[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by dkellis

This is why I don't like to write action.

Spoiler for Lyrical Melancholy Chapter 2 Part 1:

*snip*

It's a good effort, and I like how the charecters are rollin' and entertaining. The combat does seem somewhat... dry... but it's pieced together alright and we can tell what's going on. Somehow, I'm thinking dialogue and interactions are your strong points.

Meanwhile, here's Franz and Naomi's 200th hours:

Spoiler for 200th Hour:

Three years ago
MC0072

Training Room 2B
OFM Compound

"Go go go!"

The young girl at the head of the 4 young women in t-shirts, cargo pants and body armor stacked up at the door entrance carefully opened the door and threw a flashbang in; the non-lethal grenade detonated in a flash of light and a roar of thunder, blinding and deafening the terrorists in the room. She kicked the door open and stormed in towards her sector, taking point. A terrorist appeared in her view, behind a couch and a hostage: she fired her .45 pistol, two rounds stitching the target's face. In her sector she saw another terrorist and his partner and opened fire, double tapping both of them in the head, as she advanced to the end corner of the small room. Reaching the corner, she turned left and spotted another terrorist, and fired her last round, performing a smooth combat reload.

Then there was silence, punctuated by a series of shouts: "Clear!" "Clear!" "Clear!"

"CLEAR!" she yelled, a little too loudly, and one of the hostages turned around from where he was sitting on the couch.

"I think we got the message, Private," said 2nd Lieutenant Franz Jaeger dryly, making a notation on his clipboard and looking at the holes in the cardboard targets representing terrorists.

"Five seconds. No injuries to the hostages as well. Good job, Lance Flight. Lieutenant Nailo, my compliments to you and your team." He cocked his head to the side, smiled, and said, "Lieutenant Nailo wishes to congratulate you on your performance, and thanks you for not screwing up in front of General O'Neil. Drinks on her after quittin' time. Hostages, say thank you to the nice ladies for rescuing us."

"Thank you, nice ladies," chorused Alpha Squad, following their leader.

Franz led his squad out of the room and waved goodbye to Lance Flight, as Emili made her way from the observation room to the killing room.

"Alright girls, good job," she said. "Let's debrief."

"I gotta check my arm first," muttered the Lance Flight 2IC, as she pulled her hand away from her arm. It was stained red with her blood.

Emili's expression changed from pleased to hard and cold, her expression dangerous. "Get yourself cleaned up. Then we redo the excercise all over again. Someone fucked up. And when I find out who did it, I will have their ass."

The expression on her sister and leader's face terrified Naomi.

* * * * *

Assault Platoon Bay
Senior Leaders Office

When Emili didn't show up immediately after the excercise, Franz commed her, and learned about the incident. Now he sat and leaned back at his desk, his eyes tracking the data on his holoscreen, seeing yet unseeing, remembering something years past...

"Hit them with a plasma grenade! Hurry!"

"Fuck, Jackass, watch where you're throwing that thing!

"Damnit, I'm too beautiful to die!"

"Is something wrong, Sir?" asked the Master Chief.

"Just caught up in memories, Chief," replied Franz thoughtfully. "Have you ever fucked up a mission, before joining us?"

"I don't recall so," said the Master Chief slowly. "We were always able to accomplish our missions. Why, Sir?"

"Nah, it's nothin', Master Chief. Just that I have a feeling Naomi's going through her 200th hour right now. And I was thinking of mine, all those years ago..."

* * * * *

"We start from the beginning," ordered Emili, her expression stern. "Stack up. Alright. Lance 2, you're the point. Walk through."

The 3 women and 1 12-year-old girl nodded, and Naomi mimed throwing a flashbang into the room, before entering and walking her way through the room. Behind her, the rest of Lance flight did the same, carefully retracing their steps and their actions.

Naomi moved forward, counting off her steps. "One, two," she said, pointing her finger at her first target, counting off her shots, moving to her next target. "Three, four." Step. "Five, six." Walk to the corner, turn left. "Seven." She looked through the hole in the target, then looked up, and swallowed, trembling.

She was perfectly in line with Lance 4.

"I-it w-was my round," she choked out fearfully, and Emili turned a hard look on her.

"Repeat that, Private."

"L-lieutenant, Ma'am, it was m-my round that hit Lance 4."

"Alright. What did you do wrong?"

"I fired without confirming my target," said Naomi bleakly. "I saw the target and everything sort of vanished, I didn't see 4, I saw just the target and went for it-"

"You saw the 'target and went for it.' You were tunnelling," said Lance 4. "Tunnel vision will get you killed for real. And you weren't paying attention either. You were out of position." The 2IC's voice was dark and bleak.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry won't put you back in position. Sorry won't take your bullet back. Sorry won't heal my arm."

Naomi gulped, and prepared to meet her doom. She was pretty sure she was going to die.

For some reason, she felt oddly regretful that she hadn't finished baking that starfish-shaped bread yet...

* * * * *

3 hours later, Naomi wasn't sure if she'd rather be dead.

Emili had been called away on administrative details, with the result that Lance 4, the second in command, was in charge of correcting Naomi's deficiencies in training. Lance 4 had decided that the best way to do that was to go to the outdoor range and have Naomi keep on firing and firing.

"No magic. No aiming aids. No aimbots. No HUD. Just iron sights. Oh, and if it isn't a headshot, it doesn't count."

And so she had spent 3 hours under the hot sun, firing away like .45ACP ammo was going out of style, pumping in round after round after round into paper targets, firing until her hand was sore and red. It hadn't helped that her aim was being thrown off by the stiff breeze.

"Okay, time out," called Lance 3, as Naomi paused to reload, relieved to have a break. "Come over here girl, and take five."

Naomi staggered over to where 3 and 5 were sitting under a tree, and 5 tossed an MRE packet at her; she fumbled the catch but managed to hold on to the food packet, gratefully sitting down and tearing it open. "Uh, thanks."

"Don't be shy," grinned 5. "Range time always makes me hungry. So, how ya feelin'?"

"I wish I could die right now."

"Aw, don't feel too bad," said 3. "This kinda stuff happens all the time. At least you didn't shoot her in the bust. That would REALLY get you in trouble."

Naomi whimpered and reflexsively placed a protective hand across her not-quite-developing-still-growing-slowly bust, then yelped as 3 reached out and grabbed her chest. "Wh-wh-wh-"

"Aw, you're cute when you're flustered," grinned 3. "Really really cute..."

"I bet you'll grow up to have a nice large set," murmured another voice playfully in her ear, and Naomi started as another Air Wing mage grabbed her from behind, snuggling up to her.

"Aw, let 'er go Leena, you're freaking her out," deadpanned 5, and Leena Tokarev merely laughed.

"But she's so so cute! This innocent face! That youthful beauty! Naomi-chan, I desire your burning heart!"

"...well, at least you're honest."

* * * * *

Attempts at lesbian seduction aside (which were laughed off by everyone else: Leena Tokarev was an indiscriminate over the top worshipper of the female form), lunch was soothing to Naomi, giving her a chance to relax a bit and forget her cares. Her flightmates had been encouraging, and had told her to hand in there and chin up.

More practically, they'd given her a shooting glove to help her shoot far more comfortably.

The rest of the afternoon became one long session of shooting again and again and again, until out of nowhere Lance 4 ordered her to stop shooting, pick up her targets, police her brass, and get her ass back over to the training room. Naomi was shocked to see that another 4 hours had gone by so fast, and her right hand was trembling uncontrollably as she pulled her glove off and looked with dismay at her blistered hand. It took several attempts to take down her paper targets, and while it hurt to hold them in her hand, she felt a small measure of pride that at least most of her shots were headshots.

Leena had given her a wicked grin at one of her shots. It had gone low. Very low. In fact, on a man, that shot would be in a very painful and sensitive place. Naomi had given up on trying to explain to the green-haired lesbian that it was just a stray round, not an indicator of sexual preferences. Besides, she was only twelve!

It was with a heavy heart that she headed back to the training room where the rest of her flight were gathered, with Emili in tow... but they were all surprisingly cheerful, with none of the doom and gloom she was expecting.

"Well, it looks like you survived," smiled Emili, as her apprentice entered. "I guess I owe you a story then."

Naomi blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"Remember what I told you before we assaulted the Exeter? I'd tell you what my 200th hour was, if you survived yours. Spare parts, shot up."

"...huh?"

"What the LT means, kid," said Lance 4, looking amused, "Is that you've passed your 200th hour. The 200th hour can be both literal or symbolic... but it's basically the time when you get overconfident and do something you're not capable up, and thus fuck up. Everyone has one. The Colonel's was getting into a fight with that Enforcer, Spectrum 3. Mine was when I first hit AMF. Lead... I'll let you tell her that one."

"Thanks," grinned Emili. "So, before we run through the raid one more time, anything you want to say, Naomi?"

"Yeah," said the girl, screwing up her courage and looking at Lance 4. "You were out of position. If you'd stayed in position, I wouldn't have hit you."

"Sorry," said Lance 4, smiling slightly.

"Sorry won't put you back in position."

"I mean about all that stuff I put you through today. Go put some cream on your hand, and then we'll run the room again. Let's get it right this time, girls!"

"Beat 5 seconds and drinks are on me," grinned Emili. "Now beat that time and Franz's time!"

* * * * *

"Well, you look ready to crash right here and now, Naomi," said Franz that evening, as his tired sister entered the office he shared with Ivanovich and the Master Chief. "Ready to go home?"

She nodded tiredly at him, dragging her duffel bag on the floor, and Franz grabbed his own duffel and shut down his computer and killed the lights, undoing a couple of buttons of his fatigues. He held the door open for her, and on a whim, reached out and took her hand as they walked to the elevator. Naomi leaned into him as they stepped into the elevator and rode down towards the parking garage, both of them in companioble silence until they were almost home. Then she spoke.

"Bruder?"

"Da?"

"What was your 200th hour like?"

"Oh, man," said Franz, shaking his head. "It was... well, it's both sad and embarrassing."

"What happened?"

"...long story cut short, this was about 13 years ago. One of my early missions with Bravo Squad and the Order. So bad guys are comin' towards us, we're in this big ditch, and Ivanovich goes, "Plasma grenade, NOW!" And so I prime a plasma grenade, and throw it... and I let go too late and it sticks to the wall of the ditch, about a couple of inches in front of the Sergeant Major's knee. All of us curse and run like hell as it blows, and only just make it outta the ditch before it's awash in plasma. And then the bad guys can see us and we're no longer in good cover and so we gotta run like hell yet again, fire and manuver..."

As he pulled into their parking space, Franz smiled as he took in the sight of an exhausted Naomi, asleep in her seat, and gently unbuckled her and picked her up piggyback. Forgoing the elevator, he murmured "Burst Jump" and leapt to their apartment balcony. A quick jimmying of the window and he was inside the house, carrying her to her room, setting her down on her bed, lips twitching slightly when she mumbled "I love you, Bruder," in her sleep. He stood there in the doorway, gazing upon her face, feeling proud and yet strangely sad at the same time, sighed and stepped back into the room and kissed her on the forehead and tucked his sister in, wanting to say it, yet unable to verbalise his feelings for her.

Then he jumped off the balcony, landed next to the car, grabbed their bags, and jumped back up.

Well, it's done. Worked on it through the night, through fatigue and bleary eyes. Not my best

work, at least to me. *sighs*
God, 3.05 AM here. I was wanting to get it done before midnight. Gotta get up in 3 hours too -_-

Explanations: O'Neil is making an inspection, Lance was doing a hostage rescue demo. Master Chief - two interpretations. One: he's so badass he never had a 200th hour. Two: He's had it and he doesn't know he's had it.

Well, night, y'all.