[Activity] Power Testing: Nika Novak

[Nika Novak]

Unlike most of her fellow students, Nika seems genuinely excited for her Danger Room appointment. She's even five minutes early instead of doing her best to be exactly on time, leaving her some time to do a couple extra stretches and warm-ups in the blank room.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Ah, Ms. Novak. Always glad to see someone taking the initiative and arriving on time," the headmaster said, nodding in her direction as he entered the control room.

[Nika Novak]

"I try not to be disrespectful by wasting somebody's time."

"What do you need me to do?"

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"We're going to be testing your target recognition and accuracy skills. I see from your files you have quite a significant amount of training back in Symkaria, yes?"

[Nika Novak]

"Correct. Military academy and additional security training. This should all be in the dossier, I believe." she says as she kneels down to open up her bag and unrolls the cloth holding her various 'weapons', grabbing the part that comes loose as a harness and strapping it on. "I completed the required firearms training but opted out of the additional classes to focus on hand-to-hand and my own arsenal."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Have you had much practical experience; field experience? Because of your government's arrangement with the university, they've tried to keep most of that out of your official files."

[Nika Novak]

"Some. I'm sure you understand the need for confidentiality."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Of course. And I'm sure you understand that keeping your charge safe is among our top priorities, though there is a limit to the special treatment we can give."

[Nika Novak]

"Which is why I am here, though I'm not sure I follow the logic of placing me in a different dorm room..."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Katarina asked to be treated as a normal student as much as possible, and most normal students do not room with their bodyguards. I promise you that we vetted Ms. Weaver, her new roommate, quite thoroughly. I would give you her file, but alas, that's restricted to the administration and prefects at the moment.

We kept you on the same floor close by, so you can easily arrive during times of trouble."

[Nika Novak]

Nika frowns slightly but doesn't say anything further on the topic.

"I am ready to get started."

[Narrator]

"Very well. Good luck, Ms. Novak."

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Subject.  Nine.   Two.  Four.  One.  Novak.  Nika.

Beginning Power Training.

Nika found herself in front of an opera house, escorting a man in a suit, who was waving and shaking hands with the crowd on their way in.

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An assassination threat has been made against your trustee.  You must find and neutralize them before they strike.

[Nika Novak]

Nika follows closely behind her charge. There's no point in getting in front of him while he's actively shaking hands and this way she can get a better view of the people he is interacting with. It'd help to know the larger picture, but a threat being issued means there's a possibility the opposition would strike in a crowd and disregard their own safety as opposed to a hired assassin who wold want to rouse as little attention as possible and get away. Making a threat to begin with usually means the message being sent is more important than the attack itself, which is another reason for why she shouldn't hurry the target along. He's out here despite the threat and thus sending a message of his own. Not a lot of information to go on at the moment, but it does give her a little bit to work with.

She eyes the crowd in between keeping her eyes on the hands of the people approaching, watching for anybody who might be pushing a little harder to get to the front of the crowd for a chance to get close. As she does she carefully palms one of the pen-sized metal rods, holding it in place with her thumb but out of view of anybody else.

[Narrator]

The man continued to press the rope line, making his way in towards the building proper.

About halfway between him and the opera house gates, Nika would spot someone who didn't quite look like they belonged. The opera is a formal occasion, and most people were dressed appropriately. Not everyone in the crowd were wearing tuxes or anything, mind you, but still, there's a level of formality that doesn't quite line up with a man wearing a baseball cap and an old jacket.

[Nika Novak]

Nika pushes up closer to her charge and as she slips past him leans in for a brief whisper. "Potential bogey ahead."

Then she slips off to the side and into the crowd so she can approach from the man's side while simultaneously keeping her charge in her field of vision. There could be more than one assassin after all.

[Narrator]

Nika's charge subtly nodded at her, slowing down slightly on the ropeline and allowing Nika time to work.

The man was a little antsy, Nika could tell from his body language. And he didn't notice Nika slipping around.

He drummed his fingers on the ropeline, waiting for Nika's charge to approach.

[Nika Novak]

Coming up behind him Nika put her hand on the man's upper arm with a firm but not yet painful grip.

"Everything alright here, sir?"

[Narrator]

"Layofme," the man said, in an Eastern European accent. Transian? Lichtenbadii? There was a lot of overlap in these areas, so it was hard to be precise about these things.

He tried to shrug Nika off.

[Nika Novak]

"Just answer the question, sir." she says, her grip tightening while she looks past the man, scanning the other side of the crowd.

[Narrator]

"I am just fine, so lay off," the man said, again trying to shake himself free.

He glanced across the road, briefly up towards a high window of a building across the street.

[Nika Novak]

"You just seem very nervous. Should we go somewhere to talk." she says and it's not really a question. Her main attention however is on the window across the street now.

[Narrator]

There was a glint of light from the window, and some movement with the blinds in the room across the street.

"You'd be nervous too if some crazy bitch was grabbing yer arm."

[Nika Novak]

"Who's up in the building across the street. One chance." she says, letting go of his upper arm in favor of grabbing his wrist and wrenching his arm behind his back, the other hand still free and holding the projectile. She briefly glances at her charge to gauge the timing until he potentially comes into line of sight of the suspicious window.

[Narrator]

"Svoboda v naší době." was all Nika got out of the man, as he twisted himself to try to break free, or at least turn Nika off balance. He wasn't particularly strong; it was more an attempted element of surprise.

Nika's charge would be in a clear range of whoever was in the window in about 10 seconds, so an action had to be taken quickly. And the flash of light repeated from the window -- light glancing off of something metallic?

[Nika Novak]

Nika's Czech isn't perfect, but she knows a fanatic slogan when she hears it. She uses her leverage on the man to wrestle him to the ground and allows herself two seconds to carefully take aim. The metal bolt rests in the crease between her index and middle finger as she points at the metal glint in the window and she let's her power flow into the dart, arresting it in it's vector before letting it snap forward, accelerating it impossibly fast as the projectile carves an unerring path through the air. Before she even sees the results of her shot she's already reaching for more darts from underneath her jacket, flinging one dart at the man on the ground to nail his pants to the ground. The other one is attached to a leather loop that serves as a handhold around her wrist that she fires off at the top of the offending window, propelling herself through the air.

[Narrator]

Nika is able to pin her cap-wearing foe to the ground easily enough, and soar through the air towards the window.

Her first shot into the window had shattered it, meaning Nika could fly through the hole without having to smash through the glass herself.

Inside, one man was on the ground, holding a sniper rifle -- or the remains of one, after Nika's bolt had smashed into it. It had to have been the glint of light. A second man was still recovering from the shock, and didn't immediately react to Nika flying in through the window.

[Nika Novak]

Nika slips out of the handhold as she jumps through the window and lands in a three-point crouch. Grabbing for the rifle's barrel she tries to swing the broken gun like a club at the second man before he has a chance to recover.

[Narrator]

The second man, after his delay, reached for a gun he had on his side, but Nika was able to fluidly take the rifle and slam it upside his head, knocking him to the ground, cold.

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Beginning Level Two

From the street below, a car's engine revved, as a van started heading for the crowd in front of the opera house.

[Nika Novak]

"I see how it is." Nika grouches, hurrying back to the window and bashing the remains of the rifle against a nearby radiator to free the barrel from the various other bits still clinging to it. Then she takes a deep breath and pushes her power into the rifle barrel, arms shaking with the effort as the larger item resists her efforts, like pushing against a seemingly exponential resistance until it finally gives. Her power snaps the barrel into a state of frictionless physics and fires it off at the van while Nika braces herself against the windowsill with both arms, catching her breath.

[Narrator]

The rifle barrel soars through the air, and then through the front of the van and the engine block. This is not ideal operating conditions for a Ford Transit! That surely violated the warranty!

It also sent the car smashing out of control, slamming into a wall just short of the assembled crowd.

After a moment, the back door of the van opened, and some dazed skinheads started emerging.

[Nika Novak]

Nika, not particularly eager to shatter her ankles, swings herself over the edge of the window and begins scaling down the front of the building by aiming to land on the window-sill of the story below her, break her fall, grab the window-sill to lower herself and repeat the maneuver until she reaches the ground.

"Hey! мудаки!" she shouts to get the skinheads attention in case her acrobatics didn't already.

[Narrator]

By the time Nika could reach the ground, the skinheads had at least somewhat recovered from smashing into the wall at high speeds. And yes, Nika's shout got their attention.

And a hail of gunfire, but I suppose that was always part of the plan.

[Nika Novak]

Better at her than her target. Or worse, the crowd.

Nika breaks into a zig-zagging sprint to try and avoid the gun-fire while reaching into her jacket for more ammunition of her own. Two pieces of metal connected by a length of (blunt) wire. The first bolt is left behind almost immediately, suspended in the air as the wire unspools for a couple meters and she uses her power on the second bolt, immediately sending the two bolts flying at the skinheads, dragging the wire between them roughly two feet from the ground.

[Narrator]

Better at her than her target. Or worse, the crowd.

Nika breaks into a zig-zagging sprint to try and avoid the gun-fire while reaching into her jacket for more ammunition of her own. Two pieces of metal connected by a length of (blunt) wire. The first bolt is left behind almost immediately, suspended in the air as the wire unspools for a couple meters and she uses her power on the second bolt, immediately sending the two bolts flying at the skinheads, dragging the wire between them roughly two feet from the ground.

One of the skinheads decides to try to jump over the wire, which only results in him catching his feet on it and spinning heels over head into the ground.

The wire continued on it's path, bowling over a few more skinheads as it soared through the air. One was lucky enough to dodge back in the van, however, and he continued blind-firing at Nika's position while yelling something.

"Zesílení! Potřebujeme posily!"

[Nika Novak]

"Get inside!" Nika shouts at her charge and the crowd in general, waving her arms at them in the direction of the building as she tries to round the van to safely sprint at it.

[Narrator]

The crowd started moving in a minor panic towards the opera house itself, trying to squeeze through the doors. It would take some time for the crowd to entirely disperse.

Because the dude was shooting out of the BACK of the van, Nika could fairly safely get around the FRONT of the van. She would now have the element of surprise on the one remaining shooty boy, with a plethora of tactics available to her -- around, over, through, whatever.

[Nika Novak]

Nika wishes, not for the first time, that her power could affect larger things such as the van, even just to a smaller degree. But instead she runs at the hood of the vehicle and parkours onto it's roof, pulling out an array of bolts and firing them downwards into the back of the van, trying to angle them so they're at least more likely to catch an arm or a leg rather than the man's head. But she is still firing unstoppable metal darts down at the man, so that's more of an afterthought.

[Narrator]

The man cried out as Nika's bolts pierced through the roof of the van. Nika couldn't immediately see what was hit, but he was still moaning, so that's a sign of life! That's probably fine!

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Level Three Beginning.

Another burst of gunfire came from the opera house proper, as well as some screaming and general pandemonium.

A Doombot strode out, Nika's charge gripped in one hand.

"NOVAK. PLACE DOWN YOUR ARMS AND SURRENDER. SO IS THE WILL OF DOOM."

[Nika Novak]

"Oh come on! If this would have been a real threat by Doctor Doom he would have made sure we knew!" Nika grouches, reaching for more ammunition and finding herself down to a meager three bolts. She palms them and raises her hands as she slowly turns towards the Doombot.

[Narrator]

"YOU WILL APPROACH AND KNEEL DOWN ON THE STEPS. DEVIATION WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."