Breaking a nail.

[∬: Gero A. Fritz]

OOC: PG13+, moderate language.

The gym was vibrating with eager young recruits, bouncing from their work-benches and pumping pure iron against the array of gym equipment. Most of the equipment had been improvised from barrack tools and furniture; a filing cabinet winched with rope acted as a weight lifting mechanism for the men to broaden their muscles, whilst the older folk tossed a slab of concrete or a few bricks into one of the draws to add weight. The recruits had also made another use for old office chairs, where one would sit and hold on tightly, whilst the exercising man would strengthen his forearms and biceps by leveraging the weight of the chair back and forth.

All in all, the gym looked like a circus… Truly, it did.

Standing by the improvised punch-bags, Gero wrapped his knuckles tightly with layers of dirty bandages to pad the blows. Before him hung three sacks of sand, limberly swinging back and forth from being knocked about. Gero could only grin, it had been a while since he’d been inside such a place, to workout? It certainly didn’t look like this, the times he’d been before. Now it looked like Germany had no more gym equipment left to spare, but simply recycled items and the very imaginative behaviour of the Nazi mind. What man simply would think of using a filing cabinet filled with bricks to work the body? Quite obviously, the Germans.

Tucking the loose ends to his bandaging against the palms, Gero stepped forwards as one of the young men walked away from the sand filled brown sacks and left a vacant space for someone else. Gero wasn’t one of the youngest men to be in the gym, but neither was he one of the eldest; dressed in a black vest and a pair of hole ridden bottoms, the bare foot man took his place up against the vacant brown sack and brushed his long hair back from out of his face. He looked a shamble to be a German soldier, re-phrase that, an SS-Soldier? Nothing about him insinuated any kind of honour or responsibility, nothing other than a low-time brawler who worked on a farm for a living, Gero was horrendously untidy with his looks and his clothing looked as if it had served two entire wars.

Clenching his fist, the soldier began to thump at the heavy filled sack and grunted beneath his breath with every pounding. Side-stepping quickly, he evaded the touch of the brown-sack against his body, to keep himself on his toes and constantly moving about the makeshift punch-bag. With every thump from his fist, Gero pictured a dozen faces before himself to keep his adrenaline pumping, to keep his mind set on the target. The Nazi bastards phased through his skull one moment, the evil men who raped and slaughtered innocents in the name of the fatherland? Then his mind clunked onto the thought of the Americans posing over the bodies of his brethren and smoking cigars, like it was all a joke. Gero wondered who he truly fought for in the war? He didn’t agree with any of the Nazi regime, he only fought for peace, to go home, to get this nightmare over with so he could return to his own silent corner on the Earth and live out his days enjoying what life he had left.

His only true loyalty was Germany, not it’s people or views, but the land. That was it. The sound of talking distracted Gero for a brief moment and caused his eyes to glance at a few boys talking nearby, before he turned back to punching the sack. No doubt they were commenting on his attire and ruggedness for being a soldier. Most of the recruits at least had a haircut, Gero didn’t even have that.

Slowing his pace, the soldier noticed one of his knuckles had begun to bleed and soon stopped with the vigorous beating on the sack. Holding his left hand up, he watched a small pool of blood soaked into the bandaging around his middle knuckle. Grunting to himself he pulled the bandaging back and ran his finger over what seemed to be a minor ‘carpet burn’ mark against his skin from the hard grain of the sack. It was filled with sand after-all and the bandaging wasn’t really padded enough to shield his skin from the entirety of his punching. Perhaps he needed something softer to hit?

[⊕ Edzard Crimm]

Crimm sat idly in what was left of a wooden chair off near the wall housing the door for the showers, taking a long drink from his canteen with a towel draped loosely around the back of his neck, beads of sweat perched on top of his head waiting to be set in motion by some sudden action. With a deep breath he returned his canteen to his lips for a final swig of luke warm water before screwing the cap back upon the container and wiping his face, but as he stood he couldn't help but notice a strange, yet seemingly familiar figure across the make shift exercise area. He raised an eyebrow slightly with the tilt of his head. With a slow movement he pulled the towel from his shoulders and tossed it back onto his chair and started across the large area, having to walk in and out around the equipment that had been thrown together from anything they could find to get the job done. The man he was making his way toward had enough hair hanging from his head to spare Crimm some and they would both still need a haircut, but it was the bare feet and pants, or what was left of them, that really set him apart. It had been quite some time since the Scharführer had seen anything of the sort, and the only person he knew of in the unit that not only carried themselves in such a way but also didn’t care what anyone thought about it was Fritz, the only person Edzard had ever been close with, and they still weren’t exactly dear friends yet.

As he came closer he watched the man from behind, he had the same vigor as Gero did, unyielding, focused, and hard hitting. Could it really be the same man? Crimm stopped several feet from the man, for his next statement, given his assumptions on the soldier’s identity were correct, could end with a quick shot his way. ” Die Einzelgänger sind eine Zeitverschwendung und Ressourcen.” he snapped toward the back of the soldiers head, he didn’t mean a word of it, he was in fact very proud of the small tactical unit, but he figured he’d get a quick reaction of anger followed, hopefully, by a smile, maybe even a handshake. After all, the pair hadn’t seen each other in a while, Crimm had been deployed to the front lines quite some time ago, alone at that, seemed the SS felt that for the time being it was better that the pair worked separately. So far they hadn’t fought alongside one another in the entire war, they were close once, but the maneuver was cancelled due to bad intelligence reports. They both had a reputation on the field of battle, not the most notorious, but a far shot better than your average soldier. Crimm bent his knees, just in case his statement was met with hasty action, after all Gero was larger then Crimm by a good margin, and Edzard didn’t exactly feel like being carried out of the musty room.



TRANSLATIONS:
Die Einzelgänger sind eine Zeitverschwendung und Ressourcen.
The Lone Wolves are a waste of time and resources.

[∬: Gero A. Fritz]

As Gero peeled back the dirty bandaging he’d snagged from a field hospital trolley a few months back, after he’d acquired a minor battle wound against a few pansy Allied soldiers, he observed his bleeding knuckle and pulled quite the disgruntled look. At least it wasn’t a bullet hole in his abdomen or a half sliced finger from a bullet-round, hanging by the tendons or a single strip of flesh. No, his beaten knuckle wasn’t even a wound in his mind, just something that would become a nuisance whenever he caught it on something.

Whilst the rugged looking man softly draped the dirty bandaging back over his knuckles, securing a tight knot to strap them all in snugly again, he began to think about his best friend; perhaps his only friend. Daniel Gunter had seen a lot of combat alongside himself, hell the man had been there since day one, but now Daniel Gunter was on leave for a while and Gero was somewhat alone, more alone than he had ever been. The unit he was tied too worked in small numbers, if not single handed, so befriending people was a hard thing when the unit was continuously on the move or unpredictable circumstances arose. It wasn’t the best place to be during a war, alone, but Gero found it a blessing in disguise. Ironically, he’d rather have one good friend than a dozen great buddies in a bumbling platoon - no, that just meant twelve more targets for the enemy to gun down, meaning, twelve more stabbings to the heart.

It wasn’t always the gory details and horrific things the men bore witness too, being a soldier, that made them numb and even turned some men insane. No, it was the reoccurring thought of seeing a loved one - a brother - turning a pale blue, as the blood drained from his body and a slow glaze slipped over his eyes, dying slowly. More so, than watching them explode into a thousand pieces, the odd fingertip or scrap of flesh hitting you on it’s way down. At least that way of death was sudden a majority of the time and the enemy had no corpse to parade with, you were quite literally taken out of this world. Not left too it’s after-math.

Deep in thought, Gero stood quietly against the slow swinging brown sack, staring into space as he fiddled with the bandaging on his hand slowly, but then a voice spoke from behind him and quite distinctively insulted him and his brethren beneath the unit. Flaring his nostrils and clenching his blooded fist, Gero leant back and spun upon the balls of his bare heels, swinging the back of his right fist out in the process like a large pendulum, propelled by the strength of momentum, but the accuracy determined by the dexterity of the man. Gero was a man who didn’t care about personal reputation, he’d already been in the holding cells for urinating up an officer’s car during his walk home one night and quite literally had no respect for the rank, only the man beneath it, if they had a head upon their shoulders and knew what they were doing that is. Otherwise, Gero had no fear and disregarded everything, rank, uniform, ethnicity - he only bore true alliance to his friends and those who deserved better in this world, away from corruption and death, the people who wanted peace.

Upon his spin, Gero’s eyes were bulging with anger and his teeth were clenched tightly shut, as his balled fist swooped narrowly over the bent kneed male prepared for such a retaliation. Stumbling forwards, Gero’s bodyweight shifted sideways from the missed hooked punch and was about to throw another, but upon facing the man, quickly realised who it was. “Ich werde - Hrsg. TÖTEN.. Edzard?” Gero suddenly rephrased himself in a bout of anger, pulling a confused look briefly, before realising what the man had done. It was just a joke. Unfortunately for Edzard, Gero was a loose cannon at times, particularly when pumped on adrenaline and training. What bad timing.

A slow grin formed on his face, as the rugged male stepped forwards and laughed, thumping Edzard on the arm with his balled fist, which may have knocked him back a little from the friendly knock on the arm. “Ich sollte gewusst haben, dass es Sie war! Immer waren derjenige mit den Bällen in dieser Beziehung, kein anderer Dummkopf würde wagen, solch ein Ding mir hier irgendwo zu sagen…” Gero said with a heavy and husk laugh, something had changed about Gero since they last met. It wasn’t a quiet soldier anymore with the average build, he was far more muscular and although the same rugged clothes bore his body, like a plague the man couldn’t shake, he did seem a lot more experienced? He wasn’t a farm boy anymore, he was… A soldier…

Translations:[/b]

Ich werde - Hrsg. TÖTEN.. Edzard?
~ I'LL KILL -- Ed... Edzard?

Ich sollte gewusst haben, dass es Sie war! Immer waren derjenige mit den Bällen in dieser Beziehung, kein anderer Dummkopf würde wagen, solch ein Ding mir hier irgendwo zu sagen…
~ I should have known it was you! Always were the one with the balls in this relationship, no other fool would dare say such a thing to me around here...

[⊕ Edzard Crimm]

As Edzard knelt and a smirk slowly found it's way onto his face he thought back to when he first met gero, Edzard had acted somewhat like an ass for lack of a better statement, but Crimm knew that in time he would be able to prove to Fritz that this was not the norm. Edzard's eyes widened and his adrenaline spiked for a moment as the larger man, built like a brick shit house, turned rapidly attempting to attack the man that insulted him. Edzard may have had a good bit of experience behind him, but his body still reacted when things got heated. A quick laugh with no harm intended saw the pair face to face and the smile was slowly returned followed by a rather solid knock on the arm, Crimm swayed a bit but kept his balance after snapping his leg out. "Ach kenne ich, dass sie nicht würden, aber ich habe nicht gedacht, dass Sie zum Schluss rechtzeitig kommen würden, deswegen ich bin zurück geschritten. Es ist ziemlich eine Weile der gute Mann gewesen, wie ist es Ihnen gegangen?" Edzard asked as he reached back to grasp his canteen and outstretched his arm to offer a drink to his best teammate.

The times of late had been a bit rough, the unit was stretched thin even when they were all deployed to the same location, but that was too rare anyway. Too often cut into pieces, some went here, some went there, sometimes they even split up and joined with other units for a mission or two, but to do as ordered kept you out of the firing line when the shit came rolling downhill. "Privat, holt uns ein Paar saubere Handtücher." was a prime example really. Edzard meant nothing by it, but it was almost a nostalgic moment, coming face to face with one of the few men around that you knew. "Ich hoffe, dass ich Sie kurz nicht hier schneide, aber ich fragte mich, wenn Sie mich zum Abendbrot anschließen würden, ein paar von den Burschen von der Mannschaft kommen zurück, heute Abend, hoffentlich zu basieren, und wir hatten eine kleine Versammlung für eine nette heiße Mahlzeit geplant, ist es meine Freude. Selbstverständlich, obwohl, ich bin sicher wenn Sie andere Pläne gehabt haben, und möchte eine Firma die wir könnten ändern unsere Pläne ebenso, nach alle, sind Sie das fehlende Mitglied von der Mannschaft für den längsten ununterbrochenen Zeitraum gewesen." Edzard offered, and he really didn't mind changing the plans, he was usually pretty set on things once they were planned as all too often with the military, no plan lasts longer than a new report and everything has to be changed all over again. The little things that the soldiers could control they tended to do so, but this was different Gero was back and that was a whole new ball game...things would be great, on and off the field of combat.



TRANSLATIONS
Ach kenne ich, dass sie nicht würden, aber ich habe nicht gedacht, dass Sie zum Schluss rechtzeitig kommen würden, deswegen ich bin zurück geschritten. Es ist ziemlich eine Weile der gute Mann gewesen, wie ist es Ihnen gegangen?
Oh I know they wouldn't, but I didn't think you'd come to the conclusion in time, that's why I stepped back. It's been quite a while good man, how have you been?

Privat, holt uns ein Paar saubere Handtücher.
Private, fetch us a pair of clean towels.

Ich hoffe, dass ich Sie kurz nicht hier schneide, aber ich fragte mich, wenn Sie mich zum Abendbrot anschließen würden, ein paar von den Burschen von der Mannschaft kommen zurück, heute Abend, hoffentlich zu basieren, und wir hatten eine kleine Versammlung für eine nette heiße Mahlzeit geplant, ist es meine Freude. Selbstverständlich, obwohl, ich bin sicher wenn Sie andere Pläne gehabt haben, und möchte eine Firma die wir könnten ändern unsere Pläne ebenso, nach alle, sind Sie das fehlende Mitglied von der Mannschaft für den längsten ununterbrochenen Zeitraum gewesen.
I hope I'm not cutting you short here, but I was wondering if you would join me for dinner, a few of the guys from the team are coming back to base tonight, hopefully, and we had planned a small gathering for a nice hot meal, it's my treat. Of course though, I'm sure if you had other plans and would like some company we could change our plans as well, after all, you have been the missing member of the team for the longest continuous time period.

[Nathan Whyte]

Another Closure

Fritz: 3CP
Crimm: 3CP


Issued.