RE: The Opulent Quarrel - Round One: Mademoiselle Primfel's
01-27-2016, 10:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-27-2016, 10:08 AM by Sai.)
Gurska was not at all opposed to blood sport. She had fond memories of training with gladiators-to-be on Tauri V and had competed frequently in Assault Ship Arena on the rare occasions that she had found a backer willing to sponsor a Taurus pilot. While neither of these were life and death situations, the fact that she both faced combat as her profession and had a cultural inclination to appreciate arena combat meant that she found being in a battle to the death to not be objectionable in its own right. No, the reason that Gurska silently swore to crush the Sophisticate’s skull with her armored fist was not that she was fighting for his entertainment. The reason was that she had not been given a choice. If she had been offered a wish in exchange for killing these other combatants, she would have strongly considered accepting it, given time and opportunity. Being yanked out of her transport ship on the eve of combat and told that she must fight, however, was unacceptable. Those who fought in the arena without a choice were prisoners and being imprisoned was a disgrace to the clan. The uniform also wasn’t helping.
The fact that it had appeared over her armor was welcome, as she had grown used to wearing the overlapping plate and envirogel encounter suit. Perhaps too used to it for a proper Taurus, but the Karr were never known to give up an advantage, and the high tech armor had proven its worth often enough. The shirt and blazer atop it seemed to offer no such utility. She twisted her torso, then raised an arm, straining the cloth. She raised her arm further, then bent it towards herself and flexed, prompting an audible rip in the fabric. She snorted, then simply tore off the sleeves of both the blazer and the shirt. Flexing again, she looked down over herself and nodded. The grey and blue garment now looked more like a tabard than a shirt, albeit not in the glorious red and gold of the Karr Dominion, and no longer hindered her movement. As long as it didn’t get in the way it would be allowed to stay. As for the skirt - she gave an experimental swish - well, that could stay for now too.
Immediate concern addressed, she started to study her environment. The room that she found herself in was devoid of visible life, but filled with small desks and uncomfortably undersized chairs. Perhaps it was a storage facility of some kind - no, wait, she had seen such rooms before. The Mercenary Coalition had used a similar environment for training their youngest. The lack of screens was unusual, but perhaps this place was too primitive or ascetic to employ such technology. If so, it would be an ideal location to employ her long underused battleaxe. She reached over her shoulder for the weapon, felt nothing, and reached again, grasping at air. She spun in place, arms questing at her sides for her ammunition and fuel canister. All missing. Then she saw the bag on the desk in front of her. Opening it, she found a map (useful), a small book titled “New Student Guide” (dubious), a brochure of some sort advertising the school and its values (useless), and a schedule. She pulled out the map promptly ignored the rest. She unfolded the map onto the desk and knelt down to study it. The simplistic paper seemed designed for temporary use, and lacked the detail needed to form a proper plan of assault. The map did, however, have a dormitory marked in a hideous purple, which she could only assume to be a designation that she had a room there. She rose, folding the map up again and replaced the bag’s contents. She then swung it over her shoulder and walked directly to the room’s only door, sending out cacophonous groans of wood grinding over stone as she simply strode through the furniture on her way out. As she approached the door, she could hear a dull murmur from the other side. Either there was some sort of active machinery in this place, or she wasn’t alone as she had thought. Oh no. Not alone at all.
The hallway was crowded with women, most of whom didn’t stand much taller than Gurska’s waist. They all wore the uniform that Gurska had found herself in, with some slight variations in color or cut. She drew a few glances from the students, but not nearly as much as she would have expected given the appearance of a woman nearly twice their height and five times their weight. Gurksa looked out into the hallway for a few more seconds, then quietly closed the door. Perhaps I should read the guide after all.
--
A short read later, Gurska was assured of three things:
First, this school was a terrible place for a battle. With an oppressive administration that somehow had the raw power to keep a vast variety of interdimensional beings in check, it would be difficult to initiate any sort of all out open combat without both fighters being apprehended and subjected to whatever ghoulish punishments a school that quite literally prided itself on being ‘authoritarian’ would have in store. It would also be nigh impossible to use any of her preferred weapons without inflicting terrible civilian casualties. She doubted that even the stone walls would last long against rounds fired from an autocannon designed to penetrate the reinforced metal plating used in combat craft, and the fire from her flamethrower would be likely to overfill a corridor and spill out into any open rooms along its path. Given that she had received no contract urging restraint (or, for that matter, any contract at all), there was no explicit incentive to avoid such unnecessary death and destruction, but in Gurska’s experience, it usually paid to keep things from getting too messy.
Second, this school was a terrible place in general. With an elaborate system of demerits for almost any activity outside of the scope of an uneventful school day and a policy of never expelling students regardless of their antisocial behavior, the school environment reminded Gurska more of a prison than any sort of learning institution. While most of its student body doubtlessly went about their lives without the authorities doing much more than looming as an unchallengeable threat overhead, she was sure that there were at least a handful of students that were unable to be molded in a manner acceptable to the school’s founder, especially given the variety of students that the manual’s ‘diversity’ section had boasted about.
Third, her weapons were most likely in her dorm. To her surprise, while the school had stringent regulations on what food could be brought into its grounds, it had no such rules regarding weaponry. It had supply storage areas for its various sports teams, but it lacked a proper armory as far as she could tell, which led her to believe that if her weapons were on the grounds at all, then they would be in her room along with any other supplies that she may have had with her when she was unceremoniously whisked away. It was a big if, she realized, but it would at least be worth checking. If she was to fight without her weapons, she could make do, and she told herself to keep an eye out for anything that she could use to make an improvised weapon.
With a better understanding of the school that she had found herself in, the mercenary marched back over to the door, and prepared herself to brave the crowd of little girls once again. To her surprise, the corridor was now empty.
--
It had been nearly an hour since Gurska had exited the classroom in which she had been placed by the seemingly random logic of the battlemaster and she was somehow further from her dorm than she had been when she had started. Though there was certainly a great degree of rhyme and reason to the school’s layout, its labyrinthine corridors proved difficult for the Taurus to navigate, and she had quickly gotten lost in one of the outlying wings of the school.
Getting to the ground floor had been easy enough - all she had to do was take every stairway down that she found. After a brief sojourn through a basement that had not lived up to the standards of aromatic hygiene espoused by the manual, she had emerged at the appropriate level. Navigating in two dimensions had proven to be no less difficult, however, and while the ‘Colossus’ dorm seemed to be at a far corner of the campus alongside the other dorms, she still hadn’t managed to find her way out of the castle-like compound containing the majority of the classrooms. Clearly it was time to ask for directions, yet as far as she could tell, the hallways were desolate.
Just as she was ready to implement the 'Always Turn Left' plan of maze solving, a distant bell tolled. After a slight delay, all of the doors lining the hallways opened within seconds of each other, and the crowd of young women that she had seen an hour earlier rematerialized as class was dismissed. Gurksa went from having no one to ask to having too many potential navigators, and scanned the diverse (if still usually short) crowd of students to find a likely mark. A loud, steady thump of heavy metal against stone prompted her to turn around, and she saw one of the few denizens of the school that she recognized - a fellow contestant in this mad battle.
Somewhat shorter than Gurska herself, Gunzelurge stood a mere head and shoulders over most of the students that had filled the hallways, but she was nearly as wide as the Taurus, making her ability to navigate the crowd a surprise. Nevertheless, she seemed to be proceeding at a steady jog whose audible approach enabled the crowd of students - technically other students, as the gladiators appeared to have been officially enrolled - to get out of the way. Whereas Gunzelurge believed their evasion to be common courtesy, Gurska recognized it as panic. Not that there was any problem with sowing panic every now and then, but it did made it difficult to acquire directions.
She could put that goal aside for now. While Gurksa didn’t fancy taking a fight with the second largest battler, talking with this particular rival would likely be helpful. Given how resilient her metal body appeared to be, it would likely be helpful to work with her, at least for a start. There were plenty of other opponents, after all, and forming a team would likely be the best way to get started. While the current of smaller folk cleared out a path around her, Gurska stood her ground and raised a hand in greeting.
Gunzelurge would have liked to chat, under whatever unordinary circumstances would have placed in her and Gurska in a calm room together, but for now she was in a hurry. She was eager to find her horse, and naturally the horsemanship class would be the place to find it. A chat with the mercenary would have to wait. She would move aside. Fragiles always moved.
So she wasn’t stopping. That was odd. People always stopped.Gurska raised her second hand, placing both in front of her in what she hoped to be a universal symbol.
Gunzelurge altered her course by a diplomatic five degrees. If others could show some simple courtesy, well, so could she. Tolerance was key, after all.
Gurska noted the shift, then stepped in front of her.
Her left hand reached for the metal druid’s wrist while her right gripped the intersection of one thick metal arm and the core of Gunzelurge’s chasis. Turning away from her at an angle, the Taurus bent forward, dropping to one knee and using her body as a fulcrum to throw the charging Pheral. She grunted as she felt the impact of the construct’s center of mass hitting hitting her shoulder. Her armor absorbed most of the concussive force, fortunately, and that same inertia carried Gunzelurge forward as her wide feet were lifted from the ground. For a brief moment, she was upside down and almost fully vertical, with her legs straight in the air while her head plummeted directly towards the floor, aided in its flight by the mercenary’s grip on her armpit.
Though the entire maneuver lasted a split second, the feeling of weightlessness seemed to last much longer. Well this hasn’t happened in a while. Reminds me of home.
Gunzelurge hit the hallway floor face first, shattering the dull grey stone. Plumes of dust rose up around them, prompting a fit of exaggerated coughing from the numerous and nervous bystanders. The Pheral’s feet hung in the air for a moment longer, before being reduced to their point of lowest potential energy with a clang that would have been dramatic had it not been preceded by an even greater impact. Gunzelurge found herself lying face up, and looking into the curious gaze of her assailant.
Gurska studied the solid steel face of the woman that she had just thrown. She was only slightly surprised to find that it was undamaged. ”Sturdy.” She paused only briefly, as she had already decided that the two should be friends. “You should join my team. Standard contract.” She rose, then reached down with one hand to help the Pheral up.
Though she didn’t need the assistance to rise, Gunzelurge accepted it all the same. People enjoyed feeling useful, and she saw no reason to decline the offer. She probably wasn’t going to be thrown again, and the first time hadn’t proved particularly painful. The large Fragile’s armor-played bicep trembled with the strain of taking on a large portion of Gunzelurge’s weight. ”Your-offer-of a. Team arrangement is. Agreeable. I would-be-happy-to. Learn-more-about. You. As-for-the standard contract -” Before she could ask the critical question about what she was signing up for, a small and imperious woman who had been pushing her way through the onlookers demanded their attention.
Standing a hair under five feet in height even with the aid of her uncomfortable looking heels, she was notably short even among the (relatively) small-statured populace of the school. Though bearing a slender frame commensurate with her diminutive statue, she was visibly older than the students and held her head up at an angle to ensure that she was looking down her nose at most everyone she spoke with. Though usually effective when applied to students nearer to her in size, she had to tilt her head nearly perfectly backwards to apply this same effect to the two taller ‘troublemakers.’ Unfortunately, this made her half-moon glasses slide up her snout, ruining the intended dismissive effect.
“What’s this? What’s this?” she demanded as she ran her gaze over first Gunzelurge, who still had shards of the broken hallway floor stuck to the grooves on her head and shoulders, and then over Gurska, who had quickly recognized the woman as belonging to some sort of local authority and stood to attention. Though she didn’t recognize either of the students, she already disliked them. Ripped sleeves, heavy plated armor - yes, this was clearly one of those badminton players, she thought to herself. Oh how I loath those athletes, with their undue pride in physical accomplishments. Well if this girl couldn’t show the proper respect, then would learn to regret it, oh yes.
“Mlle. Du Pice,” she said finally, introducing herself to the pair. “And you two must be…” she trailed off for a moment as she flicked her thumb over a small glowing screen in her hand. The bright colors of the device’s interface was a stark contrast to the plain black on white and green on black that Gurska was used to, and for a moment she was unsure if the woman was truly navigating through her record system or had simply been distracted by her device. Nevertheless, both girls managed to stay stoic until Du Pice piped up with a high pitched “Ah ha! New students. And already unruly. I suppose you think that you can just trot on in and act like you own the place, don’t you princess?”
“That title is not relevant.”
“Hmph. I’m glad you recognize that, at least.” Du Pice was surprised by what she misinterpreted as modesty from the armored Taurus, but carried on all the same. “Now, why don’t you tell me what exactly has happened? If you’ve been fighting, it will be more than just demerits for the both of you!” She looked from one to the other, expecting an argument between the two and possibly even some lovely outright insolence. Oh yes, that would lead to a well deserved detention for one or both of these upstarts. To her surprise, she received neither.
“I made a mistake, ma’am.” Gurska rumbled. “I attempted to halt my comrade here, and in so doing have damaged your base.”
“No-harm-done. Mademoiselle. Du Pice.” Gunzelurge reassured the teacher in her most pleasant tone. “I also apologize-for. The damage.”
“W-well then.” The teacher was somewhat taken aback by the unexpected obedience of the two, and even more surprised by their apparent amiability. Still, as far as surprises went, their courtesy was a pleasant one. Perhaps she had misjudged them after all. Turning to Gunzelurge first, she decided to release the obviously innocent one first. “Seeing as you’ve done nothing wrong from the sound of things, you may run along now.”
Gunzelurge enthusiastically obeyed, resuming her previous gait almost exactly as she tromped down the hall to her upcoming class, fragments of the shattered floor falling from her head as she ran.
“As for you,” the little woman turned her body towards Gurska, but seemed to have her attention turned back to her screen, “I will be letting you off with…” Another long pause followed, as she fiddled with her device for almost a minute. “Five demerits.” She looked up at Gurska to gauge her response, but the mercenary simply gazed back impassively. After a long period of silence, she realized that she was supposed to respond. She had no particular concern about demerits from an academy that she did not intend to graduate from, but knew that saying so would start her down the path for making this already irritating encounter far longer and messier than it needed to be. It was still too early to start killing faculty.
“Fair,” she said finally. “I accept your judgement.”
“Fair, quite, given your recent arrival to the academy, but you were a hair - a hair I say - away from earning yourself a detention, and let me tell you, you wouldn’t want that, oh no.”
“I suppose that I would not.”
“Well, no, of course you wouldn’t. No student would want to go to detention, and why would they? Spending your precious youth locked away, and being unable to spend time with the lofty company that is usually enrolled in our pristine academy.” The hallway began to clear as the drama had evidently ended, and even those who had ample time to get to their next class didn’t feel the need to listen to Du Pice chatter on about the school.
“... Now, of course, only the worst students wind up in detention. Barring a major offense, which I must remind you that throwing another student usually is, you will end up with demerits instead. Only a great number of demerits or otherwise egregious behavior will make a girl like you end up in that most unpleasant place. After all - ”
“I have changed my mind.”
“Pardon?”
“I believe that I will have detention.”
“You - what? And why is that, exactly?”
“I believe in... self discipline.”
“Hmph. Now I do say, that’s an admirable trait. I won’t say I didn’t warn you, but if you insist - “
“I do.”
“Well then. I shall assign you detention after your classes today. Mm, an hour?”
“One hour will suffice.”
--
Having acquired the first soldier for her team and a new lead on making contact with the school’s criminal underbelly (which, in spite of having no evidence of, she was sure existed), Gurska was quite satisfied with her brief encounter. Now all she had to do was grab her weapons and - oh. Right. Just as quickly as the hallway had filled, it seemed to be deserted once again. Well, she supposed that she could study the map one more time.
The fact that it had appeared over her armor was welcome, as she had grown used to wearing the overlapping plate and envirogel encounter suit. Perhaps too used to it for a proper Taurus, but the Karr were never known to give up an advantage, and the high tech armor had proven its worth often enough. The shirt and blazer atop it seemed to offer no such utility. She twisted her torso, then raised an arm, straining the cloth. She raised her arm further, then bent it towards herself and flexed, prompting an audible rip in the fabric. She snorted, then simply tore off the sleeves of both the blazer and the shirt. Flexing again, she looked down over herself and nodded. The grey and blue garment now looked more like a tabard than a shirt, albeit not in the glorious red and gold of the Karr Dominion, and no longer hindered her movement. As long as it didn’t get in the way it would be allowed to stay. As for the skirt - she gave an experimental swish - well, that could stay for now too.
Immediate concern addressed, she started to study her environment. The room that she found herself in was devoid of visible life, but filled with small desks and uncomfortably undersized chairs. Perhaps it was a storage facility of some kind - no, wait, she had seen such rooms before. The Mercenary Coalition had used a similar environment for training their youngest. The lack of screens was unusual, but perhaps this place was too primitive or ascetic to employ such technology. If so, it would be an ideal location to employ her long underused battleaxe. She reached over her shoulder for the weapon, felt nothing, and reached again, grasping at air. She spun in place, arms questing at her sides for her ammunition and fuel canister. All missing. Then she saw the bag on the desk in front of her. Opening it, she found a map (useful), a small book titled “New Student Guide” (dubious), a brochure of some sort advertising the school and its values (useless), and a schedule. She pulled out the map promptly ignored the rest. She unfolded the map onto the desk and knelt down to study it. The simplistic paper seemed designed for temporary use, and lacked the detail needed to form a proper plan of assault. The map did, however, have a dormitory marked in a hideous purple, which she could only assume to be a designation that she had a room there. She rose, folding the map up again and replaced the bag’s contents. She then swung it over her shoulder and walked directly to the room’s only door, sending out cacophonous groans of wood grinding over stone as she simply strode through the furniture on her way out. As she approached the door, she could hear a dull murmur from the other side. Either there was some sort of active machinery in this place, or she wasn’t alone as she had thought. Oh no. Not alone at all.
The hallway was crowded with women, most of whom didn’t stand much taller than Gurska’s waist. They all wore the uniform that Gurska had found herself in, with some slight variations in color or cut. She drew a few glances from the students, but not nearly as much as she would have expected given the appearance of a woman nearly twice their height and five times their weight. Gurksa looked out into the hallway for a few more seconds, then quietly closed the door. Perhaps I should read the guide after all.
--
A short read later, Gurska was assured of three things:
First, this school was a terrible place for a battle. With an oppressive administration that somehow had the raw power to keep a vast variety of interdimensional beings in check, it would be difficult to initiate any sort of all out open combat without both fighters being apprehended and subjected to whatever ghoulish punishments a school that quite literally prided itself on being ‘authoritarian’ would have in store. It would also be nigh impossible to use any of her preferred weapons without inflicting terrible civilian casualties. She doubted that even the stone walls would last long against rounds fired from an autocannon designed to penetrate the reinforced metal plating used in combat craft, and the fire from her flamethrower would be likely to overfill a corridor and spill out into any open rooms along its path. Given that she had received no contract urging restraint (or, for that matter, any contract at all), there was no explicit incentive to avoid such unnecessary death and destruction, but in Gurska’s experience, it usually paid to keep things from getting too messy.
Second, this school was a terrible place in general. With an elaborate system of demerits for almost any activity outside of the scope of an uneventful school day and a policy of never expelling students regardless of their antisocial behavior, the school environment reminded Gurska more of a prison than any sort of learning institution. While most of its student body doubtlessly went about their lives without the authorities doing much more than looming as an unchallengeable threat overhead, she was sure that there were at least a handful of students that were unable to be molded in a manner acceptable to the school’s founder, especially given the variety of students that the manual’s ‘diversity’ section had boasted about.
Third, her weapons were most likely in her dorm. To her surprise, while the school had stringent regulations on what food could be brought into its grounds, it had no such rules regarding weaponry. It had supply storage areas for its various sports teams, but it lacked a proper armory as far as she could tell, which led her to believe that if her weapons were on the grounds at all, then they would be in her room along with any other supplies that she may have had with her when she was unceremoniously whisked away. It was a big if, she realized, but it would at least be worth checking. If she was to fight without her weapons, she could make do, and she told herself to keep an eye out for anything that she could use to make an improvised weapon.
With a better understanding of the school that she had found herself in, the mercenary marched back over to the door, and prepared herself to brave the crowd of little girls once again. To her surprise, the corridor was now empty.
--
It had been nearly an hour since Gurska had exited the classroom in which she had been placed by the seemingly random logic of the battlemaster and she was somehow further from her dorm than she had been when she had started. Though there was certainly a great degree of rhyme and reason to the school’s layout, its labyrinthine corridors proved difficult for the Taurus to navigate, and she had quickly gotten lost in one of the outlying wings of the school.
Getting to the ground floor had been easy enough - all she had to do was take every stairway down that she found. After a brief sojourn through a basement that had not lived up to the standards of aromatic hygiene espoused by the manual, she had emerged at the appropriate level. Navigating in two dimensions had proven to be no less difficult, however, and while the ‘Colossus’ dorm seemed to be at a far corner of the campus alongside the other dorms, she still hadn’t managed to find her way out of the castle-like compound containing the majority of the classrooms. Clearly it was time to ask for directions, yet as far as she could tell, the hallways were desolate.
Just as she was ready to implement the 'Always Turn Left' plan of maze solving, a distant bell tolled. After a slight delay, all of the doors lining the hallways opened within seconds of each other, and the crowd of young women that she had seen an hour earlier rematerialized as class was dismissed. Gurksa went from having no one to ask to having too many potential navigators, and scanned the diverse (if still usually short) crowd of students to find a likely mark. A loud, steady thump of heavy metal against stone prompted her to turn around, and she saw one of the few denizens of the school that she recognized - a fellow contestant in this mad battle.
Somewhat shorter than Gurska herself, Gunzelurge stood a mere head and shoulders over most of the students that had filled the hallways, but she was nearly as wide as the Taurus, making her ability to navigate the crowd a surprise. Nevertheless, she seemed to be proceeding at a steady jog whose audible approach enabled the crowd of students - technically other students, as the gladiators appeared to have been officially enrolled - to get out of the way. Whereas Gunzelurge believed their evasion to be common courtesy, Gurska recognized it as panic. Not that there was any problem with sowing panic every now and then, but it did made it difficult to acquire directions.
She could put that goal aside for now. While Gurksa didn’t fancy taking a fight with the second largest battler, talking with this particular rival would likely be helpful. Given how resilient her metal body appeared to be, it would likely be helpful to work with her, at least for a start. There were plenty of other opponents, after all, and forming a team would likely be the best way to get started. While the current of smaller folk cleared out a path around her, Gurska stood her ground and raised a hand in greeting.
Gunzelurge would have liked to chat, under whatever unordinary circumstances would have placed in her and Gurska in a calm room together, but for now she was in a hurry. She was eager to find her horse, and naturally the horsemanship class would be the place to find it. A chat with the mercenary would have to wait. She would move aside. Fragiles always moved.
So she wasn’t stopping. That was odd. People always stopped.Gurska raised her second hand, placing both in front of her in what she hoped to be a universal symbol.
Gunzelurge altered her course by a diplomatic five degrees. If others could show some simple courtesy, well, so could she. Tolerance was key, after all.
Gurska noted the shift, then stepped in front of her.
Her left hand reached for the metal druid’s wrist while her right gripped the intersection of one thick metal arm and the core of Gunzelurge’s chasis. Turning away from her at an angle, the Taurus bent forward, dropping to one knee and using her body as a fulcrum to throw the charging Pheral. She grunted as she felt the impact of the construct’s center of mass hitting hitting her shoulder. Her armor absorbed most of the concussive force, fortunately, and that same inertia carried Gunzelurge forward as her wide feet were lifted from the ground. For a brief moment, she was upside down and almost fully vertical, with her legs straight in the air while her head plummeted directly towards the floor, aided in its flight by the mercenary’s grip on her armpit.
Though the entire maneuver lasted a split second, the feeling of weightlessness seemed to last much longer. Well this hasn’t happened in a while. Reminds me of home.
Gunzelurge hit the hallway floor face first, shattering the dull grey stone. Plumes of dust rose up around them, prompting a fit of exaggerated coughing from the numerous and nervous bystanders. The Pheral’s feet hung in the air for a moment longer, before being reduced to their point of lowest potential energy with a clang that would have been dramatic had it not been preceded by an even greater impact. Gunzelurge found herself lying face up, and looking into the curious gaze of her assailant.
Gurska studied the solid steel face of the woman that she had just thrown. She was only slightly surprised to find that it was undamaged. ”Sturdy.” She paused only briefly, as she had already decided that the two should be friends. “You should join my team. Standard contract.” She rose, then reached down with one hand to help the Pheral up.
Though she didn’t need the assistance to rise, Gunzelurge accepted it all the same. People enjoyed feeling useful, and she saw no reason to decline the offer. She probably wasn’t going to be thrown again, and the first time hadn’t proved particularly painful. The large Fragile’s armor-played bicep trembled with the strain of taking on a large portion of Gunzelurge’s weight. ”Your-offer-of a. Team arrangement is. Agreeable. I would-be-happy-to. Learn-more-about. You. As-for-the standard contract -” Before she could ask the critical question about what she was signing up for, a small and imperious woman who had been pushing her way through the onlookers demanded their attention.
Standing a hair under five feet in height even with the aid of her uncomfortable looking heels, she was notably short even among the (relatively) small-statured populace of the school. Though bearing a slender frame commensurate with her diminutive statue, she was visibly older than the students and held her head up at an angle to ensure that she was looking down her nose at most everyone she spoke with. Though usually effective when applied to students nearer to her in size, she had to tilt her head nearly perfectly backwards to apply this same effect to the two taller ‘troublemakers.’ Unfortunately, this made her half-moon glasses slide up her snout, ruining the intended dismissive effect.
“What’s this? What’s this?” she demanded as she ran her gaze over first Gunzelurge, who still had shards of the broken hallway floor stuck to the grooves on her head and shoulders, and then over Gurska, who had quickly recognized the woman as belonging to some sort of local authority and stood to attention. Though she didn’t recognize either of the students, she already disliked them. Ripped sleeves, heavy plated armor - yes, this was clearly one of those badminton players, she thought to herself. Oh how I loath those athletes, with their undue pride in physical accomplishments. Well if this girl couldn’t show the proper respect, then would learn to regret it, oh yes.
“Mlle. Du Pice,” she said finally, introducing herself to the pair. “And you two must be…” she trailed off for a moment as she flicked her thumb over a small glowing screen in her hand. The bright colors of the device’s interface was a stark contrast to the plain black on white and green on black that Gurska was used to, and for a moment she was unsure if the woman was truly navigating through her record system or had simply been distracted by her device. Nevertheless, both girls managed to stay stoic until Du Pice piped up with a high pitched “Ah ha! New students. And already unruly. I suppose you think that you can just trot on in and act like you own the place, don’t you princess?”
“That title is not relevant.”
“Hmph. I’m glad you recognize that, at least.” Du Pice was surprised by what she misinterpreted as modesty from the armored Taurus, but carried on all the same. “Now, why don’t you tell me what exactly has happened? If you’ve been fighting, it will be more than just demerits for the both of you!” She looked from one to the other, expecting an argument between the two and possibly even some lovely outright insolence. Oh yes, that would lead to a well deserved detention for one or both of these upstarts. To her surprise, she received neither.
“I made a mistake, ma’am.” Gurska rumbled. “I attempted to halt my comrade here, and in so doing have damaged your base.”
“No-harm-done. Mademoiselle. Du Pice.” Gunzelurge reassured the teacher in her most pleasant tone. “I also apologize-for. The damage.”
“W-well then.” The teacher was somewhat taken aback by the unexpected obedience of the two, and even more surprised by their apparent amiability. Still, as far as surprises went, their courtesy was a pleasant one. Perhaps she had misjudged them after all. Turning to Gunzelurge first, she decided to release the obviously innocent one first. “Seeing as you’ve done nothing wrong from the sound of things, you may run along now.”
Gunzelurge enthusiastically obeyed, resuming her previous gait almost exactly as she tromped down the hall to her upcoming class, fragments of the shattered floor falling from her head as she ran.
“As for you,” the little woman turned her body towards Gurska, but seemed to have her attention turned back to her screen, “I will be letting you off with…” Another long pause followed, as she fiddled with her device for almost a minute. “Five demerits.” She looked up at Gurska to gauge her response, but the mercenary simply gazed back impassively. After a long period of silence, she realized that she was supposed to respond. She had no particular concern about demerits from an academy that she did not intend to graduate from, but knew that saying so would start her down the path for making this already irritating encounter far longer and messier than it needed to be. It was still too early to start killing faculty.
“Fair,” she said finally. “I accept your judgement.”
“Fair, quite, given your recent arrival to the academy, but you were a hair - a hair I say - away from earning yourself a detention, and let me tell you, you wouldn’t want that, oh no.”
“I suppose that I would not.”
“Well, no, of course you wouldn’t. No student would want to go to detention, and why would they? Spending your precious youth locked away, and being unable to spend time with the lofty company that is usually enrolled in our pristine academy.” The hallway began to clear as the drama had evidently ended, and even those who had ample time to get to their next class didn’t feel the need to listen to Du Pice chatter on about the school.
“... Now, of course, only the worst students wind up in detention. Barring a major offense, which I must remind you that throwing another student usually is, you will end up with demerits instead. Only a great number of demerits or otherwise egregious behavior will make a girl like you end up in that most unpleasant place. After all - ”
“I have changed my mind.”
“Pardon?”
“I believe that I will have detention.”
“You - what? And why is that, exactly?”
“I believe in... self discipline.”
“Hmph. Now I do say, that’s an admirable trait. I won’t say I didn’t warn you, but if you insist - “
“I do.”
“Well then. I shall assign you detention after your classes today. Mm, an hour?”
“One hour will suffice.”
--
Having acquired the first soldier for her team and a new lead on making contact with the school’s criminal underbelly (which, in spite of having no evidence of, she was sure existed), Gurska was quite satisfied with her brief encounter. Now all she had to do was grab her weapons and - oh. Right. Just as quickly as the hallway had filled, it seemed to be deserted once again. Well, she supposed that she could study the map one more time.
![[Image: WFQLHMB.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/WFQLHMB.gif)