Doug and Remy, Doug and Marie-Ange

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Earlier this morning, Remy and Doug meet to do staff training. Remy is...not very nice.


Clank. Clank. The solid percussive sounds of the staves meeting rang sharply in the Danger Gym. There was something almost organic in the sound of the wood coming together, increasing in speed and tempo as Doug and Remy worked through the training drills. Months earlier, he'd started training some of the members of the team in the staff, although only the more traditional wooden bo, and not his own telescoping titanium alloyed ones. One of his first lessons had been that the first time one of them tried to bring one on a mission, he'd make them eat it. However, as an emergency weapon, the staff was easy to scavage and easier to make look innocuous, which is why he'd kept up with the training.

After his string of absences, Remy LeBeau was increasingly only being seen at his scheduled duties. The rest of the time, he wasn't anywhere to be found, either at the office or the brownstone. Most of his communications had come through e-mails, with jobs he needed done that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Digging up a blueprint from one company, following an account dispersal by another; seemingly random details that LeBeau kept putting a lot of importance on.

Still, he was here now, and pushing hard enough that Doug might have almost wished he wasn't.

Remy was a hard taskmaster at the best of times, but this didn't seem to be the best of times, as "hard" was an insufficient word to describe the way Remy was working Doug. The Cajun had already slapped the staff out of Doug's grip almost a dozen times, each time more savagely than the last. Doug was also sporting a larger number of darkening bruises than normal from where Remy's attacks had gotten inside his guard. Still, Doug carried on as best he could, biting back heated retorts to some of Remy's more biting commentary.

Remy reversed his staff grip, pivoting to offer Ramsey a brief opening at his throat. When the younger man failed to take advantage of it, he clipped the end of his staff up, and brought it down hard across Doug's knuckles, once again sending his staff clattering to the floor.

"Dammit, Ramsey, how many times do we need to do dis? You get an opening at de throat, you drive in--" Remy shoved the end of his staff out, leaving it just an inch from Doug's adams apple. "--on de windpipe wit' de end. De staff is an extention of you arm, you fist, and not some fucking toy to wave around!"

Doug had barely seen the opening Remy had provided, much less had time to react to it. Assuming he was willing to strike the killing blow, which he still wasn't. He grunted as he shook out his numb fingers before crossing to pick up his staff and return to a guard position without responding to Remy's tirade.

They continued again, staves dancing against each other. Even to someone without Doug's powers, it was obvious that everything about Remy was more aggressive today. Normally, the staff training was a balance of technique and philosophy; Remy explaining the mental aspects of the weapon and the right ways to focus when using it. However, this was straightup sparring, with the only pauses being to point out a mistake and show what should have been the proper response. It was exhausting, and for Doug, getting more painful as Remy's blows hit.

Once again Remy allowed an opening, exposing his torso for a moment in the spin of his staff. Doug lunged, but not for the junction of the ribs that Remy had taught, aiming instead lower, for the stomach. LeBeau twisted at the last second, almost pirouetting along the length of the staff and bringing his own in a wide arc that swept both Doug's feet out from under him and landed him flat on his back. "You mind telling me 'xactly when you decided dat de point of dis was to learn how to hit someone else's stick?"

Doug gasped for air in reply, his wind completely knocked out of him by the rough way Remy had dropped him to the mat. "An when 'xactly did you decide that this was beat on Doug if his technique isn't perfect day?" he panted in a parody of Remy's accent.

"You expecting me to feel sorry for you, homme?" Remy stepped back as Doug clamboured to his feet. He gestured with his staff as Ramsey picked his own back up. "Been doing dis now, what, six months? You supposed to be able to read body langauge, pick up all de openings. You not doing dat, you not focusing your attacks to end de fight, and you not trying to fix it either. Marie-Ange could beat you wit'out breaking a sweat, because she understands dat dis isn't a game. Dat not being perfect in de field means you end up dead dere."

"There's a difference between thinking this is a game and being reluctant to kill, homme," Doug snapped back at Remy. "There was a moment in New Orleans when I would have killed," he told the Cajun quietly. "But that doesn't mean every situation calls for lethal force, and it certainly doesn't mean I'm going to stand here doing nothing but practicing how to kill."

"You know what, Doug," Remy almost spat his name back. "Dis is not a weekend adventure from de X-Men where you get to play at being outside de law while you think it's cool and den go back. De choice here is blood on your hands; de only choice. And if we'd been doing it earlier, rather den trying to keep you from having to face dat fact, New Orleans wouldn't have happened. Dis is real life, and having to wait for you to work through whatever moral issues you might have is going to get somebody killed. You are going to get somebody killed."

Remy walked forward and stabbed his finger in Doug's chest. "You want to do dis job, you want to be here, you fucking find a way to deal wit' what it takes. You can't do dat, den fuck off back to de mansion, because you worthless to me." Remy slapped the staff out of Doug's hands with a disgusted look and walked away, tossing his own across the room as he left.

There was a ruthlessness and barely contained violence to Remy's body language that Doug couldn't remember ever seeing before. He'd seen Remy angry before, but never anything like this. "Or what, you'll kill me too if I get in your way?" he called derisively at the Cajun's back. "Tvoyu mat!" he exploded when Remy left the room, kicking his own staff to clatter against Remy's. He considered storming off for a brief moment before walking over and picking both staves up. Remy would have even worse things to say if he simply left the weapons lying on the floor.


After Doug's workout, and after Marie-Ange has her own not-so-pleasant runin with Remy (log to be posted later), they decide that they need to have a weekend off, assisted by the postcard from Amanda.


"Ow." Not that there was anyone around to take pity on Doug, but it still made him feel better to vocalize his whimpers as if there was. Holding an icepack to his face, he toed his shoes off and kicked them across the room before slinging his legs over the arm of his overstuffed chair. If Remy had a problem with Doug taking the rest of the day off of work after the beating he'd taken, that was just too damn bad.

Marie-Ange didn't bother knocking, since she had a key, and had Doug not been home, she had intended to order in some carry-out and wait for him. But as it happened, he was draped over the chair, looking eleven kinds of miserable. "What happened?" She asked, before even setting down her keys or bag.

"Staff practice with Remy. Or as I like to call it, 'beat the crap out of Doug' day." Doug whimpered without opening his eyes. "He had some kind of huge mad-on going today, and he was taking it out on me, as you can see."

"He has been crazy all month. And not in any kind of useful or amusing way." Marie-Ange grumbled. "If he does not stop, things are going to be very bad." She sat down on the floor, and rested her head on the chair's cushion. "I wonder if Pete or Betsy would be very angry if we just threatened to mutiny."

"Very bad?" Doug asked, opening one eye to look at his girlfriend. She had placed unconscious emphasis on her words, which usually meant she had seen something. But right now it was an awful lot like work to ask, and Doug didn't feel like doing anything except laying there quietly and letting his bruises heal.

It was especially hard not to tell Doug what was going on, and given his encounter with Remy, Marie-Ange was not inclined to keep secrets. "You cannot tell him. This is... too much like Amanda and Selene, he has to make choices all on his own. But if this does not stop.. " She shook her head, unable to actually say it aloud. "I am tired of all of this."

There were times when Doug thought it must be very hard to be Marie-Ange, to bear the weight of always second-guessing what she could and couldn't say. "How about we just get away for a weekend?" he asked her, holding up the postcard that he'd picked out of the mail when he had returned to his apartment.

"What.. where is that from?" She knew -who- it was from, obviously. "Should we join them? I.. I think if they do not mind, we should. I need to be away.. " Marie-Ange looked up at Doug with a weary expression. "Before the tide comes in."

Doug spared a moment to wonder if taking a precognitive who had been going on and on about water imagery to the beach was the best idea, but he figured between him and Amanda and Angelo, they could probably take care of things. "North Carolina. She gave us the address and said 'wish you were here'. Seems like tacit permission to me. You pack, I'll get the plane tickets," he said, slowly raising himself to a sitting positon.