How to properly fire quick shots with your pepperbox

"Good choice. This is a very useful skill to be able to get right." She says, standing up from where she was bent at the hips, looking at your finger pointing at this item on the paper. You stuff the list back into your pocket again. "Empty any bullets out of your pepperbox pistol, and give me a second."

You do as she says, as she goes off to a large storage cabinet in the side of the Gymnasium. She returns with several thick, black square panels She presses them against the wall one by one, each staying in place as she takes her hand away. Then, she walks up to you and takes your pepperbox pistol in one hand, affixing a laser pointer to it in a way that doesn't obstruct the gun's hammer or revolving barrel-chambers.

"First of all, I want you to fire off five shots like you were before, one-handed. Aim towards those black panels."

You nod, and lift your gun arm up. As the laser pointer travels up with you to point in roughly the centre of the collection of panels, its red light leaves a trail of white along the panels it dragged across, sort of like an inverted pencil. You give the gun a little bit of a test jiggle to confirm, and yes, the laser pointer is leaving a trail wherever it goes on these black panels.

You pull the trigger, getting a clicking sound as your gun attempts to fire out of an empty barrel, then lift your thumb to pull back the hammer and fire again. You fire five times in total, as fast as you can, getting it done in probably a bit under four seconds. When you're done, the black panels are covered in white traces all across them from your gun wobbling all over the place in the process. Drat.

"So, as you can see, these panels keep the pathing of the laser visible on their surface." Professor Phoebe says, walking up to the panels as you lower your arm back down to your side. She pushes down on their centres, one by one, which resets their colours all the way back to black.

Professor Phoebe walks to stand just behind you, and takes your gun hand in her own. She reaches over and picks up your other hand as well, a bit tricky because of your small forearm-mounted targe shield, but workable nonetheless.

"This is a more stable technique, which sees you use both of your hands." She says, moving your hands into place. "Keep your trigger hand stable on the weapon's grip, and use this other hand to cock your pepperbox, so that you aren't constantly moving your aim when rapidity is required."

She lays your second hand horizontally across the back of the gun, so that your palm is on top of your pepperbox' hammer, then reaches over to flick off the laser pointer.

"Try it slowly, first -- drag your hand back along the hammer to cock it each time, keep your other hand holding firm, and pull the trigger. Then repeat until it feels natural. We'll speed it up once you're used to the motions."

You try it slowly a couple of times, getting the feel for cocking your gun this way. After about twenty or twenty five empty clicking shots, you think you've got the hang of it for now. Professor Phoebe flicks the laser pointer back on when you signal to her that you're in the groove.

"Now go faster." She says, gesturing out to the black panels.

You set your jaw and nod, raising your two arms again. In firing the gun this way, with your other hand pulling back the hammer each time, you've also got the gun a lot closer to your body as opposed to how you were doing it with a fully straight arm before, which lets your elbow absorb most of the motions and keep your hand steady. You fire off five shots in this way, getting your fifth click in about the same amount of time it took with the old method, but leaving a much less spread out trail of white on the black panels -- maybe half as wide and tall at its peaks.

Professor Phoebe has you repeat this several times, giving you pointers and making small adjustments to your style, until the spread is reduced to about a quarter of what it was when you were trying it one handed, pulling the hammer back with your grip hand each time. Satisfied with your progress, Professor Phoebe hands you some more impact bullets, which you use to fill your five chamber-barrels.

"Now that the gun's loaded, start off slower again." Professor Phoebe advises. "There will be recoil throwing you off between shots now, so you'll need a short time to adjust after each pull of the trigger."

You nod, and prepare yourself. Five rapid (but slightly less rapid than earlier) BANGs echo out through the space, and your five impact bullets sink partly into the black panels at not a bad spread. It's more spread out than when you were just practicing with an empty gun, and slower to fire too, but even still it's an improvement over when you were trying it one handed and empty.

"Now, keep practicing that, slowly speeding up to faster rates as you reduce the spread. Press down on the black panels with your hand to clear any light data from your laser pointer, if you want to go back to that for the practice. Pressing down on the panels will also push back out and dislodge any bullets sunk into them, for live rounds testing. Any questions?"

"Nope!" You respond, cheerily.

You're actually feeling pretty good about this already, and a bit of time to yourself to practice it more now is exactly what you need. Especially since you won't be embarrassed to have a worse spread for a while, with nobody watching. She's already taught you what to do, and drilled it into your muscle memory, so.... it's time to practice! Professor Phoebe heads off to help Delilah, giving you a small pat on the back of support and praise, leaving you to your work.

You work on this for a good bit of time during class, practicing with and without bullets and with the laser pointer on and off, until you get a pretty dang good grasp of it. When {if@ Learning Time! > 0}Professor Phoebe comes back to you to see what you'd like to practice next, you're an improved woman, and fully ready for your next incoming improvement. Go you!{else}the bell rings, signalling the end of class and the end of the working day, you're an improved woman. A fuller woman! Ready for the challenges of the new world. Before anyone can leave, Professor Phoebe calls all of you in for a final discussion in the centre of the Gymnasium. You and all of your classmates converge from each of your various corners of the space.{endif}

New Pepperbox Technique mastered: Fan the Hammer!