kicked the boy in the leg and dropped the mountain of dark green-ish steel onto their work surface. "You gotta admit though, that scared you a little."

"What, the grenade toss?"

"Mmm."

"No." He chuckled, forgetting about most of his worries for a moment. "Like, at all."

"Come on, I saw that deer-in-headlights look you had. Pissed yourself, didn't you?" the girl murmured and nudged him in the ribs, making sure to rub her elbow against the spot where she had shot him a couple weeks ago.

"Nope." With a smile, he bent himself away from her elbow and focused back on peeling potatoes. "Not even a bit. If you had actually pulled the pin or something… But that'd be-"

"Yeah, I was thinking about it. Like, pull the pin and then disarm the grenade with arts." She shrugged and leaned against the worktop. Her antennae shuffled around her bangs, shoving the curtains of hair aside. With the light breeze bringing about a few snowdrops onto her forehead, she scrunched her nose a little. A few passing mercs shot the two a glance, before scurrying off to tend to their daily routines.

"What?" Andy flicked his gaze from the potato peeling to her thinking face.

"What? Like, pull the pin, magic happens, defuse the ori-powder before it all blows to smithereens, watch your expression as you shit yourself in fear and yell at me with that high pitch falsetto. Was it falsetto? The high voice…? Not sure, don't really care."

Andy blinked.

"... Dude, you can't DEFUSE a grenade."

W furrowed her brows.

"Of course you can? What are you talking about?"

"You can't defuse a grenade with arts! The fuse, it… It, uh… It doesn't work like that."

"It doesn't?"

"Nuh uh."

"I'm pretty sure it does, though." Without any snark, she seemed to be genuinely trying to prove a point. "I think I did that, once."

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure you can't." Andy put down his tools and turned to face her, assuming a similar position. "It's just… You know, illogical. Like, I don't know how grenades really work, they made us throw them in the military, but-..."

"Blah, blah, military. Spare me." A snortle, "What is it with you and turning everything into a sob story? "Oh, this reminds me of the military, that reminds me of the time I lost all my closest angel-friends, this reminds me of-..."

"I'm just-"

"Oh, this reminds me of the battle of Whogivesashitwhereville, where half my squadron died-"

"I'm just saying! Shut u-"

"And this reminds me of that time I had to watch a Sarkaz off himself in a fiery exp-..."

"Yeah, yeah, okay…" Andy shoved her away with one hand, as his tail perked up and wagged excitedly at the gentle display of violence. Giggling like a schoolgirl, "W" didn't even bother hitting back. "... Yeah, ha-ha, ex-military, it's so funny. What's next, making fun of my race again? Racial slurs? The W classic?"

"A-, see?" She smirked and leaned over the counter. "You called me W."

"..." Andy opened his mouth to retort, but stopped dead in his tracks. "... N-No, I was referring to the actual W. To, uh… To how he'd call me slurs."

"Uh-huuuuh." Her voice took on that venomous, teasing tone, drawing each word out to an overbearing extent. "Suuuure."

"Law, you're annoying." Despite the amount of gray hairs the creature was the cause of, Andy couldn't help but smile. His mind came out blank when thinking of the last time he's engaged in a little, silly back and forth. "Genuinely annoying."

"And you're a…" She stopped to think for a moment. "... Too many insults to choose from. Wanna just settle the grenade debate?"

"The what?"

"The grenade debate. Whether you can-..."

"Oh, the defusing thing? I mean, I'm still sure you can't defuse a grenade with arts."

"I'm sure you can." With a shrug, she grabbed one off the pile sprawled before them. "Check this out."

"Wait, wait, wait." Almost immediately, the boy grabbed her wrist right as she took aim towards a little campfire located a good twenty or so meters away from their field kitchen. "You can't just throw a grenade in camp, are you nuts?"

"I am, yeah. But besides that, why not? I'll defuse it."

"Okay, what if you DON'T defuse it? What if I'M right?"

"You're never right, though." She pointed out. Her antennae swayed gently with the wind, her tail crossed eights behind her back. Andy's gaze faltered for a moment and traveled down to observe the elegance with which it cut the air, wishing his own chaotic spine-extension would function roughly the same.

"Okay, but what if I am, today?"

"Then we'll have a hole in the middle of our camp." She paused and blew a raspberry. "Come on, I'm pretty sure I know more about explosives than you."

"I'm serious."

"You always are, ain't you~? So uptight, so unwilling to adapt…"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You won't survive out here for too long without a little… A little patch of genuine mess in your brain. A tiny tumor of pure twist." She went on, twirling the grenade in her hand. Tap, tap, before Andy could answer, she grabbed another and started juggling them in the air. All in all, it was quite impressive. "... Something to stop being such a knee-jerk."

"I can be unpredictable when need be, but maybe not in the middle of our own camp…?" Despite his statement, he didn't even bother trying to snatch the explosives away. The juggling had him mesmerized for a moment.

"Pffft." Another raspberry. "Bull."

Snarling out her disapprovement, "W" pushed herself away from the worktop. Bathed in Andy's "wait, what're you doing"'s, she crossed the field kitchen and peered from behind one of its sturdy, wooden pillars. Not too far, not too close, the aforementioned campfire stood, housing just two brave night-guards who took solace in this tiny, quiet moment of peace. They chatted amongst themselves, enjoying the few minutes Mother Nature allowed them, away from war, from the screaming and yelling, barking of machine gun fire, and barrages of various arts-based horrors. Clinking their coffee cups together, one smiled at the other. Their horned faces welcomed two, genuine beams of warmth, expressions of tired elation, of war-time worries gone with the wind. They sat and chatted; unbothered, flourishing, nicely caffeinated. That was, until a loud, piercing whistle cracked through the air like a killing whip.

"Hey!"

The two night-guards turned their heads. One lifted an eyepatch off his left seeing-hole to glare at the cook-girl more efficiently. With frowns of annoyance, their faces were forced into a constant state of furrowing to shield themselves from the bright, shining sun.

"What?" One yelled back, putting his mug down. "We're on break, piss off. Not taking orders from you, OR the traitor. Not when Hoederer's not around."

"Good! Don't have any orders for you today, boys, just a gift." "W" shot them both a wide, killer grin and fidgeted around with her grenade. "Catch, don't look."

Andy saw the two guards taking an annoyed, yet slightly confused glance at one another, before the fiend pulled the grenade's pin. Somehow, someway, she must've popped the fuse with a quick flicker of ori-bending, as the boy felt an incredibly familiar buzz of warm originium being ignited, coming right from the steel ball. Five, seven seconds from now… Who knows? He blinked and watched, keeping his hands occupied with a potato and the peeler, just to be sure.

W chucked the grenade at the guards.

"... Fuck's wrong with you?" One of them yelled back, having caught the tiny death-trap. With his hand wrapped around the docile explosive, he shook it a little and put it up to his face to examine closely. "Dud?"

The other shrugged. W chuckled and struck a pose. "Not a dud, morons. I masterfully defused it~! See, Lawdog? Grenades are totally defusable."

"... Guess so." Andy murmured back, stealing glances at the whole ordeal while cutting up his potatoes. Just in case, he thought.

"Play a prank like this ever again, I'll have you both hanging off the northern watch tower. By your necks." The grenade-holding guard barked towards the two. Mumbling something unintelligible, the other tapped him on the shoulder, which his comrade ignored.

"By our necks? What else could we be hanging by?" "W" scoffed at the two and let her hands slide down to her hips in a display of pure sass. "Tch. You guys can't threaten people for shit. Seriously, you should work on your insults game."

"Shut up." He barked back and waved the grenade dangerously close to his head. His comrade's eyes widened a little at the display of improper explosives handling. "You don't know shit."

"Oh, I don't? Say, would you happen to know what you're standing atop of?"

The girl reached behind her back. With complete and utter casualty in her movements, she produced a small, dark object from within her cargo pants. An electronic device. Sort of transmitter.

Better yet, a detonator.

"...?"

All three, Andy and the two guards held a breath. Their eyes wandered towards the very ground they stood on, the soft, fluffy snow underneath their feet - usually either a token of gratitude from Mother Nature, a blanket to cover the ugly, blood-splattered battlefields under its pristinely clean surface, or some divine punishment, eager to freeze off a finger or two. But now? Now, they didn't really know what to categorize it as at all.

"W…?" Andy perked up with a silent whisper.

"Shhh. Shush. Not now, Lawdog." Her smile only grew at the sight of the two guards racking their brains to figure out what was happening. "You don't, do you?"

"The hell have you done? What the hell did-... Did you lay down a 'field? Did you lace our damn camp with explosives?!"

"What if I did~?" Her tone of voice shifted. From that annoyingly smug chirping to something far more sinister and genuine. A real heart-stopper. The low grumble that froze blood in the veins of anyone in a hundred meter vicinity. "What if I... Say, sneaked out in the middle of the night, when you boys were out and about, scouting outside the camp, and... Planted a few surprises? Would you be afraid, then?"

"Y-You…!" One of them threw themselves forward, leaving the safety of their campfire. The other guard latched onto his shoulders and pulled him back towards the fire.

"Don't! Don't approach her, moron! That's what she wants!"

"Right… Right…" He stopped where he stood, carefully stepping around the campfire. "Play it smart… Play it smart…"

"Play it however you want, I press a button and you're all gone~." "W" warbled at the two, twirling the detonator around her hand, which only stirred the guardsmen back up.

"You… Just you… Just you WAIT 'til Hoederer hears about this! Just you fucking wait!" The Sarkaz warrior barked, baring his own teeth that sprung from underneath his hood. "You're done for! I knew we shouldn't have ever taken you in! I told him! I t-..."

"Blah, blah, blah." W mumbled to herself and turned to Andy. As he stared at her in utter disbelief and fear, she raised her hand up and clacked her thumb against her fingers, as if imitating a chatterbox yapping away. A few giggles later, she blew up into a full-on laughing fit. Everyone present stopped to stare at the sight, a multitude of emotions passing through each person's eyes. Anger, rage, disbelief, shock, some sadness from Andy, too… It mixed and blended together into one concoction, as the fiend leaned herself against a wooden beam and kept cackling.

"I'm kidding, you halfwits! It's a walkie-talkie!" She spewed between salvos of laughter. Rising the object high into the air, she clicked around the main, red button. The device came to life with a soft, quiet chatter of intermittent radio frequencies clashing against the cold weather. "See? Holy shit, you're all so naive…"

"..." The guards exchanged a glance. A tiny sigh of relief slithered from behind both their lips, as their heads shook. "Not funny. That wasn't fucking funny."

"Wasn't it? I find it pretty damn hilarious." The girl threw back, with that wide, annoying smirk planted all over her face. Some giggles and chuckles were still present between her words, as the radio left her hand and slid back into her pants. "You two should put more trust in your commanding officer, you know~?"

"Bullshit, you're not our officer." The men scoffed. "You're a stray. Fodder, if needed."

"Tch." She raised an eyebrow and shot Andy a glance. "You hear that? Fodder."

"..." Andy didn't even bother answering. His heart was still doing somersaults and beating as if it had just run a marathon, courtesy of her little stunt.

"And the grenade? What the hell were you thinking?" They kept yelling down from their campfire spot. "Throwing unpinned grenades at people? Thank Gods it was a dud…"

"Hey!" "W" barked at the two. "It was no dud! Told you, I MASTERFULLY defused it!"

"...?"

The guards both blinked. Their eyes slowly, slowly slid towards the steel ball in the taller one's hand. The tiny object he's been waving around these past couple of minutes. It seemed docile enough, undoubtedly very polite and calm. Like a well trained puppy.

Their eyes met.

"... Defused?" One whispered.

"Can't defuse a nade." The other mumbled.

"What? What're you saying?" "W" yelled.

"You can't defuse a nade." He repeated himself and turned towards the girl. "The fuse, once it goes, it GOES!"

"Bullshit! I just defused it after throwing!" She chuckled and raised an eyebrow. "C'mon, I wouldn't throw you a live 'nade. I know I'm an "insane floozy" or whatever, but that'd earn me a one way ticket out of here! Or down to hell, even."

"... Huh."

The grenade lay comfortably in the man's hand. Unmoving, unbothered, unwilling to harm.

"..."

Andy took a peek over his potato-peeling labor. Unable to keep to himself, he just had to look.

Both guards took another look at the steel ball in one's hand.

"Guess you can defuse a nade after all." The grenade holder's friend summed up.

"Guess you can." His buddy replied. A tiny smile crossed his face.

"See? I'm always right~." "W" claimed her rightful victory and smirked, keeping both hands tightly pressed to her hips in a confident display of her glory.

"Guess she was right." One nodded.

"Mhm. Sure was." The other confirmed. "... What'd we learn today, then?"

Smirks tugged at their lips, as the other guard raised his hand up and proudly displayed the grenade before his face.

"That you can defuse a grenade." He replied and fell into his very own fit of laughter.

"Damn right you can!" His buddy soon joined in, jovially slapping his knee.

"..." "W" stood by her wooden beam, her face void of the smirk from before. "Lawdog? Are these two always like this?"

Andy offered a shrug. "I barely know them, to be honest."

"Mmm. Weirdos." She summed up and giggled a little. "Hehe. See, told ya." With a little hop in her step, she started strolling over to the campfire, presumably to retrieve her defused grenade. "Gonna need that bomb as a trophy, though~."

"Oh, sure, sure." With a sigh, the guard cut his giggling tirade short. "Here you go, the first ever… DEFUSED grenade."

W stopped and smirked. With a good ten meters of distance, she extended her hand for the man to throw the metal husk over. Still giddy, still fueled by glee and joy, the guard threw the grenade a little into the air, only to catch it again. His friend laughed at the sight and wiped a tear.

"Oh, man, what a day. I'm so sleep deprived, never thought I'd see a… a defused grenade." He yawned.

"Right? Sad to part ways, my defused friend…" The other muttered, addressing his metallic friend. "... But maybe we'll meet again."

"..." "W" stood and watched the overly emotional parting, hand outstretched, eyes flickering with a glint of genuine unease.

"See you, then, defused grenade!" His final parting words were said. The man gave the tiny, steel ball a few loving pats on the top of its soft, little head and leaned in to send it a parting kiss.

As soon as his lips touched the metal exterior, the entire camp was shaken awake by the earth shattering boom of a mighty explosion. Without a countdown, without a warning, the tiny, metal prankster went off, immediately reducing the guard to nothing but a fine, red mist. Both arms flew in two opposite directions, one traveled north, the other took a trip down south, laying down a river of warm blood spilling across the soft, pristinely white snow. His legs remained mostly intact, at least from the knees down. With shattered bones sticking from the meaty stubs, they remained exactly where they were, almost comically in a way. With his torso and head entirely gone, the two pillars were left to stand there for all eternity, bathed in blood and waiting for some vulture to drop by and pick them clean of any meat, maybe steal his boots.

Where did the rest of his body go?

Some shot towards the sky, towards the Law's killing will, or the many gods' humble abode. Some were left sprawled all over the campfire site, guts and bucketloads of crimson, life-giving substance formed tiny lakes and brand new blood reservoirs. Some burned in the blast, some splattered the poor guard's friend, covering him in his buddy's insides from head to toe. Finally, the last few liters of blood were dumped onto "W", who simply stood there, hand still outstretched. As the ringing in their ears started finally dying down, the reality of their situation slowly but surely began setting in. The girl's face softened, lost its smirk and sass, instead making way for an expression of somewhat resembling shock, forcing her mouth open a little. The other guard flinched a bit, as if only now noticing that his buddy's just been baptized in fire and reduced to nigh nothing. In, came the fast, shaky breaths.

"... B-... Buddy?" He whispered. Unfortunately, the severed legs did not answer. "... Bud? Buddy…?'

"..." Andy was left staring in pure, genuine shock. He watched as the fiend slowly retracted from the campfire, taking slow, careful steps back towards their field kitchen. Without a word, she shuffled to his side and wiped some blood off her face. Her antennae did, at least. With her tail cowering by the ground, "W" took the spot next to him, absolutely wordless. Andy's own appendage managed to escape his cargo pants and started wagging all over the place at the sound of the explosion, but its owner didn't really share the sentiment. He glanced over at the girl, hands still shakily peeling another potato. Her face betrayed a hint of genuine shock, maybe even somewhat slightly resembling fear. Their eyes met for a moment, both telling pretty much the same story.

They shared a silent nod of understanding, bathed in the screams and yells coming down from the fire-site.

"B-BUDDY…? BUD!? Y-YOU…? N-NO… NO… Y-... YOU MONSTER! Y-YOU… YOU F-... YOU FUCKING KILLED… YOU KILLED HIM! Y-YOU…"

"W" swallowed some spit and grabbed a potato from their pile. It's shrunken quite a bit by now, yet still remained tall, still towering over them all with its bulbous might. Ignorance is bliss.

"... Can I?" She murmured and pointed at Andy's peeling-weapon.

"O-Of course." He nodded a little and handed her the knife.

"YOU… YOU KILLED HIM! THE TWO OF YOU! YOU KILLED… YOU BLEW HIM UP! IT WAS YOU! IT WAS Y-YOU…"

"... Y-You can use this one." "W" whispered and handed him the combat knife she nabbed off the real deal. "... Not like you're cutting them evenly anyway."

"M-Mhm." Andy nodded, again. "T-Thanks."

"Anytime." She tried to smile, but her attempt faltered almost immediately.

"Y-... N-NO… B-BUT… YOU… Y-YOU… I'LL KILL YOU BOTH! I'LL FUCKING HANG YOU OFF THAT WATCH TOWER, I'LL RIP YOUR STOMACHS OPEN AND DRAG YOUR GUTS OUT, YOU DISGUSTING…"

The screams drew closer. Andy only focused harder on his potato-peeling business, but "W" sighed.

"... Guess we're doing it this way."

Thud. A soft, gentle sound. She put the knife back down and dug her hand into the other pile present atop their makeshift kitchen counter. Grenade in hand, she left Andy be and stepped out.

"... YOU. YOU… Y-YOU. YOU! COME OUT! COME YOU, AND…"

"Yeah, yeah, coming."

"YOU'LL DIE FOR THIS! YOU'LL…"

"Tch."

"... BE HANGED! BROTHERS SISTERS! COME, WITNESS THIS MONSTROSITY!"

A few more fiends joined into the choir of misery, footsteps surrounding their little kitchen-tent. All familiar, all somewhat friendly in the past. Andy shuddered a little and grabbed another potato, hands trembling hard.

"...? What happened?"

"What the hell? They got the nightguard?"

"The fuck? Did we get raided?"

"The hell was that explosion?"

"Hoederer's back? No…?"

"Holy shit, look at that bloodbath…"

'Til it turned white, Andy's hand clutched the combat knife tight. Scrape, scrape, off went the dirty potato skin, falling to the ground with soft, little thuds. He couldn't even hear them, with blood ringing wildly in his ears and the commotion in front raging freely.

"Who the hell did this?"

"You seen who did this?"

"Got a suspect?"

"Who…?"

"Why…?"

"When…?"

A loud, piercing voice shushed the scoundrels down.

"THIS. WRETCH. THIS STRAY, DISGUSTING WENCH! SHE DID IT. ALL. HER. WORK."

Silence fell upon the battlefield. Andy placed the last potato he needed to fill the ice-bath inside the large dish. Finally done. Finally… Done. What's next?

"Yup. All me." The voice of "W" arose from outside. "Was an accident, though."

"IT WAS NO ACCIDENT! SHE… HURLED A GRENADE AT HIM!"

"Moron held onto it."

"LIED TO US! TOLD US IT WAS DEFUSED!"

"You can't defuse a grenade, dimwit."

"LAUGHED IN OUR FACES! THREATENED TO KILL US ALL!"

"... 't was a joke."

"WE HAVE TO HANG HER! SHE'S BEEN GETTING TOO COMFORTABLE THESE PAST FEW WEEKS. THE RED-HEAD IS GONE, HE WON'T OBJECT! WE HANG HER NOW, WE'LL HAVE A MASSIVE ISSUE RESOLVED LIKE NOTHING!"

"... Come on. Surely not, right?"

Andy held his breath, unwilling to look outside the tent. His tail kept flapping all over the place, as he leaned down to reach for a crate of fresh vegetables.

"..."

Murmurs shook the crowd. Like the gentle wind running across a golden field of wheat, they buzzed and whispered.

"... Sounds actually decent."

"Yeah, she's too bossy."

"Too loud, too."

"I don't really like her face, to be fair."

"Mmm. I don't like her, in general."

"Bit dumb, too."

"Wish we had the old W…"

The boy re-emerged from beneath the worktop, carrying a large, dusty crate of produce. Onions, carrots, tomatoes, shallots, garlic, parsnips, turnips, celery some burdenmeat, pasteurized by salt and the cold… Should be good. He started laying it out on the cutting board, deaf to the commotion outside.

"Tch." "W" clicked her tongue.

"BROTHERS! SISTERS!" The crazed guard-turned-preacher yelled out.

"... TEAR HER APART! AND THE LAW-BOOTLICKER!"

Andy grasped his knife tight. His tail shot up, wagging at the speed of light, flicking away in each and every direction. The sound of a grenade pin being pulled, soon joined by the click of a safety lever jumping off reached his ears, as he prepared himself to work his culinary magic.

Vegetables spilled onto the wood. Metal flew through the air.

Just one, extremely short prayer later, it was time.

It was time for them both to cook.