trans_9 | Go for Boom Time [So Very Open]

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Go for Boom Time [So Very Open]

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.

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

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.

"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!"

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.

"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?"

"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.

"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."

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."

"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.

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."

"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."

Ed smiled as he patted his arm. "Thanks. It's something Winry cooked up after reading up on robotics. It's call automail, an artificial limb but taken one step further since weapons are rarely added to the construction."

He flexed his arm a little. "Winry went all out for it. Probably drove Engineering nuts picking up stuff from them."

Nura hops off her sitting spot and floats over to Ed. She places her hands on the automail and feels the metal. She moves one hand to Ed's metal fingers to feels the knuckles. It's all very interesting to her, since she's never quite seen something quite like it.

However it is very personal space-invadey...

"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.

It is, but Ed's used to it, people poking and prodding his automail. Winry especially. "It's a nice piece of work," said Ed with a smug satisfaction. "Normally I wouldn't be able to get a weapon put into this thing."

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."

(http://photobucket.com)

"Really?" she turns her head to him, white hair sliding over her shoulders, her sliding her fingers between his to feel the difference between his metal hand and the fleshy-human one. It's an interesting difference. "You seem to be managing it just fine."

"Well, I'm used to transmuting the top of it into a blade," explained Ed, reddening just a little at her exploring hands. "Move some of the mass forward and wielding it like a sword. But since Winry went all out with this, I don't want to damage anything yet."

Nanashi smiled still, one of the copies saying, "If you hit dead on, I shall be able to move away in time. You know how fast I move. That shrapnel is moving no faster than a vampire at a jog."

Another one of the copies laughed, "It would not be hard to dodge that until a decent way into a hard battle."

"Even if a piece of shrapnel hits me, it will be no more than a paper-cut- not even, since it will heal moments later," said another one, waving a dismissive hand.

Ed massaged the bridge of his nose. "You know, I wanted to progress to moving targets later... this isn't quite the way I wanted to do so."

Freaking vampires, thinking they were immune to everything. Well her loss.

"Start it up again," said Ed as the first target popped. Roy. No, not going to shoot him. The second popped. Winry. Damnit! Third popped. Lust. THERE we go!

The target exploded into a pile of shrapnel.

"Transmuting?" her eyes glint in interest. "I've read about that. It's connected to Alchemy. You must be an Alchemist then." That makes the automail even more interesting to her, but as well as his other hand. She slips her fingers from his fingers and then turms them palm out, holding them once again, thumbs rubbing the center in circles.

Nanashi stood next to all the targets, not knowing precisely who might be an enemy among the humanoids. She retreated from Winry in time. Then Lust popped, and she managed to avoid all the shrapnel, but laughed at Ed. "What are you doing? She looked a bit like me! You do not have a grudge, do you?" Taunting might not be a good idea, but she was a vampire who thought herself immune to everything.

Nonetheless, she stood right next to the next one as it popped up.

"Yeah I'm an Alchemist by trade, doing stuff for the people and all." said Ed as he watched her move her fingers through his own. It was very intimate in a way, but he bore with it. "At the least it keeps me busy, figuring out a few things here and there."

"Nope, but she's an enemy back home," said Ed as he snapped off a shot at the next target, an Ohm Guard, the plasma shots blowing it into pieces. "That was Lust, a homunculus, and one of the people who severely hurt Havoc and nearly killed Al, Hawkeye and the bastard Colonel."

"She was harder to beat than just a single shot," said Ed as he fired another shot at the next target, cutout of a devourer worm.

She managed to avoid the shrapnel from both of these as she asked, "Interesting name. Does she have anything to do with that man named Greed?"

Honestly, the training was going her well too. It actually took some effort to dodge all the little pieces that were blast away.

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Go for Boom Time [So Very Open]

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