714/The Student and the Master

The Student and the Master
Date of Scene:	31 May 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Indigo, Angela

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Indigo has posed:
    Angela had been threatening for some time to train Indigo in combat. Indigo was perfectly willing, but there was never a good time and place for it. The Milano is a bad place for a super-strong robot with gravity cannons in her arms to fight the Huntmistress of Heven, and the various times they've been planetside tend to be business-related (translation: either heading to a job or running like hell from pursuers). The world of Korudite has provided the first opportunity in a long time to just be together, its red sun burning the desert sands beneath Angela's and Indigo's feet. The nearest city, Kajj, is a good two miles away. Plenty of time to train.
    In her scant rubber outfit, not sweating because that's a piece of hardware she was built without, Indigo smiles at Angela. "So. How do we proceed?"

Angela has posed:
If nothing else, Angela is exacting when it comes to her training. It had taken her a decent amount of time just scouting the lands of Korudite surrounding their landing zone to find the perfect area out of the way of any potential property damage -- less out of pangs of conscience, and more out of a lack of desire to have those debts on her head. It's difficult, sometimes, following the Angels' creed.

But it brings her here, standing in front of Indigo, the heated sands of the Korudite desert burning beneath the metal soles of her boots as her ribbons sway above her in a subtle, combat-ready position. Her Ichors still sheathed, dressed in those simple, gilded coverings, Angela seems to tolerate the heat well enough; only the beginning beads of sweat start to fall down her soft skin as she tilts her white stare in Indigo's direction, not smiling -- but still showing a sort of gentleness in her expression, in her body language, that normally isn't there. "First we will assess your combat ability. How much experience have you had? Or..." Her brows furrow. "... have... downloaded?" She's still trying to figure out everything about this world.

Indigo has posed:
    "I believe I was built to be a war machine," Indigo explains, unperturbed. "I have several weapons systems built into my body, as well as reinforced armor in my skin. I don't have very much direct experience, but I am programmed with superior aiming systems, and I'm inherently capable of extremely fast observation and calculation of an opponent." She smiles then, cheeks dimpling at Angela. "Of course, that doesn't make me fast enough to keep up with you, but at least I'll see the blows coming!"

Angela has posed:
"A war machine," Angela echoes, not so much out of a lack of understanding of the term; her gaze returns to Indigo, quietly assessing her. "It's... difficult to imagine you as such," she admits after a moment. "Something to do with your missing memories?"

Eventually though, the Huntmistress shakes her head. Pulling free the Ichors, she brings them to a ready stance in front of her; the wicked, curved blades mold themselves, shifting their golden forms until their edges are blunted down into something more like a pair of batons. "I think it's important to build on strengths. Not everyone is built to excel in the same things. For now, though, let's gauge your limits. I want you to try your best to avoid me as much as you can. If you see an opening to attack, don't hesitate, but keep your mind focused as much as you can on." The Ichors point forward, at the ready and gleaming red under the glare of the sun. "Shall we begin?"

Indigo has posed:
    Indigo nods. "I know, right?" she agrees. "My personality doesn't suit that function at all, but the hardware is definitely in place for it. Maybe I was meant to be some kind of police model. That would be nice, don't you think? A peacekeeper?"
    As she speaks, her body undergoes certain changes. Her shoulder blades and calves grow thruster fins; Angela has seen those before. She hasn't seen Indigo's fingers splay out and apertures open in her palms as her flesh splits into tiny tentacles that peel away and burrow into her skin, revealing slightly concave lenses. She points her palms at you in warding gestures. "These aren't weapon configurations," she promises. "Just shield generators. Ready when you are."

Angela has posed:
Some of these things, Angela recognizes -- the rest makes the woman tilt her head in an almost curious gesture as she watches Indigo's body literally shift before her, adding things that weren't there before, revealing others that were hidden. It might be curiosity, but the edge in her gaze has all the look of someone assessing something more than anything else -- as if trying to determine just what those things could do and how to handle them.

It doesn't make her stance any less at the ready when Indigo makes her promise; despite herself, a smile quirks at her lips. "A smart choice," she remarks, her voice wry, perhaps even briefly attempting at being playful...

... and then she's off, the moment that Indigo says she's ready. The wingless angel moves swiftly, becoming a blurring rush of motion as she looks to close the distance between herself and the gynoid and introduce her to her training with immediacy; the first blow comes quick but straightforward, a lancing thrust of the blunted tip of one of those Ichors, aimed with exacting precision for where the solar plexus should be on other creatures.

Indigo has posed:
    Velocity determines manueverability; manueverability determines an ever-narrowing range of likely targets. Subtle muscle twitches are precursors to the action taken; tells, as Peter would call them. The swords are coming for center mass, in a single thrusting attack. It's a very simple blow, child's play, one intended to set a low bar for Indigo to hurdle. She watches the blow comes in and her left palm begins to glow white as she generates a gravitic shield, the gravity first slowing the blades, then stopping them as they collide against the hard energy field beneath. As the blow is deflected, she's already launching a counterattack, right palm hooking upward in an uppercut, generating a smaller shield of its own, barely a foot across but a good size to slap Angela's arms out of the way and to grow in an attempt to bind her weapons against any retaliatory overhead strikes. She's also already processing the likelihood of a pincer attack, so her right palm is angling to the left and her left palm is pointing to the right to be ready to block any other strikes...

Angela has posed:
A simple thrust, countered almost as Angela would have expected; the gravitic manipulations pulse around her Ichors, slowing them into a gradual but full stop inches before their mark. Angela's eyes snap forward, and already she's taking into account the properties of those shields. Those palms come up, to collide with her arms...

... and Angela moves with the blow the second those shields crash against her forearms. She's like water, twisting in a graceful and deadly arc to minimize the blow and turn the extension of Indigo's body to her advantage, looking to flip backwards with deadly speed and drive the heels of her shoes up into Indigo's jaw as she goes, in a blow meant to be tempered just enough to knock the blue-skinned gynoid airborne without pitting all of her considerable strength into it as she completes the backwards motion her flip, intent to try to land in a crouch a few feet away as hot sand kicks up around her.

Indigo has posed:
    An unarmed attack. Indigo was reasonably prepared for it as well; it was the fifth mostly likely move for Angela to make. Her forearms crossed in preparation to block the blades give her a good defense against the kick, but only enough to stop foot from reaching chin, not enough to stop the sheer impact of the blow from knocking her back. Her shields extend further as she flies backward even as her shoulder thrusters arrest her backward flight, stopping her several feet short of where Angela would have expected her to land, several feet inside the range of the next planned move... not that Indigo expects that to help her at this point. Angela has already shown intensely quick reactions.

Angela has posed:
If there's anything Angela is, it is quick. Quick to think, quick to decide -- quick to act. It's a sort of single-mindedness that shows itself fully when she starts to fight; by the time Indigo lands, Angela is already on the move, reversing the grip on one of her Ichors and lunging forward; Indigo isn't exactly where she anticipated, but it hardly seems to stop the wingless angel from sweeping low with both body and blunted blade to swing that blade down across sandy earth in a circular swing that looks to take Indigo's feet out from under her. The motion is slower than it could be, but only slightly -- as if to test just how quickly she can recover from being unsettled by a blow.

Indigo has posed:
    The more area her shields cover, the less effective they are. At maximum extension, they can only slow Angela's incoming attack, not stop it... but slowing it counts for a lot. It gives Indigo time to lift her leg above the incoming sweep and then fire her leg thrusters as the blades pass beneath, essentially shooting the Ichors on the flats of the blades to drive them down into the earth. Angela's strong as well as fast, so she'll recover quickly, but not before Indigo has the chance to jump into a spinning flip over Angela's back, shields held tight against her body to bash into Angela's back as Indigo rolls over it.
    She's doing pretty well, at least for the speed Angela's currently operating at.

Angela has posed:
She knows what's coming, but even Angela isn't swift enough to stop it from coming; shields slam into her back even as she rips her Ichors free of the sandy earth, kicking up red sand in a spray as she staggers forward from the blow. And despite herself -- the angel smiles, a small but pleased thing, as she grips tightly upon her weapons. It's a silent sign of approval from the angel, and even if it goes unseen, it is no less genuine as Angela spins around with a sudden swiftness and -digs- one of those Ichors into the ground.

The explosion of sand when that blade tears upward is like a miniature geyser of red, spraying in Indigo's direction in a concealing veil; Angela is already moving before the blade is even torn completely free, becoming a brief smudge before that curtain of sand conceals her completely.

It'll only be barely half a second later that she looks to reappear behind Indigo, to look to hook the blunted edge of her other Ichor against the gynoid's throat.

Indigo has posed:
    Predictive models are working on overdrive. Without her sight, Indigo can only make guesses about what Angela's next move will be: she requires a calculatory head start to be able to parry Angela. She has a pretty good grasp of Angela's personality now, enough to make extrapolations from it and from the sheer physical necessities of movements meant to follow her last one. A rising scythe sweep is the most obvious, and therefore least likely. A leap through the sand cloud, either blades first or feet first, to bear her down with brute strength is possible but something Angela would disdain as beneath her. Flying up into the air to descend into an attack is more likely, but perhaps too obvious for an assassin, since it would clear her of the cloud's concealing cover. An attack from the side or the back, then.
    These things are calculated in one five-hundredth of a second.
    Indigo's forearms cross to project her shields at her sides, and she spins to try to make a swinging parry of her shields... but she just can't keep up with Angela's speed. The best victory she can win is to have her profile facing Angela when the blade comes to her throat. She tsks (even that vocalization is accompanied by the electronic hum of her voicebox), and she smiles as she admits defeat. "You got me," she agrees.

Angela has posed:
She reacts before those blades can reach their mark. It isn't, technically, enough, not to stop them from getting where they need to be.

But for Angela, if that faint ghost of a smile is any indication, it is more than enough.

"I did," she still agrees, her blade slowly retracting from the gynoid as she takes a step back. "Though I do not know if taking your head would be enough." She has too many new life forms she needs to look into -- it's no good for an assassin to not know fatal points for targets, after all. "Still, you demonstrated a good ability to think on your feet, and that is what is important. As is knowing your enemy -- that is essential. A real fight lasts far shorter than one might expect, especially when you are aiming to take a life. You must know where to hit and when to make the most impact in the shortest amount of time." She stops as she draws backward, Ichors sheathing, perhaps cognizant of how much she's been talking. She looks up in the direction of the sky, a thoughtful frown creasing her lips. "... Regardless, you did well. You seemed to know exactly how to predict my movements. I am... impressed, Indigo."

Indigo has posed:
    Indigo smiles demurely, eyes downcast. ...Hey, she kept her eyes on you the entire fight, didn't she? "Thank you, Angela," she accepts sincerely. "This kind of battle definitely isn't on my terms, but I think I did well within the restrictions. And I'll admit to being curious as to how well my skin can withstand your blades, but not so curious I want to risk decapitation! My vital systems would survive on back-up power for months if you cut my head off, but the repair expenses would be terrible, and I wouldn't find the experience pleasant."
    Then, shyly, "And...I guess I do know you pretty well. I've been studying you for a long time, after all. I knew there was no way I could win a fight with you, but that's okay. I, uh..." But she can't complete that thought with her discretion protocols in place. She can only smile at Angela.

Angela has posed:
"There seems to be many things in this realm that could survive a decapitation," Angela muses thoughtfully, a hand lifting up to push through her wild mass of red hair. She pauses, blinks once, and then adds, after a moment of hesitation, "... though I am glad that you rank among them." Which is perhaps a strange sentiment, but one that Angela expresses no less sincerely for it.

It's when Indigo speaks next that the angel turns those white eyes on her. Those shy words elicit the lift of Angela's brows for a brief moment as she considers, and then takes a step forward. She doesn't say anything, at least at first. She just places a hand on Indigo's shoulder and gently squeezes, as if trying to communicate some sentiment through action where she doesn't have the words to say. "You were impressive," she says finally. "Let's return to the city, and find somewhere to eat. I don't think I have had food from this region, before."

Indigo has posed:
    Indigo beams at Angela. "Yes, let's! We can--oh, hang on." Her fingers reconfigure back into their proper shapes, backs of her hands facing you so you don't need to watch the microfiber tendrils absorb the focusing lens. "There. Thank you for gauging me, Angela. Are we stopping so early because there's nothing you can teach me? Being synthetic has a lot of advantages, but one thing I can't do is improve my performance via exercise. Until I can create an upgraded body, I know this is the fastest I can move."
    Her hands reconfigured. Her back and legs didn't. Looks like she's ready to fly to Kajj.

Angela has posed:
"No," is Angela's first, short answer to Indigo's question, punctuated by the sharp shake of her head. She watches as the gynoid reconfigures herself, head tilting curiously. "I'm just hungry." It's honest if not blunt, at least, as Angela looks in the direction of the city. "After we are done, we will return and work on your accuracy. You may be limited by your body, but so is everyone. We'll teach you how to use those limits creatively in dismembering your enemies." And then she takes off. Well -- at least she thinks Indigo has plenty of potential to be taught?