Players:
Summary: Chloe and Mason meet for the first time. They talk about powers and dancing. A plot for clubbing is conceived.
Date: Thursday, December 2, 2010. 11:34am.
Log Title: How to Slow-Fast Dance
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Gymnasium
This big room with wooden floors is build with powered students in mind; the entire room is power proof. Blast the walls all you like, they are not breaking. The gym can either be one large room and it also has dividers to make it two smaller gyms. This large Gym has basketball nets, equipment to set up equipment badminton, volleyball, hockey, soccer, gymnastics, fencing, and everyone's favorite, dodge ball.
Even when he works out, Mason has instruments with him. The pop star casually strolls into the gym, a guitar slung across his back. A red sweathoody and red matching sweatpants cover his body. Another bag is in his hands, and looks like it causes quite a struggle to lift and walk. As he makes his way to the corner of the gymnasium, he drops it down to the ground. Sounds like cinder blocks. He drops the guitar gently next to it, and takes a moment to roll the shoulder that had borne the weight of the heavy black duffel on the floor.
In a way the Gym is already filled with a kind of music. That is if you can count the rapid hammering of fists and feet against a training dummy as drumming. Dressed in running shorts and a tight black Ramones Tshirt Chloe runs through the sort of full contact Savate routine which would ruin gym equipment, if not for it being built to Xavier school standards (IE as near to indestructible as it comes). Her headphones are in and she sings along at superspeed, something near unintelligible and more than a little harsh on the ears.
Mason's eyes turn to Chloe, staring a little at her incredible speed. "Wow," he says aloud. He peels off his outer layers, revealing a blue tank top which hangs very loosely over his toned physique, and a pair of gold gym shorts. He can't help but watch Chloe's speed, having never seen anything like that before. His sweat pants get caught on one of his neon green sneakers, and he takes enough time to look down and pull them free before stooping to open his bag.
After a furious barrage of punches the blonde speedster pauses and does something a little odd. She takes one of her hands off. It's only when she's standing there holding her own hand that she spots Mason and waves, while holding the removed hand. "UhmhiDidn'tspotyou… coming.. in," she says, slowing herself with each word. "I'm Chloe. You must be new here right? And in shorts like that maybe a little colour blind." She grins. "In for a general work out or just a little combat training?"
Mason's eyes go wide as Chloe removes one of her hands, "Uh…" the usually very suave young man is caught definitely off guard. He tries to not comment on it, but it clearly dominates his attention. After a second he tears his eyes away and to Chloe's face. "Sorry," he says, "I've never seen anything like that. "You're really amazing!" A bright smile sweeps across his face. "I thought I'd try out some of my powers," he answers her question, pulling a cinder block from the bag. Where he had trouble hoisting them in, he picks up the cinder block as if it were made of styrofoam. He holds it in his left hand as he starts to hold out his right. "I'm Mason," he says, reaching his hand out to shake before remembering that she seems to have her hands otherwise occupied.
"Long story short someone cut my hand off," Chloe explains, giving her wrist a rub before putting her hand back on again. "The school built me a replacement. It's normally pretty good but I had to spend six months subjective time not putting any lotion on and it's been a little uncomfortable." She shrugs off the compliment. "I'm not all that good, only just back up to the level I was at a few years ago. Although I guess I'm ever so slightly faster now…"
Mason keeps the smile, and answers with blue-eyed contact. "Well, you're amazing to me," he says. "I could never move that fast unless I was at the piano," he tells her. "And then it's just my fingers. With powers like yours, you'd be like a cool superhero, like Quicksilver. The bad guys wouldn't even be able to hit you." He motions with his hand still holding the cinder block. "Dunno how cool my power is yet, thought I'd come and play around with it a little. Got to do my first Danger Room scene the other day. We won, but I really didn't have a clue what I was doing, yet."
Chloe laughs. "Quicksilver was actually coming in when he could to give me and my roomie special lessons. He's one of the biggest jerks I've met, talented and a good teacher. Inspiring though. In the some day I'll be faster than him so I can wipe the smug look off his face sort of way." She glances briefly at the cinder block. "Some kind of Earthy power I take it? Wouldn't you be better with a natural bit of stone rather than a concrete block?"
Mason glances at the cinder block. "You know, I'm not sure," he admits. "But it's cold out there!" he adds with a mock fear of the cold. "This LA boy isn't used to that, I gotta get thicker blood first." He laughs a little and flings the block outward effortlessly. It jets across the room, faster than most teens can throw a baseball, and then stops about twenty feet away as he makes a fist. His arm pulls hard, as if the block were connected to an invisible cable, and it comes hurtling back, and then his other hand comes out and pushes forward, the block stopping just before him. "Pretty fun, huh?" he asks, but at this point, he looses concentration, and the heavy block drops to the ground with an echoing thud. "Whoops."
"Maybe you should put some padding down on the floor first?" Chloe suggests, forcing herself not to giggle at the fumble. "Or use something smaller to practice with. The last thing you want is to actually end up damaging the floor and getting yourself confined to the school for a month."
Mason laughs at his own mistake. "They said this place was powers proof," he says, "But they didn't say it was cinder block proof," he speculates aloud. "I can make it smaller easy, check this out." He bends over to pick it up, and tosses it in front of him. He lunges forward with a karate chop motion,a nd divides it neatly in two, then snatches out with both hands and catches the halves of the block before they hit the ground. To commemorate the event, he flexes his muscles. "You know what you should do? You should learn nunchucks or swordfighting or something. Ooh, or a battle axe. Can you imagine fighting crime with that kind of stuff and your superspeed?"
Chloe barely blinks at the display, having been at Xaviers long enough for cutting stone like butter to be mundane. "You mean getting arrested for assault with a deadly weapon? I'm not really sure that's a great plan. Although I did kill a zombie with an axe, which was kinda cool. The trouble with weapons is they're just too bulky and people can just take them away from you. Besides I /already/ have a kickass cybernetic arm for beating people up with!"
Mason grins, "Yeah, well, it'd be cool all the same. I guess it's harder for people to take away your arm than take away a weapon, that's a good point. "So do I seem like I'm in slow motion?" he asks. "I was talking to another girl here named Heather, and she said everything is really slow for her, and were like shades of color and stuff. I tried to play some music for her, but it just didn't work for her."
"You got it! Heather is my roomie," Chloe explains, rolling her shoulders and beginning a far less exhausting cool down routine. "I'm actually a little faster than she is, although because mine is all biology and not time based it means I can cope with normal conversation a lot better. If you want to play her some music you could put it on my mp3 player and I'll play it for her?" She points at the little watch on her cyberarm, into which her headphones appear to be plugged in. "The colour thing is Synesthesia though and I think has nothing to do with her power."
"Yeah, she mentioned you," Mason says, remembering Heather mention her before. "She's pretty cool," he says, "But I think she thinks I'm weird," he laughs a little. "Guess that's okay, though. At least she doesn't think I'm a jerk or something." He nods at the arm, leaning in to see the port where she plugs in. "Man, I should get my hand cut off," he decides. "I'd love to have a built-in MP3 player. What were you listening to when I came in?"
Chloe blinks, slowly enough for effect. "Uhm yeah I don't think you do. It /really/ hurts and the almost bleeding to death part isn't all it's cracked up to be," she points out. "Heather is kind of unique. If you're any good at strategy games challenge her, she generally likes that sort of thing." She frowns at fast world speed, then pokes her mp3 player a few times. "Oh! A bit of Bowie with a little electropop mixed in. Although I think you walked in during Pendulum which was my wildcard choice."
"Yeah," he laughs, "I wasn't serious. I like my hands the way they are. I'd be too afraid I couldn't play keyboard anymore, and that'd suck. I saw the Ramones shirt too," he says indicating Chloe's chest. "It's good to know there's other people with some taste in music." Of course, he's known for pop music, but that doesn't mean his listening tastes are limited to that.
"I'll listen to almost anything really. Although I avoid mainstream pop unless you can dance to it," Chloe replies holding her hand up and wriggling the fingers in a complex pattern. "Forge, the teacher who built it, does very very good work. Although by my own personal time I've had this for quite a while. Probably a few years for a normal person."
Mason grins knowingly at Chloe's statement. He has a good bit that is dance-worthy, but only one of his hits is the type somebody would dance to. "I love to dance," he agrees, expecting that she may not know who he is. He won't ruin it. "Maybe we should go dancing sometime. There's plenty of places in the City I'm sure. They ever do school dances here?" he adds curiously.
Chloe breaks her melee routine with a neat little backflip. Showoff much? "Maybe? I don't really know. I haven't actually been a student for all that long real world time. And I would go dancing in the city but dancing at your speed is… easy. I'm not amazing at my own pace but even a complete novice looks amazing moving at a sixth of the speed. The trouble is after a few songs I'd have muscle cramps so bad I'd fall over."
Mason's smile broadens. "Yeah?" he says, seeing her backflip. "That's pretty good. So you get cramps from dancing slow?" he clarifies. "I'd think it'd be easy going slow, but I wouldn't think it'd give me cramps." He takes a step back, and counters with his own show off. A spin, twist with a kick and a hip roll. He drops to one hand kicking his feet up in the air and catching a rhythm. His density comes out a little as the impact of his feet can be felt when they come back down. It's graceful all the same, though. He's not shabby himself. Then again, in his profession, you have to be a good dancer.
"Try moving your entire body at half speed for five minutes and see if you feel great afterwards. Then imagine trying for a sixth of normal speed," Chloe points out, rolling her shoulders and then heading for a bag stashed in the corner of the gym. "Which is how slow I need to go to look normal. After a while everything aches, especially my head from following the songs. The alternative is hitting a club and everyone doing the point at the mutant routine. Although I must admit it wouldn't really bother me much."
Mason considers it, and then tries to act it out, doing the same routine again part way through. "Yeah, I guess I can see that," he answers. "Hey we could try that," he agrees. "Bet they could do some slow songs at triple speed or something, too," he suggests. "Split the difference, then I'll share the pointing with you." His mind imagines slow dancing at that speed, and chuckles a little to himself. "Or we could go to mutant town, people wouldn't point there."
Chloe shrugs. "It's an idea. Do you have ID that'd get you into anywhere cool?" she wonders. "Because it's usually the boys who don't get let into places. At least the few times me and my friends snuck out to clubs back home."
Mason laughs outright. "Oh, don't worry," he answers the speedster,"I have ID that can get us in just about anywhere you want." He leaves the statement a little enigmatic, but he has that twinkle in his baby blue eyes that says he knows something that she doesn't.
"So now the only trouble is getting around the curfew," Chloe muses, considering the best way to get around the teachers. "And working out who else should come along. I mean the more of us who go the less likely we are to get expelled if we get caught."
"I can get my mom to let us come hang out for a weekend," Mason answers without hesitation, as if he has plans already for such things. "She moved to the area when I came to school here. She won't care if we stay out late, and that way we aren't AWOL, we can just check out on Friday and come back on Sunday. That way we can have two days instead of one!"
"How many of us do you think she'd let you have round?" Chloe asks curiously, grabbing a bottle of water from her bag and draining it in three gulps. "And that's pretty dedicated of her. Not many peoples parents move all the way out to New York when they find out they've got a mutant kid."
"Well," Mason says with a chuckle, "She's a mutant too. Places like Barnes and Xavier's weren't around when she was a kid, so she's pretty excited that I can come here. I dunno, her new place isn't that huge, but my guess is that she'd let like six of us, tops. I'll ask her." He goes to toss the cinder blocks back in the bag, and zipping it closed. "See which of your friends you'd want to invite, I still don't know as many people here. I think Star would want to go, though," he recalls.
Chloe nods. "I'll ask around and see who might be up for hanging out sometime," she assures, putting the empty bottle back. "Control powers aren't really my thing but I bet you'd learn a lot more teaching yourself fine detail tricks with smaller objects. Making shapes in the air with sand or floating pebbles in intricate patterns. Brute force tends to be something people either have or they don't have and it's almost always finesse which ends up being important."
Mason nods, "Thanks, I'll have to keep that in mind," he replies, putting his sweats back on. He hoists the bag onto his shoulder, and then picks up his guitar case, slinging it over his back. "I gotta get to my next class. It was really great to meet you," he tells her. "I can't wait to go clubbing with you, it's gonna be great." He seems to have a great deal more trouble carrying the bag than he did carrying the individual stones, but he manages, and heads out the door to the next class.
