xp_logs | Marie-Ange, Nathan, a pit.

After Marie-Ange's first Danger Room session, Nathan comes to find her to congratulate her and offer advice. On not falling into pits, on not giggling hysterically at Cain's code name, and on training in general.

Marie-Ange didn't remember removing her boots or jacket before she sat down. She remembered putting on a pair of Doug's workout pants, because they were certainly more comfortable than her trainee leathers - and she didn't remember at all putting her leathers away. This was because they were still in an untidy heap at the foot of the sofa, boots and jacket and pants dropped where she'd stripped them off.

Lying face-down on the sofa was mildly uncomfortable, but getting up would require energy, and at the moment, Marie-Ange was out of anything even like energy. She supposed that a shower would help - it would certainly make her hair feel less lank and sticky, but that too would be a lot like work. Lying on the couch was the most she wanted to do, at least for the next few minutes. Or perhaps hours. Maybe days.

A knock came at the door. When Marie-Ange didn't answer, it opened slowly, and a soft chuckle came from that direction. "I know you're in here," Nathan said, his voice light and teasing. "So don't bother telling me that you're dead."

"Amanda is taking Meggan for a walk." Marie-Ange said, trying to remember to speak up so that she'd be heard without moving her head. She wasn't quite sure it would work, and half-hoped Nathan would just pick it up from her thoughts, because moving was just not happening.

Nathan hobbled into the room, raising an eyebrow. "Well, although I'm glad to know that the child's getting some fresh air... so what? I didn't come up here looking for Amanda."

Being slightly surprised meant moving, and moving wasn't quite as awful as Marie-Ange had thought. Raising her head didn't make it fall off, so she sat up - slowly -. "Oh. I thought you were looking for Amanda.." Which left the unasked question of why Nathan was there open, and Marie-Ange wasn't sure she wanted to ask. It couldn't be bad, if it was bad, it would've been Mr. Summers, or Alison.

Nathan made a face. "Amanda, fond as I am of her, is not a trainee. You are both a trainee and someone I am very fond of, hence the whole concept of special attention when you actually get to really play with the Danger Room for the first time." He smiled. "So," he said, more warmly. "How did it go?"

It was very tempting to simply whine at Nathan about how tired she was, but he probably already knew. "I fell in a pit." Marie-Ange started. "But before that, I think I was doing well." She was still just a bit cross about the pit.

Nathan chuckled softly. "Remind me to show you sometime the obstacle course they were running me through back in January. There was not one single part of the landscape that stayed put, and I was being fired on from all sides, too."

"I could protest that you are a ninja, and I am not, but the ninja joke is getting old, I think? And it is funnier when Forge says it. " Marie-Ange said, almost smiling. "The course was not as hard as I thought it would be. It was a great deal of climbing and dodging and crawling, and a few drones? Is that the right word for them?"

Nathan nodded, lowering himself gingerly into a chair. "Drones," he said. "And it sounds like they started you off with one of the basic courses. I'm glad to hear you feel you did well, though." He smiled at her, unable (and not really inclined) to help a moment of real pride.

"Except for falling in the pit." Marie-Ange pointed out. "I am not sure how I was supposed to know it was -there- in the first place. It just opened up under my feet!" She rubbed at her upper arm, frowning. "I landed on my shoulder, and by the time I got up and could find something I could use to get out of it, the time was up... "

"There will always be something you don't expect," Nathan pointed out helpfully. "That's why it's not called the Walk in the Park Room."

"But there is a lesson I am supposed to learn from that? That is what I am not sure of." Which is why she hadn't finished her self-evaluation on the scenario yet. "If I try to use my precognition to see ahead, I get a headache, so that is not a good strategy unless I have no other options. But I am not sure what else to think I should be doing..."

"Maybe it's the uncertainty that's the test," Nathan suggested. "You're right; your precog isn't going to be an option in all cases. Maybe not even many cases. The temptation to go for it has got to be fairly extreme..."

"Not in the Danger Room... " Marie-Ange answered. "Not yet. I think, because I know it is safe. It is not very much a Danger Room for me just yet. But, when those cybernetic soldiers were here? It was very hard to keep from just looking ahead, and I knew it would give me a headache if I looked.. "

"That's the one thing the Danger Room can't duplicate," Nathan pointed out. "Real danger... ironic as that is. But," he went on briskly, "if you establish ways to react to swiftly changing circumstances that don't include your precog, you're less likely to go for that instinctively right off the bat in a real crisis."

"Breaking a bad habit before it becomes a very bad habit?" Marie-Ange said. "I think maybe I need to find a way to make images faster, or find the right image for what I want to make faster." And more pockets. She really needed to find a way to get more pockets.

"You should sit down with Alison and I at some point soon," Nathan said, thinking aloud, although he would be terribly surprised if the team leaders hadn't already had something very similar in mind. "To work on visualization - Alison has to do that when she works with light, and I know I rely on it very heavily with my TK."

"I think I need ... " Marie-Ange paused, trying to word this carefully. "I think I need to talk to Remy too. For marking cards and learning how to read them without seeing them. And I need pockets." She mock-frowned, and added in a slightly petulant tone. "I do not have enough pockets. It vexes me."

Nathan laughed. "We can probably manage some alterations to the trainee leathers. Based on your special needs and all that," he said teasingly. He couldn't help regarding her a bit curiously, though. "How dependent are you on the cards?"

"I am dependant on -something- visual. Cards are portable and small. Dr. MacTaggart said that ... I do not remember all of it, but that my power needs a physical focus. Like Jamie needs to be hit, I need to see something." It still did not quite make sense to Marie-Ange, but then, Dr. MacTaggart was the scientist, and Marie-Ange was mostly definitely not.

"So if, say, you were faced with part of a bridge collapsing, but you could see the undamaged part of the structure... could you replicate that?" Nathan asked thoughtfully. It was a very versatile power, really.

"I.. honestly do not know." Marie-Ange thought about this for a few moments. "I have never tried to make something from something that is already there. I have always used a drawing or picture. Photographs are much, much harder." Images from photographs never turned out right, coming out distorted or washed out, or not nearly solid enough.

"You know what they say about the word never," Nathan said wryly. "Don't be surprised if you find yourself experimenting with that real soon. I mean, just imagine all the ways you could, for example, lose your cards? Or be unable to reach them? I can't see your training not being set up to explore that possibility."

Marie-Ange definitely got the impression that even if it had not been in the plan to have her think about that, that Nathan would shortly be talking to Cyclops. "Even a distorted image is better than nothing at all.. " She said quietly. "And I suppose there is no reason for me not to be able to do it. If I can make a sword from an image on a woven tapestry.."

"See?" Nathan said with a smile. "It's not untouched territory, just unexplored. And this is what training is for - to let you investigate other possibilities. You have a flexible power, so you want to maximize the flexibility."

"I am still stuck on how I was supposed to get out of that pit." Marie-Ange paused to think. "Unless I was just supposed to not fall in the pit in the first place." That pit was going to bother her until she figured out a way around it, or at least what its purpose was.

"Could you have created something flying, to get you out of the pit?" Nathan said, wisely sticking to positive suggestions. "Do you have any cards where the figures have wings?"

"At least one. I was trying to make stairs, but it did not work well." Marie-Ange shook her head. "I think maybe I am supposed to have done the entire course faster. I am not sure.. " It hopefully would come up in the evaluation the next day.

"You're always supposed to be faster and more efficient," Nathan pointed out. "That's part of the whole point of training, to be continually pushing the envelope."

"Which is why you keep training when when you are not a trainee. Like Doug and his martial arts, he says even the people who are professionals at it keep training and learning new things." There was definitly an adrenaline rush she'd felt dodging the drones, and Marie-Ange could certainly see why people enjoyed it, even if she didn't find it exactly -fun-. "And it gets harder and harder each time, yes?"

"Not always," Nathan said, enjoying what he could see of her mind working, mulling over the matter. What little he was picking up passively was quite heartening, actually. "Danger Room scenarios canbe written to be more difficult every time you try them. Depends on what the person writing it is trying to achieve with you. Don't be surprised if you get drilled heavily on what seems like very basic skills, though. Some things, you need to learn so well that they're next door to instinct."

That, Marie-Ange already knew all too well, from Sif, and more recently from Kylun. "So they can be done without thinking, so you can think about something else if you have to." She said, nodding. "That makes sense. It sounds sometimes boring and dull, but I suppose that if it is done over and over, then those things become habitual?"

"Exactly." Of course she saw it. The pride came back, and Nathan had to laugh a little, inwardly, at his own presumption. He hadn't had anything to do with how well she was handling this, after all. It was all her.

But it was awfully good to see.

"If you want," he said, "I can ask whoever was running your scenario if I could take a look at the tapes. Give you my assessment, too."

"I would like that." It might mean more exercises using her imaging power, but that was the purpose of training. "I have a copy, on a CD, so I can finish my self-evaluation. I could probably make a copy. I was not told I could -not- share it." Marie-Ange was almost certain she would've been told.

"Let me ask," Nathan suggested. "Hell, if I do that the team leaders might decide to let me assess your training tapes regularly, which I think would be helpful, given our shared visualization angle."

"You are not going to be too busy for that?" That was a lot of video to watch. "You have a wedding to plan and your own training and... " Stopping herself before she protested more, Marie-Ange shook her head. "I suppose I should not protest. It would help a great deal."

"My own training is very much on hold lately, the wedding is mostly planned, and I have a distressing amount of free time." Nathan smiled. "Let me do this for you?" he asked. "It's something I can do, hobbling around or not, and I'd like to be able to help you out on this."

"As long as Mr. Summers does not object. I do not think he would though." Eventually she would get used to the codenames. Not today. It still felt silly. ON that thought, Marie-Ange smiled faintly. "When did you stop thinking the codenames were silly? I still cannot use them without having to stop myself from giggling."

"We had equally odd field names back at Mistra," Nathan said with a chuckle. "So our codenames aren't so much of a change for me now. Although Hydrant," he said with a crooked grin, "is still damned funny."

"I do not know what I am going to do when we have to train as a group. It is bad enough to use my own. I do not think I can call Mr. Marko Hydrant without giggling." She was already giggling, just a bit. "It would be worse if Shiro was Usagi, or any of the other horrible names we suggested."

"Consider it just another form of concentration exercise," Nathan suggested whimsically. "And learn not to giggle." He concentrated on getting up, as smoothly as possible. Still so tempting to help himself along with his TK.

Marie-Ange frowned, still giggling. "Maybe when I am training in a group it will be easier. Right now it just seems absurd." Maybe it just took time. The uniform took time to get used to, maybe the codenames, as absurd as they were would too. And they did get to change them once they graduated. That was a huge relief.

"You could always try referring to everyone by their codenames in everyday life, to get used to it," Nathan teased, turning towards the door. "'Hydrant, sir, may I help you with the gardening work?' You'd get over the urge to giggle pretty quickly doing that, I think..."

He was not helping. Just thinking about the look on Mr. Marko's face if she did that sent Marie-Ange into another fit of giggles. "If Mr. Marko throws me in the lake, I am blaming you." she said, still laughing. "It will all be on your head."