All of the earlier commotion had made Jan quite tired of his fellow pilots for now. Sure, he made an impression on his colleagues, but he felt quite peeved about the whole thing. He needed something to move his thoughts. He had reviewed the facility in passing earlier, and had noticed there was a training room with simulation capability. It always felt good to blow things up, even when it was just a pretend exercise. Yes, he would be killing some time with that.

Jan used the guides around the facility to get there, winding down through several hallways (and a single flight of stairs), to come across a door with a red ‘TRAINING ROOM’ on it. Going inside, it was a somewhat small, but not cramped room with three interesting pods on the left (west) side, and three more on the right.  There was a single person already in the room, he was wearing a coat fit for a scientist, and writing down something on a clipboard right next to the furthest pod down the left line. He quickly noticed Jan’s presence.  

“Hello there. Jan Van Gent, right? You noted the training simulators? That’s just [b]great[/b], the one to your right is operating. Plug in if you want. Or are you just wasting time standing there?”

“Why yes, I  have some time to kill. Might as well sharpen my skills, I trust you have compiled a copy of the Goldenspur’s system?” 

A quick, annoyed reply, “Yes, I took a copy of your NC’s system data from the black box, in-sim should be as close as possible.” 

Jan nodded as he climbed into the simulation pod. “That’s good, didn’t find any errors?” 

“If [i]I[/i] did, [i]you[/i] likely fucked up somewhere. And it seems like you did, your weapon’s software seems to be corrupted. Still works, which is amazing for a monkey such as yourself.”

Jan simply nodded again. He seemed rather nonchalant about this revelation. “Oh, it’s been like that for god knows how long, never really bothered to have it looked into seeing as that would likely have cost me an arm and a leg for what would amount to just resetting the system.” He started fiddling with the pod’s controls. “Anyways, I’ll be starting a simulation now, so good day. Don’t let a power surge fry my brain while I’m in there.”

The pod’s soundproofed cover closed before the technician could respond to Jan’s joke. He loaded up the system and took a look at the available training scenarios. He wasn’t in the mood for anything particularly challenging, though his standards still made him turn his nose up at the basic training scenario. Then, he had a rather mischievous idea. He loaded up the scenario for 1 on 1 NC combat and started fiddling with its parameters. A quick search through the system’s directory of available NCs turned up what he was looking for. He finalized his modified scenario and plugged in, signaling the system to start the simulation.

The rush of his body becoming but a small part of a great warmachine raced through Jan’s mind. He had always marveled at how efficiently these simulations emulated reality. More out of routine than anything, he ran a quick system check. As always, everything was in order except for an annoying error message nagging him about the main weapon. As always he dismissed it without reading it over even once. He started surveying the area around him. If he wasn’t mistaken, his opponent would arrive any second now.

And then he saw it in the distance. The telltale silhouette of an NC coming right for him. Jan smirked as the machine got closer. It was indeed the cobalt frame of Little Dragon coming right for him. He ignited Goldenspur’s thrusters to get up to charging speed. Jan had only faintly heard about Little Dragon’s capabilities, but he didn’t mind. He liked being surprised. He was getting closer and closer to his opponent. It seemed now was a good time to ignite the heatray. Warnings pinged on Jan’s interface notifying him he was now in weapon range of his opponent. He kept going, just as always.

The simulator-ran Little Dragon’s exterior began to ‘whir’ as the machine gun system mounted to its systems flared, firing rapidly at its enemy. Jan responded with just basic evasive maneuvers. There wasn’t much else to do that wouldn’t interrupt his forward momentum. He felt the faint, almost tickly feeling of shots pinging off of the forward armor plating of Goldenspur. Of course sustained fire would be a problem after a while, but Jan liked to make a point of eliminating the opposition before that point. He looked at the estimated distance to his target. He was getting quite close now, close enough to commit to this attack. There was a feeling of inevitable momentum as all auxiliary power diverted to the heatray. Sure, systems didn’t show he was in range yet, but experience had taught him this timing was optimal for actually being able to fire in the window of opportunity he would get.

However, The Little Dragon didn’t remain completely stationary, though, keeping itself in a position of agile mobility as it fired the anti-armor caliber in bursts rather than a full unload. 

Jan smirked as his target started evasive maneuvers of its own. “They always try and get away.” he thought to himself. Sure, his thrusters weren’t at full power right now, but he could still very well adjust the path of his forward momentum. The rather accurate fire was starting to become worrying though. Damage was starting to show on the forward armor and it was quite possible a lucky hit would punch all the way through to something vital. Still, it was too late to go back now. He would just have to take the chance. And then, he was finally in range, He leveled the plasma lance, now humming with barely-contained power and let loose, a brilliant flash tore through the sky.

The Little Dragon rose it’s right arm as what looked like a hard light wall came from a gauntlet-shaped generator on the top of it’s forearm; wider than a sword with no cutting edge. [i]A shield?[/i] 

Jan raised an eyebrow. A shield? That was… actually a pretty novel idea for an NC. The concept didn’t seem that far-out to him, after all, he himself had modeled the Goldenspur’s loadout to resemble an ancient cavalier.

Nevertheless, he wouldn’t let some fancy new toy dissuade him from victory.  Jan manually overrode all systems he deemed unnecessary to the current situation and diverted all power to the plasma lance. It burned ever so much more brightly. Already, he could see the shield starting to flicker and fail.

The machine gun fire dropped to a complete halt as the simulator detected his change of tactics; perhaps adapting to the power loadout on its own end?

There was a brief his as Goldenspur’s lance bore into the shield, it wouldn’t be long until… yes, it went down. At the same time however, the lance also powered down. Jan was briefly confused as to what was going in until he noticed the error message he had been ignoring up until now. ‘power overload imminent’ it read in big flashing letters.

[i][color=0076a3]“Tch.”[/color][/i] The clicking of Stein’s lips echoed in Jan’s mind as both the NC’s went out; smoke clearing from their significant power overload. The fact she was weighing so heavily on his mind and the sim was going this… disappointingly was bothersome. 

Jan got started resetting the mainframe when the simulation suddenly hiccuped and grounded to a halt. The podules’ door opened quickly, an obviously miffed Neurologist staring at Jan’s fuckup.

“I swear to god, how the hell do you people break these so easily?” Jan stared at the pod, slightly disoriented by the jarring transition back to the ‘real’ world. 

“I don’t know man, perhaps look into it simulating power overloads or something?”

He leaned back in the seat as he got to work safely unplugging. He had never encountered a defense his lance couldn’t pierce before. Yes, this lady seemed like she would be quite an interesting colleague.

He off-handedly looked at the clock, and darted upright, the pod’s neural plug clattering on the sides behind him. Apparently the simulation had eaten into his time. The briefing would begin in but a few moments. He jumped out of the pod and past the neurologist. He could hear the man inhale for another round of cursing as he dashed through the door and back to the hallways of the facility. He wasn’t going to make a bad first impression by running late for the first briefing, not as long as he had standards to keep up.