Fandom High Dormitories

Triela hadn't woken up any younger... but she couldn't remember what she was doing sitting on the floor of the common room. She actually didn't remember that this room was a common room. It seemed wholly unfamiliar to her.

She looked down at her clothes. At least those were familiar. Sort of.

Now she looked around, blinking wide-eyed as she tried to remember where she was. Or what she was doing there.

She must have sat down for a reason, right?

It was Tuesday, which meant Triela was in the gym. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd let herself get talked into making this a regular thing, but she had. And she'd even worn appropriate clothes: sweatshirt, sweatpants, running shoes. Not the sort of thing she'd often be seen in public wearing.

Still, the point had been made, quite effectively, that her usual business suit and boots were not really effective football attire.

So there she was, dressed appropriately and a few minutes early. She settled in to wait.

[Expecting one, but open.]

The gun club had gotten handwavey notice to meet in the Danger Shop today, sans weapons.

If Makita and Triela looked positively gleeful, well, it was not their imaginations.

"Using a gun is about more than being able to shoot. You have to know when to shoot as well. You can't do either one properly without the other. And while the range is great for learning accuracy, you need something different to learn to pick your targets." That, and this was going to be fun.

"You also have to take into account the terrain, which you can't do on a range," Makita agreed. "So today, we're going hunting. You'll have to evaluate who is a target, who is not, and what to do in each case."

"On top of all that, ammunition management matters off the range. Knowing how many shots you have before you need to reload, knowing how many reloads you have left... All of that matters." Triela grinned. "So for this exercise, you're going to have to take all of it into account."

"The 'Shop will be providing us with everything we need," Makita continued. "Firearms, ammo, and if you 'die,' your gun won't work anymore. If you shoot and kill civilian, you're out. So try not to do that."

Triela nodded. No failing! It would make her look bad. "Just like in the real world, the bad guys don't come with giant flashing signs, but there are ways to pick them out." Especially these particular bad guys. "So trust your judgment out there."

"Any questions?" Well, if there were, too bad. TIme to get started!

As usual, Triela had brought a lot of her own gear to the range today. But some of it was new. Specifically, she had a small stack of wooden cut-outs that were shaped like pistols, but were clearly props. "Today we're going to do something a bit different," she announced with a small smile. What? She liked changing things up on people.

"Today, we're playing Keep-Away!" Maki, don't smile at people like that, it's disturbing. "Or, 'what do to when the other person has a gun and you don't.'"

"Most of you are going to be new to this, so we'll be practicing. And that means no live guns. So everyone safe and stow your weapons." Triela wasn't about to risk someone getting shot during an exercise because they were waving a live gun around. "And then come collect one of these," she added, holding up one of the wooden props.

"Do not hit each other with your fake-guns, either." It needed to be said. "Now, to be honest, the best thing to do when someone else has a firearm is to get the hell out of there. Call for help, head towards a crowded area where they may be more hesitant to fire. Don't be stupid, and don't be a hero. But sometimes, that is not an option."

"Exactly. You've all been around guns long enough by now to see how much damage one can do, so if you can disengage and find cover, that's the first choice. Sometimes, though, it's not an option. In that case, the first thing you need to understand is that you only ever get one chance to do this right. Mess up, and you'll get shot for your trouble. So we're going to practice this, and Makita and I are going to be very, very picky." No screwing around!

"The wrist is small, so unless you have very good aim, try to hit them in the shoulder or elbow to loosen the grip on the gun," Makita continued, pointing out weak spots on her own body. "Get above them and drop something, or hit from behind. If you can knock them out, that's better than just disarming."

Triela nodded in agreement. "And in the absolute worst case scenario in which they get the drop on you? The most important thing to do is control where the gun is pointing. It takes practice, which is what we're here for today, but if you're fast enough you can control the angle of a gun even if the person you're up against is bigger than you." She cocked her head. "Quick demonstration?" she suggested to Makita.

Makita did not have a wooden gun; Makita had a tiny squirt pistol. Because she was an organizer and she said so. "We'll do this in slow-motion a few times, so that you can see what we're doing," she said, taking aim at Triela.

The squirt gun got an amused little eyeroll, but then Triela moved. "Remember, the most important thing is to control which way the barrel of the gun is pointing. That means you don't just knock it out of the way, you have to grab something." She turned, her body twisting to bring a hand toward Makita's wrist. "Don't just grab someone's wrist. It doesn't actually control what matters." She paused for a moment to let Makita demonstrate the fact that someone holding your wrist just made it hard to aim at them, not impossible.

Whatever, Triela would get to use it in a few minuets. She could roll her eyes all she wanted; Makita was going to pull the trigger to demonstrate that aiming was harder, not impossible. "She'd be better off striking up, under my chin to force my head back," she offered, firing at her co-instructor. "Or, really, any number of things except grabbing my wrist."

"The wrist isn't necessarily a bad grab, but only if you can get another hand in to control the gun itself." Triela reached around with her other hand and wrapped it around the gun. "That way you control the weapon. You win if you keep control, and you win if you can incapacitate your opponent without getting shot. Those are your only two options. So everyone pair up and try some things out." Her smile was a bit cold. "Makita and I will come give you some pointers."

Triela had come in early to put up new targets for this week. Full-body silhouettes, with legs and everything. Someone wanted to talk about disabling people.

Which was fine with Makita; it gave her a chance to show off her aim.

"Salaam!" she sang once everyone had arrived. "Sometimes, you cannot shoot to kill. Sometimes you have questions, but a person, they seem to think running away means they do not need to answer those questions! In these cases, it is best to shoot to disable."

Triela grinned. "It's important to remember that no matter what you aim at, guns are potent weapons. You can kill someone pretty easily, even if you're not trying to. But! There are a few things to keep in mind if you want to keep people from running away or fighting without actually killing them." Hospital, not morgue. She had one of the targets up front for illustration purposes. "First thing to know, if you're trying to keep someone alive? Don't shoot them anywhere in the torso or head. Chances are you'll do something bad if you do. Arms if you want them to drop some sort of weapon, legs if you want them to stop running away."

"I like the shoulder," Makita suggested. "It's usually painful enough that they'll drop, and you can apply pressure to slow or stop the bleeding, which is harder to do in the arm or leg. Also, if they are running, it is easier to hit than a limb in motion."

Triela nodded at Makita, then shrugged. "Like I said, there's no guarantee that someone will live just because you hit them in the arms or legs. There are major arteries in there, after all, but it's more likely than if you shoot them in the head."

"If you've got any questions, ask. Otherwise, get to practicing."

Triela had been taking Leto's advice and recording her dreams, but it wasn't really helping them go away, so she wasn't sure it was helping.

The range usually helped her concentrate.

Except today it wasn't working. Her head was pounding and she couldn't draw a bead on the target. She scowled and set the shotgun down before drawing her pistol. Maybe she'd have better luck with that.

She managed to get a couple of shots wildly downrange before her hand spasmed wildly and the pistol fell clumsily to the floor with a clatter.

That was... definitely not good.

[Open!]

Triela hadn't gotten her entire arsenal out of storage in quite some time, but this evening she felt like running through everything. The lack of missions from home was making her antsy. She just hoped it wasn't also making her rusty.

She'd have to make time to swing by Wellspring again sometime soon to brush up on her sniping skills. They were the ones she used least often, and were likely to need the most practice, after all.

But for now this would be fine. She had a dozen gun cases spread around her and she was carefully checking the contents of each of them in turn.

[Open for all your shooting poor helpless target needs.]

Most of the time Triela found spending time on the shooting range to be quite good at focusing her attention. Not that focus was often a problem. Training, inclination, and Conditioning all combined to keep her from becoming too distracted most of the time. Which, really, was a good thing on the range since guns were not toys.

But she was still distracted by her most recent trip home, and that meant that while she was at the range and needing to focus, she was obviously distracted. She showed up early, which wasn't unusual, but then she leaned back against the wall and stared off into space. No special activity, or even tea today.

Unless someone else brought them, which would be cool.

"I know you're all familiar with them by this point, but I'm still going to talk about pistols today." She drew the one from her shoulder holster. "Pistols are small, portable, and quite deadly. They don't have the range of a rifle, or even an SMG, but it turns out that most firefights take place at ranges so short that a pistol is plenty effective. The low weight, quick handling, and ease of concealment mean that no matter what else you're carrying, you might as well carry a pistol too."

"Yep. That's pretty much it. I won't bore you with all the reasons some people prefer them as primary weapons. Suffice to say that for quite a few situations a pistol is the best choice."

Triela grinned. "So it's a good thing you're learning to use them, huh?"

This week Triela's hair was back up in its usual pigtails and her suit had pants. She seemed much more comfortable. Though part of that may have been attributable to the fact that she had two good eyes this week. In fact, it didn't look like she'd ever been hideously injured in the first place.

"We talked about submachine guns last week," she said without preamble. "This week we're going to focus on some rifles. The word 'rifle' covers dozens of different specialties, but today we're going to focus on two of them."

Triela walked over to a pair of open rifle cases. "This," she waved at one, "is a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle, and this," she waved at the other, "is a Heckler and Koch G3 battle rifle. Notice that they look extremely similar to one another. They are both designed by the same company and use many of the same design principles. In fact, battle rifles are often misidentified as assault rifles for this very reason."

"But in use they're very different." Triela grinned and picked up a pair of bullets, one in each hand. "Assault rifles fire smaller bullets than battle rifles, which is the major point of differentiation between them. The bullets are still bigger than those of a pistol or SMG, but when it comes to rifles the size does matter."

She closed her fist around the smaller bullet and held out the larger one. "The larger rounds fired by a battle rifle give it increased range and damage potential, but at the cost of higher recoil and weight. Most battle rifles hold only two thirds the ammunition of an assault rifle. Now, you might think this is a fair trade-off, and for years weapon designers did. But as combat moved more and more into cities it became clear that no one needed the extra range of the battle rifle because no one was firing from out of range of the smaller assault rifle. And while an assault rifle does less damage, it still does enough damage to take out a target, so the battle rifle has generally been phased out of general use as being more powerful than necessary, which is a big deal when it also has less ammo."

"Like last week you're welcome to borrow either of these to get a feel for them, or you can just do what you usually do." Triela looked around and smirked ever so slightly. "And if any of you need help adjusting your stance because Fandom is screwing with you today, let me know."

Triela had a stack of hand-lettered posters. Fortunately, Triela was actually an expert calligrapher, so they almost looked professional. Except for that whole black sharpie on white poster board. At least it was very attractive-looking sharpie on poster board.

She had considered trying to come up with something as expansive as Turtle's stuff, but that wasn't one of her strengths. Not even remotely. So she'd just kept it simple and relied on her strengths.

Triela for Student Council
Level-headed and calm

What more could she say about herself? She was pretty sure that highlighting the fact that she could shoot someone for not voting for her would be counter-productive.

[Feel free to catch Triela as she's putting up her very boring posters.]

Someone just might have shown up for club over an hour early. That might just be because someone had missed gun club. Quite a bit.

Triela had already posted the rules and readjusted them until they were juuuust so. And she'd checked all her guns. Twice. She'd even gotten out her private tea stash and brewed some. People had better appreciate that.

People needed to hurry up and show up. Eventually, they did.

"Welcome to Girls with Guns club!" she announced brightly. "Some of you have been here before, but for those of you who haven't this is club is all about guns and teaching you to use them. Whether you've got a lot of experience and just need some practice, or you're brand new and want to learn more about the things, this is the place for you."

"Today we're doing the meet and greet thing." She waved her hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're all tired of it. But we're still going to do it. So everyone introduce yourselves and give us some idea of your experience with guns. Remember that 'none' is perfectly acceptable."

"Then we'll get down to business and do some shooting. If you need to borrow a gun, or want a demonstration, you're welcome to ask me or one of the other experienced people."

"I guess I'll start with the introduction thing. I'm Triela, and I'm an expert with most military small-arms. Back home I'm an assassin, and I specialize in short range engagements. If you ever need to borrow a gun I'm generally willing to help out with that."

"Who's next?"

After class Triela headed straight for the range. She... really, really needed to do something familiar. The... dreams had freaked her out. Not the content, really, though that had been slightly disorienting. No, the worrying bit was that she had them at all. The drugs suppressed dreams which meant that she wasn't even entirely sure that that's what had happened last night. But based on the descriptions of what it was like she had to assume that that's what they had been.

She grimaced as she sorted through her gear. She needed something big, loud, and violent...

The range hadn't really been designed for squad support weapons the size of the HK21E, but she wasn't about to let that stop her. She carefully settled the bipod on the firing line and started tearing through her first belt of ammo.

It was very soothing.