Chapter 4: Testing
The group of humans and monkeys looked over the training room, which was a large hexagonal stage in a large octagonal column shaped room. "So who's first?" Chiro asked as he stepped behind the controls of a counsel to the left of the door. The control and viewing area was slightly above the stage, on its own square platform. The young man tapped out a few keystrokes, and seven metal column's rose form the ground around each side and from the center of the stage.
"I'm going first!" Alison chimed in. And before anyone could say anything or stop her, the platinum monkey flipped in front of the center pillar. Her hands changed forms as she activated her weapons. The hands enlarged as the palms and backs became reinforced with platinum colored armor. The fingers became armored and covered in small spikes, with each tip ending in clear crystal lenses. In the middle of the palm another lenses could be seen as she stood with hands spread into claws at her sides. "Ready!" She shouted, eager to begin.
"Your objective is to hit as many targets as you can while avoiding the traps for ten minutes. Three, two one, GO!" Chiro said activating the training exercise. Suddenly the pillars and walls were brisling with spiked maces, spinning rotary saws, laser guns, flamethrowers, and metal claws. Pit falls opened in the floor, and iron bars shot across the room in random places. But also small and large circler red bull-eyes extended out of slots on the walls, pillars, and slid along the iron bars as well.
With a shout of "High Velocity Tango!" Alison went to work. Following her shout she swept her arm up and across her body, the index finger of her right hand pointed out. A wire of platinum light shot out and slashed though a target as she dodged a laser blast. With blinding speed and agility she used her light wires to cut target after target as she danced though the attacks. "Speed Crusher Dance!" She yelled as caught herself on bar using her tail. Hanging upside-down, she placed both hands together, with the palms facing out. An energy net fired out of the lenses on her palms, puréeing though three targets along the bar. Using the force of the firing, she rotated around the bar and used it to flip out of the way of a saw.
"What exactly are those devices?" Gibson asked intrigued about Alison's weapons.
"Energy Wire Launchers. They form whips and lines of light, to attack and restrain a target. Combined with her speed, they make dangerous weapons," Lamina answered. 'The can also fire high intensity lasers as well," The white medic pointed out as Alison fired a laser from her right palm lens.
"Time!" Chiro yelled as all of the traps and targets stopped and retracted. The platinum second hoped down to the ground from the top of the center column, flipping down the bars as she came. Landing on all fours, she stood up and walked back to the others with a small smile.
"So how did I do?" She asked Chiro. He answered by flipping a switch, which caused a holographic display to appear on the wall over the door. Out of 500 targets, she had broken 287, a really good number. Out of the top scores up there however, Antauri was number one with 390 targets. Nova was number two, with 388. Gibson was number three with 360. Chiro was number four with 355, and Sparks and Otto were tied with 342. "Sigh, I didn't even get close to any of you," She sighed.
"278 is really good for a first try, cutie. You do understand that we've had a bit more practice at this," Sparks comforted and flirted at the same time.
"Especially since this course is rather random," Gibson spoke up as well. Nova looked a bit annoyed at Sparks flirting, but let it slide, since Alison had actually been a bit upset and was comforted a bit by both monkey's words.
"I go next," Cobalt said smirking. "I'll leave you weaklings in my dust," He stated as he activated his rocket pack. The tan weapon specialist jetted over to the starting point and landed gently. "Bring it!" He yelled as the exercise started. The tan monkey quickly activated his weapons, which were twin Vulcan. The cylinder shaped, multi-barreled, guns had a wide tan stripe painted around the backs of the barrels. A small tan lens was set in the middle of the axis on which the barrels spun. With a smirk, Cobalt named his attack, "Rapid Fire!" Bullets fired in a steady stream as ran through the course, slamming into target after target. The weapon specialist dove between two flame jets, and then lanced a second attack. "Linear Scatter Gun!" A burst of tan fire ripped out of all of the barrels of his guns, firing in a shotgun spread. The shells the weapon specialist fired blasted several targets and traps apart.
"He's not bad," Nova grudgingly admitted as Cobalt minced targets and traps alike in record time.
"However, he is far too aggressive," Antauri noted as he watched the tan monkey destroy indiscriminately.
"I'll say," Azure said as she watched Cobalt actually jump on a spiked mace and ride it down filling it with lead. "It's somewhat disturbing." The trap exploded as he leapt off. Landing he sent more fire outward, with a giddy smile on his face. A few more seconds of this followed till Chiro called time. As his score was tallying up. Cobalt calmly walked back towards the others, confident he got the top score.
"So now what do you think girly? Do you still think you shouldn't retire?" He said arrogantly. Nova just smirked in response and pointed to the scoreboard. For all the shots he fired he just hit 302. It would have been higher, but he blasted traps as well, so that cut into his score. The aggressive monkey said nothing, but quietly walked aside and crossed his arms. 'Next time I will be stronger, and then we will see who is smiling...'
"I guess I'm up," Zephyr said with a vacant smile. "Wee!" and with that squeal of joy she ran out toward the starting point... and ran full tilt into the center column. Everyone blinked, as she didn't move for a second, then blinked again as she suddenly jumped on her feet still smiling. "Well Mr. Pillar, I guess you want to fight. So fight we shall!" With that she activated her weapons. The hands transformed in to indigo painted cylinders with several diamond shaped holes around the circumference. Inside the center was a five bladed-fan covered by a metal grate on the front.
"Fans?" Gibson asked as the programmed started. "What kind of weapon is that?"
"Zephyr's Vortex Fans are interesting weapons. They look like ordinary cooling units, but boy they can do more then that!" Jin-May answered.
"Yeah Big Brain, so watch and see," Sparks added in.
"Well you didn't know what they were either," the blue monkey mumbled but was ignored by all because Zephyr had begun to move.
"Storm Wall Wave!" The indigo monkey shouted as she slammed both fans into the ground. A giant gust of wind shout out of the holes, forming a tornado around the now balancing on her fans monkey. All of the traps were blow away from her as the pillar of wind reached the ceiling. In the space of a heartbeat, the indigo monkey leapt out of the heart of the wind, which quickly died down. Repelling off the ceiling, she fell and twisted using the bars to come down toward the ground, hit targets along the way. "Air Speed Thrower!" she cried as she threw spherical cages of wind that exploded on impact with targets, sending blades of wind and debris flying to destroy more. Unlike the three before her, she had almost no trouble with the traps, seeing as the Storm Wall Wave had scrambled the targeting computer for most of the traps, and her erratic movements were throwing off the rest.
"Chiro, despite her earlier actions, this one has some cleverness to her," Antauri noted once he caught on to her plan. "She is very observant to find the flaws in the traps."
"I noticed too," the human boy replied as he saw her blast ten targets at once unhindered.
"Wow, that is rather cool," Otto said as she used her fans to propel herself away from a flame jet and saw. "I should make a pair of those later." As Zephyr finally landed, her time ran out, so she walked back, backwards.
"Um... Why are you walking backwards?" Alison asked confused.
"So Mr. Pillar doesn't hit me from behind. I know this is just a set-up for an attack," the indigo infiltrator answered, staring at the center pillar with out blinking. Because of this, she didn't see her score of 278. She would have scored higher, but her method of attack was slow.
"Ok, Let me give it a whirl," Jin-May said leaping down in front of Zephyr.
"Are you sure about this?" Chiro asked in concern as she got into position.
"Nope. But that's half the fun right?" She said cheerfully. Drawing both swords she got into a defensive stance. "Hit me!" With a sigh of trepidation Chiro activated the device. 'Now let's see what I really can do," The girl thought as the first mace flashed towards her head. Darting underneath it, with both swords held to the sides for balance, she rushed her first target. Leaping off a bar, and dodging two laser blasts, she neatly cut it with her left sword. Flipping of another bar, she cut three more targets as she came to the ground. However the floor opened up into another pitfall, which it seems she couldn't avoid. "Rocket Boost!" she yelled as she fell. A flash of pink energy raced across the souls of her boots as a hole opened in the center of them. Twin bursts of flame fired out sending the young girl airborne. "Big Cutter!" She shouted as she rose, slashing both swords horizontally towards her left. A large pink energy slash roared from the blades, flying across and cutting down several traps and targets. Darting between shots and attacks, Jin-May repeated her attacks as she flew, hitting target after target. 'Not fast enough,' she thought when she glanced at the timer on the holo-display. "Blaze Glare!" She called out. The visor across her eyes glowed bright with light, then fired in a stream of optical energy shattering a target. This new attack, along with her swords, greatly sped up her target run. Just before her time ran out, she decided to end her run with something big. "Pink Razor Flash!" She yelled as she rocketed up into the air above the stage. She re-sheathed her swords, with her left hand resting on the right sword hilt and the right hand on the left sword hilt. A spherical pink aura surrounded her as white light was pulled into the pink heart on her chest. As the traps locked on to her, she screamed and the world exploded in pink and white light. When the flash cleared, Jin-May was crouched on the ground, with both swords drawn and held above her head, diagonally from her shoulders. She opened her eyes, and every target that was out, fell into pieces. And with that, her time was up.
"Whoa! Cool!" Otto exclaimed when she walked back, putting up her swords.
"That was most impressive," Gibson commented as well as she drew even with everyone.
'Was that the power primate?' Antauri asked himself as she looked at the display. 'I've never seen anyone use it that way...'
"Well leader girl, I half to admit, you do deserve the title," Alison said as her score tallied up. Jin-May's final score was 344, which put her just over Sparks and Otto.
"Woo-ho! I did it! I actually ranked!" The pink-haired girl exclaimed jumping up and down excited. She grabbed Chiro's hands and span around with him. The young boy smiled, happy that she did so well. Nova glanced back at Cobalt to see how he took it, but surprisingly the tan monkey had a smirk on his face. She looked away before he saw her stareing.
'Maybe...' She thought, 'Maybe he isn't such a jerk after all.'
"I guess I'll give it my best," Azure said as everyone settled into place. The gold monkey activated her weapons as she walked into the ready position. The Commutation Expert had two thin, gold, two-pronged tuning forks as her weapons. The third antenna rose from her helmet as she got ready. "Begin!" She shouted as the machines activated. "Echo Force Resonance!" Azure yelled as she struck both forks together above her head, keeping her eyes closed. A rich note chimed thought the air, even as the three lasers locked on to her. "Noise canceller!" She cried, creating a gold glowing shield around herself. The energy beams slammed against the dome she made, fizzing out harmlessly. "Continuous Concert Crush!" She called out. Keeping one fork above her head to maintain her shield, she pointed her free left weapon at a target and fired a focused cone of gold tinged sound, which shattered it. From within her shield, she attacked blasting each target with pinpoint accuracy. In fact, she didn't even look most of the time, and never missed.
"I got it! That first attack was some type of sonar. She's scanned and predicted where each trap and target will be, so she can get the most with out exposing herself to danger," Gibson said after watching for a moment.
"Funny, I just though it was a defective attack," Sparks joked.
"I wouldn't joke, at this rate she is going to beat your score," Gibson retaliated. The red pilot frowned and scoffed. It was rare that Gibson could beat him in a duel of words, but he would annoy him with something else later.
"Hey I think she's done!" Nova exclaimed. And indeed Azure was. The gold monkeys total score was 343, which caused her to rank as well.
"Wahoo!" Cheered the gold commutation expert as she ran back toward the others. She jumped into Jin-May's arms who hugged her back. "I did it! I didn't think I could, but I did! And it was cool!" She exclaimed breathlessly.
"Yeah you did good, kiddo" Sparks complemented graciously. "But I can show you some real moves later if you want me too." Nova sighed irritated and shook her head at his flitting and Chiro just rolled his eyes.
"That's sweet of you to offer, but Otto already said he would. Thanks anyway," Azure answered. Sparks shrugged and moved over to stand behind Otto as Chiro reset the system.
"Very smooth my friend," The red ace whispered as he put an arm around the green mechanic's shoulder. "Very smooth indeed." "How do you mean?" Otto asked confused. Sparks gave him a wink and a smirk then moved to watch the last new monkey in action, leaving a confused comrade behind.
"So Lamina, you're up last!" Zephyr said from behind the white monkey. The shy medic was inching toward the door, but her indigo comrade blocked her. "Don't worry about it," she said as pushed her in position in spite of her protests. She darted away leaving the white monkey to stand alone, blushing.
With a sigh, the white medic activated her weapons. Her wrists became thick, white ring magnets, and the back of her hands, fingers and thumbs turned into narrow stripes of white metal. The empty space for the rest of the hand filled with glowing white, 300,000 degree plasma claws. And with that the traps and targets started. "White Hot Palm!" Lamina yelled her first attack as she made her way towards the top of the center pillar. She slashed and melted targets with claw slashes and palm strikes.
"Did you notice that Lamina can still grab the bars even with her weapons activated. I wonder why she doesn't melt the metal?" Gibson asked.
"Probably because she is increasing the magnetic fields when she isn't attacking, allowing those plasma claws to act like hands," Otto answered casually.
"Oh, how did you know that?" Azure asked impressed with the green mechanic's knowledge.
"I'm the one who upgrades and maintain the Super Robot," He answered simply.
"Really? Tell me more," said the gold communicator leaning closer. As Otto and Azure started to get to know each other better, Lamina made it to her goal. Landing lightly on the top of the pillar she immediately sat down in a lotus position, palms facing up and away from her.
"Plasma Wisp!" Lamina commanded, and with her words the plasma in her hands flared into a sphere of green energy and white ionized gas that surrounded her. With a shout it exploded into a storm of smaller orbs, each homing in towards a target, and obliterating it. In a flash the target run was over, with Lamina scoring a massive 487 points. Everyone's jaws dropped in shock as the shy monkey's score tallied up.
"How did you do that?" Azure asked impressed.
"Um... I'm not sure. I just looked deep and know I could. Did I do something wrong?" Lamina asked nervously as she returned.
"I would say you did something very right, not wrong. Child, I believe you might have the ability to access the power primate," Antauri said looking at her differently. Seeing the look of confusion. "I will tell you more about it in detail later." Lamina quietly nodded, blushing.
"Well, all of you are very good individually, let's see what you have in team work. I'm sure you will be just as good," Chiro said happily. At that statement, Lamina looked even more nervous, Alison and Azure looked embarrassed, Zephyr was confused, and Cobalt hostile.
"Um... Chiro, we haven't..." Jin-May started to say, when the alert went off again.
"Can't we just have the afternoon off?" Otto wined.
"Everyone, to the control room!" Chiro ordered. All twelve people burst into the room, stopping in front of the main computer. It showed several signals similar to the ones they saw earlier that day. "Metal Formless." Chiro snarled.
"Chiro, you and the others, haven't recovered completely yet. Let us see if we can't handle this. After all, there're just formless with armor, right?" Jin-May asked softly.
The boy crossed his arms and rubbed the bandages on them, thinking. "All right. See what you can do, but if you get into trouble, retreat here. We'll be resting up to join you later, either way."
"We won't need help, but our foes will," Cobalt said with a sneer. The tan weapon expert activated one of his linear Vulcan and rubbed it with a smile. "This is all I need."
"Regardless, you should meet them here, on main street in the lambda sector," Gibson cut in impatiently. "It's a canyon there, and will force them to attack you head on."
"Understood Gibson. Ok, team, let's go!" Jin-May ordered as the six rookies rushed into battle.
"Good luck," Chiro whispered as they left.
A/N:
Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, I've just got a new job and haven't been able to get online lately. Normally I avoid author's notes but as you may have noted there are three things I must address.
One: I have an idea on what relationships between the two teams will be. The new monkeys won't all hook up with the old, even if the genders are even. Instead, each teammate will have a different relationship, like friendship, family and maybe some romantic love. But all of this is in the future, after all both teams just met, and aside form Jin-may, they are strangers to each other.
Two: I just realized I didn't have the old team introduce themselves to the new team, but for the sake of the story, I'm adding in a line last chapter, and I want to point out that Jin-may did tell her five monkeys all about the hyper force on the way to Shuggazoom.
Three: The ratings for the target test I based on weapons, personality, and overall skill. All 500 targets did not come out or stay out the entire time, so to get a perfect score a player would need focus, skill, speed and power. Based on the episodes, Shadow over Shuggazoom, I, Chiro and The Lords of Zolatr 7 (I can't remember the planets name...) Antauri and Nova are the best hand-to-hand fighters of the Hyper Force. With Antauri being the cleverest fighter, and Nova the most skilled. So both would figure out how to hit the most targets in the least amount of time. Antauri's score is slightly higher because is a master of the power primate. Chiro is pretty good, and has the power primate too, but is still learning and does lack a little focus. Gibson has multiple weapons, so it makes it easier to hit the targets quickly, and both Sparks and Otto I don't see taking a test too seriously. That's why they both have lower scores.
As for the newbie monkeys, I didn't want to make them too strong because they lack experience. Programmed moves can only take you so far. Lamina lacks confidence and Azure aggression, so despite the formers' powerful weapons and abilities and latter's senses and shields they aren't the best fighters. Cobalt is too aggressive and lacks focus so he wastes moves, and Zephyr weapons aren't rapid fire, as strong as they are. Alison and Jin-may are the most balanced, but the former needs to work on her judgment to fight better. Jin-may score would have been closer to Alison's if she didn't use that last move. So there is my logic for everyone's individual skill and power. Now if it will stay that way...
To the reviewers:
Bestfire: I like the new team as well. Too bad they have some bugs to work out before I can really use them...
DayDreamer9: Acually the guy in the purple robe was our old friend the King before his little... change. How much of a part he played in Rain's death has yet to be seen. As for Cobalt and Nova... they may come to and understadning later, but there personalites are very, very incompatatble... There will be pleanty of waffley seens between Jin May and Chiro, but that will be later, right now I am trying to get everyone in character and can't quite go into depth like I want...
4Evermonkeyfan: It actually took me awhile to figure out the whole background thing. I also left it somewhat open because I may want to add in more canton history as its relvealed... depending how this story goes.
Animefangirl11: Thanks for the kudios. I'll try to update more often, but I'll have to be when I can reach the libary computers...
Kiozona.pop: Jin-May at this point is a very advanced cyborg. She has some nano machines inside her, which gives her some ablities, like the machine comuncation, rocket flight, and the eye lasers, but she can be hurt like a regular human as well...
Andi Marie Black: That is the biggest complment a fanfiction writer can get. I try to capture the blend of action, humor and drama of the show and hope I don't do to badly... Note: I actually taped certin key eps. and used them to make a infomation file. (I have no life) And again, I'll try to update more often.