2019-03-02 - TIMELINE 3: Practice Makes Perfect
| Title: TIMELINE 3: Practice Makes Perfect | |
|---|---|
| Summary: Homura Akemi takes steps to improve her arsenal after inflicting explosive friendly fire on Steven Universe and Cassandra. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: Ohtori Academy | |
| OOC - IC Date: 2019-03-02 - 2014-09-14 | |
A soldier yawns, and stretches out on a cot in the classroom they've turned into a makeshift barracks. His shotgun rests upright against the chalkboard's tray, and white dust from math problems transfers to the thick metal barrel. Nearby, a pair of his off-duty buddies have their boots up on desks and another couple pushed together so they can wager loudly over cards.
With an irritated grunt he rolls to his side, and the handgun strapped to his thigh holster clinks. "Hey, keep it down. Least till oh-five hundred, when I'm back on ag--"
He's not interrupted so much as paused.
In the otherwise absolute quiet of stopped time, a window creaks open to admit the girl who's been peering in with terror-wide violet eyes. Homura picks her way between the tall soldiers in their bulky gear, sitting at desks built for children. She takes care not to touch them.
The shotgun barrel, even at a lean, is tall enough to reach to the dainty bow-ribbons dangling from her henshin collar.
It's colder than she expected, and much heavier, too. She stumbles a bit, then uses both arms and puella strength to heft it. "Nggg." Homura holds it at arms' length, stiffly, afraid to grasp it but not allowing that to stop her.
She remembers Madoka's kimono-clad arms wrapped round her, adjusting Homura's inexpert grip on a festival-game rifle, and swallows. Then she shivers and slides the massive metal weapon into the space behind her shield, that dainty receptacle for so much destruction.
Next: the handgun. Homura holds her breath and moves with terrified caution. Long minutes pass with many false starts, but she manages to slide the firearm free of its holster without touching the prone soldier's leg. Every case of bullets in the room follows that gun into Homura's shield, plenty of which are the wrong caliber for the Desert Eagle and the Mossberg, but she doesn't know that. Besides, every bullet she steals is one more that can't possibly get fired at Madoka and the rest of Homura's friends.
She leaves through the window again and shuts it behind, and is long gone before she releases the timestream once more. Later, on her own, she tests out her new weapons on some trees in the forest with an apology to Eri, wherever she is.
Which is a good thing, because the first time she clasps the Desert Eagle in front of her with bent and fearful arms, the mulekick recoil she isn't expecting gives Homura a nose-breaking faceful of metal gun.
Her sniffles are extra-wet as she cries out the pain and fear on her own. Then Homura heals herself and tries again, and again, occasionally having to pause time and vacate to avoid hunting packs of pale purple Orphans drawn by the sound of gunfire. She doesn't stop practicing until she can withstand the terrifying thunder of her new and more precise weapons.
Then she slides them back into her shield, alongside the stock of homemade pipe bombs which have caused so much trouble.
She'd told Eri and Mikoto that it wasn't enough to just do their best, and now Homura will accept nothing less than perfection from herself, even if the self-imposed rigors of that perfection terrify her. Madoka needs her.
