trans_9 | Target Practice

Since living in the new castle with Ruffnut, Mindy had done her best to maintain upkeep, even "borrowing" a few things from the wreckage of Grand Central to spruce up the place. It helped, especially since the events of the homecoming, to keep her head busy. On the one hand, yes, dad had appeared: he wasn't dead, he was proud to know they won, and for just a little bit? She got to be a little girl again, to crack wise with her dad, to show him how far she'd gotten.

But then he was gone again, and the new pod pop didn't bring him out. She shouldn't have hoped for it, but she had, a little. Once that was a no go though, she was either training or helping Ruffnut patch up some of the frayed tapestries or fix up carpeting or overall making sure there were no holes for them to fall through anywhere. It had been good, but even Ruffnut had sort of side stepped asking her about dad. It was something she appreciated: Mindy wasn't known for easily delving into her feelings.

This naturally led to another thing on her mind: what had happened on the mission, where the Castle gun shootout had almost taken her out- SHOULD have, if it was anyone else. She had severely underestimated what she could do: the way she;d moved, the accuracy in each shot, the sheer carnage: that was akin to a limit break.

And now, she wanted to control it.

She emptied herself of all thought: that was how a fight in the dark was, if you had no edge. There were only a few precious seconds to gather your mind, and then you opened your eyes and all hell broke loose. Your eyes and your hands had to work in tandem then, and you pulled back and took out people one by one until you got the job done or you were dead.

Like now: it was those gun slingers from the castle, and she started with ten at first, taking them out easily. The background was the saloon again, only she made it bigger to accomdate the increase in shooters.She cursed to herself (it was too quick!) then brought the number to fifteen, then twenty.

Each took less time, and Hit Girl nodded: she HAD gotten better. She wasn't even using Zetta's gun or her artifact, and she was still taking these bastards down.

"All right: switch it to forty, and place them all over the bar."

Ok. GO.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Don't underestimate Hawke," Lash warned. There was a surprising amount of respect coming when she said it. "you have a lot of skills, but Hawke is birdy. He'd find a way to do it." She was more interested in this Hallo-ween thing. "Oh so a bit like that costumed ball a long time ago?" Wait, had Mindy even been there when it happened. "I remember lots of weird people there!"

And surprisingly, (not that she would ever know) the first time she had met Zetta.

She threw her arms in the air in frustration. "Argh! Nothing I tell you will convince you otherwise will it?!"

"Sounds dangerous," Hit Girl said. "And if you actually think that, then I guess I better train even harder. I'm not the kind of person who wants to be taken out by a guy like him: I have a rep to uphold too, you know."

She nodded. "Yeah, and also, you go door to door and say 'Trick or Treat' and people give you candy for being in costume. You don't get a more awesome holiday then that. And there would be plenty of other weird people there too."

Hit Girl shook her head. "Hey, I'm good at detecting bullshit (and making it up). Besides, its not a horrible thing. I'm not going to go report it to a billion people. I know how to keep a secret."

"Nah don't think it's because I don't think can take him, but Hawke's full of surprises. With any luck you'll see him be part of a big battle and see what he can do. I told you how Black Hole was feared in all the lands and the threat we carried, it's not just something I say lightly." Even if she was bragging.

"So you dress up and you get free food. Sounds like something Orange Star would do, tee hee hee!" But then, again, Lash fell silently for a few seconds at her words.

It was the notion that She! Wunderkind of Black Hole Forces, feared in all of Wars World was dating anyone! It seemed so...absurd. And yet...she crossed her arms and groaned.

"Whatever, just think what you want."

Hit Girl had planted an idea into her much more strongly than she'd ever know.

"Let's just talk more about this holiday. What can you get away with if they say Trick?"

"Then I'll look forward to it," Hit Girl said, winking. She didn't dislike Hawke: point in fact, there was really very little she knew about him because he seemed such a stick in the mud. That, however, was exactly what made her so compelled to needle him: it totally played to something he would hate.

"Yeah, exactly! Also, it was supposed to be the one night of the year it was ok to get scared, because supposedly it was the thinnest veil of the living and the dead. Granted, we've seen stuff on this ship to give a kid nightmares until he died, but still: its fun!"

She shrugged. "Well, at worse I'll mess with you about it, I guess. The best part about having friends on the ship is that you get to do stuff like that. And if it pisses you off really bad, its not like we can't settle our differences in the Sensoriums or something, right?"

Or possibly do the same when the shoe was on the other foot, but that was neither here nor there.

"Oh, tricks! Well, if there was no treat, there was stuff like toilet papering the house, the paperbag of flaming dogshit, egging the house, stuff like that. But I'll bet you can get away with better trick than that if you really thought about it."

"Yeah I---"

"Throwing bags of flaming dogshit?"

...she did have a dog.

That expression was priceless. This was exactly why Hit girl liked hanging out with Lash. She never knew what the hell the girl was going to get into, and that made her fun!

"Sure, but we'd need a good candidate."

"Now who do we know that would be worth flinging flaming poo on..." Damn it, with Zedd back in the pods it was hard to find something amusing enough to do this.

Hit Girl thought a moment, and then a slow grin came on her face.

"That depends: how ballsy are we? Because I'm thinking we could even prank the Captain. Wouldn't that be something?"

"If he finds out I'm involved, I'm gonna get demoted, no doubt."

"Aw come on, its flaming dog poop. Who gets demoted over a prank that isn't hurting anyone? Its not like you're siccing a zombie horde on him or something like that! It could be fun!"

"Can we try it on a target that wouldn't demote me first? If we get caught, no bigger. If we don't then we can move on to the bigger prizes..."

Target Practice

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