Who: Patrick Barton [FOXTROT] and Colby Rhodes [MUSTANG] Where: The Training Sublevel When: Monday, August 3rd, Afternoon What: Sniper vs. Speedster training. Warnings: Eh. Nothing, really.
Decked out in his training gear, Colby took a moment to look over the Red Team's training rota and cocked an eyebrow. He was paired with Foxtrot for two hours. That was going to get interesting. He liked Patrick, but there was a definite sense that the feeling was not mutual. The agent was known for being short on patience and, rather ironically given his speed and just how quickly he got things done, being around Colby took a lot of patience, even he had to admit that.
Still, Colby always believed in putting your best foot forward, and decided to approach the situation with his usual level of enthusiasm and energy. Spotting the agent on the other side of the training room, he zipped in front of him in the blink of an eye, coming to a stop and stamping his feet and he assumed a perfect 'Attention' position, grinning broadly.
"Sir! Operative Mustang reporting for training detail, Sir!"
The Operative’s enthusiasm was met with a tight-lipped frown. To say Agent Foxtrot took his training seriously would’ve implied he took other aspects of his life somewhat leisurely -- truth told, it was more to the point to say that training was just one of the three things he took most seriously (the other two being patrols, and special operations, with the care of his sisters taking an admittedly distant fourth in the rankings). An Agent or Operative in the field was entirely the product of his or her training and experience, and thus it was the responsibility of each and every one of them to put everything they had into training, to ensure they could do their job to their fullest potential.
Needless to say, he tended to spend his days off in the gym, as well.
“At ease, Operative,” he responded with a roll of his eyes. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and I’d like to use our time as best as we can.”
"Sir, yes, Sir!" Colby chirped in response, relaxing his posture and swinging his hands around from back behind his back as he noted offhandedly, "Time management is actually one of my best qualities."
"What's on the agenda then, boss?" He asked, glancing around their immediate area to see if there were any signs as to what they'd be doing. "A little hand to hand?" Bouncing from foot to foot, Colby mimed a few punches at the air in front of him, "Weapons training? Have I finally earned my sword?"
Patrick shook his head. “If you’d like to do hand-to-hand, Agent Quebec would be better suited than myself.” He refused to comment on any matter of a sword.
“Today our training will serve two primary functions. For you, it’ll be a simple matter of dodging and evasion while I…” He picked up a rifle, looked it over, “...will be working on my anti-speedster accuracy.” He paused, glancing up at Rhodes, and the edge in his voice softened a bit. “I’ll be using rubber ammunition, obviously. Though… I can imagine that, after everything that’s happened with Xray and Stonewall, this exercise might be… uncomfortable for you. But the fact of the matter is that APEX may well have people as fast as you, if not faster. And the only way to ensure that my skills are on point in that regard is to train with you.”
Colby hesitated for the briefest of moments, thinking the prospect over, then an uncharacteristic sense of seriousness broke through the jovial manner that had been there before. He shook his head, "No, I'm comfortable with it. If it gives us an edge on APEX, then we need to work on it and perfect it." He took a few steps away and then stopped, holding up a finger, "But for the record? No way in hell does APEX have anyone faster than me."
"So I'm guessing I just need to run while you try and hit me? How do you want me to start? Serpentine? Wall to wall? I could run rings around you?"
One of the things Patrick had always respected about Mustang -- ‘liked’ was a word he didn’t use in regards to his teammates, especially the metahumans; too friendly -- was his dedication to fighting APEX. It was good to be reminded that the Operatives were as much against those monsters as he and the rest of the Agents were.
“A little bit of everything,” he explained. “Surprise me -- or try to, at least. Your goal is to be unpredictable. My goal is to predict you anyway.”
"And you want me going at full speed?" Colby asked, sounding sceptical, "Because, I mean-- that's going to be hard to hit."
“Start slower, then build up,” Patrick said, a hint of a smirk almost breaking through. “It wouldn’t be very good training if it wasn’t a challenge.”
"It wouldn't be very good training if you never hit me, either." Colby noted with a mischievous grin. Then, he was gone, off on the far end of the room and calling out to the agent, "Okay, here goes!" Dropping into a sprinter's starting pose, he tensed for a millisecond and then set off, dashing across the training room at half-speed, weaving back and forth as he went.
“Don’t oversell yourself,” Patrick replied, the smirk quickly replaced with a frown as he settled into position with his rifle. Tracking the speedster, wasn’t difficult -- even at this slower rate it was, for all intents and purposes impossible. But he’d spent years training to be a DMS sniper, had spent years learning the ways to address metahumans with speeds an agent could never hope to achieve. It all was a matter of thinking ahead. Don’t shoot where he is, figure out where he’ll be. That mantra rang out in his mind as he held his breath, took aim, and fired.
An instant later, Colby was standing in front of Patrick again, the rubber round he'd just fired off held delicately between the speedster's thumb and forefinger as he held his hand up. "See, if I'm facing the direction you're shooting, then it's easy to see it coming and just catch it. Like, really easy." Tossing the bullet back to the agent, he thought it over, "Maybe if you fired off a lot of shots in a burst? Is that thing automatic?" He eyed the rifle critically, and kept firing off rapid, 'helpful' suggestions, "Because I've only got two hands, so I can't catch all of them-- but I guess I could sidestep, so maybe if you strafed? But then how would you know which way?"
Patrick couldn’t quite keep the scowl off his face as he caught the rubber bullet tossed at him.
“It’s a semi,” he said, defensively pulling the rifle away from Colby’s judging eyes. “To be fair, in a combat setting, the metahuman target would have other things on his or her mind than just me, so they might not see the shot. But additional rounds is feasible.” Additional rounds was also, really, part of the training -- a part he hadn’t liked. He was a sniper, it was supposed to be a one-shot matter. The fact that the DMS had all but said ‘You’ll need to strafe’ had always been a sore point -- no matter how true it obviously was, now that Colby proved it so. “Start running again. Same speed.”
"Anything you say, Boss." Colby flashed Patrick a brief, slightly mocking, salute and then shot off to the other side of the room again. Dropping low, he braced himself and then started moving again, racing around the room at the same speed, but changing up his pattern; running from one wall to the other, slowing just a little as he touched the wall and turned each time.
It was a wonder Patrick’s face wasn’t permanently bruised from the amount of frowning he did on a daily basis. Either way, he raised the gun with a bit more determination as the speedster took off again, taking a half-moment to watch him blur across the room -- and firing a short burst of shots along Colby’s path.
As he reached the other side of the room and readied himself to turn, Colby had just enough time to see the first bullet coming and let out a quick, "Fu--"
The result was nothing short of spectacular; caught in the middle of a pivot as he was about to launch himself off of the wall, the speedster was already off-balance when the first rubber round caught him in the shoulder. The next one hit him square in the chest and only staggered him further, and when another two shots hit him in his side, he toppled to the ground dazed, winded, and whining.
Patrick nodded, the smirk just barely suppressed. Taking joy in managing to shoot Mustang would’ve been unprofessional, after all (even if it was immensely satisfying in that moment). He had to remember this was work.
“Take a moment to catch your breath, and then we can try again.”
"I don't like this practice anymore." Colby replied, groaning and grunting as he rolled onto his side and then pushed himself to his feet. Stretching out, he winced and then poked gingerly at where the bullets had struck him, "Seriously, I think I'm going to have bruises for a few hours, at least."
“Bruises for a few hours. Poor baby.” Patrick said dryly as he reloaded. “I’m sure you can handle it, if you really dig deep for it.”
Colby stared across the training area at Patrick, his gaze scrutinising as he looked the agent over, "You're enjoying this."
“Don’t be absurd,” Patrick replied, though the smirk managed to slip through, now. “This is work”
He raised the rifle once more, waiting for the metahuman to continue. It was work, yes. But he supposed that didn’t mean it wasn’t just a little bit fun.