Many Things to Do

[knifewithnoname]

Who: Little One and open (with some closed prompts)
Where: Various- please see prompts
When: Month of Jelly, Day Eighteen and Nineteen
What: In which Little One and Koumyou hang out and clean weapons much to Devero's horror, A-Qing comes to Little One to ask for her asistance in training her Vulpix, two young girls teach a small pokemon violence and then Little One does some chores.
Warnings: Guns (specifically a small child handling guns), talk of violence, maybe actual violence.

For Koumyou Sanzo and Devero. Sleeper 3, Cabin C

Since her roommate had moved out two weeks ago she had seen him less, which was a pity because she liked the priest a lot. But he had promised that she could visit him any time, so she would take him up on it. It has been a busy time, the mission had been stupid and weird and then there had been another platform.

But she makes her way to his cabin, guns in tow. They needed cleaned and whereas there were other people who could teach her this was a good excuse to visit. She knocked politely and when Koumyou answered he would find her there, barefoot, red hood pulled up over her hair, rifle over her shoulder and an anticipatory grin on her face.

For A-Qing. Luggage

She has a few different luggage forts, some have to be abandoned as they are found and it's never smart to stay in the same place for long. But this one is one of her oldest and most well hidden. Only a couple of people know about it, people she doesn't mind visiting.

She is currently lying on her stomach on a pilfered beanbag with a blanket thrown over her, using the torch of her SCA to read. She's In this House You May Scream for the fifth time. It's by far her favourite book in the library, the others are boring in comparison.

A noise makes her freeze and her light goes out as she goes still, listening...

Open: Training Gym Both Little One and A-Qing will reply here

Anyone wandering into the training gym will be met by an interesting sight. In one quarter the training dummies and other equipment have been moved out the way to be replaced by two teddy bears- train mascots wearing red and blue hoodies, three balls and an... interestingly drawn picture of a smirking man with red eyes.

A short distance away stands a small Vulpix, flanked by two girls.

"Do we be being ready? You do be needing to be killing them all this time, properly." One of the girls was telling the pokemon, hands on hip.

Open: Kitchen

Avocados were stupid. Stupid to cut into, stupid to eat, stupid with their stupid stones in the middle. "Urgh." She stabbed a knife directly into one of them and sighed dramatically. "Do anybody even be liking these anymore?"

She yanked the knife out, a lot more in control than she perhaps looks as she glares at the offending fruit. "Last month did be being better, we should have been keeping the honey."

Despite her words she was actually working, a huge pile of avacado skins were piled next to her and a mixing bowl was over half full of avacado flesh ready for smashing, another bowl was filled with discarded stones.

Perhaps they should be finding out who could use a slingshot, the avocados could at least be useful in yielding weapons.

Comments

[knifewithnoname]

"No." She shook her head. "What do mineral oil be being? Will we be having it in the store carriage?"

She didn't know she would need special things to clean them.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Hmm, maybe? It's also sometimes just called 'gun oil'."

But while they're talking, the priest is turning the pistol over in his partially-covered hands, looking it over. And then he takes the ammunition out -- including any in the chamber -- and starts to pull it apart, showing her what he's doing as he lays the pieces out.

"Basically, you just take it apart like this, wipe it down with a clean cloth to get any grime or smoke off the metal, and then use the oil on another cloth to wipe it down before you put it back together. It keeps it from corroding, just like on a sword."

And everyone knows how swords work, right?

"You'll also want a brush or two that can get down the barrel to get all the grime out," and he glances over at the rifle, "...maybe a few very long ones."

[subcircuits]

Is this a good time for Devero to walk in? This seems like a terrible time for Devero to walk in, so of course it's tall, dark, and responsible who steps inside following the brief audible warning of the door lock disengaging. He sees Koumyou first, maybe because he always looks for Koumyou first, and he's already smiling when he realizes that the priest isn't alone.

"Oh-- er, hello," he says. "Didn't know you had a guest, Koumyou! I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

He stays right there in the doorway, ready to back right back out again if that's the case.

[knifewithnoname]

She watches quietly, taking in all he is telling her, trying to commit to memory the steps to take it apart and where all the pieces came from. "I do be knowing how to be cleaning a sword, I can be buying those things." She had points after all.

When the door opens her head whips around though she relaxes slightly when she sees Devero, recognising him. She glances at Koumyou and back at Devero, ready to scarper if it turned out she wasn't wanted here.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Not at all!" In fact, Koumyou pats the bed-turned-bench on his other side in invitation to Devero, and shows no sign of wanting their guest to run off. "We're just playing with guns! Here," this is to Buttercup, of course, as Koumyou pushes the parts of the pistol back over her way, "see if you can put it back together and then pull it apart again. I'll try to puzzle out your rifle..."

[subcircuits]

As soon as he sees her face he recognizes her, and his face lights up. "Buttercup, hello!" He hardly needs the invitation to head for the seat Koumyou's indicated, already halfway there when--

"Wait. You're playing with what?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Hello, Devero." She smiles at him and then nods at Koumyou and began picking up the pieces of the gun, trying to remember which way they wanted. She wanted to impress him, to show that she had been listening carefully when he had been explaining it to her.

She had found the first pieces when Devero spoke, sounding... confused? Annoyed? She remembered how he had reacted to her having the guns in the first place and she watched him carefully as she began her task.

"Sanzo do be showing me how to be cleaning them." See work, not playing. Though she wouldn't contradict a priest like that openly.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou caught that subtle little correction, Buttercup. But he just laughs at them both, and waves his free hand as he lifts the rifle with his other. "Well, Buttercup is learning, but I'm definitely playing."

So there.

Fight him, both of you.

[subcircuits]

Devero squints suspiciously at the two of them. He is still very far from reconciled with the idea of Buttercup-- of any child-- bearing arms of any kind, but-- But. If nothing else since he first met the little one when he was new to the train, he's learned that there are things he has to accept no matter what he personally feels about it.

So he heaves a sigh, shoulders slumping for a moment before he collects himself. Instead of sitting next to Koumyou, he sits on the benched bunk across from them. "I'm pretty sure everything's play to you," he remarks archly to Koumyou, before leaning forward to look at what Buttercup's doing.

"Important thing to learn if you're going to be carrying those," he tells her gruffly. "How's it going so far?"

[knifewithnoname]

She watches Devero very carefully, guaging his reaction, figuring out how he will act, if she needs to leave, if he's angry at her, if he's angry at Koumyou.

She probably doesn't need to leave, he seems okay with her being here even with the guns. Mostly okay...

"It do be being going okay." This slots into this part, just like that... "We do be needing to be buying some things to be cleaning them properly though."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou just smiles at Devero, and then leans over closer to Buttercup like he's sharing a secret.

"Guns where Devero's from shoot glitter," Koumyou tells her, in a stage whisper. "Can you imagine? Maaaah, I sort of want a glitter gun myself!"

[subcircuits]

"They do not!" Devero splutters. "They shoot non-lethal powder payloads!" That absolutely look like glitter, sorry Dev. You've said as much yourself.

[knifewithnoname]

Glitter? Like the shiny things in the art sets? Why would a weapon fire glitter?

She looked between them, but Devero's words at least made it make a bit more sense.

"Non-lethel powder? So it do be being a sleeping poison? Something to be knocking your enemy out?"

And why did it look like glitter. Was that part of the poison?

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Do the non-lethal powder payloads sparkle, Dev-chan?" Koumyou asks slyly, terribly amused by both their reactions to his teasing of the man.

To Buttercup, he does at least offer, "I think it's more to stun or distract them."

Speaking of distraction, Koumyou's been toying with the rifle between both hands, and now he actually starts to look it over properly, turning it this way and that way. And of course, the barrel is never pointed at anyone in the room as he examines it.

"His people don't like to kill, even when it's the most practical option," Koumyou adds, finding what he thinks is the 'ammunition' -- some kind of battery unit, and removing it from the rifle with one firm slide. "I think it's admirable in a way... but it does lead to things like glitter guns."

[subcircuits]

Devero makes a face, and raises a hand to jab a finger at Koumyou, and opens his mouth, and says, "The payloads do sparkle, damn you."

There's a smile teasing the corners of his lips as he lowers his hand again.

"The powder's an irritant," he explains to Buttercup. "It burns, it fu-- er, affects your eyes, it's hellishly disorienting; it'll stop an assailant in their tracks if you land the shot in the right place." Unconsciously he rubs at one of his own eyes. Looks like someone's been shot with a PAVA payload and remembers the feeling.

He glances over at Koumyou, then shrugs. "If they're down because of PAVA, then we can move in and subdue. No need to kill."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I'm sure regular glitter in the eyes would hurt pretty badly too," Koumyou says cheerfully, "but whenever someone tries to kill me, they've volunteered to be killed by me."

So glitter projectiles are kind of pointless... for the priest. It's not like he goes in to handle situations like the World Guard does. Danger comes to him, not usually the other way around, and he handles it accordingly.

Speaking of danger, the priest lifts the rifle in his hands, aimed away from everyone. Two tendrils of the sutra on his shoulders appear, drifting through the air to coil loosely around the end of the weapon's muzzle. If it fires, it'll fire directly into a 'pocket' of indestructible holy paper.

Holding it correctly, the butt braced into his shoulder in case of recoil -- Koumyou pulls the trigger. Time to see if removing that thing he'd slid free had actually drained its charge! He's certainly not taking it apart until he knows it's empty.

[knifewithnoname]

She nodded as he explained, an irritant, burned the eyes, so that they could be subdued.

She was surprised to hear that Devero's people didn't like to kill, that was why they had weapons that just stunned.

She watched as the Priest used the holy item to wrap around the gun, she's not sure what he is doing but she is interested.

"What kind of people do you be shooting with the... PAVA payload?"

The guns trigger was pulled, but nothing happened, did that mean Koumyou had worked it out?

[subcircuits]

"Ludds, mostly," Devero says with a twist of his lip, but a half-hearted, distracted one. He's watching too, shoulders and spine gone tense, as Koumyou fires off the rifle into the sutra-- or rather, doesn't, since the weapon doesn't actually discharge. He relaxes a little.

He gives himself a shake and makes himself focus on Buttercup. "Sometimes when my people are out working in the wilderness, folks who live outside of the World Government will attack us," he says, explaining more thoroughly. "It used to be my job to guard field crews and protect them from that."

[its_dad_sanzo]

...Huh! Well, either that worked, or it didn't and he'll have to reattach any fingers that get blown off when he starts pulling the thing apart. That's fine.

It won't be the first time.

Koumyou just sets the rifle across his lap for the moment, the two tendrils of the sutra retracting back to just laying across his thin shoulders. He'll wait for Buttercup to be done with the pistol before he starts actually stripping the rifle down.

[knifewithnoname]

She listened to Devero even as she focused on putting the gun back together, it takes a bit of thinking as she remembers which piece goes where.

"Ludds do be being the people who do no be being part of your World Government? Do they be being your enemy?" An enemy of the whole world?

She clicked the last piece in and handed the pistol silently to Koumyou with a polite bow of her head.

[subcircuits]

"...Kind of. It's. More complicated than that." How to explain without going into torturous detail?

He actually takes a moment to mull it over, starting to speak again as she's handing the pistol to the priest. "Most of the people on my world are citizens of Gov-- that is, the World Government. But there are some folks who choose not to be, and live as outsiders. Most outsider communities are harmless; they're just people who want to do their own thing away from everyone else. That's fine.

"Ludds are people from outsider communities who want to make everyone else do their thing too," he continues, his expression darkening. "And since they can't force Gov to conform to their small, outdated, hateful ideologies, they just attack our operations whenever they can. Steal supplies, destroy equipment-- and kill people." And that? That's the actual problem.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"You see, that's where you lose me. I don't understand using non-lethal force with them, if they're going to start it..." Koumyou says of Devero's description, even as he checks the pistol over with a knowing eye. It may not be a specific model he's familiar with, but a gun is a gun, at least when it shoots actual bullets.

He checks the slide action and then nods, and hands it back. "Good job!"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes." Normally she would be a little more carefully, but here is the priest with a piece of the power of a god saying what she is thinking and so she feels she can speak, carefully.

"If they do be killing people, if you do no be killing them, they will just be doing it again."

She's slightly impressed though, most light addled people have no problem killing those who they saw as wrong or bad. It is rarer for them to extend no killing to their enemies as well.

[subcircuits]

"Where I come from, every single life is important," Devero says quietly, looking between the two of them. "Even the lives of stubborn, selfish, hateful terrorists."

But he feels like he owes them more of an explanation than that. He thinks about it for a moment, scrubbing one hand through his hair, then says, "Do either of you have any idea what the term 'genetic bottlenecking' means?"

He's pretty sure he knows what the answer is but just in case--

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I can guess from the words themselves, but... when someone is willing to kill, that isn't likely to change just because you spared them. Spare one, and they may kill five. Or more."

As the priest says all this, he's carefully disassembling the rifle in his hands. This slides free of that, this pin comes out like so, revealing that. He sets each part down as he puzzles it out.

"Spare someone who wants you dead, and they'll just learn to try to kill you another way. All you're teaching them is how to be better killers."

He pauses, and shrugs. Maybe the nature of things is really that much different, where Devero is from? So he adds, "At least, that's how it is where I'm from. What about you, Buttercup?"

Team murder?