Elec East High Auditorium

The NetSpace the two self-professed non-wimps would appear in took the form of a basketball stadium. The walls had masonry texture with cream-colored paint. The roof was difficult to make out due to bright court lighting shining from above, but appeared to consist of dark metal rafters. The court, however, was covered in dark, padded matting, and the bleachers were folded up against the walls, so the only indications it was actually a court were the hoops and backboards at either end of the room, as well as a large, unlit scoreboard on one wall. The reason for the renovation was clearly that a number of areas seemed to have been set aside for various exercises. There appeared to be a gauntlet of all types: ropes for climbing; tires, handlebars, and a climbing wall for a speed course; a pair of treadmills; what looked like a bell-ringing carnival game...

There were two other spaces that seemed to be set aside with bare mats, but it wasn't clear what they were for. They were currently occupied by a pair of Navis, two females of exactly the same height.

The first appeared to be a girl about Rania's age. Her dark black hair had a metallic silver pattern like sparkles "dyed" into it (although on the Net, it probably wasn't literally dye), with a short ponytail on the right side of her head. Her eyes were green with faint purple eyeshadow, and her skin was fair. Her build was lithe but hardly muscular. She wore a short red cape of some velvety material with a purple jeweled brooch holding it together at the neck, as well as a dark-black Navi suit. A pattern of red-to-pink-to-purple sparkles ran first faintly up the side, then clustered and became more dense as they rose up the Navisuit, becoming the primary pattern element just below the breasts and looking something like a comet trail. She also wore red gloves and boots, which appeared to be leather in texture. Her Navi emblem appeared to show a large purple star over a small orange orb on a black background.

The girl beside her was quite clearly her twin, with an identical build and nearly identical hairstyle, her ponytail being on the left. She appeared to have a "star" pattern in her hair (it was really quite similar to the other girl's, with the "star" and "sparkle" shapes being differentiated only by the star having five prongs and the sparkle having eight). Her eyes were exactly unmistakably the same but missing the eyeshadow, and her skin was tanned, but to the degree that it was clearly actual tan and not any racial difference. She wore a short green cape of some velvety material with a yellow jeweled brooch holding it together at the neck, as well as a bright white Navi suit. A pattern of green-to-yellow-to-brown leaf shapes ran first faintly up the side, then clustered and became more dense as they rose up the Navisuit, becoming the primary pattern element just below the breasts and evoking the image of a storm of leaves in the wind. She also wore brown gloves and boots, which appeared to be leather in texture. Her Navi emblem appeared to show a small yellow star over a large blue orb on a black background.

The two appeared to be fighting over something, but only verbally. The body language of each, each crossing their arms and flipping their hair in a disaffected way with uncanny, almost alternating timing, suggested something like a choreographed argument.

Nobody else seemed to be in the auditorium, and the two might be feeling the oddity of so few people in such a large space.

((Jack-in From -> Dentech Sports Day))

As courser followed the link provided, the brightly lit court area made finding a suitable patch of shadow to ground his jack-in on hard. In the end, the scripts settled for what space in the corner near the folded up bleachers. The edges where the lights cast edges of shade swelled long enough for the smartly-dressed navi to slip out from the shadow and wander forward at a causal pace.

He glance around as he did, hands tucked behind his back and under his coat and moving with a sight swagger. He was dressed up fully in his normal attire, albeit with the first handful of buttons on his shirt-front open, but a look at the equipment suggested that he might want to lighten up - or at least dispense with his coat, before getting into anything more strenuous. Under normal circumstances, he might have waited for his new partner for the day to show up, but MeleeMan had sounded like the over-confident type, to him, and here were two darling ladies just waiting for their saviours to arrive, so, he guessed it would be better not to keep them waiting. It was the polite thing to do, of course. He gave himself only the time it took to walk over to them, for looking about his surrounds and taking it all in. the various equipment could be examined more closely later, as it became important... there was other, distinctly non-sporting equipment to take a look over.

"Good morning, ladies!" He spoke clearly, but not overly loud; instead the flirt had decided to wait until he was close enough to greet them at normal volume and reach out a hand towards each of them. If either of them could be persuaded to accept the gesture he put one leg slightly forward in a graceful bow and turned the hands over his own in a more courtly gesture, rather than a shake. this would also let him place a delicate, completely gentlemanly kiss on each of their fingers, with a grin, if they allowed. If not, no great loss, after all.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both. I'm CourseMan, but you can call me Courser for today, if you like. I expect my friend will be here in a moment, and we can get right down to helping you with your problems." He flashed a broader grin, showing teeth, and stood back to buff his knuckles against the exposed part of his chest. There had been a moment where he had almost instinctively split off a clone so that he could greet both of them together, but he'd stopped himself. He'd had enough of clones, for now. Better to avoid them, at least for a while.

A few other thoughts darted around his mind while he greeted them. They looked pretty nice, though twins always made that seem nicer. Dressed quite flashy, but modest, too... though if the navi suites were all they really had, aside from accessories, chances of them getting either of them out of them seemed small. Jenny would not approve of his line of thought. But then, Jenny was busy getting herself wet without even getting in the pool, looking at boys in tight swim-wear, so, her opinion didn't really count, in this case.

MeleeMan arrived a bit after CourseMan, taking his sweet time, as he was not the type to be punctual and considerate. All the same, he was pretty excited for the mission. "Being a coach is gonna be all kinds of weird, but damn, alone with twin sisters! I don't get that kind of luck very often... and neither do these girls. Hopefully they like a hands-on coach," he was already thinking to himself as he beamed down. Upon arriving, he was greeted with two unfortunate reminders: the first, that CourseMan had signed up to aid him on the mission. He hadn't met CourseMan in person yet, but it was pretty damn clear that CourseMan was already helping himself to whatever he liked. The second unfortunate reminder, however, was that the girls were never promised as stacked to begin with, only loaded. The two girls had dismally Rania-like bodies... although, perhaps with a little more boob and a little less ass. Either way, MeleeMan didn't care for it... Jailbait wasn't on this carnivore's menu. Horniness left his mind and was replaced with impatience. "Damn," he thought to himself silently, before approaching to join the others, spewing smoke out of his gauntlets in a way that belay his frustration just as much as his scowl.

"Hah! Don't get suckered in. He asks everyone to call him Courser, it's not something special," MeleeMan snapped as he approached, eager to shoot down CourseMan's flirtatious intro as quickly as he could manage. "You girls asked for a tough guy, right? Well, I'm the toughest there is... One-hundred-twenty percent hardass," he began, although it sort of sounded like he'd just said his ass was 120% hard, which was a pretty bodacious claim for anyone to make to a stranger, "and not a half percent of give-a-damn about whatever excuses you have when it stands in the way of getting whipped into shape. You wanted tough? I'll show you tough!"

Rania stepped in for her navi, allowing a quick comment in a mission she hoped to mostly leave her navi to himself. "This is MeleeMan... Don't worry, he's not as bad as he seems on first impression," she encouraged the girls.

"Hmph! If anyone's got a bad impression of me already, then they weren't really looking for a 120% tough guy in the first place!" MeleeMan snapped, crossing his arms across his broad chest. "Oh, screw me, that Courser jackass was serious... He's a... what do you call it... seaman," he grumbled, looking over CourseMan's outfit disapprovingly. "Get a look at this guy... Though, you're not the scrawniest guy I ever worked with, so I'll give you that at least."

At the same time, Rania was giving CourseMan a look over, and was a lot more approving than her navi had been. "Yeah... look at him," Rania echoed in a quiet voice, momentarily lost for words.

"Okay, enough. You get back to your little sports day," MeleeMan waved her off. "So, you girls got names? Which is which?" he asked, turning his head to face them again. At this point, he hadn't decided whether he ought to wake up Damascus for this event at all. The girls weren't exactly his type, but... well, something was better than nothing, and Damascus would be yet another third wheel if he wanted to try to get closer to these twins. Not as obstructive a third wheel as CourseMan, but another wheel besides. "No way am I riding a tricycle," MeleeMan thought to himself with another sour frown.

The two girls turned to CourseMan when he announced his arrival, immediately ceasing whatever argument they'd been having (and too quickly for CourseMan to listen in, if he'd hoped to). The two exchanged glances that probably meant something only to them, the sparkly one's lips curling into a smile momentarily while the starry one broke eye contact, flipping her hair. Both of them extended him a hand in nearly exactly the same way. Although Sparkles was smiling and Stars was frowning, they seemed to be sporting exactly the same attitude. That attitude, by the way they leaned slightly back while extending one hand and placing the other on the hip, seemed to be a kind of haughty air, with a high opinion of themselves.

That attitude seemed to break abruptly when Sparkles, who had the fortune to be on CourseMan's left and first in his pecking order, went for a more intimate, if still proper, gesture. The girl allowed it, but flushed and looked a bit awkward. Her heart was near-visibly skipping a beat, which Courser might take some pleasure in, before she quickly withdrew her hand, raising an eyebrow at him. The other girl withdrew hers before his lips could reach it, giggling and stepping back. "Ew, like, no way! I don't want any lips that've been on Wandy's hands!"

"Wandy" coughed, putting her proud face back on with practiced ease. "Courser-" she began, before MeleeMan injected himself into the conversation.

The tanned girl extended a hand out dumbly for one moment before letting it drop, sensing MeleeMan didn't seem intent on kissing it, shaking it, or anything like that. The two of them seemed a bit clammed up by the introduction of the self-proclaimed "hard*ss," and seemed interested in what Rania had to say about him. Finally, they managed to settle back into their comfort zones, seemingly believing that absolutely had to re-establish their haughty expressions before continuing. "Wandy" even made a point of tilting her chin up a bit. "Courser, MeleeMan! I am Wand, and Twiggy here is my sister, Twig. It may come as a shock to you to learn that we are, in fact, twin sisters, created at exactly the same time from the same base code and all!"

"Totally! Most people can't believe it, cuz, I'm like, totally hotter, smarter, and I've got this totally wicked power to bend nature to my will!" The other girl, Twig, said her piece, summoning a small, carved twig into her hand and waving it like a conductor's wand. She seemed to making a kind of desperate bid for someone to ask her what she meant by that.

"No, it's like, most people can't believe it because I'm cuter, nicer, and I've got the wicked awesome power to tap into the forces of mysticism and perform magic!" Wand summoned what was evidently a magician's wand, but might be confused for a small branch at a glance, and waved it through the air. "Anyway, that's getting sidetracked. The main point is, uh, you two are here to help us with our mission. We're gonna join the cheerleader squad for Elec High, but the captain, Hall, is like... a total hard*ss. I mean, she's got it out for us! And the coach here must be like, uh, a homo or a billionaire or both, because we haven't been able to convince him, either. They both say we've gotta take this totally weak test, which is, like, waaaay too much..."

"Totally! I'd die, for real, seriously," Twig told the two, rolling her eyes and flipping her hair again. "What part of being a cheerleader means we have to pass some crazy test? It's, like, totally obvious we'd be the best cheerleaders ev-eeer...!"

"So, like, we need two tough people to help us out, and the good news is, we're totally loaded. There's nothing in their rules that prevents us from paying two tough guys from helping us out, is there? Like, no way! And the two of you are gonna be swimming in zenny, chips, uh... bugfrags or whatevs... we can provide basically whatever you requested, for real. But, the first thing we need you to do is show us how tough you are."

"Yeah, like, anyone can use a Gee-Mo to make themselves look like a model, or a hunky bodybuilder," Twig added. She seemed to be looking at a private window and not either of them as she said this. "But, like, if that was all it took, we'd do it ourselves... we need to see you can walk the walk! Dreamy, Steamy, show us what you've got."

The two weren't getting into any more specifics without being prompted, and they also didn't seem inclined to give any further instructions as to what they were hoping to be shown. Rather, the two of them stood there, Wand with her arms crossed and Twig swiping at personal windows only she could see, apparently waiting to be impressed.

If MeleeMan was determined not to be dealing with any three-wheelers on this outing, then his luck might be improving.. and worsening at the same time. Courser's determination to refrain from using his decoys had been hard pressed to stop his first instinct when he'd greeted the girls - it lasted only a few moments beyond that, until the second girl... apparently Twiggy, had refused his greeting on the grounds of being second target. He had responded before the conscious thought had even really had a chance to go through his mind:

As the second girl had pulled back and away from him, his first decoy had risen up behind them smoothly, such that her back step carried her into a very slight brush against its chest; it was careful to make sure it was only a soft bump, nothing strenuous enough to be problematic. In every likelihood, Twiggy wouldn't have been expecting anyone else behind her at that point, and if she jumped, turned, or was at all startled, the clone would use the opportunity to take her free hand swiftly and repeat the courtly gesture.

"If not his, then perhaps I might do the honours?" The decoy winked at her, flashing teeth of his own. "Charmed." The real Courser had only realised what he'd done a few moments after he'd already done it - having a resolution was great and all, but when a thing happened before you could even think about it, what good was that? It really was out of control... He cursed inwardly, though made sure it didn't reach his grin.

MeleeMan's own introduction was brash and to the point, and Courser managed to get a good straight on look at his new partner through his clone's eyes. A strong man, then, and a fighter... with a jaw you could probably break marble with, by the look of it. He didn't resent the jab about his name; after all, he had jumped in right away on both women. Leaving some for others wasn't usually on his play list, so he was quite prepared that his companion might be surly about it... but that didn't seem to be all that was putting him off side. In the few moments that MeleeMan, and Twiggy and Wandy in turn, chatted, Courser wondered what else it might be.

Despite everything, he couldn't resist himself in making a casual assurance. Ok, maybe he did feel a little bit like one jab deserved another after all. For a brief moment, his other decoy slipped out of MeleeMan's own shadow, smirking more like a rogue than a charmer and winked over the fighter's shoulder.

"Oh Aye! He's not wrong there, you know. You ladies won't find an arse harder than his, I guarantee it! Break boards on it, you could!" As it spoke, it placed a friendly slap on MeleeMan's presumably rock-hard Manly Buns, flashed another smirk, then faded into shadow again - If it was fast enough, then before MeleeMan could bring any kind of violence to it... if not, well, the result would be the same.

While he listened to their explanation, Courser stayed closer to Wand, watching her for the most part. His lips were resting in a casual, good-natured smile; just a slight curl at the corners now as he listened patiently. They seemed to be giving a pretty good picture of themselves - the sort of girl that wanted the perks of popularity, without the effort, by the sound of things. Not someone he'd want any kind of long-time association with, but today was just one mission after all, so, better to play nice. Over the other side, his main decoy had taken an extra step back from Twig to give her some space, and was listening on with his arms folded now, though he causally buffed his knuckles against his chest every so often. One undercurrent of thought was noticing that they had apparently tried bribing their coach with things other than money, the refusal of which made them question his sexuality. That was interesting. And promising.

In the end it came down to a challenge of their "toughness", though they hadn't really defined what that meant. Typical rich girls not being able to explain themselves properly without being led step by step. Oh well. Twig in particular was doing her best to maintain an air of disinterest, but he wasn't going to let that put him off making himself hard to ignore.

"So, this Hall is on your cases about passing her tests before she'll let you cheer..." Courser tilted his head a little as he spoke towards Wand, raising one hand to his chin in thought. The other clone continued, speaking more to Twig.
"But the coach won't accept either of your... favours... in exchange for giving you a free pass, right? Well, his loss..."
"What kind of tough is it that you need then?" As he asked, Courser stretched casually, flexing his arms above his head and linking fingers together to stretch the backs of his fingerless gloves and make the give a faint leather creak, then relaxing again with relaxed-sounding sigh that resonated in his chest. When he spoke again, it was to take turns with his decoy, each line gaining another layer of flirtation and suggestion.
"The kind of tough you might be nice to, if they convince those two to just forget the tests and put you on the squad...?"
"Or the kind of tough that can put you through your paces with some private lessons, until you're both completely satisfied?
"Do you need the kind of tough that makes fast movements, relentlessly?"
"Or the type that makes strong, decisive ones?"
"Would you rather a burst of great strength?"
"Or the kind of toughness that boasts enough endurance to last a day and a night?"
"After all..." It was the real Courser speaking again by this point, and he winked at Wand. "If you don't tell us what you need most, it'll be hard for us to do as you want."

At this point he cast a look across to MeleeMan and arched an eyebrow, the curl at one corner of his lips widening to show one side of his teeth in a smirk.

"Still, whatever type of demonstration they want, I'm sure we'll be up to it, right, Hot Stuff?" He took a step back, then another. The second step became a soft glide as a current of water rose beneath his feet and carried him neatly back towards the centre of the auditorium while he stretched again, flexing and not-so-accidentally showing off the reach of his arms and the definition of his chest. "You all limbered up, hmm?" He passed his gaze between MeleeMan and back to the girls, piercing blue eyes hovering on each of them in turn while his decoy stood back looking more closely at the various equipment around them. There were things for just about every physical test they could ask for, but if he was truly honest, Courser knew at least some of his limits. Chances were MeleeMan would outpace him in a lot of the more distinctly physical areas... for all his bluster, he did actually seem like a seasoned and experienced combat navi, which was more than he could say for himself, really. Might be a better idea to let the tough guy shine for a bit, if they needed to prove their worth to the girls before the serious training could begin...

"Yeah, you're both cute and great at making sticks float," MeleeMan agreed, always having an opinion and never thinking about whether he ought or ought not to voice it. If they were discouraged by that, he was just as discouraged upon learning that he was here to help cheerleaders make the team... Not exactly his expertise. On the other hand, if you were going to go for students, cheerleaders were the cream of the crop, he figured... so, by extension, it could only help his self-image to put them on that level. "Ha! Nobody can use a GMO to look like this; it's a combination of raw ability and training that doesn't come easily, even to me," MeleeMan bragged, flexing to show off his biceps through the arms of his jacket and apparently forgotten that he'd literally fought a doppelganger of himself before. "But that nickname's gotta go. No steam here: that stuff comes from water, or so I hear, and I don't do water. You can call me Smokey," he smirked, amusingly seeming to concede to a funny nickname, as long as it was one that met certain standards.

Whether the girls were impressed by CourseMan's follow-up flirtatiousness would remain to be seen, but MeleeMan certainly wasn't. He wasn't the type of guy who naturally appreciated people who were different than him... this guy's approach was "different" to say the least. Furthermore, he certainly didn't appreciate guys who were more popular with ladies than him, and so far, CourseMan fit that bill. A myriad of uncouth insults were already forming in his head... just as CourseMan gave him a friendly smack on the butt. In all fairness, neither he nor CourseMan were lying: he really did have a hard ass. Of course, MeleeMan wasn't interested in fairness; he was, however, deeply concerned with what kind of partner he'd gotten involved with, given that he seemed interested in both genders and didn't have the brains to realize that spanking the strongest guy on the net was a bad idea. "Yeah, right, and you won't find a rotator cuff more firmly slotted in there than this guy's, here, watch, you can't break this guy's arm if you try-" MeleeMan snuffed, reaching out to grab the illusion and begin wrenching its arm in a painful demonstration of his joke. He wasn't fast enough and the CourseMan simply disappeared. "What a bitch," he grumbled, evaluating CourseMan and any remaining clones as if trying to decide whether to attempt breaking their arms as well, before giving up on it.

MeleeMan's partner had elected to turn the come-ons up to eleven, while simultaneously probing on some direction for their mission. MeleeMan, on the other hand, was far too impatient for any of that. "Open your ears, Dreamy! The girls said they need someone tough and we just gotta show 'em we're tough, right? I mean, they should be able to use their eyes and take a look at me to figure that out, but since they asked to see, I'll oblige." Without asking permission, MeleeMan moved over to one of the devices that looked like a strength tester and cracked his knuckles, both the bone and metal making crunchy noises. "Feast your eyes on this!" he commanded, before rearing back his fist and unleashing a blisteringly powerful punch, speedy despite its winding nature, on the machine, one that would probably not hit the pad or bell so much as the entire machine in a gross display of overkill. "There. Meet all your qualifications?" he asked, dusting off both gloves on each other with a series of metallic thwacks.

1) Move to strength test device and away from girls
*) Red Rage [Strengthen +30 to next attack]
2) GolemHit1 [Boosted 170 to target and 140 surrounding + Break + Panel Attack + Wide Attack, boosted B accuracy] @ strength test machine

The two seemed a bit offput by the pair's introduction. Neither of them seemed to know what to do with the sudden realization that CourseMan's interest was all over the field: Wand had seemed uncertain about how to enjoy specialized attention, and Twig had seemed to enjoy teasing her sister. At about that point, though, Twig had gotten caught by CourseMan's trick, and the two of them seemed to be having a heart-to-heart sister whisper regarding his interest in not only the two of them, but his decidedly masculine partner, as well. Besides all of that, both of them looked visibly peeved at having their power summarized as "making sticks float" by their other mission-taker. Their wariness of him was plenty high enough without seeing that breaking his partner's arm (clone or no-clone) seemed to be his response to casual harassment. It was up for interpretation as to whether their whispering was a "which one do you like?" sort of chat, or a "should we fire these guys and try again?" sort.

With that in mind, it was probably a good idea that CourseMan moved along to voicing his concerns. The two of them paused their conversation to listen, then giggled and resumed their conversation in hushed whispers even as he was continuing. "He's like, totally hitting on you, Wandy!" "No way, his eyes are, like, all over you," could be heard in snatches. Wand finally straightened up, apparently having decided to give more details to their potential taker after all, before MeleeMan took the initiative to demonstrate his power. It was probably worth considering these tests were, ostensibly, set up to measure the abilities of high-school aged girls. As any sane person would probably have imagined, the piston-like force of MeleeMan's arm devastated not just the plunger, but the bell as well. Ultimately, plunger was left depressed into the base, the bell and ball in the machine had flown off into the rafters, and the whole thing was emitting dangerous-looking smoke. The noise of the bell reverberated throughout the mostly-empty auditorium.

"Like ohmygod, you-" both of them started in perfect unison, before the doors of the gymnasium were thrown open.

From the hall outside, a new figure rode into the room. A floppy-wide brimmed hat of a dark green shade sat atop a similarly dark-green cloak, and two bright, solid-blue eyes peered from beneath the hat. That made it evident where the head was supposed to be, which was good, as immediately below the cloak, the body of a carriage (the type that would typically be horse-drawn, but with no horses in sight) was supported by four plain, ashy wheels. Amusingly, while the carriage body appeared to be a slick green color, a black-and-white barred referee shirt (it was really more of a tarp over that body) had been draped over it, bearing "COACH" in red letters across the side. From the front, two thin, dark-green suited arms extended from beneath the cloak, folded one-over-the-other.

When the creature finally came to a stop in front of the group, the back wheels pulled up into the carriage, allowing the whole carriage to raise up into the position of a large backpack. Meanwhile, the shape of a muscular, very dark green Navisuit lowered from beneath the front, terminating in the wooden wheels just below the knees. Ultimately, his form was long and rather stout. A bright green Navi emblem was located on the front just below his cloak, showing orange shape of a horse head on the front. "Ey! Ey, now!" a voice emanated from within the cloak, the voice of a mature, weary man. "Come now, what is all this?"

"C-Coach!" the two squeaked, springing to straight stances with wide eyes.

"That's CoachMan, you two ne'erdowells. What is all this ruckus now? I'd ask what the two of ya think your doing to school property, but it's plain as day you two didn't cause this great nonsense. Is this biggun the one responsible?" He cast his eyes to MeleeMan, indicating him.

"Uh..." the two girls muttered, unsure how to respond. "H-he's our... coach?" Wand finally said, tentatively, dodging the question.

"Well? Did he wreck the equipment or not? And what are you two doing with 'coaches' anyhow? Aren't ya just taking the test here, then running along home? Did Hall approve this?"

"Uh..." the two muttered again, wringing their hands. "W-well, we just wanted to see how strong he is before he, um, started coaching, so..."

"Nevermind. Nevermind all that! Just let me know this. Ya two little ladies planning to pay for all this mess? Ey?"

"Sure, coach," the two muttered, looking at the ground and biting their tongues. "We will," Twig added, wanting to get a word in edgewise, "But can we just explain? These two were gonna help us with our practice before we started, right, sis?"

"Uhuh," Wand nodded. "So, like, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? We're still gonna put on the uniforms and do the tests. Just, please, go and wait for us to finish, okay Coach?"

"CoachMan!" the Navi yelped again. He was turning to MeleeMan now, backing up a bit first since he couldn't exactly turn in place with his body. It seemed like he was mostly ignoring CourseMan, as MeleeMan seemed to have announced himself as the problem. "Is that true, man? Ya the coach for these young ladies? They're supposed to be taking a fitness test to determine if they can join the cheer squad. I'm standing watch out here as an administrator... for just this kinda mischief, as a matter of fact! If ya don't want me reporting ya straight to Hall herself, maybe ya oughta start telling me just what you two are doing here? They already talked to ya about how these tests are supposed to work, did they? Speak now, ey! Do I need to call the little Miss here?"

The two girls looked at MeleeMan and CourseMan, seeming to beg them with their eyes to just agree and not cause a further scene. It was likely the two of them were now imagining a worst-case scenario, where they had to pay for the broken equipment and didn't even get anything out of it.

Despite his own relative safety, Courser had a hard time suppressing a wince as his mission partner offered a back-handed compliment of his own, and was quite glad that he'd taken the precaution of delivering the smack by proxy. Rather than start any kind of actual confrontation between them, though, he had pushed on with his own game right up until MeleeMan decided to punch the dial to eleven... in an alarmingly literal way. Well, he hadn't been wrong about the big guy packing a very genuine wallop underneath the braggart exterior. He had been about to offer a careful chide towards the stronger man about minding his language around the ladies, while they giggled amongst themselves, but the sudden bout of property destruction was enough to send the thought clear from his mind.

His remaining clone evaporated with a startled look as the crash brought an new presence into the auditorium and Courser had to take a moment to to stare before collecting himself. It was a coach, alright, but very definitely not the kind of 'coach' he'd been expecting, given the way the girls spoke. Although there was a possibility that this might answer why he'd been impervious to their advances, maybe.

For the most part, the coach-twice-over seemed to be focused on the girls, and then MeleeMan as the obvious property destroyer, so Courser kept quiet initially and held his peace. It sounded like they were actually supposed to be more or less in testing conditions right now, which was the first surprise. The second was that, despite that situation, CoachMan seemed open to the possibility that their presence in the gym with the girls was actually legitimate in some way. Quietly he noted that calling on Hall was being used as a threat while his thoughts worked to get ahead of the situation. By the time the coach put the solid question to MeleeMan, Courser found what felt like the right moment to step in and put the intruder off balance. He cleared his throat. The girls had both snapped to attention, facing their coach but that didn't stop him from letting a fresh decoy slip into sight from the wall behind and to the side of the large navi. It just leaned against the wall for now, eyeing the twins.

"If I may?" He cut in on the question with a smooth tone of voice doing his best to prevent MeleeMan from answering first. "That's right. We're a personal training duo. We've got an excellent back and forth synergy for training navis, based on the antipode principle, if you're familiar with it?" His clone winked at the twins, grinning broadly enough to flash his teeth from across the room. He was making it up as he went, of course, but he felt at least a little bit confident that he could spin out more 'details' if he really needed to. "I handle the head game, he helps take care of the body... He's the task-mater, I'm the morale builder. Red and blue, hot and cool, you know how it goes." He shrugged softly and offered the coach a smile then stepped closer to the Coach and put one hand up to the side of his mouth as though whispering a secret, though he was still speaking plainly enough for everyone to hear. "I'm hot... he's cool." With any luck MeleeMan would still appreciate being called a cool guy... there was no denying that he was the hot one, after all, even if he did say so himself. Behind the coach, a second clone slipped out alongside the first and raised its hands to its mouth as though it was about to shout out that exact though to everyone, before Courser ruthlessly dispelled it. That was too close. Unperturbed, his other clone waved its eyebrows with a smirk, then blew a kiss towards the twins. Across the room, it might have been directed at either of them... though knowing Courser probably both. The real Courser stepped back, casually buffing his knuckles again as he covered his moment of panic.

"No need to bother Miss Hall, I assure you. We're just trainers, and you have my word we aren't going to invalidate their tests at all. They're still going to pass them themselves. We're just here to make sure everyone gets the happy ending they need." For once he managed to keep the obvious innuendo out of his voice, though his decoy still gave another quick wink to the girls. "After all, the young ladies here desperately want to join the team, but the team's got standards too. We're here to make sure everyone gets what they want." Next move was to get rid of the navi before his companion could... challenge him to bench-pressing a bus or something... Courser let the jovial expression drop from his features and raised a hand to cough and clear his throat.

"Now, the young ladies were just about to fill us in on some of the more salient details of what they needed to do and how we could help them fairly, before you burst in and interrupted us. If you wouldn't mind, CoachMan, we'd like to get on with the training now. Some privacy, please?"

Hopefully his quick damage control would be enough to distract the interloper from questions of damaged property for good. Hopefully MeleeMan wouldn't take too much offence at him trying to smooth the situation quickly. hopefully, more than anything else, he could get his decoys under control without it becoming clear that he wasn't consciously doing as much as it looked like he was.

MeleeMan had been pretty pleased with his handiwork once he'd seen what he did to the strength tester, although he hadn't cracked a smile. Still, the others were all a good bit further from smiling than he was; he again felt agitated to see that nobody seemed to appreciate what a dang tough guy he was. Still, he'd do it again if it meant shutting up the girls, who seemed just tickled about CourseMan's flirtatiousness. Worse yet, another new figure showed up, and this one wasn't a girl at all, or for that matter, possibly not even a man. MeleeMan took a moment to appreciate the perfect muscles he'd had since his inception, including legs, which this man had obviously never known the joy of. "Still, he's got an upper body; that's the important part, unless... well, he probably doesn't have one of those either, does he? Damn... Now I feel bad for the guy," MeleeMan thought, grimacing as he observed the newcomer's carriage half.

For CoachMan's part, he seemed to be no more pleased with MeleeMan, though for different reasons. For a moment, it really looked like the young girls were going to vouch for MeleeMan, which genuinely surprised him, but once his brain started working a little closer to its maximum potential (which admittedly might not be very high), he realized they probably just didn't want to get busted for what they were doing. Although most of the questions were coming to him, CourseMan got the first word in, which was probably good for everyone's sake. "'Anti-'" MeleeMan started, sniffing with a disbelieving frown, before realizing CourseMan was probably doing something... academic, something MeleeMan didn't care to understand and thus did not. "Right, right. Antipode," he nodded, smirking confidently as he tried to decide whether that was supposed to be used as a noun, a verb, or an adjective. "The body, mmhm. Right, task-master. Cool? Well, I dunno about that," he scoffed, expending a blast of heat from his gauntlets, but not seeming particularly offended otherwise.

Bothering "Miss Hall" actually sounded like a pretty good idea to MeleeMan, as the idea of a school teacher lady hit all the right notes with him, but Courser discouraged the others from bringing her in. "Yeah. I don't have any intention of using my Red Rage to strengthen these girls or anything stupid like that. These girls are going to get tough off hard work and sweat. I'm gonna make these teenage girls sweat themselves out of their skinsuits; they'll be begging me to stop, but let's just say I'm a hard master," he "reassured" Coach, choosing his words poorly. He got the sense at least someone in the room wasn't appreciating that, so he amended his statement. "Damn! Get your minds out of the gutter. I mean I'm going to be a tough coach. That's the point, right?!"

Unfortunately, that wasn't the whole point. Coach over there wanted an answer about the broken machine and MeleeMan doubted he was going to manage to deflect it. "Fine, crap... I'll pay for the machine out of my GNA money. What's it gotta be, like... 200 zenny or something?" he asked, inspecting the machine. "It wasn't much good for anything; I didn't even use my full strength. So... it can't be that expensive," he reasoned, almost like he was trying to haggle it down. "Or, yeah! Privacy. We gotta train our students!" he jumped in, suddenly deciding that it would be a good idea to follow CourseMan's lead. "You're a Coach, right? Then you oughta sympathize with us! Training these girls is gonna be hard enough without distractions."

The two girls continued to stand perfectly straight, clearly feeling all nerves as CourseMan took the lead in explaining why there were now three coaches in the room. CoachMan simply crossed his arms and waited, hearing CourseMan out with patience that might be surprising after his early harrying barrage of inquisition. His face lacked expressiveness, but he wasn't making any noise farther than deep breathing, so it was probably safe to assume he was simply tolerating the would-be coach's wisecracking nature, rather than enjoying it. He gave a gruff grunt that didn't betray whether he did or did not, in fact, know of any "antipode method."

In spite of their tense situation, the girls were helpless to let a few giggles get past their tightly clenched lips as the two men described their coaching methods. CoachMan didn't seem to notice this, nor did he evidently notice the innuendo in their words. "Ya sure as Charlie won't be helping anyone cheat, that's for sure, man. Hall's rigged those monitors up good and proper. If one of these girls gets so much as a push starting up the climbing rope, she's gonna know about it. That besides, ya've got me to worry about! Don't ya two little ladies forget, no soundproof door nor solid walls nor rain nor sleet nor snow's gonna keep me from upholding Miss Hall's orders, and they aren't gonna keep me from coming in here and giving ya hell if ya don't do right!"

Even though he hadn't turned to them, the two jumped as if fixed by his stare. "Yes, sir, Coach, Sir!"

"CoachMan!" he shouted back in his typical grumpy way.

"Uh, CoachMAN, sir! We'll pay for the machine, so don't worry about that," Twig reiterated.

"Can't be helped. I'll get that money for later, but for now, ya two get to your exercises. And ya two," he said, evidently talking to CourseMan and MeleeMan now (and not having identified that they collectively made more than two), "I don't know what kind of coaching ya have in mind. Sounds like some fancy new-age mumbo jumbo, something I wouldn't know Tom from Larry on, I guess. But what I will tell ya is that these ladies' training aside, I'm responsible for standing right outside that door there and then locking this place up when they leave. Standard procedures, ya know. I'd already be outta here if Hall hadn't taken mercy on these poor souls to let them take these tests out of ordinary hours. So don't be slowing me down all day, ya hear? And don't be breaking any more equipment, neither!"

Without waiting for any response, CoachMan rolled back well enough to turn himself around. He immediately jumped back up into his carriage, rolling off toward the door. "If ya need me, ya know where to find me!"

The two girls remained silent, watching him with plate-like eyes until he finally passed through and shut the door behind him. As soon as the door was shut, the two of put up a hooked finger to call MeleeMan and CourseMan in closer. "So, like, listen up!" Wand spoke first. "CoachMan's ears aren't too great, so unless we go, uh, de-STROY-ing anything? I think we'll be good. Now, obviously, the two of us don't have any intention of you two just coaching us or we would've, like requested actual coaches or just done it ourselves."

"The reason you're here is cause you're gonna do the tests!" Twig continued her sister's sentence. "We have to pass four out of the six tests to join the cheer squad, according to that stuck-up know-it-all. The 'monitors' Coach was going on about are the actual cheerleader uniforms. They've got, like, programming and junk, and that lets them monitor that the one wearing it is actually the one doing the test. So all you two have to do is dress up in our cheerleader outfits and do the tests! Should be easy for you, right?"

"Like, totally!" Wand agreed, flapping a hand and grinning. "Of course we could do the tests ourselves, but, uh, we aren't the ones being motivated by a mountain of chips and zenny and whatevs! So, like, are you two in?" The girls grinned at the two men expectantly, seeming completely certain that they would be willing to put on high-school cheerleader uniforms and perform high-school fitness tests. They also seemed to have a lot of confidence that they understood the "programming and junk" well enough to game the system, even when they were pretty clearly afraid of the consequences of being found out.

It was with a great wave of internal relief that Courser acknowledged MeleeMan's attempts to run with his ploy, and then watched the actual coach trundle his way out of the gym. the reassurance that his hearing, in the end, was not actually that good was another blessing, just so long as certain parties didn't decide to break anything else. While MeleeMan had been talking about sweating the two girls out of their skinsuites, his clone had adopted a wryly amused expression and raised a single eyebrow in a casual, open invite to the girls. No sense letting a suggestive phrase go to waste after all.

Like a good boy-toy, Courser made sure to glide in closer when summoned, though his main decoy continued to watch casually from the back wall. The explanation that came was, truthfully something like what he'd been expecting. the revelation that they would be expected to wear cheer-girl outfits was a surprise though, and a part of him was quite eager and excited just to see and listen to how his companion for the day took that particular piece of news. Maybe it was a good thing the gymnasium was somewhat sound proofed. When they reached the end of their explanation, Courser let his grin return, then took a gliding step backwards to stretch his hands behind his head. He raised an eyebrow towards his mission partner.

"Well... I'm in. How about you?" In truth, he was expecting some kind of extensive, and potentially explosive, response from MeleeMan, but returned his focus to the girls themselves right away.

"I do wonder though... you know what motivates us, ladies, and I've said I'm down for your plan... so tell me, what would motivate you? You say you can do the tests, if you want to, and I believe you... so what makes you not want to?" with a small shrug he lowered his arms and slipped off his outer jacket, leaving just the open-fronted shirt. With a small turn on his water current, he glided past the pair to set it down on the folded bleachers, but passed close enough to whisper in Wandy's ear. "Prefer a different kind of exercise, perhaps?" He didn't speak up again until he had set the jacket aside and turned back towards both of them. While he did this, his decoy had pushed off the wall and approached from behind the pair. This one stopped near enough behind them to whisper to Twiggy instead. "Pity though... I know I'd feel more motivated to see you in a cheer outfit too..." the real Courser spoke up. At least it was easy to know which was which, now that the real one had his jacket off.

"So then, let's see this kit, shall we? You ladies seem sure enough that just wearing it will be enough, I'll trust you. After all, if you're wrong, and it's more complicated than that, well... won't be either of our rumps getting tanned. If you're both sure, for your own sakes, then let's do it."

In his mind, courser was feeling fairly sure that MeleeMan was going to object, but that opened the potential of ending up in the hall alone with the girls, which he wouldn't be opposed to by any stretch. Ah, Hall, that was a possibility...

"Say, MeleeMan... do you think we should make extra special sure to take care of these lovely ladies from both ends?" He breezed on as though his choice of words was completely innocuous. His decoy slid around in front of both girls backing away to stand nearer to the real Courser, and its eyes danced gleefully above its grin as it did. "We can dot he tests here, but maybe we should make extra sure Hall herself doesn't cause a fuss. What do you think?" Courser himself made a small show of stretching his arms more formally and limbering up as he spoke, though he hadn't gone so far as to activate his wave whips and start getting water anywhere just yet.

"Coach, you better believe I intend to do a lot of pushing on both those girls, but the instructional kind, not the cheating kind; it might be harder than they're prepared to accept, but we'll get through it, and we'll all be happier for the experience. In fact, I think they'll grow a taste for it; then they'll be begging me to come again, so I'll be ready for a second round-" MeleeMan boasted, leaving gross blobs of innuendo hanging in the air almost tangibly, somehow manifesting despite MeleeMan's intentions not to say anything dirty right now. Thankfully, CoachMan didn't really have a lot of desire to listen to him in the first place and left back outside, expressing his intention to wait out there, intervene if there was any funny business, and ultimately lock up when they left. "Huh. Well, whatever... at least I don't have to pay for that machine," he grunted, his orange-red eyes looking at the ruined exercise equipment behind the veil of his metallic visor. "Sheesh, I get it... no more destruction. That damn machine shouldn't have broken from just that anyway! How's it supposed to measure anybody's strength if it goes to pieces when you just hit it once?"

He didn't seem to follow at first when they explained that they didn't have any need for real coaches. He thought about it a moment, then smirked, crossing his arms. "Ha, I get it now... I guess I can get behind this. Two girls and two guys in a gem together, and you requested the biggest, toughest guys you could get... yeah, I think I see where this is going," he murmured, even giving CoachMan a quick grin, to see if his partner in crime understood what he incorrectly believed that he understood. As it turned out, he didn't get it; once he did understand, he adopted first an angry frown, then an even angrier scowl. "Wait, wait, hold up just a damn minute! You asked for the toughest guy on the net," he incorrectly asserted, "and now you think he's going to dress up as a damn cheerleader for you?! And degrade himself to a cheerleader tryout test?! For the love of... if you wanted me for something like that, at least make it the finals at the international cheerleader's meet or something! There is no way in hell I'm doing that!" he growled, personally offended that he'd somehow been dragged into this, less because it was cheating, and more because it implied that someone actually thought he'd be willing to put on a teenage girl's skirt.

CourseMan hadn't been listening to much of that; rather, he'd anticipated it, and had shifted his focus to the girls again. Undoubtedly, they'd be more interested in what he was selling than MeleeMan's angry rant, so he moved in and injected himself back into their conversation. "Turn off the boy toy act for just a damn minute and have some self respect!" he scolded his partner, grimacing and pointing one big, armored finger in an accusatory way into his partner's distractingly manly chest. As it turned out, Courser had a bit more to say... this time giving MeleeMan some actual pause. This had been a huge waste of time... but if it turned out that Hall was actually someone he wanted to meet, someone who would be logically, reasonably attracted to a perfect male specimen... MeleeMan could strike "bone a sexy teacher" off the bucket list and move on. Plus, he didn't want to tell Rania he hadn't agreed to help her new friend's navi... and even less wanted to tell her that someone had actually figured he'd put on a skirt and do a high-school cheer-leader's tryout.

"Okay... crap... fine. Just because I feel sorry for you, man... If somebody came in here and saw you dressed as a schoolgirl, I wouldn't want anyone to know I'd ever been associated with you," he said in a very grave tone that indicated he was actually serious. "And I don't feel bad for cheating because, if those strength testers were any indication, this whole thing was a cake-walk anyways. You girls are just lazy and could have passed it easily on your own, but if you're willing to pay us to do it, then... okay. But the only thing worse than a man doing this is a man and another man both wearing cheerleader outfits and doing this... so I've got a better idea than you and one of your seamen doing this together. Just a sec," he finished, crossing his arms and frowning at the floor.

A second later, a long, nodachi sword appeared in a beam of light, landing blade-down in the floor; he hadn't bothered to catch it. One might wonder if the new gash on the floor would count as property damage, but not if one was MeleeMan. Slowly, the nodachi's sheath began to grow and wrap into the shape of a woman, before mostly dispersing and becoming Damascus' armor and body-concealing cape, draping itself over her otherwise bodysuit clad form. If she'd been asleep, she didn't show it; her eyes looked as sharp and menacing as they ever did, though her face also looked just as lacking in enthusiasm. "Greetings. I am Damascus," she introduced herself, giving a quick bow that threatened to gut her master, as the long, solid tail of her surprisingly metallic hair nearly flicked into his stomach, perhaps a sign of aggression for having been called here suddenly and not properly caught on her way down. "I serve my master," she explained, giving a quick glance over to MeleeMan, before inspecting the others. CourseMan looked the most imminently threatening, so she'd already focused her thin, murderous eyes on him, in case he was an enemy.

"Yeah, and you can serve your master now by dressing up as a cheerleader and doing whatever these girls say to, while I go on a little teacher meeting," MeleeMan explained, crossing his arms behind his head and already turning to walk towards the door. "Move a little further in and hide behind the seaman over there; don't want buggy-ass to see you when I open the door," he added.

Damascus' eyes were glaring a hole in the back of his jacket, giving off such a dangerous aura that one might actually believe she was going to change back and slash him, as he left. "I apologize," she continued, turning her eyes back to the others and bowing once again, heaving her tremendous breasts as she did. "I am afraid I cannot tell which of my master's comments are idiotic jokes and which are idiotic actual requests. Can someone tell me if I'm actually supposed to dress as a cheer-leader?" she inquired, softening her expression only slightly, but still looking as though she might be about to cut someone. If the girls looked closely enough, they'd be able to see that her body was, despite its proportions, also well-toned; she'd probably be at least roughly as good as MeleeMan at what they needed.

----------------------

In the mean time, MeleeMan would open up the door and head into the hallway. Assuming CoachMan was still there, he'd stop to speak to the man and get some directions. "Hey, I got a question for that disciplinarian you mentioned, Hall. Where is she? Acting as a coach and all that crap, I think it's best if I speak to her face to face, at least ask her a few things, you know?" he requested, crossing his arms impatiently. Holding on to the hope that Hall would be a hot teacher was the only thing keeping him going for now... If that didn't work out, he was going to regret not waiting around to watch Damscus dress up, which would be both worthy of laughs and a great chance to look at her body, which was normally wrapped up pretty tightly. Still, not unlike one craving a food they'd never had a chance to eat and didn't know whether they'd like, MeleeMan had a hankering for sexy school teacher and was willing to jump through some hoops to try to fulfill that wish. "It's part of the antipode thing," he reiterated, with a sudden spark of inspiration, thinking that he might be able to make CoachMan's (and his) lack of knowledge over that technique work for him). "Yeah, the antipode won't work if I don't talk to her first. You know, want to make sure everyone antipodes together and... yeah."

The girls grinned at CourseMan's agreement and balked at MeleeMan's disapproval in turn with nearly identical expressions. The two seemed irritated at having to set aside their mutual interest in flirting with CourseMan to deal with his partner's strong disapproval. "Like, this isn't about you, Smoky," Wand scoffed, flipping her hair and crossing her arms.

"Yeah, if you want to go win a cheerleading award, do it on your own time, okay? This is me time," Twig finished the thought, rolling her eyes and holding up a hand to the disgruntled Navi. "Do you wanna get paid or not?"

Leaving Twig to deal with MeleeMan, temporarily, Wand focused her irate attention on CourseMan again. "What motivates us? Uh, I dunno... that's, like, the kinda question an old dude would ask, right? Hall and Coach talk about motivation all the time, too... I dunno what I'm motivated for, but I'm totally sure it isn't scarring my sensitive skin climbing ropes, or scratching up my nails on some dumb punching machine..." Presumably, the nails she was taking pride in must be beneath her gloves, as she'd raised one up to inspect the back of it as though seeing through it with x-ray vision.

Twig merely rolled her eyes at CourseMan's stated desire to see her in a uniform, having her hands full with MeleeMan's whining at the moment. She turned to CourseMan when he asked to see the kits. "All right. They're, like, totally the cutest I've seen... I compared a few other high schools, and these are definitely the hottest. They're gonna look so great on us, but for now, we wanna see them on you. Don't worry about stretching them, pretty sure they don't work that way."

"And, yeah, Hall was pretty anal on all this 'monitoring' and 'sensing' business, trying to make sure we wouldn't cheat, or... whatevs," Wand continued, sighing and flipping her hair once again for good measure. "Well, being a cheerleader is one part hot bod, one part attitude, and one part intellect! With those first two being obvious, I'd say we've got that last one buttoned up here. Anyhow, the uniforms are in these packets..." With that, both Wand and Twig handed their uniform .GMO data to CourseMan, apparently having decided that MeleeMan wouldn't be having any of it.



"How about it? I bet you're already, like, drooling thinking about Wandy in this," Twig teased, elbowing Wand in the side. Wand gave her a sharp elbow back, then turned to CourseMan for his opinion again.

Of course, CourseMan would be at least temporarily occupied with getting MeleeMan on board with his idea. Luckily, MeleeMan had his own motivations that made this easily accomplished. The two girls seemed initially thankful, having interpreted that CourseMan had gotten their irascible mercenary on the same page, before realizing that wasn't the case. Both of them openly gawked at Damascus when she appeared, taking a step back as they did so. The two then fell into another bout of conspiratorial chatter, hushed but occasionally loud enough to discern. "... get the hunky guy, but why would she program...?" "... hate this type, all cool and detached just cause..." "... like, is she even gonna be able to climb with..." The two continued chattering until finally realizing Damascus had designs on introducing herself. The two seemed to grudgingly acknowledge this was what they had to work with and acknowledged her, keeping their original haughty attitudes while standing a notable distance from the menacing new arrival. "Damascus, I'm Wand," Wand spoke.

"I'm Twig," Twig spoke. "And yes, you're supposed to wear the outfit. You're just gonna, like, do some easy exercises and whatevs. You okay with that...?"

The two didn't even acknowledge MeleeMan's exit, and neither did they make any attempt to stop it.

---

It was hard to tell due to his body shape, but CoachMan appeared to be leaning against the wall next to him... or simply parked next to the wall, depending on how you chose to interpret it. Nonetheless, a heavy snoring sound could be heard. It was hard to believe he had fallen asleep in the short time since he'd left the auditorium, but there it was. He started when MeleeMan addressed him, then crankily wheeled himself around to answer the questions. "Hall? The girl's busy, man! I'm guessing ya wouldn't know Bernie from George, being not from around here, but Hall's the president of the student council slash captain of the cheer squad slash head of the disciplinary committee slash any number of other responsibilities. Wouldn't be a stretch to say she and her op keep all things running here. Anyhow, I dunno about how ya intend to do this 'antipode' thing, but ya are gonna have to give me a real good reason to give ya any of Hall's time of day. Why, I'm not even one-hundred percent sure ya can be on this campus without running it by anybody first! How's it look for me if ya just walk up and meet the most important girl in the school and club her with that dumb strength of yours? Ey, man?! Give me one reason, and by Darlene, make it a dang good one!"

To his credit, CoachMan didn't seem at all intimidated, despite having clearly seen what MeleeMan had done to their school equipment. It looked like getting info from him would be hard if he couldn't be convinced, and now that MeleeMan had made himself known, it didn't seem likely he was going to let MeleeMan run around the school freely, either.

MeleeMan's reaction to the proposal had gone at least partially like he'd guessed it would, and Courser didn't let his good-natured grin falter. The muscled, macho, (and likely several other descriptors beginning with 'M') man's-man, at least seemed more interested in the task of making sure Hall was covered; Courser had a quite genuine and sincere hope that his mission partner would find that endeavour to his liking, since he wasn't going to bite for the task in front of them. Still... as MeleeMan moved to leave the room, Courser's second clone slipped out of the wall by the exit door and winked at him with a friendly smirk, even going so far as to clap him across the shoulders in a gesture of camaraderie.

"Don't worry big guy," It was chatting clearly enough for the girls and Damascus to hear as well, though he made sure to get his words in before the door was actually opened up. "Boss-man's masculinity isn't so fragile or delicate that something as simple as a change of clothes could possibly threaten it. He's not that insecure, after all!" Back-handed reassurance offered with an extra wink, the clone dispersed again and let MeleeMan head off.

The appearance of Damascus on the field had led to a raised eyebrow from the real Courser, at least, and he tilted his his head subtly, appraising her as she gave her introduction. Her returned glare caused the normal reaction in the water navi: his grin broadened into a tooth-flashing smirk and he winked at her. Like her master, he guessed that the sword-woman was mostly combat focused... which, honestly made her top-floor assets quite curious. Still, this was the net, and the normal laws of physics didn't need to apply unless they wanted to. He didn't immediately give his name to Damascus, since they were still vaguely operating under the idea that he and MeleeMan had worked together often, though he kept one eye open for an opportunity to introduce himself in a polite way when the girls wouldn't notice. For now, however, there was no more time to talk. It was time to change. Courser accepted the .GMO data directly and took a brief scan of it before trying it on; he'd meant what he said before, and really it was Twig and Wand who stood to lose out if they weren't completely right about this working, but even so, he wasn't going to put it on blind. Fortunately, it looked to be more or less what he'd been imagining, and he activated it. Behind him, his jacket on the bleachers dissipated as well, being a part of his default clothes even apart from him.

As the uniform settled over him from head to toe, Courser shifted back and forth a few steps, and rolled his shoulders. He reached up and adjusted the front 'V' slightly, broadening it a touch, then made a few other small adjustments here and there to get everything sitting correctly. As a finishing touch, he pulled out the pom-poms as well, then gave a small spin on the ball of one foot, sending the skirt flying for a few moments before he faced them again with his pom-pom-bearing hands on his hips. In retrospect, given his extra height, the skirt looked a fair bit shorter on him, relatively speaking, than it probably should have, and it would be easier for him to show off flashes of his school-issue sports bloomers... and the contours of the extra cargo they were quite obviously hiding now... than was likely intended. It would be quite obvious that he was packing goods, too, given that the bloomers were remarkably snug, to say the least. Up top, he was aware of the extra layer - upper-body underwear was not something Courser was accustomed to wearing, after all - but realistically, it wasn't going to cause any issues and he wasn't about to get rid of it in case that messed anything up.

"Well, ladies? How do I look?" Despite what might be normal expectations, Courser continued to radiate charm and good humour, perfectly content with his new look and unfazed by any of it. He paused to fiddle with the hair ribbon for a moment, making sure that it wasn't going to come loose as a result of his shorter-than-anticipated hair. "Still think it would look sexier on both of you, of course, but needs must, after all. I guess I'll have to do. Pity about the colour... gold's not really me, but oh well. How about you, Damascus? What do you think?"

Between the two would-be cheer-girls, Courser's main clone had also undergone the visual shift of appearance, and he clasped his pom-poms together in front of his chest, grinning like it was the best joke in the world. "Oh, doesn't he just look the cutest, girls!? Maybe we should try out too!?" The decoy sounded just a little bit too enthusiastic to be genuinely serious about that, and it chuckled warmly afterwards. More to the point, CourseMan was waiting patiently for them to actually clue him in on what they needed him to do now that he was changed, though he was keeping one eye on Damascus, too, to see how her own wardrobe shift went over.

MeleeMan lowered his eyebrows behind his heavy visor. "If you girls need help in the first place for something as stupid as this, I think you might need to look for a new line of work... besides... student. Or magician. Whatever you two are," he waved his employers off. The other CourseMan lone sent a similar reaction from him. "I don't know who BossMan, but hopefully he's got some actual self respect. This is damn embarrassing! A room full of guys dressing as cheerleaders and prissy girls who are too slack to do a damn test for prissy little girl prissiness. I don't have time for babysitting or cheerleading or anything else that doesn't meet at least a basic standard of not being dumb as hell," he grumbled, reaching the door after what seemed like eons of insulting people for various things. After insulting everyone's intelligence, he went off to find a woman of entirely unknown attributes to hit on her just for being a female teacher.

... And as it turned out, she wasn't even that. CoachMan was little more pleasant to speak to than MeleeMan himself, although perhaps with more just intentions in his snappiness, but more importantly, he was a deliverer of bad news: Hall wasn't a mature school teacher, she was a school council president. "Dammit dammit dammit," MeleeMan thought to himself, his rage briefly displaying in his expression, which went from a tight frown to clinched teeth. "Wait... No... If she's eighteen, or 'net-eighteen,' designed to look like she's eighteen, then it's still okay," MeleeMan reminded himself. "She might be like Rania's friend, the one with the curly hair... she's about eighteen but she's got a great rack. Hall might like big dudes as much as Rania's friend does too... Yeah... Okay, I'll work with it. Don't wanna go home empty handed..." Now he just needed to think of some way to get to her without Coach snapping at him... not that he didn't think he could take Coach, but if he had to beat up a school teacher to start his plan, even he could see that wasn't the wisest course of action.

MeleeMan wasn't one much for thinking, but he figured CoachMan and he could both at least agree on a thing or two. "I don't know about Bernie or whoever, old man, but Hall's someone I need to talk to. She sounds a little like my operator, if you can believe that: so goodie-two-shoes it hurts sometimes, but driven and goal-oriented or whatever, all that crap that parents and schoolteachers love. Anyways, here's the deal: from my very brief time with those two in there, I can say you are going to need a little... no, a hell of a lot more antipode power than I originally anticipated. Those girls are more anti-antipode, to the point where it all cancels out and the training's just gonna become 'pode.' If Hall's as great as you say, she's probably had an eye on their behavior, specifically their lazy-assed-ness. That means she's the best person to give advice on how CourseMan and I can reach them using our antipodes. I mean, he's doing what he can in there, but damn... they just seem unteachable," he growled, now legitimately bitching rather than lying. "So Hall probably wouldn't be too happy if you blocked me from seeking her out, right? I may be the one chance these girls have to set their... uh... lives straight. By becoming cheerleaders," he finished, lapsing back into manipulation.

-----------------------------------

If the girls were unenthusiastic about meeting Damascus, she was unfortunately just as much of a downer towards them, keeping her war-like glare even as she accepted their greetings. "So be it. I suspect I'll be able to handle whatever sort of exercises you have in mind," she agreed, accepting the GMO. She turned her eyes towards Courser and narrowed them; like MeleeMan, it didn't seem like she was going to get along with her new acquaintance particularly well, at least not from the offset. Her eyes remained half shuttered as he showed off his new outfit; this time, it looked less like irritation and more like melancholy. "You look ridiculous," she said plainly. "But I will as well. Hopefully we aren't being judged on that."

Damascus equipped the cheerleading outfit, having even less idea what she was supposed to do in it than CourseMan did. It looked more regular on her than CourseMan... but still pretty unfitting. Most cheerleaders didn't tend to frown like she did. Furthermore, her chest caused the top to bunch up, making it taut so that it was exposing not just the belly, but the upper part of the ribs as well. Her height, which was even greater than MeleeMan's, was causing the skirt to be even shorter on a mature woman than it normally would be. She wasn't really flaunting her goods the same way CourseMan was, but it was hard not to notice that the lower portions of her bloomers were constantly visible, both from back and front. The bow at least looked a bit more on home in her hair than it did in Courser's, given that she naturally wore a tail anyway, but gold was probably her color even less than it was his. She held onto the pom poms, on the off chance that they were part of what exercise she was supposed to be doing, but it would be truly surreal to see her wave them in celebration like her partner was doing.

She crossed her arms, causing the papery pom-poms to hand at each side. "... I don't suppose it's likely I'm going to be tasting any blood throughout the duration of this task either, is it?" she asked, beginning to feel like she was catching MeleeMan's gnawing, real, disease-like sickness of needing to battle. "Not that it matters. Just point me to whatever you need to be done..." She watched CourseMan as she talked, rather than her employers. He was pretty distracting... it was hard not to be bothered, watching him flaunt around in a little skirt and tight bloomers. She wasn't the jokey type and didn't get along with those who were, but she at least had the manners not to be as abrasive about it as MeleeMan, so she kept her mouth shut.

The twins had both adopted confident grins now that they saw that, at the very least, they still had two game stand-ins willing to do their work for them. The two of them seemed to be giggling a little bit even before CourseMan and Damascus put on their duds. Getting a chance to look at the "full package" CourseMan was modelling, though, the giggles of the two slowly turned more awkward, as they made transparently difficult attempts not to stare at the sight. The two chose to focus on Damascus instead, gulping and clenching their teeth as they took in the ill fit.

"The costumes look really, uh, ero-" Wand began, still staring between the two in stupefaction.

"Er, ridiculous!" Twig interrupted, elbowing Wand in the side without looking at her. "Haha, yeah, right? Just like we thought they would!"

"Uh, yeah, funny!" Wand agreed, rubbing the back of her head. "I mean, they'll look great on us, but on these two they look kinda sex-"

"Second-hand! Like, they are, Dummy," Twig reminded her, elbowing her again. She was as flushed as her sister, but tried to wave it off. "Anyway, no alarms or whatevs, Coach isn't busting the door down, I'd say we're in the clear. Let's get moving, all right?"

"Or, uh, you guys get moving, anyway!" Wand corrected her sister, giggling.

The two sisters stood stupidly silent for a moment longer.

"Oh yeah, so, how this is supposed to work," Twig finally piped up, realizing the reason Damascus and Courser would likely be dragging their feet. "So, like, there's all these tests or whatever around the gym, right? We've been given a pass program that will activate whichever one we choose. So, like, Hall's making us do four out of six of them-"

"Four out of five of them, now," Wand interjected, rolling her eyes.

"And we have to pass four to make the squad. She says that whichever one you do first will be the easiest and whichever you do last will be the hardest? But that could just be her motivational mumbo jumbo again. Whatevs, I'm like, so over it!"

"As if! Get real," Wand added, flipping her hair.

"For real," Twig agreed, nodding. "So, basically, you two pick which one you wanna do first and we'll activate it! Let's see what's the lineup: Rope Climb, Obstacle Run, Endurance Run, Step Demonstration, and Sit-Ups." Twig made a point to pause after each one in order to make it interpretable as a clear, distinct list, but clearly grew less and less enthusiastic as she read through them.

"There was a strength test, but Smoky already passed that one with flying colors! Shame we didn't activate it first..." Wand added, rolling her eyes again and flipping her hair incessantly, as if she somehow feeling she hadn't made it clear enough how frustrated she was.

"Anyway, none of this stuff should be hard for you guys except, like, maybe the step demonstration?" Twig muttered, crossing her arms. "Anyway, what do you two wanna do first?"

---

CoachMan crossed his arms and grunted in vague non-confirmations as MeleeMan spoke, much as he had before. "Mmmmh... Pode and antipode, ey?" he repeated after MeleeMan, confirming the fact that he had no idea what the term was referring to. "I dunno about all that, but I can't argue with ya on the poor ethic of those two. Can't say I've ever seen those two sadsacks get much near nothing done. Between ya and me, I've never had the luck... those two have got no respect for authority and no love for hard work of any kind. Spoiled rotten, they are, man! Really, it'd make perfect sense if what ya say is true. Hall is- oh!" His sudden coming to a stop seemed to coincide with a sort of heavenly light breaking from behind MeleeMan. "Miss Hall," CoachMan greeted the newcomer, giving a small, long nod that was probably intended as a bow.

If MeleeMan was to turn around, he would see the girl herself. She was definitely a sight to take in: a classically beautiful, fair-skinned Netopian girl with golden hair done up in a bun and clear blue eyes. A bronze circlet adorned her head as well, with black metal accents and a wing motif by the ears, and with a peak at the front that took it over the bridge of the nose. She was wearing what looked like a traditional school uniform, with a beige-colored blazer with full length sleeves and a skirt, black with gold-plaid, along with white stockings and sporty black sneakers. The blazer covered a white shirt and a black-and-gold tie, along with assets that might be reinforcing MeleeMan's earlier fantasy. Her Navi symbol, at the center of her neck and at her earguards, showed a white arch, which faded into patterns of arches behind it in increasingly dark bronze. She also had a number of paper bands of different colors around her arms, just below the shoulders. It was reasonable to guess each related to a particular school responsibility. Notably, she seemed to be holding her hands over her head, causing a rainbow to form between them that spread from one palm to the other. She had a smile on her face, which might be interpreted as overly friendly or undeservedly smug depending on the viewer.

She continued to hold her hands over her head until MeleeMan acknowledged her. She didn't appear to have any trouble doing so. If MeleeMan got a good look at her legs (which would be a very improper place to stare, but of course, if he were to) he would see that Hall appeared to be blessed with not only generous puberty, but also excellent muscle definition, the kind that ought to imply rigorous training in the real world. Seemingly regardless (or in defiance) of where MeleeMan decided to put his focus, she continued smiling benevolently. "Greetings!" she would finally declare in an alarmingly echoing voice, after some time. Two additional forms of herself would appear behind her, appearing to be cast of marble, but rising seemingly out of nowhere. One held an ornate shield and spear. The other held an unfurled scroll.

The two statues didn't talk along with Hall as she continued, but did appear to slightly shift, as if modeling different poses. Neither appeared to look at MeleeMan directly.

"I am Hall," the young woman continued in a confident and oddly resonant voice, "and I welcome you to Elec East High! I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting yet. Would you mind introducing yourself and telling me what brings you to our school, Elec East High, the hall of champions? If you are a Navi looking to enroll, I assure you, you will find our campus second to none!" Hall's constant smile and enthusiasm might be seen as endearing by some, but could equally be seen as a car-salesman's tone by someone less generous.

"The man's a coach, Hall, ma'am," CoachMan volunteered before MeleeMan could stop him, if he'd hoped to.

"Please, CoachMan! I've told you to call me Hall!" Hall said this congenially and kept her ever-present smile, but MeleeMan would notice the two statues turn to regard CoachMan with their stony eyes.

"Er, yes, um, Hall," CoachMan replied, folding his hands.

"You, too! Please, call me Hall. Now, who are you, and how can I serve you?"

Damascus was nonplussed about Courser's new look, and he raised an eyebrow as he cast her a look of feigned hurt, putting one hand-and-pompom to his chest briefly.

"Oh come now, it's not that bad. Confidence carries, you know; you've got to wear it like you picked it, or it'll never look like it suites." He finished with a small chuckle, then returned his main focus to the other girls. His main clone, standing between and behind them while they tried to cover up the flustered response, reached around to rest a comforting hand on each of their shoulders, though it only remained for a moment or two at most. They were also still holding both pom-poms.

"Easy on the eyes, ladies. There's enough CourseMan to go around for everyone, don't worry." He pulled back again slightly, so as not to invade their personal space for too long - just a hint of being quite close to the same figure they were having a hard time taking their eyes off, and then away again. Away in this case was a small kick off that sent him circling out and around the pair on a small water current, then in a loop to inspect both himself, and Damascus, from all angles. Once the clone had passed between the real courser and the girls, the original took a gliding step forward, closer to them to listen to the explanation of their tasks. While he did, his second clone reformed as well, slipping in to appear just beside Wand's outer shoulder, as though watching the others like she was. He tilted his head in without turning his eyes at all and whispered to her.

"Pity you girls aren't participating. Workouts are always more fun together, and you know how much fun you could have if you let us help you cool off afterwards..." It faded away again just as smoothly as it had faded in while the real courser didn't seem to notice its brief presence at all. Elsewhere the main clone whistled softly and distracted the attention again. In this case it was appraising just how short Damascus' skirt seemed to look on her, along with the tight fit about the chest.

"Really draws the eyes, that... You ladies have it lucky, I tell you. So much harder to sell a hard, manly chest, short of just... you know, ripping it all off." If there was any question that his words might have been potentially suggestive, the grin and the low growl in the clone's voice left little room for doubt.

"That's enough now..." Courser had flicked his eyes to his clone briefly, his earlier determination to refrain from using them completely gone by now. He was grinning too, but it was just one curl at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes danced in a more friendly, cheerful way. "We'll never get these tests done at all, if we get distracted by other sports, will we? After." His gaze came back to Twig and Wand. "Now!" His hands planted themselves back on his hips with a small flourish of his pom-poms. "You said Step Demonstration. I'm guessing that's form and rhythm, right; making the holds and poses with the right timing, that kind of thing? If so, I'd be alright leaving that until later; it doesn't matter if it gets tougher, I move well. I'll leave that up to you Damascus," his head turned back to look at the taller woman. "If you're less confident in that kind of thing we can put it in earlier, if you want." Back to the twins. "I'd also probably leave endurance until later, too. No problem there, let me assure you." After all his other talk, it was hard not to hear the suggestive interpretation of that now, even though Courser himself delivered it with a completely innocent tone and only a hint of smirk. "I'd say we should clear the more mundane ones first, wouldn't you say? I'd put the rope climb and the sit-ups in for one and two, get them over with. That'd probably leave obstacles third, then endurance and step demonstration at the end. Sound alright?" Courser seemed to have missed the part where they only had to do four of the listed activities, and was mentally planning for doing all of them; it would probably take someone correcting him to pick it up. His rough order was as much a question to Damascus as a suggestion to the girls; he was avoiding making it too obvious that he knew nothing about the sword-woman.

Damascus was annoyed to hear that MeleeMan had already broken the strength testing machine, as that would have been one of the quickest to get out of the way had it still been in-tact. Well, she was annoyed at having been dropped into this situation to begin with, but that part was especially annoying. Almost all of these tests would be hindered rather than aided by her steel transformation ability (except the one her master had already destroyed), so she would probably have to remain fleshy for the entirety of the exam.

On another note, CourseMan's personality was nearly as frustrating as MeleeMan's, made only slightly better by her impression that CourseMan was at least a shade more intelligent than her master was. Not enough so to avoid pissing her off and not enough so to avoid hitting on every woman in a room, but at least he seemed like he had the brain to avoid alienating every woman at once. That was a step up. She crossed her arms and remained silent as CourseMan paraded around and inspected her as well. She closed her eyes for a moment, looking as though her angry eyebrows were twitching with irritation. "No ripping your shirt off. Pay attention," she reminded him, although he'd probably meant it as a joke for just that reason.

She opened her eyes again as he mentioned the step demonstration, looking seemingly straight forward and at nothing. Inwardly, that was the competition she was most repulsed by, mostly because it would require her dancing; the only thing further from her modus operandi would be if they asked her to tell jokes. "If it pleases you, let us follow this order: first, sit ups. Next, obstacle run. Next, rope climb. To finish, the endurance run." Unlike her partner, she left out the step demonstration altogether, despite the fact that it was probably the most important test for a cheerleader's prowess. "Sit-ups are basically a non-issue for me; abdominal exercises like that will be child's play." To demonstrate, she bent her knees, pressing her hands to her skirt to preserve what modesty it allowed, then gently reached sitting position. She thought about recommending that one of them spot her, but then, if this test was being done properly, there would only be two people... they'd either take turns spotting or wouldn't spot at all. She didn't want to slow down the exercise.

As she lay down on her back and crossed her hands behind her head, the shirt rose with her, showing a disturbing degree of underboob from the present angle. She realized this and would glare at anyone staring, except her face would be completely blocked by the mountainous obstacle her chest presented. Anyone from that angle would also see up her skirt with perfect ease, although she was wearing bloomers rather than panties... so maybe it was okay? To continue her demonstration, she lifted her upper body effortlessly, creating a great heave of her bouncy, non-steel bosom, before lowering back down and restarting. "How many do I need to do?' she questioned, sounding like it was more a matter of impatience than physical ability. Her bare midriff was almost just as distracting as the rest of her body, but for different reasons... it didn't seem to make sense that one part of her would be so lean while other parts would be so fatty. Whoever made her was definitely a fan of the hourglass figure.

-----------------------------------------------

MeleeMan did indeed turn around; his visor was a useful tool for at least this instance, allowing him to fully scan her body without being too obvious about it. "... Yeah, alright. I can work with this," he thought to himself, smirking a bit in spite of his efforts to try to play it cool. Truth be told, the new girl was actually a heck of a lot like Amelie, from to authoritative aura, to apparent physical conditioning, to complexion, to, most importantly, figure. "It's not a school teacher but... well, it works." He didn't want to admit, even to himself, that a school uniform could turn him on, given his propensity for mature women, so he didn't. She seemed to be a bit out-to-lunch as far as all the posing, statue-posing, and etc. went, but, well, so was Rania's friend. That didn't stop MeleeMan from thinking she was pretty hot.

He had no intention of calling Hall or any other lady "Miss," so he'd oblige her request without making an effort. "Old man there knows his coaches, huh? He's right: I'm a coach," he continued, returning her smug smile with one of his own. It was an expression that was not ideal for picking up chicks, but was at least preferable to an angry grimace for doing so. "Specifically, those two rookie cheerleaders who are trying to get through their exercises need a lot of coaching. Courser and I are up to the task, but as you both know, coaching is a personalized... thing... with unique considerations. What I'm saying is, the girls need the right program, but I need to spend some time with you to figure out just what that program's gonna be," he lied through his teeth. He didn't feel guilty about lying, but he did feel awkward. Playing a character really wasn't his specialty... he resolved not to do it any more than he had to. "Pure MeleeMan's really the best if you're aiming to get some ass," he reminded himself.

"Anyways, you probably guessed all of that already when you heard I was a coach. To perfect my training regimen for these girls, though, I need you to take us to some place where we can have some freedom of movement, but also private, so we won't be bothered. Goes without saying it can't be in front of the girls; I don't want to do something wrong and... what's that word... imprint it on them. You know?" he expressed, frowning again as his wrestle with difficult words started to frustrate him. "Then I've got some ideas for exercises I'd like to run through with you, bounce you up and d-" he stopped, frowning deeper as he realized he'd almost verbalized what was going on in his head. "Bounce some ideas off of you," he kind of sort of fixed it. "How about it? You name the place," he requested, crossing his arms and blowing a bit of smoke out from his gauntlets. The action looked random and involuntarily, but actually happened specifically because all of this wordplay had him tense.

Wand continued to ignore the flirting of CourseMan's clone with calculated "hard-to-get" indifference, crossing her arms and denying it a response. "Geez, Courser, don't, like, go tearing up our good uniforms! I don't think the stretch will stay, but I don't wanna have to bring these things to Hall and explain why they're torn..."

"Besides, Wandy's fine just day-dreaming about your pecs!" Twig added, elbowing her sister and receiving a sharp jab in return. "Ow, Wandy! Ugh, whatevs. Dreamy's got a point. The whole idea is for us to, like, stop hanging around this lame gym, so let's keep on it."

The twin sisters watched Damascus curiously as she effortlessly launched into situps, hindered seemingly only by her own anatomy and costume. Damascus, who could probably sense bloodlust, and Courser, who could probably sense the naked emotions of young women, would most likely feel the palpable wave of bad vibes flowing from the two as they took in the sight. Sure enough, it wasn't long before the two were muttering to each other in venomous tones, too low to hear.

"Hold up!" Wand finally interjected. "It looks like you've got it, but you gotta do it over on that empty mat area after we activate it. This is the spot for the step demonstration. Why don't you get your big- uh," she stopped, seeming to realize it probably wasn't a good idea to tick off the woman any more than she already was. "W-why don't you go over there? I'll activate the routine, and we'll make the sit ups the first stop."

"Too late, I'm activating it," Twig interrupted, yawning as she messed with some private programs. Sure enough, a sixth of the floor mats, unoccupied by any equipment, began to glow faintly. "That area's ready for you. Move over in there and get to it. Oh yeah, uh... once you start, the timer is going to start. According to the rules here, it says... you've got to do thirty in a minute. Ugh, so laaame... And it says you gotta do it lying flat on your back, knees bent, feet on the ground, pull up to ninety, yada yada yada, you tough types probably know how to do a situp. Hop to it!"

"Oh, and, uh, it's a pain in the butt, but I'll spot you and count! If you want," Wand piped up, playing with her hair.

"You heard her, Damascus! She wants to spot you while I spot Dreamy," Twig giggled, winking at CourseMan.

"Uh, as if, Twiggy! I'm spotting CourseMan, you spot Jumbo Jugs over there!" Wand barked, apparently no longer caring if Damascus heard offensive nicknames the two had come up with for her.

"Why don't we let him decide who he wants to spot him, huh?" Twig replied. Neither was considering the possibility that CourseMan didn't want a spotter, or that he could, really, just spot himself. Assuming the two mercenary cheerleaders did as they were told and could come to a decision about who should spot who, the twins would get in position to time. There didn't seem to be any special tricks: the two would be free to challenge themselves to do 30 sit-ups in a minute. The girls would be timing them with interest, probably having put bets on who would finish first.

---

"Ah, you must be referring to Wand and Twig," Hall presumed, holding her smile. "Such potential in those two! I know their hearts are in the right place. All they need is a solid, commendable extracurricular activity to bring it out! What better than the time-honored tradition of cheerleading? I have full confidence they'll be able to live up to my lofty expectations," she concluded, replacing her charismatic smile with a winning grin temporarily. "In any case, I have no qualms with them taking on additional coaching if that's what they need to bring out their potential. Do you see any problems, CoachMan?"

"No, M- er, Hall," CoachMan replied, biting his tongue partway through. "You know best."

Hall continued to listen to MeleeMan's explanation with a focused interest and apparent lack of irony that might make it easy to question just how many responsibilities she had, after all. "I fully understand, MeleeMan. Those girls have potential, but this is the critical stage in their development. I won't allow anything to derail their development, do you hear me? I won't ALLOW IT!" she suddenly shouted. She was still smiling, but a ferocious energy had suddenly come into her eyes as her statues loomed even larger, seeming to bear down on everyone in the room with their presence. "So, yes, I'm happy to take some time out of my schedule to help put the fine points on your coaching technique."

She remained quiet for a moment following that, shutting her eyes and holding her smile.

CoachMan clapped a hand to MeleeMan's back, leaning in with an obviously less-than-friendly vibe. "I'm no fool, man, and I wasn't born yesterday. If ya are really here to talk coaching strategy with the young miss, I'm bleeping Bub Criminy! Ya think I am just gonna let ya-"

"Enough, CoachMan," Hall interrupted, decisively, but not harshly. "I appreciate your work as a coach, but your expertise is in general physical education. Observe MeleeMan's physique! Would it not be reasonable to assume he is, in fact, a fitness trainer?"

"With all due respect, ma'am, he said he was gonna bounce ya-" CoachMan began, before withering away under another shout and blast of light from Hall.

"HALL!" Hall shouted again, still smiling. "Your objection has been noted, CoachMan, but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. If there's a chance to help those two reach their full potential, I have to take it. MeleeMan, I believe the nearby gymnastics club room should be unoccupied. It should be perfectly suited for our exercise. I'll lead the way. CoachMan, you shall remain here and tend to your duties."

"Yes," CoachMan replied meekly, evidently having decided cutting her name out entirely was the easiest way to avoid slipping up.

"Let us away, MeleeMan! I shall lead," Hall trumpted, turning in place. The two statues that had been behind her were now ahead of where she intended to go. They rotated completely around, then transformed. When the transformation was complete, each was holding the reins of a chariot, and they began sliding ahead at walking speed. This allowed Hall to walk alongside MeleeMan as they proceeded to their destination (although he might actually have preferred to walk behind). "I must ask you to keep your voice down now, as we don't want to disturb classes in progress," the Navi added, in a strange echoing whisper.

The journey was short, and the two quickly found themselves in the gymastics club room. This was much smaller than the auditorium they had just been in. Hall flicked on the lights to reveal a room with a digital blackboard, a table and chairs, stacked personal lockers, and (most importantly) an unoccupied mat, smaller than a sixth of the mat in the auditorium. She closed the door behind herself. One might think she seemed oddly comfortable alone in a shut room with a strange man, but then, she wasn't really alone. The two statues adopted poses without any additional accessories, crossing their arms and turning their backs to one another. It might seem strangely as though they were making a conscious effort to look away from the coach and student. "Now, please, enlighten me!" Hall shouted, finally releasing her rainbow to put her hands to her sides with a dramatic flourish.

Courser took the reprimand of his clone in good grace, and was happy enough to fall in with Damascus revising their schedule slightly. She didn't seem the talkative type, unfortunately, and he considered cutting his losses trying to banter with the severe woman; it really didn't seem like she wanted to play the game. Oh well. Still grinning, he bowed his head to both girls slightly, then kicked back, gliding across the floor on his current until he was near the edges of the mats. The water eddy dissipated and Courser stepped across to take a place of his own. His first action on picking a spot was a graceful turn and drop, which let him slide into a relaxed floor pose, one leg out straight and the other bent enough for him to rest a casual arm over it, while the other hand supported him.

"Alright then... No tearing the clothes. I guess I'll just have to let you take them off me later, when we're finished, just to be safe." He winked, this time slightly more towards Wandy than Twig. He had more or less glossed over the clear dissent surrounding Damascus' stand out assets; if she wasn't wanting to play the game, then he at least wanted to do his best to keep the twins in a good mood, and drawing attention away from the chest that was intimidating them was important. He extended his free arm slightly and rolled his wrist over, beckoning softly with a couple of fingers to invite whichever of the girls actually decided to do so to come and spot his pose. Small argument or not, he was curious to see which girl actually ended up coming to him first. Chances were, with her own impatience to be done, Damascus would be done with her sit-ups by the time they sorted themselves out. Which meant...

"No fighting now girls, like I said, there's room enough for both; I'd greatly appreciate it. How about one of you spot kneels just here, by my head, and you can make sure I'm going down properly, all the way," the phrase choice hung for a moment while he shifted his eyes. "And one of you can spot at my feet, and make sure I'm not putting my hands anywhere I'm not meant to. How's that sound?"

He wasn't going to begin, and start the timer, until everyone was sorted out and the girls had chosen to make whatever they would of his invitation, but once it was sorted he took up the pose properly, and lay with his back down flat, and adopting the hands-over-chest style style, rather than behind the head... that way his elbows wouldn't get in the way of whichever young lady was kneeling at that end. The actual doing of the sit-ups wouldn't be tough; he was fit and limber. Sadly, the time limit wouldn't leave him much room for fooling around, but there might be room for a little mischief, if he was lucky. If either of the girls was close enough, they'd find that Courser himself smelled not of sweat perspiration, but more like a fresh sea breeze.

While Courser himself was busy trying his luck, his main decoy had followed and approached Damascus. Presuming she moved over to the mats to begin, the decoy trailed along, quiet but clearly present with its hands behind its back. He wasn't about to interfere, of Course, but once she adopted a pose to begin doing the activity, the clone kneeled down at her feet and put his finger tips out just above her toes without touching them; he had no doubt that she'd breeze through the task without lifting a foot at all, but there was no harm in reassuring, and any time he glanced up to her, there was the angle, and the deliciously short skirt to consider, too.