by Eddie Patin
Gliath looked up and saw Morgana Soloster handing a round of slug gun ammunition to Jason Leaper 934, who immediately took it and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, baring his teeth in a smile.
"Velocity, Morgana," he said, "and hydrostatic shock."
"I don't understand," she replied.
"Don't worry," Ranaja said, smirking at her. Gliath saw his good friend cast a quick glance his way, give him a rapid greeting with the tilt of his head, then he continued speaking to the female. "We'll head to the Wilderlands again tomorrow. You'll get an understanding real quick when we start zapping these melons and such."
The three of them approached, carrying many bags. Gliath could suddenly smell all three humans and their individual scents over the blood, guts, and brains of the deer he was working on as soon as they crossed the threshold into the garage. He also smelled the sicky-sweet odor of fruit-plants and other human food that grows from trees and vines within the packages they carried.
"I can't believe all of the different clothing!" Morgana Soloster exclaimed to the two males. "Shirts of materials like I haven't seen before; jackets, undergarments, shoes and boots and ... shoes that didn't even make sense! I've never seen such things! And the music in the air? And that 'food court' with all of the different confections and sandwiches and strange food!"
"That 'mall' of yours was pretty impressive, Jason," Ranaja added.
"It's kind of an old mall, actually," Jason Leaper 934 replied. He looked at the leopardwere deep inside the garage. "Hey, Gliath!" he exclaimed, approaching with several bags held in each fist. The leader of the Reality Rifters looked over what remained of Gliath's work. "Got a deer, huh? That's great." He looked at his small feline companion, who was still perched on the corner of the table. Her slice of liver was gone, and now, she was licking the metal surface. "Hi, Zelda!"
"Greetings, Jason Leaper 934," Gliath said. "This is the second of two deer I have harvested today. The meat is packed into your fridge and freezer."
The human's eyebrows raised. He smiled. "Two deer, huh? That's awesome, man."
The leopardwere nodded then turned to face Ranaja to see if he needed anything of him.
Ranaja smirked and transferred all of the bags he was carrying to one hand. He reached up and petted Gliath behind one ear. The gloves were scratchy and felt wonderful, rasping at the spot behind Gliath's right ear that always felt itchy. Pleasure flooded through the leopardwere and he leaned into the gesture, taking care not to knock Ranaja down.
"Hey, kitty cat," Ranaja said. "Looks like you're almost done? Come in and see us when everything's all cleaned up, alright?"
"Yes, Ranaja," Gliath said.
"Hi there, Gliath," Morgana Soloster said with a smile. She passed by, following the other two into the living room. The leopardwere smelled the chemicals on her new clothing mingled with her passing scent.
Gliath turned back to the hide. Zelda meowed up at him from the table. He regarded his little friend, but had no more fresh meat to give her, for now. When the hide was clean and rinsed off, Gliath rinsed and wiped off his Blessed Warblade then returned it to its sheath. Then, he laid out the hide onto the table and plunged one hand into the bowl of brains, squishing it up between his fingers, preparing the paste to apply to the clean hide. The brain's oils would work better if the hide was dried and stretched, but Gliath had not yet crafted a tanning rack.
Perhaps, the leopardwere thought as he squished and pulverized the animal's brains with his hand, I will create a rack during this time of 'R and R'.
A little later, the hide was finished and stored away to dry. Gliath cleaned the garage and himself with the sink until not a trace of blood remained, and the only evidence of the butchering was the large trashcan full of viscera and stripped pieces of the carcasses.
Zelda had long since left, no doubt seeking out her owner for some of that exquisite 'canned cat food'.
Gliath let himself in and saw the humans all sitting in the living room, drinking beers, pouring over boxes of gear and ammunition. Jason Leaper 934 was working on a new pistol—a Glock 26 if Gliath remembered correctly—and had it stripped down, upgrading and replacing certain parts. Ranaja looked up at Gliath and smiled. Morgana Soloster was pulling pieces of paper affixed with lengths of thin plastic cords from new articles of clothing piled in her lap. The leopardwere could smell the beers and the sweat of the day on each of them.
"Good timing, Gliath," Jason Leaper 934 said with a smile, looking up from his favorite chair. It was the same chair that all Jason Leapers liked to sit in. "We were just about to pull out the walkie-talkies."
Gliath nodded, nimbly striding around everyone to sit in the place where he usually took a nap in his primal form. The instant he carefully sat down onto the human couch, little Zelda appeared from under the coffee table with a high-pitched cry. She leapt up to sit against the leopardwere's thigh.
"What are walkie-talkies?" Morgana Soloster asked.
"Crude communication devices," Ranaja answered, reaching forward to take apart several boxes of paper and plastic with precise, powerful pulls of his fingers.
"Not all of us have built in comm link augments," Jason Leaper 934 said with a scoff, taking a sip from his beer. He tested the slide-release lever on the side of his Glock for proper actuation, then he reassembled the pistol.
"You could have had one of those, too," Ranaja replied, pulling several plastic devices from the box and setting them side-by-side on the coffee table next to the trash. They were bright orange things similar to Ranaja's CamComm. Each had something that might have been a long, black antenna. "Shet—all you needed was a bionic processor, Jason, then we could have installed some aural gear, a comm link, and a vibration mic in your jawbone. You'd have one just like me. Wally would have been happy to do it..."
The leader of the Reality Rifters scoffed and laughed, sitting back and running one hand through his short dark-blonde hair. "Yeah, well, I'm not too keen on getting shit stuck into my jawbone, okay?" He laughed again. Gliath could sense his unease in his quick breaths and tense muscles giving off a quick scent of fear. "Maybe more cybernetics another time, huh?"
"Eh," Ranaja replied with a shrug. "So, how do these archaic things work?"
"Uh ... they need batteries," Jason Leaper 934 said. "There's probably a battery door on the back, and we have a shitload of AA's in one of these bags..."
Gliath watched the three humans talk and laugh and pass things back and forth between them. They loaded up the 'walkie-talkies' with what Jason Leaper 934 called AA batteries, then each member of the team took one. Ranaja handed one to Gliath. The leopardwere accepted the little orange device, feeling its delicate polymer shell under his fingertips, knowing that he could crush it to pieces with a quick squeeze of his hand.
"Hang onto that, buddy," Ranaja said. "Let's find a place to put it on your armor, alright? We'll be using these to communicate on the next mission."
"Yes, Ranaja," Gliath said, standing to pick up his armor harness from where it sat in a pile in one front corner of the room.
"Where is my new magnet?" Morgana Soloster asked. "I can't find it."
"It's in this bag," Jason Leaper 934 replied, fishing out a strange piece of plastic from a parcel. It was colorful and looked utterly purposeless to Gliath. Their leader handed the bauble to the female.
She smiled, considering the item. "I love it!" she said. "I have to put this on that thing in your kitchen, Jason, next to the other magnet that opens your beer bottles. I'm going to get one of these from every new place I visit!"
"Okay," Jason Leaper 934 replied with a laugh. "Couldn't hurt to have more magnets, I guess."
"Magnets are amazing!" she said, jumping to her feet and striding to the kitchen. "I had that one in my 'relics' back home, but I never understood it. It's like magic to me. And there are so many magnets everywhere in your world, Jason!"
"Hey, I don't know about you guys," Ranaja said, "but I'm fruking starved. How about firing up that grill a
gain, Jason? Let's have some fresh venison, courtesy of Gliath here."
Jason Leaper 934 stood, smiling at the leopardwere.
"Sounds good to me," he said.
Chapter 5
Jason stood behind Morgana. The sunshine of the Wilderlands was hot and heavy. When a drop of sweat trickled down and tickled his eyebrow, he reached up and wiped it away. His other hand was on her hip as she stood with the necromancer's AR-15 shouldered. She had her head tilted, contemplating her position and the rifle's flip-up sights for a little too long in between shots. Jason did his best to encourage her into the proper position as she squirmed and struggled to avoid straightening out too much.
Back in town, Jason had bought her a pair of pink electronic earmuffs. She wore them now with her long, dark hair pulled back and behind her head as she stared over the AR's rail, her muscles tight and her frame a little contorted. The gold of her Soloster heirloom necklace gleamed in the bright sunshine.
"Relax," Jason said. "Make sure you're steady. Keep your knees bent a little. Don't pull yourself into a weird, contorted position or you'll throw off your shot."
Morgana smirked and cast a quick sideways glance at Jason over her shoulder.
"I'm trying to relax," she said. "This is strange."
"It's okay," Jason said. "Did you ever shoot a bow back home? A bow and arrow?"
"Sometimes."
"Well, it's kind of like that. You had to hold and aim your bow in the same consistent way and relax before you let go of the arrow, right?"
"Sure." Morgana said. She let out a long sigh.
"This is pretty much the same, but you're using a trigger instead. Don't worry—you'll get used to it. It just takes practice. If you practice with the right form, you'll develop muscle memory for using the same—"
"Will you let me shoot, please?" she asked with a huff.
Jason felt Morgana's side tense up. He chuckled then felt a small burst of adrenaline, worried that he'd offend her. He opened his mouth to tell her to relax again, then thought better of the idea and shut up.
There was a fluttering of a bird-like dinosaur in a nearby tree, but Jason paid it no mind. There weren't many dinosaurs out right now. When they'd set up all of the shooting stuff down by the slab and started firing, most of the beasts in the area fled right away. Right now, the valley was mostly empty of life aside from the odd bird-like dinosaur passing through. Even the big ceratopsians had trotted away to the south to continue feeding farther in the distance. The huge herd of Edmontosaurs were nowhere to be seen and it had been many days since the Reality Rifters had been bothered by the cannibals.
Boom.
Morgana finally fired. Her custom AR that they'd taken from the necromancer's tower on u936 let out a roar as the 5.56mm round blew its powder charge. The report echoed through the primordial mountains. Looking downrange, Jason saw the impact. A large, flat leaf behind their targets shuddered. The melons and rocks and cans they were shooting at stood, unmoved.
"Damn it!" Morgana exclaimed. Jason saw a flash of fury in her green eyes for an instant then she calmed herself down with a deep breath. "I can do this!" she said, as if the words were just for her.
Jason smiled and reached up, easing the front end of the rifle down. He couldn't tell if she was still fingering the trigger or not.
"Touching the trigger?" he asked.
Morgana moved her right hand, dramatically extending her forefinger to show that it was out of the trigger guard. "All clear," she said.
Jason gently took the gun, switched the safety on, then laid it down on the slab. "Let's take a little break."
Morgana gave him a look, putting her hands on her hips. Jason suddenly wasn't sure whether she was mad at him or just frustrated.
She sighed and looked up at the circling pterosaurs, high on the thermals.
Jason felt a bug land on his neck and swatted it away. Morgana was wearing a totally new suit of modern clothes. She looked sexy as hell; almost akin to that Tomb Raider character from the 90's. Jason chuckled. Dressed in fatigue pants, new hiking boots, and a clingy tank top, Morgana's tanned skin was glistening with sweat and invited his eyes at every moment. Jason drank in the curves of her bare arms, her chest above her cleavage, and the long lines of her neck with her hair swept back behind her ear muffs. Jason had also bought her some sunglasses that were rated for shooting, but she'd elected to wear clear glasses instead. He wasn't sure if the shaded glasses were too weird for her and she was afraid of not being able to see while working with the new weapon, or if she was making sure that Jason could see her green eyes. He loved her eyes.
"Don't stress out about it," Jason gently offered, walking up and putting his hands on her bare shoulders. "You're totally new to guns. You'll get it."
Morgana leaned into him, which made his blood rush. Jason wanted to just give in to the fire inside and reach around to grab her breasts and tear off her tank-top right there, but Riley and Gliath were with them. He wanted to feel her soft, naked flesh again.
"I feel like I should be doing better," she said.
Riley spoke up from nearby. He was sitting on the slope in front of the wyvern's cave, toying with the necromancer's flying disc. "Shooting isn't about heart, Morgana," he said. "It's about precision and control."
"That's true," Jason said. "Getting good at it takes practice and just doing the same thing over and over again so that you have a habit of ... I guess ... everything lining up the same way every time."
She turned around in Jason's arms and was suddenly facing him. Jason breathed in, taking in the heady scent of her hair and sweat as she smiled up at him, her green eyes glittering behind the clear shooting glasses.
"Okay," she said. "I'll practice, then. I can always fall back on Dawnbringer, can't I?"
Jason chuckled, pulling her in tight, relishing feeling her body against his. "You don't always want to go toe-to-toe with monsters," he said. "We're just tiny, wimpy human beings, after all."
Riley scoffed nearby. Jason looked over to see the cyborg rolling his eyes.
Morgana laughed.
Jason released Morgana just enough to step away and grab the AR. Jason had his own AR-15 back in the gun safe, but he'd never totally gotten into that platform. He'd always been more comfortable with the AK style. Jason didn't much care for the AR's charging handle, and he'd never used that weird 'forward assist' button in his life. His own personal AR was reliable, sure, and this 'Primus Arms' sleek rifle from u936 seemed a lot nicer than his own, but the AR as a platform always felt a little more complicated than necessary to Jason. That said, he'd never gone out of his way to talk badly about them. They seemed like fine rifles; just not his style.
"Okay, so, do you remember the first three rules of gun handling?" he asked, looking over the rifle.
"The first one..." Morgana said, crossing her arms and watching as Jason shouldered the rifle and aimed at their targets downrange, "is to treat all guns like they're loaded."
"Why?" Jason asked. He looked down the sights. It was a nice, light AR; maybe even less than six pounds.
"So that I never accidentally shoot something or someone if I thought it was unloaded but made a mistake."
"Yeah. What about number two?"
"Don't aim it at anyone," she said.
Jason lowered the muzzle and pulled back on the charging handle. He tried to check the chamber, but the T-bar charging handle was awkward. It was easier with an AK. "Not completely right," he said. "Don't aim it—or, more specifically don't let the muzzle pass over—anything that you don't want to destroy. That can be people or animals or stuff; parts of the house, or a car, or whatever. Imagine what would happen if you accidentally fired it while the muzzle was passing over something important. Know what I mean?"
"Yes," Morgana said. "And the muzzle is the hole on the end of the barrel? Where the bullet comes out?"
"Yep," Jason said. "Do you remember number three?"
Morgana smiled. "Keep my finger off of the trigger unti
l I'm ready to shoot. Wasn't there a fourth one, too?"
"There is," Jason said. "I was just focusing on the most important ones first. The last one is to always be aware of what's behind your target. Remember when we were fighting up on the walls of New Bozeman in the mist?"
"I'm trying to forget," Morgana replied.
"Well, when you and I were on one part of the wall, and Riley and Gliath were on another, I had to be careful not to shoot in their direction. If I did, and I missed..."
"We did that, too!" Riley shouted from the slope with a laugh. "And I saw you doing that, too, Jason. I gotta tell ya, man, you definitely know more about slug guns than either Jason 47 or 113. That was some good shooting back on Maze World with your big game rifle, too."
Jason smiled up at Riley, who was standing and dusting himself off, holding the compressed flying disc in one hand. It was in its small form, about the size of a large dinner plate.
"Thanks," Jason said. "You figuring that thing out?"
Riley nimbly walked down the slope through the chunks of granite and shale. "Yep," he said. "Looks like this flyer also has a self-recharging power supply just like your particle beam pistol. See how it's small now?" he said, holding it up. "There's a button I can press and push sideways at the same time, and it'll expand to its normal size. The cleats on my boots are electromagnets, and I can activate them manually, but I suspect there are ways to activate the cleats automatically, too. Still working on that. It's some sort of anti-gravity shet that I don't understand; really advanced. It doesn't use normal propulsion—there's not enough room here for that kind of fuel or engine-power. But ... I understand it well enough to use it now, at least." Riley smirked.
"Awesome," Jason said, shouldering the rifle again. "See how I'm standing a little sideways, Morgana?" he asked, aiming at a distant rock on a log that they'd propped up. "This rifle doesn't have much recoil—it's a really small bullet with a lot of powder—but having it tight against your shoulder will make it easy to control. Then you brace it like this, line up the sights just under your target, focus on the front one, squeeeeeeze the trigger..."
