Go for Boom Time [So Very Open]

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

The setting was the fields around Risembool. It was a nice day, perfect weather.

And then, quite without warning a cardboard cutout representation of a Ohm in mid-slice popped up.

kree krick freen JOWN ZWWEEEEEE!

With a resounding brrzack of discharged energy, the target exploded as more targets started to pop up. The weapon discharged three times, one sailing past harmlessly, the other two clipping the shoulders. Ed made a "tch" noise, readjusted his aim and fired again, the weapon making the cutout explode.

"There we go," said Ed with satisfaction. His accuracy without alchemy wasn't very good, at a projected 15/20 out of the targets hit and/or clipped. But he was getting better. And precision, accuracy and a steady hand was what he needed which was why he was going with cardboard "ducks on parade" rather than "live" targets.

A group of cutouts inter spaced with "non hostiles" appeared and he fired his new arm cannon, the shots picking off cutout after cutout, and he winced reflexively whenever he clipped a not-ohm. Though he had a moment of grim amusement as one of his shots went wild and blasted a hole in the cardboard Roy's crotch.

"Best. Gun. Ever." said Ed resolutely.

Comments

[crysteel-future.livejournal.com]

"Freud eat your heart out..." an amused voice says from behind Ed.

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

"Dunno who Freud is, but it sure is rewarding," snickered Ed as he turned to face Nura. "Hey. Come to see the guy with the poor aim try out his new toy?"

[foreseen-future.livejournal.com]

"Hmm, why not," Nura says, setting down Frankenstein somewhere with a flat surface that is elevated. She floats up to seat herself next to it, crossing one leg casually over the other, her hand going to her knee.

[fulltinyalchemy.livejournal.com]

Ed grinned. "Alright then."

The "ducks" all reset themselves and Ed raised his arm, holding his hand to the side of it to steady it, ready for the first shot.

FOOMP went the first cardboard cutout, an Ohm Guard. He fired and it grazed the cutout. "... difficult to aim this is," grunted Ed as he adjusted his sight a little and fired again, this time pegging it dead center.

More targets followed and Ed's eyes narrowed, concentrating on blowing away the targets. After the 20th one passed by, he dropped his arm and tabbed the switch, his arm collapsing into the slightly bulky automail. "Well it's not bad... not great either but not bad."

[foreseen-future.livejournal.com]

"I'll say," Nura says. She had watched the display with a measure of interest. Ed's gun isn't as impressive as the blasters of the 31st century, but still the gun's performance had been incredibly masterful. But what seems more interesting to her is that the gun collapses into Ed's arm, disappearing.

"That's an intriguing piece of machinery that you have."

[silverduelist]

Yzak stayed silent until Ed was all finished. Judging from the hit targets as well as hit 'innocent' targets, it wasn't hard to guess what he was doing, and Yzak knew how important concentration was when you were working on your accuracy.

"Not bad," he said when Ed took a pause in firing.

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

"Ah it could be better. Way better. Lt. Hawkeye'll have a field day with the innocent targets hit," said Ed with a shake of his head as he lowered the smoking cannon on his arm.

[silverduelist]

"It could be, but at least you're hitting some of the targets. Just work on it so by the time you really need it, you'll be able to boast 100% accuracy and won't worry so much on the battlefield."

He crossed his arms, looking down at Ed's arm cannon. "I've never seen something like that before."

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

Ed nodded at Yzak's assessment and then he raised his arm. "Oh this? This is an application of automail taken WAY past our usual level of technology back home. Back home you can have a single-shot weapon in your arm, but it depends if want to sacrifice the use of your arm as something to have a hand with for a repeated machine gun."

"Automail are artificial prosthesis, designed to replace arms and legs and other parts of the human body lost in war, battle or accidents. Winry spent two weeks on this, using what she learned from this place and building this, well, transforming arm cannon thing."

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

"I want one! Please tell me Winry can do something like that with my leg. Please. Or--or make it shoot, I don't know, bees. Angry bees. No wait, it'd be hard to load them in--still, you know what I mean!"

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

"Whoa whoa whoa," laughed Ed as Hiccup bombarded him with questions. "For a place like this, she can probably whip something up. Paniya, one of our friends from Rush Valley has a projectile cannon in her leg so she can probably make something low tech enough for you to reverse engineer."

He grinned at his handiwork. "Not bad for someone who rarely shoots a gun though."

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

"Hey, at this point, with all I'm learning, there's more and more I can reverse engineer," Hiccup said brightly. "And your aim's not bad at all. I've been meaning to learn how to use these gun things myself, but the kickback nearly knocks me over."

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

"Are they starting you on regular projectile ones or some kind of energy pistol?" asked Ed. "I'm not used to the recoil on those. But this sucker here is a energy bolt, so it has less of a knock back."

[sanguineroyal.livejournal.com]

Nanashi walked in silently behind Ed, setting up a chest-high wall to perch on. She sat behind him, her legs crossed. Since her pants were so ripped up in the last battle she had cut off most of the fabric, turning them into short shorts that ended just below where the slits in the sides of her skirt went up to. Of course, from below her it might be hard to see that she had decided to wear her "new" shorts instead of the new pants she had made.

The kid's aim was pretty terrible. Sure, she had just shot a gun for the first time, but she had done better. Granted, she was also a lot stronger than Ed, making her steadier, with the added ability to stop that pesky breathing and slow down that pounding heartbeat that kept humans so animated, giving her a surer shot.

So she decided she wouldn't tease him about it... Too much. She would at least wait until he was done.

She stifled a laugh as that fire-maker had his privates shot off before announcing, "Your shots are falling just short of what I expected of you, little one."

What was honestly more exciting about wandering in on this was that now she knew she'd be able to start some real training tonight.

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

Ed twitched but turned around calmly. No sense to haul off on Nanashi for the small joke. "Well it's not perfect. The last time I actually used a gun was at the firing range in Eastern. God I was..." he counted. "I was fourteen back then. I'm sixteen now."

He quickly made a count of the wobbling targets. "Eh, it is kinda bad though. That's 13/20."

[sanguineroyal.livejournal.com]

"Well," Nanashi laughed, hopping down from the stone wall, "I think I can help you improve your aim."

She reset the targets, except without the innocents. She appeared just behind and to the side of one of them, walking next to it. "Whichever one you shoot at I will move next to. You miss, you hit me..." Then a better idea struck her.

"Actually, any of these could have the real me behind it." She moved fast enough to disappear, and as she re-appeared, so did a copy of her behind each target, all wearing a sort of wicked smile.

[changeddestiny.livejournal.com]

Ed scowled at that. "You know, that's detrimental to my aiming process," said Ed with a growl. "The bolt will punch THROUGH the target. And hit you regardless. Look."

And he aimed for the tree and fired. It missed, but hit the rock next to it.

The rock EXPLODED into shrapnel.

"See? No way I'd be able to avoid hurting you even if I hit the target dead on."

[tricks-of-trade.livejournal.com]

"You," Choline said upon seeing what Ed was up to, "are the most badass little human I've ever met."

It's not personal, Ed. All humans are little to her.

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

"ASDF CHLONINE I'm not little!" exclaimed Ed, his shot going wild and plowing into the dirt. But then he grinned. "Hey what's shaking my elf sister? I haven't seen you since the battle."

Tabbing his arm, it transformed back into his automail.

[tricks-of-trade.livejournal.com]

Choline raised an eyebrow. "Just keeping low. Trying to get in on whatever intel we might have about these Ohm things."

She still thought like a rogue -- knowing your enemy's weaknesses and habits was a great advantage in a battle.

"So. Did your friend Winry do this for you?" She nodded toward his automail.

[fulltinyalchemy.livejournal.com]

"Yeah she did, pretty nice too. She made a great replacement for my arm, and worked night and day on it. I'm amazed it works so well." He rubbed his head and added, "Normally I'm not into guns but she made it for me. It would be a shame to let it go to waste."

[carrycorpses.livejournal.com]

Riza Hawkeye probably has some sort of alarm when it comes to her friends using guns, or more likely, guns inappropriately. Walking with Hayate, which seems to be becoming a common enough thing, she'd heard the noise and looked in to see... well, Edward, shooting her Colonel in a place that might have been, in some weird way, amusing if not given the circumstances.

Those circumstances, of course, being the poor aim the Eye of the Hawk was witnessing. She closed her eyes after a moment, listening to his words. They were wrong compared to the ones he had given to her earlier that year. But then again, he was a kid... He wasn't being faced with really having to shoot one. And he didn't have her same dislike for guns.

"I certainly hope you're not planning to go about using that thing actively, Edward," she spoke up with a firm tone as Hayate yipped.

Surveying the area she shook her head. "It certainly wouldn't do anyone any good if you're going around shooting allies so recklessly," she was speaking about the last one, of course.

[changeddestiny.livejournal.com]

"Lieutenant," said Ed, turning around, letting the arm cannon rest at his side. "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. But that fight with the Ohm made me realize I had to adapt. I still don't really like guns at all. But if it'll keep people safe..."

The Roy cutout seemed to make a face as it dipped beneath the ground again, resetting. "It's why I'm practicing. I don't want to hurt anyone if I have to shoot."

He smiled, just a little. "Besides, Winry would never forgive me if I didn't learn how to use this thing. She put so much work into it..." and he touched his arm.

[carrycorpses.livejournal.com]

Riza crossed her arms, still surveying. Her mind essentially going over all the events and weaponry she'd recently seen. Keeping people safe was the duty of a soldier.

She sighed. "If you call this practicing, I think you've been misled, Edward. Guns, in a way, are a lot like alchemy. You can't use the bigger ones without knowing the fundamentals of the smaller ones. Not even just the fundamentals, you must learn to aim and shoot properly on a regular one if you plan to ever be able to properly use the larger scale ones," Riza's response was critical, pointing out the serious situation using such a thing could cause without proper training.

She was quiet a moment, listening to his final words as she pulled out the two pistols she actively had on her.

"So this is all for Winry, huh?" she responded in an almost teasing way, actually it was very teasing, but her expression remained neutral as she held out a gun.

"Form, Edward, I want to see it. Don't shoot."

Since he was probably going to be stubborn about this...

[short-changed.livejournal.com]

Ed nodded, tabbing his arm and it transforming back into the automail as he took the gun carefully. A real gun, not this energy weapon thing Winry built for him.

The scene changed to a more formal backdrop as targets appeared on the front and he adjusted the safety goggles and earmuffs.

Lining up in the memory he had, he spread his feet as he clasped the gun, one hand under the bottom. He lined up, and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.

And then repeated with each one, his score being racked up. What he didn't hit, the screen reported until he emptied half the clip. "How's that?"

It had a glaring 7/20 on the board, but he had only fired 11 shots.