Scene: The Death Box
Jill and Alex stood in the arena, waiting for Mick's instructions.
In the control center, Mick drummed his fingers impatiently while a progress bar said "installing software". The word on the display changed from "installing" to "configuring". He leaned forward to make an announcement to fill the time while his fighters were waiting. "Okay, what we're doing here is a little something special. There's this program I found and I want to see if it works. I'm adjusting the rules a bit, so Jill, I'm cheating in your favor and letting you take lots of extra damage this fight and reducing the damage of Alex's attacks."
Alex lowered her head and her gun arm, her body language showing that she was not happy about the change as Mick continued telling Jill the new rules. "However, if this works, you will take damage every time you miss a shot. So today, you will practice your aim and make your shots count. You ready for that?"
"Um, I suppose." Jill was as ready as she was going to be. She knew how difficult it was to hit Alex.
Mick changed Alex's mood with a few words. "Alex, you ready to make her miss?" Alex set her footing and raised her gun-arm, ready to fight. Mick looked at the program's status. The installation had finished and the new program was almost done configuring the arena, and then it was ready. "Okay, we'll start the fight in three... two... one... go."
Jill aimed cautiously while stepping sideways to try to dodge whatever Alex would bring. She fired a few shots. Alex broke her movement with sudden stops and made several acrobatic spins, always coming out on her feet and returning fire from the maneuver. Most of Jill's shots missed. Most of Alex's shots were hitting. Jill began to put more effort into dodging. She found it easier to move around the arena while wearing plain clothes and not the softsuit, but now was not the time to think about it.
Jill continued aiming and firing, landing three hits in a row before missing again. She was also starting to guess when Alex would fire and to begin her dodges beforehand. Jill felt a slight sting on her next miss. She kept fighting, taking more care in her aim as each miss caused an increasingly annoying pain that discouraged her from firing at all.
Mick called out. "Stop the match. Stop fighting. Jill, you already stopped fighting. What's the problem?"
Jill lowered her weapon to explain. "It's hurting me when I shoot."
Mick explained. "It is not actually hurting. It only feels like it. You are fine. Remember that. And it happens when you miss so the answer is to stop missing, not to stop fighting. In a real match you'll be shooting a lot and sometimes you'll be missing intentionally to make your opponent move in the direction you want them to. I just want you to get good at hitting your target when you're trying to hit them. You were doing better before the pain set in so I'll reset the match and I'll call a stop when it gets up to this level. Oh, by the way. Your explosions? It's counting those as a miss even if the explosion hits Alex because technically your shot is a miss if it hits the floor or the wall. Alright, you read to start another match?"
Alex stood as ready as always. Jill said "I guess so."
Mick said "Alright, go for it." Jill and Alex turned at each other and began trading shots back and forth again. After some time, Jill again started to feel the pain when she missed. She refused to let it bother her this time. Her shots were beginning to knock Alex around, a sign that the arena had decided that Alex had received too much damage.
Jill grit her teeth and fought through the pain. She traded several more shots with the bounty hunter until two hits sent Alex flying back into the wall. Jill looked up in the direction of the control room and asked Mick "Did I win?" She was answered by a blast from Alex's arm cannon that knocked her to the ground. She picked up her gun and continued fighting.
Both fighters' shots were starting to knock each other around, sometimes for comically long distances. Jill's missed shots were starting to both hurt and knock her backwards when they struck the arena's surface. It was now taking Alex some time to recover from Jill's hits. Jill took advantage of this extra time to ready a blue plasma shot. She fired into floor where Alex was landing after another leap. The blast sent Alex to the roof while the arena retaliated against Jill by knocking her on her back. Jill felt paralyzed for a moment, briefly wondering if something was wrong with her before remembering that this was another of the arena's effects.
Alex landed on the ground several meters away from her. Jill sat up, breathing heavily, and looked over at Alex. "Should we call that even?"
Alex answered from the floor. "Only because Mick cheated for you." It took another moment for her paralysis to wear off before she should push herself off the ground.
Mick gave his opinion. "Not bad. Jill, your aim is getting better. Tomorrow we'll go back to normal you won't be able to take nearly as many hits."
Celestia had entered the arena and had a request for Mick. "Could you set the arena to normal now?"
Mick was happy to let Celestia join in. "Oh, hi, Tia. Yeah, you want another go with Alex? Go ahead."
Celestia drew her sword and approached Jill. "Prepare yourself."
Jill was surprised. "What? I don't think I'm ready to take you on."
Celestia approached Jill aggressively. "You have three seconds to become ready."
"What?" It took Jill all three seconds to recognize that she needed to raise her gun. Celestia knocked it to the side with her sword and thrust forward, knocking Jill backward so hard that Jill was forced to take a few steps to stay on her feet. Off-balance and unable to aim, Jill fired a shot into the ground. Celestia kept advancing and slashed Jill twice, knocking her down. Jill stood back up and started stepping backwards to try to open some distance between them, but Celestia was advancing as fast as she was retreating.
Jill tried to aim her gun forward and fired toward Celestia's left hip. Celestia spun away from the shot and attacked out of the spin, swinging her sword into Jill's body. Jill grimaced from the pain and tried to grasp Celestia's sword with her hand, but that hurt her again as the arena registered it as another hit. Celestia struck Jill in the gut with an open-palm strike that knocked her to the ground.
Mick gave Jill some advice from above. "Hey Jill, if your gun's not working out then you need to hit her with whatever you have. Biting is not allowed for some reason unless you register it as one of your attacks before the match, but besides that, just about anything else goes."
Celestia had politely waited for Mick to finish talking before attacking again. Jill shot her, the hit causing a brief pause in Celestia's movement before she once again knocked Jill's gun aside. Jill stepped aside to dodge Celestia's sword thrust, which came in above Jill's right elbow. Jill stepped in and pushed Celestia away with her free hand.
Mick was disappointed. "That barely registered as damage. You need to hit her."
Celestia sheathed her sword because it was giving her such an advantage that the fight was useless for training Jill. She held up her hands in a combat stance. "Come on. Hit me as hard as you can."
Sweating, tired, and confused, Jill lowered her gun and hesitated. "I don't want to hurt you." Her exhaustion had caused her to forget the qualities of the arena.
Alex lowered her head and tried not to laugh at Jill, while Mick berated her. "You're not going to hurt her! She'd have sliced you in half three times by now if the arena didn't make sure that you wouldn't be hurt!"
"Oh. That's right." Jill approached Celestia and attacked with a clumsy punch. Celestia deflected the punch, or tried to. She did not put enough force into the deflection, and Jill struck the top of Celestia's helmet. Celestia prepared for the next blow, blocked it properly, and followed it with several rapid strikes until Jill was knocked to the ground again.
Mick gave Jill some more advice. "Jill, you gotta be more aggressive How's this. Imagine that Tia is one of those space lizards that attacked your planet and you wanna get back at her."
Jill looked down at the shorter Celestia. That idea was not going to work. "She's too short to be a lizard."
"Pretend!" Mick raised his voice at her.
Celestia assumed a battle stance and slowly advanced on Jill, waiting for Jill to commit to a move. In a moment Jill imagined that Celestia had been replaced a nine-foot tall space lizard in power armor, roaring in its eagerness to slaughter her. The lower midsection of its power armor evaporated at the sides and revealed smaller forearms tipped with two clawed fingers. The lizards that she fought did not have lower forearms, but a threat was a threat. Jill rushed in, pushed one of its forearms aside, and landed a solid kick on the lizard.
Celestia landed on the floor and heard her helmet clatter away behind her. She sat up, brushed her blonde hair back from her eyes, and turned to Jill with an approving smile. "That was a good start." She stood up and charged toward Jill, attacking again without bothering to retrieve her helmet.
Celestia evaded Jill's fists and knocked Jill down with swift palm strikes that were amplified by the arena's systems due to the hits that Jill had already taken. She allowed Jill to stand up, knocked her down again, and waited for Jill to get to her feet again.
Unable to win with technique, Jill lunged forward and used her greater height to knock Celestia over and pin her to the ground.
Alex approved of the simple maneuver. "That actually counts."
Celestia was not about to lose yet. "So does this." A bolt of lightning burst through Jill, knocking her off Celestia and far across the arena.
Lying on the floor, Jill was frozen by the arena's systems for longer than she had been before. Was she actually hurt? Did the lightning interfere with her nanites? She breathed heavily, starting to panic.
Celestia walked over to Jill and offered her a hand up. Jill turned her eyes toward Celestia but could not move her head. Suddenly, after nine or ten seconds, she could move again. Jill took Celestia's offered hand and stood up, still worried about her temporary paralysis. "Something was wrong. I couldn't move. Was that the arena?"
"Possibly," Celestia answered. Both of them looked up toward the control center for an answer.
Mick answered. "Yeah, that was the arena. You took a lot of hits and then one big one. It'll do that to you. You hit close to the upper limit of what it'll stun you for. Let me look in the logs... yeah, right at the end, 9.7 seconds."
Celestia gave Jill advice as they walked together towards the center of the arena. "When you enter the tournament, you will face opponents with many different fighting styles. Some will use magic. Some will fight with a sword. Some will fight hand-to-hand. You will need to be ready for anything."
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