Target Practice

[hit_girl_mindy]

Since living in the new castle with Ruffnut, Mindy had done her best to maintain upkeep, even "borrowing" a few things from the wreckage of Grand Central to spruce up the place. It helped, especially since the events of the homecoming, to keep her head busy. On the one hand, yes, dad had appeared: he wasn't dead, he was proud to know they won, and

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[hit_girl_mindy]

Hit Girl was more than a little annoyed. She was faster, yes, and really really close to her speed from the mission, but not quite where she needed to be yet. She held off actual maiming, of course: she was trying really hard to listen to Morgan, and she had still remembered the words she exchanged with Kon that one time. If she could avoid that level of death (in other words, just shooting them) maybe she could control the way she took people out.

Yeah, it still sounded stupid to her. Damn it.

She did stop a moment when she felt the presence of someone else, someone she knew. It was Hana, that boy that was Ruff's other friend. She'd met and sparred with him before, and all in all? He was the kind of guy she liked hanging with, like a gruffer version of Negi. She didn't mind him being around, though the possibility of him and Ruff possibly hooking up gave her a tightness in her chest she didn't understand. Since when was she jealous?

Oh yeah. Sasami and Negi. That sucked.

Well whatever. She paused the Sensorium, a moment, gesturing to him. "Hey Hana. What's up?"

[moms_temperment]

Hana grinned brightly, raising a hand in greeting. "Yo. Not much, just, you know, loitering about." He chuckled. Although his running was a part of his training, he didn't bother saying so. It barely seemed worth mentioning after seeing what Hit Girl's training was like.

He moved to sit himself on the outer edges of the saloon, not wanting to get in the way. "You been out here long?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah, I noticed you loitering in our place too, without hardly saying hello," she said cuffing him lightly on the head. It was actually chill, having a guy friend that was right up her alley. Negi was cool, but he was a really good guy, like, REALLY good. That, and she didn't get to see him as much lately.

"I've been running this sim, I'd say, just about every few days. Since we got back from the mission, I've been trying to replicate some moves I did back then. I was super fast, Deloreon fast, but I could have died. I'm trying to see if I can do it without, you know, getting close to dying."

[moms_temperment]

He took the cuff with a smile, mane of wild hair absorbing it. "I could be louder if you want!" Hana let out a sudden loud bark of laughter to back up his claim.

It took him a moment to get the reference, brow furrowed in confusion. "Deloreon fast? Oh! Like the movie! Cool!" Hana gave her a impressed look. "That's real fast!"

He nodded. "Yeh, not dying is a pretty good idea."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"The hell?" Mindy said, snickering. Yeah, this guy was all right. She might even be tempted to show him what she looked like under the mask. Maybe. That was always kinda tricky, knowing who you could trust.

She nodded. "Yeah, that fast. I even remember what it felt like: it was like I was walking through jello, except once you remember where you are and how you can move, its like you break through all of it. It was like the rest of the world was trying to catch up to me, you know? Still, I'd like to avoid being in real peril, you know?"

Now she was curious. "So how'd you meet Ruff anyway?"

[moms_temperment]

"Told ya!"

"Woah. Sounds pretty awesome. I mean, the jello bit is a bit weird but mostly it sounds awesome." He leaned back, supporting his weight with his arms, looking relaxed.

"Oh, I met her first at a podpop, but we only kinda said hi and stuff. I only properly met her in one of these places." He gestured to the Sensorium around them.

"She'd made it look like her village, I found it and explored coz it looked real cool. Ruff spotted me yelling in one of her sheeps face." Because that was totally what normal people do. "She thought I was someone else and we ended up talking. She showed me how her village used to fight dragons and gave me a ride on Sparky and Gassy." Their Sensorium counterpart anyway.

The glint in his eyes and the smile on his face gave away how fondly he remembered the experience.

"After that, we ended up talking for most of the day, 'bout her lair, her training, stuff like that."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"It's something I'm just only starting to understand, to be honest. I'm not used to all of this out of body stuff where time slows and everything that goes with it. I figure I might go to you for that kind of stuff, since you're the one used to it, seeing ghosts and stuff. I guess, even by bad ass standards, as a human I'm still kinda green to this stuff."

She grinned. "Nah, I know what you mean. I know a little about vikings from my world, but they lived hundreds of years ago. So I knew about them, but I never met a viking until Ruff. I think I met her once when I was watching her train to be an Overlord because of Zetta. I'd gone through one of his simulations, so I wanted to train more with him. So then I met her, and we hung out and stuff. She's the first friend I ever made in this dump. If I had to live with anyone, kinda glad its her."

As he could probably tell.

"So why don't you tell me more about what you can do?"

[moms_temperment]

"Well, I'll try and help out if I can." He liked the idea of being useful and pleasing his friends, it was why he'd agreed to try and teach Ruffnut some spiritual stuff.

Hana nodded. "Yeh, Ruff's easy to get along with, it's nice chillin out or messing around with her."

"Umm, sure, what do ya want to know?" He was never really sure where to start when it came to describing his own powers.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Cool," Hit Girl said. "I see you a lot in our place anyway, it'll be cool to have you helping out."

She grinned. "Yeah, she's like that. Some people think she doesn't know that much, but she makes up for it with her enthusiasm. She's going to be an awesome Overlord, you'll see."

She shrugged. "I dunno: I only know a little abut about the ghosts. Why don't you tell me more about that?"

[moms_temperment]

"About ghosts, huh?"

He pauses to contemplate his answer.

"Well, it's kinda weird, coz there's ghosts and spirits and demons but when you look at it, they're all pretty similar in one way of another, there's just so many of them and there's a ton of different names."

Hana realized he was probably babbling and nervously tried to move on. "But they all use Reiyoku which just kinda proves they're all the same."

Well, now he was speaking gibberish. He ran a hand thorugh his hair, smiling apologetically, already getting exhausted. It was hard trying to explain things that came second nature.

"Um, maybe I should just try and stick to talking about human spirits?" He offered. "I mean, those are the ones you'll have to get used to in Ruffs place."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah. I come from a pretty hard nosed world, where we worry more about humans than spirits," Hit Girl said. "Some people believe they exist, even feel them, but we don't exactly pay them that much attention."

Hit Girl nodded. "I know about the demons, obviously: I've fought some with Ruff, I'm probably going to turn out being one somewhere down the road. If I wanna know about that I'll ask Zetta. But ghosts and spirits are what I'm curious about."

And he just hit the nail on the head. "Okay, I don't have any idea what Reiyoku is, that's obvious. But I do wanna know about the ghosts n stuff at Ruffnut's now, since its my place too."

[moms_temperment]

"Oh, that's right. You have that different type of demon. I should probably meet them sometime." Knowing about other worlds demons would be very useful.

"Well, there's tons that hang about the hotel." He made a large gesture with his hands to emphasize. "I don't mean like a a dozen or something, I mean that there's gotta be at least 100 attached to that place. It's really charged up. S'why I like it, really."

"They're mostly human spirits." He shrugged. "I mean, of course there's a few other spirits here and there, like the cluster of wisps hanging out in the chandelier of the ballroom, but for the most part it's people."

Hana spoke about them more as if they were part of the hotel staff rather a gathering of left behind souls.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Are you serious?" Hit Girl looked a little amused. "With all this time you spend with Ruffnut, I figured you would have met Overlord Zetta by now! He's kind of our trainer and everything. Besides, a talking book is kinda hard to miss, since he's also on the council."

Now that was something she wanted to know about. The last thing she needed was to know there were a bunch of peeping tom ghosts all over the place. Not that they really had anything to peep at, Mindy being an underage twelve year old and Ruff with the physique of...well, a twelve year old with a growth spurt, but that was neither here nor there.

"A hundred spirits, are you shitting me?" Hit Girl said, looking pretty shocked. "What, did they die here or something? Not that I'd care, mind you, but that's still something pretty shocking to find out! What do they want?"

sorry about the novel ^^;;

[moms_temperment]

"Well, I met Zetta, but it was only once. 'Sides, just one meeting won't teach me much, will it? I mean, you wouldn't learn everything about Oni from just one meeting with one." He stopped to think about that. "Actually, you wouldn't learn much at all from a few meetings since the lower lever ones don't talk so good."

Hana on the other hand, seemed totally relaxed about the idea of spirits being hither and fither. That was probably the difference in seeing them all your life and suddenly finding out they were all around you unseen.

He smiled a Hit Girls shock, the reaction to spirits was always fun. "At least a hundred, yeh. Likely more." Hana's smile grew as he explained. "Remember when Ruff wanted to rip down that picture hanging in the hall and the closet suddenly opened and all those buckets fell on her?" He chuckled at the memory. "That was Janice. Man, she was piiiiissed. Real unhappy with Ruff for trying to take it down. Had to talk with her for a whole half an hour about it before she agreed she'd let Ruff move it."

He paused at the dying comment. "Some did, some didn't." He said, mysteriously.

Hana began idly picking at the threading of his clothes as he tried to elaborate. "Spirits gather at certain places. Sure, some'll actually died here, or known this place when they were alive. Just like some will have know or died in the hotel. But any spirits in the area will sense the energy coming from that place and be drawn to it. The more that come, the more energy, the more will sense it. It just grows and grows. Most of 'em don't remember how they died, it was so long ago. After being around that long, you don't see the sense in remembering something so small and pointless."

He bit his lip, looking as though he was divulging secrets about a friend he had concerns about. "They don't really want anything. I mean, some want to pass on, and I've been helping them. But most just like hanging around. They don't wanna go yet. They like being here. Those are the human one's anyway. And the nature spirits, like the wisps and stuff, they don't pass on anyway. They always exist one way or another, they just think the hotel is one big fun home."

"Alot just got brought here, like us. And they're kinda stuck. Some can't even pass on coz of it. And the one's that had no attachments, or just had weak ones to places in the City, just ending up going to the hotel and making friends there. They've made it their home." Hana shrugged, looking at Hit Girl with an open, honest face.

"I guess since the City is a mix up of places, it brought along a mix up of spirits too."

It's totally fine, Mindy likes learning new stuff

[hit_girl_mindy]

"No, you definitely won't, but trust me, he'll at least give you a good idea what the demon world is like where he is from. That, and he's supposed to be an Overlord anyway, so he'd be a good idea to know where a lot of that bravado comes from."

She nodded. "Yeah, although it is Ruffnut, so I figured she might have just been clumsy: she does stuff like that sometimes. Why did the spirit get so pissed about that anyway?"

Mindy nodded. She'd read up on stuff like will'o'wisps, and faeries and all, but she had no idea these could technically count as spirits. "So you're saying that these guys just like being around where there's a lot of energy. That makes sense: Lash is working in the place, so its bound to get a big boost, and obviously Ruffnut is like one big thing thunderclap, so they would want to come here. At least they're not angry or something."

She shivered a little. "Ghost energies on Stacy. I wonder if we'd even want to know their story."

[moms_temperment]

Another shrug. "Janice has been around the hotel for ages. She used to work there. Still does in a way. That was one of her favorite pictures."

"Yeah, they really like being in the hotel. And it's good for them." He was smiling again. "Plus with that much power and their own power, they're pretty much set. They'll let you know if there's something they want. Usually they shake stuff or something. Most of 'em will just wanna play though."

"Mmm, I could ask but... You know." A person's death was kind of personal. "They usually tell me themselves if they want to share it."