Chapter Six and a half: Surveying the Corps
"Spilled oil!" Mike swore as he ran a hand through his shining blonde hair.
He'd missed the training target, again. And Zoey was hard at work laughing her reploid behind off for his failure. Again. Lowering the training buster, a bolt-action general-purpose and quite frankly paperweight version Rivaille's LRCS, Mike shook his head and opened up the tally keeper on his PDA. Zoey had ninety-two marks, Mike trailed with ninety-one point two-five, and Rivaille lead with an astounding one-hundred thirty three. Wait, one-hundred forty-one!
"No way in the junkyard I'm letting you win Zoey!" Mike declared as he refocused himself, steadied his breathing, and took aim.
He lined up the iron sights on his target, a slowly moving semi-functional dummy pantheon, estimated a distance of about one hundred or so meters, and raised his rifle so that he was aiming for the head, hoping the Coriolis effect would drag the buster shot to somewhere around the upper chest or lower throat. Mike squeezed the trigger, the weapon recoiling like the sting of Zoey's laughter as the buster punched a fist-sized hole in the dummy's upper chest, at the base of the neck.
"Hmph!" Levi smirked as his score went up seven points, reloading and slapping the blue Deploy Dummy button as he cycled the weapon, ejecting the old plasma shell and chambering a new one. "I sware on my stubble that I'll beat you to a hundred and ten!"
"Oh?" Hanji pushed her glasses up to her nose as she grinned mischievously, buster already raised as she slapped the Deploy Dummy button. "I'll shave it myself when I win!"
Meanwhile, Rivaille had just hit another pantheon dummy in the core from two-hundred meters, raising his score by fifteen. While those two competed, he was still the sharpest, and quickest shot, and another fifteen points helped to solidly remind them of that.
Annabeth had stopped trying to compete with Mike and Zoey about forty points ago, and had instead settled for Gunther. The two of them were pretty much racing each other, both with scores of about sixty-two and fifty-nine respectively.
"Mmph!" Gunter grunted, brown hair and skin almost darkening with his concentration as he missed.
"Hngh!" Annabeth blew her dark locks out of her eyes, ready to burst into a furious rage for not tying her hair up earlier as she cycled the buster and took aim.
"You should stick to computers!" Gunther teased. "This isn't your field!"
"You're...!" BANG! Her buster interrupted as she missed again. "Not one to talk! Considering you're...!" BANG! Her buster went as she finally blew off her target's leg, raising her score by four. "Losing! Hah!"
Big deal!" BANG! Was the sound of Gunther's score rising by seven for a shot to the left respirator. "I'm still gonna win...!" He slapped the Deploy Dummy button with violent speed.
"Boom! Headshot!" Annabeth grinned childishly as her score went up by eleven.
"Spilled oil!" Gunther growled as he blew off an arm, raising his score by five.
Unannounced, Zero watched as the SRSS all trained amongst themselves and competed for the position of top-dogs in the squad. It almost made him smile. What really made him smile was the sight of Ciel hitting a target with his buster. Albeit a non-lethal shot to the leg, it was still a hit, and that meant progress!
"Remember, keep the iron-sights lined up," Zero gently instructed the frail little marksman to be. "Arms bent a little, steady breathing, and slowly squeeze the trigger."
"Mhmm!" Ciel nodded, then cautiously followed each of the steps.
"Iron sights," she mumbled. "Bent arms." She loosened her stiff arms. "Steady breath, slow squeeze." She controlled her fear of the recoil with deep inhaling through the nostrils and a slow squeeze.
She "Mmf!"ed as the buster violently recoiled like a handheld bull against her, once again frightening her.
"A shot to the hip!" Zero nodded and folded his arms. "You're improving! Well done, Ciel!"
"Ehe! Thanks!" She brushed one of her bangs out of her eyes as she turned and handed the buster back to Zero. "But that thing's just terrifying, you make it look so easy!"
Zero's expression sobered as he took the buster from her and removed the E-Crystal that powered it. "It's practice."
"R-Really?" Ciel's curiosity had obviously peaked.
"Yeah, I don't remember it too well, and I don't know why I remember, but my maker, he taught me to use weapons with unholy finesse." He held the buster up as if admiring it. "I don't remember him either, but he said something about programming me with human adaptability. Essentially, giving me the ability to learn."
"Oh, did Cerveau's memory machine extract this memory? Or this piece of it?" Ciel inquired as she put her hands behind her back.
"Yes and no." Zero slipped the buster back into its holster. "It made it easier to find, but didnt fully extract the memory."
"I see, so maybe we can overcome your amnesia after all," she thoughtfully stared at her toes as she spun her left foot on the heel. "Ah!" She brightened. "We might be able to discover some of your body's dormant abilities that you might've learned on the ancient battlefield! Or maybe the coding for an armour of some sort that you might've worn into battle!"
Zero was about to smile, but he felt his right foot being swept out from under him as something tugged him down by his arms. Zero let himself fall, a metallic thud accompanied by a groan accompanying him as he felt his right hand being lifted and crossed heels digging into his chest. Zero lightly resisted as Alouette pulled down on his arm and pushed her hips up into Zero's elbow, grinning graciously as he allowed Alouette to submit him using the standing sweep to armbar technique he'd shown her. It builds the student's confidence to let them win every once in a while!
"Oh? And when did you get so brave?" Zero inquired of the struggling Alouette.
"Nngh!" She groaned as she strained against her teacher. "I'm, gonna beat you, Zero! Ngh! Hrngh!"
"Agh!" Zero reflexively curled his arm up and broke free of the submission, glad that his now pulsing pain sensors were functioning well enough to warn him that her sudden burst in strength could've broken his arm.
"I'm, I'm not done!" She panted as she pressed her left knee on his right bicep and rested her right knee on his diaphragm, restricting his ability to breathe.
"H-Hey!" Zero grunted under her martial arts prowess. "That's a good Knee Mount you got there!"
"Now I'm gonna beat you up!" She declared as she wound her fist back.
Zero wasn't having it. He swiftly twisted his hips so that his left leg was on top, drove his left knee under Alouette's behind and extended his leg so that his shin - softly - hit the back of her thigh, grabbed her shoulders, and using his left leg, lifted her up and around as he used his hands to turn her over. Alouette's frightened blue eyes were swollen with shock as she nearly instantaneously landed on her back. Zero crossed her arms over stomach and held them there, confidently grinning at his defeated pupil.
"No fair!" She whined as she wriggled to free her arms. "This isn't even a real technique! You're just being mean!"
"Says the one who wanted to punch my nose into..."
The deafening blaring of the alarms snapped Zero's head up. Colbor was on the speakers, terrified to the junkyard as he screamed for battle.
"This is Staff-Sergeant Colbor! I repeat, Staff-Sergeant Colbor! We are under heavy attack! The enemy has launched a massive frontal assault! Zero! Ciel! Please! Get to the data room!"
Zero jumped to his feet, pulling Alouette to her feet with him.
"SRSS squad members! Mobilize! Your priority is evacuation of non-combat personnel!" Ciel ordered as she hopped onto Zero's back.
Zero took off, boosting his way to the data room as the sounds of war faintly haunted him from the distance. Innocent Resistance reploids were fighting and dying, and he needed to stop that. Now.
A/N: I have a summer-job! It's pretty simple, but I enjoy it, work ten hours a day, six days a week, I stock shelves, help customers, tear down the shelves, paint, assemble furniture, occasionally search for dead rats that I don't find thank God, so yeah! This was just a little something to let you all know that I'm alive and for those of you who are Attack On Titan savvy, you might've noticed that this chapter's title is a pun! Lol! Anyway! This chapter was a lightly-humorous flashback of sorts to the attack on the Resistance Base in which Zero fought Hanumachine, and subsequently decided to go murder Copy X. I assume you knew that before I spoiled it for you! Anyway, enjoy Alouette's mad fighting skillz!