Gale Gentry sat on the bed in his room, absently smoothing a gloved hand over the sniper rifle that was laying across his legs. His head was still ringing a bit from his "training," and one of his arms had bruises all up and down his wrist and forearm, but he had not stopped until he was out of breath, scarcely able to move, and had to drag himself up to his room, where he had collapsed into sleep without changing into his pajamas first.

He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, letting his head fall back against the wall.

"Oh! I know you, you're that kid from the uh...come here for a sec."

One of his fingers jerked. His glove caught on one of the small metal hooks of the sniper stand, tearing off a few strings as he pulled his hand away. Idly he tugged at the stray threads until it looked normal again, and then he sighed, closing his eyes.

"Excellent! Now, walk with us, we're about to dispatch. It's an easy mission, we're just going to see if we can find Aria's most recent..."

Gale almost threw the rifle across the room. As it was, he jerked back upright, swinging his legs off of the side of the bed and standing, a little unsteadily, beside it. Jinhai remained stoically silent, a low thrum echoing in Gale's ears. He shook his head, as if to clear it of the dark thoughts that were plaguing his mind, and stepped towards his desk, reaching for his cell phone. Turning it on, he smoothed his thumb across the glowing screen, scrolling down the list of contacts programmed into all hunter's phones until he found the name he was looking for.

Then he hesitated. But only for a moment, and then he tucked the rifle under one arm so that he could raise his other hand, turning the phone sideways and typing out a quick text message:

TEXT TO SIMON
Simon - this is Gale Gentry, from the Death Division. I noticed that your weapon was a gun, and I was wondering if you could give me a few pointers on gun fighting. I'll be down on the training fields today if you could help me - if not, I'm sorry to bother you.

- Gale


His finger hovered over the tiny send button for just a fraction of a second before Gale pressed down. There was a small whirring noise as the message sent, and Gale turned the phone off, setting it back down and desummoning Jinhai in the process. He stripped off his gloves, changed into a pair of sweats and a teeshirt, and then made his way down to the training field. He wasn't sure whether or not Simon would actually show up, but it didn't hurt to at least try.

In fact, it hurt more not trying.

Lizbot