Jul 12 08:48:08 108 PA - A Brief Measure of Ability
From Chronicles
Jul 12 08:48:08 108 PA.
FIRING RANGE
Evening is a nice time, even out here on the public firing range. Gabriel has a few weapons stacked up - actually it looks like an arsenal - and he's doing a combination of shooting, fussing over the weapon, then firing it again. One by one, returning to others, moving on. He glances at his watch occasionally, probably waiting to see if his invited guest shows up, or found her way here.
Bella ain't a soldier girl. Or big on guns. She's only got the one bitty pistol, even. Don't mean she ain't never gonna watch things go boom. That's fun most times. Who don't like to see that?
Gabriel's eyes glance up as a single red light flashes once - the range's indicator that someone new is in the area, so watch where you point the muzzle of your weapon. He takes a shot. "Bella? You make it here? Bring that little pop gun of yours along with you?" Other than that, his eyes don't depart from his work for shooting and tweaking.
"Yep. That's me." Bella was just looking. Now she's walking more. At Gabe. "'N course I got't. Alla yers break 'r somethin?" He's the one that's got the pile of 'em. Looks like he's fixing 'em too.
"Tweaking them. Making sure that the sights are still in alignment after combat, that kind of thing," Gabriel says with a nod of his head, still looking downrange. "You know, Bella, I'm a tad busy at this exact moment, but I figured that if you wanted to come up and show me what you've got with that thing, I could show you how I teach. Maybe you'd be interested in defending yourself in some normal fashion." He eventually does turn with those words and smiles at the girl.
Bella tips her head. Quirks a brow. "Sure. Told me yer gonna teach me something with my li'l gun. Ain't inna big rush though." She smirks. "Know which way ta point't 'n the button ta push so ain't so bad."
Gabriel smiles at Bella. "Really? Okay, see that silhouette, the one with the horns? It's set at twenty yards, that's point blank, someone charging you is going to be laying on top of you making sweet deadly love in half a moment." He stands aside and sweeps a hand elegantly downrange to the absurdly close target. "Three out of five shots into it, and I'll buy you dinner. My kind of dinner," he adds before any literalism can take place.
"Why's it got horns?" Bella smirks. "Got it in fer horny people're somethin?" The target ain't really running at her. That's good cause it takes a bit to pull her little pistol out. She makes sure she's pointing it the right way. Then tries to point it at the target. Oh and hit the shoot button too.
There went a horn. Maybe part of the head too. Bella's just happy it hit and made a hole. "See? Ain't so hard. People talk like it's some kinda super secret thing ta learn." A shrug and she's sorta aiming again. And shooting.
"Good, good. You can hit the broad side of a barn. We'll be on the lookout for barns," Gabriel says with a pleasant smirk. He also bops a hand off of her skull once, gently. Fun? Yes. Distracting? Yes.
"Never know. Bet they can get mean if they wanna." Bella snickers a little. Yay. Another hole. Then a bonk. "Ow. What's that fer?" It's distracting. 'Nuff that she don't shoot yet.
Gabriel slaps Bella's back - back, not backside - and says, "C'mon, no dallying. That evil stationary man still has a negative impression of you, and a nice dinner is on the line."
There's a soft hissing sound as goo begins to boil and pour out from various bits of grass, small insects, and the like that surround the firing range. In mere moments, Dirai stands there, just behind Bella, and agrees,"When they're moving, you actually can't just point the weapon at them. You have to lead the shot."
Bella snorts. Starts. Even looks a little at Gabe. But she still shoots. Then there's ...uh... stuff coming up outta the ground. Bella's gotta blink. "Uh. Kay. Hi?" Good thing she shot already. It even hit between alla that. Somehow.
"I guess I owe you dinner, Bella. Ten points for nailing a point-blank stationary target," Gabriel says, reaching down - which actually isn't very far for a short man - to ruffle the young girl's hair. "You wanna go for double jeopardy where things really get exciting?" After listening to the voice from behind, the man smiles and asks, "Hey Gorgeous. You still up because of the caffeine?"
Dirai stttttreeeeetches. Which for her is damned impressive, because she is VERY stretchy. Once she's done with that, though, she clarifies,"Hey. I'm Dirai. Yeah. Sort of. And by sort of, I mean, because I don't sleep. Or eat. Or drink. Bunch of tubes hooked up to my paralyzed body. Makes this sort of thing a snap." She shrugs a little bit,"Okay... now firefirefirefirefire!" She actually giggles, then explains,"Not only do you have to lead moving targets, but there's usually all sorts of noise going on around you when a firefight begins. Then again, I kind of like that. It's why I prefer CFT's. What about you, Gabe? Nothin' like the bark of the gun, and the recoil thumping up your arm."
"Yep. Dinner." Bella nods. But she's still eyeing the oozy one. "Huh. Maybe ya oughtta get that looked at 'r somethin. Don't look right." She waves the pistol at Dirai. In a pointing kinda way.
Gabriel shakes his head and gives Bella's shoulder a squeeze. "She's nice, Bella. I'm sure that if I were to buy her a new wardrobe too, she'd look better." The older fellow winks to the standing ooze, then points back at the targets. "Actually, I prefer a nice quiet blade or a single shot from a suppressed weapon." He pats the long-barreled pistol on his thigh. "The Dragunov there, it doesn't buck much, and one shot's sufficient. These others?" He waves a hand at the wide collection of other rifles and handguns. Absurd numbers, actually. "Only time I've needed to use them is when people failed to plan and execute properly, which unfortunately seems to be essentially the way that things go around here. C'mon, beautiful," he looks back to Dirai. "In the short time you've known me, have I ever seemed to be a loud man?" A wide smile follows the question.
Dirai snorts in Gabriel's direction,"Well, the nature of your comments is about as loud as a damned gunshot. But yeah, you're pretty even. And you're an old-style grunt. Back when fields were full of people. Before the world got blown up. Back when not standing out was one of the best ways to keep alive. When you could prepare a sniping position for an enemy force marching through. Battle-lines ain't always so clear now, though. And caution... Well... when you're just reborn a day later, it's hard to be cautious, young 'un." A little bit of her Pecos accent has started to creep into her voice. "Doesn't matter. Your girl over there, she's better using meat shields like you and I. Hell, as long as it ain't laser fire and the like, I'm damned bulletproof. And you're even better than bulletproof. You're good at what you do."
Bella smirks. "Maybe. Take lotsa clothes though." She turns back to Gabe. Points at the gun he's patting. Still with hers. "Really only takes one shotta that? 'N since when're ya been bulletproof?" Bella looks at the squishy one and back at Gabe. Thinking she missed something somewhere.
The older man gives Dirai a quizzical look. "Umm. I'm sorry, and thanks? However, I was *never* a grunt. Right out of Basic and on to the Raiders, then on to the OSS." Gabriel makes one of those odd arm-hand motions as if something were sliding, or perhaps taking off quickly at a really low angle. "I have to figure that war is still war, as long as you understand your opponent, what you have going for you, and what you're lacking." Gabriel flicks the top of Bella's head with a forefinger. "David killed Goliath with a stone to the forehead. A twenty-two to the skull works even better. I'm not bulletproof. Miss Dirai said I'm better than bulletproof." He confirms that information with a solid nod. "Okay, blind and paralyzed combatant is dead -" he gives Dirai a 'sorry' shrug "- so how about something useful in the field? Still, ridiculously short range, and only one target. So..." he slips his hand over a control pad and the target at the one-hundred yard range (a silhouette of the ancient Sarah Palin for some reason) begins to slide rapidly back and forth along a track, changing direction randomly. "You've won dinner. This is going to be like reverse strip-poker. Every time you hit the target, your wardrobe expands by one piece from the shop of your choosing. Fire away, Lone Ranger!" He gives Bella another swat on the shoulder, then moves off.
Dirai chuckles at Bella,"I may be made out of goo, but I can usually take a big bore to the face two or three times before I have to recorporate my corpus." She flops onto a nearby table (meant for holding guns),"Take your time. Make your aim count. Don't let your excitement get you hurried or jangled, okay? Anyway, he's better than bulletproof, because the only thing better than being able to take a gunshot to the face is not getting shot at all. And he's the kind of guy not to take that chance when there's no good reason at all to do so. Hell, strikes me as the kind of guy to avoid getting shot at, period, when possible. Truth be told, there shouldn't be any good reason for you to end up in any shooting situation."
"More new stuff? Cool." That's got Bella turned back round at the target. "'Gabe not get shot at? S'prised he ain't got hisself dead already. Ain't ya heard? He's a big good guy hero. They get shot at lotsa." She's gotta grin. Even when she's trying to shoot at stuff.
Gabriel turns and grins at Dirai's words. "It's true that the number of incidents that can be resolved by words or polite force alone is impressive. Of course, this includes blackmail, threats, lies and such in the vocabulary. Kidnapping, that works well. I'm not fond of beatings, myself, but they do have their place. So yes, best not to have to fight at all. Naturally though, things change as you move from one agent to one cell to one small unit and on up." Despite the fact that he'd invited Bella here to shoot, he has completely refrained from giving any advice to this point. Bella's head gets finger-flicked once more at her words, and he turns again to Dirai. "This young woman likes to harass me for being a nice person. I'm hoping that over time and through example, she'll see that being a nice person really isn't that bad." There's a wink, then a smile, then a thump on Bella's shoulder again. "Okay, one miss. Nice and clean, too. Guy probably didn't even hear it."
Dirai meanwhile is having a grand ol' time laying out on the table. She yawns... even though she doesn't actually get tired,"What you need is some targets that fire stun bolts BACK at her. That would totally make it far more realistic. Also, for large numbers of people, aren't bombs usually better?"
Bella grumbles a little. "Ya keep hittin' me 'n maybe I'm gonna hit back. Even if yer old." Her gun swings back and forth to try and follow the thing. "'N lotsa people makes runnin 'way better. 'R leavin 'em alone." Zap. She almost hits a target. Too bad it weren't hers.
Gabriel's eyes remain on Bella's continual failure, which in its own way is teaching. "Wow." Dirai receives a smile and, "If you don't need to discriminate, sure, bombs are great. Claymores make for a fine ambush. A flight of B-52s carpet bombing from fifty-thousand feet is extremely accurate," he says with a grin. "But I'm not the kind to put innocent lives in danger. I'd rather have to start over for a new kill before blowing up an innocent." Though right before he turns back to Bella, he offers an open palm, "Though there are always exceptions."
Dirai shrugs a little bit to Gabriel, then says in her own... thoughtful way, "Scorched earth policies DO exist for a reason."
"Sure. Jus' blow ev'rythin up." Bella smirks. "No more fightin after." She grabs on with the other hand. Two're better'n one right? There's a little flash. Smell of hot stuff. But that's it. Nothin blows up down where it's s'posed to.
Gabriel, having been in the military as long as he has, recognizes a weapon failure when he sees and hears it, even if it's a weapon type that he's having to get used to because it's beyond the technology of his own time. Without announcing himself, he grabs the pistol from Bella's hands and begins to look it over. "Ah, here. Look, the clip seating came loose. You're lucky, it could have detonated in your face if it had been another millimeter to the left." He reaches down to where his own weapons are seated, and removes a pair of small tools from his box. It doesn't take him long before the tools are put back, and he hands the weapon back to its short owner. "There you go. That one didn't count, give it another shot. Four more shots, everybody's a winner!"
The end of her gun's smoknig a li'l. Maybe a good thing she ain't. "Huh?" Then Gabe takes it and plays with it. "Wha?" Here she figgered if sometin got stuck ya just look down the end to see what it is. Maybe push the shoot button a couple times too. To maybe work things loose. "Uh. Ok..." She gets it back. Gets it pointed the right way. Shoots again.
Dirai decides that Bella deserves is a break, so she sends, mentally, a due of mental force-bolts through the air tracing after the woman's bullets, blowing the target into smithereens where Bella's bullet thwacks into the target. "YOU TOTALLY NUKED IT, GIRL!"
Gabriel is decidedly unfazed, as anyone who knows him will tell you is normal. Probably why horrifically ugly things don't commonly bother him. An eyebrow arches. "Hmm. I think that was some non-divine intervention there." He puts one hand on each of Bella's shoulders and bonks the top of her head with his chin. "I think that you've been cheated out of some gifts, m'girl." He lets go and turns to look at the blob on the table. "Well, I guess I know how you go into combat, when you're not using area weapons," he says with a smile and a thick Kentucky twang.
"Yeah!" Bella's happy. Even jumps a li'l. Prolly bonks Gabe's chin back with her head. "Huh? Hey!" She spins round. "Still hit it! Before it all blew up." A smirk. "Ya owe me." Out comes the poking. At his chest. Would be a finger. But the gun's there. Barrel works fine too.
Dirai chuckles at Gabriel, then admits,"AAAAACTUALLY... she hit the target all on her own. You can still find the chunk where the shot went through intact. I just made it look cool AFTER she shot it. I can also make machines do strange crap... like make environmental armor backfeed CO2 instead of venting it... This little girl, though, did it on her own." Still, with a reflexive cringe, she reaches out to pry the gun gently away from Gabe's chest... and if allowed, out of Bella's grasp,"Rule number one, a weapon is always loaded, even when it isn't. Rule number two, never point it at someone unless you intend to try to take their life."
It's a tossup as to whether or not it was Dirai or Gabriel who got to the weapon first, with Gabriel knocking it away using an open palm, and rotating his chest out of the line of fire at the same time. Still, he maintains his usually calm demeanor. "Dammit, Bella. Don't point it unless you intend to use it. What if your finger had twitched? Muscles do that sometimes." Still, he seems surprisingly calm about having had an energy weapon leveled point-blank at his chest, armed by a person untrained in how to properly use it. Unusually calm. "Dirai's correct, listen to her. Anyway, I suppose that you won two pieces of clothing before the target was destroyed? Whaddya want, another coat, or a silken ball gown?" The older man chuckles quietly.
Bella blinks when everybody yanks the gun away. Maybe didn't even think about what she was doin. "Oh. Didn' ya just say yer bulletproof? Weren' tryin'a shoot ya." Bella pokes him with a finger this time. To show what she was doin. "Hmm. Dunno yet. Have ta think a li'l. Come up with somethin good."
Gabriel does allow a rather cryptic, "Bulletproof, yes. Energy blast-proof? Only a couple of times." The odd thing is that he seems serious about it. "How about a scarf? I don't think you have one of those, and it has a certain symmetry, don't you think? Maybe something with reflective tape and bells, so that we can all see you coming." He grins widely as he's poked.
Dirai decides to get in on all this. So she grows about eight arms and sets half to poking Bella, and half to poking Gabe,"I'm being part of the group too!"
"Whoa! Hey." Bella was pokin. Then she's poked. A buncha times. By oozy things even. "Least gotta buy me a beer 'fore ya get too friendly." Startle goes to a grin. And then a smirk for Gabe. "Nice. No bells 'r shiny stuff. Not if ya want me ta wear it. Gotta be sneaky when I wanna."
"So black leather again, Bella?" Gabriel shakes his head mock-derisively at both women. "You should go into the bondage and domination business. I'm sure there's a huge market for it in this twisted place. Not really doing anything else with your time, are you?" He smiles and begins to pack up his arsenal.
Dirai rolls her eyes and makes gagging sounds... not that she stops poking until people leave. "It's nice to be part of the group."
Bella just smirks. Alot. Maybe even a li'l bit of teeth showin. Somewhere. "Nope. Ain' gonna be leather." Gabe gets one more poke. "Can always tie ya up sometime though. If ya wanna." A wink. A shrug. Li'l thumb at Dirai. "Don' think it'd work on that one. 'N course I got stuff goin on. Oughtta get goin on goin on too." She tucks in her bitty pistol and goes off. 'Fore she gets pokey slimed too much more.
