Preparing for the Tower

Gathering everyone together for day 2 of the training was a quick affair. Jinx's outfit had been altered thanks to Gizmo, now helping to contain her body as well as hide quite a bit of her growth. Mammoth, Gizmo, Private and Billy followed her as they stepped through the portal and arrived in a now much more prepared state than the day before. I was waiting for them as Devourius this time, mask on, axes attached to my sides. I brought out the new shield for Private, which he was able to set up to return to him like his previous shield. Following that I was able to hand off some rare resources to Gizmo that he'd been wanting. Before we got started on the training though I did ask if Jinx wanted a weapon. She informed me she wasn't really trained with any weapons, that they would just get in the way of her using her magic.

"There are numerous ways to improve your abilities in combat besides using your magic, things that could also help you to put it to even better use... Zane left us this training simulator to make use of. Apparently he has a lot of business to handle today. He won't mind if we make use of it to expand our combat abilities. The plan for the rest of the week is to improve ourselves. To train up and prepare for tackling the Tower again. So for the time being we'll be doing more normal training runs. Until we all feel like we're more used to any changes we've gone through, and thoroughly ready to conquer the Tower." I explained. Jinx and the others took a minute or two to discuss with each other what they could do to get stronger, before Private spoke up, asking if I had any recommendations. "I have some idea's that could possibly help yes, once of which would be for Mammoth to try and learn a martial art or develop his fighting style further so that he can become more dangerous. As for Jinx what I suggest would be learning things like Tricking, possibly Hapkido or Jiu Jitsu. As for you Private, I suggest ranged weapon training. Coupling that with your shield could make you a threat at ANY distance. I don't have any knowledge about how Billy fights, and I'm not familiar with Gizmo's combat style either. So I can't really offer any input there." I saw the others looking surprised at me, Billy was downright shocked and nearly made a joke that would have gotten him hurt by Jinx if Gizmo hadn't showed him and Jinx what I was referring too by Tricking. Tricking is a training discipline that combines gymnastics with martial arts kicks, flips, twists and acrobatic movement. It mainly uses techniques from styles like Capoeira, Wushu and Taekwondo, despite it not technically being a martial art itself.

After hearing the explanation, Jinx decided she'd give it a try. "Good news is the machine was set up so that multiple people can train at once for different aspects. The way it's set up will allow your body to learn the muscle memory needed to use the training as effectively as possible as well." I explained before Jinx, Mammoth and Private went to start their own training. while they did that I decided to take Gizmo and Billy Numerous with me to the actual training. Their levels were not nearly high enough to be able to keep up with the others, so they'd need to catch up first. Gizmo did explain that he was more of a builder for the group so him being in combat wasn't a huge focus for him. From there we discussed how he fought with his friends when he needed too, the machines he used from his backpack, not too mention idea's that could improve how devastating an opponent he could be.

We ended up going through the portal to find ourselves in a similar mountain area like when I'd first started training with my summons. We found ourselves with multiple objectives the screens gave us, hacking computers, stealing data, beating as many enemies as possible, defeating bosses, and just generally causing mayhem. I handed some explosives to Billy, explained how to use them, and made it clear that he needed to be FAR away from them when they went off. He and his clones went charging in to blow up the targets, meanwhile Gizmo went for the hacking related objectives. I pulled out my guns and decided to go hunting for as many enemies as I could find, hopefully I'd be able to take out bosses with a well placed sniper round or two.

To make a long story short we spent all morning just tearing into objectives, trying to get as much done as possible. By the time we stopped it was just in time for us to be able to get a late lunch, we even caught the others as they were coming out of the simulator. Jinx apparently enjoyed her training quite a bit, Private was already missing the feeling of a gun in his hands and Mammoth was eager for more training but needed food bad. So we all headed out for a restaurant while Mammoth downed a bar, Gizmo making a joke about him finally being able to slow down and taste his food. We'd gone back to jump city through a teleport and had barely finished putting in our order when I got the feeling we were being watched, something that Jinx and some of the others picked up on as well. Gizmo was preparing for a fight before I shook my head and sent a text to Jinx. a simple message telling her I was pretty sure it was Robin. Long as laws weren't broken he couldn't LEGALLY do anything to her or the others. I watched her sneak some sort of warning to the others, Billy was the only one that seemed to barely pay attention, until Jinx leveled a glare at him anyways.

The exp bomb hit Gizmo and Billy before we'd left, while neither had really grown much if at all physically, their stats had jumped up along with their levels. Now there wasn't a single person in their group below level 140, outside of Kyd who had only made it to level 120 and See-More at level 65 who hadn't joined the training. Jinx did ask if they might be able to continue using the training method I was able to offer them. I agreed so long as the deal continued to hold together of course, told them to consider it a bonus that they could access whenever they liked. All I asked them to do was let me know ahead of time they wanted to use it, so I could make sure it was up and running properly before they arrived of course. Our food arrived a short while later and as it did several cop cars pulled into the parking lot, no sirens or anything though. they got out, seemed to look over our group and then headed off like they were going to just have a meal. It would have been LESS obvious they were here to watch us if they had ordered MORE than just coffee while keeping a hand near their weapons.

That's the point I decided to explain things and help them relax, I got up a moment and headed over to the police. I was immediately asked if I was being threatened or if someone was in trouble, I explained that no everything was fine. That I had given them legitimate jobs with legal contracts, and that this was me simply treating them to a meal to thank them for the work they'd been doing for me. After my explanation they were still quite hesitant to relax but they did at least try to do so. I returned to the table to find them all talking and joking about past missions or training sessions, not a single word being spoken about what they'd been doing since I hired them, even Billy didn't let anything slip! I was impressed but unfortunately another car pulled in to the restaurant, a white a blue vehicle driven by a man half covered with metal. He stepped out followed by a green skinned guy and a pair of women, one with Orange skin and red hair, one pale with black hair and a cloak. Ah so he called the rest of the Titans just in case? If their expecting Jinx and the others to pull some crime here or something then their gonna be disappointed.

What followed was the titans looking in, eventually they would come into the restaurant as well, and at that point Robin finally showed himself. The first thing he started with was asking if I was being held hostage or blackmailed. I ignored him for the most part, continuing to chat with Jinx and Gizmo mostly, while Mammoth was talking and eating with Private and Billy. One of my Darkness Elementals keeping itself small enough to hide in Robin's shadow, watching his movements and letting me know when he began to grasp a weapon. Soon as he did I turned my head towards him. "Oh! Hi there. Can I help you with something?" Never thought I'd see someone's eye mask twitch, but that's what Robin's mask did. He asked again if I was in trouble, asking me to move away from Jinx and the others. "I'm afraid your assumptions are incorrect Robin. I'm not in danger at all. I recently hired these people as a security team for a local job site that was having some difficulties." Robin's eye's looked like they were about to pop out of his head, before trying to tell me they were criminals, they were supposed to be behind bars, I honestly tuned him out from the first sentence though.

"Robin, I understand fully that your concerned in regards to their past. But are you really saying you'd rather put them in jail again rather than let them have legal work?" Robin didn't seem to enjoy my wordplay there, he looked rather annoyed at me in fact. It didn't stop me from moving past him to pay the check, the others being able to finish eating shortly after. The Titans couldn't really do anything to Jinx or her team, even the cops admitted that no laws were broken so they couldn't really do anything to them. So with that we left, to return to training. I did notice Robin trying to sneakily throw something at my vehicle, which was why I sent a wind elemental to check over the vehicle. It found a tracker, removed it, passed it to a rat earth elemental that ran in a different direction while we continued on.