08-25-2016, 05:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-25-2016, 11:42 AM by The Future Warrior.)
No one ever wanted to be stuck with Fountain Watch in the Empire. Not only was there the ever-present risk of running into some dangerous, unhinged new Prime who might attack you for no reason, or encountering someone who'd been around for a lot longer and was just in a bad mood, but there was something a hell of a lot worse than that. Something so terrible that no amount of training or experience within the Empire's service could ever even hope to prepare you for. It wasn't a death sentence, but it might as well have been. The insurmountable, inescapable fate that was always waiting, sooner or later, to catch you when you inevitably got assigned to Fountain Watch...
"Hey, Sarge...think we got us a new one." The ever-'helpful' voice of one Private Sisto spoke up, one hand fiddling with the manual controls for his helmet's built in vision systems.
And that was all it took to drag Sergeant Stanek out of his string of thought and violently slap him back down in the unpleasant, mind-numbing reality of his situation. Fountain Watch, and with a squad of rookies, no less. They were at least competent, if more than a little eccentric, but it did little to sway his opinion. Having to put up with them wouldn't have been so bad, if that was all he had to do. Having to deal with the blandness and potential dangers associated with patrolling the Nexus on Fountain Watch, he could also stand without too much of an issue. But both such issue, at the same time? Emperor give him patience.
"Yeah, we definitely got us a new Prime at the fountain," Sisto confirmed, his tone almost obnoxiously cheerful. "Let's hope they don't end up doing anything rash this time around.
"Heeeey, maybe we'll luck out and earn us a Kahbin and not a Searle with this one, eh?" The obnoxiously optimistic voice of Private Corbinian piped up, adding his two cents into the mix, and making a poor attempt at a joke. "Eh?"
"Save the air for breathing, Corbninian. Save the jokes for when we're not walking into a potential Searle, here," Stanek snapped, sending the joke-making recruit into a huff as he looked pointedly back ahead. The hypocrisy of the statement wasn't lost on him.
"But really though...I'll take eccentric over aggressive," came the voice of one of the only two really tolerable members of the squad. "At least then we'd have an amusing story to tell, and no medical reports to fill out." A short silence before: "And no troop replacement forms to submit."
"Morbid, as always, Garion." The other tolerable member of the bunch spoke up, and the roll of her eyes was audible, even through the helmet's minor voice filtering.
"Sometimes the truth is morbid, Teagan." Garion just shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You all remember what happened to Sergeant Kester and his squad."
"Poor guy still ain't quite right after that. Haven't allowed him to do more than desk work since the incident." Private Rodi, the resident sniper of the group, supplied with an almost unsettling amount of cheer. "Can't really blame him. After that whole mess, anyone would be a little out of it. Least he's starting to do better. Doesn't scream if someone mentions swords anymore, at least."
"Alright, knock it off. We got a guest to greet!" Stanek grumbled, and everyone snapped their attention back forward.
Wow, the fountain was a lot closer than it had been just a little while ago. Where did the time go?
"Hey, Sarge...think we got us a new one." The ever-'helpful' voice of one Private Sisto spoke up, one hand fiddling with the manual controls for his helmet's built in vision systems.
And that was all it took to drag Sergeant Stanek out of his string of thought and violently slap him back down in the unpleasant, mind-numbing reality of his situation. Fountain Watch, and with a squad of rookies, no less. They were at least competent, if more than a little eccentric, but it did little to sway his opinion. Having to put up with them wouldn't have been so bad, if that was all he had to do. Having to deal with the blandness and potential dangers associated with patrolling the Nexus on Fountain Watch, he could also stand without too much of an issue. But both such issue, at the same time? Emperor give him patience.
"Yeah, we definitely got us a new Prime at the fountain," Sisto confirmed, his tone almost obnoxiously cheerful. "Let's hope they don't end up doing anything rash this time around.
"Heeeey, maybe we'll luck out and earn us a Kahbin and not a Searle with this one, eh?" The obnoxiously optimistic voice of Private Corbinian piped up, adding his two cents into the mix, and making a poor attempt at a joke. "Eh?"
"Save the air for breathing, Corbninian. Save the jokes for when we're not walking into a potential Searle, here," Stanek snapped, sending the joke-making recruit into a huff as he looked pointedly back ahead. The hypocrisy of the statement wasn't lost on him.
"But really though...I'll take eccentric over aggressive," came the voice of one of the only two really tolerable members of the squad. "At least then we'd have an amusing story to tell, and no medical reports to fill out." A short silence before: "And no troop replacement forms to submit."
"Morbid, as always, Garion." The other tolerable member of the bunch spoke up, and the roll of her eyes was audible, even through the helmet's minor voice filtering.
"Sometimes the truth is morbid, Teagan." Garion just shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You all remember what happened to Sergeant Kester and his squad."
"Poor guy still ain't quite right after that. Haven't allowed him to do more than desk work since the incident." Private Rodi, the resident sniper of the group, supplied with an almost unsettling amount of cheer. "Can't really blame him. After that whole mess, anyone would be a little out of it. Least he's starting to do better. Doesn't scream if someone mentions swords anymore, at least."
"Alright, knock it off. We got a guest to greet!" Stanek grumbled, and everyone snapped their attention back forward.
Wow, the fountain was a lot closer than it had been just a little while ago. Where did the time go?