The Archer

Posted on Fri Feb 9th, 2024 @ 11:49am by Cameron Hood & Kennedy Kelly
Edited on on Fri Feb 9th, 2024 @ 11:50am

2,084 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 0: X Lang Syne
Location: The X-Mension

When Kennedy packed for Xavier’s her archery supplies were at the bottom of her list. A sport that she had excelled at as a child, she had given it up once she had discovered boys and learned to drive. Leaving all her expensive customized equipment in her family’s attic, collecting dust until it was finally thrown away. A trip to Salem Center allowed her to pick up the essentials, but the sporting goods store at the mall had limited options, nevertheless it was better than the recreational wooden bow that she had found in the gardening shed.

So today she would practice, reviving a once abandoned hobby and refining it into a skill that would become one of her greater attributes. Wearing a chest guard and an archery glove, Kennedy adjusted the tension on the plunger cushion of her bow while she waited for Cameron to arrive for target practice.

Cameron came sauntering up the make shift range a few moments later. For his part, he was actually carrying said wooden bow in a hand. In his other hand he had a nice looking laminated longbow. He found it at the same sports store that Kennedy had picked up her equipment from. The length of wood was almost as long as Cameron was himself. On his hip Cameron had a hip-carried quiver full of arrows. On the other hip sat a multi-tool and a small 2-way radio. Invisible to Kennedy was Cameron's sidearm, holstered on the small of his back inside the waist of his pants, something he had taken to carrying since the attack on the school.

"Good morning Kennedy, you look ready to get started!" Cameron glanced at his watch, taking note that the young woman was ready to rock and roll at seven in the morning. While Cameron hadn't been stood up by any of his team for early morning training, neither were most of them quite ready to get started.

"Hi, Good Morning." Kennedy smiled a little more than she should have, she found Cameron's accent charming, but then again most Americans probably did. "A long bow? I wasn't expecting that." She looked down at her own recurved bow, made of carbon fiber, it had all the standard specs needed for Olympic archery rather than recreational or hunting needs. The target out on the field was only 70 meters away, once again the same distance that an Olympian would use for target practice. The longbow could go much father than that. "How far away are you hoping I can hit?"

"I'll be very honest with you." Cameron started as he stared at the target a few meters away. "I'm a fraud when it comes to archery. When you asked me to help you out a few days ago, I had to make a quick run to the local library, and the Blockbusters. You probably know more about the theory of archery than I do. But through a very convenient learn-at-home tape I found in the library, and two documentaries on historical archery techniques at Blockbuster I think I'm good to go." He cracked a wide grin, "I've got a keen eye for technique." He then gestured for her to follow him. "Let's do a good stretch to warm up, then we'll start at ten paces."

Kennedy couldn’t help but laugh at his confession. She had been so incredibly intimidated by everyone since she came here, their abilities and skills all dwarfed her in comparison. To hear that she was better at something than one of her teachers, it helped her nerves. “I’m sorry.” She apologized for her laughter “I’ve just been so worried about what I’m capable of and to hear you’ve never done this before, well, it helps.”

Kennedy began to stretch her shoulders and arms, moving and twisting the areas that were used the most when shooting an arrow. “You could have just told me you didn’t know anything about archery, you didn’t have to scramble to come up with something. It’s not like archery is a normal thing, I learned at summer camp as a kid, I would have understood.”

She looked at the long bow that he had brought with him and his proposition of only shooting from ten paces away. “I can show you with my recurve bow, it’s a little more forgiving. But I’ll warn you, in a controlled environment like this, I never miss.” Kennedy said that statement with such casual confidence that it didn’t seem like she was bragging, merely stating a fact.

A wide smile formed on Cameron's lips at the kind offer. Perhaps there was also some playfulness in Cameron's smile. He considered letting her teach him, but only for a moment. His muscles felt warm and loose, so he stepped over to the cheap rec-bow he had brought. He nocked an arrow, and with the ease of ten thousand arrows loosed, the arrow found its way into the bullseye. "It's a very kind offer, but I was stationed in Hong Kong during the Seoul Olympic games. We had a lot of downtime to watch almost all the events." A second arrow slammed into the target, right next to the first. "One of my mutant abilities is that I can perfectly replicate and understand any physical action I've seen. That's why I was confident I can help you improve your skill."

Kennedy had to bite her cheek hard to keep herself from smirking or commenting on his statement of any physical action, she would rather die than let him know what she was thinking. Instead, she watched his arrows fly with pristine accuracy.

“Form helps, archery is all about straight lines and precise movements. The smaller and tighter the motions the easier they are to replicate, at least for the normal man.” She reached for an arrow and ran her fingers across its fletching. “But the wind or the target's movement, the arrow and its fletch, they all impact what you can actually hit. It takes more than perfect form to do it right.”

Raising her bow, Kennedy matched his shots, the bullseye now crowded with arrows.

“With a still target on a nice day like this, I can hit anything. If you can help me overcome the rain or a zigzagging target then I’d be a force to reckon with.” Kennedy lowered her bow and looked over at him.

"I'm afraid my powers don't include control of the weather. Being able to do that would make me like a god in Africa, I reckon." Cameron joked, reading Kennedy's technique at the same time. "But what I can do is put you under immense amounts of stress in a safe environment, and have you learn to work through it. I can teach you how the Mongols adjusted their technique to shoot from horseback. And I can teach you how to shoot at moving targets and be very confident you'll hit." He gave her another smile. "Does that sound like a plan? It could even include horseback riding."

“I like horses, I had two before I came here.” Kennedy shot another arrow, it flew true and landed in the bullseye with the rest. “I could definitely use the practice of hitting a target while I’m moving. I’ve always stood still and I definitely see the utility in being able to shoot while on the move.” She adjusted her bow after firing a few arrows, small changes to tension and strength of the bow that would make it easier for her to use. “I want to get better at hitting targets that move abnormally too, like how Bobby skates on ice or how Ethan flies, those movements are so much different than a person running, or a deer, or even a car.”

Kennedy lowered her bow and made her way over to the target to remove the current arrows that cluttered the bullseye. Cameron watched her as she moved, Kennedy was long and slender in build with a graceful cadence to her walk, she may not have been a boxer or a grappler but she had an awareness of her body that suggested she had some physical prowess. She made her way back towards him but continued walking past Cameron until she was around 100 yards away from the targets. Kennedy waited for him to join her before she raised her bow again.

“What sort of stress are you talking about?” She drew an arrow and began to align her shot. “Sometimes when I get scared or upset I have trouble controlling my other power.” Kennedy let the arrow fly and it landed in the previously made hole from one of Cameron’s arrows. “I knocked out a cop and splattered a Purifier because I was scared.” She nocked another arrow and fired it faster than the first, Kennedy once again fired the arrow into a previously made hole.

“I know that needs improvement but I don’t want to hurt you.” Kennedy lowered her bow and smirked at Cameron. It was an outrageous statement to make, that this willowy girl was capable of hurting an experienced soldier and X-Men, but she delivered the line with enough charm that he wasn’t quite sure if she was serious or not.

"The training we'll be doing will be done in several parts." Cameron started explaining as he nocked his own arrow. Taking aim still took a moment longer than he would want it to if it were a serious fracas. That's what you get when you copy your technique off of sports archery. The arrow flew clean, landing right next to Kennedy's. "Learning to control your fear and anxiety in combat is done over time. That will be more or less inherent to the training itself." He tested the pull of the bow for a moment without an arrow.

"As for stress training, I'm talking about combat stress. How to filter through it, how to not let your fight, flight, or freeze response control your actions." Cameron placed the bow on the ground, resting it against his leg. "It wouldn't be like the military training I've gone through, but I'll borrow heavily from it." He gave her an encouraging smile.

"That's good, I thought you were going to, like, yell and scream at me or something." Kennedy laughed nervously for a moment but then stopped, a concerned look on her face. "You're not going to yell at me, right?"

"And then shooting moving targets, and shooting on the move. For that we have our Danger Room." Cameron nodded back to the Mansion. "It's a fully interactive hologram room. I can put you up against regular people, all kinds of mutants. You can even try and shoot at a hologram of me. But we can also probably arrange for you to ride a horse during archery practice."

"For the record, I don't want to shoot any specific person, I just using people we know as examples." She lifted her bow and shot another arrow, this one landed perfectly in the center of the bullseye. "Unless, I'm mad at you, then maybe filling your hologram with arrows might be appealing." Kennedy gave him a smile fit for a homecoming queen, before she looked down at bow he had been fussing with that now rested against his leg. "Is something wrong with your bow?"

"My weapon usually has a sling so that it hangs off my shoulder. It's just a bit awkward having to hold it like this." Cameron pulled a final arrow out of his quiver, sending it flying into the forest of bullseye shots. "Also, I think the draw weight on this one is too light for me. That's why I got the nice looking Robin Hood one too." He nodded to the tree where the length of wood waited. "Let me grab that, and then we'll start the training proper, right?"

“I think you like the Robin Hood one because it looks like a Robin Hood one.” Kennedy smirked at her own comment. “But I don’t blame you, I think I’ve seen the Errol Flynn Robin Hood about a hundred times, I had a copy on tape.” Kennedy picked up her own bow as Cameron mentioned the start of real training.

“Lead the way.” She had to admit that it sounded exciting, it had been a long time since she had been challenged with her archery skills.

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