Beacon: Unleashed

Agility Test

The gaps between the rocks were too far away for most hunters, yes. But as she had proven previously, Francesca Jade was not most hunters. As if to prove the point she had made in her head, she took a step back on the platform, before hurling herself off of it and into the air, launching herself up into the air with her powerful legs. As she began to descend, she aimed for a Nevermore and stomped on its back, before catapulting off of it and landing on an island. The Bird Grimm was almost killed on impact and sent hurtling to the abyss below. Francesca sighted the nearest island and leapt to it, once more utilizing her extremely powerful leg muscles to do so.

Unfortunately, this one was wet and didn't offer much traction to the Snake Faunus as she slipped on the water. Hissing in contempt, she dug her claws in deep, digging into the stone and carving out a large chunk with her fingers, finding purchase as she stopped herself from falling. Take it slower, you fool... she chastised herself as she stood up, analyzing the shortest and least dangerous path ahead.

Oddly enough, a good portion of it involved using the Nevermores as stepping stones, but oh well, whatcha gonna do?

Francesca's slaughter of Avian Grimm Spines finished, she finally reached the flag, relatively unscathed.

Moving At The Speed of Death.

...Now this was probably going to be difficult. As fast as he was, Archie didn't exactly like his odds making large jumps. Some of them would be manageable, others were going to need a bit more creative thinking, especially if he wanted to avoid drawing attention to him and his semblance.

...not that people pay attention to me to begin with and are none the wiser so far, but that's definitely something I could use to my advantage for the time being. Alright, let's see...

Those fake trees probably weren't going to be close enough to the edge to use as a platform, although breaking one of the branches looked like it'd make a serviceable vault pole. Although with the first few leaps, it wasn't much of a problem to leap from island to island, keeping up the pace and momentum before having to use the branch to vault over the first gap.

Thankfully, the branch held under his relatively light frame on the following attempt as well, although that came to a stop when a Grimm was waiting for him on the other side, the flag quite a dash behind it...and he was already vaulting through the air. Thinking on his feet and spinning slightly, Archie stabbed the branch into the Grimm's head, stunning it for a few seconds as he landed on the monstrosity's back before leaping off and sprinted for the flag, weaving through trees and Grimm hiding in the shadows.

Not even wincing as one grazed his side with a claw, the 'human' leapt for the flag, going a bit too fast as he grabbed it mid-jump and rolled to a stop, slamming the flag into the ground to prevent him from rolling and falling over the edge.

"...well, target obtained. More or less."

Ada sighed, rubbing her temple. Agility test, huh?

She wasn't the one to do things too fast, particularly when it came down to assassination. You don't have to rush anything if you just make sure that your target is in no position to know of your current approach.

That, and she didn't fancy fighting Grimm at all. Truth be told, her last real fight with any was many years ago. Minor encounters like that one Beowulf didn't count.

She placed a charge of explosives and set it off, causing the trunk to go down flying. The very moment it started lowering itself into a favorable position she was already running through its length to the next island, shotgun out in her hands and ready to go. The first Nevermore approaching her crashed down with its head turned into a jumbled mess from a shotgun blast, falling down into the void of the simulation. Cocking the gun, she switched the button on, firing a grenade blast into another tree, repeating the process from earlier.

Another Grimm to approach her she swiftly avoided, ducking under a fierce charge and continuing on with her strut. As Jaws' example demonstrated you couldn't get extra time for killing Grimm.

Sadly there was not a third tree to complete her run... but she had a Nevermore, ready to strike from above. Quick glance-around. Another one. Jump. The giant bird will have to pick up above to not crash into the ground. Can't slow down its descent either with its mass.

The Grimm reared out its head up to see Ada smirking and pulling the trigger. Another bird head blown off, the carcass began rapidly descending towards the last island. It was dissipating alarmingly quickly, but the red-head already knew she's got more than a time to spare. With a casual jump she hopped off the vaporizing body and reached the flag in another few steps.

"Ugh. Never again." She grumbled as she collapsed on her back, trying to catch her breath. "I'm getting too old for such acrobatics."

Agility? Maria wondered as the world became a chain of floating islands, with a flag at the end. Then she smirked as she saw a pack of Nevermore fly towards her.

I've got this. Launching her blades at the nearest Nevermore, Maria started a routine of stabbing the Nevermore she latched onto, provoking it to fly until it died, then ripping it apart as she launched herself towards another one. The young Grimm couldn't keep themselves from trying to swarm her, so they became her little ride all the way to the last island without ever touching the ground, swinging and stabbing as she whooped into the air.

As the last Nevermore's wings gave out, she tore it apart and arced forward, rolling into her landing on the last island and getting up with a flip of her hair as she sheathed her blades and grinned triumphantly.

"Not even close." She gave a little stretch as she waited for the next challenge. "Whatcha got now?"

edited 6th May '15 7:10:25 PM by Insano

Agility Test

Of his many skills and abilities, superhuman agility was not one Leonado possessed. What that meant was that, unlike the others, he would not be able to simply skillfully maneuver his say across the tiny floating stones that barely formed a path.

So he'd have to find a different method.

There were some Grimm flitting about around him. The only issue here would be how to get one down and close enough to force it to bring him to his goal.

So Leonado started to scale one of the large trees around him. He kept sliding down, so he became frustrated and aided himself by stabbing into the tree with his swords and climbing that way. "When the hell are we doing an accuracy test or something.." he muttered under his breath, irritated.

He eventually reached the top and waited for the Grimm to start trying to attack him. They did so quickly, and he managed to throw himself onto the back of a Nevermore. What he couldn't do accurately was control it, and he ended up sailing off in the wrong direction without a hope for recovery.

Agility Test Failed

Richter's mouth pressed into a hard line. "Mm. Interesting. Not to worry, we can compensate for any... failings... this team may have."

She nodded to Kasumi. "For the final test, I want you to test their Stealth. Many of them are very direct, violent people. We ought to see which ones can be trusted with a softer touch."

"Stealth you say?" Kasumi queried, smirking a bit before getting to work on the next arena, when the jungle dematerialized it was soon followed by something a little more civilized, a bank.

But not just any bank, an absolutely massive bank that looked suspiciously like whatever the royal depository would^note if Grim wants to describe this one he can, if not just think big fancy bank, with an even biger vault, after it appears the fox taps the mic, "Break into the vault any way you want, and take the contents, if at any point the alarm is raised, your disqualified."

Lucretia supressed the urge to giggle inappropriately. The Royal Repository? Really?

She had just just made a deposit earlier that day and now she had to break into it? Under normal circumstances she would have just entered her passcode and let her fingerprints be scanned, opened the door and take what she wanted. Of course, that would both ignore the purpose of the test and blow her cover.

"Alisa" looked at the large metal vault door in front of her.

She knew that beyond that was the most overkill security system in the kingdom. The door itself required a passcode and the fingerprints and retinal scan of an authorized person, and any attempt at forcing would trigger the alarm.

...Beyond that, things got a lot worse.

A pitch black room, with rotating laser alarm cages, an anti-dust field and a small squad of Atlesian Knight-100s. And at the center of that room was yet another metal door...built into the floor, leading to the real treasure room underground. Said underground chamber automatically locked itself if you took too long inside. And then it would spray lethal gas at the poor sap stuck there.

Like she said. Overkill.

....She didn't fancy trying her luck against that. This kind of thing....she was terrible at.

"Alisa" raised a hand.

"I forfeit."

Dahlia was just as hopeless, but defeatist she was not. She tried to use her electricity powers to short out the scanners. Unfortunately for her all that did was lock the vault. She attempted to ram into the safe wall for a few times, but after the third attempt she decided to spare herself a concussion. She then proceeded to kick the door.

"No fair. Why do you need to be a hacker to even get to the stealth part?" Dahlia said, sliding down facing away from the vault.

Test Failed.

edited 20th May '15 6:33:00 AM by RhymeBeat

Mike hadn't even bothered with the agility test, there was just no way he could pass it even if he tried.

Stealth on the other hand, wasn't something Mike could handle either.

However, Mason was more than capable of being stealthy.

Unlike his other personalities, Mason absolutely refused to take over unless Mike was wearing Mason's mask for an unknown (and presumably demented) reason.

With the leather mask now sitting snugly on his face, Mike let Mason take over. Looking around the room, Mason slowly began to formulate something resembling a plan in his mind. Spotting the door controls, Mason wandered over and gave the device a look-over before figuring out exactly what needed to be done. Tearing a panel off and exposing the wiring underneath, Mason began randomly ripping wires out and replacing them before slipping Sanity onto his right hand and slamming it into the fingerprint scanner, unleashing a torrent of thumbtacks into the device.

After a few tense seconds, the vault door popped open.

Staring at the door for a few seconds after it opened, Mason murmured "That wasn't supposed to happen..." before stepping through the door and into the next room.

Despite the darkness, Mason could make his way around the room well enough. His night-vision wasn't amazing, but it would do for the time being. A look of concern crept across Mason's masked face as he began to realize just what he was up against.

Nevertheless, Mason was too stubborn and stupid to give up now.

Soundlessly approaching the nearest Knight-100, Mason simply punched it in the face with Sanity, dropping it with little difficulty. Doing his best to avoid being hit by any of the alarm cages, Mason began slinking around the room with surprising amounts of ease. Making his way to the centre of the room, muttering incoherent and frantic strings of words as he did so, Mason eventually got to the door without being noticed by any of the Knight-100s.

Stepping inside the vault and snatching up whatever the contents were to the best of his abilities and exiting as fast as he could, Mason scurried back out to the main room as fast as he could, dropping two more Knight-100s in the process.

Stealth Test Passed, somehow

...It definitely looked like they weren't going to pull any punches with the tests. The combat had been simple enough...while having showing off agility without taking the easy way out was far more difficult. With the mention of one last test focusing on stealth, Archie adjusted the hood over his head.

Let's see. There should just enough leeway to get through a gap in the vault door...considering how 'secure' it is, I doubt brute force or trying to trick whatever identification device it uses will work...after all, if you're stealing, you need to leave no evidence or damage.

He didn't really want to use his semblance, but considering the circumstances, it'd probably be unlikely people would really notice.

There.

A slight fault in the vault door, it was obscured by shadows and by the look, it seemed as the chamber behind it was completely dark, with occasional flickers of light. Not even glowing with Aura, the young man literally vanished into the shadows, moving through the shadowy gaps between the vault door and wall before re-appearing on the other side.

The dimly lit gauntlet ahead of him was certainly interesting. The rotating lasers gave him a rough idea of what he needed to get past before re-appearing/reforming from the shadows, breathing silent and trying to conserve his energy. All those tests were starting to take a toll and using his semblance wasn't helping matters.

Wait. Take a moment, find your opportunity and sneak past. I shouldn't need my semblance again until I get to that second door. With those lasers and that shimmering metal...looks like the way forwards to the goal is down.

Taking a few cautious footsteps forwards after his momentary respite, Archie broke into a run, his footsteps silent and evading the lasers, their light showing off the door down. Quickly melding into the shadows a split second before being detected, he was fortunate enough to sneak through another gap in the door to the proper vault.

...So far, so good. Although he wasn't about to take any chances in case there was one last unexpected surprise and grabbed what would be enough proof to show he'd at least gotten what he was told to 'acquire' before making his escape through the shadows, not taking any chances as he traversed through the darkness and finally re-appeared in the front of the first vault door.

Giving a silent, irritated sigh and leaning against the wall, Archie decided to finally try and catch his breath and well-earned rest after all those 'trials'.

Success.

Okay, first order of business, lightening the load.

Alex shrugged off his backpack and pulled the chain off of cactus. He wouldn't need anything heavier or louder, nor could he actually use it. Taking one blade of the chain whip, he approached the keypad and popped it off the wall, exposing the wiring behind it. Again just using a single section of his chainwhip, Alex neatly shaved off the insulation on the back of a couple wires, then went at it the old-fashioned way: hotwiring. Touching a few wires together triggered some kind of a success, even though anyone actually looking at logs later would notice that no data was actually entered. Messy, and he left behind an obvious footprint. Alex started sweating as the door opened, shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

Laser alarms, with little light. Ugh. Half-Faunusness was not covering it. And Knight-100's... but no sound sensors? Nothing to detect if you just started shooting? Alex quickly popped out of the room and detached his Aura, sending it over to grab Dennis and Jonatan, then darted back in. Before an alarm could get raised, every one of the machines had a bullet in the head. Again, shell casings, bullet marks, probably could tell how tall he was from the angle of the bullets. Sloppy, sloppy, idiot!

The treasure room itself, Alex could handle. He whipped his chain up to the ceiling and sank it into a good crack in the paneling, then swung himself to a point right above it. He dropped, carefully again, and deployed his Aura as he cracked open the hatch. No way it could be that easy, so Alex dropped his Aura down into the room instead of himself, grabbing all he could with his ghostly double. Moving it back up, he suddenly realized he'd have to get out with it.

Or he could do his much better idea. Alex hucked brick after brick of gold towards the door, eliciting clangs and dings as each hit the ground. He swung back to the door, dragged his bricks out, and bowed sheepishly, hating himself every moment of it.

success...?

Stealth? ...Nah

Francesca looked to the obstacle course and pursed her lips. "Not happening. I cannot sneak through that, not by myself at any rate." She said with a sigh.

Stealth...ish

Prospa froze the hinges and the lock on the door before blasting the bank door over backwards, the metal shattering under the force.. She turned to the others and shrugged. "Regrettably I am not able to do stealth infiltration of this quality. However, I am somewhat skilled at destroying built in structures, as you can see."

Naaaah

Ada looked over the stealth course, chuckled mirthlessly and shook her head. "Pass." She spoke simply, twirling the shotgun over her finger and holstering it back.

Lupa shrugged her shoulders as she checked out the area. "Yeah I'm not gonna be able to do this."

Stealth Failed.

Stealth Test

A bank heist, huh?

Leonado certainly didn't know much about that, but he at least knew that something like this would have a tiny ventilation shaft somewhere. If people went in there, they needed to be able to breathe.

He really hated the fact that he needed to use El Cid as much as he did today. He really preferred not to use it, but circumstances required it so they forced his hand. With Campeador, he could redirect his bullets through the path of the ventilation shaft and perhaps blow open the massive door from the inside. His bullets were explosive, of course, but they were small enough that he assumed they'd be stealthy.

And of course, if it had been anyone else but him they wouldn't be able to have this plan to begin with.

Leonado looked around the door (and the surrounding wall) for any sort of opening that might even have resembled a ventilation shaft. He found one eventually, in an obscure corner. He took careful aim, then fired a single bullet down and through the opening. In his minds eye, he traced out the rebounding path of the bullet, making sure to gently redirect it any time it came close to hitting something. It almost seemed like precognition, but it was more akin to him reacting just before the bullet impacted fully, leaving a trail of glancing blows all the way through.

Finally, his payload was close to reaching the target. He slammed the bullet into a section of the shaft closest to where the right side of the door was, hoping that there would be some kind of circuitry there. To his amazement, the right side actually shuddered. The keypad in front of the door displayed a large ERROR message, then locked out.

Slightly irritated, Leonado fired three more shots down the ventilation shaft. He aimed them all at the same place, causing each to impact into the side of the door, destroying even more circuitry and integral parts. Before checking on his progress, he paused to reload.

That should do it.

He walked up to the door, and gently pushed it open. The locking mechanism shuddered, but then gave away as it lost power and magnetic connection. He took a peek inside.

Atlesian Knight 100s. Those were easy enough to deal with. Laser alarm cages. Might prove to be difficult.

An Anti-Dust Field Generator. Leonado certainly knew enough to recognize when his family's technology was being used. Anti-dust fields required knowledge of dust to make, of course, and who else to make those but Ocre Dustworks?

This one specifically would be the Cheloni, mark 6 by the looks of it. Made by Testuda Industries (a subsidiary) for use in military-level protection situations. If it had been the mark 7 this might have been an issue, but thankfully the mark 6 had a fatal flaw in it. Granted, that flaw could only be caused by a localized impact in a very obscure location (a flaw casually forgotten on the design layout), but a flaw nonetheless.

Atlesian Knights had shielding that protected their dust-fuel canisters from anti-dust field generators of a certain caliber. Of course, a Cheloni could pump out a substantially stronger field at the expense of its immediate lifespan, but that was if its safeties were blown off simultaneously.

Which is what Leonado did, of course. He fired a bullet (which used conventional explosives), then guided it straight into the central hub of the generator. Immediately after doing so, he retreated behind the safety only a massive reinforced door could provide.

Sparks ran across the anti-dust field generator's surface as its core ran rampant. The internal emitters spun out of control, sending out a field visible to the naked eye. Said field tore through the Atlesian Knights' protective plating as if it wasn't even there, causing them to short-circuit and fail. This in turn caused all other dust-reliant fuel sources to short circuit as well.

Leonado waited a minute or two for the device to power down and die. Once it did, he casually strolled in, took a look around, then looked at the door on the floor. Strapping Tizona and Colada to his arms, he punched into the door repeatedly until it blew open.

Stealth Test Passed, "stealthily"

The Impossible Test

Lilac looked at the stealth test before her. The number of traps was just beyond absurd for this one, to the point of being unfair. She forfeited, much to her own annoyance.

How is anyone expected to pass this test? This is near impossible.

Test Failed

Stealth Test

Jenazad was cracking open the keypad when he got distracted. The drug fuelled haze he was in certainly wasn't going to help him solve this problem. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a certain somebody. Well, it was impossible, wasn't it? She couldn't have been there. But, despite that knowledge, he looked anyways.

"Narie, I thought you were dead-"

ZAP.

TEST FAILED

So it's a waiting game first. Maria simply blended in with the crowd and glanced at the vault from time to time, waiting for the right moment. Then someone important-looking, maybe the manager, stepped towards the vault with a pair of guards. As the door opened to his authentication, she smirked in anticipation.

And...go! With the power of her Semblance, she dashed through the trio in her way, weaving through the laser alarm cages and using the Kamay blades to make quick work of the robotic sentries. A warrior needs to work without her Dust sometimes, she thought as she sank her blades into the metal door and forced it open just wide enough for her to fit through. Moving quickly, she pierced each of her chain blades through two bags each and tossed them ahead of her back up into the entryway. Pulling herself up before the chamber sealed itself, Maria dashed out of the simulation with her loot in tow.

"I mean, my family isn't a bunch of thieves," she said as the simulation faded with her success. "But we know how to get what we need when times are rough."

Richter clenched her whole body up, for just a moment. She grunted in frustration, watching her team, the team she'd placed so much faith in as a collection of unstable but reliable assholes, fall to pieces the moment subtlety was required. Her fingernails dug trenches in the control console.

"Kasumi. What was that. And you out there, what was that??" Her face was a mixture of disappointment and anger. And confusion.

For his measure, Alex just looked at the ground and sighed. He'd failed them, alright. cactus wasn't built for this shit. Overall not a good idea to do any of what he did. He'd have to build it more, figure out a way to sneak with a chainsaw.

Prospa spun on her heel and glared up at the control booth. "Please, do not attempt to cover the fact that you overreached in designing this trial compared to the others. You did not recruit a team of perfect chameleons and infiltrators."

She flicked her eyes over the rest of the assembled team and pointed to a few as she explained. Lupa. "Ranger." Francesca "A bare-handed assassin." Alex. "Criminal" Archie. "Sniper." Ada. "Psychopath." She tapped her own chest. "Witch, and that doesn't even cover half. You didn't recruit a team that would make deaths appear to be happenstance. You wanted someone to ensure your targets were dead, regardless of appearance. Stealth is possible but this was ridiculous!"

edited 9th Jul '15 8:00:11 PM by guyshane

"Your description is bad and you should feel bad." Ada booed in response to Prospa's summary of her. "Although I have to agree with Miss Witch here that only a few of us here actually know how to stealth."

Lighting up her cig and relaxing her shoulders, she shrugged a little. "Good thing we actually have someone capable of it, at least."

"I just had no clue where to even start." Dahlia said. "I couldn't get past any of those scanners."

Francesca snorted at the derision thrown at them. "Not everyone can Crack the most secure location in Vale." She retorted. "Besides, we only need a small cell of stealth operatives for now. The rest of us can learn as we go." She gestured to the ones who had been victorious in the sneaking.