🟆001🟆

[71lines]

Who: Tenten and You
What: Various
Where: Varying
When: After a few days have passed.
Warnings/Notes: None so far.

1. Part of training involves firearms training. Jorgmund is, at least, intelligent enough to know that not everyone deals with slugthrowers on their homeworlds, so they've set out an array to try out. Assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, etc. Everyone's given a basic rundown and scored at the end of each day. The scores, they're told, don't mean anything. It's just for bragging rights. The only reason anyone might swallow that is because no one's caught the range crew laying down their bets yet.
   
   So far, Armstrong has the highest. That may be because he went first and Cayde-6 hasn't stepped up to bat, though.
   
   The New Hires are taken to the range in small groups, to more easily control them. Two to four at a time, only whenever there's a gap in the regular Rig crew's training. When they go in, the range master makes a comment about forgetting some paperwork and slips out, locking the door behind him. The other range personnel are making themselves busy. Tenten, in the meantime, is peering at the firearms with a critical eye. She picks up a pistol and flips it over in her hands a few times, testing the moving parts. Trigger. Slidey bit. Switch for something there.
   
   She frowns, then looks down the barrel, thumb pressed against the trigger. Was there something that was supposed to happen inside when the trigger was pulled? How was an arrow supposed to fit in here? Or did it throw tiny knives? Maybe she ought to pull the trigger and see what launching mechanism it had inside...



2. The Rig isn't very warm at the moment. In fact, even inside, temperatures don't crawl above fifty degrees. At least there's no wind to make things truly miserable. Even the gym isn't even that hot, at least when people aren't physically exerting themselves.
   
   But Tenten's soaked through with sweat. She's been sitting there, eyes closed, with her hands twisted into an odd shape, for almost the entire after-dinner period. Every now and then, she opens her mouth, exhaling harshly, but that's about it.
   
   There's quite a bit more warmth in the five feet around her.
   
   It was frustrating. Lee couldn't do it, sure, but everyone else had mastered two other nature changes, the techniques for infusing one's energy with an elemental nature. Tenten-well, she was about the only member of their circle of friends who hadn't managed it. Her control was just too sloppy, as much as she hated to admit it. But now... Now she wasn't having any more luck than back home. She exhales again, a thin creeping of a small cloud flowing from her throat, and then breathes in sharply, exploding into a fit of coughing when the ash flows right back into her lungs.
   
   Oh. She really should've brought a drink of water.



3. "Hey, you." Oh, look. Its your favorite person, Planker. He's kneeling on the floor, arranging some strings in a pattern. Strings, bits of plastic, some nuts and bolts, shoelaces, scraps of napkin torn into strips? "Lend me your shoelaces real quick, okay?" It looks like his are already down there.
   
   Planker hasn't looked up once. He's just holding his hand out. He opens and closes it a few times, slapping his fingers against his palm in an impatient gesture. On closer inspection, he's just very slightly... off. Something's weird about him. It might just be the strain on his face, though, it looks like he's undergoing an effort just kneeling there.
   
   Of course, there's a reason for that. It's Tenten, in disguise and forgetting for a moment that her fellow New Hires don't know about transformation techniques. The strain is pretty simple: Planker's a lot taller and heavier than she is, maintaining the transformation's taking its toll. She's spent the past while exploring the back halls, the stairwells, the access tunnels, trying to get a layout of the areas that the New Hires technically aren't banned from going, but aren't exactly allowed to go. It's been frustrating. All of the doors have weird locks, ones she can't pick. She's seen someone use a card of some kind to get in, but sliding a slip of paper through didn't work either.
   
   So now she's just laying down a map, trying to commit it to memory before everything fades, in case she can get through the doors later somehow.
   
   Of course, getting assistance might be easier if she weren't wearing someone else's face at the moment.

Comments

1.

[heterochrocatic]

Catra stands off to one side, hands on her hips. She's not quite sure on what these things other (the guy talked about them as 'firearms') but they do look vaguely like the large blasters that the Horde uses, and the blaster that Hordak used. So she assumes that they operate on similar principles. She watches Tenten fiddle with one and seems content to stay the hell out of that mess.

Then Tenten just casually looks down the barrel. Now, Catra isn't sure but she does remember Hordak's blaster being pretty dangerous when fired in your direction, so she reaches out without asking and twists the barrel away from Tenten's face--hopefully these things aren't loaded, not that Catra knows anything about that particular functionality.

"Uh, if we're going to be aiming these at the people we don't like maybe don't shove it in your eyeball, Tenten."

Re: 1.

[71lines]

There's a loud and decisive click when Catra twists the barrel away from her face. Thankfully, though, no bang. Jorgmund is sloppy, but not stupid enough to leave things like that loaded.

She blinks a little owlishly at Catra, then back at the gun. "I was just trying to see what moved in there." Tenten sounds a little peevish, but not actually offended. She slips the barrel out of Catra's grip, gives the pistol a once-over. The slide's locked back now and... Well, what's the point in that part moving? She sighs and tosses it onto the table. "At least we know that one's broken. If anyone asks, it was like that when we found it."

She's not getting yelled at just because Jorgmund can't keep their weapons working.

Re: 1.

[heterochrocatic]

"Who cares what moves? They'll explain it when they get back. We had these blasters back home that looked kind of like that and fired energy blasts. It's bad news." Catra watches as Tenten drops the pistol back onto the table.

"I'm not gonna snitch. I just didn't want you to fry yourself or something." She picks up the pistol that Tenten abandoned and peered into the open chamber.

"Huh. You can see all the way out the bottom through the handle. That's weird."

Re: 1.

[71lines]

"Oh." Well, that was nice of her.

Tenten leans in. Not close enough to touch, but enough to confirm Catra's statement. "Maybe there's some kind of thing that goes in there, like for a repeating crossbow? But those would be so tiny, I don't see how you'd get any kind of force behind that. Like little darts."

...Unless they used energy to shoot darts? Or energy capsules?

Hopefully, Catra's not too distracted by the innards to miss out on the noises of the rangemaster returning.

Re: 1.

[heterochrocatic]

"Yeah, I guess that's the ammunition or the energy cell or whatever--" Oh crap--. The rangemaster. Catra drops the weapon like it's a hot coal and stands off to one side, acting like she's never done anything but stand here before in her life.

"...Did one of you touch these?" He asks. Catra continues looking innocent (and staying quiet).

[71lines]

Tenten moves with her, sliding back like her feet were greased. She gives the range master a dull, blank look. His hand drifts down to the controls for their nanochain on his belt and then he shakes his head and drops it. Not important enough, apparently.

He turns and picks up an assault rifle. "All right, now this is your M4A1 assault carbine. Before you get your hands on this, though, there's a few simple rules to follow..."

After that, it's basically a practiced drone. The safety rules (Tenten at least has the conscience to wince a little as he gets in on those), the weapon's capabilities, the basic care (they'll be getting a little pamphlet on all of that, but he doesn't care what they do with it as long as they don't shoot each other), and... Well, it just goes on and on.

And, after all that, they don't even get to shoot the things. Possibly because he knows how full of it the two of them were. Instead, they get handed little rubber carbines to practice their firing stances with. Judging by the look on her face, Tenten would rather be anywhere than there, switching between standing, kneeling, and prone over and over, with the range personnel correcting their stances and sighting every now and then.

A good two and a half hours later, the rangemaster takes a look at the time and dismisses them, telling them that they'll be scheduled again at a later point. Tenten draws a face as they exit the range. "We didn't even get to do anything!"

...Probably because she was fooling around with the pistol in the first place, but that's neither here nor there now.

2

[princesspower]

Adora's been using the gym for its semi-intended purpose and just working the hell out of herself, mostly because it keeps her warm(ish) and partly because it's something to do and partly because it's better than sitting around her room and thinking about what's happening next. No, this helps her clear her mind and not go crazy trying to think of a solution to the overarching problem of being stuck here. She's toweling sweat off of herself, lost in thought, as she goes walking past Tenten - and then pauses and glances down. Is it warmer over here?

She's just trying to wrap her head around that when suddenly Tenten starts coughing.

"Whoa, hey, you OK?"

[71lines]

She just breathed a fist full of ash. 'OK' is pretty far from Tenten's condition at the moment. The warmth vanishes and she's suddenly shivering, exhausted from the efforts she's put forth, and gesturing desperately for a drink of some kind. Any kind.

She'd probably look frantic if her face weren't so screwed up and red from coughing so hard. As it is, she just sounds like a lifelong smoker on a particularly bad morning.

[princesspower]

"Hold on-!" Fortunately, Adora has a water bottle and she holds it out to Tenten with a look of concern on her face, "Here."

She also gives her a hearty slap on the back. That'll help, right?

[71lines]

She was just taking a slug from the bottle when the whack comes, causing her to splash it all over her face. Rocking forward, she coughs, then hacks up a lump of wet, grey ash. Tenten wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and sucks in a loud, greedy gulp of air.

Boy. That hadn't been fun. Just. Just give her a second to pull herself together, Adora. "Thanks. Ow." Whoof. She takes another, more controlled, sip of the water bottle, then leans back, breathing deeply, and holds it up for Adora. "That sucked."

[princesspower]

Adora rears back slightly as the lump of ash comes out of Tenten's mouth. What the heck was thatdoing? She shoots her a curious (if disgusted) look and then gives her back a couple more (gentler) pats as she starts to finally breathe again.

"What the heck was that all about? Why are you coughing up... uh... that?"

[71lines]

"Ugh." She's going to have to clean that up later. "Sorry, it's nasty. I know." At least she's breathing normally. Now all she has to worry about is the fact that it's suddenly freezing, and wearing a wet shirt isn't helping much. Brr.

"I was trying to breathe fire and, uh. Messed up." Because that was totally natural, right? Tenten pushes on, not realizing that it's unusual in the least bit. "It's hard, but I thought I could focus enough in here to get it done. Guess not."

1

[becauseimacoward]

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Without any consideration for Tenten taking it wrongly, Dojima puts a finger on the bottom of the cannon and pushes upwards, trying to force it to aim towards the ceiling.

"You never aim firearms towards you!"

So far in the rig Dojima had been calm, if exasperated with 70% of all that happened, but he would never be able to keep a levelhead when he sees someone mishandling these weapons like that. His voice is forceful, the voice of experience -- and pretty pissed off.

Not the best way to start an interaction, really.

[71lines]

She's not holding it very tightly, it's pretty easy to move the thing away. Tenten blinks at him, obviously baffled. She doesn't know Dojima very well, but she's seen him about and he's been pretty calm and relaxed about things. Having him yell at her, well, it isn't exactly intimidating. But it is surprising.

"I was just trying to see how it worked," she protests. What was wrong with that? It's not like these things could be that dangerous, right?

[becauseimacoward]

"If you want to know how it works, ask someone to guide you instead of putting yourself in danger like that!"

There, she's not in immediate danger by having a cannon right to her face. True, she still has it in her hands, but as long as he's there she should be safe.

Or at least he hopes so.

"Firearms can easily be lethal. That's the first thing you must remember"

[71lines]

The look she gives him at his chiding is exasperated. Clearly she knew what would be too dangerous. And that's why she looked down the barrel of a gun. Granted, it wasn't loaded, but Tenten doesn't know anything about that.

Yet.

Still, it sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Still a little irritated, she sets the thing down. "It's not like it was trapped or anything." She would've noticed a wire, or if there was a blade hidden in there.

[becauseimacoward]

"That's because it didn't have any bullets."

Where are the bullets...oh, right over there. Dojima brings one -- just in case, any bullet that wouldn't fit, just to avoid trouble.

"These ones but with the right size go into the gun. When you pull the trigger, they come out at high speed and injure you gravely"

[71lines]

Tenten takes the bullet from his hand and gives it a close examination. It's... A piece of metal wrapped around another metal. Brass, maybe? Brass and copper? What's that little button on the flat part for? She holds it up to her ear, shakes it, then frowns and hands it back.

"I don't get it," she admits. "How's that supposed to work? There's no string or plunger or anything in there. What's supposed to make it go?"

3

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday frowns, peering hard at Planker. Body language ain't quite right, there. And that junk on the floor.

She recognizes it. That's the back halls behind the kitchen, the ones that leads down to what looks like an engine room, or some kinda power substation.

Trusting her gut, as always, she kneels down and starts undoing her shoes. "Hold on a sec - "

A moment later, there's two shoelaces in ?Planker's? hand.

[71lines]

"Thanks." Well, doesn't that word just sound alien?

He takes them both and starts laying them carefully, then reaches into his pockets for a few new scraps of paper. Ventilation connections. Maybe Saturday's run into some of the spots she's marking down, unused closets and areas with loose wall panels.

And, of course, all of the doors to the sensitive areas and executive levels. All electronically locked, so that Tenten has no clue what lies behind them, but it's important that she marks them and memorizes them for later. Maybe she'll figure it out some day.

After settling a few more things down he squints and spends a moment darting his eyes over the entire thing, whispering notes to himself. Then he scoops up Saturday's shoelaces and hands them back. "I've got what I needed, thanks again." He starts to gather everything up, scooping it into his pockets and trying to relace his shoes.

It's a good thing Saturday realized something was up there, because this could be... Very weird otherwise.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday is certain, now. She coughs to get his attention.

"No problem, Planker."

Then she waits. He'd marked connections and areas she hadn't seen before - which means whichever New Hire this is (95& certainty, here), they're someone she should swap notes with.

[71lines]

He ignores her, or at least seems to. Everything's going back into his pockets in a particular order. Then he straightens and, as he does so, his facial expression and body language slip back into Planker's usual foul demeanor. Planker glances around, seems satisfied that he didn't have eyes on him, then fixes a disapproving look at Saturday. "What're you waiting around here for? Fuck off and do something useful before I find you something to do," he snaps, a little louder than normal.

She might have to apologize to Saturday later, but even if you weren't being watched, people could be listening. At least, that was Tenten's thought.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, but sir, I thought you needed assistance," she says, with purely helpful innocence. She wants to see what Mr or Ms Perfect Disguise is up to. "I'd like to help, if I can."

There's not an ounce of disrespect in her; Saturday may not be able to change her face like that, but she's a professional in her own way.

[71lines]

"I've got other places to be. Ones you're not cleared for." That message ought to be clear enough.

Besides, it's a lot harder to use Planker as a tool when someone might ask him why he was hanging out with a New Hire. And his scowl has been very useful so far in keeping people from asking questions.

She'll apologize to Saturday later, possibly when she's uploading the map to the anon network.

1

[aleifr]

She'll hear a gravelly voice from over her shoulder:

"They said to only point that at something if you intend to shoot it."

When she turns around, she'll see an absolute mountain of a man standing behind her, arms folded across his chest.