Ch13 Preheat The Oven To 10,000 Degrees

 

I hit the floor with an audible thump. Again.

 

What was going on?

 

Attack pattern calculation failed.

 

Once Imp led us to the section of padded floor, he had explained that we would be doing something called barehanded combat training. At first I was worried that this would be like the combat tests the white coats used to make me do, but Imp explained that the goal was simply to knock your opponent down to the ground, and not to kill them like I was used to.

 

Ifrit was the first to challenge Adder, and I thought she did relatively well. Their movements were odd, and I attributed the strange movements to them basing their combat patterns on not trying to harm each other. They exchanged a few blows before Adder gained the upper hand and knocked Ifrit to the floor. From what I could tell Adder focused on grabbing Ifrit’s coverings and using them to redirect her motion, while Ifrit tried to do similar. Neither attempted to use powers or a weapon. It seemed simple enough. Ifrit then stood up and, for some reason, bent her torso in Adder’s direction, which Adder then reciprocated.

 

I couldn’t figure out what the purpose of the gesture was.

 

“Okay, how about you next Tofu?” said Imp.

 

I stepped forward onto the mat and took an offensive position until Imp announced the start. When he did I moved forward and tried a few jabs to see what Adder would do.

 

Then the next thing I knew I was on the floor.

 

Error: calculating attack pattern failed;

Estimated threat: Very High;

 

That was odd. From the sensory stimuli I recorded I knew that Adder had grabbed my arm after the third jab. I had tried to shift my weight to take advantage and then… I was suddenly staring at the ceiling.

 

“Nice try Tofu, Gregor, you’re up next,” said Imp.

 

I got up and went to stand next to the other drones while trying to figure out what just happened. Gregor approached next and I resolved to closely analyze their fight to see if I could identify the attack pattern that Adder was using.

 

The fight started and Gregor charged forward, obviously intending to use his weight and size to barrel down his smaller opponent. Adder avoided Gregor by dodging low to the ground, out of reach of his hands, and took advantage of his charge to trip one of his feet. At first I didn’t think her lower mass would be enough to halt his momentum, but instead of just throwing her body against his foot she had grabbed his leg in some kind of limb-lock and Gregor fell to the floor as his leg failed to obey him.

 

From the sounds Gregor made it was also pretty painful. I kept forgetting about using pain, it didn’t debilitate me, and some other organisms like the anomalous yellow-fur just ignored it, so it seemed a risky tactic to employ.

 

After that it was Olson’s turn, despite his protests.

 

“Come on Olson, I pro~mise I’ll go easy on you,” said Adder while flashing a smile.

 

“I felt your easy last time too, and I’ve still got the bruises to prove it,” he replied.

 

Adder laughed at that, and despite his denial of being able to fight her Olson actually did the best of any of us, lasting almost a full minute before he fell.

 

Ifrit went again and did a little better this time, but fell quickly enough. Then it was my turn again.

 

Defensive protocol;

 

I took a defensive position rather than an offensive one this time. I was going to treat this like a brown-fur fight. If a single mistake got me thrown to the ground then it was a lot like how a brown-fur could critically injure me in a single blow.

 

I didn’t move when the fight started, instead allowing her to come to me. She raised her brows in surprise at this, but obliged me in being the attacker this time. I lasted a little longer by not allowing her to get an easy hold on me, but eventually the fact that I was guarding too zealously allowed her to corner me and slip an arm past my guard. I tried to retaliate by counter grabbing, but the moment I did I was on the floor again.

 

“Much better that time Tofu,” said Adder.

 

From that point forward we took turns trying to knock Adder over, but by the end of the hour none of us had succeeded. I improved for sure, but I just couldn’t keep up with Adder’s attack patterns. I had found that she didn’t stick to one overall protocol and instead just switched to match her opponent. I had always thought I was pretty good at switching my patterns to match the situation, but the sheer amount of patterns she displayed put my repertoire to shame. Plus, I think she used some kind of power, because in a few of our fights she seemed to… disappear.

 

Once we were done Adder began to tell each of us how to improve starting with Ifrit. Apparently Ifrit and Adder knew each other, and outside of the job Adder acted as Ifrit’s ‘martial arts’ teacher. Then she turned to me.

 

“So Tofu, you’re pretty rough but you’ve got good instincts, you’re self taught right?”

 

“Um, yes. How could you tell?”

 

“A couple small details, but they show that you’re more used to a straight street brawl. Quick engagements, go for the throat, don’t take risks unless you have too, that kind of stuff. Basically you fight like a caged animal. Against any average brawler it will work just fine, but if you fight someone with real training, especially capes, they will probably know how to handle it. No worries though, you’ve got the talent, I’ll whip you into shape,” she said with a wink.

 

I hoped that wasn’t literal.

 

Adder gave some advice to Gregor and then went over what Olson had been doing for training while he was away. Apparently Olson had worked on and off for Hellion since last Odd Summer, but had to stop a year ago due to ‘personal issues’.

 

Adder finished giving us her analysis before Imp spoke up. “Well folks that was a good workout. How about we head to the break room and get some grub?”

 

Grub?

 

We followed him back to the room with tables and chairs. Inside were some of the masked drones that had gone with Adder and Viper. They looked a bit scuffed up, scraps and small sticky ‘band-aids’ applied to them in some places. Notably of the twenty five or so that had gone with Viper and Adder only about ten were still here, including Mikey.

 

But far more importantly, most of them had a plate of food in front of them.

 

I checked for the source, and on top of a very large, long table placed against the back of the room I saw the food. It was… it was…

 

Beautiful;

 

I needed to borrow the drone word for it, because this was not a concept I had ever really dealt with before. Plentiful, nutritious, amazing, astounding, confusing. Those were the closest I had come before now. But now I understood.

 

There were literal piles of food on the table. I noted burgers and sandwiches like the ones at Maggie’s, but there were lots of foods that I had no name for.

 

Imp walked forward and addressed the room, “Well that does it for the orientation. Feel free to grab what you want and chow down, think of it as an apology for throwing you into a hard workout with the trainers on your first day. We tend to reserve spreads like this for after we do the big jobs so make sure you try out everything while you can. I’ll be getting in touch tomorrow or the day after with your first job, so keep your eyes on your masks. If for some reason you absolutely can’t get to a job at the time we list press the cancel notification button. DO NOT abuse that option, we need it to plan how many people are coming. If you have a day job you think is going to get in the way let Sandra know at the office so she can send us a schedule we can work around. Other than that you’re done for the day, congrats on surviving your first day as a minion!”

 

There were a few sounds of acknowledgment from the crowd and Imp left through a side room. I waited long enough for Adder to show me how to open the white mask to allow for eating before I made a direct path to the food.

 

So many options! I piled a plate as high as I could get it. There were veggies wrapped in these bread things, and bowls for some kind of thick liquid, and meat! I didn’t know that drones actually ate meat, the stuff on the table had been cooked in much the same way as the burgers, and I didn’t know what organism it came from.

 

Yup, it wouldn’t all fit, so I made a second plate and placed a bowl of the liquid on top of the second food pile. I wouldn’t be able to carry any more in a single trip without shifting, and I took one plate in each hand before I headed to the seating area. Scanning the room I saw that Mikey’s table was empty so I decided to sit with him. I still needed to tell him I was wearing a white mask anyways.

 

I made my way over to Mikey’s table before plopping down my food. “Hello Mikey! Amazing food they have here right? Much better than the cafeteria food.”

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Mikey was somewhat unfortunate, as at that moment he started to cough and choke before he could greet me back. Probably some food in his windpipe, a terrible design flaw that most drones shared, poor guy.

 

Cough cough “T-Tofu? That you?”

 

“Yes, are you alright?”

 

“I-cough-yeah I’m fine. What in the world are you doing with a white mask? You had powers?”

 

“Yes, is that so surprising? You witnessed me toss the scumbag.”

 

“I, well I thought you just had a stronger than normal benedicci reaction I guess. I didn’t really have time to think about it.”

 

Ha, this joke I understood. Needing time to think, he had nearly a whole week to do so. I would have to remember to laugh when drones made jokes, sometimes they behaved oddly when you didn’t react with laughter.

 

“So Tofu, you have like, a real super power then?”

 

I had planned on telling anyone who asked that I had mutavus, as that was what I most heard associated with physical alterations. The super power label seemed to be reserved for the physics defying powers.

 

“No, it’s not a real power.” I answered

 

“Oh, so it was benedicci? Or… is it mutavus then?” Mikey asked hesitantly.

 

“It’s rude to ask kid,” came a deep voice with a slight hiss I recognized as Gregor’s.

 

I turned to see the hulking green figure of Gregor. He had also smartly piled two plates of food. Seems he favored the cooked meat items.

 

“Mind if I sit here?” asked Gregor, mostly to me.

 

“No, go ahead,” I answered back.

 

He placed his plates down with a thunk at an empty spot. Then sat down in the chair with an even bigger thump.

 

A suddenly pale-face Mikey responded, “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offense.”

 

Gregor’s expression softened a bit before he answered (he had taken his mask off to eat), “None taken. Just know it’s not nice to ask that casually, and around C’s it can be rather unwise to ask at all.”

 

“O-oh, I see,” said Mikey, then he turned to me, “Sorry Tofu.”

 

“No worries,” I muffled past a mouthful of food.

 

We talked a bit but mostly I concentrated on eating. It was really really good, especially the cooked meat. I might have overdone it a bit though, as Mikey commented on how much I was eating.