tushanshu_logs | [closed-ish]

Entry tags:

[closed-ish]

Characters: Annie, Reiner, Bertolt, Miles others?
Date: February catch all
Location: Wood Sector, others?
Situation: Annie and Reiner spar and have a discussion. Bertolt and Annie talk before deployment. Miles briefs his motley troop of warriors. Anything else that happens to come up?
Warnings/Rating: violent content.

[OOC: Going with the standard comment starters style. If you'd like a thread, I'll be happy to oblige. Just PP

poppyfields.

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[ It isn't terribly long before Annie makes her way from her current home to ME2C after disconnecting from this conversation, and there's a discreet knock on Miles's front door. Annie isn't moving in unfamiliar conditions unarmed, so she had taken the time to throw on the full extent of her uniform. The jacket with unicorn insignia was almost more eye-catching than the 3DMG, but she's aware of Armin's movements in the city and reasonably certain he'd avoid her.

With Eren likely gone missing, there's no reason not to. ]

[Miles honestly considers it good standard procedure to go around armed (he doesn't leave his flat without his stunner, himself) and opens the door with barely more than a brief look and a curt nod.

He steps back to let her in, too unhappy with the reason she's here to fall back on his learned aristocratic politeness. Miles looks slightly ill today, lined with exhaustion and somehow tempered from the manic energy he'd had when they met. He's starting to wind down and he doesn't like it. He needs this mission; it couldn't have arrived at a better time for his mental health.

Once she's inside, he closes the door behind her and gathers a breath.] It's not pleasant business, but the favor isn't anything dangerous, [he begins, walking back toward his couch with perfectly affected unconcern. The seizure stimulator is on his coffee table, an extremely futuristic looking device comprised of a headset that fits around his scalp and a small remote receiver.]

A while ago, I suffered some... unusual injuries, [which is a long story he doesn't want to get into,] and there's some lingering effects. In brief, I have to intentionally induce seizures periodically in order to prevent them appearing during inconvenient moments.

[A quick glance at her.] Such as during combat. You can see why I must induce one tonight. My physician at home impressed upon me the importance of having a spotter while I do so.

[Taking refuge in sounding professional? Absolutely. Miles isn't totally able to hide his discomfort; it comes out even in just the stiff sound of his syllables. He's really put this off for too long and he's going to feel it in the morning.]

[ That Miles seems unwell is cause for concern. Annie's already revising what vague plans she can make with almost no proper information as she obediently comes inside. Certainly, she'd now need Bertolt and Reiner. She'd already assessed Miles as physically delicate as it was, potential illness sets her on edge. In a man as physically unusual as this one, it only brings to mind the sort of unpleasantness that comes with sweeping and disfiguring ailments.

Some unconscious tension that built in her shoulders is lost when he clarifies he has an injury. Injuries she could handle. He'd more certainly need a keeper during whatever combat came their way to make sure nothing snaps him up. Bertolt, probably, unless Reiner preferred it, but he'd asked her to aid him with whatever this mess was. Besides that, who knew what the appropriate strategy would be before they got to the battlefield and assessed.

Though she recognizes individual words easy enough as he rattles on, the what of the whole of this is foreign to her. She eyes the device on the table dubiously, briefly looking like a person struggling to learn a new language on the fly. She crosses her arms close to her chest, 3DMG clanking as she shifts her weight, and regards him seriously. ]

Explain what will happen and what I need to do.

[Miles would rather shoot himself than have to have a babysitter in the middle of a firefight. In fact, it might come to that.

He eyes her, turning wry.] Definitely a bodyguard, [he mutters. She sounds exactly like an armsman in that moment, past reminding him of Bothari in particular.

Miles absently paces as he talks, looking a little stir crazy.] Not much. I'll lay on the floor and induce one. I'll seize, it'll be ugly and personally mortifying, and you just have to make sure I don't hurt myself while it happens. I won't-- be really conscious, or capable of motor control.

It could... last a while, this time. An average one is about five minutes, but I've been putting it off. One of my men ordinarily serves this role for me and keeps time.

[He trusts he doesn't have to explain why it makes him uncomfortable to have to pick a relative stranger to do it instead. Annie's flat, unflappable nature was another mark in her favor, in this respect.]

[ Annie is starting to get the hang of conversing with this man. He would say a great deal, and most of it could be boiled down into a few key points. He had fits, but there was a treatment that allowed him to have the fits in controlled circumstances. She imagines he must be quite desperate to ask a girl he's barely worked with to see him in such a vulnerable position.

The idea of loss of control is horrifying to anyone, but this man strikes her as particularly ill suited for it. To do it deliberately must grate, but any sympathy that she feels never reaches her face. ]

I can do that. [ She begins immediately to hit the releases on her gear in neat precise movements, removing it from the harness she wore to sit it off to the side. It'd only get in the way in this situation. ] You haven't found a doctor in Keeliai?

[ She doesn't have time to puzzle out why he couldn't do this under medical supervision when he'd been asking about medical facilities when she'd first interacted with him. There was a reason, and it was likely not one that would affect her actions either way. She'll do what he wants because it's most advantageous to her current position. ]

[Everyone has to develop coping mechanisms for having Miles in their life, it's true. Learning to translate his rambling into what he's actually getting at is a good first step.

He flings himself in a chair and makes a face, nearly scowling. In public, Miles is all poise and control, suave and urbane as he must be right now to garner more connections. But he has a whole other set of layers to him and they start to surface now, pressed as he is. Miles just needs to talk sometimes, bounce out his thought process, and Annie is a prime subject, placid as she is.]

I did find one. Shockingly competent; I think his tech is more advanced than I'm used to. Not that he would give me the full model. [He'd asked.] But there is a small chance-- unlikely, but possible-- that I might seize on the field, and it's not fair to let you go into that situation uninformed. [A fact that has been resoundingly brought home to him in the past. His grim demeanor makes that obvious.] It's what discharged me from the service.

I'd rather keep the amount of witnesses to an absolute minimum, for the sake of my pride if nothing else. This hits two birds with one stone. [His fingers drum on the arm of his chair. Then he finally seems to notice what she's doing.] What is that? Your vertical gear? Expecting to go titan-climbing around here, are you?

[ Annie understands OPSEC and pride both, and the answer is enough for her sense of curiosity. That he's revealing that weakness could damn well keep them all alive. She neatly files it away, along with the existence of a doctor. ]

Hardly.

[ After a moment of thought, she shifts one of the trigger grips in her hand. Contained in the boxy metal sheathes that her gas canisters are attached to are a whole complement of blades as they went through them rather quickly when dealing with titans, designed to snap into the handle of the grip and be used as a sword. In a fluid movement, she has one attached and halfway draws one.

She thumbs a release and the wickedly sharp blade slides back home. It must seem primitive to a person like him, she's sure. His technology was unfathomable to her, and she brought nothing like that to the table. ]

Titans aren't all these blades are able to cut. [ They were never taught to fight humans in vertical maneuvering gear, but that didn't mean she wasn't very good at it. And if he's unintentionally letting some hidden layers surface, she might be in turn. She hardly means to, but she's balancing precariously on an edge of late. ]

[Miles has a healthy respect for blades, and is more than familiar enough with the ugly business of war to appreciate it as somehow more honest than a nerve disrupter. Certainly it's no more ugly than a plasma arc. He's unfazed by the unsheathed weapon in his presence; utterly certain as he is in his assessments of people, he'd never have asked her here if he thought she considered him a threat. Which is surely, he realizes, the more relevant question than whether he thinks she's a threat.

Of course she's a threat. That's why he wants to keep her. Lack of technology is surely no barrier; if anything, it secures him an advantage, a reason for her to need him. Miles intends to make use of it.

He lets out a low, short whistle, attention caught from his earlier distraction.] Vicious. [He sounds assessing.] That was the other order of business on the agenda, before I check out. Are the lot of you going to come with those? Is that how you're used to fighting, close range? [Miles is already presuming Braun and Hoover will show up and allow him to direct them. It doesn't do him any good to plan for failure; he never does. Which means he has a strong vested interest in a more practical appraisal of their capabilities.]

[ Vicious is a good description. The unusual construction of the blade was all about slicing through flesh as efficiently as possible, though it unfortunately dulled too quickly. These are weaknesses that some woman more forthright than herself might explain to a man she intended on going into combat with. ]

Mm, if they show. [ She's very picky about reiterating that. His confidence aggravates her in that regard. She doesn't like he feeling that they're being played somehow even when she's well aware of what she's letting happen. Hell, she wants this to work a certain way in order to see if he's going to be an asset, so the irrationality of that bit of prickly defensiveness doesn't even make sense to her. ]

Titan extermination is always close range, and that's their specialty. Rifles are too slow, and don't do the right kind of damage.

[ The exact right kind of damage, too, is a detail she's not going to expand upon for him. ]

[It's impossible to argue that he's not being presumptive, because Miles is always presumptive. He's almost mentally incapable of another mode. Here he waves off her caveat.] Yes, I know it's no guarantee, but it does me no favors to be pessimistic. We have to keep our forward momentum.

[That's a favorite saying of his, and he does in fact appear somewhat less stressed for having reminded himself of it. Inducing a seizure in her presence is all part of the plan, he tells himself.]

Really? [He looks at her in surprise, thoroughly distracted now. Thinking of hypothetical titan extermination is a much more enjoyable mental exercise than his upcoming personal embarrassment.] How... dreadfully inconvenient. An interesting puzzle. I'll have to show you how to rig up some explosives that could take out a dreadnought, on the off chance you end up home with your memories intact. I'm sure they wouldn't like, say, a face full of hurled high explosives.

[Miles is almost cheerful at the thought.]

[ One last once-over of her gear now that she's got it settled down, she's unarmed save that boot knife she keeps but she's hardly the kind of person that is ever particularly without a weapon. She was the weapon. Before she'd been the young woman standing before him, she'd learned how to become one of the deadliest beings humankind would ever have to face.

And, if she had her way, he'd never know it.

She's immune to theoretical titan extermination discussions by now. Too many years among the humans assured that, and instead she is intrigued by his words. For a brief moment, Annie might even look charmed at the thought. The 'hm' that escapes her is both a thoughtful, considering hum and oddly pleased. ]

High explosives, huh?

[ That could be useful. The applications could be endless with the kinds of explosives more advanced cultures were probably capable of pulling together. Her gaze drops briefly before settling on him again. ]

I wouldn't say no if you were interested in showing me.

[Ha. She really is an Elli Quinn, just an inexperienced one in some respects. With that general basis to run off of, Miles grows more confident in his handle on her. He smiles genuinely; it's not manipulation that leads him to the offer, just an honest desire to see those he likes happy.]

Glad to. Remind me when this mess is over with. You'd make an apt pupil.

[Seeing that she's done removing her gear, Miles heaves a sigh and gets to his feet, absently pushing the table forward out of the way. The area rug beneath it is exposed, and he eyes it balefully as he takes up the seizure stimulator.]

Time to get this over with, [he says grimly.] I'll... likely be indisposed, afterwards. I've let this go too long. You may have to drag me onto the couch-- I'm sorry. [His grimace indicates how unhappy he is with the prospect; and overly familiar with it, too. He's had to be manhandled so many times in his life, for his own good and by enemies. He's thoroughly sick of being at someone else's mercy or needing help.]

[ It's rare that Annie is ever given any such assessment. 'Apt pupil,' while clearly just an impartial judgement on his understanding of her capacity for learning, is a description that makes her feel... something. She's not entirely sure what, but it's almost pleasant. Maybe she would have an opportunity to prove this right.

That brief moment of seeming almost human is gone with that explanation, and her expression shifts to near-complete blankness with practiced ease. She's long since learned how easy it is to write her off when she looks like that, and it's a calculated effect in this case. It's a neat trick, and it struck her as interesting how much easier it became for people to do what they considered unpleasant if they could simply regard her as a nonentity. ]

It's fine. [ She cants her head slightly, though the expressionless nature of her face means she gives nothing away as she considers him. No visible judgement one way or another there. Still, her eyes are alert, and she moves to the rug so she may kneel at one edge of it. ] I can manage.

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[closed-ish]

Miles!

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