Trypticon Training Room

     This stark, spacious chamber is well-reinforced and shielded to stand up to the strain of many practice bouts. A training drone stands in one corner of the room, ready for a workout. The walls are sheathed in protective alloys that house sensors and cameras to project to the shielded monitors, allowing the combatants to observe their fight and progress. Off to the side are a few seats for spectators to observe the combatants and let out a cheer or two.

Contents:

Fleet

Chimera

Training Drone

Obvious exits:

 West <W> leads to Trypticon Troop Quarters.

Training Drone misses Chimera with its cannon attack.

Chimera strikes Training Drone with armLaserThingies.

Training Drone emits, "9 points of damage done."

Training Drone misses Chimera with its cannon attack.

Chimera strikes Training Drone with Slap.

Training Drone emits, "5 points of damage done."

Training Drone misses Chimera with its cannon attack.

Fleet is standing behind the control panel, watching Chimera battle the drone, a very thoughtful expression on his face.

Chimera strikes Training Drone with Not Christopher Walken.

Training Drone emits, "14 points of damage done."

Chimera continues to do her utmost to kick the training drone's tail. On Challenging, of course. That last one ... apparantly missed her. Again.

Chimera misses Training Drone with her WHACK attack.

Chimera strikes Training Drone with Boot to the Head.

Training Drone emits, "5 points of damage done."

Training Drone is deactivated under the fierce barrage of attacks.

Training Drone shuts down momentarily and resets as you succeed in defeating it at this skill level!

Training Drone misses Chimera with its missile attack.

Catechism is here to annoy Chimera and Fleet! Actually, she's hoping to get in a round or two with the drone, but given that Fleet and Chimera are here, it all amounts to the same thing.

Fleet leans forward and rests his hands on the console, shaking his head slightly. He's in charge of /this/ person's training. This person can already kick his aft, and he's supposed to be in charge of her training. But then, he's supposed to just be evaluating her progress, right? That's easy enough. He shakes his head. "We're probably going to have to start with the rapid change scenarios again, Chimera... I already know you can deal with the drone at its highest setting." He glances over at Catechism arrives. "Ah. Catechism." Just in case she had forgotten her own name or something.

Chimera frowns. "Like we're going to be fighting Autobots in a place where solid matter turns to illusion within the space of a nano--" Oh. It's Catechism. And y'know, given that the universe is constantly wierd, it could happen. Really. "Hello." she nods, taking a moment to... get rid of the holographic damage. Really. You don't think she's going to take the chance that the two of you are going to ambush her while she's running on fumes, do you?

Chimera leaves to the Troop Quarters to the west.

Chimera has left.

Chimera enters from the Troop Quarters to the west.

Chimera has arrived.

Catechism has not forgotten her own name, although if she doesn't stop taking damage to the head, she might. She waves to the others, and inclines her head, asking, "This a private session?" If it is, she can go out an stare at cacti or look at the half-built weapons or whatever. Or maybe go looking for bad weather...

"Honestly, Chimera," Fleet responds to the green seeker, "given the way my life's been lately, I wouldn't be shocked if it did happen. And even if it doesn't, we still need to vary the scenarios... proper planning can help you choose your battles, but that only goes so far. There's always something to throw a wrench in one's plans." Or another blunt instrument... like... Catechism! The yellow seeker turns to her, "Actually, stick around. The more people, the more unpredicatble things get."

Chimera shrugs, "I prefer sharper instruments. They cut through the red tape--" Or something. Don't expect her to make a whole lot of sense. "So what would you suggest then?" Kim? Asking advice? World is ending. Or... something.

Catechism looks a little startled. Okay, out here, all she likely would have found would be simooms, and she can't handle those right now, but she was kind of looking forward to some bad weather. Oh well. Catechism shrugs and drops a hand down. "Stick around? Sure."

Fleet considers. "Well, one thing can be said for what we did last time. Maybe out in the field we wouldn't meet up with that particular combination, but some of the individual elements... the last one is easy to deal with." He frowns, trying to decide how to go about this... he doesn't know much about green seeker, really. "Chimera... you're fairly young, aren't you?" This could get troublesome...

Chimera frowns. Shuffles. Looks uncomfortable. "Maybe." she answers sketchily, "And maybe I'm older than I look." Troublesome? You have no idea. Buttons, buttons, who's got the buttons!

"Well, I was just thinking of that falling scenario. You didn't think to transform." Fleet shudders himself. The sky is what he was made for, but being up there, unable to use his engines or antigravs, as much a slave to gravity as some... Autobot... but no, not even then. He still had something most Autobots don't have, "We still have wings, but they do us more good forward facing."

Catechism glances over at Fleet and asks, "What's her age matter?" Sure, it shows some level of competence to live a long time, but a lot of Seekers end up spending that time in stasis, anyway. She adds, quite cheerily, "She's not dead, after all." Young and stupid, old and stupid - it all adds up to dead, in the end. If Chimera's alive, she must be doing something right, Catechism figures.

"Because experience is a teacher, and I noticed that there was something she didn't pick up on, Catechism." Fleet smirks more in self-derision than anything else. "As baffling and backwards as it may sound, I've been temporarily put in charge of training Chimera, so I'd like to get an idea of her present stores of experience."

We like Catechism, yes we do.

"... So I forgot." Chimera shrugs, "Tried to land on you." And the smile. Yes. She's alive. She's very much alive, even though they all wanted her dead dead dead! "..."

Catechism shrugs again. Six legs, spots, and wings. She really was right about that. And there's a saying about teaching... ah. Catechism grins crookedly.

Fleet shrugs, and ignores Catechism's pose about teaching because she didn't say it out loud. "That's certainly a choice, Chimera, and there are plenty in the Empire who feel that choosing to defeat your foe at the cost of your own life is an appropriate sacrifice. But consider two things: one, you missed, so your 'sacrifice' would have been in vain, and two, the longer you live, the more chances you have to take out your foe."

Chimera starts to look like she's going into a sulk. Or a pout. "I forgot to transform. Okay? Not like everybody is created with wings, and remembers to use them all the time." Folding the arms. Yeah. She's a li'l biatch. "And it would've been a whole lot more fun if you hadn't wiggled at the last minute."

Catechism perks up. Yeah, not everybody is blessed enough to be created with wings, but what Seeker isn't created with wings? She looks at Chimera oddly and then, less oddly, at Fleet, "Y'just going to lecture her?" Because there's always the drone, there.

Fleet shakes his head and sighs, leaning against the console. "Well, I'm trying to get it through her head why I'm brining this up, but she's wanting to behave like a factory newling about the matter, so... you have a point. Continuing to lecture her won't do much for me." He taps a few keys, and suddenly... Hey! This is familiar! Both Chimera and Catechism find themselves, to all appearances, in the upper atmosphere of Earth, well above a ground that's getting closer fast. Perhaps their antigravs and jets are still working, but the illusion presented by the training room certainly makes it seem that they are not.

Yes. Being Six has it's advantages. And disadvantages. Like the one that allows Chimera to realize that this was something that they were just talking about. Besides. The familiar scenario helps, and she DOES learn, contrary to popular belief. "Hey..." Ok...Ok... Transform, and do what? Garh. Just transform. Maybe it'll make Fleet happy, and get him to turn off the sequence and leave her alone.

Chimera jumps up, and folds into a pyramid jet.

Catechism always has a point, right up there on top of her head. In any case, she's now going to make fast friends with the ground! Wait...it looks like she's falling, but rationally, she's in a room with a set ceiling and a floor. Moreover, trusting one's optics is a dangerous thing, especially when, oh, storm-flying. Optics lie, and she has a habit of only seeing what she wants to, anyway. Still, Catechism plays along. She doesn't transform, though. If she's falling, why does she want to be more aerodynamic? Instead, Catechism flings out her arms and legs, and hits her flaps and ailerons, trying to induce as much drag as she possibly can.

Fleet, from the perspective of the other two, is currently just kind of standing by a console that is floating in the middle of the sky, and getting farther and farther away by the moment. However, he's still able to monitor their progress from his little floating console. Catechism's actions would lower her terminal velocity somewhat, although obviously don't actually halt her fall. And Chimera's actions speed up her fall. "Chimera," Fleet speaks calmly over radio, "try to use your ailerons to adjust your fall. If you can level off enough, hitting ground may not kill you." Not that it would in here, but still...

And maybe she should angle her nose towards the ground, to save herself the misery of having to admit that she really doesn't know what she's doing right now. She can do a few fancy flying tricks-- but someone specifically taught her those. Chimera mumbles something, trying to level off. Level. Ok. That's level, isn't it?

There's an interesting thing about cats and falling. They're pretty good enough surviving falls, yes, but it's the middle distances that kill them. Low enough, and the fall's not any trouble. High enough, and they'll assume sky-diving posture and lower their terminal velocity to something non-terminal, as in the fatal sense.

Catechism would resent the comparison to a cat, but that's exactly what she's trying to do. She tries to make her surface area as big as possible, to slow her fall, and she loosens up, getting ready to roll with the impact, rather than take it stiffly. Also, somewhere in her head, Catechism gets to thinking about just why she's falling as fast as she is...

And both the subjects have come up with potentially workable compensating strategies (although one needed some nudging), and that was the point (okay, granted, Catechism isn't actually Fleet's student, but she's here, and having her hear adds yet another unknown, so it still works). Fleet taps a few buttons and the both of them are 'back' in the training room, laying on the floor in either robot mode or pyramid form, as appropriate. "Okay. That's that." the pastel wonder looks up at the two and surpresses a sigh, knowing full well that his next question will cause more trouble, but needing to ask it anyway. "Chimera, you weren't built seeker, were you?"

"..." Chimera transforms, apparantly more comfortable in robot mode. "... This body has always been a seeker." Trouble. Yeah. You're dealing with someone who's roughly the equivalant of an ... angsty teenager. And right now that teenager is trying to avoid answering questions. "I can fly, can't I?"

Aww, but Catechism just figured out that, gee, if she fires her rockets at the correct angle, she'll get 'kicked' back up a bit, and slow her fall even more. Oh well, now she's sprawled out on the floor and has no reason to waste her rockets. Catechism kicks on her antigravs, which seem to be working, and flips right back into the air, although now rather more in control of her motion and position. It's funny, to an outsider, that the Seeker trusts the air more than the floor, but it's not the air that would have killed her, is it? No, it's the hard, metal floor.

"Dammit Chimera!" Fleet bangs his fist against the edge of the console (no buttons... no nifty sudden accidental scene shifts). Fleet. Lost temper. Yeah, he has his limits, too, not that the pastel yellow coward is likely to be menacing in ever case. He immediately recovers his temper and sighs. "I wasn't asking what that body was built for, Chimera," Fleet goes on more quietly, his voice, almost soothing by design anyway, moving into even softer tones. "I'm not out to get you. That's not my purpose here. But there are things I need to know if I'm to do the job given me, and things you need to deal with if you're to do the job given you. You are good - very good, better than me in a lot of ways." Now he employs flattery as well... After his outburst, he's pulling out all the stops (and, hey, he does has both acting and negotiation, and this is a form of negotiation) "But anyone can learn to be better, but to do so, they have to face their shortcomings."

The pyramid jet unfolds into a female robot.

Chimera actually looks... intimidated by the loss of temper. She didn't actually think Fleet had one of those. Not that it's going to last very long either way. She can still kick his hiney. "...No. I wasn't always a seeker." The age thing just gives her fits though. "But I am one of the best shots in the universe. I /know/ that." Cold look comes back. Icy. See? That intimidation thing didn't last very long.

Catechism shakes herself and touches down, the clash of metal on metal ringing. She looks at Fleet and just shakes her head. Still, she sounds quite sincere, "Look, maybe Chimera needs to be dropped out of the sky for whatever it is she needs to learn, but if I'm going to be falling out of the sky, I want it to be because some blasted Autobot shot me." Or because the lightning took her. She gestures to door and continues, "Have fun." And maybe she will, too. Now, where was that weather tracker...