#anyway IMPROVED DUCK RAMP COMPLETED

[msburgundy]

every time i use my drill i think "wow this is great why was i so intimidated by these for so long" as if i have not seen my dad slip and bore through his thumb before

[samayla]

A Losing Proposition

AO3

A S04E06 Window of Opportunity episode tag for @badstargateimagines​ as part of the @stargate-winter-fic-exchange​

They requested the guys playing Monopoly, but as I have never finished a single game of Monopoly in my entire life, I had to get creative. I took my inspiration for the vignette style from the format of the episode itself. Hope this soothes all your crack-fic cravings, dear!

Summary: Jack is just trying to find a game he can win...

“I do not understand the objective of this game, O’Neill.”

“The objective is to get rich, T.”

Teal’c turned over a crinkled, baby pink $5 bill. “I do not believe we can spend this currency in any establishment in your United States.”

Jack snatched back the bill and continued sorting out the money.  “It’s symbolic. Now, do you wanna be the shoe or the thimble?”

Teal’c gave him a look that said quite plainly he did not much care to be either one.

“Look,” Jack said bracingly. “I know it’s not much for choices. I’m partial to the top hat myself, but this is what we’ve got. This has gotta be better than another round of ‘Are you really sure I told you sun and not fire? I think it’s fire. Why would it be sun? Oh. It is sun. Would you look at that?’ with Daniel.”

Teal’c bowed his head in acquiescence and accepted the thimble.

“It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

***

 It was not fun. 

Teal’c beat the pants off him.

Twice.

It did not improve Jack’s mood in the least.

 ***

 “Um, sir?”

Jack, leaning carefully over the rail at the top of the safety ladder, held his breath as the tower of 2x4 segments swayed dangerously, then stilled. “Your turn, T,” he chirped, skipping lightly down the steps. “What is it, Sergeant?”

Siler glanced from Jack to the small crowd of onlookers who’d gathered on the ramp, and back again. “I was just wondering, sir, when my team and I might be able to complete our gate diagnostic?”

“Go right ahead,” Jack answered absently. He watched as Teal’c laid his block from the middle of the tower alongside his at top. The damn thing didn’t so much as wobble.

“But, Colonel,” Siler protested as Jack and Teal’c swapped places once more, “we —”

Jack shouted as Siler’s anxious grip on the ladder rail nearly cost him the game. The sergeant released the metal as if burned, and at Teal’c’s silent stare, he backed away several steps as well.

“Sorry, sir,” Siler said, “but it’s just that you’ve got our ladder, and —”

Alarm klaxons blared to life, signaling an incoming traveler. Jack cursed as he fumbled his block. All fourteen feet of the tower leaned first one way, then the other, then collapsed at the foot of the ramp with a crash that was drowned out by the stargate flaring to life.

Jack cursed again and stomped down the stairs.

“I believe another ‘Jenga’ is in order,” Teal’c intoned, somehow managing to convey an entire victory dance’s-worth of smug superiority with a single arching brow.

“Best four out of seven,” Jack grumbled, already beginning to clear space for the base of the new tower.

“Sir —”

“Siler,” Jack snapped, kicking blocks out of the way, his toes protected by the steel in his boots, “the gate’s fine. Consider your diagnostic complete and your ladder thoroughly commandeered.”

“But, sir—”

“That’s an order, Siler. Diagnostic complete.”

 ***

 “O’Neill, I do not believe you currently hold enough currency or property to win this round.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack muttered, doing the mental math himself as he passed Teal’c a handful of bills for rent. They were thirty minutes into their latest game, and Jack was practically hemorrhaging money already.

“There is no shame in admitting defeat,” Teal’c offered serenely.

Jack suddenly wished he’d set up the board somewhere other than the massive conference room table. There was something cathartic about flipping a table and watching the de facto winner duck and cover in a hail of tiny plastic buildings.

 ***

 “Watch it!” Jack shouted.

Walter, in a show of shockingly quick reflexes, caught his fumbled stack of folders and leapt onto the nearest chair, like a 50s cartoon housewife who’d spotted a mouse.

Jack climbed down from his perch atop a file cabinet and into one of the office chairs.

“What is it, sirs?” Walter asked, scanning the floor anxiously.

Teal’c tipped over another file cabinet to make a bridge, scattering files across the carpet before he answered. “The floor has become covered in semifluid molten rock. If you touch it, you will die.”

Walter stared blankly for a moment before chuckling a little nervously. Clearly, he wasn’t sure whether to take the threat seriously or not.

“Just stay put, Walter,” Jack ordered. He shoved away from his file cabinet, but the wheels on his chair were no match for the carpet of the briefing room. The chair toppled, but Jack launched himself out of it as the back hit the ground. The edge of the conference table forced the breath from his lungs, but he hung on and hauled himself up onto the tabletop after a moment.

“O’Neill,” Teal’c called. “Are you well?”

Jack gave him a thumbs-up from where he was sprawled, though he suspected Teal’c might be winning this game, too. “All good, T.”

 ***

 “Uh… whatcha doin?” Daniel asked warily, peering up over the top of his notebook as Jack erased a huge swath of Ancient text from the blackboard.

“Quitting.”

“Jack, you can’t just—”

“Can,” Jack corrected, sketching out a quick grid. “I can, in fact, just. We’ll start this all over again in a couple hours anyway. T— X’s or O’s?”

 ***

 “What the hell is going on in here?” Hammond demanded as he entered to briefing room to see nearly a dozen of his personnel perched atop various pieces of overturned furniture in what looked to be the epicenter of an explosion.

“Careful, General,” Walter shouted. “Don’t touch the carpet!”

Hammond jumped back over the threshold to the concrete of the hallway. “Why not?”

“There is some sort of semifluid, rock-like substance on the floor, sir,” Captain Rodriguez answered, wobbling a little in her chair as she snapped into a salute at the general’s tone. “There seems to have been a containment breach from one of the labs. Not sure how it got all the way up here, but it seems confined to the carpet, at least for now.”

“Why was there no alarm?” Hammond demanded. “Colonel O’Neill?”

Jack held his hands up helplessly from his seat on the bookshelf, to which he and Teal’c had retreated to watch SG-9 fumble their way through the ‘containment breach.’ “Peters knocked the phone off the shelf, sir.”

“The handset appears to be broken,” Teal’c added.

“We were trying to contain the substance using pieces of furniture, General,” Peters offered, desperate to salvage his image in this bizarre situation.

Hammond’s reply was cut off as the alarm blared and electricity crackled to life around the stargate once again.

“Best. Loop. Ever.”

“Indeed.”

 ***

 “We seem to have reached an impasse,” Teal’c said.

“We call it a ‘cat’s game,’” Jack answered.

“Why?” Teal’c asked. “I see no cat.” He cocked his head to the side, as if he might discover a hidden image on the board.

“You know, I have no idea,” Jack admitted.

“Actually,” Daniel offered without looking up, “there is a theory that it’s called a cat’s game because tac spelled backwards is cat. Other theories tie it to the idea of a null or scratch outcome, like a cat’s scratch, while a third camp—”

“I thought you were pouting,” Jack cut in.

“I wasn’t pouting,” Daniel answered. He flopped his sheaf of notes dramatically on the table. “I just don’t understand why you’re not more concerned about this.”

“About a tie in tic-tac-toe?”

“About the time loop, Jack!” he shouted, throwing his pen down as well. “Teal’c, you’re with me on this right?”

“We have endured the loop a great many times, Doctor Jackson,” Teal’c said. “We will undoubtedly endure it many times more before the translation is complete. Panic has not yet improved the situation in any significant way.”

“But you can’t just give up!”

“Sure we can,” Jack declared brightly. “We get a do-over no matter how this turn out, so why worry?”

“Why worry?”

“Cheer up, Danny-boy: you won’t remember this in a couple of hours, and I promise we’ll get right to work next time. T, I’m X’s this time.”

 ***

 Jack ducked as red and green houses went flying across the commissary, raining down on the unsuspecting diners.

“You are correct, O’Neill,” Teal’c said, righting the table again. “That is indeed a much more satisfying ending to the game.”

"I told you it'd be fun."

[drrjsb]

Body & Soul: The Endgame Fix “Part One: The Price”

Summary: If you weren’t happy with Avengers: Endgame, here’s your fix-it fic! We start on Monday, October 22, 2023: Eleven days after achieving time travel, six days since losing Natasha, five days after the Hulk Snap, two days since Tony's funeral, and one since Steve went into the Quantum Realm and Old Man Steve appeared.

[Monday, October 22, 2023]

“Five days! It’s been FIVE WHOLE DAYS that you’ve been walking around like this? Just what the hell were you thinking, Bruce?” Dr. Helen Cho swore intensely as she escorted an ailing Dr. Bruce Banner down the Avengers Quinjet ramp to the rooftop at the U-GEN building in Soule, South Korea. The more she saw of the obvious physical damage inflicted by the Infinity Stones, the more the geneticist was getting wound up. This was a complete reversal of their normal temperaments as the healer began to rant at her friend and professional collaborator, and the physicist calmly accepted her chastisement with a sheepish smile and a shrug of his broad shoulders underneath his tailored charcoal gray suit.

His right arm was now out of the sling he’d used during Tony’s funeral a few days before, but it was an obvious mismatch with his healthy left arm. “안녕하세요to you, too, Helen,” Bruce replied with a good-humored laugh. “By the way, this is Princess Shuri of Wakanda,” he said, gesturing behind them with his good hand to the slim, bright-eyed teen who was enjoying a laugh at his expense as she tucked a meter-long cylindrical container under her arm to bring off the Quinjet with her. “I believe you’ve already been consulting over the Internet,” the physicist added.

Helen suddenly flushed with embarrassment and turned to her other visitor. “Oh, my apologies, Princess Shuri. I’m sorry for being so rude. It’s good to finally meet you in person, your highness.”

“No problem, Dr. Cho. Please, just ‘Shuri’ is a lot easier.” She reached up and gave Bruce’s good arm a pat. “This is more important, and you are right to give him Hell for not getting here sooner,” the young woman chided Bruce.

“Just ‘Helen,’ please,” the older scientist said, feeling very chagrined.

“Hey, I tried to get here faster, and you know that, Princess,” Bruce needled the young Wakandan prodigy in return since they’d had to detour for her to pick up her package in Oakland, CA, on the way from Upstate New York to South Korea. Bruce turned to his colleague, “Please, Helen, you’d just gotten back to your family, and there were too many other things going on after the battle at the Avengers Compound to have more than triage done anyway. Thanks to Shuri and her medics, it’s been stable or improving over the last four days, and if you look closely,” he pulled back his blue dress shirt’s collar and bent down for a better view of his neck, “it’s starting to regenerate around the edges of the burn.”

“I could tell that from some of the scans you sent, but let’s get inside the lab, and I’ll judge for myself.” Bruce was just able to fit his oversized frame inside the freight elevator with the two scientists by ducking and crouching a bit. Squeezing through the doors on the staircase would have been worse. When they arrived at the correct floor, Dr. Cho led them into one of her lab spaces where the third generation of “the Cradle” and its related research projects now resided. “I’m sorry for the mess and disorganization. The program and our research agenda continued in my absence, but I’m almost back up to speed.” Bruce noted everything looked as neat and well-organized as it always had in the past.

Helen kept grumbling to herself in both English and Korean as she helped him take off his clothing from the waist up before tackling the protective sheathing and nutrient treatment wrap shielding his right arm. The irony of their character reversal—her anger and his calm—wasn’t lost on him, and he bit his lower lip to avoid smiling too much and antagonizing her. She still shot him a deadly glance. “Don’t you dare smile unless that’s from the pain meds, Banner,” Helen threatened. He doubted there were currently any pain meds involved since they’d never been effective for long after his original “accident” altered his metabolism. He was used to being stoic about it as Banner and irritable when he’d been just Hulk about three years ago. Now that he’d co-integrated, he was enduring it as good-naturedly as he could.

When Bruce had Skyped Helen very early that morning (tomorrow afternoon for her with the 13-hour time difference), her husband Philip had to reassure her she wasn’t being pranked. A much larger and greener Bruce explained to her that while she was gone for five years, he had made peace with his anger-prone alter ego and “merged” with the Hulk. If it weren’t for his voice and facial expressions, she wouldn’t have recognized her old colleague in the new Bruce. Even face-to-face, she was still feeling a bit unnerved by his floor-to-ceiling size, but he was surprisingly nimble and coordinated as he maneuvered around the delicate equipment. She had to admit, especially with the geeky glasses and easy-going confidence, the new Bruce was pretty charming.

The U-GEN staff had brought in a reinforced examination table for Helen to use, so she could examine him since he was now roughly seven and a half feet tall and about 900 lbs. Not as big as his former temperamental Hulk form had been, but this Bruce was now closer to Hulk physically than Banner’s spare 5’ 9” frame. Thankfully, his intellect and puckish sense of humor were as prominent as ever; still, this was a lot to wrap her head around on top of everything else she’d missed in five years. To be honest, having a project like rehabbing Bruce’s arm helped her focus since she was having difficulty fitting back into her own projects that had moved on without her. In cutting-edge science, five years felt like a lifetime. She wondered what Nat thought about this metamorphosis since he hadn’t mentioned her yet, and they’d seemed to be getting so close. They were all definitely going to have to catch up and talk about this later. Right now, the geneticist needed to see what they had left to work with function-wise and determine a course of treatment or make some tough decisions about whether or not to remove the limb. She guessed this was just one of several likely reasons for the Wakandan wunderkind to be involved since she’d reportedly redesigned Sergeant Barnes’ prosthetic.

Now that Bruce’s upper body was exposed, Helen studied the extensive wrapping protecting his arm and shoulder. “Here, may I please assist you, Helen?” Shuri offered as she caught back up to them in the right section of the interconnected areas. She’d gotten a little lost in thought as she’d curiously looked around the cluster of labs on that floor. (She could hardly wait for the tour!) She’d been taking a lot of mental notes since the final showdown at the Avenger’s Compound as she’d met many interesting people.

As soon as Tony’s body had been taken away from the battlefield crater, she’d approached the exhausted Hulk as he collapsed onto his knees in the rubble. It didn’t take a genius to see he was obviously injured and overwrought, but she was surprised to learn he was not the angry alter ego she was expecting, but the good-humored physicist she’d teased about Vision’s neural configuration who was now broken down before her. Bast forgive her, how she’d mercilessly critiqued Banner and Stark’s work on the synthezoid just before the Snap! Now, it felt like a lifetime ago, and so much had changed while she was “blipped.”

On the day of the second battle, Shuri had quickly sent an assistant to look for Natasha Romanoff, knowing that’s who should have been there to share their loss together only to be told by one of the Dora Milaje that the warrior and spy had sacrificed herself before the battle had even started. Shuri had quickly stepped forward and taken charge of Banner’s care on the battlefield. It was devastatingly obvious to her he’d lost the two most important people in the world to him, but she’d be damned if he was going to lose his life or his arm next.

Tents were set up in a field away from the blast crater where the Compound had been. Only a few of the storage buildings and a maintenance facility toward the very back of the property had been spared due to the angle of attack, so the survivors took Bruce and the other wounded there where they still had electricity and running water. Her initial scans showed he had unusual radiation burns, similar to what Stark had suffered. “So, are you the fool or the hero responsible for bringing us all back, Dr. Banner?” she surmised.

“It was a team effort,” Bruce acknowledged, yet he demurred taking credit even after paying such an awful price. She estimated he had paid about 160 pounds of flesh to return half of all life in the universe—including hers and T’Challa’s—so maybe it wasn’t such a bad deal? Of course, that put a lot of people in his debt. She, however, was one of the few in the unique position of being able to pay him something back now when he needed it.

“Joint effort or not, you alone wore the Gauntlet and made it happen. Thank you, Dr. Bruce Banner. You don’t even have to say, ‘You’re welcome,’” she added pertly.

Despite the pain, he’d smiled and nodded. “You are welcome, Shuri. I just wish Tony had let me do it the second time.”

She shook her head. “Even I, who never met Mr. Stark, know he wouldn’t have let you, and it was not your fate.” The older physicist simply sighed and shook his head as the tears started to fill his eyes again. “Whether you like it or not, Bruce Banner, you are the one who is going to survive, especially if I have anything to say about it.” He looked at her and almost laughed through his tears. That’s when she was sure he had some fight left in him. “Besides, who am I going to teach how to make synthetic synapses work properly if you don’t stick around, hmm?”

That had gotten a small chuckle out of him, so she and an assistant had set to work removing the burned purple, grey, and black tech suit from him. The tricky part had been separating it from where the material had melted onto his tough skin, especially the spots on his back and hand where the healthy tissue was starting to regenerate around the fibers. That wouldn’t have been an issue if the uniform had been made out of Vibranium, which she could easily have made to separate or meld with organic tissue by merely adjusting it with one of her Kimoyo Beads. This was a different carbon-based weave that incorporated organic materials with the high-tech microstructures. At Bruce’s suggestion, the healers used their Beads to apply cold and the fibers shrunk enough to be removed with a dental water jet. They were nothing if not resourceful that afternoon. Next, they applied a Wakandan cooling nutrient wrap to disperse the heat and protect the burned tissue from infection. It was no secret that aloe was a major ingredient, and it also had a pretty powerful anesthetic. However, her patient didn’t need to know that. Eventually, he’d slept stretched across four cots.

Continue on AO3, WattPad, or FanFiction.Net

[kiruuuuu]

This works very well in my mind, @forever-smiley! I don’t think I followed your request to the letter but hope you end up satisfied with the result nonetheless 💕 (Rating T, fluff, ~1.3k words)

.

“Jules, please, I believe you that you can put out a cigarette on your tongue, can we go back in now?”

Mute’s tone of voice is Rook’s favourite, a mix of fondness and exasperation which triggers his need to keep the insanity going, maybe even ramp it up a little. Alcohol in good company makes him hyperactive, turns him into a machine producing nothing but bad ideas and even provides him with the necessary fuel to put those into motion, so it’s no surprise that his boyfriend is tired of his antics more often than not. It doesn’t matter, though, because regardless of what Rook does, of how spectacularly he crashes, Mute ends up picking him back up, dusting him off and allowing him to tackle the next project. It’s one of the things he loves most about him. “No”, he replies enthusiastically, basically bouncing on his feet.

“Of course not”, the Brit sighs and gives up on tugging on his hand.

“Because you don’t really believe me, you secretly think I’ll burn myself and whine to you for a week as well as refuse to french you which would be the worst thing to ever happen to you -”

“Please don’t forget to breathe, Jules.”

Rook inhales exaggeratedly and with his eyes bugging out of his head, making Mute chuckle involuntarily. “- so in conclusion, you’re just saying it to stop me from demonstrating because you secretly don’t believe in me at all and I don’t need this negativity in my life so I’m doing it anyway. Try to stop me!”

Both of them know Mute would encounter no trouble physically stopping him. “How many times have you done it before?”

“Thrice!”, Rook replies triumphantly and holds up four fingers which he quickly changes to three.

“And how many times did you burn yourself?”

Furrowing his brows, Rook pretends to think hard, counts on his fingers and finally answers, a little less victoriously: “… three times.”

Mute nods, apparently having expected this answer. “Let’s go back inside. I’m sure the others haven’t heard enough about how you managed to kill every plant left under your supervision.”

“I somehow feel like you’re not taking me seriously”, Rook pouts and earns an amused smirk and a condescending pat on the head in return. If he can’t entertain Mute with party tricks, maybe a change of topic will do. “What’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you?”

Oddly enough, the younger man doesn’t need to think hard about this one. “Tried to give me the last bite of the best éclair he’s ever eaten and ended up dropping it into my tea.”

“That’s unfair! It was fucking slippery!”, he protests immediately and is met with a bright grin revealing that Mute achieved exactly what he intended. They like taking turns in riling each other up when they’ve been drinking and Rook hates nothing more than losing. “Okay, but for me it was when you wanted to confess to me but ended up explaining that weird online card game for two hours instead and at the end, when I told you I liked you -”

“Oh God, I don’t need to hear this again.”

“- you went ‘that’s right, I knew there was something else I wanted to tell you’. You forgot. You fucking forgot to -” Mute silences him by pressing their mouths together which incidentally is Rook’s favourite way of being interrupted, and so complaining is the last thing on his to do list right now. Instead, he melts against the tall Brit and pulls him closer by his belt loops. A wolf whistle comes from the group of guys next to them and while Rook grins into the kiss, he feels Mute stiffen in his loose embrace. At first, he wants to reassure Mute when they withdraw again, but a mumbled comment as well as a mean-sounding laugh from next to them stop him.

“Are we gonna have a problem, lads?”, Mute addresses the four men loudly, making them freeze for a second and glance first at him, then at each other. These kinds of people aren’t used to being called out on their behaviour, therefore there’s the possibility of it going horribly wrong – or they tuck their tails between their legs and avoid any sort of conflict. It can go both ways. They’re not built for combat like Mute and Rook are, one of them decidedly scrawny and another the exact opposite, but it doesn’t imply lack of strength as Rook has learnt in the past. Just lack of skills, probably. Besides, they’re outnumbered.

“You wanna have a go, bruv?”, one of them shoots back, clearly aiming to provoke Mute into throwing the first punch so they can claim to have been in the right or merely acting on self defence.

“Not if you don’t.” Mute’s iron composure is overwhelmingly sexy to Rook and vaguely unsettling to the small group but they’re not backing down regardless, one of them having gotten up from the short wall in front of the pub. “Alright. Let’s leave, Jules.” He takes Rook’s hand and pulls him towards the entrance, much to the Frenchman’s relief. His upbeat mood has taken a damper and only plummets further when he hears the next words coming out of one of the men’s mouths.

“That’s what I thought, bloody poofs.”

Mute stops in his tracks, face giving nothing away but his grip tightens considerably – Rook has heard a little about his parents, enough to know that it’s a sore spot for him. He’s about to speak up when Mute gently strokes over his cheek, tilting his chin up in the process and kisses him sweetly once again. “I’ll be right back”, he promises softly with a warm smile, then he turns around and joins the four blokes, body language attentive but not aggressive, just like his words which Rook unfortunately doesn’t catch.

Rook’s first instinct is to drag him away before he gets seriously hurt, completely forgetting about what they do for a living momentarily, and so when the spokesman shoves Mute backwards and actually lets himself be provoked into swinging his fist, Rook is this close to yelling and intervening.

At least until Mute knocks the dude out with a single punch.

The rest of the altercation is a thing of beauty, basically textbook and courtesy of all the times Mute sparred with Glaz, eager to improve his hand to hand – it reminds Rook more of ballet than a drunken brawl because the way his boyfriend ducks under punches telegraphed from a mile away, uses the terrain to his advantage and even playfully prolongs the whole thing by doing nothing but blocking is nothing short of artistic. It’s rare to watch him move this smoothly, with so much grace and latent power, even holding himself back and letting the last guy escape. The whole thing can’t have lasted much longer than ten seconds which is worrying because Rook can’t remember ever getting this fucking hard in such a short time.

Mute is barely out of breath when he joins him again, face soft and lips softer, and all of it is merely adding to Rook’s overwhelming desire for this multifaceted genius in front of him. “Fuck that card game”, he murmurs, “that was the sexiest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

The Brit laughs while shaking his head. “You asked about the most romantic thing before.”

“Same thing”, he counters quickly, prompting a wide grin.

“You’re unbelievable.”

And while they’re on their way in, holding hands once more, Rook beams at his back, filled with admiration and adoration, and thinks: No. You are.

[monstersofsilence]

Almost the real thing

Carefully walking through the woods, Xanoys finally spotted the clearing, finding the hive and a huge facility complex connected to it that's on top of a cliff. She hasn't seen Linith in a long time. During the time the red blood was absent, Xanoys has been training on her time, getting stronger, better, faster. Maybe she can impress Linith with how much she has improved.

Reaching up to the front entrance, she looks up at a camera and waves to it. She hopes the red blood still remembers her. It'd be upsetting to leave her hanging there for who knows how long. After a minute, a buzzer sounded off and the door opened by itself. Seems like Linith made some additions to her home while on this vacation of hers. "Miss Talisa!" A loud speaker came up. It was Linith speaking through it. "So glad to see you again. At this point, you pretty much know where to go. I'm waiting down here in the training area."

Wasting no time, Xanoys walked down through the normal looking hive until reaching a wall. A body scanner quickly reads Xanoys and the wall opened up like a door that leads to the facility complex that's connected to the hive. Walking down the hall, she reached to where Linith with a smile. "Hey, Linith. Good to see you again." Xanoys joyfully said. "How was your vacation?"

"Pretty nice! Get to lay back, spend time with my mate, nice view as well... in other places than one." Linith giggled to herself with a grin. "Anyways, let's start up with something interesting" She walks over to a large glass box with holographic projectors on the top. "This here is my latest invention... also was built by my friend Jaisnt. This is basically like a simulator. It'll project images of troll-like figures. They look and pretty much pack a hell of a fucking punch like... well, us!"

"Holy crap..." Xanoys says. "So if I'm like fighting actual people?"

"Yup! I've gone around and recorded every fighting style that I have seen, crunched all the numbers into the computer and it'll simulate how any troll would fight. Some are bare arms while others have some kind of psionics or whatever powers they can use at their disposal... including mine~"

"For real...? There's a simulated projection of your fighting style? Along with fire?"

"Pffft, fuck yes! And I'm going to tell you, this is as real as it gets. When those projections hit you, you'll feel it. If you face a projection using ice, you'll feel the coolness. When you face someone using fire, you'll feel the heat from the flames. Luckily, I made sure to take precautions. If I see you starting to get hurt real bad, I'll shut off the simulation like pulling the plug."

This was a lot to take in. Xanoys had merely been training with hitting pads that had a sensor in them for Linith to record the results. How hard the yellow blood hits, how fast can she throw punches, is she agile enough, many things of the sort. She wants to become stronger and damn it does she want that more than ever. Taking in a deep breath and exhaling, Xanoys puts on a confident posture, hands becoming fists. "Okay. I'm ready." She merely says.

"You know what to do. Step inside the simulation box." Linith says and gestures over to the entrance. The yellow blood walked inside and stood in the middle while Linith goes to the control board, punching in some key notes and numbers to start the process. Like she says, hologram projections appeared. Ten troll projections all varying in shapes and sizes. There was one that stood out the most, a huge, muscular troll projection. "Ready?" Linith said over the loudspeaker inside the box. Xanoys puts her fists up as the red blood began to countdown. "Three." The yellow blood looked at each troll, trying to figure out what they'll do right away. "Two." She doesn't know what to expect, but her best bet is to run, get some space and figure them out. "One." That's the plan for now. Quickly observe and take note on that. "And begin!"

Xanoys quickly rolled towards the ground as she hears a fireball wizzing by her as the projections begin to chase her. One of them had ice, building up an ice ramp as they glide on it to pick up speed towards her. Xanoys looked back to seeing another projection floating in mid-air, flying around with glowing energy on their hands. A specific power? It wasn't until the projection said some words she didn't understand as projections of rock spikes began to rise from the floor right in front of her at the direction she's running.

She jumped away, hearing another string of unknown words as projections of shadows suddenly appeared and risen from the ground, forming into spears as they dart at her direction. Xanoys quickly dodged them. A magic user. Linith wasn't kidding when she said there's a whole lot of fighting styles though magic was something the yellow blood didn't expect. Hearing the projection of the ice figure coming behind her, she turned around, elbowing the figure right on their face to knock them down.

As it fell, another projection came in, hands on fire as she kept moving away from the punches, feeling the intense heat coming from them. Xanoys dodged every swing until she notices the projection grinning and opened their mouths to breathe out a line of fire. Eyes widening from this sudden attack, Xanoys quickly ducked and rolled out of the range from the attack, behind the projection as she got up, landing a couple of punches to at least debilitate them for a while as she deals with the other projections.

Another came in, lightning sparking around them as they sprinted towards them and tried its best to electrocute Xanoys. She wasn't going to let it happen though as she kept her distance with every swipe of the projections hands. If possible, they could run out of energy, at least she's theorizing on how certain powers work. After a couple of swats at nothing later, the lightning around the projection dwindle down, like a battery using up all its juices on one task.

Xanoys smirked, seeing an opening and laid out a few punches to daze the projection, even going as far to detain it for a bit by having an arm around the figure's neck, grabbing their hand and pointed at a couple of other projections that were running towards her. The lightning figure used its power and electrocuted the other projections, chaining together from one to another. Once that was done, Xanoys quickly twisted the lightning figure's neck, taking them completely out of the picture which leaves the large, muscular projection, the fire using projection, and the magic wielder projection.

Xanoys raised her fists in front of her and charged straight at the large figure. Meanwhile, Linith record the data as she sees it appearing on the monitors in front of her including seeing the live footage of Xanoys. She hasn't been looking the whole time, but a temperature gauge has been on the whole time on one monitor and it always seem to spike when the yellow blood landed a hit. On the corner of the red blood's eye, she finally noticed it and raised a brow in confusion from this. "What the hell? Is it a glitch?" Observing the temperature gauge, she configures the video screen of Xanoys' fight and the temperature gauge to be in one monitor.

Her eyes wasn't playing tricks and there is no glitch in the system. Each consecutive hit Xanoys makes, the temperature would spike. Though why? Xanoys never mentioned any kind of power since she solely uses her shotgun gauntlets. It wasn't until she glanced at what was going on in Xanoys' end and sees her being overtaken by the projections. The large projection literally grabbed her like she was nothing and was ready to bring her down onto its knee. Linith gasped and quickly pressed the button, the projections disappearing which left Xanoys floating in mid-air for a second until falling five feet flat on her back to the ground. The yellow blood groaned in pain as Linith opened the door and quickly went to aid her. "Hey, are you okay? I'm so fucking sorry. I wasn't paying attention like I supposed to." Linith apologetically says.

"Fucking... hell." Xanoys only said. "You weren't kidding..."

"Well, I am a scientist. Also... I need you to tell me this again and I want you to be completely honest to me."

"Alright... shoot."

"Do you have any kind of power, abilities, whatever!"

"What? No! I never had any powers from the day I was hatched!"

"Then why was the temperature spiking every time you landed some sort of hit.

"... What? What do you mean?"

"It spiked every time you made contact at those projections. It was at five hundred and thirty-three degrees fahrenheit at one point! That's literally equal to the heat of fire!"

That really happened? Xanoys thought to herself on this. She doesn't have any power that could cause that. She slowly got off from the ground, exhausted and a bit beaten up. "I don't know, Lin... I don't have any kind of power. Otherwise, I would have told you. You know that."

"Yeah... I know." Linith placed a finger on her chin, thinking for a moment until having an idea in her head. "Listen, you head back home. I think this is enough for now. In the meanwhile, I'm gonna re-watch the footage of your fight and try to figure out what was going on. I'll let you know when if I find out anything."

"Ugh... thanks." Xanoys says with a grunt as she began to walk away. "I'm gonna be sore in the morning..." The last she said as she passed the doorway, closing behind the yellow which leaves Linith alone, wondering on the whole thing.

Whatever happened, she needs to find out why the temperature spiked whenever Xanoys' hits made contact. She'll stay up all night to figure it out if she has to.