Grin and Bear it (IC)

[GranspearZX]

Navigation, huh?

Arcturus trudged forward, his heavy breaths clouding in front of his face as he walked. The snow didn't seem to slow him down too much either, leaving his enormous, heavy footprints behind before the artificial snowstorm covered them up. He could hear the beeping ahead of him, though he fully recognized that any number of things could be between him and it. He slowed down, his steps careful as he tried to make out the terrain ahead of him. If anything, he fully recognized that he might actually find some pitfall generated by the room.

[Supercape]

Supercape nodded, impressed, at Marcus' progress.

"Good, good, well done, my boy!" he said with encouragement. He was a sturdy character, for sure. He consulted the training manual and the computer readouts.

"Watch out for any hazards, though. The simulation has put in some crevasses, which may be snow covered. Watch your step!"

[GranspearZX]

This was, if nothing else, considerably less stressful. After Pennsylvania, he wasn't sure if he'd ever be allowed to do that sort of thing again. He wasn't sure how he was going to see hazards that he couldn't make out, however, but the beeping was getting steadily louder; he had every confidence he'd get there soon. He put his left foot forward and immediately felt the snow sink well past his knee; there was a brief but very audible string of curses as he fell, lashing out with his left hand to grab onto whatever he could. He felt his claws contact what felt like rock and he gripped the edge. The sound of the rushing snow filled his ears as it fell away from the surface, and he scrambled his way back up onto solid ground, laying on his back as he tried to catch his breath.

"...yeah. Wrong way."

[Supercape]

"Oooopsie Dasey!" said Supercape over the come, although he was pretty sure that phrase wasn't in the instruction manual. In fact, Marcus looked like he was doing extremely well. Right direction, careful, and persistent.

"You are doing great! Keep your cool! errr... pardon the pun!"

The flashing beacon was only metres away, although in the snowstorm, it was hard for him to know how visible it was to Marcus. "Nearly there!" he said, passing on as much as encouragement as the manual p 13 para 7 subclause 6 would allow.

[GranspearZX]

Arcturus rolled over, shaking snow from his fur as he stood back up, staring over the edge of the gaping hole in the floor. Forced to go around, he began weaving his way towards the beacon, quickly realizing that the terrain had several of those crevasses, varying in length and depth. Most of them weren't snowed over, but it was difficult to see anything in the snowstorm--his ability to see in the dark was useless when it was something other than darkness obscuring his sight. He ended up zigzagging his way across the snowfield, moving at a careful pace. It was still faster than most normal people might have been going, and Marcus wished he'd brought his staff with him. It certainly would've made testing the ground ahead of him easier.

After a few more minutes of trekking through the knee-deep snow--and considering how tall Arcturus was, knee deep was pretty significant--he could just barely make out something ahead of him, pulsing in time with the beeping he'd been hearing.

[Supercape]

Supercape could not help but give a round of applause as Marcus braved the biting cold wind and snow to reach the beeping Beacon.

"Excellent work! I can see you are at home in the polar wastes. You must be a polar bear at heart, eh?" he commented, thumbing through the dusty training manual. Where had they got this from... the 1970's? not that it did not contain some wisdom but it all seemed rather antiquated. It looked like a discarded AEGIS manual someone had left here from a few decades ago.

"Next up, zero gravity! You never know if you might be called into some outer space adventure. You know, like in that film..." he struggled to recall "... battle planets!" he said with false conviction.

With that, he pressed another button, and the room went dark, bar the illumination of stars and a distant sun, and Marcus floated off the floor in simulated zero gravity.

[GranspearZX]

"Polar bear? ...huh." Marcus smiled a little bit at that, but it did put a thought in his head. Could he use the Beast Rune's magic to assume other animal forms? Logically, he didn't see any reason that he couldn't... but he wasn't sure how.

"Battle Planets? I think you mean Sta-aaah!" The sudden weightlessness and his feet coming off the ground surprised him. In seconds, he was upside down, flailing a bit to try and right himself. "...yeah, okay, this is just weird. Interesting... but weird."

Of course, he was an eight-foot bear floating in space. Weird covered the situation pretty well.

[Supercape]

"Excellent! how's that feel?" asked Supercape, observing the floating Bear in the middle of the Simulator Suite.

"Just get used to it for a bit, its an odd sensation. Ill put up an obstacle course..."

He thumbed through the manual before finding an appropriate program: Zero G Maunevering course. With a few presses on the touch-screen menu, it sprung into life, mid-air.

It was, essentially, a large wire frame tunnel, about 100 metres long, coiled and bent all over the place. One end began at Marcus.

"Right, this is to help you get used to pushing about in zero gravity, you know, in case you end up in space or something. You never know when you might get hit by Dr. Simian's Anti-Gravity Ray!"

[GranspearZX]

"Feels like my stomach and my brain switched places." He did feel a little nauseous--nothing debilitating, but it wasn't the greatest feeling in the world. He was pretty sure it would pass. At least he wasn't drowning; this seemed a lot like swimming, just without the water.

So, he 'swam' through the air. It was a surprisingly natural motion; he almost thought he'd have to resort to flapping his arms like an idiot to get around, but it didn't take much for him to get going. Stopping, however, was a little more challenging, and the burly bear found himself running into the tunnel's frame several times.

"Can't imagine when I'm ever gonna be in space... there's enough here on Earth to worry about."

[Supercape]

"There is indeed, plenty on Earth to worry about. But it never hurts to be prepared. Well done, by the way" he added as Marcus got to the end of the obstacle course.

"Simulation off!" he commanded, as the room again once returned to normal gravity and its vast empty lighting. Marcus proceeded to fall a few feet onto the pristine floor.

"Ooops, sorry about that" he apologised "should have given you some warning. I'm sure a big healthy bear like yourself can manage a little fall, eh? Good good!"

[GranspearZX]

"Gah!"

Arcturus lands on his rear, wincing a little bit. It wasn't a far fall, comparatively speaking, but still unpleasant nonetheless. He stood up, scratching at the back of his neck. Supercape really was the picture of the 'absent-minded professor', but he was far too nice for Arc to hold that against him. After all, he didn't think there were that many outside of the Academy who would really put up with him.

"Yeah, sure, I'm fine..." He wondered if the training simulator at the Academy was anything like this one...

[Supercape]

"Right, that's all the safe environmental simulations done. We have a few hazardous ones, like underwater, or heavy gravity. It will take a minute to disable safety protocols and do a medical diagnostic on you. I'm not sure I would recommend those, to be honest. "

He thumbed through a few more pages absent mindedly.

"But really, the world is your oyster here. Now that the basics are under your belt, you can use it to test out and refine and special abilities you have. Any skills, senses, or powers you would like to work on, so to speak... so sing out!"

[GranspearZX]

"Oh God, not underwater." He interrupted as he said that, making it abundantly clear that he didn't want any part of an underwater simulation. "You can leave those safety protocol thingies right where they are..."

Arc shrugged. "What you see is about all I've got. I mean, there's the whole magic bit, but I can't really do a whole lot with it." He frowned. Even he wasn't sure if it was just a lack of confidence or an actual lack of power; he'd tried learning the spells from his mother's book, but the process was long--made longer by the fact that he needed reference books just to make heads or tails of it. The only real boon he'd gained from it all was that he was surprisingly well versed in magical theory, but that was the only thing it was in the end: theory.

[Supercape]

"Very wise!" agreed Supercape "Powering the simulator suite down then" he said, as the room entered a dimly lit state that indicated its inactive, power-conserving mode. It looked like a scene from TRON.

With a wobble and blur, Supercape suddenly appeared before Marcus, and shook his head briefly. He always found teleportation a little disturbing to his orientation.

"Well, there you go. A grand tour of the Lab! lots of other stuff too, but its all science mumbo jumbo and you strike me as a more practical kind of student. We are always aourd to help the Students of Claremont for field trips and the like - its a welcome distraction sometimes".

[GranspearZX]

He blinked at Supercape as he suddenly appeared in front of him, a little startled by the distortion of air around him. "How did you j-... never mind." He looked around; it had been a fair amount of time since he'd changed; hours had passed before he even realized how tired it all made him. It took a lot more concentration than usual, but he managed to change himself back to his human form. Marcus extended his hand out towards him. "Thanks for the tour, Mr... ah..." He absently realized that he hadn't really properly introduced himself; Supercape had known he was coming and everything just ran away from him after that...

"Maybe I could come back one of these days and do some real combat training, since I can't really do it at the Academy."

[Supercape]

"Why of course" replied Supercape. "I have to say, you passed with flying colours today. Good head on a good pair of shoulders, if you ask me" he smiled a smile full of encouragement. "I would have to disable the lower level safety locks but that's not too much of a problem, providing you can pass a medical at our facilities here".

"Lots of other interesting stuff we can do with the locks off, but those zappers can sting!" he remembered the malfunctioning Simulator Suite below and how he had been caught in the powerful electrical arc. He rubbed his chest without thinking.

"Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed your stay here, and it wasn't to arduous. Some of those simulations can be a bit tedious, but you were able to grin and bear it!"