5278/Nova vs. Kid

Nova vs. Kid
Date of Scene:	28 May 2017
Location:	Elysium Apex
Synopsis:	Nova doubts Kid's mettle and capability to lead the Mighty, and sees fit to test it herself.
Cast of Characters:	The Kid, 1121, 1041, 278, 571, Kushiko

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The Kid has posed:
    The training rooms in Elysium Apex have been criminally underused for a while. So it's about time someone came along to baptize them. Kid is standing in the middle of the currently blank room, a grim look on his brown face, white hair tossled, his body bristling with weapons. Those he isn't carrying lay on the ground to his side. There's a sledgehammer, a large shield, some kind of rifle, a bow, a machete, grenades, a blunderbuss, a pair of revolvers, and a spear.

    Once Nova has arrived, he says, "Challengers choice of settin'. Name the place ya like to fight and this room'll make it. 'pparnetly."

Nova (1121) has posed:
    The opening of the door leading outside the training room and faint shimmer in the air herald the arrival of Nova. The cloaking field drops to reveal a blonde pony-tailed figure with a large rifle slung over her shoulder. A pair glowing blue and dark metal goggles conceal the figure's eyes until she roughly shoves the goggles up off her face for a moment so that she can see this 'Kid' with her own two eyes. She remains silent at first, but starts to smile when she sees the small armory that the Kid brought with him. "You came prepared, not a bad first impression to make 'Kid'." The rifle wielding woman quips in a slightly patronizing tone as she begins to walk in a semi-circle around him. He greets her brusquely enough which suits her just fine, and he only gets a simple nod as a result. She gets to pick huh?

    Nova's smile widens.

    "Planet Char, Korpulu Sector. Put the two of us right in the searing crater in sector 27." Nova voices aloud before lowering her goggles once more. "Terran Dominion files have nothing on you, yet. How about you give me something impressive to write home about?" The pony-tailed woman remarks just as both the Training Room and her cloaking field begin to engage.

Adele Rozenbach (1041) has posed:
What looks to be a girl in her late teens is standing at the edge of the arena, two identical looking androgynous figures in suits flanking her. One holds up an umbrella to keep even a single shred of stray sunlight that comes through the windows from reaching the girl. The other has a stretches and some other basic medical kit ready just in case.

The Kid has posed:
    The Kid stares as the heat haze resolves into a person. Oh boy, what has he gotten himself into now? "Fancy trick you got there," he says as he takes a flask from his belt and swigs a mouthful from it. He'll need a stiff drink for what is about to happen.

    As promised, the room begins to shimmer and shift, efore resolving into some kind of volcanic crater. Magma peeks out from under the gray, ashen rocks and crags that make up the battlefield. Boulders, dips and ridges make up the cover here. The room even generates the appropriate amount of heat for the area.

    As Nova begins to leave the realm of vision, Kid acts fast. Using his foot, he kicks up that blunderbuss to catch it in his hand, points in her general direction, and pulls the trigger! Piping hot scrap erupts from the wide bore barrel, spreading in a cone to try and tag her!

Bramble Patch (278) has posed:
There's not much of an audience yet, so the sound of someone loudly munching on popcorn is hard to miss. Coming from the direction of the green maned pony sitting on the sidelines, a jumbo sized bucket of said popcorn tucked between her hindlegs to keep it propped upright. No, she doesn't just eat out of it with her mouth, that would be uncivilized, her hooves are perfectly capable of grabbing clumps of it to stuff in her mouth. And occasionally toss one or two up to the squirrel sitting on her head. "Took long enough to get the action started."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka was pretty excited to see this for herself. THe blonde operator type seems like a tough customer, and Kid's established himself as a scrapper himself. She's sitting on the sidelines as well, laying out on a rock as she watches the fight. With sunglasses and a beer, she looks like she's here as a tourist.

Nova (1121) has posed:
    Nova takes a moment to register the change of surroundings as the simulation kicks into gear and both the kid and her are transported to Char. It wasn't a half bad imitation of the planet in question except there seemed to be a few less million Zerg around. The smell wasn't there though, thank goodness. That was something that Nova could definitely deal with not remembering. But the time to wax nostalgia soon ends when The Kid's words draws Nova back to the reality of this simulated battlefield.

    "It's no trick. This is Terran technology at its finest." The shimmer in the distance says as she continues to step in a circle around the Kid. Her stealth field makes it more difficult for her to see, but its far from impossible. And with something like that blundbuss, one doesn't exactly need to see their opponent to actually hit them. The blast rocks through the simulated hell-hole and impacts close enough to Nova that the ash kicked up from the near-miss causes Nova to become more or less visible if not a little grey-tone.

    Her now revealed form reveals that she has her own rifle already pointed at the Kid. "I know someone who would kill to have a weapon like that, it's just his style." She says as she pulls the trigger on her own rifle which throws a round the Kid's way. As soon as the crack of her rifle can be heard, Nova's stealth field drops which reveals this Ghost to be a real one, more or less.

The Kid has posed:
    Kid grunts with satisfaction as he watches clouds of ash float up from Nova invisibly impacting the ground. That thin coating would help even the odds, but he reasons that with her long-range weapon and invisibility, this would become a hard fight if he let her get away. Ergo, he needs to stick close to her.

    "Finest weapon of the Marshals. Made to keep the peace. This kind of thing don't real-" And then Nova fires at him, taking advantage of Kid waxing nostalgic. His head jerks to the side to try and avoid the bullet, but it cuts a bloody gouge in his cheek, tearing the sticking plaster on it. Kid got first knockdown, but Nova has drawn first blood.

    But he charges forward, undeterred. Whipping out that massive hammer, he thrusts it, aiming the heavy head around where he thinks Nova's stomach would be.

Bramble Patch (278) has posed:
There's a bit of a cringe as Kid gets whalloped while he's talking instead of fighting. "That is why you monolouge at the beginning!", Bramble Patch shouts in advice from the stands, before stuffing more popcorn in her mouth.

Kushiko has posed:
Mysteriously, perhaps always having been in the observation deck/area is an armored figure. Faceless, pulsing lilac lines amidst black and purple of the felinoid-like Valkyr Warframe of Kushiko is hovering. Watching; at least, one can presume one is watching, given the lack of eyes. But the terrain, the combatants--and what she's seen and known of the Kid from previous missions, lends some quiet amusement to the Tenno within.

Nova (1121) has posed:
    Nova actually pauses and lowers her rifle when it kisses across the Kid's cheek. She keeps the rifle pinned against with one hand while lifting her goggle with the other. "You're a Marshal?" Her canister rifle is lifted up as she peers closely enough at her opponent. No, he can't be his son, but the age just might fit. "Figures. But I'm glad, I have a certain history with 'Marshals' and that means I won't hold anything back." A pause. "Not that I was planning too anyways, -Leader-." She quips with a smirk on her face as her stealth field begins to reactivate. But what she doesn't count on is how fast this Kid can close the distance, he's got some real wheels on him.

    The blonde Ghost is only just starting to disappear when the massive hammer comes swinging her way. She intercedes the hammer swing with her rifle, using it to block the initial brunt of the swing. But the force behind the attack follows through and ends up knocking Nova back through the air and off her feet. The Ghost's flight comes to an abrupt end as she crashes through some ash and jagged rocks until she rolls to a stop. With a shake of a pony-tail, she soon kips back up to her feet where a mechanical voice intones, "Critical Damage to C-10 Exterior, System Rebooting...Rebooting...Rebooting." Nova groans and tosses the rifle to the ground, pulling a knife with a glowing blue blade from the thigh of her environment suit. Nova nods in begrudging acknowledgement to her opponent before fading into a shimmer once more.

    The shimmer goes to the Kid's right, and then quickly to the left as Nova phases back into visibility with a slice aimed at his left arm.

The Kid has posed:
    Blocking with an instrument as sensitive as a gun? Kid gets that she's not exactly well-armoured, but that seems frightfully foolish to him. Guns of his world are still pretty primitive, and a hard rattle like that would disrupt the inner mechanisms, rendering them useless. Then again, Nova's is very different, hopefully more durable. "Me, a Marshal? No. They died before I could join." This time, he's keeping his sentences short. His bloody cheek trained him.

    He grins as Nova pulls the knife. A close-range fight, this is better. As she goes invisible again, he falls for her feint and tries to use the shaft of his hammer to block right, leaving his left arm to be slashed open. He grunts in pain, blood seeping fast from the cut. He somersaults backwards, and drops the hammer. Not good to swing something that heavy with a wounded arm.

    He kneels down, and nods to where he thinks Nova is. Picking up that machete, it looks like he plans to turn this into a knife fight... until he suddenly hurls it at Nova, the blade flying with shocking speed and accuracy in spite of its size. At the same time, he instead grabs that spear and chases the thrown weapon, aiming a thrust when Nova tries to dodge. Trying to counteract her knife with the longest reach he has.

Bramble Patch (278) has posed:
Bramble Patch stuffs more popcorn in her mouth. Pretty good fight. For a coule of bipeds just beating the snot out of each other to prove themselves. Humans are weird. But at least it's entertaining.

Nova (1121) has posed:
    That's the problem with technology, it still is prone to malfunction and the dreaded blue screen of death. Such is the way of things. "If this were a real fight, then I would offer you a chance for a reunion." Nova retorts as she darts back away from the Kid after her slash strikes true. It seems that he has the same plan in mind as he nimbly creates some more space between them. She watches him carefully as her she once again becomes a haze on the horizon. The Ghost begins retreating back towards her discarded rifle with her knife still in hand, waiting to see what her opponent will do next. "You've got guts, Kid." She intones when he chooses a machete of all weapons. It would be time for her to show him how it's down in the Dominion when it comes to blades in the dark.

    But he throws it ag her, he actually just chucks it at her. There is a sound of clatter and high-pitched and surprised yelp of pain as Nova comes back into view, clutching her struck shoulder where the machete must have been deflected into. While she doesn't have much time to recover, she still readies her knife as he approaches.

    TNova moves to counter-attack at the same time the spear is thrust towards her but it catches her right in the gut. The Ghost grimaces as her suit speaks all sorts of warnings to her, much less audible than the ones from her rifle. "Are you sure you have what it takes to be the leader of the Mighty?" She asks through a pained expression until she suddenly grabs onto the spear and holds it in place just as a swirl of psionic energy washes over her. "Are you prepared to fight through the pain, to your foe, and achieve total victory over all?" Nova inquires as she pulls the spear into her while at the same time thrusting her own knife towards the Kid.

The Kid has posed:
    Hitting Nova with the machete and then scoring a solid stab with the spear makes Kid crack a grin. This is a pretty clean win in his books. Normally, he wouldn't relish hurting an ally like this. But her comments on the Marshals hurt a little more than he would let on.

    But then his pike gets pulled deeper into his opponent without him doing anything. It takes him a moment to figure out why. She's doing something, she's closing the distance to...! He twists, to avoid the knife, but still catches it in his left shoulder. Now both his arms are dead. He lets out a rattling breath, and narrows his eyes at Nova, as he wills his left hand to come up and grab her arm, keeping the knife in. "I'll do what's expected of me," he says firmly, even as his face begins to pale. "I'll lead 'em as I'm expected to. If someone gets the rank above mine, I'll listen to 'em. I follow orders as best as I'm able. That's all I can do. If my orders are to start givin' orders, I'll figure it how to do it, quick as I can."

Nova (1121) has posed:
    Nova's green eyes narrow in on the Kid as she begins to wince. Her psionic dampening could only dull the pain so much and the spear was still hurting her something fierce. But pain can be good.It keeps one focused, it clears one's mind. Even with his hand grabbing onto her arm, she still moves her knife just enough to probably keep the Kid's attention on her. She might be unable to twist the knife any more physically, but she could still try mentally. "You have to do better that. Every soldier gets to do what is expected of them, but you're going to be our leader." The Ghost says through partially gritted teeth, one hand on the knife and the other on the spear. "You need to be better, stronger, faster than the rest of us or atleast appear so. And if you're not there yet, then I will push you until you are." Nova says, her face grim and determined if not a little pale.

    "That will come later, for now, I yield." Nova leaves the knife in the Kid, but releases her grasp on it to reinforce what she just told him. And the hand that was holding onto spear now is raised to tap the Kid on the shoulder with a grimace appearing on her face. She coyly smiles through the pain and tilts her head to the side, causing her pony-tail to sway. "And await your orders, Leader."

The Kid has posed:
    This is the strangest conversation Kid has ever had by far. He grits his teeth as he listens to Nova... and remembers some of the leaders he's had. Some of them were very wishy-washy, which made them hard to respect and follow... was that how he sounded?

    "You're right," he concedes. "It' ain't good enough. But with the Pantheon as my witness, I'm damn well gonna try to be good enough." And with that, Nova concedes the fight. The holographic battlefield dissipates as Kid stumbles back, letting go of Nova and his spear. "Medic!" he yells to Adele. "Her first."

Nova (1121) has posed:
    As far as pep talks go, this is one of the more positive ones that Nova has ever given. But that would not be saying much. But there was no room in the chain of command for uncertain leaders. The Kid would either rise to the occasion or...and alternate solution would have to be found. But he said exactly what she wanted to hear and the hellscape that was Char during the Zerg infestation disappears to leave them both standing there. He lets go of her and the spear and she grabs ahold of the protruding device and simply removes it with a yelp of pain through gritted teeth. Oddly, her wound seems staunched, but it is clear the spear penetrated through her armor where it seemed to be at its weakest. "Don't let this go to your head, I missed my first shot on purpose." The wounded Ghost grumbles in false bravado as she goes to recover her rifle. "System Rebooted - Have a Nice Day" the rifle greets with as she picks it up. "And before you ask, it's Agent X41822N of the Terran Dominion." She crouches down now and places one hand on her most grievous injury as she starts to cloak once more. "Nova." And then she fades back into just being a blur.