Closed RP: Paintballs and Duct Tape FTW
Susan had been reading.
It was usually a bad thing, when Susan devoted enough time and energy to research--it very rarely ended well. On the Discworld it had been easy enough to tell a good idea from a bad one (not that knowing something was in fact a bad idea had stopped her), but at Hogwarts the line was rather blurred. There were all manner of fascinating things to play with here, and sometimes they were things best kept away from someone like Susan.
In this case, she’d discovered paintball guns. She had learned from her target practice with Stephen that she should not be given a real gun…well, ever, but paintball guns were far less lethal. She had an idea that, were paintballs to be replaced with some sort of pudding-coated ammunition, they could serve well against evil clowns, particularly in the hands of those such as herself, as they would be much less of a danger to innocent bystanders.
Shaun had written to his girlfriend, who had sent out a pair of the paintball guns they’d had in the garden shed (formerly occupied by Shaun’s zombie flatmate). Shaun, well aware that he was likely going to wind up with an earful of paint, had agreed to go with Susan and be a moving target.
The initial idea had been that they shoot at the provided targets, but that didn’t last long. Susan, frustrated to hell with Shaun’s well-meaning critique, turned on him and wound up shooting him right in the forehead.
“Ow!” Shaun staggered, pressing a hand to his yellow-splashed forehead, staring at her with a surprise that was almost comical. “What’d you go and do that for?” He could already feel a lump forming, a truly spectacular goose-egg. He very nearly tripped over his own feet, and Susan, appalled, nearly dropped her gun.
“I didn’t mean to hit you in the forehead,” she said, hoping she’d not concussed him or anything. “Good gods, I haven’t cracked your skull or anything, have I?” Susan stepped forward, chagrined, but before she could even try to make him let her have a look she staggered herself, pain stabbing through her ribs.
She pressed a hand to her side, and when she brought it up she saw it was sticky and bright blue, as was her shirt. Shaun snickered.
“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” he said, hopping backward as she leveled both a glare and her gun at him. “Come on, it was only fa--”
The sentence was cut off quite effectively by another paintball, which managed--purely by chance--to thwack him square in the chest, exploding purple all over his ancient T-shirt. “It was an accident,” said Susan, with a small and rather vicious smile. “Now it’s war.”
She shot at him again, but missed, and took off over the uneven ground, headed for the cover of the hay-bale targets. She took a paintball in the back for that, before she could dart behind shelter, and there came a furious scrabbling as she climbed up onto one of the bales, taking sight through the scope (yes, Shaun’s paintball guns had scopes. He was a dork).
Shaun himself scrambled down behind a grassy hummock, turning it into an impromptu foxhole. “Oh, you feel lucky, punk?” He was a much better shot than Susan, and after a few rounds managed to hit her in the side of the head, knocking her off the hay bale.
She fired as she went down, and then held up a paint-covered hand. “Wait, wait, time out,” she gasped, laughing and wincing all at once. “I don’t know how to reload.”
“Oh, come on, I showed you,” Shaun grumbled, holding out a hand for her gun. “Look, see, you just pop the old shell-case out, right there, and jam the new one in.” He fumbled the first few tries, and shot Susan a glare that dared her to comment. She didn’t, but she did snicker.
“If you say so. All right, five minute break, then Round Two?” She gave him a paint-splattered smirk.
“Sit-down sounds like a great idea,” Shaun said, flopping onto the grass. “I’m too old for this.”
Susan quirked an eyebrow at him, pulling two bottles of water from the bag she’d dragged down and handing him one. “You’re what, thirty? You’re much too young to be too old.”
“Oh, shut up.” Shaun took the water, wishing vaguely it was beer and wondering if the hospital wing staff would laugh at him if he were to go in for bruise-balm like this. They probably would.