[Drama] It gets easy later

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

This time, instead of turning into Nika's center, Jez attempted to turn to her outside in a half sidestep to try and deliver a blow to the more experienced woman's side. A strike to the stomach might move the diaphragm and leave an opponent winded, but a punch in the kidney was something else entirely.

[Nika Novak]

Nika shifts so the blow only grazes her and tries to trap Jez' arm against her side, but it's a much more defensive move that sends them into a grapple she can't just throw Jez out of.

"Better." she grunts as she tries to use her entire body to twist Jez' arm.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez meanwhile was trying to hook her leg around Nika's ankle, which resulted in the two girls getting tangled up into a bit of an awkward pretzel. Falling to the floor with your opponent wasn't ideal, so really the "winner" would have been determined by who came out on top on the floor.

[Nika Novak]

The two tumble back and forth a bit but there's no doubt that Nika is the physically stronger one and eventually she ends up on top with one of Jez' arms pinned above her head and the other on her side while Nika straddles her.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez struggled and wiggled, but eventually gave in - she had put up a good fight, but she wasn't winning this one. Still, it might give Nika a decent idea of what she was working with here. And so many quips entered her mind - how many times would she have teased Nika about this had she found herself in this position months before? But now it make the girl feel sad inside. For both women, Jez was in a position that Katarina or Nika should be in, with their respective counterpart. She really did foul things up for both of them, didn't she?

[Nika Novak]

Nika can't possibly read what's going through her head from Jez' expression but what she can tell is that things suddenly got very awkward very fast as she's pinning her down, both of them breathing fast. It's impressive how fast Nika is in jumping up and letting Jez go.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Before Jez had a chance to admit that she yielded, Nika was off of her. Still, they both knew that she had been bested so she thought it better than to try and turn this around. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked up at Nika with her best attempt at a neutral expression.

"Relax, I'm not getting the wrong idea." She pushed herself up into a more normal sitting position before she spoke again, assuming that the blame was entirely on herself for looking so submissive and breedable. "Do you wanna maybe take a little break?"

[Nika Novak]

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Nika huffs. "But if you need a break that's fine with me."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"I mean, I'm still good." Jez said, taking the opportunity to stretch out her muscles a bit. "But I'd like to hear your assessment. Is there any hope for me?"

[Nika Novak]

"You have some good instincts and fundamentals. What you need is practice and some muscle mass. And potuzhnistʹ mystetstvo. Martial techniques that incorporate your mutation."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez looked at her arms, and then at Nika's. She never really considered trying to build up her muscle mass. "I was started on Wing Chun and then Keysi, but... I definitely wasn't a master when I left, and I let myself get rusty trying to avoid becoming what they wanted me to be. I'm honestly curious what you think would best suit me."

[Nika Novak]

"I'm not sure defensive stances serve you best considering what you can do but you lose coordination with each copy, yes? Perhaps something you've already trained in will do and you're not a very... aggressive person to begin with. More important is how you leverage what you have. You overwhelm with number or sacrifice your copies, but I don't believe you've thought too much about what you can do. Even just one copy used to fight in your stead means you can all but teleport, throw your opponent off by letting one copy fade and reform to catch them off-guard. No martial art considers that in their techniques. At any moment you can surround your opponent or make them lunge at nothing. That's the technique you need to build on. If your copies duplicate what you're holding you could carry a grenade. I suspect you might not be comfortable with that approach, but it shows how much more than 'multiple copies of you' there can be to your power if you think about it's applications."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez hemmed and hawed, a lot of what Nika said made sense, but she seemed to be giving the glasses-wearing girl a little more credit than she was due. "I can dismiss my copies, but it's... complex. If they don't come back into me they turn into dust and I... lose a bit of myself. I can only lose so many before I get exhausted." Jez thought it was best to demonstrate her limits by making a copy of herself. Both of them reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, then both presenting Nika with the screen. Only one of them showed her home screen, the other one was completely black and didn't show any sign of functionality.

"I can copy myself, and what I'm wearing, but anything too complex not so much. But it could work with simple martial weapons, I think."

'But you're right in most of your assessment.' The other one said as she put the useless phone back in her pocket. "I can definitely throw myself on the sword with minimal consequences. And unlike with a team of individuals, we're all linked to one mind. What one sees, we all see; so what one knows, we all know."

[Nika Novak]

"Weird." she just comments on the blank phone-copy. "But that just takes things off the table I don't think you would have been comfortable with anyway. But the awareness is a good point. Maybe defensive arts aren't doing you any favor after all. With more eyes on your opponent you don't have to rely on stances as much to cover avenues of attack as long as you're able to read them. I think that would be my first suggestion in developing your own unique style."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"So, the best defense is a good offense?" The two Jez's looked at each other and nodded. "That makes sense. I think they started us out with defensive styles because they didn't want us to depend on our mutation too much."
'Especially given how often people try to snap a collar on us. Or that gas.'
"Yeah, exactly. That was twice in the same year. I'm pretty sure our trainers didn't want us to become a glass tiger that just shatters once their one advantage is trumped."
'But one of us could definitely take the grenade to ensure you don't get collared.'
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
'Exactly.'

Katarina and a few others had a lot of experience with Jez's "talking to herself" moments, so now it was Nika's turn to have to get used to it.

[Nika Novak]

Nika looks, well, at least a little exasperated but if this is how Jez prefers to think things through she's not going to stop her.

"Also, not everyone knows everything about your power. Keep it to yourself that your copied equipment doesn't work, that's an advantage you can use."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

The two Jez's looked at each other like a lightbulb had just gone off. "Ooh, like, if one of us had a gun, we could 'surround' someone, and they wouldn't know that they weren't dead to rights."
'The school would never give us a gun.'
"They might give us a taser."

[Nika Novak]

"Exactly. Think outside the box and keep your opponents guessing. What happens if you duplicate an item, throw it and reabsorb the copy that threw it? Because if you're fast enough about it you might have unlimited ammunition, so to speak."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"I've... never really tried that. Wow, we really do have a lot of work to do."

'I'll have to see if I can find a softball or something to test that on. It'll probably be easier with something simple.' The copy padded off toward the equipment room, where surely there'd be a cricket or tennis ball of some sort hanging around.

[Nika Novak]

"Sure. Why don't you try and see if you can hit me with it while we're at it."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"Aim training for me, and avoidance training for you, smart."

The other Jez returned with a tennis ball. "I found a red ball but it was way too hard, even if you are basically indestructible." She handed it to the original, who looked it over as though she hadn't already seen it before.

[Nika Novak]

"I appreciate the vote of confidence but physically I'm a mere human." she says, failing to hide the hint of a smirk at the image she apparently projects.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez stepped into herself and then out again a few times, until there was half a dozen of her, each holding their own tennis ball. A couple of them stepped back to practice by throwing their respective balls to each other to see if they'd even last the trip without disintegrating.

"I dunno, I'm pretty sure you're more than that. I've seen you in action."

[Nika Novak]

"You're right, but perhaps not the way you think. My power is more than projectiles. They become more like... absolutes. Unstoppable, immovable except on their vector. Which means..." she says, leaning down to grab something from her bag and strapping what looks like a brace with only one supporting strut to her forearm. "It can help move me and it let's me block even brutes like Sablinova's bodyguard." she says, holding her forearm vertically and Jez might notice the very faint shimmer the brace takes on as it remains fixed in the air even when Nika's arm moves slightly.

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez got in closer to get a better look, her eyes going wide. "Oh, that is FASCINATING! There's so much resistance that has to be overcome before they even reach you, and by that time the majority of their strength and momentum has been neutralized!"

The other Jez's seemed pretty content with their game of catch.

[Nika Novak]

"It stops bullets. But I wouldn't exactly want to rely on that. Blocking a bullet with a thin piece of metal is more luck than anything."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"It's gotta be less less painful than several inches of flesh and bone, though." Jez commented.

'Oh, yeah! We feel everything. Did we mention that?'
"Yeah. It can be really, really unpleasant sometimes." The other one playing catch commented; thinking back to the centipede incident, and the fall that preceded it.

[Nika Novak]

"That... puts some other suggestions I might have had firmly in the 'emergencies only' category then. I believe you mentioned it was unpleasant, not that you felt everything."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

"There... comes a certain point where the feeling does stop, when the copy is no more. At the time, I... may have downplayed how much I do feel, so that we could forge on ahead. We didn't have time for delays."

[Nika Novak]

"I can respect that. I may not agree with you on many things, but you're one tough little agitator."

[Jezabelle Sherlock]

Jez looked a little humbled by the compliment. "Well, pepper spray and water cannons might not be a replacement for military training, but I guess they can toughen you up all the same."