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Tristan
As soon as the funeral was over and Eagle Claw dismissed he took a rather prolonged drink from the flask kept in his pocket. The time of day sure as hell wasn't going to stop him either. It was too early, his muscles were strained from the mission, his face and jaw were bruised from batterings he had taken from his own squad-mates, he was hungover, it was cold enough for Hell to freeze a dozen times over and he was forced to remember what he had spent a good part of the night trying to forget. Tristan wore a stiff frown, glared at the frozen ground and shivered for the entirety of the service. The tiniest fragments from his memory of Phoenix yelling at them before the behemoth smashed through the wall darted in and out of his thoughts. Never had funerals been held during their training period. Dammit he even remembered funeral services often being overlooked at the outposts he had served at in the past especially when they had nothing to bury. Most of the time there was nothing to bury. He really hoped that when it was his turn to bite the dust he would just be allowed to go peacefully without any of the ceremony. For a few minutes after he considered going back to bed, but there was no point. He was up and might as well get a head start in forgetting about Phoenix all over again. Sure he didn't know the guy very well, but somehow the reality of the situation still stung in a bad way. The Enclave was only rubbing salt in the wound with their little show.
A couple of the others were discussing breakfast. Normally he would have been pleased to tag along but after that he didn't feel much like eating and opted to work off some of these aches instead. The training grounds weren't nearly as populated these days as they hand once been leaving him to finish a short run and get some time in at the shooting range in relative solitude. The casings from his .44 piled up in a box on the ground to be reloaded later. He snapped the cylinder in place and took aim at the target. The bulls eye was all but obliterated at this point and the wall behind it had been taking all the damage for some time now. Target practice had become completely unsatisfying. Something inside of him wanted whatever was on the wrong side of that gun to die when he pulled the trigger. Just the feeling of firing and putting the bullet right where it was supposed to go wasn't good enough. The more he practiced the more antsy he grew. After firing six more shots down range he packed up and left.
Just as he got near his bunk and was considering sleeping and sulking through the rest of the day his stomach growled. It did have a point there. He was starving and wasting the day away wouldn't help his attitude. Thank goodness attitudes were easy to drown with good food and good beer. A red backed deck of cards sitting on the little table next to his bunk caught his eye. If food and beer could drown a bad attitude then good company could smother it. Tristan snatched up the deck and made for the cafeteria. He could definitely go for some better social activity than what the Enclave had offered this morning. After digging up the bloodiest, swimming-in-gravy-est, steak he could find at the buffet he grabbed a beer and sat down. He shuffled the cards and invited anybody there who felt like losing their caps to start a game. If death was coming for them all sooner or later he felt he should enjoy the time he had left.
Ozymandius (Colaboration between DT and Granox)
While looking around at the faces gathered before the headstone, Ozymandius wondered how many more of these he would be attending in the future. The thought was not at all comforting. At least now he knew that anyone else who fell would be honored in a manner they deserved unlike so many others who had fallen before them here at Eagle Point. He left the man's grave with a casual salute and started back.
Devon had watched the funeral, more or less unphased by what he was attending. Waking up at the hour of the morning that he was certain had been created just to piss on a soldiers dreams, seeing that a new man had fallen, none of this was new. If anything, the honor they DID give him was more surprising. More than three times their entire squads number had died in training alone, one more? This was nothing, if not disappointing. This was one of the men who had made it through the training, one of the elite few that belonged with them, and yet he didn't even know what happened. He'd been killed, his life ended before he could begin to truly serve the enclave. Regardless, it was over quickly, Devon giving him a crist salute, more than he'd given any of the fallen bodies of the men that had tried to call themselves the true elite, that tried to be whatt they were.
Now though, he was curious. What had happened on that mission, to kill one of the few? The only one he saw among them who seemed the least likely to say something negative to him for missing the mission, or worse, blame him for somehow being the reason Phoenix was now dead, was Golem. What would have happened if they had one more man there? He wanted to know the circumstances, what had gone wrong, because something had to. To lose a man was one thing, to lose an eagle? That was something entirely different. He'd approach the massive man, feeling quite small beneath him, despite his own larger stature. This man seemed to be part super mutant, he certainly had the size, and looked to have the strength, to certainly match such a description.
"Hello, Ozzy? Hard to mistake someone for a different man, when they're as large as you. Mind telling me what happened on that mission, that my armor decided I didn't need to attend?" He had the slightest hint of exhaustion to his tone, almost certainly an after effect of both waking up so early, and because of the still raging side effects of his poisoning. He had a quizzical look on his face, obviously very curious in what Golem had to say about the mission.
Ozzy hm? The name seemed to work and it was okay with him. It was certainly easier to say. Ozymandius stopped and turned watching the newcomer carefully as he spoke. He had seen him around before, but thanks to the pressure of the first mission he hadn't really had time to wonder why they were short one training survivor. His questions were suddenly answered. Sounded rather serious.
He frowned,
"Didn't tell you? You missed a bloodbath. A lot of mutants, a lot of destruction and we leveled Seattle," he looked back toward the headstone,
"There was a behemoth and well..." he didn't feel like it was necessary to finish that thought.
"You seem in fighting condition now anyway," he turned his attention back to the man,
"... Devon right?"He nodded, stretching out his arms.
"I am Devon, and I'm fine now, though if you would have asked me that yesterday before you left, I would have given you a much different answer. Armor malfunctioned when I was testing it yesterday, ended up pumping its entire reservoir of stimulants into my body. Considering I'm not an alien, like you would seem to be, I was incapacitated and barely able to form together the chemicals needed to cleanse it from my body. Gonna talk to that fellow with the robotic arm about helping me fix my armor up, make sure it's ready for our next mission. I don't intend to miss two in a row." "Hmph," Ozzy snorted with the smallest hint of a smirk,
"Alien, huh? Sure Romanov could fix you up with something nice," he agreed though he wasn't too sure he trusted the cyborg,
"Don't imagine missing two missions would be tolerated much whether you intend it or not. It'll be good to have you with us next time.""No offense intended, but you're a tad... Larger than any normal man I've ever met. Fits the description of alien to me, I think." He gave his own smirk, before frowning, thinking about what the Enclave would do to him for inactivity. They'd spent all these resources on him, after all, and he was clearly expendable in their eyes. The idea wasn't exactly pretty.
"I'm apparently our official medic now? Would've worked with Phoenix, if he hadn't met his end." That was an interesting thought, to be completely in charge of his teams medical care in the field. It seemed slightly ironic in his eyes, that he had nearly poisoned himself to death, and now would be expected to fix his squad in the event that such a thing happened to them. How fun.
The giant crossed his arms slowly. Official medic was he? Hopefully Devon would be proving himself on another member of the team before Ozymandius ever needed medical attention, what with that personal track record.
"Well, good luck then, medic," he started back toward the buildings,
"And in short it's less alien, more experiment," he said in a somewhat bitter tone.
"Experiment? You'll have to tell me that story at some point, over a drink later. Now, I've got a cyborg to see." He began walking towards the buildings as well, though his path took him towards Dimitri's lab. He was still well within earshot of the man who almost certainly had a voice to match his massive stature. Otherwise, he'd heard what he needed to.
"That right?" Ozymandius muttered and gave Devon a look as he walked away, "Suppose we'll see. Better be a good drink though."
After the service and his little chat he took a moment to stretch and actually wake himself up before heading straight for the cafeteria to get an early breakfast. No point in wasting what little day light there was to be had in this part of the world. However, when he reached the cabin Andrew and Melanie were there waiting for him with the door shut. He wanted to ask what in the nine hells they thought they were doing keeping a man from his food, but the noises he heard coming from inside were all the explanation he needed. From what he could tell that place was being destroyed. That or somebody was being murdered loudly. All the same he had a pretty good guess what it really was. Leinhart. He wholly agreed with Andrew's advice to come back in an hour.
It was quiet in the compound. Officers and workers went back and forth going about their business and chatting among themselves. There was paperwork to be done, food to be prepared, supplies to check, machinery that needed maintenance, rooms to be cleaned, information to be processed, preparations to be made... It all seemed so mundane for a mountainous secret base hell-bent on taking over a continent. No doubt the ambitions of the Enclave could not be achieved by violence and destruction alone. There was far more work to be done than that. As he thought about it he realized the logistics of such a thing must be overwhelming. Though he didn't share the same idealism as his employer/conqueror it was leading him to wonder if there was something more he could do on days like this. He'd have to ask around about that. Perhaps his deathclaw friend could use help maintaining their gear. Speaking of which. Ozymandius made his way for the armory. Not that he didn't trust Leinhart, he was just a man who was very particular about a proton axe.
The armory was, of course, empty save for an assistant who was working on a piece of power armor and paid him no mind. Ozymandius wandered until he found the axe he was looking for. He picked it up and looked it over, examining it carefully. Such a marvelous weapon couldn't possibly be improved upon. For a few minutes he browsed through the racks of equipment simply curious of the kind of firepower Eagle Point had at its disposal. One of these toward the back near the workbenches was an absolute mess where the rest had been neat and organized. It was packed with broken weapons, random bits of armor, scrap metal, drained or empty artillery and all manner of non-functional machinery and parts. A scrap heap. He couldn't help but spend more time looking through it all. There were so many possibilities in there. A rusty switchblade caught his eye and he picked it up with a small smile. Such a sneaky little thing. The blade stuck but eventually he was able to get it to snap out and then he had an idea. He looked at his axe then back at the little blade. With a few more parts his idea might just work.
Vash