ɢᴀʟᴇ (traps) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-28 19:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !partner thread, gale hawthorne, kate bishop (hawkeye) |
Who: Gale Hawthorne, Kate Bishop
What: KILLIN' GREMLINS, coming across each other during rounds
When: Tonight
Where: Roof of Kate's apartment building
Rating/Warnings: Arrow bombs
Status: Complete
These fuckers were everywhere. Kate had been trying to nap in her empty apartment, thinking about how much warmer it was when she curled up with Lucky, when she heard screaming coming from the courtyard. Screaming. Like, some little kid with a fork stuck in her thigh or something. It must have been some kind of weird, Dream-related instinct that kicked in, because Kate was up out of bed and had her shoes on in about five seconds. Then she grabbed her bow and arrows, and a jacket, another five. She was out the door in a flash. Thankfully, the things weren’t inside the building yet. Kate knew how to climb the fire escape to the roof. It was only a couple stories up, and there weren’t too many trees nearby. She had a fantastic view of the whole neighborhood from there. Her heart was thundering, though, as she searched for the source of the scream. Was she too late? Had she taken too long with her shoes and her climb? Honestly, what the fuck. Gale wasn’t exactly ‘up’ on his gremlin trivia, but apparently the deadly combination of bright light, water (something about fried chicken?) meant that those sweet, teddy-bear faced fluffy creatures suddenly became a plague of angry, rat-faced shits that were multiplying faster than bunnies and seemed to like to party more than drunk frat guys. It was annoying, and that was an understatement. Still, he did what he would always do when crap hit the fan and ugly things began overtaking movie theaters and shops. He would be out there on the streets calming civilians, herding them to safety, protecting the masses. That sort of thing. There weren’t any magical powers at his disposal, but he could still make his rounds and do plenty of good playing sniper on a rooftop. Speaking of, there was another scream, and zzzzip - there went an arrow through the air. The screaming stopped because the arrow hit its target, which meant the terrified civilian kicked the dead corpse of a leaping gremlin aside and took off. “Sorry, I didn’t know this rooftop was taken,” he said, reaching behind him to grasp another another arrow from the quiver. He had his explosive ones with him too, the dream arrows, but those had to be used sparingly. At the sound of the voice and with surprising speed, Kate spun, drew and arrow, and notched it to fire. A split second later she realized that those Gremlins wouldn’t be speaking to her with a low, human voice. She lowered the point of her arrow when she realized that low, human voice belonged to a handsome human male. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up here.” Kate said, and turned her attention back down to the chaos below. Fuck. She was gonna run out of arrows, she knew. Thankfully, she worked at an Archery Range where they had an inflow of the good kind. She could renew her own supply when she was back at work… whenever this chaos ended. Kate let one fly at a Gremlin who was chasing a woman down the street, knocking it straight through the throat. “Are these… Gremlins?” She asked, incredulously. “Don’t get them wet, don’t feed them after midnight?” “Nice shot,” Gale complimented - displays of the uses of weaponry made his grey eyes alight somewhat, looking more wintry even in the dark. But, you know, credit where it was due. “I’m just making the rounds. A lot of ‘em seem to be concentrated in this area...” He strode to the other end of the roof, gazing down to do a sweep of the layout below them. “But yeah, gremlins. Those exact kind, from what I hear. Luckily they seem to be pretty easy to kill.” One of the explosive, bomb-arrows was retrieved, and he nocked it in his bow. “I’ve got some that will blow them up in one fell swoop if we can corral them.” Just an offer, could be fun - teamwork and everything. “I’m Gale, by the way. Fellow Dreamer, and I make that assumption since you seem accustomed to this bullshit.” “Kate.” It was weird to reply with her name and not her code name when it came to this sort of shit. She was used to being Hawkeye when she had her bow and arrows out. But this worked well enough. “Yeah, Dreamer. I’m Hawkeye, if that means anything to you,” she said, and drew another arrow to notch and aim. She let the arrow loose and took another Gremlin down. “We can definitely try to corral them… they don’t seem to be afraid of much.” Her brain was trying to figure out how to scare them into a corner where they could be blown up. What was it in the movie? Snow White or some crap? “Don’t they hate bright lights?” She had a flash on her phone’s camera. But that wouldn’t be enough, would it? “Hawkeye?” Gale repeated. Nope, wasn’t ringing any bells. But it sounded good to him? “Well, with a name like that I think I’d trust you with one of my explosive arrows. They were a dream gift,” he said as he handed Kate the precious relic - there were more in his quiver, but obviously he didn’t have an unlimited supply. Now, to do some corralling. Strategy, he was good at that - it was a specialty of his. He always looked at things from a military perspective, it was ingrained into his very being. “I’ll back them into a corner - I’ve got a flashlight on my keychain, that should work well enough - and then when I do, just let the arrow rip. One shot, but I’m sure you can do it.” “Yeah.” It was sort of a long story, and she didn’t really feel like getting into it when there were ugly, green, reptilian creatures to kill. Besides, they had a much better plan now; herd the ugly fuckers into a corner, and boom. Explosion. Kate and Clint had all kinds of arrows in Kate’s Dreams, but none of them had come through to this world. What she wouldn’t give for some of those trick arrows that Clint was so fond of. She’d even help him put the netting back in place if she could only get her hands on one. But then Gale handed her one of his explosive arrows, and Kate broke into an amazing grin. It felt just like the explosive tip arrows that she and Clint used in the Dreams, only more… something. More more. More professional, perhaps. She figured she could do a lot of damage with a thing like this. “You got it.” She said, turning to look. “Into that alley? It’s surrounded on all three sides by brick. They’ll be trapped.” And she could easily get the arrow down in there from the other side of the roof. Hell yes to the damage. Well, damage for those gremlins - who would end up bits of exploded ugly reptilian mess. Gale had helped to take out Capitol hovercrafts with those arrows, in his dreams - blew the wing off one, watched it spiral toward the earth. It was pretty amazing, what the weapons genius Beetee had designed. But that was also a story for another time. “That works. I’ll give a whistle when it’s all-clear for you to shoot. Just yell if you need me though, I’ll be down there,” he grinned, and descended the ladder to get back to ground level. The adrenaline that came with doing something like this - wild, dangerous, somewhat insane - it was roaring in his blood, in his ears, as he assessed the surroundings from this vantage point. And those surroundings meant gremlins - tons of them, they really were everywhere, climbing on lamp posts and on buildings, leaping onto garbage can lids, generally making nuisances of themselves. But they also gave chase easily and before he knew it, he was leading them where he wanted. Kate nodded. “You got it. I’ve got your back.” She carefully slipped the arrow into her sheath, and pulled out a couple of normal ones so she could do some damage control from her vantage point. Just in case one of these monsters tried sneaking up on her new, archery friend. (Funny how Kate was collecting archers.) Or if one got a little too close. Kate followed, arrow notched and poised, and actually took out one of the buggers when it was a little too close for comfort. Just a couple feet away from Gale, following him to the alley--and THUNK. The arrow went straight through its ugly head. One Gremlin down, like a thousand more to go. Ugh. (And the fuckers multiplied when they got wet? In the fucking SNOW?) Kate moved further down the edge of the roof and pulled out the explosive arrow. She notched it, drew, and held, waiting for the all-clear whistle. It was honestly like emerging into a battlefield again, of sorts - that meant Gale was in the zone, on high alert. The alleyway was a good spot to herd them and he as the bait made his way in there - it was a trap, basically, a large one. But still something meant to ensnare the prey. In this case, gremlins. A few things happened simultaneously. One, the brightness from his flashlight was blinding to them - reminded him kind of the Wicked Witch shriveling up and dying when doused with water. Two, they were so distracted with that, it gave him a chance to leap atop the recycle bin, then jump to the fire escape ladder in the alleyway, grabbing hold like a monkey and hoisting himself up to get out of the way for the upcoming blast. Then. The ear-piercing whistle. Let it rip, Hawkeye. Kate was trying to watch--but a corner of a nearby building was in the way. She jumped up onto a ledge, then up onto a ventilation system, just in time to see Gale climbing up a fire escape. And the whistle. She pulled the string back, took quick aim, and let the arrow fly. It sailed through the air for one second, two, and Kate thought for a moment he’d given her a dud. But then the explosion… oh, the explosion. The shock wave sent Kate staggering backward, with heat melting the snow nearby. Little bits of Gremlins flew through the air, spattering nearby buildings with green goop. A red hot fireball burst into the sky, singing the red brick alleyway and charring the Gremlins bits. Kate lifted a hand to shield her eyes. All that green goop. It was the most beautiful thing that Gale had ever seen. He actually laughed, from where he was, the sound more surprised than anything. Those arrow bombs never failed, did they? Damn, he wished he had an unlimited supply. Maybe he should see about replicating them somehow - but of course they were meant to be used only in special situations. Not like he could go around blowing shit up all the time. As nice as that would be, when Orange County threw too much of its fuckery in his face. “That was pretty great,” he called from the fire escape, beginning to make his way back down the ladder. “You okay?” Kate climbed forward, then jumped off the air conditioning vent (or whatever the thing was) and landed securely on the roof. A couple more steps and she was at the edge, looking with a combination of disgust and amusement down at Gale on the fire escape, and all that goop. “Yeah!” She called out, nose crinkling. Though, somehow she was also smiling. “Those explosive arrows of yours… man. That’s good stuff!” They were pretty great, weren’t they? “Dream design,” Gale shrugged modestly. “And it wasn’t even me who made them. But they were made by the same guy who also designed a trident with a wrist cuff, so when you threw the trident it automatically returned back to you.” During the war it definitely came in handy for Finnick, who wielded that thing like it was an extension of his arm. “Anyway, I’d say our work here is done.” For the moment, anyway. There were obviously still gremlins in other places to contend with, and it’d last for however long the county decided to continue with this crap - oh joy. “You wanna patrol again tomorrow? Same time, different place?” “Like Thor’s hammer.” Kate supplied. She knew that the lightning god’s hammer came back to his hand, no matter where he was or what he was doing. It was pretty impressive. Didn’t matter to her if Gale knew what she was talking about or not. “That’s impressive design. Is he here in this world? I’d like to pick at his brain.” Then she added a nod. “Absolutely. Name the place, I’ll be there. With extra arrows.” She’d nearly run out today. Gale laughed. “Yeah, exactly like Thor’s hammer.” He knew a little bit about comics - even if he wasn’t an avid reader, but. Who didn’t know about the mighty Mjoliaurhnanf or whatever the fuck it was called? “Actually, I don’t know, I don’t think Beetee’s around,” he said as he shouldered his bow, quiver secure and snug on his back. “If he was, I’d want to pick his brain too.” Though maybe the guy was out there regardless - somewhere in the world. Probably all of the dream people were, but hey, that was contemplation for another time. “But, you know, extra arrows - sounds like a plan.” He might even bring his sniper rifle too. You never could be too careful, when dealing with the likes of gremlins. |