Log: Scott and Noriko

[x-kaminari.livejournal.com]

During her normal powers lesson, Scott has a clever idea about Nori's training.



Noriko groaned and rolled over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. She'd tripped over her feet at speed again, and while she was getting used to the bruises, that didn't actually make them hurt any less. They'd been incorporating this new aspect of her powers into her energy projection lessons for weeks and, while she could now reliably activate the high speed motion when she wanted to, she seemed to be stonewalled as far as controlling it. And stopping. Stopping involved walls far too often for Nori's taste.

There was a sigh from above her, and Scott offered her a hand. "We need to work on stopping ," he said, unknowingly echoing Nori's own train of thought. "If you wind up with any broken bones out of this, my wife is likely to kill me."

Nori bit her tongue to keep from saying anything rude about Dr. Grey-Summers and accepted the help up. "Un," she agreed, although it was part groan. "Stop... to stop is good. Mou... Foot is wrong. Always, anou..." She placed on foot in front of the other and mimed tripping over her own ankle.

"You can go fast, but it doesn't seem to simultaneously ramp up your coordination or reflexes," Scott said, then grimaced. "Sorry. What I mean is, your brain can't keep up with your feet."

"Ehhh, hai?" Nori said, head tilted at the angle Scott had quickly learned meant 'do not understand'. "Head is... futsu... usual guruguru." She spun her fingers crazily about up near her temple. "But is now foot guruguru."

He so needed to work on some conversational Japanese, seriously. "When you run," Scott said slowly, after a moment, "you move faster, because of your mutation. But if I was going to throw a ball at you, your power wouldn't help you catch it any better."

The girl nodded - that made sense, once she worked through what he was saying. "Sou, ne... Is difficult. New is not good understand. Is itai also. Anou... ow."

He really was approaching this in the wrong direction. "I don't know that I'm the best person to help you with this particular aspect of your powers," Scott said, then offered her a crooked smile. "I'm more about the things that go boom."

That got a smile - boom had quickly become one of Nori's favorite words, even if she was still intensely uncomfortable about un-supervised boom. "Jyaa... Summers-sensei is no. Who?" A new teacher could be good or could be really, really bad...

Pietro just had to move to Attilan, didn't he? Scott rubbed his jaw, trying to think. Pietro probably wouldn't have been ideal anyway, between the lack of patience and the fact that his brain did keep up with his feet... one of the flyers, maybe? Some of them could manage pretty high speeds without the advantage of other enhancements. Scott's eye lit up suddenly.

"Nori, do you know Crystal?"

It was the kind of total left turn of thought that her own brain tended to make. "Eh? Aa, hai. Crystal-sama is English... help teach."

"Right. Wow, my brain is like a sieve these days - sorry," he said helplessly, waving at Noriko. "Ignore that. I was just thinking - Crystal flies, and she also worked with someone who has superspeed. Not like yours, but she might be able to help you." And there was maybe a tiny perverse part of him that wanted to see just how she did. Noriko wasn't a problem student per se, but she was challenging. "I'd still help you with the stuff that goes boom."

Nori considered for a few moments, then seemed to shrug to herself. After a rocky few weeks she'd quickly learned that Mr. Summers knew his stuff when it came to powers training, and he regularly got to see her at her sanest and most logical, when she could actually think through the suggestions he made at the end of their lessons. "Hai, ok. Summers-sensei is teacher. Nori is will do."

"If it doesn't work out, we'll try something else." Maybe getting Pietro himself over here for a visit... "We just need to stop you from running into any more walls. One of these days you really are going to get hurt." He couldn't quite keep the worry out of his expression as he gazed down at her, but tried to smile, anyway. "I haven't had any of my students break anything training yet, I don't want to start with you."

Noriko nodded at that, rubbing at her shoulder where she'd slammed into the ground today. "Nori is don't want, too." Rolling up her sleeve she considered the bruise which was already forming and pouted. "Mou, is not pretty."

"Take a hot bath when you go back to your suite," Scott advised. "It's the best thing for bruises. If your shoulder's stiff in the morning, stop down in the infirmary." His smile grew a little more natural. "I happen to know that Amelia's got the morning shift tomorrow, so no danger of running into Jean."

Nori sniffed, then broke into a grin. She might not understand why the hell Mr. Summers would want to be with that shrill harpy, but at least he didn't give her grief for thinking his wife was a bitch. "Thank you," she said, rolling her shoulder back and then tugging her sleeve back down until just the edge of her rose tatoo showed under it.

"No worries. I'm saving myself a lecture, too," Scott said with a perfectly straight face.

The tilt of her head as she held her finger in front of her pursed lips sent her hair swinging and she grinned coyly at Scott as she said, "Himitsu!"

Definitely needed to work on his conversational Japanese a little, although the tone and her expression told him at least a little, and he grinned back at her. "I think we're done for the day," he said. "You've got enough bruises for now. You're doing well, you know," he said more seriously. "This isn't easy, any of it, but you're sticking with it."

"Hai," Nori said, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, although not as much as she had been before the training session. "Is not easy, but..." She shrugged. "Is... taisetsuna... important?" Nori nodded, reasonably certain she'd gotten the word right. "Soshite, lunch too important," she added with a grin.

She was a very odd girl at times. Scott just laughed, waving at her. "Go raid the kitchen. I'll see you on Monday." He needed to email Crystal about setting up a session or two with Nori, just to see how it went. If there was one thing he'd learned in years of powers training, it was that experimenting until you got the method right was very often the only way to go.

Nori bobbed a half bow at him with a quick, "Doumo," before darting out the door, clearly in search of the energy reserves that using the speed aspect of her powers seemed to deplete so heavily.