2013-02-14 Expensive Duck Suit

"You must really dislike this man if you're going through all this effort just to see him snuffed." Or Bludd is just that dangerous. Taskmaster's services are not cheap so that is a whole 'nother factor to it. Arms folded akimbo across his chest the mercenary stands at the balcony overlooking the factory floor where the Baroness' soldiers run exercises and drills he had put them to - some of her best and brightest apparently. They wouldn't get better overnight but there was hope for them. "So, small crack team including me to just go in and take out one guy? Guessing defenses are a bit more than just a couple mooks with some cheap Russian knock-offs."
Baroness remained beside him, her pose was just as stoic as Taskmasters, arms folded across her chest, but when his inquiry seems to strike a chord somewhere, and her focus needs to remain intent on the training sessions below, she leans forward, gloved hands grasping the bar of the banister as she leans in like something had caught her interest. "Fear is a very /off/ word, Taskmaster. He's in my way." She states rather calmly and matter of factly in regards to Bludd. "He tends to bark right up your alley where ambitions might be concerned. Here, is where your knowledge comes into play." Still in that lean one hand rose and gestured towards him and then swept out towards her numbers. "A woman can never be too ill prepared."
"Hey, whatever you wanna call it lady. Fear, dislike, vendettas... long as you gimme all the intel I need and keep my wallet fat." Taskmaster's hands both rise up and wave off to the sides. "Up my alley eh? Do tell." He's seen some extent of her resources and has a feeling this isn't even a glimpse of the tip o' that berg. "Call me the curious sort... what is he in your way for? It's obvious you don't have your plans set on just whatever backwater Euro-trash country you come from. You wouldn't be here if thats the case." Prod, jab, some verbal sparring. Lets see how 'her highness' responds.
Baroness sniffs her amusement, her eyes narrowing behind the glasses as her hands slowly work in a slow pressure around that metal pole. No tension, save where her grip was, in fact her posture remained poised, yet eased even as she glances over her shoulder to Taskmaster and waits several heartbeats before she garners him a response. "I don't focus small, and when I do it ends in a /big/ way. Be curious," She pauses as that revealed corner of dark lips twitches upward. "He asks far less questions when hired." She almost had a sound of pity there, but for where it belonged was the main question. "He just took a job for someone else, and now I had to make other choices." Pushing up she stood back to full height from that lean, staring directly at Taskmaster. "If I had to shop in a mall for mercenaries, you both would be on the same strip in my "backwater country", now just to see which one is truly top shelf." Pushed and pushing, how much was truth and how much was just to /see/ was all hidden behind a very placid poker face now.
"Same strip, huh? I usually hear of guys who think they share my neighborhood." A casual shrug as Taskmaster turns to follow her."I'll keep that in mind though, jobs a job." His jaw ticks underneath the mask while he studies her."You confuse me. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck... must be a duck yeah? But you ain't. You present yourself as one thing but that ain't the case at all is it? So what's your deal, lady? You just like to stir shit up and be a menace or you got some grand agenda? Viva La Revolution sounds a little too simple no matter how much you feed it to these chumps you got eating out of your hand. Because I'll say it here and now I'm all for some routine wetwork, some killin', beating some masked do-gooder's face in and hell maybe even blowing up a small country but I don't do apocalypse level villainy. Just to clear the table here ahead of time." It's obvious now. Taskmaster thinks the woman is flat crazy from the sounds of what he is saying.
Laughs lowly, the sound seems almost forced from her as she slips a key into a door that was the room just beside her lounge, tossing a sleekly clad hip into the metal reinfoced entry. "This is a very expensive 'duck suit', Taskmaster, and I do hope my walk is legs beyond that of a fumbling waddle." Stepping to the side of the door one hand reached into the room and flicked the light on, showing rows upon rows of artillery, from small sidearms to large shoulderable rocket launchers, semi automatics and full on military grade rifles."I have an agenda. Who doesn't? Even you do, no matter how /base/ it may seem, stopping where the buck is. I, however, do not want an apocalypse. So much less to play with, and would leave me little reason to have you in employ. Hm?" Cold gaze settled on him and then slid from him into the small room. "Arms training starts when they are done playing patty cake. You want to know my /deal/, stick it out.."
Canting his head to the side as she moves Taskmaster's dark eyed gaze follows. "Stopping where the buck is generally keeps me satisfied." No need for the extra but sometimes... "I suppose." He admits following her to look in to the room and reach out picking up a Steyr Tactical Machine Pistol, casually he begins to field strip it. Several quiet heartbeats he stands there staring at it with a critical eye, more at /it/ than really at it - his mind in some far away place trying to dig through the fog and figure out where he learned to actually do so with this particular firearm. As far as he can remember he's never even touched on before, "Excellent condition. So you got some nice toys and you ain't about to bring around the end of the world. Warms my heart."
Baroness watches him take to the weapon like a fish takes to water, and despite the look on her face that always seemed unsettling, calculating... She seems pleased. "A girl has to have her hobbies. You can't tell me in your spare time you sit and do puzzles with the retirees, or put together toy model cars. You don't have the hands for that, for one.." And as if to emphasize her second point she yawns, leaning against the door frame and folding her arms across her chest."What is your goal, Task-Master? Where does your buck stop?"
"No. I knit and bake cookies as a hobby."The weapon broken down and dissassembled is just as quickly put back together. Taskmaster sets it back in to it's case before facing Baroness again. "Get filthy rich and burn a giant grinning skull in to the moon." More jesting and he is sure that has been attempted and foiled before or he is just dealing with memory issues again. "I got some plans, yeh, they ain't so grand as you'd like to think though and I already toldja where my buck stops. I got no agenda on global domination or annihilation... I just aim small and enjoy the ride. Shake things up a bit. Celebrate that big ole' party called life yeah?"
"Parties bore me, unless you're talking about a different kind of party." Tapping her index finger along her bicept Baroness pushes forward again, stepping aside to go into the room beside that arsenal that was set up to be a lavish retreat from the rest of it, leaving the door open as she poured herself a glass of amber liquor and propped herself against the large desk that a map lay stretched across, several pins pushed into points. "Bludd has a base in Switzerland, I have a few ideas as to where based on his people's traffic, but only closer inspection will be sure."
"My idea of party is always the different sort. Usually involves lots of screaming." Taskmaster shares his own smile behind grinning white mask as he resumes following her. "Switzerland? Might be warmer there than it is here right now." Not something he imagined he'd ever be saying. "So it's a European vacation eh? I think my Clark Griswold I.D. is in my other pants."
"Screaming, running, a big finale.." Her hand waved as she held the glass out to Taskmaster, having not even taken a sip from it. Liquor of the finest was nice and all, but she was more for her wines, a slower seep of alcohol in the presence of others. "It's the home of bad peots, I want in and out. No parties that we will mingle in there. It could be the tropics and I will still wear earmuffs." Pouring her glass of wine she pointed down at a small pass at the base of a mountain ridge. "There is a small tucked away cabin there, I have made reservations for next week. Hopefully you will have my boys above sub-par?"
"Bad poets?" Taskmaster questions at the Baroness blanket of vague statements. "Next week? That is quicker than I imagined. It seems I need to change my training regime. Can't mold experts in that time at best I can give them some teamwork and orders to work off of underneath me. Squad tactics and specific training." Already his mind is running through ideas and direction."Hopefully you will not have to suffer it." Baroness' upper lip recoiled, flashing teeth just before she sips the wine, holding the rounded base in the cusp of her hand. "The land that surrounds that cabin is vast and empty. They will be staying in tents around it, you can still train them there while I go scan these points." One hand extended down to a few nearby where their makeshift 'base' of a honeymooners cabin would be. A small vacation spot nestled amongst the slopes. How quaint, warping x's and o's into a warforged tactical base - how, Baroness. "We're locked into this place until the snow begins to lift away anyway. A week is plenty here, and some more there. "I know you have it in you, I've looked." Her eyes settled on him from that repose against the desk, lips stretching into a thin smile against the rim of the glass.
"Sounds cozy. Can't wait." Sarcasm in Taskmaster's voice obvious before he reaches out and takes her bottle of wine and pouring himself a glass. "To our business arrangement then." An uplift of the drinking vessel and he tips it back. This will be entertaining at least.
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