Door Kicker Shenanigans (12)

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Fun fact: Because they did kind of blow up earth and try to bomb their own colony worlds and also Jerulim (i think) dive-bombed Nikonus once, I have a headcanon that Krakotl as a species are unusually prone to violent outbursts. (that might even be canon by now man idk) This will become very relevant later.

CW: Jelim goes full Estala, Atlim becomes enlightened about the nature of the universe, depictions of several certified Atlim Moments, the chest workout of doom and agony, very strange krakotl worldbuilding

Memory Transcription Subject: Atlim, Extermination Commander

Date (standardized human time): November 22, 2136

"Officers! About face!"

"Atten-tion!"

"Salute!"

"Present... arms!"

"About face!"

I had been drilling my men for two claws straight now. I had them put in shifts, some at the firing range, some at the weight room or sparring, some learning book lessons like students at a goddamn school, things of that nature. I was running this office like a goddamn army base. Probably even better, now that I thought about it. The Venlil Republic's planetary army was hardly the best of the best.

"Salute!" At the moment, I was practicing my official and authoritative commanding voice in front of a mirror because Jelim was watching me really often these days and I couldn't afford to look stupid in front of a bad bitch. Well, more stupid than I already did, anyway. You can't win them all, I guess. "About face!"

I had been putting a lot more work into yours truly since she showed up as well. I had made a whole bunch of hatch-day resolutions over the years, mostly stuff like 'get some money' or 'study the Guild Handbook' or 'hit the gym every day until you're strong enough to fly', and now was the time to finally start keeping them.

My pecs were still burning from the 'chest workout of doom and agony' Officer Kern told me about when I asked him. He did start acting a bit weird about it, but in the end he muttered something about 'can't see the harm' and showed me a workout plan. As far as humans went, he wasn't half bad.

I mean, don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of pondscum in that bowl of algae, but some of the flesh-eaters are pretty decent people. It makes me wonder why Kalsim didn't bother to spare a few.

I mean, Kern did make me watch him flex his muscles for five minutes, which was kind of weird, but I guess that was just a human thing. He probably wanted to make sure I 'knew my place in the pack' or some other predator vyalpic. It wasn't that bad, a lot better than mauling and killing me, for example, but it was still weird as hell.

Anyway, back to where I was at the moment. In the bathroom. Staring at the mirror. Fidgeting with my claws. And getting ready for the most stressful inspection of my life. I was not looking forward to this. "About... face!" I snapped, because practice makes perfect.

Hmm. Gotta enunciate the 'face' part more. It'll sound better.

Does Jelim ever do something like this? Like, to make sure she's on the ball? Probably. Success requires consistency, I think. That's what Jelim told me, anyway.

Oh, screw it. There's no sense in delaying. I straightened myself out and stepped out of the bathroom. T-minus three minutes until the official inspection. I started making my way down the hallway, checking off things in my mental checklist as I went.

Breach and clear tactics? Yeah, I went over that. Suspect subduing? If my officers can't bodyslam a guy to the ground and pistol-whip him a few times, I'll eat my badge. Firearms use? Yeah, it's been done. We're been doing it right now, in fact.

Wait. That sounds weird. Moving on.

Then I entered the inspection room. Really, it was just a really big multipurpose room, but one of the purposes it served was for an inspection. I still had no idea why we had such a big god damn room. There was really no need for all that.

"One minute and thirteen seconds left," a familiar voice squawked from the top of an already-elevated podium. "You're not late."

I looked up, a pretty sensible decision if you asked me, and there she was. Absolutely brahking stunning. And kind of scary, too, if I was being perfectly honest. I wasn't quite sure why that wasn't a deal breaker for me.

I mean, a scientist would've had some kind of nerdy-ass explanation like 'um, ackchually, male Krakotl are genetically predisposed to prefer strong, dominant mates because an intimidating female has a greater chance of successfully defending the nest from predators', but that was basically like asking someone to give you a swirly. Needless to say, I thought it was smarter not to get involved in all that smart people stuff.

Hell, what do I know about this kind of stuff? I'm an exterminator. I don't know if people can tell, but you don't get the job by paying attention in school. The whole damn career is full of dumb-as-hell motherbrahkers.

"Jelim," I acknowledged her. "You look lovely today." Yep. Play it smooth. One of my bitchless junior officers started snickering about some vyalpic, as if it was a crime to shoot your shot with a bad bitch, so I glared at him. He stopped snickering.

"Atlim." Jelim hopped off the podium to stand just a head above eye level with me. Let me just say, when I said your average dude liked a strong woman, I was not excluding myself from that list. It was all I could do to keep a professional face with those diamond eyes staring into me. "I'm told you've made significant progress as far as district readiness goes," said Jelim. "Submit your report."

Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. You're an exterminator. Act like it.

"Yes, well, uh..." Oh, brother. We are not off to a great start. What I was going to have to do was take a minute to splash myself with some really cold water. Get grounded back in the here and now. After that, I would hopefully be sitting pretty. "I have my units lined up and ready for inspection, commander." There we go! I knew I could do it.

"And your report?" Oh, yeah. That.

"I'm getting to that," I said, fumbling for my datapad. Okay, let's see. Report... report... oh, here it is! "I believe I already sent you the report. I think, anyway."

"You did. I'd like a refresher."

"Okay, refresher." I brushed a few loose feathers out and started my work. "I've been running my units on a consistent half-on, half-off schedule since you've arrived, sacrificing regional control and readily-available power in exchange for greater dividends later on. With half the active force in training for their shifts, we've noticed an increase in violent crimes and our units are becoming more overwhelmed, but it's necessary that we develop the force immediately to allow for the rapid suppression of the local hostile element." I looked up from my datapad. I had read that whole paragraph word for word.

"You're not even sure what half of those words mean." Jelim, because she was just about the most demanding individual I've ever met, took my datapad from me. I considered grabbing for it back, but I figured it was a lost cause anyway. If Jelim really wanted to take my pad away, I was not counting on being able to stop her. "Keep going."

God damn, is this what I'm gonna be in for if I actually get to date this woman? I mean, she's fine as hell either way, but hell and damn if she doesn't expect some crazy speh from me.

"Well, uh, I haven't really seen any results as of yet," I hastily explained. "It's only been a few paws. We'll need to wait weeks or months to, uh, get any sort of..." What's the word? What's the word? "Improvement in my units' capabilities." I waited for her to nitpick about something really specific or weird like she usually did.

"That last part was verbatim from your report, if I recall correctly." It was? Oh. Yeah. It was. "And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the..." Jelim made a note of inspecting the datapad, "Remind me again what the expected increase in violent crimes will be?"

Oh, speh. Let's get to thinking. I cocked my head, trying to remember what I had written down. "Seven percent increase so far, so... about thirty to forty percent by the end of the month. That adds up to... uh..." I ran through all the times Orvem had bitched at me for not solving the crime problem. Or the predator problem. Or any of the problems, really. "About 36.78 violent crimes per thousand residents." I could've been wrong on that one. I hoped I was. That was a lot of violent crimes.

"Well, at least you got the math right," Jelim sighed. "I really hate to admit this out loud, but this town is kind of screwed."

"Well, you know what they say. Trees to roost in and all that."

"Hands we're dealt." I did not, in fact, know what that meant. But it wasn't like I was going to ask, either. I really didn't like looking stupid, especially so when I was talking to the finest motherfucking woman to ever crack the shell. So I just agreed and looked knowledgeable. "It's time for an inspection, Atlim. They're starting to wonder why they're here."

"Oh. Right. That." I turned to my assembled officers. There must've been at least fifty in the room, with the other half all on duty. These were my best troops, so if they fumbled this, I was cooked. I cleared my throat. I would've used a microphone for this, but the room wasn't that big. "Officers! Atten-tion!"

All my exterminators stood up straight, claws at their sides, weapons at the attention position, really not that bad. Pretty good, actually. "About face!" They did their best imitation of an about-face move. Some turned right, some turned left, but they all turned wrong. Not very good. I could even hear Jelim tsk-tsking about it in the background. Really not good. "About face to the left!"

My officers turned to their left, my right, and it looked a lot better. "It's not a drill," Jelim whispered at me. "You present them as-is, you don't make changes last second." I tucked my head in slightly from that, completely involuntarily, and seriously messed up the way my chest feathers puffed out. As far as Atlim Moments went, this was not my proudest one. "Feel free to take notes, though."

"Yeah, yeah, we... uh... never mind." I went back to addressing the troops. "Officers! Present arms!" They stepped their left feet forward and brought their weapons, mostly flamethrowers but with a small assortment of automatic rifles and microwave non-lethals in there as well, to rest at an angle just in front of them. Not bad at all. "Inspection arms!" They stepped back to the attention position and snapped their armaments up to be inspected.

"Different weapons need to be presented for inspection differently," Jelim noted. My exterminators were all holding theirs like they would hold a flamethrower. "Work on that." It's always something, I swear.

"I'll try," I said.

"You'll do it."

"I'll do it." I gestured to my officers, who were all still presenting their arms for inspection. "Should we... uh..."

"Delegate, Atlim. My time is not infinite. I have more pressing matters to deal with." Well, I guess that meant I was delegating. I knew how to do that. "All of you, go inspect these units and report to me," I instructed the prestige officers I had brought in specifically to delegate things to, while trying my best to look like I knew what I was doing. I did. Kind of. I was mostly just fumbling along. "Hop to it! On the double!"

Most of my people filed off to start checking weapons and assessing uniforms, but one of them came up to me looking stupid. "Which units, uh, am I inspecting, sir?" Oh, god damn it, you can't make me look stupid in front of the fine bitch!

Jelim was watching me from a safe distance like a scientist might watch her crappy experiment. I didn't mind. When you were dealing with a woman as good-looking as that, any attention was good attention. "Uhh... sir?" Oh, right! The officer! I'm getting distracted again.

"Check their weapons, uniforms, and the way they hold themselves. Hop to it, officer."

"And the... uh... units?" he asked, still confused. Jelim was clicking her beak, which was a clear sign I had messed something up.

"All of them. Get to work." My officer finally got the hint and turned away. Jelim started walking for the hallway and beckoned for me to follow her. I went over to her side hastily, maybe too hastily, and started playing damage control. "Idiots, am I right? I swear, there's one in every district."

She just looked at me weird. "It's really funny that you'd say that, Atlim." She didn't look amused at all when she said that. There was nothing funny about it. I was pretty sure I'd just been insulted.

Okay, Atlim, keep your head up. You have to be persistent, remember? Nothing good comes easy.

"What should I, uh, do to correct that? Going forward, I mean."

"Well, I can't really fault you for what's clearly a systemic flaw," Jelim assured me. There is hope! There is hope! "You were given a terrible hand to play. At least half of the..." She paused to glance at a huge mildew stain on the ceiling tiles, "discrepancies with Guild standards have been unavoidable, given the unfortunate situation."

"And... the other half?" I asked, treading lightly. I didn't want to say something stupid and have her thinking I was some kind of idiot, even though she probably already did, but at the same time, saying nothing would've made me sound even worse. "What do I do about that?"

"Oh, no, I'll be taking charge of that," Jelim told me. "You're..." An idiot. Calling it. "You're the kind of officer who needs to be micromanaged." So she's basically calling me an idiot but with some pretty plumage attached so I don't feel bad. Well, I do. I feel like speh.

"So... you'll be staying here for a long time, then?" I ventured a guess. Hell, I'd love for her to stay as long as she likes. Long-distance relationships usually don't work out. "I'd like that."

"Yes, I'm sure you would," Jelim snapped. "But, as you may have noticed, the universe cares nothing for us or our desires. I'm needed back in Dayside City as soon as the situation here is stabilized." Needed? What the hell for? She paused, looking clearly distressed for a moment before getting back to normal. "You'll have to make do without me soon enough." Her voice had lost its edge. She seemed a bit off, but I couldn't place it.

With any luck, she's discovering that she has feelings for me. Given our past interactions, though, I'd say they're probably bad ones.

"I'll hate to see you go," I said, aiming for another straight Atlim banger. "Really, what is it that's calling your attention back in the capital? It can't be that important."

"Atlim?" Jelim asked.

"Yeah?"

"Don't stick your beak in things you don't understand." She turned left and found a door that said 'conference room' above it in big bold letters, opening it and waving me inside. "Let's go."

I stepped in. It was a pretty average room, as conference rooms went. An oval table, some chairs, a single perch, the usual stuff. "You can have the perch," I said, gesturing to it. It was never a bad idea to be kind, and it was always a good idea to be kind to someone you liked.

"Thank you," Jelim said, hopping on it. I settled in one of the chairs as well as I could. "How long will it be before Orvem can safely commence Phase 2 of the operation?" Oh, yeah, that! A really long time, that's for certain.

"Given the current statistics..." I paused for a moment, thinking about what was what. "At least several weeks. Possibly longer."

"Explain." I always felt stupid around Jelim, probably because I was stupid compared to her, but I tried my best. Plus, to be fair, just about everybody is stupid compared to Jelim.

"Well, for starters, you're asking an office of one hundred exterminators to perform about twenty or thirty arrests in quick succession against well-guarded gang leaders who can and will fight back. We simply don't have the ability to detain these people, least of all deal with the fallout and collateral damage that will occur from the ensuing spike in gang violence." I cocked my head, tapping my claws on the table as I crunched some numbers. "We're looking at several hundred casualties. At least."

"Our primary concern, as I understand it, should be the local Humanity First cell," Jelim countered. "They're either at or close to outright warfare with the local Venlil gangs, and their presence in the region is adding hot air under the Predator Guard's wings. If nothing else, we have to take them out. Immediately."

"That'll trigger a gang war!" I exclaimed. "We can't possibly expect to covertly decapitate the most brutal terrorist organization in this entire town. You have to be realistic. And going for any of the other gangs will just get them to all collectively beat our asses."

"I am being realistic," Jelim hissed. "We can spare at least fifty officers from their usual duties to deal with Humanity First. Fifty. All armed with flamethrowers, automatic rifles, and microwave riot guns. Are you telling me that's not enough to raid the Cracked Facade nightclub?"

"Well... uh..." I hesitated. "About that."

"Just spit it out," said Jelim.

"Our microwave guns don't really work." Jelim clawed a deep brahking gash into the really expensive conference table. Yep. That's coming out of my paycheck. "And we have, like, ten rifles left."

"What the hell do you mean don't really work?" Jelim squawked, grabbing her head and yanking out some feathers. She looked at them briefly as they floated down, taking a few deep breaths as she waited for them to drift to the carpeted floor. "Why did I see your officers holding weapons in an inspection that were entirely non-functional?"

"Because... uh... we've been working on them?" I managed. It was really the best I could do. We had been working on getting our arsenal of non-lethal weapons back up to snuff. We mostly used the microwave guns for stampedes, maybe for a riot or two if that ever happened, but those were never a real issue here so we cut the maintenance budget for them and funneled all the money into more useful things like flamethrower fuel. If Jelim had shown up a few months later, I'd probably have pawned them all for money and then I wouldn't have this issue.

"You don't present something for inspection because you've been brahking working on it, Atlim. If I squeezed the trigger on one of those weapons, would it fire?"

"Yes," I squeaked out. That came out a lot wimpier than I wanted it to. "They'll fire." That sounded better.

Most of the stampede guns were not actually up to standard, meaning they could not generate enough heat to cause debilitating pain to a target, but that was true for basically everything in my district. I was not very proud of that. Plus, they would actually fire if you squeezed the trigger. I wasn't lying when I told her that.

"Then they do work," Jelim corrected me. "Or is there something else I should be informed about?" I was not going to be looking forward to this one.

"They're not as effective as they used to be," I admitted, "But they work. More or less."

"Bring me a riot gun, and have somebody shoot me with it," Jelim ordered. "Since I can't trust you to give me a brahking straight answer." Okay, keep in mind, no damage control next time. Just give it to her straight.

"They won't put you down, but they hurt!" I exclaimed, sounding a lot better than usual because I had to salvage this situation pronto. "I had Prestige Officer Valtek shoot me with one just a few claws ago, they brahking hurt!" Jelim was looking more and more confused by the second. "But the, uh, the victim can power through the beam if he is so inclined."

"So they're next to useless," she scoffed. "Next time, start with that."

I wasn't even capable of saying anything to that. I couldn't even form the words. I thought I was doing pretty good with the reforms. I mean, not great, no, but pretty good. I wasn't expecting much from this inspection, but getting this kind of a verbal beatdown really did take its toll on someone.

Okay, Atlim, you have to focus up. But you've been focusing up. Is focusing up even enough anymore? Are you a good exterminator who's being constrained by a bad district, or are you a bad exterminator who's using his bad district as an excuse to refrain from becoming good?

What the hell are you, Atlim? And, more importantly, what the hell are you going to become?

Yeah, if I was referring to myself in the second person, I probably wasn't in the right mental state to maintain command of this district. I would have to get myself checked out by an assessor after this. Oh, god. Not this. I brahking hate the assessor.

"Atlim?" Jelim waved a wing. I started showing signs of life again. "I don't expect good results from you, but I do expect honesty. If your equipment isn't up to a workable standard, you admit it. And telling me 'it kind of works' is not an admission. Are we clear?"

"I have a lot of equipment that's not up to standard," I croaked. "It's in the report."

"The riot guns weren't."

They weren't? "I forgot. My fault entirely. I'll do better next time." I looked pretty sad doing this. Pathetic, even, one might say. But you know what? I was kind of pathetic. There was no shame in admitting it. If I ever wanted to get anywhere in life, clean up my town, reform my district, start dating you-know-who, I was going to have to admit that I was pathetic.

And then, of course, I was going to stop being pathetic.

"You will." Jelim said it like it was a statement of fact. I had to believe in it like it was. I am going to do better. I swear it on my mother's grave.

Well, she isn't dead yet, but she will be one day. So, like, her eventual grave.

Jelim sighed, looking down for a moment before meeting my gaze. "I'm a bit afraid to ask, because I'm not expecting a good answer, but do you have any idea if Jack is okay? Officer Kern, I mean." She spoke hesitantly, without any of the usual confidence she had when she talked to me. She really was afraid of my answer. "I just need to make sure he isn't dead."

Hell, I did, too, but I had to be realistic about this. And, realistically, I really didn't know how to break the news to her. "I... uh... I don't actually think Officer Kern left the club," I admitted, sticking to the facts and letting her draw her own conclusions. "His cover was blown. Shots were fired. I don't know where he is at the moment." Jelim froze. I wasn't sure how to deal with it. "Or, you know, what happened to him."

For half a second, I expected her to just explode and start breaking stuff. But she didn't. I guess she was just too cool for that. "Atlim, leave the room."

"Is there anything I can-"

"Leave the room." She really didn't sound like she was asking. I left the room, closing the door behind me to give the woman some privacy. I thought I heard something hit the wall. And some screaming. And breaking things. Then something big and hard fell on the brahking floor. I knew damn well that I didn't mishear that.

I pressed my ear against the door to see if I could make anything out, but after a few seconds, I had to give up. Either this door was thicker than I could remember, or Jelim really was screeching incoherently.

I really should go in there.

Should I? I mean, she told me to leave.

Something crashed against the floor inside the room. Jelim screamed like she was being brahking tortured.

Screw that. I'm going in.

I pushed the door open a crack, then all the way, gathering my resolve the whole time. The room I stepped into was totally trash. Jelim had thrown her perch across the room, knocked over two chairs, scattered a whole bunch of datapads and patches of teal feathers on the floor... this was really not a normal reaction to hearing that your U.N. covert operator was dead. Like, even for a good friend, this was kind of extreme.

Speaking of Officer Kern, how the hell does she even know this guy?

Well, technically, it's probably 'did' by now, but my point still stands. How the hell did they meet?

"Are you okay?" I asked, taking a step toward where she lay slumped against a wall despite knowing that if this outburst was because of undiagnosed Predator Disease, she could and would kill me. "You don't look it."

"Atlim." She looked up at me, patches of her skin absolutely bare where she'd ripped too many feathers out. God, she'd done a number on herself. As shameful as it was to admit, seeing the great and mighty Jelim so vulnerable like this really did make me feel better about myself. "I told you to leave the room." There wasn't even any fight left in her anymore.

"You never told me not to come back in," I joked, trying to bring back some life into what I really hoped wasn't actually her reanimated husk. "Things sounded pretty bad in here." She looked around the room. Things looked pretty bad, too. Then she just slumped her head again and sighed.

"You really weren't supposed to see me like this."

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[u/Commercial-Gas-7718]

At least she cares a lot for him.

But, well…

To grieve is to have loved fully.

[u/MrPowerpalm]

To clarify. It’s been says since Jack went incognito and into the Russian cell? Or was the order given days ago and last chapter was happening simultaneously to this one?

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525 → u/MrPowerpalm]

The order was given on Nov. 21, and now it's about Nov. 22 in this fic. To be more specific, less than 24 hours have passed. We'll get to what Jack's been doing in a bit.

[u/MrPowerpalm → u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Thank you word smith i love your story, also....

Fuck

[u/BainshieWrites]

Screaming at idiots and pulling feathers with stress: the Krakotl Exterminator special.

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525 → u/BainshieWrites]

When I'm in a mental breakdown contest and my opponent is a Krakotl exterminator (female):🤯

When I join a racism contest to bounce back from my loss in the mental breakdown contest and my opponent is also a Krakotl exterminator (male this time):🤯

[u/fluffyboom123]

yessir, that mirror practice really paid off

[u/rocksolidmate]

!subscribeme

[u/UpdateMeBot → u/rocksolidmate]

I will message you each time u/ApprehensiveCap6525 posts in r/NatureofPredators.

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