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Ostensibly, this is a horrible idea. Ze was practically begging to get his brain splattered onto the floor by his own instruments of mayhem. But QRed was actually intrigued in the offer that he presented to her. The thought of seeing Regect filled with holes made by his greatest enemy and lover, strung up like beef at a slaughterhouse freezer? Oh, that was far too appealing to pass up. She could stomach cooperating with the annoying veteran and his friend for just a bit if that was the light at the end of the tunnel.
Her hands tightened around the grip of the Desert Eagle – one of the only guns he owned large enough to fit comfortably in her paws. She braced her shoulders and back for the kickback that she knew would follow her pulling the trigger. The QR-coded entity lined up the glowing sights onto Regect’s center mass. Deep breaths. Three. Two. One. Fire.
The handcannon blasted out the magnum round, leaving an eagle of flame in its path. It burst upwards in her arms, almost flying out before she got another handle on it. QRed had shut her eyes in anticipation but tentatively opened them.
“Hey, not bad!” shouted a voice behind her. QRed gently rested the gun on the table in front of her and lifted her ear protection. “You actually hit the target this time.” Ze’s friend stood behind her, and she clasped her hand on the entity’s shoulder. “That’s… a seven, babe!”
Earlier this morning, Ze was knocking on QRed’s door. He was pacing outside her porch, possibly from the stress caused by to the metric fuck-ton of unregistered firearms in his trunk. What, was it his fault that his skull-headed dealer engaged in a bit of skullduggery? He didn’t know if there were any cops around, but he seriously doubted “That’s what you gotta do for any decently priced firearms around here!” would be an acceptable excuse.
Ze didn’t want to actively disturb the entity in their own house; especially considering last time he did, he ended up getting chased into the End, but in the spirit of camaraderie (and at Moe’s insistence), he felt like he had to give this a shot.
He went to knock again, but his third tap at the door was interrupted with QRed opening it. She scoffed in his face, and asked “And what do you want, Ze?”
He threw his hands up in innocence. “What’s with the hostilities? I’m just here to ask you a question.”
She leaned against the doorframe and gave off the sensation that she was looking down on him – despite the fact that they were about the same height with his boots on. “You know my feelings on you and Regect’s escapades. If that decapitated moron is involved, I’m not involving myself in whatever you’re planning.”
“Well, then good news! If you join me, we’ll be shooting the shit out of his smug face.”
She tilted her head. “Go on.”
“On Valentine’s Day – don’t ask, please – he got me a 50-pack of these.” He unfurled a poster-sized shooting target with a dakimakura design of Regect on it.
“I know how much you want to kill the bastard, and I’ve got the shooting range to myself and one of my friends today. She’s much better at the whole teaching thing than I’d be, and I figured that it’d be nice to let you let loose in a less-destructive manner.”
“Hmm. I’ve never taken the opportunity to use a firearm before; perhaps I will finally understand the joy you seem to have shooting wildly at everything you see.”
Ze furrowed his brow. “I don’t do that!” He wasn’t fooling anyone.
After a moment of impetuous silence as a disappointed entity stared at the pissy human, which was usually the other way around with Ze, he relented from his staring contest. “Fine, maybe I’m a bit careless with my guns, but that doesn’t matter.”
“A bit careless is an understatement, brat.”
“IN ANY CASE,” he interrupted, “let’s head out. The backseat’s down, so you get to ride shotgun.”
“I will not be sitting on any firearm.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Of course I know that; I merely like making you look like a fool. Allow me to grab my belongings and I will meet you in the car.”
“Alright, lemme go start it up. See you there.” As Ze walked away from her porch, he wondered if every entity carried around a purse. Regect and Ptolemy did. Guess he’d have to ask Maturin, later.
He slumped into the driver’s seat only to find QRed already in the passenger. “Jesus!” Ze exclaimed. “Where’d the fuck you come from?!” She had a briefcase in her lap, made of what looked like human skin.
“I told you, I would meet you in the car.”
“Fuck, man, I guess.” He turned the key, and the engine came to life. Regect’s favorite station started blasting on the radio, and QRed’s face scrunched up in disgust.
“Do we have to listen to this drivel?”
“If you wanna change the station, be my guest. Just don’t mess with the volume, I’d like to be able to concentrate while I’m driving.”
QRed proceeded to spend the entire hour-and-a-half long drive changing between every station that the car’s FM radio could receive. She listened to about five minutes of whatever was being broadcast, then switched to the next one. When she finally reached the end of the list, she kept turning the dial until it looped to the first station and repeated the process the entire fucking car ride. Even on the out-of-range frequencies, she held on them for a minute or two to presumably see if she could make out anything in the static.
Ze honestly wasn’t sure if this was more annoying than Regect belting out-of-tune to the same five songs that played on his favorite program, or Moe playing her mixtape of her cast recordings. Maybe he was the weird one for wanting to drive in complete silence.
After what felt like an eternity, the station wagon pulled up to the vacant field where the shooting range resided. Ze pulled up to his prided private spot (it even had a little photo of him on the sign) and breathed a silent sigh of relief when he took the keys out of the ignition and the speakers shut off.
The range itself was a bit more rustic, in comparison to most of the indoor ones that Ze had gone to before he moved here. The building that it was connected to was a bit rundown, sure, and it had a target carrier literally made of a pulley and some laundry clips, but for long-range, high-caliber, and high-volume shooting? It couldn’t be beat.
He peeked over at the motorcycle parking spaces and saw that they were all empty. Good, he had some time to prepare her before the lesson actually began.
“Alright, Red, we got some business to attend to before we can get shooting. When I brought Regect here for the first time, we had to go home early because it turned out all of the guns I brought were too small to fit in his claws. I think your hands are a bit more human sized, but I still have most of my collection in the backseat to see what’s most comfortable for you.”
“Ah, I had believed that you were planning on firing an entire militia’s worth of weapons all on your own. Your thoughtfulness stuns me, Ze.”
“My humility is second-to-none, I know.” He got out of the driver’s seat and opened up the trunk, pushed back most of the weaponry and left a space just large enough to hold and open any of the cases. The first one he took out was his concealed carry Glock 23. “Try this; it’s about average size of most of the pistols I brought.”
QRed carefully pinched the handgun by its slide like she was L handling a cellphone. You think, considering how often she’s been on the business end of one, that she’d know how to hold a gun. Ze pulled out another pistol case and drew an olive-green M1911 from its contents. “Here, hold it like this.” He demonstrated the proper way to hold it and saw as she fumbled to properly wield it. Ze had to correct her finger from resting on the trigger, and Ze complimented himself for not giving her any ammunition.
It became clear that it was a bit too small for her hands. Her pinky finger was hanging beneath the magwell, and she could barely keep her finger on the lower receiver without it sliding off. “I do not believe that this peashooter suits me.”
“It’s not a peashooter – it’s 9mm. But you’re right; your hands are about Regect-sized. That would limit our options to higher calibers, but thankfully I came prepared.” He went up to the back-left door of the car and pulled out an FNX 45 with a removable trigger guard specifically made for Regect. In fact, it even had a customized grip with a tracker in it, considering how flippant the jackass was with it. “This should fit well enough for you.”
She was able to get a comfortable grip on it and mimed firing it into the trunk. She went to aim it at Ze, but he snatched it out of her hands before she got a chance. “Alright, rule number zero of using a gun. Don’t point it at something you aren’t trying to kill.”
“Oh, I’d be delighted in trying to kill you, Ze.”
“I’m not fucking playing around, Red. You point it at me or anything else that isn’t a target down range and we’re immediately going home.”
QRed tilted her head in an almost coy way. “Aw, how cute. Was the reject this impudent whenever you brought him here on a date?”
“You think I’m talking out of my ass? I had to cut off Moe’s first lesson after ten minutes because that dumbass got tackled by the range officer for waving his unloaded rifle around trying to show me his bullseye. There’s a lot of things I’ll let slide; improper handling of a firearm is not one of them.”
“Fine, fine. I doubt that you let much slide, but I know to give a weapon proper respect. There will be no buffoonery from me, Ze.”
“There better not.” Ze handed back the gun and demonstrated how to engage and disengage the safety, properly holster and unholster it, and how to safely check if there’s a round in the chamber. QRed complied and followed along, although after every lesson she had some remark about the monotony of the process.
Eventually, when Ze felt like she could be left alone with a firearm and not accidentally kill herself, he announced, “Alright, now, to incentivize you not to cause any trouble, I’ve got a few more guns I’m willing to let you use if you actually listen to your instructor and I don’t have to worry about you until you’re done with your lessons.”
“You haven’t mentioned who this instructor is or when they will be arriving.”
“In due time, Red. Now, take a look at these.” He pulled out a large harness and unclasped it to reveal a .22 rifle with a camo pattern painted over the wood. “This is the safest long gun I own, and it should help you get used to holding one with two hands. This is what you will use for training, and this,” as he opened a case containing an M60 light machine gun, “is what I’ll let you use if your teacher doesn’t think you’ll end up killing yourself.”
“My goodness, Ze. How did you get your hands on something like this?”
“That’s a secret.” He began to put the weapons away, for the time being.
A distant rumbling of an engine could be heard in the distance. Ze squinted and could just barely make out a figure rapidly approaching on a motorcycle at the end of the road. He’d have expected to her to make a more dramatic entrance on her hang glider, to be honest. Well, considering that she was blasting M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” at a deafening volume while popping the nastiest wheelie he had ever seen, that might be what she was going for.
Ze tapped QRed on the shoulder. “You might wanna back up.”
She stopped gawking at the distant rider and turned to Ze. “Hmm? Oh, yes.”
The two of them stepped out of the road and under the sheet roof of the connected structure.
A few seconds later, the biker landed her front wheel on the ground and began to accelerate. She had hit, at Ze’s best guess, 50 mph when she got to the parking lot. As soon as she crossed the boundary where the street ended and parking began, however, she whipped her bike to the side and rapidly deaccelerated with enough force to tear up the asphalt. More pieces of road fell onto a small pile of rubble where she came to a stop in the only motorcycle parking.
“Where did the lightning come from?” Ze shut QRed down with a look, as the woman dramatically arose from her bike. She took off her helmet with and shook her head to allow her hair to flow freely in the wind; if, of course, she wasn’t wearing a trilby. She grabbed a duffle bag off the back of the bike and walked up to the pair.
“This your friend, Ze?” she shouted over the still screeching motorcycle.
“That she is. QRed, meet Vitriolic_Red. Vitri, meet Red.”
Vitri offered her gloved hand to the still enamored entity, who gladly shook it and said “My, my! How did Ze meet someone like you?”
Her creeper face smiled darkly, and she proudly stated, “Monster Fucker Anonymous Forums.”
The smirk on Ze’s face dropped instantly, and QRed was suddenly a lot less eager to shake her hand. Ze tried to sputter out a denial, but Vic’s laughter at their stunned looks interrupted him and she corrected, “Nah, I’m fuckin’ with you. I met him when he and I were buying shit from Grox. I wanted to know if the M1 Garand reproduction I was adding to my modlist worked with the ammo bench I had at home, and the dealer said that Ze was the only one he could think of who’d know.”
“It didn’t, by the way.” Ze butted in. “Saved her about four stacks of diamonds and a week’s worth of hassle.”
“You raise that price every damn time I tell this story. It’s bad to lie to your friends, you know.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’ll be in row twelve. You two go have fun wasting my ammo.”
“Is it still in the –“
“The blue shulker box labelled “magazines”, yes.”
Vic shot Ze a thumbs up as he walked off to sign-in himself and his guns for the day. “Alright, babe, let’s teach you how to kill.”
“Babe?”
“So, the first rule of gun safety is to treat every gun like it’s loaded, especially if you think it isn’t.”
QRed had no clue whether to be infuriated with or infatuated with Vitriolic_Red. (If Moe wanted to be in a polycule, then it was QRed’s responsibility to ensure it was a relationship consisting of only the best.) The crimson-skinned creeper decided that the best way to teach was through, uh, very positive reinforcement.
She kept calling her pet names like “honey” and “babe” and given that most people referred to her as “that thing in the corner” or “did you see that”, it did slightly fluster her. Additionally, whenever she demonstrated poor form, Vitri thought that the best way to correct her was to hold her hand in hers and physically fix it.
Granted, she did preface it with, “I’m gonna be touching you now, honey. Lemme know if you’re feeling uncomfortable and I’ll stop, okay?” so the entity was at least able to say no if she wanted to. The only issues QRed had were how uncomfortable the ear protection she had been given was.
The lessons she taught her were simple: how to properly load and unload a firearm, how to hold and fire it, and how to properly use the sights. They started with Regect’s piece, considering that it was a lower caliber and thus probably a bit easier to start with.
“Now honey, normally I’d advise closing an eye and keeping the other one open when looking down range for beginners, but given that I’ve got no fuckin’ clue how your vision works I’ll let you figure out what’s the best way for you.”
“It works as an analogy, Miss Vitriolic. I have a full sense of my surroundings at all times, but I will –“
Vic put up a finger to her lips and yelled “Give me your life story after, sweetie. Focus on aiming at the target for now.”
Red grumbled and tried to stabilize her grip towards the target 20 meters ahead of her. She lined the front and back sights up with each other and as close to the center of the Regect-shaped scoreboard ahead of her. The .45 in her hands felt impossibly light and heavy, but she managed to gather her confidence enough to squeeze the trigger.
The ear-splitting BANG! that followed shocked her to the point that she actually dropped the pistol onto the table, which caused Vitri to quickly slip in and take it from her.
“Alright, not bad for your first time. Regect couldn’t even hit the target the first few times, so you’re doing much better than him. And hey, good thing we didn’t put more than one bullet in there, right?”
QRed shook off the shock that rattled her. “I suppose. …It does please me greatly to hear of that idiot’s incompetence.”
“No shit? Then you’ll love to know that he almost shot himself in the foot four times when Ze took him out here for the first time.”
QRed guffawed at the thought of Regect shooting off each of his toes. Between each round of aiming, shooting, and reloading, if she managed to hit closer to the center of the target than she did in the previous attempt, then Vitri would tell her of some other buffoonery that the headless chicken committed either in the range or that Ze had told her about. It was very effective motivation to do better, to say the least.
Eventually, QRed felt confident enough to use the heavier Desert Eagle 44 that Ze had brought for Vitri to demonstrate with. It went well enough, if she understood how the scoring system worked.”
Training with the bolt-action rifle also went swimmingly, although they were interrupted at one point when Ze unloaded a full magazine on a P90 in one continuous burst. “FUCK YEAH!” he shouted out once he finished, which surprised her enough to dig into the grips of the gun she was holding.
“Jesus, Ze, we’re trying to have a class over here.”
“Sorry, sorry, Vic!” he shouted across the lanes. ”Just managed to hit thirty-five bullseyes in a row. That’s a goddamn new record!”
“Is that supposed to be impressive?” Ze sulked upon hearing that and went back to his own business.
Vitri leaned down to QRed, who was lying prone for prime stability, and whispered “It is, by the way. I know you don’t have a scale of reference for these things, but that’s really fuckin’ good babe.”
“I figured; I just didn’t want him to have an even more inflated ego.”
“Oh, like you’re one to talk? I’ve been around you for two hours and every other time I bring up Regect you talk about how much better you are than the “blithering black beast”.”
“That’s because I am superior to him.”
“Whatever, sweetie.” This, she took great offense to.
No matter. Long gun training proved equally facile to pistol practice, especially considering the weapon required a much more delicate touch than the borrowed blaster intended for clumsier hands. Using the hunting rifle proved rather satisfying, and the low-power cartridge made it a much better fit for the stalker’s desires in death. QRed made a mental note to acquire a weapon similar to this for her future endeavors (and to determine whether or not Regect’s head is merely transparent or truly permeable). After the fourth hour of practice, Vitriolic_Red told her to put the weapons away.
“I’ll be honest hon; you’ve got a real knack for this. It took Moe about a week and a half to get to your level, you know. If you keep at this pace, you might catch up to me and Ze by the end of the year.”
“High praise from a skilled sharpshooter such as yourself. I hope this isn’t merely empty flattery.”
“Eh, from what you’ve told me, I think you’re just more comfortable with the thought of death than the other two. That doubt of whether or not to shoot is what separates a rookie from a master; though I think you and Ze both have the issue of being a bit too eager.”
“I’m inclined to agree; I’ve lost many of my lovely creations to his itchy trigger finger.”
Vitri narrowed her eyes and glared at QRed. “Creations? Actually, never mind. I don’t think I want to hear about an entity’s babies.”
“For your own sanity, I believe that’s wise.”
“Sure, wiseass. Now come on, let’s go waste more of Ze’s ammo on the M60. There’s a bit of a trick to firing it; if you scream over it, it’ll help equalize the sound and make it a bit more bearable for sustained fire. Also, you’ll feel like Rambo, and that’s awesome.”
Ze’s never letting QRed touch an LMG ever again. Vic probably told her that stupid rumor about yelling over the gun, and QRed took it to heart. Her screeches literally caused both of their ears to bleed, and they couldn’t make any noise loud enough to distract her over the chunking of the gun and her own screeches. Thank God Ze only attached the 30-round belt; if he had the 100-round magazine on there, he wasn’t sure if they’d be able to get home with how much his head was ringing afterwards.
“Was that acceptable?” she asked afterwards, before turning around and noticing the huddled over pair desperately trying to protect their ears. “Oh dear, was I too loud? This happens all the time when Moe and I –“
“NO, HON, YOU’RE FINE!” Vic shouted, her hearing not fully returned yet. “THAT’S ON ME FOR NOT KNOWING HOW LOUD YOU CAN BE.”
“YOU FUCKING MORON!” Ze rebutted. “LITERALLY EVERY ENTITY WE’VE EVER MET HAS A TRICK WHERE THEY GET UNGODLY LOUD! WHY WOULD YOU TELL HER TO SCREAM?!”
“WHAT?”
“WHAT?”
“Your hearing will return momentarily, you two. Save your bickering for when you can actually understand each other.”
“WAIT, THEN HOW CAN WE HEAR YOU?” replied Ze.
“I am speaking directly into your mind, as I always do.”
“WHAT?!”
“WHAT?” Whether Vitriolic_Red was also confused or simply couldn’t hear either of them would remain a mystery.
After about 10 more minutes of muffled hearing and a little bit more tinnitus added to the pile, Ze finally was ready to head home. Before he left though, he did have to make sure that QRed did actually learn something from her time here.
He approached Vitri, who was furiously scrubbing her noise-cancelling over-ear headphones clean of the blood that poured from their ears. “So, uh, outside of that last slip up, how’d Red do?”
“How’d I do? Why don’t you ask your friend?”
“Not you, Red, the other –“ he stopped himself when he saw her shit-eating grin. “Oh, ha ha. Very funny. If you were anyone else, I’d blow your shit smooth off.”
“Considering how much gas costs, I might prefer the respawn.” Ze was tempted to prove her right. “And as for Q, she did great. I’d trust her with a gun, just none of mine. She tore up the furniture on the rifle you gave her.”
To demonstrate, she passed him the hunting rifle he had just bought – the wood forearm had several scratches and deep grooves where her claws would rest. The grip had similar markings, although they were a bit less serious. “Damn, I’ll have to replace it when I get back. Do you think she’ll need any more lessons, so I can know if I’ll have to keep this?”
The creeper thought about it for a moment, and eventually concluded “Nah, she’s got the basics down pat. I wouldn’t expect her to win any Distinguished Marksman badges any time soon, but she won’t be sending any of her friends to the hospital trying to show off.”
“You gotta stop giving Regect shit for that, I was fine.”
“Ze, you cut your boyfriend too much slack.”
“Go fuck yourself, Vitri.”
“Love you too, Ze. I’ve still got some spare fruits down range, you wanna help me turn them into compost?”
“No, unfortunately, I need to leave now if I want to make it back home before dark.”
“Alright, see you around, Ze.” He waved goodbye and left her to her devices.
QRed was sitting on the trunk of his car looking like the cat that ate the canary. As Ze approached, she hopped off and exclaimed, “I appreciate you bringing me out here, Ze. This, admittedly, was quite enjoyable. I apologize for damaging your ears, by the way.”
“Eh, it’s a gun range. I expected to have my hearing ruined; you just accelerated the process.”
“Do not take this lightly, but if you were to invite me to this again, I promise not to intentionally repeat that mistake.”
“Again, don’t worry about it. Also, I had a conversation with Vitri about how you did today.”
“What did Ms. Vitriolic say about my performance?”
Did she ask her to call her that? “She said that you did well enough that you won’t need another lesson from her. I do have something for you, now that you know what you’re doing.”
He motioned for her to step out of the way of the trunk, unlocked it and reached past the other stuff he had stuffed in there. Ze pulled out a special crimson Damascus-patterned case, and dramatically opened it to reveal a Desert Eagle, ruby red with an engraving on the slide near the hammer of the QR-code embedded on QRed’s skin. It almost shone in its beauty, and Ze caught her reaching for it in awe before he slammed it shut on her.
QRed was genuinely surprised at the gesture. “Are you sure, Ze? We’ve only just recently entered an alliance, and even still I’m moreso cooperative with Moe than I would ever be with you two.”
“I wouldn’t make the offer if I wasn’t sure. And besides, it’s a pistol with the most obvious fingerprint I’ve ever seen with a cartridge that’s annoying as hell to get. It’ll be basically impossible for you to use it without letting everyone in the server know. Anyways, I’d feel like shit letting you be the only one of the family without their own personalized weapon.”
“I’m sorry, you gave these to Regect and Moe?”
“Oh, no, that pistol I let you use earlier is Regect’s. Moe has a Barrett M82A1.”