Swap to a finch to fit through, and when I'm all through, return to falcon form.
You change form to that of a finch, dumping biomass in a trail of greenish-black liquid behind you to lessen your size.
You find a small gap where you can move through the gaps between in the two barriers without having to slow down or seriously alter your course and go through it without slowing down at alll.
However, changing form into a falcon is not something you can do right now. You've lost too much biomass while becoming smaller and you didn't have anywhere to put it. You're going to have to wait for it to replenish.
"Travelled the world with no tomorrow~" your entity sings and continues croaking to the rhythm. He shoots another barrage of lightning bolts at the walls of the tunnel as he passes them by. This time, the lightning bolts cause the walls to detonate into a fine gray-brown powder, creating a cloud in front of you that obscures whatever may lie ahead.
▓=============================>===================o
John frowned. "Uh... yeah, I'll just wait for your review."
Standby! If it's going to be a while, play with the table again. Can it be set to simulate how my powers work with a certain combination of traits selected?
Doesn't look like it. Although you could probably ask Zero to do it. Or maybe just "will" the Staging Area into giving you what you want. You don't know if it will work, but you could certainly try.
"Analysis follows:
John, as stated earlier, your performance was well beyond the minimum acceptable range for a human of your capacity. Your personal effort to complete your objectives was very adequate despite the circumstances.
Furthermore, your perseverance led to the deceleration of yourself as victor of that mission. The extra credit received from that event will most likely benefit you greatly and already has, to a degree. The fact that you were aggressive and competitive enough in your attempt to complete the secondary mission objective to disregard the life of a teammate is commendable.
Your idea to acquire better situational awareness was correct, however the use of powerful active sensors attached to yourself with no means of shutting them down meant that your enemy was easily able to detect you, preventing any stealthy actions on your part. Take that into consideration and try to work around it next time you are in a similar situation.
It took you time, but you also realized the importance of mobility in such a large scale battlefield. The ability to evade and reach new positions is invaluable. Keep that in mind during future missions with similar circumstances or whenever there's a chance your enemy will be quicker or more powerful than you.
Your performance in combat was acceptable, although both your accuracy and ability to dodge were inadequate. It might be more desirable to not directly involve yourself in combat, instead using more capable or expendable assets like teammates. Disregarding those inadequacies, your choice of target was mostly good and you chose when to attack and when to retreat adequately.
Pushing yourself to the limits in pursuit of victory is sometimes desirable, however luck may not always be on your side. If you think that taking a second to regroup, rearm and recuperate would increase your chances of success, you might want to do that, even if it would allow your opponent to do the same. Assuming there is no time limit, of course.
Overall, better cooperation with your teammates would ensure an easier victory. After all, observing your capacity for teamwork was one of the reasons this challenge occurred and that teamwork was not realized to its fullest potential. Your allies could had easily filled some of the gaps in your skillset and made your survival easier. Furthermore, sharing information you received when in close proximity to the target could had prevented the death of two of your teammates and increased your chances of success.
If they are not willing to work with you, you might want to consider taking the lead yourself and having them work for you or giving the mantle of leadership to someone you find more capable than you, depending on the circumstances. Even following your allies and supporting them in a plan worse than yours could sometimes go better than each of you trying their individual ideas and hoping they somehow result in victory.
After all, there is strength in numbers and you are unfortunately not yet strong enough to stand alone in those type of engagements without plenty of time to prepare.
Overall, I believe that your opponent, as well as the battle itself, should be able to teach you more, if you consider them on your own. Such knowledge could be useful in the coming missions.
That is all.
Any questions regarding this analysis or the mission?"
Only a three? This is a hallucination worthy of Oxford-class acid! How dare you!
Summon big wooden spoon and slap German chef silly.
((He was not actually German, it's just an expression:
the term has come to mean anyone who seems to grade harshly and give low scores, such as Kishi Asako on Iron Chef.
But hey, it's your hallucination-turned-reality.))
"Zilly vatman. Your landing reqvires verk-ugh!"
His counter-argument is cut short by a wooden ladel to the head
Your dodging needs work you only get three!The rest of the chefs pick up various cooking implements and begin approaching slowly you from all sides.
"How dare you oppose the judges‽"
"How dare you judge the judges‽"
"The judges are absolute!"
"The judges are always right!"
"Only one of us can judge a judge!"
"One of us!"
"One of us!"
That's her batons I feel on my ankle and shoulder, right? That can't be good. Pull on the wires as hard as I can with both hands and kick backwards.
You both pull the wires at the same time, which results to even more pain to you. You feel your leg being pulled and your shoulder being pulled, but the worst thing is your arm, whose skin is now being pulled in two different directions. You can't hold on anymore. The pain overcomes you and you loose your footing, spinning around and falling with your back against the ground.
You can see her standing above you, ready to jump on you. She doesn't look as happy or smug as when you started the combat, she's out of breath, slightly angry and clearly in pain. Much like you, in a way.
<Oh hey, would you look at that!>
Question: does my host get the use of my powers only when I've assumed direct control?
If yes, assume direct control, then draw my machine pistol (I presume I have a free hand - if not, free one up and dodge) with all the quickness I can muster and teach this fellow a point-blank lesson in manners.
If not, command time!
>You probably have quite a bit of training on how to deal with a situation like this - feel free to use it!
((You can focus on giving him a single aspect of you (requires a roll) or just take direct control (always succeeds). I'll assume you want the full control.))
You use one hand to push the man's knife wielding hands back, but he's too strong. You groan as the blade slowly descends towards you. The man keeps pushing until it slides inside a gap in your armour and starts cutting into your neck. But the blade goes no further, for your attacker is interrupted by a burst of gunfire blowing his arm apart.
With the pain loosening his grip, you bend down and pull on his now mangled arm, pushing the attacker off your back and on the ground. Before he can react, another burst of gunfire across his chest cuts him down.
You check your neck. You can't feel it through the armour or your gloved hand and you have no mirror to use to look at it. You just have the feeling of pain and the sense of your shirt becoming wet as blood leaks to it. This might be a serious injury.
You look at the other man, the one near the flames. His skin shimmers and distorts. And then the world explodes.
((See below for rest of action.))
Bryan
Her again. Seems we keep butting heads. Such a shame she seems like one of the more reasonable contestants. Let's hope that science and nature still hold some weight with this fire. That man will probably be fine.If Faron's action doesn't work try to push the air away from the fire.
Faron
Break the pipes to put out the fire. If the fire goes out go down the hallway, otherwise get into cover.
((oops, thought I'd posted an action earlier. sry for making you wait.))
Irine
Someone is messing with my flames?
have my door-blocking flames gather near their far edge and creep up the walls and line the ceiling, forming a hollow ring. Then have the ring surge closed from all directions, gather in the center, and then have 2/3's of them move outwards at high speed in a hollow, impoding sphere. after the flames have passed through the center of the formation and gone out the other side have them keep going, separated into many small flames, until they reach a barrier. once they reach a barrier, return them to their starting position and return the flames to the flat bed of fire lining the floor that I had earlier.
I need to wait for Zoe to be fully briefed. I need to pay attention to the rate Amelia's condition is progressing. I need to get this timed just right...
Zoe
-No influence-
((No worries, I understand.
Well, that's one complicated-sounding action. Let's see if my sleep deprived brain can understand what you mean... I think you're saying you want the fire to move out of the door by creeping across the wall, creating a sphere in the process and then implode that sphere to hurt whoever might be there, while keeping the flames moving around for extra damage, then move them back to reform the barrier. But then you say ring... Well, I'll go with the sphere.))
As Bryan's host moves forward towards the fire, Irene begins her attack, having her flames quickly creep against the walls of the corridor to prepare for her attack. But before he can have them move more than a few inches, Bryan spots that movement. Panicking, he musters all his strength and focuses his mind on a single concept: "PUSH".
A distortion in the air expanding into a sphere marks the creation of an explosion of force, pushing everything away from it, located a couple of meters in front of Bryan and inside the corridor leading to the room. Everything happens in a fraction of a second, Bryan barely has time to try and protect himself as he is hurled backwards.
Irene doesn't have enough time to do anything, her pyrokinetic influence crushed like it was nothing. She doesn't even get the chance to warn her host. The door bows inwards as it is hit by the telekinetic blast. The telekinetic wave itself is unimpeded and continues through the door, bringing with it what few of her fire remains through its now widened seams. However, before the blast can reach Zoe or Awena, it begins dissipating. Still, it's enough to push them backwards and throw them to the floor. Zoe immediately pushes herself up with one hand, pointing her pistol at the door with the other, while Awena simply watches the door in surprise.
Bryan finds himself curled into a ball near a metal box, his everything hurting. There's a beeping sound. He looks down. His interface is beeping, its screen lighting red (and occasionally orange) with every beep. Huh. Looks like he must have unconsciously taken control.
Still, he doesn't appear to be seriously injured, considering what just happened. Which is to say, he's probably only broken a couple of bones.
Ike is incredibly nonchalant during all this. He is pushed upwards and backwards, almost reaching the wall he originally started near. But the blast fails to do anything to him directly. And his landing could be comparable to that of a cat or an artistic gymnastics athlete, for he manages to land on his feet without even stumbling. Still, from this new position, he can see more alarming things. Things like more guards taking action against them, three in the catwalk on the opposite side from the room aiming at him and three more coming through the door also located on the other side of the room. Their charge is a rather poor strategic move, considering that part of the room, unlike the one Ike's in, completely lacks cover. Or it would be if they didn't have the numerical advantage.
The site of the explosion itself, currently half-obscured by a very small cloud of dust, is not in a very good state. The concrete walls themselves were completely undamaged, but anything inside the small corridor (pipes, light fixtures, grates) has been ripped apart or tossed around. The broken pipes are dripping stagnant murky water, the water supply to this building cut years ago. The large metal door has not been destroyed, but it has bent inward, the other room visible through the small gaps formed due to this.
((Welp, looks like rolls rendered whether or not I understood that action correctly irrelevant.))
EDIT: Oh, and there's 3,8 TUs left, which translates to about 3 minutes and 48 seconds left. TUs are the units I use to measure actions/the time a turn takes, since they're a lot easier to do math with (multiply, subtract, divide, etc.). 0,1 TUs is 6 seconds.