Target Practice and fund-raising

[Duskwing]

Day 3, late/early Day 4. OPEN; fund-raising has begun!

Duskwing studied the half-finished construction site. Rusting girders and beams rose from the ground, the skeleton of a building that never quite was. According to Swindle's situation maps, it didn't belong to any one group, but was neutral ground. Duskwing idly wondered why the building was unfinished and rusting; seemed a waste of effort. The concept of "ran out of money and had to stop" was foreign to him. Decepticons didn't worry about financing; if Megatron wanted a project built, it was built.

For Duskwing, it was a large empty space without a crowd; the perfect place to go over weapon handling with Mistwind. The foundation pit looked like it might be a good place to dump bodies, too. He flexed his arms, making sure that the tabard he'd made from someone's tablecloth and clothesline didn't hinder his arm-guns, but did cover his Decepticon sigil and amber cockpit. The other tablecloth made an acceptable kilt after he wrapped it around his waist and tied it off. It was plaid, after all. Or something like plaid. Anyway, it was a disguise, and helped him blend in with the locals, and if the locals didn't want to lose their tablecloths, they shouldn't hang them on outside fire escapes.

Once he was pretty sure Mistwind could point his new gun in the right direction and pull the trigger without shooting Duskwing or wasting ammo randomly, then they'd see about earning the wherewithal to pay Swindle back. Duskwing had no intention of cheating Swindle if he could get the money easily elsewhere--Swindle still had to deliver the new guns, and he might be difficult about it if Duskwing or the kid stiffed him.

"So did you look at the manuals and the training vid yet?"

[Mistwind]

Mistwind propped the disc into his drive and attached to Duskwing since they left the bazaar. Because of that ride, he has managed to review the training vid. He did not read the manual yet, so is sitting off to the side, doing it right now. Occasionally, he would look at something specific on the rocket launcher displayed next to him, probably as instructed by the guide.

He looks up and seems a tiny bit weary, “Am still doing so, Duskwing Sir”, He answers quickly, then examines the manual again, “But I think I’m past the most of it!” He murmurs, nodding, “Yeah, I am, the rest is what I can and can’t shoot at…. Humans and stuff”.

With that, he jumps up, walking past the gun then turns around to face Duskwing, “It’s for shooting stationaries like buildings, and tanks, and stuff” He announces.

Mistwind has acquired clothes as well: a typical bright child shirt with a happy drawing on it and a pair of shorts with handy pockets. Right now he’s wearing a blue and white baseball cap on his head. The rest is laying next to the crate with stuff. He will try and hold off from wearing them as long as possible.

Because robots shouldn't wear fabrics.

[Duskwing]

Duskwing braced his hands on his hips and said, "So you know which end is da end you point at dem guys you wanna kill, and which end you hold onto, right? You know how ta load your ammo, and you know how to take it out wit'out shootin' it?"

Duskwing removed his hand from his hips to start ticking off key points on his fingers. "Dem's the really important things, on account of you don't wanna shoot yourself or the wrong guys 'cause you didn't know which way to point it, and you don't wanna shoot it off by accident 'cause you put it away loaded when you didn't mean to, and you don't wanna blow up your gun 'cause you stuffed another rocket on top of a dud you didn't pull out. Most gun accidents are pretty stupid, and 'Cons will just laugh at you if you come cryin' about blowin' your own leg off, see?"

"The really important thing is only point the business end of dat gun at somethin' you want to blow holes in, or are seriously willing to, if he don't see reason. Dat way, you don't have no 'accidents' you didn't mean to have. The only kinda 'accidents' you want to have are the on-purpose kind, if you get my drift." Duskwing scratched his helm for a moment, thinking.

"Oh yeah! Dat manual oughta tell you how to clean and take care of your gun. Take good care of your guns when you're not usin' 'em, so dey'll work when you do need to use 'em. Real embarassin' to have an Autobot in your sights and have your arm-gun go 'fizzle' instead of 'zap' 'cause you didn't blow the sand out of the relays after last time youse was in the desert, see? Anyway, I think that covers it. Show me you know how to use that thing. Hit dat corner beam-thing." Duskwing pointed at the rusting, unfinished building frame.

[Mistwind]

Once Duskwing is done with saying all of that, Mistwind is still staring at him intently. His head is slightly tilted as the small Decepticon is mulling over all the points, and tries to figure out if he got all of that.

Eyeing the launcher, he carefully attempts, "So, no aiming at anyone who should not be shot at at all, and if I shoot myself everyone is gonna make fun of me" He scowls, "Which I know I don't want".

Opening the crate, Mistwind examines the rockets inside. Their casings are marked with identification tags - which he recognises from the ammunitions list. He takes one out; not unwisely a practice round and takes it over to the launcher itself. Mistwind doesn't need an A-gunner. He can handle both actions himself.

As he busies himself with connecting the rocket canister to the back of the gun, what with it being a Shoulder Mounted Assault Weapon-type, he goes slow and makes sure to frequent the manual, a lot! Down the line, he makes some mistakes, but they are picked up and corrected. When Mistwind finally completes the process and flicks the safety off, there is one decently loaded rocket launcher ready for duty. It only takes a good manual, wits and care to correctly prepare a gun, in this case.

Being ordered to fire at something out of the blue, however, serves into personal experience and firearms knowledge. Both of which are something that can be called upon to hearts desire, but can never answer back in any satisfying manner. Still, eager to comply, and quite possible meek to decline, Mistwind levels the gun towards the intended target in mimick to the humans he saw in the training video.

At this point, the mech's targetting systems receive a very natural call to balance gun to mark, and promptly reward it with numerous error messages that are dotting yellow in Mistwind's vision and making his world a bit swimmy to look at. They have no reference to work with weaponry outside of the light armaments hidden in the arms, and advise the mainframe not to use the weapon of heavier mass and different type.

Mistwind does so anyway!

The physical action of pressing the trigger results in a minor wavering of the aim; but something like that can have enough impact as proven by the practice rocket missing the cornerbeam and impacting far enough to count as 'not on target'. The jetpackformer is thrown a tad off balance from the kinetic energy; not because it's too heavy, but because it's not counted for.

The backblast of the rocket is, in its own respect, no practice at all, and with its generous blast blows out a (weakened) concrete wall into the site's yard!

Mistwind freezes on the spot, eyeing the results cautiously. "Is..... is this good?".

[Duskwing]

Mistwind's first efforts had probably not been helped by Duskwing's tap-tapping the ground impatiently with his foot. Mistwind is smart, he should get all this stuff right away, or so Duskwing thought. The idea that Mistwind's very systems are unfamiliar with such weaponry didn't occur to the dark blue and purple Seeker. He's always been a "just point and shoot" kind of guy. Fortunately, Swindle had been smart enough to sell Mistwind a no-recoil weapon; it was something suited to the kid's limitations.

Duskwing looked bemused for a few moments, turning his head to stare behind Mistwind, and at the back end of the rocket launcher. "Uh. I forgot about that. That's a rocket launcher, isn't it? " He points at the broken wall behind them. "It's got a bit of a back-blast. Make sure nobody you don't wanna slag off is standing behind you when you fire."

He turns his head back to look at the target zone. "Well, you're better than Misfire. First shot ain't gonna be good 'less you're lucky, 'cause you ain't never fired that gun before and you ain't used to it. Now you got a better idea, see? Second shot oughta be better."

Duskwing raised his left arm and fired, scoring the target girder with a couple of shots. "There. Use dat as the target spot."

[Mistwind]

Mistwind blushes and looks kind of impish as he glances at the wrecked wall, "Tertiary fire option? That's kind of cool, right?"

He smirks and proceeds to attach the next CPR, which goes a little bit faster now (even though he's still rather careful). When he's done and reposed, he mumbles, "...at least I make it in some comparison with the fighter Cons".

Then he searches for the scorched marks; his systems can now refer to the previous blast and modify the aim. Mistwind pulls the trigger, and if Duskwing's mark is the yellow center of an archery mark, the rocket impacts on the far border of the disk.

A definite improvement!

[Duskwing]

Duskwing nodded. "Yeah, might surprise someone who is sneakin' up behind you and don't know no better, someday."

He stood and watched as Mistwind fired his second shot. He couldn't help feeling a bit of pride; the kid was definitely improving, and he, Duskwing, was teaching him! Duskwing forced himself to look somewhat stern or at least half-way professional as he said, "Dat's better. Youse gettin' the hang of it. Do a few more rounds until you're pretty sure you can hit a guy down the end of an alley here, and we'll get on wit' the fund-raising."

[Mistwind]

Mistwind is grinning a bit as he loads up another round, and does so as told.
He's not hitting the target any better this time, and nor the next, but his systems are having a pretty gentle calibration going on. The Decepticon is now getting a bit fed up as he wants to hit the target spot on, and thus is not noticing that the aim itself is not straying to far from the mark.

He should be satisfied, but he growls meekly in his frustration.

[Duskwing]

Duskwing nodded perfunctorily at each shot, but didn't say anything until Mistwind growled.

"What? Somethin' wrong? You got a jam?" Duskwing asked, startled out of whatever reverie he'd fallen into.

[Mistwind]

Mistwind keeps the launcher vertical as he stares at the smoking target area. "No Sir.... the gun is fine" He mumbles, pouting. He doesn't immediately know how to relay his agitations to the seeker, and goes on to retrieve another rocket.

Before he opens the missile's cap, he turns to his 'trainer', and reflects, "This one is feeling.... agitation, because it wants to be good and hit the target as instructed. I don't want to fail you, Sir"

[Duskwing]

Duskwing stared at Mistwind curiously. The kids wanted to do a good job for him?? Duskwing felt oddly pleased, and proud. Maybe he wasn't an officer, but he knew how to fight, and the kid knew it and wanted to be like Duskwing!

"Uh, yeah, lemme see..." Ruby optics narrowed as he stared at the target. "Youse gettin' better." He pointed. "See that flash where you hit? An' dat one? It's closer to da mark, and you ain't wobblin' like you did the first time. Wobblin' throws your shot off, even if you aimed it good. Gotta hold it steady, and you're gettin' it."

"Give it a couple more--don't wanna use up our live ammo, we need dat for huntin' fund-raisers--and see if you t'ink you can handle it." Duskwing said, shifting from one foot to the other. He didn't break into pacing, the way some Seekers did; Duskwing just wasn't that restless. He was quite capable of doing nothing more than hold up a wall for days on end; moving, restless Seekers drew the attention of officers who had missions and tasks to inflict.

Something occured to him. "You ever been in a fight, kid? Before that thing with Springer and the crazy micro dinobot chick."

[Mistwind]

Should Mistwind fail expectations, one might decide to kill him. He knows that. Little more is needed to turn him into 'achieve' mode for as far as his physiology lets him.

The child narrows his optics and frowns as he looks at where Duskwing points out. "I do? H-hey, it is!" He grins, but that soon turns into a frown, "But it won't do.... That's not enough!" He dismisses, "You all do much better! I have to do better!" With that, he wastes no time to load up and bound off to his firing position again. He takes real good care to mark what is happening, and pours all his effort into the aiming, biting his lower lip in concentration.

Then Duskwing distracts him by asking a question that awakens a particularly unpleasant memory. Mistwind looks slightly upset when remembering the encounter with Bambi, and... Springer. Whilst he didn't get injured, the entire thing did leave a pretty strong memory because "That was the first time I was at a fight...ever" He gazes thoughtfully for a moment, then shakes his head and proceeds to aim.

With the memory of the 'demon' Autobot in mind, this blast makes it significantly close to the girder-target and misses only by a few inches!

[Duskwing]

"See? Better!" Duskwing pointed out. "Well, that was a proper fight. Gotta remember, targets are bigger than that spot in a real fight, but theys moving and shootin' at you. Gotta be able to aim steady when someone is tryin' to set you on fire, an' dat's real distractin'!"

He folded his arms and managed to slouch standing up. "Everything goes okay, the marks won't fight back and we just collect our funds."

[Mistwind]

When in a fight, Mistwind is urged to disengage for his own safety. He knows. He prays he's not the only one...

"Duskwing Sir? You know that if I ever get into a proper fight, I'm not, right? I can't." They've been over that one before.

Mist motions with the gun, "I can try to defend myself while fleeing, should something really bad happen. So you can worry less about Autobots destroying me while you're not looking... "

He looks at the target one more time, "....And I think I could destroy some organics if they disrupt me now"

[Duskwing]

Duskwing gave Mistwind his trademark blank stare. "Uh... yeah. Well, when we're flyin', if you ain't my jetpack, something is really slagged up. On the ground, though, youse a little guy, look harmless, see? Then you can surprise people, see?"

Duskwing waved at the ammo box. "Pack up that stuff, 'cept for a few reloads you can stash, and I'll carry it. We gonna do some fund-raising now, and you'll see what I mean."

Duskwing frowned, thinking hard as he waited for Mistwind. He glanced over at the glow of the glitzier part of town from time to time. "I think we wanna go over that way. We don't wanna be right on the main strip, 'cause they'll have too many cops and guards. We wanna catch guys that are takin' shortcuts back to hotels and stuff, what just won a bunch of cash, goin' through alleys or maybe too drunk to know where they is goin'."

He tapped a foot, trying to think. "Only if dey don't happen to wander down our alley, we could be sittin' a long while. Dat can attract the wrong kinda attention. We need to bait 'em into comin' to us, see? You got any ideas on how to do dat?"