Static Reflections: Book 1 of The Mortal Guard Series

Chapter 24 - Nick: Floor as the Ceiling

Chapter 24 - Nick: "Floor as the Ceiling"

Just like with the basics, the Prism Pistol training became a cycle. Wake up, eat, Victor, train hard, go back, eat, sleep. And every other day, the Siberian tiger washed his clothes.

At first, Nick was horrible at shooting the Prism Pistol. He couldn't shoot a target to save his life. Which was, of course, the point of training. After telling Richard he had honestly never handled a gun before, the raccoon was understanding.

His Mentor taught him how to aim using the forward sight, telling him to close his left eye and focus on his target, lining up the shot in the middle of the sight. Nick still missed but was getting closer.

On his first successful shot, the hyena had a little celebration dance, and, to his big surprise, even cracked a smile from Richard. He didn't call it out, but he jotted it down in his mind.

After that point, he still missed a lot but was hitting targets more than not. Weeks of training passed and he never got frustrated with it, and Richard never got frustrated with him. He was thankful.

Knowing that he had to excel at shooting the weapon, he eventually made it to the point where he was hitting almost every target, rarely missing. It was time for the next step of Prism Pistol training, the different cartridges.

Using the retrieval tablet, they went over every kind of cartridge the Retrieval Tablet had to offer. Red for explosive, green for acid, purple for sleep, so on and so forth. There were even silver cartridges, and Nick knew exactly what those would be used for.

After all of that, Richard deemed that the next day, he would be ready to move on to the third phase of training.

=^.^=

Nick met up with Richard in the hallway, catching him by his sleeve. "Hey, hey, Dick! Good morning!" He was as cheery as ever.

"Good morning, Nicholas," Richard said, with a small smile. "What has you so . . ."

"Bubbly? Just really excited to move on to the next phase of training, I guess. But I did have a question."

"And what's that?" The raccoon asked, sipping the cup of tea he had in his hand.

"Would you say you and I have great rapport?"

Richard lowered the cup and was silent as they continued walking to the training area. ". . . Rapport?"

"You know. We've been training together for a while now and I'm a social animal. You listen to me when I talk about random stuff and you take your time with me when we train. And I feel like we operate on a similar level."

"Are you leading up to a point?" Richard asked, not looking at him. He only kept his eyes forward.

Nick looked down. "Well, I hope you think of us as friends and not just as a student and Mentor. I know you've had a troubled past and I've been trying to be patient with you, too. But I want to be friends so you know you have someone here to rely on and trust."

"What about Iwai?" Richard reminded him.

"Oh . . . yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry, it's just . . . other than Victor, I haven't really made any other friends, either." Nick rubbed his arm. "I'm still reeling from losing my other ones, but I don't want to keep my heart closed, ya know? Even though it was my choice to dorm alone."

Richard looked at him now. "Nick . . . "

"I know I'm younger, and it's weird cuz you're my Mentor, but—"

"Nick," Richard repeated, putting a hand on his shoulder.

The hyena looked over. "Yeah?"

"We're already friends in my eyes."