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Combat 101, take 3

Nelgan wasn't really paying attention when the other drone had hit him; he could say that the other troll's small size had put him at ease, but in reality, he was just spacing out. A dull pain went through Nelgan's body as the practice blade hit him right in his stomach. Chocking slightly, Nelgan stumbled back a bit, then threw his blade up in defense, somehow accidentally blocking Cheese's next attempt at hitting him.

Nelgan vaguely wondered if either of them had listened to the lecture- he knew that he sure hadn't. He could tell that the other drone was no professional either. Unfortunately, Nelgan did know what it was like to be against a real professional, and they usually were a lot more... aggressive than the drone he had been placed up against. Nelgan raised his training blade for some sort of strike and prepared to throw a blow, when suddenly the instructor began shouting angrily.

"Were either of you LISTENING to my INSTRUCTIONS?!" the instructor bellowed, moving toward the two drones and grabbing both their training blades.
"Uh," Nelgan mumbled, feeling very much like he wanted to not be here. Before Nelgan could actually say anything, the instructor kept on yelling and yelling. Nelgan shrunk back, now very concerned for his personal safety. He hoped the teacher wouldn't focus on him specifically, and instead the whole class.

Survival 101: Collab Minist + Talymn (Gal/Dart)

"Welcome to another day of survival training, grunts!" The booming voice of the supervising officer resonated through the small, cramped room far louder than what was probably necessary, but he went on unfazed, completely ignoring the flinches made by those with more sensitive hearing, "We're going to do something a bit different today! Behind me is a new training compound designed for a team building exercise. You will be paired up and be given the objective to take out all enemies you come across! 'Enemies' in this exercise is everyone who isn't your partner! Last team standing earns bragging rights! When you are called, please step forward and take your equipment! Any questions? Good!" He didn't even pause before he started rapping out names, catching the first couple of pairs by surprise.

As the groups were sorted, each troll was given a special breastplate, a holster with a 'Light Activated Sensor Evisceration Ray' included, and a small wrist communicator. In all, there were six teams and one by one, they were sent into the battling arena with a five minute interval between.

Fidgeting with his breastplate, Talymn tugged on the shoulder pads a few times waited impatiently for his and Minist's turn to enter. “ Freakin' mess this is... think they'd be able to come up wit' somethin' more comfy, yeh?” He grumbled, giving up on the pads for now as he slipped his hands into his pockets.

"It's the army, what do you expect?” Minist replied, arms crossed and foot tapping out her growing impatience, ”I hope our turn is soon. I can't wait to blow those suckers away!"

”...Hm...” He grunted in agreement before leaning over to whisper in her ear, ”Could try t'sneak in b'fer the next pair...?”

"Sneak in you say? I like the way you think!" She responded, immediately perking up. ”I’ll open the door while soldier boy has his back turned, then you can sneak in and I’ll follow.” She whispered, gaining a silent nod of approval from Talymn. Looking around to see if anyone was actually paying them any attention, she edged closer to the entrance inconspicuously.

Glad to finally find someone else who wasn't as stiff and anti-fun as the rest seemingly were, Talymn took a quick glance at the others standing behind him, before pulling out his LASER gun, pretending to fumble with it before shooting at one of them, setting off the target on the guy’s breastplate.

“All LASERS are to be kept in their holsters until the operation starts!” the training officer growled, quickly moving over to reset the activated target.

With the distraction in play, Minist edged even closer towards the doorway, placing her hand on the handle as Talymn followed suit. Just as the timer buzzer announced clearance for the next pair, he quickly shoved the ones next in line out of the way and dashed through the doorway, pulling Minist along with him.

"Nice shot!" She snickered as they made their way into the arena. "Now let's find a good hideout before some other team gets it. Don't want to be sitting quackbeasts for when the fun starts."

”Yeh, yeh...” He agreed, trailing after her while humming the Mission Impossible Theme.

Their uncharted course lead them through a maze of open corridors, every so often coming across open areas with various pieces of debris and obstacles that they could use for makeshift cover later when it came to a shoot-out. It was almost like traversing through an abandoned construction lot. For all the trolls knew, it might as well have been.

” .. Should be lookin' fer a higher vantage point…” Talymn mused aloud, scanning the cavern above. It was like staring up into an endless black pit, but the more he stared, he swore he was starting to make out shapes. Wait, there is something! ”That there!” he alerted in a hushed tone, pointing up towards a barely visible piece of scaffolding.

"Looks good to me." The yellowblood said with a nod of approval.

With that, the two quickly made their way towards the structure, quickly climbing up without any hesitation. Minist made it first and she immediately walked to the far end to survey the rest of the arena while keeping her head down. "Not much to see, but we can pick off any movement we spy from up here." she said, removing her gun from its holster and pointing it over in Talymn’s direction just as he hoisted himself up "Easy." She jerked her hand back as though firing the gun.

”Cor... yer like a li'l spider-monkey...” He grunted, pausing as the platform wavered slightly under their combined weight, but stabilised after a few seconds. They'd have to keep from moving around too much. ”So, ya think these things account fer friendly fire..? “ He commented off handedly, spinning his own gun around on his finger.

"If you set off this thing I'm pushing you off." She replied with a smirk, turning her attention back on the arena.

”Try that, luv, an’ we’ll both take a nasty fall, I promise.” he replied back with a smile of his own.

"Just keep watch over there, ok? Don't want anyone sneaking up on us. Think you can handle that? I don't know how good my aim is so I don't want to be bailing your a** out. Then again, if it came to that I could use you as bait and use my 'spider-monkey' skills to get out of fire." she then added with a roll of her eyes, "Joking of course, they'd probably fail me if I did that since this is a stupid teamwork course." What ever happened to each troll for themselves?

Scoffing, Talymn moved over to the other end, holding his gun at the ready as silence settled between them again while they waited. It wasn't long till he was humming to himself again though, this time featuring Metallica's 'Fuel For Fire', tapping his gun on the side of his leg in beat.

"So, music man, since we're sitting here waiting, how's your keytar? They confiscate it yet?" She cooed, glancing over to him again "I saw you during tactics the other night. I don't think the soldiers are music lovers." She snickered.

The tapping stopped and slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder. ”No wonder why ya looked familiar...” He answered testily, not wanting to be reminded of his blunders, ”An' no, guess not... Bunch'a stiffs, the whole lot. Don't get me wrong, o' nothin', I get discipline, I do, but C'MON! Expectin' THAT level o' restraint from the likes o' us, wit' no slack whatsoe'er is juss' stupid! He steamed, rattling on more than what he had intended.

"Well, this is kinda like boot camp. It isn't a vacation." She shrugged. Really, she felt he was rather stupid for thinking they would be O.K. with an impromptu concert in the middle of training. Obviously he wasn't used to being told 'no'. Ah, the luxuries of being a highblood.

As Talymn opened his mouth to reply, the buzzer sounded, catching him off guard. Minist on the other hand was already targeting her first victim and her initial shot went missed. With a curse, she pressed herself down into the thick plywood to avoid a retaliatory shot. Cursing again she took aim once more, this time clipping her target in the side.

”Yes! Got one! She announced, punching the air in victory.

”Well.. damn. First point: Minnie.” He grumbled, focusing back on the arena again. The other half to the one she ousted had to be somewhere close. A sudden movement caught his eye, and he locked onto a troll making a break for it across one of the open areas, but just as he fired, someone else had popped up, targeting the same troll. Before the other gunman could return to their post, Talymn clipped their shoulder, taking them out of the game. “An' that's a tie!”

"Oh, we making it a competition? I can handle that." She responded, sitting up as she scanned for more targets. Now things were getting fun! "I'm about to break that tie." She said as she spied her next victim. Smirking, her gun sights rested on the troll climbing a wall, but almost missed their partner who took a shot at her. "s**t!"

She ducked down, dodging the oncoming shot, only to roll off a little too hard and over the edge. With a cry of surprise, she quickly grabbed onto the scaffolding and swung back onto a lower platform, but not without jerking the whole thing rather violently, sending Talymn into a frenzied state of surprise.

”OYE! OYE! Wotcher doin', Minnie?!” He yelled out, clinging desperately to one of the support beams and losing his gun in the process. As the scaffold began to settle back down again, he slowly tried to move over towards the other edge to check on his partner, "Ya alrigh' down there?! Of all the- OH HELL!” His target system suddenly lit up and beeped a few times, showing he'd been hit. With a frustrated growl, Talymn slammed his fist against the support beam without thinking, ”NOW LOOK WOT YA GONE AN' DONE! Bloody-AGH!” The scaffold started shuddering, swaying dangerously from side to side nearly throwing the rocker troll off his feet. ”IF YER STILL ALIVE DOWN THERE, MAY I STRONGLY SUGGEST ABSCONDIN'!

"QUIT YOUR WHINING!"

With barely seconds to spare, the two raced down the support beams, Minist hitting the ground first with a reckless dive. Looking back, she could easily tell that the structure would not hold out much longer, but Talymn was not as quick to remove himself from the danger.

"Get your butt out of the way before you're grubsauce!" She yelled at him, springing up and grabbed onto his arm to tug him out of the path of the falling scaffold just seconds before it collapsed.

As the dust settled and the daze of their survival lifted from their worries, the two of them just stared at each other for a few long moments. "Don't. Say. Anything." Minist growled finally letting go of his arm. She really didn't need him complaining about how she ruined everything. Talymn was just about to complain anyway when Minist’s targeting system went off. They both stared at the lit beacon, the rocker troll even cracking a smile from the bad timing.

"Well, that's that then." She sighed, pretending to shoot herself in the head with her gun with a smile. "Oh well, it was fun while it lasted."

Medicine 101

Tonight was a sewing night. Alifax already didn't like sewing night; he'd never learned how to sew in the first place and anyway – the deceased howlbeasts they were working on smelled terrible. But he was a troll. He could get through this.

He wasn’t sure that trolls were meant to sew, though. He didn’t really need to – his clothing was perfectly functional with a rip or two or twenty in them. And he wasn’t sure that his arm could heal from stitches, were it broken. Could it? He was a little dubious. His history books didn’t talk about this (although of course he didn’t mention this to the class).

He sewed his howlbeast’s chest back together clumsily, hoping that he’d get to see Frossa and Hazzan a little more this morning – or maybe take a class with one of them. They’d mentioned interests in the survival and navigation classes, and he thought one of those would be interesting. If his friends didn’t mind, that was.

Survival 101

After the combat incident, Nelgan decided to steer clear of that area of the base. He'd gotten off with a warning (which in truth was very, very loud for a "warning"), and a few hits from the instructor, which was better than what he'd hoped. In fact, Nelgan actually felt like he had learned something, for once. With this irrational sense of optimism that he could be taught, he set off to his next lesson.

Survival sounded pretty good, if only for the fact that it had the word 'Survive' in it. Because that's exactly what Nelgan intended to do. Survive, right? How hard could it be? But training could help, so Nelgan headed off east in the direction of the camp. He'd already been taught the basics of swimming and climbing, but Nelgan could only wonder how the stealth training went. Naturally, that was the first thing the instructor pushed him into. Walking quietly, breathing silently, and observing everything was not something that came to Nelgan naturally, and it wasn't long before he was given several scolding by the instructor. Then he was being pushed into the water, and told to go faster, faster. Nelgan could keep himself from drowning, but the pace of swimming that he was expected to go was beyond him.

"Kick your legs more!" Nelgan heard a teacher call out, and Nelgan furiously beat against the water, his slow pace staying the same. He vaguely wondered if he had wandered into hell by accident, but then memories of his first ever training camp came back; it was just a day in the life of a lowly drone.

Survival 101, take 4??

Yeah, she had no idea what she was doing back so soon. Apparently she hadn't had enough self-humiliation yet. But, she was definitely learning things. Mostly what she could and could not do without disastrous results, but that was still learning something, right? And anything that would help her survive down here was a plus. She suspected that her lowblood status could make her equally vulnerable to the highbloods in the military as to the dangers lurking in the tunnels. The more chance she had to prepare herself, the better.

It looked like a swimming course was scheduled once again. Well, that was fine. As long as she didn't pass out in the water, she would do okay. Abrila plucked at the swim gear she wore, conscious of her (lack of) figure. What she wouldn't do to get her hands on her sweater again! But it seemed wearing a cool colour when she was a lowblood was frowned upon by practically everyone. It didn't stop her from dressing comfortably during her off-time, though.

A whistle blew somewhere. Abrila hesitated for only a moment before splashing into the water beside the rest of the group. Her strokes were already becoming stronger with the practice, and she wasn't as wary of sticking her face under the water anymore.

She would never be a seadweller, but she didn't have to worry about drowning anymore.

Survival 101

The survival course, not too surprisingly, was far more crowded than the medicine course had been. So trolls could be sensible; that was good to know. Well - it wasn't as though Alifax had expected them to all shirk their training, but it wasn't as though he didn't know lazy trolls, either. And, honestly, most trolls were probably just as frightened of sewing as he was. It just wasn't a normal pastime, and he'd had enough of it the night before.

So he trudged slowly to his...swimming? Wait - oh, yes, it had been on the list. Hadn't it.

Alifax wasn't too fond of the idea of swimming (he didn't even have proper swim gear! He tried to ignore the glances, though; it wasn't as though it mattered whether or not he looked good.). He was a lowblood, and the trolls who usually spent time underwater were sea trolls. Also, it was considerably harder to maintain a flame underwater (imagine that!). He’d never done it much, either. Sure, he stayed clean, but it wasn’t as though Four Fronds’ lakes were open to the likes of him. And off the coast, the water looked simply dreadful – it was always clogged up with things, and Alifax wasn’t sure that he wanted to know what manner of scalebeasts lived in that water. Not that he was afraid of scalebeasts. He was a proper troll, after all!

But swimming was, apparently, on the agenda today. He glanced around at the other trolls – there was a considerably higher proportion of highbloods here – and breathed in. He’d try not to panic. He wouldn’t want to make redbloods look bad.

Tactics 101

Here she was again. While not as exciting as the combat training Minist found herself not being bored out of her mind in Tactics. Chewing on her pencil she listened to their instructor. They were saying something about fighting smarter, not harder. That made sense. Better to be smart in your fights than a dumb brute. Avoid an embarrassing defeat by just throwing punches with no thought. Oh, someone down in the combat training just got tripped. They should have paid more attention to their opponent's feet than looking only at their hands. Filing that thought away she finished off a doodle of Ratmom. Wonder what her lusus was doing? She didn't go back home to tell her about how she was pretty much drafted into the army and would be looking for a Mother Grub. Then again she didn't come home straight away the last time she got a royal invitation. Ratmom couldn't be too upset with her.