Target Practice (Open!)

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi had heard about the Sensoriums from other people aboard the ship, and though he'd been a little apprehensive at first, had decided to pay them a visit. Or rather, he'd decided to pay Earth a visit.

After all, it was hard to go for a real ride on a disturbingly squishy ship.

If there had been any police left, he would have been pulled over for speeding and quite possibly reckless endangerment. But there weren't. What there were was vast expanses of jet-black concrete laid empty for miles ahead of him, honeycombing through levels of the massive megacity at insane angles.

So he punched it, hard. The motorcycle surged forward toward the city, its display ticking steadily past a series of numbers: 100, 200, 300...

Now he was blazing across the city connector bridge, rising quickly with the road as it extended upwards on struts held high above the level of the water that surrounded the old metropolis. Fuyu chirped an alert to him, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the machine rising up seemingly from beneath the raised concrete, its thrusters a bright blue blaze in the reddening light. Zouichi slowed; it kept perfect pace.

It was sleek, newly manufactured. The model number 4-D was stamped neatly across one gleaming wing. As he watched, the shutters beneath both wings snapped open, revealing two long, wicked metal barrels.

Before him, the gates of the city yawned open. From here, he could see the beginning activity of the drones inside, shambling forward mindlessly in the direction of sound and perceived movement, searching for something.

Something they could really sink their teeth into.

Comments

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Well, that's terrifying. Still, it's going after Zouichi at the moment, which buys Howard a moment.

Think think think think THINK. He's watched other people deal with regeneration before - the basement thing regenerates. The only way to do anything to something like that is to hit it faster than it heals, so he'll need to shoot fast volleys. With kickback and aiming factored in, as well as how fast the drone moves, he figures he can get three or four shots off before he has to move or be killed.

The motorbike is too easy and to obvious to hide behind, but the metal cables are close enough together that Howard can squeeze through and the thing can't. It'll still be able to reach with its long limbs but it's probably safer than anywhere else. The crumbling wall also will provide some shelter, and up the fire escape of a nearby building.

Fire escape, wall, cables. Probably four shots at the escape, then three at the wall and maybe four at the cables. Eleven shots, give or take, if he can pull it off. Granting, of course, that he doesn't break his ankles or trip jumping from the fire escape. And that the eleven shots all hit. And that that's enough.

Then again, maybe Zouichi will continue to serve as a distraction or just kill it even while he's shooting. That would be handy.

Thank God there's nothing really at stake, right? He clambers up the fire escape as fast as he can. It hasn't been paying attention to him so far, but he's sure, as he unleashes four shots in its direction, that he's gotten its notice.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Two shots hit the thing in the haunch and calf, and another grazes its other leg. The end result is that it crashes forward, flailing to its knees, but it's starting to heal up again already. The shots fired from Howard's position haven't made it turn around; as far as it knows, its flesh was simply and suddenly gone, but it does enrage the creature further.

It lashes out repeatedly, forcing Zouichi to parry one blow only to be caught by the next on its backswing, sending him flying backwards and directly into the wall of a nearby crumbling building. The impact knocks the wind out of him, leaving him doubled-over and coughing in the dust kicked up from the dilapidated structure.

The creature turns its body toward him, considering for a moment, gauging whether its prey can survive another blow. Zouichi tenses in the space of that moment, wrenching off his motorcycle helmet, preparing to dodge again if he can.

"The head!" he shouts at Howard, because he doubts now that anything else will work. Here's hoping that Howard's got a clear shot. And dead aim. "Aim for the head!"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

So much for his brilliant hit-and-run plan. As soon as Howard realizes the thing's not paying attention to him, or even seeming to notice where the bullets are coming from, he's taking advantage of that. He jumps down off the fire escape, sprints over to get closer, too close to miss, and upon hearing Zouichi's command, shoots again and again.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Holes gape open in the creature with sudden force as Howard shoots, tearing up its torso, arms, and shoulders. Then, abruptly, with one perfect shot, most of its head is suddenly gone and the great body goes slack, the twisted talons of its outstretched hand twitching briefly.

As its mass begins to fall, Zouichi takes advantage of the moment, severing what's left of its head cleanly at the neck. Without its nerve center to direct it, the rest of the creature's body simply collapses and hits the ground, inert and unable to begin its regrowth.

Once again, the area is silent.

"Nice job," Zouichi says.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Let's never, ever, ever do that in real life." Howard steps around the corpse, tapping it occasionally with his foot, not entirely believing that it's dead. Had this been reality instead of a simulation, it might not have gone so well, because Howard would have abandoned Zouichi and run away, probably into harm's way.

After a few moments, figuring there's no way it'll look more dead, he gingerly hands the gun back to Zouichi. "Tell me they pay you well to do this sort of thing."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi shrugs, trying not to smile. For his part, if it had been reality instead of a simulation, the gravity gun would have never left his hands.

He's really attached to that gun.

For now, he holsters it at his side once more, then stretches, trying to iron out whatever misalignments getting hit by a 15-20 foot zombie might have imposed on his joints.

"Actually," Zouichi says, as if realizing this for the first time, "They don't pay me at all."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"You've got to be kidding me. You can't do that for fun. I mean, you can, but you don't strike me as that crazy." He's still a bit jumpy, so he keeps looking over his shoulder. He's smiling, though. "Seriously, look into a zombie-killing badasses union. I'd help you organize it."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

The thing is, Zouichi does do it for fun -- just a little bit, but mostly he does it because that's what he's made for. He snorts at Howard's remark. "A zombie-killing badasses union? Think of the insurance premiums."

"Anyway, how are you settling into the ship? Find something useful to do?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Who said anything about insurance? I was talking, like, workplace safety regulations," he deadpans. "I'm thinking a job in the Med Bay will keep me out of trouble, but that simulation may make me reconsider my stance on plague patients."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Workplace safety regulations. Riiiiight. Like getting zombies to wear safety googles?

"The MedBay, huh. Does that mean you won't be assigned to any missions?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"That's the plan. Well, that and running and hiding if she does try to assign me to something terrifying. It sounds like I'd be good at salvage, if there were missions along those lines, but it looks like everything offship is headtrips and danger."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Danger sounds fine to Zouichi, but it doesn't to a lot of people, which he understands. Scientists perform experiments, soldiers fight, civilians... do whatever it is civilians do.

"I don't understand why this ship chooses to wake up people with no combat experience to take up its battles. It seems counterintuitive."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Translated bluntly, you have no idea why people like me are on the ship. Thanks for the vote of confidence, man." It's clear from his tone that he's not actually upset, though. He's been wondering the same thing for a while. "Maybe there'll be problems on the ship you can't solve with your kind of skills. Who knows. My money's on it being bad decision-making on her part."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Well, I can certainly understand why it would want to scoop up civilians," Zouichi says. He was inexperienced enough in talking to ordinary people that he sometimes missed cues for humor or sarcasm. "Just not why it would force unwilling ones to participate."

But as far as he's concerned, Howard seems nowhere near as helpless as he originally claimed, and Zouichi feels he should say as much. "For what it's worth, I think you could easily handle many things I couldn't. Diplomacy, for example, is something I'm not particularly good at.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah, who would you protect without civilians? You'd just be killing Ohm for the heck of it then."

He actually laughs at that. "Diplomacy, right. People are going to listen to the black teenager. But I'll find some way to be useful, so no one gets the idea to dump me off at the next rest stop."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi probably WOULD kill Ohm for the heck of it.

"Is there something wrong with being a black teenager?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Well, most of the time we don't get the best rap. People take one look at us and assume drug dealer, dropout, gang member, thug, general drain on society. We brothers have some stereotypes to deal with on my world. And I'm betting my world isn't the only one." Not like Howard didn't fulfill some of those stereotypes while back home, but the fact that people assume it is the bigger problem.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Let's face it; there are just not a lot of black people in Japan.

"I'm sure that may be true in some worlds... but I doubt aliens are familiar with the stereotypes of twentieth century Earth. Also, age isn't everything. I'm only a year old."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Well, no, they probably aren't, but there are plenty of humans around, and plenty of them from twentieth century Earth, that it might be a problem." He looks Zouichi up and down. "You hit your growth spurt early."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Maybe. About 50% of the people I've met so far have been human. The others have been hedgehogs, unicorns..."

The unicorn especially was a weird experience.

"You think so? The weapons department thought I took too long."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Unicorns? Seriously?" Howard's run into aliens but not unicorns, yet.

"Back in your homeworld? They must stock up on some serious baby food. For my world you'd have grown up more than fast enough, unless your years are slower than ours."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Yes, a big black one from a prespace civilization. And an elf. He was kind of a mad scientist sort, though." That was kind of an understatement; by the time he'd left, Aibghalien was considering weaponized exploding golems.

"Well, to be exact, my body was constructed relatively quickly, but they had to leave the rest of me hooked up to a simulator for a year. I was the first one out, though. I'm fairly sure our years as the same as yours, though. How old are you?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Was the elf blue? Because I met a mad scientist and I guess he could be an elf. Maybe."

Right. Test Tube Baby. "How many of you guys were there? And I'm fifteen."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"No, if anything, he was a little pale. And dark hair. I'm sure you'd know him if you saw him." Coming from someone who's kinda on the pale side himself, yep.

Fuyu appeared again, hovering in the general area of Zouichi's shoulder. "There were seven pairs in our generation."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Nah, not my guy. My guy was bald."

He points a finger at Fuyu, then back to Zouichi. "So you're two halves of a duo, right? How does that work?" He approves very much of strategical twosomes.