| Catching Bullets, and Flack | |||||
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| What: Cir-El shows she can catch bullets | |||||
The Training Facilities of the ARGUS. The best in the world. SHIELD Agents all over the world spend most of their time training here. That includes SHIELD's best snipers. Tynan recieved orders to report here to assist a hero with their abilities, with her sniper rifle. She reads the orders again, "To help a hero learn to catch bullets. You are under orders /NOT/ to kill her." Tynan blinks at the orders again, and facepalms.
"...So they want a lass whose rifle punches through steel like paper to shoot somebody, and not kill them, but rather teach them how to catch bullets?", she thinks outloud. Tynan simply shakes her head. "This has to be the One Eyed Devil's doing..."
Cir-El has met Fury, and is friends of Captain America...well associates more than really friends, and her guardian is an Avenger. Asking for help with her training seemed only logical. She came to the Argus and is waiting in the training area for her trainer. She nods a Tynan and says, "I recently lost much of my invulnerability, I am told you are the best to help me deal with it."
Tynan pauses a moment, and looks at Cir-El. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. Yeah, Nick's pissed off about something....Has to be. She looks at Cir a bit deeper. "...So, if you lost much of your invulnerability, why the hell would you want to risk something like trying to catch bullets? Which is something that even the Flash has reportedly had issues with.", she says. Tynan takes a second to stretch out. "Catching a bullet isn't as easy as most people think, and for those who can do it, only do it to protect an innocent, not themselves. And even then, its a risk. The bullet is spinning, its small, and traveling extremely fast. One mistake, and its done.", she tells. "If you can see the bullet, its wiser to just get the hell out of the way."
Cir-El admits, "I can probably get out of the way most of the time, but I may be in a confined space...or have to act as a human shield. I need to know that I can do it. Also there may be enough bullets flying that there is no place to avoid them all anywhere nearby, if the enemy is armed with rapidfire weapons."
Tynan smirks a bit. "If that was the case, you made a bad tactical choice. Somebody of your abilities should never go anywhere confined for any reason. You make the call for others to step in. And if you don't have invulnerability, then no human shielding for you.", she tells. Tynan summons up her Lynx sniper rifle. "This is a GM-6 Gepard Lynx. Its a bunker buster. It can stop a van doing 60+ mph dead at 300 meters. Its effective Range is 1500 meters. It uses a .50 bmg round. Aka as as a Browning Machine Gun round.", she tells. The woman pulls out one of the rounds, and tosses it over to Cir-el. "Pretty much any type of heavy rapidfire machine gun is going to use that round. And most sniper guns as well. Its roughly about a pound of metal. I'm going to switch it out for dummy rounds that'll go slower and not hit as hard if they connect...", she tells.
Cir-El says, "For initial practice, that is reasonable. When I have mastered the dummy rounds, we can try the real ones...if that is what I can expect to be facing that is what I will need to be able to manage." She is trying to seem confident, but she never bothered to CATCH the bullets before, they typically could not really hurt her...though they stung and left her lightly bruised.
Tynan takes a deep breath. "Alright. The shooting ranges here aren't exactly set up for this type of training, so we need to go up top to the flight deck. I'm going to set up on one end of the carrier, and you're going to be on the other. I'm going to draw a box on the ground, and you can't move from that box. No flying either. And yes, I will be intentionally missing on some shots. The first few is adjustment shots so that I can adjust my sight. And others will be for you to judge if you /should/ catch them or not. Understood?", Tynan asks.
Cir-El actually can not fly just now...so far as she knows. She sees no reason her trainer needs to know that though. She says, "Longer range is good to start with, it will give me more me to react." She will limit herself to human levels of jumping too.
Tynan draws a box for Cir-El. She sighs a little bit. She chose the range cause it'd actually give some reaction time to Cir-el if she's got the speed. Any closer, and should wouldn't be able to dodge, let alone catch. The woman moves to the other end of the carrier. She lays down with the rifle, and puts a safety strap on, as well as a strap on the gun. She takes a deep breath, and aims about 6 inches away from Cir-el's head, and snaps off a dummy round. The dummy round has a tracer on it, as well as Tynan's holo display giving her data on the shot, letting her know how off the shot was from her aiming point. She's adjusting the scope to compensate.
Cir-El's eyes glow blue as her Divine Vision lets her calculate the exact path the bullet will follow and tell the instant before it actually launches. It will clearly miss, but that is not the point. She brings up her hand to intercept and twists her arm so that the spin does not hurt her...then drops the bullet because it is hot.
"..." Tynan shakes her head a long moment before she talks into a comm unit to Cir-El. < That was an intentional miss so I can adjust my rifle. That's why it was so far off. >, Tynan comms. The woman sighs, adjusting the gun a bit.
Cir-El replies, "I know, it seemed better to start catching right away...with an easy one. Where exactly will be bullets I do not catch go?" She glances back to calculate the flight path, then looks back at her trainer.
"They'll at least be 6 inches away from you. I'm going to make it more though, just to keep you from reacting...", she says. Tynan sighs a bit as she aims much higher this time, and fires a few times. She has to remind herself that this is a flying ship, and that her shots will react differently then if she was on a stationary object..."Alright, let me know when you're fully ready..."
Superlass frowns and calculates that the shots will land in the the harbor, then glances down to check the projected impact zone, "I hope there are no water craft where the shots will come down. I do not see any at the moment, so I assume the live fire exercise was cleared." She resumes paying attention to what is in front of her, rather than behind her, "All right, ready." No need to use X-ray vision or the like, strait analytical, that will keep things on a managable level.
Tynan sighs. She shakes her head a little bit as the dummy rounds are basically just paintball rounds with casing. She takes a deep breath. "If I used something like live fire, we would be doing this with a mound behind you.", Tynan tells. She takes a deep breath, and takes aim at Superlass's cheek. She gently squeezes the trigger, sending the first round at Cir's Cheek.
Cir-El analyzes the characteristics of the round, weight, mass spin, all in the first instant the shot is in flight. She knows where it would hit, if she let it, but she has no intention of letting it hit. She moves slightly to the side, as it is easier to catch that way than something headed strait in, and catches the round.
Tynan shakes her head a little bit. The woman watches Cir-El. She still finds that even if Cir-el succeeds in this training, its still better to dodge. "How was that?", she asks.
Cir-El says, "Pretty good, you would have hit me right on the zygomatic arch and severed the trigeminal nerve. Still easy to dodge, but dodging is not the point of the exercise." This new vision of hers has some remarkable properties, no way would she be that accurate with her old vision.
Tynan shakes her head a little bit, before she opens up. This time, she fires two shots. She aims for the forehead, and the chest. The woman takes a deep breath, watching to see the reaction of Superlass.
Two shots are fired, but to Cir-El there is plenty of time. Her eyes see where each is headed before it even launches, and her hands are guided unerringly to the correct point to intercept as she sees exactly were her hands need to go and how they need to move. She comments, "I need to get better gloves for this, I keep burning my fingers from the heat of the friction against the bullets."
Tynan sighs a bit. She takes a moment to reload a fresh clip. This time, she opens up fully, going for 5 full shots in under 5 seconds.
So far, so good. Cir-El can treat each shot separately, her mind processing the information literally faster than a speeding bullet, her hands moving with supersonic speed to catch each shot...causing a small sonic boom that sounds much like a shot itself each time...almost like an echo of Tynan's shots. Superlass comments, "I got a major vision upgrade when I lost my invulnerability. It lets me see exactly how to catch the bullets."
Tynan sighs as she's on one end of the flight deck. She's strapped down in a sniping position. Cir is on the other side carrier, inside a box drawn on the ground. Tynan sighs a bit as she watches Cir. "We're about to have some guests." Cir-El glances, "My future stepsister and Captain America, I can see them. I wonder if Bruce and Gene sent Min to check on me."
Minoke Zavia flies up, in drone form, pushing herself to move fast, after radioing the Hellicarrier for permission to land as she looks over the flight deck, and then purposely lands right in front of Cir-El, blocking Tynan's aim. Minoke is just beeping quietly, her rotors almost glowing with heat. "Sister... what's going on?" she exclaims, loudly, from her speakers. "I heard that you lost your invulnerability and now some weird lady's shooting at you?"
Steve Rogers steps out onto the deck from inside the helicarrier, in uniform. He frowns a little bit. "Could somebody please fill me in on what's going on?" Concerned eyes shift to rest on Cir-El.
Tynan blinks a few times. "I got orders from up top to assist in training Cir-El.", she tells. She presents a sheet of orders that say to assist in Cir-El's training, and ordered NOT to kill her during the training. "She wants to learn to catch bullets, and I was given the assignment to assist in training her this. I find it....very awkward, sir."
Cir-El says, "I asked for a bit of defensive training, given my loss of durability I need to know I can still be effective. I was helping with testing a device at STAR labs Friday Afternoon, something intended to reduce toughness so that medical procedures can be used on normally invulnerable people. The Joker got involved, the device was destroyed before it could be used to restore me to normal, and so I am stuck at about the same durability as Cap has until it is rebuilt. Sometimes, in my experience, you have no choice bet to stand as a shield between the innocent and those meaning them harm. I need to know I can still function in that capacity."
Ruby Rampart shimmers and turns into her hero form... and sinks to her knees, panting softly. "I'm tired... I.... ran my engines in overdrive... that's... not... a wise... choice..." She then gazes at Cir-El. "I... had no idea... what happened?' she asks as she just kneels there, swaying a bit.
"I think a better idea might be to find you some armor," Steve muses. "Even if it's only similar to mine." Yes, Steve wears armor. He's not stupid.
Tynan looks at Steve. "I suggested getting the hell out of the way. But she insists that she can act like a meat shield if she can learn to catch bullets. She's done good against a sniper rifle when its in front of her, but put two heavys in front of her, and she's getting slaughtered.", Tynan says as she gets up. "I've already seen enough to see the weakness of what she's trying to do."
Cir-El looks at Minoke and says, "Try this, it should help." She fires an arc or electricity that hits the living robot, it is carefully calculated to be within her absorption capacity.
Superlass says, "I have been considering getting armor, but it would cause some problems. Armor will interfere with my solar absorption and may slow me down."
She says attentively, "I would be interested in hearing your analysis."
Ruby Rampart gasps sharply as she looks at Cir-El. "But... but... how...?" she asks, tilting her head, rising up. "You don't HAVE electrical powers... or you didn't...?" She just sounds confused. "So - your entire power-set changed or something, sis?" she asks. "Oh, hello sir," she states, saluting Captain America.
Steve Rogers nods. "Well. Obviously we need to work out what went wrong and why your powers got shifted around, and see if we can't put them back. But in the interim...I don't think catching bullets is a good idea, Cir-El."
Tynan nods to Steve a bit. She takes a moment to take a deep breath. "Cir-El. Snipers only fire their gun in 2.5 second intervals. What I just did with the 5 shot deal was cause I already had lined up a stationary target in a nondynimac area. What that means is that a Sniper can effectively dodge another sniper if they know where the sniper is. Bullet catching is much different. More so in the field. Steve can attest that while my sniping is some of the best in SHIELD, I adjust to my opponent. If we were fighting, my STRIKE-Ones would have shredded you. 32 aimed shots, single fired, in less then 5 seconds.", she tells. The woman heads over.
"Either way, listen to Cap. He'd admit that in a fight on the street, things are much different. Angles are different, and if it weren't for orders, I would call this insanity at best."
Cir-El replies to Minoke, "My Blast power has changed, instead of Red Solar plasma I do Electrical plasma now. My hearing is about normal human level, and my vision is way off the scale...that is why I CAN catch bullets now, because I can see where they are going and how to catch them. My durability seems focused on exactly what it takes to use my powers safely, no more resistance to heat or cold or cutting weapons. Of course, without the thrust effect of my Red Sun Burst, I can not fly the way I used to."
She says to Steve, "My physical powers seem to approximate those of an Amazon now, perhaps I should invest in some indestructible arm bands to block bullets instead of catching them."
Superlass points out, "In a real fight, I would be firing back, you would not get those 32 shots uninterrupted."
Steve Rogers nods. "And how did this happen?" Cap asks. "I'll see if I can get the science types...or even the magic types...to take a look."
Tynan shakes her head. "I'm just a normal human mutant. I don't have powers. But...I am good at guessing my abilities. I would listen to Steve. He's got a lot more experience then me. And he's an old man who knows how to fight. If he feels its a bad idea, then it likely is. Also, Steve, can I make a formal request to pull a Widow for a few days, and drop off the grid? Think like this, unlike Mom, I at least ask first before I just do it."
Ruby Rampart glances. "Magic wasn't involved, Captain," she states softly. "There'd be a residue for a change this... vast."
Cir-El responds, "As far as I know, it was pure science. STAR Labs is not known for doing magic. I owed them a few favors, so I let them try it on me. It was not supposed to stay this way. Hopefully I never need to know how to catch bullets, but I thought I could manage, and it seemed a good idea to learn how, so I sent in a request. Someone approved it, though I do not know who."
"Probably somebody who had not got the memo about your powers being messed up. I'll find out." And then he glances at Tynan. "You have enough leave to take a vacation, I'd say."
Tynan nods to Cap. "Thank you sir. I'm going to go off for a bit. I need to find myself."
Ruby Rampart just blinks as she gives her sister a hug. "So..." she murmurs. "I'm so glad that you're OK - I'd be terrified if my powers suddenly changed..."
Cir-El hugs Minoke, "It is hardly the first time." She says to Tynan, "Thank you, madame, for helping. It is good to know I CAN do it if I must." She nods to Cap, "I need further training in blindfighting WITHOUT the super hearing, some time soon." She grabs some nearly invisibly marked spots on her cape and electrifies her hands, activating the memory material laced through the cloth, and jumps off the Helicarrier, gliding towards the ground.
Ruby Rampart just watches. "Ummmm...." she murmurs, clicking her tongue. "That was... strange..." She sighs, shaking her head.
Steve Rogers watches her go, thoughtfully. "Be careful about finding yourself. I don't want to see you taking up chainsaw carving," he teases Tynan.