Stage II: To the HP Training Machine

Remy made his way through the Training wing, down into the conditioning rooms of the building. This was the area he hated visiting most in the building.. The stadium itself was a beautiful green and silver surface but with a black underbelly - Steam, gears, grease and coal fueled this industry. Along with the mechanics in the basement that ran such a massive structure also resided the conditioning department.

The security officer at the front desk waits in distinct boredom, dressed in full military garb as he sits, twirling a pistol on its side to pass the time, like a dark spin the bottle for one. One could guess that he fought in the Rippa Conflict many years back, and like many soldiers he had a hard time finding civilian work that provided any sort of interest.

Clearing his throat at the sight of having to speak to someone, he barks "I take it you're the tech that Birch sent?", eyeing the tools and the general disheveled state of his work outfit.

"I am.." the slightly nervous Remy clarifies, placing his badge into the terminal on the desk to check in. A green light confirms his status and the guard grabs his keys and braces.

"Ok, room 2C needs the adjustments. I'll get the client and meet you in there." He turns a prefect 90° to the right and proceeds out a side door. Remy watches as the guard marches off as mechanically as the sound of gears turning in the background. His eyes linger on the pistol, no longer spinning it is pointed straight at Remy, left alone on the table. For a moment, a voice of temptation silently urged him to take the weapon. But he did not, he just grabbed his card and headed to the room hoping to leave this area as quickly as possible.

He hurried through the dark halls that he began to despise even more.. Murmuring to himself "ooh.. Remy.. could you configure the conditioning machine?..", breaking the silence for his own sake. Strength training was easy - weights and resistance. Intelligence training was actually fun to work - puzzles, tests, riddles.. but training on endurance and hit points had a darker flavor that Remy preferred to not think of in his line of work..

His mind cleared when he entered room 2C and arrives at the objective, a brand new Silph Co. C600HPx. With six independent Hex engines and 14 points of contact, the mechanism stood 9 feet tall, all black and grey with hundreds of tubes, needles and small blades. It might have been beautiful from an engineering perspective, but this is simply a monstrosity of a device.

There is no sugar coating it. Plain and simple, this is a **** chamber. The goal is to take hardened pokegirl fighters, steel type or the like, and push their bodies to extremes. After a given recovery period, they usually end up being able to ignore huge levels of pain in fights and win more often.

But he is not here to debate the ethics of conditioning. After all, the pokegirls are going to be pit against each other to fight until they pass out, or in some cases die - the culture of this sport is built on a subliminal pretense of ****.

He begins to turn the levers to start the engine reconfiguration process, instinctively reaching for the re-initiate lever but realizing just before pulling it that its connected to the brace and strap core! No wonder untrained staff mess this thing up, he almost just did himself in the first 10 seconds. He instead correctly pulls the lever beside it and plugs in his Dex to start the process based on the downloaded objective details. The device lowers by about 4 feet, parts moving inward to the center as it adjusts for its next host.

"Hmmm.. strange.." he says out loud to no one in particular. By the looks of it, this machine is being calibrated to a host that's.. 5 foot, 2 inches.. 92 pounds.. "What kind of type is that? I've never seen a fighter type that light."

The sound of the door opening from behind startles him, almost dropping his Dex as he turns around