Description: After her failed attempt to make a play for one of the Spheres, Franziska prepares for the world's descent into destruction. Someone else seems to be thinking the same thing.
It's late, and with the current state of the world, well, one is generally on the move with all sorts of vitally important missions in mind.
But K9999 is currently very much in the mood of not giving a shit. Everything's exploding and he's just waiting to see who survives, inbetween fighting the occasional person.
But now? Now he's just arrived at a gas station in the middle of no where, outside Metro City. It wasn't too long abandoned, but the damned soda machine outside is choosing to still his money.
"What is your -problem-?!" he angrily yells at the thing, beginning to slam his fist into. "I'm thirsty and you think I'm gonna let a shitty machine make me suffer out here in the middle of no where?!" He holds his hand out, immediately turning it into a drill, waiting to completely do in the soda machine.
"Not tonight!"
A hand settles on the clone's arm, slender fingers wrapped in smooth white fabric closing around the outstretched wrist from behind. The grip is light and delicate, clearly meant to get his attention rather than to cause him harm, but the pressure the fingers exert upon him is unyielding as if several tiny steel bars have just wrapped themselves around his flesh.
"Now, now." A bright and cheerful voice speaks from over his shoulder, the tone gentle like the hand on his arm but containing an equally subtle edge of command. "Let's not go breakink zee only source of cold refreshment for dozens of miles in zee middle of a desert, hmm?"
K9999's hand suddenly returns to normal, or at least as normal as a mechanical blue glove can look. He stares down at her, eyes wide. "What are you, some kind of Nazi?" he wonders, then stares out toward the city. "Good place to be. I figure all the cities are gonna get popped eventually, so I'd wait around in places like this and get a good show."
Franziska releases her grip on the young man when his hand reverts into the strange glove and takes a single step back, giving him some room. Her hand slips behind her back to interlock with the other in an at-ease military stance and she offers a bright smile that looks decidedly out of place with her uniform and the surroundings.
"Somethink like zat," she responds with a chipper tone. Her head tilts to one side and she gives K9999 a long pointed once-over, taking in his strange attire and features. He almost looks like something out of a comic book and the cape gives him a decidedly rugged flair that mixes better with the barren wasteland surrounding them than her WWII regalia. The thought makes her grin.
"Unfortunately, zee show has already come und vent from zis place. You vill fight naught here but ruins, sand, und finicky vendink machines." She pauses and then adds with a slight bow. "Und me."
"Tsh, well at least everything out here ain't ugly." K9999 slams his fist against the soda machine, which causes a can of iced tea to finally fall down. He reaches down and grabs it, then turns to face her, staring.
"You just gonna sit out here and watch, too? I don't give a shit about my orders. Everyone's gonna die." He pops the tab with his finger and takes a long sip. "After it's all over, people like us? We're gonna run things. You seem strong. Anyone screws with us..." He swings a hand at an abandoned car, an invisible force slamming a huge dent into the side of it, as if he just hit it with a wrecking ball.
The German woman quirks an eyebrow at K9999 and takes an instinctive step back when he unleashes his power in a primitive display of force. Her head turns to follow his fist and the crunching noise it creates when the telekinetic punch impacts the vehicle. She lets out an appreciative sound at the damage and her eyes sparkle with amusement.
"Neat trick," Franziska says. After a moment she steps up to the soda machine and inserts a small key into a flat metal circle on its side. It clicks as she unfastens the lock and swings it open like a refridgerator, plucking a can of carbonated fruit juice from within before closing it once more. She turns and winks at the young man before flicking her own drink open with her thumb and sipping at it daintly.
After a moment, she turns and strides out towards the road a few paces, gazing into the distance. "Unfortunately, zere is little left zat I can do besides vait for zee end. I played my hand but it vas not strong enough."
"You could have told me about the key!" K9999 accuses, but follows her and stares out into the same distance. "They all deserve it, you know. They fucked around, thought they had power with their structure and contracts and crap. And in the end they learned that they're all just meat."
He stares at the ground and stomps one of his large boots against it. "If the planet doesn't crack in half, we'll be fine. If you were ugly or weak I might not bother, but you look like you know about soldiers and stuff. So when it's over, you take care of all the wild people, and I'll just be the king of the heap."
He pauses, then looks down at his glove. "We should probably find a scientist to make sure I don't explode or anything, too. But fuck it, I can figure this out."
Franziksa answers his accusatory tone with a wry smirk but doesn't say anything for a while. A warmth seems to radiate from her as she stares into the distance, her gleaming sapphire eyes focused on nothing in particular. Unlike the stiffling heat of the desert the sensation is pleasant, like being wrapped up in a blanket made of contentment and happiness. It just feels /good/ to be around her though there's no obvious reason why that might be.
She takes another sip from her juice and closes her eyes after a long pause, smiling again. "You say zee nicest things."
Her gaze is drawn down to the glove alongside his own and her smile retreats a little at the memory of his bizarre transformation. There's only a handful of organizations that could have created technology like that, her own being one of them. She doubts MIMIR would have kept something like that secret from her but anything is possible. He might very well have been sent here to kill her for failing her mission but with the world in such a state that is unlikely as well. That only leaves NESTS and Shadaloo, perhaps some underground remnant of R, or a clandestine research branch of one of the less cautious world governments.
Whatever the case, he hasn't tried to kill her yet and his aggressive temperment doesn't particularly strike her as the sort who would be inclined to go for a subtle approach. Eventually she shrugs and drinks again. "I might know a few people who could help, if you like."
"Good. So we're all set. You think they're gonna screw with the city again, in your expert soldier opinion?" K9999 wonders as he walks to another car, punching his fist through the window to unlock the door. "'Cause I think we should go take over a hotel. Fuck this gas station shit. You're a Nazi and I'm a genetically superior monster. We don't need this crap."
Franziska lets out a muted chortle and turns to shake her head at the young man. She sighs and drains the last of her juice before crumpling up the can and neatly depositing it into rusty metal waste bin bolted to the concrete foundation. She moves silently towards the gas station's main building, pausing only for a moment to beckon at K9999 with one finger before disappearing into a large open structure that must have served as a garage for a local mechanic.
K9999 grunts and kicks the car door for no apparent reason, then follows after her. He tosses his empty can and sniffs the air. "How old are you anyway? You don't look old, I guess Nazis get 'em young. Sounds about right for government bullshit. I set a post office on fire in the last city I was in, because fuck those guys and it's the apocalypse."
As he rounds the corner, the clone is met by the sight of what might very well be compared to a beehive in full swing. Atleast a dozen people in large heavy body armor go about various tasks in the open space. The sheer bulk of the armor makes it impossible to tell the gender of any one of them at a glance and the gas-mask/helmets they wear completely obscure their faces as well making them faceless clones that vary only a little in their height and build.
Several of the soldiers move in a steady line, flowing in and out of the adjoining hallway that connects the gas station to the garage as they haul crates and cardboard boxes into neat piles on the far side of the room. A pair of the grunts sit at cheap wooden fold-out tables, each covered with stacks of small metal rectangles and boxes of ammunition. They load bullets into the empty magazines with quick and practiced repetition, setting aside the full clips to be packed away by others.
he last of the black-clad guards are hard at work with power tools and blow torches, hovering around various points on what must have once been a short charter bus. Now, it resembles something closer to a tank. Hard steel panels cover the majority of its surface, each expertly welded together to create a smooth if not entirely elegant carapace over the civilian vehicle. The front of the tank sports what can only be described as a plow, two large chunks of thick metal pressed together into a razor-edged wedge.
Franziska wanders a few feet into the garage and holds up her hand in a placating gesture when every head within whips up in unison as K9999 follows her in. Though he cannot see their faces, several pairs of eyes focus on the clone from behind the tinted visors of the masks for several long seconds before the soldiers simply return to their work as if nothing had happened.
Franziska turns around to face the clone and clucks her tongue at him. "Tsk. You should know better than to ask a lady her age, young man."
"You ain't a delicate flower." K9999 retorts as he takes in the scene, eyeing each of the men, the bus, then the general space at large. "So you've already got your Nazi army. Just waitin' for everything to finish blowin' up? I guess you've got a fancy plan."
He stares at her, then just shrugs his shoulders as his outfit just... morphs. It entirely reshapes into a more comfortably fitting version of her's, a little loose, top button undone with a looser tie. He's even got a hat. "I'll wear your Nazi uniform so your guys won't get all weird."
Franziksa's eyes widen a little at the sudden transformation but she doesn't look terribly surprised, her expression retaining the amused smile with no apparent effort. She shrugs at him nonchalantly.
"I am not sure zat two squads qualify for an 'army' but I haf prepared for zee inevitable as best I can." Her hand lifts to gesture at the stacked crates. "We haf been collecting supplies for several days now. Food und vater, gasoline, bandages, medicine, twinkies - the essentials," she adds with a grin.
Her hand moves forward to indicate his uniform. "It looks good on you! But you needn't vorry about anyone turnink on you. I haf a strict 'no veirdness' policy laid out in zee employee handbook."
K9999 motions his hands out and the oufit just as immediately switches back, his cape poofing out behind him. Oddly the hat seemed to morph back into his hair. "If anyone turned on me, I'd just rip their heart out anyway. After you've got your stuff together here, you should move all this shit to a bomb shelter or somethin'. There's always shit like that in a city, for government people to hide. You think they're just gonna leave their people exposed?"
He thumbs at the wall, though in the direction of Metro City. "You've gotta watch your guys here and make sure they don't get outta line. But I can go to the city and find a place."
The woman clasps her hands behind her back again and smiles brightly again. The soldiers continue about their work, ignoring the obvious jab at their discipline and professionalism.
"Vee had been plannink on doink just zat. Zee majority of zee city vas destroyed by vhatever caused zee damage but zere should be underground bunkers or storm shelters somevere. If you sink zat you can find somethink, I von't refuse your help."
She glances over her shoulder at the grunts for a moment then smirks at K9999. "I vill make sure to 'crack zee vhip', mm?"
"I can move crap with my brain and drop rocks on people, I ain't worried about the city." K9999 turns around as his cape just kind of unnaturally flows behind him, as if there's some uncontrolled force moving it. "You can be my apocalypse girlfriend. You're welcome."
Franziska's eyes narrow slightly underneath the brim of her peaked cap but she just smiles more brightly at the sudden declaration and laughs a little without opening her mouth, the sound rolling around within her chest.
"How generous of you. My name is Franziska, by zee vay. Usually introductions come before dates."
She lifts one hand and wiggles her fingers at him in cheerful little wave in parting. "Vee vill be here until mornink but vee vill follow zee road towards zee city. It should not be problematic to find us again."
%"K-Four-Nine. That's K with four nines after it. If you ever call me K I'll kill you. See you around." K9999 raises his hand with the wrapping rather than the glove, waving without looking back. Then he just straight up steals the car outside and drives away.
+ooc Ah.
Log created on 15:00:11 10/18/2014 by GLaDOS, and last modified on 15:26:20 10/18/2014.