Thanks to: ghost235 - the only person in the whole world to review that last chapter before this one came out.
DISCLAIMER: Doesn't matter how many things I build from it, Colfer laid the foundations.
WARNINGS: The usual. Plus some probably downright atrocious explanations of gun breakdown etc. And Pa and Myles tag-team teaching their favourite little protégé, which should probably get a warning for gruff!fluff.
CHAPTER SIX
Ammunition
Definition: 1) Information
2) Arguments
3) Considerations
Fowl Manor, Dublin - One year previous
"Weapon maintenance is very important, Domovoi. One day, any one of your arsenal could save your life. They could just as easily be your downfall if they haven't been properly serviced. Look after your kit and it will look after you. Understood?"
Sat next to his uncle, opposite his grandfather and with the wide array of metal objects splayed out across the table in front of him, the young bodyguard-in-training nodded.
"Yessir," he yapped.
"Good boy. Now pick any of the handguns."
Dom pointed at one. The Major eyed it critically. It was a Sig.
"OK. Pick it up."
Dom ducked his head to hide his grin and hovered his hand over the pistol.
"Check…" Myles muttered.
His father shot him a glare.
Let him do it by himself.
But Dom's thumb had already flicked automatically to check the safety was on.
"Safety on, safe to move," he recited.
"Good lad," said the eldest Butler in the room.
If Domovoi had had a tail, he would have wagged it.
"OK, so we're going to work on breaking down a handgun today. You already know the three main sections…"
He paused to allow his nephew to leap in with the answer.
"Barrel… stock… erm…" he faltered, thinking.
"ABS," his uncle muttered.
"Myles..." Xandr growled.
"Anti-lock brake system?" the boy frowned. "No, wait – Action. Action, Barrel, Stock."
His grandfather nodded, although it would appear his son was already teaching the boy about the workings of his damned vehicles. He made a note to remind him to stop overloading the kid with information all at once.
"Got there eventually. Ready for the next step of the breakdown?"
"Like… springs and bolts everywhere?" Dom asked, cocking his head.
"What do you imagine is inside a gun, Little Kingdom?" he asked, his mouth twitching in amusement.
"Magic?" the boy shrugged.
His uncle barked a laugh, but the elder Butler just smiled. One day the boy would grow up and they would miss moments like this. It was very innocent and childlike to suggest such a thing and the boy had only half been being sarcastic.
"Any real suggestions?"
"Erm… is it like an engine?" he asked.
"Statements, boy. Come on, now. Tell us what you think."
The boy bit his lip, but he had never been ridiculed for making mistakes, only corrected to further his knowledge – it was a Butler training tactic they never wavered from.
"Like… there's lots of little pieces. And they all work together. Like you press the pedal and the car goes, you press the trigger and… the bullet goes."
"That's about it. Slightly less complicated than your average vehicle, mind you," The Major said.
Alexandr raised an eyebrow. Sounded like his son had definitely been giving their young protégé extra lessons on cars already.
"Ready to learn?" he asked the boy.
"Always," Dom grinned.
"Good. Hand me the gun," Butler said, holding out his hand.
Domovoi handed him the gun, stock first, muzzle pointing down – not at himself, anyone else, or anything he didn't want to put a hole in, just as he had been taught first with pellet guns, now he did the same with the real deal.
"We'll start with the basics. To clean a gun properly, you need to know all the parts, where they go and what they do."
Dom nodded. So far, he had only been allowed to help while his uncle and grandfather cleaned the armoury, his comparatively smaller hands making light work of the tiny nooks and crannies their massive paws found difficult to navigate with the cleaning cloth.
"There are nine major components to learn," his grandfather continues. "Now I don't expect you to memorise them all today, but I want you to know them in future. Understood?"
Dom nodded, listening attentively. He intended to do just that of course – learn them all in one day. He was never content with anything he considered even remotely underachieving.
"Grip, trigger, trigger guard – all self-explanatory, agreed?"
Dom nodded again.
"Do you know what a magazine is? Not one of those glossy paper things Mrs Fowl reads, I mean; in terms of guns."
Dom bit his lip.
"It's also called a 'clip' by a lot of people," Alexandr hinted.
The Major gave a scornful grunt. "A lot of people who don't know a lot about guns."
"Quiet, you," his father grouched. "Or next time you speak the clip will be around your ear."
Dom tried not to snicker at his uncle's expense. If the giant could sulk, he would be doing.
"It holds the bullets?" he suggested.
"The proper name for them is 'cartridges'. But yes, essentially, bullets. A magazine can be fixed or – "
He tossed the gun to his son, who despite looking as though he wasn't paying attention, caught it deftly and made a quick sliding motion with his hands whilst finishing his father's sentence.
" – detachable."
Myles handed the empty magazine to his nephew and the rest of the pistol back to his father.
"The bore is this part of the barrel," he said, drawing his finger along its length. "And then this is the muzzle on this end; where the bullet comes out of."
Dom nodded. He knew that one. They had taught him a few names of gun parts already.
"And then this end is the breech. Like the saying, 'once more unto the breach we go'."
"Really? That's where that saying is from?"
"No – it's a Shakespeare quote, actually," Alexandr admitted. "About an army and a hole in a wall. But for the purpose of this, if it helps you remember then yes."
"As in; the cartridge goes from the magazine into the breech and then you're good to…" The Major gestured firing a gun.
"Go?" Dom suggested.
"Yep, fire; bang," his uncle confirmed.
"Yes, thank-you, Myles. I'm sure he understands," Xandr drawled. "So that's about it for the outside of a gun. Then there's the cylinder – that holds the cartridges in their separate chambers. Rotates as the gun is cocked and brings the bullet in line with the barrel in the…" he paused, offering his grandson the chance to prove he had been listening and, more importantly, retaining the information.
"Breech," Dom filled in.
"Good boy," Xandr gave him a rare smile.
Myles thought it deserved more than a smile. The boy was brilliant. Not that he would be telling him that, of course. No need to let success go to the kid's head.
"The last component then. Any suggestions – not you, Myles – as to what it may be?"
"Well there's the holding bit for the bullets," Dom began, correcting himself swiftly; "Cartridges, I mean."
"Which is called a…" the elder prompted.
"Erm… magazine," he remembered.
"Good – carry on."
"Then there's the barrel bit for them to fire down, muzzle bit for the bullets to come out of…"
Alexandr didn't say anything, his face impassive and unreadable.
"Trigger to fire the bullet, but…"
This time Myles said nothing, but the pride that roiled off him was palpable. The clever little shit was working it out. They could see the cogs whirring as he closed his eyes slightly and imagined the inner workings of a firearm. The eldest Butler started to swiftly and expertly dismantle the gun, laying it out in the pieces he had already detailed. The magazine, the breech, the bore, the muzzle… not all were separate, of course, but as he laid out the pieces of the gun's action, the youngest noticed something.
"That bit – the bit that makes the bullet go! Whatever that's called," Dom said excitedly, pointing to a piece he did not yet have the name for. "You pull the trigger and that… does the magic bit that makes the bullet fire out really fast!"
"It's called the hammer," Alexandr told him, nodding approvingly. "It strikes something called a firing pin – or the cartridge primer, depending on the gun – which detonates the primer, which…"
"Fires the bullet. Got it," Dom grinned.
"Discharges, if you want to be technical about it," his uncle corrected.
"So the primer is like… the bit that explodes the bullet out and makes the bang?"
"An explosive which propels the bullet out of the chamber, yes," Alexandr Butler said, pleased with how the short lesson had gone. "But your mother has been stood at the door waiting for us to finish for some time now. So we'll teach you about that next time, shall we?"
Fowl Manor, Dublin - One Year Later
That had been over a year ago. Now, when Theresa headed to the gun room to retrieve her son, she found him once again with a disassembled gun laid out before him. This time, however, he was blindfolded. Alexandr saw her at the door once more and held a finger to his mouth silently, winking at her. The Major was there too. He had a stopwatch.
"Ready?"
Dom gave a sharp nod.
"On my mark… three, two, one…"
The click of the stopwatch was the starting pistol and Dom's hands flew forward, scouting over the pieces as he started to rebuild the weapon. Under half a minute he had a fully functioning handgun in front him. Minus cartridges, of course. He slapped his hands flat on the table.
"Twenty-eight," his uncle said, giving Alexandr an impressed nod before Dom could take his blindfold off and see him do it.
"I could do better. I fumbled the spring," the boy said, miffed.
"Do it again then," his grandfather shrugged.
Dom made to disassemble the weapon.
"Blindfolded," The Major suggested. "Dis and reassemble in under a minute. Reckon you can do it?"
Dom bit his lip. He liked a challenge, but he had never done both, back to back, with a blindfold. He nodded.
"Alright then," he said, pulling the blindfold back down.
"On my mark then," The Major said again. "Three, two, one…"
Click.
His hands moved quickly, disassembling the weapon a series of sliding clicks and laying it out on the table. Alexandr and Myles were pleased to see he was disciplined – and forward thinking – enough to lay them out carefully rather than ending up with a pile of jumbled parts. By the twenty second mark he had the handgun in pieces and paused only a moment to ghost his hands over the top of the table and check the position of his first pieces, before he started to reassemble it. The spring caught again and he readjusted it with steady hands. Theresa found herself willing him on as the seconds ticked down towards the minute mark. She caught herself immediately, for she was never truly comfortable with her young son handling something he would – it wasn't even really just a possibility – one day kill with. But when she had voiced her concerns to Myles, he had merely shrugged and said that it was better for him to learn how to handle one properly so that him firing a fatal shot would never be purely accidental.
Dom finished his task and set the entire gun down on the desk, flattening his hands either side. The Major clicked the stopwatch.
Although he knew better than to demand his time immediately, Dom's hands left the table to lift his blindfold. When he did, he saw his relatives were smiling.
"Fifty-three," his uncle said with a wry smirk. "Very good."
"Very good indeed," his grandfather nodded in agreement. "Fifty seconds, next time."
Dom smiled a little. Not very long ago Artemis had managed to beat him at a game of chess in just under a minute. He made a note to tell him he could take a gun apart, put it back together and shoot him faster than he could lose at chess. Despite yesterday's plans of plotting, he hadn't seen the older boy all day, for he had been holed up in his room complaining of feeling ill. Another thought struck him and he forgot about his friend for now.
"What can you do it in?" he asked. "Thirty seconds?"
"Nevermind that, boy," his grandfather chuckled. "Mind the fact you'd have had time to tie your shoelaces and still beat a minute!"
Dom grinned again and Theresa sensed an opportunity to interrupt. She pushed the door open gently and was pleasantly surprised to see her son's face light up further at the sight of her.
"Ma – I just did a field strip and reassembly in fifty-three seconds! And I was blindfolded!"
He seemed so pleased with himself she didn't have the heart to listen to her misgivings.
"I know, sweetheart – I was watching! You're great at it!"
"He definitely is. What say you we try a full detailed strip down next time, eh lad?"
Dom grinned again – he had not yet been allowed to take all the innards out of a gun yet – only watch it being done and clean the pieces. He had been looking forward to earning the right.
"Can we try now?" he asked, eagerly.
But Xandr caught Theresa's eye and gave his grandson a low, growling laugh, reaching across the table to scruff his hair.
"Patience, little kingdom. It can wait. You and your mother need to be getting home. I hear it's a big day for you tomorrow, am I right?"
"It's… it's just a play. It's nothing, really," the boy muttered. "I'd rather learn how to detail strip a 1911…"
His grandfather chuckled again.
"All in good time, youngblood," he said and Dom knew by the nickname he used that he was being too hot-headed and impatient. His grandfather had several for him and used them interchangeably. "All in good time. Now then, are you going to tell me about this 'just a play' while we pack up?"
Dom still seemed a little disappointed, but his grandfather began clearing away the guns and he began to help, following into the side-room that held the gun cabinet and leaving his uncle and mother to talk alone.
"He really loves it, doesn't he?" she said, with an air of defeat in her tones.
Myles nodded. "He's very good at it, too."
"I can see that," she sighed. "And that's no surprise – you two taught him, after all. It's just… I just… I thought he might be a little older before he… I don't know. Those are real guns he's handling…"
"Yes, but the younger he learns, the better," Myles repeated his usual stance on the matter. "Besides, we haven't let him shoot a live firearm on his own yet."
"Good – he's barely seven years old!" she said. "Wait – 'on his own', yet?"
"Well, we've done a bit of, you know…" The Major shrugged, looking a little like he wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
"A bit of what, Myles?" she growled – and he almost winced. She honestly reminded him of his own mother when she looked at him like that. And there was a woman not even his father would attempt to deceive…
"Assisted shooting," he admitted. "We hold the gun with him and he aims and pulls the trigger."
"Myles," Theresa said, with quiet exasperation as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
"It's perfectly safe," he assured her, noticing her concern. "We stand behind him."
"Myles," she said again, eyes closed.
"It really helps if he can get a feel for it without the full force," Myles justified, a little hurriedly. "He's a bit young for the full recoil yet and you don't want him getting into the habit of flinching whenever he takes a shot. It's a hard one to break, so…"
"I'm not sure I want him getting into the habit of firing guns, to be honest!" she interrupted before he could finish.
Myles didn't have an answer for that, so it was fortunate that at that moment Xandr and his latest acolyte returned. The man stood behind the chair he had been seated at and began to tidy away the last of the cleaning equipment from the table, replacing it neatly into a specially-designed box.
"Right, come on then, bugalugs," Theresa said to her son. "Time to go. Say g'bye to Pops."
Dom paused halfway across the room and spun back, grabbing his grandfather briefly and pressing himself to somewhere under his armpit against the man's great ribcage. He barely made it to the giant's hip when he was standing, but that would change all too soon.
"Watch the case, boy," Xandr grumbled as he jostled his arm, trying – and failing, Theresa thought – to keep an affectionate look from his eye.
"Poka, Pa," Dom said into his shirt.
"Aye, do syidaniya, vnuk," he returned, scruffing his grandson's hair again briefly before returning to his work.
The youngest Butler broke away and sprang to his mother's side.
"OK, ready," he piped.
"Do skorogo, Pa," Theresa said; a phrase he had taught her long ago now.
"Indeed – don't leave it so long next time," he replied. "You know you're always welcome."
"I know," she smiled, hoping her gratefulness for that came across.
"Alright, come on. Do you want to be home before midnight or what?" Myles said, checking his watch. And then to his father; "Anything you want doing whilst I'm out?"
"Nothing essential. Let me know when you're back though – there's some blueprints I want to go through with you of The Gaiety before we head there next week."
The Major grunted. Theatres were notorious nightmares to guard in. So many side-doors and hidden corridors that didn't show up on original plans… Art-lovers insisted it was all part of the magic to have actors appear without notice in the auditorium. Bodyguards insisted it was all part of the next assassin's plan.
"Do you want to go say goodbye to Artemis before you go?" Theresa said, taking her son by the shoulder and squeezing him close as they left the room.
"Yeah OK, thanks," Dom beamed. Mothers were made exactly for reminding you of things you'd regret not doing later, after all. "I won't be long."
"Good; we need to be off," his uncle grumbled. "And don't disturb him if he's sleeping. You know what he's like when he's got a cold; acts like the whole damned world is ending…"
Dom leapt lithely up the stairs, rapping his knuckles briefly on the old wood before he opened Artemis's door.
Artemis, who was sat at his writing desk, jumped, pressing a hand to his chest.
"Christ, Junior! I do wish you wouldn't burst in like that."
"I didn't – I knocked first," the Butler boy shrugged. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to be in bed? I thought you were sick."
Artemis looked a little shifty and gave a forced cough. "I am ill. I just got bored of reading so thought I would look over the perpetual motion machine plans."
"The wha – ? Oh, you mean the donkey thing."
"Yes," Artemis sighed. "The 'donkey thing'. Although I do prefer the title 'perpetual mo – '."
"Should've prob'ly mentioned earlier that I don't even know what it means," Dom interrupted, leaning on the back of his friend's chair and looking over his shoulder. He had managed to miss out on being kicked by a cantankerous miniature equine today, thanks to Artemis's sudden cold and The Major's subsequent banning of the boy from stepping foot outside the manor doors until further notice.
"Well, 'motion' is obvious," Artemis explained – he almost always enjoyed explaining. "And 'perpetual' simply means 'constant' or 'inexhaustible'. For example, you appear to have a perpetual curiosity and come to think of it, you are also constantly in motion. Maybe I should use you as a more integral part of my desi – what are you doing now?!"
The Fowl flapped as the youngest Butler leant over and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead.
"Checking your temperature – me mam does it to me if I'm sick. You feel OK, though."
"Yes well… I'm not. I'm ill. I bloody well know I'm ill because I'm me," the Fowl heir grumbled. "Shouldn't you be going by now, anyway?"
Dom rolled his eyes – a habit his elders were trying to break him of. Sometimes people were very hard to understand. Especially aristocrats.
"Yeah I only came to say bye."
"Oh. Well, goodbye Junior. And enjoy your nativity – break a leg, or whatever it is they say. Although in your case, that'd be highly inconvenient I'm sure."
"Thanks Artemis," Dom grinned. "Enjoy your chess thing."
"Ah yes, it's unfortunate about this cold I've come down with… I may be too ill yet to play," Artemis said, stifling another cough. "I'll have to see…"
Dom didn't really understand that either. There was nothing – bar explicit forbidding from his mother, uncle or grandfather – that would stop him from doing something he enjoyed. And even then it wasn't a watertight guarantee…
"Oh. Well get well soon, then," he bid.
Artemis managed one more sniffling cough before he closed the door.
I apologise if all that gun explanation bit looked like bullshit to people who know more about them than me.
QotC -Anyone actually enjoy hearing about Dom's training pre-Academy?
Wolfy
ooo
O
