Post by Alina Rybalka on Apr 9, 2020 0:13:33 GMT -5
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[break][attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
[break][attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
[attr="class","nikki109"]August 6th, 19AV [break][break]
The past couple of days were a rollercoaster for Alya in terms of both mood and outward disposition. Just yesterday, after returning from her last mission, she was promoted to Lance Corporal for her continued service in the Mistral National Guard and partied most of the night to celebrate the promotion. Lance Corporal Alina Tarasivna Rybalka of the 46th Reconnaissance Company, now like orders of magnitude more important than before in the eyes of anyone who looked at the cool new additions to her uniform. She was absolutely certain there weren’t actually 46 Reconnaissance Companies in Mistral, but it was common practice to skip a bunch of numbers to give the enemy useless information even if they did get a single unit’s information. [break][break]
As couriers, they also got to wear a sick red arm band right above their left elbow that literally nobody else got to wear except people doing the same job. Nominally it was so that if people came across their dead bodies they would know to search it for whatever message they were carrying, but emotionally it was a cool thing that allowed them to stand out and be unique in an environment where being unique is like the least important thing imaginable. Some people, even at younger ages were willing to see through the bullshit and see that bits of metal, ribbon, and cloth were just distractions to make soldiers feel good about themselves and willingly take on risks for those bits of ribbon and metal… but Alya wasn’t one of them. She wanted to stand out, she wanted to fight honorably, and she wanted to get promoted and get medals along the way too which would prove how great and awesome she was. [break][break]
The uniform that at least this region of Mistral used for Faunus soldiers was a gray green one based on what Mistralian soldiers wore in the Great War. The tunics had five to six buttons due to discrepancies in production and featured four total square pocket flaps with buttons on the top to open and close them. There were two of these pockets at the chest and two more on the waist. The pants were a point of pain for Alya, mostly because when you stuffed anything in the pockets your thighs looked like the cheeks of a chipmunk. They were so poofy and dumb looking it was awful, especially when contrasted with the bottom half of the pants that were stuffed into long boots in the uniform. The pockets were really big, which was important, but like because they were really big, they were also really easy to get mud and dirt and other crap inside of them in the field and were just generally seen as a net negative by the teenager. [break][break]
In terms of rank identifiers, the uniforms had two major ways to tell how important the other person was. The first was the collar tabs that looked kind of like a winding river that were worn on the neck, with the normal enlisted soldiers having an all blue one and officers having gold at the edges. Some really important officers had a lot more noticeable gold at the edges, and allegedly the really top people like generals and stuff were gold and white but what was even the point of that if everyone was supposed to be blue? It just didn’t make sense, but then again, she wasn’t the one designing her own uniform like they were, so she supposed she’d want it to look super cool too if she had that option. [break][break]
Why a promotion was so important and cool, however, was the fact that the second identifier were on the forearms. Normal privates like she was until yesterday had nothing on their forearms, but lance corporals got a white line on the outer edge of the sleeve! It was a signal to everyone that she was now one of the important people, because only important people had lines on their forearms! A common unofficial name for Lance Corporal was Lance Jack, mostly because the younger and less mature promoted to it getting their first taste of power tended to become right jackasses for a while wanting to flaunt it at every opportunity. Alya was no exception and was thrilled to show it off to everyone around her absolutely beaming with pride until about an hour ago when she realized she actually got a good chunk out of her next paycheck to pay for the tailoring costs of sewing it on. [break][break]
”This is bullshit!” she whined impotently. ”This is just a stupid pyramid scheme to raise money, I swear. If I had known they were going to scam me out of two weeks pay I never would’ve bought everyone food last night, aaaahhhh I’m so screwed… how am I gonna pay for like literally anything the next month like what the fuuuuck?” [break][break]
Nonstop complaining was not the norm for Alya, but it was what she was doing now largely because the past couple of days were awful. They had just gotten back to the village of Hirne after literally over a week walking through the mud and filth of a contested area to deliver one message and then deliver the reply back, and then right after they come back they were given literally one night’s rest and then sent back off again to fuck knows where. She was cold, tired, and irritated because by the time they got back and they got paid again she’d be short a good chunk and unable to get any luxuries. She had savings up until last night, but the expectation was that she’d be able to stay in town for a couple of days and get a pay increase rather than decrease in the very near future and could afford to blow some lien on some actual good drinks that weren't basically swamp water and food. [break][break]
She barely got any sleep before she was rudely woken up and given a new assignment, and her head hurt for some reason with pain that was constant but dull. ”You’d think they’d give us a couple of days off to get the mud out and clean our uniforms but nooooo… Always something to do and never even a second to rest or relax at all because ‘your country needs you’ and shit like come on man, can I just sleep in for one day? And naturally all the bikes are gone or have their engines smashed to bits, so we have to go on foot again… and the map isn’t even good! This has stains all over it like some asshole spilled their coffee or tea or whatever those fuckers get to drink all over it! If we didn’t know where we were going anyway we’d be fucked! What kind of half-assed shit is this?” [break][break]
The one good thing about all the complaining was that they were not yet in any sort of contested territory, so it was in theory completely safe to rant and rave as loudly as they wanted. They were getting close enough to where someone more cautious would be watching their volume a bit more, but the last few runs through this same stretch of land were rather uneventful. They didn’t run into a single enemy patrol and didn’t even see any humans. Granted, they went through the forests and mostly at night to avoid getting shot, but still they didn’t even see or hear any of them so it must mean that they were limited to only the nearby villages they controlled. [break][break]
Which was good, frankly speaking, because it wasn’t like the dynamic duo here was much good in a fight. Couriers packed light, not even having rifles like most soldiers did and were instead issued sidearms and told to stay away from fighting unless absolutely necessary. They were also issued bayonets, which without a rifle were just cheap and short swords… but whatever. It was fine. [break][break]
”Plus, I feel like this sort of stuff could be handled way in advance. Why do we need to go all the way to Voloscha to tell this officer dude what to do with the supply shipment? Why can’t they just send a note with the supply shipment? Why can’t they just plan these things in advance? Like I swear, if I was in charge of this place it’d be so much better. Fill out the org chart, give actually clear directions, it can’t be that hard right? I mean, when’s the last time you saw an officer even do--” [break][break]
When she heard the sound of a gun firing, her instinctual reaction was to immediately shut up and fall into a deep crouch from her previous standing position and try to figure out where it came from. It was fired off way in the distance, and frankly could have been anything from a sniper to some dumbass wasting ammo shooting at random shit. They were moving through a pretty dense forest at the moment, so it was next to impossible for someone at that distance to actually see them. Whoever it was, they sure as hell weren’t shooting at them and that fact was at least reassuring. Another shot was fired, but then there was at least a bit of silence and confirmation that whoever was shooting was way far away from them. [break][break]
Still, it never hurt to be too safe. Alya pulled the Steyr-Hahn style semi-automatic pistol from the holster on her right hip and pointed it forward. Because the faunus unit they were attached to was less a full and organized military force and more of an upscaled village militia that was ill equipped to begin with to fight off human attack and only got moderately better as time went on, there were still some standardization issues. One of those standardization issues is that they had a decent number of leftover weapons from the Great War, but they also weren’t all the same type. This sidearm was fed from the top with eight round stripper clips and was basically as idiot-proof as you could make a semi-automatic. This was good, and one of the reasons why it was perfect for the fourteen-year-old Knight who wasn’t exactly the cleanest with martial training and still jumped at birds or animals jumping out of foliage occasionally. She also forgot to clean the gun sometimes, like when she forgot to clean it when they were back in town so it might not even fire correctly! It probably would, but it’s not like Alya actually… checked to see how dirty it actually was or anything. [break][break]
In a big picture view, objectively, the Faunus in this sector were getting their asses kicked. Most of the messages being sent were coordinating retreats and logistics thereof. The truth was that neither Alya nor her partner knew what was actually in those letters and were being fed bullshit about what they contained so they didn’t lose morale and desert at the worst possible moment before any reinforcements arrived. That was also the reason why they weren’t allowed to stay longer than was strictly necessary in the camp and distracted with a promotion that Alya would have never received if things had been more normal – so they didn’t catch on to how low morale was and start thinking of how to get the hell out. It sure as hell worked on the white-haired girl, at least. [break][break]
Getting back to a standing position and holding her pistol in front of her as she walked, the wolf faunus motioned with her left hand to go and she slowly restarted their trek through the forest. Normally she’d sit and have a chat to discuss what to do, but she was technically in charge of this mission now as the ranking… she wasn’t an officer so ranking soldier? Is that what that was? They didn’t actually make clear what her duties were, but she did know she had a line on her forearm so that made her more important and people who were more important needed to act all leader-like. [break][break]
”Let’s keep away from the shooting if we can.” she would say in a much lower voice than before as she walked. ”If you can figure out before I do where the shooting is coming from, that would be super cool. I can’t tell if it came from the human village or from the forest. We’re going to detour from where I think is away from where they are.”
[break]The past couple of days were a rollercoaster for Alya in terms of both mood and outward disposition. Just yesterday, after returning from her last mission, she was promoted to Lance Corporal for her continued service in the Mistral National Guard and partied most of the night to celebrate the promotion. Lance Corporal Alina Tarasivna Rybalka of the 46th Reconnaissance Company, now like orders of magnitude more important than before in the eyes of anyone who looked at the cool new additions to her uniform. She was absolutely certain there weren’t actually 46 Reconnaissance Companies in Mistral, but it was common practice to skip a bunch of numbers to give the enemy useless information even if they did get a single unit’s information. [break][break]
As couriers, they also got to wear a sick red arm band right above their left elbow that literally nobody else got to wear except people doing the same job. Nominally it was so that if people came across their dead bodies they would know to search it for whatever message they were carrying, but emotionally it was a cool thing that allowed them to stand out and be unique in an environment where being unique is like the least important thing imaginable. Some people, even at younger ages were willing to see through the bullshit and see that bits of metal, ribbon, and cloth were just distractions to make soldiers feel good about themselves and willingly take on risks for those bits of ribbon and metal… but Alya wasn’t one of them. She wanted to stand out, she wanted to fight honorably, and she wanted to get promoted and get medals along the way too which would prove how great and awesome she was. [break][break]
The uniform that at least this region of Mistral used for Faunus soldiers was a gray green one based on what Mistralian soldiers wore in the Great War. The tunics had five to six buttons due to discrepancies in production and featured four total square pocket flaps with buttons on the top to open and close them. There were two of these pockets at the chest and two more on the waist. The pants were a point of pain for Alya, mostly because when you stuffed anything in the pockets your thighs looked like the cheeks of a chipmunk. They were so poofy and dumb looking it was awful, especially when contrasted with the bottom half of the pants that were stuffed into long boots in the uniform. The pockets were really big, which was important, but like because they were really big, they were also really easy to get mud and dirt and other crap inside of them in the field and were just generally seen as a net negative by the teenager. [break][break]
In terms of rank identifiers, the uniforms had two major ways to tell how important the other person was. The first was the collar tabs that looked kind of like a winding river that were worn on the neck, with the normal enlisted soldiers having an all blue one and officers having gold at the edges. Some really important officers had a lot more noticeable gold at the edges, and allegedly the really top people like generals and stuff were gold and white but what was even the point of that if everyone was supposed to be blue? It just didn’t make sense, but then again, she wasn’t the one designing her own uniform like they were, so she supposed she’d want it to look super cool too if she had that option. [break][break]
Why a promotion was so important and cool, however, was the fact that the second identifier were on the forearms. Normal privates like she was until yesterday had nothing on their forearms, but lance corporals got a white line on the outer edge of the sleeve! It was a signal to everyone that she was now one of the important people, because only important people had lines on their forearms! A common unofficial name for Lance Corporal was Lance Jack, mostly because the younger and less mature promoted to it getting their first taste of power tended to become right jackasses for a while wanting to flaunt it at every opportunity. Alya was no exception and was thrilled to show it off to everyone around her absolutely beaming with pride until about an hour ago when she realized she actually got a good chunk out of her next paycheck to pay for the tailoring costs of sewing it on. [break][break]
”This is bullshit!” she whined impotently. ”This is just a stupid pyramid scheme to raise money, I swear. If I had known they were going to scam me out of two weeks pay I never would’ve bought everyone food last night, aaaahhhh I’m so screwed… how am I gonna pay for like literally anything the next month like what the fuuuuck?” [break][break]
Nonstop complaining was not the norm for Alya, but it was what she was doing now largely because the past couple of days were awful. They had just gotten back to the village of Hirne after literally over a week walking through the mud and filth of a contested area to deliver one message and then deliver the reply back, and then right after they come back they were given literally one night’s rest and then sent back off again to fuck knows where. She was cold, tired, and irritated because by the time they got back and they got paid again she’d be short a good chunk and unable to get any luxuries. She had savings up until last night, but the expectation was that she’d be able to stay in town for a couple of days and get a pay increase rather than decrease in the very near future and could afford to blow some lien on some actual good drinks that weren't basically swamp water and food. [break][break]
She barely got any sleep before she was rudely woken up and given a new assignment, and her head hurt for some reason with pain that was constant but dull. ”You’d think they’d give us a couple of days off to get the mud out and clean our uniforms but nooooo… Always something to do and never even a second to rest or relax at all because ‘your country needs you’ and shit like come on man, can I just sleep in for one day? And naturally all the bikes are gone or have their engines smashed to bits, so we have to go on foot again… and the map isn’t even good! This has stains all over it like some asshole spilled their coffee or tea or whatever those fuckers get to drink all over it! If we didn’t know where we were going anyway we’d be fucked! What kind of half-assed shit is this?” [break][break]
The one good thing about all the complaining was that they were not yet in any sort of contested territory, so it was in theory completely safe to rant and rave as loudly as they wanted. They were getting close enough to where someone more cautious would be watching their volume a bit more, but the last few runs through this same stretch of land were rather uneventful. They didn’t run into a single enemy patrol and didn’t even see any humans. Granted, they went through the forests and mostly at night to avoid getting shot, but still they didn’t even see or hear any of them so it must mean that they were limited to only the nearby villages they controlled. [break][break]
Which was good, frankly speaking, because it wasn’t like the dynamic duo here was much good in a fight. Couriers packed light, not even having rifles like most soldiers did and were instead issued sidearms and told to stay away from fighting unless absolutely necessary. They were also issued bayonets, which without a rifle were just cheap and short swords… but whatever. It was fine. [break][break]
”Plus, I feel like this sort of stuff could be handled way in advance. Why do we need to go all the way to Voloscha to tell this officer dude what to do with the supply shipment? Why can’t they just send a note with the supply shipment? Why can’t they just plan these things in advance? Like I swear, if I was in charge of this place it’d be so much better. Fill out the org chart, give actually clear directions, it can’t be that hard right? I mean, when’s the last time you saw an officer even do--” [break][break]
When she heard the sound of a gun firing, her instinctual reaction was to immediately shut up and fall into a deep crouch from her previous standing position and try to figure out where it came from. It was fired off way in the distance, and frankly could have been anything from a sniper to some dumbass wasting ammo shooting at random shit. They were moving through a pretty dense forest at the moment, so it was next to impossible for someone at that distance to actually see them. Whoever it was, they sure as hell weren’t shooting at them and that fact was at least reassuring. Another shot was fired, but then there was at least a bit of silence and confirmation that whoever was shooting was way far away from them. [break][break]
Still, it never hurt to be too safe. Alya pulled the Steyr-Hahn style semi-automatic pistol from the holster on her right hip and pointed it forward. Because the faunus unit they were attached to was less a full and organized military force and more of an upscaled village militia that was ill equipped to begin with to fight off human attack and only got moderately better as time went on, there were still some standardization issues. One of those standardization issues is that they had a decent number of leftover weapons from the Great War, but they also weren’t all the same type. This sidearm was fed from the top with eight round stripper clips and was basically as idiot-proof as you could make a semi-automatic. This was good, and one of the reasons why it was perfect for the fourteen-year-old Knight who wasn’t exactly the cleanest with martial training and still jumped at birds or animals jumping out of foliage occasionally. She also forgot to clean the gun sometimes, like when she forgot to clean it when they were back in town so it might not even fire correctly! It probably would, but it’s not like Alya actually… checked to see how dirty it actually was or anything. [break][break]
In a big picture view, objectively, the Faunus in this sector were getting their asses kicked. Most of the messages being sent were coordinating retreats and logistics thereof. The truth was that neither Alya nor her partner knew what was actually in those letters and were being fed bullshit about what they contained so they didn’t lose morale and desert at the worst possible moment before any reinforcements arrived. That was also the reason why they weren’t allowed to stay longer than was strictly necessary in the camp and distracted with a promotion that Alya would have never received if things had been more normal – so they didn’t catch on to how low morale was and start thinking of how to get the hell out. It sure as hell worked on the white-haired girl, at least. [break][break]
Getting back to a standing position and holding her pistol in front of her as she walked, the wolf faunus motioned with her left hand to go and she slowly restarted their trek through the forest. Normally she’d sit and have a chat to discuss what to do, but she was technically in charge of this mission now as the ranking… she wasn’t an officer so ranking soldier? Is that what that was? They didn’t actually make clear what her duties were, but she did know she had a line on her forearm so that made her more important and people who were more important needed to act all leader-like. [break][break]
”Let’s keep away from the shooting if we can.” she would say in a much lower voice than before as she walked. ”If you can figure out before I do where the shooting is coming from, that would be super cool. I can’t tell if it came from the human village or from the forest. We’re going to detour from where I think is away from where they are.”
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, C Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, D Stamina, D Exhaustion, D Martial ArtsPHARAOH LEAP CREATES
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