Quoted By:
A derringer everywhere you could stick one- except for the waistband of your underwear (reserved for the lucky razor- lucky if you didn’t need to use it) and your right sleeve, which had a long, slender slicing knife, in case of close encounter. Or a stubborn cut of meat. You had a lot of the little double-barreled holdout pieces. Practically a collector at this point, you didn’t really have anything better to spend money on, considering how much you unintentionally saved up. You were too used to only getting money from doing a merc job and getting a cut of the coin and loot, most of what you considered the most valuable things to you were stuff that you were gifted…or stuff you took. The Dust Devil tank you had, for example. You stole that, and old friends in the Iron Hogs, your old mercenary outfit, fixed it up with some modifications to make it more badass. If they were hoping you’d come back to them, they were wrong, though. You weren’t going back. Not in the way they wanted you to.
Near fully strapped down with derringers, one on each thigh holster of your rigging, one in a sleeve’s sewn pocket, one pushed down against your chest, your heart reassuringly beating against the warming steel. A spritz of perfume, if you were going out like this anyways. It smelled softly of vanilla and cinnamon, rather than your usual scent. Like you spent more time in a patisserie instead of a tank.
Were you forgetting something?
Nah. Everything you needed, you had. Not that you were gonna <span class="mu-i">shoot</span> Magnus, unless he did something really stupid.
Ready as you were going to get for this, you checked the clock again. 0650. Did it really take you this long to get everything ready? Judge above. Not like you were supposed to meet Magnus until noon, but you hadn’t even heard the bugles going. Must’ve been the dress’s fault.
Stepping out of the women’s dormitory compound, you readily noticed that the other residents weren’t the types to even wake up at a proper time like you. Must have been here thinking they were on <span class="mu-i">holiday</span>.
You’d have to go to a courier truck to get into the city. The Archduke’s Own Panzer Officer Academy was situated a few klicks away from the city proper, where there was open land and rolling hills for the tanks to go around, and the air was cleaner. Once within the city, the air was heavy with soot, a dirty cloud hanging close to the streets depending on how close to the industrial district you were. Most people cursed the factories’ pollution in spite of the business and wealth they made, but in a funny way, the smog reminded of the filthy air of a battlefield, so you weren’t much bothered by that.
An odd sight, as you walked down the path towards the Academy’s front gates. On a day without lectures or maneuvers, the students and professors alike were lazy, but there was already a uniformed man sitting at a bench in front of the women’s dormitory. A pervert, hoping to look into the baths?
