They went through the basics, and Alice picked most of them up pretty quickly; defensive stances, dodging, how to throw a punch. Once again, it was Self Defense 101, but they had to start somewhere, and yoga was definitely not going to cut it.

>>"That was pretty fun! Didn't know exercise would actually be enjoyable."

"Believe me, it gets better" Maya grinned "How about we give it a go for real?" she raised her voice to talk to the DR itself "Computer, add some basic opponents to the labyrinth. Set them to easy."

The DR buzzed in agreement. A few thugs popped up here and there in the maze of mirrors and corridors; they were barely more than human-shaped dummies set for basic punches and kicks, set to slow for beginners. Maya grinned at Alice with a little wave.

"See you on the other side" and then she walked into a mirror and disappeared. Alice had already proved that she could find her with her minimap; but now she would also have to work her way through a few opponents in the process...

Oh this was exciting! She was getting a chance to see it's action settings in person. So cool to get a chance to check out how it all worked, how clever it could be. After all, if she was going to be making some games for the place, she had to know what it was like in person. It was all very scientific.

Alice did nearly protest at easy mode, but wisely kept her mouth shut. It might chafe to be a 'noob' here, but Maya knew better in this case. "Will do, hope the poor bots don't have feelings for when I kick their butts." Which was laughable considering her mentor was the best suited to know her combat abilities or lack thereof.

With the teacher blinking ahead, she did the smart thing, waited for her to stop, mapped a way and proceeded cautiously. With the mirrored walls and slowish speeds the bots moved at she managed to avoid a decent amount of them, recalculating her root whenever she was pushed of course. Then she fall smack bang into the open arms of one of them around a corner while she was too wrapped up in her mini-map to notice.

Good work Alice, now you have to deal with it using skills she'd literally just used. What could go wrong?

Going into the stance Maya had taught her she got a couple nice punches in until she got hit with a kick. That, that had hurt! This room could actually hurt her, what the hell!

Maya waited for Alice to catch up, standing around in a hidden, and relatively hard to find, corner of the labyrinth. She had no doubt that the minimap would eventually take the girl without much trouble - which is why she had added the thugs into the equation. They were sluggish at best, but for starters, that was exactly what she needed them to be. If Alice's enthusiasm was any indication, she would probably underestimate the DR at first.

Maya folded her arms and leaned back against one of the non-mirrored walls, waiting patiently for the trainee to show, and waiting curiously to see what condition Alice would be in when she did. A few punches never hurt anyone...

"Computer, give me another opponent, and set it to Advanced." she said finally, bored of standing around. Whenever Alice finally made an appearance, she could see Maya engaging in some hand-to-hand combat with an unarmed opponent. Just to see what she had to level up to, eventually...

Calm down Alice, remember the little bit of training and just take it slow. It hurt, but it wasn't taking down her health bar a lot. Easy mode, remember? Keep the hands up and take a hit whenever she could.

Okay, it was doable, she got in a few more good hits, even managed to block a kick, then wondering if they took 'critical damage' if she hit certain spots, she gave the dummy a swift kick to the groin. "That.....that worked!?"

It just, toppled over and lay on the ground. Hitting a computer programme in the nuts had actually done the job. That changed things, she could do this and confidence was a hell of a thing. Making quick progress, only needed to fight another two bots and dealing with them like before, she was getting nearer to the little blip on her map. Rounding one last corner and dodging the sight of a bot moving around she was there! No way a glorified video game got the better of her, not The Gamer.

Walking around the corner all smugness and swagger, she then got a pretty good lesson on just how little she was right now. Maya was going toe to toe with a flurry of fists and feet. What the? How could someone move that quick, worse how could a human react so quickly and easily!? "I, erm, I did it."

Most dummies were programmed to Sam's fighting style, with a few random variations in the mix. They were a decent workout for Maya set to Advanced; not the real specially programmed custom opponents, but something to practice the basics on. It was a good way to kill time too, while she waited for Alice to work her way through the labyrinth on her own.

>>"I, erm, I did it."

"Good job!" Maya grinned, taking a leap to knee the dummy in the face; it was a fancy move, and strong enough to take the bot down. As it fell, it disintegrated, and Maya landed on her feet, turning back to Alice "How did it go with the dummies? More importantly, how did your display settings like them?"

That was, well that was freaking awesome! Kneeing someone was cool, jumping up to do it to their face was just kind of amazing. "Wow, props for that, that was epic. And the dummies weren't too hard, once I got past the fact this place could actually hurt me. Would have been nice to know that earlier though." She wasn't exactly mad but this place was dangerous, not knowing that could have put her in danger. "They went down easy enough when I figured going for the groin was a good idea."

"The display did register my drops in health etc from them doing damage but apart from that it doesn't really give me any info. Did help me gauge how dangerous they were though, which was cool." Not a great way to learn though, being able to get a rough guess before taking a hit would be a good idea.

At least she was getting better with trusting the map in unfamiliar places with weird layouts. Not many labyrinths a person tended to navigate in normal life but she could see why it was useful, making on the fly route changes and learning how to calculate them quickly was a pretty valuable skill. And not just for all that heroing, it'd probably save her time the next time she had to take the subway. 

Alice looked unhurt, if a little out of breath. Maya smirked as she recounted her adventures in the maze; she had taken the training in stride so far, so she had decided to give the girl less information, and more surprises. It worked.

>>"Wow, props for that, that was epic. And the dummies weren't too hard, once I got past the fact this place could actually hurt me. Would have been nice to know that earlier though. They went down easy enough when I figured going for the groin was a good idea."

"There you go. Use what you know." she grinned. If you were not good at hand-to-hand combat yet, kicking people in the nuts usually worked wonders in making up for the difference.

>>"The display did register my drops in health etc from them doing damage but apart from that it doesn't really give me any info. Did help me gauge how dangerous they were though, which was cool."

Maya blinked, her amused smirk faltering as Alice once again matter-of-factly glossed over a detail about her powers.

"Wait. You can tell how dangerous an opponent is?..."

It was pretty weird being praised for using the old groin shot in a fight context but hey, Maya seemed to have a realistic look on things. Alice couldn't fight so why not use the easiest and most painful way to screw a guy over in conflict.

"In a round about way yeah. I don't get any level details or anything from them but with the health bar I have I can see how much damage they're doing to me." Standard video game logic, if an enemy was barely dropping your health, they were usually pretty weak, at least by themselves and those guys hadn't done much. Maybe a few bruises but not much else.

"It isn't exactly how I'd like to learn that stuff though, not generally a fan of getting slapped about to see how strong someone is."

Because seriously, who actually liked that kind of stuff?

Alice seemed to have one of those powers that did not cease to amaze. Even though she did not think much of what she could do, Maya was already forming questions and devising training plans for them in her mind, getting ahead of herself in thinking of Alice as her new trainee. The girl had potential, even if she did not realize it yet. And she definitely had an awesome set of powers.

>>"In a round about way yeah. I don't get any level details or anything from them but with the health bar I have I can see how much damage they're doing to me. It isn't exactly how I'd like to learn that stuff though, not generally a fan of getting slapped about to see how strong someone is."

Maya grinned at the description. It would have been more badass if her powers gave her detailed description of an opponent's abilities, but this was not too bad either.

"Fascinating." she tilted her head, musing about the possibilities for a moment "You know, I wonder what your display would do if you got attacked by a party member..." she said, before she took on an easy fighting stance, and threw a punch at Alice. The punch was light, so even if she did not block, it would only land on a shoulder without doing any damage, or leaving the bruise. For now, the emphasis was on the action...

Why was Maya impressed with her power? It was kind of lame compared to other people, hell she could walk into mirrors and basically teleport around. That was a cool power, Alice's was just, there. Always there.

It was a fair question but she really wasn't expecting to be punched causing her to jump a little from shock. Seriously could stuff stop hitting her for like two minutes? Although the next thread of thought got cut off by the sudden pop-up message in her vision.

Warning. Party Leader under attack from member - Maya . Auto-Kick enabled in case of further incident.

That was new. "Huh, never had that before, but then again the person I tested this with didn't think to hit me. Thanks for that by the way, love getting scared like that." Seriously, she'd just seen the woman knee a bot in the face, the idea of getting hit by her was scary.

"You getting this message by the way? Might be handy in case someone tries funny business in a party."

Warning. Party Leader under attack from member - Maya . Auto-Kick enabled in case of further incident.

"Whoa." Maya blinked as another message popped up in her own field of vision. Alice's power had to have some sort of a telepathic component, if it could send out messages like this one. Also, apparently she was gonna get kicked out of the party if she kept up the attack. They had already found a new feature Alice did not know about before!

>>"Huh, never had that before, but then again the person I tested this with didn't think to hit me. Thanks for that by the way, love getting scared like that."

"You'll live." Maya grinned. Training had been pretty light so far, compared to what Sam had put her through in the beginning.

>>"You getting this message by the way? Might be handy in case someone tries funny business in a party."

"Yeah, I'm getting it. Also, it knows my name. Are you some sort of a telepath? I think you might be a telepath." Maya grinned, before she shifted her weight and punched at Alice's other shoulder. She wanted to know if she would actually be kicked out, and what that would feel like...

"I don't know, that attack felt pretty bad, maybe I need a lie down after that. Maybe some food," teasing just a little. Honestly she was enjoying herself, enjoying the learning experience. In just a short time she'd discovered more about her power than she ever had alone. Maybe being an X-Trainee wouldn't be the worst idea.

Alice had never really thought about it, she'd just kind of accept the fact her power was weird and moved on. It did make a certain amount of sense though, what with the projecting images into other peoples heads and the whole mental connection thing. So what, she was a telepath then? No mind reading or lifting cars for this girl, just the awesome power of nerdom.

Before she could reply she was getting hit....again. OK, testing powers was one thing but seriosuly, "For f---'s sake can you stop battering me for two seconds and...." This message didn't just arrive it flashed and screamed in her head, sending her to the ground. Oh god the pain was awful, like a hive of bees had been set loose in her head.

Player - Maya has been removed from the party.

Curling up as the pain receded and not even knowing if she'd screamed. That, that had royally sucked. "P...please don't do that again. That wasn't fun."

>>"I don't know, that attack felt pretty bad, maybe I need a lie down after that. Maybe some food,"

"Sure, we'll put in a wending machine for the DR" Maya grinned. Alice was taking the training in stride, well enough to be joking, and even the new information about her powers seemed to settle in quickly. So far, so good. Maya decided to see what happened if the Auto-Kick actually kicked in, so she threw another punch. Okay, so maybe Alice was not quite prepared enough for blocking her yet...

>>"For f---'s sake can you stop battering me for two seconds and...."

Maya was about to call her new trainee on language, when

Player - Maya has been removed from the party.

The scream was unexpected, and Maya watched in shock as Alice collapsed, grasping her head. She had not expected that. She kind of expected the system to kick her out, maybe with a jolt or something, or activate some dormant battle function in Alice... but this did not make sense at all.

"Oh sh*t." she frowned, kneeling next to the girl "Alice, you okay?..."

>>"P...please don't do that again. That wasn't fun."

"I'm sorry." Maya sighed, helping the girl to sit up "That's... I expected something like that to happen to me, not you. Sorry. How's your health bar? Do you need a snack or something?..."

Letting her trainer help her up and taking in a few shaky breaths to steady her heart rate, the pain went from blinding to a dull throb. "That, well that was a bit unexpected." Ugh that headache was going to stick wasn't it? "I think I'm fine, don't worry. The fact it was so unexpected just floored me, should be easier to deal with in the future."

Not that she was looking forward to going through that again, dealing with pain wasn't exactly something she was used to and frankly it seemed a good idea to avoid something like that in the future. It did raise some decent ideas though, the party could be very dangerous if that's what had happened with someone being kicked, what on earth would happen if they lost all their health?

"Yeah, just grab an energy bar from my coat over there," pointing to the crumbled fabric with her bag, "and the water bottle as well." Water was probably a good idea, her voice was a little hoarse after all."

With those retrieved and her mood generally improved by the nice chocolaty goodness her brain was back in functioning gear. "I get the feeling we might not want to test that bit so much, as much fun as it was it'snot an experience I want to go through again any time soon. Don't beat yourself up though, no way you could have guessed that would happen."

But if it stopped Maya randomly punching her, she wouldn't complain.

>>"That, well that was a bit unexpected. I think I'm fine, don't worry. The fact it was so unexpected just floored me, should be easier to deal with in the future."

Maya was not sure how severe the pain had been to send Alice to the floor like that, but she knew it was unlikely that the girl would have overreacted, even if it took her by surprise. It was not fun, your own powers turning on you for no good reason whatsoever. She made sure Alice sat up steady before she got her the chocolate bar and the water. At least she carried the essentials with her.

>>"I get the feeling we might not want to test that bit so much, as much fun as it was it'snot an experience I want to go through again any time soon. Don't beat yourself up though, no way you could have guessed that would happen."

"I actually thought the opposite would happen." Maya admitted "I mean, if the Auto-Kick came with a psychic blast to the traitor, that would make total sense, but this... It's weird."

She plopped down on the floor next to Alice. Training was taking a break for now, so she had time to muse, with her legs crossed.

"So, here's what I think. Your powers work like a video game, but you have limited access to functions right now, and not all work the way they would be most useful. So, theory is, you'll level up eventually. With the right training, you probably have powers you have not unlocked yet... Happened to me too, and a bunch of mutants I know. New things pop up all the time. Yours just comes with a display..."