fandomhigh | Philosophy of Choice, Monday, Period One

Today's class was in the Danger Shop, set up to look remarkably familiar to Ronan, but likely not at all to anyone else.

Welcome, everyone, to the oldest, best known, and most active worldgating facility in our part of the galaxy.

Welcome to the Crossings. Don't worry, the floating ceilings aren't about to fall on you.

"A few years ago," Ronan began, forgoing a preamble, "two of my best friends were trapped here while trying to get back to Earth when mercenaries hired to stop them began firing upon them." He snapped his hands and the light, airy Crossings architecture went dark, scorched, empty -- signs of battle all around. Blaster fire shot past the class (at a wide margin, thankfully) around a large block of probably-stone that was granting them cover. "Now, these friends, like me, are wizards. We're sworn to save life, to guard it, not to take it. But these mercenaries had no qualms shooting to kill, and they threatened not only my friends' lives, but the entire Crossings -- and, if they stopped my friends from completing their mission, potentially the entire universe. So what's a wizard to do?"

Ronan pointed across the hallway where, behind another block of possibly-stone, a young, red-haired girl -- no older than fourteen, and so younger than most if not all of the students in the class -- held a long, glowing... something in the vague shape of a gun. After a moment's concentration, she held up one hand and the blaster fire began to splatter against an invisible wall, highlighting its shape as she stood up and faced the aliens. "In Life's name, and for Its sake," she called out, "I advise you that I am here on the business of the Powers that Be! Your actions toward me, and through me, toward Them, will determine the continuance or revocation of your present status. Be warned by me, and desist!"

Snorting a bit, Ronan said, "It didn't work, of course." In fact, the blaster fire aimed at the girl seemed to have increased in frequency, not the opposite, and she had begun taking careful aim with her gun-like-glowing-thing and firing bolts of light at the mercenaries. "But this is the choice she made: give them a chance to stand down, before firing back -- do harm instead of healing."

Another snap -- Ronan did have a flair for the dramatic -- and a crate appeared beside him. Opening it up, he revealed a set of blasters, mostly of the pistol variety but with a few longer, shotgun-like ones as well. "So what do you do?" he asked. "Do you fight back? Try to find a way around? Your goal is the transit pad at the other end of the hallway. There's a screen on your blaster that highlights the goal."

[~~Wait for~~ OCD is up!]

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Pick your blaster. There's some (limited) body armor, too, but it's heavy enough that you may sacrifice speed if you use it.

Cassidy was no good at guns from any world and it didn't look like these would be any different.

She bit her lip and pulled up a tiger-eye shield before looking around to see if there was something else she could form into a weapon.

Surreal looked at the blaster. Then she looked at Ronan. "Do I have to use that?" she asked, pointing at it. "I'd rather my own weapons."

"What do you have with you?" Ronan asked. "I may disallow specifics."

Surreal quirked a half-grin. "Everything?" she tried. "Can the room make fake-throwing knives, if you'd rather I do not use live weaponry?"

Ronan nodded. "It can," he said. "Normally they'd be useless against these guys -- conventional weaponry's no good against their armor. Unless you had something else in mind for them?"

What? The guy's sword can light itself on fire, and was once used to cut open a doorway between worlds. He's ready to accept that 'throwing knives' may not end up being used just for the pointy ends.

"Right down the barrel of that thing they seem so keen on pointing at me," she said sourly. "I do not like your 'guns.'"

Ronan considered this for a moment, running through the mechanics he'd programmed in. "That... should be effective, yes," he said. "Although if you're that precise, you might try targeting the small cylinder on the side of the barrel? It's a defect in the model of blaster they use. If you hit it right, it should blow up in their hands."

No snapping this time, but Ronan did ~~handwavily~~ fiddle with the programming to bring in some throwing knives.

There is enough, and large enough, debris on the floor to make dodging from cover to cover feasible -- but the mercenaries aren't likely to stop firing at you long enough without some incentive. Maybe some teamwork would come in handy?

Do something stupid? Surreal? When being targeted by hostile males?

...well, only on days that ended in 'y.'

"You boyos best not be wanting this fight," she sang out, fingering her weapons. "A round of ale if we can be finishing this spat later?"

...yeah, preeetty unlikely. At all. But at least Surreal was pretending to be a decent person.

Once you make it down the hallway, you see something you don't expect:

A field hospital, with wounded aliens. At least half of them are the same species as the mercenaries you've been fighting... and from the armour and weaponry nearby, it seems likely that they're part of the same mercenary corps.

"Oh, good," you hear, as an alien approaches you. "With the damage to the infrastructure, we don't have enough power to 'gate everyone over to the hospital, but if we wire your blasters in, that should be enough."

Philosophy of Choice, Monday, Period One

Practical Exercise

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