Scene #6712: Training Exercise: Majima vs Staren

Owner	Pose
Staren	Staren's waiting in the arena when Majima enters. He turns to face Majima. Is he practicing being dramatic or something? "When I offered you a fight in the ring -- err, the Shrine, my plan was to show you some of the crazy stuff you'd be up against in the Multiverse so you'd be less likely to be caught unawares." He tilts his head slightly to one side. "But it sounds like you've done just fine. Still, maybe there's something we can both learn from a training exercise, huh? Begin training program." A new world sort of 'wipes' over the arena, replacing it with a hangar. Space is visible through a forcefield at one end -- the hangar bay has all sorts of parked ships, from one-man fighters to cargo shuttles, though nothing larger than that, as well as cargo containers. There are also catwalks running around the edges of the room, and windows and doors opposite the exit to space that would lead deeper into the station(?) if this weren't a combat arena simulation. Staren's changed too, from labcoat to a recolor of the armor he uses in his robot body, and he's now holding some kind of techy-looking staff weapon. "Well. I guess I should start with the basics, huh? Just to see how you respond to--" As he says the last word, he just points his right arm at Majima and fires one of the beam cannons, saving the other for a second attempt if Majima moves, probing his defenses.
Majima Goro	Majima swaggers in to the arena, stepping side to side a bit. Both hands tug on his jacket. "Eh, all the experience I can get helps, doesn't it? I don't think ya can't surprise me with something," He offers. At least the arena suddenly changing forms doesn't bother him too much. That one isn't new. Though, hm. Space. He rubs his chin a little, before pulling out his knife. You could probably learn something 'bout someone by the kind of arena they prefer, he realizes. He slowly, lazily gets into a combat stance, and raises a brow as Staren talks. That said, while it doesn't seem to catch him by surprise that Staren fires midway through, his response is just to spread his arms wide and take it directly on the chest. The force pushes him back a few feet, and while there's a shout..he's still grinning. "Ah, yeah! That's what I'm talkin' bout! See? Ya can't safely learn what it's like to get nailed by a laser anywhere else, right?!" Still, he's not signed up for this to be a punching bag. He should probably show this kid some ropes. He moves like a sinuous snake, entire body leaning before each step sometimes, or just almost seeming to slide, as he zigzags his way towards Staren. Gotta keep him from just countering with a beam cannon, right up until he can hop forward and deliver a spinning kick directly to the boy genius's chest.
Staren	Staren looks surprised behind the visor when Majima opts to just take it to the chest. "It's not a laser, it's--" His eyes track Majoma moving, and a forcefield comes up, but Majima's powerful kick not only sends Staren skidding backwards, but did a number on the field. Spiderwebbing cracks cover its surface in an instant, and then a half-second later the outer portion of its mass 'shatters' -- as the shards of force start to fall, though, they nigh-instantly turn into sparkling amber powder that just kind of fades away. Two of the discs on Staren's armor arc electricity and start smoking. "Well." He levitates into the air, out of melee reach, although still wary -- Majima can find a way to deal with that, he's sure, but it will make the ex-yakuza work a /little/ harder. "It's a particle beam. High-energy electrons and atomic nuclei. Matter, not light." The staff's head reconfigures, 'petals' opening and projecting some kind of energy into a tiny, glowing point in the center. Staren starts to take aim, then decides to get a little more creative -- He dives lower and flies behind a medium-length spaceship. Will he go around it or hide in wait? Instead, after a few seconds he pops back out from behind it to try and surprise Majima, firing the pinprick of light at high speed to explode in Majima's vicinity -- Similar to plasma missiles, but subtly different -- for an instant, a huge area is just engulfed in flame, which disappears just as suddenly. Although... if Majima's not going to try to dodge, is there any point to big area attacks like this?
Majima Goro	Majima's blow lands true enough for his liking, and what's more, he cracked some weird energy things. Yeah. That's pretty good to know he can do that. He's just about ready to follow it up with another blow of the knife, but Staren's gotten up into the air. "...holy crap, kid, I don't--actually care what the--" But he hasn't got time to sass, because the stick's doing weird crap again. The good news is, now he gets that the stick fires lasers. So as Staren fires, he doesn't bother doing more than slightly diverting his course, and...whoops, that was an explosion. That's a problem. Majima's launched forward, though he manages to land in a roll. On the upside, while his jacket's a bit scorched, and he's gotta quickly pat his pants out--that gets fixed, right? Right. This is the best place. "...arright." The best way from here, in Majima's opinion, is to just maybe disable this kid before he starts wailing even harder. So while there's still a spaceship nearby to use, he swings atop of it, jabbing his knife into a crack here, using a wing to launch himself into the air, suddenly starting to flare with blue fire. If all goes well, he's going to try to grab Staren from behind, and with both hands...give him a very, very nasty neck-crack. Luckily, this is never lethal, for..some reason.
Staren	Grabbed from behind and neck twisted. Staren has literally died that way before, so it's rather unpleasant! "Rrk!" There's some cracking sounds, and metal straining sounds. Of course he's a robot. He's a little mad about being made to relive his first death. "I can do that too." He grumbles. There's a ringing tone from his gauntlet, and the flickering of the crystal set in it briefly becomes irregular as suddenly wind picks up around him. Flying wildly, struggling to shake Majima off, he transfers the 'stick' to his right hand, and lifts it up -- suddenly he lands, and the head of the staff reconfigures again, a nozzle growing out of it and blasting water at Majima's face like a firehose trying to push him off!
Majima Goro	Majima had a problem. The good news is, the neck-snap went about as well as he could have hoped, honestly. The bad news was, that left him awkwardly right next to a robot suit, and in terrifying range of some sort of close range fire to the face! Which leaves him rather surprised as Staren proceeds to turn on...some kinda air conditioning. He clings on well enough, and then as the staff's brought around, that's when Majima drops. He's got absolutely no interest in getting a fireball directly to the face--- And frankly, as a burst of water comes out instead, he feels pretty sheepish. Alright, now he's gotta deal with Staren being in the air again, which is a right pain in the ass. Any sort of acrobatics right now just makes him an obvious target standing atop something that explodes, so he settles for an old standby. "Arright," He declares, that blue flare turning purple as the tanto finds itself back in his hand. "...ya gonna flap like a bird all day?" He tosses the knife into the air, dropping to the ground before twisting about to kick it--staggeringly accurately--well, ideally in Staren's leg or something, but he might get lucky and it might hit somewhere worse. Who knows? Life is weird.
Staren	"I'm not flapping." Staren replies. Inwardly he's struggling to keep up. He didn't really have a PLAN for fighting Majima, he's just kind of winging it. He also has been waiting some time to test the program that's giving him a wider variety of weapons so that he's not limited to teaching people to deal with his usual weapons alone, but now that he's GOT it he's not sure it really... matters. As he turns around to face Majima, opening his mouth to reply, the knife hits his chest at an angle, not penetrating the armor but instead lodging under one of the forcefield discs. It makes an excessively loud CLINK as it hits, and Staren jerks back slightly. "Dammit. If you CAN fly, it's a good advantage to have!" He swaps hands, dives down to a row of crates, grabbing one edge with his right hand as he lands, and then HURLS it at Majima with robot strength! "Then again, I can't do THIS from the air!" Of course, the crate probably isn't as bad as what he readies to follow it with -- the staff changes, energy crackling between the 'petals' now before Staren fires a bolt of lightning, forking enough to hit an area as wide as a person is tall. Energy from the staff crackles over him as he fires it. "Okay, I have to ask, what do the colors mean? At first I thought it was just some kinda Hype Drive, but then why the change? Is it not just for cool looks?"
Majima Goro	...Well, actually, that..kinda screws him out of the knife. Why did he throw the good knife? Dumbass. Absolute dumbass. Ah, well. Not much he can do. Ah. There's a thing he can do--not get his ass murdered by crates. Luckily, dodging a row of crates is well within his abilities. That flare turns pink, as he..dances his way through them, at one point dropping onto his shoulders and spinning around to smash one of them with just his steel-toed boots. "Wa -hahaaaaaaaa-!" He calls out. Sure, that hurt, but it didn't hurt as bad as taking those boxes to the chin. As the staff opens up again, though, Majima's learning, and he quickly dives out of the way. Sort of a dive. Most dives don't end in you doing the wiggleworm on the ground, and raising in some kinda dancing pose. "...What, the--yeah, I've been wonderin' why you guys /don't/ do that? Figured it was some weird Multiverse thing?" He says. "...bein' fired up to go just does that, ya know? Sometimes ya got a fight and some guy's like 'hey, none of that blue fire crap' cause ya ain't takin it too serious or something." Speaking of serious, that flare turns yellow just as he's dragging out the bat. Staren is a boy genius. It's literally indicative of what Majima intends to do, to some degree. He's purple every time he's using the knife, when he's thinking about how to use the bat it turns yellow, and pink is that weird dancing crap. Blue is...something else. "Now..where was I? Ah, yeah. Crackin' ya head in for science." You might think the bat indicates something slow. Lumbering. It does not. Majima instead proceeds to run right towards Staren, and use the bat as a staging point to instead launch himself into the air, cartwheeling through to land a two-foot kick right on the boy's head. That is a distressingly sadistic grin on his face.
Staren	"No, people in the Multiverse /don't/ just do that!" Staren explains. "Some of us tried it awhile ago, but it was just for show. It just felt so cool to say 'Engage hype drives!'" the gauntlet chimes again and the Dramatic Wind picks up a little more. "But it never /did/ anything! Now it kinda seems like it indicates we're not taking it seriously enough, you know? If we have time to worry about looking cool, that's time we're not spending actually fighting our hardest. Although sometimes a show is important." Majima makes a crack about cracking. Staren gives a short chuckle and says "Bring it." as he takes a defensive stance. It was not defensive enough. The forcefield only somewhat softens the impact as Majima just smashes right through it to kick Staren in the head! He stumbles back, energy wings suddenly appearing to help right him so he doesn't fall down. His head is listing slightly to one side now, though, like that kick actually bent his robot spine. Or broke it and it's just being held in place by all the wires... As he rights himself, the armor pops off his right arm with a dramatic KA-CHONK sound, and arcs of energy crackle over his body as the arm glows, and steam puffs out of vents in the back of his armor as he jabs forward, trying to run Majima through with robotic strength and an arm coated in some kind of cutting energy field! As if that's not bad enough, it then discharges a huge amount of electricity, Staren starting to smoke slightly before venting vamporized coolant. It's all very dramatic, but how much is normal and how much is because of the 'hype drive' effect he mentioned?
Majima Goro	Majima just smashed through a forcefield with his feet. You know what? That's it. He's having a good day now. He doesn't care how beat up he's feeling, he just got to smash a forcefield with his damn shoes. ...That said, the way Staren's head isn't quite sitting right kinda weirds him out a little. "...eh. Lookin' cool is half of the point, nah?" The bat's swung around again, in front of him, almost like a proper two-handed sword...just in time for Staren to start really taking this fight seriously. That armor just detached, and it's all Majima can do to get the wooden bat in the way. The wooden bat should break, right? Right? No. No, this stupid wooden bat stays intact somehow, even as that cutting energy field grinds upon it, sparking. Even as Majima's pushed back further and further, sweat beading on his forehead as he's slid backwards across the space station floor. He finally pushes away just as the electricity starts to vent, and...yeah. Alright. Now he's starting to feel a little tired. So it's about time he showed his boss..who's boss. "...ya know, ya got a lot o' fancy tools, and I gotta say, ya know how to use 'em," He says, panting a bit. "...lemme tell ya what you don't got." He's sprinting in an all out dash towards Staren, before leaping forward---this is not the swing, though, he's landed on both feet, before cartwheeling himself over, tilting just to one side to avoid the inevitable juke, before the bat's maneuvered in a full-body swing to knock Staren's creepy-dangling head the other way. "...ah, fuck, what was it again?"
Staren	The bat blocked his finishing move?! Staren looks surprised, although the special effects make it look like an epic struggle at least! He gets ready to block with his other arm, then jukes, but it's predicted, and Majima... kicks his goddamn head off. The body just falls over, the staff clattering to the floor. The gauntlet gem stops flickering and just goes clear, the armor's colors reverting to the normal red color scheme. "Well F***." Staren's head curses as it stops rolling. "Alright, reset." And they're back in the empty arena, standing where they were before Staren loaded the program. He's out of the armor and back in his labcoat, without the weapons. "Well. That's 0 for 3. Every time I do one of these, I get schooled. First a supersoldier, then a master assassin, and now you." Staren rubs his chin. "Clearly, the lesson here is that if anything serious is on the line I'd better not fight one-on-one fair." Then he holds out his hand to shake. "Well, it was good to see what you can do. I hope there was /something/ for you to take away from all that, at least."
Majima Goro	Point number two in favor of the Shrine of Adversity: Majima continues to never have killed anybody in his entire life, even as he's knocked a robot boy's head off with a baseball bat. That bat is put--away somewhere, and a gloved hand reaches out to shake Staren's. "Heeheehee!" He leans back, knees bent as he laughs to the heavens. "Ya should only fight fair if ya really respect the guy ya fightin, Staren. If it counts for all the marbles, you do anything ya gotta, even if it's..knockin' a kid's head off with a baseball bat. Which apparently doesn't kill you. Good to know." Even he looks a little thrown off by that, but he shakes his head. "Anyway, looks like you're anglin' to use yourself up fast as you can 'fore anyone can prepare somethin' worse. That works great, sure, long as they can't withstand the assault. Honestly...the strategy I was usin'...was probably the dumbest one I coulda used on a guy like you." He rubs the back of his neck. "...anyway, I'd invite ya out for a drink or something, but...are ya even old enough for that kinda thing?" The box of cigarettes is out, and he's lighting it, because damn if he isn't taking advantage of the Shrine every which way he can. "...as for what I learned, yeah. I figured out a bunch of new tricks offa that. Hundred percent worth my time."
Staren	Staren nods at the comment about fighting fair. It's only logical! "Yeah, I've worked hard to make myself hard to kill, but I try not to talk publicly about the details lest someone who really wants to kill me overhear." He narrows his eyes at the comment about his age. "I'm twenty-eight. But I don't like the taste of alchohol. But I can come along if you want to talk to me about something." "Well, that's good. Please, do continue to learn more. Maybe Nie Li could have some ideas for new techniques for you? I'm more of a guns-and-robots guy."
Majima Goro	"...eh? Twenty-eight? That in, like, cat ears--cat years or somethin'?" Majima looks baffled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly before having another drag of his cigarette. "Nah, nah, just used to hangin' out at bars. Ain't got no particular bits o' wisdom for you." He taps the cigarette off on the floor, before taking a long drag. "Yeah, that's a good plan. Wasn't gonna yap about it anyway, but I'll make sure to keep it on the down-low. If you ain't drinkin, though, I'll have a quick beer." Which, apparently, he also keeps on him. Perhaps the more concerning thing is that he visibly seems healthier as he cracks it open and slugs it back, albeit only slightly. Alcohol has, in fact, had a visible positive effect on him, not unlike a potion might from a more medieval world with waving wands. "But yeah, sure, I'll hit up this Nie Li guy. Thing is, lemme tell ya somethin'. I learned how to fight with a bat fightin' a guy who specialized in every other weapon. I learned how to do those dance moves watchin' some guys who weren't even fightin', they were just dancin' at each other. The necksnap move I learned learnin' to counter some old martial arts guru tryin' to teach me somethin' else entirely. The guys teachin' ya don't have to know the stuff you're tryin' to learn." He looks around a little. "...for instance, I'm gonna have to learn some fancier tricks if guys're gonna be flyin' round, ain't I? I ain't that good with a gun, though..."
Staren	Staren's ears splay. "No, it's in Earth years!" He exclaims, with a hint of annoyance. "Clearly, I'm gonna have to talk with Concord PR folks about correcting this perception." Staren rubs his chin. "Hmmmm. Well, my answer was taking ways to fly when I saw the chance, but... I suppose the main disadvantage of flight is that if you're going up there for mobility, there's not a lot of cover. Not sure how you can exploit that with your weapons, though. There's also different flight methods. For this simulation I was using magic, but if I'd been relying on wings or thrusters, targeting those could throw off the flight..."
Majima Goro	There's a moment while Majima sips his beer. The cigarette just dangles idly in his free hand. "Yeah, I ain't a ranged kinda guy, but what I coulda maybe done is figured out if any of these spaceships," He says, waving his hand, "Had turrets I coulda fired atcha with. That's the main problem. I don't know enough about these environments to know what ta do with 'em properly."
Staren	Staren ohs. "Yeah, good thought! I picked this arena as kind of a dynamic terrain thing. Some of the crates contain weapons and explosives. We just didn't really focus on it. Good that you thought of that on your own, though! The Multiverse is too full of bizarre environments to really know 'em all though."
Majima Goro	Majima Goro cocks his head back. "Ah, yeah. I ain't..really the 'crack a crate open' kinda guy. Used ta just beatin' up some goons and grabbin' whatever they left me," He explains. "...heh. Smashin' a box open to find weapons inside sounds like somethin that man would get to, though," He says, his eye shifting to look up at the now far more boring ceiling. "But yeah. 's like ya fight ten guys on a bridge, at least five of 'em I'm probably just gonna throw in the drink."