[Activity] Power Training: Shane

[Shane Marsh]

Shane didn't trust the new administration but he had to admit to himself that he could benefit from formal power training. So there he stood in the blank DR, dressed in nothing but a green X-Team suit grown from his own body. He hadn't quite figured out colors yet.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

The now standard voice over the intercom.

"Good morning, Shane. Sleep well?"

[Shane Marsh]

"Pretty well for sleeping in a box of dirt," he answered.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Is your situation not to your liking? Would somewhere else be preferable?"

The headmaster apparently did not take a joke.

[Shane Marsh]

"No. It's fine. I actually sleep better than I used to. It's like I wake up having already eaten breakfast."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Excellent! In that case, I'm expecting good things from you for this test."

[Shane Marsh]

"As the Yanks say, 'bring it'."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Clearly, hanging around the Americans has rubbed off on you the wrong way," the headmaster quipped.

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Beginning program for One.  One.  One.  Nine.  March.  Shane.

The danger room shimmered and shook, resolving itself into a setting not entirely unlike Nottingham Forest. Plenty of plants for the plant man.

[Shane Marsh]

Unsure of what to expect, Shane studied his surroundings as started walking.

[Narrator]

In the distance, there was the sound of some saws, and men grunting, and things falling down.

That was probably fine, wasn't it?

[Shane Marsh]

"What? I'm supposed to avenge the bloody trees because I'm a plant?" he snarked as he went to investigate.

[Narrator]

As Shane got a little closer, he would notice the 'loggers', all wearing costumes of AIM.

Or, if he couldn't recognize AIM, he could at least tell that they were part of some kind of evil organization. Again, that was probably fine.

[Shane Marsh]

Okay, weirdos in clearly villainous uniforms who just happen to be felling trees.

He crouched low as he inched closer, growing some foliage matching the underbrush to blend in while he attempted to determine what they were up to.

[Narrator]

"Continue clear-cutting," one of them was saying. "We need to clear this space pronto to set up the lasers."

...OK, whoever wrote this program was not precisely a creative genius, but hey -- basics are basics.

[Shane Marsh]

Shane thought for a moment before slowly running small vines along the ground to connect himself to several trees. His power seeped into them and he left them with a single command.

Defend yourselves.

Green hell broke loose. Branches quivered. Roots strained against soil. And limbs raked and swatted at unlucky mooks.

[Narrator]

The sudden animation of the trees obviously caught the first wave of AIM goons off-guard, limbs swatting away and knocking them all about.

From further back in the camp, more goons ran into storage containers and the like, to get better equipped to fight the green menace.

[Shane Marsh]

Shane circled around the encampment as his ents distracted the goons. He came closer to the containers and sent out vines to pull the doors of one closed and lock in a few goons.

[Narrator]

Hey, that was effective! The goons, who had been going to get supplies, were now trapped. I mean, they still HAD supplies, but there's only so much that could do for them in a locked storage container.

And the rest of the goons were surrounded by tree imps. All in all, a pretty successful day for Shane Mar...

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Beginning Level Two

The scene suddenly shifted, going from the edge of a forest to the center of a park. There were still some trees here, sure, but not nearly as many, and a signfifcant portion of Shane's tree friends de-rezzed as they went along.

From inside the closed supply gate, the sound of metal grinding could be heard.

[Shane Marsh]

Shane tensed for the coming fight, growing shell of tough bark.

[Narrator]

The side of the container busted open as AIM finished cutting their way out.

Gouts of flame followed, as a couple of the goons blasted their flamethrowers at anything green.

[Shane Marsh]

"Bloody hell! Flamethrowers at level two?!" he groused, jumping back from the flames and growing a shield out of bark.

[Narrator]

The flame lapped at Shane's bark-armor, singing and smoldering. The flame stopped as the goons came rushing out to counter-attack.

[Shane Marsh]

Shane took a few too many seconds recovering from the flames before he flung the burning shield at the oncoming goons and found he barely had time to raise his bark-armored fists into a defensive position.

[Narrator]

It was a good thing that Shane had armor on his fists, because the hacking and wailing of machetes and whatnot would have seriously injured a regular man. Even as it was, it would leave a hell of a mark.

[Shane Marsh]

Even though his healing factor would keep him in the fight longer than a normal person, Shane knew it was only a matter of time before they would bring more fire down on him. He needed more strength to fight them off before that happened. So he rooted his feet to the ground and, like the mutant flower he accidentally created, sucked nutrients from the earth to power an increase in mass.

"Get... the fuck... OFF!" he roared. Armor cracked as his muscles swelled and he heaved up at the band of goons obscuring him from sight.

[Narrator]

Shane's feat caused goons to fly in various directions, as he absorbed the power of mother nature!

...Or, well, the power of Maldon Municipal Park! That's pretty good, right?

This power development wasn't in Shane's files, at least...

[Shane Marsh]

Singed, cracked, and hacked up plant-flesh grew together as Bark Knight Shane stomped towards the remaining goons.

"That bloody hurt," he said, grinning under a menacing, thorny helmet.

[Narrator]

Shane's new development seemed to....confuse the system. From what Shane had heard, when previous students had gotten the upper hand, the program had quickly upped the difficulty to match.

For now, however, it seemed to be letting the scenario play itself out, as the AIM goons carefully retreated back towards their shed filled with pointy implements.

[Shane Marsh]

The enlarged Shane surged forward, pressing his current advantage. He grabbed one goon by the uniform and used his temporary strength to throw him aside.

"Who's next?"

[Narrator]

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 Beginning Level 3

The park setting shimmered and faded away, leaving Shane and the goons on a suburban street. There were some small gardens and things of that nature, but no more trees for him to work with.

The swap of locations also meant that the orientation of Shane and his foes had changed -- they were now grouped together at one end of the street, with Shane standing tall at the other, Old West shootout style.

They carefully reached for their flamethrowers, staring down the enlarged Shane.

[Shane Marsh]

Having already fueled his growth, Shane wasn't too worried about being all but entirely cut off from nature. Although every bit mass he lost wouldn't be replenished and he wasn't calculating enough to conserve it. As evidence of this, he began hurling dagger-sized thorns at the fire goons in hopes of hitting a fuel tank or line. But what his untrained throws had in strength they lacked in accuracy.

[Narrator]

His first few shots missed, but he was getting his eye in -- with a little practice, he did eventually manage to hit a fuel line, sending his chosen goon up in massive gouts of flame.

But then, suddenly (and, from what he could tell, out of nowhere -- he would have noticed people flanking him, surely?) came a pair of goons with chemical sprayers -- and they had some kind of industrial-strength plant killer that they were blasting at him, now...

[Shane Marsh]

Shane screamed as the poison soaked between the joints in his shell, burning like a thousand molten needles. But he had lived with pain for months as his body tore itself apart and put itself back together. The scream became an angry roar as his arms shot out like viney tentacles to wrap around the men's legs and pulled as he put his strength into a twirl.

[Narrator]

The goons shouted as vines shot out from Shane, wrapping around their legs and knocking them off their feat. One of them drew a knife, and began trying to cut himself free quickly.

[Shane Marsh]

The hand at the end of the vine-arm grabbed the man's wrist and drove in thorns. The other man got a lung-full of pollen as a pod grew and popped. Even as Shane fought, he began sloughing off contaminated material before the poison soaked deeper.

[Narrator]

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Beginning Level Four

The scenery shifted again, depositing Shane and his goons in the middle of a dry, arid desert, with no plant-life to be seen for miles around.

Shane successful managed to stab/poison/otherwise incapacitate the goons he was running up against, but that, plus getting rid of all the contaminated material, was doing a number on his mass, without an obvious and easy way of regaining it.

And by now, the flamethrower brigade had regrouped and was coming towards him...

[Shane Marsh]

Shane was almost back down to his original size and the heat was rapidly getting to him. With no plant life and no cover of any kind to use in his defense, he was left with only one new and strange idea. He retracted his arms into his body and became like a strange worm to leap into the sand, using a multitude of tiny, short vines as prepulsion.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

Shane was followed by a gout of flame, the sand around him crystalizing and turning to glass...


....and then the simulation froze, coming to a halt.


"Not a bad effort there, Shane -- your ability to do that last move wasn't in your files."

[Shane Marsh]

Shane returned to normal as the simulation derezzed.

"I've been practicing changing shape," he said as he got up, "First time trying to burrow though."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Well, it was impressive, certainly. Any ill-effects from the attempt?"