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In between running outdoors, practice at the shooting range, and studying like hell for when he goes back, Adrian's been keeping himself busy by making himself a reasonably basic longbow. It's just a plain ol' wooden selfbow- backing it with anything comes later. After he's dealt with a far more basic question, namely, arrows. Can't do much without those. He's managed to braid himself a string, and he reckons it'll be respectable enough for the weight of the bow, but until he's actually got something to shoot he's kinda screwed.

Now, he could get fiberglass shafts or dowels from the Bar, but what fun would that be? He's got a whole forest outside to work with, and if he can't find a couple of willow wands or something along those lines that he can split and whittle down to usable shafts then he's not the country boy he thought he was.

He'll be coming indoors once he's done, so feel free to catch the Marine either inside or out.

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force)]

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"Used to hunt with it regular, back when I lived in Rowlesburg," says Shephard. "Guns more'n bows, but I like keepin' my hand in, y'know?"

There's a pause.

"Werewolves, ma'am?"

"Yes. I am better with guns."

Beat.

"Than bows."

This pause is longer.

"Sometimes there are signs. When there is a full moon. About the werewolves."

"Huh. Actual fuckin' wolfmen. Fuckin' hell." He shakes his head. "Man, I gotta check the moon next time I get a chance. I ain't really been lookin' too close since I got here."

"Some of them are my friends."

Beat.

"I have not met them all."

She tilts her head, studying him carefully.

"You are expecting an attack?"

X means about the mask. Maybe he knows something she does not.

"Huh? Oh-" He touches his mask. "Naw. It ain't a whole lot of fun to wear, so if I stop for a while I ain't real likely to put it back on again until it's too fuckin' late. I'm better off if I don't fall out of a habit that could save my fuckin' skin when I go home, that's all."

"Oh."

X considers this, head tilting slightly.

"There are many gas attacks? And biological weaponry?"

"That's what my unit's trained for," says Shephard, and taps one of the patches on his sleeve. "Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, United States Marine Corps. Gonna be infiltratin' a real shithole called the Scab via the sewers when I go back, 'n that's just askin' to get your fuckin' lungs burnt out if you ain't careful."

"I heal," X says.

And then--

"What is the Scab?"

"Lucky you," says Shephard. "The Scab used t'be Pittsburgh- you from the States, ma'am? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?"

"I am from the United States."

X sounds very serious when she says that.

"But I have not been to Pittsburgh."

Edited 2009-01-13 17:28 (UTC)

At least he is not Ellen. In Ellen's canon, it's a nest of mutants, slavers, and other horrors that's been dubbed 'The Pitt'.

"Well, if it's still standin' in your world then you're a fuckin' mile or two ahead of me, 'cause there ain't anyone left alive in the Scab but a couple'a goddamn alien slaves," says Shephard. "My world up 'n got its ass fuckin' invaded by these shitbags called the Combine 'bout sixteen years back, and the fuckers turned the whole place into one big automated factory complex."

"Oh."

X's eyes widen just a fraction.

"You are from Gordon's world."

Unless there is another alien Combine. Hey, the multiverse is big. It could happen.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, is there anybody who doesn't know that goddamn asscrab Freeman?" Shephard bursts out. "Judas fuck! What in the shit is with that man?"

"He asked for help," X says.

Her study of Adrian is a little more narrow-eyed.

"I went."

Beat.

"I do not think we went to the Scab."

X falls silent for a moment.

"You do not like him."

"No ma'am I do not," says Adrian. "He ever tell you what went down at Black Mesa?"

"I am X-23."

Beat.

"You can call me X."

And then, after a moment--

"He worked there. Before."

That is--pretty much all she knows directly.

"Corporal Adrian Shephard. Might as well call me Shephard, most folks do." He shakes his head. "Okay, see- he left out the part where those Black Mesa fuckers let the goddamn aliens in in the first fuckin' place. Some kinda weird-ass experiment the eggheads were doin' up and tore time and space a new asshole. Me'n my unit, we got dispatched down to Black Mesa to put down the aliens before it could get outta hand- least that's what I thought we were gonna be doin'. One of those Xen fuckers shot my squad's plane down before we got there."

"Oh," X says.

Then--

"Scientists are problematic. I am sorry."

She knows this firsthand, but in different ways.

"Your squad is not dead?"

"It's been twenty fuckin' years. The entire United States Marine Corps is dead, except me." Shephard shakes his head. "Woke up in Black Mesa's infirmary 'n got told we were pullin' out, only when I tried to leave there were Xen oogieboogies fuckin' everywhere. And some kind of other alien I don't know shit about, a whole 'nother alien empire or some shit like that, they showed up too. I held out long enough to get my ass shoved in fuckin' suspended animation an' when I woke up it was twenty fuckin' years later and the goddamn Combine'd showed up while I was on ice 'n fuckin' won."

"Oh. I do not like suspended animation."

She has not experienced herself, but she has seen files.

It does not seem to end well.

"But you are fighting back?"

"You bet your shit I am," says Adrian. "Soon as me and Chell and the humans we found in the woods out there're all back together, we're goin' to blow the Scab wide open 'n take whatever we can get our hands on. Work our way up from there."

"The Scab is a stockpile?"

X tilts her head, considering this.

"Or a base? For them. The Combine."

"More a stockpile. They build shit there, then ship it out to wherever it's gotta go."

"You will not have problems with transport?"

How heavy is Combine equipmenet? X has no idea.

"Naw. One of the factories makes APCs," says Shephard. "You can stuff a lot in one of those fuckers. Might be aircraft, too, but that ain't my kind of thing."