Chapter 153:Hunting the Hunter.
Sasha looked at the body of the Minutemen commander as she was being loaded onto a stretcher to be flown back to the Minutemen HQ for autopsy and then burial.
"I'd say shot came from up there, is only place that has clear angle to pull shot like that," Ivan said as he examined the ground and blood spray pattern behind where the commander had been standing when she was hit.
Sasha turned to see him pointing out of the ten at what appeared to be a building up on the edge of the valley that surrounded the entrance to the subway.
"I will take my team up there and investigate," Celine said and Sasha nodded before Celine motioned to the team assigned to her to follow her, which was two humans and two Valkyries including herself.
Ebony walked over and leaned her large frame down to look at the blood splatter before looking up at the hole in the fabric of the tent, she then got a stick and began to wind silk from her spinnerets around it while Sasha watched her curiously.
Once she seemed happy she got another stick and attached it to the end of the silk she had just cut before scuttling over to the hole and placing the stick through it before unwinding the silk on the first stick.
She walked backwards seemingly using her eight clustered eyes to line up the silk to get the trajectory and when she turned to look she pointed at the same building that Ivan had indicated and was now heading towards with Celine.
"I concur that the shot came from that rooftop, very high calibre from this blood splatter and the hole here, we should check the roof throurally for clues as well as see if we can retrieve the bullet," she said and Sasha nodded.
"Agreed, but we cannot spend too long here, my gut tells me that this is not over, assassin is hunting and we must reach them before they strike again," Sasha said.
While Ebony scuttled off to join Celine and her team in investigating the rooftop Sasha moved behind the tent and looked for the hole that she had marked, it was pretty easy to find and given the angle he found a strike mark where the bullet had skipped off the ground nearby.
This led him to the wall of the tunnel network where he found a rather large chunk of the concrete freshly blown clear, from there it didn't take him long to find the slug or rather what was left of it given how mangled it was.
As he held it in his power armoured hand he could already tell that it was a .50 or 12.7 mm due to its size.
This was not a particularly common calibre in the wastes as it was not easy to find and not many places produced it or if they did it was in very limited quantities due to the materials required to make it.
These bullets were very expensive to acquire which indicated this assassin was not your everyday hitter from one of the mercenary groups, which meant that they were either a serious professional or from one of the larger groups, something like the Gunners or worse, the Enclave.
Now while the Enclave were not a mercenary group they did have access to this kind of equipment, much like the Brotherhood or even the Minutemen but unlike these other two groups, their gear was not repurposed or salvaged for the most part.
While he had no idea how far the Enclave network stretched or how vast their supply chain ran he knew it was extensive and that they had access to some of the best military-grade hardware out there.
He also knew from his previous conversations with the Free Peoples that they were actively hunting their people so it followed that they could just as easily dispatch someone to go after the other groups also and the Minutemen were a very good target for this kind of attack.
This was due to their militia-style nature, they were spread out and not nearly as well organised as the other members of the newly formed alliance plus as the newest players on the team they were the most likely to pull their support if they got attacked.
"We found a shell casing," Celine's voice said suddenly through the local comms channel.
"I have suspect for who did this, will be with you in moment," Sasha said turning and heading for the rooftop where the others were waiting.
As he arrived he saw Ebony holding the large brass case in her hand which she held out to him as he landed on the rooftop with a bang.
As soon as Sasha took it he knew exactly what he was going to see on it and as he turned it over to look at the rim of the casing there it was, the Enclave hallmark.
The assassin had made their first mistake in not policing their brass as now they had evidence of who was doing this or at the very least they had evidence that whoever this was had been issued with Enclave manufactured equipment, whether it was stolen or not was another question in itself but it was still a solid lead.
"Ava found footprints and an impact site behind the place," Celine said pointing towards the rear of the building where the large owl woman stood looking over the side.
"Then this is where shooter shot from and made escape in that direction, my caps are on they have second target in mind today," Sasha said.
"What makes you say that?' Celine asked curiously.
"They must know that Minutemen will not simply stand by and let them bump off commanders without consequence, they will have to speed up operation to have any chance of success and this is obvious attempt to destabilise Minutemen and make them pull support for alliance," Sasha said.
"Then we need to get on this assassin's tail and clip their wings!' Celine said with fire in her voice.
"Stole my words more or less," Sasha said.
"Ivan call up Minutemen and get list of nearest encampments that have commanders of high rank present, we must make map and figure out where this person will head, Celine get some of your people in air and have them circle around, preferably those with best eyes that can see small details on ground," Sasha said as he turned the shell casing over in his hands.
A couple of minutes later Ivan had a map spread out on top of one of the old air conditioning units on the rooftop, he was circling areas while marking them with what looked to be pins and strands of silk that Ebony was giving him.
"I have it boss I believe I know where assassin is headed," he said.
"What have you got?" Sasha asked walking over with Celine at his side.
"This is us here, then these are camps that have high-ranking officers at them, I also sift through them to look at strategic value and this is what we see," he said and Sasha saw where he was going with this.
"What is this camp here," he asked tapping the one that was closest to them and as far as he could tell from the map in the direction that the assassin seemed to have fled in.
"Artillery encampment, Minutemen are setting up big guns to provide quick fire support to troops in field, so far have quite a few from what I am told, I also think this is assassin's next target," he said.
"Gather everyone together we move out, Celine get your people in air we have no moment to lose," he said.
"Shouldn't we take the bird boss?" Ivan asked and Sasha shook his head.
"It will alert assassin to us closing in on them, they go to ground if they hear it coming, Celine and her Valkyries can provide eyes in sky while we run ground, yes?" he said glancing at Celine whose eyes narrowed and took on a defiant glare.
"I this fucker is in our path we'll fucking spot them," she said confidently.
"Good then we move, no time to delay," Sasha said.
As their team followed the tracks they could find all signs pointed towards the assassin having headed this way as there were fresh footprint trails every so often as well as other little tells but their biggest sign came in the form of a giant fucking mushroom cloud in the distance.
The whole team simply froze when they saw it and felt the blast wave wash over them, all of the Valkyries dove from the sky only moments before the wave hit them causing all of their exposed feathers to slick back like they'd wet them down before springing back up like they'd quick dried them a little too fast.
"I think we are too late boss," Ivan said as they all watched the cloud rising into the sky in the distance.
"Celine get Valkyries back in air and get there as fast as possible, do not get too close as radiation will be bad at zero ground, we will check this, but see if you can find any kind of trail leading from place, but be careful I not want to be seeing pretty feathers falling out of tail before you have chance to shake them," Sasha said causing Celine to shoot him a look of surprise and then instantly calming as she realised he was breaking the tension with some battlefield humour.
"Don't you worry about my tail feathers human, they will be as sleek and glossy as they've ever been and will mesmerise you you can bet on it," she said and with that, she called all of the stunned Valkyries to order and took to the skies.
Sasha turned to Ebony, "When we get close enough that Giger starts to click loud enough to be annoying you will stay put, you have no armour to protect you from radiation, I not want bald spider girl on my conscience, or spider girl with two heads," he said making Ebony chuckle.
"You sure do have an obsession with non-human girls losing their hair or feathers but yeah I read you loud and clear," she said.
The team made use of their power armour's enhanced speed capabilities to cover the distance at incredible speed, not only could they run incredibly fast but thanks to the jump jets that all of them had installed they could burst to jump to cover some serious gaps while they did so.
They had not been doing this until this point as they did not want to either lose sight of the ground sign or give themselves away, but at this point, both points were kinda moot as the chances of the assassin still being at the site were nill and if there were then their problem was already solved.
It appeared that the artillery base had once stood atop one of the large bridge-style overpasses that crisscrossed the area, this was smart planning as the location gave them not only a good line of sight in every direction but a much better firing solution to clear the distance to their intended target, while also providing them with some measure of security from attack.
Though not enough evidently.
Their Giger counters began to click very rapidly the closer to the blast zone that they got, as soon as the levels got high enough Ebony stayed back and let the others continue without her, she instead chose to circle the outer perimeter of the blast zone looking for any kind of trail while Sasha and his team made use of their armour to get in close and see if there was any kind of evidence that they could find.
With their Giger counters positivly screaming at them the whole time Sasha and the other Cossacks jumped up onto the bridge and took a look around.
As they had already guessed before they even left the ground there really wasn't a lot left for them to find as pretty much everything and everyone had turned to vapour the second the nuke had gone off.
"Nuclear artillery shells is my guess," Ivan said pointing to what looked to be the flash point of the massive explosion scorched into the ground by a large melted crater where the heat had simply melted both the asphalt and the stone underneath it.
"You think sabotage?" Sasha said looking at the wreckage of the large guns that were still sat in their mounts at the centre of the base, possibly the only thing left to even indicate that there was even a structure here.
"Would be my guess, what better way to hide crime than to use enemies' own weapons against them?" Ivan said and Sasha nodded.
"Find anything?" Celine's voice suddenly came through their internal comms system.
"Not much but Ivan believes this is act of sabotage and I am inclined to agree with him appears that Minutemen artillery company had nuclear shells for their big guns and someone set them off inside of what once most likely their armoury, is good way to cover up assassination and would have most likely worked if we were not already on trail of assassin," Sasha said.
"Sounds like a coward's tactic if you ask me, real easy to kill without ever looking your target in the eye," Celine replied with a growl to her voice.
"Agreed, your people find any sign from up there?" Sasha asked signalling for his people to fall in, he really didn't want to hang about in the rad zone any longer than necessary as it meant lots of scrubbing to decontaminate their armour later on.
"Nothing yet, this assassin is slippery," Celine said sounding even more angry that she could not find anything.
"Umm I believe I may have something here," another voice said and Sasha instantly recognised it as that of Ebony.
"What you got big spider girl?" Sasha asked leaping over the side of the bridge before hitting the ground with a massive boom as his servos took the impact.
"Tracks I think but as to whether or not it's our assassin is another question," Ebony said.
"Celine meet up with our new Archnakai friend and see what she has, if is good get your people in the air do not wait on us to catch up, we will have to decontaminate first but we will catch up with you as soon as we can be near without your tail feathers falling out," Sasha said.
"You seem awfully obsessed with my tail feathers commander I'm beginning to worry," Celine said but there was a much more playful note to her voice now.
"Let me worry about your tail feathers you worry about finding trail," Sasha said with a grin under his helmet.
"You really will have to watch yourself flirting with big angry bird girl, could go badly for you," Ivan said from his left.
"Let me worry about that and besides if is good enough for Free Peoples then is good enough for Cossacks, we work with them now so what is problem?" Sasha said and Ivan simply shrugged.
"I have no problem boss and honestly I think their owl is surprisingly pretty, she has nice tuft feathers on top of head and wide eyes make her look amazed, but big angry Condor girl is whole other ball game, she looks like she eats barbells for breakfast and lifts Deathclaws instead of weights," Ivan said making Sasha laugh.
"I hear this lifting Deathclaw thing is mark of honour among Free Peoples so maybe is not bad thing yes?" he said making Ivan laugh in return.
"I definitely doubt it would be good idea for you to start lifting Deathclaws boss if not for obvious reasons but for the reason I really don't want to see what big Condor girl will do if she gets jealous, I thought jealous Russian women were bad but we are living in new age now where jealous girls have actual claws and teeth as well as fangs or talons and big sharp beak in her case, will not be pretty," Ivan said.
"Well then if you do intend to go after their owl girl you had best be serious about it then hadn't you?" Sasha said shooting him a knowing look through his visor as they all walked out of the radiation zone to prep for cleaning their armour off.
Natalia snorted from their right and both Sasha and Ivan glanced at her.
"Let me guess next words out of mean mouth are to be to tell me that I have no chance with pretty owl girl right?" Ivan said with a bit of a growl to his voice.
"Well, do you? You will need to clean up your act if you wish to impress girl like her, she is not going to be impressed by how many candles you can light by lighting your farts," Natalia shot back and now Sasha snorted.
"What!? Is quality trick this one, I do not see you being able to do it," Ivan said defensively.
"Because I have no interest in such puerile things! I am lady of quality and refinement, I believe in sophistication," Natalia said.
"Ahh yes is very sophisticated begging boss to hold your hair when you are being sick into bucket because you had too much spiced vodka," Ivan said and Sasha could positively feel the heat coming from Natalia's death glare.
"That was one time!" she protested.
"Yes one time, this year, you forget that unlike you oh sophisticated one I remember what I do when I am drunk, or do I need remind you about that trick you can do with a ping pong ball after half a bottle of finest spiced vodka or was it a pool ball?" Ivan said making Natalia postivly scream inside her armour.
"There is no talking to you and it was a fucking marble!" Natalia yelled before stomping off.
"Are you sure was marble, I seem to remember there being three finger holes, are you sure was not bowling ball?" Ivan called after her and there was a screech from inside her armour causing Sasha to shake his head.
"And you worry about me being sweet on big condor girl," he said with a chuckle.
"Well at least Natalia cannot peck your eyes out if she gets mad," Ivan said as they both watched Natalia kick a stone so hard that it embedded itself into the side of a large concrete pillar nearby.
"On second thoughts I think you are safer with big condor girl, go nuts boss," Ivan said making Sasha laugh even harder.
After a brief hose down from the portable decon kit which was kept in a special sealed and radiation-proof backpack that one of them always carried the team headed in the direction of where Ebony was waiting for them.
As they approached the massive Archnakai girl turned to face them long before she could have heard them coming, it seemed those hairs of hers were incredibly sensitive to sound.
"Did Celine and other Valkyries meet up with you?" Sasha asked as he walked up and she nodded as she lifted herself on her eight large legs, fanning them out as she did, it seemed she liked to tuck herself in when she was not moving to give herself a lower profile.
Perhaps this was to make it easier for her to hide or for her to be harder to see from a distance but whatever the reason the sight did send an involuntary shiver up Sasha's back like it triggered some kind of primal defence mechanism in his brain.
"Yes, she and her Valkyries have the trail and are headed that way, Celine seems to believe that the trail leads to the city, she said something about there being many false trails in the area," Ebony said.
"False trails?" Sasha asked looking down at the footprints in the mud at their feet.
They were strangely small, definitely not a man's footprints so most likely a woman which made him all the more convinced that this was the Enclave's doing.
"Yeah, after they circled the area a bit they all met up back here and said there were dead-ended trails winding off in all directions like someone had deliberately tried casting a load of false trails off to throw off pursuers so it looks like this assassin knows they are already being hunted," Ebony said and this instantly set Sasha on edge.
"This is bad news, if assassin knows we are coming they will set traps for us, we must be very cautious from here, as we do not know their true intentions, but we do know they have very big gun and are very good with it," he said and Ebony nodded.
"It seems like you and Celine are cut from the same silk commander as she said nearly the exact same words when they landed here to discuss their findings," Ebony said and Sasha could feel both Ivan and Natalia staring at the side of his head.
"I believe is mark of good commander that is worried about their people, must always put them first and worry about what is out there to hurt them," Sasha said.
Sasha rallied his group and they set off following the footprints with Ebony now in step with them, they often had to employ her skills to make sure they were following the right path as more than once the trail pretty much completely vanished.
Eventually, they reached the outskirts of Boston city where they found Celine and her people perched high up in the buildings waiting for them.
"Any luck?" Sasha asked as Celine fluttered down to land next to him folding in her magnificent wings as she did.
"The trail goes cold here, no more mud to leave prints in, we tracked them as deep as we could but it goes no more than a single street before vanishing, whoever this assassin is they picked a hell of a place to hide what with all the foot traffic through here," she said.
"Yeah there are civilians in city of Diamond, then there are radiers, super mutants and who knows what else walking these ruined streets, is both worst place and best place to hide," Sasha said thoughtfully.
"Whats the plan boss?" Ivan asked and Sasha glanced at his people for a moment then an idea struck him.
"We split up into smaller teams, pairs if you will, we each take quadrant of city and we wait until assassin comes back out, they cannot stay in here forever as they must be working on a schedule, so they will need to head to next target, so if we set up on outskirts of city like a web they will have to pass by one set of us, if we split up into pairs of one Cossack and one Valkyrie then we will have both air and ground covered," Sasha said.
"What about me?" Ebony asked with a slightly worried note in her voice.
"You will sit at centre of web like spider of old, up there in big tower, will have good view of surrounding city and before you say it I know you do not have super sharp eyes of jumpy cousins, that is why I give you these," Sasha said pulling a pair of powerful-looking field glasses from his pouch and handing them to her.
Ebony took them and lifted them to her eight eyes, firstly trying to figure out how to use them with her eye set up before finally settling on something that felt comfortable for her and then gasping.
"Wow I can see miles with these things!" she exclaimed dancing about on her eight feet in happiness.
"Exactly so if you set up in high place you can see around you and call out anything you see moving through city towards us, just be careful of big nasties that live in city like super mutants and feral Ghouls, are all over place here," he said and Ebony nodded.
"Honestly I have a lot less trouble with creatures like that than I ever have had with humans, Ghouls tend to ignore me for the most part unless I piss them off and Mutants tend to be more scared of me than I am of them, mainly because I'm a lot bigger than they are, but now I also have this," Ebony said hoisting up the Tub Thumper.
"Exactly, good Cossack engineering will keep you safe and make mess of anything that wishes to test you," Sasha said.
"Alright, so what are the pairs and where do we go?" Natalia asked.
"High places would be best, give good sight lines across city, plus provide easy launch and landing for our Valkyrie comrades, so find high tower in part of city that is assigned to you and take top floor if possible, as for pairs I will have Celine with me, Ivan will have Ava with him, you will have Edmund and Malina will have Alex, order is north, east, south and west and teams are in order I called them so I and Celine have north and so on, with Ebony at centre of city understood?" Sasha said.
All of them nodded and began pairing off while Ebony started trying to choose which of the massive towers she wanted to take that rose up out of the centre of the city.
"How long do you think we will have to wait?" Ava asked.
"My guess is not long, chances are assassin is already on move again, my guess is that they have base of some kind here and by now they know we hunt them like dogs they are, so they will most likely clean out base of supplies and run, my guess is in direction of next target, so while we are here I will try to plot which of targets is most likely to be next one based on value and distance," Sasha said.
"Well then let's get a move on before this fucker slips our web shall we?" Ebony asked seemingly raring to go now.
"Yes this is attitude I like to see, told you you will make great Cossack, everyone has orders so move out and stay on comms," Sasha said.
The team quickly split off into pairs except for Ebony who went off on her own towards the centre, now Sasha really did not like sending the big Archnakai girl off on her own like this but with no time to call in support they had no choice if they were to catch this assassin, or at the very least pick up their trail again they had to move quickly.
"See any buildings that catch your eye for lookout post?" Sasha asked Celine and she looked up at some of the towers in the area of the city they were in.
"That one looks like a good bet, tall with good sight lines, looks to be in fairly good condition too so that armour of yours won't go punching through the floors because of its weight," she said pointing to a large almost circular tower with what looked to be some kind flying saucer-like deck piece in the top of it.
"Alright, we will take that saucer thing on the top, will give good view I think," Sasha said and Celine looked at him curiously.
"How are you supposed to get down from there quickly?" she asked curiously as they made their way towards the entrance to the lobby of the place with their weapons at the ready.
"Power armour is made to drop from high place so can deploy to battlefield very quickly, has jump jet vents to slow decent and can take very serious impact without damage," Sasha said tapping the flank plates of his armour proudly.
Celine looked a little dubious and shocked at this.
"You mean to tell me you plan to jump, from up there?" she said.
"Will not be first time I have jumped from high place, have jumped from Vertibird much higher than this," Sasha said as they entered the lobby and looked around to find the stairs.
But that's when Sasha spotted something else that made him smile inside his helmet.
"Cossack armour is filled with tricks feathered one, of this you will come to see, here follow me and I will show you," he said making his way over to the elevator bank that sat at the centre of the room.
Celine clacked her beak in annoyance at being called feathered one but followed behind him curiously all the same.
As Sasha reached the nearest elevator he punched his hands into the gap between the doors and pried them apart with ease revealing the elevator shaft beyond it.
The elevator cab was smashed to bit obviously having dropped down the shaft and smashed into the floor and by the skeletal body parts that poked out of the wreckage in places it had been occupied when it did so.
Sasha turned his headlamp on and looked into the shaft, what he needed was still there and looked to be in very good condition so he reached out and gave it a yank, and to his delight, it did not move.
"Alright climb onto back of armour and I will show you Cossack engineering at its finest," he said and Celine looked at him like he'd gone mad.
"You want me to climb onto the back of your suit?" she asked and he nodded.
"Yes, you will ride like noble warrior princess and I am metal steed, will be fun, you will see," he said and Celine's head feathers fluffed and ruffled at the mental image that came along with being told that she could ride him, though to be fair the type of riding that was happening in her mind's eye wasn't quite the same as the type his words had depicted.
Thanks impart to the embarrassment caused by her rather vivid imagination Celine actually found herself clambering onto Sasha's back as he was busy fiddling about in the elevator shaft and he glanced back when he was done.
"Take good hold of armour's hoist mounts on shoulders and hang on tight, this is going to be quite ride," he said and Celine did so and before she even had the chance to say ready Sasha triggered something within the suit and they began to rocket upwards at incredible speed.
It seemed that the power armour had some kind of winch system that the Cossacks had retro-fitted to act as a high-speed ascent system so when Sasha had hooked it to the thick metal elevator cables it could now pull them up the elevator shaft at rather frightening speed.
Celine found herself tightly gripping Sasha's metal waist with her powerful thighs and holding onto the armour hoist points for grim death as they shot upwards like a metal missile with her riding like a feathered jocky.
They reached the top of the elevator shaft in what felt like no time and Sasha expertly slowed their assent so that they stopped directly in front of the elevator shaft doors and hung there like a metal pinata.
"Top floor, women's lingerie and make-up," Sasha said doing his best American accent as he tried to imitate the speaking elevator systems he'd seen in some holovids.
"You have an odd mind human, bringing us to the floor for human women's lingerie," Celine said.
"Now I never said human women's lingerie now did I, feel free to choose whatever catches big golden eye here and I will be sure to give you honest opinion when you model it for me," he said making Celine bark a laugh on his back as he smashed his hands through the doors to pry them apart.
"You wish human!" she said while laughing.
"Hey, man can dream can he not?' Sasha said playfully as he tore the doors open and then swung them out of the shaft and onto the floor beyond.
"You dream of seeing Valkyries in lingerie?" Celine asked and she scouted around with her gun in the shoulder while Sasha unhooked himself from the cables.
"Now I never said that either, you are putting words into my mouth now, I said that when you model it for me I will give honest opinion," Sasha said playfully as he got the cable unhooked and let it swing back into the shaft as he hoisted his weapon up.
Celine's head feathers ruffled and her beak opened and closed a couple of times as she processed what he had just said to her and she turned to look at him.
"You wish to see me in lingerie?" she asked though her voice seemed distinctly unsure of herself and uncharacteristically quiet, as if she could not believe that a human male would ever wish for such a thing.
"Is really a shock to you? You are beautiful and strong woman, you are fine example of what your species females can be, so why is this shock to you?' Sasha asked as he walked past her and looked around the top floor which seemed to be an office of some kind by all the desks strewn around, some still supporting their workstations.
"Well you are human for one, why would you want to look at me that way?" Celine asked.
"What you think that human men cannot see beauty when it is right in front of eyes? We know beauty when we see it but only those of us who are enlightened know that it can come in many shapes sizes and flavours, maybe once I would have thought twice about what I see but since meeting Free Peoples and seeing how they see world, I begin to think to self that maybe they have superior outlook on life and world, that maybe world is not so black and white as we make it out to be, that maybe there is so much more out there if we only take time to really look and see, so I am opening eyes and I am seeing, and what I am seeing is you and you are beautiful," Sasha said with a shrug of his metal shoulders.
Celine seemed to completely shortcircuit at his words like they simply did not compute with her and out of nowhere she stormed up to him with her large talons clacking on the concrete of the floor until she was standing directly in front of him.
"Take off your helmet human," she said directly and Sasha looked at her curiously but did as she asked and he looked at her and she leaned right down close to him.
"Say it again, say that you think I am beautiful again," she said and he saw the pupils of her large golden eyes narrowing on him as she stared right into his and only then did he realise that she was trying to see if he was teasing her or lying to her by looking for signs of deceit.
"I think you are beautiful Celine, I am not sure what more you wish me to say, you are beautiful woman, not just beautiful Valkyrie woman but beautiful woman full stop, is not hard concept to understand is it?" Sasha said with an almost defensive tone to his voice as he felt a bit intimidated by her closeness and scrutiny like he would be such a person as to play with her feelings like that.
"You are telling the truth aren't you?" Celine said stepping back from him her eyes widening in shock as Sasha placed his helmet back on his head and reconnected the seals.
"I can understand why this may shock you, but is true yes, you are beautiful woman, I am not ashamed to say this out loud, nor should I be, if is good for Free Peoples then is good for Cossacks, I come to understand that this world is diverse and beautiful and now look at it with different eyes, I see you and see your beauty, so make of it what you will, I respect you no less as you have proven self to me and to Cossacks, you are fine soldier and loyal comrade, this is all I need, fact that you are beautiful is simply bonus," he said with a shrug.
Celine seemed to be trying to process all of this then she locked her eyes on him and marched up to him again before grabbing the front of his armour and looking at him through the tinted eyepieces.
"I will give you one chance to prove it to me, human, one chance to prove to me that you are worthy of me lowering my guard for you, if you break my heart I will break your neck, if you steal my heart I will rock your world," she said and with that, she turned and with a flick of her large feathered tail she headed for the door, now it was Sasha's turn to stand there dumbfounded.