ArchivedLogs:Extracurricular

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Extracurricular
Dramatis Personae

Anole, Marrow

2014-11-13


Education, Morlock-style

Location

<NYC> Abandoned Warehouse - Brooklyn


Just one among many old buildings in an industrial section of the borough, this warehouse was undoubtedly once bustling. It's large, a spacious segment of floor with a number of high-rising shelves still lining the walls from floor up to the exposed beams of the ceiling. There's plenty of smaller nooks and rooms tucked away at the sides of the building, and though the ceiling is mostly still intact and the windows boarded up a crumbling hole near the roof and a few removed planks from a window near the back make it a common home for wayward birds, stray cats, and the occasional vagrant taking advantage of strong walls and bathroom plumbing that still largely works. The latter tend to avoid this place more often than not come nighttime, though; among street people there are rumours that this building is often populated by monsters.

Although it's reputation generally keeps people away from this abandoned warehouse during the night it only takes a brief appearance for Marrow to clear the area. After all even the worst of rumours pale in comparison to the reality of a pissed off Sewer Knight stomping around. And now that all the fun stomping is done she's busy preparing the area for todays lesson. Lining up glass bottles and empty cans on a wall.

See, Anole's in class after all. Where he's supposed to be, right? Maybe Xavier's will not see it quite the same way but he's still Getting An Education. He's scuttling in to the warehouse through a smashed-out upper window, scurrying his way down one wall to drop to the ground near Marrow. /Over/dressed by most people's standards given that it's not /that/ cold yet, he's bundled in scarf and tatty long-sleeved tee under a baggy grey Columbia University sweatshirt under a threadbare denim jacket. Mismatched mittens on his hands, one large paisley-knit one on his big claw-hand, one smaller and plain black on the other. Two knit caps pulled down on his head. Lizards... maybe not so thrilled with the colder weather. He settles into a crouch beside Marrow, looking with wide-eyed curiousity at the bottles. "-- Hi. There should be a fire can there be a fire."

Marrow glances around, then shrugs. "You wanna burn things be my guest," she offers indifferently. Her own outfit is pretty much unchanging black leather and band t-shirts in various stages of decay. "I've been thinking a lot since you got yourself kidnapped. Obviously that school of yours isn't teaching you everything you need to survive in this shithole." She leans against a wall and starts rolling a cigarette. "So unless you feel like regrowing body parts every week you're gonna learn to look after yourself Morlock style."

"S'cold," Anole explains, nose wrinkling up. He scoots aside to start /collecting/ things for Fire. Cement blocks to put in a ring. Bits of wood and scraps of paper to stick inside it. It's only after getting as far as making a /base/ for fire that he seems to remember he has nothing to actually start fires with. The look he gives the makeshift firepit is incredibly disappointed. The look he gives Marrow's cigarette, a little more hopeful. He perches on the edge of the cinderblocks he's gathered, bare toes curling over their edges. "School is mostly teaching me, like. Physics. And French. You can't really hit someone with French." Though his mouth curls into a little smile at the idea, it soon fades. His head shakes /vehemently/. "I like my parts /attached/."

"French? Who the fuck speaks French?" Marrow wonders, lighting her smoke and then putting the lighter away. "First lesson. Be prepared for anything. You get cold easy, then get a lighter." She smirks and then pulls a little metal object on a keychain out. "This is for you. Might not look like it, but it's a gun. A mini revolver to be precise. You'll need to hide it somewhere near the school so they don't confiscate it." She holds the gun out. "The range is shitty, it doesn't do a huge amount of damage and it's not that accurate. But it makes a loud bang, big flash of light and you can hide it just about anywhere."

"I'm guessing people in France." Anole's eyes track the lighter so hopefully. He is holding out his hand (please? big puppy eyes?) for it even before Marrow pulls the gun out; as a result he gets a handful of revolver instead of a handful of lighter. The eyes get eeeven wider. "I don't. Know how to..." He frowns at the metal in his hand. "Gun." That's a verb, right?

"In France? Pfff. Fuck 'em. Guns are simple. You follow a few basic rules. The most important of which is never try pointing it at me or I'll make you eat it," Marrow informs solemnly. "Then there is all the shit about not pointing it at yourself or anyone else unless you want to hurt them. It's not a toy so don't treat it like one... With something like this it's best you don't even tell people you have it. That way if you do need to use it you'll get the best result." She blows out a smoke ring. "If you do need to shoot someone you let them get pretty close, point at their chest and fire. Try taking a few practise shots at the crap lined up on that wall. Even if you miss it'll make people think twice about coming after you, giving you room to make a run for it if fighting isn't an option."

The gun (still held gingerly on Anole's palm) /is/ in fact pointing at Marrow at the moment, for a suitably broad definition of pointing. It's just lying on his palm, it's not like his finger is on the trigger or anything; given his mittened hands it'd be hard /to/ properly put his finger on the trigger at the moment anyway. But regardless this bit of information from Marrow makes him eep quietly, hastily lowering his hand so that the gun is not pointing anywhere but vaguely at the wall. "Oh -- oh. Wait. I'm. You want me to /shoot/ this." He sounds a liiittle bit nervous, though he's pulling off his mittens so that he can at least put his hand on the handle. "Right now?"

Marrow glares. "No, I thought maybe you could take it out for dinner and a movie first." Then she shakes her head and sighs. "Just fire the damn gun okay. There isn't anyone in this part of town who will care about a few gunshots. Unless you'd rather learn to stab people with a switchblade? I'd have to track down someone to practise using it on but that wouldn't be too hard..."

Maybe it's the thought of tracking down someone for switchblade practice, but Anole squeaks again, and promptly lifts the gun towards the bottles. He bites down on his lower lip, and -- actually /closes/ his eyes when he pulls the trigger. The bullet hits the wall waaaay higher up than the bottles. He cracks an eye open again to /peek/ at his results.

For something so small the pistol makes an aweful lot of noise. Not that Marrow seems to notice. "You only have five shots," she explains. "So you might want to get used to firing it with your eyes open. Unless you only expect to get attacked by walls?"

"Hey, walls are tricky," Anole replies, mouth pulling up in a very sheepish smile. "It took me a /while/ to conquer them and sometimes I still fall off extra slippy ones." Winter, not kind to little lizards on /multiple/ levels. Still, though, he does keep his eyes open the next time, drawing in a deep breath and /bracing/ himself before the next shot.

Which, despite the eyes being open, still lands neeearly as high off. The sheepishness in Anole's expression grows.

Marrow shrugs. "Just be glad you joined the Morlocks after Callisto was in charge," she notes. "She'd probably have taught you to climb walls by throwing you into a pit with some starving dogs. Don't worry too much about actually hitting anything yet. Just get used to how it feels to fire it, then if you ever need to use it at least you won't slip and shoot yourself."

Anole's eyes get juuust a little wider. But he looks almost excited about it. "We have dogs? I want a dog." This time he brings his bigger hand /up/ to steady his smaller one. When he takes his next loud bangy shot, he -- only misses the bottles by /half/ a foot! OK, so maybe he didn't hit /anything/ at all but wall, but he's still bouncing a little excitedly. "Hey I think I'm getting better." Marrow miiight have her work cut out for her with this lesson.

"Trust me. You don't want anything to do with those dogs. Although it might be a quick way to get both your arms to match..." Marrow muses, paying more attention to her cigarette than the shooting lesson. Until finally she tuts and brings out a box of ammunition and a big pouch of tobacco. "Once you've got through all of these we'll call it a day. Unless you miss with every shot. Then we'll have to move on to knife fighting instead." At that a bone blade begins sprouting from each of her palms. They look a lot more dangerous than the plastic training knives Anole might have seen at Xaviers and Marrow isn't noted for her first aid skills. Or her patience....