#sergei dragunov golden suit

[enydaki]

[blizzardrush]

    Back in the saddle again. Dragunov could do this in his sleep. He could do this dead.

    No. No no no no, don't think about that. Don't think about being alive for just over twelve hours. That doesn't help anyone. That doesn't keep his people safe. Focus.

    It's hard when it's this easy though. The Raptors had hardly been deployed yet. Sergei and his squad watched the battle unfold from their vantage point halfway up a mountainside. This was not their fight. At the first sign of anomalous behavior, it would be.

    He let one or two of his soldiers pick off a target every so often. Someone who looked important. Someone who would make the course of events more entertaining if they died. Dragunov spotted them through binoculars, relayed positions through gesture. These were veteran Raptors. They understood.

    A sniper rifle blasted. In the valley, a head popped. Business as usual.

    It was almost boring.

    A flash of yellow in Sergei's sights caught him off-guard. Frowning, he looked again. It was King, complete with full feathered regalia. King. Really? Was G Corp that strapped for combatants, they had to send in a Mexican wrestler? This wasn't a battlefield, this was a goddamn three-ring circus.

    It would be mildly interesting to see what kind of skull lay under that stupid mask. Dragunov pointed into the valley. It wasn't hard to determine who he wanted killed. Shifting her stance, the Raptor sniper took aim. Crosshairs centered on golden fur and black rosettes. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

    The Doppler effect broke open overhead, crashing waves of sound down upon them. A plane, black as night, Zaibatsu emblem on its sides, crested the mountaintop then dipped downward. A bombing run. Its payload hung one-handed underneath, over seven feet tall with veins of electric red.

    Sergei's pulse quickened. They had no intel on a new Jack model. Despite superior numbers, Zaibatsu forces were losing ground. That they chose to utilize it now made his hair stand on end. If this was their ace in the hole, what made it so?

    The possibility of anomalous enhancement could not be ignored. Dragunov swung his arm ahead. The Raptors moved.

    The terrain was steep and rocky, a combination that required careful planning of every footfall. By the time they had descended, the war had advanced to meet them. Blood, dirt, and gunpowder hung heavy in the air. Dragunov didn't remember combat smelling this way, itchy on his skin.

    The difference a new windpipe makes, he thought, and before that train could start rolling, something slammed hard into his side. He lost balance, fell end-over-end down the slope.

    His brain kept going after his body rolled to a stop. Until now, all he had experience had been discomfort compared to this. This hurt, and his factory settings flesh had no idea how to deal with it. Groaning, he crawled to all fours, looked up.

    Who wore a white suit to a combat zone?

    International borders again, this time on fast forward. Bryan had last been on a military aircraft that had willingly carried him two lifetimes ago. Looking out a window at the approaching island made his pistons clench in excitement.

    Dragunov, not so much. He looked fantastic in tactical armor, that was a given. Kevlar suited him, and the red beret a no-brainer. It was the scowl, heavier than usual, that soured the atmosphere of the entire cargo hold. Didn't he care about the morale of his men?

    Crossing the belly of the beast towards him, Bryan patted a pallet bristling with weaponry, gun barrels poking out at random. "Couldn't decide what to get from your boys, so I ordered one of everything."

    Nothing. Not so much as a wayward glance.

    Dragunov had no one but himself to blame for his terrible mood. Back at base, while being patched up with new synthetic skin, Fury caught him investigating the wood crate. "I wouldn't look in there if I were you," Bryan had hollered.

    Sergei gave two seconds consideration. A pointed finger dropped with sledgehammer finality. A crowbar made quick work of the lid.

    The green stench of decay bloomed over the entire medical bay. To the Raptors' credit, there had been less revulsion than Bryan expected, their doctors and nurses hardened by routine treatment of anomalous illness and injury, but heads still turned away, lunches still fought down.

    Sergei stared into the contents of the crate for a long time. The pulped tangle inside stared back.

    He waved his hand once. The lid was replaced, the crate taken away.

    There was the gurgle of a flamethrower. Barbeque scents.

    Fury looked around the hold. Somber faces on every soldier. Being a complete sad-sack had to be a prerequisite for joining the Gold Raptors. At least they all perked up when he kicked the pallet closer to the cargo hatch. "C'mon, boys and girls," he cried, "Who hasn't wanted to visit Japan? I hear there's a chance of hail. Bullet hail, courtesy of yours truly. Hey, everyone strapped in?"

    Yanking a lever on the wall bathed the hold in red warning light and drilling klaxons as the hatch bowed open. Howling wind threatened to suction out anything not battened down. The pallet spilled over the edge and out of sight.

    Bryan turned back to Dragunov. Sergei still sneered, but there was a new glint in his eye -- a let's get this done hardened resolve. Fury knew it well. He'd seen it before every fight they'd had, with or against each other. It meant someone or something was in for a world of pain. It meant Dragunov was feeling better. Feeling himself.

    He'd be fine.

    Grinning, Bryan bowed like a Hollywood actor, and jumped from the plane.

    An instant of razor cold freefall, synthetic muscles bracing, then impact -- jarring, dirt and debris flying, barely tickled. Brushing off his pants -- the leather scuffed, but oh well, plenty of alligators in the sea -- he approached the pallet. It hadn't survived the drop, guns strewn like a popped pimple. No problem, it just meant he could fine tune his selection. He thought he wouldn't be thinking again soon. The storm was already blowing.

    Zaibatsu forces already took up position in a valley. G Corp had the high ground. Oh, this was going to be good. A real two-for-one deal, with Tournament morons sprinkled on top.

    Bryan lifted the Gatling gun. It was time to make new memories.

[blizzardrush]

drabble + swan

Send “drabble + a word” for some writing on that word

    Dragunov undergoes his teenage years as gracefully as a drunken cinder block.

    Slashing his lip is only the first step. His mother doesn’t talk to him for three days after that. Suits him just fine. It hurts to move his mouth, a hurt he makes clear at every meal. Only when Sophia looks ready to burst into tears does he stop his pained grunts and murmurs.

    He gets terrible looks at school. Freak show, the whispers say as the bandage comes off his face and he wears his scar as plainly as his coat. No direct threats. They know his father was KGB. They know Sergei sends himself to the office on a semi-regular basis, a trend that matches perfectly with boys in wrestling class showing up with black eyes and cauliflower ears.

    His father has to haul him out of bed to go to school the day he gets his first pimple. Subsequent blemishes have his sisters yanking his head out of the sink as if he could drown his acne away.

    Alexander Dragunov approaches the topic with his wife like tearing off a hangnail -- painful but necessary. “I think Seryozha might benefit from going into the military.”

    Four days after his eighteenth birthday, Sergei enlists in the Navy.

    Three years later, he visits his family home. Much taller, skin clear, unruliness tempered into a titanium will. A golden bird of prey on his lapel.

    A smile on his face.