http://x_emplate.livejournal.com/ (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
x-emplate.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
xp_logs2005-12-17 03:30 pm
x-emplate.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2005-12-17 03:30 pm
LOG: [Nathan, Domino, Marius] Ballistics
Nate and Dom are having a perfectly fine time playing in the gym when one of Nate's less-favorite students shows up to observe. Long story short, during the course of the session almost everything in the gym is, at some point, hurled. Occupants included.
"Don't overextend."
Domino sighed from where she was sitting on the floor, grinning cheerfully. "I asked for that. Forgot how you can throw me around when I'm not careful..."
Nathan raised an eyebrow, offering her a hand up. "You forgot?"
"Well, my brains are supposed to be mush these days, no?" Domino asked cheerfully, letting him pull her to her feet and then dancing back, then forwards again, a fist coming at his face almost before she'd finished the words. Nathan barely dodged, growling at her.
"I interrupting somethin'?" Marius asked from his place by the side of the gym door. He was dressed for a workout, and looked quite amused to have stumbled upon a faculty member narrowly avoiding a sucker-punch from a strange woman.
"Hello, strange boy!" Domino said cheerfully, dancing back out of Nathan's reach again. "I'm just beating up on the old man."
"Says the woman who was on her ass a minute ago," Nathan said, shaking his head at himself for not sensing Marius coming. He was, of course, a little distracted. He put on a burst of speed, and Domino laughed gleefully, having to work to block each hit.
"And hello to you, attractive and violent woman," Marius grinned. Nathan was not only huge, he was obviously no amateur, and this woman was holding her own. Plus, purple eyes. "The one imported from some bloke's evil clutches in Africa, right?"
Domino wrinkled her nose, and tried to kick Nathan in the head. Nathan caught her ankle, yanked, and she yelped as she wound up on her ass again. "Something like that," she said, and extended a hand. Nathan snorted and hauled her back to her feet again, more or less ignoring Marius.
Marius watched the sparring with a mingling of amusement and fascination. He didn't have any formal training in this sort of thing, but he'd been involved in enough sports long enough to suspect these two were familiar with each other's capabilities. The fight struck him as oddly coordinated, even when one seemed to catch the other off guard -- as if any given move, while perhaps not anticipated, was never a complete surprise. It was interesting.
And anyway, Marius welcomed any excuse to watch an athletic and attractive woman in a low-cut tanktop.
He's admiring me, Domino thought at Nathan, who snorted - and then grunted as her elbow landed in his ribs. And you are being a little slower even than usual today...
Something close to an outright growl slipped from Nathan's throat and he proceeded to do his level best to pound Domino into the mats. Her speed saved her, as per usual, but at least he was making her work for it.
"Looks like I've got more evidence for my theory Mr. Dayspring's in the habit of associating mostly with women prone to hittin' him," Marius said, noting the woman change a dive into a particularly nice somersault and recovery. "Sorry, what was your name? Oreo?"
"Domino... thank you..." Domino ducked under a punch and landed one of her own in Nathan's ribs. Nathan nearly doubled over, wheezing. "Oh..." she said, looking honestly repentant. "Oh, crap, I forgot..." Her eyes flickered sideways to Marius. "His ribs are like toothpicks these days, they've been broken so often," she said, grabbing Nathan's arm.
Marius nodded. "I've been hearin' the jokes since day three. Not that I can talk." He rubbed his own ribs, a graphic enough description since he hadn't bothered to wear a shirt. "If I'm very lucky, Santa's bringin' me bodyfat this Christmas."
Nathan straightened, wincing, and gave Marius a dirty look. "It would be in your interest to forget those damned jokes," he said. "They're no longer applicable."
Domino, behind his back, made an exaggerated 'be careful' face at Marius, and then smiled brightly when Nathan looked around at her. "Cough, tranquilizer dart, cough."
"Oh, shut up!"
Marius grinned. "I could try, but I doubt I'd succeed. Curse my unimpeachable memory and the fact that I'm at the tender mercies of your wife on a weekly basis. On the bright side, looks like your daughter's apparently compensatin' for your bad luck by learnin' to project a forcefield before she even learns to walk." He paused, remembering the rather unsettling encounter on the stairs. "Although the way things are goin', maybe she won't bother."
If looks could have killed, Marius would have been a heap of smoldering ashes right then and there. Nathan turned away in disgust and went to fetch his water bottle. Domino, smiling, folded her arms across her chest and watched him.
"Ignore him," she said cheerfully to Marius. "He gets cranky. Comes with being old."
"Ah," Marius nodded sagely, "what with the old injuries actin' up and that." Oh yes. Her I like.
Nathan downed half the water bottle and then set it back down, turning back to Domino. "Done playing?" he asked, his whole body language shifting, going from 'I am highly aggravated' to 'I am going to tear you limb from limb and thoroughly enjoy doing it'.
Domino's expression was strange, a mixture of rueful amusement and understanding. "Apparently," she said, then nodded at Marius and moved back to the center of the mats.
"If that was playing, you lot really don't have much in the way of middle gears," Marius observed as they took their positions in the middle of the floor. They were probably trying to concentrate, but he reasoned that a real fight probably wouldn't afford one the luxury of a silent environment either. He would be striking a blow for verisimilitude. "This any particular style? Straight-out fightin' isn't really my area, unless it's on the pitch."
"Style is for show," Domino said, and went on the attack, not hesitating to get in close. She wanted to see what her luck would do.
But Nate was managing the variables again. She hated it when he did that. On the other hand, despite her earlier jibe, his reactions were faster and more focused than they'd been in... well, since before the Askani had first come on the scene. The observation left her feeling vaguely unsettled. She didn't think she'd share that one.
Nathan, for his part, was beginning to realize something about his 'style'. The Askani elements were disappearing, at least in the hand-to-hand like this. They were no longer his instinctive moves, and that hurt.
"From where I'm standin', the show's bloody impressive in its own right." The comment was automatic, however. Marius was devoting most of his energy to observing them -- not just for fun now, but because he was becoming aware of a certain tension in the combatants. There was something in their body language . . . an energy not pushed out against the other, but coiled inwards, intense and personal -- especially in Nathan.
"Could do without the color commentary," Nathan grated, and got a punch through Dom's guard. She staggered backwards, rubbing at her jaw and pausing to spit blood onto the mats.
"Did that make you feel better?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, persistence is a virtue," Domino said, and seemed to go quite literally airborne for a moment as she launched another kick at Nathan's head. This one connected and he hit the mats hard - but rolled and came back to his feet again almost automatically, shaking his head angrily. The weight machines, over to the left of where the two combatants were sparring, rattled ominously.
It wasn't so much the noise as the feeling that accompanied it that brought a hot surge of panic. Marius stiffened, fighting the urge to bolt even as he felt a wave of . . . something . . . flow into him, like a wash of pins and needles. He'd never experienced telekinesis before, and he didn't think he was experiencing it now. For a moment there he'd sworn he felt the walls trembling, but whatever was affecting the rest of the room didn't seem to be affecting him. At least, not in that way.
Nathan's head snapped around as he sensed what felt like a TK shield take shape around Marius, just for an instant. It was a moment of distraction that cost him dearly, as Dom was halfway into another attack, and this time, her fist connected with his jaw and he wound up on the mats again.
The wave of TK hadn't left Marius so shaken that he didn't wince at the sound of Dom's punch, nor had he failed to notice the look the man had given him right before it connected. That didn't bode well.
"Sorry," Marius grimaced, gingerly placing his hand on the wall behind him for a little support. "What did I do?"
Nathan leapt to his feet, his head spinning, and before he really processed what he was doing, took a step towards Marius. Someone synching to his power, again...
In his mind, Marius knew that Nathan was one of the staff, and that even if the man had intended him harm the woman Domino would have intervened. His instincts, however, didn't register this. The only thing that mattered was the look in Nathan's eyes -- a look that itself had nothing to do with rational thought. His response bypassed his brain completely. As Nate's muscles began to tense for the next step, Marius reached out and pulled.
Domino yelped aloud as she felt the world go fluid around her. What the HELL- Then Nathan slipped and fell - a fall that came out of nowhere, and Domino gaped for a moment, realizing what had just happened.
"Did you just-" She cut herself off immediately, shaking her head at the kid. "Never mind. I can tell by the look on your face that you didn't do it deliberately." She came over to where Nathan was lying on the mats and looked down at him. "Are you all right?"
"Go away. Take the boy with you."
"Uh-huh, Nate." Domino offered him a hand, shooting Marius a wry look. "You'll have to forgive him. Bad recent experiences with people who synch to his power-"
"DOMINO!"
"Sorry," she said.
For a moment Marius could only stare at the fallen man, too busy trying to process what had just happen to really hear what they were saying. He hadn't registered any change when he'd done whatever had angered Nathan, but he had felt something when the man had fallen. For that split second something had suddenly given way, as if solid ground had abruptly become a mudslide . . .
Nathan let Domino pull him back to his feet and swayed a little. Ow. He was going to be sore. And Marius was looking rather poleaxed. Nathan took a deep breath, then another, remembering that post the boy had made.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm . . . okay," Marius said, his hand still firmly pressed against the wall. Everything seemed solid again, but even though he knew the sensation had had nothing to do with the physical world he was almost afraid to move for fear it would go liquid again. He knew it was ridiculous, but now that he'd experienced the slippage he found himself unable to shake the paranoia.
Domino shook her head at Nathan, then turned her attention to Marius. "Look at your hand," she suggested. "Concentrate on it. If you're synching to my power somehow, you won't be able to affect yourself. It should help you feel a little steadier."
Marius blinked at her, then followed her suggestion. It did help. Even the knowledge of the mouth beneath the glove helped, in an odd way -- at least with that mutation he knew where he stood. Finally, he felt steady enough to remove his hand from the wall without suffering a wash of vertigo.
"The bloody hell was that?" he managed. "Was like bein' seasick, but in my brain."
"I suspect that was Domino's powers. Probability manipulation... it's a mixture of short-term precognition and reality-warping," Nathan said neutrally. "Although you were mirroring mine, first..."
Marius nodded. He was still a little tense, but at least his heart had stopped racing. "I figured I was . . . or doin' something, anyway. It didn't seem to hit me like it did the rest of the room. Didn't know what I was doin' with it, though. Like when I used Lorna's." He glanced at Dom. "Reality-warping? That's a new one on me. It's . . ." he hesitated, searching for a way to put it into words, "the world shouldn't slide around like that."
"See," Domino said with a bright smile, trying to be reassuring, "to me it's weird and alarming when the world stays put. Like everything's too heavy."
"Comparative powers discussions," Nathan grated and went over to sit down on the bench. He needed to catch his breath. "Such joy."
"Such," Marius agreed, suddenly feeling very tired. He shook his head. "Sorry again. The involuntary power-interactions are gettin' a bit played with me, too. I'd have an easier time of it if I could actually tell it was happening half the time . . ."
"My powers aren't under conscious control either," Domino said, coming over and taking his arm, as if she thought that he needed a little support, too. She guided him over to the bench, ignoring the dirty look Nathan gave her. "Well, a little more than they used to be, but for the longest time, they weren't. And you haven't known fun until your probability-manipulating accidentally collapses buildings on top of you to keep you from dying. You wouldn't think that makes sense, but it does."
Marius smiled. "Oh, I don't know. Highlight of my powers so far was figurin' out the reciprocation aspect when they reacted to a surprise brain-attack by turnin' a pair of traumatic hallucinations into one massive nightmare. Don't know what they were tryin' to do, but it left my head a mess for days." Although, he added silently, most instances of this particular power-usage seemed to result in attractive women helping him around, so maybe it wasn't all bad.
Domino patted his shoulder. "Powers suck. Rather a lot at times." She looked down at Nate. "You all right?"
Nathan glared at her, then got up. "Why don't we try a little experiment?" he asked. "More hitting, less talking."
Domino rolled her eyes at him, not missing how he was favoring his left side. "Fine, but if Moira yells you take the flak, buster." She looked down at Marius with a wink. "I'll do a minimum of playing with the world this time, not to worry."
"Appreciate it," Marius grinned. He glance sidelong at Nathan. "Though probably not as much as he will, eh?"
Nathan gave him a flat look, and then, oddly, a smile. As Domino walked out to join him on the mats, he concentrated for a moment, and the air around him glowed a soft, ominous gold. Domino stopped, violet eyes gone very wide, then smiled tightly.
"I take it back," she said to Marius, and rushed Nathan at the same moment that the bench yanked itself out from under Marius, it and everything else that wasn't fastened down flying into the air and at her. She ducked under one bench, dodged a flying barbell, and reached Nathan just in time to get knocked backwards by an obviously TK-enhanced punch. She hit the mats hard, but was bouncing back to her feet with a breathless laugh, her eyes shining. "Yes! There's my overly violent pseudo-paternal figure!"
Marius rolled himself over from the spot he'd fallen, automatically keeping his body as low to the ground as he could to avoid any ballistic gym equipment. The room shaking was nothing compared to this. The previous telekinetic display had been unfocused -- that it had hit at all Marius was proof of that. This time, he didn't feel a hint of excess power. The bench had been neatly plucked out from beneath him, with no more warning than Marius would have gotten from human hands.
He watched the orbit of objects around the two combatants and decided he might need to revise his opinion of Nathan. Anyone who could keep that many improvised missiles levitated and purposeful at once warranted extra caution.
It wasn't a predictable pattern, Domino realized, and flung herself wholeheartedly into that state of slightly altered awareness that let her move instinctively, rather than purposefully. Some of the projectiles missed her by a whisper, and missing them involved a lot more acrobatics than she was used to doing except when showing off. But she made through the shifting obstacle course to Nathan, and took her metaphorical foot off the brake.
And she'd be damned, but the old bastard didn't drop a thing, even with the two of them going full-tilt hand-to-hand.
Marius didn't know much about fighting, but then, you didn't need much experience to see the two were going all out. Domino was clearly the quicker of the two, but for a big man Nathan was fast, and the objects in erratic orbit around them limited her mobility. In theory, anyway . . . the woman seemed to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Her power, he guessed.
Still, while Nate remained in control of the objects, he no longer seemed concerned with using them to attack. The only time the debris had any significant involvement was when Nathan managed to get some distance between them, usually by hurling her across the mats. Marius wasn't sure whether this was because it was harder to aim them when absorbed in hand-to-hand, or whether Nathan just preferred hitting her the traditional way.
Neither of them could keep up this pace for too long, not when more blows started to connect than were blocked, and even the blocks themselves started to hurt. This had, as a matter of fact, gone beyond sparring a while ago, Domino thought, reeling back from yet another blow. Nathan was starting to stagger, too - only right, she'd landed a number of solid hits of her own.
"This... making you feel better?" she wheezed, and landed a solid kick to his midsection. He doubled up for a moment, staggering back, and then straightened and lunged forward, flattening her with a fist to the jaw. Domino hit the mats, seeing stars and tasting blood. She sensed, rather than saw Nate moving towards her, and managed to kick him in the knee, making it buckle. He went over like a felled tree, and Domino sagged back against the mats as he didn't immediately get back up.
"Ow."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"Too tired."
Marius watched as the ballistics -- which had never once left the air -- replaced themselves in the appropriate locations. He glanced at Nathan, but the man was still flat on his back. He hadn't even bothered to look.
Marius regarded the two bruised, almost insensate figured on the mats with something between admiration and disbelief. Well, he thought, this definitely goes a long way toward explaining why he and Moira work so well . . .
"Don't overextend."
Domino sighed from where she was sitting on the floor, grinning cheerfully. "I asked for that. Forgot how you can throw me around when I'm not careful..."
Nathan raised an eyebrow, offering her a hand up. "You forgot?"
"Well, my brains are supposed to be mush these days, no?" Domino asked cheerfully, letting him pull her to her feet and then dancing back, then forwards again, a fist coming at his face almost before she'd finished the words. Nathan barely dodged, growling at her.
"I interrupting somethin'?" Marius asked from his place by the side of the gym door. He was dressed for a workout, and looked quite amused to have stumbled upon a faculty member narrowly avoiding a sucker-punch from a strange woman.
"Hello, strange boy!" Domino said cheerfully, dancing back out of Nathan's reach again. "I'm just beating up on the old man."
"Says the woman who was on her ass a minute ago," Nathan said, shaking his head at himself for not sensing Marius coming. He was, of course, a little distracted. He put on a burst of speed, and Domino laughed gleefully, having to work to block each hit.
"And hello to you, attractive and violent woman," Marius grinned. Nathan was not only huge, he was obviously no amateur, and this woman was holding her own. Plus, purple eyes. "The one imported from some bloke's evil clutches in Africa, right?"
Domino wrinkled her nose, and tried to kick Nathan in the head. Nathan caught her ankle, yanked, and she yelped as she wound up on her ass again. "Something like that," she said, and extended a hand. Nathan snorted and hauled her back to her feet again, more or less ignoring Marius.
Marius watched the sparring with a mingling of amusement and fascination. He didn't have any formal training in this sort of thing, but he'd been involved in enough sports long enough to suspect these two were familiar with each other's capabilities. The fight struck him as oddly coordinated, even when one seemed to catch the other off guard -- as if any given move, while perhaps not anticipated, was never a complete surprise. It was interesting.
And anyway, Marius welcomed any excuse to watch an athletic and attractive woman in a low-cut tanktop.
He's admiring me, Domino thought at Nathan, who snorted - and then grunted as her elbow landed in his ribs. And you are being a little slower even than usual today...
Something close to an outright growl slipped from Nathan's throat and he proceeded to do his level best to pound Domino into the mats. Her speed saved her, as per usual, but at least he was making her work for it.
"Looks like I've got more evidence for my theory Mr. Dayspring's in the habit of associating mostly with women prone to hittin' him," Marius said, noting the woman change a dive into a particularly nice somersault and recovery. "Sorry, what was your name? Oreo?"
"Domino... thank you..." Domino ducked under a punch and landed one of her own in Nathan's ribs. Nathan nearly doubled over, wheezing. "Oh..." she said, looking honestly repentant. "Oh, crap, I forgot..." Her eyes flickered sideways to Marius. "His ribs are like toothpicks these days, they've been broken so often," she said, grabbing Nathan's arm.
Marius nodded. "I've been hearin' the jokes since day three. Not that I can talk." He rubbed his own ribs, a graphic enough description since he hadn't bothered to wear a shirt. "If I'm very lucky, Santa's bringin' me bodyfat this Christmas."
Nathan straightened, wincing, and gave Marius a dirty look. "It would be in your interest to forget those damned jokes," he said. "They're no longer applicable."
Domino, behind his back, made an exaggerated 'be careful' face at Marius, and then smiled brightly when Nathan looked around at her. "Cough, tranquilizer dart, cough."
"Oh, shut up!"
Marius grinned. "I could try, but I doubt I'd succeed. Curse my unimpeachable memory and the fact that I'm at the tender mercies of your wife on a weekly basis. On the bright side, looks like your daughter's apparently compensatin' for your bad luck by learnin' to project a forcefield before she even learns to walk." He paused, remembering the rather unsettling encounter on the stairs. "Although the way things are goin', maybe she won't bother."
If looks could have killed, Marius would have been a heap of smoldering ashes right then and there. Nathan turned away in disgust and went to fetch his water bottle. Domino, smiling, folded her arms across her chest and watched him.
"Ignore him," she said cheerfully to Marius. "He gets cranky. Comes with being old."
"Ah," Marius nodded sagely, "what with the old injuries actin' up and that." Oh yes. Her I like.
Nathan downed half the water bottle and then set it back down, turning back to Domino. "Done playing?" he asked, his whole body language shifting, going from 'I am highly aggravated' to 'I am going to tear you limb from limb and thoroughly enjoy doing it'.
Domino's expression was strange, a mixture of rueful amusement and understanding. "Apparently," she said, then nodded at Marius and moved back to the center of the mats.
"If that was playing, you lot really don't have much in the way of middle gears," Marius observed as they took their positions in the middle of the floor. They were probably trying to concentrate, but he reasoned that a real fight probably wouldn't afford one the luxury of a silent environment either. He would be striking a blow for verisimilitude. "This any particular style? Straight-out fightin' isn't really my area, unless it's on the pitch."
"Style is for show," Domino said, and went on the attack, not hesitating to get in close. She wanted to see what her luck would do.
But Nate was managing the variables again. She hated it when he did that. On the other hand, despite her earlier jibe, his reactions were faster and more focused than they'd been in... well, since before the Askani had first come on the scene. The observation left her feeling vaguely unsettled. She didn't think she'd share that one.
Nathan, for his part, was beginning to realize something about his 'style'. The Askani elements were disappearing, at least in the hand-to-hand like this. They were no longer his instinctive moves, and that hurt.
"From where I'm standin', the show's bloody impressive in its own right." The comment was automatic, however. Marius was devoting most of his energy to observing them -- not just for fun now, but because he was becoming aware of a certain tension in the combatants. There was something in their body language . . . an energy not pushed out against the other, but coiled inwards, intense and personal -- especially in Nathan.
"Could do without the color commentary," Nathan grated, and got a punch through Dom's guard. She staggered backwards, rubbing at her jaw and pausing to spit blood onto the mats.
"Did that make you feel better?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, persistence is a virtue," Domino said, and seemed to go quite literally airborne for a moment as she launched another kick at Nathan's head. This one connected and he hit the mats hard - but rolled and came back to his feet again almost automatically, shaking his head angrily. The weight machines, over to the left of where the two combatants were sparring, rattled ominously.
It wasn't so much the noise as the feeling that accompanied it that brought a hot surge of panic. Marius stiffened, fighting the urge to bolt even as he felt a wave of . . . something . . . flow into him, like a wash of pins and needles. He'd never experienced telekinesis before, and he didn't think he was experiencing it now. For a moment there he'd sworn he felt the walls trembling, but whatever was affecting the rest of the room didn't seem to be affecting him. At least, not in that way.
Nathan's head snapped around as he sensed what felt like a TK shield take shape around Marius, just for an instant. It was a moment of distraction that cost him dearly, as Dom was halfway into another attack, and this time, her fist connected with his jaw and he wound up on the mats again.
The wave of TK hadn't left Marius so shaken that he didn't wince at the sound of Dom's punch, nor had he failed to notice the look the man had given him right before it connected. That didn't bode well.
"Sorry," Marius grimaced, gingerly placing his hand on the wall behind him for a little support. "What did I do?"
Nathan leapt to his feet, his head spinning, and before he really processed what he was doing, took a step towards Marius. Someone synching to his power, again...
In his mind, Marius knew that Nathan was one of the staff, and that even if the man had intended him harm the woman Domino would have intervened. His instincts, however, didn't register this. The only thing that mattered was the look in Nathan's eyes -- a look that itself had nothing to do with rational thought. His response bypassed his brain completely. As Nate's muscles began to tense for the next step, Marius reached out and pulled.
Domino yelped aloud as she felt the world go fluid around her. What the HELL- Then Nathan slipped and fell - a fall that came out of nowhere, and Domino gaped for a moment, realizing what had just happened.
"Did you just-" She cut herself off immediately, shaking her head at the kid. "Never mind. I can tell by the look on your face that you didn't do it deliberately." She came over to where Nathan was lying on the mats and looked down at him. "Are you all right?"
"Go away. Take the boy with you."
"Uh-huh, Nate." Domino offered him a hand, shooting Marius a wry look. "You'll have to forgive him. Bad recent experiences with people who synch to his power-"
"DOMINO!"
"Sorry," she said.
For a moment Marius could only stare at the fallen man, too busy trying to process what had just happen to really hear what they were saying. He hadn't registered any change when he'd done whatever had angered Nathan, but he had felt something when the man had fallen. For that split second something had suddenly given way, as if solid ground had abruptly become a mudslide . . .
Nathan let Domino pull him back to his feet and swayed a little. Ow. He was going to be sore. And Marius was looking rather poleaxed. Nathan took a deep breath, then another, remembering that post the boy had made.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm . . . okay," Marius said, his hand still firmly pressed against the wall. Everything seemed solid again, but even though he knew the sensation had had nothing to do with the physical world he was almost afraid to move for fear it would go liquid again. He knew it was ridiculous, but now that he'd experienced the slippage he found himself unable to shake the paranoia.
Domino shook her head at Nathan, then turned her attention to Marius. "Look at your hand," she suggested. "Concentrate on it. If you're synching to my power somehow, you won't be able to affect yourself. It should help you feel a little steadier."
Marius blinked at her, then followed her suggestion. It did help. Even the knowledge of the mouth beneath the glove helped, in an odd way -- at least with that mutation he knew where he stood. Finally, he felt steady enough to remove his hand from the wall without suffering a wash of vertigo.
"The bloody hell was that?" he managed. "Was like bein' seasick, but in my brain."
"I suspect that was Domino's powers. Probability manipulation... it's a mixture of short-term precognition and reality-warping," Nathan said neutrally. "Although you were mirroring mine, first..."
Marius nodded. He was still a little tense, but at least his heart had stopped racing. "I figured I was . . . or doin' something, anyway. It didn't seem to hit me like it did the rest of the room. Didn't know what I was doin' with it, though. Like when I used Lorna's." He glanced at Dom. "Reality-warping? That's a new one on me. It's . . ." he hesitated, searching for a way to put it into words, "the world shouldn't slide around like that."
"See," Domino said with a bright smile, trying to be reassuring, "to me it's weird and alarming when the world stays put. Like everything's too heavy."
"Comparative powers discussions," Nathan grated and went over to sit down on the bench. He needed to catch his breath. "Such joy."
"Such," Marius agreed, suddenly feeling very tired. He shook his head. "Sorry again. The involuntary power-interactions are gettin' a bit played with me, too. I'd have an easier time of it if I could actually tell it was happening half the time . . ."
"My powers aren't under conscious control either," Domino said, coming over and taking his arm, as if she thought that he needed a little support, too. She guided him over to the bench, ignoring the dirty look Nathan gave her. "Well, a little more than they used to be, but for the longest time, they weren't. And you haven't known fun until your probability-manipulating accidentally collapses buildings on top of you to keep you from dying. You wouldn't think that makes sense, but it does."
Marius smiled. "Oh, I don't know. Highlight of my powers so far was figurin' out the reciprocation aspect when they reacted to a surprise brain-attack by turnin' a pair of traumatic hallucinations into one massive nightmare. Don't know what they were tryin' to do, but it left my head a mess for days." Although, he added silently, most instances of this particular power-usage seemed to result in attractive women helping him around, so maybe it wasn't all bad.
Domino patted his shoulder. "Powers suck. Rather a lot at times." She looked down at Nate. "You all right?"
Nathan glared at her, then got up. "Why don't we try a little experiment?" he asked. "More hitting, less talking."
Domino rolled her eyes at him, not missing how he was favoring his left side. "Fine, but if Moira yells you take the flak, buster." She looked down at Marius with a wink. "I'll do a minimum of playing with the world this time, not to worry."
"Appreciate it," Marius grinned. He glance sidelong at Nathan. "Though probably not as much as he will, eh?"
Nathan gave him a flat look, and then, oddly, a smile. As Domino walked out to join him on the mats, he concentrated for a moment, and the air around him glowed a soft, ominous gold. Domino stopped, violet eyes gone very wide, then smiled tightly.
"I take it back," she said to Marius, and rushed Nathan at the same moment that the bench yanked itself out from under Marius, it and everything else that wasn't fastened down flying into the air and at her. She ducked under one bench, dodged a flying barbell, and reached Nathan just in time to get knocked backwards by an obviously TK-enhanced punch. She hit the mats hard, but was bouncing back to her feet with a breathless laugh, her eyes shining. "Yes! There's my overly violent pseudo-paternal figure!"
Marius rolled himself over from the spot he'd fallen, automatically keeping his body as low to the ground as he could to avoid any ballistic gym equipment. The room shaking was nothing compared to this. The previous telekinetic display had been unfocused -- that it had hit at all Marius was proof of that. This time, he didn't feel a hint of excess power. The bench had been neatly plucked out from beneath him, with no more warning than Marius would have gotten from human hands.
He watched the orbit of objects around the two combatants and decided he might need to revise his opinion of Nathan. Anyone who could keep that many improvised missiles levitated and purposeful at once warranted extra caution.
It wasn't a predictable pattern, Domino realized, and flung herself wholeheartedly into that state of slightly altered awareness that let her move instinctively, rather than purposefully. Some of the projectiles missed her by a whisper, and missing them involved a lot more acrobatics than she was used to doing except when showing off. But she made through the shifting obstacle course to Nathan, and took her metaphorical foot off the brake.
And she'd be damned, but the old bastard didn't drop a thing, even with the two of them going full-tilt hand-to-hand.
Marius didn't know much about fighting, but then, you didn't need much experience to see the two were going all out. Domino was clearly the quicker of the two, but for a big man Nathan was fast, and the objects in erratic orbit around them limited her mobility. In theory, anyway . . . the woman seemed to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Her power, he guessed.
Still, while Nate remained in control of the objects, he no longer seemed concerned with using them to attack. The only time the debris had any significant involvement was when Nathan managed to get some distance between them, usually by hurling her across the mats. Marius wasn't sure whether this was because it was harder to aim them when absorbed in hand-to-hand, or whether Nathan just preferred hitting her the traditional way.
Neither of them could keep up this pace for too long, not when more blows started to connect than were blocked, and even the blocks themselves started to hurt. This had, as a matter of fact, gone beyond sparring a while ago, Domino thought, reeling back from yet another blow. Nathan was starting to stagger, too - only right, she'd landed a number of solid hits of her own.
"This... making you feel better?" she wheezed, and landed a solid kick to his midsection. He doubled up for a moment, staggering back, and then straightened and lunged forward, flattening her with a fist to the jaw. Domino hit the mats, seeing stars and tasting blood. She sensed, rather than saw Nate moving towards her, and managed to kick him in the knee, making it buckle. He went over like a felled tree, and Domino sagged back against the mats as he didn't immediately get back up.
"Ow."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"Too tired."
Marius watched as the ballistics -- which had never once left the air -- replaced themselves in the appropriate locations. He glanced at Nathan, but the man was still flat on his back. He hadn't even bothered to look.
Marius regarded the two bruised, almost insensate figured on the mats with something between admiration and disbelief. Well, he thought, this definitely goes a long way toward explaining why he and Moira work so well . . .