[SP] Final Simulator Runs

[MarQuid]

Author Revolver

SCENE: Divolis Corporation - Security Division

Kenichi stormed through the hall going over the conversation he just had with his father in his head and fuming. How could he favor his younger brother so much? He clenched his hand in anger and slammed his hand against the door panel. A yelp akin to a small dog came from inside the room as the door opened. A young woman was standing there. Short black hair, glasses, cleanly pressed uniform, clutching a datapad close to her chest. Kenichi seriously doubted this person had more skill than a common secretary.

A quick glance around the room told Kenichi that he was in the right place. A massive simulator took up the majority of the room, with one-way mirrors on one side where the observation room most likely was. A pair of technicians occupied the back of the room, working on some open panel.

"I'm Angela Janssen," the woman introduced herself, bowing. "You must be Mr. Higa."

"My father is Mr. Higa," Kenichi growled, causing the poor woman to take a step back. He took notice of this and took a breath, clearing his head. "Excuse me," he said, giving the woman a smile, shifting his weight to present a much less aggressive posture. "I am Kenichi Higa. Please, call me Kenichi."

The woman returned his smile with a relaxed sigh and a smile of her own, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Kenichi. You may call me Angie."

"You can call her Ms. Janssen," came a gruff voice from the back of the room. A portly man with a large beard approached the two from behind the simulator. Apparently he had been looking over the technician's work. Or waiting to see Kenichi's reaction to the secretary. Whatever his reason, Kenichi really didn't care. He had met the Security Director before and never left with a good impression of the man. "It's good to see you again, Kenichi." A lie, Kenichi was certain. This man didn't like dealing with him anymore than he liked dealing with the Security Director.

"Mr. Katsuo," Kenichi replied, nodding to the older man. "Everything is proceeding well I take it?"

"Yes, yes," he replied, appearing to be slightly annoyed at the question. "I'd introduce you to Ms. Janssen here, but it looks like you two already took care of that. Ms. Janssen will be the coordinator for the test squad."

Kenichi frowned. Appearance and body language alone told him that this woman was not fit for such a task. Had she been promoted to this position recently as a sign the Director wanted the project to fail? Perhaps the Director was stupid enough to think that the project wasn't in need of someone with more credentials. In any case, this was just another thing that Kenichi would hold against the man.

"Ms. Janssen informs me that today will be the last simulator test before the team takes those hulks out for live testing," the Director continued. "Perhaps you could go over where we stand right now?" He glared at the young woman who looked back over her datapad, obviously intimidated by her superior's attitude.

"Y-Yes sir," she said, quickly skimming over the notes before her. "Most of the pilots are showing excellent skill, Daisuke especially, but that's to be expected considering the time he's had with the actual machine. Um, do you want me to go through all of these?" She looks up at the two men.

"Yes, yes, continue," the Director quickly replied, making a circular motion with his hand.

"Ah, okay, well, Valdez is finishing with extensive damage to her machine, but is otherwise scoring well. Taiga and Gahlean continue to have high marks, they just need a little more time. Gambizam really needs to work on her aim, but is showing nice mobility and finally, well, from what I see here Masato is giving Daisuke a run for his money. Very impressive." Ms. Janssen looks up from the datapad smiling, but immediately buries her head again when realizes the cold look her superior is returning.

"Alright then, keep me informed," he says dismissively as he heads for the door. "I have some things that require my attention and I expect the full reports to be on my desk by the end of the day." He gives a curt nod to Kenichi, "Good day."

Kenichi raises a hand, giving little effort to waving a goodbye to the Security Director. As the door closes behind him, Kenichi leans over and whispers, "Can he be any more of an ass?" This causes the mousey woman to blush and withdraw even further, a feat that Kenichi found impressive in of itself.

"L-Let's head to the observation room," she managed to squeak out. "The technicians should be done in here momentarily and then we should start seeing the pilots report in."

Kenichi nodded, looking over at the finishing touches being done to the simulator. "Alright. I'll handle the pilots, if you don't mind. Let's get this done as quickly and as smoothly as possible."

Author Sandact6

(OOC: Do we continue in the simulator during battle, a meeting room, or is this just a small plot detail with no input needed from us?)

Author Revolver

(OOC: Timeline-wise, this thread takes place before the JP. What I'm hoping for is for people to post their own character's last simulator runs. I was going to post an example with Tira, but haven't yet had the time. Interacting either with the Director or Kenichi is fine, and if necessarly, you can PM it to me for storyline verification and I'll post it after I look over it.

If you guys like these more as little plot details, I can continue doing them, as it turned out to be a pretty fun exercise I found. Also, it gets you guys more information on how NPCs act and why they act that way.)

Author Zeorymer

(OOC: I'm planning on writing mine up tonight. Stay tuned.)

Author Revolver

Rave sat lazily in the simulator cockpit. The electrical hum surrounding him calming him. He rubbed the instrument panel affectionately and smiled “Last time in here with you eh… since you’re not real I suppose I can give you any name I want… would you like a name?” He smiled a little wider. “I thought so.” He reached into his shirt and pulled off his necklace, a cybernetic eye it’s only adornment. “I better make this one good.” He said to himself as he slowly started spinning the necklace around on a finger.

“Mr. Gahlean? We’re going to start the simulation in a few moments. Ms. Janssen and Mr. Higa are in the room, so make sure you do your best.” It was one of the simulator techs over the comm.

Rave tosses the necklace into the air and catches it on the way down. “Oh don’t worry about that…” He shivers a little with anticipation, like he always did before the simulator started up. He quickly slipped the necklace back on and tucked the somewhat macabre decoration back into his shirt, and settled in to get started. “Whenever you’re ready Command!” He said excitedly.

The technician activated the simulator program. All the monitors and systems inside the cockpit came to life. Almost as soon as the monitor for his simulation came to life inside the observation room his simulated Zilant posed. “ENGAGE! GUREEEEATO GAHLEAN!!!” Rave shouted, causing the technician monitoring him to facepalm, and Ms. Janssen and Kenichi to glance in his direction.

Kenichi walked over to the monitor to see what all the commotion was. On the screen Rave had slung the rifle and was charging into melee range with the simulated opponents. “FIIIISTO KNUCKLE!!!” Rave shouted as he smashed through the target with his Zilant’s left arm. “ZILANTO SWOOOOORD!” He screamed again as he quickly grabbed the vibrosword with the right arm and slashed it right through the center of an enemy approaching through the opposite side. He laughed loudly. “This is…” he through the sword at another advancing target, and drew the rifle again, blowing the same target’s legs off just to be sure. “This is…” He quickly spun around and readied to coil cannon to deal with a hardened target.

“This is fantastic!” He yelled triumphantly as the simulated bunker exploded. “This is the greatest simulator program I’ve ever run through! I’ve never felt so alive! I can’t WAIT to know what the real thing is like!”
Kenichi looked sideways at Ms. Janssen. “This CAN’T be who the monitor says it is…”

Ms. Janssen coughs nervously. “Uhm… yes… it is actually. Once he’s inside the simulator he’s totally different from what his dossier indicated. I was actually a little worried that we’d have to a lot of counseling to get him to… well to get him to where he was when he first started the simulators honestly.”

Kenichi sighed when he watched what was going on in the program. “Give me the comm… Test pilot Gahlean! Even though this IS a simulation you are supposed to be treating it like real combat! While amusing, ripping the limbs off of the targets and bludgeoning the other targets with them will NOT be an effective strategy in a real battle. Stop doing that.”

The simulated Zilant flung the arm it had been carrying at another advancing target. “Whatever you say boss!” He drew the rifle again and took aim. “Gureato Gahlean! Final stage!” He smiled as he took aim and fired… and fired… and fired. Finishing off the final target with his last burst. He chuckled a little. Then started laughing, and laughing hard. “THAT WAS AWESOME!!!” Kenichi began to ready the program for the next pilot while Ms. Jenssen noted the run's statistics on her datapad.

Author Revolver

"I'm telling you Techi, using a rifle in each hand is going to decrease your accuracy by a notable margin." the simulator tech argued with her as she stood in the simulator cockpit.

"You know, standard issue is one rifle only. Divolis will not not pay for another rifle." Kenichi warned her.

Techi had her arms crossed holding the two mimic guns that pilots use to help aim when need. Her eyes had their usual determined glare in them. "We're upgrading to the newer model soon enough, so I'd take the rifle from my 01 and put it on 02. Besides, I'd like to try out two rifles, the armor can handle it, and I've been trying out duel firing in the range lately with pistols."

The technician sighed. "Yes the mech can take the recoil, but your aim is going to b..."

"Just start the damn simulator." Techi bluntly stated as she let her arms drop her side.

The tech sighed, he knew that when she got like this she became near impossible to convince her to do otherwise. "Simulation C-42 starting."

The simulation loaded. It was an battleground of Jukap, a small ruined city on Morant. It was full of dilapidated buildings for cover and was rather full of dusty sand. On of the main challenges here is that if the computer decides to whip up a sandstorm it becomes extremely difficult as visibility becomes low, and weapons could jam.

"Alrighty then. Let's get started." Techi said as she moved her mech down the street, checking every alleyway as she pointed a gun down it. The simulations gave out the amount of enemies and their types, but not loadout, location, orders, or anything else. That was generated randomly or by request.

Techi heard the loud footsteps of her opponents. She rushed behind a building and quickly peered down the road.

"Three MX-01's in search formation huh? Jeez this program is making it easy this time." thoughts of her last simulation didn't go too smoothly.

She engaged her thrusters and pulled out around the edge, firing distraction shots with one rifle to try and lure the target into a better position.

Techi remembered that a last sim started out the same way. "The damn sim must know my moves by now, let's try something different."

Instead of dashing forward, she did a quick boost backwards, twirled her rifles around and shot them both in unison.

The MX-01 was blown to pieces by the sheer amount of bullets it was showered with. It's head, both arms and half of leg was shot off as the rest collapsed into a smoldering husk. (Shields were turned off for both sides during this mission)

Techi quickly flew off towards the next sound she heard, another mech was going to try and flak her position. She accelerated to full speed.

As the enemy Zilant popped out from around the corner with weapon pointed it had all of 0.2 seconds before Techi rammed it sending it sprawling to the ground.

She pointed her rifles at the Zilant and opened fire. Duel streams of fire ripping the mech to pieces.

BLAM! Small vibrations shook her mech, she barely had time to jet around a building corner.

"Damn, took out the left arm." she mumbled, "Plan B it is then."

Techi flew to the top of a building 8 stories tall, she quickly found the last Zilant mech peeping around the corner of building she flew behind when she got shot.

"MICRO MISSILE BARRAGE FIRE!" Techi unloaded a small swarm of micro missiles, about 30 in all and quickly jumped down off the building.

She knew if she aimed for the mech the point defenses would destroy the missiles, but she wasn't aiming for the mech, rather the ground below it.

When the missiles impacted a dust cloud was kicked up around it. Clouding the opponents vision. Techi then popped out from around a corner, using her one good arm to fire into the cloud, looking for an impact sign.

After two bursts, one bullet hit the mech as she could barely make out the sparks.

"THERE!" Techi engaged the maximum thrust for her mech, the simulated G-forces increased violently. She flew into the dust cloud with another shoulder ram and made contact with the mech. The dust was blown away along with the opponent who tried to recover in midair.

"ALREADY A STEP AHEAD!" Techi had her cannon prepped for this, in a kneeling position she fired the shoulder cannon and hallowed out the very core of mech, dead center cockpit.

Techi breathed a sign of relief as the program congratulated her on passing the test with green text.

"I don't see what is wrong with her performance. She only suffered a lost arm, which is expected as this is one of the harder C simulations." Ms. Janssen commented.

"No, she lags behind a little in team combat." Kenichi reminded Janssen, "She's done more than enough single person simulations for a B rank."

"What is wrong with her team performance? Leadership issues?" Ms. Janssen watched as Techi left her simulation chamber.

Kenichi brought up Techi's records, "No, she keeps getting herself killed in them. She loves to take the blows for the team mates. Usually she doesn't finish within the damage quota or gets killed. She needs at least four more team missions for a rank promotion. She cooperates well, maybe a little too well..."

"Should we have our psych team check her out to see if she has any reason to do this?" Ms. Janssen questioned as she copied some notes from Techi's record.

"No. She'll learn soon enough." Kenichi said as he turned around to leave the room, "Also see if you can get another rifle for her to use. She put them to excellent use."