RP: Fort Ready Class 6

Jairen's musings caught Shizuko's ear as she asked her own question. He had a point, but he was missing an option, which she had chosen. True, there was lack of initiative, but they didn't know where they were going. What was the point of zooming off if you were heading at top speed in the wrong direction?

Which, coincidentally, was an information deficit she was trying to rectify...and Jairen apparently came to the same conclusion. Shizuko's eyes almost narrowed at her fellow recruit, but she canceled the expression before it completed. Whoever the instructor answered first, maybe it would answer the other party's question in the process.

"That's where you're headed next, though. Nothing big, just basic qualifications and a quick set of tests for you. It's about half a mile out there, and all you have to do is beat me out there."

Click to expand...

Daniela cocked her head sideways at the vague set of instructions. She didn't say -what- we're even looking for! she thought as she followed her classmates in the direction indicated. And there's two paths. Even better.

Stopping at the fork in the path, she looked back and forth between them for a moment, then turned on her heel to look back towards the instructor and noticed Jairen nearby.

That's going to get him in trouble someday.. She thought with a grin as she listened to Jairen analyse the situation out loud.He did pick the right one though I think.

With her hands on her hips, Daniela waited for her squadmate to ask his question, intending to add "And what are we looking for?" if their instructor did not provide the information.

Toushan remained quiet for a few seconds before a hint of a smile appeared for the first time as she watched Jairen flounder at the fork in the road. “Both paths eventually reach the same destination.” she pre-empted the questions “However, one path is, shall we say, the scenic route.” she finished, still walking unhurriedly.

As she reached the fork she took the left path, which was a smaller path showing obvious signs of low relatively low traffic to the hard beaten right path. She spoke to Shizuko “You may ask your question, hei.”

Jairen looked down the left pathway, then back to the instructor as she passed him. "Thank you, Toushan-Hei," he replied. So, I was half right...good thing I waited.

Looking over at Daniela, he motioned with his head towards the shortcut, his eyebrow raising slightly. He then started to jog down the little used path, passing both the instructor and the neko by her side.

Shizuko gave Jairen a neutral look before looking to the instructor. "And what are we looking for, Toushan-Hei?" she asked.

Meanwhile, she mentally pinged the training camp's network, if it had one, to make a request of its governing computer system.

Itsuki nodded to herself a bit as the recruits turned to follow her down the path, smiling broadly on the inside, though she made sure to keep the smile off her face. As a number of the recruits started running ahead, she cocked her head to the side, and her entire body flickered for a moment before fading out of sight. "You're looking for what's at the end of the paths. It's fairly obvious." After only a few seconds of a pause, she spoke again, though to the recruits looking at her it was probably a bit freaky, since her voice came from a completely different spot. "However, you should all think about what I said for a moment about which path is which. Or the lack thereof." With that, there was a puff of dust on the path in the general direction of her voice, as though someone had jumped, and she was gone.

Shizuko's eyes narrowed. A projection? Fine...

Shoving her way into the camp's network, the NH-29 dug through the "public"-level files for a map of the area, including the trails leading out from the camp.

At the same time, Shizuko's brain raced, rapidly replayed the memory of the sensei's exit, properly identifying the maker of dust-poofs and checking for signs of which way that perpetrator went before immediately taking off in the same direction, using her gravity manipulation to lighten herself until she was at a standard, 1G weight. Why didn't she think of that earlier?

Actually, was she supposed to be making use of such advantages in the first place? Shizuko mentally shook her head, she'd deal with that once the test was over. For now, she'd chase the thing that had mass, as opposed to follow a massless volumetric projection the wrong direction. Then, once she found the map she wanted, she would head directly to the training ground, no messing with paths whether right or wrong...

The path Makoto had taken was rather plain. Trees, grass, birds. He had picked up his pace and felt pretty good. He could not see anyone ahead of him, though a couple of the recruits were behind him.

His breathing was faster but the pace was far from blistering. Slowly, Makoto increased his pace, widening the gap between him and the recruits trailing him.

He wondered why a bunch of the recruits had hung about the Hei. Winning by one step was not a particularly good way of winning. And if they had been prying for more information, who was to say whether it was true or false.

Deception was an integral part of war, after all.

If he lost, so be it.

Shizuko's inquiries were just about to yield the maps she was after when something blocked her, out of nowhere she got the impression of a laughing face and the maps never showed. Seems that this avenue had been expected as well. However her gravity manipulation worked just fine.

Freyja meanwhile had taken a head-first solution to the problem, rather than just use her gravity manipulation to lighten herself, she's also put it to use pushing herself forward. Rather than worried she appeared excited about what was happening. “Come on, everyone. Chibi-sensei wants to scare us!” she shouted before shooting off legs almost blurring. That girl really did like to run.

The red haired neko sped past Makoto and disappeared around a corner, just a few seconds after she was out of sight he heard a sound lime someone hitting the brakes on a dirt road followed by a short surprised scream.

What was the purpose of this test? The question appeared and wouldn't leave Shizuko's mind as she ran. That was not a useful question at this time, and it wasn't her duty to second-guess her instructors. It was, however, her job to achieve what they set before her.

Her attempt at finding her way rejected, Shizuko frowned as she continued tracking the fleeing figure that she thought was her instructor, tracking her own bearing relative to the paths as she did. The realization that the figure she was chasing might also be a decoy (a solid one this time), made her pause, though. She slowed to a stop, letting gravity regain its proper hold.

There was another way around this. Both paths led to the same destination. That meant that she could assume that the paths formed a loop: each began and ended at the same location as the other. So, by traveling between them, by angling herself down the center, even if she was off, she would still travel a shorter route than by following the longer trail, even if she did travel further than the shorter trail. That was unlikely, unless it was a straight line. Or significantly shorter, with the two trails arriving opposite each other. Re-calculating her trajectory, Shizuko set off again, again using her gravity manipulation to reduce her weight to aid her speed.

She was well on her way when Frejya screamed. No. She was out of range. She couldn't stop; even if Shizuko did turn around, this was a time-sensitive objective and she couldn't be sure that she could help Frejya anyway...

The excuses didn't settle her enough, and Shizuko turned around and headed toward the source of the sound.

"What the devil?" Makoto exclaimed, sprinting ahead and ready to act. "Hey, Freyja, where are you?" Makoto shouted, looking for Freyja.

He really hoped this was not a joke.

"Oh my. That was unexpected, was it not?" Rikou stated, chuckling. When several other recruits began running and rushing along, Rikou decided to speed up as well, following along at an increased pace, though not as fast as everyone else.

"You know, she was probably already out there the entire time..." she mused, seeming to enjoy the excitement.

Makoto reached the red-haired neko first, we was after all right around the corner. What he saw was very surprising. Freyja was right in front of him another few meters up the road, he could only partly see her but the reason for her distress was clear.

The path had ended suddenly, straight into a somewhat formidable obstacle.

Waterfall. The path ended abruptly and Freyja was now clinging to the edge, only her head and arms visible over the edge. Needless to say, the lack of booming noise showed it wasn't much of a waterfall, just a large sprinkle at most but it feed into a small river. Below them, just visible among the trees was a set of pre-fab buildings and a large clearing, the river seemed to bend towards it.

Freyja smiled bashfully from her somewhat compromised position, as the rest of the class cascaded into Makotos back she looked at her classmates and wheezed from strain. “Fly, you fools!” before letting go and dropping out of sight below the edge.

Ah. That is scenic. And faster.

Shizuko dashed forward and calculated her trajectory, then left the ledge, hurling down toward Frejya. Her aim was true and Shizuko slammed into her, hugged the other neko tight.

"Maximum float!" The normally taciturn NH-29 shouted over the sound of air, doing herself what she requested of her batch-sister and pushing her anti-gravity control to its limit in an attempt to force their freefall into a semi-controlled glide. "Both of us together may reduce the impact!"

Freyja grunted as her sister tackled her, causing them both to tumble downwards. However their downwards momentum cut steadily like they were descending through some kind of thick gel. It was only a short fall, and they ended up floating about a foot off the surface of the lake. “Shizuko-san, you're being silly.” chided Freyja light heartedly “They have gravity arrestors here in case some crazy cadet takes the plunge.” she said, pointing towards a small series of metal boxes embedded into the cliff wall. Freyja giggled softly and held her sister in return gently “Thank you for coming to rescue me, though.”

It seemed a specialised use for small CFS systems to curb gravity was an object passed through towards the ground, however it also affected their force pushing back up. It seemed the designers hadn't anticipated anyone floating upwards.

Huh?

"Oh." Shizuko deadpanned, loosening her grasp and lowering her gravity resistance to allow the arrestors to do their job, then restoring her near-weightlessness when they reached the surface of the water. Hm.

"Might let the others know, if they have not figured it out yet." The NH-29 let go of Freyja and slid across the surface of the water to shore. "How did you know about the arrestors?" she asked, turning around to float backward while directing the question at the other neko.

Soon, Rikou could be seen floating gracefully down toward Freyja and Shizuko. The young princess expertly landed, having had plenty of practice floating around as a youngling and even after she had fully grown.

"Well, floating down really isn't all that hard, after all, though I doubt it's the same for the Nepleslian recruits." Rikou observed, looking for the nearest solid ground on which to land.

"We should probably hurry on, I have a sinking suspicion that Toushan-sensei is already at our destination. With that, Rikou giggled a bit. Ha! Sinking! she thought, finding her accidental pun to be clever.

Makoto watched, feeling a little peeved that the Nekos were happily lauding it over their less talented comrades.

"Come on, you lot! Let's show them what we mere mortals can do. Down the side," he said, climbing down the slippery rock.

Freyja sort of shuffled and looked slightly embarrassed as she rubbed the back of her head “Well, how do you think, Genius? I fell off.” She smiled slightly “I just got a little fright when I went over the edge, but I guess they must have put them in to stop silly cadets from taking the plunge to get to whatever's next.”

The other cadets had a slightly more difficult time, one of them ended up hitting the “floor” of the arrestors upside down before getting up again.

That wasn't what Shizuko meant, but she decided not to argue the point. She had wondered how Freyja knew what the arrestors were; they weren't something that they had covered in socialization...to her knowledge, anyway.

Reaching the shore, Shizuko touched down on the ground, keeping her gravity control on just enough to allow her solid contact with the surface but enough to keep her weight low. Floating was slow to accelerate and sometimes difficult to maneuver accurately...but Shizuko also just preferred the feel of a solid surface beneath her feet. Glancing back at the group, she took off running again. Her reduced weight allowed the neko to accelerate quickly, and she easily maneuvered through the remaining foliage toward the camp.