Active The Field Trip

[Ethan Edwards]

"This is how you do it without all the magical bullshit. I'm sure your pal Blake would agree, you have to learn how to do it right before trying to get fancy."

Cass was laying on her flat belly, on top of a padded mat. Her rifle was tucked into her shoulder, and the forend rested on a pair of stacked sandbags. She was locked in, and locked in tight. A short distance away -- about 300 meters -- a steel plate the size of a man's torso stood beside one the size of that same man's head; two targets on solid backing, ready to be abused.

Ethan sat on a folding stool beside the young woman. On a small tripod in front of the old soldier was a blocky-scope, armored with drab rubber. He took a moment to peer through it, then glanced at the flag fluttering gently at the 300 meter mark. He studiously made a few notes in a well worn notebook, then slips it into one of the pockets hanging below the shooting stool. "Okay... at this range, your rifle's 7.62 round wont really be affected much by the wind we have today, nor by the temperature. When you shoot out further, or if they were more extreme, those would be a factor, but not now." He watched how her back moved, the muscled shape of her shoulders... and frowned. Stupid, stupid boy...

"We'll begin with simple torso shots, then move to the head. The nice thing about steel is the immediate return on a hit, when you hear that solid ping." Ethan moved to spread her legs a bit, so Cass was laying a bit more evenly behind the rifle. Satisfied with her position, he continued. "I want you centering your front sight inside the rear, and placing it in the middle of the left hand target. Keep both eyes open -- and focus on your front sight. If you do it right, the target should actually seem to be slightly blurred." He watched the woman for a moment and continued.

"Press, don't squeeze the trigger. Squeezing pulls your shots to one side and causes you to miss. Take a deep breath, let it out, and just before you sense that you need to take another, fire." Ethan double checked the spotting scope. "When you're ready, the range is hot...."

 

[Requine]

"Yes, sir." Cass adjusts her weight just slightly. "Understood, sir." She pauses, observes, and fires, following his directions.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!

Her shots hit home, although they're not perfect. That seems to irritate the Templar, and she mutters something under her breath. Then she pauses. "Sorry, ah, about the sir thing... Habit. When we're in the training yard at Temple Hall, proper protocol is extremely important. It has to be yes sir, no sir, right away sir. Force of habit."

She shifts her weight a little more and then fires.

Ping! Ping! Ping! The shots are a little more precise now.

"Y'really think magic is bullshit?" Her tone is conversational, not accusing. "Seems to me to be like a tool like any other. Wouldn't begrudge someone using a scope, right?"

 

[Ethan Edwards]

Ethan grinned as he looked through the spotting scope. "Your shots are fine. Any of those would have been a kill... " he leaned back from the eye piece. "... as for calling me sir, back in the day I was a sergeant, so I worked for a living..." His voice held a teasing tone Cass wasn't familiar with. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through dark, unruly hair.

"What I meant by magical bullshit is simply this: you can't wield Excalibur unless you know which end of the sword goes where. I use an ACOG on most of my rifles, but I guarantee you if I didn't have one on it, I could still hit what I'm aiming at..." Ethan's earnest-ness crept up -- who the fuck ever called him that? "My whole point is, Knight-Captain Havelock, that you need to know the fundamentals before you can add the bells and whistles."

With that, Ethan became a blur, standing quickly with his right hand drawing the Glock 18 from his Milt Sparks rig in one fluid motion. Locking both arms into a modified isosceles, he pressed the trigger. There was a long, tearing sound as the machine-pistol emptied its tiny, 17-round magazine into one of the few steel plates left standing, about 50 meters away. Bullets screamed in various directions as the jacketed rounds ricocheted off the thick metal, starting at the bottom and working their way up. Not every round hit, but there were at least a dozen pockmarks covering it.

Slide locked to the rear, Ethan kept the weapon in his weak hand, pointed downrange. He looked at Cass, an odd smile on his face. Brass casings lay all over the pad, some of them even rolling from the woman's back. The big man slowly raised his opposite hand and snapped his fingers. The Templar could feel a pulse as anima was released in a chaotic burst of energy. The target that had just been engaged, fell apart, turned into so much corroded powder and bits of metal, the molecular bonds twisted about for a split second. The frame still stood, wavering from the spent energies. Ethan dropped the slide of his Glock, switched hands and re-holstered the now-empty weapon.

"Otherwise, you're really just a poser."

 

[Requine]

"Holy -" She scrambles to her feet, looking out on the fresh carnage on the range, spent casings rolling off her back and hitting the ground. She pulled off her ear and eye protection, eyes wide. "Wow." she managed, looking at him with admiration on her face. "I am really, really fucking glad I have you as a teacher right now, you know that? I just..." She stared back out at the twisted remains of the target. "Wow." she repeats. "Just when I think I'm getting good at this, a nice little reminder that I have a lot to learn." She doesn't seem discouraged; in fact, she's grinning widely.

She is almost bouncing with excitement on the balls of her feet. "I'm really new to this," she admits. "Up until..." Her face darkens. "West Virginia." There's a pause, just a slight one. "I mean, I thought I could handle myself with Chaos magic. I'm learning how important it is to be well rounded. And I've... kind of fallen in love with having a rifle by my side. But man, I never thought about combining them like that!"

She gazes out on the range, squinting, as if trying to figure out the exact formula by eyesight.

 

[Ethan Edwards]

The big man watched as her brain went into overdrive. Did she know about the tiny dimple between her brows whenever she thought about something really hard? He could almost hear the gears turning. It would have made him smile if he wasn't afraid she might look up at the wrong time. While Cass mumbled various equations to herself, Ethan waited a moment, blinking away the haze from the anima he'd allowed to flow from him, something that seemed to always happen whenever Ethan exerted his will in ways he wasn't used to doing -- and what he'd just done was something he'd abstained from years ago...

Then the late-morning light caught the edges of the Knight-Captain's auburn hair... Ethan decided to step away from his comfort zone. Or at least put a toe in the water.

"What happened to you in West Virginia?"

 

[Requine]

She laughs; a soft, sad laugh. "I guess you missed that, huh?" She tugs on her tank top, eager to do something with her hands, and grabs the nearest place she can perch herself. Hands clasped together, knees apart, staring down at her freckled forearms. "Well, uh. Wow, I'm surprised you did miss it. Entire Secret World was ablaze for a couple of weeks over it."

She pauses and lets her feet dangle from her perch. "So, uh, I was off the tail end of a bunch of very high stress missions. So they sent me on a solo gig to West Virginia, to monitor and report on a cult. Now, keep in mind, I uh, come from Malleus Maleficarum roots. Witch Hunting. I was in the cult busting unit. So this was... unusual, but not unheard of." Her feet pick up pace a little. "Um. So, I go there, and everything's fine for a week, and it turns out that uh, one of my former superiors and one of my, at the time, current subordinates had each individually betrayed me."

"The cult was a militant former arm of the Morninglight. They call themselves the Dawnbreak. And between the two traitors, they were... able to acquire me." Cass smiles. "You see, this is where rifles would have come in handy. Managed to get my hands on one, but with no training, outnumbered like I was, completely disoriented? Oh, and they had the uh, anti-Bee smoke that we've seen in Atenist hands before. They also had some fancy new Orochi tech that they wanted to test out, and I... I was their test subject. They uh, they broke me."

She keeps her head down, feet swinging a little faster. "Two weeks. I mean... it wasn't... I did my best. Here. Look."

She hands Ethan her phone. A video begins to play.


"Two weeks after that," she says, still trying to smile and failing. "I was rescued. You're uh. Lucky you missed it. From what I understand, Twitter was pretty much unusable. Folks were mad."

 

[Ethan Edwards]

He finished the video. Watching how shaken the young woman was... Ethan's face screwed up, but he quickly swallowed back emotions wanting so badly to break free over her, for her. Instead, he let everything wash away from his face -- though he did reach out a wide hand and gently squeeze Cassandra's shoulder. He forced his hand to drop away before she could react. Ethan could see she was being brave, putting on a front -- God how he knew what that was like...

The old soldier quietly handed her back the phone. He had missed everything. Ethan had spent years and much effort in order to keep a distance between himself and The Eye, stayed out of its politics; but even more damnably, by steering clear of those he felt considered themselves godlings, with the world was theirs alone to play in, Ethan had also kept himself apart from those fighting the good fight, pushing away the darkness for all the same reasons he himself got up in the morning.

Sunlight sparkled on the wetness around her eyes, a wetness she would never allow to fall...

Ethan's voice was low, and cold. There was little inflection to it, no emotion. As the morning grew warmer, the breeze had picked up, sending the nearby range flag to fluttering madly. "Who are the two fucks that betrayed you, and are they still breathing?"

 

[Requine]

She looks up at him, eyes slightly wet but cold and hard. "...One of them was my subordinate, David Doyle. He was just a real piece of fucking work. And I still tried to help him, tried to get him on the right track, but the Morninglight was just a fucking swan song to him." She rubs her face with the heels of her hands, rubbing away the tears, irritated that they even formed at all. "And so, me helping him, being there, wasn't enough. He sold me down the fucking river because he was too stupid to do otherwise. I found him. I took care of him. Properly, this time."

She takes her phone back and smiles wanly. "The other one, Grand Hunter Erik Bosch... the Inquisition took him, thanks to me and some friends uncovering his entire part in this. He vanished for a while. Now he's back, with en empty look in his eyes. And I just want to fucking hit something when I think about it, when I think about what he did -"

She bites her lower lip and looks away.

"Sorry," she offers. "Sorry, this is supposed to be relaxing, and calm, and ... I'm sorry."

 

[Ethan Edwards]

The afternoon was a warm one -- but a western breeze kept things in check. Gossamer curtains swayed gently before open windows, the air spilling through them cooling the sunlight-lit kitchen as the two of them finished cleaning up their lunch dishes. When their time on the range ended, he and Cass had washed up, then pulled out the grill. Fresh steaks and vegetables prepared over the coals had filled their bellies, and the remains of a lemon pie Ethan had picked up the day before in Casper, was a sweet end to the meal.

The big man’s fleece was discarded over the back of a chair somewhere. A plain, black tee hung from his muscled shoulders and stretched across his broad chest -- but his cargo pants were still smudged in places by dust and dirt at from the range. Thoughts drifting, Ethan wiped the inside of an iron skillet while he watched the Knight-Captain stack plates into a nearby cabinet….


Sophia’s blue dress was the color of a Texas sky, and Ethan couldn’t help but smile as she moved about the kitchen. The woman held herself with a grace that was almost as if there were clouds at her feet, rather than a simple wooden floor. The young woman looked over her shoulder, and some of her coal-colored hair brushed against it. She smiled.

“How’s about instead of watchin’ me, you get up out of that chair and help me get things put away, Ethan Edwards?” Her West-Texas drawl was mocking, but lovingly so. Every time he heard it, it was like cool water to a dying man: refreshing, inspiring. Blackthorn’s sheriff loved his wife, and no one who ever saw the way he looked at her, could ever deny it. The big man tried in vain to look mad, but Sophia saw right through it. When he made a blustering show of standing up and walking to the counter, she playfully punched his shoulder. The young woman turned back to the tin washbasin.

‘Don’t be givin’ me that look… Now take that pan, and… OH!” She squeaked, as Ethan’s powerful arms wrapped around her waist. He pulled her close, and pressed his lips softly against her neck, just below an ear…


Ethan blinked. Cass was looking at him, hand held out. His mind rushed back to the present, and he couldn’t help it, but his face colored a bit. He blinked again, thoughts coming online, and he handed her the skillet. “Sorry, “ he lied, his mid-western, American accent spot on. “I was just thinking we should do this again sometime… bring Blake out so he can show you how a real man shoots…”

 

[Requine]

"I've seen Blake shoot before. He's pretty good. Well, really good, I ain't going to lie, he's dead on. But he doesn't do anything fancy. Like I'm still blown away by that..." Cass mimics the draw and rapid fire with a finger-gun and then laughs. "I need to learn that, one day. More importantly, I need to learn the boom that came afterwards. "I'm still not sure how exactly you did that... but I liked it." She laughs and puts a spatula away. "Don't tell Blake I'm so impressed, though. He's still labouring under the illusion that I'm a competent field agent. I rather like that. So, y'know, let's keep that going for as long as possible."

She stretches again. "Okay, so, today has been fucking relaxing. Good shooting. Good food. Y'know, the lake out there is gorgeous, and I packed a swim suit, so I'd suggest we do that at some point but, uh... I don't know how to swim very well. So, you'd have to put up with me doggy paddling around like a moron."

 

[Ethan Edwards]

He watched Cass walk toward him from the mud-splattered ATV Ethan used to get around the place – she’d liked the rifle rack…

The report had been waiting for him when he ran up to his room to change clothes, the Knight-Captain using a spare bedroom down the hall. He read it twice, then wadded the fax into a ball and tossed it into a bin nearby.

The lake was more of a pond, but it was a pretty damned big one. Ethan enjoyed fishing it every so often, although he always tossed what was caught back into it -- unless it was an old shoe. He grinned for a moment at the image, then filed the joke away, the smile tasting sour.

Clad in only an old pair of cargo shorts, the man stood at the edge of an old dock, afternoon sunlight warming his bare skin. He had on nothing else, was barefoot, and Ethan’s powerful body was already bronzed from long, hot days working around the cabin. His broad shoulders worked their way down to a trim waist, and his whole frame was marked in places by white-pink scars from old lacerations, or puckered by forgotten gunshot wounds. Along his ribs -- on the right side -- letters clung to his skin in dull ink. T.T.R.

The cargo shorts lay on the bed. He stared at himself in an old mirror standing atop an even older dresser, the edges of the silvered glass frosted with age. Ethan needed a haircut, he probably should shave, he… The eyes looking back at him were cold; they were always cold.

She was married.

Ethan looked up at the sky, remembering a dress dyed a similar shade, and later, eyes the same color but framed in yellow rather than raven. What the fuck had he done to lose all of that? Why did he have to be the one who kept… FUCKING… GOING…? His life never stopping, and life itself never getting any God-damned better? He swallowed, making sure to look back out across the water before the young woman could see his face, knowing he needed to tamp everything down again.

The big man turned around, a gentle smile brightening his features. He wasn’t bad-looking, but a cheery expression certainly helped. “You said you can’t swim…? Don’t fret, it’s not so deep you’ll need to worry…”

 

[Requine]

"Thank God for that!" the woman laughed as she begin to slowly dip a toe in the water. Clad in a purple one piece swim suit and a pair of teal sunglasses, she slowly walked in, giggling. "It's so coooold!"

She continues to wade in regardless, grinning over her shoulder. "You know what the problem is with swimming?" She calls. "Where I grew up, getting to go to the community center for swimming lessons is what the rich kids got. And then, growing up, I never made time. Not like there was a safe place to swim where I grew up anyways."

She takes a few more steps and then doggy paddles forward clumsily.

 

[Ethan Edwards]

He watched her flail about, and despite his thoughts -- despite his old friend Tommy Disappointment showing up, and the size-twelve kicking him in the head -- Ethan smiled. He shouldn't worry about having made an idiot of himself... it was all in his head anyway, and she seemed pretty oblivious. With a step, the big soldier drops into the water -- she was right about it being cold. His frame quickly acclimated, and soon he was swimming along with her -- albeit with a bit more practice under his belt, though he was no Esther Williams.

Ethan stopped within one of the pond's deeper spots. He went under for a moment, then broke the surface, dipping his head and shaking the water free. He looked over at Cass. "Where did you grow up that was so bad?"

 

[Requine]

She submerges for a bit immediately after he asks that question, as if to hide her initial reaction, and then stands again, shaking out her wet mane of short hair. "Northern Ontario," she calls. "The sort of shitty little town where there are three options: go work in the mines, get pregnant, or get addicted to meth."

She carefully lets her feet leave the ground and lifts her hips, bobbing up and down in a dead man's float. Eyes closed, she relaxes.

"Instead, I got out." She smiles. "Studied hard. Studied, got fantastic grades, got into Ryerson University down in Toronto. I missed my siblings, but I couldn't set myself on fire to keep them warm. Got straight A's and Dean's List at Ryerson, transferred to Oxford..." She sighs. "And set my dorms on fire after swallowing a Bee."

 

[Ethan Edwards]

"I'm sorry to hear the transition caused such a ruckus... " Ethan said, sincerely. Being Gaia-blessed had its own problems, so there was no need for them to be any worse. He imagined the most imperceptible of shrugs come from the Knight-Captain.

Watching the young woman float nearby, the way her curves filled every square inch of her suit... ? Ethan was glad for the water covering his lower torso. His body still betrayed him though, sending a tremor from the small of his back all the way up to the base of his skull, causing him to shudder the tiniest bit. The big man wrote it off as the breeze against his wet skin... but he let himself drift a little closer to Cassandra, despite his better judgment.

She's married you dumb fuck, and if there's any question about anyone here caring about that, you know it's you.

Cass had gone quiet, thoughts lost in the past. The only sound was a gentle splash-splash, and the far-off sound of wind-rustled trees.
"You know... Something I've noticed, " he begins. "... is that despite how successfully you seem to have risen within your organization," Ethan's powerful arms push and pull, keeping him in one spot. "... you don't seem happy, you seem more frustrated than satisfied." He lets himself sink down a bit before kicking back up gently with one foot against the bottom of the pond.

'Why?"

 

[Requine]

Her calm disturbed, the Knight-Captain turned to face Ethan, surprised. And then slipped under the water. For a second she thrashed, burbling and gurbling, before managing to find solid ground. She shook her head and pushed her mane of short hair back. "I'm happy." She says. "Of course I'm happy. But frustrated?"

For a second, her mind floods with thoughts.

Derek's in the field. Again. Hope he's eating right. He never eats right. Motherfucker's going to get scurvy. Grace hears the Signal. Sarah's stressed. What if Anna doesn't really know me and when she realizes what an incompetent fuck I am she's gone? Drowning in paperwork, too. Toolbox will probably have stuff for me on Monday, too. Head of Templar resources there, puts a real fucking huge target on my back for that sociopath Rothcraft. Good job, idiot. Why did you take two jobs again? Because it was the right thing to do. The Filth. Holy shit the Filth, we cannot keep doing the Red versus Blue thing or we're all going to drown in Black. Toolbox is a step towards that. I think. Two salaries help, though. Gotta pay for school for the sibs. Rachel's getting job offers, she's done, thank God, but Carl and Claire and Daniel are both starting off school - Faith needs to go to school too, she needs to drop this insane dream of joining one of the Societies as an agent. The fucking wish magic field you set up is the cause of that. Good job, idiot.

You fucking moron. I mean, it wasn't on purpose, but you should have known. You're a Templar. You're supposed to know this shit. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Moron. Piece of shit. You honestly think you're capable of fixing any of this? You think you - you - are going to be what fixes any of this? Your own Knight sold you out to the Dawnbreak. West Virginia. The hammer, the tubes, the bag, trying to take a breath through canvas - Tortuga, a boot coming down on your chest, you started the fight but she finished it. Nights in Egypt, Solomon Island, the cries of cultists nearby - You god damn piece of human garbage, you -

She tamps it down. Shoves it all under the surface.

She's good at that by now. She learned it ever since the cruel voice in her head started its never ending haranguing, which had started...She didn't remember. It was as much a part of her as her freckles.

She also realizes she hasn't answered the question.

"I mean, I'm ... happy, I guess. There are nice moments to everything. Like coming out here, this is nice. The range is nice. But... Templars don't really..." The Knight-Captain hesitates. "I guess I'll grow into the pressures of the job. Maybe they promoted me too young. It's just... a lot. It's overwhelming. But hey, no rest for the wicked, right?"

 

[Ethan Edwards]

"You're not wicked," he answered quietly.

 

[Requine]

She snorted, getting herself back into an awkward dead man's float and looking up at the sky. "Y'don't know me too well if you'd say that."

 

[Ethan Edwards]

He shrugged. "Wicked isn't the actions we do, it's what's in our hearts. You might flail about at times, and perhaps even feel overwhelmed -- but you're who you are for a reason, here for a reason, trying damned hard to do the right things despite a wall of shit coming down... And you haven't quit. You put on a smile and hope it sticks, despite the anxiety, no matter how tight the air feels... and through it all, you still find the time to be kind to the likes of me, and so many others."

With powerful strokes that cause the muscles in his back to ripple and flex, Ethan swims to the dock and pulls himself up out of the water. It sluices down his body to pool or drip from the wooden planks. He drops down, sitting with his legs dangling over the end.

"I know what it's like to close yourself off, to keep the world outside of you because you don't think what's inside is worth a damn... I also know I wouldn't listen to anything someone said to the contrary, either...." Ethan's grin was tinged with humor, but more colored by irony.

 

[Requine]

She looks at him contemplatively from the water with heavily hooded eyes.

What's inside, huh?

And suddenly she burst into peals of laughter, nearly submerging under the water again. Finally, she doggy paddles back to the dock, still giggling all the way, and pulls herself onto the dock. She sits on the edge, kicking her feet in the water, and snickering.

"You realize," she says, still snickering. "That I'm a Templar soldier who does some sidework for a group of black ops assassins. Like, the metric for 'good heart' is so skewed..." She keeps laughing, shoulders shaking. "Like, God, you ever worry that this whole Secret World is just skewin' your perception of like... everything?"

She pauses.

"Or, I guess, our perception of what came before being stung was skewed. I don't know, man. Part of me just wants to be twenty again, studying in the student pub, biggest worry being books and boyfriends, y'know?"