ic Ghosts and Knights

[Darksider42]

Max instinctively ducked under the hail of gunfire. She was just quick enough that only a single holo-bullet grazed her shoulder. The amount of adrenaline pumping in her system caused her to fail to register that had hit her at all.

 

Crouched low, Spectre leapt through thug just as he nearly toppled over from the force of Ivys flying chunk of earth. Her phantasmal form phased right through him just as he started to disintegrate into small digital cubes. She was again crouched low with her eyes on the arsenal of guns pointed at her.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

With Spectre's fist phasing through him, something seemed to glitch in the thug. The entire body seized, before just exploding into a small cubes that faded away.

 

"Nice hit, O'Brian. Real nice." The sarcasm in Armstrong's voice was palpable. "But you can't go ghost while you do that little trick, can you? And now you've left yourself wide open."

 

All three thugs raised their rifles, aimed, fired, and... all missed. Hard light bullets flew all around Spectre, not a single one hitting.

 

Armstrong fumed in his chair, leaned back and looked over the buttons. "Right."

[Wyverntamer]

"Now let's see if I can get a repeat on that, shall we?" Firing  another blast of earth, she looks at the devastation it caused.

 

Or rather, the lack of it. Two shots went wide, and though the first one hit, it was easily shrugged off by the thug she had hit.

 

"Oh, come on! Well, at least I wasn't worse than the thugs." With that to bolster herself, she gets ready for any action coming her way.

[Darksider42]

"Really? Thats the best you guys-Whoah!" A showboating Spectre, leaping and hollering suddenly lost her footing stumbled forward in between the gathering of mooks, arms flailing wildly. She was in front of one of them, gun trailed on her. The Teens head snapped upwards with a look of pure terror on her face as the laser blasted her.

 

...And went right through her head with no mark. Ghostly blue mist enveloping her and her body took on a semi-transparent appearance.

She smiled slightly and looked around to the other gun man directly right behind her. The beam had passed right over his shoulder. The smile was replaced with a frown.  Are these guys only programmed to hit Ivy? Or are they just this lame? She thought.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Really?" Armstrong leaned back in the chair and groaned. "What's the matter with this tech? Can't do anythin' right!"

 

The three still standing thugs took aim, two of them firing towards Spectre but without really hitting her, just to lure her in, then the last one shot at her... and the bullet passed right through her phased body. 

 

With the sound muted, Armstrong cursed, then leaned closer to the microphone and activated again. "Get up there, Winters! Your teammate's gonna be in trouble if these guys pulls out somethin' that can actually hit her!" 

[Wyverntamer]

Looking to the roof, Ivy saw the flailing form of Spectre, followed by a shot through her head. A gasp escaped her, before she saw that Max was alright.

 

Hearing the teacher complain about not hitting Max had her giving a chuckle, before hearing his comment

 

"Yeah yeah, on my way already." Advancing to her wall, she brought it down and used her control over it to move it up to the roof level.

 

"Time to level the playing field a bit." That was the quip flowing from her lips as she stepped on the roof, molding the platform into a spear that she then stabbed at the thug that shot through Spectre.

 

 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The spear stabbed right through the thug's chest. From his seat, Armstrong grimaced. While the thug faded away, the spear remained stuck in the building.

 

"Alright then... I did tell you to get in there..." He sounded like he was hesitating a bit. Not the same bark as just before, it seemed.

 

"Pause."

 

The entire simulation stopped moving for a moment. "We'll take this as a learning exercise, Winters. Nice hit, and this is just a simulation, but if this was the real world, you'd just killed a man. Think about it, Winters. Is that the kind of thing you want to be doing?"

 

He paused again, sounding just a tiny bit more tired when he continued. "Resume."

[Darksider42]

Unlike before, Spectre looked genuinely shocked and terrified at what happened to the thug. If there was gore the effect would not doubt be greater. 

Got what you wanted Armstrong. Maxine thought moments before movement returned to the world. She looked around and shrugged. "two-oh, our way. What the hell did you guys do before doing this? Accounting? Sit on your asses watching TV and hoped Stratos didn't get kicked to the curb again?" Random insults and taunts continued to be spouted as she circled them, each new piece of slander tinged with a slight echo as though the teen was underwater.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Despite Maxine's taunting distracting one of the thugs, they both turned towards Ivy, raising their weapons and starting to fire. Seeing their third member being skewered by a spear seemed to have a profound effect, as they didn't even get close to hitting Ivy, the bullets flying wildly around. 

 

From his seat, Armstrong sighed yet again. "Really? That's it? Where's the damn difficulty setting for this thing?" He pushed up from his chair, and stood to give the events in the room one last look, then activated the automated program, turned and walked out of the booth.

[Wyverntamer]

Ivy's spear crumbles in her hand as she comprehends just what she'd done.

 

"no." The only reply given to Armstrong, just a little no, which she is shook out of as she hears the taunting of Max resume, followed by the thugs shooting at her.

 

Miraculously they all miss, but it shook her out of it nonetheless.

 

"NO!" Angry at their attack on her while she was stunned, she fires a blast at the one who had taken the insults Max gave them to heart.

[Darksider42]

Bits of rocky debris just flew right through the transparent teen. Spectre backed away and slipped next to the sole untouched mook with a smug smirk.

Most of your friends are down."  She pointed out. "He's on his last legs. You sure you don't wanna just lay the blaster down and surrender?"

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The rocks rained down on the thug, who did all he could to shield himself from the onslaught, even if he had little luck. A rock struck him in the chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs and causing him to fall over.

 

The last thug reached into his vest and pulled out a grenade, throwing it towards Spectre and... it went long past, flying over the building.

 

Armstrong was silent, nowhere to be seen.

[Wyverntamer]

Ivy heard what Spectre was saying, to maybe put some more weight to the words, she fired rocks in the direction of the wounded thug. The attack had worked the last time, why not again? It seemed to have the most success anyway, if the previous hit was any indication.

 

However, given that there was no commentary, she could only assume that he approved of her tactics, they were less lethal anyway.

[Darksider42]

Max tilted her head, noting the absence of Armstrongs ongoing critique about everything they did. She shrugged before noting the grenade going right through her chest.

 

"Wow, really? Gave you the peaceful option and that your answer?" Spectre rolled her eyes as she solidified into reality and punched a spectral fist through the computer generated foe.

 

She backed up from the thug, bouncing from one foot to the other, read to jump out of the way of whatever retribution had been programmed into them. She glanced over at Ivy and nodded to her with a smile. "Hey, not bad. You tried fists yet?"

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The rocks rained down on one of the foes. He shook his head from the impacts, stumbling around a bit. Whoever had programmed them, their reactions were realistic, at least.

 

Or maybe not, since they didn't give up, even as Spectre phased through another, once more glitching the system just a little bit. 

 

The doors into the room opened, with Armstrong stepping inside. He was pulling off his track jacket and threw it to the floor. He sounded like he was grumbling as he walked, clearly annoyed at the whole thing. Of course, he was a fair distance away from the two teens atop the virtual building.

[Wyverntamer]

Ivy looked to Max. "They don't like going for the easy option do they?"

 

She summoned up two clumps of earth and fired them at the still standing thugs. One of them was hit and collapsed, the other though, missed. "I don't really have that good control over the strength granted to me by my armour. I'm working on that though." The justification rolled of her tongue, but she knew it was because she did not want to have the same mishap happen with her hands that she had with the spear.

 

Then she saw that Armstrong arrived. "Now what are you doing here?" A mutter to herself as she moved to keep an eye on him.

[Darksider42]

"Its the reason Armstrong has these fakes out to beat up." Spectre said before she gave the final digital thug a roundhouse kick to the face, her foot having the same strange mist Ivy had seen several times. The mobster had a shocked expression has his body glitched. Then game the cascade of cubes that faded away. "Bit much with the tongue lashing, but he has a point with some of it. Don't mention that to him."

Then she turned to the appearance of the coach. "Speaking of lashing, I was expecting you to show with a whip from what I've been hearing." She crossed her arms and sized him up. "Sooo.... More Criticism or you got somethin' else in mind?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Darksider42

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Armstrong was wearing a white t-shirt under his track jacket. He looked like he was in good shape, sure, but nothing exactly out of the ordinary.

 

"Maybe I'll let the two of you handle that yourself. At least you started working together at the end there."

 

He crossed his arms, waiting. "So. Looking at what happened, what did you do wrong? You tried alright, you put your powers to good use, but what didn't you think to do? Both of you."

[Wyverntamer]

Ivy looked at Spectre in gratitude, before considering the question asked by Armstrong. "Well, there was the... spear issue. And we did not try to coordinate as much as work around one another?"

 

She looked to Armstrong, maybe he would indicate what he wanted them to say. She thought she had it with the teamwork thing though, if she remembered correctly, he was harping on about that.

[Darksider42]

Spectre looked a bit confused. No screaming or wanting her dead? Thats odd.

She shrugged at the question. "Did what I was trained to do: Be a distraction and start punching when that doesn't work. These guys didn't exactly start biting near the end so I'll need to work on that I guess." 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Winters got it." 

 

He pointed at Spectre while he spoke. There was an edge to his voice, but he didn't sound like he was speaking down to her, at least.

 

"I dunno what you learned at your old school, O'Brian, but here, teamwork's key. Winters is new, none of you know what the other can really do. Sure, you go and distract, but you left your teammate behind. What if there'd been somebody else here? Or they hadn't all taken the bait?"

 

Armstrong turned his finger towards Knight of Earth. 

 

"You two needed to coordinate. You're not mind readers, as far as I know. Just running off and doing your own things is gonna get you killed, and I don't want any dead heroes on my hands, got it?"

[Wyverntamer]

"Okay, that's good... I think?" Ivy muttered to herself, as Armstrong acknowledged her point. Though she was worried about what he said to Spectre, more about what it would have meant for her.

 

As he rounded on her, she could hear that he had some good points. And then he got to the last part, wherein he showed he somewhat cared at least. "Yes sir." came out of the subdued Ivy, the implications of what could have happened in the fight making themselves known to her, which, combined with the fading adrenaline, made her shake a bit.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Good. At least one of you are getting it."

 

He looked at Spectre. He clearly wasn't a fan, but it seemed like there was something more to him than he had seemed at first, at least. Claremont was a school, a place to learn, and it seemed like Armstrong had his own way of doing things.

 

"Go hit the showers, and, y'know, wind down a bit. Think about what you did here, try to come up with what you could have done. Strategize a bit, go out and socialize and talk to people. Figure out who everyone is, what they can do. Don't be that loner. Trust me, it won't work out well in the end."