"Argent, Argent, I'm… Not even thinking about shooting directly at you at this stage."
"Oh."
Yup. OL at least is not that foolish.
"I just want to find out what sort of damage it can take and if they have any particular vulnerabilities."
"Yeah, that-. That makes more sense."
For instance, what will a cold gun do to the 'plasma'? Logically, it would cool it below the point it can
remain plasma, But given people can touch it safely, I suspect it's not the 'superheated gas' kind of plasma anyway.
She moves her barrier off to the side, plasma from both hands still connecting her to it.
I walk up to it and punch it.
That'll be another thing to check: Can she extended it from just one hand, or some other part of her body? And does she need exposed skin to do so or can it form past clothing?
Ow.
Solid. Irregular surface, and I can feel it moving. Not hot-.
Good to see that confirmed. So it's something
like plasma but not superheated and possibly not gaseous in nature...
"Can you make it hot?"
"I can make it sort of eat through stuff, but I don't think it really gets hot."
Interesting.
How does it 'eat' things, though? Dissolving it? Scraping at it like millions of sand grains? Or something like tiny gnawing teeth?
"Did you feel any feedback when I hit it?"
"A tiny bit?"
Which raises concerns if something
powerful hits it. Could she suffer neural feedback that could knock her out, or is there an internal safety that would collapse the barrier before that happens?
"How precisely can you tell what hit you and where?"
"Top, bottom, left, right…" She shrugs. "Not very strong, pretty strong and really strong. I haven't gotten hit by anything strong enough to break it yet."
Let's not push too far in that direction yet, then?
"Rightoh." I punch it twice more, really driving from the shoulder and no doubt doing my right hand a mischief. Which I promptly heal. "Did you feel that?"
"Just about."
So the feedback is heavily muted. Likely a natural safety feature to prevent the kind of neural damage I mentioned.
"Right." I draw my sidearm, aim and fire eight shots directly at the barrier. "How about that?"
"Do I need ear protectors?"
Well, do you
want tinnitus until OL heals you?
"Do you want ear protectors? Or more to the point, do you think the people shooting at you will wait for you to put them on?"
"No?"
"They never have with me. Actually, I should ask: do you know how to use a gun?"
OL does have the advantage of his shielding being very strong and having natural feedback cutoffs.
"No. Ah, how come you do?"
"Because I was living in America."
Going native in more than one way, eh?
"We don't all have guns, you know."
I nod. "And wasn't that a disappointment." She frowns and me, and I smile back. "I learned so that if I was in a situation where my ring was out of power or where my opponent was immune to it I would still be able to fight. I shot Klarion the Witch Boy with this gun."
A rare case of OL thinking ahead. Back before he was
Enlightened, so less... OL-ish.
Behind us, Kara drops down to give Face some encouragement. "Come on! You can do it! Burn that concrete!"
He stops exhaling. "Do you know what temperature melts concrete?"
"About two thousand five hundred Fahrenheit!"
That's a spicy spitwad. I am curious as to how he's doing the fire breath thing anyway? Igniting the air he expels as it emerges, or creating the flame internally and
then exhaling? There's a big difference, after all.
"You shot Klarion with a gun?"
I reload it and reholster it. "Yes indeed. While we're on the subject, did your change make you any tougher? Other than the added resistance to lasers."
Annoyingly, it wasn't as effective as hoped, thanks to Klarion's defensive measures, but he couldn't hit OL either, at first...
"Lasers?"
"Lasers are beams of light. You're more reflective. That means that a greater proportion of the laser's energy will be bounced off your skin." I take an AK-47 out of subspace and aim it at the barrier. "Have you tried it with automatic rifles?"
Big assumption there, really. Is her skin
actually metallic or just shiny?
"Yeah. Some of the Justifiers used rifles. So are you going to test lasers on me?"
"Sure." I fabricate a laser pointer and play it over her right cheek. "Feel any hotter?"
The issue is that any laser strong enough to deal damage is one you don't want to point at a friendly. Maybe fabricate some cloned skin might work?
"Huh?" She looks at it, and then raises her hand to spot the dot. "No? But I wouldn't have been able to feel it before either."
I raise the rifle and shoot the barrier on full automatic until the magazine clicks empty. Then I dial up the power on the laser, disintegrate the AK-47 and fabricate a Browning machine gun.
One thing at a time, OL. Or are you testing her ability to maintain the barrier while distracted too?
"How about-" I pull the trigger. "-n-?"
"AH! Yeah, ear protectors!"
I transmute her a pair of ear protectors as the Browning chews through its ammunition belt.
And behind them, Kara gives him a grumpy look as she tunes her super-hearing down...
"Can you feel it!?"
"In my bones!"
"On your skin?!"
Yes, .50
BMG does have quite a bit of force behind it. Sufficient to rattle people not manning the gun.
"No!"
There's a clunk as the belt reaches its end, and I disintegrate the Browning. "Did you feel that?"
No sign of barrier failure, so she can tank that much firepower. Still would not like to be standing
directly behind it...
"The bullets? No?"
Alright. I increase the power of the laser again, up to anti-missile laser. "Now?"
That's what, a couple of hundred degrees? Bit much for a hands-on test, no?
She shakes her head, holding her hand in the way again so that she can see it-.
A short distance away a patch of grass catches fire from her deflection.
Good thing she didn't turn it the other way, towards Face and Kara.
I turn off the laser. "I think we can conclude that you are laser resistant. Well done."
"Thanks. What the next test?"
Well, at least as far as he tested. I imagine a much larger pulsed beam might be dangerous, but they can cross that bridge when they come to it.
I form a railgun. "Something a little bigger."
The construct hums, then sends a solid slug smashing into the shield.
I hope that was low power, OL. Man, he's a little cavalier about this isn't he?
"U-h-!"
The round partially deflected, knocks aside by its own kinetic energy and the immovability of the barrier.
And that is why you make sure the angle of deflection is turned
outward. There's a famous video of a large rifle round ricocheting off the target right back at the shooter and knocking his ear-muffs off. Very lucky shot and lucky it didn't hit skin or worse. (Yeah, I've been watching 'Darwin Award gun fails' videos lately...)
I should say so. That was likely significantly more energy than the .50 BMG rounds.
"Did it hurt, or did you just feel the impact?"
"It felt weird, like I was being pushed back? It didn't.. hurt, though."
Pretty clear the barrier's not tied specifically to her in terms of kinetic energy transfer, then. And possibly independent of all momentum if shaped that way.
"Okay, I'm going to fire a lot more of those. Let's see if we can find the limit-."
Again, remember range safety, OL. Best to angle your shots slightly in case you get more deflections.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
We look around and see a melted pile of what was once concrete, and Face coughing violently.
"Water!"
Dangit, OL. Focus on
both students. Looks like Face went all-out on the concrete...
