Okay guys, so I wanted to get one last chapter in before the New year.
I have some good news, I have been invited out for testing for the Alaska State Troopers in April!
Now that doesn't necessarily mean I'll get in. After all, there may be candidates better than me. If I do pass all the tests and I don't get a slot in the academy, thats fine theres always next time.
If by chance I'm DQ on anything, thats also fine. I'll find another way. Just got to stay positive.
Have a happy new year and enjoy the chapter.
"Damn, who would have thought this would grow so fast!" Clover said as he looked over some recent photos of the group that had recently captured the councils attention.
Not even a week later and they had more and more people join. Their numbers had grown from a small group of 50 to at least 200. All in the span of a month or two. But they hadn't caused any trouble legally. None of them had gone and shot up any stores or anything like that. In fact, crime rates seemed to have gone down lately in Mantle ever since this group showed up. But they still had a job to do. They needed to gather intel. And so far they were focusing on one main thing.
Finding out who was the leader of this group.
They hadn't been able to gather much. All they knew was that the man wasn't any sort of criminal. He was just a regular guy who started off by giving basic firearm lessons to some woman. But then she told a friend about how she started carrying a pistol. And that friend decided they wanted to learn. And then it just set off a chain reaction of people suddenly wanting firearms training. From what they could gather, this small group originally started off with pistols. But soon upgraded to rifles and shotguns. There were no laws on Remnant owning private firearms, but when firearms started getting bought in large numbers, it did tend to tip off the politicians that they were pissing people off.
Winter didn't expect that was the case. These people didn't seem to have any anti government intent. They weren't open carrying their weapons with them all the time. They just seemed to be your regular everyday people. The Mantle PD however absolutely loved the group. Their jobs had gotten easier in the past month due to the wannabe criminals realizing that a lot more people were carrying guns these days.
"Do we have a face and a name for the leader yet?" Winter asked as they looked over some paperwork.
"Nope, not even an alias, but its not like he's trying to hide. And the group doesn't seem hell bent on avoiding talking to us." Despite their disguises there was one big flaw in their plan to blend in with the crowd.
Elm was much taller than the average civilian, hell she was much taller than the average huntress. Even if the others had the best disguise known to man, a monkey would be able to see Elm coming from a mile away. But none of the civilians sporting rifles were treating them any different. In fact they were completely fine with talking to them.
"Man, I mean I like this body armor I bought, but that stuff your soldiers get to wear is dope!" A young deer faunus said as Elm felt odd speaking to a man who was holding a rifle with a plate carrier with multiple mag pouches on it.
"Er, yeah." She said as she never thought she would be having this conversation.
She was a bit concerned with how many of them had body armor. Again it wasn't uncommon to see something like that with Grimm around every corner. But the stuff they were using was specially made to stop both bullets and beowolf claws. It could help you survive being shot as well as stop slashes from a beowolf, but it was more of a 'in case of emergency' armor rather than something you could fight Grimm in. It was a more affordable option for people who were more worried about criminals with guns versus Grimm attacking. She looked around and noticed that everyone was wearing a plate carrier, but some had theirs set up in different ways. One particular one she saw was a raccoon faunus who only had a pistol in a leg holster and a plate carrier and belt with multiple pouches with red crosses on them. That told her that this little militia group was also training medics as well as gunfighters.
"So how long you guys been doing this?" She asked trying to make casual conversation.
"Not too long, the guy who started this whole thing really opened our eyes to the danger around us. He's a pretty chill dude, but don't piss him off." One of the human members said as his group shivered.
"We had one guy point his pistol at him on accident when he wasn't firing, and he got throat punched and an ass chewing for 'not keeping his weapon pointed in a safe direction'" That was a basic rule.
That guy was immediately kicked out and not allowed back in. It wasn't until another week where he came back with an advanced knowledge of safety and firearms handling fundamentals that he was allowed to rejoin the group.
The Ace ops couldn't help but feel this was just a wild goose chase. These people had invited them to shoot guns with them, it didn't really spell out 'dangerous extremist militia'.
"What made you all start arming up?" Clover asked as they had pretty much given up trying to hide themselves.
"Well, at first it started with one woman, she got mugged and our primary instructor stopped him, so he took her to the range and started teaching her how to shoot. Then next thing you know, she invites a friend, then that friend invited another friend, and next thing you know we're all here." Another lady said as she was currently running through snap cap drills.
"But why did you all want to?" Clover couldn't help but feel that they were avoiding the question.
"Well, he started talking about how there were Grimm around every corner, and that in a big crisis, the government couldn't help everyone, and that it would be smart to be able to defend yourself. We're not trying to fight off a Grimm excursion, but at the very least we could hold them back long enough to get everyone evacuated." One said as that all seemed reasonable.
"Plus, we noticed all of a sudden criminals didn't want to risk coming after us now that they didn't know who was packing a gun or not." Another said as they all smiled.
"No shit, thats what happens when you open carry a rifle."
Name one criminal that would be dumb enough to rob someone if they were proudly displaying their rifle. Seriously who the hell would be dumb enough to attack someone if they were armed and could fight back?
And that was when they noticed one of the morale patches that was common amongst them.
"What does FAFO mean?" Harriet asked as they all chuckled.
"Fuck around and find out." She felt offended at that.
"Excuse me?" She felt attacked.
"No, thats legit what it means." He laughed as Elm rolled her eyes.
"You don't think that sends the wrong message?"
"I think it sends the perfect kind of message."
Clover was trying to figure these people out. They certainly weren't a cult. So that put his mind at ease. They weren't out to take down the government. So the councils minds should be at ease. They didn't really seem to be a danger to anyone. Maybe the council should just leave them alone? They weren't hurting anyone.
"Alright! If I can get everyone's attention please!" They heard a very familiar voice speak out.
And they saw Winter suddenly stand up straighter.
"Hey that sounded a lot like-" Harriet was cut off as everyone looked towards a makeshift stage a man had stood up on.
"OH YOU GOT TO BE SHITTING ME!" Winter screamed in her mind as she saw who was on stage.
It was Jem in his plate carrier and Ruby Ridge in his hands.
"Alright, I'm happy to see there are a lot of new faces here. Now I figured we would start off today by breaking down where everyone is from in terms of neighborhoods." He had a white board with him.
"Okay, so if you could please raise your hands as to what side of Mantle you are from when I call you out, this will go a lot easier." He said as he made four seperate columns on the white board.
"Will the North siders please raise their hands first?" He asked as a fair number of people raised their hands.
Jem did the same thing with the West, East and South sides of mantle.
"Okay, now you all know that this is one massive group and we're all on the same side. So why am I dividing this up by districts?" He asked as someone raised their hand.
"Because if an emergency was going to happen you need to know where your closest allies are?" Someone called out as Jem nodded.
"Very good, if I could please get Mr. Magnus up here." He brought a wolf faunus up on the stage.
"Mr. Magnus, you own a small conveniance store on the east side right?" He asked as the man nodded.
"Yes, close to a book emporium and a fitness center." He said as Jem nodded.
"Alright, now we all know crime rates can go up, we don't like to think that they can, but a lot of things can happen, dumb ass politicians can make a choice to reduce the number of police officers they have and next thing you know the criminals are emboldened to go after you, so in a hypothetical situation, you could have to deal with thieves at the least, shouldn't be too hard to handle them right?" He asked as the man nodded.
"I keep my pistol within reach and a shotgun under the counter just in case anyone tries to steal anything." Jem nodded.
"Okay, worst case scenario is he could deal with looters or multiple people trying to come in, possibly steal from him, or worse they may try to kill him. So what can he do to be more prepared?" Jem asked as he called on a woman.
"Find out which one of us is closest to him and call for help?" She asked as Jem nodded again.
"Exactly, take inventory over what YOU personally have, KNOW your capabilities, and KNOW when you could be outmatched and outgunned. So tonight, I want all of you to break up into the groups listed on the board, and I want you to personally introduce yourselves, find out where you all live, and who would be able to immediately answer your call for help if you needed it." He said as everyone nodded.
"Also this is very important, while everyone should be trained in firearms handling, I don't want any of you skipping out on medical training, you could be one of the best trained marksman in the world, but if you don't have someone who could treat a bullethole, then you're pretty much screwed. So make sure that you all have at least one medically trained person in your district group." Jem knew this was common sense, but he hated doing medical training when he was active duty.
The amount of times he had an NPA shoved up his nose by his platoon medic made him have a severe dislike for TCCC.
"Oh, and also!" Jem pulled out a speaker and pressed some buttons on his new scroll.
"I hate to have meetings without music. So please enjoy the playlist we have tonight." He had a shit eating grin on his face and it worried Winter as she observed him.
"Whats he got planned?" She knew that smirk.
She saw him press play as she heard a choir start to sing.
"OH COME ON!"
They'll look high and they'll look low
They'll look anywhere we go
But when the Sinners find us we won't hide
They'll come loud and they'll come fast
We shoot first and we can last
Keep your rifle by your side
Some of what I had Jem say with the districting thing is something I firmly believe. While its good to have a large group or lets say in this case 'Tribe' you can rely on. We all know that when the chips are down, you need to know who is closest to you who could help you in case SHTF.
For example, in my close vicinity, I know a few buddies who were Marines. One who was an 0331. We all meet up to workout together and shoot together. I also kept a lot of my medical supplies from the army. Because having a CAT tourniquet for free is a bonus in my book.
Can you get somewhere as a solo prepper? Yes you can, but if you have a tight knit group that you KNOW you can trust. You're that much better off.
Also as for Jem talking about 'How some politicans slash the number of police officers.' Thats based on all these cities over the US quietly voting to refund their police departments after slashing budgets and dealing with the huge surge in crime. Case in point, Minneapolis.