Bhikkhuni on Tour!

Exorcist jacked on to Electown Net, happy to finally have found a place where it didn't seem like Burt could find a reason to force her into skimpier entire. While she inherently disliked running around naked, she was also beginning to miss the comfortable feel of her robe and her hair done into its familiar tail. Letting her hair fall and moving unrestricted by her bodysuit was okay from time to time, but she'd rather not do it in a public place, nor nearly so often.

The navi quickly became aware of the presence of her new SP, walking along next to her with the golden rings of her shakujo jingling. Supposedly, the rings were supposed to help small animals avoid the footsteps of travelers, but Exorcist had a hunch that there would be something of an opposite effect on the net, instead attracting wild viruses to them. In a way, that sort of function was well suited to the purposes of Counterinfectualism, since attracting viruses would help the girls to eliminate them. Exorcist could not help but chuckle slightly at Bhikkhuni as she stepped slowly across the net, her shakujo taller than her entire body and ringing constantly. Her hair seemed to shake along with the rings, which only made it more entertaining to watch. Bhikkhuni turned her head to face Exorcist, her eyebrows lowered to grant her an irritated expression. "What are you laughing about?" she asked bluntly.

"N-Nothing," Exorcist muttered, struggling to keep her face serious as it tried to spread into a childish smile. She clasped both hands over her mouth to keep her laughter from bursting out. "Let's do our best," she spoke through her hands, although it was difficult to understand.

"Y-Yeah," Bhikkhuni sighed, feeling awkward and not understanding her new master's attitude.

((Ready for Battle 1))
Entering into the Electown network, Exorcist and her new support program found some viruses to eliminate without much trouble. A duo of Champu floated together with an Eleball that trailed behind, looking around for a battle. The Champu immediately went on hostile attention, while the Eleball floated back to distance itself.

-- ENEMIES --
Eleball: 80 HP [2 moves away]
Champu A: 60 HP
Champu B: 60 HP

-- NAVIGATOR --
Exorcist.EXE: 120 HP
Bhikkhuni.SP: 40 HP

-- TERRAIN --
100% Metal

-- BATTLE 01, READY? START!! --
"Aha! Viruses!" Exorcist called out, pointing them out to Bhikkhuni. The SP looked over with a startled impression, waving her shakujo in front of herself randomly in defense. Stepping back for a moment, the navi realized that the robe wasn't the only thing about her new SP that was offensively green. "Um, alright, Bhikkhuni... perhaps you'd better stand back and watch me operate for this one, hm?"

Bhikkhuni turned her head backwards, still waving her shakujo like a madman, creating an awful din that sounded like somebody emptying out a year's worth of coins from a metal barrel. "What? O-Oh," she muttered, stopping her onslaught and moving behind Exorcist. Hiding herself behind Exorcist's robe, she peeked out and stuck her tongue out at the viruses. "Yeah, my master's gonna bust you guys up! That's what you get for making me look stupid!" She then poked back behind Exorcist's ample hips and waited for the navi to take care of them.

"... You know, this isn't really going to work," Exorcist muttered to her SP. "You're going to have to evade attacks on your own. I've got to move to fight, after all."

The SP grudgingly nodded, stepping out to face the viruses again. "Alright, dummies! Nobody get close or I'm going to whack you with this!" she cried out, running around helplessly and flailing her staff to and fro.

Exorcist had a hard time believing that such a navi could help her in combat, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Looking up to Burt, she raised her eyebrows and watched him hopefully. "Oh, right," the operator laughed, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He slotted through a few chips carelessly and then yawned, giving a big stretch. Exorcist glared back at him. "W-What? I gave you the chips..."

"I was sort of hoping you'd have some advice on what I should tell Bhikkhuni to do. She's sort of a fish out of water here on the battlefield of Counterinfectualism," the navi admitted, watching her SP flail around uselessly. "But I guess it doesn't matter. Maybe she'll learn better by example." Hoping that her SP was conscious enough to watch, she readied one of her usual talismans, inscribing it with a few words and then folding it across. Squinting and keeping track of the Eleball in the back, the navi twisted her torso and then flung the weapon out with a sling of her wrist, trying to arc the weapon to go through as many of the enemies as possible. "Keep in mind, Bhikkhuni! A virus battler also needs to plan a contingency," she called out to her SP.

"Right! Contingency!" the SP responded, switching the direction of her shakujo's swinging pattern. Exorcist felt fairly confident that her message hadn't gotten through.

Realizing the significance of the threat that the fiery viruses posed to both her SP and herself, the navi put a greater priority on destroying them than the Eleball. Putting her hands into sword hand position (that is, index and middle finger outward, thumb and others curved inward), she leaped forward to take care of them. With a quick motion, she attempted to thrust a hand into one of them and sling it into the other. She then attempted to reach the hand back in and then arced her arm high, attempting to sling the virus through the air to land on its back. All of this stabbing and slinging used only the power of her wrist and two fingers, each glowing faintly with a projection of her chi. The power of the Taoist sword hands practice would turn her hands themselves into lethal, blade-like weapons.

Exorcist
1) Boomerang to Eleball and arcing through enemies if possible [65 wood]
2) Rageclaw1 to ChampuA [20] into Champu B [20]
3) Rageclaw1 to ChampuA [40]
*) Swordplay dodge
4) Dodge

Bhikkhuni
1) Dodge
The boomerang thrown by Exorcist didn't do much against the Eleball way further back; her aim was thrown off by the distance. It did, however, hit one of the Champu on its return trip. Realizing that she now did not need to take into account two brawlers, Exorcist modified her style slightly to adapt. For some reason, however, her blows just weren't up to par, and missed both times. She did manage to evade the Champu's counterattacks, however. As all of this was happening, the Eleball out back began to spark with energy as it prepared to launch an attack.

Bhikkhuni essentially became a useless flailing mook. Oh well, at least she had energy.

-- ENEMIES --
Eleball: 80 HP [2 moves away]
Champu A: 60 HP
Champu B: DELETED

-- NAVIGATOR --
Exorcist.EXE: 120 HP
Bhikkhuni.SP: 40 HP

-- TERRAIN --
100% Metal
Bhikkhuni watched her master move with a critical expression, her eyebrows lowered and her mouth twitching into a smile. "It doesn't matter if your moves look fancy if you can't hit anything, does it?" she asked, stopping her staff-waving for long enough to get the snide remark out.

Exorcist bit her lip and folded the arms of her robe together shamefully. "Nobody got hurt though... Sometimes slow and steady wins the race!" she defended, bringing one hand out to wag a finger at her SP. Nicking a bit of blood, she knelt down to quickly inscribe a circle on the ground, marking the shape with inscriptions. Her impatience to finish off the enemies seemed to go against what she'd told her navi. Pressing her hands together, she projected forward a powerful aura to try to bring the far away enemy close enough to hit.

Once she judged it was close enough, she released a rolling wooden log, banded with prayer talismans, and stepped aside to get out of the reach of any electric attack the enemy might have in store for her. As soon as she got clear of the Eleball, she turned to face the Champu and extended one hand forward, slinging forward a hail of aquaneedles with the motion of her arm. Burt had been doing all he could just to keep up with the motions.

The operator made a few discrete motions, indicating for her to tone it down. "I know you want your SP to take you seriously, but hey, there's no reason to get all emo and self-injuring about it!" he warned her.

"Burt, all of my abilities require me to draw blood! You know that," the navi sighed, hoping that her attacks would hit their marks this time. Bhikkhuni continued to wander around aimlessly, doing her best to avoid any flaming punches to the face.

Exorcist
1) Catching Circle to draw Eleball forward [Gravity + 15 HP sacrifice]
2) RollingLog1 to Eleball [60 wood]
3) Dodge
4) Aquaneedle1 to ChampuA [20 x 3 aqua]

Bhikkhuni
1) Dodge
Drawing some of her own life to initiate one of her skills (15), Exorcist drew the Eleball towards her and threw a log at it. This worked surprisingly well, deleting the Eleball within a heartbeat. The Champu next to her wasted no time while she was doing this to deliver some punches, but the agile Navi evaded the attacks without much trouble, and countered with a hail of needles.

-- ENEMIES --
Eleball: DELETED
Champu A: DELETED
Champu B: DELETED

-- NAVIGATOR --
Exorcist.EXE: 105 HP
Bhikkhuni.SP: 40 HP

-- TERRAIN --
100% Metal

-- BATTLE 01, VICTORY!! --

-- REWARDS --

360z, 10 BugFrags
Exorcist finished with a smile, placing her hands on her hips proudly. "See there! Nothing to it," she chuckled, flipping her hair casually and feeling as though she'd gotten her demonstration across well.

"I don't get it," Bhikkhuni sighed, crossing her arms behind her back with a small ring of her shakujo. "Why injure yourself to hurt the enemies? Isn't that kind of counterintuitive?"

The navi shook her head, giving another beaming, self-satisfied grin. "Not counterintuitive, Counterinfectualism! It's about self-sacrifice, you see. The ancient Taoist priests often had to give some of their life to exorcise locational spirits, as I'm sure you probably know," she explained, assuming that her SP was much more knowledgeable about eastern religions than she actually was. "Abbots would take decades off of their life in their pursuits! It's really the ultimate form of giving to others. It requires great selflessness."

"Selflessness, huh?" the SP repeated, crossing her arms and lowering her head thoughtfully. "There's no profit in selflessness you know," she sighed. "I don't see how it really helps Counterinfectualism either. Remember, your religion isn't Taoism! It's actually sort of against Counterinfectualism to be selfless, isn't it?" she laughed snobbishly. "I mean, your whole religion's about making the world good for yourself, isn't it?"

"Not true! It's about making it good for everyone, humans and navis alike!" Exorcist defended.

Bhikkhuni conceded, shrugging her shoulders apathetically. "Anyways, it's good that you can fight at least. That's not really my forte," she sighed, still shivering a little nervously from the battle. Taking out her frustrations on her master's religion had gone well, but she still couldn't shake off how helpless she was in battle. "I'm sure I'll get it after a while though, it can't be that hard."

"I dunno..." Exorcist muttered. "Anyways, let's quit for now. Burt says he's got somewhere to get to." The SP nodded, and the two vanished off of the net in a burst of light.

((Jacking out))