"Hmm..."
Quickly walking to a nearby bench -this is a field, after all- Jason takes another look at the two mannequins, who have already started their charge towards him. Putting a hand on the wooden object, he grabs it tightly and pulls, easily lifting it off of the ground. "Sturdy," he comments simply before hurling it almost like a javelin at the red mannequin as soon as it gets close enough, striking it squarely in the chest. And head. And part of its legs. Maybe shoulders too. It was a well-sized bench. Which along with the force of the throw explains why piece of furniture and strange construct both end up a few feet behind where they actually collided.
With one task done, he then sprints towards the remaining green mannequin, his speed double that of a more... average man, and quickly closes the distance between them before attempting to restrain it. It takes a couple of tries, but he finally feels like he has a secure enough hold.
"Sir? Umm... madam? Eh... You, if you would stop please? All is... err... fine...?"
At Elsibeth's questions, Allison blinked a few times. Was she... using some sort of talent to peer at the pages of her grimoire? (She couldn't fault others for curiosity - she'd done the same. Privacy was a bit of a foreign notion around magic-users anyway, what with divinations, illusions, and the like.)
"Well, it'd be a silly book if I couldn't read it. I wouldn't recommend trying to decipher it, though. It has, uh, a few layers of protection on it. For good reasons."
She did, however, wonder what might happen if she brought this girl a printed copy of the Voynich Manuscript.
"Och, not as if ah av umpteen o' choice, ducky. it's papa, 'n Ah'm near it. Ah rememba everythin Ah read, 'n Ah read everythin Ah'm aroun'."
Och, not as if I have a lot of choice, ducky. It's paper, and I'm near it. I remember everything I read, and I read everything I'm around.
With a gesture that shows she's explaining the obvious she introduces herself, "I'm Kestrel. So how do you know Derek?"
"We grew up together in different states. And then he grew up to be me. And I him."
Betsy's still very distracted by Kjersti's perfect synchrony with Derek and the other girl, but she brushes past that with a half-smile.
"Huh. I'm used to that kinda explanation coming with a lot of tears and running away from home. And being a whole lot less literal."
At Elsibeth's words, Allison looked down at her book. "Keep things scrambled at all times." she said. Within the tome, the text began to change into what seemed like no more than gibberish - so, clearly a code of some kind, but not something anyone was likely to accidentally break.
"Och, Ah wish theur wouldn't doa 'a'. theur doa realize thas forcin uz ta memorize randa codes, 'n 'a' uz breeam will keep tryin ta decode 'em reet?"
Oh, I wish you wouldn't do that. You do realize you're forcing me to memorize random codes, and that my brain will keep trying to decode them right?
"Then again, most of those are just two." She nods, "and I doubt that I... we... are not the strangest student here."
"Oh absolutely. But hey, I say don't worry about it. Let your freak flag fly!"
Allison is able to conjure a contraption that only could come from science fiction or the mad scientists or today, and blasts the two rushing her. The Green one is successfully blasted and falls to the ground unmoving, but Red is able to move through the blast and is still moving to you fast!
Kestral aims her shuriken at the Red and pleas with the Green, but the Red is deftly able to dodge her attacks and keep rushing her while the Green shows no sign in stopping.
Triad's formation attack fails, but not before one of the three gets a solid attack in.
The Red is able to withstand their blows, but is momentarily stopped as it defends itself.
Derek feels his arms fly through the air, the green slipping through his grasp and breaking from the group.
Jason heaves a bleacher at his Red which takes it out completely. He then attempts to talk down his Green while grabbing it to restrain him.
But the green is deft and weaves out of his grasp and continues to sprint down the field.
All of you can see the faculty making notes on clipboards as they watch you and others progress in this first trial assessment. By your estimates, you only have a bit longer before the mannequins that are unimpeded reach the end of the field.
Smoke isn't literally pouring from Kestrel's ears, but her frustration is clear to see. Standing stock still as she calculates the angles, and flings a blade at the red mannequin with one hand, spitting her half-stick of gum out into the other to put right where the other one's eye should be
They sigh as one over their first failed attempt. But this wasn't going to be a pushover.
Derek reaches out to grab the green unit. As he puts hands on it, he wills himself to grab just a little harder
Kjersti and Alejandra continue to surround the red mannikin with a swarm of kicks and punches. Hoping to overwhelm it with continued blows.
"Let's pin the other one down." Allison told her grimoire, and it flipped through a few more pages before settling on a new option. As the red dummy raced forward, Allison muttered under her breath and gestured. A transparent black dome appeared a moment later, smashing down towards the machine with rather significant crushing force... simple gravity, magnified to the level of a weapon. Despite that, it didn't seem to be affecting the grass any as she exercised control over what the power actually did.
...She was, quite honestly, just showing off a little. The first one had been a bit underwhelming in order to make the second look better by comparison. Her instructors had been very firm on this point - don't let people feel totally comfortable with you and the extent of your abilities. As long as they didn't think they had you figured out, they were likely to be a bit more cautious if things went badly wrong.
...Also? Smashing things with gravity was fun.
"I wonder if it can dodge that one..." she mused as she looked to see the results of her spell.
"You're slippery," Jason mutters as he turns around quickly and sprints towards the remaining green mannequin. Trusting his superior speed once again, he tries a similar tactic, this time attempting to trip the humanoid while taking a moment to consider how easier it might be if he was allowed to damage the construct. Still, not everyone out there is going to require being knocked unconscious; there will be people who will simply need rescuing, even if they will not quite cooperate on occasion.
Elsibeth is able to neatly pin the two mannequins, though the less trained eye would assume she crushed them both. However, both mannequins are detained and the red one summarily dealt with.
This time the Shuriken struck home, digging deep into Red's legs, their momentum twisting up its legs and causing it to fall.
The Red clatters to the ground, it's limbs rolling away from its body.
However, the chewed gum does not impede's green's progress and Green races past Kestral and to the other side of the course. Kestral can watch as the faculty make notes on her performance.
Derek reaches out and grabs a hold of Green.
But is unable to break free from his grasp.
Alejandra is able to get a kick in through the flurry of blocks and feints.
But with the aid of Kjersti, one solid kick lands and flings the mannequin backward. It lands, unmoving.
Allison conjures a crushing ball of gravitational force and goes to smear Red to the field.
Jason moves to try and intercept Green, but he slips on the field and falls to the grass in a swift motion. The faculty notes something and continues to write as Green moves to pass the threshold.
Once her results are officially recorded, she lifts the car off the green and red artificial men, and carefully floats it back over to the parking area, dropping it carefully into an empty parking space that has empty spaces on either side.
Grimacing, as the car ends up half in one and half another, she scoots it sideways.
Finally centered between the two spaces, she leaves it parked and ready to drive, pointed out of the space, so she can just drive it out.
Though the brunt of the field is missed as Red makes a leap to escape it, it nevertheless get's caught in the surrounding force and its pieces fall apart.
The faculty have finished taking notes and as all of you look around the field, you see that the success ranges all over. Some could not stop even one, while others had no trouble with the task.
"I assure you that these results will not result in immediate expulsion. It is merely to test your resolve, tactics, and creativity. To the other end of the field if you all would."
Elsi looks at Allison's ray gun. "Och, naw that's eur reet bit o' cartoon playtoy if ah ivva saw 'un. Thy buk seems ta be bit childish." She looks around the group, and shrugs. "Seems li' eur wide variety o' powers 'n success. Um mooar than others. Guess ah lucked art avin uz car nearby." She watches as the girl from Texas moves like a blur, slaming through the red manniquen and turning it into red splinters before racing in circles around the green one until the air lifts it off the ground in a funnel. "Ah hear tole Texas gurls was dang fast and loose, Ah reckon it done be true." She finishes up in a perfect southern drawl as the group walks to the other end of the field.
Och, now that's a right bit of cartoon playtoy if I ever saw one. Your book seems to be bit childish.
Seems like a wide variety of powers and success. Some more than others. Guess I lucked out having my car nearby.
I'd heard Texas girls were fast and loose, guess it's true.
Kestrel grouses to Derek and Kjersti and, after asking her name, Alejandra, "Well how often do you need to stop an unfriendly emotionless automaton without damaging it anyways!"
Not proving able to stop the second mannequin, Jason is at least a little disappointed at himself as he makes his way out of the test area. Taking a deep breath, he lets it out in a sigh and shrugs as he notes that he is not the only one who succeeded on only one half of the trial. And he even manages a smile when he realizes that some had even worse luck than him.
"Well, one can't win them all. Besides, it's probably easier to stop something when you don't have to pull your punches, so to speak," he comments after overhearing a girl in a drab green jacket voicing her own exasperation. "Maybe we'll do better in the next one."
Kestrel gives a somewhat strained smile, "Like the man said, 'Can't get much worse.'"
"Oh, it could be stopping an ordinary person who's a witness to bad stuff." Kjersti says with a shrug. Alejandra continues, "And that's why a lot of heroes work in teams. Not everybody can be good at everything." Derek brings it home, "I don't think that they're expecting us to be good at everything. I think they want to see what we think of when we aren't."
"Stopping a bystander I get, but normos listen when you talk to them, and they definitely stop if you put gum in their eye... Whatever, next test."
"Huh." Allison mused as she listened to Kestrel. She looked back at Elsibeth a moment later, grinning slightly. "Well, one thing I learned quick is that appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes the scary things are jokes... and sometimes the jokes are scary. It's best to not get too relaxed." With that, she began trotting across the field.
Elsi shakes her head at Kestrel. "Bystanders whoa are i' eur panic rarely listen ta thee. 'n tha' can need ta gi'o'a 'em fra runnin intoa eur firefeight by mistake." She says, shaking her head. "Assumin thee aren't terrified o' theur, sin thas eur powa."
She shakes her head at Allison. "If thas carryin eur toy, tha'il av ta use it mooar often, sin fowk won't tek it seriously unless theur blast 'em. If theur wor 'ahdin eur MAC-10 tha'd be mooar likely ta scare fowk intoa listenin 'n not av ta use it."
Bystanders who are in a panic rarely listen to you. And you may need to stop them from running into a firefight by mistake.
Assuming they aren't terrified of you, since you're a power.
If you're carrying a toy, you'll have to use it more often, since people won't take it seriously unless you blast them. If you were holding a MAC-10 you'd be more likely to scare people into listening and not have to use it.
The crowd is starting to quiet down again as you all arrive to the other side of the field.
Headmistress Eunsoo Lee gestures to a series of columns made of stone. They stand an impressive ten feet on the ground, casting shade in even formation.
"Now for something a bit more direct if you like it that way. Get rid of the stone. The faster the better.
She steps back, and a large digital sign behind all the columns begins counting down.
10.....9.....8
Elsie steps forward, and her long red jacket flutters as sheet after sheet of paper flies out from the inside, out of the sleeves, and begins to wrap around her stone. She then tries to lift the stone out off the ground.
By the end of the walk down the field and Headmistress Lee's explanation, Kestrel has already spent subjective minutes carefully going over every inch of the columns. When Kestrel looks at an object even casually, she doesn't just see it, she sees all kinds of subtleties that indicate its composition, mass, dimensions... weak points.
And after her last performance, she's not looking at this column all that casually.
Alejandra and Derek brace themselves at the pillar while Kjersti leaps up to kick it at the top to knock it into their arms. The three of them then carry it off the field at speed.
"Straightforward indeed," Jason says to noone in particular, agreeing with the Headmistress. Not wanting to waste any time, he quickly approaches the column and takes a deep breath. Then he draws his arm back, fingers already clenched into a fist aimed at the stone pillar.
The pages in Allison's book flipped through again, settling on a different page as she gestured curtly. The stone cracked as magic circles appeared along its length, then the structure crumbled downwards and sank into the ground. There were other ways to get rid of it, but she'd be a bit worried about launching it somewhere she couldn't see. Simply smashing it felt like a better option for now.
...Aaaaaand moments later Elsibeth did exactly what Allison hadn't. "Ahahaha... I hope we don't have to bring that back." she noted.
Each pillar of stone is 3 ft x 3ft x 10 ft. They are composed of limestone, and with the average density weight of 150 per cubic foot, each individual pillar weighs roughly 13,500 lbs.
For those of you trying to lift it as a whole, if your strength doesn't exceed that, you spend the first "turn" attempting to lift it.
Kestral, your eye's gloss over to the common observer, but in reality, they are frantically moving to capture every minute detail they can see as you scan your limestone column. You concentration falters for a fraction as you quickly glance to see Jason slamming his fists into his column, sending small cracks and indents spidering out of the impact points, but not destroying it by any means. Then you spot it, a small indent near the center of the right side, a detail consistent with every columns construction. A large enough force to the indent would most likely shatter the column completely, but with your (-1) Strength it would be unlikely you could muster enough power to do that.
The three students that make up Triad all tug and pull at the column of limestone, but though it shifts, lifting it seems unlikely given their combined strength.
Allison begins the process of the process of breaking down the stone. Given the size of the column, she may still have a sizable 1/3-1/4 chunk left at the pace she's going.
The clock continues to count to down
7.....6.....5.....4.....
Elsie, realizing she can't lift it, forms a large pick ax out of the paper, as the rest of the paper flies back into her jacket, much slower than it was pulled out.
They focus a little harder, pulling on their shared life force to lift harder.
Kestrel scans the surrounding students, looking for someone who has already finished their task. Maybe someone with some kind of disintegrator?
Grunting, Allison continued the pace she was affecting materials at - but she did shift a lot of it downwards, toward the ground itself. Burying the column would probably be fine for the purposes of what they were doing, and she didn't need to win-win-win all the time. Or rather, if she could do that, she wouldn't have been here in the first place... her magic was strong, but it was far from omnipotent.
It seems most students are having an issue with the sheer mass of the stone Kestral. You spot a disintegrator ray being used about half a dozen kids down, but the pace is slow.
Not a usable long-ranged beam in the bunch. I'll just trade for some brute force.
Reaching into one of her pockets, Kestrel snagged a paintball and put it right in the slight indent of Jason's column.
"Hey, Goldeneyes! Try there!"
Elsibeth takes her formed pick and hammers away at the stone obelisk, her first couple of strikes not producing much more than duck and chips of stone, but then her last two strikes definitely begin cracking the solid construction.
Triad channels the power that flows through all three of them and with great effort is able to lift the large stone in its entirety. With a quick breathe they begin to hurry across the field to deposit their stone elsewhere.
Allison continues her work, though her mind is always considering ways to improve the end result, however, close it will be to what she wanted to achieve.
Kestral is able to land a precise marker on the stone monument on Jason's monument.
A blow from Jason could easily destroy the entirety of the stone if placed at the indention marked.