WEEK 1

[bathymetric]

Well, you've now met the brains of the operation, as well as the shockingly nice-looking young lady in charge of day-to-day business. Now all that's left is to get used to your accommodations - there's 24 other people in similar shoes to yours to meet in this building, you know! And who knows how much longer you might have them...

The daily routine in the facility quickly becomes obvious - the only way to tell time moment to moment is to check the strange device The Professor gave you, but at the same time every day the lights in and out of the facility go up, and at the same time every night they go down. Otherwise, it's almost maddening sometimes, how little happens in here. At least you have a few rooms with enough to hopefully keep you occupied. Who knows what secrets they might hold? And there's always that vending machine, if you can find something that fits in the coin slot...





MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
FRIDAY | SATURDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Peace Week! Enjoy it while it lasts. Remember, office hours for The Professor's Assistant are over here if you're interested, while regains can be deposited over here! ]

Comments

[drladysounds]

That's what I was hoping you'd say. [Shelley stretches because that's what you do when exercising] Childers are trained from a young age to dodge projectiles in a savage, merciless battlefield. Now you will see!

[What a way to describe dodgeball, huh. She's bouncing on her feet like that's what she came here for in the first place, yup]

...would it be fair if you use that huge ball, though? I don't mind, but some would say it'd be dishonourable.

god this is the dumbest shit in the world i'm so glad

[hardnosed]

[ She was kind of expecting a denial and rapid exit from the room, but this? This is something she can almost appreciate. It's also a smart move to bring up honor to keep from getting inadvertently brained with a giant ball, even if Jasper looks more than a little skeptical in response. ]

How merciless a battlefield can it be without real stakes? [ But she also doesn't trust Shelley to like... not die if she goes all out on her with something heavy, and she doesn't particularly want to commit a murder like this, so the point is taken. ] But fine — what's your alternative?

I'm so glad too, haha!

[drladysounds]

[Shelley thinks for a moment, looking around. There's nothing here that seems both small enough and...not deadly, unless they count the dumbbells, and that's just tempting fate. No, there has to be something else.

...oh! Idea!]

Give me a minute, I got an idea.

[She says, jogging out of the gym. One minute later, she returns carrying a basket full of tomatoes. Red, large, and very bright tomatoes, clearly ripe. Shelley puts it on the floor]

It may be hard to believe, but getting hit with these at high speeds hurts. It also will explode if it hits, so it's not like I would be able to get hit and lie saying I wasn't.

[She hopes she won't regret this. Do tomatoes leave bruises? Shelley's going to find out, yeah]

[hardnosed]

[ By the time Shelley's back, Jasper has at least done her the favor of pushing some of the stuff back to where it initially was. It is, of course, self-motivated. How's she going to dodge to the best of her ability if there's no room for her to maneuver? (This is a level of consideration she would absolutely not give anyone normally, but Shelley is just a regular human! To entertain this ridiculous exercise is to debase herself already; the extra embarrassment of giving her opponent a leg up is minimal, and it might help make this more interesting.)

She stalks on over to the basket and bends to pick it up. ]

Huh. [ As she straightens, she weighs one tomato experimentally in her hand. The heft is less than impressive. ] You got this from the [ fuck what's it called ] kitchen?

[drladysounds]

That's right. They'll give you anything you want, as long as it's food-related. [She shrugs] I don't think they'll be happy it's being used for war, but they just don't understand what's important in life.

[More like Shelley doesn't particularly mind causing a biiiiit of trouble for the Professor and his staff]

[hardnosed]

[ She looks at the tomato in her hand, apparently contemplating it. ]

Another pointless waste of resources, then? [ Uh-oh and now she's throwing it without warning while grunting— ] Good!

[ The tomato goes deliberately wide and whizzes past Shelley's head, hitting the wall with a thunderous splat. Jasper's already grabbed another one. ]

That — was a warning shot. [ WAR IS HELL, SHELLEY ] The only one you'll get.

[drladysounds]

How sportsmanlike!

[She certainly was with her guard down for a moment. Shelley gets to the bucket and takes out several tomatoes at once, getting some distance from Jasper. Her way of throwing is not optimal and she seems to aim more towards where Jasper will be instead of where she actually is, meaning she's...wrong like half of the time. Oh well]

[hardnosed]

[ She ducks down to grab another one before eyeing her opponent and reacting to her salvo of tomatoes, though she makes no move to get any further distance between the two of them. It turns out that, for someone her size, Jasper is surprisingly fast. Moreover, when she's got a relatively cool head, she's pretty good at reading an enemy's movements. It seems to her like Shelley's trying to predict where she'll go and hit her there, which is a pretty bold move, considering, but it also means literally all she has to do is go in the opposite direction from her guess, or stand still, in order to evade her throws completely. ]

Is that seriously the best you've got?

[ That said, she's also an unfathomably large target, and she has no concept of dodgeball rules, so when Shelley does aim correctly she just raises her forearm to block it. It bounces off her and hits the ground, much the worst for wear. (She manages to hit her in the hair like half the time, though, which Jasper doesn't seem to notice.) She raises her arm, now lightly tomatoed, in preparation to throw. ]

Stop playing around and put some force behind it. [ On "force", she lobs the tomato straight at what she's got to assume is a human's center of mass (so, the abdomen) as if pitching a fastball. ]

[drladysounds]

I have already hit you a couple times!

[The tomato juice is the proof! Although she's not sure if she's imagining it -- it's red on orange, not easy to see! The fastball tomato flies fast, grazing her and pretty much freaking her out. Oh, snap, that was like a bullet.

Shelley needs to stop challenging people who are far better fighters than she is. Which is...pretty much everyone, she's not a fighter. No, this is not good. Better end this quickly]

But fine! No more playing around!

[Taking as many tomatoes as she can, she...pretty much launches herself at Jasper like she's going to shove all those tomatoes on her at once and also herself. Not the time for a desperate attack, Shelley!]

[hardnosed]

[ Oh, boy. ]

You've hit me— [ and she grins as she, too, runs at Shelley at full tilt, despite her newly acquired arsenal ] —but you haven't stopped me! In a real battle, your enemy won't just give up. It doesn't matter how many points you score.

[ But at just the moment where it seems she might stampede straight into her, tomatoes be damned, Jasper makes a hairpin turn and dashes past Shelley. ]

What matters [ and she turns on her heel, winds up, and throws her last tomato straight at Shelley's back, right between her shoulderblades ] is finishing them.

[drladysounds]

[You know, holding so many tomatoes at once may have been her undoing. When Jasper passes by, Shelley tries to turn around, some tilting like they're about to fall. Stopping them distracted her just long enough to be unable to even move while Jasper threw that.

Bam. It hits her right between her shoulderblades indeed! Shelley trips forward, falling on the bunch of tomatoes she had, and making a whole mess on the floor and herself. If someone came along, they may think this was a real murder, hah! Defeated, she can only lie down.

Despite that, she's laughing a little]

...wow, I made such a fool of myself. This is what I get for getting into a fight I was guaranteed to lose.

[Not that she regrets it. It was fun]

[hardnosed]

[ Jasper stands over her, and there's like... something more pleasant about her expression now. It's not much, and in fact is barely identifiable at all, but there's been some kind of shift in attitude. This is true primarily because Shelley can't actually see it at the moment. ]

At least you admit it. [ She circles around, so that when Shelley eventually gets up she'll be looming in front of her. Not holding out a hand or doing anything to help, of course, but at least she didn't walk out! ] There's nothing more pathetic than someone who doesn't know they never had a chance.

[ This is among the top ten in Jasper's long, long list of hypocritical statements, but it's fine, nobody's here to write her callout post. She rubs at the arm that got hit, casually scanning the room for all the poor tomatoes that gave their lives for this exercise. ]

Is agility training always this messy?

[drladysounds]

When training is good and useful either you end sore, or everything around you is destroyed. That has to be a golden rule of some sort.

[No pain, no gain. Or...in this case the pain is cleaning up everything.

...on the other hand...]

I don't really feel like cleaning any of this up.

[Let the Professor handle it, she thinks while standing up]

[hardnosed]

[ She shrugs, lifting one of her arms in a very vague gesture. ]

I don't see any rules about keeping this place neat. He can deal with it.

[ And if not, Seteth can just come in tomorrow and have a coronary! It'll be funny. Jasper looks over at the showers. ]

Maybe use one of those chambers first, though.