Author's note: Titles are hard, but numbers aren't. Obligatory I can't write but I'll try.
Andrews and Ela ran through the smoke leading to Marcus's room; the recently reinstalled door was in the hall. "Marc! Are you okay?" Andrews yells into the room.
Marcus comes staggering out of the smoke coughing, "Whoo, that almost got me! That could have been bad!" He yells giving Andrews a smile and a thumbs up.
Looking dumbfounded, Andrews stares at the man "You just blew yourself up and you're smiling? What the fuck is wrong with you?" He asks his friend.
The man stares blankly at Andrews as the smoke settles and just as Andrews is about to repeat himself Marcus points to his ears, "I can't hear a thing right now bud! Can't really tell if I'm hurt or not either! Adrenaline is one helluva drug, forget those brownies, you should try this!" He joked.
Andrews sighed as trough the smoke Iana and Fiona came running in. Sitting Marcus down on his bed he started to look around the room. The normally neat room was covered in papers that were covered in black ink, the workbench near the window was intact but covered in foam. On the workbench was a modified under barrel grenade launcher lying on the benchtop. There was a wardrobe with an eagle with a shield next to the closet. Picking up the weapon attachment Andrews inspected the modifications. There were two buttons installed into the side of the launcher, one button red and the other blue. "Where did you even get this?" Andrews asked his friend.
"The wardrobe holds the answers, but beware that its secrets are guarded by traps from a time of old." Marcus says in a cryptic tone as Iana checks his ears for bleeding.
"What else do you have in the wardrobe? A Lion? An evil witch?" Fiona asks, walking towards the wardrobe looking at the coat of arms engraved into the doors of the cabinet. Grabbing the handle of the wardrobe she begins to open it.
"I wouldn't do that Copernicus." Marcus mumbled as he slumped over on his bed with Iana patting him on the head.
"What did you call me? That's not how it's pronounced! You know that's not how you pronounce it. " She glared at the unmoving figure on the bed.
"You heard me! Now get away from the wardrobe before you get hurt." He sneered from his position reaching under his pillow and pulling out ear muffs.
Deciding to call his bluff she opened the door and nothing happened. "Oh look at that nothing happened." She said looking at a shelf with a small speaker.
"She found it." Marcus said as he put the ear muffs over Iana's head and motioned to Andrews and Ela to cover their ears as he plugs his fingers into his ears.
"The hell? Marcus what is this!" she says turning to Marcus who had a smirk on his face.
The small speaker turned on and a horrible rendition of Bandit singing Cooler Than Me started to play in a deafening volume causing Marcus and Andrews to laugh as Fiona frantically attempted to turn off the speaker while also shielding her ears.
Fiona grabbed the speaker and slammed it into the ground. The small speaker shattered against the ground. With a smug look on her face Fiona turns towards Marcus who looks distraught. "Je hebt hem vermoord!" he wailed. While Iana laughed behind him.
"Uh, Nienke, what's so funny?" Ela asks.
"I've been giving him lessons for the last few months and this might just be the first time he's spoken it without me prodding him to do so."
"That was my last speaker! You killed Poverty, you monster!" Marcus said while picking up the pieces of the speaker. "My namesake is gone!"
Fiona went back to her original goal of looking at the inside of the wardrobe. Inside there were old uniforms and in the back was a weapon case and an ammo box. Grabbing the case and the ammo box Fiona pulls it out and puts it onto the ground. Opening the case she sees a rifle that looks like a more round G36. "Marcus what is this thing?" Fiona asks while picking the gun it was the same size as a G36 but it was heavier.
"That is the Heckler & Koch XM8. It fires 5.56 it was their bid to replace the m4 back in the day, however it was too expensive to completely replace the m4 so only a few battalions got to try them out. This one was modified to fire 6.8x43 spc rounds it packs a larger punch than 5.56 but the recoil is not as bad as 7.62 rounds. I believe that you and Nienke were testing out a modified G36 to simulate the difference. This model came with a 40mm grenade launcher which I was modifying to fire specialized grenades. I was going to put in the request to Six to update my loadout after the mission." Marcus replied
"Which is why you exploded. Speaking of which, how come you aren't injured? " Iana asks the man while packing away the first aid kit.
"Yes it did blow up in my face but luckily for me," Marcus opens up the ammo box that Fiona brought out and pulls out a modified grenade. "I modified the explosives to fire foam and with some of Finka's nanobots inside of it and using a transceiver built into the grenade launcher I can harden the foam or melt the foam. Which is how I managed to survive my little mishap with no injuries." Marcus says proud of his achievement.
"Does that mean you're becoming an attacker? Think about it, me and you against the world!" Andrews wraps his arm around the shorter man with a smile.
"No. This is just a more mobile form of my foam mines. We are going to need them for the mission." Marcus replied ducking underneath Andrew's arm.
As Marcus went into an in depth explanation of his grenades, Fiona continued to inspect the rifle. It was painted khaki and had signatures on the stock. Fiona could not make out many of the names but one name stuck out to her. "Marcus, is this your old weapon from the corps?" Fiona asks.
"Yeah, I'm gonna need to take it out of retirement for one last adventure." Marcus says.
He looked at the magazine of the rifle; an eagle over three golden stars was engraved onto the side. "I think it's time for you guys to go to sleep. I have an early morning since I have to prepare the brief." He said ushering the others out of the room until it was just him and Iana.
Iana stared at Marcus as he began to collect the papers scattered around the room. Noticing that she was watching him, he drew a deep breath. "What?" He asks, letting out a sigh.
"You're doing it again." She responds. Collecting the papers near her and giving them to Marcus.
"No, because I'm going to explain it to them tomorrow when I have it all together." He says. Taking the papers and kissing her on the forehead.
"All right I'm going to tinker with these grenades of yours before you leave. I don't need you to explode before you get to use them." She says. Quickly changing the topic before an argument started.
"Thanks! I don't know what I would do without you." He says giving her a hug.
"You would still be trying to make a gadget." She says, breaking away and grabbing the box of grenades. "Now get some sleep, it's going to be a long day."
