Good Cop Bad Cop: Chapter One

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One week. Asher has to be mean, Kay has to be nice. Whoever gives up first has to write a story for the winner. Should be... interesting.

Starr and the others looked to Tala and smiled as she came in to join them

Matt grinned at Tala. "remind me never to get on your bad side."

Tala snorted happily. "We do not slaughter lightly. And you need not fear to dance!"

"I kinda wanna learn to war dance now," James said with a laugh.

"Tala, you up for dancing against James? " Matt laughed and patted James on the shoulder. "I'd joke about you being small and non threatening but you've met my brother." He grinned.

Tala snorted with delight. "The joy of our war dances is that even the small and puny may prove their strength and succeed!" She said. She came over and slapped James on the shoulder, easily knocking the android off balance so he had to hastily recover.

"Yay equality," James said wryly, taking a step back so she couldn't slap him again. Dang, minotaurs were strong. "Also sure, let's dance. I think. Oh man, I'll probably regret this."

"Do it for your master's honor," Tala said, "Your loyalty shall give you the strength to succeed!"

James snorted.

Matt rolled his eyes at Tala's master comment and whispered "Make us proud James."

"It strikes me that I should have asked the nice hologram minotaurs for lessons first," James said, stalling.

"They have less scent than you do, they would make terrible teachers," Tala told him. "It is simple, all you must do is copy me. I will pretend to not find your strange hoofwork funny."

Matt laughed. "Hard to have hoofwork when you haven't got hooves."

"I guess this is happening then," James said with a rueful grin.

Tala nodded, then started a dance that by her peoples' standards, would probably have been simple.

James did his best to copy her.

It was less impressive than the two hologram minotaurs had been. Tala had rubber treads stuck to the bottoms of her hooves that muffled their sound, and James was... well... not a minotaur. He tried valiantly to keep up with her hoofwork, but his ability to copy her would have been extremely limited even if he had been a better dancer to begin with.

Tala relented after a bit and stopped, ears wiggling with amusement.

"Maybe you should try, Matt!" James said, laughing.

"Oh man, i'm no good at this! I totally haven't got hooves either!" Matt grinned but took up position. "Okay Tala, humiliate me!"

"You have greater courage than James, you barely argued," Tala told Matt proudly. "This suggests you are worthy of great things. You may still not win though." More ear wiggles. She sure did do that a lot around non-minotaurs.

She went with the same relatively easy dance she had done with James, giving Matt something that he might possibly have been able to copy if he had been a very skilled dancer.

Matt still struggled with this, he may have had rhythm and a pretty decent natural grace but he wasn't a trained dancer and he didn't have hooves. He gave it a valiant effort though, and only nearly tripped over his own feet once. He laughed and kept trying. "You're good at this." He told her.

"I have many years of practice," Tala said happily. "Perhaps you will someday be very good as well." She stopped after a bit so Matt wouldn't get exhausted. "Perhaps you will become a leader in my tribe someday."

Matt snorted. "nah, i'm not leader material. But thanks." He was panting. "Anyone else wanna try? "

Starr chuckled and stepped forward "It looks interesting, I will try"

Tala nodded, pleased. "You are a shifter, have you ever learned to take a minotaur form? It might help you."

Starr shook her head "I have not tried before, though I have studied your people a bit" She concentrated to try shifting to a minotaur before looking at them again then testing herself on moving in this form.

Tala sniffed the air, pleased. "You smell funny, but you are a minotaur," she said proudly. "And you look most satisfactory."

James snickered at Tala's assessment.

Starr smiled and wiggled her ears as she had seen Tala do when she found something funny before making her way over to stand opposite her. "Thank you"

Tala swished her tail happily and started the dance, using the same one that she had shown the humanoids. It'd be much easier to copy with hooves and cow legs, but would probably still cause Starr some difficulty since she wasn't used to this form. The floor wasn't slippery though, so her hooves shouldn't slip too much.

Starr did her best to keep up, but she wasn't used to this form yet, so she made mistakes. She did have fun with this though, so she didn't mind.

Tala stopped after a bit and did a rather silly looking imitation of a humanoid's smile. "You learn well," she told Starr. "Teach this to your people so they may do battle without death!"

Starr stopped to catch her breath and nodded. "Dancing is better than fighting." She said when she could, it was more fun too

"You look awesome Starr." Matt told her, giving her a thumbs up. "I like this idea, boogie, don't fight. Make dance, not war." He snickered. "Think it'll catch on?"

James grinned. "Hey, movies have been preaching that for hundreds of years on Terra. I sure never expected the minotaurs to be into it too though."

"Not all of us are dancers," Tala said with a shrug. "The tribes in the east still believe in warfare. They are barbaric. We shall someday teach them our ways."

"And then you'll have epic dance offs. Think we can convince Luka?" Matt liked this idea, it amused him. "She and Esk can engage in a army vs airforce dance off to end all dance offs." He snickered.

James laughed. "Maybe all the disagreements on this ship should be solved by dancing," he said. "Can't be angry when you're too tired to stand."

"Luka would benefit from dancing," Tala agreed.