(Untitled)

[slaying]

Who: Buffy Summers and Duo Maxwell
Where: The Training Hologram
When: Post black out
Summary: Working off some steam

Comments

[spaceflyboy]

After this whole black out fiasco, and his experience with that special ops guy, Leon, Duo was due to better acquaint himself with the environment, less he get lost, alone, in the dark, if that should ever happen again. Then again, it was unlikely that would happen, but perhaps something even worse, or even more unpredictable. Duo found his way to the gym area. Well equipped, it was, like an sports stadium. It even had a few sports. Among them, basketball

[slaying]

A straight fist smashed visibly against the body of another hologram, but Buffy did not feel the impact. She was adapting to that, getting less and less unbalanced as her knuckles continued to hit only air. Other parts were also beginning to recalibrate. The artificial source of sound for the artificial enemies gradually began to be more discernible to her. What was once a disorienting and hollow foot-step now became a clear marker for where she should twist and crouch next. So when the sudden intrusion of a very real and close voice broke into her training, her temporarily adapted instinct reeled, causing her to pause mid-kick and grapple with re-evaluating the situation.

But she recovered quickly. The kick followed through, with a weakened impact. As her knee bent back towards her body, she dropped into a low crouch and--suitably got down--she began to scan the area for who might have spoken to her. "Who's there?"

[spaceflyboy]

The shaking of the leaves was what stirred Duo to move forward, he looked around, pausing, keeping silent. A click. Okay. Yeah. He lowered himself down and moved forward so he knelt beneath the shrubbery. "Shh." He hissed, motioning towards her to get over to him. He watched her then, saw the tip of her foot pass through the body as it reacted. It was a hologram, but considering how he could feel the ferns around him, and the spider on his cheek-Shit!

He scrambled forward, only to hear a sharp pop pop, and to feel the impact in his right shoulder. "Jesus!"

[slaying]

Moving close to the ground, Buffy quickly made her way over to the shrubbery. When she was a foot from the other person, she watched him scramble and get hit. Adrenaline flushed through her and she wrapped an arm around his torso and made an attempt to drag him to better cover. There was a larger patch of plant-life a few body-lengths away, and after that it was only a short jaunt to an isolated rock formation.

She spoke to him while dragging. "For computer generated muscle-men, these guys have some serious aggro problems."

[spaceflyboy]

She moved him. That girl just picked him up, practically. He started moving with her, his hand clutching his shoulder. The pain was quickly subverting, but the pain still felt numb. "Ah..." Not really sure if now was a time for talking, let alone dry wit.

Once they found the underbrush, shrubs, and found refuge underweight, Duo settled and knelt down. "Thanks," he said, still holding his shoulder, but now, the pain was gone, but he couldn't move it, not well. Stiff. He pulled his hand away and looked to his hand. "Go figure." He grunted and showed his palm, "Lazers. Musta shot a nerve or something." Quick to recover, but that was a big relief.

[slaying]

"Are you in a lot of pain?" Buffy was clearly concerned. She tried checking his wound with just her powers of observation. There did not look to be anything visibly wrong with his shoulder, but she wasn't about to go poking around his clothing to check more closely.

She tried to keep herself down and out of sight of the holograms. If it weren't for her overwhelming concern, she probably would have laughed at the absurdity. Running from holograms. The console where she began the training regimen was on the other side of the room. She certainly would not be able to get there with the young man in tow. That is, if he was still injured.

Chewing on her lowe lip, she looked back down at him. "You don't happen to know of any secret back-up switches to shut this place off, do you?"

[spaceflyboy]

"No." Duo replied, glancing down to his shoulder, "It's..." He paused, huffing out his nose, "Laser. Lower power. Makin' this seem real. Hurts like a bitch, though. I tell ya." He let a deep breath out, crossing his legs, trying to massage the feeling aback into his soldier. "Ow.."

"I don't no. First time I've been up here." Duo replied, turning his head around to look back, "I can't even see where I came in." That won't work, just leaving. Stupid programming probably trapped them in till the game was over. "Y'think the computer'll accept voice commands?"

[slaying]

"Laser guns, real guns, whatever kind of guns." Buffy groaned, shaking her head. "I have never been a fan of guns."

She continued to glance around, aiming to locate some sort of...speaker, or anything that might indicate a method of communication to the computer. She was so preoccupied that she barely had the time to slide sideways out of the way of another of the laser shots. It seared her cheek and when she clutched a palm to the skin, she was surprised to find it untouched. But he was right. It did hurt like a bitch. Buffy's jaw clenched and she made sure to keep lower to the ground.

Taking her cue from his suggestion, Buffy ran through possible voice commands in her head. "Stop! Err, computer, please stop? Terminate whatever protocol is urging you to use us for target practice."

Frustration crept into her voice. She wasn't a fan of flashy technology, either.

[spaceflyboy]

"Guns no fun?" he almost seemed disappointment, but he understood Buffy's sentiment. Guns usually brought nothin but violence, death, etc. But to Duo, it was a necessary tool.

Another few flashes of laser lights, along with the pops flashed, barely missing them, before, all around them, the environment dissolved towards their feet. Duo clamored to his feet as it all occurred. "Saying please worked. What do you know?"

[slaying]

Cautiously, as though she expected the whole thing to leap back into existence in any moment, she stood back up. "Huh, asking nicely tends not to work with all the other dangerous things that try to hurt me." She shrugged and began to brush the wrinkles out of her clothing.

"Liveliest training I've had in a while."

[spaceflyboy]

He stretched his arm behind his shoulder and moved it around. Feeling was coming back into it. "Saying please never works on anything, really. Less you're kissing ass at the same time."

He stretched it out once more and looked over, "Oh yeah? You know, You'd think if you were gonna train, it'd be on your own terms. Name's Duo, you?"

[slaying]

"Yeah, I tend to find a good kick to the gut works a lot better than your typical "please". At least, when dealing with things that generally want to hurt or kill you." She began walking back towards the room's exit but kept her eyes over her shoulder at Duo.

"I'm Buffy. And yeah, generally I don't like big painful surprises in my training."

[spaceflyboy]

"What are you referring to? People? Crazy people? Cause that's the kinda image I'm getting in my head." Duo replied. "That wondering how karate fits into all of it. Cause I saw you back there-exactly how is it a girl like you kicks all that butt?" Duo replied with a coy expression.

He nodded at her name, then looked on, awaiting an answer, since it all sort of fit in with his question anyway. His eyes pretty much said, 'go on.'

[slaying]

Buffy laughed. "You don't seem like the type to buy a lame story like, say, adrenaline made me do it. Or that I'm really just naturally that spry."

She rubbed her palms together, unsure of the most convincing way to come clean. "Back in the world I was pulled from? I'm something called a vampire slayer. One girl in all the world, chosen to fight against the powers of evil, yadda yadda." Buffy shrugs, delivering the speech with a sarcastic tone.

"I know, Now I sound like the crazy one, right?"

[spaceflyboy]

"You must not deal with very intelligent people. I get the same thing, at least sometimes." Not after Singapore, anyway.

"Vampire?" Duo raised his brows at the mention of it, interrupting her even, but then stopped to allow her to continue. "Yeah... Yeah... About as crazy as the guys here who say they're vampires." He didn't know if he should believe it all, still, but he kinda had to.

[slaying]

"One of those guys must be Angel. He's from where I am, and I found out that he was here a few days ago. He really is a vampire, just one of the less evil kind. But...there's another one here?"

This alarmed her. She crossed her arms and paused in her step. "Do you know his name?"