RP: Elysia [Elysia Novus] Barracks - Day 3

Evanael smiled and then opened his eyes and flipped the safety off as he stepped up to one of the booths and then settled the gun and took aim, his first two shots were off the mark completely, the next two hitting his target just below the jugular vein and the other hitting the target's shoulder. Surely damaging spots, but not good enough to kill. The next two shots were more accurately aimed and one punched through his target's ribs and the other hit right through the target's eyes.

Even with those shots he was determined to get an even more fatal shot straight through the heart. His last four shots pumped holes through where his target's lungs would be. As the target started moving, he paused for a second to discard the sights alltogether and then deliberately went crosseyed and took aim. He let three shots fly, the first clipped the figure's calf muscle, the second burried itself in the target's head and the third hit it in the chest. Getting a feel for this new gun he shifted the gunn barrel only slightly and down and sent a shot into the targets hands.

Schuyler stepped up to the booth, and snapped off three quick shots at the target on the screen. The first shot went wide, but the second two hit the no reflex zone, right about the upper lip.

He fired 3 more times, this time focusing more on center mass, and punched three nice little holes in what WAS the chest cavity.

Though he was enjoying this immensly, he wanted more range. He wanted a far off target, with a large caliber rifle.

Roemael walked up an down the booths giving advice to those that needed it and generally inspecting their work in a relatively friendly fashion. "Alright, how about we try something a little harder. Moving targets!"

The volumetric images now came to life with the figures doing their best to move in such a way to make them hard to hit - up to and including seemingly running away.

As soon as the figure began to move Evanael switched tactics from careful aiming to short bursts of six to eight rounds each, going for vital spots on his target. Mainly he went for the head and chest.

Evanael spent plenty of the virtual ammo, but did so wisely. He always went for the kill, keeping to single shots when the target was close, and showering in a concentrated area when the target was further away and also paused to snipe a few times around.

It looked like Evanael had temporarily forgotten everything that had happened to him so far, but all the pent up anger and confusion could clearly be seen as he poured it into blasting the hell out of the target in front of him.

(background music - Rush)

Schuyler aimed low on the target and let a burst rip up the side of him. He let the muzzle jump bring the weapon up the target, and allowed it to move from side to side. If it were a moving target, he needed to first hit it, and then kill it.

His plan worked, he saw, as the animated blood spray died down.

Again Roemael waited and watched his cadets firing and slowly getting better. They still didn't seem to be making best use of the weapon, but they would. Eventually. "Alright, stage three - environmental conditions."

The Nepleslian was suddenly concealed by fog, wind and rain with only a faint outline indicating his presence.

There was a soft "oh.... even better", an evil sounding chuckle and then Evanael fell into hitting his target every single time. Into his shots he poured every emotion he had at the moment. His strategy? Aim for the dead center of the blurry figure. Easy, peice of cake no?

Evanael ended up pumping his targets full of flying missiles after a while. He was getting bored, extremely bored, with this.

Schuyler took a rather different approach. He looked at the center mass, but then tracked the space right about where the head would be, if the blurry part were the torso.

He got a thrill every time he saw the mist turn bright red for a few seconds, as what was a skull was destroyed. The thrill of this was outstanding, but it was lacking in...reality.

He could shoot at these all day long, but they would never shoot back. There was no danger, no real threat. That didnt stop him from enjoying this turkey shoot however.

"I feel that a few of you may be growing a little bored." Roemael said and smiled gently, "And as such we shall introduce a little element of danger. Each of your cubicles has a stunning device. Your oponents will now have facilimiles of weapons - whenever you will be shot you will be stunned, and unfortunatly there's a certain amount of pain involved. As the time progresses your opponents will become more accurate. In addition they will be hiding behind barriers and be equiped with infra-red goggles. Enjoy."

And so it was said - so it was.

Evanael uncrossed his eyes blinked few times and then got moving; he took down the target three times in quick succession before getting a "bullet" his side and another in his leg. He tossed away the momentary pain and kept moving. It soon became to the point where he was just plain angry and took out more targets than he got shot. He waited patiently for the ones behind the barriers and efficiently plowed over the ones out in the open.

Evanael must have as more shots in him than he suspected at first, especially when his left side started really hurting. Of course he paid no attention to it, but eventually it did affect his quick efficiency and he was just getting shot more and that was no help. Eventually It got to the point where Evanael slid the gun down the back of his shirt and backed off. When he hit the wall behind him he sank down against it and promptly passed out.

As soon as the change was made, Schuyler instantly took 4 rounds to his right side. As soon as it uncramped itself, he noted the slightly searing pain it left behind.

This he liked.

He loosed a barrage at the most prominent figure in the smoke screen, before moving to another, and firing two more quick shots at center mass. He searched methodically, looking for the next target, before pumping a few rounds in a slightly aimed manner.

He took another round from the right, and almost yelped with the sensation. He turned and fired bringing the target to its knees, where the second shot removed its head.

"Now this is more like it..."

And this indeed, was more like. More like a real combat situation and far more like true training. Well ... it would get harder, but for now this was hard enough. However as Roemael noticed Evanael being knocked out by a barrage of shots his heart went out to the poor guy. He did seem down on his luck ... and Roemael had always had something about underdogs.

He ran over and kneeled over Evanael, lightly shaking his shoulder, "You doing alright laddo?"

Schuyler noted several more targets, and felt the shots go past him. He leveled his weapon, ripped a stream of rounds loose, dropped to his knee, and picked off the ones still standing.

The object of course was to avoid getting hit, since in a real combat situation, a hit meant a death. Schuyler was already sick of taking rounds, but it did add to the realism of the drill.

"Another one down," he muttered, as he fired two more rounds through the chest of a simulated enemy.

At the shaking Evanael slid so that he was laying on his side, completely un-responsive. It took a good five minutes before he even twitched. His mind soon cleared and was launched into a dream automatically.

He was flying, not under his own power, but upon something he couldn't see. He could feel it beneath him, but couldn't see anything that would give hima cluse as to what it was. Then they were diving, stars, planets, supernovas, and entire galaxies flashing past him at the speed of light. Then a soft light attracted his attention and when he looked back out over the landscape he could see the Barracks and the rest of the traning camp spread out beneath him.

All too suddenly he was dropped and jaws of some terrible beast formed out of the shooting range and reached up to snatch him out of the air. He never reached the jaws of the terrible beast for he was caught in mid air. When he finally looked up, it was into the eyes of a familiar and strangely comfurting face. He fell asleep and then he had a horrible sense of falling through the air. He opened his eyes and got a terrible sense of vertigo as he plunged towards the surface of the ground, unable to right himself.

As he woke up from his dream, his stomach revolted from the eariler sense of vertigo and suddenly being on a soild surface. He threw up the remains of his meager breakfast, stomach acid and blood. He kept his eyes closed and lay there trying to even out his breathing before he passed out from hyperventalation. It took a few minutes before he could move again. This time he immediately curled up and passed out again.

[heh...]

Roemael was surprised. He had never seen a cadet react so badly to the stunners used in this exercise, and it made him wonder whether Evanael actually had the physical capacity to become a member of the Elysian Infantry. Thankfully the cadet's vomit missed him, but after Evanael returned to his unpleasant slumber Roemael gently scooped him up and began to walk out, "Continue with your exercise cadets."

He walked towards the medical bay.

Schuyler took fire from the direction opposite that which he was facing, and as he turned took 4 more hits across his body. 1 in the left knee, one in the right thigh and 2 in the lower right side of his torso just above his hip. He dropped to the ground growling in pain, teeth barred.

These bastards kept shooting straighter and straighter. There didnt seem to be any way to dodge these blasts either, but he figured he was doing alright. First time getting his feet wet, 30 or 40 kills already, of those that shot back, and only 10 rounds taken. He figured he would still be breathing, if just barely, were this a real situation.

As he fell and hit the deck, he turned to bring his weapon to bear, sighting on the group that had blindsided him. He picked his shots carefully, trying to use only a single shot on each target. The first 3 went down great, but the second two scrambled for cover behind the bodies of their fallen imaginary brethren, and he couldnt get a clear shot.

It was about this time that he felt as though he was sucker punched.

He writed in pain for a moment before realizing what had happened. One of those bastards out there had scored a perfect head shot, right to the side of his temple. It hurt like all hell, and it throbbed like mad. That would have easily been a killshot, but looking at the destruction he had caused, he thought that he had done rather well. A total of maybe 3 killshots on him, and a total of 40 enemies down. A ratio of 10.3 to one, if he had the math right.

"Not too shabby, if i do say so myself..." Schuyler muttered, as he picked himself back up, before stepping off the firing line to clear his head for a second.

Hikael watched, arms crossed, as the cadets went through their training with atromos. It had been something that she had always despised, but that was mostly because she wasn't that good at it.

A nod to Roemael as he passed, Evanael in his arms. "...never liked the part where they stunned me, I admit. He'll be alright? I'm fond of that one. He's some fencing habits that need to be smacked out of him." She finished this with a light-hearted salute and a smile, then turned back to her observations.

Roemael paused and turned to the fair Hikael. Simply because one did not swing that way did not mean that he could not appreciate her beauty, as far as it went. He smiled in a friendly fashion, "He should be fine, but I have no idea what made him like this. The stunners simply cause pain and some limited short term incapacitation ... not this." He shook his head, "However he seemed to be doing alright in the firing range, and he's certainly determined. And determination is usually good ..."

I wish I had and Angel - Nightwish

Evantually he became aware of someone holding him, fighting to at least stay aware of his surroundings. He had a bit of a clue as to who's arms he was in and shifted his head slightly so that his cheek was resting against Roemael's arm completely. He lay silently for a few seconds and then sounded like he was trying to clear something out of his nostrils and when he finally quit with a wheeze, little drops of blood slid out of his nose.

He lay there disliking the feel of blood in his nose, but not enough to try and whipe it away. It took a minute before his eyes flickered open slightly and he mumbled something close to "This isn't good..." before falling into a fit of coughing up more blood. He licked the blodd of his lips and then turned his head into Roemael's arm before drifting off into a near-comatose sleep again.

[ahem FYI ... Internal bleeding and multiple organ failure caused by a silver of one of his ribs that broke off eariler during the morning & punctured his stomach, thus causing havoc with his insides...]

Schuyler sat for a few minutes, at the wall behind his booth. Some of the other cadets were doing the same, some more were failing miserably on the firing line, and others were still getting lucky. Him? He just wanted a few minutes to let the throbbing subside, before he jumped back up there again. He didnt mind pain, he just hated dull aches, things that nagged at you, gnawed at your concentration. Pain he could deal with rather easily.

He stood up and stretched himself out slightly, getting ready to go back to work.