ωєιѕѕ ѕ¢нηєє (notmadeofstone) wrote in pathways_log, @ 2021-11-14 16:25:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | rwby: weiss schnee, rwby: yang xiao long, temeraire: william laurence |
Who: Laurence, Yang, and Weiss
What: Testing out Myrtenaster for the first time
When: When she first got it back in ... March? ish.
Where: Laurence's farm
Ratings/Warnings: IDK PG-13 for explosives I guess
Status: Complete!
Truthfully, Laurence didn’t know how much help he’d be able to offer Weiss. He knew a thing or two about bayonets; indeed, when he thought of them he found he knew a great deal more about bayonets than he remembered ever learning, but bayonets were a whole different creature to the type of weapon that Weiss had shown Laurence a photograph.
But he’d offered to help, and he hoped whatever guidance he could offer on the matter might be of help. He had to confess some intrigue on seeing the weapon, which, he worried, may have had more to do with his offer than the belief that he’d be of any tangible assistance.
He’d greeted Weiss and her friend, Yang, Miss Xiao Long, when they’d pulled up at his house, and he’d led them out, away from his house and into one of the fields that had been left to fallow for the season. Many of his fields had been left to fallow this season, the previous owner having overburdened nearly all of them before he’d beat a hasty retreat from the unprofitable farmstead, but this one was convenient in that it was close enough to the driveway to not be a burdensome walk, and yet far enough from his home that he thought that, should things go awry and there were some sort of explosion, it would leave the house unscathed.
And if the explosion were so powerful that it wasn’t far enough from the house, well, Laurence would scarcely be in any position to worry about the state of his home.
“I hope the drive out wasn’t too difficult,” Laurence said, leading the girls to the field. “I know many of the roads in this area are unmarked. I hope that my directions had been sufficient.”
Yang had taken her motorcycle, which meant she'd had to suffer through Weiss clinging to her the whole trip. Suffer probably wasn't the right word for it, but she'd prefer to ignore her feelings despite Certain Peoples' best efforts.
She'd always liked farms, and the logistics of farms and ranches in the southwest were of particular interest to her, but she held her tongue so that she didn't embarrass Weiss in front of the nice man.
Not for the first time, her left wrist felt as empty as her missing right arm felt like it should be there. A phantom bracelet to match her phantom limb.
She walked behind Weiss, hand occasionally brushing her back to guide her around potential hazards and once, she actually picked her up over what appeared to be a cow pie.
"Wasn't too hard to find once I got my bearings," Yang said, flipping her sunglasses up onto her forehead. "Bit bumpy in places."
It had taken Quite Some Doing to get myrtenaster there while clinging on to Yang the entire time. The farm was a respectable distance from the city with all of its smooth roads and shining lights, and the motorcycle barely had any room to fit the case the weapon was held in. There were a few moments where Weiss was certain it - or she - was going to fall right off the motorcycle entirely.
But despite the rough trip and the rural circumstances, Weiss was in a chipper mood as she followed Laurence. "This is quite a lot of land you have here!" She said, taking it in as she walked - or was lifted up over things. "We're definitely safer here than we'd be back in the city. I have no idea how explosive these cartridges actually are, though... The more I think about them the more I'm reminded of some sort of crater being blown in front of a school at some point?"
Her brows wrinkled at the thought, "But that never happened. In any case, I'm grateful for your invitation and any assistance you can provide."
“Yes, there does need to be a little more road work done out here,” Laurence agreed, though he wasn’t quite sure how to go about that. He was outside of the city limits, so he certainly couldn’t contact the city, and as of yet he’d been too occupied with trying to fix the farm up to an acceptable level for guests to worry about the roadways out to it.
His lips thinned a little at the mention of a crater though. Anything that could leave a crater in the ground was likely to be very explosive indeed, and he resisted the temptation to ask what sort of school would allow something so dangerous on the grounds; he suspected that Weiss knew little more than he did given that she seemed unsure if the event had happened in the first place.
“I’ll be happy if I’m able to provide any assistance at all,” Laurence said, finally stopping in one of the fields. He’d set up a couple of hay bales for targets earlier that morning before Weiss and Yang had arrived.
“May I handle it?” he asked, nodding toward the foil.
Explosives and gunshots felt like second nature to Yang, and not just because of her military background. But a part of her tensed at his suggestion to handle the sword, though she couldn’t quite explain why at first. But she looked down at her wrist, at the missing item that should be there.
“They’re an extension of our souls,” she murmured, then blinked.
Weiss glanced at Yang. The words definitely rang true in some way, and she glanced down at her sword for a moment, wondering if she'd feel awkward about handing it over after all this. But as she twisted it in her hand and held it forward for him to grab safely by the hilt, she didn't feel that concerned about it. He was definitely trustworthy, and Weiss just knew that in her gut somehow.
"You may... take care though, I'm definitely not kidding about how sharp it is." Weiss replied, still mulling over what Yang had said. She added, "It's... obviously a custom foil. I must have had it designed specifically for myself, though that does not help at ALL with remembering what it does now."
Laurence hesitated at Yang’s announcement. He certainly didn’t want to do anything to make either of the girls uncomfortable, and he had already started to try to work out how to examine the weapon without actually touching the weapon.
But then Weiss was offering him the foil. “I will be careful,” he assured them, directing his remarks a little more toward Yang than Weiss - he was not so concerned that he’d injure himself.
He lifted it to eye level, one hand supporting the pommel and the other much further out on the blade, and examined the mechanism. There were no sights, though he wouldn’t have expected it. It would be a very awkward weapon indeed if he had to lift it like this every time he wished to fire, though it did likely mean that it wasn’t a precision weapon. He was almost certain now that the charges were explosive, somehow, though he couldn’t imagine how such a weapon could function.
He located the trigger and the hammer nearly immediately, brought his far hand closer, and after a moment discovered the mechanism to open the ammunition chamber. The foil fell open, and he took a moment to examine the multi-coloured cartridges inside. He recognized not one, and was still no closer to figuring it out than before.
He frowned, lowered the weapon from his eyeline, and turned toward the girls again. “We’ve two options that I can see right now.” If either of them had any other ideas, then he would be open to hearing them. “We could remove one of the cartridges, move to some cover, and attempt to set it off. I’ve a sidearm in the house we could use for the experiment. Or,” he inclined his head toward the bale he’d set up in anticipation. “You can attempt to use the weapon as designed and see what becomes of my bale.”
“I remember mine,” Yang said, watching him examine the sword. “I mean, my weapon. Wrist bracelets that transform into gauntlets, they fire when I punch. My sister has a scythe that’s also a sniper rifle, they’re both modular and…”
She trailed off and shrugged, “I haven’t found mine yet. But it uses similar ammo.”
Rubbing a hand through her hair, she glanced at Weiss, “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in action.”
"Oh, I..." Weiss glanced between Yang and Laurence, then back at the blade. It still felt like an entire mystery to her, despite the fencing training she'd already received in this life. Would she even be able to use it as it was intended?
She walked up to Laurence and inspected the cartridges in their chambers, lightly poking a blue one with her finger. That one seemed more safe than the rest, as if it shot ice crystals or made snow instead of setting things on fire. Then she inspected the firing mechanism again, though she'd done so before and wasn't sure a second inspection was doing anything for her memory. "So this hammer here, if this were a musket, that would strike something that fired it, wouldn't it? I wonder how that works when one is operating this as intended..."
Did her fingers even reach the mechanism? Was there some kind of button on the hilt that had gone unseen before? "The cartridges spin into place, I remember that much. Something has to be on here for me to select them... that means each one must do something different. Logically, I mean. Otherwise all the cartridges would be the same color. Come to think of it, I think in Yang's weapon they're all usually red. She makes fire when she punches."
Laurence tried to wrap his head around the weapon that Yang and Weiss were describing. Gauntlets that ejected fire when used in a punching movement. He supposed he could understand the internal inertia of the gauntlet, but he couldn’t imagine that ‘punching fire’ was any safer for the wielder than it was for the one getting punched.
He discarded the idea for now. The fencing foil, while distinctly unique, was at least something he could understand to some small degree. “Yes. You would cock back the hammer so that it would be primed to strike a firing pin. Once you pull the trigger, it should release the hammer to strike.”
He frowned, thinking over what they said. “Red for fire would make sense,” he said, though he couldn’t understand how it could make fire. He’d not handled the cartridges himself, but it had not seemed to contain anything flammable like propane. “By that logic, then yellow would be electricity. Like some sort of taser, I’d suspect.”
He couldn’t make sense of the other colours. Perhaps blue would be water, though how that would be useful - aside for putting out the flames - Laurence could hardly see. “Since we know what the red does, it might be best to start with that.” Fire had the potential to be the most destructive and the most dangerous of the cartridges, but at least it would not come as a surprise. For all they knew, the yellow could actually release a poison gas, which would be more deadly. “If it’s like a revolver, the chamber at the top will be the one that fires. If you’ll give me a moment to get some ear protection and something to smother the flames, I won’t be a moment.”
If he left, it might give them the chance to discuss amongst themselves in private, as well. Perhaps doing so might cause them to, collectively, remember something else about the sword.
There was definitely something elemental about the colors, Yang knew. But she couldn’t quite explain how Ember Celica worked, even if she recalled that she’d designed and built it herself. Just like Ruby had her scythe. She tapped her fingers against her thigh, “You know, there are different kinds of bullets in the military. Not just calibur, but like… hollow points, and tracer rounds, those are the ones that you see streaks of in videos of conflicts. Helps you know that you’re aiming close to a target. So maybe the carts are different kinds of ammo with different purposes.”
Everything Laurence was describing about revolvers seemed to click for Weiss, as if the basics of firearms were similar in both - or all three - of their worlds. She lifted Myrtenaster into the air and closed her eyes, waving it around in the air a bit. "I had a feeling when I pointed at the blue one... Actually much like Laurence was suggesting. Ice, I believe, and that seems to be an element I'm familiar with? Maybe it slows your enemies down..."
"The other colors make less sense. What element do we know that's usually purple?" She added, still moving the weapon around. Some of the movements were familiar in a deeper way, and then something clicked into place as she raised it up in a line against her face and started moving her finger down the blade.
"I think I direct the energy like this. Do you remember me making this movement?"
"Time?" Yang guessed, then snapped her fingers, "No, no I'm remembering we covered this in class at Signal Academy. Basic Dust is red, blue, yellow and green. Yellow is lightning. Red is fire. Blue is Ice and.... purple is gravity dust."
She grinned, proud of herself even if it was basic middle-school knowledge in that other world, "Used to keep airships and high speed trains afloat. And ... I think you use it with your glyphs but I can't remember how." She pointed at Weiss, "And yeah, I remember that movement. Never seen anything like it before you."
'But I think you might be onto something with the time suggestion." Weiss's brow furrowed as she opened her eyes to once again look at the cartridges. The yellow one especially, but also the purple. "Because... I think my… glyphs? They use these elements too. The yellow one being lightning makes even more sense if you consider that I'm almost certain I use that dust to make speed glyphs. This purple one would be the opposite, then."
She snapped a finger, "And my GLYPHS, I should be able to do those. It all works together, doesn't it? As it's supposed to, I think. We use our weapons in tandem with our semblance."
Half of the words she was using were ones that seemed both foreign to her and completely real. Semblance? Glyphs? That was her special ability, but she hadn't thought of it before that moment. "I think I'm ready to set this bale of hay on fire."
Laurence was returning now at a light jog, carrying with him a fire extinguisher and three sets of hearing protection. He was in range to hear Weiss speaking of glyphs and semblances, and while the words made little sense to Laurence, they evidently made sense to the two girls; he was glad that giving them some time alone had, potentially, helped them.
“I’m glad to hear it. It seems you two have managed to make some sense out of some things,” Laurence said as he closed the distance. He placed the fire extinguisher down at his feet and held the ear muffs out to them - they were, perhaps, not as effective as ear plugs, but they were more comfortable and he wouldn’t have to worry about their fit - before he affixed his own set.
He took a few steps back from Weiss to be sure he’d be out of the line of fire. “At your leisure.”
“You know, how come we never use ear protection in training?” Yang asked, taking the ear muffs. Maybe their weapons didn’t have the same decibel level. Even Ruby’s sniper rifle, while it had a distinct retort, wasn’t super loud. That was probably it, but she still did wonder a little.
She pressed a hand against Weiss’s back reassuringly, then joined Laurence, standing next to him but a bit forward, in case she needed to get between him and a stray shot. She didn’t know if her aura actually worked well enough yet, but it was more protection than a normal person might have.
“Okay Weiss, let her rip!”
Of course, now that Weiss had earmuffs on and was seemingly ready to ‘let her rip’, she had to swallow back a nervous lump in her throat. That feeling, at least, was familiar enough in both universes. There were severe penalties for failure when you had a father like hers.
Weiss told that inner current of nervous chatter to shut up,and tried to put herself in the moment. Shoulders back, feet separated - not THAT separated - sword in hand at just the right height, and with a motion she didn’t even realise she was making, she released the mechanism that spun around until the fire dust clicked into place.
Flicking her hand down the blade, and with a bit of a flourish with her arm, fire licked itself off of the edge of her sword and flew through the air towards the hay.
Weiss cracked her eye open and glanced at the small fire crackling in the hay. “THERE we go!” she shouted, after releasing a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. “Or… well, it’s a start.”
Laurence frowned, glancing at Yang from the corner of his eye. He recognized the position as one which would serve to protect him if things went poorly, but he thought it entirely unnecessary. Laurence was considerably older than Yang, and if anyone were to protect anyone, it should be he to her. Still, he wouldn’t make a heel of himself by attempting to step in front of Yang in turn. He would trust, rather, that the chances of anything going disastrously awry was low.
Weiss’ stance was strong, yet somehow elegant despite her evident nerves; he thought she displayed a poise and grace that was not unexpected, given the build of her weapon. The noise was slight, hardly there at all, which meant the ear protection had been an unnecessary precaution, though one he would not regret making.
“Well done, Miss Schnee,” he said warmly. It had been impressive indeed, especially as it had been her first time in this life doing it.
Yang rolled her shoulders, hoping that her aura was in fact at least somewhat active. But she hadn't needed to worry, and allowed herself to feel a bit of awe at Weiss's grace.
"That was so hot!" She bounced in place and pumped up her fist, "Guess we didn't need to worry about any kind of big boom huh?"
It was easy to smile at the praise, Weiss found. In fact, she was grinning as she looked over at them, which was rare indeed. But she was proud of herself, and also the fact that she hadn’t accidentally blown up all of Laurence’s farm.
She did not, of course, do anything so unceremonious as bounce in place.
But she tilted her head to the side, considering Yang’s remark. “Nevertheless, caution in battle training is always necessary. I for one am glad that we needn’t worry about our ear drums bursting, but can you imagine the lasting damage if something had gone wrong?”
“...Thankfully, though, I think I have a much better understanding of how this weapon is supposed to work.”
“I’m glad,” Laurence said. Having a thorough understanding of ones weapon was paramount, and he’d been worried when he hadn’ been able to offer more than the most surface level of help. He was glad that use seemed to have jogged some of Weiss’ memories on the matter.
“You are, of course, welcome to come out here whenever you wish to practice with it,” he added, a little distantly amused that he seemed to be offering his farm a lot for people to practice their skills from these other lives. He’d offered it to Caroline, too, so that she’d have somewhere to practice her prodigious speed. “I can set up a proper target range for you, if you wish. The same goes to you, too, Miss Xiao Long, should you find yourself in possession of any strange weapons.” He paused, and then added, “Or if you wish to have somewhere to practice with more conventional weaponry, if you’d like.” He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she had a military bearing to her.
Yang glanced at Weiss, then back at Laurence, “I do have a weapon, it operates on a similar principle but it’s… “ She made punching motions, “I punch to shoot. So I really wouldn’t mind a safe place to practice.”
Weiss glanced back and forth between Yang and Laurence, eventually nodding her head. “I think we’d both enjoy the use of a practice area, but only if you can spare the space of course. I don’t think this is the only time I might need somewhere safer to try things out.”
But for now, she was content to safely store her weapon and its accoutrements away. She made to do so, while motioning towards the saddlebags on Yang’s motorcycle. “We brought some fancy tea for you as payment, along with some other treats. I hope you’ll accept them! But either way, thank you so much for all of this.”
Punch to shoot. What a world these two must remember. He’d never seen anything like Weiss’ foil, or heard of anything so much as a boxing glove with firepower, but he supposed they must have had a practical purpose in this world of theirs.
“I can of course spare the space,” Laurence assured them. “The previous owner of this farm, I’m afraid, ran it rather hard. I’ve a good many field up for fallow this year.” He hoped he’d be able to get enough nutrients in them that they’d be viable next year. “So I’ve plenty of space that’s going to waste.”
He smiled at their offer of tea and treats. “You really needn’t have done that,” Laurence said. “Though I’ll accept them, of course. If you two aren’t in any particular rush, perhaps you might enjoy some of them with me.”
“We would absolutely love to.” Weiss replied, so quickly it was clear she’d been hoping he would offer. She motioned in the direction of the farm house and smiled. “Lead the way.”