Location: Workshop > Training room B
Skills: Armored ground combat, Armored aerial combat, Unarmored hand to hand combat, Data gathering and analysis, Hacking, Mechatronics
Equipment: Shieldmaiden armor
The last few days have not been kind to Victoria. First, Dunk & Donuts came up with a great plan to get ahead in the contest, and were kind enough to involve her in it. And what did she do? She cheapened out on them and rather than making the bugs herself, or at least properly checking the Alchemex stuff she bought was going to work, she wasted everybody's time, blaming her already large build list for it.
And to what end? The headsets she designed turned out to be abysmal. The only saving grace was that she only made one first and then went to do her 'factory acceptance testing'. IT was a nightmare. Functionality wise it was okay, but the usability was through the floor. Even in her own human limited conditions, the headset kept flying off of her head if she did any acrobatics. When she bent it a bit to increase the friction, it pushed against her head so much that anyone organic would have a massive headache after an hour of wearing it. And the less said about the extendable eyepiece the better - the boom tended to snap under a punch and cause puncture hazards to the eye.
Speaking of training, she has tried, really tried to sway Usagi from her insane regimen. But it was to no avail. She tried reasoning with arguments. She even tried to offer herself as TA instead of Teddy, feeling like a hoe for selling herself out for favors. No joy. The Mad Cat was unmovable. And what limited efforts she could make during the regular training sessions did not seem to awaken any semblance of team spirit in the five of them.
One by one, she considered the problems snags as they came, a setback to be fixed the next time. But yesterday, as she was preparing for the qualifiers and doing a review, it hit her all at once - So many days have gone by, and she achieved absolutely nothing of what she set out to do.
She was a steaming pile of failure.
Failure of a crafter, failure of a leader. Her nerves were already wound up with multiple uncertainties about the VEIL protocol possibly failing, which was forcing her more back into the isolation that she has grown to hate. But this realization was the straw that broke her back. She leaned against the wall of her workshop and slid down, curling up against the vault. As her anxiety spiraled out of control, she broke into dry sobs, heaving air her ventilators did not need, which served to only curse her lot in life further. Couldn't her mimicry routine let her cry, at least this once?
She just wanted to do good in the world. Any amount, whatever was needed at the moment. Put out a fire. Help the granny over the streets. Lower the kitten from the tree. But was she cut out for this? Guiding others to do the same? It seemed like she wasn't. Or maybe that part of her was just a giant lie? Her personality, her wants, her dreams, how could she even know if those were real, or just an extension of the VEIL? All of it was probably fake! Maybe she should stick to what ASTRAs were made to do. Maybe that all she was good for. Fight. Kill. And when told to, die.
She tried to rationalize some way out of those feelings. Did she not make friends? Did she at least not improve the survivability of her teammates? But no matter the logic or evidence to the contrary, she could not get out of the dark pit her mind sunk into. So she sat there gathering dust all night, like the broken machine she knew she was, until her phone buzzed with Leah's text.
She looked at it and nearly threw the phone against the opposing wall. But that would not help her any. So she gathered what remained of her marbles and opened the vault. The suit’s lens glaring back at her were as empty as she felt. At least she managed to do some of the modifications to this thing. Rerouting the powerline for the chest projector was a bust - Her internal skeleton had a solid layer of adamantium in the front, with overlapping plates to allow for mobility, but no holes to route lines through as that would be a weak point. At least she managed to run redundant power lines into all of the generators, so they should not be disabled with a single hit like last time.
Putting the armor on, she bent down and picked up the box of spare parts, the design making for a faraday cage to protect the insides from EMP. She set it on the table and opened it, shoving in the first aid kit from her backpack and also the Powerglove, just in case. Working the gear reminded her that she also went out of her way to try and explain the capabilities of her armor, so that the team would stop treating her like an Iron Man. She laughed out loud when Diana described that in the first session, she tried to stab her thrusters. There were none, ASTRAs flew by creating a repulsor field around them. Hopefully this knowledge at last might be handy to them today, and they would not ask of her something she just could not do.
She closed the box, picked it up under her arm and off she went.
Training room B…
When she arrived, she spotted that at least some of the team were wearing some more padding than usual. Good. This would be pretty much the first time they would be in a real fight, and injuries were bound to happen. Hopefully not too bad, none if she had a say about it. She set the box of her stuff at the edge of the room behind the hostage and nodded towards the judges, signalling she was ready.
Almost immediately, the opposing team beelined for the objective. Victoria positioned herself between the hostage and them. One of the OpFor seemed to also drain power from around her, which immediately put Victoria on alert. That was a problem for her, but fortunately she spent her time fighting a technopath who was even worse. The tactic was clear: Remove them from the game, ASAP. Alright. You want a villain, I’ll give you a villain. Come here little golem, let me just put you immediately into a headlock with a MFG to your head, see what the heroes d- she thought, but was interrupted when Ed and Diana took a hit. She watched in horror as a nasty burn stretched over Diana’s front side. Soon after, Leah went with her own idea, and Vicky could immediately see it was better than hers. Maybe she should just give Earthbender the reins?
Shaking the surprise off, she focused. Time to get a game face on. Leah managed to separate the enemy team, turning this into a 2v5. Two of them were already hit though. They could use the advantage to restore their capability somewhat, 2v3 was still an advantage. “Ed! Help Diana, take cover behind the hostage! First aid kit in the box behind it, there’s hydrogel spray and painkillers! Zari, Leah, that glowing one will turn me into a degustation menu, waste her!” she called out, uncaring if the enemy heard. It would do them no good if they could not do anything about it, and if this team was good at one thing by now, it should be taking people down. If not, they were all a cavalcade of fuck ups.
The birdbrain was hers. She turned herself into an anti-air artillery: All of her sensors scanned for the threat, with the addition of her left hand MFG shining a searchlight into the area, while she set her rear MFGs to her usual redundant electric field defense. She locked on easily, but both of her shots missed, one went wide as hell, and the other at least made him change course away from the hostage. Vicky cursed herself and shuffled back a little, making sure that any of the enemy team would get zapped if they approached the cage. She would have to trust the rest of her team to take care of the two fliers or wait until her weapons cycled.
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