capthepoint | Open RP Thread: Ground Control to Major Tom

He had indeed. And he had coffee. Not only that, but he'd thought to bring the maggot a thermos too. Soldier hadn't been ignorant of Sid's dismay at being ordered to show up so early, and there was no point letting the coffee get stale in the pot until the others woke up, he thought. He sat on the stairs leading to the vault from the right lane and drank his coffee while he waited.

Soldier was somewhat surprised when Sid actually did show up on time, though. He'd half-expected to have to have to yank him down from his bunk and shout him awake, and fun though that would have been, it would've woken everyone else up too.

"MORNING, PRIVATE!" Soldier shouted to Sid as he stood, ready to get this lesson underway. "CATCH!" he warned, tossing the other thermos at him.

The bellowing brought a good-morning wince to Sid's face. Fortunately for him, though, his reflexes had woken up before the rest of him. He managed to catch the thermos, bemusedly fumbling it out of midair by the wrong end of the handle and giving the other man a mutely-puzzled look before righting it and peering at its contents.

The smell hit him before the dark liquid computed. Of course. Soldier's coffee had roughly the smell and consistency of battery acid. "Didn' happen t'bring cream 'n sugar, didja?" he joked weakly, glancing up.

Soldier sneered at that.

"Strong and black is the only way to drink coffee! Unless you're a lady! Or European! Or both! Drink up, maggot!" With that, he finished off the last of his own coffee.

He noticed it a bit late but the Medic received the notice the Soldier had left for him and he was up bright and early to dress and prepare for the six AM call.
Well, maybe not bright. Maybe not early enough either.
Equipped and dressed in full uniform, face shaved, and hair impeccably set he would join them not long after Sid arrived. He would have been there earlier had the straps on his pack not given him trouble; he really needed to get them replaced.

"Good morning, gentleman."

Sid's petulant groan was stifled by Dok's arrival. He tried to hold his breath as best he could as he took a quick sip of the coffee, and almost instantly regretted it. "Mornin' Dok," he mumbled, and glanced down into the thermos. Medic was European, it occurred to him, but he guessed it was worth a try. "Y'want some coffee?"

"Morning, Needles!" Soldier greeted. He felt bad about forgetting to bring some coffee for Medic, but then, he'd never seen the man drink any. He was one of them sissy European tea drinkers. "Glad you came. Hup To's gonna need the Medigun."

"Thanks f'r th'vote of confidence, pal," Sid muttered, glancing at the horizon, where the sun was only just beginning to clear the distant buttes. "We ready, or did you invite any more folks t'the party?"

"Nee..." Nevermind, he wasn't going to ask.
"Ja, I vill have a bit. Vhatever vakes me up because tea certainly vill not do it at zis hour," he said, taking the thermos from Sid and leaned his Kritzkrieg up against his leg so he had a free hand to unscrew the cap. The smell of it hit him hard enough to make a sour face, but he took a good swig of it anyway. If the caffeine didn't wake him the taste certainly did. "Eugh... strong."

"You're going to hurt yourself," Soldier told Sid matter-of-factly. It was simply part of the process. Especially for someone who wasn't as one with his rocket launcher as Soldier was. "Come over here and stand up straight," Soldier ordered. Once Sid had hopped to and affected standing at attention as closely as he knew how, Soldier inspected him. Yarn Ball would need new boots. The standard issue ones weren't going to last long if he was going to be doing this all the time.

"Now," Soldier told him, making a mental note to requisition him some Gunboats, "Level your weight out." He gave no further explanation, just waited for Sid to do as he was told.

Sid frowned at his feet for a moment, trying to do as he said. When his feet proved uncooperative he glanced over at him. "-- 'N how do I do that?"

Niklaus screwed the lid back on the thermos as the other two began their training session, leveling out his sour expression while Sid tried to do the same with his weight.
At least one of them was managing.
He placed the thermos down on the dusty ground as he hefted up his Kritzkrieg, the instrument squealing to life as he flicked on the power switch and prepared for a long day.

Soldier huffed.

"Figure out where the heaviest parts of your body are." Soldier told him. "Muscle is heavier than fat," he added as a sort of clue, inspecting Sid's physique critically. "Ain't that right, Sour Kraut? Oughta start trying to trade some off, Yarn Ball. Muscle is easier to feel the space and weight of. Gives you more control over the blast too."

"Once you know where your weight is, balance out your posture to it. When you stand up straight, you can feel where the imbalance is. Sort it out."

Edited 2013-05-22 05:52 (UTC)

The RED felt his face flushing at the remark about his weight. "'M not fat," he mumbled, and stood up a little taller, shifting his stance. "What's it s'posed t'feel like?"

"Even," Soldier said, watching to see if Sid was trying to alter his stance to compensate for the weight and lack thereof in different parts of his body. "You should feel like you could stop trying to stand and you wouldn't fall down."

"Try not to take all day gettin' there, Private."

Sid snorted. "I been standin' f'r most've my life, Sir. 'Th all due r'spect I ain't real sure how t'go about fixin' how I get there." He wiggled around in place a little more and looked at the older man uncertainly. "This look okay?"

"Maggot, you've been standing your whole life, but you ain't been doing it right! Not for rocketjumping! You try to blast off like you normally stand and you'll launch yourself into a wall!" Soldier snorted like a bull, then calmed himself back down.

"It doesn't matter how it looks, Snafu," he said impatiently. "What matters is how it feels. Does it feel like I told you?"

"I guess." He would have felt better if it felt appreciably different than his normal posture. Aside from standing up straight, he didn't feel all that much different. Maybe the different feeling came after your shoes were on fire, he thought.

"So now what happens?"

You blow your legs off, he thought to himself as he observed the lesson in progress, his own posture relaxed until further notice. He never understood this 'rocket jumping' business; there was nothing more frustrating than chasing down sky-high Soldier flying head first into combat with self inflicted wounds.

"Learn that stance. Commit it to your memory. Every time you rocketjump, you are going to start from that position." It was the stance, or for Sid's sake he hoped it was, of maximum balance. With his weight evenly distributed, Sid should be able to launch himself exactly upward.

Provided he could land the rocket right.

"Get your launcher," he instructed, collecting his own. Sid, it seemed, preferred the standard rocket launcher which was fine to Soldier. Four rockets loaded, as opposed to his own launcher's three, would be more convenient.

"Go ahead and put the beam on him, Volkswagon," he said to Medic. An overheal would be a decent insurance against Sid dying.

Sid swallowed hard, realizing what he was in store for. The muzziness of the early hour was shedding rapidly in the wake of his approaching nerves. As the healing beam surrounded him, he reached down and collected his rocket launcher, carefully, so as not to disturb his nonexistent equilibrium.

His knees shook a little on the upswing. He devoutly hoped Soldier wasn't an observant type.

He wondered if this fount of nicknames was at all endless as he aimed and pushed the lever forward, releasing the stream of revitalizing energy onto his team mate. A few steps back were also taken, just to avoid the blast radius.
"Ready vhen you are, gentlemen."

"All right, pay attention, Private,"Soldier said, hefting his own rocket launcher on to his shoulder. "This part's important. It will be on the test." Soldier got into his own balanced stance and pointed at his feet.

"You want to fire your rocket right between your feet and then jump. Let the blast push you faster. But when it explodes, you want to close the gap between your feet some. That way, the explosion will shoot you up higher because it's pushing against more of the bottom of your shoes. Watch how I do it."

Soldier shifted his feet about four inches apart and then fired his rocket launcher directly between them. The blast shot him straight up about forty feet in the air, and then he promptly fell back to earth with an unpleasant cracking sound in his ankles. Soldier didn't seem at all concerned by it though, and went on with his lecture.

"Don't lean. Just stay in that position and move your feet to make the most of your blast." Soldier turned to Medic then. "If he does this right, he should launch himself out of your range. Try to catch him with the beam as he's coming back down." Soldier had a feeling those instructions would not be needed on this try, though.

Sid took a deep breath. He tried his best to attend to what Soldier was saying, but the thought of the incoming explosion had the soles of his feet tingling already. When the other man promptly blasted off, the light and the sudden sound had him flinching reflexively back. He only realized as the other man was descending that he hadn't been looking at his feet at all.

Chest tight with dread and anticipation, he tried to shift his feet apart, pointing the muzzle of the launcher down clumsily and thumbing the safety off. "Y'want me t'-- try 'n do it, or?" he asked the ground lamely.

Soldier glared.

"No, I want you to stand there and look... sparkly," he grunted, giving the healing beam a snort. He learned without a Medic holding his hand. Or someone to explain it to him.

"Yes, maggot, I want you to try! T MINUS FIVE SECONDS, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE! LIFTOFF, CRAFT FAIR!"

The former Engineer made a small, terrified choking noise in the back of his throat and fired his launcher to hide it. The rocket detonated at his feet, the blast propelling him a few feet in the air and turning the lower half of his uniform into a charred and smoking mess. He hit the ground a few moments later, clumsily, and promptly stumbled backwards into the Medic.

"Shit --" He grit his teeth against further curses, lurching forward again and promptly stumbling to his knees. He hadn't even tried to jump. At least his legs were intact, he thought. The fact that they felt like they were on fire was probably a good sign.

He coughed out a sob and looked up at his teacher, chagrined and a little afraid.

Niklaus knew the drill for this situation all too well, instinctively shifting the beam onto the BLU to patch him up while he gave Sid a few last pointers.

He flinched as the RED Soldier's first attempt of the morning turned out to be a sloppy one as it sent him flailing upward, keeping his gun trained on him, and braced himself when he came back to earth and into him. He would only grunt as he caught him with his shoulder, the beam bending around as he turned.

Yup. This was going to be a long morning, he thought as he sighed and watched poor Sid trip clumsily.

Soldier regarded the crumpled and charred excuse for a fellow Soldier at his feet.

"Your legs are still on. And you got a couple feet in the air." Having never tried to teach rocketjumping, Soldier had no frame of reference, but he figured that Sid hadn't taken his bottom half off this time was an improvement. He held out a hand to help Sid back on his feet.

"Come on, walk it off and try again, Sidney Beans."

The unfamiliar sound of grudging praise relaxed a little of the tension in the Soldier's shoulders. He accepted the hand up, blinking a little in surprise at the sound of his name. "Sorry," he mumbled, getting to his feet again. At least the Medigun had soothed away most of the pain from his feet.

He wanted badly to remark on the way Soldier had said his name, and stared at him curiously for a moment more before concluding that maybe it was a bad idea to put the guy on the spot like that. "S'ere somethin' else I oughta be doin'? T'like -- I dunno, get higher up or somethin'?"

Does it always hurt like that? he wanted to ask, but he suspected maybe Soldier would like that question less.

"You could try jumping," Soldier told him. "Try to think of it as one action. You shoot and jump in the same move."

Sid nodded and bit his lip, frowning hard at the ground as though it had done him a grave offense. It was probably better not to think about it, he decided, and shot at his feet again. The searing pain hit almost instantaneously. He fell to the ground, dropping the launcher beside him.

A low whine in his throat was the only noise he found he could make when he reached for his ankle and found half of it missing. He looked up reproachfully at Dok for a moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out without much further ceremony.

Being awake bright and early and ever so slightly hung over was not one of Molly's favorite things but one of the base cats had decided to try affectionately clawing her face to get her attention and once she was done swatting it away she was awake enough that trying to fall back asleep would be pointless.

Out of bed and properly dressed for the day there was the faint sound of explosions somewhere off in the distance. Well, shit. It sounded like it was coming from the direction of the vault and if those blasted tin men had gotten that far then they were in trouble. There was little time to think before getting her weapons and going.

There was a suspicious lack of robots around on the way there and when she was close enough to see the vault she ground to a stop and stared. There were the two soldiers and Medic was healing them. Sid looked to be in bad shape but there were no robot remains laying around to be a cause for it. Had they been fighting? That seem detrimental to the whole teamwork thing.

Rubbing at her head she decided to just approach the group and ask what she really wanted to know. "What the bloody hell are you lads doin'?"

"Ach, Sidney..."
He couldn't reach out to catch or break his fall without letting go of his gun, so he made the decision to just let him tip so that he could keep the healing beam on him. He didn't have much father to fall anyway, he'd be fine. But really? Surely he'd seen or experienced worse; combat rounds tended to be pretty brutal before.

He was just kneeling down to balance the handle on the ground so he could reach forward and give the poor RED a shake and keep his hand on the top lever when their Demo joined them. "Giving some... flying lessons. And good morning, Molly."

Soldier knelt down next to Sid as well, and watched Medic shake him gingerly.

"He ain't done any flying yet," Soldier noted for the sake of the added company, though that much was probably obvious. "Maybe having a pretty lady watching will motivate him to shoot between his feet instead of in them."

Sid didn't look anywhere near conscious, and Soldier didn't have all day, so he shunted Medic off. He grabbed Sid by the front of his jacket and gave him a much more vigorous shake. When the only response he got was Sid's head lolling around, Soldier reached back and slapped him.

"Rise and shine, Apollo One!"

Sid snapped back into consciousness moments afterward with a startled groan, tensing in fear of more pain. When it didn't come he eased one eye open and glanced up into Soldier's less-than-reassuring visage. "Christ," he murmured, deciding it was best to keep his eyes shut after all. "How long w's I out?"

"It looks like the poor bastard needs a bit more than just a blast of the medigun." His feet did look to be in utterly terrible condition and she crouched down next to him as well. "You going t' be alright lamb chop?"

Demo had a point. There was no way Sid was going to be balancing out like that.

"Only a few minutes, Yarn Ball." Soldier reached over to retrieved the thermos Medic had set down on the ground. "Here, drink this."

Already a little nauseous, he groaned again at the thought of putting that swill in his mouth. "Naw, 'm fine. Thanks."

Somebody else had been talking, he realized, and eased his eyes open. Oh. "Hey, Miss Molly." He pulled together a little grin for her, despite the odd tingling sensation in his ankle. "You come t'watch the fireworks?"

"I came 'cause I heard the rockets. No' quite what I was expecting this early." She could leave it at that and avoid admitting that she assumed the base was under attack. "Think I'll be stayin' for the show now that I'm here if y' can manage another jump."

Soldier snorted, but otherwise chose to spare Sid's dignity and not point out that he had yet to manage one. Nonetheless, he felt that Sid had had enough time to rest and it was time to continue.

"On your feet, Yarn Ball."

"F'r you? 'Course." Sid smiled dizzily at her before hauling himself to his feet, wobbling a little once he'd made it up but remaining upright. He glanced uncertainly at the ground, then at Soldier. "So I jus' -- I'm s'posed t'fire 'n then jump, right?" he wondered aloud.

"Yeah, but you have to do it quick. Pull the trigger and jump at the same time. You want to be off the ground and still going up when the rocket hits. If you're already falling back down, the explosion will work against you." He could see Sid's eyes glazing over and so, rolling his own, he squatted down and started drawing a diagram with his finger in the dirt.

"When your rocket hits the ground, it makes an explosion and the blast pushes back up from the ground," he said, drawing a crude explosion and an arrow pointing up from it. "And when you jump, you are also pushing up." He drew a stick figure in the dirt next to the explosion with another upward arrow below it. "But if you're already coming back down when the rocket explodes, then you're crashing into the force from the explosion." He drew another explosion and a stickman over it, and between them two arrows pointing at each other, indicating their force in opposing directions.

"When that happens, your feet get caught in the crush."

"What you want is to still be going up so that when your rocket's blast hits and pushes up, it's working with your jump instead of against your fall."

Soldier stood and dusted his hands off.

"You get it now, Knit Needles?"

Edited 2013-06-11 17:25 (UTC)

"I -- think so. Maybe." Sid leaned on his launcher, the better to survey Soldier's drawings without falling flat on his face. He still looked a little pale, but as he studied the drawings his mouth set into a determined line.

Carefully, he gathered the launcher back up and onto his shoulder, pointed it at the ground in a slightly wobbly fashion, and then stopped. An uncertain, embarrassed glance at the Soldier. "Y'think I c'n maybe see you do it jus' one more --?"

"Yeah, all right," Soldier said with a bit of a grumble. He rather thought the maggot was stalling, but one more demonstration wouldn't hurt him. Much, anyway.

Soldier leveled his weight out and then said, "Watch how I time this." He jumped, marking his ascent with an "up!" and his fall with a "down". "Up, down! Up, down!" He did this a few times, to get Sid acclimated to the rhythm. Then he aimed his rocketlauncher at his feet, jumped and fired as he said "Up!"

And up he went.

"Doowwwwnnn!" Soldier shouted as he fell back to earth with the usual cracking noise.

"All right! Your turn, private!" he said with an encouraging boisterity that did not belie the fall damage he'd taken.

The longer he watched, the longer it felt like he was watching someone taking turns with one of those strength games at a carnival; one would give it a try and hardly send the weight up more than a few inches. Then the strongman came along and gave it a whack hard enough to ring the bell at the top.
He sure hope Sid could at least get halfway up to the bell by noon, if they were kept out there for that long.
Either way, he was stuck there with his Medigun and hoping he wouldn't have to sew anything too important back on.

Open RP Thread: Ground Control to Major Tom

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