Ch 9: Whiny Targets

The days spent waiting for the range to be finished were passed with both work, and far more entertaining ways.

Despite her affections for modern ways, Tano was far more reserved when it came to her affections, which was both a frustrating but also kind of romantic first for me. While other women desired to launch straight into the cardio-focused side of things, Tano stretched them out as if she was weaving a blanket, adding the little layers string by string.

It started out with the kissing, of course, and I always looked forward to it near the end of the day, but there were far more layers to her romantic ways than I had ever experienced within my lifetime.

There were the furtive glances, smiles, tugging on sleeves or looping a finger through my molle webbing, but she had magic on her side to play with.

Paper cranes flew around the castle to find me, fluttering down to land in my palm and unfold to expose the heart she had drawn in ink. I would wake up some mornings to find a new pair of hakama trousers one day that had a single pantleg of the checker pattern, much like hers, while the belt tied into place to expose a pair of Oni horns that sat on either side of the knot at my waist.

That one threw me for a loop, as I wasn't sure if it was a statement of marking one’s territory, or something more… interesting in nature.

When she wasn’t sending cranes fluttering after me or making the castle staff have to sew me custom clothing, she made sure to sneak in quick pecks on the cheek or lips if we passed by in the hallway.

If students were around she would sometimes use her fan to mask her movements, but I don’t think she was really fooling anyone.

While we may have been doing a lot of kissing and other such flirtatious things, she still protected her room like it was a fortress. I had made a few suggestions of her “showing me her collections”, but she read me like a billboard and would snort at the idea.

Then grab me by my damn ear and tug on it, which was an open remark on what she thought of the idea.

After nearly making my temporary earring permanent, I decided against suggesting the idea a third time.

I didn’t want to imply that the yellow skinned woman was blue-balling me, but I could certainly tell she was enjoying leading me on in the game.

My revenge came when the range was finished, and I was brought down to observe it by both Arihada and another senior student, a young Japanese man named Domoto Yasotaro. Domoto looked like a gamer, if I had to guess by the mark on his wrist made by years of grinding his hand along a mouse pad, and had the same shabby look to his black hair and dark eyes.

“Yasotaro here has been showing me a few things from how video games are made.” Arihada said as we walked through the archery building, stepping through the racks of bows and quivers. “Took a bit of doing, due to the barriers, but enough videos on his little phone he has stored outside the castle showed me enough.”

As we stepped out onto the shooting platform, I couldn’t help but let out a long whistle of appreciation.

Arihada had both widened and lengthened the archery range by whatever magical means they used around here, allowing the range to stretch out to fifty yards and fit multiple backstops.

Most importantly were the new targets, repurposed swordsmanship trainers with large targets on their chests.

“These fellows have gotten the gist of their training,” Arihada began, pointing to their legs, “They can run sideways at pretty fast speeds, and a few have been taught to run forward, backward, and then change tracks to sprint diagonally. Should provide a fair bit of variety in your training.”

“The archery students have been greatly enjoying the challenge.” Domoto said, bending his head towards me as he gestured towards the range. “Hitting a still target is easy, but having to manage lead and depth has been a great boon to their teachings.”

“Are they ready to go?” I asked Arihada, waving to the targets who waved back at me.

Arihada chuffed out a laugh. “Oh, not at all, they heard from the previous targets how much the bullets hurt. We had to negotiate and give them additional padding, as well as weekly repair spas.”

“You boys are smart.” I called out to the targets, who shook with silent laughs and nudged each other with carved, wooden elbows. “I’ll grab my crew along with Tano, let them take a few passes at this-”

“We were hoping you could try it first.” Arihada said, speaking up as she stepped to the angled front of me. “Your expert shots on the range will let us know if we have done a proper job.”

I looked at her with a side glance, then nodded. “Sure, I’ll need-”

“We have plenty.” Arihada said airily, flipping over the lid of a small chest nearby to expose brand new, filled, magazines. “No need to run back and grab your others.”

I turned my head towards the senior student, raising my brows. “I’m glad I have a choice in the matter.”

Domoto grinned at me, then bowed forward at the waist a few inches.

Rolling my shoulders, I pulled my rifle around properly and took up a firing stance, unlocking my magnifier and tilting it away. “Off you go boys, don’t make it easy on me.”

The wooden targets made curious little gestures at me and took off to their positions, crouching at the knees while others hid behind artificial cover bunkers.

“Go!” I yelled out, lifting my M110 to my eye and punching one of the smug little bastards right in the chest.

The target flailed its arms as it toppled over, and the others started either shuffling back and forth, running, or sprinting from cover to cover.

I was reminded of an old arcade game called Time Crisis as I slowly trained my rifle on targets and fired, and this… it was actually quite fun.

“You’re making it too easy boys!” I called out as I nailed one running target three times in his armored chest, the target stumbling to the ground and skidding along the grass while another target panicked, diving behind a cover-bunker and poking its head above the rim.

I shot him right in the middle of his carved and armored head, and it gave me a rather angry arm of honor.

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I ran these poor bastards roughshod, as they had never actually experienced a rifle before, and they were having to adapt on the spot. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a novice by any margins, and had yet to miss.

By the time I ran through two magazines, the targets were all holding up their arms, begging for a break so they could slap on further armor and regain their senses.

“Alright lads.” I called out, pulling my earpro away. “Take five.”

The targets hung their heads back in relief, while others bent over at the waist and rested their carved hands on their knees, clearing winded.

“I gotta say, that is a whole mess of fun!” I said to Arihada, who was flicking her fingers clean of ear wax and grinning at me.

“It does seem like a fair bit of fun, even with a bow.” Arihada agreed, then crossed her arms. “Think your fellows will like it?”

“Without a doubt.” I replied with a broad smile, and slapped in a fresh magazine.

—

Brody arched a brow at the now heavily padded and armored targets all standing in a respective line, then looked back to me. “Are you sure they’re okay with this? It doesn’t hurt them right?”

I shrugged. “I mean, they’re made out of wood. It’s not like they have a nervous system or anything. If you ask me, it’s partially theatrics.”

One of the targets flipped me the bird, and Deckard let out a loud burst of laughter behind me.

“You don’t even have nerve endings!” I shouted out to the targets, and they made a display of ‘holding the one target back’, patting his shoulder as he playfully fought against them.

Brody smiled at the display, then hefted her M249. “They really do put a fair bit of character into them, don’t they?”

“We’ll see how much character is in them after they catch a belt off of you.” I said, then clapped my hands. “Off you go! To positions!”

The targets all ran to their places, but I had a thought, holding up my hand.

“Oi! Some of you form a small gaggle, about three or four of you that runs around as a group!”

Brody nodded her head at that, going to practicing firing while standing and getting a braced stance. “That’s a good call, gives me some practice in firing at clumps.”

“Go!” I shouted out, and a few seconds after Brody started to fire.

As brass spat out into the air and belt links rang across the ground, a haze began to build as Brody held down the hammer and caused a new wave of grief for the targets. The targets themselves were hot stepping across the range, and trying to avoid the rooster tails of dirt chasing after them. The group of targets decided to pop out right after Brody took the legs out from under a target moving at a full sprint, and the sounds of those 5.56 rounds ripping through their little formation actually caused Arihada to step backwards in horror.

“Changing.” Brody called out, and I automatically took a few steps forward and began firing my rifle, mostly to chase the targets back behind their cover and give Brody the noises she wanted to hear.

Brody dragged a new belt onto the feed ramp of her machine gun, slapped down the feed tray cover, and got back down behind the weapon. “Up!”

“Crack ‘em.” I said calmly, stepping back from the line as she started chattering away with her machine gun again.

After three belts, the range looked like an actual war zone, and the targets were threatening to make mud balls and start throwing them at Brody.

“That’s enough, Brody.” I laughed out, slapping Brody on her shoulder as she stopped firing. “They’re going to start moving on the offensive if you keep that up.”

Brody chuckled, setting her smoking M249 on the ground and rolling her shoulders. “Man, that is fun! Targets don’t usually run around like that, and it’s actually a bit of a challenge! You should dry it out, Deckard.”

“I am not going to make those poor bastards deal with my shotgun.” Deckard called out, having been enjoying a wooden bottle of warm tea and watching the range’s chaos. “They’re already mad enough with you and Ronan giving them a run for their money. Let Tano go next.”

I turned around, confused at what he was talking about, but was surprised to see Tano sitting on a ground cushion in her checkered Kimono trousers.

She was also wearing a pair of my electronic earpro, and I had not brought those with.

“What is the point of me having a room if you are just going to go in and take my things?” I asked her with a grin, taking off my earpro.

She smiled back cheekily as she took hers off as well. “What, you weren’t going to bring me down here to shoot? I saved you the trip of both getting me and your extra gear!”

Tano leaned to the side, exposing my range bag behind her, and I placed my hands on my hips.

“Last I checked, that was still my stuff.” I chided, but the sight of her sitting there in a metal band t-shirt and her kimono trousers made it hard to look angry. “If you’re going to run around stealing my stuff all the time, we’re going to need to have a talk!”

Brody blew a throaty chuckle out past her lips, then elbowed me hard in the ribs. “Yeah, a talk.”

“Long talk.” Deckard echoed, and I glared at them both while gesturing towards Tano.

“Did you grab my extra rifle?” I asked her.

Tano nodded, pointing to the rifle’s bag leaning against the wall. “Yup!”

“Takes my gear, takes my rifle…” I muttered, causing Deckard to snicker under his breath as he poured Brody a small mug of tea. “Come on then, you little room raider.”

Tano flashed her teeth at me in a large, impish smile, then quickly got to her feet and jogged over to where the table was set for her. I handed her the M110, then got out my Socom so I could track her progress as she fired down range.

She took up that same, foot-wagging shooting position as she splayed out her legs under the table, setting up the M110’s bipod legs and setting them down onto the table.

“So, unlike last time,” I began, deploying my own bipod and setting the rifle down, “These targets will be moving. If they are moving from right to left, or left to right, you’ll need to aim slightly ahead of them so you can fire on target. That is called leading, and your lead will vary depending on the speed of the target.”

“Like firing an arrow.” Tano said with a nod, setting the extra magazines up on the table beside her.

“Like firing an arrow.” I confirmed, then clapped my hands to get the targets into their positions. “They’re going to be moving at a pretty fast clip and going from cover to cover. I expect you to hit ten out of thirty rounds in the magazine.”

Tano lolled her head to the side and gave me a look, then pointed a finger at me. “I’m going to make you eat those words.”

“We’ll see about that.” I murmured, then brought my Socom up into my shoulder. “Go!”

As Tano began firing, the panic and frustration on her face mirrored how she shot. When the targets were moving around, ducking up and down, and being a general pain in the ass to hit, being accurate became more of a skillcheck than a formality.

When the M110’s bolt locked to the rear on an empty magazine, and Tano was angrily panting down onto the buttstock, I raised my head with a bit more smugness than I should have had.

“How many of you got shot?” I called out onto the range, and when only four targets held up their hands, I slowly turned my head towards Tano with a smile.

“Shut up.” Tano hissed at me, her eyes narrowed as she fumbled another magazine into the rifle and released the bolt catch. “Just shut up.”

I laughed under my breath, then got back down behind my rifle. “Go!”

The targets lurched into motion once again, not making it easy for Tano after having to suffer the assault of Brody and myself. This time she swung the barrel of the M110 back and forth rapidly while firing, laying down a basic layer of fire while trying to trace the reticle of the ACOG across her targets.

I heard and saw more impacts on the targets themselves, and waited until the magazine ran dry before I pulled my eye away from my rifle. “Cease fire.”

Tano dropped the mag from the rifle with a long exhale through pressed lips, and looked at me as I held up my hand.

“If you got hit, hold up your hand!” I called out, then wiggled my fingers. “If you got hit more than once, hold up your fingers and let me know how many times.”

I counted amongst the targets, then nodded before turning to Tano. “Well, fifteen is surely better than four.”

Tano responded just by sticking her tongue at me.

I raised a brow. “Better watch who you stick that out at, I know where it’s been.”

“Yeah, in your mouth!” Brody called out, and shrugged away towards Deckard with a gleeful cackle when Tano threw an empty magazine at her.

Arihada shook her head with a rueful laugh, while Deckard just rumbled out a low chuckle and pushed Brody away from him and his tea.

“This time, keep hammering them until they fall over.” I said to Tano, then brought my rifle up to my eye. “We’re going to be firing at things that may take more than one round to bring down. You there!” I shouted, pointing to a single target dummy, “Run laterally and try not to fall down!”

The target leaned its armored head back in a “For fuck’s sakes, why me?” kind of way, then started running.

“Watch me, now.” I shouted to Tano, then locked the AMR sight right onto the outer edge of the target’s chest.

I fired, the 7.62 hitting the target and causing its body to twist, then fired again, causing it to jerk again. I fired four more times in quick succession, hammering the target with payloads until it lost its footing and slid along the grass on its face.

I put my rifle back on safe then brought my face away from the rifle. “Good on you mate!”

The target held up a shaky thumbs up, but decided it had done enough, and laid there without getting up.

“Is he okay?” Tano asked, craning her neck over the M110 to get a look at the target laying prone on the ground.

“He’ll be aight’.” I said, then nodded to the rest. “Hit the same target until it falls, only move on from that target when they hit the ground, understood?”

Tano nodded, brushing her chocolate brown hair over her pointed yellow ears. “I got it.”

“Go!” I shouted at the targets, and they launched into motion… except for the one, it just laid there looking up at the sky and pondering its lot in life.

Tano found it hard practice to hit the same target more than three times in a row, but managed to make a handful of the running targets to topple over and roll along the ground. I had her reload and continue this pattern, because I knew that it may come to putting more than one hole in a target in order to make it lay down in the dirt and die.

The repetition helped Tano gain a higher altitude of control on the M110, and I had her run through three more mags before calling her to a halt.

I took off my earpro, then waved to the targets. “We’re all done for the day boys, good work out there!”

The targets stood up from their positions, dusting themselves off as they rolled their carved shoulders, while others helped up the one target that had not bothered to stand the entire rest of the exercise.

“What are you finding?” I asked Tano, setting the buttstock of my Socom onto the table and letting it lean to the side.

Tano blew her hair away from her face, putting the M110 on safe and also setting its buttstock down onto the table. “They are harder to hit while moving.”

“Things are always harder to hit while moving, and combat is nothing but movement.” I replied, leaning back onto my hands. “If everything goes correctly, you’ll be up with Brody in a perch somewhere, and can take shots as they come to you. Headshots will get you the fastest results, but you may have to plug a body a few times to make it fall over.”

Tano leaned back on her hands as well, but made a point to put her hand very close to mine. “When do you think it will happen?”

“Should have happened weeks ago before it got cold.” I said, looking up into the sliver of sky visible between the archery overhang and the walls of the castle. “If they aren’t going to attack now, they aren’t going to until Spring. Attacking during the snowy months in the mountains would just make it extremely hard for them to hide, and no one likes their soldiers being cold. That would mean fires, and we would be able to track where they went by the smoke trails.”

Tano watched me as I spoke, wiggling her feet back and forth on the heels of her hi-top sneakers and touching my pinky finger with the tip of her own. “I see… well, what if they did attack during Winter? Would that be easier for us?”

“Well, it would still be hard as shit.” I admitted, listening to Brody and Deckard gathering their things while talking to Arihada. “But it would be only slightly easier for us. Things will become complicated if the students and staff mount a defense with us, as they will have to try and keep warm on the walls… which I hope is easier for wizards than for us regular folk.”

Tano scooched a little closer to me, and she placed her hand over mine. “Your people usually just kept as warm as they could and lit fires, we used them to trace where the defenders on the walls were.”

“Did you now?” I asked, tilting my head towards her.

Tano frowned, and she stopped wiggling her heels. “My father would tell me stories about raiding the smaller towns and castles. It is what brought the wizards and priests upon us with their blessed warriors.”

“Why bother with the normal folk?” I asked.

Tano shrugged a shoulder. “Food, furs, clothing, pelts, beads, the things we always failed to make ourselves, or didn’t want to. One of my kind made a mistake, and grabbed one of the mystical ‘fire wands’, which I now know was a matchlock musket.” Tano leaned her head back, closing her eyes with a sigh. “It is what caused the main culling of my kind, and is what caused the last great Mao to perish.”

I blinked at her, not sure what the hell to say to that, but chose to rub my thumb along her hand instead. “Touched the forbidden bang stick and showed your hand too early, eh?”

“Appears that way.” Tano agreed, leaning her head to the side until it made contact with my shoulder.

I heard Brody go “eugh!” from behind me in the distance, while Deckard just laughed.

We were both silent for a while, Tano with her eyes closed and head against my shoulder, while I watched the training targets clean up the range or warm themselves in the sun.

“You could die here, you know.” Tano said quietly, turning her head to press her face into my upper sleeve. “You can leave… I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t really blame you.”

“I could.” I replied, my voice quiet as I watched the targets mill about. “If this was any other normal job, I likely would have left already and left this place to the dogs.”

Tano opened a purple eye, looking up at me past my shoulder as her brown hair, lit amber by the sun, fell across her face. “And now?”

I looked down at her, then leaned down far enough to kiss the nearest of her horns. “You couldn’t drag me out of here.”

Tano giggled, nuzzling my shoulder, though she paused, both of her eyes closed. “And your friends?”

“Brody is a hardass, and Deckard is a bit of a brute, but they won’t leave kids to die.” I said, knowing them best after watching them up close for so many years. “If it comes down to it, the three of us will likely find our bones pearling on these castle grounds if we fail.”

Tano nodded, her hair rustling against my shirt, and this time I wiggled my boots back and forth on their heels as I prepared a thought for speech.

“Tano.” I said, feeling her tilt her slightly pointed ear towards me. “What are the best conditions my enemies may desire in taking this place?”

Tano hummed in her throat, her hi-top sneakers wiggling back and forth next to mine, and she lifted her head away for a moment as she gave it serious consideration.

After a moment, she pushed air past her lips, then turned to me. “Before a major holiday when the magic is strongest, if conquered, it would convert into an antithetical magical force they could harness… like stealing fuel from the tank of another vehicle.”

“You’ve been watching more movies, haven’t you?” I asked her with a smile.

“They always suck it into their mouths, it’s funny.” Tano replied with a smile, though her smile faded when she saw my face. “What?”

I narrowed my eyes, counting down the days, and made a disgusted noise in my throat as I sat up.

“What is it?” Tano asked me, sitting up with me in alarm.

“The new year.” I muttered, pulling out my phone and searching for the calendar. “You guys don’t do Christmas as a major holiday, you do an entire week.”

“Shōgatsu?” Tano asked me, though she looked worried. “They wouldn’t attack during Shōgatsu, that’s a sacred week.”

I looked at the calendar with a grimace, then back to Tano. “And how much power would they suck up if they attacked and sacked a magical castle at the top of the new year?”

“I…” Tano began, then her mouth opened and shut a few times as she did the math. “But that would be impossible!”

I picked up my rifle, throwing the sling around my shoulders as I stood. “I’ve been worried about them attacking during my own holidays and wondering why they weren’t at the beginning stages.” I started throwing magazines into my backpack, shaking my head back and forth. “They haven’t been attacking at all because they are waiting on the new year. That first little probe was going to be a testing force to see how far they could get with a small force.”

“But how is that a problem?” Tano asked, standing with me and helping me clean up the magazines.

“Because I showed my hand.” I muttered angrily, zipping my backpack shut with a shrill “zrrip!” of the teeth. “Now they know exactly how many they need, and have been gathering them the entire time I’ve been waiting for an attack.”

Tano stood up, hefting my M110 and the extra backpack over a shoulder each. “But I don’t understand, what does that mean?”

“It means we’re fucked.” I spat, marching away from the range with Tano in tow.