Tru Grit’s Fight Pit, First Tourney (Pt. 9): Sufficiently Advanced Science
--- Maya Williams ---
Given how badly she’d ended up getting hurt, Maya found herself on the receiving end of the fight club’s medical attentions. Or rather she and her opponent got the ever so hospitable statement of, “Since you two decided to basically set off a bomb in each other’s faces we’re going to have to wait for one of our better medics to come in and fix you dumbasses.”
Which is how she found herself sharing a waiting room with the girl who had set off said bomb in her face, both of them covered in a variety of scrapes and bruises. Several of which the elven girl was slowly running over with a small spell circle in her hand.
After a moment of her watching the other girl -and ignoring the final fight on the screen- her last opponent told her that, “If you ask nicely instead of staring I can give you a patch job too. It won’t bring you to a hundred percent but it also won’t hurt as bad while we’re stuck waiting.”
She narrowed her eyes at the healing magic, aware that she was going to have to accept something like that from the medics. (But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it from this cheating bitch…) Especially not with that underlying attitude.
“I’m good.” She answered, going through her things and pulling out some of the healing herbs she’d grown before grinding it up and mixing it into a water bottle. Something that while not quite as potent as her actual healing serum should at the very least allow the medicinal properties to fill her body once she loosened her faceplate. (Too bad it tastes like shit…)
(It would be better to soak in this rather than drinking it…) Her inner logic noted, with an audible cringe.
(Now you tell me.) She grimaced, the bitter flavor sticking to her tongue.
(We must make sacrifices to one up the filthy magic user!) Her inner madness argued.
“You do know that cold brewing tea takes time, right?” Said filthy magic user asked with a grimace of her own before lighting a small flame in her hand. “Seriously, I have no problem warming that bottle up for you just to fix that… abomination.”
(We don’t need her filthy magic!)
“I’m good.” She repeated, fully aware that she did not sound ‘good’ at all as she brought the bottle to her mouth once more before promptly sticking it out to the elven girl. “If you can fix this please do…”
(Pride is not worth poisoning myself over…)
(The fuck it isn’t!)
The other teen let out a huff of amusement, before accepting the bottle and heating it up between her hands. “Now we just put the top back on…”
Getting the hint, she did just that.
“And we shake the heated bottle up before letting it sit for… I’ll say three minutes, given how this is probably a green tea given the color.” The elven girl told her before setting the bottle on the table. “And then your little potion should be ready.”
“It’s not a potion…” She grumbled.
The other teen rolled her eyes. “Potioneering and Chemistry are mirrored schools. The main difference is that Potioneering also requires a conceptual relation and preparation element as an additional variable.”
“Chemistry is a science.” She argued. “Everything is formulaic, consistent, and repeatable once known! Magic has all these… fluffy bits.”
“That depends on the field of study, in reality you’ve hard magics such as Ritualism and soft magics such as Willcraft just like you do hard sciences and soft sciences.” The other teen pointed out before narrowing her eyes. “Besides, can you really say that your Mad Science doesn’t have fluffy bits? I mean how often do you make sparktech that no normal scientist can replicate?”
She winced. “That’s just super advanced science that they haven’t figured out. Other M.A.D.s can get it with time.”
“Really?” The elven girl drawled before giving her a smug smirk. “You know that reminds me of a famous saying, ‘Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic’... And well that elemental stuff of yours was very advanced science. I mean, gravity manipulation? That’s a very advanced bit of spell work you’ve got there.”
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“Oh, you bitch…” She hissed, eyes narrowing.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” The elven teen leaned in with a fanged grin as her eyes flashed yellow.
(Burn the blasphemer in fire!)
(Let’s please not commit any crimes!)
(It’s not a crime if no court of law will try us!)
(Factually and morally incorrect!)
She took a deep breath before letting it out. “I really want to punch you right now.”
“I have that effect on people.” The other girl shrugged, before backing off. “Still I really am curious about how you did the gravity trick. Shooting out lightning and even the pyrotechnics you showed off against Audrey make sense depending on your tech but that one is weird.”
She wasn’t entirely sure about revealing her powerset, but at the same time there was a part of her that- (Prove to her we’re not using filthy magic! Show off the superiority of our science!) Well, that.
“The world is made of numbers and variables. By adding a focused amount of energy to specific variables you can create a cascading effect that simulates the natural reaction that would occur.” She tried to explain as vaguely as possible. (I mean, it’s not like a magic user is going to understand the science behind my hacking.)
“So by adding energy to molecules you accelerate their movement thus generating a concussive force, or the molecular electron jumps thus simulating electricity. Though not quite to the level of natural lightning given how I survived being zapped multiple times… likely a proportionality limiter induced via the energy input to output formula.” The arcane teen expanded her explanation with a nod before gaining a thoughtful look. “But that doesn’t quite explain the fire given a lack of a flammable substance in the air… unless it’s not actually fire but a hyper condensed sphere of heat being released, and then mistaken as fire due to distortions in the light which in itself could be a waste material of the artificial reaction to control the damage output.”
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The girl gave her a look. “That still doesn’t explain the gravity distortion though.”
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“Hello?” The elven teen snapped her fingers in front of Maya's face.
“Sustained rotation of energy surrounding otherwise stable masses results in distortions simulating gravity in rounded shapes!” She blurted… loudly.
“Oh.” The other girl blinked, before considering that for a moment and gaining a smile. “Oh!”
The arcane teen stood up and began drawing something in the air with a magenta light, the text making absolutely no sense to Maya even if she could vaguely recognize that there were a number of patterns slowly forming within the circle.
“It’s rough but that should do it.” The elven girl decided, finishing her spell circle after several minutes. “Now let’s just run it…”
The other teen put her hands above the circle which began to slowly spark with pink lightning, the space below it gaining an odd sort of hue. “Alright, do you mind dropping something inside?”
Maya glanced at the arcane whose face was visibly straining, before spilling a bit of her herbal water within and watching it gently float to the ground rather than outright falling. At least for the few seconds before the circle fizzled out of existence.
“Shit!” The other girl cursed, rubbing at her hands. “That was a power hog…”
“Cylindrical distortions are better for horizontal shifts. Spheres are better for a generalized field.” She offered in something of a daze.
“Something to consider for further refinement.” The arcane teen nodded, pulling out a notebook and pen from seemingly nowhere and writing. “Any other notes?”
“You can use existing gravitational bodies to reduce the overall shift if you angle the sphere right to bend the energy.” She offered, a bit unsure about how to take the request.
“Thus bleeding the earth’s gravity towards the moon or the sun, increasing the otherwise negligible force it has on a person!” The other girl eagerly scribbled. “In which case, if we were to calculate for tidal force which is roughly in the quadrillionths per pound for the moon and half that for the sun… You could theoretically increase the bend output factor to double during the lunar phase or triple while both are out… Unless the splitting of energy between two celestial bodies is less efficient?”
“Um, I’ve only focused on singular variable swapping but, uh,” She double checked with the whispers. “Theoretically… the forces are acting as a sort of weave in their influence so while I wouldn’t say triple it probably would be more efficient to split it. Though I don’t think it’ll be worth it for other bodies such as mars or venus due to how low the effect can get.”
“I’ll play around with it and see what I can find.” The Arcane teen looked up at the TV screen where the fight on it appeared to be wrapping up and grimaced. “Ugh… I’ve got to get going.”
“What, uh, what about the medic?” She found herself asking as she watched the other girl begin collecting her things and feeling weird about it.
“I’ve got my own healing stuff… when my magic refills anyway.” The elven teen told her, before scribbling something out on a piece of paper and shoving it into Maya’s hands. “I really would love to keep talking shop, but I need to go meet up with someone and collect my winnings or I will never hear the end of it.”
“Oh… okay.” She blinked, looking down at the scrap of paper with a phone number on it.
“Call me and we can set something up. Maybe collaborate on something?” The other girl offered, as she slowly walked backwards out of the room before turning towards the door. “I’m getting a surprising amount out of them lately.”
Maya simply sat there in silence at the number that she’d gotten from talking nerd with another girl. A genius girl (who is kind of cute) (and a magic user?)
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(I have very mixed feelings about all of this!!!)
A/N: Next chapter is the Event Wrap up but I’m going to go ahead and total out our rewards now so that they don’t get jumbled up with the menu.
Side Quest Complete
Quest Breakdown
-Anavi liked that Maya showed up for the tournament.
-Gained 1XP to Combat Hacking and Heavy Blunt for fiery first fight.
-Gained 1XP to Awareness and Fighting for watching the other fights and taking notes.
-Gained 1XP to Awareness, Fighting for Psionic Second.
-Gained 1XP to First Aid for listening to the medic afterwards.
-Gained 1XP to Awareness for watching fight between Artemis and the Phantom Fighter.
-Gained Scan of Phantom Fighter.
-Gained 1XP to Combat Hacking and Mobility for Floral Finisher.
-Gained 1XP to Awareness for learning to keep track of small surprises.
-Gained 1XP to Tenacity for fighting after a loss.
-Gained Scan of Urban Druid and Fighting Flora.
-Gained 1XP to Fighting, Combat Hacking, and Heavy Blunt for Magic Vs. Science.
-Gained 1XP to Reality Hacking from talking shop with the Elven Arcane.
-Awareness gained 4XP
--Currently: Lv. 2 (4/6)
-Combat Hacking gained 3XP
--*Skill Rank Up* Combat Hacking Lv. 4 (0/10)
-Fighting gained 3XP
--Currently: Lv. 8 (7/18)
-First Aid gained 1XP
--Currently: Lv. 3 (1/6)
-Heavy Blunt Weapons gained 2XP
--Currently: Lv. 3 (5/8)
-Mobility gained 1XP
--Currently: Lv. 6 (3/14)
-Reality Hacking 1XP
--Currently Lv. 6 (13/14)
-Tenacity gained 1XP
--*Skill Level Up* Lv. 3 (0/8)
Total XP Gains: 16XP
-Bit low for a 10 Chapter event but… The other rewards:
-Gained Scans of:
--Phantom Fighter (?).
--Urban Druid
--Fighting Flora
-Gained Research Collaborator: Artemis Foster (Reality Hacking)
-And finally for lasting four rounds in the Tournament, we win (W100+W200+L150+D200=) $650
