Krasnogorje Dinner Theater

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

The greenhouse was barely visible from the roof of the East Wing -- over the hill and through the dense greenery. The Fury stood balanced precariously on the ledge like some great black vulture ready to take flight, transfixed with the small clearing in the woods.

Beside him, a single flame soldier waited in khaki drab, arms crossed over his chest, gasmask dangling limp in his hands, short platinum hair damp from the rain and clinging to his forehead. The infamous Lieutenant Io, never too far from the cosmonaut-commander.

It always rained at Groznyj Grad, but for once, the cosmonaut could find no reason for complaint. He only wanted to destroy the greenhouse, not burn all of Groznyj to the ground.

Not just yet, anyway. That was something thrilling to consider…

And besides, it was better rain than snow.

So he paced back and forth on the narrow ledge, radio clutched in one gray-gloved hand, detonator in the other. Absentmindedly, he noted that it was a very long way to the ground, nothing to worry about though, not equipped with a jet pack.

“Captain!” A voice crackled finally over the radio, “he’s got a fucking grand piano in here.” Distant sour notes soon followed, as if to illustrate the soldiers’ point.

He laughed, yes that seemed typical of Johann Krauss, sitting in his greenhouse and playing Bach or Wagner to his precious lilies, or whatever the hell it was he played all the time. “Fill it with C-4 as well,” he answered finally, “and tell Phobos to quit screwing off.”

The Fury did not wait for the reply; footsteps on the rusted metal fire escape that hung on the side of the building caught his attention, not the tell-tale heavy bootsteps of the Krasnogorje soldiers, burdened under their heavy gear -- no, someone else entirely.   GRU, perhaps.  Maybe even Ocelot himself, coming to watch the fireworks.

“We have company.” the pale Lieutenant announced, glancing at the Fury for some signal of how to precede.

“Yes.” The cosmonaut observed.

“Shall I kill them?”

“Not yet.  At least wait until they reach the top.”

Comments

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

The Fury eyed Kassian suspiciously as the soldier shrugged, apparently agreeing with himself about something. They had claimed, with all their support medical knowledge and degrees, that talking to oneself was a certain sign of lunacy. Ranting and raving and screaming at a lamp for endless hours had not helped the cosmonaut’s reputation either.

But Ocelot’s comment caught him off guard, rather nauseated him. A fun date. With a nice candle lit dinner of vulture and alligator, and Ocelot with that painted on hint of a smirk.

It was nothing personal, he realized, and chose to play it off.

“I’m flattered, Major. Perhaps I’ll even be lucky enough to persuade you back to my barracks for a proper lesson in rocket propulsion. You know I’ll never kiss and tell.”

The Fury laughed, shaking the idea out of his head. He watched the soldiers scurrying below with sadistic interest; they were starting to panic in the absence of orders. Typical, disorganized military men, who had been broken to let their superiors do all the thinking for them Like ants. Too easy to kill. Suddenly, he was thankful to have a flame unit under his command composed of rejects and men who found it impossible to blindly follow orders.

“You do understand.” He answered finally with an undertone of surprise. It was the destruction that drove him, that willed him to live even when he should have died. It was the overwhelming feeling of standing alone in the fire, laughing at the flames as they reduced everything to ash. It was the destruction, and the resulting peace. A patch of scorched earth -- cleansed.

“I would like to convince them,” he gestured to the men below in their panic, “if only for a brief period of time, that the explosion was the result of an atomic bomb dropped by the Americans. In their blind terror, they would believe it.” The Fury laughed, just imagining the chaos that would result for weeks. “But would create far too many problems for Voyevoda and her bastardly young son, now wouldn’t it?”

Not waiting for an answer to the rhetorical question, the Fury stepped off the ledge, plummeting toward the earth again before his thrusters fired, and he hovered in mid air. The soldiers below were too consumed in their panic to notice; he turned toward the Ocelot soldiers still standing on the rooftop.

“Tomorrow,” he shouted, “everything returns to normal. No truce! No sympathy between our respective units! My men will resume doing their best to set yours ablaze, and I expect no less in retaliation.”

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

"Why?" Kassian asked, calm in the face of the Fury's ire.

His tone was one of curiosity, not challenge.

He regarded the Fury with a dark, somber gaze.

Kassian knew it was not his place to question the cosmonaut, or to break into his conversation with Ocelot. He was only here as support, and as such, it was his job to stand as silent and disengaged as a sniper in the trees.

But Kassian found himself oddly compelled to ask.

They were of an age, Kassian thought. Perhaps the Fury was even older. There were things that men of their era knew that men of Ocelot's and Isaev's generation couldn't know. It was no failing of these young men, no deficiency in their character. They simply hadn't been through the same experiences, and were different because of it.

They hadn't been through the war.

Kassian felt that there was enough suffering in the world, enough death and loss and anger that one did not have to seek out such things from one's allies, at least.

Here would have thought that the Fury would understand such a thing, but perhaps there was something else, some other reason.

He allowed for the possibility of sheer insanity. If the answer was, because I can, then Kassian would know for certain the mind of the man they were dealing with.

But if it was something else, some other reason more esoteric, then he wanted to hear it. He wanted to understand. Kassian personally had no desire for a rivalry with Flame Patrol.

It occurred to him that they might actually be able to learn things from each other, instead.

He wondered if Ocelot saw it too, or if the young major enjoyed the antagonism.

[major-ocelot-2u.livejournal.com]

Adam found himself smirking.

He said nothing, reaching for his gun and letting it spin on his careless hand, waiting to see if the Fury would actually deign to answer the Captain's very good question, the one he always assumed it was futile to ask.

Perhaps assumptions came too quickly. He idly appraised Irinarhov with a frown of satisfaction.

He had a kind of jaded sentience that worked to his advantage. Knew when to shut up, but broke that rule when he felt like it, and Adam could hardly begrudge that, even when it seemed contrary to subordination.

As he often did when studying the motivations of his elders, Ocelot found himself wondering why one man could go through hell and have his mind snap like a twig, whereas another could emerge relatively unscathed- functionally, at least.

He couldn't vouch for Irinarhov's emotional psyche, but his service was exemplary. His hands didn't fucking shake when he held his rifle, he didn't need pills to steady so he could sight. He might not have lit up the squad with his sunny disposition the first day of his assignment, but clearly he'd fallen in line without much friction.

Ocelot liked his unquestioning loyalty when it was called for, but he was equally pleased by the idea that the Captain was not a mindless automaton. If his experience told him something was unwise, he would in all likelyhood broach the subject, regardless of Ocelot's mood at the time.

His spontaneous adress of the hovering, glowering spaceman had proven that much.

Ocelot glanced at the Captain.

"Glad you went into ground forces, aren't you?" he remarked, obliquely, puntuating this with a snort.

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

“You ask me why.” The cosmonaut laughed, genuinely amused by the question. “I did not think the Ocelot squad still had the ability within them to question.”

That fucking sniper, he thought bitterly, would be his first target tomorrow morning. He was too quiet, and when he did open his mouth, the words which spilled forth were irritating.

And the Major was twirling his guns again. Without thinking, the Fury reached for his flamethrower, absentmindedly clicking the safety switch on and off, on and off, as he hovered in mid air and pondered Kassian’s words.

“Why not? Everyone needs a hobby.”

[major-ocelot-2u.livejournal.com]

"You're wasting your time. Even he doesn't know," remarked Ocelot with a laugh. "You see? That's Groznyj Grad. Infighting and depravity, like a bunch of old, bitter whores. They've been at it so long they don't even know why anymore. No comradeship, no loyalties. That's why Volgin will never get his world domination."

And that's why this assignment is going to be so goddamned easy for Voyevoda and her donkey-jawed American ass boy, he thought, silently.

Ocelot smirked.

"Besides, what else does he have to live for? What are the things men live for? Wealth, fame, comfort, admiration. Prestige, accomplishment, attainment, beauty, creation. Moral good, moral evil, causes, greed. Friendship, brotherhood...love," he added, smirking briefly. "When none of that exists within a man, all that's left is the vaccuum of idealism. He lives for revenge, and nothing more."

Adam quirked his eyebrows in an expression of offhand bemusement.

"He wants to destroy everything, and then go out with it. A nihilist, and a relativist. Both disciplines I don't understand."

Why destroy it when you could own it?

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

They had been playing cards, Ocelots and cosmonauts alike. A quiet but civil game.

They comatose man had been tended and set aside. From time to time he stirred and murmured.

Andrei was almost relaxed. As relaxed as one could be, when not among one's own comrades.

And in the midst of an uneasy truce.

Isaev was working on a good hand when a kid in a crisp kapral's uniform burst in, looking ashen and shaken.

A single panicked sentence was all it took, tumbling from the lips of the pale junior officer.

Andrei leapt to his feet, abandoning his hand. The cosmonauts raked in his cigarettes, but he didn't notice.

He hit the landing of the outer stairs at a dead, efficient run, his jackboots clanking lightly on the metal grating of the fire escape, holding his AK against his side.

There'd been no time to snatch up his jacket, beret or balaclava, so he looked irreparably 'at ease' in his jodhpurs and striped tel'nik, hair whipping at his cheeks windblown disarray, but he endeavored to draw himself up like a soldier as he came to a halting stop before Ocelot.

"Major," he demanded, without preamble. "We have an immediate situation requiring discretion."

Andrei kept his eyes on the Major, fixed and importunate.

"They've found a body, sir."

"There were casualities?" Ocelot asked, frowning.

There should have been no one in residence at the greenhouse. It should have been locked and guarded at this hour. Only Krauss was allowed to go there during the night, and god only knew what he did there.

"Only one. In the shell of the Greenhouse." Andrei paused. "A woman."

Ocelot frowned, incredulous.

"What?"

Women, while common in the Russian army at large, were a rarity at Groznyj Grad.

Isaev nodded.

"A woman. They could tell that much, but not much more. Her face is...not going to be much help in identifying her. The body is charred...and missing several...appendages."

That seemed to unsettle Ocelot.

"From the explosion, doubtless," he muttered, after a moment.

Andrei ran his hand back through his hair, shaking his head.

"I don't know. But they've gone to notify the Colonel. I thought you should know."

He glanced down at the smoldering wreck.

"I'm sure you'll be needed immediately. Elsewhere," he added, significantly.

Ocelot nodded coolly.

"Get everyone, and secure the site."

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

Kassian listened to Isaev's report, frowning.

So the prank had gone too far, then, and had backfired, turning unexpectedly deadly.

He'd thought he'd heard the Fury's men declare the greenhouse as all clear, earlier, unless the whole thing had been staged in order to provide a cover story to get rid of a body.

Though that didn't make sense, either. Perhaps Flame Patrol had just missed the woman. But who was she? A whore that Krauss kept hidden in the greenhouse?

It seemed strange, but it was a puzzle impossible to solve without more information.

Kassian felt a brief moment of regret that he'd not gotten a chance to answer either the Fury or Ocelot, because both had interesting things to say.

The Fury had replied much as Kassian thought he would, though unlike Ocelot, Kassian thought there was more to the story. Reasons deeper than nihilism, though that probably was a factor as well.

Ocelot's lecture afterward had been...surprising. The young major had almost startled him with his keen observations on the nature of men and the reasons they fought. Keenly perceptive, if a bit narrow, Ocelot's reflections on the cosmonaut's psyche had demonstrated an instinctive understanding of human nature that Kassian hadn't thought Ocelot possessed. He'd written off Ocelot earlier as too self-centered to understand the thought processes of others.

Yes, Ocelot's speech had been illuminating, but there was no time to dwell on what it meant now.

He spared Isaev a brief but familiar glance as he stepped forward. It was not the time or place for anything else, but he was glad to see the lieutenant nonetheless.

Kassian turned to Ocelot. "Major?" he asked with silent question in his gaze. He would stay with Ocelot if needed. Perhaps it would be wise.

[major-ocelot-2u.livejournal.com]

Ocelot frowned.

"I don't want to deal with this," he muttered. "Where the hell is Raikov when a dead whore shows up?"

"I think you just answered your own question," murmured Isaev wryly, and Ocelot cracked an absent smile.

"Fuck. Fine. Both of you. Let's go."

He looked at Kassian.

"Unless you want to wait for more pearls of wisdom to fall from the lips of the lunatic."

He could, he thought, leave Irinarhov here- post him above on the roof and have him cover the situation.

He considered it briefly, but there seemed no imminent threat.

Ocelot checked his guns back into their holsters.

Because of the fucking cosmonaut's appetite for destruction, he was stuck dealing with a non-combat fatality.

Those were always lengthy, unpleasant affairs.

Unless it actually was one of Krauss's whores, which he almost hoped, because then the inquiry would be mercifully short.

"Thanks for the hospitality, Fury. I'll be sure to pay you back."

[elyseexpatriate.livejournal.com]

The smoldering ruins glowed on the horizon, tinting the sky with false sunrise.

"Pretty, isn't it?" The Sorrow said.

Children were so much easier to reach. They hardly noticed the difference. A natural sensitivity that most grew out of, perhaps.

An odd place, Groznyj Grad. Anywhere else, following a stranger into the woods would have had the opposite effect on one's personal safety.

The little girl holding his hand nodded, mutely.

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

Kassian glanced briefly at the Fury when Ocelot offered to let him stay, but then shook his head. "No, Major," he said.

Besides, he didn't think the Fury would be lingering on this particular rooftop anymore. With the jetpack, he'd probably beat them all down there, if that was where he intended to go.

The rooftop did afford a good vantage to cover the remains of the greenhouse, but right now there seemed to be no need. He fell in line opposite Isaev.

Besides, he wanted to see the body. He'd seen enough of them, people killed in every manner imaginable, to know a thing or two about the way people died.

He'd taken a sort of macabre interest in it, even though technically his job was over the instant a pulse stilled.

He glanced at Isaev. He'd be willing to bet that Isaev knew a few things about the disposition of dead bodies himself, given the more intimate nature of his particular tradecraft. Killing with one's hands made for a more up-close and personal experience.

It was a shame, though, to think that the prank had resulted in what was mostly likely a civilian death. There were no female soldiers at Groznyj Grad, not that he'd seen, at least, except for the woman they called the Boss.

And if it had been the Boss, then that was another matter entirely.

They would find out, though.

He lined up to follow Ocelot down the fire escape, checking his Mosin-Nagant almost absently, in reflex.

It was going to be a longer night than he'd thought.

[elyseexpatriate.livejournal.com]

The Sorrow was distracted from the sight by a tug on his sleeve.

"'s cold," the girl muttered.

Ah. Right. He had almost forgotten them, these elements that affected the living.

"Let's get you back, then," he said.

The doctor's quarters should still be safe.

They took a circuitous route toward the building that hulked solid and black against the sky, as if in defiance of the recently demonstrated mortality of architecture. After going to the trouble of...preserving this secret, it would do no good to be seen.

"Nadine, was it?" The Sorrow said conversationally.

The going was slow, for the both of them. The girl had to pick her way over rocks, roots, and forest-floor debris. The Sorrow had to take care not to let his legs pass through them.

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

The Fury waited patiently as the Major and the sniper discussed him, dissected his every thought, speculated on his motivations. He listened mostly out of curiosity, only picking a few words here and there over the wind and dull roar of his jetpack.

Isaev appeared, suddenly, unexpectedly. Even from his side of the smoked glass, the cosmonaut could tell how pale and unkempt the lieutenant was. He questioned for a moment perhaps one of his men had done something to upset the Ocelot soldier; Deimos found sadistic delight in such perverse endeavors.

He was fully prepared to take his leave and let them settle it themselves; the thrill of standing among the smoldering ruins was too much temptation. The soldiers were disbursing anyway, no need to hang around --literally and figuratively-- any longer and waste rocket fuel.

The cosmonaut had not expected his own lieutenant to burst through the rooftop door and run towards him, shouting and flailing. Phobos and Deimos followed, then Iapetus, Pasiphaë with her RPG-7 slung over her shoulder, and a few more flame soldiers already struggling to replace their gasmasks.

“A corpse!” Io shouted, “they’ve found a corpse in the greenhouse!”

“It was all clear when we departed.” Deimos offered, stopping just short of the ledge where the cosmonaut hovered. “We checked it three times, top to bottom.”

The Fury considered his words, then nodded. There was no reason for disbelief; they would have admitted, Deimos especially, to murder. Bragged about it, even. If they had gone so far as to drag the unconscious man who put up such a struggle back to the East Wing so that he would not perish in the blast, then they certainly had nothing to do with the alleged corpse.

“Meet me there.” The Fury ordered. Turning, he flew off into the approaching darkness, leaving the Krasnogorje patrol standing there in the thick black smoke that remained.