Clint & Darcy | Improv in the DR
Apr. 22nd, 2022 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_darcy posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logs(so backdated) Clint and Darcy work on teamwork and weapons improv in the DR.
Darcy had skipped her heeled pumps for a lower heeled pair of ankle boots, but otherwise she was dressed for the office, a comfortable dress and hair up like normal. If she ever had to actually fight in an office, she wanted to know that she could do it in her work clothing. Or at least something close to it, because she had no illusions about her ability to run in a pair of stilettos.
She wrapped one arm around Clint and gave his waist a squeeze as she came up behind him. "Alright, I've only used this thing with other people running it, so show me the ropes of picking things. Are we fighting together or against each other?"
“Mm… let’s work against the DR first, get a feel for the level of difficulty, then amp it up a bit,” Clint said, pulling up the scenario on the screen. "Maybe after a couple runs we can play against each other." Once he had the right scenario selected, he went back to the main screen and said, "Here, this is how you get into scenario selection. Once you're in, you can customize things like number of bad guys, duration of the scenario, available weapons -- or lack thereof -- all that good stuff."
Pulling up the office scenario, Clint made like Vanna White and said, "Please, customize to your heart's content. I'm happy to help if you have questions, but tossing you into the deep end seems like a great idea to me right now." He grinned at Darcy, eyebrows raised a bit in mock challenge.
"Great idea until we end up fighting Godzilla with nothing but a stapler and some binder clips," Darcy retorted with a mock glare as she started to browse the options. Generic office setting, standard office supplies, minimal janitorial chemicals, break room with limited kitchen supplies. Ability to steal weapons off the enemy. Hm... set amount of baddies or cluster waves until the end of the session? Maybe both. Duration... 45 minutes. She put in the final option, and stepped back with a smirk. "This is either going to be great or terrible. Ready to see how good our teamwork is after some proper training on my end?"
"Absolutely," Clint said. "Improv is always a lot of fun... wait, how big did you make the office we're in? Like, a series of offices or just one big room with lots of cubicles?"
"There was a floor plan for the old Snow Valley location," Darcy replied. "Entire floor, mostly open with cubicles, offices and meeting rooms along parts of the walls. There's a break room, supply closet, restrooms, and floor janitorial closet with basic cleaning supplies too. Just how I remember it, mostly. None of the actual caches of weapons, though, aside from the sidepiece some of us carry. You want those, you gotta take them."
"Excellent," Clint said, grinning. "You've had firearms training from Sydney, right? You wanna strategize a bit, or just pretend we're coming at it from different areas of the office?"
"Yeah, he's directing most of my training, if not teaching me himself." She rolled her neck and shoulders as she thought, loosening the tension in the area. "Strategy this time, we can see about convincing a small group in here for something more chaotic later?" Darcy pulled up the basic floor plan, gesturing at different areas as she talked. "If they're not coming in through windows, the only entrances are here and here. There's some crawl space in the ceiling though. We like our hidey spots."
"Nice," Clint said, nodding along. "So let's get into it." He grinned, looking down at his wrinkled button-down and the slacks he'd only kept because they were what he was wearing when X-Force broke him out of his undercover job. "I think I mostly look the part." And he had not a single weapon on him, so this was going to actually be fun.
"Next time you can borrow one of my dresses. I think you could really own that front desk reception look," Darcy teased. "I'm ready if you are. Setting a time delay for two minutes after we've both gotten situated." She double-checked the cases on her phone and tablet, then hefted her bag over her shoulder. "Work our way towards each other, clearing out along the way?"
Nodding, Clint headed for the door that led down into the Danger Room. He'd already made sure that a failsafe was in place in case one of them actually went down under the onslaught of bad guys. Acting the gentleman, he pulled the door open and gestured Darcy through. "Ladies first."
Darcy's boots clicked quietly against the stairs as they headed into the room. "Hm, leave reception open? If so, I'll start from... the server room, probably." She gestured to the side as they moved through the space. "Or maybe Doug's desk. Plenty of things I can use as projectiles on it. Mm.. yeah, actually, going to start there." She took a seat at a desk with various pop culture iconography on it, doing a quick spin and grinning up at Clint. "Pick your place and your poison, bro."
Glancing around at the various desks he could pick from, Clint rifled through a couple drawers and stole several handfuls of sharpened pencils. He stuck them in his pockets, along with whatever other small objects he came across. Leaning backwards through a door, he checked the cover the room offered, realized it was actually Marie-Ange's office, and grinned. "I'll be in here."
"Well, you definitely won't lack projectiles in there," Darcy replied dryly, idly filing her nails as the timer counted down.
The infiltration wasn't immediate, but as the group got close to the reception area she could hear the coordinated movement of feet and the crackle of a radio. She ducked down, a few projectiles swiped from the desk as she peeked through some small gaps, and waited quietly for them to get into the main area. Part of the group split off, moving along the walkways while looking for anyone obvious, and Darcy took her first chance at taking one out as they moved past her, hurling one of the heavier projectiles at the back of goon one's head.
Her aim was a little low, but she struck him between the shoulder blades, biting her lip as he cursed and turned, firing off a shot directly into the face of one of his teammates. Part of the group being distracted by the commotion gave her the ability to slip down a few cubicles, making her way towards Kevin's office... and more importantly, his liquor and glassware.
Clint found an abundance of sharpened pens, knives, and some little pointy things he thought might be covered in poison. Not wanting to take himself out, he left those alone, but when the DR generated goons started coming, he had plenty of sharp things to throw in their eyes. Then, when they opened their mouths to scream, he threw more pencils, pens, and knives into their soft palates.
He moved positions, hopping over tables and at one point using a wheeled chair to roll his way into someone else's office. There, he found a cactus, which he picked up and also an ashtray full of coins.
Eventually Darcy found herself practically back to back with Clint, slipping a simulated bottle of Kevin's nice alcohol into his free hand as she swung her own bottle into a knee with a satisfying thwack. "Having fun yet bro?" She cracked a smile and stomped on the same guy's instep, hands crackling with electricity as they grappled. Her sparring practice was paying off, and she managed to clip the goon's head on a desk with a wince.
"Totes," Clint said, half-laughing even as he flung his arm backward, looped his forearm over Darcy's hip and stomach, and then pulled her into a side-step with him to avoid a suddenly very angry man with a very pointy beard. "Also, whoever had all these coins just laying around in their office, tell them I love them." Despite their efforts, which were pretty top notch, so far as Clint was concerned, it was obvious they were going to be overwhelmed if they stayed in their current location.
He'd picked over most of the items he could throw and the DR goons were getting closer. "Hand to hand soon," Clint continued. "Or we can switch." He still had the heavy liquor bottle, so he was okay until that broke.
"That could be almost anyone in the office." Her bet was on Artie, but she couldn't pinpoint why. "Switch," she decided a few seconds later. "You want two bottles to fight with? I can grab a stapler or two."
"Nah," Clint said, already counting off the maneuver to switch in his head so their movements were smooth and they didn't knock into one another. "One's fine. I need a free hand for projectiles." Coins flew from Clint's free hand, three of them embedding in the eye sockets of three different simulated bad guys. Several others went down throats to cause choking and one ricocheted off of a metal filing cabinet with enough speed and force to leave a small indentation before landing and spinning in a ray of false unlight just long enough for several of the items on the desk to follow up. "I'm just glad real bad guys don't show up this way during fights."
"What, you don't want to fight the Baddie Wave 9000 for real?" Darcy set the bottle down behind a desk and grabbed a pair of scissors and the surprisingly heavy stapler. "Maybe with less body armor, though. Harder to hurt them with the full tac." The swing action on the stapler was good, and she managed to clock someone in the head with it. "That said, I run into waves in the field because you've cursed me by saying that, I'm making you buy me something nice or pay for my spa day. Also, you're teaching me how to throw things like that. I won't have the same accuracy, but maybe I'll get lucky."
"Sure," Clint agreed readily enough, already reaching for more random change. He grabbed some paperclips, thumbtacks, and other sundry office detritus and continued throwing them all in various directions in an effort to clear out some more space around them. "I mean, I can teach you the theory, but it's one of those things that's highly powers-assisted? Might have more luck with knives. Stilettos in particular," he offered.
"Small sharp things in general then? Knives, pencils, cuticle scissors? I'm not that picky. Anything that can be a last ditch effort in a fight." She ducked down beside the downed guy, stealing his gun and a few extra clips of ammo. She gave the gun a cursory check, committing the remaining bullets to memory, and checked the weight and feel in her hand.
Another guy coming up behind Clint was perfect for recoil practice, and she took aim, a steady in and out breath as she squeezed. The gun jerked a little in her hand, and the bullet went high and left of where she'd been pointing, clipping him firmly in the shoulder instead. "Little more kickback than I was expecting, but at least now I know," she remarked, taking steady aim for another shot.
"Knowledge is power," Clint agreed, bending backward to avoid an attempt at a grapple. "Crap," he muttered, pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket to shove into the guy's eye socket. "Gross," he muttered, then said, "We should move to the South side of the building - left. We should go left. They're closing in again."
Eventually the timer ran out on the simulation, and the two of them - slightly battered and bruised - ended up in a sweaty heap on the floor. "Ugh," Darcy managed, before attempting to blow a piece of hair out of her face. "That was a good workout, I hate it." She nudged Clint lightly in the hip with her elbow. "I want a hero as big as my forearm. And a pile of homemade chips. Maybe a big slice of cake. Just completely invalidate every single calorie we just burned."
Darcy had skipped her heeled pumps for a lower heeled pair of ankle boots, but otherwise she was dressed for the office, a comfortable dress and hair up like normal. If she ever had to actually fight in an office, she wanted to know that she could do it in her work clothing. Or at least something close to it, because she had no illusions about her ability to run in a pair of stilettos.
She wrapped one arm around Clint and gave his waist a squeeze as she came up behind him. "Alright, I've only used this thing with other people running it, so show me the ropes of picking things. Are we fighting together or against each other?"
“Mm… let’s work against the DR first, get a feel for the level of difficulty, then amp it up a bit,” Clint said, pulling up the scenario on the screen. "Maybe after a couple runs we can play against each other." Once he had the right scenario selected, he went back to the main screen and said, "Here, this is how you get into scenario selection. Once you're in, you can customize things like number of bad guys, duration of the scenario, available weapons -- or lack thereof -- all that good stuff."
Pulling up the office scenario, Clint made like Vanna White and said, "Please, customize to your heart's content. I'm happy to help if you have questions, but tossing you into the deep end seems like a great idea to me right now." He grinned at Darcy, eyebrows raised a bit in mock challenge.
"Great idea until we end up fighting Godzilla with nothing but a stapler and some binder clips," Darcy retorted with a mock glare as she started to browse the options. Generic office setting, standard office supplies, minimal janitorial chemicals, break room with limited kitchen supplies. Ability to steal weapons off the enemy. Hm... set amount of baddies or cluster waves until the end of the session? Maybe both. Duration... 45 minutes. She put in the final option, and stepped back with a smirk. "This is either going to be great or terrible. Ready to see how good our teamwork is after some proper training on my end?"
"Absolutely," Clint said. "Improv is always a lot of fun... wait, how big did you make the office we're in? Like, a series of offices or just one big room with lots of cubicles?"
"There was a floor plan for the old Snow Valley location," Darcy replied. "Entire floor, mostly open with cubicles, offices and meeting rooms along parts of the walls. There's a break room, supply closet, restrooms, and floor janitorial closet with basic cleaning supplies too. Just how I remember it, mostly. None of the actual caches of weapons, though, aside from the sidepiece some of us carry. You want those, you gotta take them."
"Excellent," Clint said, grinning. "You've had firearms training from Sydney, right? You wanna strategize a bit, or just pretend we're coming at it from different areas of the office?"
"Yeah, he's directing most of my training, if not teaching me himself." She rolled her neck and shoulders as she thought, loosening the tension in the area. "Strategy this time, we can see about convincing a small group in here for something more chaotic later?" Darcy pulled up the basic floor plan, gesturing at different areas as she talked. "If they're not coming in through windows, the only entrances are here and here. There's some crawl space in the ceiling though. We like our hidey spots."
"Nice," Clint said, nodding along. "So let's get into it." He grinned, looking down at his wrinkled button-down and the slacks he'd only kept because they were what he was wearing when X-Force broke him out of his undercover job. "I think I mostly look the part." And he had not a single weapon on him, so this was going to actually be fun.
"Next time you can borrow one of my dresses. I think you could really own that front desk reception look," Darcy teased. "I'm ready if you are. Setting a time delay for two minutes after we've both gotten situated." She double-checked the cases on her phone and tablet, then hefted her bag over her shoulder. "Work our way towards each other, clearing out along the way?"
Nodding, Clint headed for the door that led down into the Danger Room. He'd already made sure that a failsafe was in place in case one of them actually went down under the onslaught of bad guys. Acting the gentleman, he pulled the door open and gestured Darcy through. "Ladies first."
Darcy's boots clicked quietly against the stairs as they headed into the room. "Hm, leave reception open? If so, I'll start from... the server room, probably." She gestured to the side as they moved through the space. "Or maybe Doug's desk. Plenty of things I can use as projectiles on it. Mm.. yeah, actually, going to start there." She took a seat at a desk with various pop culture iconography on it, doing a quick spin and grinning up at Clint. "Pick your place and your poison, bro."
Glancing around at the various desks he could pick from, Clint rifled through a couple drawers and stole several handfuls of sharpened pencils. He stuck them in his pockets, along with whatever other small objects he came across. Leaning backwards through a door, he checked the cover the room offered, realized it was actually Marie-Ange's office, and grinned. "I'll be in here."
"Well, you definitely won't lack projectiles in there," Darcy replied dryly, idly filing her nails as the timer counted down.
The infiltration wasn't immediate, but as the group got close to the reception area she could hear the coordinated movement of feet and the crackle of a radio. She ducked down, a few projectiles swiped from the desk as she peeked through some small gaps, and waited quietly for them to get into the main area. Part of the group split off, moving along the walkways while looking for anyone obvious, and Darcy took her first chance at taking one out as they moved past her, hurling one of the heavier projectiles at the back of goon one's head.
Her aim was a little low, but she struck him between the shoulder blades, biting her lip as he cursed and turned, firing off a shot directly into the face of one of his teammates. Part of the group being distracted by the commotion gave her the ability to slip down a few cubicles, making her way towards Kevin's office... and more importantly, his liquor and glassware.
Clint found an abundance of sharpened pens, knives, and some little pointy things he thought might be covered in poison. Not wanting to take himself out, he left those alone, but when the DR generated goons started coming, he had plenty of sharp things to throw in their eyes. Then, when they opened their mouths to scream, he threw more pencils, pens, and knives into their soft palates.
He moved positions, hopping over tables and at one point using a wheeled chair to roll his way into someone else's office. There, he found a cactus, which he picked up and also an ashtray full of coins.
Eventually Darcy found herself practically back to back with Clint, slipping a simulated bottle of Kevin's nice alcohol into his free hand as she swung her own bottle into a knee with a satisfying thwack. "Having fun yet bro?" She cracked a smile and stomped on the same guy's instep, hands crackling with electricity as they grappled. Her sparring practice was paying off, and she managed to clip the goon's head on a desk with a wince.
"Totes," Clint said, half-laughing even as he flung his arm backward, looped his forearm over Darcy's hip and stomach, and then pulled her into a side-step with him to avoid a suddenly very angry man with a very pointy beard. "Also, whoever had all these coins just laying around in their office, tell them I love them." Despite their efforts, which were pretty top notch, so far as Clint was concerned, it was obvious they were going to be overwhelmed if they stayed in their current location.
He'd picked over most of the items he could throw and the DR goons were getting closer. "Hand to hand soon," Clint continued. "Or we can switch." He still had the heavy liquor bottle, so he was okay until that broke.
"That could be almost anyone in the office." Her bet was on Artie, but she couldn't pinpoint why. "Switch," she decided a few seconds later. "You want two bottles to fight with? I can grab a stapler or two."
"Nah," Clint said, already counting off the maneuver to switch in his head so their movements were smooth and they didn't knock into one another. "One's fine. I need a free hand for projectiles." Coins flew from Clint's free hand, three of them embedding in the eye sockets of three different simulated bad guys. Several others went down throats to cause choking and one ricocheted off of a metal filing cabinet with enough speed and force to leave a small indentation before landing and spinning in a ray of false unlight just long enough for several of the items on the desk to follow up. "I'm just glad real bad guys don't show up this way during fights."
"What, you don't want to fight the Baddie Wave 9000 for real?" Darcy set the bottle down behind a desk and grabbed a pair of scissors and the surprisingly heavy stapler. "Maybe with less body armor, though. Harder to hurt them with the full tac." The swing action on the stapler was good, and she managed to clock someone in the head with it. "That said, I run into waves in the field because you've cursed me by saying that, I'm making you buy me something nice or pay for my spa day. Also, you're teaching me how to throw things like that. I won't have the same accuracy, but maybe I'll get lucky."
"Sure," Clint agreed readily enough, already reaching for more random change. He grabbed some paperclips, thumbtacks, and other sundry office detritus and continued throwing them all in various directions in an effort to clear out some more space around them. "I mean, I can teach you the theory, but it's one of those things that's highly powers-assisted? Might have more luck with knives. Stilettos in particular," he offered.
"Small sharp things in general then? Knives, pencils, cuticle scissors? I'm not that picky. Anything that can be a last ditch effort in a fight." She ducked down beside the downed guy, stealing his gun and a few extra clips of ammo. She gave the gun a cursory check, committing the remaining bullets to memory, and checked the weight and feel in her hand.
Another guy coming up behind Clint was perfect for recoil practice, and she took aim, a steady in and out breath as she squeezed. The gun jerked a little in her hand, and the bullet went high and left of where she'd been pointing, clipping him firmly in the shoulder instead. "Little more kickback than I was expecting, but at least now I know," she remarked, taking steady aim for another shot.
"Knowledge is power," Clint agreed, bending backward to avoid an attempt at a grapple. "Crap," he muttered, pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket to shove into the guy's eye socket. "Gross," he muttered, then said, "We should move to the South side of the building - left. We should go left. They're closing in again."
Eventually the timer ran out on the simulation, and the two of them - slightly battered and bruised - ended up in a sweaty heap on the floor. "Ugh," Darcy managed, before attempting to blow a piece of hair out of her face. "That was a good workout, I hate it." She nudged Clint lightly in the hip with her elbow. "I want a hero as big as my forearm. And a pile of homemade chips. Maybe a big slice of cake. Just completely invalidate every single calorie we just burned."
