Log:Training Mistakes

2019/03/02 	 Artemis Technomorph Sid Talia

1

Artemis hasn't had any true monsters or foes to combat lately, and the Bloodlit Battle Maiden has become restless. When no true foes are present and no one needs saving, she decides to get her blood pounding by a good old combat simulation. At JULIUS' suggestion, Artemis is currently fighting an endless horde of aliens atop a misoamerican looking pyramid.

Amidst shield slams, chest kicks, and sword swings, several alien beasts go tumbling down the pyramid as Artemis maintains her position as Queen of the Hill. This is just her warmup until something requires true heroics, and she is having a blast.

Sid is surprisingly adept at slipping and sliding out of sight, so after Artemis' advice has decided to practice that. It has the added benefit of going unnoticed by most people- which means far less confidence busting stares from the masses.

Occasionally he bounces into a place where being seen is impossible to avoid- like the front door of Steele's Gym where he's come to practice his 'field mobility' as also suggested by Artemis & ABI alike.

The door opens and SId stop in his tracks, surprised at the carnage within. Then he sees Artemis- his combat trainer int he midst of the chaos having a great time. He smiles and feels for the actual wall so he can slink up it and get a better view.

Artemis is so focused that she either doesn't notice Sid's arrival, or pays no attention to it. As the battle rages on, a larger alien marches up to the top to challenge Artemis. She swings her sword, and it batters it away and out of her hand. The blade flies fast, flipping until it sinks into the workout room wall right by Sid. That was too close!

Combat combat combat. Technomorph was told that she needed to get to know the team members better. So when the gym was mentioned, she headed that way. Her travel speeds are fairly ludicrous. And so she sets down on the sidewalk, before stepping inside. She approaches the workout room and waits for a long moment as she hears activity inside. That THUD of impact from Artemis's last shot makes her brows raise before she steps inside. "Interesting technique." she says as she looks to the quivering blade stuck into the wall.

Sid has to pull his whole torso to the right 6 inches and his googly-eyes look over at the fight in frightened surprise. "I thought there were safeties in here... ayi-yi-yi." He says, stretching up and seeming to pull himself higher into the sky. He repeats a few times until he's sitting above the door in a part of the gym wall not reserved for hologram or forcefield generation.

"Almost gave me a haircut. Well a goo-cut. My last one." He says to Technomorph as she walks in.

Artemis punches the big alien in the face, then back flips in a long arc towards her sword with the benefit of her ability to fly. She lands on the wall feet-first as her hands wrap around the hilt, bracing with her feet to pull it free when she then notices Technomorph and Sid. "Friends! I didn't hear you enter! Halt simulation!"

The room freezes and the aliens begin to fade out. Artemis yanks her sword free of the wall. She sheathes it as she floats away from the wall and rights herself.

"The room has safeties." says Technomorph. She steps forward and adds, "I have a feeling that our teammate here has no such settings." She shakes her head and smirks. "You do have fantastic moves though." she adds to Artemis. "One of these days, you and I will have to spar." she adds.

But then she glances to Sid and smirks, "Just be glad that it wasn't a haircut to the neck."

"Oooh." Sid says, shaking his head causing the flesh of his head to continue jiggling well past the gestures usefulness.

He looks up to Artemis and smiles. "I suppose not. Though I think she's perfect that way." He says in a tone that more fanboy-type admiring than it is lovey-dovey crush.

Sid stretches his head and neck a whole foot away from his body. "I thought I was covering up the dotted line with all those chins?" He says, chuckling and then bounding off the wall a good 30 feet straight out before tuck and rolling away about 5% of his momentum away. The rest sends him bouncing about.

"Tis fortunate you didn't get hurt," Artemis says to Sid as way of apology. She watches him bounce away, smiling approvingly at his progress. Her head turns to Technomorph and she says enthusiastically, "Let us make that day today! Both of you against me? It's rare in a battle that you truly get a one on one battle."

Lifting her brows, Technomorph sucks her teeth. "I'm game if you are. I'm not sure that is what you really want, but.. if you wish." she says with a shrug. She inclines her head and smiles like a shark. She rolls her neck and looks to Sid, "How about it?" she asks.

Sid is still getting himself under control when two battle-hardened women propose a melee. He can't help but laugh at the idea.

"Oh this sounds like a great idea." He says sarcastically as he wobbles all the way up on his feet. "But please.. .for the love of God, don't cut me in half with that thing." He nods up towards Artemis' sword.

"See? He agrees!" Artemis says cheerfully, not noting the sarcasm. She looks to Technomorph with an assuring smile. "Worry not. I know exactly what I want. A chance to see how my allies work together to defeat me. We all get practice." She isn't in it for the win. Just the experience.

She draws her sword slowly as she walks out to an open area in the room. "Have no fear, friend Sid. I'll only use the flat of it for this combat," she promises.

To start with, Technomorph wants to see how her combat training holds up, without like plasma blasters and the like. She does however, grow additional armor plates in her silvery liquid skin. Plates on shoulders, thighs, bracers, chestplate. You know. It ends up looking something like a silvery metallic SWAT team officer. Complete with ballistic helmet. That done, she steps forward as she lifts her hands into a posture of a combat trained individual. "Let's do this." she remarks.

Sid stands there motionless as he tries to figure out what to do. He'd never been in a schoolyard fight before much less a real 'dangerous' fight.

Of course, not exactly motionless. Every breath makes his body jiggle.

Sid shakes as things seem to slow down- something innate clicks off, telling him the fight is on. He gulps, quite visibly of course.

He takes a tentative step back, watching the women. He stands there... stiffly. Because- what else is he supposed to do?

Well, someone needs to start the fight. Of course, Technomorph has every faith that Artemis will start it the moment she is able to. But she strides forward and lashes out with a series of blows using her hands. Most of them are feints of course, but there is a right cross mixed in there.

Artemis reads Technomorph's moves as she ducks and weaves away from the blows. And then the right cross comes in before Artemis can dodge away. But she DOES manage to raise her shield up, Technomorph's fist ringing out against the metal. "Well struck!" she praises. She swings up with her sword, leading with the flat of it even as she tucks her shield and shifts her grip to turn it into a potential weapon.

Sid wobbles there like a sack of jellied potatoes. Stunned by Technomorph & Artemis' flurry of accurate and well-timed motions.

"Umm..." He says nervously, his arms lengthening a bit and thickening a little too but he still makes no aggressive motions. His googly-eyes just stare on.

So her shot didn't harm Artemis, and Technomorph managed to narrowly evade the counterstrike. In fact, she only did so by leaning back her head at the last possible moment so that the strike rippled along her liquid coating rather than finding purchase against her.

That done, she stuttersteps back away bounces on her own feet. "You've got a hell of a shield. Let's see what else you have." she suggests, waiting to see how Artemis does on -attack- as opposed to defense and counterattack.

Artemis doesn't feel a need to attack. She watches the both of them, with Sid staying back from the fight. "Let us see how well you work together to protect your teammates," she smiles. She leaps back, drifting safely to the ground ten meters from Technomorph, then swings her blade towards Sid. It suddenly separates into long segments connected by a string of energy as it becomes whip-like, swinging horizontally towards Sid.

Sid panics and flails his arms attempting to cover his face with his hands.

The moment Artemis begins her attack, Technomorph's silvery skin flows down her arm and forms into a blaster rifle. It looks like something out of Star Wars.. and she pulls the trigger to try to stop Artemis's attack on her teammate.

Most of the blast is deflected by Artemis' shield and armor. Her feet are dug in and she doesn't budge as her sword whip soars towards Sid. "You choose to attack while leaving your teammate open!"

Sid is stil panicking and not moving.

"The point was to throw off your aim." suggests Technomorph as she steps back, blaster flaring as she fires again.

Artemis takes the worse of the blast on her shield, but some of the energy spreads past the shield and singes Artemis' arms. She's still unmoved. "That is one tactic, but not a certain one," she says as she spins her swordwhip overhead and hurls it towards Sid again to encourage him to fight.

There are dozens if not hundreds of problems with being a 'field operative' and having this response to violence. Luckily his body provides.

His organs and skeleton seem to shift and dissolve away into his gelatenous body, leaving just a shadow of his former self surrounded by his jello.

The whipblade sinks into Sid's body, sinking deep into him.

Sid's googly eyes open wide as he looks to Technomorph. "Oh... Oh God almighty... she killed me!" He falls to his knees and screams in terror. "OH GOD! SOMEONE SAVE ME!"

Artemis gasps as Sid screams and panics. She overestimated how tough he was. "By Hod's Light, no!" she swears, ending the combat by flying over to Sid to remove the blade if it's safe, and to get him to a hospital. "Quick, we must get you to a healer," she says worriedly as she tries to reach for Sid to scoop him up...

Much the same reaction comes over Technomorph. Her rifle vanishes and grav-pods extrude from her body which carry her to Sid's side. She drops to her knees and reaches for Sid, "Oh God.." she mutters. "What is... he's translucent..." and her own fingers sink into the body, "And liquid!"

Artemis' fingers slip through Sid's mostly liquid form right along side Technomorph's. "Oh no... am I melting?!" He looks more frightened. "OH its worse than I imagined! Oh Godohgodohgodohgodohgod. Please forgive me." He says, mumbling prayers incoherantly.

Artemis gasps as Sid slips through her fingers, leaving them sticky-slick from the contact. "Zadkiel's breath," she curses in shock. Her shield tessalates and shrinks back into her bracer. "Forgive me, Sid. I meant you no harm," she says as she carefully draws her bladewhip free of Sid's body. It comes out easily from his liquidated form.

Sid looks up to Artemis, nodding solemnly. "I forgive you, Artie..." He says, reaching up to touch her face gently. "Just remember me... fondly. And don't worry. it doesn't hurt. SO... its ok." He smiles weakly, grateful that his ending is painless.

His hand splashes over the Bloodlit's chin.

Looking down, Technomorph asks, "Why don't I see any blood?" she inclines her head and looks back to Sid. "Are you sure you're dying?" she asks him. "I'm not really sure it's as bad as it seems."

"What's going on?" inquires a cheerful Talia as she enters the training room. Cocking her head to one side, Talia blinks a few times as she spies Artemis and Technomorph looming over a suspicious puddle of Sid. Her eyebrows quirk upwards curiously while she starts to slowly move closer, confused and inquisitive.

Pyreus follows Talia in, sees Sid, and asks, "What happened here?"

A few tears wind their way down Artemis' cheeks as her cheek and chin get slimed by the "dying" Sid. Technomorph's logic fall on grief-deafened ears. "By Hod's light, I would have it be me instead of you, Sid," she prays, hoping Hod, Zadkiel, or any other of her pantheon were listening to her bargain. "I will remember you always, Sid," she sniffles, unable to carrying him to a healer. Her head snaps up to Talia and Pyreus. "Are any of you a capable healer?? Sid is dying!"

Sid looks up in surprise at the question. "Well of course I'm dying!" He says, sitting up on his knees. "Did you see how deep her sword went in me?" He asks incrediously. I mean the nerve it takes to ask someone who's been stabbed that?

He scoffs, laying back again. His arms jiggling and loosing coherency. "Of course I'm dying. I mean... I can't even see my body any more. Its just all fuzz..." He says laying back, tiredly. His body oozes as he lets go for the first time in front of everyone. "Ahhh. That is nice though..." He says with a langorous sigh.

He closes his eyes and his organs and skeleton sift back out of the mix.

Sid opens a single eye and looks at Pyreus and Talia enter. He waves to the others weakly. "Its ok guys... its ok. It doesn't hurt."

Pyreus holds up a finger, a bright flame springing from the tip. "I could try to cauterize the wound..."

"What do you mean Sid's dying?"

Talia jogs closer and crouches down, staring down into the increasingly liquid Sid on the floor. She looks horrified and confused, cocking her head to one side as she starts to say something else. Promptly Talia turns her head and looks over at Pyreus, eyes wide as she stares at him.

"He's melting! You can't cauterize melting!"

"I was a soldier, not a medic." mutters Technomorph, but she steps back away and says, "Sid. Get up here and explain to me how you are dying. Your body is almost always liquid, so why not now?"

Pyreus says, "OK, I'll take a look."

"Curse my folly for doing this to you, Sid," Artemis weeps quietly. She looks up around the others with pleading eyes. "Has anyone a bucket?! Perhaps we can still get him to a healer!"

Pyreus says, "How about that waste bin in the other room?"

Sid opens one of his googly eyes and looks at Technomorph. "Well... I... I... I just thought..." He mumbles. "I mean... I guess I am mostly liquid." He says, sitting up a bit more.

The pool around him starts to retract and return to his main mass. "I guess..." He looks around at everyone. "I guess this explains why it didn't hurt." He laughs nervously.

Artemis stares in shock and surprise. "You're...not dying?" she asks hopefully.

Artemis reaches out to try and touch Sid again.

"I'm an archaeologist, not a physician!"

Talia looks aghast until Sid starts to pull back together. She huffs loudly and bops him in the most shoulder-like blob on Sid's center mass.

"Don't scare us like that!"

Shaking her head, Technomorph smirks a bit, "There we go." she mutters before she places hands on her hips. "I believe we now know what is so super about you Sid, and it's not your Shakespearean death scene acting."

Sid's shoulder is punched and Artemis' tentative finger probing is met with the resistance of parafin wax. He's a real boy!

"Oh. Well, I mean I wouldn't say 'super' but... I'm not going to complain or anything." Sid says, standing up to his feet slowly- nervously, as if expecting some pang of pain that will never come- at least no from Artemis' blade.

Artemis gasps as Sid rises, unharmed. "By Hod's light, he has accepted the trade of my life for yours! You're going to live, Sid!" she says excitedly as she rises up to her feet as well and gives him a big hug. She doesn't use her super strength, but it is firm at normal strength, a small splatting noise as she embraces him. She's thoroughly slimed and in need of a hosing off.

Talia sighs and shakes her head, taking a step back as she huffs again.

"You guys need to not kill yourselves during training," complains Talia as she storms in a little circle off to the side.

"I think that whomever it is you are praying to had little to do with this... miraculous recovery." admits Technomorph with a smirk. She lets her silvery helmet fade away, her face and brown hair coming into view. "Seriously, I think that he reacted to the threat of your blade by liquifying. That is amazing by the way."

That said, she turns to regard Talia and Pyreus as they come in and lifts a hand in a mock salute, "Welcome team. Training seems to be a bit... odd today."

Artemis pulls away from the embrace with Sid. "You think so, Technomorph? Then he must have had a great scare rather than purposely acting as you suggested. I don't believe good Sid would play us false." Much relieved, she picks up her sword from the ground and carefully sheathes it.

Artemis nods. "Odd. But successful! We learned a new ability of Sid's!"

Lifting both hands, palm forward towards Artemis, Technomorph adds, "Oh, I don't think even he realized he was doing it. He wasn't having us on. He thought you stabbed him. He just didn't realize he could turn liquid... that's how I read it anyway."

Talia harumpfs again and finally shoves her hands into the pockets of her workout pants. She plants her feet and harumpfs one more time as she looks around at the others.

"So what's the plan for training today?"

Artemis walks over to Talia with a soft smile. "I'm sorry if you were scared. We all feared the worse. Sid is still learning what he is capable of," she says as a way to ease Talia's mood.

Pyreus Pyreus says to Talia, "We're all learning about each other's capabilities too." . o O (Like your ability to turn a man into a drooling idiot...)

Pyreus continues, "For example..." he shoots a fireball into the other end of the room.