Players: Chloe & Connoe
Summary: School is about to begin again, and two friends get back to their old routine, and begin talking about times ahead.
Date: August 30, 2010
Log Title: Workout Buddies
Rating: OG
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.
This close to school starting up, some people are falling back into old but good routines. Connor is down in the gym as usual for this time of day… dressed actually into his training uniform normally reserved for the Danger Room, it's coat off and to one side as he has on some sparring pads, and is currently working with one of the wooden kung fu practice poles that have been provided. Currently involved in a series of block and elbow counters with the padded apparatus, a pair of earbud wires betray his lack of attentiveness to the rest of the world.
Even with headphones on it'd be hard to miss Chloe coming into the Gym. The sound of people shouting in the corridors, the pounding of superspeed feet and the occasional crash of a failed somersault/cartwheel all blended together with the music blasting from her built in mp3 player. "Make way, coming through!" she exclaims, rolling in through the door in a haphazard manner before finally collapsing in a heap in the middle of the room. "Hee the room is still spinning."
The vibrations of the crash give it away, or something else as Connor turns to face the incoming, immediately hitting the button to stop his music and tugging down on the cord just enough to pop them from his ears to regain full hearing. Walking over to Chloe, one eyebrow arched, the young man says in his usual voice, "Last I heard, Le Parkour was an outdoor sport… for reasons like this."
"Hi Connors," Chloe greets, staying flat against the floor. "I had a bet, which I've just won by the way, about being able to get all the way from the girls dorms with assorted types of gymnastics. The prize was a considerable amount of cake and after all the rat eating dreams I could damn well do with something nice to eat."
Connor reaches down with one hand to help the girl up, "Allright, Marie Antionette… so you managed to somersault your way here… strange, but I'll grant you perfectly normal compared to some stuff around here…"
Chloe waves off the hand. Or at least in the same direction.. "There /was/ a better reason. I'm trying to find ways to modify my biochemistry to defend against unpleasant sensations. I mean if I can do pain then surely I can manage something else right? Only… I got half way down the stairs before it hit me that I probably couldn't inhibit my inner ear." She sighs, then sits up. "But enough about me. How're things with you?"
Connor shrugs once, but backs off when his offer is rescinded, and goes back towards the training dummy to pull it from it's stand and put it back away in the storage area. Returning, he sits down across from Chloe, and gives a shrug, "Allright, I suppose. This whole last couple of months has been surreal, but overall still trying to get over the fact that I effectively decked a supervillian."
"You healing up okay now? Sorry I didn't drop down to visit you in the medbay," Chloe says sheepishly. "But I've been trying to get myself used to fast world isolation and I guess I let my training get ahead of me. You did pretty damn awesome beating Ahab by the way! He seemed like he was pretty major league, which earns you major league kudos. Especially when the staff didn't actually do anything against him."
Connor gives another shrug and looks away, "I got over the petty feelings of that a while ago, so don't even think on it, Chloe… done is done. I know you were all worried anyways. But as for staff… umm… so you don't know then. I only cold-cocked him… it was Mister Falk who did all the heavy work, using Heather and myself to boost his oomph a bit, and chuck Ahab back to his own time after fixing everyone else. Truth be told, I brought the guy here because I didn't know anyone else who could help but the staff here." Looking back at Chloe, he then adds, "I don't know why everyone badmouths them… sure it seems like they're not always around, but c'mon… they're not all that bad."
Chloe scowls. "Well it's about time he did something right. The first time I followed Mr Falks advice I lost my hand as a result," she mutters. "And as for Cyclops? I just plain don't like him after how he acted over the whole not letting Cloud in thing. Would you have let a potentially brainwashed /and/ injured person in the front gate by yourself when you know they have a contact based draining ability?"
Connor pushes to standing and starts to stretch out some, still bearing a bit of the sweat from his workout as he replies, "You can't always judge motives based on what you see at the time, Chloe… sometimes it's like a butterfly effect… what you see is the end result of something smaller that happened earlier."
"Maybe that's the answer to your puzzle then. People badmouth them because all we see are the negative outcomes and never because of anything proactive they're upto," Chloe counters, slowly pulling herself to her feet. "Ahhh gotta love the perks of superspeed. Dizzyness gone in a fraction of the time!"
Connor bends down to do a full-leg stretch, still very flexible for his age, and not being a gymnast, but then pushes back up to standing and rolls his neck a few times, "Rub it in some, why don't you. I kinda wish we'd gotten on the same team this year, but I got Heather, so I'm sure you'll hear all about the weirdness. We got Max too. It's like they're trying to put all of us with 'special needs' in the same place. Even if most of us are managed."
"You didn't get Theo or Mikhail though," Chloe notes with an impish grin. "It makes tracking schedules easier I guess, if two of my friends are on one squad. Corsairs is looking weird this semester, we have a returnee prankster and a new girl made from some kinda paste. We had a little danger room thing a few days ago, didn't go too badly although I'm pretty sure I'll get some less than flattering notes made in my file about jumping into fights through skylight windows…"
Connor makes a tsking motion as he motions for her to come closer, saying with a smile, "You see, I think you're missing one of the advantages of your power. You work six times faster than we do… so you have minutes your time while we have seconds to think and respond. Using that to strategize for yourself might become valuable. Now… you want to have your lesson today, or not?" Turning the smile into a smirk.
Chloe yawns. "Actually I do that plenty. It's why I picked the death from above approach," she explains, running through a few quick stretches. "By the time they'd got over the 'holy crap' bit I was already busting out the kung fu action." But anyway begin the lesson by all means. I've been stationary for practically a full five minutes, I can feel my muscles starting to ache already."
Connor stands there for a moment, then comes around behind her, "Like before, relax yourself… your posturing needs to be casual, and unassuming. The point behind basic Systema is that you already know your center of gravity, how to throw a punch… all the basics of any hand to hand. People can read body language, so you want to put forward the most unassuming 'face' as possible, while evaluating your opponents. Only move when you take action." And stepping back into position, he just slouches, and gives a rather blase appearance.
Chloe lets herself relax, using a little rush of endorphins to ease the process. "Like this?" she wonders, adopting an stern look. "Or a bit more like this?" Her expression shifts into the kind of smirk you might see after hearing Scott Summer was now scheduled in for teaching Sex Ed.
Connor rubs the side of his face, and then exhales hard, before coming back around to face Chloe, "Allright… look at me… what does looking at me tell you, if you knew nothing about how well I was trained?" And he stands there in a casual manner, one hand half-in his pocket, the other at his side, slightly cocked with one leg like he was waiting for the bus, or to cross the street.
"You mean you want me to try and look like I'm just there? So they won't really be able to guess at how good I am and if I'm smiling it means I think I'll win and they'll assume training of some kind?" Chloe wonders, frowning and then settling on a more bland look. The sort of blank look she adopts when shopping when she wants a store assistant to come over but doesn't actually feel like saying anything.
Connor smiles as the look passes over you, "Perfect. This is what you want… give them a sense of dominant position…" Coming up around and up behind you, he then says, "Allright, like before, once the hand comes down on your shoulder, evaluate and react. Remember that I could be a friend, so you don't want to react too harshly." And with that he pats down on your shoulder, remaining light and friendly for the moment.
As soon as she feels the contact on her shoulder Chloe takes a little step forward and twirls one hundred and eighty degrees. One of her arms swinging up in a move that turns into a wave but could have easily been a forearm block meant for a follow up attack. "Like so?"
Connor nods once more, and then chuckles, "Perfect… this is a lot better than the face-poundings you used to try and deliver. Just remember… this is all the passive stuff. Self-defense. The more active stuff is easy by comparison, trust me." But then he reassumes position to begin again, and this time brings his hand down hard on Chloe's shoulder.
"Try and deliver? Pfff," Chloe teases, then as the harder hand hits her shoulder she dips it so the Connors hand will slide off. The dipping motion quickly flows into a turn and leap backwards, both her hands out by her sides in a generally ready position for blocking or perhaps even some kind of gymnastic roll. No attempted wave this time, but no raised fists either.
Connor watches the display, and ends up crossing his arms over his chest as he looks back and forth over Chloe once more, taking a breath, "Not bad… but… maybe it's just the superspeed thing… you've always got this jerkiness around your initial motions, like you don't know what to do. Or I'm misreading things. Which is pretty often. Want to try again?"
Chloe shrugs. "It's trying to act 'naturally' for a slow worlder," she explains. "It doesn't feel quite as natural as moving normally. But moving as top speed would kinda defeat the whole poker face aspect wouldn't it? There is also a conflict of training where I'm used to responding to that with a backwards elbow strike that might break ribs at the speeds it'd be pushing."
Connor actually chuckles a bit, "Hey, you asked me to teach you, so I'm trying… I know I'm going to screw up a bit, but by far and large I should be able to get you the basics. It's why it's a system and not just a combat form… there's other things involved, but we're skipping over for the combat portion. Like religion, if you can believe it."
"I can't see you doing theology lessons any more than I could see myself sitting through one!" Chloe admits rolling her shoulders a few more times to try and more fully relax herself. "But the lessons are appreciated. I've been reading up on stuff and, rat eating aside, the future visions I had have inspired me a bit. Future me had learnt so much and melded it into a distinct style fit for superspeed and if she can do it then I'll damn well make something better. So, lets give it one last try?"
Connor moves around you once more, and brings his hand down with only moderate force this time, the kind of gesture that could be either parent or authority figure as instead of taking his usual stance, he stands sideways, affording him a bit more room to maneuver from an incoming strike.
This time it seems Chloe has her plan of action in mind before contact is even made. Without moving away from the contact she puts her hand on top of Connors gripping two of his fingers, then turns to face him. All the while maintaining her grip in such a way that unless the hand is withdrawn sharpish it'll be shift into a painfull finger lock. "Why'd you shift back for that one and not the heavy strike?" she wonders. "Because I said about the elbowing thing?"
Connor shakes his head, "No… okay, that's starting to hurt…" Grinning but also adopting a slight twitch in the eyes that tells you he's stifling the pain some, "I shifted because I wanted to see how you'd respond. There's no drills in Systema… it's just action/reaction…" And finally he shifts and tugs his fingers free, rubbing at the back of his hand, "That was actually pretty cool, can you show me how you did it?"
Chloe grins. "Oops. Sorry!" she says, opening her hand. "You just grip like this, then twist them in a way they can't bend. So your opponent has to either let you break some fingers /or/ you get to force which way they move. I wasn't really gripping tight enough for a real lock, because you don't want them to slip free." She frowns, then demonstrates the grip using her own cybernetic arm as a dummy. "I figured if it was someone friendly they'd withdraw the hand or speak when I put my hand there, hopefully giving me plenty of time to let go before hurting them."
Connor emulates it first with right-left, then left-right, before smiling a bit, "No, that's actually cool… adaptation and spontenaiety. While it's limited, it's still useful." A couple more rounds before he seems to have the basic premise down. After that he walks over to his bag and fishes out two bottles of water, tossing one your way, "We really need a better teacher down here… I swear, someone in the staff has to better than the basic stuff they try and teach."
"We could ask Laura to tutor a student run class?" Chloe suggests, catching the bottle and setting about draining it at superspeed. "She knows more martial arts than half the students put together. I swear we sparred once and the only reason she didn't totally flatten me was because I could use my power flat out while she had to restrain her own abilities for… uhm safetly. And so that I wouldn't lose any more limbs."
Chloe pouts. "It's a shame there aren't many career paths where 'superspeed martial arts badass' would work on my resume," she says sullenly. "I'm thinking of taking some out of school evening classes, like Capoeira, but I guess I'll have to get permission from staff before I even start looking for a teacher."
Connor frowns back, "Don't be like that… look… I'm sure if you get a good plan together and make sure all the information is available, they'll be cool with it. I mean look at it… new phones, new school computers, new uniforms… it's like they're really stepping up this year."
Chloe tilts her head. "I have to admit the colours on the new Corsair uniform don't make me want to put a cardboard box on my head. The costume itself was a little iffy, but I've modified mine so it isn't quite so weird." She blinks a few times then adds "New computers? Did they update the computer lab? I bet they haven't got a superspeed complient one. Which is just as well because I suck at anything more complex than sending an email."
Connor gives Chloe a bit of a look, and then arches a brow, "Haven't you looked at the syllabus? We're all being provided new laptops for loading up books, classwork, all of it networked right to the main school computer hub. We're losing half our schoolbooks… but it also means our parents can see any of the assignments we do." Waving it off, he finishes his water, and breaks down to bottle with just a look, "I'll bet that they could easily provide you with one adapted to your powers."
Chloe giggles. "Reading the boring class stuff is meant for the night before class resumes silly!" she proclaims. "I've been far too busy doing /proper/ summer stuff. You know the whole having fun thing? But maybe I will ask about those lessons. It can't hurt and if they're letting people get part time jobs then they can hardly say no to me taking up out of school classes. Speaking of classes any idea what you'll be taking?"
Connor rubs the back of his neck as he looks to one side, "English, Business, AP physics, Advanced math course… music… plus I have some other stuff in the pipe. Like I need to get parents permission to go to a writer's convention in Massachusetts in a couple months. I want to go to the workshops they're running."
"That's really cool! I'm pretty useless when it comes to creative stuff like that," Chloe says, pouring the last drops of her bottle of water into her hand and splashing her face. "I'm thinking of asking if I can take /every/ class that doesn't clash. Because otherwise it's a little unfair on everyone else. Hell I could probably ask to graduate this year and do the rest of high school all at once if I really wanted, but why rush into getting a job?"
Connor motions with one hand in an unconfirming gesture, "Maybe because you enjoy hanging out with all of us, and it makes up for the otherwise terminal boredom? I dunno… I mean look at me. I'm still pondering what to do when I graduate. Whatever it is will probably save on the airfare…"
Chloe hmmmms. "That too. If Heather agrees to form a freelance time police group you'd be welcome to join us," she offers with a grin. "I'm thinking it'll be like that really old cartoon with the cute white rabbit. Only with travelling through time."
Connor lets his hands fall, "Okay… I'm totally lost on that one, and personally? Why police time… it's fixing other people's messes. If you think about it, it's all got to be self-correcting somehow, otherwise someone like that Kang the Conqueror guy from the news might have accidentally sneezed and wiped out his own supposed future."
Chloe scratches her head. "Think about it this way. We'd get to visit all kinds of cool places and dress up in cool costumes," she explains seriously. "And it can't be entirely self fixing or else why did the other you need to come back? Plus… I figure we could make a killing on lottery tickets and stuff."
Connor puts up a finger, "Then logically, someone else will have formed a time police, and when you do something like that, they would come back here and stop you by stopping you forming your time police. Therefore, all actions being self-correcting, each time you do it, and succumb, someone else will be there in your way." But he's smiling the entire time he's dropping the logic bomb.
"Unless those someones are me and Heather," Chloe counters, hands on hips. "Or they'll come back and recruit us into the pre-existing group. Perhaps that's why time travellers are so rare, because a shadowy but benevolent group either depowers them or recruits them!"
Connor laughs a bit, "But you can't know that, you can only speculate, because a group who works in time would need to be completely secret, and above reproach… otherwise you have problems like that ratty Timecop movie, or the old Journeyman Project game. Causality problems."
"It's worth a shot. I mean can you honestly see me doing a desk job? Working away in an office on boring paperwork would kill me," Chloe notes sullenly, scuffing her foot against the floor. "And it doesn't involve lurking at this place for years on end. Some people just seem to get stuck here and never leave and I'm not sure I could ever look myself in the eye if I became one of them."
Connor shakes his head again as he gets up and starts removing the pads, "So become a courier… carry stuff for people from place to place. You'd get to travel, see things, occasionally beat up people who try and take your stuff, and be more important than the lady behind the desk."
Chloe scratches her head. "Like in that game where you fall a lot? I'm not sure that'll really work," she says thoughtfully. "I mean people who want valuble things shipping are more likely to want a big security detail rather than someone on foot. Even if that someone is as pretty as me. Which means if I go down that route it won't pay very well and anything I do will need to pay well just to support my food bills."
Connor shakes his head in reply once more, and then says, "How about this… Talk to Rashmi, who can talk to her boss, and find out how useful you'd be as a bonded courier… because I think you'd rock at it. And honestly… look at how many bike messengers are out there. How hard is it to track or keep up with someone like that?"
"For me or for a normal person?" Chloe asks, sticking her tongue out. "I'll consider it but don't think this means I'm giving up on the idea of time travelling cop. It'd be unthinkable for anyone who goes to school here to not have at least /one/ crazy career notion in mind. Look at all the X-men or Avenger wannabes."
Connor eyerolls and then finishes getting the pads off and put away, "Hey, I'm not knocking the timecop thing, allright? I'm just trying to make sure you have more mundane means in mind, just in case… allright?"
"I'll add it to my list along with bodyguard to the stars," Chloe concedes, mock pouting. "I did consider Barnes and then Shield, but I get the feeling that path might sabotage my dream. Because future me had two real hands, her power had stopped growing and I got the impression there might have been a link between the two. So not going means no temptation to be a science project."
Connor digs out his phone and checks it, "Speaking of which… I'm due in the med bay… that whole science thing… the doctors like to make sure my ability isn't going to cause me to collapse in on myself… or something like that. These were more fun when Mister McCoy was around…" Shaking his head as he picks up his gym bag, "You behave yourself… see you in a few days."
