One of the 6 Paintball Places Anakin is Still Allowed to Go [Monday afternoon, NFB for distance]

[sith_happened]

High school students who had been stressed out enjoyed shooting things, right? Anakin had, when he was a teenager! So had most of his friends!

That was why, after coming back from Thanksgiving in Connecticut and catching up on a weekend's worth of radio broadcasts, he sent an invitation that wasn't really all that optional to Vette to meet him at a paintball course nearish the causeway. (It was new, he hadn't made whiny 12 year old boys cry there yet and been banned.) He was from the same universe and could put together "Twi'lek", "weetiny" and "destructive tendencies immediately after" and come up with a explanation that wasn't pretty, but was probably fairly accurate.

So yes. Better living through non-lethal violence targeted at people they didn't know! And then maybe talking.

Anakin pulled on his extremely unattractive paintball onesie...thing...and hoped Vette would show up.

[OOC: For that Twi'lek! No, the other one.]

Comments

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette... had no idea what this was about. Or what 'paintball' was, really. What she'd known was that the Dean of students had sent a probably not that optional invitation to meet him somewhere, and considering she didn't have a wealth of other options, she decided to give it a go, rather than risking her school career on top of everything else.

She was still in a pretty okay mood because of puppies, at least, though there was a wary look on her face as she made her way in and took a perplexed look around.

... There were a lot of kids here. That was unexpected.

[sith_happened]

Anakin gave her a little wave from where he was zipping himself into the paintball onesie (technical term). "Have you ever been to a paintball course before?" he asked. "It's one of my favorite things on this planet."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Nope," Vette... well, chirped, really. She looked at Anakin. And Anakin's onesie. And then tilted her head a little. "I guess there's a first for everything. What is this place?"

And why her?

[sith_happened]

"It's called paintball," he said. "You get these outfits to protect your real clothing." He smirked. "Not that I get hit. And then they give you a gun that shoots paint pellets and you take it into an obstacle course and shoot all the obnoxious people there!"

Or at least, that's how Anakin and Aeryn played when they went every month. It was why they weren't allowed at a lot of paintball places now.

He smiled. "It's good for relieving stress."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Who says I'm stressed?"

Honey, don't try to lie to the Jedi.

She did glance around again, though, a little more thoughtfully.

"Having a whole course full of moving targets might be handy, though. Only one gun?"

Double blasters or bust.

[sith_happened]

"Only one," He said. "We've asked. He smiled a little sheepishly. "My best friend and I come to a place like this monthly and keep looking for a way to increase the difficulty. One time we did the entire course without putting our feet on the ground."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Hm. They really don't want me using only one gun. I can put way more focus into where I'm aiming than I would be with my usual two." Vette considered Anakin carefully for a moment, and then... also went to collect one of the weird onesies. Not that she was particularly precious about what she was wearing, but she suspected this was one of those dumb rules, like wearing ear protection in the shooting range, even though blasters were one 'pew' shy of being silent. "I keep expecting you to say something like, 'so I bet you're wondering why I invited you here today,' you know."

And then maybe cackling maniacally and sharing his evil master plan or something. She hadn't quite made up her mind about that part yet.

[sith_happened]

Anakin shrugged a shoulder as he headed over to the desk to pick out his gun. "Pistol or rifle?" he asked, then added, "You're a smart kid who had a tough week. Shooting things makes people feel better."

At least the people he knew.

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Pistol," Vette said immediately, trailing along behind him, frowning thoughtfully. "And you're right, it does."

It was why she'd spent last Monday at the range, burning through all her blaster bolts. If she'd known this was an option, maybe she would have come here sooner.

"So..." She peered at the weapons selection. "You hear 'ship theft' on the radio and decide you'd con me into a false sense of security for a lecture or something? I have to say, 'shoot things, feel better' isn't what I usually think of when they talk about detention."

[sith_happened]

"The ship wasn't school property," Anakin said, "so I'm not giving a detention. I am, however, a bit of an expert in destructive teenage behavior, having been a destructive teenager, so I thought I'd introduce you to a...non-felonious option of stress relief."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"I did also try to steal the bus that one time," Vette offered, because what would a destructive teenager be without helpfully pointing out things like that, right?

And she would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for that pesky guy with the bad goatee.

"I mean, felonies are actually surprisingly satisfying when they work out."

She finished zipping up her stupid onesie thing.

[sith_happened]

"As the ethics teacher, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Anakin said, picking out a sniper rifle.

[chirpchirpchirp]

"How very ethical of you," Vette said, grinning faintly as she picked up a pistol that sat comfortably in her hand. She glanced at the sniper rifle thoughtfully. "Are you sure somebody on that course doesn't owe you money or something?"

[sith_happened]

"Oh, very sure," Anakin said. "I also know most of these kids never watch their backs. If I find a spot in higher ground, I can get most of them as they're looking down trying to figure out how the trigger works."

And thus the crying from the tiny teenagers.

[chirpchirpchirp]

"So this is the 'tough lessons in projectile warfare' range, really?"

Those poor kids were going to get shot a lot. A lot a lot.

"Now I actually am sorry I didn't know about this sooner. I would have been shooting little baby wannabe marksmen months ago."

[sith_happened]

"It is when I come," Anakin said with a grin. "I don't know how it works when I'm not here."

He headed out towards the course. "I suppose I should warn you--I tend to get tossed out of these a lot. I'm too talented for their sad Earth egos."

Or something.

[chirpchirpchirp]

"I have no idea why," Vette mused, turning the pistol over in her hands thoughtfully as she walked along after him. "Such modesty!"

A pause.

"If you get thrown out of here and I don't, I'm going to laugh at you, though."

Full disclosure!

[sith_happened]

"That's fair enough," Anakin agreed. "I like to take out the ones who are over-explaining to their little friends first. Makes the rest of them scatter, rudderless."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"You really are vicious, huh?" Vette actually kind of approved, already looking around for prime targets. "Most people on the island wouldn't know how to be, I think."

[sith_happened]

"I grew up on Tatooine before the Jedi found me," he said, heading for a promising looking hill, head on a swivel to find any other targets. "Softness doesn't survive there."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"It doesn't do so great in most of the places I've been, either," Vette noted. "Ryloth isn't exactly cozy."

For a multitude of reasons including but not limited to the environment and the unwanted visitors.

She glanced at Anakin thoughtfully for a moment.

"Jedi, huh? So the robes aren't just a fashion statement, then."

[sith_happened]

"The statement of 'I have no fashion', you mean?" he said with a little smirk. "No. I was a Jedi before coming here to teach a decade ago."

He wasn't a Jedi directly before coming here, but details! Sithy, Sithy, details.

He got a nudge from the Force, whirled with his rifle and shot a teenage boy right in the center of his chest. "Hey!" the kid yelled, voice cracking. "No fair."

"You're on a paintball course," Anakin pointed out dryly. "It's very fair."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Huh," Vette replied, brow raising a little at that shot. "Nice."

Very nice. No wonder he'd gone with the sniper rifle. She looked back out over the course, and spotted a bigger teen stalking after a few smaller ones who didn't seem to have settled into the whole concept of this thing, yet.

Piff, piff, piff, and she'd shot him twice in the back, and once right on the ass for good measure.

And then grinned and waved a cheerful hello when he turned to glare at her, earning mostly a kind of started blink and then a squint. Ah, humans.

"So, from the galaxy's biggest sandbox to the Jedi to teaching at the school on a kidnapping island on a lonely little backrocket planet without space travel," she noted. "How does that happen?"

[sith_happened]

"Well, first I was a student here," Anakin said with a small smile. "Sent here to learn more about other cultures and their sad lack of space travel."

He spotted another kid trying to hide behind a tree half his width. "Nice try!" he called, shooting him in the knee.

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette nearly got herself shot by an enterprising young lady as she turned to look at Anakin like maybe he was nuts. The kid missed by a mile, but Vette had to appreciate her ambition.

"And you stayed?"

Here??