legionworld | bang bang shoot shoot

Who| North and Tucker, later open to others
What| Range time
Where| The shooting range
When| After Resistance is Futile
Warnings/Notes| Firearms, Tucker-standard double entendere cautions

[Closed to Tucker]

After the adrenaline of the mission, North's ready to relax - which, more often than not, means going back to routine as much as he can, as soon as he can. Showing a sim trooper around his rifle is hardly routine, but range time is, and there is something easy and almost nostalgic around the low-pressure act of blowing through ammunition with absolutely nothing on the line but vague intentions to keep improving.

He's there ten minutes before they're due to meet, out of his armor, gear in a long case tucked under his arm. Just enough time to put out some targets and get set up, he imagines.

[Open]

Maybe there's something infectious in the more constructive (or at the very least highly non-competetive) range time with Tucker. North's still there as much as he ever was, keeping sharp, but he's more likely to strike up a conversation, rather than get in, do his practice, and move on to the next item on the daily training schedule. After about a week of this he even puts up a standing notice near the entrance, around the time of his usual afternoon practice, which advertises the time slot as Unranked Marksmanship League. Not that he's actually going to point it out to York, but maybe there's something to his whole 'not everything has to be a competition' theory.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Carolina's beginning to get used to this place finally. Her training and classes help, even if there's the tiniest bit of frustration at feeling like she's behind the others in terms of where she’s at with her powers.

She can work on not being competitive but it still happens.

But North, she knows she’ll never compare - and so she feels no ire at matching up against him. She’s always been a close range fighter, and while the freelancers as a whole are better snipers than on average, she's still worlds away from North.

Which is what leads to this - Carolina in her kevlar (because of course she's still feeling paranoid) and hair back, setting her rifle down and flicking the safety on after emptying a mag. The spread is sloppy, even for her.

She looks at North, comparing his to hers. It’s still surreal to see him and Theta but…. she’s getting used to it. It's not a bad thing to have to get used to.

North's just finishing his round, plunking deliberate shots into the target, two snug clusters in the head and chest by the time he finishes a few moments later and glances back at Carolina. It's good to see her. Surreal, just in how different the atmosphere is between them, but at the same time . . . it's good. A chance to just be around Carolina as another person was something he'd so naturally assumed he'd never get that it never even occurred to him to feel a certain way about it. But getting that chance? He's grateful for it.

"I might try to set up some shooting-on-the-move drills for next time," he muses, as close to commentary on her shooting as he's going to get for the moment. This is, after all, unranked marksmanship league. A large part of that is resisting the urge to compare, even slightly. "Mix it up a little."

Carolina's spread is in her target, but it's spread across head and upper chest. Not all of them are kill shots, which is where the sloppy work comes from.

She can't say she ever got a chance to just hang with North. Even before, her competitiveness and his often made everything a kind of contest, despite York's best efforts. Not that she ever disliked him for that.

"Snipers again, or choose your own?" She asks him after a moment, still comparing the two spreads with a critical eye. "I feel like I might do better with my rifle."

"Choose your own, absolutely." He rolls back to seated, giving his shoulders a roll and stretch before reloading. Speed is not even close to his top priority right now, and if anything he's intentionally taking it easy, trying to lean into the experiment of intentionally not competing.

He's not sure if he likes it, but he's already come out the other side of a mission alongside the other Freelancers without a points tally waiting for them. Maybe the trick is just getting through to the end. Or maybe it's just harder when he can see Carolina's eyes darting between the targets, tallying the difference the way all of them had learned to.

"Might as well play to your strengths. Unless you have some new passion for the sniper rifle that I'm not aware of."

Competition comes easy to her, although it's markedly different to how she treated it before, and how she treats it now. The fact that North doesn't goad her means her shoulders relax a little bit, and she even gives a little, low chuckle.

"No. I'm still pretty much a fists kind of girl," she notes with a wry tone. "Rifle's just the second-preferred firearm." The first being the magnum, of course. She's still not blessed with the patience to work as a marksman or a sniper.

Edited 2017-08-31 05:15 (UTC)

"Hey, why mess with success." He reaches for the panel on his lane to dismiss the target, mulling over which new one to put up. ('Clay pigeons'? Are those even still a thing this far in the future?)

"Have you found any good sparring partners around here yet?" There are some impressive fighters around here, and he knows that she loves a challenge.

"You're still doing good," she notes as his target disappears. "Theta been helping you out at all?"

There's no jealousy, or judgement, in her tone about it. She'd relied on Epsilon to make her calculations as well, so she wouldn't think North odd for doing so. It's hard to explain, though, without admitting about Epsilon and what exactly happened to Eta and Iota. And she's kept some of that from North so far.

"Found a couple willing ones, and they're not bad."

Edited 2017-09-02 04:22 (UTC)

"I try not to monopolize him for basic target practice, but yeah. He's still great for missions and the more complicated training sims." He decides he might as well try the clay pigeon option, and rolls into a kneeling position, ready as the lane queues up his targets and counts down. "It's pretty amazing, actually. He's really coming into his own here. I guess there's a lot less to be scared of."

"That doesn't surprise me. All the monsters are real monsters and right in front of us."

It's the closest she'll admit right now that something was happening to the AI back in Freelancer. She doesn't know what North knows, if Connie's told him anything about what was going on - why the AI were so anxious.

She's a little amused at the roll, too. Why so extra, North?

bang bang shoot shoot

unranked marksmanship

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