Flux took in tue sight of the ocean bottom and blinked openly. It was a lovely, impossible view that left her spellbound for a whole threecount before ms. Brain finally got in touch with ms. mouth and tongue and the heroine managed to speak.
"Holy cow..." she said, in awe, eyes huge. And THIS was an illusion? A fish swam by her face, shimmering with deep-water highlights as it went. Incredible. "you've really outdone yourself." she said, as the scene faded to a dark alleyway in downtown jump. Appearantly his idea of uncomplicated was very, very different from her own: even the rats scurrying about at the edge of perception were in incredible detail. If she didn't know better, she would swear she was standing in Jump.
And so, she got into character. She stepped forward, silent as a ghost, and her form shimmered. The dark, bobbing shape of her core was briefly visible as pale, supple skin was revealed and became gleaming blue gel, then was hidden again as she put her game face on and became opaque.
Fighting with a gel body was like... Thinking about two things at once while singing the star spangled banner - she had to manage her body like everyone else, keep her core out of danger, and concentrate on her powers, remembering she didn't need a hand to punch or to keep her human shape - it was tricky. But... The trick was actually just to do. Thinking only got in the way. The Zydon war had taught her that pretty early on. Act. Don't think about how your powers work - just make them work.
The girl became a vapor as she rushed in, and hit the thugs and the granny like a fog bank. They were confused - the man raising a fist to deliver a destructive blow on elderly flesh didn't even realize he was under attack until Flux was wrapped around his hips and flung him across the alleyway into a trash can. He cried out in pain and shock, wide-eyed, hurt, but still game. He'd have a gun shortly - Flux bet on it.
His amigo though - his first reaction to a strange goo girl was to scream, backpedal, and pull at something in his belt. But Flux hadn't forgotten him. His feet became entangled in something and of course he hadn't been paying attention - he tripped, tumbling with a screen. She dropped a trash can over his upper body, and crushed it, trapping him, then kicked him down the alleyway a few feet.
That just left thug number one. He had the granny in an armlock, the gun to her head.
"Alright you freak - stay back or granny gets it, capiché?" He said, breathing heavily. Flux set her jaw, and didn't move. Behind her back, she glanced, there was... A sewer grate. Behind him was one, too! She grinned... And crossed her arms... She was already forming a nucleon. Good thing she had so much excess mass, right?
"Now me an' granny gonna walk outta here real slow, see? You be a good little miss freakshow and stay right -- huh?" He looked behind him.
Flux smiled cheerfully, and bashed him over the head with a bottle, taking his gun from his hand in the same motion. He went down like a tree. She tossed the bottle aside. Damn realistic.
The heroine bent and checked his pulse. He wasn't bleeding much - just a bit, and he was alive. Capitol. The other guy? He was rolling around and cursing - he was fine.
Flux looked up to Hotwire "How's that?" she asked. Hotwire wasn't... there. She blinked.
"...Hotwire? Okay, this isn't funny... Dude?" she said and wandered over to where he'd been standing. The door, where she'd come in... It was a brick wall. It didn't just -look- real. It -felt- real. A bit too realistic then.
Cruel, inhuman laughter came from the alley behind her. Flux turned... very, very slowly. The little old woman... Wasn't. She was nine feet tall... Had curving ram's horns and brilliantly bone white skin, a face that could only be called humanoid with a mouth full of daggers and tongue, and what could only be talons.
Pounces, she corrected herself. They looked like they were for grasping - probably so this... Thing could get its bite on.
When it spoke, it was an asthmatic, digitized, demonic rasp. It said "So you're the von, aren't you gorl? Funny. I vos certain you vere orange, like a tangerine." it said, and charged. Flux turned into a gas. Or rather, she tried to. Suddenly... She was human. Utterly. She looked down at herself, shocked! Then up at the charging monster!
Panic fought for control of her, told her to run, but she knew she would not be able to beat this thing, not in a foot race... But it was big, wasn't it? Yeah! It lumbered at her like a demon ram with bowel cramps, screaming as it came to give terror time to mature. It wouldn't corner so good. So just before its claws got her, she ducked, and dove over its leg, ending up behind it. It tried to turn, but this is not a tenable maneuver when you've got cloven hooves - it slipped, crashing to the ground.
"Hotwire!"
---
From Hottie's perspective, when Flux stepped onto the simulator floor... It shut down. And she went with it - became a stream of data the holoemitters simply absorbed like everything else. She'd been taken into data, somehow! The holoemitters couldn't do that!