goneawayworld | 🟆001🟆

Entry tags:

🟆001🟆

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

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...

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.

"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.

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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."

Edited 2020-05-01 22:35 (UTC)

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.

"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."

Edited 2020-05-01 23:19 (UTC)

"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.

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?"

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.

"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.

Edited 2020-05-02 00:59 (UTC)

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?

"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).

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.

The next two hours are interminably boring. Catra hates it--but at least she gets proven right about Tenten not sticking her face into the barrel of the firearm (or gun? the guy used the terms interchangeably). They weren't quite the same as blasters, based on teh principle of their operation, which had kind of made Catra's eyes glaze over. The important part was there was a little pin inside, it hit the back of a bullet and it went boom. She didn't need to know anything else, really.

When they finally get free Catra groans.

"That was the worst. We didn't even get to shoot them." She glances over at Tenten. "Bet it's because you messed with them." Catra, naturally, is innocent, and would never do anything unauthorized. She checks the time, then glances down the corridor.

"...Wanna get lunch? It's almost twelve and I'm starving."

She sighs, nodding. "Yeah, it probably is. Sorry about that." No, she can cop to it. It was her fault. Probably. Likely. Still, she wants a chance to try them properly soon. They seemed like they'd be useful. If they worked like she figured, about half as well as the guy said, she could probably-oh. Catra's talking.

She considers for a moment, then nods. The food wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst she'd ever had. "I wish they'd let us cook for ourselves. But, yeah, let's see what they've got." Luckily they're not that far. If they picked up the pace some, they could probably get there before the line was too long.

"I've never actually cooked," Catra admits. "Back home we always had ration bars." It's a weird subject and seems to come up a lot with everyone else, but Catra is starting to get the feeling that maybe she didn't have the kind of life most of these other people did. Which is weird to think about. As they make their way into the lunch line, scratches awkwardly under one arm.

"At least the food here is okay."

Tenten slips in line behind Catra. Well, next to, but she'd slip behind once it came to that. "I learned to because having full meal on a mission is so much better than relying on soldier pills. Though maybe I ought to see if I can sneak in and make some..." The food here was certainly okay, and at least the lines moved at a decent pace.

She gives the cat girl a curious look, then offers a little tilt of the head towards the kitchen. "I could teach you, if you'd like." They'd probably have to sneak in but as long as they cleaned up after themselves, it should be fine. Right?

"Like a whole ration bar?" Catra stretches out lazily, content to do not much of anything now that they're in line. She's learning to appreciate downtime--skivving off the morning training is pretty much impossible.

"Maybe? I'll probably get kitchen duty eventually. So far they only have me cleaning stuff, though." Hmm. "Actually, yeah. It breaks their stupid rules."

"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?

"Nah, just like." She gestures, indicating something a little less than half the size of a golf ball. "It's got a lot of nutrients and energy stuff. Soldier pills will keep you moving for a few days, but they don't taste great. It's a lot better if I just stock up at the market and carry enough ingredients for everyone in my scrolls." Too bad that doesn't count as mission expenses.

They give you clean-up duty because they don't like you, Catra. "I'll scope things out tonight and tomorrow to get a feel for the security and then we can go whenever you're ready, okay?" Surely this couldn't go wrong.

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."

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.

Edited 2020-05-02 22:17 (UTC)

"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.

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.

"Ugh. They sound worse than ration bars, somehow," Catra says with a grimace. Her arms cross and she wrinkles her nose, looking distinctly unhappy. The thought of breaking rules, though, seems to brighten her day.

"Sure, that sounds good!"

"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"

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?"

Catra was such a delinquent. "You can flavor them up some, but yeah. It makes a big difference when I can just do up some quick grilled fish or cabbage stew instead of just carrying around a bunch of those." Oh, hey, they're about ready for their food. She picks up her tray and falls in behind Catra.

'Sloppy Joes', whatever those were, mashed potatoes, collard greens, and vanilla pudding. Well, that was certainly a menu. Tenten can't help but wonder sometimes just what the higher-ups got to eat. Either way, she'd have to give Catra a better showing than this.

"I'll let you know when I'm ready, then."

After all, how well protected could the kitchen be?

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