fandomhigh | Gun Range, Sunday evening

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!event: target practice

Gun Range, Sunday evening

After saying good-bye to Kennedy on Friday, Dru had pretty much kept to herself for the weekend. She knew the new kids had turned up the day before but it didn't make much sense to go to the picnic and meet people, not when she could get a call from Christophe saying it was time to leave any day now.

Just because she'd been practicing with the Malaika it was no reason to let her other skills slip. So Sunday evening found Dru in the range steadily working through several clips of bullets.

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Dru had been aware of someone entering the room, but since that little bit of extra awareness she had wasn't filling her mouth with the taste of wax oranges and salt, she didn't figure him for an immediate threat.

Instead she focused on shooting clusters of closely placed shots, all neatly centered over the target's heart. Memory had her father's voice echoing in her head Focus on what you're doing. Breathe as you pull the trigger.

Once she finished the clip she turned to face the newcomer, a teacher she vaguely recognized from her time on the island.

"Thanks. My dad taught me."

"Oh, yeah? Looks like he was a good teacher." Not that Reno's own weapon of choice was a gun, but he knew his way around one well enough. Hell, he'd been to a few of those Girls With Guns meetings back when he was a student, himself.

... Girlish though he was not.

"Hobby shootin', or more... practical?"

Reno was also a fan of conversation, when he could just cut to the point and warn her about the baton. That was just how he rolled, okay?

"He was the best." A sudden rush of nostalgia for the long afternoons at the range and then the hours they spent cleaning the guns afterwards hit Dru, dimming her smile for a moment.

"Practical. Dad was a hunter. Not deer or animals," she explained. "More like zombies, unquiet spirits, the occasional wendigo or ghoul. All that fun stuff."

Damn, there Reno went, tripping over some kind of family pain. His own smile twisted to sympathetic for a moment, while he filed family away as something to not bring up to the girl again.

"Oh, yeah? You go huntin' that kinda stuff too, then?"

He was always so casual when talking about monsters. And why not be? They were more or less a way of life for him back home, too.

The memories would always hurt, but the sharp pain at the thought of her lost family was dimming and the memories were slowly becoming a comfort.

"I used to help him. I might do some hunting of my own eventually," Dru answered with a half shrug. "But first there's some stuff that needs to be taken care of. Till that happens it's probably not safe for me to leave the island. Which explains why I'm still here when so many of the other graduates have left."

"What about you? What weapon do you use? And what do you use it against?"

Reno chewed on that one, too, filing the fact that she was a grad away along with the rest. Could be handy.

"Electro-mag rod," he shared, holding the stun baton up for her to see. "That's why I was waitin' to use it, actually. Didn't wanna scare the piss outta you with a bolt of lightning while you were shootin' off yours, yo. Back home we got all kinds of monsters. Worms, dragons, hounds, that sorta thing. Comes in handy back there."

It was also useful against droids gone haywire, and evil clones. Gaia was a special place.

Droid gone haywire, poltergeist possessing the household electronics and fighting being vanquished. Same difference or at least probably close enough to not be too picky.

Intrigued by the new weapon, Dru stepped a little closer to look it over in an almost unconscious replay of Kennedy's actions in the salle when Dru had shown her the Malaika. "Shiny," she observed. "And useful. Mind if I stay and watch you work?"

"Not at all," Reno replied, using that butter-smooth tone of his. The one he tended to slip into when he'd been given an excuse to show off. "I won't be at it long anyhow, though. Didn't bring no Ethers with me, an' usin' this thing kinda pulls it outta you, yo."

Because the lightning that he was throwing off of it was powered with his own energy. That was just the way Materia rolled.

All-too-casually, he reached his baton out to the side, smirked, and said, "Bang."

The lightning that arced between the EMR and the target was definitely nothing to sneeze at. Neither was the bullseye.

He reminded Dru of some of the hunters she'd met over the years. A tiny bit of self-assured arrogance backed up a bunch of cool confidence.

Which, given the impressive lightening and the accuracy, meant he had every right to be cocky.

"Nice," Dru said, her face showing that she was suitably impressed. "What's the biggest thing that can take down? And what do you mean by Ethers? And pulling it out of you?"

"Could probably take on a land worm or a dual horn or somethin' without breakin' a sweat," Reno offered, vaguely aware that the odds were high that she'd have no idea what at least one of those was. Gaia had some stuff that was fairly Gaia-specific.

... Okay, Rikku's home had the dual horns, too. But they were hugely different from the ones that he knew.

"Didn't stick around to try my luck against the dragon god, though. Bahamut is more'n welcome to do his thing an' leave without my winnin' company."

Because Bahamuts were kind of notorious for blowing chunks out of the moon when they got into their moods. Reno was cocky, not completely insane.

"But the way this thing works," he turned the baton over and pulled out a little green sphere from the handle, "is you gotta slot in these little guys before you can do much with it but smack people around, yo. It's magic, not completely technology, so the energy it gives off ain't from some sorta battery, it's from the person castin' the spell, yo. Ethers just kinda perk you up again once it starts to wear you down."

"Sadly I don't have a clue about any of creatures you've described," Dru admitted with a laugh. "But they do sound damn impressive. And I have to agree with you about not sticking around to face a dragon god. That way sounds like it leads to an ass kicking."

She held her hand towards the orb, concentrating on what she could sense using the touch. "I can feel the magic. It kind of feels like magic here but different at the same time if that makes sense?"

"Kinda makes sense," Reno replied, shrugging a little and holding out the materia sphere for a few more seconds before slotting it back into his baton. "I ain't sensitive to that kinda thing, so I gotta take your word for that one. But it ain't all that surprising, either. Fandom's magic is Fandom, right? Materia is formed in the Lifestream back home. Uh... it's kinda like the life of the whole damn Planet. So it's probably kinda the same idea, yo."

For the record, that was probably one of the most logical things that Reno had said this year.

"That's cool. Most of the magic I've dealt with is more from force of will," Dru said as she went to the cabinet to get the cleaning kit. "Stuff like wards or hexes. So how strong your power is is kind of related to how strong your personality is. If you had the power of a planet behind you, wow..."

"You can keep practicing if you want. It won't bother me. I need to clean my weapon. Otherwise there's a good chance my dad would haunt me."

"Nah, I'm good. Looks like I ain't gettin' rusty after all, yo."

Still as cocky as ever, though.

"So, you said you'd graduated, huh? You got some way of keepin' yourself busy over the summer, yet?"

With a laugh, she shook her head. "Nope, no rust in sight. As for what I'm doing? You're looking at it. Training, training, and more training. Gotta be prepared right?"

"Gotta be prepared," Reno agreed. Apparently he could be cocky and intelligent within the same span of five minutes. Who knew? "You got a little time edgewise on, say, Tuesdays? I'm in need of a TA this term, an' it's lookin' to me like you already got the subject matter all figured out, yo."

Considering it was a class on being awesome, that was a pretty serious compliment there, Dru.

Dru would most definitely appreciate the compliment if she was aware of it. For the record, she thought he was talking about a gun class of some sort. "I've got the time, I've just never TA'd before. Is that going to be a problem?"

"Shouldn't be," Reno replied, shrugging. What could he say? He had a bit of a soft spot for the shiny new rookie types. "It's pretty straightforward stuff, yo. Mostly you just hang around, help the students if it looks like they're totally lost or whatever. Make sure they don't do somethin' supremely stupid when I ain't lookin', that sorta thing. Ain't even really a hard class, neither. I'm takin' it easy this semester, yo. Teachin' a class on attitude."

"A class on attitude," Dru repeated thoughtfully all the while thinking Kennedy would have done well with that. "What the hell. It sounds like it'll be fun."

And it beat lurking about spending all her time alone.

"See, that's what I like to hear, yo." Reno grinned, resting his baton against his shoulder. "Just show up Tuesday, second period, an' we'll go from there, yo. First class is always pretty easy, yo. Introductions. That kinda crap. It'll help you get a feel for what you'll be doin' for the rest of the term as a TA."

Generally, that could very well boil down to wondering what the hell Reno was thinking on any given day.

"I'll be there," she promised. Then Dru paused and shot him a rather sheepish look. "So here's a stupid question. I've seen you around and all, but I don't know that I ever heard your name."

Reno blinked at that one, and then shook his head and laughed. Couldn't help it. He'd just given her a job, and shit, he didn't know her name, either.

"Reno," he replied, holding out his hand. "Name's Reno, yo. Don't think I caught yours either, for that matter."

Not that he'd use it much. Reno was a much bigger fan of his affectionate little nicknames.

He'd hired her and didn't even know her name. Dru didn't know if she should be amused or afraid. Either way, it would probably be fun.

"Dru," she replied, taking the offered hand. "Dru Anderson."

Reno was spontaneous like that. Hell, he was still looking for another TA, just to round things out a little. He was percolating vague plans to just grab somebody in the hallway and inform them that they'd been drafted for TA duty, if he didn't trip over somebody else soon.

"Good to meet you, Dru," he said with a smirk. "An' now that I got a name to put on the paperwork, I'll see you Tuesday, yo."

"Tuesday. I'll be there. But for now, gun cleaning."

Her father would have been proud.

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Gun Range, Sunday evening

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