Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - Bodies in Motion

[Maia]

She nodded. "So who's going to set this up?"

She was concerned for Epiphany, but knowing Epiphany wanted some peace and quiet, she was content to remain here, and do some training."

[LydaLynn]

As none of the others followed her through the warp, Epiphany breathed a sigh of relief. Carefully walking and trying very hard not to hurry, she headed out of the infirmary and to the elevator.

The ding of the elevator doors opening came so quickly after she pressed the button, Pip wondered who had recently ridden it down. No matter, stepping into the box she waited while it rose. The trip gave her time to think.

They were all so worried about her. A part of her mind recognized that worry comes from love, but she set that thought aside for the moment. She needed to look inside herself, why were they worried. From what she could tell, it wasn't that they were worried about how she would use her powers, though that was what terrified her.

Was she doing something to worry them? Was her own worry leaking? Epiphany knew she wasn't always the most confident of the siblings, strike that, she was the least confident. But she was being realistic. After all, the only thing she was any good at that was worth doing was keeping the network up that let them all communicate no matter where they were. Everyone was so used to having it, she imagined they forgot sometimes what things were like without the mental connection.

But that wasn't the power that worried her. Everything else she could do, with a few minor exceptions, was morally wrong. Being strong, no matter how strong, didn't come with the implication that one had to use it to bash someone's brains in. There was plenty of wonderful things to be done with strength. But her powers . . . Pip didn't know how they didn't see how terrifying her powers were.

Maybe if there were something she could do with them that would be good, useful. Something that would allow her to train and grow with the powers without violating moral decency. Telepaths in movies and books . . . wait.

The thought was good, if she could work out the kinks. Epiphany stepped off the elevator as it reached the top and continued thinking as she walked to her favorite hot spring. Her eufiber shifting into a tankini as she walked, Pip's minds circled her idea, wondering if and how she could explore that option. As she sunk into the hot water, the soothing relaxation of the hot water on her sore muscles stole the last of her pain. Her eyes slowly closing with the pleasure of the experience, Pip put her thoughts away for the moment, she could come back to that later. Right now she needed to relax.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch kept quiet for most of the exchange between his siblings. What he was doing was waiting for the tiniest moment when he could catch Warren's eye without anyone else noticing. Keeping his wits about him, Butch found his moment and caught Warren's eye.

As best he could, without giving too much away, Butch sent Warren a let's-chat-later look.

This was a time for daring. Some of the others scoffed at Warren's ideas too easily. Ok, so Alex was a supermind at this point, but at times she was all too much brains and not enough guts. Fine, there were risks with this, but the benefits...

Butch clenched his fists, angered yet again. Bunch of damn chickenshits, that's what they were being. At the very least he wanted to talk to Warren about it without all the damn wet blankets around.

"Alex, why don't you set me and Maia up with some plain ol' 2nd generation fun before y'all next level folks get in there and wreck the place beyond repair," Butch said. "Sound good for now?"

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline was gone and out of the Danger Room by that point, taking to the air and doing little lazy spirals in the hallways as she made her way to the surface elevators. Well, at least Pip showed some spirit in rebuffing their attentions. That was good, right? Not great compared to what she had planned for her 'apoligy', but enough to make progress.

The young metamorph chuckled despite herself, rubbing a shoulder during one spiraling turn that brought a lock of hair across her eyes. Oh, yeah. Progress. She had had lots of painful progress herself, and didn't always have the ability to heal broken bones on a whim. But she was, at the root and the problem of it, a Boehm, and Boehms, even if they weren't the smartest or strongest people in the room, solved the problems in front of them that they could how best they could. Depending on and being depended on by family because in the end that was all you had.

And this was *her* family now, even if some of them may or may not particularly need her protecting at the moment. What more could you do than your best?

[Courier]

Warren gave a vague 'not unexpected' hand-wave to the objections. He'd started a conversation or planted a seed or something. If the others could do it on their own then fine, if not then the sun would be in reserve. If he saw Butch's signal he didn't show it.

Warren said, "Have fun. I'll watch from the control room."

[Quantum Fire]

As Cora made her way to the Elevator's suddenly someone was standing in front of her, someone who might have been able to stop Pip from hurting herself before she did it. Uncle Shen, Traveler, whatever they called him, and he was waiting for Cora specifically.

"It's time, little one.. I believe your ready to begin." When she looked at him curiously, he smiled slightly.

"I need to begin passing my skills onto a chosen student, I've taught you children many things over the years, but it's time I begin focusing my teaching on you in particular at the moment, foster daughter, I believe your finally ready to begin in earnest." There was affection in his tone as he spoke to her, he'd been her guardian for years now, sense he rescued her almost a decade ago now.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline, returning the affection in a small, deep felt nod of respect, floated in the air with a look of soft confusion in her eyes. She didn't understand. Uncle Shen never did anything without a reason, and Coraline hadn't done anything particularly... She looked away and dropped to the ground softly as she thought of any number of things that might have led to this pronouncement now, but without context...

She looked back at the man who had all-but-forced her to begin learning how to defend herself when all she wanted to do with her powers was run and hide forever from an outside world she thought too scary to face by any means at any time. The first gentle blow against a belief that was proving bit by bit to be... wrong.

"I'm sorry, but what skills, Uncle Shen?" she asked, adding two more questions to the tally after a pause to gather her thoughts, curious and willing to listen, "Why me and why now?"

[Toby Lupin]

Darrik nodded quietly, and walked back into the shadows, reappearing back in the control room immediately. Hopefully, the heady feeling of power would be supplanted by the understanding that Butch possessed plenty of resources on his own, and that was nothing to disregard.

[Maia]

Maia moved off from the others, and shook her head. "Already tore this shirt, might as well make it official." The outfit seemed to unravel a little as she stretched, and clenched her fists, the sleeves splitting as she did so. Maia wasn't a bulky woman like some others who possessed massive strength. She was completely atypical in fact, looking more like a graceful dancer than a nigh-unstoppable physical powerhouse.

[Quantum Fire]

Originally Posted By: Envoy

Coraline, returning the affection in a small, deep felt nod of respect, floated in the air with a look of soft confusion in her eyes. She didn't understand. Uncle Shen never did anything without a reason, and Coraline hadn't done anything particularly... She looked away and dropped to the ground softly as she thought of any number of things that might have led to this pronouncement now, but without context...

She looked back at the man who had all-but-forced her to begin learning how to defend herself when all she wanted to do with her powers was run and hide forever from an outside world she thought too scary to face by any means at any time. The first gentle blow against a belief that was proving bit by bit to be... wrong.

"I'm sorry, but what skills, Uncle Shen?" she asked, adding two more questions to the tally after a pause to gather her thoughts, curious and willing to listen, "Why me and why now?"

"Several reasons actually, when it comes down to it, Warren has more of the skills necessary, and I may yet teach him, but he's going to be fairly well occupied with understanding his new powers, and working out his relationship with our dear Epiphany. And, upon reaching apotheosis, all of you will find your power matched by a measure of slightly greater vulnerability to taint.. though far less then any of my generation, over time your all going to need to learn to learn the greater inner balance found in mastery of Qi Meng" He paused a moment.

"I have another few reasons, not the least being the that is my duty to pass on my skills, and I want you to know them, but when it comes down to it, I believe it will be most useful for you to learn from me this way, in the long run first." He paused, unwilling to mention some of his other reasons at the moment.

[Karren Gaunt]

"I...," Coraline cut herself off, visibly striving to not speak the first thoughts that came to her head. Qi Meng? Traveler had mentioned that word only a few times and only in the gravest of import when demonstrating how much hard work and hard thought it would take to take her skills as far as his smooth effortless retaliations went, kind of scaring her off a little. And he had never pressed as she moved into other focuses, other whims.

But now... She thought back to what happened to Pip, the memory as much an emotional bruise on the young metamorph as any physical one her sister had inflicted on herself. If he could help her avoid doing that, even beyond any mysterious ability to alter and reduce Taint...

Coraline drew herself up seriously, straightened out her eufiber, and bowed deeply, once, with her right fist in her open left palm, "I shall strive to live up to your faith in me, Uncle Shen."

[Butch_Cole]

Butch saw Maia move off away from the others and tear what remained of her shirt. As eager as Butch was to get in some Danger Room time, it seemed that Maia was ready and right away.

"Alright, folks," Butch said. "Let's clear the room and give Maia some time. Guess you might as well make your improvements later, Alex. We might as well all wreck the old to make room for the new. Any program requests, Maia?"

[Maia]

Maia nodded. "I think the 50-100 ton press scenario will be fine." The room would become a giant set of hydraulic presses, pushing Maia to her physical limits. "You're welcome to stay if you want."

[Quantum Fire]

As the danger room was activated for it, the weights that she asked for rose up from the floor, as did the paint ball guns and the various other tricks and traps.. a obstacle course mixed with a weight room, something design to attempt to challenge the young nova heavyweight. Of course, pushing herself to her limits had consequences, to her clothing if nothing else, but at the moment, Maia felt the need.

Cora

Meanwhile, Shen smiled at Cora and continued. "Good, we shall begin with the study philosphy and history, most especially the study of the Tao, as much of the essence of Tai Chi and Qi Meng works around the idea of balance and flow. You will study the essence of weapon and weaponless combat, the aspects and necessities of physical combat, and then I shall instruct you on the basics of T'ai Chi Chu'an, then when you are fully ready, we shall move on to the mysteries of Qi Meng." It sounded like she had just enrolled in a school of some sort or another, which wouldn't entirely be untrue.

[Maia]

With the others cleared out, Maia moved to the center of the room, her wings unfurling as she took to the air, trying to anticipate the first plate. It came from the left, and she met it with a kick that sent it reverberating, completely destroying the clothing on her left leg from foot to thigh. Another came down at her head, which she arched back and rammed forward with a burst from her wings, knocking the plate back. Everyone could hear a sickening pop as her neck popped in the exchange, but she didn’t stop. More plates were coming from both sides, which she met with her hands, holding them out from her.

Her muscles flexed and the shirt began to rip more and more. Another plate came up from beneath her, catching her by surprise, compacting her down, forcing her powerful legs to bend. Another plate slammed into her back, and another caught her full in the chest. Another came down, catching her and neatly pinning her into a box, each wall exerting enough force to turn a normal human to jelly.

They could all hear the high-pitched whine as massive hydraulic servos fought against inhuman strength. At the moment, the paintball guns had missed her, the plates acting as a shield, and before that, while the big fast moving plates had caught her, she’d not been directly hit by the guns.

The big plates groaned and whined, as she began to force them back. With a small opening the paintball guns began firing, the balls ricocheting and exploding within the box where Maia stood, forcing back the plates with each part of her body.

They heard what could only be called a feral growl, Then all six plates exploded away from Maia, followed by every shred of clothing she’d had on her. Her arms ea pushed away a plate, deep handprints engraved in each of them. The plate behind her had two major dents, assumably from her wings which she’d used to sweep back. The Plate above her head had a massive dent where she’d headbutted it, using the spring from pushing off the bottom plate to add force to the hit. The forward plate had a pair of handprints, as it had been the last of those sent away a fraction of a second later.

The guns all zeroed in on her, and the air was filled with pearlescent paint filled orbs. That so many failed to hit her was impressive, but as the End Mission signal flashed, she landed on the ground heading immediately for the towel rack. She’d been hit a total of fifteen times, out of nearly a thousand rounds fired in the final run. Of course, most prominent was the one that had gotten her in the box, hitting her in the back of the head, It was red, and fouled her hair.

It wasn’t that Maia was particularly immodest. Indeed normally she went to great lengths to keep from flashing others, but in training, with only family present, she figured the little show they might get was fine. She was very fast once she freed herself.

The Score wasn’t one of her best, but it was one of the more destructive. Two of the plates would have to be rehung and balanced, and the dents would have to be banged out later. “OK, now that that’s out of the way, it’s somebody else’s turn. I’m going to the showers.”

[SalmonMax]

"You're such an exhibitionist," Alex accused jokingly as she headed into the rumpus room. She put her hands on the damaged plates, and tugged the atoms and molecules that made them up this way and that. The dents smoothed out as if the armored metal had momentarily become liquid. The damaged hydraulics were similarly revitalized after a moment.

She made a twirling gesture with her finger, meaning 'restart from the beginning.'

[Maia]

Maia just smiled. "And your little trick wasn't abit show at all was it sis?" Maia left the training room, knowing she should go to the showers, but she wanted to see what alex could do, especially since seeing her in the training room was a rare enough occurrence.

[Karren Gaunt]

Originally Posted By: Quantum Fire

Cora

Meanwhile, Shen smiled at Cora and continued. "Good, we shall begin with the study philosphy and history, most especially the study of the Tao, as much of the essence of Tai Chi and Qi Meng works around the idea of balance and flow. You will study the essence of weapon and weaponless combat, the aspects and necessities of physical combat, and then I shall instruct you on the basics of T'ai Chi Chu'an, then when you are fully ready, we shall move on to the mysteries of Qi Meng." It sounded like she had just enrolled in a school of some sort or another, which wouldn't entirely be untrue.

Okay. This *was* going to be as hard as she remembered fearing it would be. Coraline wasn't quite as adept with her mind as she was with her body and senses. To put it mildly. Still, Uncle Shen knew her, and he hadn't given her any impossible tasks training her before...

"I will do my best," her chorus of voices promised, "When will we begin?"

[Quantum Fire]

"Tonight, so if you wish to stay and finish watching what the others are going to do in the danger room, Maia just finished and wrapped herself in a towel to watch the others, sense as usual, she ended up wearing nothing after exerting herself. Alex is about to begin her own test, and I believe, that should be something to see." He touched her shoulder and suddenly both of them were in the control room, watching Alex as she moved to the center of the room.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline had been about to decline the chance to watch Alex 'test' herself against a chamber she had a) dismissed as a jungle gym and was aparently able to remotely hack at will. And she had really wanted that swim, too. Traveler's sudden teleportation stilled that refusal, trapping her not only by politeness but by the fact the doors to the control room would be locked during an active drill.

She sighed and settled in a chair to watch. Perhaps there would be chamber enough left when Alex was done for her to vent.

[Courier]

Warren pulled up a chair with a view and settled in. He expected this to be one sided, but perhaps informative.

[SalmonMax]

Alex looked small and terribly vulnerable as she walked out into the center of the gridded danger room. Cora set the controls and started the routine just before sitting back to watch.

The lights dimmed suddenly and blocks vanished down, exposing black holes where they'd been; making a ring of gaps all around Alex. She looked around, and as paintball turrets rose up out of the holes, she was already moving.

She charged towards the north wall at speeds a normal human eye would have found hard to follow. Metal wall segments appeared in her wake as if they were trees growing from seeds she was scattering behind her. The paintball deluge began, with most of the projectiles splattering against iron, and the rest unable to hit because the turrets she was closer too couldn't pan fast enough to follow her movement.

Three turrets stopped firing as Alex rushed past them, brushing each. The reason why was obvious after a moment longer. Their barrels were sealed shut.

The guns whirred and dropped back down. The metal cubes appeared again to block the holes.

And then the crusher panels. Square segments of floor and ceiling raged together at breakneck speeds with her pinned between them. Alex leapt spryly off, leaving them to clang together with a deafening report. No sooner had she reached the ground than she had to jump again to avoid another pair of plates slamming together towards her. In midair she was forced to instantly create a rocket backpack and fly up and out of the next set. For several seconds, she zoomed around like a comet, avoiding clashing wall sections, and a few new paintball turrets that were coming up and adding their firepower. More metal barriers appeared, but she still wasn't able to actually take them out. Getting close to one exposed her to too many others.

So abruptly new turrets appeared next to the old ones. They began spinning and firing. They didn't fire paintballs either. Bullets ripped through annodized steel and aluminum, shredding the training guns like foil copies. Another set of training guns rose up on the other side of the room, and Alex whirled. A simple steel bunker materialized around her just in time to become smeared with patches of red and blue and yellow.

A moment later something appeared amidst the guns. Something small. The explosion it produced though shook the Danger Room, and could be felt in the control center.

The bunker vanished, leaving the paint to spatter to the ground out of the air where it suddenly found itself with no metal to cling to. Alex stretched her arms and cracked her knuckles as she strolled out and looked around the bullet-hole riddled danger room, with the south wall partially buckled and scorched from the blast.

"I feel another redesign coming on. Definite upgrade potential here."

[Maia]

Maia let out a low whistle. "Damn, Alex. I thought you said to be gentle with the room."

[SalmonMax]

"That was before I decided to rip it up and start over fresh."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Very impressive, sister," Coraline's chorus almost-but-not-quite-deadpanned over the last working com, "You have indeed apothesized and beat up a jungle gym for pre-apothesis novas. Think you could fix it up so that Butch, Darrik, and I might have a go?"

[SalmonMax]

Alex planted her fists on her hips and grinned up at the control room.

"Oh, come ON! You have to admit that was COOL!"

She trotted over to the blast-damaged section and in moments had smoothed out the buckled metal and repaired the damaged hydraulics. Another similar action allowed her to recreate the paintball guns her turrets had shattered.

"All done, mom!"

[Maia]

Maia laughed. "It was pretty cool, and a little bit humbling."

She smiled an left the control room. "I'm heading to the showers now." With that she left them to do as they would, though once dressed she'd likely return.

[Courier]

Warren chuckled at Alex's performance and then said, "A tough act to top... but I think I can, and without breaking anything. The key metric is 'what do you do if a team of mother hunters surprises you'. I think the entire concept is off the table now."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline was not going to have this argument again today. Not with the trust Uncle Shen had just placed on her and with him standing right there. They wanted to be stupid? They could be stupid. And she'd be right there to pick up the pieces when the universe did find the right magic bullet to kill them.

"So. Who wants next crack at this? I'm good with going last as I'll probably deplete our supply of paintballs running the program I'm thinking of running," she commented, one eyebrow raised as she shifted her gaze between Darrik and Butch as her primary suspects.

[Courier]

Warren snorted and decided seeing was believing. He said, "The thing about Alex showing off was if too much force showed up she'd lose. Defeating her would be amazingly hard, but with enough resources our intuition says it's possible."

Warren waved vaguely at a wall and said, "Pax shows up with a team of Project Pro thugs. What do we do now?"

Warren let that sink in and said, "The answer is we don't lose. We won't be here. Don't think Matrix or uber-power. Think Bill and Ted. Let me show you."

Another Warren appeared wearing a shirt saying 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'. The other Warren said, "Dude! Like, like Pax and his crew are going to show up in however much time you need to get ready!"

Click to reveal..

Q-Attune will show this isn't a Clone.

[Toby Lupin]

Darrik shrugged and extended a gesturing hand to Butch to go ahead. He was interested in evaluating everyone else before showing off, at least to the extent they could perceive. "You realize that there could be temporal consequences for indiscriminate use."

[Karren Gaunt]

Click to reveal..

Cora doesn't have the M-Perception enhancement, but I'm assuming that a Node Scan will pick up the fact there's an extra node in the room...

Coraline's expression betrayed a ever-so-brief, ever-so-emphatic 'thank you for getting what I was after earlier' after Warren's first statement before reverting to a more stoic but genuinely impressed smile at the... Warrens(?) trick.

"Useful for emergencies," she conceded with an incline of agreement with Darrik's warning before frowning in confusion as she tried to avoid thinking about what happened when time's arrow became reversiable, "...If time travel works that way. And if no one figures the trick out who can keep you from doing it. But useful still."

[Butch_Cole]

Butch leaned back in a chair, folding his arms across his chest.

"I'm gonna pass. For now I'm gonna keep on studying tactics and watching battle footage and training my brain. Bound to come in handy some time. Watching y'all right now is pretty instructive though, so I'll just keep on doing that. Warren, you and, uh, Warren want to try and one-up Alex by not breaking anything, vaya con dios." He made a hasty sign of the cross towards Warren and, uh, Warren. "But mad props for your session, Alex. That was pretty effin' cool."

Frankly, Butch didn't want to run a workout in front of the others right then. He was still a little upset from before regarding his internal conflict regarding his apotheosized siblings. If he needed to, later on he could go outside and smash rocks or something. Now, if he went in there, he'd either make a mistake and look like a fool, or he might go too far and smash things up like Alex just did. And what good would that do?

He focused on a computer terminal and ran through a recording of Alex's session again studying the way she moved through the course while he waited for someone else to give it a go.

[Courier]

The original Warren said, "One quibble is I'm not doing anything yet. I will do something, but that is still in my future. So yeah, it's a head twist. We need to be careful and to keep this secret, but we're NOT altering history here so the risk is low. As broken as this is, this is how it happened."

Warren continued, "Now if someone dies then we'll try to change the past. But we may never need to. The guy who has the time machine at the end of the contest gets to cheat so that he wins because of it. If Project Pro had this ability we'd already be dead. This base isn't going to be secret forever, they're not using historic knowledge against us like we're going to use against them."

Warren added with a Christmas-is-here smile, "AND... there's more. Other timelines, multiple realities exist. I think we could go to a timeline where humanity died, or never existed, or novas didn't exist or whatever. Earth2? Try Earth-Infinity."

[Karren Gaunt]

Cora massaged one temple and tried to not think about the headaches that twist could cause, trusting Warren to know enough to not inadvertently screw them over. To see the power as the very useful asset it could be in the hands of her older brother.

"That's... nice if very confusing to me in all honesty," she answered pleasantly enough, "So, Darrik. Would you like to destroy the danger room first, or may I go through my drill first once Alex gets herself back up here?"

[Toby Lupin]

"Go ahead," Darrik commented, as if the words Warren had given made him disinterested in performing just yet. Something about the manner in which his brother spoke continued to worry him. Even Alex, so cautious, was very confident more than ever. Something about these changes concerned him.

"I'm watching for now." He told everyone, and stayed back, before coming over beside Butch. "How soon they forget." Darrik spoke to the son of Johnny Hellfire, sotto voce. "We're hardly the only 2nd generations out there, and Pax can still probably kill us all. I'm not worried about the baselines, but the elder first-generations and our fellow second generations concern me. Alex and Warren are underestimating what we could face."

[SalmonMax]

"I'm not," Alex demurred. "But c'mon, it's okay to have a little fun now and then."

She jogged up to the control room and gave Cora's shoulder a pat.

"I've got it. Go on in if you want."

As Butch reviewed the recordings of Alex's time in the Danger Room, his keen tactical insight paid a dividend. It was the kind of thing that would have been hard for someone less inclined towards combat analysis to notice, but replaying a few key points a few times, he decided that at least part of Alex's ability to get out of all that without a scratch was not because of her newly enhanced speed and perception...though those played a part...but because she knew what to expect from the training program. Several times she 'reacted' to things in situations where she couldn't possibly have seen them coming. She'd been a step ahead of the training room's computer all the time, creating an illusion of hypercomptency.

Not that mentally staying ahead of the training room's computer, while simultaneously fighting off a phalanx of gun turrets, wasn't fairly impressive on its own.

[Sunstar]

Marina has been swimming underwater today. After about four or so hours she surfaces and reenters the island sanctuary. "Hey guys! I'm back from swimming." She said over the mind link as her Eufiber shifts from a blue bikini to a purple top and jeans and she puts her sandals back on.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany hears Marina and responds, "Welcome back, I'm guessing from your tone you had fun. You were out there quite a while. I think everyone else is still in the Danger Room. I'm soaking in a hot spring after my rather predictably disastrous run. They've been pretty quiet on the mind net so I'm sure they're all concentrating. I think they were taking turns so you're probably good to join in if you wanted to. You'd be welcome out here as well, though I'd imagine after all that swimming you'd rather stay dry for a bit."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline punchs a button that starts a countdown at the controls she was tinkering with, "No one tweak with that. This program is hard enough without anyone getting creative on me."

"Especially you," she mock-warned Alex behind her as she flitted down the stairs and into the danger room proper, the door locking behind her as the countdown hit ten seconds and lights dimmed. Coraline's flesh flowed like hotwax around her cracking bones as she circled in the air. Wings popped out of her back through sudden holes in her eufiber and remolded into the no frills pinions of a canopy hunter-killer. Pleasing curves melted to raw cords of hyper-efficient muscle over a streamlined frame as a feathered, tail vane formed and flexed behind her legs. Her lips and nostrils flowed shut as a half-dozen new eyes opened with a faint pop over her skull as blonde locks merged into leathery flesh.

The countdown hit three, two, one, and paintball turrets, lots and lots of paintball turrets emerged from the walls, ceiling, and floor, anchored against buffeting and tracking the suddenly alien form of their fastest sibling. A pause and a tone signaled what could best be described as paintball hell. Hundreds of paintballs were launched with every buzzing heartbeat of the blurred figure swirling and diving through the air at supersonic speeds, in colorful patterns that oft left but one or two holes barely the width of her shoulders through which to flee, though which to dodge, a frantic perfectionist dance of speed and reflexes.

The clock ticked up from zero on the computer screen and clocked down to something called 'lunatic mode' and further escalation of the scenario, two markers for the young metamorph's 'hit points' tracking the two-hit kill this scenario was working with, the reality that fast as she was, two hits from a real combat nova was more than she could take before dropping.