Video

[theweakhavepurpose]

[The video turns on to show the outskirts of town, nearby is a fence of sorts made of junk Pratt collected from the Colosseum and some baling wire. It's encircling a fancy new shooting range complete with training dummies and targets and some other items that aren't immediately identifiable.

Okay fancy isn't the right word, everything is made of remnants he found and some of the targets are empty soup cans on sticks but it looks serviceable.]

This is Deputy Pratt. I know we're all busy freezing to death, but if you'd like to take your mind off that, I've finally got this all together. Range is up and running!

It's set up by the orchard, or well.. where the orchard should be anyway.

[He pans the camera towards the orchard to show where it is and then starts walking towards the range. The camera is surprisingly steady, this is someone who has filmed hundreds of Vine videos of him and other deputies doing stupid stuff on slow days. He's a pro at this shit.]

I've got training dummies up front for anyone who wants to get their melee fighting on. But uh.. try not to completely destroy them because I don't have a ton of wood to fix them up.

For the range itself I've got targets at 10 meters, 25 meters, 50 and 100. It's not perfect because I'm measuring this with my feet, but it's close enough. Spinner targets are for guns, and the bigger baled ones are dirt and wood so they shouldn't chew up your arrows too bad.

This thing is a work in progress.

[He sets a can onto a contraption off to the side of the range, stomping his foot on a pedal and sending it shooting down the lane and a little to the left. The camera gets unsteady here as he launches a knife that's far too big for this at the can and it tumbles to the ground.]

Keeps shooting them off to the side, but it's better than throwing something and then trying to hit it.

As for weapons... [He walks over to a large but very battered chest and opens the lid.]

I've got some throwing knives that aren't stupid like the hunting knife I have. A few bows. And some arrows in here. Keep them in this crate because the weather is not kind to bowstrings and you don't want these things snapping when you're shooting.

It's on the honor system because I'm not going to freeze my ass off monitoring this twenty-four seven. So try not to burn it down in the next two days.

[Please guys. He worked hard on this. Don't set it on fire.]

Comments

audio

[completelycrazy]

Holy crap, dude. This is awesome.

[Newt is far from the combat-ready type, but this sounds like a neat way to pass the time. Plus that knife throw was pretty damned impressive.]

You build that launcher yourself?

[theweakhavepurpose]

Yeah. That's why it sucks.

[He's a little frustrated with it honestly. It seems so simple. But it's really not as easy as it looked.]

I'd love to have some sort of skeet shooter but I'd need a bunch of mechanical parts I don't think I can find here.

[completelycrazy]

[Okay, that gets a laugh, and then he lights up at the word "mechanical".]

What kind of parts do you need? I've never built a skeet shooter before, but I bet I could figure it out. We have some materials down at the lab.

[theweakhavepurpose]

They're basically spring loaded catapults. The good ones have air compressors but that's a lot to ask for here.

Think like a crossbow, there's a track the disc would sit on, you'd ratchet it back and then release the tension on the bands and it'll shoot forward.

[completelycrazy]

Yeah, it's a no-go on the air compressors... Might be able to rig something up once the gods get back and start putting crap in the shops again, but it's a long shot. Spring-loaded catapult, though? That I can do. We'd just need wood and some rope, and good news, we've got that.

[theweakhavepurpose]

We don't have the right kind of discs to shoot, but cans would work I guess.

[He's never actually made one of these before, they had a convenient Cabela's nearby where they could buy stuff like this. Sure some people took pride in making stuff out of junk and really roughing it, but Pratt had disposable income and was lazy.]

You can do that? Because I'd be willing to trade one small purple rodent for a working skeet shooter.

[completelycrazy]

[Newt blows out a pfft.]

Of course I can do that. It's simple machines.

[He could wave around his doctorates in mechanical engineering, but that seems like overkill for what Pratt is asking of him.]

Throw in a lesson on how to build snares and you've got yourself a deal.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Sold.

[Look he has to deal with Larry who keeps claiming he built a goddamn teleporter in his backyard and then overloads the powergrid for the whole damn county on a monthly basis.]

I've got all the stuff for an extra snare at my house, just let me know where to bring it. You'll have better luck outside of town, but then you have to check them more frequently in case something decides what you caught looks like a nice snack.

[completelycrazy]

The lab's the best place to catch me, but I'll come to you. I want to take a look at the launcher you have. You're down by the orchard, yeah?

[Larry would be Newt's hero, also.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

[he's afraid of that honestly. There'd be two of them. The world isn't ready.]

Yep, right by it. Gimmie a bit and I'll grab everything and bring it here.