NOTES: Yet another fic inspired by the HTK just being in the same room. Actually, it was inspired by seeing this pretty official picture of Heidern with his arm around little Leona, who has a gun. No content warnings, except for a few swear words. This fic was supposed to be some stupid, funny cracktastic thing, and instead it turned into this short, cute, not very funny, sort of pointless thing instead. Lesson to be learned: post-planning, don't let Beni write most of the story. It will get all WAFFly. Enjoy. R&R welcome, of course.
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Three Men and an Orochi
By the HTK
"Happy birthday dear Leona, happy birthday to you!"
"And many more~~~" Ralf crooned, and then he snapped the pointy party hat Leona was wearing and grinned at her cheerfully. He and Clark passed her smallish brightly-wrapped packages and leaned in to watch her take them.
Leona's small face was serious as she accepted the gifts and sat holding them.
"Happy tenth birthday, honey," said Heidern, patting Leona on the head, uncharacteristically gentle. "Go ahead and open them. I'm sure the men... er... your friends Ralf and Clark got you nice things." He gave the two young soldiers a look that told them that they'd better have.
Leona opened the gifts carefully, and held up the items for her father to look at. A protective flak vest, a small pair of steel-toed boots, a real Swiss army knife, a waterproof watch with three timers, a book entitled "Weaponry Through the Ages," and a stuffed dog. He nodded approvingly at each item.
Ralf and Clark rose from the kitchen table where a small cake sat, half-devoured, with ten striped candles lying in a small bowl beside it. Clark wandered off towards the refrigerator, and Ralf made as if to follow him. Heidern reached out a long arm and grabbed the back of Ralf's jacket.
"Where do you think you're going, soldier?" Heidern's expression made it clear that he expected his soldiers to spend their time celebrating his daughter's birthday.
Ralf indicated the cabinet near the door where they kept the liquor and a number of guns. "Well, sir, actually, Clark and I bought some beer today and... uh..."
"Lieutenant, my daughter is only ten years old." Heidern fixed Ralf with a steely stare. "Why would you bring beer to her party?"
Ralf gave his commander a sickly grin. "Er... we... it's not for her, sir. We thought we'd.. uh... drink to your daughter's health. Take the rare occasion that we have free time and really celebrate... you know? Is there, uh, a problem with that?"
Heidern let go of Ralf's jacket and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. "I suppose it's all right. Just watch yourself, soldier. I don't want her picking up any bad habits from you two."
Ralf saluted, while simultaneously edging away. "Yes sir!"
He and Clark made their way over to the cabinet and pulled out a case of beer, along with a few other kinds of alcohol. The next hour or so passed peacefully; Leona spent most of it reading her new book and playing with her stuffed animal, although Ralf and Clark convinced her to give them a fashion show with the new vest and boots.
After a while, Heidern put his hand out and closed the book Leona was reading gently but firmly. She looked up at him with serious blue eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, honey. It's just that I think that now you're old enough to try something new." Heidern stood up and walked over to the cabinet, next to the refrigerator. Ralf and Clark were standing there slurping Jell-O shots out of little shot glasses (just to be smart-ass), already needing to lean on the counter.
"Shir... I mean Sir... uh... what're you doing?" Ralf blinked at his commander and shook a slightly wobbly finger at him. "Thought'chu said she was only ten! You can't give her this kinda stuff! I'm respectfully gonna hafta disagree with your, uh, decision and stuff... " He shook his shot glass at Heidern. "I don't think she's ready for this jelly, sir!"
"Don't be an idiot, Lieutenant." Heidern yanked the cabinet open and reached past the bottles of Captain Morgan. He pulled out a medium-sized pistol and checked to make sure it was loaded. "I'm going to teach her how to use a real gun; she's graduated from those air rifles as of today."
Ralf's eyes widened, and he followed Heidern back to the table, carrying his empty shot glass with him. "Sirrrrrrrrr, don't you think that's... sorta... dangerous'n'stuff? She could, er, shoot her eye out're somethin'..."
Heidern frowned at him. "Stop being stupid. My daughter would never shoot anything but her intended target. I've already trained her extensively in the use of other kinds of guns; a real one shouldn't be any different." He put his hand on Leona's shoulder. "Come on, Leona, let's go out to the range, all right?"
They left Ralf and Clark in the kitchen having a tipsy argument over the remnants of the cake and walked out to the outdoor range. Heidern had put up a row of human dummies earlier, and he pointed to the first of them as he lead Leona over to the end of the range.
"We're gonna practice on that, all right?" He put the gun in Leona's small hands and folded them around the grip, making sure all her fingers were in the right places, before he released them and knelt next to her, long legs folded beneath him. "All right, Leona, where do you think you should aim for?"
Leona studied the dummy carefully. "Umm... the head?"
"Good girl. Aim for the exposed parts. If you're fighting a common hoodlum, it's all right to aim for the torso, which is larger and easier to hit; but the people we work against tend to be a little better prepared than that. If you take a shot for the heart and the target is wearing a protective vest or something, you'll give away your position and presence for nothing. Why don't you take a shot and see how you do?"
Leona aimed the gun carefully at the dummy and pulled the trigger; the gun kicked back in her hands harder than she'd expected, and they watched the side of the dummy's head explode in a puff of cloth. Heidern squeezed her shoulder.
"Well, good enough, you would have gotten his ear, at any rate. Don't forget to adjust to the gun; if possible, you should never go into any situation without at least one weapon you're familiar with." He waved an arm at the dummy. "Let's say you're on an operation. What would you do if that guy was wearing a helmet?"
Leona frowned, pointed the gun again, and carefully squeezed the trigger. The dummy's neck exploded and its head rolled across the ground. Heidern couldn't keep himself from beaming with pride; she was such a quick learner, especially in the arts of war. She'd made a real addition to the Ikari special force some day. "Good job, soldier! Explain why you picked the throat?"
"Because if I'm on an operation, it's probably against armed forces who are wearing body armor..? So if he's wearing a helmet, I should go for the most vital spot that's exposed?"
"Yes! Go for the kill!" Heidern smiled at the girl, who reflected it with the ghost of a smile. "You never know if he's going to shoot you! If they seem unprepared or unarmed, killing may not be necessary, though. Shooting the kneecap or leg to incapacitate them might be enough in those cases. The groin may also be a good target if only the upper body is armored. Never use more or less force than you need." He pointed to the next dummy in the line. "All right, let's practice some more precision shots..."
Leona studied the dummy. "Should I shoot him in the nuts, sir?"
Heidern froze. "What did you say?"
"Should I shoot him in the nuts?"
Heidern turned and gripped her shoulders, looking her directly in the face. "Where did you learn that word?"
Leona stared back at him. "I heard it from Ralf."
Heidern turned his head towards the house, eye flashing dangerously. "JONES!"
In the kitchen, Ralf dropped the cake he'd just won from Clark, a cold shiver running up his spine and breaking through his alcoholic haze. "Oh shit."
"Hey, don't waste that!" Clark knelt by the dropped cake and thoughtfully poked the top of it with his fork. "Er... this part didn't touch the floor so it's okay, right?"
Ralf straightened and looked towards the door. "Think I'm in trouble, man..."
"What'd ya do this time?"
"Dunno, but I have a bad feeling 'bout this..." Ralf tugged his bandanna a little straighter and stumbled out to the range, where Heidern still knelt next to his daughter.
"What can I do for you, sir?" Ralf asked when he got out there. The look Heidern was giving him was curdling the Jell-O in his stomach. "Uh.. everything all right out here?"
"Jones," the commander said, still glinting malevolently, "Leona has learned an... unsavory word from you."
"Er... what word's that, sir?" Ralf asked. He could feel a bead of sweat running down his back. He tried to remember any times he'd sworn in front of Leona and came up with too many examples to count.
"A descriptive term for the male anatomy." Heidern turned to Leona. "Tell Ralf here what you said to me."
"I asked if I should shoot him in the nuts?" she repeated, pointing at the far-off dummy. "What's wrong with that?"
"Er... sir... I was just talking about, uh, nuts like, er... peanuts, and walnuts, and pistachios and things... heh heh..." Ralf felt more sweat trickle down the back of his neck and wished he could wipe his face, but he was standing somewhat at attention. Nuts, huh? At least it wasn't something worse... still, he was going to catch hell. Possibly literally.
Heidern redirected his gaze to his daughter. "Do you remember exactly what the Lieutenant said about nuts, Leona?"
"Sure." She looked up at Ralf, blue eyes clear and emotionless. "He was talking to Clark, and they were out here practicing on the range with me. He said, 'Don't point that thing at my nuts, asshole.'"
Ralf wondered if he should just save himself time and drop dead there on the spot. He could foresee a trip to hell in his future.
Heidern looked like he was going to explode. His eye narrowed and he fixed Ralf with the same kind of look one usually reserved for cockroaches found in one's dessert. The look said, "I am going to squish you until you make a crunchy noise and cake squirts out."
Ralf opened his mouth to try and talk his way out of it, but his mind was fuzzy with liquor, and in any case, there wasn't much he could say at this point.
"Jones," Heidern said smoothly, face perfectly composed, only his one eye giving away his ire, "I believe there are several sacks of potatoes in the cellar that you could be dealing with at this moment."
"Yes sir!" Ralf said, turning away hastily. There was no way he'd get away with only this much, but standing around any longer might make the punishment worse.
* * *
After dinner, which had featured potatoes in abundance (and from which Ralf had been conspicuously absent), Heidern sent Leona to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
"You need to brush after every meal! Remember," he explained, "Someday you might need to pull a grenade pin out with your mouth, chew through a rope, or attack someone by biting them, so you need strong, healthy teeth!"
Taking great interest, as usual, in the patriotic red, white, and blue-ish striped look of the toothpaste, she brushed her teeth. Afterwards she rinsed the toothbrush and put it back in the rack with the others. She frowned; something was wrong. There was her own small turquoise blue toothbrush; Heidern's extra-large dark blue one; Clark's blue and black striped one... but where was Ralf's green camouflage-pattern toothbrush? It wasn't like he would go somewhere else to brush his teeth...
Still puzzling over the missing toothbrush, she wandered over to the gun cabinet. Heidern had retired to his office for the evening to do paperwork, but he'd encouraged her to do a little more practice on the range. She selected the same gun she'd been practicing with earlier, grabbed a pair of protective goggles, and headed outside. She was halfway across the compound, headed for the range, when she happened to look over at the large flat warehouse where they kept a few military vehicles. One of the large bay doors was open, and light streamed out, along with loud rock music. She detoured towards it, wondering what was going on there. Despite her father's disapproval, she loved hanging out with the two young soldiers under his command. She rather wished she were their age; being thirty years old had to be a lot more interesting than being ten. You got much bigger guns, for one thing.
She reached the door and peeked inside, to see Ralf hunched next to the company's tank, detailing its cracks and grooves with... his toothbrush? He dipped it into a bucket of soapy water and continued cleaning, howling loudly and somewhat tunelessly to the accompaniment of AC/DC on the radio.
"Oh, I've got big balls, I've got big balls, and they're SUCH big balls, dirty big balls! And HE'S got big balls, and SHE'S got big balls, but WE'VE got the biggest -- balls of them all!"
He didn't even notice when Leona walked up behind him soberly and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and blanched when he saw her, then scrambled for his radio, knocking it over before he managed to turn it off.
"What're you doing out here, sweetie?" he asked afterwards, seated nonchalantly on the concrete. "Shouldn't you be inside studying or something?"
"Father said I could come practice on the range with this," she replied, holding up the gun. "Why are you out here with your toothbrush?"
"Uh..." Ralf grinned at her, rubbing the back of his head. "Oh, you know... cleaning... You know, there's some spots that it's hard to reach with the big scrub brush..."
"But you clean them with your toothbrush?" She inspected the grimy brush in his hand, noting the way the bristles were almost black with grease and grime. "Isn't that bad for you?"
"Well, uh, you rinse it out with some soap and it's fine... heh... you know, the average person eats like ten pounds of dirt in a lifetime, or something, so it's okay." Noting her frown, he shook his head and spoke again before she could object to his logic. "Never mind. Don't worry about it, I'll get a new one next time we go to town."
"Why are you doing it now, though? Couldn't you wait till you bought a new toothbrush?"
"Er... actually, your father's making me do it now. Commander's orders and all."
"Why's he making you do it?" Her face was curious, and he sighed. How to answer this one? He didn't want her to feel guilty, but he didn't want to lie to her...
"Uh... actually, he's just a little mad at me for something I did. Will you promise me something, Leona?" He wiped his soapy hand on his jeans and put it on her shoulder. She looked back at him with innocent blue eyes.
"Sure, Ralf."
"This may be a little odd, but I want you to promise you won't tell anything I say to the commander unless I explicitly tell you to, all right?"
"Okay," she agreed.
"Good girl. You want to listen to the radio with me?" He turned it back on, at a lower volume, and went through the stations until he found a soft rock station that seemed fairly innocuous. He went back to his work with her watching him, making conversation now and then. He liked the girl; she was quiet, but she had charm, and neither he nor Clark could deny her anything she asked for. She carried his bucket for him as he moved around the tank, and gave short, thoughtful replies to his jokes and comments.
About ten minutes later he looked up and nearly fell over when he saw a familiar eyepatched face staring at them from just inside of the bay door. He took the bucket from Leona and nudged her towards her father.
"Thanks for your help, Leona. Why don't you run along now and talk to your dad, okay? I'll finish up by myself." As soon as she headed towards the door, he moved his cleaning activities to the back of the tank, placing it between himself and his commander.
Heidern took her outside the door, then knelt down in the grass to look her in the face. "What were you doing in there, honey?" he asked.
"I was just going out to practice," and she held up the gun, "And then I saw the light on so I came to see what was going on."
"I saw you talking to Lieutenant Jones... did he say anything to you?"
"Not really..." she screwed her face up in thought. "Oh. Well, he did tell me that I shouldn't tell you anything he said unless it was explicit."
"WHAT?"
Leona looked somewhat abashed. "Oops, I wasn't supposed to tell you that either, I bet..."
"Why don't we save the gun practice for tomorrow when it's light? I think you should go inside and read or something before you go to bed, all right? Get going, honey." He gave her a few pats on the back to send her on her way.
As per orders she headed back towards the house; glancing back for a moment, she saw Heidern headed towards the tank with a decidedly predatorial step.
* * *
The next day, breakfast too was Ralf-free. Heidern was also absent, still busy with an important phone call he'd received early that morning. Leona and Clark were the only two at the table, and she was the only one eating. She had a bowl of Ralf's Lucky Charms, since they'd run out of Wheat Chex the week before, but Clark appeared to be having nothing but a huge mug of coffee with a lot of cream in it for breakfast.
"Clark, are you okay?" she asked, concerned. He normally had a large bowl of oatmeal every morning.
"Fine, Leona," he replied, but she thought he looked much paler than usual. He took a big sip of the coffee.
Leona headed for the range again, gun in hand. Halfway there, she paused, then walked over to the warehouse she'd gone to last night; she was slightly disappointed not to see Ralf there. She walked up to the tank; it seemed much cleaner, certainly. The humvee, the jeeps, and the motorcycles all seemed cleaner too. She wondered just how late Ralf had been up cleaning them.
Instead of going to the range, she ended up wandering aimlessly around the compound. The commander would have disapproved of such pointless behavior, but he wasn't around. The only ones who would see her were Ralf and Clark, and they wouldn't care. They'd probably encourage her. Ralf and Clark never missed a chance to kill time; she admired them and, just as she cared about her adopted father, his soldiers were like family too, big brothers who made her rather dark world a little brighter.
After a few minutes of walking, she came upon Ralf working on the fencing that ran all the way around the base with a huge spindle of barbed wire, running it around the base of the fence to discourage diggers or climbers. He smiled and waved a hand striped with dried blood at her when he saw her approaching.
"Hey, sweetie, what're you doing out this early?" She showed him the gun as an answer. "Hey, practice is a good thing," he continued. "Too bad you have to do it alone. I might be out there with you if the commander wasn't making me do this. Why don't you go find Clark? He could use the practice anyway..."
"He didn't look like he wanted to practice at breakfast," she said. "Actually, he looked really sick."
"Too much of the Captain, eh?" Ralf mused, stroking his chin momentarily. He continued talking a moment later without explaining this enigmatic comment. She wondered if a Captain had visited the base after she'd gone to bed. "Ah, I envy him..." Ralf went on, "Oh well. Anyway. I have work to do, so you'd better get going, sweetie... oh... except I have another favor to ask you, okay?"
"What is it?"
Ralf looked around the nearby scenery suspiciously before looking at Leona again. "Look, Leona... promise me that you'll never tell ANYTHING I say to your dad, all right? Don't even tell him I told you that, okay? If he asks what I said to you, just say 'nothing,' okay?" He grinned. "I mean, you're a little young for the typical teenager response, but you're a pretty mature little girl... he'd have to get used to it sometime, anyway. So. You understand?"
"Why?"
"Uh... you'll understand when you're older, I promise."
She nodded solemnly. "But... what if you need to tell father something?"
"I'll tell Clark. Don't worry about it. Anyway, I need to get back to work, sweetie, so get off to your shooting exercises now, okay?" He smiled at her again, a patented infectious Jones grin, and turned back to his work. She shrugged and headed over to the shooting range.
After more than two hours of blowing targets away, she got bored. At first it had been fun to perfect her aim with the real gun; it was like and yet unlike the other guns she'd used in her life. After she'd fixed her aim, it'd been kind of fun to watch things destruct in an explosion of glass, wood, plastic, or whatever the target was made out of. After that, to see how many times she could hit the same spot over and over. But it all got boring after a while; she decided to walk around the compound again and see if Clark or Heidern were out of the house yet.
She wandered around the back of the compound, near where the jungle began, vines reaching in through the chain link fence like hungry snakes. There were a number of large outbuildings here, various storage sheds and the armory; the Ikari base was more or less self-sufficient, except for the fresh food they bought from the small villages nearby.
She'd been walking without direction for almost ten minutes when she heard a loud crash, a series of metallic thuds and hollow wooden cracks, and a lot of loud swearing from one of the storage buildings. She ran over to investigate and peered in through the open double doorway.
Ralf was lying on the floor, surrounded by several large steel drums, most of which were lying on their sides, and a number of big wooden crates. He'd obviously been stacking or arranging them somehow, though Leona couldn't really make any order out of the mess they'd become.
"Ralf! Are you okay?" She scrambled through the fallen containers to his side.
"Ow, my FUCKING leg... fucking HURTS..." Ralf was sitting up a bit, wincing as he tried to push a pair of metal drums off his left leg. Unfortunately they were jammed up against the stone wall of the building and not going anywhere. He didn't seem to have heard Leona.
"Ralf?"
This time he heard her and turned his head to face her. "Leona... when did you show up?"
"Just now..."
"Quick, go tell your dad my leg's trapped under a bunch of fucking crates and stuff..." He winced again, and tried again uselessly to push at the drums. He didn't have the leverage he needed, though, and they didn't move. "Hurry up, go!"
She nodded, then paused uncertainly. "Wait, Ralf, I thought you said not to tell father anything you said?"
Ralf clapped a hand to his face. "Right. Right. Go get Clark, okay? Even if he says he's busy. I need some help here."
Ralf sat trying to ignore the crushing weight on his leg and thought about Leona instead. Smart girl, that. Didn't panic, remembered previous orders, kept her head on straight... she'd make a good Ikari warrior. He was glad now that she hadn't gone for Heidern; Ralf was pretty sure that, aside from more swearing, the commander would also pop an artery if he saw the current state of the storage room.
Leona returned momentarily, running, with Clark loping along behind her.
He smirked when he saw Ralf's situation, and sent Leona running back to the house for some tools and a crowbar.
"What the hell are you smiling at?"
"Nothing... you're just lucky she came to me and not the commander."
"Why's that?"
Clark grinned maddeningly "Well, when I heard you dropped a bunch of 'fucking crates' on your 'fucking leg' and you needed some help..."
"... Aw, shut up, asshole."
THE END