milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Wells has been busy at the Academy most of the day- small surprise. Some of the girls are coming up on being field-ready. That's a critical p hase in their training, and he doesn't want to see it go awry now.

It does mean that he's been forced to keep up with the reflexes and endurance of Slayers for twelve or fourteen hours now, though, so he reckons he's earned dinner and a pint by the fire.

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There is a loud clank as the chief rolls over onto his back before there's a thud as he hops back up onto his feet.

Everything aches, and it's made worse by the cold and the spill he took. The green of his armor's streaked with dirt and mud along with patches of snow.

Coughing, the chief bends down, not caring who sees pulls off his helmet.

There's a few minutes of coughing before he breathes deep and stares at the surrounding wilderness.

And like that, he turns to Wells. Gotta love the fast recooperation time, "......Are you all right?"

Wells makes a small gurgling noise in lieu of acknowledgment and holds up one hand. After he makes another tight little circle, he manages to straighten a bit. "Jesus fucking Christ," he says. "That was- that-"

He pushes two fingers up against the carotid pulse point, silently counting.

"Fuck. Haven't run. Like that. Since the silver." He shakes his head rapidly. "I'll pay for that tomorrow."

The chief raises an eyebrow, "..I've never seen a non-augmented human run like that before."

It's worth it to note that the Spartan's now only breathing heavily, "-Silver what?"

"There's no what-" He coughs, fighting down the urge to gag violently. "It was airborne silver solution. Inhaled. Chemical burn. Fucking awful, mate, I'll tell you-"

Another round of gag suppression ensues. When it passes he wipes at his eyes with one hand.

"Christ Almighty. And me with no stopwatch."

The chief pauses, "-The next time this happens I can time you if you like." He points to his helmet, "- My Mission clock records as a stopwatch."

There's a long pause, the Spartan staring at him, completely heedless of the chill, "Sergeant...what are you?"

He's aware of how akward that might sound.

Wells is too busy making faces and trying to get his breath back to be the least bit evasive about it. "Werewolf," he says. "I got infected a few years back. I've been training with it ever since. 's not goin' away, I might as well-"

He has to start stretching now or he'll stiffen up something awful, he just knows it. So he's stretching one leg all the way out behind him as he speaks again.

"-might as well get control of it, and use it."

The chief says nothing.

Saying that werewolves are fictional would sound contrite, but-

"....That explains a lot actually." He nods slowly to himself.

The Spartan sits down in the snow, pulling his arms across his chest in an attempt to stretch, "You seemed to have some sort of augmentation, I just couldn't put my fingers on what, and my sensors are malfunctioning too with Cortana unable to monitor them..."

His voice trails off as he grunts, "...Dammit."

"Yeah. It doesn't do shit for strength, but it made me faster, and it sure as fucking hell gave me the kind of healing most men only dream about. Right now every fucking muscle in my body feels like it's on fire. The only way I can run as fast as that is 'cos I start healing the damage I do to myself while I'm still moving. It'll all be gone in a day or so." Wells grimaces. "I'm payin' now, though."

Then he pauses. "You all right, there?"

"The joint of my armor is digging into my shoulder." The chief says pointedly. Heedless of the chill, he shifts it back into position with a grunt before adjusting his sitting position and slipping the helmet back on.

When he stands, he's still seven feet tall and big "...Speed and Healing are useful as a soldier."

He would like to be blunt and ask how much damage can he take, if it was intentional, this infection (although infection never is) and what his superiors thought of it.

HE is betting this is a bad idea.

He's a good foot taller than Harry, which is a bit of an odd experience for him. But Harry nods. "They would be, if I were still in the service," he says. "Only they wouldn't want me for a soldier myself. The Ministry of Defence would've sent me to a research lab, and I'd've lived out my days being studied and taken apart so they could use what I've got to upgrade later generations of soldiers."

He's not saying this from bitterness, or from paranoid speculation. He's seen the papers. He knows.

There is a definite twitch.

Wells can probably hear it. When one raises shoulders up and down that quickly in armor that size, it's hard not to hear things like that.

"....Everyone should be given an opportunity to serve in some way or another, no matter what's asked of them."

The chief parrots it back automatically, and while it's hard to see behind the helmet, his voice sounds distinctly sad. He's thinking of Fajad and Erin and Luke and Tanner and the rest of his squad who were Crippled

"Aaah, I had twenty-three years," says Wells. "That's a fair run by my day's standards for near any soldier. These days- like I said- I've got a job training girls to fight the sort of monsters I could be if I ever lost control of myself. It's not uniformed service,b ut it's doin' my part by the human race, I reckon."

The chief nods mutely, "-In any sort of service, as long as you're serving and helping people. That's what's important."

He stops a moment, turning around to study the footprints he's left in the snow-oblivious to Wells and if he's continued walking.

"My sentiments exactly," says Wells.

He's not walking far. He's got to stretch first- quite a bit, if he wants his muscles to be usable again in the morning.

"Given enough time though, at least in my world-they sort of substituted surgical enhancements."

He turns away from his musings and follows wells, "I suppose if you're going to try to build a supersoldier nothing is going to stop you."

"I'm not surprised," Wells says. "I've seen some of the documents from England. Barely a tenth of what they had at the Gruinard Island facility, those papers. I can guess what else the Special Weapons Division was working towards with their experiments."

A thought occurs to him. "Say- have you met another Englishman, name of Ryan, by any chance?"

"Captain Ryan?" The chief straightens, "Yes I have. One of the only officers I've come across since arriving here."

The chief's got that blank "I obey orders without question" look in his eyes-but of course you can't see that.

Nod nod. He's a captain. This must mean he's good.

Wells suppresses the urge to sigh, saying instead, "He's another one- another werewolf, I mean. Got infected on the same mission that got me."

He could probably say a lot of other things, but it doesn't seem to him like any of them would really be worth the bother or the time. If anyone here can take care of himself, it's this fellow.

"...More then one person was infected?" The chief frowns, then considers the engagement possibilities, ".....Your intelligence individuals must have made a miscalculation. I mean, why risk manpower when you should just investigate other options? A dead soldier is worth nothing, barring the potential that they might end up endowed with augmentation or special powers."

The chief's voice rises in pitch and he clenches a fist. No. You don't waste a squad like that. Not at all.

"You'd have to ask Ryan about that," says Wells. "He was mission commander, not me. His intel only allowed for one enemy and it turned out there were six. Dunno how that came about, exactly. I wasn't even briefed on what was goin' on until all Ryan's men were dead and he was bleeding out."

This displeases the chief.

He stops moving, staring at Wells as if he were turning furry right then and there, "-His intel wasn't complete? He sent his squad against an unknown combatant and failed to brief the team sent in to provide support?"

He sounds only slightly upset.

"About the size of it," says Wells. "Our job was to lure the enemy out. We were under the impression it was ordinary Special Forces men."

Yes. The chief has his scary moments.

This would be one of those scary moments. Combined with the snow and the moon and the fact that the guy's tall and wide and there's a very real air of predator coming off of him-

"....That is the sort of mission you send spartans in for."

Nod nod nod. The scary is gone. Now the chief wants to go inside and forget about the fact that all of the people he'd normally take on a mission like that are DEAD.

There's a moment when Wells thinks, very briefly, of what it would look like come full moon if this man got infected. There's a statue in the British Museum of the Egyptian god of the dead that bears a wolf's head, rather than a jackal's. That sounds about right.

Then he shakes his head. "We had none," he says simply. "Listen, I'm starting to seize up out here with this cold- d'you mind heading in?"

The chief jolts out of his reverie, "Of course."

He nods, "-I'm sorry. Of course."

There is a meter somewhere of respect, and people who he respects. In the chief's mind, his respect for Wells has gone up several notches, while his respect for Ryan, despite his rank, has gone down. With power comes responsibility, and he is angry that someone might abuse it.

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