Chapter 76

She rode her exhaust brake all the way down the last hill, the big black truck shuddering noisily as it slowed down to a stop, flicking on her left turn signal and waiting for a few cars to pass in the other direction. As soon as the way was clear, she let up on the clutch and cranked the wheel over, spewing two large clouds of diesel exhaust smoke from the chrome bed stacks. Her truck had enough power to start in second or third gear, even with a trailer full of cars hooked up to the fifth wheel hitch in the bed. But she pulled away in first, making sure the extra-long race trailer cleared the edge of the parking lot and didn't clip on the curbs. The extra-wide wing mirrors certainly helped a lot.

"C'mon…" she muttered, leaning forward in her seat to see the end of the trailer in the mirror, some forty-five feet behind her truck. "Stupid trailer."

She straightened up and pulled along the single-lane driveway that led to the parking lot. The truck and trailer was almost too wide to fit down the lane, with the extra-wide dually wheels and fold-out hauling mirrors almost brushing into the low hanging weeping willows that led her in. Every pothole the truck fell into in the road made her wince, fearing for the safety of her load as the trailer rocked violently back and forth. She made a pained noise. The trailer wasn't hers, and she really didn't want to damage it.

Her nose had started running. The pollen-y air in Mistral was absolutely ripe, and was triggering her allergies something awful. She wasn't normally someone affected by dust and pollen so badly, especially now that it was November and trees didn't tend to be pollinating at this time of year in Atlas. But Anima was a completely different climate to her homeland, with a 'reversed' set of seasons, having the hot and cold times of the year at the wrong times. Although, now that she thought about it, it was winter pretty much all year round up north, with maybe two months of snowless hot summer. How any sort of foliage grew in Atlas was a miracle of nature.

The sun broke through the leaves as she crossed into the actual parking lot itself, which was completely devoid of cars except for one particular deep maroon-coloured Sanus Stallion GT, sitting off to the side on fancy gold wheels and expensive performance tires. She pulled along the fenceline and stopped, smacking her fist into the trailer brake air release, hearing the loud pssshhhh from the compressor in the bed behind the cab, signifying the trailer's brakes locking up. She wiggled the truck's gear lever into neutral, and stood on the foot-operated parking brake before pushing the engine stop button. Inside the centre console was her keyring, with fourteen different car keys on it, of all the ones she owned and kept at the manor, searching for the truck's key fob.

"Ahhh, there we go."

The door swung open with a shunt of her shoulder and she jumped down onto the rough pavement, her knees wobbling. All of her training in the past while was slowly destroying her. She hoped that she wasn't over-training herself and would be useless in combat. She slammed the door shut, turning around and pressing the lock button on the key fob. The truck's parking lights flashed, and the alarm made a tiny beep. She brushed some hair out of her face as she crossed over to the red Stallion across from her. Since she had pulled up, a woman had gotten out and was leaning against the hood, dressed to the nines in a fabulous double-breasted wine red trench coat, black high-waisted dress pants, and a relatively plain black dress shirt underneath the coat, collar popped. The calf-length strappy boots were fantastic as well.

Weiss like

"Shut up, me." she muttered under her breath.

She approached the woman with a pleasant smile. The woman did not return the smile.

"Hi, you must be Cinder."

A bubble of gum was blown in her direction.

"I am."

Weiss was a little startled by the lack of response.

"Uh, p-pleased to meet you. I'm Weiss."

"I know."

This was a first for her. Usually she was the one who was standoffish and brusque. Being on the receiving end of it was a new experience. And not a particularly good one.

"I, uh… I'm here. For training."

"Uh huh."

The sunglasses Cinder was wearing were almost entirely black, and reflecting both her and the absurdly long truck and trailer behind her. Weiss blinked at her.

"I'm sorry?"

The woman rolled her eyes at her. She pulled off her sunglasses and tucked them into her coat and stepped forward. Her hand extended. Weiss was a little wary. This woman was quite a bit taller than her, but not hugely so, like her sister. The woman gestured to her hand again.

"Go on."

Weiss shook the woman's hand nervously. Never before had a woman intimidated her so much. Not even Ruby was this frightening. She tried to find a common ground

"I like your car."

"It's not my car. It's Pyrrha's."

She noted the pointed use of 'it's' instead of 'it was' in this instance.

"It's a lovely colour. I like that you've kept it so nice."

"Better to take it out and actually use it. It's been sitting under a cover in my garage for five months. Thought I oughta take it out and use it once in a while, and today seemed a good enough excuse."

"It looks brand new. Manual?"

"Nah, auto. I taught Pyr to drive in this car, and I didn't want to have to pay to replace clutches in a brand new car."

Weiss nodded.

"I see. They're not expensive, are they?"

Cinder shrugged.

"'Bout thirty-three hundred lien."

"Oh, that's not so bad."

The woman blinked at her.

"That's ten percent the price of the car."

Weiss bit her lip.

"Oh."

"Tsk. Rich girl."

"Sorry."

She was waved off.

"Don't worry about it. I'm… in a mood today."

"Hey, happens to everyone."

"Nah, not like this. This is my best friend's car, and I haven't driven it since before she died, and I feel bad about it. It's just getting to me. Sorry if I seem kinda dickish."

"No, no, I understand, it's okay. I was the same way for a while. We're not to be blamed for our feelings, ma'am."

Cinder's sour look softened for a moment.

"Don't call me 'ma'am', it makes me feel so old. I get it enough from my students, thanks."

"Oh yeah, you're a teacher."

"At Haven. It's an okay job. Keeps me entertained."

"Teaching is… entertaining?"

She shrugged.

"Pays the bills. Keeps food on the table for me and my daughter."

"Amber, right?"

"That's right. The love of my life. Named after my mother, actually."

"I read somewhere that she was the last Fall Maiden."

Cinder sighed.

"She was. Died when I was very little. About three or four years old. I almost don't remember."

"Does that mean the power was passed on to you?"

Cinder didn't answer verbally. She pushed off from the hood of the car and pulled off her coat, setting it down gently with the buttons facing up so they didn't scratch the paint. She stepped away while rolling out her shoulder. Weiss watched diligently as the woman turned around and held her arms to her sides, palms forward and eyes closed. With a breath, she opened her eyes. They were on fire.

"Whoa!"

Weiss gasped, watching the woman float off the ground, engulfed completely in flames. She noticed that the heat of the flames didn't reach her, almost as if they were imaginary and just an interesting visual effect. Two huge plumes of fire surrounded the woman's hands as she brought her hands up beside herself in an impressive display.

"This enough of an answer for you?"

"Uh huh…"

She self-extinguished, falling back to the ground with the grace of a cat and with the silence of a butterfly. It was astonishing.

"Sorry, sometimes I forget that people can do that…"

"Only four of us. Besides, can't you do that too?"

"Catch fire? No!"

"No, float. I remember the Vytal festival from a couple of years ago, can't you do that?"

Weiss thought for a second.

"Well, I can do this." She jumped up and formed a glyph beneath her feet, standing up on it and keeping herself balanced. She towered over Cinder, almost a full three feet higher up. "I don't know if this counts, though."

"Dunno, I can't do that."

"Yeah, but, my sister can do this too. We're not maidens or anything."

Weiss let herself go and fell, landing a lot harder than Cinder had, having to actually steady herself. She realized that yes, indeed the training was getting a little too intense. Her legs hurt quite badly.

"Your form's a little off."

"Thanks to a severe ass-whooping from a friend of mine. And what are you, my combat instructor?"

"If you attended Haven, yes. That's my job."

"See, if you had opened with that earlier, then I'd have agreed that teaching is fun."

"Yeah, hindsight I should've."

Weiss sniffled, leaning against the hood of Pyrrha's car.

"You know, I think this is the first time I've met a Maiden."

"Yeah, it's not all that it's cracked up to be. It's just a slightly less convenient semblance, and then for some reason people look up to you and put you on this pedestal of supposed hierarchy and status that doesn't really match who you are. I don't really think I should be a Maiden, but voila, here we are."

"I bet your daughter thinks you deserve it."

Cinder chuckled, leaning on the hood next to her.

"Awful sweet thing to say, Schnee."

"Well, I heard that the reason you have a daughter isn't particularly sweet, though."

Cinder's face fell.

"Nah, it's not. I try not to think about it. I mean, I'm glad that Amber exists and that I had her. I just regret who I had her with. Is that an okay way to feel?"

"I can castrate him for you, if you like." Weiss suggested.

Cinder smiled.

"That's why we're training you, isn't it?"

"Uhh…."

"I'm joking, I'm joking. Please excuse me."

"Just caught me by surprise. Everyone else seems to have reasons to not approach him."

"Mine is more out of spite than anything. He doesn't deserve to even know he has a daughter."

"But you could take him by yourself, right?"

"Without even raising a finger."

"But you don't, out of spite."

"Yup. He can fuck himself. I've sworn to never approach him, not after what he's done. It's just not worth it to me. Worth it to you, though. That's why I'm helping you."

"Damn."

Weiss paused for a moment, seeing the disdain in her eyes boil and slowly fade away.

"Sorry, I just don't want to get into that. He's scum, and you're right to take him down more than I would be."

"Good thing you're training me, then."

"Yeah, good thing. Oh, and if you can get him back for Pyr too, that'd be great."

"I'll certainly try my best."

"You'll be fine."

Weiss swallowed, scratching her head and looking away.

"So, uh…I look forward to starting. With…" she looked back to the long race trailer. "...whatever you have planned."

"Something strenuous. I hope you're ready."

"Your instructions were kinda weird for preparation, if I'm honest."

"I don't see how it would be, I thought it was pretty straight forward."

Weiss reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the slip of paper with her instructions on it.

"Alright, you said 'show up to Shobu Lake at nine-thirty, November second, with a performance car from pre-nineteen-ninety-five with no electronic driver aids. Wear comfortable shoes.' I didn't know if you were serious on any of this."

"'Course, I was serious. Don't you get what I'm gonna have you do?"

"Not... especially."

Cinder cracked out her back, a pained look in her eyes.

"Driving takes skill, everyone knows that. Driving quickly takes reflexes. The faster your reflexes, the faster you can drive. Now, I've seen you fight, your reflexes aren't bad, but you've never really been in danger."

"But… the Vytal-"

"Not dangerous enough. You're under a safety net of medics, aura monitors, referees. Things that generally are there to keep you alive and safe. But when you're driving…" she gestured behind her, towards the lake. "You take all responsibility into your own hands. Aura might save you from getting hit in the stomach by a spear, but it's not gonna stop you dying in a car crash. What will is your body to react faster than you can see or think."

"I have the fastest draw speed of any of my friends."

Cinder shrugged. "Sure, but what about under pressure? Or against someone who is faster?"

"Fair point, I guess."

"Indeed."

"So, why here?"

"This is Shobu Lake. There's a road that runs the circumference of the lake, it's about eight kilometres long, runs through some of the forest too."

Weiss blinked.

"You want me to drive on a road."

"I want you to race on the road. It's not the best road conditions, it's certainly no prepped race track. There's potholes, sand, missing sections of barrier, standing water… wild animals."

"R-really? You want me to… race?"

"Yeah. See if you can beat my time in Pyr's car."

"What time is that?"

Cinder shook her head, a sly smile on her lips. "Won't tell you 'till you beat it."

Weiss nodded. "Okay. This is certainly weird."

"Racing's all I know."

"What about being a combat professor?"

"Racing is one of two things I know. Besides, this is more fun, right? Haven't you been punched in the face enough recently?"

Fair point.

"I have, I appreciate you accommodating me."

Cinder clapped her hands together. "Right! Let's see what you brought to drive!"

Weiss pushed off from the hood of the Stallion, moving sheepishly back over to her truck and trailer.

"It's nothing much. I didn't know what I wanted to bring or what really fit your criteria. My first thought was the green RRS-"

"Oh, you brought Emmy's RRS? Sweet, I haven't seen that car in forever!"

"Well, yes, I brought my RRS, but found out five feet out of my garage that it's so unbelievably harsh to drive that I maybe should tune it."

"Yeah, it's touring car-bad."

"So I swung by my brother's shop with it on a flatbed trailer to have him tinker with it for a day and hopefully sort out the car's ludicrously stiff ride, and I noticed that he'd driven his car to work instead of his X-10 Custom."

"Oh hoh?"

"You read Muscle Truck magazine?"

"Yeah."

"It was last year's April issue cover car."

Cinder cocked her eyebrows.

"Oh that truck?"

"Yeah."

"You… you brought a customized fifty-year-old pickup truck to a street race?"

Weiss smirked. "No, I brought his completely original Hunter Cabrio."

"Aw, I love the Cabrio! First gen, with the flip-up headlights?"

"Yes, indeed. Flip-up headlights is where it's at."

"Oh, you're a woman of my heart. Colour is it?"

"Sunburst Yellow."

It looked like her trainer was about to go weak at the knees.

"Perfect. In every way. I want to see it."

"Well, it's at the front of the trailer. Behind three other cars."

"The hell else do you have?!"

"So in order to get my cars from Atlas to Anima, and then all the way down to Mistral, you need to pay a lot of import taxes and transfer fees, especially for more than one car. So I called Sun, and he was willing to use his race team's pull with the customs people to sign them off as professional race cars as a part of his team."

"Really? He can do that?"

"He's a nice guy."

"I know, I went to middle school with him."

"Anyway, in order to allow me to transfer the vehicles across the border, I technically had to be an employee of the race team, so he 'hired' me as a grease monkey for however long I needed to be here in Mistral. And that technically makes him the most powerful man in Atlas, by default."

Cinder frowned as they approached the trailer. "How?"

"He's my boss. And I am everyone else in Atlas's boss. I own and operate the SDC which owns every single other conglomerate within the border walls of my country, and several other international companies as well."

"You do realize he's gonna go mad with power, right?"

"He lent me his race trailer and is teaching me balance, so he can go mad with whatever he wants." She slapped the side of the fibreglass trailer, painted in the red and yellow SSSN Racing livery he favoured. "He also lent me a car."

"He what."

Cinder was absolutely flabbergasted. It took a lot of effort to not laugh at her expense.

"Yeah, When I told him what I was doing, he offered to lend me a proper race car. It's a Kinkaid prototype of some kind. Mid engined, stupid fast. It's one of those twenty-four hour enduro cars. I told him no originally, but he said the car was in the trailer when he lent it to me, and he was 'too lazy' to take it out. Even though it was put in after the Cabrio and the RRS."

"That's absolutely something he'd do."

"I mean, he leant me his Bo staff for training, the only thing he has left to loan me is his wife."

"Heh heh, yeah." Cinder chuckled. "Wouldn't we all like that. So you're gonna drive the race car, right?"

"Nope. See, while I was in Mistral, I got a call from a business partner of mine who told me there was a charity auction going on for classic cars, and one of mine was going up for sale and he wanted to know if I wanted to come watch the outcome. Naturally, I was curious to see what it might go for so I went yesterday and… accidentally bought another car."

"Oh no, what'd you buy?"

"How about I show you? Stay here."

Cinder waved her approval. Weiss turned with a smirk, rounding the back of the trailer and out of sight of her associate. She opened both of the thumbprint locks with a short and metallic click, opening the latches on the back of the trailer. The door came down with a soft whirring of the electric cable winches, revealing the wide, low back end of the car she'd chosen. The odd-shaped trapezoidal taillights glinting back at her, the centre-exit twin tailpipes, the massive rear wing. She tried not to shiver in lust.

The space between the wall of the trailer and the car's door was only a few inches wide, barely enough to squeeze her legs through. She almost would have needed to take her pants off for the last couple of millimetres of space. Almost. Lucky for her, the car had a signature feature that aided in entry and egress in confined spaces, namely the scissor-hinged doors that pivoted upwards instead of outwards. A gaudy look on a modded hatchback, yes, but absolutely class on this classic supercar. it was a squeeze to get in, even with the doors in the folded-up position, as the sills were unnaturally wide to accommodate the tubular chassis and angular bodywork. She fell into the supple leather bucket seat with a groan.

"Ow."

Now, for the hardest maneuver in the known driving universe. Reversing one of these cars. The correct way to reverse a normal automobile is to grab the back of the passenger seat, twist your torso around, and look straight out the back window to what's behind the car. Not possible in the car she'd chosen today, as the rear window was about an inch and a half tall, which would have been okay if not for the fact that the car's ostentatious rear wing completely obscured rearward visibility anyways.

"Right. Ugh. I hate this part."

She pushed in the otherworldy heavy clutch pedal, her calve groaning the whole way down, and twisted the dash-mounted key all the way to the right. The starter engaged, spinning the engine over a few times before lighting it off. All twelve cylinders immediately started to breathe fresh, crisp air through the intake just behind her ears. She blipped the gas a few times to get fuel to cycle through the engine properly, hearing it settle to a smooth, sonorous idle.

"Oh, but I don't hate that part of it." she shivered.

With the door still open, she pulled her butt out of the seat and sat on the doorsill, keeping her foot on the clutch, With her whole torso out of the car, she could see past the car's wide arches and fat rear end and out the trailer, and this made it quite a bit easier to roll the car backwards and down the loading ramp. As soon as the low nose was clear of the trailer, she slid back down into the seat, reached forward to pull the door down, and fumbled the gated shifter into first gear, which was all the way left and down, where second gear was in literally every other transmission ever. With another blip of throttle, she muscled the car back around to Cinder, who was watching her wide-eyed with her mouth hanging open.

"Is that…" she said as Weiss rolled the car to a stop in front of her, lifting the door again to get out. "... A Torero?"

"A Torero 5000 QV, actually. I'll admit, not in the best condition, but a strong runner for sure."

"It's beautiful."

"Now you see why I had to buy it. The Crystal White with white wheels helped too. This thing is full-on Mistrali Vice. All I need is an unbuttoned flowery shirt and half a tonne of cocaine on my desk and I'll look like a real Torero owner."

"Holy hell, Schnee. This thing is… somethin' else. I almost don't want you to drive it, it's too nice."

"Ah, it's not that nice. The air conditioning doesn't work, there's a few rips in the seats, and the gauges don't light up anymore, but crucially the engine works, and that's all I care about. Besides, better to drive it than let it slowly rust in my garage and never see the light of day again."

"How much you pay for it?"

"Eh, like three hundred thou. A bargain, really."

Cinder levelled a look at her, annoyed. The car idled sweetly in front of them.

"What?"

"That's more than my house."

"Right. I forgot I have a different scale of wealth than everyone else. I'm sorry."

"How about you make up for it by getting out there and beating my time, huh?"

Weiss chuckled nervously.

"I'll certainly try."

/.../

Another botched gear change.

"God, what am I, sixteen again?"

She fought with the transmission and clutch again, searching for the weirdly placed second gear. As soon as the lever had been slotted neatly into its position in the gated disk, she matted the accelerator again and forced the car along the road. All four hundred and forty nine thoroughbred Mistrali horses fired downwards through the widest rear tires she'd ever seen, propelling her forward and squishing her into the low seat. She couldn't help grinning with every squeeze of the skinny pedal as the big V-twelve sang out.

"That's more like it. Stupid clutch."

The car wasn't anywhere near as nimble and agile as the striking good looks promised. It had no power steering for one, and no antilock brakes either, a fact she learned quite frighteningly at the end of the very first straight on the Shobu Lake course. It wasn't as smooth as a well sorted Cavallo like Dean's, nor as millimetrically perfect as the heavily modified RRS coupe she'd bought from the stuttering therapist. But once she had the wheel straight again, by golly was it an experience.

"That's more like it!"

The big car moved in a different way to any other car she owned. It attacked the road with no regard for anyone around and most certainly in itself. The engine produced this wave of torque that ramped up hard as the revs reached and exceeded about fifty-five hundred on the dial. And every time it did, the fat rear tires threatened to lose traction and spin her around. She slammed the old transmission into third, pushing the car faster and faster down the road. It certainly had a good amount of lateral grip as she dove it around a long left hand sweeper, where the road dropped concerningly off down to the lake.

"You…" she grunted, her arms about to give out. The road straightened. She dropped the hammer. "There we go. Ow."

This was surprisingly as dangerous as Cinder had said. She had assumed that because she was driving a car on a road, the place where such a thing was supposed to be, that it would be fine. But it turned out the vintage supercar was actively trying to murder her as she pushed it to and above a hundred miles per hour. Even her Klasse-7, which was significantly more powerful and technologically diverse, didn't feel this way. It made its power very linearly, and made funny turbo noises and would absolutely blitz into the three-hundred kilometre per hour club. But this car. The Torero. Ugh.

"Yeah!" she cheered, floating the car around some potholes and around a significant right hand corner. "Oh, shit!"

She had to absolutely destroy the middle pedal, heel-toeing down into second gear again as a sharp, left hand hairpin turn. She tried to heel-toe into first gear, briefly locking the front tires as she missed the revs a little when she let up on the clutch. The car unbalanced, but unbalanced to the left in her favour. She squirted down on the yes pedal, catching a patch of sand on the apex of the corner and briefly losing control of the car, sliding it sideways in a cloud of tire smoke and sandy dust.

"Woo!" She slammed the car into second, losing a bit of grip as the car tried to grunt its rear tires off again. "This thing's an animal!"

The radio in the cupholder beeped. "You're still two minutes behind. Pick up the pace."

"Oh, come on!" she picked up the radio. "Give me something, this thing's hard to drive!"

"I can hear you short shifting. Carry some more speed."

Short shifting? She'd been changing up at seventy-two hundred RPM. That's where the redline started. She put the radio down and held her foot to the floor, and watched the revs climb. And climb. And climb. The noise of the motor changed as she exceeded the seventy-two hundred.

"Oh, oh!"

See, she liked the way that Ruby's truck sounded at full chat. It was brutish, muscular, and lumpy in its sound quality. It was distinctly Valean, with the oversized camshaft, paint-can sized pistons, trio of carburetors, and off-cycle firing order that made it sound so humble yet powerful. However. If she was comparing animal to cars, and the rumble of Blaze-Charger was a sleepy but moody grizzly bear, the noise the Torero made was a soulful, baleful howl of an injured wolf. As the revs climbed to eighty-four hundred the motor absolutely sang a beautiful concerto out of the short titanium exhaust, ripping through the forest and reverberating off the trees.

"Oh, that's so much better!"

Now the car moved the way she thought it was supposed to. It dove into corners much more assuredly, and it accelerated away from everything so much smoother. Still blindingly violent and completely out of control, but now she was ready for it. The engine didn't lug anymore, and the clutch didn't feel like it was cemented in place. It was so maniacal and visceral.

"I love this car!"

/.../

Cinder watched the white blur move around the course she'd set up, seeing it slide sideways in a cloud of tire smoke and shrieking engine noise through a pair of binoculars.

"She's good."

"B-better th-than you?" her accomplice asked, leaning against the tree they were sitting in.

"Pretty good, not that good."

"Ni-nice car, th-though."

"Yeah, so much more than I expected. I was hoping for like, a nice Klasse-5 or something. Damn rich girl." She checked her stopwatch and picked up the radio again. "You picked up four seconds, keep it going."

"Y-you kno-ow that sh-she can't beat y-your posted t-time."

"Yeah, neither could I, I made it up on purpose."

"W-why?"

"Because I want her to push past her own limits."

Cinder held out her hand and summoned herself her bow, and an arrow to go with it. She knocked the arrow and drew the string back, tracing the path of the car with the head.

"Did she buy the 'nice dad' trick?"

"Ho-ook, line, a-and s-s-sinker."

She smirked. It was going to plan.

"Good. Then let's see if she buys this."

/.../

"Come on, car, make me proud. I'm trusting you."

She slid the car around a particularly rough, potholed corner, bouncing the car's original suspension components quite violently, but applying the same amount of gumption to the happy go fast loud pedal and taking off in a flurry of mad acceleration.

"Yeah! Why don't I do this more oft-"

Out of nowhere, the road in front of her exploded in a ball of fire and smoke. She wasn't prepared for this, slamming her foot into the brake pedal and locking all four tires. The smoke cleared before she reached it, revealing a substantial hole in the pavement. It took her about a thousandth of a second to realize she was skidding directly towards the hole, and would certainly end up with the beautiful vintage supercar in it. Her body reacted for her, turning the wheel to the left and matting the gas pedal. The tires grabbed traction and immediately changed lanes with a harsh pull on her seat belt. The car punted forward, the right side tires overhanging the hole and floating for a moment.

"Fuck!"

The car began to rotate to the right. She desperately tried to countersteer, but it was too late. The car's heavy back end was swinging and it was going, no amount of brake pedal or accelerator was going to save it from turning backwards. She decided to roll with it and put the clutch in and spun the steering wheel back the other way, forcing the car to pirouette all the way around. She pulled in and down on the gear stick as hard as she physically could, slamming the transmission into first gear as the nose came back around forward. She dropped the clutch and slammed her shoe through the gas pedal and lighting the car off again in the direction of the track. She picked up the radio, livid.

"The fuck was that?! An IED?!"

"A little motivation. Go faster."

"Fuck's sake!"

She tossed the radio into the passenger footwell. The sound of the Torero's fabulous engine changed in that instant. It became angry. All six of the car's carburetors opened up and started to suck gallons and gallons of air in over her shoulders. The clutch and brakes were getting close to running out, but they certainly still had enough life left for the day.

The car roared as it forced its way through the forest, the edges of the road blurring out of focus at the sides of the windshield. Another explosion went off. This time she was anticipating it, and moved the car out of the way, even though she was moving around a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour, right around the speed at which the car's substantial rear wing started to create lift instead of downforce. It actually served to re-balance the car as it took some of the sledgehammer-like weight off the rear end. Every touch of the steering wheel unsettled the car now, as it danced around the road, completely loose and floaty. Now it was getting dangerous. But she was undeterred. She had a laptime to beat. Around another corner was a substantial rise in the road over a fairly steep hill. She pointed the car directly at it, and held her foot against the firewall and watched the revs and speed climb alarmingly quickly.

"Come on…"

She slammed the transmission into fifth, the needles twisting further and further up. The car crested the hill, and all four tires left the ground. The car nosed-up like an aircraft taking off. Although, with the size of the rear wing she wouldn't have been surprised if she actually did take off and start to fly. She slammed on the brakes to stop the rear wheels spinning and transfer the rotational torque into the bodywork and force the car to nose-down.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oshitoshit!"

There was a deer in the road. She had time to imagine what would happen if she hit the deer about seventy different ways as the car soared through the air. A plan came to her, barely with enough time to enact it. The car slammed into the road hard, grinding against the ground and throwing a huge plume of sparks out from the rear end as the transmission pan and suspension subframe ripped across the pavement. She bounced in her seat quite violently as the car rocked upwards, her spine compressing and knocking loudly. Through the pain, she yanked the wheel to the right and pivoted the car, ripping up on the parking brake lever between the seat and the door sill and initiating a harsh skid to the right, dropping the brake again and letting the car pivot its bulk around the animal's butt and onto the dirt shoulder.

The engine screamed as she pushed it onto the rev limiter, tossing two massive rooster tails of gravel into the forest as the car slid sideways past the deer, spooking it off across the road and out of her way. Or at least, it should have moved. The deer remained stationary throughout the whole maneuver, as if it was deaf. Or, fictional. As soon as the car was pointing straight again, albeit with most of a driveway's worth of gravel in the rear diffuser and a county's worth of dirt pasted on the back of the car, she powered off again, checking in her mirror for the deer.

"What th-" the deer was gone. As if it had just disappeared. "Oh, I get it. It's that therapist. And her illusions."

She forced the car up another gear.

"Alright, I'll play your game, Miss Fall. And I'll win, too."

Down went the hammer.

/.../

It was a heck of a hike up the hill to the location she'd been given. Her GPS almost didn't know where she was as she was out of the range of most satellite paths. But the Grimm Territory alarms certainly knew where she was, continuously going off in her pocket. She was within a mile of the edge of Atlas Military protected terrain, and the edge of no man's land where the empty Grimm plains began. She huffed, having to catch her breath. She'd been walking for around two hours now, having only made it about twenty kilometres into the trail in her truck before reaching an impassable cliff she had to climb.

It was a surprise at just how capable the Blaze-Charger her brother had rebuilt for her was. The selectable locking differentials had proved extremely useful for finding that last ounce of traction in the snowy Atlas terrain, meaning she never had to get out to put the twelve thousand pound winch on the front brush guard. It took about one particularly deep puddle to realize the exact reason that Ruby liked her own OG version of this truck.

But, alas, she had to get out of her big cushy SUV and walk after reaching a literal cliff in her way on the trail, meaning she'd have to actually use her legs to finish the journey. And climb the cliff. And wade knee-deep through a frigid stream. And scramble up an actual vine ladder to get up a ledge. She'd stopped for breakfast two hours in, at the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley below. It wasn't often she made food for herself, and the thermos of Chamomile tea had stayed nice and hot even in her backpack. The little sandwiches were very good, even if they were made from regular grocery store ham, lettuce, and off the shelf mayonnaise on bakery-fresh multigrain bread. She'd made herself four, and eaten two of them. It took all of her self control to not eat the other two as well.

Her instructions this time around were concise and to the point. 'Comfortable hiking attire, service pistol; free choice, field rifle; 89k,' along with GPS coordinates. Her next trainer was either a member of the Atlesian army or a serious cosplay enthusiast, fully into the bit, including full minute and second military directions and an insistence of field-accurate gear. It almost felt like it would be Ruby who was issuing the training. This was absolutely her style. Although the handwriting was different, and also Ruby never used letter headed dot-matrix stationary. This was clearly a professional. Not to say Ruby wasn't, she just wasn't that interested in this much detail.

The rifle weighed down on her shoulder. The leather strap was cutting through even her thick suede overcoat, the fine mahogany furniture bumping painfully into her hip as the gun bounced around on her back. The worst part was how the strap was pushing her gun deeper into the holster under her arm, and pushing the hammer up and into the fleshy part of her armpit, meaning she kept having to adjust it over her body.

Once she crested the hill, she finally saw her trainer. If she hadn't been wearing her contacts, she'd have sworn it was Ruby, as the woman sitting on a stool a hundred feet away had a rifle across her lap, the bolt removed and the action in pieces in her hands, a tube of grease between her teeth. She seemed short, no taller that she herself was, and was wearing a thick red hooded coat and dark grey urban-camouflage cargo pants. The only non-Ruby thing about this woman was the navy blue toque she was wearing, pulled down over her left eye in a very angsty modern hipster kind of way. Cute, for sure. Just a little out of her style. She smiled as she approached. The woman noticed her, and put the gun aside.

"Good morning. I apologize for my tardiness, I stopped for lunch along the way."

The woman nodded at her and got off her stool, adjusting her belt and stepping forward. Weiss quickly noticed the pair of plastic folding tables absolutely covered with guns. Rifles, handguns, revolvers, SMGs, and every kind of attachment she could conceivably imagine. It actually was a little awe-inspiring. This is exactly what she imagined Ruby's thought process looked like on a daily basis. Tonnes upon tonnes of steel and brass. Weiss put her hand out to shake, and the woman reached forward to shake it, after first removing her shooting gloves.

"It's a pleasure to meet you."

The woman said nothing in response, only nodding again. As Weiss retracted her hand from the masculine grip, she noticed that something had been slipped into her palm. A folded piece of paper, in fact. More instructions? Hadn't she already been given instructions for this go around? She unfolded it, having to squint as the lettering was very small.

"What is this?"

The woman pointed to paper again. Weiss frowned.

"You want me to read it aloud?"

A nod.

"Alright." she cleared her throat. "'Good morning FNG Schnee, my name is May Zedong, and this is weapons handling and target acquisition practice.' Well, I knew that. 'You will be firing in three different drills, all in five shot bursts. You will start with pistol shooting, move to SMG, and finish with long-range sniping. You will run timed drills, starting with five seconds between shots, going down to one second. If you miss or go over the time, I will provide encouragement."

She turned to the woman on the stool.

"What do you mean encouragement?" Another gun was brandished in her face. This one had an air tank for a butt stock and a hopper filled with little green balls attached to the top of the barrel. She winced. "A paintball gun? Please, this coat is very expensive, I'd like to not get it covered in paint."

The trainer opened up the hopper and pulled a ball out in her fingers. She flung it at a rock, and Weiss was surprised to see it bounce harmlessly off and into a bush.

"Oh, rubber balls. Isn't that a little harsh?"

A pair of accusatory eyebrows were raised in her direction, as if to challenge her to question their methods. The woman pointed towards the left table with a shake of her head. Weiss shrugged and approached it, sliding her backpack off and setting it down, using it as a pillow for her rifle. She was glad to finally have it off her back as it was getting significantly more uncomfortable with every step, and now that it was off her shoulders sang reprieve. She looked down to the table. It was more handguns than she figured any one person ought to sensibly have in their possession. The targets were off in the distance. A little too far for her taste. She turned back to May.

"D'you… want me to use my own gun, or one of yours?"

She nodded in her direction. Weiss shrugged and unbuttoned her jacket and undid the belt, reaching into and under her arm for her weapon, popping the button and lifting the chrome plated revolver up and out of its holster and placed it carefully on the table. She reached down to her bag and grabbed her ear defenders and shooting glasses, and a pouch full of preloaded speedloaders and a box of .357 ammunition. She placed it on the table and went to reach for the gun again. Her trainer stood up and moved over, frowning at her. Before Weiss had a chance to pick up her gun, it was in May's hands and levelled to the horizon. The trigger was pulled.

After a beat of nothing happening, she shook her head and put the gun down again. May pointed to the table of pistols instead of the very expensive revolver. Weiss guessed that it was because the weapon was single action only, and in hindsight that wouldn't have been fast enough for speed trials, especially with a paintball gun pointed at her back. She put the gun back in its holster and put the bullet bag away, sliding her protective green glasses on and pulled her ear defenders on. To be fair, the guns on the table certainly left her spoiled for choice. She knew enough about guns from listening to Ruby's morning radio show to know a good gun from a bad gun, but with the amount of options on the table, there wasn't really anything that could be classified as 'bad' per se.

"How about this?" she picked up a particularly tactical-looking matte black Baratta A9M3 Service, the gun favoured by the ASF. This one even had a green laser pointer on the picatinny rail on the bottom of the frame.

May pursed her lips and nodded, giving her a 'so-so' gesture with her hand, leaning herself back on the stool. Weiss took this as a good enough approval, turning back to the targets, having to squint a little bit to see them. This distance would be far enough for most rifle ranges, a little out of it for pistol shooting. But that was the rules she'd been set, so that's what she'd have to do. She picked up one of the gun's slightly scraped and dinged magazines and pushed up up the magwell, feeling it click into place. The right-handed safety was a little awkward, but she got it down and racked the slide, chambering one of the fairly small nine millimetre rounds.

"Okay…" she paused, looking over her shoulder to May, who had a stopwatch in her hand and a shooting clock in her lap. "Wait for the signal?"

A nod. Weiss cricked out her neck and brought herself next to the table, giving a better line on the target. She made sure her hands were comfortably around the grip and her thumbs parallel to the slide, the weapon pointed safely at the ground, her finger off the trigger. She waited. The device beeped. She levelled the gun to the first target, keeping the laser off as it would be ineffective at this distance, estimating the approximate barrel lift needed and pulled the trigger.

The gun bucked back in her hand, spitting brass out the side and settling rather quickly. After a beat, a faint ping went off as the first target flopped backwards. A reasonable shot. She levelled the pistol again, lining up on the second target and pulled the trigger again. The vented barrel and slotted slide made the recoil effortlessly manageable, meaning she could get a line on the next target very quickly, hearing the ping ring out again over the valley. She fired again. Another hit. She smirked.

"Alright."

She pulled the trigger, firing off another and immediately lining up on the final target. However, much to her dismay, there was no ping. There was instead a poof and a small cloud of dirt just over the right shoulder of the target. Before the thought to turn back and fire on it again even began to enter her mind, there was a loud pop followed by a searing pain in her back.

"Ow!" she turned, keeping the barrel of the gun pointed down range, unlike May's gun which was pointed directly at her, still smoking. "That's gonna leave a bruise!"

The woman just raised the stopwatch again. Weiss rolled her eyes and turned around to the targets again, her back stinging like she'd been bitten. She skipped the fourth target and layed on the fifth, huffing and pulling the trigger again, wincing as the gun bounced backwards in her hands. The faint ping in the distance was reassuring as it meant she wouldn't get shot again. She lowered the gun, admiring the four dropped targets. An impressive feat for someone who hadn't shot a gun in a while at nearly a hundred and fifty yards. She dropped the magazine out and placed it on the table, racking the slide into her palm to remove the unfired round from the chamber.

"Not so bad. I've certainly done worse." She looked back to her trainer. She didn't have a particularly impressed look on her face, and just held up the stopwatch again, holding up four fingers. "Oh, you're kidding."

She shook her head. Weiss shrugged with a sigh, and turned back to the targets, reloading the pistol and watching the targets flip themselves back up.

"Fine. Shooter ready."

/.../

Submachine guns were next on the list for training. She was getting used to the pain of being shot in the back at this point. Her spine certainly stung quite a bit, but she was doing her best to ignore it. She yanked back on the forward-mounted charging handle, twisting it up into the locking lug to hold it back. With the grip squeezed tightly in her left hand, she flipped the stock release switch and pulled it all the way out and locked it in place. She shoved the skinny thirty round magazine up the magwell, slapping her right palm over the top of the foregrip and across the charging handle, releasing it from the notch and letting it spring into battery. She pushed the fire selector into three-round burst and brought the gun up level.

"Shooter ready." She winced.

The buzzer sounded. She quickly lined the first target up in the range-adjusted red dot sight and pulled the trigger, feeling the gun bounced back into her shoulder three times in rapid succession. She pulled again, and once again the gun bounced backwards thrice. The target fifty yards out rang out six times, flopping backwards and out of sight. Before she had a chance to get shot in the back again, she lined up the next target and pulled the trigger twice. The flash suppressor on the end of the barrel was keeping her vision clear of the usually raucous fireball that shot out from the end of the very short gun. She'd nearly blinded herself at the shooting range in the middle of Atlas during her trip with Ruby after looking through her scope on an unsuppressed sniper rifle. The flash from that kind of round was enough to blind someone if they weren't ready. Lucky for her, she didn't experience pain in her left eye, so the blinding light hadn't hurt her.

She continued to lay out the targets with fair precision, remembering to aim just below the centre of mass to compensate for the muzzle lift this gun had. Aesthetically, not a pleasant weapon, with the way oversized sight and weird skinny magazine, but it was certainly effective. The regular, pedestrian nine millimetre rounds, normally featured in handguns, were surprisingly precise coming out of the rapid-firing gun. It felt weird to know that fully automatic weapons were considered 'restricted' in Atlas, and were completely outlawed in Vale and Vacuo, and yet here she was, firing it with no fear of repercussion. Her PAL was only registered with the government for the ownership of her revolver, and technically made it illegal for her to own any other kind of firearm. She had to apply for a temporary rifle permit in order to purchase the 89k and carry it around with her, and that permit had only showed up twenty minutes before she was supposed to leave the house. She'd even bought a dummy rifle with no action in case it didn't arrive.

"Better, Weiss. Better." she mumbled, finishing off the targets and the magazine. She turned with a grin to her trainer. "How's that?"

Again, no answer, just a distracted look and a gesture to the stopwatch, this time accompanied by only two fingers being held up. Weiss huffed and reloaded, dropping the spent magazine into the dirt and pushing another one in, snapping the charging handle into battery with a roll of her eyes.

"Ugh, shooter ready."

The buzzer went.

"Fuck this."

She lit up each target on full auto, holding her finger down on the trigger for a moment on each, blasting the first three targets with ten rounds each instead of the required six. Since the magazine was empty and she still had two targets left, she dropped the empty mag out and slotted a new one in before the first had even touched the ground, smacking the charging handle into position without taking the sights off the fourth target, pulling the trigger again the instant the bolt was fully forward, blasting the two targets remaining with the remaining rounds in the magazine. The targets pinged like a belltower at noon, flopping up and down as the bullets ripped into them, and the dirt around the final target exploded into clouds of brown dust.

"How about n-"

The sharp impacts of rubber balls on her stomach nearly made her buckle and fall, but she kept herself upright, barely. She grunted, dropping the gun onto the table and steadying herself on her knees. Two more balls hit her, finishing off all the missed shots, catching her in the shoulder and collarbone. Now she understood why padding was so crucial when playing paintball. Her body screamed at the impacts, even though her aura was keeping her from sustaining broken bones, it wasn't stopping the pain and bruising of each shot.

"Fuck! Ow!"

She glared at the other woman, catching her exposed eye with a trillion tonnes of anger. The woman kept her composure, and kept the paintball gun pointed directly at her. She seethed for a moment, catching her breath and straightening her back and brushing off her jacket.

"I don't believe it's a good idea to pester someone with a paintball gun who has a loaded firearm on their person."

May made no effort to respond, only gesturing to the stopwatch and holding up a single finger. Weiss twitched.

"Okay, if you want to be like that."

She reloaded, angrily treating the little SMG like it owed her money. With only one second between gut shots by the rubber balls, she would either need to run full auto or single shot, as the three round burst mode was actually too slow for her. She flipped the fire selector back to the the little picture of the single bullet, as opposed to the pictures of three and six, and brought the gun up to her shoulder again. She was irritated.

"Shooter. Ready."

The buzzer sounded.

She'd always been quick with a weapon, and reasonably accurate with a gun. The K&H submachine gun she'd been provided was proving itself more capable than even she was, even making her look far more competent than she actually was. She put a round on each of the targets, flicking the barrel to the next one before confirming each shot, firing across the line of targets and turning back around as they flipped back up into position. She hit them again, riding across the targets another two times well within the one second time limit for each shot. With the speed she could pull the trigger, the gun almost didn't need its full auto position on the fire selector. Her right palm remained open with the barrel shroud rested in it, keeping her thumb pointed away and level to the ground to allow the gun to return to its resting position much easier.

Once the magazine was nearly empty, she focused on the final target and pulled as fast as she could, landing four solid hits on it, firing almost as fast as the gun's automatic cycle speed. The very last round, however, flew wide over the target's head by no more than a few centimetres, exploding into the dirt. Weiss sighed as she lowered the gun from her shoulder, turning and making a dejected face at her silent trainer, who almost seemed to smirk.

"Ugh…"

Poof

/.../

The rifle was heavy in her hands as she lifted it off the table. The wood furniture was rough, worn in and smooth around the trigger guard and just aft of the front sling mount, indications of years of use. This old rifle, unlike the Atlesian bolt-action she'd brought along, was of Valean descent and had seen actual war service during The Great War. A piece of history, far more interesting than the brand-new remanufactured 89k that had weighed her down for two hours. She inspected the old gun in her arms, flipping it over and rubbing her thumb against the series of vertical tick marks just below the receiver on the left side of the weapon. A testament to its effectiveness, she wondered.

With a deft hand, she pulled back on the side-mounted racking lug, locking the action open. These rifles were notorious for taking off their shooter's fingers in the process of reloading, as the action would slam shut as soon as the en bloc clip was pushed into place, whether there was anything in the way or not. She kept the butt of the gun pressed into her hip, holding it with her right hand as she grabbed one of the field of loaded en bloc clips and lined it up with the feeding tray inside the action. She sniffled, wincing as she pulled the gun a little too hard into her bruised hip, before pushing the clip down into the action and holding it there. She retracted her fingers as fast as she could, narrowly avoiding the guillotine-like smash of the closing breech. She let out a breath, relaxing and flipping the safety flag over to the safe position. The N1 Cantius was a lovely rifle, for sure. But it did feel a little agricultural and mechanical compared to the modern tactical Baratta and K&H guns.

"Right. Which set of targets d'you want me to use this time?" she asked, expecting either the decently far pistol range targets, or the fairly close SMG targets.

Neither, was the answer, with her trainer pointing backwards and behind her with her thumb. Weiss shrugged and moseyed over, slinging the rifle over her shoulder and around her back, following May around the stool and down a little dirt path to the edge of a short cliff, no more than a hundred feet above the valley. There were no targets in the immediate path.

"I don't… see…"

She was directed to a pair of telescopes, pointed down into the valley. She noticed that one telescope was significantly shorter than the other, and each one had a little note taped to the stand. Long and short. She frowned.

"What's this? Where are the targets?"

May pointed over the cliff and into the distance, then gestured to the scopes. Weiss squinted into the distance, not seeing anything even resembling a target. She leaned down and looked into the first scope, labelled 'short'.

"What."

There was the target, right in the middle of a small clearing, just behind a wooden sign reading '2000 Yd' in black lettering. According to the scale painted on the target, she had about two meters of steel to hit. She stood up, and looked down at the rifle she'd been given, and then to May again.

"You seriously expect me to make a two thousand yard shot on open sights."

Her trainer nodded, stepping aside and putting her hands behind her back. Weiss blinked at her a few times, shrugging and shouldering the rifle. The clearing that the target was in was a mere spec on the horizon, but she managed to find it, flipping up the gun's volley sights and placing the weapon onto her open palm. She tried her hardest to get the assumption of a target lined up, but every time she inhaled, the gun would lift and cover the clearing with the front post sight. She let her breath out and relaxed, getting it as steady as she could, and pulled the trigger.

The huge .30-06 round slammed the gun into her shoulder as the bullet disappeared into the valley. The gas-powered action cycled and loaded another round into the chamber with a snap of steel. She quickly lowered the gun and looked through the telescope, anxiously waiting to see if she'd landed even in the same timezone as the target. The range of the gun she'd been given was a generous seventeen hundred yards flat, but at that distance she'd be lucky to hit an aircraft hangar, let alone a two metre wide steel disc. After just under two seconds of flight time, the bullet impacted the ground, probably fifty yards short of the target in a big cloud of dust.

"Oh, this isn't possible."

She looked back to May, who luckily didn't have her paintball gun in her hands this time. The silent woman only nodded and gestured for her to try again. It really didn't seem possible to hit a target this far away, without even seeing it, from a shouldered position. She sighed and stood up again, and reshouldered the rifle. She did her best to control her breathing, keeping her stance fairly taut without locking her knees. She exhaled, lined up the sights with the mountain above the clearing, and pulled the trigger.

The gun bucked, cycling and spitting hot brass past her face and into the dirt. Again, she looked through the telescope to the target, waiting the two seconds for the bullet to appear in frame, only to see it land short again, puffing up some more dirt. She wasn't any closer, but she did seem to be along the centreline of the target now. She stood up again, and tried four more shots, spaced out at two second intervals, without checking through the telescope. The N1 was happy to oblige, the automatic bolt cycle certainly made follow-up shots much easier as she didn't have to take her hands off the weapon. She paused her barrage a moment to look through the telescope. The last two rounds landed in quick succession, falling short of the target by around twenty yards.

"Aw, shit." she noticed the target still didn't have a scratch on it. "Yeah, this is just not a possible shot to make. Not on open sights."

She turned back to her trainer, who remained silent and gestured Weiss to hand over the gun. She did, passing it into the woman's arms. She sized it up, nudging her out of the way so she could stand in the same place, and shouldered the rifle. Weiss could hear her breathing slow then stop, as she prepared to take a shot. But before she did, her hand came up to her hat and lifted it off her head and stuffed it into the pocket of her coat. From her position at the woman's side, she couldn't quite see her other eye now that it was out from under the hat. May put the gun down a moment, leaning it against the telescope stand, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Weiss gasped.

"What's…" she started, unable to stop staring.

May didn't answer and just picked the gun up again, lining it up downrange once more. Now she understood why this woman always kept her hat down. Her left eye was completely black. There was no white to the white of her eye, replaced instead with a deep charcoal black pigment that reflected no light back out. She couldn't see a pupil either, and until at the last moment the iris was invisible as well. For a brief millisecond, a soft blue ring illuminated in colour in her eye as she pulled the trigger.

For May, the gun didn't buck or lift. It stayed perfectly level in her hands, as if she had some kind of superhuman wrist strength to keep it in place. Before Weiss could comment, or even close her gaping mouth, the woman lowered the gun, turned to face her, and brought a hand up and started counting down on her fingers. Weiss watched as she counted out to zero, and then pointed out over the cliff. Weiss looked in that direction.

Ping

"What, no. No way."

She dove for the telescope, looking through the lens at the target. And right, dead smack in the middle of the red circle of steel, was the unmistakable silver witness mark of a bullet. She stood up and directed herself to May, who'd already let her messy pink hair down and put her hat back on.

"I can't do that! I'm not a… I don't have…" she gestured to her own perfectly 'healthy' and normal left eye, hoping her trainer wouldn't notice the garish scar. "...special powers!"

Her trainer simply smirked and held the gun out for her again. Weiss took it, gingerly. It really didn't feel possible to do what she'd just witnessed. She turned back to the range and lined up again, trying to find that point on the horizon she'd been aiming at. After a beat, she found it, and prepared to fire. This was the point she found her trainer's left hand on her back and her right up under the barrel, carefully adjusting her stance. She got her to take a deep breath and slowly let it out. It took about a minute to finally empty her lungs, but as soon as she had, May nodded and stepped back. She pulled the trigger.

Without the same kind of muscular control as the sniper, the gun still moved around and punched her in the shoulder, nearly putting it out of its socket. The final brass casing ejected, taking the en bloc clip with it and making the signature ringing that the N1 was so famous for. She waited. The flight time of the bullet may have only been two and a half seconds, but the time for the sound of the shot to return was closer to seven. And it was a long seven seconds as she impatiently waited for some kind of closure. Her heart raced.

Ping

"Ha!" she dove for the telescope. Sure enough, there was a second impact mark on the red steel, about two centimetres above the bottom of the target. She'd almost missed, but then she hadn't.

"I did it!"

May nodded, another smirk on her face.

"What? Is that not good enough?" she accused. May said nothing.

Weiss sighed and put the gun down against the telescope stand. She stood up, expecting to be blasted by rubber balls again, but was instead handed another gun.

"What's this?"

She took the rifle into her hands, if you could even call it that. The gun had no furniture, being basically a six-foot-long barrel and a skeleton stock, not even having a magazine or trigger guard. It was as stripped down as weapons came, but the ostentatious large magnification scope was certainly impressive. The scope itself was raised about six inches off the top of the barrel, and seemed to be pointed down at about a ten degree incline. May gestured to the longer of the two telescopes. She sniffled and approached it, carefully leaning her face to the aperture to as to not disrupt it. The target came into view, along with another distance sign. 7000 yd.

"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me." she stood up, rifle lowered. "That is impossible. I don't even care."

She looked through the telescope again.

"Also, that target is what, twenty centimetres across?"

Her trainer nodded. Weiss stood up.

"Alright, fine." with an aggressive flick, she pulled the bolt up and back, realizing quite quickly just how far the bolt had to be pulled to open the chamber. "I'll give it a try, but I am promising nothing."

She held out her hand, and was presented with a bullet. Her eyes went wide with concern. The brass case alone was pushing sixteen or seventeen centimetres long, and the bullet protruded another five or six up from there. It was certainly longer than any .50 BMG she'd ever come across, and nearly as girthy as well. It almost looked and felt like a tank round. She took the substantial round in her fingers and lay it gently into the gun's chamber, closing the lengthy bolt and locking it down.

"This isn't gonna blow my arm off, is it?"

May made another 'so-so' gesture and stepped back. Well back. Weiss rolled her eyes and shouldered the weapon. The hugely magnifying scope was much needed in this instance, as it allowed her to just barely see the target as a pin-sized speck in the middle of the graduated crosshairs.

"Okay, here goes…"

She decided if May could cheat, so could she. As she was now, every centimetre of deviation left and right was a full hundred feet to either side of her target at this distance. A similar problem to this was that due to the curvature of the planet's surface, her target was actually around three meters further below the level line, and the bullet would naturally follow the curvature down and around. So her method of remedying this, since she didn't have a spooky shooting eye and superhuman wrists, was to use her own semblance to her advantage. With her hands still wrapped tightly around the gun, she spun a little glyph into existence just at the end of the barrel, locking it in like it was on a bipod or shooting bag. She lowered her right hand and leaned into the gun, wrapping her fingers over the stock to steady herself laterally. The safety was flipped off.

"Whooo…"

She exhaled. And fired.

With a colossal bang and a huge plume of fire from the muzzle brake, the gun rocketed backwards and shattered the glyph like glass, crunching into her shoulder like she'd been hit by a train. Out of reflex, she let go with her left hand and let the gun fall backwards, holding it up from clattering into the dirt with her right. She fought the urge to yell out in pain, substituting it with a fairly masculine grunt. She winced as she leaned over to check the telescope. Still nothing yet. She looked back to May, who nodded at her. The flight time was going to be close to seven seconds, and the return of the sound of impact would be closer to twenty. She carefully unloaded the rifle and set the heavy ordinance upright against the telescope stand, and patiently waited. The beating of her heart was deafening, and the sting in her shoulder was overwhelming.

And then, almost completely silently...

ping

"No. No way." she gasped, reaching for the telescope. "Ho-hohhhmygod."

In the upper right corner of the target was a witness mark of a bullet. Her eyes lit up, in complete disbelief. This was a six and a half kilometre shot that she'd just made. Assisted, sure, but made.

"Holy fuck. Oh my god, I just did that. Ohhhh."

She looked back over to her trainer, who for the first time in the four hours she'd been there, opened her mouth and spoke.

"Good shot."