World Tree MUSH

Miwa wanted to take Ash up on the combat training he had offered, and so today she had invited him to meet her on her island, but not at the beach. She had instead given him directions to a specific spot up the mountain where a large flat field had been made, with a small area for bystanders to watch, but not far after that a cliff overlooking the ocean protected by a metal guard rail. On the other side of the field, the mountain continued to rise up to the mouth of the volcano above. 

 The field itself was marked similarly to a sports field, with a large rectangle divided in half, a small rectangle at each end where a trainer would stand, and a circle in the center of the dividing line which had another smaller circle within it, resembling a Pokeball. Miwa waited on one side of the field, lazily basking in the sun while she waited for Ash to arrive, wondering what he had in store for her today, but excited to potentially put her abilities to the test today.

Ash had a little bit of trouble with the directions he had been given. However after some time hiking, and scaring some poor kid that might or might not have been that team skull member he'd threatened to decapitate, he ended up at this mountain side field. In his transferrence pod Ash smiled at the view as he entered the field proper. "Very scenic." He looked to Miwa, "I assume this is one of the sanctioned areas for pokemon fights?" Which given what he'd seen of pokemon suggested they could go as hard as they liked and the surroundings would be able to take it. Even so today he'd loaded up on less-than-lethal ordinance. Normally he'd load up a simulated enviroment, but he wasn't even sure Miwa could dothat given he's never seen anyone other than Warframes pull that stunt off. So decrease muzzle velocity and beanbag ammo were the order of the day.

When Ash came into view and greeted her, Miwa stood up straighter, balancing on her tail and flippers, smiling at him. "Hello, I hope my directions weren't too hard to follow. I didn't exactly walk here myself, a bit far to shuffle along using my flippers, so I had to make them from following a map. Anyway yes, this is one of the Pokemon Battle arenas on this island, specifically the one that the Island Kahuna Nanu uses to test trainers partaking in Alola's Grand Trial. I got his permission to use this spot for today. I figured it was better than trying to do this on the beach. We shouldn't have to worry about any people being around, or causing any harm to the surrounding land or other Pokemon. I'm curious though what you had in mind for my first lesson."

Ash was not used to playing the role of teacher. Teshin probably would have had something thought provoking as well as utterly nonsensically metaphorical to say on the matter, but he wasn't here. Ash smiled and walked towards Miwa. "You have a good grasp of what to do in a fight. The biggest problem I've seen," His slow walk never wavored as he spoke. Then in less than an eyeblink he was gone in a puff of smoke only to stand behind Miway with his shotgun aimed just over her head, so that when he fired there was no risk of the shot hitting her, but it was likely to be deafaningly loud. 

He would then shoulder the weapon and wait for Miwa to recover, or ossibly attack him. "Dealing with the unexpected."

Miwa was not at all prepared for Ash to begin so abruptly. She watched as he slowly walked toward her, expecting some verbal explanation before they began, but when he suddenly seemed to vanish due to how fast he moved and before she could blink he was behind her, her eyes widened in a mix of surprise and anxiousness. Then came the gunshot, and it really did almost seem to cause her physical pain for she wasn't used to such loud sounds. 

 As she winced sharply from the pain, with the gunshot still ringing in her ears, she turned around, showing a surprising degree of nimbleness for an aquatic Pokemon on land, and balanced on her front flippers for a brief moment while she aimed a kick to his chest with her muscular tail. She then moved back to her sitting position, balancing solely on her tail while she rubbed at the starfish like appendages on her head gently with her flippers. "Oww... that was loud, and you are really fast."

Ash was expecting a retaliatory strike, but even with the dafening blast, which is somethign he had thought Miwa had suffered freeze-ups from, she scored a solid hit against his chest. As he staggered back he grinned from within the transferrence pod. "Good! I'd thought you'd freeze up, but you're showing adaptability. Plus usually people do try goin after your back if you can't see them." He holstered the shotgun and drew his sword. "Maybe i'm wrong, but you have problems with close combat. At the very least your build and... well to be blunt the lack of hands suggest this anyway. Would you call this fair?"

To be honest, that blast probably would have had Ash's expected effect in the past, but Miwa was really trying to push herself to grow stronger. Working on strengthening her weaknesses was an obvious place to start. She nodded though at his praise and comment about people usually going for someones back. It seemed cowardly, but she had to admit it was an effective strategy, and in a real fight, winning is all that matters, and some people might be willing to do any sort of underhanded things to get there. She looked visibly nervous as he pulled out the sword, nodding at his assessment that she was not so good with close combat. 

 "Well, if we were both underwater, it might be a different story, but yeah, on land I don't think I do too well in a close up fight. Pretty much all of my... powered attacks I guess you'd call them, are ranged abilities, and yeah, I can't really hold a weapon, so the best I can do is smack you with my flippers. Though, for movement, I have an idea." She took a moment to form a large solid orb of water and began to sing to control it into holding her up in the air. She could even make it move with her to the point where it was almost like she was swimming through the air. It was slower than if she was in an actual body of water, but still better than flopping around on land like a sea-lion.

Ash hmmed thoughtfully as Miwa made a water orb before waving a hand. "Hey can you hear me?" He wanted to see how this would play out, which meant seeing what the limits this neat little trick had. On the one hand water was one of the most uncompressable things outside of meta-materials which made it great at stopping things. On the other? that meant it transmitted shock forces amazingly well... which is why dynamiting a lake works.

The beauty of this is that in her control of the orb of water, she was able to keep her head clear which was important for where she originally used this ability, singing on stage, but also for being able to hear what was going on around her now. She nodded to Ash, and worked a verbal response into the 'song' she was singing, which was really more about tone and melody so she could focus on her aquakinesis and also fighting Ash, without having to at the same time also think of words to a tune. "Yes, I can hear you just fine, used to use this all the time in my performances, so I could sort of dance in the air as I sang."

Ash paced around Miwa's water bubble,ocasionally poking at it with the tip of his sword before teleporting, then taking another few steps and doing it again, and again. Each time he would make a noise, or act as if he were going to swing for her head, or some other random seeming motion. His goal was to see if he could break her concentration to make her 'song' faulter.

Poking the bubble wouldn't pop it like if it were one of her usual thin water bubbles filled with air. She seemed to do pretty well for a bit, controlling the movement of the water and her own body in sync to avoid the random blows, but when he went right for her head, she flinched, causing some of the water in her bubble to leak out and fall to the ground where it was absorbed into the dirt. She quickly worked to regain control and recovered before very much water was lost, but if Ash's goal was to see if he could make her song falter, he was successful. "Guess I'm still not used to being this close to someone swinging a blade at me..." She said with a small grin.

Ash offered Miwa a hand, then when he remembered she had flippers instead he gentl toused her hair. "I got good because if i didn't I'd get dead." There was a soft chuckle, "I'm just trying to help without dropkicking you into a meatgrinder head first." He sat down o nthe grass and again looked at the scenery. "I mean... in fairness you're doing a lot better than I did starting out with enviromental awareness. My fear is most of your mobility is bound up in your bubbles, which takes your voice to handle.... so what if I do something that makes you stop singing?"

As Ash sat down in the grass at the edge of the battle field, Miwa re-absorbed her water bubble, essentially drinking it to conserve the water she had stored within her as there was not an easy way for her to replenish up here on the side of the volcano. She moved to sit next to him and sort of gently hugged him with one flipper for a moment. 

 "I appreciate you taking it slow with me, as I'm sure it'd be a lot more painful if we jumped off the deep end and went all out from the start. But as for the bubbles and my voice, well, your worries are not unfounded. If you are somehow able to prevent me from singing, it does really shut me down a bit. I'd still be able to fire pressurized water from my mouth, or ice now that I've learned that too, but my ability to control it for certain more advanced techniques like my sparkling aria where I shoot explosive orbs of water at someone or something, or the use of water bubbles to get around more easily, that would be gone. It's every Primarina's biggest weakness, we must protect our voice at all costs."

Ash hmmed thoughtfully as he took all this in. "You're certantly a group asset. Someone tht would make or break anything so long as you have people that can help shore your weaknesses up." He squeezed Miwa's flipper gently and considered what he was talking about, and more importantly how many frames are utterly hopeless solo, but are quite valuable group assets. "Generally back home we work in four man cells, and it's a bit of an understanding that not everyone is good when it comes to working alone, so everyoen covers everyone else's back in the field." His hand moved up Miwa's flipper to where it joined the rest of her body to pat her back. "You seem to be a bit like Mag in a way. Someone that'd have all manner of problems alone, but with friends in a group?" He laughed. "I mean if it wasn't for your singing the secondary teams would have made your exit along with Kakyoin's problimatic. Sure he's clever and that teleport jump is handy, but unless he can do an area lockdown he'd have been hosed pretty badly."

Miwa smiles as he gently squeezed her flipper, wishing she could do the same in return, but while her flippers kinda had fingers, it was not enough that she could really grip anything that well. When he patted her on the shoulder though, she again hugged him close briefly. "Yeah, so, I'm better as more of a support fighter than being up front handling threats on my own. But yes, that lullaby really did work out well on your job that you didn't want to do but had to. Helped that your target left the intercom on so it went from just affecting the room, to the whole compound. I can also sing a different sort of song to sort of captivate others and reduce their will to fight without putting them to sleep, though I haven't really used it in a real situation before." She explains while looking out at the partly cloudy sky over the deep blue ocean below them for a moment, just relaxing and enjoying the view for a bit before she spoke again. "Is there anything else you wanted to do with me today?"

Ash thought on the question. "Well I would like your opinion on Mirage." He maybe should have wandered into the topic, but he had no idea how, so take a fraggor to the whole thign and see where the pieces lay. "I like her. I consider her a friend, and I know she's a friend of yours... but she feels like she tends towards trouble because she likes shiny things." He couldn't fault her there really. Tenno liked their shinies too. "Plus I... kinda thought you two were dating so I don't want to give the wrong idea. Y'know?"

Miwa almost expected that Ash would eventually ask her about Mirage following the failed robbery of the truck the other day. However she was not at all prepared for him to say that he had presumed they were dating. "Dating?" She asked with a surprised tone while she blushed so badly that her pearly white cheeks began to approach the color of roses. "No, we're not dating, but I do think of her as a close friend. Though, when we were going shopping and hanging out at hotels and sharing things about each other, including her doing a little delving into my mind, I had no idea she was a thief. I'm still not sure how I feel about her propensity for trouble, but I guess if she is stealing from dark, corrupt worlds and the matchingly foul organizations within them, then I can turn a blind eye to the fact that it's still illegal I guess, as long as she doesn't make a habit of getting me involved. Seems she wants the opposite though, so we're good on that front it would appear."

Ash laid back, staring at the sky and clouds and let out a small sigh. "She's a bit like someone from back home... well two someones honestly." He continued to laugh at the memories. "The kind of people you know aren't really good, but are entertaining enough you want to see what happens next, and they're not bad enough to feel horrible about letting them off the hook." Then again 'off the hook' is reletive when they're just as wanted as you are by association with Tenno. He stretched hsi arms up, making grasping motions at the sky. "I'm fairly OK with Mirage, but she has a bad habit of rushing in." Then again it's not like she knew he'd be there or that his lander could pick the whole trailer up before shetried opening it up. Probably would have affected planning.

"I'm just glad for folk like you helping keep me in check. So anything I can do to pay that back... Though I wouldn't mind going shopping. Kinda wanting a few rugs for the orbiter."

Miwa nods stretches a bit herself before moving to lay on her side in the grass, looking quite comfortable now as she continued looking at the view off the cliff in front of them while she talked with Ash. "Well I'm happy to help any way I can. That's what friends are for right? I'm happy to have met the people I have so far across the world tree. I may miss singing on stage sometimes, but overall I don't regret retiring from performing to just enjoy life at my own pace and meet new people like you and Mirage. It's been quite an incredible new experience for me."