Battle Hymn of the Republic

Fiery slag stopped mid air at the sound of the shotgun's blast.

Assuming it could even be called that.

Without so much as a bit of muzzle flash or fanfare, the molten bits stopped, cooled down, and dropped like flies to the ground - Duncan merely looked a little annoyed. "Well, there goes all the effort put into making an all purpose 'Normaling-Spell' fit nice and snug into a neat little container," he sighed. "Hope you're happy buddy, because that was my last one," the boy went on, tucking away the 1901 back into his pants pocket. "Because someone over there blew up the larger supply I had with me!" An accusatory finger stuck out at the little archer of the group, Sakura, while another one pointed to his rear end, the boy turning around to reveal the damaged and Coco-Patched portion of his rump. He tossed his arms up in the air and turned to leave, walking away from the group.

"Waiiiit! Duncan!" a familiar little voice called - Coco rushed after her older brother as he was dejectedly storming away. The look of utter disappointment he had when glancing back at her however, made the Santa-Themed Zombie Mahou Shojou pause, however briefly. "Umm, maybe they're un-trusting and really stubborn for a good reason?" she suggested at him with an uncertain smile. Faint muttering could be heard from the boy as he replied. "B-but if you already know why, why aren't you doing anything about it?!" Coco stammered in surprise. More muttering from Duncan ensued, with Coco looking more and more downcast as he explained, taking step after step away from them all as his voice grew more and more faint. At the end however, she broke the silence again. "Then why not let me do it!"

He stopped in his tracks, turning on his heel and opening his mouth angrily as though to yell - but he didn't. Instead, he shrugged and turned away again, Coco standing stiffly at attention as she listened fora brief moment. "Got that?" he asked.

"Uh huh!" In an instant, the little girl's skirt rose as she spun about to face them all with a gleeful, cheery smile. "Well, I'ma going to tell you all everything you need to know about magic now!" Coco explained. "Everybody's got lots and lots of potential here, so we don't want to waste any of it and turn it all into something nice! Now, are you all with me? Gather around, and I'll get started!"

If life were a videogame, the tutorial window just popped up, and the training mode began. Properly this time.

*****

Meanwhile, Duncan walked by Miller and Adrianne to quickly dessicated the wood into burnable fuel before reaching into the crates himself; vacuum packed ribs were pulled out. Even without saying anything, it seemed Duncan had his one-upsmanship and general unpleasantness was just natural at this point in his life, as the meaty bits easily overshadowed Miller's heartful s'mores.

And it didn't look like he wanted to share.

Sakura, despite not being really interested in what Coco was doing, decided to go along with it anyway as she walked over to the young girl and stood there; arms folded over her chest with her bow now clamped to her back. She gave occasional glances at the adults, but kept most of her attention on Coco and Duncan.

“Alright, lassy,” Ruarc said as he relaxed after the battle with the yetis. After everything that had happened today, the Druid was now settling into to the current norm; i.e. listening as a little girl explained the finer points of magic and tactics to a group of students. As he stood around looking attentive, Ruarc as took the time to glance around again at the surroundings, and thus wondered how he could go about making himself useful aside from simply standing around talking. Finally after a little bit of thinking, he got an idea.

“Ah’m still listenin’, Coco, just gonna gather a few things to make my own addition to this camping experience,” Ruarc said as he broke away from the group. Upon pacing around the site a bit he found just what he was looking for, namely a young, white pine. Methodically, the Druid stripped a few of its lower twigs of their needles. Now with a handful of green, he made his way back to the camp to prepare. Upon locating a usable knife he cut the needles into three pieces each, and then crushed the pieces gently in his hand. Once that step was finished, he set the needles aside, grabbed a decent sized cooking pot and scooped snow into it before setting it by the fire to melt.

Upon melting enough snow to provide sufficient water, Ruarc dropped the chopped needles into the pot and held it balanced just within the fire ring. “Tea's up! Got some nice refreshing pine needle tea here for those who want some. If we’re gonna be out here for a while training, then it’ll be good to have somethin’ warm ta drink, and it does wonders for boostin’ yur immune system,” Ruarc announced as he pulled the pot back from the fire, the water now having a pale green color and smelling of fresh pine. He was ready to serve up tea for any takers.

"Many thanks, Ruarc," The English teacher replied to the Irish druidling, before turning his attention to Duncan, having snatched the pork ribs for himself. While he did get the ribs, he never got anything to cook them on, and he doubted that the 'refined American of good taste' would want wood chips and ash in his pork ribs. So, he stood up and looked at the crate he was sitting on: It was full of the things to cook everything with. He gave an upwards nod to Duncan to get his attention, then spread his legs so the American could identify the crate in question, tapping it.

"Unless you want to eat them all raw, covered in ashes or in flame vomit, everyone gets one. I don't care if you have microwave hands or a shotgun that fires molten metal." He planted his axe back in front of him with a cheeky grin, and he didn't give much of a care that he could probably magic it out of spite towards the teacher. The grip on his axe tightened subconsciously, and he looked at the weapon in his hands as though he was one with it, and questioned how this came to be for a moment.

He attributed it to, illogically, magic. The same thing the kids were passing around like party favours. Maybe it was rubbing off on him after all.

Miyuki didn't do much but sulk by the fire. after grubbing through the gear that had rained down with Duncan, she had procured herself a jacket and some proper pants, which she had fitted herself into (Not that she was actually cold, but it was more out of habit than anything), she made it her duty, or purpose, to sit by the fire and stare at it. Even when given a S'more, she munched it idly after a mumbled "thanks", staring blankly at the fire, or into it, or beyond it.

********************

Adrienne did nothing by idly watch as the others interacted. As she was a newcomer, an outsider asked to help, she currently didn't feel as if it were her place to intrude, and so, she sat by the wayside, seeming content to just sit, despite everything, or perhaps because of everything.

With Duncan unable to help Riley, it was up to Coco!

"Don't worry, I can fix it! Sorta!" Holding out the palm of her hand and uttering a few words, she set to try and stabilize the girl. "Well, as I work, let's get on with the lesson! To start off - uh..." the little girl stopped for a short moment, eyeballing the girl she wasn't particularly comfortable with as she neared silently. Not a word was spoken. Though slightly bothered, Coco tried to continue on without missing a beat, but that wasn't exactly something she had gotten right yet. " - ok, well, as you all know - er..." the littlest mahou shojou watched as Ruarc moved away, making her briefly pause in uncertainty. 'Oh no! Does he have a hard time taking her seriously?' It was a problem she was rather...insecure about. "Oh, ok!" she smiled back at the druid, cheeks blushing. With a fresh breath in her lungs, she started again.

"Ok, so to start off, Duncan says you all already know that magic can be used to do stuff. Like, make giant fireballs or enchant clothing, like this!" Pointing a finger at her boot, the undone laces tied themselves together into a cute little knot. "But, it all costs your magical energy to do anything. And regular people, when they want to do something faster or bigger or something, they just put more magic in. But that's not really smart, since if a person understands how a spell does what it does, they can just make the spell work better and do the same exact thing as a spell fed more energy without actually using up any." Satisfied that Riley was somewhat stable, she cut the flow of magic to her spell. "

"Anyways! I'm not teaching that - instead, Duncan wants me to teach you all how to fight instead, since it'd be kinda dumb to teach you all fancy spells if you don't even know how to - " Coco stopped again as the tea finished, complete with handsome druid butler to serve it. She continued, this time, without skipping a beat proper, " - use them properly in battle! It's all about not doing anything silly of course, like Ruarc did today! Silly and over the top awesome is for people like my big sister, and Sensei too," she explained, pointing to Adrienne. "So to start we're gonna..." Yet again, Coco paused.

Smores. They beckoned. They called! Her fair share just sat there, laughing at her responsibility to teach the others! She stood there to think for a brief moment, and then made up her mind. 'Responsibility is dumb!'

"Uh, actually, since we all just got out of a crazy battle with Giant Pigmy Yeti, let's just relax and set up camp and eat smores and make hot coco," Coco suggested with a shameless smile.

Meanwhile, Duncan packed up a single backpack with the very barest of necessities. He turned to look at Miller with deathly eyes - the boy was not in a good mood. "Seventy two hours," he spoke at last, breaking the silent tension between the two. "Enough supplies, food included, for while Coco teaches you all what I know," Duncan went on to explain, shoving away the vacuum sealed ribs and a bottle of sauce into the bag. "If you can't put two and two together and realize there's more, well, you're just...whatever. Later." With that, Duncan turned and left.

It was going to be a very long three days. But hopefully, it would also be a long time with which they could grow, and grow quickly.

A storm was coming after all.

CHAPTER END