Barapam wrote:"I hope you are all enjoying your winter walk? Haha!"
Claire smiled at the Nazi mocking them, though the expression was invisible behind the buttoned face-cover of her coat.
“Enjoying it very much, Herr Nazi. It’s more fun than syncopated rhythms or jumping a Jew’s bones. Oy vey you schlemiel.” Claure muttered to herself, the words muted by the cover in front of her mouth. Despite the insult though, Claire actually approved of the man’s behavior. Nobody else had a pair of skis. The guy was fully justified in making fun of that lack. Good for him. Not even Mister super-duper survivalist ‘fall behind and I’ll leave you behind’ power fantasist himself had thought of that, had he? Fricken’ bossy prick.
“Four kilometers an hour. I’ll be counting.” Claire repeated only slightly louder, glaring daggers at the man’s back. “You’re a fricken’ American, man, come on. We speak American and we measure speed in American, dammit. That means using miles-a-fucking-hour. Seriously, the only dickhead I knew who ever used kilometers for anything was that kooky ‘Nam vet who trained the Montana militia and called the things klicks because that’s how—“ Claire stopped, not only talking to herself but walking.
It was painfully obvious now that she had a minute to think about it. He was some kind of a soldier. That's why he used kilometers instead of sensible units of measurement. That’s why he had the crazy tacticoolized rifle and shit with all the doodads and Tom Clancy garbage strapped onto the thing. It was why his plan had sounded like some military briefing bullshit, or that ‘SERE’ crap that the trainer had taught so many years before. Claire couldn’t remember the particulars, it had been too long since she’d heard it and she never had cared much for the idea of avoiding a fight, but she swore she’d heard the same ‘stay away from transportation hubs’ line he’d used before.
“Fuck me.”
He was a soldier in hell though. That should be enough for her to be able to put up with him, knowing he’d done some heap bad juju in life. It was enough for her to not have a real problem with the Nazis. So why did he annoy her so much? Her instincts weren’t wrong about this sort of thing. She didn’t know what it was, but something about the man just pissed her right the hell off.
Claire shook her head as she let a few of the others pass her by. She much preferred being behind people anyways. It made it so much easier to shoot them in the back. But even though it had the benefit of efficiency, it was also so incredibly blasé. If she was going to kill any of the others, of whom the soldier seemed the most likely candidate at this point, she’d do it in a much more interesting way…Maybe. Who knew, perhaps she could wrangle some kind of deal out of God or Satan to kill one or more of them in exchange for a pass to get by all this ‘trial by fire’ crap. Though it’d be pretty hypocritical for something like that to come from God’s end of things, and Satan didn’t seem to have much say in any of this. Even his demons were getting sprung by the angels and given a chance to make it out of hell.
It seemed uncharacteristically forgiving to give torturing demons the chance at ‘Paradise’. In fact, the whole shebang seemed uncharacteristically forgiving. It wasn’t like SHE’D ever believed in Jeezus or any of the Biblical-grade bull anybody tried to convince her of, and yet here she was getting told she could go ahead and try to shoot her way to Heaven. Claire approved of the methods, but the message seemed rather upfucked from a religious standpoint. They were going to let demons like her and the folks who worked for Satan himself like the creepy chick, the hellhound and the big-tittied horned bimbo fight their way into Heaven with no strings attached? It seemed like they would be more concerned with demons and evil people wrecking up the place. Or shooting God in his/her/its face.
Nekronia wrote:Anyways, since Jackie's face was covered up and he's at risk for mook slaughter (Aaaand back to fiction logic), he decided to lurk closest to the person he liked best of the group so far: the mass-murdering, drug-running, everything-ruining crimelord Claire. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG
Claire began walking again, twisting her head to glare at the boy who was following her. Oh God, he was like a puppy, an exceptionally annoying, naïve puppy! He’d imprinted on her when she’d made eye contact! Why had she had to make eye contact? Shit, shit, shit.
But he had called the soldier gay, so at least he had a few proper sensibilities buried in there...That’ll do, puppy. That’ll do.
“Bucko, I’ve got two quick questions for you.” Claire said as she began moving again. “First of all, much as I enjoy calling you ‘bucko’, what the devil is your name? I may end up threatening your life at some point in the near future, and not using someone’s actual name when you’re doing something like that I've always thought to be terribly rude.”
Claire held up a gloved hand with two fingers raised to forestall any answer on that point and continued, “Second, doesn’t this whole cockamamie situation seem a bit ridiculous?” Claire twisted her neck to try and look at the boy, though she could only spot him out of the corner of her eye. “I mean, you ever read the Bible? Ain’t nothing in there about random chances at getting out of hell. Seems a teensy bit on the nonsensical side to this girl. I mean, if I were running this place, I imagine giving some group of schmucks some hope of escape and then jerking the rug out from under them would be a pretty funny thing to do. Just to see them squirm. What if this is Satan's idea of a knee-slapper?”
