Sabine went into the locker room and retrieved a fresh uniform before she turned the shower on and got in. As the water ran down her, her mind wandered. She couldn't help but think back to the fortune she received. She hated that it rattled her so much. And on top of that she was part of a team that, if she were being honest, she would not have picked. Danni was her golden boy, that went without saying. Dorian was good in her book from before until his little possession stint. Percy turned out to be okay in small doses. And she didn't know Zelda at all.
Not an ideal situation.
Ater finishing her shower, she dried off and got changed before coming out to the training room again. She noticed Firestar there and the big bear dude. What was his name? But she also noticed Zelda. Last time she checked, Zelda was supposed to be with Danni and Dorian in the obstacle course. "Did Dorian and Danni kick you off the team? Seems rather rude of them. I put you lot together for a reason. If we are going to be a team, we need to work together with people we might not get along with. I'll speak to them when they manage to finish." She didn't believe they kicked her off and fully expected Zelda to have just ditched them, but she wouldn't say that outright in front of Nemo or Firestar.
9:50 AM - Wed. Sep. 15th, 2038 - Margaret Carter Institute
@Nallore: Usagi glowered a bit at the screen, seeing everyone working together. That was the opposite of what she wanted! How was she supposed to find out who was the strongest, who was worthy of leading this team, if they were all just being nice and helping each other out? It was so rude! At least the blonde psychotic one seemed to have the right idea - she beamed as Vicky said it was time to kill them all. "Why would I just KILL them all?" Usagi then asked Diana, confused. "If I wanted to do that, I could do it myself! No, I need to see how they THINK - how they ACT - and what they DO under the hardest of circumstances! If you can't kill your teammates, can you even lead them???"
@Blizz@Forsythe@BlueSky44: Nothing new had appeared in the terrain yet. With Calamity Ganon gone, there is somewhat of a tension in the air. The targets are each other. Everyone has one life left. And Arcade is many things - he is a coward. He doesn't want to die, not even in this video game simulation. Something occurs to him though, and he begins sprinting towards the fallen body of Calamity Ganon. Technology and whatnot is his specialty. And this world is a video game. He doesn't have any sort of an access terminal or anything, but he has faith...
And the knowledge of some cheat codes he had put into the Framework the other day, when everyone else was at the carnival. "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start," Arcade chanted. He reached out his fingers as he reached the corpse of Ganon... And then something unbelievable happened. The corpse grabbed onto Arcade and yanked him, pulling him inside...
And it became a mech.
"You're all toast!" Arcade cackled, determined to win, as he fired off blasts at his teammates. The first blast slammed into Leah, knocking her backwards. The second one went for Vicky, but it went wide, missing her. And the last one went for Zari, a bit weaker than the other two blasts, but a miss as well.
You can choose what variation of the uniform your character is in - i.e., pants or skirt or shorts. The top is going to be a plain white button up with a tie. In the winter months, people will put on an academy blazer or sweater on top, but it's likely way too warm for that right now. We're heavily drawing inspiration from the Umbrella Academy uniforms.
Green: Diana & Zelda Purple: Mary Sue, Ardere, Sabine, Leah Blue: Andy, Chi Mai, Zari, Vicky Red: Percy, Teddy, Dorian, Danni, Mads, April
April Flynn
Location: Gym - Training Room A Skills: N/A
"Ten more minutes, girls," Lady Nimue called out. "Then I will see your presentations."
April snuck a peek over at what the others were doing - and it looked like Andy and Mary Sue had transformed themselves into Magical Girls! She was mildly jealous. She loved a costume change. That was one of her favorite things about superheroes - the outfits that they got to wear. In many ways, superheroes reminded her of drag queens - larger than life personas in glittering gowns. They were heightened and unreal. She daydreamed sometimes about what her costume might look like as a superhero - and with any luck, it would be designed by one of the best of the best. She wanted to slay as she slayed.
"Ooo, yes, how about we go this weekend?" April said. She adored surfing. That was one of the nice things about going to school in California, the beach was never too far away. Especially with the Academy Shuttle Service, which would fly them directly from the school to a secure beach. No need to sit in Los Angeles traffic for hours both ways. Plus, it was always kinda cool to see the chaperones at the beach. Some of them had the most ridiculous swimsuits.
Mads' mirror image spell was somewhat weak - potentially because of the great amounts of magic she had already channeled. She managed to produce one copy, and not any others.
Percy Novikov
Location: Gym - Training Room B Skills: N/A
Underneath the hot steam of the shower, Percy was finally alone for a moment. He felt vulnerable and exposed. He felt violated. He decided that he hated it here, but he couldn't allow anyone to see him sweat. He closed his eyes, letting the water fall on his head. And then, despite his efforts not to, sobs escaped him. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to his old school. He wished that he had never met any of these people, that they had never met him. He wanted to escape.
Blue energy glowed around his hands, as if his body was reminding him that he had the option. But his pride was too great. The glow dissipated. The tears didn't stop though.
Back in the training room, Firestar was concerned. "C4?!?!" she screeched. Without a second's thought, she sprung into action. Waves of microwave radiation, looking like flames, surrounded her as she flew into the obstacle course. It didn't take her too long to find the pair of boys, one of them in tattered clothes, one embracing the other. Her pounding heart didn't slow down. It continued to skip beats. They were alive. "Oh, thank god..." Firestar said, powering off her microwaves as she landed in front of them. "Are you two okay? I'm going to take you to see Nurse Annie, right now - we need to have you looked at. And then, I want you to take the rest of the day off from class," Firestar insisted.
These boys were undoubtedly traumatized - and as a teacher, she felt honor bound to help. She couldn't help but be horrified. This had to be a mistake, Ser Nemo using actual C4 - not even her mentor, a despicable and horrible woman by the name of Emma Frost, had ever actually endangered Firestar's life like that. She clenched her fist. If this was the sort of person the Academy was hiring these days...
Ser Nemo appeared next to her - teleporting, she realized. "Oh, they are perfectly right, Angelica," Ser Nemo reassured her. "I knew that they would survive the blast."
"You... YOU KNEW?" Firestar snapped. "You get how that's worse, right! Right!"
"I do not," Ser Nemo said obtusely. "Now, Mr. Kingston, there are changes of clothes in the locker room. I suggest you take the moment to shower. If you do not wish to walk there, I can transport you," Ser Nemo offered. He felt that Danni was probably ashamed about the state of his appearance at the moment. Nemo had once had a friend who had been very similar.
Location: Framework Skills: Battlefield Manipulation Today’s Fit
The fact that the Felsic Thickness went down at all was a surprise to Leah. She was about to shout somethi jg along the lines of, “Are you not entertained?!” towards the simulated heavens for Usagi to bask in their glory. Except, she was until Arcade swooped in and chanted a cheat code- She fucking knew he jacked more than Mario Kart into this fucking rig. The corpse of the Scoria Skank swallowed him while and suddenly Arcade was Ganon. And Arcade Ganon blasted Leah like a glass bottle in some old ass shooter game’s tutorial. She went back flying and hit the ground palms-first. Leah’s legs went over top and she performed a handspring to her feet. She hit the ground rather forcefully, rocks crunched underneath her. Arcade was clearly a tricky fighter. He waited for his moment and took it- Credit where it’s due, that was smart.
But now he was the bad guy here, and Leah had to wonder what the chances were that he could ambulate something that big, even with his techno wizardry. Could Zari just will her brain to instinctually know how a different body functioned? Leah just went through a werewolf moment and she definitely didn’t feel comfortable in that skin. And Arcade wasn’t Zari. So… Leah slammed the ground with her fists, and a tremor split split open underneath Arcade Ganon. Rocks cracked and fractured, until a miniature canyon yawned into existence beneath his feet. Leah watched him fall like a 747 with a broken wing. Perfect.
”Throw everything at him!!!” Leah shouted, running up to rejoin the rest of the group, already forming her next move in her mind.
Roll for Leah to start producing boulders from the surrounding terrain to start burying Arcade Ganon alive. Calling battle manipulation skill.
Location: TRAINING ROOM A Skills: Enhanced Reflexes (Passive), Electrokinesis
Andy's smile exploded into laughter. She was not laughing at the outfit, but enjoying it. Part of her wanted to revolt against the angsty villain look, though she had leaned into that look long before she had met her mother. She couldn't help but love it. "I love this." She spun around. She had watched some anime before Northwood school and some edgier stuff with the Drummonds (though usually with them she went for the B-movie stuff, but Ashe had been a fan). So she had some pop culture knowledge from her time. She didn't know the specific show that this outfit was from. But she could tell it was drawn from the genre of Magical Girl.
Andy took the lightbulb. She nodded as Lady Nimue gave her announcement that they had ten minutes left. "I've never done any sort of precision control like this." She admitted. Most of what Andy had ever done was punch and electrify that punch. It was only on and after Genosha that she tried to do anything more creative. She couldn't blame the students here for not having done anything crazy with their powers either. Though, it seemed like the school setting was built for them to experiment with their powers. Mary Sue was a Freshman, and April had had a point. Why risk something that probably wouldn't work when real medical attention was right there?
She relaxed, letting her body find its natural position. Andy held the lightbulb delicately. She had to be careful with how much she sent into it. She also would have to try to prolong the electricity. Normally she only did bursts, but she had done extended attacks. Her tryout had shown she was capable of that, as well as her mock fight with Magneto. So a low-level amount of electricity for a longer period of time was her goal here.
As Andy concentrated on it, the filament heated up and produced light. She smiled, holding it a little longer before letting go of the energy.
The field seemed to be full of cheating bastards today. At least Zari had the decency to only pull off minor glitches, but this? This could not have possibly been relevant to any concievable purpose this simulation had. She briefly thought of bringing her real body online in the bacta tank and showing these chumps what real hacking looked like, but eventually settled on not lowering herself to their level. Well, it's not like a real battle wouldn't be stacked at times. Soldier on.
A different worry was worming its way into her mind though. Edward obviously screwed with the Framework more than he let on. While she thought it would be perfectly safe for organics since Ed would hopefully not do any modification that was dangerous to himself, could she say the same for herself? She was not interested in catching some cheat enabling virus! Better to try and end this quickly.
For many reasons. A blast from Ed missed her. Not so much some of the others. Judging by the fact that Leah didn't check out immediately, her armor should be able to tank a few hits if push came to shove.
Vicky reviewed her priority list. Zari was still on top, however that fight still required ditching the armor. As there was no guarantee she would have the time to put it back on, Ed had to be dealt with first. And Leah remained an unknown, given that transformation she pulled off earlier.
Pointing her sensors at the mech, she identified what might have been the cockpit. If she could break in, it was over for him. Firing up her remaining generators, she launched herself at the target, jinking to avoid any missiles and such. What she didn't account for was getting swatted away like a fly by one of the arms, taking a tumble throuh the dirt.
Taking a moment to contemplate life's choies (and run diagnostics), she got off of the ground and back to her feet. She needed her ranged capabilities back. That meant taking some of the armor plates off and swapping the generators between mounts.
When Leah started burying Arcade in the ground, Vicky gathered she had two options. Retreat behind the entombed cornucopia and affect repairs, or, hearing Leah call to them to pile on the attack, ride the wave of Leah feeling team spirited. And while Vicky would prefer having weapons she was more comfortable with, having a wider variety of preferably low tech weapons would be far better later.
Time to see is she could manipulate the pawns on the board. "No way to know if that sword will still act as his kryptonite. Drop the shell on the cornucopia, let's rearm and hit him hard!"
- Implement redundancies while defending against teleporters. One generator is not enough. - Why the FUCK does a power line for my CHEST generator run on my BACK?! Rewire this, ASAP. - Actually, rewire all of the generators with a redundant power line. It should not get disabled by one bloody stab! - Create and carry a spare parts kit with you to a fight. This time it was an MFG, but what if it'S a leg actuator, or you GET EMP'd? Right, properly EMP harden the spare parts kit, too. - I should talk to Diana about how her powers work, see if I can come up with dome equipment to prevent them from failing deadly. Some sort of probability stabilizing field? Entanglement undersuit? Adrenalin shot? Aderall? - Talk to Ed about how to communicate during a mission. - Commit acts of animal cruelty.
Danni let out an unholy screech as Firestar fucking appeared right after he said he didn't want to be seen. "Okay, okay?! Do you see what t'is- t'is- t'is monster did to me, to my clothes?! Of course I'm not okay! If I'd 'ad even t'e tiniest of inklin's Poisson-Pas wanted me ta suffer, I'd 'ave worn somet'in' t'at would 'ave fallen apart pretty, not turned ta ash and rags!" Danni waved his arms around as he spoke, gesturing at the garbage hanging off of him. "T'is is abusive! T'e bombin' I can forgive. We're gunna be 'eroes, comes wit' t'e territory. But give me some damn warnin' and I'll dress appropriately!" Danni grumbled at their instructor.
Dick.
Especially when Poisson-Pas nonchalantly tossed out a shower like Danni didn't want to scrub this filth of his skin right fucking now. "Poisson-Pas, I wanted a shower t'e second t'e bomb went off and if you tried ta make me walk out t'ere lookin' like t'is, I'd prank t'e 'ell out of you for t'e rest of your life. Take me away so I can fix t'is mess."
Location: Training Room B Skills: Possession Combat First Day Fit
"It's ok! It's ok. No one will see you like t'is. I 'ave a plan." Dorian had found a sure fire way to fix Danni's little issue. But just as he was about to unveil his brilliant idea, he heard their dorm mothers voice right next to him. To say that he shrieked was an understatement. Normally when he scared he'd reflexively enter the Astral Realm, but this time he got jump scared so bad he'd went right past that and just froze in place. He'd just told Danni no one would see him and here was their dorm mom busting in and breaking that very word. Dorian gripped his chest as he let out a long exhale. "You scared me 'alf to deat' t'ere. But…I'm fine. Not even a lick of soot or bomb ash on me."
Dorian had already been to Nurse Annie's so much this week, he really didn't need to be visiting her again. Besides, the last time he'd been there was when…Dorian shoved that thought right on back. Percy was delirious and clearly hadn't meant it. Besides, he'd probably killed any chances today by not only possessing him, but making him get sick all over himself and Sabine. Ugh, he wished Sabine could just scrub that all out of everyone's minds here. Hide that secret away for life so he didn't have to live with it. When Nemo appeared right next to them, Dorian jumped with a small yelp. "Could you all please stop doin' t'at? I ain't tryin' to stay in t'e Astral Plane." He pouted, though it quickly turned into a look of shock as the old tea loving gay teacher just admitted to knowingly allow them to fuck up a bomb.
He was rendered speechless, which said a lot because typically he always had a comment or two hidden away in his back pocket for any occasion, but this? It wasn't till now that Firestars words had fully clicked into his head. He had no class for the rest of the day. He wasn't sure whether to be elated or bummed out. On one hand he had a free pass for a whole day of Hookey. The amount of trouble he could get into was incredible, or even more he could hang around other classes and watch the other teams to see how they were doing. But on the other hand, that was one less day of getting ready. They already felt so behind and dysfunctional, but maybe this would be a good chance for them to try and bond with their other classmates to help repair that dysfunction.
Location: Avenger's Academy, Outside of Framework Hub Skills: N/A
Diana looked at Usagi and rolled her eyes slightly as she continued to watch the others in the simulation going against a now mecha Ganon with Ed at the helm of it. "Well it's no fun watching them have all the fun and working together is pretty boring." Diana said as she leaned back slightly and sighed.
She really did want to go back in there and take out the rest of their teammates and sitting outside was really boring to her. "Can I like go back in there and try again and kick all their asses? I want to at least redeem myself." Diana asked she was also still embarrassed after just failing and being the first one to die. She wondered how her brother Percy would react to seeing her embarrassing display of her powers today he probably would never let it down either.
Madalyne Crane
Location: Avenger's Academy, Training Room A Skills: N/A Grimoire: Mirror Image
Madalyne turned to see a single mirror image appeared and sighed slightly she was hoping that it would be more effective but she felt a little bit tired after using to much of her own magic earlier. She watched as Mary-Sue and Andy managed to create some cute little magical girl outfits that was actually pretty cool. Her attention turned towards April and smiled nodding towards her bestie it did sound like a lot of fun and she wanted to get off of the school grounds for a bit over the weekend. "Maybe we could invite Mary-Sue and Andy to as a sort of team bonding thing?" She suggested.
Madalyne turned to Lady Nimue and nodded they didn't have much time left to do anything else in the next ten minutes as she turned to April again. "I'm open to suggestions for our last trick." She told her ten minutes wasn't that long really if they ended up having to do some sort of presentation afterwards.
Well this wasn't exactly what she had been expecting to see or hear now that they were in the room. Sabine was talking to her about Danni and Dorian and how they needed to work together whether they wanted to or not. Personally, Zelda would prefer to be on the sidelines and making the stuff for the team to use instead of actually being in the fight. Percy was okay, she was fine being around him, the others though, not so much. And she hated that. "...Something like that," she ended up saying to Sabine.
Of course, now she was very much glad that she wasn't in the obstacle course, when there was the sound of an explosion and all that was courtesy of C4. Which was not a small explosive at all. If she had been in that course, she was almost positive she would have died instead or something. Instead of being insanely freaked out by it. Zelda figured she would have been blown up and there would be nothing left. This was the teacher they had as their coach? What the hell was with that?
Now the fight was getting interesting considering the fact that Arcade decided to also mess a bit with the programming an everything, turning the corpse now into a giant mech. That was definitely an interesting turn of events, but also, as Arcade would soon come to realize, a very foolish one. "Um... Question? Why would I use my sword when he's in a giant robotic mechanized suit? Seriously this whole fight and game has been the only time my powers are actually useful in combat. Technopathy is very much a niche sort of world all on it's own. Usually can't use them much in a fight unless under very specific circumstances. Like being in a computer generated world, but at least I have the decency to keep me messing with things small. Since anything much bigger then what I've been doing, just the quick jumps, could destabilize everything in the world around us. And also takes the fun out of everything. Otherwise I would have just blown up the entire arena at the start."
She was impressed by Arcade's thinking with the mech, but also he risked destabilizing the whole thing and making them all lose. So without moving her sword, she simply snapped her fingers. Without moving from her spot, Arcade lost control as the entire mech shut down, dropping like a sack of potatoes into the hole in the ground that Leah had made underneath him. "Well, that was more interesting to watch, now, whose next?" she asked, personally she was getting a little bored with the entire simulation at this point, so she turned her attention towards Victoria, and once more snapped her fingers. Well, Zari had only been trying to shut down the suit, but apparently Vicki now unceremoniously dropped to the ground, dead, and she disappeared from sight. "...Did her suit have a kill switch in it? I was just trying to turn the suit off..."
In the event that anyone decides to try and kill her glitch teleport to avoid it with her multiple computer skills.
Location: The Gym- Training Room A Skills: Friendship
Time pressure was one of the those things that was at the same time excellent and destructive, and realizing they didn't have anything flashy to show Lady Nimue as their time raced to a close, Mary Sue was forced to look internally and reflect on the things they'd done. Her brain racing, she found herself zeroing in on a thing she'd only heard vaguely of before. She knew, in principle, that what she wanted to do was possible, but she'd be lying if she said she precisely understood the physics involved. Railguns. Not knowing how to, or being able to do any of the math in her head, she held her hand out, smiled at Andy, and said, "This is going to be awesome."
And shortly after that, a piece of heavy railroad track materialized in her hand, falling to the ground with a clang. Mary Sue blinked, as her cheeks turned red. "Erm. One moment please." She tried again to make her idea work, but she was too focused on the idea that that had materialized instead. Maybe conceptual similarity somehow mattered, and her brain connected railroads to railguns. In any case, a set of parts fell to the floor. She couldn't quite put it together on her own, and she looked at Andy and explained. "Uh, we can use these to build a rail gun. You can charge your lightning into it, and we can shoot things really fast." That was, at least, what she hoped.
Danni and Dorian managed to finish their run only for their bomb to blow up with them in the cross-fire. Sabine knew already the bombs were real but she didn't think too much of it except for being slightly annoyed, but she knew from her poking around in Nemo's brain. Seeing Danni's sad face enraged her and knowing it was partially Nemo's fault lit a fire in her. But what had cooled it off was the understanding of maybe why Nemo did what he did.
After all, inside the school they may be safe, but stepping outside as potential heroes meant they would be dealing with those who had no qualms about killing others, even children. Hell, the next bomb they deal with might actually be another real bomb and there will be no Nemo or Firestar there to protect them. A harsh lesson, but necessary.
Still, Danni and Dorian were nearly killed and that couldn't fly. "I get why C4 was used, but it nearly killed them! And us, for that matter. Even though I ensured Percy had all the skills necessary to defuse the bomb, it still went off. I have respect for you but the minute you put any of us in danger like that again, lesson or not, I will melt your brain to mush!"
Still, their team was not at its best. Danni and Dorian had abandoned Zelda, though Sabine was sure Zelda was partially, if not fully, to blame, she and Percy hadn't meshed and, even in the moments they had, there was still unspoken tension. If they had any hope of doing this, they needed to put their shit aside.
"This is going to be rich coming from me, but we suck. We are supposed to be a team and we aren't acting like it. There's too much unspoken nonsense going on. We all need to step it up if we have any hope of winning this thing. I wanted you all to work together for the same reason I put me with Percy. We don't know each other outside of our friends group but that's not going to apply when we leave here. We can't just up and abandon our teammates because of anxiety or because they said something mean that one time. That would make us no different than the enemies we are fighting against. We all have stuff we need to work on. I have stuff I need to work on. If I am willing to put differences aside and work with you all, I hope you extend me the same courtesy."
With that, she walked over to Danni, offering her hand. "Come on Danni, let's get you to that shower."
10:00 AM - Wed. Sep. 15th, 2038 - Margaret Carter Institute
@Nallore@Forsythe: "No, that would be cheating!" Usagi said, smacking Diana gently on the head. "I'm not raising a fucking cheater!" Usagi then added, as if Diana was a naughty kitten. And at any rate, Zari then got in some kills - Vicky had somehow just been turned off, something that made Usagi snicker to herself and whisper an ancient curse word under her breath, and Arcade had ended up being crushed when the mech crumpled around him, forcing him to fall into the hole.
"And then there were two!" Usagi cheered. "And more fucking losers, huh! Huh!!" she breathed deeply, staring at Vicky and Arcade, both of whom would wake up in their weird bacta tanks. Arcade looked annoyed if anything else, spitting out the little breathing mask as the liquids drained, and the tank door swung open, letting him leave.
"That's not fair - she's god in there!" Arcade protested.
"Aww, is the baby whining? Does the baby need a binkie? Or a nappy nap?" Usagi mocked.
@Blizz@BlueSky44: Leah had managed to get some boulders to drop, but not enough to bury Arcade!Ganon alive. However, it ended up not mattering. When Zari had shut off the mech, the sheer height of the fall and suddenness of it had ended up snapping Arcade's neck, killing him in the process. There were just two of them left now. And it was sudden death. Leah against Zari. The winner would win... well, they didn't really know. Usagi hadn't really spelled out what she was looking for exactly with this exercise.
You can choose what variation of the uniform your character is in - i.e., pants or skirt or shorts. The top is going to be a plain white button up with a tie. In the winter months, people will put on an academy blazer or sweater on top, but it's likely way too warm for that right now. We're heavily drawing inspiration from the Umbrella Academy uniforms.
Green: Diana & Zelda Purple: Mary Sue, Ardere, Sabine, Leah Blue: Andy, Chi Mai, Zari, Vicky Red: Percy, Teddy, Dorian, Danni, Mads, April
April Flynn
Location: Gym - Training Room A Skills: N/A
April plastered a smile on her face. "Yeah, team bonding sounds great!" she exclaimed. She felt somewhat insane. She had been feeling totally fine, and then her thoughts pitched towards Danni and Dorian - who hadn't said a word to her - and the completely epic bonding sessions they were probably having with their new team without her. They still needed to talk about... well, the rather sudden update in April's love life. But in this moment, she wondered... would they even care? Maybe they had realized over the summer that they didn't need her anymore - that they were more interested in other people - that the trio was over.
The smile on her face turned to look slightly manic, a bit unhinged. "Where would you want to take them? Ooo maybe we could do an escape room, I love those. I did one with my family over the summer and it was soooo cool, my mom took it like SUPER seriously and it was so funny to see her get all spun up and mad, swear she was about to smite my dad for a second with the wrath of Athena. She had this long rant about how we were all being sub-optimal. Super funny. Have you done an escape room before - with your mom or sis?"
She then thought for a moment as to what their last trick could be, and April gasped. She was surprised this idea hadn't occurred to her before. "What if we make a magic water pool - like, how in the movies witches can look into water and see things that are happening elsewhere, I can move the water to hang up like a circle or something in front of us, and you can enchant it to show us somewhere else?"
"Alright, ladies, time is up. Whichever group would like to, please begin with your presentation," Lady Nimue said. She had conjured herself up a throne made of worn-stone, and she sat upon it, looking at them all with interest.
This is the only round we have for this. Nally, you can bunny April in your post - just chat with me, we can also collab it if you'd like. Kirah/Natsu, either collab or split it up roughly half-and-half in your posts, talking to the other player to check in on bunnying.
Percy Novikov
Location: Gym - Training Room B Skills: N/A
Ser Nemo was hardly phased by Sabine's outburst. If anything, he seemed pleased by it. "I am holding you to that, young lady," he assured her. "I expect that you will demand it of everyone you surround yourself with - and not merely an old, tired man." He winked, as if the two of them had shared some sort of private joke.
Angelica was fuming however - even though her charges seemed okay. Danni was shaken up, mostly about his clothing rather than anything else. And she was wondering whether it was really okay to leave these students with Ser Nemo. "This conversation isn't over," Angelica warned Nemo. Zelda seemed to be in better shape than she had been, wheres Teddy was as silent as the grave.
Firestar sighed. "Teddy, let's go - Zelda, you can come or stay, it's up to you," she said, before leaving the room with the bear student. Teddy had been staring at Danni, and trying very hard to make it seem like he had NOT been staring at him.
Percy returned from the showers a moment later, dressed in a clean replacement uniform. He had discarded his soiled rags into the nearest trash can available, only mildly intrigued to see that the garments had burst into flames once the lid was closed. He supposed incineration was one way to reduce waste on campus. He held his head high, schooling his features into a mask of calm disinterest, but his eyes were red and puffy. But his pride demanded he act like everything was fine.
He raised an eyebrow, taking in Danni's appearance. That was certainly a look. He guessed they had had trouble with the bomb, too. Ser Nemo was crazy for that. Well, Percy was sure that the old man was crazy for a lot of reasons. That just happened to be one of them. "Are you alright?" he asked Zelda simply, pointedly ignoring Dorian and Nemo. Sabine was fine with him. His eyes darted over towards her, to try to see if she was going to attempt to murder him, but she seemed more concerned with Danni.
Well, that was bound to happen sooner or later. I'll take four to one in my advantage at this time. The ordeal was finally over as the real world came back into view, distorted by the gelatin she was suspended in. If Usagi's goal here was to evaluate what each of them individually had to bring to the table, Victoria believed the bunnycat would be screming right now. Or possibly crying, cursing her team pick. Though I still bet she just wanted to see us kill and die for shits and giggles as well, the damn psycho. The blonde thought bitterly. Well, whether the teacher was worth her salt or not, Victoria had her own assessment to make, though she still wanted to see how the rest of the simulation would play out before writing the after action report for her mentor.
The entire event replayed itself in her mind several times while she reached up with her hand, pulled herself up and stood leaning over the tank, wrenching the bacta out of her hair. Gah, I hate this gunk! And with all the eyes here I can't even have the shell nanites shake it off! she grunted as she gave the sloppy blond mop a final twist, trying to decide whether to immediately go sluice off or stay in case the infernal cat had something of note to say. What are the odds of that! Nevertheless, she only scraped the mess off of her wetsuit back into the tank the best she could before climbing down.
Victoria first decided to give the teacher the benefit of her waning doubt. But, as she reached the floor, turned around and saw that Usagi has put all of their deaths on an instant replay loop, as well as hearing the verbal vomit she graced them with, she was overcome with hopelesness and general dread for their future. Without sparing Usagi as much as a glance or a word, she walked over to the screens. "Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?", she snorted at Ed's protest before she settled her gaze on the feed, taking what limited information it provided and quietly rooting for Leah to somehow kick Zarina's ass, despite the odds being stacked against her, making some final notes.
- Implement redundancies while defending against teleporters. One generator is not enough. - Make that defending in general. - Why the FUCK does a power line for my CHEST generator run on my BACK?! Rewire this, ASAP. - Actually, rewire all of the generators with a redundant power line. It should not get disabled by one bloody stab! - Create and carry a spare parts kit with you to a fight. This time it was an MFG, but what if it's a leg actuator, or you actually get EMP'd? - Right, properly EMP harden the spare parts kit, too. - I should talk to Diana about how her powers work, see if I can come up with some equipment to prevent them from failing deadly. Some sort of probability stabilizing field? Entanglement undersuit? Adrenalin shot? Aderall? - Talk to Ed about how to communicate during a mission. - Commit acts of animal cruelty. - This did not help evaluate how we'd perform as a team one bit! - Well, no... Leah is alright, I guess I can trust her to watch my back at least. Hopefully the frenzied, arrogant and cowardly nature of the others doesn't get us two killed before we get the job done. - ^That's not the best attitude to have for fixing the problem, dummy.
Location: Framework Skills: Battlefield Manipulation Today’s Fit
It’s about damn time he died. Leah was a little surprised that Zarina didn’t try to shut off that flesh mech sooner. With Vicky, Ed and Diana all out of the picture officially, that left just Leah and Zari. There were a few ways she could go about this. Leah could try and blitz her and cave Zarina’s face in with her beefy punches, or try to skewer Zarina before she had a chance to react. But in either of those situations, there was no guarantee that Leah would actually kill her. Reality was in the palm of Zari’s hand right now. Anything she did hinged on Zari’s decision to allow it to happen. She was essentially the purple man from those movies that don’t actually exist in this universe. You know, the one who could snap anyone out of existence with just a snap. Strategy didn’t factor in here. And if it did, then the only logical reason would be that Zari didn’t fully grasp her powers. That, however, was not a gamble Leah felt like taking.
She could pick herself up from having her skull caved in when she was 13. But she couldn’t compete in these circumstances. Leah walked up to Zari.
”Between you, me, this sim and the alcoholic cat’s manic tendencies, I’m not fucking around. You’re god in here, and I throw rocks. No contest. You want to just call it a draw and come back later? You’ve got me beat.”
Usagi must be fuming right now. That’s going to be fucking funny.
Location: TRAINING ROOM A Skills: Enhanced Reflexes (Passive), Electrokinesis Skills: Friendship
Andy stares at the pieces that Mary Sue has summoned. "I'm going to be completely honest here. I have no idea what a rail gun is let alone how to put it together." She stares a bit dumbfounded at the pieces and picks up the length of the railroad. It is heavy, but she could probably hit someone with it while channeling her power, which would be efficient.
Mary Sue gave Andy a wicked grin. "Here. Let me try again and I'll explain." She gave a careful look at the pieces in front of her, and grabbed at thin air, before her contraption was deftly held in front of Andy. "I don't know much, but electricity induces magnetic current. People use that, at scale, to accelerate objects and fire them." Mary Sue heaved the railroad spike out of Andy's hand, and place it on the track between the rails. "This is usually really inefficient though, since you need a lot of power to fire it. But that's not a problem. You're the battery." She said, placing it on the floor across from Andy. "Just... Please don't aim it at anything living. "
"I have some experience with messing with magnetism with my power." She thought of the spar with Magneto. She hadn't had much chance since then to fiddle with her ideas. It hadn't been very long, from her perspective, since the Summer on Genosha. Andy picked up the completed railgun from the ground.
"Lady Nimue, I believe we are ready." She glanced at Mary Sue, nodded once, and pointed the gun away from any people. She hoped the wall could contain the railroad bit. Andy, if asked where her power came from, would never have been able to quite explain it. She pulled and pushed at something within her as she normally would. The hair on her arm raised a little. The gun did its part. It took all that energy she was creating. This time she wasn't slow and gentle as she had been with the lightbulb.
As Andy ran her power through the gun, it was very shortly after that what was once in between the rails no longer was. You could blink and miss it, as the heavy piece of track raced out at roughly the speed of a car, and firmly embedded itself in the wall of the training room. Mary Sue's jaw dropped at the staggering result; feeling the strangest juxtaposition of giddy excitement and horror at the fact that they just destroyed school property. She frantically looked between Andy and Nimue, with a half muttered "Sorry." That was drenched in hope that this would be met with satisfaction and not repudiation.
Andy was smiling. She couldn't help it. That had been cool. Here she was dressed up like some anime villain with probably the most destructive piece of equipment she had ever seen. This was cooler than the rope, and a lot easier to use. "This will be useful." She told Mary Sue. Andy didn't super care about the tournament, that wasn't why she was going to school, but heck if she had to do it she might as well have fun with it. Andy looked to Lady Nimue, waiting for her verdict.
Location: Avenger's Academy, Outside of Framework Hub Skills: N/A
Diana turned to look at Vicky and Ed as the two of them were the next two to finally come out of the Framework. "Welcome back to the land of of the living." Diana said sarcastically as she turned to look at Usagi and gave the cat girl thing an irritated look when she was smacked at the back of the head. "Ow thats so rude.." Doana said with an annoyed voice as she turned to stare at the screen seeing Leah approaching Zari and talking to her about just ending the whole thing in a draw.
Diana quickly reached for the mic and spoke into it. "Draws are lame besides Usagi craves blood and violence clearly!" Diana yelled into the mic before leaning back looking at Usagi. She really did want to see how the fight would end and Diana really wanted to have some more entertainment after having to sit out and watch the entire thing for so long.
Madalyne Crane
Location: Avenger's Academy, Training Room A Skills: Eldritch Magic Grimoire: N/A
Madalyne smiled towards April that she liked her suggestion with taking the rest of their little team out at some point to the beach or something. "We can definitely do that then we can talk to them about it later and nope my mom and younger sister never done one before." She said an escape room did sound like fun to her, April suggested doing a sort of looking glass spell or something like that with April's water power. "I love that idea lets try and do that then should be a cool way to show off our powers." Madalyne told her.
"Which one did you want to show to her?" April whispered. They were watching as Andy and Mary Sue went, demonstrating some sort of weird gun contraption to Nimue. April's nerves had been aflutter for a moment, as she was worried for a moment the other pair would turn that gun on them. But they didn't, and everything was clearly fine - but it also meant that they didn't have much time to come up with their final demonstration. They had floated around a lot of options, and April was good to go with whatever one Mads liked best.
"Lets do that spying thing I think it'll be something that Nimue would be really interested in seeing." Madalyne said to April as she smiled as she closed her eyes for a moment as she started to chant a spell. Her eyes wondered over towards Andy and Mary-Sue as the two of them were assembling something. "Lets see how one of our friend's teams are doing with their auditions." She suggested, as she decided to use the spell to spy on Sabine, Danni, Dorian, Zelda and Percy's team.
April nodded, before bringing up a small thing of water, spreading it out into a circle. She had wanted to make it rather large, to give them a giant window to look through, but her hands were shaking a bit from nerves. Having Lady Nimue watching them right now, studying them, it was not good for her anxiety. "Please please please please work," April murmured, holding the water as still as she could.
The surface rippled, before revealing the scene from the nearby training room - Ser Nemo was addressing his students. Danni's clothing was in complete tatters. She saw that Dorian and her sister were there, as well as Sabine. April's heart burst for a moment. Not only did Danni and Dori get to be on a team together, but Zelda had her spot. Her sister didn't even want to be a hero! She didn't care about the Contest of Champions! And her friends hadn't even bothered to text her, probably just happy to be on a team with each other, without her...
Madalyne continued to keep up with the concentration while April used her powers to make the mirror itself, she looked over at it seeing some of their friends on the other team talking with their teacher Ser Nemo. She turned to look at April seeing her friend's hands shaking slightly as she walked over towards her and gently rested a hand on April's arm in a friendly way. She knew that April really wanted to be on their team but sadly that wasn't the case this year. "Hey it doesn't mean that you all can't still hang out, and can beat them in the contest." Madalyne whispered to April.
The tension in Danni's shoulders grew tighter and tighter as more and more people entered his vicinity. Each person was another pair of eyes, each person another witness to how awful he felt and all he wanted to do was strip these rags off, scrub the skin off his bones, and wrapped himself back up again so he could feel like something other than the ugly piece of crap he was right now. Danni could admit he might be a teeny, tiny, itsy bit vain but your appearance was everything: people liked you when you were visually appealing. How much you talked, how loud you were, how often things blew up around you… just fell away when you were pretty enough to look at. It was like a get out of jail free card.
But gross, ugly, and disgusting like this put Danni on edge. He could feel the heat fizzing up under his skin, and he wrapped his arms around himself, squeezing like it would help hold it in. His discomfort was growing and he was around a lot of people that were… not so fireproof. "Yeah, uh, you know, t'at's probably a bad idea, Beanie. T'ink I'll just go over myself since Poisson-Pas doesn't wanna just nifty fifty and jimmy me over t'ere. On an entirely unrelated and not at all worrisome note, I s'ould be alone. Like, right now and definitely not near any skin, hair, or flammable valuables! So yes, bye, t'ank you for comin' ta my TED talk, or well Beanie's TED talk, and yet, great ide-" Danni bolted, his tolerance for people right now in absolute shambles as he fought burning humiliation and frustration and anxiety…
Location: Training Room B Skills: Possession Combat First Day Fit
More and more people kept showing up. Sure there was just a loud explosion and the chance that two of the schools students may have just died, but that didn't mean that everyone had to come crawling out of the woodworks to see it happen. They should’ve just let the teachers handle it, have them deal with the situation and possible mess and not go poking their noses into it. Besides, Dorian figured it wasn’t exactly great for someone's mental health to see their classmates splatter all across the walls and floors. He hadn’t expected for Sabine to go off like that however. Yelling at Nemo as if he was anybody and threatening him with a psychic lobotomy in the event he ever deigned to threaten their lives again. He didn’t know whether to cheer her on or beg her to stop speaking. Though none of that mattered much as Sabine kept on rolling with her speech, turning her words towards the rest of the party as opposed to focusing only on Poisson-pas. Dorian almost wished that she’d kept her words to their coach, he didn’t quite feel like being berated at the moment, especially not by someone who just got puked on courtesy of one of his possessions.
Dorian physically cringed as she ripped into the teams harmony, or lack thereof as it were. Truthfully he hadn’t the foggiest idea what had transpired, mostly because Sabine had wiped his gourd clean of anything that happened after being tied up. So he couldn’t rightfully say if it was their fault or Zeldas as to why they weren’t working together as a team. Then again, he didn’t exactly want to argue with the girl that had the ability to mr. clean his mind at a whim. Nemo seemed to take it all in good spirits, while their dorm mom didn’t take it well in the slightest. Dorian could feel the tension in the air, thick as the humid air back in New Orleans on a hot muggy day. He spied Percy off into the back, entering and looking like a new him, though he stayed clear of everyone but Zelda again. Dorian let out a sigh, wondering how this team would ever get the chance to work well together. He wanted to win the Contest of Champions, granted it’d still feel like a sour win without April by their side. His eyes looked down at the floor, disappointed in himself for how this first trial went. Only when Danni spoke up again did he decide to look back up, seeing his best friend and only life line in this group walk away and leave him. It felt like being left alone at a party you weren’t invited to, begging to search for a corner near the food and drink stand so that you kept occupied enough that others wouldn’t notice how lonely you were.
Zelda was still just sort of staying back with regards to the entire situation as everyone started going off on each other for a variety of reasons. Firestar was going off on Nemo about the whole bomb situation. And Sabine was going off on just about everyone in the room about the whole situation. Namely the fact that they weren't really acting like much of a team, that they were not going to be able to win if they kept this sort of thing up. Made her almost want to laugh at her outburst a bit really, but she didn't say anything.
Her attention shifted over to Percy as he asked if she was alright and she just sort of nodded. "Yeah... The whole situation kind of got blown up way too big... I get overwhelmed easily so I took off to try and calm down for a few minutes... I was going to come back I just needed a minute but they decided to follow me and kind of yelled at me about that which made everything else spiral a bit and sort of a not so great situation... And also a lot of very much unwanted hugging... They really need to learn boundaries..." she replied kind of quietly to Percy, not talking very loudly as she responded to him. Of course there still was the whole team thing, since in her opinion the group wasn't even really a team at this rate.
Zarina Raynordattir
Location: Framework Skills: N/A
Zari was having the time of her life with the whole simulation. She was never able to actually use her powers this much in any sort of combat situation. It wasn't exactly something she could do unless the combatants were using tech like how Victoria used it. Well, not exactly like her, but that was a whole different story. They were just down to her and Leah, and personally, Zari didn't really want to fight Leah. She had proven herself to be a worthy opponent in her mind, and helped with going against both Calamity Ganon and Arcade.
When Leah approached her, Zari figured that she was going to fight her, but was pleasantly surprised when Leah offered a draw, basically they both win and everyone else lost. She was about to respond when she heard Diana's voice over the mic and she couldn't help but giggle a bit. "Sounds like someone's just mad that they were taken out of the fight before all of the chaos!" she called out in response to Diana, before turning to look at Leah. [color=05794C]"I think that's a great idea, I don't really wanna fight you since you've proven to be a really good opponent and someone I'd want on my side in a fight. Also that transformation thing you did was so cool, but guessing you don't know what happened with that either. I'd happily help you out with learning what that was. Actually it was similar a bit to my grandpa a bit, but I thought that was cool even if you didn't know you could do it or anything like that. But let's get out of here then already and maybe do something a bit more fun. Though this was one of the only instances that I'll ever have been able to use my powers in any sort of way or whatever like that in a fight. Usually I use my sword since not everyone goes around surrounded all in tech and everything!" her words sort of just trailed off as she seemed to have gone of rambling again.
It seemed like none of them really got it. Her words fell on deaf ears. It was to be expected since they were all new to this team, but she expected Danni and Dorian to be somewhat understanding. Nemo didn't seem to take her seriously either, which irritated her. If this was how it was going to be, then she would stop trying. This is why she wanted Leah and April on her team. They would put up an effort on her behalf.
"You know what? Fine. Sorry for trying to bring us together. I still want to be the best so you all better not slow me down." With that, Sabine turned and exited the training room. Even if they weren't done, she definitely was. Let them get their shit together without her for a bit.
