Dave was about to do another little quip of arrogance when the chime played out and Marge laid out the parameters of the introductory test.

"Well I was gonna ask whether the protection is direct contact or propagates through a chain but let's get this going! Civilians, take cover!"

With his verbal command given out he slung his Driver-bearing arm around in front of him.

"Red! Your turn!"

The transformation overtakes him quickly, leaving behind in the glow a new person's shape. She stood with purpose and grace, and almost immediately after the transformation finishes she subtly shifts the grip on her chunky, USB-like sword.

Red's Turn()

Everything feels different in the Turn(), especially from where Dave is. The world's rendered in grey boxes and movement grids, like it's already been Processed... The Turn() gives you time to think, to plan. Doesn't let you do a lot, but it lets you do enough.

"How many do you think we can grab Red?"

A course of action is plotted, and the Turn() begins to execute.

Battle!

Time resumes and Red charges towards one of the civilians in the firing line, one arm out to try and grab them by what is presumably a holographic representation of a shirt. Once they're in her grasp she Jaunt()s forward, blinking out of reality for a moment towards a second one. This time she tries to catch the dummy underarm and then swing the one she's actually holding to be placed between herself and a Dalek.

"Hey Red I don't think human shields are really in the spirit of the—"

Dave's voice crackled out from the sword held by Red and in response the woman simply tightened her grip on the hilt.

"Okay! Just don't blame me if they don't like you exploiting the invulnerability!"

The Dalek dodged Viy's attack and fired off a blue beam towards Regina. Viy headed towards Regina, blocking the attack.

"Thank you, Viy."

Regina then noticed Dave in his Red form using a dummy as a meat shield.

"Um, we're supposed to protect them, not use them as shields!"

Damien

"Ooh! Daleks!" Damien eagerly clasped his hands together. "This is gonna be so cool! Alright!" He took a quick breath, then tapped his Driver. "Isabelle...TRANSFOOOOORM!"

With a quick burst of light, he was gone. Standing where he'd been was an anthropormorphic Shih Tzu in a skirt—Isabelle, of course! He let out a high-pitched squeal, pulling a fishing rod from...somewhere. Animal Crossing pockets were weird.

"Let's do this!" he cheered, throwing it forward. The line hooked a Dalek, then he swung the rod, swinging the Dalek around and slamming it into its compatriots.

"The rules said they're invulnerable while touched so I think Red's exploiting that?"

The sword-wielding lass rolled her eyes a bit and idly swayed to the music emanating from her as she waited for Turn() to recharge.

"Very well, then..."

Regina turned to see Damien running head first towards the Daleks with a fishing rod.

"Is that your plan? Run head first towards them?"

She sighs as Viy managed to strike at one of the Daleks with its freezing claws.

Training Room Chaos

If there were any direct complaints about the use of the holograms as shields there was no announcement to say, and as promised the lasers simply bounced off of the waiting holograms as if they were mirrors, confounding the initial Darlek firing line and forcing them to refocus their formation to deal with the sudden arrival of challengers.

The issue a lot of powerful machines and the like from various franchies created by those with the knowledge and how to from Disc's was simply that despite being dire threats in their home universes they had no direct way of dealing with problems outside of the context of their realities. Within their home reality the alien cyborgs were nearly unbeatable, but the enemies that stood against them operated on their own rules and as such they could be effected, and even defeated with enough effort.

Viy's ice claw proved that well enough, striking the machine and sending it flying through the air in a near comedic manner as it screamed out 'stabilization error!' and struck a nearby wall hard enough to leave a crack even as ice began to cover its body, encasing its bottom thrusters and requiring a moment for it to heat its body in order to free itself from the enchanted ice.

Damien's own ability proved quite useful as well, as despite Isabelle's size she was able to lift much more then that without even the most minor of struggles, turning the deadly machines into little more then bowling pins to be knocked around.

However despite the blunt force trauma those knocked over weren't damaged, and whats more they began to float upward, aiming their lasers down in a rain of fire upon the Defenders in training and the various holograms. Their cries of, "Exterminate!" echoed across each one.

"Even more?" Regina said to herself. She decided whether or not she should use her Disc ability or a Noble Phantasm, but decided to save them for later.

"Viy, strike them down!"

Viy circled around the Daleks, ice and snow coming out of its claws, intending to freeze them in place.

Damien

Damien's eyes widened as the Daleks he knocked down rose into the air, firing down their lasers at everyone. "Oh, crud!" he yelled, quickly leaping backward to avoid a laser. Okay, normal tactics aren't working, time for Plan Neutral-B!

He slid in the path of another laser, stuck his hand out, and simply...pocketed it. Literally. He stuffed the whole thing into his pocket, then pulled it out barely a second later and hurled it back at the Dalek who fired it.

Red let out a pleased little sigh as the laser bounced off her 'rescued' civilian but when the enemies took to the air she rolled her eyes and prepared for another Turn() of running to civilians and shoving them into cover.

"Yeah Red I know. But you don't have anything to deal with airborne units and I need you to handle the civilians okay?"

Entry Hall

The efforts put forth by the three were soon rewarded by a ringing bell as the various machiens deactivated and slowly went down to the ground, the holograms flicking out as well only a moment later. "Not bad," the sound of wheels rolling against the floor would likely pull the attention of the three toward a wheelchair bound woman pushing her way in, the same woman who had tasked them with facing the aliens they had just fought against.

"Not bad for a first showing, through if you used an actual civilian for a shield I'd have you thrown out on your rear. That being said you acted on the basis of the test and I can't really directly fault you for that," Marge glanced toward them and waved her hand. "You can deactivated your Driver's, I'm not going to throw a monster at you as some kind of secret test," she offered the group a smile and allowed them to relax a moment. "Now then, I want you to give me a self evaluation. Don't worry about how the rest of your group performed, but tell me how you feel you dealt with the situation presented with you. What could have gone better? What did you excel at? Be open and honest with yourselves. End of the day no one elses judgement will matter half as much."

After deactivating her Driver, Regina glances at Marge, thinking for a moment.

"I suppose I was too head-on with my attacks. I would've thought more about my plans."

The music fades as Dave's form returns to what he was like before the battle began.

"You want my honest self-eval? I could have done a lot more actual fighting if I picked something that could actually counter the armor and flight aspects but there ain't no shame on being on crowd control! Uh... I guess Red's little human shield move was a problem given how it is letter over spirit rules-wise... I think that's it for me on the self-evaluation front? Lemme know if there's something I missed."

Dave clicked his tongue and hummed.

"Let me know when we can say comments about each other's performance though. I've got some thoughts on that front."

Damien

Damien blinked as the machines deactivated and the holograms flickered out. "Oh," he said, not sure what else to see. Can't believe that worked.

He deactivated his Driver at Marge's request, then frowned, putting a finger to his chin. "Uh...I guess...maybe shouldn't have used a fishing rod against robots? Or should've just spammed my Neutral B, or tried a Final Smash, or..."

Damien paused, then shrugged. "I dunno."

Entry Hall

Marge looked over each of them before nodding. "Good, the first thing to remember coming off any fight is that you could've done better. The moment you stop using this," she tapped her forehead with a finger. "Is the moment everything starts going wrong and the entire city starts burning because you've forgotten to turn it on, even a strong disc is nothing more then a fancy costume in front of someone whose already thought about it," she spun to Dave for a moment and looked at them. "You won't be evaluating anyone else, while private talk amongst yourselves is one thing in an official compacity the only ones you answer too will be myself and the other higher ups in the Defense League," she seemed quite serious, however their conversation as cut off by a slow jazz like music coming out of the speakers, Marge's eyes going wide with fear. "No, no shit its too soon."

The music slowly faded out to a calm and almost hypnotic voice coming from the speakers all around the city. "Good evening Prism City, todays selection from the Twilight Collection has been picked specifically to feed into peoples tastes of the classics," holographic screens began to appear within the Entry Hall showing a variety of humanoid machines marching down the streets and opening fire on fleeing people. "Skynet will remain active until the main system located somewhere in the city is disabled. Clues can be found by knocking down the robotic servants it can create. This has been the Twilight D.J., bringing you the greatest hits of the end of the world." the speakers gave way to sirens as Marge focused back on the group.

"Well normally we would treat you guys to a meal and a lecture on things after passing inspection you are officially deputized to use your Driver's in a combat compacity. Leave rescue operations and hunting the main force to the pros, focus on threat removal over a wide area," she tapped her holoscreen and sent a location marker for each of them to follow. "Another trainee who was going to arrive late due to personal matters is in this area, see if you can connect with them and push back any machines you find from there."

Donovan Sanviento

Donovan finally finished his last job on the construction site and moving on to a more profitable pay by being a defender. He is late but he already called so there shouldn't be any more problems until he hears the DJ message

"seems ill arrive even later"

Without a second thought, he transformed into Eli, loaded a Slicksilver on his normal blaster and a tazerling on his wrist blaster then he shooted the Slicksilver near the robots creating a magnetic field attracting all metal to the center of the shot and the robots too once a large pile is created he would shoot the tazerling from the wrist blaster to shock the pile of robots to take em down for good

Damien

Damien nodded. "Okay—"

And then the Twilight DJ gave his little speech, followed by blaring sirens.

Welp.

"Uh...cool! Guess we're doing this now! Right! I can—" He paused, swallowing a sudden burst of nausea. "I can do that." He didn't sound nearly as confident as he wanted to.

In an instant, Damien re-activated his Driver and dashed out of the Entry Hall, pulling out the fishing rod. "Take THIS!" he yelled, hooking one of the robots on the rod and swinging it into another robot.

Dance Card, Mission 1: Mr Blue Skynet

Dave nodded at the return of advice before his ears pricked with the jazz and the words of that nefarious worldbreaking disk jockey... Great, robots again. He confirmed the location marker and flashed a smile at Marge.

"Alright, about to launch into an encore with Red. I'll try and wire any clues we get back to you if there's any downtime to do so. Red, kick it!"

With her own music winding back into audibility, Red strode out into the city to find the missing trainee and begin bashing bots to protect the people.