milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

[Upstairs: Order 47.]

Shephard's been busy upstairs, and he's going to be busy for a good portion of today- there are maps to be gone over and forces to be arrayed and all kinds of preparations to be made for the inevitable trip to Mongolia- but just for the moment he's got something of a tradition to uphold. "Hey, Bar?" he says. "Anyone comes lookin' for me for some reason, I'mma be outside, all right? Got me a unit run to do."

The Bar, despite being a piece of wood with no actual face to speak of, contrives to look skeptical.

"Might not be anybody else in it, but I'm still here and it ain't been disbanded, so HECU still exists," Shephard says, unperturbed. "It qualifies."

The air of skepticism fades, in favor of something a little more like resignation.

"Attagirl." Shephard grins crookedly and pats the bartop. "You just make sure'n have a proper cake waitin' when I get back, okay?"

He doesn't wait to see the response, but heads for the back door instead. Anybody who wants to catch him out on his extended run today, be our guest; or you can talk to him when he gets back inside. Either one works.

[OOC: Open until it scrolls off the page!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hey, there are at least plants in Tokyo," Nori argues back. "But I hope your world gets a better second chance than what happened with the first."

"No offense or nothin'," says Shephard, "but where I grew up there were so fuckin' many trees the teachers said a squirrel in a hurry could git from one end of the county to the other without ever havin' to set foot on the ground. Ain't a whole lot of cities out there c'n live up to that."

"Thank you anyways, though. 'Preciate the sentiment."

"I get it. Trees are nice and all...I mean, I live in a mansion in Westchester. The grounds are mostly forested. Maybe you could rebuild it with treehouses?"

She's not actually joking. "You know, like build them around the trees. Natural support system, and renewable resources."

"Might do, at that," says Shephard. "Depends how many people we got after it's all said and done. We're gonna have to take it slow. Fuckin' Combine stopped folks from growin' their own food the past sixteen years, so we got to rebuild the agricultural shit first. Cities come later."

"Damn, they seriously are like a plague," she says, shuddering once and it's not because of the chill.

"Yep," Shephard says. "I'm gonna take some real pleasure in seein' every last one of them fuckin' maggots splattered clear to shit and back. Mongolia's gonna be a good start."

Noriko laughs at that as she runs, and puts on a burst of speed that carries her a dozen yards forward in the space of a few seconds, turning around to call back to Adrian.

"Gonna catch up, Marine?"

For answer, Shephard lengthens his stride. He normally fills his backpack with rocks before any kind of a PT run, and does his best to hit the time he'd need to pass the physical fitness test with flying colors. Today? Today he's not wearing any damn rocks.

"You just watch me," he promises. "I eat distance like this for fuckin' lunch."

That gets a chuckle out of her as she starts off again. "Prove it!" she calls over her shoulder.

Sometimes, she can still get a little excited about a footrace. She's entitled to that much at least, she thinks.

"Damn straight I will," Shephard says to no one in particular, and launches into a dead run.

He can keep this up all day if he has to.

Noriko does a fair job of keeping up her running speed without cheating and using her abilities. She doesn't keep talking while they run, and she doesn't begin to flag until about the end of the three miles.

He's fast. Really fast.

Part of it is a natural desire to challenge himself that's driven a lot of his PT. Part of it is that the biggest moron on the Resistance wants desperately to be a badass and Shephard's been the one to try and run him into the ground with as much training as physically possible. Part of it is that today's just not the kind of day where you want to go down without a serious fight. It all adds up in the end.

He's not grinning as the end starts to come into sight, but he does have a rather satisfied air about him.

She could win pretty easily; superspeed does lend that ability to people, but Nori doesn't use it. It's a pretty big thing for Marines, the corps birthday, and she knows it. So she runs fair, as if she were nothing but a normal human--to the extent she can, anyway.

Shephard wins by a good minute, crossing the imaginary line before her, and Nori stops to put her hands on her knees. The metal is cold against her tights-and-shorts-clad legs. "Jeez. I seriously need to take normal runs more."

And he appreciates that, truly he does. He's still going to need a bit to get his own breath back as he walks in a small, tight circle, but that doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate it.

"Y'did good," he says after a bit, looking up- still circling, mind. "Mason'n Ten Boom don't gimme that much of a hard time, back home. 'Preciate the competition."

"Ten Boom?" she echoes, catching her breath as she crouches, retying her tennis shoes.

"That a friend of yours?" Hell of a name, if it is.

"Yeah. Jan ten Boom. Big fella. Dutch," says Shephard. "Combine had him workin' as a railroad slave most of his adult life. Soon as he got away he turned saboteur. Man made a bet with one of our radio men 'bout what I do for my training regimen'n damn near got us all blown to kingdom come. I told him I'd save his ass from teachin' the local moron how to build satchel charges but he was gonna have to do every fuckin' thing I told him, no questions asked. He took me up on it."

"Huh. Sounds like you've got a follower," she says. "I'm impressed."

"I got three," says Shephard. "Problem is, one of them's a batshit fuckin' loco headcrab wrangler from Brazil, and one of 'em's the local moron. I ain't allowed to recruit new Marines 'til the Combine're gone, but I reckon Floyd Mason's gon' be first in line to sign up, and I ain't lookin' forward to the reputation we're gonna git if that fucker's our public face. I done heard 'Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential' too many fuckin' goddamn times already."

At this Nori just snorts. "I'd help you out there, but I...am not exactly the military type."

She doesn't do pointless or idiotic orders; anyone that knows her from her own world could tell you this without significant thought. She is, however, okay with following most directions that seem intelligent enough.

"Naw, it's all right. I'mma see 'bout convincing him keepin' his claptrap the fuck shut's the way to attract the ladies. Folks who ain't met him don't know he's a moron 'til he speaks up, I figure."

And there's only so many Resistance fighters who've met Mason.

"I just got to make it through the Combine war alive'n then I git to worry 'bout that kind of shit."

"I wish you luck. Sounds like you guys need it more than we do."

Part of her rebels against saying that. Her world, while not taken over and currently fighting off an evil alien overlord species, isn't in the best of shape, but there can be no war of attrition for them. There really is no end to what she's fighting for.

"Thanks," says Shephard. "Day I got luck to spare, I'll make sure'n bring it around for you, how's that sound?"

"That and a whole lot of spare bullets would totally not go amiss," she says. "You know that joke about how being a mad scientist means never stopping to ask 'what's the worst that could happen'?"

Beat.

"Yeah, my world's got all the people that really actually didn't stop to ask that."

"If we got 'em by then, you're welcome to 'em," Shephard says. "Might see 'bout bug juice too, if we got enough to spare. Tastes like shit but fuck, it saved my ass when I had t'jump out of my goddamn murderbird."

Noriko looks at Shephard with a vaguely confused expression for that.

".....Bug juice? Tell me this doesn't mean bad knockoff Kool-Aid in your world."