fandomhigh | Alternative Tactics, Wednesday Period 1, 05/09

Sarah Kerrigan stood in the middle of an empty Danger Shop, wearing a simplified version of the Ghost armor. She had a serious expression on her face.

"Hey, kids," she said, "Welcome to Alternative Tactics, which is a pretty poor grouping name for a bundle of skills and knowledge you're going to need on the battlefield when you don't have a large army at your back and the bad guys seem to be holding most of the cards. Situations where ingenuity, resource management, stealth and superior maneuvering can save the day."

"I'm Lieutenant Kerrigan; I'll be your instructor for the duration. We'll be working in the environment I'm most familiar with. You'll find, however, that a lot of these concepts and skills will be of use no matter where or how you're fighting."

The Shoppe environment gave way when Kerrigan activated the program. It reconfigured into the dry asphalt tundra of the Badlands. She was standing on the rooftop of some burned out shops, holding her weapon gently.

"For the time being, though... You'll need some Marine armor for the course, so pick whatever color you're feeling," she grinned, "And have a look around. Get a feel for the sim. I'll see you at the end."

She turned around to leave, but then paused. "Oh, and you've got guns," she noted, "Point and click. Don't be an idiot and shoot someone. It won't kill you, but I'd rather not waste your time and mine reactivating frozen suits." Smirking, she hopped onto the ground.

[ ~~wait for~~ ocd up! ]

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This, of course, prompted Mikey to try another backflip, because, really, was there a faster way to get out of the way of a bunch of screeching things with claws like those?

Of course there were faster ways, given that, once again, Mikey was totally thwarted by the suit, did a rather impressive nose-dive-half-tumble, and he found himself reaching for something he never thought he'd be reaching for- the gun.

The Zerglings had no idea what the big flopsing Terran-thing was trying to do, but they knew they wanted it dead and they wanted it dead now. The front one launched itself at Mikey, bridging several feet in one bound.

It was big and toothy and had claw things and was coming closer to him and Michelangelo realized at about that point that he had never fired a gun before, so he rolled over and scooted backward on his rear while pointing the weapon at the angry toothy thing and held his breath and hoped that he didn't miss.

The good thing about marine weapons were that they weren't constructed by people who had any real confidence in marine accuracy. The Zergling leading the pack crashed mid-leap, various wounds immobilizing it almost completely.

Finding their weird floppy enemy to be slightly less helpless than they thought, the two remaining Zerglings lunged at Mikey from both sides.

Here was where Mikey was faced with something of a dilemma- he was still on his behind, and he could only shoot one big ugly toothy thing at a time, and by the time he did, the other one would have big, pointy things sticking through him, and that would be a really bogus day to end a class.
Which ugly thing to shoot?

The answer of the day was 'neither.' Mikey stayed put until the lest possible moment, and then attempted another roll backward.

It wasn't the most graceful roll, of course, and he was still on his rear when it was through, but at least he wasn't where the teeth were headed.

The Zerglings snarled, turned around lightening-quick and went for Mikey again.

And then one of them exploded.

The other, momentarily flummoxed, twisted around to try to compensate for whatever new threat had just arrived-- only to explode, too. Nasty.

Kerrigan appeared on the scene, balancing her rifle on her arm, almost as if out of nowhere.

Mikey did a good deal of staring in awe.

"Dude, that was a dozen different kinds of awesome. And, uh. Gross."

Wordlessly, she shot the crippled Zergling through the head, then turned to snap at Mikey. "What the hell were you thinking?" Kerrigan demanded, "No horsing around on the battlefield."

Mikey did some more staring, this time a little less awed and a little more 'eep.'

"This isn't anything like what I'm used to," he tried feebly, looking down at his toes. Oh, man, had he ever blown it. "It won't happen again. I promise."

"Your armor has a different range of movement," Kerrigan said, shortly. "Keep that in mind, or you'll get killed. Take yourself down to target practice."

She offered him a hand; the Ghost suit's make-up, dressed down as it was, still afforded her enough strength to pull Mikey up if she had to.

"Right, target practice," Mikey nodded a little and took the hand that was offered to him. Guns had always made him a little queasy, but if he was going to be in this class, the least he could do was learn how to use them without being a maniac about it.
Right.
"So I can learn to... shoot stuff. And stuff."

She pulled him up to his feet. Her eyes softened just a little bit. "So you can learn to keep yourself alive," Kerrigan said, quietly. "Get going."

Mikey had to agree- alive was a good thing.

Without saying another word, he nodded briskly and scurried (as well as one can scurry in a big orange suit) off to do some target practice.

Alternative Tactics, Wednesday Period 1, 05/09

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