The bald man grinned wider, stepping closer with heavy footsteps. "We've been dying to give a Union dog a taste of his own medicine. You think you're better than us? Sitting behind your desks, handing down sentences like you're gods."
The wiry one spat near Claus's boot. "Now you're here with us, pretty boy. No badge. No armor. Just another sack of meat in a cage."
Claus sighed and leaned back against the cold stone wall, gazing at them with the tired disinterest of a man who's already done the math on their threat level—and found it irrelevant.
"You know, it's fascinating. The human brain, when faced with institutional confinement, tends to latch onto primitive coping mechanisms. Posturing. Threat projection. Displays of pseudo-dominance. You call it toughness—it's textbook displaced aggression."
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with clinical detachment, the same eyes a scientist would give a test subject.
